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aeolianblues · 15 days

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I’m finding myself listening again to the Russell Howard and Jon Richardson radio shows on 6 Music from back in the day. How different it is to the last time I listened to them. Back then, I was 19, they’d really got me into comedy, I really was buying into Russell and Jon’s youth, and I’d written and practised a whole standup set and booked myself my very first comedy gig, I, my friends, was going to do stand up. And I was right anxious to ‘make my standup debut before I turn 20’, because 20 is a really big year, it’s a significant number, you’re no longer a teen once you turn 20, and that must mean something. I had to do it. I was running though, I was flying! And reassuringly, I wasn’t the only fool with such hangups, I remember reading an interview with Russell looking back on his career starts, and he had a similar thing going on: his plan as he hit uni as an 18 year old was that he had to make his standup debut before he turned 20. He got me. I was going to do as he did, it’s a start, it gets you comfortable up on a stage after all, doesn’t it?

It’s a whole other thing that lockdown hit right around my 20th birthday, and funnily enough, that gig was called off. Just a week before I was meant to go up and perform! So of course, then began this long and weird process, where I still feel a little like it just wouldn’t do to compare myself to anyone who did things in a prepandemic world. It’s just not a fair comparison, we all fell behind. We all lost that time, and I’m having to fight hard to come to terms with the fact that (way beyond just comedy) my life won’t, and likely cannot, in the light of three lost years, align with my fantasy life goals. It doesn’t mean that I have fully come to accept that, but I do have to swallow the panic that arises in my throat sometimes, that restlessness that makes you want to bolt out of your chair, pace around, do something because you’re running out of time! This primal terror does not know what the goalpost is: what do we have to do? Something! Just something meaningful, something notable, something to be what you wanted to be as a kid! When is our deadline? I don’t know! Now! Whenever someone else more successful did it in their life that was in a different context! Yesterday! Years ago! It’s just not possible.

And so listening back to these episodes is fascinating, though at times hard. When I listened to them properly last, I was ‘on track’. I was young. I was motivated, I was racing. I had time, because the only people I could visibly track the career paths of were (said comedians, and) older than I was. I suppose it’s a thing in the arts and such fields, where the ‘conventional’ roadmaps are so nonexistent that I think a lot of us take one or two high profile examples and then pin all our self-worth against completing milestones on their timeline. When in fact their timeline cannot change, cannot be affected by external factors such as your life, because it is in the past.

Now, it’s a little different. Jon was 24 and Russell 26 at the start of that 6 Music show. I’m 24 now, and listening to Jon in particular is different. Being the same age as him, there are definitely parts of his life and personality that would worry me now way more than they did when I was 19. ‘Jon, you’re 24 mate, for Christ’s sake’, says Russell, and I am more inclined to agree. Chill out mate, we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us. At least, I need to believe that. And then there are other times when I feel so hopelessly behind. This man’s on national radio? God, I’m rotting away beneath, completely ignoring the fact that 1) I think if I DID happen to be on national radio (CBC), I’d feel like I was in a frustrating state of rot because the target demographic of most of CBC Radio is 65. I don’t think I want to be on national radio. So where do I want to be? Who knows, but it’ll certainly be a different career trajectory to any of these comedians (unless BBC Radio 4 or 6 want me, in which case I’m available). 2) Jon was able to gig at ages 19, 20, 21. Were you? Not unless you wanted to be funny to your laptop screen at home, at 4 am, with a time difference, or in finishing classes at uni overnight with a time difference from 3-6 am, and then getting ready to do a gig at 6 pm. (Though I don’t think it was always that drastic, that may be an excuse). And that’s not the only thing in mind, for example I don’t really think I want to be a standup anymore. I don’t really know what I want, I still harbour a silly dream of at least wanting to be in a band and getting out there and being marginally good at it, before the eyes start to go and the back begins to hurt and the music gets uncomfortably loud. I just want a small chance to bask in the coolness, I’ve realised over the years that the humbler dream is maybe a little more achievable than… what was it I was saying aged 16? ‘Headline Reading festival on the Main stage’. Hahahaha.

But it’s harder to look to musicians and some such. The current crop is heartening, 2020 was the first time I saw two really cool indie rock bands fronted by people aged 31 (James from Yard Act) and 32 (Florence from Dry Cleaning). If you look too far into the past, you’ll get bummed out by people whose biggest moments of their career had happened in ways that changed guitar music forever before they turned 23. But even with the 30 year olds, you do realise that except in very few cases, you do still have to start young. James Smith was still in bands for about 10 years before Yard Act clicked, but not doing it at all kind if takes you out of the running (Flo did actually pick up singing for the first time in Dry Cleaning and it’s a fantastic tale). Even a band like Fontaines have only really hit their stride in their late 20s, some even 30s, some as they were having kids (actually, ditto for James, and he did say it was stressful dealing with finally having the sort of success that takes you on tour across the world just as you’re having your firstborn child, it must’ve been crazy to think of. YA had the most summer European dates booked in 2022, then had to cancel the last leg from mental health issues and exhaustion. Guess it does backfire). But Fonraines did start in uni (and at a music school no less, so I suppose there is a different kind of motivation in saying that you have no choice. You are a musician because what else will you do?)

I try not to overthink it. Radio’s harder, we have very few open and public examples to even look at. Who’s a young and rising music journalist? What did they do? I don’t know, they’re names on a screen/paper, voices announcing things in places I’d like to be. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell how you’re doing.

I suppose I’m not doing too badly for myself. It’s just bad when you compare and you feel like a bit a fool for not being in a completely different situation that someone else finds themselves in. Having a yardstick is a blessing and a curse, in some ways, especially when devoid of much-needed context and perspective.

But it does make some documents different to revisit. Jon’s tenure hosting a show on 6 Music (24). John Robins’ gig diaries (22 turning 23, even as this man only decided to start doing standup aged 23). I don’t know. Maybe I would really do well to stay away from that sort of mental constantly-running commentary, I know John had beaten himself up over his own (perceived) lack of success for absolute decades. We look forward, we really do. We want more, and the good thing is we are driven. The urge to not sit still is a net plus to life, you’ll never be stagnant. You’ll never be bored. There will always be something that wants and hungers, and it will force you to do things.

But you’ve got to remember not to let it drive you— to madness. You’ve got to temper it. Not necessarily look backwards, but maybe glance over your shoulder every now and then and remember that even being in the field of arts, especially as someone that comes with a family history completely devoid of arts, artist connections or advice, is an incredible first step. I could totally have not been here. I could’ve turned out someone completely normal about the things I consume, way happier to let that be a supplement to my life, happy for it to be a passive thing that could never be within my intentions to be a part of. My life could’ve been so different, I could’ve had such different afterhours. Home after a day of work. Netflix, groceries, bed. Chores on the weekends, normal social activities. A keen interest in music, go to a gig, have a drink with a friend, marvel at something that brings me joy but that does not necessarily inspire any passions in me beyond wanting to see another show again sometime.

Instead, here I am. I am a socially anxious introvert, pushing my way through an extrovert’s world (come on, the music industry, as much as introverts are the currency being traded, is run by extroverts, don’t kid yourself). I am going to those merch tables. I am sending emails way above my pay grade ($0.00). I’m being the first to say hello, I liked this, let’s have a conversation over this loud din, let’s exchange emails, let’s chat properly, let’s do an interview. Now go prep, prep, prep. Now go talk to them properly. That’s a job for the weekends. That’s an invented job for the evenings. It’s me and those 19 people tuned in on the digital dial. What a great thing to be doing! I could totally not have been here. I can pick up a guitar. I can see the ideas again. I’m reading poetry. I’m writing bits and bobs. There are some coherent ideas that I can develop further. I love banging something out late night, doing a quick cheeky record on the phone; when you wake up, there’s a little recording you might half remember, available for you to get excited and pore over, it’s great! I maintain that I don’t really know where to begin with poetry. I don’t think I’ll have the full canon for quite a while. But I’m reading! I’ve got a few books and stuff here and there. I’ve read some Larkin. I’ve read some Yeats. I’ve read some TS Eliot. I know it’s not quite a lot, but it’s a start! To my amazement, it’s not just words on a page. I pick up a Larkin poem, some meaning begins to reveal itself to me (worryingly… lol). That’s different from high school. That’s different from what I’d feared. I’m not a philistine, I’m not sitting at home uninspired. The rusty taps are getting the red, ferric water out the pipes. It’s starting to unclog. The mental block—the fear that you don’t have it in you—will fade. Dal at ti. Keep at it. There’s no timeline. Isn’t it wonderful what we’re able to do with our time??

And I’ll work on that back and those eyes. We’ll do something, and we’ll do it quick enough. We’ll do it before I get a bad back.

#A letter to self #I need to stop having the urge to pick up my phone at 3:30 this can’t go on every day #Just realised after posting that I ought to tag this long. You don’t have to read it. In fact I recommend don’t bother #Long post #It’s so specific I can’t see what anyone else would get out of this.

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gd4-vincular · 1 month

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Writing Initiative #8

What have you learned about yourself doing this self-directed assignment?

This self-directed journey has truly been a valuable learning experience, particularly in shaping my approach to future design projects. Unlike following a set brief, navigating this course has been more challenging but ultimately insightful. I was given the freedom to explore further with what I couldn't in previous courses, allowing me to experiment with mediums and communication styles according to my own preferences and vision. However, self-direction also came with moments of feeling stuck. Despite receiving valuable feedback and insightful critiques, there were times when fear of failure hindered my progress. This hesitation made it challenging to move forward with confidence in my ideas.

2. What did you find to be the most difficult aspect of your chosen assignment? Creativity? Research? Connecting design to research? Craft? Organizational skills? Time management? Something else entirely?

The most difficult aspects of my assignment were time management and maintaining creativity. Managing my time effectively was tough because some projects took longer than expected, and getting started on them was a challenge. Also, with no strict deadlines, I often found myself endlessly tweaking projects. It was also easy to fall into the trap of procrastination, especially when deadlines seemed distant. This lack of urgency sometimes made it hard to stay motivated and focused on completing tasks in a timely manner. When it came to creativity, striving for originality was tough. It's hard to find inspiration when a lot of existing work seems similar.

3. What did you enjoy about this opportunity?

One aspect I found particularly enjoyable was delving into animation as part of this assignment. It's always a challenge bringing static designs to life through movement and storytelling. Experimenting with different animation techniques allowed me to explore new dimensions of graphic design. It was fascinating to see my digital designs translated into physical form through printing, and then back into the digital through scanning. This iterative process added an element to my work and provided opportunities for further experimentation. Overall, stepping out of my comfort zone and exploring various mediums not only expanded my skill set as a designer but also exposed me to other mediums that I'd like to further explore in the future.

4. How would you rate your performance over the course of the semester?

Throughout the semester, I didn't always showcase my work directly, but rather the ideas behind it and where I was heading. Looking back, I realize I could have been more organized in tracking my progress and sharing updates along the way. I wish I had been more consistent in documenting my experimentation, even if it wasn't the final product.

I also feel I could have been more helpful to my peers by giving them feedback on their projects. Sometimes, I was too caught up in my own work, constantly brainstorming new ideas on the spot in case the previous didn't work out or make sense.

5. Hindsight is 20/20. What would you do differently, now that you've had this opportunity to work this way?

Looking back, I realize the value of experimentation and exploration in the creative process. If I could do things differently, I would push myself to experiment more freely. I often played it safe, especially with my 2D and 3D project, when I could have pushed the boundaries further given the abstract nature of my theme.

In hindsight, there's always room for endless experiments that can spark new ideas. Moving forward, I aim to keep exploring, embracing failures as part of the process, and never hesitate to ask questions to guide my creative journey.

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horizon-forbidden-sheesh · 5 months

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Writing Process: Drafting

Sooooo, I started drafting Part 2 almost immediately after Part 1 concluded—and by now I've abandoned my Scrivener file entirely and am doing everything in Google Docs. (I talk about my switch from Scrivener to Google, here. ⚙️)

This time, I didn't have all the journal entries to work from, either. I was starting entirely from a blank slate. So at first, I just let myself WRITE. All the scenes I was most excited about, in no particular order, just to squeeze all the juice out.

I did that for like a month. And then, when I had about 15-20k words of random bits and bobs, I started to put them in order, and develop a through-line. That's where the draft docs & trackers came in.

✏️ Away from Scrivener, I needed some extra organizational tools to house my more general notes, research, & scraps. So, I built this li'l cutie with easy links to all my Google draft files, and included a brief summary that helped me greatly when plotting out the next set 10 chapters for Part 2:

*The chapter titles were updated as my outline changed, but the summaries did not! The descriptor for Chapter 20 is now, like, Chapter 23.

Keeping the descriptors short really helps me stay on task. If I have so much I need to cover in a chapter that it drops my formatting to the next line, I know I probably won't be able to cover everything in ~3,000-5,000 words.

✏️ Now, that's just the first page of the "Table of Contents." As of today, it's 13 pages long, and it also houses a TON of notes and working drafts and snippets of dialogue that I am saving for future, as-yet-unspecified chapters.

