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hansols-yoda-boxers · 3 years

Text

Camp North Star - July 22nd

AFAB!Reader x Jeon Wonwoo

Word Count: 3384

Contents: slight fingering, wonwoo being gushy, teasing, oral, handjob

“You’re still out here?”

You looked around from where you sat in the grass, playing with a flower in your hand. The sun had set and campers were back in their cabins but you were still sitting out by the lake. Even as the evening air got just a little cool you still sat there, not wanting to head back to the cabin just yet. Spending some time with your own thoughts.

“Yeah,” you sighed. “Just wanted some alone time I guess.”

“Ah,” He said, shuffling a little before handing you the balled up blanket he’d had in his hand. “Well, I don’t know how long you’re staying out here. I brought you a blanket in case you get too cold.”

You couldn’t help the smile that drew across your face. “Aww, Wonwoo, that's really sweet.”

He shrugged but you could see the grin on his lips in the light of the moon. “Someone has to take care of you.”

“Well, thank you,” you smiled, feeling very warm and fuzzy from his kindness.

“I’ll- uh I can give you some peace and quiet.”

“No!” The word came from your lips far too quickly and heat followed it to the surface of your skin. Wonwoo seemed a little startled with your sudden exclamation. “I mean- I like your company. You can stay if you want.”

Wonwoo’s smile was almost shy as he nodded before sitting next to you. You opened up the blanket, spreading it over your legs. Wonwoo rested back on his hands, staring out at the ripples on the lake in the low light of the early night.

“What were you thinking about?” He asked quietly.

“Honestly, nothing in particular.” You said. “A little about next week. As much fun as it is there are some actual logistics to sort out. A little about the kids going home this weekend.”

“It is going by really fast.”

“We’re nearly two months in already. I feel like I need to start thinking about the fall.”

Wonwoo shook his head. “Let the fall come when it comes. It’s more fun to live in the moment, especially here.”

You snorted. “I can’t tell if you’re being sentimental or trying to get into my pants.”

Wonwoo chuckled, looking a little flustered. “I didn’t realize it sounded like that.”

You leaned into his shoulder. “It’s alright. I don’t exactly mind when you try to get into my pants.”

Wonwoo snorted at your comment and you laughed with him. Still, as the breeze blew past the two of you you felt his hand move to your thigh, just gently squeezing your leg. You sighed and rested your head on his shoulder. You liked how comfortable you had gotten with him. It was much easier to be around him than you ever thought it would be on the first day.

“Does it kill the mood if I try and get into your pants now?” Wonwoo murmured.

“I’d like to think of it more as a mood shift,” you said with a grin.

Wonwoo turned his head a little, lips a little closer to your ear as his fingers slipped between your legs and you spread them for him. “Mood shift it is then,” he purred. His fingers started to tease you over your shorts.

You sighed as the slight sensation sparked in your core from his gentle touch. You took deep breaths and let your eyes fall closed as you felt the cool breeze blow across your skin, finding its way under the blanket and raising stray goosebumps on your skin.

“That already feels good,” You hummed.

“I’ve barely done anything,” he chuckled lightly.

“Maybe I am simply anticipating what’s to come,” you grinned.

“Maybe that means I’m spoiling you too much,” he replied.

“I can make you feel good too,” you hummed, shifting to look at him, feeling your eyelids a little heavy already as you felt his hand slip into your shorts and panties.

“I’m taking you up on that if the bugs don’t get to us first.”

You snorted but it turned into a gasp as his fingers drew up through your folds and started to rub circles against your clit. You pressed a little closer to him, nearly hiding your face in his shoulder to muffle the sounds of your quiet sighs and moans. Sparks ignited in your core, curling through you from his movements and you spread your legs just a little wider for him.

“I love the way you moan,” he murmured, almost as if to himself. “It’s such a pretty sound.”

“Sh-Shut up,” you stumbled, muffled against his shirt.

“I’m serious,” he giggled, not sounding totally serious. “It’s a good sound.”

“Well I’m glad it’s a good sound,” even with the breathiness in your voice your slight teasing was still apparent.

“I’m trying to say something nice,” he mumbled against the top of your head.

“If that’s your w-way of praising me y-you’re gonna have to try harder.”

You let out a gasp as he pulled his hand away suddenly before pushing you back into the grass. You let out a shaky breath as he smirked down at you, pinning your arms down to the ground.

“If you won’t let me be nice I could just tease you,” he grinned.

“I-I didn’t say that,” you stammered but Wonwoo seemed to have made up his mind. He quickly pulled the blanket up over him before bringing his lips down to kiss at your chest. His hands let go of your arms and he slipped them down your sides to pull off your shorts and panties. He took it slow, kissing down your chest and you felt yourself freezing up as you realized what he was planning.

“I-I- uh-”

“What’s wrong?” He chuckled, a teasing lilt in his voice. You reached under the blanket and grabbed at his hair, stopping him from kissing any further than your waist. His grin was smug when he looked up at you but it melted off his face when he took in your stressed expression.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”

“No I- it-” You didn’t want to say anything. How had you gotten into this position so quickly? If you blamed anything it was your brain getting horny too fast and his fingers being too enticing.

“Did I do something?” He asked seriously. “Or did something happen? You keep stopping. Or avoiding…”

“I- It’s just.” You looked away from him. “You’re kind of bad at giving head.”

“O-Oh.” You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him but you felt heat on your face and you had to imagine he felt embarrassed too. You knew Seokmin was right and you knew you had to say something but you really had to leave it to the worst moment.

“You’re not- I mean I’m sure some people would like it. Like it’s not horrendous and you’re really really good at other things. B-But you keep wanting to go down on me and I just- it didn’t- It wasn’t good.”

Wonwoo called your name and you looked down at him reluctantly, still half avoiding his gaze. He was blushing and struggling to meet your eye but he still asked. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I-I it was just awkward. And I didn’t want to upset you. And you were clearly trying s-so…”

Wonwoo squeezed your thigh and you trained your gaze on him properly.

“I’d rather know,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled. “I should have just said something.”

“I get you were trying to spare my feelings,” he said, and you were sure there was a slight grin on his lips. “But I guess I needed some kind of achilles heel, didn’t I?”

“Or what?” You snorted.

“I’d be irresistible and you would just have to deal with it.”

You let out a laugh and let your head fall back into the grass. “You’re such a dork.”

He pressed a kiss to your lower stomach. “I’m not the one who keeps letting a dork into my pants,” he teased, drawing a laugh from you. “Now, tell me what you like this time so I can get it right.”

“Okay,” you hummed, threading the fingers of one hand back into his hair. “Just start out slow. I know I’m going to regret saying ‘tease me’ but…”

Wonwoo chuckled. “You want me to make you wait for it, huh?”

“I do,” you groaned quietly. “That’s gonna bite me in the ass, isn’t it?”

“It might,” he hummed, pressing kisses to your sensitive inner thighs. “You should be careful what you wish for.”

“I have no regard for my own sanity,” you mumbled, still enjoying the kisses he pressed to your skin, the way he sucked at some spots lightly and kept moving around your core.

“That much I’d gathered,” he murmured with a chuckle in his voice.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You questioned, lifting your head to look at him.

“Shhhh,” he hushed you. “Relax and tell me what you like.”

You put your head back down with a grumble. Your hand stayed in Wonwoo’s hair, running through it gently. He focused on your thighs, getting a little closer to your core as he went. You did your best to relax, taking deep breaths and looking up at the sky, sprinkled with stars and the light of the moon shining down on you.

“Good,” you hummed. You felt the way arousal started to pool in your core, making you ever so slightly impatient as his fingers finished pulling off your shorts and panties. You spread your legs a little more for him as he moved up between them before settling. You felt his hand squeeze your thigh and you propped yourself up on your elbows to look at him. It was almost comical seeing him half hidden under the blanket, peeking up at you as you shifted.

Still, his lips didn’t land between your legs. He kept teasing your thighs, moving very close but just around your core. You shifted your hips a little, letting out a sigh and curling your fingers a little more in his hair. His gaze flicked up to look at you and you felt the smirk that tugged at his lips.

“Tell me what you want,” he murmured.

“Go slowly,” you said, guiding his head towards your clit. “And be gentle. It was too rough last time.”

Wonwoo hummed in recognition as he brought his tongue out, still looking at you. He followed your instructions, gently and slowly lapping over your clit. You let out a low moan at the feeling. Already it was much better than the last time. It wasn’t too rough and it only had you wanting more as each lick sent a small rush of pleasure curling through your core.

Wonwoo watched you expectantly.

“That feels good,” you murmured.

He quirked an eyebrow at you and you snorted.

“It actually does this time,” you chuckled. “I’m not just being nice.”

He let out a hum against you as he closed his eyes. He pressed in just a little closer, his fingers kneading your thighs as his tongue worked faithfully on you. You kept watching him, even as your eyelids grew heavier. His movements drew small moans from you and you played with his hair as he did so.

“Wonwoo?”

He gave a small “hm?” while opening his eyes to look at you.

“Don’t make it rougher but… you can go a little faster. And use more of your tongue? Press it wider, does that make sense?” The words sounded silly coming out of your mouth but you couldn’t think of any other way to get your point across. You felt heat on your face nonetheless, more evident as the night breeze blew over your skin.

Wonwoo still understood what you meant. His tongue only moved a little bit faster but he flattened more of it against your clit. You bit down on your lip, letting yourself fall back into the grass. A moan, a bit louder than before, escaped your lips as he found a movement you liked a lot. You heard and felt him let out a little groan of his own, the vibrations of which ran through your core.

“That’s really good,” you moaned. Your free hand reached down to your thigh and you took his hand in yours. Wonwoo was quick to lace his fingers with yours. He squeezed your hand sweetly and started moving his tongue just a little faster, but still not fast enough.

“Wonwoo, you can go faster,” you hummed.

You could have swore you felt his smirk against you as he hummed out a “mm mm” staying at the same speed. You bit down on your lip, gazing up at the stars again. You couldn’t have let him be bad at just one thing could you? You had to make him good and cocky at everything. You truly only had yourself to blame now if he decided to torture you.

The sensation of his tongue moving over your clit just how you liked was working you up, the coil in your core already curling in on you. But now the pace was too slow. Along with your arousal frustration was building too. You tried your best to stay still, keeping your breathing as even as you could, letting low moans pass your lips, lest you make him cockier.

A sigh passed your lips as you squeezed his hand. A silent plea to give you more as you body started to get needy. Even though you tried, you couldn’t keep the neediness from you voice. With every passing moment and every movement it was apparent that you needed more.

“Wonwoo,” you voice was definitely whiny. You shifted your hips a little, trying not to roll towards him and failing miserably. “You know you can move faster.”

He squeezed your hand as he chuckled and when you looked down at him he was gazing up at you, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Y-You’re doing good,” you said, voice starting to trip over words. “I can take a little more.”

He pressed in a little closer but moved his tongue slower. Your frustration grew as you let out a whine, trying to pull and press him closer.

“D-Doo you want me to beg for it?” you muttered before seeing the heat in his eyes, only growing stronger from what you’d suggested. Your own skin started to burn as you realized that was, indeed, exactly what he wanted. You hadn’t been planning on it, and maybe in another moment you would laugh at the suggestion, but at present he had you very worked up and as the coil in your core curled tighter any resolve you had was quickly disappearing.

“Wonwoo, please,” even though no one was around you still dropped your voice, much quieter as you pleaded with him, feeling even hotter under his gaze. “Please go faster. I-I’m getting close, s-so…”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes, clearly unimpressed.

“Shut up,” you whined at purely his expression. “Please. Please just go faster. Please make me cum.” You squeezed his hand, sitting up a little and getting closer to him. “Y-You’re good at this now. I-I know you are and I told you to tease me b-but please.”

You let out a gasp as he moved his tongue faster over your clit finally. The sensation curled the coil incredibly tight in your core and your thighs trembled as they started to press in around his head. “Please keep goings” and “Don’t stops” fell off your lips as he kept you caught in his gaze until you succumbed to the pleasure.

You fell back into the grass with a cry, grinding your hips against his face. Your orgasm crashed over you in a wave, sending tingles and sensation out through every inch of your body. Your thighs squeezed tight around Wonwoo’s head until you finally fully relaxed and he pulled away from your core. He climbed up over you, bringing the blanket with him.

“You know you suck at begging,” he chuckled.

“Shut up,” you mumbled tiredly. “I can be good at it.”

“Oh so you were bad on purpose. Well t-”

You shut him up by sticking three fingers in his mouth.

Wonwoo gave you an unamused expression, but didn’t try to remove your fingers. He just sucked on them idly while he watched you.

“I don’t have to be great at everything either,” you said, letting him suck on your fingers for another moment or two before pulling them out of his mouth.

“Was there a reason for that?” He asked.

“Of course,” you grinned, reaching under the blanket. You found the waist of his sweats easily and pushed your hand inside, earning a gasp from him as you started to pump his cock which, as you had guessed, was already hard.

“So worked up just from eating me out,” you hummed.

“I th-think it’s a good thing I enjoy pleasuring you,” he managed, voice already growing breathy as you pumped his cock quickly. “D-Don’t you?”

“You’re right,” you smirked. “I shouldn’t tease you for it if I like it. Even when you’re this hard and you haven’t even been touched until now.”

“Sh-Shut up,” he chuckled, though still pressing his hips towards your hand.

“I wonder if you could get off just from pleasuring me,” you mused. “Or would you just get worked up and frustrated?”

“J-Just frustrated,” his voice was sounding more and more whiny each time he spoke. It made your smirk grow wider as you added a small twist to your movement, relishing in his low moan. His forehead rested against yours as he panted, his hips starting to rock into your hand.

“Then we should definitely do it,” you purred. “It’ll be fun.”

“F-For y-you,” he managed.

“And you,” you added. “I never said I wouldn’t let you cum. I’m not cruel.”

“D-Don’t- Don’t s-say things l-l-like that when y-your- wh-when I-”

You chuckled at him. “Scared I’ll get some ideas? Scared I’ll just… stop?” You slowed your hand dramatically, purely for the fun of playing with him. He was so close to you and he managed to open his eyes, trying to rut his hips into your hand.

“N-No please. P-Please come on I-I-I made you c-cum didn’t I? Please, d-don’t stop,” he pleaded, pressing his nose to yours. “Please, please, plea-”

He let out a moan as you gripped his cock more tightly and started stroking him quickly. Wonwoo’s head fell into the crook of your neck and his hips bucked into your hand as he chased his high desperately. You held him close with your free hand while you worked him quickly, tempted to stop again but knowing you shouldn’t be cruel.

You thanked your lucky stars it was late enough that no one was around to hear his loud whiny moans as he finally came. You felt his hot cum drip down your fingers more and more with each pulse of his cock as his hips stuttered, falling onto the tops of your thighs.

You pulled your hand away and he let himself down on top of you, panting and trembling. You played with his hair with your clean hand and felt her arm wrap around your waist, holding himself close to you.

“Maybe I should be learning to beg from you,” you chuckled.

“God, don’t tease me now,” he whined, hiding his face in your neck.

“But you’re better at it than I am.” You chuckled. “You could teach me. I just need to hear some more of it.”

Wonwoo groaned at your comment and you chuckled, running your fingers through his hair soothingly.

“Okay okay I’ll leave it be.” You giggled. “And that oral was much better.”

“I’m a quick study,” he hummed.

“That you are. Do you wanna head back to the cabin?”

“Honestly I’m so comfy I could sleep right here,” he mumbled. “Under the stars, it’s really…”

You felt your stomach flip as his sentence trailed off, not quite sure if you wanted to know the word he didn’t say.

“If we stay out here we will be eaten alive by mosquitoes,” you said.

Wonwoo pushed himself up off your chest. “Cabin it is.”

#i meaaaaaan #wonu keeps trying to be sweet #:eyes:#camp north star au #cns au #seventeen imagines #seventeen smut #wonwoo smut #wonwoo imagines #jeon wonwoo smut #jeon wonwoo imagines

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engagemachine · 3 years

Note

How would J react if Taylor swore infront/at him?

May 22nd: New update

Anon, I’ve been thinking about this ask for daaaaays. Had to write a fic. This is just part one (turned out a lot longer than I thought it would be--wrote it in one sitting) and I’ll post part two as soon as it’s done!

FYI: This takes place early on in Burn, probably sometime around chapter two, so Taylor is back in high school.

---

It’s still snowing outside when Taylor slides into her seat for third period English. She loves the overlarge windows in here, stretching along almost the entire wall of the left-hand side of the classroom. Black windowpanes showcase the little fountain in the courtyard, the stone benches seated around it, and the long, winding sidewalk where each senior from the class of 2002 got to lay down a single handprint in the cement to commemorate their pending graduation. Taylor thinks she would’ve liked that, to immortalize a piece of herself in that way, inscribing her name inside her handprint. Taylor B. It intrigued her, the thought of someone walking over her handprint years later, wondering who Taylor B was, what she was like, where she was now.

The fountain is frozen over, and the courtyard is blanketed in a thick layer of snow, still untouched. She wonders what it says about her that she often fantasizes about being the first one to run out and ruin it, leave her footprints behind, crunch through snow that is knee-deep, that no one else has sullied yet. There’s something about being the first person to disrupt the beauty of nature. Like stepping on a fallen dead leaf, the satisfaction of hearing it crackle beneath your feet. Or jumping into a still lake, watching the ripples that fan out across the water as you break through to the surface. Like leaving footprints in the sand at the beach, only to have them rinsed away by the incoming tide moments later. It’s a temporary disruption—and perhaps that’s the appeal.

Taylor settles into her seat and takes out her books. The classroom is unusually bright, the sky outside milky and pale as the snow piles up, falling softly in great big clumps. Mrs. Herndan leaves the lights off because they don’t need them.

Everyone is a little more animated than usual. If it keeps snowing like this, they might call it a half day and get to go home early. Taylor hopes that happens, that way she can order take-out and hang out with Mr. J. Maybe they can watch a movie together—something scary, so she has an excuse to cuddle up next to him, if he’ll let her. She’s been testing the boundaries of affection he’s willing to allow her to bestow, and recently she’s been surprised by how much she’s been able to get away with. Just last week she fell asleep next to him on the couch with her head on his shoulder—totally by accident—and he didn’t even move her. Just let her sleep there like that until she woke up, his hand heavy on her thigh, right above her knee, at which point she jumped up, all groggy and still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She swore up and down that she was sorry, she’d never do it again. She was so afraid he’d be mad, but he just looked at her kind of funny, like he was trying not to laugh, and she blushed furiously and hurried off to her room.

Class is kind of boring, and it’s hard to focus when everyone seems just as distracted as she is. Mrs. Herndan has to stop her lesson twice just to tell everyone to be quiet and put their phones away. Taylor is snapped to attention each time she does. She didn’t even realize she had been staring at the window.

When the bell rings, Mrs. Herndan shouts out their homework assignment for the weekend, but it’s mostly lost to the din of jostling bodies and excited chatter of weekend plans as everyone fights to get through the door at once. Whatever. She’ll just have check the syllabus when she gets home. They’re reading Romeo and Juliet and it’s really hard to understand. Maybe she can find a way to rent a movie of it from the library—there’s supposed to be a version with Leonardo DiCaprio, she thinks. Maybe that’ll help. Sometimes she wants to ask Mr. J for help—and in the past she has, like when she had to make that volcano for science class, and he knew exactly what to do—but Romeo and Juliet is way too embarrassing. All those thees and thous, the declarations of love. Like she could ever ask Mr. J to interpret that for her, not without dying from embarrassment first.

She gets twenty minutes into her next class before they finally call it on the overhead speakers—school is closed. She smiles to herself as she packs up her books, already imagining herself curled up on the couch with her sketchbook and a cup of hot cocoa. She should still have some marshmallows left over—as long as Mr. J hasn’t eaten them all. He’s always eating her snacks. Sometimes, in a moment of pure frustration upon stumbling onto an empty bag or box of secret snacks she had stashed away specifically for herself, she tells him to buy his own snacks, but he always counters with, I did buy these, giving her a pointed look, and, yeah, he kinda did. It’s his money, after all. Not like she could buy any of this stuff without him.

She’s pulling the rest of her books from her locker and shoving them into her backpack when she feels a tap on her shoulder from behind. She turns around to face Jennifer Bartlett—from her geometry class—who is holds out a pink envelope decked in glitter and little metallic hearts.

“You’re inviiiiited,” she sings, thrusting the card into Taylor’s hands. Taylor blinks at her.

