#Andy Black Short story | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

colsonlin · 2 years

Text

“Cape Cod”: a good old-fashioned short story (a 45-minute read)

“Cape Cod” is an analysis of our society’s tendency to produce narcissism, sociopathy, and casual dehumanization. It felt so good to get all of this off my chest! —Nina

A lot of how we talk about middle school in America is something I take issue with—like, for instance, that it’s somehow not the most formative experience of our lives. (It is.) A lot of people say “college,” but I had already cycled into an idea of who I was going to be as an adult by then—an A student, a talker, a birdwatcher, a take-no-prisoners observer of human social life. I studied sociology at the University of Maryland. At my retail job now—I work at a Nordstrom in Connecticut—I interact with a dying breed: old rich white women who still buy their cashmeres at the mall. At my old retail job in Farmington I was a cashier. At Nordstrom I’m more of a saleswoman—I don’t hand my customers their purchases after I’m done folding their clothes into the bag, I walk around the counter to deliver their parcels to them personally. I work six nights a week until the mall closes at 11 and on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays I drive to my second job at a call center in Southington. I earn enough money to pay for my Hyundai and an apartment above the laundromat, have coffee on the weekends, keep up with my student loans, and map out what the next step will be.

College feels like a million years ago.

Middle school still feels like yesterday.

“Brenda” (not her real name), my supervisor at my old department store in Farmington, was the portrait of managerial incompetence. She was fat and unmarried and all of the associates who weren’t actively helping a customer used to crowd into the stock room whenever she came out of her office, usually to berate one of us for misplacing a store key. We all know a Brenda from middle school. Everything you say is wrong, and everything she says can’t be improved upon. Three of us quit within the first ten months of Brenda’s arrival, and at least one of us later wrote an anonymous email to the district manager about her obvious drinking problem.

My old department store—I don’t want to get into any trouble here so let’s just call them “Not-Quite Sephora”—was in a strip mall. I never knew who to feel more sorry for during the day, myself or the customers who came in. I once explained to my boyfriend that we were kind of like Wal-Mart’s “more youthful older sister”—a high school varsity cheerleader perhaps, but still stuck in the past all the same.

There were ten of us on the first floor—the second floor, “Men’s,” might as well have been a different planet entirely. Brenda acted like she was better than all of us, because she has a master’s degree in “Global Business Administration,” whatever the fuck that was. Brenda didn’t seem to understand that all her master’s degree did was make her look both underqualified and overqualified for her job at the same time. (Her main role, from what I could tell, was assigning holiday bonuses and amplifying customer complaints.)

Not-Quite Sephora has a dying business model, but we were kept artificially alive by a steady stream of suburban glum as the principal anchor of a once-iconic strip mall. The first floor was perpetually understaffed—our Google reviews under Brenda’s mismanagement decayed from 4.2 to 2.8 stars (and this coming from a woman who tends to take “American public opinion” with a grain of salt). The turnover rate among everyone except me, Ashley, and Gabby seemed to be such that a new Chris, Brian, or Andy was being fired every three months. Good riddance, I always thought.

Men don’t understand how to take orders from a woman, and the ones who say they do are liars from the black lagoon.

I understand Brenda.

I really do.

Brenda’s most direct feature was that you couldn’t get a direct answer out of her, ever—it was either caustic sarcasm or happy-peppy self-deprecation. Everything she said was either designed to suppress or to charm. She was intelligent, which was the problem—quick-witted even—she prized competence, prided herself on being everything everywhere all at once (with self-pity), once complained to me in the break room that she was an ex-spelling-bee champion. Appearance-wise, what once made me jolt awake at night was that she tries, she actually tries. Not doing anything to set Brenda off had become something of an obsession of mine by her third month there. I applied to other jobs, but only in non-retail.

Trying to go non-retail—my life in a nutshell.

Brenda took over at a precarious time. Inflation was rising. Covid was either over or about to be over, but either way, brick-and-mortar seemed to be one of its death tolls. Brenda had mousy blond hair, wore black trousers to work, and used to tramp around the store carrying an inventory clipboard whenever she was upset about something. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to take fashion-merchandising so seriously. Her first day at Not-Quite Sephora, Brenda compared our fitting rooms favorably to the fitting rooms at her old Kohl’s in Florida, now shuttered (“So coming back up here was kind of like coming home for me, y’know?”). Brenda grew up in a trailer park in New Jersey and you can tell.

You can guess what her politics are.

I think what appealed to me most about the Cape Cod trip, if I were to be honest, was the right to tell Brenda that I’d have to take a few days off in mid-September because my boyfriend had invited me on a trip to “the Cape.”

Here was a woman in her late forties or early fifties who had located the profundity of her self-esteem in “competence”—and yet it never finally occurred to her that the only way to be “competent” in your everyday life is to command the trust of those around you. Trust is earned, Brenda, and it’s lost with unreliability. I could never really trust that woman not to not trap me inside a rule without being able to explain to me the reasons—not to not be imperious and self-certain and in self-protection mode at all times—and not to not explode all of her emotional wreckage on me, drenching me in the black mist of her self-absorption. Brenda was always right. Brenda is never to be questioned. (Brenda’s real name is “Karen,” which is why I didn’t want to say it at the time.)

It felt so good to able to tell Brenda that—all of her anxieties about the back-to-school rush aside—I’m going to have to take three days off in mid-September because my boyfriend has invited me on a trip with his three friends to the Cape. (I met my boyfriend a year ago on Opal.) It pained me to be so petty—no, not the reference to Cape Cod, which was just a kiss on the lips, but the reference to having a boyfriend, which was my primary poison. I wore more eyeliner to work, not less, the longer the weeks went by trying to circumnavigate Brenda’s imperialism. I enjoyed looking like a magazine cover while supplicating to her at the makeup counter.

We worked at a department store.

(“—so that’s my life, okay?”)

I could see it already. I love how Brenda, with her master’s degree in Global Business Studies or whatever the fuck she majored in, has to flinch every time who I really was blinked in front of her. I bet you flinched every time you saw me shrug into your office, Brenda, no matter what you called me into your office for, because I know about the Us Weeklies you stole from the front stands—I told Accounting about them!—I know how responsive you are to young women with movie-star looks who had won the genetic lottery. I smile at you, Brenda, precisely because I know how my angelic dimples make you feel. It makes you feel like you want to protect me.

It makes you feel you need to defend your true queen.

Beauty was my one and only power over Brenda, but I can assure you I only used it sparingly (all it took was sparingly with a woman so obsessed with appearances). We don’t talk about being pretty enough, which is another way of saying we don’t talk about seeing only the appearances enough. Seeing only the appearances was how I, prior to this weekend, once saw Cape Cod. What do you know about Cape Cod anyway? What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you mentally google it? I want to leave you now with an image of seagulls.

I matched with my boyfriend last September on Opal.

Now I know what you might be thinking—this whole story basically amounts to one long humblebrag about how I have an account on Opal, lol. No. First of all, I deleted that account six months ago. My boyfriend and I both did, on the same day—that was how we agreed to be serious.

Opal’s cornered the market on young attractive people who like to paraglide to remote destinations—the one and only trick it has up its sleeves is “exclusivity,” which in America is a royal flush. I’ll tell you real quick how I landed an account on Opal. A hedge-fund apparatchik I had gone on two dates with wrote me a recommendation letter after I told him I didn’t think it was going to work out between us, but did he still want to be friends? (And what do friends do?) It was his fault. He was the one who’d bragged to me about having an account on Opal in the first place. He even helped me pick out my profile pictures.

I left the Alma Mater field blank.

Opal’s about what you’d expect—videos of narcissist after narcissist who summer in Thailand. I swiped past all of the alpha males, which took days. Men who were earnest or men who were silly were the only men I could take seriously.

My boyfriend’s in that five percent of men just below the top ten percent that most women don’t know to circle the ocean for. You know the type. He’d be unstoppable if just one or two more things had gone right for him, but as it were, the wrong job, the wrong company, the wrong alma mater, had kept a handsome face trapped beneath a monthly gym membership. You’ll recognize these five-percenters from their personality—pure souls who’d lucked out facially, two sevens on the slot machine, but whose unambiguous victory had been stunted by some existential lemon. Some of them have eating disorders. Some google “male plastic surgery” in the dead of night. In my boyfriend’s case, he’s pansexual. Open-minded women have rejected him, which gives him a chip on his shoulder, and now he thinks he understands what it’s like being a minority. My boyfriend’s the type to care a lot about social issues. I’m not sure he even knows we’re interracial.

His parents have a house in Cape Cod.

His dad’s a federal judge and his mom’s an immigration attorney. Until we met and he started showing me pictures on his phone of his childhood vacation home, I had never really thought a lot about Cape Cod. I only knew it as the brand of a potato chip one step up the class ladder from Lay’s, and as a cultural metonym for white-sand beaches, old stone lighthouses, and the Kennedys. Brenda grew up in a trailer park in New Jersey, but I’m sure she must have learned at her master’s program what Cape Cod was.

Cape Cod was where she wanted to be.

And as it so happens, Brenda?

Cape Cod is me.

I wanted so desperately to tell her but I couldn’t.

I wanted so badly to inform Brenda that I had more important things to worry about than making sure the lipsticks were alphabetized, or that the powders were arranged in alternating shades of rouge and beige: namely, that a splitting image of one of the stars you read about in Us Weekly had a life to live, and she was going to enjoy the fruits of her beauty—fruits that Brenda could only live vicariously through (I tallied six missing issues of Us Weekly over the course of a year; no other magazine had gone unaccounted for during the same period except for a single issue of Better Homes & Gardens, which I found one night crumpled on top of Brenda’s desk).

The way Brenda’s eyes lit up whenever she talked about Mackenzie Davis—I just needed Brenda to recognize my own beauty in the same way! It flipped around, you see, like a head trip—sometimes Brenda bowed to her true queen, and sometimes she said mean things to me. I wasn’t thought of as “intelligent” by Brenda, and I could never tell if it was because of my race or my beauty—the two possibilities flickered around in my head like a dueling candlelight until one night I decided, “It’s both,” and just let it die.

Resentment was brewing between me and Brenda.

Ever since I realized I would have to lie to her about my Cape Cod trip, because September would be the back-to-school rush, and there was no way Brenda was okaying me those vacation days. At Not-Quite Sephora, Brenda’s first rule was: “Just be honest. I want to know everything.”

But do you, Brenda?

Do you want to know how I plan to get out of work during the back-to-school rush, because I’ll be with my boyfriend and his three Yale Law classmates traipsing across Cape Cod? Do you really want to read about a beautiful woman’s life in Us Weekly? (Just steal my diary.) I’ll call in sick. I’ll lie and cough right to your face over the phone, Brenda, and I’m telling you it’s corona. I don’t have to be honest with you about anything because you rule by fear, not trust, and in a world of fear without trust anything goes.

Fear without trust is the animal kingdom.

And Not-Quite Sephora is the animal world.

The night before my last day at Not-Quite Sephora, Brenda humiliated Ashley in the stock room. (Ashley had made the mistake of asking her for paid time off for a wedding in December.) I didn’t overhear it, but I heard about it, which was enough. I have always had a way with words, and I gave Brenda some direct evidence of it by way of a resignation letter I wrote to the district manager—only it wasn’t really a resignation letter, it was more like a record of how Karen McHiggins was a terrible supervisor, sent to Corporate and cc-ed to the entire floor. (What mattered wasn’t that I had cc-ed the entire floor, but that the next morning, every single person on the floor congratulated me.) The group chat I’m in with Ashley and Gabby pops off more than ever now ever since I quit, only I didn’t mean to quit.

I only wanted to take a truthful temperature.

Brenda showed all of her cards when I showed up to my shift the next day. “Nina? My office. Now.”

I made eye contact with Ashley, who was already in her uniform, and we both smiled.

She kind of gave me an eye hug.

I wore nude lipstick that day.

The email I had sent Corporate was subject-lined “Management’s Mismanagement,” and it listed six bullet points about Brenda’s bad behavior (one involved throwing a purse at a mannequin; the last five were instances of emotional abuse). It ended with a paragraph about Brenda’s encounter with Ashley in the stock room (Brenda had called Ashley “unlikable,” “self-absorbed,” “a fucking dipshit”).

I laid out the case like the lawyer I couldn’t afford to be (I had other interests, hobbies, and pursuits in middle school, like not killing myself). Brenda was probably shocked I could write. She was probably shocked I could read, but I wield words as weapons—that’s the only thing you ever have to know about me. (In third grade, I won the spelling bee too.)

How did I dress for work the day after I wrote “Management’s Mismanagement” (and really I should say the morning after, because I sent the email at 4 a.m. and had to wake up three hours to let an exterminator in)?

I looked like a star.

I had even spent the last six months of my life casually coaxing Brenda toward the mixed-race celebrities I wanted her to subliminally see me as. Cape Cod would smile. I’d fit in well there, because in my late forties or early fifties I’d have the sort of personality that everybody at Beach Road would know to be impressed by—I could lift my life up to heights that the bourgeois rabble couldn’t even see. Not a single one of my applications to a white-collar job had ended in a palatable offer. Not-Quite Sephora, founded in Vermont, has a labor-friendly CEO. My benefits were good—I even had vision and dental. “One way or another, I’m bringing up my Cape Cod trip,” was the last clear thought I had before knocking on Brenda’s door.

“Come in,” a harsh voice gruffed.

I opened the door.

“Close that please,” was the first thing I heard Brenda say before she and I even made eye contact.

I closed the door dutifully.

Karen McHiggins was standing next to her desk in red pants and a black blazer. She had tied her hair into pigtails that day for some reason, although her hair was so short that they ended up looking more like ringlets, and her eyes behind her glasses were blue and pixel-like. Brenda made a quick gesture at the floor with her hands, almost like she was trying to say “Enough!”, and then said: “What is going on, Nina—what is going on, because I do not understand you.”

Her voice was hoarse.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her red pants—but your blazer is black?—so I just said, “I—” while panning my gaze to her desk, waiting for her to continue.

Brenda’s desk was a mess.

Just like her thought processes.

“If you have ever had a problem with me, you could have come to me directly. What have I always told you, Nina—” Brenda was now screaming.

Brenda thinks screaming has an effect on me.

She’s right—loud noises do have an effect on me. Elevated decibels have an effect on every animal that evolves through nature. How much do I hate Brenda right now? My eyes are staring into hers—but I don’t see a human.

I see an animal.

The power of volume is that it throbs the ear—and ears desire music. Ears desire harmony. Wild animals make me forget poetry as I bolt into the jungle—how much do I hate the woman screaming into my ears right now? Well, there’s a simple formula for that, and all of us are making it, even if we don’t know that we’re making it. We take how much anxiety we experience from being around a person, and then we multiply it by a factor.

My factor is 1 when that person is equal to me.

My factor is a fraction of 1 when that person is homeless.

My factor is greater than 1 when that person is greater than me.

And for Brenda my factor was 42,137—that’s 1 for every dollar that the winds of Brenda’s turbulence lorded over me, granting me vision and dental.

The ensuing number is a hatred.

How much anxiety was Brenda creating in me? Well, for starters—how much did I distrust Brenda? (And how much did I secretly want Brenda to like me?) All the eyeliner I wore to work every day—it wasn’t for mall patrol, it wasn’t for Ashley, and Lord knows it wasn’t for Gabby.

It was for me.

But maybe a little bit of it was for Brenda.

And how much taller does Brenda tower over me right now?

And how much taller does Brenda tower over me right now? Well, let’s see—I submitted 42 job applications, all non-retail. Interviewed at 11. Final-rounded at 7. Received an offer at two—both in New York, which I couldn’t afford. A young white boy at a social media marketing firm told me during the interview that I was “obviously brilliant” before offering me an internship. By July, Brenda towered over me like a god. I fell asleep at night fantasizing about her supervillain origin story. Brenda complained so much about Americans who weren’t vaccinated that I once asked her if she was a childhood polio survivor. “Where in the world did you get that idea?” Brenda laughed, and I laughed too. “Oh, I was just curious.”“How many times have I told you, Nina…”

My expenses have been going up, thanks to my new boyfriend. (As a matter of fact, I am the type of girl to go Dutch!) Taking over Brenda’s position would mean a four-percent raise. To my surprise, Brenda took off her glasses, put them on top of a crinkled magazine on her desk, and started crying. Like, actually crying.

