#sorry for the rant its almost midnight and i have had a LONG fucking day lmao

[sociialism]

crazy how people just assume shit on the internet. "you hate this fictional band? you must hate everyone who has depression i'm writing an ableism callout post as we speak" literally touch grass you fucking idiot people can dislike things for complex reasons

#to clarify this is not about anyone here its about strangers on twitter #yeah i hate 25ji!! not because of bad storytelling or morals or any of that shit. i have literally no obligation to explain myself t #o strangers on twitter #god twitter and tiktok really do rot peoples fucking brains huh. #i made a twitter acc with a simple dni and these little shits flood my damn inbox demanding i tell them why i dont like the group that remi #nds me of a horrible time in my life that i worked very very hard to get out of #and i would explain it to a friend/mutual but these are literal strangers!! if you demand a stranger recount their life story to you in ord #er for you to determine whether they are ''valid'' or not you are literally a piece of shit!! #anyways im never making a twitter account again lmao and DEFINITELY not a ticktock thats even worse than twitter #sorry for the rant its almost midnight and i have had a LONG fucking day lmao

[boldlyvoid]

ain't it fun?

summary: reader just needs an NA meeting before they have a meltdown, they end up with the best friend they could ever make.

warnings: Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Drug Addiction, Trauma Bonding, narcotics anonymous meetings, Strangers to Lovers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, meet-cute,

word count: 3.3K

a/n: this is completely self-indulgent and overly personal but i def recommend writing why spencer would love you as a form of therapy

read on ao3

In the blink of an eye, she was up and racing around her apartment. Her mental health was like a teeter-totter, and right now she was on her way to the top. Mania was creeping in; changing from just anxiety-induced butterflied to the feeling that she could jump off a building and survive.

That was never a good time. All she wanted was to either spend all her money, fuck a stranger or get high as shit. It made her legs jumpy and her ears ring and she couldn’t take it anymore. It was all too much.

She threw on a sweater and jeans, her hair was up in a butterfly clip and she hastily threw on her fanny pack full of everything she needed as well as a big coat, and she then left her apartment. She got to the stairs before realizing she actually needed to lock the door.

Her hands shook and she tried to slide the key into the lock, dropping them as her neighbour rushed out of the room and startled her. “Sorry,” she heard him say.

She picked up her keys and turned to look at him, “can you help me? I can’t seem to stop shaking,” she asked as she held her keys towards him.

“yes, sure,” he rushed the words out as he walked towards her, only looking at the keys, never in her eyes. But that was okay, she was never a big fan of eye contact.

He placed her keys back in her hand and took a step back, “are you alright?” he asked.

“No,” she said honestly. “I’m going to find an NA meeting.”

“Do you have one in the area? I haven’t seen you around before?”

She shook her head, surprised that he was also an addict, he didn’t look like he’s ever even smoked weed.

“No, I moved in only a little while ago on a whim, but I think it’s time I got some support,” she said as they started to walk down the hallway together. “I’m Y/N, by the way.”

“Spencer,” he smiled softly. “I’m going to a meeting right now, actually, if you’d like to come? I won’t exactly be anonymous to you, but it’s a good one to go to if you just need one to fill the void until you find your preferred group.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I need.” She smiled at him this time as he held the door open for her. “So, have you lived around here for long?”

“For about a few years now.”

“The building is good then? I was a little hesitant but I needed to get away,” she said, this time holding the door for them to leave the building and turn down the street towards where she knew the subway was.

The moon should be out, she looked up but only sees buildings. It was the one thing she missed the most about not being in the country; seeing the stars and feeling like there was a reason to it all.

“Are you running from someone?” He asks as they start the walk down to the meeting.

“Myself,” she said softly. “I’m on disability and don’t drive and I lived in the middle of nowhere with my parents, well into my 20’s, and I needed a change so my parents surprised me by saving up money for a few month's rent and told me to follow my heart.”

“And you picked Virginia?”

“I stayed in Virginia, just moved into the city. I watch a lot of murder documentaries in my free time, I thought being near Quantico would introduce me to some interesting people, but I have yet to meet anyone from the FBI at all.”

She laughed to herself at how dumb it was that she wanted to meet a profiler like Holden Ford from Mindhunter, “either they are all very good at keeping their jobs secret or Virginia is a very large and densely populated area with a low percentage of FBI agents.”

“Interesting.”

“What?”

“How long have you lived here?” he asked, slowing as he walked so he could look at her.

“2 months.”

“It took you two months to meet the FBI agent across the hall from you.”

“You’re kidding?” she said, stopping on the sidewalk abruptly. “I knew that apartment was calling me for a reason.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but, are you really just coincidentally my neighbour or are you secretly spying on me because you have an evil plan to kill me and my co-workers?” he's completely serious, it's almost scary.

“No offence, Spence, but for a supposed FBI agent that’s a dumb question to ask,” she said, pointing finger guns at him, “you don’t think I’ll give up my cover that easily? Do you?”

He points a finger gun back at her, “technically, I’m a doctor.”

The two of them narrow their eyes at each other, slowly walking in a circle, still facing each other with their make-believe guns trying to hold back smirks. She lowered her ‘weapon’ first. “It’s okay, doctor, don’t worry. I’m not a spy just an idiot with an imagination.”

He giggled softly, “I’ve never felt this comfortable with someone this fast.”

“Well, you are with criminals a lot, right? That would be alarming if you bonded with them,” she said, bumping her shoulder into his as they walked. “But I feel the same. I actually haven’t talked to someone in person in forever.”

“No?”

“I do most of my work and socializing online,” She felt embarrassed, but in today’s day and age, it wasn’t that weird. “I’m not very good outside or with people.”

“If it wasn’t for my job, I don’t think I would go outside very often either. My co-workers are my only friends, they’re more like my family actually.”

“That’s so wonderful to hear, found family is very important,” her smile disappeared as she thought about how alone she was. “Um, can I ask what it is you do at the FBI?”

“Behavioural Analysis.”

“Holy shit," she gasps, knowing way too much about that unit thanks to fucking Netflix, "that’s what the BSU became right? Do you work with the really fucked up shit?” she asked softly.

He laughed, “oh yeah, I really do.”

“Do you share a lot at NA?”

“Kinda, I tend to ramble about facts when I’m nervous so sometimes my short talk becomes more like a ted talk and what was supposed to be just me saying I haven’t relapsed on Dilaudid becomes a lesson on how the human brain works,” he explained, rambling just like he said he would.

She nodded along as he spoke, “funny, that was also my drug of choice.”

“Liquid or oral?”

“Oral. I was given it after I had my appendix out when I was 17. They get you started real young now, big pharma has its hand in everyone's pocket,” she presses her lips together awkwardly, “it was rough.”

He hummed in agreement. “I was held captive by an unsub with multiple personalities. One personality drugged me till I died and the other one brought me back.”

“Spencer, Holy fuck?” she stopped and stared at him so incredibly concerned for someone who just met him. She reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder and looked him in the eyes, “I know I barely know you, but if you need someone to talk I’m literally always across the hall.”

“Thank you,” he smiled softly as he looked back into her eyes. “The meeting is right there across the street, do you want a coffee first? The place beside it is amazing.”

She nodded and he took her hand, looking both ways before J-walking across the street with her to buy her a coffee and a snack. Maybe that would help her stop shaking, he looked like he worried about her and she wasn't used to that at all.

He didn’t talk at this meeting, he sat in the chair beside the group leader, she sat down across from him in the circle so she could focus. When the floor was opened up to new members, Y/N stood at the first chance she got.

“Hi I’m Y/N,” she said, to which she was welcomed by the crowd.

“I’m new to the city and looking for a new home group, not sure if I’ll stay here because I know Spencer outside of here but I really just needed to come today.”

She takes a deep breath as she thinks of how to start it, opting to just explain it and let the rant go where it may.

“I’ve never lived alone before and it’s incredibly hard to occupy my time without drugs. I still smoke weed to help me sleep at night but my addiction is with Dilaudid and then Benadryl a little after having surgery in high school. I don’t know if it’s my trauma, my disability or my Autism, maybe it’s my OCD, I really don’t know, but I just feel so useless and alone and boring and lonely, the drugs used to help but they don’t anymore and I really just don’t want to feel this way anymore.”

They all looked like they understood, small smiles grew all around the circle as she took a lookout at the crowd, “Thank you for letting me get that out.”

Everyone clapped as she sat back down and wiped a tear off her cheek.

The meeting ended shortly after that, Spencer walked from his seat in the circle to where she was sitting, reaching a hand out to help her to her feet. “For the record, I think you’re funny, smart, kind and pretty. And you don’t have to be alone anymore if you don’t want to be.”

She slapped her hand into his and stood up with purpose, “Did we just become best friends?”

“I believe we did.”

The walk home was much like the walk there. They traded facts, they flirted, they laughed, she pushed him into a pole at one point, by accident as they laughed. The two of them stopping to sit at a bus bench, laughing so hard she felt like she would pee her pants right then and there.

By the time they were back on their floor, it was well after midnight. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to meetings with you.”

“Oh, why?” he looked disappointed.

“Isn’t rule 13 that you’re not supposed to want to sleep with your group members when you’re healing?”

“Wanting to and doing it are two very different things,” he corrected her as he waited at his own door.

She smirked, “you’re right. Still don’t think I can go back with you, however.”

“I’ll probably have a case tomorrow, they normally take me out of town for at least a week, but when I get back, can I see you?” he asked lightly.

“Knock on my door when you get back,” she said before standing on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “See you.”

“Bye.”

They waved from their doors before departing, excited by something that felt better than drugs.

—

120 hours later there was a light knock at her door, she knows exactly how long it’s been because she’s been counting and looking out the door at every noise for the whole time he’s been gone. Waiting for him like a wife whose husband went off to war, not knowing when their next correspondence would be.

“Coming,” she called, stopping to fluff her hair and straighten her glasses before she opened the door.

“Spencer!”

“Hi,” he said softly.

She took a moment to look him over, a little in shock at what she saw. He was in a plain t-shirt and track pants, he had not one, but two black eyes, bandages on his brow bone and scrapes all along his arms.

“Are you okay?”

“You should see the other guy,” he giggled softly, rolling his eyes.

“Come in, let’s sit you down.” She worried, taking him by the elbow and helping him inside.

“I’m fine, really, I’m used to this.”

“Well I’m not,” she reminded him with a nervous pout, “am I allowed to ask about it or is it classified stuff?”

He sat on the couch and patted a seat beside himself so she would join him. He rested his arm against the back of the chair so that she could slide in beside him.

“Did you hear about the child abduction in Tampa?”

“Yeah? The two boys?”

“I was trying to talk the unsub down and he dropped the gun but he grabbed me as I turned him around and punched me in the face and we fell into the ditch and I luckily managed to flip over him and get his hands behind his back and cuffed faster than I ever have before.”

“You’re amazing,” she whispered.

He laughed, “if I really was, I would have waited for backup before talking to the guy.”

“I’ve always wanted to help other people get justice but not being able to go to school makes it hard to get a job doing anything meaningful,” she whispered, ashamed of the fact she wasn’t successful like most people her age.

“Our technical analyst was hired because she was an amazing hacker, they will hire anyone who is valuable.” He shrugs and watches her face light up at the idea.

“You know what, we have meetings all this week unless there’s an emergency, if you want I can show you around the office?” he offered. “It’s not illegal for you to pass by what I’m working on and notice something I missed.”

“Spencer, I don’t even know your last name and you’re inviting me to your government job? When just last week you asked, not so jokingly, if I was a secret agent trying to kill you and that you’ve been kidnapped before?”

“Doctor Spencer Reid, and what can I say?” he said shyly, “I’m trying to find excuses to see you smile all the time.”

She placed her hand on his cheek, the tips of her fingers lightly resting on his purple and yellow bruised eyes. She leaned in slowly and kissed him on the lips, so gently as if she’s afraid he’ll break or turn into a frog… he was too good to be true.

“You can see me whenever you want, Doctor Spencer Reid…”

He kissed her again, letting his hands roam her back and she trailed her free hand down his chest. She pulled back slightly to throw a leg over him carefully and sit in his lap. Holding his face in her hands now, she peppered kisses over his bruised face.

She stopped to look at him, still holding his face in her hands as his hands now rested on her hips. “I really like you, Spencer.”

“Really?”

She looks at him carefully, analyzing his response and seeing the hurt that rested deep inside of him, “I take it you’re like me?”

“What does that mean?”

“You try to not get too involved with people because no one has ever shown you true genuine interest or love, and you never think you’ll find it anyway so you push away all small acts of kindness, thinking it’s friendly because then you can’t get your hope up, just to have that person drop them?” she explained herself in a whisper.

He nodded, “you get it.”

She kissed his lips again, and then over his cheek and up to his ear, “I do.”

He looked extra sad when she pulled away, she just held his face gently as she mirrored his puppy dog eyes. Communicating with their eyes, she knew he was okay and he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so she smiled.

“Want to watch a movie?” She asks softly.

He nods, looking behind her to see she doesn’t have a tv in the living room. “How?”

“In my room, the TV is on my dresser if you don’t mind sitting in my bed?”

He shakes his head in a simple no, picking her up and taking her to her room. He knew where it was purely because her apartment was just his but backwards. She laughs, holding onto him tight as she rests her head on his shoulder.

He sets her down gently, watching her move up to the headboard and wait for him. They got under the blankets and she found the remote in the sheet before she cuddled into him.

“You’re really cuddly,” she complimented him as he wrapped an arm around her and held her close. He kissed the top of her head as a thank you.

“I think I’m going to end up falling in love with you, Spencer Reid,” she whispers the words, afraid of them more than his response.

“I beat you to it,” he whispers right back.

She shoots up, turning to look at him with surprise. “How?”

He looks at her like she grew two heads, “what do you mean how?”

“How did you fall in love with me? You don’t even know me?” She’s so confused, no one has ever loved her before and it’s a lot to take in.

“Y/N…” his face drops, his heart physically breaks in front of her. “I don’t know you, you're right. Not all of you, at least. I’m sure you have your hidden doors and locked cupboards but from the outside, I see you’re so beautiful, you’re radiant… your mind is lovely. You’re so kind, you’re so brave, you’re everything I wish I could be as charismatically as you are.”

She’s just swallowing over and over as she shakes her head and breathes through her nose, processing it. She’s breathing deeply then, staring off and she feels like she’s having a new kind of panic attack. A happier one, somehow?

“I don’t like myself, but if you like me I guess I must be pretty nice,” she smiles, accepting his praise and believing him. “Yeah. Thank you, Spencer.”

He smiles then, it’s cute and press-lipped and she swears he almost has dimples. His eyes are like honey and his lips are like roses. She leans in, kissing him and reaching a hand back to cup the nape of his neck.

He doesn’t know it, but he’s the first person she’s kissed in a few years. They’re soft, peck after peck as they hold each other softly, eyes open as they watch each other experience the happiness of finding someone good, finally.

“I uh, I wanted to tell you I’m almost exactly everything you described yourself as in the meeting,” he whispers against her lips, the air touching her skin gently as she absorbs the words.

“What part? My diagnosis or my self-hatred?” She smiles, okay with either really.

“Almost both, I’m pretty hard to be around.”

She shakes her head, “I invited you in for a movie, not a pity party. You can tell me everything you hate right now and then we should just share the good parts okay? Brag about yourself. Tell me what you’re proud of.”

She was really serious, keeping a stern look on her face as she spoke. He nodded, “I’m anxious all the time, I’m always worried because I’ve never had anyone to worry about me. I don’t know how to be a real person really, all I do is drink coffee and solve crimes and I barely sleep. And the only time I was relaxed and okay is when I was on drugs.”

She nodded, “it fucking sucks, doesn’t it? Like why did we get stuck like this, I don't care about peaking in high school but didn’t we deserve some kind of love and support? I’ve never understood if souls and shit are real, why did mine pick this terrible meat suit and awful traumatic path?”

She’s crying because she’s angry and because she’s never said it to anyone before. He cries because she understands. She truly knows.

“I love you,” he announces. “Just because of that.”

Taglist: @blanchardsbk @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria @spookyspence @reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @samuel-de-champagne-problems @jswessie187 @k-k0129 @calm-and-doctor

#spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #spencer reid self insert #spencer reid request #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine

[meow-sic]

hi elliot! can you do a drabble or hcs of how kuroo, the miya twins, oikawa, and bokuto would propose to their s/o? if that's a lot of characters, then pls just take your pick but pls include kuroo! thank u so much!! btw i really like your "they accidentally hurt you" post. it provides realism and a middle ground to the usual extremes we see in reader-insert content - idyllic/saccharine vs dark content (•ˇ‿ˇ•)

how they propose to you 𓍢 ᭡

includes : oikawa , kuroo , bokuto !

warnings : some misunderstandings in oikawa’s from a prank lolol , some cursing !

a/n : hi anon! ur my first anon message and you warmed my heart<333 also i lowk got inspiration from bokutos from a spanish music video i watched in spanish class today, sue me lololol

oikawa tooru

he’s just dumb

he thought it would be funny to try to prank you

dumbass

butttttt knowing his luck, it didn’t go as planned—

okay, well, it started off innocent— he planned to try to casually slide it in, maybe catch you off gaurd, then get down on his knee and ask you to marry him!

but, when you were on top of him tickling him, he wanted to get back at you.

and like tooru oikawa, he didn’t fully think it through.

“mei! stop!” he laughed, as a joke. it was supposed to be a joke.

you stopped your fingers that were wiggling by his sides. you slumped on his lap. “what?”

he peeked at you and smiled. “what do you mean what?”

“who’s mei?”

“i didn’t say mei,” he replied, your eyes watered and you got off of his lap. he sat up and stared at you. “y/n? are you okay?”

he got up but you already were in your room, slapping the door shut.

“stupid tooru! you made ‘em upset,” he scolded himself quietly.

when he walked up to your shared room, he heard the sniffles and sobs that came from the other side that broke his heart. he knocked on the door three times before entering.

“honey,” he walked over to you and hugged you. you sobbed into his chest.

“how long has it been going on tooru?” you asked through your sobs.

he pet your hair, “what do you mean baby?”

“don’t act dumb! it’s like—“ you paused. “it’s like you’re trying to ignore the fact you’ve been cheating!”

he thought you knew he was joking. “y/n—“

“if you’re not going to tell me then i’m leaving,” you turned around to start packing your bags.

his eyes widened in panic. “nonono! no, shit—“ he was embarrassed. “i didn’t mean it! it didn’t happen! mei isn’t real!”

you stopped packing, “what?”

“she—it was supposed to be a joke. a joke to make you stop tickling me. it’s dumb because i don’t think things through. but that’s why i need you— i need you to be there so you can stop me from doing the stupid shit that i do,” he looked at you to see if you were looking at him.

and you were, you looked pissed. he sighed and bent down on his knee, pulling out the ring he had gotten weeks ago.

“y/n, i know i’m dumb. but please, forgive me for this stupid prank, and please stay with me forever. don’t leave, please.”

“stand up.”

he did so, and he wasn’t sure what to expect, but a slap across the face wasn’t it.

“you’re a fucking idiot, tooru oikawa,” you laughed, kissing him. “but— i suppose that’s why i’m here. and i’m not leaving.”

he beamed at those words, he wasn’t sure if he smiled wider in his entire life. he kissed your cheek repeatedly, “i love you so much

kuroo tetsuro

PLEASE- he would set you upppppp

giving you hints, to where he is

but not random hints, it would be like a mini time line of your relationship

he would through a lil chemistry is there to mess with you

lovingly, though<3

you woke up alone in bed, a little confused since your boyfriend would always be there— to kiss you good morning.

you rolled over to grab your phone from its charger, looking at the text message from kuroo.

boyfrie tetsu<3

good morning baby<3 sorry i’m not there this morning, let’s play a little— hide and seek game, the prize is a big one!

the first hint: we didn’t quite meet there, but it was where i became your “boyfriend” for the first time

good luck baby!<3

you were confused by his text, and honestly, you almost wanted to ignore it. it’s too damn early for this.

but, you can’t. you knew he was going to be waiting for you, and you can’t leave him all alone.

your eyebrows furrowed in confusion as you groaned and started your day. you still got dressed none the less, and went to a café you always go to.

as the barista handed you your drink, you saw a note on it.

dear y/n,

you’re probably here for your morning coffee, but, none the less, this is where we first started to ‘date’! that one guy who wouldn’t stop hitting on you, and your prince charming (aka me aka the most handsome man ever) came to your rescue;)

where we promised each other is your new hint, good luck!<3

you knew where it was once you read the bolder letters. you thanked, and tipped the barista. you were more than happy to remember the memory.

“tetsu, it’s so late out, what if we get kidnapped!” you ranted your anxieties to him.

“kidnapped? you think anyone would dare to fight your prince charming?” he kissed your head as you two walked. “we’re almost there.”

he led you to the bridge that curved over the water like a C shape. you both leaned forward on the cement railing and looked at the moon.

“i’m so in love with you, y/n.” he admitted out of the blue, you looked at him.

“i’m in love with you too, tetsu.” you leaned your head on him, he wrapped an arm around you.

“i know we’re only in highschool. but i promise, i’ll marry you.”

“i’ll be waiting for that day, tetsu. even if it’s till we’re sixty, or if we’re only in our young twenties and being stupid. i’ll be waiting for you.”

you both melted at each other’s words, you shared a passionate kiss.

you ran up to where the bridge was. your pace slowed as your boyfriend came into view. he was holding flowers, and a lock.

you panted, “i hate running tetsu.” you breathed out, he laughed at you. “i know, sorry.”

you stood straight, looking at what he was wearing. it looked fancier than usual. “what’s the lock for?” you asked.

he looked at it and smiled, “i remember, it was our second year of college. you were so mad that they changed the bridge. that they changed the fencing, and couples started to put locks on it.”

“..and?”

“and i was thinking we could do one too?” he questioned. you smiled and grabbed the lock. you bent down and locked it, he wrote both of your initials on it.

you stood up, but your boyfriend stayed on his knee.

“tetsu what are you doing?”

he pulled a little box from his back pocket, a few pedestrians stopped and watched what was happening.

“when we were sixteen, we made a stupid promise to each other at midnight on this bridge. and i promised i would marry you. y/n, i told you ten years ago, when we were sixteen, that i love you.” he paused for a second to look up at your face, which was in shock. “and i still do, so please, keep the promise and marry me.”

“oh my god, oh my god! yes yes!” you got on your knees with him. he laughed at you for getting on your knees with him instead of waiting for him to stand up.

you tackled him in a hug while other people clapped for you two.

bokuto kotarou

tbh this stressed him out

he wasn’t sure when, how, or what to say

you two had talked about marriage and how you two would gladly marry each other

but he wasn’t sure when!!!

he kept the ring on him at all times just incase:)

you and bokuto were just returning from a walk. the snow was heavier than expected by you two, so when you got home to a pile of snow, you were thrilled.

“kou let’s make a snowman! like we did with your old team, c’mon!” you dragged him by the hand to your front yard.

you and bokuto were always childlike in your relationship, you two getting excited at the tiniest things that makes you two act like children. so when you saw the snow, you felt more than joy.

you began by making a small snowball in your hand, and rolling it as you walked around your yard, to form a big snowball for the base. by the time you were done with the biggest snowball, bokuto was done with the medium sized one.

“okay, if we pick it up at the same time, it shouldn’t break,” you lifed the medium sized snowball with him. you set it on top of the biggest one.

“hey hey hey! y/n! let me make the tinniest one while you get the scarf, carrot, and eyes and smile,” he suggested. you nodded and kissed his cold cheek before heading inside to quickly grab the items.

you grabbed a pink scarf, a white hat that kou got you one year, and a carrot and some coal for the eyes and smile.

when you headed outside, you saw the snowman was all made. your insides felt bubbly as your childlike happiness was showing.

you ran out to him. “i got everything kou!”

“okay! you decorate, and don’t turn around until i say so. i have a surprise for you,” he replied. you were confused at what the surprise could be, but you agreed none the less.

you put the carrot in the middle of the snowman’s face. you then placed the eyes, and tried your best to make the smile symmetrical.

you wrapped the scarf around it’s neck, and put the hat on top. “okay kou, i’m done! can i turn around?”

there was a short pause, “okay now you can.”

you turned around to him on his knee, holding out a ring. your mouth dropped open to see writing in the snow.

will you marry me? ♥︎

“yes! yes yes!” you basically screamed, tackling him and kissing him repeatedly.

“the ring! wheres the ring?” he questioned. you both started to dig it up in the snow, laughing at how stupid you two were.

you found it, and slid it on your finger. “i cant wait to marry you, baby.” your hands slid up and down his chest before you kissed him.

#[fairyakaashi]🥮 #haikyuu fluff #haikyu x reader #hq #hq x reader #haikyuu #hq fluff #kuroo x reader #oikawa x reader #bokuto x reader #oikawa fluff #kuroo fluff #bokuto fluff #.nonnie<3 #.requests<3

[hohoz]

The ones that suffer the most

I wanted to talk about this for a long time.

I’m a Resident evil addicted, I finished almost every RE game released and I must say that Capcom made some poor choices regarding Jill and Chris, they are EASILY the most mistreated characters in RE Franchise. 

But let’s explain why is that: 

Jill and Chris are survivors, they had to survive in a mansion with a lot of puzzles and zombies, while looking for items that could help them to progress and find a way to reach Brad. 

When they arrive at STARS Office, they are revolted that Umbrella did all that under their noses and innocents were dying because of that and they explained EVERYTHING in a report - but Irons made that go away. 

In the ORIGINAL RE3 we had this special file (Jill’s Diary) 

August 7th Two weeks have passed since that day. My wounds have been healed, but I just can't forget it. For most people, it's history now. But for me, whenever I close my eyes, it all comes back clearly. Zombies eating people's flesh and the screams of my teammates dying. No, the wounds in my heart are not healed yet...

August 13th Chris has been causing a lot of trouble recently. What's with him? He seldom talks to the other police members and is constantly irritated. The other day, he punched Elran of the Boy's Crime department just for accidentally splashing Chris's face with coffee. I immediately stopped Chris, but when he saw me he just gave me a wink and walked away. I wonder what happened to him...

August 15th Midnight. Chris, who has been on a leave of absence for a "vacation," called me so I visited his apartment. As soon as I walked into his room, he showed me a couple of pieces of paper. They were part of a virus research report entitled as simply as "G". Then Chris told me that, "The nightmare still continues." He went on to say that, "It's not over yet." Ever since that day, he has been fighting all by himself without rest, without even telling me.

August 24th Chris left the town today to go to Europe. Barry told me that he would send his family to Canada and then he would follow Chris. I decided to remain in Raccoon City for a while because I know that the research facility in this city will be very important to this entire case. In a month or so, I'll be joining with them somewhere in Europe. That's when my real battle begins...

For some weird reason this file isn’t available in RE3 Remake. 

But ok, here we see that Chris was doing some investigation - in the RE2RMK  you could see this letter that Chris left in a way that normal people wouldn't understand - the only thing that Claire says is that “doesnt look like him” but how normies would understand what Chris is like is he is not well represented in media ??????????????????

And Jill had all the detective work in her wall. 

So far so good - we understand the basics about them - they are Special police force, the elite, they had a traumatic experience and they survived to tell the story. 

Some problems until now:

Jill had a MAJOR personality change in RE3 RMK- I honestly like most of that, she is a badass in the originals and she is a badass in the rmk but I still dislike the fact that she swears all the time (specially because in RE1, RE Rev, RE5 she doesn't do that) 

We can tell a lot about her personality just looking at her room, but I still miss some stuff (I had expectations - so this is not a real problem. but still) like a Vinyl player (since she is probably into classical music), some letters from her father so new players can understand her origin and why is she so good in lockpicking and more about her dog (she had a pic in the original that could’ve been her boyfriend but it was replaced by a dog in RE2 rmk but in RE3 Rmk there in no dog) 

Okay - after you finish the game the only thing we see is this: 

In my opinion this is Chris since he is always associated with Green colors while Jill is associated with blue. 

So my speculation here is that she found him while in the original we had this: 

This is not a major chance but still is important (lore of course - duh) but the problem here is that while Jill is looking for him - Code Veronica is happening. 

So I can only assume two things, they did not show him because they DON’T HAVE A FACE FOR HIM or I am wrong and that is Jill, but if that is Jill so why there is no decent epilogue like the original ? 

Okay, now we are arriving in the real trouble area

I will do RE5 first and the Wii and Rev1 (even tho those two comes first in the lore) 

RESIDENT EVIL 5 

So before the game was release we had some propaganda, including this: 

So have in mind that Jill was dead, I thought that she died and RE5 would explain that shit. 

But in the beginning we see that Chris is looking for her and have in mind that Chris HAD A MAJOR CHANCE IN HIS APPEARANCE, and I’m not talking about his muscles. 

I will not address Chris in CV since he was good in that game but I the team that made CV also made the original, it had CONSISTENCE. 

Here we have Chris, he’s THE classical american soldier protagonist from Hollywood in the 80′s/90′s and he had some omage to TOPGUN

He also shares some traits with his sister

A major trait here is that HE HAS BLUE EYES, typical good looking soldier from US. 

and now let’s have a look at Chris in RE5...

Yeah... I still hate this face even tho I love his Character in this game, this ugly a** monkey looking mf and he had a lot of steroids

So we have some lore to him in RE5, Jill and Chris went to a mansion looking for Spencer (one of the fathers of Umbrella and the one that was behind project Wesker, he wanted to do this Virus so he could live forever, so RE has a good lore, it’s not just about zombies) but when they found him, he was dead and Wesker was by his side, in a fight Jill sacrificed herself to save Chris’s life. 

Chris started doing mission after mission because her body was never found, and he made a name for himself, he became a ‘legend’ inside BSAA and you can see that in the beginning of RE5.

The reason behind the muscles was probably to fight Wesker mano to mano but still is not well made, it really felt weird playing for the first time. 

So now we have a problem here, there is thing that you use in a narrative that is to make someone strong af powerless, and they did that to Jill. (a good example of this is in TWD- Ricky is a fucking legend and Negan made him powerless in the face of a event) 

Jill was used in a Boss fight and that is it... She is not in the game as a character, she is being manipulated and her whole design was changed, she looks like Nina from Tekken. WTF. - BTW, the fact that Wesker had mind control over her created 1000 fics of sex 

 So that is it, my main problem here isnt Jill itself, but it’s the fact that they used her character as a boss even tho she is the heroine, she never appears in RE lore again until some guy inside Capcom said “Well people are asking about Jill so let’s place a file in Rev2 saying that she is in rehab” 

The only time that she appears again is in a 3DS NINTENDO ONLY game, it felt that Capcom simply don’t care about her character. 

By the way Revelations 1 is a great game and was adaptable some years later for PC and consoles

But you think that this is bad, wait until we arrive at RESIDENT EVIL 6 

When I learned that Jill was not in RE6 I was mad... But after I played that game I said “thank you God” that game was bad, transformers kind of bad, it had bad writing, the lore was all over the place and Chris was the one that suffered the most in this game. 

He was responsible for the death of an entire squad, suffered amnesia and people still wanted him in the command 

THEY MADE HIM AN ALCOHOLIC 

The golden boy of BSAA reduced to THIS. 

By the way, the director said that HE WANTED TO KILL CHRIS IN THIS GAME to SUBVERT EXPECTATIONS - so if you liked Piers now that he died only because of that. 

So now let’s analyse what we know: 

The first 2 main characters are not well represented in media until RE6, they don’t know how to re introduce Jill in the games and Chris was reduced to a normal guy at a Russian bar;

But it gets worse... 

Capcom LOVE Leon, we know that. he is always the hero, he is the protagonist in almost every movie and he is always the cool guy so when he get’s a new model, he looks like this:

But When Chris get’s a new face he look like this: 

WHO DAFUQ ARE U, no offense to the model but he has NEGATIVE JAW LINE.

And still he doesn't look like Claire’s brother, there is no blue/green eyes and he looks younger that he was in 6 (and 6 still uses that ugly character model) 

But let’s go in the lore- we HAVE 0 info on Jill in RE6 / RE7 and no sight of her in RE8 

And speaking of which, they tried to make Chris the bad guy in the trailer so when we play we see “Ohhhh he was not the bad guy, that happened and that is why he did that” 

But still... 

If they are going to do that to his character don’t use this character, shit ! Do something with that Wesker’s son that made 0 sense in RE6 but leave Chris out of this - it really feels that they simply don’t know how to treat him right

And you may think that I may be complaining a lot because of his appearance

But this is him in RE8  

(to me this is some random dude from Russia) 

And this is him in RE:Verse (that is going to be release TOGETHER) 

So this tells me that they have 0 clue of how to handle his looks

Jill got RE3Rmk but it felt like a cheap game compared to RE2Rmk where the original RE3 was SO MUCH BETTER

And this is bad because there are so many new fans joining the fandom only to see 2 great characters suffering from poor director’s choices. 

I’m sorry about this rant, if you like Chris face and looks its okay, really, but dont tell me that Chris from 5/6/8 is the same from 1/CV and if you think im wrong about Jill its fine, but she is an amazing character that could have so much more impact in RE universe (I mean, she never even appeared in a RE movie - animations) 

But it’s sad to see so many characters that receive good representation in media and good games/lore while Jill get’s almost none and Chris is handled like random face guy. 

I was going to talk a little bit more about Rev 1 and RE Umbrella Chronicles but there is no need since Im mad right now and it seems that Capcom has 0 interest in making Code Veronica and Umbrella’s fall after that since their fav boy Leon need a rmk in RE4 even tho RE4 is not that old. 

Bonus:

Fun fact: Chris served in the Air force, so yeah, to me even Tom Cruise looks more like Chris than Chris from the games

#resident evil #resident #evil #chris #redfield #Jill #valentine #resident evil 8 #rant #capcom #Claire Redfield #leon scott kennedy #visual #valenfield #topgun #capcom dont know how to handle good characters #directors wanting to kill chris #now he could be a werewolf #for fucks sake #at least #ethan #is being handled better #than they are #good job capcom #very nice indeed #now im going to watch top gun #just for fun #reverse #re verse #resident evil 3

[lillian-nator]

Them being mixtapes are a great idea, what if after Tommy gets drunk initially, dream gets dared to steal them, so he does, then he forgets that he has them and when Tommy Wakes the next morning he's in a panic bc The Mixtapes!! - 💙

Yeah! Something like that could work. 