“Me?” she asks. Clearly this is some kind of mistake. Maybe a joke.

“It’s a sleepover, so bring a sleeping bag, okay? And like, don’t tell your mom or whatever, but my parents won’t be there, so make sure you just get dropped off in the driveway and none of your parents try to come inside.”

“Oh,” she says, her mind still swirling from the invite. A sleepover. “Okay.” She forces her gaping mouth shut, quickly nods, tries not to look too overeager. “Okay,” she says again, a little cooler, smiling a little. “I’ll totally be there.”

“Great!”

Jennifer bounds off down the hallway, joining a group of giggling girls waiting for her at the end, and Taylor looks down at the envelope in her hand, her name on it and everything. Taylor B.

She bites her lip and smiles.

Taylor can’t get home fast enough.

The bus takes forever, and they have to divert into South Side because of an accident near Paramount Park.

When she finally hops off the school bus and bounds for home, perhaps she takes off a little faster than she should. One moment her backpack is bouncing behind her as she races down the sidewalk, and the next, she’s spread-eagled and lying flat on her back, staring up at the gray sky as snow drifts down in soft little clumps around her. Oof. That hurt. She didn’t hit her head—thankfully—but she managed to scrape her cheek on the icy pile of snow packed into a miniature wall along the edges of the sidewalk. She thinks her cheek might be bleeding.

She doesn’t know what’s more embarrassing: the fact that she fell, or that the bus driver didn’t stop to help.

She winces as she gets up, wipes the blood from her cheek, brushes the ice and snow from her hands, wipes her palms on her jeans. The bus hisses as it pulls away, and Taylor’s cheeks burn. Maybe no one saw?

Her right leg kind of hurts, and she hobbles the rest of the way home, her excitement not dampened as she crashes through the front door, making it halfway through the kitchen before she remembers to shimmy out of her wet boots. Her socks are wet—there was a lot of slush on the sidewalks the closer she got to home—and her feet leave little wet prints on the kitchen floor before she gets to the carpet.

“Mr. J!”

He’s not in the living room, and he’s not in his bedroom, either, when she throws open the door and scans the bed, his empty desk. She frowns, pokes her head around the doorframe to her own bedroom. Not there, either.

“Mr. J?” She goes back to the beginning of the hallway, knocks eagerly on the closed bathroom door. She can see yellow light bleeding out from the crack beneath the door, doesn’t know how she missed that before. “Mr. J, you’ll never guess what happened at school today!” She waits a beat for him to say something—a grunt, even, some form of acknowledgement that he hears her, she’d take anything—but when she’s met with silence, she barrels on. “I got invited to a slumber party!” she gushes. She has both palms pressed flat against the door, is bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I ran all the way home to tell you, I can’t believe it!” she squeals. “It’s this Friday so we have to go to the store A-S-A-P so I can get a sleeping bag, okay? I mean—if it’s okay with you that I can go. But I’m sure it will be because I really want to go and I’ve never been to a sleepover before.” She sighs, taking a breath. He still hasn’t said anything, so she turns her back to the door and leans against it. He has to come out eventually. “And you won’t even have to worry about dropping me off because I can just take the bus, okay? I looked up Jennifer’s address at the library at school and I already wrote down how to get there, so I won’t get lost! Oh, and maybe I should get new PJs, too? And do you think that—”

The door is jerked open so suddenly she doesn’t have time to react, and she’s falling backwards before she can catch herself, straight into Mr. J’s chest.

He’s holding her underneath her arms, and she tilts her head back to look up at him—upside down—as he looks down at her. His greasepaint’s bright. Fresh-applied. She can smell its gummy texture.

She smiles up at him, a little unsure. A little frightened. His eyes are so dark. “Jeeze,” she says, lightly, trying to dissolve the tension. “You have to give me a warning, Mr. J.” She tries to laugh a little, but it comes out stilted, and the look he pins her with makes the smile slip right off her face.

“Maybe I would if I could get a word in,” he replies. He gets his arms behind her and pushes her off him. Taylor’s cheeks burn as she stumbles a few feet into the kitchen. She knows she talks a lot when she’s excited. She’s like a faucet that won’t turn off.

“Sorry,” she murmurs. She keeps her head low, a little afraid to meet his eyes. He’s in a bad mood—but she’s determined to go to this party either way, and she won’t stop prodding until he says yes. She glances up for just a second to catch the narrowing of his eyes, and then his hand is reaching out, closing around her jaw in a way that makes her flinch, pulling her towards him.

“What’s this?” he says. His eyes on her skin burn, and it makes the cut on her cheek throb in memory.

“It’s nothing,” she says, annoyed, maybe a little embarrassed. She doesn’t want to have to tell him that she slipped and fell. Also, can they please get back to talking about her slumber party? She impatiently reaches up and pries his hand off her—he lets her. She ventures a few steps back, watching him, and her back hits the counter with a thud. “But about the party—it’s okay if I go, right?”

He ignores her question in favor of taking a few lumbering steps closer—towering over her—and his fingers around her jaw are much softer this time when he takes it in his hand, tilts her head to the side so the cut on her cheek winks at him in the light that streaks out from the bathroom.

He sounds almost curious when he asks, “Did someone hit you?”

His question feels like a gut-punch. She looks up at him, eyes widening in surprise for a moment, and then her gaze narrows, and she’s a little more forceful this time when she pries his hand off her jaw.

“No,” she snaps. She can’t believe he thinks she got bullied. “I’m not a loser. I know how to fight back if I have to,” she scowls.

He looks at her for a long moment, his eyes hard and calculating, but she makes a point to meet his stare head on. She’s not going to flinch away. After a beat, he grins a little—some secret smile, like he’s in on some joke she’s not privy to.

“Of course you do,” he says.

“So can I go to the slumber party or not?”

Mr. J raises his eyebrows as he thinks about it. “Dunno,” he says, “I seem to recall your last little, uh, party, didn’t end so hot. Maybe you remember,” he muses, leaning down low, so their faces are level, “—or maybe you don’t, since you were high as a fucking kite.”

Taylor balks at him—he never curses, at least not around her—and she can’t help the way her mouth parts in shock. She can feel the threads of hope she’d been clinging to rapidly slipping out of her hands.

Truthfully, there’s not a lot she remembers from that night. Just a bonfire and a stranger’s half-remembered bedroom. The weight of a body she hadn’t wanted, a frisson of fear, electric as it sizzled down her spine, and then fumbling down the stairs, out the front door. Nobody had even cared. And then the frigid moon, the icy bite of wind on her cheeks. She remembers Mr. J, at some point, and waking up in that old airplane hangar, where she’d promptly puked her guts out over the side of the couch. The rest of that night is a blur. It’s probably better that way.

“It’s not—” she stops. Tries to find her footing around the right set of words. She just wants this so badly. It’s her one opportunity to fit in. To make friends. To be somebody. She wants so desperately to try and explain it to him, make him understand how badly she needs this—but somehow she knows he won’t get it. He doesn’t care about fitting in, or being liked—he’s the most unliked person in all of Gotham. Maybe even the whole world.

“It won’t be like that this time,” she assures. “There won’t be any boys there. I promise. It’s just a girl party. And I promise I’ll be really, really good and come straight home after.”

Mr. J’s eyes are dark as he watches her plead her case, and she takes the opportunity to stick out her bottom lip and put on an exaggerated pout. “Pretty please?” she says. “With lots of sugar on top?”

The corner of his mouth curls into a grin. “Okay, baby doll. Since you asked so nicely.”

“Eeep!” She squeals in excitement, immediately perking up, diving forward to throw her arms around his waist. She gives him a squeeze and he surprises her by patting her back. Once. Twice. His display of affection makes her cheeks warm, and she squeezes him a little tighter, happy to bask in the moment. “Thank you, Mr. J.”

Taylor buys a new set of jammies and a sleeping bag. She even spends the whole day prior reading about sleepovers, Googling at the library, getting more and more excited. She wonders if they’ll do face masks, or have a pillow fight, or watch a romantic movie, or paint each other’s nails?

She goes to Mr. J to model her new PJs for him, a yellow top with tiny blue flowers, with little matching shorts and a scalloped hem. She is bouncing around his bedroom—she had a Red Bull earlier for the first time ever, and whoa—and she does a cartwheel on the bed once she has his attention, collapsing into a heap on the floor because she misjudged the distance. She giggles, and then uses the bed to pull herself up while she prances around the room and chatters about her slumber party. She has a little notepad she found in a drawer in the kitchen, and after a few minutes, she flops back on his bed, holding the notepad above her face. She’s making a list of all the stuff she might need to bring. She read online that sometimes you should bring snacks.

“Hey Mr. J, cookies or chips?” she asks.

She turns to lay on her side, facing him, where he’s seated in his desk chair and has spun around to watch her, his fingers drumming against the armrests. His eyes are dark—but he doesn’t give her an answer.

She scowls at his lack of participation, and redirects her attention back to her list, tapping her pencil against her lips.

“Hmm… sometimes cookies have peanut butter, even if they say don’t, and I know lots of people have peanut allergies, sooooo… I’ll go with chips,” she decides, resolute. Her tongue pokes out when she makes a careful, neat checkmark next to the word chips.

She crawls off the bed and skips around the room for a little while longer, clutching her notepad, chattering to herself, mostly. She plays with the books on the bookshelf, all the little knickknacks left behind by the previous owner, rearranging them while she talks, musing about how cool this party’s gonna be, how many friends she’s gonna make. It’s gonna be great.

She lays down on the floor to make some snow-angels on the carpet, flapping her arms and legs slowly, staring up at the ceiling, feeling her energy start to wane. She asks Mr. J if he thinks she should wear her regular clothes to the party, or if she should come dressed in her PJs? And doesn’t he think they’re really pretty? And her sleeping bag comes with a built-in pillow, and isn’t that super cool?

She jolts awake when a pair of arms slip underneath her, hoisting her up, off the floor. She must have fallen asleep.

She frantically blinks the sleep back from her eyes. It’s dark, and she can’t see. “What day is it?” she asks, panicked, her voice cracking. “Is it tomorrow yet? Did I miss the party?”

“Shhh.” Mr. J carries her the short distance to his bed, lowers her to the mattress even as she wraps her arms around his neck, refusing to be put down. She doesn’t even have the forethought to marvel over the fact that he’s just put her in his bed, that she’s lying down on his pillow, or that the covers smell like him.

“But did I miss it? Is it over?”

She thinks she can hear a smirk in his voice when he says, “No, baby doll, you didn’t miss it. Time to sleep.”

He peels her arms away from his neck, and this time she lets him. She sinks into the mattress, and sinks quickly back into sleep.

#anonymous #asks #Burn #Taylor #new update #it's not finished yet but I just wanted to update with what I have to so far :)

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fallingforyou123 · 3 years

Text

You Will Never Be A God-Une

Warnings: Slight language, implied smut, alight angst

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: Here is the official part one! Hope you'll like it, reblogs and feedback are always appreciated!

Series Masterpost

The sheets hung loosely around her frame, the only thing keeping her from being exposed to the cold air. The stranger laid beside her in a dazed out state, chest rising ever so slowly. A small cloud of smoke engulfed the both of them, a bad habit Stevi had picked up from an ex of hers.

“Those will kill you one day.”

“No more than sleeping with strangers will.”

“Touche.”

Stevi moved to get dressed, keeping quiet to avoid another conversation. Leaving was always bad, but leaving when there was still so much to be said was the worst. She couldn’t quite place it, but there was a feeling, something small sitting in her gut. It worried her, she’d never felt like this with a stranger. So safe and comfortable.

“Stay. Just till the morning, I’ll have my driver take you home.” Came the voice from the other side of the bed.

“No, definitely no. I have rules, no names, no staying. I can’t”

“What a lonely life you must live, to disconnect so much from those around you.”

Stevi looked at him, truly looked at him. He looked so much different than the man she met a couple hours ago. His perfectly gelled hair was nothing more than a brown mess atop his head, his eyes were clouded with a sleepy haze, and his suit had been replaced by a very thin sheet. He looked like someone she could see herself falling for back in university, she had to remind herself that this was a man with a lot of money, someone she’d probably dig up dirt on for an article.

She shook her head, she needed to leave.

After she finished dressing, she grabbed her bag from the front room and slipped out the door. Checking her phone she saw a couple missed calls from Brooke and an enthusiastic ‘be safe!’ text from Poppy. She quickly both, ensuring them that she was not dead in a ditch somewhere, before ordering an uber and hoping in the elevator.

***

The rest of the weekend had gone by in a blur. She’d spent all of Saturday nursing her hangover with ice cream and old reruns of Golden Girls in bed. Then Sunday was brunch with the girls at a little cafe where she was forced to share every detail of the events that unfolded Friday night, only leaving out how weird she had felt in the strangers' company. And then all too soon she was getting ready for a week of meetings and interviews.

Walking into the office, Stevi was greeted by her boss informing her that her 11am was now Stevi’s and ‘oh, look, he’s early.’ She mentally groaned, there was not enough caffeine in the world to make this worth it. Don’t get her wrong, Stevi loved her job, but god did she hate her boss. She was flakey, and whenever anything didn’t appeal to her, she’d simply give it to Stevi with barely any notice. There were far too many nights that she had to stay late because she was given a column to write only hours before it was due.

With a heavy sigh, she walks into the conference room, hoping that this won’t last long. “Good morning, my name is Stevi, I’ll be doing the interview today since Diane couldn’t be here.”

“Rule one.”

She whips her head up towards the man, “What?”

It’s in that moment that she realizes who this is, the man from Friday night. And coincidentally, Tom Holland. She should’ve known the other night who he was, his name and face had been plastered on the bulletin board for weeks, one of their most anticipated interviews this year. Tom was not only a pretty face, but the youngest CEO to be running an international company in decades. His father had started Holland and Co. Publishing almost 30 years ago, and only a few months ago he handed it over to Tom.

“I said, rule one darling. You’ve broken it.” She’d forgotten how lovely that voice was, remembering how captivating it was to have him whispering in her ear.

“I heard what you said, Mr. Holland.”

“Call me Tom, you’ve more than earned that privilege.”

“This is my place of work, not some stupid nightclub, I keep things professional here.”

Neither of them take their eyes off the other, a silent war taking place between the two of them.

“Well, if you’re such a professional, stop looking at me like you’re wanting to fuck me.”

A small gasp leaves Stevi. She stands up to leave, gathering her things, and looks at him with venom in her eyes, “Mr. Holland, I’m afraid that this interview is over, if you would please talk to the receptionist she will reschedule you in with someone other than me.”

A small look of shock crosses Tom’s face before he too stands, reaching out to grab Stevi’s arm, “Wait, I'm sorry. Sit down, I’ll be civil.”

Reluctantly, she does. Placing her notebooks in front of her and pulling out the recorder. Before she begins she gives Tom a warning look, “One word, one single word out of line, and this is over.” To which he nods and sits back, hands folded in his lap, looking like a true business man.

***

The rest of the interview goes by smoothly, only a couple of suggestive looks being thrown her way before he bites his tongue. Stevi’s never been more relieved to finish something in her life, the tension between the two becoming almost unbearable as the interview went on. “Okay, I think that’s all we need for the article, a draft will be sent to your assistant to go over before we publish it in next week's business column.”

Stevi stands quickly, ready to put everything behind her and spend the rest of her day hiding in her office. Before she can leave, a hand is wrapped around her arm once again, and body right behind her. “Let me take you to dinner, darling. A reward for being good.”

The voice in her ear sends a shiver down her spine, and for a second she debates it, “Tom, I can’t. I don’t mix business with pleasure, this is already a conflict of interest.”

“More of those damn rules. Live a little, let your guard down for once.” He looks at her with pleading eyes, something that makes him look more like his true age. That feeling sneaks its way back into again, and for a moment, while she stares into his eyes, nothing else exists. Just the two of them and a world of possibilities.

“If I say yes, this stays between us. The people we are here, and the people we are then are not the same. My job may not seem dangerous to you, but it could be very bad for me if someone gets the wrong idea.”

Tom nods, he knows all too well what she means. “Tonight at 7, meet me at The Garden on 22nd, I’ll make the reservation.”

She agrees, lets him put his number in her phone, and gives Tom one last smile before heading down the hall to her office.

She jumps when she sees someone sitting at her desk, “James, what are you doing here?”

“What, can’t check in on my favourite captain?”

“Not without a secret agenda, and last I checked, I have nothing to report to you, I’m off duty.” Stevi walks towards him, pushing his legs off of her desk.

“Ah, sweetheart, you’re never off duty. Not when you’re talking to men like that.” James points out the door, to where Tom can be seen talking to the receptionist.

“That is none of your business, James.”

“I want details, everything you can find out about him, on my desk by Friday, you know what’ll happen if it’s not. Have a good day Stevi.” And with that, James walks out of the room, leaving a chill hanging in the air.

Stevi suddenly can’t breathe, the four walls surrounding her feeling like a cage. She quickly grabs her things and walks to Dianes’ office, telling her there’s a family emergency and she’ll work on the article at home. Within minutes she’s scrambling to get into her car, dialing Poppys’ number, needing someone to calm her down.

She spends the rest of the day on Poppys’ couch trying to recover from her near mental breakdown. This life was never something she wanted, she’d been dragged into it by her ex. After he failed to complete a simple task, he was killed in their apartment, and she was responsible for finishing it out. But it’s never that simple, one task turned into two, and then four, and now she was too far in to be able to leave.

All too soon, it was 6:30 and she was leaving for her date with Tom. She’d left Poppys an hour ago, promising her that there was nothing to worry about, it had just been a bad day. She drove in silence, not wanting to focus on anything but the road. She got to the restaurant right on time, quickly being seated in one of the private rooms. She’d been here once before with her parents when she first moved to the city. They’d taken her out to celebrate and they’d spent the night drinking fancy wine and eating more food than they could’ve ever imagined.

Lost in her memories, she didn’t realise how much time had passed since she’d arrived. Checking her phone she saw that it was now quarter past, and no sign of Tom. She tries texting him, thinking maybe he’d gotten off of work late. By 7:30 she starts to panic, she’s 2 glasses of wine in and still no sign of him. To no avail, she calls him, worry turning into anger when it goes straight to voicemail.

It’s almost 8 when the waiter informs her that Tom has called, he won’t be making it, but to order whatever she likes and he’ll pay for it.

And so she sits there, wine glass in hand, wishing she’d never even met Tom.

#tom holland #tom holland smut #tom holland fluff #tom holland angst #tom holland x reader #tom holland imagine #tom holland series #tom holland x oc #mob!tom holland x reader #tom holland and co

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fichtner-fics · 3 years

Text

Christmas Miracle (Alex Mahone)

Warnings: none (besides some spoilers in the context describing, mention about family problems (just a few words)), in contrary TOO MUCH FLUFF AND CUTENESS OMG my heart just can’t take that

Context: So this is a bit out of the PB storyline. Cameron, Alex’s son is alive, but Pam is not in the picture at all. I didn’t exactly clarified, where she is or what has happened to her (she’s not necessarily dead), and from the point of this fic it doesn’t matter. What does matter: Cameron is five (just like in the serie), living with his dad, spending so much time with Y/N (who isn’t from the office, not even working in law-enforcement). And the rest is down there, I just wanted to explain the basics. 😊

A/N: So I thought it would be nice to surprise you with a little Christmassy-Mahone, with so much fluff, cuteness, love, joy, gingerbread and sparkles. This is the end result. ✨ (2298 words??? sorry I was just typing and suddenly it happened) (I’m already visualising a secod part of this, help, things started to get out of my control)

Originally I wanted to post this on the 22nd, BUT I JUST COULDN’T WAIT YOUR REACTIONS so tell me tell me whatever you think about this. 😭😭

I know this is quite early to say, but I want y’all to have yourself a very happy, merry, holy, jolly, fun Christmas, take care yourselves, and rest as much as you can. We all have things to recover from, so let this period be that recovery’s time. Thank you all for making my 2020 whole, giving me some light during these shadowy times. It is such an adventure which started this year. ❤

I know I have 2 requests pending, I’ll start the next year with them. Pinky promise!

[yeah, that’s Carl Hickman on the gif, but as I realized there’s no footage in the wide Internet of Mahone smiling so I had to improvise😆; gif’s from here, thank you!]