Two actual teardrops leaked out of her eyes.

Self-pity makes me uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable when the powerless do it, because now I have to do something, and it makes me uncomfortable when the powerful do it, because now I have to eat them. When somebody more powerful than me expresses self-pity, I can’t help it: I want to guillotine them. I want to take away their right to exist, but I want to watch them suffer first. If I were God, I’d invent Hell just for Brenda. It satisfied me that Brenda would most likely die without children or a partner. I want all capitalists in the First World to die without children or a partner, but to have afterlives that go on forever.

It still doesn’t seem enough though.

Brenda’s office has a desk, no windows, and a door that leads to the loading dock. A poster on the wall behind her desk, and I was just noticing this about her office now for the first time, was of a lighthouse in Cape Cod. “—the back-to-school rush—” Brenda was saying, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

The ceiling light was fluorescent, and the walls were built of the same beige bricks that made up my elementary school. I once applied to a master’s program in sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

I got in, too.

I hate it here in America—doesn’t anybody else? Is this really that much better than the Soviet Union?

Sympathy for Brenda?

Brenda who lorded over my vision and dental like a bureaucratic algorithm—my boss Brenda?

I did good work.

I was Brenda’s star employee! (I left that part out because I’m not the bragging type.) The only work I couldn’t charge for was the work I didn’t want to do—navigating around the runes and mysteries of Brenda’s uncharted sensitivities like Leif Erikson. The truth was, I hated Brenda for not being able to see me as a beautiful woman just because I wasn’t a beautiful white woman like the pin-up girls she’d gone to school with in New Jersey. Brenda bleeds white guilt, but she rarely ever let me massage any of it toward my favor, except superficially (and you can guess by now how I feel about superficiality). Brenda’s insincerity dehumanized her to me. We humanize each other first as leaps of faith, and then through trust—and nothing about Brenda’s way of existing suggested she could be trusted by me. Not her white guilt. Not her New Jersey liberalism.

Not even her tears.

In fact the longer Brenda cried, the more intensely I wanted to punish her—the phrase “white bitch tears” comes to mind. I wondered if Brenda sincerely didn’t understand that if I could push a button to keep her trapped inside a hole for the rest of her life, I would, and her tears only made me want to push harder. Still, it gave me a start to see—this woman who could take away my ability to not go into debt like checking “Buy Now” on Amazon—reduced before me into a person now trying to trick me into believing she has a soul.

Don’t the workers of the world understand?

Powerful people don’t have souls.

Brenda having a soul would have meant taking my ideas about the BOPUS orders seriously, and not dismissing them out of hand because how could any good ideas come from Nina, the pretty one, if Brenda’s even not-racist enough to see me as pretty (BOPUS is industry slang for “buy online, pick up in store,” and it’s basically brought Not-Quite Sephora to its knees—that and Brenda’s mismanagement). I could divide my hatred of Brenda by a factor to account for the fact that she was fat and unmarried—but whose fault was that, Krispy Kreme? Do you think I actually like exercising?

Are you ready for some real talk now?

I can tell you about the runner’s high until I’m blue in the face, but I’m not built inside like a runner—I’m built inside like a girl who understands that nothing tastes as good as being pretty feels. I don’t know how American society decayed to this point—my Ph.D. dissertation in sociology at Johns Hopkins would have been about the link between an artificial society and the importance placed on appearances, but I couldn’t afford to go, I had actual work to do in middle school (like not killing myself) so I never bothered thinking very long and hard about anything. “Quitting would mean losing my gym membership,” I suddenly remembered.

A new recognition suddenly dawned over me—no gym membership would mean no Cape Cod. It takes a couple hundred months and a couple thousands steps to get there, but trust me, I’ve worked out the odds.

(I make my brain work for me.)

I looked at the lighthouse poster behind Brenda’s desk and said: “Brenda, it’s just—how you treated Ashley last night in the stock room…”

“You weren’t even there!” was what a clear-headed Brenda would’ve said, but Brenda the Tender said nothing.

“I heard about it from Gabby,” I continued. “You know, we’ve talked about this so many times.”

“I know, I know,” Brenda whispered.

“You don’t know how to create a functional work environment sometimes. Groups are held together by trust, not fear.”

I wasn’t quitting.

I was saving everyone at Not-Quite Sephora from Brenda’s bad temper. Brenda’s boss Charles would understand—he’d say, Nina made some good points in this email, but it sounds like you guys have everything worked out, so get back to work—and everyone would move on.

Only Brenda would now be moving into the light.

She would see how her anxieties about Not-Quite Sephora’s declining sales figures were spilling into her paranoias about job security (“And what will I do with all of my competence now that I can’t find a job because I’m old, fat, and ugly?”) and have been spilling into us as sarcasm and curt dismissals ever since her second day on the job. (Her first day was lovely—I was obsessed with Brenda! I even nicknamed her “cool Mom” to Gabby and Ashley.)

How Brenda appeared to me that first day was how Cape Cod once appeared to me too, before this weekend—white-sand beaches, old stone lighthouses, the Kennedys.

Cape Cod had told me a story—and so had Brenda when she first took over Kristi’s post at Not-Quite Sephora (Kristi got pregnant and never came back). Cape Cod’s story was Yale Law, benevolence, intellectualism. Brenda’s story was that she was loud and earthy and understood how to make an entrance—if she’d been honest, she would’ve just said: “I can use my power to make you feel however I want you to feel about yourself. I’m an emotional abuser.”

But the story I heard, because I’m a gullible sweetheart, was “Fun Mom.”

I laughed along amiably to “stressed-out Mom,” bopped along bewilderedly to “not everything is functional upstairs Mom,” and—how do I put this?

I didn’t like the mother who had a master’s degree.

Self-protection was Brenda’s middle name, and nothing I said using the tools of reason or logic could penetrate the fortress of Brenda’s first impressions—that’s the definition of “closed-minded,” by the way (Brenda has a lot to say about closed-minded people—that’s the crazy part).

How we look is the first story we tell each other about who we are. It’s our audiovisual accompaniment to the words that make up the second half of our story—the “spoken half”—and everyone understands that this isn’t fair, everyone understands and then does nothing. Brenda isn’t the only person who learned how to survive in America by going to an American middle school. She’s only lost her temper at me a couple of times, but I’ve been tracking all of them.

I’ve been watching you like a falcon, Brenda.

I’ve been watching you like a true A student.

True A students are out of favor in America for a reason. We’re only mortal, but we’re a little bit supermortal too. Because what I really didn’t like about Brenda was her insincerity—“When have I ever said no to you, Nina?” Brenda was now drying her eyes with a tissue and screaming.

It was a change in the air—a subtle bit of misdirection that she probably thought I was too stupid to catch (I’m not).

I was the powerful one now.

And Brenda McHiggins was now “the victim.”

“You threatened to fire me right after Easter for being late on a BOPUS order,” I treaded carefully.

“Nina, ninety-nine percent of our Google ratings come down to the BOPUS orders—”

“Which is why I said you needed a better system for assigning roles for when people aren’t .”

“Which is why I said you needed a better system for assigning roles for when people aren’t here.”

“But I never threatened to fire you.”

“You told me you’d have my name forwarded to Charles!"

“Exactly!”

“Which is the same as getting fired!”

“That isn’t true, Nina—I would have protected you.”

This statement was so stupid that it almost broke my brain. “Wha—protected me: do you not understand how Charles operates?” Brenda turned her back to me, waved her hand in the air, and said: “I’m not going to go into this with you again” as she looked for her glasses.

“It’s right there,” I said. “On top of Better Homes & Gardens.”

“Oh,” Brenda said without acknowledging me.

Brenda put on her glasses and then sat down into the chair, which made a sound like it was about to snap in half.

This was how she always liked to berate us—from her chair. I had seen that painting of the lighthouse behind Brenda’s desk so many times—it just never occurred to me that it was Cape Cod. Sometimes, I’d overhear Brenda berating Gabby on my way to the restroom and I’d think, “Well, she isn’t wrong—Gabby is kind of stupid—but that’s still not the way you talk to her. You have to incentivize her to trust you first.” (Gabby was the one who first changed Brenda’s nickname from “Fun Mom” to that cunt with a stick up her ass.) Ashley and I burst out laughing. (What else is there to do inside a dying country?)

“Everyone here is so short-tempered with each other because you set the tone. I’ve been too afraid to ask you for three days off in September to go on a trip with my boyfriend for our one-year anniversary because I knew you weren’t going to say yes, so I was just going to take them off as sick days—and that’s not a functional work environment if people are constantly doing things like that all the time, because what you really need to do is go to Charles and ask for more staff.”

“This September—oh, Nina, you got to be kidding me!”

It was the first honest thing I ever heard Brenda say.

I thought about my naïve dream from earlier—how I thought I was going to turn Brenda around.

How I thought I was going to save the store. “The problem is we’re under_staffed_” was what I should’ve said—I get that now, I do, and I don’t know why I couldn’t wear it in my mouth even as it was trying to form in my subconscious. Because other forms were rising in me now too, forms like: “Brenda is a world-class manipulator. She butters you up just to brine you.” (I couldn’t even trust her tears, and if you can’t trust someone’s tears, you can’t trust them to ever find help.) I don’t know how I’d fare if it were just me and Brenda on a deserted island—I could see her killing a cougar for us with her own bare hands, but I could also see her killing me. “I never said that, I just told you I’d have to forward your name to Charles”—Brenda the liar. Brenda who could probably play dead about as well as she could play stupid—any falcon worth its weight in bird could see through it.

“I’ve been having issues with my boyfriend,” I suddenly blurted out.

Where had I learned this from?

Middle school.

“The anniversary trip means a lot to him, and I can’t even say yes or say no—it just hangs there over us, because he knows about the back-to-school rush. And he’s not even someone I—even feel fully comfortable with in some ways. But I’m also scared to lose him, I’m scared every time I come into work on Tuesday because I don’t know how you’re going to change my hours. Everything we do revolves around my not having enough time—I’d have issues building a perfect relationship with him if we had the rest of our lives to ourselves on a deserted island, but every weekend until closing? He works a normal job! He’s tired all the time too, but he makes time to see me and I can’t—I can’t come to you about anything.”

I didn’t cry.

But I did smile in my head:

“Wanna play victim, bitch?”

I could see Cape Cod now—I could see its lighthouse drawing my boyfriend and I closer and closer, I could see us dancing now to The Strokes at midnight like we were back in middle school because I didn’t want this to be the rest of my life, I don’t want retail, I don’t want resumes and cover letters and I don’t want to meet any more Brendas—what I want is for the Brendas of the world to collapse at my feet, but all I can see are the Brendas of the world closing in on me until death and so I need a release, I need to go back to middle school (I was popular in middle school, I can admit that now, I had bee-stung lips, and a bee-stinger too)—I need The Strokes (haven’t you ever made out with a boy in a hot tub while stroking your nails across his abs, parting the hair where his lower back begins?)—“Is this it? … Is this it?”—(my boyfriend and I swimming in the stars of our liberation, and I’ll give him all the vision and dental that he likes)—prey: always just a one-click order away (and we’ll eat lobster, because lobsters hold harms forever)—I the warm body and he the warm arms, holding me in his lanky-panky forever (and if Connor ever got a gym membership I would die—I don’t need a perfect 10, I can settle for an 8.9)—my captors: do they know? Do they understanding I’m not living my one true life? Wearing Ray-Bans while gazing out at the Atlantic from a yacht, because Comfort is my one true God—I’m ready, Mr. DeMille, for my one true closeup to begin. How am I still in Brenda’s office? I’m twenty-seven years old—how am I twenty-seven years old and still smoldering in Brenda’s office? In middle school I listened to The Strokes while everyone else listened to pop hip-hop—another Universe has been calling to me all my life. And all it would take was just a few more thousand steps to get there.

I’ve been running every day since I was thirteen. I don’t even eat my desserts correctly—I just spit and chew.

Ashley and Gabby remind me of who I was back in middle school. I had power over everyone back then except Abercrombie Couture (not her real name). Abercrombie was the class favorite—it’s hard to explain, but among the very-outgoing girls, Abercrombie was Frivolity Personified. And when only the people who needed to see it could see it, Abercrombie was the cruelest human you’ve ever met—she’d ignore you so subtly you’d drive yourself crazy for days asking the other girls if she was mad at you. Back then I had already begun telling myself I was too cool to care—but I still have nightmares about Abercrombie sometimes, about the way she’d say hi to everybody else at the party except me. “I just can’t deal with your emotional up and downs anymore, Brenda! Like I’m sorry—I’ve defended you to Ashley and Gabby so many times! I’m sick of having these conversations with them.”

Abercrombie, I later realized during college, must have been unsettled by how candidly I could talk about her behind her back. That was my little power over her, and I’d like to think I wielded it gracefully. (Abercrombie was dethroned by a lurid sex scandal involving a used condom in eighth grade, and I’d like to believe I led our class to a more open and inclusive place after her dismissal.)

“Three days—where you trying to go, Wuhan?”

“No. The Cod.”

“The what?”

“The Cod.”

“Where’s that?”

“In Massachusetts.”

“You mean Cape Cod?”

That was how quickly I realized I had fumbled the ball—that was the speed at which I realized I had fumbled the fuck-you—the one thing I needed to do correctly and I had fumbled the ball trying to cross the finish line. “It’s the Cape, not the Cod sweetie,” Brenda was already huffing to me by the time I realized my mistake, with a smile on her face. She’ll deny it to this day, and in absolute candor I can’t really say it was a “physical” smile—I don’t remember what it looked like, I don’t remember if Brenda actually huffed or if she even moved her mouth all that much at all, it was more in the eyes, but that bitch smiled.

I grew up in Nevada.

My boyfriend graduated from Yale Law and with him I can see a way out of my life—and I really don’t understand why that’s such a terrible thing to say. And I’m about to lose him—it’s in between the lines, but I can just feel it, I have him wrapped around my little finger because that’s the only way I’d ever have any man who loomed so tall over me, with him it’d be Cape Cod until the end of my days and nobody would ever laugh at me for calling it the Cod again—I’ll just rename it.

My hatred of Brenda in that moment was rivaled only by my childhood hatred of Abercrombie Couture.

But I knew I had to proceed gingerly.

I began to feel like Leif Erikson again—what other uncharted sensitivities do you have, Brenda?

Do white people really have white guilt?

Verbalizing the subconscious is like navigating by stars—Pequod knows where it’s trying to go, it just needs the conscious mind to plot out the steps to get there first—only I couldn’t verbalize any of this, all I could do was feel the mind for throbs like the twitches of a rat’s tail inside the forest below—and I was throbbing for a release, I was throbbing all my middle-school embarrassments, I was throbbing Cape Cod. A woman who understood nothing but appearances stood in front of me, utterly preoccupied with her own self-preservation—neither wise, open-minded, nor beautiful—but who could mean the difference between me and my income, between me and my livelihood, between me and my boyfriend breaking up (which would mean the difference between me and Cape Cod)—and I couldn’t even get anyone on the second floor to take her magazine theft seriously. How do I even begin to tabulate all her subtle knife-wounds to the psyche?

My favorite song by The Strokes?

“Hard to Explain.”

“You can correct the way I say things all you’d like, but it doesn’t change the fact that I live in fear of you—okay? I go home every night and cry. You bully Ashley and Gabby every day but I’m not Ashley or Gabby—okay? You have not created an emotionally safe environment in the workplace and it’s affecting my life—okay? I’m sorry you take yourself so seriously, and I’m sure it has nothing to do with your fear that all the girls who thought you’d never amount to anything in middle school might be right, but if you have to terrorize other people just to feel better about yourself, that’s not how I roll—okay? That’s not me. The way you talk to Ashley, Gabby, Mike, Chris—it’s un-ac-cep-ta-ble, Brenda.”

