The Ramblings, Writings, and General Weirdness of a Geek

Out With the Old, in With 2024

geekslave — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 07:34:52 GMT

It’s been <i> ages</i>. My last post was five years ago - but that was a private post. The last time I posted publicly was six and a half years ago. Every year, posting here was one of my New Year’s resolutions. I wanted to post the first day of the year, but the longer I went without posting, the more I altered my goals to just posting at all. Last year, I didn’t even include it in my few resolutions.

I guess I’ve finally been pushed to do it because I really am trying to change things up. Last year was a fairly mundane year for me, but what sucked about it was how it felt like a carbon copy from the year before. It could be worse - never changing is better than things getting worse, but still, I would like to change some things up and hope things can get a little better.

The worst thing that happened last year was almost the same thing as one of the worst things that happened in 2022. I got into a car accident both years. The car accident from two years ago so far is slightly worse because it happened right after we had finished paying off the car insurance. We went from fully owning our car to it being totally undrivable - even though the accident didn’t seem that bad at first.

Last year’s accident was more embarrassing because it was completely my fault, given I hit a parked car. Right now, the car is at the mechanic’s to be fixed (though apparently, there’s some issue with our insurance company, and they haven’t started working on it yet.) We’re lucky and have an old car of our in-laws to use for now.

Our financial situation has gotten slightly worse. It seemed to start off okay, but lately, we’re basically living paycheck to paycheck. I’m thinking of either trying to find another job and leaving my old job or finding something that would be a second job. I’m hating my job more and more lately. But on the other hand, I make more than minimum wage at my current job. The problem is the lack of hours.

Two of my longest-standing resolutions are losing weight and managing my time. I still have to work on both - to varying degrees. My weight loss journey for the last couple of years has been interesting. I lost about 35 pounds in the last two years. I've gotten so many comments about it. Like, "Wow, you lost so much weight. You look great." I know people mean it in a positive way, but it makes me feel the same way it did the last time I lost a lot of weight and got the same comments. It makes me think, "How bad did I look before?"

When I looked at my body, I didn't really notice the change. I could tell in certain areas — like my boobs were affected. I got my first mammogram last year, and the tech asked if I lost a lot of weight. I was shocked that she could tell, but then she said when people lose a lot of weight, most lose it in that area, and you can see the difference. I've joked with my husband for a long time about getting a breast reduction (which he vehemently opposes) because I feel like one was bigger than the other, but I can't say I'm happy losing so much in that area.

But in most of my problem areas, I can't tell as much — especially my thighs. I can tell I've lost a lot of weight in my stomach area, but there's still a belly, which is the most important for me to lose because I've read about how that's the most dangerous area to have fat.

However, recently I took some pictures, and when I looked at them, I could definitely see that I am so much tinier than I was. In fact, I actually started to wonder if I lost <i>too</i> much weight — which is something I never thought I'd think. But I don't think that's possible because I'm nowhere close to a really small weight, like 100 lbs. So, I don't know.

When it comes to time management, I realized that as much as I hate having schedules and putting a timetable on things, having no structure at all wasn't good for me. For the last couple of years, I've tried to use my organizer and reminder apps to set goals — overall goals and day-to-day goals. It's been hit or miss — mostly miss. I'm fairly good at keeping up with household duties, especially cleaning the bathroom. And I've caught up on a TON of TV shows on my watch list. There are still a lot of things I've tried to make time for, but I'm still woefully behind.

I barely read anything — not even fanfic — last year. That's definitely something I want to rectify.

While I've been better at catching up on TV, there are still a lot of movies I haven't caught up on.

One of my biggest resolutions is to make more time for writing. Over the last few years, I started trying to write every day. While I hadn't missed too many days, I was getting frustrated that most of the writing I was doing was for like five minutes at the end of the day for like a few sentences — or just editing. I got to the point last year where I thought it was pointless, so I stopped for a few months. Then, I realized that even five minutes of writing was way better than nothing, so I've gone back to that. Still, I do want to accomplish more than just five minutes. It's something that's been on my schedule that I haven't made time for, but I'm going to try and do better with that.

Right now, that's all the resolutions I can think of. I'll try to do a mini-recap of the last few years. There haven't been too many major events, so it shouldn't be too long. It will probably be mostly pictures of our new animal menagerie at home.

Stacey

I Will Survive

geekslave — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 04:33:34 GMT

We survived the hurricane! Thank God! :) My luck with hurricanes thankfully continues. *knock on wood* Though reading the news it seems like it was luck all around that it wasn't worse (for us anyway) than it could have been.

By Saturday night, I was calmer than I'd been - drinking sangria probably helped. I still could barely sleep but I felt better on Sunday and I was starting to make my peace with us riding out the storm at home. Of course, that's when Jean texts me. She asked when we were coming. That surprised me because as far as I knew Mike hadn't changed his mind about staying home. I asked him about it and he said he had no idea which is right when she called him.

She basically did everything she could to get him to come over, including guilting him about making his mother worry. A lot of times when she does that it annoys me. Mike's a bit of a pushover at times and laid back and tries to avoid confrontation so usually when she nags him about things he'll give in just to get her to stop or because he doesn't really care either way.

He didn't give in but he told her that as long as wherever he was had beer he really didn't care where he waited out the storm. So he said the decision was 100% mine. He does that a lot. When we were deciding to move, he said the final decision was mine. He's basically said I have the final word on whether we have kids or not. While having that kind of say so can be kind of nice, I'm not one who makes decisions very easily, so it annoys me a little when he does that.

I had no idea what I wanted to do. I thought about it for ages but knew a decision had to be made soon before the weather worsened. Finally, I told him I couldn't decide by myself and he had to give me something. He said that he wasn't scared about the storm at all and part of him would like to stay at home. But he said another part of him knew that I would sit there and worry all night about whether we should have gone over there. I laughed and said I'd probably still worry even if we did go over there, but I said we should go. So we packed up as quickly as we could. We unplugged most of the electronics and turned off the A/C and left.

I felt a little better when we got to the house because they had boarded up the front windows. Unfortunately, when we got inside I saw that most of the rest of the windows were completely uncovered including the window in the room we were supposed to sleep in. My worry increased when I went online and we started watching more hurricane coverage. There was a Senator being interviewed and he said the wind didn't really concern him much, but it was the potential storm surge. On Twitter, people were posting pictures of areas in Tampa at the beach where the water had completely receded. They said when it came back it could be like a tsunami. I saw The Impossible and the thought of that freaked me out for the rest of the day.

While I was freaked out, Mike was the complete opposite. He was not kidding when he said he wasn't scared at all. He was having fun with it. He loves the rain and he said he would be outside if he could and he was excited. On Saturday he had me take a picture of him with two cases of beer in hand while he was wearing a life jacket and posted on Facebook that it was his preparation for the storm. On Sunday, he changed his Facebook profile picture to a shot of Bill Paxton from Twister and his cover photo to a tornado from the movie. I suggested that maybe a perfect job for him would be as one of those crazy hurricane chasers.

As the night wore on I got less and less panicked. The lights only flickered and the electricity turned off a couple of times very briefly. The news got a bit more encouraging. The hurricane was moving away from the gulf so that decreased the potential storm surge significantly. Plus, by the time it got to our area, it was "just" a category one storm. As much as I had been dreading it and as much as Mike had been looking forward to it, we both slept through the "worst" of it - though that made sense since the highest winds didn't really start until 2AM.

When I woke up, my phone wasn't working properly. My mom said she had called me and Mike a couple of times and we didn't get any calls and we couldn't make any. We had to turn them off to get them working. I wasn't sure if we could use the water but forgot and accidentally started to brush my teeth with water from the sink and then once I started watching tv I saw there was a boil water advisory for the east part of my county because a tree fell on a water main, but I wasn't sure if we were in the east or not. When we went outside, there were a lot of branches and leaves all over the back. We helped them clean up and then went home.

We also had very minimal damage at our house, just some leaves and a few branches. It's a good thing that the storm was not worse because Mike's idea to put cardboard on some of the windows wasn't a great idea. All of the cardboard was on the ground in a wet clump and the wind wasn't even as bad as it could have been.

A neighbor came over and she said that she had stayed through the storm and other than the lights flickering a couple of times, we didn't lose power. That was something that Jean mentioned, and I'd read about on Pinterest, that the closer you live to a hospital the faster your power comes back after an outage. We didn't live directly next to a hospital, but we're about five minutes away from one - plus the electric company is across the street.

I was still a little frustrated for the rest of the day for a couple of reasons. I was worried about the boiled water advisory and wanted to know if it was for our area. I called several different places and they were either closed entirely for the day or closed by the time I called and I couldn't find out anything specific online. This morning, I finally got a hold of somebody and they said my area probably wasn't included in the advisory, but if I was close to any of the other areas it was probably better to be safe than sorry.

Also when we got home, I turned on the A/C but it didn't come back on. We already had issues with it a couple of months ago and I was worried that it died completely because it was off for so long. I couldn't get it to work all day. Then finally at night, I put it way down to about 70 to see if it might start working, but when I went to bed the temperature was still at 81. When I woke up though it was freezing and, I have no idea, but now it's working thankfully.

Ugh, and there's still at least a couple more months of hurricane season to go. Hopefully there will be no next time this year, but hopefully, if there is we'll be slightly better prepared.

Stacey

Freaking Out

geekslave — Sun, 10 Sep 2017 03:34:10 GMT

I'm in Florida (around West-Central FL) and waiting around for Hurricane Irma. I've definitely spent many parts of the last couple of days in a near panic and close to tears. I barely slept last night. We don't have cable, but I've been watching some coverage on YouTube and reading about it. At certain points, I just want to stop and bury my head in the sand because all of the news is freaking me out more. But I can't do that because have to know what's going on. I've taken a lot of breaks though.

I've actually been fairly lucky. I've lived in FL most of my life and the only major hurricane I've really experienced was Hurrican Andrew when I was a pre-teen. We were lucky though because we didn't live in the area hurt the worst by Hurrican Andrew - our house barely had any damage. But it was a major production getting prepared for it and riding it out with all of us sleeping in the living room.

I think I've experienced two more - though I guess they must have been on the minor side since I barely remember them. I was living with my sister and I remember we had a power outage and we had to fill buckets with water and wait until we knew if we could use the water safely. But other than that I don't think there was any damage. Another time I was staying with my mother and Will in their apartment. There was another power outage. Will tried to plug into the generator for the apartment building and we had some power for awhile until they cut him off. I think the power outage then lasted a day and a half, but - again - other than that it wasn't bad.

I think that's why for the most part I've been pretty lackadaisical about being prepared for hurricanes. Even when they talk about it on the news and mention they think one might be hitting here, I don't panic because most of the time they don't end up being that bad. But after Harvey and with how dire they're being on the news about Irma, I'm freaked. After Harvey, I'm worried about flooding and worried about wind damage. Though Greg told Michael that our area doesn't flood too badly and Jean said our roof is fairly new. I know that we need to be prepared even though I'm hoping my "luck" with hurricanes holds out now.

Micahel seems to share that lack of urgency, even now. He's lived in FL for about 7-8 years and never experienced a hurricane so he's unfazed by it. He thinks it's not that big a deal. We had a discussion about it when we were talking about whether or not to move to Maryland or stay in FL. I was worried about potential hurricanes and Mike said it was a non-factor for him. When we moved to the new house and I worried about the big tree in front, again, he didn't think it was a big deal and said the tree was too strong anyway.

At the beginning of the week, we didn't really talk about the hurricane too much. We were somewhat prepared. We already had plenty of water and a lot of canned goods. We have some batteries and a flashlight (though it is pretty small.) We have a ton of candles. Around Wednesday, Mike came home and he said he'd read that the hurricane was projected to move east and we would experience a lot of the wind and about three inches of rain, but it wouldn't be too bad. I talked to my sister and she said that the direction could change, which I knew. So I didn't feel as calm as Michael.

My mom had texted me and suggested we go to my aunt's in Orlando. I wasn't sure if my aunt would even be staying at her house because she lives alone and I thought it might be worse in Orlando, but I still told Michael about my mom's suggestion. Mike said no. He said if I wanted to go I could but he wanted to stay and protect the house. He said if the house started to take in water, he wanted to be able to unplug the electronics and move them higher. He half joked about the house being filled with water. I asked what could he possibly do if the house filled with water and he said he'd just go to the roof with the tv or that it didn't really matter that he could swim. I think the tv on the roof comment was a joke (had to be) but he was mostly serious about swimming. I said he couldn't really wade around in flood water because it would be contaminated. I didn't really explain it very well so he didn't really pay attention.

On Thursday, I asked him about getting boards or shutters for the windows but he said he thought it was too late. By Friday, he seemed to be taking it somewhat more seriously. He bought a lot more food and he came with a bunch of cardboard from work and masking tape. He taped up the windows and was using cardboard. I thought that was not the greatest idea, plywood is stronger than cardboard. But it was better than nothing. Even though he had a lot of cardboard he only boarded up the windows in our room. Thankfully, our house is relatively small and it doesn't have that many windows.

After he did that my mom sent me this article about if the bathroom was the safest room in the house to hide out in. The article mentioned that taping up your windows is probably the worst thing you could do, which just heightened my anxiety.

I did manage to get gas relatively easy. I left early for work to try and find gas but all of the places around were out. After work, I decided to stop by somewhere closer to Jean and Greg's. It's a smaller gas station and even though it's on one of the main roads, it's sort of hidden. I did find gas there and didn't have to wait too long - just for about 10-15 minutes. It was also nice that they had someone who worked at the gas station directing traffic and telling people where to go; I didn't see that at other stations.

On Friday night, we did try and go to the movies because Mike has been dying to see the new It movie since he saw the trailer. We drove past the theater and assumed it would still be open Friday night. My work closed for the weekend and so did Mike's job but they were still running on Friday. But when we came back another couple told us the theater was closed. A sign on the door said it would be closed Friday and Saturday, which made no sense to us since the worst of the storm is supposed to be on Sunday and Monday.

It's been so nerve-wracking because they still seem to not have a clear idea of where this is going to land. It doesn't appear that my area will experience the eye of the storm, but things are still up in the air. I thought about potentially asking Mike if we shouldn't go over to his mom's house. I'm not exactly sure if it would be safer there. Their house is somewhat of a lightning magnet. A couple of years ago the tv got fried when the house got struck by lightning. Right after we moved they had another lightning incident and I think part of the sidewalk got cracked. They also have a huge pond in the backyard and lots of potential debris there.

But, still part of me wants to go because with how unpredictable - and big - this storm is, it's not the storm I want to be our first taking on by ourselves. Also, I feel there could be safety in numbers. We had a lot of people in the house during Andrew and it made me feel a little better. Another big thing is they have a generator at the house. I'm worried about the power going out and how long that will last. I don't want us to not have a way to really find out what's going on. We both have our phones and we have a portable cell phone charger, but I don't know how long our phones will last. And, if the power goes out, the wifi will probably go with it. We can usually use our smartphones even without wifi because it has LTE, but sometimes that doesn't always work that well.

I didn't get a chance to ask him about going to Jean and Greg's because my mom beat me to it. She said she asked him about it and he said no. Once again, he said I could go if I wanted to but he wanted to stay at the house. he said he wasn't scared at all. He really has been almost freakishly calm about this while I have been a nervous wreck all day. We watched news coverage this morning, but it didn't alarm him. He's been out gardening and talking about how nice the weather is. Right now, he's sleeping like a baby. Normally, he's a very light sleeper and just the slightest movement or sound causes him to wake up, but I had the tv on and got up a couple of times and he barely moved.

To his credit, he's definitely noticed how nervous I am and has tried to cheer me up. After he taped up the windows he showed me where he thought the safest parts of the house would be and he said that the walls surrounding our room are made of concrete so it should hold up well (I know nothing of architecture, but that made me feel a little better.) He bought sangria, which is awesome. I may try and get drunk so I can worry less tomorrow. He's cracked a lot of jokes and tried to put me more at ease.

I am a little calmer than I was this morning. It helps that Irma's gone from category 5 to a category 3 (though one "cheery" article I read said that doesn't matter because Katrina was a category 3 and that was the worst hurricane in history.) It's helped me that our area did not have a mandatory evacuation. I watched the news a couple of hours ago and right now my county seems to be forecasted to have the least amount of wind. There were some counties that had an estimate of 90-125 mph winds but mine is predicted to have 75-95. That's still bad but considering this morning we were looking at 155 mph, that is much better. We're predicted right now to possibly get 6-10 inches of rain and have a storm surge of 3-6 ft.

Part of me just wants this to be over with, but I try not to even think that because the last time I had that thought it was just before the election in November and we all know how horribly that turned out.

Stacey

Buggin' Out

geekslave — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 06:24:11 GMT

Mike and I have been in the new house for close to two months now. I feel like I'm finally starting to get settled in the house like I don't feel strange in the house and I'm getting used to being here. Of course, I still have brain fart moments where I reach for something where it used to be, like toilet paper for example, and suddenly "Oh, yeah it's not there anymore. Different house."

When we were first moving in, Mike joked that the house was a fixer upper - though not as bad as his friends, Tom and Sean's house. They bought a house a couple of years ago. We stayed there the last time we were in Maryland. There's a huge area in front of the house that is completely gutted and it's basically a ditch. Their basement's a mess. They told us nightmare stories about lighting issues and having to replace the wiring and other problems. Our house is definitely not that bad, but we definitely have our own issues to deal with here.

One of the biggest things we're dealing with is a bug problem. Not just one type of bug, but various bugs. The first bug problem we realized we had was having to do with spiders. We were in the garage one of the first days we were moving our stuff in and I heard Michael make some kind of noise and kill something. He said it was a spider. I was kind of shocked. Usually, in the old house when I killed spiders in front of Michael he got annoyed because he said that spiders were good bugs. He likes them especially because they eat mosquitoes, which are constantly attacking Michael and are the bane of his existence.

But he killed that one and he told me that it was a Black Widow spider. That freaked me out a little, but Michael said that it's not as serious as it sounded. He said that they are one of the only poisonous spiders but that their poison is really only harmful to really young people or elderly people. Also, he said that they're generally docile. But still, Michael killed that one and, unfortunately, we've seen a few more since that one and he's killed those. He found so many spider webs outside and even in the house. The first time I went to get the mail, I opened the mailbox and it was covered in spider webs inside and there was a black widow in there. It seemed that Michael was right about it being docile because when I had stuck my hand inside to get the mail it didn't move at all.

I think it's been awhile since we've seen a black widow, but we have seen not only a lot of spiders - and spider webs (they keep sprouting up no matter what we do) - around, but a weird variety of them. Several times Mike has had to post pictures of them on FaceBook to find out what they are from a friend of his who is very knowledgeable about bugs. One day, Mike had used the blender and had left it in the sink. I went to clean it and had no issues when I cleaned the parts of it that were in the left sink. I left for a few minutes and when I came back to clean the main part of the blender that was on the right side of the sink, when I lifted it up I saw this huge brown spider that seemed to get spooked and tried to scurry off. I freaked out and killed it, even though Michael still wants me to try not to kill them and just move them outside. I had to ask Michael what kind of spider it was when he got home.

Just before I started writing this post, I walked into the kitchen and went to the pantry. Before I opened the door, I looked up and saw a spider just above one of the cabinets. A few minutes later, I went back and saw a spider at the bottom of the cabinet near the sink. It's ridiculous. I don't have a phobia about spiders but we shouldn't have this many. Michael finally got on board with that. Last week, he said he was going to look online for home remedies against spiders. He said that while he likes spiders we shouldn't have this many inside the house. He did make this mint water thing today and sprayed it and we hope it's going to help.

While I don't have a phobia about spiders, I do when it comes to roaches which are also a problem we're dealing with. I've never been comfortable with roaches. When I was a kid and we lived in New York, I would sometimes see them in our tv room, which was in the basement. They were pretty small so they didn't freak me out too much. Though there was one incident with my sister that's pretty much always stayed with me. She was eating cereal and after she finished it and started drinking the milk she found a roach in her bowl. For the longest time, when I ate cereal I would scrape my spoon along the bottom of a bowl just to check. It wasn't until I moved the Florida that my phobia really kicked into high gear. My mother had the house exterminated. We had to leave for a few hours while the house was fumigated. When we got back home there were dead roaches ALL OVER. And, the roaches in Florida were far larger than the ones in New York. We had to clean them all up. That definitely freaked me out and stayed with me.

Roaches aren't crawling around here at all times or anything, but I've definitely seen more here than I did probably in the entire time I was living at Jean and Greg's (though the times I did see roaches at Jean and Greg's were some of my worst roach experiences ever including one time when a roach actually started crawling on me when I was in bed.) Like with the spiders, Mike's never really shared my hatred of them. In fact, when we first started dating and I told him about it, he laughed and said roaches didn't bother him and said one of his favorite movies is Joe's Apartment (a movie about a guy who moves into this apartment and encounters talking roaches). He then had me buy him the movie on iTunes. Mike says he doesn't have a problem with them because they're harmless.

Though, thankfully, like with the spider situation, Mike has tried to be more helpful about dealing with the roach issue. We've gotten roach bait and put them all over the house. It's not a foolproof solution, but I do think the instances of seeing bugs went down since I put them out. We bought bug barrier to put around the house outside (though Mike's hesitant since he doesn't want to put chemicals out in front where he wants to grow flowers and vegetables.) He's talked to a friend of his that's an exterminator about things we can do to avoid them, like drying the sink after using it because roaches like having a source of water. He even heard about some woman, I can't remember if it was on Facebook or someone he sees at the stores he works at, that said she has an exterminator and she pays him to come to her house four times a year and she doesn't have any problems. We're not sure we want to go that route yet. It's gotten a little better. We can go days without seeing one. I saw one a couple of weeks ago after a week and half of not seeing one and it might have been Mike's fault that it was there. He had bought apple pie and he left it on the counter. It wasn't open, but it wasn't closed tightly. That was only the second one we've seen in the kitchen. Though, unfortunately, since then I've seen a couple more in there.

The bug barrier powder he's put around the garage seems to be working. I've seen a lot of dead roaches, mostly small ones, in there.

The places we've seen the roaches the most is - grossly enough - our bathroom sink (though not for awhile) - and the spare bathroom. The first one I saw in the sink was a small one in the drain catcher. For some reason, I wasn't as freaked out about that one. But a couple of nights later, I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and saw a slightly bigger one in the sink. Before I had much time to react it crawled into the overflow hole. I had no idea where that led to. A few days later, Mike said he also saw one in the sink. I wasn't sure if it was the same one or a different one. Also, one day while I was cleaning I noticed these small black spots on the counter. Immediately, I realized they were probably roach droppings which I don't think I'd ever noticed anywhere else. I kept wondering if the same roach from the sink was just hanging around our bathroom, coming out at night, and crapping around our bathroom. Thankfully, I haven't seen one in the sink for a while.

I haven't seen one at all *knock on wood* in the spare room (though that might be because we're hardly in there) and just one in the den/living room.

One of the biggest problems we have with getting rid of the roaches, and the spiders and ants, are outside issues. Like a month ago, Mike showed me that he had to spray ant spray around the edges on top of the house because there were clusters of ants at each corner. There were a bunch of dead ants. He said he thought they might be getting into the house (along with other bugs) because we have cracks there. He said he needs to fill them but he hasn't done that yet. I worry that until we get the cracks sealed up we're still going to have the bug issues from time to time. Also, in front of the house, we have a bunch of mulch there and Jean came over one day and she was messing around in there and she said she saw a bunch of roaches there. Mike said the same thing a few days ago when he removed some of the mulch in front so he could plant some flowers. He told me I didn't want to know how many roaches he had to squish. I told him removing the mulch is going to be his job because there is no way I can deal with that.

We've also had a tiny ant problem. Literally. I hadn't seen many ants at all and then one day I was walking past the kitchen and suddenly saw a bunch of really tiny bugs on the counter. I killed them and almost immediately saw more close to the sink. I wasn't sure if they were coming from the window or one of the electrical outlets. I killed them and only saw one or two after that. When Mike got home, I showed him one and he said he thought they were really tiny ants. He said those are the hardest to deal with. He said something about them being in various packs and not being able to figure out where they're coming from because they could be coming from all over. Though, the only place we've seen them is in the kitchen and in one spot in the kitchen on the left side of the sink.

Over the next few days, I'd seen a couple more but not too many. Still, Michael decided to put these sticky ant traps he had bought for the old house. The next day, I saw a swarm of ants around the trap. I killed some of those and had to throw out the trap. He put another one there, but I didn't see any ants sticking to that one like they had to the first one. I thought it wasn't working until Mike explained that they work like the roach bait and the ants are supposed to walk through the sticky stuff he puts on the trap and then take it back to wherever the other ants are gathered and hopefully kill them all. It might have finally worked because I haven't seen any of them in days.

Another major issue is that a lot of our doors suck. The front door isn't too bad, though we don't use it that often since we mostly come in through the garage. But a problem with the front door is that most of the time I have trouble unlocking the top lock. It's ridiculously difficult. The door to the spare bathroom and room are okay. The door to our bedroom also is mostly okay, except the doorknob is really loud. Like when I go to the living room at night, I try to leave as quietly as possible so not to disturb Michael (even though it's mostly useless since he has vampire hearing.) When I close the door and turn the doorknob, the doorknob makes the loudest sound. It's the only door that does that.

But the worst doors are the ones near the kitchen and garage. All of them will probably need to be replaced. The wood is rotting on most of them. One of the doors doesn't really close, which is definitely worrying when it comes to the security of the house. We have three doors in the garage. One on the left wall, another on the front wall, and one on the right wall that leads to the laundry room. The one leading to the laundry room wasn't closing properly. Michael said it was probably because the hinges weren't on right. He tried to fix it, but ever since he did it's worse and won't close all the way. It makes me think that it could make it easier for someone to break in. The door on the front wall of the garage is a solid door, but the door on the left wall has panes of glass. They're really thick, but I worry someone could break the glass and then since the door leading to the laundry room can't close (or lock) it's that much easier for someone to get in. Though, I've tried to console myself that it's possible if someone is desperate enough to get in and break the glass, they might be able to pick any lock we put on that door. But still, we definitely need to get it fixed.

We also have some wonky wiring issues. A lot of our electrical outlet covers, especially in the kitchen and garage, are extremely dirty or cracked or have fallen off altogether. I was really concerned when one fell off in the kitchen. I've read that roaches can live in the walls, so considering our bug issues, I was worried that bugs might come through there but Mike said it shouldn't be an issue and so far it hasn't been.

The electrical outlet in our spare bathroom is upside down so you have to plug in everything with the plug turned upside down, which feels weird. In our room, the main light switch has two switches. One is normal and controls the ceiling fan and light. But the second didn't seem to do anything. But one night, Michael was plugging in his phone and I used the second switch accidentally and it his phone stopped charging. I thought that meant it controlled that electrical outlet but then one day I tried to plug the vacuum into the same outlet, which I already had my computer plugged into which was working fine. The computer worked fine, but the vacuum wouldn't start. So, I went to the light switch and flicked that second one and the vacuum came on. So, it turns out it the switch only controls the top outlet for some reason.

Mike wants to do some work on the wiring because of some of those issues but mainly because of problems with a light fixture in the dining area. There's what looks like a dimmer switch for the light that's next to our room. It doesn't dim the light, but when you press it the light turns on or off. I used it to turn the light off one night, but the next day when I tried to use it again it didn't work. Turned out that the light is controlled by both that round switch and one of the switches by the kitchen. The light switch by the kitchen has three switches and the one in the middle controls the light, sort of. I still haven't figured out how it exactly works.

I think the bigger problem with it (and the wiring in the house) is the light constantly flickering. The light fixture in the dining area is always flickering. But also, our bathroom when you turn on the light it either flickers or it takes a while for it to turn on. Also, when you turn it on the light in the dining area you hear a buzzing sound coming from the "dimmer" switch. That's not the only place we've heard an odd buzzing sound. A couple of weeks ago, I kept hearing weird noises in the kitchen. At first, I wasn't sure what the sound was. It seemed like it could be some kind of skittering, so I was freaked that there might be bugs in the bottom kitchen cabinets. But when Mike got home and I told him about it, he said he thought the noise was coming from the vent in the ceiling. I realized he was right. Neither of us knew what it could be. I was worried it meant something was wrong with the A/C.

Turns out that's probably not what was wrong with the A/C - not that I know of - but there still was, unfortunately, something wrong with the A/C. We had a power outage a couple of weeks ago. It really only lasted about five seconds. When the electricity came back, I expected everything to come back right away. The internet didn't come back right away and I ended up having to jostle the modem a little to get that going. I was in the laundry room and I realized it felt like it was muggier in there than usual. I checked and it seemed like the A/C was on, the display said "cool on" but it didn't really feel like the air was coming from the vents. I decided to give it a few minutes. After a few minutes, there was still nothing and I was starting to really worry that the outage screwed up the A/C. I went to the fuse box and made sure everything was turned on and it was.

I decided to give it more time. For some reason, it didn't occur to me until later to go online and check what you should do if your A/C doesn't turn on after a power outage. I tried the common fix I saw there, but that didn't work. Mike called Jean and Greg and I guess they walked him through trying to potentially assess what was wrong. After that, Mike said they gave him the number of an A/C repair guy they used recently. We hoped that he could come out right away, but when he called back he said he could only come the next morning. It ended up not really being that bad for the night. I've definitely slept through hotter conditions.

The next morning, the guy came by while I was asleep. When I woke up, Mike asked if I wanted the good news first or the bad news. For some reason, whenever Mike presents me with that option I go for the bad news first. I think I just want to get it over with and like to have the good news relieve any agony from the bad news. Mike said that the repair said that our entire A/C system was on its last legs. We had leaks in some important spots. He put a stop gap on there and even with the stop gap he said it was only an 80% that would even work (thankfully, so far it has worked.) The stop gap cost about $450. He said that the A/C would probably last only two, three more seasons. I asked Mike what that meant but he wasn't sure. We think that possibly means two more summer seasons, so this year and next year. To replace the whole thing it'll cost $4500. I asked Mike what the good news was and he said it was that the stop gap cost $450 and we paid that instead of needing to replace the whole thing right then.

That's just a nightmare, though I tried to look on the bright side because later I realized maybe we can use next year's tax return money to fix the system. The last couple of years all of Michael's returns were used to pay off my student loans, but now that's done. And both years we got over 3k (I know because I was so pissed we couldn't use that money for something else.) I hate the thought of having to use that money yet again on one thing, but it's our best bet besides saving for it. The only hitch is Mike said both years his return was that high because both years he had to pay out of pocket to go to school so he got reimbursed for that with his tax money. But this year, neither of us has gone to school yet. Though, I'm pretty sure even without that Mike would probably get around 2k because that was usually what he got before.

It hasn't been all horrible news. We've made some big purchases for the house. Our first was getting a new dryer - though that was because the old one wasn't working. Jean said something about possibly getting a new dryer before we moved in. But when we first started looking through the house before we moved in, Jean looked at the dryer and she seemed to think that it was okay. But when I started using it, I soon realized that the clothes weren't tumbling in the dryer and it was taking forever for the clothes to get dry. I had to physically move the drum a few times to get it spinning when I turned the dryer on and even that wouldn't work if I had too many clothes in there. It was a headache, so we got a new dryer.

I wanted to get a dryer with a few more options then, basically, delicates and non-delicates like they had basically inexpensive ones that had sections for drying bedding. But, on his mother's advice, Mike wanted a Whirlpool, and the Whirlpool dryers were very basic but we went with his choice there.

Even though we had the two comfy armchairs, we decided our next purchase would be a couch for the living room because I wanted us to be able to sit together. We had a lot of coaches we liked but we narrowed it down to two. One was a nice comfortable sectional and the other was a couch that had cupholders. We both really liked the idea of having the couch with cup-holders but, ultimately I decided on the other couch because we really couldn't sit together on the couch with the cupholders.

We decided our next purchase would probably be a kitchen table and I already knew which one I wanted. But we were going to hold off on getting it because we really couldn't afford anything else. To our surprise, Jean called one day and she asked if we had decided on the table we wanted. I told her yes. Next thing, I knew she was calling a few hours later and asking me to open the garage because she had bought the table for us. To my even bigger surprise, it turned out it wasn't Jean who bought it but Mike's grandmother Marti. She has been horrible, so definitely bowled me over. I still don't like her much, but I am appreciative of the table.

The next thing will probably be patio furniture. I think I would prefer to get a bedroom set because I hate our headboard and I would like to try and get a bed that doesn't squeak as much. But Mike wants to get patio furniture before we throw any kind of housewarming get together, so people will have someplace to sit.

But we definitely have to save up more before we can get anything else. For now, we're comfortable with what we have and are enjoying our privacy. :)

Stacey

The Beauty in Skull Island

geekslave — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 05:23:44 GMT

I meant to post this awhile ago and forgot.

Michael and I saw Beauty and the Beast a couple of months ago. At first, I wasn't sure I could get him to see it. I try not to drag him to see anything I know he might not like (we have a running joke about me making him watch Brokeback Mountain which he absolutely refuses to do.) We've watched Disney movies together, but he's not a really big fan of romance films, so I thought he could possibly like it, but wasn't sure.

