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pellucid-constellations · 4 months

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Of Oblivious Minds (2)

Pairing: Azriel x Reader

Summary: You're positive Azriel is in love with Elain. It seems so obvious. But Cassian is laughing at you and suddenly nothing makes quite so much sense anymore.

Word count: 3k

Warnings: Angst!! More pining and yearning

a/n: Here is part two! I love writing this little series :) There will definitely be more! let me know what you think ♡♡

Part 1, Part 3

Sometimes you hated being a scholar.

There were plenty of upsides to having such a cushy job, especially when your employer was the high lord himself. You got paid generously, got free access to the best libraries, and never had to pay rent. Millions of fae would kill to have your position.

But as Cassian punched you in the ribs—for the third time—you found yourself questioning your role within the night court’s inner circle.

“Okay,” you breathed out, hunching over with a hand cradling your side. “Okay, please, Cass. Can we take a break?”

Unfortunately, Cassian didn’t appreciate quitters. So, your feet were abruptly swept from under you and your back made contact with the floor. With a soft oof, the wind was knocked from your lungs.

“C’mon, y/n, you’re better than that. I know you are.”

You responded with a wheeze, blinking into the pale sun.

This morning had been rough.

You’d been having some trouble sleeping, but that wasn’t necessarily unusual. Being alive for so long meant you had seen quite a few things, so nightmares came and went with the tide. You were going through a rough patch with them at the moment, and the lack of sleep was starting to catch up with you.

“You planning on laying there for the rest of the day?” Cassian asked, his large silhouette coming to block the light.

You squinted up at him. “Maybe.”

“Yeah, not happening.”

You fought back a whine as the Illyrian pulled you up by your shoulders and steadied you. He nodded, giving you a moment to ready yourself back into position, and then bent his knees. Gods, you were going to be so sore later.

It didn’t take long for you to end up on the floor again, this time on your stomach. Your chin cracked against the padded ring, your teeth snapping together at the impact. The sound made your brain vibrate as you rolled onto your side and held your temple.

Cassian crouched down to the floor beside you and you could make out his worried brow amidst the shakiness of your vision.

“What’s going on with you?” He brought his hand up to brush against your already bruising jaw. “We’ve been working on that move for weeks. You had it a few days ago.”

You breathed through your nose and tried not to groan at the ache rolling through your body. “I think I’m just tired. I haven’t been sleeping very well.”

At that, Cassian plopped down to a seat, keeping a hand at your elbow as you brought your own body up to mirror his.

“You want to talk about it?” he questioned.

“There isn’t much to say. I can’t remember them this time. It’s kind of strange—usually I remember them too much and that’s what makes it worse.”

Cassian hummed in contemplation. He was always the one you went to the morning after a sleepless night. Cassian would listen as you talked through your nightmares, and you would do the same for him. He was a logical pillar in your life.

But it was always Azriel you went to in the midst of them. You never talked about what you saw and he never asked. But it was always Azriel in the middle of the night. His shadows were a comfort in the pitch black and he was always quick to wrap his wings around you when it became too hard to breathe.

You hadn’t gone to him these last few times.

The fact that you couldn’t remember your dreams was an unfortunate factor. Because if you knew what was causing you to wake up in a cold sweat every night, at least then you could talk about it. Or take a moment to rationalize.

There was no rationalizing when the only thing you had to go off of was fear and hurt.

“What does Azriel think?” Cassian asked after a small lapse in silence.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when you go to his room at night. What does he have to say about you not remembering?”

You scoffed. And then scoffed again. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about, I barely do that.”

Cassian stared at you with a blank expression. “So we’re still doing that then. Got it.” He heaved himself up from the ground and then yanked you up alongside him.

“Still doing what?” you asked, trailing behind him as he reached for his canteen. He didn’t answer you, favoring the long gulps of water he was taking. You waited for him to finish and then asked again. He chose to unwrap his knuckles instead. “Cassian.”

The man sighed. “Nothing, y/n. It’s just… It wasn’t a secret that you would go to his room after you had a rough night. Why do you think I never dragged you out here those mornings?” You cringed at his words. He shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Why do you hide it?”

You didn’t have a good reason—well, you didn’t used to. You’d always sneak out of his room after the sun rose and never bring it up again. And there was never a solid explanation for why you evaded the topic. You knew Azriel would never hold it against you and you weren’t embarrassed for others to know that you sought out comfort in a friend. It just seemed like something you should keep to yourself.

Now, though—now there was a good reason to wipe your actions from memory. To pretend they never happened and to never repeat them.

“Cassian, Elain is my friend. Even if I did that in the past—in a friendly way—it would be wrong now.”

A muscle in Cassian’s jaw twitched. “Right. Have you ever actually talked to Elain about her feelings?”

“I don’t need to.” You reached down for your own water, ignoring the twinge in your side and the pulsing in your head. “She never stops talking about him. And they’re always together. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were already seeing each other.”

“Who’s seeing each other?”

The cool tone of Azriel’s voice washed over you and you whipped around to find him standing at the foot of the training ring, blades in hand.

A nervous laugh fell from your lips and you fought the urge to slap your hand over your mouth. “Um, no one, just some friends I know.”

“Who?” he asked again.

“Oh, you don’t know them. Old friends.”

The Shadowsinger raised a brow, sending Cassian a fleeting look. “I thought I knew all of your friends.”

“You don’t. I know way more people than you. Even though you're older than me. Not by that much, though. Have you talked to Elain lately?” Words were spewing from your mouth in the worst combinations. You were never nervous around Azriel. What in the cauldron was wrong with you?

Azriel’s raised brow turned into a furrowed one and he blinked, assessing your face with a scrutinizing gaze. “Do you have a concussion?” He turned the Cassian, expression going from confused to provoked. “Did you give her a concussion?”

“Honestly, maybe.”

“I don’t have a concussion,” you rushed out, cutting off Cassian’s admission. “I was just leaving though. I’m tired. You guys can fight each other.”

There was so much sudden pent-up energy inside of you that you had no intention of sleeping, but just seeing Azriel made you feel like you were intruding on something. Which was absurd. Azriel was your friend and had been your friend for centuries. Just because he loved Elain didn’t mean you had to avoid him.

But this energy had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere was telling you to avoid him like the Illyrian flu.

Making a break for it, you freed yourself from the training ring and attempted to skate past Azriel with a quick side smile, but he apparently had other plans. He caught your wrist as you walked past, glancing up at a “preoccupied” Cassian before turning to you with his wing out, giving the illusion of a private conversation.

“You’re not sleeping well?” he asked, voice low.

You warped your smile into one that met both sides of your mouth. “I’m okay.”

Shadows crept over his shoulders and along his ears. His expression shifted and pinched and then returned neutral. “You know you can come to me if you need it.”

“I’m okay, Az. Really.”

“Would you tell me if you weren’t?”

Maybe before.

“I’m a paper pusher, Az. I’m not out in the throes of battle,” you jested, scrunching your nose as you smiled up at him. “Nothing is that serious for me.”

A lie. Something was that serious—serious enough to keep you up at night for the past week—but you couldn’t figure out what it was.

“That is not what I asked,” he countered, sliding his hand up from your wrist to turn your chin. “You need to ice your jaw. Cassian shouldn’t be so rough with you.”

“I’m okay,” you said again, words a pathetic repetition because your heart was beating so fast now and you needed to leave. Something was pulling at your chest and you needed to leave.

“As you’ve said,” Azriel muttered, his fingers brushing down along the column of your throat. When his eyes flickered up and met your own, something inside of you lost its alignment.

You looked away before the feeling could return. Everything righted itself. You took a wobbly step back.

“Have a good training session.”

You turned on your heel and stalked away, feeling equal parts the betrayer and the betrayed.

“You mean that girl off-continent? The one from a century ago?”

Cassian hummed. “Yeah, her. What I wouldn’t give for a visit from her.”

“You’re a pig,” Mor replied, a scoff sharp on her lips.

“She didn’t think so.”

You were eavesdropping. You didn’t like to, but somehow, in the time you’d spent in the inner circle, you’d picked up the habit. Oops.

Technically, you weren’t really eavesdropping. You had been in the room first. It wasn’t your fault Cassian and Mor decided to speak very loudly with only a few shelves separating you. If they wanted privacy they should have checked the area.

“Is it that hard for you to get laid? You have to search off-continent?”

Cassian’s responding laugh was almost defensive. “I’m sure you’d love to know about my sex life.”

“I really wouldn’t, actually. You brought it up.” Mor paused. You heard her shift on the lounge chair. “I am, however, interested in Azriel’s.”

“Aren’t we all,” Cassian droned. “Pretty obvious that he doesn't have one at the moment. Hasn’t had one in a while.”

You felt your neck jolt at the reveal of that information. Azriel always kept his partners discrete, but you’d always known he’d had them. Many of them. You had no idea who they were or where he met them, but you would hear the girls occasionally... smell their perfume on a few rare nights.

“You think? This whole time?” Mor asked, curiosity raising her voice an octave.

“Mor, I think the sight of other females makes him want to vomit.”

The book in your lap was all but obsolete.

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

Cassian tsked. “I’m not. He’s told me.”

“I suppose that’s what having a mate does to a person.”

Your fingers became abnormally cold, the center of your chest caving slightly.

Azriel had a mate? No, he would have told you.

He would have told you.

Mor’s sweet voice slammed against your ears, harsh despite its nature. “Do you think he’ll tell her soon?”

Cassian’s reply had you standing on shaking knees. “Hope so. He’s so in love with her it's suffocating. You should see when—”

You were out of the room in a wisp, sliding out the small back door. The book you’d been reading was still clutched in your frozen grip and you held it against your chest as breathing became impossible. With a hand pressed to the wall and your head hung low, you sucked in air, greedy for some type of reprieve.

You were happy for him. You were so, so happy for him.

Right?

The book fell from your grip, clattering to the floor. The pages collapsed in on themselves as it fell face down, and you listened to the paper crumple as your throat closed. Both hands now pressed to the cold wall. Why were you freezing?

This made sense. It made sense.

Of course Azriel had a mate and of course it was… Elain?

No, it couldn’t be Elain. Elain was Lucien’s mate.

Now you were confused as well as consumed. Your body was left aching from training and your mind was in a frenzy and you couldn’t even understand why you were reacting the way you were.

It was completely plausible that Azriel had a mate and didn’t tell anyone about it. He was a private male who kept his lovers to himself, so of course he would keep his mate to himself as well. But he did tell someone about it. He told Cassian. And Mor knew.

Your fingernails dug into stone.

Azriel didn’t love you.

The thought came on so suddenly that you almost looked over your shoulder. It was as if the words had been whispered in your ear by some cruel, vicious wind.

You had never cared if Azriel loved you before, because you knew that he did love you. Like a sister. You were Azriel’s family and he was yours.

But as the thought of Azriel having a mate invaded your mind once more, your shaky legs propelled you forward, running from the creased book and the hallway that contained all of the worst things.

You ran until you couldn't, until your toes hit the edge of the balcony on the far side of the house and the cool air of winter hit your cheeks. You had been so cold inside, but somehow the breeze felt even colder across your skin.

“Y/n?”

You gasped, whipping around and gripping the railing as it pressed into your spine. You couldn’t formulate words as Azriel stood before you. His hands raised up to his waist, reaching for you as he took in the way your chest heaved.

“What’s happened? What’s wrong?” he rushed.

You only shook your head, squeezing your eyes shut. Embarrassment and confusion and a twisted sort of fear coursed through you. You couldn't look at him, afraid you would somehow see the bond connected to his chest—somehow notice things about him you hadn’t before. Maybe another shade of hazel in his eyes or a softness to his lips that you had never looked for.

As you considered it now, it was obvious that you’d never let yourself look.

Azriel was never supposed to be yours.

“Talk to me, angel.” Azriel’s sweet whisper brushed against your skin. He was so close to you. You could feel him, but you refused to look.

To see how everything had changed.

“Let me fix it.”

You heard the rush of wind from his wings as he expanded them outwards, followed closely behind by the whirling of his shadows, and it all clicked then.

The images came quickly, dissipating just as fast. But they did their job, sending heavy, hot tears past the tight scrunch of your eyelids.

Azriel with Elain. Azriel with Mor. Azriel with random, faceless women.

Him, in every iteration, with everyone that wasn’t you.

That’s what had kept you up—the dreams plaguing your every resting moment. And you realized then that nothing had really changed at all. That you’d been in love with Azriel for longer than you’d been in love with anything.

Your jaw trembled, your body rejecting the anguish that swept through you. Wind softly flowed from the west, swaying your skirts with a gentleness that made your breath shudder. That kind of gentleness was impossible. The world felt so cruel.

“Y/n, tell me what happened. Should I get someone else?” Azriel pleaded. “Should I get Rhys?”

Rhys could knock you out, and that would surely be a relief. You felt paralyzed by this overwhelming array of devastation. But Rhys would also have access to your thoughts.

You shook your head. “No,” you said, but the word was lost in the wind. Azriel seemed to hear it anyway. “No, I want—I need to—go to sleep.”

“You need to go to sleep?” He touched you now, something he seemed to have been avoiding. His hands came to rest behind your neck, thumbs at your jaw, and you pried your eyes open at the contact. You’d never seen the shadowsinger look so ruined, his hair askew, his eyes wild and panicked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

His expression was beseeching you for something you couldn’t give him. You hiccuped your next words out.

“I’m—’m tired.”

You wished you’d stayed oblivious. That you had never become privy to the depth of your feelings.

This pain was immeasurable.

#azriel x reader #azriel acotar #azriel x you #azriel shadowsinger #acotar fanfiction #azriel #azriel angst #azriel fanfic

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spaceacealex · 20 days

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Trip report!!

For those that have been waiting, sorry! I got home and immediately had to go help with a family thing. But here it is!

First, was the obvious. We had to drop off the baby boy with my parents. He had a great time with the family and was very dirty, stinky, and sleepy when we got back.

So where were we? We went to see the eclipse! As many of you know, My wife proposed to me under totality in the 2017 solar eclipse. So she surprised me with time off to travel to this last one on 4/8!

We flew to Nashville, TN and rented a car so I could scratch my road trip itch. We visited her family in KY, then went up to Cairo, IL for the event.

THIS is the public library in Cairo. It's an absolutely darling building, built originally to be a library and still proudly serving that purpose. The gals who were manning the counter were sweet, knowledgeable, and so welcoming. They had goodie bags with moon pies and starbursts and collected the eclipse glasses when we were done with them so they could be sterilized and sent down to Mexico for the next eclipse. So lovely to talk with and they welcomed us to spend the eclipse on their lawn with some local families. So we did!

We had a little picnic, chatted with some of the families, and got to watch totality in a tiny little town with so much character I still smile just thinking about it.

Hopefully you don't expect us to have top tier eclipse photography lol, but these are great for us! I got to kiss my wife under totality and it was hella romantic.

Then I got to drive more....then Kara got to drive because there were a ton of accidents and the three hour drive back to Nashville took more than six hours. So uh, my motion-sick self was struggling with the stop and go traffic.