I have two ideas, one of them I came up with during Spanish class, and the second one I came up with right now. 

Idea A.

My original idea is based off of the fact that Tommy like a week after he is told not to hang out with Dream anymore, goes and sneaks out to hang out. 

So, about two weeks after the party Tommy gets a text from either Purpled (who’s parents have no clue about the party) or Dream saying that ‘the gang’ was going to be hanging out at this abandoned bridge Karl found a while ago when he was driving around the town. So, Tommy, being the dumb fucking teenager he is, sneaks out his window with just his phone and a really thin jacket, and heads to the fucking abandoned bridge. 

So, like, it’s really cool lets not lie here. Like its an abandoned bridge, and a bunch of teenagers ranging from 15 to 19, are just sitting on it, legs dangling and shit. Here comes Dream doing some whack-ass parkour, and Big Q walking on the edge. I mean - lets not lie here either, Tommy is doing some dumb-ass parkour shit too, hanging from ledges and shit (no wonder Wilbur wants Tommy to stay the fuck away from the Dteam they encourage Tommy’s dumb shit). 

Enter BIG Q the resident family pothead. (this is Big Q the character we are talking about - and more so Big Q the character in this specific au, even though Big Q the character is also probably a pothead, not Quackity the person k cool). Anyways, so while they are all busy endangering their lives atop this ginormous abandoned bridge, Big Q is just chilling, smoking a joint. It gets passed around a couple times, just cause they were chilling at like 2 am in the morning - and what can I say, they are sleep deprived teenagers, they are gonna do some stupid shit.

Anyways, during all of this, they are playing truth or dare, and half way through Tommy just passes out leaning on Dream - because they are like best friends pog. So, then Dream gets a dare to steal Tommy’s mixtapes, because George saw Tommy listening to them on the way here. All of the boys know how much the mixtape means to him, and they really just want to see his reaction, but when Tommy woke up like 30 minutes later, he just gets up and stumbles home because he is cold and tired and really fucking hungry. 

So Enter Thomas Innit. Coming home at 3am, just straight through the front door because he is high out of his mind, and having a great time. Phil - who is the one who caught him - doesn’t catch on straight away because he doesn’t know the symptoms of being high, and lets not lie here, Tommy is really good at getting out of shit. (flashback to that one time he convinced niki to drown instead of niki convincing Tommy not to). 

What Phil does notice though, is that Tommy is wearing someone else’s jacket. 

It’s SapNap’s varsity jacket. 

So Tommy starts getting a lecture about sneaking out at night and how he was not supposed to hang out with Dream or SapNap, or that group of boys, until he is ungrounded. (did I mention that Phil definitely grounded Tommy for going to that party). Not to mention that he left the house when he was grounded; like Tommy what the hell? 

But then Wilbur comes downstairs because he is an awfully light sleeper and hears the commotion downstairs. Tommy, who is already kind of angry because he was having a really good time with his friends, and he knows that Purpled isn’t getting this lecture - and that Tubbo is still asleep - not to mention he really just wants to fucking eat. 

So, he pushes past Phil to get to the chip cabinet when Wilbur enters. He looks confused at first, but then spots the jacket. Wilbur is just getting ready to fucking kill someone when Phil pulls him aside and tells Wilbur that he had already given a lengthy lecture, and that he should lay off Tommy for the night. 

Wilbur begrudgingly agrees, only because he knows that lectures from Phil are the worst. So, he sits at the counter, and asks Tommy to hand him a bottle of water when he sees that his brother is snacking on the chips. Sure, Tommy takes a good minute to react, but Wilbur put that aside to sleepiness as it was 3am in the morning. 

As soon as Tommy turned around though, Wilbur’s anger shot through the roof. I mean, Wilbur could tell. He had spent enough time with Schlatt half-high trying to make out with Wilbur, to know what being high looked like - and that look was on his fucking 15-year-old brother. He could see it with the red-rimmed eyes, and the far off look, not to mention that Tommy had never been that relaxed in his life. 

He quickly stood up, almost knocking his stool to the ground, and grabbed Tommy by the chin to look at his face.

Phil: “Wilbur what are you doing? I already told you that I gave Tommy a lecture. Just let him eat -”  Wilbur: “Are you fucking high right now?” (I feel as though it is important to mention that Wilbur like growls this)  Phil: “What?” (you know how phil says this) Tommy: *like a moody teenager, gritting through his teeth* “No.”  Wilbur: “You’re fucking high.” He laughs, “Who the fuck gave you weed?” Tommy: “I don’t know. It was passed around! Can I have my chin back bro, I’m fucking hungry.”  Wilbur: “No you can’t ‘bro’. Why the fuck did you smoke weed?”  Tommy: “Why not? You hang with stoners.”  Wilbur: “Schlatt has smoked a couple times, I wouldn’t call him a stoner. And also, he’s fucking legal! He is 18 years old!”  Tommy: “Well Big Q is 18 too!” Wilbur: “So it was Quackity then? I’m gonna beat the shit out of him.” Wilbur goes to storm off, but Phil stops him.  Phil: “Both of you calm down!” Phil sighs rubbing his temple. “Tommy we are going to fucking talk about this in the morning. But, I’m not going to let you kill a Junior Wil. We will sort this out tomorrow. I know you aren’t happy, and I’m not either, but the kid is probably high out of his fucking mind right now, I’m not going to let you take advantage of that.”  Wilbur: He brushes Phil’s hand off of his shoulder, storming into the living room. “Fine. I’ll beat him up when he is sober. It’ll be funner anyways.” 

Tommy just storms up to his room, pissed that he didn’t get to finish his the rest of his chips, when his phone buzzes. 

It’s a text from Purpled asking if Tommy knows where he put his shoes. Tommy stifles a laugh, trying hard not to fucking wheeze - the weed wasn’t making this easy on him - but decides to throw his phone across the room, and faceplant onto the bed, hoping that tomorrow would never come. 

Let’s just say that Techno is mildly confused when he waked up the next morning to Wilbur pacing the room, and Phil tiredly drinking his third cup of coffee - chip bad thrown on the counter. 

And the mixtapes? Well, Tommy doesn’t know their missing. And Dream? He fucking forgets he has them. 

Idea B.

Dream steals the mixtapes on a dare the night of the party. 

Tommy doesn’t notice that he doesn’t have them the first few days. He is really, really just focused on the fact that he is upset at Wilbur. 

I mean, he tries hard not to be, because Wilbur came and picked him up from a party where he would’ve probably sat in just pure pain for the rest of night. He might’ve found safety in one of Dream’s guest bedrooms, or even in Dream’s loft bed - but he most likely would’ve crashed at Tubbo’s and he couldn’t deal with Eret’s rant right then. 

He loved Tubbo’s brother - sure, but he knew that if his own brothers saw the pain he was in, they would quit the lecturing for the night and just try to help him. 

He was right too. They helped him into the house, and stayed up with him when he threw up all night, and had a massive headache. They gave him Tylenol and tums, and dimmed all of the lights. Tommy wasn’t upset that he called his brothers no - but he wouldn’t be a teenage boy if he wasn’t irrationally angry at Phil for grounding him. 

He spent most of his time in his room, listening to music, or sneaking Tubbo through the window. Tubbo wasn’t fucking grounded - but then again, Tubbo barely had a few drinks of beer, and Tommy had uh - a few cans. 

In the long run, his brothers ended up being less angry with him and more angry at Dream for giving him the beer - which really didn’t make sense in Tommy’s mind due to the fact that he was the one who drank it, and he was the one who snuck out to the party in the first place. But, he guessed that it was the perks of being their baby brother, they could never really stay mad at him. 

But after a few days, he went to look for the tapes, and they were fucking gone. He didn’t know how to tell Wilbur - he couldn’t face Phil or Techno knowing that he lost his most prized possession. 

He came into Wilbur’s room bawling at like midnight one night, and Wilbur - who had no clue what was going on - just had to comfort his little brother. Through choked sobs Wilbur learnt that he had lost the tapes, and that he was ‘so, so, sorry wil. I don’t know how it happened, they were in my backpack when I got there.’ 

And what does Dream do with the disk? Well you’re gonna have to find out I guess. 

#💙 #Of Younger Brothers and Longer Nights #ybln au #idk which one I like better #tommyinnit #wilbursoot #philza #philza minecraft #technoblade #sleepy bois inc #sleepyboisinc #dream #dreamteam #sapnap #georgenotfound #karl jacobs #purpled #tubbo #quackity #Big Q

[facialteeth]

A Twist of Fate | Ao3.

When Alec presented as an omega instead of the alpha he knew he was supposed to be, he knew his life was over. Magnus was an omega and two omegas could never be together.

This is my ‘omega/omega’ square for @shadowhunterbingo and this is my last square to fill! 

Alec was supposed to be an alpha. He’d known that from the day he was born. His parents wanted him to be a big strong alpha. Everyone expected Alec to be and more importantly, Magnus expected Alec to be.

Magnus and Alec had met in elementary school. Alec had courted Magnus with rocks and flowers he’d found on the playground until Magnus had agreed to be his and only his. They’d been children then and they’d barely known what they were agreeing to but from that day forward, Magnus was his and no one else's.

They used to hold hands and run around together, telling everyone they were mates. They weren’t of course. They’d been far too young for that but that hadn’t stopped them from telling people that.

Magnus had presented as an omega nearly a year before and Alec couldn’t have been more excited for the day he presented as an alpha. He was going to claim Magnus the day it happened. They’d been talking about it for so long. Then, Alec could say Magnus was his mate and know it deep down to be true. Their scents would change after Alec claimed him and they’d be more connected than Alec could even imagine.

Alec had looked forward to it since he was a child running around looking to find Magnus the best rocks. Which is why Alec was blindsided and devastated the day he presented and he was… not an alpha. He wasn’t even a beta. Alec, with his big strong arms and his bulky very alpha like body, had presented as an omega and the moment it became clear to Alec what was happening, he knew his life was over forever.

There were rare cases of omegas trying to be together but it never worked out and besides, it just wasn’t proper. Omegas did not date each other. Omegas did not court each other. Omega didn’t get to bond to each other or help each other through their heats. A lot of omegas found the smell of another omega in heat to be torture. How could Alec ever please Magnus and take care of him like he was supposed to if his scent would just put Alec in the exact state Magnus was in? It was never going to work. Even having to deal with all of his family's disappointment paled in comparison to the fact that Magnus was no longer and was never going to be his. He could have dealt with being an omega, if it meant he got Magnus. If Magnus had presented as an alpha, then this would all make sense. This would all be a welcomed blessing and the moment Alec realized what he was presenting as, it would have been a relief.

But Magnus was not an alpha and Alec was not an alpha and Alec knew that meant he and Magnus could never be together like Alec had always dreamed about. So, why Magnus kept trying to call Alec was beyond him but he ignored it. He just didn’t want to face Magnus right now. Alec was sure one of his siblings would tell Magnus what happened eventually and then, he would stop calling.

For now, Alec locked himself in his room and turned his phone off.

.

Magnus was fucking pissed. First, Alec started presenting and instead of telling Magnus so Magnus could come to his house with his favorite snacks, he’d ignored all of Magnus’ calls and then, he’d turned his phone off. Magnus had to find out from Izzy what was going on and now, it was nearly midnight and Magnus’ romantic gesture was going to be undermined by the fact that it was midnight and Magnus was soaked because almost as soon as he started walking, it started down pouring.

Magnus didn’t care. He was waking Alec up and they were going to share food like they should have done hours ago. Magnus didn’t care if the rain had made its way through the bag and the containers he’d picked up. They were eating it and Alec was going to cuddle Magnus’ waterlogged form and it was going to be romantic and sweet, god damn it.

So, of course when Magnus got to Alec’s house, Alec’s front door was locked. Alec never locked the front door, in case Magnus wanted to stop by. He always left it unlocked. Except now apparently, when Magnus was trying and inevitably failing to be romantic and sweet as hell.

Grumbling, Magnus made his way around Alec’s home, stepping in puddles all the while and cursing as he became not only soaked but dirty and soaked. Then, Magnus reached the tree next to Alec’s window, the one that was perfect for climbing and sneaking into Alec’s room. He used to sneak in a lot when they were younger, back when they hadn’t been allowed to have sleepovers but now, Magnus was allowed to come over whenever he wanted. So, the fact that he was stuck climbing this tree because Alec couldn’t be bothered to answer his phone was infuriating to Magnus.

That was even before he had to place the already wet take out on the ground so he could scale this tree. How would Magnus get the food up? He wasn’t sure honestly but right now, he needed Alec to see him soaked and feel awful. That would make Magnus feel better, so that’s what he was intent on making happen.

Magnus scaled the tree, nearly slipping at least three times before he reached the branch that put him right at Alec’s window. Magnus reached for the frame, trying to force the window up. He came to the realization quickly that Alec had not only locked his front door but his window as well.

Magnus didn’t think his mood could become any worse. Magnus slammed his palm on the window, knocking as loud as he could without breaking it and then knocking again and again. Alec’s room was pretty far away from the rest of his family and regardless, right about now Magnus didn’t care if he woke them all up.

Magnus kept knocking even when Alec’s bedroom light flicked on and Alec’s confused, sleepy face appeared in the window. The moment he seemed to realize he wasn’t sleeping and Magnus was in fact there in his tree soaked, he scrambled to unlock the window and get the glass up.

“Magnus,” Alec sputtered.

Magnus glared as he crawled through the window, landing in a dripping wet clump on Alec’s floor. He didn’t even care that he was getting Alec’s very nice carpet wet. “I’ve been calling you for hours,” Magnus snapped.

Alec’s eyes widened. Magnus didn’t think his eyes could get any wider. “I didn’t think you’d want to-” Alec rushed out, trying to explain under his panicked breath.

Magnus cut him off to keep ranting. “And I have food currently at the bottom of that tree!” Magnus pointed to the tree outside, though he knew Alec would know what tree he was talking about. “I had to walk in the rain to get here! I would have asked you to pick me up but you turned your phone off.”

Alec stayed silent. Magnus would have thought he was frozen, if it weren’t for the soft breath leaving his lips.

Magnus blinked at him and then raised an eyebrow when Alec failed to speak.

“I’m so sorry,” Alec rushed out finally. “I didn’t think you were coming here or I’d have called back. I just - I thought Izzy would have told you-”

“Told me what?” Magnus snapped. “That you’re presenting and ignoring me instead of letting me wow you with my romantic gestures?”

Alec frowned, ignoring Magnus’ point about his romantic efforts entirely. “Did she tell you what I’m presenting as?” Alec asked quietly.

Magnus’ entire face fell. He blinked, watching Alec for a long moment before everything clicked and Magnus finally realized exactly why Alec had been ignoring him. Clearly, it hadn’t been to intentionally leave Magnus in the rain with take out, like he’d been thinking.

“Did you think I’d care you’re an omega?” Magnus asked quietly.

Magnus knew that it was untraditional for an omega and another omega to date but… he’d just assumed that it was a given he and Alec didn’t care. They’d been in love with each other since they were kids. Magnus thought it was obvious that nothing and nothing they presented as would stop that but maybe, Alec didn’t feel that way at all.

“I was supposed to be an alpha,” Alec murmured softly. It was a simple sentence but Magnus could hear the heartbreak in every word.

“Alec,” Magnus murmured. Magnus took a hesitant step forward and when Alec didn’t back away, Magnus moved to wrap his arms around him and pull Alec tight against his chest. Magnus was still soaked but Alec didn’t seem to mind. He curled into Magnus’ skin and clung to him, as if it was not immensely uncomfortable like Magnus knew it was. “You weren’t supposed to present anything. People thought you’d be an alpha but you’re not and that’s fine.”

“I was supposed to claim you,” Alec said, his voice breaking as he tried and failed not to start crying.

“You can still claim me,” Magnus murmured softly.

Alec scoffed but Magnus leaned down towards Alec’s neck before Alec could say anything and then, Magnus’ teeth were biting into Alec’s skin. It wasn’t a soft bite or a nibble. Magnus bit hard, hard enough that he felt Alec’s blood in his mouth and he felt Alec startle and cry out, his hands coming to clutch Magnus’ arms.

Magnus pulled away with Alec’s blood smeared across his teeth. “See, I claimed you,” Magnus declared suddenly. He tilted his head to the side, giving Alec access to his neck. “Now, do it to me,” Magnus insisted.

Alec frowned, slowly raising a hand to his bloodied neck. “That’s not the same thing,” Alec murmured. “I don’t have fangs and we’re not going to bond just because we bite each other.”

Magnus scoffed, rolling his eyes instantly. “It can be the same for us. You’re my partner and I’d like you to bite me, like you always said you would. Please, Alec?”

Alec stared at him for a few long moments before he slowly brought his mouth down to Magnus’ neck. He kissed gently at the skin there and just when Magnus thought that was the only thing he’d do, Magnus felt Alec’s teeth biting rough into his skin.

It hurt. Of course, it did. Neither of them had fangs to make it easy, like an alpha would but Magnus didn’t think he’d ever felt anything hurt so good. Magnus clutched Alec by the back of his hair, letting his lover, his mate, suckle gently at the blood bubbling from his neck.

When Alec finally pulled away, he had a soft expression on his face. Magnus thought it looked so much better than the conflicted, pained expression that had been on his face a few minutes before. “I’m not going outside to get the food,” Magnus announced suddenly.

Alec blinked and it was obvious Magnus had successfully burst whatever soft bubble he had been in. “Right,” Alec rushed out. “I’ll ah-”

Magnus let go of Alec, nodding once. “I’ll get changed into some dry clothes while you do.”

Alec nodded himself but when he still failed to move, Magnus cocked his head.

Alec darted forward suddenly and Magnus found himself stumbling backwards, laughing breathlessly into Alec’s mouth. Alec finally pulled away with a grin before he darted back in to kiss Magnus once more time and then sprint out of the room.

Magnus stood there for a long moment, smiling like an idiot. Alec was so stupid for thinking something as simple as biology was going to stop them from loving each other. Magnus had loved Alec from the moment he’d first laid eyes on him and nothing was getting in the way of that.

Magnus changed into dry clothes, Alec returned with their damp food and they spent the entire night curled together, knowing that nothing was going to part them. It didn’t matter if they were both omegas and it didn’t matter what anyone else thought about that. Magnus loved Alec and Alec loved Magnus. That’s all that mattered.

#malec #abo au #omega Magnus #omega Alec #fluff #hurt/comfort

[kaylathekittykat225]

Tears in the Heart // Steve Harrington X Wheeler!Reader

Warning/s: language, angst, fluff? Flufting? Flirting? I don’t know man. I just went into a frenzy writing.

Word Count: Y’all it keeps getting going, I need to be stopped; 25k. I am sorry, I got excited

Guys, y’all are egging me on to write angst, and angst is my love somehow, don’t stop. And it’s all fine that angst is how I write, that and slow burrrrrrrrrn! Okay go onto reading.

This one was requested by gwenandtheunfortunatename

Hey!! I just love your writing and long fics!!! Can u do one where the reader is a female!Wheeler reader and feels invisible with her family but actually has a few friends in school? Nancy and Steve are dating but then he slowly starts to notice how she doesn’t treat her sister well (maybe the reader is missing from school one day?) or doesn’t pay attention so it becomes a concern for him or someth??

Here’s my Masterlist.

Enjoy.

—–

Watching paint dry was always the most infuriating thing, especially for you as someone who was so excited for the first layer of paint to dry so that you could start applying the next layer or just wanting your beautiful art piece to be done so you could feel accomplished with what you just did. Watching paint dry was an infuriating task, and yet here you were, dancing around your room to the music your radio was blasting for you while you continued to wait for the first layer of what you were painting to dry enough so as not to smudge.

Some great artists prefer to work even through the wet paint: Monte used it to blend two colors together seamlessly, Van Gogh used it to have the colors stand out more when he used the globs of paint to add dimension to the canvas, Bob Ross used the wet paint to ring out the true beauty of the world and showing how colors don’t stand out, but truly blend in together. 

You worked differently than those guys, for one thing you weren’t a famous painter like they were. But you couldn’t stand mixing colors together from different layers. The composition looked messy when you tried doing it, so you knew you felt more comfortable with layering and drying paint on top of itself. Just was not the thing for you.

The song changed and a grin grew on your face as you heard the guitar riff opening and felt a rush of energy surging through you. Your paint brush was held in your mouth between your teeth and your dancing started back up again as you cranked the volume up a little louder to get the entire room shaking. The music was so loud, and you were so in the zone of mixing up your next shade of reddish pink that you didn’t hear someone screaming at you about the volume of your radio. They noticed when your volume went up and that you weren’t noticing their calling your name. 

You didn’t notice them until they turned off your radio entirely and tried calling your name again. “Y/N.” Your name was called again, this time it startled you to the point that you let out a small scream that let you drop your paint brush from your mouth and strike the ground. Spinning to face your radio, you saw your mother staring at you with a look on her face that you often received when you did something wrong. “It’s almost midnight, Y/N. Holly and Michael are in bed, where you should be, and your sister is trying to study for an exam tomorrow. Now is not the time for you to let the entire neighborhood hear what you are listening to.”

“Sorry, mom.” You grabbed your paint brush off the ground and looked back up to see your mother had been replaced by your older sister. “Sorry I disturbed your studying. What class is it for?” While you asked your question, you worked on moving your easel from the middle of your room to one of the corners while also chucking your paints into a box along with your brushes. 

When your sister didn’t answer, you looked up at her to see her just staring at you from the door. She had this little smile on her face, one that didn’t show any emotion though. “Oh, it’s not like you care about my test. All you worry about is your art and painting. Next time, at least put on some better music, not your shitty trash.” And with that, she shut the door behind her with a flick of her hair over her shoulder as she left. 

You finished cleaning up after your paint dance, not giving too much thought to what she said to you as you pulled your sweater over your head and changed into your pajamas. Comments like that have been a common back and forth between the two of you ever since you entered high school with Nancy. 

Maybe it was something to remind you that you were a year younger and she knew her way around the school better than you did. Honestly why she was doing this was unknown to you, so you just rolled with it. She never said anything mean or anything like that, just…

You shook your head as you pushed your covers back and slid into bed, getting ready to pull your lamp cord when there was a loud thud coming from your window. Instinct told you to ignore it and just go to sleep leaving whatever outside your window outside, it was most likely a squirrel who ran into the glass of your window while trying to get back onto its nest. 

And you tried. You did click your lamp off and pulled your covers up to your chin, letting your eyes fall shut as you worked on falling asleep for tomorrow's day. As soon as your eyes were closed however, another tap rattled your window, and something was making noises outside the glass. “Just ignore it.” That was your mantra for the time being as you did so, pretending the sound wasn’t there and that you could just. Fall. Asleep. 

Tap tap tap. “Dammit.” You groaned while throwing the blankets off you, following your intuition through the dark room to where your window should be, having forgotten to send the light back through the room as your annoyed self walked closer to the window. “I’m going to kill this fucking squirrel and eats its nu-” Your rant to yourself was interrupted as soon as you forced your blinds open and you saw a face staring back at you in the darkness outside. 

A shriek left your mouth as you took a step backwards, stumbling away from the horrifying sight of someone staring back at you in the night. The face itself jumped back ever so slightly from where it was pressed against your window when it saw you too. 

The two of you stared at each other for a few more seconds before you recognized who the hell was staring into your bedroom window. It was your sister’s boyfriend, Steve Fricking Harrington. Why the hell was he staring into your window?

Pulling open your window, you looked over at your clock and saw that it was midnight, stating this to the boy who was hanging from your window frame, his fingertips turning red from holding on. “Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep, Snow White. I’m sorry I didn’t want to fall to my death.” His voice came out strained as he moved to pull himself into your window. 

“Whoa! I didn’t say you could come in! What are you doing on my windowsill? Stop climbing in my window!” Your voice was a whisper that also counted as yelling as you tried stopping him from entering your room, not to much avail though. “Harrington, what what are you doing here?!” 

“Shut up, Wheeler.” Steve finished coming through the window, somehow finding a way to trip as his foot finished coming through, falling into you and sending the two of you down to the floor. “Jesus, Wheeler, sorry to say, but I do have a girlfriend. You are being very forward though.” From where you were laying on the floor with him kneeling over you on all fours, Harrington had this shit eating grin on his face which caused a slight anger to boil inside you.

Instead of answering him, you shoved your hand into his face and pushed him away, telling him to get off you with a mutter. “Wh-what are you doing here, Harrington? It’s midnight and you are in my room. What the hell is going on?” Standing to your feet, you watched him also pull himself up while shifting his hair around to make sure it stood where he wanted it to be.

“Funny story there, Wheeler. But that is a story for another time.” He spoke to you as though his being in your room was not a pressing matter. “What I do need to know, Wheeler, is how pissed your dad would be about finding me here?” Steve craned his neck to look out your window, apparently trying hard not to be spotted as he was looking for most likely your father. 

Scoffing, you sat back down in your bed, staring at him from where you sat. “Honestly, it’s not my dad you should be worried about.” He sighed at your response in relief. “My mom on the other hand…” You made a face that got the message across, because your dad was an amazing man, but your mother had her own mind that definitely got in the way of a lot of things your sister and even yourself sometimes when Karen Wheeler brought her mind to a stop. And Nancy seemingly sneaking her boyfriend into her room next to yours was definitely not something your mom would be fine with.

You heard a quiet ‘shit’ and felt a small feeling of smugness rush through you as quickly as the cold overtook your room. “If you’re gonna sneak in and out of Nancy’s room, honestly it would be quieter just to go from my room to the shed on the other side of the room.” Steve stared at you curiously at this suggestion, even you yourself were shocked at your offering, but you really couldn’t take that back after he quietly inched his way closer to the window at the other end of your room. 

Standing up, you made your way over to be next to him as he pulled your curtains away from the window, revealing that your window had easier access to get to the ground than your sister and the garage. “Plus, I have direct access to the woods, so my parents won’t notice your car around if you park it behind that big tree back there.” While pointing all these features out, you noticed that he was staring at you with a look that read extreme confusion. 

“Why...why are you helping me sneak into your sister’s room?” You both were wondering that, but he didn’t have to voice it like that. Your face grew warmer as you fumbled for words about why you did this, because you didn’t really know why except for the excuse of not wanting them to get caught and then the entire family being forced not to ever leave again. That was a good excuse, it did the trick though. 

Because you couldn’t explain why you would stick your neck out like that, for Nancy and Harrington. Nothing against the two of them, but you were too impartial to the two of them to risk anything. 

So you scoffed and gave him the lame excuse you thought of and worked on shooing him out of your room. “Okay, okay. Jeez, Wheeler, I’m leaving. Sorry to whoever has to deal with sleep deprived you for the rest of their lives.” He shimmed himself out of the window, forgetting completely to close your other window, forcing you to get back out of bed and shut it before shutting the window he just dropped down from.

You watched him sneak his way to the front of the house and hopefully make an uneventful exit before you pulled the curtains in front of your window shut, bringing your world around you into darkness that you found oddly uncomfortable while standing in the middle of the room. 

Sleep didn’t come as easily as you wanted it to; it never really took you over, leaving you to sleep more restlessly than normal and thus a sleep deprived Y/N took to the world. Your first few periods floated past you honestly like a dream, nothing happened, just the teacher murmuring on about their respective subjects. Nothing interesting to you really.

Your mother frequently got on your case to pay more attention in these classes, because every year, like clockwork, during parent teachers week, your teachers would comment on how you needed to remember to turn in your homework, or if you do turn in your homework, to not doodle across half of it. It was always commenting about your behavior in classes and school, how you looked like you would rather be somewhere else than cooped up there all day. Your mother always told you to do better. Why did you have to be interested in painting? Why not a sport or be good at school like your sister because brains could get you a good husband and an easy life. 

Your father never spoke up during these meetings, sitting there because he was the man of the family and should be an example for his daughter to marry. He never took your side, but he also never defended your mother and her beliefs of how you should follow in your sister’s footsteps. It was never a secret, but your dad gifted you various paints, brushes, new pencils. When you were running out of a specific paint, or needed a new book or canvas, you found one more always tucked away in your closet, where you thought you checked, but there it was anyway. 

There were few things in the world you knew for certain, you loved painting and how it freed your soul, how excited you were to graduate and head to California to get away from this damned town, but one thing you were certain on, was that you were not unloved by your father. You never doubted his love even if it wasn’t on his sleeve like your mother’s love of Nancy. 

Speaking of Nancy, honestly after last nights...odd interaction between Harrington and yourself, you didn’t know how to look him or your sister in the eye. You had nothing to be ashamed of, it's not like you kissed him or anything, just the thought alone made you shudder, so why were you unable to look at them throughout the school day? 

“Ugh!” You groaned at these stupid thoughts that were plaguing your thoughts and slammed your head down onto your notebook on the lunch table you were sitting at. Your sudden noise and head banging caused the other occupants of your table to look up; Matt and Clare had been giving each other looks all lunch with how you were acting today.

On any given day you were still quiet and almost always doodling away in the margins of your notebooks or going so far as to pulling your full sketchbook out just to get a bigger picture going. But you didn’t have a book open in front of you or a pencil in your hand, instead your fingers were rapping against the hard table and your leg was shaking so bad that you were shaking the table. 

You were so out of it that you couldn’t hear your own name being called. “Y/N...Y/N.” Matt had been repeatedly calling your name the last five minutes after he finished up his own lunch and was eyeing your Cheetos that hadn’t been touched. Clare told him to leave you alone, but your ginger friend was ever persistent in stealing your food. “What if I just take the bag from her?” He directed the question towards Clare next to him while staring at your bag of snacks. 

“I mean she’s out of it enough that I kind of want to see what happens.” Clare was watching you just as intently, your head was still down on the table. “She may have died; I haven’t seen her move since her head fell down.” Clare said Y/N and died and Matt let out the loudest gasp the cafeteria ever heard; she didn’t honestly know which one to be more embarrassed about, the fact that heads turned or that not enough heads turned for this to be the first time for him to be this obnoxious in the school lunchroom. 

While Matt was busy slapping a bruise excitedly on Clare’s arm, you raised your head up and roughly rubbed your eyes with the palms of your hands. “I’m not dead, Matt. I just...I can’t figure out this drawing.” 

“No, no, no, no. But wait.” Matt decided to ignore your distress and Clare’s slapping his hand away and kept talking. “But think about it! The perfect way to murder someone! What if Nancy wanted to kill Y/N and what she’s been doing is poisoning her food slowly over time and it’s finally kicking in! Nancy Wheeler is mur-” Your best friend was screaming at this point before your other best friend slammed her hand over his mouth with a dark blush over her face.

“Matthew Schafer listen to me hard and clear. Shut. Up. Now is not the time for one of your theories, especially one about a certain someone’s sister.” Clare growled that last piece out while tilting her head towards you. The two of them looked over to you as they saw you doodling away on a napkin you had picked up from the lunch line, your chin resting on your hand and your other, dominant hand, held the pencil you were drawing with. 

Your entire body was shaking from your leg, causing the picture you were drawing to be scratchy, which, maybe that’s how you wanted it to be. “Why is she shaking so much?” Matt mumbled against Clare’s hand; their eyes fixed harshly on you as they just watched. Watch their best friend unravel before their eyes, watch her get frustrated at the drawing in pen on a napkin, watch her groan in frustration and let your head fall back on the table. 

Clare let go of Matt’s mouth slowly and reached over the table to grab your arm, moving slowly to not scare you. As her hand grabbed onto you, she realized how much you were letting your leg bounce, she could feel it through your body, making her own arm gently shake. You didn’t respond right away to her hand, leading her to rub her thumb up and down your arm and giving you a gentle squeeze. “Y/N?” 

In the six years of knowing you for Clare, she had been there for your lowest and highest, she had seen you through late night anxiety, posttest highs, first time putting your art up for others to see. She hadn’t been there for everything, but she had been there for enough to help you through the rough times. Clare looked at you, just waiting for you to lift your head up. 

“Y/N, look at me.” Whether listening to her or not, you did lift your head up and met her eyes. “Are you okay?” there was no doubt that her words were filled with earnest worry, you could tell that and that she was worried about you, along with Matt who you also had you fixed in his eyes. 

The quiet moment was shattered as the school bell screamed that there was four minutes for you to get to your next class. You followed the crowd around your friend group in packing up your pencil case and collecting your trash to toss while walking by the trash can. “Yeah, just frustrated at this drawing I can’t figure out.” And with that you walked out of the cafeteria and towards the one place that could calm you down, with Matt and Clare following close behind you until they were side by side with you. 

They dropped your lunchtime behavior and Matt quickly filled the silence with his complaining about his Statistics teacher giving him homework to do over this next weekend after they just turned in a big packet not days ago. Clare filled in how her AP Chemistry teacher totally screwed her over with the test today and how he told the class that there would be no Nuclear Chemistry on the exam and yet two of the math twelve point questions were all nuclear that she couldn’t bullshit her way through and just did random math to get some sort of partial credit. 

And you listened, adding in your thoughts here and there, stating how it was unfair to add homework after just finishing one, how shitty of a teacher it was to go against his word on what was gonna be on the test. The trio of you sat down in the art class you all have together with your respective easels in front of all of you with paints also at the ready on the table next to the canvas. 

Class began, with your teacher talking about your assignment for the day, (what kind of inspiration was something you see every day?) and letting you go free and let your artistry be free. And this was when you felt something from the back of your head that you had been wrestling with all, maybe you could get this off your mind officially and be able to think of anything else other than this random nose. 

It’s honestly stupid to be banging your head over something as simple as a nose, but this was driving you insane. Honestly batshit insane because usually you thought of something and you moved quickly to draw it since your brain was already working on some details that you needed the basic features to draw first. 