It's really messy—and sometimes when I'm out & about and my service is shit, I whip open my old Notes app, just to get a thought down. Here, have a taste of what's been rattling around in my brain...

Dialogue often starts as just the dialogue. I layer in tags & descriptors later, during the editing process. Most of the conversations I've written started with me talking to myself alone in the car, in the shower, or while washing dishes. (This works for copywriting too. My best ideas almost NEVER come to me while I'm sitting-down-looking-at-a-screen. Of course.)

For instance, that same conversation made it from the Notes app into a Google Doc and has since evolved to:

A li'l somethin-somethin from the upcoming Scorcher Season's Chapter 24 🔥

✏️ Once I've got all the major plot points written, I'll go back and write the "boring" stuff in chronological order. Okay, it's not really boring. It's just the filler information that helps a reader get from point A to point B, and I edit as I go. This ends up being like half of the total word count for the full 10 Chapters.

I'm currently hitting this point in Part 3—and you can see below that just writing my favorite parts here and there gets me pretty far on its own. Over the last 3 weeks, I've nearly exhausted my imagination developing the general story arc. Next up, I'll go back and start fleshing out each chapters one by one.

Wanna know something CRAZY?? Over the last ~year, I've noticed that I tend to write nonstop during Mercury Retrogrades. Like, I don't want to do anything else. I'm learning not to schedule any major projects for these ~3 week periods, so I don't blow my deadlines on account of being too obsessed with my fanfic to bother. 😅

After my decision to expand to 4 Parts total, my original ToC Doc got a bit... top heavy. (Also, I got really tired of manually calculating all the word counts.) So, instead of continuing in Docs, I added a tab to my spreadsheet:

*Hiding my chapter summaries so as not to spoil!! 😈

As you can see, I fill in the links as I create the draft docs... and I've already had to split a chapter in half due to scale, so the untitled <Scorcher 7> dropped to Part 4. I'm hopeful I won't have to split any more, so I can end strong on 'Ten Days.'

I don't usually start the finale until the very end, because I've learned that the wonderful comments I receive will sometimes give me extra ideas that I want to ensure make it into the fic!

✏️ Around the time I've fully completed the first 5 chapters, I'll give myself the green light to start posting. That leaves me just enough runway to finish out the rest of the season, and posting on a timeline helps keeps me motivated & accountable!

This is getting kinda long, so I'll write about Trackers & Timelines I've developed along the way in another post.

Thanks for being here! 🖤

xo, Sheesh.

#hfw #horizon forbidden west #kotaloy #The Marshal #the making of #writing process #writing tools #writing advice

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neongrave21 · 1 year

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Stressed out

Middle management is the worst of the worst when it comes to office jobs. I was fired last month, and even though I have a good enough resume that I get tons of offers on Linkedin, I will never get over the how and why they did it.

I am an IT Business Analyst, so my job is, among other things, to look at a project in development and see all of its flaws so they can be fixed according to what the client expects.

The last project I worked in that got me fired was by far the most disorganized and risky one I've done.

You want to know what I did that was so insulting to them, so inconceivable, that they let me go even though they had signed a permanent contract with me?

I kept speaking to the Project Manager and trying to make her see how things were. The danger of inexperienced people working in a high stakes project, including myself, the absurd deadlines and the downright lies or omissions that were said to the client.

My Project Manager did not take a single word of my advice. Instead, she stopped talking to me altogether. A few weeks later I was contacted by HR and fired with immediate effect for being "uncooperative". That woman did not even talk to me, or try to reason with me, or even say goodbye. They didn't let me say goodbye to my co-workers either because it was a remote job and they immediately removed my access to all their applications.

To add insult to injury, at the time part of the January salary had not been paid yet. I tried to make sure they paid me that part before I left but had no way to make it official without the applications.

They never paid me those 200€.

A few weeks later I was contacted to go physically to their office to deliver the laptop and other things. I explained that I have no source of income and had to pay bills, food and a whole ass moving to a new cheaper house. The trip to and from the office costs around 20€, which can pay for about 3 or 4 cheap meals.

They didn't even acknowledge this, and kept sending me emails with the last one threatening me with "escalation".

I feel like literally smashing the laptop with a hammer and setting it on fire for all I care about their escalation.

I'm still going there today for my own peace of mind, but do they care that THEY put me in a situation where I actually had to borrow money from a friend to go? Nah. Their KPI's and bottomlines are more important than someone who is literally rationing food because a Project Manager's ego was too fragile.

#fuck my job #office #office politics #middle management #project management #office jobs #unemployed

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incarnateirony · 4 years

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what's shot 46? should we keep an eye on that? i remember some spec that would be cas' last appearance before all the PR made people pivot to full on anxiety "he's not in the episode"

There’s a variety of potential “last” shots.

I’m still staring into the abyss of 28pt4, myself. It’s incredibly strange that they shot it early... twice... with the rest not being handled for almost two weeks. Which tells me they needed someone or something incredibly specific, close to the beginning of shooting, for that particular scene. 28pt1-3 appears to be entering and battling masked monsters in the barn, and they didn’t need whoever was there early for those parts, but they needed it for part 4. Which...

46 does fall into the possible list board range, but here’s the thing:

There are very few scenes we know what the shots ARE.

We know 47/47A are the brothers sitting around outside the impala in that cute town setting, I’ve presumed preparing their goodbyes. So yes, up to 46 would be possible. Hell, after 47 would be possible.

These are the highest possible days I can see Misha in (I know it’s 19 boards but look closely at the actual shots):

Notice 46 is there.

From 20: 11, 12, 20, 28pt4 (2x), 46.

The boards are Aug 19, Aug 21. Remember the Misha dirge he posted on the 20th saying he hadn’t been on set? Despite the dramatic zoom on the goddamn tapeball showing his colors from recent years that fandom mysteriously thinks is yellow but it’s been Green?

Here, have a Misha heavy episode:

This is the most conservative estimate of what I see out of Misha’s vancouver timeline, but only accounts for 2 days, as opposed to his original 5 day statement back in Vancouver. However, covid arrangements may have warranted shuffling and trying to bulk out as much Misha as possible early on to save on accomodations, and we ALSO know 19 & 20 are both missing about 30% of their shots, so the 3 other filming days that week may have very well even had other 20 shots, who knows?

Now, that’s again--most conservative estimate. Based on what we saw, Misha deadlined his streaming for the most part after this (in which the goddamn Van cityscape was visible outside of his window in parallel to him being in Van via Charlie before Charlie deleted lmao), and the only visual we get of him afterward was his Aug 25 post for Sam Smith (x)

The vaulted ceiling seems to change but it has the same HP Slam walls as the other unit; we have no context for this shot, but a great number of rentable extended stay suites in Van actually have these, if he rented a furnished apartment instead of a bog standard hotel to go insane in for a few weeks. And depending on the complex, can still be a relative highrise like his hotel view was.

Now, ep 20 shots don’t begin actually appearing on the board again until um... well, it starts being officially 20 Aug 28, or basically at the end of the week I consider “reasonable range”, with the Aug 25 post in mind:

The next week does not begin until Aug 31, which I am more tentative about misha being at. You can find all the QOTDs here (x)

On the second day of the week of Aug 31, they start heavily mixing 19 scenes into the boards as if to compensate for starting heavy with 20 scenes. Across all boards, both episodes are missing about 30% of their listed shots, so we have literally no idea when they were filmed.

28pt1 starts filming Sept 2, and the parts continue through the 4th.

September 11th, Misha surfaced from being invisible to the world with a roughly one week beardfuzz saying he had been on a camping trip. This would put him in range, via ~shaving~, of being at Sept 2-4, but I’m not entirely sold.

When it comes down to it, the biggest most suss thing is that the ENDING of shot 28, pt 4, was shot Aug 21, but the rest of it was shot 2 weeks later?

So despite beard being small enough to possibly have been there, I don’t think he actually was in that particular week. I could be pleasantly surprised, and you can check the quote boards if you want to consider that.

What do we know about shot 28:

Cool, it’s the barn scene where Sam and Dean are facing weird masked shadow people. So shots 1-3, they walk into a barn, get jumped, and fight shadow monsters and then *something* important enough happens that part 4 was shot weeks earlier for *reasons.* Got it.

It’s so weird that fandom seems to have missed this.

I dunno, maybe they just needed alastair to fulfill the 15.01 pennydrop and that was the day for it but I really doubt it. Considering Heyerdahl lives in BC and wouldn’t need special accomodations being paid for. He could just kinda stroll in whenever. So that’s not it. It’s not Billie, not only did she say goodbye but even if she didn’t, she also lives in Canada. In fact, most potential big players won’t need that kind of accomodation like J2M do.

Keep in mind folks: whatever leak you think you’re working on, check it closely. The original March 18 leak? Came attached to claiming Cas wasn’t even mentioned in 19 by supposedly reading the script. How did that work out? What about the spoilerglasses I chuffed off by disregarding their attempts to throw liminal script bits of 17 at me that also claimed Wayward characters were going to die brutally and disrespectfully in 19 and their friend saw it on a nearby lot? How did that turn out? What about the fact that one leak-bearer has two sources that oppositely say that there’s no Cas in 20 and another that says it’s a TFW positive ending, Cas doesn’t end up human, etc etc, and has a bunch of specs on it?

They’ve endgamed yall. And everyone acts like their basic wordplay on things like “story, show, scripts, page, fictional character” in PR would be ridiculous lies in the same show that made up an entire fake Abominable Snowman movie in the past to cover Jim Beaver coming back. Like, you’re... oh, you guys are serious, you’re actually believing this. lol ok

After that, Misha shaved again, got a haircut, mentioned traveling for his new Amazon movie from a different apartment/hotel -- an Amazon movie filming in the US, not Canada by the way -- then came back a few weeks later with a beard again, much denser than the Sept 11 beard.

#supernatural #spn #filming #15.20

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ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is · 3 years

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Hello, Em! Would you be willing to help me find my type? I’m in my early 20s, if that helps. I’m pretty sure I’m an Fi-dom, but I also see a lot of myself in Si-dom descriptions. I’ve always been a very emotional person, but I almost never discuss it with anyone. Whenever I do get upset, it’s almost impossible for me to explain how I’m feeling, so I try to find ways to be alone, so it doesn’t come out as sarcasm. My two biggest conflicts at work are with one coworker, who seems really nice (1/7)

until she finds out that she can’t control you, and my manager, who’s super outgoing and honestly just too much for me in the morning (he’s better at the people side of business than at the actual business side). I care a lot about other people and have tried desperately to pick up hobbies that my friends and family were interested in so that we would have something in common, but I couldn’t force myself to enjoy something just to be liked more. I really don’t like conflict, but if it comes down to it and I don’t see a way out, I tend to cut people off because I don’t see the point in continuing the (2/7)

argument. Typically, my main method of staying out of arguments is only giving my opinion if someone directly asks for it, since I struggle to sugarcoat the truth to soften the blow. Some of the major things that will set me off are when I think that people are just saying things without actually meaning them and when I feel that someone is bulldozing someone else. I remember one friend who would just tell people whatever they wanted to hear to keep them happy and I could never take her (3/7)

seriously. My sister and I tend to butt heads since I’m one of the few people who will stand up to her and call her out. I’m always on time and considered one of the more dependable people in my friend group, because both of those attributes are signs of respect in my mind. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. I would say I’m decent with details, but often will find myself double checking what I think the answer is because I don’t have a ton of faith in it. Whenever someone places an order, I always read it back to them, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything, because (4/7)

I will forget if I don’t have it written down. When I’m baking at home, I still will read the recipe, lay out everything I need, and put things away as soon as I’m finished with them, so I don’t add something twice. Whenever I’m working with deadlines or am stressed, I will try to organize my thoughts with pro-con lists, diagrams, or charts, but I have to admit that it doesn’t really help all that much, I will almost always end up trying to justify what I wanted to do in the beginning. (5/7)

One of my strengths at work is that I’m observant and tend to pick up new skills rather quickly, though I will always double check the first few times to make sure I’m not actually screwing it up. I tend to take failures personally, even though I know I need to learn to see it differently One thing that I struggle with a lot is feeling like I’m always running out of time. I allow myself way more time than I really need to reach my destination and as a result am always (6/7)

early and almost never have an overcrowded schedule. I hope this is enough to go on, I tried to condense as much as possible! (7/7)

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

Hi anon,

From the initial two parts, I think you are likely an introvert, and my guess is not a high Te user; I tend not to like people who are nice until it becomes apparent they’re only interested in control but I also tend to confront them head-on. My guess is also that you aren’t a high Ti user, just based on your writing style and initial focus on emotions so at this point I’m looking at dom Fi/aux Fe, with an eye towards sensing given what you said about Si.

After reading through entirely, I think ISFP sounds right:

I think the part about hobbies could go either way with high Fe or Fi, and taken in context with the part about cutting people off I would say this sounds more like high Fi. I also think that your difficulty in sugarcoating, instead choosing to just not bring things up, is also more indicative of Fi, and in general your attitudes about authenticity cement that.