But when we got there, we had a great night and then day walking around Eastside Nashville and pointing out the arcades I was going to take Kara to that evening.

That didn't quite happen.

Because the first stop we made in the arcade crawl is where we stayed all night.

No Quarter, the pinball arcade I now have a hat for because it's so friggin cool. We got to do many cool things there. 1)They had excellent drinks and in true Oregonian fashion I got to try the local cider and judge it. (it was good!) 2) I kicked Kara's ass at pinball. Very important. 3) I got MY ass kicked at pinball by literally every other person in the building. Also very important. Because 4) I got to play in a pinball tournament hosted by Belles and Chimes, specifically for women and non binary folks!

How did I, notorious nerves-haver and not a multiplayer pinball player join this?

5) I got to meet Quinn Hills. You know, @quinnhills ? Yeah. I'm still so giggly about it.

Hi. This pic is me, many drinks in, just absolutely giddy getting to meet (and hug!!) one of my favorite artists.

She's so sweet, so kind, and asked if I wanted to join the tournament.

Remember: do what beautiful women ask of you.

I am still kicking myself because I dropped the cliche, "your music has helped me through some really hard stuff." I mean, its absolutely true!! But I had told myself I was gonna be more eloquent than that. Oh well. I would blame the cider, but I was super excited and nervous before that, so I think I'm just a little goofy.

Kara also was happy to meet the woman who's music I had been blaring for that whole six plus hour car ride back to Nashville, and she's agreed to play pinball with me at our home bar! Major win!

We stayed until one in the morning, Kara ordered pizza to the hotel, and we had safe flights back home the rest of the day.

It was such a fun trip and I'm still losing my mind at all the little bits of it.

When I stream next (soon) I'm sure you'll hear about all this again. Along with my breakdown of eclipse conspiracies I've spent far too much time analyzing. <3

#talking tag #quinn hills

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jrob64 · 2 months

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Pet for Rent, Chapter 1/4 (The Meet Cute) A CS Modern AU Story

For those of you who read "Sowing Seeds of Trust", you might remember that my dog Zeke had a starring role in it. To my great heartbreak, he died of cancer last June. When we rescued him, the shelter had named him Ernie, and he will be referenced with that name in this story.

Life without a dog proved to be very lonely, so at the end of August, we rescued another dog. The sad story of the dog in this story is what really happened to our new dog. He was named Norman and we renamed him Winston, just like in the story. That's actually him in the pic set with his 'ducky'.

This was supposed to be a short, sweet story, but somehow turned into 4 chapters. Updates will be once a week.

Special thanks to my beta @hookedmom and also to @beckettj and @zaharadessert for helping me understand the football (soccer) system in England.

SUMMARY: Emma Swan tries to cheer up her heartbroken son by 'renting' a dog from the local animal shelter. When she attempts to do it a second time, she makes a mistake, and realizes the dog has been rented by someone else the same day - a very handsome man named Killian Jones.

RATING: M (for smut in the last chapter, which can easily be skipped if that's not your thing)

WORDS: 7754

ALSO POSTED TO A03 & FFN

Story begins under the cut

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Emma Swan flopped down onto her sofa with a sigh. Since their beloved dog Ernie died three weeks ago, she had come to dread her eight-year-old son Henry’s bedtime. Every night when he said his prayers, he ended with, “God, please tell Ernie I love him and miss him, and please send me another dog. Amen.”

Her son knew the chances of getting a dog were slim to none because of his soccer practices and games, and Emma’s schedule for her new job at the sheriff’s station. They had no time to train a puppy.

Understanding why he couldn’t have a dog didn’t make his heart hurt any less. Her heart was just as broken, knowing the sadness and loneliness Henry was experiencing.

After decompressing for a few minutes, Emma’s searching hand located her phone on the end table. She unlocked it and opened her Discord app, selecting the icon representing the parents’ group of Henry’s second grade class. Sitting up a little straighter, she typed a message: Does anyone have ideas of how to help Henry get over the loss of his dog? He keeps praying for a new one, but it wouldn’t be fair to the dog to get one with our busy schedule.

She watched the screen intently for a couple of minutes, but when no names appeared to show that someone was answering, she tossed the phone onto the couch and went into the kitchen to load the dishwasher.

Forty minutes later, after cleaning up the kitchen, going through her nightly routine and changing into her pajamas, she went back into the living room. Television held no interest for her, and realizing she finished her last library book the previous evening, she picked up her phone to mindlessly play a game. Upon unlocking it, her screen opened to the Discord page and she saw three replies to her question.

The first two simply expressed sympathy for the loss of Ernie, but the third one offered a helpful suggestion. Have you thought about ‘renting’ a dog for a day? The animal shelter just outside of town offers that option. We did it for my mother when her Maltese died. The post ended with the web address for the shelter.

Emma immediately pulled up the site and, after searching the homepage, clicked on the tab for ‘services’. Scrolling down the list, she saw ‘Rent-a-Pet’ and selected it. As she read the description of how the program worked, she idly twisted strands of blonde hair around her index finger.

It sounded like a great compromise for their situation. For a donation to the shelter in the form of money, bags of pet food, treats or toys, one of the available animals could come home with them for several hours. The dogs and cats were guaranteed to be docile and house-trained, and could be adopted by the ‘renter’, if desired.

Clicking on the link taking her to the bios of the pets currently housed at the shelter, she filtered it to include only canines. Pictures of nearly two dozen dogs filled the screen, each more adorable and aww-worthy than the last.

Quickly ruling out any that were guaranteed to shed fur all over her house or were bigger than her son, her search was narrowed to nine prospects. She knew her rambunctious son would be keen to play outside with the dog and walk him or her to Storybrooke’s dog park, so a tiny fru-fru pup was out of the question, too. That left six.

She selected one at a time, reading about their breed and temperament. When she brought up the picture of the fourth candidate, the big, chocolate brown eyes and happy expression nearly made her heart melt.

‘Norman’ was a mixed breed and very little was known about him, because he was found tied to a stop sign in the middle of Portland, Maine. He was guessed to be a cocker spaniel mix and was approximately 1-2 years old. His black fur looked sleek and Emma knew he probably wouldn’t shed. A short video showed him romping and playing with another dog in the fenced play yard of the shelter.

Saving the page, she brought up the calendar on her phone and checked their schedule for the rest of the week. Henry had an early soccer game on Saturday, which would be over by 10:30, leaving the rest of the morning and afternoon free. Switching back to the shelter website, she hit the ‘Rent-a-Pet’ button again and began filling in the information, selecting ‘Norman’ when it gave her the choice of animals.

She decided not to tell Henry about the plan, opting to surprise him with it instead.

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

“Great game, kid,” Emma complimented her son, ruffling his sweaty hair. “Your pass to Avery was a nice assist. That goal turned out to be the game winner.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Henry grinned around his mouthful of granola bar. “That’s the first time all season we beat the orange team.”

“I know, and I think that calls for a celebration, don’t you?” Emma fished her car keys out of her jeans pocket, before picking up her lawn chair and water bottle.

“Are we gonna get ice cream?” he asked, before cramming the rest of his snack into his mouth.

“You just ate a granola bar and a banana, and lunch will be in just an hour or so,” she laughed. “I have something else in mind.”

“Whaisit?” he queried, the unswallowed food muffling his voice.

“Well, I know how much you miss Ernie, and Violet’s mom told me about a program at the animal shelter that lets you rent a pet for a few hours,” she answered slowly, watching his reaction out of the corner of her eye. “So, I signed up to get a dog for you to play with until three o’clock this afternoon.”

Henry stopped in his tracks, swallowing down the rest of his snack as his eyes grew wide. “Really? You can do that?”

“Yeah, we’re scheduled to pick him up at eleven. What do you think about that?”

His exuberant shout of joy and sprint to the car was all the answer she needed.

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

Emma couldn’t keep up with her son once he unstrapped his safety belt, exited the car and bounded toward the front door of the shelter. He was already ringing the little bell on the counter for service before she made it inside and chided him lightly for not waiting for her.

A tall, broad-shouldered man with sandy hair and light blue eyes entered through a door, the barking of dogs stifled when it clicked shut behind him. He gave them a dazzling smile and greeted them warmly with a hearty ‘good morning’.

Emma reached forward to shake his hand. “Hi, I’m Emma Swan and this is my son, Henry.”

“David Nolan,” he responded, shaking her hand, then doing the same with Henry.

“My teacher’s name is Mrs. Nolan, the same as yours,” the boy told him.

“You wouldn’t happen to be in second grade at Storybrooke Elementary, would you?” David asked.

“Yeah,” Henry confirmed.

“Ah, well, that means your teacher is my wife!”

“Wow, cool!” Henry exclaimed. “She’s the best teacher I ever had!”

David’s grin grew even wider. “That’s good to hear. She tells me all about her students every evening and she thinks yours is the best class she’s ever had!”

“It’s quite a coincidence, meeting you here,” Emma commented with a smile.

“I’ll be sure to tell Mary Margaret I met the two of you. Now, what can I do for you today?”

Emma pulled her phone out of her purse, unlocked it, and tapped on the screen a few times. Then she laid it on the counter and turned it to show David. “I signed up for the Rent-a-Pet program. Here’s the email with my confirmation.”

David peered down at the screen and used his finger to scroll down a bit. “I see you chose Norman,” he commented, looking up at her.

“Um, yeah. Is he a good dog? I don’t want any messes in my house or car.”

“He’s a great dog,” he assured her, reaching back to the wall behind him to lift a leash off of a hook. “Gets along well with other dogs, seems to love kids, and is generally a very happy little guy.”

Henry bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. “Can we take him to the dog park? Ernie always loved going to the dog park.” His countenance dropped, a small cloud of sadness passing across his features.

David shared an understanding look with Emma. “Of course you can take him. I’m sure he will love it! Would you like to come back with me to get him?”

The boy turned to look at his mother. “Can I?”

“Sure, kid. I think I’ll come back, too, if Mr. Nolan doesn’t mind.”

“The more, the merrier,” David said cheerfully.

He waited until they joined him on the other side of the counter, then opened the door to the large room full of animal cages. Immediately, the sound of barking, howling and meows filled their ears.

“They get very excited when they know someone is coming back here. I think the animals closest to the door are spies and tell the others,” David joked, raising his voice to be heard over the din.

Emma walked behind Henry, watching him turn his head left and right to peer at the occupants of all of the pens.

“Aw, Mom, look at that little puppy! He’s so cute! Aw, that dog seems sad. I bet he doesn’t like being in a cage. Look Mom, they have cats here, too.” His litany was continuous as they slowly walked down the aisle between the enclosures.

Finally, David stopped in front of a pen and turned to them, gesturing toward the dog inside. “This is Norman. He has a sad story, but he’s kept his sweet temperament, haven’t you, boy?”

As if in answer, the black dog stood up, his tail starting to wag as he realized the man was talking about him. Henry dropped to his knees in front of the cage, placing his hands against the wire. “Hi, Norman! My name is Henry. Would you like to come home with us for a little while?” The dog’s tail was wagging so fast, his entire body wiggled. “I think he understands me, Mom!” Henry said excitedly.

As David slipped inside the pen to clip the leash to Norman’s collar, Emma asked, “Has he ever been rented before?”

“Several times,” David answered, straightening up once he had the leash attached. “He’s always done really well.” Opening the door of the kennel again, he allowed the dog to go ahead of him, out to where the boy still knelt.

“Hi, boy,” Henry crooned, running his hands over the dog’s head.

Emma bent down and stroked the sleek fur on Norman’s back and sides. “He’s so soft,” she commented.

“He appears to have the coat of a cocker spaniel,” David said, “but he’s definitely a mixed breed.” He watched the boy and dog interact for a few seconds before holding out the looped end of the leash. “Would you like to lead him out to the lobby, Henry?”

He looked up at Emma with hopeful eyes. “Is that okay, Mom?”

“How is he on a leash?” she asked David. “He won’t pull my kid’s arm out of the socket, will he?”

David laughed. “He does fairly well, but if he gets excited, he can get pretty rambunctious. He’ll be fine just going to the lobby, but you might have to walk him out to your car instead of Henry.”

“Sounds like a deal, kid,” she said, giving him a nod of approval.

Henry eagerly accepted the leash and started off down the aisle. “Come on, Norman. Come on, boy. You’re gonna like it at our house. We still have some of Ernie’s toys and balls.”

Emma and David trailed behind. “How long ago did you lose your dog?” he asked.

“Almost a month and Henry is really struggling with it. He and Ernie were best buds.”

“I’m sorry. That’s rough, especially for a kid.”

“And his mom,” Emma added. “I never realized how much I loved that dog, until he got sick and I knew we were going to lose him.”

“Hopefully, Norman will give you both a few hours of enjoyment and help ease the heartache a bit,” David said, before hurrying forward to pull the door open for Henry and the dog.

While David printed off the paperwork, Norman sniffed around Henry, who sat cross-legged on the floor, giggling when the dog licked his ears. “Ernie used to do that too, remember, Mom?”

Emma smiled down at him. “Yeah, you must have very tasty ears. Maybe you should start washing them better.”

“I won’t need to, after Norman washes them!”

She turned back to finish signing the papers. “It’s nice to hear him laughing again. He hasn’t done much of that lately,” she confided to David.

“I think this will be good for both of you and Norman. He really likes being around people. I’m very surprised he hasn’t been adopted yet.”

“Do you think there’s a reason for that?”

David shrugged. “This tends to be a slow time of the year for adoptions. Summer is over and school is back in session, so people don’t have as much time to welcome a new dog into their house.”

“That’s the boat we’re in right now,” Emma commented.

“Once it gets closer to Christmas, people will come in looking for pets to give as gifts. That’s good, but also bad, because about a quarter of them are brought back when they realize a pet is more work than they anticipated.”

“We got Ernie from the shelter when Henry was two. He was already five years old, house-trained and had all of the annoying puppy behaviors out of his system.”

“Most people want puppies instead of adult dogs, but there are a lot of advantages to getting an older dog.”

“Norman doesn’t seem to be very old.”

“I’d say at least two, but he’s pretty chill. Once he runs out of energy, he becomes a couch potato.” David collected the paperwork and tapped it on the counter to straighten it. “Well, that’s all I need from you. Norman is yours until three o’clock.”

“Yay!” Henry shouted, causing the dog to start barking.

Emma reached down to take the leash. “Don’t get him all riled up right before we put him in the car, kid.”

“Sorry, Mom,” Henry apologized. “I just can’t wait to get him home! Can he sit in the back with me?”

“Sure, but first you need to thank Mr. Nolan.”

Henry popped up from the floor and looked back at David. “Thanks, Mr. Nolan! I’ll take good care of Norman, I promise!”

“My pleasure, Henry. Have fun!” David grinned.

Mother and son exited the building, with Norman leading the way, tugging excitedly on the leash. “Slow down, pup,” Emma laughed.

Henry ran ahead to open the door of the yellow Volkswagen Beetle, sliding the front seat forward and clambering into the back. As soon as Norman reached the car, he hopped in and sat on the seat beside Henry like he’d done it every day of his life.