Alex and I were friends for such a long time. Though during his marriage we hadn’t seen each other as frequently, our friendship remained. What’s more, since they split up with Pam and he was left alone with his son, I was the first person he came to. I usually cooked them and spent so much time with the little boy. We grew closer and closer – with both of the boys. With Cameron in the sense of a mother-son relationship and with his father… well, I fell in love with him, and I was quite sure that he felt almost the same way. There was nothing on Earth I would enjoy more than our long nights with deep conversations and a cup of tea, which happened pleasantly often. We could talk about anything and everything, he shared with me all his ups and downs, everything at the office, in his (ended) marriage, and vice versa. I didn’t have a failed marriage to talk about, but given my drunk father, I had some things to share about as well. Long story short, basically we would just have to say things out loud to become a couple.

Given Alex had to work late (unfortunately) on the 25th of December, he asked me to look after Cameron, which I took happily. I already planned our whole day during the night before, so I arrived with decided plans at their house.

First things first, we of course bake some gingerbread to build a house. When finally it wasn’t hot, I put everything on the table and called Cameron. While I was gathering some tools missing, he took the plate in front of him.

“We won’t have anything left to build the house if you keep eating all those gingerbreads” I said laughing and messing up little Cameron’s hair. He giggled but kept chewing a gingerbread man’s leg. “And tell me” I asked, sitting on the chair next to him “what did you wrote on your list?”

While I was waiting for him to answer, I started to prepare the frosting and the tubes with coloured icing in them.

“I asked a huge… truck…” he said excitedly. “With a remote controller. And a toolbox for myself, because daddy has his own, and I want to help him repair things. And some Lego!”

“That’s amazing. You will have so much fun with these” I smiled at him. “Give me two sidewalls, please” I said after finishing the preparation of the necessities. It wasn’t the funniest part of making the house for a five-year-old, but I hoped that by involving Cameron in the process would cheer him a bit. I put some frosting on the sides of the gingerbread, then glued two pieces together.

“And I asked a gun, too” he said suddenly, while we were holding the pieces to stick. I laughed in surprise.

“Like daddy’s” I presumed.

“Yes” the little boy chuckled again. “To fight the bad guys, so daddy don’t have to do it alone. And you know what else?” he whispered, leaning close to my ear. His huge, brown eyes sparkled in excitement, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“What else?” I whispered back, pecking his cute cheeks.

“I asked for you to be my mommy” he said out finally, scanning my face just to see my reaction.

At first, I couldn’t find the words. Just in a half second all our shared little tender moments with Alex flew in front of my eyes and suddenly I was aching for his love even stronger. I was so in love with him, I would do anything to know he feels the same. And of course, I was fond of this little boy, too. I already imagined the tree of us being a real, whole family.

“Aww, you’re so sweet, darling” I hugged him finally. He put his little arms around my neck and hugged back tightly. Luckily the frosting between the two gingerbread parts was stiff enough now to stand alone. “That would be my best Christmas present, too” I said quietly.

After our little squeeze-session, Cam helped me piping frosting and icing, pouring sprinkles and gluing sweets on the gingerbread roof with some syrup. Of course, at the end he looked like he was the one who had been decorated, but it was nothing a solid wash wouldn’t fix.

Rest of the day passed by with playing, laughing, and while he had his daytime nap I rested too. When I noticed the snow started to fall, I got so excited for Cam to wake up and see it.

It was around 4pm when I heard some noise from his room, so I went to take a look. He was sitting up in his bed with cute messy hair and sleepy eyes.

“Good morning, my sweetheart” I whispered happily. I sat next to him on the bed, letting him to lay on my lap. I started to play with his soft hair. “Did you sleep well?” I murmured. He was to drowsy yet, but his waggish smile already sparkled on his face.

“Yes. And… I dreamt about stars and reindeers” he said after a yawn. “And you and daddy and I was playing in the snow, really.”

“I’m so happy you dreamt these nice things” I smiled at him, gently touching his nose. Talking about it reminded me the fact that it was actually snowing outside.

“Hey, you want to see something amazing?” I asked after some minutes, leaving him stretching a bit and playing with his plush rabbit. When he agreed in a quiet, husky little voice, I took him, and we left the room.

Cameron stayed in my arms as we stood in front of the window in the living room. We were watching the silently falling, huge snow-petals. I was surprised that he didn’t change his mind after a few minutes and wanted to play or do anything else – he was unusually cuddly that day. He just leant to my chest with his thumb in mouth, breathing quietly while I was slowly rocking him. There were no lights on in the house besides the light garland’s yellow twinkle on the Christmas tree, which gave such a warmness to the room. It was just the two of us, the snow and the spirit of Christmas around us.

“Are you awake, honey?” I whispered, because I thought he fell back asleep. Feeling him nodding made me smile. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Can we go out for a walk?” he asked in a dreamy voice.

“We should wait for your dad to come home” I suggested. “If he arrives and it’s okay for him, we can go and check the Christmas lights in the street. How does it sound?” I placed a kiss in his hazel brown curls.

It was his first thing to ask when Alex entered the house a few hours later. He said yes of course, so we put on some warm clothes, and left. Cameron ran forward, leaving us slowly mooning behind him.

“Did your day went well?” Mahone asked quietly.

“Yeah” I looked at him. “We built a gingerbread house, which you could see only in its ruins, because Cam pretended to be a shark and… bite the roof off” I laughed. “We played hide and seek, drew some amazing pictures and while he took his nap, I finally finished my book.”

“I’m glad to hear” Alex nodded. As we walked, he suddenly offered me his arm. I glanced at him, and with cheeks turned into rose I accepted the gesture. “Thank you for being here for us” Alex whispered. “I have no idea what I would do without you. Truly.”

I smiled but remained silent, only fixing Cameron standing mesmerized in front of a huge, sparkling snowman statue. His words came up in my mind, and at that moment I decided not to let the moment go.

“Did he tell you what’s he wishing for?” I asked innocently.

“You mean the gun?” Alex burst out in laugh. “Yeah, well, he won’t get that one. Not yet” he shook his head. I refused the temptation of rolling my eyes.

“Mommy look” Cameron shouted when we finally reached where he stood. Timing is perfect, little guy, I thought myself.

“What did you say?” Alex asked immediately, astonished. I remained silent, curiously waiting for what was going to happen. “Since when do you call Y/N mom?”

“It’s a secret, dad” said the little boy. “Only Santa has to know, and mommy has to know” he added, while nodding seriously. Then he took my hand and started to pull me where he saw the thing he wanted to show me. Alex just frowned more, but this time looking at me, waiting for a proper answer.

“It’s on his list” I mouthed while smiling wide at the confused agent. I only hoped this is enough information him to understand the situation. Letting him go, I crouched next to Cameron, to look at a little sheep in a Nativity Scene he was excited about.

“Look at him, he’s so cute” I said kissing the little boy’s rosy, cold cheeks.

“Can we have one at home?” he looked at me. I chuckled and looked towards Mahone who stood a few steps behind us. His face surprised me. He was watching us so tenderly, with sparkling eye, slight smile glued on his lips. I felt my cheeks burn suddenly and I had to fall my eyes.

“I don’t think your dad would approve” I answered to Cam. “Go, have a look at Rudolph” I suggested, pointing towards an at least three metres tall, red reindeer-silhouette. The boy nodded, then he started running immediately.

“Don’t rush, son” Alex tried to calm him, without any effect at all of course. I stood up biting my lips, because I had no idea what the agent will say about what happened earlier. “So, what’s this between you two and Saint Nick?” he laughed as I took his arm again. We walked slow, so he could scan my face as I looked at him almost laughing in embarrassment.

“Cameron wants Santa to make me his mom” I replied shyly. “I think he wants him to be reminded. But as you heard, it’s a secret, so I shouldn’t have told this to you.”

“This means I have to wrap you and place under our tree?” he asked. I heard on his voice that he was playing. If it wasn’t for his arm, I’d fly away by happiness for sure.

“Why, do you think it’s a wish so easy to make come true?” I teased back.

“Well, this is Santa Claus we’re talking about. He can do anything” he looked at me, smiling wide.

Suddenly I felt myself ran out of words. These past three minutes made me fall for Mahone even harder, but I couldn’t imagine what was going to happen. I pulled him closer, and in the same moment he lifted his other hand to fold on mine. When I looked at him in surprise, I found his wondrously blue, sparkly eyes already fixing me. He smiled at me, and I suddenly got sure about the meaning of the word ‘Christmas miracle’.

We remained silent until finally reaching Cameron, who basically looked around in the whole street while we walked slowly after him. When he noticed us, hugged our legs.

“Hey baby” I ran through my fingers in the boy’s hair.

“Aren’t you cold, buddy? Can we go home now, you saw everything?” Alex asked.

“Yes” Cameron nodded looking up at his father, but he suddenly froze. “Look daddy, mistletoe!” he pointed above us. And he was right. We stood right under the huge reindeer, who has a great deal of mistletoe hanging in his neck. I laughed out loud, shaking my head. This only could happen in movies.

“Do you know what it means, Cam?” Alex asked his boy but smirking at me. He shook his head. “We all can wish something” Alex explained, awfully misinterpreting the whole thing. I curiously watched them, my eyes jumping from one to the other, and I couldn’t believe what Mahone was doing. “But we must close our eyes, otherwise it won’t come true” he warned his son. “I count to three, then everybody shuts their eye, okay?”

“Okay, daddy” Cameron replied, then he lifted his hands, ready to place them in front of his face. When Alex counted three and Cam covered his face, we looked at each other, and within a split second he placed his cold lips upon mines. I felt him cupping my cheeks and I pulled him closer by his waist. He let me go after a little while, but before he would completely pull away, he whispered just on my lips:

“I love you.”

“I love you too” I breathed back. Suddenly we heard Cameron bursting out in chuckling. When we looked at him, he stretched up his arms towards me, giving a sign he wants to be taken up.

“And I love you so much too” I squeezed him after lifting him in my arms, making Cam laugh even louder.

“What’s so funny, little man?” Alex asked smiling as well. He stood next to me so close, resting his hand on my waist. I looked aside at him, just to see the joy in his eyes.

“I peeked” Cameron giggled with his little hand in front of his mouth. He was so sweet I almost couldn’t bear.

“You were so fast making your wish” I said pretending some surprise. Alex laughed through his nose.

“Because I knew what I wanted to wish” the little boy rolled his eyes. “But you didn’t wish. I saw” he stated.

“What makes you think we didn’t wish?” his father asked.

“Bec…” he yawned just in the middle of his sentence. “Because you kissed Y/N, so you didn’t have time for… wishing” he grimaced by pulling up his nose impishly.

“Hey, I made one” I said while nodding. “Did you make one?” I looked at Alex.

“Of course, I did. And you know what? It came real immediately” he added, looking straight into my eyes. Cameron gasped in surprise, and Alex pressed a soft kiss on my temple.

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what-if-rpg · 3 years

Photo

Welcome to the family, ALEX! Your application to FELIX HUDSON was accepted. We’re really happy to have you around! Make sure to read the beginners checklist, and remember, have fun! We can’t wait to roleplay with you! Have fun!

IN CHARACTER

CHARACTER NAME: Felix Gareth Hudson. CHARACTER AGE & DATE OF BIRTH: 20. November 22nd. OCCUPATION: Student at Ohio University, Part time music teacher at the right tone. FACE CLAIM: Charlie Gillespie. HOMETOWN & CITY WHERE LIVES NOW: Born in Lima, Ohio. Lives in Lima, Ohio. SEXUAL ORIENTATION & GENDER: He is Panromantic Bisexual. He identifies as Male. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single. POSITIVE TRAITS: Loyal - Protective - Passionate. NEGATIVE TRAITS: Stubborn - Possessive - Impulsive. CHARACTER QUOTE/LYRIC: Never let people make decisions regarding your life. I don’t think it would be your life if you let them decide, and if anything goes wrong, it would be your fault. It’s your life and you’re responsible for its mistakes and success, not them.

HEADCANONS

Felix has ADHD. That made him a very hard child, not just for his teachers. He was always talking, moving, touching objects, asking questions or simply squirming. He had certainly contributed to some early retirement from his previous teacher, even if he loved them a lot. His ADHD made sitting in a classroom very difficult, and to actually stay and do homework? That was torture. He used to run from the classroom and run around laughing because he was finally free! It also causes him to have some horrendous headaches. However, everything became better after it was discovered that music calmed him and helped with his concentration.

Despite his ADHD and the difficulties it brought to his studies, Felix was kind of good at school. Most of his teachers thought that he was a very unique type of student because he was very good at subjects that were deemed difficult to other students, and he was quick at understanding concepts, it was just difficult to make him concentrate. At the same time, he was bad at other subjects that the other students found easy - like spelling, or history. But he enjoyed reading, art and mathematics. Unfortunately, his grades becames average in high-school, probably because he already knew what he wanted to do as an adult and they weren’t needed for the most part.

For him, music is his life. He couldn't live without music. Not only because it brings joy to his life — not like other things don't do that too — but also because it makes his life easier. Music helps him concentrate and helps his brain slow down when needed. Of course, the fact that music helps him show his emotions easier is also another big factor for his love of it. Felix is good at it, too, especially at guitar — Electric or acoustic. His love for music had made him want to be a singer, an actor or maybe something related to it. And other than music, his second favorite thing in life are sweets; Cottom candy, chocolate bars, caramel, candy apple, fruits tanghulu and others. Now, if he would eat sweets while doing anything related to music? That would be the best, Neverland couldn’t even be able to compete with that!.

He always wanted to live in a big city, he dreamed about it for so long. However, after high-school, he weren't quick enough and it was too late to apply in the universities he wanted to study in LA and NY, so he tried for Ohio’s State university where he got accepted and even if he still lives in Lima, the fact that he is away from home was a little difficult for him. Too many changes. And so much had happened since his cousin left Lima that it was too overwhelming for him. Maybe he would start adjusting to being away from home, but slowly. Baby steps.

CONNECTIONS

MRS HUDSON (mother) : Felix loves his mother dearly. She is one of the strongest people he had ever known and he considers her as his hero. She had made him and his siblings grow while being a single mother and they weren’t the easiest bunch. Especially not him with his ADHD. He’s pretty sure she wanted to just scream for him to stop - whatever he was doing. She never did. He might still be difficult, stubborn and all, and they might have had fights and he probably had given her the silent treatment, but she is still his favorite person in the world. SBENJAMIN, LIAM, BRIAN & POSIE HUDSON (Siblings): For Felix, family is important. He loves his family, he might not say it often but he does, and he is quite protective over them even if they are older than him. He loves his siblings a lot. Doesn’t mean they don’t fight, get on each other’s nerves, or try to pull some pranks on each other, but they are still family. F He would do anything for them. FINN HUDSON (Cousin): Up to discussion. GABRIEL BERRY: Felix and Gabriel are around the same age, and they both lived in Lima. They went to Mckinley High School and shared a few classes together. They were not the best of friends, but they were kind of close.

#Felix Hudson #Charlie Gillespie #RP #RPG #Glee RP #Glee RPG #Accepted

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aaronhart93 · 3 years

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text || aarotin

Discord text thread featuring: Aaron & @quentindelancret

When: January 22nd, early morning into early evening

Mentions: @romanbeckett @davieslandon

Description: Aaron and Quentin fight about Quentin’s drug addiction

Trigger Warnings: addiction mentions, arguing

Quentin.

you okay baby?

I haven’t heard from you and I just wanted to check in. I love you

Aaron.

I love you too and miss you

Des has just been cranky all night.

Quentin.

oh man, I’m sorry baby. Is there anything I can do to help? I know it’s late but I can bring breakfast in the morning or anything you need

Aaron.

I think she's sick

i have to play the morning by ear. Depends on how she wakes up

Quentin.

okay baby. I hope she’s not sick though. Just let me know and I’ll help out any way that I can

Aaron.

thank you baby. I miss you

Quentin.

I miss you toooo

Aaron.

miss you more

Quentin.

Impossible. I’ve been thinking about you all day. I miss your scent

Aaron.

you have my hoodies. put one on babe

are you at home?

Quentin.

I already did

I am home. I’m supposed to go snuggle Romie but Delilah brought over drugs and now I’m too hyper for life lol

Aaron.

oooo yeah i was gonna ask you to go check on him...but it's okay

Quentin.

I will. I’m just trying to chill out for a minute. He’s gonna leave a key for me

Aaron.

I mean if you’re high...maybe just stay home

Quentin.

uhmm okay

Aaron.

i just dont want you leaving the house so late

Quentin.

I know

I’m sorry

Aaron.

i just....if you knew you were going to go over to his place to take care of him...why would you get high

Quentin.

I didn’t know exactly. He said he was gonna sleep but then he couldn’t, and Delilah was upset and I told her she could come over and talk. Then she had coke and I just... I’m sorry

please don’t be mad at me

Aaron.

im not mad im just

idk

feel some type of way about it

Quentin.

about the coke?

Aaron.

not necessarily. the fact that our partner is sick....you knew i had des tonight so couldn't go over there...i guess i just figured you'd be a little more responsible

it's okay...i dont want you to be worrying about these things anyway

ill take care of both of you.

Quentin.

I can be responsible Aaron. I thought he was gonna sleep. I’m still gonna go over there and take care of him. You both come before anything else for me and I’m sorry I misstepped. But I’m not gonna just leave him hanging.

Aaron.

even if he fell asleep and woke up and needed something...seriously though. i want you to have fun and live your life, im sorry i brought it up

Quentin.

Aaron.. stop it. What is going on with you? I’m fine. I can go over there right now. But you seem... on edge. Are you okay?

I wanna have fun and live my life with you and Roman. I fucked up okay? But I feel like there is something else nothing you

Aaron.

i fought with Landon the other day

Des might be sick

work sucked today and im stressed about Ro

im sorry

Quentin.

baby, I’m sorry. I know the whole Landon situation sucks. I wish I could fix it for you. I know I made things shittier before but I don’t wanna do that. I wanna be here for you. I can come see you after I check on Roman? Help you with Des and give you a massage. I’m worried about you

I’m coming. I won’t take no for an answer. I’m gonna give you a massage and get you in bed. Then I’ll go see Romie. I wanna be there for you both

Aaron.

Quentin, I love you. and thank you....I don't know how to tell you this but...I don't want you around Des if you've been using tonight.

Quentin.

Aaron.

Fine, I’m not gonna argue with you. See you tomorrow then?

Aaron.

yeah

Quentin.

okay

I’m sorry

Aaron.

im not mad

Quentin.

It’s okay. I understand.

I love you

Aaron.

dont be upset

Quentin.

of course I’m upset. I want to be there for you and I can’t

Aaron.

im okay, Q.

Quentin.

that’s not the point

I’m sorry I fucked up. I know you don’t want an addict around Des and that’s my fault

Aaron.

you're sick, i can help you

Quentin.

I’m sick?

Aaron.

addiction...its a diseae

disease

Quentin.

wow, Aaron.

yeah, I don’t wanna talk about this right now

Aaron.

you...brought it up...

Quentin.

yeah, I know. I guess I just didn’t really think you would agree with me

Aaron.

that i dont want someone on drugs around Des? Quentin...

you are making this into something it isnt

Quentin.

no, that you think I’m sick and need help.

I understand you not wanting me around Des. But it’s not like I’d ever hurt her

Aaron.

i know you would never and I'd never keep her from you

just sober up...and we'll talk in the morning i guess

Quentin.

I don’t even know what to say

I’m just sorry I’ve been such a burden.

yeah, we will talk tomorrow

Aaron.

back up

you're not a burden

Quentin, stop making things up in your head

Quentin.

I feel like I have been.

I don’t wanna add any more stress for you

Aaron.

Quentin, listen to me.

i cannot live without you.

Okay?

Quentin.

okay.

I’m just sorry

Aaron.

dont be. im sorry i was harsh

Quentin.

it’s fine.

I love you

Aaron.

i love you too. bring me breakfast in the morning??

Quentin.

of course. Let me know if you need any cough medicine or anything when Des gets up

Aaron.

thank you, my love

goodnight

Quentin.

anytime. Goodnight baby

early evening...

Quentin.

I’m sorry about last night

I’m trying to do better

Aaron.

it was my fault. Don’t worry about it

Quentin.

it wasn’t your fault. You told me how it is and I’ll fix it

Aaron.

okay

Quentin.

good talk

Aaron.

well do you wanna keep talking about it

Quentin.

Nope, I really don’t.

Aaron.

I don’t know what else to say because I don’t either

Quentin.

I’ll just leave you alone

Aaron.

or like we could talk about literally anything else

I missed you today, okay?

Quentin.

yeah, I missed you too

Aaron.

like a lot

I pulled Des from school and had a day with her

it was nice

Quentin.

that sounds fun

Aaron.

it was

Quentin.

