#then again this is the same 28 year old man who only cleans his bathroom and room twice a year so [shrug emoticon] | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs | Tumgik (2025)

to solve a problem (you follow it back to the start) - chapter two: A Duck, A Big Fat Liar From Ohio and Some Cloverfiled Shit.

You can read it on Ao3 here:https://archiveofourown.org/works/43592425/chapters/111934012#workskin

VERONICA

Veronica has been having a bad day ever since the duck puked on her shoes.

Scratch that, Veronica has been having a bad day for the past nine days.

Her string of bad luck began on a casual Thursday afternoon, 9 days prior, with a guy she didn't know showing up on her front door, wearing a fancy suit and sunglasses, holding a picture of her wife -it was an old photo, taken before they met but it was undoubtedly her- and asking about someone named Heather Chandler. When her wife showed up at the door, and the man brought up the name again, Jessica's face darkened and she threatened to call the police if the man didn't leave, but in no moment did she deny his accusations.

Things only got worse when the man finally left, and Jessica and Veronica were alone in their apartment again, the tension hovering above them like a dark, heavy cloud. Veronica asked the questions that were running wild inside her head, Jessica refused to answer every single one of them; their conversation soon turned into a heated argument, they yelled, they cried, they cursed each other, until Jessica stormed out of the house. Veronica doesn't know what time she came back, but when she woke up Jessica -Heather, she keeps forgetting that that's her real name- was asleep on the couch. Without allowing herself to think twice, Veronica grabbed her keys and left.

Veronica thought some time for herself would be good, to clear her head and process the fact that the person she loves isn't who she thought she was. Veronica doesn't even know why she decided to go to the cabin, she hadn't been there in years, but she needed to get out of the house, and away from Heather, and from the ugly shards of what was left of her perfect life.

She used the thirty five hour drive to cry, curse -both Heather for being a goddam lying bitch and herself for being a stupid fuck and falling for it -eat, and break her 23 days without smoking record, which made her feel fucking great and disgusting at the same time.

After the storm that took her by surprise in Nebraska, the awful motel she had had to sleep in with the loud couple next to her, and the fact that she lost her charger at a 7-11, Veronica had expected to find peace in the welcoming arms of her childhood home. But as it turns out, the week's episode of 'Let's see how much stress Veronica Sawyer can take before she has a stroke and dies at the ripe age of 28' was not over yet. Because Veronica had forgotten that her parents stopped going to the cabin for a reason: the house was a fucking mess, and every time she tried to fix an issue, multiple others appeared, like a hydra sprouting more and more heads every time one of them got cut.

After three days in the house, the flickering lightbulb in the hallway had been driving her insane, so she drove 30 minutes to buy a new one. When she went to the attic to find a toolbox, she noticed one of the walls covered in black mold. As the days went on, her list of goals changed from 'Forget about her wife' to 'Forget about her wife, fix the lightbulb, get rid of toxic mold, rebuild the wall, rewire the ceiling, clean out the bathroom and kitchen pipes and take care of the freaking duck she found.' What a week.

And of course, as the cherry on top, Heather had appeared out of nowhere with her stupid full of regretful face and her stupid 36 questions. And Veronica, like the idiot she is, fell for her schemes once again.

Now, Veronica is seated on the living room's cold wooden floor, as the storm keeps soaring outside like some Cloverfield shit, the papers that Heather brought spread carelessly next to Veronica's crossed legs like the big, preposterous elephant that it is; behind her, Henry strodes around, probably looking for cheerios or anything else he can snack on; above her, on her childhood bedroom, is her lying wife rummaging through Veronica's old clothes.

Veronica doesn't know how she feels about Heather's presence yet. Part of her is fuming, still upset about everything that happened, because one week is not enough time to recover from that, and even more upset about the fact that Heather completely disregarded her feelings and her need to step aside from all of the bullshit and straight up followed her like the crazy person that she is. But the other part of her, the stupid, irrational one, wants to do nothing more than forgive her, screw her pride and her broken heart, she just wants her life to go back to what it was before.

When she opened the door for Heather, all she wanted to do was wrap her in a tight embrace and stay like that for an hour, she had missed her so much that it hurt. But treating her coldly was the best way Veronica could avoid being hurt once more, she had to put her walls up even if that meant hurting Heather in exchange.

"Don't look at me like that," Veronica mumbles to Henry, who stares at her blankly. Even the duck was judging her; Veronica could practically hear him calling her stupid in his head. "You saw how I tried to deflect her but she's unstoppable."

36 questions, yeah right...Veronica isn't gonna make it through 4.

She grabs the bottle of the terrible wine she found in the liquor cabinet -she's more of a whiskey drinker, wine is Heather's go to drink, but the shelves of the cabinet had fallen the day prior and the two bottles of red wine had been the sole survivors- and pours herself a very tall glass, chugging half of it in one go.

She shouldn't have agreed to this, she knows that opening the door to Heather was like pressing a self-destruction button, and now she is screwed because of course Veronica had found sympathy for the pathological liar that screwed over her whole life. Now, Veronica has to try her hardest to keep her pride and the promise she made to herself to not get tangled up in Heather's crap again. Which is turning out to be harder than she thought.

"I will just answer the questions, and then she will leave," she says, muttering to herself. Henry keeps staring at her. "I know, but I will not let myself get fooled again, I swear. This can still go my way, right? "

The duck doesn't reply, instead his interest changes from Veronica to the droplets of water leaking from the ceiling. Perhaps Veronica should find a better therapist.

"Hey, just wanted to let you know that your toilet made this really weird noise when I tried to flush it," Veronica hadn't noticed Heather coming down the stairs until she was standing five feet away from her.

"Yeah, it's on my list," Veronica reassures her. Only then does she notice the shirt that Heather is wearing, the familiar black and red colors bringing back memories from her time in high school. "My old jersey..." she points out.

"Yep. Go Rottweilers!" Heather says with fake enthusiasm. There's an awkward silence between them, both women unsure of the steps they should take next.

"Hm, we should keep going, right?" Veronica clears her throat. "I have to wake up early tomorrow, there's a lot of stuff that I need to do."

"Sure," Heather says. Veronica moves over to give room for her to sit. Heather accommodates herself on the floor, her hand going for the wine bottle a second later.

"This wine is kinda terrible by the way," Veronica warns her.

"I'd settle for drinkable," Heather shrugs.

"I make no promises," Veronica says. They sit in silence for a few seconds as Heather sips on her drink, cringing a little every time she swallows but still she doesn't stop.

"This feels vaguely familiar," Heather says with a smug look on her face. Veronica had been thinking the same thing, she just didn't dare to mention it. Because this exact moment brings her back to their very first date, when Heather invited her over and Veronica, always so interested in psychology -it was her job after all - had brought the Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness, A.K.A the 36 questions, to test it out, and the two of them spent the night drinking, talking and laughing until four in the morning. The experiment proved to be effective in a way because that was the night Veronica fell in love with Heather.

"Moving on to question 2," Heather continues. "It's your turn to ask me."

"Oh, right," Veronica grabs the paper from the floor. She clears her throat before speaking, her mouth suddenly dry. "Would you like to be famous?"

"Yes," Heather answers. "Would you?"

"I don't think so. Your turn."

The situation is different, of course. Because they're not 25 anymore, Veronica inst in the middle of getting her Ph.D. and Heather isn't new in town. But still, as they stare at each other, the familiarity remains.

"Question 3," Heather continues. "Before making a phone call, do you ever rehearse what you're gonna say? If so, why?"

"Yes, and sometimes even then I get nervous and end up stuttering and saying things wrong."

"Well, I for one don't rehearse phone calls," Heather says. Veronica waits for her to explain it further but when she does do so.

"And now you say why."

"You know me, I never think about what I'm gonna say until uses already said it."

"I know that was true of Jessica..." Veronica answers back. She hadn't meant to, but the words come out bitterly out of her mouth.

"It's true for us both," Heather says, annoyed and Veronica has to fight the urge to scoff. Heather is in no position to be annoyed at her. "Most of these beginning answers are going to be the same."

"Well, then you should change your answers."

"Why would I do that?" Heather furrows her eyebrows.

"You're supposed to be answering as Heather, not Jessica," Veronica says, crossing her arms. "Right now all I know about you is that you're a big fat liar from Ohio."

"That is not true, you know a million things about me," Heather says, she actually looks offended, and Veronica instantly feels bad, but not enough to apologize. "You know more about me than anyone else in the world. Just...read the fourth question."

Veronica, feeling the tension building up obeys, wanting this to be over quickly and avoid another fight. "Question 4, what constitutes a perfect day to you?"

"What do you think my answer is?" Heather asks.

"I don't know," Veronica deadpans.

"Come on, don't you know what I like?"

"I know what Jessica liked."

"The same things. That's my point. It's not like I was lying about literally everything," Heather says, exasperated. "Those little things that you learned about me during our relationships, they were all real to Jessica and to Heather. We both think you look super hot when you wear your glasses, we both like red, we both like cornuts...none of that changes, ok?"

"Ok..."

"Do you remember how I answered the question three years ago?"

"Yeah, you said 'tomorrow can be the perfect day if we let it be,' " Veronica says. Of course, she remembers. The moment still feels like a photograph stuck in her brain forever: Heather with her hair in an updo, small strands of ginger hair falling on her face, her eyes a deep blue accentuated by her makeup, and that blouse... "It's very hard to forget an answer like that, especially if the person saying it was wearing a low cut blouse."

"Oh, you're thinking about my blouse?" Heather smirks.

"I'm just remembering it..." Veronica can't contain her smile when she answers. "Do you remember my answer?"

"The broad strokes," Heather says. "Picnic in the park with your family, spaghetti with lots of oregano for dinner, playing croquet, then everyone getting together in front of the fireplace to make s'mores."

"Still true."

"And I still want to be there with you," Heather tells her. "Question 5, when was the last time you sang to yourself? To someone else?"

"Hm, this afternoon, to Henry," Veronica said, remembering the little song she made up when she was bored about how awesome and cute her duck was.

"What about to yourself?"

"He only stayed for half."

"For me, it was today, on my way here," Heather answers.

"You sang? What did you sing?" Veronica answers, incredulous. Despite having a beautiful voice, Heather was a fan of singing to other people, not even to Veronica.

"Oh I'm gonna die out here," Heather sings, her voice coming out a little off key since she's singing so low.

"Oh I forgot about that hit," Veronica laughs.

"Yeah and I think that counts as me singing to someone else," Heather says, trying to hide her embarrassment. "Ask me the next one."

"Question six, If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want? You said body the last time, is that still true?"

"Yes. And you said mind, right?"

"Yep."

"See, nothing has changed," Heather says. "Question seven, do you have a secret hunch about how you will die? You said you thought you were probably gonna die because of your smoking, which I agree and should stop because you don't have the lungs of a 25 year old anymore. And you have asthma."

"I'm aware," Veronica brushes her off. " You said you weren't scared of death if I remember correctly."

"I'm still not, I'm only afraid of dying alone. Read the next one."

"Number eight, name three things you and your partner appear to have in common."

"That's easy. We are both terrible losers, we're both from Ohio as you now know, we both hate that awful kitchen island that we built, we both say the other is better at cooking..."

"That's four," Veronica chuckles. "Hm, God I don't know... we both love working at that café near our apartment, we both like drinking tea even when it's hot, and hm..we're both really proud and stubborn which means making up and acknowledging we're wrong is very hard..."

"Yeah, that's true..." Heather says, the comes of her eyes wrinkling, a hint of a smile appearing on her face.

Under the flickering living room light, her eyes appear to become lighter and Veronica can't stop staring at them, lost in a sea of blue. This isn't going the way she had planned. Veronica thought she could be strong but everything about Heather -the way that she talks, with the same type of confidence, her smell, her smile everything reminds her of Jessica. And in spite of circumstances, Veronica is still much in love with the person right in front of her.

A loud thunder coming from outside of the cabin snaps Veronica out of her trance, and suddenly the urge to walk away from Heather before she does something she will regret overtakes her. "I think we need more wine," she says, already getting up from the floor and walking in the direction of the kitchen before Heather can respond.

With the second -and last- bottle of wine in hand, Veronica grabs herself a glass of water to help with her headache. She chugs it in half a second but remains standing in the kitchen staring at her socks, trying to build up the courage to go back to the living room.

And that's when the lights go off.

8 notes · View notes

Professor Plump

*UNLOCKED*

As a big fat thank you to everyone who has supported this blog and enjoyed my stories, I am unlocking one of my favorite stories off Patreon. This has been a rough year for everyone and y’all enjoy a little treat. Of course, if you want more (20+ more fattening stories in fact) you know where to go. Enjoy.

As much as Robert Daniels loved being a professor, he woke up full of dread on the first day of fall semester. At 28 he was the youngest tenure track faculty in his department and he often felt that all eyes were on him. His first academic year had been rough, exhausting, and tiresome and he wasn’t ready to get back in the game. He just wanted his beautifully sunny and lazy summer vacation to last one or two more months.

As he sat up in bed his belly spilled forward pushing down his morning wood. There was no doubt he’d gained quite a bit of pudge in the last few months. It didn’t bother him, however, as most of his colleagues were plump and he viewed extra weight as a sign of contentment and maturity. During the school year he had actually lost weight from stress and being overworked. His new, rounder form lent a sense of satisfaction.

As Robert stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom to shower he took a close look at himself. He’d be turning 29 soon and was finally starting to look like a man. His face had grown scruffy and his chest hair finally bloomed across his pecs and down to his puffy stomach. The thirty pounds of fat that clung to his belly also gave him a more mature look. He was now firmly within “dad bod” territory and wore that badge with pride. He scooped his fat up with both his hands and gave it a hearty jiggle. He wondered if anyone on campus would comment on his somewhat weight gain.

Turning around, Robert examined his rear which was now fluffy and dimpled with cellulite. He noticed that even his ass had grown a bit hairier along with a small patch of fuzz on his lower back, framed between two bulging love handles. He could recall seeing the same patch on his father and wondering if the same was in store for himself. This memory cemented his perceived transition into manhood.

Robert’s thighs had also thickened up a bit and now touched when he was standing straight. He rubbed his thighs and gave them a slap, admiring how they bounced. Lately, he had no choice but to manspread when he sat down. Crossing his legs was a thing of the past. The added weight on his lower half gave him a sense of groundedness. All around the extra pudge made him feel strong and unshakable, despite jiggling quite a lot when he actually did shake.

Most of this excess poundage had been accrued during a month long cruise down Central America. Robert had spent almost every single day getting tipsy on fruity blended drinks and satisfying his drunchies from dusk ‘til dawn at the buffet. Carbs became his best friend, soaking up the sugary alcoholic concoctions he guzzled during the day. Altogether, cruise life was a much needed respite from the long nights of grading papers and doing research during the academic year.

His salary did not allow him to indulge in fancy foods very often, and so this cruise was an opportunity to go hog wild. He made a conscious decision to eat and live like a king. As a result, he began to notice his body expanding only midway through the trip. It seemed as though out of nowhere he had grown a squishy paunch that jutted out behind his shirts. By the end of the vacation he was even larger, noticing fat accumulating all over his body.

As he stood in front of his bathroom mirror, Robert found himself particularly fascinated by the small white stretch marks that had formed at the top of his inner thighs. He traced his fingers over their subtle indentations. He hadn’t seen fresh stretch marks since puberty when his shoulders expanded overnight one summer. He was shocked to see the same thing happen simply from overeating on a long vacation.

Plump, tan, and satisfied, Robert stepped into the shower with vigor and began to get ready for his first day back to work. He trimmed his wild scruff back to a presentable shadow and styled his hair. He then slipped into underwear that clung more than usual to his meaty rump and resultantly compressed his bulge more than usual. He would have to remember to buy some new pairs. T-shirts had also grown a bit snug but this was not a huge concern for they would be hidden behind a button up. What he hadn’t considered was that his button ups from last year would also struggle to fit around his new body.

Robert sucked in his gut while doing each button. He let his stomach spill forward and was shocked at just how much the shirt did not fit. Scrambling through his closet he found the loosest button up he owned and put it on. It was still snug and would definitely be strained when he sat down, but it would have to suffice. Next, he slid into his stretchiest pair of chinos and was instantly filled with anxiety.

The fabric clung to his thighs and ass leaving little to the imagination. This would have been tolerable except for the fact that the waistband would not button no matter how hard he tried. With no other option, Robert scrounged a safety pin from the utility drawer and fastened the pants closed. Donning one of his bulkier belts he hoped no one would notice he’d outgrown his pants.

His day commenced with a faculty meeting catered with coffee and pastries. Although he had eaten a breakfast sandwich immediately upon getting to campus, he grabbed a healthy looking danish for the meeting. It was dry and mediocre as campus food tended to be, but that didn’t stop him from inhaling it within minutes. A few of his colleagues eyed his bulging waistline although no one made a comment.

Midway through the two hour meeting Robert found that his stomach was already growling to be fed. With no other choice, he would have to eat another Danish despite the fact he would be the only one going for seconds. He stood to grab one more danish and as he sat down he heard the unmistakable noise of a seam busting. Praying no one else heard, he subtly reached down to his thighs where a small hole had formed.

After the meeting he headed straight to the bathroom to examine the damage. It wasn’t too bad, maybe just an inch or so large. Plus, his underwear matched his pants so it was barely noticeable. He figured he could get through the day without anyone noticing. Although no one noticed the tear in his pants, his students were fully aware of his newfound growth.

“Mr. Daniels lookin’ THICK,” someone commented before his first class began.

Robert ignored the comment and got on with his lecture. Still, in the back of his head he worried about his appearance and snug outfit. There was no question he would be investing in some new work clothes. By the end of the class he was hungry once again. At least it was lunch time, so he felt justified in heading to the student union for a big meal. He grabbed a massive burrito, chips and guac, a cookie, and large soda which he brought back to his desk.

Such a filling lunch was exactly what he needed. The food was comforting and satisfying, giving the plump professor a sense of peace. After scarfing it all down he leaned back in his chair and sighed. Just as he did so two buttons on his shirt went shooting across the room. “Fuck,” he said aloud to himself and went searching for the buttons so he could sew them back on. As he knelt on his hands and knees he felt the contents of his belly slosh forward and the seam of his pants rip even further.

Eventually, he found the missing buttons and broke out the sewing kit to get them back on. By the time he was finished stitching himself back into his clothes, there was someone knocking at his door. He’d forgotten about office hours. In a mad rush he cleaned the food wrappers off his desk and greeted the student. As he sat back down at his desk the same two buttons snapped back off and shot under his desk. Although the student overtly stared at Robert’s bulging gut, filled to the brim with his fattening lunch, neither of them acknowledged the embarrassment.

After the student left, Robert took off the button up and slipped his spare sport coat over his tee. The tee was more than a little snug and definitely didn’t hide much- the indentation of his belly button was fully visible- but it would have to do. After a constant stream of students over the course of an hour Robert rushed to his next class. The lecture left Robert feeling exhausted and tired. It was evening and he had grown peckish again, so he decided to grab a bite to eat before he had a meeting with the dean and could go home.

Hawaiian barbecue sounded like a good idea when he ordered it. However, after gobbling up every last morsel, the young professor felt uncomfortably full and bloated. He yearned for to return to the cruise ship where he could take a long nap after overindulging, but instead he sluggishly headed to the dean’s office. His belly had swelled considerably with the Hawaiian food and he found himself having to stretch the hem of his shirt down to ensure his gut was fully concealed.

Once inside, Robert cautiously took a seat in one of the rickety old chairs in the waiting room for the dean. After a few seconds he felt a snap underneath his ass as the seat of the chair gave way. Trying to be as subtle as possible, Robert cautiously lifted himself from the broken chair and casually examined a painting on the wall until the dean greeted him.

Once inside, the dean offered him a home baked muffin that his wife had made. Robert tried to refuse at first but the dean pushed it on him. He began pecking at the muffin and realized it was indeed quite moist and delicious. He polished it off in a couple minutes and resisted licking his fingers. By the end of the meeting the dean persuaded Robert to take one more muffin for the road. Without a second thought, Robert greedily snatched the biggest muffin of the bunch.

As he walked through the campus at night, illuminated by lanterns, Robert gobbled up the muffin while reflecting on the fact that he was in desperate need of a new wardrobe. His belly was stuffed to capacity and the sheer weight of it bulging out in front of him forced Robert to walk slow and steady with his shoulders back and hips forward. Freed from his constricting button up, his rounded gut peeked out from behind the sport coat and wobbled back and forth with each step to his car.

The walk seemed longer than usual, likely because he was slower than usual. Somewhat winded, Robert couldn’t wait to sit down as he opened the door to his hatchback. However, as he did so, a booming snap assaulted his ears and he felt his belly spill forward into his lap. Robert’s belt had completely snapped in half while the thigh of his pants simultaneously split all the way open from knee to crotch. His girth was simply too much to contain.

At least it happened at the end of the day, he told himself.