At first, he suggested we see Kong: Skull Island. I told him I was interested in it, but I suggested we see BaTB. He said he was interested in it, but he wanted to see K:SU more. I laughed and said I felt the exact opposite. Over the next couple of week, I think he came around to it since he knew how much I wanted to see it.

We definitely made the right call because we both really loved it - though I do remember when it started being a little nervous because I realized I forgot to tell him it was a musical. He doesn't hate all musicals (I got him to watch Chicago and he liked it for the most part) but, like with romantic movies, it's not a favorite genre of his. But, like I said, he ended up loving it. When I asked him after the movie what he thought he said he'd give it a ten out of ten. He also joked that the one thing he wished it had more of was someone taking a chainsaw to the face (he's a huge fan of horror movies.)

He told me that his favorite part would end up being obvious to me, but would be hard to guess because it was such a small part of the movie. It took me awhile to figure it out. A lot of the time he's drawn to the scenery in a movie, so I guessed that and he said I was close. Finally, I figured it out and laughed because his favorite part was Belle's garden. Michael loves gardening and growing things and his eye tends to be drawn to that in movies. He actually talked about specific things he saw in her garden he wanted to grow in a garden of our own.

As far me, I just thought the whole movie was just lovely! I wasn't holding on to any nostalgia from the original. I don't remember it that well. Of the Disney movies of that era (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, etc.) BaTB is the only one I can't really remember when I saw it originally. I know I must have seen it at some point, but the only parts I really remembered while watching the new version was the opening song about Belle and Gaston's song. It probably helped that I wasn't judging the new version against the original.

I just really loved the love story. I don't know if I was abnormal as a kid, but I was never the hugest fan of fairytales. I think Cinderella was one of the first stories I read when I learned to read and I just didn't get how someone can basically fall in love at first sight. I've never been a big lover of that trope. Sometimes I'm okay with it (like with The Little Mermaid) but most of the time not. That's why Ever After: A Cinderella Story is my favorite Cinderella version because we get to see them fall in love. It's something I appreciated about Tangled. I liked it about this version of BaTB. We don't spend a lot of time on it, but with the montage we get to that Belle and the Beast get to know each other and it makes their love story believable and very sweet The chemistry between them was great, which sort of feels weird to say since the Beast was partially CGI (I know Dan Stevens actually acted with Emma Watson, but the Beast's face was CGI) so I don't know who to credit with the chemistry - though at the end when he's transformed back to human I thought the two of them had nice chemistry.

The music, the acting, the story, the sets, the costumes were all amazing. I can't even remember the last time (if I ever) I felt like this, but I literally felt like dancing out of the theater when we were leaving.

We did end up seeing Kong: Skull Island a couple of weeks later. I agreed with some of the reviews I read which said the movie didn't reinvent the wheel and is not necessarily original, but as a popcorn movie, it does what it does well. It is exciting in places and sometimes funny. But I am glad I saw BaTB first and definitely liked it better.

Stacey

LJ 18th anniversary

geekslave — Sun, 16 Apr 2017 15:28:49 GMT

#mylivejournal #lj18 #happybirthday

I didn't realize I'd made that many comments.

Stacey

Film Quotes Meme

geekslave — Sat, 15 Apr 2017 06:39:56 GMT

Movie meme stolen from lots of people

•Pick 15 of your favorite movies.
•Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
•Post them here for everyone to guess.
•Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
•NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search or other search functions

1. You're a neo maxi zoom dweebie, what would you be doing if you weren't out making yourself a better citizen?

2. ~~That is what "to the pain means." It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.~~ The Princess Bride. First guessed by schweet_heart, then beccadg, and gillo

3. It's like God gave you something, man, all those stories you can make up. And He said, "This is what we got for ya, kid. Try not to lose it." Kids lose everything unless there's someone there to look out for them. And if your parents are too fucked up to do it, then maybe I should.

4. What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It's insulting. Scream, guessed by beccadg

5. ~~NO! Poor people are crazy, Jack. I'm eccentric.~~ Speed, guessed by beccadg

6. ~~He needs to go home; he's calling his people. And I don't know where they are, but he needs to go home.~~ E.T. the Extraterrestrial. First guessed by beccadg and then gillo

7. Well "Sinead O'Rebellion." Shock me, shock me, shock me with that deviant behavior.

8. ~~Home? What home? In a couple more hours, it ain't gonna be home anymore. Come on, guys, this is our time. Our last chance to see if there really is any rich stuff.~~ The Goonies, guessed by oneill

9. Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you. Dirty Dancing, guessed by aku_rin

10. ~~Look, you're not gonna be picking a fight, Dad... Dad-Dad-Daddy-O.~~ Back to the Future, guessed by schweet_heart

11. Chris, I'm begging you, it's really scary here. I've just seen three people shoot up, a bald Chinese lady with no pants on, and there's this old guy outside who wants his bedroom slippers!

12. Yeah. The funny thing is - on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.

13. ~~You know what, friend? This is a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation.~~ Brokeback Mountain, guessed by redfeu

14. Look, I like you, I really like you, but I gotta tell you, I have become seriously and emotionally involved with someone who isn't my aunt.

15. ~~NOW it was serious. A double-dog-dare. What else was there but a "triple dare you"? And then, the coup de grace of all dares, the sinister triple-dog-dare.~~ A Christmas Story, guessed by beccadg

Stacey

Hectic Days

geekslave — Sun, 27 Mar 2016 04:12:11 GMT

I'm feeling a little down. I went to my job interview. I thought it went fairly well. They didn't ask a lot of questions, but I thought I did a good job with the questions they asked. They said they were interviewing five people and would be hiring two. I thought my chances were good, but I got a call later and didn't get it.

It's not that I really wanted that job, but I've been rejected over and over lately and it's disheartening. I try to look at the positive and for every batch of applications I've filled out I've at least gotten 1 or 2 interviews out of it. But then I go back to the negative and I've still been rejected like 6 or 7 times out of those jobs, not to mention the jobs were immediately after I apply I get a rejection e-mail.

It probably doesn't help that today would have been my dad's 72nd birthday.

Anyway...on to the wedding recap.

Not surprisingly the last couple of days before the wedding were really hectic. It didn't help that I made some of the same mistakes I usually make, like not asking for help and waiting to the last minute on things. I waited too long to get programs for the wedding and I ended up buying this downloadable program from Etsy. The only problems with it was I was going to have to cut the programs myself after they were printed out. And when I went to Office Depot to get the card stock the woman who sold it suggested, I couldn't find it. I had to buy a different kind and hope they came out okay and didn't look too cheap.

Unfortunately I had to wait until the next day to print them out. Usually I could print them out in the front room where the printer was whenever I wanted, but Mike's aunt was up for the wedding and sleeping in there. The next morning it took me forever to get it printed out correctly. I had to leave to get my hair done and had to show Michael how to do it. I ended up getting to my aunt's to do my hair later than I should have and she gave me grief about it all day.

I didn't end up getting home until 6 or 7 o'clock. Mike's aunt Deb was the only one there. Mike had gone with his friends/groomsmen to pick up the tuxes and have their "bachelor party" (they just went to get something to eat and hang out.) I couldn't get to cutting the programs because I had to pack and deal with some packages that had arrived (I think the menus arrived that day and a nightgown I'd bought for the honeymoon night.) I had a checklist I used to pack so I kind of did it on autopilot. I vividly remember doing it while watching this new episode of Scandal where one of the characters was getting married to this prostitute he had been sleeping with.

By the time I was done Mike and his friends were back. We chatted for awhile. They were going to find a hotel to stay at but we said they should stay with us. So we took some time to get them settled. Mike conked out right away. I stayed up to start cutting the programs. The first couple came out really uneven, but I got better after a little while. I did that while watching Four Weddings and a Funeral. I only got down with less than half of them before I went to sleep.

The next morning I was the last one up. I had to get to work on cutting more of the programs while also helping to pack up the cars with everything for the wedding. Mike wanted to pick up some more nuts for the wedding favors and get my aunts a give for hosting the rehearsal dinner. I was going to let him go by himself, but he said he wasn't sure what to get them so I had to go, too.

When we got back, it suddenly occurred to me that there was this schedule organizer in my wedding planner where you took a sheet a paper in it and you could make copies to give to all the attendants and everyone else necessary, that would show everything that needed to be done on the wedding day and by whom. So I had to rush and make copies of that.

Even though we probably could have done it, I asked Jean if she could stop by the flower shop and pay for our bouquets. I just wanted to get to the hotel as soon as possible. On the way there my mom kept calling and saying that she was going to be late because they were getting ready at my aunt's house for the rehearsal dinner and no one could give her a ride. My sister had to end up doing it, so they were both late to the wedding rehearsal.

A sign that things may actually work out was that I also got a call that the girl who was filling in for my niece as a bridesmaid had received her dress just that morning. I had been really panicking that she wouldn't get it. Because her mother had to work on the dress, they weren't going to make it to the rehearsal.

When we got to the hotel, it was raining a little and we saw that there was a wedding that was finishing up at the hotel. We talked to the wedding coordinator from the hotel. She seemed harried, but didn't seem sick (that will come into play later.) Since everyone wasn't there we decided to hold off on the rehearsal.

I decided to take the time to give everyone the schedules I had printed out that morning. I also started trying to work on the programs. Jean saw me cutting it and she asked me why I didn't tell her about it because she had a paper cutter. I had no idea she had something like that. This is where talking to people would have come in handy. She said she could do the rest of them after the rehearsal dinner.

Other really helpful people were Mike's friends Sean, Tom, and Mike (or little Mike as they called him.) They kept asking if there was anything I needed done and volunteered to help in any way they could, which was awesome. They found that the schedule thing I had given them all was a little confusing so they got everyone highlighters so they could figure out what specifically applied to them and what didn't. They said they would help with the place cards for the tables and putting together the wedding favors.

I think we ended up waiting for over an hour/hour and a half for everyone to get there. Little Kaiden and Emma were introduced, which was so cute. They had a little time to play together. I saw my old friend Sarah for the first time in years, which was a little awkward. I didn't know it, but she must have still kept in touch with my sister because they were super chummy instantly and she seemed to know Kaiden pretty well.

Because it was raining we had to do most of the rehearsal indoors, which didn't really help with figuring out how best to naturally do the receiving line. Emma and Kaiden had a little trouble with their instructions, but did mostly okay.

We got done and finally got to go up to our room. The room was pretty basic, but pleasant enough. We hurriedly changed. Jean complained that because the rehearsal went so late that she would be late to the dinner because she had to go over to the RV site where she, Amber, her kids, and Greg would be staying in their camper. I told her she could just go in what she was wearing, but she insisted.

As soon as we got there, everyone said that I had messed up the address to my aunt's house that was on the rehearsal dinner invite. I apparently was off by one number. I was sure I had written it down correctly since Mike and I had used that address the year previously to go over to her house for Thanksgiving. Thankfully, the one number didn't affect things too badly since everyone made it.

It was still raining so everyone had to be huddled inside. My mother and aunts outdid themselves with the food. There was a huge variety of food there. Other than being told about my mistake with the invites, the first thing that happened was that Mike and I got lei'd. The lei they made even matched my dress.

My mother dragged me upstairs to meet my bridesmaid Christina and see how she looked in the bridesmaid dress. It was a little awkward, made even moreso by the fact that the thigh highs Jean had bought me were not staying in place and I kept dropping down to my ankles and I kept having to pull them up (eventually I had to just take them off completely.)

I kept running around trying to give everyone their gifts. I ended spending a lot of time trying to find the earrings I was supposed to give to Cristina so she could wear with her dress at the wedding. At the same time my aunt was trying to corral everyone for pictures. I didn't end up finding the earrings until the next day.

The food was great. We took a lot of nice pictures. Everyone started to trickle out after a couple of hours. I wasn't sure what to do. My sister had said she might put something together for me, a little shower, after the rehearsal dinner, but she hadn't said anything to me about it. Mike said that he and the guys needed my help with the favors and table place cards, so eventually I ended up leaving.

I think I posted last year the Sunday before the wedding I got completely overwhelmed in a store and started crying while I was trying to pick out stuff for the wedding favors. I got these nice looking purple boxes. I'd never really looked at them that in depth. When we went to start on putting the boxes together we realized we not only had to put the body of the box together, but there was also a lid we had to assemble to. We all had an easy enough time putting the box together, but had difficulty with the tops.

We ended up running out of nuts, so Tom and Little Mike went to get some more, while we filled out the place cards for the tables. By the time we got done with everything I think it was close to 1 AM.

Mike went to sleep soon after, but I stayed up a little later because I still had to work on my vows. I'd basically done like an outline for my vows, but hadn't put the whole thing together. I stayed up for a half an hour working on that before finally going to bed, looking at Mike one last time before I would see him the next day at the altar.

Like I said, I still haven't gotten the pictures from the rehearsal dinner from my aunt. The only pic I have was one Mike took on his phone.

Stacey

Hello in there? echo

geekslave — Sat, 26 Mar 2016 04:20:21 GMT

WOW! I can't believe it's been a whole year and I'm not just talking about since my wedding - since my last real post as well. I've posted a couple of stories, but other than that nothing.

I chalk it up to some business, laziness, and my usual practice of procrastination, procrastination, procrastination. After the wedding we were all so tired. I had wanted to do a recap of some kind, but just decided to wait to do it. I didn't visit LJ or twitter or keep up with my mail. After a couple of months I had about 400 e-mails I needed to reply to. I finally started visiting Twitter again and LJ again.

Once I finally came back, I wanted to get to doing the wedding recap, but I tend to get very word-y (see this post for example LOL) and I knew talking about the wedding would take forever so I just kept putting it off. At one point, to try and motivate myself I made the decision that I wouldn't post anything until I posted about the wedding. That...clearly didn't work. I had to break my rule and post my resolutions after the new year, but I just got too busy and didn't get around to it.

What's funny, to me anyway, about not posting for so long is I used to not post for a long time with no problem. When I first started on LJ I was really just a lurker. I didn't have a lot of friends or a lot going on in my life. But now that I do have a lot of friends and do have a lot of stuff going on in my life, I don't post in forever.

Though not posting on LJ isn't the only thing I'm behind on. I've never gotten the dress that I wore to the rehearsal dinner dry cleaned. I haven't cleaned my wedding dress. They had this wedding dress preservation kit thing at David's Bridal, which I wasn't sure if I wanted to do, but I need to do something. I haven't gotten the pictures my aunt took at the wedding rehearsal. I still haven't got our wedding album. We got all the pics from the wedding (over 800) on discs, but the album hasn't been put together. It's been horrible trying to communicate with the wedding photographer. It takes him forever to answer e-mails.

So, anyway, I've decided to do a wedding recap - for anyone who still cares - and post some pictures over the weekend. This will also be a kind of nice way to relive the wedding before our anniversary.

Things between Michael and I are going alright. When it comes to our feelings for each other we're still just as in love as ever. I've never been in a relationship before, so I have no real frame of reference, but it still surprises me how after six years together we're still so crazy about each other. He still texts me that he misses me on occasion. We're still ridiculously affectionate in public (which is never something I thought I would be.) We don't make out in public or anything. But he puts his arms around me and we hug. So, yeah, still in love. :)

It's just kind of everything else that's less than ideal. Our financial situation still isn't great. Michael still absolutely hates his job, but doesn't know what else he can do. I'm not working currently and it seems the only job I can get is in retail, which is better than nothing, but doesn't feel like it'll really help us save enough for a car and a house etc.

We got a lot of money back for our taxes, but ended up not able to keep it. I got a letter that they took all of it for my student loan. That was actually something Mike was a bit worried about before we got married that my debts would become his. In the letter it did indicate that since we filed jointly that Mike could fill out a form and get some, if not all, of the money back since it wasn't his debt, plus most of the money was from his income. But Mike surprised me by saying he was okay with it because he had wanted to use the money for my loan. The only downside was that Mike that the money would cover all of my debt and it only covered close to half of it. I still owe over 4k plus interest.

Mike really wanted to be done with the loan so we could start saving for a car, since our car feels like it's on its last legs. Plus, we want to move.

We've wanted to move for awhile. At first, it was because of Mike's maternal grandmother who I absolutely detest and he isn't fond of either. She was constantly picking fights with me. Luckily, she moved out a few months ago. But Mike is sure that she'll end up coming back again. Plus, Greg is starting to annoy him and his mother is starting to annoy me.

Mike's started school again and Greg doesn't seem to get that school is going to take precedence for him. He works 10-12 five days a week and the rest of that time he needs to study, but Greg keeps telling him to blow it off and tries to give him chores to do, just so Greg doesn't have to do anything when he gets home. Mike doesn't know how to tell him no because Greg will then start complaining about Mike not doing anything around the house and start arguing with Jean.

I don't fight with Jean at all, but our personalities are so different that it gets annoying for me. In a way my relationship with her is the same as with my mother. I have a feeling we'd get a long a lot better if we weren't living together.

One big kind of bone of contention between us is our politics are very, very different. I've never really been too into politics, but with all the shootings and horrific stuff going on in the world, I've been more into wanting to fight for more gun control which is something Jean and Greg are opposed to. They're one of those - I want to refrain from using the word "idiot" - "people" who actually think the solution is more guns. They sleep with a freaking gun under their pillow!

I honestly don't know when the gun under the pillow stuff started. I discovered it a couple of months ago when I was playing with the dogs in their room. I knew that they had a gun, but I thought it was locked away. I've played with the dogs in their room before and never saw it, but one day it was barely even hidden. That hasn't made me feel safe, but kind of freaked out.

Another horrific thing is that they're Trump supporters. When Trump first announced that he was going to run I mostly treated it as the joke it was - and should have remained. One day we were eating at a Chinese restaurant and Jean said she would vote for him. I almost choked. I tried to chalk it up to the novelty of the situation. Plus, I didn't ever think it would get that far.

I haven't really asked or talked to them about it. But tonight we were eating with the news on and there was this story about how horribly Trump is doing with women voters. Jean actually said that she has never really heard Trump say anything bad about women and said she was a woman and would vote for him because he would be "guaranteed" to turn the economy around. I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath when she said that, which I think she saw. It was a little awkward after that even though I didn't say anything other than that there was no way Trump would be the person to turn the country around - at least not in a good way.

So, suffice it to say, we both want to move out for various reasons but our financial situation needs to improve. We've talked for a long time about us potentially moving to Maryland. Mike has very conflicting feelings on it. A big hang-up for him is the weather. We were talking a couple weeks ago about something and he mentioned how much he hates the heat and humidity. I joked that moving to Florida was a bad idea. I've always known that he's liked the cold more. At least I thought he did. This weekend he was talking about how much he wants to visit Ocean City in Maryland. I brought up moving to Maryland. He said that he wasn't sure if he could stand the cold. he hates the cold. I told him how contradictory his attitudes toward cold and the heat were and asked him to pick which was worse. He couldn't pick. He said he wants somewhere in between. I laughed and called him Goldilocks.

Cold weather aside I think he'd probably be happier in Maryland. His brother-in-law said that Mike could probably get a job at his hotel. And his dad works at an auto place and also said Mike could probably get work. Mike said he misses working with his dad and would like to do that again. But it's still up in the air.

Another financial hiccup is a hospital bill we owe. One of the things I was thinking about posting about last year was that I went to the emergency room in May. I was having a few chest pains and I was feeling sharp pains in my right arm. Jean didn't think it was a big deal because it was in my right arm and not my left. She suggested I just take an advil. Usually I try to avoid making a big deal if I feel a little pain, but I was freaked enough about this to tell Mike. He was of the mindset 'better safe than sorry.' So we went. They ran a bunch of tests. They said they couldn't really figure out what was wrong, but that it didn't seem to be anything serious. They gave me a prescription for these anti-inflammatory meds and that was it.

I got a couple of bills, but they weren't too high and my insurance covered it. Then a couple of months later I got a bill for over 2K! While I am glad that nothing was wrong with me, I was so pissed that we went there for nothing and now owe two thousand dollars when all they did was a run a few tests! That's another reason I'm more into politics this year. The price of medicine in this country is ridiculous!

Like I sad Mike has started school again. He put it off last year to wait until after the wedding. Then we tried to register him in the Fall, but when we went to fill out his financial aid, we realized we didn't have our tax returns and when we called the woman's office where we did our taxes, she said she wouldn't be in her office until January. So we had to put it off again.

We registered in January, but just before school was about to start. He's never had trouble getting financial aid the other times he's applied. I was a little worried how us being married would affect how much he would get. After he filled out the FAFSA it indicated that he would get over 800 dollars. But since we filled it out pretty late, he wasn't going to get into until after classes started. We also ended up getting another form in the mail to fill out to confirm what we'd provided in the FAFSA, which we'd never gotten before.

When Mike went to sign up for classes he needed to pay $800. I suggested that he pay out of pocket and then he'd just get reimbursed when the financial aid came through. Unfortunately, we got a letter that he wasn't eligible for any funds after all. I didn't really understand. I didn't really make a lot last year, so the fact that we're married shouldn't have affected the amount he was going to get so drastically, but apparently it did. So that kind of sucked. At the time I thought it was going to be okay because we would get the money back with the taxes, but that didn't end up happening. So it's kind of even more pressure to pass so he doesn't end up wasting the money he had to spend.

It's been a little weirder this semester for him. The other classes he took were on-line. We always knew one of his first math class was going to be an on campus class. He decided to get it out of the way so he could get started on his maths. I always assumed that the reason they wanted the class taught in person was they felt it required hands on teaching, but that's really not the case. The class is basically an on-line class.

He's got basically this textbook that's mostly like a workbook with a few instructions and problems to solve. He works the problems while watching these videos for each section. It's a video he can find on YouTube that isn't even taught by the professor that's "teaching" the class. When he shows up to class everyone works at their own pace watching the videos and working with the book and also completing homework assignments and quizzes that are on-line. About the only thing the teacher does is go around and help people if they have questions.

I told Michael that this must be the easiest teaching job in the world. At first Michael argued that it was necessary to show up to class because the teacher is there to help people with their problems, but he hasn't really helped Michael that much. He says that whenever he asks him a question about something the teacher will work out the problem on a piece of paper and move on. He doesn't go through it with Michael to really make sure that he gets it and knows how to do it on his own.

I won't say that the teacher has been completely useless. There was one section where most of the people in class weren't getting it, so he taught the lesson in class. Plus, two of Michael's tests he wouldn't have even passed if the teacher hadn't helped and given Mike hints on what to fix. But, still, it feel completely pointless that he has to take time to drive all the way out to campus for something that is basically an on-line only thing.

Michael and I from the very beginning of our relationship have joked that we're the very opposite when it comes to the subjects we like. I like English and writing, but hate math and science. For Mike it's vice versa. In fact the other day he told me that he actually hates the feel of a pen/pencil in his hand and writing on paper is like fingers nail on a chalkboard for him (which explains his shitty note taking.) I told Mike that I probably wouldn't be much help to him other than for the first few easier sections. Weirdly enough, I've done a lot better than I thought with being able to help him. I'm not watching the videos he does, but if I look at his book and see the explanation for how to do the problem I'm able to get it better than he's been able to, which never was the case when I was in school. I'd do well when I was in class, but as soon as I was on my own my brain would collapse.

I think helping Michael has shown me I probably don't have what it takes to be a teacher. When I was in school and majored in English people always would ask me if I wanted to be a teacher and I would automatically say 'no.' It had never occurred to me. But after enough people said it, I put it in the back of my mind. I don't think I have the temperament for it. I love Michael dearly but when I'm trying to show him something and he's just not getting it I keep think "Why aren't you getting this?!" I don't yell that at him or anything, but I think it's clear in my demeanor that I'm frustrated he's not picking something up that I think should be not that hard to get.

Though Michael and the way he's been approaching the class can be a little frustrating. I think there are somethings that he's just having difficulty with, but like I mentioned before he's not taking notes like he should. There are times he'll ask me for help and I ask him "Didn't they show that to you in the video or in the book?" and he'll say no and then I find an example in the book. With the videos I think the lady in them just isn't explaining some things in a way he gets. But the stuff with the book and him not taking proper notes is annoying.

Well, that got out of hand. To wrap this up, I have a job interview tomorrow. It's only for part-time work for a couple days a week, but better than nothing.

Mike and I still haven't decided what we want to do on our anniversary. There's not a lot to do around her so whenever we want to do something special we just end up going out to dinner. I want to do something more than that, but have no idea what.

I've joked with Mike that the thing I'm mostly looking forward to on the day is eating some of our wedding cake again. It was delicious and I didn't get enough on our wedding day. Hope it's still just as good.

Stacey

Fic: A Not So Rude Awakening

geekslave — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 05:27:36 GMT

Title: A Not So Rude Awakening
Author/Artist: geekslave
Pairing(s): Arthur/Merlin
Characters: Merlin, Arthur
Word Count: ~3500
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The fact that Arthur was narcoleptic didn't bother Merlin. However, the fact that he could be such an arrogant, condescending, stubborn arse did. Despite those negative qualities Merlin had a massive crush on him. But Merlin had been hired to be Arthur's companion and a relationship couldn't happen. Then again, he could be wrong.
Disclaimer: Merlin characters are the property of Shine and BBC. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: Talk of narcolepsy and how that affects Arthur mentally and physically
Notes: Expanded version of story originally written for the 2013 summerpornathon's week four challenge - banging bedframes and slumbering sluts. For merlin_writers Tropes Bingo. Tropes used - illness/injury, flatmates, coffeeshop.

Big thanks to inspired_being for her quick and thorough beta work on this.

On AO3

Arthur’s head jolts up as he wakes with a loud, and unseemly, snort. He blinks several times and his hand slowly presses against his temple. It takes a few moments for his eyes to focus.

Merlin temporarily pulls himself away from his book. The reveal of Tom Riddle’s true identity will have to wait. Even though it is his favorite part, he’s read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets half a dozen times.

Putting his book aside, Merlin gets up from the small table at the back of The Dragon’s Lair and makes his way to the counter. By now he is aware of what Arthur needs after he wakes up from one of his short naps. They’ve developed a bit of a routine.

He’s grateful the coffee shop is not busy today, though they rarely are (Merlin often wonders if the title puts people off.) But it’s one of the reasons he enjoys being there so much, it’s a nice place to have a quiet read and no one to look twice at Arthur and his sometimes odd behavior.

Arthur claims to hate the “hovel for the hygienically challenged” as he so delicately describes the coffee shop, but Merlin knows it’s mostly an act. He adores their Caramel Frappuccino judging by the look of glee in his eyes whenever Merlin sets one down in front of him.

Merlin quickly returns to their table and Arthur doesn't say anything when Merlin puts down the tall cup in front of him. After taking a small sip, he gingerly puts it down a little too hard and some of the brown liquid sloshes onto his hand. "Too much sugar," he complains as he wipes at his hand with a napkin.

Merlin takes the cup and drinks from it. Arthur scrunches his nose at the action. "It tastes the same as usual."

"Even if that were the case, I'm not going to drink it now that you've got your germs in it." He finally finishes wiping his hands and glares at Merlin. "Get me another one."

Merlin bristles. He knows he's going to do it anyway, but he hates the haughty tone Arthur takes with him. For some reason Arthur has been increasingly petulant that day and Merlin is tiring of it. "Your father hired me to be your companion, Arthur. I'm not your errand boy."

Arthur chuckles derisively. "Do you really think my father sees any distinction?"

Merlin knows Arthur is right. He doesn't answer, picking at an imaginary spot on the table instead.

Rolling his eyes, Arthur slams his hand on the table. "Fine! If you're going to be a lazy arse and not do your job properly, I'll do it."

Merlin sighs as Arthur stands up. "Arthur, wait!"

But Arthur isn't listening. He's halfway to the front when he suddenly stops.

There's something wrong. Merlin can see that as soon as he begins to sway. His knees buckle and Merlin makes it just in time to catch him before he hits the ground.

A tall, blonde curly haired man sitting at a table nearby raises to help, but Merlin gestures for him to stop.

“Thank you so much, but I can handle it. Thanks.” Merlin tries to be as kind as possible. He is grateful, but he knows Arthur hates it when people see him like this.

Merlin drags him over to the nearest empty table. Arthur’s mouth is slack as he tries to speak, but can’t. Merlin rushes to the front counter. The least he can do is what Arthur asked of him. If he had done it in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. “Caramel Frappuccino to go, please. And can you please hurry?”

This isn’t the first time it has happened, but it unnerves Merlin every time.

The young girl at the counter, who had been staring at Arthur, thankfully moves as quickly as possible. “Is he alright?” she asks as she hands the cup to Merlin.

He takes it with trembling hands and looks over his shoulder. Arthur looks to be regaining consciousness as he blinks slowly and gazes at his surroundings. Merlin looks back to the barista. “Yes, I think he’s alright now. He just has a condition.”

He hurriedly offers her a few notes and she hands Merlin his change with a receipt. “What kind of condition?”

He probably shouldn’t tell her anything, but he hopes it’ll make her understand just in case this ever, which it probably will, happens again. He sighs. “He’s narcoleptic.”

~*~

As soon as they get home, Arthur takes a seat on the couch in the den. He discards the empty Dragon Lair’s cup on the coffee table. Merlin picks it up and throws it in the bin.

When he returns, Arthur’s head is resting against the back of the couch. Merlin assumes he’s sleeping. He starts to head back to the kitchen to make some tea when Arthur’s voice startles him.

“Thank you.”

Merlin freezes. He slowly looks around the room; certain Arthur can’t be talking to him. When he’s sure he’s the only one there, Merlin turns and faces Arthur. ‘You’re...welcome?”

“Don’t act so surprised.” Arthur rolls his eyes. “I’m perfectly capable of feeling gratitude.”

“Feeling gratitude and expressing gratitude are two very different things, Arthur,” Merlin says delicately.

“Thank you for the etiquette and English lesson, Merlin. I can’t tell you how much joy it gives me to be talked down to by someone who earns their living as a professional baby-sitter.” Arthur sat up.

Merlin lets out a long breath and turns around. He knows where this is probably going and he really doesn’t want to get into an argument. Or more accurately, be yelled at by Arthur while he has to stand there and take it.

Merlin supposes this is partially his fault. He should have just accepted Arthur’s thanks without comment.

He takes another couple of steps, but is once again halted before he can cross the threshold to the kitchen.

“Stop…please. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bit your head off like that,” Arthur says sincerely.

A thank you and an apology. Merlin doesn’t know what has brought this on, but he chooses wisely not to utter any statements that might wreck this fragile moment of peace between them. He turns around and nods at Arthur. “Thank you. I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have corrected you before.”

“You’re right, you shouldn’t have.” Arthur stares at him for a moment, before averting his eyes. “But I accept your apology. It takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong. You’re lucky, Merlin, that you work for someone like me who is so generous, patient, and forgiving.”

Merlin valiantly holds back a snort.

The corner of Arthur’s mouth turns up briefly. “And I thank you for holding back your laughter, but you should probably let it out. You look like you might break a rib holding it in.”

Merlin’s sputtering laughter is accompanied by a loud snort as he closes his eyes and shakes his head.

When Merlin opens his eyes, he’s taken aback to see Arthur laughing too. A small smile lights up Arthur’s usually stoic face and makes Merlin’s smile widen considerably.

The levity doesn’t last as the smile slowly disappears from Arthur’s face and he looks down at his feet.

“For the first time, I’m grateful for you taking me to that hovel and not too many people saw my weird spectacle. It is very...embarrassing.” Arthur sighs.

Taking a few steps towards Arthur, Merlin pauses in front of him. “I don’t think anyone really noticed anything.”

Arthur frowns and he quirks an eyebrow. It’s clear he doesn’t really believe Merlin, but he smiles faintly. “Thank you for that fairly inept lie.”

He runs his palms slowly against his thighs. He’s starting to fidget and Merlin finds it quite endearing how Arthur’s nerves show the rare times that he let his guard down.

Arthur clears his throat. “Are you going to make that tea or have you decided to completely neglect your duties for the day?”

With a slight roll of his eyes, Merlin shuffles off to go make the tea.

Rummaging around in their kitchen cabinets for clean cups - he really needs to do some housework today - he can hear Arthur muttering to himself.

“Merlin, are you ever going to clean up around here? There’s so much rubbish around. Perhaps you’re comfortable surrounded by your own filth, but I-”

Merlin doesn’t react to the abrupt unfinished statement. It came with the territory. He finishes making the tea and brings it out to the living room.

Arthur’s head is bent forward and it bobs up and down as he sleeps. Merlin grabs a fluffy red pillow and puts it behind Arthur, gently moving his head back. Arthur doesn’t wake up, just starts to snuffle softly.

For once Arthur wasn’t exaggerating. As Merlin looks around he can see the loft really is quite a sty. Merlin bends down and begins to tidy up. He may have complained to Arthur before, but he generally does perform the duties of a housekeeper/assistant.