I’ll let you get back to it then

Aaron.

oh okay

I love you

Quentin.

you too

Aaron.

Quentin

I’m sorry okay?

Quentin.

it’s fine. I’m really just moody today.

I’m trying to stay away from the happy pills ya know?

Aaron.

I don’t want you to do something that you’re not ready for. If you aren’t ready to stay off of them, then it’s okay

Quentin.

the thing is Aaron, I’m never gonna be ready. I take molly literally every day. Most times people can’t even tell it’s that bad. But I know it bothers you and Roman and I’m done

Aaron.

that’s brave

and makes me happy. That’s one of the reasons i know you love me

Quentin.

of course I love you

Aaron.

I know

Quentin.

I’m just so sick of disappointing you

Aaron.

I’m not going anywhere okay?

Quentin.

yeah

Aaron.

I’m serious

Quentin.

okay

Aaron.

are you mad at me

Quentin.

no I’m not mad. I just don’t feel like we’re as close as we used to be

Aaron.

because of an argument?

Quentin.

No not because of an argument Aaron

because you just seem distant all the time

Aaron.

I...

im sorry. It’s not on purpose

Quentin.

it’s fine

Aaron.

how can I be better

Quentin.

I’m just gonna take a few days to myself

Aaron.

oh okay

Quentin.

I don’t want to make anything worse by staying here

I get so all over the place with my emotions and without drugs I’m scared of what I might say or do

Aaron.

maybe tell your doctor? For medicine?

Quentin.

I don’t have a doctor

and I don’t want one honestly

they just make me relive shit I don’t want to and that isn’t gonna help anything

Aaron.

I can get you into a primary care doctor with no issue

not a therapist. Just a regular doctor

Quentin. What have I done wrong? It’s obviously something

Quentin.

you didn’t do anything. It’s just me.

Aaron.

tell me how I can help

Quentin.

my expectations and my delusions of how I thought things would be. It’s fine, I’ll handle it, I’ll make it better

Aaron.

how did you think things would be?

Quentin.

different

Aaron.

well what can we do better baby

I will do anything for you

Quentin.

it’s not you. I’m pretty sure it’s all me

ya know.. how I get in my head and shit

Aaron.

what can I do for you when you get in your head

to help

Quentin.

I don’t know. You can’t fix me. It doesn’t work like that

I’m just, I’m tired.

Aaron.

well now I’m scared

Quentin.

of what?

don’t be scared Aaron. I love you. I just, I can’t see you right now. But soon.. okay?

two days. That’s it.

Aaron.

where are you going

why can’t you see me

Quentin.

I’m just gonna go see my brother I think. Maybe fix things with him.

I can’t see you because I know if I do I’ll change my mind about taking some time away

but it’s okay, I wanna see you. Come see me

Aaron.

alright I’m coming

Quentin.

good. I love you

Aaron.

I love you so fucking much

Quentin.

the feeling is very mutual baby

I promise it’s gonna be okay. Alright? I just need to get my head right

Aaron.

okay

Quentin.

and it’s not your fault.

Aaron.

Idk

Quentin.

its me, I swear it’s me. That sounds cliche but it really is. I’m gonna fix it

I mean, honestly. All I can think about right now is how I wanna jump on you when I see you and never let go. But I need to stop being so closed off. I know that just makes you closed off and then I blame you. But it’s not you. You just .. you have this effect on me that really scares the shit out of me

Aaron.

is that effect a bad thing?

Quentin.

uhmmm

I don’t know. Is it?

Aaron.

I don’t know. Is it a good scare or bad scare

Quentin.

both

Aaron.

how do I scare you?

Quentin.

It’s like... you’re so out of my league and I don’t wanna do or say anything to make you leave. I’m like, I’m a lot, and I know I can be. It just scares me that makes I’m too much sometimes

Aaron.

I am not out of your league.

you are 1 of 2 of the hottest men in Kingsboro and I have both of them lol

Quentin.

you are totally out of my league. You’re like, God, I can’t even put you into words. Then there’s me. Partying, acting crazy, doing stupid shit. Idk. It’s like I’m an embarrassment next to you. But I mean, if I’m that hot I must not be so bad lol

you’re also like.. so hot! I can’t breathe lol

#text #text: quentin #discord #quentin

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dorevenge · 3 years

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where ignorance is bliss - chapter 4: except the willow

SUMMARY: Maria is forcefully escorted from the betting room, when she encounters the owner of the casino himself. [AO3 LINK]

CHAPTERS: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ☆

November 20, 1959 – Monaco, France, The Hellfire Club

I’ve never thought about my what last words would be. I had always assumed I would be 98, having aged better than brie, lying in bed surrounded by my family, my curls perfectly falling around my face, with a pristine pale pink lipstick and pearls on my neck and diamonds on my ears. I’d have outlived my husband, as I’ve always flocked towards older men, but I would see him reflected in my great-grandchildren, one of whom would have shared my philanthropic interests. I’d leave them all with some well-planned poetry, a single sentence that would change every one of their lives, resound in them and inspire them to change their actions for the better, but, as of now, due to my arrogant foolishness, my last words were to be “I’d rather stay here and keep losing.” And no one would remember them.

Thick arms wrap around mine, hiking me up by the armpits, and I am escorted out of the casino and through the hotel lobby, my high heels scrambling to make purchase on the ground below me. The few people scattered in the lobby pause to look at me, and then keep walking. The fun from the baccarat game has dwindled, the rosiness falling from my cheeks and panic settling in my chest. I couldn’t pull against them; there’s no way I could win in a fight even with some of Peggy’s training. I should have taken her up on her thigh holster offer.

The men stop briefly at the front desk. “What room is Ms. Carbonell staying in?”

“Obadiah won’t let you get away with this,” I grit, my arms pinned behind my back.

“Mr. Stane is currently preoccupied.” One of the men asks for a spare key, and the desk attendant fumbles in the cabinet to find the correct one.

A man in glasses walks past, tall but not intimidating, broad-shouldered but not bulky, nose buried in a pile of papers in his hands, and glances up, pausing to evaluate the scene. Our eyes make contact, and it takes him a second to evaluate my panic.

“Do you need any help, madam?”

“She’s fine,” one of the suited men replies. I’m too startled to scream, or speak, or even think at all. All I can hope is that someone in the lobby reads my face and intervenes. Grumbling, they forgo the key, and pull me out of the hotel lobby towards the parking lot.

This is how I’m going to die, I think, reminiscing what a waste finishing school was since I never learned to hold my tongue anyway, and it is my penchant for petty remarks sending me to an early grave. I can’t keep up with their pace, my high heels catching in almost every dent in the asphalt, and I almost lose my balance several times.

We approach a long, sleek black car with darkened windows, and I finally start calling out, “Obie! Obadiah!” to the empty parking lot, writhing against the arms around me.

“Ms. Carbonell! I think you dropped an earring.” The voice comes from behind. It’s the man in glasses, walking swiftly, with authority, except for the little cowlick of dark black hair on the right side of his head, twirling in the breeze as he stalks forward.

The men holding me turn to confront him as he takes off his glasses and slides them into his breast pocket. The men’s postures drop and their faces fall. Their grip on me lessens. He runs a hand through his hair and stares them down.

“Mr. Stark.”

“Release Ms. Carbonell at once.”

“We’re sorry, Mr. Stark, she-”

“You do know what at once means, don’t you, boys?”

They release me.

“I cannot apologize enough, Ms. Carbonell, for the behavior of these men. If they offend you again, I will personally write to their employers.” He looks at each one of them sternly, in turn.

One of the men stiffens defiantly. “We didn’t recognize you, Mr. Stark. In the betting room-”

“When you are the one who owns the casino, only then should you be concerned about its finances.” Stark’s stern face softens when he turns to me, offering me his elbow. He nods at each man with authority, and they shrink away. My heart is still racing, and I still must not be thinking straight, because I loop my arm through his, my life in the hands of yet another stranger.

The dinner at one of the restaurants inside Hellfire is delectable, but dining with the owner probably helps. There were too many options on the menu that I eventually pointing to something at random and ordered that. I had very little to say, besides non merci to the waiters who kept offering us champagne and thanking Mr. Stark for his kindness. The anxiety has set into my bones and I can’t help but fidget.

“I already told you, Maria, just call me Howard.” Up close, I can see that he’s older, probably in his forties. Creases line his eyes and mouth, probably from charming the pants off too many investors, and the investors’ wives.

“Okay, Howard, does wearing glasses actually work? To go unnoticed.” I peer at him over the top of my waterglass.

“It does. Works wonders. I had read about it in a comic and wanted to give it a try. People act different when their boss is lurking around the corner, and sometimes I just want to be a guest in my own hotel.”

A waitress clears Howard’s empty plate, leaving my full one, and she brings the dessert menu to him. Without looking at it, he hands it back to her, ordering two beignets. She asks if we need anything else, chest puffed high and smiling bright, and Howard responds in near-perfect French without looking away from me. The waiter walks away, dejected, her hopes of charming the billionaire dashed.

I pick at the dish, too rich for my current anxious appetite. My anxiety hadn’t run out of fuel yet. “What’s eating you, doll?”

“Why were those men watching me? And where were they going to take me? I wasn’t cheating.”

“I know you weren’t cheating.”

“You know? How?”

“There are cameras everywhere in the game rooms, tiny ones in lamps and plants and around every corner. They can tell when someone is cheating, and your moves seemed very intentional. And putting money in my pocket isn’t exactly cheating.” I don’t ask how the cameras would be able to tell, as I’ve been to two of his expos now and haven’t understood any of the gadgets presented. Any explanation would just go over my head. I wonder how many cameras litter the restaurant.

He doesn’t answer my question and instead asks one of his own. “Why were you spending your partner’s money like that?”

My partner. That’s right, I am technically in business with Obadiah; we’ve kept our short engagement to ourselves, and he’s always introduced me as his accountant. I slide my hands into my lap to hide the ring on my finger, and slide the ring off once it’s out of view. “My answer to your question might be the same as your answer to mine.”

Howard’s face lights up, and he leans forward on the table to get a better look at me. “So you’re clever, too, and not just pretty.” He doesn’t ask it like a question, but a statement, and I try with all my might not to blush like a child. The waitress returns and clears our plates, bringing the dessert he ordered. Howard leans back with a sigh. “I’ve kept my eye on Stane for the last few years. Not a bad man, but not a great one. Desperate. I was desperate, too, for a while, ‘til I realized the only thing that gets you anywhere is hard work. That’s how America does it.”

“He says while dining in France.”

“Hey, I paid for the meal in America dollars, doll.” His smile is wide, and honest, and youthful and endearing and… and it belongs to Howard Stark, notorious womanizer. Still, I find myself smiling in return, chin propped up in my hand, gazing at him. I can’t get caught up in his displays of wealth, but his confidence is something else. Obadiah isn’t confident like Howard. Howard has confidence to spare. He could bottle it and sell it, and convince everyone he met to buy it, that’s how confident he is. “How long are you in Monaco?”

“I leave November 22nd. Obadiah has had long meetings every day.”

“And because he leaves you alone in your room, you squander his earnings at the betting table in retaliation?” I look up at him, in surprise and defense, and he chuckles to himself. “If I were him, I’d bring you to every meeting with me. You belong in the business room. What do you do at Stane International?”

“I keep the books. Accounting. I went to Columbia.” I want to impress him.

“And what do you do when you’re not working?”

“I work a lot with charities.”

“When you’re not working.”

“I suppose I dine with handsome strangers in foreign hotels.”

Howard takes one bite of the dessert delivered, then wipes his hands and rises to his feet. “Let’s go have some fun, Maria.”

“You’re only here for one more full day, is that right?” Howard asks me from the rooftop of the Hellfire Club. “Spend it with me. Obadiah won’t mind.”

He’s right; Obie wouldn’t even notice, and I don’t feel guilty for accepting. “What do you have in mind?”

We sit up there for hours, talking until sunset, the wind licking at his hair, teasing it from the gel. The soft colors of dusk make Howard look younger. I want to kiss him, I realize, and I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone before. At least, not like this. I push the feeling down deep. Every woman wants to kiss Howard Stark, with his deep brown eyes and his even deeper pockets. And if he wants to kiss me, he’ll have to work for it.

As if reading my mind, he whispers, “God, Maria, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. I’d give it all up just to kiss you.”

“Does that line usually work?” I turn away. I feel like a child in his gaze, naïve and eager.

“I don’t know. I’ve never used it before.” I don’t look at him, but I can feel his eyes on me. I fix my gaze hard on the horizon in front of me. After a moment, “Actually, I take it back. I don’t want to kiss you until I’ve earned it. I want to do right by you, Maria. I’ll become an honest man for you.”

I want to believe him, but I also believe the stories. I don’t know what makes me so special in Howard’s eyes, but I feel more seen with him than I ever did with Obadiah, and it’s the last sign I need to leave him.

#where ignorance is bliss #wiib reading #marvel #iron man #howard stark #canary writes a fanfiction

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rhodochrosite-love · 4 years

Text

WOW everyone who commented on my Wirt birthday post are amazing!

Here’s the au I’ve been working on where it started off as just a Ford Pines self insert, but turned into very interesting idea!

Stanley is kicked out and Ford goes to Backupsmore, while Penny stays in Jersey to help pay off her childhood home’s mortgage. All in the early 1970s.

Ford is awarded a doctorate 3 years ahead of schedule, and prepares to move to Gravity Falls, Oregon in 1973.

In the same instant, Ford gets a call from his parents and after he tells them he’s moving to the northwest, they inform him of Penny living with them. Shocked, Ford is conflicted. Should he go to his sweetheart? He couldn’t imagine what could’ve happened that made her stay in his parents home… After consulting with Fiddleford, he quickly travelled back to Jersey to confront Penny.

Penny explains that she couldn’t take care of the house like she thought she could, what with her book-keeping job as well as her secretary position AND the pressure from it all really weighing her down. She couldn’t help her home anymore so she turned to the only people she knew left in Glass Shard-- Filbrick and Caryn Pines. She had been pulling her weight with buying food, despite Caryn’s pleas to rest whenever she could and her job offers.

Ford listened and took her side. He said he was moving out West to Oregon and had wanted her to come with him. He missed her dearly and could clearly see she needed to get away-- Jersey is no place for a princess.

She accepts in a heartbeat at the thought of living out there, alone with her sweetheart amongst the wood.

1972-1979 Penny and Ford start a life of adventure in Gravity Falls up in their cabin in the woods, catalouging new anomalies every day! After such a hard time, Penny adores the relaxing atmosphere and spending time with her boyfriend after 3(ish) years.

C. 1976 Penny can’t help but begin to think about the future with Ford, and tries to decide whether or not they should marry. In her heart she knows she wants to, but in her mind she feels as though Ford wouldn’t be as on board for whatever reason. After speaking with Susan (Lazy Susan) and Lana (Wendy’s mom), her newfound friends, she decides she has to speak with Ford!

After being avoided most of the day by her beloved (due to him being very distracted by the mystery of the Hide-Behind, and eventually their unavoidable run-in with it. emotional scenes with Penny’s annoyed tone) At the end of the day, Ford admits over dinner that he was avoiding her for the whole day due to his nervousness. After being asked why, he tells her that… “I’ve been fascinated by anomalies my whole life-- the Hide-Behind, the Gnomes, the Eyebats, that UFO theory I’ve still got stuck in my head--” “Stanford, please.” “--Even I, as normal as I may seem, my six fingers made me who I am today! … But… “ Ford reaches in his coat’s pocket, and pulls something from it and places it on the dinner table. “You, Penelope Wright, have been the one thing that’s done both for me-- Fascinated me, baffled me, cherished me, twirled me ‘round and ‘round again ‘til I was dizzy with delight.” “Ford, what’re ya sayin’?” “Penny, dearest... “ He reveals the item, it being a ring with the sweetest red gem in its center shaped like a rounded heart. Penny sniffled, “The apple… Stanford, you’re such a prince!” Before he could utter those four simple words, Penny kissed him breathless. When she pulled away, he was flushed from his ears to his nose and asked her then, whispered against her lips. She said yes, and then many times that night.

C. 1977 Bill realizes his plan is being challenged by this engagment! He had never thought of Penny to be a true problem until now, what with the now foretold probability of the wedding and children as a distraction! Bill makes a deal with Lana to guide Ford to the cave in which Bill was scribed by the natives in exchange for a long life. Ford summons Bill and to no avail, nothing happens until Ford falls asleep.

It was then Ford dreams about Bill and begins to work with him to open his dimension to study the weirdness of Gravity Falls and beyond.

With the new development in the mysteries, the wedding is delayed and Ford and Penny become very busy in their new findings with Bill’s help.

C. 1978 Fiddleford McGucket is employed as the head engineer in building the Portal to the other dimension. Upon hearing the news of Stanford’s engagment, he hoorah’d and congradulated his old roommate.

C. 1978-1979 The portal has been built, as well as the bunker and the second level of the basement. Fiddleford begins to despise his creation and begs Ford not to follow through with his plans and instead publish his findings and settle down properly with Penny. Ford declines and they move to test the portal the next day, Jan 18th 1979.

Jan 19th 1979. Fiddleford gets sucked into the portal, but then gets rescued by Penny and quits the whole she-bang.

Jan 20th, 1979. Bill sees that he has to manipulate Penny, too. She’d been taking Fidds’ side, and since she’s very close with Ford, it’s necessary. He enters her dreams and states that if she make a deal with him, he can make him see reality again. To Penny’s knowledge, Ford’s been driven to madness with his paranoia and struggles to see the light. Bill says that he can fix everything. If he ensconced a baby in Penny’s womb, one that’s both her’s and Ford’s completely, he will see the light again. In return, she has to take a hike. She makes the deal, and he ultimately sends her away. Confused, she cries. But when Bill explains that he basically makes her pregnant with a baby of a man that ‘doesn’t love her anymore’, and literally told her to ‘take a hike’. Embarrassed and humiliated, she flees into town and stays there, leaving Bill to torment Ford to his isoceles heart’s delight.

Sometime in October, before the 22nd, 1979. Penny gives birth to little Walter in Sacred Hirsch Community Hospital. At this point in time, Ford has been thrown into the portal by accident and Stanley has taken his place, in the process of making money for the new Murder Hut.

1980. Penny interrogates this new so-called Mr. Mystery, thinking he’s Ford. She rips at him, accusing him of neglecting her and hurting her. A lot of anger comes out, as well as sadness and despair and raw misery when she says that he no longer cared about her, and she doubted he ever had in the first place. When Stan pulls her to the side and finally looks her in the face clearly (before he was frantically looking around the room, his hut full of customers), he recognizes her faintly as Penelope Wright, the girl Sixer was in kahoots with back in Jersey. He sees her and the now crying baby she’s holding and connects the dots, and is flabbergasted that he’s an uncle! Well, he was already an uncle but that was for Shermie! Penny argues that it was a mistake. Little Walter was the making of a demon named Bill Cipher, and she never should have trusted him. Stan then takes her down to the basement and shows her what he’s done.

1981. Penny gets a job as a waitress at Greasy’s Diner with a little help from Lazy Susan.

1982. Penny needs to start fresh. Despite the fact that she’s got a job and is living with Stanley with a 3 year old Wirt (despite being named Walter, his first word was an attempt at ‘squirt’, which was a nickname given to him by Stanley. Everyone simply calls him Wirt now), she misses all the adventure from when she had Ford. Realizing she’s missing Ford, that son of a bitch that fell into a hole so deep he couldn’t climb out, she needs to get away. She saves up money from her Greasy’s job and now the Mystery Shack (unofficially hired. Stan just says that she’s always rearranging and flipping stuff over and it happens to look nice so he gives her some funds. She’s tried to refuse the money before, but he intensly insisted that she take it.) and moves to Arizona. Teary goodbyes are made and she hugs Stan the tightest of all, telling him to keep in touch.

1983-1994. Walter “Wirt” Wright is living in Arizona with his mother, Penelope Wright.

C. 1985. Greg Universe visits town and performs a live gig and seduces Penny. After a couple of succesful dates, they end up having unprotected sex. Not long after, he leaves town for another gig in Delmarva, doing gigs along the way. She ends up falling pregnant and struggles to comprehend the consequences.

C. 1986. Gregory Wright is born.

C. 1994. Halloween night, Wirt and Greg experience an adventure in The Unknown.

1999. Mason and Mabel Pines are born from Randy Pines and Kathy Pines

(2003. Steven Universe is born from Gregory “Universe” DeMayo and Pink “Rose Quartz” Diamond. Everything that happens with Steven is seperate from Dipper, Mabel, Wirt, and Greg.)