“Well, that was easy,” Emma commented, removing the loop of the leash from her wrist and tossing it beside the dog. After closing the door, she circled around behind the car to get into the driver’s seat. She looked into the rearview mirror and choked up at the sight meeting her eyes. Henry had his arms wrapped around Norman’s neck with his eyes closed and his head resting against the dog’s.

Emma was sure the time with Norman was going to be good for both boy and dog, but she couldn’t help but worry about what would happen when it came time to bring him back to the shelter.

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

Emma was barely able to get Henry to eat when they got home, and had to reprimand him for sneaking Norman bits of his sandwich. The dog, for his part, sat politely while they ate, not begging or whining. She was impressed with his behavior, remembering how she had to break Ernie from begging at the table when they first adopted him.

Henry and Norman bonded quickly as they chased each other around the small backyard, playing with a tennis ball and squeaky toys from Ernie’s toy basket. Emma sat on their small patio, thoroughly enjoying the sounds of happy barking and her son’s laughter. She pulled out her phone and took a picture, posting it to the Discord group and tagging Violet’s mom to thank her for the idea of renting a pet.

Just after two o’clock, Emma suggested taking Norman to the dog park before going back to the shelter. They played there for forty minutes, then the three of them returned home and piled back into the car. Once again, she caught sight in the mirror of her son hugging the dog and sighed, but instead of dreading Norman’s return, she decided to enjoy every minute of happiness it was bringing to Henry…and herself.

Their time with the dog was over all too soon. After Emma parked the car at the shelter, Henry got out of the car and trudged to the door with the leash gripped tightly in his hand. Norman seemed to sense the boy’s mood and walked slowly beside him, his head hanging low.

David was at the desk to greet them again, an understanding look at his face at the dejected look of all three of them. “Was he good for you?” he asked.

“He was great,” Emma answered, rubbing her hand soothingly over her son’s back. “Wasn’t he, kid?”

“Yeah,” Henry quietly agreed, his eyes trained on the floor.

“You know, you’re welcome to rent Norman, or any of our other dogs, anytime you want,” David said.

Henry looked up. “But what if someone adopts him?”

“Well, that would be a good thing for Norman,” Emma reminded him.

“I guess,” Henry sighed. He knelt down beside the dog, wrapping him up in another hug. “I’ll miss you, boy, but maybe I’ll see you again.” The dog licked his cheek, eliciting a small giggle. Then Henry stood and held the leash out to David. “Thank you, Mr. Nolan. I had a lot of fun with Norman.”

“I’m happy to hear it,” David said, accepting the leash and moving around the counter. Patting the dog on the head, he added, “I hope we’ll see you again, soon.”

Henry turned pleading eyes to his mother. “Can we do it again next weekend, Mom?”

“You have Avery’s birthday party next Saturday, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Henry nodded, then bit his lip in contemplation. “The next weekend, then?”

Emma laughed. “We’ll see.” She leaned down to pet the dog’s head. “Be a good boy, Norman. You’re welcome at our house anytime.”

After saying their goodbyes, they watched David take the dog toward the door leading to the back. Norman turned and gave them a sad look before following the shelter worker through it, tearing at Emma’s heart even more.

She swallowed hard and said, “Come on, kid. Let’s go home.”

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

The sadness soon wore off and for the next several days, Henry talked almost incessantly about all of the fun he had with Norman. Emma checked their schedule and saw that Henry had another early game three weeks later, which would be the last game of the soccer season. She relayed that news to Henry, asking him if he wanted to rent Norman again that day, and was answered with a very enthusiastic ‘YES!’

She nearly forgot to make the reservation, only remembering three days before, while waiting to pick Henry up from practice. Quickly, she pulled up the website and filled out the form, glancing up often to see if Henry was coming off the field because she always liked to meet him as soon as he did, instead of waiting for him in the car.

Emma was especially glad they decided to rent Norman Saturday, since Henry’s soccer team lost their final game by one goal. His downcast look was soon replaced with excitement when she reminded him that they would be going to the shelter.

When they arrived, he bounded out of the car and waited impatiently for his mom to join him, before practically sprinting to the door. It took a couple of minutes before David emerged from the back, beaming a smile when he saw them waiting at the counter.

“Henry! Emma! I’m very happy to see you again!”

“We’re here to get Norman,” Henry said excitedly.

A puzzled look crossed David’s face. “I’m sorry, but Norman is already being rented by somebody else today,” he informed them.

“What?” Henry asked, a slight tremor in his voice. Then he turned to Emma. “But Mom, you said we would be getting Norman.”

Emma was already pulling the email up on her phone. “There must be some mistake, Mr. Nolan. I reserved Norman when I filled out the form. See?”

She turned her phone for the worker to see it. David looked at it carefully, then pointed to the screen. “It looks like you didn’t ask for a specific dog.”

“I didn’t?” she questioned, then looked at her phone more closely, her heart dropping when she saw the blank space beside the ‘requested animal’ inquiry. “Oh, Henry. I’m so sorry. I was in a hurry when I filled it out and I must have missed that question.”

“We have several other dogs,” David consoled. “I’m sure you’ll have just as much fun with one of them.”

“No I won’t,” Henry pouted. “I only want Norman.”

“Henry…” Emma started, but was interrupted when the door behind her opened.

“Good morning, Dave,” said a deep voice with a distinctive British accent.

Emma turned to see the newcomer and nearly swallowed her tongue. The man standing before her had to be a mirage, because surely someone that handsome didn’t really exist. He had a lean physique clad in dark jeans and a maroon henley, with a tantalizing view of chest hair peeking out of the unbuttoned neckline. A black leather jacket completed his ensemble. His chiseled jawline was covered with a pleasing amount of scruff and his dark, windblown hair was falling over his forehead. He sported a wide grin and, between that and his deep blue eyes, Emma was mesmerized.

She was suddenly very aware of her own appearance. Henry’s early game meant she had thrown on a pair of sweatpants, donned an old hoodie and stuffed a beanie over her barely brushed hair that morning. Her face was free of makeup, unless you counted a few stray flecks of mascara that stubbornly refused to come off when she washed her face the previous evening.

“Hey, Killian,” David greeted.

The man’s - Killian’s - eyes had settled on Emma, a glint of curiosity evident in them.

“Oh, um, come on Henry,” she said, after several moments of silence. “Let’s get out of this man’s way.”

“But Mommmm…” he whined.

Emma put her hand on his shoulder and guided him away from the counter. “We’ll figure something out, kid.”

“I’m in no hurry, Miss,” Killian began.

“No, it’s okay,” she hurried to assure him. “I’m afraid I created a problem that might take a while to straighten out, so please, go ahead.”

“In that case, thank you very much,” he smiled. Turning his eyes to David, he asked, “Is Winston ready?”

Emma was surprised to see the genial shelter worker furrow his brow at the other man. “Why do you insist on calling him that?”

Killian shrugged. “He looks like a Winston to me, and he answers to that name when he’s at my house.”

David glanced at Emma and Henry and opened his mouth to say something, but apparently changed his mind. Grabbing a leash off of a hook, he said, “Give me a minute,” then he pushed the door open and disappeared into the back.

“Are you adopting a dog today?” Henry asked Killian.

“Alas, no. I just moved into a small apartment here three months ago and am still trying to get everything organized and put away. Being in a new town has been a bit lonely at times, so I’ve been coming here now and then to borrow a dog for a few hours.”

“That’s why we’re here, but somebody is taking the dog I want,” Henry grumbled.

“Henry, that’s enough,” Emma reprimanded. “You haven’t even looked at any of the other dogs.”

“None of them will be as good as Norman.”

Killian’s brows raised. “Did you say Nor-”

Just then, the door behind the counter opened and David came through, trying to control a very excited dog.

“Norman!” Henry cheered, dropping to his knees. The dog started jumping toward him, wildly licking his face as soon as he reached the boy.

“I thought you said he was already rented today,” Emma questioned David.

“He is,” he replied, looking pointedly at Killian.

Emma followed his gaze and saw the other man watching the interaction between Henry and the dog with a sheepish look on his face. The pieces began to click together and she asked, “Wait a minute - is Norman the dog you’re renting today?”

“Aye,” Killian confirmed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Looks like we’re here for the same dog.”

“But you called him by another name,” Emma continued.

“He’s the dog I’ve rented every time and he just doesn’t seem like a Norman to me, so I started calling him Winston,” Killian explained.

All three adults stood looking at the whirlwind of fur jumping all over Henry, who was giggling so much, he could hardly catch his breath.

Finally, Killian spoke. “It seems as though Win-, I mean, Norman, has made his choice. Please let Henry and…his mother have the dog today, Dave.”

“Emma,” she informed him. “My name is Emma Swan, and you don’t have to do that. You had him reserved first. Besides, Henry needs to learn he can’t always have his way.”

“I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my time with the dog, knowing how sad it would make Henry,” Killian responded. He took a step forward and offered Emma his hand to shake. “I’m Killian Jones, by the way. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Emma.”

As they shook hands, David cleared his throat. “Um, I have an idea of how to work this out. It’s a nice day, so why don’t all of you take Norman to the dog park together?”

Emma and Killian both whipped their heads around to stare at him. He seemed to shrink back a bit before stammering, “I mean, that way you could all spend time with him and get to know each other at the same time. You’ve been saying you’d like to meet more people in Storybrooke, Killian, and that’s where Henry and Emma live.” Looking at Emma, he added, “I’ve gotten to know Killian pretty well because he sings in the church choir with me and Mary Margaret. He’s a good guy.”

Emma slowly turned her eyes back to the very handsome man whose hand she suddenly realized she was still holding. She dropped it quickly, as she felt a blush heating her cheeks. Then she looked at Henry, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Norman sprawled across his lap. He was looking up at her with hope in his eyes.

Meeting Killian’s gaze once again, she asked, “What do you think?”

“I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position, Emma.”

“You wouldn’t have to go all the way back into Storybrooke,” David said. “There’s a small dog park at the end of the walking path, where a lot of people take dogs they’re thinking of adopting.”

“Please, Mom?” Henry pleaded. “Norman would like that, wouldn’t you, boy?”

Emma took a look at the pair and groaned, “It’s bad enough when you use the puppy dog eyes on me, kid. Now you’ve got the dog doing it, too.”

Killian chuckled lowly, the sound of it making Emma’s stomach flip in a very pleasant way. “I would hate to disappoint the two of them, so I’m game if you are, lass.”

Emma chewed her lip in contemplation for a few seconds, before saying, “Okay, but on one condition - you let me pay half of the rental fee.”

“I already paid the fee online,” Killian said.

“So did I, so I guess that takes care of that.”

“Not really,” David said. “You both paid, but you’re only renting one dog. I should reimburse each of you half of the fee.”

“Keep it,” Emma and Killian answered at the same time, then both laughed.

“The shelter can always use a little extra money, can’t it, Mr. Nolan?” Emma asked.

“Please call me David. And of course we can, if you’re both sure you don’t mind.”

As soon as they affirmed their answer, David walked around the counter and picked up the end of the leash. Handing it to Emma, he said, “In that case, Norman-slash-Winston is yours for the next four hours. You can bring him back sooner, if you like, but I’m sure he’s going to love getting out for a while. Oh, and if you get hungry, there’s usually a couple of food trucks near the dog park on Saturdays. Have fun!”

Emma and Killian thanked him, then went out the door with Norman straining at the leash, and Henry skipping along beside him. They quickly found the sign marking the path and started walking it.

After several paces, Killian turned to Emma and asked, “Is it me, or do you feel like David just set us up?”

“One hundred percent,” Emma laughed.

“How long have you known him?”

“David?” she questioned. At his hum of affirmation, she said, “Henry and I rented Norman three weeks ago and that was the first time I met him. David, I mean, not Norman. Well, it was the first time we met Norman, too. His wife is Henry’s teacher. Again, I mean she’s David’s wife, not Norman’s.” She knew she was rambling, but the thought of spending several hours with the gorgeous stranger was making her nervous.

Killian laughed. “That’s a relief. I borrowed Win-, uh, Norman three times and he never once mentioned being married.”

It was Emma’s turn to laugh - mostly because what he said was funny, but also in relief that he responded to her embarrassing prattling with humor, instead of judgment.

��So, if Dave just met you, he probably doesn’t even know if you’re married or dating anyone. That was a little presumptuous of him.”

“Are you fishing for information, Mr. Jones?” Emma teased.

“Killian will do,” he grinned. “And…perhaps?”

Before she could answer, Henry ran back to join them. “Can I take Norman, Mom? He’s walking really well on the leash, so I don’t think he’ll yank my arm out of the socket.”

She looked at Killian, who raised an eyebrow with a bemused look on his face.

“That’s something I said when we picked Norman up the last time,” she explained. Handing the loop of the leash to Henry, she said, “Don’t get too far ahead of us, kid.”

“We won’t,” he tossed over his shoulder.

Emma turned her attention back to the man beside her. “To answer your non-question Killian, no, I am not married or dating anyone. It’s just Henry and me, and always has been. When I told his father I thought I might be pregnant, he didn’t even stick around long enough to find out if I was or not.”

Killian absorbed this news for a few moments before responding, “If you don’t mind me saying, it sounds as if the two of you might be better off without someone like that, anyway.”

“Oh, definitely. Henry is more mature at eight than his sperm donor was as an adult. I was young and foolish, but I had to grow up fast once I became a single mother.” She watched her son trying to get Norman to walk beside him, then turned to look at Killian. “Sorry, that is a lot more information than I’m sure you wanted to know.”

“No need to apologize, Emma. I did ask, in a roundabout way.”

“So what’s your story? Did you move here from England, or am I misreading your accent?”

“You got it right,” he chuckled, then took a deep breath. “There was nothing left for me in England. My brother moved here soon after our mother died two years ago, and once I found out my girlfriend was actually a married woman, I needed a fresh start.”

“Ouch,” Emma commented.

“Aye, and now I’ve probably shared more than you wanted to know.”

“We’ll call it even, and promise to talk about much lighter subjects for the rest of the day,” Emma said.

“Deal.”

“You said your brother moved here. Does that mean he lives in Storybrooke?”

“Aye, he followed his heart and it led him straight to this quaint little town.”

“Who does he date, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“He’s engaged to the town librarian, Belle French.”

“Liam is your brother? I guess I should have figured that out since your last name is Jones.”

“It’s a very common name, lass. Yes, Liam is my brother. I gather you know him?”

“Belle is one of my best friends, so I know him through her. She used to babysit for Henry quite often, when I was a waitress at Granny’s.”

“Ah, the famous Granny’s Diner!” Killian exclaimed. “I visit that establishment frequently. She makes the best lasagna.”

“I think you meant to say the best grilled cheese and onion rings,” Emma grinned mischieviously.

“I’ve yet to try those particular delicacies,” he smirked.

“Try them,” she advised. “I guarantee you’ll love them.”

Looking ahead, they saw they were nearing the dog park and picked up their pace. They caught up with Henry and Norman just before reaching the entrance. There were about a half-dozen dogs running around the park, some loose and others on leashes.

“I think it would be a good idea for Mr. Jones to take Norman before we go in,” Emma told Henry. “He’ll be able to control him better if he gets too excited.”

