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nqds · 3 months

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Twelve

Callum

I was just about ready to throw myself overboard.

The Grand General hadn’t shut up about this journey once, not once in the last three days. I was desperate to get Caspar back and to see the Silent Court dead, but at least I didn’t rumble on about how much of an opportunity it was, and how much faith the King was putting in us to retrieve his son. Gods.

I yawned; sleep had evaded me. A storm had hit last night, rough seas and bellowing wind. I wanted to help but being heir to the throne I was put – locked – in a room with Julias and Leahla and instructed to get some sleep. As if anyone could’ve slept through that storm. It had died down this morning to only wind, the men had brought the sails back up to catch the wind hoping to arrive at the Underlands faster. There wasn’t obvious damage that I could see, but if I looked close enough, I would see someone cleaning up broken pieces of wood and dumping them overboard.

Leahla walked over to me with a strained expression on her face. “What is it?” “Cristen.” She huffs resting on the railing next to me, “I swear he is determined to make my life miserable. He just told me that if this mission fails, it will be our fault for suggesting to come along and that we ‘slow him down’” she says using air quotes. “And that I can make up for it by telling you all about Avena. His perfectly, amazing daughter who can take on two men at once, who would be a perfect queen. Ugh”

“Tell me about it.” I say Cristen always finds ways to bring up his beautiful, amazing, talented daughter who would be perfect for the role of a queen. Avena Cristen. Avena was pretty but in an obnoxious way, over fluffed blonde hair, big bright blue eyes, and a heart shaped lips almost permanently curved into a false smile. Whenever she’s not off proving herself to her father, she’s hanging off my arm like an unwelcome leech. I look over the boat to Julias who was now stuck in a conversation with Cristen and by the look on his face it wasn’t a good conversation. Julias nods and joins us at the railing.

“What was that about?” Leahla asks.

“We’re arriving tonight.”

“And?” “And… that Avena will be joining us when we arrive.” He says wincing at the words. My body shrivels internally. “What?” Is all I can manage. “She’s leading the other boat with the soldiers.” “Sorry Cal.” He pats my shoulder. “Is it too late to throw myself off board?” Leahla asks, she hates Avena almost as much as me, being in constant comparison to her by Father. Now we all have to spend who knows how long with her.

“Yes, besides if it wasn’t I would be right there will you. We all would.” Julias mutters.

“Well, think of it as ballroom dancing, this is sort of like that.” Leahla suggests. “How?” we both ask at once. “You got to put on a bright smile no matter how much pain you’re in.”

_____________________________

The boats stood there tall and proud. The Silent Court took two boats, one bigger than the other, the bigger one was most likely a decoy. But that was the problem with their plan they can’t hide boats very well, now we know where they landed.

True to his word when we docked Avena was waiting for Cristen who was practically dragging us off the boat to meet her. “Prince Callum. Prince Julias. Princess Leahla.” She greeted curtsying. “Avena.” Leahla said crisply. This was already off to a great start. “Good to see you again.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Now that you’ve said hello, you four can catch up while we unpack the boats.” Cristen’s loud voice called out to us as he made his way back to the boats slapping me roughly on the shoulder. We stood there in awkward silence. Watching the men unload. Avena cleared her throat. Looked around and cleared her throat again. She did that a few more times before Leahla blurted out, “What? Is there something stuck in your throat? Or do you always clear your throat on a regular basis? Is it a medical condition?”

“No, I was just trying to make it less awkward.” Avena stated flicking her hair over her shoulder in a way that I knew must’ve seem so innocent and irresistible to everyone else.

“Well, it clearly wasn’t working, was it?” Leahla snapped. “Do you have a better way to pass time then?” Avena spat.

“No. But anything would be better than just clearing your throat!” “Really, indulge me, what else do you suggest we do?” “Guys!” Julias says tugging on Leahla’s sleeve, “We’ve got an audience.” He nods to soldiers who had stopped working to see what the commotion was. “It’s all good here guys,” I say quickly addressing them, “It’s a running joke.” I place an arm around each girl pulling them close then with a forced smile, hissing under my breath, “If either of you don’t shut up in the next five seconds, you’re both going to have bigger problems then Avena clearing her throat.”

I let them go and walk away from the shocked looks on both their faces. Good, at least they’re quiet. I find a large rock on the edge of the beach and take a seat casting my eyes toward to the tall forest above me.

The forest stood high reaching toward the sky; the green leaves kissed by the sunlight. Moss was climbing the dark wood of trees leaving a speckled green pattern in its wake. It was peaceful. Quiet bird calls echoed throughout. Everything seems at ease with the forest, like a peaceful spring day. It was frozen in spring. Even though we are well into autumn. How is that even possible? The thought rings through me as I look further into the forest. There are bushes crowding the floor, but some of them have been pushed back, as if someone has been there.

Perfect.

I launch off the rock and stride toward Cristen. He turns to me dismissing the soldier he was talking. “Yes your Highness?” “I found a track. It’s got to be where the Silent Court went.”

“I’ll send some soldiers over.” He waved toward a few men and told them to check out the track. “Thank you, your highness.” He said, “We will be leaving very shortly, go inform your siblings. If any which to stay behind, they may.” He muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t quite make out. Turning on my heel I stride over to my siblings who had sat down on the sand. Leahla was drawing small patterns and designs in the sand while Julias was building a castle. They look like children, not a care in the world it brings a smile to my face to see them so carefree for a moment. I plop down next to the on the sand. “We’re leaving soon.” “Good.” Leahla says without looking up, “That way I can put as much distance between me and Avena as possible.” I shake my head drawing a small pattern in the sand next to Leahla’s. We sit there talking for a while, watching the soldiers walk past carrying resources, forming lines.

“Soldiers!” Cristen’s voice calls out to the lines, “You are going on a very important mission now. If we do not return with the prince and necklace there is no point in returning. Is that clear?” The necklace? Again? It almost seems as though Father cares more about the necklace than his actual son. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a separate mission just to bring back the necklace.

The soldiers cry out in unison. “Yes, sir yes!” “Good. Any requests come to me, their highnesses, or my daughter, are we clear?”

“Yes, sir yes!” “Good. Let’s move out.” He motions to the front of the group who take the lead starting on the path. It’s now or never, Silent Court.

