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jfrut · 2 years

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NCIS: Hawai'i: Truly Madly Deeply

Part 2 of 2. What happened after the party at Tennant's home. Extended / Alternate ending to NCIS Hawai'i S01 EP22 Ohana with Kate Whistler and Lucy Tara. Link to Part 1.

When Kate was in her hotel room with Lucy for the very first time it was totally out of character for her. It wasn’t hard for Kate to find women who appreciated her, but it took a long time for Kate to be comfortable enough to invite them back to her place. Most people perceived her to be a bit reserved and others figured she was still somewhat closeted — the assessment wasn’t wrong on the surface. Kate had never been at ease with talking about her personal life at work or socializing with coworkers. Kate had definitely never had a one night stand, or what became a multi-night escapade.

With Lucy the whole game was turned on its head. She'd never met someone who made her feel in absolute comfort. Lucy had taken an immediate interest in Kate. She wasn’t shy about expressing what she wanted, and her boldness totally threw Kate off her normal mode of operation. Even though it was clear that Lucy liked what she saw, for the first time Kate felt her inner self really seen. Maybe it was the excitement of being in Hawai’i and meeting someone new totally different from anyone she’d ever dated before or maybe it was the way Lucy looked into her eyes. It was as if she could see through all the layers of Kate and still wanted more. She couldn't quite explain the excitement when she was with Lucy .

Kate knew this was different when she’d invited Lucy back to her hotel room. In her enthusiasm of doing something she had practically never done in her life, she realized that she was in such a hurry to catch the last flight of DC to make it on time for her trip that she’d forgotten to shave. So when they arrived she asked Lucy to chill on the sofa while she took a shower. Lucy wasn’t having it, she pulled Kate in close, took a deep breath, looked Kate in the eyes and told her to stop stalling because she smelled amazing. Kate was taken aback, she made the case that she actually needed to freshen up. But Lucy had already taken off Kate’s blazer and was busy undoing Kate’s shirt buttons. Kate had laughed trying to make light of the situation, insisting on a shower when she blurted out she actually needed to shave. No you don’t, I like you just like this. Kate had never heard anything so brash from a woman in her life. Words that Kate would never forget.

Now that she had Lucy in her bed snuggled up beside her she needed to tell Lucy everything.

‘I’m not tired at all, in fact I’m so refreshed from that bath that I could go all night,’ Lucy said teasingly, snapping Kate out of her thoughts.

‘Go where?” Kate teased back. Lucy tried to kiss Kate. Kate turned around to face Lucy one hand under her pillow the other on Lucy’s face holding off the kiss. Lucy shifted to mirror her so she could see Kate.

‘Lucy I need you to know that I haven’t been with anyone since our very first night together. I know it’s hard for you to see this, but Cara I were over months before I met you. And yes, now that I look back, Cara did want to patch things up, but it had been over for me for a long time. My interview trip to Hawai’i was a final attempt to close that part of my life. I hadn’t been in contact with Cara for over a year and she’d been dating other people. We were in no way, in any definition of the word, a couple. She was never my girlfriend during the whole time I knew you.’ Kate paused to look at Lucy, ‘You…have never…been my sidepiece.’ she said slowly.

Lucy looked at Kate, her left leg still wrapped in Kate’s.

Was she getting through? Kate wondered as she continued.

‘Out of the blue Cara texts me that she’ll be in Hawaii that evening and asks if she could stay with me. Cara and I shared a friendship in the past and I just didn’t want to say no over text, nor could we really talk since she was on a flight all day. So I picked her up from the Airport, ordered pizza, and was about to tell her about you over dinner and suggest driving her to a hotel when you knocked. I had no idea she would introduce herself as my girlfriend. It doesn’t even make sense. It wasn’t like I didn’t tell you on purpose. To me there was nothing to tell. I didn’t want to get you involved in a past relationship that was over, and that didn’t mean anything for you and me.’

‘Please Lucy, am I making any sense at all?’

Lucy looked at Kate lovingly, ‘You know when I told you that you broke my heart into a million pieces? I was angry and hurt in a way I can’t describe. I was emotionally tormenting myself every minute. I’m lucky that Ernie pestered me into talking to someone. I was even upset with Ernie for badgering me every day about it till I did. It wasn’t until I actually talked it out that I realized how unfair I had been to you. I was still nursing my feelings even then. Now it’s my turn to listen and I’m listening.’

Kate couldn't talk. Tears ran down her face involuntarily. She kissed Lucy. Kate’s tears all over Lucy’s face. They both laughed as they wiped each other’s faces. Kate couldn't recognize this side of herself. It was a totally new revelation. NCIS Special Agent Tara had turned her life upside down and she was about to laugh a lot more than she had ever laughed.

‘Soo…no fooling around tonight, I take it?’ Lucy asked as if the last ten minutes just didn’t happen.

Kate started to laugh harder. Lucy never failed to surprise her, making her smile when she least expected to.

‘Lucy, when I said I’ll do it right this time, I meant it. I never meant to hurt you. I never thought I was capable of needing someone so much. And, if you let me, I will put back every single piece of your shattered heart even if it takes the rest of my life.’

‘Well if you’re asking me to be your girlfriend, the answer is yes, but only if I get to use handcuffs on you,’ Lucy looked at Kate with a smirk.

‘What?’ Kate smiled naughtily and then said seemingly sternly, ‘not tonight, but tomorrow morning you’re going to need them if you want to keep my hands off of you’.

Kate kissed Lucy deeply, long and slow. She didn’t let go and Lucy didn’t either. It was an intimate heart warming kiss that took them to an alternate dimension. They parted only to breathe, their faces still touching each other.

‘Kate, can you ever forgive me?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I let this all be your fault without ever letting you explain. I’m so sorry.’

Kate didn’t need to reply. She pulled Lucy in closer and squeezed her as if she was never letting go.

When they finally broke their embrace just enough to look at each other Lucy looked at Kate sincerely, her eyes involuntarily welling up. ‘I…., I…never stopped loving you. I fell in love with you the very first time I met you and it’s only grown in ways that I don’t even know how to control. I love you truly madly deeply Kate.’

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dkehoe · 16 days

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OK, I can’t believe that we are already in the month of May. This year has gone by so fast! My TBR just keeps growing and I know there are not enough hours in a day/month/year that I can tackle all of the books I want to read. Despite that growing list, I’m going to pick the 5 books that I’m most excited to see being released in May. These five will definitely be on my TBR and hopefully I’ll be able to crack open a page. #5 BOOK RELEASE This is the second outdoor adventure competition romance that I’ve seen coming out in May. They both look cute but this one edged out the other since it’s an adult contemporary. Looks like a fun and easy read and should be put in your carry on for the first beach vacation of the year. Synopsis: Orie Lennox has spent her entire life prepping for her happily ever after — and now that she’s graduated, she’s low-key wondering, when the heck is it gonna hit. Her love life, her new job, her relationship with her sister: none of it is quite what she envisioned it to be. One evening, on a whim, she applies for a reality show where she’ll be stranded on an island, with a bunch of strangers, to play a game of human chess for a shot at a million dollars. What better way to force herself to break up with the things that aren’t bringing her joy, than to abandon them all on short notice to live off the grid on a beach in the South Pacific! Orie’s shocked when she ends up cast in an experimental romantic edition of the show: and even more surprised to find that her old high school crush, Remy, has been cast as well. Orie’s one of ten contestants, set to compete in formidable challenges, while speed dating, in the wilderness: without deodorant, toilets, shaving cream, or showers. (How!?) She finds herself tied up — literally — in a game of risky alliances as she navigates ever-growing feelings for her one that got away, alongside an exciting array of budding new relationships. Click this link to purchase this book!* Attached at the Hip #4 BOOK RELEASE When Nora has one of her romantic suspense releases I want to immediately snatch it up. This one seems to be more sinister than normal. yeah! Synopsis: As they do each June, the Foxes have driven the winding roads of Appalachia to drop off their children for a two-week stay at their grandmother’s. Here, twelve-year-old Thea can run free and breathe in the smells of pine and fresh bread and Grammie’s handmade candles. But as her parents head back to suburban Virginia, they have no idea they’re about to cross paths with a ticking time bomb. Back in Kentucky, Thea and her grandmother Lucy both awaken from the same nightmare. And though the two have never discussed the special kind of sight they share, they know as soon as their tearful eyes meet that something terrible has happened. The kids will be staying with Grammie now in Redbud Hollow, and thanks to Thea’s vision, their parents’ killer will spend his life in supermax. Over time, Thea will make friends, build a career, find love. But that ability to see into minds and souls still lurks within her, and though Grammie calls it a gift, it feels more like a curse—because the inmate who shattered her childhood has the same ability. Thea can hear his twisted thoughts and witness his evil acts from miles away. He knows it, and hungers for vengeance. A long, silent battle will be waged between them—and eventually bring them face to face, and head to head… Click this link to purchase this book!* Mind Games *Amazon Associate- if you purchase one of these books through a link on this blog I’ll receive a small stipend. #3 BOOK RELEASE I have just recently discovered Elle Kennedy’s college hockey series. If you like your romance a bit raunchy and characters with a lot of heart, you need to reach for one of her books. She was recommended to me and I’ve gobbled them all up. Synopsis: Diana Dixon has a lot going on this summer. She’s rehearsing for a ballroom dance competition, juggling two jobs, and dealing with an ex-boyfriend who can’...

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#Bookish discussion #books #Commentary #contemporary #fiction #My 5 Most Anticipated May&039;24 Book Releases #reading #romance #young adult

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newtonsheffield · 3 years

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Lucy DOES need a boost and I am here to indulge that with a very important question: what is Lucy’s favorite, go-to feel good movie? Like what movie does she not care that she has seen 100 times, if she’s having a bad day she will put it on to help her feel better? And almost as important - does Gregory know what this movie is and has he seen it?

I have really put Lucy through it these last 24 hrs. And I love and adore her. She's my second favourite Bridgerton Spouse and I think She's THE BEST!

Oh ho ho ho ho, Charlie, My dude, My pal. Lucy has a favourite movie. And it's a doozy. And Gregory has 4 sisters. He's definitely seen it.

Let's take a little look

If anyone asked Lucy, she would have said her favourite movie was West Side Story (1961) . It was well made, and classic and she enjoyed that while it was a romance, things didn't wrap up neatly in a little bow at the end. And yeah sure, maybe Maria screaming on the floor was a little dramatic, but a small part of her resonated with the now unrequited love she'd hold for the rest of her life. But West Side Story was not the movie that made her feel better when she was sick, or she'd had a bad day, that movie, was Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging.

She still remembered the very first time she'd seen it, her mother had rented it, and they'd sat in the living room Lucy tucked against her Mum's side, a bowl of popcorn between them, laughing and giggling at the girls on screen. And two days later, her mother was dead. And she'd stared at the rented DVD, still in its box on the TV cabinet, and smuggled it upstairs. And she hadn't watched it for months. The memory of the time spent with her mother a little too overwhelming. And then one day, she'd taken a deep breath and slid it into the DVD player. And oddly, instead of making it sad like she thought it would, it made her feel warm. The last time she'd spent alone bonding with her mother wrapped around her like a warm blanket. And she'd thought she'd grow out of the habit, but she didn't.

And so here she was, 21 years old, still watching her same comfort movie that she had when she was ten. And it still made her laugh, and smile at the ridiculousness of pretending to lose your cat to get a boy to like you, and accidentally shaving off half your eyebrow and showing up dressed as a stuffed olive. It was stupid, but the nostalgia and the feeling of closeness she felt to her mother when she watched it kept her coming back.

But even so, it didn't mean she wanted her very sweet, very hot new boyfriend to know that she liked it. It just seemed a little, embarrassing honestly, to have a movie like Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging as your favourite movie. And really, it wasn't a lie that she liked West Side Story she did! And he'd just never asked her. But of course, like everything when you were starting to share a life with someone, it came out.

Lucy had woken up feeling more than a little unwell. Her head was pounding, her throat aching and she'd immediately told Kate she wouldn't be coming to work today. She'd sent Gregory a quick text. Hey, not feeling great today, can you just make sure everything's set for Kate today? I swear she's mostly self sufficient.😚 She'd put her phone back down, and closed her eyes willing herself to drift off to sleep only to be interrupted by a message.

Gerald 🤓😈 😍: No, I'm coming to look after you at lunch. Get ready to be coddled my dear.

Lucy had rolled her eyes though her heart had fluttered at the sentiment as she'd fallen asleep waiting for him.

She woke to a light knocking on her front door, her phone ringing softly, her head still pounding as she padded downstairs. She opened her front door to find Gregory ladened down with bags. His smile bright. "Hey, Babe!" he said brightly, brushing past her, completely ignoring how disgusting she was sure she looked, kissing her forehead. "Hmm You feel warm, come on let's get you a nest." He tugged on her hand, leading her down the hallway into her living room, forcing her onto her sofa. Gregory pulled item after item form his bags like Mary Poppins, a blanket from his own house that she was fond of, a thermos of tea, soup, ice cream, on and on they went tucked around her on the sofa. Making her heart ache a little at the care he was showing her so gently, unable to remember the last time anyone had.

"What do you want to watch?" Gregory asked softly, crouching in front of her, his eyes curious. "Whatever you want." Gregory sighed "Noooo Lucy Loo. What do you want to watch?" Lucy was silent for several seconds before she sighed, seeking the comfort more than anything "Angus, Thongs, and perfect snogging." She muttered embarrassedly. Gregory let out a little huff before he stood, his fingers trailing down her DVDs returning as it started to play, sliding in behind her with a satisfied hum.

"You're going to get sick." Lucy said softly though she nuzzled against his chest. Gregory huffed again. "Oh no! Whatever will I do? Cuddled up on the couch with my beautiful girlfriend." He tutted his fingers in her hair soothingly and then suddenly he chanted "Big Fish, Little Fish, Cardboard Box." Lucy stopped, shocked, she spun towards him. "Have you seen this before?" Gregory laughed, "Babe, I have 4 sister's I've probably watched this more than you have. I quite like it actually." he admitted, a shy smile on his face. And Lucy's heart fluttered. "I really love you." The words slipped from her quietly, a wide smile breaking out on Greg's face. "Yeah me too."

#angus thongs and perfect snogging is a great film #and I stand by it tbh #as does lucy #also Wild Child #bridgerton and sons au #lucy x gregory #gregcy #lucy abernathy #gregory bridgerton #molly's asks and answers

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wastelandlovingscenarios · 4 years

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Any headcanons on what the boys' life would be like if they were pre-war like the sole survivor? Family? Work? Anything like their post-war life? Any relations or thoughts on the sole survivor(who's still married with a baby)? Would they know each other at all? Thank you💕

so since the ss is still with nate/nora, it won’t be romanticized. thank you for requesting! ❤️

Danse:

danse would probably still be in the military and have the same personality he does now. he’s just as cautious and alert as he was post war.

would still have the same love for power armor and would probably be a higher rank, seeing that blind betrayal never happened

the only real difference is that he’s more than likely not a synth, seeing as they did not exist

danse would have a family that he grew up with, probably elsewhere because of his constant movement from state to state, eventually being stationed at boston.

wouldn’t be married for a LONG while, and definitely wouldn’t think about starting a family. he would think relationships are a waste of his time and the thought of having children would scare the shit outta him.

he more than likely wouldn’t know sole, seeing that he’s often busy and moving constantly.

if he did know them and saw that they had a family of their own, he’d probably just brush it off. it was common to see families during that time anyway.

