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bethchapelsbonnet · 3 years

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Hournite + 46 👁👄👁

"Your skin is so soft."

The weather had not been kind to her body. Her skin and her hair were suffering. Nobody seemed to notice, but SHE noticed and had to be diligent.

She never looked like her mom and that troubled her sometimes. The beautiful doctor. Sure, she knew she was beautiful too, but she had always looked at her mother's chiseled face and sharp features and thought, "That's it. That's the pinnacle of beauty. Queens are molding in this image. Kings bow at the feet of such beauty." Never a blemish on her, and her health was peak goals.

Beth, on the other hand, could barely keep up with her classmates when running in a straight line in gym class. And even though she had a healthy skin regimen… sometimes it just wouldn't work. Sometimes, she just had dry skin. Sometimes pimples would appear. Sometimes, her scalp would itch uncontrollably, and most of the time, this was when the weather was acting up.

Darn you, Eclipso!

It wasn't just about feeling pretty either, but feeling healthy. Skin health was extremely important, despite how many people overlooked it, and she cared much more about living in quality skin than she did being as beautiful as her mother. (But, she cared about both).

She had to cut back on exfoliating and change her hot showers to lukewarm… she basically had to go into "winter mode" this summer. Which lowkey also made her feel like she was getting a dosage of seasonal depression.

One thing that would definitely cheer her up was a milkshake. They were meeting at Yolanda's job to do some research and as much as Beth loved research, all she could think about were the milkshakes. She'd had them from that place before and they were delicious.

Whenever they all met, Courtney was talking with them while Beth ordered her milkshake, "Chocolate milkshake, no whipped cream,"

"Oooh… when was the last time I had a milkshake?" Rick wondered.

"Do you want one?" Yolanda asked, looking at him as she wrote down Beth's and Courtney continued speaking.

"Yeah, but make mine strawberry." Beth giggled a little bit. "What? That's the best kind. If Dante can eat strawberry sundaes, I can have a milkshake!" By that time, Courtney and Yolanda were having a different conversation than Beth and Rick.

"Dante… from the Divine Comedy?" Beth asked, confused.

"Lame. No. Devil May Cry… though the Divine Comedy has some pretty sick artwork images…"

"Focus!" Courtney said, like she hadn't just been having an entire conversation without them.

By the time it was just she and Rick at the table, she just wanted to enjoy her milkshake and think about anything but work. "So, what kinda dog did you get?"

"A big one."

… You know what? She didn't care. She smiled and offered her glass to him for cheers and indulged in the deliciousness that was this milkshake. She had been waiting on it all day. Rick watched with a certain amount of interest as she seemed to be having a much more deep experience with hers than he was having with his own. There were moans and whimpers and whispered utterances of "So, so good…"

She got to the bottom and only had the whipped cream left. She slid the glass across the table and Rick smiled, "I feel like I just witnessed something super private."

"Hey. I really needed that, Rick," she said, covering her face with both hands thinking about how she must've sounded.

"I believe you," he chuckled. "Didn't even let me get the whipped cream first."

She peeked at him through her fingers, "Worried about my germs?" He laughed and answered that by sucking up her whipped cream, through the straw she'd used. She smiled shyly, but let her hands fall back to her lap.

"What was with the whipped cream, though? I've definitely seen you eat it before?"

"Oh, the stuff that Eclipso has been doing with the weather has me tuning my skincare routine so I don't wind up looking like some unmoisturized troll. Cutting back on dairy a little bit to help with this flurry of acne, but I needed the milkshake, so I decided… limits."

"Your skin is so soft." Rick mused, staring at her face. She smiled and it was like sunshine. There was no visible lack of moisture from where he was sitting. He never noticed any flaw in her skin at all, in fact it was something he thought about frequently, because most of the teenagers surrounding them DID have breakouts and a pimple or two here and there. He'd even seen a few on Courtney and Yolanda in the past (though he'd NEVER mention it), but Beth? Not a chance. And he definitely paid a lot of attention to her face.

"I mean.. I'm no skin expert. Mine is often in shambles, but yours is always perfect.. It's one of your more noticeable physical traits, I think. Excellent skin." He twiddled with his thumbs and she looked like she was in awe of the commentary before she replaced the wander with a warm smile. "Good! That means my plan is working."

#prompts #hournite prompts #Nesha prompts #hournite #stargirl cw #stargirl fanfiction #beth chapel #rick tyler #Your Skin is So Soft #Milkshake Date

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neonponders · 3 years

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I never thought I’d write a court jester!Steve x King!Billy fic, but here we are. I entirely blame @ghostofjellyfishforgotten and @drinkingbeerfroma for this 💋

The original king!Billy and jester!Steve fics are here~ (this is a gift for Ghost and meant to be read in tandem with their fics 🌹)

Drinkingbeerfroma’s fanart is here~ (the enabling source, send them some love 🌹)

P.s....you can probably tell how much of The Witcher: Blood and Wine influenced this for me lol Ch. 2 coming soon! Or, you know, some time!

Read on ao3.

• • • • • • •

Billy strolled into his royal chambers with a tune on his lips. Usually the rustle of clothing, the scoot of furniture, reacted to his whistle so that he could meet his jester right at the door. Or by the bed.

Then again, Steve did wander. Perhaps that’s why he worked as a jester: always the desire to move, to fidget, and it had lent into a natural proclivity for acrobatics.

Billy had never much cared for the athleticism of the job. Not that it wasn’t impressive, but the stunts were the bottom of his jester’s abilities. His Steve.

Steve, who was nowhere in the expansive rooms. Billy huffed a sigh through his nose. He began loitering around, investigating what his jester had left behind and what it could mean for where he’d gone.

Except…he’d left everything behind. Billy’s gaze locked on the sapphire and green velvet of the suit he’d gifted Steve himself, now left in a rumbled state on the bed. The gleaming silk fibers moved with the midday light of the window as Billy circled around the bed to touch them, as if to test that they were real. The fool as good as lived in the king’s royal chambers by this point, so he opened the dresser beside the large writing desk and—

Steve’s original suits and garments sat in the drawers, untouched. The yellow shirt Billy had torn—twice—until Steve left it in disrepair, tired of mending it. The red and purple suit which he’d first strolled into court wearing. His blue boots. The red boots. The god-awful yellow boots to go with that shirt apart from how stained they were from daily living.

What the hell is my fool wearing? Billy mused in disbelief, his amusement only checked by worry.

Amusement that snuffed out under the weight of a paper he finally saw on the desk itself. Both of Steve’s jester hats stood on either side of it, crowning the white square to garner Billy’s attention. More than once, Billy had marveled at his jester’s ability to read and write. This was not one of those times.

Majesty,

An emergency called me home. Nothing to worry about. I’ll return soon.

Yours,

Steve.

Billy read those four lines over and over again, worry tussling with indignant rage, and then confusion. He wanted more out of a note from Steve, which ought not be the prior concern in his mind, but there it was.

Why not address me by my name? This note is for me, nobody else. Who did you fear seeing it? In my own chambers? We’re far past courtly manners.

Largest understatement of his entire reign, but whatever. More annoying and concerning details eclipsed Billy’s focus.

He had no idea where ‘home’ meant for Steve. His Steve. Billy’s pride ordained that Billy is his home; what other place—or person—could have the audacity to yank his fool right out from under him?

Billy’s voice roared down the corridors outside his chambers. His staff was certainly used to making haste in their duties, but this was something else. The king had lost something precious to him, and hell would shiver until he had it back.

It is both a blessing and a curse that the lesbians in his court did not fear him.

“Would you shut the hell up?” Heather barked, swinging out of her room fully dressed in robes but hair a disaster. “Some of us like to do our own fucking now and again.”

“Where is Steve?” Billy growled, damned note in hand. “When did you last see him?”

“This morning,” she sighed with a tone that Billy did not understand until she added, “When he left with Robin. He warned me that you might be grouchy—”

“Grouch—” he began to seethe, but Heather took the paper right out of his hand to give it a look.

“He said he left you a note, your majesty,” she purred through a voice he now noticed to be quite raw. Overused. Her eyelids hung low like she was drunk, or three orgasms gone to the wind.

This only abated Billy’s nerves slightly. Steve genuinely left on his own?

“Where is home?”

Heather frowned at the lines. “For a musician, he isn’t great with words.”

“HEATHER.”

“Same home as my lady, Robin’s. They complain about their corner of the kingdom often enough,” she retorted while surrendering the note as if it had caught flame. “Good grief. How many months has it been? You really don’t pay attention. Your majesty.”

He grimaced pointedly at her lackadaisical manners this morning, but snatched the page up. The sour expression did not fade as he asked, “Who are you fucking if Robin’s not here?”

Heather’s groggy eyes rolled. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself many times over. You’re not the only one around here with an abundance of energy.”

Fuming and feeling too hot for his clothes, Billy marched back to his chambers, yelling orders about a horse.

* * *

More than one person urged against this decision. The more people who tried to talk him out of it, the more disheartening the whole point of secrecy became. Then again, roaring for the whole castle to hear, might not have been the wisest start.

So he sent a rider in one direction, on some pointless “errand for the king,” while he road in another.

It had been a long time since Billy wore commoners’ clothes. He also did not usually go clean-shaven, but he was a different person now. A lone rider on the king’s road, journeying his way to the edge of the kingdom. Two advisors had urged him to take an entourage, at most his best guardsman—but Billy is the best guardsman. First knight and crown prince under his father, The Tyrant. Every dawn stolen from him until the late king’s passing, utterly devoted to training hard, practicing consistent, and never, never losing.

Until the old bastard finally croaked from pneumonia. How simple. How mortal. And ironic, considering his playboy—rat of my blood—heir paraded around with open shirts whenever he was off duty. Constantly challenging gods and climate to do away with him whenever they wished.

The gods took a different king, though. Billy is the monarch now, and for a while, he will be nobody. A fool searching for his fool, and it was not lost on him how ironic his own death might become. But traveling alone on his own roads did not deter him. He’d been on these highways many times—hell, he’d even been assigned to designing and monitoring the reconstruction of the kingdom’s infrastructure.

His last steps on these roads occurred during the funeral tour for his father. An obnoxious tradition, but he’d made the journey in his first month as king. He wondered if anyone would recognize him now. He’d grown his hair out, and so often adorned his face with nothing less of stubble; often indulging in his own shaving kit to manage his facial hair himself and styled it differently whenever he wished. He liked the way lovers shivered against him when he touched their skin. When the lion pressed his lips against the lamb’s pulse.

He liked applying creams to Steve’s inflamed, beard-burnt skin.

He sighed over his horse’s even, medium paced trot. He was a fool, indeed.

* * *

The only thing keeping Billy from scolding himself for knowing so little about his jester, was the fascination of where he came from. Lady Robin entered court to jeers and teasing over her humble, bumpkin origins—before she rightly debated and venomously talked her way around every gnat who dared flaunt a lower intelligence over her.

Billy knew she and Steve got along, but not how much they had in common. Originating from one of the farming districts was one thing, but specifically the dairy and vineyard region proved a fascinating piece of information.

As well as a gorgeous journey. It took a day and two nights, but forests soon exhaled into rolling hills for lines of grape trees, pastures for cattle, sheep, and goats. Billy knew he was getting closer to the center of it all because grapevines began to line the road, with signs every couple of miles encouraging travelers to eat their fill, along with a number informing how far they were to more accommodating civilization.

The smell of shit and manure dampened the experience, but Billy could not claim ignorance over how his own city smelt during the summer. Even under royal decree that half the fleabags leave the capital in order to minimize summer fever and pestilence, the place still reeked.

The road began to veer down into a lush valley of hills; below was the bustling city of this region, and above stood a number of large homes. One ought to have appeared bigger than the rest, but such shared opulence suggested a wealthy middle class instead of one lord standing above them all. Economically, this was healthier. Socially, Billy felt utterly foreign to this hierarchal shape. His court was an uneven, pyramid hourglass. With himself standing on its point, a bloated pool of lords and deceit, then a strangled middle class before an even bigger pool of lower class just trying to feed themselves. It is a shape which cannot hold itself up, and yet he tirelessly managed it.

It’s not my fault, he defended to nobody. It’s what I inherited.

He pat his horse’s neck, feeling the silken grey fur that drew passersby’s glances. He had a beautiful mount: a grey so vibrant she looked blue under storm clouds. His saddle and bridle were humble; couldn’t very well walk around with his embossed leather saddle or a bridle glittering with the king’s golden medallions on every buckle.

When a woman gazed a little too long at him instead of his horse, Billy eased to a stop and smiled charmingly. “Excuse me, where might I find the House of Buckley?”

She adjusted the basket in her arms to hold it on her hip while she swayed coyly. “Peach-colored house on the hill, sir. May I ask what business you have there?”

“Visiting a friend.” Unless she’s in disguise too.

“Best to wait until evening time. Everyone’s in the market or out in the fields right now.”

Billy tilted his head at her. “Buckley is a noble house.” Nobody is working in the fields from that family—

Then she laughed. Laughed. “Are you from the capital?”

Billy’s charm faltered on his face, but he picked it back up easily enough. “Thereabouts. Why?”

“Because people from the capital believe everyone’s rich. Rich enough to sit or poor enough to not own a chair. We all work here, and we’re all in the market or the fields. I can tell you which are Sir Buckley’s, though.”

The little twit liked being a know-it-all, but it served Billy a great deal to be given the tour. Here, property decided who reigned, and property came in the form of land, livestock, or both. With that came a handful of useful names: Buckley, Hagan, Harrington, Wheel—

Billy’s eyes widened like a cat’s pupils dilating on prey. “STEVE!”

Because…there he was. His Steve, strolling right up the cobbled road from the hills and into the market with a donkey loaded with grape baskets beside him. He hadn’t heard his name, giving Billy the time to absorb every new detail about the man who vanished from his castle.

The white, puffy shirt held close to his body with a waistcoat. High-waisted trousers made his legs look long and lean over workman’s boots. He shoved up the colorful fabric ties around his biceps, holding up the shirtsleeves but failing due to all of the sweat from a day in the sun. A belt sagged a little diagonally around his hips, on which such things as pliers, shears, a garden knife, and a pair of leather and canvas gloves waited for use.

Steve took off a large sunhat and set it on the donkey’s head, combing both of his hands through his voluminous, brown hair—

“Steve!”

Billy began to walk his horse in that direction, having long since dismounted for the courtesy of his guide, but now the latter gripped his arm in warning. “That’s Lord Harrington to you.”

Billy blew a raspberry right into the air, scoffing, “Excuse me?”

The woman rolled her eyes so hard, she would have been thrown into a stockade for behaving like that to—well, to a king. But she let go of him and went on her way, leaving him to his fate.

So off he went. Billy walked his mount over to where a collection of people were attending to the donkey and the grapes, and Steve nodded in discussion with an older man.

“Lord Harrington, I hear?” he crooned in greeting.

Two heads rotated toward him, and Billy felt rather smacked in the face by the matching eyes and nose. Father. This is Steve’s father.

Lord Harrington. Twice over.

Steve’s features opened with shocked eyes and a dropped jaw. His eyes darted to his father’s frown, and Billy quickly backpedaled, “I apologize. I know the younger, but not the older. My name’s Billy Hargrove.”

He’d bowed his fair share as a knight, though the gesture felt far removed since he was out of practice. Never the less, Steve gaped at his king bowing slightly at the hips and extending a hand for Lord Harrington to shake.

Thing about being king, not many people actually know the monarchy’s family name. They knew William the Second. William of the Grove. Some whispered the Second Tyrant, but only because Billy was still young and new to being king. They were waiting for him to prove them right.

Lord Harrington shook his head with a glance at his son. “You didn’t say anyone was coming with you.”

“I didn’t think anyone was,” Steve answered bluntly, but he picked up the gist of Billy’s disguise easily enough. “Billy’s been a big help to me in the capital.”

“How so?”

Billy’s brows lifted, but before he could provide a veiled innuendo, Steve chirped, “Roommates. Got me a job. Kept me fed.”

“I did my best,” Billy crooned. He watched Steve’s apple bob in his throat.

Lord Harrington, with his similar, albeit shorter and silver, hair and weathered skin opened his arm to gesture Billy up the road. “You’ll be our guest, then. I’ll show you along. Are you staying at the inn?”

“No, my lord. I’ve only just arrived.”

“Very good. This way. Steve, remind Roger about the textiles. We’ve sheared the animals twice already this season. He needs to either wash it or sell it. We can’t hold onto it or else it will mold and be useless to barter.”

Billy peeked at Steve, who similarly veered to go on his separate way. He met Billy’s gaze for the briefest second, and he looked…not entirely happy to see Billy.

The king did not like that at all.

* * *

Billy looked around the Harrington estate, taking in every detail that Lord Harrington granted him. He had yet to see an inkling of whatever this emergency could have been to rush Steve out of the capital. Out of Billy’s bed. It made sense, now, why he had left everything behind, since he had a home and full wardrobe waiting for him here. Billy had not seen a glimpse of Lady Buckley, though.

People are supposed to ask my permission to leave, damn it. Or at the very least, inform him first. Not skip town like bandits.

The Harrington house looked out over the estate’s vast hills of grapes, goats, and sheep. It would have been endearing, the farmers using their canes to nudge the goats along the alleys of vines so they could snack on fallen grapes. Endearing, if Steve had been the one to show him all this. Billy wanted Steve next to him on this veranda—if it could be called that. The house and its balconies overlooking the city and hills were much smaller than his castle’s, of course.

Billy did not stay long in his rooms—room. Just a room. You certainly acclimated to luxury, he reminded himself. One of his first orders in the castle had been a complete renovation to his chambers. He would not live in his father’s rooms. Those were turned into a storage branch of the castle, and Billy had several walls knocked down to make way for the new royal apartments. Let the old bastard haunt the broom cupboards.

Billy trotted down the narrow stairs into what felt like an abrupt arrival at the dining room. Further down in the house would be the kitchen but there was a smaller, stewards’ pantry, of sorts, in which a woman stood and rotated upon hearing him. It took a second, but Billy remembered to bow.

“Am I correct in addressing the lady of the house?”

“You are,” smiled Lady Harrington. It came as no surprise that she looked at least ten years younger than her husband, but the blonde hair did catch Billy off guard. She offered her hand, which he took and kissed its back.

“For some reason, I didn’t think Steve took after his father so much.”

“In looks only. He has all his personality from me.”

Billy rocked a little on his heels, humming an acknowledging sound. He certainly did not voice his amusement that she might’ve just revealed more about her marital bed than she meant to. He simply replied, “I believe it. May I ask: Steve and Lady Buckley rushed out with hardly any explanation. Is everything all right?”

“Oh, everything’s no more out of the ordinary than it usually is,” she began, returning to her task of preparing what looked like a fruit-soaked wine for their dinner. She sliced up apples and peaches with a curved blade and a practiced hand. “However, our ordinary can be quite sudden and busy.”

A different hum came from Billy’s chest at that. “I understand. Is there anything I can do?”

“Well, if you’re offering, you can half those grapes right there.”

Billy sent the wooden bowl of fruit a dubious glance and then laughed breathily, “I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” she smiled. “For now, you can help me prepare the wine.”

A long dead growl moved through Billy’s mind. Woman’s work—

Stay dead, tyrant, Billy hushed with finality. He accepted the spare knife from her and did the task he was given. She couldn’t know that he was who he was, after all. No one in this town apart from Steve knew that Billy could supply the money, machinery, and manpower at a moment’s notice for whatever reason they might need—

Chatter and laughter moved like a reverse echo outside the house, blooming quickly until, of all people, Robin Buckley herself clapped on the stoop of the Harrington’s side door. Open as it is for the breeze to come and go, she waltzed right in, and stopped at the sight of Billy. Her laughter cut off only to be replaced with, “You!”

“Me,” he threw right back. He raised a brow at a woman of the royal court wearing trousers and boots.

Lady Harrington chimed, “Oh, so you are friends.”

Billy peered back at her. “Was there any doubt?”

“Oh, dear, you look like you’ve never worked a field in your life.”

Billy had never heard his jaw hit the floor until that moment. Robin’s chuckle arrived beside him as she ripped off a handful of grapes for a snack. “When did you get here?”