“Okay,” Henry said, willingly handing over the leash.

“Thanks, lad,” Killian smiled.

Henry went through the first gate, holding it open for his mom, followed by Killian and Norman. When they were all in the buffer zone, Henry opened the next gate leading into the main part of the park.

“You’re raising quite the gentleman, Emma,” Killian commented, after he entered with the dog.

“He has his moments.”

They all watched Norman as he began sniffing around excitedly, then pulling on the leash when he noticed the other canines sharing his space. He nearly yanked Killian off of his feet with his enthusiasm to meet new friends.

The next twenty minutes were spent chasing the dog and trying to settle him down. After a few of the other owners left with their animals, Henry found a tennis ball and engaged Norman in a game of fetch. The adults sat on a bench to observe the pair, laughing at the clumsiness of the dog.

Emma noticed Killian rubbing his shoulder. “Alright there, Jones?”

“I think he might have pulled my arm out of the socket, Swan,” he quipped.

“Very funny, smart guy,” she said, making him laugh again. They watched for a few more minutes before Emma asked, “Do you have a job in Storybrooke? I started working at the sheriff’s station three months ago and I don’t remember seeing you around town.”

“I’m an architect. I was able to keep my job with the firm in England by working online and attending meetings with clients and my colleagues via Zoom. All of my time is spent in my office at home. It’s not ideal, but I appreciate my boss being willing to make concessions for me.”

“Do you plan to get a job here eventually?”

“Aye, if I decide to stay.”

“You don’t sound very sure.”

“I’m used to the hustle and bustle of a big city. Living in Storybrooke has been quite an adjustment.”

“I get that. We moved here from Boston when Henry was two. Granny’s granddaughter, Ruby, was our neighbor there, and when she decided to move back, she talked me into coming with her. At first, I had a hard time getting used to the peace and quiet. That was one reason why I adopted Ernie - just to have a little more noise in the house.”

“Ernie?” Killian questioned.

“Oh, he was our dog. We had him for six years, but he died a couple of months ago.” She pulled her phone out of the pouch of her hoodie and swiped to reveal her lock screen. “This is a picture of Henry with him.”

“Beautiful animal,” Killian commented sincerely, taking in the photo of the brown and white spaniel. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks,” Emma sighed, locking her phone and returning it to the pocket. “Henry grew up with him and he’s had a really hard time with it. Someone suggested renting a pet from the shelter to help him work through it, and that’s how we ended up renting Norman.”

“They seem to really like each other.”

“Yeah, they got along great the first time. That’s why I signed up to get him again, but I was in a hurry when I filled out the form and forgot to ask for a specific dog.”

“Ah, that explains the mix-up,” Killian remarked.

Another half hour passed while they chatted easily, until Henry came over and flopped down on the ground, quickly joined by Norman. “I’m hungry, Mom. Can we get something to eat?”

“Sure, kid. Put Norman back on his leash and we’ll go find those food trucks Mr. Nolan mentioned.”

They soon located the food trucks just down the sidewalk from the park. After discussing their options, they decided to get pulled pork sandwiches from the barbeque place. It was obvious that people who took their pets to the dog park frequented the food trucks, because each one had bowls of water set out in front of them and containers of dog biscuits on their condiment tables.

While they waited for their food, Henry tried to teach Norman to sit, rewarding him with pieces of the biscuits when he obeyed.

“He’s very good with him,” Killian noted.

“He prays for another dog every night, but our schedule is so busy right now. Plus, it’s such a big responsibility and I’m not sure Henry is ready for it. I might be wrong about that though, seeing how he is with Norman.”

After eating, they followed the sidewalk a little further and spotted a playground. Emma and Killian sat on a bench, with Norman sitting between them as they watched Henry play on the equipment.

“You know, we’ve lived in Storybrooke for six years and I never knew this playground existed,” Emma commented. “We don’t come this way very often, because whenever we go out of town, we take the road going south.”

“It appears to be fairly new,” Killian observed. “Perhaps they constructed it when they built those apartments over there, because they don’t look like they’ve been there very long.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. I remember when they were being constructed a couple of years after we moved here, which means they’re less than five years old.”

They lost sight of Henry for a few seconds when he climbed a ladder up into a tower. Suddenly they heard him shout, “Hey, Mom! Look what I found!” and saw him coming down a twisting slide with his arms over his head, clutching a tattered looking soccer ball.

He landed at the bottom and came running over to them. “Someone must have forgotten this at the top of the tower. Wanna kick it around with me?”

“Sure, kid,” Emma answered, hopping up from the bench. “It looks a bit deflated. Are you sure it’s even going to roll?”

“It’ll be fine,” he assured her. Placing it on the ground, he gave it a kick and watched it roll across the grass. “See?”

A black streak flew past him, with Killian following close behind shouting, “Wins-, I mean, Norman! Come back here!”

The dog ignored him, but stopped when he got to the soccer ball. He was trying to pick it up in his mouth when the three humans reached him. Killian was able to kick it away from him, directly to Emma, who stopped it with her foot, then booted it over to Henry. Norman ran from one to the other, in hot pursuit of the elusive ball.

The ‘keep away’ game kept them entertained for a long time. They ran, shouting instructions to each other and laughing until all of them were completely out of breath. Norman was able to intercept some of their passes, but they always managed to get it away from him before he was able to pick it up and run off.

Finally, Emma declared that she had to take a break. Picking up Norman’s leash, she said, “I think we should take him back to the food trucks to get a drink and buy a couple of bottles of water.”

“Aww, Mom,” Henry complained. “I’m not ready to go yet. Can’t I stay here? Killian will stay with me, won’t you, Killian?”

“First of all, you should call him Mr. Jones, and secondly, you’re putting him on the spot, which isn’t cool,” Emma admonished.

Henry looked appropriately chagrined. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jones.”

“Thank you, Henry, but if I may be so bold, I don’t mind you calling me Killian. That is, if it’s okay with your mother.”

Henry looked to his mom, who considered for a few seconds, then gave him a nod of approval.

Killian put his arm across Henry’s shoulders and walked him the short distance to where Emma was standing. “I’d be happy to go get the water, Emma.” He took the end of Norman’s leash from her. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

While he was gone, Emma sat on the bench watching Henry continue to kick the soccer ball around. Killian and Norman returned a few minutes later, handed her a bottle of water and sat down beside her.

“Do I owe you anything for this?” Emma asked, unscrewing the lid.

“Not at all. I think I can afford to buy a lovely lass a bottle of water.”

She refrained from rolling her eyes at his use of the adjective, still rueing the fact she met such a handsome man while looking like she just rolled out of bed. As she was getting ready to take a drink, Henry kicked the ball and sent it sailing over their head, causing Emma to duck and spill some of the water in her lap.

Henry ran over, stopping in front of her. “Oops. Sorry, Mom. I was trying to kick it at the teeter-totter.”

Emma brushed at the water droplets, looking around to locate the teeter-totter, which was at least twenty feet away from the bench. “Not even close, kid.”

Killian stood up. “Perhaps I could give you some pointers, lad. I was a rather good football player when I was younger .”

Henry’s forehead creased in confusion. “I play soccer, not football.”

Killian chuckled as Emma explained, “Killian grew up in England and over there, soccer is called football. They call what we play ‘American football’, don’t they, Killian?”

“Aye, lass. Sorry to confuse you, Henry.”

“Oh, I never knew that. So, how good were you?”

Killian rubbed a finger behind his ear, ducking his head a bit. “I played in a semi-professional league for a couple of years and actually tried out for a professional club, before I decided to go to Uni and become an architect instead.”

“Wow! Cool!” Henry exclaimed. “You probably know even more about soccer than my coach!”

Emma laughed. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure he knows a bit more than a volunteer coach for a youth league team.” She took the dog’s leash back from Killian. “Norman and I will sit this lesson out.”

Killian attempted to wink at her. “As you wish, Milady. Come on, lad. We’ve got work to do.”

She smiled fondly, watching the two of them passing the ball back and forth for a while, before pulling out her phone to catch up on her social media apps.

When she looked up a few minutes later, she saw Killian giving Henry instructions for controlling the ball as he dribbled it down the field. Apparently, they were using two trees as the goal and Henry was moving toward them quickly, while trying rather unsuccessfully to keep the ball under control. When he kicked it from quite a distance away, the ball hit one of the trees and ricocheted away.

Killian went to retrieve the ball and took it back to where Henry was waiting. He squatted down in front of the boy and began talking to him, gesturing now and then to different parts of the field.

Henry listened intently, nodding once in a while. When Killian finished speaking, he stood up and did a short demonstration of how to move the ball back and forth from foot to foot. Then he patted the boy’s shoulder, walked the ball further away from the trees and set it down.

Henry lined himself up behind the ball and looked up at Killian. After getting a reassuring smile from him, Henry started dribbling the ball across the ground with shorter, more controlled kicks, while Killian jogged beside him, shouting encouragement. This time, he got the ball much closer to the trees, before giving it a powerful kick that sent it shooting right between them.

Killian whooped as Henry raised his arms in victory, giving a triumphant cheer. What Emma saw happen next put a lump in her throat. Henry flung his arms around Killian’s waist, hugging him tightly, and Killian returned the hug, rubbing his hand over her son’s head as he looked down at him with a proud smile on his face.

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

NEW TAG LIST:

@qualitycoffeethings @grimmswan @cs-rylie @wyntereyez @kmomof4 @hookedmom @ultraluckycatnd @paradiselady19 @xarandomdreamx @motherkatereloyshipper @lfh1226-linda @pawshapedheart @vampcoffeegyrl23 @tiganasummertree @bluewildcatfanatic @eleveneitherway @elfiola @kday426 @julieenchanted-swans @gingerchangeling @andiirivera @djlbg @jonesfandomfanatic @snowbellewells @anmylica @booksteaandtoomuchtv @cocohook38 @ilovemesomekillianjones @zaharadessert @lyssapup27 @undercaffinatednightmare @winterbaby89 @jennjenn615 @xsajx @jackieorioncat @teamhook @soniccat @jarienn972 @softkilly @kymbersmith-90

#pet for rent #jrob64 #csff #CS fluff #CS smut #CS modern AU #captain swan fanfic #art by jrob64 #ouat Captain Swan fanfic #Captain cobra

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litnerdwrites · 14 days

Text

Okay, but who owes who, really?

The Ic love to talk about how 'ungrateful' Nesta is and how they do so much for her, and how spending 500 gold marks is so terrible. But Feyre admits herself, it isn't the money that's the issue, it's what Nesta spent it on; Booze and food.

However, the IC are buying whole estates and drinking each other under the table at Rita's almost every night. So it's safe to infer that 500 gold marks isn't that much when compared to what the rest of the IC spend. If I remember ACOFAS right, they all have a communal fun money account too, which Nesta should be given access to, if she was a member of his court since the war ended. Especially since attending those events the IC make her attend, count as court work (as I'll explain later).

For now, I've decided to list everything I can think of that Rhysand owes Nesta.

We can start with paying her rent for the use of her property to facilitate the meeting. (Not letting them die or suffer emotional/physical damages from it should be given).

Paying her for organising and supplying anything needed for the meetings to happen (so like event organisation) since the Ic pretty much just showed up.

Payment for the trips she took to mail the letters.

Paying for the servants to leave during the day Feyre arrived, and during the meetings. This includes tasks the servants would've normally done during those days but didn't because they needed to be out.

Then there's restitution for bodily harm, and emotional damages from being kidnapped (To both Nesta, and Elain)

Payment for new accommodations, including food, clothes and other necessities.

We can also add on restitution for any property damages inflicted when Hybern broke in.

Restitution for emotional damages for when she was attacked in the library.

Payment for her services in training with Amren plus trying to fix the wall.

Payment for her work at the HL meeting, plus a bonus for the emotional tole it took on her.

Payment for her scrying.

Payment for the works she did around the war camp, like fetching buckets and wrapping wounds and stuff (since I bet every other soldier, nurse, healer, or whoever, was paid in one way or another).

Payment for being willing to cross the battlefield with Amren and Feyre, and Elain, putting their lives on the line to reach the cauldron.

Payment for saving Cassian from the cauldron.

Payment for being willing to go as bait to lure out the king.

A reward for actually killing the kind.

Reparations for their fathers' death.

Payment for each scrying session in ACOSF.

Payment for going to The Middle.

Reparations for emotional damages caused by the Kelpi when she went to find the mask.

A reward for actually getting the mask.

Payment for going to the prison.

Reparations for emotional damages in the prison.

A reward for finding the mask.

Payment for taking her made swords, unless the wanna return those.

Payment for every single meeting she attends with Eris, be it in Spring, The Middle, or wherever.

Reparations for being thrown into the blood right, for all three of them, (since the ones who kidnapped them where Rhysand's own soldiers, and given that they're camp lords, we can assume they have decent ranks)

A reward for killing Bryallin (even though it was literally the IC job, since they promised to do that in exchange for her training to fix the wall and find magic items.

Payment for the dancing in Hewn city.

Payment for every dancing lesson she spends her time doing with Morrigan.

Emotional damages for the verbal abuse she gets from each member of the IC.

Payment for her work in the library

Payment for her training (since both that and the library were forced onto her).

Reparations for evicting and demolishing her apartment.

Reparations for the emotional damages inflicted by the Illyrians who stare and gawk at her the whole time, and insult her behind her back and too her face.

Her father's inheritance (If he didn't leave a will, then it's divided up by inheritance law, which Emerie mentions, includes females now, in the NC. We can also assume, based on her interactions with her cousin, that his side of the family got very little after her father's death. So, we can assume his fortune, business contracts, properties, including ships and things would go to Nesta. A majority of it would, anyway.)

Oh, and payment for every party she attends. And I mean more than just rent. Since Amren wants to use the argument that Nesta is part of the court, then every party she attends, from the bridge party, to starfall, to solstice, is considered a work trip, and she needs to be paid in full. For each one.)

Plus, emotional damages caused by the fire, the insults from their court, and the fact that she was on a boat, over water, despite her trauma.

Moreover, we learn in ACOMAF that Rhys doesn't lowball what he pays his court or those who work for him. Meaning that it's reasonable to expect the amount he pays to be from the higher end of the threshold. So, depending of if Rhysand pays from the mid to high end of the threshold, the total amount he owes Nesta would be pretty close to or even well over the millions.

The 500 gold marks that Feyre was so upset about was a first for Nesta, so even if we add that to Nesta's expenditures over the past year, and subtract that from what she's owed, she'd still have a lot of money. Maybe it would still be in the millions too.

That said, this is all just speculation, since we don't know the irl value of a gold mark, or the exact expenses Nesta incurred during that one year. We also don't know for sure exactly how much Rhysand pays his court or his soldiers.