Deacon:

deacon would be much happier in this era. he would live life freely and have no set of rules to really follow.

one of those weird neighborhood kids who knew everything about everyone for some unknown reason.

he’d still have the same goofy, lying attitude he had during his post war life, and would still be as hesitant to open up to people seeing it as awkward. he’d also still be very stealthy as it is a natural skill of his.

only really shot a gun when he visited a shooting range. overall, doesn’t know how to use a weapon. there’s no reason why he’d use it in the prewar world.

probably be a game show host. or stand up comedian. or something similar to that.

would’ve never shaved his hair off, and would never have to hide his identity from anyone. he would be using his real name and everything.

he probably would have never met barbara, seeing she was a synth but would also not have any memory of her; this would pull the trauma away from his mind during the post war era.

would occasionally date here and there, but would have a difficult time truly finding someone that can handle him.

doesn’t talk about his family much, but he does have a family somewhere and mentions it from time to time.

he would definitely know sole. he often visited their neighborhood to drop some stuff to his friend, and would chit chat with sole who was often taking a walk during the early mornings.

it would be like deep, long talks but more of small talk that ended within the span of 10 minutes.

he’d be secretly jealous but glad that sole had a family of their own. that would be the life he aspired to live one day. he could obviously see the happiness radiate off of sole and he hopes to experience that one day with someone he loves.

Maccready:

maccready is living his best life. he would somehow meet lucy or someone similar to her and still have duncan in the process.

he doesn’t need to live everyday like it’s his last and he definitely does not have to be as cautious as he was during his post war life. their lives wouldn’t be in peril every second.

the only real thing maccready would have from his post war life is his attitude and his love for weapons. he wouldn’t learn as fast as he did, but he would visit shooting ranges just to practice his shooting.

he would probably work in a job that focuses in something he’s interested in. he wouldn’t want to work a job where he’s forced to stare at a computer screen for hours on end, and he definitely hates boring paperwork.

maccready would grow up in an orphanage and would be released the minute he turned 18. he never had the chance to meet his parents but it doesn’t sadden him at all. he just knows he’ll be a better parent to duncan.

probably has better teeth.

he wouldn’t know sole for a while. he originally grew up around the capital wasteland, and for the first many years of his life, he wouldn’t want to move away.

eventually, he would probably move to boston to get away from his hometown and eventually meet sole through a daycare program.

he relates to them, seeing that sole does has a family herself. they would more than likely get along.

they would probably ask each other for advice and duncan and shaun would probably be the best of friends.

Hancock:

hancock would still use chems and would be a lot more cautious now, seeing that using it was illegal during that time.

he wouldn’t be a ghoul and still maintain his features before the radiation overtook his physical appearance.

the attempt to change his name to john hancock would take a while. his friends and family would still address him as john mcdonough as they grew up with his original name.

probably have a happier family. his brother wouldn’t be such an asshole and would still be 100% human. they’d get along better.

committed a few crimes, but got away with most of it.

hancock would probably work as a leader for a town, or lead a group of people. even during his pre war era, he still maintains his leadership skills.

still has the same chill, laid back attitude.

doesn’t partake in a serious relationship for a long while. he’s the type of guy who does one night stands and hook ups. once he finds someone he loves, he drops his acts to make sure he is loyal to them.

wouldn’t know sole at all just because he is somewhat a busy man and he’s often stuck in his own world.

if he did know sole, he’d probably be happy for them. he wouldn’t think nothing much of it though. it was a normal thing to see.

Nick:

he wouldn’t be living the memories of another man and would have a new, fresh life. just like deacon, he is erased of the trauma he experienced during his post war years.

much, much happier and is aware of who he is and what he wants to do as a person. he is also 100% human and isn’t discriminated as much as he was in his synth body. (he’d still have his badass comebacks tho)

would still have the same detective job and have the same interesting attitude with similar jokes and phrases. everyone would still continue to love nick and see him as an enjoyable presence.

knows how to use a gun and do hand to hand combat for when the time comes.

nick would eventually find someone who he considers his better half and settles down with them. it would take them a while to start a family, though.

sole knew nick since he was definitely a popular name around boston. he had a high reputation for his detective skills.

he’d be acquainted with sole. nick would’ve probably knocked on their door, asking if they witnessed any suspicious behavior around their neighborhood that can help with his current case. before he left, he looked at shaun who was hiding shyly behind soles leg . “handsome boy you got there, miss.”

in the end of it all, nick wouldn’t know sole personally but would respect them, seeing that they had a family and seemed very happy.

#fallout 4 #fallout 4 companions #fallout #fallout 4 companions react #fallout 4 reacts #fallout+4+companions+reaction #danse #hancock #john hancock #maccready #paladin danse #robert joseph maccready #deacon #nick valentine #fallout 4 headcannons #headcannons #fluff

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adamarks · 4 years

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Butch!Simon Headcanons

For @theflyingpeach 💞💖

Simon goes by Simon

Simon picked this name themself

Simon’s say-my-name kink is even worse in this universe bc of this

It’s more personal like

“UGH she KNOWS me 😩💦”

“She’s respecting me and using my NAAAAME 💦”

Simon uses any pronouns but slightly prefers he/him

Has big old titties

An ass that’ll make your jaw drop

Barely anyone notices the godlike ass bc he always wears ugly ass shorts (Baz notices)

Has shaved a single time

Hated it.

Tried to use a hair removal spell in like 3/4th year due to Societal Pressure and the middle school NO ONE LOOK AT ME OR ILL SHOOT MYSELF mentality

Accidentally just removed their eyebrows for the rest of the semester (no other hair was removed)

Baz had a hay day

Simon gave up on that fuckin idea forever and decided to live her best life as a Sasquatch

Nipple hair, mustache, chin hair, lower back hair, chest hair, happy trail

doesn’t wear a binder bc that is DANGEROUS for how much physical activity they do!!

Be smart kiddos

Anyway he overlaps 2 sports bras to get that flatish look

Doesn’t know what a fashion is but boy howdy Baz sure is pretty huh?

Speaking of Baz

Simon figured out their feelings a lot faster

It’s... guys it’s hard to ignore boobs

Looking the other way in Victoria’s Secret is vastly different from living with Baz Pitch

Baz was also in hell bc Simon has those BEEFY arms

Carries Baz around for fun

Simon takes almost completely after Lucy in looks

Also plays rugby with the boys

But prefers to watch basil on the pitch 👀👀👀

God fifth year was the Hell Year for both of them

Simon realized he had Feelings of Some Sort. Yet still followed Baz EVERYWHERE

Meanwhile Baz was going full throttle Regina George

God Baz’s hair is so long

And Simon is so gay

Simon’s still bi but like.

You get me

So so gay

W o m a n

Anyway

Agatha and Simon never dated bc the pressure and expectation was never there

Just gals being genuine pals

They were more like sisters and had more open communication

Simon is slightly better at emotional communication bc women are often encouraged to be more open about their feelings than men

Only slightly

Baz and her are still in “we’re dating yet still managing to pine” hell

Simon has short ass hair

Still shaves it off every summer

Has gotten to the point where it feels Wrong if it’s too long

Was constantly called a tomboy growing up

Gets the shits of the weird side eyes from old ladies bc they look too masculine

Lets hair grow out a bit and only wears shit clothes in WS bc he feels like just trying to blend in is the best way to deal and blend in but it just makes him even more miserable

Doesn’t mind getting confused for a dude though

Baz can pass as straight bc she’s more femme but Simon can’t and sometimes he feels guilty for being so obvious and worries that people will be shitty to Baz bc he makes it suddenly glaringly obvious

Just let Simon rest

Simon you’re allowed to have gay thoughts 😭

Hello I’m still not over Simon being freaked out over homophobia in WS

Her nails are chewed down to the stubs

Doesn’t carry a purse and never will

HAS watched the web series carmilla

DID have a meltdown over it.

Is inexplicably short

Like 5’2

A tiny ball of fury

Baz is like 5’8

Simon H A T E S it!!!! DESPISES it!!!!!

One time had the thought “god I wish Baz would crush my head between her thighs” and stared at the ceiling for the next hour and a half

Alright I’m gonna stop but I have so many thoughts

So many feelings

I’ll shut up now goodbye

#fem!snowbaz #carry on #wayward son #simon snow #baz pitch #snowbaz

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vonnyphant · 3 years

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To Blog or Not to Blog?

“You should start a diary and write about your experiences. It may help people going through the same thing.”

Honestly? If there’s one thing I discovered about this diagnosis, it’s that it makes me pretty damn selfish. I don’t want to help other people (not just yet, anyway). But putting some thoughts down about this time in my life may be of some sort of therapeutic value, and I do want to help myself.

(Maybe for once, saving the world can wait. Do you remember how, soon after the pandemic hit, people stopped avoiding plastic and single-use items? When your health is at risk, suddenly rainforests and polar bears and the planet are deprioritised- not that anyone will admit to this. But this is my diary and I can say what I want!* Writing for myself it is.)

Having established my less-than-Mother-Theresa-like reasons for this blog, my conscience cleared, it’s time to start. This is where the Lifetime movie shows me, in a half daze, mellowed out on drugs while they sew a mediport into my chest to start administering chemicals. A fast lane to my bloodstream. A docking station. The soundtrack? Hopefully ‘Across The Universe’ by the Beatles (possibly Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. If I get a say in it, I veto The Walrus) Time to pump this body full of drugs that’ll make my hair fall out.

Wait, what?

Voice Over: “Yep. That’s me. You’re probably wondering what I am doing here…” //record scratch - freeze frame - fast rewind to the psychedelic outtro of A Day In The Life//

Two months ago, during rub-a-dub-in-the-tub (less naughty than it sounds, was just washing myself), my mind inexplicably went to an episode of Beverly Hills 90210, s1 (aired in 1992- yes, I am that old), where Brenda Walsh has a breast cancer scare. I say inexplicably, because my usual shower fantasies do not include Ms Shannon Doherty - if I was going to pick a shower lady, I’d opt for Charlize Theron, Kiera Knightly or Winona Ryder in their short-hair phases, but that is neither here nor there.

Say what you want for 90s television- weird outfits and ponytails notwithstanding, in their AfterSchoolSpecial PSA way, they dedicated a whole scene to the girls giving themselves a breast exam, including how-to instructions**, and eventhough I was only 11 years old when I saw it, I remembered what to do, and for the last 30 years, every now and then I have randomly carried it out while wondering how I always preferred Brandon over Dylan and how my tastes have changed over time.

But this time - my hand actually found something.

I took a deep breath and calmed myself down the same way I did after finding spots on my skin, lumps on my head and every time I sneezed since covid-19; by telling myself to fucking snap out of my hypochondria tendencies. One cannot go to the doctor every damn day after all. Breast tissue is pretty lumpy and I assumed it was just imaginary. I made an appointment to see a therapist, and put it out of my mind until a few weeks later, when one of the kids came crashing down on me (literally) and faceplanted in my boob (as they do).

Now this always hurts af, but it just hurt that little more that day, so that I grabbed the appendage in question and went “WHAT THE--!” And I felt it again- the lump, more defined than a few weeks before.

Cue a lot more freaking out than the first time, and after a sleepless night, imagining what my funeral would look like (as one does), I decided to go to the gynocologist the same day or risk never to sleep again.

After a long wait and an ultrasound, my doctor assured me that while there really was a mass, it had every indication of being benign. We should keep an eye on it. If I was worried, I could schedule a second screening, but would not likely get an appointment before April. I scheduled one and tried to focus on preparing our first lockdown Christmas.

But over the holidays, the lump started hurting, even when I wasn’t poking it or having a kid catapult themselves into my chest. I’d be Netflix and Chilling, and suddenly - ZAP - like someone stuck a hot needle into it. Repeatedly. My nipple would go numb or start tingling like a bodypart that fell asleep. It freaked me out, and in the new year, I realised I couldn’t wait until April - I had to get it checked out again or I may worry myself to death.

My gynocologist did another ultrasound and again, told me not to worry. I told her it was way too late for that as I had been worried for weeks, and I wanted the thing biopsied (they gave Brenda Walsh one too, after all! It’s the only way to be 100% sure). She referred me to the hospital. At the description of my symptoms, I could come directly, and the radiologist told me in no unclear terms: “I will not let you leave this room until we draw blood and take several biopsies.” Okay- not exactly what one wants to hear at that point, but at the same time, I figured knowing would be better than guessing by the shape of it.

Test results took a week. I went in, being prepared to be told (like Brenda) it was a harmless clump of random cells or a cyst we could have removed like a wart. Only it wasn’t. It was breast cancer, an aggressive, fast-growing kind, and had I waited until April, that could have had disastrous consequences.

While the doctor explained we now needed to determine the scope of the spread and take more tissue to determine what kind of chemo (if any) could be applied, all my 2020-PTSD brain could think was:

“.............of course”.

Didn’t hear much of what she said afterwards.

Another harrowing 4 days went by, with a CT screening with contrast solutions that gave me an intense stomach ache as well as a migraine, and finally, a fully rounded diagnosis and treatment advice could be made.

Thankfully, all my organs as well as lymphnodes were clear, so it appears to be a localised tumor. And here we are - to fight this thing with chemicals and then cut out whatever is left. Genetics testing to see about the likelihood of a recurrency (and a possible double mastectomy if so - ‘pulling an Angelina Jolie’, ‘not saving the tatas’, insert ‘Think About It meme’...can’t have breast cancer if you don’t have breasts! THINK ABOUT IT***).

Chances are good. I need to cling to that while I wait for this port and treatment to start. I have accepted the inevitable hair loss, have scheduled a ritual ‘crazy hair cutting party’ with my kids for this weekend (as I would rather shave it off in one go than clean up clumps and strands over the course of weeks and look like Gollum), and I have sewn several funny little hats for inside wear and ‘going out’ (though where will I be going in pandemic, idk).

I was going to end this post on a light and happy note - but I must admit my confidence just took a really big hit in real time, as I googled how to spell Shannon’s last name for this blog entry and found out that she was treated for breast cancer in 2015, initially succesfully, but it reappeared metastasized in 2020 (again: ‘of course...when else’) and she is now in stage IV. Fuck 2020.

What are the odds that the woman whose character made me discover my own breast cancer is now, in fact, dying of the same disease? This will surely haunt me for a long time to come.

More tomorrow? Or soon? It may take a while. Until then: outro to It’s Getting Better.

*also for the record I would like to state that I’ve sewn my own masks from upcycled pillowcases and continued using fruit- and vegetable nets to avoid plastic; maybe that makes up for me being utterly selfish at the moment. Karma +1?

** https://youtu.be/pkgYXITkrfw (the scene from BH 90210)

***cis men / trans women without breasts can also get breast cancer (even though it’s rare) so this meme doesn’t really hold up, but that’s the whole point of the meme ;)

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quercus-queer · 4 years

Text

A Slice of a Normal Life au

Grace and Simon Edition... this ones long lmao:

They met at a train station as little kids and didn’t see each other again until high school

High school was rough for both of them and was really shitty in general so i’ll just leave that up to you but i’m starting with college

Grace ends up going to Juilliard and Simon feels betrayed because they were supposed to stick together no matter what

Plus Grace lied about it and put off confronting the issue until right before she left but Simon already felt something was up and his abandonment issues and other problems pop off so he distanced himself from her and started being a dick (sorry they’re still codependent and problematic at this point) until Grace goes off on him

She leaves and Simon has a breakdown and ends up in a psych ward but he does finally get some actual help and diagnosis (the high school counselor was trash), he never reaches back out to Grace and skips town afterwards which really impacts Grace and she’s just like... bro... do i need therapy too?