And yet today was the day that you could finally say a human nose took the best of you. Matt worked on another Pokémon, last week you laughed to yourself as he got more and more excited with the orange and reds in his Charmander drawing. This week, yellow and blacks seemed to be the color he was reaching for; this will be interesting to watch from behind him. And Clare pulled out a polaroid picture from her backpack and taped it to the upper corner of the canvas, showing you the still shot of the main road running through downtown. 

You also began your own work, grabbing hold of your pencil before reaching for the easel and you let your hand draw instinctively. You started with the structure of the face, a face you couldn’t think of but felt the need to draw a face structure; maybe this face structure would help you through the nose and drawing the rest of the face may be able to get you done with this face.

Faces and portraits weren’t your forte, they weren’t what you went for. You enjoyed drawing abstract pieces, things that spoke to you, because painting people wasn’t what you wanted others to see, you wanted to paint things that meant something to you, that could mean something to others if they saw your artwork. Art for you was emotion, drawing from the human soul, passion, and you felt like you couldn’t do that by painting someone’s face onto a canvas. 

And all this nose was doing for you was driving you insane and getting your angrier by the second. This wasn’t something you felt comfortable just throwing paint at; penciling was stupid in your mind because this puts a lot of stress on the artist to be perfect, to not allow changes to be made midway through the project. So why were you penciling?

With a frustrated groan, you tossed the pencil onto the table next to you and stared at the white board in front of you, the blank one with some pencil scratches through the middle. Looking around the edge of your own canvas, you took a look at Matt and Clare, seeing them both working away at their own respective paintings, the orange and yellow of Charizard and the browns and reds of the town picture Clare was replicating. 

Your eyes went back over to Matt, watching his face scrunch up in focus as he worked on getting the roaring face of the dinosaur looking creature just right, and his nose was all wrinkled as he dipped the brush back into the paint he was using. His nose.

“Matt.” The ginger turned to you, revealing that he had a second paint brush between his teeth, looking at you with a blocked ‘huh?’ “Can you just sit there for a second, I need to draw something really quick.”

His eyes brows perked up as you picked up one of your smaller tipped paint brushes and proceeded in dipping into the black and looked to Matt’s nose for inspiration as to how to begin to shape the nose. “Are you painting me like one of your French girls? Ow! What the hell was that for?” His head changed directions as he turned to glare at Clare who just chucked a paint brush straight at his head. 

“That’s for-” 

“Mr. Schaefer, don’t make me call your father down here for spouting profanity.” The art teacher called from the front of the classroom without looking up from her grading papers. 

Matt muttered to himself as he turned around and rubbed the spot he was hit in the back of the head. “What do you need, Y/N?”

“I just need you to sit there so I can draw your nose.” Without looking at him too much, you quickly drew the shape of his nose, noting the subtle differences between Matt’s and whatever nose you keep thinking about. Things you could change when you moved on to shading and coloring the skin tone around the nose and over the black, a color you didn’t like to use for line work made things too neat. Shading differentiates the shadows from the highlights and the normal skin tone, there was no reason for you to use black to do this.

Matt made some comments about the weird request and started bragging to Clare about how his nose was ‘Y/N painting worthy’. The two of them began bickering about their noses and which ones of them had a better looking one, but you left them to bicker as you pulled pink and yellow together, pulling a little white and red into play as you mixed a skin tonish color together. Or, at least you think it looked kinda like skin tone, it wasn’t exact, but you figured it would do. 

The rest of the period, you worked hard to get this nose right, shading here and there, adding brown to the skin tone shade you make it seamlessly flow together with a speck of white to the tip of the nose. Overall, it was a pretty good-looking nose.

So why did you still feel bugged about this? You finished the painting that you had in your mind, but why didn’t you feel the accomplishment of finishing one of your paintings? There was always a sense of greatness that you feel when completing a project, and it wasn’t here. You felt nowhere near close enough to feeling that. 

The period bell rang, pulling you out of your mind and frustration as you were forced to work on it tomorrow, hopefully you can get whatever your mind is stuck on. Breaking down your easel, you put your paint and everything away before meeting Matt and Clare outside the door. “How’d my nose picture go, Y/N? I may wanna see that.”

The three of you chuckled on your way out the door, happily in your own world as you passed your sister on the way down the hall. Nancy didn’t bother giving you a glance as she smiled at her boyfriend walking over to her. “Hey babe.” She giggled as he reached down and pressed a quick peck to her lips before they walked off to her next class. 

“Hey, beautiful, how was your chem test?”

“Well I would have had time to study more of my nuclear notes had someone not been interrupting me.” She fluttered her eyes at him before bouncing into explaining how she thinks she got at least a 91% based upon how many questions she thinks she got wrong. Steve Harrington chuckled at her angry comments on her teacher and told him that she can’t be anywhere near him when AP study time comes around. 

“Babe, I know every way of sneaking into your room. I’ll always be there for you, for moral support or for a distraction. Besides, you don’t have to start studying until later next week, so relax.” He nuzzled his nose into her hair and pressed a kiss to the top of her hair. 

Nancy scoffed and looked up at him through her thick lashes. “And I don’t have time to not stud, Steve, I need to keep up.” His face visibly dropped at the mention of it already being that time of year. “Hey, I promise I’ll see you every day.” He commented on how he would hope so and the two of them made a run for their next classes as the bell was about to ring. 

-----

Through the drive home, from the passenger seat of your sister’s car, you had your sketchbook on your lap with a pencil lazily being pushed and pulled across the paper in no specific way right now. You hated pencil, as seen with the nose painting, but it was still a basic art form that helps you start on something, getting an idea for what to doodle possibly as a full piece or just something to do in an evening. 

Horribly so, after a few pencil strokes, you noticed something come forth in the picture. “Damnit.” You curse under your breath and shut the book before sliding it into your backpack. 

“What’s got your panties in a twist?” Nancy asked as she continued driving the three of you home, with Mike in the backseat doing some math homework he should have done this morning. 

Glancing at her, you knew she wasn’t interested in why you were frustrated yet again, a mutual understanding the two of you had as she would often talk about Steve and her school work on the way home while you just let her rattle on. She was just sick of your groaning next to her, no doubt. “Not that you care but a drawing has been bugging me all day.” She hummed in response, proving your point and how she wasn’t listening. 

“Hey Y/N?” Mike chirped up from the back of the car as he leaned forward to perch his head onto the middle seat between you and Nancy. “Can you draw me a picture of my paladin if I describe him to you?” 

A smile grew on your face. “Sure, thing bud. Can I do it tomorrow?” He nodded with a big grin on his face as he leaned back into his seat as Nancy pulled into the driveway and parked next to your father’s car. 

“You’re the best, Y/N!” Your little brother called out as he pedaled away on his bike, also screaming about how he would be back before dark from...Dustin’s house? You couldn’t hear him at the point of where he was turning out of the driveway. That kid brought a larger smile to your face as you made your way into the house with Nancy close behind you. 

“Y/N? Is that you?” Not even two steps into the house and your mother was calling you for helping in chores. 

Following the voice of your mother, you found her in the kitchen with Holly on her hip and working over the stove at what you can assume to be dinner for tonight. “What do ya need mom?” 

“Take Holly while I finish dinner. Oh, Nancy, how was your test?” Your baby sister was passed on to you while your older sister sat with your mom and talked about her day. 

You looked down at Holly and filled your cheeks with air to make your face appear to be a frog as you walked the two of you out of the kitchen. “Come on, Ms. Holly, should we go paint a picture for mom and daddy?” 

“Yeah!” Holly cheered at you mentioning her being able to play with paint. Your mom may have had a good grip on Nancy and made sure she had her bright future ahead and she kept her sweet baby Holly close, but Holly ran to you every time. You “tricked” Holly into liking you because you had paints and paper she could color on and give her arts to different peoples of the family. 

The two of you make your way up to your room as you asked her about her day and she told you about how in preschool, Danny Cincade was pulling her pigtails during lunch and he wouldn’t stop until one of the teachers saw him do that to her. “Well, next time he does that to you, tell him that it hurts your hair and it hurts your feelings. If he doesn’t listen to you…” You paused before thinking about what you were going to say next as you set her down in the chair at your desk and pulled the paper out for her to begin her project on. “Well I will say that you decide what you should do when he’s pulling your hair, whether that’s pull his hair or call him a mean name like he’s a poop head, then I say you can make that choice, Holly-bell. But make sure you ask him to stop.”

Your little sister gave a surprising amount of thought to this before she nodded. “Can I have paint now? I wanna draw daddy a big and spiky porkipine!” 

You did a “surprised” gasp. “A porcupine? Now why would you want to give dad a porcupine picture?”

“Cause he was extra spikey today with his hair, and he was grumpy today when he drives me to school.” Holly grabbed one of your old paint brushes you no longer used and dipped it heavily into the brown paint that you pulled out for her before splattering it on the paper in front of her. You loved watching her paint, seeing the sparkle in her eyes, her little tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth while her nose scrunched up in total concentration at her little piece of art she wanted to work on. 

It was amazing to see, truly it was, to see someone so enthralled in their own work that they have no other cares in the world besides what is in front of her. Maybe that’s how you looked to the outside world. Because that’s how you feel when you paint, just you, your brush in the paint, the colors, and your imagination; that’s honestly all you needed for yourself to feel what you created. 

You smiled to yourself while you grabbed hold of your own art supplies and set the tripod easel in its usual spot, at this point the three legs having their own divets in the carpet from where it spends its time. Staring at the canvas, you thought to yourself for a few minutes of where you should continue going; on the canvas was a dark red background overall with a much lighter center that was meant to draw you in closer, get a good look at everything. 

In the middle sat a heart, not one that any five-year-old could draw, but an anatomical heart, you had the shape down and blank canvas towards the main junctions of the heart, with various plans of flowers in your head to put on top and within the heart. 

A heart is the garden of the body, where everything is felt, consoled, thought through. The brain is the rudder of the body, but the heart is its center, the guiding force, the heart stops the brain from going into autopilot and gives you something to do and work for. The heart harbors so many emotions that flourish and grow into beautiful flowers, flowers you were working on painting right here. Flowers you wanted others to see and appreciate. But the flowers would have to wait because you needed to work on the soil of the flowers right now and finish shading in the features of the heart and its musculature. 

 “Y/N!” You had barely started mixing paints when you heard your mother call your name. “Holly! It’s time for dinner!” A sigh mixed with a groan from your desk. 

“But I’m almost finished.” Holly whined, her slouched shoulders giving away her sadness and wanton to finish the rest of the painting. “I just need to finish daddy’s spikes.”

Stepping over to her, you looked over her shoulder and felt her smile come back onto your face at the sight in front of you. “You can finish painting, Holly-bell. Mommy and them can wait a few moments.” And she went back to painting, with a quickness behind her paintbrush while you stood over her, waiting for the inevitable second call to be heard. 

She was almost done. “Y/N. Get down here and eat.” And there it was, with your mother doing her normal drawing out the last word to warn you she was not in a playing mood tonight. 

“One second, mom!” You called down the stairs before looking at your little sister again. “Hurry it on up, Holly.” 

“I’m almost there. Just two more spikes.” You followed her paint brush, noting more than two strokes as she worked to finish up. “Done!” 

“Y/N Wheeler, get down here, now!”

You picked Holly up while she gingerly held the painting so that no one smudged it up and set her on your hip. “And that means that mommy is hungry, so we better get going, little miss Holly-bell.” The pair of you exited your bedroom and headed down stairs, where you whisper to Holly to be ready to fight mommy’s angry wrath, leaving her giggling as you set her down at her spot at the table next to your father. 

Dinner was uneventful, it was meatloaf night so the group of you naturally began arguing how ketchup was a necessity for topping off your dinner. Currently it was only you and Mike fighting hard for ketchup while the rest of your family was arguing for either no topping or barbeque sauce, but no one else understood what you meant when you said that it made the meatloaf so much better. 

-----

You found yourself standing in front of your work, only an hour or so after dinner had ended, and Holly just came in to tell you goodnight and that ‘daddy really liked his porcupine. Now that her painting for the day was done, you could relax and do your own work for the day on your work you commissioned yourself to do a little over a week ago. Tonight, you wanted to finally work on getting the flowers painted and going in on details around the actual heart itself, showing the roots of the flowers making their way down the face of the heart. 

And that is what you did for the next hour or so of your night, dancing to your music, mixing paints, and applying layers of the colors onto the canvas, covering what little white was left and finally felt accomplished that everything was covered even if there was at least another week's worth of painting to go, but that didn’t mean that you couldn’t continue working at it and making the sweet ending ever closer. 

However, you did need to wait a few more minutes before adding more touches since paint is not an instantaneous drier, thank God you didn’t ever find joy in oil painting, you would have gone mad trying to wait for that to dry enough for you to move on to the next piece of work. So, while waiting, you saw the clock and decided that it was time to switch into your pajamas and get comfy. 

From across the hall, you heard the shower start up and figured that Nancy was in for her shower, since Mike was a morning showerer type of person and your parents had their own bathroom, Nancy was the only person you could think of to be showering right now. Your pants had already been switched out with pajama bottoms and you were tugging your shirt off when you heard something thump behind you. Turning around with the enlarged sleep shirt in your hands as you worked on flipping it right side out when you made eye contact with someone in your room.

“Shit!” The word left your mouth before you could think of anything other than use the shirt to cover yourself up. “What the hell are you doing here?” 

Harrington stood in front of you with wide eyes. “Give a guy warning next time you undress, not that I’m complaining, but I am dating your sister and all so...” He gave a little shrug of the shoulder before you huffed and threw the shirt you were holding at him in a lump.

The cloth didn’t do much when it hit his head except giving him full access to seeing you in only a pair of pants and your bra. “Why the hell are you in my room?”

“You’re the one who gave me permission to use your room to sneak into Nancy’s.” Harrington said as matter-of-factly as he could while tossing the shirt back at you, which you gladly took and threw over your head. 

“We need to work on the timing then. You can come in when…” Looking around the room, you saw a stuffed ladybug that had been sitting on the top shelf of your dresser for ages now. “When this bug is in the window, feel free to come in. Nothing before dinner here otherwise you’ll be way too early, and my parents might see you.” You slammed the stuffed bug down before walking back over to your paint corner and staring at the canvas. Now that he was in the room, you didn’t want to deal with him or anything. 

“Thanks, I’ll just head over to Nancy’s room now.” You hummed, not really listening until you saw him out of the corner of your eye, until you heard the shower going.

“Wait!” Leaping forward, you grabbed his wrist and stopped him from opening the door. “She’s in the shower, you can’t go in her room.”

“Showering? I’ll just join her.” At the mention of that, you looked over at him in disgust and shuddered at the thought. “What? Never seen a guy shower before?” When you didn’t answer him right away, Harrington stepped away from your door and came closer to you, a cocky little grin in his face when he came into view. “Have you ever seen...a guy naked before?” 

You tried so hard to cover the blush on your face as you tried working out an excuse. “Of course, I have, I’m not a person who lives under a rock. I’ve seen a guy before.” 

“No, no, no. I didn’t ask that. I asked if you have ever seen a guy naked. As in have you ever slept with a guy?” No response. “Oh ho ho. This is very interesting. You are more a virgin than I thought you were.”

“Shut up.” You growled and shoved him out of your face, moving to grab onto your brush and palette and made a dark line on the piece of pink flesh on the heart. The dark worked as a shadow you were gonna use to emphasize the green that would be used in the next layer, making it look like the roots would be interwoven into the flesh of the heart. 

Harrington chuckled as he walked over to your bed and let himself fall backwards into your bed. You didn’t turn around and worked on pulling more life from the heart using small strokes that made them less noticeable. 

Up close you could see all of the colors and of course you could see the colors, but even with just the base layers down, you could feel pride bubbling inside of you as you concentrated on keeping your hand steady. “Is this yours?” A voice spoke softly behind you, causing you to jump and a streak of green crossed the right ventricle and cutting through a flower. 

A noise of annoyance left your mouth and you let your head fall forward with your brush dropping onto the table next to you. Turning, you saw Harrington hanging over your shoulder with his eyes fixated on what was in front of him. “Yes, Harrington. This is mine.” With a heavy sigh you resigned yourself for the night, not too satisfied with your progress. But keeping a certain guest in your room wasn’t helping you. 

Nancy get out of the shower please.

“That’s amazing.” For the second time that night, Harrington caused you to blush. “I haven’t seen anything like this before.” He reaches his hand out to touch it when you grabbed his wrist and pushed it away. 

“It’s still wet.” Your words weren’t meant to be harsh, but he didn’t seem to notice as he slowly nodded his head while keeping his eyes fixated on the painting. Noticing that he seemed to enjoy your painting, you pulled the brush back out and dipped it back into the pink. “You can watch if you would like.” You mentioned quietly while keeping your eyes on what you were doing and your back turned to Harrington as he sat back down on the bed.

The moment was kind of serene, odd honestly was the best word, odd to have someone watching you, something you checked every few moments to see if you could ease the tension in your shoulders but he still sat there watching. You’ve had Clare and Matt in the room with you while you paint, but neither of them ever went out of their way to watch your every move and twist of the brush. Even if you were in your environment of comfort and what you wanted to be doing, you didn’t know how you felt about this. 

Next door, you finally heard your sister’s door close, signally to you that she was out of the shower, and knowing her, she was already dressed and relaxing on her bed. “You...can climb through to her window now. Or you can go through the hall if you really want to.” Turning slightly, you didn’t look at him other than to see him still watching you before walking over to your backpack and retrieving your sketchbook from it along with some pencils and sat down on your bed, tucking your feet under your body.

Nodding, Steve stood up and thought for a second. “I think I’ll go through the window for now, since Nancy doesn’t know about me coming through here.” You parroted that that was a good idea while you opened your sketchbook and stared at it rather than at Harrington as he climbed his way through the window next to Nancy and left you alone again. 

Sighing in relief, you found peace again and let your pencil glide across the paper. The piece didn’t last if you hoped it would as you quickly realized what was forming. “Shit, not again.” The nose was back. 

Thinking about it, you didn’t really want to go back to our painting and decided just to deal with the damn nose...again. Until you eventually dozed off, you drew this nose over and over again, working this time only with shading and line work as you took different angles and lighting and perfecting this nose if you could say so. 

This nose haunted you until you slipped into your dreams.

-----

Today felt like any other day, started out the same, kept going the same, even lunch was the same, with Matt and Clare arguing and with a new habit that seemed to be forming you bent over your sketchbook while continuing to draw a part of the body. However, you think you out nosed yourself last night, since you had three pages full of this nose. That didn’t stop you from watching as your paper quickly filled with the form of human lips. 

“Oh, does Y/N over here want to practice kissing with these lips?” Matt chuckled to himself when he stood up and looked over the top of your easel. “If you really wanted someone to kiss, you coulda just asked, Y/N.” 

Clare hopped over to your side of the painting, leaving her own for a second to see what exactly Matt was teasing you about. “Matt, as if any girl would want to kiss you.” 

“Cause you keep stealing all the girls.” He winked at her as a rosy blush traveled up her neck before he turned his attention back to you. “Uh, Y/N, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you know that the nose is usually not that close to the mouth, right? Not like right underneath it?” 

Matt did point out the simple feature that you had all the knowledge that you were doing. You don’t know what it was, but you just wanted to put the lips there. You didn’t know why, but it was the same reason that led you to agonizing over a nose and a pair of lips these past couple of days. Just to see what happens. Besides there is no perfect face who’s to say this isn’t how this face looks. 

“That’s not where the mouth goes.”

“Picasso didn’t follow the lines of society so there’s no reason I have to.” You smiled up at him as you worked more pink into the lips without making it look like the lips had lipstick on. “Besides, I can just...see them there. This is my painting not yours.” Matt gives you a quiet ‘whoa’ as he thinks on what you just said while Clare congratulates you on managing to break your best friend’s mind and gives her a small time of quiet to finish her own piece of work before the bell rings in the next couple of minutes. 

Not much silence followed for you when you heard the intercom system activate overhead. “Y/N Wheeler, please report to the front office. Y/N Wheeler to the front office.” Everyone’s head in the room turned to look at you, giving you a look as you slowly stood up, a dark blush running over your face as you quickly as quietly as possible walked out the door and following the hallway to the front office. 

In your three years at this school, never had you been called to the front office, and seeing your mother there made you nervous to your stomach. “Mom?” You quietly called her name as you entered the main office and saw her standing there, waiting for you. Looking at her, you knew this wasn’t a happy calling, something confirmed by both her stern look on her face and seeing a shy looking Holly standing behind her leg. 

“Y/N, so nice to see you. I’m taking you home.” Her smile looked friendly to any other bystander, but that smile had been shown to you plenty of times when you had to explain your grades, or where you were later at night. This smile meant she was here to deal with business, and you were about to be interrogated until wanting to curl up in bed and just die. 

Your mind raced as to why this was happening. Nancy wasn’t here, neither was Mike, so this was only you. Get out. Get out. Run. Get away. You tried figuring out what to do, how to get out of this and the only thing you could think to do was sputter out “Bu-but I need my backpack.” Trying to get away from here, that’s all you could think about. 

“Nancy will get your stuff. Now let’s go. Holly still needs to eat lunch and we need to get home, don’t we Holly?” The youngest Wheeler looked up at your mom and gave a small nod, still not moving out from behind her leg. 

“I...but mom-” You spoke, but she interrupted.

“Y/N Wheeler, now.” This shut you down, her almost growl and the definite glare she sent at you gave you the opportunity to only respond with a quiet yes ma’am as you followed her out the door.

Matt had told you that being pulled from school early was always a bragging right as it meant skipping classes for the rest of the day. This wasn’t exciting and something you were relishing and going to tell your friends about. You feared what your mother’s temper would say. She never hurt you not physically, but she didn’t hold back with her words. 

The car ride back home was absolute hell. Not a word was spoken, even Holly was silent during the ride. You noted how you were riding in your dad’s car, given your family only had two cars and Nancy currently had one at home. Your dad would be home. Maybe he would help you in keeping your mom calm. 

“Um, mom?” You asked, trying to alleviate the tension but she wasn’t having any of it.

“Don’t. Say anything until we get home.” Shrinking into the seat, all you can think of doing was melting away, jumping out of the car. Because you have never seen your mother so quiet, she was so quiet that she was lethal; this happened before with our dad, he had done something when you were younger and your mother quietly called your father upstairs to their room before you heard her speaking. 

Your mother wasn't screaming, she was a woman who cut down her opponents with her words. Her words were sharper than any weapon, any sword, and that’s what scared you because you were at the receiving end of her words.

And make you wait she did. Holly, your mother, and you walked into the house, completely quiet without Mike downstairs with his friends and Nancy upstairs talking with her friends or Harrington on the phone. And silence made you uncomfortable. 

You followed your mom to the kitchen where she rounded the island and planted her hands firmly on the tile countertop. “I got a call from Holly’s school today.” This came out of nowhere, but you couldn’t move or do anything other than stand under your mother’s stare. Holly was sitting at the table with a sandwich in her hand and happily eating her lunch. 

Her nails began to tap rhythmically on the countertop. “Her teacher told me that she pushed a little boy off the playground today. I get to the school and they tell me the same thing, and here I am thinking, my sweet little Holly? Why would she do that? Where would she get an idea like that? So, I ask her this exact question. Do you know what she tells me, Y/N?” 

The pit in your stomach was a boulder now, you understood what was going on. And your mother wasn’t going to be happy with what you had to say. Slowly you nodded your head, giving her a response with what you knew. “Holly, your little sister Holly, told me that you, her older sister, told her to push that boy off the playset.” Her voice had stayed very level, but her eyes grew Angier and fiery with every word this mother dragon blew from her mouth. 

“Mom, I didn’t tell her to push him. She told me he was pulling-” She didn’t let you finish as she slammed her hand down on the counter, causing you to flinch and take a step back. 

“You don’t get to justify what you did. You aren’t the one who has to call this little boy’s mother and tell him why your sister pushed him. You aren’t the one who has to tell all her friends that my high school daughter is rebelling against me so much that she is trying to get her little sister in trouble. You, Y/N, are the one that did this, and I have to deal with the consequences of what you’ve done.” Her words rolled off her tongue and stung you, each and everyone. 

“But mom, I didn’t mean for that. Holly told ne-” 

“Don’t turn this on your sister because you don’t want to get in trouble. I am tired of your behavior recently, Y/N. I am not dealing with this anymore, where is your sketchbook, I’m taking it away from you until I deem it okay for you to get this back.” As she spoke, your heart rate elevated and you began to freak out.

“What? Wait no mom no! It’s a week until the art show! What am I supposed to do for the next week?!” 

You could feel our eyes widening as you gestured around the counter, trying to argue with her. Your mom doesn’t do well with people arguing with her. “You can spend time with your family, Y/N. Not lock yourself in your room all day.”

“Then make Nancy do that too! Don’t single me out, mom!” 

“Don’t bring your sister into this. Just because you are jealous of her doesn’t mean you can-”

“No mom! I’m not jealous of Nancy! You pretend in your mind that we are the same person, I just happen to be the less pretty, less academically amazing, less perfect daughter! That is not my fault that you put these stupid expectations on me that I never asked for! You can’t single me out in this family just because they are the least successful of your children! That is not fair!” 

At this point it was a screaming match between the two of you, words you were holding back were starting to come out of your mouth, but it was like you were drunk and had no filter and no idea when to stop but it was all coming out. Your screaming attracted the attention of your father from his shower upstairs, the raised voices of two women of his household worried the man. 

Coming down the stairs, your dad looked into the kitchen and saw Holly sitting in her grilled cheese with her sandwich half eaten while watching you and your mother. Looking further into the kitchen, he found the source of the shouting and quickly worked on diffusing his wife and daughter from murdering each other. “Whoa! Karen, Y/N, what is going on? You two need to calm down.”

“Stay out of this, Ted. Y/N and I are talking.” Your mom growled the last part of that phrase out without breaking eye contact with you. Ted Wheeler was looking between the two of you, he had obviously seen his wife blow up like this, but he had never seen you feed into your mother’s rage. He didn’t know which one had started and he didn’t know which “side” to take, because either way it would not work out well. 

“Karen.” He took his wife’s hand and gently squeezed it. “Stop.” He stood his ground, shocking his daughter and wife alike. “Y/N go up to your room. Your mother and I will talk about this.” 

“Ted Wheeler.”

“Yes dear?” Your father responded to your mom’s anger and responded with his usual soft and neutral voice. This was your que to leave, to go hide in your room and get away from this horrible place. AS soon as you stepped in, the first thing you thought to do was hide you paint supplies. 

Your mom threatened you with taking your art away, but not if you hide it from her. Grabbing hold of your paints, you grabbed six or seven major colors, one that you can make other colors from these along with a few of our brushes. You couldn’t hide everything because your mom would figure out that not everything is there, but if you grab only a few of everything, you would be fine.

Heart pounding, pulse racing, short breaths, you worked as quietly and quickly as you could without alerting your parents of what you were doing.

Footsteps made their way up the stairs, warning you that someone was about to walk into the room. Panicking, you shoved the bucket of few paint supplies up into a corner of your closet and you sat down at the edge of your bed, settling yourself down before your bedroom door opened and your dad stepped in, causing you to look over at him with a sad look on your face. “How mad is she?” You were afraid to ask.

“Well, you said some pretty choice words to your mother, Y/N. So pretty mad.” Groaning, you hid your face in your hands. “She was threatening just to lock you in your room with nothing in here but your bed...but I was able to calm her down enough to just keep you in your room except for meals.” 

“So, no art supplies?” He nodded at your question, to which you replied with a sigh. “How long?” 

Sitting down next to you, you dad bumped your shoulder with a soft smile on his face. “I told her we can split the idea and make you suffer until Sunday night rolled around.” Sunday was like three days away. That meant those days you didn’t get to work on any of your projects that you had. “Don’t worry, squirt. You can survive this.” The two of you sat together on the bed for a little while longer before he finally stood up and helped you grab your pencils and paints and markers as well as a small stab with taking your work in progress heart away. 

Looking at the room now, you felt emptier than the room, there was nothing in the room and that left you feel nothing inside. You saved some of your paints, but without even just the easel in the corner of your room it’s so empty and sad to look at your room. The walls had very few pictures on them, especially the one next to your window that was next to your sister’s room. Staring at the blank wall made your blood boil, boil so much that you blindly grabbed a paintbrush and stepped up to the wall as a butcher walked towards a new body of meat ready to be sectioned off into eatable pieces. Your brush worked as nimble as any scalpel, working with speed at the wall, your mind wasn’t thinking, your body was moving on its own at this point. 

And there was no stopping it.

-----

It was only Saturday afternoon and you had two small panic attacks just thinking about the art show coming up. Just because opening night was in like two weeks doesn’t mean that you could turn it in the night the show opened, everything was due this Tuesday, completed, dry and everything. Would you be able to do that by then? Your art teacher had reached out to you and asked you to enter a piece, making you now feeling obligated to enter something. And that something happened to be locked in your parent’s room for the weekend. 

Usually when you were antsy or nervous, you would draw or paint, and here you were still. A few colors and pencils but no paper. And lined paper did not agree with you doodling style of drawing erasing and then redrawing, you wore simple paper out too easily. You needed something heavier. And you couldn’t go at the walls again like last night; waking up this morning, you were shocked to see just what you did, quickly pushing your curtains around to hide that part of the wall, leaving your window open to let natural light fill the room you would be spending the next couple of days isolated to. 

A light knock at the door, causing you to perk up to thinking hopefully your dad would come in and tell you that your mother slept well, and she was giving you back all your stuff. Not that you were upset or angry at your brother when he walked in, but when you looked at the dark headed boy who stuck half his body through the door, your hope fell away. “Hey Mikey, what’s up buddy?” You gestured him to come fully into the room with you where he plopped down into your desk chair across from your bed. 

“Well, um, I wanted to know if you...you could still draw my DnD character? I was just figuring that since you don’t have your big piece to work on right now and I just wanted to see if you could do it now because you’re not busy and you said you would do it in the car a few days ago and I just think you could do a really cool job drawing him and it would be great and my friends might also want you to draw their too and that’s all up to you but if you could at least do mine that would be great and you would be an amazing sister.” His words jumbled out of his in one mess, something he does whenever he gets nervous or excited about something.

You let him ramble a bit through what he wanted, his excitement bringing a smile to your face as you saw just how much he wanted this done, even if he stumbled over his request. He had nothing to worry about in the world. Mike sat there after his long request, finally giving your room to speak. “You done talking, Mike?” You quipped, not meaning it in a mean way as you watch him cough for air. “Of course, I’ll do it for you, buddy. Can I just request something from ya?” His head nodded up and down, his eyes sparkling with excitement at your acceptance. “Get me some paper I can draw on.” He was already out the door when you said paper.

Chuckling to yourself, you went over to your closet and grabbed hold of the box of pencils you kept just in case; staring down at the bright colored Crayola that you weren’t favoring to use, but, it was for your brother and you loved Mikey enough to use these. You heard him scrambling back up the stairs before Mike rushed into your room, gasping for air as he held out some paper, he grabbed from the printer downstairs to you. You took the paper from him and laid it on top of one of your schoolbooks.

Pencils out next to you, paper at the ready, a semi sturdy workspace, you were ready. “Alright, Mike, what does this paladin of yours look like?” 

The two of you sat there for a long period of time, which honestly slipped away from you as you did your best to draw a person, since you still haven’t gotten any better at it since your fascination with the nose and lips, but you still did your best as he animatedly told you about how Elias the Esteemed stood, how he was a lawful good paladin who only did what was just even when the other characters in the party would be annoyed by his upright behaviors. 

While you were drawing, you asked him to tell you stories about his friends adventures, and he so happily did; he told you about how they spent almost twelve hours fighting to save a princess and the others thought his character was being stupid for trusting an evil goblin when a fairy offered to help them until it turned out that the fairy was evil and was the one trying to kill the princess to get enteral youth. Just from watching your little brother speak, you could tell that he absolutely adores what he and his friends do every weekend. 

There was something that just brought joy to you when you saw someone radiate passion about something they love. And you saw this in your little brother as he told you story upon story of the renegades his friend group was. 

Passion speaks louder than simple descriptions or words. These stories gave an idea of how the paladin held himself, why he swung left handed and not right, stupid little things than made you draw Mike’s character in such a way that to you, it would make him feel more alive and ready to jump off the page, ready to fight for the sake of any princess in need. 

It was getting near dinner time when you finished, though you had been done for a bit of time, instead keeping this time to yourself. In this family, quality time was few and far between, and being with your brother brought happiness to your...rough weekend. And it was quickly shattered into pieces when you heard the call for dinner. Mike quickly stopped talking and looked towards your door before glancing back at you.

“Let’s get going then, Sir Eliad the Esteemed. Let us go feast after this glorious victory.” You turned the portrait over to him and wrapped your arms around his shoulders as the two of you headed down the stairs to join the rest of your family. 

You kept to yourself for the rest of the evening, but really it was the rest of your family that didn’t come to see you. Your mother and you weren’t really on speaking terms, Holly wasn’t allowed near you after you “told her to push a boy off the playground”, and your father was passed out in front of the TV. Nancy had asked your mom if she could run up to the store and buy some ice cream, leaving the whole upper level of the house to yourself and there was nothing for you to do with it all. 

So here you were again, staring at your ceiling as you twirled one of the pencils you still had out around your finger in complete and utter boredom. How could anyone live like this? You have been left alone with yourself and your thoughts for a full day and you were already ready to kill yourself. Looking around, you found yourself staring at the small stuffed ladybug sitting in your window, something to which you looked at curiously. 

It was the weekend and you hadn’t seen Steve try and climb through your weekend since Thursday evening. Granted it was only a day ago, but you were curious as to why your sister and her boyfriend didn’t take this time to be theirs and spend time together. Hmm. At least he wasn’t walking in while you were changing into your pajamas again. 

Speaking of pajamas, might as well get them on since you obviously weren’t going to be going anywhere tonight that would require proper clothing, so you pulled your pants off from the day and pulled on your pajamas bottoms before tugging your shirt off and over your head. 

“Wheeler, we might wanna consider buying ladder.” A voice spoke up behind you, cause you to scream and drop the shirt you were holding onto the ground before turning around. 