“Not an hour ago.”

“You could’ve stayed put.”

“You’re enjoying this,” he growled, hoping that she heard his meaning through the words. I’m still your king even if no one here knows it.

She smirked, hearing loud and clear. “Steve gave me the heads up.”

He matched her smile, tone dripping with charming venom. “And where is he?”

She shook her head at him, cooing a tone that was both soothing and condescending. “He’ll be around. You’re in…his house, after all. Thanks, Anne.”

“You’re welcome, dear,” came Lady Harrington’s reply, but Billy hardly heard it.

He was in Steve’s house. A lord’s house. Lord Harrington’s house…and Billy was just some nobody.

Robin really was enjoying this too much.

#harringrove #jester!steve #king!billy #ficlet #neonponders #ghostofjellyfishforgotten #here we go again #pondermoniums

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vake-hunter · 4 years

Text

Acceptance into the House of Chimes results and which Master is playing Chimes in those results

this is fun and cute little details about the Masters

An innocent (Pages)

A fresh face among the jaded horde! No doubt you will achieve great things one day. But watch yourself: in Fallen London, innocence is a commodity like any other.

Mr Chimes glides across the floor and grasps your hand in a spotless white glove. It feels like shaking a branch wound with spider-silk. 'Most optimate friend!' it whispers. 'Welcome to our Chamber of Delicacies!'

An Extraordinary Beauty (Apples/Hearts)

Persuasive 20

That skin! Those eyes! That delightful nose! Nobody can resist you!

Mr Chimes glides across the floor and surveys you up and down. 'My dear, my dear,' it says. 'How very appetising to have you here with us. Will you tilt your head to the right a little? Just so. Just so.'

A Player of Games (Iron)

Watchful 20, the Boatman's Opponent 1

You are an emperor of the chess board. You shuffle tiles and playing cards with dazzling speed. Rumour has it that you have diced with Death itself.

Mr Chimes approaches: the clicking of its boot-heels on the floor is like bone dice thrown on marble. It hands you two mah-jong tiles. Engraved on the back of the Winter tile is the single word 'WELCOME'. On the back of the Plum tile, you read 'LUCK IS THE PREROGATIVE OF VICTORS.'

A noted trainer of Weasels (Apples/Hearts)

1 x Araby Fighting Weasel

The weasel-fanciers of Spite speak highly of your expertise with the genus mustela.

Mr Chimes is suddenly at your elbow. It inhales deeply. 'Oh, toothsome, my dear,' it says. 'Toothsome. Let the little fellows run free, by all means. Someone will manage the results, I assure you.'

A true patriot (Wines)

1 x A Copy of your Patriotic Adventure

Your writings inspire the youth of Fallen London to a frenzy of patriotism!

Mr Chimes takes your arm and guides you into the lobby of the House. Its grasp is like the clutch of a winter tree. 'We respect loyalty to an ideal,' it says. 'One of the more austere forms, perhaps. But a true realisation nevertheless. No?'

A masterful cat-chaser (UH I ACTUALLY DONT KNOW? Veils maybe?)

Shadowy 30

You have honed your skills in pursuit of the city's most evasive felines. They speak your name with respect, if not quite affection.

Mr Chimes steals up on you from behind, but you turn just before its gloved fingers touch your shoulder. It chortles. 'Who can stalk the stalker, eh? Welcome to my House. Ware the Bell!'

Not to be crossed (Iron probably)

Dangerous 20

There is something disquieting about your appearance. It's hard to pin down, exactly. An aura of suppressed violence.

Mr Chimes strides toward you. It holds up a hand in greeting. Or in warning? It nods once; it turns to go. That is all.

A crown in shadows (Wines)

1 Fate

Royal blood? Can it be true? On the wrong side of the blankets, no doubt. But that's what they say.

Mockery or respect?

Mr Chimes steps aside for you and makes the gentlest inclination of its head. 'We will bring you a bottle of something a little special,' it avers. 'We are delighted to add another crownable head to our collection!' Hm.

Allergic to brass? (Spices probably)

1 x Nevercold Brass Sliver

The touch of the stuff hives your skin and blears your eyes. It makes you weep tears of blood. This makes you an object of some fascination at parties.

A bewildered Master

Unthinkable!' the hooded Mr Chimes shrieks. 'Impossible! Unprecedented!' It seems quite cheerful about it, though. It does insist you demonstrate the weeping-blood business, unfortunately.

Exceptionally Talented (Cups/Mirrors. Possibly Hearts/Apples but almost definitely Cups/Mirrors)

10 x Confident Smile, Persuasive 100

Both ladies and gentlemen pause immediately before speaking your name. There is a quality to that pause which is not easily described.

A friendly thing

Mr Chimes' hand spiders along your arm. 'My dear,' it coos. 'If only my tastes ran to... well, perhaps if your blood was a little cooler. No matter, my dear. You will be treasured.'

The Rooftop Dancer (Veils)

Shadowy 60, Route: The Flit 1

You know the ways of the Flit like few others. They say you can reach the summit of All Christs' spire in the space of a single breath. They say you stole a feather from the Topsy King's hat. They call you 'Pussyfoot', but in a good way.

An avuncular approach

Mr Chimes drifts up like a scrap of silk on the wind. 'Good evening! Good evening indeed! You're a swift and circumspect maker of ways, aren't you? You are indeed! How very much to be admired.'

An Unparalelled Grotesque (Maybe Wines because it has blue eyes)

10 x Hard-Earned Lesson

In the decades since the Fall, no-one has ever looked quite like you. Thank God.

A long silence

The bluish glimmer of Mr Chimes' eyes is steady, but you sense an obscure emotion. 'Well,' it says at last, 'why not? Why not indeed.'

A Visionary (Wines. Not Pages due to wording. Royal we makes it Wines)

A Person of Some Importance: A Significant Individual

You have made the Square of Lofty Words your playground. You have cowed the women and men of the University. Your ideas are simple in outline and intricate in implication. They will be remembered, perhaps, when everyone in this room is dead. Except Mr Chimes.

A debatable honour

‘Dear friend,' Mr Chimes murmurs confidentially. 'We have often read the surveillance reports on your speeches. We have commended your texts to the Ministry of Public Decency. We look forward to hearing more of your thoughts.'

A Prisoner of Despair (Fires)

Melancholy 4

Can your misery be so deep and unrelieved that even Mr Chimes has taken pity on you? Or does it simply hope you'll be a diverting mascot?

Mockery, or Hope?

Mr Chimes bears down on you, robe flapping like a tent in a hurricane. Its voice is an alto shriek. 'Come along upstairs! It's warm enough. It'll steam the chill out of your heart. And, here - ' It hands you a candle. 'It'll light you to bed.'

A Speaker of Truth to Power (Iron)

Forceful 3, Subtle 3

You've said the wrong thing to the wrong people once too often. You're going to be a lot of fun.

An ambivalent welcome

Mr Chimes perches on a high carved chair like a black gull on a cliff. A footman approaches with a silver tray bearing a single card. It reads: 'SILENCE'. An announcement? A suggestion? An instruction? Or is Mr Chimes just being difficult for its own inscrutable entertainment?

A Possessor of Impossible Table Habits (Who knows. One who knows table manners I guess)

What are you - no. No! Such things were not to be dreamt of! A fork cannot be put to such uses! Close your mouth! Close his mouth! For the love of all that is holy! DON'T TOUCH THAT SPOON!

Mr Chimes arranges an audition of sorts. You are served a hearty meal of beef-steak and winter vegetables, and provided with all the cutlery you might require. You perform the operations for which you have become notorious. After a suitable time for the onlookers to recover their composure, you are admitted to the House.

Orphaned in a Grisly Accident (I want to say Veils due to what we know of its collections)

Mr Chimes likes tales of blood and terror. It likes tales of butter and whimsy too. Tales of blood, terror, butter and whimsy are like music and water to one dying of thirst in the Desert of Cymbals. The tale of your parents' death at the hands of the Dairy Kings will bring breathless listeners to the fire for a hundred nights.

Not a dry eye

You tell the tale, long and horrible as it is. Mr Chimes convulses with... Mirth? Pity? Fear? Black-liveried footmen watch impassively while its shoulders writhe and roll, and its eyes shimmer like topaz deep in its hood. At last it subsides and you are admitted to the House. 'Step carefully,' Mr Chimes flutes.

An Artist in Ivory (Wines was the Khan of Dreams, but this could be Spices talking. Or Cups/Mirrors.)

a Scholar of the Correspondence 1

You have carved flutes from femurs and trinkets from tibia. Your sigil-circled skull sits in the grandest gallery of Veilgarden. They whisper that when you die for the last time, Mr Cups itself will come for your bones.

A pale horse

‘A little gift,' Mr Chimes informs you. 'Something to recall the Khan of Dreams by. Since you seem so keen to commemorate him.' Do you? Or has Mr Chimes misunderstood the nature of your project?

A wanderer of Parabola (Mirrors)

7 x Memory of Light, A Game of Chess 9, Is Someone There? 10

In your dreams you have seen the Mirror-Marches, the Menagerie of Roses, the Castle of Forests, the nests of the Fingerkings... even though you may forget them when you wake. But there is a light in your eyes.

A light in the darkness

‘Yes,' says the Master quietly. 'The mirrors know your name. The serpents have your scent. The rivers of roses will not drown you. The apples of glass might lie quiet in your hands. If you burn, you burn like a candle. If you die, you die like dawn. You are very delicious.'

A zub-mariner! (Spices from voice but sounds like Fires from excitement about boats)

1 x Zubmarine, An Experienced Zailor 3

You are charting the unknown leagues beneath the zee.

Mr Chimes lopes towards you across the stone floor. 'Marvellous!' it shrills. It pumps your hand excitedly. It's like grabbing a nestful of velvet spiders. 'You'll fit right in here. Grab a seat.'

A killer of renown (Iron)

A Bringer of Death 1, 1 x Ravenglass Knife

Even in Fallen London, where bloodshed is as common as glim-fall, your name is whispered with apprehension.

Mr Chimes approaches in utter silence. It hands you a rostygold knife, hilt-first. Engraved on the blade is the word: MEET. That is all.

A font of devil's tears (Want to say Cups due to smell but could be any)

Connected: Hell 20

Did your masterwork really make a devil weep? It must be true. Mr Chimes has the tears there in a little bottle. Wait. Is it drinking them?

A chuckle in the hood

Mr Chimes drapes a companionable arm across your shoulders. It smells of dust and winter starlight. 'Devils despise that kind of humiliation,' it confides in you. 'I laughed for days. Come on upstairs.'

An Oenologonaut (Spices)

1 x Greyfields 1868 First Sporing, 1 x Greyfields 1879, 1 x Greyfields 1882, 1 x Black Wings Absinthe, 1 x Morelways 1872, 1 x Broken Giant 1844, 1 x Strangling Willow Absinthe, 1 x Fourth City Airag: Year of the Tortoise, 1 x Cellar of Wine

No-one has plumbed the secrets of the grape, the hop and the blood-apple more deeply than you. You can identify the products of vineyards that have no name in any human tongue.

Fond Sighs

Dear one,' says Mr Chimes warmly. 'Pleasure is a wilderness. We are its cartographers. Let us embark, you and I, on the catalogue of delight! Our journey begins here.'

A Liar among Liars (No idea)

1 x Appalling Secret, 1 x Uncanny Incunabula, 1 x Extraordinary Implication, 1 x Searing Enigma, 1 x Whispered Secret, 1 x Cryptic Clue

Who can ever believe your stories? Truth is mingled with falsehood like blood in milk. You are a prince of rumours. Or is it a princess? Who can ever be sure?

An impassive audience

Mr Chimes listens to your stories of star and sea and shadow. It neither nods nor shakes its head when you suggest certain relationships between the Mountain of Light and the troubling thesis of Mr Darwin. It is motionless when you venture a hypothesis as to why only six symbols of the Correspondence can be written together on one paper. When you begin to discuss a matter of wells and candles and the Third City, it raises a finger. 'This is false,' it murmurs. 'Let us ensure it remains that way,'

A Legendary Calumnist (Apples/Hearts)

Scandal 7, Persuasive 100, Watchful 100

Your barbs and insults and the twisting satires you've spawned have been the bane of the lowly and the great alike. All fear the savage edge of your tongue.

A cautious welcome

‘My dear,' Mr Chimes whispers. 'Be kind to the little ones, will you? Not all have your advantages. I admit you only on condition that you choose not to bite.'

‘I know a man.' (Probably Wines)

Connected: the Masters of the Bazaar 5

If it can be called a man. Step aside, peon. I am already welcome here.'

A hearty welcome

Come in, come in! A place by the fire is prepared for you. The table is set. The brandy rises from the cellar like the laughter of friends! Forget the petty troubles without. You have earned this night of peace.'

I will scream until your House rings with the Words of the Thunder! (Probably Wines)

Stormy-Eyed 5, having Recurring Dreams: What the Thunder Said 10

I am the storm, I am the wind, I am the rain! I demand admittance! Defy me and I will blow your House down!

The cloaked thing bows before me!

I fling gusts of squalling rain at its head! Then I race through the dusty corners and crannies of the House of Chimes with a cleansing breeze! I bid lightning spring from its spire in celebration! The Master insists I hang my oilskin on the hatstand before I drip on the carpets!

The Inescapable Arm of the Law (Spices I believe)

investigating the Rubbery Murders 12, ascending the Reliables list of Mr Pages 3, Connected: The Constables 50, Connected: The Great Game 50, Watchful 100, 1 x Antique Constable's Badge

Your eye pursueth the malfeasant as the wrathful eye of God pursued Cain across the desert. You have returned wedding rings to costermongers, cats to dowagers, and stolen hearts to sorrowful tomb-colonists.

A nervous flutter?

We are most pleased to see you here,' Mr Chimes shrills. 'You are an ingeniate of great note! But perhaps you should limit your investigations in this House, eh?'

A Blood-Cousin to Predators (Veils probably)

1 x Ancient Hunting Rifle, a Procurer of Savage Beasts 1, 1 x Fairly Tame Sorrow-Spider, 1 x Bengal Tigress, 1 x Araby Fighting-Weasel, Dangerous 100, Watchful 100, marked by the Eater-of-Chains 3.

You have brought the great beasts low and walked in the footsteps of the fierce. You have turned fang and cunning, spine and venom and brute strength, against the monsters who wield them.

A peculiar passion

Mr Chimes inclines its head to you. 'Beasts. Beasts beasts beasts! So many beasts, such little time. Perhaps you could turn your energies to the pursuit of troublesome humans, hey? Why waste your time hunting those who cannot speak? Or sing? But welcome welcome!'

#fallen london #lore

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wheelersdealer · 5 years

Photo

RABBIT HOLE

Summary: You hate Steve, Steve hates you, you may have fooled around once or twice but whatever -- he’s found himself oddly protective when he sees some prick picking on you and you’re not sure how you feel about sympathetic! King Steve.

Pairing: King!Steve x Queen!Reader Warnings: Profanity, Small Sexual Themes, Harassment A/n: This is a continuation of my “Her Majesty” story you can find on my blog! Also, new fic format so I can give gif creators direct credit! Just click the picture and you’ll be sent there! Also, all gifs I use are reblogged prior to posting an imagine.

Steve Harrington has fallen down a rabbit hole. Of both physical and figurative means but this fic is PG-13, so —

The subtle touches you share and the gentle, but seductive glares you shoot his way in class and in the hall…it’s all built up to be something greater. No, it isn’t love, it's certainly not love because how can a King love the Queen attempting to raid his castle, and he doesn’t want to date you but…it’s hard to explain.

Here! Just now —

His eyes are drawn away from practice. He works with Tommy and some other boys in shooting hoops, mostly numb from their bickering and his spot-on shooting despite the crick in his wrist (totally not related to you).

Hey, at least he lands.

But then his eyes land on you, standing in the alley between Hawkins High’s two buildings. It’s the perfect view, the sun hitting your face just right. Just well enough to capture your furrowed brows and a glare so strong he can realize now that the ones you give him are nowhere near malicious.

And then he sees a guy.

And then Steve gets hit the head.

He hisses and groans as the ball collides with his skull, but still, he’s focused on you and this guy. He’s not just a regular teenage boy no he’s-he’s a guy. Like, a man, a dude.

“Harrington!” Tommy scoffs, picking up the ball and holding it between his ribs and arm.

Steve rolls his eyes at them, but still feels inclined to stay and play or at least try to explain. He decides not to, instead, his focus still on you as he rubs his temples to ease the thumping in his brain and tries to steady his legs as they’ve become a bit numb from standing motionless for so long.

“Where the hell are you going?” Tommy scoffs. The guys around them aren’t exactly in their group and Tommy has felt a need to prove himself to them the entire game through ‘trash talk,’ ‘smack talk,’ (yes, different things according to Tommy), and showing them just how confident he is to bully none other than ‘King Steve Harrington’ on the court.

“Can it Tommy, will you?” Steve spits back at him.

He limps off toward you and in the corner of your eye, he’s nothing but a grey speck that invades your sight.

You’re stiff with your arms crossed over your stomach. Clearly, it’s meant more to hug yourself than to be all calm and casual, with Steve able to see from this far away just how tight you’re holding your own arms.

Your shoulders are up, your chin is closer to your chest, and you have your feet pointing away from this situation…

So you can…run, perhaps?

“HEY!” Steve shouts the moment he worries why you would worry about having too. He claps his hands and that’s what draws you to him. His voice is a bit too hoarse and husky from basketball to recognize immediately.

You roll your eyes allow him a chance to speak. You take a few steps back from this guy, and Steve clearly sees that you consider him as an opening.

His heart flutters at the honor. Just a little bit.

Steve plants himself in front of this guy and spits, “Can I help you?” He picked up that tone of voice from his ‘Take me to your manager!’ mama.

You peak over Steve’s shoulder and watch the guy babble. You’ve allowed yourself to be more open about your vulnerability, hugging yourself directly and keeping your head down but you still manage to scold the guy with sharp eyes behind your brows.

Steve can see that he definitely looks familiar…But then again there’s a lot of quaffed and blonde-haired douchebags that have roamed not only the halls of Hawkins High but the halls of every high school in America, really.

He looks like he’s in college but he still wears his Hawkins varsity jacket.

Steve gets caught in his eyes, squinting and trying to decipher this dude’s face.

“Get lost,” the guy spits, trying to step past Steve to get to you.

“Um, yeah,” Steve hisses, “I don’t think so.”

“This is none of your business.”

Steve pants and crosses his arms. “Well doesn’t seem like it’d be much of some deadbeat college kid’s business either, so…?” The guy clenches his jaw. “Beat it.”

You cautiously walk up to Steve and you two watch the guy leave. He keeps looking back just about ready to kill both of you but his fury is so satisfying you can’t help but smile mischievously and give him a little wave goodbye.

You chuckle and Steve jumps and looks at you.

“You okay?” He breathes, voice laced with worry.

But it sounds too caring and too enthusiastic. He reels it back a couple notches and puts on a face of apathy. He repeats, “You okay?” Like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

And suddenly now that it’s over and done with and you have a chance to think over all the drama, you deflate.

“Thanks, Harrington,” you mutter and pat his arm before walking off.

Now Steve feels like a douchebag.

He curses himself and grabs your wrist only to realize when you violently yank it away that that sort of interaction might not be the most welcomed right now.

“Sorry — Y/n, are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” You insist and try to walk away.

Steve jogs after you. He has an eagle eye on all of your surroundings and when he finally spots the guy, he almost walks into a light pole. But he’s Steve Harrington so he’s able to play it off in all of his kingly glory.

He mumbles to himself. “Who was that guy anyway?”

You both stop walking and watch him get into his car. Steve looks down to your arms, still so tightly crossed over your chest.

You grimace.

“Chad.”

Everything comes back to Steve in a flash before his eyes.

‘Chad’ was, and is the biggest douchebag to have roamed the halls of Hawkins high in all of human history. So much so Steve has never been sure if Chad was ever his real name because it fits too close for comfort.

(He may not be in the realm of Billy Hargrove who is soon to come, who you’ll one day learn carries all sorts of douche-baggage, and he certainly isn’t in the realm of Tommy H. who is completely riding on his high school career to save him from minimum wage, but never in his years of being ‘King Steve’ has Steve ever seen such an undeserving candidate pulled straight from a Slasher Fic about pretty popular people destined to get slashed.)

