I’ve been tagged by soooo many people, I’ve literally lost track. However, the last tag was from my lovely Mia @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed.
I’m tagging back @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed, and also @kingsofeverything @allwaswell16 @haztobegood @lululawrence @evilovesyou @homosociallyyours @jacaranda-bloom @greenfeelings and @infinitelymint
I finished Chapter 20 of Shadow Dancing at stupid o’clock this morning and sent it off to beta, so this is from that -
“Wait, son. Give them a few minutes as a family.” Zayn complied, allowing his mum to loop her arm through his. She held him close, lowering the volume of her voice, obviously in an effort to not be overheard. “So… Liam’s father… he’s turning over a new leaf? Warming to you?”
“I don’t know, Mum.” Zayn kept his eyes on the small group in front of them, trying to read their body language for any cues. “Liam seems to think he is. He apologised to Liam for the things he’s said in the past, and the way he’s treated him.”
“You don’t trust him, though.” Trisha said, her words matter of fact, as if the answer was foregone.
“I don’t know him well enough one way or the other. It’s not like how it is with Liam and Dad, you know? They’ve actually spent time in each other’s company, had the opportunity to get to know each other.” Zayn sighed. “I don’t think the man’s said more than a dozen words to me directly, and up until Liam was hospitalised, I’d never met him. All I have to go on is how upset he’s made Liam in the past. Well, that, and Louis’ opinion of him - which is far from favourable.”
“I know only what Karen has told me about the situation, but she’s steadfast in her belief that her husband is a good man.” Zayn felt the weight of his mum’s gaze, turning to meet her eyes. “Do you want my advice?”
“Always, Mum,” Zayn responded, then returned his attention to watching the interactions between Liam and his parents.
There’s a quote that became popular when I was a teenager - ‘trust, but verify’.”
Zayn snorted. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? If you trust someone, you trust them. You shouldn’t need to verify anything.”
“Well, at the time, it was used to discuss a political situation. However, in retrospect, my takeaway is that you can trust someone to do the right thing, but you recognize that they may not be able to meet your expectations.”
Zayn quirked an eyebrow, bit his lip, and shrugged.
“I don’t know, Mum. I’m not sure I can trust someone who would hurt their only son the way Geoff has in the past.There’s a really shitty history there.”
“Well, then, I’d say your best course of action may be to simply take things day by day.” Trisha squeezed Zayn’s arm in reassurance. “Step back and allow Liam and his father the space they need to figure this out. If Geoff’s change of heart isn’t sincere, he won’t be able to maintain the facade for long, and you’ll know for sure where you, and Liam, stand.”
“And if Liam refuses to see it?”
“Sweetheart, it’s been my experience that if you give someone leave to show you who they are, they will.” Trisha inclined her head in the direction of the trio walking in front of them. “While Liam obviously wants his father’s approval, I also believe that if Geoff is being disingenuous, Liam will see him for who he is.”
Happy Halloween weekend everyone! @uhoh-but-yeah-alright and @justalarryblog tagged me (thank you!!!!) in their Someday/Saturday snippet. I’m at the library trying to write so I figured I’d join the fun. I’m on the final stretch of my nesting fic. I have one scene to go and then editing with @larryatendoftheday . There is a chance this snippet might not make it to the final draft but it made me giggle so I’ll share it anyway.
Harry whined and frowned. “Not a cannibal.”
“Mm, no?” Louis questioned as Harry licked and nipped at his neck.
“Be nice to me, alpha, I’m sensitive.”
“Hm, sensitive?”
Tagging anyone who wants to post or needs encouragement. As well as @laynefaire @disgruntledkittenface @allwaswell16 @larryatendoftheday @chloehl10 @absoloutenonsense
I saw this (I think from @laynefaire) last night, but as I didn’t have a WIP written by that point (I’ve just finished my @1dchristmasfest fic and submitted it) I decided to leave it until this morning.
I was going to continue the hlroyaltyfest fic, but @lightwoodsmagic has been getting me so excited about Ziam again that I started the ace Liam x Hugo Boss underwear ad fic no one has asked for.