#anti inner circle #anti rhysand #pro nesta #anti acosf #nesta deserves better #pro nesta archeron #nesta acotar #anti amren #anti mor #anti ic #Rhys owes Nesta a shit tone of money #Given how wealthy her father was #There's a pretty good chance that his total wealth bordered in millions by the time he died #That should be split between the Archeron sisters #But Rhysand's own laws put females in the line of succession #Meaning Nesta should've gotten most #if not all of it.#I seriously hope she's at least being paid by HOFAS

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wutheringmights · 8 months

Text

Remember when I read "Daughter of the Moon Goddess" and I complained that the prose was all tell, no show? I had the same problem with a different book I read earlier this year ("Ariadne" by Jennifer Saint), which got me thinking. Both of those books are the only first person novels I've read this year. Is first person perspective more prone to telling too much? Do I just not like first person perspective?

Well, the weather is changing. Whenever autumn starts, there's always something I want to revisit for nostalgia's sake. So I decided to give into impulse and reread one of my most favorite books, ever: "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson.

I first read this book a long time ago: when I was thirteen. I rented it from my school library and devoured it in a single night. It had an immediate impact on me. When Borders went out of business, I bought my own copy for 50% off (it's technically a misprint-- the typeset is slightly off). Hell, I even bought the graphic novel adaptation.

I love this book, but for years I have been too scared to go back to it. I was scared to learn that this book wasn't as good I remembered it, and I couldn't ruin this for myself.

But... I don't know. The shadows are longer. I'm feeling nostalgic. I wanted to experience a good example of first person perspective. So finally, I took it off the bookshelf.

And, man. What was I worried about? Not only is it good, it's better than I remember.

First off, the prose. I love the way this book is written. Yes, it's from the first person perspective, but Melinda's character is shown to us, even as she asserts her own traits. It's a wonderful example of why first person perspective works. The world is filtered through her eyes. You can feel the way she shoves three-dimension people into one-dimension molds. Her thoughts are mean and at times cruel, yet you can tell how she's always coming from a place of hurt. She's a good person. She's just in pain. And sometimes, she's mean because she's just a teen.

And I love the lyricism in its brevity. None of the imagery is drawn out, yet there's layers on layers of motifs and symbols. Anderson has a way of letting imagery sneak up on you that I think I have been trying to replicate my entire life. And she does all of this without losing the voice of a teenager.

Melinda is funny, too. Even when she's being mean, she does it with a dry wit that startles laughs out of you. But the tone and atmosphere of this novel is so strong, you don't even realize how funny it is until you look for it.

And this novel remains as one of-- if not the best--depiction of depression I have ever read. It's so vivid that it can be tough to read. But 13 year old me saw so much of herself in the ways in which Melinda was just trying to cope.

This book is written with such subtly and grace, something similar books in its genre and age range don't achieve. When I first read this book, I set out on a mission to find anything that matched up to it. I read through my entire school library's offerings. Authors like John Green and Jay Asher were too heavy handed and never managed to capture an ounce of realism. Even Andersons's other books like "Winter Girls" and "Catalyst" never managed to show me a similar kind of (for lack of better words) truth.

This book is really good. It's impossibly good. It's short, but impactful. I love it. I think this is the book that got me to care about character and inner journeys in a way nothing else had before it. This is the book that took me by the cheeks and told me that there's meaning in the mundane, that at the root of every story isn't a cool idea but a character we want to see become better. If I were to make a list of the most influential books I have ever read, this book would be in the top three.

I love "Speak." Thank you Laurie Halse Anderson for writing this book.

#i should mention that there is some areas of this book that are outdated but i really don't care #love love love this book #happy autumn everyone #me rambling #me reading #bookblr #books #speak #speak by laurie halse anderson

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oddygaul · 3 months

Text

Godzilla Minus One

I’ve been going through something of a Godzilla crash course for the past year or so. When I was pretty little, I think I once rented a VHS of the original Godzilla from my local library. I don’t remember almost anything, but I think the themes and talking went over my head and I was mostly disappointed he wasn’t punching another monster. Then, I got a McDonald’s toy of the 1998 Godzilla, which was in my regular school backpack rotation for a while, and... that was about the extent of my experience with the guy.

Two of my best friends, though, are huge Godzilla stans who grew up watching just about every movie that’s ever released. After discovering my innocence, they’ve taken it upon themselves to educate me in his big scaly ways.

Most of these screenings were well before I started keeping this journal, so I don’t have deep thoughts on them. We started with Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla - wasn’t impressed by the robotic human characters, but Kiryu is sick as fuck, no getting around it. Next was Anno’s Shin Godzilla - as a lifelong Evangelion fan, I was really tickled by how much the entire movie felt like an extended, live-action Operation Yashima sequence, and the half dozen remixes of Decisive Battle were the icing on the cake. Final Wars, despite clearly being made by some folks who had just seen The Matrix and wanted in on that action, was exactly my kind of schlock and I honestly can’t wait to rewatch it. Tokyo SOS was kind of forgettable? …outside of the scene where the rival punches a fly out of the air one inch from someone’s face, which I now do weekly. And finally, All Monsters Attack was a wild fever dream of a movie; the plot is about a child vividly hallucinating Godzilla fighting giant crabs and shit in order to deal with his own growth and confidence issues, and that all works… exactly as well as it sounds like it would work. Overall, I’ve certainly enjoyed my time with the franchise, but it’s certainly in a more, I dunno, popcorny way.

So color me surprised having seen Minus One and being genuinely impressed on all fronts!

This is easily the most compelling human storytelling out of all the Zils I’ve watched. To be honest, during the long gap between Godzilla’s introduction and his reappearance in the plot, I got so fully invested in the characters and the story that was unfolding, it was a little jarring having a big monster show up. The emotional core of the story, based around a found family trying to find meaning in their lives in a devastated, post-war Japan, was genuinely engaging, well-acted, and absorbing. I guess Godzilla being there is what got my butt into the seat, but I honestly wouldn’t have minded a more grounded take on this scenario/era either.

I quite liked that Godzilla’s design in this movie felt focused around his aquatic habitat - he felt very lithe, crocodilian and deadly in the water.

Similarly, after spending so much time digging into the hopelessness felt at large by the citizens we see, and the widespread devastation of Tokyo after the firebombing, Godzilla coming in and attacking Ginza felt like a gut punch. Typically, in the Godzillas I’ve watched, at least, the moment where Godzilla finally shows up and wrecks shop is a moment for the audience to cheer. You recognize that the horror and destruction he’s wreaking is bad, of course, but for one reason or another the blow is usually softened tonally. In Shin Godzilla, for example, we watch plenty of montages of Japan’s well-oiled, calm evacuation plans being carried out, so we’re not worried as much about the human toll. In the more creature feature entries, like Tokyo SOS, these type of scenes are more WWE throwdown than human catastrophe - the city’s really just backdrop, and it’s time to get hype. Minus One even has some moments like this, in my opinion - the scene when Godzilla first engages the battleship and they cut off his iconic roar has strong “real done with your shit” vibes that make the film’s debut atomic breath a real crowd-pleaser.

But man, the Ginza scene? Absolutely devastating. Panicked, weary crowds, scores of people visibly trampled underfoot, the black rain calling back to Japan’s nuclear strikes… the entire scene is designed to be a nightmare, and I thought it was a powerful decision in a franchise movie to make the viewer squirm and wish the titular character hadn’t shown up at all.

“Godzilla, bro, look. My job? The job I’m working to feed this orphan who showed up on the doorstep of my dead parents' house? That job is shooting active mines out of the ravaged coasts of my country on a fishing boat at great personal risk to myself and my only friends. Did we really need this? Was this warranted? Could you just like, fuck off?”

Overall, I just can’t get over how strong the character work and theming was. There’s a lot of musing on the value of a life, survivor’s guilt, and people grappling with the aftermath of a lost war while figuring out how they can still make a difference in their community. In the opening scene, you can already tell from the conversation between the main character and the engineer that they both understand the war is over, and yet Shikishima carries guilt with him the entire movie about not committing the meaningless sacrifice his country asked of him. He’s absolutely wracked with guilt, feeling that he’ll be rejected by society for failing - and to a degree he is, especially in the first act. After that, though, time and time again, the movie shows a community coming together, refusing to let each other give in and succumb to guilt, and finding ways to rebuild their home and move forward on their own terms, rather than under the direction of a government that's abandoned them.

The standout scene for me was Shikishima’s trauma coming to a peak when he wakes up at night and questions if he’s been dead all along, wondering if his current life is just a hallucination. I feel like I’ve seen that exact scene or moment in other media before, but it always felt like empty words, unconvincing; here, the buildup and acting was just so stellar that I fully resonated with this broken man and bought every word.

#will's media thoughts / virtual brain repository #movies #godzilla #godzilla minus one

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c-is-for-circinate · 2 years

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We all talk about this all the time, but:

I want to read more books. I need to read more books, I want to read more books. And for some reason, for someone who spent a solid fifteen years of life with a library book glued to one hand at all times, the very idea is the hardest thing in the world.

And it's hitting me all over again right now, because I'm thinking about things I want to write, stories I've been wanting to write, that I've had in my head and my heart and my failed NaNo attempts for months, years, and I'm thinking about how --

How I don't remember how books work any more. How stories fit together in book-shape. I know how they fit in TV-shape, in D&D-shape, in short-story-shape. I know fanfic-shape down to my toes. But the reflexive, instinctual understanding of what book shape even looks like in a story just...isn't there! in my head! where all of my Story Insight lives!

So I need to read more books, I need to read more books, because I have stories in my heart and my head that want to grow into book shape and I don't understand book shape enough any more to help them there. And yet it's the hardest thing in the fucking world for some stupid fucking reason, and

It's because some books are bad.

I've got the Tor free-book-of-the-month mailing list thing, when I remember to go and download it. I remember the day I read a solid 75% of The Traitor Baru Cormorant over about six hours, intent and compelled, until I had to stop for dinner and to decompress for a little while. Until I came to realize that actually, no, that wasn't the kind of compelling that meant I was enjoying myself at all. It was the kind of compelling that was going to leave me feeling greasy and unhappy for having read it once I surfaced from the spell. I didn't finish.

Towards the beginning of the pandemic, when we were starting to realize that we were settling in for a long haul, I got some Ursula Vernon novels from Amazon. Ursula Vernon! Ursula Vernon who can do no wrong, whose works I have followed for close to twenty years now, who I love! The closest thing to a sure shot that there was in literary form, I thought. And I got to the end of The Wonder Engine and went, oh, no, I hated this.

Every Heart a Doorway was fine-I-guess. The Murderbot books are all great, but again, I got the first four novellas free from Tor and read them at least three times before I dared to buy the novel. I still haven't managed to bring myself to start trying Gideon the Ninth.

There's so little risk, when you click on a fanfic. You don't have to spend money. You don't have to leave your house. Nobody in the entire world even needs to know you've done it. All you have to do is click a button. The tags and the summary and the author's notes tell you going in what the story's about, but once you know the language they also tell you what the story's going to be like just at a glance, just from knowing how different kinds of authors talk.

Nothing is invested, nothing is risked or ventured or spent, except the time you choose to take to read it. If you hate it, you can just click back.

Books cost money. Books cost money, and they should cost money! Authors should be paid! But my god, I'm a millennial whose rent for the past five years has been on average about 85% of her income, the idea of paying money for anything other than food or toiletries inspires a moment of religious panic. How can I possibly justify spending it on something I might not even like?

(When I was a child, I went to libraries multiple times each week, I KNOW how libraries work, I know how much I always loved them. I don't know when I got old enough for social anxiety to twist and reshape itself this way, so that I can make business calls to strangers with ease if I'm doing it for work but going to a place I haven't been in order to get something I don't know I want is just utterly impossible. I don't know when that became me, but it is now, I guess.)

And I need to read books. I want to read books. I need to read books.

I just wish I knew how.

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sarcastic-salem · 1 year

Text

I’ve been struggling a lot with my PTSD ever since I confessed to Library Guy. And, no, I’m not blaming him for that. Its just that I haven’t been in a long term relationship since 2016/17. I haven’t hooked up with someone since 2021. That’s partly due to my mental health and partly due to trauma.

As a borderline with attachment issues, I’ve had to train myself to take a step back and say,

“This person does not hate you because they don’t respond to your text message five minutes later. They have jobs and they have a life.”

“This person is not in love with you just because they decided to hook up with you. You are not gonna get married after a one night thing.”

I’ve gotten a lot better. Mostly because after talking to peeps for a few days I start to realize they’re not someone I would really wanna be with. Usually its because we just don’t have the same values.

I’ve been having a lot of flashbacks to my relationship with my ex-husband. Its beginning to dawn on me all over again that he never really wanted me to begin with. I say “again” because I think that sometimes I idolize the life that he promised to give me — the life he never gave me. Sometimes I find myself wishing that he was here just to handle the budgeting (he was good at math).

Then I remember the time he screamed at me in a Target after he spent $50 on Pokemon cards and demanded to know why I hadn’t stopped him.

Sometimes I wish I had been able to stay and watch his little sister grow up. She was four the last time I saw her, and I was usually tasked with babysitting her when we went to see his parents. I wanted to teach her about comic books, so she wouldn’t grow up thinking that they were only for boys.

Then I remember the Xmas my ex’s parents got into a fight — I don’t remember what it was about — and his mother spanked his sister for playing with a noisemaker toy that she had bought for her. And all I wanted at that moment was to be anywhere else in the world. I wasn’t allowed to speak up, but I cried during dinner.

I think more than anything I wish he was just here so I’d have someone to talk to. Even when I knew he didn’t love me it felt like we were friends at least — close friends. Things didn’t really begin to go downhill until he started defending his dad’s racism and Islamophobia, and until he asked if we could move in with his parents. While they were living in a two-bedroom McMansion and their youngest son slept in a coat closet.

Things didn’t really go downhill until I made it clear that these were not things I was willing to tolerate.

But he was still someone to talk to.

Library Guy is the first person I let myself really like in years. He was the first person that…..I don’t know why but he made feel safe. He was nice to me. One of the nicest things he did for me was saving a book for like a week I had on hold after I forgot about it.

After the library started letting people in browse again, I forgot that they closed at 4pm and he let me in even though it was after hours. That was the first day I realized he knew my name. He had remembered my name out of all the patrons in the library.

He would smile and wave to me every time I came in.

I caught him checking me once — just the once ngl — and he blushed so hard it was adorable.

The first time I rented horror movies he was beaming. He was probably just having a good day but I like to pretend that its because he also likes horror movies. Which he does — he asked for my opinion on Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet Of Curiosities and he went to Universal’s Halloween thing back in October.

We’re friends on FB — I’m not stalking the man.

Oh, and the nicest thing he ever did for me: He remembered my name after I corrected it with the library. I didn’t even have to tell him. He just already knew when I went to check out one day.

I think what upsets me the most is that I was dumb enough to misinterpret these signals. Apparently, its common for some autistic people to confuse friendliness for something more. And now I’m not sure if we’ll be friends again.

He was the first almost-friend I’ve had in years.

My ex-best friend and I had a falling out after she had a mental breakdown. After she called me one night and told me she wanted to help me “unalive” myself. Cause she knew I was prone to suicidal ideations. I just didn’t feel safe with her after that.

And the other friend I had — ha! He came over and used my wifi, and was on his phone the entire hour we sat together. He had also hit on me multiple times after I had already rejected his advances. The thing with the wifi was the last straw.

I asked him not to come back after that.