Chad never got that title because, despite his popularity, he was an all-around douchebag nobody cared to hand the crown to.

Hell, in contrast to you, Steve would say you’re a princess (the connotation being he’s come to see you as quite sweet), but he knows you’re really a Queen (the connotation being that you are still willing to rip his eyes out of his skull at a moment’s notice during this very, very complicated but consensual relationship).

Never-mind what he’s just seen. He can’t help but think, “Why Chad?”

“I mean seriously Y/n — Chad Kokovsky? That guy is like,” he rolls his eyes, “the biggest douchenozzle to roam the Earth. Okay? Even I can’t stand him.”

Douchenozzle. That’s creative —

You scoff, never having been so offended.

“Not like I asked him to come here, dumbass!” You gently push on his chest then start heading back inside. Steve hisses at your strength and follows with a hand to his chest. “I ran into him at Dairy Queen and he decided to be all creepy.”

“Woah Woah Woah—“ Steve jogs to get in front of you. He holds your arms and looks you in the eyes.

Yours flicker from his own to his hands on your shoulders and he promptly takes his hands away and puts them on his hips.

“He followed you?

You whimper and stomp your foot, wanting this conversation to be over.

“Y/n, he followed you?”

“I guess! But it’s no big deal since he told me he’s like, starting school back up again soon. He’s like on break now. Besides like, isn’t that just something you all do?”

Steve Harrington…has never been so offended…in his life.

“No!” He curses under his breath. “Jesus Y/n, has this happened enough times for you to think it’s normal, cause it’s not normal!”

You bite into your lip and look down at the ground.

Steve can see Tommy embarrassing the absolute shit out of himself just some distance away.

He runs his hand through his hair and comes up with a solution: “Any time you have a problem with a guy, you come to me, alright?”

You step away from him. “Why?”

“B-because—“

“HARRINGTON! HURRY UP!”

Steve grabs your arm gently this time and pushes you closer to the school and under the shade.

“Because,” he lowers his voice even more, “I’m King Steve, Y/n. The hell they gonna do when I tell them off?”

“And I’m ‘Queen Y/n’ so clearly, what about it?”

Steve leans in closer. There’s a smirk tugging at his lips. “Gotta stick together, right? Whole castle goes down without its Queen, right?” You squint. “That’s chess…right?”

You chuckle and shake your head at the ground. “That is chess, Harrington, you are right!”

“See?!”

You look around, suddenly paranoid yourself. “I’m not getting you involved in all of my shit, Harrington. I appreciate the offer, but you can forget it. I’m not jeopardizing my crown since it’s the one thing I get for dealing with this shit.”

“Psh! How much ‘shit’ can you possibly have?”

You raise one brow. Steve suddenly feels butterflies in his stomach just imagining what’s about to come out of your mouth.

You explain but won’t look into his eyes for any of it.

Deep breath—

“So clearly Chad’s kind of obsessed with me for the time being. Richard Mackey and his goons, you know, the ones who sit—“

“On the west end of the cafeteria with the funny glasses, yeah yeah—“

“Yeah. Deborah Sheppard told them a bunch of weird-ass shit so he could woo me,” Steve’s face scrunches up in disgust, “And I don’t want to be the mean bitch who tells off the ‘nerdy’ group so I have to tiptoe around that. Sandy, Sue, Sammy, and Kelly decided to go be dumbasses and got involved with a bunch of college guys and they had a fling over the summer but now none of them want anything to do with it so I’ve been trying to get them off their backs for a while now. Kathy and Deborah H—“ You gasp an overdramatic, cartoon gasp, and clutch Steve’s arm. “Oh, I forgot! And—!”

“Jesus Y/n—“

You smile smugly. “Getting tired yet?”

Steve licks his lips and runs his hand down the side of his face. He sighs and shrugs. “Sure, why not. Me, and you,” he pokes himself in the chest then keeps his finger against yours, “Can solve all of these problems, superficial and not, alright? I mean,” he chuckles, “King and Queen gotta look out for their kingdom, don’t they?”

You chuckle. “You really ready for that Harrington? No offense but I thought your expertise only ranges in picking up chicks and being complicit around Tommy.”

There’s a moment of silence as Steve realizes that is his range of expertise. (And his hair.)

“C’mon,” He mumbles through closed lips.

You look and he has his hand out. You shake it, looking into his eyes till the moment you separate.

You turn and (Jesus, again—) Steve grabs your arm and with a quick tug, you’re twirled back right in front of him.

So close…

Your chest is against his, your knee between his thighs. His look of triumph and excitement about this new partnership has vanished. His eyes are malicious, but his lips frown.

And his voice is low. “Come get me if any of those guys start bothering you…yeah?”

You suck your lips in and nod weakly.

Steve lets go and gives you a gentle push.

Suddenly your walk isn’t as confident as before. It’s modest.

You look over your shoulder just before you reach the door and Steve’s still staring at you, that pitiful, worried look taking over his features.

He snaps out of his gaze, tries to quickly look somewhere that isn’t you.

Damn.

He fell hard.

(Message me if you would like to be tagged whenever I post a Steve imagine!)

@stevieharrrr @songforhema @broadwayandnetflix @billyhargrovescigarette @bckysloki @christinawxxx @timeladygallifrey @gwenebear @chloe742 @wtf-multifandom @theyoutubedork @marvelismylifffe @novaddictx @steveharrigntons @chubbybunny111 @wigofokoye @kingsteve011 @harringtons-bxtch

#Steve Harrington x Reader #Steve Harrington imagine #Steve Harrington smut #Steve Harrington imagines #Stranger Things imagine #Stranger Things imagines #monarchy

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thecassadilla · 4 years

Text

Written in the Stars - Chapter 3

Word Count: 3,755/AO3

Pairing: Kristanna

Love During Lockdown Series: Serendipity (Prologue) | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Summary: Figuring out how to go on an in-person date during a time of social distancing would be a challenge for anyone. Luckily, it comes easy to Anna and Kristoff, who find a creative way to spend some time with each other amidst a pandemic.

Author’s Note: Hi everyone, I’m back at it again. After a long week of feeling like I couldn’t see or think straight, I’ve somehow managed to write another chapter of this. It’s trash, just like me, so don’t read it lol. As a random side note that nobody even cares about - I haven’t eaten at a McDonald’s or a Dairy Queen in so long. Like, years - and not because of the pandemic, or because I’m a health nut, but just because XD. I don’t even know what this chapter is tbh. I hope you like it! (Also, I hope you like my little joke about Kristoff’s taste in music :P)

Kristoff turned around and looked through the rear windshield as he reversed out of the spot. As soon as they were back in drive, he asked “So, what are your friends like?”

“They’re really great,” Anna answered, simply. “We balance each other out.”

“What does that mean?”

“You called me brave, earlier - they’d call me bold. Let’s just say I’ve made some...questionable decisions in the past, and they’ve always been there to help me get through it.”

“They sound like good friends.”

She raised one of her hands up to cover her mouth as she realized what she’d just said. “Oh god, I just realized how terrible that sounded. I haven’t, like, gone to jail or murdered anyone. College is the prime time for making mistakes, and I’m not exempt from that. Just a lot of drinking and partying.”

“I just want you to know that I wasn’t assuming that you murdered someone,” he laughed.

“Well, I don’t know! I phrased it so horribly, a lot of assumptions could be made.”

“Don’t worry, you’re totally fine,” he insisted.

“Anyway, I met my best friend, Diana, in freshman year English and we had a lot of fun together. I haven’t spoken to her in awhile, though.”

“Because of quarantine?”

“No,” she sighed. “We had a falling out. I don’t know. I mean, I know, but it’s complicated and neither of us want to suck it up and talk about it.”

“I totally get that. I’ve never really had a best friend, but there’s always been some type of drama within my friend groups. I’m just the guy who tries not to take sides or get involved.”

“The problem is that Diana and I are both equally guilty in this case. I hurt her, and she hurt me, and we’re both being babies about it.”

“Maybe you should be the bigger person, then? If she’s really your best friend, then you want her in your life, right?”

“I know, it’s just hard,” she whined. “I know that it would be the right thing to do, but I’m just not ready to have that talk yet. My friend Amanda - she’s the one who I mentioned you to - is the mediator right now. Diana isn’t ready, yet, either, according to her.”

“I’m not really qualified to give you advice here, but hopefully it all works out for both of you.”

“Something that you’ll come to learn about me, if we continue to see each other, is that I’m very stubborn and very strong-willed. Diana has a similar personality, so we tend to clash.”

“Strong-willed, huh? I guess that sounds like you - I am driving to Dairy Queen, after all.”

She reached over and playfully shoved his arm. “Shut up!”

He momentarily took both of his hands off of the steering wheel to raise them in surrender. “Sorry, I was just teasing.”

“I know,” she smirked. “I was, too. Anyway, I trust my instincts, and I know that we’ll make up someday.”

“That’s good. Friends are important.”

“What are your friends like?”

“They’re just...very relaxed. Easy to hang out with - just meet up at the bar and talk for a while. I don’t really have a best friend, like I said, but I hang out with Ryder the most, probably because I live with him. And I’m pretty good friends with his sister, too. They’re good people.”

“We could always use good people in our lives. Your roommate seems to look after you, from what you’ve told me.”

“Usually I’m the one looking after him,” he corrected. “He’s only nineteen, but he’s a good kid. He was working his ass off when all of this started - two jobs and in school full time.”

“Wow, that’s pretty impressive. I could barely manage one job and school.”

“I give him a lot of credit. Just don’t tell him that I told you that.”

“Hey, if it wasn’t for him we probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” she pointed out. “Give credit where it’s due.”

“You’ll have to remind me to thank him.”

“I’d also like to thank him, someday.”

“You can come over whenever you want; he literally doesn’t care. I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said he was chill. I mean, he’s been taking this very seriously, but he always preferred to hang out with his friends while playing video games, so it’s a win-win situation for him.”

“I wish I had that type of freedom in my own apartment,” she practically growled, crossing her arms over her chest. “But, I will definitely take you up on that offer.”

“And I can fulfill my promise to cook you dinner. You can even invite your sister, if you wanted to.”

“Ha, you’re cute, but she isn’t stepping foot outside of that apartment until the coast is totally clear. If she doesn’t want me to leave, she definitely isn’t leaving.”

“I thought you said the only reason you were able to come today was because she was sleeping and couldn’t stop you. She isn’t always going to be asleep.”

“Yeah, but I can sneak out,” she shrugged. “I’ve done it before and I can do it again.”

“Are you talking about rappelling down the side of the building or something?”

“I’m not a superhero,” she laughed. “My sister has a very strict weekday routine. She works all day in her room and doesn’t come out until it’s time for us to start dinner.”

“Wouldn’t she hear the front door close?”

“She also happens to wear noise-cancelling headphones so she can go to her zoom meetings without distractions. I just have to leave before she finishes her work for the day.”

“You really weren’t joking about being strong-willed, huh?”

“Nope,” she shook her head. “I’m very determined. So, what type of music do you like to listen to?”

“Hmm,” he hummed, trying to think of an answer. “I listen to a bunch of different stuff. I guess I really like rock music, but a lot of rock music is also considered pop music? I listen to a lot of older stuff, too, like Queen.”

“I guess that was kind of an unfair question, because I don’t have a straight answer for it, either. I like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. I mostly listen to pop, but I also have an affinity for music from the ‘80s. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is my jam.”

He laughed. “That’s a good one.”

“Can’t take life too seriously, you know?” She giggled. “Anyway, next question.”

“Is this a test?”

She playfully rolled her eyes. “No. I just want to know more about you, and the only way to do that is if we keep asking each other questions.”

“Okay,” he nodded. “Um...favorite color?”

“Ooh, I really like jewel tones!”

He glanced over at her. “....am I supposed to know what that is?”

“Really rich colors, like emerald green and sapphire blue - named after different jewels.”

“Aha,” he remarked triumphantly. “See, I wasn’t expecting an answer like that.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“I’m fond of blue. And gray. Kind of boring compared to your favorite colors, but those are the colors I wear the most.” He took one hand off the wheel, and motioned to his gray t-shirt as proof of his statement.

“It’s not boring,” she assured him. “I don’t know why I expected you to know what jewel tones were. And I guess I made a good decision when I chose to wear blue today.”

“I guess you’re a mind reader.”

“Alright, so,” she started, clapping her hands together. “What is your favorite food?”

“Easy, pizza.”

“Mine is chocolate.”

“Does that count as a food?”

“I don’t see why not,” she shrugged. “I like chocolate everything. Chocolate bars, chocolate cake, hot chocolate. Ooh, and I’m definitely going to get some type of chocolate ice cream at Dairy Queen.”

“That’s why I asked if it counted as a food,” he laughed. “There are so many different chocolate things that it seems more like a flavor than a food.”

“Fine,” she groaned. “You win. Uhh...I’ll pick pizza, too, I guess. Or sandwiches. Or sushi - see, you should’ve just left it at chocolate. I love food too much.”

“You don’t have to listen to me. What do I know?”

“It’s fine, it’s not your fault that I like everything.”

“Do you have any foods that you dislike?”

“I’m not a fan of brussels sprouts,” she shrugged. “But I’m willing to try anything once.”

“Even something like escargot or sardines?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“How about liver?”

“Okay,” she answered, scrunching up her nose. “Probably not liver.”

“I figured, liver just seems gross. But, you’re definitely more adventurous with food than I am. I’m not picky, but I don’t think I’d be willing to try sardines or anything.”

“To each his own,” she responded, simply.

“Once we pass this light we’re going to be at Dairy Queen,” he pointed out. “How about instead of eating in the car, we drive over to the park we just passed? So we can stretch our legs for a bit?”

“What a great idea!” She exclaimed. “What are you going to get?”

“I have no idea. I haven’t been to a Dairy Queen in forever. Probably one of those things they turn upside down to show you how cold it is or something?”

“Blizzards!” She yelled. “I love those! I’m going to get one, too.”

“I feel like that’s the whole point of going,” he chuckled. “You can’t go there and not get a Blizzard. It’s like going to Burger King and then not getting a Whopper.”

“You make an excellent point,” she said, as the car pulled into the strip mall parking lot. The lot was mostly empty, save for a few cars, and so Kristoff was able to park right in front of the entrance.

“I guess we have to put the masks back on, right?” He asked, as he cut the engine and pulled his keys out of the ignition.

“Yeah,” she sighed, picking her mask up from where it rested and looping it over her ears. “I don’t mind wearing a mask, but I really can’t wait until we don’t have to wear them anymore.”

“We’ll get there, someday,” he stated, putting his own mask on, but for good measure, he added, “Hopefully.”

“I feel really awful for the people who have to wear these all day, everyday with no breaks. I’ve seen so many pictures online and I can’t even imagine what all of those essential workers are going through.”

“Tell me about it,” he remarked, reaching for the door handle and pulling it open. He motioned for her to go inside and then quickly followed behind her. The restaurant was completely deserted, with the exception of the two employees standing behind the counter.

“Can I help you?” One of the employees spoke up, as they approached; they kept a considerable distance in spite of the tape marks on the floor.

“Just a second,” Anna answered, squinting up at the menu. Her eyes darted around the illuminated sign for a moment before she looked over at Kristoff. “I know what I want, are you ready?”

“Yeah,” he responded, and they stepped up to the line.

“May I have a small Choco Brownie Extreme Blizzard?”

The cashier nodded and pushed a few buttons on the register before looking expectantly at Kristoff.

“Uh, may I please have a Royal Rocky Road Trip Blizzard? Also small.”

The cashier nodded once again before gruffly asking, “Is that it?”

“Yes,” Anna said, digging through her purse to find her wallet. The cashier read her the total, while the other employee began making the frozen concoctions.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to pay?”

“Don’t be silly!” She insisted, sticking her credit card into the chip reader. “You paid for dinner, I’m paying for dessert.”

The cashier muttered something under her breath, and Anna glanced up and was met with narrowed eyes. She pulled her card out, and as soon as the receipt printed, the cashier hastily thrust it at her before stepping away. She glanced back at Kristoff, who was reading a sign taped to the wall, and most likely hadn’t noticed the odd exchange.

A moment later, the other employee returned with a white paper bag. Anna took it, and thanked her before walking over to Kristoff.

“Ready?”

“Yup,” he answered. “Do you want me to carry that?”

“No, I got it.”

He reached out and held the door open for her again, and they stepped out into the hot, humid air.

“It kind of feels nice out there after sitting in the car for so long,” he remarked, as they climbed into the car. “You still wanna go to the park, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, simply, staring out the window as he backed out of the spot and drove away. Her mind was in another place; she was replaying the moment with the cashier over and over again.

“You know, I was thinking,” he started, glancing over at her. “What a crazy name Royal Rocky Road is. It’s a tongue twister - try saying that three times fast.”

She let out a small laugh in response, but continued to look at the passing cars and trees. The rest of the short drive was quiet, and they arrived at the park within a few minutes. Just like Dairy Queen, it was practically deserted, with the exception of one other car in the entire lot.

“Do you want to walk around or do you want me to pop open the trunk so we can sit outside but not have to worry about finding a bench?”

“We could just sit outside for a while,” she answered, finally looking over at him. She hadn’t even realized that she left her mask on until she saw that he had taken his off. She quickly reached back behind her ears to pull the loops free, and placed the mask on the center console.

She opened the door and stepped out of the SUV, clutching the bag in her hands. She walked around to the rear of the car, where Kristoff was opening the trunk. She placed the bag onto the flat surface and started to open it.

“Should we sanitize our hands again?”

“Oh. Yeah.” She dropped her hands away and walked back to the front of the car and retrieved her purse, before returning to him.

“Sorry, I wouldn’t have brought it up if I had realized your bag was in the front.”

“No, it’s fine, it just slipped my mind. Can’t be too safe, right?”

She dug through her purse in search of the tiny bottle, and when she found it, she squeezed a dollop into his waiting hands before taking some for herself and placing the bottle on the floor of the trunk, next to the bag.

“Thank you, again,” he said, as he rubbed his hands together. “I’ll have to get a couple of bottles to keep in the car. Normally they smell like alcohol, but yours smells really nice.”

“I got this one from Bath and Body Works - they have tons of different scents. You can keep it if you want, I have a bunch at home.”

“Thank you, but that’s okay. I’m sure stuff like that is in short supply right now, and I never really go anywhere.”

She nodded, deciding that she was going to leave it in his cup holder anyway; it would make her feel better knowing that he had some if he needed it. She reached back and opened the bag, taking out the two identical cups. The employee was kind enough to write the initials of the flavors they got, so they were easily distinguishable. She handed him his ice cream and spoon before taking her own.

“This is going to sound so ridiculous, but I wish they could’ve turned them upside down,” he remarked as he took the lid off of his cup. “Obviously they couldn’t, but it’s part of the experience. Or, it used to be.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, staring at the cup in her hands. The interaction with the cashier was still heavy on her mind; there was an insurmountable feeling of guilt that was bubbling up inside of her, threatening to spill over at the slightest provocation.

For a few moments, they quietly ate their ice cream, partly because it was sure to melt quickly in the blazing heat.

“Hey, Anna?” He asked, finally breaking the silence.

She blinked and looked up at him. “Hmm?”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No! Not at all! You’re great.”

“You’ve been awfully quiet since we left Dairy Queen, and if I said or did something -”

“No, you didn’t,” she cut him off mid-sentence. “I swear.”

“Is something bothering you?”

It seemed unavoidable now; she wished that she wasn’t so obvious with her emotions, but it was better to let it out than hold it in, right? “It’s just...that girl who helped us at Dairy Queen seemed upset or angry or something. She said something under her breath and gave me the dirtiest look and practically threw the receipt at me. I don’t know why, but I’m assuming because she’s working at an ice cream parlor, serving people like me, during a crisis.”

He looked slightly bewildered at her revelation. “You can’t make that assumption,” he assured her. “She could be angry for a million reasons.”

“I know, but that’s the assumption that my brain keeps going back to. In what world is ice cream essential?”

“It’s not, but you’re not the one making those calls.”