Editorializing a bit I am in fully agreement with you on punctuality - it’s a sign that you respect people (being late sometimes is understandable because life happens but being flaky outside of a dire emergency is not), and I tend to associate this more with sensing just because it’s a way of showing respect through real-world actions; I think love languages are kind of silly but I also must admit that showing vs. saying does have something of a sensing/intuition split.

The conflict between wanting guidance but also following your original intent feels very true to high Fi/inferior Te, and the choice to implement those external but concrete tools seems in line with Se.

Observant and quick to pick up new skills is a hallmark of high Se as well. Overall, ISFP fits you very well - I think you happen to fall on the more meticulous side, either because you are starting to explore your inferior Te or just because it’s been necessary or useful for you in work or life.

Finally I want to say that this did provide a lot of useful information! This is actually how a longer ask should be structured to get a good answer; you provided tons of concrete, meaningful, and as-objective-as-possible examples with explanations, and while you brought up some potential types you’d considered you structured it as “these are the functions I think I may have” at the beginning and then let the information stand for itself rather than pre-arranging it into arguments. Overall this is a great example of an ask!

#mbti #isfp

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feminaexlux · 3 years

Text

Dragon, Viper, Tiger

Tossing my hat back in the ring for @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers AU sprint challenge!. I went with the Thief/Heist AU since I’d been kicking this idea around for a while.

I gave myself an arbitrary editing deadline of 6pm so I hope it both makes sense and reads alright, but shrugs

Hope you enjoy! Find on AO3 here :)

⁂

Viper was sometimes glad he had a longer running gait than the woman on his tail only a few meters behind. He put his long legs to use and leapt up onto a couple of filing cabinets, scrambled up to the bare industrial support beams of the so called modern office building he’d broken into, and jumped over the dividing wall via the exposed ceiling.

Post-Modern styled offices just lent themselves so well to the good old B&E.

The wiring crisscrossing through the exposed ceiling allowed him to occasionally cut the telecommunication lines in his hasty exit, which was great in trying to prevent any of the security cameras from tracking him. If he also took out the internet lines that was just an added bonus, since that’d probably slow down anyone trying to access the proprietary blueprint he pilfered. He just needed to buy some time.

He probably could have gotten out a few minutes ago since he already had the memcube in his pocket, but this was really the only opportunity he had to see Officer MDC in action. Oh, nice, there she was, waiting for him in her combat stance at his specified exit point. Even at 5 foot nothing she’d landed him on his ass waaaay too many times, but honestly he loved the challenge of facing her. She always had new tricks up her sleeve.

But so did he, with some of the info that Tiger kept leaving him. Like, for instance, even if MDC had gotten the EMP disruption lace installed in her gloves, it could easily be counteracted and redirected by the additional aluminum alloy mesh Dragon had added as the inner lining to his wetware, so the memcube wouldn’t be completely fried if MDC did manage to land a hit (and she usually did). The only problem was trying to find where to ground the pulse… But the priority order was, as ever, keeping his identity safe, then getting the payload, then trying to escape unscathed. Paris PD’s Special Circumstances wasn’t ever going to figure out his identity (unless he died), nor would they get to know that the same general producer for their own tech was his boss (unless he died).

Viper didn’t relish the idea of dying, so he’d been doing his best at avoiding that particular outcome. He’d done well so far, even if he did come out of MDC encounters with more bruises and scars than when he went in. He had landed in front of Marinette and smiled. She rolled her eyes at him. And before he knew it, she had launched herself at him with her classic opener: a roundhouse kick to his solar plexus.

⁂

Viper slid underneath the food truck and unlatched a hidden panel, hauling himself through the opening feet first as quietly as he could. He toed the hatch closed behind him but caught it with his fingers before it made impact. He couldn’t give up the game now by being loud, that’d be so, so lame. He heard the gravel get scraped below his temporary entombment and he knew it was Marinette. She felt at the truck’s undercarriage and probed for any particular weaknesses or different materials and he heard her muffled voice as she worked with her TIKKI AI to scan any infrared signals and find any potential structural modifications done to the vehicle.

Here’s to hoping that Markov did its job correctly, he thought. Otherwise they’d be out of a job… and a food truck.

A few minutes later he heard her curse and slam an open palm against the undercarriage in frustration. “I know you’re in here, Viper!” she yelled.

“Ma'am?” He heard another voice chime in. “Why are you under our truck?”

⁂

A very cramped 3 hours later after a thorough inspection and nearly complete teardown of the food truck, Viper finally popped the floor panel and took in some fresh air. Well, relatively fresh, it smelled like greasy food all around him. The truck was already on the highway, having been released from the PD’s temporary impounding for being present at the scene and potentially housing a wanted criminal. The scans came up with nothing, the truck’s workers came up clean through the ID system, the truck’s visit and movements were tracked and scheduled and above board.

The actual food truck owners were unaware of his presence, which was just the way he liked it. He stretched his legs out a bit after being folded up into such a tiny space for so long. It was the sole disadvantage of having long legs, but he was the best in class at his job for all the contortion required. Plus he wasn’t claustrophobic like Tiger was. Speaking of… he checked his watch.

ur late, asshole

cg again? u simp

special 4u 0xdeadbeef

Oooof course. He could always count on his sister for ribbing on his infatuation with Cafe Girl, their codename for Marinette. He took one last relatively fresh breath of air and went back into hiding, sealing the latch shut. He listened for the engine knock signature: 4, 5, 1, 4, 2, 5, 5, 6, opened the bottom panel, dropped onto the street with his camouflage on, and kicked the panel closed before the truck took off. A bus drove over him and he hitched a ride, holding on underneath for 4 blocks, then rolled into the gutter drain.

⁂

It was a pretty quiet evening at Cafe Orriko, a cozy little cafe that had some steadfast regulars. One of Luka’s favorite hangouts due to the owners letting him lounge around and play his acoustic without complaint. There’d been another reason Luka loved this particular cafe, though.

Nathaniel heard the door chime and looked up, smiling at the newcomer. “Hey welcome to–oh hey Mar–oh shit MARC WE HAVE A CODE PINK!” There was a hastily tossed pillow from Marc that Nathaniel covered with a tea towel and passed to Marinette. She pulled up the pillow to her face and screamed into it for a good 20 seconds. Nath grimaced. “Bad day?”

She lowered the pillow. “Stupid fucking Viper I swear I will rip him in half and tear him to fucking shreds once I finally get my hands on him!”

Luka chuckled, having stopped playing his guitar when he noticed that Marinette had come in. “Careful, sounds like he might like that,” he winked.

“Uuuuugh,” Marinette groaned. “Thank you, Nath. Just… just gimme my usual, please.” She looked pretty dejected this time, handing back the pillow and tea towel, walking to Luka’s couch, and plopping down next to him. “Please, Luka, could you play me something soothing?”

“Anything for you,” he said, starting up an easy tune. “I know you can’t talk a lot about your work, but… what went wrong today?”

“Nnng, just… just I knew where he was and we still didn’t get him. He’s like a fucking ghost, he just… disappears! Poof!” She usually discussed what was already covered on the nightly news broadcasts, just to be safe.

“Then he’s pretty good,” Luka said neutrally enough, but hid a smirk behind a cough when Marinette gave him the stink eye.

“He only needs to fail once,” Marinette huffed. “He can’t always have luck on his side.” Marc came by with her salted caramel hot chocolate. “Thanks, Marc,” she sighed, relaxing a little bit as she took a sip of the steaming hot drink.

Luka set a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “You’ll get him one day, I know it.”

“I’d still have my work cut out for me. I have to find the Dragon after him,” Marinette groaned again. “And Adrien’s still obsessed with that stupid Fencer lady so he’s no help.” Marinette shut her eyes tight and shook her head. “But enough about that. How are you, Luka? I’m glad I was able to run into you today.”

Luka wasn’t going to mention that she’d already run into him earlier as the one and only Viper. “It was going alright, but it’s better now that you’re here,” he smiled. Marinette blushed a little and smiled back, nudging his shoulder with hers. “Sorry about your rough day though,” he added quickly.

Marinette shrugged. “It’s work. It’s… it’s so weird what the Syndicate goes for, it’s not even like… anything really valuable? I swear they’re doing it just to mess with us and wreak havoc.”

“You haven’t figured out a pattern?” Luka asked. Marinette made a zipping motion across her mouth. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

She shrugged again. “No more talk about work, please. I’d just… like to hear you play, if that’s alright?”

“Yeah, no problem,” he chuckled.

She closed her eyes as he started playing the guitar again, something soft and pleasant that reminded him of her. She leaned her head against his shoulder while he played and he felt his heart beating faster.

One day, when the jig was up, he’d love to take her out for dinner. Assuming, of course, that he hadn’t been torn to pieces by her hands.

#fxl fic #LBSC sprint fic challenge #lukanette #lukanette endgame #endgame lukanette #eventually???#luka couffaine #marinette dupain cheng #nathaniel kurtzberg #juleka couffaine

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dis-easedfairy · 3 years

Text

Impulsive Decision Pt.9

Male Path | Female Path

Chapter 9 : Just A Normal Day At The Office

Warnings!: Swearing

Genre: Poly!au, angst, fluff, eventual smut, yandere!au

Pairings: BTS x Reader / Kim Taehyung x Reader / Kim Seokjin x Reader / Jung Hoseok x Reader / OC x Reader / Park Jimin x Reader / Min Yoongi x Reader

Summary: M/n is the owner of a very wealthy and successful company, Barnanby Inc. M/n attends a BTS show, since they happen to be a fan. They make a very impulsive decision to show a loophole in BTS’s security and end up kidnapping BTS and 2 girls. In a fit of panic M/n stashes BTS and the girls in a very luxurious bunker for the time being, but M/n’s world slowly starts to crumble the longer the boys are out of the public’s eye,

Word Count: 8,349 (roughly 30 minutes of average reading time)

A/N: The boys aren’t in this chapter that much purely so I can develop plot and give background info. So, filler. (the gif is basically a hint to next chapter)

Spending my morning on Jason’s couch wasn’t the plan, but the break was almost too sweet to give up. I sat up, reaching over for my turned-off phone. I could hear muffled talking coming from down the hall. I looked over, seeing Jason holding a laundry basket, his phone pressed between his face and shoulder and he came into the living room. I grabbed his laptop off the chair just in time for him to sit on the said chair. He dropped the laundry basket on the floor and got a better hold of the phone.

I reached over to get Jason’s laptop off the coffee table. I opened his laptop and began looking up a few things.

“Listen, we had a plan for the character model! I understand when you program something, something else can mess up but it’s YOUR JOB to fix it! I’ll extend the deadline but that’s it, good-bye!” Jason hung up with a groan.

“I haven’t even had my damn morning coffee yet and these people are going insane.” He grumbled, beginning to sort through his laundry.

“Yeah, sorry about that, but it needs to happen,” I muttered, still researching.

“So your plan is to what? Get Jill’s help but keep the company anyway? How will that work? I get you ARE the owner, but she now has the upper hand to destroy you…” Jason trailed off, folding a pair of pants.

I scoffed, “She THINKS she can destroy me, but if she helps me avoid punishment and makes her lawyers paint a pretty picture as truth, then she’ll HAVE to run with it. If she turns on me and says it was all a lie and I’m a criminal, then she is too, then she gets nothing either. The only one with us listening to the WHOLE conversation was my nephew and no one will take his word because he still thinks Santa Claus can come through the furnace vents in their modern home. ”

“He’s really are losing his mind oh my God.” He mumbled to himself, trying to seem interested in his laundry.

“I love my sister, I really do, but last night… She showed me that she would sacrifice everything if it meant keeping the company and her status. She doesn’t care what I want and isn’t doing this out of the kindness of her heart. She’s doing it for my spot. She’s doing it because she doesn’t want to be removed from the high pedestal my father put her on.” I argued, shutting the laptop.

“What about the guys? What if your sister gets access to the bunker?” Jason questioned.

“She won’t. It surprised me when she knew about it, but the location, locks, and layout will be foreign to her because she doesn’t have access to those. I’m assuming she only knows because our accountant slipped up. The only one who knows the location is you and I. The locks are designed by me and you barely even got the keys last month. The layout is only known by twelve people, Jin, Yoongi, Hoseok, RM, Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook, Seongmi, Linza, Jeonghun, and only you and I REALLY know the layout of the bunker. ”

“I feel as though you being there with them was a bad idea.” Jason shook his head, judgment was written on his face.

I exhaled, leaning back into the couch, “It really was. ”

“Well, If I would’ve known you had so much shit going on I wouldn't have invited you for a night out with Daisuke and me!” Jason threw an article of clothing back into the laundry basket roughly.

“If anything, it’ll get my mind off everything for a few hours,” I stated bitterly.

Jason let out a sigh, almost irritated, “We can’t be teenagers anymore, M/n.” He said, his voice was too serious for my liking.