“What the hell, Harrington?!” You shouted at him, thanking the lord that you were alone on this level otherwise your mother would have stormed in here before you could say the boy’s name.

The brunette looked at you with a look on his face that you couldn’t read but you could have sworn you saw a quick blush appear on his cheeks before you remembered that you were in fact putting on your pajamas and he yet again came barging in on you. “Okay, this was your fault. I checked and the ladybug is there, so I thought I could come in.” 

You stumbled over a few words before you gave up ad scoffed at him before putting your shirt over your head. “I thought you had just died because you weren’t here last night, so I assumed I was free of you sneaking into my window. Forgive me for being hopeful.”

“Aw, come on Wheeler, you know you would miss me if I just left you behind.” He smiled at you and sat down next to you on your bed, bouncing you up and down ever so slightly with his weight being added to the bed. 

You muttered to yourself as you pushed your pencils away, “You have no idea.” And there you sat, the two of you in quiet silence, where you stared out the window at the trees next to your house, fireflies were beginning to emerge, lighting up the yard.

“Did you finish that painting?” Harrington asked you, to which you replied with a hum. “Your heart and flower painting that you had over there? Did you finish it?” 

“Oh, um…” You pulled your lips between your teeth, because he had no right to really know about it, but he was asking, but why did you want to tell him? You ignored the questions and just rolled with it. “My mom...more or less grounded me for the weekend and took my stuff away from me, so I’m stuck here without anything to work on.” He gave you a look that you only responded to with a shrug.

He scoffed. “Wow, take a painter away from her painting.” Looking over, he saw your pencils tossed onto your desk. “You any good with pencils?”

“I mean yeah, paint is what I want to work with, but as long as I can put it to paper, I can use it.” When you answered his question, he nodded before he pulled something from his backpack that you didn’t notice he had until now. “What are you doing?” Your brows were quirked as you watched him bring back out a notebook. A sketchbook actually. 

Your face had a look of shock on it, bringing him to smile at you. “Calm down, Wheeler. I can see the boredness in your eyes and I have this book. Mess around with it, I’m sure as hell not using it.” Your words caught in your throat as you stared down at the notebook that was now in your lap. 

“Um...thanks, Harrington.” You stood up and grabbed the pencils you had honestly not really knowing what to do with this newly given gift. “Do you...want me to draw you anything?” You asked.

Harrington looked up at you, a look deep in thought on his face before he turned to you and asked, “I want you to draw me like a cartoon character.” Hearing this, you were surprised at his request, even voicing this confusion yourself. “You know like Fred from Scooby Doo? Draw me something like him. All attractive and suave.” He grinned up at you, his dark eyes twinkling as he waited for your answer to his request. 

“I...don’t really do animation. I’m more of an emotion led artists and this isn’t really-”

He interrupted you. “Well then I guess I’ll be having my notebook back.” He held his hand out to you, but you held the book to your own chest shaking your head. “Thought so, now get drawing, Wheeler.” You were honestly taken aback by him sitting here and demanding things from you. 

Almost stupidly, you sat down in the chair sitting in front of him and grabbed a pencil, the black one, one that you were using in his outline. Animation was more your style, even if it wasn’t what you wanted to be drawing right now, you found that drawing Harrington animatedly was easier than real life but there was still a learning curve for you. 

You drew his face in very simple lines. His jaw came down into a subtle, but he did have a square face overall, deciding to accentuate the shape of his face while adding a slight chin to make sure he didn’t have just a square for his head. His ears were pretty flush to his head, so you didn’t bother and just hid them behind his hair. 

Oh, the hair. You grabbed the brown pencil and moved to try and find a way to translate the Hairs hair onto paper and it wasn’t working that well. There is a reason Harrington was known for his long and fluffy hair, and boy was it hard to find a way to get the curls and the wisps onto the paper without making it seem like stray pencil marks. 

You needed to tell your sister to tame her boyfriend’s eyebrows because they needed help, he was a few hairs away from unibrow. One had a sort of arch with some stray hairs underneath it and the other looked like a caterpillar. So, you decided to fix them on paper, and you gave him some damn good-looking eyebrows if you do say so yourself. Moving on, you stared at his eyes, and you finally noticed that he was staring back at you just as intently as you were, only he didn’t have a reason to be watching you. Maybe it was because he was staying still for you, but his gaze was a little unnerving. So instead of wanting to put focus on the small flecks of individual colors that made of his warm brown eyes, you grabbed the brown pencil again and just quickly drew a brown blob at the center of each eye and called it that. 

His nose was in two sweet and small motions, choosing to ignore drawing the slight crook midway down his nose. It was a simple nose, given that you knew almost every turn by now after drawing it multiple times. 

Your head shot up with your eyes wide at this, the pencil in your hand had stopped as you stared at Harrington’s nose. It was there, the nose. The one you had been drawing all week. There it was. The tweak at the top of the nose, the small button at the tip, the small and light freckles that lined the bridge of his nose. They were all there in front of you and you had no clue what to do with this new information. 

It couldn’t be. Why the hell would you be drawing Harrington’s nose? There was no reason you had ever looked at him for more than five minutes total since the time he and Nancy started dating. 

But there were the lips. The lips too. They were right there. Staring at you with all the swings and curves and pink tone with reds in it that you had been trying to copy since yesterday morning. The two of them were staring right at you. The face they belonged to was sitting in front of you and you didn’t know how to feel about it. 

A hand snaps in front of your face, one of its fingers striking your nose gently. “Wheeler? You still in there?” You shook your head, clearing your brain of the fog that took you over. 

“Yeah, sorry.” Quickly pulling the sketchy book closer to your face, you hid your warm face from where he could see you and quickly drew his lips in, completely ignoring your racing mind as you drew the outline and colored in his clothes on the way down, noting his denim jacket, T-shirt and a pair of jeans. On top of a pair of sneakers that you had never really seen him not wear before. 

From the face you took time to get the feeling of Harrington into the drawing, you quickly rushed through the rest of him, producing a finished product in less than five minutes and handing it over to him. “Here you go. Sorry if it’s not like Fred enough for you, but I’m not really an animator or anything.” 

Harrington looked over the paper you handed him; his face blank as he took in everything from the sheet of paper. The anticipation in your stomach grew every second he just stared at what you produced, wanting to be affirmed in what you had done, the ever challenging part of being like you, was that you didn’t know it but you needed the affirmation of how well you did. And for some reason, especially right now. 

“Wow, Wheeler, you could open one of those street drawing stand things and have people pay you for these.” He gave you a quick smile before tucking the paper into his backpack between some of his school books. Looking at his books, you quickly remembered where you were and what he was doing here. 

“Why aren’t you with Nancy right now?” You questioned and he quickly muttered to himself. 

He fiddled with his zipper before turning back to you, fiddling didn't fit his persona. “I just assumed she was taking a shower again since you didn’t kick me out.” 

You quirked an eyebrow at his response. “If I remember last time, you were half out the door ready to join my sister. I didn’t think you needed my permission to go see your own girlfriend. Much less have sex with her if you want to.” He scoffed at your remark, you bringing a smile to his face. 

“Good to know I have Nancy’s little sister’s permission to sleep with her next door to you.” He slings his backpack back onto his back as he makes this comment. 

“Whoa whoa, I didn’t mean that wait-Harrington I didn’t mean that!” He was already out the window by the time your confused brain caught up to you. “Great, now all I’m gonna hear is them having sex.” You muttered angrily to yourself as you slammed the window closed behind him. 

Because what else would you want to hear besides your sister and her boyfriend screaming in pleasure at each other. 

Looking around the room, you saw the sketchbook sitting on your desk. The sketchbook that Harrington gave you. 

Steve Harrington. “Oh God.” You gasped out as it all fell around you. You fell back against the wall behind you, slipping down until you were seated, your brain finally caught up to you and the panic settled in. “Holy crap, holy crap. What have I done?” 

His nose. That was it. He had your nose that you had been drawing. You found the face. And you didn’t like this at all. 

You have been drawing your sister’s boyfriend's nose obsessively. And you couldn’t explain why. 

Your heart rate increased. 

Breathing became short, curt, and rapid. 

Your vision was getting a little fuzzy around the edges as you tried rapidly blinking. 

Chest was heaving, but no air was getting in.

You were having a fucking panic attack and there was no one here to help you. 

You have to remember how to breathe on your own.

How do you even breathe?

You were alone, and your body couldn’t remember how to breathe.

You were alone and you couldn’t breathe

You couldn’t alone and you were breathe.

Alothe. 

Brone.

Your panic took you over and you fell over onto your carpeted floor, passed out and afraid of what you now know. 

-----

Monday morning finally came, to your mother coming into your room and calling you awake. Last night you finally got all of your supplies back and you were doing everything you could to make up for the lost weekend you had planned to use for painting. You stayed up until 3am, until your body was shutting itself down. You had seen Harrington come through your room and go, not giving him much to talk about this time around. You couldn’t let yourself get distracted with how little time you had left. 

And when that three am mark rolled around, your brain couldn’t tell what was pink from green and you almost painted a giant line through the heart. So, you slept, for three hours your body rested and reset itself. 

And it was rudely interrupted by your mom telling you it was Monday and you had to go to school. As you got dressed, you thought through how long it would take you to finish. All the colors were on the page, no white remained thankfully, but the flowers still needed life, they needed depth so that they were not 2D. 

You could take the picture with you to school. But when would you work on it? And you wanted to keep this all a big reveal. Your teachers sure as hell wouldn’t allow you to work on it instead of their own class. 

You could stay home. But how the hell was that supposed to work? Knowing your mother, you sure couldn’t get her to allow you to stay home for a reason as stupid as a painting. 

But what if she didn’t know you were home?

An idea formed in your mind as you threw your hair up in a ponytail and walked over to your sister’s door before knocking on it. She called you in. “Y/N?” Nancy was confused when you walked in. “What do you want?”

“Nancy, I have a huge favor to ask of you. Can you please leave me here at home? I need to stay back and finish working on my painting and I don’t have enough time tonight. I promise I will do whatever you want, I will do your chores, your homework, I don’t know but please, Nancy, I really need this.” You pleased with her, throwing all your sincerity as you can into your words. 

She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, her eyes darting back and forth between yours, looking for something, though you don’t really know what. “You owe me if I do this.” You gasped in relief at her words and surged forward, throwing your arms around your sister’s shoulders. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you so much Nancy. Oh my gosh I owe you so much right now. Thank you.” You held her tight in a hug, ignoring how she didn’t return the hug, but you were just too elated at this moment to care. “Okay, I’ll like get in the car with you and at the stop sign at the end of the road, I’ll just jump out and run home.”

“Yeah, yeah. I don’t care.” She wiggles slightly as she wants you to release her, making you let go and rush out of her room. 

You did as you said. Wished your parents goodbye after breakfast, got into the car for a short time before telling Mike to keep quiet and you ran home. 

That was the easy part. What Harrington didn’t tell you was that climbing up the wall of the house wasn’t as easy as it sounded, and you ate dirt twice before you finally made it up to your window. You thanked your past self for leaving the window open, not knowing how you would have managed it to try and get that window open from the outside. 

But you were inside now, and all you had to do for the rest of the day before your sister got back was be quieter than a mouse. And with painting, that wasn’t too hard for you: standing on your feet without moving was something you got used to. But this time, you couldn’t just tune the world out, you had to make sure that your mother didn’t walk in to find you here and not at school. 

So, you went in painting, pulling out your paint palette and container of paints, you began working. Mixing, painting, brushing, applying the paint, you stood for hours, ignoring your stomach as it called for food around lunch time. Moving only one, and that was because you dropped a paint brush and needed to step forward a little bit. The other time was when you heard your mother coming up the stairs. 

Your first urge was to scream when you heard her. It was almost like a horror movie with the murderer coming closer to the victim and the victim had nowhere to go. Where to go, what do you hide in? Would she even come in here? Of course, she would, she’s your mother! Looking around, the best you could think of with the footsteps getting slowly closer was under your bed, because you were basic and asking to be killed. 

You dove and as quietly as you could, you shoved yourself under the bed, not realizing how cramped it would be down there, it wasn’t as easy as you thought it would be but you still were able to get yourself underneath before you watched the door swing open. Her heeled feet walked in, followed closely by the vacuum behind her, which she plugged in and quickly went to work. 

All you could do was sit there, waiting, watching as the vacuum came closer, going away, closer, away. So on and so forth, but you would hear the occasional mutter from your mom about how filthy you kept this room, and how you need to put your paints away and not leave it lying out all day. From where you were lying, you could see her jostling things around above you, but nothing seemed to give away your still being home. 

Looking around the room, you took inventory of what a bug must feel like, seeing everything so big and far away. Your dresser, bookshelves, even your backpack was massive from where you were. Crap. Your eyes widened as your mother grabbed your backpack from the ground. You were supposed to have your backpack at school right now, and it was sitting on your floor for your mother to see. 

Shit shit shit shit shit! You screamed in your head with your hand clamped over your mouth as you waited for your mom to find you, catch you, and never let you see the light of day again. Something bounced off your bed. “Y/N needs to stop leaving her backpack home and start taking it with her.” Those were the last things you heard your mom say before she turned and dragged the vacuum behind her out the door, shutting it behind her before moving down the hall to your brother’s room. 

A heavy sigh left your body as you felt relief rush over you knowing that you were safe from getting caught. And with that, you pulled yourself out from under the bed, squeezing a little bit at the hips, but finding yourself free from dust. You didn’t have much more of a thought to yourself other than getting more of the painting done before you could call it a day and finally finish it all off with a quick signature at the bottom. 

A few more hours of you working passed before you heard your sister come back home. Just in time too. You had the biggest smile on your face as you painted the last brush stroke at the bottom. “Y/N Wheeler.” You were finished. Finally! Mike cried out that he was home and then promptly called how he was heading over to Dustin’s house. Opening your door, you wanted to make your way over to Nancy to thank her again, wanting to know what she wanted in return. 

Opening your door, you saw Nancy had beaten you to it and was standing outside your door. “Nancy! I just wanted to say than-” Your smile and happiness quickly went away when Nancy shoved past you, cutting you off. 

“Why was Steve asking about you?” Her question confused you, which you voiced, asking her what she was talking about. “Steve! My boyfriend! All he could do was ask me about you and why you weren’t at school and how you were enjoying your new notebook and then he went on to show me the cartoon you drew of him. When did you draw him? Why are you hanging around my boyfriend?!”

“Whoa, Nancy, I wasn’t hanging around him. I haven’t done anything. I don’t even talk to Harrington.” 

“Then why does he have this drawing?” And to prove it to you, she pulled the silly drawing out you did a few nights ago, where Harrington asked you to draw him like Fred. 

Looking at the paper, there was honestly nothing you could think of wrong with the situation. “Nancy, for like the past week, he has been using my window to sneak in and out of the house because he was almost caught by mom. I offered to let him use my room to slip through. You were busy or something like two nights ago and he was sitting in here waiting for you to finish and he told me to draw him like Fred from Scooby-Doo.” 

“He’s been sneaking through your room?! You suggested this? Y/N what the hell have you been doing with my boyfriend in my room?” Nancy was screaming at you at this point, alerting your mother that the two of you were home when she called up the stairs for you two to stop yelling. 

You were getting frustrated at this point, “Nancy! No! I haven’t been doing anything with your boyfriend! I’m not even interested in the asshole!”

“Then why did I find you drawing his face in your notebook?!” Once again trying to prove you were in the wrong, she showed you more papers, the ones from your sketchy book that were in fact of Harrington’s face that you found out the other night. 

“Where did you get those? Nancy, that's from my notebook, where did you get that?” Your failed attempt to grab the papers from her led to her getting all in your face. 

“And why were they in there?! Why! Y/N why are you hitting on my boyfriend?! Is nothing sacred for me?! All you do is walk around this house, painting, and drawing and being a goody little two shoes! You are a complete bitch Y/N! I work my ass off for my grades, to be great in school, to have an amazing boyfriend! And you are trying to steal him from me!” She kept getting louder and louder, screaming at you and stomping her feet and making more and more accusations towards you that you didn’t understand. 

“Nancy, I know how it looks but I was just-”

She walked dangerously close to your painting, her flailing arms almost hitting it right off the easel. “You were what, Y/N?” 

“Please be careful, Nancy, the paint is still wet.” Reaching out, you grazed her hand, hoping to calm her down but she ripped it away from you. 

“Oh, is this what you care about? Let me show you what you’ve done to me, Y/N. What happens if I do this?!” Before you could react, her hand flew and shot its way through the canvas, punching a huge hole into the painting you just finished not moments ago. 

“No!” You screamed in horror, staring at the hole she hit through the flowers atop and intertwined amongst the heart. Your own heart broke and your body had no idea what to do besides just scream.

Footfalls stormed up the stairs and Karen Wheeler charged into the room. “Y/N Wheeler, what are you screaming about, that is completely uncalled for!”

Tears welled up in your eyes as you looked to your mother for help. “Mom, Nancy she...look mom!”

“Mom! Y/N has been flirting with my boyfriend and cheating with him behind my back! And she skipped school today!” Nancy’s face had rage written all over it, nothing compared to the absolute shattered feeling you felt. 

“Mom wait no please. I-” you tried explaining, but your mother had heard enough, and she spun on you. 

“I can’t believe I ever raised a daughter like you, Y/N. I am completely disappointed in you. Steve is your sister’s boyfriend. And I’m talking to your father when he gets home about you missing school. Apologize to your sister right now.” Your mom was angry, you could tell, but you were hoping you could argue with her. “Don’t argue with me, Y/N! I guess locking you in your room isn’t enough for you to learn your lesson anymore. Your father will be hearing about this, young lady, you can be sure of that.” 

She was gone, your mother left you in the room with your sister, going downstairs and angrily muttering to herself. Looking over to your sister, she saw she was still angry on her face, with a sickening smirk on her face. “What...have I ever done to you, Nancy? All I have ever done is try to be your little sister. All I want is for my big sister to guide me, be a role model. I just want you to love me, Nancy.” Tear tracks raced their way down your face as you stared at your sister, if you could even call her that anymore. Not after what she did to what she knew you loved doing and had worked so hard on. 

“Why would I ever love the sister that made my parents split their love up?” Nancy’s voice came out as a growl and followed your mother, slamming your door behind her. 

Your body finally gave out and you fell to your knees before curling up and letting our sobs ring through the room, screaming at one point all the pain out of your chest. Your mother yelled at you again, but you didn’t listen, you kept crying at the pain in your chest, the same pain that showed through the tear in the still wet painting. 

------

“Karen, we should talk to her before we keep punishing her. She is going to hate us if we keep doing this.” Ted Wheeler was trying to talk some sense to his wife while walking up the stairs to his daughter’s room. 

“Ted, I think it’s time we discipline her my way. You have been going too easy on her these last few years and she’s fighting back. I don’t like people fighting against me, Ted.” Karen Wheeler gave her husband a look that told him to be quiet while she did the talking, he was there to be a point of authority and trick you into listening to your mother. 

Nodding, your father grabbed the door handle into your room and pushed the door open. “Y/N, sweetie. We wanted to talk to you.” The husband and wife opened the door and expected to find you sitting on your bed or standing in front of your painting that the two of them have known you have been working on endlessly lately. 

But the room was empty. You were nowhere to be seen. “Y/N?” Karen took a step into the room, checking behind the door to see if you were standing there. “Y/N, I don’t want to deal with your games right now. Get out here young lady.” The woman checks under the bed, in the closet, but you weren’t in either of those places. “Ted, I don’t see-” Turning around, Karen Wheeler saw her husband standing in front of what looked to be the artwork you were working on. She stepped closer, looking around her husband's shoulder and her eyes widened when she saw what was before her.

It was a beautiful painting. The dark background may look black for one second, but when looking deeper at it, there were the light colors of white and grey in the background, creating an open ribcage around what is the centerpiece of the painting: a red heart. The heart had amazing detail, veins and fat tissue where you would suppose it would go. Green things ran along the heart as well, but it wasn’t as easy as it was before to tell that there was a bouquet of flowers emerging from the main openings of the heart because where the flowers once were was now a giant hole ripped through the canvas. 

Karen Wheeler was rarely shocked at being speechless, yet here she was with her hand pressed to her mouth in awe at what she was looking at. It was beautiful but broken. While she stared at this, Ted had gone to the door and called somebody’s name down the hall. “Is this what she has been working on?” Her words came out breathless and airy. “It’s so beautiful.”

Ted nodded as he looked around the room, waiting for who he called before something caught his eye behind the curtain that was being blown around the open window. “Did you call me, dad?” Nancy stepped into the door confused. 

“Nancy, do you know what happened to your sister’s painting?” Karen turned to her eldest daughter, her pride and joy, before her husband could, who had pushed a curtain away to see more of what he was looking at. 

Looking over, Nancy shrugged. “She deserved it. I told you mom, she was che-”

“Nancy, I’m not asking for what she did to you. Did you do this to her painting?” Nancy looked around the room, not wanting to look at her mother, but giving a slight nod. “Nancy Wheeler! You know what painting means to your sister!” 

“But mom, she doesn’t-” 

“No Nancy! You aren’t in the right here. Y/N could have hit on your boyfriend, which I want to verify with your boyfriend, but that does not give you the right to destroy what Y/N has spent weeks working on.” 

“Karen.” Ted called over to his wife. 

“Nancy Wheeler, you are in a big deal of trouble right now and I don’t want to see you. You have severely hurt your sister and I am extremely upset with you.” Nancy looked away from Karen, her face flushed with red as she left the room, not feeling too hot that she had been turned on by her parents. 

“Karen,” Ted called again, to which she finally turned back to him. “Look.”

Written on the wall, in black paint was line after line of your handwriting. “Failure. Stupid. Y/N Wheeler is useless. Not pretty like Nancy. Not smart like Mike. Not loveable like Holly. Matt is friendlier than Y/N. Clare is emotionally stable. Stupid. Failure. Shit. Y/N Wheeler is shit. The world won’t stop. Nobody here. Noone wants me. Unwanted. Unloved. No difference. No change without. Gone. She is gone. Y/N Wheeler isn’t wanted. She isn’t going to want. “

“Oh my god.” Karen gasped again, tears prickling at her eyes as she turned away, not wanting to see anymore as she looked around the room. “Y/N? Sweetheart please!” She looked at the closet again and saw your shoes were gone. Your shoes and one of your jackets were missing. “Ted. Ted! She’s gone! Y/N’s gone! Our little girl is gone, she's gone.” Her words sputtered out of her mouth as she fell into her husband’s arms, her face and cries falling into his shoulders as he led her over to where your phone sat on your desk. 

“Hawkin’s police department.” Flo’s voice asked through the phone, she sounded bored rightly so since nothing happens in this small town. 

“Flo, this is Ted Wheeler.” He held the phone to his other ear so that his wife wasn’t crying near it. “Pass me through to Chief Hopper. Our daughter is missing.”

-----

“Y/N!”

“Y/N!”

“Y/N Wheeler!” 

“How many Y/N’s do you know, Lucas?” Mike looked over to his friend; the three of them had been out for the last two, maybe three hours, calling out your name, much to Dustin’s chargin when his voice started cracking and hurt from screaming. 

“Well I’m sorry I just wanted to say something other than your sister’s name.” Lucas called back to the only male child of the Wheeler family. “Mike, we’ve rode back and forth across this damn road so many times, I can count how many pedals it takes to get from one side to the other.” 

Mike ignored his friends' complaints as he kept calling out your name, hoping that as they kept doing this loop that you would call back out to him. Come running out of the woods. Just come home. “Y/N!”

Across town, your parents were looking just as hard as your little brother. Your mother had removed her heels and stockings and skirt for a pair of sleep pants your father had and some sneakers she found in your room that would fit. Never in your wildest dreams could you imagine that your mother would be trekking through the muddy, dirty woods, especially for the likes of you. “Y/N!” Your mother called out, moving the flashlight back and forth as she tried seeing any sign of you in the woods near your house. 

“Karen, sweetheart. We won’t be able to find her out here, it’s nearly midnight. It’s too dark for us to make a difference in the search.” Ted reached forward and gently grabbed his wife’s elbow, hoping he could guide her home. He had been out here with her, calling your name and looking at every possible place you could be hiding. 

Karen looked back at her husband and in the glare of the flashlight off him, he could see her eyes filled with worry, shame, frustration. “Ted, I’m the reason she is out here. And I want to be here when we find her.”

Mr. Wheeler nodded his head, tugging a little harder on her elbow before she let herself be pulled into her husband’s embrace. The two of them stood in the middle of the woods, a mile or so away from your house, holding each other as they worried for their lost daughter. “Come on, dear. I’m sure we can look a little longer. Maybe she’s just a little farther ahead.” She nodded her head at Ted and the two of them continued forward. “Y/N!”

Back at home, Nancy was sitting in the living room with Holly drawing in front of her while she went over flashcards for her AP exam coming up. “Nancy?” At hearing her name, the young girl looked up. “Where’s Y/N? I didn’t get to paint with her today.”

She scoffed. “What is with this family and Y/N? She’s not here, Holly.” The last part, Nancy spoke louder so that the youngest Wheeler would hear her. 

“Where is she? I miss her.” Holly said it so nonchalantly as she kept drawing on her little page. Nancy glowered down at the little girl before she stood up, ordering Holly to stay there and that she would be right back. Walking into the kitchen, she picked up the phone and quickly dialed a number. 

“Hello?” Her boyfriend's voice came through the receiver and she felt like she could smile for the first time since she got home that day. 

“Hey, Stevie. Wanna come over? My parents aren’t home and thought that we could get some alone time in.” She leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen, getting a look to see that Holly hadn’t moved an inch. 

Steve took a second to respond. “Sure, babe why are they out of the house. They just had a date night.” 

“Oh, Y/N up and ran off and they’re off looking for her like a manic. She’ll be home soon I’m sure. It’s what she gets.” Nancy rolled her eyes at her own statement. “So, you wanna come over?”

She heard a release of breath on the other end. “God, Nancy. Your sister is missing, and you want me to come over? Please tell me you are calling me to help your family look for her.”

“Steve Harrington. What are you talking about? Steve Harrington you are my boyfriend, not my sister’s boyfriend or best friend.” Nancy growled into the phone ready to go off on the phone to her ear, but he cut her off. 

“No, Nancy. I am not someone who dates a girl who ignores her sister, who hurts her sister on a daily basis by not even looking or caring about her.” His words caught her off guard, truly they did because here it was again, her little sister coming back to claim what is originally Nancy’s. “Nancy unless you tell me this is some sick joke, I’m sorry but we are done.” 

Nancy Wheeler had nothing to say and was even more in shock when she heard the dial tone ringing in her ear. “Steve? Steve? Hello?” Nancy stood at the phone and tried ringing him back up, with no answer. In the living room, Holly hummed to herself as she continued moving her marker back and forth across the paper, so excited for mommy to get home and to give her a new painting of the family. 

“Y/N!” It had been hours since the sun had fully gone down and at least five hours since Hopper got the initial call. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in Hawkins, never has before Will went missing a couple years back. “Y/N Wheeler!” Hopper called again into the night, shining his flashlight around the exterior of the fence of Hawkins lab, trying to see if anything would connect another strange event from the Upside Down to you. 

The lab has been quiet for a while, so it didn’t connect why you would have gone missing. And it sounded like it wasn’t a missing persons case and instead was a kid running away from home. His eyes were barely hanging open at this point and he had used up his last cigarette over an hour ago, so he needed a kick to get him going that he didn’t have.

He didn’t want to, but Chief Hopper knew when to quit and now was the time. Grabbing his radio, he called out to Powell and Callahan on his radio. “Yeah boss?”

“I’m calling it for tonight. We will keep searching for the girl tomorrow when we get some shut eye and the sun is up.” Hopper mumbled into his radio as he did one last sweep of the area around him before he turned back around and headed for his truck. 

“Will do boss.” Something clicked in Hopper’s mind before he signed off for the evening. “You say something else, boss?” 

“Yeah, make sure Ted and Karen get home safe, I don’t need more civilians out getting lost.” The three police officers finished their pleasantries and signed off until the morning when they promised the three of them would be back out at eight am on the dot. This left Hopper to wander the woods alone with his own thoughts and the quiet around him back to his car and head back home to Eleven and some Eggos waffles fresh outta the toaster. 

Hopper gripped his steering wheel with one hand while the other he used to rub his face of the stress this evening has caused. He enjoys his work, he really does. Helping the community and everything, but the max he wants to worry about is thieves from the local pharmacy because the local teenagers wanted to get high on Nyquil. No missing kids who run away from home. No monsters. No kids who have been experimented on their entire lives. 

First Joyce’s kid, now one of the Wheeler’s daughters too. Whatever happened to kids listening to their parents and staying home? “I swear, if Eleven even thinks about disappearing like that on me, I’ll turn this state topside.” With a slam of the door, Hopper looked up to his little cabin, something he found when he was a young stupid kid and later in life would convert into a home for himself away from the life of Hawkins. Now it was his permanent home for him and his new daughter. 

“El, I’m home.” Hopper ducked his head into the door frame, looking over to the coat rack that he placed his hat upon the coat rack before making his way into the kitchen right next to the door. “I hope you didn’t eat all of the waffles while I was gone.” He quipped with a smile on his face; he didn’t hear her respond, which he was glad about since she should be in bed, like he wanted to be. But Jim needed something in his belly. 

He hummed to himself a little tune he heard on the radio on his way over, not knowing what the song was, but it was here in his head and it didn’t seem to appear to be leaving any time soon. This ditty stuck with him as Jim Hopper pressed a little extra butter into the crevices of the waffle and smothering it in syrup, the best way to eat waffles honestly. Grabbing his plate, Hopper decided in his head which channel he was going to watch tonight before he turned in only to get up at the asscrack of dawn tomorrow. 

Stepping into his living room, Hopper jumped in surprise when he saw Eleven staring at him with a straight face. “Jesus, El, you should have said something while I was in the kitchen, I thought you were asleep by now.” Eleven kept her gaze upon her father figure as he rounded the couch and saw another thing he was not expecting. 

El was sitting on the couch in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, but she wasn’t alone. Hopper nearly dropped his waffles when he saw you, passed out on his couch, your head laying on El’s lap as she ran her fingers through your hair, which was sopping wet, as were your clothes. “Eleven. How did she get here?” Jim fell into his armchair, his plate of waffles laying on his lap and his jaw dropped down nearly as far. 

“She knocked.” El stated curtly, her eyes looking to Hopper a second more before she turned her head to look back down at you. “She’s Mike’s sister.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the Wheeler’s daughters. I’ve been looking for her all night. When did she get here?” Hopper moved his body forward to see more of her surrogate daughter and you.

“At 9-4-9. Why is she so sad, Hopper?” She completely disregarded his own questions and comments and began pegging her own at him. “I can see her thoughts. She’s so sad. Why? She has Mike. I can’t have Mike but I’m not sad.” 

Hopper sighed after hearing this, he never poked into other people’s affairs, but he had a feeling he might have to talk to your family when he got you home. “I...I don’t know El.” The young teen nodded her head, her hand still running over your hair.

The group of three sat there in quiet silence, El stroking your hair as you slept on while Hopper sat deep in thought of what he should do next. He was thinking, but he could not stopwatch his daughter and how she acted around you. He saw that you were still wet, though it did seem like you were slowly drying off, hopefully you wouldn’t get sick because of this. 

Placing the now empty plate down, Hopper stood up with his mind made on what he was going to do. “Come on, El. It’s past your bedtime, bud.” 

“But I want to stay-” With a raise of his hand, Hopper stopped the young girl from speaking. 

“I’ll stay with her, El. Don’t worry.” The chief walked over and gave her shoulder a gentle pat on the shoulder as he helped guide her out from under your head. “Be careful with her, I’m sure she’s had a rough night.”

Going into her room Hopper gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, to which she gave the customary comment “scratchy” with a smile on her face as she commented on his beard against her skin. With a chuckle, Hopper shut the door behind him with El flicking the lights off herself, leaving him in the main room of the cabin. The man signed deeply as he ran his hands over his face roughly, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes and wake himself up just a bit. 

He took a rather ungracefully seat next to your head, hoping his jostling of the couch would wake you up, but you only shifted at his added weight. Jim Hopper sighed again and moved his hand over to your shoulder, gently shaking it. “Come on, kid. I need you to wake up for me.” His already gruff voice as gruffer and deeper from exhaustion as well as how quiet he was being. “Kid, you gotta get up.”

You finally started to move, letting out a groan at being woken up, your body shivering under his warm hand. The groan quickly moved into a gasp as you shot upright with your eyes wide like an animal Hopper has seen hunting before. You quickly pulled away from his hand, almost like he had burned you and pressed yourself against the armrest of the couch as your eyes greedily took in the room you were in.

“Hey, hey kid, calm down. It’s me Hopper.” He watched as your eyes came to focus on him, your eyes rapidly moving, and your chest was heaving. “Calm down, kid. You’re safe. It’s Chief Hopper. You’re safe.” His hands were in front of him, a simple signal of peace between the two of you as you slowed your breathing down and started blinking, your eyes rapidly seeming to come back into focus. 

“Ch-chief Hopper?” Your voice came out a little hoarse, surprising you at the weakness behind your own voice. “Wh-what...where am I?” 

“You’re in my cabin, kid. Bout twenty miles from any form of civilization.” Hopper kept his place on the couch, letting you settle yourself into a cross legged position that seemed more comfortable, though not fully at ease. “Wanna tell me how you ended up over here? And why you’re sopping wet?”

His comment caused you to look down at yourself, just now noticing that you were in fact wet. “I...I don’t really remember. I just was running through the woods out by my house, and I guess I just...wait, I think I fell into a creek or something before I found this place. Yeah, I fell into some creek, and it was freezing water, so I...don’t remember much after that…” You looked down as you tried remembering just how you got here.

“Well kid, you somehow made it from one end of Hawkins to the other. You’re almost outside of the city limits.”

“What? Wait what time is it?” Your eyes widened again, and you quickly jumped off the couch, making a move towards the door. 