“It doesn’t help that she’s probably only making ten dollars an hour while everyone on unemployment is getting an extra six hundred dollars a week,” she pointed out, her eyebrows furrowing together.

“I agree, it’s not fair to anyone working right now. You didn’t implement that rule, though.”

“This whole situation isn’t fair. People had to cancel their weddings - that’s absolutely insane to me. Could you imagine spending months or years planning the happiest day of your life only for a virus to come and ruin it?”

He shook his head. “I can’t. But I guess if the love is there then the date doesn’t really matter? I don’t know.”

“Or what about the people who have kids? Could you imagine living with a kid, right now? I hated being home as a kid - I needed to go to school and see people, or go to my activities, or I would’ve gone crazy. How are people coping?”

“They have technology on their side, at least. We didn’t have tablets or anything when we were kids, you know?”

“I keep wondering - and this has nothing to do with you - if it’s bad or wrong to feel happy right now. Like, so much of the world is suffering, and I’m privileged enough to not be suffering, and feeling content with my own life makes me feel so…” she trailed off, her eyes downcast.

“Guilty?” He guessed.

“Yeah, exactly. Whatever this is could be a really good thing, and I want that - I want good things. We’re both healthy, but we’re breaking the rules to spend time together, and as great and wonderful as this has been, I can’t help but think about the people who haven’t been so lucky in this situation.”

“I don’t think you should think like that,” he said, simply. “I completely understand where you’re coming from, but you can’t blame yourself for what happens to other people. Some parts of life can’t be stopped or controlled no matter how hard we try.”

“I know,” she frowned.

“Besides, it isn’t like you’re one of those people who’s pretending that it’s over, or didn’t even exist to begin with. We’ve been following the rules - wearing masks, and cleaning our hands. There isn’t much else we can do; we can’t completely stop living. This pandemic is messing with everyone, even if we don’t realize it.”

“I guess it scares me more than I thought it did,” she admitted, biting her lip. “I have a lot of hope that this will all end, someday, but at the same time, I just don’t know.”

“I feel the same way.”

“And then, in all of this mess, I can’t help but think that we might not have met each other if it weren’t for this stupid pandemic - and despite my ranting, I’m happy that we did. I know we were joking about it before, but I keep thinking back to when I promised to shake your hand - or even when I tried to hug you, earlier. The only reason why I’m scared of doing those things is because of what’s happening,” she explained. “Everything feels wrong.”

“It may be socially unacceptable at the moment, but I’m personally okay with it because it’s such a small, calculated risk. We each live with one other person, and neither of us has even been in public in so long, you know?”

She didn’t answer. He seemed so rational and level-headed and calm, and quite frankly, she felt like a mess. There was a considerable amount of undeniable tension building up between the two of them, and although they were still standing side-by-side, she found herself staring at him. How easy it would be to wrap her arms around him, lean up, and press a kiss to his lips.

And even though he just expressly said that he was okay with being touched, she pushed the thought back down. It was absurd, almost - how natural it felt to be around someone she hardly knew, and yet be wracked with an asinine amount of guilt over the state of the world.

She shook her head, snapping herself out of the trance that she was in. “Sorry for rambling, I do that a lot. But I really appreciate that you were willing to listen to my rant and I hope you don’t think that I regret coming out with you, or something.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he looked down at her and gave her a small smile. “We’re all bound to...feel things after being trapped inside for two months.”

“Thanks for understanding,” she smiled back, appreciative of his sincerity. She quickly realized that continually pushing her thoughts away was certainly going to be a struggle, especially when he looked at her with such kindness. And for some reason she didn’t quite understand, she tore her focus away from him and placed it back on the cup in her hands.

#kristanna #kristanna fanfic #anna #kristoff bjorgman #frozen #frozen fic #it's garbage please don't read it #also you have no idea what i would do for a cookie dough blizzard rn #but alas i have no way to get dairy queen #my writing

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the-angry-pixie · 4 years

Text

Just a buttload of questions

I was tagged by the lovely @jessiohhh. Thank you chickadee. Took me forever to finish, but I got there. :D

Apparently this is to help you get to know your tumblr peeps better.

Gonna put most of these under a cut to save y’alls dashes.

1. Do you prefer writing with a black pen or blue pen? I guess if I had to choose it would be black. I don’t know why. A good black ballpoint is a lovely thing to have.

2. Would you prefer to live in the country or city? Depends what stage of my life I am in. I want to retire to the country but otherwise wanna live in the city.

3. If you could learn a new skill what would it be? To sew and make clothes. Gosh how different my life (and my wardrobe) would be if I could fix clothes, alter clothes, MAKE clothes. I want this skill so much!

4. Do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar? Don’t drink coffee. My tea has half a sugar. I worked my way all the way down from two sugars and I’m proud. :)

5. What was your favourite book as a child? My Dad used to read me Enid Blyton books when I was little. My favourite series was probably The Naughtiest Girl in the School series.

6. Do you prefer baths or showers? Definitely showers. I want to like baths, but whenever I take one I just feel sweaty and gross.

7. If you could be a mythical creature, which one would it be? A fairy. I’ve been obsessed with fairies since I was little.

8. Paper or electronic books? Probably electronic books. Easier to read and travel.

9. What is your favourite item of clothing? Gosh I don’t know. I literally sat here thinking about it for a couple of minutes and I can’t pick a favourite. I guess by default it falls to the item that I wear the MOST which would be my black combat boots. I wear them almost constantly.

10. Do you like your name or would you like to change it? Nah I tend to think Laura is a bit boring. I like my middle name Eileen though.

11. Who is a mentor to you? I’m kind of without one at the moment. Thats just the situation my current life is in right now.

12. Would you like to be famous and if so, what for? I would like to be “Author Famous”. Like have soooooo much money, and dedicated fans who like my work. But nobody recognises me in the street.

13. Are you a restless sleeper? Yes.

14. Do you consider yourself a romantic person? No, not in the conventional sense.

15. Which element best represents you? I wish I was earth but I would say probably water. Can be dangerous or calm. Flexible.

16. Who do you want to be closer to? Hmmm I feel bad that I’m not closer to my godson. But ya see, he’s an annoying lil shit. At least the stage he’s going through right now is really obnoxious. So spending time with him is just... not fun.

17. Do you miss someone at the moment? All my Canada friends.

18. Tell us about an early childhood memory. I’ve talked about early childhood memories on here a lot. I don’t want to repeat a story so lemme think a moment..... I remember being obsessed with pressing buttons when I was younger. I mean, most kids are. But you see my family lived on a dairy farm, and in the dairy where we milked the cows and stored the milk there was like... a WALL OF BUTTONS. And levers, and switches and other doo-dads. And like... I just wanted to press them all. But I wasn’t allowed. Obviously. Only at certain times during the day would my father call me over and lift me up so I could press one particular button. So yeah, I remember that. “Helping” my Dad in the dairy and being excited whenever I got to press the buttons. I never even got old enough to learn what the buttons did before we moved off our farm. :(

19. What is the strangest thing you have eaten? Hmmm, probably escargot. Snails. They were delicious.

20. What are you most thankful for? My newborn nephew.

21. Do you like spicy food? Yes. But spicy food does not like me.

22. Have you ever met someone famous? Yeah last year I was working on a feature film that had a Disney starlet working on it.

23. Do you keep a diary or journal? No way. Too hard. The only time I keep journals is for really important stuff that needs documentation. Like a medical journal when I’m sick. Or an anxiety journal when my GAD gets real bad.

24. Do you prefer to use a pen or a pencil? Pen I guess.

25. What is your star sign? Libra

26. Do you like your cereal soggy or crunchy? Bit of both. If you can get a mouthful with both then thats like... bliss.

27. What would you want your legacy to be? Do I need to want it to be anything? Cause I don’t. Like I don’t really care all that much. Maybe I will later in life.

28. Do you like reading, what was the last book you read? I dont think its accurate to say I like reading when I literally never do it anymore. Except for fanfic. I listen to audiobooks a bit. I just finished listening to The Stand by Stephen King.

29. How do you show someone you love them? Cuddles, I’m a cuddler.

30. Do you like ice in your drinks? Yes.

31. What are you afraid of? Wasted potential and never really getting where I want to get.

32. What is your favourite scent? That smell after a sun shower. Everything is wet and the sun is making it evaporate into the atmosphere. Love that smell.

33. Do you address older people by their name or surname? Not to be cheeky but like, context is a thing. Depends on the context.

34. If money was not a factor, how would you live your life? Not terribly different. I would still work. I guess I would travel a lot more. Since that is something that I would love to do but can’t because I don’t have the funds.

35. Do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean? Theyre both the same level of scary to me. Yes, I suffer from an irrational fear of pool sharks. So I guess I would go ocean because at least with the ocean you have the surf waves to make it fun.

36. What would you do if you found £50 on the ground? Look around to see if someone had dropped it, then if there was no one, pocket it.

37. Have you ever seen a shooting star? Yes. Last time I went camping there was a meteor shower. Wait, do they count as shooting stars? If not then no.

38. What is the one thing you would want to teach your children? Compassion.

39. If you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? I want to get a bunch of babies-breath flowers tattooed in the middle of my back. Its so specific because I plan my tattoos for a long time before I get them.

40. What can you hear now? The fish tank filter at my brothers house.

41. Where do you feel the safest? In my bedroom. In my bed. Laptop and phone and kitty nearby.

42. What is the one thing you want to overcome/conquer? My fear of relationships and emotional intimacy.

43. If you could travel back to any era, what would it be? I honestly don’t know. There are a lot of cool places (but like, usually only if youre in the upperclass). Ancient Greece maybe? Jane Austen era? Woodstock? I can’t decide.

44. What is your most used emoji? This lil dude. 🙃 I prefer it to the regular smiley face.

45. Describe yourself using one word. eclectic

46. What do you regret the most? Not having my mental health issues diagnosed at an earlier age.

47. Last movie you saw? In the cinemas? A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood back in January (actually got my wallet out and looked at my ticket stubs). Just in general - I watched The Florida Project last night with my bro.

48. Last tv show you watched? My Little Pony. Been watching episodes to help me fall asleep.

49. Invent a word and it’s meaning. Derp-a-derp. My bro and I have been saying that over the last few days when we can’t remember the word we are trying to say. Like “go get me the derp-a-derp” or “what was I saying about the derp-a-derp”. Its a good placeholder.

-----

Annnnnd imma taaaaaaag.... like I said, this is a long one so no pressure (it took me like a week to get through all the questions).... anyway I tag @hichie, @thepragmaticrebel, @heavensdick and @serendipitous-magic.

#meme things

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chateautirel · 5 years

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hi can i ummm,, get headcanons for ludwig. he’s my fav djndnfngmg

Ludwig deserves the world tbh 😔 he went through so much,,,,

He might be very old and wise, having lived all by his own for so long makes him crave attention and contact most of the time. He doesn't talk about it and stays silent though, because he thinks that wishing for contact is childish

But at the same time, refusing contact such as Yuna's hugs or Krau messing his hair feels equally childish. By this point he acts simply bothered without pushing them off, hoping nobody will realize he actually enioys the affection

Krau has noticed that, and will give him unnecessary affection and contact whenever he wants. He naturally is a kind of touchy guy, and if he might give more attention to Ludwig than anyone, nobody noticed yet

After the archdemon war, Ludwig planned on going back to the cemetary, because he didn't think he deserved to be praised for his work as a heir. Compared to Iseria, Ras, and Yuna, he felt like he hadn't done anything to help. It's eventually Krau who convinces him to stay at Taranor, for "administrative help since we lost our king", he says

Iseria and Ludwig actually go along very well. They have a silent kind of understanding that puts everyone around them at ease, or confused, because either in battle or in normal times, they understand each other with mere nods and smiles.

Every time Krau and Ludwig come to visit Tirel castle, everyone, literally everyone starts cooking. The blonde knight eats way too much, and the nocturnal has a sweet tooth

Yep, once again a thing he'd never admit because it's "childish" : Ludwig loves sweet treats and anything with sugar in it

Alexa makes sure to give him lots of pastries. He thanks her, and although she doesn't exactly understand how such a cute kid could be so old, she does her best to speak to him with respect to her elder.

During the first summer after the war, Ludwig pretty much felt like crying anytime he saw the sun. He says it's because his eyes aren't accomodated to all the light, but he's really just very, very emotional about it

He gets a sunburn on the very first day out and his white skin literally turns red; it's hilarious, he has no tolerance against the sun

He goes around to help the Phantom sometimes. It helps him get his mind off things, kicking ass always helps. Besides, he's taken a liking for Lots, who asks him many questions about the status of nocturnal and his civilisation in general.

Amarintha is glad she's adopted a new super powerful child, and even more when she sees how mad Krau gets anytime Ludwig choses to go with the Phantom instead of staying at Taranor

Lots is suprisingly taller than Ludwig. The latter always floats for only one reason : not allowing anyone to notice that fact. Bellona teased him about it once, and Sez "stated facts", so now he hates them.

Lydica, always pragmatic, said he should eat more dairy to get taller. She regrets it.

#epic seven #e7 #ludwig #flying hcs #!!!hell yeah baby!!!ludwig time!!!my son!!!#my first ask too thanksss :DD #avocadophobic

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themoonandotherslikeit · 5 years

Text

The Daughter of a Righteous Man- Chapter 29

*SEQUEL TO THE LOOK IN HER EYES*

After her husband is drug to Hell, Ava Winchester and her brother in law Sam try their best to do right by Dean and raise her daughter, only to find that good intentions aren’t always enough. Loving someone isnt always enough.

Chapter Twenty-Nine, The Man Who Will Save the World

Ella

About Sixteen Years Later

I sat on the ledge of a dairy billboard, drinking out of a paper bag, in typical small town fashion. "There she is," Claire said, her head poking up from the hole in the platform as she climbed up the latter.

"Here I am," I said sadly, taking another swig from my paper bag. I winced as the cheap vodka burned my throat.

"I don't imagine that's iced tea in there, babe?"

"Nope," I said, the p making a popping sound.

"Your dads worried about you. I can see why." She gestured to the bag. "You know the whole bad girl vibe is kinda my thing."

"You don't own it." I frowned, kicking my legs.

Below me, the town was setting up for their local Halloween celebration. Dad and I always loved it. Scary movies, costumes, candy. Not this year. This year everything seemed to be lacking.

"You okay?"

"No," I said with a sigh, letting the bottle rest between my legs. The Townees were stringing up lights, dropping off hay bales, and carving pumpkins. They looked like miniatures, living their small, easy lives as mine fell through my fingers. "He's gonna die, Claire. He's gonna just let himself be dropped in the fucking ocean. Where's the justice in that?"

She winced and lowered herself next to me. "There isn't any. Life isn't fair. We've always known that."

"But he's always been there. Consistently. And now, what? I'm supposed to just accept that he will be in a box for the rest of my life? The rest of eternity?"

"No," Claire said, lacing her fingers with mine. "You don't have to accept it, but if it's going to happen you shouldn't be wasting your time here. I'd give anything for some more time with my dad, and babe you'll really regret it if you stay up here when you could be with your dad."

She was right, shit. I knew she was. "You're too good to me."

"There's no other way to be with you,” Claire said simply, leaning in to kiss me.

I smiled against her soft embrace, against her watermelon lipgloss. My watermelon lipgloss. "You wearing my makeup?"

"It tastes like you." She smiled widely.

"You're so fucking cute," I said, lacing my fingers into her blonde curls.

"I know." She smirked and kissed me again.

The townees couldn't touch us up here. For a small town in Kansas I didn't get much repulsion from the locals for my extra curricular activities, as my home room teacher liked to describe it. Maybe they noticed the glock Dad had on him at all times. Maybe it was the fact that my home address was basically a fall out shelter. Nobody fucked with us, and I was fine with that.

"You and the boys going to the festival like old times?" Claire asked me.

"Maybe. We haven't really talked about it. Honestly, everything is all Michael all the time."

"You guys need a break. Maybe it'd be good to have some fun. Remember that?"

"Fun,” I said dreamily. "Yeah, you're probably right. Besides, Jack would love the Ferris wheel."

"He's a weird kid, but sweet, ya know, for the Antichrist."

"Claire," I warned. "Don't call him that. Any of us could go dark with what our pasts look like, and if anyone's going to go dark, it sure as shit isn't going to be that little blonde angel."

Claire grinned at me. "There's my girl." She took my chin between her fingers. "Don't let your fire go out, kid. I know things are tough, but you're a Winchester, and if I know anything about that then I know you can figure out anything. And if you can't, then that's what I'm here for."

"I love you,” I whispered, pressing my forehead to hers.

"I love you back."

Sam

Present Day

"The honeymoon suite," Ruby said, pushing through the hotel door. "Is there something you need to tell me, Sam?"

"Just trying to keep off Dean's radar," I said, popping my knuckles. "Now.. can we ... like lets not fuck around here."

"Hey, sweetness, relax,” she said, with an eyebrow raised. She walked to me. "Did you miss me?"

"We just... we need to kill Lilith. This is serious. She came for me once already, and I Wasn't strong enough. I can't make that mistake again," I told her intently.

I couldn't bring the words that I knew were there to my mouth. The ones that would make Dean do worse than lock me up. The ones that would make Ava glad that she didn't choose me. The ones that would make sure I wouldn't ever see my niece again.

I did miss her. I more than missed her. I missed her blood.

A chill ran down my spine as she ran her fingers along my neck. "You want a hit?"

"God, why do you have to call it that?"

"I'm just kidding, Sam. I'm sorry I was gone. I'm sorry Lilith almost got you. You're right, we won't make that mistake again." She tilted her head to the side and brought her knife out from her back pocket.

My mouth watered at the sight of her neck. I could recognize how fucking gross it was. How much I felt like a monster, but there was nothing like feeling it rolling through my veins, pumping and making me stronger. She pressed the blade into her skin with a satisfied sigh. The blood pooled at the wound and I closed my eyes, leaning in. My lips made contact with the pulse on her neck and the heat from her blood entered my mouth and rolled down my throat.

I grabbed the small of her back and pressed her to me. It was wrong. I knew it was wrong and even in that moment I couldn't remember my justification. I couldn't remember why I was doing it, all I knew is that I wanted more, and more than anything, I wanted her.

"Sam,” she murmured, reaching down and taking me in her hand. "I guess you did miss me after all."

I pulled my face away from her throat when the blood stopped flowing, and pressed my mouth to hers, her essence still fresh on my lips.

Dean

Present

"Are you ready?" Ava asked me, her hand on my shoulder. "We don't know what we're going to find behind that door.

"No," I said weakly. "I'm not. What if he's too far gone, Ave? What if he's already a monster?"

"He isn't. No matter what he's done, he isn't a monster. He's Sam."

"Fuck, I hope you're right." I leaned in and pressed an urgent kiss to her lips. She kissed me back, trying to let some good fortune flow from her to me. I needed all the strength I could get. Having her next to me helped. Nothing could've prepared me for what I was about to walk into.

"House keeping." Ava knocked a few times, using an accent I'd never heard before. I smiled a bit, if the circumstances were different I would file that away to use in a roleplay with her, but I was too damn distracted, and the pit in my stomach was growing.

Consuming the amount of blood it would take to kill Lilith would change your brother forever. Most likely, he would become the next creature that you would feel compelled to kill.

Cas' words rang in my head. I'd never forget the look in Sams eyes when I pulled back the lock. He was like an animal in a cage. I feared that Cas was wrong, that he was already that creature. That he wasn't my brother anymore.

Ava eyed me and used the keycard we swiped off the maids cart to push into the room. "Dean, don't," Ava said, seeing the scene before I could. She put out her hand, but I'd already seen. There was no stopping it.

Sammy was lounging in bed, the white sheets fucking covered in blood. Ruby laid in her own underwear, little gashes and bites all over her body. Sams mouth hung open, he looked the way I looked after a big cheese burger or a piece of pie. He looked full. He not only was fucking this demon, but he was drinking her blood and a lot of it.

Sam glanced up at the sound of Ava's voice and quickly wiped his mouth. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and slid back into his underwear. Ruby was up quickly too.