Loki reminds me constantly that I deserve to forgive myself. But I can’t stop wondering how I ever could have been so stupid.

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irishhills · 4 months

Text

a poet and a one-man band

Chris takes the exit from I-94 while Blair twists around in the passenger seat, trying to reassure Faye in the back.

“You liked the house when we went to see it in the spring, remember?” Blair says. “You said you liked how there was a real driveway.”

“Yeah, and you liked Sweetwaters,” Chris says. “Remember, the blueberry scone? And the girl behind the counter who said she never saw a ten-year-old girl like a blueberry scone?”

“I’m eight,” Faye insists.

“Yeah, but you look like me,” Blair says. “When I was eight, I looked ten. And that was on a good day.”

Chris watches as Faye folds her arms across her chest and slumps backward in her seat.

“Why can’t I look like Daddy?” she asks. “He looked fourteen until he was seventeen.”

“Faye!” Blair says.

“What? It’s true! He says it himself.”

Chris laughs a little as he comes to a red light on the main road. Faye isn’t wrong. When he was growing up, he always looked two or three years younger than he really was. It was awkward to stand next to his brother, Luke, only two years Chris’s senior, and feel like a baby. It was even more awkward to stand next to Blair at Christmas concerts and school dances, knowing he was too short to like her back (and not understanding why she liked him at all). For a long time, it was easy to pretend like none of that ever happened. When he and Blair (and Faye, eventually), lived in Milwaukee, it was easy to pretend there was no Michigan – no Ann Arbor, no Saline, and not even the Irish Hills.

Maybe he should take Faye through the Irish Hills before they pull up to the new house in Saline. They’ve been driving long enough already. What’s an hour more?

“Do I still get to paint my room?” Faye asks. “Or did the rules change?”

“All the paint you want, honey,” Chris says. “We’re not renting this time.”

“That’s right,” Blair says, throwing her arms up to the roof of the Sonata. “We own!”

Chris laughs a little. They’re only thirty-three, but it feels like a long time coming. The whole time they lived in Milwaukee, even after they both finished graduate school, they could never afford to own. It’s been over a decade of saving, plus two tenure-track jobs, that gets them where they are now.

It just happens to be back home.

Back around Chris’s family.

To be fair, Blair’s family is in the area, too. They visit them three or four times a year now that Faye is old enough to miss them. But with Chris’s family … an exchange of Christmas cards? The occasional awkward lunch date with Jane, who always feels like she’s holding onto a secret? The Egan family was never so happy as when Chris moved to Wisconsin. Mom claims otherwise, but Chris has the sneaking suspicion she’s lying. Now that he’s an adult, she has every right, anyway.

“Can I still paint my room purple?” Faye asks.

“Of course,” Chris says. “As long as it’s that light shade we talked about. Makes it easier for you to sleep at night.”

“You speak to the girl like she’s guilty,” Blair jokes.

“Only thing Faye’s guilty of is being cute.”

Faye leans forward and grins with a mouth of crooked teeth. Chris smiles, too. This move is a lot less hard on her than it could be. Faye didn’t have a lot of friends at her old school. People to sit with at lunch, sure, but no one for sleepovers on Saturday nights. A new place will be good for her.

At least, that’s what Chris and Blair keep telling themselves.

“Can we put on the Grease CD?” Faye asks.

“No,” Chris says.

“Never thought there would come a day when you wouldn’t want to hear that,” Blair says.

“Time to change, baby. You know the rest.”

“Well, if we can’t hear the Grease CD,” Faye says, “can we put on Simon and Garfunkel?”

Blair laughs as she rifles through her portable library of CDs.

“Faye Egan, I swear,” she says, “you’re the only kid in the world who asks to hear Simon and Garfunkel.”

“I am?”

“Yes.”

Blair fishes Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme from the library and pops it into the radio’s mouth. She skips through “Scarborough Fair” until she gets to the song she knows Faye really wants to hear. Chris’s hands tighten around the steering wheel. He knows what song Faye wants to hear, too.

I’m sittin’ in the railway station / got a ticket for my destination …

“Mmm-mmm,” Faye happily sings in the backseat.

Chris takes a deep breath. He feels Blair’s hand on his knee but does not look at her. He can’t look at anything but the road, and even that feels like pushing it. He doesn’t hate home, but what did it ever really do for him? For Blair? What place is there for …

For a poet and a one-man band!

OK, maybe they weren’t exactly a poet and a one-man band. But what good was this place for Chris, the writer, and Blair, the girl who wouldn’t stop talking about television? How did this place ever embrace them?

“Turn right,” Blair says as they approach their new street.

Chris nods.

They’ll find out.

#drabble #writeblr #ch: chris egan #ch: blair donnelly #ch: faye egan #year: 2007

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my-minds-attic · 7 months

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I'm reading again

It's just recently that I put myself back into book world. Books were a big thing to me when I was a kid. I used to go to the library every Friday evening after school with my friends. We were not even 8 years old, running the 100 meters separating the school gates to our small village library. I remember these days like it was yesterday. I remember Enola Holmes making me hope I'd be as smart and courageous as her one day. I remember Goosebumps giving me, without me even realising it back then, the love, I still have, for horrific stories. And I remember Percy Jackson. Not only these books made me discover the beauty of greek mythology, but these characters kind of became my friends. That sounds lonely. I mean, I was lonely. But...not really.

My older brother has always been a big part of my 'reading journey'. I never really said that to him but, I'm so grateful for the influence he had on my youth. Especially on pop culture. My love for video games, superhero movies, Harry Potter,... All him. Next time I'll speak to him, I'll thank him for asking mom to buy the Hunger Games and the Oscar Pill books. All that to say, I wouldn't be the same person I am today without him. I definitely wouldn't like reading as much as I do.

My teenage years have been punctuated by the different books I've been reading. You know, sometimes you associate a book with a moment in your life or a place. In my home in France, in winter, when it was snowing outside, I was reading Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by the chimney because my mom just gifted it to me for Christmas. I was trying to sit on the tiny protruding edge close to the chimney glass while reading it, and it was burning my back, and my butt hurt, and I heard the wood crackling, and it smelled amazing and I was the happiest ever. This book became my favorite for a long time, and I now wonder if this whole 'reading environment' wasn't a huge part of why.

I moved to Canada for university three years ago now. I had the great idea of making this life-changing decision during a global pandemic. As a result, you're now dealing with a girl who's ten times more anxious and has lost half of her, already low, self-confidence. I've had a year of online classes and wasn't going out at all, except for taking out the trash. I had traveled thousands of miles for this. Nobody could do shit about it though, so it made me feel a bit better. You'd think that all that time at home would have given me the opportunity to read hundreds of books. Well I didn't. And to this day I don't really know why. I guess I forgot for a while the happiness reading could give me. I wish I didn't forget.

I moved to another apartment at the start of second year. Uni was getting a tiny bit more normal. I mean, I was actually seeing people. But, I also had the worst roommates you can even begin to imagine. Crazy, dirty, stinky, drugged, the whole package really. Unfortunately, with the rise of apartment rental prices, I probably had the lowest rent in the neighbourhood. So I stayed. After a year like that, I thought I was going to go crazy, when my landlord finally managed to kick them out. I didn't know before moving to Canada how roommates can affect your day-to-day life. How they could put such a huge shadow on all your efforts to be more confident and positive.

Third year was last year. If bad roommates can darken your life, good roommates can save your life. I'll call them A and C. The first week, with two new guys on my floor, I got intimidated. I kept my old habits of eating in my room, and going into common spaces only when I knew for sure they weren't there. But sometimes they caught me off guard and I ended up getting to know them just enough to realise they were exactly what I needed. I know that's not what I was to them, but they kind of became my best friends. I went out more often, I was laughing like crazy every night, we were making burgers to each other, we had movie nights, and even got dangerously addicted to online casino at one point. C returned to his home in December after four months together. Me and A were scared the new roommate could never be as good as C. Well, let me tell you, the next four months were the best I had in a long, long time. Our new roommate, Alex, she's still with me today. She's just great. I had a really hard time when it was time for A to leave last May. At the airport, he sent me a text : "Thank you for probably the best year of my life". I'm still struggling now not to see him in every single corner of this apartment. Don't get me wrong, I know he's not dead, and that we'll probably see each other again one day. It's just that... him leaving marked the end of one of the best chapter of my life.

Thanks to third year, something finally clicked in me. I realised the old me was still inside. And that's when I found this out that I entered the library right up my street to buy a book. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the most recent Hunger Games story.

Anxiety is still very much there, but it goes up and down, and I am somewhat certain I'll overcome it one day.

I missed reading so much guys.

Emma.

#reading #books #books & libraries #canada #university #life #booklr #bookblr #books and reading

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sassyandclassy94 · 1 year

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I saw your tags about resenting your dad. What did he do that made you feel that way? I resent my dad sometimes as well, I feel like he keeps trying to control me and stop me from doing what I want, but I also feel bad because I know he loves me and thinks he’s doing what’s best, so I feel guilty for being so angry

Hi!

I’m sorry you feel controlled; I can imagine how frustrating that it and that you must feel so suffocated and defeated🥺 I can pray for you if you’d like?

The reason I resented my father (and sometimes I still do) was because he’s an alcoholic and has hurt this family so many times. And it’s not just that… his addiction has caused him to make so many bad decisions, mostly financial/monetary ones. Oftentimes when we should be able to afford something but can’t because of debt, that will rip out the old wounds and bring the past hurt to the surface. And it’s hard because he keeps slipping up over and over again. Last year I even caught him stealing from our Sight & Sound fund. Thankfully God allowed me to catch him doing that just in time so I was able to take the money back but that was… that was rough. I lost it. Like really lost it. I screamed at him and everything. Not my finest moment but that fund was money that *I* earned and saved. And it hurt seeing him steal from me, ya know? And because I still live with my parents, and they don’t require me to pay rent, I help out by paying a couple bills. One of them being the phone bill. Anyway, because we’re ‘poor’ (lol, biden’s America😡), we have a very strict data plan. Every month he racks up the bill so it’s way higher than it needs to be, not once ever does he wonder if his crap is making it hard for me to keep up with my bank account. I work at a freaking library! I don’t get paid that much! I need a break here😭 I’m trying to trust God but man! It’s getting frustrating over here! And then when he comes home from work drunk! Like do you know what happens if he gets caught driving drunk again??? Jail time!! Meaning he can’t work and money wouldn’t be coming in!!! Like if you’re gonna drunk at LEAST wait till you’re home and can drink in the garage! Don’t do it in the car where your foolishness could get someone hurt or worse! Papa says he thinks something like that can’t happen to him… well it can! It can happen to anyone to decides to drink and drive! Okay… so as I write this, I realize I still have some resentment. But a couple years ago God did take away my bitterness, and if you ask Him and pray He can take away yours too🥰

I remember one night it got bad and I had a sleepover at Nana’s & Papa’s house. Gif used them to bring my bitterness to the light - with Nana pointing me to scriptures about it - one being God warning us to not let the sun go down in your wrath… anyway, I was convicted, went to bed and just prayed. Now, prayer is something that is very hard for me and something I’m working on getting better at. But that night the words just came and I even prayed out loud (I was in Mama’s old room all by myself and the privacy helped) asking Him to forgive me and to help me. I was still sad afterwards but I felt lighter because He had forgiven me; he helped me. And ever since that night I’ve been trying very hard to keep from getting bitter again.

However, on a positive note, even though my father has been/can be a pain in everyone’s lives, God did bless me with a great mom. And great grandparents. For my whole childhood Papa was my main father figure; a wonderful example of what a godly man should be and he was always there for me a child and is still there for me as an adult🥰 And for that I’m very thankful to Jesus♥️

#personal #Ask Abby #maybe that’s a little too long. but I wanted to explain and answer best I could.#ask Abby a question #ask answered #I hope my story can help others♥️

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freeadmission · 2 years

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Service.

I started working in the service industry during the pandemic. I needed to because I had to stay afloat and a friend of mine got me a job at a local hotel restaurant as a host. The job was a few blocks from my house and lasted for a year. I wanted to move on from Hosting to being a server but there was just no room for me there.

(I have learned more about myself and people working in the service industry than I ever have at school or in any kind of relationship I have had. This is not a negative thing by any means, it is very positive because what I learned helped me learn more about myself and how my actions affect others.)

So on I went and got another gig, at the encouragement of my boss. He gave me a glowing reference and I stayed at the next gig for 6 months working as a server/hostess and sometimes bartender until they went to counter service and laid off their entire waitstaff and trimmed their kitchen too. A decision they made to be able to keep the restaurant alive during very trying times after the government subsidy ran out.

From this gig I went back to another hotel, further from home, one with a long history, training manuals and a lot to remember and facilitate as a host. I work there 3-4 days a week and usually work in the studio 1 day a week and carry my camera and shoot on the street the rest of the time. I keep a sketchbook at home for evenings when I keep my continuous line drawing practice going. I buy sketchbooks from the dollar store and pencils and pens there too. Lately, I have been picking up some groceries there too.

Before the pandemic, I was keeping my creative pursuits afloat by working as a photographer’s assistant. I had my name on a couple of large rental houses in town and I would get gigs when photographers came to town and needed a hand. There is a small group of really great assistants here in Vancouver and I was really lucky to work with a lot of them over the few years I did it full-time. It also taught me a lot.

Some people assume a lot about my life but the truth is I have always kept a job that has supported my creative pursuits. A job that has covered all of my monthly bills and enabled me to focus on creating commercial photo work and mural work. The goal is to not need the serving gigs anymore and make my entire income from my photography and mural work. I choose not to assist anymore and focus on my goal of working commercially, the service jobs keep me afloat so I can keep this goal in mind. It’s my focus.

I submit to Vogue every week, stay up late every Sunday evening or set an alarm to submit at 11:01 pm. I do not get paid by Vogue, it is an open submission and I have only been accepted a few times in 2022. I am hoping for more before the year ends. I will keep trying, keep shooting and keep submitting, it is an evolving practice for me and so far I have 12 images published with them and I like that feather in my cap.

I live lean, don’t own a car, and don’t have any real vices except thrift shopping and often I don’t spend on that because the amount of clothing I find makes up for what I would have spent in a thrift shop. Even when I do go and decide to spend money on items I am very discerning about what I decide to purchase and at what price point. I take the bus, and EVO’s around town or ride my bicycle or walk. I take books out of the library and often shop from the day-old produce bin at Kins. The lady knows me there and knows she has been keeping me in smoothies for years. Old fruit blends great and tastes great too.

I took a spot in a shared studio space in January and when the rent went up an extra $100 a couple of months ago I offered to clean it once a month instead of paying the increase and that offer was welcomed. It takes about 3 hours to clean it from stem to stern but I like doing it, it gives me more of a feeling of belonging there. We are a community of artists in the space who all support each other and I really love being a part of it.

I don’t believe in being taken care of, even when I am in a long-term relationship the costs get split, dinners, entertainment, groceries, rent, and travel, split. I don’t believe in someone taking on the bulk of the cost of a partnership because of said partnership. If there is a large skew in earnings then we have figured out what the equal cost is and kept that as a guide until things changed because sometimes they do.