So here is a snippet from that:
Zayn’s carried this torch for Liam for years now, and while it doesn’t ever quite go away, it isn’t like it’s some big gay disaster and he’s hopelessly pining for him. He goes out, he dates, he sleeps with people, he’s a very functional human being who just also really likes to stay home and have a good cuddle with his best mate. It’s fine.
It’s not fine when Louis bursts into his apartment at seven in the morning (and Zayn is not a morning person, never has been, and especially now that he’s twenty three and working he still very much likes some peace and quiet in the mornings) brandishing a magazine, waving it about like it holds the secrets to the universe or some shit. “Did you see this?”
@hazzabeeforlou tagged me to share a snippet of my current WIP! It is a Larry-centric story, despite what this snippet makes it seem like. :P
“Let’s load up, gents,” Liam said with a clap of his hands. Zayn, Niall, and Shawn began gathering the new cargo. Gemma cleared her throat as she picked up the bag of new gears for the ship’s engine.
“And ladies,” Liam amended. He was rewarded with a slug on the shoulder from Gemma as she walked up the gangplank to the spaceship carrying the canvas bag. Perrie followed with a box of books.
“Watch the books, Pez!” Shawn said behind her for no reason at all, carrying a second box of leather bound volumes. “These are practically gold.”
“They will be gold when we sell them to Barnaby,” Harry said, not taking his eyes off Louis until he was safely in their midst.
“No reason to treat them like the Queen of Sheba,” Niall said. “They’ll sell just the same.”
Shawn turned on his heel and sent Niall a stare that had Niall fish-mouthing.
“But we’re very lucky to have them on board and I’ll fly this ship very very carefully,” Niall added quickly. Shawn smiled and kissed him on the cheek.
“Yes, you will,” Shawn said. Niall grinned after Shawn and shook his head fondly.
And I’ll tag @briannamarguerite @hi-larrie-ous @mrs-cookie-balls @secretswekeepxx @indiaalphawhiskey @haloeverlasting aaaannnnddd @londonfoginacup
Oof, over the last two days i've made two scene attempts for the snippet challenge. One from Graham's POV, and another from the mirror's. But my head is just so sleepy it's not coming together. I'll make one more attempt this evening when i get back from town, and before Sunday is over.
I’ve given up on writing this fic, so here’s a snippet from what could have been:
A building collapsed FYI
Shouta opened his eyes to darkness. The air was muggy and dusty. There was a body above him, the boney angles and the weight were as familiar to him as the heaving labored breaths, wet with suppressed, bloody coughs.
“Toshinori.”
“Are you alright, Shouta?”
“Yes.”
Shouta groped in the dark until he felt soft, papery skin stretched over bone and muscle and Toshinori’s fingers twined with his.
“It will be alright,” Toshinori whispered as he coughed wetly.
Shouta squeezed Toshinori’s hand and closed his eyes against the dark.
Title: Love in a Minor Key
Author: @TinaBean37
Warnings: Mentions of blood/fighting/slight Pairing : DeanxReader
Prompt: Love in a minor key - welshly arms
You can do what you want to
You can play this game
And you can change every single rule
It’s gonna end the same
You looked down at the blank page on the desk in front of you. Putting pen to paper, you hoped the words would just appear. When you thought back to the night before, you couldn’t form the words you needed to say.
He said he was protecting you, but that’s what he always said. He tried to be noble, but you knew why he did it. He wanted the kill. That ghoul was buying your “injured sheep” routine perfectly. While you were laying on the dirt covered floor of the old abandoned cabin, you were just waiting for him to get close enough for you to pull out the machete you were hiding underneath you and end him.
That is when Dean showed up. You told him you had it. You told him to wait outside in case anymore ghouls showed up. But there he was, rushing in right as the monster was close enough for you to reach. You heard Dean call out for you. He didn’t know you were faking it. That caused you to blow your cover and receive the lovely shoulder to elbow gash you now sported on your left arm.