Update - Summer 2012. Penny takes a vacation to Gravity Falls and visits the Mystery Shack. She marvels at Dipper and Mabel and exclaims their cuteness. Mabel likes her when she’s given a butterscotch, but Dipper can’t help but question her motives. She seems awfully close with Stan and gets along well with everyone! Is she hiding something?

All is well until Dipper catches Penny trying to steal Journal #3, and he fights with her over it in his bedroom. Penny falls down and cracks something, making her scream. Stan rushes upstairs and takes Penny away, giving Dipper a nasty stinkeye. He tries to argue that she was trying to take his Journal, and Stan reacts by taking it himself.

Stan and Penny argue in the basement, saying that Dipper should have the Journal back. Stan tries to argue that he shouldn’t, but gives in. After making photocopies, Penny gives it back to Dipper. At first Dipper is skeptical, but awes when she tears up in front of him about it.

“Wow… You really care about the author, don’t you?” “Yeah, we were close…” She sits down beside him, opening the Journal to the Gnomes. “I remember the first time we saw the gnomes together… They tried to take me as queen!” “No way! They took Mabel as queen two weeks ago!” DIpper interjected, to which Penny laughed. “That explains this, then!” She pointed her crooked finger to the words; “Weakness: LEAFBLOWERS!” They both laughed.

At the end of it all, Dipper trusted Penny infineitly more. He was also more curious, as she knew the author. She wouldn’t give him a straight answer, however. Just saying he reminded her of her own son, Walter.

Penny stays in Gravity Falls until the Twins’ Birthday is over and they’re heading off to California.

August 22-25 2012. Weirdmageddon takes place. Penny serves as a scavenger and is found by McGucket and taken back to the Mystery Shack to be protected. She joins in the fight to defeat Bill Cipher, and when everyone’s in the Fearamid, it’s the first time Penny’s seen Stanford in nearly 33 years. He begins by saying hello, and saying he missed her. Before he can say anything further, she hugs him tightly, saying that he can apologize later. He prepares to retort, but when seeing Fidds’ face in response, he quietly hushes and hugs her back.

August 28 2012. Ford apologizes for how he acted and what he had done to her, like he always should have. She tells him about their son Wirt and he’s shocked. She tells him the deal she made and how she moved out of the state. After that conversation he hugs her tight and says she never should have gone through that. If he were a better man back then, she wouldn’t have had to make a deal to have a baby.

The same day, Mabel secretly arranges a wedding for her Grunkle Ford and new ‘Grauntie Penny’. Stan is on the sidelines for the whole occassion, but finally takes his brothers side as the Best Man. Mabel is the flower girl and Dipper bares the rings, while Susan is her maid of honor. Stanford promises to protect and cherish her for as long as he lives. Penny promises to care for him and heal him when the times arise. They smooch after some crazy heartfelt vows, thus they are married.

October 15 2012. Penny and Ford celebrate Wirt’s 33rd birthday. Wirt still isn’t used to his dad but comes around when he sees just how quizzical he is. They’re so alike it’s crazy!

November 2012. Penny joins Stan and Ford on the Stan ‘O War II.

(just to keep track-- in 2020 Wirt is 41, Dip and Mabs are 21, Greg is 34, and Steven is 17)

Mans that’s what I have! I’d love to hear anything from y’all about this!

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recentanimenews · 3 years

Text

INTERVIEW: D4DJ Voice Actors Yuka Nishio, Aimi, and Risa Tsumugi

Danni Wilmoth contributed to this article.

Everyone has wanted to be a DJ at least once in their life. Just imagining yourself up on stage in front of the bright lights and bumping crowds knowing full well one flick of your wrist can set them reeling is enough to get the heart pumping. Odds are most of us will never get to be a DJ, though. Thankfully, anime has got us covered with D4DJ First Mix, this season’s hottest (and only) show about becoming the most show-stopping, pulse-pounding DJ there is!

D4DJ First Mix focuses on Rinku Aimoto, a high school girl returning to Japan from abroad. She transfers to Yoba Academy, where DJing turns out to be quite a popular activity. After attending a set on campus and falling in love with the world of DJs, Rinku gathers her friends to start their own DJ group called Happy Around!

After the premiere, we caught up with actresses Yuka Nishio (the voice of Rinku Aimoto) Aimi (the voice of Kyoko Yamate) and Risa Tsumugi (the voice of Saki Izumo) from the show to talk about the characters they play, preparing for their roles, and what they like most about the DJ lifestyle.

To start off, could you introduce yourself and your characters?

Yuka Nishio: I’m Yuka Nishio and I’m the voice of Rinku Aimoto from Happy Around! Rinku can sometimes be seen as an oddball by others since she is from an island filled with wilderness in Africa. Rinku is extremely bright and cheerful, like the sun that gives energy to everyone, and also like a storm that pulls everybody around her into whatever she’s interested in.

Aimi: Hello everyone. I’m Aimi and I voice Kyoko Yamate. Kyoko is the vocalist of Peaky P-key and is a cool charismatic girl.

Risa Tsumugi: Hi! I’m Risa Tsumugi and I voice Saki Izumo! Saki-chan is… if I describe her in one word, the universe. Her interaction with the big sisters in Photon Maiden who support her warmly is very cute!

Please tell us the most charming part of your character.

Nishio: Rinku’s charm is that you just can’t hate her regardless of her lack of common sense, and her extremely cheerful nature due to growing up in the wilderness!

Aimi: Kyoko spares no effort to improve her music and is strict with herself, but she shows smiles to her friends often. That character gap is her charm.

Tsumugi: Saki is just so adorable! Please excuse me from being agonized by her cuteness every time I play her. (Laughs) Even though she appears to be a person with common sense, she can be odd and goofy sometimes. However, her style on the stage is totally different from how she usually is, which is her charm. She also has “synesthesia” so please take notice of that part of her as well!

D4DJ First Mix released the first episode on October 22nd for early streaming. Are there any scenes from the 1st episode that was memorable to you? Are there any parts that the fans should pay special attention to?

Nishio: The scene where Rinku learns how to DJ from Maho was a memorable scene for me. Maho shows Rinku how to DJ, and she explains it as well so the audience can also understand what a DJ does, so please take a close look at that scene! Another scene would be the one right after that where Rinku senses that “WOW WAR TONIGHT” is coming up next; it was also a memorable scene to me since I have similar experiences often.

Aimi: The concert scene with Peaky P-key! It was so lively! I felt the excitement and couldn’t stop myself from dancing! I want everyone to watch it again and again!

Tsumugi: The first episode was already very “Happy Around!” like! (Laugh) I love their energy and how lively they are. The opening song is filled with their energy, and I love it! I also sing in the opening for a little bit as Saki with Kyoko-san, and their relationship is so precious…so please enjoy the opening song as well!

“DJ” is the theme of D4DJ. What kind of impression do you have about DJ's? Was there any change to your impression before and after joining the project?

Nishio: My impression of DJ’s didn’t change since I used to DJ at a club before joining D4DJ. However, clubs had an intimidating impression for me since I thought it would be full of party people before I started DJing. Now, DJing is a fun tool to share our favorite music and to enjoy music indefinitely by mixing and arranging!

Aimi: I didn’t have much knowledge about DJs before, but I got to feel how limitless music is! There are no restrictions to the performances, so I enjoy trying different methods to create exciting concerts!

Tsumugi: Since I also play a role as a DJ in a different title, I appreciated the joy of DJing through my role again. In the beginning, I was wondering “what does a DJ do?”, so I hope more people will know about the DJs through D4DJ!

When playing your character in the anime, is there anything you prepare in advance?

Nishio: Rinku is usually full of energy and excitement, so I uplift my mood as well before I play her by listening to my favorite songs or by running to physically energize myself.

Aimi: Kyoko is a role that requires convincing dance skills and high-level performances, so I started with building my stamina. I’m going to try my best to create her charismatic atmosphere!

Tsumugi: Actually, I had recorded for “D4DJ Groovy Mix” before the recording for the anime, so I was able to go into the role smoothly compared to back then. When I play her, I’m extra careful about not faking her cuteness. Saki has this pure and natural cuteness, so I try not to break that image of her.

Please tell us what you hope for the fans to expect in the future development after the 1st episode from your own perspective.

Nishio: All the members will be gathered and Happy Around! will be formed. Please look forward to how Happy Around! will grow, and how they build their friendship. There are concert scenes in each episode, so that’s also something to look forward to as well!

Aimi: In the first episode, the story of HapiAra-chan (*Happy Around!) excited me all the way from the beginning to the end. I think Kyoko felt the same way. Please look forward to how the members of Peaky P-key will come into the story!

Tsumugi: Please make sure to check out when and how Photon Maiden will be involved in the story, and how they will interact with HapiAra-san (Happy Around!) I suppose the key point is that Photon Maiden is a unique group since it has a producer and the members were selected from an audition!

The official YouTube channel is streaming D4DJ First Mix with subtitles in 7 languages, and anime fans all over the world are watching. Is there anything you would like to tell the overseas fans?

Nishio: Please enjoy D4DJ through the anime and also its music! D4DJ original songs are allowed for everyone to remix and upload, so I’m looking forward to listening to everyone’s remixes! (Note: Please refer to the official website for the regulations on the usage of D4DJ original music.)

Aimi: We will try our best to deliver the music of D4DJ to the world! I promise the best music and the best time at the live concert, so please come see us one day!

Tsumugi: WOW!! Hello everyone!!! I’m really happy that many people from different countries know and are watching D4DJ!! Anime, concerts, games and more are coming out, so check them out now!!

D4DJ First Mix is available on the D4DJ Global YouTube Channel with subtitles in 7 languages for free! You can join the Watch Party on the D4DJ Global YouTube Channel for each episode every Friday at 8:00PM (PST) / Saturday at 4am (UTC)! Share the excitement with other fans from all over the world!! Subtitles in other languages are also available on streaming platforms in various countries. For more details, please visit the official website.

https://en.d4dj-pj.com/animation/streaming/

To celebrate the global release of this interview, D4DJ First Mix is hosting an autograph giveaway featuring Yuka Nishio, Aimi, Risa Tsumgi, and Seiji Mizushima for 12 lucky winners!

To participate, please follow the instructions below.

1. Share or retweet the social media post about this interview.

2. Follow at least one of the following D4DJ Global Social Media channels to stand a chance to win an autograph.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/D4DJProjectEN

Twitter: https://twitter.com/D4DJ_pj_EN

Share this on social media and follow/like the D4DJ Global Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to stand a chance to win an autograph by the director or one of the cast.

By: Guest Author

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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ottelis · 4 years

Photo

“I gave you my life, Eliott,” Lucas’s voice shatters, splinters.

Eliott replies softly, broken, hollow, “And I gave you mine.”

“No,” Lucas says, low and dark. “No, you didn’t.”

aka: eliott and lucas grow up together, but are separated when eliott is institutionalized in paris after a severe depressive episode. they reunite two years later when eliott is released, but everything has already changed before their eyes.

epigraph. i. ii.

tw: mentions of minor character death, mentions and brief descriptions of electroconvulsive therapy

june 22nd, 1968

11:01

caen, france

Eliott wakes up the next morning with a headache and a hollow chest. Memories from the day before reenter his mind slowly, as if the pain had fallen asleep and was waking up with him. He’d cried for hours, and his mother held him until his tears ran dry. Eliott was left with that exhausted, gutted-out feeling. He’d spent all his energy mourning. Mourning the loss of Lucas, his father, the town and the world he once knew, everything he once knew. Even when his eyes had become dry, he still had so much mourning inside of him, but it had lost all of its escape routes. It hid inside him, tucked itself away in the marrow of his bones, the back of his skull, the tips of his fingers and toes. It disguised itself and traveled within his blood, coursing through him until it had touched every part of him. And as Eliott stares up at his ceiling, hours and hours later, he realizes far too quickly that it still hasn’t run its course.

The waking pain yawns, almost swallowing him whole. He wonders if this could send him into some pit, some black hole that he’s visited once before. He wonders if it could send him back to that awful, awful place he swears lies nowhere on the earth’s gentle, scarred surface. The waking pain stretches, and Eliott feels it wearing on his soul. He feels it pulling, tugging, and he feels his soul trembling and moaning and wailing. It calls for his father, his mother, Lucas, anyone. Anyone who can take the waking pain away, put it back to sleep before its cold, dark eyes fully open, before it bares its claws and roars rumble from its throat.

But Papa is dead. Maman loves him, but she doesn’t understand what he’s going through. Lucas hates him, and he won’t understand what he’s been through. And there’s no one else who can heal him like Papa, Maman, and Lucas could. The moment Eliott started getting sick, he lost any sort of love and care anyone could give him. Every time Papa clapped his hand on his shoulder and smiled at him, every time Maman kissed his forehead and brushed his hair out of his eyes, every time Lucas kissed him until he was dizzy and touched him until he melted, it was useless, a waste of time, energy, love. And he kept demanding more, draining them until they ran dry. He was never satisfied, not truly. It was like a thunderstorm. It soaked him, wetting his hair and chilling his bones and skin. It was cold, shocking him into living, but not quite into thriving. But the clouds would stop crying, lose their voices, and the droplets resting on his skin would dry, die, fade away.

Was he selfish? Is he selfish?

And where is the healing his mother talked about? He can’t feel it holding his hand. He can’t feel it guiding him through the hurt. Has the healing abandoned him? Has it grown so tired from Eliott’s mind turning against him over and over and over and over again that it’s given up on him? Can the healing only reach certain people? Does the healing abandon those who are beyond saving? Has it abandoned him already?

His thoughts, his spiral, are cut off by the shrill whistle of a kettle. It startles him a bit, but the thought of his mother making tea made everything just a little brighter, like the flame of a candle. He exhales slowly, telling his mind to slow down, to quiet. Just for a moment, he reasons with it. Please.

He sits up, his body suddenly feeling weightless, thin and translucent like smoke. He takes another deep breath, letting the air fill him as much as it could.

Breathe, a thousand voices tell him. His parents, Lucas, his doctors, himself. Breathe. It will pass.

He climbs out of his bed, his feet meeting fabric when they touch the floor. He looks down and sees his father’s coat lying in a pile on the floor. He doesn’t remember taking it off. He picks it up and shrugs it on, the fabric still warm and smooth. It’s heavy, too, weighing on his shoulders, his back. Another deep breath: in, then out.

He walks across his room to his door, opening it slowly so it doesn’t creak. The kettle is louder now, and he hears pots and pans clanging against each other. He’ll eat a meal with his mother again for the first time in two years. They’ll sit at the dining table, and Maman will set it, laying down the placemats she sewed and embroidered herself before he was born. She’ll set Papa’s place, too, and tears will fill her eyes and her lips will wobble into a frown, but she’ll take a deep breath and make herself smile. The room will be laced with a sudden, subtle chill, as if Papa was there with them, cold and silent and looming. He’ll feel sick to his stomach, but he forces the nausea down. His mother will say grace, and thank God for their home, their family, their health, the food that they are about to eat. He’ll listen, his eyes closed, but hear his father’s voice in the back of his mind. Papa used to say grace at every meal. But then Papa died on a bright, clear, spring morning. The sun had risen early that day, and he wonders if Papa saw it before his lungs shriveled up and his eyes glazed over. There was never a day more beautiful, and there was never a day more terrible. His mother will say at least one time today how he looks just like Papa. She’ll sound tired, but soft; sad, but fond. He’ll smile and say that he knows, and he’ll wish Lucas’s parallel universes were real and that he could reach out and touch one, live in one, even if just for a day. One where everything is normal again. One where he isn’t sick. One where his father is still alive and laughing. One where his mother smiles widely and sings everywhere she goes. One where Lucas doesn’t hate him. One where maybe he loves him. And this will happen—this wishing, this longing—every single day, for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he walks down the stairs that don’t creak anymore. He takes a step closer to a new normalcy, stagnancy.

He pauses at the last stair, silencing memories of his mother singing from the kitchen, listening. But all he hears is something sizzling, something being poured. He hears his mother sigh, long and tired and weary. He feels a pang of guilt, and he’s too exhausted to fight it—a new normalcy, stagnancy. He descends the last stair, approaching the kitchen silently. The dining table is already set with three placemats: his, his mother’s, and his father’s. There are teacups beside each one, steam curling from their edges. His mother is standing over the stove, scrambling eggs. She’s dressed, her hair pulled back in a bun, her apron tied round her waist. Gray hangs beneath her eyes, and fatigue pulls down on the corners of her mouth. He feels the pang again, stronger, deeper. Had she been up all night worrying about him? Was she disappointed because her son was supposed to come back normal, the same, happy boy she loved so much, but he came back just as damaged as he was before?

“Oh, hi, honey,” she greets, snapping him out of his thoughts. “Did you sleep well? Do you feel any better?”

There’s a softness, a genuineness in her voice. She puts down her spatula, wipes her hands on her apron, and walks towards him. She gives him all of her attention. She listens to his every word, is watchful of his every move, every shift in his face. She loves him.

But he doesn’t know how to answer her. He shrugs. “I feel… Drained.”

She frowns, pushing his hair back from his eyes. “I’m sorry, dear.”

Eliott sighs. She doesn’t know what to say, and he doesn’t either. “It’s okay, Maman,” he mumbles. “I’ll be okay. I’ll get better.”

I’ll be okay. I’ll get better.

She smiles, then, and softly envelops him in her arms. He feels her heart beating against his, feels her inhale slowly, feels her tighten her grip on him. He closes his eyes, feeling a little closer to his old life, even if only by a step.

“I love you so much, my boy,” she says. “I want you to get better.”

“I will, Maman,” he promises her, his voice firmer, stronger than it has been before. “I will. I love you, too.”

The smell of smoke shatters the moment, pulls them apart.

“The eggs!” his mother groans, rushing over to the skillet. She stirs them furiously, the smoke thickening.

Eliott stifles a chuckle, walking over to her. “Are they okay?”

He looks inside, and the eggs are much darker than he’s sure his mother wanted them to be. They’re not burnt, but they’ll definitely be tough when they eat them.

“They’ve been better,” his mother sighs, turning down the heat.

“I think they’ll still taste good, Maman,” Eliott replies, still trying to hold back his laughter.

“I hope so,” she laughs, too. “Are you ready to eat, dear?”

Eliott isn’t all that hungry, but he smiles and nods. The small breaths of laughter leave his lungs, and he’s left with dread filling his stomach. He so desperately hates how much he needs everything to be normal again.

They never will be, he reminds himself. Never again. Move on. I’ll be okay. I’ll get better.

He fills his plate with as much food as he thinks he can stomach, setting it down at his place on the table. He always sat to the left of his father, who sat at the head of the table. His mother sat to his father’s right. Her and Eliott always looked at him as he talked about his day, as he asked about theirs. Eliott’s mother always told him how his father was never quite the same after he came home from the war, but Eliott always thought his father was the best man in the world. He was kind, caring, and he always listened. Eliott always wanted to be just like him when he was growing up. He was his hero. Now he’s just an empty chair, an empty placemat, a chill in the air.

He stares at his father’s place, his fork cold in his hand. He bites his lip, wills his mind to stop thinking.

“How did you stand it, Maman?” he blurts out, the question lingering dark and thin in the air between them. “Eating at our table, alone?”

His mother looks up at him, her eyes shining with tears. But she smiles, shrugs. “I had a lot of people over for dinner. The Lallemants, the Broussards, the Savarys, the Cazases. Anyone who needed a nice, home-cooked meal. And when I didn’t have anyone over, I would eat, and remind myself that both of you were still with me. You were a train ride away in Paris, and I knew I would see you again soon. And your father has always lived in my heart, dear. He still does. And he lives in yours, too. I would try to remember that we were all still together, in a way.”

“In some other universe,” Eliott mutters, Lucas’s voice lingering in the back of his mind.

His mother smiles. “I thought you didn’t believe in that.”

“Not in the way Lucas does,” Eliott replies, Lucas’s name bitter on his tongue.

Her smile falters. She puts her fork down, reaching her hand across the table and taking Eliott’s. “Maybe he just needs time, dear.”

“He’s had two years, Maman,” he sighs, every emotion he felt yesterday beginning to flood back. “Two years to remember everything I did to him. Two years to try and forget about me because I’m not the Eliott he knew anymore. He knows that. I know that. He’s had nothing but time to make up his mind about me. And you know him. He doesn’t change his mind very often. He’s angry at me, he hates me, and I’m beginning to think he always will.”