All of this is to say that I work hard to support my creativity and passion and saving money is something I do so that I can travel and take my camera and sketchbook to different parts of the world.

I thought it would be good to share something personal here on the blog. Each week I think about what I am going to say and sometimes the posts write themselves because I have a lot going on and sometimes it’s a grind to keep these balls in the air this week I just wanted to share how that juggling happens.

#Artist #BTS #COVID 19 #Deanna Flinn Photography #Doris Land #Every effort helps.#Editorial Photography #Fuji X100F #gratitude #Vogue Italia #hello 2022 #In the Luupe #lifestyle photographer #Moving Forward #Blind Contour #Love #Learning

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dropsfromacloud · 2 years

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Bryce | Friday, January 12, 2007— Monday, June 13, 2022

About a month ago, I had to say goodbye to the greatest little friend I could have ever asked for. Years ago, when I was fourteen, I prayed for a dog. I’d wanted one my entire life. Literally. My first independent prayers were asking for a puppy. I would ask my parents for one several times throughout the year. I rented every book about dogs from the library I could find. I watched every episode of every show about dogs to learn more and to prepare myself for when I would get my dog, because I knew it was a when.

Then, sometime in September of 2007, my mom told me we were going to look at a dog. We drove to the next town over and were welcomed into the clean, quiet home of two friendly women. They had a young miniature schnauzer puppy they were looking to rehome because their existing schnauzer didn’t get along with him. They called him Zeke. He was pure white, had shiny brown eyes, pointy ears and a very upright little tail. I remember he was so calm around us all. I bent down to pet him and he sniffed and licked my hands. I could barely contain my excitement. This was the dog that could be mine. My heart pounded as my mom told the women we would think about it. We weren’t outside their closed door for more than two seconds before I said, “I want him now.” My mom agreed and with another knock on the door, we signed papers and handed them over the very small rehoming fee of two hundred dollars. I left that clean, quiet house with a clean, quiet dog and all my dreams had come true.

Zeke rode in the backseat next to me in a wicker laundry basket. I still remember his little face staring at me, like, “Who is this kid? Where are we going together?” I snapped a picture of him on my Motorola Razr and sent it over to my bff. This is my dog!

From there, we took him to Petsmart where he proceeded to drag me through the aisles, sniffing everything. These were the moments we learned he had a voice and wasn’t afraid to use it. We also learned with startling speed that Bryce wasn’t as quiet as he let on. Once he was away from his old home, he was free to be himself: an excitable, happy little dog with a mind of his own and will to prove it.

I won’t take you through the story of his whole life, you’ve seen a lot of it, been there for a lot of it. I’ll tell you Bryce was an angel. From the earliest weeks I had him, he would sit by me patiently and lick my tears away when I cried. He’d make me laugh, he’d get me to play, he’d fill my lonely summers with attention and fun. He would give me purpose in caring for him and teach me that putting someone before me wasn’t the end of the world. That there was honor in that. He was the first living being I came out to as transgender, and even when it felt like my world was ending, he became an anchor for me. I held on for dear life. He helped me be brave when I feared rejection and shame. He never judged me. He always loved me.

We grew up together from a nine month old puppy and a fifteen year old boy, to a fourteen year old dog and a thirty year old man. During that time we never went more than a week without seeing each other. Without touching each other. Without walking together. I wonder what he thought about life as he became elderly and the years started catching up to him in the weakening of his eyes and the shake in his back legs, but I stayed young and strong. I wonder if he thought we’d live forever. That we’d always be together, waking up next to each other, walking side by side. Saying goodnight and I love you.

Bryce chose the perfect form to visit this Earth in a miniature schnauzer. Tenacious, loving, loyal, small, brave. He knew when I needed him, when my heart was broken and I couldn’t see a way forward. Sometimes I didn’t think I would make it to thirty, and he saw me to thirty and a half. For that and so much more, I will always be grateful.

On what I’m sure was a very cold day in January, a day before my fifteenth birthday, a show dog gave birth to a litter of puppies. One of those puppies became my best friend. I can only hope his birthday was a sunny day too, because those were his absolute favorites. A sunny day in the dead of winter where we’d walk together under the noon sun and he would dash through the snow in excited, puppy-like bursts even as a fourteen year old pup. On June thirteenth of this year, after one final walk through the warm spring air, he finally needed to say goodbye to me and our family.

I won’t go into the details because they are still fresh and traumatic. Bryce went peacefully though, surrounded by our family, and in my arms, close to my heart where I loved to have him.

In recent years I haven’t posted as much on social media, mostly because of changes to Instagram and me not liking them, but while you didn’t see him, Bryce was living a good life with us. He lived a good life in general. Through his rehoming to our home, to running away and returning home the very same day, almost dying to a dog attack, another move, and growing into, as his vet once put it, a gentleman of a certain age, Bryce lived a good, rich life. It was full of purpose and meaning in the loving of our family. So many people around the country and the world saw and knew Bryce through social media. He had so many virtual schnauzie friends I wish he could have met in real life. I know he would have loved you all. I felt the love in every post I made about him, every like and every comment. Trust me, I gave it all to him. I am very sad about his passing, and will always be sad, but when I think about the sheer amount of love Bryce brought into the world, I’m floored. It was staggering.

Cherish your dogs today and every day and please kiss them on their sweet, little heads for Bryce and for me.

Love from Bryce one last time.

#eulogy #in memoriam #mini schnauzer #schnauzer #writing #my writing

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noctumbra · 3 years

Text

𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥

summary ─ you took a deep breath and opened your mouth to answer him when the idea struck you. his offer.

pairing ─ bestfriend!bucky barnes x reader

warnings ─ smut, +18, bucky is also the reader’s roommate, kissing, oral sex, making out, beard burn, dirty talk, sexy pictures, lingerie shopping with bucky, cam sex, OF accounts lol, friends-to-lovers, mutual pining, i don’t know shit about creating sexy content jsyk lmao, very light choking

a/n ─ inspired by this ask! spider nonnie had blessed us with this great idea. edits and yellings happened and here i am lmao thank you @nix-akimbo for the edits, i drooled and screamed and had to change my panties:) hope you like it! please leave a comment if you do! thank youu!! (pictures i used for bucky are edits from, again, @nix-akimbo <3

p.s.: so sorry for the delay! enjoy 5.2k words of filth! pls let me know what you think

It was sort of an off day for both you and Bucky. After having to deal with all the exams and applying to colleges, today was a calm and relaxing day for you. Bucky offered to go somewhere where you could both just be outside and have a change of scenery after holing up in your rooms or dragging yourselves from one class to another. You agreed easily.

His choice was Central Park; he was claiming that some green and soil under your palms might do you good, and you couldn’t see why not. With a small picnic bag kind of thing, you went to Central Park and sat down on the thing sheet you brought from home. It was very nice out; the sun was smiling down at you people and there was a soft breeze. You could hear birds chirping, kids playing and dogs barking. It was peaceful.

“God,” you heard Bucky groan. “I could say ‘fuck it’ to going to college thing and live out here forever.” You chuckled.

“I don’t think you’d like out here very much in winter,” you said as you grabbed a strawberry and handed it to him. With a soft hum, Bucky took it. “Though I wouldn’t say no to the ‘fuck it’ part.”

Bucky frowned. “What? Why?” You sighed. It had been troubling you for some time now, and even though your parents said that they would be supporting you, you still didn’t like the idea of making them pay for your schooling.

“College is expensive as fuck, James,” you grunted quietly. “It’s expensive which means that I have to get a loan, and it’s gonna be a huge problem when I graduate.” Sighing again, you bit into the strawberry in your hand aggressively. Bucky didn’t say anything, opting to stay silent, you continued after swallowing the juicy fruit you just bit.

“I mean,” you started. “I’ll probably apply to some of the scholarships, but I doubt that I’ll get one. M’parents said they’ll help me, but I don’t wanna be a burden.” You watched Bucky changing his position. Your mind was racing to find some brilliant idea that was going to help you get through this money issue. Scholarships were very hard to get, you could work ─ it was more likely to be happen anyway ─ or you could just let your parents crush under your college bill. You snorted when a thought struck you, causing Bucky to give you a confused look. “I might start an OnlyFans account. Seems like it’s the only way to earn some real money to get through college properly.” Bucky grimaced for a second, and then his face got thoughtful. When he looked back at you, he started snickering.

“Okay,” he agreed, grinning. “But promise me that if you ever want to create content with someone, it’s gonna be me, alright?” You chuckled. You knew that Bucky had a crush on you during your first year in high school, but he was over it now was what he said a year ago.

“You just want to have an excuse to kiss and feel me up, Barnes,” you said playfully. Bucky shot you a cocky smirk, causing you to laugh.

“Joke aside, I mean it,” he said after your laughter died down. “Those kinds of things are dangerous if you don’t know your partner. So, I’m offering myself. You know me.” You nodded slowly. Deep down, you knew he was right.

“Yeah, well,” you murmured. “I’ll let you know if I ever decide to do such thing.” Bucky shrugged.

“You have my number, honey,” he said, giving you a soft smile. He had a dreamy expression on his face. You ignored the butterflies in your stomach that the pet name provided and pushed him back from his shoulder. He went down with a yelp.

“Stop thinking about me naked,” you grumbled. Bucky laughed.

It was a nice day.

Looking back, you probably should have taken him up on his offer. This year was your last in college, graduation was crawling close with every breath you took, and the closer you get to your graduation day, the more stressful your days were becoming. You were drowning in your loans, your rent and your share of bills were waiting for you to pay, your job at the library was on a shaky boat…

It was totally pure luck that you and Bucky were in the same college and decided to be roommates because dorms were too crowded and loud. He was understandable about your money issues, he didn’t have any problems with it since his family was actually rich. It was very nice of him not to force you to pay your part although it didn’t stop you feeling guilty about it.

“Earth to Y/N,” you heard a deep voice and jumped on your seat. Bucky was looking at you with a small smile, worry was waiting to take over his face around the edges. “You alright, honey?” You hummed approvingly, nodding at the same time.

“Just thinking,” you said, closing the book you’ve been trying to read for an hour now. “Got lost in my head.” Bucky didn’t say anything but continued to watch you. The worry was slowly taking over his face. “I’m fine, Bucky, really.”

“Look,” he started, “I’ve known you nearly for nine years now, so I know when something isn’t alright. What is it?” You sighed. You hated bothering him with your money issues because you knew that he was just going to offer to pay everything himself, and just let you be his roommate without having to pay anything ever again. You couldn’t have that. You also knew that he wasn’t going to let you go if you didn’t tell him what had been going around in your head.

You took a deep breath and opened your mouth to answer him when the idea struck you.

His offer.

You looked at him. The corners of your lips were curling upwards slowly as the expression on his face got more confused and worried.

“Why are you looking at me like you are about to kill me?” He asked, tentatively taking a few steps back. You grinned. You probably looked like a psychopath right now, but if he was still up to it, this thing was going to help you a lot.

“Do you remember the conversation we had in Central Park while we were still in high school? It was a week after the applications,” you explained. He frowned for a second.

“We had a lot of conversations that day, honey, be more specific,” he said, and you nodded. He was right. You’ve stayed there for hours and talked about thousands of things.

“We were talking about how expensive the college is and I said I might start an OnlyFans account? You made me promise that I’ll come to you if I ever wanted to create content with someone. Remember now?” You watched his eyes grow wide with a smirk.

“Um,” he stammered. “Look, I’m definitely on board with that, but I want you to know that I can cover you if you want, alright? Like, y-you don’t have to post pictures or videos of your body just to pay rent, I can handle it, okay?” Your smirk turned into a soft, fond smile.

“I know, James,” you murmured softly, “Thank you.” Then, you stood up from your seat and walked up to him. Your fingers trailed over the sharp cut of his jawline, nails scratching his scruff. “Even though the main reason of why I wanna do this is paying my share of rent and bills, but I won’t say no to get laid. God knows I need it,” you scoffed at yourself. “So, are you going to help me, James?” You looked at him through your lashes. You could see that his eyes darkening and feel his jaw twitching.

“You really want it to be me?” He asked. You nodded. Other than casual hook-ups, both of you were single, and you lived in the same apartment so, it was supposed to work perfectly. Bucky’s eyes darkened more like it was possible and stepped forward to press his body against yours. “We gotta set some rules,” he said as he brushed your hair back gently. You shivered. You’ve been this close before, he shouldn’t have been affecting you this much, but fuck him, he was.

“Okay,” you whispered. He smiled and leaned in just a little bit so that your lips would brush against each other. You gasped softly.

“Yeah, I know what you need, honey,” he whispered, and then smiled. Pulling back, he gave you a smirk. “Gotta go, but we’ll talk about the rules tonight,” he said and in ten seconds, he was out.

“Fuck,” you whispered as you let your body fall back onto the plush couch. Suddenly, you weren’t so sure about the whole thing because you knew he was going to ruin you for all the other men. “I’m fucked,” you whined.

Royally, you added in your mind and whined a bit more.

──

It was a week later when you decided to start.

Like he said, you talked about all the rules and things about what to do and avoid, and then you set up an account. Bucky went and bought a camera just for this purpose, and when you complained about it, he promised to use it for other purposes, too. After everything was ready, he took you out for a lingerie shopping.

“You’re already sexy as hell, honey,” he had said, “but we gotta make you look even sexier. I have an eye, y’know it, so I’m gonna help.”

Now, you were in a red colored lacy number with garter belt and fishnet stockings adorning your legs. You had shiny leather gloves that went up to your mid-upper arms. You decided to forego the shoes, and Bucky agreed. When you were done with putting on everything Bucky bought for you, you looked at yourself in the mirror.

You looked fucking sexy.

“You ready?” You heard Bucky ask and took a deep breath. You couldn’t help but feel nervous because Bucky was about to see you in a fucking sexy lingerie. He was about to your ass in its all glory since you were wearing a thong. “Y/N?”

You got out of the bathroom before you could convince yourself to give up the whole OnlyFans idea, and honestly? The look on Bucky’s face made it damn worth it that you didn’t back out.

He straightened up from where he was sitting on the edge of your bed. His eyes went dark quickly. His face darkened, and you saw his lips parting before his tongue peeked out to lick his lips very invitingly. His now-almost-black eyes moved down and up and down again on your body, and he took a deep breath.

“Motherfuck, Y/N, you look so fucking sexy,” he grunted, it was actually very close to a groan, your brain noted. Bucky took another deep breath and held his hand out to you. “C’mere, baby,” he whispered. Shivering lightly, you walked up to him, taking his hand. His fingers wound into yours immediately, squeezing just a little, and he pulled you forward.

With a gasp, you fell onto his lap, arms wound up around his neck and his arms around your waist. His body was so warm, so solid and big under you, you felt like you were very close to fainting.

“Damn,” he whispered, “You were already beautiful, and now in this thing? Fuck me, you have no idea how gorgeous you look, love.” You whimpered just a little, scooting a bit forward on his lap, plastering your own chest to his. His white, wifebeater was only providing you a nice view of his bulging biceps and giving you a little peek of his pecs. His sweatpants, however, they were doing very little to hide… things.