And this is where my ship was trying to go:

“I don’t think you belong in your position. So that’s what I told Charles.”

I’d set fire to Cape Cod if I could.

I’d set fire to my boyfriend’s lake house, I’d set fire to Brenda’s Us Weeklies, and I’d certainly set fire to the poster of the lighthouse with seagulls behind Brenda’s desk.

“I don’t work here anymore. Not until you apologize to Ashley,” I added quickly.

My speech was now outpacing my life decisions.

“And I’m not going to be manipulated by you anymore, okay? Because you know how hard I work, you know how much I give to this store every day but Wannabe-Nordstrom isn’t my life, okay? I am not living the life I want to live every single day—so that’s my life, okay?”

Were ordinary people in the Soviet Union this unhappy? Has anyone ever bothered to ask them?

The only thing I ever knew how to do around Brenda was say whatever I needed to say to make her feel comfortable.

Like seagulls exploding out of a cove, that was the only thing Brenda ever seemed to value: her personal comfort. I don’t remember how Brenda looked in that moment. She kept darting her eyes between Better Homes & Gardens and the floor, and her glasses were foggy. I gazed at Brenda with a falcon’s stare and said:

“Think of last night as my last straw.”

It’d be worth it, you know.

It’d be worth it to suspend my gym membership for a few months to see Brenda have to swallow the fruits of her own disorder. I hadn’t coaxed Brenda into reacting the way she did to Ashley’s request—I had only coaxed Ashley into talking to her, and that was a sincere act of friendship: “You have to stand up for yourself with people like that, Ashley.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Brenda and you are like best friends.”

“We are not.”

“You have her wrapped around your little finger, Nina.”

“No I don’t,” I said, and then I hit Ashley’s face with a big fat pillow until feathers fell out, which of course never happened because Ashley and I don’t have open and honest conversations about anything. All Ashley said was “You’re probably right,” and I could sense in Ashley’s eyes that she was perceptive enough to understand I was probably wrong—but even I couldn’t pick that up, at least not consciously, so in a way, Ashley doomed herself by failing to correct me.

I was Brenda’s star employee and everybody knew it.

I’ve been an A student all my life.

I’m the picture of good anger management.

Management hates it when you quit. That’s the one thing you can still lord over them, even during a recession (and July 2022 in America was anything but)—replacing an employee costs time, and time is money. Every store manager knows that—even Brenda (her management woes don’t source back to her inability to optimize).

And then Brenda said something so stupid that for a second I almost thought she was parodying Gabby.

“I thought you and I could speak openly to each other.”

Brenda.

Girl.

Just because you tell me about the medications you take for your back problems doesn’t mean we’re friends.

Was this really happening right now?

“I don’t know what you expect me to say,” I told Brenda. “I did speak openly in the email.”

Was Brenda really buying into Ashley’s delusion that management and workers can be just friends?

Or was she just calculating that I—because I’m pretty—was stupid enough to buy into it too?

“Actually, no—the way you engage with others doesn’t seem intended to provide a pathway for sincere and open conversations. You have a ‘No Assholes’ policy that seems intended to make other people suppress their true feelings around you at all times, because anybody who contradicts you is automatically an asshole.”

I didn’t say that.

I just said: “It can be intimidating to speak to you sometimes.”

Even when you try to laugh with me about your muscle relaxants, I laugh back, but what I really want to say is “Brenda, a certain percentage of the population is going to have back problems, and you have given me no particular reason to care about yours.” I think again now about if Brenda and I were stuck on a deserted island. I’d probably have to save her life from the elements from time to time, and that’d build trust between us. “What we’d need to do is charter a plane somewhere, and have the plane crash. That’s the only way to resuscitate this relationship.”

“How many times have I told you, Nina, you can come to me about anything…” and before I could even respond, Brenda began comparing our dynamics to a mother-daughter relationship and I was one second away from saying, “Bitch, that’s your problem,” but I caught myself and said calmly:

“Brenda, that’s the problem.”

Brenda looked at me earnestly.

“Just, that right there—the word you used. I don’t think you really understand other people’s boundaries? I tell you obligatory anecdotes from my personal life because you specifically ask to hear them, not because I want to volunteer them—again, that’s how afraid I am of you, Brenda, because I don’t even feel like I have the right to tell you that my dating history is, actually, now that I think about it, none of your business. And then you lecture me about how I talk to my boyfriend? Again, because you asked to hear the details, and you actually make it so that now I’m thinking about my boyfriend at work instead of focusing on my job, which you then get mad at me for? I don’t think you really understand, Brenda, how your friendliness comes off when it’s mixed with so much—neediness, I don’t know, this need to control everything all the time—to make everything perfect.”

The first time I ever met Brenda, we got along so well that after our shift we went to a Red Lobster on the other side of the strip mall, where she bought me three milkshakes. I told her about growing up with my mom in a trailer park in Nevada and she told me about growing up with her mom in a trailer park in New Jersey—we laughed a lot that night. I don’t even remember what we laughed about, but we were both talkers, Brenda and I, we were both tellers, and we were both showers. I could tell after my first milkshake that Brenda must have floated in the margins of the sub-popular crowd in middle school, and she all but confirmed it on the second (she just had one of those I’ve seen it all energies).

“So how does it feel being back in the Northeast?”

“Honestly?” Brenda said, grabbing a French fry. “I’m ready.”

You couldn’t hear the ocean from where we were sitting, but you could hear a highway.

I understand Brenda.

I really do.

Sometimes at night, while I fantasized about quitting a company whose Corporate was famous for giving their employees vision and dental (and anyway, what else would I do besides marketing or retail? In what other way might I be called upon to serve the good people of America?), I’d climax with an image of Brenda sitting alone at home on a Thursday night (that was Brenda’s day off), crocheting to Fleetwood Mac, with a cat rubbing up against her ankle. The only mystery was how many paintings of beaches dotted her apartment.

I know Brenda doesn’t talk to her mother anymore (“Neither do I!” was probably one of our first laughs), and I’d fantasize about how much she probably secretly admired me—because I was pretty—because I could always talk my way into classes and parties she could only stare through the curtains of (I once helped Brenda create an account on Plenty of Fish), and now it was too late for her because she was already in her late forties or early fifties—and I?

I was bound for Cape Cod.

“What are the locals there like,” all summer long I used to wonder. I work at a Nordstrom now.

And I no longer wonder.

“Oh, sweetie—it’s called the Cape, not the Cod.”

Wasn’t that how she had said it?

Even in her most helpless moment, she was still so condescending—she was still just so frivolously condescending—I mean think about the stakes here, girl, you’re about to lose your star employee right before the back-to-school rush—was the poison dart worth it?

Was the poison tip worth it, Brenda?

“I don’t think it’s healthy for me to work here anymore,” I suddenly blurted out. “You’re not a good influence on me.”

“What can I say to make you stay just through September?”

It was so quick and direct that it snapped me instantly out of my sympathy spell.

Brenda.

There’s the Brenda I knew—Brenda, you’re back!

And you’re still holding onto threads in the air.

This store will dissipate, Brenda. Your job will dissipate, and then you’ll have to go right back out there again and sell your competence at another round on the roulette wheel. (Just don’t end up at another store that sells beauty supplies, Brenda—I don’t think you quite understand what they’re really telling the world.) “I don’t think there’s anything you can say, Brenda. I know how hard the last few months have been for you, and I thought very long and hard about doing this to you. But I have to prioritize my own mental health.”

“You know Charles is only giving me a year.”

Brenda said this with a vulnerability I had never heard from her before.

Her voice was like a child’s.

Guilt—it’s impossible to summon it for a person you’ve already dehumanized. Cockroaches die every day.

My subconscious was churning again—I would have a child with my boyfriend someday, and I would protect her from people like you, Karen McHiggins. “Brenda, you have the mental age of a child,” was what I really wanted to say to her. “When I fuck up at work, who do you think I go to? Nobody—do you understand that, Brenda, because adults take responsibility for their shit.”

But I would have to sugarcoat it, because someone with the mental age of an Abercrombie would be unable to understand that the powerful can’t be friends with the powerless, no matter how hard they tried—and someone with the mental age of an Abercrombie would also need everything sugarcoated for them.

“Brenda, I don’t know how to break this to you but there isn’t going to be any back-to-school rush! It’s not 2019 anymore—Covid killed retail. We don’t know whether we want to be bargain basement or high-end and the middle class is dead, everyone wants either a bargain or an experience! What did they teach you in that master’s program?”

Only I couldn’t say that either, because Brenda would somehow spin it into me losing my cool, which is the one thing I never do—I’ve been one thing and one thing only all my life, and that’s an A student.

“You’ve given your life to a dinosaur, Brenda—move on. Department stores are dead—this isn’t the ’80s anymore. Your image of America—it’s a façade, and I can prove it. It’s that picture of the lighthouse you keep behind your desk that you pilfered from returned merchandise, and I can prove that too. We’re like explorers in an uncharted land. Things are going to fall apart for us in ways we have no templates for, just like they did for all of the generations before us—only they weren’t as trapped inside the façade of returned merchandise as we are! Settled mores are changing. This century could still look like anything—it’s all up for grabs, and more and more people are just beginning to wake up to this new dawn. Maybe what you really need to do is start a YouTube channel. You have the voice for it, you have the charisma, and you have the storytelling abilities—we could all profit from hearing from your perspective, only nobody will because you’re not young, thin, or beautiful, but hey—it’s worth a shot! You’ll have a better chance there at the lighthouse than you do in retail.”

Only I didn’t say any of this either, because I knew Brenda couldn’t hear a word I was saying. Brenda was dead between the eyes—her soul died in middle school, and she’s been dragging the corpses of would-be lives ever since.

“You’re not a particularly smart or competent person, Brenda, and what’s happening right now speaks for itself. You didn’t just get unlucky, Brenda.”

Brenda once whistled to me when she saw me change into a sundress as I was leaving my afternoon shift—“Whose heart are you breaking tonight, Nina?”

“None of your business!” was what I wanted to tell her, but I wanted to let Brenda live vicariously through me—it was the only gentleness I could ever offer her.

“You know Charles is only giving me the year,” Brenda had said, and she was staring into the void now. I could feel her back pain. She had given her whole entire life to Not-Quite-Sephora, six days a week, and on most nights on my way to the restroom I could hear “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac playing from a small Bluetooth speaker. I looked at Brenda and said: “I have no idea what you want from me. It’s not my job to make you look any better than you are at your job. And I don’t know what your agreement with Charlie has to do with anything—in fact, I had lunch with him the other day.”

Brenda lifted her eyes.

“What?” she said stupidly.

“Oh, I’m sorry—I was trying to get a vacation approved. No, Brenda. I needed to talk to him about a few things.”

“What things?”

And then, before I could offer an answer, “What are you trying to say, Nina? Just spit it out!”

“You have a problem, okay? I’ve seen the way you’ve unraveled in the last few months—Gabby and Ashley are afraid of you, Chris is about to quit, literally nobody can handle your emotional volatility anymore. Everybody’s so short-tempered with each other all the time and coming to me for help, and it’s not my job to help them—that’s your job! You’ve created a situation where nobody can even talk to you. We just smile at you out of fear. You don’t command anybody’s respect—you know that, right? So we basically have to operate without a supervisor—you understand that, don’t you?”

It feels good to eat.

I no longer have a gym membership anymore. Instead, I jog every Tuesday and Friday at the public park.

“So yeah—so I guess I just thought it was about time Charlie heard all of this. He’s actually very reasonable if you talk to him in a reasonable way. He said he’d look into opening one or two more positions for us to cover the weekends. But you probably won’t be there to oversee it.”

Not-Quite Sephora was founded as a regional competitor to J.C. Penney in 1991. It never expanded beyond the Northeast, Minnesota, and California, and it’s about to die—it’s only a matter of time. Unless if maybe Corporate in Burlington saw the light and hired someone like me and actually listened to her ideas for turning all of their stores into “experiences,” which is what I’ve been trying to tell Brenda every time she questioned one of my lipstick arrangements. A lot of what I miss about middle school is the taste-test of freedoms I enjoy every day now as an adult: you build a friendship with the highest person who’ll take you in.

That’s how you climb a hierarchy.

Brenda looked at me like a wounded animal.

There really isn’t ambiguity, is there, about which one of us would survive if it were just you and me on a deserted island. A new recognition was forming inside of Brenda, and I didn’t want to be there to watch it settle in—you can’t treat people like you treated Ashley the other night in the stock room, this isn’t the ’80s anymore. Of course, Brenda was too obtuse to work out that I was only bluffing. The truth was, I had talked to Charlie briefly on the second floor, but he just told me to “put it all in an email,” and I knew he was never going to speak to Brenda long enough to ever contradict anything I had just said—Charlie’s not exactly the open type. Besides, Charlie did agree to look into hiring more part-timers, the way Charlie ever agrees to anything—by pretending it was his idea all along. “It’s the unreliability of when customers come in, that’s the problem,” Charlie had explained to me. (“Yes, that’s true. Unreliability is always the problem,” I told Charlie.)

You can’t rely on other people’s testimony when you ask them about Abercrombie Couture.

You have to come to me.

I’ve seen sides of Abercrombie that nobody else has.

“So what’s the dating scene like out here?” Brenda had asked me that first night at Red Lobster, while popping a French fry. I remember trying not to look at Brenda like she was serious. “It’s just men!” I remember laughing to Brenda in front of two tall glasses of milkshake. “It’s just a bunch of men—that’s the only way I know how to put it!”

And then Brenda in her black blazer and black pants laughed too.

Like we were girlfriends.

“I would’ve given you those vacation days, Nina,” Brenda finally said in a whisper. “If I had just understood that you knew what you were doing when you took them—what you were doing to the store—I would’ve given them to you.”

A new sincerity is trying to grow in the air all around us—I can hear its infant-screams, can’t you? (Couldn’t Brenda?) “Oh my God, Brenda. This is about so much more than whether or not I can go on one trip to Cape Cod.”

“That is all this is about to you, Nina, and don’t you pretend otherwise—”

“No, it isn’t.”

“—because you have a fancy boyfriend now.”

“Leave Connor out of this.”

I don’t really know where my life’s going to go after Cape Cod. Colson’s mental health—it causes collateral damage to people (Colson was one of Connor’s three friends that had stayed with us at the lake house). I don’t really think he understands that his actions have consequences on other people. He thinks I’m one of the popular kids who terrorized him in middle school, but the truth is—I’m just a little bit higher or lower on the pecking order than he is. All of us are—all of us down here. I can’t really bring myself to fully hate him for what he did, but then I remember what his life is and I do—I hate him by several orders of magnitude more than I ever hated Brenda. And what Colson and Brenda both have in common, of course, is their dripping self-pity: they’re both absolutely lacquered in it (what is it about competitive social environments that produces so much self-pity anyway, dripping like honey?). I didn’t have too much compassion for Colson when he asked me to feed some of his honey back to him with my fingers. “Money,” I wanted to tell him.

“How much money you have is an easy way to tabulate what your self-pity is worth to me.”

But to be honest, I couldn’t even lift a finger to care.

Cape Cod was only four days ago, but it’s already just another memory now—that’s how all of our weekends are bound to end. Several hundred more of these and then it’s lights out. Connor and I listened to the first season of Serial on the way up, and as we walked through Martha’s Vineyard later that afternoon, we saw fifty migrants from South America file onto a bus bound for a military installation.

There were cameras and cake everywhere.

We’re all participants in this gladiatorial contest to see who ends up in Cape Cod as the sun sets over our lives.

Colson recently wrote a book called A Stick of Dynamite in the American Elite.

I wish him luck.

I have plans for him, you know.

No matter what his next chess move is—I have a plan to stop him. I left Brenda alone in her office that day. I never learned where she went after she was dismissed from Not-Quite Sephora, all I remember is Ashley and Gabby coming over to hug me as I grabbed my purse from the break room, and they both quit two days later. It was because there’s something in my soul that doesn’t like to see other people are in pain—even people without souls like Brenda (Colson doesn’t count because he’s not really a human in my eyes, he’s more like a bad anecdote you shake off)—that I found myself hugging Brenda right before I said goodbye, holding her as she kept saying to me that I’d been like a daughter to her: “Brenda—Brenda, listen to me. My boyfriend has an ex-boyfriend whose stepmom also has a drinking problem, okay? Brenda—are you listening to me? They live in Westport…”

Cape Cod will die.