She doesn’t reply at first. And when she does, it’s quiet, pitiful, “Eliott…”

“Can we not talk about him, Maman?” Eliott pleads. “It… It hurts too much.”

“Okay,” she agrees, squeezing his hand.

But Eliott is still thinking about him. His handsome, still familiar face twisting in anger, his silvery voice splintering and shattering, the oceans in his eyes spilling over onto his cheeks. The picture of agony, of devastation. And Eliott did that to him.

“He’s my best friend,” he whispers, his voice not strong enough to declare it.

“Eliott, honey,” she sighs, sympathetic.

“We were gonna be best friends forever,” he continues, tears rolling down his cheeks. “But I…”

His mother rises from her seat and hurries over to him, wrapping him in her arms. She holds him tight, kisses his hair, his forehead. “Tell me how to take the pain away, dear,” she whispers, her voice thin with tears.

His answer is quiet, hopeless: “I don’t know, Maman.”

june 24th, 1968

16:00

caen, france

The next couple of days are long, but they blur together, like an ink smudge, or the trees through the window when you’re riding in the car. Eliott feels numb. He sleeps to escape the pain of being awake. He takes small bites of food. He watches the television and lets the noise lull him into another world, one he can get lost in, one where he can remember and the memories are softer, brighter. Sometimes he sits outside and tries to count the stars. Sometimes he listens for the moon’s song, wonders if she’s the only thing that can help him now. But she’s silent, still. He misses the moon’s songs. He misses his mother’s songs, too. He misses everything.

Today, he decides he’s going to visit his father’s grave. He asked if his mother if she wanted to come with him during lunch, and she smiled sadly and said yes. But a little later, she said, too. Eliott agreed.

They’re sitting in the car now, driving into town. Eliott isn’t sure what he’s feeling. He hasn’t been to the cemetery in almost two years. He didn’t go there much, even before he had to go to the institution. The scars were still too fresh. The thought of his father being dead still hadn’t sunk in fully. And, if he’s honest with himself, it still hasn’t. Whenever his mother wrote to him and told him she was gonna go up and visit him, he had a hope in the back of his mind that his father was coming, too, to surprise him. But, of course, he never did.

They pass Saint-Saveur, with its tall, pockmarked exterior and all its memories. The bells begin to peal, warm and brassy, echoing throughout the city. Eliott tries to push away memories of the funeral service they held within its walls. How his mother held onto him in her grief, and how as soon as she found someone else to lean on, he fell, exhausted, bereaved, into Lucas’s arms. And Lucas held him, patiently, gently. He looks away from the church and across the street at the little shops and houses. The town carries on, long after the bombs have detonated, long after the ashes and dust have settled, and not long after the best man to ever live on this earth was violently ripped from it far too soon. Then, his mother turns a corner, and the church is just a trembling image in the rearview mirror.

Eliott closes his eyes, focusing on the music on the radio. He waits for the music to cut off into silence, waits for the car to turn off, waits for his mother’s heavy, weary sigh. He waits.

The waiting ends a little too quickly for his taste.

He opens his eyes, and the first thing he sees is the sea of headstones. The grass around them is a rich green, but the overcast sky colors them even darker. Everything is in grayscale, almost. He can’t quite remember exactly where his father’s grave is. He remembers it being further back, closer to the trees. He remembers it being up to his right. Hopefully his mother knows where he is.

Eliott hears his mother’s seatbelt unbuckle, and his heart nearly drops to his stomach. He takes a deep breath.

“Ready, dear?” his mother asks him gently, carefully.

He lets his body take over, guide him. He unbuckles, too, nodding. “I’m ready.”

“Don’t forget his flowers,” she reminds him.

He shakes his head weakly. They’re sitting in his lap. “I won’t, Maman.”

They get out of the car, their feet meeting cracked pavement, and they take each other’s hands. They walk.

The world around them is eerily quiet. Despite the humidity clinging to everything it can touch, cool breezes break through it, sweeping over the land. Papa really is here, Eliott thinks to himself. He tries not to think about how the ground he’s walking on is full of caskets holding bones, the decaying, the newly dead. He tries not to think about how, somewhere here, his father is lying, sleeping, for eternity. He tries not to think about when they buried him—dust to dust, ashes to ashes; he was a good man; you poor boy, having to grow up without your father; what a pity; what a shame—and the flowers he held then, the flowers he’s holding now. He tries not to think. After all, it’s all he’s done the past two years. Try and fail to turn his mind off, try and fail to soothe it, try and fail to coax it, lead it down a different path. He’s surprised he still has the strength to try, knowing that all he’s ever done is fail.

His mother squeezes his hands, and he comes back down to earth.

“We’re almost there,” she tells him, her voice soothing.

They nearly reach the corner of the cemetery when his mother stops, letting out a shaky breath.

Eliott looks down, and he sees his father’s grave. Tears almost immediately fill his eyes. It’s worn now, faded. Battered and weathered. Has it really been that long since his father passed away? He studies the writing.

Eduard Demaury

décembre 2, 1923-mai 29, 1966

Un vaillant soldat, un mari dévoué et un père aimant

He squeezes his mother’s hand so hard he’s afraid he’s hurting her. He mutters an apology, his voice strangled through his tears. His feels his chest splitting open, his throat getting sore from holding back his sobs. He lets go of his mother’s hand, using it to wipe the tears that were flowing down his cheeks in rapids. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to gather himself again.

Breathe, the thousand voices tell him again. His father’s is the loudest. It’s how he’s always remembered it. It’s kind. It’s patient. It’s soothing, cooling, like a balm. It’s healing. It’s been two years since he heard his father’s voice, but he’ll never hear it again within the walls of their house, or in the salty air crashing up from the waves. His voice will only live within the confines of his mind. It’s stuck in a maze. A maze of memories, of emotions, of impulses and despairings, and yet it navigates it in the moments Eliott needs it most, and it’s there. It’s here!

Eliott begins to cry harder, his breaths coming out in short hiccups. He misses his father, but he’s here! He’s here, speaking to him! He tries to breathe more slowly, deeply, remind himself that he’s here!

Breathe, his father’s voice says again. Eliott’s heart swells.

“Do we need to leave, dear?” his mother asks, her voice kind but anxious.

Eliott takes another deep breath, then shakes his head. “I just miss him.”

He feels his mother drape her arm across his shoulders, pulling him close. She doesn’t say anything. She kisses his temple and ruffles his hair. She lets him cry.

He keeps hearing his father’s voice in his mind. Somehow, it dries his eyes. Somehow, the chill dissipates, the wind quiets, his mind quiets.

He lets the last of his tears roll slowly down his cheeks, lets the last of the breaths lodged in his throat escape violently, sweetly.

Then there’s a calm.

“I miss him, too,” his mother finally says, squeezing him tighter. “But you and I are together again. And he’s watching over us. I know it.”

Eliott nods. “I know it, too.”

“Do you want to put the flowers down?” his mother asks, the anxiety disappearing from her voice.

Eliott nods again, stepping closer to the headstone. He places the flowers down carefully, their petals of rich red, brilliant blue, and pure white brightening the whole world around them. Eliott smiles.

“I’m home now, Papa,” he says, his voice bright and clear. “I love you. Thank you.”

Eliott and his mother linger for a moment, holding each other. The clouds darken above them, but Eliott feels nothing but light.

june 26th, 1967

13:30

paris, france

Yesterday was Eliott’s first (and hopefully last) birthday at the institution, and he hasn’t heard a word from Lucas. He asked his mother when she visited if she knew of Lucas mentioning anything about his birthday, and his heart sank slowly when she said she didn’t know. She talked him through every irrational thought that crossed his mind and escaped through his tongue. They grew up together, they’re best friends, how could Lucas ever forget Eliott’s birthday? If Lucas sent him a letter, it’s probably just late going through the mail. Today’s still his birthday. If he gets something tomorrow, it would only be a day late. Lucas has time, and so does Eliott. Then, she tried to take his mind off of it by giving him his presents. A new shirt, soft and white and warm. A dozen of his favorite cookies that she made herself. A book, or a play, really: Waiting for Gadot, by Samuel Beckett. A pair of socks that were navy blue and warm. It worked, for a moment.

Today, he’s wearing his new shirt and his new socks, and he’s already finished reading the play. The cookies are lying on his bedside table, completely untouched (they would stay this way for another day or two, and Eliott would feel the weight of years and years of guilt for it). Today, his mother isn’t there to talk him through his doubts. Today, he still hasn’t heard from Lucas. Today, he’s afraid he’ll spiral downward again, because then the doctors will use the more extreme treatments to fix him. He wishes he could say they don’t work, the electric shocks, but they do. They don’t make him feel better, they just make him feel nothing. And, for the doctors, that means he isn’t depressed anymore. Today, he sits on his bed and studies the picture of Lucas he keeps in his room, hoping it’ll give him the strength he needs to get better, to avoid another excruciating round of the shocks.

Today, one of the nurses knocks on his door then slides a letter underneath it.

Eliott jumps up from his bed, picking up the letter with fumbling fingers. His eyes fill with tears the moment he sees his name written in Lucas’s handwriting. He tears the envelope open, unfolding the paper inside. His heart is racing in his chest, his lips are spreading into an aching grin, and his tears are escaping. He never knew he could miss Lucas’s jagged cursive so much. He reads it, drinking in every word as if it were life-giving water.

My dearest Eliott,

My love, I pray night and day that you won’t have to be in Paris a mere moment longer than you need to. I pray that you’ll be in my arms the very second I’m there to open them up to you. My prayers bleed into my dreams, where our reunion is woven with gold and the sound of the waves and moonsong. And my dreams leak into my every waking moment, Eliott. Not a moment goes by where I’m not missing you, thinking of you, dreaming of you. My heart absolutely aches that I can’t see you today, darling. I can only imagine what you’re feeling. I pray you’re not hurting. I pray that if you are, that my words will be of even the slightest bit of healing, of medicine. If only I could heal you. If only my love was enough to do so. I was born to love you, Eliott. I know it. There are moments, hours, days, where that’s the only thing I truly know.

My heart beats faster, harder, stronger because it’s reaching for you, darling. Is your heart reaching for me? I think I feel it. It comes to me at night, through the stars. It burns behind my eyelids and forces them open. It tilts my chin skyward and I remember you with a new strength, a new fondness. You were the one who first told me about them, the stars, pointed each one out so I could see them. I loved the way your hand moved across the sky. You seemed to cup the galaxy gently in the palm of your hand, cradling it. You seemed to rule it, and it seemed to love you. Who knew billions of burning, little flames could all love something so much they would all surrender to it, mold and stretch at the flick of its hand? I’m not sure if you know that, my love. You must be made of stars.

What are the stars like in Paris? They must be timid, anxious. They’re only brave enough to share the smallest shred of their light. Do they still love you? Do you still cradle them as gently as you would cradle a child? Do you give them pieces of your heart and do they promise to deliver them to me? Do they keep their promise? Do millennia of explosions, creation, hold them aloft until they reach the speck of dust that I am? Do they see the things you do to me? Do they see my heart ramming into my rib cage until it’s bruised, until it aches? Do they see your eyes when they meet mine, how they soften and brighten like the horizon every time the sun touches it? Do they love me, too?

Neither this pen, my mind, nor my tongue could ever express how much I miss you, mon amour. Truly. You were always so much better with words than I was. I know numbers, straight lines, rigid shapes. You know words, curves, fluidity. I always envied you for that. But, whenever I think of you, whenever I look at the stars, my emotions, my love comes flowing out in a rush, in a surge. Unless I let them escape, they froth and broil within me, scorching me, scarring me. Is that how you always feel? Like you’re on the verge of exploding, of bursting into rich, blue flames? Like, if your heart isn’t stitched to your sleeve it’ll shiver, shrivel up in the darkness of your chest? How do you bear it? How do you bear living, darling, when the world around you is so gilded? You see the beauty in every single thing you see. A grain of sand, a blade of grass, the smallest wisp of a cloud. Yet, they all could be a weapon. They could turn on you at any moment. They have. Yet they never lose their beauty in your eyes. How do you manage it? [Scratched out].

Please tell me you’re well. Or, at least, that you’re improving. And if you’re not, I’ll tell the stars to come to you and stay with you. I’ll tell them to never leave your side, not even for a moment. I’ll tell them to do anything they can to make you better, to ensure that you’ll come back home, come back to me. Tell me if that’s what you want, darling. I’ll do it. I swear. I love with you everything I am, everything I have been, and everything I ever will be. Happy birthday, darling.

Forever and sincerely yours, Lucas

Eliott wipes the tears from his face, overjoyed, breathless laughter making his body tremble. He clutches Lucas’s letter to his chest, letting his words wash over him over and over like waves of sweet, warm water. He sighs happily, reading over it again.

He studies the part of the letter that’s scratched out for a moment, noticing a few lines of letters through the scratches of ink. He looks at it more closely, wanting to read every single word Lucas wrote to him, scratched out or not. His heart nearly stops once the letters become clear, legible.

You almost couldn’t.

june 25th, 1968

10:00

caen, france

“Eliott,” his mother’s voice coos. “Wake up, honey.”

He jolts a bit, his eyes opening slowly. He sees his mother kneeling by his bedside, smiling at him softly.

“Happy birthday, Eliott!” she grins, tousling his hair. “How are you feeling?”

He smiles back at her tiredly. “Ask me in a few minutes when I’m awake.”

“Well, I just got back from the bakery,” she tells him, rising to her feet. “And they had plenty of pain au chocolat and baguettes ready to go for us.”

Eliott sits up, his attention grabbed. He swears he can already smell, taste the food waiting for him at the dining table. He gets out of bed, hugging his mother tightly. “Thank you, Maman.”

“You’re welcome, dear,” she returns, rubbing his back soothingly. “Ready for breakfast?”

Eliott nods eagerly. “I’m always ready for pain au chocolat.”

He takes her hand and they walk downstairs. The house is quiet, but light streams carefully through the windows, touching the walls, the floor softly; maybe it’s afraid of burning the world it shines upon. The house is warm, thick with the smell of the bread, the pastries. The last few stairs creak beneath their weight, the groan familiar and deep. The house is beginning to feel like it used to feel, before Eliott’s world ended. His heart, his fingers and toes, become warm. They tingle. Is this what happiness feels like? He thinks he remembers it feeling like this. He forces back his tears and squeezes his mother’s hand.

They reach the bottom of the stairs, and Eliott can just barely see the dining table. His heart leaps even more when it fully comes into his view. There’s a basket full of baguettes, the crust golden and shining. Next to it, there’s a large plate with pain au chocolat stacked on top of each other, the chocolate half-melted and the pastry just as golden as the baguettes. There’s a bowl filled with apples, oranges, bananas. Then, there’s two pots of coffee at the center of the table, ribbons of steam curling gracefully and blending with the sunlight. But Eliott’s brow furrows.

“This is a lot of food just for the two of us, Maman,” he says. “Do you think we can eat all of this?”

His mother smiles slyly, clearly holding back excitement. “It won’t just be the two of us, honey.”

“What?” he asks, but he’s cut off by a chorus of voices.

“Joyeux anniversaire!”

Eliott whirls around, nearly jumping out of his skin. But he melts into giggles and joyful tears when he sees Arthur, Basile, Yann, Daphné, Alexia, Imane, Emma, Manon, and Lu—

His face falls, just for a moment, when he realizes Lucas isn’t there. Of course he isn’t here, he thinks, disappointed. Why would he be?

But he smiles again and runs towards his friends, letting them all envelop him in a big, warm, tight hug. He hears them shower him with more “happy birthday"s, and "we missed you"s and "we love you"s. He thinks Basile is crying. He’s close to crying himself. He’s been so caught up in readjusting to life at home, worrying about his relationship with Lucas, and simply feeling too tired, too despondent to even get out of bed he hasn’t had the time nor the energy to reconnect with all his friends. But he didn’t need to. He’s sure his mother had something to do with this, too, but they reached out to him. They surprised him for his birthday. He’ll eat breakfast with them and they’ll all talk and he’ll know what everyone has done, what they’re planning on doing. He’ll have his friend group back. He’ll have his life back.

They all pull away, everyone wiping away happy tears.

"Thank you so much,” Eliott says, grinning. “This is gonna be a good birthday.”

Everyone grins back at him, and his heart feels full, close to bursting.

“Is everyone ready to eat?” Eliott’s mother asks, tearful herself.

Everyone cheers in response, flocking to the dining table. Eliott makes sure he gets in his usual seat. His stomach turns just a little when he sees Basile sit in his father’s seat, but he pushes it aside. Basile doesn’t know that that’s Papa’s chair. But he notices his mother looks uneasy about it, too.

“Are you okay, Eliott?” Basile asks suddenly. He must’ve noticed Eliott’s unease.

Eliott blinks, smiles. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Oh, okay,” Basile replies, relieved. “We’ve really missed you, you know. When Lucas told us you were home, we—”

“Wait, Lucas told you?” Eliott asks, his heart, his chest tightening.

“Yeah,” Basile nods, as if it were obvious. “He said you’d just come by your house and you two talked for a bit. He’s really sorry he couldn’t come, by the way. He wanted us to tell you. He said he had something to do with Chloé today. Did he tell you they’re engaged?”

Eliott sighs, but nods. “Yeah, he did. I sort of remember her from school. I’m happy for them.”

“They’re a good match,” Basile agrees. “He was devastated after you had to leave. Then he started dating Chloé and he was smiling again. You can tell he really loves her.”

His every word was a lash, a strike for Eliott. He tries to keep himself together, tries to keep his voice from shaking. “I’m glad. He’s been through so much.”

“We need to find you a nice girl, Eliott,” Basile says, punching him playfully on the shoulder. “Get a smile back on your face.”

Eliott forces a chuckle. “I’ve been smiling all morning, haven’t I?”

“Yes, but your maman told us that you’ve been really sad lately,” Basile replies. “She told us this would make you really happy. And it worked! You just need a nice, pretty girl who can keep that smile on your face.”

Eliott smiles, but he feels his lips wobble.

Basile smiles, too, his eyes shining like they always do, and Eliott feels a deep twinge in his chest. He smiles back, making it wider, trying to make it more genuine.

“Okay,” Eliott’s mother announces. “The last piece of our breakfast is ready.”

She pulls something out of the oven, a tarte aux fruits that draws an awed gasp from their guests. She somehow finds room for it on the table, grinning proudly. “Shall we sing?”

They all shout their agreements, beginning to clap and sing.

Joyeux anniversaire, joyeux anniversaire!

Joyeux anniversaire, Eliott!

Joyeux anniversaire!

Eliott thanks them all, trying to hide all the hurt sitting in his chest. He starts taking a little bit of food, the others filling up their plates once he’s done. He tries to eat as much as he can, tries to listen to everyone that’s talking to him and tries to respond to them. He tries to smile and laugh. He tries. He really, really does. And as he watches his friends smile and laugh and carry on as if everything was normal, he realizes that the trying, the acting, is working.

He wishes Lucas was here. Even if he hates him. Even if he’ll never love him again. He thinks he can look into Lucas’s eyes only once, only for a moment, and things wouldn’t hurt as badly as they do.

When the food is almost gone, Yann stands up and taps his glass dramatically. He clears his throat, then speaks. “Good morning, everyone. Thank you for attending the celebration of the 19th birthday of Eliott Demaury.”

Everyone joins in the act, clapping respectfully with silly, somber expressions.

“Eliott, you’re home now,” Yann continues, suddenly a bit more serious. “You’ve been dearly missed and you are dearly loved by everyone in this room. As always, but especially this year, we wish you health and happiness. We’re here to help in any way that we can, okay?”

Eliott doesn’t fight back his tears this time, but they don’t fall quite yet. He nods. “I know.”

“Good,” Yann replies, genuine and warm. “We also promise to get you a better gift next year, since this year it was a pretty short notice. Nevertheless… My fine sir, this year, we have a birthday card for you.”

Yann takes an envelope from Imane, then hands it to Eliott. He opens it at the chanting urging of his friends. It’s a basic card with a blue background and a cute, simple drawing of a birthday cake on the front. The inside is full of handwritten messages.

Happy birthday, Eliott! Here’s to so many more, mon cherie! -Arthur

Happy birthday!! We love you so so much!!!! -Alexia

Eliott! Happy birthday! I love you, mec. -Basile

The messages go on, then he sees familiar, jagged cursive at the bottom of the card.