I rolled my eyes, “Jason, I know. I get so much crap for being uptight. Maybe I should actually live like a 20-year-old CEO.” I smirked.

“Oh God, please no.” Jason made a face, going back to sorting and folding his laundry.

“Yeah, overpriced alcohol and drunk people telling me I’m attractive aren’t really for me.” I chuckled, sitting up to get the laptop again, this time to check my e-mail for work.

I started replying and even turned on my phone.

“Your sister….” Jason began, making me look up.

“…She used to wear really nice things, yes, but she would’ve never done that to her little brother. She loved you too much for that.” He stated sadly, looking at a single shirt like it was able to replay memories.

I frowned, sighing, “It happens to those who are in power enough, Jason. It happened to my brother, then to my older sister. I hope my little sister doesn’t catch that bug. Lord knows my mother is secretly becoming like that as well. I understand it a little bit. There are competitors who want our company forgotten, so we have to protect our image, but for her to ask for my place instead, just…” I trailed off.

“I just hope it’s because she has kids to think about now. My brother just wanted to be on top. Maybe my sister wants it so her kids have an assurance that they’ll have something too.” I reasoned, going back to my e-mail in hopes to end the conversation there.

Jason scoffed, “As if you would ever cast out your nephews. Lord knows you spoil them even if they aren’t yours.” I felt a twinge of pain in my heart.

“I mean what would your father say about your sister getting the company?” Jason prompted.

“…I have that decision for a reason, so let that reason play out.” I muttered, no longer interested in the work I was doing.

We fell into slightly uncomfortable silence.

“Can you take care of the boys and girls? With my dad’s party coming up and setting everything up for the future, I will be busy and my family will expect me to stay by their side. They’ll know something is up if I’m constantly leaving.” I explained, pulling out my phone and turning the screen on.

“Uh sure, I’ll try to work and things from there. Maybe I’ll set up a tent there or something. ” I chuckled at his response.

“Why a tent?” I questioned with a smile.

Jason smiled, letting out a chuckle of his own, “So I can get cellphone service.”

I only shook my head, I was about to open my mouth to speak but the doorbell rang. Jason looked at me puzzled for a bit. I only shrugged, leaning back into the couch. Jason stood and opened the door.

“I have your truffle pizza and 20 hot wings. Your total is 66,000 won.” The delivery man stated quickly.

Jason looked over his shoulder at me with a glare. I only smirked with a shrug. Jason grumbled something under his breath and took his wallet out of his pocket. He swiped his card in the delivery man’s card reader and took the pizza and wings.

“Have a nice day!” The man said, quickly taking his leave.

Jason mumbled something along the lines of, “I won’t while he’s here.” as he closed the door.

Jason turned to look over at me, eerily calm for a few moments.

“…WHO ORDERS A 66,000 WON PIZZA!? THAT’S 50 U.S. DOLLARS! THATS….”

“6,510 yen.” I helped him out.

“EXACTLY!” He exploded.

“58 U.S. dollars to be exact. ALSO, it was actually 50 U.S. dollars, however, it was an extra 4 for 20 wings since it was on sale I figured why not?”

“…4 dollars for 20 wings? Holy shit that’s a good deal.” He muttered, moving his hands to open the container with wings.

He made a face as if to say ‘not bad’, “They are pretty meaty too, what the fuck.”

“The pizza has a lot of truffles. Never had it before.” I shrugged.

“Then why did you order it!?”

“…I feel like ordering you the most expensive pizza I could find last minute was doing someone justice? Like I personally don’t think I’ve ever said that, but I’m sure someone said they would. Figured I’d be petty for them.”

Jason looked at the pizza then at me, “You’re so fucking weird. If this tastes bad then that someone is getting coal for Christmas.”

Jason walked over to place the food down on the coffee table. I happily helped move things out the way and opened the pizza box and Jason decided to go for the wings first.

“What’s the game plan for today?” Jason asked, mouth slightly full as he spoke.

I gave him a look and shook my head as I picked up a slice of pizza, “You know I hate when you do that.”

“Why? No food is going to fly out and you understand me.” Jason said after he swallowed, shrugging like it wasn’t a big deal.

“No one wants to see your chewed up food, Jason.”

“Then look at my eyes, not my mouth.” I sighed.

“Stop talking about things that annoy you! What’s the game plan?” Jason pressed, his hand moving to get a slice as well.

I ended up at the office, but instead of working, as usual, I was only lost in my thoughts.

I thought if I was far away from my problems, it would just solve itself.

I had to deal with Daisuke.

I had to prep for my father’s party.

I‌ had to deal with nine people in my bunker.

I looked over at my sad excuse for a couch setup. A pillow and a fluffy blanket folded over the armrest. I was going to be beyond busy and I‌ need to avoid the boys for a bit to get things sorted out.

I let out a sigh, “How long will I‌ be here?”‌ I‌ asked myself as I made my way to my desk.

I sat down and tried to focus back on writing out what I could have planned for the game and if there would be more.

It suddenly hit me. I launched myself up from my desk and ran out of my office to find my sister. It might have been easier to just make her come to me but the idea suddenly coming to me clouded any other thought as I ran as fast as I could to the broadcasting department.

Once I got there I could see my sister talking to employees and making sure everything was in order for the new animation to be aired. Some who were talking a small break immediately got to work when I entered.

I proudly went next to my sister and blurted “I‌ can have the game department only.”‌ in an out of breath tone.

Her eyes grew wide, “Excuse me?”‌ She seemed more concerned than confused.

“You have broadcasting, Jae has the toys and shit, Eun will have food and drinks and I’ll have games. We’ll all just decide together!”‌ I couldn’t suppress the excitement in my voice.

Jilly took a quick look around and grabbed my arm to lead me to the hallway.

“What’s going on in that over-active brain, huh?”‌ She asked me while folding her arms.

“We won’t have to fight for the top if we’re ALL‌ at the top. Jieun isn’t old enough yet, so I’m not worried about that side of our company for at LEAST 2 years!‌ Jae has a thing for money but loves the designs we all come up with. You love the bustle of the broadcasting. You are literally our voice, and it’s good that way. I can be in charge of the game department. Any videogames are managed under me and no one will have to come to you about my bullshit because it’s MY bullshit.”

“This isn’t the four kings. This is a company.”

“A‌ company that will work as long as we all stay in our fucking lanes!‌ Jae is too stubborn to evolve with the company. You won’t take too many creative risks that we need. Jieun will crack under the pressure of handling EVERYTHING. I’m too impulsive or too stuck in my head. But if we all work together we’ll check each other. No fights for the top, no one coming to just one of us for decisions on something the other is working on. No pressure to hold the entire company on our backs. We get our zones and stay in them!”‌

Jilly seemed to look down at the floor, letting my words absorb. After a few long moments, she finally spoke.

“I remember sitting down on the living room floor during Dad’s days off. Our sister helping our mom, Jae being pissed off because Dad just wouldn’t give him a win, and you sitting at the table always learning something new.”‌ Something about her words caused a weight to form on my chest.

She let out a sigh and looked up at the ceiling, “Our father was a strong man. After his will, I tried so hard to understand why he left the company to you. You were so young when he wrote the will. You were still young when he passed. Our mother got into a few fights with him before he died,”‌ She let out a scoff, “Like she was just TRYING to find a reason to be mad at him. And when you got the company, Jae was so angry at you, at Dad. I want it to stop. All the fighting. ”‌ Her eyes landed back on me.

“I‌ even went after you, and I shouldn’t have. This isn’t a competition. I was so upset that you kept it from me and that you would even find yourself in that situation. But yesterday night it finally hit me on how you might’ve felt. I‌ just know you went in with it being a joke that you thought wouldn’t be too serious, and when it was, you weren’t sure what to do. If you reached out to our brother, you would go to jail. He’s too into old-fashioned justice. If you went to mom, she would hide you, but her mouth was too big. Eunnie is still a child. And I‌ would’ve done what I did yesterday. You HAD‌ to hide it.”‌ Her voice seemed to waver as she went on.

I tried to remain completely silent. I could feel a sting behind my eyes, she was starting to understand what kind of stupid I was. Yet there was always a method to my madness.

“I‌ judged you, and thought of our image rather than thinking of you as my brother. I‌ thought of you as a reckless child rather than an adult who was afraid. Our mother wanted you to be a pushover, someone she could dump her problems on. Our brother wanted to knock you down to get to the top and I‌ made you feel like shit when I was supposed to help you.”‌ Actual tears began to run down her face, “You’re my little brother, not my child, and not a fucking punching bag. I shouldn’t have made you feel so judged for something that was an innocent mistake, I’m so sorry, M/n-ie.”‌

She bit her lip, seeming to take a moment to control her emotions before finally saying, “It’s your call. I’ll help, but please, don’t do anything stupid.”

I left a large weight lift off of me.

My sister wasn’t against me. She could never be.

My eyes watered as I waited, wanting to see if maybe she would change her mind.

Her features softened even more, “Oh, M/n-ie. I won’t take it back, I promise. Come here,” She held her arms out and I immediately went into them.

Pressing my face into her shoulder and wrapping my arms around her. As she embraced me back I could smell the comforting scent of her jasmine perfume that she’s been using since middle school. Her hand went up to pet my hair soothingly.

For a moment it was as it should be. A little brother being comforted by his big sister.

“What are you two doing in the hallway?” We heard.

Before I could pull away Jillian held me closer, “Hugging. Like family.” Her voice was almost cold.

“He’s the owner of a company, you shouldn’t be holding him like that. He’s not a child.”

It made sense who it was now.

“Jaeseok, he’s our little brother. It doesn’t matter if he owns a company or not. He felt under the weather so I’m helping.” Our sister shot back, keeping a firm hold on me.

“He’s an adult. If he has problems he needs to deal with them on his own, Jiann.”

Great now my brother and sister were bickering in the hallway. What made this worse was I couldn’t really say anything, due to my face being in her shoulder.

“Family is supposed to help!”

“Family is to help expand the name.”

My sister let out a frustrated groan. I lightly pushed on her hip and she let me go.

I was met with the sight of my brother. He looked well-kempt yet so unkempt. He had on his usual suit, wrinkle-free, and lint-free. His hair looked like he had run his fingers through it repeatedly, and the dark circles under his eyes were impossible to ignore.

“Jae, when is the last time you slept!?” I asked, genuinely concerned.

Jae scoffed, “We don’t all get day-offs whenever we want. ”

I frowned at his response, of course, he would turn this into a fight, “But you should still take breaks. Your hours should give you plenty of time to sleep.”

Our sister tsked, “Don’t snap at our brother because you’re working overtime.”

“You’re working overtime!? I told you not to!” I exclaimed.

Our brother rolled his eyes, “If I don’t do it then who would?”

I scoffed at his clear delusion. These next few days would be hell.

“Why did you come over here for?” Jiann changed the subject.

“Right, our mother wishes to reserve a large building for our father’s birthday. She also would like to invite some of his family to our childhood home.”

There was silence.

“Well tell her she’s out of her fucking mind. The party happens here. This meant everything to Dad. The party happens here and we go back home for the night. Like always. I don’t care who she invites to the party but no one follows us back to our childhood home. That’s for family only. My sons and husband don’t even join us and neither does your wife, what makes her think they’re invited? No.” Jiann was firm, crossing her arms, just waiting for someone to defy her.

“They’re even lucky to be invited to the party itself. They call us entitled pricks but want to be part of us when it comes to social events.” I muttered.

“Exactly my point. No. They don’t get to come back to our family home. They also don’t get family passes as they are here. They don’t get special treatment.”

Jae seemed to nod thinking it over, “I agree. Having them think they can do as they please won’t be good for our company’s image. Or our family’s image. I’ll let security know of their names and faces. I’ll also brief them on how to properly handle them if they cause a scene.”

Like I need more problems.

“What will they do if they DO cause a scene?” Jiann asked.

“Well, we can’t have them be loud, they would draw too much attention we’ll just–”

“CEO-nim!” I heard, making us jump a little.

A woman, looking highly professional jogged up to us, holding documents to her chest.

“Yes?”

“We have another problem. Some of the computers in the game development floor have been damaged. I attempted to get ahold of Mr.Katashi but was unable to.”

Oh great, more problems.

My favorite.

I somewhat had everything under control by lunch. Someone had corrupted a few computers. I had to emergency order new ones and help transfer the files over and had the corrupted computers stored away as evidence. I was walking around the programmers, making sure I was there if there were any signs of any glitching computers.

I was pretty sure that whoever was doing this was selecting a special set of computers, the ones with all the character designs and code that took too long to recreate at this point. I made sure to tell Jason to find the best cybersecurity team he could. I needed to guard this project with my life and I wouldn’t let my father’s dream die with me.

I was pacing back in forth between the row of game developers when I was approached.

It was a nice looking man. He seemed small. Not in height, but in the way he presented himself. He was dressed in a simple dress shirt, straightened pants, and tie. His dark hair was covering his forehead and he looked out of place. Afraid to meet my gaze, afraid to catch too much attention. He was holding files and USB drives but looked like if I said “boo” he would drop everything and run.