It’s only a matter of time before it collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. I sail America’s values like Leif Erikson now—other people have built their homes and comforts here, but I don’t mind. I wonder sometimes what Abercrombie Couture anesthetizes her listlessness to these days—HBO? Unsubtle affairs with younger men? “How long before mundane dehumanization bears fruit?” I smile to myself every day at Nordstrom, as I walk around the counter to deliver my customer’s parcels to them personally.

I see Abercrombie sometimes in the eyes of the women I help at Nordstrom. They’re all moms, and if that’s the final meaning of our lives—then yes, I agree.

Let’s all be moms.

You don’t know the Hell I’ll reign over America’s guilty class in the twenty-first century, but you will soon: I will mother the destruction of America’s guilded gilts into existence. I broke up with Connor this morning. Something about his reaction to Colson’s breakdown in Cape Cod just didn’t sit well with me—he couldn’t see through Colson’s insincerity, and that makes me think he might not have what it takes in this life to go where I’m trying to go. At my new job at the mall, I nibble on old memories like a woman who hasn’t eaten now in years. The last person I ate was my narcissistic mother in Nevada—she ruined my childhood—she was the Leif Erikson of my formative years—but then again?

So was my middle school.

College feels like a million years ago. My sorority sisters are all married with kids now. Mothers will do anything to protect their young.

#MeToo.

2022

959 notes · View notes

saiyanprincessswanie · 4 months

Text

SaiyanPrincessSwanie Reading List Week 181 & 182

Welcome to Weeks 181 & 182

A/N: Thank you again to those who gave me recommendations for fanfics. 💜 This week had me reading 40 fics. Absolutely amazing stuff here.

As always these will be listed in no particular order. None of these stories are mine. I’m just signal-boosting them. The author is listed next to the title. My goal is to signal boost writers and spread positivity in the community. 💜💜

Click HERE to see what I will or won’t read. This is very important.

Click HERE for past reading lists.

For my Masterlist click HERE

Please make sure you’re reading the warnings on every story. They range from dark to fluff. Do Not Read if you are under 18 years old. These stories are meant for adults only. You’re responsible for your own media consumption.

Page-break by @whimsicalrogers

Header by @fictional-affairs

If you can, please reblog these lists so they can reach more people on Tumblr.

I love you 3000 💜 Missy

Jungle Cruise- (Bucky x Reader) - @saiyanprincessswanie

Give Me a Name - (Bucky x Reader) - @navybrat817

Stray - (Steve x Reader) - @stargazingfangirl18

Enjoying - (Steve x Reader) - @nekoannie-chan

Promises - (Destroyer!Chris x Reader) - @nano--raptor

Santa Baby - (Bucky x Reader) - @gogolucky13

Christmas Compromises - (Bucky x Reader) - @rookthorne

Rose Petals - (Frank C x Reader) - @fluffyprettykitty

Daisy chain - (Steve x Reader) - @sunshinebuckybarnes

Big girls don't cry - Part 1 - @holylulusworld

Tutor - (Steve x Reader) - @nekoannie-chan

Unsavory - (Pete x Reader) - @labella420

Heat Inducing - (Steve x Reader) - @navybrat817

Obedience - (Lloyd x Reader) - @stargazingfangirl18

Built Differently - Pound the alarm - (Stucky x Reader) - @rookthorne

Collared part 29 - @spnexploration

Collared part 30 - @spnexploration

Life Is Short So Make It Sweet - Chp 1 - @sweater-daddiesdumbdork

Switched Sides - Part 1 - @deliciousangelfestival

Your Mark On Me - Part 3 - (Steve x Reader) - @georgiapeach30513

Back in my Arms - (Bucky x Reader) - @jobean12-blog

The Dad Diaries: Welcome Home - (Bucky x Reader) - @navybrat817

Juxtaposition (Part 2) - (Bucky x Reader) - @tuiccim

Spoiled - (Andy x Reader x Ari) - @stargazingfangirl18

Swell with pride - (Lloyd x Reader) - @biteofcherry

Fallen Together - (Bucky x Reader) - @gotnofucks

Snow bunny (1) - @holylulusworld

Dark Concepts - (Andy x Reader) - @hansensgirl

Bind - (Frank C x Reader) - @fluffyprettykitty

His Inheritance - Part 31 - (Steve x Reader) - @jtargaryen18

Secret reunion - (Steve x Reader) - @nekoannie-chan

she's a good girl - (Andy x Reader) - @sunshinebuckybarnes

The Rest of the Year - (Bucky x Reader) - @pellucid-constellations

black shirts and soggy cereal - (Bucky x Reader) - @sergeantxrogers

Oh, Little Cottontail - (Bucky x Reader) - @rookthorne

Blood magic - (Brock x Reader) - @nekoannie-chan

Burn - (Steve x Reader) - @nekoannie-chan

Shelter - (Robert P x Reader) - @stargazingfangirl18

Drip - (Stucky x Reader) - @biteofcherry

Slip Inside - (Bucky x Reader) - @navybrat817

#saiyanprincessswanie #recommended reading #missy reads #missy reblogs #bucky barnes x reader #steve rogers x reader #destroyer!chris x reader #frank castle x reader #lloyd hansen x reader #stucky x reader #curtis everett x reader #andy barber x reader #ari levinson x reader #robert pronge x reader

66 notes · View notes

writingquestionsanswered · 1 year

Note

hello, do you have any tips for getting more creative titles? Like going for a more poetic style without it being too much. I like for example, "These Violent Delights" and "Our Violent Ends" by Chloe Gong. They're simple, telling, and short - and I just think it's different (from "The" type titles, and the Blank of Blank and Blank format). I also think "The Folk of the Air" is simple yet creative. I feel like I don't know enough words to get the title. I appreciate any advice! Thank you.

Coming Up with Poetic Titles

Some of the most beautiful, poetic titles often stem from actual prose quotes, either from poetry, classic literature, song titles, public domain lyrics, plays, etc.

These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends, for example, are actually derived from a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet ("These violent delights have violent ends...") which is appropriate since the These Violent Delights duology is a Romeo & Juliet retelling. Other examples are The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (I knew a woman, lovely in her bones... “I Knew a Woman” by Theodore Roethke), The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves... Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare), Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger (What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry? "The Tyger" by William Blake), Across the Universe by Beth Revis ("Across the Universe" by The Beatles), To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han ("To All the Girls I've Loved Before" by Hal David and Albert Hammond, made famous by Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias.)

Series titles, like The Folk of the Air series and A Song of Ice and Fire series are usually broad references to what the story is about. I haven't read The Folk of the Air, but I know it's about faeries, so I'm assuming that's a reference to the fae in that story. A Song of Ice and Fire is a reference to a prophecy and history book in the series, but the imagery also references many of the themes and events in the story.

So, whether you're titling a book or series, here are some places you can look for a title:

-- references to relevant source material, such as original fairy tale if you're doing a retelling (Ash by Malinda Lo)

-- references to relevant poems, song titles, lyrics, plays, music, classic literature (Catch a Falling Star by Kim Culbertson)

-- relevant quote, title, person, place, or event that appears in your story (The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Cruel Prince by Holly Black)

-- beautiful imagery that appears in your story (Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes)

-- who or what your story is about (The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, The Martian by Andy Weir, All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater)

My post Coming Up with a Book/Story Title has more tips!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

Learn more about WQA

Visit my Master List of Top Posts

Go to ko-fi.com/wqa to buy me coffee or see my commissions

#writing tips #writing help #writing advice #wqaadvice

394 notes · View notes

darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 10 months

Text

Cause of Action 3

Warnings: dark elements, noncon, age gap, other dark elements. Proceed with caution.

Note: thank you for waiting! Please let me know what you think as it helps me a lot with ideas and I love interacting with you all.

Part of The Club AU

Mr. Barber –Andy– pulls into a spot along a street you recognise. You won’t voice why you find it familiar, that’s probably better left unsaid. Your nightlife is hardly relevant to a law office.

You get out and wait as he pays the parking pass kiosk and puts the slip in his windshield. He looks at his watch again. His apparent anxiety is adding to your own. You walk with him up the pavement and hesitate as he turns to cross. Oh, it can’t be.

You look up at the club’s marquee and repress any twitch of guilt. Of course you’d been there before, a couple times with friends, but you’re really not big on the scene. Still, you wonder what he would think.

It’s early. Door’s have yet to open but it doesn’t hinder him from walking along the brick front of the building and knocking on the double doors. You chew your lip. Your brain isn’t processing this properly. You have no idea what’s going on.

Andy looks at you and gives a rocky chuckle as he rubs the back of his neck, “client is a friend of the owner.”

“Ah,” you give a short nod.

“Not really our typical meeting place but he’s hard to pin down,” Andy explains, “we shouldn’t be long.”

The door opens and you’re greeted by a man with an imperious curl to his lips. Sleek black hair combed back so the spiraled ends cluster behind his ears. Andy gives a tilt of his head.

“Uh, Laufeyson,” he points at him unsure, “I’m here for Hansen?”

“Ah, yes,” the man, Laufeyson lets out a long exhale, “I should charge him rent with how often he frequents. Come.”

He steps back and Andy catches the door, holding it for you until you precede him inside. The dark-haired man considers you with an air of discernment. You squirm as you glance around. This place looks a lot different with the lights on.

“Oh, this is my intern,” Andy supplies, “showing her the reins.”

“Hi,” you greet and offer your name. The man doesn’t acknowledge you.

“This is Loki, he owns the place.”

“Doors in an hour,” Laufeyson intones dismissively as he turns on his heel, “I’m certain you’ll find your way.”

Andy sniffs but says nothing. It isn’t until Loki is halfway up the stairs that he even moves. Andy shifts into motion, gesturing you into the main room of the club. He halts and looks around before pointing out another staircase; that one twisting and metal.

“I think it’s just up there,” he says as he continues forward and you scurry to keep up.

“So, uh, what kind of case exactly is this for?” You wonder as he stops at the bottom of the stairs and again waits for you to go first.

“Standard lawsuit. Employment contract breach. Hopefully, we can keep it to a deposition.”

“Mmm,” you hum thoughtfully, “is this the employee?”

“Employer,” Andy tuts, “burden of proof really isn’t on us, so there’s that.”

“Right,” you don’t head down the hall until Andy directs you onward to the door with a golden snake on it, “if he’s doing business here…”

You let the thought drift. It’s not really your place to say.

“You’re not wrong,” Andy says, “I’ve heard wild stories about this place.” He reaches past you and taps on the door with his knuckles, “an ex of mine, she apparently came here, liked to hook up with strange men…”

“Oh?” You blink but add no comment.

“Meanwhile, when I was married, my wife accused me of coming to places like this while I was working overtime to pay the mortgage,” he scoffs, “well, I guess that’s not important. Sorry. Just… this is weird.”

“A little,” you agree as his vocalisation of the fact eases the tension.

The door opens and you’re met by a man with a rather bristly accoutrement across his lip. You almost snort at the mustache but think better of it. It wouldn’t do well to mock this man’s fashion sense. He is a client after all and despite the venue, this is still a professional meeting.

“Barber,” the man greets as he leers down at you, giving a wink, “you brought some fun?”

“Hansen,” Andy growls back, a silty tone that makes you shiver, “my intern. Play nice.”

“Ah, I’m always nice,” he smooths a hand over his hair before offering it, “how are you, sunshine? Lloyd.”

“Um,” you reluctantly shake his hand and give your name, “I’m fine.”

“Fine, well, let’s fix that, come in,” he backs up and turns, strutting away in his tight white pants and shimmery satin shirt. He isn’t really dressed for business. “Barber, you hound, you finally got me. You better make it fast.”

He grabs a bottle and pops the top, “you know, I have a long night ahead of me.”

“I told you I had noon free–”

“Noon? I was still waking the snake–”

“Hey, cut it out,” Andy warns.

“Sorry, sorry,” Lloyd looks at you with a smirk, “she looks old enough–”

“She’s not here for that. So let’s get to it. I need the records of employment. What you sent me is a cocktail napkin and a snapchat conversation. That’s not gonna cut it.”

“Oh really? Like I said, it wasn’t really a contract. Not in the way she’s saying. Bimbo,” he scoffs as he pours a shot, then another, “it’s simple, there is no case.”

“If there wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

Lloyd nears and offers one of the glasses. Andy sighs and stretches an arm in front of you to block the other man, “what are you doing?”

“You got this sweet little piece working late. I’m just tryna make it worth her time. You seem like the stingy type,” Lloyd sneers, “one shot won’t hurt.”

“She’s on the clock.”

Lloyd’s brows rise and he snorts. He doesn’t say whatever thought dimples in his cheek.

“Loosen up, you want some? I can get some scotch up here, old man.”

“I drove.”

“Uber,” Lloyd insists, “don’t be a fucking cock block.”

He elbows past Andy and presents you the shot, “there ya go, sweet heart. The good stuff. Top shelf. Whatever he pays you isn’t enough to get you a single ounce.”

You stare at the shot, then Andy. You know you shouldn’t and you really don’t want to drink. You tend to stick to a single drink on your nights out and dilute it with as much water as you can get.

“Um, thanks, but–”

“But nothing. Don’t let the geezer get you down.” He holds the shot almost in your face, “take it, sweet pea. Trust me, you’ll thank me.”

Andy nudges you gently, “it’s fine,” he grumbles under his breath as he takes out his phone, “I’m not leaving until I have something, Hansen.”

“You know what, I’ll give you better than hard evidence, something even harder,” Lloyd snickers as you take the shot but make no move to drink.

Andy backs off, rubbing his cheek as he turns his back to you. He’s angry. You can tell. You’re starting to wonder why he even brought you if he knew this man was like this. Maybe it’s good to get a taste of the difficult ones.

“Cheers, baby,” Lloyd clinks his shot glass against yours, “bottoms up.”

#andy barber #dark andy barber #dark!andy barber #andy barber x reader #defending jacob #drabble #series #au #the club #cause of action

184 notes · View notes

meat-wentz · 1 year

Text

FOB LORE POST Pt. 2

this one is mainly links, plus resources at the end for more in depth dives.

some cool pre-fob/outside fob links:

arma angelus livejournal

where sleeplessness is rest from nightmares (arma album playlist, heychris is working at the moment to get these on spotify)

the grave end of the shovel (arma EP)

last arma show

first novena show (pre-arma arma angelus)

racetraitor "broken dust" ft. a young pete and a young andy

another one

racetraitor 2019

racetraitor 2022

interview with mani mostofi 2018

now some general lore, i'll bold the ones that are referenced most often:

"The Story" 2004 (from My Heart Will Always Be the B-Side to My Tongue dvd)

"Cutting Room Floor" (LOTS of classic moments in this, joe sleeping in a cage, patrick drinking garlic butter, dunking his head in a pool, getting nervous and shaking pete's hand, etc)

extra bits sorry this literally opens with a dirty toilet

the story behind the album cover (patrick, joe and pete all lived in a shitty apartment together, where the cover of tttyg was shot on their broken couch, i promise this link is so much more informative these are just the basics)

take this to your apartment pt. 1 (fall out boy return to the apartment)

take this to your apartment pt. 2

a little reflection on the van accident

notes between patrick and joe (resolution by pete)

patrick in high school

first interview

HALLOWEEN 2003 (THE PRIEST SHOW)

the hollister show (includes pete jumping off the roof with an umbrella, van tour, andy "what's goin' on guys" which is important TO ME)

2003 acoustic set (IMPORTANT TO ME)

the hollister show pt. 2 (the show, which is fucking insane, sweater, shorts and black socks mention, borders mention, patrick drinking half a bottle of tobasco, pete getting tazed, first ??? mention of jason which will be expanded upon later)

i'm not putting release the bats lmao that's your job, warning it's gross, it's a will-tester for sure.

but you do get bedussey, it's like, on the syllabus. there will be a test.