And then she actually seeks out a therapist with the intent to get better and does! She has pretty great time in college and makes actual friends in her dance program and ends up getting a girlfriend at some point... it was a long and pretty healthy relationship but ended on kinda bad terms, but she navigated her first relationship! Yay!

Simon is a dumbass and got with this girl he met while he was institutionalized... it didn’t go well but it was a relationship... it was like a few months long... but yeah... she also tells him to get a grip lol

I also changed my mind Simon doesn’t live with Samantha in high school, he tracks her down after his breakdown since he’s a legal adult and can do whatever he wants and lives with her and Frank afterwards

Simon starts working in a bookstore The Apex (its called that because they live on a mountain and its in the downtown of the city thats at the peak of the mountain) and actually really likes it and Samantha and Frank are good parental figures and he goes to actual therapy

There’s a little reading club for kids at the bookstore which is comprised of the Apex kids that he is in charge of now because the owner has her hands full (her, Simon, and a high school girl are like the only workers there)

Simon also gets a boyfriend he actually manages to keep and its a pretty good relationship and ends on relatively good terms since Simon’s actually getting therapy and has a good life set-up now so yay! He managed an actual relationship!

Samantha and Frank live in a cabin on this mountainous city btw which has a popular resort that Samantha manages and Frank is a chef there... it’s a very popular resort... a very common place for a retreat...

Grace and her dance crew in college take a trip there and she sees Simon and nearly dies, no seriously she was walking and then slipped and hit her head

She ends up in the hospital and her friends (she has actual good friends now) are like Grace what the fuck just happened you’re not that clumsy?

But you know who is? Simon, who is at the same hospital because Lucy from the kids club who is also a clumsy disaster got a fucking pencil in her eye and he had to drive her to the hospital

He sees Grace and doesn’t know whether to laugh cry or say hi so he just stares at her blankly like the dumbass he is and then leaves

Anyway, this kicks off a 200k mall-rats slowburn that goes harder than Tulips and Mikayla’s

Grace doesn’t see him again until the next night when he’s in the lobby and he actually goes up to her and they talk because he had time to process it, they awkwardly talk... mostly sit though, and then Grace’s friends call her over and Simon quickly offers for her to come over another day

Grace doesn’t know what to do and her friends ask her whats up and convince her to go, not alone obviously Jennifer is gonna go with her to make sure she doesn’t get murdered

Its awkward again, there’s small talk between Samantha, Frank, Jennifer and the two idiots and they play card games until Frank decides to finish up dinner and Jen ditches Grace because Frank is the coolest mf on the planet so Grace and Simon are alone again

They just sit there until Simon asks about her dance program and college and then they talk about that until Grace mentions her therapist and Simon’s like??? and Grace is like whoops and then they eat dinner and Grace and Jen leave

Simon goes by the resort more often but they don’t rlly talk until Grace is about to leave and Simon just apologizes for everything and Grace says she’s sorry too and Simon just doesn’t know how to respond to that so he’s like if you ever want to come back here I’ll be here

Grace does not know how to respond to that so she’s just like uhhh okay bye

The dance team comes back the following year and she sees Simon again and he’s like “sorry for fucking you up” and Grace is like “don’t give yourself so much credit I already needed therapy unless you forgot about the fact I had counseling right after you?” “I try to block out everything from before 19 tbh” “fair enough... I suppose there wasn’t much to want to remember huh” “I’m... I remember telling you, you were the best person I ever met and I meant that” Grace doesn’t know how to respond to that and then they don’t talk for the rest of the trip, they just wave at each other and smile in passing

The dance troupe grace joins after college goes on annual trips to the resort so Grace and Simon continue to have three conversations each year plus Jennifer makes sure a visit to Samantha’s and Frank’s happens

the yearning... the pining... WHEW its a lot and Samantha, Frank, and Grace’s entire dance troupe, plus the family that always vacations at the same time are SICK of it

They don’t even become close friends again until their late twenties.

The kids club thinks Grace is amazing and Kai bases their whole look off of her

Mall-rats officially happens in their thirties and they get married in their forties

when I say slowburn i meant it

Idk where to put this:

Samantha lost custody of Simon as a kid because of a hoarding problem she still struggles with but Simon is an adult now and him and Frank help keep her in check

Simon was with Samantha from a couple weeks after entering foster care and most of middle school

Samantha and Frank are actually just roommates

Grace is like “so Samantha and Frank...?” “They’re roommates” “Simon... is that what they told you?” “well yeah, but they’re seriously just roommates” “ummmm...” “Grace they’re both gay” “OH”

Simon works at the bookstore his whole life and he loves it, Grace is a professional dancer, they’re both happy

They look the same as in canon except Simon can shave and Grace gets be the fashion icon she deserves

Simon still cant dress so most of the time he just wears different sweaters he’s been given and alternates between his three pairs of jeans

#infinity train #grace monroe #simon laurent #mall-rats #its the angsty slowburn for the ages baby #literally been burning since they were 10 #whose willing to write this slowburn I would but my writing is... not great #anyway bi legends mall-rats #Samantha the cat #is a lesbian #Frank the bear #is a bear

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itsyourgirljewls · 3 years

Text

Painted in Blue

Chapter 6:

March 2, 2022

Adam and Jezebel Gosling had been seen taking photographs of Billboard’s Top 100 artist Anthony Preach on March 2, 2022. Jake Gosling spoke to a fan that he was planning something special for someone, which was why he was at Target the other day. Girls scream to get his attention, so who could be this lucky girl?

***

I checked my phone messages before my alarm went off at 9:00 am. Lucy texted me, and that made my heart skip a beat. A smile crept up in the corner of my lips and I opened up her text message.

Hey Sawyer. Just checking to see if you were down to meet up at 12:00 pm today?

-Lucy Moon

I wanted to text her back right away, but I knew I needed to wait at least three minutes before texting her back. If I texted her back soon, that would have seemed desperate. Once I felt that it was time to text, I opened up the keyboard and began texting.

Sounds good to me.

-Sawyer Brown

As I was about to roll over to face my wall and fall back asleep, my mom knocked on my door. I checked the time on my phone and saw that it was 8:45 am. Good lord. When was this woman going to let me sleep?

“What?” I shouted.

“Don’t use that tone at me young man! I just wanted to let you know I’ll be home late tonight. Got it?” mom said.

I rolled my eyes and groaned in annoyance. If it was with Nicholas Harrison, I swear to god I was going to murder that man. This man was all my mom talked about, even when she wasn’t with him.

“Got it Sawyer?” my mom asked again.

“Got it mother!” I said.

I waited for a bit when I knew that the coast was clear, but decided it was better to get up and prepare for my meet up with Lucy. I was meeting her at the Beachwood Café in Los Angeles California. The place was pretty pricey, especially with the sales tax but the food there was really good. I only went there every now and then on special occasions.

I walked over to my dresser and grabbed my black and blue Champion brand t-shirt my father gave me before my mom divorced him, as well as black denim jeans with rips on the knee part. I got dressed, walked over to the bathroom and opted to put some product in my hair to style it up a bit.

People with red hair I feel like, are cursed. Their hair is always difficult to keep up and there is not much you can do style it. Though, as much as Ed Sheeran made it popular to date someone with red hair and blue eyes, no matter what I did, I seemed to be unlucky.

Once I was finished getting ready, I decided to, rather than sit at the house and do homework, go to Starbucks and get coffee and breakfast. I was in an unusually good mood today as I was seeing Lucy Moon. I hadn’t hung out with just her after we entered high school. She began to get noticed for her paintings and that was when Jake Gosling really started to pursue her.

Of course, Lucy had told the whole school at fourteen, she wanted to focus on her school work and art for the first two years before she would date anyone. So, surprisingly, everyone waited and Jake waited to do anything with her until senior year began.

I unlocked my Volvo, got inside and began the long drive to Starbucks. When it should have been a ten-minute drive, it turned into a thirty minute one.

People were asses on the road. No one seemed to know what a green light was and I had to press on the horn on my steering wheel several times before they allowed me go.

One driver in particular, pissed me off. He was an older white man and had a long stick shaped white beard on his chin. He had a red cap on and a blue vest. He drove in a red BMW truck and listened to country music.

He drove next to me and I clenched my jaw, gripping tightly onto the driver’s wheel. When the red light turned green, I was about to go, until the truck cut me off, right in front of me. I gasped and honked my horn loudly. I held out my hand and flipped him off with my middle finger. He did the same to me but I didn’t give a shit.

At last though, I arrived at a Drive-thru Starbucks. I pulled up to the speaker and the guy said, “Hi there. Welcome to Starbucks. How may I help you?”

I decided to get an Iced green tea and drove up to the window. When I did, the person who was at the speaker, opened the window and said, “That’ll be $5.55.”

I licked my teeth with my tongue and bit my bottom lip. I took a quick glance at the name tag and saw that his name was Ryan. He had a brown afro, which looked like had been shaved a little, light brown eyes and light brown skin. He smiled at me and held out his hand as he waited for me to give him my card.

I cleared my throat, clenched my jaw and gave it to him. “Thanks man,” he said.

My heart sped a little and I drummed my fingers against the wheel. Ryan gave my card back and as he gave me drink, I quickly said before I could stop myself, “Do you have a snap chat?”

He frowned and shook his head. “Sorry dude,” he said. He cleared his throat and then said, “Have a good one.”

My cheeks grew warm and said in a rushed and shaky tone, “You too.”

I drove off and released a breath. I was never going to see him again anyway. It wouldn’t have worked out. I took a sip of my iced tea and decided to park in front of an I Hop. It appeared to be busy today as the parking lot was full and there was a line going out, outside.

I rested my head on the headrest and turned up the music in my car. I turned up the AC and waited there until I finished my venti iced green tea. I didn’t need to be in a hurry. It was around 11:00 am and I had to be at Lucy’s house at 12:00 pm. Once I was done with my iced tea, I began the long drive to Lucy.

***

Lucy lived near the edge of Los Angeles, California. It took her at least an hour to get to JRH but even then, it was the best place in California to develop her art skills and to get the best connections for the best schools and jobs.

Traffic was god awful, which forced me to be ten minutes late. I texted Lucy, letting her know I was going to be late and she said it was fine. Lucy hated disappointing people and getting angry. She always tried to be polite to everyone. Even to complete strangers.

At last though, I arrived. I pulled up to the curb, just in case Mr. and Mrs. Moon were coming home soon and got out of my car, locked it and headed up to the front door. I rubbed my hands together and cursed quietly to myself when I couldn’t get my ears to cool down.

I held my fist up at the door, released a breath and knocked four times. There was a moment of silence, with the exception of the birds chirping in the trees and the lonely woodpecker tapping the wood at an obnoxious rate.

Finally, Lucy opened the door. Her hair was in a messy bun and she wore high waisted denim jeans, white socks and a flowy shirt that revealed a little cleavage. I could’ve sworn if I looked closely, I saw a hint of glittery eye shadow make up on her eye lids.

Lucy smiled, tucked a strand of lose hair from her ear and said, “Hey Sawyer.”

“Hi Lu,” I said adding a smirk.

She blushed and said, “Come in.”

She stepped to the side, allowing me to come in. I smiled and when I stepped inside and I waited for her to lead the way so she didn’t feel intruded on. She scratched the back of her head, pointed down the hallway and said, “To my room?’

I nodded and allowed her to lead the way. She did and when she opened her bedroom, she chuckled nervously and said, “I’m sorry. The room’s a mess.”

There were clothes everywhere and the bed was unmade. I laughed a little and said, “It’s totally fine.”

Lucy walked over to a wooden log type drawer and pulled open the middle one. She pulled out a photo album and then a Fuji blue Polaroid camera. She tossed it on her bed and cleared a spot for the album. She then patted the spot next to her and I walked over to her and sat down next to her. Before she opened up the book, she walked over to the window and rolled open the blinds. She then walked back, sat down and opened the book.

She smiled shyly, turned to me and said, “So… I’m thinking of showing this to Jake and giving it to him as a gift. What do you think?”

“Is it a birthday present?” I asked hesitantly.

“Yeah… I’ve been, building up some memories for when I go to college,” she said.

“Are you planning on going out of state?” I asked as I flipped through the album.

She nodded and placed the palms on her hands-on top of her legs. “I’ve been accepted into Ireland and London schools,” she said.

I glanced up at her and my jaw dropped slightly. “That’s awesome Lu!”

She smiled slightly but it turned to a frown. I tilted my head and said, “Aren’t you happy?”

Lucy shrugged and said, “I’ve also been accepted to schools here in California and New York.”

“Do you know where you want to go?”

Lucy shook her head. “No. I mean… I lived in California for seventeen years now, almost eighteen and I think I should move on from this place. But… my parents would want me to stay here and so would Jake.”

I understood her dilemma. She felt pressured into staying here because of Jake. It was as though they were assigned to each other for marriage at birth, even though no one actually said anything about marriage. Everyone coupled them up, even the teachers. The only person who didn’t give a shit was my mom. But she had her own love life to deal with.

I cleared my throat and glanced back down at the photo album. She had photos of all of her friends. They were all centered and the one term that I remembered from art class, which described her photos perfectly was the rule of thirds. She followed them perfectly, to a T. Though she was a better painter, she was able to be more authentic with her photos than Jake was. Jake only did photography and had an Instagram because of his parents. He was able to get a million followers on Instagram within a week all because of his famous parents.

Then… I saw one of me. It was her and I, sitting on one of the outside lunch tables at JRH. I smiled and said, “Mind if I keep this one?” Jake wasn’t going to care about a photo of Lucy and I.

Lucy laughed a little and nodded. She pulled out the photo and gave it to me. I took it and slid it gently in my pocket. She then said, “What do you think of them?”

I glanced at the photos one last time and said, “They look good. There’s not much you can do though with a polaroid, but then again, I don’t know much about photography.

We laughed and as she closed her book and put it away, I noticed that the polaroid she had was a dark blue one. On the back side of the camera, she painted a black rose. There was so much detail in the thorns and petals. It looked like she put a bit of shimmer on it as well.

I stood up as she put the book away and said, “Should we head to the Beachwood Café?”

She nodded and as I walked out of the bedroom, she grabbed her camera and we walked out of the house. I opened the passenger door for her and she gets in. I closed the door and got in on the other side. I turned on google maps and began the long drive to Beachwood Café.

***

There weren’t many people at the Beachwood Café, or rather the restaurant felt empty because they spread out the tables six feet apart. We got out of the car and walked up to the front desk. I glanced up at the menu and asked, “What are you wanting Lu?”

“Um…”

A lady with long blond hair in a braid and brown eyes walked up to the register and said, “Hi. Welcome to the Beachwood Café. What can I get for you?”

I glanced down at Lucy and she said, “Can we have a small size of the Pesto’s Yet to Come pizza?”

“Of course! Anything to drink?” the lady asked.

“I’ll just have water,” she said.

“Water for me too,” I added.

She jotted it down and said, “That’ll be $20 for you guys.”

I pulled out my card before Lucy had a chance to and gave it to the lady. She swiped the card and said, “You can sit anywhere you’d like.”

We sat near one of the window seats and waited for our meal. This was my second time eating here. The first time was with my dad and my mom, when my mom could afford these expensive meals.

“What made you want to do photography?” I asked.

Lucy shrugged and said, “Jake was learning painting and I guess I was inspired to learn photography.”

Anyone could do photography. It was a matter of telling a story and making it unique that made people feel things when looking at a photo. I released a breath and said, “I’m sure Jake would like them. No matter what.”