“James…” You breathed. Bucky cursed under his breath and pulled back just for a second to reach behind you. You knew he started the recording, you knew that there would be a little red light blinking at you; you shivered. This was so unlike you, but you wanted to it. Wanted to do it with Bucky.

“Ready, love?” He whispered, and you nodded. “You know what to do if you wanna stop or take a breather, right?” You nodded again. “Tell me your safeword, sweetheart.”

God, you thought, he’s laying it thick on pet names. “Winter,” you whispered. He placed a kiss on the tip of your nose, making you chuckle lightly.

“Good girl, honey,” he whispered and it was fucking on.

He leaped forward to catch your lips with his, moaning loudly in relief when the soft skin of his lips touched yours, you arched into it. His hands were roaming all over your body, nails dragging lines and making you shiver, while his hands were occasionally grabbing your ass and slapping it lightly. You moaned into the kiss when you felt his tongue licking on your bottom lip, and you felt it slip inside when you gasped.

Bucky already had you putty in his hands, you realized, and you wondered what you were going to be in when he was done with you.

“Alright,” he said with a low voice. He gathered you up in his arms and stood, turning around, he placed you in the middle of your bed. “I’m gonna take some pictures, that okay baby?” You nodded, teeth already digging into your bottom lip. Bucky watched your face a couple seconds; his thumb saving your bottom lip from the abuse of your teeth and he stroked it slowly. You poked your tongue out to lick his thumb, and then closed your lips around the digit. “Shit,” he cursed. “Pictures,” he grunted as he pulled his finger out of your mouth. You giggled.

He grabbed his phone that was sitting on your bedside drawer. He did a quick work on opening his camera app and looked at you. “Turn around. Lemme see that peach, hm?” You felt heat licking all over your body as you gasped. Slowly turning around, you pulled your knees under you as you stretched your arms forward to grab the headboard. This position gave your back a beautiful arch, you knew it.

“Goddamn,” he whispered as he moved himself around to get a good light for the picture, and you heard the soft ‘click’ sound a few seconds later. You looked at him over your shoulder, lifting your head just a little. You heard another ‘click’. Smirking, also feeling that you were gaining some sort of self-confidence, you placed your knees apart from each other on the bed, spreading them widely.

“God-fucking-damn, sweetheart,” Bucky groaned. He shuffled and pressed ‘click’ a couple times. You buried your head in the bed and deepened arch of your back, wiggling your ass playfully. Bucky hummed. He reached out to grab one of your cheeks, to dig his fingers into the soft flesh, and you gasped with the sudden touch. Click. Bucky hummed again and slapped your ass lightly. You moaned, pressing against the touch of his large and warm hand, you lay down on your chest.

Bucky trailed one finger down from your crack to your pussy. “Soaking it already?” He asked, voice low and hoarse. Lust, your brain realized, making you moan. Bucky rubbed you there with his thumb, over the soft fabric, and his other fingers dug themselves into the meat of your ass. “On your front,” he said, slapping your ass again. Swallowing a whimper, you did as he said.

“You look so fucking beautiful,” he whispered. You hummed and arched your back again, giving him a nice view of your chest. Click, click, click. Smiling, you lifted yourself up on your elbows. You could see that your effects for the pictures did not go waste: Bucky was hard and tenting his sweatpants. You lifted one of your legs in the air and pressed the sole of your feet to his stomach, right over his abs. You saw his cock twitching under the fabric, and your smile turned into a smirk.

“Drop the phone,” you whispered as you maneuvered yourself onto your knees, still facing him but also facing to the bulge in his sweatpants. Bucky did as you said and put the phone on the ground. “Lemme see you?” You asked next while pulling your gloves off. Bucky nodded and pulled his wifebeater off in a second.

He was a fucking god.

His beautifully tanned and smooth skin and taut muscles were blinking at you cheekily. You could see a faint happy trail leading to his cock. His arms were a bulging muscles and veins mess, and you wanted to trace those veins with your tongue.

Instead, you leaned forward and nosed his happy trail. His low groan and cursing were deaf to your ears because all you were focused on was the bulge that was touching your chin. You shuffled a bit forward and pulled his sweatpants down to his mid-thighs, making his cock slap against his stomach.

Thank fuck for Bucky Barnes and his love for going commando.

You’ve watched his dick swinging so many times when both of you were home. You’ve seen his dick both erect and flaccid through the thin fabric of his sweatpants. Finally, you were seeing it naked and all in display for you to play.

“Love,” Bucky whispered as he brushed a strand of hair away from your face. He sounded turned on. Good, you thought and grabbed his cock. Nosing right under his cock head, you inhaled the natural musk smell coming off of him. You were so goddamn wet just by smelling him, you knew deep into your fucking bones that you were ruined for all the other men already.

Tongue poking out, you licked him clean with slow, kitten licks. Bucky cursed. He couldn’t tear his eyes off you; he watched you as you wrapped your beautiful lips around his cock, watched your tongue licking him from root to top.

Bucky was going fucking crazy.

“Y/N, holy shit,” he moaned when you took him in your mouth. His eyes closed briefly as he tossed his head back with the pleasure. You hummed and bobbed your head up and down. He felt so nice, so thick and full in your mouth; you never wanted to let him go. Bucky grunted when you swallowed around him. He was already so damn close, it was embarrassing.

“Baby,” he said. “I’ll come if you continue to do that again.” You made a soft sound. You wanted him to come in your mouth, but there was this whole video thing to go through, so you pulled off. Bucky, always good at reading you, stroked your cheek. “Some other time I’ll let you have it in your mouth, alright?” You nodded. He smiled. “Move up,” he commanded, inclining his head towards the bed. You scrambled to follow his order. You spread your legs as soon as you were in a comfy position.

“I could eat you up…” He whispered. He crawled towards you on his knees, sweatpants ditched already and he was naked. He looked up at you, his dark eyes boring into yours intimately. Bucky nosed your clothed core. “Maybe I should…”

Whimpering, you wiggled slightly. He chuckled. It was a dark sound that sent chills down your spine. He grabbed your legs and threw them over his shoulder. Laying down on his stomach, he licked a fat line over the fabric.

“James!” You cried out. He rubbed his scruff covered jaw all over your inner thighs. His fingers grabbed the hem of your panties and he pulled them down, ripping them under the fishnet stockings and he threw them somewhere in the room. You gasped at the strength show. You could feel yourself getting even wetter. “Fuck,” you whispered. Bucky smirked. His tongue poked out to lick you clean.

It took you a second to realize that he was mimicking your ministrations on you. You let out a laugh which turned into a moan as the tip of his tongue nudged your clit. Arching your back, you grabbed his long hair. You knew he was good with his mouth; no mouth like his could be bad, anyhow.

“God, James,” you whispered harshly. He licked, licked, sucked and licked again, and you were going crazy. His beard was rubbing all over the slick and soft flesh, irritating the skin there. You were loving the fact that you were going to have some nice beard burn tomorrow.

Bucky slurped, licked you clean and flicked his tongue against your clit one last time before he pulled back. As much as he wanted you to come on his face, he wanted your first orgasm to happen on his dick.

You whined as he pulled back but purred in satisfaction when he laid on you, caging you under his big and muscle-y body. He was making you feel small and precious and honestly, you loved that feeling. It felt even better when it was Bucky.

“Lemme see them, yeah?” He whispered as he slowly peeled your bra off. Throwing it somewhere when it came off, Bucky didn’t waste any time to latch on to one of your nipples.

“Fuck!” You yelped at the sudden warmth around the delicate flesh, back bowing and chest pushing against his face even more with the new position. He flicked his tongue around, sucked and you felt his teeth nipping the flesh lightly. One of his hands was grabbing your other breast, fingers rolling the nipple. “Jaaames!” You whined, your fingers were still wound up tight in his hair. He hummed and pulled back with a pop.

“Fine,” he grumbled, turning your world upside down in a blink.

With a gasp, you were flipped around and were put on your stomach with your hips tilted up. Bucky’s knees were right outside of your thighs while your legs were as spread wide as they could. You could feel his hard cock right against your wet pussy, and you couldn’t help but moan and wiggle your ass a bit. Bucky groaned. His hips moved against yours, cock dragging up and down on your pussy as he reached for a condom. Both of you were clean and you were on pill, but he still wanted to make sure that you were not to get pregnant.

Bucky placed his hands on your waist and slowly moved them up and wound on of them in your hair. He made a fist, pulling them tightly to the side to expose your neck. You gasped and whimpered.

“Ready, baby?” He asked. You nodded. “You sure? Y’alright?”

“Yeah,” you whispered. “Yeah, ‘m fine, please.” Wiggling your ass against his cock, you moaned lightly. Bucky cooed at you softly, his free hand roaming all over your back in a soothing move. His fingers dipped into the holes of the stockings, ripping them just a little to make some room, and then he dipped his fingers inside of you. You cried out. Immediately clenching around the long and thick digits, you moaned.

“Fuck, Y/N,” Bucky cursed. “Tight as a fucking virgin, shit.” You hummed and canted your hips against him, practically riding his fingers. He made a sound of approval, removed his fingers and lined his cock up.

“Yes,” you moaned. “Yes, gimme!”

“Alright, love, don’t worry. I’mma give you what you need.” Swearing once again, Bucky slid inside of you with one slow thrust.

You screamed. Your back arched, hips tilted even higher and you clenched around his hard cock. Bucky cursed. His fingers were grabbing your hair tighter, almost making your scalp hurt, but you were loving the sting. You moaned and hummed as he started to thrust in and out. His pace was careful and slow, and remained like that until he deemed that you adjusted his length and width.

“God, shit, James,” you moaned. “You feel so good in me, so big…” Eyes closed, you threw your head back. Bucky responded your moan with his own. Just like you said, you felt so damn good around him. It felt like his cock was being wrapped tightly with hot silk. “Faster?” You asked, looking at him over your shoulder with wide eyes.

“Fuck,” he whispered as he let go of your hair and placed both hands on your hips for support. His hips fastened their pace. His balls, full to the brim, were swinging back and forth, occasionally slapping against your slicked covered skin. You were so wet that every movement of Bucky’s cock in you was making an obscene squelching sound. You could feel your thighs getting wetter with Bucky’s each thrust.

“James,” you whispered. “Fuck, James, ‘m close.” Your harsh whisper reached to his ear between the loud thrusts of his hips, and he grabbed you by the waist and throat to pull you up. You made a sobbing sound as the changed position made his cock drove in you even deeper. You loved the feeling of having him deep.

Bucky hugged you close to his chest; one of his arms was around your waist while the other was winding under your right arm, his right hand was loosely wrapped around your throat. You found the loose hand on your throat surprisingly grounding, and you sighed. Your hips flushed against his, you looked like you were sitting on his thighs in this position.

“Come whenever you wanna, love,” he whispered in your ear and placed a kiss on your cheek. The arm around your waist shifted on your hip, and he resumed his thrusts.

Having him way deeper was going to push you off the edge quicker than before, you could feel it. The tension in your belly was coiling with every single thrusts of his, your clit throbbing and your walls clenching around him; you were right there.

You sobbed. Your hands scrambled to grab any part of him; one of them wound up in his hair while the other grabbed the back of his thigh. “Yes,” you whimpered. “There!” You moaned when a little shift in his thrust lightened something up in you. “Fuck, ‘m─” Gasping, you swallowed the sob down. Your legs were trembling, pussy and stomach visibly clenching, you felt your nipples tighten up almost painfully.

“Oh fuck,” Bucky moaned loudly. His long hair was obscuring his face just a little bit, the ends of it tickling your shoulders. His scruff was rubbing against your neck, you could feel his happy trail against your ass, and with all these heightened senses you couldn’t hold onto your orgasm any longer.

You came on Bucky’s cock with a scream got trapped in your throat suddenly. Mouth wide open with a silent scream, your body convulsed and trembled against Bucky’s. If it weren’t his arms holding you upright against his chest, you would have collapsed face-first down on the bed, you knew it.

The spectacular fog of orgasm had covered your mind, making you vaguely aware of Bucky’s jack-rabbit thrusts. He was panting in your ear, hands tightened on your flesh and throat, you could feel his cock twitching in you. You turned your head to him lazily, still drowsy from your orgasm. Your hand on his thigh moved to his cheek to turn his face to yours.

“Come for me,” you whined lightly against his lips. You gave him a chaste kiss on the lips and whispered again. “C’mon, James, come for me.” Kissing him again, this time you bit down on his bottom lip and clenched your pussy around him tighter.

He gasped, his thrusts going mad as he moved his hips one, two, three more times before he stilled. Cock twitching, balls tightening up, he came inside the condom as his body crumpled forward. As he went down on the bed, he took you with him. Never letting you go, he cuddled you against his chest.

Five minutes later, breathing turned back normal, Bucky chuckled. “Goddamn,” he said and you grunted in approval. “You alright? Was I too rough?” You shook your head as you gave him thumbs up. He chuckled again. He rubbed your hips gently as he pulled out of you slowly. You grimaced as he did and watched him disposing the condom. He got off the bed, stopping the recording. “I don’t think this video will ever need an editing, but we’ll see I guess,” he murmured. He walked into the bathroom to grab a cloth to clean you up and himself, and then joined you back in the bed with camera in his hands.

“Shall we watch it before we upload it online?” He asked, brow cocked. You looked at him; his hair was a mess and his lips were red, his body had sweat glistening all over. He looked thoroughly fucked out, and you wanted to see him fucking you while looking like this for… who knows how many minutes. So, you nodded. “Alright,” he murmured and poked around the camera. You settled against his arm, head resting on his meaty shoulder. “Here we go…”

──

It was no surprise that watching fifty-six minutes of heavenly sex tape had led you to another round of sex. This time you riding Bucky into oblivion as he dirty talked the shit out of you.

At the very end, you decided to post the pictures first because Bucky was a bit hesitant about posting your very first sex tape online since it was ‘probably amateur’ and ‘you needed to get better a little’. You didn’t buy it, of course.

So, you cornered him only to learn that he didn’t want the video of you having sex with him the first time to be all over the internet, he wanted to keep it private. It was a very touching thought.

It only took Bucky to a little bit more cornering to admit that his crush on you back high school had never passed.

“Y-you… What?” You asked, feeling dumb. He chuckled nervously. “You have a crush on me ever since high school?” Feeling absolutely dumb, you kissed him on the lips. Bucky let out a confused noise but returned your kiss anyway. “You idiot!” You shrieked.

“What?” Bucky shrieked at you back. You kissed him again.

“I was depressed all those times thinking that you moved on from me!” You said, causing Bucky to freeze for a second. “I thought you moved on and I lost my chance…” You continued but more softly this time.

“Wait,” Bucky pulled back. “You like me back?” You nodded. He looked at you without blinking for a little while. “We are idiots. You’re in this shit with me.” You snorted as he rolled his eyes. But then, he leaned in to give you the softest kiss ever. You sighed happily. “So, are you up for a ‘congrats-you’re-an-idiot-couple’ sex?” He asked, face scrunching adorably.

Laughing, you climbed on his lap again and kissed him passionately as his answer. Bucky just moaned and indulged in it happily.

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