Arthur’s father Uther had hired him to be a companion to Arthur, look after him and make sure he had someone there for him when incidents, like the one at the coffee shop, happened. Merlin likes to believe it’s because Uther really cares for his son, but Arthur has a more cynical view that Uther wants to limit the embarrassment Arthur’s condition causes.

Merlin can’t really argue as perhaps there is some truth to Arthur’s assertion since Uther had hired Merlin after a highly publicized incident where Arthur had fallen asleep at the wheel and causing a lot of damage to a building at Camelot University. Uther had clearly been livid and embarrassed.

Merlin spends a lot of time in the den studying and there are scraps of paper, various pens and books strewn about table with cups all over the place. He grabs a couple of them and he hears Arthur moan slightly as he’s walking out of the room. Probably another dream, Merlin thinks, and continues back to the kitchen.

Another moan - much louder than the one before - makes Merlin stop in his tracks. He hasn’t heard that sound before. The sound makes his guts churn with something he’d rather not put a name to right now. He turns back slowly and watches as Arthur begins to gradually writhe against the black leather couch. Merlin can hear Arthur’s breath becoming labored.

The proper and smart thing to do would be to keep walking, but Merlin’s brain isn’t functioning properly right now. He can’t help himself as he puts down the stained, empty cups and walks towards Arthur. He lowers himself down carefully next to Arthur on the couch.

For two months now, Merlin has done a very good job (even if he does say so himself) at hiding his true feelings for Arthur. Arthur may be condescending, arrogant, and stubborn but he is the most beautiful thing Merlin has ever seen and despite Arthur’s best efforts, living with him allows Merlin to see the small moments of vulnerability that come through every time Arthur wakes up disoriented.

For someone so proud and who needs to be in control all the time, having a condition like narcolepsy tears at Arthur’s soul and he slowly withdraws into himself as each day goes by. It is one of the reasons Merlin loves teasing Arthur; challenging him. There is a fire and spark to Arthur in those moments that isn’t there otherwise. It’s the real Arthur and Merlin craves his presence more and more each day.

Arthur’s hands begin to roam over his chest as he groans while practically humping the air. Merlin’s hands unclench and curl into fists again at his side as he aches to touch Arthur, but he knows it is desperately wrong and a boundary he can’t cross. He doesn’t want to take advantage of Arthur’s condition.

Arthur’s mouth falls open and he licks his lips. “Oh...Oh, Merlin...”

Merlin feels as if the wind has been knocked out of him. Did Arthur just...?

“Merlin, please...”

Yes, yes he did. “That’s me.” Merlin breathes aloud, his voice as shaky as his nerves. He almost facepalms at the lameness of his comment. “Why is he saying my name?” He whispers. Could it be possible that Arthur wants him just as badly? Merlin shakes his head. “It’s just a dream. So what if he’s dreaming about me. We spend a lot of time together. It was bound to happen.” He rationalizes.

As Arthur’s hands slowly trail further south, Merlin’s gaze follows their journey and he feels another gut punch when he sees the tent in Arthur’s jeans.

“Merlin, please don’t stop. I need you,” Arthur whimpers.

Merlin’s lust is subdued momentarily at Arthur’s words and the ache in his voice. He sounds so desperate and needy. In that moment, Merlin thinks he would give Arthur just about anything he asked for.

Arthur’s hand finally settles on the bulge in his jeans. “Merlin...” He squeezes.

Merlin finds himself reaching to touch him, but before he can make contact, Arthur’s eyes fly open. Merlin startles but has time to quickly withdraw his hand. He feels a heavy swell of embarrassment and Arthur hasn’t even looked at him yet. His face is so close and Merlin looks down, he realizes that he is practically sitting in Arthur’s lap. He doesn’t even remember moving forward, but he moves back as fast as possible.

“I just had the most intense, fascinating...” Arthur swivels around, his gaze landing on Merlin. “...dream.” He licks his lips slowly.

He’s still panting and Merlin quickly looks away. He knows his face must be an embarrassing shade of red.

Merlin looks back when Arthur gasps. Arthur’s eyes are directed towards his crotch.

“It was just a dream, Arthur. It’s okay. I’m just going to leave. I shouldn’t be here right now. I’m sorry.” He tries to get up, but Arthur’s hand on his arm stops him.

“I know why I have an erection Merlin but...why do you?” Arthur’s eyes widen as he stares at Merlin’s crotch.

Merlin peers down and gapes in shock. How had he not realized he was hard? No wonder he is so dizzy with all of his blood flowing to his nether regions.

This would be a great time for the Earth to open up and swallow him whole. He tries to leave again, but Arthur’s hand tightens around his forearm.

“I’m not imagining that, am I?”

Merlin is surprised at the hopeful tone in Arthur’s voice. “No,” Merlin says his voice almost inaudible. “I’m so sorry, Arthur. I don’t know what’s come over me. This is definitely not what your father hired me for. And I’m so-”

Arthur cuts him off by placing a finger over his mouth. “Merlin, if you say you’re sorry one more time...” He licks his lips and moves closer to Merlin. Merlin can feel his thigh press against his own and somehow he hardens further. “Do you want me, Merlin?”

Merlin knows he should lie but he doesn’t know how with Arthur staring at him with such naked want and need. He nods once.

“You should have said something before, you big idiot. I didn’t know I could have been shagging you this whole time.” He grins wickedly, eyeing Merlin with predatory lust.

Merlin starts to laugh, but is cut off by Arthur’s lips crashing against his. He gasps into Arthur’s mouth as Arthur pushes them to the floor.

The responsible side of Merlin wages a brief war with the side that is desperate to bury himself in Arthur so deeply he will still feel him for days afterwards. He pulls back and Arthur groans. “Arthur, maybe we should slow down? What if you fall asleep?”

Arthur grabs Merlin’s hand and places it firmly against his crotch. “I can assure you, I am very much awake, Merlin. I don’t think I’ve been this awake in a very long time. Now, if you don’t mind, will you please shut up and fuck me?”

Merlin looks into Arthur’s eyes and the returning gaze bears no more questions and Merlin is happy to oblige Arthur’s demand. He flips them over and begins kissing Arthur gently at first, but Arthur licks against Merlin’s mouth insistently, demanding entrance until Merlin parts his lips with a soft moan.

As Arthur takes control of the kiss, Merlin feels the grip on the back of his neck tighten as if he’s holding on for dear life. He experimentally rocks his hips against Arthur’s.

Arthur’s head falls back. “Fuck,” he pants, grinding back against Merlin.

Then everything is a blur, with clothes flying everywhere as they both desperately seek to eliminate the final barriers between them. Once they are completely naked, Arthur wastes no time in gripping Merlin’s cock. His hand moves jerkily and Merlin doubts Arthur has much experience with this, but it still feels like heaven. Soon Arthur begins to move more confidently and strokes a thumb over Merlin’s slit which is already oozing with precum. Merlin knows he’s not going to last much longer if Arthur continues with his strokes.

Merlin isn’t sure if Arthur senses this, but he stops and removes his hand. He places it gently against Merlin’s face. “Merlin, please...I need you.”

That is all Merlin needs to hear. He races to his bedroom to find the tube of lube and is back in seconds. He almost stumbles when he sees Arthur on his stomach, flat against the carpet. For a brief, horrifying moment he wonders if Arthur is asleep, then Arthur turns and gifts Merlin with a dazzling smile.

Merlin wastes no more time. He lubes up two fingers and gently prepares Arthur. Arthur is so tight; Merlin has to squeeze the base of his penis to keep from coming. He throws the lube haphazardly across the room and guides his cock into Arthur’s entrance, slowly breaching him.

Arthur gasps which makes Merlin pause, but when Arthur moves back to take more of Merlin in, he knows it’s safe to continue. He places a hand on the small of Arthur’s back to keep him from moving and slowly presses himself forward. Merlin takes his time until he is finally seated all the way inside Arthur, then he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

He leans forward, molding himself against Arthur’s back and slides out almost all the way before driving in with shallow thrusts.

Arthur is keening and clawing at the carpet, crying out “More,” with every one of Merlin’s thrusts.

Soon, Merlin can’t hold back any longer and spreads Arthur’s cheeks as he begins to drive in with hard and deep thrusts.

Arthur reaches back blindly and drags his hand through Merlin’s sweaty hair. He grips Merlin’s neck and brings him down for a sloppy kiss that match the sloppy erratic rhythm of Merlin’s hips.

Arthur pulls away and looks into Merlin’s eyes. “I don’t want you to stop.”

“Fuck, Arthur, I don’t want to stop. But I can’t...” Merlin pants. He can feel the pressure building and his balls tighten. “I’m gonna come!” Merlin’s groan is almost deafening as he unloads into Arthur’s arse.

Arthur presses his forehead against the carpet and sighs.

After a moment, Merlin pulls out. His come slowly trickles out of Arthur and he wants to lick every drop, but he wants to make Arthur feel as good as he does more so. He turns Arthur over and starts to stroke his throbbing cock.

Arthur’s chest heaves and he arches off the floor. It only takes two full strokes before he comes all over his chest. Merlin leans down and nibbles on Arthur’s lips as Arthur stares at him in a daze.

Merlin fetches a wet paper towel and cleans them both up. He tries to pick Arthur up off the floor but Arthur pulls him down instead. He wraps his arms around Merlin and Merlin rests his head against Arthur’s chest.

“Do you think I might possibly sleep all the way through the night?” Arthur asks as he trails his hand through Merlin’s hair.

Merlin frowns slightly. He wishes he could tell Arthur that everything would be okay, but he knew that would be wrong. He looks up at Arthur and gives him a crooked smile. “Probably not.”

Arthur nods. He doesn’t look like he’s been defeated. “That’s okay. I know that as long as I wake up and you’re by my side, I’m going to be okay.” He holds Merlin tighter.

Merlin grins and kisses Arthur’s chest. “I promise I’m not going anywhere.” Arthur doesn’t say anything. Merlin peers up and sees Arthur is asleep with a huge smile on his face.

Fic: Cinderella Wasn't a Clotpole

geekslave — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 04:56:19 GMT

Title: Cinderella Wasn't a Clotpole
Author/Artist: geekslave
Pairing(s): Arthur/Merlin
Characters: Merlin, Arthur, Gwaine
Word Count: ~9500
Rating: R
Summary: When Merlin wakes up in Arthur's bed wearing nothing but an apron, he has several questions. How'd he get there? Where did his clothes go? Why is he wearing an apron when he doesn't even cook? The most important question is what exactly happened between him and Arthur. Merlin just has to work up the courage to ask him.
Disclaimer: Merlin characters are the property of Shine and BBC. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: Dubious Consent issues.
Notes: Expanded version of story originally written for 2014 summerpornathon's week one challenge - Sexpistolary. For merlin_writers Tropes Bingo. Tropes used - secret crush, friends to lovers, and amnesia/memory loss.

Big thanks to bluemoondreamer for her quick and thorough beta job!

On AO3

”Please don’t make me beg, Arthur. I need you...I need you to fuck me.”

Merlin’s eyelids fluttered and it took a few minutes for him to fully open his eyes. He felt as if his eyelids were weighed down by sandbags. Once he had rubbed the grit from his lashes, he lifted his head slowly and immediately wished he hadn’t.

How much had he drunk the previous night? His vision was still blurry, his head was throbbing, and he was almost certain he could hear clanging, even though it was deathly quiet...wherever he was.

He dropped his head back down onto the pillow and instantly knew where he was. He would recognize Arthur’s distinct smell anywhere - the combination of his coconut-scented shampoo and sweet smelling citrus-y cologne. It was distinctively Arthur and Merlin usually couldn’t get enough of it.

But right now it was just confusing him. What was he doing in Arthur’s bed? He turned around and felt a slight breeze against his back and against his…bare arse?

Merlin shot up in bed and clutched his head, the clanging had stopped, but his head still throbbed. When he looked down, his eyes bulged and what he was wearing caused him even more confusion. He was wearing Arthur’s bright red apron.

He closed his eyes and a brief memory came back to him.

He was in Arthur’s kitchen. Arthur was holding Merlin around the waist. Merlin stumbled forward and grabbed Arthur’s apron and lazily slipped it over his head.

“I want ice cream,” Merlin slurred. “Sex makes me hungry. I want ice cream.”

As he opened his eyes, Merlin gulped. Could he and Arthur….Merlin shook his head. There was no way he and Arthur had sex. As huge as his crush was on Arthur that pretty much matched how non-sexual Arthur seemed to find him. Arthur’s favorite way of showing him affection was giving him a noogie.

They had been classmates four years prior and had become close friends, though that friendship for some reason had weakened for a couple of years now. It was another reason he was surprised to find himself in Arthur’s bedroom. They had barely spent much time together in the last month.

Merlin decided to get up. Maybe once he was up and had some coffee, the previous night’s events would become clear. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and his feet hit something smooth and a bit slippery. When he looked down, he saw a bunch of wrapped condoms littered the ground. Merlin covered his mouth in shock.

Okay, okay...so there are condoms on the ground. They’re wrapped, not used. There could be an innocent explanation.

Merlin quickly got up. He ignored his persistent headache and groped around the floor for his pants. He quickly put those on and flung open the closed door. He could hear the faint sound of opera music coming from downstairs in the direction of the kitchen.

His breath came out a bit erratic, and Merlin could feel his heart-rate speed up. Arthur was home. After taking in a few calming breaths, Merlin convinced himself this was a good thing. Who better to clarify this colossal misunderstanding?

Merlin gripped the wooden railing as he walked slowly downstairs. His hands glided down the cold banister and as he looked over at his hand, his steps faltered as another memory flash hit him.

He gripped the banister and started to chuckle. His vision swam and he saw two Arthurs before him as he climbed up right in Arthur’s face. Arthur quickly leaned forward and grabbed Merlin around his knees, hoisted him over his back, and carried him upstairs.

“Oh, God,” Merlin groaned.

For four years he’d pined for Arthur. He had so many fantasies about Arthur carrying him up the stairs and some involving Arthur fucking him senseless on those stairs. But he never wanted it to happen while he was completely arseholed.

Finally, Merlin walked into the kitchen. Arthur seemed to sense his presence and looked over his shoulder. It was like something out of a television commercial or a 90’s music video. Arthur was standing in front of the stove - shirtless. With the window right above the golden sunrays, beamed down on him, making his blonde hair shine even brighter. The smile he gave Merlin was so beatific, Merlin wanted to cry.

Arthur was fixing up a plate of eggs, beans, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, and tomatoes - the perfect fry-up. He put down the pan and turned around fully. “Are you alright? You still look a little pissed.”

Merlin didn’t want to just come out and ask if they’d had sex. He wanted to give Arthur a little more credit than that and he didn’t want to embarrass himself. The best way to deal with it was just to be tactful and ease into it.

“Did we shag last night or what?” Well, that didn’t come out as he intended.

Arthur froze for a second, then threw back his head and laughed. He picked up the plates and set them down on the table that separated him and Merlin. He walked around it and stepped right up to Merlin. He was so close Merlin could count every one of Arthur’s magnificent eyelashes, if he were so inclined.

“Is your little bottom sore, Merlin?” Arthur put his hand on his hips.

“No,” Merlin huffed in embarrassment.

“Then there you go,” Arthur said with more than a little of his customary condescension. “Nothing happened. If it did, you wouldn’t have been able to properly walk down those stairs, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, Arthur. I’m not an idiot.” Merlin rolled his eyes.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to say that, especially after last night.” Arthur chuckled.

Merlin closed his eyes and winced. Now he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what happened last night. “What did I do?”

“Oh, nothing, just drank your weight in tequila is all.” Arthur sat down at the table and leaned back in the chair.

Merlin groaned and his head landed with a dull thud against the wall. He groaned again and rubbed the sore spot. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, given the ill effects he was feeling, but to have Arthur confirm it just made Merlin feel embarrassed and stupid. “I know I must have been so pissed, but how did I end up here?”

Arthur motioned for Merlin to sit down at the table. When Merlin sank down heavily into the chair opposite him, Arthur began to explain. “After you went to that party with Gwaine - the one I told you was a tragically bad idea, by the way.”

“Yes, yes, you’re incredibly wise. Can you just…” Merlin swallowed down a bit of bile and had to move the plate of eggs away from him. He was sure it was lovely and appreciated Arthur’s effort, but the sight and smell made him a little nauseous. “Can you skip ahead please?”

Arthur narrowed his eyes briefly and steepled his hands under his chin. “Since you asked so nicely. Anyway, you went to the party. After Gwaine left you all alone, to presumably chase after every bird and bloke he could conceivably shag in a twelve hour period, you decided to drink your night away. Then you called me to pick you up.” He started to tuck into his breakfast.

This was so frustrating. It was odd, and a bit annoying, to have someone else need to explain his own actions to him. Merlin leaned his elbows against the table and put his head in his hands. “I don’t understand why I would have called you and not just found Gwaine.”

Arthur shrugged as he got up and got Merlin a glass of water. “It’s not as if you had enough brain cells to rub together last night to explain your thought process to me, Merlin.” He put the glass down in front of Merlin gently. “Though I know even if you had been able to find Gwaine last night, and by some miracle managed to convince him to put an end to his night of debauchery, he was in no position to take you home.”

That made sense. Merlin nodded gratefully at Arthur before he picked up the glass of water and chugged it.

Arthur sat back down and took a bite of sausage. “I decided to bring you here and let you sleep it off. Might I add going above and beyond by letting you sleep in my bed.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I hate sleeping on the ruddy couch down here. I’m sore and still completely knackered.”

Arthur stretched. He leaned his hand against the edge of the table and leaned back, extending his long, shirtless upper torso.

As Merlin gazed at Arthur’s taut, sinewy chest - his stare traveled down to Arthur’s six-pack, and the light dusting of hair that led down to his...Merlin swallowed thickly and briefly rubbed the sweat and lust out of his eyes. Arthur’s near nakedness suddenly reminded Merlin of his own.

“Arthur, if nothing happened then why did I wake up-”

“In my apron?” Arthur interrupted, before he smirked. “Because you’re even dafter drunk than you are normally. I put you in my bed to sleep. Twenty minutes later, you came downstairs saying you were now ‘dressed to impress.’”

“And I was…?

“Naked as the day you were born?” Arthur nodded once. “Yes.” Arthur finished his eggs. “After a bit of a struggle, I carried you back upstairs and put you back to bed.”

Merlin rested his chin over his folded hands. See, of course there was a more rational explanation.

“You really don’t remember anything?” Arthur watched him as Merlin finally pulled his breakfast toward him.

“Bits and pieces.” Merlin sighed. “But most of it seems to be gone. I didn’t think things like that actually happened.”

Arthur stared at him for a few more seconds. He opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it. He looked over his shoulder toward the window. “I’m not exactly proud of this, but I have experience with drunken nights like what you’re going through.” He looked back at Merlin and grinned. “Sometimes the memories come back and sometimes they don’t. Best not to force it.”

Merlin nodded slowly. He supposed Arthur was right. Merlin picked up a fork and was about to have some eggs, when he put the fork down suddenly. “Condoms. What about the condoms?”

“Oh, those…” Arthur glanced down and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Yes.” Merlin waved the fork at Arthur. “And I do remember saying something about wanting ice cream after sex.”

“Bollocks,” Arthur whispered. “I wish you hadn’t remembered that part.”

Merlin dropped the fork. “Why?” His voice hitched slightly in panic.

“It’s kind of embarrassing...for you.” Arthur clarified that last point as he nodded his head towards Merlin.

“Oh, no,” Merlin moaned.

“You made some advances towards me. Not that I can really blame you, because well…” He gestured to his chest, smugly.

Merlin glared at him.

“You were very eager to have sex, and then have ice cream afterward.” Arthur wrinkled his brow. “You were really adamant about that part for some reason. You had some very detailed ideas of what you wanted to do with that ice cream in the bedroom. I was kind of impressed.” When Merlin groaned pitifully, Arthur hurriedly moved on. “I said no, and it took some convincing, but I finally got you to go to sleep.”

Merlin shook his head. Just when he thought things couldn’t get more embarrassing.

“I have a few pictures of you when you came downstairs, if you want to see.”

“Pictures?” Merlin’s mouth dropped open.

“Yes,” Arthur said brightly. But his developing smirk dropped when he looked at Merlin’s appalled face. “I took some pictures with my phone. I’m sorry; it seemed funny at the time.” He cleared his throat and looked down at the table. “But I can see now, in hindsight, why it’s not.”

Merlin put his head on the table and put his arms over his head. “Bloody hell!” He cursed, though his voice came out muffled. After a minute, he poked his head up and closed his hands around the back of his neck. “I’m a cautionary tale.” He pointed at his face. “This is what happens when you get smashed - the acute feeling that someone has put your head in a vise and is squeezing it slowly and as a side bonus, abject embarrassment.”

Arthur bit his lip to keep from laughing.

Merlin buried his face in his hands, but then quickly looked up. “This is a lesson to myself, really. Tequila, make that any alcohol, is the devil’s ale and I will not drink a drop of it again.”

This time Arthur did laugh outright. “I doubt that. I think the lesson is to drink in moderation.” Arthur got up and started to make some tea. He looked at Merlin over his shoulder. “Also not to go on the piss with a drunkard like Gwaine.”

Merlin chuckled. Gwaine was great fun and a great friend, but not exactly the greatest influence. “Gwaine makes drinking look so easy. I guarantee you he’s not waking up confused, naked, and alone.” Merlin finally started to eat.

“No, probably just confused, naked, and covered in various bodily fluids,” Arthur said with scorn.

Merlin almost choked on his sausage. “Why don’t you like Gwaine?” He asked after he’d swallowed.

Merlin and Gwaine had become fast friends after they’d met a few months back, at of all places, a bookstore. Gwaine had just popped in because a guy he’d fancied had walked in, but he immediately abandoned that pursuit when he ran into Merlin.

Gwaine had flirted shamelessly with Merlin, something he still did even though he knew it wouldn’t lead to anything, but he had quickly surmised that Merlin was in love with someone else. When he found out it was Arthur, Gwaine seemed to make it his mission to make Merlin confess his feelings and end his prolonged lovesick agony.

Arthur had instantly seemed wary of Gwaine. The way he constantly draped himself all over Merlin and mocked Arthur’s posh upbringing seemed to particularly annoy Arthur. Merlin would never forgot how Arthur uncharacteristically lost his composure when Merlin told him he had invited Gwaine to crash at his flat with an open-ended invitation. Arthur had given him an earful about Gwaine being a con artist and bad influence.

“I don’t dislike Gwaine.” Arthur turned around and idly played with a dishtowel next to the sink. “The way he lives his life, leaves something to be desired, but I have nothing personal against him.”

That seemed more or less true, so Merlin dropped it. Arthur and Gwaine were very similar and just seemed to like pushing each other’s buttons. Besides, Merlin had more pressing issues to think about. There was still something nagging at Merlin about last night, but he supposed that was a normal reaction.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Arthur looking at him with a fond expression. It felt like something was coming back to him, but after a few moments of no new memories he gave up. When Merlin looked up at Arthur, he turned away.

After Merlin was done with breakfast, he got up and took his plate to the sink. He turned to Arthur. “And you’re sure nothing at all happened?”

“Of course nothing happened.” There was a slight edge to Arthur’s voice. “I’m a little insulted you think I would take advantage of you like that.”

Now Merlin felt guilty. He didn’t mean to put Arthur on the spot or make any accusations. Merlin reached out and squeezed Arthur’s shoulder. “No, you’re right. Of course, I should know better. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Arthur sighed. He looked at the kettle on the stove. “Do you want some tea?”

Merlin thought about it for a moment. Finally, he shook his head. “No, but thank you. I should probably get home. I’m just going to get the rest of my stuff upstairs.”

Merlin wondered if he imagined the look of disappointment on Arthur’s face. Whatever the look was it left as fast as it came. Arthur turned around and poured himself some tea. “Alright. I’ll finish my breakfast and then I’ll drive you home.”

“Alright, thanks.” Merlin stopped at the door of the kitchen. He swiveled around and wrung his hands. “Uh, Arthur, about last night and my trying to…”

“It’s alright, Merlin.” Arthur waved off Merlin’s stilted apology. “I know you were drunk. It really didn’t mean anything,” he said with ease. He didn’t bother to look back at Merlin.

“Right,” Merlin whispered. It was good. Everything should be fine between them now. Of course it didn’t mean anything. And if he told himself that enough times, he was sure it would truly sink in. He cleared his throat. “Well, thank you again for last night. Everything you did,” Merlin laughed slightly, “and didn’t do.”

Arthur didn’t say anything, but smiled tightly back at him.

Merlin had only stepped one foot out of the kitchen before Arthur called him back.

“You should probably do something about that bird’s nest atop your head.” Arthur gestured to Merlin’s hair.

Merlin grimaced as he ran a hand through his unruly mop of black hair. He ran upstairs without another word.

When Merlin got back to Arthur’s bedroom, he found his shirt and started to put it on. His gaze landed on the mess of condoms on the floor. He decided to show Arthur his appreciation and decided to try to tidy up a little.

He bent down and scooped up more than a handful of the condoms. As he looked down at the wrappers in his hands, he found himself mesmerized by them. He couldn’t stop staring. Suddenly, his eyes snapped shut as he was hit with the return of another memory.

Arthur carried Merlin back into his room. Merlin was surprised by the ease with which Arthur carried him. Somehow, Arthur laid him down on the bed gently.

Merlin wasn’t so gentle when he dragged Arthur down by his collar and pressed their bodies together. One arm flailed out to the side as he tried to grasp the handle of the bedside table.

Arthur looked over curiously as Merlin got the drawer open after a few fumbled attempts. “What are you doing?” He said as he faced Merlin again with a curious look.

“Looking for your…” The tip of Merlin’s tongue stuck out as Merlin groped around in Arthur’s drawer. “Yes!” He pulled out a box of condoms. “I think we’ll be needing these.”

“How did you know I had those there?”

“That’s where most people keep those sorts of things, isn’t it?” Merlin examined the content of the box with an almost demented glee. “That and Gwaine likes to snoop in other people’s houses.”

“I should have known,” Arthur muttered. He started to squirm out of Merlin’s grasp.

Merlin was not about to let Arthur get away so easily. With a grace neither he nor Arthur thought he was capable of - especially in his current inebriated state - Merlin flipped Arthur over. They were perilously close to falling off the edge of the bed. “Come on, Arthur. It’s time to have a little fun. I’m starving.”

Instead of pulling out one condom, Merlin upended the whole box and its contents came spilling out onto Arthur’s chest, though most of the purple wrappers landed on the floor.

“If you still want ice cream, I can take you back to the kitchen-”

Merlin leaned forward and ground his growing erection against Arthur’s crotch. “It’s not that kind of hunger, Arthur.”

They were nose to nose and Arthur bit his lip before pushing Merlin back so they weren’t quite so close. “Merlin, you’re hammered. You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t want me.”

Merlin’s manic grin faded. His unfocused gaze cleared. For the first time in a long time, Merlin seemed completely lucid. “But I do, Arthur. I really do.” He stroked a hand down Arthur’s cheek. “Please don’t make me beg, Arthur. I need you...I need you to fuck me.”

Arthur blinked up at him. Suddenly, Merlin found himself on his back.

Arthur clutched Merlin’s shoulders, kneading them. The lust in Arthur’s eyes wasn’t what surprised Merlin the most. Arthur looked at him with such warmth and genuine vulnerability that Merlin began to shake. But Arthur still hesitated and seemed uncertain.

“Merlin…”

Merlin closed the distance between them and pressed a hard kiss to Arthur’s lips. He pulled back only a fraction to see that Arthur’s eyes were closed. He then moved back in with a gentler touch. His lips parted when Arthur’s did and he deepened the kiss.

Arthur let out a soft moan and soon carded his fingers through Merlin’s hair.

Merlin pulled back slowly and tugged at Arthur’s bottom lip gently with his teeth.

Merlin watched Arthur as Arthur’s eyes remained closed; when he finally opened them, Merlin tried to reflect all the hope and love in his heart through his blue gaze. “Please…”

“Alright.” Arthur nodded his head shakily. He leaned down and kissed Merlin softly as he reached back and pulled his shirt off.

Merlin gasped as he fell back on the floor with a hard thump. He opened his eyes slowly. It actually happened. He really did sleep with Arthur.

His first reaction surprised him - he laughed. At first it was just relief. He was happy to have his own memories back and not have to piece things together from flashes and from someone else’s re-telling. He wished he remembered the actual act. He was sure it was incredible.

When he thought about having sex with Arthur, for a moment he felt true happiness. He let out a short, burst of giddy laughter. He clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle the sound. No matter the circumstances, it had been something he’d wanted for so long. When he remembered the look of lust and longing in Arthur’s eyes when he flipped them over and lingered above Merlin it took his breath away. Arthur had wanted him, too. He was certain of it. But…

If that were true, then why did Arthur lie to him? The light and happy feeling in his stomach gave way to something sour and unpleasant. Perhaps...perhaps Arthur was just trying to save Merlin from being completely embarrassed? Despite the way Merlin sometimes needled him, Arthur was a good friend and that seemed like a viable option. But given everything else Arthur had told him about Merlin’s drunken escapades, why would he think knowing they actually had sex embarrass Merlin further?

Merlin stood up slowly. Perhaps it wasn’t Merlin’s embarrassment he was worried about. Merlin clutched at his stomach as he started to feel queasy. Merlin wondered if he was so horrible in bed that Arthur couldn’t even bear the thought of anyone - even Merlin - knowing they’d slept together.

Or maybe Arthur just slept with Merlin out of pity? Or maybe it was because Arthur was horny and Merlin was the most convenient hole Arthur could find? Maybe Arthur realized sleeping together, especially while Merlin was drunk, was a mistake and wanted to forget it ever happened.

Merlin began to pace. If Arthur felt regret, Merlin could possibly understand that, but it didn’t justify Arthur lying to him. Merlin curled his hands slowly into fists. Arthur didn’t just lie to him. He made him feel like he was crazy, like he was completely daft to think that they could have possibly had sex. Then he made him feel guilty for even suggesting that anything could have happened. He even suggested that Merlin not even try to remember what happened.

Arthur was messing with his head and Merlin was truly pissed off. What gave Arthur the right? If the situations had been reversed, Merlin would have never lied to Arthur like that. He wouldn’t have treated him like some pathetic idiot.

All of a sudden his headache was gone. He wasn’t confused anymore. All of his happy feelings were gone now, too. The only thing he felt right now was righteously angry. He wasn’t going to let Arthur get away with this.

As Merlin climbed down the stairs, his rational brain didn’t take over. If anything, his anger only increased, as he thought about all of the reasons Arthur possibly lied to him.

Merlin stormed back into the kitchen. He started moving towards the stove before he had fully decided what he was going to do. Impulsively, he grabbed the pan of eggs - he was extremely grateful that the stove wasn’t hot anymore - he didn’t need to add second degree burns on top of all of the other embarrassments of the past two days.

He stalked towards Arthur, who had been staring at him quizzically, and dumped the eggs over his head.

Arthur immediately launched out of his seat. “What. The. Hell?!”

“‘Is your little bottom sore, Merlin?’” Merlin said in a mocking tone. He let out a short, frustrated growl. “You made me think I had gone around the bend! Of course posh and perfect Arthur Pendragon would never shag the likes of poor and scrawny Merlin Emrys!”

Arthur shook eggs from his hair. “Merlin, I-”

“I remember, Arthur!”

“You remember?” The color drained from Arthur’s face.

“Yes,” Merlin hissed. “I remember everything. I know you wished I hadn’t, but I did.”

“Oh.” Arthur averted his eyes.

“Oh?” Merlin whispered. He threw up his hands. “Oh? That’s all you have to say? I find out that you lied to me and that we did actually have sex and your brilliant rejoinder is ‘oh?’”

“You think we slept together?” Arthur’s eyes widened.

“Yes! I remember it. I remember begging you to sleep with me.” Merlin felt a swell of embarrassment and caught himself before he turned away. No matter how embarrassed he felt right now, he refused to let Arthur see it. The shame right now belonged to Arthur. “You said alright and we started to snog.”

“And?”

“And? And what? I don’t remember everything yet in graphic detail, but I can guess what happened next.”

“Merlin, please, you don’t understand.” Arthur stepped closer to Merlin, but Merlin held up his hand in warning. Arthur stopped mid-step.

“No, I don’t.” Merlin shrugged. “Was the thought of having lowered yourself to sleep with me so repellant to you that you had to lie to me?” Merlin hated the way his voice shook, but he couldn’t help it.

Arthur tried to close the distance again, but Merlin quickly walked a few steps away. “Merlin, we didn’t sleep together. I swear!”

Merlin closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe this. You can’t even admit it now? I must have been really terrible. Or maybe you’re just trying to cover your own arse.” He chuckled bitterly.

Merlin was shocked when Arthur looked into his eyes with sadness, pity, and something else Merlin couldn’t place and he didn’t care to figure it out. That Arthur pitied him in this moment was too much.

“Merlin, I’m sorry for not telling you the whole truth - about kissing you. But if you just let me explain…”

“I’m done listening to you, Arthur. I don’t want to hear anything else that comes out of your mouth.” Merlin ran out of there, more embarrassed and upset by his outburst than angry at this point, but he just had to get out of Arthur’s flat that very second.