I wanted to slap myself for saying this. I was hyping up Jake to Lucy and Jake was a complete dick and an arrogant bitch. He made everyone else do the things he doesn’t want to do. He’d rather hang out with Lucy but make someone else buy the corsage or suit or meals so that he doesn’t step away from her. Everyone liked Jake though, so they did anyway. Even though he was using them.

Our pizza finally came and the waitress cut the pizza into eight slices. I grabbed a piece and put it on my plate. Lucy did the same and she grabbed a napkin and parmesan cheese and spread the cheese on top of it. I did the same thing and we began to eat.

#young adult #contemporary #romance #celebrity gossip #photography #teen angst

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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years

Text

THE MAYER TWINS

June 26, 1952

Michael Leo and Joseph David Mayer were born on June 26, 1952, in Los Angeles, California. They are the twin sons of Max and Eva June Mayer.

Between 1953 and 1956, the brothers alternated in the role of Little Ricky in 32 episodes of “I Love Lucy.” They succeeded twins Richard Lee and Ronald Lee Simmons, who played the role for six episodes. James John Ganzer played Little Ricky in the hospital as a newborn. The Mayers were the 4th and 5th actors to play the part. Although Keith Thibodeaux is best remembered as Little Ricky, the Mayer Twins played him in more episodes.

When the Simmons Twins were not aging as quickly as the TV character, auditions were held for their successor. Desi Arnaz saw a photo of the Mayer twins at a picnic and liked what he saw, even though they do not share Desi / Ricky’s Latin heritage.

It was common for twins to alternate in a single role on television and film in order to meet strict child labor regulations and to assure that if one child was uncooperative or cranky, the other could quickly take his place and filming continue. One of the most famous twins to play a major role on a television series was Diane and Erin Murphy, who played Tabitha Stevens on “Bewitched” from 1966 and 1972, despite the fact that they were fraternal, not identical, twins.

Except for the personal memories of the Mayers and some cast and crew members, it is not generally known which twins is on camera at any point. Although one of the twins has a small scar under his chin, it was not visible on camera. While many children have baby pics, the Mayers have the ultimate in home movies!

Their first appearance was in “Ricky’s LIFE Story” at the start of season 3.

The way Caroline Appleby holds Little Ricky is hysterical. Perhaps his diaper needs changing?

Father and Son - and Godfather, too!

Baby’s first steps!

Lucy is scared for their safety!

In her nightmare, Lucy users her son to convince Ricky not to leave them for Carlotta. The rabbit-themed hat and overalls helped identify the character when he aged 25 years in Lucy’s dream!

Daddy feeds his son. Hopefully nothing too spicy!

Looking at the family albums.

Going for a spin in his new stroller!

Comforting her cranky son.

Sleepy Little Ricky. Many shots of the character in his crib were done as ‘insert’ shots, meaning that they were not part of the filming of the scene, but were done later on - after the audiences had left - so the cameras and lighting could reposition for the shot. The film was later edited into the master shot to create as seamless story.

Gruff Fred bonds with his godson. There is a story that Little Ricky’s friend Little Stevie (Steven Kay) was afraid of William Frawley - and his fear reads on his face during “Lucy and Superman”.

Lucy coaches her son acting, hoping he’ll be the next Jackie Coogan.

Lucy uses Fred’s godson to rouse him from his catatonic state after losing money on his vintage Cadillac.

Grandma McGillicuddy and babysitter Matilda Trumbull help Little Ricky say goodbye to his parents and godparents as they say “California Here We Come”!

Fashionable Little Ricky in Palm Springs.

In “Lucy and John Wayne” Director James V. Kern had a tough time coaxing little Michael Mayer to play in the cement for the scene where Little Ricky ruins the newly-made footprints. It took 90 minutes of overtime shooting to get the brief insert shots. It seems the boy was afraid to get his red shoes dirty so Lucy had to promise to buy him a pair of new pair to make him happy. The slab that Little Ricky played in was not wet concrete, but oatmeal!

Similarly, what was supposed to be shaving cream was actually whipped cream! Fussy actor Michael (or is it Joe?) looks pretty unhappy about cream on his new suit!

The twins’ real-life mother, Eva Jean Mayer appeared as an extra in "Homecoming" first broadcast on November 7, 1955. After greeting her son, Lucy hands him off to his real mother for the rest of the scene.

Little Ricky is wondering what his mom is doing in his hospital bed!

In “Bon Voyage” the entire cast and crew got to fly in the helicopter except Mike and Joe. Mike remembers being upset over this.

The Mayer Twins’ final appearance was in “Lucy Gets Homesick in Italy” at the end of season 5. At the end of Joe and Mike’s stint on “I Love Lucy,” they were making $150 a week. This was considered full-time pay for the time. Like the other actors to play Little Ricky, the Mayers were never given screen credit for their work.

TWINS / NOT TWINS

“I Love Lucy” famously used both twins on screen in “Tennessee Bound” which featured Marilyn and Rosalyn Borden as Teensy and Weensy.

In “The Amateur Hour” the Hudson Twins were actually played by non-related actors David Stollery and Sammy Ogg, who were made to appear identical using costumes and make-up.

LIFE AFTER LUCY

THE MAYER TWINS were born Presbyterian and Jewish, although the family later became Mormons and leaders in the LDS Church, including doing missionary work.

When they were about 12 years old, Eva Jean took them to the filming of Yours, Mine and Ours. Lucy recognized their mother and they visited for a few minutes. Eva Jean said Lucy was always very professional.

They graduated from Crescenta Valley High School in 1970.

Joseph became a special education teacher at a high school in North Hollywood, California.

Joseph married Ruth Adel Miller Salway in 1995, his second wife. They have ten children!

The Mayer Twins visit Jamestown!

Exit stage right!

#The Mayer Twins #Lucille Ball #I Love Lucy #Michael Mayer #Joseph Mayer #LIttle Ricky #twins #Jamestown #Desi Arnaz #william frawley #Katharine Card #Elizabeth Patterson #David Stollery #Sammy Ogg #The Borden Twins #Erin Murphy #Bewitched #Teensy and Weensy #Eva Jean Mayer

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samclownchester · 4 years

Text

The day is June 15 2020

The time is 3 am

The situation is that the world has fallen into a pandemic of Covid-19, and my job closed down in March, leaving me with lots of time on my hands. Despite my doubts, I fell back into Supernatural, deep into it, and I am now rewatching it. I thought it would be fun to try and see how much I could remember from earlier seasons before I watch them all

I have watched up to 1x14 at this point, so those episodes are fresh in my mind, but lets see what else I remember

Season 1

“Dad’s on a hunting trip, and he hasn’t been home in a few days”

“Saving people, hunting things, the family business”

Sam’s girlfriend dies just like his mom did

Their dad is the point of the season but is only actually in like 3 episodes

Sam and Dean break up but get back together

Sam has VISIONS and moves things with his MIND

Meg is a demon, Sam has a bit of a crush on her

They find their dad, but don’t kill the demon

colt

Season 2

Dean dies in a car crash, John sells his soul for him and dies

Bobby Singer is best dad

Ellen and Jo and Ash exist

Purple Nurple

Gordon?

Lots of psychics! Sam can make friends??

Jk, it’s the hunger games

Sam gets stabbed in the back

Dean sells his soul for him

They kill Azazel I think??

“I have … demon blood in me?”

Season 3

Saving Dean from his demon deal

Groundhog day episode where Dean dies everyday

Gabriel?? (trickster)

Blonde Ruby (let’s hear it for Laurel Lance!)

Very short because there was a writers’ strike that year

Hell hounds

Season 4

Dean was “gripped tight and raised from perdition” by Castiel

Sam has a new gf! (Surprise, it’s Ruby in a new body! :o)

Why does she pretend to not know Dean when he first shows up? Is she lying to Sam about who she is this whole time?? Hmmm I wish I remembered

Time travel?? (Sam doesn’t get to come ☹ )

Demon blood

Demon blood detox ☹

Let’s kill Lilith

“Because it had to be you Sam”

“The boy with the demon blood”

Season 5

Dean is the Michael sword

Sam is messed up, trying to quit demon blood

Cas rebelled, and he did it, all of it, for Dean

Adam Winchester is a person who exists

Also I think this is the season with Jesse the antichrist who never shows up again it’s fine.

He only existed so they could have important conversations about nature vs nurture which honestly they should’ve just saved from when Jack was born but they didn’t know that was gonna happen

More time travel??

Future

Cas likes drugs

Team Free Will

Samifer

Fall into the cage

Dean goes to live with Lisa and Ben

The end?

Season 6

Cas is working with Crowley and spying on Dean but not talking to him like the pining idiot that he is

Dean can’t help but inspect monster happenings in town

Soulless!Sam

Dean finds Soulless Sam

Hanging out with some old dude?

Get Sam’s soul back

Meet Death?

Find out Cas is working with Crowley

O: Ultimate betrayal

???

Season 7

Leviathans

Godstiel?? Why?? Idr

Hallucifer

Please give Sam therapy

Sam goes to an asylum

Cas takes Sam’s trauma??

More leviathans

Dick?

Charlie!

Kevin!

Garth? Did we know him before. Idk, we know him now

Dean and Cas go to purgatory!

When does Cas die and walk into the lake? That’s before they go to Purgatory, right? Hmmmm but how does he come back

Cas is Emmanuel and has a wife? Is that in this season?

Season 8

Dean gets out of purgatory!

But no Cas

Sam had a girlfriend and a dog! Nice!

Not nice, he ignored Kevin and didn’t look for Dean

Like they agreed on, but whatever ok sue him for trying to be happy

Dean has a vampire boyfriend

Not so high and mighty about killing every monster are we now, huh Dean?

Right? I don’t remember, this is a conversation that happens though

He does end up killing Benny though, doesn’t he? huh

Cas is back from Purgatory! But he’s got Secrets ™

“I’m gonna become a hunter”

Then he stays in the old folks home and next time we see him he’s all wacky and likes to watch the bees?

Megstiel

You’re just playing sorry

Am I right?? I don’t remember, but all of this happens at some point

Who even is the big bad? What are we fighting? Idk

Oh we have to save Kevin from Crowley and he reads the demon tablet. Only eats hotdogs, doesn’t shave. I love him please keep him safe.

Spoilers, they don’t

Right! The trials, Sam does the trials, they “purify” him

The angels fall, but Sam doesn’t complete the trials and almost dies.

Season 9

Sam almost dies, Dean is like “right, nonconsensual possession is clearly the best answer for this”

Human!Cas, he drinks lots of water. Steve.

§ “you can’t stay here” :o

Abaddon I think?? What was the point

Crowley is sort of our friend now and I think we meet Rowena? Idr

Kevin dies ☹

“What is the upside to me being alive” – Sam

§ Maybe in this season, maybe not. Who knows?

Cas is a cannibal (eats grace) and becomes and angel again at some point

§ Hannah exists

We all hate Metatron

Cain??

Metatron stabs Dean and Sam puts his dead body on the bed

Demon!Dean

Season 10

Demon!Dean and Crowley are living it up!

Sam and Cas try to cure Dean

Charlie and Rowena interact a lot I think

Book of the Damned

When did they find the bunker? Men of Letters? All that? Idr, anyway they have it at this point

Dean kills lots of people

Charlie dies ☹

Dean blames Sam which is unfair and I hate it

They get the mark off and The DarknessTM is release

Season 11

The Baby episode exists

Really weird sexual tension between Dean and Amara while she’s still kind of a child, no one knows why. Please stop.

Cas gets called expendable and then makes poor life decisions

Lbr, though, Misha is the only other one who can play Lucifer with the same spirit as Mark Pellegrino. Sorry Jared, it’s the truth.

Eileen!! <3

Chuck is God :o

Let’s kill Amara!

Except we don’t kill her, she just needs to bond with her bro.

Here, have your mom back

Season 12

Mom????

British Men of Letters

Lucifer F*cks

Boy I didn’t think this would turn into what it did, let me tell you

Winchesters escape from Federal Prison

Cas says “I love you”

But like, the plural you. No homo.

Sam admits he lost his drive to lead, then finds it again and leads hunters against the dang brits! Hooray!

Oh shoot Lucifer wants custody of his kid!

FIGHT

Fatality – Castiel

Fatality – Mary

Oh no wait she didn’t die she’s just trapped.

Season 13

Jack jack jack jack jack

3 dads, all at various levels of dadding

Actually 2 excellent dads, one dad who is too emotionally damaged to dad but he tries sometimes

Yeah Cas pisses of a cosmic entity. That won’t come back to bite him

Jack just wants to be good

Wayward sisters was not picked up which sucks

Apocalypse world

Rowena is our friend now

Custody Battle!!! Who wins? Not Lucifer

We saved the day! And a ton of people

Literally they made a whole deal of the people being like “We won’t leave our home or our cause” and then they got back to Sam and Dean’s world, didn’t have archangel grace and were just like “meh, actually this place is cool. We don’t have to worry about going back”

Psych! We’re not done yet! Luci wants his kid

And Michael wants his planet

Season 14

Michael! Dean

Jack dies

But it’s ok, we fixed you, just don’t use your powers

Oh shoot he used his power

Nick is somehow alive

In love with Lucifer

Burn his ass!!

Oh Mary disapproves

RIP Mary

RIP Dean being a father, now he’s gonna murder

Hi Chuck, nice of you to show up

Oh no.

Season 15

Chuck sucks

Dean and Cas break up ☹

Sam has visions again

But he’s not psychic, it’s just the piece of his soul inside Chuck

Resurrect your girlfriend! Yeah!!

Jack is eating hearts, but it’s ok, Death told him to do it.

Garden of Eden?

Get your soul back boy!

And cry

Honorable mentions (Aka these happened but idr when)

Sam falls in love with a werewolf and then has to kill her and MAN Jared really brought the tears

AU where Supernatural is a TV show

Finding out Supernatural is a book series and the author is Chuck!

Crowley becomes helpful mostly

Crowley has a son??

Meet grandpa

Ellen, Jo, and Ash die

Bobby dies

literally everybody dies

Kill Hitler

They meet that Jewish guy with the Golem who pretended to flirt with Dean at some point.

Jimmy Novak was a devout man who deserved a lot better than he got

Claire Novak is so cool

She moves in with Jody

When do we meet Jody? She’s just always kinda been there?

Gabriel, I don’t remember anything about Gabriel

The council of the Gods’ happens and then I think Gabriel dies in that episode?? Idr

The Four Horsemen

Death, Pestilence, War, Famine

“You’re not hungry Dean”

I literally do not remember what was happening with these guys

Also, they killed Death, killed a reaper, that reaper became the new Death. I remember when all that happened I just didn’t feel like putting it in the timeline.

11 notes · View notes

let-it-raines · 4 years

Text

Catch Me If You Can (28/40)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

A/n: I know everyone is caught up in JJ Sneed land if my dash is any indication, but I know some people are itching for a new chapter today! So here we are!

Also, everyone go check out this FANTASTIC piece of artwork from @imagnifika | here | because it’s awesome, and I’m still blown away by it and seeing this story come to life in someone else’s eyes! Let me stare at it forever. Thanks to @resident-of-storybrooke for reading all these words and being a great encourager! 💙

AO3: Beginning | Current

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Tag list: @stunningswan @eala-captian @galaxyzxstark @xellewoods @mariakov81 @ultraluckycatnd @royalswan @shey-starsfury @superchocovian @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @notoriouscs @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @qualitycoffeethings

-/-

There are technically eight different types of cookies, and it all depends on how exactly they’re baked or, well, not baked. This isn’t something Killian knew until about two o’clock this morning when he was googling cookie recipes desperate to find something other than chocolate chip cookies to bake. But then he got sucked into a wormhole of research and discovering the difference between rolled cookies, bar cookies, and dropped cookies.