“Hold up, kid.” Hopper grabbed your forearm as you moved past him, stopping you and reversing your path to lead you back down to sitting next to him, this time placing you closer to him. “You know you caused a lot of trouble around town.” Your shoulders sank when he mentioned this, followed by a quiet apology that he waved away. “I don’t care, you’re fine, I know where you are. Now, wanna explain this to me?” Feeling around his pockets, Hopper produced a polaroid picture that he handed over to you. 

You took the picture from him and felt yourself deflate once you saw your wall. “I forgot I did that.” Your words were quiet mutters as you looked at the words you painted nights ago when you were in a rage. “I...I didn’t-” 

“Don’t tell me it didn’t mean anything. The words are there.” Hopper had his gaze fixed on you, his body leaning towards you as he waited for a response. “Y/N,” You looked back up at him from hiding from the photo. “Are there problems at home?”

He barely suggested this, and you shook your head. “No, there’s nothing like that, Chief Hopper, sir. It’s just...it’s…” Hopper watched as you worked on your words; whether it was appropriate or not, he placed his hand on your knee in solidarity. “There’s nothing wrong. I’m just...it’s hard sometimes, cause I’m just stuck in the middle. Mikey’s the only boy in the family and he’s always at his friends house. Holly is adorable and she’s the baby and she’s cute. And Nancy…” You paused again, focusing your gaze onto your finger tracing the fabric on the couch. “Things aren’t good with her and me. I got into high school and she just...because very mean. Bitchy honestly. My parents care about me...but they don’t side with me and it isn't good sometimes. Or a lot of the times. But things are like bad at home, times just get rough sometimes.”

“I think you just described a bad household, kid.” 

“No, no, no. It’s not bad. I didn’t mean…” Your voice cracked and you moved to quickly wipe your eyes. “I didn’t…” You tried again, but you couldn’t get yourself to talk. 

Hopper sighed at watching you. He didn’t want to have this conversation, it was an uncomfortable feeling already, but if he wanted to sleep again, he needed to know. “Don’t tell me if you meant it or not. Can you tell me why you wrote all of this? I’m just here to help you, Y/N.” 

You finally looked up at him, for the first time really since you woke up, feeling your eyes starting to sting. “Damnit.” You whined into your hands as you hid your face from Hopper just as quickly as you looked up at him. Trying, you tried so hard to stop yourself from crying, because this wasn’t something you did. Y/N Wheeler didn’t break down and cry. You didn’t do that kinda thing. 

Hopper watched, he was never this good when his wife got emotional, he was barely there for his own little girl. With El, she was even stranger of a case and had no clue what to do with you. You were a practically random sixteen/seventeen-year-old sitting on his couch, crying, and he was lost. He went against his own instincts and did something that made him uncomfortable but would hopefully help you. 

“Come here kid.” As gently as possible, Hopper wrapped his arm around your shoulder and led you to cry on his own shoulder, much to his uncomfort. “Talk when you want to. I’m here all night.” As much as he didn’t want to be awake for the evening, he had a feeling he may have needed to say this. 

And you took his suggestion quickly. “I don’t always feel like that, I just-I just-I just...it gets hard when my mom wants me to be like Nancy and I can’t because I’m not smart enough, or pretty enough, or perfect enough. And I was angry and tired and...I do hate home. I hate it so much. But I have nowhere to go. I can’t just leave.”

You had no one to listen to you, not before this, but Hopper did. Hopper listened to you until you slowly cried yourself to sleep. Chief heard your voice quiet down as you kept talking until you went completely silent and your breathing evened out to where you were sleeping. He glanced over to the clock and groaned at how late it was, or early. It was way too close to when he needs to be awake for his liking.

“Guess I should sleep myself.” Muttering to himself, Hopper leaned his head against the back of his couch and worked on getting himself to sleep, feeling you shift closer to his shoulder just before he fell asleep for the night. 

-----

El let her leg jump against yours in the front seat of Hopper truck. Early this morning, you woke up to Hopper talking to someone through the phone, it sounded like he was talking to his police workers, telling them something about staying in the office and not being able to show up till later in the morning. After the phone call, he corralled you and El into his work truck after giving you a change of her clothes that looked like they should fit. 

Plus, it gave her an excuse to see your little brother, who apparently has a little girlfriend that you didn’t know about. She was smiling in her seat next to you, still not having said too much to you other than she was excited to see Mike. 

She was sandwiched between you and Hopper, allowing you to stare out the window as the scenery around you changed, watching as the scenery changed from heavily wooded forest to dirt roads to suburbs. All the while, you wondered what would happen when you got home. Because there obviously wasn’t anywhere else you would be going besides back home. How will you walk in? Will you go up to your room? Will your mom care? Chief Hopper said they were out searching for you, but you had a pit growing in your stomach where you thought how this could be a lie. 

This question was going to be answered much faster than you anticipated as you saw your house and driveway come into view in the front window of the car. El’s jumpiness intensified at the sight of the house while you tried sinking further into your chair. “Alright, you two, let’s get to the door before this rain picks up again. I don’t wanna go into work soaked.” He warned as he got out of the car with El following past him and ran for the front door. 

But you didn’t move a muscle. 

You watched as Hopper went up to the door that El was already knocking on and it opened before the Chief even got up there. Your mother had opened the door and you inhaled sharply when you saw her with her hair pulled back into a mess that you wouldn’t even call a bun anymore and it looked like she was in a pair of your father’s pants and a grungy t-shirt. 

Her eyes looked over Chief Hopper and El, who had pushed past her to where you assumed would be hugging Mike, before back to the Chief who pointed at the truck, causing her to look in your direction. The moment you two made eye contact, she began running to you, across the grass with no shoes on her feet. Rain was still coming down in a constant drizzle, but that didn’t slow your mom down.

Seeing her pursuit towards you, you pushed the door open and fell out into the rain yourself before moving towards your house and mom. You two met and her nearly tackled you to the ground as she wrapped you in one of the tightest hugs you ever received. Her face pressed into your shoulder and she held you so tightly to her chest, and you returned this by slipping your arms under your mother’s and held onto her waist. “Mom.” You whimpered into her chest, sealing your eyes shut as you fought back tears you never thought you would have shed. 

The rain ran down your head and under your clothes, but you didn’t want to think about anything but your mom’s hug right now. “Y/N, oh my…” You heard your dad’s voice before you felt him hug you from behind, taking both you and your mom up in an embrace you hadn’t felt in a long time. Opening your eyes, you saw the front of your house, the door opens to your house with Chief Hopper standing on the porch still, his arms crossed over his chest with a neutral look on his face. In the doorway, you saw someone standing at the threshold of the house: Nancy. She looked at you, no emotion to her face, just watching. You wanted to feel uncomfortable under that gaze, but you shut your eyes and came back to enjoy the safe and warm embrace of your parents around you. 

It was eventually the rain that pushed you three inside, and where your strings of apologies began. On your couch, with your dad sitting next to you and your mom kneeling in front, you started apologizing for running away, apologizing for making your parents and family and other people worried, apologizing for seeing your sister’s boyfriend. “Y/N,” You were interrupted by your mom. “Don’t apologize for something you didn’t do. You shouldn’t have been sneaking Steve into the house at all, but you were helping him see your sister.” She ran her thumb against your cheek, affection you weren’t used to yet or at all.

Your gaze went over to Chief Hopper, who was leaning against the junction between your living room and kitchen. He gave you a small smile and nod, almost having to tell you that it was okay for your mother to be treating you like this. ‘If you ever feel uncomfortable at home, or if you ever need anything kid, drop by the office. My door will be open if you need it’. He told you this morning while he offered your waffles for breakfast before hitting the road, the both of you remembering your admittance early this morning to him.

“Okay.” A quiet whisper came from your lips as you looked back at your mom and gave her a small smile. You just hoped in the back of your head that things would somehow go back to what you knew as normal.

-----

You concluded that you had no clue what normal was. 

Tuesday your mom and dad kept you home from school with your father running out to work for a few hours before coming back. She never let you out of her sight throughout the day, calling your name every time you left the room for more than five minutes. And every time she called your name, you knew that it was your fault, you were the reason she was skittish about you leaving the house. 

Eventually you were able to convince her that you were just going upstairs to sleep for a little bit, promising her that you wouldn’t leave or slip out the window...again. Stepping into the room, you sighed at the feeling of being able to breathe again. Sliding down against the door, you never realized how...overwhelming having attention on you was. But your room was your sanctuary and you looked around, your eyes stopping when you saw the wall next to your window, it was blank. The words you wrote had been painted over like they never were even there. 

You gulped and forced yourself to look away from the negative space and felt the wind leave your body at the sight of an empty easel stand. “M-Mom?” She came up the stairs a few seconds after you called her. “Where’s my painting?” 

At your question, she pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “Sweetie, your dad took care of it.” Her news scared you, but what else had you expected when the canvas was destroyed, you could try and paste it together, but then it wouldn’t look the same. “He told me he was going out to get you another canvas sweetie, so you can paint it again when he gets back.” Nodding your head, you sighed before smiling up at her.

“Thanks mom. I’m tired, so I think I’m gonna take a nap or something.” She returned your smile before kissing your forehead and shutting the door behind you. Once you were alone, you took one final look at the empty corner before you turned to your bed and tucked yourself in for now.

Wednesday passed by with Clare and Matt tackling you as you stepped out of the car, both of them screaming at you for being missing for two days without telling them and making them worried when they heard about you actually going missing. And all you could do was apologize for making them worry. Every time anyone reminds you about how worried they were, you feel another wave of guilt in your decision. 

At least your teachers didn’t bring it up, leaving you to figure out what you missed from the past two days on your own and your school day went on as normal, with a happy break during art class until you remembered your canvas. Seeing the face that you had started, you stared at it for a second, thinking, waiting, waiting on what is a good question, but your small burst of waiting ended when you picked up a paint brush and dipped the tip into black and began the outline of a face. 

You didn’t give a fuck right now. You wanted to paint, and this face is what you were going to paint. That art period was one of the fastest ones you remember attending but still one of your most productive ones with you being able to get the shape of the face done and drew the base color of the hair down in the shape you would work with tomorrow. 

And when Thursday art class came, you were already painting before the bell rang, not waiting for teacher’s permission to get started. Colors blended seamlessly, every strand of hair stood out in a cohesive way, the skin tone was becoming less white and more colored with a light blush on the cheek to give life. The lips and nose were already done, and this left you with the eyes. 

You realized you hadn’t seen Harrington since...was it Saturday? Not that you cared, you didn’t need Nancy breathing down your neck again for supposedly cheating behind her back. But you wanted to keep this painting going, wanted to finish something that Nancy couldn’t destroy. Something you wish you could turn into the art show for your school. 

You pushed away the thought of the art show you worked so hard to put a piece in, but that’s all your teacher talked about was the show today in Indianapolis. She advertised it on Wednesday and Thursday in class and told everyone to go if they were interested in seeing different schools and their projects they had worked on. You had been planning on going all year since you heard about this opportunity back in August. And now, your plans are completely up-ended for having your own art presented there.

Instead of focusing on the now missed opportunity of the painting, you looked to what was before you and pulled your paintbrush to begin the eyes. Harrington’s warm and welcoming eyes. 

Time slowly ticked by until you had the body of the eye colored out and everything except for the eye color itself. The pupils were completely, and the iris was outlined, but you left the coloring for last. You knew the color, but not the depth. Like his hair. His hair was brown, but there were small shines of gold hidden throughout, and as his hair got to his tips, they muted down to almost an auburn color. Nothing was just a single color; depth came from marking out the darker exterior iris and getting lighter as it gets closer to the pupil before darkening again. 

This was something you stopped yourself from doing; you could stare at Harrington’s skin or hair all day and he wouldn’t notice. Trying to see his eyes, that was harder than you called for. So, you couldn’t know the report layers of his eyes, not without doing it in the next couple of days when he jumped through your window. 

“What time is it?” You muttered very quietly to yourself as you turned in your seat to look at the clock hanging in the back of the church. With only ten minutes left in class, you were about to turn around when someone caught your eye. And you didn’t stop your staring gaze at Harrington sitting in the back row of class. 

How long he had been in this class, you had no clue, but you couldn’t take your eyes of the teenager in the back of your class who had a paintbrush pinched between his fingers and working on the canvas he had in front of him. He must have felt your stare because he looked up at you and met your gaze.

You didn’t turn away yet, allowing the two of you to dumpling watch each other. From here you couldn’t see the colors you had been needing, but you could see the small smile he sent your way and a wave. You returned the gesture and turned back towards your own drawing, a warm blush rising to your cheeks as you dm cursed yourself for not noticing that he was in your class and painting obviously his face in front of him. 

In the next ten minutes, you cut yourself off early and worked on cleaning up the paint brushes and paint palettes. You didn’t get much quiet cleaning done when you found someone standing next to you in the adjoining sink. “You've been missing the past couple of days, Wheeler.” 

Harrington was washing his own equipment next to you. “Yeah...I wasn’t feeling well these past few days.” Not everyone in school knew you needed to know what happened between you and your family. 

He hummed at your response not responding for a time until he was finished washing the brushes. “What are you doing tonight, Wheeler?” 

You looked at him in confusion in his direction. “Why?”

“I was...there’s a new movie out and I was curious about if you wanted to come watch it with me.” His question caused you to scoff as the bell rang around you, forcing you to put your brushes away while answering over your shoulder.

“You should be asking my sister, not me. Besides, I’m busy in Indianapolis.” Yes. You were still going to the show, your mom and dad told you it would be a good way for you to show them what you enjoyed doing, even if nothing was there for you to show. You tried arguing this morning, but neither of them would change their minds. 

Matt and Clare had you sandwiches between the two as they asked about your painting since you should be almost done, but you still weren’t focused on that. “How long has Harrington been in our art class?” 

“I would say...he’s been there the whole time, hasn't he, Clare?” Matt asked over your head.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. He’s always been tucked away in the back. Very quiet for Harrington.” Clare commented herself in his “odd” and quiet behavior. You nodded in sort of understanding, but you threw a look over your shoulder again, still curious as to why Harrington was asking you about seeing a movie. 

-----

“Mom, we really don’t need to do this. We can just go home and have a movie night or something.” This had been your comment the entire ride from Hawkins to the capital in your state. But they hadn’t listened to you and kept driving.

And with you now standing in front of the building that was advertising the show, you tried even harder to not have to go inside and they pushed ever more for you to go in. “Come on, even if you don't have anything to actually present, we want to see what gets you excited to paint.” Your mom spoke rather whimsically as she wrapped her hand under your dad’s arm and he escorted her into the building, you were trailing behind them. As much as you didn’t want to go inside, your mother always found a way of getting you places you didn’t want to be. 

Stepping into the door, you were welcomed to the warm environment of overhead lighting of candelabras, a cinnamony smell, and wooden floors that made the place feel homey and welcoming. A place you would gladly spend your Saturdays wandering between the lone pillars that held small statues, paintings on walls, different mediums of art you have never dabbled in but could appreciate.

“Come on, Y/N. Give us the tour of the place, what is everything?” Your dad looked to you with a smile. With a small huff, you looked around the room, to the other families of students whose art was on display, their art, and not your own, before you smiled back and started walking around with them. 

They asked questions about what everything they saw, what it meant, how did it look like that, why did they do this kind of medium instead of that. It was fun for you to see them so interested in what you enjoyed. Some of the questions they asked were out of your realm, like why they used more black than red in this painting, why were the flowers sculpted this way. “That’s just what the person wanted to do. Everybody puts their own spin on what they do.” 

The three of you were standing in front of a painting of what looked to be the Chicago skyline, with multi colors showing the sunset and stars beginning to appear in the sky. Really pretty painting, very simple but it caught the moment the sun disappeared behind the city. 

You enjoyed standing in front of the painting for several minutes, analyzing it, acknowledging the simplicity of the painting and its colors while also admiring this person’s work with blending paints to make three colors appear to be a rainbow. You had never been to Chicago yourself, but this painting brought you there. To your left you watched your parents move down to another display, but you kept yourself happy enjoying others work. 

“Beautiful.” Someone spoke next to you, the only other person who was standing in front of the painting with you; you looked over at the person and scoffed at seeing him. 

“You following me now, Harrington?” As much as you wanted to move away from him, you didn’t want his presence interrupting your enjoyment of a small thing you loved. “How’d you even find me?”

“I’m not following you; I just happen to enjoy looking at art. Or do I come off as too much of a douchebag for this kinda stuff?” Looking back over to Harrington, all you did was look at him. Watch him. He never answered how he found you and you really didn’t want to have him around you more than sneaking in and out of your room to get to Nancy.

“Still doesn’t explain how you got to this one.” You mumble to yourself as you found the painting now not as appealing as before and turned to follow after your parents, seeing a big group of people gathering around a small stand. 

“Wheeler, hey I wanted to talk to you about something.” Harrington was by your side again and walking over with you. His tall height allowed him to see over most of the people in front of the exhibit; once he saw what was on the other side of a sea of people, his eyes widened before a small smirk perked at his lips. “Wow.” He muttered before turning back to you. 

“Whatever you want Harrington, no. And...stop talking to me. Please.” Your heart was starting to pick up pace as you moved around the crowd, still away from him and a little closer to where your parents were at the center of this grouping.

He followed; it was getting annoying. “Come on, Y/N. I just wanted to talk to you. I mis-” You spun around, your hair and dress you were wearing flaring out around you as you turned back to look at him. 

“Don’t say that, Harrington. Me talking to you is the reason I am in this whole mess. So, stay away from me.” Something ran through you, you couldn’t tell if it was fury or anger, but a heavy emotion coursed through your veins as you stared at him. Your hands were fisted by your side and you hoped your glare would tell him to back off. “I don’t need Nancy hating me already more than she does. Just leave me alone.” Everything around you hurt, and nothing made sense. The art exhibits around you no longer were appealing; you were confused, and you didn’t know why. 

“Y/N, that’s what I need to say, if you would let me talk.” Harrington stepped towards you with his hand extended out to grab hold of your wrist and bring your hand forward. “Nancy and I are-”

“I know, you and Nancy are dating, that’s why I can’t talk to you.” As you spoke you tried pulling your hand away, but Harrington had a stronger hold than your weak pull could break. And after feeling his hand almost holding yours, you almost broke and let yourself enjoy this small moment. 

When you made the mistake of not pulling away harder, Harrington took a step closer to you, your feet were almost touching and he was so close you could smell his deodorant, or cologne, or whatever he used. Whatever it was, it smelt better than your little brother most days. “Y/N, if you would let me talk, I can tell you that Nancy and I are-”

“Why do you keep saying my name? You’ve always called me Wheeler and I’ve called you Harrington.” You took a step closer, even if it was small, and pressed your finger against his chest pokingly. “I call you Harrington because if I call you Steve, that makes me want to date you more. I want to be selfish and be the one that dates you. But I can’t because you are my sister’s boyfriend and she may hate me, but I respect her enough to not try and get with you. So please, just leave me alone.” You were practically begging him at this point, and you stepped away from him, moving to turn back to find your parents.

Forgetting that he was still holding on your hand, you groaned as he tugged you back around. Your beginning argument was cut short when you felt him press a kiss to your forehead. He left his lips against your rapidly heating up skin for a few seconds longer before he pulled away with a smile on his face. “Nancy and I aren’t dating anymore. I called it off after she…” He looked around for a second before he coughed and spoke again. “Let’s just say after I saw some true colors shining through.” 

You stared at him confused, watching him, waiting to see if there was anything you could tell you that he was lying to you, that this was all a ploy for him and Nancy to see that you are trying to steal him from her. “How...what?”

Before he could answer, you heard your name being called. “Y/N sweetheart.” You turned your head towards where you heard your mom’s voice before you looked back at Harrington. 

“I…I gotta go.” Taking a tentative step backwards, you kept your eyes on him as you slowly pulled your hand away from his. Once your hand was free from his grasp, you slowly turned away, letting the smile finally grow on your face. 

“Wheeler?” 

“Yes? Steve?” You tested out saying his name as you spun around quickly and looked at him. The feeling left you breathless and lightheaded. 

“When are you free this weekend? I wanted to see if you could draw me another picture.” His smile hadn’t left his face and neither had yours. 

Honestly you were feeling bashful at the attention and you couldn’t look at him without your heart skipping a little and the feeling that your smile wanted to get even bigger, so you looked at your feet as you answered. “I’m free this Saturday if you...wanna pick me up?”

Although you already knew the answer, you were excited to actually hear him say it; looking back up, he nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll come to your window to get you.” Your name was called again, breaking the small moment and you gave him a small wave before you turned around. 

Maybe it wasn’t so bad that you were here today. 

The crowd around that one piece had dissipated with your parents still at the front of it, both blocking it from our view as you mom looked at you with a smile. “Y/N. Can you tell me why this person painted these flowers with a…” Her words faded away as you came around her and saw what everyone had been staring at.

There it was. But how? Staring at it, you knew, you knew it was yours.

The dark red background, the faded white outlines of the ribcage, the heart, the beautiful red and pink muscles and veins running across the structure. It was all there. Even the big rip in the center was there. But it wasn’t as noticeable with the gorgeous bouquet of roses sticking through the hole, making the original painting of flowers look 3D now. Your jaw dropped at the sight of it being here, and just as gorgeous as you imagined it when you began working on it. 

“How did this get here?” Stepping past your parents, you went up to the stand it was sitting on and read the plaque next to it. Your name was there! “I thought you threw it out?” 

You felt your dad’s hand on your shoulder. “Now why would I throw something so beautiful and emotional away? You worked so hard on it that I wanted to add my own spin to it.” He did this.

“You...you did this, dad?” He gave you a nod, and you felt your mom’s hand on your opposite shoulder, you between the two of them as you three looked at your art piece. The piece you had been planning and working on for months now and was here, in the biggest student art gallery in Indiana. After Nancy, you never thought you could have gotten to see this. 

Tears quickly filled your eyes and started running down your face, but you didn’t move to wipe them away and instead moved to wrap your father in a tight hug. “Thank you.” You whisper to him, staring at what was before you as your mother enveloped you on your otherwise. “Thank you so much.” 

The moment to others just seemed to be a family enjoying this piece of work, a sweet moment. And it was, but to you, you have never felt so loved before. This wasn’t going to fix everything that ever happened to you in the past with your parents and your family, but this was a good start to changing thin. You didn’t need to forgive them for everything from before, but you knew that one day, just one day all the tears in your heart could be mended and your heart be as full as the painting before you. 

#steve #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington one shot #Mike Wheeler #Nancy wheeler #stranger things #stranger things season 3 #Stranger Things Season 1 #stranger things imagine #stranger things season 2 #joe keery

[hermionegranger56]

a v late recap of evermore

so i think Taylor Swift sensed that i was Going Through It and was like here you sad bitch, here’s another surprise album to help fix all that. cause good lord evermore is just what i (and i think we all) needed. i truly TRULY can’t believe we’re lucky enough to get a sister album to folklore, i love it so much. the first day it was out i drove myself 2 hours to the very end of the Cape and sat on an empty beach and cried to it and honestly??? magical. here are my thoughts on it that no one asked for:

first, as an overall here, this album complements folklore so well. it’s the spring to folklore’s autumn, it’s self-assured and warm and beautiful. each album shows off her lyrical genius so well and she only grows stronger here. when folklore came out, i was floored because the music was so different for her and so up my alley. each song’s production sucked me in and it was like she was confidently telling us “here is another genre i can work with” (masterfully at that). evermore feels different. it feels like Taylor is so comfortable in this creative space, she isn’t trying to fit into any new molds or expectations, she is just HERE, now, saying “this is who i am and this is my craft”. it’s really been a privilege to watch her grow as an artist. ok. here we go

willow:

god the video was so beautiful, a really good continuation of cardigan. the chorus is so so delicate and prettyyy, thats MY MAN ughhh its so good. it reminds me a lot of invisible string tbh, or if betty from cardigan grew up and found love. this is really one of my favorites, she starts so strong

fave lines: “the more that you say, the less i know/ wherever you stray I follow/ i’m begging for you to take my hand/ wreck my plans, that’s my man”; “life was a willow and it bent right to your wind”

champagne problems:

oh dear god, it’s if all too well and new years day had a baby and it is a MASTERPIECE. i can picture it all, college sweethearts, broken hearts, i feel like its new england at christmas, ivy league old money…its cinematic. and it gets at the feeling like you’ll never be good enough so you leave before that happens (basically before you get to the tolerate it stage??) and OOF. AND GODDAMN THE RANTING BRIDGE (illicit affairs came close on folklore but i think THIS might be the best bridge since All Too Well). I’ve screamed it a lot tbh

fave lines: BRIDGE BABYYYYYY EVERY SINGLE PERFECT WORD. WHAT A SHAME SHES FUCKED IN THE HEADDDD

gold rush:

this one is bright and lovely and catchy!! it reminds me a lot of mirrorball tbh, all like swirly and magical. i can’t even put it into words but i can see this one so clearly. its all rosy and golden

fave lines: “eyes like sinking ships on waters/ so inviting, i almost jump in”; “what must it be like to grow up that beautiful?/with your hair falling into place like dominoes/ I see me padding across your wooden floors/ with my Eagles t-shirt hanging from your door”; “the coastal town we wandered round/ had never seen a love as pure as it”; “my mind turns your life into folklore”

’tis the damn season:

UGH I FUCKING LOVE THIS ONE EVEN THOUGH IT MAKES ME WANNA TEXT MY EX. the melody is SOOOO satisfying, the progression to “write this down”, i’m obsessed. the idea of being home for the holidays and feeling a little lost and tired and nostalgic for what could have been is something superrrr relatable. this song reminds me of snowy drives around my hometown in the best/worst possible way hahah. one of my top 5 for sure.

fave lines: “we could call it even/ you could call me babe for the weekend/ tis the damn season, write this down/i’m staying at my parents house/ and the road not taken looks real good now”; “and wonder about the only soul/ who can tell which smiles i’m faking”

tolerate it:

oh honeyyyyy this track 5 packs a punch, i mean the lyrics are absolutely BRUTAL in the best way. it’s just so sad, and encompasses a lot of my own insecurity about always feeling like you’re more invested in a relationship and watching someone fall out of love or just stop caring. i LOVE the “my love should be celebrated, but you tolerate it”, like bitch YES your love should be celebrated. also taylor sounds angelic on the “I” at the start of the chorus

fave lines: “i know my love should be celebrated/ but you tolerate it”; “i made you my temple, my mural, my sky/ now i’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life”; “what would you do if I/break free and leave us in ruins/ took this dagger in me and removed it”

.

no body, no crime:

YESSSSSSSSS I LOVE THE SUBGENRE OF COUNTRY ABOUT WOMEN KILLING SHITTY HUSBANDS AND THIS SONG IS SO FUCKING GOOD AHHHHH!! I LOVE the beat, i love country taylor, i love the addition of HAIM. UGH ITS SO CATCHYYYY, like i’m obsessed with the slide from “i think he did it but i just. can’t. prove itttttt NOOO no body no crime” UGHHH this is without a doubt in my top five

fave lines: “she thinks i did it but she just can’t prove it”

happiness:

I heard this one described as an emotional marathon and holy shit it is, each line is a sucker punch. i really like how it feels like a conversation and looks at the acceptance and pain that mingle together when a relationship just…ends. her lyrics are unmatched on this album but this is a particularly strong track

fave lines: “i haven’t met the new me yet”; “when did all our lessons start to look like weapons/ pointed at my deepest hurt”; “there is a glorious sunrise/ dappled with the flickers of light/ from the dress i wore at midnight”

dorothea:

this one feels like Betty 2.0 and its so sweet and bright and also kinda sad. it’s wistful!! that’s the word i want, wistful! the vibe is gives off reminds me of Red, like musically. it’s home-y. idk if that makes sense but i like it a lot

fave lines: and if you’re ever tired of being known for who you know/ you know, you’ll always know me”

coney island:

ugh this one is magical, i honestly really love the instrumental to this one, it’s so soothing. the lyrics to me feel like you’re in some dream state, going through every heartbreak you’ve ever been through. I love the addition of The National, the vocals fit together so well (and I like it better than both Bon Iver features i think??)

fave lines: do you miss the rogue/ who coaxed you into paradise and left you there/ will you forgive my soul/ who you’re too wise to trust me and too old to care?”

ivy:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (that’s how i feel about this absolute masterpiece oh my GOD) it makes me so incandescently happy, the folk feel, the lyrics that are so cinematic and poetic and paint such a clear picture (to me) of two Victorian lovers who are in unhappy marriages but don’t let that stop their love. the chorus just like….fills my whole chest, the OH GODDAMN hits so different. and i want “my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand” tattooed on me, that is one of her BEST lines and i will die on that hill. its all so pretty, i can’t deal. the vibe also strongly reminds me of a) invisible string and b) Little Women (2019). i think taylor should do folk and uhhhh only folk please

fave lines: EVERY WORD BUT ESPECIALLY: “i’d meet you where the spirit meets the bone/ in a faith forgotten land”; “oh goddamn/ my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand/ taking mine, but its been promised to another/ oh, i can’t/ stop you putting roots in my dreamland/ my house of stone, your ivy grows/ and now I’m covered in you”; “he wants what’s only yours”; “clover blooms in the field/ springs breaks loose, time is near“; ”so yeah, it’s a fire/ its a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it”

cowboy like me:

ALL RIGHT everyone sleeps on this song but oh my GOD its so good!! it’s smooth and dreamy and gives me that old fashioned, bonnie and clyde type love story and some of the lyrics are so poetic. I really love the addition of the Tim McGraw chords too???? BUT DEAR GOD COULD WE HAVE GIVEN MARCUS MUMFORD MORE OF A ROLE HERE??!! HE SOUNDS WONDERFUL, GIVE HIM A FEATURE, GIVE HIM A WHOLE VERSE. THIS IS A FOLK ALBUM TAYLOR, USE FUCKING MUMFORD AHHHH (i fucking love him omg)

fave lines: “dancin’ is a dangerous game”; “you’re a bandit like me/ eyes full of stars”; “now you hang from my lips/ like the Gardens of Babylon/ with your boots beneath my bed/ forever is the sweetest con”

long story short:

A BOP!! GIVE ME SOME HAPPINESS TAYLOR WOO! I really love how catchy this one is. it feels like her introducing the craziness of her life to joe and being like look all of that was tough but here i am now and I couldn’t be happier. It’s refreshing, self-deprecating and endearing. I couldn’t love it more and it is ALWAYS stuck in my head!

fave lines: “and he’s passing by/ rare as the glimmer of a comet in the sky”; “long story short I survived”

marjorie:

ha hahah hah ha this one ENDS me, like dear LORD i need to call my grandma immediately. it is so so GOOD and SAD, like the you don’t know how good something or someone is until they’re gone, but even then, they’re still there with you. I love the grandma wisdom of “never be so clever you forget to be kind” etc. and holy SHIT the addition of Taylor’s grandmother’s opera singing as background vocals is GENIUS AND DEVASTATING, god the part where she goes “i’d think you were singing with me now” and then Marjorie comes in is honestly one of the most beautiful musical moments i’ve heard in a hot minute and it breaks me every time. wow.

fave lines: “never be so polite/ you forget your power/ never wield such power/ you forget to be polite”; “the autumn chill that wakes me up/ you loved the amber sky so much”; “and if i didn’t know better/ i’d think you were singing to me now”

closure:

ok i’m sorry, this is my only skip here. I really do love the lyrics and the idea of, yeah no you don’t deserve closure from me. i just can’t get past the pots and pans beginning, its too chaotic. but i’m sure it’ll grow on me! it does feel like finally moving on and i do love that about it

fave lines: “don’t treat me like/ some situation that needs to be handled”; “i know i’m just a/ wrinkle in your new life/ staying friends would/ iron it out so nice”

evermore:

god her voice is SO soothing in this one, it’s literally hypnotic. the song itself feels wandering and dark at first, like you’re stuck in this depression, and then bon iver comes in and it picks up and it feels like coming out of the trees, into the sunlight and finding your way again. finding that the pain WOULDNT be for evermore like she says. it feels like an ending and a beginning. beautiful

fave lines: “writing letters/ addressed to the fire”; “and when i was shipwrecked/ i thought of you/ in the cracks of light/ i dreamed of you”; “and i was catching my breath/ floors of the cabin creaking under my step/ and i couldn’t be sure/ i had a feeling so peculiar/ this pain wouldn’t be for evermore”

#taylor swift #evermore #tswift #evermore album #willow #champagne problems

[thejolexgroupchat]

the one where they met in med school - part five

Jo is going through something and Alex is going to figure out what it is

Check out our Master List for parts 1-4 as well as other jolex fics we've been working on!

———

(May 2007)

Seattle Grace is a disaster zone full of lovesick, horny patients and doctors. It’s like Alex cannot turn a corner without finding someone hooking up or getting hit on. At first, he thinks he’s imagining things because there’s no way that Doctor Montgomery is staring at him like he’s a fresh piece of meat and she’s a hungry lion. They see each other almost everyday as he helps Ava recover and everyday the woman stares him down like she wants to jump him.

And that’s another thing, he was pretty sure that Ava is trying to hit on him too. He knew he was good looking and that his rare soft side has been on full display lately, but for fuck’s sake even his patients? Ava  was easier to handle than Addison, but both women were giving him a run for his money.

“You know, I think she’s trying to get in your pants,” Ava’s voice startled him as he looked up from her chart, brows furrowing as he looked at her. “Doctor Montgomery. She keeps looking at you with those sex eyes, like if I wasn’t here she’d be all over you.”

Well at least he isn’t crazy… Alex heaved a sigh and closed the chart, meeting Ava’s eyes with a smirk, “She can stare all she wants, I am off the market and not interested in one of my superiors dragging me into a supply closet for a quick hookup.”

He could tell Ava was shocked. Who in this death trap isn’t by the fact that Doctor Evil Spawn is tied down? She paused for a moment before a laugh came out, eyes falling to her hands that lay over her swollen belly, “Figures, I knew you were too handsome to be single. Does she work here too? It seems like everyone in this hospital is screwing.”