819 notes · View notes

Something Sweet: Part Three

~sweet beginnings~

one ~ two ~ three ~ four ~ five ~ six ~ seven ~ eight ~ nine

pairing: minsung, jisung/minho

warning: mild language

words: 2.5k ish

summary: sweet beginnings and small apartments, also Seungmin baby shows up

a/n: Im honestly just proud of myself for posting a third chapter woo!! lemme know if you read and enjoyed <3

also the spacing got wack trying to do the text convos, so hope the bold and non bold isn't too gross to look at. Minho and Jisung

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Minho wakes up to the sun streaming in through the thinly veiled curtains over his window. Thankfully he woke up to a minimal headache in spite of having gone out to the bar and an impromptu concert the night before. Rolling over in his small twin sized bed he reached for his phone to check the time and any potentially important notifications.

9:26 am

[ 2 new messages from Rich Boy Han Jisung ]

Minho finds himself smiling at the new messages from the boy that had stumbled upon him last night.

2:25 am

Youre right I do hear it all the time

but it sounds pretty sweet coming from you ;}

I'll tell J.One you thought he was amazing

9:28 am

Careful Han, your cockiness is showing

Jisungs’s cocky demeanor does nothing but make him more endearing to the older, but something gave Minho the impression that the boy already knew this. Not expecting a reply from the other this early in the morning, Minho stretched out of bed and made his way out of his small bedroom and quietly to the shared bathroom. Not a small feat in the old apartment shared by him and his roommates. Creaky floorboards, squeaky doors, and over all close proximity to each other makes being quietly courteous in the morning a frequent challenge for the boys.

The living room at the end of the small hallway was turned into a shared bedroom for Minho's two roommates. Felix’s mattress had gotten a bed frame from some trading website a few months back when he moved in. The makeshift wall of hung shower curtains and a fold out screen gave the boys the illusion of privacy between their respective sides of the room. Even though more times than not, Minho has come home to find the lanky brunette curled up in Felix's bed instead of on his designated couch.

Climbing over the piles of the boys’ clothes, Minho makes it to the bathroom without disturbing the other two. The two were still passed out from working their night shifts, draped over each other on the freckled boy’s bed. Neither showed signs of awakening any time in the morning hours. Minho showered quickly and changed in order to make his way out of the apartment and on his way to the studio to practice his Saturday away

Minho would have thought that the both of them would have remained in their university dorms for the summer, if they weren’t able to find apartments on their own. But, at some point after he had graduated, he had gained himself plus two of his underclassmen as roommates. He really couldn't complain though, it all made sense as all three of them were a part of the same dance studio, barely a block away, and all had reasons to be saving money. Paying a fraction of rent really helped with all that had to be saved in order to pay for school, studio fees, living, breathing, and most importantly audition fees.

As the summer had set in, so had the wave of audition opportunities for companies and crews. Felix had mentioned needing to prepare a video audition last week for a few entertainment companies in the area. Hyunjin was busy trying to save up his money to pay for the upcoming semesters at school to graduate like Minho had.

Entering the practice room and being welcomed by the distinctive scent of a dance studio was enough to bring Minho back to reality. Since graduating, he had been stuck in his thoughts about what to do with his future a lot. His childhood dreams of getting into the prestigious Yellow Wood Dance Academy seemed to slip farther away from him with every passing year. His audition tapes each year during university were almost always sent back, along with a ‘We are sorry to inform you…’

��It’s not like Minho couldn't keep applying, but with every year the rejection stung a little bit more, and he wasn't sure if he would be able to take another blow. No matter how confident Minho acted about his looks, when it came to dancing his ego was glass fragile. His passion for dance sometimes felt like the only thing that kept him standing, but it had been a while since he had felt rewarded for his dedication. Even when his practically broken dream haunted him a little too much, focusing back to his craft really gave him a better grasp on reality. Making his way to the front of the room to plug in his phone to pick music, a new notification popped up.

[Rich Boy Han Jisung]

10:03am

dw dw its all fake i assure you, all just a ploy to get you to like me

What you up to on this fineee saturday mornin??

Hmmm wouldnt you like to know

i only tell boys i like so...

Minho smiled in spite of himself. Even over text the sparkly eyed boy was able to pull out and dust off his genuine smile. It had definitely been a while since Minho had found himself freely smiling, but here comes Han Jisung crash landing into his life, running amuck. After spending a moment debating whether or not just to tell the younger of his activities anyway, he came to the conclusion that mentioning dance would only result in more questions, and Minho really wasn't feeling like spilling his passions and dreams with the other already.

Haha i am only even more motivated now >:D

Dont strain yourself too much with that,

im just enjoying my saturday before my shift later.

Queuing up some music Minho migrated to the middle of the room to casually freestyle and warm up for the day. Allowing the music to flood his ears, movements to take over his limbs, and only his feet to remind him of where he was, Minho’s mind went blank as he began to relax and give up control of his body to the steady beats of the song.

---

By the time Minho wrapped up his practice and was heading home the sun was already starting to settle on the lower half of the sky. Surprisingly the day had passed him by quickly. Spending the whole day grinding out a routine he had been recently working to perfect was not usually an overall fun time, but Minho found that he was able to keep his practice productive and enjoyable.

His smile throughout the day certainly had nothing to do with his breaks to text to Jisung. The casual banter between them felt natural, and the light conversation made him feel lighter on his feet as he moved across the floor. Even with the flirty nature of their introduction, their conversation never steered far from how anyone would expect two close friends to interact. Minho found himself smiling more throughout the day as he checked Jisung’s messages throughout the morning and afternoon.

12:25 pm

Also for the record my capacity to flirt is honestly quite unimpressive

I hope you aren’t talking to me for my stage charisma and charm

To sweep you off you feet, i may be a disappointment

Usually i'm just awkward, cant flirt, doesnt leave the house, Jisung

You almost tripped over your feet walking into the bar last night

Dw im not sure id want you to sweep me off my feet with that balance

You wound me ;--;

By talking to Jisung, he had somehow managed to satisfy all of Minho’s previous curiosities while sparking new ones. Even with Minho generally avoiding giving away his own personal interests and dreams, Jisung didn't hold those same reservations and filled their conversation with “fun facts” and lively stories. Jisung’s lively play by play of the bickering taking place between his group mates, now officially introduced as Chan and Changbin, had Minho giggling on the floor of the practice room. The way Jisung described everything brought it to life in ways that he hadn’t expected from a casual text conversation. The boy was definitely a great storyteller even just over type, and Minho found himself wondering if he would get to hear his endless stories in person.

---

[Rich Boy Han Jisung]

3:36 pm

Youre one interesting man Lee Minho

Han, you know almost nothing about me

On the contrary I feel like I know a good amount

Youre name is Lee Minho

You work at the fancy restaurant Menu 98

You used to work at the bar we were at last night

You have a really beautiful smile

…

Are you quite done

Definitely not but if i start going off about how stunning your eyes are

you might block me

Which would be a shame please dont

What happened to awkward Jisung who cant flirt huh?

Minho returned to the small apartment to find Felix attempting to cook some ramen in the microscopic kitchen and Hyunjin sprawled across the couch watching some variety show. Felix was probably fueling up in order to spend the night gaming the weekend away before his work overtook his weekdays again. Hyunjin barely looked to be conscious but still managed to wave a greeting to Minho as he walked into the room.

“How’d practice go?”

“Pretty well. Finally was able to clean up that middle section I’ve been messing up.” Minho hurried into the other room to shower once again before heading to the restaurant for his evening shift.

“Oh glad to hear it.” Felix’s voice filtered in from his place by the stove that was shoved in a corner of the room, along with a fridge and a sink that barely classified it as a kitchen unit. None of the three were complaining, the stove heated up their ramen water and the fridge kept their milk cold, what more could they ask for?

“WAIT, did you talk to that guy at the bar last night???” Hyunjin’s loud voice carried from the couch through their thin walls allowing Minho to clearly hear even if his bedroom door was closed.

“Which one, Jinnie?? You gotta be more clear than that.” Minho had actually stacked up a few numbers from his night and received atleast ten free drinks from other patrons. Not too bad for the first night out, but of course the only phone number he had bothered messaging happened to be the one he had been texting all day.

“You know the one, the rapper one you left to go see perform.” Minho of course knew, but he wasn't gonna admit it to his roommate so easily, and just hummed in response eliciting a groan from the younger.

“If you haven’t, you so should. 3racha is all everyone from the bar is talking about. Their concert must have been a big deal or something.”

“WHAT, 3RACHA? You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Felix, apparently a fan, shuffles in with his ramen in hand to accompany the loud outburst.

“Hyung! One of them gave you their number?? They’re literally like the next big thing in the music scene. Which one of them was it?”

J.One, Han Jisung, the cute pink hoodie guy

“His name is Jisung I’m pretty sure.” Minho was very sure. “I didnt know they were such a big deal”

“J.One gave you his number? Damn hyung, you don't even know. They’ve been performing locally for years but their fan base has grown a ton in the last year. There’s rumors that they've signed with a company and are going to come out with something soon.” Felix continued spouting off information on the group to them, as Minho continued his routine of preparing for work at Menu 98.

---

[Rich Boy Han Jisung]

4:35 pm

Looks like my roommate is a fan of you guys

We’re not talking the tall beautiful bartender from last night right

No that was Hyunjin, Felix is the fan

beautiful?

Ah atleast ill be on the good side of one of ur roomies

Yeah tall boy was pretty, but something about him made me think he didnt like me

I think it was his face, and his height

Most tall pretty boys dont take too well to a squirrel boy being in their territory ya know.

Whats not to like about a cute squirrel boy

Im sure he likes you and youre over thinking

If his two roommates like you, he’ll have to like you by association

:o

Did Lee Minho just admit to liking me

Wow the development, less than 24 hours

We love to see it

Your ridiculous

I said nothing of the sort

Sure sure hyung

Gtg now, dinner shifts starting

Have fun at work!!!!

(wait can i call you hyung???)

Minho left him on read as he walked into the restaurant, already bustling with waiters and the changing of shifts for the dinner crowd. ‘Less than 24 hours’ and Minho was already admitting indirectly that he liked the boy he had only just properly met the night before. Stranger things have happened he supposed. Minho continued to surprise himself with this one though. He was not one to seek out friendships or relationships. Anything more than the very occasional one night stand, was practically void from Minho’s social life. Other than the people he had met through dance and his roommates, there were very few others that Minho had chosen to form any kind of relationship with. Even his co-workers were mostly just faces and names he had to remember in order to do his job well.

Well, expect Seungmin.

“You look awfully happy today, who spiked your coffee this morning?” Seungmin had been a newly inserted character in Minho’s life but they became fast friends after a few too many late night shifts without proper caffeination.

Seungmin had been a newly hired host at Menu 98, just the average polite university student with enough experience to get hired. When Minho met him they exchanged the basic pleasantries and thought that would be the end of that, until one fated closing shift. A certain, tipsy, entitled, rich, high class asshole of a customer had held up Minho’s section for much of the night. Minho found himself being bossed around and verbally berated throughout the night, trying to serve the women who appeared to never be satisfied with the food or service Minho was offering. By the end of the night, she was their last customer and Minho saw her to the front to pay. His customer service smile, strained and barely holding up, and the woman’s complaints, even while paying, had him wanting to drop all his pleasantries and curse her out as she waltzed out the door.

“What an absolute fucking pain in the ass of a woman”

Minho hadn’t thought he had said his thoughts aloud, but looked up to catch Seungmin, who had let the words come out in hushed tones as he held a sickening polite smile on his face. After that point the two had bonded over various pain in the ass customers and a mutual love for sarcastic backhanded insults. Minho's relationship with Seungmin was probably the closest thing to a friendship that the older had experienced in a while.

“No spiked coffee, sadly”

“Well something’s making your usual sad bitch face smile, so it's gotta be good. Hmm...Meet someone?” Seungmin’s signature puppy eyes were on full display, but not without the signature mischievous glint they always held.

“Well wouldn't you like to know Seungmo~ but me and my usually flawlessly beautiful face got to go charm our way into some extra tips.” Minho gave the boy a gentle pat on his head, that was met with a stubborn pout forming at the younger’s lips.

“You definitely met someone, you usually don't have this much self-confidence so early into the evening.” Minho did nothing but giggle at his comment and made his way to the back room to begin his shift.

------

one ~ two ~ three ~ four ~ five ~ six ~ seven ~ eight ~ nine

26 notes · View notes

Heartlines, a Kingdom Harts fanfic, chapter 28--Epilogue

Twelve years ago, Xemnas betrayed the royal court of Radiant Garden to his father, Xehanort. Prince Ienzo flees to another city and begins university in the aftermath, hoping the anonymity will protect him from eager eyes with ill intent. The darkness spilling across the country, as well as an individual from his past, cut short Ienzo's new beginning and bring new conflicts to light. Strained between the desires of his magic and his heart, Ienzo's choice will change him forever.

Modern Fantasy AU, Soulmates, Zemyx. Updates Fridays until it's done.

Chapter summary: Time passes. The kingdom recovers. A prophecy comes full circle.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

Life was a work in progress. There were periods of unrest in the kingdom which were not always easy to smooth over with words, but Ansem did not want to use force. “Remember, Ienzo, a riot is the language of the unheard.”

Flowers began to bloom in Radiant Garden again. There was still signs of destruction everywhere--rubble, smashed out windows, destroyed buildings. But piece by piece, it was getting put together. The resistance based itself in the capital city and started what it called a “restoration committee,” not just to restore the city, but the whole kingdom.

Demyx spent a lot of time at the beach with Amalia, now that they both had their forms. Ienzo wondered if it would be salt in wounds to go to Destiny Islands at some point. He would ask when he felt ready.

Something else was growing too.

When he felt the nausea, the fatigue and dizziness, and the achiness, Ienzo did not delude himself into denial as he did the last time. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, good and hard. He held his hand in front of his stomach and reached out, tentatively. Something was there, a potential for a new life. But he did not feel the overwhelmed sense of panic he had when he was first pregnant with Amalia. He was still young, ridiculously so, but would this be so terrible?

He sought Even, who was busy puttering around the labs. There was light in his eyes again, joy, at having something productive to do. In fact, he did not seem bothered by Ienzo’s interruption. “No bureaucratic nonsense today?”

“My father insisted I take the morning off.”

“Your daughter?”

“Out swimming. I swear, sometimes I have difficulty getting the two of them to come home.”

“...It is good, to see Demyx happy again. I was… concerned.”

“Were you? You could barely stand each other in the beginning.”

Even rolled his eyes and pulled off his goggles. “Adversity draws people together,” he said. “I wonder often… if I have hardened my heart too much. I am trying… to let people back in.”

“And how is that going?”

He considered. “It is going,” he said. “But better than being stalled. Good to be… active. And to see you some semblance of safe at last.”

Ienzo came a bit closer. He was working on one of the replicas, a faceless white mannequin half covered with a sheet. “Does it feel good to see your work come to fruition?”

“It is bittersweet--putting it mildly.” He sighed. “If not for… that creature’s breakthroughs, this would not be possible.”

“It is still your creation.” Ienzo paused. “Even, have you met Xion?”

He fussed with tubes of mystery fluid. “Who?”

“Xion, Xemnas’s… ward. I shall have to introduce you.”

His eyes snapped up. “Why?”

“Because she is one of the replicas.”

“Of whom?”

“Of nobody. Herself.”

Even grasped his shoulders. “And you only tell me this now, boy?”

“Please be gentle with me, Even.”

He seemed to be reeling. “...Why?”

“I find myself to be in an indelicate condition. As it were.”

He turned red. “ Again ? Child, you know what causes that, right?”

Ienzo chuckled. “Would it be so terrible, to get the childrearing over with while my father is still able to help me rule?”

Even pressed a hand to his forehead and sputtered wordlessly. After a moment, he composed himself and held a hand over Ienzo’s stomach. “...Quite. I do not know whether to laugh… or cry…”

“Go seek Xion. She’s a guard on the upper floors. I know that’s where your heart is.”

He was already taking his coat off, grabbing a tablet computer. “Yes… right… we can discuss this later…” And he was out the door.

Ienzo returned to their rooms. To his surprise, Demyx and Amalia were back. “Done for the day already?”

Demyx gestured out the window. “It’s gonna storm. Plus I figured I owe you some lunch.” He leaned forward to kiss him, and Ienzo could taste the salt.

“Ra!” Amalia said.

“Right, rain.” Ienzo crouched down and smoothed the wet hair from her face.

“I’m gonna get cleaned up. What do you feel like? There’s this new place that’s opened back up not far out of the gates--”

Ienzo followed him into the bathroom. Demyx laughed a little.

“Look, I’d be so down, but like, she’s right in the other room--”

“I’m pregnant.” He didn’t know why the words had to leave him now, without ceremony.

Demyx just blinked. “Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

“Oh…” A small smile. “Oh… Do you want to--”

“I… want them.” He swallowed. “Get it over with while we’re young, right? While my father is still helping me? I can’t imagine going through this while being fully responsible for everything else.”

Demyx hugged him. “Round two?”

“...It seems so. I mean, to be fair, we were not the least bit careful, and it has been happening quite a lot lately--”

He kissed his forehead. “They’re going to be great.”

---

As it stormed later that night… Ienzo lay awake. He’d been even more of an insomniac during pregnancy, and he hadn’t much missed that. But he could not sleep. Demyx, who could basically sleep at will, had one arm draped over his stomach.

A particularly loud peal of thunder made Demyx stir, and from the other room Ienzo heard Amalia shriek and start to cry. Demyx’s eyes fluttered open. “It’s okay,” Ienzo told him. “I’ve got this. Go back to sleep.”

The drawing room had been turned into a nursery more fully now, the soft light of the mobile reflecting the rain in the room. Amalia was still crying. Ienzo leaned over the crib and hefted her into his arms. He settled in the old rocking chair. “It’s just a storm, sweetheart,” he said.

“Bad,” she said. “Bad, bad.”

“I know. It scared you.” He rocked gently. “I’m here. I’ll keep you safe. How about a story?”

Ienzo told her a story he’d learned from Demyx, about a rainbow fish that gradually gave up its scales to help others. He let his power cast a quiet illusion along the walls, of a deep blue sea, of that same fish swimming seemingly in midair. Somewhere in this, she fell back asleep, and rather than put her back in her crib, Ienzo remained there, thinking.

She hadn’t mentioned a sibling in the Forecast. Her words had been “we live with dad and grandpa in the castle”. If he gave birth on schedule, that child would be her age by the time of the Forecast.

But at the same time, toddlers were selfish. It could’ve just slipped her mind. Perhaps she was closer to Even or Ansem than her own sibling. Ienzo took a deep breath. Part of pregnancy was being illogically anxious.

It would be fine.

---

Perhaps it was for this reason, but Ienzo kept news of this child from Ansem. A few weeks passed, tremulously. He kept at work, meeting officials, sitting in committee meetings, deciding, deciding. Helping organize a parliamentary election.

After one such meeting, he was gathering his papers to return to his study when he felt a cramp, hard. He gasped aloud. “Are you alright, your highness?” Lydia asked. She was back to her post as librarian, and she’d brought him some books.

He blinked. “I’m… fine,” he said woodenly. Cramping during the first few months was normal, wasn’t it? Might be worth getting himself examined anyway. “It is nothing.”

“...Alright. Well, pardon me for overstepping, but perhaps you might rest. It’s been a long day.”

He swallowed, trying to choke down the dread. “I shall. Thank you.”

He made his way back not towards his rooms, but towards Even. The pain stuck him hard under the heart, and he had to duck into a bathroom before he lost composure. He wasn’t sure what whisper of an instinct told him so, but he pulled down his pants and checked his underwear.

Blood. A not-insignificant amount. He stuffed one of the small folded hand towels between his legs--mentally apologizing to the launderers--and hazily kept going. He almost stumbled getting the lab door open. “Even,” he said, and perhaps it was his tone, but the man immediately looked up.

“Ienzo, what--”

“Something isn’t right. With the baby.”

He grabbed him immediately and herded him over to one of the replicas’ exam tables. “And yet you drag yourself all the way down here instead of going to the infirmary.”

“I wasn’t--I didn’t want--”

He touched his face. “I know, love. Wait--are you--”

The blood must’ve seeped through the hand towel. “Fuck,” Ienzo murmured. He felt the coldness of Even’s magic assessing him.

He turned pale. “Ienzo, I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”

“But is it--”

“There’s no heartbeat, and you’ve lost quite a bit of blood. There’s no… life.”

Another cramp overtook him. “They weren’t in the Forecast--I tried to convince myself it was not so--”

“I know. I know, love. We should get you to the infirmary--”

“Please, no.” He felt more wetness between his legs.

“You’re losing too much blood to justify receiving care from only me.”

How awkward, and humiliating. Even carried him like a child. Hazily, he was changed, cleaned, given something to absorb the blood, fluids, painkillers. He let himself ride this quasi-consciousness, until a hand took his. “Zo?”

“Demyx? I--I’m sorry…” He swallowed, feeling a lump in his throat. “I lost it…” His hair obscured things from view.

“The important thing is you’re okay.”

“She didn’t mention them, I should’ve known--”

Demyx drew him close and held him for a long time.