After a brief fight the ghoul was brought down. Dean saw to that. He got just what he wanted. But you, you just got more pain. Dean was supposed to be your partner. You were in love with him. But Dean, he couldn’t love you back. He told you that time and time again. He told you loving someone is against his rules. Everyone he loves gets hurt. He said he was protecting you by not loving you.
That damned phrase: protecting you. You were tired of hearing it. It didn’t stop you from getting hurt. It didn’t stop him from sharing all those moments with you. Sharing your bed. Sharing this life. No, it didn’t stop you from getting hurt at all. It made it worse.
That’s why it had to end. That is why you were sitting at your small desk in your small room in the bunker, pen in your hand, trying to say goodbye. You didn’t want to leave. Dean and his brother Sam were like family. They kept the loneliness away. But you knew this is what you had to do. You knew the deeper you got with Dean, the harder it would be to find your way back out.
Startling you out of your thoughts, you heard a light knock on your door. Glancing at the clock, and noticing the early hour, you knew that there could only be one person there.
“Come in.” you squeaked, your voice hoarse from unshed tears. You glanced towards the door to see Sam’s handsome face peek in.
“I saw the light under the door, so I figured if you were up, maybe you want to join me on my run?” Sam’s voice grew quiet as he scanned the room and saw your packed bags on the bed. When his eyes met yours again, they were filled with confusion and sadness.
“Sam, I'm…” you started. This was going to be hard to say goodbye to your best friend. This was why you were writing Dean a note. You couldn’t handle the way he would look at you. “…I’m so sorry. Last night was the final straw. He made it very clear that he doesn’t trust me. How can I hunt with someone who doesn’t have any trust in me?”
“But y/n, I trust you. Completely. I know your relationship with Dean is complicated. I get why you would be upset with him. But you’re leaving me too. Please, stay for me.”
“I wish it was that simple.” you sighed. “I love him Sam. I’m sure you guessed it already, but I do. And I keep falling for him over and over. I let my guard down around him. I let him flirt with me, and sleep with me, and ‘protect me’”, you added the air quotes for that last point, “and all because I keep hoping he will change his mind. But he keeps telling me he doesn’t love me. He can’t love me. That the hunt is the only thing he has room for. And after last night, I think I finally believe him.” Sam sat down on the bed and took both your hands in one of his, while he used the other to wipe away the tear that escaped.
“Y/n, this is his game. He says he can’t love anyone. That everyone he loves gets hurt. But you’re different. I see it. He may not be able to say it, but he does love you, in his own way.” You managed a small smile at Sam’s attempt to get you to stay. You were really going to miss him.
“Sam, you know I can’t stay. I want to. But I can’t. This is for both myself and Dean.” You rolled up your sleeve and pointed to your bandages from last night’s hunt as dramatic effect to your next statement. “This happened because we cannot work together. Dean may have rushed in because he thought he was saving me, but I gave up my angle because I thought I had to save him. Please tell me you understand what I’m saying.” You pleaded towards Sam with your eyes. You needed him to understand. As if he could read your thoughts, his lips raised in the slightest smile as he pulled you in for a hug.
“I’m really gonna miss you. And I know he is too. But please, don’t just leave a note. He needs to hear this from you.”
“I can’t do that. If I see his face right now, I will stay.”
You stood up and walked Sam to the door of your bedroom. After he engulfed you in a longer, more desperate hug, he left with a sad smile as you shut the door behind him. Walking back to your desk and the sad, blank page sitting on it, the conversation you just had with Sam came rushing back to you. Something he said stuck out. He called this a game, Dean’s game. All of a sudden, the perfect words began to come as you quickly scribbled them down.
Folding the paper in half, you carefully wrote Dean’s name on the front, and grabbed your bags from the bed. You took one last look around the room that had been your home for the past 3 years, and quietly closed the door. As you passed Dean’s room on your way out, you bent down to slip the note underneath. You knew it would still be awhile before he woke up and saw it. You just hoped you were far enough away by then. As a final gesture of goodbye, you stood with your hand on his door, willing for him to understand why you had to leave. Then sadly, you turned towards the front door, and left your home behind.
