#coffee queens

[magdaleneistrembling]

Playlist. Coffee Queens @ Stanford

yeeeeeee

wicked game - chris isaak / laundry room - the avett brothers / sea of love - cat power / new thing now - shawn colvin / come on get higher - matt nathanson / wheel - john mayer / atlantic city - the band / collar full - panic! at the disco / live high - jason mraz / no scrubs - tlc / us - regina spektor / universe & u (acoustic version) - kt tunstall

[electronicsquid]

Coffee queens in Washington DC

(Thomas McAvoy. 1941)

[magdaleneistrembling]

Coffee queens. Post-it note love letters.

don’t forget to close the windows! :)-k

despite her best efforts, sara couldn’t fight the way the corners of her mouth pulled back into a grin. of course the reminder was left on a pink post-it note. with a smiley face. she wasn’t frilly by any means, but katie made no efforts to hide her femininity -- lip gloss and a quick coat of mascara every morning at least; meanwhile, sara had given up on trying to brush through her chestnut curls.

with anyone else, she would have taken offense at a note like that; considered it passive-aggressive, bossy, something like that. katie could probably leave her a note confessing to murder and she would think it was sweet. the adhesive strip stuck to the length of her finger as she used her other hand to make sure the apartment windows were all pulled shut, a barrier between their cozy (read: cramped) studio and the cold that was just beginning to bear down on connecticut. it stayed on her finger while she slid her socked feet into leather boots, clumsily pulled a beanie onto her head, and twisted the lid closed on her coffee tumblr. no one was around to witness it, but she felt a twinge of embarrassment as she realized she should probably put the note in the trash, but what if katie saw it there? why would she care -- but what if she did?

so it ended up in her sock drawer, the closest secret spot she could find before she bundled up and headed to class. it wasn’t long before the note gained a few companions: reminders to get dinner started because katie would be home later and they were having friends over, the occasional good luck! on test days. sara even started leaving her own on occasion, stuck on the coffee maker or the medicine cabinet, requesting a beer run because sara was still a few months shy of 21, or just a reminder that she loved her. a few of them were even left on those pink post-it notes because she’d run out of her own and was either too busy or too stressed to go out and replace them. at some point, she couldn’t quite recall when, she stopped thinking, just reveled in the moment of reading the note before slipping it into the sock drawer.

she didn’t give it a second thought until her final days of packing for a cross-country move; sea to shining sea and all that. she pulled them out with a pair of expedition-weight socks which hadn’t seen the light of day since the temperatures rose above the forty-degree mark. within minutes, her throat swelled with soreness, brought on by the repression of emotion; a heavy marriage of nostalgia, grief, and impending loneliness. but no water would spill from her eyes; katie would be home any moment now to take her to the airport, and this was already hard enough. 

the post-its went into the middle pocket of her carry-on and stayed there for two years, travelling to california and then nevada. she thought they’d travel with her until she died; through multiple relationships she knew from the start would never last, until one felt safe enough that she felt safe in throwing them out, thanking them for their security, knowing she would still feel secure in the memory of them.

[jaekakes]

CSI x Castle crossover  Hella AU (For @mulderandscullyslovechild because this is probably weird as fuck to anyone else)

She yawned into the back of her wrist as she swiped to answer her buzzing phone. “Beckett.” Her surname was greeted by a stuttering breath but no verbal reply. She cleared her throat and tried once more, “Hello?”

“Hey.” The raspy voice crawled across the line and chased a shiver down her spine. “Hi Katie.” 

“Sara,” she mumbled the name as her brain connected the voice to the caller; only one person had ever gotten away with calling her Katie after high school beside her parents. “I... I haven’t heard from you since I left Stanford.” 

“Yeah. You were going through some shit,” Sara spoke as if to wave off any need of an apology; Kate had been on a path of destruction when she had left Stanford after her mother’s murder and her relationship with Sara Sidle had been collateral damage. “Look, Katie. I wish like hell I was calling to play catch up but I’m not. I’ve called in a bunch of personal favors and I heard that you are the best detective in New York City.” 

“Yeah, I work homicide.” 

“Fuck. I hope I don’t need a homicide detective, Kate, but I need the best.” 

Kate leaned against the counter and furrowed her brow. “Sara, what is going on? Why do you need a detective in New York? Last I heard you were in Vegas.” 

“Yeah. I am.” Sara’s voice wavered and she tried to hide it with a cough but Kate knew her too well. “Kate... It’s Gracey.” 

Kate’s knees weakened at the memory of the little girl with ratty blond hair that she hated having combed, who wore a Harvard sweatshirt three sizes too big and too warm for the California weather, her TA’s daughter who she had babysat so many nights. Sara’s daughter whom she had adored during her brief time at Stanford. 

“Gracey’s missing. Kidnapped. The feds have traced her case to New York but they’re grasping at straws. Kate, please help me find my baby.” 

“Sara, take a breath and start from the beginning.” 

They talked until the dark of an early morning had faded to a light blue with bursts of purple and pink across the Manhattan skyline. Kate said goodbye to Sara with a promise to keep in touch; that she would look into the case as much as possible without stomping too hard on the FBI’s toes. She had wanted to promise that she would tear the town apart with her bare hands if it meant returning sweet Gracey Sidle to her mother unharmed but she couldn’t do that no matter how much slack the captain gave her. 

“Everything okay,” asked Castle from behind her as she hung up. She was apartment hunting, still looking for a home to replace the one that had been blown to bits, and Castle had promised it was impossible for her to overstay her welcome. 

She turned to look at him with blurry eyes and shook her head. “That was a friend of mine from college, from Stanford,” she clarified. “Sara. She was the TA for my physics class at Stanford and we became really close, really good friends, and I used to watch her daughter a lot. Until my mom died and I came home. It’s not important. Her daughter is missing. Gracey. And the feds have narrowed the search here, think her biological dad - that crazy bastard - has brought her here. If Grace is with him then she’s not safe and if she’s here then I need to help find her. Sara’s flying out later today - the feds want her to stay put in Vegas but she’s a force to be reckoned with. Anyway Sara wants me to take a look at the case and see if I can help the feds at all. It’s going to involve stepping on some toes but I need to try.” 

“I can help,” he told her. “I have friends in high places.”

“Castle,” she began to protest but it died on her lips. “That would be great.” 

He reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Lets get Gracey home to her mom then, yeah?” 

She leaned forward in a moment of vulnerability and hugged him quickly. “Thank you, Castle.”

He gave her a small smile. “Always.”

[magdaleneistrembling]

Sara gets several Starbucks cups addressed to "SarawithoutanH" because people are sarcastic fucks and it amuses her.

O U C H