---

It took him a while to recover from the miscarriage. Not so much physically--he was back to “normal” within several days--but emotionally he felt scrambled, exhausted. He did not know it was possible to love something so small so much.

Ansem insisted he take time off. Demyx waited on him hand and foot, but he was shaken too. Ienzo slept too much, could barely look at Amalia. He was taking a bath, his mind positively going nowhere, eyes unfocused on the ceiling tiles, when he heard small footsteps. “Da-dee?”

Wearily, he looked over. “What is it, love?”

She was holding her favorite stuffed animal, a unicorn she’d named Pinky. She offered it to him.

“Thank you, but I don’t want Pinky to get wet.” He set the toy on the chair by the tub.

She leaned over the lip of the tub. “Hurt?” she said.

“I’m just tired, love.”

“Hurt,” she asserted.

Ienzo sighed. “Yes, I’m sad. You know it’s okay to be sad sometimes, right?”

She nodded. “Help?”

He kissed her. “You already are.”

---

Perhaps because it was through this particular lens of sadness, but suddenly it seemed strange that he, governed so by emotions, be the one responsible for the welfare of this country. He, whose sole “mandate to rule” was his power. Why was it that, despite humanity’s long and colorful history in this country, there had never been strides made towards democracy, or anything other than absolute power?

There had been abdications, in the past. Ienzo found himself reading about them voraciously. There had been some good reasons for such actions--fundamental disagreements about faith and the way the country should be governed, a lack of acceptance of sexuality or gender, the heir apparent believing they were not competent enough--and some not so. Considering the convoluted transfer of power, from firstborn to firstborn only , it was amazing the monarchy had not collapsed under its weight or lost its power somewhere in the past. Should the firstborn, say, die in a tragic accident, or from an aneurysm prior to having an heir, that power was simply lost for a generation. And should that first child be sufficiently… along , enough in utero, and something were to happen to them, that counted.

Ienzo needed to talk to Ansem. “Father?”

He took off his glasses. “What is it?”

“Can I talk to you?”

He offered a smile. “Of course. How are you feeling, dear heart?”

He sighed and sat down. “This has all been very… overwhelming.”

“I’m sure. Loss of a child… even one that is not yet living… is very heavy stuff indeed.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about… mortality. Human weakness. Limitations of the body.” He found himself looking at his knees. “The fragility of my… power. How does it make me qualified to rule? The child I lost… could very well have been Amalia, some months along the line. Suddenly that power is gone.” He touched his abdomen. “Father, this whole monarchy… is starting to feel very…”

“Pointless?” He rubbed his brows. “I agree entirely. But the last thing people need right now is a radical change in government. We’re only just settling. Imagine what might happen if we suddenly propose some other form of rule?”

“...I know.”

“Once this is all over… I’m wondering if we should…”

“...Abdicate?” He cocked his head slightly.

Ienzo took a breath. “Am I a traitor for even thinking it?”

“Oh, Ienzo. No. Not at all. Class division is part of how we got into this mess in the first place. That you seek to abolish it shows your love for your people. Perhaps it might be worth it to consider the schema as to how this will be put in place.”

Ienzo let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Truthfully?”

“Truly.”

“...Thank you.”

---

Time passed.

Amalia was growing so quickly . She started to speak more clearly, in longer sentences. She started to show more magic. Once, Ienzo walked into her room and saw books hanging in the air all around them. “Look,” she said. “They’s flying.”

Demyx expressed his own desire to do work of some kind. “People need art,” he told Ienzo. “They’re going to need a way to deal with all that pain.” Together, they jumpstarted a national art program. To finally be active, to finally be helping people in a meaningful way… Ienzo felt… fulfilled.

This was all going to take work, probably constantly. But that there might be a day where they could have a simple, happy life with their family gave him pleasure.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised, but one spring day Amalia asked if they could go on a picnic. The day was sunny, the flowers were in bloom. He was sitting on a blanket on a patch of grass in the plaza. He worked the teardrop-shaped pendant absently with one hand. He knew that at some point they'd have to formally get married as long as he was in the public eye. But for now... this was enough.

“Daddy, look!” She opened her hands, revealing a small magic flower. “I made it!”

“Oh, sweetie, it’s beautiful.” The deja vu struck him with insistence.

She smiled widely, and reached to be picked up, so he did. “Can we go to the garden?”

“Of course.” Demyx was supposed to meet them there after his lesson in the city. He took the picnic blanket and set off.

“Do you think this is real?”

“What do you mean, love?”

“This. Right now.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I dunno… a ‘motion I had.”

“A feeling?” Ienzo offered. Then, “I had a dream when I was pregnant with you.”

“When I was in your tummy?”

“That’s right. And you sent me a memory, of this moment, right now.”

“What I say?”

“You told me about our friends. The ones who met you when you were a baby.”

She laughed. “Isa and mister Xemnas.”

“Yes. You told me everything I needed to know. It’s because of you this is all like this, you know?”

“I know,” she said, unimpressed. “Where’s daddy?”

“He’s on his way.”

They passed through the castle gates to the gardens, which were lush and full again. Aerith was tending to the flowers; she waved. “Hi flower lady,” Amalia called loudly.

“Hey yourself,” she said back.

Ienzo set down the blanket on a patch of clean glass.

“There’s my favorite girl.” Demyx set down the sitar. He scooped her up and gave her a kiss. “Did she give you much trouble?”

“Not today. Not yet. Did you get the i-c-e c-r-e-a-m?”

“Ice cream!” Amalia shouted.

“Zo, she’s too smart for that.” Demyx laughed. “Sold out, I’m afraid.”

Ienzo sighed. He’d been looking forward to it all day.

“But I did get these from someone at the lesson.” He handed Ienzo a bag with a pastry box inside. “Egg tarts. Several people told me they are to die for.” He sat down with their daughter.

Ienzo took them out and handed one to Amalia. “...Do you know,” he began. “Today’s the day.”

Demyx frowned. “What day?”

“It all came full circle. The Forecast. On the way over here.”

“Oh… wow. Really?”

He smiled. “And the future is again aqueous.”

“Like that’s a bad thing? Look, if we knew every minute, we’d always be trying to plan things. We wouldn’t get to decide.” He brushed a crumb from their daughter’s mouth. “Because of her… and you… we do now. I’m okay with that.”

“I… am too.” He swallowed.

“It’ll be us against the world.” His eyes were so soft.

“I know that.” He chuckled. “It’s terrifying, to have the choice. I think I’d like to finish university first.”

“School, school,” Amalia said eagerly. “Me and daddy go to school.” She was going to go to nursery school in the fall.

“Daddy’s going to school for big kids,” Demyx said to her. “You’re going with kids your age. Little.”

“Not little.” She huffed, then brightened. “School and make lots of friends!”

“She’s like you all right,” Ienzo said.

“Dunno. She’s too smart for her own good--like you.”

“I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” Ienzo admitted.

“I wanna be a cat doctor. Or a rockstar. Or maybe…” Amalia stuck out her tongue in thought. “Wanna be an explorer .”

“You already are, silly.” Demyx tickled her, and she squealed.

“I do still want to help people. Maybe psychology, or…” He trailed off. “To be determined.”

“Well, you’ve got time.” Demyx picked up one of the egg tarts and all but crammed it into Ienzo’s mouth.

He scowled, but then, “These are good.”

“Right?”

---

The sun was setting. Ienzo watched it from his alcove in the library. This was his favorite spot, its light, its smell of varnished wood and old books. But he wasn’t reading.

“...It is lovely, isn’t it?”

Ienzo looked up and saw Even, for once without his lab coat, his long hair pulled back into a ponytail. “Where were you?”

“I was… with your father. I’m afraid he made me take a walk in the garden.”

Ienzo felt his lips twitch into a smile. “Well, was it a nice walk?”

He wondered if he was imagining the blush. “It is good to get fresh air,” he said evasively. He leaned against the desk next to Ienzo. “So I hear you’re to… abdicate.”

“In several years, once things settle, but… yes. And Demyx will abdicate on Amalia’s behalf. No more royalty. Whatever we have left will simply be ceremonial, if that.”

Even chuckled gently. “All the time I spent defending the monarchy, and you’re giving it up. You are making me gray, child.” But he said this pleasantly. “Yes… change is not so bad. The world needed it. We needed it. We could not… run forever.”

“Do you feel good, to no longer be running?”

“I do,” he admitted. “I felt such a coward for so many years. To get my hands dirty is a relief.”

“I have to thank you, for all you’ve done for me. I took you for granted.”

Even reached over and brushed the hair out of his face. “Well raising you certainly wasn’t easy.”

He laughed a little.

“In all seriousness, Ienzo, I didn’t do it entirely out of duty. I loved you--and I still love you--as if you were my own. Bonds don’t change, the… lines between hearts.”

“Heartlines?” He raised his eyebrow. “My father must be rubbing off on you. You were never so philosophical.”

“I am trying to open my heart.” He put a hand to his chest. “And it is painful, but I feel I am… growing. Never thought I would have to at my age.”

“And what of things with Xion?”

“She is a lovely girl. She’ll do well once she starts school. We’re trying to spend time together. In a way… she is my child.” A sigh. “Though this research… what right have I to create new life?”

“You saved many who would be the seeker of darkness’s victims.”

“...A cold comfort.” He tapped his fingertips together. “Come, then. That husband of yours is attempting to cook.”

Ienzo felt a shimmer at “husband”, but was it not true? Ceremony or no ceremony. “He’s a good cook, Even, you just have an unenlightened palette.” He stood and together they began to walk.

“...I’ll just chalk it up to cultural differences. I suppose… all of this could’ve been much worse, yes?”

“It could’ve.” He paused. “Will we… once I leave this place, Even, will we still be part of one another’s lives?”

He seemed perturbed. “Of course, Ienzo. Always.” He squeezed his hand. “Don’t fear change the way I did.”

“I won’t.” He swallowed, feeling an unexpected rush of emotion. “I promise, I won’t.”

6 notes · View notes

I want to write this as a full story, this is based off of a weird dream I had

Lascia che ti porti in paradiso

You drove you car down the highway and couldn't help but wriggle around try not to reenact the dance from Napoleon dynamite as Canned heat played on the radio. You couldn't help but feel like the world was rooting for you, you had woken up two days ago to find out that you had been written down to be the soul inherentor of a stranger's fortune and estate.

At first you were reluctant on the offer, thinking there must have been some mistake or a scam but no it wasn't and it turned out the stranger had no living relatives and had picked out your name out of the thousands of others in the state rather then let the government take it.

You were now on your way to your new home with the few things you had from your apartment all packed in the back.

You had sold most of your furniture since your new mansion already had a ton.

You hummed as you tapped your hands on the steering wheel before seeing a man run out Infront of your car. You slammed your foot on the brake and closed your eyes, hoping you wouldn't hit him. Your car made a screeching halt and you opened you eyes and saw that the man had fazed through the front of your car. You were face to face with the ghost.

"Danm it you nearly made me a ghost myself! don't you know some of us living can see you!" You scolded.

"Sorry..." He replied.

"Trying to kill yourself isn't going to do anything... You need to fulfill your life task if you wanna move on" you explained to him before someone knocked on you window.

"Yes?" You asked the man outside as you winded down the window slightly.

"Why the fuck did you slam on the fucking brake! Nobody's in fucking front of you!" The man yelled as he hurled profanity after profanity at you.

"I'm sorry, I just had a bit of a panic attack..." You explained to the male before driving off again.

You had become accustom to the existence of ghosts, you had been able to see them for most of your life. You had especially grown use to it while living in that dodgy apartment since a lot of drug use and domestic abuse happened around that area. You could have become a psychic medium but really couldn't see yourself being one so you lived a life like everyone else.

You made a turn off the highway and drove through a few streets before stopping at a service station to refuel your car. In the store you paid the woman at the counter that had disinterest written all over her face before your phone ran. You quickly grabbed it out of your pocket as you made your way back to the car.

"Hello?" You answered to the phone.

"Oh hello miss (Y/n), I was wondering how long you'd be to the house?" The inheritance lawyer asked.

"Well I just got off of the highway, I'll probably be there in another hour..." You responded.

"Ok that's perfect, that'll give me time to drop my kids off at my mother's" he explained.

"Ok, I'll meet you at the house soon" you said.

"Bye"

"Bye"

You put your phone back in your pocket before opening your car door and grabbing out the mapbook and finding the right page.

"Ok so I'm on Charlotte Street now... so I'll have to go straight through Devondale then turn off at Rochester road then Tamala way til I reach Willow peaks" you said to yourself as you looked through the map before starting up the engine again.

🍁🍁🍁

You stopped your car at a pair of large gates that stood proudly Infront of your property. You hopped out the car and approached the gate and unlocked the the padlock that sealed it shut before hopping back in and driving up the long winding driveway where tall trees blocked out most of the sunlight til you reached a clearing. The three to four story mansion shadow loomed over the land where a beautiful garden grew with an abundance of colourful flowers. Roses, carnations, snapdragons, dianthus, gardenias, if you could name a flower it was most likely there. You parked you car outside the garage. You stepped out and the fragrance of the garden hit your nose like a surprisingly pleasant punch to the face. You admired the garden even more as you walked past the flowerbeds and inspected the flowers more closely. They were so well kept, surely the previous owner had hired gardeners to maintain it after they passed.

You walked around the back to see various fruit trees in bloom. Cherries, peaches, plums, apples, lemons and oranges. In the middle a old water fountain stood. As you approach you could make out the statute, a young man with long in robes and chains holding up a flower with it's roots intact. You stood on the edge of the fountain and looked at features of the worn statue that was made of a mixture gold and bronze or copper.

The man had long wavy hair with a curled fringe, plump lips, a young but well built body and eyes that seemed to see all despite being a statue. You then took note on all the lime and calcium that had built up on it as well as how full the metal was maybe you would go and grab some stuff tomorrow and give it a well needed clean.

"The estate is very impressive, isn't it?" A familiar voice asked.

You turned and saw the inheritance lawyer who was a few metres behind you.

"It's amazing, if the outside is this this good then I can only imagine how the inside must be" you replied.

"How can somebody keep a garden so perfect?" You asked.

"The previous owner told me that she hadn't worked on the garden for five years yet it had never overgrown" he explained.

"Did she know anything about this statute?" You asked, so curious to find how such beauty had been immortalized.

"No she didn't, it's been here since this place was first constucted in 1797" he explained.

"1797?!" You gasped.

"Yes, but of course it's had it's fair share of renovations, some to preserve it and others to extend it" he explained to you but your attention was soon diverted to one of the windowsills as a curtain was pulled aside and somebody peered through only to close it again.

"I'm excuse me but is anybody in the house already?" You asked as you looked back to the man.

"No there should be anyone else here, why do you ask?"

"I was just curious, that's all" you replied.

"You must be eager to see the inside" he chuckled as you both returned to the front and approached the front door. He grabbed out the keys to the house before unlocking the door and opening it.

You both walked in to see the massive entranceway. A high celling with a crystal chandelier hanging down, two sets of stairs on either side of the room, dark wallpaper and lavish rugs, painting decorating the walls. It was like what you'd see in the movies.

"This is amazing!" You gasped.

"Yep and you haven't even seen the 28 rooms" he said but before you could respond you saw somebody in plain sight run across the upstairs balcony.

"Did you just see that?" You asked as you pointed to where you saw them.

"No, I didn't see anything, are you sure your mind isn't playing tricks on you?"

"It's probably just me" you sighed before he lead you off to see all the rooms on the ground floor.

The kitchen was huge and so was the dinning room and entertaining area. You had your own laundry room, a study, two bathrooms and an atrium which led to the garden. You even had a basement / cellar. Then he brought you up to the second and third story where ten large bedrooms were placed, two of them being connected to large bathrooms with a nice black and gold colour scheme that screamed opulence. There were four more bathrooms for guests and then another study / entertaining area before you reached the attic which was the only place that wasn't clean. It was filled to the brim with boxes and spare furniture covered in cobwebs and dust. You had a quick look through all the furniture.

"I'll go down the the dinning room and get the paperwork ready for you to sign while you have a look around" he said as he left.

You took a step and accidentally tripped over a sheet, a framed portrait falling onto you in the process. You got into a sitting position and picked up the painting. It was of the same man depicted in the statue. His skin was fair, one of his eyes was a blueish green while the other was amberish, somewhere between brown and hazel. His long locks were a golden blonde, his arms were loosely wrapped around the neck of a young doe while a snake was loosely draped around his neck. The man's features seemed peaceful but he also seemed to radiate an aura of superiority.

The male must of had something to do with this household. The question thou was how?

46 notes · View notes

all the ones you haven't answered yet? i'm sorry you're sad💙

thank you, that's very sweet. i hope you're doing alright 💛

1. when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? - more milk. i always end up putting too much.

2. do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? - yes

3. what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? - library receipts, post-its, junk mail, pencils

5. are you self-conscious of your smile? - i think it’s one of the few things i’m not self-conscious about, actually. i like my smile.

8. what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? - writing, often poetry but sometimes prose. i like creating playlists, too, and singing.

9. do you like singing/humming to yourself? - yeah, i sing to myself all the time. whatever song i have stuck in my head at the moment.

10. do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? - side, but very occasionally my stomach.

12. what’s your favorite planet? - jupiter

14. if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? - lots of pillows and blankets of all types. succulents and cacti on the windowsills. wooden utensils and dark cabinets in the kitchen. a breakfast bar with stools that don’t match. rugs with funky patterns. a big, soft couch in a bright color that you can sink into. a small balcony with fold-out chairs. rows of mugs and barely any plates. the bathroom crowded with makeup and skin products, writing on the mirror in blue marker. beds never made. a guitar in the corner of the sitting room.

15. go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! - there are more trees on earth than stars in the milky way

16. what’s your favorite pasta dish? - angel hair pasta with puttanesca sauce

18. tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. - i can’t think of anything...

19. do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? - everything. sometimes it’s big things, sometimes small. my fears and what i’m in love with. regrets. shame. hope.

20. what’s your favorite eye color? - grey

21. talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. - idk if it’s really my favorite, but my current backpack took me all through college and it’s good for storing stuff or using as an overnight bag. it’s from timberland and is a nice earthy brown with a flap over the top. lots of pockets.

22. are you a morning person? - i can be

23. what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? - make breakfast and tea. read or watch a movie that makes me rethink everything

25. what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? - a school, i think?

26. what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? - i haven’t had them forever, but i wear my doc martens with everything. i used to wear plain white keds with everything.

27. what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? - winter green

28. sunrise or sunset? - sunrise

30.think of it: have you ever been truly scared? - yes

31. what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. - i like soft, fluffy socks and ones with fun patterns. i love hiking socks. i don’t wear them to sleep tho.

32.tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. - i went to a waffle house at 5am with a friend and some friends of hers i’d just met on her birthday. we were all really drunk, the food took forever, and it tasted awful, but we were happy and laughing.

33. what’s your fave pastry? - probably a cinnamon roll

35.do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? - i like a good calligraphy pen and new notebooks. i don’t use them often; i feel like i don’t have anything important enough to write.

37. do you like keeping your room messy or clean? - it’s usually clean unless i’m not feeling well. sometimes i get disorganized.

38. tell us about your pet peeves! - overlapping conversations. people interrupting others. loud mouth noises, like chewing or licking. people criticizing my driving. nitpicky comments on my clothes or how i look. being talked about.

39.what color do you wear the most? - black, probably.

41.what’s the last book you remember really, really loving? - how it feels to float by helena fox

42.do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! - nope

43.who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? - i’m not sure

44.when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? - i can’t remember

45.do you trust your instincts a lot? - not really

46. tell us the worst pun you can think of. - i can’t remember it but something about pigeons and being coo-l

47. what food do you think should be banned from the universe? - bacon. i just wanna make people angry.

48. what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? - my dad told me a story once, about when i was a kid. he said that he and i were walking together near the lake in the neighborhood across from mine. i was holding his hand, and i said to him that this was the happiest time in my life because i wouldn't be the same when i grew out of being a child. i think i have the same fear now--that i'll never be that happy again.

49do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought?

- i like records but i only have one. it's an album by ccr. i really like them

50.what’s an odd thing you collect?

- beer bottle caps

52. what are your favorite memes of the year so far?

- maybe those "girl..." text posts that just say stupid shit

53. have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them?

- watched them all but pulp fiction. i don't really remember heathers at all

55. what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point?

- lets not talk about that

57. go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics?

- not in the mood sorry

58. who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? - bri is wine mom. quincy and i are vodka aunt.

60. do you like poetry? what are some of your faves?

- yes but i rarely remember favorites. i read so much and feel it then forget all the words

61. what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received?

- someone gave me a rock once. i get too nervous to give stupid gifts

62. do you drink juice in the morning? which kind?

- orange or cranberry

63. are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be?

- i'm more fussy about music than books, but i do like my books organized. i like them worn in and well-read tho, not in perfect shape.

64. what color is the sky where you are right now?

- a fuzzy, light blue-grey. it's snowing

65. is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with?

- a few

66. what would your ideal flower crown look like?

- lots of green leaves in all different shapes and sizes. tiny white and blue flowers.