And we’re coming.

~~~~~~~~

btw Avena means soggy oat in some language :)

god i love the hansley siblings

i loathe avena already

YOUR WRITING IS AKHFBNSJUDFHN <3333

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analogwriting · 4 months

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I love those “if you were a character in…” but I’m 100% I’d be dead in any of those worlds lmao

Heart pirates? I don’t know SHIT about medicine. Sure, my mom is a psychiatrist but it’s not like I’ll give Law prescriptions for anti depressants 😭

Kid pirates? They look like my friend group but Kid would kill me fr he would not allow my ass in that ship no matter how punk I look (which I don’t)…

Honestly my best bet is the strawhat pirates, I could be robin’s apprentice or something because I like archeology :D. This also reminds me of the time I dreamt about getting stuck in the one piece word but I didn’t understand what they were saying because they were speaking in japanese EXCEPT for Sanji who spoke in french too so I was able to communicate (i actually don’t know french in real life idk why in my dream I understood him)

- number 1 kese hater

you're so absolutely valid ongg i have a weird relationship with the ocean. like i love being in it and visiting it (i live in the midwest and have visited the ocean, like, three times) but it's vastness scares the everliving shit out of me. im in love with her but i fear her. being on a boat tho in the middle of it all???? i'd pass away. i get nervous just driving over large rivers on a bridge. i've been on a boat one time and a ferry, like, twice. scared every time lmfao and i can't even begin to tell you how many dreams about the ocean i have had. and not like, drowning or anything. just about how vast and unknown she is. ugh i love her

I only think i'd have a shot with the heart pirates because before i had to drop out of college, i was going to be a forensic pathologist, so i have a lot of science and medical knowledge in my cranium. but it's the submarine that draws the line for me. i would pass away. i would end up with cabin fever and claustrophobia and simply just pass away.

i am a shithead through and through and i'd be clowning on kid at all times. i'd be a nightmare for him. i don't give a shit who you are - i'm CLOWNING on you fr. like you really thought you could take on shanks? dumbass forreal. is it bc he's gotta have redhair superiority? like if you wanna join the red hair pirates just say so...jkjkjk (kid i still love you but NO ONE is safe from my dogging) i be roasting everyone left and right. so honestly, he'd probably HATE me. but i think he secretly just loves arguing.

gimme five minutes, i'll get you lookin punk in no time. im sure i got some patches around here somewhere to make you a vest and i've got PLENTY of eyeliner and hairspray just lemme know what era we going with lmao

i love robin so much. she's so beautiful and smart and i'd kill for her frfr. i think i could survive with the strawhats. they have a level of chaos im used to and luffy reminds me of my little sister.

i meeean more than 1/3 of the french language is the same in english, so understanding sanji makes a lot of sense. the language is also just pretty similar in general in terms of words. (i took it in hs bc i was convinced i was going to move to cambridge or smth with my pathology degree that i never ended up getting lmao)

or maybe sanji was talking to you through your dreams frfr. you guys LINKED IN FORREAL NOW

#ope i rambled my b #i wanna end up in maine honestly that's my goal #i was in co for a bit then i was in pa for a bit now im back in the midwest bc life hates me #but maine - IM COMIN FOR YA #am answers

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jurassicsickfics · 11 months

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No character preference, I trust your choice on this

Ok then! I sure hope you enjoy this, and, sorry it took longer than usual, I've had a chaotic week lol.

Title: Claire's triple whammy

The operators manager of Jurassic World strutted proudly across the control room as she made her way to the helipad. She trotted up the steps and climbed into the helicopter, taking a deep breath to calm her nerves as she sat down and fastened her seat belt. She played with her shiny red hair as the helicopter began to lift off the ground, and, feeling a bit of turbulence, she instinctively wrapped her arm around her belly. She almost always got sick on these silly helicopter rides, which was why she didn't do them unless she absolutely had to. As Claire watched the lush, green jungle pass underneath her, the movement made her even more queasy. The redhead reached into the pocket on the back of the seat and grabbed a sick bag, quickly fumbling with the plastic seal on the top to open it.

"I think I'm going to be sick, I apologize..." Claire said to the pilot, as she held the bag over her mouth, gagging into it. The pilot gave her a sympathetic look and a nod, and thanked her for the warning. Seconds later, Claire was throwing up into the bag.

Soon enough, the helicopter had landed. Claire staggered out of the vehicle, closing the vomit filled bag and throwing it away as she stood and caught her breath.

"Are you alright Miss Dearing?" The pilot asked.

"Oh, um, yes, thanks. " Claire replied.

Later on in the day, Claire was actually feeling better after the incident in the helicopter. She walked alongside her assistant, Zara, on their way to the monorail to go to the docks. The two had a business meeting to attend on the mainland. The two women stepped onto the monorail, and made their way to as private a spot as they could find, to avoid park guests recognizing and bombarding the operations manager and her assistant. Almost as soon as the monorail began to move, Claire felt that awful feeling in her stomach return.

"Oh no..." she mumbled. Zara turned to her. "What's wrong?" She asked.

"I don't feel well. I got sick in the helicopter this morning and I thought I was feeling better, but, it's coming back." Claire explained, bringing a hand up to her mouth.

Zara gave her a sympathetic look. "Oh dear, I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do?"

Claire shrugged. "Do you have any motion sickness medication? Or a bag?"

Zara clicked her tongue thoughtfully as she rummaged through her purse. She found an empty ziplock bag. "Will this work?"

Claire nodded and took the bag. "Yes, it should, thank you. Ugh, I can't believe this is happening again...twice in one day is just...too much."

Zara gave her boss an understanding smile, and soon Claire was retching into the bag...again.

Before long, the two were on the boat to the mainland. Zara was leaned against the rail, admiring Isla Nublar in the distance, when she heard Claire's soft voice beside her.

"Zara...you're not gonna believe this..."

Zara turned around. "Oh Claire, seriously? Seasick too??"

Claire nodded. "Zara...help, please...I don't wanna throw up again..."

Zara pulled Claire into a gentle hug. "Oh dear, I wish I could do something but I really don't think I can. You're probably just gonna have to let it out. "

Claire let out an agonized groan and leaned over the side of the boat, throwing up for the third time.

As soon as she was finished, she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and sighed deeply. "Welp...I knew I had a sensitive stomach, but that freakin' triple whammy was just unnecessary. "

#jurassic world #claire dearing #zara young #seasickness #carsickness #motion sickness #tw emeto

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ashes-writing · 2 years

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lifesaver | csi miami ; t.speedle

A/N ; In response to this ask I bring you this little short thing. With the strong word of caution that I am a) not a medical professional and b) therefore, the events within could be inaccurate despite me hurrying real quick to look and see what the protocols were for drowning in an adult. Anyway, yeah. This is kind of actiony and also has bickering between my boys Eric and Speed cos fuck yes, I love that shit and also... a lil bit of flirting. Tim Speedle saves 'your' life on the beach. As a first official meeting.. Me thinks I miiight be revisiting these two now and then. It just felt like a start to something, y'know?

Tag List; @beardedbarba -who by the way is the one who inspired this, @justmeandanoverdrive and @uncrownedmox are the only people on my CSI Miami taglist. If you'd like to be added, please let me know or add yourself via the link below.

Warnings ; near death -drowning, cpr vaguely described, a lil flirting and two guy friends who bicker and tease as a love language. Overall, it's safe. and lowkey, i like how it turned out. it was cute to write.

Other Stuff ; tag list doc || rules + fandoms and some of the characters I write for || requests ; open -headcanons / nsfw alphabet / fluffy alphabet for any fandom I write for excluding pro wrestling

Time seemed to crawl by since he didn’t have work to deal with. There wasn’t much else to do so on the days when he didn’t just take the Ducati and drive until he found a place to stop and explore, he found himself down at the beach. Sitting in the sand. Watching people come and go because honestly, sometimes watching the people on the beach was infinitely more entertaining than watching some dumb rerun on tv at his place for the millionth time.

Today was a weekend and Eric insisted on tagging along. They’d started off on a little tin boat but around lunch this got boring and Tim insisted on going back to shore. As the two men sat there nursing their drinks of choice, Eric happened to notice Tim staring off into the distance for the second time in a little under an hour. As if he were looking for somebody.

“Expectin company, Speed?”

Tim shook his head. “Nope.” and as he took a long sip of the Jarritos in his hand, the subject was dropped. Eric caught sight of some girls playing volleyball just up the beach from them and Tim laughed to himself as soon as he caught on to Eric all but eye-fucking the curvier one in the group.

“Calm down, man.”

“How? Do you not see those legs? That little body, ugh.” Eric laughed as he taunted his friend. Only he happened to catch sight of Tim’s eyes and attention span wandering for third time and he cleared his throat. “So… Where is she, huh?”

“Where is who?” Tim asked, giving Eric what he hoped was his best silencing look. “Can’t I just look around, man?” Tim asked, offering only a mild shrug.

“Well, you could..” Eric took a bite of the sandwich in his hands and as he chewed up the bite, he smirked at Tim, “If that’s all you were really doing. But see, you’re forgettin I know ya. So I know it’s not. So out with it, man. Show me.”

The laugh died before it left Tim’s mouth and he was on his feet. Running down the beach towards someone. Eric sprung off the sand and took off to catch up, struggling to catch his breath as he caught up to Tim. Tim kicked off his shoes and stripped off his shirt as he dove into the water and as Eric worked on catching his breath and tried to figure out what the hell was going on, he realized exactly what was happening.

There was a girl out in the deep end, just outside of the area designated for swimming, struggling to keep her head above water. A brightly colored floatie that looked like the crappy ones sold at the gas station down the corner floated nearby.

“You fuckin idiot, you’re barely a swimmer.” Eric grumbled before he peeled off his own shirt and slipped off the sneakers he’d been wearing and he headed out to the water right behind his best friend. Tim got to her first, just as she was starting to slow down in her struggle against the water, right before she disappeared beneath the murky surface.

By the time Eric got out to his best friend and the drowning girl, Tim had already gotten her and he was making his way back to the shoreline. They waded out of the water and Tim laid her on the sand. Eric jogged over to the nearest lifeguard shack and knocked until finally, a middle aged guy answered, leaning in the doorway. “What happened to doin your job, asshole?” Eric asked in annoyance as he nodded to Tim and the young woman in question as Tim was checking her for a pulse and preparing to start CPR.

“Didn’t I tell ya?” Tim muttered frantically as he checked you for a pulse. He could feel it, it was weak. “We went over this yesterday, sweetheart. It’s not a good idea t’ nap on your float. I don’t care how good the sun feels, babe.” he glanced over to the lifeguard shack just in time to see Eric and the lifeguard heading towards you both. He started the usual CPR protocol. When it didn’t work by the third round, he leaned down over you and pinched your nose, pressing his mouth against yours tight. As he breathed into your mouth, he felt your chest start to rise and he pulled away. You sat up, coughing up all the water you’d taken in when you got sucked under by the current that last time and he finally took a long and deep breath as he felt his heart start to make its way back down his chest and not in his throat like it had been for the entire time all of this was happening.