"Stay where you are, bitch. I'd like a word with you," I said, pulling out the demon knife, and pointing it right at Ruby. I wanted to throw up. The scene was grotesque. It was so much worse than I could've imagined.

"Ruby, go," Sam insisted, eyeing her. He had stepped in front of her. He was protecting her. Shielding her.

Ruby turned and slid out through the window, half naked and bloody into the parking lot. I glanced to Ava and she shook her head. A battle for another day. We were here for Sam.

"Sam, you don't have to do this," Ava said gently, taking a step toward him.

"You don't understand. I have to stop Lilith."

"We do understand,” she said, taking another step toward him.

My vision felt fuzzy as I tried to keep my anger in check.

"Dean we can't let the apocalypse happen. You know that. It's up to me. It's all up to me."

"So what?" I growled. "You're just going to be Hell's little alter boy? You're going to be the boy king of the apocalypse? How does that make any sense? Castiel said there's another way, man, and if you hadn't flown the coop you'd know that. But fuck, look at you! You're enjoying this!"

"No I'm not..." Sam said with a wince, pain evident on his face.

"Christ, man. You don't even realize how far you've fallen. What's wrong with you?"

"Dean," Ava warned. "Come on, Sam. He doesn't mean that."

"This has nothing to do with you, Ava," Sam said coldly, turning toward Ave. "You made your choice, so stop trying to pretend like you care who I sleep with."

"I do care, Sam! I care if you're putting yourself in danger."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's it." He tried to flip things on Ava. He was trying to piss me off. It was fucking working.

"Lay off her, man. You're right, this isn't about her. It's about you. I can't believe you're trusting a demon."

"And you're trusting an angel? They haven't exactly been trustworthy, Dean," Sam countered.

"You can't keep doing this! If you keep drinking this shit you're going to be gone. Cas said I can do it so you don't have to! No demon blood required! If you keep drinking this the Sam we know will be no more! Is that what you want?"

"Maybe it is! Maybe this is finally my chance to get out from under your thumb. Out from under Dads! I lost the girl, but at least I can save the fucking world. I'm sure you'd love to take that from me, too. Dean Winchester, everyone's favorite."

I was taken aback. Staring at my not-so-little brother. "Is that really what you think? You think I'm trying to do this for some kind of glory? You think I've got some kind of hero complex? No way! I'm doing this for you! I'm trying to protect you!"

"I'm an adult, Dean. I'm not your responsibility. Look right here." He pointed to Ava who stood with tears in her eyes watching us fight. Seeing Sam the way he was. "That's your responsibility. Let me take care of this. Stop putting your nose where it doesn't belong."

"Doesn't belong? I don't give a shit how old you are, you are my responsibility. You were six months old and Dad put you in my arms and you've been my responsibility ever since. Don't you dare throw that shit in my face. I've been everything to you."

"And now you have an actual kid to take care of," Sam said seriously. "And me?" He slid his jeans on and a shirt. "I have nothing else to lose"

He slipped on his shoes and grabbed the keys to whatever car he was driving. "Now get out of my way."

"You walk out that door, Sammy, and I swear I'm done. I won't look for you. I won't protect you. Nothing."

"Sorry you had to see me like this, Ave," Sam said to her before turning to me. "Bye, Dean,” he whispered before pushing past us and out the door.

Ava

The ride back to Bobby's was the quietest Dean had ever been. There was profound loss on his face, his forehead wrinkled and his mouth in a defined line.

"We will get him back, Dean," I whispered, touching his thigh.

He winced against my touch and shook his head. "Nope. I wasn't lying, Ave. I'm done. I give him his ultimatum and he chose. He walked out that door."

"Dean," I said gently.

He shook his head. "Don't Dean me. This is the end of the discussion, Ava. I don't want to hear you talk about him again. Not while we need to figure out this apocalypse. I know he thinks he can fix it, but it's up to me. He's off the fucking rails. I don't trust him as far as I can toss his giant ass." Dean squeezed the steering wheel, his knuckles white. His jaw was tight and I swore I saw him grinding his teeth as he laser focused on the road in front of him. "The angels are gonna call, and I'm gonna stop Lilith, and I guess I'm going to do it without my brother."

I couldn't blame him. That wasn't the Sam we knew. He was something else all together. His voice echoed in my ears, burning holes in my soul. He said he had nothing left. My best friend, the boy who saved me... the boy who held me when I delivered my baby was gone. He melted before me into something unrecognizable. My heart hurt so fucking bad.

On our way back. I texted Lacey. Thanks again.

Buzz. Ain't no thing, chicken wing.

Buzz. Figure out how to save the world?

Not quite, I typed sadly.

Buzz. It's okay! We believe in you!

She said, sending a selfie with her holding little Nel up. Her fist was in her mouth, but she was smiling.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Dean asked, eyeing me.

I didn't realize I was crying until my screen on my phone was blurry.

I showed him the photo. "She's so beautiful, Dean. I hate what.. um.. he who shall not be named said, but he's right. She's our responsibility. We should be there for her."

Dean smiled weakly and nodded. "Yeah. She is. You both are my responsibility, and I promise I am doing right by you. Nel can't live if there's no world to stand on. It may seem like I'm being reckless, but I promise Ave I'm doing this for her. I'm saving the world so she can have a world to grow up in."

"What if something happens to you?" I asked quietly, pain radiating through me. For the first time in a long time I was asking the questions that I needed to ask, no matter what the answer was.

"Then she will have you. It's never been me. I was never supposed to be a father. Never supposed to be a husband... you fave me that gift. Now let me give you one. Let me give you a safe world to raise our daughter in. It's the least I can do."

—————

Chapter Thirty, The Time Has Come for Letting go

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kokorobloom · 6 years

Text

GOT7 Fan-fic. Rec.

So, since I’ve read like 80% of fics in the Got7 fandom, I though I’d do a fic rec, to help you (potential reader) and so that I finally can have a list of my favorite fics. These are not all the fics I’ve read, just the first ones that came to my mind. Also most of it consist of JJP, but I will add more pairings as I go! This list is not yet complete, I’m working on completing it, it just takes a lot of time to search for these fics. None of these fics are mine, all credits go to the amazing authors! The only things that are mine, are the little reviews after each fic! Good read! :)

M = Mature / Explicit W = Trigger Warning ♡ = fave

!still under editing!

Jaebum / Jinyoung

* M - Anteroom by minhyukie

Summary: How do you act around your ex with your child in the other room? It’s been almost a year and a half, and Jinyoung has yet to figure it out.

Review: soooo goood!! It’s extremely angsty but its so worth it! The growth of the character is portrayed really well, the side characters are awesome and such an important part of everything, I loved it so much! Also kid!yugyeom is always a plus! ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

*M - Jaebum’s Color Theory by pepijr

Summary: Jinyoung is a film studies professor trying to get promoted and Jaebum does his best to help.

Review: Alright, in this one Jaebum is the cutest but dumbest human being. Like he’s really dense but it’s so on point and it’s so lovable it’s unreal. Everything is perfect about this one.♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

*M - Meet The Parents by pepijr

Summary: Jinyoung loves Jaebum, and Jaebum loves him back, but a single note makes him question everything.

Review: It’s a continuation of Jaebum’s Color Theory, thank god the author has decided to bless us with more of this universe! It’s still ongoing but it’s just as good as the first one if not better! ♡♡♡♡♡♡

*M - The Park Family Recipe by pepijr

Summary: Jaebum and Jinyoung meet after six years with a lot more baggage than they remember.

Review: Another single dad!Jinyoung au (well kinda, Hyunjin is his little brother but he takes care of him). Jinyoung has a lot of problems but orphan!Jaebum is ready to fight for the family he choose.

*M - bdsm quiz by okjb

Summary: jjp take a bdsm quiz and come to some interesting self-discoveries

Review: this one is pure smut lol

*M - Nora’s Dairies by pepijr

Summary: In which Nora makes sure that Jinyoung and Jaebum meet in every life.

Review: ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

*M - Take All Of Me by fishcake

Summary: It has bothered Jaebum since the day he could comprehend it.

Review: We need more omega!Jaebum in our life. ♡♡

* M - bloom by subsequence

Summary: Jaebum may have learned to accept his role as future king, but accepting this new role — the thought makes him sick to his stomach.If he could have, Jaebum would have chosen any other way to present as an omega.(Or: Omegaverse Arranged Marriage AU featuring Princes!JJP and a cast of loudmouth extras.)

Review: So good???? Like this one is right up my ally, I just fucking love everything about this one. Seriously, do yourself a favor and read it. ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - Playboy by comingbacktoyou

Summary: Jaebum's intentions are obvious. Jinyoung doesn't get the hint.

Review: HOLY HOLY OH MY. Jaebum is a producer who's desperate for dick, Jinyoung is a new artist acting all prude bUT JUST WAIT FOR IT. Cute Markson in the bg. ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - The Tiger and the Duke by foxxing

Summary: Im Jaebum is the richest man in the country under forty, content to mess around and skirt the headlines as a cutthroat businessman and casual playboy. Park Jinyoung is a graduated English Literature major, content with (in Jackson's words) his boring life working at a restaurant and writing poetry. When their worlds collide over a spilled cup of coffee, Jinyoung learns there's a lot more to life than the secrets of his past and the safety of library books.

Review: This one is literally a JJP classic. Long af but sooo worth the read. The characters really just grow on you, even if they are dumb af sometimes :( also GREAT SMUT

* M - Wilder by Sugarbowl

Summary: Newly graduated, Jinyoung is determined to try new things. New parties, new boys, and when Mark asks for a favor, even volunteering as a counselor at summer camp. But new experiences can get complicated, and he quickly finds himself a little out of his depth.

Review: Another classic. I live for the sex scene in at the end. Jaebum is confused and doesn't know how to stand up for himself and Jinyoung is jealous af but also kind of insecure. But they make a great pair together :'). ALSO great smut (!), awesome Markson and cute af Yugbam plus a bunch of great Kpop cross overs (!!).

* M - Charade by Sugarbowl

Summary: Jaebum and Jinyoung walk parallel paths in many ways, but Jaebum isn't interested in their intersection. Jaebum struggles to support his young son on his own, while everything seems to come easy for wealthy, charming Jinyoung. But when they're forced to partner for a project, Jaebum finds himself a bit more willing, and much more in need.

Review: Another great fic by Sugarbowl. It's still ongoing but this fic is so beautiful. Both Jaebum's and Jinyoung's feelings are portrayed extremely well and the way they come together is beautiful. Plus kid!Yugyeom is adorable. ♡♡

* M - Citation by KingJackson

Summary: When the one book he needs for an important term paper has to remain in the campus library, Jinyoung catches the eye of Jaebum, a library assistant.

Review: Another classic. Jinyoung is dumb af in this fic, I literally was on the verge of screaming while reading this. But luckily Jaebum is soft af, so everything works out in the end :DD Great smut is always a plus! ♡

* M - Flux by foxxing

Summary: Jinyoung doesn't love him back.

an AU where jaebum and jinyoung have been best friends for their entire lives, and where jaebum has always been irrevocably in love with him but somehow, jinyoung just doesn't seem to get it.

Review: Another fic that makes me scream. LIKE SERIOUSlY WTF. My heart ached so much during this fic :( But as always everything works out but man, this was an emotional ride for me. ♡

* M - Compas Calling by Sugarbowl

Summary: Prince Jinyoung is destined for a lifetime of luxury, until he's shoved in a trunk and accidentally abducted. Im Jaebum clawed his way out of poverty to captain a pirate ship and... not much else, actually. Jinyoung could be his first real treasure, if Jaebum could just figure out how holding someone for ransom actually works.

Review: BEST FUCKING FIC OF THE CENTURY DO YOU HEAR ME I'VE RE-READ THIS ONE SO MANY TIMES IT'S THE BEST OMG ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - A certain Romance by foxxing

Summary: By day, he's a top-rated babysitter. By weekends he's an x-rated escort. These things are generally kept separate, until the day his weekend regular gets his phone number by recommendation and calls for an emergency babysitter. The problem is that Jaebum doesn't know that Junior the escort is also Jinyoung the babysitter.

In which Jaebum and Jinyoung know each other in the biblical sense but maybe want to get to know each other, too.

Review: okay this fic is like really hot and kid!yugyeom is back at it with being adorable :')♡♡

* Unless by gotchick

Summary: jaebum had always been mark's best friend, while jinyoung was mark's kid brother. (high school au)

Review: Really cute au, the progress of growing up is portrayed well and realistically. (Spoiler! Honestly I live for the scene where JB throws a pillow on Jinyoung's surprise boner to save him :'DD )

* M - Wildcat by foxxing

Summary: No one really talks about it, but it's a well known secret that Jaebum’s real vice is racing cars. Dangerous and incredibly illegal, street racing is the one thing Jaebum is good at (besides being the nation’s first pain in the ass) and has never been caught for. How he does it, nobody knows: Jaebum's been caught for drugs, for stealing, for fighting, but it seems like the one thing the police can never pin him down for is the one thing he loves the most.

He represents everything that Jinyoung can't stand, and Jinyoung hates him.

Review: this is some A+++++ smut right here. ♡

* W - the grandfather paradox by symmetrophobic

Summary: Jaebum locks himself in a cyclic normalcy of work, home, life, and the two people he now loves most in the world- his husband Jinyoung and six-year-old son Yugyeom. So when a mysterious teenager shows up in his life and messes all that up, to say that he's just a little displeased by the change would be an understatement. But Jaebum soon discovers there's more to this quiet, truthful boy than meets the eye, and knows that he has just about four days to find out why.

Review: Amazing fic, but my heart hurts so bad :(((((((((

* M - Prove it by Got7hearts

Summary: For as long as he can remember Jaebum has always been there, protecting him and taking care of him like the big brother he never had so what happens when Jaebum is pronounced an alpha and Jinyoung an omega and the air between the two suddenly shifts.

Review: Great A/B/O fic and hot af smut!

* Of duchebags and pretty boys by schoetheisrealaf

Summary: "Dear Dog Biscuit, Since you seem unable to understand the sign that clearly indicates that this parking space is to be exclusively used by the staff of this facility, I’ll kindly explain it to you again: Until you’re an employee of the state who works his ass off for society only to get shit wages and the worst working hours you CAN’T USE THIS PARKING LOT, SO FUCK OFF! Apart from that, have a nice day. PS.: I hope you don’t have sex for a year. :)"

You steal my parking spot all the time and I was just heading out to leave a strongly worded note under your windshield wiper but oh no you're hot AU Starring Jinyoung the kindergarten teacher and Jaebum the (arrogant yet dorky) business man

Review: I JUST LOVE THIS FIC IT'S SO CUTE OK?!?♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - lagoon by gotchick

Summary: in elegant terms, jaebum is jinyoung's sponsor. in inelegant terms, he's jinyoung's sugar daddy.

* M - Walls of Glass by hakka is_shadow, katamari

Summary: The city's social structure is firm and unyielding--Alphas at the top, Betas in the middle, and Omegas as pliant, broken servants to the Alphas. When Im Jaebum, the heir of an old Alpha family suddenly finds his social position flipped, he's thrown into a world of intrigue, deceit, and as the very unwilling servant to an even more unwilling Park Jinyoung.

Review: OK SO THIS IS LIKE ONE OF THE BEST WRITTEN FIC IN THIS FANDOM. LIKE THE UNIVERSE IS SO WELL MADE AND THE PROGRESS OF JJP RELATIONSHIP MAKES MY HEART SWELL UP WITH LOVE ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* Come Soflty (to Me) by Sugarbowl

Summary: Jinyoung is new in town, and Jaebum is trouble. 50's AU

* M - Spoor by maledict

Summary: It wasn’t odd, to present so late, but that wasn’t the problem.

Review: I don't like to read canon fics, but this one was a great one.

* an apple a day by moonlikeyou

Summary: Doctor Park Jinyoung, star of Seoul Medical Centre's paediatric department, is used to being treated by nothing less than starry-eyed adoration and respect. So, its no surprise that when Im Jaebum, a surgeon with maddeningly pretty twin moles, kicks him out of "his" operating room, Jinyoung gets a little mad.

Okay, maybe more than a little mad. But it's all Im Jaebum's fault anyway.

Review: DOCTOR!AU. CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - Taint Me by Got7hearts

Summary: Jinyoung is seventeen when he falls in love with Jaebum, who is eight years older than him.

Review: Jaebum with piercing. That's it. ♡♡

*M - This Christmas (I'll give you my heart) by schoetheisrealaf

Summary: Jaebum and Jinyoung have a fight at the supermarket in the morning. Jaebum and Jinyoung find out they're arranged to be married in the evening. Jaebum and Jinyoung fall in love, but only in time.

Shouting match over the last Christmas goose at the grocery store AU

Review: This is super cute. Best while listening to Confession. :'3

* M - Smoke and Mirrors by hakkais_shadow

Summary: This was not the birthday present that Im Jaebum was expecting...

Review: Mafia au and hot af smut... ♡♡

* M - I Don't Fucking Care (At All) by wonwoozi

Summary: “Your boyfriend’s hot when he plays.” Jackson mumbles to him as he slips an arm behind Jinyoung, hand finding purchase on the edge of the wooden bartop, his fingers gripping the ribbed edge.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Jinyoung replies instinctively and gives Jackson a routine jab to the ribs. “And that’s my line, by the way.” He adds as his eyes trail over to Mark, sat behind the drumkit with his face trained into a concentrated smirk, smashing every beat perfectly, hair positively dripping with sweat.

“Not my boyfriend either.”

* M - keep me warm by subsequence

Summary: The problem is that Jaebum...isn't a cat. At least, not entirely. God, sometimes Jinyoung wishes it were that easy, wishes he could just leave out a bowl of food and water and maybe get his laptop keyboard used as a napping spot when he was supposed to be working and have a simple owner-pet relationship.Instead, Jinyoung has a romantic entanglement bordering on codependency and the worst case of blue balls he’s ever had.And Mark had said that getting a cat hybrid would be good for his blood pressure. What a joke.

Review: Another amazing work from subsequence. Every time I read the part where Jaebum swats at Jinyoung’s dick, I just can't stop laughing. :’DD♡♡♡♡

*M - Human Nature by cutiepiemarkeu

Summary: Jaebum accidentally summons an incubus and his boyfriend Jinyoung walks in on the two of them almost getting their freak on. Arguments ensue and JJProject are stuck with an incubus they can’t get rid of - but how do they deal with his attractiveness and the overwhelming urge to have sex with him?

Review: This is a 3-some featuring Mark. But the smut is so good, honestly. Really worth the read. ♡♡♡♡♡

Mark / Jackson

* The Prince Who Never Laughed by seitsemannen

Summary: Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, lived a beautiful and kind prince named Mark, who after his mother's loss never laughed again. That was until he met the brightly smiling apprentice of a glassblower, Jackson Wang.

Review: Such a great and quality fic! Honestly, this was such a good read I can only recommend it! ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* Twist by KingJackson

Summary: Mark knows Jinyoung. Jinyoung knows Jackson. Jackson hooks up with Jinyoung who also hooks up with Mark. Mark goes to hook up with Jinyoung and ends up also sleeping with Jackson. Jackson sometimes hooks up with Jaebum, but that isn’t important right now.

And they say romance is dead.

Review: All right so this fic is one hell of a mess, but a mess sent straight from heaven! The main pairing is Markson and Markjin (it's complicated) but there's end game Markson and JJP, plus Jackson is an angel sent from heaven in this one! Don't let the pairing discourage from reading this gem! ♡

* Private Show by Got7hearts

Summary: Mark likes to put on a show and Jackson loves to watch until he's been caught.

Review: A+ smut.

* M - lapis lazuli by gotchick

Summary: in which mark is a businessman and jackson is a fencer.

Review: great fic with rich kinda arrogant but kinda insecure mark plus lots of smut!

* M - Playhouse by seitsemannen

Summary: All sorts of rumours surround the handsome Wang heir and the good-looking servants of his household, but no one seemed to know for sure, as no matter the price, the members were not willing to give the secrets of their Master up.

Mark doesn't care for celebrities or rumours, except the one that says the Wang household pays several times more than the usual servant's salary, so when there's a job opening at the House, he goes for it. In the days and weeks spent at the House, Mark gets to know the members and finds out what of the ludicrous rumours were true and what weren’t. What he did not know to expect, however, is how good friends he would become with the other members of the House, and what’s worse, that he would fall in love with Jackson Wang.