67. how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel?

- isolated and insignificant. safe

68. what’s winter like where you live?

- cold, grey, snowy.

69. what are your favorite board games?

- idk if i really too many board games. maybe cranium. i like puzzles more

71. what’s your favorite kind of tea?

- honey vanilla chamomile

72. are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it?

- yea and even then i forget.

73. what are some of your worst habits?

- i give up too easily

74. describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.

- excitable. emotional. so very smart. creative as all hell. self-conscious where they shouldn't be. never runs out of words in the best way. loves to share.

75. tell us about your pets!

- my dog shiver is turning into a little old man, but he still acts like a puppy. he likes attention and whines to communicate. he'll greet you at the door and put his front paws on your thighs to say hi. follows you all around the house. loves to cuddle.

- my pigeon spirit is young and vocal. she coos for attention. when i go to sleep, she grunts every time i move to ask where i am and if i'm okay. i take showers with her and sit on the tile; she puffs up right into my side and sticks her wings out for me to splash water on her. she likes to be close to me to get neck scritches and push her head into my neck and preen every bit of me she can.

76. is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t?

- a lot probably

77. pink or yellow lemonade?

- limeade

78. are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?

- i dunno they're cute

80. what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why?

- it's white wallpaper with pink roses along the top and ribbons of pink and green striped vertically. my mom chose it before i was born.

81. describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of.

- they sort of remind me of dark water where everything is reflected back in it--not just the sky but the trees and people walking--and they make you want to look closer because you know there's something in there, it's not just a reflection, like flat glass. but it's hidden until you dio your hand in the pictures broken.

82. are/were you good in school?

- pretty good

83. what’s some of your favorite album art?

- i don't look at albums

85. do you read comics? what are your faves?

- not really, but watchmen is one of my favorites.

86. do you like concept albums? which ones?

- dunno

88. are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy?

- um. idrk. i like whatever monet was doing.

91. where do you plan on traveling this year?

- maybe michigan

92. are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch?

- i like cheese

93. what’s the hairstyle you wear the most?

- i just kind of. let it do whatever.

94. who was the last person you know to have a birthday?

- my uncle

95. what are your plans for this weekend?

- honestly have no clue

96. do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot?

- put them off until windows tells me it's restarting the computer in five minutes

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house?

- mb

98. when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it?

- in college with jacob, although i wouldn't really call it joking. we just walked through a state park. it was beautiful.

100. if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why?

- idk. i feel like i'd make the same mistakes if i went back, but the future scares me.

1 note · View note

Hi, here’s me attempting original writing based off a prompt. I call it The Gravedigger. I may write more to it later but,, here you go!

-

Im pretty sure this prompt came from @writing-prompt-s, but Im not 100% sure.

-

-

-

“Mr. Cyclonis, I’m going to have to remind you that brooding at your husband’s grave isn’t healthy behavior, and the cemetary closes in 15 minutes,” I spoke in a hushed tone to the silent man. He didn’t react, but I knew he heard me. I walked away, quietly, leaving him be. He would come to the cemetery at 5:28, bouquet and worries in hand, and then leave at 8:59 on the dot, every Thursday. He would be back next week, a new bouquet and fears to whisper at his husband’s gravestone.

I padded over to my shed, keys in hand. There was a funeral for Ms. Jacktop tomorrow, and I needed to dig her grave. No one digs graves by hand, or well, shovel, anymore, but I did. Couldn’t bare to do it with a backhoe, not after all these people have done for us. They deserve a place dug out of respect for what they have accomplished. Superheroes aren’t exactly made for digging graves for friends. That’s why I do it.

“Goodbye Grave,” a soft voice echoed. I closed my eyes and nodded my head as Mr. Cyclonis walks by. I didn’t want to see the tears in his eyes, but I could hear them in his voice. He didn’t deserve this. None of them did. I took a deep breath and head to the edge of the cemetery, where the gate is, and close it. I tugged the lock closed, placing the key back into my pocket. One of a million things done.

I quickly surveyed the graveyard itself. No grave seems disturbed, meaning no graverobbers so far tonight, nor any mistaken dead. It had happened more than once, but the first time is still etched in my mind.

A muffled shriek came from the freshly covered grave. I jumped in terror, not expecting a cry in the dead-quiet cemetery. I was doing the rounds, checking on each corner of the place for graverobbers. Never could be too careful with villains and petty thieves. However, I didn’t see anyone there. The shriek came again, louder. This time, I could hear words.

“Let me out! Someone, please! Get me out of here!” I took off towards the voice. After following the voice for a while, I glanced down. Then it hit me. The screams were coming from below ground, not above.

“Please, is anyone there? Please, help! Let me out!” I glanced at the freshly dug grave, and removed the shovel I carried on my back. Either this person was still alive, or I needed to get out of the cemetery business.

After 20 minutes, I finally reached the casket, tearing it open. Inside was Ms. Sonix, the superhero with the most powerful and deadly voice. She looked terrified. I took her to my little house on the edge of the property, and gave her a blanket and some tea.

As she calmed down, I called the superhero equivalent to 911, explained the situation, then asked her if there was anyone else she wanted me to call.

“… Can you call my partner, Scree? She… she must be heartbroken over this,” was the only phrase I got out of Ms. Sonix before she fell into tears. I patted her back, and made a call to the Superhero Assembly’s number. They had given it to me after I started working at the cemetery, promising that they just wanted someone they could trust looking over their fallen.

I hummed, carefully walking over to my no-longer-small house. I ran a halfway house for those with powers who didn’t wish to become anything super, hero or otherwise. Gretchen hovered around the porch, waiting for me.

“No graverobbers to chase off this time?” They asked, making quiet wind in the trees. Their power was simple: they were the wind, and their voice controlled how hard they blew. I shook my head and smiled.

“Why aren’t you asleep yet?” Gretchen looked down at their feet- or their equivalent of feet. I waited for their answer.

“Joey had another prophecy. He wanted you, but you weren’t back yet. I promised him I would bring you to him as soon as you got back,” they replied, no louder than a soft breeze on a summer’s night. I nodded my head, grabbing the door handle and shuffling Gretchen inside.

Inside was soft chaos, the kind you see when you walk into a small child’s room when they clean it themselves; there was stuff everywhere, but in such a manner than it looked purposeful. I followed Gretchen to Joey’s door, and carefully open it. Joey sat on the edge of his bed, shock blanket over his shoulders and tea in hand. Emily and Avery sat next to him quietly whispering well wishes and calm thoughts.

“Alright guys, time for bed. I’ll take care of Joey,” I murmur, patting Emily’s shoulder. She nodded and grabbed Avery’s hand, leading her blind sibling away carefully. Gretchen followed them, using the wind to shut the door softly. I turned to Joey and sat down next to him.

“Joey? Can you hear me?” I whispered. Sometimes he lost the ability to sense things after receiving prophecies. Tonight seemed to be one of those nights. I gently touched his shoulder, and began to sign to him.

“You okay? Need help?” Joey shook his head. He closed his eyes and placed his tea down onto the floor. He sighed and opened his mouth, hesitated, beginning to sob.

“It… the… it was…” I patted his shoulder gently, letting him find his words. “I-it was about you, Grave, and I… I’m scared, scared that m-means we’re going to lose you,”

I blinked in surprise, but opened my arms to the boy. Comfort now, worry later. He launched himself into them, tears flowing down his cheeks. I rubbed his back, humming softly. He was only 9, the poor boy didn’t deserve this. None of these kids did, to be honest.

Eventually, Joey fell asleep and I laid him down, covering him with his blanket. I snuck out of the room, quietly shutting the door. I sighed, padding down the hall to check on the others. Emily and Avery were curled up together in their bed, as always. Gretchen was swirling quietly in their bed. Must be having a dream, I thought. Jack and Loop were asleep in their bunk beds, as were Hannah and Kiersten. I smiled, and went to check on my last tenant- Tuesday.

“Tuesday. It’s time for bed,” I called into the living room, where I knew he was. I could hear the video game he was playing. I heard it stop, and footsteps replace it.

“Do I have to? The electricity is so nice, and the game is fun,” I shook my head gently, pointing towards the bathroom.

“Brush your teeth, Mr. Electric, and head to bed,” I said plainly. He nodded his head and headed off. I sighed. Time to check the graveyard again, then to head to bed.

I whistled on the way back to the graveyard, carefully picking my way through the graves. Tomorrow was cleaning day, the day I clean each headstone and replace any flowers that had died. They deserved that much, I believed, especially after all they had done.

Walking up the path was calming, but quiet as death itself. I did not waver however, used to the deathly stillness of graves and dead air, and continued to weave my way to the other side of the cemetery. There, I found him.

He was a tall man, dressed in a rich navy suit with a deep blood-red cane. I didn’t know his name, but I knew his story. I knew his job.

“Have you come for me?” I asked, my voice carrying over the small distance between us. He shook his head and gently tapped his finger on his cane, once, twice, three times. I nodded my head thoughtfully. I bit my lip in worry. He didn’t come very often, but when he did…

“Have you came for one of my kids?” He nodded his head this time, tapping his finger on his cane once more, in the same pattern: once, twice, three times. I sigh, closing my eyes.

“You’ve come for Joey, haven’t you,” My voice was quiet, but strong. I would not break at his lack of words. I would not break at his appearance. I would not break.

“You aren’t taking him. Forget it,” My voice grew harsher with every word, spitting out each syllable like sunflower seeds. Joey had been with me for years, since he was a mere five years old. I would not let him be taken so easily. The man tapped his finger on his cane, once, twice, three times, and Joey was before us, floating in the air, still asleep. I shook my head, picking Joey up out of the air. He barely weighed anything at all; he never gained weight, no matter how much food I gave him. Joey would not leave tonight, I would make sure of it.

The man frowned, tapping his finger on his cane again, once, twice, three times. Must be tied to his power, I noted, mildly annoyed. No matter his power, he was not taking my kid. I met his scarlet eyes, and he looked away, turning. For the first time, I heard his voice.

“You can’t always protect them,” His voice was high, almost feminine, and streaked with self-righteousness. I gritted my teeth, pulling Joey closer.

“Get out before I have another grave to dig,” I said, my voice breaking as he nodded, tapping his finger on his cane, once, twice, three times before disappearing. I sighed, looking down at Joey’s soft face. The boy hadn’t woken up luckily.

“Let’s get you back to bed,” I mumbled, turning towards my house, and started the trek back.

21 notes · View notes

Paul Merton’s 36 best jokes and funniest one-liners from Have I Got News for You – iNews

He’s a mainstay of long-running panel show Have I Got News For You, and now funny-man Paul Merton is on a mission to unearth long-lost ancestors as part of BBC One’s Who Do You Think You Are?

To celebrate the quick-quipper’s nearly 40-year career, we’ve compiled almost as many of his best jokes and one-liners from his work on HIGNFY and beyond.

“I’m always amazed to hear of air crash victims so badly mutilated that they have to be identified by their dental records. What I can’t understand is, if they don’t know who you are, how do they know who your dentist is?”

Angus Deayton: “And did you chat with the Queen Mother?” Paul Merton: “We talked about you.” Angus Deayton: “No, you didn’t.” Paul Merton: “Yes, we did.” Angus Deayton: “What did she say about me?” Paul Merton: “I’ve never heard such language in all my life.”

“I’ll never forget my first experience of swede. It was at school and I thought I was getting mashed potato. I’ve never got over it.”

“If you stay in a house and you go to the bathroom and there’s no toilet paper, you can always slide down the banisters. Don’t tell me you haven’t done it.”

“I don’t consider myself a fashion victim. I consider fashion a victim of me.”

Ian Hislop: “And they’re behind Theresa May like Stormtroopers!” Paul Merton: “You’re having one of your turns again, Ian! You asked us to tell you when it happens! His nose bleeds when he has to deal with Popular Culture…”

“I think Iran and Iraq had a war simply because their names are so similar. They keep getting each other’s post.”

(Photo: BBC)

“Every story ever written’s in the Dictionary! You just have to put the words in the right order.”

“Gromit is one of the great silent comedians. He’s up there with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. He may even be above them, because he’s still working.”

Sean Lock: “Only 2% of people go to church in this country.” Paul Merton: “And they’re priests!”

Jacob Rees-Mogg: “We know the plan! We are going to leave the EU! Brexit means Brexit!” Paul Merton: “That’s the Aim! What’s the plan?”

“My school days were the happiest days of my life, which should give you some indication of the misery I’ve endured over the past 25 years.”

“All disc jockeys are without talent. Noel Edmonds – I can’t stand Noel Edmonds.”

“Bono was up on stage saying ‘Every time I click my fingers, a child dies!’ and someone yelled ‘Well, stop clicking your fingers, then!’”

“The first Underground station ever opened was Baker Street in 1906. What was the point of that? Where would you go?”

[On Chris Evans] “He’s got the look of a comedian but without the talent or the writing ability or the timing.”

(Photo: Getty)

“On my first day in New York a guy asked me if I knew where Central Park was. When I told him I didn’t, he said: ‘Do you mind if I mug you here?’”

Clive Anderson: “Do you still live in Islington as well, Boris?” Boris Johnson: “Partly, yes.” Paul Merton: “I don’t think you live on the planet Earth, never mind Islington!”

“It’s amazing how many people think they’ve got dignity to lose, isn’t it?”

[On the Queen at Harry and Meghan’s reception] “She’ll have a footman chucking cheesy Wotsits at her.”

“Am I the only one who’s always tempted to light the wick on top of a beret?”

“My aunt died at precisely 10.47am and the old grandfather clock stopped at precisely the same time also. It fell on her.”

“Anne Widdecombe is the Odd One Out because she’s the only one holding a Decapitated Barn Owl.”

“There are various ways to give up smoking – nicotine patches, nicotine gum. My auntie used to pour a gallon of petrol over herself every morning.”

Frankie Boyle: “A new Superbreed of Sex-Mad, Sleepless Slugs has arrived from Spain.” Paul Merton: “Ah, an Alliterative Threat!”

(Photo: BBC)

“My hair’s got a life of its own. Last week I found it in the kitchen, making an omelette…”

[On reading the A to Z] “Can’t wait to see what happens at the end. The characters aren’t up to much but the places, they seem so real.”

“I used to go out with a giraffe. Used to take it to the pictures and that. You’d always get some bloke complaining that he couldn’t see the screen. It’s a giraffe, mate. What do you expect? ‘Well he can take his hat off for a start!’”

“Mugabe is a Yorkshireman in reverse. Because his name is Ee by gum backwards. 37 years waiting for that laugh…”

“You’ve heard of Sheep gambolling in the meadows, well it was Poker they were playing!”

Paul Merton: “He doesn’t look old enough to have been a Milkman for 50 years!” Host: “They start them very young there. As soon as you can reach the udder, you’re away.” Paul Merton: “That’s not just Milkmen. For many people, that’s a good night out!”

“It’s silly to make generalisations, but if you talk to anyone in the south for longer than five minutes, they will try to sell you fruit.”

Paul Merton: “There are other reasons for squinting in bed, of course.” Angus Deayton: “Such as?” Paul Merton: “Use your imagination, Angus! We’d send out a search party for it, but they’d never come back!”

“Michael Gove! That is how a man dresses when his wife doesn’t see him leaving the house.”

(Photo: BBC)

Host: “But who would have loved to have been there? Justin O’ Schmidt!” Paul Merton: “Did the vicar drop him at the Baptism?”

“I’ve never been disappointed by politicians. I’ve never invested that much in them in the first place.”

More jokes:

38 of the funniest cat jokes and memes Jeremy Hardy: remembering the comedian’s funniest jokes and quotes 34 of the best Valentine’s Day jokes and funniest one-liners 30 of Michael McIntyre’s best jokes and funniest one-liners Best father of the bride jokes for a wedding speech to remember 100 best Christmas jokes and funniest festive season one-liners 100 of the funniest dirty jokes that will make you laugh and gasp Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer’s 41 best jokes and most surreal quotes 30 of the best jokes about Theresa May 25 of Dara Ó Briain’s best jokes and funniest quotes 38 of the funniest Russell Howard jokes The 28 funniest Greg Davies jokes and quotes The best Graham Norton jokes and most scathing put-downs Here are 10 of the funniest jokes written by kids 35 of the funniest jokes by Northern comedians The 31 funniest South Park jokes and quotes 100 of the funniest ever jokes and best one-liners 100 of the best knock knock jokes (some of which are actually funny) 26 of Seann Walsh’s greatest jokes 16 of Barry Chuckle’s greatest jokes 34 of Lee Evans’ funniest jokes and quotes 30 of Romesh Ranganathan’s funniest jokes and quotes 26 of Sara Pascoe’s funniest jokes and quotes 41 of Eddie Izzard’s funniest jokes and quotes 41 of David Mitchell’s funniest jokes and quotes 21 of Rhod Gilbert’s funniest jokes and one-liners 45 of the funniest 8 out of 10 Cats jokes 41 of Stewart Francis’ most ingenious jokes and one-liners 19 of the funniest World Cup jokes from stand-up comedians 30 of Jack Whitehall’s funniest jokes 43 of the funniest Donald Trump jokes 100 pun-based jokes that will make you laugh and cringe 50 Edinburgh Fringe one-liners that deserved to win Funniest Joke 31 Best Man jokes that will work for any wedding 100 of the funniest short jokes that will have you laughing in seconds 105 of the best bad jokes 105 of the best clean jokes and one-liners 50 football jokes to make you laugh – or groan 100 of the best jokes for kids that are actually funny 25 of Peter Kay’s most ingenious jokes and one-liners 26 of Stewart Lee’s most gloriously acerbic jokes 49 of Monty Python’s funniest jokes 45 of Ricky Gervais’ funniest jokes 17 of Ken Dodd’s most ingeniously funny jokes 27 of Sarah Millican’s laugh out loud jokes 50 of Jimmy Carr’s funniest jokes and one-liners 50 of Milton Jones’s most ingenious jokes and one-liners 50 of Tim Vine’s most ingenious jokes and one-liners 50 of Frankie Boyle’s funniest (and darkest) jokes 25 of Charlie Brooker’s most cutting jokes and insults 25 of Lee Mack’s wittiest jokes and one-liners 75 of Billy Connolly’s best jokes, one-liners and quips 30 of the best-ever jokes about Scotland – from Scotland

And some hilarious quotes:

29 best Gavin and Stacey quotes and funniest jokes from James Corden and Ruth Jones’ comedy 38 of the funniest Ron Swanson quotes that made Parks and Recreation unmissable 31 Richard Madeley quotes, gaffes and surreal moments that prove he truly is Alan Partridge Valentine’s poems: 32 most romantic quotes from history’s greatest poets 38 of the most darkly funny League of Gentlemen quotes 41 of the funniest quotes from The Good Place about life and death 30 of Stephen Fry’s funniest jokes and quotes Burt Reynolds’ greatest quotes – remembering the actor’s wit and wisdom following his death aged 82 23 of Outnumbered’s funniest (and possibly unscripted) quotes) 35 of Blackadder’s most cunning quips and insults 29 of the most outlandishly funny Mighty Boosh quotes 20 of the most absurdly funny quotes from Nathan Barley 39 of the greatest Brass Eye and Day Today quotes 25 of the most outrageous Summer Heights High quotes 25 of Rik Mayall’s greatest quotes 25 of the funniest ever Still Game quotes 50 of the funniest Father Ted quotes Red Dwarf: 30 of the funniest quotes and one-liners Derry Girls: 35 of the funniest quotes and one-liners 25 of the most cantankerous Martin Crane quotes from Frasier 25 of the most ‘textbook’ Alan Partridge quotes 50 of the best lines from Peep Show 20 of The Young Ones’ most gloriously silly quotes

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source link

Bài viết Paul Merton’s 36 best jokes and funniest one-liners from Have I Got News for You – iNews đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/funny-quotes/paul-mertons-36-best-jokes-and-funniest-one-liners-from-have-i-got-news-for-you-inews/

3 notes · View notes

Little Boxes - Eleven

A Jeonghceol Domestic AU where they live in suburbia with their six year old son Chan. Jeonghan is an active member of the PTA, a soccer dad and chauffeur, and a supportive parent all around. His loving husband cares deeply for his passions and will follow him to the end of the world if it keeps him and his family happy. Follow their journey as they get caught up in fun and zany adventures when they fall outside of the guide lines of your average neighbor. Don’t really know where I’m going with this, but I want to see how many different domestic prompts I can get out of this AU before I run out of steam.

First Chapter

Previous Chapter

NOTE: This takes place before all the holiday stuff. I just can’t plan for shit and write too slow lmao.

Autumn begins to settle in quickly. Warm sunshine accompanies a light breeze. The leaves start to change color and ever so slightly dangle from their branches, ready to fall. It’s sweater weather and warm tea time, but not quite cool enough for fluffy coats and mittens yet. With the sky being so clear and the temperature being just right, Jeonghan decides to take Chan to the park. Other parents in the surrounding area have noticed the scenic day and have brought their own kids to the playground as well. It’s relatively full. Not too much so that he couldn’t easily keep an eye on his kid, but enough to where the other kids could keep Chan company. Once too many has Jeonghan gotten stuck on a slide because Chan just insists on racing with him. He watches from the sidelines and lets him be a rowdy six-year-old for once.