He let the tears fall as he rushed down the stairs two at a time. When he finally made it out of Arthur’s building, he had begun to compose himself. As he walked further along Merlin wished he had thought things through.

Even though Merlin thought he was prepared to walk all the way home, it didn’t really seem like a feasible option. Even if he weren’t suffering the ill effects of a bad hangover and a broken heart, there were more practical issues to consider. In his haste to leave Arthur and his embarrassment behind, he had forgotten to take his shoes and his flat was more than a half hour away.

It was the last thing he wanted to do, especially knowing the explaining he would have to do, but Merlin felt he had no other option but to call Gwaine and ask him to pick him up. When Gwaine arrived, Merlin barely avoided rolling his eyes. True to form, Gwaine had no residual issues from the previous night. He looked cheerful and well-rested, as if he’d gone to spa, instead of on a bender.

Thankfully, Gwaine didn’t pester Merlin for any details about what happened. It was clear he knew that something was troubling Merlin, but he let Merlin rest.

Merlin wanted to close his eyes and sleep, but his mind wouldn’t let him. He kept thinking about what happened. Even though he thought he had a reason to be upset with Arthur, his anger was starting to dissipate. He stared out the car window and just felt unbearably sad and lost. What if his and Arthur’s friendship couldn’t recover from this? Did he even want it to?

Although Gwaine had been patient in the car that quickly ended once they were home. He directed a shoeless Merlin to the couch, sat him down, and crossed his arms in front of his chest as he looked down at Merlin.

“What?” Merlin stared up at him.

“While I’ve never done the walk of shame myself-”

“Because you have no shame.”

“And for good reason,” Gwaine continued, unfazed by Merlin’s interruption. “Anyway, I’ve seen it enough times to recognize the signs and you are exhibiting all the signs. Did you and Arthur finally…?”

“Shag?”

“I was going to say stop being willful idiots and get over yourselves and do it, but your wording works to.” Gwaine sat down.

Merlin sighed. “I think so?”

“You think so?” Gwaine quirked his head to the side and looked at Merlin askance.

“Yeah.” Merlin slapped his hands against his thighs in frustration. “Thanks to you and that bloody party, I practically drank myself into a coma, and I’m missing a few important parts of my memory.”

“Well, did you ask Arthur?”

“Yes.” Merlin practically hissed. “But he lied and said nothing at all happened. But I remember us making out quite heavily and Arthur agreeing to have sex, so I’m fairly sure it happened.”

“Oh…” Gwaine trailed off as he eyed Merlin curiously. “You know, I thought if that ever happened you’d be chuffed, but you seem really displeased.”

“Because I was drunk, Gwaine. It’s not that I necessarily feel taken advantage of, but I don’t even remember it."

"I'm sure you'll remember it eventually." Gwaine gently put his hand on Merlin's arm. "I'm sure it was great."

"I doubt it," Merlin scoffed. "Arthur can't even admit it happened. I don't think that speaks highly of my bedroom skills."

"You don't know that," Gwaine retorted. "There could be a number of other reasons he didn't say anything. Maybe he was trying to spare you any embarrassment given how drunk you were. Or maybe he was upset at himself for pouncing on you while you were pissed - not that I can blame him, you looked quite fetching last night."

A slight grin spread on Merlin’s face.

"He also could have just been waiting for you to remember. Knowing Arthur I'm sure that's quite a blow to his ego."

Everything Gwaine was saying made sense. He'd thought of all those reasons already. But no matter how much it made sense, Merlin couldn't turn off that part of his brain which jumped to the worst case scenario every time.

"No, I don't think that's it. He's embarrassed that he slept with someone like me. I'm beneath him. I could never hope to be the kind of person Arthur would want to be with."

Gwaine closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. "Merlin, I'm sorry," he said when he opened his eyes.

"For what?"

Gwaine smacked Merlin hard on the back of the head. "For that."

"Ow!" Merlin shouted. "Are you off your nut?"

"Are you?" Gwaine pushed his shoulder slightly. "Merlin, you giant twat! How could you say those kinds of things about yourself?"

"I don't know, maybe because I'm a twat." Merlin rubbed the back of his head.

"First of all, Arthur should get down on his hands and knees and be thankful someone like you can put up with his shite."

Merlin's gaze fell to his lap. Gwaine was usually a fun-loving guy, so when he used his stern voice like this, you knew he meant serious business. It felt like being scolded by a parent.

"Secondly, I may give princess a hard time, but I know he would never think something like that about you." Gwaine sighed. "And I know that you know that. Whatever is going on in that head of yours is about you, not him."

Merlin winced. God, Gwaine could be perceptive when he wanted to be. But Merlin was too tired to face the truth now. He got up slowly. "I know you mean well, and I do thank you for your concern, but Gwaine, I'm too tired to deal with this right now. I just want to shower and get a little sleep. You can continue to berate me in a few hours."

It looked like Gwaine wanted to protest, but he didn't try to stop Merlin from walking away.

Merlin tried to put aside Gwaine’s words and thoughts of Arthur when he got to his room. The first stop he made was his bathroom where he turned on the water in the shower and began to slowly undress.

The first thing he did was stick his head under the spray and let the warm rush of water cascade over his body and soothe his tired muscles. He turned and laid his head against the cool, green tile. After a while, he couldn’t think anymore and all he could do was feel. Gwaine’s words were truly sinking in.

He felt like a giant idiot. Maybe he should have given Arthur the benefit of the doubt. He shouldn’t have been so vicious. This whole thing was his fault in the first place. If he hadn’t idiotically gotten so hammered he could barely see straight, if he hadn’t called Arthur in the first place and dragged him into this, if he hadn’t fallen in love with his straight friend, none of this would have happened.

It was the first time he had ever truly admitted - even to himself - that what he felt for Arthur went beyond a simple physical attraction or a crush - he was so in love with Arthur and he had no idea how to make it stop. And now he’d truly fucked everything up. Arthur would probably never speak to him again.

With a bone weary sigh, Merlin reached up to the shower caddy mounted on top of the shower head to retrieve his shampoo. As he pulled it down, he caught a glimpse of his wrist and noticed for the first time a slight bruise. He wasn’t in any real pain, but it was definitely a bruise. He touched the light reddish mark and wondered what else had happened last night to cause the mark.

He briefly flashed to a memory of someone holding him down. When he looked up, some of the water from the shower spray started to hit his eyes. He blinked away water rapidly and suddenly the final pieces started to become clear.

Merlin wasn’t quite sure how his brain was still functioning right now. He still felt like his brain was trapped in a tequila-soaked haze, but that was nothing compared to the heady feeling of lust overpowering him as Arthur’s fingers traveled up and down his body.

That haziness contributed to Merlin’s bumbled attempt to pull down Arthur’s zipper. His fingers slipped four times and when he managed to start to pull it down, the slider would get stuck. Regrettably, Merlin pulled away from Arthur’s bruising kiss. That turned out to be a mistake.

Merlin almost cheered when he got the zipper all the way down, but then Arthur cut the celebration short.

“Wait, wait.” He reached out and grabbed Merlin’s wrists and took a deep breath. “I can’t do this.”

“What?” Merlin stared at him unblinking for a moment.

Arthur slowly slid off Merlin. He fell onto his back and put his hand on his head as he looked up at the ceiling. He was breathing heavily.

Merlin finally recovered and turned onto his side and reached for Arthur again. “Arthur, please don’t stop. Don’t you want me?” He ran his hands down Arthur’s tight abs and almost reached the front of his jeans.

“Merlin, stop!” Arthur shouted. He grasped Merlin’s wrists again and held them together as he pulled them up and away from his crotch. He turned over and stared into Merlin’s eyes. “Merlin, I…” Arthur leaned forward and placed his forehead on top of Merlin’s hands, which were curled inwardly. Arthur’s lips brushed against Merlin’s knuckles and Merlin closed his eyes as he felt Arthur’s hot breath hit his skin.

Merlin could feel Arthur’s iron grip on his wrists, but it didn’t hurt. The only thing that hurt was the strained, desperate look in Arthur’s eyes.

“Merlin, I want to be with you,” he said into the space between, not looking up at Merlin yet. “If you never believe anything else I say to you again, please believe that.”

There was no mistaking the sincerity in Arthur’s voice. Merlin nodded briefly.

Arthur finally met Merlin’s gaze. He chuckled but there was no light in his eyes. “For ages now half the time we’re alone together I don’t hear a word you say. Either I’m trying to keep from launching myself at you or I’m trying to stop myself from telling you how I feel.”

How had he not seen this before? Merlin just stared at Arthur, gobsmacked.

Arthur lightly kissed Merlin’s hands before he dropped his wrists. He touched Merlin’s face and the corners of his mouth curled up before he pulled back. “It’s taking everything in me to stop and not do as you ask. Not do what I’ve wanted to do so desperately.”

“What’s that?” Merlin whispered. His voice cracked harshly.

Arthur looked at him out of the corner his eye and pressed his mouth together in a tight line. Finally, he hugged his arms to his chest and looked up at Merlin. “I want to kiss you until our jaws are aching and we’re both dizzy. I want to lick every inch of your body. When I get to your arse, I want to slowly spread your cheeks apart and kiss you where no one has ever dared kiss you before. God, Merlin, I want to eat you and taste you until my face is dripping with you. I want you to ache for me, the way I ache for you, until you’re begging me to you fuck you. And I would. Happily.” Arthur let out a shuddering breath.

Merlin was clutching the sheets tightly. He could have sworn he blacked out several times during Arthur’s speech - a speech that did nothing to alleviate Merlin’s horniness, evidenced by the fact he was harder than he’d ever been in his life. Merlin inched closer to Arthur and opened his mouth to speak, but Arthur held up his hand.

“But I won’t. I’m a patient man, Merlin. I’ve waited for you for so long. I’m not going to risk our chance for something good on a drunken fuck. I won’t.” He shook his head resolutely. “You mean more to me than that.”

Merlin stared hard at Arthur in shock, and more than a little, awe.

Arthur slowly climbed down off the bed. “So...I’m going to go and I’m going to take care of this…” He gestured at his crotch with the obvious bulge. “You do what you need to do and then you get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” He started to walk away and turned back to Merlin. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

He was almost out the door and Merlin didn’t know what to do. More than anything he wanted Arthur to stay with him. A part of him was so worried that this was all a dream and if Arthur left he was just going to wake up and none this would have really happened. “Arthur, wait!”

Arthur stopped at the door and reached out to hold the door frame. He didn’t turn around.

“Can’t you just stay and just sleep here? Just sleep, I promise,” Merlin pleaded.

“No.” Arthur turned to face him. “I can’t, Merlin. I’m sorry. Goodnight.”

Merlin sputtered helplessly and almost choked on the water that began to fill his open mouth. He spit out the water and shut it off. He hurriedly turned and yanked the shower curtain back, part of it ripped completely free from several shower hooks.

In Merlin’s haste, he almost tripped several times, and ultimately fell hard on one knee right by the open bathroom door. But Merlin didn’t have time to care about his throbbing knee or the lake he left on the floor.

He quickly grabbed a shirt and pants from his closet and began to put them on. Gwaine rushed into the room as Merlin was struggling to get his head out of the sleeve he had accidentally put over his head.

“For fuck’s sake, what’s all the racket?” Gwaine yelled.

Merlin emerged from the tight sleeve and put the shirt on properly. He faced his friend. “It turns out that I really am the biggest twat on the entire planet.” He ran his hands through his wet hair. “Oh, God Gwaine I need your help.”

~*~

Merlin was pretty sure they broke land speed records to get back to Arthur’s. If he wasn’t running on sheer adrenaline right now, Merlin was positive he would have hurled several times.

To Gwaine’s credit he didn’t say “I told you so” that often. Normally, he would have said it about ten times already, but thankfully, it had only been said three times.

They stopped in front of Arthur’s flat block and Merlin was out the door before the car had even fully parked. “Thanks.”

“Good luck!” Gwaine replied.

As he turned to go, Merlin only got about two steps before he faltered. The enormity of what was about to potentially happen hit him. He slowly looked over his shoulder to Gwaine. “I’m scared.” He turned around fully. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. What if he won’t talk to me?”

Gwaine leaned out of the window. “Then you make him. Merlin, you’ve been waiting for this for a long time. If you have to you grab him by the balls and force him to hear you, then that’s what you need to do.”

Merlin shook his head and smiled. “I’m not sure if physically assaulting him would help my cause, but you’re right. I have to make him listen. Thank you.”

Gwaine nodded.

He took the lift to Arthur’s floor this time and it felt like it took a hundred years. When he got to his door, Merlin lifted up his hand to knock and he realized he was shaking. He took a moment to calm down and steady his hand before he knocked.

He hugged his arms to his chest and tried to stop from bouncing up and down in place. He quickly debated knocking a second time, but didn’t need to when Arthur finally opened the door.

Merlin froze. He was braced for Arthur to start yelling at him or even to slam the door in his face, instead after a second of surprise Arthur merely turned around and walked back into his flat.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d come back for them or just send Gwaine,” he said.

“Come back for what?” Merlin scratched his head in confusion. He walked into Arthur’s place and shut the door behind him.

“For these.” Arthur walked back toward him, Merlin’s shoes in his hand. “Cinderella forgot his shoes.”

Merlin had completely forgotten about them. Tentatively, Merlin reached out and took the shoes back. He stared at Arthur and tried to make eye contact, but Arthur was looking everywhere but at Merlin.

“I’m not Cinderella.” Merlin sighed. “Cinderella wasn’t a complete clotpole.”

Arthur looked taken aback, but he recovered easily and grinned slightly. “I think her stepsister’s would beg to differ.”

There was so much Merlin wanted to say, but he didn’t know how to start. He stared at the floor and tried to will his brain to provide him with something coherent to say. Finally, he looked up and blurted out, “Thank you for not having sex with me.” Instantly his mouth dropped open as he played back the words that had come out of his mouth.

Arthur just gaped at him in shock.

Merlin closed his mouth and ran a hand slowly down his face. He started again. “I didn’t mean...I just...I remember everything that happened.”

Arthur crossed his arms over his chest and look at Merlin warily.

Merlin spoke before Arthur had a chance to. “I know I said that before, but this time it’s actually true. I do remember everything.”

A million different expressions passed over Arthur’s face - surprise, embarrassment, curiosity, hope - but he didn’t say anything, his mouth just formed a single grim line.

Merlin supposed that Arthur might be staying quiet because the last time Merlin had this revelation he was not exactly happy with Arthur’s reaction. “I didn’t know, Arthur. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that you…” Merlin let out a short hysterical laugh and shook his head. He couldn’t get Arthur’s speech to him out of his head. It still felt so surreal. “I’m so sorry.”

Arthur nodded and walked backwards towards his den. “I just need to um…” He gestured toward the couch.

After a moment’s hesitation, Merlin followed him. Slowly, Merlin sat down beside Arthur who looked like he was still trying to process everything.

“Arthur?” Merlin desperately wanted Arthur to look at him, but Arthur’s eyes were glued to the glass coffee table in front of them. Merlin plowed ahead anyway. “I’d like to think that I know you, Arthur.” He blew out a quick, nervous breath. “Maybe that’s not true, I don’t know. But I should have known you wouldn’t have taken advantage of the situation.”

“But I almost did take advantage.” Arthur looked at him through the corner of his eye.

“But you didn’t. I shouldn’t have said the things I did to you, Arthur. How I treated you this morning, it was unforgivable.”

The soft chuckle that came out of Arthur’s mouth surprised Merlin. Arthur turned to look at him and the fond expression on his face put him off balance before Arthur even opened his mouth.

“Merlin, I love you. I think I can forgive you anything.”

Merlin’s breath hitched several times and he blinked at Arthur. His vision blurred and he replayed Arthur’s words in his head over and over again as he tried to make sure what he heard wasn’t a hysterical hallucination.

He was having a hard enough time wrapping his brain around Arthur just wanting him, but to find out Arthur loved him. It had to be too good to be true.

As if he could read Merlin’s thoughts, Arthur said, “You’re not hearing things, Merlin. I said I love you.” Arthur smiled brightly and put his hand to his chest. “That feels really good to say finally. I’ve held it in for so long…”

Arthur cupped Merlin’s face gently and Merlin finally focused his gaze on him.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Merlin laughed. He didn’t realize he’d been crying until Arthur brushed a single tear gently with his thumb.

“Do you remember the day that my rugby team was finally competing for a chance to advance to the finals? We’d been working so hard all year and my father had never come to a single match, but he promised to be there that day. But he didn’t come and he didn’t even bother to tell me why, which shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, and yet…” Arthur let out a long sigh.

“I refused to let anyone see how much it upset me.” Arthur looked into Merlin’s eyes. “But you knew. You didn’t say anything. You didn’t ask me to talk about it. You just took me out for a drink and then you took me home and after that, in one of the most bizarre moments of my entire life, you sat me down in this very room and proceeded to act out the entire plot of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, complete with voices, stunts, and the weirdest faces I’ve ever seen.”

Merlin smiled at the memory. He had been scrambling to think of some way to cheer Arthur up and that movie was the first thing that came to mind. He hadn’t planned on acting the whole thing out, but the look on Arthur’s face - a combination of horror, confusion, and amusement - spurred him on.

Arthur dropped his hands from Merlin’s face and held his shoulders as he looked at Merlin and grinned. “I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. After you were done, you collapsed on the sofa next to me and had the goofiest grin on your face. I looked at you and I just knew. You understood me. You cared about I wanted and what I needed. You were willing to make a complete prat of yourself just to make me feel better. I knew I was in love with you then.”

“Arthur, that was three years ago.” Merlin gasped. He didn’t know how many shocks he could take in one day.

“I know.” Arthur looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. He bit his lip and seemed to struggle with what to say. “Merlin, in that moment, I’d never felt something so...it was as if everything I was feeling was magnified tenfold. I felt so happy…” Arthur’s voice quivered with excitement and he had a euphoric smile on his face, but in a split second, the smile fell away and he looked stricken. “But I was absolutely terrified. It was too much and I couldn’t deal with it.”

Merlin couldn’t believe it. He was still in a daze and kept staring at Arthur, too afraid that if he blinked that this wasn’t really happening, that Arthur wasn’t actually saying these words, that he would realize his dreams weren’t actually coming true.

A part of him was really kicking himself as well. If he had just been honest with Arthur, then maybe they could have figured things out together. He just never would have imagined that Arthur was feeling the same way as him - not only being in love with him, but having the same fear holding him back. Arthur was one of the bravest people he knew.

Arthur got up and walked over to the large window which took up almost half the wall. He put his hands on the glass, as he looked outside. “At first, I thought maybe my feelings would just go away, but they just kept getting stronger. And after enough time had passed, I convinced myself that it would be better to say nothing, that our friendship was too good to complicate things.” Turning to face Merlin, Arthur walked back over to him and knelt down beside him. “I’m glad what happened today happened.”

“Really?” Merlin said in surprise.

“It gave me the push that I needed. I realized I had to be honest with you, all of the excuses that I had come up with before didn’t matter. If I had been honest with you, we could have avoided this entire misunderstanding. This is my fault.”

Merlin slid down and knelt in front of Arthur. He grabbed Arthur’s hands. “It’s my fault, too. You’re not the only one that hasn’t been totally honest.” Merlin grinned so hard his cheeks hurt. “Though I think I have you beat, because I’ve been in love with you since I met you.”

Arthur’s mouth fell open slightly.

“Well, actually that’s not entirely true.” He bobbed his head a little back and forth. “I was in love with you instantly and then you opened your mouth and your pratliness made me hate you.” Arthur frowned and Merlin added quickly, “but then you showed me how wonderful you were underneath and that was it. I was irretrievably, hopelessly, arse over tit in love.”

Arthur shook his head fondly and shot Merlin a watery smile.

Merlin groaned suddenly. “Christ, why couldn’t we have just said something sooner? So much time wasted. If we had just opened our stupid mouths and-”

Arthur cut him off with a kiss.

Merlin smiled into the kiss, but when Arthur flicked his tongue against his bottom lip, he groaned and opened wider for Arthur. Merlin fisted his hands in Arthur’s hair and molded his body against Arthur’s.

After a minute they pulled away slowly. Arthur kept his eyes closed for a bit longer than Merlin. He had such a blissed out look on his face Merlin couldn’t help the mad grin as he looked down at him.

When Arthur finally opened his eyes, he returned Merlin’s smile. He stroked the side of Merlin’s face. “You know I think you’re right. I think we’re both idiots.”

“You know it’s a good thing you said you can forgive me anything.” Merlin wrapped his arms around Arthur’s neck. “I have a feeling I’ll probably do a lot of idiotic things.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Arthur said with a sly grin.

For that Merlin pinched his nipple through his shirt.

“Ow,” Arthur yelled, though he laughed afterwards. He winced slightly. “I don’t know about you, but my knees are starting to hurt.” Merlin nodded. Arthur stood up and then took Merlin’s hands and helped him up.

“You know,” Merlin started as he and Arthur walked hand in hand out of the den, “I’m sort of starving.”

“Yeah?” Arthur stopped them in front of the kitchen.

“Yeah. I’m absolutely ravenous.” Merlin bit his lip in what he hoped was a seductive manner.

“Alright, let’s see what we have in the kitchen.” Arthur started to pull Merlin forward.

Merlin pulled him back. “I don’t think you have what I want in there.” His gaze drifted to Arthur’s crotch.

“It’s a fairly well stocked kitchen, Merlin.”

Merlin held back an eye roll and slinked up to Arthur. “Wasn’t there something you wanted to eat? Something you’ve been dying to have for a long time?” He wiggled his eyebrows exaggeratedly.

Arthur pursed his lips and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You know it’s odd. I have been craving mince pies lately.” Arthur went into the kitchen.

“Arthur!” Merlin groaned. “I’m asking you if you want to fuck me. I mean…” Merlin threw up his hands in frustration.

Arthur didn’t turn around. Soon, Merlin saw his shoulders start to shake. Arthur turned around and burst out laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” Merlin stalked towards Arthur.

“Of course I knew that’s what you were going on about!” Arthur cupped Merlin’s face and smiled. “You’re going to have to work on your subtlety, Merlin, because - I’m sorry to say - it is not one of your talents.”

“I thought I was being subtle.” Merlin pouted.

Arthur threw his head back and laughed. “What am I going to do with you, Merlin?”

“I believe you came up with several good ideas last night. Something about rimming me within an inch of my life, until I’m begging you to fuck me?”

Arthur kissed him briefly. “Good memory.” He walked towards the refrigerator.

“What are you going there for? I’m not hungry for food.”

“I know.” Arthur threw him a quick glance over his shoulder. “I just want to make sure we have some ice cream for, you know, later.” He winked.

Merlin smiled brightly and joined Arthur to help him raid the refrigerator. They actually did end up eating some food first that night. Then, after a vigorous tumble under the sheets, they shared some ice cream and got sticky in all sorts of fun and messy ways. It was the best night of his life.

And the best part - the next morning, Merlin woke up with a bright smile and remembered every single moment.

Finally!

geekslave — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 06:12:51 GMT

So I've finally got shoes for the wedding and we picked a honeymoon destination. Part of me is happy that decisions were made in that area, but I wasn't exactly happy because neither choice was what I had exactly envisioned and not without problems.

Michael suggested a couple of weeks ago that he thought a good idea for the honeymoon was actually to go to two different places. He still wanted to go to Universal but he also wanted to go to this place called Butterfly World. He's wanted to go there for awhile, but it's pretty far from us. It's four hours from where we live and six hours from where we're getting married.

I hadn't really wanted to do any kind of a road trip on the honeymoon, but I figured it was doable and there's a nice kind of symmetry because we got engaged at a butterfly house. We only have five days for the honeymoon, so we decided we'll do two and a half days at Universal, then we'll start traveling up to Butterfly World. We'll probably stay at a hotel at night and then complete the trip to Butterfly World. We'll do that for one day, then start traveling back home, stop at a hotel for the night. We'll travel on our last day. Before we head home we'll stop at a beach somewhere, then go back home.

Initially, Mike wanted to go to Disney because he's never been, but there just so happened to be stupid block out dates exactly starting the day of our wedding and all through when we'd be honeymooning. So even though there were special deals going on for Florida residents, we'd have to pay non-resident prices for the Magic Kingdom, which is quite a difference. It's the only park that's blacked out, but we've already been to Epcot and we're not interested in the other two parks.

So we decided on Universal because even though Michael's been there before, it was so long ago, and there are so many rides he'd never been on. At first, I didn't notice that they had any blackout dates, but when we decided to go there officially for the honeymoon we discovered they also have the same blackout dates. Mike really wants to get express passes because he doesn't want to spend most of the honeymoon waiting on lines. We tried to do a cheaper package of tickets to the park and express passes but of course, it's blacked out the first day of our honeymoon. It's not blacked out the day of our wedding or the days after, but just the day we need most. It's probably a good idea that we're only spending part-time there because a ticket for three days plus two days of express passes is 900 dollars.

Still trying to figure out the purpose of the blackout dates. I figure this time it's because of Spring Break, but I don't know why. Like is it because they're expecting a huge turnout from everyone, and figure Floridians will be willing to pay the regular prices during this time period? Or are they expecting a lot of out of towners and thinking a lot of in state people won't come? Like if I didn't need to come during these dates, I'd go for a cheaper time. Like I'm just trying to figure out how busy it's going to be during that time. I downloaded an app that gives you Universal wait times and have been checking it out this weekend. The longest wait time I saw was 70 minutes for the Despicable Me ride. And for one of the Harry Potter rides the longest wait time was 65 minutes. If the wait times are like that, I'm wondering if we only need a pass for one day and that way we can save money for food and stuff. But I don't want to forego the pass and it turns out it's extra busy when we're there and the wait times are multiple hours.

We also decided to stay at a hotel on-site because there are benefits to staying at an on-site hotel. They have a cheap-ish (at least compared to the others) hotel that less than 200 a night, while the rest are freakin' 400 a night. Of course the more expensive hotels come with free express passes. Thankfully, my mother paid for most of the hotel and we made a reservation tonight.

I'm really starting to wish that we had picked a different date for the wedding. At first we were supposed to get married in August of last year. But we were having problems and didn't really have the money then, so we postponed. I didn't want to wait too much longer to get married and I wanted to pick a date that was somewhat significant. I could have picked a date in late May because that's the anniversary of when we got engaged. But I/we decided March 28 because that's two days after my dad's birthday.

Jean wanted us to go for a different time because she kept mentioning Spring Break. Michael and I looked up spring break times online, but it was hard because so many schools have different spring break dates. Spring Break seemed to range from March to mid-April. So we decided to roll the dice and that was probably not a great idea. Of course, initially I hadn't really planned on going to Disney or Universal for the honeymoon. I never wanted to stay in Florida for the honeymoon. Even my mom, when we told her our plan, was surprised we were sticking so close to home.

Another problem with picking March 28 for the wedding, is it kind of limited our options for honeymoon spots. We had come up with some nice ideas like New York or Niagara or possibly the Poconos, but to my surprise Mike said he didn't really want to go anywhere cold on the honeymoon. He said he's been spoiled by living in Florida and hated the cold when we went to Maryland a few months ago. I figured March is spring, so it wouldn't be as cold in New York or Canada, but apparently he said in Maryland that's when it's the coldest.

Anyway, on to the shoes. Mom was supposed to come and see us on Monday, but she had things to deliver to my aunt's house for the rehearsal dinner and wanted us to meet us there. I figured while we were up there I could buy some hair and look for some shoes. When we were leaving my aunt's I asked her where we could find a mall to shop. My mom asked why and when I told her she offered to come along. I said yes. I almost immediately regretted that because I remembered that she was the one who was insistent I wear some kind of heel. She was kind of driving me crazy all day because whenever I picked up flats she kept shooting me down.

We weren't really having much more luck in Orlando then at home. It was discouraging and I was losing patience with the whole thing. I wasn't trying to be too picky, since I know people mostly won't even be able to see my shoes, but I didn't want to pick just anything.

Mom wanted to go to Macy's, so we found one nearby. There was a much better variety there than the Macy's up here, but most shoes still weren't working. I asked one of the salesmen at the store and he said most of the shoes were medium. I was pretty much ready to call it a day at that point. But there was one sales guy my mom was talking to and he kept looking around and bringing back shoes. Though with each shoe, I kept thinking "Come on dude, it's not going to work." But he brought back one more pair. I tried it on and it fit okay. I didn't love the look of it - the color is more being than white and the insole is gold, which doesn't match with all the silver I'll be wearing - but it didn't look too bad. It had a slight wedge, which my mom was happy about. It was a little tight on my toe, but it was more workable than any we'd found. Mom was actually good about it and not pressuring me. Mike suggested I put something to cover my toe and then maybe it wouldn't hurt so much. So I gave in and allowed mom to buy them for me. Though I still want to find flats to wear during the reception.

As much as I appreciated the sales guy who kept trying, and I did thank him, my real hero was Mike. I think most guys in that situation would have been bored and just sat around waiting for us to be done, and Mike did sit around sometimes, but he mostly kept looking around. Right around the time the sales guy showed me the wedge shoe we decided to buy, Mike came to us with this shoe that was wide enough, plus with the design of the shoe, you can adjust how tight the front is. And it's kind of looks cut up, so Mike thinks we can cut off the small part that lays over my toe and it wouldn't mess up the look of the shoe. It felt better than the wedge shoe. Unfortunately, it only came in black so not for the wedding, but we bought it too and I'll probably wear it at the rehearsal dinner and during the honeymoon. I was just so happy he was thinking of me and trying to find the best fit for me.

Stacey

Feet Don't Fail Me Now

geekslave — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 08:56:29 GMT

Still haven't been able to find a shoe for the wedding. Jean and I went shopping again last week. I didn't think there was a point in going back to the stores we'd already been too, but since that was months ago, I hoped that maybe they got new shoes in. But it seemed like they had even less to offer than before. I talked to one of the salespeople and they mentioned that one of the problems was that a lot of modern shoes are so narrowly pointed and they have such short toe heels that barely cover any of your toes.

When it came to online shopping, I decided to try to broaden my horizons from just looking on Etsy, because the only shoes I could find on Etsy that I liked, and looked like they could work with my feet, are made in China and could take forever to ship here. I found a few other places online, but the pickings were still very limited.

I decided to go back to Amazon. I'd looked there once before, but didn't find many shoes that I liked, but I think I didn't look for the right type of shoes. This time I looked for bridal shoes and found a lot more I liked. I decided to go there because I'm an Amazon Prime member and get free two day shipping. I found a pair of shoes that looked nice and weren't too wide or too low. I thought they could really work for me. So of course when I put them in my cart and went to checkout, I found out they're not Prime eligible and aren't offered with anything other than standard shipping. It stated that it could be shipped anywhere from March 2 to March 20, which is cutting it too close. Usually when I get something from Amazon, it comes quicker than the latest date they say, but I don't want to take any chances.

After our first disastrous shopping trip, a week or so later Jean called me and she said that she'd called a doctor and said I should make an appointment to see someone about my toe. I wasn't really sure if I was interested. Mom took me to a doctor a long time ago, but I don't think there was anything they could do about it. So I haven't really thought about it too much. I've never even looked it up online. Other than problems with finding shoes, I haven't been too bothered by it. But I figured just going in for a consultation wouldn't hurt.

When we went in Jean said that if they asked I should say that the toe causes me problems all the time that way my insurance would cover it. Otherwise, they'd consider it a cosmetic surgery and wouldn't cover it. When the doctor came in, it's not that I had a problem with him but he seemed kind of tired and like he wasn't interested in dealing with one more patient. He prodded my toe a little, which hurt and looked at the X-Ray they'd taken and pretty much said that there was nothing to be done about it. He said that I was missing the metatarsal bone in that foot and the only solution he could think of was cutting the toe completely off. I was thinking "fuck that" I'm not loping off my toe to "fix" this.

Jean kind of kept arguing with the doctor. She said that she'd looked it up online and saw that there should be some way to lengthen the bone. The doctor said he hadn't heard of it and didn't even know what my condition was called. He said that he wasn't an expert and that there was another doctor I could go to, a surgeon, that would know more.

After we left, Jean kept going on about how the guy was a quack and didn't know what he was talking about. She'd seen how to fix it online. I don't necessarily think doctors are infallible, but I pointed out that maybe a doctor knows more than a couple of people online.

But when we got home she showed me some websites which had tons of pictures of people with feet that looked exactly like mine. A lot of them had surgery to fix the problem and it worked. I found out that my toe problem had an official name - brachymetatarsia. I looked on the website and it did mention that not only does the situation cause problems with finding proper footwear (it stated that you have to find footwear with extra depth and make sure the shoe doesn't put pressure on the shortened toe), but that it causes problems with posture and that it could cause problems with other toes over time because when you walk pressure isn't being properly placed on the fourth toe and the third and fifth toe have added pressure on them.

It could seem like, if I was a candidate surgery could be the way to go, BUT the website also mentioned that after surgery you can't put any weight on the repaired foot for three months and then have to wear some special snug lace-up shoe. That is a long time to be hobbling around on crutches or whatever I'd have to do.