Eric and the lifeguard finally made it out to where you were both sitting. And Tim was lecturing you about your penchant for napping on the neon green floatie. You laughed softly and gave him a thumbs up. “If it helps, I will… Not be floating anymore, officer.” you give him this cute little weak grin.

Eric’s gaze settled on Tim who merely shrugged. You looked up at Eric and gave a polite wave, quick to look away, back at his best friend Tim. “Thank god you were here again today.” you mumbled as you leaned in and pressed a lazy kiss to Tim Speedle’s stubbled jaw. “You saved my life.”

“Yeah man, you did.” Eric was chuckling. In awe at his best friend. He spoke up again after the air between you and Tim got so thick he couldn’t take it. “Hey Speed, I’m gonna.. Go back to our spot, alright?”

Tim barely acknowledged him leaving, he was more worried about checking over you in concern. You were doing your best to reassure him you were okay, but honestly, you were still freaking out. Your entire life had flashed in front of your eyes in literal seconds because that’s how fast this all happened.

After the medic got to you both and you were given the all clear, Tim seemed satisfied. He was walking away, heading back over to his friend when you caught up with him. Tapped him on his shoulder. Tim turned and stepped closer to you, staring down at you. You took his hand in yours and closed his hand around something, holding on for a few seconds that honestly, Tim didn’t want to end. He actually pouted when you let go of his hand and started to walk away.

He opened his hand and chuckled quietly when he saw that you’d written your number down on a torn strip of paper and that was what you pressed into his hand.

But he couldn’t just leave it like that, not when you were the specific reason he’d been coming to the beach a lot lately. He had to at least find out your name and for some reason, it was almost as urgent as the need to save you from drowning had been just barely ten minutes before.

This time he caught up to you.

“Hey.” Tim’s hand settled on your shoulder as he stopped behind you. “Hey, wait.”

You stopped and turned to look at him, gulping as you locked eyes with him. “Yeah?”

“My name is Tim.” he laughed and shook his head. When you told him your name and laughed softly, he repeated it, chuckling. “Cute.”

The thick silence settled over you two again and finally, you couldn’t take it anymore. “I’ll see you at the same time tomorrow? Maybe this time you can meet me in that little sports bar on the boardwalk?” you said it with this cute little smirk as you reassured him, “My tanning shenanigans are over, I promise.”

Tim grinned, nodding. Stepping closer. “Thank god for that. I mean, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you were layin on the beach, sweetheart.” and you swallowed hard as you nodded. Giving him a teasing little pout. “I’ll keep that in mind.” you mumble softly.

Tim made his way over to the spot in the sand that he’d been sitting with Eric and flopped down, taking several long and shaky breaths.

“I knew it. I told you there was a girl, man. There’s always a girl when you say there isn’t. What do you think I am, Speed? An idiot?” Eric gloated. Tim rolled his eyes and mimicked him, shrugging. “I mean, you saw her.. I wasn’t gonna point her out to you, you fuckin flirt.” Tim joked, earning him a middle finger from Eric.

“Nah, you saw her first, buddy. And you kinda saved her life. There’s no way in hell I can compete with that.” Eric shrugged. Tim smirked to himself.

“Damn right.” he muttered, making Eric snicker quietly when he heard him say it. “So she’s the reason you’ve been coming out here a lot more, man? I’m impressed.” Eric admitted, adding a few seconds later with a calm smirk, “What were you gonna do though, just not talk to her?” he clucked his tongue.

“Eric?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you wanna drown today, man?”

“I’m the one who can actually swim for shit, Speed. Remember?”

“Fuck you, Delko.”

#tim speedle #tim speedle fanfiction #tim speedle fanfic #tim speedle oneshot #tim speedle x fem!reader #tim speedle x fem!reader fanfiction

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tiptapricot · 2 years

Text

MK liveblog thoughts, Asylum

Why does this have another boring title music section uGh

The main themes being right at the beginning w the cave n Wendy,,,,, Oughhh

THE EDITING IS SO GOOD

God god god

Marc looks so beat up n confused babe I’m so sorry I’m so sorry

I still don’t think this is Jake y’all sorry I rlly just never will ok

His accent doesn’t change it just gets stronger bc he gets more upset

Dr Harrow you suck so bad

“I took the bus” “hmgggggg |:-/“

Also why does his face look totally diff Oscar why do u shift ur face

DONT BRING UP THE LITTLE BOY SHUT UR YAP

Also again… Marc’s trigger is roro n he gets mad when harrow brings it up

Taweret my love

Taweret’s painted nails n how she licks her lips o baby oh yeah

Also the fact that she’s gotta read off cards n is awkward bc this isn’t her job

Autism overrides fear of being dead, category 6 event two dead and are mad ab it

Untethered consciousness is such a fun way to describe souls

Just watching Marc fall back into old habits of thinking n self hate n being trapped in his medical trauma agghhhhh

“Mahc… mahc….”

“BingoOOOOH MY GOD”

The Duat music is amazing n the colors r LOVELYYY

Poppa-ed ya hearts out hehhehe

Steven grabbin him boobies no heart there anymore

Also how what happens when ur souls don’t balance is diff bc Ammit is entombed n cant eat them

“Kill the hippo, steal the boat”

THEYRE INCOMPLETE BC JAKE ISNY THERE U FUCK LET HIM OUTTT

“You two guys” so real they rlly are guys

“Yeawrrite”

I love Steven n Marcs bickering ab killing Taweret or not they’re so

They’re so

I love the memory rooms hey don’t go into they’re so cool looking

N the music that’s like a muffled n floaty version of the main theme ouYghH

“Woah… that’s wild”

Marc seeing the shiva n brushing it off is so…

I didn’t think anything of it the first time but knowing now is just uUggGHh

Steven’s collar is lower cut than Marc’s n that vibes

The way Steven looks when he asks “All of them?” Is so heartbreaking

Marc baby Marc baby Marc bABY I need to holD YOU OH SHIT RORO HIIII

“Why is there a child in a room full of people you’ve killed” GOD BUT HES ALIVE HES THE ONLY ALIVE ONE ITS NOT THE SAME

THE WAY MARC BANGS ON THE MEMORY BC HE KNIWS WHAT UT IS IUGGHHHHHH

“Draw wing”

Layers gators in awhile crocodile

THE SHOT OF MARC THROUGH THE HALL MIRROR THE GREENS OF THE TREES N THEN IT GETYING DIMMER AS IT RAINS

The music swelling n shifting still light n then getting heavy n deep when Steven realizes what’s happening

Marc searching so hard n Steven’s panic rising n Marc looking rigid n scared n tense as his own fear rises

Steven yelling even tho they can’t hear him the water rushing in w Marc’s memory n his breathing over the top of it Steven diving n n Marc’s breath shivering over all of it GOD GOD GOD GOD

Steven at the shiva…. He looks so shaken and empty

The room is warmly lit but the contents are not

The water dripping in the silence

Wendy’s hair going from wavy to straight in grief

Baby Marc… baby….. go back to your room

God

Steven’s face I’m

God Jesus fuck the emotions this instills just holy shit holy shit

DONT GO UP THE STAIRS

The way each level almost gets more desaturated….

Steven continuing to climb n Marc only being able to watch

The score dude… I’m just…:.::::::::

Their vices when they’re fighting

Teen Marc…. Steven just watching and the tears on teen Marc’s face and Marc pulling him away into a worse memory

Spitting up sand..

OH HEY STEVEN INSEE UR SHOULDER

Marc……. Man

Hey I… care ab these guys a lot

“What happened to you?” And Marc is already moving towards it

ALSO THE SHOT OF THE TEMPLE IUGGHHHB JTS SO COMICS IT MAKES ME YEL

I can’t even

I can’t even describe the feelings of this scene we all know

But like the score doesn’t stop immediately when Khonshu starts talking his voice cuts through it and silences things and makes Marc pause

Khonshu I hate u

Also so many shots r uneven n weird this scene in a good way

“Marc he was… taking advantage of you”

The way we see through Marc’s eyes the edge of Khonshu’s staff before he says yes and then Khonshu is finally visible OUGGHHHH

HAHA THEY SAID THE TITLE YEAHHHH YEAHHH OH HEY HIS CAPE IS GLOWINH DUDE

TAWERET ILYYYY

Marc’s…. Rlly strong n panicked reaction to maybe having to relive the bedroom but Steven just can’t get it bc he doesn’t know he is unable to know and then Steven says it’ll b all his fault n it triggers Marc and he has a mini meltdown just… fuck man

The way the diff Dr Harrows act diff n have diff rules

Proves the psych ward isn’t reality immediately between the sedating vs the not sedating

Again Dr harrow asmr is begrudgingly v nice

Marc just responding by looking at him like 😕

The tomb buster figures… the stuffie, the astronaut on the shelf. The car bunk bed…. I think

Baby Steven…….

And the way Steven copies along bc he rmrs…

Steven being a fictive is still one of my fav things but also it makes sense he does not have a good reaction bc he doesn’t know what it means n his sense of self is so strong n just

God….

PUNCH HIS ASS

Steven… oh baby

I’m like

Listen guys I’m rlly fucking emotional it’s hitting harder than usual rewatched uh um um

Marc’s voice breaks even when he’s so angry and I’m just I

Oh I’m im rlly close to crying lol

Steven’s initial reaction to her being dead is just heart shattering n he’s mumbling n his world is coming down n Marc is trying to calm him bc he realized what he did but Steven can’t hear him through the panic

Steven still being brave in the face of gaslighting n illusions n not believing that Dr harrow is real like Marc did

“Oo nosy…”

Dr harrow I hate u

Steven’s breakdown as the realization of his mother is brought to the surface n he tries to deny it but he can’t the way his dont do that becomes a pleas j his face breaks oh the tear oh god

“My mum is dead” And the line is dead too

“I was just a little boy”

Oscar Isaac the actor you are Jesus shit

The way Steven just watches the memory n breaks n the tears come n he gets it

And the taxi drives away someone mentioned the Jake parallel god

“Marc… all those horrible things that’s he said to you, she was wrong, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Hey… hey… you were just a child. It wasn’t your fault.”

My chest is like twisting n it’s in my throat guys just… Jesus

THEYRE UNBALANCED BC JAKE ISNT THERE N ITS TWO HEARTS N IT WORKS DIFF THAN SINGLETS BABY CMON

This fight hurts so bad just

The faceless sand creature….

Steven working so hard to save Marc

The way Steven covers his mouth when Marc gets hit n he looks so purely scared

AND THEN HE ATEPS UP YES BABY YOU GOT THIS

“SIIIIX!! I prefer cricket :-)”

BEAT THAT THING UPPPPP

Marc’s proud happy in awe face n then he gets grabbed and it is that moment and—Steven falls

And Marc’s voice is hoarse and it’s so distant for Steven and then he realizes and tries to run but it’s too late “stop the boat!” “Wait!” But it doesn’t they can’t n Marc is yelling and Steven reaches out and says his name and is gone

The way that Taweret gasps a lil when the scales balance and then the music just.. lightens… and Marc looks so destroyed in the soft light of the field of reeds, alone and warm and broken….

Yeah I…. No wonder this put me in a shit emotional state for a week Jesus Christ

I never want to relive the wait between moon knight episodes 5 and 6 ever again but truly what the fuck dude that…… episode just

Christ

#the fruit is talking again #MK liveblog

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crystalninjaphoenix · 2 years

Text

MerMay 2022 Day Thirty Gold Waves / Dark Deep Waters

The sun was setting. Chase popped his head out of the ocean to look at it. He squinted, holding up a hand to measure how much the sun had moved. Worry shot through his stomach. Were they late?

No sooner had he thought that, than he saw a boat on the horizon. A white boat. That looked like them. Chase disappeared back underwater and swam down to the ocean floor, where the others were waiting. “I think they’re coming. From over there.” He pointed in the direction of the boat.

Everyone else immediately perked up. They’d been waiting at this spot—near the boardwalk where Ollie’s boat was usually docked—for a couple hours now, growing steadily anxious. All of them had wanted to help with the rescue, but agreed there wasn’t much they could do. They didn’t want to swim too close to the TridentCorp location and risk being caught. So they planned to wait. Jackie had spent the entire time swimming in circles, while Marvin, Jameson, and Chase tried to distract themselves with small talk. Jack had brought Sam along and spent the time playing with her, while Schneep continually rearranged the medical items he’d brought along in his bag.

“Are we sure it’s them?” Marvin asked warily. “It could be another boat that just looks like theirs. A lot of boats look alike.”

“I...no, we’re not sure,” Chase said slowly. “But if we swim out to meet them, we can read the ship’s name and see.”

“Alright, let’s go, then,” Jack said. He held up his woven bag and Sam swam inside. “You can read human, right, Chase?”