Of course, it doesn’t take long for Jeonghan to garner some unwanted attention, so he puts on a fake smile to greet a parent that frequents this area. She’s rather distracting and he couldn’t remember her name if he tried, but she doesn’t seem to notice. He doubts she even realizes how annoying she is. Or if she does, she probably finds it charming. Apparently, she is in the PTA too but is a little more reserved so maybe that’s why he doesn’t remember her. He cuts his eyes between her and Chan (they call him overprotective, but he says its just diligence). She mentions something about saving pictures in her phone about some hot dad from the bake sale. Before Jeonghan can effectively pry into her gallery, he hears a shout that sounds all too familiar.

His heart stops, stomach drops, and he hurriedly hops over some children just to get to the source of that scream. He starts panicking once he sees his son on the ground in front of the swing sets. He’s got a skinned-up knee and a bloody palm and his crying echoes through the park achingly. Jeonghan runs over and immediately picks up the boy, checking his face for any life-threatening injuries. He sighs when he sees none. A flurry of questions and hushes come out of Jeonghan, instantly soothing the boy.

“What’s wrong baby? What happened?” He’s bouncing Chan on his hip and through broken cries and hiccupping he hears him say something about a girl pushing him. He connects the dots and sees some long-haired child around his kid’s age swinging merrily back and forth. Once Chan sees her again, he begins to cry more, burying his snot covered nose into Jeonghan’s shoulder. The dad knows he should just take the younger home to get him all cleaned up, but not before giving this brat a piece of his mind.

“Excuse me. Can I speak to you for a moment, sweetie?” It’s clear Jeonghan is a bit upset but tries to keep a calm demeanor so as not to trigger the parent that is sure to be lurking. If they are not monitoring their child like they should be, he’ll take that step for them. If they won’t discipline them, he will. A good scolding is necessary otherwise they’ll never learn. The girl continues to swing but does at least look at him with a bored expression. Kids can be so rude these days. “Now I know you probably didn’t mean it...” Even though Jeonghan knows damn well she is old enough to know better, “ …but it’s not nice to shove others aside to get what you want. Pushing someone off a swing is unacceptable behavior.” She has the nerve to yawn, “I’m sure you wouldn’t want your mom or dad to know what you’ve been up to, but I think it’s best if I talk to one of them.”

Before Jeonghan can even ask for the kid to point out their parent, he hears a vicious voice bark out, “Why are you harassing my daughter?"

Jeonghan is so offended because he’s not the one doing the harassing! “Harrassing?” he begins to tell them off, but when he turns around, it’s like the whole world comes to a full, screeching halt. Fate is on some fuckshit today.

Jang Doyoon. Age 28. Number 19 on Jeonghan’s hit list.

Don’t be fooled. Just because he’s 19, does not mean there’s any less of a loathing for him. In fact, Jeonghan’s list is quite long so he’s still somewhere around the top 20%. It’s just Jeonghan’s luck that he runs into him after so long. It’s a small world (and at this moment he wishes he was on the opposite side of it).

Once, long before, Jang Doyoon seemed hellbent on ruining his whole life. He’d transferred to the same university as him and maybe it was some kind of territorial defense mechanism that had Doyoon making every encounter absolutely terrible. Jeonghan almost fought him once the other “accidentally” bumped into him with a freshly brewed cup of coffee in his hands. Even more, he didn’t even say sorry after staining his blouse and causing minor burns. Oddly, Jang Doyoon vanished after that. Jeonghan never questioned it, just closed that chapter in his book. Jeonghan hadn’t thought anything else of the boy.

That is… until now.

The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. He mentally rolls up his sleeves, pulls up his big boy pants and prepares to stand up to the bully he never had the chance to.

“When my son was using the swing, your kid pushed him off.” His tone remains polite yet challenging. Jeonghan is a cordial man with a short temper. His soft exterior shields unsuspecting people from his true wrath.

But Jang Doyoon has accepted the challenge. “Well did she have reason to do so?”

Jeonghan is like a cauldron of molten lava now. His brain stutters, not believing the audacity this man has to ask a question like that. “What did you just say?” He raises an eyebrow.

“If your kid is hogging the swings, don’t you think it’s only fair to take turns?” Jeonghan can tell his cattiness has remained intact all these years later.

“I guess delinquency runs in the family.” Jeonghan leans in real close and his voice gets real low. “If you or your spawn of Satan ever comes anywhere near my child again, I will personally hand your ass over to you on a silver platter.”

Jeonghan makes sure he has a firm grip on Chan, the six-year-old still clinging tightly in his hold. He makes a dramatic exit, not once glancing back at the man who triggered his inner Mama Bear. There’s a cloud of dust in his wake and a couple stunned parents fishing for new gossip. If Jeonghan were to retell the story, be sure to expect explosions in the background, fire—lots of it, and a man quaking in fear.

On the walk home, he’s speaking sweet words to the child easily winding him down. Chan’s still shaken up, never really having been the focus of a bully’s rampage. His bawling has now turned into slight sniffling. He’s just too kind for this world. Jeonghan feels awful that someone so mean could target his precious baby. He hopes Chan never has to see her again (and that he never has to see her father).

He sits Chan on the counter of his bathroom once they get home. Chan knows how it feels to get cuts cleaned. It makes him want to cry all over again at the memory of it. It was too similar to his bike accident a few months ago. He never wanted to go through that again, but here he is. His dad reaches toward him with a cotton ball. He knows it isn’t water soaked through it because water doesn’t burn. And the smell is never that strong. He flinches each time it gets closer.

“I need you to be still, baby. It’ll take longer to clean if you keep moving around.”

“But it huuurts…” The pout is so much like Seungcheol’s that Jeonghan has to refrain from rolling his eyes.

“I know. I know. But it’s the only way to make it better. Can you be a big boy for me?” That seems to do the trick as Chan stops fidgeting on the counter and sits up a little straighter. His eyebrows flatten out into a line as he mocks what he thinks determination should look like. He’s already cried so much today. He wants to be a big boy who doesn’t have a fit when the stinging, burning water like thing gets too close. He nods.

But the contact makes all of that go out the window. He yelps and kicks his leg in surprise. His pout has returned and his wide eyes swell with brimmed tears. Thankfully Jeonghan catches his leg before he gets kicked. Holding it in place, he dabs the wounds a few times and fully cleans up any remnants of pebbles and blood. Even when Chan starts crying again and trying to shy away, he holds fast and tries not to let it affect him as much. It’s hard though. Seeing Chan cry and knowing he’s the one causing the pain makes his own heart wrench. He feels so guilty that he wasn’t able to protect his baby in the first place.

“I’m almost done. I’m so so sorry.” Jeonghan croons. The six-year-old’s fists come to tighten in the collar of Jeonghan’s shirt, an attempt to distract himself.

Jeonghan finishes up with Spiderman decorated band-aids. It’s the only good thing of this whole ordeal because Chan finally smiles seeing one of his favorite superheroes. They don’t have any plans for the rest of their day so Jeonghan thinks it’s a perfect time to watch cartoons and let Chan eat snacks and ice cream before dinner for once.

Next Chapter

9 notes · View notes

The Third Park (Damien x OC (Ellie)) - Part 13

Summary: Ellie and Damien have a new lead on Robert Zucko's case, and a double date with him and Lucy, but things don't turn out the way they planned...

Note: (most) characters belong to Pixelberry Studios. Damien is 100% human in here and my Male!MC is named Allen. Ni Ni’s and Santiago Cabrera’s gifs don’t belong to me. Link to previous parts.

Pairing: Damien x OC (Ellie)

Rating: Teen (alcohol, language)

Tagging: @christopher-powell @boneandfur @kennaxval @writtenbycandy @thequeenchoices @client327 @damienazariostan @never-ending-choices @walkerismychoice @laniquelove @confessionsofabrokegirl @dangerous-capri15 @parkerattano @clarissafics @pilitella @hellomynameisdeviblaire @odetomars @cocomaxley @her-imperial-hangman-s @endlesswoods @miss-cordonia If you would like to be tagged, please, tell me!

Word count: 4772

Although it was Sunday and Damien felt exhausted from all that late night activity - party + sex, and lots of it -, Eleanor woke up bright and early as usual. And of course she woke him up too.

“C’mon, we have more work to do!” - she pushed him to sit straight in the bed, talking too loud. He asked himself how the Park cousins could all be so energetic so early in the morning. Didn't they have a switch off button? - "And I have to go back to Freddie! He doesn’t deal very well with loneliness—"

But out of nowhere, Damien turned and grabbed her wrists, pinning Ellie back onto the mattress, beneath him. Her surprised squeal turned into a moan when he bit her neck playfully.

"You smell so good, Ellie..." - he murmured and kissed behind her earlobe. Judging by the hard part of his body pulsing on her thigh, he was already wide awake.

"Yes, because I've already showered." - she informed him, trying to resist his teasing. It was being really damn hard. - "Fuck, D, I'm not paying you to keep me in bed all day."

He pulled out, chuckling softly, and picked some clean clothes from his bag.

"Nadia is right. You're a workaholic."

"Shut up. And go take your cold shower, Nazario." - he still was laughing when he entered the bathroom.

As Ellie had predicted, Freddie didn't appreciate being left alone for the night and destroyed one of her cushions. After changing into something more comfortable, she decided to take the dog for his morning walk and she and Damien had a breakfast in her favorite café, before they were finally back into her apartment again.

"So, what did we find out yesterday?" - she asked, after brushing her teeth.

Damien had already installed himself on her house. There were diagrams and notes scattered all over her dinner table and he was typing something on his laptop. He had even connected his computer to her printer.

"First things first, Robert Zucko is a complete jerk." - Eleanor couldn't agree with him more. - "Second, he's a very protective guy. He has cameras all over his house and his property is heavily secured. But, there's no cameras nor bodyguards near his office."

"And he owns a fucking pistol." - she plopped down on a chair, still terrified by the memory of it.

"Yeah, this too. But what I found the most suspicious was this." - he showed her the table he made based on the picture he took from one of Robert's documents. Ellie saw a bunch of names and schedules.

"What is this?"

"I think these are his employees names." - Damien started searching all the locations listed there on the Google street view.

"Wow, this is an obsessive amount of names."

"Exactly. Why there would be so many people working on a pub?"

"...Unless Robert is not just a pub owner." - she concluded his thought. Damien grinned to himself. Eleanor Zhou could become a good investigator. She had great logical reasoning.

"My thoughts exactly. Do you have a map of Northbridge?"

Ellie came back a few minutes later and they both spreaded it on her dinner table. Damien started circling the places, the pub and Robert's and Lucy's house included. Apparently Robert Zucko had business all over the city.

He read the table again. One of the names ringed a bell, but he didn't quite remember from where he had already heard it. He highlighted it anyway.

"D, look!" - she pointed to a line from the table. Danny Mars, July 28, 11AM, the docklands. - “Whatever the hell this means, this is going to happen this Wednesday.”

“You’re right.” - they analysed the paper further. - “So this is where Robert went yesterday.” - he pointed to the line above.

“When he said he had to go take a ‘package’?”

“You have a good memory, Ellie.”

“I try.” - she grinned back and he couldn’t help but lean in and kiss her softly on the lips. She giggled. - “Okay, so this is about suspicious packages, apparently. What’s the plan?”

“I’m going to follow Robert Zucko and see what’s going on." - his smile faded from his face. - "Listen, Ellie, I think that what we have in our hands is bigger than we imagined. More than Lucy. Maybe we can get him out of her life for good. But it might be dangerous. We still don’t know what and who we’re dealing with, exactly.”

She nodded, with a serious expression too.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to free her from this bastard.” - Ellie’s obstinacy and fierceness were thrilling.

He hadn’t been feeling that impressed since he and her cousins brought Eros down, two years ago. Yeah, it hurt like hell when Allen chose Hayden over him, but he had to admit that the love Allen and Nadia felt for those robots was inspiring.

Maybe it was just another Park trait that he liked: their stubbornness.

"You know, seeing you all angry like this is such a turn on." - he placed his hands on her hips, bringing her closer until they were pressed against each other.

Ellie chuckled as she enlaced her arms around his neck, feeling pressed between the table and Damien.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You say this because I'm not angry at you."

"Maybe." - he smiled mischievously and then planted his lips on hers.

Eleanor immediately kissed him back, pulling him even closer. They deepened the kiss, savouring each other’s taste. When the moment hit both of them, Damien easily lifted her and put a giggling Ellie on the table, pushing Northbridge map and all the other papers aside.

"God dammit, you're so damn addictive." - he said, his breath already heavy, as he bent over her, who was already laying back onto the table. She grinned devilishly at him, with a leg hooked around his waist, pulling his body closer to hers. Oh God, she already felt that heat down there…

“And you’re insatiable, Damien Nazario. Do you know this?” - she told him as she put light kisses all over his face.

“Only for you, Eleanor Zh—”

Suddenly, her phone started ringing, interrupting them. The moment was completely gone. Again.

Damien let out a frustrated sigh as Ellie climbed down the table.

"Lucy? Is everything okay?" - she said with the mobile pressed on her ear. The man watched her while he picked the papers from the floor and put them back onto the table. - "Uh? Dinner? Yeah, we can… Okay, see you there."

"What?" - he asked as she ended the call.

"Lucy invited us to a dinner Friday night… Apparently Robert wants to fix things between us." - Eleanor rolled her eyes, visibly annoyed.

"...Well, this is a great opportunity. Maybe we can get some information from them." - the corners of Ellie's lips turned up in that devilishly smirk.

"That's what I thought too. Come on, we have a plan to make."

They spent the whole day planning on what would they do. Damien decided that he would follow Robert that week, maybe trying to find a pattern. Ellie wouldn't be able to help much, since she had to go work. But they would work together on Friday night, at the dinner with the newly-engaged couple. He went back to New York that same night to pick new and clean clothes and get his trusty old muscle car, so he could follow Robert Zucko and Lucy James everywhere, more easily.

Damien Nazario: “I’m here. Just parked.”

Eleanor Zhou: “Okay! Meet you in 5.”

She put her phone back into her bag, and finished fixing her makeup. It was Friday night and they were about to have that dinner with her friend and that man. Ellie was feeling anxious about what would happen. She would have to spend the next couple hours of her life facing that pig that was Robert Zucko. She took a deep breath. For Lucy.

And she wasn’t alone. Damien was going to be there too. Knowing this made her feel a little calmer. God, since when she was so dependable of him? Stop it, Ellie. He’s just helping you. You hired him, did you forget it? She looked at her own reflex on the mirror, taking a deep breath, before going out.

Ellie left the Mortif Magazine building and easily saw the familiar old muscle car parked just across the street.

Ellie decided to ignore the little leap her heart took when she saw Damien there, casually leaning against his car, with his strong arms crossed over his muscled chest. He saw her too and she saw that stupidly charming smirk of his that made her feel all hot. They had decided to meet there, so they could pass on the plan one more time before the dinner. They haven’t seen each other since Sunday afternoon and she kind of missed him. God, what was happening with her?!

Stop it, Ellie.

You can’t. Not now. Not for him.

“Ellie!” - she heard Poppy Patel walking towards her. - “Glad I got to catch you! I’m going to a happy hour with my friends, do you want to come with us?”

“Thanks, Poppy, but I already have a plan for tonight…” - and then she quickly shot a glance to where Damien was. Poppy followed her gaze.

“Ooooh, he’s hot! Now I can understand why you declined ‘grabbing a coffee’ with Grayson Prescott, the most eligible bachelor of Northbridge.” - Eleanor just rolled her eyes. - “Hello, I’m Poppy!” - she promptly greeted the man who approached them.

“Hello, I’m Damien. Ellie’s boyfriend.” - Ellie didn’t hide her smile when she felt his arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. - “Sorry to interrupt your conversation, but we have a dinner to attend.” - she noticed that he was using that smirk of his that helped him get whatever he wanted. She couldn’t resist it herself.

“I see.” - Poppy grinned to Eleanor. - “Well, don’t let me take any more of your time, guys! Have a good date!” - and she winked to her friend, making Ellie chuckle.

“Thanks, Poppy. See you on Monday.” - and then Damien led her to his car, his warm and big hand on hers, their fingers intertwined.

“So, the Grayson Prescott asked you out?” - he asked casually.

“Were you eavesdropping us?”

“I’m a detective. Eavesdropping is basically my job.” - she rolled her eyes, but chuckled softly.

“Yeah… we met in that party at Prescott Industries that Poppy took me.” - she shrugged.

“And let me get this right: you rejected him?”

“Rejection sounds too harsh. I just gently declined his invitation.”

“Why? He’s handsome, hot and a millionaire. You can’t possibly be so attracted to me.” - he smirked at her and she felt her heart skipping a beat. Oh, if he only knew…

“Maybe my type is detectives with an inflated ego.” - he laughed loudly. She liked the sound of his laugh.

“Touché. Anyway, you always work this late?”

“Some nights.” - she replied with a shrug. It was past 7 p.m., although her working hours were due to 5 p.m.

...And that was a lie. She worked overtime most of the days. And Damien knew it too. He had noticed that she avoided looking to his eyes when she lied.

“Anyway, you dressed up nice, D.” - she smirked approvingly to him, changing the subject. Damien was wearing a slim button-up shirt and a blazer.

“Yeah, I figured that the restaurant we’re going to is one of the fanciest in Northbridge, so I had to step up a little today.” - they both climbed up on his car. - “You’re looking good too.”

“I work at a fashion magazine. People know how to dress up here.” - she said as she put her seatbelt. He started the engine and the car started moving through the city's streets.

“Yeah, but I bet you’ll look even better when I take you out of your clothes later.” - Ellie giggled to his statement. God, she liked his flattering more than she should.

“You must think that you’re such a smooth talker, don’t you, Nazario? Anyway, how is the investigation going? Have you found something? What all those infos in that table meant?” - Danny Mars, July 28, 11AM, the docklands.

"I didn't have much luck. Robert and a bodyguard went towards Northbridge's docklands and met a guy, which I believe is this Danny Mars guy, and they exchanged a few words, but nothing else. The meeting was less than fifteen minutes long." - he gave her a dossier and she saw a few pictures he took from Robert and two other strangers. - "It was a windy day and I didn't have much space to hide myself, so the photos aren't so good. Although there wasn't any kind of 'package' this time, it certainly is suspicious."

"And what happened afterwards?"

"Robert - and his man - went straight home and he just left his home on Thursday night, around 8 p.m. to go to Zucko's Point and stayed there until little after midnight. Today, he went earlier to the pub, around 2 p.m. Although his pub was closed, he had some guests." - she saw more pictures as Damien followed the GPS directions. - "They left the place after an hour. Robert was still there when I left to come pick you up."

She put the pictures back into the dossier and looked at him.

"...And this is why you look so tired." - she concluded. - "You'd been following him everywhere this week. Did you sleep at all?"

"Well, the backseat of this car can be very comfortable..."

"This is not a proper sleep, D! Why didn't you checked in on a hotel? I know that Robert's schedule is a mess, but I don't want my private investigator passing out due to exhaustion!"

Damien grinned to himself, his eyes still on the road in front of them. It was silly, but he felt slightly happy to know that she was worried about him.

"You too. I know you work overtime, Ellie."

"We're not talking about me." - she snapped back at him, with a frown, making him chuckle. He missed talking to her that week. They barely had time to even text each other, since he was following Robert Zucko around like crazy and she was stuck on work. - "And I don't work that much." - she completed, rolling her eyes.

"Whatever you say." - he chuckled again. - "Anyway, here's the plan for tonight. We'll try to get as much information as possible about Robert's life. Especially about his business. And how he and Lucy are doing. Although I'm pretty sure she probably is in heaven right now with this engagement thing."

"You mean engagement bullshit. He did this just to lock her."

"Ellie..." - he said with a warning tone on his voice at her as he parked the car. They had just arrived to their destination.

"I know, I know, I'll behave, don't worry." - she said with a sigh before they both climbed down the car.

"I'm not." - Damien answered her, his hand on the small of her back as he guided them towards the restaurant. - "I trust you, Ellie."

And she grinned to herself.

"Ah! Ellie!" - Lucy James waved as they entered the fancy Italian restaurant. They walked towards the petite blonde woman and her fiancé. - "Right on time, we'd just arrived too."

"Good night, Eleanor. Mr. Nazario." - Robert Zucko greeted them with a tilt from his head. They did the same. - "My apologies, but I forgot to book a table for tonight and it's packed here, so we'll have to wait a little. Why don't we go grab something to drink while we wait?"

"I need to go to the restroom first." - Ellie said, her hands already clenched in fists.

"I'll go with you!" - Lucy said and they left the men alone. Robert proposed to them to go grab their drinks while they waited for the ladies to come back. Damien agreed and they walked towards the bar.

Both men asked for a whiskey. Neat.

"Mr. Nazario, I feel like we started with the wrong foot last weekend and I wanted to apologise about my behavior on Lucy's birthday party. I was being rude."