Seriously. There is an entire website on the history of cookies. He looked at it for an hour. It’s kind of insane.

It’s also not really important to him, but weird things happen in the middle of the night, especially since he hasn’t been sleeping well the past few days and his mind needed to focus on something concrete.

That’s also how he ended up wandering to the nearest twenty-four-hour market at three in the morning to buy ingredients for black and white cookies, buckeyes, and sugar cookies. He doesn’t even know how or why he picked those three. All Killian knows is that he’s been stress baking for days now, something that’s a bit hard to do when he’s trying to take it easy on his right arm, and he’s pretty much wiped out all of his cabinets of the good ingredients.

His refrigerator, however, looks like a bakery threw up inside of it. He really needs to take some of the things to Liam and Elsa, but when he went to their house yesterday, all Addy and Lucy wanted to talk about was his arm and Emma and even though it was completely innocent, it was too much for him. He can’t quite go back to give them cookies if all they’re going to talk about is Emma.

Every bit of this is his fault. He owns up to that.

But it’s still too much.

The fact that Ariel, Eric, Will, and Robin are all pissed beyond belief at him doesn’t help. He’s sure that for the four of them things will go back to normal soon. He doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks they will. He’ll never be able to clutch his shoulder again without having someone yelling at him to go see a doctor, but that’s likely for the best.

(Killian should have gone to a fucking doctor.)

They all deserve the multitude of sweets in his fridge. He’d take them to each of their apartments now, but they’re all still too pissed that he lied to them over and over again. Plus, they’re leaving for Boston tomorrow morning and likely busy even though today is their last day off from the small break that they got after Labor Day.

He’s not leaving for Boston. He’s staying right here sitting on his ass surrounded by cookies.

Emma’s going to Boston. At least, he thinks that she is. She should be. He’ll have to ask her when she comes over.

When she comes over.

Emma is coming over today. In about fifteen minutes actually, and that’s entirely why he’s been stress baking (more than usual) throughout the entire night. Killian doesn’t even know how he looks right now. There are probably some major bags under his eyes and his hair is all over the place, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he had flour or icing or even both smeared all over him.

Shit. He hasn’t shaved in four days.

For some reason, it’s that that thought that has Killian dropping his piping bag he was using to frost the sugar cookies to turn the corner in his apartment and run down the hallway to get to his bedroom so he can shower. In the past few days, in all of his moping and self-inflicted misery, he managed to pick up all of Emma’s clothes and hung them in the closet. That might be a little too hopeful thinking, but it seemed like the natural thing to do.

The sticky notes, though, have stayed exactly where they are, and he looks at them before quickly twisting the nobs on his shower and stepping inside the moment the water gets to an acceptable temperature. He doesn’t have much time, so Killian picks up his body wash, leaving Emma’s where it is, and scrubs over his body while doing some light stretches with his shoulder. He needs to put another ice pack on there.

That’ll have to come after this.

Six minutes later, Killian is out of the shower. Two minutes after that, he’s dressed in a pair of his gym shorts and a t-shirt, one from a charity game he played last year, and after looking in the mirror, he knows that he doesn’t have time to shave, not if he wants to brush his teeth again.

He should probably brush his teeth for…reasons.

That’s optimistic.

Killian can’t help it. For four days he has felt his entire world crumbling around him, and it’s been his fault. He’s known that it was. There was no denying it even when he most wanted to, and he’s wanted to a hell of a lot.

Missing the rest of the season, possibly having to miss parts of the play-offs which could mean that he could miss the World Series, is obviously crushing. There’s no denying that. The game has been his life for nearly twenty-three years, and he doesn’t want to keep screwing things up. His track record might not show that, but it’s true. He’s going to try to be better. He’ll go to all of his therapy, tell those who need to know when he’s hurting, and he’s not going to overdo it. He’s not.

But as much as all of the stuff with his job is killing him, not having Emma to talk to is worse.

The game was his life for so long, and while he doesn’t want to say that Emma is his entire life now, she’s up there in the most important category.

Probably topping the list.

Everything about his life has her mark on it. From the clothes in his closet and the bottles in his shower to the coffee creamer in his fridge and the throw blanket that she left on his couch. There are all of these physical signs that show how she’s changed things, but he knows that a hell of a lot of how Emma has impacted his life comes in the way that he’s more conscious about spending times with his loved ones or the fact that his demons don’t seem to find him as much in the dark of the night. The smile that was missing for so many years has found its place again.

Emma didn’t fix his flaws. They’re all still there. But she has inadvertently helped him to be a better person.

Even if he is still screwing up and will continue to.

Killian loves Emma, and there is no denying that. None at all. He’d never try to.

“Why does it smell like Little Debbie threw up in here?”

Killian’s head turns at the sound of Emma’s voice, and even though it causes the slightest sting to his shoulder, he doesn’t care. Because she’s real and standing in front of him wearing running shorts and a tank top, her hair tucked into a Yankees cap so that he can’t really see the green of her eyes. But he can see the timid, hesitant smile, and he never wants her to be hesitant to see him again.

“How did you – ”

She holds up a key. “I have a key. Figured it was still okay for me to use it.”

“Yeah, love.” Killian smiles and grabs a clean hand towel to dry off his hair so he’s not soaking wet. “That’s perfectly fine.”

“Good. So why does it smell like Little Debbie threw up in here?”

“Stress baking. Do you want a cookie? Or brownies? I have a large parfait. There’s also a cake that was meant for…the other day, but it’s a damn mess.”

Emma lets out a small laugh and shakes her head while her hand reaches for the chain around her neck, her fingers fumbling with it. His breath hitches at the sight. Over the past few days, his hand has instinctively clutched for it, reaching out and trying to find something to hold onto, and every time he comes up empty. He gave that to Emma because he wanted her to have it, and nothing about that has changed.

His mom would want her to have it. She’d love Emma. Killian doesn’t remember that much about her, but he knows that she would love Emma. They have that same kind spirit and an infectious laugh that makes everyone else in the room want to laugh along.

Bloody breathtaking.

And hopefully the ring brought her luck and comfort when she got to commentate the other day, and hopefully she knew that he was cheering her on the entire time. He still hasn’t heard how that went. He almost watched the replay of the game so that he could see for himself, but it felt wrong to do that without Emma and to know that most of the tape would be focused on his injury anyways.

That’s not how it should be.

And maybe a part of him couldn’t handle hearing her voice as she had to speak after seeing him leave the mound.

“I might want a cookie later,” Emma says, shrugging her shoulder. “I feel like if I start eating now, I’ll consume everything like I’m a vacuum.”

“Isn’t that how you usually eat?”

She’s closer now, so he can see her roll her eyes. “I’m still mad at you, so I’d watch what you say.”

That sobers Killian up, the playful smile tugging at his lips disappearing into a firm line, and he nods his head while his left hand reaches up to scratch behind his head. “Aye. Do you want to go talk in the living room?”

“Yeah.”

Emma turns on her heel and walks out of his bedroom, and he’s following right behind her. As much as his stomach is absolutely churning right now, Killian knows that the sooner they have this talk, the better. Unless, of course, it ends with Emma ending things between them. That’s not for the better. If it’s what she wants, it’s what she wants, but he can’t believe that it’s for the better even if he is an idiot who likes to mess things up.

Emma grabs her throw blanket from the basket and sits down in his oversized arm chairarmchair, settling herself in like she’s comfortable here, and he likes that she’s still comfortable here. That comforts him. Killian doesn’t grab a blanket, but he does sit down on the couch and pull a pillow to his chest so that he has something for his hands to do.

Is his heart still working? He’s not sure.

“How’s your arm?” Emma starts. This is probably the conversation she feels most comfortable with, and he doesn’t blame her.

“It’s okay. I need to ice it soon, but I’ll be fine. Just a lot of resting it, which is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Do you want to ice it now?”

“No, no, Swan. It’s fine. I promise. I know – I’m sorry that I lied to you.” They aren’t the words Killian meant to say quite yet, but he does mean them. “I truly am. I can’t express how much of an idiot that I am. I hid away something really damn important from everyone when I should have shared it the first time my arm started hurting. I should have gone through the steps of preventing this. I should have told you what really happened with my accident. I should have told you everything that I didn’t tell you, and I can’t imagine how shitty it makes you feel that I didn’t.”

Emma scoffs. “Pretty shitty.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I just – ” She lets out a big sigh and adjusts the blanket over her legs again. “You don’t have to keep apologizing. I know you’re sorry, and I believe you when you say that. I’m sorry that you’ve been going through all of this alone and that you haven’t felt like you could tell someone, but it did…it does hurt me that you couldn’t tell me. People have always let me down, and – ”

“I never intended to let you down.”

Emma smiles, something soft and a little sad, and he swears that it breaks his heart the slightest bit. “I know that. It took running far too much, eating my weight in food, and then having Ruby talk some sense into me, but I know. And it’s why I’m going to choose to see the best in you.”

Good.

Good. This is going a hell of a lot better than he thought it would, but he’s still terrified that maybe he doesn’t deserve this forgiveness from her.

“And I you.”

“I mean, there wasn’t a lot of bad to see about me.”

Killian laughs, for what is probably the first time in days, and something inside of him rights itself so that the pieces of the puzzle continue to click into place instead of being all mixed together.

“Well, not in this particular situation, no.”

Emma’s smile is a little more hopeful now, and he watches it change as she tugs on the brim of her baseball cap. “Why didn’t you tell anyone, Killian? Be honest with me. If we’re going to continue to make this work, and I really do want to make this work, you have to be honest with me. I’m done with guys who aren’t honest.”

He knew this question was coming, has had to answer it before, but no answer seems like it’s enough. They all fall short, and he knows that’s because he fell short in who everyone was expecting him to be. In who he was expecting himself to be too.

“I was scared. That sounds like such a pathetic excuse, but it’s my truth. I have been through a hell of a lot of ups and downs in the past nine years, and I had finally gotten out of the downs when the accident happened. I worked so damn hard, love. I – ” He stops to take a breath, still at a loss for words since it all sounds ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense in his mind. “I finally had my life back on track. Things were going really well for me, and I was pissed that it was all taken away from me because some kids were drunk and driving a boat. I didn’t think I’d ever get the game back, but I did, you know? I was on top of the world, so when my arm started to hurt again, despite all of my better judgment, I figured if I never said anything, I’d never have it all taken away from me. And not telling you about any of it…I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want you to think of me as being any more broken than I already am.”

That’s it. That’s his truth. There’s no altering it or making it better or making him seem like less of an idiot. That’s simply it.

Emma said she’d see the best in him. He hopes that’s true.

For a moment he thinks it’s not because Emma is rising from her chair, and he fully expects her to walk out the door despite everything they’ve already said today and when they talked in Elsa’s office. But she doesn’t leave. Instead, she walks toward him and very slowly places her knees on either side of his thighs and leans down to sit on his lap so that they’re nearly eye level when the palms of her hands land on his cheeks and he can finally see the green of her eyes again underneath her baseball cap.

He’s now realizing the cap is his.

And it feels really damn good to feel the touch of Emma’s hands again. That’s also what has him wrapping his arms around her lower back and tugging her closer while Emma continues to rub her thumbs under his eyes in soothing circles.

“Killian, I am obviously not the most emotionally equip person in the world and am not the best with words, but you have to know that you and me, we both have shitty pasts. We both have things that we’re terrified of and sensitive to, and I think that’s why we work. You understand that I’m not going to leap head first into things, and I understand that you have this weird sense of self-loathing that you shouldn’t have. You were terrified of losing something you love. I would be too.”

“You were pretty damn good with words there.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had a lot of time to think about things.”

“I like you thinking.”

“Funny, most men don’t.”

Killian chuckles and leans forward to rest his head against Emma’s shoulder, and he takes the moment to breathe her in and breathe in the smell of her perfume. The pillow next to his has smelled like hers for the past few days, but it’s nothing compared to the real thing.

“I’m not going to lie to you again,” he mumbles into her skin while her hands start messing with his hair so that vibrations are running down his spine. “Or my family. Or my teammates. I promise I’ll be smarter, yeah?”

He tilts his head up to look at Emma, and he’s about to say something else when she leans forward and presses her mouth to his. He’s kissed her hundreds of times, probably more than that – he’s not counting – but there’s something different about the way that her mouth moves over his now. It’s slower, more passionate even if he knows it isn’t leading to something more than this, and the raw emotion of it all travels from his lips to the pit of his stomach before moving back up to his heart and constricting it.

But in the best way.

Killian has missed her.

He has missed the sound of her laugh and the way that she hogs the entire couch. He has missed the way she tastes and the fact that she never seems to put her dishes away on time. He has missed the notebooks she leaves around with all of her mid-game scribbling and the way that she can’t seem to make up her mind on what she wants to eat for dinner. Barely any time has passed, but not knowing exactly what’s coming next even more than usual has put a hell of a lot of things in perspective for him.

His love for Emma is one of the most important things in his life, and he doesn’t want to ever jeopardize it again by not being able to own up to his past and how it still has a stranglehold on his present.

Killian gently pecks her lips one, two, three times before trailing along the side of her neck and peppering kisses against her skin, never moving his hands from where they’re holding her to him.

“I love you so much,” he murmurs, the desperation obvious in his own ears. “You have no idea.”

“I think I might have a bit of an idea,” Emma laughs as he leans back to look at her again, the brightest smile he’s seen all day stretched across her lips. “I love you too, by the way. But I still hope everyone you know gives you shit about this whole thing until we all know for sure that you’re not going to keep hiding things as important as your health.”

“I would expect nothing less,” he sighs. “Now, I don’t know about you, Swan, but my girlfriend had a very big day at work the other day, and I still haven’t heard about it.”

“Oh, we don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, no. I want to hear every detail. I almost watched the tape, but I figured that’d be a little miserable hearing your voice while watching myself be an idiot on the field.”

“Yeah, that would probably suck.”

“Exactly. So, tell me all about it. I’m all ears.” Emma opens her mouth, but he stops her. “Aye, I know – little pointy ones.”

Emma does tell him all about it. For a few minutes, she’s kind of fumbling around trying to find her storytelling stride, but then she settles in and knows exactly where she’s going with her tale. She’s not one to talk a lot, even when it comes to him, but when it’s something that Emma is passionate about, she could talk for hours without taking a breath.

Emma is passionate about this.

He can tell in the way the smile on her face rarely dissipates and with how she keeps using her hands far more often than she normally was. Plus, her voice gets that little bit higher in pitch, and he has to bite his tongue not to tease her about it. He also has to bite his tongue when she starts detailing all of the petty little ways that Isaac and James tried to demean her instead of acting like professionals. Emma promises that it wasn’t too bad, but Killian can tell that their little digs bothered her, especially the ones about her integrity and him.

Killian shudders at the thought of their relationship becoming public because of the hell hole that it’ll put Emma into no matter how respected she is in her field by those who actually know what they’re talking about.

A part of that will always be on him and his actions of ten months ago, but he’s under strict instructions not to apologize for that again. And right nownow isn’t about him and his own self-loathing. He’s already taken away days of both of their lives for that, and he’s not going to do that any longer.

Right here, right now…this is about Emma finally getting to do something she’s dreamed about.

He does get up in the middle of her going on about what it was like after his injury – which sounds more than horrific for her – to get his ice pack, and that causes them to trail off onto all of the exact details of his tendonitis and his treatment. He promises Emma that it’s truly not that bad, but that his case is a little bit more intense with his history and the particular severity of it all. That’s when she asks him when exactly it hurts, and the pain on her face when he tells her he can feel it pretty much any time he moves his right arm more than a few inches is not a pained face he wants to keep on seeing from her.