He must be new.

“Hello, how can I help you?” I asked in the nicest voice I could.

He played a little bit with the edges of the folders before speaking, “I’m with the cybersecurity team… They sent me to…,” He seemed to be stuck or thinking of what to say, “To set up.” His voice sounded like it could be attention-catching if he tried. Not too high-pitched and had a certain roughness to it.

“Ah! Of course! We had computers and space for your set up in the room next to the security room.” I informed, moving to borrow the post-it notes from one of the developers to write down the code to the mostly empty room, “If any of you have any questions or needs, feel free to call my personal number. It’s close to us all ordering lunch so call the front desk if you have any differences in dietary needs.” I handed him the post-it note with a warm smile.

He quickly took the note, gave me a small bow, and rushed off.

Poor dude.

I moved back to my work at hand, making a mental note to visit them later.

A little later into the afternoon I was in my office, trying my best to look over the security footage. It didn’t look like the files were corrupted manually. No one was there in person but it still gave me a strange feeling. This obviously wasn’t just some teenagers just goofing around. I let out a loud groan, knowing this would kill me until I figured out who did it.

I got up out of my seat and gathered the papers I needed to sign off on and approve. I shoved them all into a folder, grabbed a couple of pens, a few stationery items for organization reasons, and headed off to the cybersecurity room.

Upon reaching the room I began to think about how they would all react seeing their boss watch over them as they worked.

Would they feel pressure?

Would I make them uncomfortable?

I decided to just knock on the door. If I made them uncomfortable they could tell me and I would leave.

As soon as my knuckles hit the door it flung open to reveal the guy before. This time his hair was a little ruffled, pushed back to show off his forehead, and his tie pulled loose.

“Good! Saves me the trouble of having to find you, come in!” He gave me a smirk and went back into the room.

Well, that was a turn of a personality.

The room we had set up for them was all set up into cubicles. At first, I was against it but they had large whiteboards on the cubical walls and had their own privacy. The guy before led me to the end and sat down at his new desk, his screen was pulled up to a jumbled mess of codes that hurt my eyes to look at for too long.

“You were definitely about to be hacked. I’m not sure what they did that they ruined it so badly but we can try to trace him in a few moments.” He explained.

“So what's the next step I should take after this?” I questioned, putting my hand on the back of his chair to lean forward and look at the wall of code.

The man seemed to be thrown off by my question. I wasn’t going to be confident if I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing or what this all meant. He was a professional. I saw it best to ask for his opinion.

“Uh…Uhm…W-Well, the next step is to contact the authorities. This is a crime after all.”

“Isn’t tracing them a crime too though?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Eh, not really. If I was hacking into their computer for private information then it would be a crime. Like they tried to do here. But I’m just getting the general idea of their location, its pretty public despite what everyone thinks.”

There was a pause.

“…..So how much can I pay you so we aren't public?”

“Hey, dick, we need to talk.” Jason busted into the once quiet cybersecurity room.

I had taken up an empty cubical that was at the very end facing the other cubicles. I could see the door and only the sides were up. I had papers scattered around in semi-neat piles, my hand starting to cramp from all the signing and notes I’ve made.

The small cybersecurity team almost jumped out of their skin upon Jason’s entrance.

I let out a large sigh, “If it has anything to do with I.P. Addresses, VPNs, or how I’m a fucking idiot, I already got that talk, and I don’t want to hear it.”

Jihun, the man who did a fucking 180 in personality held back a laugh at my irritation.

“Do I look like I know anything about computers? It’s not about that, the police are in your office right now waiting for you. ”

“Police? I requested only one detective?” I looked up from my papers.

Jason let out a sigh, “I tried to tell them that but he insisted that he needed his partner.”

I let out a groan, “Fiiinnnne.” I stood up reluctantly and shot Jihun a quick, “I’ll be back.”

As soon as we were out the room, Jason shoved me into the wall.

“Ow! What the fuck was that!?” I asked, my voice higher pitched in shock.

“This is by far the dumbest thing you’ve ever done!” He hissed.

“That’s not true! I’ve done far more idiotic things in my life!” I defended, standing straight in protest.

“You asked for the detective working the kidnapping case to work your hacking case!”

I let out another sigh. I should’ve known he would lose his mind.

“Seung Eunsuk isn’t going to link the two. Relax.” I rolled my eyes.

“And if he does!?”

“Then it’s your fault for being so jumpy. He was pretty opinionated and since he’s newish, he’s going to be fair.” I reasoned as I pressed the elevator button.

“You think that now, but when he has cuffs on you I will be there to say I told you so.” I gave Jason a side-ways glance in judgment.

“…He’s not going to solve THAT problem. You dirty-minded jerk.”

Jason’s eyes widened as I stepped into the elevator, “…You kinky bitch.”

“Detective Seung! I’m glad you can make it.” I announced as I entered the room.

Sure enough, there were two officers in the room. The older officer was the same from last time, only this time he looked more fidgety. Like something was off.

Eunsuk was looking at a paperweight I had on my desk, completely calm. Upon seeing me a small smile lit up his face, “Mr.L/n. Glad to be here.”

I could feel Jason roll his eyes behind me at our teasing remarks, “Please, have a seat. We have a few things to talk about.”

Eunsuk put down the paperweight and patted the older officer’s arm like he was telling him silently to do so as well.

“So, we heard you had a hacking?” Eunsuk questioned, pulling out his notepad and flipping to an empty page.

I made a hum of confirmation as I began to pour them water, “It wasn’t too long ago. They somehow messed up so badly that they corrupted a few of our computers.”

“Any idea where the hack came from?”

“Not yet. Our CyberSecurity team is working on it.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to have a few programmers from the police department to come down and check it out as well.”

“I don’t have a problem with that. Just be sure to ask our teams leader, Jihun about it as well.”

“Jihun? May I have his full name?”

“He just goes by Jihun and doesn’t seem to fond of formal speech.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. May we take the corrupted computers in as evidence? That might help.”

“Jihun had the computers sent to their room. You should be able to get at least one or two from him.”

“Understood. Lastly, do you know anyone who would think to do this? Any enemies recently for Barnanby Inc? Piss anyone off?”

“Eunsuk.” The older detective’s voice sounded like a warning. Like I was going to rip Eunsuk’s head off for asking such a question.

“Our company is now the third biggest in South Korea. We have many people jealous, but no one has threatened us or made their hatred obvious enough for us to see.”

Eunsuk nodded as he wrote one last thing then closed his notepad, “Alright, I have a feeling the cyber people will point us in the right direction. It’ll help us narrow it down so much more. We’ll keep in touch?”

I nodded extending my hand out to shake his, “We will, Jason will give you my number as well as escort you to our CyberSecurity room. If you should need me or have any questions, don’t hesitate to call!”

Eunsuk happily shook my hand, “We’ll figure this out, M/n. I promise.”

I had worked well through the morning. When lunch had swung around I was planning on putting it off in all honesty. I hoped the lunch break time would be put to me making a serious dent in my work.

I still had several things to go through and about 3 meetings scheduled back to back. I had been neglecting my work for a little too long that it came back to bite my ass. As I was calling an investor things took a turn, however.

“You want the first-ever game my father developed? May I asked why?” I was taken aback on why this would even be asked.

Ever since my father started to company, his game developing had been long forgotten since he wanted my mother to be the spotlight. No other investor or partner has asked about his work. They were more interested in how well we would market the game and how much income would come from it.

“You said that most games would be inspired by your father’s ideas and unfinished projects. I’d like to see what he had in mind.”

“I understand. If you could, may I have a few days to get it to you? They’re all in our family home, I’m just unsure of where.”

“Of course. I’ll give you a week. That will give me enough time to look over what else you have to offer me.”

“Thank you, Sir. I’ll be sure to make sure your time is not being wasted. I hope you have a great week.”

As soon as I hung up I let out a groan.

I had to go through everything in my father’s office. That didn’t seem too hard, however, my mother just gathered almost everything my dad had and just stashed them in his office. An out of sight out of mind tactic that would be my doom.

As I cussed under my breath I reluctantly grabbed my blazer to pull on like a child who got yelled at his mom for not wearing their jacket outside and made my way to the elevator to go to the parking lot.

I didn’t even know where my father stashed all his games. I just found one of his notebooks with ideas inside of it. Even then I didn’t feel right reading it. Like it was a private thing. Now I had to look through EVERYTHING.

Out of irritation I began to press the parking lot bottom harshly and was jump scared by the doors opening at the lobby.

At the door stood Jason with a cooler bag slung over his shoulder, looking irritated and tired.

“Hey there, Loser. Got any lunch money?” I teased.

Once he looked up he seemed relieved and rushed into the elevator to push a random button to make the door closed. As soon as the door was closed he shoved the bag into my hands with a sigh.

“And this is?” I asked, not fully understanding what was in the bag.

“If it’s body parts, there are better ways to get me to dispose of a body for you,” I added.

He only gave me a tired glare, wordless.

My eyes widened, “IS it body parts!?” I quickly unzipped the bag.

No body parts. Only tupperware with food inside of it.

“It isn’t. That’s disappointing.” I mumbled.

“It’s from the guys. They were worried that you’d skip lunch.” Jason grumbled as he leaned against the wall.

“Oh. Well, that’s nice. I was about to head to grab something then go to my mom's. One less stop.” I smiled, feeling warm inside with the thought of them making my lunch.

“What? Why?”

“I have work still. But an investor asked for my dad’s earliest game, so I have to go through his office to find it. ”

Jason only nodded as the elevator doors opened.

“I’ll be sure to stop by the bunker to talk to the boys.” I promised as I began to exit.

“Good. They ask too many questions. I’ll get a few things off your desk to take to the bunker so you won’t miss work.”

“I appreciate you!” I called as I began to jog to my car.

“YOU BETTER.”

I let out an irritated sigh as my third call to my mom when unanswered. I wasn’t going to play cat and mouse all day because she never liked to be home. So I walked off the porch and to a certain bush to get the spare key.

Once I opened the door I made a b line to my father’s old office and immediately opened a window. The room was almost foggy from the dust in the air. Like an ancient tomb that was too precious to open.

I let out a cough and tried to cover my mouth and nose with the neck of my shirt as I began to search through his desk.

I let out a groan once I realized NOTHING was organized. My mom must have gone through it when he passed and didn’t even consider that anyone would come back in here. I looked around the cluttered room in horror.

Books were thrown about. Papers scattered. Boxes loaded with everything from clothes to old computer parts were placed around the room.

Knowing there was no way around this I began to clean.

Once I had almost everything in its rightful place I still hadn’t found my dad’s games. I figured I wasn’t looking hard enough and began to load everything into my car to look through at the office since I had been there for longer than needed.

I made sure to sit on my office couch as I went through box after box.

It was pretty mundane. It was starting to get really boring until I came across a book. It was a book about animation which was to be expected but a few of the pages had marks in the corner, like quickly scribbled numbers. A few pages were torn out and torn in half.

I frowned as I began to flip through, not really noticing a pattern in the numbers or even knowing what the numbers would be to.

“I HAVE MADE AN ENTRANCE!” A loud booming sound came from my office door.

Out of pure reflex, I chucked the book I was holding at the door.

A loud thud and screech rang through the room as my eyes began to focus on who came through the door.

It was my little sister, cringing away from one side of the door that the book seemingly hit. Her eyes were wide and her mouth parted open in shock.

I let out an almost snort as I held my hands out, “Jieun, my bad! Don’t do that! I get you wanted dramatic effect but holy fuck give me a warning.” I complained.

“Give YOU a warning!? You threw a book at me!” She got out of her shocked position to clench her fists at her sides.

“I thought you were a monster!”

“HOW OLD ARE YOU!?” I giggled at the question.

“Will you forgive me if I eat lunch with you?”

“…It’s 2 pm.” I rolled my eyes.

“All you had to say was ‘no’.” I pouted as I got up to look for the bag Jason gave me earlier that day.

“I dropped by to see how my amazing brother was doing,” I could practically hear the sugar drip from her lips as I began to unpack my food.

“Cut the uwu crap and tell me why you’re really here.” I sighed as I opened the larger container that had rice in it.

She let out a groan and stomped over to plop herself on the couch across from me, “Mom didn’t like that you guys cut Dad’s family out of visiting our childhood home so she’s inviting them to our apartment. One of their brats already occupied my room.”

The irritating thing about this was the fact that our childhood home was already paid for, but my mother refused to live there because it was too much of a reminder to what was. So she insisted to move into a luxury two-bedroom apartment in Gangnam.

I let out a scoff as I poked at the fried chicken that had gone soggy in a container covered in some kind of sauce. Jae was paying for that apartment, yet even HE couldn’t enforce anything, “I bet Jae would love to know that.” I smirked.

“I tried to tell her we don’t want them around us be she went on and on about how we were family and how I should be nice! Can I just please stay with you?” She whined.

I began to think it over as I chewed, “I don’t think you can.”

“Why nooooot!?” I tried not to enjoy her misery.