"Please, call me Damien. And I think the one you have to apologise to is Ellie."

He saw a mocking smile on Robert's face, but the man just said:

"Of course. I will as well."

Damien just glanced at the man next to him, holding himself to not punch that bastard's disgusting smirk out of his face and both men sipped on their drinks, saying nothing else.

Both women were back soon and, thankfully, they got a table, so Eleanor didn't have to make small talk with her best friend's fiancé. As she and D presumed, Lucy was over excited about the wedding. While the women were in the restroom, the blonde one couldn't stop talking about her plans to it. Ellie felt uneasy with all that talk but didn't stop Lucy.

They settled down and no one said anything while they chose what to eat. After they have ordered their food - which both Damien and Eleanor noticed that Robert made the decision for Lucy and it made the Asian woman's blood boil -, the newly engaged woman cleared her throat:

"So! While we wait for our orders, I guess this is the perfect time to announce this..." - she shared a smile with her fiancé. - "Robert and I had decided to marry in November ."

Ellie almost spilled her wine. November?!

"...But so soon?" - she couldn't contain herself. Damien watched her cautiously by her side. - "I mean… I thought you would want to plan your marriage with no hurry..."

Four months. They had four months to free Lucy from that man's claws.

"Well, we don't need to plan much when everything's already settled." - Robert answered her. - "We already know the place and the day of the ceremony. Even the decorations are decided. And to where we're going on our honeymoon."

"Oh really? Care to tell us more about it?" - Damien asked.

While Robert listed everything, Ellie's eyes were on her best friend, who just nodded at the man sitting next to her.

Eleanor knew Lucy well enough that it was far from ideal to her. Lucy James always told her that she wanted a big wedding like in those Hollywood movies. She wanted to go to Greece or Fiji on her honeymoon (and not stay in the U.S., like it seemed to be Robert's plan). She even had created a 'wedding moodboard' on Pinterest when they still were in college!

"...Lucy just need to pick her dress." - he finished his monologue.

Ellie's hands rested on her lap, in fists. Her best friend clearly had nothing to do with that. With her own wedding. Robert Zucko decided everything. He controlled her and her life.

Eleanor felt like screaming. Her rage igniting inside her again. She fucking hated him so much.

She felt Damien's large and warm hand on hers, squeezing it lightly. Ellie didn't notice that she was shaking with anger. She took a deep breath and mentally thanked him. He already knew her so well. It was good having him there. He was so much more collected than her.

"And are you okay with this, Lucy?" - Damien asked her friend.

Lucy slightly looked surprised. She quickly glanced to Robert, who watched her, calmly, before looking back to Damien, who was waiting for her answer:

"Of course!" - she forced a laugh, clearly feeling embarrassed.

"Because to me it feels like you didn't get much say about this..." - Eleanor had to control herself to not kiss Damien right there. She sipped on her drink instead.

"No! I mean, you got it wrong. Of course I agree with all this! Why wouldn't I? I'm marrying the love of my life!" - and she and Robert exchanged a grin. Ellie had to hold herself back to not roll her eyes so hard so she could see her own brain.

"And I didn't get to decide everything. Tell them about it, babydoll." - Robert said while the waiters put their plates in front of them.

"Oh yes!" - the blonde woman squealed excitedly on her chair. - "Ellie, would you be my maid of honor?"

Eleanor shouldn't be so surprised with it. She kind of had a feeling that Lucy would ask that to her anyway.

...But she never thought that it would be with her marriage with someone like Robert Zucko.

"I…" - she took a deep breath. - "It would be my greatest honor." - and forced a smile.

"Thank you so much, Ellie!" - Lucy was so happy that she even had to hug her best friend. Ellie just wanted to scream. Again.

"As you can see, this wasn't my decision." - Ellie glared at Robert. She perfectly understood what he meant with that comment.

"Talking about decisions..." - Damien intervened, his hand on Eleanor's thigh, holding her back onto her seat, forcing her to not slap that rat's face. She decided to focus on her food instead. D was working and her getting all annoyed with Robert wouldn't help him. - "Ellie told me you own a pub, Zucko's Point, right?" - the other man nodded to him. - "You see, my favorite pub back in New York, Archer & Hopps, is not doing so well..."

"Oh, I heard about it. We pub owners know each other. Old man Archer had been losing a lot of money on gambling, right? And everything went worse after Hopps' death."

"Yeah, exactly... And, well, I'm a regular there and was thinking about helping them... maybe become a partner, you know? But I don't know if this is a good idea and wanted to talk to a pub owner first before I make my decision. Is it too much work?" - Robert laughed to Damien's frown.

"Well, it depends. Archer & Hopps is not a big pub, so yes, you probably would become their manager besides one of their owners. In Zucko's Point, I have trusty men to manage it to me, although there are some things that only the owners can do, of course. But how responsibility for keys, money, inventory, etc is worked out, it is up to you. There are many different ways to handle it." - and then he started talking about the logistics of having a pub business. Lucy and Ellie ate their food in silence, each of them lost on her own thoughts.

"Do you have many employees?" - Damien kept asking, recording the whole talk on his phone. Robert Zucko seemed too pleased talking about himself, so it was easy leading him to where Damien wanted him to go.

Zucko had far less employees than all the names listed on that table they got on his office. In reality, what he said mismatched with what Damien had collected about him. Working hours, number of employees, etc.

It was definitely suspicious. Robert Zucko was more than a pub owner.

After what it seemed an eternity to Ellie - her ears were tired of hearing Robert's stupid and super boring babble -, they were finally ready to go home.

"Thank you so much again, Ellie!" - Lucy hugged her tightly, once again. She patted the petite blonde woman on the back. D was the one who led the 'interrogation', but she was the one who felt exhausted. She just wanted to take a shower and go to sleep.

"Talk to you soon, right, Lucy?"

"Of course!"

"I hope the food was up to your tastes." - Robert extended his hand to Damien, who shook it firmly.

"It definitely was." - the detective had that charming grin back onto his lips. - "And thanks for the talk. It was very educational."

"It was my pleasure. Make sure to show up in Zucko's Point any time. You'll see that our booze is way better than Archer & Hopps… or should I say 'Archer & Hopps & Nazario'?" - both men shared a laugh.

The two couples parted their ways. Damien and Ellie returned to his car and waited for a couple of minutes until they saw Robert's Porsche passing through them, heading to the northern and richest part of Northbridge.

Eleanor didn't say a word on the way to her home. She just kept staring out of the window, lost in thoughts. Damien could tell that she was frustrated with the dinner. They didn't get much information, but he was used to it. Investigating took time. They had to be more patient.

But Eleanor Zhou wasn't exactly the patient type.

He parked the car outside her apartment building. Ellie climbed down his car. She noticed that Damien wasn't doing the same.

"Aren't you coming?" - those were the first words she said since they had left the restaurant. He nodded and followed her.

Freddie greeted them with a wriggling tail. The woman gave him a night snack and headed inside her bedroom, undressing herself carelessly as Damien still locked the apartment's door. He stroked the big dog's yellow fur while Ellie showered. Damien Nazario didn't know what to do.

Eleanor opened her bathroom door again, wearing her pajamas, a big old T-shirt she had since her college times. Slowly, she saw Damien's reflex beside her on the mirror. She gave him enough room to use her sink to do his own night time hygiene routine. He watched her cautiously while they both brushed their teeth. She looked so far away, as if she was on automatic mode. She didn't say a thing. She didn't look at him.

"Are you okay?" - he asked when they walked back into her bedroom.

Ellie finally looked back at him.

"Just feeling a little frustrated. I thought we could get more information." - she shrugged. - "And Lucy's request shook me more than it should." - the detective nodded and gently pulled her into a hug.

"Yeah, I could tell." - he said on her ear, before looking into her face, his brown eyes meeting hers. - "But don’t worry, we’ll get this bastard, Ellie. Just be a little more patient." - the woman found herself slowly less tense. Somehow, his cocky smirk was reassuring.

A small smile tugged on the corners of her mouth.

"I will. Thanks, D." - she said as she cupped his face and kissed him softly. She chuckled when he groaned against her lips. - "Are you going to sleep all dressed up?"

Damien grinned back at her and they quickly discarded his clothes, until he was wearing just his boxer briefs. They both climbed on the bed.

"Thanks for letting me stay here, Ellie." - she giggled to that smirk of his, his big hands already on her hips, caressing the skin under her oversized t-shirt.

“Of course, I won’t let you sleep in you car for another nig—” - and then Eleanor felt his mouth on hers, shutting her up.

She kissed him back and felt a shiver when his hand brought her closer to him as the other traveled down her body, squeezing her thigh hungrily, his tongue already inside her mouth.

Ellie tried to lose herself on the sensation of his hands caressing her body, his warmth enveloping her, his taste, his smell… But it was useless. She just couldn't stop thinking about the dinner. How happy Lucy seemed.

...And how fake it felt.

She softly pulled out, stopping kissing him.

"D… I'm not in the mood tonight." - she sighed. - "I'm sorry."

"Hey… You don't have to feel sorry about anything, Ellie." - he grinned reassuringly to her, caressing her cheek. - "I'm sorry if I pushed you. Do you want me to go sleep on the couch?"

"No, it's okay. Stay with me, I missed you all week." - he saw her cheeks slightly turning pink and he had to hold himself to not kiss her. - "...Can we just cuddle?"

"I don't see why not." - that smirk of his was back into his face, making her chuckle.

They both laid down onto her bed, grinning at each other. Eleanor scooped closer, his arms still around her. It was a nice sensation, just feeling him there. Knowing that he was there.

With all her past partners, Ellie always felt a bit anxious the morning after their first night together. And during the whole night, actually. She always ended up staring at the ceiling. It was a strange experience sleeping so close to someone, even though if they were her boyfriend or girlfriend.

But with him was different. Since the very first night they spent together, Damien Nazario had this strange but welcoming calming effect over her. She slept like a baby hearing his soft snore and feeling his presence there, right next to her.

He felt like home, even though they hadn't known each other for too long.

"Thank you, D." - she murmured, feeling her eyelids getting heavier and heavier as Damien rubbed her back in a comforting way.

"Good night, Ellie." - Eleanor heard him saying before she fell into a dreamless sleep.

19 notes · View notes

Always and Forever- Chapter 2

Jungkook x Reader ( Mayze) warlock x vampire AU

genre: Angst x Fluff x Smut

Preview / Chapter 1/ Chapter 3

July 28th 2017

Looking at him Mayze felt her knees go weak. She was bewitched by his strong manly appearance. From his prominent jaw-line, his big dark brown eyes, his perfectly shaped lips and the mole underneath, to his tall figure, his wide shoulders, he was perfect.

"Hello there hot and sexy warlock. I would love to mess with you a little bit but I am married" She said leaning against her chair. She never acted this bold around a man but just the look of him made her heart beat again. Maybe he could be what she was looking for.

"And here's the first reason to want him dead." Hoseok mumbled enough for Jimin to hear.

"Well witch, my first advice for you is :don't get involved in family problems" Jimin held out his hand and Jungkook gladly shook it. "I am not here to find troubles." He smiled, his gaze turning towards Mayze that was bitting her lower lip. He couldn't deny, he felt it too. It's like the word stopped and he was lost in her eyes. She was indeed a very beautiful creature, too bad she was already taken. Perhaps he was too late.

"I must be the prettiest problem and the sexiest trouble then" She said standing up from her seat. "I am going to bring the food then." She walked to the kitchen with Hoseok close behind her.

"Are you seriously going to make me look like a stupid vampire in front of a stupid witch?" He whisper -yelled at her.

"I didn't do anything wrong and he is a warlock" She defended Jungkook.

"You must be kidding me. I did not take you for that kind of bitch that raises her tail at every horny dog that passes by." he fired back.

"I did not insult you okay? Be careful what are you saying. It's not my fault you are this insecure." She took the plate that her and Jimin arranged for the appetizers ready to walk to the living room.

"You do make me feel insecure though." He grabbed the plate from her hands and placed it on the counter.

"Can we discuss this at home? You had too many glasses of wine." She grabbed the plate and walked inside the dining room while smiling sweetly.

The dinner finished without any big incidents even if Hoseok was looking at Jungkook with fire in his eyes, almost ready to murder him. He knew he wasn't going to solve the situation between him and Mayze. He lost her the moment she looked at the warlock. He felt his heart clench inside his chest. For a year he thought she was his.

How pathetic she thought. How can you see a person for one hour and feel like he is already part of you? How could he walk through those doors with his Greek god like figure and turn her world upside down? Was it even possible? If so this was most horrible joke the universe could play on her. Meeting him now? Why now? She will never be able to break the spell that links her with Hoseok and also she won't be able to cheat on him. Either way this sucked. Why was she creating so many scenarios in her head? What if he felt nothing? But what if he did?

Mayze started turning and tossing around on her side of the bed, her back facing Hoseok that she knew, was wide awake.

"Do you know him?" His voice suddenly cut through the tick silence.

"Whom? Jungkook?" She asked trying to avoid the subject as much as she could.

"Yes, him. You seemed very interested in him."

"No..I don't" she murmured wanting to add a but I want to.

For the next months until winter she spent a large amount of time in Jungkook's house not as lovers but as friends. The tension was visible but neither of them wanted to address the matter. He wanted her to be his and he knew she felt the same but there are many obstacles they need to overcome. He wanted to be with her in the morning when they go pick up plants from the forest. She was still annoyed by bugs but that's not what she feared the most. She was afraid she might lose another shoe in the mud.

He wanted to be with her in the evening when he would squeeze some of his blood in a cup for her. The image of her lips on someone else's body was infuriating, even if it was for nourishment purposes. At first she did not want to accept it but after a week she stared coming with packed lunch for him in exchange for his blood.

He wanted to be with her at night when the moon shines through her blonde hair making her look Celeste. She was too pure for this world.

During all this time, he never got to touch something else more than her hand. She was respecting Hoseok and he was respecting her choice. He always wanted to ask if she wanted to break the spell but he was too afraid she might get mad.

December 27th 2017

"For awhile I taped soap operas and watched them at night when I thought I might be forgetting what it was like to be human. After a while I stopped, because from the examples I saw on those shows, forgetting humanity was a good thing."His eyes were still like caves with ghosts dwelling in their depths my throat dried at this perfect image of his.

“When I've meet you I was scared and broken beyond repair. And there is none to put the blame on but myself. I am the master of my own misery. Then I found you and you accepted me for who I was and you put up with my constant whining and my constant need of taking my anger out on someone. Hobi, not one man in a million would have allowed me the time without speaking now that I am thinking he never let me be me. I opened my mind to you, let my guard down completely, and relaxed. "His silence washed over me. I stood, closed my eyes, breathed out the relief that was too profound for words.

I sat on his lap and gently enveloped him in a tight hug.

" You are my beginning . I never thought I would taste love again, but now thinking how I feel about you, was it really love what I felt for him?" At the same time she couldn't help but wonder if it was love what she felt for Hoseok too. She did love him in a way but not romantically. Not that type of love that was making her heart jump just by looking at him. She knew she has been selfish until now but letting him go to approach another man wasn't that selfish too? No. She wasn't going to cheat on him.

"I need to go out for some fresh air." He whispered and slowly pushed her up from his lap. He opened the door and disappeared into the night leaving her there with her thoughts. She was feeling her chest cave in, it was as if a piece of her being was ripped off her body.

December 28th 2017

Jungkook took the sacramental chalice, and stretching forth his bare arm, cried in a loud voice, "Tui gratia Iovis gratia sit cures.“ He then took the snake and cut it open moving his bloody finger across the child's forehead. Then replacing the sacred vessel on the altar, he drew, one by one, from different parts of his body, from his knotted hair, from his bosom, from beneath his nails, the unholy things which he cast into it just to bring him back to life. Mayze was watching fascinated not daring to blink in order not to lose the magic. The child started throwing up water and he opened his eyes. " You saved him" She breathed and walked closer to Jungkook, placing a hand on his shoulder. "He was lucky that I was around. Can you please take him home?" She hugged the child close to her chest and in a second she was next to his bed, laying him down.While Mayze was gone, taking the child back home, Jungkook cleaned up the mess from the early ritual and then he went to take a quick shower. As she was coming back to Jungkook's she stopped to look over her shoulder. Someone was watching her. She slowly closed the door behind her only to see the house empty. " Jungkook!?" She called him but there was no reply. "Where are you?" She moved her hair away from her ear and heard the water running. Perhaps he was taking a shower but, why wasn't he replying? That was strange. After a few minutes he heard Mayze calling him, actually her voice brought him back from his deep thoughts. She opened the bathroom's door to be welcomed by a naked Jungkook trying to pull the towel around his waist. " Geez, Mayze can I have a little privacy? " He laughed as he felt his cheeks getting hotter and hotter. She had her mouth open and her pale skin was now showing some redness in the apples of the cheeks she was just staring at him unable to take her eyes away from the scene. He had such a good body. He wasn't skinny but he wasn’t fat either , his muscles were defined on his arms, legs, stomach. He was perfect. Her eyes followed a drop of water making its way from his hair down to his abs and dying on the white towel. " I am sorry" Was all she said then vanished leaving a trail of dust behind her. That was really embarrassing and she needed some fresh air before her mind would push her to do something unholy.

Jungkook went to his bedroom and put some clothes on him before writing down something on a piece of paper. He fold the paper in his hands and as he spoke a few Latin word the paper burnt to ashes and disappeared. Mayze was sitting on a bench close to Jungkook's place and all she was thinking was him. How could a human mean so much to her ? She wanted to go home knowing that her father was waiting her and he will scold her again for being late. And there was the irony, Namjoon was still treating her as a little girl when in fact she could look after herself better than anyone else. But in that moment a piece of paper appeared in her hands. She unfolded it carefully and at first smiled at the written words: "You could have at least said bye. I'm not the first man you saw naked, so don't be so shy. I would be thrilled if you would come back and spend the rest of night with me. - sexy and hot Jungkook" After she read the message, a sharp noise startled her . Again someone was watching her, but before she could do something , the man vanished in the dark. That was creepy. She stood up and walked towards Jungkook’s old house.

"I want to murder him in his sleep, Ah, no, I want to murder him when he’s awake so he can see the joy on my face when I do it. How dare he ask me to sleep with him?!" She mumbled as she tore to pieces the sheet of paper. She opened his door almost ripping it apart.

" Wow, that was a good entrance" He smirked as he expected her to come. " How dare you ask for me to sleep with you?" she pushed his chest but he wouldn't move. He just grabbed her wrists and pulled her close his nose almost touching her forehead . How the hell was he so strong, she was a vampire and he was a mortal. Their faces inches away as he leaned closer, his eyes were fixed on her pouty lips. " I didn't mean it that way. Haven't you ever just slept next to a friend?" He spoke, each one of his words stabbing her in the heart. Friends? That was all she was to him? She tried to pull her hands away, her eyes were wide and she was fighting hard not to cry. Never in her existence cried because of a male. "Let me go!" her voice cracked ,tears running down her rosy cheeks . " It's all we can be since you are married" He said as he let go of her hands only to hold her face and kiss away her tears. The intimate gesture made her stomach turn and her heart beat faster then when she was a human. Mayze saw how distracted he was trying to control his actions and took the opportunity to pull away. Her hand reached on the table and threw the first thing she found at him. " Abfugio!" She yelled at him full of anger, her breathing becoming irregular not from the physical effort but because he had that effect on her. He was breathtakingly beautiful when he was not acting like an ass, like now for example.

His face turned from shocked to amused hearing her words and let out a loud laugh but somehow his heart was beating so fast he could feel it in his neck. " I am not Harry Potter". He walked closer to her and wrapped his arms around her tightly , he pushed her head against his shoulder his fingers tangling in her soft blonde hair. "Shhhh. I am sorry". That was the first time their bodies properly touched but it didn't feel alien at all. She loved it and he just wanted to bring her closer.