But it only gets worse when Killian details that sometimes it’s so bad that it wakes him up from sleep, and Emma starts to piece together all of the times she’s woken up in the middle of the night to find him out of bed at odd hours.

Bloody idiot. That’s exactly what he is.

It’ll get better though, with rest and physical therapy and a little bit of luck, and as much as it sucks, it could be worse. This could all be worse. He’s not going to let it, though, as he’s not going to be dumb enough to not get treatment and to keep pushing himself further than his physical limits.

And as much as Killian would like to be able to hover over Emma and roll his hips into hers and join their bodies together after what feels like forever apart even if it’s only a few days, he knows that he’s not quite physically able to today. Emma, though, the spirited lass that she is, lets a smirk curl across her lips as she directs him back to his bedroom and tells him to lie on his back as she takes the lead so that he doesn’t have to move his shoulder too much.

Creative solutions have always been the best solutions.

It’s glorious being joined with Emma again, feeling her warmly wrapped around him as she moves above him in slow circles that have him dying in the haze of ecstasy. His mom’s ring falls between her breasts with each movement, and his good arm reaches up to toy with it. She’s going particularly slow, each roll of her hips seemingly meaning something deeper, and as good as it feels, a part of him thinks it’s some kind of torture since she knows he can’t do most of the things he’s usually capable of doing.

The sly smile on her face when he tries to thrust up into her and go deeper inside of her tells him that he’s right.

The minx.

And if slow and steady is what Emma wants, it’s exactly what she’ll get. She’s always been one to take charge.

The heat simmering between them must eventually begin to burn, however, because the rolls of her hips become faster and she places his hand where they’re joined so that he can help her find her bliss in the few minutes before he finds his, little shocks of electricity working down to the base of his spine as he comes undone with Emma’s name on his lips and his love for her curling around each and every other word that he manages to mutter.

Almost losing her, even if he didn’t think this would truly tear them apart despite the way his mind kept convincing him that it would, has made him appreciate Emma in ways that he hadn’t before.

He thought he appreciated her in every way, but there are always things to learn.

“I have so many damn cookies,” Killian laughs later, after they’ve cleaned up and crawled back under the covers, a new pack of ice on his shoulder and his body pleasurably aching. “I have no idea what I’m going to do with them.”

Emma laughs against his chest where she’s curled up, her hand over his heart and her feet tucked in between his calves so that they’re back where they belong. “I would say I could take them with me on the road trip, but then I’d have to check a bag to get them with me through TSA. Or maybe not. I’m always confused on the food thing.”

Oh.

He’d nearly forgotten that life was moving on outside of his bedroom and this bed and the freckles scattered over Emma’s skin. The only clothing she has on is the necklace, and he’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.

“So, you are going to Boston then?”

Emma hums. “And then Detroit after that. I have off for the Blue Jays, though, so I’ll be coming back home instead of going to Canada.”

His hand scratches against her back, drawing lines and words and anything that he can simply to feel her again. “I hate that I’m not going to be traveling with you.”

“It’s going to be kind of weird,” she whispers before pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “I’m going to have a hotel bed to myself.”

“To be fair, you pretty much always have the bed to yourself even when I am around.”

“You have been forgiven for about two hours now, and you’re already talking shit about my bed hogging. That’s a bold move there, Jones.’

“Oh, I know,” he yawns, his lack of sleep catching up to him even if it’s only six in the evening, “but I’ve slept alone for a few days now, and let me tell you, it’s glorious.”

Emma scoffs against his chest before sitting up so that she’s looking down at him under her mess of wild blonde hair that’s curling over her chest. “You’re being an ass.”

“Well, we have undoubtedly decided that I am an ass, right?”

“Pretty much.”

Emma’s arms stretch over her head, the muscles of her stomach on display, before she’s rolling off of the bed and standing up so that he has a particular good view of her ass that has his body humming. But then she’s walking to his dresser and pulling out a t-shirt to put on. She obviously pulled it from the back because it’s an older one he hasn’t seen in years, and he imagines he’ll probably never see it again with Emma’s penchant for stealing his things.

“You going somewhere, love?”

“Yeah,” she sighs as the t-shirt lifts from her thighs when she’s pulling her hair back up into a messy bun on the top of her head. “You have a bowl of icing in your kitchen, and the TV in the living room is better than the TV in here. If we’re not going to the US Open because I don’t want to leave this apartment until I absolutely have to, I’m going to watch it here.”

“Do you want me to join you?”

“Eh,” she teases, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t really care. Apparently, I am a bed hog, so I’m leaving you here to have the entire bed by yourself while I go lounge about on the couch eating the sweets you made while you were mooning over me.”

“You’re impossible.”

Emma winks. “And you love me for it.”

#catch me if you can #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #captain swan

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barisifictionarchive · 4 years

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Author: Juniperhoot

Preferred Name: Jenny

Have any events in your personal life ever influenced the things that you've written? Absolutely. STRAP IN.

Sometimes I rework something that happened to me, or to someone I know, and use it as a template for filling in personal details. See also: Carisi’s tale of molten aluminum burning holes in his ma’s kitchen flooring. That’s something that actually happened to me (well, it happened to my second husband, who got distracted while playing CounterStrike and let the pan boil dry). In one of my Stony stories, Steve tells Tony about a comforting gesture he learned from his mother - three squeezes of the hand, to silently say “I love you.” That’s something I learned from my Mema.

Beyond those bits of color, there are things that have made their way into my writing that come directly from my experiences. My interest in Sonny as a queer Catholic who once considered the religious life is something deeply personal to me, because that was my life, too. Even though I’m an atheist now, the church still holds some fascination for me, and I’m keenly interested in people who find a way to walk that line, and retain some belief while also retaining their autonomy and sense of self. The way I write Sonny is, in many ways, the way I think I would be, if I still believed. Okay, if I still believed AND were also a tall, noodly, bisexual man.

The way I write Rafael’s overthinking interior life is partly me, partly the things I’ve observed in people I’ve loved. The carefully chosen words, the moments of retreating from revealing too much of himself, the guardedness and tendency toward self-preservation that comes from growing up in an abusive home… all very relatable and possibly part of why I mostly write from his perspective, even though I generally consider myself more like Sonny. The shadows in Rafael’s heart are in my heart, too. My empathy is built on those shadows.

I wrote a Stony breakup fic years ago during a difficult time in my life. I’d reached a point where I had to remove some people from my life, because my priorities and theirs were so radically divergent. It felt like a big breakup. It reopened some feelings from my second divorce, and compounded what I was going through with another more recent breakup. Somehow, I used the pain and disillusionment of all that to write about two dudes in love, who found themselves in a crisis of trust and faith in one another. Of course, I also wrote them coming back together, and the work it takes to do that, because in my heart, I want to see good people work things out, if possible. And at least in my story, and in the way I view both of those characters, they ARE good people. In real life, some people really do need to be cut loose, when their values are wholly incompatible with your own. Some relationships can’t be mended. Some friendships turn out to be mostly one-sided. But hey, if they can be mined for material, they were worth it, right?

I’m in a less volatile emotional space these days, so my fics tend to reflect that. I’m the queen of domesticity and cute banter, and love that I’m getting to explore the quieter side of drama. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s worth saying again. It’s not all slamming doors and WE’RE THROUGH!, you know? There’s a marvelous sense of drama in the ways we try to negotiate cohabitation, or meeting the families of our romantic partners. There’s drama in supporting one another’s goals and ideals. At least, I think there is? And I hope my stories achieve that.

Do you have a favorite movie? I have a few, and they’re very different movies, because they reflect different aspects of my heart.

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen, and it still makes me laugh, 35 years after its release. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen it. The stupid characters, the kitschy aesthetic, the score… it’s so very silly. I love it.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952) is, in my opinion, the most perfect Hollywood movie musical of all time. Everything about it works. The entire cast is outrageously talented, and attractive, and the songs are all memorable. The title song and dance routine never fails to elicit chills and a thrill of giddy joy in my heart. When Gene Kelly does that spin in the street, with the umbrella held out before him like a dance partner? Aaaaaiiiieeee. This is the movie that makes me wish I could dance.

A Room With A View (1985) is the sort of quiet, clever, understated romantic (in every sense of the word) movie I turn to again and again. It’s a gorgeous adaptation of a really smart, surprising book that left a mark on me when I first encountered it in high school. The score is lush and inviting, the cast is beautiful (and oh, those costumes!), the script is just fucking delicious, and of course, the scenery, from Florence to Kent, is exquisite. Plus, we get interplay between sincere humanism (the Emersons), religious belief (the Reverends Beebe and Eager), and the religious-by-default stances of so many of the other characters, whose participation in the religious life of the community seems to be more for societal expectations than anything else. It’s just beautiful, and one of the only movies I urge everyone to sit through to the very end, not because there’s a post-credits scene, but because the closing track that plays over the credits is fantastic.

Who is your favorite author? E.M. Forster, partly because of what I said above about A Room With A View. The novel is short, but crammed with interesting ideas and engaging dialogue. He has a unique voice that spoke to me as a teenager, and my appreciation for his writing has only increased over the many years since. Read Howards End. Read Maurice. Read Where Angels Fear to Tread. Read A Passage to India. But start with A Room With A View.

I know a lot of people would say Howards End is his masterpiece, and they’re probably right about that, but I’m telling you, the book that has meant the most to me over the years is A Room With A View. I’ve kept a copy of it with me since I first read it in 1985, and it’s traveled with me from Minnesota to Seattle and back again. Lucy Honeychurch’s ongoing muddle is something I’ve lived, and survived, and it means more to me every time I read the book. More than anything, it’s a book about authenticity vs hypocrisy, and that just fucking speaks to me, you know?

How did you start getting involved in fanfiction? Several years ago, I read a Sherlock fic called “The Road Less Traveled.” It was during the long, painful, post-Reichenbach Fall hiatus between series 2 and 3, and I found myself looking for something to read that would fill the gap. I’d never had much interest in fanfic before, but this thing did something to me.

I didn’t start writing fanfic until I saw an episode of Supernatural that I found upsetting. (Don’t get me started…) I started writing a little thing to try to fix the stupidity. I wrote a couple of things, but the show did everything in its power to kill my interest in it, so I drifted away. (That said, I am very proud of my short Destiel Christmas fic, which I still think is very cute and makes me wish things had played out differently.)

From there, I started writing Stony (Steve/Tony, mostly based on the MCU, but with some elements of various Marvel comics I’ve read over the years). I wrote several things in that fandom, and most of it was extremely stupid, but there are bits and pieces that I’m still rather fond of. I still want to finish my long fic that’s been gathering dust for a couple of years now. Oops.

How did you get involved with Barisi? Barisi is probably the first fandom that I’ve written for that really seemed to embrace me and encourage me to keep doing this. A friend of mine has been watching SVU forever, and would reference things occasionally on chat while she was watching it. (See also: SEX PARTY MEASLES BABY, an intriguing statement that I didn’t actually understand for YEARS.) I started watching SVU off and on, a few episodes here or there, sometime in 2018. I started at the beginning, and worked my way through the whole thing. When I started it, I was mostly in it for Olivia Benson. But I knew Raúl Esparza had been on the show at some point, and at the time, I was in the “oh, I think I remember seeing him in something, he’s good” camp.

It wasn’t until I got to season 14 that I lost my mind over the show. Rafael Barba is one of the greatest characters ever written for tv, and I’m so thrilled he came along and blew my frickin’ mind. My appreciation for Raúl Esparza went through the roof, and it made me go look for him in other things, which fed into my spiraling appreciation.

Fast forward to season 16. Sonny Carisi walks in, and is… a beautiful, mustachioed mess. I love him from the moment I see him, and I say, “Oh shit, this is the love of Rafael Barba’s life, isn’t it?” This is even before they’ve shared a scene. This is before they’ve blatantly checked each other out. This is just me recognizing the potential, and craving it. Then he shaves that stache and starts dressing better, and he’s shadowing Barba and they’re working cases together and Barba’s being KIND TO HIM? COME ON.

Naturally, I started thinking about writing them. And it wasn’t coming from a place of “I need to fix this episode” or “I need to work out a recent trauma” driving me. It was just “ugh, they have an amazing dynamic and I want to explore it and I want to see what their home life would look like.” That’s how I ended up writing Carisi’s Goddamn Legs. Suddenly I was being bombarded with thoughtful comments from readers. In one such comment, Maxi (mforpaul) asked me where I could be reached on other platforms, and messaged me privately about the story, and made a big deal out of tracking me down on Twitter, introducing me to the rest of the fandom. And that fandom turned out to be filled with really amazing people, who think about big issues like justice and queerness and representation. Those same people are also wonderfully silly and down to earth. The power of this fandom!

What inspires you to write? Lots of things. Life, because it is weird and messy and wonderful. My closest friend, who is a springboard for a lot of my nonsense, is always eager for me to write something new. My love of a ridiculous turn of phrase. The quest for dialogue that sounds in-character and natural. Sometimes, it’s just the seed of an idea, a thought that won’t leave me alone, like, “I bet a short king would be obsessed with those long, noodly legs.” Because I, a short queen, am similarly obsessed.

Sometimes, when the writing fever is upon me, it’s hard to sleep, hard to think of anything other than the story I’m working on. I just want to get it all out and done. If I’m writing something that I really enjoy, or feel very closely connected to, I physically tremble as I write. When that happens, I know I’m on the right track, and I don’t want to stop writing. I just want to inhabit that space, and wallow in that feeling.

What is your favorite fic that you have written? Carisi's Goddamn Legs is really something. The pining, the uncertainty, the slowly dawning realization, but most of all, that scene at Lorenzo’s, where it all comes to a head and the way it creeps to the edge of intimacy and then is interrupted by Lorenzo and a retreat to the casual, only to be sent right back to the edge… I’ve re-read the damn thing several times since I wrote it, and that scene gets to me every time. I really like it a lot. I like the dynamic between them so very much, and the way the truth tumbles out of Carisi literally makes me shake.

What is your favorite quote from a fic of yours? Ooh, yikes, this is hard. I have a couple of lines I really like. One is short, one is longer. Just like Barisi.

One of them (from Carisi's Goddamn Legs ) was something I gave to Olivia, as she tries to counsel Rafael on his worries that his emotional armor isn’t protecting him the way it used to.

“Wear and tear, I guess. Armor was never meant to be worn all the time.”

It’s a line that means something to me, personally, because I spent a substantial chunk of my life in armor, hiding who I was and trying to settle for “the best you can expect” rather than my actual heart’s desire. When I dismantled that wall, things got chaotic for a while, but I also realized I was capable of emotional depths and soaring heights I didn’t think possible for me. It’s something that the Jenny of today wants to whisper (or shout) at the Jenny of 25-30 years ago, and it’s that part of me that relates to Rafael’s journey from a lifetime of SHIELDS UP! to embracing vulnerability and intimacy. (I actually really like that whole scene between them, because I love their friendship and think it’s beautiful, and crave more of that dynamic. Platonic intimacy is gorgeous, and woefully underappreciated in most entertainment. I could go on for hours about that, but I won’t. Not right now, anyway.)

And from Staten Island Serenade, this passage of Rafael gazing at a sleeping Sonny really gets to me.