“I can read English, yeah,” Chase nodded. “And I think Schneep can read another language, but Ollie speaks English so his boat will have an English name.”

We know a few human words as well, Jameson said, indicating himself and Marvin. But I’m not sure what language they’re from.

“Ugh, you’re all taking too long talking about nothing!” Jackie shouted. “You said let’s go, so let’s go!” He took off, forcing the others to hurry and follow.

Soon enough, they caught up with the boat, swimming alongside it. Chase once again peered out from the water to read the boat name: Silver Star. That was it! “We got it!” he said. “Now we just need to get their attention.”

After a lot of waving and shouting, Stacy finally turned around and looked over the railing, noticing the merms following them. She gasped and hurried to the front of the ship. A few moments later, the boat stopped its motor, and the sea spray in its wake calmed down to simple waves. The merms gathered nearby while the humans ran to the side of the boat and waved. Including...“Chase, are your kids on the boat?” Schneep asked.

Chase gasped. Muirin and Sereia waved at him, shouting in overlapping voices. “What are you doing here?!” he yelled back. “Did you go with them?! You were supposed to stay home!”

“Yeah, well, we saved the day!” Sereia said. “Or, more importantly, I did!” She puffed out her chest proudly.

Muirin shoved her a bit, then turned back and continued to wave. “Hi! It’s good to see you, Da—!”

“Give us a moment!” Stacy interrupted. “We’ll get this guy out of here!” She looked down at the kids and subtly shook her head, glancing at the confused-looking Ollie.

The humans on board moved around a bit, doing something that the merms couldn’t see from their lower vantage point. Then Ollie opened up a section of the railings. Stacy pushed a large plastic box over to the open section, and Ollie helped her tip it over. A flood of water poured out, accompanied by something big and tinted green. The something splashed into the sea and disappeared.

All the merms immediately ducked back underwater, swimming downwards towards the ocean floor. There, sitting on a patch of pebbles surrounded by sand, was Anti. His head darted all around, muscles tense. The moment he saw the group approaching, he jumped and backed up. But he didn’t attack. Nor did he run.

The others looked around at each other, uncertain. Jackie unconsciously moved in front of everyone else. Marvin slowly took out a pair of power stones from his bag, handing one to Jameson. Schneep leaned forward a bit, holding his own back close as he looked Anti up and down.

“Um...hi.” Jack was the first to break the tension, waving awkwardly. “Are you...are you okay? I know it’s been a long time. We, uh, weren’t able to figure out where you were at first. So...sorry. About that.”

Anti stared at him for a moment. Then he looked at everyone else, eyes landing on each of them for a second. “You...did this?” he said in a low voice. “Those humans did this...because you told them to?”

“Yes,” Chase responded, finding his voice. “But the kids weren’t supposed to come. A-and I swear, if you—if you shocked them, I-I’ll—I’ll—”

“I’m not going to shock elvers, clown,” Anti scoffed. “They’re, what? Thirteen?”

Schneep swam forward a bit, causing Anti to back up. “Did they hurt you?” he asked. “You look—I mean, there is not much I can tell from a first glance at this distance, but—i-if there is anything that is...I am a healer, after all.” He tried to swim closer, but Jackie held out an arm and stopped him.

“Why would you care?” Anti growled. Once again, his eyes darted between them all. Marvin and Jameson had slowly drifted to his left, so he swam to the right. A few forks of lightning burst from his tail, no larger than a handspan. “What do you want from me?”

“We...don’t want anything,” Jack said slowly. “Well...that’s not quite true, I think Jackie wants to arrest you again, but that’s not why we—”

“Then why did you?!” Anti demanded. “Why did you get me out of there?! What are you going to do, what—do you want me to do something? Did you think you’d put me in your debt?”

“That wouldn’t be so bad,” Marvin muttered. Jameson swatted him and gave him a disapproving glare. “Ow! But, no, that wasn’t the plan.”

“What was the plan?!” Anti’s voice cracked a little, sounding more desperate than angry.

“We didn’t have one,” Chase said softly. “We couldn’t just leave you in there. Regardless of what you do now, or what we do now, or whatever, we just had to get you out of there.”

Anti stared at Chase silently. Then, without warning, he lunged towards him.

Jackie darted forward, intercepting Anti’s attack. The two merms landed hard on the ocean floor, sending up sand clouds. The others scattered. Anti recovered from the landing and looked up to see Jack was now the closest merm, floating slightly to the right. He tried to get up and rush towards him, but Jackie wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him back to the floor.

“Jackie, be careful!” Schneep shouted, now behind Jackie and Anti. “You could both be hurt!”

Anti looked over his shoulder towards Schneep, eyes wide. Then he twisted fully around and started hitting and clawing at Jackie, a method that proved unsuccessful as Jackie’s skin was tougher on his tail and back.

“Leave him alone!” Marvin raised his power stone, irises glowing turquoise. The water around him began to swirl—but then stopped. Marvin blinked, confused, and looked to his side to see Jameson, eyes glowing blue, holding his own power stone out.

Jameson shook his head. Not now, not yet, he signed.

“What do you mean ‘not now, not yet?’” Marvin demanded. “He’s attacking Jackie!”

“I got it,” Jackie said through gritted teeth. He let go of Anti, and in a flash, grabbed his wrists mid-attack. “See?” Anti looked at Jackie, gills working hard as he breathed heavily, and glanced side to side.

“Gods, Jackie, give him some space, you’re just freaking him out!” Jack shouted.

Anti let out a high-pitched wail. He yanked his arms free and, unexpectedly, covered his eyes. “Don’t pretend to care!” he shouted. “You should hate me! I tried to kill you! I tried to get you to kill each other! I took your children! I hypnotized you! It would have been better for you if I stayed in that see-through place with those blue humans!” The water grew hot, and Jackie backed away just in time to avoid being shocked as Anti let out a surge of lightning. “You could have forgotten about me and everything I did! You could have killed me the moment you saw me! But you didn’t and now I’m out here again! Why? Why did you do that? Just tell me! Tell me already! Tell me what you want!” In a blink, the lightning disappeared. Anti curled up, lying on his side on the ocean floor. “You can’t...actually...care.”

The others stopped, staring at Anti. Jackie floated close by and waited for a trick. Marvin held up his power stone again, but Jameson reached out and pushed the stone back down. Schneep raised his hand but hesitated to swim closer. Chase glanced towards the surface and the distant bottom of the boat.

After a moment, Jack took a deep breath. He took his bag off, dropping it to the ocean floor. “Stay,” he muttered to Sam, who was already poking her head out of the opening.

Then he swam up to Anti. Jackie tried to stop him but Jack batted his hand away. He stopped right next to Anti, floating slightly above his curled-up form. “I...don’t remember anything you did,” he said slowly. “Everyone else has told me, and yeah, it’s pretty fucked up. But...that doesn’t mean you deserve to be at the mercy of humans like that. Nobody does.”

Anti didn’t look at him. “Don’t lie to me,” he groaned. “You—you have to want something. You have to—”

“Why?” Jack asked.

“I...I don’t know.” Anti shook his head. “That’s—that’s just how it works. And I don’t know why you all are—are acting like it’s not, I don’t know why you’re always—always swimming around carefree and just talking to each other, like nothing can happen. That can’t be how it works, but whenever I saw you, that was always how you were.”

“Whenever you saw us?” Jack asked.

Anti finally glanced at him, though he quickly hid his face again. “Yeah, I was watching you. A few times. Are you going to kill me for it?”

“No,” Jack said quietly. He looked at the others, who had reacted to the news with varying surprise and discomfort. But none of them said anything. “That’s not something people kill each other for.”

“People kill each other for anything. That’s—that’s just how it works,” he repeated. “That’s how it has to work.”

“Why does it have to be like that?” Jack asked gently.

“Because why else would any of it have happened?!” Anti finally burst out, grabbing Jack by the shoulders and staring directly into his eyes. The others darted closer to help, but Jack held up a hand to stop them. “Why did all of that happen to me?! Why didn’t anyone do anything?! Where were the people like you back then?! Why did you leave me?!” And suddenly, Anti stopped, clapping a hand over his mouth. His eyes, leaking tears into the water, darted around, taking in the shocked expressions on the merms around him.

Then before any of them could do anything, he turned around and swam away as fast as he could.

“Anti!” Jack shouted, and started to follow. But Jackie put a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place.

“I...don’t think we can do this...right now,” Jackie said slowly.

“Really?” Marvin spoke for the first time in a while. “Are you sure you can...just let him go like that? I mean, mentally. You really wanted to catch him.”

Jackie shook his head. “I...can try another time,” he said quietly. “Let’s just...explain what happened to Stacy and Ollie.” He glanced up towards the surface.

“Right,” Chase agreed. “I want to know what happened on their end. If they’re all okay. And what my kids are doing here.” He immediately began swimming upward. Jackie gave Jack a small smile, then followed. And Jack joined them slightly after.

Schneep sighed. He stared after Anti, who had disappeared over the edge of a cliff. “I hope he is not hurt,” he muttered. “It can be hard to treat yourself.”

Jameson gave Schneep a reassuring pat on the back, then he and Marvin swam up to the surface as well. Schneep hesitated for a moment more before doing the same.

The sun was setting. Darkness was falling on the ocean. And out in the middle of it all, a lone merm swam with no destination in mind.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye fanfiction #jacksepticegos #septic egos #jacksepticeye au #septic egos au #antisepticeye #chase brody #jackieboy man #dr schneeplestein #marvin the magnificent #jameson jackson #brigid writes fanfiction #mermay snippets

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dr-hidden-paradise · 2 years

Text

“Oh hey Luna, this the lil kit you were talking so much about? She’s… smaller than I expected.”

“Yeah she is, cute ain’t she?”

“She’s… really small, how old is she? Maybe thirteen or twelve?”

“… she should be around seventeen actually Stark.”

“What what? Really? Shit.”

“Yeah… I think I know why, but I don’t want to think about it. Just trying to help her the best I can you know?”

“Yeah yeah, you just found the perfect pup for your pack Luna, what else is there to it?”

“She’s just.. I don’t know, you see how easily she curls up in my scarf. She’s young and younger in there, like a weird ass reverse of my childhood. She’s… just so childish, but in the worst way possible for her age… I just worry you know?”

“I know… say does she have a name? Everyone that knows just calls her your kit.”

“I dont know, if she does she hasn’t told me, and that’s fine.”

“Do you have any names planned just in case?”

“Well if she doesn’t, I’d let her pick for herself… but Aldona and I… we always talked about hypothetical children’s names you know? I really liked Kalina from the names she picked out, and it’s a flowery name.. so it’s like I don’t know, she would have chosen the name anyway so it’s like she’d approve.,”

“Heh, that makes sense, no offense but Aldona was always better at names than you.”

“Hey!”

“I’m kiddin, anyway… the dam issue?”

“Ugh… her. She’s still alive because we need her. No offense to you, but you may be able to monitor my eyes but you can’t prepare for almost every injury a student can’t get- you’ve seen the medical lists.”

“That’s true.”

“The moment we don’t need her anymore she is so ending up in a fucking ditch, you’ve seen what she did to my kit.”

“Heh, protective as always. Ever thought about what happens after?”

“Like after the game?”

“Yeah, was thinking maybe one of theses days after that dam is offed, we go an build a better boat than Bea’s, then adopt the kit together and then fuck off sailing the skies like one of those fantasy animes Vespar tried to get Zacharie to watch.”

“Haha. Depends on if we can bring ‘lil glitch’ with us?”

“Of course. Xe can always come along. Besides you basically took in xe after everything happened, couldn’t separate xem from xeir favorite ‘big sis’.”

“Tch, you’re lucky we’re friends Stark.”

“Or else what? You’d stab me? Please, I’d shock you a hundred ways to uh… whatever the nearest holiday is supposed to be.”

“Halloween?”

“I don’t keep track.”