29 notes · View notes

Just a Tumor/Why I Stayed

My darling heart, it’s 6 am and sleep escapes me and I took today off. When everything falls apart, it’s me putting him back together first and figuring out myself later, although he is the one who can mend the final pieces. Yesterday, Turtle was in the shower and I finally got up the courage to look at his phone, heart pounding with hope and fear. It took no less than 30 seconds to see it, to graphically see it, and for a few minutes I was unglued. I had healed so well, been so exuberant on our honeymoon, and he could be there next to me having these conversations. I ran to the bathroom crying, interrupting his shower. In his head, it was already over, but when it struck him, my mind was already made up that I’d stay. I guess my mind was already made up on November 3rd last year. I was extremely surprised that he said “K let’s end this”, because he made me feel that exact “not good enough” tossed aside feeling that had cursed my life. Was he just trying to beat me to saying something I wasn’t even thinking? I really couldn’t handle it and broken down crying and he took it back, if only to stop my crying. He said she was the only one and it was meaningless etc, and I wanted to believe him, but it was hard since he wouldn’t let me see his phone any longer. He shelled, obvs, and closed the door to the game room and I was terrified for a second, since the gun is in there, but he was just sitting there. He told me that he threw his ring in the bushes and I said “They’re just pictures. They hurt my feelings but they didn’t break my heart. I’m not throwing my marriage away over pictures. I’m not throwing it away over anything. It’s just not an option to me.” He didn’t really throw it though. I just sat there with him for a long time in silence, saying little things here and there. My overall feeling was relief, that I finally listened to my inner feeling, that it was out in the open, and that he saw what it did to me. He really doesn’t see sexting as cheating. It really cheapens all those cute little kissy stickers for me too, knowing I’m not the only one. I can’t see them the same. I meanly thought that I should tell him that that means I should start spreading my titties in my inbox and see how he likes it, but that was just jealousy really, along with wanting to cuss the girl out. That part is not completely out of the question still lol. How do women see married men and be just like “oh well” cuz they wanna see a nasty cum pic and get attention? He’s 1000% guilty but just ew. His phone is an escape from reality and responsibility and usually that means games but sometimes it means pretending there’s no ring on your finger, that you are the man you were before one of those random chicks wanted to be your wife. We actually had a pretty nice day. Once he started to see that I really was still there, he gave me a big hug from behind, like he was clinging to me, and he was no longer the cold stranger first confronted. I know he tends to shut down, but dang does that coldness feel like steel. I melted into his arms. It’s funny to me that he immediately wanted to try for a baby. How can you say “let’s get the papers” and “ok time for a baby” within the same hour?? I just didn’t really say anything. Anastasia is so precious to me, and my family has been so broken that words and trust simply aren’t enough. She needs the dang world from you!! The whole freakin thing and not promises you can’t keep. Also summer bdays suck. I want her at our originally planned time. I don’t see how people think kids fix everything. I wouldn’t want to put that pressure on her. We have both felt that pressure and our parents are still messed up after 28 years of us cleaning up their messes. I just feel like our marriage is the best one I know. The first time around, I mostly felt obligated , but being a Nicholson became my identity. I am utterly in love. I feel like turtle understands me and shows me such deep kindness, saying things like “Let’s never fight.” I went in knowing that this cancer could come back again, but really it just felt like a tumor. It definitely left its mark on me, but I’m not afraid. I laid there for a while shaking, feeling like I should just take the phone while he sleeps and rip the bandaid completely off, but in the end, I decided to write while the sun rises on today. I feel better now. It sucks that he still won’t trust me enough to open his phone to me, but I decided it doesn’t matter what else is on there. I just have to trust that the risk is not worth some “old friend” feeling special because you saw her boobs and have cum on your hands. That whatever happiness it gives him to “help” someone is unequal to kicking me square in the chest. I told him to just think of me when he’s tempted to do it, that I’m not so dumb to think two discoveries years apart that were both the ONLY time i look is all there is, since it obviously catches up to him eventually, so just think of how much it hurt to see me in pain. Well really, there’s also the snuck pictures of his coworkers from across the table where you can see down their shirts. And messaging every woman he knows and lying about it. He said Karma is a B, but I think she is also wonderfully kind to the man who is good to his “perfect” wife. I’d NEVER break him live I’ve been broken before. He is so precious to me. If there was the slightest chance that something I do could break him, I just won’t do it. Except maybe writing here of course. It’s my small necessary allowance. It’s not hard for me to shut out all other men. They don’t even exist to me. Maybe that’s a hard thing about being a man, but I hope one day he can only have eyes for me. I always want it, and if it’s cuz I’m at work or on my period, then that’s just lame. I’m always the one waiting til he wants it. I know that’s how it naturally goes, but I do miss the feeling I had when we first started dating, that he couldn’t wait to touch me and feel me. I feel like my feeling hasn’t changed when his have, even if it’s just because he’s tired, and especially cuz he’s not too tired to rub one out for the ladies. I guess you can see there is an edge of bitterness, but I’m all softness to him. I don’t want him to taste bitterness beyond the way it has poisoned him already to see me hurt and disappointed. I don’t jab and turn the knife deeper, but just like last time, I pretty much just have to work through my own feelings on it. It hurts to love sometimes, no matter what the quotes say, but I’m going to keep on doing it. At least I have you to tell and I can be a little barbed without starting the whole thing all over again (which is what happened at midnight, when I asked for reassurance). I haven’t written much in a whole year, but it’s good to see you old friend, and it’s good to feel like truth finds a way.

0 notes

Broken souls mend together

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Prompt: Set after season 6, ep 18“Lauren.” The reader was roommates with Emily, and goes to Spencer for comfort. Inspired from the scene where Reid had admitted of thinking of taking drugs again to JJ after Emily comes back in season 7, ep 2.

credits to the amazing poster @hotchnerfuckmeup

Part 2

Spencer stared at the syringe and the small bottle that he placed on the top of the sink. He looked back at the mirror, staring at his own haunted expression and red eyes. He could do it right now and no one would bother him. It wouldn't hurt this much anymore.

But Emily would be so disappointed.

He shut his eyes closed as he swallowed the cry that was lounged in his throat. It's been five weeks since Emily died, and it still hurt to even think about her. The guilt of not doing enough and the crushing pain he would feel whenever he saw the empty desk beside him was enough to plunge the needle into his arm. He just didn't want to feel anymore, and he wanted this pain to go away. If he couldn't save Emily, then who could he save?

The doorbell ringing snapped him out of his thoughts and panic bubbled inside his stomach. He quickly shoved the syringe and bottles into the cupboard, looked at himself to make sure that nothing was wrong before he could see who the guest was. He quickly crossed the rooms to open the door, and his breath hitched when he saw who it was.

It was Y/N.

She was drenched, and Spencer didn't even realize that it was raining outside. His heart clenched when he saw the red eyes and haunted face, and he blinked rapidly to hide his own tears. "Hey," She said, giving him a tired smile. "Were you sleeping?”

He shook his heads and stepped aside to let her in as he took in her hunched form. "You're drenched," he said and wanted to slap his forehead because what a great question genius.

"I was just walking around," She answered, her voice scratchy. "It suddenly started to rain and I didn't have an umbrella."

"You were walking around? At this time?" He said, his voice a bit louder than usual. It was past midnight, and you would think that she would be more careful considering what they see at their jobs.

"It's better than staying at home," She whispered, and immediately Spencer felt bad for raising his voice.

Y/N had joined the team just after Rossi and immediately connected with Emily first before him. Y/N couldn't find a steady place to stay so Emily offered her apartment and the two quickly became best friends and roommate. So for Y/N to be in a place where she spent so much time with Emily must be hard.

"I am sorry," He whispered. “Come in, I’ll get you some clothes for you to change."

"No Spence it's-"

"You'll get sick. Please," He said, and Y/N reluctantly nodded her head. He went to his room and got out with some of his old clothes. With a grateful smile, she took it and headed towards the bathroom. He strode to the kitchen and put the kettle on, knowing she preferred tea over coffee. He started the coffee machine and rubbed his face to keep the tiredness away for now.

“Spencer?”

He turned to Y/N and froze at what she was holding. He looked back to her face, expecting to see the disgust or pity in her eyes, yet all he saw was empathy. As if she knew exactly what he was feeling, or going through right now. Wordlessly she placed the syringe and the Dilaudid on the coffee table and searched her bag for something. She took it out and placed it beside the Dilaudid.

Razor blades. Three of them.

He looks back at her, shock clear on his face. He really looks at her now, taking in his sweater and his sweatpants hanging on loosely. There is a vulnerable expression, her posture hunched in as if to protect herself from criticism or disgust. What drew him the most is the tears that filled her eyes, threatening to fall down. He could feel his own eyes tearing up as he crossed the room and took her in his arms. They both broke down, clutching onto each other as they cry their hearts out.

They don't know how long they say there, embraced and lost in their grief. The whistling from the kettle broke them out of their embrace, and she looked guilty at his wet shirt. "Sorry about that," she said, nodding at the wet spot on his shirt.

"Don't worry about it," Spencer murmured, wiping away the remaining tears. With a small smile, he walked to the kitchen to get the tea and coffee. Y/N sniffled, wiping her tears with Spencer's long sleeves. She looked back when Spencer enters with a cup of her favorite tea. She smiled tiredly, noticing his dark circles and red eyes.

"Thanks," She whispered, and with a tug on her arm, they both sat on the couch. She tucked her legs under her, keeping some space between Spencer. There was a hesitation in the air as if they were not sure of themselves after such intimate moment.

“I never told anyone about that,” Y/N said, her voice soft as she nodded to the blades. “That’s why I was walking around. If I was in my apartment, I think I would have given in.”

“Oh,” Spencer mustered, continued to look at his coffee. “I understand. If you hadn’t come maybe I would have too.”

“What stopped you?”

“Emily,” Spencer whispered, tears immediately filling his eyes.

“Did she know?”

“The whole team knows, except for Seavar and Rossi. It happened when she was new,” He answered, a shake in his voice. “We were on this case-“

“You don’t need to tell me,” she told him in empathy. She knew how hard it is to open up about something like this, and that’s why she never told anyone when she moved to Quantico.

“I want to,” he looked up at her, his face showing determination. “We were on this case in Atlanta, and the unsub was suffering from dissociate identity disorder. One of his personalities would torture me while Tobias, the unsub, would drug me with Dilaudid. He said it would help, but it only made things worse.”

There was a haunted look in his eyes, and Y/N reached over to hold his hand. Spencer snapped out of his memories when he looked down at their intertwined hands, and he looked up to see her up close with a broken expression. She squeezed his hand, letting him know that she was there and if he needed to stop it was fine. There was no judgment in her eyes, just understanding.

“He made me choose which family to kill, and I had to. They died right in front of me,” his voice cracked at the end, but Y/N didn’t make a move to get closer. She let her own tears flow, her heart aching for the man sitting beside her. He wasn’t looking at her, just staring forward and continuing with his story.

“I had to kill him and his last words were thank you. I took the two bottles of Dilaudid from his dead body, and I tried at first to not get high. But the pain and nightmares were too much-“

“And you wanted an escape,” she finished for him.

“Yeah,” he agreed. He swallowed down in nervousness, trying to not break down again. “The team noticed, of course, but they couldn’t do anything officially. Emily was new at that time, and it was easier to snap at her than others.” He concentrated on the patterns she was drawing on top of his hand, drawing comfort and courage to continue.

“But she was very understanding,” He continued, looking back at Y/N with teary eyes. “Hotch couldn’t talk about it officially because then I would have lost my job. Gideon helped, but even though I have been clean for 3 years 2 months and 28 days now, the cravings never leave. It only increases when you are in pain.”

“I know,” Y/n consoled, continuing to draw circles. She placed the cup with her free hand, and gently, almost hesitantly, placed her head on his shoulder. He rested his head on top of her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder to bring her closer. They both needed the comfort, whether it was physical or emotional.

“My parents divorced when I was 14. It was really messy, both of them were fighting over every single thing. I felt so lost because I always thought that they loved each other you know? Everything got too much for me, so I started to cut myself,” she started, and maybe it is because Spencer was open about his experience that it makes it easier for to do the same.

“Cutting is another outlet for coping with problems. It may help you express feelings you can’t put into words, distract you from your life, or release emotional pain. 90% of people who engage in self-harm begin during their teen or pre-adolescent,” Spencer told her, rambling off statistics. He winced outward, knowing that facts were not comforting words to many.

But it brought a small smile on her face because she knew that facts comforted Spencer, and she knew that it was his way to comfort others. “Then my dad died in a car accident when I turned 17 and made sure that my mom would not get a single penny,” Her voice suddenly shook, remembering the numbness she felt at that time. Spencer tightened his grip, now his turn to draw circles on her hand.

“He left all of his money and properties to me, and that made my mom so mad. As soon as I turned 18 she threw me out of my house. It didn’t matter really, they both stopped being my parents a long time ago. I guess my dad left everything for me because of guilt. The cuttings made me feel better, but I tried to get better when I started college. I got help but it never went away you know.

“Then I got pregnant.”

“What?” He stuttered, not expecting that. His mind went blank because Y/N never talked about her child, and his eyes widen with the possibility of why.

“A lot of people thought it was the biggest mistake of my life. 18 and pregnant, but she was the best thing that ever happened to me. The father got scared and ran off, but it didn’t matter.”

“What’s her name?” He asked tenderly, his heart heavy with sadness for the woman beside him.

“Lily,” she whispered, her voice breaking into a sob. She sniffed back, blinking her eyes to stop crying. It was so hard to even say her name after so long. “It was so weird. She hated lilies because she said people would always give her that rather than roses. But I finally had a family. It was just me and her, but it was more than enough. Everything was perfect. It was hard but so worth it.”

There was nostalgia in her voice, a longing that he knew that would always be there. He choked back his own sobs, trying to stay strong for her. “How did she-“

A shudder went through her body as she shut her eyes closed and clenched her jaw. He felt her shudder and brought her closer to him in order to comfort her. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me,” He whispered to her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“I couldn’t save her. I was the youngest detective at that time with the highest success rate in the state and I couldn’t save her. That’s why I became a profiler so that others won’t have to go through what I experienced. But I couldn’t save Emily when it mattered the most, and now I feel so useless. If I can’t save those who I love, then what’s the use of this job Spence?”

“I know,” He whispered, burying his head in her hair. She practically sat on his lap, tucking her head in the crook of his neck as they both grieved. They don’t know when they stopped crying or when they both fell asleep on the couch, legs tangled and bodies pressed against each other.

All they know is that it was the first time since they didn’t have a nightmare since Emily’s death.

…

The moment Y/N wakes up, she instantly knew that it wasn’t her bed. She felt someone’s breathing down her neck, and she opened her eyes to find herself flushed to someone’s chest. She looks up to see Spencer snoring softly and mouth slightly open. She smiled at the cute look on his face and notices that he has his arms wrapped around her waist, making it harder for her to get up. She glances at the coffee table, taking in the blades, syringes, and the half-empty cups and suddenly realizes that she didn’t have a nightmare.

She had a light headache and her eyes felt dry because of all the crying she did last night (or was it early morning?) and she was squeezed on the couch with Spencer. But all she felt safe, with his arms around her and legs tangled with each other. She settled back onto his arm, closing her eyes and going to the dreamland with him.

It was the weekend, so she knew that they won’t get called in. All she wanted right now was feeling safe, and in his arms she found it.

She hoped that this would never end.

259 notes · View notes

so its been a slow start on here but i havent had this tumblr for more then 24 hours still trying to figure out how to use this thing but i figured id tell a little bit about my story, when i was young i used to live with my mom my grandma aunt and uncle, mom was 17 when she had me and well at the least to say she wasnt quiet ready to be a mother then. she was always out with friends and partying and would leave me wit my aunt or uncle. i was very close with my aunt if anything she was the closest thing to a mother figure i had in my life i felt safe with her, the only person i ever felt safe with was her and that still stands to this day shes the only person in the world that never turned her back on me and never gave up on me she always took me out before valentines day to get gifts for my little crushes threw out school i could tell her things i couldnt even tell a best friend or counselor she was my safe haven. But sometimes my uncle would baby sit me and he would do inappropriate things to me and touch me and i was so young and i didnt know it wasnt okay i didnt know wwhat it was at all really until i got older and i was ashamed of it and felt like less of a man and really it took till i was about 21 years old to finally come out and say it of course i was only strong enough to say it to the only person i trusted to keep it a secret i was and still am a little bit ashamed of it and its something i need to work on but back to my story eventually with my mom struggling with addiction herself she would get kicked out of my grandmas sometimes so she would grab me put me in the car and we would just drive around all night i cant tell you how many countless nights i spent in the back of her car sleeping or at some strangers house., well eventually i cant remember how old i was exactly but i guess she just got tired of being the part time mom she was and i remember her bringing me to visit my dad who lived with my other grandma grandpa my uncle and my 2 aunts well we walked in the door and everyone was there in the living room just talking but as soon as they saw us it was like the world stopped and they just stared at us well turns out my mother was going on a vacation for a week with her new boyfriend well it turned out that week turned into weeks and longer with out calls or anything she just took off eventually one day we got a call and its the first time i can remember talking to her since she left and she was in jail she came back into my life sorta kinda just in and out until i was in 7th grade thats when i started t get out of control and full of anger and hate and was very rebellious the typical im gonna do what i want when i want how i was and no one can tell me shit about it getting suspended from school getting into fights you name it that was me i was a jerk of a brother a mean son and a worst nightmare for people i didnt like i wasnt scared of anything weather it was fighting jail or cops for years my mother was asking me to give her another chance and move in with her she was never around or home and she didnt really care what i did so i moved in with my mom and from there i fell into a group of older kids that liked to do drugs and fight and pretty much do any and everything that you shouldnt do and to me it was fun i felt cool and ilike doing whatever i wanted if i got arrested my mom wasnt home to ground me or atleast enforce it so i just continued to do whatever i wanted countless arrests and suspensions from school and the drinking and drugging i didnt realize till my most recent years the older kids were just using me because i wasnt really scared to do or say anything perfect little side kick well eventually my mother found a bowl i hadfor getting high and she kicked me out so i moved back to my home town but with my grandparents they are the sweetest souls i have ever met but they were old school and were not very strict so smoking pot and drinking where completely normal especially in my family i first overdosed when i was 15 years old i took about 70 something sleeping pills that the kids in my town started taking because they were untraceable on a drug and blood test like i said that was just my first overdose and yes it terrified my family but didnt faze me one bit not even a year later when i was 16 i overdosed on pcp started hanging out in a bad neighborhood and doing just about any and every drug available even after watching one of my bestfriends drop to the ground from the pcp just minutes before i did i woke up in a hospital bed still unfazed by it honestly i think a part of my thought it was“cool” and at that point i thought well i over dosed twice and still woke up so nothing can touch me at that point i was so wrapped up in drugs that my emotions were non existing and my thought process was just fuck it.the drinking and drugging just got worse the partying continued the arrests never ended cant think of a night that didnt end in running from the cops when i was 17 i first tried heroin i had a friend that sold it and we would go drink at his house and i found some in the bathroom so i tried it and well at the least to say that was the day my life completely i slowly continued to use it but not to the point where i needed it atleast i thought that shortly after i found out that 2 of my cousins were using heroin to of course i didnt tell them i was until we ended up running into eachother in the ghetto so we all started getting high together hiding in abandon buildings and shooting up heroin at this point smoking crack and shooting up cocaine too, two days in a row i overdoses on heroin and xanax the people i was with ran my pockets when my breathing stopped and threw me on the side of the roadluckly i was found by someone and brought to a hospital still wasnt fazed when i woke up and went home went to sleep woke up the next day and got high again in all of these events i was also in and out of the county jail like it was my second home eventually my family got on my ass so i went to a rehab for 28 days just to get them off my back, first day home i told my grandpa i was going to see a few friends and went right back to getting high the same day i got out of rehab. i started hanging out with this girl i met in rehab second time we hangout i end up overdosing again on heroin and alcohol thats when i found out i had hep C but im sure if my track record doesnt prov to be the same that didnt faze me either right back to using eventually i get arrested and charged with 3rd degree burglary get locked up in the county for two months and it violates my juvenile probation and i get sent to a juvenile prison, i stay there for about 18 months while im there my cousins are hanging out and one of them over doses and my cousin and our“friend” freak out instead of calling an ambulance they clean her up and tuck her under a blanket in the hotel room they were in and they leave her a few days later room service finds the body i find out about a week later and well i think the fact of being in jail and not seeing it with my own eyes just made it hard to believe that the cousin that used to babysit me that grew up with me was gone forever and i never got to say goodbye..and it doesnt stop there maybe two weeks later i get a letter and find out my other cousin killed herself. she just couldnt handle the shame she felt for leaving my one cousin in that hotel room .not gonna really get into details about how i felt after losing both of them because its almost impossible to describe.about a year later i finally get out and i move in with my aunt her fiance and my baby cousin i was on parole so i had expectations to meet like outpatient counseling so about 2 months after being out im doing good staying clean doing good with outpatient and my curfew well i wake up the day after my 21 birthday i wake up to a text that my bestfriend of 18 years is dead and that pretty much destroyed me and broke me down i started drinking and skipping outpatient or showing up drunk i shut down and pushed myself into the dark again i was trying to get parole to violate me and send me back i just gave up but it never happened and the day i got off i moved out of my aunts and with my friend in philly well that was all just party party party. at the time i was talking to a girl who i thought at the time was my life partner and all that bullshit but i was just blinded by after 2 years of nothing but jail and parole rules she was just the first female who gave me her attention well while i was in philly we were all drinking and me and her broke up i was drunk and emotional and i well i went into the bathroom and i took 3 90 count scripts of depression medicine and i took them all i took 270 pills give or take a few and tried to kill myself 10 minutes after i took them i blacked out well all i can say is i must have a a seriously bad ass guardian angel or i have a very big and meaningful purpose in life because i woke up the next day weak unable to move and throwing up non stop all the pills i took. it took me about three days to get back to me then i went back to jersey with my uncle not long after that i get hooked back on heroin and cocaine again and my life just well i can say i never been so low the insanity of it all is just well insane everyday i woke up and NEEDED drugs in one day i would think a million times how much happier i would be if i just ended the suffering if i just drove the car into the wall as fast as i could and just end the suffering, my mind was such a dark scary place i wouldnt wish it on anyone and if i didnt always want to get high just one more time if i didnt want to feel that rush one more time im sure i probably would have killed myself, one day i was getting high with my gf at the time and i was just i dont really know what happened but its like time froze and i saw who i was when i got out of jail and how bad things got and how far out there i was so i reached out to the only person i knew i could trust and that would help me my aunt and the next day she checked me into a hospital and i detoxed there while i was there my aunt and my mom found me a halfway house to move into..out of state, they didnt want me to end up like my cousins did the found me a sobor living home and a plane ticket and they went above and beyond to save me. so i moved and i was terrified that id fail i was in the halfway house for about 3 1/2 months to 4 and i turned into a completely different person that i never thought i could be i was happy and going to meetings and sharing and i met a girl and i fell head over heals for her the second i laid eyes on her shes been strong for me stood by my side and made me believe i could be more then a guy working as a cook and just barly making it that i can have that nice house and i can g=have a nice car or go back to school that i can build a family of my own it took me a while to realize or should i say believe in myself to be honest i didnt start fully believe in myself until 2 months ago since me and her have been together i have stolen money from her to get high on multiple occasions i have lied to her and flipped her brand new mustang going to get high i have snuck out and left her alone in bed to go get high she bought me a plane ticket to go home on my birthday for a week to see my family and my first day home i overdosed on heroin i have left her on three occasions because i broke the law and went to jail the first time was for 2 months for aggravated assault and she answered every call wrote me letters came to every court date she visited me and she stayed by my side the whole time.not even 5 days after i got out i stole her car and money to get high even after everything she did for me a month later i got arrested again and charged wit domestic assault for splashing her with water yea i know it sounds stupid but i was piss drunk and got out of control well she bailed me out of jail my drinking continued to get worse and i came home one night from work very very drunk and i snapped and i actually put my hands on her i hit the woman that did nothing but stand by my side and believe in me and give me chance after chance she carried my child the first time i went to jail and we lost it from all the stress she was under from supporting her child and paying rent all on her own a few months after she bailed me out we got pregnant again our own little baby boy Carter well our little baby boy wasnt so healthy and was in pain so we had to make the decision to abort it was what we thought best for him while she was pregnant i went behind her back and was talking to a female that i shouldnt have been talking to and said things i shouldnt have said while being in a relationship with this wonderful woman who has done nothing but fight for me and stand by my side well on july 27th i went back to jail again and stayed for about 2 months for violating my probation still this woman stood by my side answered every call and again came to court this was when i finally realized i was still being defeated by my addiction and while in jail i decided im not gonna be that person i was because i have a choice it is my life and i wont be weak anymore i started going the the steps again for real this time and taking every step to better myself and well guess who bailed me out of jail again? you guessed it she did and now i have been home for 6 days and i have trouble sleeping so i decided to make this blog to share my story help others like me most importantly help myself and not i am sitting in bed next to my girlfriend and my only thoughts are why didnt i take advantage of this time with her and also how easy recovery can be if you really try i mean we tried pretty hard to get high or stay high just half of that effort will save your life its saving mine usually nights like this id be searching the house for a car key that my gf has to hide from me so i dont steel her car but today all i care about is spending and enjoying every moment with this woman and what would be my next step that would be best for my family and me its gonna be a long road and a hard fight but i know i can do it just like i know you can do it stay strong everyone never give up and remember you are worth it and you are worth saving