Happy birthday, Eliott! I’m sorry I couldn’t be there, but we’ll celebrate some other time. I promise. -Lucas

“Lucas signed it?” Eliott asks, his voice frail.

“He really felt bad about not being able to come,” Imane says. “So, we let him sign the card. He is your best friend, Eliott. We wanted at least a piece of him here.”

Eliott manages a smile. “Thank you.”

“Anything for you, Eliott,” Manon cuts in, reaching across the table to take his hand. “We know how much you’ve been through.”

Not everything, his heart says, his tongue wants to say. But he just nods, forces the words back down his throat.

“To Eliott!” Yann announces.

A repeated chorus ripples around the table, and the dread sitting in Eliott’s stomach opens its mouth, threatening to swallow him whole.

june 25th, 1968

15:14

caen, france

No one left until well after lunchtime. They all hugged him, too, as they left, wishing him happy birthday once again. As much as he hates to admit, he felt a little weight roll off his shoulders each time he watched someone walk out the front door. The tightness in his chest eased a bit, he could breathe a little easier. His mind began to clear; clear of worry, of thoughts of Lucas, his father, his life before his hospitalization, his diagnosis. He could feel himself drawing closer to blessed solitude, to a quiet house with his mother. But he kept wondering again and again if he was being selfish, if he was pushing his friends away for his own gain, his own pleasure and sanity. How did everything turn so sour so quickly? Was it Lucas, and his mere absence, his mere distance? Was it Eliott’s own head, and the demon that seems to live within it?

“Are you okay, honey?” his mother asks after the last guest—Basile, of course—walked out the front door. “Did you not like the party?”

Eliott has the smallest smile on his face as he shakes his head. “I did. It’s just that everything went downhill when I realized Lucas wouldn’t be here. And things went even more downhill when I read his note on my birthday card.”

“What did he say?” she responds kindly, hanging onto his every word.

“Lies,” Eliott chokes out, defeated. “He’s a liar, like I am.”

“You’re not a liar, Ellie,” she cuts in, pushing the hair out of his eyes.

He remembers every time false words slipped from his tongue. False, yet sweet words. He told Lucas that he was okay. He told Lucas that he was coping. He told Lucas that he was getting better. He told Lucas that they were getting better.

“I lied to him so many times, Maman,” Eliott shakes his head. “It’s only fair that he gets to lie to me now.”

Her hand drifts down to cradle his face, her eyes filled with tears. “Don’t say that. Please, darling.”

Eliott tears his eyes away. He can’t watch his mother cry again. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“Do…” she starts, her tears stopping her voice. “Do we need to go see someone at that new office?”

Eliott feels his whole body tense, feels echoes of the shocks whipping and slashing through his synapses. He hears his own voice, somewhere in the distance, in the past, begging them not to do it, to let him go. He hears his own screams, muffled by the bit in his mouth. He feels ghosts of tears on his face, the aches in his muscles as he fought against the restraints. Not again, not again, not again.

“It’s not an institution, is it?” he asks, his voice stumbling over itself. “Please tell me it’s not, Maman.”

“It’s not,” she replies immediately, turning his head to look at him. “It’s not, darling. They have doctors there that can help you, and you can leave after an hour or so. You don’t have to stay there.”

Eliott watches a tear roll down his mother’s cheek, then he feels a tear, not a ghost, on his own. He holds back a sob, taking as deep of a breath as he could. “Can we talk about this tomorrow, Maman? Please?”

She pulls him close, kissing his forehead. She lingers for a moment, her body trembling with her sobs. “Of course, my boy,” she finally says.

Tears roll down Eliott’s cheeks, but he doesn’t tremble. He manages a smile. “Thank you.”

june 26th, 1968

02:27

caen, france

Eliott can’t sleep.

He has his father’s coat on, but its weight is suffocating, smothering. He tries to count his breaths, but each one only reminds him of how empty his body feels, as if everything inside him is just a black hole.

He can’t sleep.

He gets out of bed, carefully tiptoeing out of his room and down the stairs. It’s eerily quiet, eerily soft. The blue, knit socks his mother gave him last year don’t breathe against the floor, the wood. His clothes float just above his skin; whispers, ghosts. The slow, small breaths snaking from his mouth are silent as currents as they mingle with the air around him. If he was younger, if he wasn’t sick, this would be sacred, cherished. The lull in the waves, the smallest stillness between heartbeats, the single moment when you blink and your eyes are peacefully, briefly shut. But Eliott has learned the danger of open spaces, of possibility, of hope. It will always be interrupted, it will always be overtaken by people, by darkness, by storms and tempests and changing tides. Nothing lasts forever, because everything sets fire to love and silence and every contented sigh.

The stair could creak, Eliott thinks. Maman could hear me and come out of her room and ask me if I’m okay again. The water outside could rush closer to the house, calling my name like it’s done for years. Lucas could wake from a bad dream and think of Chloé instead of me, another thought chipping me away from his mind. The stars could try to move, groan against the fabric of the universe but we don’t notice, we don’t hear it. Papa died while I was sleeping, flirting with darkness, the edge of consciousness, while in the room next to me, he sank into it, drowned in it. I almost died while Lucas was sleeping, but he woke up in time to save me, to call my name and pull me back into the light. Lucas almost died when the water, still and whispering, suddenly roared and swallowed him whole. The smallest moments can be so wide.

He reaches the bottom of the stairs, the silence still looming, and he exhales.

He wanders warily into the kitchen, deciding absentmindedly to make a cup of tea. He can boil a small pot of water for it instead of using the kettle, so he doesn’t wake his mother with its shrill shriek.

He watches the water slowly come to a boil. He watches the bubbles tremble at the bottom, drift erratically to the top before they let go, gliding across the surface before slamming into the sides of the pot, sliding back to the bottom, bleeding, exploding. He watches this cycle roll and froth, steam and mumble. He turns the burner off when the bubbles are moving too quickly for him to keep track of. He pours the water slowly into his cup, the color and flavor leaching into it. He watches the teabag relax, float to the top. He drags it by the string across the surface of the water, twirls it around until it leaves a small cyclone behind it. He pulls it out, dangles it over the water, watches moisture drip from its curled edges. And once he thinks it’s steeped to his liking, he throws the teabag away. Somehow, he feels more and more valuable with every breath, with every small movement. He takes his first sip, and the once comforting warmth just feels like heat, a mass burning in his belly. He exhales.

He looks out the window, and he sees the silver, sparkling sand and the rippling, sighing waves. Perhaps they’ll sing, tonight. Perhaps the moon will join them again.

Eliott carefully opens the back door, sitting on the grass, his hands wrapped round his cup of tea, his nerves frayed, his mind on edge. He takes another sip, but the burning in his stomach only worsens.

He sets his tea down, off to the side, listening and watching for a moment. He hears the sand whisper out its love when the water touched it, hears it sigh and bid the water farewell as it recedes. He hears the wind with its same, old secrets, and it doesn’t send a chill down his spine anymore. He looks up at the sky, at the moon, listening carefully for her song. He thinks he can hear her humming, her voice quiet and weak. She hums the melody of an old song his mother sang all the time when he was younger, a melody familiar and simple and sweeping and aching. The words come to his mind, but the moon doesn’t sing them. She continues with the melody, the music stretching softly over the darkness, over the people sleeping below her. Eliott exhales.

He studies the stars around the moon, and he can’t help but remember Lucas’s words.

Who knew billions of burning, little flames could all love something so much they would all surrender to it, mold and stretch at the flick of its hand? I’m not sure if you know that, my love. You must be made of stars.

He must’ve memorized every word of that letter, every curve and every line of every letter. He was in love. Hopelessly, recklessly, joyously.

How do I forget about him? he asks the moon, the stars, the wind, the waves, the shore. How do I forget about his voice, his eyes, his lips? How do I forget my entire life? How do I stop loving him?

When they don’t answer, Eliott closes his eyes, focuses even more on his hearing.

How do I stop loving him? he asks again, sending out every bit of his soul upward, onward.

There’s still no answer.

He opens his eyes, blinks away a film of tears. He sees a star shoot across the sky, its trailing ashes stark white against the black sky. Like any dying thing, it’s brighter than it was before, stronger. It soars above Lucas’s house, shooting farther and farther off into the horizon and sizzling out.

The light in Lucas’s room is on. Eliott can see him sitting on his windowsill, gazing out on the water, just like he is.

A part of Eliott, almost all of him, wants to walk over and knock on Lucas’s window, just like they promised they could all those years ago. They could talk. They could argue. They could make up. They could be best friends again. They could go back to normal, or as normal as their current circumstances could allow them. They could be Lucas and Eliott again. Couldn’t they?

Maybe tonight, Lucas will let Eliott explain everything that happened that fateful, devastating night. And maybe he’ll understand. Maybe he’ll remember the life that they’ve spent together, and maybe he’ll decide he’s not ready to give that up yet. If he hasn’t decided already.

He turns his face back to the sky, closing his eyes again. He asks, do I have to stop loving him?

There’s no answer.

“I don’t want to stop loving him,” he says aloud, but so quietly he could barely hear himself.

He looks back over at Lucas’s house, and his heart sinks as he watches the light turn off.

#ttmc #elu #skam france #elu fanfic #skam france fanfic #hush bailey #my writing #my fanfic

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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years

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THE BANK OUTING BASEBALL GAME

September 16, 1949

“The Bank Outing Baseball Game” (aka “Baseball”) is episode #54 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on September 16, 1949.

This was the third episode of the second season of MY FAVORITE HUSBAND. There were 43 new episodes, with the season ending on June 25, 1950.

The date this episode first aired, a Gallup Poll listed Bob Hope as America's most popular comedian. Milton Berle finished second while Jack Benny, Red Skelton and Fibber McGee and Molly rounded out the top five. Coincidentally, a few years before this episode aired, Hope had become partial owner of the Cleveland Indians baseball team.

Synopsis ~ Liz is determined not to be left out of the baseball game at the Annual Bank Outing, so she persuades her neighbor Mr. Wood to teach her how to play the game.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George's boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Coope. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father's garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury) was considered the front-runner to be cast as Ethel Mertz but when “I Love Lucy” was ready to start production she was already playing a similar role on TV’s “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” so Vivian Vance was cast instead. On “I Love Lucy” she was cast as Lucy Ricarodo’s spinster neighbor, Miss Lewis, in “Lucy Plays Cupid” (ILL S1;E15) in early 1952. Later, she was a success in her own show, "Petticoat Junction” as Shady Rest Hotel proprietress Kate Bradley. She starred in the series until her death in 1968.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph aka Rudy Atterbury) had worked with Lucille Ball on “The Wonder Show” on radio in 1938. One of the front-runners to play Fred Mertz on “I Love Lucy,” he eventually played Alvin Littlefield, owner of the Tropicana, during two episodes in 1952. After playing a Judge in an episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” in 1958, he would re-team with Lucy for all of her subsequent series’: as Theodore J. Mooney in ”The Lucy Show”; as Harrison Otis Carter in “Here’s Lucy”; and as Curtis McGibbon on "Life with Lucy.” Gordon died in 1995 at the age of 89.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz, a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

GUEST CAST

Hans Conried (Mr. Benjamin Wood) first co-starred with Lucille Ball in The Big Street (1942). He then appeared on “I Love Lucy” as used furniture man Dan Jenkins in “Redecorating” (ILL S2;E8) and later that same season as Percy Livermore in “Lucy Hires an English Tutor” (ILL S2;E13) – both in 1952. The following year he began an association with Disney by voicing Captain Hook in Peter Pan. On “The Lucy Show” he played Professor Gitterman in “Lucy’s Barbershop Quartet” (TLS S1;E19) and in “Lucy Plays Cleopatra” (TLS S2;E1). He was probably best known as Uncle Tonoose on “Make Room for Daddy” starring Danny Thomas, which was filmed on the Desilu lot. He joined Thomas on a season 6 episode of “Here’s Lucy” in 1973. He died in 1982 at age 64.

Although his first name is not mentioned here, it will be in future episodes.

THE EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “Come with us to the quiet little town of Sheridan Falls and let’s look into the brown house at 321 Bundy Drive where the Coopers live. They’re entertaining George’s boss, Mr. Atterbury, and his wife. And the subject under discussion is the forthcoming annual bank outing.”

The episode opens with Liz and Iris discussing what to wear to the bank outing. George disapproves of Liz’s new play suit.

LIZ: “George thinks it’s too daring. He says there’s too much play and not enough suit.”

It is typical for George to disapprove of Liz’s revealing wardrobe choices, although the conversation generally revolves around swimwear. Iris wonders if she should wear her new blue slacks.

RUDY: “Why do they call them slacks? I’ve never seen any in them.”

George and Rudolph imitate the girls by feminizing their own wardrobe predicament, another comedic tact the boys have done before. George and Rudolph reveal that they have been named team captains. Iris says she’ll get a bottle of Absorbine Junior.

Absorbine Jr. is a fast absorbing, deep penetrating topical pain reliever. It provides relief from sore muscles and cramps as well as athlete’s foot. The Absorbine company was established in 1892 as a lineament for horses. A version for humans (Absorbine Jr.) was introduced in 1903 and is still sold today.

Rudolph and George tell their wives that they won’t be playing at all, because the teams are comprised of husbands and wives, and they have no confidence in them on the baseball diamond. The girls beg to be allowed to play, despite knowing nothing about the game.

RUDOLPH: “Forget it, DiMaggio.”

Joe DiMaggio (1914-99) was a professional baseball player who played his entire career for the New York Yankees. He was nicknamed “Joltin’ Joe” and “The Yankee Clipper” for his batting skill. The summer of 1949 was when DiMaggio shined the brightest. He batted .381 against the Red Sox that year, with six homers through 13 games.The Yanks would eventually win the World Series in 1949, the first of a record five straight.

Joe DiMaggio was mentioned on “I Love Lucy” in “Lucy is Enceinte” (ILL S2;E10), Fred gives Lucy a signed baseball for his future ‘godson’. When he asks Lucy to read out the signature, she at first says “Spalding,” the ball’s brand name, but then finds it is signed by Joe DiMaggio. In “Ragtime Band” (ILL S6;E21), Little Ricky asks Fred, “Who’s Joe 'Maggio?”

George rhapsodizes about his college baseball career, telling a story they’ve all heard before.

GEORGE: “There’s a certain group of spectators who will never forget the afternoon of August 25, 1933.”

This date was actually Lucille Ball’s 22nd birthday. 1933 was Ball’s first year in Hollywood, and the year her first four films were released.

After George does a dramatic play-by-play of his big college game victory, Liz says:

LIZ: “Thank you, Ted Husing.”

Edward ‘Ted’ Husing (1901-62) was among the first to lay the groundwork of sports reporting on television and radio. In 1946, Husing left CBS sports to pursue a career as a disk jockey and was succeeded by Red Barber. “The Ted Husing Bandstand” ran from 1946 to 1954.

The scene ends with the wives begging to play, and the boys uniformly shouting “no”! That night in bed, Liz wakens in tears about being left out of the baseball game, feeling she is being left out.

Next day, Liz tells Katie the Maid she’s decided to learn how to play baseball. Iris drops by with books about how to play baseball. Katie reads out the rules. The doorbell rings. It is the Cooper’s neighbor, Mr. Wood (Hans Conried), who is lonesome, despite having eleven children. He volunteers to teach the girls baseball. After all, he saw a World Series game once. He mentions Babe Ruth.

George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (1895-1948) was a professional baseball player whose career spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "The Bambino" and "The Sultan of Swat", he began his career as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame playing with the New York Yankees.

Ruth was mentioned on a 1963 episode of “The Lucy Show” when Lucy and Viv’s sons join Little League. [Desi Arnaz Jr. played billy Simmons in the show, and Ball posed for this publicity still with her son.]

It is here that the episode starts to vaguely resemble “The Golf Game” (ILL S3;E30) in 1954. In it, Lucy and Ethel decide they want to play golf with their husbands, despite the boys saying they known nothing about the game. In fact, they don’t, so they fall for whatever ridiculous rules the boys make-up. Coincidentally, this sport-themed episode was filmed on Hans Conried’s 37th birthday. The Little League-themed “Lucy Show” mentioned above was first aired on Conried’s 45th birthday!

Using the living room as their baseball diamond and sofa cushions as bases, Mr. Wood attempts to teach the girls the finer points of baseball.

In “Lucy and the Winter Sports” (TLS S3;E3) in 1964, Mr. Mooney attempts to teach Mrs. Carmichael how to ski without ever leaving the living room. Needless to say, the results are equally disastrous.

This is not the last time Mr. Wood (played by Hans Conried) will teach Liz an outdoor sport in her own living room. In June 1950 Conried returns to the series to play Mr. Wood, who teaches Liz to swim - without ever getting wet!

Mr. Wood’s frantic lesson turns into a loosely familiar version of the famous “Who’s On First” comedy routine perfected by Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

LIZ: “Who’s on third?” MR. WOOD: “Abbott and Costello!”

Although the routine had been around in different forms since vaudeville, Abbott and Costello first put their baseball spin on the routine in 1938. In 1999, Time Magazine named the routine Best Comedy Sketch of the 20th Century. In 1945, Lucille Ball played herself in their movie Abbott and Costello in Hollywood.

Mr. Wood gives up on his coaching, but Liz reveals that she’s already signed them up for the game!

A bank outing will also be the subject of “Lucy and Clint Walker” (TLS S2;E24) in 1966. Lucy and Clint win the balloon race, but baseball is not on the agenda. The day of the Bank Outing, Liz and Iris are enjoying hot dogs. Iris orders a second hot dog with pickle, mustard, chili sauce, ketchup, lettuce, butter, salt, pepper, and a dash of horseradish!

RUDY: “Iris, at least give the hot dog a fighting chance.”

Iris’s voracious appetite is a character trait that was later ascribed to Ethel Mertz. Baseball and hot dogs are classic Americana. The two were combined when Lucy Ricardo pretends to be a hot dog vendor to get a message to Bob Hope at Yankee Stadium in the “I Love Lucy” season six opener.

George has worn his old college baseball uniform. Mr. Wood is acting as umpire. George’s strategy is to keep Liz on the bench till the team gets in a tight spot.

RUDY: “Iris is up first. Has anyone seen the old bat? Oh, there it is on the ground.”

Miraculously, Iris hits a ball out of the park! Shocked, she doesn’t run the bases.

Later, the score is ten to nothing with the Cooper side down but when the score quickly ties and Liz is still on the bench. At batting practice, George accidentally hits himself in the head with a bat! George passes out and Liz is up at bat! Liz starts out facing the catcher! With two strikes, Liz hits the ball!

Later, George revives and Liz tells him that they won by one run - made by her! Rudy reveals that they won by default when Liz got hit by the ball, forcing the runner at third to walk home and win the game!

MORE BALL AT BAT!

In addition to the episodes cited above, Lucille Ball also suited up in 1963′s “Lucy and Viv Play Softball” (TLS S2;E3).

Lucy Carmichael’s son got to meet Jimmy Pearsall of the Los Angeles Angels in the very first episode of “The Lucy Show” to take place in California.

In real life, Lucille Ball batted for Wildcat on the Broadway Show League in 1961. Julie Andrews of Camelot was catcher, and Joe E. Brown was umpire!

The year before this episode of “My Favorite Husband” aired (1948), the great Babe Ruth signed a game-used baseball that was then also signed by Lucille Ball and Rod Carew.

Batting practice for Kathleen (Lucille Ball) in The Dark Corner (1946).

Putting her Best Foot Forward for a pitch in 1943.

Like mother, like daughter! In 2011, the New York Yankees invited Lucie Arnaz to throw out the first pitch to mark Latin Heritage Month.

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hotarutranslations · 4 years

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Yokoyan!

Evening

Its Ishida Ayumi

Today, February 22nd...

Is Yokoyama Reina-chan's birthday

19 years old!! Congratulations!! She has already turned 19!!

Unfortunately today we ended up having to cancel the individual handshake events, so I also haven't met with Yokoyan, but I kind want to see her soon!!

Tomorrow is a shoot, so the latest Yokoyan is

an off shot from the Soen photoshoot

This also!

playing on the Switch with Chii-chan!

These cute girls...

These girls play games for a long time, Mother wont scold them because they're cute right lol

Hyoee--!! is how I become when I see her adult expressions during lives, and her puppy-like laughing face is also cute <3

like, Ishida-san!,

her laughing face thats a little shy, thats also a verryyyyyyy cute Yokoyan <3

that is, while writing and thinking about Yokoyan,

I've come to really want to see her soon

Kyaa

From now on don't stop watching Yokoyan

What kind of adult she will become, I'm not able to imagine it, so I'm looking forward to it

You can see various faces within Morning Musume, I'm also looking forward to it! Please watch over her from now on everyone!