Trapped in a Time Share

geekslave — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 06:15:25 GMT

Thankfully, we've made some progress in the things we need to do/need for the wedding. We've taken dance lessons. We've hired a photographer and videographer. And we got an officiant. The path to an officiant was kind of interesting.

I had found a few officiants through the website Thumbtack. Before I could reach out to any of them my mom said that she talked to my Aunt Carol, who had apparently reached out to her pastor to see if he could officiate our wedding. So I waited a while to see if he was going to do it. A couple of weeks later my mom said she had asked my aunt about it, but she hadn't gotten back to her. So I talked to a few of the officiants I found. I was really torn between two of them. I think I had finally made my decision about who to choose when my mom called and said that Aunt Carol's pastor was interested in doing it. The only thing was he wanted to meet with Mike and I first.

Normally, I was really interested in meeting everyone who we were considering hiring for the wedding, but neither Mike or I was that interested in driving all the way out there, plus I was kind of wary because I was worried that we would get preached at. But since he would probably perform he ceremony for free, we figured we should meet with him once and if we liked him we'd go with him.

We got a little lost on the way, since my mom gave us the wrong address. When we got there I was kind of surprised to meet her pastor and it was an older white man. Mike asked me at one point what type of pastor it was, what type of religion, which I honestly hadn't thought of. I knew it wasn't Jehovah's Witness, since my uncle claimed he couldn't do our wedding as a Jehovah's Witness elder because neither Mike and I are Jehovah's Witness. My mom said she's a Baptist. I think it's the kind of movies I've watched over he years, but I hear "pastor" and "Baptist" and I think Black.

His name was Gene and he said that he was going to do a pre-wedding counseling thing with us so he could give us a certificate, which we could use to save money when we got our marriage license. He asked some standard questions - like why we wanted to marry each other. It was really sweet to hear Mike's answer.

He mentioned that his church was non-denominational and accepts all kinds of religions, which was nice. He made a lot of references to God and how important that is to a successful marriage. That didn't necessarily bother me. We wanted a non-denominational wedding, because while neither of us are affiliated with any particular religion, we both believe in God and don't have a problem with God being mentioned during the ceremony.

But then Gene kind of kept going on about it and asked us both whether we wanted a closer relationship with God and wanted to start going back to church and that's kind of when I started to tune out a little. I kind of just wanted it o be done and go but it felt like he was revving up for a mini-sermon, which he kind of did. That was one of the reasons I was wary of having the meeting because I didn't want to get sucked into a bible study. It kind of felt like getting trapped in a time share meeting - wanting to get a good deal on something and being forced to sit through some spiel before you can.

Mike was more into it. He's always said that he'd like to start going to some kind of church at some point again, which he told Gene. So Gene directed a lot of his words to Mike and not me. At some point he started talking about the sanctity of marriage and what God intended for marriage to be and I thought if he starts in about gay marriage and talking about how bad it is, that I would end the conversation right there (though I knew I probably wouldn't do that - I'm not very good at confrontation, especially with strangers.)

He kept going on and on about how to have a successful marriage you have to bring God into your life and go to church. He did bring up a couple of things that I did agree with - like he talked about how couples shouldn't have so many separate hobbies that you spend more time with other people, because what's the point of getting married if you're going to act like you're still single. He also mentioned how when you get married your spouse has to be your number one priority and that's the person you should talk to about things, instead of turning to outsiders.

He waited until towards the end to say that, to be frank, God put together a man and a woman in marriage, not a man and a man. I was definitely put off after that and mostly tuned out. He led us in a prayer I felt bad about mostly tuning out. At the end of it he asked Mike if he was committed to bringing God back in his life and Mike said yeah. Then he specifically turned to me and asked me the same thing. I didn't really want to lie, but I felt forced into using the same tactic that I use with my mother when she keeps pestering me about stuff and refusing to take no for an answer, so I just say sure, knowing I have no intention of doing it.

So even though I didn't like a like a lot of the things he had to say, he was an okay guy, Mike liked him and he's been two of my aunts pastor for years, plus he would do it for free. So Mike and I agreed to have him officiate the wedding. It was kind of a relief to have a lot of the major decisions decided and done. We were both really relaxed after we left. We even had a nice discussion about our potential honeymoon plans.

The only major issue with him was that he said that he's going to be in Haiti the week before our wedding and is only getting back the day before. He said because of that he can't come to our rehearsal. We were both okay with that. I honestly hadn't really even thought we needed a rehearsal, until I thought we should do it for the kids who are going to be our ring bearer and flower girl and for some timing issues with the music being played. We don't really think it's absolutely necessary to have the officiant there. Mike's mom disagreed and complained to Mike about it, but there's really no getting around it. My only issue about that was I'm a little worried about what if there's some kind of flight delay and he can't get here on time for the wedding. But Mike said he doubts that any kind of flight delay would last a whole day, especially since it's not hurricane season.

Gene also gave us these cds to listen to. Basically more sermons about important issues to help with married life - like there's different cds for communication skills and about finances. I think he said it's about four hours total, which I have not been interested at all in dealing with. We still haven't listened to them even though he said he wanted to meet with us one more time before the wedding and discuss them further.

Stacey

Spaghetti Arms

geekslave — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 21:44:46 GMT

I remember awhile back I asked if anyone knew if $45 per dance lesson was a reasonable price, and most weren't sure. Well, I've found out it's a very reasonable price - at least out here.

There aren't many dance places out here, most of the dance places are for teaching kids to dance or doing recitals and stuff. But I did find a handful or so of places. The first place I called was the studio offering the lessons for $45. I called sort of late, but not too late, but the lady who answered kind of sounded out of it and almost answered every question I asked as if she wasn't sure herself what she was saying. I try not to judge people too harshly over the phone since I suck on it. Still her responses didn't fill me with a lot of confidence. I told her I would think about it and decided to call the other places before we made a decision.

The second place I called had an ad that the first lesson would be for $25. I wanted to know what it would be for the lessons after that. A woman answered and she was super helpful and was really excited when I told her what song we decided on. She suggested the types of dances we could do. I liked her better than the first woman I talked to - only problem was that after the first lesson the price would go up to $70 a lesson. I told her I would think about it.

I called the other places I found and each time the prices got higher and higher up into the hundreds. So I basically narrowed it down to the two places I called first. Normally, I would just go with the cheaper option, but I just liked the second lady that I talked to better. I talked to Michael about it and he left the decision up to me, but he had no problem with going with the more expensive option, mostly because he figured we'd only need one lesson. I was doubtful of that. I said we'd probably need 2...maybe three. He figured we didn't need that many because we're just trying not to embarrass ourselves, not audition for Dancing With the Stars.

So we did decide to go with the second lady, Suzanne. We had her first lesson. Side note - she had the cutest, friendliest cat there. Kind of made me re-think my stance about exclusively being a dog person. I've just had a better experience with dogs being friendlier. But Mike's always said that it depends on the cat. Which makes sense because it's the same with dogs. We have two dogs and one is ridiculously friendly and affectionate and the other really isn't. I like Suzanne's cat so much that I asked her what type of cat she had, in case I ever wanted one like that in the future.

During the first lesson, all I could think of was Dirty Dancing. That's not really a surprise since I always adored that movie. I remember how excited I got when the movie premiered on HBO on my eight birthday. I got up super early and saw the very end of it and instantly loved it. The whole family watched it when it "officially" premiered later that night and I loved it even more. Other than a brief period when I was 13 and was starting to get a little sick of it, I've always loved it.

I didn't know how the dance lesson would go and, even though she was enthusiastic on the phone, she was a lot more enthusiastic in person. I usually don't react well to people like that, but it wasn't too bad. She started dancing with me, which I wasn't expecting. Immediately I started thinking of the dance montages in DD when Lisa would dance directly with Baby. She also had Mike dancing behind us when she danced with me, so that reminded me of it as well.

When she had Mike and I dancing together one of the first things she corrected was our posture and arm placement. And of course my mind jumped to "Look, spaghetti arms. This is my dance space. This is your dance space. I don't go into yours, you don't go into mine."

We decided to do the dance to the bolero. She said that we could the samba, but the bolero was slower and easier. She taught us the basic and one other move. Mike was a really fast learner and picked up the steps a lot faster than I did. I think it helps that he's done sports like martial arts and is comfortable moving his body. Then again maybe not since a lot of athletes on Dancing With the Stars have been absolutely horrible.

It went so well that it seemed like maybe Mike was right and we could do just one lesson. But she talked about adding another move and when she showed it to us, I wanted to do it. So we decided to do at least one more lesson to polish the moves we learned and add the other one.

We went home and practiced right away. The only real problem was we didn't really have a space to practice. Our room is too small - the bed pretty much takes up most of the space. We didn't really have that much room in the living room and I don't think either one of us wanted to deal with his grandmother's potential whining if we played music and started practicing there. The only place we could think to do it was outside in the gravelly courtyard. We practiced in socks, but Mike didn't want to go outside in just socks because of bugs. So I wore my sneakers the first time we practiced, but I didn't like the way it felt.

The second time we practiced I wore socks, but that didn't work because one of the socks kept coming all the way off and messing us up. I finally found these shoes, I guess his mom must have gotten them for me because I don't remember buying them and they were pink, that looked kind of like cleats but without that stuff on the bottom. They seemed like the best option since they weren't full on sneakers, but not socks either. They've worked all right. The courtyard is adequate, but there's one move we have to do where do the basic and slowly slide our foot back into position and I can't do it right on the surface of the courtyard.

Mike decided to film our practices, just in case we forget our moves after practicing, which did happen after the second lesson. She added the new move which was a cross body lead with a spin. It took us a long time after that lesson to get home and by the time we practiced he wasn't sure how he was supposed to move and I wasn't either. We tried to find a video to help on YouTube, but there weren't many bolero ones on there.

We decided to have our third lesson a couple of days after that (we had our second lesson a week after the first) so we wouldn't mess anything up while we practiced. She added a third move in at the very end, but Mike picked it up well enough that he didn't feel we'd need anymore lessons after that. It helped that after the third lesson we felt more confident in our practice that we know the moves. At times we were both getting frustrated because we weren't getting some of the moves correctly.

We filmed another of our practices a couple of days ago and watched it back. We both think we definitely have work to do to get it better, but if the wedding was tomorrow we could do a good enough job to not embarrass ourselves. I still would like maybe one more practice to perfect, or really let her show us how it's "properly" done, plus we're trying to work on a final move where he spins me and dips me at the very end of the song and that definitely needs some work. I also wouldn't mind knowing another dance besides the bolero, since I told Mike I want to dance to at least five songs at the wedding and probably not all of them are bolero dances.

One of the main things we have to work on is both of us are very serious while we're practicing and we need to add some smiles so it doesn't like we've just gone to a funeral or something.

Even though Mike doesn't want to do a fourth lesson, he did mention that he thinks that maybe after we get everything paid up after the wedding that maybe we could take more lessons. He thinks it's a fun thing we can do together, so that's really nice. Though $70 a lesson is still a lot.

Stacey

The Things We Do For Love

geekslave — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 22:05:46 GMT

This happened a couple of months ago, and I even wrote a post about it at the time, but didn't get around to posting it until now.

Mike's a big fan of heavy metal and I'm not. I've pretty much known that from the start about his interest in it. Heavy metal is one of those types of music, like jazz and classical, that you'd be hard pressed to find a song that I'd enjoy - though it's not impossible every once in awhile. But we like a lot of the same kind of music, too so it's not really a big deal.

Mike heard about this concert with Insane Clown Posse and other metal bands. He wasn't sure if it'd be something he could do. He had always complained that he couldn't get to do fun things like concerts because most of them take place on the weekends, and he's always working then. The concert was on a Tuesday.

The timing sucked because he used to have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off, for years but a few months ago his days off changed to Mondays and Thursdays. So he still wasn't sure if we could go. But I told him if he really wanted to, he could just take some time off. It wasn't really great timing with the wedding coming up, and needing as many days off as possible, but he hardly ever gets to do enjoyable things so I thought he deserved it. So he decided to take the day of the concert and the day after off because it would be a long drive and he knew he wouldn't get much sleep for work the next day.

I decided if we were heading that way I could get my hair done at my aunt's, get extensions put back in. It's just easier to deal with in a lot of ways. I haven't asked Mike to go with me to do that again, because the one time he did we were there all day and he looked so miserable sitting there without much to do. But I figured since I was doing the concert for him, he could do this for me, and hopefully it wouldn't take as long.

We left early to make sure that my hair was done in time to get to the concert venue. I had ordered the tickets online, but didn't know much about the place. I started to get a little nervous about where we were going when Mike said I shouldn't bring my purse with me, at all, not even to leave in the trunk. I've been to concerts before and never had to leave my purse behind but he said he'd heard of people getting robbed at the venue we were going to.

The hair appointment didn't go so well. I'd brought hair I'd used before with me so we wouldn't have to waste time and buy any, or spend any money, since they're really expensive. I'd also washed and relaxed my hair beforehand, again to save time. But it turns out that I did a horrible job with the relaxer and I'd forgotten to wash the old hair. So she had to relax my hair again and Mike had to go out and get more hair.

Luckily after that unfortunate start, we still got finished super early. In fact, it might have been too early. To kill time we went by this bike shop that was nearby. It was owned by this BMX bike guy Mike really liked. The last time we visited, the guy was actually there and Mike talked to him for awhile (it was so cute, Mike was so star-struck and shy.) But Mike was really nervous about finding parking and getting to the place on time, so he said he wouldn't talk to the guy if he were there. It turned out to be a moot point because he wasn't there, so we were out of there in record time.

But we still had like three or four hours before we could even set foot in the venue, so I wanted to go to a restaurant, but Mike decided we should go to the Subway that was close by. We weren't there for very long.

We headed over to the venue where Mike concerned me once again. I started talking about finding a seat at the concert and he said he was pretty sure that it would be stadium seating with no chairs. I hoped he was joking because this would be a four hour concert and I didn't want to be standing the entire time.

We got to the place and we found parking easy, but then we had to walk around for awhile because they were doing construction in the area and most of the sidewalks weren't completed. We still had two hours or so before we could be seated and I didn't feel like waiting in the line that had already formed. But there weren't a lot of places in the nearby area and Mike wasn't willing to walk too far. So we walked around and couldn't find a place to hang, so we went back to the place.

The people there were already kind of hyper and they had a bunch of soda bottles with them. Mike had told me that in these ICP concerts the audience could bring in soda and the band would spray the first few rows with soda. I didn't think it was a good idea that some of those people had soda they could mess around with. This wasn't really my crowd. A lot of the people, including the women, were really rude, like they would catcall to people who were walking across the street.

There was someone that worked at the venue that kept trying to sell upgrades so you could be a VIP ticket holder, but they didn't explain the perks and it was kind of expensive. I wish we had upgraded because when we finally got inside, there weren't any seats, except a few in the back that were for VIP members. I even tried to take a seat on one of the steps and one of the guards told me I couldn't do that.

For some reason that day I was starving all the time. I ate before we left. I ate at my aunt's. I ate after at the Subway, but almost as soon as I was done there I was starving again. Mike got us some waters but that was about all that was available. Thankfully that was able to tide me over for most of the night, though I was starving by the time we got home and had to eat something even though it was very late.

As I suspected most of the bands really weren't my cup of tea, but I enjoyed seeing Mike getting really into it. For the life of me, I couldn't come up with most of the names of the other bands. Their was one that I kind of liked a couple of songs for. There was another band who came out in these outlandish costumes that Mike really geeked out over that was so cute. At one point the lead jumped into the crowd and I pushed Mike because he hesitated, but looked he wanted to, get closer and be among the crowd.

I don't know what people were smoking, at first I thought people were smoking those fake vapor cigarettes, but so many people had them I'm not sure if it was something else. I never wanted to get too close just in case it was something weird.

At first, people listened to the bands and they sometimes got rowdy, but they were mostly not too out there. But there was this one guy and girl who pushed their way right in front of us. There was an area closer to the front where people were jumping up and down and kind of doing a mosh pit thing, but for some reason he didn't go up there, but decided to start jumping around like a crazy person, even though no one else around was doing it. He bumped into me a couple of times, I had to push him away once, then Mike did. After that we moved a few paces away because at that point a lot of people were getting more hyper.

The problems really started once ICP came on. Like I said, Mike told me that they spray the audience with soda. But I was under the impression it was only the first couple of rows and that they only did it for a song or two. Well, I was wrong on both counts. The spraying started and Mike got closer, while I moved back when I started to get hit. We could see that the security guards had ponchos (which I wish they had sold to the patrons.) I started to really get pissed when it was clear they were throwing the soda as far as possible and that some people in the audience were doing it as well.

I decided to move to the bar to a supposed safe zone. I figured at one point they would stop throwing soda. But for the most part the soda throwing was just fast and furious throughout all songs. There was only one song, where the soda throwing didn't stop, but it was minimal compared to the other songs.

The things that really upset me was that the band would occasionally throw almost full soda bottles into the audience. They weren't just tossing it, but full blown throwing it. It wasn't a lot of times, but it was enough, where I was like if I get hit, I'm suing (and I'm not a super litigious person.) I thought it was unfair that they didn't really warn people about this practice. The only warning I got was Mike telling me about it. I'm sure most of the people in the audience were hard core fans and knew the deal, but still that's something I think you should inform people about.

One of the things that sucked is I could have probably enjoyed ICP's performance, some of the stuff I heard I liked, but I was mostly too annoyed to pay attention. I hated being the snooty,stuck up one in the audience. For those that watched Selfie my behavior was not that far from Julia's at the Blues Traveler concert. The only time I smiled at all was watching Mike getting into it and filming stuff and dancing around. I hated that I didn't get to enjoy it with him.

Unfortunately, there wasn't total sanctuary at the bar. Sometimes either the band or someone in the audience would throw soda all the way back there. And sometimes idiots behind me would pick up bottles and throw them back towards the main crowd. At one point this guy came toward me to reach for the yellow "wet floor" cone. At first I thought he might be security, but he kept looking at me shiftily and like he expected me to stop him. I figured out he wasn't security and he took the cone and threw it into the crowd like a dumbass.

I ended up deciding to pass the time by reading Teen Wolf, specifically Scott/Isaac smut. I am slightly embarrassed to say I got a little hot and bothered a couple of times, but it did help me be less annoyed a few times.

The only thing I brought with me was my ID, which I had in my pocket. I hate putting things in my pocket because I tend to lose things; Mike has the same issue. But I was very careful everytime I took something out to make sure to keep my ID (and later the parking garage ticket.) But when we got back to the parking garage I forgot and wasn't careful. Mike was speeding a little when on our way back and he got pulled over. For some reason the guy asked for my ID too which is when I realized we lost it. The cop was really nice and let Mike off with a warning. He even used his flashlight to help me look for my license. But I couldn't find it. Mike looked the next day and couldn't either. I did a brief look as well - still nothing. So a few days later we decide to go to the DMV to replace it and I look down and I see something sort of sticking out in a small space between my seat and the, can't remember what it's called, place in the middle with emergency brake and the cup holders. I just saw the edge but suspected it was my license and there it was; couldn't believe it was there the whole time.

Even though I had a bad experience toward the end, I didn't rule out doing something like it again. I said this time I would just bring a poncho and hat. Mike also said he didn't care how expensive it was, he'd probably spring for the VIP ticket so we could sit down.

Honeymoon Conundrum

geekslave — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 07:32:59 GMT

Almost two months to go until the wedding and we still haven't picked a honeymoon spot. It's one of those issues that Mike and I seem to kind of have radically different ideas about.

When we first talked about it, we kind of just talked about our wildest dreams - if money was no option. For me, I have a lot of ideas about wanting to go to foreign places, places I've wanted to go all my life - England, Italy, Ireland, etc. Mike likes the idea of going to beach places.

The second time we talked about it, Mike asked me what I wanted but I kind of hesitated to talk about it because I was still thinking far away, though I knew that those were pretty much pipe dreams. Mike kind of alarmed me then when he said that he had no plans to get on a plane whatsoever.

I'm not big on planes at all. I'm a hell of a lot more afraid of getting on a plane then he is, so I was surprised that he said that. I love Mike, but I don't really love the idea of doing any type of road trip for our honeymoon, and unless we plan to stay in Florida, we'd either have to do that or get on a plane. Mike did say that he'd prefer to stay in Florida. I really don't love that idea. I eventually explained to him that for me, I feel like I want to do something really special for our honeymoon. Who knows when we'll have kids so this could be the last time for awhile that we get to travel somewhere together and just do what we want. I don't want to stay in Florida because I've lived here practically my whole life.

I did like what Mike explained about not wanting to get on a plane. Part of it is cost, but the other part is he wants to limit the amount of traveling we do. He doesn't want to waste the time we could be enjoying spending together and relaxing, traveling.

He's kind of relaxed his stance about not getting on a plane. It's not his number one ideal, but he hasn't vetoed it.

Like I said, Mike likes the idea of going somewhere with a beach. One of his favorite ideas is going somewhere where we can rent a cabin/house on a beach. he found a couple of nice places in Oregon. It even looked like the places were close to where some scenes of The Goonies was filmed - which is one of our favorite movies. I assumed that since Oregon isn't that far from us, and I figured it wasn't some ultra popular destination, that a plane ticket wouldn't cost too much. But unfortunately it cost as much as to go to Hawaii.

The other idea that Mike is really keen on - maybe even more so than the beach - is going on a cruise. This is one of the things we've sort of butted heads over. Because I immediately kind of shut that idea down. I said that I'm not a cruise person. And Mike, fairly, pointed out that I'd never been on a cruise, so how could I know if I was a cruise person. The only time I even remotely did a cruise thing was this one time my mother took me to some game night thing that was on a cruise ship. We didn't set sail so it wasn't a real cruise.

I felt bad because Mike said he really, really loves going on cruises. When he said that I started to reconsider. I have a few reasons I don't think I'd love going on a cruise. I can't swim very well and tend to avoid things like beaches and going on boats. I was, and am willing to do the beach thing, because that doesn't have to be our whole honeymoon, but a cruise, we'd spend most of our time on the water.

My lamer reason for not wanting to do the cruise thing is that my mom and her husband went on a cruise for their honeymoon and Greg and Jean did as well. I just would prefer to do something different for our honeymoon than what our parents did.

Also, a year or so ago, there were those news stories about a couple of cruise ships that had problems and people ended up floating in the middle of the river for days and popping into cups. I know that their are pitfalls with every form of trouble, but those stories did not make the idea of cruises any more palatable to me.

But besides liking going on cruises Mike has other practical reasons for loving the idea. He said that going on a cruise would be easier because you basically only have one thing to worry about paying for. I think some cruises meals are paid for so you only have to worry about paying for transportation. You don't have to worry about your meals or where you're going to stay. It's all together in one package. That makes sense and that seems like a good idea.

I'm still hesitant about the idea. I'm fine with the idea of going on a cruise since Mike really likes it, but just not for our honeymoon. I don't want to do something I'm not sure I'd really enjoy.

I also feel like if I gave in on the cruise idea that wouldn't be a compromise, but just doing what Mike wants. The beach isn't my favorite place, but I could compromise on that because Mike gets something he likes and, especially if we did the cabin, there are parts of that I'd like. So it'd be a win for both of us.

I kind of got a little annoyed at my cousin at Thanksgiving because she kind of re-opened the cruise issue, at least on my end. She started talking about cruises and how they were the greatest things ever. It made me think that maybe I was being irrational about not being fully behind the idea.

But like I said we're getting close to crunch time and have to pick somewhere. We've set up one of those honeymoon registry funds and hope that maybe some of our family and friends can contribute a little bit and maybe that'll at least bring some of the costs down for wherever we eventually decide to go.

A few months ago we went over a budget. Mike estimated how much he'd make by the time the wedding rolled around and subtracted all of the expenses. We figured that we had a lot of money left over for the honeymoon. But with some of the things we didn't factor in, Mike doesn't think the estimate will hold and said the other day he wasn't sure we could have a honeymoon. I balked at that instantly. But then he explained that he was just talking about postponing it and having it at a later date.

I was still hesitant about that. I know that there are a lot of people who don't go on their honeymoon right away, but I didn't want to wait on that. But when he talked about having more money to save for the trip and having more time, I started to come around a little. We're only going to have a limited amount of days that Mike gets off from work and it would be nice to squeeze more days in and definitely to have more money so we can go to a place we both would really like.

Mike also mentioned that he was thinking about potentially going to Disney World. He said that he'd never been. He though we could go there and either splurge on a couple days in a hotel and for food or get a cheap hotel and go on as many rides as possible. He talked about going to the Harry Potter ride (which I later found out was at Universal) though he didn't know if that was a great idea because he said the wait for that line would probably be two hours or something.

I got an e-mail last week about a special for spending three nights at Disney World, though unfortunately the main park - the Magic Kingdom Park - isn't available for the special the week of our honeymoon.

While I wasn't a fan of the idea of a road trip on the honeymoon, this wouldn't require one since Disney is only about a half hour from where we're getting married. We could save time and money not having to get on a plane.

Mike and my mom also got to talking the other day and she mentioned Niagara Falls and the Poconos. I did some research on that today. The flights to both places is kind of expensive - but not outlandishly so and there are some affordable hotels in both places.

My mom presented another option as well. Originally, my mom's husband was supposed to take care of the transportation for the wedding. I haven't thought a lot about it, but at one point I wondered if we really needed a limo, since we're going to spend the night before the wedding at the hotel and also get dressed there. My mom was thinking the same thing and told me that I had two options - that I could get dressed at my aunt's and a limo could take me to the hotel or I could go to the Bahamas. At first I was confused since I didn't know what the Bahamas had to do with anything but then I realized that she meant she would pay for a limo or a honeymoon trip to the Bahamas.

Now, I know it might sound crazy to potentially turn down a free (or mostly free) trip to the Bahamas but I'm not a beach person, and unlike with cruises, that's something I definitely know. I don't like getting sand in weird places and don't want to go in the water. So, while it can be pretty to look at for a little bit, it's not somewhere I want to spend hours at, and I can't imagine what else there is to do at the Bahamas but beach adjacent things. I want to go somewhere where the beach isn't the only option of things to do.

Ugh, I hate having to make so many decisions. But at least we've narrowed down the options and I think we're really close to deciding.

Stacey

His Awesomeness Knows No Bounds

geekslave — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 21:49:22 GMT

He's done it again!

Mike has begun to branch out from just doing manips of his fellow horror club members to inserting some of his family members in his creations. He did a couple of manips with pictures of his sister and then one with her husband. He asked me about doing one of me (if I had any requests, which I didn't really) so I knew one with me was coming. He was kind of hilariously secretive about it, guarding his computer when he saw me about to sneak a peek. And I am really glad I had no idea what he was creating because he was so shocked and delighted when I saw what he created!

I just can't get over it! It's PERFECT! Again, like the last one, I'm just amazed that he did it at all and then to see how great it came out - like the way he has Merlin's hand around my waste - so awesome!

After he did the first "Magic Merlin" manip for me, I offered to make him any creative thing that he wanted - though I really meant writing him a story (when we first met he asked me to write a story, but I never got around to doing it.) At first, he passed on my offer, but then he said that he was looking at my computer and saw some of the gifs I have and he wanted one. The only problem was that he wanted one of someone's head exploding - not any specific head, any exploding head scene would do. My problem is that I can't stand watching scenes like that. It's one of my no-no type of scenes - along with decapitations, throat slicing, people being shot in the head, anything in a torture porn movie, etc.

I was wondering if there would be somebody who could make me a gif of an exploding head. I wouldn't want to see it, but if you could make it and send me the file or whatever. I would be eternally grateful and would extend the offer of a fic of your choice to you.

Stacey

Seventh Circle of Hell

geekslave — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 07:27:11 GMT

I'm not really big on shopping. I might enjoy it more if I ever had money to freely shop, but even if I did I don't think I'd enjoy the act of shopping very much. I can do it for a little while, but if I'm out there for more than an hour or so I start to get annoyed - especially if I'm there against my will - and just want to go home. That's with clothes shopping, which I actually have some interest in. When it comes to shoes, I really have no interest. But I had to go shoe shopping almost all day.

My mom "got to" Jean about the shoes. She walked into our room the other day and started asking me about my shoes for the wedding. When I said no heels, she gave me my mom's line about if I would at least try a really small heel. She admitted later my mom put her up to it and asked to take me shoe shopping. I decided to at least give it a try.

First, I looked online at pinterest to see what kind of shoes I'd like. I had mentioned thinking about wedges, but I couldn't find any that I liked. A lot of them were just as high as some heels and chunkier than I wanted. Most of the shoes I liked did turn out to be flats.

When we got the mall, Mike first got shoes for himself. He already got rentals but he wanted something better and more comfortable. Mike has problems with dress shoes. He needs a wider front and can't always find it. This time he found a shoe he liked right away.

I wasn't so lucky. As soon as I tried on my first shoe, I knew I might be in trouble. I've always had trouble finding shoes because my right foot is abnormal. Well, not the foot but the toes. The second to last toe is shorter than the last one. I don't know what it's missing, but it looks like it's ingrown or something. I have trouble describig it, so here's a picture under a spoiler cut for any non-foot fetishists out there. ;)

That's one of the reasons I almost never wear sandals and a lot of times when I have to find formal shoes, it's a little more difficult, like I'll find shoes that I like when I try them on, but after wearing them a short time they start to hurt. I tend to stick to sneakers because it's easier to find comfortable ones.

That never really occurred to me when we went shopping because I hadn't given it much thought and I rarely go shoe shopping. As soon as I tried on the first one, it felt a little too tight and the edge of the toe box hits me right in the middle of that problematic toe. And it was like that with almost every shoe I tried on in that store. There was no shoe that covered the whole toe and all of them squeezed the front of my foot.

I tried on a couple of heels, which mostly had the same problems, but it was enough to know that I might be willing to try a heel as long as it isn't too high and that the heel isn't too skinny.

One of the biggest problems, other than the shape of the shoes not working with my feet, is that there aren't many stores for good shoes around here. When it was a bust at the mall we were at, which was already 45 minutes from our house, we went to another mall that was another half an hour away.

When we went to the second mall, I did find a shoe that finally covered the problem toe, but it still felt too tight and with that one the way it hit my ankle hurt my ankle bone. Jean was really disappointed I didn't go for that one. She said it was just one day, which yeah, but I don't want to be uncomfortable on that day. At one point Michael joked that I might have to go for a dressy sneaker for the wedding. I'm not too keen on that idea and I know my mom would go apoplectic at that thought.

But I might end up with no choice. I found a lot of shoes I liked online, but I hate online shopping for clothes and shoes because a lot of times something looks good when you're looking at it, but when you try it on, it doesn't look as good or doesn't fit right. Given how much trouble I had with the majority of shoes I tried on, I don't know if I could trust buying a shoe online that I haven't tried on. I think like with Mike I need a shoe with a much wider toe than I'm finding right now.

Another big problem with finding the right shoe is a problem with finding a shoe in the right size. My shoe size is 7 1/2...generally. Like it's 7 1/2 with sneakers, but with other shoes sometimes I wear a 7, sometimes I can pull off an 8. When I tried on shoes that day, I tried it in a lot of different sizes. I tried 7 1/2 shoes at first, but most of them were either way too big or slightly too big. So sometimes I tried 7, 6 1/2, or 6 and none of them fit consistently. The best fits were 6 1/2 and 7.

But if I try to buy on-line, I don't know which size I should go for, which of course makes things more difficult.

After about the fourth or fifth hour of shoe shopping, I started to get grouchy and frustrated and didn't want to look at another shoe again. But I must keep looking. If I don't find a shoe I trust online, I'm thinking of going up to where our wedding is being held (since we have to drop off the cake topper) and try and find something there, since they have a lot of shops.

Stacey

Six Selfies Meme

geekslave — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 04:21:41 GMT

I was tagged by doodlesinsand for the six selfies meme. Here are six selfies from the past year.

A couple of these are really grainy because I took them on my iPhone with the camera angle turned around because I thought it would work better for selfies, but it really didn't. :)

Mike's a delicious cook. Or is that his food is delicious? Either way it works. :)

Help, help, I'm about to be attacked! ;)

Fandom meme

geekslave — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 07:15:40 GMT

Stolen from luckweaver

Gimme a fandom I’ll tell you:
The first character I first fell in love with:
The character I never expected to love as much as I do now:
The character everyone else loves that I don’t:
The character I love that everyone else hates:
The character I used to love but don’t any longer:
The character I would totally smooch:
The character I’d want to be like:
The character I’d slap:
A pairing that I love:
A pairing that I despise:

Eligible fandoms for me: Arrow, Charmed, Teen Wolf, Torchwood, Friends, The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, Merlin, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural, The Walking Dead

Stacey

Nobody Panic (Except Me)

geekslave — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 08:14:34 GMT

I was standing in our room a couple of weeks ago, and I suddenly turned to Mike, and said "Oh my God, it's almost three months until the wedding." I've kind of been in a steadily escalating panic ever since then. I think Mike's starting to join me. Mike marvelled today that we have less than three months to go and when I broke down exactly how many days we had left (84) his eyes kind of bulged.