FOBR bio during futct

the jason interview

patrick and pete interview for the documentary bastards of young (2005)

behind the scenes AOL

TRL debut

nintendo ds makes me forget that i don't have any friends

mtv vma performance of sugar (iconic because of the uniforms)

mtv2 video awards arrival

mtv2 win

warped diary (fob did warped in a fucking van, which is hardcore af)

behind the scenes sugar we're going down

behind the scenes dance dance

behind the scenes a little less 16 candles

fuse rock star guide (IMPORTANT TO ME)

you look good in everything honey

behind the scenes live in phoenix

don't google yourself

you look like the unabomber

wind power

fall out boy gets uncomfortable

pete's do's and don'ts for valentine's day

moustachette

world's most in depth interview

gabe bothering patrick with socks and sandals

piss roulette

IMPORTANT PATRICK VIDEO TO ME (black clouds and underdogs tour)

gay above the belt

it's not a hot girl

the backpack

mark hoppus shaves pete's head (death of emo)

drum battle and this view of patrick

andy drum solo (live in phoenix)

thanks pete

boys of zummer

happy paintings

coffee's for closers dance

YBC commentary by patrick and pete

family feud

just a few reading extras because i'm tired and i've worked on this for so long i'm going crosseyed:

pete/patrick huge primer

interviews

what a catch donnie songfacts page

in defense of folie a deux

(btw patrick does a different song every intro for i hate myself, also it's very healing please listen to all 6 episodes)

Loud and Sad Radio (pete podcast)

@stumpomatic-blog and @fobomatic-blog are both archival projects to document the band

here's a giant video vault

peachy.stump on instagram, invaluable resource for updates, throwbacks and all the little tidbits you could want.

#fob lore post #fall out boy #fall out boy history #fall out boy lore #fob lore #fob history #patrick stump #andy hurley #joe trohman #pete wentz #patrick #andy #joe #pete #Spotify

424 notes · View notes

catindabag · 6 months

Text

TBOSAS on Crack short take (47)

Felix: Hey, guys, please settle down and listen to me-

Clemensia: Class Pres, why is your hair bubblegum pink today?

Felix: Well, Clemmie, that’s a funny story. You see, a certain someone happened to steal my very expensive Ravinstill exclusive shampoo and replaced it with pink hair dye-

Androcles: It wasn’t me! I swear on my mother’s cooking that it wasn’t-

Felix: Andie, your mother doesn’t cook.

Androcles: Oh, yeah.😐

Coryo: Let’s just go straight to the point, Class Pres.

Felix: *sighs* Fine. So I’ve gathered everyone here to discuss our upcoming PTA meeting this Friday-

Hilarius: PTA meeting?! With my father?! Class Pres, I’m not sure about that-

Felix: Calm down, Heavensbee! Your creepy old man is not even allowed to go near our school.

Urban: True. He can’t even go near us without Dean Highbottom calling the Peacekeepers-

Hilarius: You don’t understand! My old man will try to sneak into that meeting either way!😫

Coryo: Well, if he does, we can always call the President to punish him indefinitely-

Urban: Or strangle him ourselves for the greater good of Panem-

Hilarius: Hey!😠

Urban: Just saying~.

Sejanus: I’ll protect you from that creep, my Coryo, my love!😍

Coryo: Sure, Babe. Whatever you say.

Io: By the way, Hilari, how many restraining orders does your father have?

Hilarius: 42-

Felix: It’s 77 and counting. But anyway, Dean Highbottom told me to list down the parents who would be attending our PTA meeting this Friday. So-

Livia: Obviously, my ever fabulous mama will represent thee~!😌💅

Pup: Meh Daddy~!😘

Felix: Stop saying “daddy” like that, Pup.

Florus: Both or none. Depends on my crazy dad’s mood.

Dennis: Sorry~. My mama can’t attend this week. She’s too busy running the Capitol black market and trading illegal magazines with Cardew’s mom-

Livia: You lying little shi-

Felix: How about you, Urban?

Urban: Same with Florus.

Felix: And the rest?

Io: Both will come as usual~.😎

Arachne: My pushover big brother will represent me as always.

Androcles: My mama and her camera crew-

Felix: Andie, we’ve talked about this issue before. Your mother can’t bring her camera crew to our PTA meetings again-

Androcles: They’ll pay everyone 20 bucks for a feature.

Festus: Free money?!

Coryo: Free money!!

Persephone: I love money!

Dennis: Oh, yes~. Mah money~.😏

Felix: Fine! But this is the last time-

Gaius: Class Pres, can my crazy grandmother attend for me?🥺

Felix: The one who fought and defeated the rebels with a giant toothpick?

Gaius: Pretty please?

Felix: Sure. She’s a war hero.

Palmyra: Can my unhinged mama and her delicious pies-

Felix: No. Next.

Hilarius: My father-

Felix: He’s banned. Next.

Hilarius: My mother-

Felix: She’s banned too. Next.

Vipsania: My gym instructor-

Felix: Nope. Next.

Lysistrata: My drug- I mean, medicine dealer?

Felix: For legal reasons, no. Next.

Iphigenia: The pizza delivery guy next door-

Felix: Not a parent. Next.

Domitia: My emotional support cow-

Felix: Too hairy. Next.

Apollo: My imaginary friends-

Felix: Not real. Next.

Diana: My cute stuffed animals.🥺

Felix: Sure. Why not.

Apollo: That’s not fair-

Felix: Next!

Coryo: I’ll bring my cousin Tigris. But if Highbottom’s drunk, I’ll summon the ghost of my gorgeous dead dad instead.

Sejanus: My Ma will represent!

Coryo: Will she bring food?🥺

Sejanus: Always, Babe. Always~.😘

Coryo: I might kiss you right now-

Lysistrata: Kiss him, Coryo! Kiss him!

Coryo: Not now, Lizzie!

Felix: How about you, Creed?

Festus: My whole family’s going.

Sejanus: The whole Creed Clan?!

Festus: Yup! Free food is free food.

Pup: Especially when Ma Plinth’s the one cooking it.🤤

Juno: Well, whatever, peasants. My royal daddy will represent for me as usual~.😌💅

Urban: Nobody asked you, Juno~.🙄

Juno: Suck a di-

Felix: How about you, Clemmie? Is your dad going too?

Clemensia: Depends~. If my mom wins their annual wrestling match, then she’ll be the one attending-

Vipsania: Wrestling match? What kind?

Clemensia: Do you truly want to know, Sickle?😏

Vipsania: Yes-

Felix: Nope. We don’t wanna know about that, Clemmie.

Persephone: Well, I think my old man-

Coryo: Wasn’t Nero Price banned from the school grounds last year?

Persephone: My dad was banned?!

Coryo: Yes.

Persephone: What for?!

Felix: Cannibalism allegations.

Persephone: That’s a lie-

Coryo: He literally almost bit off Highbottom’s foot when he found out about the Heavensbee Hall Flooding Incident.

Persephone: He did that to defend me!

Felix: He also bit Professor Click’s hand-

Persephone: He was hungry!😭

Coryo: And stole all of Ma Plinth’s ham sandwiches from her body bag.

Persephone: To be fair, my daddy thought that there was a literal dead body inside her bag-

Felix: Still banned. Next.

58 notes · View notes

she-karev · 9 days

Text

Mother's Day (Marina Imagine)

Age Rating: 12+

Chapters: Three of Three

Fandom: Station 19

Ship: Maya x Carina

AN: Happy Mother’s Day guys! Here’s the last chapter of this Mother’s Day story that will focus on our favorite Station 19 couple Maya Bishop and Carina DeLuca as mothers to Liam.

Summary: Maya and Carina have a party at the station with the others where they sign the adoption papers making them Liam’s official parents.

Words: 1179

May 12, 2024

“Did you get the cake?” Carina asks Maya in excitement while feeding Liam in a highchair. Liam smiles widely at Carina feeding him another spoonful of banana baby puree from a jar. Maya enters the beanery smiling and carrying a large white box with a manila folder on top.

“Yes, I did, and I think your gonna like the design I picked out for this very special day.” Maya sets the box on the table and Carina wipes Liam’s mouth before picking him up so they can go to Maya.

“Did you bring the-”

Maya answers her question before she can finish by picking up the manila folder that contains the adoption papers for them to sign and take to the courthouse tomorrow, “My love do you really still doubt me after all these years?”

Carina grins at Maya’s smugness, “It’s a big day today and we can’t afford any missteps.” Carina turns to Liam and speaks in a baby voice, “But lucky for us your mama is organized and never forgets her keys let alone a paper making us your legal mommy’s. And don’t worry if you feel lonely because we’re gonna give you a little brother or sister to play with soon. You just have to be patient.”

When Maya and Carina heard the good news from the fertility doctor that Maya’s eggs were successfully fertilized with the sperm, they selected from the donor catalog they decided to freeze them. They wanted to wait until after they adopted Liam to give him a sibling because they wanted to focus fully on him and making him a part of their family.

Maya smiles at that thought, “Now Liam being a big brother is really important. Your gonna protect your sibling and teach them things we can’t.”

“That’s right.” Carina lightly bounces Liam in her arms, “If it wasn’t for me your Zio Andrea wouldn’t know his head from his butt.”

“Hey, come on I think I could’ve survived being an only child.” Andrew walks into the beanery carrying a large blue gift-wrapped box with his wife Amber DeLuca nee Karev walking beside him carrying their 1-year-old daughter Lucy in her arms. The women can see that despite Amber looking elegant in a gothic sense with her black turtleneck hugging her torso and black pleated pants she looks tired and disheveled.

Amber exhales as if she was running a marathon, “We’re not too late, are we?”

“Nope your right on time.” Andy Herrera tells her as she enters the beanery with Vic, Ben and Bailey, “We’re just waiting for Montgomery and Gibson to show up.”

Andrew exhales in relief, “Thank God, we would have come sooner but the struggle was real getting Lucy out of the house.”

Carina chuckles and leans face to face with Lucy who looks adorable in her denim overall dress with her short wavy brown hair up in pigtails, “Don’t worry Lucy, I forgive you because you are the most adorable nipote in the world!” Lucy giggles at Carina’s exasperated voice.

Amber smiles at her sister-in-law, “Well your adorable nipote has been very active lately.”

“And very stubborn about what she wants.” Andrew chips in and whispers to Maya next to him, “I ‘terribili due’ non sono uno scherzo.” (Translation: The terrible twos are no joke.) Amber puts Lucy down to her feet and she immediately runs to Maya hugging her legs causing Carina and the others to aww at the adorable sight.

Maya chuckles and picks up Lucy in her arms who stares up at her with huge blue eyes, “Come on she’s not even two yet.”

“Oh, try telling her that.” Amber tells her as she sets up the table while Andrew walks over to Carina smiling at his nephew who grins at him.

Andrew chuckles at Liam’s squishy face feeling nostalgic, “Yep enjoy this age while you can sis because pretty soon, he’s gonna start scribbling on the walls, scaring you half to death when he tries to climb the stairs by himself and pulling your hair when you end bathtime.” Carina chuckles at Andrew’s misery, “Seriously you guys enjoy this age of innocence it goes by so fast.”

“How strong is the coffee here?” Amber asks Andy.

“We have military issue if you can handle it.”

“I’ll take a cup.” Amber moves to the coffeemaker.

“Make it two.” Amber nods at Andrew’s request. Gibson and Montgomery enter the room carrying balloons and greeting everyone with smiles.

“Hey, we’re not too late, are we?”

“Nope we wouldn’t sign these papers without everyone present.” Maya tells Jack.

Soon Beckett, Theo, and Sullivan come on and they gather around the counter where the manila folder is. Carina turns to Andrew and he gladly holds Liam for her with Amber next to him carrying Lucy. Maya takes a deep breath before opening the folder, taking the paper out and grabbing the pen from her shirt pocket clicking it.

“Here we go.” Maya looks at Carina who smiles in joy while Vic is on the other side of the counter filming this moment on her phone with a smile. Maya signs her cursive on one of the two dotted lines on the bottom. She holds the pen out to Carina with a smile, “We’re halfway there.”

Carina smiles taking the pen, “Let me finish it then.” Carina leans down the counter and signs her own name below Maya’s. As soon as she finishes everyone around them cheers. Maya laughs and brings out the cake revealing the design. It’s a white rectangular sheet cake with a blue wave like ocean at the bottom with Goldfish crackers swimming in it and a reel with a line in the frosty sea. Across the white sheet written in blue frosting on top is ‘O-fish-aly Ours!’ Liam DeLuca-Bishop 05-12-24’

The group chuckles and awes at the cake with Carina joking, “Bambina you have now reached cheesy parent status.”

“Well, it’s all for my son.” Maya takes Liam from Andrew’s arms and smiles at him, “Did you hear that little dude? I’m officially your mama!” Liam smiles wide as Carina wraps her arms around Maya’s torso pulling both of them against her.

“That’s right bambino, we’re your mama’s in heart and paper now.” They coo at the baby while Andy gets two blue baby bottles that are filled with white wine instead of milk. She gives them to the legal mommy’s with a smile.

“Courtesy of Tia Andy so you guys can toast properly to getting through the first year with him.”

Maya chuckles at the bottles, “Thank you.” Carina holds up her bottle to toast and Maya does the same, “Cheers to…not dropping him on his head.”

“Or swallowing a safety pin. Cheers and a happy Mother’s Day, mommy!”

Maya smiles at the coincidence of both the adoption date and Mother’s Day set at the same time as if fate knew they were meant to be mother’s all along, “Happy Mother’s Day, mama.” They clink their bottles and celebrate their first day as official parents to their beloved and beautiful son.

#station 19 #station19edit #maya bishop #carina deluca #liam deluca bishop #andrew deluca #maya and carina #carina x maya #maya x carina #marina #mothers day #motherslove #mother #lgbtq #lgbt pride #headcanon

22 notes · View notes

jhilsara · 2 months

Text

I Can See You

Pt. 1/ Pt. 2/ Pt. 3/ Pt. 4/ Pt. 5/pt. 6/Pt. 7/Pt. 8/Pt. 9/ Pt. 10/

Pt. 11/ Pt.12/Pt.13/Pt. 14/Pt.15/Pt.16/Pt.17/END

Mariana Jimenez-Watson or MJ works in a normal pub living life paycheck to paycheck. Nothing exciting happens to her except the occasional drunk getting thrown out. She’s 24 working away and finds a wrench thrown into her very boring life. His name is Hobie and she thinks maybe, a little excitement isn’t awful. In fact she might start to crave some change for once.

Small moments of Hobie meeting his world’s MJ. AKA I made an MJ variant and I think she’s neat.

Chapter 17

It’s been a full month since the Goblin incident. Mariana’s been home, cast on her broken leg and a scowl on her face as she stares down at her phone.

Hobie’s pulled a disappearing act, like she was afraid of. He’s been texting her, but it’s always short. He’s mostly checking in, to see if she needs anything. Which she finds hysterical since he hasn’t stepped foot in her flat since before she was in the hospital.

She growls to herself and slams her phone down pulling her laptop onto her lap.

Back to job hunting, it’s somehow less stressful that waiting for Hobie to text her.

The pub exploded. Her home for the past four years…just gone overnight. Luckily no one died, but a good amount of people were in the A&E that night.

The owner of the pub called her, alongside her coworkers, he’s just taking the insurance money. He won’t reopen. It leaves a hole in her heart…alongside the sinking pit in her stomach, feeling guilt over being the reason the pub was attacked to begin with. It’s her fault.

She can’t think about it for longer than necessary, or she’ll cry.

She’s been pouring herself into job hunting. Not much else she could do with her broken leg. She hasn’t ever bothered looking for jobs in her field, she picked up the pub job while she was in university and just…never left. Her degree in journalism just sat untouched. She once upon a time was invested in reporting and getting good stories. Turns out people who frequent pubs are filled with good stories.

Now, she wonders if she should use her degree.