~~~
Dean jumped awake, his nightmare pulling him from his sleep. He could still smell y/n’s blood as it gushed from the wound on her arm. He will never forget seeing her lying there, the ghoul going in for the kill. He had to jump in. He had to protect her. How was he to know that she was faking? He knew she was a good hunter, but she was so small, so graceful, so beautiful. He stopped his thoughts there and shook his head. He needed to stop thinking of her like that. He had taken advantage of her long enough. She was in love with him, she had told him that. But all he could give her was an illusion. A few steamy kisses here and there. A few nights of passion and waking up in each other’s arms. He was wrong to do it, but he couldn’t deny that it felt good to have someone love him like that. Too bad he couldn’t give it back. It just wasn’t in his nature.
Pushing back the covers and swinging his socked feet over the side of the bed, he tried to rub the sleep from his eyes. Or was he trying to rub away that horrible image of y/n? He couldn’t dwell on it too much because it was then that he noticed the small white piece of paper on the floor near the door. He left his bed and bent to retrieve it. He saw his name written in y/n’s familiar handwriting, and his stomach began to knot. A note slipped under the door? This couldn’t be good.
He sat back down on his bed and unfolded the note. It wasn’t very long at all. He read the words twice before he recognized them as lyrics from a song y/n had shown him awhile back. She kept telling him how much she loved it, but he just kept making jabs about how it wasn’t his taste, and the words were too depressing. But now, re-reading them again for the third time, he got it. ‘You can do what you want to. You can play this game. And you can change every single rule. It’s gonna end the same.’
She added a goodbye at the bottom, as well as a tear stain, but that was it. Goodbye? Was she really gone? When had she left this? Maybe she was still in the bunker.
Dean ripped open his door and ran towards y/n’s room. His throat grew tight when he saw how empty it looked. Turning towards the kitchen, he heard the sound of a mug being put down on the counter. He was slightly less hopeful when he turned the corner, only to be met by his brother. Sam turned towards Dean, noticed the paper still clutched in his hand, and looked back down with a sigh.
“Sam, this says goodbye. Y/n is gone.”
“I know. I caught her right before she left this morning, about an hour ago. I tried to make her stay man. I really tried. But she was so set in her decision. I’m sorry.”
“You knew she was going and you just let her leave? You didn’t even wake me up? What the hell?”
“I told you, she was set in her ways. And I didn’t wake you up because she didn’t want me to. She said if she saw you she would change her mind, and she couldn’t do that.”
“That’s what should have happened. I should have changed her mind. You really blew this Sam.” Dean shot at his brother as he stormed to his room. He had to get dressed, to get on her trail. It was only an hour ago. She couldn’t have gone far. Behind him in the hallway he heard Sam’s footsteps bounding after him.
“Don’t you put this on me. She left because of you.” Sam caught up to Dean in his room frantically searching for his boots, and he turned him around by the shoulder. “She loves you man. She loves you so much. But you kept telling her you couldn’t love her back. But you can. You do, for Christ’s sake. But you won’t admit it. To yourself or her. She thinks you don’t trust her. And she can’t work with someone who doesn’t trust her. And now she’s gone. This is not on me. This is on you.”
“But I do trust her. Why would she say that?”
“Because you keep busting in and “saving her”. Haven’t you noticed she doesn’t need it? Hell, she got hurt last night because you couldn’t just trust her to make the kill on one lousy monster. She told you to wait outside. She told you she had a plan. But you couldn’t listen.”
“Sammy, you don’t understand. I will never get the image out of my head of that thing stalking her. Leaning over her like that. I didn’t know she was playing possum. All I saw was y/n about to get it. And I couldn’t allow that. I couldn’t lose her.” Dean’s voice began to crack as he got choked up by the memory. Sam laid a reassuring had on his brother’s shoulder.
“I’m afraid you already may have man.” Dean threw off Sam’s hand and grabbed his boots.