#drhp-luna #drhp-Chelle #behind the scenes musings #drhp-a memory

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ginjointsintheworld · 2 years

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I just saw the bts stuff for Leyren and got so much energy back lol I knew Leyla wasn’t gone forever but I also couldn’t think up a reason to have her bump into Lauren if they didn’t work together(who even runs the er these days?)so knowing she comes back in a few episodes is great. I miss her and their relationship so much. I’m waiting to see how this season ends before losing hope completely but it’s so hard with all the breaks.

oh I feel you anon. I felt like that video of big bird kicking down the door when I saw shiva's name tagged in the ig story RKVKDKD. we've been out here fighting for our lives and crumbs with shiva on her social media break and even lauren having a blink and miss it appearance in 4x15 😭

it's nice to have a concrete episode to look forward to and I suspect we'll see leyla pop up before this episode (looks like 4x18) as well. part of me wonders if the ED environment/cases will be replaced by UMI since max and lauren work there now in which case maybe we'll get the residents doing a rotation at UMI since it's supposely a trauma clinic and that's how lauren and leyla (and the rest of the supporting gang) will reunite 👀

but floyd tends to wander down to the ED a lot so it's possible we'll still see the ED via him. i personally like to think candelario is now holding down the fort as chair but if not then it's probably some random inconsequential doc we'll never see.

ugh I know, I know, I miss these knuckleheads sharing the same screen so much, even if it is to look unfairly attractive while being mad at each other. not to mention the people (me) need more of dr. leyla shinwari flexing her talented, brilliant, unstoppable medical prowess 😩 I sound like a broken record but I'm truly in the wait and see how the season plays out boat. the writers are juggling a lot of things right now plot wise and while I don't expect everything to land perfectly, I haven't lost faith yet that it could still wrap up in a satisfying manner. tbh if we can just get lauren and leyla reconciling from the 5th spot event and in a hopeful place going into s5, I would be okay with that. I have no grounds to feel as confident as I do except for ~vibes~ but I genuinely don't believe that the writers have any interest in pursing the romantic aspect of lauren's storyline outside of leyla. she's it for lauren. but one of the pillars of lauren's character is, for better or for worse, the battle for absolution from the failures and guilt she's never forgiven herself for. when lauren and leyla get back together, I'm expecting those dumb dorks to STAY together and the best chance of that is if lauren works through her personal stuff first. at least to the point where she can communicate to leyla what she needs from her as a partner so they can work together to support each other.

so hang tight, anon. this light in the tunnel isn't a train yet.

#anon #asks #also if nbc even THINKS of interrupting NA's airing schedule any more after this break #i WILL be fighting them with my bare hands 😭

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wisteria-lodge · 3 years

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snake primary + snake secondary (bird model)

Hello! I recently discovered your blog and really love the thought you’ve put into the nuances of the SHC system. I’m super into these kinds of personality analysis systems (I’ve probably been through them all at this point) because I think it’s interesting to know how people tick - I also think self-awareness is important so that you know why you do what you do, essentially. I took the SHC quiz and it told me I was a Snake Primary with a Bird Model, and a Bird Secondary with a Snake Model. I agree that I’m probably a (somewhat petrified) Snake Primary with a strong Bird Model, but I’m not sure which is my true secondary and which is the model. Maybe you can help?

I can sure try :)

Some things about me: I’m an oldest daughter, and I’m almost 100% sure my dad is a Bird Snake and I *idolized* him as a child - I thought he had it all figured out. He was the Zeus to my Athena in my child’s eyes, and I think I got my Bird primary model very early from copying him.

I mean, I know what you mean in a “sole creator” sense, but there is no *way* Athena thought Zeus had it all figured out.

My two younger brothers are a Lion Snake and a Lion Badger, and my mother is possibly a Double Badger, though I’m not as sure about her - maybe she just thinks that she *should* be a Double Badger. I think all that is important to help illustrate that I didn’t really feel *at home* when I was with my family, though I loved them, since I was the only Snake. My parents also had a terrible relationship and are now divorced, so there’s that as well. I think the only time I have ever been truly morally outraged was the revelation that my dad had engaged in infidelity against my mom, and then again when he started dragging his feet over a promise the he had made my youngest brother. We didn’t speak for a long time after that incident, but I was really cut up over dropping him.

Oh yeah. That’s very Snake primary. Morally outraged because your People are getting hurt.

We eventually started to reconcile, and the only reason we did was because he called and said he was driving through my city one day, and even after all of that, I said yes to meeting up because I felt sad that I had dropped him. I think this family dynamic, plus some other childhood stuff, led to me sort of “checking out” and petrifying pretty early.

Just a theory - I think it’s possible that this hit your secondary more than it hit your primary. You seem pretty strong and confident in your Snake primary so far. Even the fact that you can identify it coming from such a non-Snake environment, and don’t feel guilty about it, is big.

I had a lot of trouble making friends in school.

I’m thinking this might be more of a secondary thing.

and generally ended up with like one friend who was the other weird girl, and who I always sort of kept at arm’s length emotionally. I moved schools several times as a kid and after the first best friend (who was the daughter of my mom’s best friend and was like a sister to me until she moved away), I really didn’t try too hard to make new “best” friends.

Hmm. See, this reads like a *default* friend to me, not a friend of choice. The other weird girl. The daughter of your mom’s friend. That’s an easy friend to have… and not one that you necessarily sought out. I’m not surprised that your primary didn’t latch onto her with that Snake intensity.

Even now, though I definitely have concentric circles of loyalty and a significant other who is my “top person”, I’m not sure I have that blind Snake I-would-literally-die-for-you loyalty toward anyone - I’d kill or hide a body for my top circles

That *is* Snake loyalty. Snakes aren’t going to die for someone else, are you kidding? That’s a sucker’s game. They value themselves too much.

I would give up a lot of my own comfort for my significant other. Maybe I’m just afraid to let myself feel that unquestioning loyalty, though I want to feel it, or maybe I’m really a Bird and just want to be a Snake because that would mean I could be un-broken eventually.

Let’s talk about your secondary, I want to hear about how you think you’re broken, because so far you seem fine. Congrats on the SO!

I don’t think I’m an Idealist though - I’m surrounded by them and I know I don’t care about “principles” the way they do. Then again, maybe I’m a Bird whose truth is that moral relativism is the truth lol. Anyway, I think for my primary, I’m probably a petrified Snake with a Bird model unless I’m totally wrong about myself.

I think you’re just a Snake who… is a Snake.

(you’ve got that Birdy influence though, from your dad, and they do like to complicate things.)

As for my secondary, I loved to read (everything - all kinds of fiction, especially sci-fi/fantasy/mystery and, like, Victorian sci-fi/horror adventures, nature books, medical texts, etc. Wikipedia was a revelation when it came out), and I was smart and good at taking tests and knowing the answers in school, so at a certain point I think I just defaulted to being “the smart one” and used that as armor to help keep people from getting too close.

yep yep yep, welcome to the ‘fun Bird model’ club, we have snacks

I do genuinely love to learn, and I’ve always been known among friends and family as the one who either knows the answer or will look it up. I love pop culture trivia and nature facts. I also love and am good at debate, but not really when real feelings are involved - I more love the “battle of wits” aspect, where I can match up against a person to see if my knowledge and ability to adapt my argument on the fly can stump them.

I also would argue the unpopular point, or the point I didn’t agree with, just for sport. Fun Bird secondary model.

I developed terrible anxiety and probably some depression as well in high school.

Okay, now I’m seeing the problem.

and now that I’m older, I suspect that I may have ADHD, though I haven’t been officially assessed. I didn’t discover my executive function issues really until college, when suddenly being smart and being able to figure out the test answers through context clues and what I remembered from lectures and readings + whatever trivia I had gathered about the topic wasn’t enough anymore.

I suspect you’re right about being ADHD. Or at least being neruodivergent.

I am horrible at studying! I would plan out my study sessions and make these nice little cheat sheets (these were allowed on exams) and they didn’t work at all! I did very well in my literature minor though, because all the graded assignments were papers rather than open-answer tests, and I could get my thoughts out better and with more resources at my disposal if I forgot something and needed to go back to the book to check.

Oh ouch. Yeah, I’m not even relating this back to a secondary, because I’m reading this as a working memory thing? Like ugh tests are such a terrible way access knowledge. What is even the *point* of memorization anymore? You should have been able to have a college career that was completely writing papers, like I did.

I was at one point very jealous of my Lion Snake brother, who I felt could do “whatever he wanted” with minimal consequences, while I always felt constrained by being “good” and not rocking the boat too much with my family.

Yep. That’s being an oldest daughter.

I couldn’t understand why he didn’t seem to care about being considerate to everyone else in the household (especially my chronically overworked, can’t-say-no Badger mom lol).

It’s because he’s the youngest. Mine’s the same.

This attitude was definitely influenced by my anxiety issues at that time, since I had (and still have) a lot of trouble asking for anything - help, permission, whatever. I’d rather do things and explore on my own, without anyone watching, so I don’t have to ask and don’t have to explain.

Did you low-key raise your younger siblings? Because it sounds like you raised your siblings.

I feel better with a little bit of distance, and definitely wear masks in most situations. I’d say my masks are half conscious and half reactive - I do have some idea of how I’d like to be perceived, but it’s only kind of systematic.

That makes me think Snake or Badger secondary.

I have a few “characters” that I use as touchpoints when I’m going into a new situation, but once I’m there I mostly just act nice and funny and see what happens.

So far I’m going with Badger secondary (be nice and and assume it’ll be fine is very badger) with a fun Bird secondary model, that you can do an Actor Bird thing with. Although liking to “just see what happens” is pretty snake.

The characters are really just costumes I use to give off a certain first impression, although I do really like the costumes and find them fun. I love clothes, makeup, and perfume too, because I enjoy the idea of making multidimensional costumes for different settings. I actually enjoy the mask a lot of the time - I have tattoos that are purposefully in places that I can cover easily, because I enjoy the idea that there’s something under the professional mask that people only know about if I show them. I’m a bit socially awkward I think (I repeat myself and talk a lot), but most people tend to either like me or tolerate me, and I don’t get into a lot of interpersonal conflicts.

Hm. Either Courtier Badger or Snake secondary, fun Bird secondary model. However. Especially after talking about your Actor Bird in such fun, positive, happy language… I am going to call you out for “socially awkward” and “people tolerate me.” Which tells me you don’t have as much faith in your social skill set, and it’s *maybe* a little burnt.

(Also, not to get too armchair psychologist tell-me-about-your-mother, but if your mom has a “chronically overworked, can’t-say-no” Badger secondary… that’s going to affect how you see Badger secondaries.)

Right now I work in a very Badger/Bird workplace, and it’s really a terrible fit, even though I can squeak by enough to fool my superiors into thinking I’m doing a good job.