She’s been staring at the job listing for a staff reporter for the Daily Bugle. The pay is surprisingly okay, but she did her internship there and she remembers J. Jonah Jameson and he was, to put it politely, a colorful character. To be precise, he was a dick.

She sighs and bites her tongue before just applying. Worst case scenario she keeps looking. Best case she has income again. That’s all she really needs.

She’ll just have to wait and see.

Her phone buzzes and she grabs it quickly, her heart pounding.

It’s just Andy. She sighs in slight disappointment before grabbing her phone and texting her friend back.

Hobie’s fighting a losing battle in his own head. He’s been avoiding Mariana, and he knows he shouldn’t. He knows what he promised her. That doesn’t stop the anger bubbling under the surface.

He hates himself for putting her in danger. She could have died and it would have been his fault.

He’s blowing steam off by working. He hasn’t stopped patrolling for days. He maybe crashed for a nap on top of a building at two in the morning but for the most part he’s been catching criminals.

Mostly petty crimes. Did the guy hot wiring someone’s car need a black eye? Probably not. Hobie doesn’t care though. He strings the guy up and moves onto the next. Using random criminal after criminal as a punching bag for his own self-loathing.

Definitely not his finest moment. He just doesn’t care.

The image of MJ rolling into the back of the emergency room, screaming for him with a broken leg, bruised and covered in soot and blood had made him snap in some way.

He didn’t waste any time, the anger and rage filling his body. He swings back to where the Gobin had fallen. Where the explosion had sent the villain flying to.

Hobie paces the ground, looking for anything left. He would make sure if the explosion didn’t kill the Goblin than he would. He wasn’t taking chances on them coming back again.

He’d do anything to keep Mariana safe.

Hobie finds what he’s looking for. Some abandoned parking lot with debris everywhere. The Goblin's form crashed down into a car, broken glass and blood pooling on the ground.

He walks over to the car to check for any sign of a pulse from the villain. The Goblin’s body is mangled. One of the arms is twisted in such a way it looks like it’s been ripped out of its socket and bent backwards. Their legs are gone completely, the explosive impact hitting them immediately. The Goblin’s definitely dead. If not from the fall, from blood loss.

He curls his hands into fists, his nails biting into his palms as he looks down at the villain. Hobie’s anger doesn’t fade with the knowledge that the monster is dead. It festers inside of him. Boiling over and begging to escape.

Hobie finds something to swing and uses his strength to break open the exposed gas tank of the car. He rips it out, pouring the old leftover gas onto the corpse of the Goblin. Hobie doesn’t think twice before pulling out a match and lighting the scene on fire.

He watches the fire burn, bright and intense, it doesn’t settle what brews deep in his chest. The burning he feels in the back of his throat.

That was a month ago.

He’s been avoiding MJ. He’s texted her, checking in on her. He avoids her questions though. He hasn’t seen her face to face, not while she’s awake anyway.

He doesn’t think he can bring himself to. All he’s done for her is bring her into his dangerous world as Spider-Man. It’s selfish if he wants her to stay.

He’s not helping his own heart though when he visits her in the early hours of morning, hiding in the darkness of her room. He just needs to know she’s alive, breathing. It settles the unrest he has in his chest.

He’s put her in so many dangerous positions and he almost didn’t save her this last time. It makes his anxiety spike at just that idea. His brows furrow as he pushes her hair out of her peaceful sleeping face.

He physically can’t think about her dying. He doesn’t think he could recover from that. He needs her to be safe, he refuses to put her at risk anymore.

Hobie has to end this. He won’t put her in harms way and he won’t be the reason she dies. He refuses.

Mariana is hobbling around her home, already tired of being on crutches. It’s the middle of the night and she’s spent all day working on applying to jobs. She’s just spent. She just wants to heat up something to eat and go to bed.

She jumps when she hears knocking and she whips her head to look at her balcony. There on her balcony stood Hobie, and she doesn’t know if she’s ever seen him look worse.

She moves to the door, opening it for him. He slides in past her, unusually quiet as she assesses him. His eyes are dull and he has deep dark circles. He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping much if at all. His cheeks are hollower than ever and he looks worn. His

It enough to make her brace herself. The energy rolling off of him isn’t his usual and she hasn’t seen him in a month, she’s more than a little pissed herself.

The two stand in front of each other as the awkward silence fills the room. She wraps her arms around herself, almost to act like a shield.

Hobie takes a deep breath, and looks at her, “I can’t be with you. This,” he points between the two of them, “we can’t keep it up.” His voice is hard. His eyes avoiding her.

She bristles at his words, her face forming a scowl. “Excuse me?” she laughs in disbelief.

She barely notices it, but he flinches at her words. He sighs and looks in her eyes. “Mariana, please, don’t make me say it again.” His voice is low, and it shakes.

“No, no, you don’t get to come in here and demand for me to make this easy on you!” she shouts at him. Her face crumbling in hurt.

“You promised me Hobie. You promised you wouldn’t disappear on me again, you promised you wouldn’t!” She says, her voice raising with her hurt.

“I know what I promised and I can’t keep it!” He glares at the floor, burning holes into with how intense his gaze is. His eyes lift up to look at her.

“I only care about keepin’ ya safe MJ, and… if that means I’m not in your life…” His fists tighten, and he takes a step back.

She steps forward after him, “Well I don’t care about that!” she tells him with a firm voice. “It’s my life Hobie!”

“And that’s the problem!” He says coldly.

She pauses at his words. “Ya don’t care about yourself,” He steps closer to her and grabs her arms, “Your safety, your life… it isn’t disposable to me Mariana.” He whispers pressing his forehead to her shoulder. His arms shaking.

She relaxes under his touch, feeling guilt wash over her. She reaches up to rub her hand reassuringly on his back.

“I can’t lose you Mariana… I- fuck- I love you.” He confesses his voice shaking as he uses her for support.

MJ gasps at his soft confession. Her head is spinning. She pulls back to make him look at her.

“I, Hobie…” She takes a deep breath. “I don’t have to think when it comes to helping you… it’s just intuitive. I put myself in the situation with the Goblin, I know that, and I’m sorry.” She tells him, stressing her words. She goes to move his hands, holding them tightly in hers.

Her throats tight as she looks up at him, and how he’s obviously worried himself sick the past month. His dark eyes have bags and his face is slimmer. His knuckles are raw and scared with fresh scabs. He’s torturing himself.

“I know that you don’t think I’m careful, and I’m not.” She’s taking fast and stumbling over her words. She gives a breathy laugh that’s hollow, “I don’t think about me when it involves you because, Hobie,” she takes a shaky breath trying to find her words. “you’re the most important person in my life.” She squeezes his hands, she brings one of her hands up to cup his face.

She feels the churning in her stomach, the fear and dread of doubt ebbing its head in. She pushes it aside. She has to be honest.

“I love you, Hobie, more than anything so please, please don’t shut me out.” She whispers to him.

He doesn’t pause to let her words sink in, he doesn’t gasp, he just surges forward. He cups her face pulling her to meet him. His mouth finding hers in a rushed and needy kiss.

It’s not like any of the few times he’s kissed her before. It’s desperate in a way she’s never experienced from him. His mouth moves against hers, pressing into her, coaxing open her mouth.

Her arms move up to wrap around his shoulders. She pulls him tightly against her, meeting his force with a wave of her own. Her tongue meets his, as they press together.

Hobie’s hands start moving from holding her face to traveling down her body. He moves to grasp her thighs lifting them to wrap around him. He carries her over to the couch, pushing them both down.

He presses his hips into hers, pinning her into the couch as they both rake their hands over the other. Her hands move to caress down his chest. Gripping onto his shirt.

Hobie finally pulls back, the need for oxygen winning, as he looks down at her. His pupils blown, and his eyes almost looking black.

Her eyes are just as wild, her maroon hair fanning out around her. Framing her almost like a halo.

She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. She needs him in a way that she’s only fantasized about.

His eyes bore into her and his hands tighten on her hips. He takes a breath, and he moves to press a kiss into her neck. She grips the back of his neck, gasping for air. His mouth moves against her neck, licking and nipping, moving his mouth back up to her lips.

He kisses her just as fiercely as before, one hand moving up to hold her jaw, pulling her closer.

She arches her back to slot herself against him, trying to get herself impossibly closer to him.

When Hobie pulls back this time, he presses a few more kisses to her cheeks then her jaw. He holds himself up, hovering above her, looking down softly. His chest heaving as he tries to regulate his breaths.

Mariana lays under him, hands still tightly gripping his shirt. She’s looking up at him, out of breath through half lidded eyes. She uncurls one of her hands to caress his face tenderly. A small smile taking over her lips.

He lets out an easy chuckle as he looks at her, eyes filled with adoration.

“Why do you have to make everything so difficult?” he whispers leaning into the soft touch of her hand.

She scoffs but keeps her smile. Her gaze just as loving as his. “I think you like that I’m difficult… keeps you on your toes.” She teases him, her voice quiet.

He shakes his head, brows furrowed, “What am I going to do with you?” He replies back, half serious half playful.

She moves her hands to cradle his face, her face looking the most vulnerable he’s ever seen her as she replies, “Love me.”

Her voice is timid, but she believes the words she’s saying as she looks up at him expectantly.

He gives her a wide smile, “That’s an easy answer.” He says leaning down to kiss her again, this time much softer.

They still had things to talk about. Hobie’s worry for her safety wasn’t going to disappear overnight, neither was their own self loathing they feel into in the darkest hours.

All of it could wait, at least until after tonight.

Tonight, they were in love. Wholly, fully, and honestly, they could admit the love they’ve desperately been avoiding since they saw each other in the pub.

Warmth filled Mariana’s heart as she reached up to wrap her arms tightly around Hobie. Like a moth to a bright burning flame she’s been pulled into him, body and soul. She clings to his warmth as her heart beats rapidly trying to escape her chest.

She’s never felt this intensely about someone before and while it should scare her, she’s never been happier. She doesn’t want this feeling to end.

Tag List: @missshelleyduvall

Message if you would like to be added to the tag list!

#hobie brown x oc #hobie brown #hobie brown x reader #hobie x oc #hobie x reader #spider punk #hobie spiderverse #across the spider verse fanart #across the spiderverse #atsv hobie #my art #mary jane oc #mary jane watson

22 notes · View notes

leprosycock · 11 months

Note

pls educate/ advertise f0b / peterick yaoi to me. i know nothing about it but i want to.

uhhhhh okay this is gonna be really fucking long and deranged because i've been into them for like? nine years and i promise you from the bottom of my heart that nothing i will tell you is exaggerated or made up, their relationship really is this twisted and intense and insane. a lot of this is gonna be under the cut for obvious reasons

faII out boy are officially formed in the summer of 2001 when p4trick stump overhears joe tr0hman talking about music in a boarders bookstore and feels the need to jump in and correct him because patrick is extremely pretentious and insane about music, having grown up around it due to his blues-performing dad. joe is personal friends with pete w3ntz, a legend in the chicago music scene that patrick has personally admired for ages. joe invites patrick to come try out for a band that pete wants to start on the side next to his other projects, something just for fun. patrick intends on just becoming a drummer- until he meets pete. then his life is changed forever.

to really put things in perspective, pete is 22 years old and patrick is barely sixteen when they meet. pete is an unstable college kid with unmedicated bipolar disorder and kind of a huge sex freak who's very mean to girls and patrick is a loser virginal high school kid. pete is short and covered in tattoos and his hair is buzzed and he has whiskey-colored eyes and bright big teeth and a smirky smug pouty mouth. patrick is shorter and pasty and a little chubby and he has choppy strawberry blond hair and a big pink mouth and big baby blue eyes. both pete and joe show up to patrick's house to hear him audition and patrick is wearing shorts, black knee-high socks, and an argyle sweater. we know this because pete has repeated this story of their first meeting many, many times.

patrick insists that he wants to play drums and has never thought about singing before, but pete bullies and pokes and prods until patrick finally gives in and sings for him and joe as long as pete promises to be the actual frontman and lets him sink into the background because he's unbelievably shy and insecure. pete is immediately taken with patrick and calls him "the kid with the voice" and a "golden boy" and he gives him a knit cap so he can hide his face in front of the microphone. patrick is wearing this same hat on the cover of their first official debut album, take this to your grave.

their tentative first album, evening out with your girlfriend, is a rushed slapjob full of embarrassingly delightful fruity pop punk hits that patrick today is ruthlessly ashamed of. this was recorded with two other former members, tj and chris, who eventually leave in pursuit of other projects that they believe will be more successful. they continue to be friends with the other boys for a while until pete tries to convince chris' girlfriend to use sex dice with him and this causes a rift and leads to chris cutting pete off and, by extension, the band. after these two leave, pete brings in a permanent drummer, andy hurley. andy is a pacifist and a vegan and has a voice like a kitten and is an all-around good guy and well-rounded adult who's around pete's age. they record take this to your grave. during the summer, pete takes his pet high schoolers and his fellow hardcore music scene buddy around on tour in joe's mom's shitty old van so the boys don't have to miss school. (or, more accurately, he has joe do it, because pete does not have a valid driver's license at the time.)

one of the singles on tttyg is called saturday. pete and patrick write a lot of lyrics together for this album and saturday is another joint effort. here are some lyrics:

and here is the description for the music video:

The video features all of the band, but particularly frontman Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz. Pete is killing the other band members and their friends, leaving a Queen of Hearts playing card with each of the bodies. Patrick is a detective tracking the "killer". During the bridge of the song, Patrick and Pete are seen in the same position, sitting on a bed with a wall of pictures of Pete's victims in the background, suggesting that Patrick and Pete may be the same person. In the end, Pete kills Patrick, but because Pete and Patrick turn out to be the same person, Pete dies as well.

they perform this song at the end of every show and they have since 2002. pete spent their entire tour in 2015 grabbing his dick during this song for some reason ?? idk but i have pictures:

during the tttyg era, pete and patrick become VERY fast and VERY intense best friends. patrick is extremely temperamental and impatient and has a short fuse and pete has routine breakdowns and is a general violent, obnoxious asshole who likes to torment patrick for fun, so a lot of their interactions tend to ignite like throwing a match on gasoline. he once famously strangled pete with a gas pump, has thrown punches at him in the studio, and cursed him out over small disagreements. for those curious, this feisty little sweaty golden firecracker of a boy looked like this:

just so you know what we're dealing with.

the rest of them looked like this ^ andy, pete, patrick, and joe respectively. patrick did that gay little wrist flick in photoshoots a lot for some reason

it's important to note that pete was a genuine creep around patrick and was VERY WEIRD WITH HIM. during this van days era, pete tried to carve a peephole into his bedroom door when they all shared a shitty apartment together in roscoe village and never left his side. he talks about him frequently on livejournal and their website and i will quote some of these incidents here: 04/16/05: patricks birthday is tommorrow. i am in love with him so give him presents. 06/09/05: when i want patrick to sing in my ear i call him on the phone and he does it 06/16/05: that kid is my best friend and the rest of the world could blow up and fall out boy can break up and he still will be 10/11/05: i dreamt him. q&a incidents from the official fob website:

pete fucking adores this kid with everything in him. patrick is routinely frustrated with pete and his inability to grow up, but he's still just as maddeningly in love and still maintains a sense of hero worship for him and considers him a tragic figure that needs to be protected. they become very codependent.

during van days, they record and release an acoustic album called my heart will always be the b side to my tongue. they also release a dvd called release the bats, which is a hideous nightmare clusterfuck involving a lot of pete doing really gross shit for attention such as vomiting on the floor, pissing in garbage cans, and hurting himself and his friends alongside showcasing some of their live shows and performances with other friends in fueled by ramen, a borderline incestuous record label where everyone knows each other and is constantly collabing and doing shows together. included on this dvd is a short film that pete and patrick make called bedussey. they film this while sharing a dirty disgusting mattress in an even smaller apartment than the last during their writing sessions. it's fucking awful, watch it

just before the release of their second studio album, pete overdoses on ativan in a best buy parking lot while hallelujah plays on the radio. the first person he calls is patrick, who doesn't pick up, and then he finally tries his mom and his doctor. he writes two songs about this, 7 minutes in heaven and hum hallelujah. he also talks about this incident in his book, grey, but that comes much later. not terribly long after this, his nudes get leaked and it's ambiguous for a while as to who posts them, but it's theorized that it was actually chris or a friend of his. i can't honestly remember how much of this was confirmed. pete's life is surrounded by tragedy and flashbulbs constantly popping in his eyes and it's a mix of him bringing it on himself and not finding the help he needs and having terrible, terrible luck in love and in himself.

during this time, he's in an incredibly twisted and unhealthy relationship with a seventeen year old named jeanae white. she cheats on him five million times and vise-versa and they're very mean to each other. she also plays a pivotal role in his book later on. they break up for good in 2006. there's also a vague theory that he had a brief fling with mikey way in 2004 which is referred to as "the summer of like" by those invested. it may very well be true but i couldn't give a fuck about that if i tried; i'm a peterick loyalist. he marries ashlee simpson in 2008 (most likely due to her unplanned pregnancy, even though he was pretty in love with her at the time) and has a baby boy named bronx with her. during this era, patrick is in a committed relationship with a girl named anna who eventually cheats on him and it tears him apart.

jumping back a bit, from under the cork tree is their third official studio album (if you count b side, which i do) and it contains a lot of very interesting music.

the original lyric was meant to be "just friends" and for some reason, patrick changed it to "best friends" in the final cut. the name of this song is 'i've got a dark alley and a bad idea that says you should shut your mouth (summer song)'. pete LOVES to use the idea of summer in his music, which is so interesting, because fall out boy's first tour was in the summer, he and patrick have spent the fourth of july in a beach house together (REMEMBER THIS), and their biggest projects have been produced over summers. it's also worth mentioning that pete has kissed patrick on the neck more than once during shows. even more worth mentioning that pete is REALLY fucking clingy with patrick on stage.