“No! I will not accept that. I need to find her. I need to make her see.” After his shoes and coat were on, Dean ran to the library to his computer. He just hoped that y/n hadn’t turned the GPS off on her cell phone. And after typing a few keys on the laptop, he released a sigh of relief that she hadn’t thought of it. Lucky for Dean, she wasn’t far away either. She was only a few towns away at a cheap motel. Without missing a beat, Dean grabbed the keys to his Impala, and headed out the door.
It only took Dean 30 minutes to drive to the motel, and 15 seconds to recognize her car. He parked his Baby next to the silver Honda and started knocking on doors, unsure of which particular room Y/n was in. After 3 wrong rooms, he was starting to get discouraged. At the 4th door, however, his stomach did a flip when he saw those familiar y/e/c eyes staring back at him.
“Dean, what are you doing here? How did you know where to find me?”
“You never turned your GPS off. You knew I wasn’t going to just let you leave without even a word.”
“I can’t be doing this right now. I need you to go Dean.” Y/n turned away and started to close the door, but Dean shot out his hand to stop her.
“Oh no you don’t. You cannot leave with no more than just a note, and turn away from me when I drive all the way out here. We are going to talk about this.” He pushed open the door, and made his way into the hotel room without being asked in. Y/n slowly closed the door, and took a deep breath before turning to face Dean.
“Fine. You are here, so talk. What do you want to say?”
“Are you serious? What do I want to say? I want to say why. Why did you leave? Why didn’t you say goodbye?” Y/n took a seat on the dingy motel bed, as she prepared herself.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. I know it wasn’t fair, but you have to understand how hard this is. You and Sam are family. Sam is like my brother, and you, well. It broke my heart to leave. But I had to. Dean, last night opened my eyes.” Dean put up his hand to stop your train of thought and sat down next to you on the bed.
“Last night was on me. I messed up. You told me to wait outside, but I was getting impatient. When I walked into that cabin, and I saw you laying there,” Y/n’s face paled as she saw the terror still in Dean’s eyes. “I will never get that image out of my head. And then when you got slashed, man I can still smell the blood.” She put her hand on the bandage, the images rushing back to her. Dean took her hand in his, needing to get his point across. Getting nervous at the closeness, afraid that she will lose her cool, y/n took her hand back, and stood up from the bed. But Dean wasn’t done, and he followed her up.
“Y/n, I know you think that I don’t trust you, that we can’t work together, but we do. We work so well together. Not just on the hunt. You mentioned games and rules in the note. And I know that it’s from that song you kept playing for me, but you’re right. I did have rules, and I pulled you into a game you shouldn’t have been playing.” Dean took y/n by the arms, careful of her injury, and looked into her eyes. “But the rules are already changed. They changed the first time I kissed you. It was game over for me.” Confused, y/n backed away.
“Dean, I don’t know what you’re talking about. These rules of yours, you always made them very clear. What we had, it was fun. That is all you said it could be. Just fun. Well, fun time is over. I needed more, so I needed to leave.”
“You’re right, fun time is over. I think…” Y/n exhaled deeply as she stepped back. Hearing Dean agree with her was harder to hear than she thought.
“Well, now that we are in agreement, you should go.” Dean looked confused, and shook his head vigorously.
“No, you misunderstood me. I don’t want this to be just for fun anymore. You leaving tonight, it made me realize something. I don’t ever want to lose you again.” He grabbed y/n’s hands and demanded eye contact.
“Dean, what does this mean?”
“You are going to make me say it, aren’t you?” He flashed his sly smile that y/n loved so much. She couldn’t help but smile back as she nodded at him. “Y/n, I love you. I think I always have, but now I know it. I…” Dean couldn’t finish his sentence as y/n suddenly jumped into his arms, causing them both to stumble and fall onto the bed laughing.
“Y/n, does this mean I can take you back home with me?” Dean didn’t get his answer in words. Y/n flashed him a dazzling smile and nodded before covering his lips with her own. They both tried to convey all their emotions in this kiss, the pain, the loss, the reunion, and the love. Mostly, the love. Love is always the biggest game changer.