oh we’ve got some imposter syndrome, that can also be a burnt secondary thing.

It’s all long-term planning and daily maintenance tasks, and I really don’t like it. I change most of my plans partway through, but I’m not sure if it’s because I’m really an improvisational secondary at heart, or if I’m truly a Bird that’s just bad at planning for all of the variables.

I’m going to say you’re not a Bird. Making cheat-sheets (which is a very Bird secondary strategy) also did not work, and you feel confined by, not comforted by plans. You’re not a Lion, you enjoy keeping your true self to yourself too much. You could be either a Badger or Snake. And if you really hate daily maintenance tasks… that could be coming from a few places, but it makes me lean Snake.

I love being in situations where I can iterate on a plan, or make a new plan on the fly. I love escape rooms and am pretty good at them; I still get stumped and need hints sometimes, but when I *get* a puzzle, it sort of just clicks for me? I don’t think in a very linear way and am not a good chess player, but I also have never studied chess so perhaps I just am at a knowledge disadvantage in that game.

This is also you using Bird to have fun, and we know you *love* using Bird to have fun.

One of my proudest moments

okay this is definitely going to be helpful

was when I was on a day trip with my significant other, and we needed to find a place to buy food quickly so we wouldn’t miss a specific ferry and then a specific bus - we were on an island, and near the ferry station the restaurants were all too expensive and we were worried they would take too long anyway. He was starting to get frazzled, but I was able to think on my feet, and we just grabbed a calming beer (lol) at a creepy neighborhood bar, then got on the ferry and bought microwave meals at a 7-Eleven by the bus station. It was awesome and I was very proud of myself for staying calm and looking around myself for options.

Well that is VERY Snake secondary.

I generally take a long time making decisions when it’s not a crisis situation, because I have to *weigh all the options*, but I often end up in analysis paralysis. Crunch time is where I really shine as a decision-maker.

Snake again. From what I’m seeing, your Bird is a fantastic toy, but actually kind of makes you miserable when you have to depend on it for the important stuff. (studying, your job, making important decisions)

All of this long post is to say, I’m not sure whether my Bird secondary is a fun model that got repurposed into an executive dysfunction compensation tool and anxiety/depression soother to supplement my Snake secondary

I think you hit the nail straight on the head right there.

or if Bird is my true secondary and Snake is a model that I learned from my dad and brother + characters I admire in media

oh your favorite characters are Snake secondaries are they? That’s a big tell.

and that I use when I fail to plan adequately given my executive dysfunction.

Executive dysfunction is a whole thing, but you don’t have to “”plan adequately”” for everything.

I find both fun and both useful, but I’m not sure which is innate and which is the model!

My money is on snake secondary, Bird secondary model.

#submission #sortinghatchats #wisteria sorts #sortme #double snake #snake primary #snake secondary #bird secondary model #family dynamics

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yellowcanna · 4 years

Text

Belongingness

Summary:

After much hardship, everything had finally ended. Aether was reunited with his sister and this time, he will stay by her side. Outlanders do not belong, but this was a world where Lumine belonged in. She had friends, loved ones, and even gaining a mascot along the way (though Aether preferred to call her an emergency ration).

If Aether asked Lumine to leave this world with him, he knew she would do it, but he couldn’t possibly do that to her. She was happy in this world and she deserved every bit of happiness. While she became one of the Knights of Favonius, he was taken in by none of than Diluc Ragnvindr.

Perhaps within this world, he too could find a place where he belonged.

Genre: Fluff, light angst, hurt/comfort, shounen-ai

Rating: T

Pairing: Diluc/Aether, Kaeya/Lumine

Author: Canna / Yellow Canna

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Available on AO3!!

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“Outlander, your journey ends here.”

It hurts…

“The arrogance of human ends now.”

His head feels like it was going to split.

“Aether!”

“Lumine!” Aether shot up, sweat pouring down his body as he frantically looked around the darkness.

“Ugh!” He gripped onto his head when another wave of pain hit him.

The skin of his face burned against his palm, but he barely noticed. He jumped off of whatever he was sitting on and looked around the darkness.

No…

No, no, no, where was Lumine?

What happened to his sister?

“Ah…!” Aether tripped over something and tumbled onto the ground. His head hurts so much he couldn’t even think. Everything within his sight was nothing but a blur of darkness. Hearing a loud crackling sound, the blond turned and saw blue light flashing within his blurry vision.

He held out his hand and gathered energy into his palm. Golden energy sparked around his hand and with a thrust, he smashed through what appeared to be a wall.

The combined shattering sounds of glass, wood and concrete made his headache worsen. Once the noise died down, Aether could hear the sound of pouring rain. Another flash of light flickered by his eyes, followed by a loud crack seconds later.

It was a lightning storm.

Aether didn’t know what was going on, or where he was. All he knew was that he had to get out of here. He ran out the opening he created and the ground suddenly vanished beneath his feet. As he fell downward, pulled by gravity, Aether tried to summon his wings, but his wings didn’t appear.

“Wha—?!” He crashed onto the ground with a small, pained grunt. He was fortunate that he didn’t seem to be very high up. He dug his hands into the muddy ground and pushed himself up.

He needed to find Lumine.

She could be in danger.

He had to find her.

Aether through the heavy downpour. He was completely soaked in the rain with his body lighting trembling from the cold slowly seeping through his body. He didn’t know where he was heading. All he knew was that he had to get away.

Another flash of light was the only warning he gotten before the sound of thunder boomed against his ears, making him fall onto the grass with a pained cry. He clamped his hands over his ears. The sound had hurt his head so badly that he felt like his head was going to split in half.

Just as he was climbing back onto his feet, Aether saw a flicker of red coming at him from the corner of his eyes. Without thinking, he summoned his sword and swipe at whatever it was. He squinted his eyes, but it did nothing to help with his sight.

It was only the feeling of his sword cutting through the air that he knew he missed.

“Aether!” A deep voice belonging to a man’s called out to him in the rain.

It sounded familiar, but where had he heard it?

Aether grunted, his sword slipping out of his hand and he gripped his head.

It hurts.

Why was his head hurting so badly?

Aether staggered, only to collide against something solid and something that felt like a hand touched his forehead. He immediately pushed the person away and tried to escape.

“Lumine…!”

“Aether, you’re sick. Come back with me right now.”

“…I have to find her…I…!!”

Aether wasn’t able to go far before he walked into the person again. This time, the person didn’t give him time to react, grabbing both of his wrists and twisting them behind his back while using his arms to cage him against the larger body.

“Aether!”

The blond fought against the hold, but in his weakened state, he couldn’t even get the other to budge an inch.

“Let go!” Aether shouted, struggling to peel himself away from the firm chest he was forced against.

“Aether, you need to calm down.”

“Lumine, where’s Lumine?”

“Lumine is safe, Aether.” The person holding him whispered against his ear. “She’s in Mondstadt. Now come back with me. You’re worsening your condition.”

Aether had no idea what this person was talking about, but his vision was growing dark. His head was spinning and then…nothing.

He dropped limply within the person’s arms. He felt like all of his strength was suddenly drained from his body. His mind was still conscious, but he couldn’t control his body anymore. He felt something large wrapped around his upper body to shield him from the rain. He was then picked up, cradled tightly against the warm body before the person began sprinting. They must be moving very fast because even if Aether was protected by whatever that was wrapped around him, he could still hear the howling sound of the wind.

With each step the man took, Aether’s brain pounded. He felt as though he was on a small boat rocking violently in a storm and had to hold in the urge to vomit.

It hurts.

Stop moving.

Aether wanted to call out, but he couldn't. His entire body was frozen stiff. He didn’t even realize how cold he was until now.

“Master Diluc! You found master Aether!” A woman’s voice rang in his head once the moving finally slowed down.

“What happened?!” Another voice asked, this time a male’s.

“Go find a medic and prepare a warm bath! Hurry!”

There was a jumble of noises, but Aether couldn’t focus on those anymore. The sounds eventually became muffled, as though he was submerged within icy water.

It only felt like a brief moment before Aether slowly came to after dozing off.

Someone was shaking him, calling his name, but who?

Who was it again?

Aether couldn’t think. His head was killing him.

“You need to eat.”

The person pulled him up, but Aether was practically boneless. He couldn’t find any strength in his body to move. The most he could do was partially open his eyes, but even so, he could barely see anything. All he saw was a blur of warm colours and something moving in and out of his sight—something red.

The blond felt himself being pulled up and rested against something even warmer than the bed he was lying on. When his head fell to a certain angle, he could even hear the sound of a strong, steady heartbeat echoing into his ear.

Strangely, this sound didn’t bring him any discomfort. If anything, it made him calm down.

A hand came around his hand to take his jaw and gently pulled his head up before something was pressed against his lower lips.

“Drink,” the command was short and simple, but firm.

Aether didn’t know why he trusted the voice, but he did and parted his mouth.

Lukewarm water slowly slid into his mouth and down his throat.

The moment he swallowed the first bit of water, Aether tried to gulp down the rest, not realizing how thirsty he was. Unsurprisingly, this led to him choking. The glass swiftly moved away from his mouth as he broke down into heavy coughs. He leaned against whoever was holding him, feeling a large hand gently rubbed his back and waited for him to expel the water from his lungs.

After a long time, his coughing finally subsided and the glass returned to his lips.

“Drink slower this time.” Aether obeyed—drinking slower and more carefully.

After he finished the last drop, the glass was gone before something else was pressed against his lips.

He opened his mouth and the object slid inside. It was a spoon.

The blond almost moaned when the taste of creamy soup with the perfect amount of salt spilled over his tastebuds. The moment he swallowed the soup, the man pressed yet another thing against his mouth.

He parted his lips and this time the food was solid. When he closed his lips over it, he bit into something that wasn’t able to slip out of his mouth in time. It was a bit hard and moving. Before Aether could figure out what it was, the thing slipped out of his mouth, making the blond wondered he had imagined it.

He slowly chewed on the thing he was fed with and realized it was a piece of bread soaked in the creamy soup.

The person holding him took turns feeding him the bread and soup. Aether tried to eat as much as he could, but he sometimes got tired from chewing on the bread and would need to take a small break before continuing.

By the time he finished, Aether was worn out. He was ready to fall back into slumber, but the hand holding his head up gave his jaw a tight squeeze, indicating that he wasn’t done.

“Aether, I need you to open your mouth.”

Aether blinked tiredly but did as told before the hand on his jaw suddenly tilted his head all the way back. Before he could even be surprised, something poured into his mouth and a foul, revolting stench filled his nose.

“Hmph!” Aether wanted to spit the disgusting liquid out, but the man seemed to have foreseen his reaction. He clamped a hand tightly over his mouth and kept his head tilted upward to force him to drink it down.

Aether had no choice but to drink down the bitter liquid. It was only when the man was certain he drank it that he finally released him. Aether panted heavily with tears prickling the corner of his eyes. He wanted to get away, but the man’s hold on him was strong.