Review: THE BEST. Multiple pairing but mostly Markson. Still ongoing but sooooo worth the read. also, long af. ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* never felt clean, your timing was perfect by jflawless

Summary: i. jackson is five years old when he’s convinced he’s discovered the secret to love. it’s not much of a secret, he thinks, watching his parents exchange blatant “i love you”s only to quietly prove it later in subtle actions.

you like someone. you’re nice to them. they like you too. it’s the simplest thing he’ll ever do, he thinks, falling in love. a lot easier than tying his shoes or adding double digits or reading without his mom there to pronounce the really long words.

Jaebum / Jackson

* Just Smile Again by riots

Summary: Jackson's been lowkey nursing this crush for years, but he never meant for Jaebum to ever find out. Mark and Jinyoung have other ideas. Also, they're terrible friends.

* Face by jibootyjimin

Summary: @defsoul has started following @jiaerwang

(or an Instagram au in which famous Chinese rapper Jackson Wang acts like a complete fanboy over idol singer Im Jaebum)

Review: ♡♡

*Secret Little Rendezvous by seikou

Summary: "It's all fun and games until your favorite idol notices you."

(or: Im Jaebum is an Idol and Jackson Wang is a Fanboy.)

Review: ♡♡

* Fluffy Tales by wildandsexy

Summary: Jackson Wang’s Definitive List of Things Im Jaebum, Roommate, Cat Hybrid and Grump Extraordinaire Does and Does Not Like:

DOES LIKE: • Hoodies • The one table on the library’s second floor by the big window (direct sunlight all morning) (it’s basically heaven on Earth) • Nap time (usually at 11am) (and 12pm) (and 1pm) (and 2pm) (and 3pm)…

DOES NOT LIKE: • Waking up • Being awake in general • Not being asleep • Jackson Wang

Jackson Wang's new roommate doesn't even hate him. He 'nothings' him. And that's just something that Jackson can't live with.

Review: SO GOOD SO CUTE JAEBOM IS ADORABLE BUT GRUMPY AND JACKSON IS TRYING HIS BEST ♡♡♡♡♡♡

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thatonecurlygirl · 6 years

Text

Snowball Tension

Steve x Sinclair!Reader

Word count: 1560

Your house was jam-packed with the ‘party’ as the kids like to call it. You volunteered to host the annual friends-mas. So here you all are, sitting in your living room the night after Christmas as you are exchanging gifts and eating junk.

“Steve this one if from me.” You hand the bag to Steve who is sitting to your left and he slowly opens it, smiling as he sees it’s a new letter jacket.

“You got me a jacket?” He asks softly as he stands up to try it on.

“Yeah, I figured since the last one got destroyed when you were fighting the Demogorgon, you needed a new one.” You smile.

“Thanks this is great and it fits perfectly.” He adjusts the collar and sits back down.

“Thank God, it took me forever to find the right one.” You laugh diverting your attention around the room to see Dustin and Mike aren’t in the room.

“(y/n) come here!” You hear Mike call from the kitchen, followed by “You too Steve.”

You and Steve look at each other with questioning looks but both stand up and walk to the kitchen. You just short of the entryway and spot a mistletoe hanging there. You place your hands on your hips and nudge Steve as he walks up beside you, his eyes glancing up at the mistletoe before reaching up and pulling it down.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks

“Trying to hook you up.” Dustin sighs, obviously irritated. “I mean it’s kind of obvious what we are doing.”

You run your hands over your face with a sigh “Deal with your kids Steve.” You groan and walk back into the living room, grabbing a cooking on the way and sitting down on the couch wrapped up in your new blanket.

Steve and the boys walk back in shortly after, somber looks on each one of their faces. You would be lying if you didn’t say you felt the same way when Steve sat on the opposite side of the couch instead of beside you like before. You stretch your leg and gently kick your foot into his abdomen, giving him a questioning look and he just shakes his head looking away from you. You pull your legs back to your chest and turn back to the movie.

Halfway through the second movie, there are three loud raps at the door and Max groans, gathering her stuff. Standing up along with her, you walk to the kitchen and grab the tin of extra Christmas cookies you made. You walk to the door and open it up to see Billy standing there with that smirk of his and a single rose.

“Merry Christmas, Princess.” He hands the rose to you and you hand him the cookies.

“I made too many cookies.” You say very simply.

“These aren’t the type of cookies I asked Santa for.” He glances down at your crotch and slowly backs up your body. “But I guess they’ll do… for now.” He winks and you close the door in his face.

You toss the rose into a random pile of wrapping paper and turn to see Steve with an irritated look on his face. He stands up, hitting Dustin in the back of the head and motioning toward the door as he gathers up the gifts.

“We are going to head out,” Steve says not even looking up at anyone.

“Yeah us too. Come on Mike, Will.” Nancy says as she and Jonathan stand up as well. “Thanks (y/n). Tonight was great.”

“Oh no problem, drive safe.” You say as they walk out the door, waving goodbye.

“Steve!” You call out, stepping out on your front porch in only shorts, t-shirt, and socks.

“(y/n), what are you doing out here like that? It’s cold.” He says concerned.

“What’s wrong?” You ask, ignoring his question. “You’ve pretty much ignored me this whole time.

“I wasn’t ignoring you.” He denies and you search his eyes for a few seconds before stepping back into the house and closing the door to separate you and Steve.

You and Steve pretty much pulled away from each other after that night. You two no longer hung out as much and never were you two alone together. He would occasionally exchange a few words with you in passing, but nothing really more than that. It was nice seeing that although he didn’t talk much with anyone else, he was still an active part of the kids’ life. You love seeing him interact with the kids.

“Okay, you look great Lucas. Go knock ‘em dead.” You smile and he nods before walking in the door and you look to see Dustin getting out of Steve’s car. “Looking smooth, Henderson!” You shout and he turns to give you a smile as he walks through the school doors.

“Man, I remember going to these years ago. I loved the snowball, what about you?” Steve asks, speaking more to me right now than he has in the past month.

“I wouldn’t know.” You say quietly.

“I know for a fact that isn’t true. I asked you in seventh grade.” His smile fades to see how unamused you are.

“Yeah, you are right but you ditched me for Jennifer Claus. You had your priorities and I had myself.” You lean against your car, staring at the middle school doors.

“Hey, you make it seem like you weren’t a priority for me. You’ve always meant the world to me, we were best friends.” He defends himself, looking hurt.

“Yeah Steve we were but that was before you became ‘King of Hawkins’. Do you not remember the last thing you said to me was ‘Sorry (y/n) maybe next year, this is important.’ That was four years ago Steve and you didn’t say another word to me for four years. You started dating my best friend Nancy and realized I was alive and breathing. Then we hit the same freaking cycle, yet again.” You shake your head, not wanting to do this anymore as you turn around and walk around the back of the car to get to your driver's seat.

“(y/n).” Steve says quietly, gently grabbing your arm and turning you around, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I hurt you.” His face sincere and his voice small.

“The thing is I don’t want your sorries, Steve. I was in love with you and you broke my heart. It wasn’t that you slept with anyone or even dated people. It was the fact that you treated me as if I didn’t even exist.” Steve stops you from saying anything else by gently pressing his lips to yours. Your hands press against his chest as you push him away

“I can’t do this Steve, whatever this… is” you point between yourself and him. “I think it’s best to just go back to pretending like I don’t exist. That way, nobody gets hurt. I mean we’ve proven that obviously, not even a friendship between us can work.” You get in the car and close the door hard, starting up the engine and driving off.

There you are, sitting in the parking lot of Dairy Queen drinking a large chocolate milkshake. Normally you aren’t an emotional eater, especially a cold shake in the middle of winter, but your guilty pleasure when you are upset is chocolate shakes. The way the chocolate coats your throat distracts from how tight and constricted your airway feels when trying not to cry.

“How can Steve be so absent-minded? Maybe, it’s me. Maybe I’m just over-reacting and took it too far. Maybe I didn’t, maybe I was justified in my actions and words. Maybe I don’t know what the hell I’m doing or feeling.” You quietly talk to yourself between sips of the chilly drink. Looking at the clock on the dash you turn the car back on and head back to the school to get Max and Lucas, to take them home.

“Hey, kiddos how’d it go?” You ask as the two climb into the back seat, curious looks on their faces.

“Do you know what’s wrong with Steve?” Lucas asks, looking back through the rearview mirror.

“I don’t know and honestly don’t care. How was the dance?” You question the kids to get their attention back on you.

“It was…good,” Max replies and you look in the rearview mirror to catch her blushing and you look over at your little brother to see him smiling and looking down at his shoes.

“Thank God, it took you two long enough.” You laugh as you make your way down the street.

When you pull up to the house Billy is sitting out on the steps, smoking a cigarette. He stands up and makes his way to your door as Max slides out of the backseat. Billy just nods at you as Max closes the door and they both make their way in the door. You pull out of the drive and turn around to make your way to drop Lucas off at home.

“Did something happen between you and Steve?” Lucas asks looking up at the milkshake, knowing you only get a large size when you’re upset about something.

“We barely even talk. What could possibly happen between Steve and me?”

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #sinclair!reader #lucas sinclair #stranger things imagine #stranger things #harrington #st #angst #billy hargrove

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mikegunnill · 4 years

Text

Piano Man revisited - 1st June 2020

Piano Man & the Kent Messenger.

******************************************

Where is the mystery 'Piano Man' of Sheppey now?

It is one of Kent's strangest mysteries. And 15 years on, it is still not known for sure how a young man from Bavaria ended up wet and lost on a beach on the Isle of Sheppey.

It was shortly before midnight when bemused police officers found him dripping wet and peering into McDonald's in Sheerness.

He was wearing a smart, dark suit but with no identification. Even the labels had been removed.

It looked like he had washed ashore at The Leas, Minster. Concerned onlookers spotted him near an abandoned boat and called police.

Officers eventually found wandering in town and were even more puzzled to discover he could not, or would not talk.

With little other options, they dried him, as best they could, and took him by patrol car to Medway Maritime Hospital's accident and emergency department at Gillingham.

After doctors gave him a clean bill of health, the mystery man was handed into the care of social worker Michael Camp. And so began a four-month saga as the world's media struggled to solve the secret identity of the stranger who became known as 'Piano Man'.

Left alone with a sketch pad to write down his name, he drew a picture of a grand piano instead.

Puzzled, Mr Camp took his new charge to the hospital's chapel where he was amazed by an instant transformation. As he sat at the keys of a piano, the stranger became calm and relaxed for the first time.

He could even play surprisingly well and was heard reciting sections from Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky and what appeared to be his own compositions.

After three weeks without any sign of recovery, a desperate Mr Camp turned to the Daily Mail to help launch a public appeal for information. Freelance photojournalist Mike Gunnill from nearby Upchurch was despatched to take exclusive pictures.

The former Kent Evening Post photographer, who went on to work for television company TVS and then The Sun and is now part of Bygone Kent magazine, recalled: "It was a Friday afternoon and I was looking forward to the weekend when I took a call from the picture desk.

"They said it probably wasn't much of a story but a man had been washed up on a beach and had lost his memory. Could I go and check it out?"

So, on May 6, 2005, Mike turned up at the hospital.

The social worker had been given permission to help get a photo but the mystery man would scream whenever he saw a new face. So the pair hatched a plot.

The photographer hid in bushes with his Nikon F3 film camera and 300mm lens and half an hour later Mr Camp led his charge through the hospital's grounds for a walk.

Mike, said: "I only managed to fire off five shots before the man spotted me and became distressed, covered his face with his plastic music folder and started making strange noises."

But those were the only five shots ever taken of the man. Mike said: "Even then, I wasn't sure I had what we needed."

He drove home and spent an agonising hour in his darkroom processing the film to see the results.

Of the five shots, two were no good. The others captured a frail, lightly-bearded figure with spikey blond hair, wearing his by now dried-out suit and white shirt and with every possible button done up.

Mike emailed them to the Mail's picture desk in London and explained that the man wasn't talking but loved playing the piano.

"Like a piano man?" replied a weary voice at the other end of the phone.

Three weeks passed but still the photos had not been used.

Then a concerned Mike received a call saying the executives weren't going to use his pictures because they believed the man was an asylum-seeker and it was an elaborate hoax. But Mike was welcome to sell the pictures to anyone else.

The Mail was not alone. The manager of a pub near where he was found maintained the stranger was "just another illegal immigrant" who had either jumped ship or been pushed overboard by people-smugglers as coastguards closed in.

Instead, it was down to the Mail on Sunday to break the news on May 15. Mike's front page photo unleashed a worldwide media storm as news organisations fought to be the first to find out who the mystery man was.

Only later would he be unmasked as 20-year-old German Andreas Grassl.

Mike recalled: "My phone started ringing at 6am the next morning with requests from all the other nationals to use my photographs it and didn't stop until midnight.

"The following day there were calls from the foreign media. One magazine in Japan even tried to make me to say the man was an alien from outer space!"

Mike was also accused of taking the photos illegally until it was pointed out they had been with permission. Sale of the photos netted him an estimated £35,000. They are still used in psychology text books.

Patrick White, a writer and broadcaster who teaches at King’s College London and has spent much time on the Island researching the mystery, recalled: "It was on April 7, 2005, that a young blond-haired man wearing a dark suit and white shirt was found wandering, dripping wet and distressed, near a beach on Sheppey.

"The police who picked him up couldn’t get a word out of him, so they took him to the Medway Maritime Hospital on the mainland where he was kept for a while and eventually sectioned for his own safety.

"He refused to speak and became highly agitated when approached. He had no identification on him and all the labels had been cut from his clothes.

"The clinicians made no progress with their nameless patient until, on being given some paper and pencils, he made a drawing of a grand piano.

"Taken to the piano in the hospital chapel, he sat down and played, much to the amazement of his carers, who recognised snatches of Swan Lake in his performance.

"Over the following days they encouraged him to play more, presenting him with sheet music of Lennon and McCartney tunes and admiring the ease with which he played them at sight.

"They decided this troubled young man might actually be the real thing: a brilliant but tortured artistic genius who must have suffered some sort of nervous breakdown after a disastrous performance and not even had time to change out of his concert clothes before stepping onto the boat from which he would leap, distraught, as it approached the Thames estuary and end up on Sheppey.

'Really bizarre'

"It was thought he was probably British and that there might be an orchestra or music academy somewhere missing a pianist."

Interpreters were unable to discover his origin and orchestras around Europe were contacted in a bid to trace his identity.

After the appeal for help, more than 800 calls swamped the National Missing Person’s Helpline. Speculation was intense as the story about a person, apparently risen from the sea, was taken up almost instantly all over the world.

Journalists and television crews from far-flung places descended on Sheppey.

"This is really bizarre," muttered a reporter from the Island's local newspaper the Sheerness Times Guardian as he pointed out a Tokyo television crew to a French journalist.

Meanwhile, the man was still playing the piano

Canon Alan Amos, the hospital chaplain, said at the time: "He likes to play what I would call mood music. Playing seems to be the only way he can control his nerves and his tension and relax. When he is playing, he blanks everything else out. He pays attention to nothing but the music."

If allowed to, he would play for three or four hours at a stretch and at times had to be physically removed because he refused to stop.

The 'piano man' was later transferred to Littlebrook Hospital, a secure mental health unit in Bow Arrow Lane, Stone, near Dartford, where manager Ramanah Venkiah said: "He has been playing the piano to a very high quality and staff say it is a real pleasure to hear it. But we don't know what his position is because he is not cooperating at all."

During the course of the summer there emerged an endless line of possible names.

There was a performance artist who had been seen in France or Spain, a classically-trained pianist who had once played in a dissident rock tribute band in Prague and a Canadian drifter known as ‘Mr Nobody’ who had tried to enter Britain illegally.

Various women also announced they were certain 'Piano Man' was their missing boyfriend or husband.

By late July, nursing staff were wondering whether their patient’s voice box had been damaged or had been removed. But all speculation came to an abrupt end on the morning of Friday, August 19, when a cleaner went into his room and asked routinely: "Are you going to speak to us today?"

Unexpectedly, the Piano Man opened his mouth and replied: "I think I will. I am not feeling very well."

He explained he was a 20-year-old Bavarian who, far from stepping out of the sea, had arrived in England by Eurostar train from Paris and had been trying to kill himself in the hours before he was picked up by the police.

He told hospital staff he had two sisters and was gay and also admitted he couldn't play the piano particularly well and had only drawn one because "it was the first thing that came to mind."

By the time news of his recovery reached the press, Andreas Grassl was back with his dairy-farming parents in the tiny village of Prosdorf in Bavaria where he would only speak in carefully measured statements issued through the family’s solicitor Dr Christian Baumann.

His father Josef, 46, and wife Christa, 43, were delighted to have their son - the most famous missing person in the world - back home in southern Germany.

Josef, ruddy-faced and wearing green Wellington boots, overalls and cap, wept as he told the Daily Mirror: "We honestly thought he was dead. Not knowing what had happened to him was torture.

"I went to bed every night and woke every morning wondering where he was, wondering if he was dead or alive.

"At one stage I thought it would be better to find out he was dead, just to stop me and my wife going through this torture. She has been terribly upset and bothered with her nerves."

When Andreas was finally reunited with his family at Munich airport he said simply: "Mir gehts gut" - I am fine. Then he said: "I am so happy to be home."

He told Josef: "Dad, you know that I am famous now. I know that my picture has been shown all around the world."

Andreas added: "I just do not know what happened to me.

"I get little flashes of my past, like in a film. But I have no idea how I ended up in England like that, or why I couldn't talk. I just suddenly woke up and realised who I was."

His dad confirmed his son was a talented musician who entertained relatives on an accordion and played a simple keyboard alongside his younger sister.

Josef added: "He knows he had some kind of illness and breakdown but I know he would never make something like this up. He learned to play the keyboard from the age of 10 and can also play the accordion. I think he found some comfort in the piano, except towards the end."

There was still no clue how Andreas reached Sheerness, from his tiny village of Prosdorf near the German-Czech border.

He had no money, no documents and the labels had been cut out of his soaking suit.

Josef said: "He had no passport, no driving licence, nothing. Not even papers or a ticket. He still does not really know how he got into England. He thinks he got a train from France and then maybe a ferry.

"Given that he had no travel documents, I really do wonder, and worry about what might have happened to him.

"Was he attacked or robbed? Hit over the head? We just don't know. He just woke up and suddenly realised who he was. Before that, he could remember nothing, not even his own name."

He added: "Come July, I was going to look for him myself. We honestly thought something had happened to him. He always seemed to be unhappy and found it hard to express his feelings, to show his love.

"But the doctors in England somehow have cured him of that, they have worked a miracle.

"They have given me a new son back. He tells me that he loves me. I cannot put into words how we feel."

A friend of the family reportedly said Grassl went to a grammar school and had wanted to get into radio or TV or study journalism.

Back in Britain, Grassl was denounced as a ‘fraud’ for not being mute and as a ‘sham’ for not really being able to play the piano.

West Kent NHS and Social Care Trust issued a statement saying he was no longer in the care of the trust, that he had been "discharged following a marked improvement in his condition," and that its "involvement with this man has now ceased and will not be resuming at any stage."

According to an article published in Pink News on May 1, 2007, by which time Grassl was living in Basel, Switzerland, and studying French Literature at university, his last words on the matter were: "That Piano Man stuff, no-one is interested in that any more."

Mr White said: "It still seems possible that, one day, he might look back at that photo and feel just slightly satisfied that he produced an image that kept the snarling, and not just tabloid, contempt for asylum seekers and scroungers at bay for a full season."

The real-life story was turned into a play called The Piano Man in 2014 by London theatre company AllthePigs.

Director Sam Carrack said: “I remember reading the article as a student and getting so excited by it but also the drama and the mystery of these happenings. But the story went cold and we never really got a closure.”

Daniel Hallissey had the tricky job of playing the elusive character and even learned to play the piano for the part.

He said: “For me, the story was a lot about the loneliness we all experience in the modern world and our struggle for identity. Finding out who we are is so difficult in these times.”