“No she’s back in Boston, she’ll be here in a few weeks though,” just saying the words out loud makes Alex’s heart flutter. Both Jo and Lexie had been accepted to the next class of interns at Seattle Grace, meaning that as soon as they walked across the stage in June they’d be flying across the country to Seattle. “It’s been too damn long, we’ve been doing long distance for almost a year now.”

“A year? Do you see her ever? I’m sure you’re super busy here,” Ava seemed genuinely curious about Alex and Jo’s relationship, a refreshing take compared to his friends that only asked if he was getting laid or not.

“Yeah we’ve both been out to see each other a few times. I just went there in March actually. It’s not enough, though. It’s not the same,” his mind now occupied with thoughts of his girlfriend, Alex said goodbye to Ava and left her room. He wasn’t even through the doorway of an on-call room before he dialed Jo’s number and waited for her to answer. “Hey you, how’s your day?”

“Fine.”

The one word answer stopped Alex’s heart. Usually, Jo was more than ready to rant about classes or tell him something exciting that she saw on campus. Instead, her monotone voice and lack of words scared him.

So he did the only thing he could think of and decided to call Lexie. The phone went to voicemail twice before it was answered, “Alex what’s going? I’m at work.”

“What’s wrong princess? Bad day?”

“No it’s just been long,” Jo sighed, her voice seeming even further away. “I have a headache, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry babe, if it makes you feel better, one of my patients thinks that my boss is trying to screw me,” Alex’s voice was light hearted as he tried to cheer Jo up, but her frustrated sigh on the other end of the line told him that she didn’t find the situation amusing. “Look, I’m sorry. I thought it was a funny story but-”

“Hey, Lexie. I’m sorry, but is Jo okay?”

“What?” Lexie scrunched her face. “That’s why you’re calling me? I have to get back to the lab.”

“Don’t hang up! It’s just… I called her a few minutes ago and she was acting weird. She was giving me short answers and then she hung up on me. She sounded stressed and nervous. Not school stressed either. I’m worried,” Alex explained.

“I know you two have been together for years, but it still kind of freaks me out whenever I hear you talk like this… Now that you mention it though, Jo has been acting off. Normally she’s really chatty in the evenings, but lately she’s been distracted.”

"Did something happen?" Alex asked.

"Not that I know of… should I get off work early and go check on her?"

"No, it's fine. I'll take care of it. Thanks Lexie," Alex hung up the phone and decided to look for Bailey.

“I gotta go, I’ll call you later,” the line went dead before Alex could say anything else, leaving him to stare down at the phone in his hands in shock. No matter how angry or upset his girlfriend has been she’d never hung up on him like that, not even during their big blowout fight a few weeks before.

After a few minutes of running around the hospital, he finally found Bailey sitting behind the nursing station giving Izzie some instructions about a patient's post-op care, "Dr. Bailey can I speak with you for a moment?"

"Say what you need to say, Karev. Stevens and I are very busy today. I don't have time to waste," Bailey replied without looking up from her charts.

Alex looked up at Izzie who just shrugged and motioned for him to speak, "I need the rest of the day off, the next few days actually."

Bailey looked up from the chart she was writing in, an unimpressed expression on her face, "Excuse me?"

"I know we're swamped and I'm on Ava's case, but I really just need a couple days. There's been a family emergency and I need to catch the next flight to Boston," Alex looked at Bailey expectantly.

"Is everything okay?" Izzie asked, concerned.

"I don't know. I couldn't really get a lot of information over the phone, but I need to get to Boston as soon as possible. Please," Alex waited for a couple seconds for Dr. Bailey's response.

"You are lucky I like you," Bailey mumbled. "Go Karev, get out of here. You have three days. Call me if it's really bad and you need more."

Alex nodded in thanks and ran to the locker room to collect his things. By the time he arrived at the airport, an hour had passed since he left the hospital. He ran up to the ticket counter and asked for the next flight to Boston. It was pricey, but the plane would leave in an hour, meaning Alex had to be quick if he wanted to make it in time for boarding.

The rest of the time in between him getting to Boston was a blur. When his plane touched down, it was midnight on the east coast. He called a cab and hopped in, giving them Jo’s address. It was 12:37am when he finally arrived. Alex walked up the steps to the apartment and knocked on the door. There was a shuffling on the inside before the door opened.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jo’s eyes widened as she opened the door. She looked like shit, her eyes were red and puffy and she was dressed in one of Alex’s dark blue flannels and some pajama shorts.

“I was worried about you, you didn’t sound okay when I called,” Alex watched Jo’s bottom lip tremble as she held back tears, his hands coming up to hold her shoulders as she looked up at her. “Jo, what’s wrong?”

Jo tried to open her mouth to say something, but no words came out. Instead a sob broke from her throat, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks as Alex pulled her into his embrace. His hands rubbed her back slowly as he attempted to quiet her sobs.

“Jo what’re you- Alex? What the hell,” Alex looked up and met Lexie’s eyes behind Jo, hers softening as she glanced at her friend who was still crying. “She wouldn’t tell me anything, she’s been crying on and off since I got home.”

“Come on babe, let’s get you to bed,” Alex pulled back from Jo just long enough to hook his arms under her legs so he could carry her to her bedroom. She made no protests as she nuzzled further into Alex’s chest, her silence throwing him off as they settled into bed together. “I’ll be here in the morning, you just sleep.”

Jo’s sobs had turned into sniffles as she pressed her face into the crook of Alex’s neck. She was never a big cuddler when they would sleep together, most of the time Alex would be fighting her for room on the mattress as she starfished across it. That’s how Alex could tell something wasn’t right, the way that Jo was curled up into a ball pressed as close to him as possible told him everything he needed to know.

Somewhere around 3am, Alex felt Jo poke him in the side. He opened his eyes and looked at the face of the woman he loved only to find her usual joyful demeanor replaced with one of fear. He watched as Jo took a deep breath, “We need to go to the store.”

“The store? For what? Jo, it’s three in the morning. Is anything even open right now?” Alex furrowed his brow.

“There’s a twenty-four hour CVS a couple blocks away,” Jo lifted her head from its place on Alex’s chest and moved to get out of bed. “I just really need to get something from the store.”

“Jo, the store can wait. We can go in a few hours,” Alex tried reasoning with her.

“It can’t wait!” Jo exclaimed as tears began to trickle down her face again. “It can’t wait Alex. We need to go right now.”

“Okay, we’ll go now. Just calm down for me,” Alex placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to get dressed. Give me two minutes.”

By the time they arrived at CVS, it was 3:23am. Alex made a move to exit the car when Jo placed a hand on his arm, “No! Stay here. I’ll go alone.”

“What? No, Jo it’s three in the morning. I’m not letting you go into the store alone,” Alex protested.

“There’s nobody here. I will be fine,” Jo opened the car door. “Besides, I know how to take care of myself. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Alex was extremely confused. He had no idea what the hell was wrong with his girlfriend, but he knew it wasn’t good. In the years he’d known her, Alex had never seen her like this. He tried racking his brain for any possible thing that could’ve led her to acting like this but he came up blank.

Jo entered the car with a plastic bag in her hands, breaking him from his thoughts. He looked over at her, “You good?”

“Yeah,” Jo’s voice and face despondent. “Just drive the car.”

“Okay…”

As they walked back into her apartment, Alex gave Jo a worried look. She’d been silent the entire car ride and Alex basically had to drag her up the stairs to the apartment. He sighed, “Jo, come on. It’s been hours since I got here and you still haven’t told me anything. I left the hospital early and asked for the next three days off because I know you are not okay. I know something is wrong and I’m worried about you. Please, I love you. I am here. Let me help you.”

Wiping a couple stray tears from her face, Jo pulled Alex into the bathroom and locked the door. She handed him the bag containing what she’d just purchased from CVS.

Alex’s eyes widened as he removed what was inside the bag, “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Jo swallowed nervously. She leaned against the sink and closed her eyes. “Now you know why I’m acting so weird… I’m freaking out here, Alex.”

Alex looked from the unopened pregnancy test box in his hand back to Jo, “It’s okay. Everything is going to be fine Jo. You’re going to take the test and I’m going to be right here the entire time. I’m not going anywhere, no matter what this test says.”

“Can you just… go in the hallway while I pee,” Jo’s voice was quiet and far away as she looked up at Alex. Their eyes met and they both took in the same expression of fear that the other wore.

Alex nodded and left the bathroom, sliding down the wall of the hallway as he waited for what seemed to be forever for Jo to finish. His mind was racing, heart hammering in his chest as he played the last two months over in his head. If Jo was… it had to have happened when he came out in March. They’d been careful, they were always careful, but the trip had been short and sweet and they’d spent most of their time in bed.

“It says wait three minutes,” Alex is startled out of his train of thought by Jo’s voice, her figure now standing in front of him with a solemn expression. She had thrown on one of his Iowa State sweatshirts in her haste to get out the door, the fabric hanging loosely off her body as she sat on the ground and dragged herself into Alex’s waiting arms. “I’m scared, Alex.”

“Hey if it is positive you’re already heading to Seattle in a few weeks anyways. We can work it out,” Alex brushed his fingers through Jo’s hair as he pulled her close, his lips pressing into her forehead. “I love you, no matter what happens I’m always gonna love you.”

Jo nodded her head, but didn’t speak anymore. Alex felt terrible, she’d probably been carrying this around for a few days by herself while he was clueless on the other side of the country. The past year had been hell on earth for him, but he took a little comfort in the fact that in just a few short weeks they’d be waking up next to each other again.

“I’m late, like stupid late, and I haven’t been able to keep food down all week,” Jo’s voice was muffled as she pressed herself further in Alex’s chest, his fingers rubbing against her back in slow circles as her breathing became more erratic. “I’m so freaking stupid, I can’t believe this. I’m so dumb.”

Brows furrowed, Alex looked down at his girlfriend in worry. He’d never seen her this upset about something, leading him to believe that an unexpected pregnancy wasn’t the only thing clouding her mind at the moment, “You’re not stupid, I was there too. If anything I’m the stupid one.”

Jo sniffled, one hand coming up to wipe at her cheeks as she met Alex’s gaze. He’d never seen her so devoid of emotion, her face blank as she blinked up at him, “I’m ruining your life. I should’ve just let you go to Seattle without being tied to me because now you’re gonna be stuck with me and all this shit. You don’t deserve any of this.”

Alex’s face softened, his hands coming up to cradle Jo’s face tenderly. She was sitting here waiting for the results of a pregnancy test and she was worried about him instead of herself.

“Babe, you didn’t ruin anything, you never could. I’m not here because you’re forcing me to, I’m here because I want to be and because I love you,” brushing back her hair, Alex leaned his forehead against Jo’s. “No matter what happens, nothings going to change how I feel about you. Okay?”

“Can… Can you go look? Please.”

Rising from the floor, Alex walked into the bathroom and stared down at the three tests laying across the counter. Hands braced on the countertop, he let out a sigh as he looked back to Jo.

“Negative. All three are negative.”

Jo released the breath she had been holding, “Oh thank God… okay… okay.”

Alex stood silent for a moment and watched as Jo allowed a few tears to slide down her face. He crouched down next to her, one of the tests in his hands, “See. They’re negative. You’re probably just stressed about finals. It’s all good, we’re okay.”

“I’m relieved that it’s negative. I really am. We can’t handle this right now,” Jo spoke after a couple moments of silence. She looked up at Alex, eyes shining with unshed tears. “But… Is it wrong that I’m a little disappointed, though?”

Alex raised his eyebrows in surprise at her words. He and Jo never really talked about kids. It wasn’t something that was on either one of their radars. They were content with just the two of them. Alex had always assumed that he and Jo would be together until one or both of them died from old age. He didn’t need anything other than to have her by his side.

On top of all that, he didn’t think Jo wanted kids. Neither of them had very good upbringings, but Jo definitely had it worse than he did. Even though she’d never verbalized it, he knew she was afraid of being a bad mom to their hypothetical child. He supposed it was similar to the fear he had about being a horrible father, given his own history with crappy dads.

Alex's mouth twitched slightly, "It's not wrong. There's nothing wrong with feeling disappointed."

"I know, but we've never talked about it," Jo shrugged one shoulder. "I didn't even know I wanted it until just now. I've never thought about it. I've always assumed that I'd never find someone who'd want to do that with me."

That's when Alex understood. Even after three years, Jo still expected that one day he'd leave her. She thought that one day, he'd find someone better—as if that person existed—and she'd be alone. Jo didn't understand the concept of forever, she'd never had anyone stick around. It was a bit of a wake up call for him. Alex realized that he'd never been clear with his intentions.

“I guess this is my fault,” Alex rubbed the back of his neck and took a deep breath. “I’ve never said my intentions out loud because I thought they were all so obvious. I didn’t think they needed to be vocalized, but I’m not going anywhere. This ‘someone who would want to do that with you’ you thought you’d never find is me, Jo. I want it all with you. You are my home, and I never wanna go anywhere without you, do you hear me?”

Alex lifted Jo’s chin to make sure she was looking into his eyes. He noticed hers were full of tears and knew it was probably because nobody had ever said that to her before. Pulling her closer, he placed a kiss on her head, “And you don’t need to feel guilty about being disappointed.”

He moved his head so their foreheads touched, “Someday, when the right time comes, we’re gonna have a family to call our own. Until then, it’ll be just us, but we won’t need anybody else. We’re the only family we need, right? You and me,” Alex smiled, earning a smile and a chuckle from her. “We’re gonna have it all, Jo” he said.

“Someday,” Jo looked at him from the corner of her eyes with a shy smile.

Alex pulled her into a meaningful kiss, “Someday.”

#jolex #jolex fanfic #jo wilson #alex karev #keeping the fandom alive #jolex forever #jolex au #grey's anatomy #grey's anatomy fanfic #miranda bailey #lexie grey #jolexie #izzie stevens #pregnancy scare #fluff #future talks #someday #grey's anatomy au #grey's anatomy fanfiction #rebecca pope #addison montgomery #jo karev #jo x alex #i will go down with this ship #grey's fanfic #med school #the one where they met in med school

[shinsorokiri]

UA Idol | Chapter Ten

Hitoshi Shinsou x Reader

Word Count: 2,417

Warnings: Language

A/N: And we’re at Hell Week! Sorry this chapter took a little longer to get out, I was driving back from my parents house to my apartment and it was all very chaotic and hectic, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless! What do you think everyone’s gonna sing next week >:)

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Arriving at the hotel was... intimidating. It’s very fancy, and you are a college student. Mina, on the other hand, was thriving. “Oh my GOD (Y/n), we have a MINI FRIDGE!”

“LOOK AT THE BALCONY!!”

“Do you think Zendaya has ever been here? I would sell my soul to know if she stayed in this room.”

All of her little outbursts were intensely amusing, but you were too busy deciding on what you should wear to the first day of Hell Week. Luckily, the flight landed at six in the morning Los Angeles time, and since you had slept for almost the whole flight, you felt good to go. Also, if you would get to live shows, this is probably something you’re gonna need to get used to. “Okay, so this black, or this slightly blue tinted black?” you ask, holding up a few articles of clothing. Mina sighs, shaking her head before walking over to you. “(Y/n), sweetie, just wear whatever you want! You’re going to look good regardless.”

“But we’ll be on television, Mina, not everyone can look as effortlessly perfect as you can,” you say, sighing. “You’re right, there’s only a few people who are at my level. Luckily, you’re one of them. Just wear the outfit you planned to wear before we even got to LA. It’s cute as hell and it captures your personality perfectly.” She picks up the clothes you’d planned to wear and tosses them at you. She was right, you did look great in that outfit, and you don’t even know why you worried in the first place. Overthinking at its finest, you guess. “Oh, but if you need help with any other outfit, you know damn well I will help you. Now, let’s go! Time for Hell Week, bitch!”

She grabs your arm and basically drags you down to the lobby, where you two run into Shinsou and Denki. “Are you guys excited?!” Denki basically shrieks, and Mina, in return, also screams. You and Shinsou glance at each other, the pure exhaustion radiating off of you two. You both have an unspoken conversation of “How the hell do we do this” This causes both of you to break out into a grin. How cute. “Shinsou, (Y/n), hurry! We need to get to the theater!” Mina screams, grabbing both of your arms and dragging you outside of the hotel to the cars waiting to take the contestants away. The four of you pile into one of them where you find two other people. There’s a red head with an infectious smile and a blonde guy with an infectious frown. Interesting. “Hi! I’m Kirishima Eijirou!” the red-head takes no time in introducing himself as the car starts to drive to your next location. “Kaminari Denki, but you can just call me Denki.”

“Oh, and I’m Mina!”

“Uh… just Mina?” Kirishima asks, and she nods. “Well I mean my family name is Ashido, but I go by Mina. And this is (Y/f/n) and that’s Shinsou Hitoshi!” Mina introduces the two of you where wave. “Awesome! This is my boyfriend Ba-“

“Bakugo Katsuki. Shut up, shitty hair, you know you’ve had a scratchy throat for the past two days don’t fuck your chances before you even get there, dumbass,” the blonde growls, reprimanding Kirishima. Though his words are harsh, Kirishima just smiles. “Awww look at you. Worrying about me.”

“OI! I SAID SHUT UP!”

“You said… boyfriends? Are you sure, Bakugo seems more like an angry… mom?” Denki says, and Kirishima laughs while basically holding Bakugo back in his seat. Weird dynamic. Cute dynamic, but weird dynamic. Mina and Denki engage in conversation with Kirishima, and you and Shinsou give your input every once and a while but you let them just talk to each other. Bakugo keeps screaming about Kirishima needs to rest his voice, and eventually Kirishima says Bakugo needs to rest his voice because of all the unnecessary damn screaming he’s been doing. You feel your phone buzz in your pocket, and when you look at it you realize it’s a text from Shinsou. “i’m not saying we should have gotten in a different car to get some peace and quiet, but i’m saying we should have gotten in a different car to get some peace and quiet”

You smile to yourself before shooting back a quick, “you’re right, we sabotaged ourselves how tragic” to which you see Shinsou grin at before looking back at you. “Hey wait! You didn’t tell me y’all were a couple!” you hear Kirishima’s voice interrupt whatever little moment the two of you were having, and you both immediately turn red. You start stuttering out an explanation to him. “What? we aren’t…”

“Yeah, no we’re just-”

“Friends!”

“Yeah, friends!” Shinsou says, clearing his throat and awkwardly looking out the window. “Yeah right. And Kirishima and I didn’t join the mile-high club on our flight here,” Bakugo grumbles, and it’s Kirishima’s turn to turn as red as his hair. “Katsuki!”

“Oh, wow would you look at that?! We’re here!” Shinsou, uncharacteristically, screams when you pull up to the theater where you’ll all be performing. You and Shinsou get out of the car, speed-walking away from all the relationship talk. “Sorry about them,” Mina says to Kirishima, who looks genuinely confused. “They both just hate the idea of relationships even though, you know, they’re cute as hell together,” Denki explains and Kirishima slowly nods. “Well... I am willing to help them realize they actually like each other.”

“Wait, seriously?” Mina smiles, already excited when Kirishima nods, grinning just as big as she is. “Oh my god HELL YES!”

“Stop screaming Raccoon Eyes! Anyone ever tell you to let up on the eyeliner. We need to go inside,” Bakugo grabs Kirishima’s arm and starts dragging him in. “Oh my god, Denki, I’m in, he gave me a mean nickname,” Mina whispers to Denki excitedly before chasing after the two guys they just became fast friends with. Well friends with Kirishima. Bakugo is... still undetermined.

When they get inside, they find the two of you sitting next to each other in the corner of the many chairs set up in the theater lobby avoiding everyone else. “You know, I really thought some of my social skills would rub off on him. Tragic,” Denki says as they all make their way over to you. You glance up from your phone to see them walking over and you give a small wave. “A wave? That’s all we get after you literally sprinted away from us like we had an infectious disease?” Mina says, and you shrug. “Sprinted away from you guys? I have no recollection of that.”

“And I’m sure Tosh has no idea either,” Denki says, and Shinsou grins at him, shaking his head no. Denki and Mina groan, sitting next to you along with Kirishima and Bakugo. Of course, Bakugo was complaining that they were sitting next to you “extras” and Kirishima kept laughing it off and saying he was all bark and no bite. For some reason, you didn’t believe he was all bark and no bite. In fact, you think he was mostly bite and the bark came as a warning beforehand, but Kirishima was his owner and as long as he was around, he wouldn’t actually hurt anyone. Thanks, Kirishima. You watched as people from all around piled into the room. Some, you could tell, were California natives or had at least lived there for a long enough time to put off that energy. Others were definitely from other places all around the world, and it was really interesting to see. Also, terrifying. There were a lot of people here. And they were all after the same thing you were. It would take a miracle to actually get through Hell Week and onto the live shows. You feel your phone buzz again, and you look down at it. ‘don’t worry kitten you’re gonna kill it.’

You glance over at Shinsou who gives you a quick little wink before sending a thumbs up and smiley face to you. You can’t help but smile at that. Crazy how he knew how to cheer you up so fast. Especially since y’all didn’t meet that long ago. Guess you were just meant to be best friends.

“Oh, it looks like everyone is here,” Mina says, glancing around. Sure enough, the entire room was full. All the empty seats you saw when you came in were occupied with other people now. And that’s when a producer comes out and tells everyone to quiet down because the judges would be out soon. And cue everyone getting excited and nervous again. “I can’t wait to see what Midnight is wearing. She always looks so good,” Mina says, and Kirishima nods. “I know! It’s always so funny to see what she’s wearing compared to Aizawa.”

“Yeah if there was anyone who embodied not giving a fuck, it is Aizawa Shouta that’s for sure,” Denki says and Mina and Kirishima laugh. “Don’t you idiots think it’s a bad idea to talk about the judges when they could hear you,” Bakugo snaps and Kirishima pats his hand. “It’s okay, Katsu, I think Aizawa would take it as a compliment.” Bakugo rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything else. That’s when the four judges walk out, and everyone goes quiet. That is of course until Present Mic starts yelling into the camera and doing his job as the best MC in entertainment. He goes on his welcome to Hell Week rant as the UA Idol makeup artists touch up the judges. Even Aizawa gets some make-up put on him, and no. No, he does not look like he enjoys that at all. “And here come the judges to let our contestants know just what is happening this year during Hell Week,” PM finishes out his, well, monologue, basically, and the cameras all turn to the judges. “Hi everyone!” Midnight says, waving to everyone. Mina was right. She does look pretty damn good. I mean it’s hard to not look good when you look like her, especially since she’s wearing an all-black bodysuit that accentuates every curve. As expected, Aizawa is also wearing all black but it’s literally a baggy long sleeve shirt and baggy black jeans. Of course, Toshinori is wearing a suit, and Keigo is wearing quite possibly the most stylish lazy outfit you could ever see. Icons, honestly. “So, welcome to Hell Week, as you know it’s called Hell Week for a reason. The reason being it always changes. The only constant being the group challenge. Other than that, you all have no idea what is about to come,” Aizawa says, and Toshinori sighs. “Aizawa why do you insist on scaring them?”

“They need to know fear. No recording artist would be anything without fear.”

“Whatever you say you absolute sadist. Anyways, we’re here to tell you the first part of Hell Week, which will be starting in about,” Keigo glances at his phone and smiles. “Twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes?!” you hear Mina whisper to herself, and sure enough a lot of the other people in the room are taken aback as well. You’re not too surprised, they don’t call it Hell Week for nothing. “The first challenge is what we like to call the genre challenge. If you remember, when you signed up to audition in your respective cities, you also signed up for a specific genre. We had the options of pop, rock, hip hop, r&b, country, and singer-songwriter. You’ll be reminded which one you put, and if you believe your style has drastically changed, you can switch to a new genre. You have to pick a song and put your own twist on it, show us your style shine through even in your specific genre. Oh, and if you’d want to show us some original songs... I guess that would be okay, too,” Keigo explains, and shoots a glance over at you and Shinsou. The two of you look at each other, and grin. Originals? Easy.

“Right, so pop is first since there’s so many people who are signed up for that genre. We’ll give you all about ten minutes to gather yourselves, then everyone will go into the theater. You’ll also be watching everyone, time for you all to scope out your competition,” Aizawa says as he begins to walk into the theater. “Remember though, you all made it here for a reason! Even if you don’t make it through, you all have potential to be stars!” Toshinori adds, trying to make this entire situation a little less stressful. You really wish it worked. The judges enter into the theater, and then the assigned genre you signed up for is sent to you in a text message. Singer-songwriter. Still the same. “Damnit, (Y/n), why couldn’t I have put singer-songwriter like you! There has to be so many people in the pop genre...” Mina says, frowning. “Yeah there’s a lot, but none of them are quite like you,” you reassure her, and she smiles at you. “You’re the best even though you hate me most of the time.”

“Hey Kirishima, what genre are you?” Denki asks and he grins sheepishly. “I’m pop, too.”

“Told you you should have gone into rock with me, dumbass.”

“I don’t have the voice for that like you do Katsuki, that would be wrong on so many levels,” Kirishima pouts and Bakugo sighs, wrapping his arm around him. “Listen, idiot. You’re just as good if not better than everyone else in this room. You have nothing to worry about.” This caused Kirishima to smile and kiss his boyfriend’s cheek. Wow so Bakugo did have the ability to be supportive and cute. Who would have thought?

“Well hey, you, me, and Mina are about to kill this, dude. What song are you thinking of singing?” Denki asks as you all walk into the theater. “I’m not totally sure.”

“Well you know what I say, when in doubt look to Harry Styles.”

“Thank you for that wise statement, Denki,” Shinsou says sarcastically, and Denki gives him finger guns. “Well, good luck you guys. We’ll be over here where all the singer-songwriters are,” you say, grabbing Shinsou’s arm and going to your assigned section in the theater. “Time to scope out the competition,” Shinsou says after you both sit down. “Yeah. Luckily singer-songwriters go last, so let’s just sit back and observe,” you say. This is gonna be fun.

#shinsou x reader #hitoshi shinsou x reader #shinso x reader #hitoshi shinso x reader #my hero academia x reader #mha x reader #bnha x reader #boku no hero x reader #shinsou #hitoshi shinsou #shinso #hitoshi shinso #my hero academia #mha #bnha shinsou #boku no hero academia #anime #ua idol

[eury--dice]

history, huh?

chapter 2: prope

(check the rb for chapter 1 on tumblr + ao3 links!)

Blue’s gum popped loudly on the other line. Adam couldn’t remember the last time he saw her chew gum, but somehow it seemed fitting that she picked up the habit then, with him overseas. “Any weird paintings?”

“I’m legally obligated not to tell you,” Adam replied, flicking his eyes over a textbook. He scanned his eyes over a page, but the fonts and colors all blurred together, creating a grey and red mass of string in front of him instead of a helpful breakdown of France’s pre-revolution economy. His phone, propped up on a tiny potted fern, revealed Blue Sargent in all of her early-evening glory. He wondered what the tabloids might think of her like this: her thick and short black hair held back by clashing vibrant hair clips, dressed in one of Gansey’s old Aglionby sweaters she converted into a halter top, felt-tip pen ink somehow smudged on her cheek. There was something wonderfully grounding about her familiar chaos.

“Contracts are a suggestion and nothing more.”

“Don’t let your mother hear that. She’ll have us both thrown in jail.” Ronan’s words from earlier popped into his head, but he had the luxury of ignoring them with the prince out of sight, and so he did. 

“C’mon, Adam, you know she’s a softie. You’re in Kensington Palace. You have to tell me something exciting.”

Adam scrounged for something to tell her. He glanced around his room again, still caught off-guard by how much it felt like a castle. Admittedly, he didn’t have a great reference for what castles were supposed to feel like; the only other castle he had been in was the Bishop Palace on a tour with his mother at age eight. His hair raised on end at random moments here the same way it did then, the draftiness leaving him feeling exposed and vulnerable. He couldn't quite shake the idea that someone was watching him, caught between air molecules and screaming for someone to hear them. The White House sometimes gave him the same feeling. Realistically, he knew people passed over every spot on the earth and nothing made the walls of the White House or Kensington Palace any different in that regard. But the history in them intimidated him. The presence of greats, from founding fathers to celebrity politicians to monarchs, was a guarantee rather than a possibility. He couldn’t help but feel watched by them, feel their expectations and disappointment thick in the air.

Living there all the time as Ronan did must be lonely, surrounded only by ghosts. 

He pushed his feet against the floor, leaning back in his chair so that it balanced on two legs. His leg swung back and forth to dully hit the wooden underside of the seat while the other braced him. Adam didn’t quite want to tell Blue any of that. He knew she would understand, both because she was Blue and because her family was a big believer in the supernatural and psychic. But he didn’t know how to say it without a long-winded rant. “There’s a coat of armor outside my room,” he admitted in a low tone. “I’ve been waiting for it to twitch its finger and beckon me closer.”

“I’m sure if you ask nicely it will let you pursue your weird metal fantasies.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Adam said without heat, finally flipping the textbook shut. “No kink-shaming over the phone.”

“I watched the Wizard of Oz with you at age eight, Adam. You can’t hide your reaction to the Tin Man from me.”

Adam rubbed his eyes. “I need ice cream to deal with this bullying,” he announced, standing from the borrowed desk and snatching his phone up.

“Aw, at least I know that the English haven’t been able to suck all the life out of you if you’re complaining and want ice cream.”

“They haven’t managed it yet, but we’re only one photo op in.”

“Well, if the excess of British does manage to sideline you, let me know. I know Gansey will want the heads-up for the tabloids.”

“As long as you don’t feed them headlines again, I’d be happy to.” Adam rounded the corner into the spacious kitchen reserved for guests of the Crown. He’d roll his eyes at the needless expense if the White House didn’t provide the exact same accommodations. 

“I’m telling you again, I know nothing of the allegation.”

Adam gave her a flat look. “Who else would pen ‘First Son Denies Fur Son Residence in the Residence?’ Besides the obvious reason for it being bad, it was clearly you.”

Blue blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Sometimes I hate your intimate knowledge of my love of wordplay.”

“And I yours of the diplomatic taxidermy gifts I receive.”

“I’m sure the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ son meant well, he was just...creepy.”

Adam sighed, opening the freezer with one hand to reveal a box of pre-packaged ice cream cones. “They always mean well.”

He pulled the box from the freezer and shut the door, turning on his heel to face the counter. But he stopped short when he noticed it was no longer just him and Blue alone in the kitchen. 

Prince Ronan stood in the entryway to the kitchen, disarmed in the half-light with his flannel pajama pants and black t-shirt combination. Over-the-ear headphones sat on his head, but he pushed them down to loop around his neck. The music was so loud it bled into the air, carrying the harsh sound of drums until they reached Ronan across the kitchen. On his screen, Blue studied Adam and his sudden pause, and the voice of Gansey carried over from somewhere far away - “I’ve got a new article,” it sounded like, though Adam could barely hear anything. 

“Call you back,” he said quietly, disconnecting from the call. Ronan looked almost apologetic when Adam looked back up towards him.

“I thought you’d be asleep,” he confessed. “Goody-two-shoes like you.”

Adam wanted to take offense to it, but something stopped him. “I could say the same for you.”

“Yes, well, insomnia calls.”

“Doesn’t it always?” The two shared a tight smile. 

“I was out,” Ronan explained, gesturing to the box in Adam’s hand. “Knew there’d be a stock here. I’m...sorry.” The word sounded bitter and foreign on his tongue.

“It’s fine,” Adam said. “Midnight snacks are to be taken seriously or not at all.” He slid the box across the counter, suddenly very aware of his threadbare, faded crimson coca-cola tee shirt and GU sweatpants. He couldn’t stop feeling the slide of them against his skin. 

Ronan clutched the box once it reached him, looking to Adam with something close to surprise. Still, he opened the box and selected an ice cream. 

While he was distracted, Adam snapped a picture, the flash bright in the dim kitchen. 

The stare leveled at him by Ronan should’ve been enough to pin any self-preserving person in place, but Adam rarely did what was best for him personally. “What the fuck is that for?”

“Two social media posts a day,” Adam replied, speeding through the filtering process and tapping to the captioning. “It’s part of the contract.”

“Of course it would be,” Ronan mutters with great disdain. “Fucking social media addicted hounds.”

“Not a fan of technology?”

“Oh, sure, other than the fact that it’s a blight consuming the world by slaughtering brain cells and slowly giving us radiation poisoning.”

“You could’ve just said ‘yes.’”

“Ah, but where’s the fun in that?”

Adam smiled brightly. “Not giving me a headache from all of the pomposity?” 

“Exactly. No fun.” When Adam continued to stare blankly at his screen, Ronan rolled his eyes. “Does it take you this long to caption everything you do? If so, I understand why so little governing takes place.”

“Because the monarchy is oh-so-powerful,” Adam replied, but then decided to cut them off before it could turn into a full-blown fight. “It always takes me a minute to think of something good.”

Ronan grabbed the phone from his hands. “You’re overthinking it,” he dismissed, making a few decisive taps before handing the phone back to Adam, photo captioned but not yet posted. insomnia ice cream ft. @PrinceRonan. 

“Thought you hated technology?”

“Hate and lack of proficiency are two different things.” “...Of course,” Adam said, clicking post on the photo. Ronan turned and walked toward the door, the song on his headphones audibly changing. Not one for goodbyes, then. The feeling he had in his room was back then, the idea that ghosts clung to the air around him and stole oxygen with their demands. Although Ronan had not yet left, Adam already felt as though he were lonely. Lonely, but not alone, still technically with Ronan and all of the ghosts thickening the air.

Adam, in a fluid movement he didn’t really plan, dumped half of the ice creams on the counter and held out the box across the marble countertop as though bridging some wide ocean. The coolness of the marble inched closer to the skin of his forearm where it hovered a few inches in the air.

“You can take these if you’d like.”

Ronan froze, his back straightened and still before he turned ninety degrees back to look at Adam. “Pardon?”

“The ice cream cones. It’s probably better you do, honestly. I just eat them when I’m bored. Calories I don’t really need.”

Ronan’s startlingly blue eyes studied him for a moment, roaming every line of Adam’s face as though searching for some trickery and then jumping to the box in Adam’s outstretched hand. “Thank you,” he said at last in an undertone, accepting the offered box. And, leaving Adam with some hint of a smile, Prince Ronan was gone, Adam all by himself and the faint memory of intense guitar music leaking from expensive headphones still lingering in the air. 