“I’m not staying at my apartment. So you can stay there, you’ll just be alone and then our siblings will chew me out for leaving a 17 year-old girl alone in an apartment in Gangnam.” I muttered, shoving my face with more food, and then moved to open another container.

“We can just keep a secret!”

“I doubt that.”

“C’monnn! Pleasseee!”

“How about this, you go ask Jilly and Jae about staying with them, if they both say no, then you can have the keys by tonight.” I bargained.

She lit up, “Seriously!?” I nodded, “ILLGOASK!” She nearly yelled and bolted towards the door.

“DON’T RUN TOO FAST OR JILLY WILL SUE MY ASS! I DIDN’T RAISE YOU TO BE AN IDIOT!” I yelled… with my mouth full.

“SORRY! I’LL SPEEDWALK!”

I quickly finished my work to look through old floppy disks and USB drives my father had stocked up. I had told my assistant to push everything back that day.

It was around dinner time when I found a flash drive that caught my attention.

Most of them were files for unfinished games, ideas, and a mess of coding that didn’t make sense to my idiotic brain. But this USB drive had only two folders.

Both were password protected.

Once I clicked on them the command prompt on my computer popped up asking for the password.

I let out a sigh as I entered my mom’s birthday.

Access Denied. The command prompt closed.

I opened and tried my twin sibling’s birthday.

Not it.

I let out a groan and began to enter mine, trying to get it out of the way before I entered Jieun’s birthday which I was SURE was the password if it wasn’t my mother’s.

Upon pressing enter after the last digit of my birthday year the words ‘access granted’ appeared in the command prompt, the small window closed up, and the file opened.

There were 4 documents there.

READ FIRST

LEE ANIMATIONS

GWAN BROADCASTING

AN HAEWON

My fingers itched to click on one of the other files. Two were popular in media. Lee Animations had rebranded to Lee Entertainment a few years back. They hired idols and actors. Their animations were no longer being made by them, they chose to switch to the idol and film business pretty late. Everyone thought they would go bankrupt.

Gwan Broadcasting was a thing before my father even went to America. Years and generations in the company as well as very good dramas and sub-networks under their belt.

An Haewon. The name didn’t even begin to register in my memory.

Against my impulses, I clicked on the ‘READ FIRST’ file.

M/n

You’re reading this because you snooped in my things… OR I handed you this after you finished college but let's be honest with ourselves the first option is more likely.

I hope by now you’ve grown and I’ve handed the company over to you. So just have a drink with me after this because I have a few things to get off my chest.

I didn’t get this company JUST through hard work. I hope as time goes on you begin to understand the circumstances that led me to make the decisions I made and the actions I took.

I won't ask for forgiveness.

Just understanding.

I’ve made the three other files to explain why these three people, these three companies want to see you suffer. To see us suffer.

Against my instinct to be the father you respect and admire, I tried to explain the truth and not what would make me look good.

The second password-protected folder is of the things they wanted from me. Either wanting them back or wanting to steal away.

I love you. I hope by explaining these things you can learn from them and make better decisions for the company and family.

Whatever you decide, just know I fully support it. I would never be disappointed in you. You’ve been the most hard-working out of all my children. You were quiet but your drive to achieve was always there. Even as I write this you’re at our dining room table studying. I still don’t know what the fuck twelve times nine is and to be completely honest I couldn’t care less.

Take care, Mn-ie.

Your Reckless Asshole Father,

L/N Jaeseong

I could feel tears trail down my cheeks as I quickly closed the document and raced to click on the one under it.

“M/N!” The sudden sound of my office door flying open again made me jump.

My siblings have arrived.

Jiann was now in front of my desk, arms folded in anger. She looked like my mother ready to rock my shit.

Jaeseok was holding firmly on our younger sister’s arm as she was pouting, looking at the floor.

“Why are you crying?” Jae asked, making my older sister’s face soften.

“It’s over my dick size, what do you all want?” I quickly replied.

My older sister’s face hardened again, all business, “Did you tell our sister that if we both said no to her staying with us that she could stay at your empty apartment!?”

“I did. Jae, don’t hold too tight her skin is sensitive.” I frowned.

“Exactly, she’s sensitive and you want her in an apartment by herself!?” Jae threw back in my face.

I rolled my eyes, “That apartment is more than secure. It’s not like I live in a crappy apartment give me SOME credit.”

“SHE’S SIXTEEN.”

“She’s going to be seventeen soon. I know that’s not an adult at that age but I was that age when I started taking care of her and started getting ready to take over the company. She’s not a child.”

“Yes! She is! And so were you! Don’t make this a toxic cycle, M/n!” Jiann snapped.

“Don’t be dramatic. It’s not like I have a kid and handed it to her like ‘you’re the mom now’, it’s just a few nights in a secure apartment that she wouldn’t HAVE to stay in if you two got your mother in check. ” My voice was filled with irritation that began to build.

I closed pulled the USB out and put it in my desk as Jiann began her verbal assault, “She’s OUR mother. Just because you helped raise our sister doesn't mean you stop being her son! We’re getting the situation handled.”

“Well until you do, I want my baby sister comfortably living in my apartment.” I snickered as I stood up to try to pry Jaeseok’s hand off of my little sister.

“She can put up with it for a day or two.” Jaeseok growled.

I shoved his hand off and turned Jieun towards the door to leave, “She already did put up with it for a day or two. My sister shouldn’t HAVE to put up with anything uncomfortable in her own fucking home. So I’m taking her to mine since our mother STILL isn’t a considerate enough parent to care about her child rather than fucking leeches. Now if you would excuse me, I’m going to go have dinner with my PERFECTLY CAPABLE sister and then show her where she will be staying. I want you out of my office when I get back and I want the situation handled within 48 hours.” I ordered as I guided Jieun out the office.

“They’re going to get mad at you for talking to them like that.” Jieun warned.

“They’ll have to deal with it. I’m their boss until we split the company. I give orders not sympathy.” I grumbled as I pushed the elevator button.

I had taken Jieun to my apartment. I had ordered us dinner while she unpacked.

The mood was light but had a dark undertone.

It was oddly nostalgic. My sister moving things in my closet to make space for her things because she didn’t feel safe in her own room.

Us alone in the apartment getting our own dinner because we didn’t expect our mom home until the very early hours of the morning.

“I ordered fried chicken. The app said it should be here in a few minutes. I hope that’s okay with you.” I called over as I began to clear off the coffee table.

“Is it yangnyeom?” She called back.

I couldn’t help the smile that came onto my face, “Yes. I even asked for extra sauce because you like the spice.”

“….what about beer?”

I rolled my eyes, “I have some in the fridge you delinquent.”

She let out an excited ‘yay’ and began to put her clothes in my closet in a more excited manner.

“How is school going?”

“Alright, It’s pretty boring though.”

“Boring, how?”

“Well, I only have one true friend and days just repeat themselves.”

“Then join a club.”

“I DID.” I let out a chuckle at her outburst.

She skipped out of the bedroom and bounded over to the fridge, “Who would’ve thought at 16 I would be drinking a beer with my older brother in a penthouse apartment in Gangnam that he’s going to leave me with.” I only shook my head at her.

“Please don’t filter yourself when you tell me how living with mom is REALLY going.” I began as she made her way to the living room with two beers.

“Well, mom is just like she was before. Never rhere. Sometimes she goes out with friends or she just kinda leaves and doesnt say anything.”

“…Does she at least make dinner?”

“Nope. She barely speaks to me unless we’re all gathered together.”

I knew this was going to be a mistake. One that would make my sister and brother furious. My mother would kill me. I knew if my dad were here he would understand at least.

“Okay.” I sighed as I fished in my pocket.

I pulled out the apartment keys and placed them on the table.

My sister looked at them then back at me in confusion, “You can have it. Don’t worry about rent, or money. I’ll handle it. Just please be safe and stick to studying and working hard. The last thing I want is you deciding to fuck off instead of go to school.”

“YOU’RE GIVING ME AN APARTMENT!?” Her eyes twinkled with tears and excitement.

“Yeah, everyone will kill me if they find out so move in slowly. Act like you’re just staying here for a few days. I’ll tell security that you’re staying here now. Just please don’t burn the place down.”

“I would NEVER.” Jieun gasped dramatically.

I gave her a pointed look, “Remember when you tried to be nice to me and make curry and yo–”

“OTHER THAN THAT I WOULD NEVER.”

I only shook my head and reached over for the remote.

Even when I turned on the TV I didn’t focus on it. My mind only wandered to what the following days would be.

After all I left 9 people alone in my bunker with no contact all day. I mean they could wait.

Right?

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wiypt-writes · 3 years

Text

Riding High

Ch20: When The Bough Breaks

Chapter Summary: Fliss finds herself in an impossible position…and her decision tips Frank’s world upside down.

Chapter Warnings: Bad Language words.

Chapter Pairings: Frank Adler x OFC Fliss Gallagher

A/N: Don’t hate me…

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Fliss Gallagher and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Riding High Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Chapter 19

And this day’s ending is the proof of time, killing all the faith I know.

“Was that another one?” Frank asked as Fliss tossed her phone onto the coffee table with an angry snort.

She nodded, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Frank sighed and looked at her “Honey…” “I know, I know…” she looked at him. “Look, I’ve made notes of every time I’ve had one so… its recorded. But again, it’s not like we can prove anything…they happen like twice a day and then nothing…hardly what they’ll call harassment.” Frank shifted slightly “This has been going on for 2 weeks now sweetheart.” “I’m well aware of that.” she snapped, before she shook her head “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get angry…not at you.” “Come here…” he said, opening his arms and she snuggled into him, leaning against his chest as his hand gently ran up and down her arm. “Maybe you should think about changing your number…and not putting the new one on the website.” “Yeah.” she conceded, “It’s not gonna help for work though…” “You can work round it.” he said, “Keep the business line and if you’re not there people will have to leave a message. Then, once you know your clients…you can give them your cell number.”

“Fucking ass hole is still making my life awkward.”

“Only if you let him. It’s a minor inconvenience to change your number but, if in the grand scheme of things all he has in his back pocket is sending you some dumbass birthday card and silent phone calls then…he’s just a pathetic fucking loser that’s trying to bully you into being scared.” “I’m not scared, just pissed off.” she shook her head “I know he’s a chicken shit, he wouldn’t dare come near me not when you’re on the scene…or my dad for that matter.” “Good, because if he did I’m not sure I’d be able to control myself.” Frank said softly.

“Maybe we should just pay someone to kill him.” Fliss said after a moment’s pause and Frank let out a snort “Bullet straight between the eyes.”

“Nah, too quick.” Frank sniffed, reaching for his beer “I’d dangle him over a tank of hungry sharks and lower him in inch by inch…”

“Or we could feed him to pigs, like in Hannibal.” Fliss mused.

“That’s also an option…no trace” he nodded taking a mouthful of beer.

“You know they should teach this shit at schools” Fliss reached for her own drink “How to get rid of bodies. I feel it is something everyone should be educated in.” “Maybe you should mention it to Bonnie. Tell her you feel it is an educational rite of passage or some other inspiring shit like that…”

Fliss laughed, placing her wine glass down and shifting so that she was led on her front, half on-half off Frank, looking up at him as her chin rest on his chest.

“On a scale of 1 to 10 how much of a meltdown are we facing with Mary on tomorrow morning?”

“From her current mood I’d suspect a good 4 and a half, maybe a 5.” he mused, before he looked at Fliss “I don’t much care, she’s going whether she wants to or not.” “When do the University Classes start again?”

“Not till second week in October.” Frank replied “Which reminds me, I need to submit that funding form tomorrow…” “It’s on the table.” Fliss said, as she correctly guessed from the look on his face he was pondering where he had put it.”

“What would I do without you?” he grinned down at her.

“I have absolutely no idea.” she shrugged and he smiled and leaned down pressing a kiss to her lips.

“Did you speak to Evelyn before?” Fliss asked him and he nodded.

“She’s coming down this weekend.” Frank said, “She’s still on about Mary going to Boston for a weekend.” “You still not comfortable about her going?” Fliss asked.

Frank wrinkled his nose “I don’t know if I trust her fully yet.” “You’ll never know you can unless you give her a chance.” Fliss reasoned

“You think I should let her go?” Frank said, slightly surprised.

“That’s not my decision to make, Frank” Fliss shook her head.

“No, but I value your opinion.” Frank looked at her. “Go on, tell me what you think.” Fliss hesitated for a moment before she sat up and turned her body so she was facing him, her legs tucked underneath her on the sofa. “If it was me in your position, I’d give Evelyn a chance. She’s played ball so far, done everything you’ve asked her to. You’ve got legal guardianship of Mary so she can’t pull any stupid stunts, and if Mary comes back and tells you something she did that you don’t like, well, you cut the visits.” Frank looked at Fliss before he took another drink from his beer bottle. He was torn in two. In one respect he wanted Mary to be happy and it certainly seemed that she enjoyed seeing Evelyn, but on flip side he was still more than comfortable with keeping his Mother at arm’s length.