The blond knew it wasn’t finished. That disgusting smell was still thick in the air.

“No, I don’t—”

“Aether, you need to drink it.”

“I can’t, I—”

“Either you drink it or I’ll force you to drink it.”

Aether shook his head and tried to get out of the person’s hold.

A soft sigh was his only warning before both of his hands were grabbed by a larger one, locking them together and his head jerked back by another. Aether clamped his mouth shut, but instead of forcing his mouth open, something soft was pressed against his lips instead.

Taken off guard, the muscles in the boy’s jaw relaxed. The moment it did, something soft but strong at the same time slipped through the gap between his lips and pried his mouth open.

Aether tried to cloth his mouth, but a strong hand gripped his chin tightly and pressure on his lips increased. He tried to use his tongue to push the intruding appendage out of his mouth, only to be squashed down.

He groaned pitifully when the bitter fluid flooded into his mouth, making him cringe. He pulled at his hands, but the man’s grip over his wrists was too strong. With his mouth pried open and head pushed back all the way, he couldn’t even breathe. Aether had no choice but to swallow. The moment his lips were freed, he gasped for air. He was only given about five seconds of break before his head was yanked back up and his lips sealed again.

By the time they were done, Aether was a panting and shuddering mess. Panting due to the lack of oxygen and shuddering because of the awful taste lingering in his mouth. His hands were finally released, but he couldn’t even bother to move them anymore.

When he felt something pressed to his lips again, he wanted to move away but the arm around his shoulders stopped him.

“It’s just candy. It’ll help with the aftertaste,” the man told him. Aether hesitantly opened his mouth and allowed the candy to slip inside. Immediately, his mouth was filled with the sweetness and the flavour of lemon.

He rested in the man’s arms, rolling the candy around with his tongue until it completely dissolved. As he began to doze off again, he felt himself being shifted and laid down onto the mattress.

“Wait…!” He reached out and grabbed onto the person’s shirt—or at least, it seemed like it was his shirt. “Don’t go…please…”

Don’t leave.

He didn’t want to be alone.

“Don’t leave me, Diluc…” Aether called out the name without registering the fact that he even called it out. He didn’t want to be alone anymore, even if this person had forcefully made him drink something he didn’t want.

A pair of hands gently grasped onto his. For a moment, Aether thought the person was going to pull his hands away, but instead, those hands gave him a reassuring squeeze.

“I’m not going anywhere,” the man promised.

Receiving the response he wanted, Aether let out a weak smile before he finally let himself go and slipped back into the darkness.

The next time Aether woke up, he felt oddly refreshed. He didn’t know when was the last time he felt as good as he was right now. He slowly opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was a lamp sitting on the nightstand, giving out a warm orange glow.

He stared at the light, a bit mesmerized by the glow before he heard the rustling sound of paper.

Then…the bedding under him moved.

Aether shifted his head and was suddenly aware of the steady beating sound against his ear. He had been so comfortable and strangely used to the sound that he didn’t even notice it was there until he had to go listen for him.

He blinked once, then twice.

When Aether saw an arm moving in and out of his sight, he nearly jumped up in shock. Or rather, he would have if a hand didn’t press down between his shoulder blades to stop him.

“Don’t move, you’ll ruin my work,” said a stern voice.

That voice…!

Aether snapped his head up and the man’s handsome face came into his view. Those ruby-red eyes briefly shifted to him before looking back to whatever he was doing. The blond followed the other’s gaze and saw papers resting over the bed in neat piles.

The red-haired man rested a clipboard against a raised knee and was using an ink pen to write over the documents…all with Aether lying between his arms.

“Diluc?”

“So you remember me now.”

“Huh?” Aether looked up at Diluc, only to be pushed back against the man’s chest.

Before Aether could say anything, a hand brushed away his golden bangs and rested onto his forehead. The blond lay against Diluc, feeling his heart beating faster and faster with each passing seconds.

He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew that his face was burning hotter and hotter. His entire body was tensed, not daring to move an inch while his brain tried to make sense of his situation.

“You’re still a bit warm, you should rest a little longer,” Diluc informed him before the hand on his forehead guided his head back onto the redhead’s shoulder. It was then that he noticed Diluc was wearing only a simple white dress shirt with the top two buttons unbuttoned, revealing his well-defined collarbone.

Aether quickly averted his eyes with his face heating up even more.

“D-Diluc…?”

“What is it?” Diluc responded, not stopping in his work.

“Why are you in my bed?”

“Take a look around, you’re the one in my bed.”

“Eh?” At that, Aether cranked his head up. He looked around and realized that it was true. This wasn’t his room. This room was much wider with finely polished furniture and bookshelves—it was undeniably Diluc’s room.

“Why am I…?”

“You don’t remember anything?” The redhead asked, looking down at him.

“No, I don’t...” Aether replied, shrinking a little under the man’s sharp gaze. What did he do to make him end up in Diluc’s room? The last thing he remembered was going to bed with a really bad headache due to going four days and night without a wink of sleep…

“You destroyed your room and ran out in the middle of a storm.” Diluc finally decided to enlighten him.

Aether’s mind nearly went blank.

He what?!

The blond briefly wondered if the redhead was joking, but Diluc’s face remained stoic and in all of his time working for the man, he had never cracked a single joke. His sister never mentioned anything about the Dawn Winery owner liking to make jokes.

The man’s adoptive brother on the other hand…Paimon had some strong opinion about the knight captain, but that was just Paimon.

“I’m...sorry…” While the blond had no idea why he would destroy his own room, he knew he had to apologize first. The man was his employer after all. His living arrangements and job all depended on him.

“It’s nothing that can’t be repaired, though it will take a couple of days.” Diluc set aside his paper before giving the blond in his arms his full attention.

“Does your head still hurt?” He asked, bringing a hand up to brush away his long golden hair.

“No…I’m fine.” Aether shook his head lightly. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”

The blond looked down but jolted when he felt a hand overlapping his. He glanced to his side and realized that he had been unconsciously fisting the redhead’s shirt.

“Sorry, I—”

“Are you apologizing for destroying your room, or the Abyss Order?”

Aether’s eyes widened before he looked down, using his bangs to hide his face from the man’s piercing gaze.

He didn’t say anything.

What could he possibly say?

He hurt so many people and yet all of them easily forgave his wrongdoing. Even Diluc, who was targeted by them on multiple occasions, provided him with a place to stay and a job.

“I know you are still feeling guilty over what happened, that's why I gave you all those work—so that it would stop you from thinking such useless things. I didn’t expect you to be so stupid to overwork yourself to the point of getting sick.” Diluc’s hand came to rest on Aether’s nape, causing the blond’s heartbeat to spike again.

Aether swore that if he was ever going to die, it would be because of this man.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. The one that was wrong and controlled you was that goddess. Surely you’ve been told that plenty of times now.”

“I know—”

“No, you don’t know.” Diluc cut him off firmly. “If you do, you wouldn’t be overworking yourself, trying to atone for something when there was never anything for you to atone.”

Aether bit the inside of his cheek and swallowed all the things he wanted to say. He knew it was pointless to explain because everyone will always tell him it wasn’t his fault. He was tired of hearing it.

How many people were troubled by his actions?

How many lives suffered at his hands?

Aether could never apologize enough for everything that happened. That was why he took as much work as Diluc would let him so that he could help the people and make changes like what Lumine did.

At the thought of his sister, Aether felt the void inside him growing a little bigger.

Before coming to this world, they were travelling from world to world without a place to call home for the longest time. They only ever had each other and there was never a need to have anyone else.

Outlanders did not belong in this world—Aether had truly believed that until he saw Lumine surrounded by people that loved and cared for her. As her brother, he was happy for her. He was thankful for all these people looking out for his little sister, yet at the same time, she was straying further from him.

In Lumine’s world, she didn’t only have Aether anymore. She got plenty of people she could rely on and people relying on her. She had friends and even someone whom she came to love. Aether knew that if he insisted on leaving this world, Lumine would follow him, but there was no way he could do that to her.

They had been travelling for too long and had been to too many worlds. It was time to put that to an end.

He encouraged her to stay, and he stayed with her because to travel the worlds without his sister was a lonesome and painful journey. Their wings were taken from them as the price of them being able to permanently stay in this world. With his sister having a life of her own, he didn’t want to get in her way so he was employed by Diluc and has been living in Dawn’s Winery ever since.

In the circle of the nobles, people would know of him as the personal guard to the young master of the famed winery owner. He would attend formal parties with Diluc and followed him around like a shadow, never straying from his side. Though in reality, his real job was to help Diluc collect information and assist him in protecting Mondstadt from the shadows.

Lumine on the other hand settled in the city as a Hero and an official member within the Favonius Knights. Paimon was even made a knight apprentice, though Aether was certain it was just a fancy title they gave to make Lumine stay with them.

Despite both of them having completely different jobs and living away from each other, they were still able to see each other frequently. This was all thanks to these two brothers always dragging them to Angel’s Share.

Diluc dragged him to help out while Kaeya dragged his sister there to relax and have fun. Although that was what they said, Aether and Lumine both knew that they were trying to give them more chances to meet up and for that they were grateful.

“Thank you, Diluc, but I’m alright.” Aether let out a soft sigh and sat up, hyperaware of the hand still on the back of his neck and the other one resting on his hip.

“I’ll believe that once you make an effort to make it more convincing,” the redhead snorted.

Aether gave his boss a wry smile before moving to get up.

“Thank you for taking care of me, and I’m sorry for the trouble I caused. I will make it up to the damage I—” Before Aether could finish, a hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him back.

Aether let out a startled gasp when his back hit the mattress. He could hear the sound of paper fluttering into the air and when he looked up, he said Diluc hovering over him, looking down at him with those ruby red eyes.

“Are you playing stupid, or are you stupid?” Diluc asked with a frown tugging on his lips. “Did you honestly think I would hold anyone and sleep with them because they’re sick?”

Aether opened his mouth but found himself lost for words.

What was Diluc talking about?

He can’t be saying…

“In terms of feelings, you siblings are quite dense,” Diluc commented before he suddenly dipped his head and Aether’s eyes widened upon feeling the man’s warm lips against his own.

The kiss was short and sweet, lasting only three seconds before Diluc pulled away, but it was enough to leave Aether a shuttering mess. The boy opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before he finally snapped it shut with redness blossoming over his cheeks.

“W-why…?”

“Because I love you. Would there be any other reasons?” Diluc questioned as though it should be obvious. “You’re loved, Aether. Your sister loves you, everyone in Dawn Winery loves you, the people in the tavern love you. I can’t say much for the Favonius Knights, but at the very least Kaeya and the Outrider girl like your company. You’re not alone, so you can rely on me a bit more.”

“As what?” Aether’s vision was blurring with tears gathering in both of his eyes. “My boss, my friend, or…”