Grassl's hospital stay in Britain cost the authorities more than £50,000.

Grassl was born on October 25, 1984, and is now 35.

#km #iancarter #pianoman #sheerness

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kootenaygoon · 4 years

Photo

So,

Suddenly everything was upside down.

My eyes snapped open in the oily darkness of Brendan’s basement, and as things began to haze into focus I realized that my light fixture was mounted directly below me, in the middle of the floor. Holy shit. I’d been having a dream that I was being chased through a forest full of Tim Burton trees, their branches dangling to snag me, when a bolt of electricity blasted me into hyper-consciousness. My first thought upon awakening was the handstand push-ups from CrossFit. Maybe I’d done too many? And what was holding me here, was it some sort of anti-gravity? Would I fall as soon as I swung my legs out of bed?

As a journalist and a photographer, I’ve always believed that perspective is everything. If you want to understand something, if you really want to see it, then you have to observe it from every imaginable angle. Sometimes that means standing on a chair so that you’re higher than whatever you’re shooting, sometimes it means pretending you’re dumber than you are to lure an interview subject into a false sense of confidence. For years now I’d been exploring every facet of Nelson, every nuance, but it had never occurred to me to try things upside down. It was the sort of bonkers idea that would only occur to me if I was high, which I was, off a particularly potent indica joint I’d enjoyed post-workout.

When my phone rang, buzzing on my nightstand, it felt like a kick in the head. I reached out desperately to silence it, then turned it over to see who it was. The number was unlisted so I stared for a moment, dazed and blinking, before picking it up.

“Is this Will? Can I talk to Will, please?”

I coughed, sitting up carefully, the room around me doing a slow twirl. “Yeah, it’s me. I mean, this is Will. Who the fuck is this?”

A deafening roar filled my ear, like an engine running in overdrive, followed by a plaintive honk that disappeared into the night. “Will?”

“Yes, it’s Will. Who is this?”

The voice on the other end was mouse-like, barely audible. “It’s Maya.”

Now she had my attention. It had been a few months since I’d road-tripped with Steph’s 15-year-old daughter to the coast, since I’d made my mental vow to be her ally. So far that didn’t entail much more than asking about her at Breakfast Club with Brendan, Lyra and Steph or liking her posts on Facebook. I knew she was having a hard time, and I had learned enough of her secrets to know that she needed positive adult role models in her life. As far as I could tell, she was safely enjoying her high school years, but now it sounded like she wasn’t safe at all. It sounded like she’d narrowly missed being hit by a car. Wind fuzzed the receiver.

“Are you okay? Where are you? What’s going on?” I asked, my stomach surging with concern. She had become my adopted daughter. Was she in danger?

“Can you come, please?”

“What do you mean? Come where? Are you okay?”

I heard muttering, a few sobs, voices in the background. “I just need you to come, okay? Can you come, please?”

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where are you? I can come pick you up, is that what you need? Where are you?”

“We’re on the highway, by the big sign, right near the turn off for Blewett.”

“Okay. I know where that is.”

“I need your help, Will. I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

By this point I’d thrown off the covers, becoming more and more accustomed to being a human stalagmite. I crossed the room in a crouch and flicked the light switch as I struggled into my jeans and sifted through the laundry pile for a T-shirt that might be clean. I found my pink anti-bullying one from the Rosemont flash mob, and put it on.

“Maya, I don’t understand what you mean by that. Can you tell me what’s going on? Have you been drinking?”

“A lil’ bit.”

“Okay, I’m going to hang up and I’ll be there in like eight minutes, okay? I’m heading out the door here.”

Walking out of the house was terrifying upside down, with the yawning void of purple sky opening up below my dangling head. Purple was the colour of the Targaryens, the dragon-riding kings of Westeros. It was the colour of magic, of violence, of imagination. If I could wrap my mind around the reality of being upside down, what else could I imagine?

As I struggled with the gate going out of Brendan’s backyard, I saw that my RAV had an open passenger side window. Andrew Stevenson was taking a deep drag off his cigarette under the mustard-coloured glow of the streetlight. I’d been binge-watching this new Netflix show called Stranger Things, so my surroundings now had an 80s Spielberg shimmer. I would be the one who legitimately cared that Barb died, though nobody seemed to notice. I would be the one pedalling my bike into the sky with E.T. in the front basket.

“I’m going to have a passenger.”

“So?”

“So Maya gets shotgun, and you’re being demoted to the backseat.”

Andrew sneered, annoyed. He’d been in a pissy mood all week. I loomed over him until he turned and crawled into the darkness behind the front seat. The Andrew Stevenson I knew was frozen in time, was fixated on one event. I was starting to realize that to really figure him out, I had to think of him outside the constraints of that type of desperation. I had to love him despite the horrible things he had done, which was something I was struggling to do with myself. Andrew Stevenson was a bank robber, yes, but he was also a father.

As I climbed into my RAV, I reached over and turned on the console. I’d been listening to Sia. “I’ve got thick skin and an elastic heart, but your blade it might be too sharp,” she sang. “I’m like a rubber band until you pull too hard. Yeah, I may snap and I move fast.”

I turned the corner at the Dairy Queen then fired the RAV up to 90, zooming through the day-time school zone for Hume Elementary, and flew around the corner past the grocery store and on to 7-11. I decided to stop and get some coffee, so I could get on top of this Maya situation. I ended up standing in line for nearly ten minutes as a new-hire suffered at the till.

“Have you gotten used to it?” I asked him, laying down two coffees and an assortment of candy.

“Used to what?”

“Being upside down. This is my first time.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, this scrawny Asian dude in his 20s. “Are you messing with me right now?”

I sighed. “Sorry, I thought you’d understand.”

From there I drove past Dorkmeyer the Front Street Grotesque and down to where they’d just established a new brewery called Torchlight. Past that was one of my favourite pot dispensaries, then city hall and the bank Andrew Stevenson had robbed in 2014, the Nelson & District Credit Union. It’s kitty-corner from the Hume Hotel, with its upside down letters glowing crimson in the night. Most of the best memories I had of Nelson took place in that hotel.

“I’ve got thick skin and an elastic heart,” Sia sang. “But your blade it might be too sharp.”

As the RAV hurtled around the last bend up to the highway, I realized that I was unconsciously following the path of Andrew’s getaway car on the day of the robbery. According to the trial proceedings he was driving, but more likely it was his female accomplice who was actually in the driver’s seat that day. I’d driven the route multiple times, trying to imagine how everything played out. He was driving a tiny white shit-bucket and somehow still successfully evaded two brand new cop cars with highly trained personnel behind the wheel. Say what you want about him, but Andrew Stevenson could drive a fucking car.

“You lied for her, didn’t you?” I asked him, looking up at the rearview. He had his forehead pressed to the glass like he was contemplating bashing out the window with his skull. “At the trial, you fucking lied for her.”

“I don’t even know how to lie.”

“When they got to the bridge they found her with a dog in her lap, sitting in the driver’s seat. They say you got out of the passenger side.”

“They’re pigs, you can’t trust what they say.”

From there it was just half a kilometre uphill and to the right before I was on the highway leading out of Nelson, with the ‘Thank you for visiting’ sign on my left. It was misting rain, and it was trippy to see those raindrops come dancing up from beneath me. I slowed as I approached the cliff banks on the right, then found a safe place on the shoulder to park and hit my hazards. I pulled on the jacket Paisley’s mother had bought me and put up the hood.

It only took a few minutes of wandering along the shoulder to hear voices down the grassy banks towards Railtown. I trudged through the mud, holding up my phone as flashlight, and came out just above Cottonwood Falls. Among the trees I could see teenagers smoking in a circle, maybe ten of them, with music playing from a mounted speaker. In the distance I could see the Nelson Star office, right beside the train tracks leading out to Red Sands.

“Hey guys, I don’t mean to interrupt. I’m looking for Maya,” I said, as I approached their circle. It was mostly dudes, and I recognized them from Tony’s. “She called me a few minutes ago?”

A girl stood up from the boulder she was sitting on, her black hood up over shockingly white blond hair. She was wearing jeans and skateboard shoes, her face shadowy. “I’ll take you. She’s just down here.”

I followed this teenager through the grass, past a few trees, to a clearing surrounded by boulders. Nestled up against one of them like a scared fawn was Maya, so tucked into herself that I couldn’t see her face. She was soaked.

“What’s going on with her?” I asked. “She sounded fucked up on the phone.”

The girl sighed. “I think she did some MDMA, but mostly she’s just been drinking these gross coolers. She started getting all emotional and kept saying she had to call you. Then she came down here to hide. Are you her Dad?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m just a friend of her mother’s.”

“Well, she’ll be fine. She just needs to sleep it off. But she doesn’t want to go back to her foster home. She was crying about it.”

Steph had told me that Maya was maybe going to end up in foster care. She’d been telling elaborate lies to the social workers, trying to maneuver herself into a safer place. It was gruelling, emotionally taxing shit. I could tell that she didn’t know who her allies were, who she could really trust. It meant a lot to me that she felt she could trust me, that she would call me.

“Hey, you’re that reporter that covered my grad,” the girl said, recognizing me in the purple moonlight. “Last year, at Elephant Mountain.”

I looked at her for the first time, and saw that her blond hair was pointing straight up towards the heavens. It looked like a halo. She was pretty, and looked like my sister Kathryn. “Yeah, that was me.”

“Well, I’m Josta,” she said. “Josta Cunningham. You know a bunch of my friends, but we never actually met. I was the one in the sparkling red dress, the strapless one. Do you remember?”

“You look a little familiar, yeah. That was an intense day.”

“Yeah, how many people get RCMP escorts at their grad? That shit was way over the top.”

“Do you think we could carry her up the hill to my RAV? I need to get her out of here before she freezes to death. It’s fucking cold out here.”

Josta nodded. “Yeah, I’ll help you.”

With one of us under each arm, we lifted Maya into a walking position and struggled up the muddy slope. She was murmuring to herself, half-conscious, her feet sometimes dragging. By the time we reached the top I was sweating like I was halfway through a CrossFit work-out. Josta opened the passenger side door and I lifted Maya like I was carrying a bride across the threshold. She was tiny, like a wounded animal, and together we got her belted into place. As I closed the door, I turned to my blond accomplice. We were under the streetlight now, so I could see her face for the first time. She had a streak of mud on her cheek and her angelic hair was still floating around her head like she was underwater. She shook a cigarette into her hand.

“Can I bum one of those?” I asked, thinking of Andrew in the backseat. “I don’t normally smoke cigarettes, but I could use one right now.”

Josta passed me one, then lit it with her Zippo. The rain was getting heavier. “You ever read any George R.R. Martin?” I asked. “The guy that wrote Game of Thrones?”

She shook her head as she lit her own cigarette. “No, why?”

Most of her face was in shadow, but in the streetlight her eyes glowed the same royal purple as the sky. She could’ve easily been a famous actress.

“Because you kind of remind me of Danaerys Targaryen.”

The Kootenay Goon

0 notes

onlovestreetwithjimmorrison · 7 years

Text

Mary and Jim to the end

Before Jim Morrison became famous with the Doors, he and Mary Werbelow were soul mates. In the never-ending procession of Morrison biographies, she is mentioned briefly but never quoted. Google her, and not a single photo appears. She has never spoken publicly about their three years together - until now.

By ROBERT FARLEY Published September 25, 2005

[Courtesy of Mike Sanders]

WHERE THEY MET:

Clearwater Beach, Pier 60. Mary was in high school, Jim just finished a year at St. Pete Junior College. His second cousin, Gail Swift, who lived in Clearwater, says their relationship was intense: “I think they answered a lonely call inside each other.”

Go to photo gallery

BEAUTY CONTESTANT:

Mary, at 18, competed for the title of Miss Clearwater 1963. The Clearwater Pass Bridge is behind her.

[Courtesy of Clearwater Public Library]

Mary Werbelow is polite but firm: She doesn't do interviews. Ever.

Jim Morrison was her first love, before he got famous with the Doors. Friends from Clearwater say that for three years in the early 1960s, Jim and Mary were inseparable. He mourns their breakup in the Doors' ballad The End.

For nearly 40 years, all manner of people have tracked Mary down and asked for her story, including Oliver Stone, when he was making his movie starring Val Kilmer as Jim. Others waved money. Always she said thank you, no.

"I have spoken to no one."

She can't see what good could come of it; some things are just meant to be kept private. Besides, journalists always get it wrong. They focus on Jim Morrison as drunk, drug abuser, wild man. They don't know his sensitivity and intellect, his charm and humor.

"They take a part of him and sensationalize that. People don't really know Jim. They don't really have a clue."

Mary is afraid to share. Because nobody could ever fully understand him, or her, or them. Not to mention how painful it is, even 40 years later, to relive something she would rather forget. She still aches for love lost; her regret never relents.

She lives in California, alone, in an aging mobile home park. By phone she is told that back in Clearwater, to make way for condos they're tearing down the house on N Osceola Avenue, the place Jim lived in when they met. His room was in back, books stacked everywhere save for the path to his bed.

"That was a lovely home," Mary says. "It's a shame to knock it down."

Across a dozen conversations, she amplifies on stories the old Clearwater crowd tells, and adds some of her own. She says she's not sure why she's talking now. Maybe it's just time.

SUMMER 1962, CLEARWATER:

Nine years before Jim died

Mary and best friend Mary Wilkin spread their beach blanket near Pier 60. Our Mary was 17, wearing a black one-piece, cut all the way down the back, square in front - a little daring for the time, especially for a buttoned-down Catholic girl.

Amid the flattops on the pier, the guy with the mop of hair stood out.

Jim had been sent here by his father, then a Navy captain, after he blew off his high school graduation ceremony in Virginia. He had just finished the year at St. Petersburg Junior College and lived with his grandparents, who ran a coin laundry on Clearwater-Largo Road.

On her beach towel, Mary turned to her friend and uttered the first sexual comment of her life:

"Wow, look at those legs!"

Jim tagged along when his friend came over to flirt with Mary Wilkin. He told our Mary he was a regular pro at the game of matchsticks, a mental puzzle in which the matches are laid out in rows, like a pyramid. Loser picks up the last one.

Jim challenged Mary and suggested they spice things up with a wager. If she won?

"You'll have to be my slave for the day."

If he won? Mary had to watch beach basketball with him.

As Mary's first command, she marched Jim to the barber. She was just finishing her junior year at Clearwater High, where all the boys had flattops; she was not going to be seen with such a hairy mess.

"Shorter," she told the barber.

"Shorter.

"Shorter."

To a buzz cut.

He must really like me, Mary thought. I'll see if I still dig him by the time his hair grows out, and if I do, it won't matter.

Slave order No. 2: Iron and clean. And wash her black Plymouth, a.k.a. "The Bomb."

Jim had begun the wax job when Mary's father rescued him with a picnic basket and suggested the couple adjourn to the Clearwater Causeway.

To cap slave day, Mary had Jim chauffeur her to St. Pete, in the shiny Bomb, to see the movie West Side Story.

Mary was on the high school homecoming court. Her friends did cotillion dances at the Jack Tar Harrison Hotel, hit Brown Brothers dairy store for burgers and malts, and shopped Mertz's records for Ben E. King, Del Shannon and Elvis Presley.

Hair shorn, Jim still attracted attention, shy behind granny glasses, army jacket and a conductor's hat. The local law stopped him multiple times to check his ID.

He read his poetry at the avant-garde Beaux Arts coffeehouse in Pinellas Park and visited St. Pete's only live burlesque show, at the Sun Art Theater on Ninth Street.

Friends who thought they knew Mary couldn't fathom why she would want to hang out with the likes of Jim Morrison.

What they didn't know was how out of place Mary felt in her social circle. Jim talked like no one she had met.

"We're just going to talk in rhymes now," he would say.

He recited long poems from memory. "Listen to this, listen to this," he'd say, "Tiger, tiger, burning bright . . ." - excited, like it was breaking news, not William Blake.

This was not puppy love, Mary says, like the earlier boyfriend who played guitar, wrote songs and serenaded her by phone. This was different. This was intense.

"We connected on a level where speaking was almost unnecessary. We'd look at each other and know what we were thinking."

She liked her alone time, in her bedroom, dancing and drawing.

Jim liked his alone time, in his bedroom, reading.

They skipped dances and football games and hung out, at her house, his grandparents' house, wherever.

"I hated to let him go at night. I couldn't shut the door."

When it came to sex, Mary's answer was no.

"It was not happening. And it didn't for a long time. I'm surprised he held out that long."

Mary's grandparents were strict Catholics. She had visions of them at the last judgment, watching her. "It was too much for me to bear."

The poet

Everybody, everybody, remembers the notebooks. Any time, any place, Jim would fish one from his back pocket, scribble and chuckle.

Chris Kallivokas, Bryan Gates and Tom Duncan. And Phil Anderson, George Greer, Ruth Duncan, Gail Swift and Mary. They all remember.

Around Jim, you always felt watched. He'd bait and goad, get a rise, take notes. "There was no one who wasn't under observation," Gates says. "His only purpose in life was observation."

When Jim drove, Mary kept a notebook at the ready.

"Write this!" he'd say, dictating an observation. Or he'd pull over and scribble himself.

Everyone has a story about Jim's brainy side. Kallivokas remembers the night his Clearwater High buddies and a new kid came by Alexander's Sundries, his father's drugstore on Clearwater Beach. They wanted Kallivokas to come party, but he had a term paper due the next day, on Lord Essex. Naturally, he had written all of two sentences.

"I know all about him," the new kid volunteered. Jim wrote the paper off the top of his head, with footnotes and bibliography.

"To this day, I don't know if it was right," says Kallivokas, who says he got an A+

They would rag Jim that the books crowding his living space were for show. He'd look away and challenge nonbelievers to pick any book and read the beginning of any chapter. He'd name the book, the author and more context than they cared to hear.

"He was a genius," Mary says. "He was incredible."

She says his heroes were William Burroughs, William Blake, Hieronymus Bosch, Norman Mailer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Arthur Rimbaud, Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac.

Mary didn't have heroes like that. "Jim was my hero."

The provocateur

Pre-Mary, Jim's buddy Phil Anderson brought him to a house party on Clearwater Beach.

Jim was dazzling with the dictionary game. People would pick obscure words, and Jim would tell the definitions.

Phil turned, and his pal was standing on the couch, peeing on the floor. "Needless to say, we were asked to leave."

That was Jim. He'd charm, then provoke. It was worse when he drank.

He got epically drunk on Chianti at the all-day car races in Sebring, crawled around in a white fake fur coat like a polar bear covered in dirt and tried to launch himself onto the track. Friends grabbed his ankles.

"He'd get a real pleasure out of shocking people and being a little eccentric and peculiar," Kallivokas says. "And that came to the forefront when he had a couple drinks."

Mary says he rarely drank in her presence.

"It was out of respect for me. We were in love, and he didn't want to do things that I didn't like."

"That's a real key to understanding Jim," Gates says. "She was the love of his life in those days. They were virtually soul mates for three or four years."

In the fall, Jim transferred to Florida State. Most weekends, rain or shine, he hitchhiked back to Clearwater, 230 miles down U.S. 19. Most days in between, letters postmarked Tallahassee arrived at the Werbelow mailbox on Nursery Road.

Mary's father intercepted one, read the page about sex and never got to the part that made clear Jim was writing about a class. Furious at her father's snooping, she burned all Jim's letters, a move she came to regret, deeply.

She wasn't much of a letter writer herself. At Jim's direction, she wrote once a week and included the number of a public telephone in Clearwater and a time he should call.

On his end, Jim would put in a dime for the first two minutes. They would talk for hours. When the operator asked him to settle up, he'd take off. Free phone service.

On her end, Mary would loiter by the phone at the appointed hour, glancing about, certain it was the week the cavalry was coming to arrest her.

"I was so scared," she says, laughing. "I just thought it was normal. I see now it wasn't."

She always assumed he had her wait at different phones for her protection; now she's thinking it was his way of making sure she wrote him at least once a week.

March 30, 1963:

Eight years before Jim died

It's hardly something Mary brags about; she says she would have declined. But when the Jaycees called to recruit her for the Miss Clearwater competition, Mary's mother answered the phone.