“As hard as it was some days, Rafael knew without question he wanted to be right here with him, because Sonny was worth the effort. He was a bewildering mess of contradictions and weirdness, too smart for his own good but capable of saying the most ridiculous shit Rafael had ever heard. Somehow everything about him was beautiful, and inspired something in Rafael that felt pure, and almost holy, or would be if he believed in holiness. Like Cymon of old, transformed in every way by the exquisite sight of sleeping Iphigenia, Rafael found himself similarly transformed; ennobled by the nearness of Sonny Carisi, someone so decent, so kind, so truly beautiful inside and out that it would have been a sacrilege not to strive to be a better man.”

What is your personal favorite fanfic?

Again with the hard questions. I don’t even know where to begin. I honestly can’t point to ONE and say, “This is it! THE FAVE.” I’m so sorry I’m not able to narrow down my faves on anything. I’m terrible at this.

There are several Sherlock fics that I’ve read and re-read over the years, which I think really nailed their voices and their characters, and gave me things to think about. The Road Less Traveled will always be a favorite of mine, because it was the first, and because it is beautiful.

Pass Here And Go On by abogadobarba hits all the right notes for me. It rocketed to the top of my list the moment I read it. I’ve read it about ten times so far. I am ridiculous.

So Far in a Few Blocks by PhillyStrega is one of the only AUs I’ve ever read and loved. I’m not really an AU person, but shut UP, I love this story.

You Made Them Feel Like They Had the Devil Inside Them by cypress_tree really got to me. It’s about one of those issues that hits very close to home, and I think it’s a beautifully-written story about something that matters.

Anything else you would like to add?

I just want to say how much I love this fandom. I love my fellow inhabitants of Barisi Nation. I love that I get to obsess over things like the intersections of faith and queerness and humanism and sex and domesticity and justice and goodness. Even if nobody else wanted to read my stories, I think I’d still be over here, writing like mad, because I love these characters and it’s a genuine joy for me to spend time in their heads. But gosh, it’s gratifying to know the hours I spend on this silliness actually pay off for other people, too. I love hearing from people who’ve read my stories and found something meaningful in them, or giggled at something ridiculous Sonny said, or thought a sex scene was… well, anyway. You know.

I’m so grateful to get to do this. And I appreciate the hell out of all you lovely humans. You make me happy.

#barisi #Author of the month #Author recommendation #Juniperhoot

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emospritelet · 5 years

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Homecoming - chapter 15

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9] [Part 10] [Part 11] [Part 12] [Part 13] [Part 14] AO3 link

Last time, the family travelled to Willowbrook Grange, on the site where the town of Avonleigh once stood, and where, unknown to them, Belle lived one of her past lives

The air was frigid, and Belle shivered, sending Ogilvy a smile as he handed her down from the carriage. She clutched Ava and Nicholas close to her, the latter grumbling about his empty stomach, and Ogilvy ruffled his hair comfortingly. Lady Tremaine had stepped forward to greet the Professor. She was a slender woman with light brown hair and a strong jawline, her eyes alight with excitement.

“Oh, Professor Lowe, it’s so good of you to come!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been quite beside myself! It felt as though there was nowhere else for me to turn, and then Lady Fortescue pointed me in your direction. She can’t recommend you highly enough, so I’m delighted you agreed to come all this way!”

“Not at all, not at all,” said the Professor heartily. “May I present my good friend Mr Ogilvy?”

“A pleasure,” said Lady Tremaine, as Ogilvy took off his hat and bowed his head. “I understand your knowledge of the dark realms is almost equal to that of the Professor’s.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Belle noticed Lord Tremaine roll his eyes a little, but he said nothing.

“We shall do our utmost to assist in whatever way we can,” said Ogilvy smoothly.

“And I presume this is Mrs Ogilvy?”

Lady Tremaine was looking expectantly at Belle, whose mouth fell open as she felt a blush rise in her cheeks. Alice snickered, and covered her mouth with her hand as though she had coughed.

“Ah,” said the Professor. “May I present Miss Annabelle Marchland? I believe I mentioned her in my letter. She’s our assistant, and a most competent one, I assure you.”

“I - see.”

Belle shot him a surprised look, and the Professor winked at her. Lady Tremaine looked Belle up and down a moment, a crease of confusion between her eyes.

“Forgive me, Miss Marchland,” she said. “You look frightfully familiar. Have we met?”

“Your Ladyship may have seen me once or twice at Furton Grange,” offered Belle, and Lady Tremaine’s expression cleared.

“Ah. I daresay that’s it. Some soirée of my dear friend Lady Ella Deville, no doubt. She’ll be here for New Year’s Eve, you know. Well, come in, come in! We shall all freeze to death out here!”

Belle was spared from explaining that she had been Lady Ella’s governess as Lady Tremaine turned on her toes, bustling off into the house. She had completely ignored the children, and Alice was biting her lip to hold in her amusement. It was a relief to step inside, a tide of warmth flowing over them as the heavy doors were closed. Ivy and Hatter had disappeared, following the other servants carrying in the trunks, and Belle was led up a sweeping staircase where two suits of armour stood guard with long pikes. That sense of familiarity was there again, a creeping tingle down her spine, and she shivered. The house was different to Furton Grange, its decor a little old-fashioned with its deep reds and golds, the wooden panelling and staircase giving the entrance hall a darker, heavier look. It suited the building, though, this red-brick mansion in the dark and cold of the far north of England. Belle wondered what it had seen over the centuries. The stories it could tell.

Dinner was a relatively quiet affair, for which Belle was grateful, two days of travel having taken their toll. She was escorted in by Henry Mills, an American writer wed to Lord Tremaine’s daughter from his first marriage. Mr Mills was a handsome, dark-haired young man, pleasant and attentive, and Belle found herself seated between he and his friend Mr Branson. Mrs Mills was seated to the right of Mr Branson, and seemed a lovely woman, but Belle couldn’t shake the feeling that she didn’t get along with her stepmother. Mr and Mrs Mills were expecting a child in March, but informed her that they already had a daughter, Lucy, who was the same age as the twins. Mr Mills suggested that the children could keep one another amused for the duration of their visit.

“There’s a well-stocked nursery,” he added, as he took a sip of his wine. “Jacinda and I came over from Seattle in the summer, and Lucy seems to enjoy the change of scene. I’m sure she’d be happy to show your two around the old place.”

“Nicholas and Ava had a difficult start in life,” said Belle carefully, thinking of the unsuccessful spelling lessons, and the words the twins could teach Lucy, if she wasn’t around to stop them. “Mr Ogilvy was good enough to take them in and give them a home. They may not be the kind of playmates that Lucy is used to, but I assure you they’re good children with good hearts.”

“Oh, street rats, huh?” said Mr Branson, in a tone that made Belle want to frown. “Well, I guess Lucy spends enough time with the servants. She’ll be used to their kind. She can keep ‘em in line.”

“Don’t be unkind, Nick,” Mrs Mills chided. “They’re children. I’m sure they’re just as well-behaved as Lucy.”

“Hmm.” Mr Mills looked resigned at that. “God help us all.”

He shared a chuckle with his wife, and Belle joined in.

“Well, I guess they won’t be able to get up to anything too terrible,” he went on. “The woods and fields around the house are perfect for exploring, but with all this snow, something tells me they may want to spend their time indoors near the fire.”

“They’re not the only ones,” Mr Branson muttered under his breath.

“Careful,” warned Mr Mills, with a twinkle in his eye. “Her Ladyship might leave you at the tender mercies of her ghosts while the rest of us go shooting.”

The two men chuckled, casting a look up the table to where Lady Tremaine was chatting animatedly with the Professor and Ogilvy, her husband’s attention solely on his food.

“What do you know about these strange occurrences that the Professor has been asked to investigate?” asked Belle curiously, and Mr Mills gave her a somewhat rueful smile.

“I can’t say I’ve seen or heard anything myself,” he said, shooting a glance at Lady Tremaine. “But perhaps I’m not as sensitive to these things as Her Ladyship. She says there are strange noises at night. Banging and knocking.”

“Of course there are, it’s an old house,” said Mr Branson dismissively, cutting a piece of beef.

“Well, no doubt she’ll tell you more tomorrow, Miss Marchland,” said Mr Mills. “Her Ladyship has an excellent imagination, and something of a flare for the dramatic. She’s an interesting character.”

“Interesting enough to put in one of your books?” asked Belle, and he groaned.

“Don’t, I’d never hear the end of it. Tempting though it is.”

“I think there’s already a tale with a wicked stepmother anyway,” murmured Mr Branson, and Mrs Mills shot him a quelling look tinged with amusement.

Ogilvy woke when it was still dark, heart thumping in his chest as the last oppressive scenes of a disturbing dream faded away. The dream had been formed from his own memories, and his heart sank as he faced the days ahead of them, darkened by shadows of the past. He was looking forward to returning to the city, and leaving the ghosts of this place to rest.

As usual, Hatter seemed to sense when he was awake, and was soon at the door with hot water for his morning shave. It made him feel a little better, and having established that Doc was still asleep, he dressed warmly in a tweed suit and his thick wool overcoat. The house was silent as he made his way downstairs, and the butler, Thwaites, let him out of the door and into the cold, crisp morning.

The sun was just sneaking above the horizon, sending long, scarlet fingers through the grey wisps of cloud, and he sensed that it would be a sunny day, at least at first. He closed his eyes for a moment to remember his surroundings as they had once been, letting memories crowd in on him, joy and guilt and grief clamouring for his attention. When he opened his eyes, he half-expected to see the town of Avonleigh as it had been centuries earlier. The house where he had spun his thread and made his deals and where he had loved Isabelle so many times. The square where the market had been held, and where the townsfolk had danced at the birth of spring. The space where the gibbet had stood.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus on happier times, and blinked rapidly, glancing to the east as he set off to explore the land around the house. It was cold enough to make him cough, and he pushed his chin into his scarf, using his walking cane to pick his way across the frozen ground.

The river that had once powered the mill’s wheel in Avonleigh must have been dammed at one point, and a lake now filled the lower part of the valley where much of the town had stood. Most of the lake was coated with a layer of snow-covered ice, but there were patches kept clear to allow the fish beneath to break the surface, and birds to drink. Ogilvy walked slowly, watching the water ripple, weak orange sun gleaming on the ice and making the snow glitter. The winters had not been so harsh in their old life, the snow infrequent and light in its appearance. In the lives to come, he had wondered at the colder climate, and how many lifetimes it would last. He had wondered if it would always be winter without Belle.

The crunch of footsteps behind him made him turn, and he smiled as Belle appeared, a flush in her pale cheeks and breath coming from her in plumes of white. She wore a heavy woollen skirt above sturdy boots, her long coat tight around her slim figure and her hair pinned up beneath a black hat. He reached for his own, lifting it in greeting as she approached.

“i wondered if anyone else was awake,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Alice said she wasn’t leaving the house until after breakfast, but I thought I’d make the most of the morning.”

He smiled, settling the hat back on his head and offering her his arm.

“I was about to take a walk around the lake.”

Belle beamed at him, slipping her arm through his, and they set off at a comfortable pace. The chirps of birds were coming from the trees that stood at the eastern edge of the lake, and Ogilvy headed for them, thinking that the snow would be lighter on the ground beneath their boughs.

“How are the children?” he asked, glancing at her, and Belle smiled.

“Homesick, I think,” she confessed. “I woke this morning to find them both nestled in bed beside me.”

“Ah,” he said. “Not what you expected when you became governess, I daresay.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said, with a chuckle. “In fact, it’s encouraging to think they might come to me for comfort. I have no desire to be one of those governesses that the novels warn us of.”

“Which kind?” he asked, with a grin. “Terror of small children or scheming seductress?”

Belle giggled, her blush deepening as she clapped a hand to her mouth.

“I would hope that I fit neither description,” she said primly, and his grin widened.

“Then I shall rest easier in my bed knowing that you don’t intend to murder me and steal my fortune,” he remarked.

“It wouldn’t be appropriate for the festive season, would it?”

“Best wait until we get home, then.”

She giggled again, and he felt her squeeze his arm as she moved a little closer.

“I take it the twins will be having their breakfast upstairs?” he asked, and she nodded.

“The maids brought it in just before I left, but Alice offered to sit with them while they ate. I’m told that we’ll have ours in the breakfast room from nine-thirty.”

“I’m sure we can work up an appetite by then,” he remarked.

“If we keep at this pace, I have no doubt of it.”

Ogilvy laughed, her presence lightening his mood, and they walked on, feet crunching and squeaking in the snow. He let his eyes roam over the familiar slopes of the surrounding fells and the purplish peaks of distant mountains, the cold air making his teeth hurt when he breathed it in. Belle let out a sigh.

“It’s very beautiful, isn’t it?” she said. “Desolate, but beautiful.”

“It is,” he said, and hesitated a moment. “How - how do you feel, being here?”

She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully, but if she found his question strange, she didn’t say anything.

“It’s the oddest thing,” she said eventually. “There’s something familiar about it. I was trying to remember if I had ever come here with Lady Ella. I don’t believe I have, but I feel as though I know this place. As though when I turn the next corner, I’ll know exactly what’s in front of me.”

“I understand,” he said. “It feels that way to me, too. Except here around the lake.”

He glanced at her, expecting her to agree, but she shook her head.

“The lake feels familiar too,” she mused. “I must have been here before, there’s no other explanation. Perhaps I just saw it from a carriage once, or something.”

“Oh.” Perhaps she has. Why wouldn’t she? She’d have no reason to avoid the place, would she? Not like you, you coward.

“Perhaps it’s one of your past lives,” he said tentatively, and she smiled at him.

“And were you ever here, Mr Ogilvy?” she said teasingly. “One hundred lifetimes must span a long time indeed. I imagine you must have seen all manner of changes.”

“The lake wasn’t here when I last walked this way,” he said, matter-of-factly, and she laughed, as though he had made a joke. It was surprisingly painful.

They circled the farthest edge of the lake, where fir trees clustered close enough together to provide a needle-covered patch of ground clear of snow. Ogilvy could feel the cold beginning to sink into his feet through his boots, and he glanced at Belle, wondering if she was getting chilled. She seemed to feel his eyes on her, and looked around with a faint smile.

“Are you starting your investigations today?” she asked.

“So I believe,” he said. “Doc asked Lady Tremaine a few questions last night, but we’ll look over the house today, while we have the benefit of the daylight.”

“I hear there are a great many guests due for the celebrations this evening,” she said. “Mr Mills told me of some of them, including Lady Ella, of course, and many of the inhabitants from the nearby towns. It’s a grand occasion, it seems, with music and dancing.”

“Perhaps we can put Her Ladyship’s mind at rest quickly, then,” he remarked. “I’d hate for her evil spirits to spoil the mood.”

Belle smiled at that.

“Do you believe there are really evil spirits here?” she asked, her tone sceptical, and he hesitated.

“I believe that she believes there are,” he said eventually. “Sometimes that’s all it takes: an old house with creaking floors and an impressionable owner.”

“That’s what Mr Branson said.”

“However, I like to keep an open mind,” he added. “I have no doubt that there have been restless souls in this place. That dark deeds have been done, and innocent lives taken.”

She gave him a curious look, but he said no more, guiding her around a stump of wood.

“The Professor called me your assistant,” she said. “I’m not sure what Her Ladyship made of that. Nor of how much assistance I could be.”

Ogilvy smiled at her uncertain look, and patted her hand.

“Good sense is always in demand, Miss Marchland,” he said. “Your input will be welcome, I promise. And rest assured that no matter what we may face in this investigation, Doc and I will protect you.”

“I’ll do my best not to be a liability, fainting in fear at every creaking floorboard,” she said, in a dry tone that made him grin.

“I don’t doubt it.”