It's not just that the wedding is so close. It's that there are still so many major decisions we have to make. When we set the date for March 28, we had plenty of time to prepare and I got an app from The Knot magazine that had a checklist that I planned to use, but like everything having to do with time management, I dropped the ball.

We were supposed to pick an officiant in May. My mom suggested my Uncle Robert. He's a Jehovah's Witness elder and can perform wedding ceremonies. I wasn't sure if he could perform our ceremony because neither Michael or I is a Jehovah's Witness. I asked my mom about it and she was like sure he would do it because I'm his niece. Well, I asked him about it and he was cagey at first and said he had to think about it (which is a phrase I'm starting to hate.) I called my mom and let her know and pretty soon after he called me back and said my mom should have told me that he's not allowed to do that. The other person we were going to ask is another uncle of mine but he's also a Jehovah's Witness so he wouldn't be able to do it either.

I keep semi-jokingly telling Mike that we should just do the popular thing lately, and just have one of our friends get ordained on-line (especially his funny friend Sean) and they could do it. For some reason Mike doesn't seem too keen on that idea. The place where we found a DJ also has officiants, but they cost $225.

Over Thanksgiving I found out I need to find a photographer. When we got engaged my mom said that a bunch of my relatives would be doing different things, like my mom would pay for the venue, her husband would pay for the transportation, my aunts would pay for the cake, etc. I could have sworn she indicated that one of my aunts, who always photographs family functions, would take the pictures. We never worried about pictures anyway because in addition to my aunt, my sister is a photographer and so is one of Mike's cousin's wife.

I still thought my aunt would do it, but when I went up to her place for Thanksgiving she asked "Oh, by the way, what photographer did you hire?" That was a definite panic button moment.

I also haven't decided if I want real flowers for my bouquets or fake ones, or how I want the rooms at the venue decorated. Since we're spending so much money on the DJ, videographer, photographer, etc, Mike said he wants to keep the decorations simple. So I'm trying to find ideas that look nice that won't break the bank.

Since I don't know how many flowers I'll need, I haven't found a florist yet because I don't even know if I'll really need one. Though I will need some kind of flowers because our cake is supposed to be decorated with flowers.

I went to this website that I went to before to find the potential engagement photographer. I put out requests for florists, photographers, videographers, and officiants. In the good news department I've had a few offers for officiant, photographers, and videographers (though for far more than I was looking to spend.) In the bad news department didn't find any potential florists. I might have been too specific in my request for florists since I said I would really only need a bridal bouquet and flowers for the cake and I guess no one was willing to offer up their services unless I was willing to spend an arm and a leg.

Now I have to rely on two of my poorest skills - organization and communication. I have to compare all of the different offers we've gotten and figure out what we want and decide how much we're willing to spend. And I also have to talk to people, since most of these websites refuse to list their prices and sometimes when you talk to the vendors they're willing to work with you on the price, depending on what you need and how desperate they are for business.

I still have to find shoes and we still haven't figured out where we want to go on our honeymoon.

I also really, really need to get back on my diet. I lost so much weight in 2013, but it's been mostly a bust this year. At the four month 'til the wedding mark I told Mike I was going to recommit myself to the diet, because I wanted to at least lose 20 pounds. He kind of laughed it off and said he didn't think that was happening. In his defense, I said that while I was holding a huge frappuccino with whip cream (in my defense, it was a cheat day and we had just done a cake tasting.)

But it was a really bad time to commit to a diet because it was the holiday season. I don't necessarily pig out at all times during the holidays, but it's still a hard time to lose weight, which I discovered definitely held true for me when I weighed myself last week and found out I gained four pounds.

So I've re-re committed to the diet with three months left, though I don't know if I even have a full three months. I have to do a fitting in February and I don't know if you'r allowed to lose weight after that. Though I'm not sure if it matters since my dress is a lace up corset dress, so if I do lose more weight after the last fitting they can just pull it tighter.

I asked Mike to make sure I recommit to eating better, which I didn't really need to do because I knew what he would say. He's always on me about eating cookies. I always remark back that I lost weight even when I was still eating cookies. He also always tells me about how calories don't really matter. Like I asked him, when he said I had to cut out cereal for breakfast, what was a healthier option, and he said eggs would be one way to go. But I'm always wary of that because I eat way more calories in the morning when I have eggs (a lot because of the oil I use, though it's extra virgin olive oil.) But he said that the kind calories in eggs are okay and it's good for you. I did buy Mike something for Christmas that cooks eggs faster, since he likes to often make hard-boiled eggs for his breakfast.

I'm also becoming one of those weirdo brides. I got our invitations and I started looking them over and noticed a really, really tiny imperfection. When I was making the cards I kept having problems getting everything on the front side to fit. Though the back was fine. Even though the invitation file was supposed to be 5x7 and I was using a 5x7 template, the words in the upper corner would get cut off and when I tried to fix that, our picture would look off-center and weird.

I finally started over and got everything to look okay. But when I got the invitations in my hands, something didn't look quite right. In the upper corner it says Mr. and Mrs. and the period after Mrs. is...half gone. Yes, such a travesty! I know it's a ridiculous thing to have a problem with but I just wanted the card to look perfect and with that teensy hiccup it doesn't to me.

The horror!

Mike said if it bothered me, I should do it over, but then we both agreed we're not spending money for a second batch of invitations that we'd have to pay for because it was probably my mistake. Though a couple of weeks later, I looked the invitations over again and I don't think it was my mistake because the period after Mrs. looks different on each invitation. Sometimes the period is only half gone, sometimes a little more than that, and on some of them it's completely gone. But, oh well, I'm just going to have to deal with it.

In happier news, I finally found a replacement bridesmaid. I can't remember if I mentioned it before, but I asked my younger half-sister to be a bridesmaid and she indicated that she might not even be able to come to the wedding because she's graduating next year and her mom will be throwing her a party and might not be able to afford to send her to the wedding. She said she'd have to ask her. After that, she called me back about a month later and said she wouldn't be able to do it because of the expense and the party and needing to study and also because she was going to be a bridesmaid in some other wedding.

It sounds kind of bad but I was disappointed, but not really devastated because I barely know her and we're not that close. But it did leave me in a conundrum of who to fill her slot with. All of my friends are on-line and I'm not particularly close with any of my female cousins. Mike suggested that one of his sister's friends could do it, but I don't want some random stranger to do it, even though I know people sometimes people pick bridesmaids they're not close to (I was a bridesmaid once for my mother's hairdresser's sister, or some relation of hers) but I don't want to go that route.

I have to have a fourth because otherwise it won't be even because Mike has four groomsmen, and having an even amount of attendants is a detail Mike has been surprisingly adamant about. Part of me wanted to ask one of my male cousins, since I've been closer to some of them. I know it's okay in this day and age to have a male as one of my attendants, but Mike said none of his groomsman would dance or walk down the aisle with another guy, and I don't think my cousins would be enlightened enough to be cool with being the only male among my attendants.

I decided to ask a former best friend of mine. I hadn't even thought of asking her to the wedding, but mom said she talked to her mom and wanted me to invite her, and we did used to be close (even though it was a long time ago.) I finally got up the courage to call her. She seemed really excited to come to the wedding, but was hesitant when I asked her to be a bridesmaid, which is understandable since we haven't seen each other in ages. But she did agree to do it, which was such a relief.

Though back to the bad news category, my mom dropped another pseudo bomb on me right after my sister said she couldn't be a bridesmaid. She called and told me I should maybe think of having an alternate bridesmaid for my niece. She said my niece was supposed to be a part of her wedding party when she got married but flaked and didn't do it. Apparently, my niece just lost her job and is in some kind of fight with her mother and with her son's paternal grandmother. Always so much drama with her, but I wouldn't even know how picking an alternate would work. I can't just have a dress on stand-by and tell someone 'okay you may, or may not, be in the wedding.'

I want to be excited - and part of me really is - but it's hard too feel excited with the pressure of decisions, decisions still looming over our heads.

Stacey

No, You Can't Date A Sociopath Masterlist

geekslave — Sat, 03 Jan 2015 22:08:27 GMT

Fic: No, You Can't Date A Sociopath (Part 2)

geekslave — Sat, 03 Jan 2015 21:59:59 GMT

Author/Artist/Vidder: GeekSlave
Title: No, You Can't Date A Sociopath
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Scott/Isaac, Scott & Stiles. Scott, Isaac, Stiles, Melissa, Sheriff Stilinski, Danny
Rating: NC-17
Summary: When Stiles finds out about Isaac and Scott's secret relationship, his first reaction isn't to wish the couple well - he faints. And then it only gets worse from there.
Warnings (if any): Brief mentions of past abuse and past off-screen minor character death.
Total Word Count/Length: 18,871
Disclaimer: This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by MTV. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's/Artist's/Vidder's notes (if any): Written for tw_fallharvest
Beta(s): Thanks to my beta, who chooses to remain nameless. Any mistakes left are my own.

Part 1

Scott walked up to his front door on autopilot. He'd been going through the motions ever since Stiles left the clinic.

Scott couldn't believe that it had really come to this. Stiles was stubborn and had every right to dislike Isaac, but he had been sure that if he could just tell Stiles what Isaac meant to him, it would change things and Stiles would at least make some effort to get along with Isaac, or pretend to. Clearly he underestimated Stiles' dislike of Isaac.

Scott shut the front door and, after briefly banging his head against it, he trudged up the stairs.

He dropped his bag just inside the door to his bedroom. He saw a small patch of light coming from underneath Isaac's closed door. Scott could hear him shuffling around in there.

As he walked over, Isaac's shuffling footsteps stopped and Scott caught a strong whiff of fear, which had him immediately sprint faster to Isaac's room.

He threw the door open and he was stunned at what he saw.

Scott rubbed at his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

Isaac stood in front of his open duffel bag and paused his frantic packing as he looked up at Scott, but resumed quickly.

"Isaac?" Scott said flatly, still too stunned, too tired, and too surprised to comprehend what was going on.

"You talk to Stiles?" Isaac asked conversationally, glossing over the enormity of what he was doing.

"Yeah," Scott spoke slowly as he tried to process Isaac’s actions. "He's still not happy about us being together." Scott added with sadness, “I think I hurt his feelings.”

Isaac just grunted. He went over to the closet and hastily ripped his shirts from the hangers. The clattering hangers resonated in Scott's ears.

"That's too bad," he said as he dumped the shirts in the already near capacity bag. Scott briefly thought back to when Isaac first moved in with them. He hadn’t had much more than the clothes on his back. Scott was amazed that Isaac had accumulated so much in the short time he'd been living with them.

Isaac cleared his throat. "It's okay, though. He'll be happy when he finds out I don't live here anymore."

Scott almost doubled over at his words. "What? Isaac, what is happening?"

Isaac sniffed and looked down at the floor. "I've decided that I'm tired of being your secret, Scott."

This was such a 180, Scott felt dizzy. They'd talked about this. "But it doesn't have to be a secret anymore."

"Because your Wonder Twin Stiles knows now." Isaac said in a harsh tone, that Scott hadn't heard coming from him in a long time. "I didn't sign up for a threesome, Scott. What happens between us should have nothing to do with him. I'm tired of dealing with him."

Scott rushed toward him. "It's going to be okay. Stiles will come around."

Isaac looked at him in disbelief. "Did you not hear what I said? I don't care about how Stiles feels about this. I don't care if he comes around. Stop saying things are going to be okay." He blew out a long breath. "I'm just done."

Scott was breathing heavily. As Isaac tried to walk past him, he grabbed his wrist. He knew he was holding on too tightly, and he shouldn't have been, but he couldn't let go. He might have lost his best friend that night and he was not about to lose Isaac on top of it. "Please, just stop. You have to explain this because this morning you were fine. We were fine."

Isaac turned around slowly. He didn't make an attempt to get away from Scott. "That's because you weren't paying attention. You were too worried about how to mend things with your precious, Stiles. I may have said things were fine, but I'm not."

He looked down at his wrist and tugged gently. Scott got the hint and let go.

Everything Isaac was saying tore at Scott's heart. The things he was saying made sense, but there was still something that felt off. Isaac was saying the right words and he even sounded right at times - angry and tired. But it didn't ring true.

Scott stared at Isaac and crouched down a little to get Isaac to look him in the eye.

Isaac just hung his head lower and rubbed the back of his neck. "It just doesn't feel like it used to anymore. And maybe I'm just not cut out for relationships."

Scott didn't say anything and finally Isaac looked up briefly. As soon as he looked at him, he knew. "You're lying."

Isaac recoiled and kept a wide birch as he walked past Scott and back towards the bed and his bag. "What are you talking about?"

Scott slowly stepped towards Isaac. "I know you, Isaac. I know how you think and you're trying to push me away."

Isaac scoffed at that. "I didn't realize you had such an ego, Scott. The only reason I could want to break up with you is because I'm lying?"

Scott stepped right up to Isaac. He was close enough to see Isaac's long eyelashes fluttering against his perfect skin. "Why can't you look at me?"

"I can look at you." Isaac said. He glanced up, but stared at a spot behind Scott's head.

Scott put two fingers under Isaac's chin and finally Isaac's blue eyes focused on him. "Don't lie to me, please."

Isaac panted for a second and stared into Scott's eyes. Finally his shoulders sagged. "Fine. I'm trying to do the right thing, for once."

"The right thing?"

Isaac tore his eyes away from Scott and looked up at the ceiling. "I may not like Stiles, but you need him. I don't want you to lose that because of me."

Scott put his hands gently on Isaac's face. "I won't."

"You don't know that."

Scott shook his head. "I do. Because I love Stiles and he loves me. We're going to work this out. I have to have faith in that."

"But it would be easier if you just let me go," Isaac pleaded.

Scott so much love for him in that moment. This was the Isaac Stiles refused to see. He was willing to give up his happiness just so Scott could be happy. "It wouldn't be easier."

"How come?"

"Because I'm in love with you."

Isaac sucked in a breath and stared open-mouth at Scott. "You just said..."

"I'm in love with you," Scott repeated.

Isaac's lips twitched up briefly, before his lips pressed firmly together. He wasn't frowning, but he did look confused. "Why?"

Scott hated that Isaac's father had beaten him down so much, not just physically but emotionally as well, that Isaac had trouble seeing his own worth or why someone could love him.

Scott ran his hand through Isaac's curly hair. "Because when you smile it makes me happy. Because you take care of my mom even when I don't ask you to. Because you made mistakes and you're trying to learn from them. Because you don't ever tell me I'm dumb, even when I know I say something stupid. Because you let me hold me when you can't sleep at night and you do the same for me. And because when I wake up, you're the first person that I want to see."

"Wow." Isaac breathed out.

"How's that for an answer?" Scott grinned.

"That's pretty fucking awesome!" Isaac declared. And then he smiled that smile - that face splitting smile that had to be the personification of the word joy- that Scott would swear was more powerful, more addictive, and more intense than any drug could ever be.

Scott pulled Isaac into a tight embrace. He knew he was probably holding on too tight, but he couldn't help it. He pulled back and searched Isaac's face. "So you'll stay?"

Isaac kissed his lips softly. "I love you, Scott. I'm not going anywhere."

Scott heaved a huge sigh of relief and pulled Isaac into his arms again.

This had been such an emotional roller coaster of a day and Scott wasn't sure how he was still standing. But the fact that a day that had started out so shitty had ended on such a high, filled him with hope. Things could get better and he was going to do everything to make sure that it did.

~*~

It had been two days since Scott's love confession and Isaac was still hardly able to believe it really happened. But it did, and now he and Scott were turning into one of those nauseating couples who were so over the top in love Isaac just wanted to punch them. Scott would tell Isaac he loved him at night, he would kiss Isaac awake with “I love you,” and randomly text him ILY. Very sickening. But Isaac really didn’t care though.

He'd spent so many years feeling alone and unloved that he was going to bask in this feeling as much as possible.

Only two things kept him from truly being able to enjoy this high. One of them, of course, was Stiles. Scott and Stiles were still not speaking and Isaac felt like it was his fault. He wanted to fix things, but didn't know how.

The other problem actually filled Isaac with much more anxiety. Scott meant it when he said he was ready to start telling people about them. When they got to school, Scott told him that he was going to attempt to tell Allison about them. Scott being the great guy that he was wanted to make sure Allison heard it from him first.

The last time he saw Scott they hadn’t had “the most awkward talk in the history of the universe” as Scott put it. Isaac was pretty sure Scott was wrong. The most awkward talk in the history of the universe would be when Scott told his mother about them, which he was planning on doing that night.

Even though Scott told him he had no reason to be, Isaac was really nervous about how Melissa would react. He had started to wonder if unpacking his bag had been a good idea. He knew that Melissa really cared about him, but it was one thing to allow your son’s friend to move in, and another to let his boyfriend have free reign for booty calls every night under your roof.

Scott went to work after school and Isaac decided to butter Melissa up by making her favorite dinner that night. It was annoying having to take the bus, but he got everything together and was about to start cooking.

He started to unpack everything from the bags. When he looked down at everything, he did a double take, and checked the clearly empty bags again. “Stupid, motherfucking asshole!”

He had been too busy frantically searching the bags again to hear Scott come in through the front door. He only noticed Scott’s presence when Scott shook his shoulder.

“Isaac, what is it?” He asked sounding really fearful.

Isaac looked devastated. “I don’t have the meatballs.”

Scott almost laughed, but the pitiful look on Isaac’s face stopped him. “And?”

“And?” Isaac looked at Scott as if he’d grown another head. “I can’t make spaghetti and meatballs without meatballs.”

“So, just make spaghetti without meatballs.”

“Do you even know your own mother, Scott?” Isaac grumbled. “Meatballs are her favorite part.” He sat down heavily at the kitchen table.

Scott chuckled softly and sat down next time. He took Isaac’s hands in his own. “Isaac, you don’t need to bribe my mother with meatballs for her to accept us being together. She’s going to be fine. She’ll be surprised but she can deal. If she can deal with me being a werewolf, she can deal with me dating you.”

Isaac nodded once, but he still looked skeptical. “How did it go with, Allison?”

Scott pursed his lips together. “It wasn’t what I expected.”

“It wasn’t awkward?”

“Oh, no. It was definitely awkward.”

Isaac was curious, but wasn’t worried, since Scott didn’t look upset in anyway. In fact, he actually smiled. “When I finally told her, she laughed.”

“She laughed?” Isaac probably shouldn’t have been, but he was annoyed at that reaction. “Should I be insulted by that?”

Scott shook his head. “It wasn’t really anything bad. She just said she was surprised. She actually said she was surprised, and not surprised by it.”

Isaac sat back in his chair. “What did she mean by that?

“She had never expected me to date a guy next, but she’s seen us together and kind of wondered sometimes what was really going on. She was happy that her instincts were right.”

“She wasn’t upset?” Isaac didn’t really care about Allison’s feelings too much. He was still a little pissed at her for attacking him, but he didn’t want to be like Stiles and hold an epic grudge. Allison had meant a lot to Scott and he cared about her and it would kill him to cause her pain.

“She’s okay. She never expected me to wait forever. She said that she’s glad I’m happy.” Scott squeezed Isaac’s hand.

Isaac didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but he was skeptical that was all there was. “That was it? Either she’s either the most emotionally stable girl in the world, and the previous knife wounds to my back make that unlikely, or there’s more to this.”

Scott looked down and picked at the tablecloth. “She said that it was a little weird for her and she had some of the same concerns as Stiles. She’s not sure if you’re that different from how you were before.”

Isaac threw up his hands. Yes, what he did was horrible, but how could he put it behind him if everyone wouldn’t let it go. “God, I never killed anyone! Is anyone going to give me a chance to make it right?”

Scott tugged one of his hands down. “You didn’t let me finish. She’s worried about me, but she trusts me and isn’t going to give me a hard time about it.”

Isaac relaxed a little. “Okay. I guess that’s good. I wish Stiles could follow her lead.”

Scott nodded slowly and looked pensive as he bit his lip. “Yeah. At least you don’t have to worry about Allison and you won’t have to worry about my mom, either.”

Isaac hoped Scott was right.

After talking it over with Scott, Isaac decided to regain some of his sanity and stop freaking out about meatballs. He improvised and made shrimp marinara instead. Scott set the table as Isaac got ready. Scott talked him out of wearing a suit, which was a good idea because Isaac didn’t have any suits of his own and he could just imagine how ridiculous he’d look in one of Scott’s.

Melissa was so tired when she got home that she just immediately sat down to eat and didn’t bother to get out of her scrubs. It was only after she had finished off half of her plate, that she was able to make any conversation.

Her silence had made Isaac even more anxious, but now that she was talking and asking Scott and Isaac questions, his anxiety didn’t lessen. Normally, he and Melissa talked a lot over dinner, but right now Isaac’s mind was blank. Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. The one thing that ran through his mind was “I’m fucking your son.” Thankfully, he managed to keep himself from blurting that out.

Melissa’s plate was empty, except a piece of garlic bread that she was now dragging through the marinara sauce. “I think this is your best meal yet, Isaac. I swear I don’t know what we did for meals before you got here.”

“A lot of ramen noodles and hot dogs,” Scott supplied.

“No wonder I’ve blocked it from my memory,” Melissa joked.

Suddenly, Isaac laughed really loudly. He covered his mouth quickly as both Melissa and Scott stared at him. “Sorry, that was really funny. You’re really funny.”

“Yeah.” She gave him a funny look.

The conversation, the little there was, stalled and Isaac wasn’t sure what to do. “Do you want more to drink?” He asked Melissa. He didn’t wait for her answer and stood up and knocked over his glass. “Shit.” He grabbed some napkins and dabbed at the mess.

Melissa cocked her head to the side and looked him up and down. “Are you alright, Isaac?”

Isaac looked up and awkwardly clung to the dripping napkins in his hands. “No. I mean y-yes. Fine. I’m good.”

Melissa narrowed her eyes and looked over at Scott. “You boys haven’t been...experimenting have you?”

Isaac laughed again. He turned his gaze to Scott. “You want to answer that one, Scott?”

Scott ran his hand through his hair. “Uh...mom. I just wanted to tell you that I’m dating someone new.”

Melissa sat forward and smiled. “Oh, that’s it? Because that’s great.”

“It is great,” Scott nodded. “And I think you’ll really like who it is since you already like that person.”

“I already like that person? You said you’re dating someone new, so it’s not Allison. Is it that girl Lydia?”

“No,” Scott cleared his throat. “It’s actually not...a girl.”

Melissa blinked rapidly. “It’s a guy. You’re dating a guy?” She put her hand over her mouth. “Are you dating Stiles?”

“What?” Scott yelled. “No. Why would I date Stiles?”

“I don’t know. You two are so close. I mean, who else could it be?”

Scott stared at Isaac.

Melissa followed his gaze.

Isaac gave her a small smile.

“Oh. You’re dating Isaac?” Melissa said. She didn’t sound angry, but she didn’t sound happy either.

“Yes. He’s my boyfriend and I love him.” Scott smiled proudly at Isaac.

Melissa’s expression softened and she looked back at Scott. “You’re in love? How long has this been going on?”

“Since the beginning of summer,” Scott had the grace to look guilty.

“You’ve been dating for four months and I’m just finding out about it?” Melissa shouted. “Why wouldn’t you tell me? You know I care about Isaac. What did you think I would say?”

Isaac was happy to hear Melissa say she cared about him. But when he looked over at Scott, the smile dropped from his face. Scott was frowning and looked like a kicked puppy.

Scott shrugged. “I don’t know. First I’m a wolf, now I’m dating a guy, and not just any guy, but someone we live with. It’s a lot to take in. I wanted to be a better son and not cause you so much stress.”

“Scott, look at me!” Melissa reached over and gripped Scott’s chin. “I know things haven’t been easy this year, and we’ve both made mistakes, but I could not ask for a better son. You being in love and happy is not going to cause me stress. You could be dating a monkey and I wouldn’t care.” She paused. “Wait, no that would still be weird. But Isaac’s no monkey.”

“Thanks.” Isaac replied with no bitterness and a little bit of humor. He was too happy that Melissa was taking this better than he expected that he didn’t really care what she compared him to.

“You’re really okay with this?” He’d tried to make Isaac feel like everything was going to be okay, but Isaac could always tell that Scott was just as nervous as he was. After how Stiles reacted, if Melissa had taken things badly, Isaac doesn’t know how Scott would have rebounded.

Melissa smiled. “I’m really okay with this. I’m probably going to want doors open at all times, but I’m okay.”

Scott smiled back at her, and then looked up at Isaac. He looked so happy that all Isaac wanted to do was kiss him senseless, but he would hold off on the PDA in front of Melissa for now.

Dinner was over pretty quickly after that. Scott helped him clear the table, and then Isaac washed the dishes. When he heard someone come in behind him, at first he assumed it was Scott, but the smell - a mixture of sweat, antiseptic, and strawberry-scented shampoo - let him know that it was Melissa.

As happy as Isaac was that Melissa wasn’t upset, it was still a little odd to be around her now. Things were different between him and Scott, and he assumed it would have to be the same with Melissa and him.

Melissa started drying the plates and Isaac kept his eyes on the sink in front of him. He snuck a look over at her a couple of times, and when she finally caught him looking, he shook his head and grinned. “I guess you never saw this coming when I first moved in.”

“Not exactly,” Melissa said openly, not hiding her initial surprise. “But, Scott could definitely do worse.”

Isaac should have just been able to take the compliment, but unfortunately he wasn’t wired that way. “Really? Worse than the sociopath in training that turned your son gay?”

Melissa almost dropped her dish on the floor, she whipped around so fast. “First of all, Isaac, you don’t “turn” someone gay. You know better than that. And you are not a sociopath. You think I’d let you live here if I thought you were deranged in any way?”

Isaac shut off the faucet and shook the water from his hands. “You don’t know some of the things I’ve done in the past.”

“I don’t care,” Melissa said with an ease that shocked Isaac.

Isaac finally looked at her fully. “You really don’t care?”

“No,” Melissa sighed. “Isaac, you’re 16 years old. No matter what you think, or what you’ve seen in the movies, your whole life does not have to be defined by your actions when you’re a teenager. I don’t know what you did before Isaac, but I see how you are now, especially with me, and with Scott. You’re family Isaac and, quite frankly I think my son is lucky to have you.”

Isaac felt a huge swell of relief. He was starting to get choked up, so he decided to make a joke. “I’m still family even if I cheat on Scott or something.” He immediately regretted the comment as soon as it came out of his mouth,

Melissa’s eyes narrowed to slits.

Isaac immediately backtracked. “I would never, ever, cheat on Scott.”

“Good, because if you ever did. I would destroy you.”

Isaac gulped.

And like a switch had been flipped, Melissa smiled and turned around. “But, yeah, you’d still be family.”

~*~

Isaac was beat. But he had insisted on cleaning the kitchen after he was done so Scott could get started on his homework and Melissa could take a shower.

After he was done, he slowly climbed the stairs. He could hear Scott and his mother talking. He was just going to head to his room but when he heard his name, he couldn’t help inching closer to the room.

“Just remember to be careful,” Melissa said.

Scott groaned. “Mom, you know I was careful with Allison, why wouldn’t I be careful with Isaac?”

Melissa laughed. “While I’m glad to know that you’re using protection with Isaac, that’s not what I meant. I need you to be careful with Isaac’s feelings and not hurt him.”

“Mom, I would never hurt him.” Scott stressed and Isaac had no doubt he meant it.

“I know that. I know you’d never intentionally hurt him, but you know everything Isaac has been through. If he loses you, I think it could really crush him.”

“He’s not going to lose me.” Scott answered without hesitation. “I love him.”

“I know you do, honey. But what about Stiles? I can’t imagine you cutting him out of your life completely.”

“It’s not going to come to that. Stiles will come around.”

“Be honest with me Scott, what happens if he doesn’t?” Melissa asked.

Scott sighed, loud and long.

Scott’s silence worried Isaac. Normally, he would just insist that everything would work out. But it seemed it was time to face the facts now.

“I-” Scott’s voice cracked. “I don’t know. Everything I’m doing, I’m either hurting Stiles or I’m hurting Isaac. I don’t want to do that. But what am I supposed to do? I can’t make Stiles forgive Isaac. I know Isaac has changed, but Stiles has a right to hate him. But I can’t stop loving Isaac. I won’t. So what am I supposed to do?”

Scott’s voice sounded utterly wrecked and Isaac quietly left and went to his room. Isaac made up his mind. Scott might not like it, but Isaac finally knew what he had to do.

~*~

Stiles rounded the corner at school and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Scott and Isaac over by Scott’s locker. Their heads were so close together that Stiles thought they might kiss. He started to back away.

He absolutely hated this and couldn’t believe it had gone on for this long. But this is where they were now, thanks to Isaac. Of course, Stiles could just apologize and this separation would be over. He really thought about it. But then when he would see Scott and Isaac together, he just couldn’t bring himself to.

Stiles continued to back away and suddenly bumped into someone. “Ah!” he yelled and whirled around.

He’d bumped into Danny as he was opening up his locker. Danny didn’t say anything, just quirked an eyebrow at Stiles with an expectant look on his face.

“Sorry,” Stiles spit out. He quickly looked behind him and, even though Scott and Isaac hadn’t looked up, he quickly darted behind Danny’s open locker door.

Danny looked over at what Stiles was staring at. “They’re such a cute couple.”

Stiles stuck his head out from behind the small door and gave Danny a nasty look. “They are not cute.”

“They’re very cute. I’m glad they’re finally out with it. It was like the worst kept secret in Beacon Hills.” Danny said as took books out of his locker and started to close it.

Stiles gripped the door and kept him from closing it. “Wait, I need this. And how long have you known about them?”

Danny shrugged. “A couple of months. I’ve seen the way Scott looks at Isaac.”

Stiles banged his head against the hard locker. “Oh, my God I swear if you say you could see the love pouring from his eyes, or some other cliched garbage, I might strangle you.”

“Dude, chill out,” Danny said. “I meant that I saw the way Scott was constantly eyeing Isaac’s ass like a starving man eyes a juicy steak.”

Stiles closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “That’s a worse explanation.”

“There was also the time I walked in on them after lacrosse practice and they were making out in the shower.”

“Stop talking.” Stiles closed the locker door himself - loudly. He didn’t care if Scott or Isaac saw him. Luckily, it seemed they had already walked away.

Danny leaned against his locker with an annoying smirk on his face. “That’s right, I forgot about your weird jealousy thing.”

“I’m not jealous,” Stiles protested.

“Jealousy, possessiveness, stalker behavior...whatever you want to call it."

Stiles refused to rise to Danny’s bait. “It’s called being a protective best friend.”

Danny put his books into his bag. “What are you protecting him from exactly? Did Isaac murder someone?”

“No,” Stiles said and then muttered under his breath, “not for lack of trying.” He continued at a normal volume. “Let’s just say a while ago he did some awful things that he can’t take back.”

“Why can’t you forgive him? Why can’t Scott just be happy with him?”

“Because I don’t think he could be happy with Isaac.” Stiles huffed. He didn’t see what business this was of Danny’s.

“And that’s your decision to make? I guess some things have never change.” Danny shook his head.

“Is this about what happened in middle school?” Stiles asked.

“I’m just a little curious. You don’t want Scott to be with Isaac because he’s a “bad” person?” He crooked his eyebrow up giving Stiles an expectant look.

“Yeah.”

“So why wasn’t I good enough to be his friend?”

“W…” Stiles started and then faltered.

“Uh huh?” Danny said in a smug tone.

Stiles shifted from foot to foot then finally sighed in exasperation. “I just didn’t like your face.”

Danny just chuckled and hoisted his bag onto his shoulder.

“I can’t believe you’re still upset about that. That was in middle school. Get over it.” Stiles whined.

“Sucks when someone can’t let go of a grudge, huh?”

Stiles’ mouth fell open slightly and he thought over what Danny said. He nodded and smiled grimly. “Okay, turn it around on me. You’re very clever, Danny.”

Danny nodded. “Look, what you do with Scott is your business. But it seems kind of stupid to me to lose your friendship just because you can’t get over a stupid grudge.”

Danny walked away.

Stiles kicked the wall. He hated that guy and his stupid logic.

~*~

Isaac rocked on his heels and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He wasn’t going to ring the doorbell again. He already thought this was a bad idea and had been prepared to bolt at least twice. If no one answered he decided it was fate’s way of confirming this was a bad idea.

He decided that Scott had done all he could. It was time for him to try and reason with Stiles. He knew Stiles hated him, and wasn’t more likely to listen to him than his best friend, but he had to do something. He just hoped his presence didn’t agitate Stiles more.

After another five seconds, he started to turn but he suddenly heard someone coming quickly to the door. It was Stiles. He could smell the sweet smell of his excitement...and then the sour disappointment when he opened the door to see Isaac standing there.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Isaac closed his eyes briefly, determined to not let anything Stiles said get the best of him. “I took the bus to get here.”

Stiles opened the door a little further and stepped closer. “I didn’t ask you how you got here, but why?”