^ they sing this at each other. i don't really know what else to say

their next album, infinity on high, is slightly more artsy and, in my opinion, a fucking masterpiece. one of the most valuable tracks on this album is g.i.n.a.s.f.s. (gay is not a synonym for shitty) and i will explain why

"trade baby blues for wide eyed browns" alongside literally walking in someone else's shoes and physically trying to become them or embodying them is just following a theme that pete and patrick have been portraying for years, about how the two of them are inherently the same person, two sides of the same coin. pete says they experience cryptophasia, an implicit, intimate language that can only be used by twins. their next album is even titled folie a deux, "the madness of two". pete later writes about a character named martin (patrick's irl middle name) in grey, who he talks about saving the main character's (pete's) life on the roof of a hotel. "some nights it gets so bad i almost pick up the phone" = pete has said multiple times that patrick has sang to him on the phone to calm him down or help him fall asleep because patrick's voice really is that healing for pete. also possibly another reference to pete's suicide attempt and how his call to patrick failed ?

lastly, here's a quote from pete's livejournal in 05 when he was babbling about patrick:

"i know i am sal and i feel damn lucky to have the wind blowing in the thru the windows as he keeps us at 80mph. make no mistake, there is a difference between a parlor trick and true blue magic. i will remember this til the day i die."

fuck you

2007-2008 is full of massive, massive drama. alongside pete's ongoing war with the media and his almost immediate marital issues with ashlee, he's ALWAYS fighting with patrick inside and outside the studio, both physically and verbally. the band is constantly getting called sellouts and posers and were heckled very badly during the tours they did to promote folie a deux. it's kind of the beginning of the end.

for folie, pete writes a song called what a catch donnie. this is a ballad that pete writes from patrick's perspective that he is very, very nervous to show to him and almost doesn't. showing him something so heartfelt and vulnerable is dangerous given the current nature of their relationship. this is that song.

the music video stars patrick as a sea captain who's lost and lonely and trying to get home and he's eventually rescued by many of his irl close friends through fueled by ramen. but pete never appears.

after the round of tours for fad ends, they release a greatest hits album called believers never die and the coffin lid starts to slide closed. the band is well and truly dissolving; the reception for fad was very poor and miserable and pete and patrick truly cannot work together anymore and both joe and andy are tired of trying to put up with them. pete tells the boys he's going to leave and the breakup is mutual, to say the least. pete has his head shaven on stage as a ritual of mourning during 'saturday'. pete says in interviews that he thinks his name and his marriage and all the drama that saturates his life became a hindrance to the band.

fob is on hiatus from 2009 to 2013. during this time, pete forms the band black cards and seeks out a female vocalist specifically because he doesn't want to "replace patrick". he writes grey, opens nightclubs, divorces ashlee, abuses prescription drugs, and wants to die. patrick loses a bunch of weight and produces a solo pop album called soul punk. it has a very poor reception and he's bullied and tormented by fans who go to his shows just to tell him he sucks and he wants to die just as badly as pete does. he also gets married, but whatever

he bleaches his hair and dresses like this the whole tour because he's a massive faggot:

i have this whole theory about how his song run dry is about gay sex. a lot of the album is about infidelity too. he claims that this is because it's a "concept album" but it .. really kind of isn't. patrick is not very good at lyrics. (SOMETIMES. we'll come back to this too.)

pete and patrick do not talk to each other for a bulk of the hiatus. pete says that the hiatus felt like a breakup and hurt just as badly. closer to the end of this painful spell, pete calls patrick to say "i helped buy your house and now you don't even know my kid, that's messed up" and they have to learn how to be friends again. there are vague statements from the band about how they had a series of work meetings before seriously discussing the idea of reuniting. patrick also sends pete a postcard, telling him he has music he wants to show him if he's willing to see it.

in 2013, out of fucking nowhere, like a couple weeks after pete assures the media that fall out boy will never reform, they drop an album called save rock and roll and the band is back for good. as they release this album, they also release a massive and incredible series of eleven music videos for the entire album called the young blood chronicles. essentially, fall out boy plays a group called the members of the faith and they have to essentially defend music from courtney love, who plays a nazi-esque dictator leading a group of leather-clad women who want to establish a dystopia where music doesn't exist. music = faith. the women steal patrick away and put a demon in him and chop his hand off and he turns evil and starts to murder the rest of the band, including pete.

the most important track on this album is miss missing you.

pete wrote a good chunk of the lyrics for this album, as he is wont to do (this changes later on but it's still mostly pete for now), but this song is all patrick. this was a song he wrote for soul punk, but he never recorded it because, in his words, "it sounded too much like a fall out boy song". this particular installment in the ybc involves solely pete and patrick, separated from the rest of the band after joe and andy have left. this entire music video is about patrick trying to kill pete and struggling to do so, at war with his own humanity that keeps slipping through the cracks. pete has said that this is his favorite music video that the band has ever made.

relevant quotes:

"pete's my best friend. i was the best man at his wedding, i love that man to death. i'd take a bullet for him."

"[patrick is] probably my best friend in the whole world. this is one of the only people in the world that i would take a bullet for."

also! summer! summer summer summer! summer never dies!!!

2013-2014 are essentially a honeymoon phase. fob do tons of interviews, immediately make plans for a brand new album to follow srar up with, and they record an insane ep on a whim called pax am days. they do it while ridiculously drunk. it's REALLY good and SOOOO underrated and some of the most interesting music they've ever made. pete and patrick record a commentary track for the ybc. they're best friends again- admittedly less physically clingy, but they're older and more grown up and pete is more secure in his relationship with patrick. they're easygoing and comfortable and they love being around each other again and they're irrevocably in love.

late 2014-early 2015 birth their next album, american beauty/american psycho. i have a lot of emotional attachment to it because i was old enough to witness this release in real time and this was the height of my obsession. there are a LOT of fascinating things to pick apart in this album, but here are my favorites (tumblr won't let me add more than 30 images per post for some reason ?? i didn't know there was a limit but alright. Sure):

And in the end I'd do it all again I think you're my best friend Don't you know that the kids aren't al-, kids aren't alright? I'll be yours When it rains it pours Stay thirsty like before Don't you know that the kids aren't al-, kids aren't alright?

very obvious. the kids aren't alright was more or less confirmed to be about patrick and pete tended to get very lovey-dovey on stage whenever they performed it.

Do you, do-do you remember When we drove, we drove, drove through the night And we danced, we danced to Rancid And we danced, we danced And I confessed, confessed To you riding shot-gun Underneath the purple skies And we danced, we danced With windows down And we danced, we danced (Spin for you like your favorite records used to) (Spin for you like your favorite records) You were the song stuck in my head Every song that I've ever loved Play it again and again and again And you can get what you want but it's never enough And I spin for you like your favorite records used to And I spin for you like your favorite records used to

And I can’t, I can’t I can’t remember just how to forget Forget the way that we danced We danced to Danzig And we danced, we danced And when you ask, you ask me how I’m doing Like you know, you know how much better off I am And when we danced, we danced With windows down And we danced, we danced (Spin for you like your favorite records used to) (Spin for you like your favorite records)

favorite record is a big one because of pete's "patrick is an ipod full of my favorite songs" and "you ask me how i'm doing, like you know how much better off i am", a possible reference to the hiatus and their inability to communicate. i'd also like to firmly call back to pete's quote about driving with patrick and remembering that day until he dies.

and, lastly, fuck me:

I'll be as honest as you'll let me I miss your early morning company If you get me You are my favorite what if You are my best I'll never know And I'm starting to forget Just what summer ever meant to you What did it ever mean to you?

Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean any of it I just got too lonely, lonely, whoa In between being young and being right You were my Versailles at night

It was the fourth of July You and I were, you and I were fire, fire, fireworks That went off too soon And I miss you in the June gloom too It was the fourth of July You and I were, you and I were fire, fire, fireworks I said I'd never miss you, but I guess you never know May the bridges I have burned Light my way back home on the fourth of July

My 9 to 5 is cutting open old scars Again and again 'til I'm stuck in your head Had my doubts but I let them out You are the drought And I'm the holy water you have been without And all my thoughts of you They could heat or cool the room, and no Don't tell me you cried Oh, honey, you don't have to lie

I wish I'd known how much you loved me I wish I cared enough to know I'm sorry every song's about you The torture of small talk with someone you used to love

fuck!!!! fuck!!!!!!! summer again!!!! we're back to summer and back to the fourth of july i told you that would be important later. finding your way back home on the bridges you burned. memories of squandered youth trapped in these moments from years back and viewing someone as this grand monument worthy of worship and posterity. "my nine to five is cutting open old scars", pete's job, what he's been filling his life with for years, the music that he makes for a living. "i'm sorry every song's about you" = doesn't have to be literal. i believe it's more so about the idea that so many songs are about patrick and it's more tongue-in-cheek, despite how melancholy it is. i believe this song is a grand release for pete and a way for him to reconcile his feelings after years of confusion and longing and torment. but that's all just a theory

it's also worth mentioning twin skeleton's, which a lot of peterick truthers theorize is about pete and patrick having flings in hotels during tours throughout 06-09. it's not really definitive and it's very conspiratorial, but i do enjoy thinking about it

there's a three year gap between albums this time and then we get mania, which is by all accounts awful. people can defend this album all they want, but i think it's fucking terrible and patrick admits that it was rushed and he doesn't like it and he's right and he should be ashamed. i hate this album. it sounds terrible and there are very few good songs on it. they did a ton of promotion for this record and did a pop-up event where they had rooms you could go through based on each track of the album. they really, genuinely tried, but it was a miss. i was so frustrated with this album that i really don't have much to say about it peterick-wise, but this tour was the first time that i was actually able to see them live, so i can't really stay mad at them. they played thriller and opened with disloyal order <333 (which, by the way, is also about patrick, confirmed by pete himself! he said that "half-doomed and semi-sweet" is a literal description of himself and patrick.)

i do like young and menace, hold me tight or don't, and wilson, but none of them feel like fob. moving on.

they release the lake effect kid ep in 2018 and believers never die volume two. lake effect kid is a BEAUTIFUL fucking track and it made me actually ache for what mania could've been if they'd just returned to their roots. that'll come soon though.

Boomerang my head Back to the city I grew up in Again and again Forever a Lake Effect kid

Oh, I got the skyline in my veins Forget your nighttime Summer love on a gurney with a squeaky wheel And joke us, choke us 'Til Lakeshore Drive comes back into focus I just wanna come back to life Spark my crazy head to keep you warm at night

summer love :))) it never ends :))))))

2023 saw the release of so much (for) stardust. this is one of the strongest albums they've had since the hiatus and i really, really love a lot of it. as New as it feels, it's still very fall out boy at its core and it's full of heart and it's passionate and it's pure.

We were a hammer to the statue of David We were a painting you could never frame and You were the sunshine of my lifetime What would you trade the pain for?

^ love from the other side. pete has likened patrick to sunshine, sunsets, sunlight, and the color gold many, many times while talking about him. there are a lot of songs where he uses the sun as a metaphor for longing, something he can never reach because he's eternally eclipsed in shadow.

My moodboard is just pictures of you, but I'm not sad anymore So make no plans and none can be broken, no plans and none can be broken But I didn't take the love when I had the chance, but I swear I'm not sad anymore So make no plans and none can be broken, no plans and none can be broken

Do you laugh about me whenever I leave? Or do I still need more therapy?

Love is in the air, I just gotta figure out a window to break out Buried alive inside my dreams, but it was all a fake-out And I don't care, I just gotta figure out a window to break out Buried alive inside my dreams, but it was all a fake-out, fake-out

Oh-oh, we all started out as shiny dimes But we all got flipped too many times We did it for futures that never came And for pasts that we're never gonna change

fake out makes me want to die in the most intense way, mainly because there's something so utterly familiar about it. it's SO fob and it's one of the best tracks they've put out since the hiatus. it's also .. so ..... it's very similar to fourth of july for me. this is recovery from the pain and finally coming to acceptance while acknowledging the past, love that was never reciprocated. it's not something that ever really goes away. it'll linger, especially when you still see so much of that golden boy that you first fell in love with the second he opened his mouth and began to sing to you.

i will state emphatically that through all my speculation, none of this is meant to be taken at face value aside from the direct quotes and irl incidents. most music comes from anywhere and everywhere within an artist. artists draw from their real life and nothing has to be literal, but pete writes about a lot of real people. grey is about as subtle as a sledgehammer when it comes to his representation of people he knows irl. sometimes he's writing about exes and sometimes he's writing a story. sometimes he's writing about patrick. we never really know for sure. but it's fun to think about!

i'm really passionate about them and i adore their relationship inside and out. a lot of it is really fucked up and weird and twisted and crazy and a lot of it is genuinely so beautiful and tragic. even if they're not fucking and never have and have never thought about it, they're undoubtedly soulmates in any way you feel like interpreting that. they love each other massively and endlessly and it's a fire that has refused to really die for over twenty years. i love them a lot and i hope you enjoyed this essay!!!

#this is also just the tip of the iceberg i hope you know. this isn't even half of it .#i have so many fun facts about them locked away in my head forever and they're fucked up and sick and twisted.#bunnyaskz

55 notes · View notes

chasingmidnights · 6 months

Text

13 Nights of Halloween: Campfire Stories; Story Nine

Title: The Headless Horseman

Storyteller: Andy Barber

Summary: A variation of the Headless Horseman.

Warnings: First, this is 18+, minors DNI!! Warnings include but not limited to: soft!dark themes; mentions of decapitations; serial killer; dismemberment; death; implied cannibalism; mentions of alcohol; and mild cursing and I believe that’s everything. I apologize if I missed anything but you are responsible for what you read and what you consume on the internet. By clicking on ‘keep reading’, you agree to the listed warnings and that you are over the age of 18. I do not claim to be a professional writer, nothing is beta read and any mistakes are my own.

Wordcount: 821

Andy finished off his beer and set the empty bottle on the ground as he spoke up. “I’ve got one. It’s a bit more, hmm, darker than having a stalker or quitting babysitting.” There was a short pause. “No offense.”

“Nope, none taken.” Kate shrugged as she sat back in her seat.

Johnny scoffed as he rolled his eyes to Andy’s comment.

“I like stories a bit on the darker side.” Nick said before he grabbed a poker and started poking at the logs in the fire.