“I’ll think about it.” he shrugged, non-committedly.

“Well, you should also ask Mary.” Fliss said “She might not even want to go.” “She will.” Frank said, “Evelyn has a piano.” Fliss laughed “Yeah, but she’s also bossy, remember?”

“Yeah, I had heard that.” Frank said, and Fliss chuckled again.

“Well, can you not think about it right now?” she said, taking the beer bottle out of his hand.

“Hey…” he pouted as she put it down on the table, his pout soon turned into a smirk as Fliss moved so she was straddling him on the sofa, his t-shirt that she’d been lounging around in rode up her thighs slightly and his hands rubbed up the side of her bare skin. “Something on your mind baby girl?”

“What makes you think that?” she asked, sliding her hands up his chest, over the soft material of his top.

“Just a hunch…” he mumbled, as he reached up and gently gripped the back of her neck, pulling her head down to meet his.

****** “Hey Frank…”

Frank looked up and smiled at Alan as he walked into the work shop.

“Hey Alan, not seen you in a while, how you doing?” “Good…I’m good. I was just wondering if I could have a word in my office.”

“Sure.” Frank frowned “Is err, everything ok?” “Oh, yeah, it’s nothing to worry about…quite the opposite in fact…” “Alright, well me just finish piecing this oil filter together and I’ll be with you.”

“Sure.” Alan said, “No rush.”

Frank quickly tightened the filter back up, gave it the once over before he set down his tools and hopped off the boat, wiping his hands on a rag before he walked through the door at the back of the workshop and down the small corridor that led to the main office at the rear of the shop. He knocked sharply on the door and then swung it open as Alan looked at him, gesturing for him to take a seat whilst he finished up his call. Eventually, he bid the person on the other end good bye and placed the receiver down.

“Relax, Frank…” Alan chuckled as Frank adjusted his jeans for what felt like the 30th time since sitting down.

“Sorry.” Frank nodded, scratching at his temple. “So errr, do you need me to do something or...” “In a manner of speaking, yes.” Alan said “As you know Paul is retiring at the end of the year, which means the Head Mechanic role is up for grabs…and I was wondering if you’d be interesting in taking the position.” “Me?” Frank’s eyes widened slightly

Alan nodded “I know in the grand scheme of things you haven’t been here long but you’ve impressed me, just like Bill said you would. You knuckle down, you do the overtime if needed, you don’t complain…I like you Frank, and the team does to.” “I err…” Frank scratched the back of his neck. “I’m flattered…but I’ve never managed a team before or…”

“You were an Assistant Professor at one stage right?” Alan eyed him and Frank sighed, nodding “You must have had a research team…” “Yeah, but…” “It’s no different.” Alan shook his head, “And I’m here to help and give you some guidance. I’m not quite ready to retire fully yet. Not like Bill, only so much golf I can play before I go fucking nuts.” Frank snorted “Yeah, not gonna lie, it’s not my thing…” Alan looked at him “The duties won’t be that much different Frank. You’ll just be in charge of booking the jobs in, allocating them to the guys, keeping on top of deadlines and general management of the team…means a little less time spent actually getting your hands dirty but…well, you can manage that yourself. You wanna take a job you take it.”

“Can I take a bit of time to think it over?” he asked.

“Sure. Take a few days, let me know. I’d like to have whoever is taking over in a position to start the handover by the start of October if possible so…” “Thanks.” Frank nodded “I’ll give it some thought.” “Oh, and it also comes with a Ten thou a year raise…” Alan casually dropped in as Frank stood up “Plus a bonus each year of up to 20 percent, depending on how well you’ve done on your targets” “Just a minor detail you forgot to tell me.” Frank arched an eyebrow.

“Well, I wanted to make sure you’d consider it for the right reasons not merely the financial incentive.” Alan shrugged “Another reason I’m convinced you’re perfect for the job.” Frank nodded and with that he left the office. Given that it was almost lunch time he took his break 15 or so minutes earlier and headed out into the September sun, pulling out his phone.

“Hey Sailor.” Fliss greeted him.

“Hey Cowgirl.” he smiled, leaning against the hood of his truck sipping a bottle of water “You got a sec.” “For you, always. What’s up?”

“Nothing, nothing bad anyway…I just got offered a promotion.”

“Frankie that’s amazing!” She gushed “You sound surprised though.” “I am, a little.” he said, before he launched into an explanation of what Alan had told him and what the job would entail, plus the financial incentives.

“Wow!” she said as he finished talking “Baby, that’s fantastic. I’m so proud of you!”

Frank felt himself blushing at her praise, and despite the fact he couldn’t even see her he rubbed at his neck slightly. “So, you think I should take it?” “Of course I do. But at the same time, if you don’t want to then…you don’t have to. This is a great position to be in honey, Alan’s clearly seen your potential.”

“Just not sure If I’m cut out to be management.” he said, biting his lip.

“I had the same thoughts about my business you know.” she spoke gently “I wasn’t sure if setting up on my own after everything that happened was gonna work but then Dad told me that I’d never know unless I took the plunge. Have a little faith in yourself. The only person who doubts your capability is you.”

Frank smiled at her words and looked up and out over the Marina “You always know exactly what to say.” “Not really, I make most of it up as a go along.” she said and Frank laughed. “But, just think, with the extra money you can get a new car…” “There’s nothing wrong with my truck.” “Frank, it’s died on you 4 times in the last 2 weeks. Dad reckons his ride on lawnmower has more power under the hood than that thing”

“Ok, I’ll admit…she’s getting a little clunky…but she is into her twenties now….” Fliss snorted “You could get yourself a nice Audi…”

“Fuck off.” Frank said and she laughed

“I like Simon’s car…” “You like it so much you get one.”

“Would never fit Thor in the back.” she said and Frank had to concede she had a point “But now you’re freelancing…you don’t actually need a truck do you?” “No, but…it’s handy…” “Handy, baby it only has three seats…” “And a flatbed…” Frank pouted slihglty. “So get one with five seats.” she shrugged. “You can buy trucks with a full cab…”

“This is not a good enough reason to get me to take the promotion…”

“You want a better reason?” She said. “Ok, well here’s some food for thought…when the lease is up on our place maybe we could look into buying. You know I don’t wanna rent forever, I want us to have something for the future that’s ours, and the extra money you get a year would make a difference in what we can borrow towards it.” And just like that, as always, she’d managed to sideswipe him. He’d be lying if he hadn’t considered getting back on the property market, he had savings after all…but he’d given it no more thought than a fleeting idea every now and then when he drove past places with real estate signs in the front yards

“This mean you’re coming round to the idea of marrying me and having baby Franks and Flisses?” She snorted “You’re such a dick…although that’s the only time you’ve ever mentioned that when you’re sober.” “So you’re saying that if I ask you when I’m not drunk you’d say yes?” he teased. “Goodbye Frank…” She teased in an airy voice, before she cut the call.

Chuckling to himself he slid the phone back into his pocket and headed back inside to grab his lunch from the fridge in the kitchen. As he did so he passed Paul who was heading out with a fresh cup of coffee.

“Oh, erm…Alan…” Frank looked at him. “So, turns out I don’t need as much time to think about it as I thought I did. I’ll take the job.” Alan smiled at him and pat him on the shoulder “Good man. I’ll get the wheels in motion and then we can work out how we start to transfer Paul’s responsibilities over.”

Frank nodded at him as he walked off.

“Oh…” Alan called after him, “We’ll also need to pick your car.”

“My car…” Frank frowned.

“Yeah, did I not mention? Paul’s BM…that’s a company car. I’m gonna let him keep it as a retirement present so we’ll need to order you another one. Not least because I don’t want my Head Mechanic driving around in that heap of shit you have. Looks like we don’t pay you enough…” Frank stood there, eyebrows raised as Alan simply smirked at him and left. Shaking his head, he gave a little groan, already imagining Fliss’ face when he told her.

*****

Fliss had reacted exactly how he had thought she would, laughing hysterically and then teasing him about how he had no alternative now than to get rid of the heap of shit he was ridiculously attached to. She’d then spent the evening looking at cars on her phone, showing him ridiculously pimped out vehicles in various vile colours, the final straw being a hot-rod red for Mustang with gold rims and flames painted down the side. At that point he’d snatched the phone out of her hand, grabbed her hips and pulled her down under him on the couch and given her something else to think about for half an hour or so.

September ticked by, in the usual speed by which time seemed to be flying for Frank and he found himself thrown into his job, soaking up Paul’s experience of managing the team as much as he could. He was also extremely grateful for both Fliss and Bill’s input, both of them having dealt with managing staff and rotas so he was able to ask them both questions as well. Naturally, when V heard about it she insisted on cooking him a special dinner, and even Evelyn presented him with a very nice bottle of Scotch when she came to visit as a Congratulations.

Another bit of good news for them was that once Fliss changed her phone number the calls stopped as well. Frank was glad about that, because it meant that once again they’d thwarted the ass holes attempts to intimidate her. She’d made a blog, however, of every call she had gotten which now sat in Greg’s files along with the Card. Just in case.

Nope, on the whole life seemed to be going well for the pair of them.

“Someone’s looking smug…” Greg teased Frank as he leaned back in the chair around Greg’s large outdoor table. It was a Saturday at the start of October and they’d finally got round to having that cook out and gathering that the Circle of Truth had been attempting to organise round everyone’s schedule for the last 3 months.

“Well, you know…life’s pretty good.” Frank smiled, sipping his beer, his eyes straying to Fliss who was stood around the bar area to the right of the garden with Bonnie, Zara and Lisa. She was dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a tie-died off the shoulder sweater but as usual, she looked stunning.

“You got a ring yet?” Jake asked, dropping down into a seat next to him.

“Oh don’t you start as well.” Frank groaned as Simon and Greg both laughed. “We’re happy as we are…besides, we’ve not even been together a year yet…” “Not far off.” Jake shrugged “Man, when you know you know…” “He’s just scared she’ll say no.” Simon teased. Frank stilled for a moment and then turned to glare at the man. “Shit, you are?” Simon frowned “No, not especially but…” Frank shook his head, trying to find the words to explain “I’m absolutely, totally convinced I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and I know she feels the same but…well she’s been married before and I don’t want to ask until I know she’s ready to do it again.”

Greg looked at him, nodding “I get that.”

“That’s gotta be the most grown up think you’ve ever said…” Jake looked at Frank who flipped him off but deep down he had to admit, it wasn’t wrong. He knew that both he and Fliss had come a long way from the people they had been just over 14 months ago when they had first met. Fliss had come alive, flourished even in herself, and he…well, he’d learnt that there was more to life than the meaningless cycle of one night stands and that flying by the seat of his pants wasn’t always the most productive thing to do. Both of them had been broken in their own way, had their own guards and walls around themselves which the other had managed to smash straight through. He stole another glance at Fliss and smiled, he knew there was no other woman for him, but in the same breath…what was the rush? They had a life time. And a ring and a piece of paper wasn’t going to change any of that.

“Man you grew up…” Simon grinned and Frank rolled his eyes.

“Look, I’ll have you know I’ve brought up a kid since the age of 6 months…all this shit about me being a man child…It’s crap…”

“Whatever man…we all know you’re not a grown up until you have scatter cushions on your sofa…” Simon teased, referencing the previous week when he and Bonnie had come over for drinks and Fliss and Frank had had a jokey argument about said cushions. Frank threw his head back in a huge bout of laugher, shaking his head.

“Fuck you!” he said, looking at him as Simon grinned.

“Anyway, man…speaking of weddings…” Greg turned to Jake “You’ve been engaged for what? Three years now…when you gonna set a date?”

“He has a point…” Simon looked at him.

“Well, you can all shut the fuck up because for your information we have.”

“Shut the front door!” Greg grinned

Jake nodded and took a large mouthful of his beer.

“So you gonna tell any of us or…” Jake glanced over at Lisa before he yelled her name and she looked over at him, the other women also looking up.

“Can we tell them now babe?” he called. Lisa grinned and nodded, and then made her way over followed by Zara. Fliss looked at Bonnie who shrugged, and the two of them picked up their drinks and followed.

Fliss perched on Frank’s knee and he slid one hand round her waist the other dropped to her thigh.

“So, we have set a date for the wedding.” Lisa smiled to a huge shriek from Zara. Frank spotted Fliss looking at Bonnie, the two of them sharing a significant smirk and he squeezed her thigh.

“Stop being a bitch.” he said in a low voice.

“Rude…” she mumbled, grinning into her gin. “6th April next year…” Jake grinned. “At Hardemans Secret Garden in Dover, Tampa.” “Well unless you invented a time machine, it ain’t gonna be this year is it?” Simon looked at him, before he gave a yell as Bonnie slapped him round the back of the head.

“Obviously you’re all invited.” Jake said, “Except for Simon.” “Hang on, if he isn’t coming does that mean I can’t?” Bonnie pouted.

“You can be my plus one.” Fliss nodded.