  Once they landed firmly in PR territory, Adam felt a bit steadier on his feet.

PR he knew like the back of his hand, armed with years of experience from campaigns and political terms. It was not innate for him like for Gansey, but like everything else in his life, Adam was a star pupil and quick to pick it up thoroughly. He studied diligently, examining the facial expressions of everyone around him, examining each furrow of brow and twitch of lips and bellow of a laugh, practicing and perfecting on his own to ensure that he blended in seamlessly and, when necessary, stood out brilliantly. America’s First Son, valedictorian-intelligent and attractive enough to stop hearts for a moment upon seeing him. By the time he sat on ITV This Morning next to his enemy, he certainly knew all the tips and tricks and expertise ensuring a successful interview, and luckily Ronan seemed to know his way around a talk show as well. His thoroughly British host seemed appropriately charmed by their dynamic, a golden-child American and England’s simultaneously proper and wild Royal. 

Adam excelled at PR not because he was natural but because he was over-prepared, and so he was comfortable with the rhythm he and Ronan fell into - referencing each other’s favorites, cracking dry, sarcastic jokes about ice cream, fist-bumping and throwing arms around each other’s shoulders for effect when needed.

He counted it as a win that his resentment never made it into his words or his actions. Instead, he distracted himself with what they were doing, savoring the news alerts of their “clearly natural” friendship and the thumbs-up and “!!!” texts from Gansey and Blue whenever something exciting reached the press. He ignored Ronan for the most part, and Ronan mostly ignored him. He clenched his teeth and smiled at how rough-and-tumble Ronan looked under stage lighting, as wickedly handsome as a poisoned and sharpened dagger, unfairly attractive even with his head closely shaved. 

Then the time for their second photo op rolled around, sometime after Adam posted an empty-feeling snapshot of Ronan on a deserted London sidewalk with the caption love a nice mid-afternoon walk, and his mood plummeted sharply. 

As well as people and hospitals generally went together, Adam did not have a particularly terrible relationship with any hospitals, especially the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. He did not enjoy them, sure, but who did? And his discomfort may have gone below the surface-level “death and sickness occur here” jitteriness most people felt, but the majority of the unease coiling in his stomach came from the utterly staged feeling to everything. The First Son and Prince came bearing gifts of books, but they probably did more harm than good for all of the children by displacing all the medical professionals and disrupting their steady routines with full camera crews.

It felt hypocritical, and Adam definitely didn’t want to be shoving cameras in the faces of cancer patient children, but the decisions weren’t up to him, and so he slipped back into PR mode. He shook the hands of nurses and posed faux-candidly for cameras. The only real things he did were with the kids - once they knew who he was, they asked for stories of celebrities and monuments, and although Adam was no fantastic storyteller, he did his best to answer every question and then some. He read to them, too, from the new and donated books, even when the cameras left in search of Ronan. Anger was hard to hold onto when he looked into their faces and resolved to cheer them up. 

He read until his voice began to grind at itself, tucked next to kids on narrow hospital cots. They were all ages, and all perfectly suited to throw Adam back into memories he didn’t want to relive. Looking at the books, with the gaudily-colored pictures and ridiculous rhymes, was easier than looking at the children. They all looked to him with similar looks painted across their faces and twinkling in their eyes, one that made Adam’s heart twist, because he knew that he’d worn that expression so often as a child when he thought someone could help him or save him. They looked at him like he was hope itself, some savior come to grant them a wish and a recovery. He didn’t want to disappoint them.

The visit of the First Son and Prince of England must have cut into naptime because at some point Adam looked up from the book to realize that the camera crews had retreated and all the patients in his ward had dozed off.  He slowly unfurled himself, gangly limbs and all, to stand without disturbing the child who rested so fitfully on the hospital cot. His steps were soft and random against the tile, mostly just a blind search to try and find Ronan. It wasn’t long before he heard Ronan’s voice stretching over space from the next room over. Adam slowed, hoping to stay just out of sight while still observing Ronan.

The Prince perched on the edge of a narrow hospital bed, reminding Adam ridiculously of a bird poised to take flight. Since there were no cameras near him, his posture was slightly relaxed like it had been in the kitchen the night previously. A little girl clung tightly to his hand while he gestured wildly with his other, her eyes wide and hanging onto his every word. Ronan’s voice was somehow hushed and grand at the same time, his posh accent dulled to something a little more rural.

“When three hundred years had come and gone, the four swans traveled South to the sea of Moyle, braving the turbulent tides that wanted to draw them under.” He leaned closer to her and tugged lightly on her free hand with his free hand, perhaps to echo the water he mentioned in the story, and she gripped it tightly, nearing laughter with every second. “They swam past the cold and stormy seas, their feathers ruffled but unharmed when they reached Inis Glora. The swans had grown tired over their long journey, the years of their lives catching up to slow them down.”

Adam, without thinking, felt a bit of a smile take over his face. He was taken aback by the change in Ronan. The boy sitting on the bed seemed lightyears away from any other version - he’d gone a little hazy at the edges, as though he were made of smoke, as though Adam was dreaming and viewing some kind of apparition. His tailored lines still stuck out jaggedly, cutting a harsh figure, but he seemed at ease and gentle for the first time Adam had ever seen. One hell of a storyteller, too. Adam wasn’t sure he wanted to know why, as the Prince of England, Ronan could let all of those Irish words roll off of his tongue as though they came naturally.

An Irish children’s tale. An Irish children’s tale. Why would he know any of those? The answer nagged at Adam’s brain, but he couldn’t find it in himself to dig.

The girl was quiet as Ronan’s voice trailed off until it became nothing. The swans had returned to elderly humans and lived with a priest who blessed them for the rest of their days, and Adam assumed that she was processing the anticlimactic ending. Finally, she said, “I like those endings best.”

“You do?” Ronan asked, patience yielding in his tone. “Why do you like them?”

“Sad endings are too sad, but happy endings aren’t real.”

Adam could only see the back of Ronan’s head, but he could hear him clear his throat and see him squeeze the girl’s hand in his much larger one. “Me, too.” He leaned away from her a little, letting go of one of her hands. When he spoke again, a smile was in his voice. “You’re much wiser than the adults I know. I might have to offer you a position advising me.”

The girl laughed again, a giddy and wild and hopeful thing. “You’re very silly,” she informed Ronan, likely too young to realize any breaches in etiquette. Luckily for her, Ronan didn’t care, either.

“I am very serious,” he said, his face no doubt translating that sentiment very well. He squeezed her hand again. “I’ll be back with an offer in fifteen or so years, don’t you worry.”

“Is that a promise?”

Ronan stilled at once, the muscles in his back set just as they had been in the kitchen. Adam didn’t envy the situation she’d inadvertently put Ronan into. As childish and silly as her question was, there was a little too much weight to the response for him to casually offer a yes or a no.

“Do your best to get better,” he said at length, “and I’ll see what I can do.”

And, oh, that expression of hope was back shining on her face, and Adam had to shuffle to his other foot, looking away. The people were the reason he liked politics, liked the idea of trying to help build a world even a fraction better than the one he was raised in, and yet he couldn’t look. Couldn’t bear the thought of letting anyone down.

Ronan glanced behind him, clearly catching sight of Adam, just as a nurse bustled into the room and cheerfully announced that it was time for medicine.

“Thank you,” the little girl said before releasing his hand.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Ella,” Ronan said with a stiff formality that made her giggle again. “And of course,” he added, a little more softly.

It was perhaps not a polite enough exit for a prince, but after Ronan clumsily thanked the nurse and stepped back into the ward to meet Adam, he knew it was the best they would get. Ronan continued moving past him in the direction Adam assumed the cameras must have gone.

“Ah, so you do have feelings other than anger,” Adam said, trailing Ronan into the hall. 

“Don’t act so fu... completely surprised,” Ronan replied, turning his head towards Adam. At first, he thought Ronan might have been uncomfortable with the idea of Adam seeing the interaction, but instead, his face started to squeeze into something close to a smile, his eyes crinkling and the corners of his mouth lifting. A pop from down the hallway shuttered the expression before it could become fully formed. A shout cut through the air just as Persephone appeared between Ronan and Adam as though materializing from thin air. Her impossibly long, white hair clung to the sleeves of their sweaters with static friction as she shoved them with surprising strength into a closet. 

Her voice was still serene and airy despite the sudden tension settling on everyone’s chests. “Wait for the all-clear.” And the door shut with a thunk behind her. 

Adam leaned his head against it with a sigh, before very rapidly remembering that they were two high-profile targets in a possible active shooter scenario and doors weren’t exactly safe. He scrambled backward, accidentally knocking into Ronan and sending them tumbling into the wall. Of all the closets to be unceremoniously shoved into, they had to be stuck in one barely large enough for the brooms stacked to his right. 

“Can you stop falling into me, please?” came Ronan’s voice, taut with something close to fury but probably closer to anxiety.

“But you love it so much,” Adam bit out, trying to backtrack. Ronan’s face had somehow ended up in Adam’s hair, and he could feel Ronan’s long lashes close, paired with a troubled exhale. Adam managed to extract himself from Ronan and slide against one of the walls, crouching beside something he suspected was a bucket. Ronan followed his example, leaning against the opposite wall until he slid to the ground. Adam couldn’t see Ronan very well, but judging from the faint rustling sounds of buzzed hair against cotton and quick, deep breaths, he wasn’t handling the situation very well.

“This is a new one,” Adam said. “Assassination attempts, I mean. Is this common for the royalty?”

“Shut up,” Ronan said, his voice faint from his position closer to the ground.

“I’m blaming you if we die, you know.” When he received no response, Adam continued. “I probably could have made it at least a couple more years. No one’s ever tried to shoot me before. Guess I’m not important enough on my own. Who knew our fake friendship could be so deadly?”

“Fuck off,” Ronan replied, his breaths still deep.

“I’d love to, mate,” Adam said, forcing faux-jolly British inflection into the last word, “But we’re stuck in this closet for the foreseeable future, or until we get shot.”

“I meant shut up before that happens.”

“What, you’re not keen on life-threatening scenarios?” Ronan didn’t respond, and Adam felt a bit of genuine concern leak into his other thoughts. “Are you doing alright? I thought you of all people would be used to this.”

“Not keen on tight spaces,” he grit out, his teeth likely bared in that dangerous way that made Adam’s hands curl into fists. “Now fucking stop for a minute.”

They sat in silence, nothing but their breaths filling the space between them. The silence must have started to grate on Ronan because he broke it first.

“It doesn’t happen all the time, you know.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’m telling you.” Ronan breathed something that sounded like dumbass. “Once, when I was small and out in public with my father. Declan was there, too. I can’t remember much of it. That’s the only other time.”

“Suppose it’s as good a story as any,” Adam said, his voice just a hint louder than Ronan’s whisper had been. “Glad I can hear it trapped in this minuscule closet with you.”

“You’re the one with the foot digging into my hip, not the other way around.”

“Where the hell am I supposed to put it, Your Highness?” He nudged his foot and Ronan surged forward, clamping a hand around Adam’s mouth and the other clenching in Adam’s collar, practically hovering above where Adam stretched out uncomfortably. Adam much preferred this almost-fighting to their pretending to be friends.

“Shut the fuck up. I don’t want to die today.” Adam tried shifting to free himself, but Ronan had a firm grip and he couldn’t gain any ground. Instead, he licked Ronan’s palm, and Ronan was quick to drop his hand in disgust with a quiet noise of discontent. He found himself pinned with one of Ronan’s glares, the intensity tangible even in the dark.

“I don’t want you to die either, you sodding idiot. I’m not the only one in here. You talking is ruining both of us.” “Clearly you’re not, this might actually be comfortable without you and your ridiculous, showy muscles. But I didn’t realize you cared, sugar,” he said, thinking fleetingly of his mother, “if I was breathing or not.”

“Right now, your life is tied very closely to mine, and so I do.”

“Sweet as honey,” Adam taunted, thickening his drawl. Most of the time he tried to school his words into something a little more Northern, but he enjoyed the way the southern accent bothered Ronan.

“No peace, none at all,” Ronan muttered. “Not even in the looming face of death.”

Adam could have said the same, really. The last thing he expected to see from Ronan while shoved into a dark closet with him was any genuine emotion. But the stories, the fear in the enclosed space, the story of his father-

His father. Of course. 

“Was that story from your father?” He asked, although he already was sure of the answer.

Ronan’s response clipped. “Yes.”

His conscience was still mostly intact, and so Adam began to feel a little bad for picking a fight while in a stressful situation and then bringing up Ronan’s grief. “You’re a good storyteller.” Ronan’s silence was judgemental and disbelieving, so he persisted. “What, I can’t give a compliment? You are.” 

“My siblings and I had stories read to us like everyone else, Parrish. We’re not programmed, bland colonialism robots.” A pause. “Well, Mathew and I aren’t.”

“Of course not, imperialism comes first.”

“You’re welcome for the country, then.”

A brief silence followed. It felt, inexplicably, like the two of them had been toeing a line ever since Adam stood outside of Ella’s door and heard Ronan speak to her. They were inching closer with every word spoken.

“My father was the real storyteller,” he admitted, and Adam internally marked another inch traveled. “Since he was an actor and all. He always told us those stories even though he wasn’t technically supposed to. I just...imitate.”

“Imitate?”

“Yes,” Ronan said, providing no other explanation. “Why do you give a damn, anyway? You don’t want childhood tales and neither do I. You hate me.”

“We’re stuck like this forever,” Adam admitted. He’d known it before, but speaking the words made them feel more real. “Neither of us likes it, but here we are, shoved in a closet together. We have to pull off this act for the rest of our lives, Ronan, and I need something more than a cheat sheet your PR team slapped together.”

Ronan was eerily still for a long moment before he finally spoke. “Then why do you hate me?”

The question caught Adam off guard. “What?”

“Why do you hate me?” Off of Adam’s wary look, he threw the words back in his face. “We’re stuck together just like you said. I need some kind of answer.”

Adam sighed, acquiescing. “Do you remember what you said in Rio?”

“The fuck are you talking about, Parrish?”

“The Olympics?”

“When you threatened to push me into the River Thames?”

“No. You being a condescending dick at diving finals.”

Ronan was still for a long moment before bringing a hand to his shoulder and easing himself back away and off of Adam. “Oh. Shit.”

“So. You remember?”

“Vaguely.” A pause, elongated in the dark. “You heard?”

“Yes.” 

“So that did it, then?”

“Yes.”

But Ronan must have known he had more to say because he stayed silent. 

“I probably would have hated you no matter what,” Adam finally admitted, some low part of his gut feeling heavier with the admission. “It’s just - I wasn’t even the First Son then, and everyone was already comparing us. And it didn’t matter if they thought I was better or you were better or whatever, it was just - the idea of you bothered me, a white boy born with the power to make such change and unquestioning support from millions who was throwing it all away instead. And I’ve been compared to a shit ton of people in my life, from my mother to Blue and Gansey to just - everyone, but somehow with you, it was always the worst. So yes, it was the diving finals.”

“But it was also you being self-conscious?”

“But it was also you being an asshole.” 

“Yeah, it was,” Ronan admitted lowly, and Adam blinked at the admission. “I was - I definitely was one. I think I was one all the fucking time back then. It doesn’t excuse anything, but my father passed on...not long before, if you can understand.”

Adam didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, but he nodded all the same. He felt something in his throat tighten. “Of course. I don’t think I’d realized.”

“It doesn’t excuse it,” Ronan repeated. “I’m sorry.”

This was something heavier, truer than his other apologies - something beyond deeply-ingrained politeness that allowed him to apologize for petty things. It was as though he genuinely asked for forgiveness, like Adam had any real choice in the matter, like Adam’s forgiveness was something Ronan actually wanted. Adam never expected to receive a genuine apology from the Prince of England.

“I appreciate it. And I’m sorry as well. For...not realizing.” Ronan’s figure visibly relaxed even though it was barely visible.

“So, depressing Irish stories. Is that your default?”

“I’m afraid the Irish don’t have a lot of serotonin-filled stories.”

“There’s the English in you,” Adam said to a breathy laugh from Ronan. “Do you remember any more?”

“Probably couldn’t forget them, if we’re being honest. And not speaking to the press.”

“They hate me at the moment, so you have nothing to worry about.” He paused before he continued. “Would you tell one?”

“...why?”

“I don’t know. We’re stuck in here, aren’t we?”

“Be careful what you wish for. I’ll write you in as a Celtic witch.”

“I always thought I’d make a very dashing villainous magician. If that’s the price to pay, I can live with it.”

Ronan was silent, and Adam thought that he had given up on any conversation. However, he spoke again, his voice oddly light. “Once, the fierce Fianna believed in many things, none as much as the beautiful Eden laying in the Western Sea. Tir na nÒg, it was called, and the name passed between them like a secret.” Suddenly breaking character, Ronan said in his normal whisper, “That means “land of the living” for any uneducated parties.”

“Dick. Go on.”

There was something captivating in this new way Ronan spoke paired with the near-darkness and tight space of their closet. “Fionn, the leader of the Fianna-”

“Great naming process, by the way.”

“Shut the hell up or no story.”

Adam shut up.

“The leader of the Fianna led them to hunt the deer along the shores in County Kerry, including his son, Oisín. But Oisín soon caught sight of a single, bright light in the distance, all the way through the thick green of tree foliage. As it drew closer, he saw that the light was, instead, a beautiful girl with hair of spun gold astride a snow-colored mare. When Fionn inquired as to who she was, she informed them that she was Niamh of the Golden Hair, daughter of the King of  Tir na nÒg, and she had come to take Oisín as her husband-”

Ronan cut off abruptly, and Adam almost asked why, but a moment later he heard the source of the silence - heavy footsteps outside the door. Suddenly, neither of them breathed, instead choosing to sit in total petrified silence.

And slowly, mercifully, the door crept open, spilling cold white light along the floor of the cupboard and across their splayed legs. Persephone stood in the doorway, her expression relaxed once again.

“False alarm,” she said breezily, reaching out her hands to haul them back to their feet. Adam shifted uncomfortably on pins and needles as his legs shot back to life. “Fireworks, not guns.”

“Fireworks in a hospital?”

Persephone shrugged. “It was some teenager.”

“Always is,” Ronan said, dangerously close to a joke. He blinked rapidly, setting his shoulders back to stand at his full height. He slanted a look towards Adam, his mouth curving into something wicked but not intimidating, all bark and no bite. “Bonding is over, then.”

“Thank God.”

#trc #the raven cycle #pynch #adam parrish #ronan lynch #persephone poldma #blue sargent #gansey #richard gansey #rwrb #rwrb au #rwarb #red white and royal blue #rw&rb #trc rwrb au #mine #wips #my wips #the raven boys #the dream thieves #blue lily lily blue #the raven king

[dylshoney]

when you’re ready「part two」

synopsis: reader found out shawn wrote ‘when you’re ready’ about another girl

a/n: i am very sorry about the long wait, but there was something about this that took me forever to write. so after literally six rewrites and lots of complaining, here it is, part two <3

there will not be a part three

warnings: language

when you’re ready 「part one」

The bright red building is taunting you, making you physically have to turn your head and impatiently count down the seconds until the light turns green.

 You turn the radio up louder, hoping that it will distract you from the overwhelming urge to turn left into the Tim Horton’s drive-through. You imagine coming home with a bag full of timbits and two hot chocolates, your usual order, but you know that it would be wrong of you to do something so mundane. So familiar. Especially with the conversation you have planned.

 It’s barely eight am, but Toronto traffic is at its peak on this brisk Thursday morning. For the first time in your life, you’re thankful for it.

 Your hands are gripping your steering wheel tightly, your mind flashing to Shawn doing the same thing the night before and soon your grip is loosening and you’re trying to catch your breath.

 Another wave of dizziness flies over you and you’re almost tempted to pull over on the side of the road to calm yourself down. You blink away the unshed tears and turn the music up another few notches, trying to concentrate on Ariana Grande’s smooth voice.

 Your knee bounces slightly and you’re suddenly regretting drinking that third coffee not even twenty minutes ago. But it was necessary, the only thing keeping you from falling asleep at the wheel.

 You hadn’t slept all night.

 After getting home around one am and spending another couple hours on the phone with various friends, you were far too jittery and anxious to sleep.

 Shawn first called around three am.

 The familiar tone of one direction’s midnight memories, an inside joke, scared you so much that you almost dropped your phone. You stared at it in shock the entire time it rang. The picture of Shawn you had taken once when he wasn’t looking, was staring back at you and you found yourself in another trance.

 This happened every single time he called you, which seemed to be in 15 minutes interludes.

 This lasted for an hour or two, until you finally found the strength to unlock your phone and text him.

 I’ll see you tomorrow, goodnight Shawn.

 You had never been this formal over text, but he responded not even seconds later.

 But even after the looming threat of Shawn’s phone calls was gone, you found yourself unable to fall asleep.

 You felt alone, probably for the first time in two years. Your body felt cold, no matter how many blankets you piled onto your bed.

 So, that was when you decided to pull your phone out and do the absolute worst thing you could possibly do.

 You googled Kate DeMarco.

 You weren’t sure what you were expecting to find, but as you scrolled through an endless number of selfies on her Instagram, you found yourself feeling more hollow than before.

 Remembering Jenna’s words to call you whenever you had a problem, you quickly look up the time difference between Toronto and Paris, immediately calling your best friend and subsequently, spending the next hour sobbing and spilling your soul to her.

 It felt good to rant to a third party, someone who knew you. Someone who knew the you before Shawn.

 The conversation, although the most helpful one of all, made your heart sink into your chest, further solidifying your already made up mind.

 You were brought out of your thoughts as you turned left, leaving the highway and making your way down the intricate smaller roads that led to your shared home.

 You don’t allow yourself to think, knowing that you would ultimately overstress, so instead, you focus on the sky.

 The sun hasn’t risen completely yet, your eyes transfixed as all the colors begin blurring together in front of you. The clouds are like great wings of gold and yellow and orange, like a shower of glowing stones from a volcano. 

 The sight manages to soothe your thoughts and you find yourself humming along to the radio.

 You don’t expect to feel so calm, but your house comes into view, and a wave of serenity washes over you.

 You spend a minute collecting your thoughts as you park your car, before taking a deep breath and hopping out.

You feel like you’re walking in slow motion. The porch seems to be moving farther away as your feet shift sluggishly toward it.

 You reach the brightly painted door, for the first time not feeling comfortable enough to pull out your own keys. You raise a fist to knock, but the door swings open – your boyfriend staring down at you.

 You’re both silent for a moment and for a fleeting second you feel the urge to laugh bubble inside you. You know he must have been watching you from the living room window; something the two of you would do whenever you knew Brian was coming over– waiting to scare him. The memory brings a bile taste to your mouth.

 You open your mouth to say something but Shawn’s already moving, his muscular arms wrapping around you tightly. You can feel him exhale, and your heart clenches at the realization that this is the first time he’s been able to breathe comfortably in a while.

 The thought makes you tense up. For the first time in two years, you don’t feel immediate comfort in Shawn’s embrace, instead, you begin to feel claustrophobic; your breaths quickening as he buries his face into your neck, inhaling your scent – something you know brings him immediate comfort.

 “Shawn –” You begin, but he’s cutting you off, his hoarse voice making you shudder as you realize he probably spent the entire night crying. And then you’re feeling it again; the overwhelming, suffocating guilt.

 “ –and I called you – a lot. I understand why you didn’t pick up. And now that I think about it you were probably asleep. But fuck baby – it’s so good to have you back in my arms. I can’t sleep when we’re fight – ”

 “Shawn,” You’re trying to find your voice, stepping away from him, refusing to look at his face, knowing that you would be met with his droopy puppy dog eyes, “We need to talk.”

 He’s nodding before you can speak, and this just brings a hot wave of anger flowing through you. “Let’s go sit down, I can explain everything. I’m so angry with how things played out last night and I –”

 You’re shaking your head and stepping away from his outstretched hand, “I think we should take a break.”

 Your eyes flicker up to his, and you’re immediately regretting it. He looks like you’ve just slapped him across the face, which, you realize, might be better than what you’re actually doing to him.

His amber eyes are wide and filled to the brim with unshed tears, cheeks flushed and his mouth opens slightly, like he wants to say something but can’t.

“I know this might seem sudden,” you find yourself saying, “But last night made me realize something.” You bite your lip, feeling the iron-like taste of blood entering your mouth as you break skin, “You’re everything to me, Shawn. And not in a good way.”

You exhale, trying to piece together the chaotic thoughts swirling around your mind, “I have become so invested in us, in you, that I’m losing myself.

The first thought I had when I realized you wrote the song about Kate, the thought that prompted my panic attack – wasn’t that you loved her. It was that I finally found proof that I’m not good enough for you.”

“Y/n..” He tries to get closer to you, extending a hand, but you’re stepping away, your speech becoming more urgent.

 “I’ve spent the last two years trying to please everyone around me. Be the perfect girlfriend, holding you on a pedestal that I’m not sure you deserve anymore. In my eyes, you could do no wrong. I was always in the wrong. I was the cause of our fights. You wrote When you’re Ready for her because I wasn’t good enough. 

And I’m done with that Shawn.” You finally find the courage to look back up at him, not surprised to see that he’s crying again. His tears streaming soundlessly down his perfect cheeks, but you can’t find it in you to stop.

“Last night. It was like something finally snapped, like I finally opened my eyes. The past two years have been amazing, Shawn. The best of my life. But it’s like – it’s like I spent them looking through a filtered lens. I gave you everything I had. I think it’s time I take something for myself.”

 “Please don’t do this.” He doesn’t know what else to say, but you can hear the desperation, the pain, in his voice. And that’s when you know you’re making the right decision. Because at that moment, you’re ready to jump into his arms and abandon any morals or self-dignity you had left. And that was dangerous.

 “Please don’t leave me.” His breaths are getting choked as he struggles to speak, hiccupping slightly, “I can change. I can do better.”

“Oh Shawn,” against your better judgment, you’re stepping forward and taking his right hand in yours, holding it tightly as you speak. “That’s the thing. You don’t need to change. I do. This relationship, my dependency on you, is becoming unhealthy. And it took me stepping away from you to see it.”

Everything’s silent for a few seconds, Shawn’s grip on your fingers tightening, almost like your touch is the only thing anchoring him down.

 “Y/n please,” he swallows, “Let’s talk about this.”

 “What is there to say?” Your voice is barely a whisper, and you have to blink a few times to clear your eyes from the collecting tears.

 “I’ll be back in a few days to collect my things,” is the last thing you say to him, hoping that he would understand where you were coming from. But his eyes seemed more sad and confused than ever.

 He hugs you once, the two of you shaking in the embrace, both not willing to let go – but for completely different reasons.

 No more words are exchanged, just longing glances and the small smile you manage to give him as you’re climbing back into your car.

 Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, or the fact that you physically cannot cry anymore, but you spend the ride to Lina’s house with a clear conscious.

  **

  “Brian. What part of no, do you not understand?”

 “And what part of it’s my motherfucking birthday do you not understand?” You can hear his smirk through the phone and you’re rolling your eyes for the dozenth time. “I’m turning 22 you dumbass, I need you there.”

 “That really makes me want to come, thanks Bri.”

 “Y/n.” He releases a breath, and you know that you’re going to end up coming, no matter what he’s going to say. “If you aren’t in the bar tomorrow at 9pm sharp, I’m going to call Jake and get him to beat your fucking ass.”

 You gasp, pretending to be shocked, “Jake would never. He loves me.”

 “I wouldn’t say he loves you,” Brian tuts, “More like tolerates.”

 “That is not true and you know it. He’d be on my side for sure.”

 “Whatever,” He’s humming, “See you tomorrow! Bye!”

 He doesn’t give you a chance to agree or disagree before hanging up leaving you with an annoyed smile on your face. Or the Brian effect, as he would like to call it.

 You sit on your bed, your heart pounding in your chest as you make the split decision to attend Brian’s Barhopping Birthday Bash – as the invitation he sent out said.

 Out of all of Shawn’s friends, Brian was always the one you were closest to. He often joked that in case of divorce, he would take your side, since you were his ‘long lost twin’. You were happy to see that he kept his word.

 Although he didn’t take your side completely, he still stayed one of your closest friends after ‘The Break’, which is more than you could say for some of his other friends who immediately cut you off.

 Before you can get too far into your head, you’re rushing to begin picking out an outfit, screaming at Alexa to turn up Spotify's top hits playlist.

 You’re dancing around your room, throwing miscellaneous items onto your bed, trying to convince your mind that this was going to be a fun outing.

 Your eyes are closed and suddenly everything stops. The song changes and the first cord hits.

 You don’t know when it happened, but you’re screaming. You’re screaming at Alexa to stop. To stop the new song.

 Maybe it’s the panic in your voice, or your slurred speech but the dumb robot can’t seem to understand you, Shawn’s ‘Lost in Japan’ getting louder around you until you feel like you’re suffocating in it.

 It’s probably only been ten seconds, but to you, it feels like an eternity of your song taunting you.

 You’re grabbing the device before you can stop yourself, turning it off and throwing it across the room – thankful that the carpet stops it from smashing. There’s a blissful moment of silence, until Jenna’s screaming is heard, like a panic alarm blaring through the apartment.

 She’s in your arms before you can blink, her hands on your shoulders, grey eyes wide and terrified. You’re well aware that’s she’s saying something, but your mind is on the dumb little robot on the floor and how you suddenly want it to play the song again.

 “- and maybe going to Brian’s birthday isn’t the best thing for you right now.” Your head whips back to face her as you finally catch the ending of her rant.

 “What?” You’re vehemently shaking your head, “No, I have to go. I promised him.”

 “Y/n. You just verged on a mental breakdown at one of his songs. How do you think you’re going to fare when it’s actually him?”

 You’re silent for a moment, and Jenna’s terrified expression isn’t helping.

 “I have to go.” You repeat, this time more for yourself than her.

 Her hands travel down from your shoulders to grasp your shaking hands. “Babe. What if he brings her?”

 “He won’t,” you manage to spit out, shaking your head, “Brian would never let that happen.”

 “Brian can be a tad bit oblivious.”

 “Fuck.” You’re on your feet before she can add anything else, pacing around your room. “He wouldn’t invite me and her? Right? He’s not that dumb?”

Jenna’s silent as she watched you from her position on the floor. “I mean, he knows how I feel. But then again, we haven’t spoken about it since the first time we saw them together. But he’s not – he wouldn’t – ”

You’re grabbing your phone before Jenna can scream at you, your fingers gliding along the screen until you find Brian’s name. Just as you’re about to call him, your best friend is yanking the phone out of your hands and throwing it back on your bed. “No!”

“But I have to ask!”

 “You’ll look stupid if you do! You know Brian tells him everything!”

 “Fuck.” You repeat, falling back onto your bed with a pout. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

 Jenna’s biting her lip, her eyebrows scrunching, a telling sign that she’s thinking about something very hard. In that moment, you’re tempted to pull her into you and hold her tightly.

 You wouldn’t have survived the last three-month with her. Her six-month sabbatical in Paris, thankfully ended around the time your break with Shawn started, the two of you moving into a small loft in downtown Toronto together the second she got back.

 Jenna was always the more patient, calculated one out of the two of you, and with her help you managed to live through three full Shawn-less months. Every time something happened and the only person you wanted to call was Shawn, she was next to you, holding your hand and patiently explaining, for the millionth time, why that wasn’t a good idea.

 When you first saw the picture of Shawn and Kate having coffee at Denior’s, your favorite coffee shop, just two weeks after the beginning of the break, it was Jenna that dried your tears and took you dancing.

 Jenna never once complained when you blared one-direction songs at random times or went days on end without eating. Instead, she would come into your room to turn the music down, always holding a steaming plate of food and waiting patiently until you finished every bite. It was Jenna that held your high-strung pieces together for months.

Now, after a full month without one of your breakdowns, it was Jenna that was giving you the strength to be sitting in an uber, listening to your driver talk about his artisan candle business.

 You cursed as you checked the time on your phone, your grip tightening on your phone as your knee bounced. It was almost twenty past nine, and Brian was not one to appreciate being fashionably late.

 You’re practically bouncing in your seat as the car pulls up to the first bar, handing the driver way too much change and jumping out of the Sudan. Your heels make it hard for you to run, so you’re doing some sort of heightened speed walk to the front door.

 You grasp the metal handle, taking a deep breath, pushing into the dark space. You’re immediately met with flashing lights and a Rolling Stones song playing loudly in the background, which is so blatantly Brian that you cannot resist the smile grazing your lips.

 Your fingers are grazing your dress downwards, trying to smooth it out best you can, before you straighten your back and make it down the steps into the bar with a smile, as you see Brian’s smug face staring at you from a few meters away.

 “I knew you’d come!” He’s hollering, breaking into a small jog and throwing himself into your arms as you step back to catch him.

 He’s a deal taller than you, his head falling perfectly over yours as you laugh, “I didn’t want Jake to beat my ass.”

 “Damn right.” He squeezes you once more and pulls away with a wide grin, “You’re the last one here, c’mon.”

 Your heart picks up at his words. “Everyone else is already here?”

 He nods, a small smirk on his face as he throws an arm over your shoulder, “Not everyone was twenty minutes late.”

 “My uber took forever,” you mumble, turning away from his grinning face.

 He’s leading you through the bar, until you see a large group of people dancing in two of the large black booths. You’re happy to find that you recognize most of the faces, although a few are unfamiliar and you have to assume that these are the childhood friends Brian was telling you about.

 “Y/n!” A rush of sugary perfume hits your senses and you’re thrown back as Alessia launches herself into you. “I’m so glad you’re here. Liv and I were worried we’d have to fight off the testosterone alone.”

 You’re laughing despite yourself, holding her tighter, probably more thankful for her at that moment than she is for you. “I would never do that to you. God knows they need more estrogen around here.”

 “I was worried when Shawn showed up alone.” She responds nonchalantly and you can feel Brian tense next to you.

 “Lissa,” he’s saying before you can ask her what hell she means. “Let’s go get a beer, yeah?”