“Go ahead Andy, tell your story.” Yelena said with a wink. “We’ll tell ya if it’s too dark or not.”

“This story takes place decades ago and apparently right here in little, old Knockemstiff. Once there was an evil man named Curtis and he terrorized this town for several years. Curtis was well known throughout the community as he was one of the local butchers. Rumor was that there was more than pigs and cows that he offered at his butcher’s shop. Throughout the years, Curtis was able to get away with a lot and was accused of a lot of things. It wasn’t until decapitated heads started to pop up in the lake and in various crop fields when people started to realize that there was a killer that lived amongst them. Rumors spread throughout the town and people whispered in the streets on who they thought this serial killer was; everyone seemed to agree on who it was but had no actual proof. All one could do was hope and pray that they weren’t the killer’s next victim.

“Months turned into years and it seemed like more and more heads were showing up all over town. It wasn’t until one young woman, who had managed to escape the hands of her would-be killer, that the townspeople got all of the confirmation that they needed. Curtis was their serial killer. When police arrived at his butcher’s shop, they caught him in the middle of dismembering a human body. The police were horrified at the scene before them. Limbless and headless abdomens hung from large hooks and Curtis had an evil grin on his face. He showed no signs of remorse and when the police detained him, he went without a fight. ‘Women tasted the best,’ was all Curtis said as he was escorted out of his shop. His statement sent shivers down the spines of the officers.

“There wasn’t much of a trial, Curtis was found guilty from the start. His punishment was to suffer the same kind of death as his victims, which was beheading. On the day of Curtis’s execution, a rather large crowd formed to watch. The executioner placed Curtis onto a guillotine and when he was given the signal, he pulled the release handle and the blade shot straight down, cutting clean through Curtis’s neck. And that was the end of Curtis’s reign of terror. At least, that’s what everyone thought at first.

“However, the town was continually plagued by Curtis, even after death. A young man was traveling through Knockemstiff, when he swore he was chased by a headless horseman. It was around the witching hour when a horse suddenly appeared on top of the hills nearby. The horse was as black as black could be and had blood red eyes, the traveler had to cover his ears as the horse let out a terrible screech. The traveler was frozen in fear as the horse’s rider held up his detached head before the headless horseman charged after the traveler. A witness claimed that the detached head of the horseman looked a lot like Curtis. A new wave of fear spread throughout town as this new terror came along. The townspeople thought they were rid of Curtis and his menacing ways, but it looks like they were wrong.”

“Still to this very day, when the witching hour strikes, people claim they hear the horrible whining that the horse makes as the headless horseman continues to search for his next victim.”

The wind picked up just as Andy finished his story, causing the group to jump. Everyone thought that it sounded too much like the whine of a horse.

“Man, this town is seriously fucked up. Why do we choose to camp here?” Jake questioned as he glanced around the campsite, looking to catch a glimpse of the headless horseman.

“Because we’re broke college students and this place is cheap.” Ransom replied as if it wasn’t the most obvious reason.

“Plus, it’s kinda become our tradition to come here whenever we decide to camp.” You pointed out before you polished off your hot chocolate.

“Well, I claim the next story. But, I’ll save it for tomorrow night, I think we’ve had enough creepy stories for one evening.” Wanda commented as she stood up and stretched.

After that, everyone slowly made their way to their tents to call it a night.

#13 nights of halloween #campfire stories #story nine #andy barber fanfiction #andy barber au #andy barber fandom #andy barber drabble #andy barber #curtis everett #curtis everett fanfiction #curtis everett fandom #curtis everett au #curtis everett drabble #the headless horseman #the headless horseman au #chris evans #chris evans characters #chris evans fandom

21 notes · View notes

your-divine-ribs · 2 months

Text

Ice Cold Part 7

Words: 2.8k

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear… I’m the jealous type” 💙

Ice Cold Masterlist Main Masterlist

I slammed my hand down on the desk, my anger borne out of the frustration I felt at being temporarily pulled out of the field. I knew this kind of investigative work was key, but if the adrenaline wasn't flowing through my veins whilst I was in pursuit of my target I didn't feel alive.

I should have just been thankful that the convoluted and quite frankly far-fetched story that I’d fed Paul had been digested and believed, but I was restless, the ache inside me intensifying as I flicked through files containing photos of Van.

"Is this really necessary?" I addressed my boss as he came to a stop behind me, peering down at the photo I held in my hands. "I mean you and I both know I'm better when I'm out there."

He let out an audible sigh, pulling out the empty chair next to me and sitting down, leaning into me, hunched over, like he didn't want anyone else to hear the conversation.

"You were lucky the last two times, but one day your luck's going to run out. And I don't want to be the one responsible for sending you out there when it does."

Now it was my turn to sigh. "It kinda comes with the job. If I'd wanted safe and predictable I would have gone for a job in bloody accounting or something!"

He chuckled but it was short-lived, replaced by a stern kind of seriousness as he replied. "Don't underestimate the good work you're doing here. If we can get inside McCann's head we can calculate his next move. It's the only way we're going to stand a chance of catching him. It's like chasing a bloody ghost. He's running rings around us."

I pulled out a file on possible targets, leafing through. There were a lot. "This is impossible... Where do I start? I just don't have the patience for this. Please Paul... I know I fucked up... again. But it'll be the last time."

Paul got to his feet. "I must admit, you're the only one who's actually got close to him. But it's too soon for you to be out there. I don't know what he's playing at but I don't like it. Holding you hostage to try and make a deal?" He huffed. "He doesn't make deals. No... there's something else... there has to be. I just need to work out what it is..."

He looked off into the distance like he was searching for an answer there, and I was just relieved he couldn't see the heat that had risen to my cheeks from the lies I’d spun him.

"I'd getter get on anyway..." I mumbled, head down to pore over the files.

Paul walked away, still muttering to himself.

The long days sitting behind a desk weren't the only tedious parts of the job I’d been temporarily assigned. I had to face night after night in my pokey flat rather than staying in various hotels, with nothing but the television and a bottle of wine for company.

This wasn't me. I didn't do Saturday night TV and an an early night. I was restless, and by my second glass of wine I’d picked up my phone, opening up the Tinder app.

The first twenty profiles I flicked over were no-hopers. Hmm... this one had potential. I paused to read his bio. Looking for romance... Fuck that! I scrolled past thirty more, sighing and reaching for my wine again.

Oh... now this was more like it. He had an angular face and hair that hung long around his ears. Blue eyes. I held the phone away, scrunching up my eyes. If I squinted hard enough he could almost pass for...

Stop it Lyla!

What the fuck was wrong with me? I had to purge myself of this sordid fantasy before something bad happened. And this would probably be a good start. Within ten minutes I’d connected with 'Andy' and arranged a meeting at a pub in the city centre within the hour.

I shot upstairs to the shower, grabbing my razor to ensure sleekness everywhere and then I was poring over my underwear, choosing a sheer black lace set and slipping a tiny figure-hugging black dress over the top. I adjusted my cleavage in the mirror, taking in my smoky eyes and my cherry red lips, puckering up and blowing a kiss at my reflection. A little fizz of excitement shot through me as I stepped into my heels and made for the door.

The pub was loud and busy and my heart sank as I walked in and recognised Andy sitting at a nearby table. He shot me a wide smile with dazzling white teeth and stood up to greet me, air kissing me and hugging me warmly in an all too familiar way. He was certainly a good-looking guy but he just looked too... nice... clean-cut. I smiled sweetly at him, noting his eyes flitting down to my cleavage before he asked me what I wanted to drink. Well, at least that was a good start. God, why were men so easy to read?

Within half an hour we’d settled down with our drinks and were chatting easily. I’d spun my usual web of lies, telling Andy I had a dull job in marketing and my hobbies were shopping and watching Netflix, and he'd preened and postured about his senior role in investment banking, flashing his Rolex and the thick wad of cash in his wallet as he'd offered me yet another drink. I just went along with it, biding my time, fixing him with that wide-eyed slightly vacuous look as I hung on his every word, playing up to his ego.

I sighed as he got up to go to the bar, scrolling through my phone. It was always the same. Men were so... predictable. Most men anyway... Not like Van.

I couldn't help it. I flicked through my gallery, scrolling through the pictures of Van that I’d saved from recent assignments. Shit... the way even looking at a photo of him made my belly flip and heat radiate through my body.

"I thought we should move on to champagne next..." The voice snapped me out if my daydreams and I hurriedly locked my phone and looked up to see Andy hovering over me with two champagne flutes and an expensive looking bottle.

"Ooh lovely!" I injected fake enthusiasm into my voice. "Are we celebrating then?"

Andy flashed me his pearly whites as he took the seat next me this time rather than the one opposite that he'd been occupying. "Well... let's just say it's not every day you swipe right on a girl like you Lyla. I'll be honest with you. Most girls I've met up with just seem interested in the contents of my wallet. You seem... different. I know we've literally only just met, but... I don't know... there's something about you that intrigues me. I want to get to know you better."

My smile didn't match the sinking feeling in my gut. This was the last thing I needed when I was simply after some no-strings attached fun. I obviously needed to take a different approach.

So I fixed Andy with a steady gaze, slipping my hand on to his upper thigh under the table, squeezing it gently. "Look Andy... don't take this the wrong way... you seem like a really great guy... but I've just come out of a relationship. I'm really not looking for anything... serious. Can't we just have a bit of fun tonight?"

"Oh... errr... yeah...." Andy faltered, glancing down at my hand which was inching higher and higher as I spoke. "It's just that you seem like such a nice girl..."

Nice? I caught my bottom lip in between my teeth, leaning into Andy, my hand slipping up to his inner thigh right between his legs, making him jolt.

"Maybe I'm not such a nice girl..." I whispered breathily into his ear.

I heard his breath catch in his throat and smiled to myself. "Shall we go back to mine?" I purred.

Andy's eyes widened and he looked flustered for a moment, his mouth opening and closing rapidly. God, I hoped he wasn't one of those weak men...

I closed the distance between us both quickly, pressing my lips to his, felt him shiver beneath my touch. When I pulled away he was still looking shell-shocked but now wearing a slick of my glossy lipstick.

"I... err... yeah… sure… we can go back to yours... I just... errr... I'm just going to the gents okay?" He stumbled to his feet and I drained my glass, tapping my nails on the table top... waiting.

My phone vibrated and lit up with a text notification, and I casually picked it up. It was an unknown number. Probably just some junk or a wrong number. I opened the message...

Lyla you ARE a bad girl...

Fuck! Anxiety ripped through me, my heart almost short-circuiting. My mouth suddenly went dry as I craned my neck, looking around the crowded pub, searching every face I saw and drawing a blank. Then I realised I was sat near a large window and I turned in my seat to look out. It was hopeless, the light from inside the pub made it impossible to see out into the night. However I could imagine how clearly I was lit up to anyone looking in. Like a shop window with the goods on display.

"Shall we go?" Andy's voice made me jump and I whirled around. Suddenly the prospect of stepping outside with this almost-stranger didn't seem so appealing. If Van was lurking in the shadows... but that was a ridiculous notion. Wasn't it?

"I... errr... I need to go and... use the ladies before we go..."

Now it was my turn to stumble over my words. I shot up out of my seat on shaky legs, grabbing my bag and coat and making for the door which led to the corridor where the toilets were located. I came to a stop, rapidly typing in a reply and hitting send.

Where are you?

I breathed deeply, willing my heart to slow down as I suddenly saw the tell-tale dots appear on the screen that indicated a reply was being typed.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear. I'm the jealous type.

"Shit!" I mumbled under my breath, starting to pace up and down the corridor.

I considered my options. I could ignore Van and take Andy home, try and act like my life wasn't really spiralling out of control at the behest of this dangerous man I hardly knew. Or I could ditch Andy and go home alone. Be a good girl... for Van. But then what?

I acted without thinking, glancing back once but then walking purposefully forward, pushing through the fire escape located at the end of the corridor and out into the night.

It was cold now and my breath came in frosty plumes. I shrugged into my jacket and made for the street, stealthily creeping past the open pub doorway so Andy wouldn't spot me.

The city centre was busy, full of groups of late-night drinkers, all going about their business, raised voices, smiling faces, not a care in the world apart from where their next pint or cocktail was coming from. I, on the other hand, was hurriedly making my way down the high street, glancing furtively around, checking the shadows in every shop doorway as I passed. I was shivering and it wasn't just from the chill evening air.

Maybe I should text him... or call... I quickly dismissed the idea. What a ridiculous thought! A dangerous assassin wanted in several countries and here I was, entertaining the idea of encouraging him. And to what end?

I knew what I should be doing. He'd left himself wide open contacting me on a phone number that my team could trace within minutes to a precise location. They could handle the trace whilst I called him... maybe I could keep him on the phone until one of the team could swoop in and capture him. Dead or alive. This could all be over tonight. But I didn't.

I was only five minutes from my apartment now so I picked up the pace. I’d left the hustle and bustle of the city streets behind and I was in a quiet residential area. My heels made loud clip-clop noises on the pavement as I pounded along, my breathing coming hard and fast, fear and anxiety spurring me on to get to the safety of my home as fast as possible.

I suddenly heard loud heavy footsteps behind me, and a strangled cry erupted from me as I stumbled to the side, my stiletto heel catching on a crack in the pavement.

"You alright love?" The male voice sounded right next to me and I looked up to see a young man dressed in running gear jogging on the spot.

Relief flooded me. "Yes... yes... I'm fine. Thank you." I blurted, then just as he was about to take off I called to him. "Um... excuse me? Gosh I am so sorry but I think... I think I'm being followed. Would you mind just walking with me? I only live on the next street."

The words tumbled out without me even thinking about them and I shocked myself. I’d trained with the best. Learnt the techniques to incapacitate much bigger, stronger people than Van. I’d come up against heinous gang members and murderously aggressive killers twice my build and still brought them to their knees. There was just something about Van that made me feel like a frightened little girl.

The kindly jogger agreed, chatting animatedly all the way to the end of the road, but it was a one-sided conversation. I was too busy glancing around, hoping I wasn’t leading this poor, unsuspecting man into some kind of danger.

There it was. My apartment block, right up ahead. The lights glowing from behind the curtains and blinds looked inviting. A safe haven.

"This is me... thank you so much! That was really kind of you!" I gushed to the man.

"That's okay love! Done my good deed for the day. Don't like to see a lady in distress! Are you sure I can't walk you to your apartment?"

"No... no it's fine... honestly," I assured him, forcing a smile. "State of the art security here. No one gets in without the key code!"

"Well if you're sure... goodbye..." And then he was off, waving goodbye.

I swiftly turned and pressed my key fob against the panel, simultaneously keying in the code, heard the quiet bleep and the catch engaging. My heart beat wildly as I pushed through the door, then I slammed it quickly shut, a sense of relief coursing through me as I looked out into the dark night. Safe at last.

My heart rate was already slowing as I called the lift and got in, hitting the button for floor number 7, resting my back against the wall and tipping my head back. I was covered in a light sheen of perspiration from my fear and exertion and I pushed my hair back, fanning myself with a hand.

The lift arrived and I cautiously peered into the corridor before stepping out.

Don't be silly Lyla, you're safe now.

I’d worry about the fact that Van may have potentially followed me and now knew where I lived tomorrow. He likely already knew anyway. Maybe I could go and stay with my aunt... my mum was out of the question but my aunt was nice and undemanding. She'd understand. I’d not seen her since... I pondered this as I fished my apartment key out of my bag and pushed through into the dark hallway, flicking on the light. Was it July? No... August. It was November now. Oh well, she knew I wasn’t one for staying in touch regularly. My mind was whirring with thoughts as I started down the short corridor to my kitchen....

And froze in my tracks...

The first thing I noticed was the faint smell of cigarette smoke. I stood stock still, hardly even daring to breathe, my ears straining to pick up the slightest noise. There was none. But there was that feeling, that spine-tingling sensation of a presence, the fine hairs raising on the back of my neck. I knew I wasn’t alone.

#ice cold #van mccann fanfic #au fanfic #vanfic

11 notes · View notes