Isaac stared at his feet. “I wanted to make this right. Scott really misses you.”

“What do you care?” Stiles spit out. “I thought you would do the dance of joy to have Scott all to yourself.”

“Scott’s in pain. Maybe that doesn’t bother you, but it bothers me.” Goddamit. Well, the plan to not antagonize Stiles lasted for about 30 seconds. He looked as if he wanted to punch Isaac. It was a look that Isaac was all too familiar with. If Isaac didn’t have about ten feet on him and wasn’t a super strength having supernatural creature, he’s sure Stiles would be kneeing him in the groin right about now. Even with the disadvantages, he looked like he was seriously considering it.

“Where the hell do you get off acting like you care about Scott more than I do?” Stiles chuckled, but there was clearly no joy behind it. “You’ve been with him about five seconds. I’ve known him almost his entire life. I’m sorry that my way of showing how much I care doesn’t include beating the shit out of him and trying to kill him multiple times.”

Isaac grabbed tufts of his hair and just pulled. He couldn’t take it anymore. “Would you give it a rest, already? Can we just move past it?"

Stiles stepped out into the light with Isaac. "I've been through a lot of weird and terrible shit this year. There are a lot of things that I can forget, some things I desperately want to forget, and some I just can't." He took a deep breath. "Isaac, I remember the look in your eye when you talked about killing Lydia. There was joy there. And then you and your pack cornered us in Scott's house, waiting for the perfect moment to strike because you thought we were defenseless. You came into the house and you grabbed me by the neck, and I swear, I really thought I might be a goner, until the future love of your life, saved me."

Isaac flinched and wanted to look away, but he thought he owed it to Stiles to look him in the eye. It wasn't pretty to have to relive what a douche he'd been then, but it was worse for Stiles.

Stiles made such a good show of being fearless sometimes, that Isaac had no idea what happened that night affected him so much.

Stiles sighed. “Anyway, I can’t even start to think about forgiveness for someone who hasn't showed me they're sorry for what they did. You never even apologized."

Isaac rubbed his forehead. “Yes, I did.”

Stiles crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Nope."

Isaac shook his head. "Yes, I did."

"Look, if you did it wasn't to me," Stiles explained.

Isaac was about to protest again. He was sure he had apologized to Stiles. He was almost positive...Or was he?

Isaac thought it over carefully and he realized Stiles was right. He had apologized to Scott, of course, and Allison and Lydia, but he hadn’t apologized to Stiles.

He almost slapped himself on the forehead. Instead he just looked up at Stiles. "You're right and I’m sorry. I should have said it sooner. I didn't realize how much I hurt you. But even if I hadn't, I hurt your friends and should have apologized to you, too. Because you’re the kind of person that when your friends hurt, you hurt too."

Stiles' eyes widened at that comment.

"For what it's worth I never would have killed you that night. I was just trying to scare you."

"Mission accomplished." Stiles huffed.

Isaac didn't know what to say and just nodded. "I'm really sorry for that. Can you forgive me?" Isaac thought about offering his hand for him to shake, but thought against it.

Stiles' features had softened and he looked less angry, but he still eyed Isaac warily.

Isaac had a feeling there was more to this than Stiles was letting on. "Stiles, I could apologize over and over again. I could even record it for you, so you could always have it, but that's not going to solve anything if there's more to this."

Stiles looked away .

The idea of figuratively opening a vein and being vulnerable in front of Stiles really didn't appeal to him, but now was the time for absolute honesty. It might be the only thing to appeal to Stiles. He knew that approach would work best with him.

"I came here not just because I wanted to help Scott." Isaac gulped. "I'm looking out for myself, too. I was an absolute douche for a while. And even though I might not have deserved it, Scott decided to give me another chance. I've been doing everything I can to earn that forgiveness. Not just because I care about Scott but because I don't want to be that person I was."

Isaac stuck his hands deeper into his pockets. "I've never really believed that I would ever find love or that I deserved it. But Scott's changed that. He told me he loves me and I believe him. I love him, too. He told me he wouldn't leave me. He really believes that. But I know how much you mean to him. I think you and I both know that if you force Scott to make a choice, you're not going to be the one who loses."

Stiles didn't admit anything, but he didn't refute Isaac's claim.

Isaac but his lip hard and forced himself to look Stiles in the eye. "So I am begging you not to force him to make a choice."

Isaac found that he was holding his breath as he looked back at Stiles, who looked dumbfounded.

Isaac opened his mouth to add something, but realized there was really nothing left to say, so he slowly closed his mouth and walked away. Whatever happened now was up to Stiles.

~*~

Stiles practically growled at the stubborn stain on the floor that just wouldn't go away. He was on his hands and knees cleaning his kitchen floor.

He hadn't planned on spending his Saturday morning cleaning, but he'd woken up at the crack of dawn. It didn't really matter since he couldn't sleep most of the night.

He'd been thinking of Isaac's speech all night. It almost pained him to admit it, but it took real guts for Isaac to pour his heart out like that. For the first time he could really see the change Scott was talking about.

And yet Stiles still felt this knot in his stomach when he thought about trusting Isaac with Scott. It was stupid; it wasn’t as if it was his job to give Scott his blessing. But given that Scott’s dad was a loser he did feel that it was his responsibility.

“Stiles, what the hell did you do with my cheeseburger?” John Stilinski shouted as he stormed into the kitchen.

Stiles only vaguely heard him in the background.

The sheriff opened the refrigerator. “How did you even find this? I hid this in my safe. How am I supposed to find a better hiding spot than that?” He walked over to Stiles. “I’m telling you, kid, you’re too smart for your own good.”

“Uh huh.” Stiles said absent-mindedly.

“Stiles?”

Stiles continued to rub furiously at a spot on the linoleum.

John backed away. “So, I’m just going to put this burger in my pocket and be on my way.”

“Great. Have a great day.” Stiles mumbled.

John slammed the front door so hard, Stiles’ head instantly popped up. He whirled around and looked at his dad over by the back door.

“What was that for?” Stiles asked as he stood up.

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.” John accused him as he walked back into the room.

Stiles shrugged. “Yes, I did. You found a burger and you’re taking it to have a good time at lunch.”

John waited.

Stiles replayed those words over again. He groaned and put his head in his hands.

John puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “What’s going on with you, son?”

Stiles backed away and shook his head as he looked down at the spotless floor. “Nothing.”

“Bull.” John crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ve been cleaning the same spot on the floor for twenty minutes. Unless you’re trying to create a portal to China you should probably stop.”

Stiles rolled his eyes.

“You’ve been cleaning non-stop for the last few days. Are you trying to give me a clue about your future career path?” John teased.

Stiles laughed briefly and crouched down to pick up his sponge.

John rocked back on his heels and looked deep in thought. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Scott around here in ages? What’s going on with you two?”

Stiles gave a bone weary sigh and sat down at the kitchen table. He decided if anyone could make sense of the mess that was his mind, it would be his dad. “I think I might have overreacted to something?”

“You?” His dad said in mock surprise.

Stiles just glared at him.

John gave him a warm smile, so Stiles continued.

“You know what, I didn’t actually overreact. Scott’s boyfriend is a sociopath and-”

“Wait, back up,” John interrupted. “Scott has a boyfriend?”

“Yeah.” Stiles said as if it should be old news to his dad. “When I found out he was seeing said sociopath I couldn’t accept it and Scott said I can’t come around his house if I can’t.” He sighed. “I suppose I should say former sociopath. I think he’s actually changing. I mean, what he did to me still sucks, but he actually apologized.”

Stiles wasn’t going to tell his dad what Isaac had done. His dad still wasn’t in the know about all the crazy things going on in Beacon Hills, and Stiles was fairly sure if he told his dad that Isaac had tried to kill him, a jail cell would be the least of Isaac’s worries.

John looked slightly confused, but nodded. “If he apologized, what’s the problem?”

Stiles leaned forward on the table and threw his hands up. “I don’t really know. I keep saying I want to protect Scott. But am I just being possessive? Am I trying to keep him all to myself?”

For some reason John grinned and leaned back in his chair. “Do you remember Scott’s friend in the fifth grade, Kyle Fisher?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said slowly, he wasn’t quite sure why his dad remembered him or brought him up.

“Scott brought him over all the time and tried to make the two of you friends, but no matter what, you wouldn’t give that kid an inch.” John leaned forward. “I’ll never forget this as long as I live. My ten year old son walks up to me and asks me if there was any way I could have Kyle arrested.”

Stiles closed his eyes and winced. He’d forgotten about that.

“I asked what for and you said that I should just make something up.”

Stiles dropped his head on the table. “So what you’re saying is I’ve been obsessively possessive for a really long time?”

“No.” John shook his head and laughed a bit. “It’s funny now, though of course back then I didn’t find it so amusing. I really don’t think it says anything bad about you.” John’s smile faltered and his voice became softer. “You know that wasn’t more than a year after your mother died.”

Stiles hadn’t put that together before.

“You only had two people in the world that you could really count on, and that was me and Scott. You were only ten years old. I think you were worried that you were going to lose Scott to this other kid and you didn’t know how else to handle it.”

“But I’m not ten years old anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter.” John put his hand on Stiles’ arm. “I think your urge to protect the people you love and keep them close has only gotten stronger. With me sometimes I feel like you’re the parent and I’m the kid. You worry about me and try to take care of me, by withholding delicious food, but that’s a topic for another time.”

Stiles genuinely smiled at that.

John squeezed Stiles’ forearm. “I love you, son and I’m not going anywhere. You’ve got to know that Scott feels the same way. You can let go, just a little bit, and you won’t lose him. I promise.”

Stiles knew that his dad was right. He should have sought out his dad a lot sooner. He hugged him. “Thank you, dad.”

John returned the hug, almost crushing Stiles to him. He pulled back slowly and held onto Stiles’ shoulders. They grinned at each other and John patted Stiles’ shoulders before he moved away. He was almost out the door when Stiles remembered something.

“Uh, dad?”

John looked over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Gonna need that burger in your pocket.”

John looked up at the sky and sighed in irritation. He walked over to Stiles. “What did we just talk about?”

Stiles put his hand out. “How I can sometimes be overprotective. But unless you know something about your cholesterol levels that I don’t, this is not me being overprotective.”

The sheriff took out the cheeseburger and grumbled as he handed it over. He started to walk out the door.

“Love you, dad.”

“Love you too, son.”

~*~

Scott stared at the video game in his hand and thought about all the hours they’d spent playing things like World of Warcraft and got depressed again.

Isaac walked in and Scott tried to smile up at him, but he was sure it looked as grim as he felt.

Isaac got up on the bed and put his arms around Scott. “I know I suck at it, but do you want to play a game with me?”

Scott chuckled. “Thanks for the offer, but no thanks.”

Isaac kissed his neck. “How about sex to take your mind off Stiles...at least I hope it takes your mind off him. I would hope you wouldn’t be thinking about him during.”

Scott twisted around and genuinely smiled. He appreciated how much Isaac was trying to take care of him. Scott was about to kiss him when there was a knock at the door.

They both got up and headed downstairs.

Scott barely contained the whoop of joy when he sees Stiles at the door. “Hi.” He said with hesitation.

“Hey.” Stiles said as he looked between Scott and Isaac. “Can I talk to you...alone?”

Isaac and Scott shared a brief look, but neither protested.

Scott and Stiles moved into the living room.

Scott had barely sat down when Stiles started. “I don’t like Isaac.”

Scott suppressed a groan.

“I may never like him. And I don’t know if he won’t ultimately hurt you. But, I don’t think he’s the monster I’ve made him out to be.” He sat down next to Scott.

“Okay.” Scott still wasn’t sure where Stiles was going with this. He was hopeful, but wasn’t going to jump to conclusions.

“Isaac tried to kill me. That is a legitimate reason to hate him.” Stiles took a deep breath. “But that’s not the only reason I don’t like him.”

“What’s the other reason?”

“Scott, for the longest time it’s just been you and me against the world. We do everything together and I can’t remember a time when you weren’t in my life. But sometimes I get worried that I’m going to lose you.” Scott started to speak, but Stiles held up his hand. “It’s fine when you have a girlfriend because I know I have somewhere to fit into your life. You have a girlfriend, but then I’m still your best friend. It’s different when some guy comes along, especially someone like Isaac. He’s your boyfriend and he’s also your best friend. A part of me wonders what you even need me for anymore.”

Scott opened his mouth but looked to Stiles before he said anything. Stiles nodded. “Stiles, I’m always going to need you. It doesn’t matter who I’m dating.”

“But you said it yourself. Isaac and I are so much alike.” Stiles added.

“That doesn’t matter.” Scott turned to him. “Yeah, you have a lot of similarities, but you’re so different in so many ways. I love Isaac, but he’s not the person who held my hand every night after my dad left and snuck into my room every night and played video games with me and made me laugh until I puked. He’s not the guy who stood by me when I became something I couldn’t even understand. When I became a werewolf, you didn’t run away when anyone else might have. You helped me understand who I was. You helped me survive.” Scott grabbed Stiles’ shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Stiles, you’re not just my best friend, you’re my brother. Nothing will change that.”

Stiles’ lips twitched up into a full-blown smile. Scott hugged him.

Scott pulled back and frowned a bit. “I think I should apologize.”

Stiles’ head reared back. “For what?”

“After what happened with Allison, I wanted to be a better friend the next time I was in a relationship. I didn’t want to shut you out, so I tried to make you and Isaac spend time together. I shouldn’t have forced it. I know you have issues with Isaac and I should have made time for it to be just the two of us.”

“I’m just glad that you’re not shutting me out.” Stiles said.

“Still, if you want we can have that marathon we were supposed to have weeks ago and it’ll just be me and you.”

“I appreciate that Scott, but I think I have a better idea.”

~*~

Isaac wasn’t going to eavesdrop. It was an accident. It wasn’t his fault he had super hearing. Well, technically, he did say yes to the bite so it kind of was his fault...Anyway, he only heard a snatch of conversation between Scott and Stiles, enough to know that they were patching up their friendship.

It honestly made him happier than he would have expected anything involving Stiles to make him. He didn’t know exactly what this meant for him and Scott, but he refused to think the worst.

He decided to make himself scarce so Stiles and Scott could catch up. He decided he would go out and get something to eat.

He headed down the stairs, just as Stiles and Scott started to head up.

Isaac smiled down at Scott and nodded politely to Stiles as he met them in front of the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Scott asked.

“I’m kind of hungry and I don’t feel like making anything. So I’m just going to head out.” Isaac explained.

Stiles stepped between Isaac and Scott. “You don’t have to do that.” He looked back at Scott. “It’s important for Scott that you and I get along, so I think we should try and spend some time together - all three of us.”

“Really?” Isaac can’t help but be skeptical.

“Yeah,” Stiles chuckled. “Who knows, if things go well maybe it could lead to an enjoyable threesome.”

Both Isaac and Scott wrinkled their noses.

Stiles’ eyebrows shot up. “Clearly, I was joking. But screw you both, I would make an excellent threesome candidate.” He grumbled, but had a grin on his face. His expression eventually became more serious. “Isaac, I was really impressed that you came to my house and apologized.”

“You did that?” Scott asked in surprise.

Isaac just shrugged.

“It meant a lot what you said.” Stiles looked down at the floor. “Scott’s the best person I know and he’s a pretty good judge of character, if he loves you then…”

“You love me?” Isaac winked.

“Thank you, it was going to be a beautiful moment and you ruined it.” Stiles said as he shook his head in annoyance.

Isaac put up his hands. “Sorry I was just getting a little uncomfortable.”

Stiles grinned. “I was a little bit, too.”

Stiles shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “We don’t have to hug it out or anything, do we?”

They both turned to Scott.

After a long, slow grin Scott shook his head. “No.”

Stiles and Isaac breathed a sigh of relief.

“So, what are we going to do?” Scott looked between the other two. “And don’t say threesome,” He pointed at Stiles.

Stiles held up his hands and laughed. “I thought we were going to do the marathon?”

Scott looked at the clock on his phone. “It’s kind of late to watch all four.”

Isaac cocked his head to the side. “So how about just one?”

Scott and Isaac shared a knowing smile.

Stiles looked at them both and a look of dawning horror came across his face. He backed up a little. “Oh, no.”

“Come on, it’s really not that bad.” Isaac argued. “Remember, you get to teach me the error of my ways. Plus, you can watch it and mock me for having bad taste.”

Stiles pursed his lips. “That is a strong selling point.”

“So…?” Scott asked.

Stiles heaved a dramatic sigh. “Let’s watch The Last Stand.

Scott and Isaac cheered.

Isaac kissed Scott’s cheek as he walked past him.

Stiles crinkled his nose. “Please, no PDA. Not in front of me. Not yet.”

Isaac rolled his eyes, but he supposed that was fine. This was new territory for all of them. He supposed baby steps were required.

Scott groaned. “Okay.” He then patted Isaac’s butt. Isaac laughed and Stiles glared at him. “What, that’s not PDA.”

Stiles crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head.

Scott put his arm over Stiles’ shoulder and grinned. “Fine. Only because you’re my best friend.”

Stiles smiled genuinely and nodded. “I know.”

When they sat down on the sofa, Scott sat sandwiched in between Stiles and Isaac. Stiles only groaned once when Scott and Isaac tried to hold hands. But he didn’t insult Isaac and only glared at him once and he only made one more innuendo about a threesome. Baby steps.

Fic: No, You Can't Date A Sociopath (Part 1)

geekslave — Sat, 03 Jan 2015 21:48:24 GMT

Author/Artist/Vidder: GeekSlave
Title: No, You Can't Date A Sociopath
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Scott/Isaac, Scott & Stiles. Scott, Isaac, Stiles, Melissa, Sheriff Stilinski, Danny
Rating: NC-17
Summary: When Stiles finds out about Isaac and Scott's secret relationship, his first reaction isn't to wish the couple well - he faints. And then it only gets worse from there.
Warnings (if any): Brief mentions of past abuse and past off-screen minor character death.
Total Word Count/Length: 18,871
Disclaimer: This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by MTV. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's/Artist's/Vidder's notes (if any): Written for tw_fallharvest
Beta(s): Thanks to my beta, who chooses to remain nameless. Any mistakes left are my own.

Amy Matthews. Hannah Carter. Carly Gibson. These were just some of the girls who came in and out of Scott’s life in the sixth grade. He spent a bit of time being something of a ladies’ man. Stiles had guessed that it was the wounded puppy dog look he had going on after his parents split up. Though, honestly, Scott always looked like a puppy.

Not that Stiles was trying to rain on his friend’s parade. He was actually happy for him. He needed a lot of extra cheering up during that time, and anything that could brighten Scott’s day was a good thing. And, selfishly, Stiles figured if Scott was lucky in love eventually it would trickle down to him - not that it ever worked out that way.

Stiles was never jealous when Scott got a girlfriend. New friends, however, were a different story. When Scott got a new friend in the fifth grade, and invited him everywhere, Stiles hated the kid, even though the boy, Kyle, was perfectly nice. Painfully nice. So nice, Stiles felt guilty for hating him, but hate him, he did.

During the summer after sixth grade, Scott had to go to summer school and his mom had insisted he get a tutor. Danny Mahealani had volunteered to help.

They had never really hung out with Danny or spoke to him often, even though they’d basically been going to school together their whole lives. But after that summer, Scott and Danny became nearly inseparable. Danny had shared a few of his computer skills with Scott and they’d spent so much time playing computer games.

Scott had always made an effort to include Stiles, but he’d still always felt uncomfortable, as if he were a third wheel. He and Danny had a somewhat prickly relationship and Stiles hated how his usual sarcastic comments and jokes didn’t get under Danny’s skin. He just gave it right back.

Scott and Danny grew apart, with a bit of a push from Stiles. Well, more than a little push. Stiles wasn’t exactly proud of this, but he’d started a rumor that Scott had head lice. It was juvenile and wrong but it had done the trick. Danny’s mom freaked out and he stopped coming over to Scott’s house. After that he and Scott just got used to not spending time together, like it had been before.

Stiles was happy to have his friend back. Danny was the last male friend Scott had made. Until now.

~*~

Stiles grumbled when he called Scott for the fifth time and it still went to voicemail. They were supposed to have a “guy’s night in” where they did their annual X-Men marathon. It was finally going to be just the two of them, no third wheels allowed, which meant that one Isaac Lahey would not be invited.

Stiles pocketed his phone and decided to head to Scott’s anyway. It’s not like they had some kind of appointment. He couldn’t help grumbling about “stupid Isaac” when he got into his Jeep.

Ever since the night of that stupid rave, Scott’s opinion about Isaac started to change. After everyone’s final confrontation with Gerard Argent his relationship with Isaac seemed to change overnight. Suddenly, Scott started calling Isaac “friend” and they spent a lot of time together.

Isaac was like an infection that spread fast and invaded every part of their lives. Everywhere Stiles and Scott went, there was Isaac. It didn’t help when Deaton had inexplicably given Isaac a job, so Scott and Isaac seemed to be joined at the hip day and night.

Stiles had protested. He didn’t care if Isaac had come to the rescue when Stiles couldn’t be there for Scott. One unselfish act didn’t change all of the crap Isaac had helped put them through, but Scott insisted that they didn’t really know Isaac.

Stiles really couldn’t understand it. Other than not trying to kill Scott and his friends, Stiles didn’t notice anything different about Isaac. He was still a smart-ass who needled Stiles every chance he got.

Stiles figured that Scott was still messed up over his, seemingly final, break-up with Allison and was looking to fill that void with a new friend, even one as unworthy as Isaac. Plus, Scott was such a softie and really felt sorry for Isaac and his, Stiles would admit, beyond messed up childhood.

Things became even more insane when Melissa allowed Isaac to stay at their house. Stiles didn’t know why Isaac’s own Alpha couldn’t house his werewolf ass, but Scott had insisted Isaac didn’t have any other options.

Despite Isaac’s pervasive presence, Stiles decided he wasn’t going to do anything, even though this had gone on longer than he had anticipated. Even with Isaac living at Scott’s, their bond seemingly stronger than ever, Stiles was still confident Scott would eventually wake-up and realize the kind of person Isaac really was. Then Isaac would be out of their lives and Stiles would have his friend back. It was just a matter of time.

~*~

Scott giggled. An honest to goodness giggle that he thought made him sound like a twelve year old girl. But he couldn’t help it as Isaac tickled his feet.

When Isaac reached behind him for his feet for the second time, Scott giggled again and tried to swat at his hands. “Come on, Isaac,” Scott said in almost petulant whine. “Don’t you have more important things to be doing?”

Isaac grinned. “That’s true.” He leaned forward and put his hands on Scott’s chest and ground down on Scott’s cock.

Scott threw his head back against his pillow and moaned.

God, Scott couldn’t get enough of being with Isaac. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when his relationship and his feelings for Isaac changed. After he broke up with Allison, he had truly been prepared to wait for her as long as it took. His feelings for her were so real and so strong, he couldn’t even conceive of anyone else evoking those same things in him. And then Isaac happened.

Isaac was there for Scott when it really counted. Yes, Isaac had done a lot of bad things when he first became a werewolf, but Scott knew, more than anyone, how messed up that kind of transition could make you, especially when you’re already messed up thanks to an abusive father. Scott’s claws came out whenever he thought of Mr. Lahey. He’d never felt that kind of rage before. Whenever he thought about what Isaac went through, he wanted to reanimate his dad’s corpse and torture him, slowly and painfully.

Even though not everyone, especially not Stiles, seemed to get it, he knew that Isaac wasn’t a bad person. He was still a work in progress, still trying to figure out who he was, beyond being his dad’s favorite punching bag. Isaac had made mistakes, colossal mistakes sometimes, but at his core Scott knew he was a good person.

He had seen it these past few months. He saw it every time a new puppy would come to Deaton’s and Isaac was the first one to bond with it. He was so gentle and loving when he bathed them. And he was the first person to cry every time one of the abandoned pets found a new home. The first time Scott had ever held Isaac was after an abused border collie that Isaac had bonded with particularly had found new parents.

Scott could tell it was a mix of sadness and happiness. Isaac had tried to hide his tears, but Scott could see, feel, and smell all of the confused, tangled emotions Isaac was feeling. It felt natural to wrap him up in his arms.

It wasn’t just the animals, either. Isaac had formed a bond with Scott’s mom as well. Whenever Isaac was over their house, when Melissa would drag herself in after a twelve hour shift, Scott would cook, and Isaac would volunteer to give her a foot rub or anything else she needed. Whenever Scott would go over to the hospital to give Melissa some food, Isaac would tag along. He’d even take the initiative to do it himself when Scott had a shift at the clinic and Isaac was free.

Isaac was so open with him about his past that Scott felt it was only fair to reciprocate, soon talking to him about everything and anything felt so easy. They talked about their fathers. They talked about their favorite childhood memories. It made Scott happy to realize that Isaac’s entire life wasn’t always the nightmare it had become at the end. They talked about school and how they both felt like they weren’t living up to their potential. They talked about lacrosse. They talked about their favorite movies. Other than Stiles and Allison, he’d never felt so comfortable and happy with anyone.

Even though he’d never thought about being with another guy before, when Isaac kissed him for the first time, Scott didn’t push him away. He was startled and hesitated for a split second but he melted into it quickly. It felt so amazing and so right that Scott didn’t really stop to question it. He just wanted more.

Whenever Scott fell for someone, he fell hard. His whole being became consumed with that person. It had happened with Allison and it was happening with Isaac. He couldn’t get enough of Isaac’s perfect soft lips kissing him all over. He craved Isaac’s touch all the time. He wanted to be inside him and hear him moan his name constantly.

Scott and Isaac had made the decision to keep their new relationship a secret. But Scott couldn’t get enough of having Isaac’s scent all over him. Luckily, they didn’t hang out with too many werewolves who would be able to pick up on it. Scott was mortified enough with the knowing looks Derek gave them sometimes.

He’d convinced his mother, though it didn’t take much convincing, to let Isaac stay with them. He didn’t really do it just so he could have easy access to sex. Both Isaac and Scott were trying to rebuild their relationships with Derek. Derek was really trying to be a better alpha and Scott was willing to put aside their differences in the past. But one thing he wasn’t willing to overlook was Peter’s continued presence in the Hale house.

Of course the extra sex wasn’t something Scott would complain about. Being woken up by Isaac giving him a thorough, mind-blowing blowjob - like he had been that morning - was amazing.

The sex was so unbelievable. He was sure every single time he would pass out from the strength of his orgasms.

Currently, Isaac was above him and set a slow, languorous pace as he rode him as if he had all the time in the world. Distantly, Scott could see that his phone was vibrating, but his mind was too caught up in the feelings that Isaac was invoking to really register it.

Isaac put a finger under Scott’s chin and lifted his face up. “Look at me.” He swiveled his hips slowly as he ground down on him.

Scott gripped his hips and groaned.

Isaac leaned forward and sucked bruising kisses into Scott’s neck. He kissed his way up and lingered above, just out of reach of Scott’s lips.

When Scott leaned up to kiss him, Isaac rocked backwards and used his hands on Scott’s knees to leverage himself up and came down hard.

“Fuck!” Scott cursed.

Isaac picked up the pace and rode him relentlessly. “So…fucking...good!” He said between pants.

Scott skimmed his hands up Isaac’s sweaty chest. His hands slowly traveled to Isaac’s back and soon Scott surged forward and held Isaac to him as he thrust up into him.

Isaac kissed him with a hunger Scott easily reciprocated. He swept his tongue into Scott’s mouth and his moans were muffled. He ripped his mouth away and Scott could see his eyes change color. His head fell backwards as he let out a guttural growl and came all over Scott’s chest, screaming out Scott’s name.

Scott pushed a still shuddering Isaac onto his back and thrust into him roughly several more times before his own orgasm overtook him. He buried his face in Isaac’s neck as he whimpered his name.

It took several minutes for them both to come down off their sex high. Scott pulled out of Isaac and fell onto his back.

Isaac crawled over and nestled his head against Scott’s chest. Scott soon put his arm around him and gathered him closer.

Isaac sighed. “I swear one of these days we’re going to break the bed and your mom is going to kill me.”

Scott nodded slowly in a daze. “Probably.” He looked down at Isaac and carded his hand through Isaac’s sweaty hair. “God, you’re good at that. You should do it, like, professionally.” Scott winced immediately.

Isaac just chuckled and kissed Scott’s shoulder.

Scott was sure Isaac was used to him saying random dumb things sometimes, especially after sex when his brain was more than a little muddled.

“Well, I’ve never actually given a future in porn serious thought, but I’m sure having sex professionally isn’t all bad. Or were you thinking more like prostitution?” Isaac teased.

Scott laughed and playfully nipped Isaac’s shoulder. “Neither. You can’t have sex with anyone other than me - ever.”

Isaac looked up at Scott with a big grin and kissed him.

Scott was happy with how much more openly affectionate Isaac was becoming. He wished he felt comfortable enough yet to reveal their relationship. He wished they could be like this all the time - besides the naked part.

Isaac drew small circles on Scott’s chest with his finger. “Do you ever think about that?”

“A career in sex work?” Scott chuckled.

Isaac poked him in the side. “No. Have you thought about your future, what you're going to do for the rest of your life?”

Scott pursed his lips as he pondered the question. A memory suddenly came to him and let out a small chuckle. “Yeah.” He laughed again and shook his head at the memory. “Stiles and I used to talk about starting our own rock band. We were thirteen. Stiles figured we both really love those bands and that type of music and it would be a fun, creative job.”

“And?” Isaac said with a knowing grin.

Scott returned the grin. “And those guys always get a ton of girls.” Isaac nodded and laughed. “I would be the lead singer and Stiles would play guitar. We’d find the other members later. We saved up and bought guitars and even this sick drum set.” Scott closed his eyes and bit his lip to keep from laughing. “But I’d never actually practiced singing. So we decided I should practice and when I started singing, both of us, just automatically cringed. By the time I was done, Stiles had his hands over his ears and looked like he was in actual pain.”

Isaac dropped his head on Scott’s chest and began to laugh.

“Stiles’ exact words were ‘You have a voice that would make Satan weep.’”

Isaac barked out a laugh and looked up at Scott, who joined in.

Isaac wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “So I guess your plans for a career in music are dead?”

“Pretty much. I’m fine with it. I was never very interested in being musician,” Scott explained.

“Yeah.” Isaac got a wicked gleam in his eye. “Though I think you’d look really hot with some guy liner and some leather pants.” He waggled his eyebrows at Scott.

Scott grinned and put his hand on Isaac’s chest and pushed him down on the bed as he loomed over him. “Leather. Is that a kink of yours?”

“Maybe.” Isaac tried to sound nonchalant, but had trouble pulling that off as he stared with laser focus at Scott’s lips.

Scott playfully kissed him. He worried Isaac’s bottom lip with his teeth and then pulled back and smiled at him. He knew as a teenager he would have sex on the brain constantly, but he was starting to think Isaac was turning him into a nymphomaniac.

Before things could heat up again, Scott climbed off of Isaac and lay back down next to him. After a moment of silence, he twisted his head in Isaac’s direction. “What about you? Have you made any future plans?”

Isaac inhaled deeply and put his hands over Scott’s chest and rested his chin on his hands. “I’ve never really thought about it much. It’s kind of hard to make future plans when you’re worried about never having one.”

Scott closed his eyes and resisted the urge to say he was sorry. He’d said he was sorry so many times when the subject of Isaac’s abuse came up. It didn’t mean much at this point and it didn’t really help Isaac. Scott just pressed a tender to kiss to Isaac’s forehead.

“I have no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life,” Isaac said softly.

“You know that’s okay,” Scott assured him in a steady voice. “We’re only 16. We don’t have to have the rest of our lives planned. I know I’m still not sure what exactly it is I want to do.”

“But you probably want to do something with Stiles?” Isaac prodded.

“I don’t know.” Scott shrugged. “That would be great. He’s my best friend and I would love to be able to do something where we got to spend time together and nothing would have to change. But I doubt that’s going to happen. Stiles is a lot smarter than I am. He’s going to do something really great with his life.”

“Hey!” Isaac waited until Scott looked at him. “You’re smart, Scott. You are going to have a great future, with or without Stiles.

Scott felt another wave of affection for Isaac and reached up and stroked his cheek. He gave him a brief peck on the nose. “Speaking of Stiles, I think he’s going to be here soon.”

Scott twisted away from Isaac and turned to crawl toward his phone on the nightstand. After a bit of a struggle to reach it, he grasped the small phone. But before he could look at it, Isaac pounced onto his back.

Isaac pressed his crotch down against Scott’s ass. He was already half hard again. “Just give me five minutes.”

Scott’s head dropped and he groaned. “Isaac…” He made the mistake of twisting his head around and gazing into Isaac’s beautiful blue eyes. He met Isaac in the middle and their lips met in a soft kiss that Isaac quickly deepened.

Scott pulled back briefly. “Five minutes.” He kissed Isaac again. “Ten minutes, tops.” He tossed his phone onto the nightstand again.