“I still have the obsidian wand the Professor gave me,” she added, and his grin widened.

“Good.”

They continued around the lake, the rear of the house coming into view with its ordered gardens and large orangery, and he felt her shiver.

“Cold?” he asked, concerned.

“No - I mean, yes, I am, but—” She shook her head. “Just that odd feeling that I’ve been here before, that’s all. I’m sure it will pass.”

“Perhaps it will,” he said grimly. “Come, let’s pick up the pace. A hot breakfast would be welcome.”

Belle agreed readily, and they quickened their pace, rounding the lake and heading back uphill towards the house. He steered them towards one of the gravel paths used by the servants, where the snow was lightest, and Belle shivered again as they stepped out onto the sweeping driveway at the front.

“A chilly day for a walk, but I daresay it’s good for us,” she announced, and turned to him with a smile as they stopped just outside the door. “It’s certainly reminded me that I’m very much alive.”

“Yes,” he said softly.

Her eyes were sparkling in the morning sunlight, threads of red in her dark hair, her skin like cream and her lips soft and pink as rose petals. His fingers itched from wanting to stroke her hair, to cup her cheek. His mouth ached from the urge to kiss her. Belle smiled a little dreamily, glancing back towards the woods.

“I look forward to the spring, Mr Ogilvy,” she said. “Snow-laden trees are all very well aesthetically, but I long to feel the sun on my skin and smell green, growing things. I think morning walks with you will be far more pleasant when we’re not worried about freezing to death.”

You always loved the spring, when the flowers began to bloom and you could run through wet grass with your feet bare, laughing up at the sky. I loved seeing you so free. I loved laying you down in the heather and kissing your sweet mouth, making you cry out in pleasure as the sun warmed our skin. So many years we missed, my love! How many more before you know me again?

Belle was looking at him expectantly, and he swallowed hard, past the lump in his throat.

“I should be delighted to spend each and every morning with you, Miss Marchland.”

His voice was lower than usual, roughened with emotion, and she smiled at him, gazing up through thick, dark lashes as she blushed a little. He returned her smile, the fond look in her eyes sinking into him, warm as sunlight, comforting his tortured soul and chasing away the shadows of the past.

“Come,” he said, offering his arm to her again. “Let’s have breakfast.”

#fic: homecoming #ogilvelle fic #my fic #ogilvelle #rumbelle fic

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cd-stories · 4 years

Text

Jim’s Office Adventure

It had been four years working as an administrator within a typical manufacturing company. Apparently our company made something to do with automobile engines, but it was all beyond me. Just get the job done well and people saw me as professional and hard working. In the modern world it was accepted that guys could be administrators just as much as girls could be mechanics and to tell the truth, so long as I got the work done I was pretty much off everyone’s radar. Just ‘that guy in the admin team’ I suppose. If I thought about it I guess I should have known that it would all come out eventually, but I never imagined anything quite like what I’m going to recall here.

I was the only guy working in the administrative department with five other women under Lucy, the head administrator. We all got along, but that’s about as far as it went towards me. I still didn’t feel part of the collective, but didn’t feel any animosity from the other girls either. They were friendly enough, but, let’s say, I wouldn’t expect to be asked out on the town with them. I had been cross dressing for what now seemed like a very long time. Initially it was shifty rummaging through female relatives drawers, longing glances through lingerie catalogs as a teenager, ending up with a rather extensive wardrobe of clothes, shoes and underwear now.

Living by myself allowed me the privacy that I liked to practice my fetish. I never really wanted to be a woman, but just loved the sensuality and power I felt dressing up as one. It always seems so unfair that women had all the glamour and fun! And I always felt a new confidence when I went out dressed up that I didn’t have in my ‘regular’ life.

My physical appearance helped a lot. Partly it was down to luck and my genes, but also diet and exercise that maximized my physical assets. I was naturally tall and skinny: 5 ft 11 in my bare stockings. Regular work outs at the gym kept me toned, avoiding bulking out too much! This left me with slender, shapely legs and kept my body and shoulders slim.

At 23 years old I looked young and fresh, and my mother’s genes had blessed me with a boyish delicate face and appearance. As a result I normally found that I had to try to ‘butch’ up for my daytime persona with crisp white shirts and shapeless trousers!

Like a lot of crossdressers I’d tried to give it all up, bundling all my clothes into bins and swearing to stop it all (usually after some near miss…), but it always seeped back into my life. At the time I was happy and comfortable with my lifestyle. I had a nice steady job during the day and an alternative female persona for evenings and nights out.

Each existence was separate and never crossed-over except for really extra-ordinary circumstances. But then this is all about one of those occasions, which led on to so much more… Work officially finished at 12:00 on a Friday, but I had too much work to finish and had to carry on into the afternoon. Tonight I had other plans though.

Tonight I was meeting up with some of my ‘girl’ friends (my crossdresser friends) in town and had a weekend break planned. We’d booked a minibus for us all to go down to London for the weekend, spending some relaxing time in a posh 5 star hotel and evenings in some of our favorite alternative clubs. I couldn’t wait to get dolled up ready for our mini-adventure. The big problem was that I needed to be ready at 4:00 pm, which didn’t give me time to get home, change and get into town. That meant breaking my major ground rule of mixing business and pleasure. I had to get ready and dressed at work, and I had to bring in my weekend clothes to work. They were sat in my weekend bag, which I had brought in early and stashed out of sight under my desk. By 2:00 almost everyone in the building had left for the weekend.

There were a still a few engineers and executives about, but I was sure I hadn’t seen any girls around. I was planning to make a break for it to the ladies, so once I was inside there I was safe. A lot of the lights had already been turned out and the day was turning to winter dusk outside. I finished up my work and now it was time for me to get dressed up.

Handily the women’s toilets were located just out of sight from the office door a little along the corridor. By now I hadn’t seen anyone pass our office door for 20 minutes. I was certain there was almost no one else left here, but I felt a little tingle as I got up with my weekend bag to sneak to the ladies. With my heart beating hard I left the office and turned left down the corridor, pausing at the water cooler to take a slow drink and pretend to read one of the company’s motivational pieces on the news board. “OK, this is it,” I thought after no one had left the ladies for a good 5 minutes, “All the admin girls have left, it’s now or never”.

Confidently I picked up my weekend bag, slung it over my shoulder and moved quickly and quietly down the corridor, past the men’s room, and with one last cautious glace over my shoulder slipped into the sanctuary of the ladies toilet. My heart was still pounding as the automatic lights flickered on. No one in here — phew! Just to be sure I went into the second to last cubicle and locked the door. Now I could relax a little and get into my dressing routine. I quickly stripped off and filled the carrier bag I’d brought along with all my day clothes.

Last night I had spent a luxurious evening bathing, waxing, shaving and moisturizing my entire body. Now I stood for a moment enjoying the feel of my hands gliding over my soft smooth body. Sitting down on the loo I pulled on a pair a silky hold up stockings, the light fabric gliding easily up my freshly waxed legs. And with my pair of black leather boots that went up to just below the knee zipped on at least now I would appear ‘normal’ from under the toilet door in an emergency. Feeling much more relaxed now, I could really go to work on my female image. First I attached my wonderful C cup silicon fakes and blending in the edges with some foundation. I then got out my pocket mirror and starting to apply my makeup. Not too much, but enough to bring out some of the natural feminine look to my boyish face.

By keeping it low key I could normally pass without too many unwanted double takes. So, I applied some of my favorite foundation followed by a light dusting of blusher to bring out my cheekbones. Next I put on some dusky eye shadow to match my hazel color, followed by coal grey eyeliner to open up my eyes and the first coat of mascara.

My favorite subject at school was always art: who knew being so handy with a brush would come in so useful! The only real splash of color was reserved for my crimson lipstick, with a touch of lip gloss.

Tonight I was going for elegant and stylish, so standing up again I slipped on a delicate lacy black thong, followed by the matching bra. Then I wriggled into my killer Little Black Dress. I loved this dress and always pulled it out for a good night out. It hugged where it should, hid my worst bits and fitted like a dream.

I guess the way the hem line ended just below my stocking tops helped too! Next I applied some pre-prepared crimson painted nails and while I waited for them to dry I brushed on a second coat of mascara and fluttered my eyelashes to myself in my mirror. Finally I took my favorite brunette bob wig out of the box in my weekend bag and fixed it into place. It was a modern cut that angled forwards and down with a straight cut fringe.

It went very well with the young-classy-thing I was going for. With some luck I might make someone’s night in the bar tonight! Once I was happy with my appearance I gingerly opened the cubicle door to check myself out in the bathroom mirror and make any final adjustments. “Woh, cute honey,” I thought to myself.

I whispered another silent prayer to the cute gym instructor that had come up with the routines that had added shape to my cute ass. Just need a few tweaks to my blusher, tidy up a stray hair or two and I’m ready to hit the streets! I turned back to the cubicle and picked up my makeup bag off the toilet seat and put it next to the middle sink. I then leaned down to retrieve my day clothes and stuff them into my weekend bag. Now fully dressed I was enjoying the snug fit of my clothes and as I bent to pick up my bag I relished the feel of my black dress’s hem inching up the back of my thighs to reveal a peek of stocking top and bare flesh. Mmm.. that felt good as I kept one leg straight and paused bent over double reaching for my bag.

Just as I was enjoying the luxurious stretch down the back of my leg, I froze mid bend as I heard the outer door suddenly swing open. Panicking I stood upright again, but didn’t know what to do. The inner door opened and I heard heels tap across the tiled floor. “OK… OK… keep calm and casual,” I thought to myself.

My heart was beating so hard in my chest I felt sure anyone in the same room could hear. Clutching my bag I returned to the sink where I had left my makeup kit. By looking down slightly I could keep the fringe of my wig concealing my face. With some luck she’d go to a cubicle and I could slip out without any questions or confrontation.

Flicking my eyes up to the mirror I saw that I looked good enough to pass, it was just a pity I couldn’t do a final touch to my makeup. With a feeling of dread I felt the presence of someone walk behind me and take up position at the next sink. “Why had I taken the middle sink?” I thought to myself. “Oh no, now I’ve got to stay and do something at least else it looks odd.”.

I took out my blusher brush and touched up my face, trying desperately to look calm and collected. Glancing to my left in the mirror I saw Helen, one of the senior executives styling her hair with her fingers and a small can of hair spray. “Idiot!” I thought, “Of course there was Helen as well as the office girls.

I’d forgotten about the one female executive who could be working late in her office!” “God, these long meetings play havoc with my hair!” she said. “I’m sure it’s the air conditioner, but I always come out of that room looking a mess.” “Yeah, I know what you mean,” I mumbled in my feminine voice, desperate for something to say.

“And I’m supposed to be going out tonight,” she said, “now it’s too late to go home and I’ve got to keep these stuffy work clothes on.” So far she seemed far too preoccupied to notice me much, so with gathering confidence I chanced a longer look to my left. She was wearing a modern cut navy blue skirt suit, with a white blouse underneath.

The suit suited her figure well and true to Helen’s form the skirt was that little bit shorter than necessary for business. I had to admit that she looked good, just as she always did. She was rather short, under 5ft I estimated, but her sensuous curvy body and larger than average chest more than made up for it. Matching navy blue 3 inch high heels also helped disguise her height, with the added bonus of making the most of her heart shaped rear. And if she wasn’t eye catching enough there was the shock of fiery red hair which contrasted so well with her creamy white skin.

“No, you look great,” I replied “Just maybe lose a few buttons on your blouse and add some more makeup and you’ll be OK for bars.” I couldn’t believe what was going on here. I needed to leave and here I was having a conversation with one of the high level management dressed as a woman! I’d be lucky to keep my job if she realized.

“Oh, thanks,” said Helen. “Could I borrow some eyeliner? I don’t keep any at work.”

“Sure,” I replied, cursing myself for mentioning makeup. I rummaged in my makeup bag and passed her my eyeliner, without turning away from the mirror. I continued to tweak my hair and makeup while Helen concentrated on applying eyeliner. She finished what she was doing and passed me the makeup.

I turned to take it and fumbled it with the rest of my makeup back into my weekend bag. “Right I better get going,” I said, still trying to avoid eye contact with Helen. “OK. Me too, I’m about done in here. Thanks for the eyeliner again.” “No problem,” I replied. Turning to leave, we both made for the door and for an instant I looked straight at Helen.

There was a slightly quizzical look on her face, and then it was gone. I opened the door and pushed my way out into the relative freedom of the corridor. “Looks like you’re on for a big one,” she commented as she followed me out “What are you planning?” “Um… I’m meeting some friends in town and we’re going. down to London,” I mumbled.

“Uh huh…” she answered “… well you have fun” she finally said.

Still on edge I turned to go, but was called back after three steps. “Excuse me,” said Helen. “I hate to do this, really I do, but you do work here don’t you?”

“Sure,” I replied casually, screaming on the inside, “down in the finance office with Sue.” “Oh, just I haven’t seen you around much. Are you new?” “Yeah. I transferred from the Northern branch 3 months ago.” “Ah right I see.” There was another long pause, “sorry to do this, but can I see your ID? We’ve had a few security breaches recently and you can never be too careful.” “No problem,” I replied. I squatted down next to my weekend bag and made a big show of rummaging inside searching for my ID. Desperately I thought “What am I going to do now? I can’t show her my card!” “Sorry, I must have lost it somewhere,” I said with maybe a little too much confidence.

“Right.” said Helen. She sighed and finally added, “Well, would you mind coming with me while we sort all this out?” “Sure, but I do have to go soon you know.”

“Yes, this will all get sorted quickly one way or another,” she replied ominously. Feeling like I was falling in a dream I followed Helen back through my office past my desk and towards her executive office along the far side.

I’d never ventured into her office before and I was surprised how nice it was in here compared to out in the drones section. There were large windows down one side of the office, looking out over the landscaped grounds our office block sat in.

A large desk dominated one corner of the spacious office, with a wall of books and files to the left of it. In the opposite corner to the desk was a low coffee table surrounded by 6 easy chairs. Evidently this was where the deals were made.

The only other furniture to be seen were a selection of large foliage plants dotted around the room, Helen’s black leather high backed office chair and a further standard office chair pulled up to the other side of the desk. She went behind the desk and sat before motioning me to sit opposite her.

“OK then…” she said, “sorry, what did you say your name was?” “Rachel,” I blurted out, “Rachel Stevenson” “OK then Rachel. We need to find your ID in a hurry or get you cross checked with Security. What’s it going to be?”.

By now I’d resigned myself to losing my job and life as I knew it, so it was either humiliation now with Helen or humiliation with Helen and a selection of security guards as well. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. I tried to think of something clever and then it hit me.

“I am sorry but the truth is I am just here to fill in for Jim. You see, he’s my close friend and he wanted me to finish some of his work. Since, he had done me a big favor a few weeks ago; I came in to help him. Apparently he had some personal work to complete today. I am really sorry.” I said timidly “I shouldn’t have done this. Please don’t call the security.”.

“Well, why didn’t you say it before,” Helen exclaimed, “I know Jim, not personally but I have heard a lot about him. He’s a good worker. He must have had something really important to call you in.” Stunned, I just nodded.

I couldn’t believe that she really said that. I felt a moment’s pride at the realization that she hadn’t recognized me and believed my story. Helen got up from her desk and eased down finally. “You can go now” she said with softness in her voice. “Thank you so much,” I replied. “Have a nice weekend,” Helen said and we both walked out of the office.

I held my breath until I was out in the corridor. After what seemed an eternity, I was finally out of the building. I checked the time and there was still time to catch up with my friends. What an afternoon it turned out to be.

The End

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