Tomorrow is an event after a while

Its the Shinagawa release event Thank you very much for your support

Today I had the time,

to watch the trilogy of!

"Code Geass Lelouch of the Rebellion" its a work where they packed in all 50 episodes of the anime

Yamaki Risa-chan said, please properly watch the anime then watch the trilogy

I reallyyyyy understand the meaning in what she said

Also when watching the trilogy, you want to look back on all 50 episodes

No matter how many times I see it I cry at the end

Rather because I knew I was crying early haa......

Also recently,

I watched all of "Bungo Stray Dogs"

The movies too!

Even if you're not familiar with the great writers, its really fun! But I guess it would be more fun if I was familiar with them...

The 2nd seasons episode "Double Black" the scene with Nakahara Chuuya and Osamu Dazai is

I rewound and watched it about 3 times

Oda Sakura-chan and, Kudo Haruka-chan sympathized with me!

For Yokoyan its Demon Slayer!

There isn't anyone yet with Code Geass in Morning other than me...

see you ayumin <3

https://ameblo.jp/morningmusume-10ki/entry-12577066896.html

#Ishida Ayumi #Morning Musume '20 #Morning Musume #Yokoyama Reina #Hello! Project #Translation #Blog

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chiseler · 4 years

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The Second Most Dangerous Anarchist in America

{NOTE: September 16th, 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the Wall Street bombing, an event which the city, for some reason, refuses to commemorate.}

A little after two on the afternoon of April 15th, 1920, the paymaster of one of the two shoe factories in Braintree, MA, together with a security guard, decided in a change of pace to simply walk that week’s payroll the few blocks from the office to the factory. The payroll, a little over $15,000 in cash, was divided between two strongboxes, each carried by one of the men. Along the way, and in front of over fifty eyewitnesses, a gang of five men, strangers to the small town, gunned down the paymaster and the guard, grabbed the strongboxes, hopped into an idling blue Buick, and sped away. The Buick, later determined to have been stolen a few weeks earlier, was a fancy model with curtained windows, plenty of chrome, and fat tires.

Two days later, on April 17th, two men on horseback discovered the car abandoned in the woods along the western edges of Bridgewater, just a couple miles south of Braintree. Much thinner tire tracks leading away from the scene were assumed to belong to the car into which the killers piled after ditching the Buick.

Bridgwater’s police chief, Michael Stewart, was a cigar-chomping, two-fisted type who’d been raised in Boston. Despite being the son of Irish immigrants, Stewart harbored a deep distrust of more recent immigrants from Germany, Poland, and Italy, especially the political types, suspecting them of being responsible for most of the crime in the region. He was proud to have been able to turn over six bona-fide Reds living in Bridgewater during the Palmer raids of the previous year.

Upon hearing about the Braintree killing, Stewart was reminded of a similar attempted heist in Bridgewater four months earlier on Christmas Eve. Again a shoe factory payroll had been targeted by a group of armed men in a getaway car. That time, however, they were thwarted when the truck containing the payroll crashed, and the would-be thieves were blocked by a passing trolley. Frustrated, they hopped back into the getaway car, another fancy, recently stolen model, and fled empty-handed.

During his abortive investigation into the failed heist, Stewart had been pointed to a ramshackle two-story house in the woods. Locals referred to it as Puffer’s Place, and believed it was home to a group of Italian anarchists. Those who’d heard of Puffer’s Place had no idea what went on there, but if it was full of anarchists, you knew it couldn’t be good. It sounded like a promising lead—Stewart was convinced Italian anarchists were responsible for the job—but he wasn’t able to find the shack, and gave up on the investigation.

All that changed a day after the Braintree attack, when Stewart received a call from the immigration bureau asking after one Feruccio Coacci, a known anarchist who lived in the area and was scheduled for deportation.

Coacci, who’d been living with his wife and a housemate at Puffer’s Place, was quickly tracked down and deported on the 19th. In fact, after weeks of delays and excuses, he insisted on being deported on the 19th. Upon learning Coacci had coincidentally worked at both targeted shoe factories, and just as coincidentally failed to show up for work the day of both heists, Stewart became suspicious. On Tuesday the 20th, he headed back out to Puffer’s Place with another investigator.

They were met at the door by a small, funny-looking man who introduced himself as Mike Boda. Bona invited them in, showed them around, and answered their questions. He even showed them his revolver. Coacci, he said, had some friends who were anarchists and very bad men, but he had nothing to do with them himself.

When they were done looking around the cluttered house, Bona led them to the dilapidated car barn out back, explaining his car, a clunky 1914 Overland, was in the shop to get its magneto repaired. Although Overlands had very thin tires, there were also fatter tire tracks on the garage’s dirt floor. Buda explained this away by telling the officers he sometimes pulled in at a funny angle.

Satisfied, Stewart thanked Mr. Voda for his time and cooperation, and left.

Realizing later what a horrible mistake he’d made, that the tire tracks were just the clue he needed, Stewart rushed back to Puffer’s Place the next morning, arriving on the front stoop about twenty seconds after Bona slipped out the back door and vanished. By the next day, when Stewart stopped by again hoping to find Buda, Puffer’s Place had been cleaned out.

A few people at the time described him as resembling a clown without makeup. He was short and balding, with a great bulbous nose poised above a black mustache. But Mario Buda was not a man known for his rollicking sense of humor. Those who knew him said he was quiet, serious, enigmatic and a little arrogant. Still, there was something of the clown about him. At least he took his slapstick very, very seriously. Instead of cream pies or seltzer bottles, however, he leaned more toward dynamite. Now, a century after his most famous performance, he’s become the stuff of myth, both in anarchist and law enforcement circles.

Buda was born on October 13th, 1884 in Savignano sul Rubicone, Italy, a region known at the time as a hotbed of anarchist thinking.

In 1907, after a few minor scrapes with the law and an increasing sense he’d never be able to make a go of it in Savignano, a then-23-year-old Buda sailed to America. Although already an avowed anarchist, Buda had also apprenticed as a shoemaker, a skill he hoped might come in handy in the land of plenty. It didn’t, and after working a series of menial jobs, starving and getting nowhere for two years, he returned to Italy in 1911. In 1913, he decided to give America another shot, this time settling in Boston and finding work at (depending on the account) a shoe factory, a hat factory or, together with his brother, a shop that sold cleaning supplies. That same year he became friends with another shoemaker named Nicola Sacco, whom he met when both took part in a protest at a nearby textile factory. Along with being a shoemaker, Sacco was also an anarchist, a follower of Luigi Galleani. In the pages of his magazine, Cronaca Sovversiva, Galleani advocated what he called The Propaganda of the Deed, which called for the violent annihilation of all government institutions through a relentless program of bombings and assassinations. Although the magazine never had more than 5,000 subscribers, it was considered the most influential anarchist periodical in America, while Justice Department insiders had labeled Galleani himself, who lived in Barre, Vermont, the country’s most dangerous anarchist.

Buda began attending local Galleanisti meetings where, sometime around 1916, he also met a fish peddler named Bartolomeo Vanzetti. He would later cite Sacco and Vanzetti as two of his best friends in the world.

The image of the swarthy, bomb-tossing anarchist in a long dark coat and low-slung hat solidly entered the American popular consciousness in 1919 (see below), but anarchist bombings across the country were not that uncommon prior to 1919, and in fact can be traced back to at least the Haymarket Square bombing of 1886. Still, there’s something so simple, even comforting and Romantic, in attributing all these incidents to a single figure, a lone super villain with a taste for black powder. Apart from a few scattered basic facts, precious little is known about Buda. He gave no speeches, left no writings, never married, played things very close to the chest, yet still seemed to be everywhere in the country at once. Over the past century this mysterious little man with the big nose has become as prime a candidate as anyone for supervillain status.

So this is where the speculation begins, most of it based on hindsight which itself is based on speculation.

On New Years Day, 1916, a security guard at the Massachusetts State house discovered a wicker suitcase packed with dynamite in the building’s basement, but was able to dispose of it before it went off. The following day another bomb planted in nearby Woburn was a bit more successful, detonating inside a factory belonging to The New England Manufacturing Company. No one was hurt, but the building suffered extensive damage. Was Buda involved in either incident? It’s unknown, and in fact it’s fairly unlikely, but in recent years armchair radical historians have been including them as possible early examples of Buda’s handiwork.

Seven months later on July 22nd, as America began prepping to dive into World War I, cities across the country staged what were called Preparedness Day parades to express public support for the military. Radical and labor groups assailed the idea, not only because they saw it merely as a cheap excuse for large businesses to angle their way into fat government contracts, but also because part of what was termed preparedness was the institution of a new military draft which would mostly, if not exclusively, affect the working class.

The parade in San Francisco, which attracted an estimated 50,000 marchers, was thrown into chaos when a suitcase packed with dynamite and left on the sidewalk exploded. Ten people were killed, and another forty were sent to the hospital with serious injuries. Suspicion immediately focused on socialists, labor groups, subversives and other radicals. The local chamber of commerce and business leaders, happy to cooperate with the police, compiled a list of known labor agitators who’d been involved in recent strikes. They passed the list over to the cops, who started rounding up Reds. In the end Warren Billings and Tom Mooney, both of them low-level labor activists, were charged with the bombing. Both men had solid alibis, both had been out of town that day, but thanks to the testimony of one well-coached prosecution witness, Billings got life, and Mooney was sentenced to death.

In the uproar that followed, Billings and Mooney became poster boys, early martyrs for the labor movement, but, twenty years later, received full pardons. That still left the question, who built and planted the crude bomb? Assuming it was the work of anarchists and not German saboteurs, every notable anarchist in the country—beginning with Emma Goldman—fell under suspicion, with the smart money leaning toward Boda. There exists no evidence linking him to the explosion, but there was no evidence linking anyone to the explosion, so whose to say it wasn’t a Buda job? The case remains unsolved to this day.

Later in 1916—and this we do know—Buda was arrested at a Boston anti-militarism protest that turned violent. At his hearing, like so many anarchists at the time, he refused to take the oath on a Bible, and was sentenced to five months in jail for contempt. Upon his release in early 1917, and hoping to avoid that newly-instituted draft, he reconnected with Sacco and Vanzetti and the trio spirited away to join a growing collective of Italian anarchists living in Monterey, Mexico.

There, Buda worked in a laundry and—here we’re back to speculation—may have spent his free time honing his bomb-making skills. What evidence there is to support this idea came later in 1917.

On November 9th, a Milwaukee, WI-based Italian evangelical minister, fed up with these slacker anarchists giving speeches badmouthing America when the country was at war, held a loyalty rally in front of the city’s anarchist headquarters. A fight broke out, the police were called, and in the end two anarchists were shot and killed. In retaliation, a group of ten anarchists, Buda among them, left Mexico and returned to the States with a mission. On the night of November 23rd, they left a bag containing a bomb in the basement of the offending evangelical church. Before it detonated, however, it was discovered by a janitor, who brought it to the local police station.

That’s where it exploded, killing nine cops and one civilian. Although several anarchists, including Buda, were rounded up and questioned, there was no solid evidence against any of them, and they were all released. No charges were ever filed. Today the Milwaukee blast is generally accepted without question as a Buda operation.

Buda, who upon his return from Mexico adopted the pseudonym Mike Boda, moved back to Massachusetts in early 1918. His precise whereabouts and doings over the course of the next two years remain foggy, though a few people think they know what he might’ve been up to.

On the afternoon of April 29th, 1919, a small package wrapped in brown paper arrived in the mail at the home of Georgia senator Thomas W. Hardwick. Hardwick wasn’t home, so his housekeeper brought the box inside and, together with Hardwick’s wife, set about opening it at the kitchen table.

The package turned out to be a novelty sampler from Gimbel’s. Or so the box claimed, anyway. When the housekeeper tore open the flap marked “OPEN,” she unwittingly released a spring that allowed a small vial of acid to spill on three blasting caps, which detonated the stick of dynamite packed in the wooden box. The explosion blew off the housekeeper’s hands and left Hardwick’s wife badly burned and lacerated.

That same day, an identical package arrived at the home of Rayme Weston Finch, a Bureau of Investigation agent with the Justice Department. One of Finch’s staffers took the initiative and opened the curious package, but ignoring the clearly-marked instructions, opened it from the wrong end. The acid vial merely tumbled out onto the table, and the bomb didn’t detonate.

After these two incidents, law enforcement departments, the post office and the media all began posting nationwide warnings about any similar packages. Even before word started to spread, a sharp-eyed postal clerk in New York had already set aside over a dozen identical packages for lack of postage. A total of thirty-six bombs had been mailed around the end of April, apparently in the hope they would be received and opened on May Day. Scanning the list of those politicians, judges, law enforcement officials, wealthy businessmen and newspaper editors who’d been targeted—including J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer—gave investigators a reasonably clear insight into the motivations of the Mad Bomber.

In a paranoid frenzy following the Bolshevik Revolution, city, state, and federal governments passed a series of sweeping anti-immigrant and anti-sedition laws, making it all but illegal to be an outspoken socialist, communist or anarchist, especially if you also happened to be Italian. All those people slated to receive mail bombs had either supported or enforced the legislation. Fisk, for instance, lead a raid on the offices of Cronaca Sovversiva in 1918, arresting three Galleanisti. Hardwick, meanwhile, had sponsored legislation aimed at crushing the labor movement and driving Left-leaning immigrants (mostly Italians) out of the country.

Two thoughts at this point. First, if Boda built the bombs in question, and if it was his idea to disguise an exploding box as a “Gimbel’s Novelty Sampler,” then he clearly had a much wackier sense of humor than most people realize. And second, again if Boda was responsible for the bombs used in the April campaign, they represented a marked leap forward in design. The earlier bombs attributed to him had been crude devices, just bundles of dynamite with primitive timing mechanisms, while these mail bombs were sophisticated and intricate. So who knows? Maybe he really had honed his skills during those months in Mexico.

On June 2nd, as federal investigators were still trying to narrow down their list of suspects for April’s mail bombs, eight much more powerful bombs, once again targeting judges, politicians and Attorney General Palmer, were detonated simultaneously in cities across the country. Bombs went off in Pittsburgh, Washington, New York and Chicago. Along with being packed with metallic shrapnel, each of the devices also contained a leaflet which read:

War, Class war, and you were the first to wage it under the cover of the powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness of your laws. There will have to be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder: we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; we will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions.

The flyers had been signed “The American Anarchist Fighters.”

This time there were two casualties. One was a night watchman, the other the former editor of Cronaca Sovversiva, who was in the process of depositing a 25-pound bomb on Palmer’s front steps when it prematurely exploded. The bomb demolished the front of the house, but Palmer, who was at home with his family at the time, was in a back room and remained unharmed. The bomber, meanwhile, was scattered in small pieces all over the genteel Washington, D.C. neighborhood.

Combined with the flyers, when the bomber was eventually identified as a Galleanista the feds had all the evidence they needed to deport Luigi Galleani back to Italy. But that was only the beginning of Attorney General Palmer’s revenge.

Although no one was ever arrested or charged for the bombing campaign, toward the end of 1919, the Attorney General, a long-time hardliner when it came to immigration, Sedition, labor unions an radicalism, launched what came to be known as The Palmer Raids. Cops across the country (including Police Chief Stewart in Bridgwater) rounded up roughly 10,000 suspected anarchists, communists and socialists, most of them Italian. In the end over 500 were deported. Meanwhile, American intellectuals whose own political views edged into the pink found themselves subject to federal and local suspicion and persecution. While the Palmer raids only lasted a few months, the first Red Scare would linger much longer.

Sacco and Vanzetti

On the evening of May 5th, 1920, two weeks after Mike Boda slipped away from Police Chief Michael Stewart, word began to spread the cops were going to start rounding up local radicals in their as yet fruitless search for the men responsible for the Braintree and Bridgwater crimes. Members of the local Galleanisti cell, including Sacco, Vanzetti, and Boda, decided it might be wise to quickly dispose of any stray dynamite and anarchist literature anyone might have laying around their homes. It was also decided the best and most efficient way to do this would be by car. Boda had the only available car, and though it was still in the shop, it was ready to be picked up. Boda, Sacco, Vanzetti and another friend made their way to the mechanic’s house about nine, but when the mechanic and his wife made a hamfisted attempt to stall them, it became clear something was afoot. Boda correctly smelled a set-up, and told the mechanic he’d come to pick up his car the next morning instead. The four men quickly left, splitting up as they did so.

Boda went into hiding in East Boston, but on their way home on the trolley that night, Sacco and Vanzetti were picked up by a cop who considered them suspicious characters. The pistols they were carrying and all the anarchist pamphlets in their respective homes only strengthened Stewart’s belief he had two of the killers in custody.

While keeping a very low profile in Boston, Boda closely followed the growing case against his two friends in the local papers. On September 11th, 1920, Sacco and Vanzetti were officially indicted on first-degree murder charges.

Five days later, a little before noon on September 16th, as the sidewalk began to fill with the lunch hour crowds, a man drove his old horse and cart down Wall Street, coming to a stop outside the corporate headquarters of the J.P. Morgan bank, just down the street from the Stock Exchange. The man, whom nobody would later recall seeing, climbed down, tied up the horse, and strolled away, one would like to imagine with his hands in his pockets and whistling a casual tune. Nobody paid much attention to the horse and cart, a common sight around New York at the time. Besides, everyone was too focused on lunch and that afternoon’s business meetings.

At a minute after twelve, the hundred pounds of dynamite packed in the cart exploded, sending nails and 500 pounds of iron sash weights ripping into the junior executives, bank tellers, secretaries, stock brokers and office boys who filled the streets. Cars were tossed around like cheap toys, trolleys a block away were blown off the tracks and windows throughout the financial district were shattered, as a fiery mushroom cloud arose above the gaping hole where the horse and cart once sat.

The streets and sidewalks were littered with broken glass, bleeding bodies, and parts of bodies as an eerie silence fell over the area. Then the screaming began.. In the end, thirty-eight people were killed, with another 300 hospitalized.

William Flynn, director of the Bureau of Investigation, insisted on handling the case himself, ordering the immediate arrest of any known anarchists and, for good measure, the IWW’s Big Bill Haywood, who was in Chicago at the time of the bombing. Along with Haywood, eleven anarchists from the New York area were arrested, but all were soon released for lack of evidence.

Although a $100,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest, Flynn only had two clues to work with.

One was a handful of flyers discovered by a mailman in the minutes before the bomb went off. In prude red letters on yellow paper, the flyers read:

“Remember we will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be sure death for all of you.”

It was signed by “American Anarchist Fighters,” the same group behind the 1919 bombings.

The other was a blacksmith from Little Italy who told police that a day before the bombing, a short, balding Sicilian came into his shop to either (depending on the telling):

1. Rent an old horse and cart.

2. Rent a horse to pull a cart,

Or 3. Have his old horse, who was already pulling a cart, fitted with new shoes.

Flynn didn’t have much to go on, and his investigation went nowhere. In retrospect, he would later insist he knew from the start his primary suspect was Mario Buda, but Buda was never brought in, never questioned, and no charges were ever filed against him.

Buda, meanwhile, still going under the name Mike Boda, slipped off to Providence, and by the end of the month was on his way back to Savignano where, despite ongoing political activity and occasional trouble with the police (including a five-year exile), he would spend the rest of his days as a quiet and serious shoemaker. He died on June 1st, 1963.

According to Buda’s nephew, in 1955 his uncle confessed to him that he had indeed built and delivered the Wall Street bomb, though it’s unclear if he confessed to any of the other bombings attributed to him. It’s also unclear if Buda, eight years before his death, clarified to his nephew whether the Wall Street bombing was done in reaction to the indictment of his friends, as a final Puck You to Attorney General Palmer—or, hell, merely as a kick in the balls to the whole damn capitalist system. We’ll likely never know. To this day, the shrapnel pockmarks from the bomb can still be seen on the facades of several financial district buildings, and the case remains open.

Buda was, without question, a shadowy and slippery character. Over the years he’s taken on the aura of a Dr. Mabuse or Professor Moriarity. And who knows? Maybe he really was a mad anarchist genius. After all, no clues were ever left behind at the scenes of the bombings attributed to him, so there’s no saying he wasn’t responsible for all of them and more. Maybe he really was that good. I’d like to believe so.

by Jim Knipfel

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