"Oh, yeah," mom said, "she'll be happy to do it."

The third and final night of competition, more than 1,000 people packed Clearwater Municipal Auditorium. Five finalists matched "beauty, personality and poise."

Mary was looking good, not that Jim was thrilled. If she won, it was on to Miss Florida. Less time for him.

In her toreador outfit - tight-fitting green pants with red sequins down the sides from hip to ankle - Mary did the bossa nova, swirling a red and yellow satin cape. The Clearwater Sun called her performance a "house-stopper." Time for her big question: "If your husband grew a beard, what would you do?"

What a stupid question, she thought, and answered: "I'd let him grow it. Whether he would kiss me or not would be another matter."

She told the judges she was headed for college, torpedoing her chances because it meant she would not be available to fulfill all obligations of Miss Clearwater.

Sitting through other contestants' routines, Mary scanned the darkened hall until she spotted Jim, bored senseless. But there.

She got first runner-up.

1964-65, Los Angeles:

The breakup

Mary's father banned Jim from the Werbelow house. Mary won't say why; she doesn't want to add to the Morrison myth.

When she followed Jim to Tallahassee for a semester, her parents objected. When he started film school at UCLA and Mary announced she was following him to Los Angeles, they were devastated.

To bribe Mary to stay, her mother bought her an antique bedroom set, no competition for a 19-year-old following her heart.

Mary says Jim asked her to wear "something floaty" when she arrived in Los Angeles. "He wanted me to look like an angel coming off the plane."

Instead, she drove out a week early and surprised him.

Together again, in an exciting, intimidating city, they kept separate apartments. Mary got her first real job, in the office of a hospital X-ray department. Later, she donned a fringe skirt and boots as a go-go dancer at Gazzari's on the Sunset Strip.

Jim studied film. At the end of the year, a handful from among hundreds of student films were selected for public showing. Jim's was not among them.

Shortly after, Mary says, he told her he was humiliated, considered his formal education over and needed to forget everything. He built a fire in his back yard and incinerated many of his precious Florida notebooks.

Mary says he started doubting her commitment. "You're going to leave me," he would tell her.

"No, I'm not. How can you say that? I'm in love with you."

After one fight, Jim went out with another woman. He wasn't home the next morning. Mary went to the woman's house, but she said Jim wasn't there.

Mary called: "Come out wherever you are!"

Jim slinked forward, a hand towel around him. Mary bolted and, in a blur, hit the woman's fence as she sped off.

"That was the beginning of the end."

He was drinking hard and taking psychedelic drugs. The darkness she says she had seen from the start was overtaking him, and she didn't want to watch him explore his self-destructive bent. She felt he had swallowed her identity. Whatever he liked, she liked.

"I had to go out and see what parts of that were me. I just knew I had to be away from him. I needed to be by myself, to find my own identity."

She enrolled in art school. The day Jim helped her move to a new apartment, she told him she needed a break.

"He clammed up after that. I really hurt him. It hurts me to say that. I really hurt him."

They split up in the summer of 1965.

A few months later, Jim got together with a film school buddy, Ray Manzarek, who says he wanted to combine his keyboards with Jim's poetry. They started the band that became the Doors.

Friends from Clearwater never saw it coming. Back then, Jim didn't have much interest in music. He didn't even appear to have rhythm.

"He didn't sit around and sing," Mary says, laughing. "Jim, no, he was a poet. He wrote poetry."

By phone from his home in Northern California, Manzarek says all the guys in film school were in love with Mary. She was gorgeous, and sweet on top of that. "She was Jim's first love. She held a deep place in his soul."

The Doors' 11-minute ballad The End, Manzarek says, originally was "a short goodbye love song to Mary." (The famous oedipal parts were added later.)

This is the end, Beautiful friend

This is the end, My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end

Of everything that stands, the end

No safety or surprise, the end

I'll never look into your eyes . . . again

. . .

This is the end, Beautiful friend

This is the end, My only friend, the end

It hurts to set you free

But you'll never follow me

The end of laughter and soft lies

The end of nights we tried to die

This is the end

* * *

Within two years of their breakup, Light My Fire was No. 1 on the charts and Jim was the "King of Orgasmic Rock," the brooding heartthrob staring from the covers of Rolling Stone and Life.

He took up with other women, notably with longtime companion Pamela Courson, but Mary says she and Jim kept up with each other. She says she was his anchor to the times before things got crazy.

"I'd see him when he really needed to talk to someone."

Before a photo shoot for the Doors' fourth album, she says Jim told her: "The first three albums are about you. Didn't you know that?"

She says she didn't have the heart to tell him she had never really listened to them. She had heard Doors songs on the radio, but she didn't go to his concerts, she didn't keep up with his career.

Mary vehemently denies it, but Manzarek says she told Jim, "The band is no good and you'll never make it." He says Mary wanted Jim to go back to school, get a master's degree and make something of himself.

When Mary moved, she says, Jim had a knack for finding her. He would eventually ask if she had changed her mind. "Why can't we be together now?"

Not yet, she would answer, someday.

More than once, she says, he asked her to marry.

"It was heartbreaking. I knew I wanted to be with him, but I couldn't."

She thought they were too young. She worried they might grow apart. She needed more time to explore her own identity.

In late 1968, Mary moved to India to study meditation. She never saw Jim again.

March 1, 1969, Miami:

Two years before Jim died

With the Doors coming for their first Florida concert, Chris Kallivokas left a message with his old friend's record company. He says Jim called him back, loving life.

"The chicks we get, the money. . . . It's great."

"So that crowd control works," Kallivokas teased, talking about theories that intrigued Jim in Collective Behavior class at FSU. He said Jim answered:

"You've got to make them believe you're doing them a favor by being onstage. The more abusive you are, the more they love it."

They planned a reunion in Clearwater.

* * *

Some 15,000 fans cram into the 10,000-capacity Dinner Key Auditorium, a sweaty, converted seaplane hangar in Miami. Jim Morrison announces his drunken presence with dissonant blasts from a harmonica.

The cover boy, 26 now, has a paunch and beard, a cowboy hat with a skull and crossbones and noticeably slurred speech.

One stanza into the second song, Five to One, he berates the crowd.

"You're all a bunch of f - - - - - - idiots!"

Confused silence. Uncomfortable laughter.

"Letting people tell you what you're gonna do, letting people push you around. How long you do think it's gonna last? . . .

"Maybe you like it. Maybe you like being pushed around. Maybe you love it. Maybe you love getting your face stuck in the s - - -."

Screams from the audience.

"You're all a bunch of slaves. . . .

"Letting everybody push you around. What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do! What are you gonna do! What are you gonna do!"

He talks as much as he sings. He wails about loneliness and rants about love. Three songs after berating the crowd, the music softens and he lets loose a plaintive:

"Away, away, away, away, in India

"Away, away, away, away in In-di-a

"Away, away, away, away in In-di-a."

* * *

Morrison invited the crowd onstage, and the concert disintegrated. Amid the chaos, he supposedly unzipped his pants, exposed himself and simulated sex with guitarist Robby Krieger.

With the country debating indecency run amok, Jim Morrison was Exhibit A. He was charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, a felony, plus indecent exposure and two other misdemeanors.

The courtroom in Miami was packed. State witnesses saw what they saw. Others said it was hype, Morrison only simulated what he was accused of. There wasn't a single damning photo.

Bryan Gates hadn't seen Jim in ages. They caught up during a break, and talk inevitably turned to Mary. What ever happened to her? Gates asked. Jim said he had lost touch, California seemed to have swallowed her up psychically.

He was acquitted of the felony but convicted of indecent exposure. On Oct. 30, 1970, he was sentenced to six months of "confinement at hard labor" in the Dade County Jail.

Out on appeal, he moved to Paris, where he shared an apartment with Courson.

The Doors released L.A. Woman in April 1971, with hit songs Love Her Madly and Riders on the Storm. Months later, Jim Morrison was dead.

On July 3, 1971, Courson found him in the bathtub. The listed cause of death was heart attack; drugs were suspected. He was 27.

September 2005

34 years after Jim died

Mary is 61, unemployed and rarely leaves her mobile home. She says she married and divorced twice, and she has no children.

"I can't find anybody to replace Jim. We definitely have a soul connection so deep. I've never had anything like that again, and I don't expect I ever will."

She painted, mostly realistic oil portraits. She won a small legal settlement after she said she developed multiple chemical sensitivities from rat poison that seeped through the vents of her art studio over the years. It makes it difficult to be around scented products, and she gave up her art.

Mary would not meet with a reporter for this story or allow her photo to be taken. She says she weighs exactly what she did in high school - 107 pounds - but now her hair is long and gray. "People sometimes tell me I look like an artist."

She doesn't think the early Doors albums are all about her but says the lyrics include references to her and Jim's shared experiences, including the "blue bus" in The End. She considered writing about the references but decided against it. An artist herself, she didn't want to spoil people's various interpretations.

For decades, she says, she brooded over how things might have turned out had they stayed together but finally concluded it was destiny. "He was supposed to go into that deep, dark place."

His grave in Paris draws pilgrims from around the world, but not Mary. Quite the opposite, she says. She wants to forget, and still she feels his ghost checking on her.

Lines in Break on Through especially pain her, lines she interprets as Jim saying she betrayed him by not getting back together:

Arms that chain us

Eyes that lie

"I promised it wouldn't be forever, that I'd get back together with him sometime. I never did. It's very painful to think of that. For a long time, any time I would think about him, or anyone would talk about him, I'd cry.

"It used to make me so sad. I never gave him that second chance. That destroyed me for so long. I let him go and never gave him that second chance. I felt so guilty about that."

Mary says she is tired. She has trouble sleeping. She says she's not sure if she has done right by talking so much. She's worried that others will seek interviews that she does not want to give. She wants that made clear: She does not want to talk about Jim anymore.

- St. Petersburg Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/25/Doors/Mary_and_Jim_to_the_e.shtml

#Jim Morrison #Mary Werbelow

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junker-town · 5 years

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Hail to the Jaguars, troll kings of the NFL

Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

The Jaguars are your cousin who annoys you constantly — and they’re perfect.

The Jaguars are 4-4. They’re currently tied at the bottom of the AFC South, but there’s still a good chance they can win the division and make it to the playoffs. Regardless of where Jacksonville finds itself at the end of the season, though, one thing is certain: Nobody has more fun making others feel terrible than the Jags.

Their latest victim is Jets quarterback and spleen safety enthusiast Sam Darnold. One week removed from uttering his now-infamous “I’m seeing ghosts” line, everything was set to be the perfect Duval storm. Halloween is around the corner, and this was a home game in North Florida, so yeah, you can see where this is going.

Oh my they dressed Jaxson De Ville up as a ghost #Jaguars pic.twitter.com/TX1qu8DHrn

— Ben Murphy (@BenMurphyTV) October 27, 2019

In a steady adherence to the bit, the Jaguars also played the Ghostbusters theme over their P.A. system while showing a highlight reel of every time Darnold was sacked or turned the ball over in Week 8.

Jags mascot Jaxson De Ville tweeted along and at the end of the game, he was ready with a tweet.

Postgame update: https://t.co/09eUgNXvjX

— Jaxson de Ville (@JaxsonDeVille) October 27, 2019

To his credit, Darnold took everything in stride as best he could this week. He downplayed the ghost comments, explained what happened, and honestly handled it better than a lot of 22-year-olds would under intense New York-style criticism. That said, I’ve got to admit that even I felt a little bad for him when Jags fans flew a damn plane over the stadium dragging this banner:

Oh my goodness... plane before #Jets-#Jaguars flying with sign that reads “Gardner Minshew ain’t afraid of no ghosts DUVALL” pic.twitter.com/aMInfIWaQj

— Connor Hughes (@Connor_J_Hughes) October 27, 2019

The Jaguars are the most important team in the NFL, and nobody else is a better lens for society than Jacksonville. We’re still emerging from the dark ages where there was no fun in the NFL, and the Jags are a constant reminder that we all take this stuff way too seriously.

If you’re truly upset about Sunday’s antics, that means they won. Such is the job of the troll. The troll exists to entertain their small but rabid community while pushing an “us against the world” mentality and infuriating everyone else in the process. Nobody does this better than Duval. If you’re clapping back with “your team sucks, you know!” to a Jaguars fan, well, you’ve already lost and you’re in too deep.

If you don’t believe that, I have a test for you: Spend a couple of hours trashing the Jaguars on Twitter. Whatever you feel like saying. If you awaken the nest — and chances are you will — you’ll want to deactivate your account in three hours.

That’s what I love about them. Jaguars fans aren’t delusional. They’re hyper-realistic, but there’s very much a “proud family” quality to them. Jaguars fans can talk shit about the Jaguars, but if you tread in that world without being a fan, you’re going to get your head kicked in faster than when Joe Pesci lost it in Goodfellas.

They’re exactly what the NFL needs.

Now, since I’m feeling a little funny heaping all that praise on Duval, it’s time to go around the league ...

Quarterback by extremely large, sad committee.

This is the saddest 'choose your fighter' I've ever seen pic.twitter.com/T1nzoSjpYg

— Ricky O'Donnell (@SBN_Ricky) October 27, 2019

I knew a graphic like this was going to be bad, but I didn’t know precisely how bad. At this point I’m not even sure I can blame the Bears for completely giving up on the concept of offense and just clocking in and out like the NFL is a shift at a Dairy Queen.

It’s always your friends who hurt you the most ...

My god the Bucs are spectacular pic.twitter.com/xM1CtnXTnp

— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) October 27, 2019

You can’t get tackled if you tackle yourself first. This is galaxy-brain thinking by the Buccaneers — the kind of lauded football I.Q. we come to expect from Bruce Arians — and I’m here for it.

Also, they lost to Ryan Tannehill, who dropped a QB rating of 109.8 against them. Process that however you want. There’s no wrong answer here.

These two photos from a Jaguars fan have me questioning everything.

We’re not back at the Slab for a month after today, so we’re coming in hot. See you soon! pic.twitter.com/ARcYscskR1

— Teal St. Hooligans (@TealStHooligans) October 27, 2019

My goodness there’s a lot to unpack here. First off, we have the shirtless-Gardner-Minshew-wrestling-a-tiger mural. I get it. It’s on brand. I really like that someone did this to their Cadillac. It’s the tuxedo t-shirt of car design — and so perfectly Duval, I can’t handle it.

Now we’ve got to talk about this bladder of Fireball. Who in God’s green earth thought this was a good idea? This is the beverage analog of Icarus flying too close to the sun. We were too busy seeing if we could that nobody question whether we should.

And yes, at first I assumed (like most sensible people) that this was a jury-rigged Jacksonville invention. Nah, they sell this abomination at retail. The world is equally amazing and terrifying.

Baker Mayfield is getting into the spirit of giving early this year.

oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god pic.twitter.com/yX7IXSYTdy

— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) October 27, 2019

The Patriots’ defense is so terrifying that we’re seeing some Black Mirror stuff going on. They take the field and suddenly grown-ass football players completely forget how to play the game.

I’m starting to think Kyle Allen might not be Tom Brady.

Call it a hunch.

Seriously, though, can we put this whole thing to bed? I know the 49ers’ defense is good — really, really good — but when you’re averaging 4.2 yards per attempt, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Who is to blame for his sudden regression? Real fans know.

1ØV£ pic.twitter.com/atEdecT6QM

— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) October 27, 2019

Shout out to Sunday Night Football ...

For giving us a game that actually didn’t suck. I feel like we’ve become so accustomed to the SNF game being weak that this one caught us all off guard. Even knowing that Matt Moore was going to be quarterbacking for Kansas City, it wasn’t enough to put a damper on the one-score thriller at Arrowhead Stadium.

Ultimately, the Packers walked away with the 31-24 win, but really the winners were all of us — the sports fans.

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driveaugust1-blog · 5 years

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The diets of the best basketball players in the world show how insane Tom Brady's lifestyle really is - Business Insider

Nobody is as strict with their diets as Tom Brady.Adam Glanzman/Getty

We asked NBA players at All-Star Weekend about their diets, and while most try to eat healthy, they don't necessarily have super strict diets.

The answers only served to highlight how insane Tom Brady's diet is, which sees him avoid some vegetables, fruits, caffeine, and dairy, while taking in very few fats.

Even someone like LeBron James, who is fanatical about taking care of his body, doesn't eat as strictly as Brady.

Brady's longevity in a contact sport may inspire others to take care of their bodies, but for now, few seem as willing to go as far as he does.

Follow all of Business Insider's NBA All-Star Weekend coverage here >

Many professional athletes are strict about what they put into their bodies. To get to the highest level, athletes look for any minor advantage, and that often includes avoiding unnecessary ingredients from food and drinks.

When many of the best basketball players in the world gathered in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the NBA All-Star Game, we asked them about their diets and what they try to avoid.

Few players went into detail, but what became clear is that even while these athletes watch what they eat, perhaps nobody in professional sports is as strict as Tom Brady.

"I don't really have a diet," Milwaukee Bucks forward Khris Middleton said. "I just try and stay away from fast food. That's my only thing. Try to eat clean for the most part. No real diet for me."

Minnesota Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns, who once divulged that he eats as many as 10 pancakes over two breakfasts each day, plus several pieces of grilled chicken, said he just tries to keep everything in moderation.

Read more: Timberwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns has an insane diet that includes 10 pancakes a day

"I got my diet. I stick to it," Town said. "The biggest thing is [you] have to make sure you take everything in moderation. Just stick to the plan. Sometimes there are days when you're hungrier and it's tough, but you gotta just stick to the plan."

De'Aaron Fox has to eat a lot just to keep weight on.Brandon Dill/APThe NBA's youngest stars also know they can work off bad food a little more easily. Sacramento Kings point guard De'Aaron Fox said he has to eat a lot to keep weight on. He said he tries to eat clean, but doesn't all the time. In his media availability, Fox discussed why he likes Whataburger more than In-N-Out.

Meanwhile, New York Knicks point guard Dennis Smith Jr. said he doesn't really watch what he eats. He joked that Bojangles is the key to his leaping abilities.

Read more: Knicks guard Dennis Smith Jr. talks being in the Kristaps Porzingis blockbuster, what fans don't realize about trades, eating octopus, and jumping over J. Cole

"I eat whatever is good to me right now. I'm sure that'll change as I get older, but I just work whatever I eat off."

Mike Ehrmann/Getty

All of this only reinforced how unique (and maybe even over-the-top) Tom Brady's diet is.

Brady's diet, of course, has become a fascination in the sports world. He's divulged his stingy eating habits before — lots of natural, vegetable-based meals, and very few fats.

What may be more interesting is what Brady avoids. He doesn't eat nightshades like tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms for fears of inflammation.

Read more: Tom Brady's diet is so strict that it excludes an entire group of vegetables

Brady also doesn't drink coffee. He doesn't eat strawberries, doesn't eat many bananas, and avoids dairy. He very rarely has alcohol.

Now, there aren't many similarities between 41-year-old Brady and the 21-year-old Smith. Brady plays a contact sport and is almost twice Smith's age. His extreme diet, he says, is to help his recovery, which he says will help his longevity.

However, even LeBron James,at 34 years old, one of the league's elder statesmen, doesn't eat like Brady. And James is fanatical about taking care of his body.

LeBron James eats clean meals, but nothing too crazy.Harry How/GettyJames broke down on Tim Ferris' podcast what a day's worth of meals might look for him, and it wasn't terribly strict. It included things like egg-white omelets, gluten-free pancakes, whole wheat pasta, lots of salmon, and even chicken parmesan. James is also a notorious wine connoisseur.

Read more: Here is what LeBron James eats to stay at the top of his game at an age when many other NBA players decline

Brady's teammate Rob Gronkowski, who is also a follower of the "TB12 Method," told Business Insider that while he eats clean, vegetable-based meals, he is not as strict as Brady.

Read more: Rob Gronkowski says his career changed by following Tom Brady's lifestyle, and it even got him to love avocado ice cream

Perhaps if Brady is still winning Super Bowls at age 45, as he has said he wants to do, the rest of the sports world will follow suit. In the meantime, it appears most others aren't willing to go quite as far as Brady.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.de/tom-brady-diet-vs-nba-player-diets-unique-2019-2?r=US&IR=T

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