2 notes · View notes

CREEPSHOW IN ALL COLORS, FORMS AND AMPLITUDES

STEPHEN KING – CREEPSHOW – COMIC BOOK – 1982

You will be missing Joe Hill in the prologue and the epilogue because the prologue is reduced to the front cover and there is no back cover. But all the stories are there and in proper order.

This comic book is interesting to show how a piece of literature can be adapted to various other media. In the film the dynamism of the story is built by flashbacks and flash-forwards and ellipses. We have to let the film take over and we are transported in that evanescent screen story. There is no going back, no jumping any page. There is compulsory submission. And we lose that submissiveness with a DVD since then we can fool or even violate death itself as if we were the maître d’ or the master of ceremony and there is nothing more ceremonious than death, particularly horror death.

But with the comic book we step into another dynamism, that of pictures. We have to break the dynamism of pictures by reading the various bubbles without which we do not get the story right. We can go back and forward as much as we want. And yet it is dynamic not because of the bubbles and what they contain, not so much because of the sound we hear in our mental ears and that does not happen really. It is dynamic because of the pictures. A comic book is constant ellipses from one picture to the next and with big howling cries at times crossing the page and exploding the boxes, and transcending the bubbles and their content.

Yet it is not really the medium I prefer. I am too divided between reading what is written in the bubbles, and I lose the dynamic pictures, or submitting to the dynamic pictures and I lose the pith and marrow of the content of the bubbles. But the drawings of Bernie Wrightson are amazing. But why on earth did the Saturday Night Late Show choose a black version of death (green in this book) for Steve Bannon? Impressive how comic books car shift to other media in no time.

Enjoy

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

GEORGE ROMERO – STEPHEN KING – CREEPSHOW – 1982

The film hasn’t changed one iota since 1982 and what’s more it does not seem to have aged too much. Special effects maybe, but that’s about all. The stories are absolutely funny more than frightening. They might have been gross and frightening in 1982 but today we are used to that kind of make-believe cinema.

Every single story or moment is pleasure and nothing but pleasure.

The Prologue and epilogue are so nice about the abusive father and the voodoo son, Stephen King’s own son by the way. Let’s think his father wasn’t that kind of a father. But you may be surprised if you really analyzed the “rapport” between a father and a son. Abusiveness is at times in excess gentleness.

"Father's Day” is the hilarious vengeance of an old and decrepit father killed by his own daughter: the vengeance comes from the grave, from beyond the grave. Never ever neglect celebrating father’s day even for a father who does not deserve it.

"The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" with Stephen King in the main and only human role is even more than funny with his meteor that brings some kind of invasive green algae, fungus or whatever from outer space. Nothing to do with Superman, nor Aliens actually. The only solution is to evade the invasion by committing suicide I guess, slightly like a terrorist blows himself up in order to kill as many miscreants as possible to clean up the world of its perversion. The world is clean for the terrorist for sure after his own sacrifice.

"Something to Tide You Over" is even more than hilarious because of another case of vengeance from beyond the grave and in this case the grave is the sea itself. I am not sure Stephen King intended this story to be hilarious but it is true that since Michael Jackson living dead creeping out of their graves and chasing you have become very entertaining.

"The Crate" is nothing but justice or some just vengeance or some just balancing of grievances in a married couple. Don’t let children watch that one: they could get some good idea of how to take care of an invasive mother who does not know what a bathroom or toilet door is when her son is using these facilities, or who does not know why she is not supposed to look under her son’s bed. That’s when the monster in the closet is really useful, and should be cultivated, for such sons: let it come out and take care of the mother. It is all the same when the son has become a husband and the mother has become a wife since all husbands choose their wives to correspond to what their mothers were. How can you be so pessimistic? But that is no pessimism: it is pure truth and reality.

"They're Creeping Up on You" is the final touch about some rich man who is obnoxious with everyone and at the same time is obsessed with cleanliness and his germless and bugless environment. That is a killing obsession and the bugs will always have the last word and bring justice to the poor. You can imagine what I may dream about the fate of Trump who should be trumped by bugs and mulched by germs.

And the epilogue gives us hope: all nasty people will sooner or later be trumped and mulched into oblivion and inexistence

1- beyond making friends with nasty Sunni dictators or autocrats;

2- beyond making fun of the Pope by being a grinning giant puppet next to the serious look of this grave charismatic religious leader;

3- beyond pushing some Prime Minister out of his right way to be in the front of the family picture;

4- beyond chastising 23 out of 28 of his allies and trying to bully them into paying for his own bills to make America great again;

5- beyond his gripping handshake that a French President turned into a gripping-back handshake that he could not escape anymore;

6- beyond his leaking confidential details of a criminal investigation in a terrorist attack in Manchester;

7- beyond his attempt to sink any climate agreement, including the one in Paris, for his egotistic promises to completely failed professions overdue in their coming to their own end;

8- beyond his sending 23 million people out of insurance coverage;

9- beyond his cutting federal funds for Medicaid by 50% and food stamps by 25% just to be able to cut the taxes of the wealthiest in proportion.

And NINE is of course the apocalypse, the dragon, the beast and we are all the pregnant woman escaping this Babylon RED(RUM) Witch Doctor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYgOlqinH7A or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ttGgIQpAUc) of a President.

Yes There is hope beyond the worst possible horror story in real life and that’s what makes Romero’s film and Stephen King’s stories so beautifully good, funny and true to life down to our deepest guts.

When These masters of literature and the cinema die we will have to reinvent them under a new skin. It is true Stephen King leaves two sons beyond himself, though they do not have the same level of creativity as the father. But Romero is more complicated as for descent.

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

STEPHEN KING – GEORGE ROMERO – CREEPSHOW 2 – 1987

The film was even funnier because they haD mixed up the audios ON THE dvd and they have Castilian twice and French once but no English. At least I could not find it. So I watched it in Castilian with English subtitles. I must say the language then gives a density to the Monstrous Creep that is really striking in all meanings of the word.

There is nothing new of course in these stories that we have read, probably several times. The three stories are definitely amazing. The first one, “Old Chief Wood’nhead” seems to imply there is among the older Indian generation some decency that the younger generation cannot understand, nor respect, but the ghosts of the dead can come back to bring justice, though a death for a death is not giving life back to the victims of the greed of the younger generation that is going to Hollywood as is well known. They have always dreamed of meeting John Wayne on one of his Indian killing spree. At least they had the intention to go.

The second story, “the Raft,” is once again about young people, two couples who decide to go wild on marijuana and on some forlorn and forgotten paths where signs are overgrown with shrubs and trees and are no longer visible. Vain they are and uninformed they remain and they dare do what is advised not to do on the sign they haven’t seen. They end up eaten up by some aquatic monster. Yam! Yam! Says the monster. It only takes one overexcited young man to lead the four of them into the water and to their death. Young people have always been what they used to be and what they will be. Boys will be boys and girls the same.

The third story, “The Hitchhiker,” is a phenomenally funny story, more than frightening. A white rich lady on her way back from an afternoon with a gigolo (by the way rather cheap) gets berserk at the idea that she will be discovered by her husband because he said he was going to arrive home at 11.30 and she can’t make it by that time. Find an explanation if you can. She thus has a problem with a black hitchhiker she turned into a ghost and the ghost haunts her all the way and at the end finally gets even with her. The details are absolutely appetizing. You will be ready for a second helping after licking your fingers clean of the blood of the dead man. Don’t forget crime and horror are like pizza, the second slice is always better than the first.

Enjoy your petits fours and canapés, and wash them down with some Bloody Mary.

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

ANA CLAVELL– CREEPSHOW III: TALES OF MURDER, MAYHEM AND MADNESS – 2006

It took that third opus a long time to get out, twenty years mind you. It’s nearly an afterthought: how can such two good successful films by Stephen King and George Romero be continued twenty years later? First because the period during which the title was controlled exclusively by the first author and director must have come to its end, liberating the title, otherwise it should have been attached to the original proprietors and paid for.

But it is hard to go back to the concept of these Creepshows and some changes have to be introduced. The very first change is that there is some continuity in the whole film because some actors and their roles go from one episode to the next or the one after the next. Some situations too are similar or even the same, not to speak of some objects like cars.

The next change is the style. This film really targets the grossest effects we can imagine. Gross is not necessarily bad but in this case it is done without much finesse and from gross we move to sickening and that is the lowest level in horror stories or movies according to Stephen King himself. And along that line the director does not hesitate to introduce human beings who suddenly turn into very monstrous beings that can resuscitate after having been killed, resuscitate to haunt a living drug-addicted doctor for example, etc.

And of course the concept of a mad scientist or technician is introduced with no real delicacy. The story of his wife – real or not real – Frankenstein or simple aging lustful old man – and how she ends up in a microwave oven is just plain funny. It was supposed to be a prank at first and it ran out to be a slaughterhouse scene with so much blood we just wonder if it is not half a dozen wives and not only one. And at the end the mad scientist marries her finally but this time it is so openly a recomposed body that there is no doubt at all any more. We are dealing with Doctor Frankenstein, middle name Lego, playing with body parts as if they were some press-in parts, pieces and pawns.

We definitely are not in a comic strip adventure for a young teenager, male preferably, but for some older teenagers, male as well as female, or whatever gender they may decide to have, trying to experience some disquieting experience that is supposed to make their stomach growl and their intestine dance some frantic tarantella from their waist to their groin, though it remains rather soft and bashful at this lower level.

Enjoy the film, but after a light dinner if you do not want to have some accident generally attributed to airsickness in a plane or road-sickness in a bus or a car. And be sure you take a sleeping pill afterwards to avoid all kinds of nightmares.

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

11 notes · View notes

17th of June we took our time getting ready for the day then went out to find the fabled Tram 28. We went to a metro station to buy a 24 hour ticket. While there we were having trouble with the machine not wanting to take our credit card instead of a debit card. A little old man was helping everyone including us. We finally got our cards bought using cash and he said to me could you help me out a little bit since I helped you? I knew that was coming so I gave him some euros by dropping them in his pocket while he was talking to someone else. He smiled and understood I didn't want people seeing me give him the money. It took a while to find Tram 28 and when we did there was an hour-long wait to get aboard. We almost walked away right then but instead we visited with a British couple, Richard and Anne. We had a good discussion with them about politics,being responsible for your own actions, and not looking for a handout. We also talked about being safe and careful in the less touristy parts of town. I showed him my secret weapon, the car keys that had a spring loaded key. He said yes that sounds like a switchblade knife and might make people think twice about bothering you. I told him I thought I could also do a lot of damage with that key if necessary. His back started hurting and they couldn't stay for the tram ride. The couple behind him were from Italy and we enjoyed a good conversation with them before we got on the train. Philippe and Marta live north of Venice and she is a graphic designer and he's a trainer with the Volkswagen Corporation. Whatever you do when you go to Lisbon, don't ride Tram 28 unless you ride it at 7 in the morning or so. By 11 it was very crowded with tourists and commuters. It's too crowded to get a good look at anything unless you're in the back where we were. Then you only see things as you are pulling away from them and you don't know what it was. There was no narration or any explanation of what you were looking at. Just don't believe the tour guides. We got off at the end and had lunch in a cemetery before heading down to the seaside. We were walking along and found out there was going to be a celebration of Navy Day which included a visit from the president of Portugal. We waited around and listened to some boring and unintelligible speeches for about an hour or so. We did get to see and hear the president of Portugal before we caught a bus back to our hotel to rest before our dinner with Stephanie and Nuno. We met them at a plaza not far from the hotel and we recognized Stephanie very quickly. We then proceeded to a neighborhood restaurant which only had about eight or nine tables for dinner. They wanted us to have a typical Portuguese meal. I had small sardines that you don't have to debone. You just chop off the heads and tails and eat the fish. I wouldn't want to get a large portion because I can only eat two-thirds of mine along with the rice and wine. E had a chicken sausage with french fries. While we were eating a couple sat at the table beside us. He is a clinical psychologist and had met his wife in Buenos Aires when he went there to study the tango. They have been together ever since and is currently touring Europe looking for someplace to work and teach. He is Lithuanian who was born in Germany and moved to the US when he was a child. Quite an interesting background for both of them but we didn't get much information from his wife. Stephanie and Nuno walked us back to our hotel about 11. It was another difficult goodbye because we had really bonded with them very quickly. There was a undercurrent of asking us to spend another day on Sunday and we could have but the decision was never really made. There were lots of hugs and goodbyes and promises of meeting again someday. That rarely happens on a cruise. June 18 On Father's Day we left for Porto. We never got there because we decided to go to a little town just outside Lisbon called Sintra. There a man started, and his family finished, a magical wonderland. It was like his own fairy land where you come in touch with the cosmos, relax and enjoy life. Maybe you could even learn a little something about yourself. It is probably a 30 acre garden with a mansion. The map was not very good but we were able to find all the things we wanted to see, including a giant sequoia. After that we headed toward Porto. I knew we would only get part of the way there. We found a beach town that had a tourist rural place about eight klicks out of town which was inexpensive including breakfast. We found out why it was inexpensive. It was clean but it was like a 1950s or 60s motel on Route 66. Only one outlet in the bedroom connected a TV refrigerator and one cell phone. The people were very nice. We had a good night sleep because it was very quiet. We left fairly early for Porto. We wanted to see the best preserved Roman ruins on the Iberian Peninsula so we stopped there on the way to Porto. It was very nice, well-preserved, and very extensive. The smoke from the large forest fire that was northeast of us was very thick and pungent. As of Monday afternoon, 62 people had been killed in the forest fire. Most of them were killed in their cars as they were trying to flee the forest fire. It has been very dry and hot in Portugal and Spain the spring. After that we headed to a another must see place called Mata de Forest which is a 2000 year old monastery for people to go visit and meditate. It was started by some monks who planted over 700 species of plants from around the world. It is a spectacular place with miles and miles of paths through the forest to see many things including the cedar of Joseph. It's supposed to be the oldest tree in the forest. At some point people came to this area and harmed the plants. Pope somebody the six made an edict that anyone who destroyed anything at the forest will be excommunicated. While wandering around on a one and a half hour walk that had been suggested by the information office, we encountered a couple from Israel who were looking for the same sights as we we were. They were lost and decided I couldn't do any worse. We finished our walk with them and had coffee before we left the park to go Porto. They are very interesting and we exchanged emails so we can keep in touch. We now have a place to sleep in Jerusalem if we decide to go to Israel someday. I think that brings us up to Monday evening. We got to Porto late but found an apartment near downtown that we couldn't drive to, or so we thought, with GPS directions. I found a parking place but GPS said we were less than 100 m from our apartment. Two guys were in the street directing people into the parking places that you had to pay for so I didn't know their racket. We weren't sure of the parking restrictions and Elizabeth went into a local store to find out. They said we could park there until 8 in the morning. When I parked one of the gentleman came up to me and started talking. I asked him if he were going to keep an eye on my car. Not sure if he understood or not but I said I didn't want anything to happen to my car and I took a picture of him and said in case something happens, I'll show your picture to the police. His friend said can you take my picture to? That's when I knew they were just looking for a handout, but I went in to ask the store owner if that were true and should I be worried? She said not to worry, they won't bother your car. They just look for $0.50 or an euro. It turned out our hotel was about 75 feet from where we parked. Luckily for us the clerk had not gone home on time and he was still there when we rang the doorbell. He helped us get settled before he left for the evening. We went to the grocery store for provisions because we were too tired to go out to eat. The apartment is a really nice place, king bed, living room/dining room combination with a fold-out sofa, full kitchen and a great bathroom. It's obvious that some entrepreneurs are renovating apartment buildings downtown for rental properties. There are a lot of buildings being renovated and the one across the alley from us is renovated on the front portion and the back, off the street, of the same building is in ruins. We got up early so we could move the car and find a 24-hour parking garage. Google was no help so we started driving and found one about half a mile from the hotel. We then headed downtown to see the church that everyone recommends and the bridge that was designed and built by Gustave Eiffel's student around 1886. It was a rather interesting walk up and down through narrow alleys and streets, sometimes along the waterfront. We were walking up a long flight of stairs and met a young woman from Vancouver, British Columbia, looking for a church. We got her going in the right direction and as we were saying goodbye to her, a French couple came up and asked if we knew where the bridge was. We said we thought we did but we should Google it. It was only 150 meters away but we couldn't see it for the buildings. They had walked right past it to where we had met them. We walked across the bridge part way with the French couple. After taking in the sights, we decided to go back to our hotel for lunch. On the way back across the bridge, we ran into the French couple again and had a 30 minute conversation about French politics, England getting out of the EU and how convenient it was to travel with one currency, the Euro. John Peter (Jacques? Pierre) had moved to Paris to try to find a job because it was hard to find a job as a software engineer. His wife Laure works with an import-export company and her English comes in handy. She had actually studied in the Lake of the Dardanelles in Arkansas on an exchange trip many years ago. It's very interesting when people open up to you and tell you what's really on their mind, the second time you run into them. We had a very open, interesting and intellectual conversation about travel, enjoying the fruits of our labor and travelling while healthy. Since we have bumped into them twice and had really enjoyed their conversation, we gave them a business card in case they ever come to America to visit. On the way back to the hotel we bumped into Michael, who is selling tickets on a train ride around some wineries, with sampling, followed by a 40 minute river boat cruise for only 22 Euros. We said we don't usually do that but you seem like a nice chap. He was curious about my accent. I told him I was from New York but he said it sounded more southern to him. I teased him for a little bit before we told him the truth. He speaks English, French and Portuguese probably with a little Spanish thrown in. He was supposed to go to England to work this summer but decided he wanted to stay home with his friends. We're glad and we reserved a seat on the train and on the boat. We’ll have a late dinner tonight (for us) on the river before going on the Douro river valley road tomorrow on our way to northern Spain.

1 note · View note