 “Wait, Alessia – ”

 They’re either completely ignoring you, or the music is too loud for them to hear, the pair getting farther from you as the head toward the bar.

 You can hear a light giggle to your left and you’re smiling widely, genuinely, as you bring a grinning Olivia into a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

 You can feel her nodding, “It’s been far too long, where the hell have you been hiding?”

 You’re shrugging as you pull away, “Here and there.”

 “Liv, stop hogging her.” You can hear a familiar whine and your smile widens more than you thought possible.

 Connor’s pout comes into your vision as he pushes Liv to the side and wraps his arms around you. You relax at the natural feeling of holding him close to you, before pulling away and hitting his chest once.

 “Ow! What the hell was that for?” He’s smirking, holding his hand to his heart.

 “For not calling me back!”

 He throws his head back, light, airy laughter leaving his mouth and you laugh along, both of you knowing that you would never actually be mad at him. “I didn’t want to hear all the reasons why coming would be a bad idea. You had to make that decision all on your – ”

 “Ladies and Gentlemen!” Brian’s voice booms through the bar, as the music gets softer around his words. “Welcome to the first ever barhopping birthday bash!”

 The entire place erupts into shouts and you join in, clapping with a smile as Brain places a party hat on his head and starts blaring Taylor Swift’s ‘Feeling 22’.

You turn back around to Connor with a grin, “Hey where’s –”

 But the younger boy is far from paying attention to you, his hands in the air as he belts a very off-key version of the popular tune. You have to resist taking your phone out and videoing the performance that would put Taylor Swift to shame.

 “Dance with me!” He’s shouting and before you can figure out what’s happening, he’s spinning you into the center of the already overcrowded dance floor.

 You smile at a few familiar faces that you pass, and let the music take over your senses. You take a few shots that are being passed around on silver trays, and let yourself relax as Liv, Alessia and Dave join your little circle.

 Liv’s hand is in yours and you’re laughing, the alcohol momentarily distracting you from searching for a particular floppy head of brown curls.

 The songs change but you’re showing no signs of getting tired or taking a break, until Alessia sends you a worried look and moves you to the side.

 “Everything okay?” Her words are a little slurred, and you’re almost regretting missing the pregame.

 “Yeah. Of course.” And you genuinely mean it, a wide grin adorning your features as you itch to get back to the dance floor. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

 “Because you’ve barely spoken to Shawn.” She blinks at you like you’re missing something blatantly obvious. “Are you guys fighting or something?”

 Everything seems to freeze for a moment and you’re stepping away from her. “Lissa, Shawn and I, we’re - ”

 You pause for a moment, your wide eyes searching her confused ones and your suspicion is confirmed. She has no idea.

 You bite your lip, almost forgetting to respond as your thoughts overlap into a chaotic frenzy of emotion. You miss the way her eyes light up at someone behind you, and it’s too late for you to make a run for it.

 “Y/n?” A familiar voice speaks and it’s as if all the air in the space is sucked away.

 You can make out the shred of panic in Alessia’s eyes, but she’s quick to wipe the traces away, a smile gracing her features once more.

 You’re turning away from her, eyes fluttering up to meet soft brown ones. You’re both frozen for a single moment, before he blinks – almost like he was looking at something bright for too long and you don’t fail to notice the redness that colors those sculpted cheeks.

 His hair is longer, you also notice, more curly and wild. A stray thought fills your mind and you suddenly imagine what it would be like to run your fingers through his locks as you used to.

 You smile instead, “Hey Shawn.”

 He seems frozen in place, his mouth opening and closing once, before a wide grin that you once coined his ‘charmer’ smile spreads over him. “You – you’re here.”

 “In the flesh.”

 He rolls his eyes at you but steps forward nonetheless, and you have to fight the urge to get closer as well, his cologne subconsciously making your heart begin to beat faster.

 You’re not sure if Alessia is still behind you, but at that moment, you’re far from caring. You bite your lip as you search for something, anything, to say to him. You’ve planned this moment in your head for months, yet now, with his sparkling eyes staring down at you – it’s as if all the coherent thoughts have evaporated.

 “Can we talk?” He’s saying after a moment, and you’re almost tempted to ask him to repeat it. But you’re nodding, and he looks like you’ve just handed him a million dollar check.

 It feels as if the entire bar has stopped their movements and are watching the pair of your head toward the exit. You catch Connor’s eyes and he’s wearing an expression that you can only describe as fear, which doesn’t do well in easing your already racing heart.

 Shawn holds the door open for you, and you pass by him, thankful for the brisk air, leaving you with something to blame for your shaking hands.

 You’re silent for a few moments. Your eyes trained on the empty street in front of you before you sigh, turning back around to face him, “Why didn’t you tell Alessia we broke up?”

 His head snaps up at your words and you’re almost tempted to cower away at the intensity of his eyes on you. He’s still for a second, before he runs a hand through his hair and walks up next to you, leaning on the brick wall. “Because we didn’t break up.”

 You can’t explain the rush of adrenaline that fires through your veins, but you’re quick to dismiss it. “We haven’t spoken in months, Shawn.”

 He nods, almost entirely too calm for your liking. “I know. But that doesn’t mean we’ve broken up.”

 Your mouth opens, but he doesn’t give you the chance to speak, “You said you needed space and time. And I’m giving it to you. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to give up on us.”

 Your eyes flutter shut and for a moment you let yourself drown in the perfectly worded fantasy he’s placed before you.

 But he’s not finished yet. “I was planning on staying away from you tonight, letting you do your thing. But then.” He swallowing, like the words are physically hurting him. “Then I saw you again. You looked so confident and beautiful. And it was everything I’ve been missing. All those feelings came rushing back and I realized that no matter how hard I try to compress them, they’ll always be there.

 I was a fucking fool for letting you leave my apartment that morning. I was a fool for not taking you in my arms and explaining all the reasons I needed you to stay.”

He’s closer to you now, his minty breath hitting your cheek and you almost want to cry, because this is Shawn. Your Shawn. And he’s here, sober, spilling his feelings to you like he’s writing you a song.

 “I should have told you that I felt the same. That some mornings I would wake up feeling like I couldn’t breathe. That my love for you was consuming every single cell in my body. But that’s not something I’ve ever been scared of, y/n. I understand why you had to run, and God, I’d given you a million reasons to. But I just need you to know that what I feel for you has always been one hundred percent real.”

He steps away from you, breathing hard like he’s just finished a marathon. You don’t realize you’re crying until you feel a salty tear reach your lips, and you’re brushing it away with a feverish intensity.

“I wrote that song for Kate months before I met you.” His voice is breaking, rough and deeper than you’ve ever heard it. “Teddy found it in one of my journals and suggested we publish it. I agreed because the song meant nothing to me anymore, because Kate meant nothing to me.

 I should have made you stay that night, should have proved to you that I loved you and only you. I was planning to propose, actually. Four days from today.”

 You’ve pushed yourself so far against the wall of the bar that the brick is digging into your exposed skin, but all you can feel is your chest expanding and it feels like you’re finally able to breathe for the first time in months.

 “Four days.” You find your voice, mumbling to him as you wish him closer to you.

 He’s nodding, biting his lip so hard you can feel the pain and you urge yourself to push off the wall.

 He hears your movements, his wide eyes zeroing in on you and you step closer, so close that you can feel nerves radiating off of him in waves. Four days, you think to yourself, and you almost want to laugh. In four days, April 24th, was the official day that you met him, three years ago.

 “You almost broke the ring.” He’s whispering now, your breaths intermingling as you lean closer to him. “It was in the jewelry box you sent crashing to the ground.”

 You register his words with a solemn nod. Shawn’s sighing against you, placing his forehead against yours as he patiently awaits your answer.

 “Well,” You lick your lips once, relishing in the sharp intake of breath that escapes him, “Good thing it’s not broken then. I think we’re going to be needing it.”

 His mouth is on yours before you can blink, warm and familiar, and it’s like your body is set ablaze.

 It feels as if you’re kissing for the first time. His lips are soft against yours and you’re aching for more. He’s careful with you, but it’s not the gentleness you need. Not after all this time.

 Your hands are knotting in his hair before you can stop yourself, and he’s bending at the knees, pushing your back farther into the cool red brick wall. But you don’t care, he’s groaning softly against you, low in his throat and you’re finally home.

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[essaycollection99]

why sometimes its ok to creep on your ex 5 years later

why sometimes its ok to creep on your ex 5 years later originally posted on medium.com

21 minutes past midnight. First day of the new year.

I definitely do some of my best writing a little manic. Half asleep. A little high, a little tipsy. It’s always at the edge of something. 

Usually I feel guilty for cyber stalking my exes. Tonight is different though. Tonight I felt relieved. 

He looks good. Healthy. Alive. 

When he dropped out of school and stopped talking to any of us he also scrubbed most of his online presence. For a while some cryptic new song would be released on his bandcamp, and I only learned about it through a burner email address that was signed up for his new releases. One day even that disappeared. 

He was the first guy anything ever felt good with, you know? 

It was a mess. The whole thing. Every minute of being with him was a messy dance of me being scared to ask for what I wanted. Which was him. Or, more clearly, which was him to leave his girlfriend and give us a shot. For me to actually trust him (and myself) enough to say fuck it, it’s worth it, even if it crashes and burns. If it crashed and burned at least that meant it had gotten off the ground.

I thought I was playing it safe by living in the inbetweens and taking whatever I was given. 

I said I was too busy. I became busy with my ex who wasn’t really giving me the time of day. 

I said it didn’t matter to me. That I was edgy. That I wanted open. That I was 21 and he was 19 and we could do whatever we wanted without really talking about what we were doing or what we wanted. It crashed and burned even without us ever defining what we were doing. 

That was five years ago. 

Besides being really hard to search for online, the other reason I never really searched was because I was worried what I would find. When I was (metaphorically) still bruised and bloodied from the aftermath of things, still completely broken and depressed to the fact that his last text of “I’m not going anywhere, so don’t miss me this summer” turned into him not talking to me or our other best friend at all. Oh, and his open relationship was actually closed, his girlfriend was in classes with me that next semester and hated my guts, and I apparently wasn’t as cool about being the other woman that I originally thought I was. I was a senior and supposed to be prepping for a BFA but all I could do was fixate on how miserable I was and didn’t know who I was anymore because of my actions that spring. As all of this was going on, he stopped showing up to classes, and there was a rumor that he was in the hospital for alcohol poisoning. I still remember calling the list of local hospitals asking about him, and then rushing to my job at the library. I was late. Eyes still red, my ex came in with no books to return or check out, presumably just to kill time by talking with me until his rehearsal started. He asked what was wrong and I told him I was worried for my friend Chris’s life. 

My ex didn’t really know about Chris and I, but I think he knew enough. He knew that Chris and I were close, but he was the one friend that I didn’t talk to him about. That was enough for him to know. 

I think my ex told me that he was really sorry, and that he hoped that Chris would be ok. I couldn’t really respond because I had started to hold back tears. I cried a lot that year on the job; huge thanks to my unlabeled anxiety and everything that comes with fooling around with classmates in a very small art school. With only 7 majors we had just under 900 students in all. Shit got around fast.  My ex wordlessly moved away from the check in / check out library counter and towards the gate. He started to open it and I got up instead. He was always trying to come behind to the staff only side of things. He wrapped me in the biggest most protective hug and amidst everything I felt safe again. 

A lot of times I forget about why so much time in college was spent with him, and then I remember the small moments like this, and remember he wasn’t all douchebag. He knew what to do, and my anxiety always stopped in his arms. 

My good (and albeit overprotective) friend of ours walked by and gave us a look, she had rehearsal with my ex in 15 minuets (like I said, the school was small, we knew everyone’s business). All he said was “Lani’s friend is in the hospital right now.” Which prompted our friend to give me a hug too.  

Googling Chris years later and I was worried that I’d find the worst news online. Sure, our other best friend used to see him in a blue moon working at a vape shop, or maybe it was talking to someone who worked at a vape shop that Chris would go to. Or running into his ex girlfriend at a party (apparently they only broke up finally once Chris turned 21 and could buy for himself).

Sure, I can still remember it all, what he smells like, what it felt like to have his hands on my hip absently during a movie night, can still think of the way he said “wow” when I undressed for him in an empty classroom. But, years later am I allowed to be worried about him? He was an alcoholic at a young age, and I knew stories from before I met him. I knew stories about him from after he stopped talking to us. I was so worried about what would happen. 

Do I even need to say it? Surely you’ve read enough of my work to know how my dad turned out. You just read how Chris ended up with alcohol poisoning. I was worried about the worst. Maybe that’s why I never did a real good job at finding him online, when I would boredly look for his scrubbed online footprint. 

I want to make happy art. I’ve been making abstract art for almost 2 years now. But, I still want to capture those flutterflies you feel when a boy shouts across the parking lot “you’re back!” and runs towards you. When he kisses you in the elevator on the way to your class, but then has to run down two flights of stairs so he gets to his class on time. I want those feelings in art because they don’t come naturally to me. One of the simplest feelings of happy was when I was with Chris. I have most of that time recorded in a small red notebook, and so I re read it. Lay in bed and skimmed, looking for his name. Reading and smiling, remembering I really did try. Sure, it was a mess (see: beginning of this essay) but it was pretty damn sweet as well. I wrote in my journal about a day that he was particularly nihilistic, distinctly hard to read, specifically very very high. It was his mother’s birthday. 

His mother. 

Sure, he might have scrubbed his social media footprint, but it’s really hard to get parents off of facebook. Even more so, it’s hard for them to not post photos of you on it, even if you are a grown ass adult. 

I had never thought to look up his mother. 

It almost felt stupid afterwards, the fact that I had never done that. 

His smile is still the same. 

He’s 25 now. In my head I’m me still, but I’m picturing him as the 19 year old kid taking dab bong hits with our best friend and than coming into the corner of the kitchen to kiss me without anyone noticing. Rail thin from never “remembering” to eat, soft lipped, shy smile, sad eyes, 19 year old (soon to be) college drop out. 

I close my eyes and can still see him, shouting at me from across the street “you’ve got bows in your hair!” The naturally bleach blonde hair and pastel colors he wore, the urgent way he kissed me in the video editing room as I waited for my mentor to show.

His hair isn't blonde now, it’s strawberry blonde, the hint of ginger.

He seems taller now. 

He attended his sister’s wedding. 

He looks good. Alive. Healthy. Sober. 

His face has filled out. I pull up photos of me from when we knew each other, and photos of me now, do I look that much changed as well? It was hard to eat in college for me too, I think I’m a little less thin now. I feel more me. I wonder if he feels the same. My hair is pink now, though when I look at my old hair I now see thick light caramel hair instead of the stringy dirty brown I always felt it was. I know now which parts of my body I want to accentuate and how. 

Oh god, his smile. It’s still the same. It melts me. 

He looks happy. He looks happy on his mothers facebook page- his mother who he was so angry at so long ago. It all feels surreal. I’m back in the library all over again, but this time, instead of being worried, I get good news.  That my ex is right, things will be ok.

I usually feel guilty when I cyber stalk exes. Foolish for wanting to see what they’re up to without me. Silly for caring so much years later, after so much absence. But for Chris, I just felt relief. 

His mother writes “I am so proud of my compassionate son Chris, love you to the moon and back” on a close up photo uploaded two months ago. The 19 year old angry, nihilistic, fuck-the-world-including-my-mother-because-I-refuse-to-call-her-back-even-if-it’s-her-birthday, would have hated that post. I held his hand and listened to him rant that day. Watched him let go of my hand and kick rocks into the Bay, upset at him mom for reasons that didn’t make sense to me. 

“I’m not a good guy.” He would tell me between soft, feather like kisses (trying to get my sensitive skin not to go red between classes, but it’d happen anyways). “I have really bad days. I don’t talk to anyone on Wednesdays. No matter how much I like them.”

I never believed him. Tried to tell him how special he was. How talented. How wonderful he was. How things would work out for him.

I was right. 

#ex #short essay #autobiographical essay #college stories #new year

[plumberrypudding]

This will probably get pretty rant and definitely very personal and maybe kinda long so I mean. Read at your own discretion.

It's currently 4:14 a.m. and I'm almost in tears over this pain. It's not so awful right now but within the last hour and half it's the worst it's been in a long time. Yeah, an HOUR and a half. Pretty much all of that time (tmi here probably but whatever) was spent in the bathroom. I fucking hate my body so much sometimes. Swear to god it feels like it hates me. It hardly ever works like it's supposed to. It makes me so fucking sad and angry and upset because it's not fucking fair. Everyone else gets to just go to bed at a reasonable hour, sleep through the night, and then wake up the next morning at a reasonable hour. But not me! Nope. I don't get to sleep until at least sometime in the a.m., usually a single digit number greater than 1. And I fucking hate. Then I sleep till the double digits at least if I don't loop back around into the singles and then fucking guess what! I'm tired all day anyways!!! It makes no difference if I get 5 or 6 or 8 or 9 or 11 hours of sleep. I'm always tired. It doesn't happen super often, but sometimes this stupid piece of shit (referring to my body) wakes me up with pain. Today it was nearly 2 entire god damn hours ago that I woke up because my stomach was practically yelling at me with all the gurgling. I wanted to rip it out. It still hurts, but the gurgling is at least gone. So after (again, tmi, but it's the most important part) of spending 2:45ish a.m. to 3:56 a.m. in the bathroom, my stomach starts to clear up a little and I know I can go back to bed but the pain will linger for a while. So I go back to bed. 10 minutes later I'm in my dad's room asking if we have any pepto-bismol or something or anything. I tell him I already went through the bathroom and there wasn't anything. He says that's all there is and he's sorry he doesn't have anything to give me. I tell him it's ok, I can just go back to bed and deal, if there's nothing to do about it then there just isn't anything to do. I tell him I'm sorry for waking him up and goodnight I go back downstairs and immediately there are tears in my eyes because I just. Hate this fucking lump of malfunctioning flesh and organs and bones so much sometimes. It never fucking works and I'm always tired or in pain, usually both. And its just so unfair. I know I'm whining and relatively this isn't a huge deal but I don't feel things relatively! My existence and emotions are not defined based on a cumulative scale of human suffering. I know it's not true when I say this but it feels true so it doesn't even matter but no one else has to deal with this. Everybody else just gets to exist in a perfectly healthy meat suit and I'm stuck with this one. I know that's the furthest thing from true, I have it pretty good compared to lots and lots of people but emotionally they're just not there. Emotionally everyone else is ok and I'm suffering alone. This was the first time I had actually gone to sleep before midnight in god knows how long. I was going to get a good amount of sleep at a good time. And then the fire alarm went off on accident and that fucked me up a bit. And then THIS whole shit show (no pun intended) (gross, I know) happened and not it's a quarter to 5 in the morning. This was going to be my good one. But no. I'm not allowed good ones. That would be too generous.

Just once, I'd like to get a good night's sleep and feel well-rested all day the next day until I get tired for bed time when I can just go to sleep. No stomach aches, no fucked digestive system, so fatigue, no fucked endocrine system, no staying awake an hour after going to bed, no sleeping past noon, just one day of being healthy. Just one. It's not fair.

#fuck this came out way longer than i initially intended #its now 4:40a.m. and i just‚ #im so tired #at least the stomach ache is pretty much gone #though the way these things usually go for me #it'll be back again tomorrow #please no one feel obligated to read this #or comfort me or anything #i just needed to vent #personal #vent #rant #long post #< those are mostly to keep this off the dashes of those who dont want to see it #goodnight guys #ill try to get some more sleep #its actually 4:48 now. #fuck everything #eslecially this piece of fucking garbage body #i hate it.

[revol-lover]

dreams don’t end at “30″

so i just had a little breakthrough and maybe this wont sound like anything to anyone else but i just have to share it

so i’ve talked about this before. about how my friend and i were both planning these personal development like goals for this year that covid got in the way of. and he said something, about how this is his last year in his 20s and he wanted to get some goals accomplished before 30 

and i thought about that and realized something.

i have been feeling similarly about a few goals that i’ve been hanging onto for years and years. like i’m going to be honest with you, some people might remember this if you’ve been around here for a long time but probably not. anyway when i was in high school i really wanted to make music, sing, learn an instrument. and i did make some covers that i posted on myspace (showing my age here lol) and youtube but then i kind of gave up on it when

 1) became 18 and realized my dream to go to NYC and pursue music when i was 18 wasn’t happening because of a million reasons (it was very much a pipe dream, right? i mean you can’t have that dream and not prepare for it and i didnt. also i was too scared at the time to even move out to my own place if i had the funds to do so because my parents wouldnt have really approved and i was still so under their thumb) 

2) broke up with my musician boyfriend. which needed to happen. but he was the only person super passionate about that kind of goal at the time around me (till he ran lol)  and he actually is still doing music now so good for him but basically 

because of those 2 reasons i just let go of that dream all together as something i thought i wanted to do but was “unrealistic”.

but the thing about turning 30 and feelings like you needed to achieve all these personal/dreamy/goals in your 20s. what is that bullshit? why? 

what changes when you cross over to 30? i’ll tell you one thing. media pushes movies, books, films, everything about people chasing their dreams in their 20s and “settling” down in their 30s. where’s my inspiring movie about the 32 year old mom who finally wrote a song and performed it live after being terrified her whole life of doing so?

 think about it though

in your 30s you. *might* have a better paying job than you did in your 20s. which means, if you can manage to find time or a way for it, you *might* be able to save a little more money or afford to do something like, buy that guitar and guitar lessons in order to learn to play and write a song and live out your dream in some way, even if its just learning to play so you can play at an open mic. and maybe you’ll like that and you’ll somehow connect with likeminded people and form a band. idk. your dreams dont have to end in your 20s. 

you dont have to fall into the trap of your 20s are for your dreams that are so big you feel like the chance of achieving them is getting struck by lightening

and then your 30s are for fancy adult goals like buying a house, and going on a $10k vacation and those things are probably just as hard as the goals you had in your 20s but the world wont make you see it that way. its seen as “selfish” to prioritize and budget for your artistic goals - but not a house. no that’s responsible and what you “should” do. but its ok to prioritize something that’s going to give your soul fulfillment too! we need to believe that! because it’s true. we are not here just to work our jobs and live mundane colorless lives once we aren’t considered “young” anymore (but 30s are still young. not what i’m saying)

 you’re always going to be chasing something big and if you let the world control what that thing is you’re always going to be on some rat race. 

it’s fine if you achieve your goals in a different order than the world says you were supposed to. i got married young and had a child young, that was how my life played out and i’m happy with that because, yes, finding love and becoming a mother very much were goals of mine.

yes i dropped out of college because i couldn’t afford it and i couldnt find a major that felt worth being in debt for. and also, because hey guess what? contrary to what a lot of people will try to lead you to believe, college is not for everyone. and college does not = success. college drop out does not = failure. it’s just an option of something you could do with your life. AND if you didn’t go to your college in your 20s it doesnt mean you can’t in your 30s. or 50s. hell my husband, who did go to college saw elderly (think, 80s!) people going to his college as students! college isn’t just for 18 year olds fresh out of high school. 

My 27th birthday is in 2 weeks and no, i have not yet to worked up the courage to write an original song from words to music, or have the courage to get on a stage and sing anything, or talk to a stranger, or publish any of my writing or art, goals i’ve had whirling around in my brain since I was 18, but, it’s going to happen. maybe this year. maybe when i’m 35, but it’s going to happen. a number is not going to be the thing holding me back.

that whole mentality of “my youth is slipping away i need to achieve all these dreams before midnight the day of my 30th birthday” is so stupid and flawed and we all deserve to see ourselves, and our individual potential as more than that. 

last part of this rant - one of the reason i even became so passionate about reignighting some of my dusty, old goals, that it turned out, i still cared about, is because i had a moment where i was like

ok i am a mom. i am someones mom. how will my daughter see me, as a person, not just her mom? 

kevin and i always talk about how between the two of us we’ve both had a lot of quintessential young adult experiences that we look forward to sharing with her. like, quitting jobs, getting in car accidents, that one time i unknowingly participated in an illegal bonfire and ran from the cops then lied straight to their faces and somehow got away with it (literally my ONE act of teen rebellion), changing college majors like 3 years in (kevin), failed classes, tried cigarettes, etc like i’m ready, and hope that one day she will feel comfortable talking to us about things because we’ve been through things and have a lot of input and two different perspectives to offer

but further than that, i realized that i want her to know that her mom is a person too. i want her to know that mom is also passionate about writing, and music, and somehow tackled some of her goals in regards to that so that SHE can feel that SHE, too can do those things. and i know that, that is in part how it works 

because,

my dad IS an artist. my dad IS a musician. yall. my dad is SO talented.  my dad is brilliant. besides his artistic abilities which include, drawing literal realistic as fuck portraits, sculpting, painting, playing guitar, bass, piano, mandolin, he also knows music composition, etc etc etc beyond all of that, he also taught himself fucking PLUMBING and ELECTRICIAN SHIT to fix things in our house growing up. like he bought a book. and taught himself. my dad. i grew up thinking that was normal but i realized not everyones dad can just tear down the bathroom and rebuild it from scratch down to the plumbing without being a licensed professional.

but anyway the point is - as talented as my dad is, he doesnt really pursue his artistic dreams much. and its sad. i’m glad that i’ve seen some of the work he did when he was younger. i’m glad that if i bring it up, he’ll show me something he can do. but he doesnt pursue it anymore really. my dad works an exhausting physical labor job but even he, as a 50something year old has fallen into that trap of like, i dont have time to draw, but he will scroll his phone and read articles for hours and i’m not shaming him. i’m just saying we all have this problem in the modern era of technology and social media and what not (hell i am writing a post on tumblr instead of my book right now).

but if timing was different and my dad grew up in a different time, where lets say something distracted him from doing the little bit of art and music that he did when i was a kid that i was able to witness, if i hadnt seen that. i wouldnt know that.. in a way.. that’s in me. i mean, he’s my dad. if my dad could pick up a craft and work at it to be good at it, why can’t i? there are so many musicians and (kind unrelated but not rly - i think being “self made” is an art) business owners in my family. there’s either some common thread in our genetics ORRRRRRRRRR just growing up around people working at and succeeding at those kinds of goals shows you that it CAN be done so you’re more likely to believe in your abilities

and i want that for my daughter. because even as an almost 3 year old i can see that she has a gift for music, and reading. and even if i’m wrong about that and she grows up wanting to do some other thing as a job or hobby, i want her to know, by seeing her mom do it, that she can achieve anything she puts her heart to. you don’t have to box yourself in because of your age or your sex or the fact that you’re a parent. 

and your dream doesnt have to become your career. it can be a hobby and still be fulfilling. like yes, 18 year old me dreamed about some life in nyc singing in clubs or bars or whatever and being ~famous (lol) and that did not happen, but i can still get out there and play open mic downtown and get that love of music, and desire to face my fear of performing out of my system. maybe i’ll love it. maybe i’ll hate it. but i’ll have done it. and that’s the ultimate goal. 

sorry i went off but i had to get that out of my system and i’m very passionate about 

#personal

[canaryatlaw]

okay. it’s late, obviously. and I need to go to bed. I just took my pills like 10 minutes ago though so it might be a minute before I actually get tired. but yeah, today. I think I woke up around 11, and then for like two hours waited for my sister to wake up and trying to not get annoyed because I know I’ve slept that late plenty of times, like even on this trip, but I was just kinda tense. it didn’t help that on twitter I was repeatedly seeing people doing tribute tweets to their friends or making lists of all their friends who did whatever in 2019 and I wasn’t on a single fucking one, even when people that I know they saw less than me made it and I just like.....I got really upset about it because I felt like shit and like I didn’t even have any friends, which of course I know is not true, but it felt really shitty to see people I’ve expended energy trying to befriend just straight up ignore my existence and I just felt really awful about myself. this year has unfortunately gone from meeting a lot of new friends to constantly fearing that none of them actually like me or want me to be their friend, thanks to a couple of things that have happened. and I just feel like this massively messed up person who must’ve fucked up so badly to have all these people turning against me but like, I didn’t even fucking do anything, and if people had actually been honest about stuff this could’ve all been avoided but they weren’t and now I’m the one who’s hurting because of that and it really fucking sucks when you really feel like nobody cares about you. sigh. I feel fraudulent sometimes posting about how happy I am with my life (which I am! really!) while knowing my emotional stability is not where it should be definitely could be causing an issue. and like, looking back to the beginning of this decade all I can think is 10 fucking years and so much happened and yet emotionally I’m back in the same fucking place? how did that happen? I still obviously care way too much about what people think of me when I know I shouldn’t, and placing way too much of my happiness and value into friends who clearly don’t reciprocate any of those feelings and clearly don’t care about my emotions or how any of this actually affects me. and I fucking hate that because I truly have grown so much as a person but I feel like that same fucked up kid who cared way too much about what her friends thought of her and definitely put a lot more energy and care into her friendships than she got back. and I feel so emotionally unstable and I don’t know how to deal with this because like! I’m not depressed! my overall mental health has been fine and there aren’t really any issues there, this just feels like an entirely separate area and I don’t know what to do with it. It really sucks that just when my professional life was finally getting its shit together my personal life had to fall to pieces. and I know on some level that like all this shit really means that I should be in therapy actually working through all of this, and this is so fucking hypocritical, I know, but like....I just don’t have the emotional energy to deal with going through all of that right now. It’s going to be so much work and I really just don’t want to deal with it. and that’s messed up because I’ve told so many fucking people that they should be in therapy and that it will really help them, and now I’m clearly not abiding by that, so that makes me feel shitty too. sigh. I got on way too much of a tangent here and now I’m ranting. I really need to get back on focus and actually talk about my day before I go to sleep because it’s fucking 3:30 am. anyway. eventually my sister woke up and then she had to go get her flu shot for something with her job but like all of the places they were going to didn’t have it so she didn’t even get it done, then her and her boyfriend returned and we went to the mall. it was alright, not great, and eventually she wanted to split up which I kinda knew was going to happen because we wouldn’t want to go to the same stores, but it still was annoying. I mainly wanted to get jeans and I went to Express and tried some on, but all of their jeans were still so fucking expensive (the ones on clearance were like $50, reduced from $80) and there was a super fucking long line and I just didn’t have the patience to stand through that long ass line to pay too much for a pair of jeans, so I left and concluded I’d get jeans at some other point in the future. I went to Dynamite after that because they always have stuff I like and it’s been a while since I’ve gotten anything from them, and I ended up getting a pair of work pants from them that were on sale and very nice, so I’m happy about that. after that I met back up with my sister and we headed out. back to the house, I had dinner with my parents and then watched some GBBO with them until my brother’s friends arrived. He had asked me if I wanted to go out with him and his friends tonight and I knew if I didn’t go I was just going to end up alone with my parents and feeling sorry for myself so I said what the hell and said I would. my brother is at this new assignment at work though where he’s working a 3 pm to 11 pm shift, so he still wasn’t getting off for some time yet, so my parents ended up driving me and his two friends to the bar where we chilled for a bit and talked until he arrived some time after 11. he was bringing with him this girl who he has apparently started dating (yeah, I found out on Sunday that both of my brothers are apparently dating girls, which is just fucking great for my self-esteem knowing that I’m officially the only sibling without a significant other) which I suspect is the real reason he asked if I wanted to come so she wouldn’t be the only girl there. and she was nice, honestly at this point any girlfriend is probably going to be a positive influence on his life, so unless she was really terrible I’m not going to object. I mean, honestly, his ex-girlfriend was like, the best thing that ever happened to him, but he fucked that one up and hopefully this time he’ll be a lot smarter and more mentally stable about it. I really hope he is honestly. I also really miss his ex-girlfriend since we’d gotten quite close in the time they were dating, and of course she ultimately ended up coming to me for help when things went south, so there was a lot of emotional investment there. sigh. anyway. I was having a pretty good time chatting with his friends before he got there, they were both guys he went to highschool with so I had at least in theory known them for like 12-15 years now, but never had more than like, a passing conversation with them really. one of them I’d talked to a bit over the years, I always thought he was cute but never had like a full blown crush on him or anything, but it was kinda nice getting to talk more to both of them tonight. and of course there was alcohol, and I considered maybe trying some since it’s been like 4 years since I’ve tried consuming any but then I got a whiff of the tequila shots they were doing and I swear the smell alone started giving me like minor chest pains, so that was a no. I was kinda dumb though at midnight because they were passing out little cups of champagne as the ball was dropping and I had a single sip of champagne, which again was dumb being that I just concluded I shouldn’t be drinking any alcohol, but I mean it was midnight and everyone in the bar was doing it....sigh. It kinda burned in the back of my throat for a while which was unpleasant but never moved on to the full on chest pain that’s fucking unbearable, so I’ll count that as a semi-success, definitely not a full success because it really did not leave me wanting to consume any more alcohol, but at least I wasn’t in pain over it. we ended up playing darts for a few rounds, which I’m not particularly good at but it doesn’t really matter. a little after 2 we started trying to return to my house where everyone was spending the night, but that turned into a whole debacle because this is the fucking suburbs and it’s 2 am on new years, so getting an uber was a bit difficult. my one brother’s friend had apparently worked as a lyft driver in the past so he was a bit biased towards that app and then the first driver somehow got messed up and picked up another person but it still charged his phone and he was like, so affronted by this and just not letting it go at all and it was honestly pretty funny, it was obvious the alcohol in his system was contributing to it on some level but it was still amusing. since there were 5 of us they were originally trying to get an XL which proved even more difficult, and we ended up taking two separate normal sized ubers to get home, which still took fucking forever and we didn’t end up getting home till like, almost 3 am, which was annoying. but oh well. once we got home I showered and then had to do all my pills for the week because of course I had to run out tonight, then opened my laptop and started typing this, and now I’m here like 40 minutes later because it’s just a few minutes before 4 am now because I clearly was in the mood to write a fucking novel for some reason. sigh. last 2019 post, even though it’s now 2020 the day was in 2019 so it gets the last December 2019 hashtag. alright, I really need to go to sleep now, so that’s what I’m going to do. Goodnight dears. Hope you had a very happy new year.

#daily journal #December 2019