“Oi…” Frank nipped her thigh gently. She grinned at him, ruffling his hair slightly. He jerked his head out of her reach and looked at her over his aviators. She stuck her tongue out at him and he grinned.

“Guys this is great news…” Greg said, nodding “Best dig the suit out.” “You wear a suit to work every day.” Zara looked at him.

“And you won’t need to.” Jake shook his head. “In fact none of you will…my brother is best man, obviously, but I’d like you guys there as my Groomsmen…that is, if you’re up for it.” Frank smiled at Greg, then Simon before they all shrugged.

“Yeah, I’m in…” Greg smiled.

“Me too pal, I’m honoured.” Frank smiled, tipping his beer bottle in Jake’s direction.

“Does this mean we get to plan the Batchelor party?” Simon asked. Jake nodded with a grin and Simon leaned back “Oh this is gonna be beautiful….”

***** “You’re fucking mental.” Frank looked at Fliss as she shrugged, circling Cap back round to the jump which Joanne had just hiked up another foot. He shook his head and turned away “I can’t watch.” “Don’t’ be a chicken Frank.” Mary grinned up at him, “It’s cool…I wanna do that some day.” “Over my dead body.” Frank looked down at her.

“Yeah you said that about me going to Boston.” “No, that’s not what I said.” Frank sighed, looking at her “I said over my dead body were you going to live with Evelyn….and did you?” “No…” Mary conceded “But you’re letting me go back for a weekend.”

“Yes, because you’re going for 2 nights and coming home” he said, and despite himself he turned his head to see Fliss sail Cap over the huge jump.

“See….” Fliss said, pulling the horse up to a stop “Easy…” “Whatever you say sweetheart.” he shook his head.

“Can I jump Monty soon?” Mary asked, and Fliss smiled.

“Yeah we can do a little cross pole…” “I give in…” Frank groaned, throwing his hands out to the side “The pair of you are nuts.”

“Says the guy who almost cried when he had to order a new car.” Fliss looked at him and Frank rolled his eyes “I mean who does that?” “Yeah Frank…” Mary said, swinging off the fence to the paddock, leaning back to look at him. “You get to swap a rust bucket for a shiny new Mitsubishi and you were like heartbroken.” “Hey, me and that truck have seen a lot of action-“ “I don’t wanna know…” Fliss started.

“Of which you’ve been part of…” he smirked her and she flushed a little, grinning. “I’m kinda attached to it.” “It’s a lump of metal.” Fliss looked at him.

“How dare you.” Frank scoffed, feigning offence.

“Well now you can have new adventures in the new truck.” Mary shrugged “Simples.” “When you do get it I vote the first thing we do is load it up and head off for a picnic somewhere.” Fliss said, hopping off Cap.

“I can go with that.” Frank nodded as she turned and walked towards the gate, letting her out.

“Can I take him?” Mary asked, hopping down off the fence.

“Sure…” Fliss said, handing her the reins. Mary led the horse away to the barn as Fliss removed her hat and pulled out her bobble, shaking her long hair free before she tied it back up again.

“I really do like it that colour.” Frank mused after a second, watching her. She blushed a little, and he knew why. A week ago she’d come back from the salon, her usually bright auburn hair was a lot more demure, having had caramel put through the ends. When Frank had complimented her on the change she’d gotten a little shy and said that she used to have it like that when she was younger, but John had always wanted her to keep it her natural colour. Now she felt like she fancied a change. Her admission had once again, knocked Frank for, how simple little things like that were so huge for her.

She pulled off her riding gloves, shoved them into her back pocket and they walked into the barn as Mary opened Cap’s stable and led him inside. As always, the large horse bowed his head gently to allow Mary to undo his bridle and Fliss smiled. Cap was secretly her favourite after Heidi. He was such a loving animal, despite his size always being so gentle and careful around people, especially Mary. Most animals were like that around her, she just had this aura that they seemed to like. But then again, everyone said that animals were a good judge of character.

“Can we go to the shack for dinner?” Mary spoke up, looking at Frank “It is Saturday…”

“Oh, I dunno…” Frank sighed, “Not sure my heap of shit truck will get us there.” “No but Fliss’ jeep will.” Mary shrugged and Frank shook his head with a snort.

“You literally have an answer for everything.”

“Wonder where she gets that from…” Fliss looked at him and he nudged her gently with his elbow.

“So can we go or not?”

“Yes, ok we can go to the shack.” Frank said “But the deal is you tidy your room when you get home. It’s a disgrace.” Mary pondered this for a moment as Fliss undid the girth on Cap’s saddle, pulling it off.

“Deal.” she nodded “Only Fliss said she was gonna help me sort my clothes out…some of them don’t fit anymore.”

“Yeah we do that tomorrow morning.” Fliss smiled, “Then we can look at ordering you some warm stuff for New York.” “Are we still getting matching sweaters when we get there?” “No.” Frank said, at the same time Fliss nodded.

“Yes.” “No, we’re not.” Frank looked at her.

“Errr 2 vs 1 Sailor, you’re outvoted.” she shrugged, pushing past him with the saddle on her arms. “But if you’re a good boy we’ll let you pick them right Mary?” “I dunno.” Mary frowned “Have you seen his shirts?” Fliss let out a roar of laughter and turned to face her, before she looked at Frank, laughing even harder at the pure indignation on his face.

“I hate you both.” he said sullenly, folding his arms.

The Shack was busy by the time they arrived but given that it wasn’t too cold they managed to find a small table outside and ordered their food, Mary getting through an astonishing amount considering but the Frank had noticed she was going through a bit of a growth spurt which he mentioned to Fliss when they were snuggled up on the sofa later.

“Not sure getting her any stuff for New York yet is wise.” he mused “If she carries on like she is it won’t fit her.”

“Well we can wait…Fliss said shrugging, her hand rubbing at Frank’s stomach under his shirt. “You have no idea how excited I am…” “Really?” Frank snorted “You never mentioned it.” “Oh piss off” she laughed, before she sighed happily “It’s the one thing I miss about home and Boston…you know this time of year the leaves would be changing colour and falling,…”

“I know what you mean.” he said, his hands carding through her hair “You don’t really Seasons here.”

“Well you do…” Fliss said, “Hurricane and Summer.” Frank let out a laugh as she looked up at him. “You know you’re my hurricane.”

“What?” he looked at her

“Came into my life, blew it all upside down…” “Jesus you talk some shit!” he laughed, shaking his head as she grinned.

“You know there was actually a hurricane Frank back in 2010. So I’m not talking complete shit…” “Whatever Sweetheart…” he snorted, leaning back as her nails scratched against his stomach. He gave a twitch and grabbed her wrist, and looked down at her as she flashed him a coy look. “Stop it.”

“What, this?” she moved and used her other hand, and Frank let out a hiss as he shifted and grabbed that one too.

“You know what that does to me…” he looked at her, his voice low.

“Yup.” she nodded, grinning.

With a jerk of his arms he pulled her forward so she fell onto him fully, drawing a giggle from her as her nose bumped against his.

“I fuckin’ love you.” he smiled at her, and she grinned, giving him a soft kiss.

“Yeah, you’ve told me once or twice…” she smirked, her lips locking onto his.

******

“Fliss?”

“Office…” she called back, and a second or so later Joanne popped her head into the room.

“Everything’s done.” she said, “I was gonna lock up…you’re not normally here this late.”

“Yeah I know but I have some paper work to sort. Need to file a couple of things and, well, thought it would be easier to do it here than take everything home. Frank’s taken Mary bowling so…” “And you’d rather be here doing paper work?” Joanne teased.

“Sadly, it needs doing…besides, last time we went I kicked his ass, again, he sulked for hours.” Fliss snorted “Maybe he stands more of a chance against Mary.”

“Won’t he let her win?” Joanne asked “I mean, she is only eight…”

“No chance.” Fliss looked at Jo. “He says that she needs reminding every now and then that she’s not a genius at everything…” Joanne let out a laugh “Fair enough. Ok, well I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, bye Jo…”

Fliss set about getting to work, filing the various bills and disclaimers she’d had signed and started then sifting through the list of clients and payments, checking who owed what and typing out the bills for the month. Once they were printed and placed in envelopes, ready to be tacked to the stable doors in the morning she glanced at the clock and realised it was almost 8 pm. Frank and Mary should be home now.

She was just about to pack up when she realised she hadn’t gone through the post for the day. For a second she debated leaving it for the morning, but decided she would get it over with. There wasn’t much- mostly a couple of letters from various equestrian societies around the area about a few events going on, but the last one she reached was a manila envelope with the address typed out on the front.

She turned it over, opened it and then pulled out the contents and immediately felt her blood run cold as she looked at the paper in front of her. It was a copy of the photo of her and Mary, taken from the first Blog that Mary had written over the summer. Underneath it was typed a simple message- I always knew you’d suit motherhood.

Fliss swallowed, it didn’t take a genius to work out who it was from but for the first time since his ridiculous campaign now she was actually frightened as to the meaning behind this. Up until now it he’d been nothing more than annoying but this was designed to be more than an aggravation.

It was a threat. A direct threat telling her he knew about Mary.

Whilst Fliss wasn’t Mary’s mother, and would never claim to be she loved that girl like she was her own and the fact that John was even brining her into this made her feel physically sick, so much so that she felt the bile rising in her throat and with a sharp heave she lurched to the side, grabbing the waste paper basket and hocking up the bitter substance. Coughing she wiped the back of her mouth with a shaking hand, reaching for the bottle of water on her desk.

She folded the photo up and stuck it back in the envelope, shoving it in the drawer before she stood up and locked her office, heading to her jeep. Her mind was reeling, now it wasn’t just her he was focussing on, this changed everything. Did she tell Frank? She knew she should, she couldn’t leave Mary in danger. Not that she believed any harm would come to her, not really, especially not under Frank’s care but that was another worry she had. That if she told Frank this, it was really going to push him over that edge into blind rage, and he’d been on the first plane out to Boston, hunting the fucker down…and then what?

He ended up in jail himself because Fliss knew Frank well enough to understand that if that blind rage took hold, he wouldn’t stop.

She had no answer to this, nothing. She sat in her jeep, staring out of the window, trying to force the thoughts and mumbles and voices in her heat to quiet, so she could think clearly, get some form of grasp on what it was she needed to do. And then one voice was screamed at her, clearly, giving her a solution…the only one she could viably see working.

With a loud sob, Fliss covered her face in her hands, unable to see an alternative to the decision she had just reached. A decision that was going to break her heart more than anything had ever done before.

******

“Hey, you’re late…” Frank looked up, immediately frowning as he saw Fliss’ face. “Honey…what…” “Where’s Mary?” she asked instantly.

“She nipped to Roberta’s” Frank said “I know it’s late but we saw her as we were headed out of the car and she wanted to collect something for Show and Tell tomorrow…why?”

“We need to talk.” Fliss said.

Frank stood up off the sofa and walked towards her, he reached for her and she took a step back.

“Ok, Fliss, you’re scaring me now…what…”

“I think…” Fliss looked down at her hands “I think that we need to stop seeing each other.”

Frank blinked, not sure he had heard her right, but when he looked at her he saw a tear trickling down her face and she was avoiding his gaze. The world around him began to fade and a dull buzzing filled his head and rang around his ears as a horrible cold feeling washed over him.

“Lissy…” he swallowed, his words sticking in his throat “What’s brought this on? Did I do something? Are you not happy? I don’t understand…” “I just…it isn’t working for me…” she took a deep breath and looked up at him.

“You’re lying.” he said instantly, he could see it written all over her face “Fliss, what’s going on?” “Nothing, I’m sorry. I just…I need to leave, I need space.” she said “I’m so sorry Frank…” Frank took a deep breath, and watched as she turned to leave. After a second he hurried after her into the hallway, shaking his head.

“Lissy, please…talk to me…” he all but begged as she walked to the door. She made to open it but Frank was behind her and placed his hand firmly on the top of the PVC, causing it to shut. She spun round and looked up at him, the tears now pouring down her face.

“Please, Frank…don’t make this any harder than it is…” her voice was broken, and she shook her head. “I don’t understand what THIS is?” he looked at her, running a hand through his hair as he felt the stinging of tears in his own eyes “Last month we were talking about buying a house together and now you just wanna break it off, for no reason? Honey, just…whatever is going on, we can work through it, just talk to me.”

“I’m so sorry…” she whispered, “Just…let me out…please…”

He looked at her again, her eyes bouncing across his and he knew instantly he couldn’t stop her, and would never do that to her either, no matter how much he so desperately wanted to lock the door and force her to tell him what the fuck was going on. So with a sniff he forced himself to step back and her hand went to the door knob, her shoulders shaking.

“Liss, please…” his voice cracked. “Don’t do this…”

She took a deep breath and opened the door, the warm air from outside hit him in the face, tears stinging his eyes slightly before click of the latch hit his ears as the door shut behind her, leaving him stood alone in the hallway, stunned and utterly, utterly broken.

**** Chapter 21

#riding high #frank adler #frank adler x ofc #frank adler x original female character #gifted #gifted fan fic #chris evans #chris evans characters

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