~*~

As Isaac trudged down the stairs, he thought for the thousandth time how much he hated this sneaking around stuff. There was a little bit of a thrill having this secret that was just between the two of them and it was fun thinking they were doing something a little naughty, but for the most part it was just a pain in the ass.

Isaac had agreed to it for several reasons. He knew that Scott only suggested it for good reasons. He knew that Scott wasn’t ashamed of him. Scott just wanted to keep this something that was just for the two of them, that they didn’t have to share with anyone else. They also didn’t want to deal with awkward questions and people judging them. And by people, he really meant-

Another insistent knock.

Speak of the devil.

God, Stiles was really impatient. Isaac took his sweet time, partly in the hopes to give Scott time to get dressed and hastily clean up his room from any tell-tale signs of their sex-filled morning. Mostly, though, he wanted to piss Stiles off.

Isaac didn’t even hate Stiles. He could understand why Stiles would have a problem with him. He knew that he would hate someone if they terrorized him and tried to kill him. Even though he empathized with Stiles, every time he thought about trying to be nicer to Stiles, he would give some kind of smart-ass remark and Isaac couldn’t help responding in kind.

Isaac had done a lot of dumb, downright horrible things when he first got the bite. He’d taken all of that rage he felt at how he had grown up and turned it against others around him. He had become the kind of bully that he hated and never wanted to be.

But he wanted to make amends for what he’d done. He’d apologized to everyone and hoped that they could forgive him when they saw how much he was really trying to be better. He knew it would take some time.

One of the great things about being with Scott was that he realized the kind of person he wanted to be. He was able to find a better balance in his life. He could be confident without having to tear others down. But he also didn’t have to lie down and take any crap from anyone who tried to push him around. Especially short, possessive, know-it-alls, like Stiles.

As he got to the door, Isaac took a deep breath. Maybe he and Stiles could at least be somewhat civil this time. Certainly stranger things had happened in Beacon Hills.

~*~

Stiles was just about to knock again when the door was finally opened. He stumbled a little then recoiled when he saw who was on the other side of the door. He narrowed his eyes at the lanky irritant standing before him, just seeing Isaac immediately set his teeth on edge.

“You again?” Stiles groaned. “Ugh, is there ever going to be a time where you’re not standing on the other side of that door?”

“You know I wonder the same thing myself,” Isaac said without missing a beat.

“Oh, so you’re sick of yourself, too?”

Isaac held his stomach and pretended to laugh. “That’s hilarious. How are comedy writers everywhere not beating a path to your door?”

Stiles grinned thinly. “It’s a mystery for the ages.”

Isaac dropped the fake smile and crossed his arms over his chest. “What are you doing here so early?”

Stiles didn’t bother to give Isaac an answer; he just shoved his shoulder into Isaac’s chest and barreled past him. “Why do you need to know? Are you going to announce my presence? Are you the butler now? Because, I got to say, that would finally explain what you’re doing here.”

Isaac just rolled his eyes heavenward.

Stiles knew that Isaac and he could go back and forth like this all day. A part of him kind of enjoyed it...a really small part.

As he looked at Isaac he noticed for the first time that Isaac seemed out of breath and his forehead was a little sweaty.

“I only asked because you’re a little early for your sleepover with Scott.” Isaac explained.

Stiles heaved a great, big sigh. “For the last time it’s not a sleepover. It’s a-”

“Guy’s night in.” Isaac interrupted. “Yeah, I heard. Because that makes it sound so much better.” He said as he moved past Stiles.

Behind Isaac’s back, Stiles mimed strangling him. “Is Scott upstairs?”

“Uh…” Isaac stammered.

“Take your time. I know it’s a real thinker.”

“Yes, he’s up there,” Isaac gritted out.

“Thanks.” Stiles followed Isaac up the stairs. Out of some weird need to beat Isaac in some way, Stiles sped up his movements trying to get up the stairs. He maneuvered around Isaac and paused for a second. He sniffed Isaac briefly.

“Hey,” Isaac said as he reared back.

Stiles ignored him and sniffed again. “You smell like Scott.”

Isaac looked down and scratched the back of his neck. “What?”

“Yeah, you smell like him.” Stiles shook his head as he resumed walking. This wasn’t the first time he’d noticed this. “It’s not enough that they let you live here, now you have to take their stuff, too. First, it’s the cologne, next thing you know you’re going to be wearing each other’s...” Stiles trailed off as he opened the door to Scott’s room. “...clothes.”

A slightly bug-eyed Scott was standing in the middle of the room and he was wearing one of Isaac’s bulky sweaters.

Stiles hung his head briefly. “Seriously, dude?”

Scott shrugged weakly. “What?”

“Is that one of Isaac’s sweaters?” Stiles asked.

Scott gulped. “Yeah.” He looked around his messy room. “Mom’s been working a lot of double shifts and I haven’t really felt like doing any laundry so…”

“So you’ve decided to rummage around in Isaac’s stuff.” Stiles finished for him.

Scott nodded.

“I don’t know, dude.” Stiles said as he plopped down on Scott’s bed. “It’s kind of a slippery slope. First you’re wearing his sweaters. The next thing you know, you have a scarf for every occasion, too.” He smirked. He didn’t even have to look over to know that Isaac was probably giving him a one-fingered salute.

“It’s kind of comfortable,” Scott said as he smiled uneasily at Stiles and looked down at the ground.

“Whatever,” Stiles muttered. “Enough about you and your poor choice of fashion role models.” He cocked his head to the side and pointed at Scott’s hair. “Though, what’s up with your hair? Did you just roll out of bed?”

Scott’s hand went up to his hair and he patted it down. “Ugh…”

“No wonder you didn’t get any of my calls.” Stiles sat up and chuckled. “That is some of the worst bedhead I have ever seen.”

Scott rushed over to his bathroom, Stiles assumed to take care of the skyscraper growing atop his head. Isaac lingered by the door.

Stiles took out a couple of comic books from his bag. “I think it’s safe to say that you can go now, Isaac.”

Scott came out of the bathroom and stood next to Isaac. “Why would he go anywhere?”

Stiles paused. “Well...I thought Isaac was just going to go back to his room and do whatever sad thing Isaac does in his free time.” He didn’t like where this was going. It was just supposed to be a night where the two of them could hang out and be two dudes, without any werewolf crap to worry about, like it used to be. He didn’t want “the interloper” to ruin it.

“I think it would be nice to include Isaac.” Scott said. “He likes The X-Men movies, too.”

“Yeah. I haven’t seen all of them but I really liked The Last Stand.”

Scott winced.

Stiles spit out. “I’m sorry what?”

“The Last Stand. The third movie. It’s the only one I’ve seen all the way through and I thought it was great.”

Stiles pressed his fingers to his eyes and took a deep breath. “So, first of all when Scott says you’re a fan of the movies, that’s a lie. And secondly,” he counts off on his fingers, “seriously?”

Isaac looked between Stiles and Scott. “What? What’d I say?”

Scott put his hand on Isaac’s arm. Stiles took note of that and how close they’re standing together. “Stiles hates that movie.”

Isaac hung his head. “Of course he does.” He looked up after a moment. “Well, look it at this way, this gives you a chance to show me the other movies and tell me how wrong I was and how The Last Stand is-”

“A boil on the ass of an otherwise outstanding franchise?”

Isaac and Scott nod.

Stiles sighed. While he still didn’t want Isaac weaseling his way into his and Scott’s night, he couldn’t pass up a chance to educate Isaac and show him the error of his ways. “Fine. Where are the movies?”

Scott was blank-faced.

“You didn’t get the movies out already?” Stiles asked.

Scott rubbed the back of his head. “No, sorry. Maybe you could just start with showing Isaac some of your comics?”

“Fine.” He got on his knees by Scott’s bed.

“What are you doing?” Scott said, his voice dangerously high-pitched.

“I’m going to get the movies and we can go downstairs.” He crawled a little closer to Scott’s bed. “You still keep them under your bed, right?” Stiles didn’t bother to wait for an answer. He probably knew the layout of Scott’s room, better than he knew his own. He stuck his hand under the bed.

“There’s no hurry,” Scott said as he rushed over. “Let’s have some snacks first. You show Isaac the comics and then I’ll come back up here and get the movies.”

“Or we could just do it now,” Stiles said as he rooted around under Scott’s bed. He wasn’t kidding about Melissa not being around a lot lately. It was somehow even messier, and stickier, under there than normal.

“God, Scott just because your mom hasn’t been around, it wouldn’t kill you to do a cursory sweep once every few decades.”

Scott reached down and tried to pull Stiles away.

“Scott, what are you doing?” Stiles looked back at his friend who looked like he was about to have a panic attack.

Just as Scott pulled him away, Stiles groped something sticky. He looked down at his hand and…

“Oh, shit!” Isaac exclaimed. He immediately turned to Scott. “Under the bed Scott, really?”

“I panicked! I threw the first one away. I didn’t have time to find the other one!”

Stiles was sure he was having an out of body experience. A crumpled, yellow, sticky condom was in his hand. Scott’s sticky condom. He was still holding Scott’s used sticky condom. He let out a yelp, threw the condom down, and shuddered violently. “Oh, my God! What the fuck! I just had my hand in your-” He gagged. His hand was still held out at an awkward angle. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to compound the gross factor by wiping it on himself.

He rushed toward Isaac and swiped his hand hastily along his shirt.

He wrinkled his nose. “Look, Scott, I’m happy you’re getting laid, but…” He shuddered again.

After finally getting somewhat of a grip on his gag reflex Stiles noticed Scott and Isaac’s twin looks of embarrassment, though while slightly red-faced, Isaac looked as if he were going to burst out laughing at any moment.

“Wait a minute…”

Stiles finally started to put the clues together. A fresh - really fresh - condom. Isaac smelled like Scott. Scott was wearing Isaac’s shirt. Isaac was all sweaty...and Stiles noticed so was Scott… “No...You’re not…” He looked between the two of them - his best friend and his interloping, sociopath roommate. His best friend and his...lover?

Scott stepped towards Stiles and opened his mouth and closed it several times without saying anything. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you find out like this.”

Stiles closed his eyes. “No. No. No, you can’t be.”

“But he is,” Isaac said with smug satisfaction.

Stiles opened his eyes and glared at Isaac.

“Scott and I have kind of been having our own sleepovers.”

Stiles rubbed his forehead. He rubbed harder and harder hoping he could somehow erase this moment from his brain. He looked up warily at Scott. “You can’t be serious? You’re fucking him?” He pointed at Isaac.

“Actually we take turns.” Isaac rubbed his chin. “You know, now that I think about it, it’s possible that was my condom.” He looked at Stiles’ hand pointedly.

“You mean that I might have had my hand in your-”

“Yup.” Isaac said, stressing the “p” sound.

Stiles looked at his hand. “Alright, I need to lie down.” The last thing Stiles saw before things went dark was the stupid smirk on Isaac’s face.

~*~

In hindsight, letting Isaac slap Stiles awake probably wasn’t a good idea. But Isaac had volunteered - and really quickly - that Scott really didn’t think it through. He was still panicked over Stiles fainting. In a million years, he never thought that would be Stiles’ reaction to his and Isaac’s relationship.

As Isaac reared back to slap Stiles again, Stiles’ eyes flew open and he grasped Isaac’s hand right before it landed on his already reddening cheek. “What the hell are you doing?”

Isaac pulled his arm from Stiles’ grip. “Well, you passed out, overdramatically I might add, and we had to do something to wake you up.”

Stiles slowly sat up. He cradled his jaw. “Next time a splash of cold water will do just fine.” He put his head in his hands and took a deep breath before he stood up.

Scott stepped forward hesitantly. “Are you feeling okay, dude?”

“No, dude I’m not feeling okay,” Stiles said coldly. “I just had my hand covered in jizz and found out my best friend’s been sleeping with a gigantic psychopath. A psychopath who was just getting his kicks slapping the crap out of me. No, Scott, I’m feeling very, very not okay.”

Scott sighed deeply. With Stiles already starting with the name-calling, it could only go down from there. “Isaac is not a psychopath, Stiles. I’m sorry for not telling you about this sooner. But it’s not really that big a deal.”

Stiles gaped at him and then slowly nodded. “Right. Not a big deal. It was so not a big deal that you felt the need to hide it from me, your best friend?”

Scott ran a hand slowly through his hair. Stiles did have a point, but Scott was ready for that argument. “I wasn’t ready to let anyone know. I just wanted to enjoy being with him without having a bunch of questions and without having you-

“Talk sense into you?” Stiles interrupted.

“Be a judgmental douchebag.” Isaac sneered.

Stiles shot Isaac a withering glance. He turned back to Scott. “How long has this been going on? Please, tell me this was the first time and now you’ve gotten it out of your system?

Scott shook his head. “It wasn’t the first time. We’ve been together since the beginning of summer.”

Stiles threw his hands up and practically hit his forehead. “That was like four months ago! You’ve been sleeping with that,” Stiles threw a brief, disgusted look to Isaac, “for four months?”

Scott opened his mouth to answer, but Stiles cut off his forthcoming answer.

“And what-what do you mean ‘together?’ It’s just sex. I know you’re a little naive, Scott, but just because you sleep with someone doesn’t make you a couple.”

Scott ignored Stiles’ condescending tone and took a few steps toward Stiles. His hands were partially outstretched and he felt as if he were inching closer to a bomb that was about to go off. “It’s not just sex, Stiles. We are a couple.”

Stiles blinked once and then shook his head vehemently. “No.”

Scott wrinkled his forehead. “No? What do you mean ‘no’?’”

“No.” Stiles shrugged emphatically. “I don’t know how to make it any clearer. No, you can’t be with Isaac.”

“I don’t really need your permission, Stiles.” Somehow, Stiles was being more stubborn about this than Scott had thought he would be and it was starting to annoy him. “And why shouldn’t I be with him? It’s not because he’s a guy, is it?”

Stiles moved towards Scott and gripped his shoulders. “I don’t care that he’s a guy. Scott, you could sleep with every guy in Beacon Hills and it wouldn’t make a difference to me. In fact, I’d hope that you filmed it and I would watch it with a tub of popcorn, a super-sized drink, and a huge smile on my face. Okay?” Stiles looked over at Isaac, who was glaring at him, and grimaced. “You can’t be with that guy. I just - I just -” Stiles pressed the palms of his hand into his eyes. “Am I the only one who remembers him terrorizing us?”

“He regrets that and he’s not the same guy anymore.” Scott said. He looked over to Isaac with a warm look. “He’s changed.”

Letting go of Scott’s shoulders, Stiles took a step back. “Scott, I’ve heard this whole ‘he’s changed’ song and dance from you before and I wasn’t buying it then and I’m not buying it now.”

Isaac stalked towards the two of them. “Why not? You’ve never even-”

“For the love of God!” Stiles whirled around, doing a 360, as he pulled at his hair. “Is it possible for Scott and I to have two seconds alone together anymore without you constantly hovering and interrupting? Just two seconds.”

Isaac didn’t say anything but Scott could hear him growling quietly. Scott looked over at Isaac, and could see that Isaac breathing was speeding up and he could see beads of sweat on his forehead. Isaac was probably two second from wolfing out and it wouldn’t be pretty. He gave Isaac a quick nod. Separating Stiles and Isaac would be the best thing for everyone.

Isaac started to leave.

Unfortunately, Stiles couldn’t leave well enough alone. “I can see why you keep him around. He’s quite an obedient boyfriend.”

Isaac immediately lunged toward him and pushed Stiles’ shoulder hard.

Scott could tell he had held back a little, given that Stiles only wobbled slightly, instead of landing on his ass.

“You know what, fuck you, Stiles!” Isaac said his teeth clenched so hard, Scott wasn’t sure how he was getting the words out.

Stiles held his ground and stood toe to toe with him.

“I don’t care what you think of me. I care about Scott. And maybe you’d be able to see that if you didn’t have this weird obsession with keeping Scott all to yourself.”

Stiles didn’t bat an eye at Isaac’s accusation. “Accusing me of being jealous, that’s really original. I know that the idea of having a friend is a foreign concept to you Isaac, but friends look out for each other. I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t say something when I see my best friend wasting his time with someone as beneath him as you are.”

Isaac’s nostrils flared and his eyes started to change color as he grabbed Stiles’ arm.

Scott quickly stepped in between them. “Enough!” This was getting them nowhere and he was tired of Stiles treating Isaac like dirt. He looked over his shoulder at Stiles. “That’s enough!”

Scott grabbed Isaac’s face and looked him in the eye. “It’s okay, Isaac. Calm down. It’s okay.”

Isaac was still looking at Stiles and growling.

“Isaac!”

Scott watched as Isaac eyes changed back and he took a deep breath and blinked slowly. His gaze focused on Scott. He reached for Scott’s hands on his face.

After a few seconds, Scott whispered to Isaac, “Just give us a minute, please?”

When Scott looked over at Stiles, he was watching the two of them and seemed lost and confused. Stiles stumbled backward and picked up his bag. “No, I’m gonna go.”

Scott turned around, his hand still held in one of Isaac’s. “What?”

Stiles headed towards the door. He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “You know, Scott, you’re my best friend and I can take a lot from you.” He twisted around and looked over at his best friend. “I was okay with you ignoring me when you were with Allison and having nothing but Allison on the brain. I was happy that you could talk to me about it. We’ve always been able to talk about anything because we trust each other.” He took a deep breath. “And now you’re lying to me. Because of him. You say that Isaac’s changed? Unfortunately, I don’t think he’s the only one.”

Stiles didn’t wait for a response before he opened the door and walked out.

Scott just stared at the door. This was his fault. He should have never let Stiles find out that way.

There were so many different emotions swirling through the room that Scott was overwhelmed by the smell of it all. Anger, love, jealousy, pity, but the biggest one of all right now was regret.

He turned to Isaac, who looked as if he had no idea what to say, and wrapped him in his arms. Scott could only hope that with some time and distance Stiles could calm down and they could talk about this rationally.

~*~

The last time Isaac remembered feeling this petrified was right before Derek gave him the bite. He had been apprehensive about his decision, but he knew that he wanted it. He couldn’t go on living like he had been. But that didn’t stop the terror from overwhelming him before Derek sank his teeth in.

Derek had told him that it was possible that the bite might not take. There was so much uncertainty and there was nothing Isaac could do to affect the outcome. He was completely at the mercy of fate, or whatever controlled the sometimes fucked up outcomes of this life, and that thought paralyzed him with fear.

Even if the bite hadn’t worked out, and he had died, Isaac knew that he would be better off no matter what. Even death had to be better than living with his sadistic father.

Things were so different now. Being with Scott was better than he ever could have imagined. They had lived for months in their own little world of secret touches and secret glances and had their own secret language that was just theirs. And now that had all been ruined. Stiles had ruined it.

And now Isaac didn’t know what was going to happen and he felt paralyzed.

Scott cleared his throat. “I know that was bad, but it’s going to get better.”

Isaac barely moved as he turned his attention to Scott, who sat next to him on his bed. “How?”

“I’m going to give Stiles time to cool down and then I’m going to talk to him. I know that sometimes Stiles can be stubborn…”

Isaac raised an eyebrow.

“A lot of the time.” Scott amended his previous statement.

Another look from Isaac.

“Alright, most of the time he’s stubborn. But even though he’s mad at me right now, Stiles trusts me. I know I can convince him that I know what I’m doing.”

Isaac got up and trudged over to the window. “And if you can’t?”

Scott didn’t respond. He just bit his lip and looked down at his lap.

“Are we over?”

“No!” Scott said immediately. He got up immediately and walked over to Isaac. He took his hands in his own. “No. Stiles may be one of the most important people in my life, but I know he’s wrong about this. About you.”

Isaac looked away, but Scott put a gentle finger under his chin and turned his face forward to look at him.

“I’m so sorry about the things he said to you. He shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

Isaac feigned indifference. “It’s fine. I’ve heard worse.”

“That doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t have had to take it then and you shouldn’t have to take it now,” Scott said, the steel in his voice leaving no room for argument.

It was moments like this that made Isaac remember that underneath the puppy dog exterior, Scott was a formidable opponent. He’d certainly had his ass handed to him enough times by Scott to know that.

As he touched Isaac’s cheek, Scott’s tone softened. “I care about you, Isaac, and I don’t care what Stiles or anyone else thinks about us. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

Scott spoke with such heartfelt sincerity Isaac almost believed him. He desperately wanted to. But reality had not always been so kind to Isaac and he was incredibly skeptical about that changing now.

~*~

Stiles hesitated before he opened the door to the clinic. It had been one of the weirder and more awkward days of his life - and that was definitely saying something. He spent all day avoiding his best friend. He never thought that would happen and given that they had practically every class together, it wasn’t easy.

He just avoided eye contact whenever they were near each other. Thankfully, he didn’t have to see Scott and Isaac together much. With any luck, with distance between them, Scott would re-think the idiotic idea of being a couple with the loser.

Stiles finally walked into the clinic, but his steps faltered when he saw that Scott had spotted him immediately.

Scott met him in the middle of the room.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Stiles crossed his arms in front of his chest. He slowly looked around the room. “Where’s your guard dog?”

Scott just sighed. “Isaac has the day off.”

Stiles just nodded slowly.

Scott couldn’t seem to decide where he wanted to focus his attention and was fidgety. He twisted his hands together and finally focused his gaze on Stiles. “Look, you can ask me anything you want.”

There were a million questions that had gone through his mind - “where’s your brain?, “what are you thinking?”, “are you having a mental breakdown?” - but he decided to start with the simplest, and the one least likely to start a fight. “How did this ill-advised thing with Isaac start?” Stiles asked, wrinkling his nose when he spoke Isaac’s name.

Scott got a crinkle in the middle of his forehead as he furrowed his brow. “I don’t really know. We were just spending time together and we were getting to know each other. Isaac’s really starting to figure out the kind of person he is, and that he wants to be, and I was helping him. He opened up to me and I realized I could talk to him about anything and suddenly I realized that my feelings for him had changed and he felt the same way.”

Stiles didn’t say anything. He walked over and hopped up on the examination table and leaned back a little. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“Even if I didn’t, I’m sure you’ll tell me,” Scott said. He sounded resigned to the inevitable.

“You were still reeling from losing Allison. You missed her and you missed that feeling of being in love. You and your big heart pitied Isaac and decided he was this person that you could change and make better. You got these feelings twisted up and transferred your feelings for Allison to Isaac. And even though Isaac knows that you’re clearly on the rebound, he took advantage of that confusion.” Stiles leaned forward. “That’s what I think.” He had prepared his speech all day in his head, had even written down some notes, and thought it made perfect sense.

“So I’m just some idiot who’s confused and doesn’t know his own heart?” Scott huffed.

“I’m not saying you’re an idiot, Scott.” Stiles tossed his head back and forth as he quickly thought it over. “Though honestly you sometimes can be, yes a little idiotic, especially when it comes to your love life, but you don’t have to be an idiot to be on the rebound.”

Scott shook his head hard over and over.

Stiles slid off the table. “Scott, you have the biggest heart of anyone I know. It’s one of the things I love about you. I know that you don’t want to hurt Isaac. But you can tell me, okay. This isn’t a real relationship, is it?”

“Yes, it is.” He said each word clearly and carefully.

“Then why couldn’t you tell anyone? Why couldn’t you tell me?”

“I told you. I just wanted it be between Isaac and me. I didn’t want any complications.” Scott stepped toward Stiles as he spoke. “Or maybe I was afraid that you might start some crazy rumor about Isaac, like telling everyone he had lice for instance?”

Stiles’ eyes bulged and he sputtered. “W-what?”

“You really think I didn’t know about that, dude?” Scott blew out a breath. “Danny told me.”

Stiles blinked at Scott. “When?”

“You remember after I became captain, or co-captain with Jackson, Coach forced us to have this lame get together for the team.”

“Right. He was so cheap we actually had it in the locker room,” Stiles added with a dry chuckle.

Scott nodded. “Yeah. Well, Danny and I got to talking and he told me why he stopped hanging out with me.”

Stiles scratched his head. “When did that happen? We were glued to each other’s side the whole night.”

“Not the whole night. We were talking after Jackson dared you to take the shower with all your clothes on, and you were drying off.”

“Oh...right.”

A part of Stiles was relieved that Scott already knew, and given that he hadn’t said anything about it, didn’t seem to be upset about it. He hoped it meant Scott could see that he was just looking out for him, like he is now with this situation with Isaac.

“Stiles…” Scott said in a tone that pleaded with Stiles to really hear him. “I’m not mad, okay. I just need you to understand that I can be friends with you and still go out with Isaac. You don’t have to do anything to chase him off.”

Stiles couldn’t help the nasty thought that occurred to him and blurted it out. “Right, why would I do that when you can do it on your own?”

If Stiles didn’t know him as well as he did, he might not have noticed the brief flash of pain in Scott’s eyes, but he did, and felt horrible about what he said. “You think I’m going to mess things up?” Scott said with a tremor of fear in his voice.

“I’m just looking at your track record so far. You loved Allison. If you couldn’t make that work, I don’t see this thing with Isaac lasting,” Stiles explained.

“I really care about Isaac, Stiles.”

“But you don’t love him. You don’t picture a future with him.” Stiles chuckled briefly. “God, you used to go on endlessly about your white picket fence fantasy future with Allison. It was so nauseating sometimes.”

Scott got a faraway look in his eyes and a small smile lit up his face.

“But it’s different with Isaac,” Stiles said.

Scott turned around slowly.

“It’s different, right?”

“I don’t think it is,” Scott whispered as he turned back to look Stiles in the eye.

He stared at Stiles, almost unblinking, with such clear-eyes and confidence. It felt like something had shifted and Stiles knew that things were far more serious than he had imagined. He was almost scared to voice what he knew Scott was thinking. “You think about a future with him?”

“Yes.”

“But that doesn’t mean anything, right? It doesn’t mean that you’re…”

“In love with Isaac?”

Stiles nodded.

“I am. I love him.” Scott sounded almost as surprised as Stiles felt.

Stiles whirled around and gripped the edges of the counter. “How could you be in love with him? You were just in love with Allison. Unless, you didn’t really love her…”

“Don’t!” Scott growled. He dropped his head forward and tugged at the back of his hair. He took a deep breath. “Don’t say that. I did love her. But she broke up with me.”

“And you said you would wait for her forever,” Stiles pointed out.

“I thought I would,” Scott said with genuine sadness.

“But Isaac is just so darn special that he won you over? Is that it?” Stiles said. Acrid bitterness filled his mouth and dripped from every word.

Scott crossed his arms over his chest. “Something like that, yeah.”

“Why?” Stiles shook his head as he turned back around. He just wanted a simple answer from Scott because this truly baffled him.

Scott got a goofy, and somewhat sickening, smile on his face. "He's funny and he makes me laugh. He's smart. He listens to me and he doesn't judge me."

Stiles stroked his chin. "You know it kind of sounds like you're describing me."

Scott smirked. "Well, Isaac and I also have great sex."

Stiles whistled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Okay, we don't do that. Not that I haven't offered plenty of times."

Scott ignored his comment. "You don't know Isaac like I do."

Stiles shrugged. "Or maybe he's just showing you what you want to see."

"Ugh!" Scott groaned and put his head in his hands. "Why are you being so stubborn?"

“Am I supposed to just forget that he tried to kill me?” Stiles would certainly never forget it. He knew that Isaac and his pack were really after Lydia, not that it made it any better, but when Isaac broke into Scott’s house and lunged for him, Stiles thought he could handle it. He thought he could reason with Isaac. But the look in Isaac’s eyes that night chilled him to the bone. If Scott hadn’t come in when he did, Stiles wasn’t sure what would have happened. “Just because you got over what he did, doesn’t mean I have to. I have a right to be upset.”

Scott looked at Stiles with more patience and understanding. “I know that you do. What he did was horrible. I’m not saying you have to forgive him, but why can’t you accept that I have?”

“Because I care about you. Scott, you’re good and kind. And Isaac is the exact opposite. You are ten times better than he could be on his best day. You deserve someone so much better than him. And I'm sorry to say this Scott, but given how fast you got over Allison, who's mostly a good person, it should take you about a nanosecond to get over Isaac.”

“Stop it.”

Scott was so quiet, Stiles thought he’d misheard him. “What?”

“I said stop it!” Scott suddenly erupted.

Stiles braced for fangs or yellow eyes, but Scott’s own brown eyes just seethed with anger, which actually scared Stiles a lot more. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Scott seething with such obvious fury, pre or post wolf.

Scott hung his head. He didn’t say anything for a few seconds and the tension was getting unbearable for Stiles. He wanted to cut the tension with a sarcastic comment or something that would make Scott laugh, but they were well past that point now.

Scott finally looked up and not like he was two seconds away from exploding, but his usually warm and loving eyes were clouded over with hurt and disappointment.

“I need you to stop talking about Isaac like that. I’m not saying you have to like him. You don’t have to be friends with him. All I’m asking is that you accept how I feel about him and don’t insult him to my face. I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

Stiles for once didn’t know what to say.

“I honestly think you and Isaac can get along someday.” Scott got a weird grin on his face. “The weirdest thing is you don’t realize just how much you and Isaac are alike, do you?”

Stiles blew out a breath derisively. “That’s...not true.”

Scott chuckled. “Really? Isaac is funny. He especially likes to use his humor to hide behind when things get uncomfortable. He’s smart, but has trouble concentrating in school. And he…” Scott bit his lip and, for some reason, looked behind him, even though it was just him and Stiles at the clinic.

“I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but his mother died when he was 7.” Scott briefly looked up at Stiles. “She was killed by a drunk driver. Isaac doesn’t talk about her much. He barely remembers her, but he misses her so much.”

Scott sounded like he was close to tears. Stiles could feel a lump forming in his throat as he thought back to his own mother, and how much her absence still shaped every moment of his life. It had never even occurred to him that he and Isaac had that in common.

Scott looked pointedly at Stiles. “Does that any of that sound even a little bit familiar? Probably not. Instead of trying to tell me how Isaac isn’t worthy to breathe the same air as the rest of us, you could take two seconds and stop being so judgmental and get to know him.”

Stiles would admit he’d never really given Isaac’s life pre-bite much thought. Other than what they all knew about Isaac's father, Stiles didn’t know much about Isaac's other family. He never knew that he and Isaac had anything in common.

He didn't instantly feel some kind of kinship with Isaac though, just because they both lost their mothers young, but he did feel like he understood him a little more.

Stiles could see, and practically feel, how much this meant to Scott. Normally, he would do anything for him, he just wasn't sure if he could do this. He couldn’t shake his distrust of Isaac.

"Of course I know how much it hurts to lose your mother. But the difference between me and Isaac is I don't use it as an excuse to hurt people."

Scott's eyes bulged and he looked at Stiles with a mixture of shock and annoyance. "That's not what I meant."

"I know, but it's always some excuse about Isaac. His mother died, his dad abused him..."

Scott stalked towards him. "Don't say that like it doesn't mean anything."

"That's not what I'm doing." Stiles said quickly. "I just mean that Isaac doesn't get a free pass because his childhood was screwed up." Stiles pinched the bridge of his nose. “Scott, I'm your best friend and I know it doesn't always seem like it, but I'm always trying to look out for you. That's all I'm trying to do here."

"Stiles, I don't need you to look out for me right now. I just need you to be my friend."

"Sometimes being a friend means saying things that you might not want to hear."

Scott threw up his hands. Clearly they were at an impasse. "You're not even going to try, are you?" He said with profound sadness.

"I know you think I haven't been, but I have, Scott. I just don't see him the way you do and I’m pretty sure I never will. I don’t want to lie to you about that."

Scott opened and closed his mouth a few times and shook his head before speaking. "I'm not going to break up with Isaac. And I can't, I can't..." He swallowed thickly and opened his eyes. "You can't come around if you're going to keep treating him the way you do."

Stiles took a step back and tried to work out in his head what was happening. Though, Stiles didn't know why he expected different. Scott wouldn't just dump Isaac because he wanted him to. He was too loyal for that.

"Are you-" Stiles' voice cracked and he cleared his throat. "You don't want me to come to your house anymore?"

Scott nodded stiffly.

"But we can still hang out at school and my house, right?"

Scott didn't say anything.

Stiles looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. He was absolutely not going to cry. He finally faced Scott again. "Are you saying if I can't accept you and Isaac, we won't be friends anymore?"

Scott closed his eyes and didn’t speak for a moment, when he opened his eyes he sighed. “I don’t know.”

Stiles was gutted, but that quickly transitioned to anger. He was pissed at Isaac, He was pissed at himself, but he was especially pissed at Scott.

He started to back out of the room, but stopped and stared daggers at Scott. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not the first time you put your relationship over your best friend. You know this time maybe I won’t be so forgiving when you decide you want to be friends again.”

Scott looked guilty and opened his mouth to speak, but Stiles turned his back on him and strode out of the room.

He walked out overloaded with anger, but by the time he got to his car he just felt empty. Pathetically enough, Stiles kind of missed Scott already.

He might have been angry at Scott, but he still cared. He knew Scott would have to see reason soon. He wouldn't lose Scott to Isaac. He just couldn't. Stiles couldn't entertain any other possibility.

Part 2