“If you’ll have me, then as a lover,” Diluc said softly, taking a lock of his long hair and placing a kiss upon the golden strands.

Aether reached his hands up, wounding them around Diluc before pulling him down. He hugged the redhead tightly in his arms, face buried within his shoulder with his tears soaking up the redhead’s shirt. The young master of Dawn Winery held him back just as tight, his face buried within the boy’s soft hair.

“Diluc, I…” Aether was cut off by his own hiccups and unsteady voice from crying.

“I know,” Diluc chuckled and tightened his arms around the delicate being. “You’re not exactly subtle with hiding your feelings.”

Aether buried his face deeper into the crook of the man’s neck. He held onto him for a long time before he managed to stabilize his voice. Even though Diluc said he knew, there were some things he still needed to say out loud.

“I love you, Diluc.” Aether could feel the man’s lips on top of his head slowly curving upwards into a smile.

Dilus gently combed his fingers through the silky hair with the colour reminding him of the first peak of dawn.

“I love you too, Aether.”

━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━

“Aether! Give me another Dandelion wine!”

“Coming right up!” Aether shouted from where he was wiping the counter. He grabbed a bottle of Dandelion wine and brought it to the customer at the far back of the tavern.

“Another bottle of wine over here too!”

“Be there in a second!”

“Hey, Aether!”

Aether turned to see a certain blue-haired knight waving an empty glass in his direction.

“Another Death After Noon for me~!”

As soon as he said that, a glass with his order slammed down in front of him. Considering the force, it was surprising not a single droplet of the liquid inside came out…and that the glass was still in one piece.

“Is that how you treat your customers?” Instead of being intimidated, the Cavalry Captain leaned his head against his knuckle and smirked up at the red-haired man standing on the other side of the counter.

“I don’t appreciate customers harassing my worker.” Diluc scowled while making a hand gesture at Aether to keep working and not to mind them.

“I was ordering a drink, how could you say I’m harassing our dear Aether?”

“That was the tenth time you called for him in the last hour,” the tavern owner deadpanned.

“Master Diluc’s right!” Paimon fluttered up from the stool where she was standing on. “You called him for napkins, then forks and a bunch of other things! Why are you calling Aether so much today, Kaeya?”

Lumine who was sitting between Kaeya and Paimon also turned to her superior/lover.

“Hmm…why indeed~” Kaeya’s eyes drifted to the blond-haired girl. Seeing the curiosity in her bright golden eyes, he chuckled ruffled her hair.

“Hey! Kaeya!” Lumine tried to pull the hand off her head, but that large hand didn’t budge and continued to mess up her hair.

Kaeya laughed, about to say something when he received a whack over the head. He turned around on his stool to see Aether standing behind him with a tray held up—the object he hit the knight’s head with.

“I appreciate it if you don’t bully my little sister,” Aether told him without any real bite in his words.

“Sorry, sorry, but I couldn’t help myself. She’s too adorable,” Kaeya said with a wave of his hand.

“Oh, you have a good eye, dear customer! Even back in our hometown, Lumine is our number one beauty!” Aether said playfully and swiftly side-stepped his sister’s attempt to kick him in the shin. He stuck a tongue at her and she did the same.

“So,” he turned back to the blue-haired man, “is there a reason you’re calling on me so much today?”

“Hmm…maybe because you look different,” Kaeya replied with a knowing smirk, running a finger around the rim of his glass to create a light vibration.

“Oh yes! Paimon thinks so too!” Paimon immediately joined in, fluttering around Aether. “You look less gloomy than you usually are!”

“Gloomy…?” Aether stared at the fluttering…whatever she was. He brought up his tray to swat her prying fingers away. “I don’t want to hear that from an emergency ration.”

“HEY!”

“Paimon meant that you look really happy today, Aether,” Lumine giggled. “Did something good happen?”

Aether stilled for a moment before a smile stretched across his lips. He glanced over to Diluc who was behind the counter mixing the wine. Sensing his gaze, Diluc looked up with red eyes meeting a pair of golden ones.

“Well…” Aether smiled at Diluc who gave him a small smile back. He scratched his cheek awkwardly and turned back to the two girls. “I…Diluc and I are dating.”

Aether clenched onto the tray as he waited for his sister’s response with some pink dusting his cheeks.

Lumine stared at him, along with Paimon.

“…Some reaction would be nice?” Aether looked between the two. Why were they looking at him like that?

“Er…why are you telling us that now?” Paimon crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head. “Wasn’t this like, ages ago?”

“…Huh?” Now it was Aether who was dumbfounded.

“Eh?” Lumine’s jaw fell with her expression mirroring her brother’s. “Weren’t you and Diluc dating all this time?”

Now Aether was really confused.

What in the world was she talking about?

“Wait…could it be that you mean you two…weren’t dating?!” Paimon shouted, earning looks from countless people in the tavern.

“Paimon!” Lumine hushed her loudly and Paimon clapped her tiny hands over her mouth.

“But, but, you two were always together! And Kaeya said—” Paimon cut herself off with a sharp gasp and all three of their heads snapped to the blue-haired knight who was grinning smugly at the looks on their faces.

“Kaeya!!” Paimon shouted, flying over to him in a fit of rage.

“You told Lumine and Paimon that me and Diluc had been dating?” Aether gapped in disbelief.

“I thought something was weird whenever Lumine and Paimon looked me for the past couple of weeks.” Diluc huffed as he walked over. “So it is you.”

“The fact that they couldn’t tell you two weren’t dating speaks volume, no?” Kaeya smirked at his adoptive brother.

“Kaeya!” Lumine shouted.

“How could you, Kaeya!” Paimon joined in. “Paimon will never believe you ever again!”

“Now, now, don’t be angry. It turned out exactly as I said, didn’t it?” Kaeya waved his drink at the group, causing the ice inside to make clattering noises. “Therefore I didn’t lie.”

“Yeah, but…something doesn’t sound right about that.” Paimon pondered over the man’s words. It somewhat made sense, but she still felt that she was being lied to.

“Besides, I thought this might help our little brother here speed up on confessing his love for his dear boss.”

“Don’t stick your nose into where it doesn’t belong, Knights of Favonius.” Diluc narrowed his eyes dangerously.

“Now I wouldn’t say that.” Kaeya set his glass down. “After all, we’ll all be families in the future, isn’t that right, my dear?”

Aether and Diluc both glanced at Lumine who was blushing so hard that her face was becoming a tomato.

“Lumine?” Aether arched a brow.

“Well…I was going to tell you later, Aether,” Lumine grinned shyly. She held out her left hand that she had been secretly hiding all night. On her ring finger was a silver ring with blue sapphires engraved in it.

When Aether’s eyes snapped to Kaeya, the knight was also holding up his hand, revealing an identical ring on his finger.

Before he could react to the shocking news, Paimon’s scream nearly knocked him off his feet.

“YOU TWO ARE GETTING MARRIED?!”

“…You didn’t know?” Aether gawked at Paimon. Suddenly, he felt like his shock as Lumine’s twin brother was nothing compared to hers.

“SO MEAN! WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL PAIMON?!”

“Kaeya! What’s this about marrying?!” Someone shouted from the other side of the tavern.

“Our Lumine is getting married?!” Another voice joined in.

Soon, the place was in an uproar with the other regular drinkers coming over to give their congratulations to the lucky couple. Aether moved behind the counter so he wouldn’t get squashed within the mass of people. He stood next to Diluc and watched the two knights with a small smile on his face.

“Did you know about this?” He asked, not taking his eyes off his sister who was standing next to Kaeya—their hands intertwined.

“Some weeks back, Kaeya came to me and asked me to introduce him to the best craftsman in Liyue. It wasn’t hard to guess his intention.” Diluc replied.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“You seemed quite busy with your works, considering you had to neglect sleep and food.” The man’s sharp words caused the other to flinch.

“You’re…” Aether swallowed nervously, “still mad about that?”

“Yes,” Diluc answered without missing a beat. The older man glanced down at his lover. Seeing the guilt on the blond’s face, he finally allowed a small smile to grace his lips. He reached out to take Aether’s hand within his own.

Their fingers laced together secretly behind the counter where no one would be able to see.

Aether held onto his lover’s hand. He could feel the warmth the larger hand was generating despite the leather glove separating them. He looked up to Lumine who looked back at him.

Bright smiles stretched across their lips at the same time.

This was where they belong.

#diluc x aether #diluc #aether x diluc #genshin impact #genshin impact fanfic #genshin impact fanfiction #kaeya #lumine

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gaming-thoughts-by-an-idiot · 2 years

Text

The Call of Cthulhu

Spoilers ahead :)

Chapter 1:

"Okay, aah, shark-"

"Okay, lots of blood. Cool cool cool"

"Ew, I dont like this game and I'm only a min in."

"Uh, how do I 3rd pov"

"What's the controls like?"

*camera sensitivity, vibration, invert*

" *half laugh* wow, thank you, so helpful"

"Alright then"

"Onwards we go"

"To crouch press B??? NO??? EEE! IF IT SAY X TO RUN I AM GONNA CRY"

"Omg I'm so scared"

"Theres a meme for the face I'm making, the harold in pain."

"This is very scary"

"Can I run?"

"WHAT WAS THAT????"

"Ok, maybe our octopus baby is just scared of the light... that's ok, that's good."

"I have a lamp and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm actually scared if I dont"

"He speaks to me"

"Did lovecraft dude make the octodaddy a man?"

"Pff, I went from 'imma piss my pants' scared, to calling cthulhu Daddy"

"From the cover pic, cthulhu got a dad bod"

"AAAAA DONT FIGHT??? IT SAYS HOW TO RUN, BITCH-"

"Thank god, it was a dream"

Main character: I hate whiskey

Me: same

"Can i turn this shit music off?"

"The phone is ringing... imma ignore it"

"I dont like auto save games, especially not when i cant manually save aswell"

"Yoo, wtf is this? Hes like a pokemon"

"Or it's like level up skyrim and fallout"

"Omg fiiine"

"Would be fun if there were a sherlock Dracula game, like debunk him"

"Oooh, I get to choose my character points, like dragon age"

"Most on investigation... and strength ofc, no wait, I dont want that, one less... medicine or occult info... hmmm... i have zero % on occult... guess I'll do that then"

Sanity: confident in your abilities and your cartesian mind-

Me: a what?

*googles*

Me: logical and self aware, ok I guess

"This is interesting"

"So, she was a psychic? If she just 'sees' things"

"So far? Good game"

Pierce: something's queer-

Me: yeah, me

"Isnt it like, if you talk about or draw or whatever, it draws power to cthulhu?"

"I'm gonna find that honking car outside his building, and set it the fuck on fire"

"Darkwater island? I have to think of something else, but it sounds familiar?"

Chapter two:

"Basic achievement! Yay :D"

"Darkwater sound like a very nasty homebrewed beer"

"The loading screen is so slow, it takes me back to windows 96"

"Aa- I think the game got offended, suddenly it moved fast"

" 'Enter madness' lmao, same"

"What would happen if a boat didnt want to take him to the island?"

" 'A game by Cyanide studio' spooky"

"Scary stones in the water"

"I like the fonts of the title"

"I mean, some whale ships had it coming"

"I failed the skill test, wow, rude. Put points into medical, people"

"I was on the 'he started it', and now I'm not allowed to drink, ugh... I have to play by me, not what can get me things"

"Wait, those are the same thing. Damnit"

"Oh lookie here, a woman. How do I know? Shes clearly wearing lipgloss!"

"Damn, this game isnt good for me, I'm failing all of these dialogues. I'm a terrible detective"

"The captain is just watching me as I go through his stuff"

Captain Fitzroy: us men of the sea are superstitious folk.

Me: as you should.

"Killer whales are fucking assholes"

"I have heard of the depths, yes"

"Love me some mythology"

"Like, why, would you put the dead whale, back? How is it even on land??? Did they drag it? Or did it just appear ON land? Cuz bruh, I wouldnt even touch it then"

"I dont wanna look at a leg that's been on a dead man, ew"

"Tell me about the hella whale"

Me: I snooped through you shit, heres my thoughts-

Him, as he should: wtf??? Dont touch my shit

Me: understandable, have a good day

"Wtf is the jetty?"

"Thanks man, I'm about to talk to people and make more mistakes"

"No wonder I'm a failing detective"

"My sherlock days are behind me, I'm a fool"

"Hes running like hes not wearing shoes, and theres puddles on the ground"

" 'They were all burnt up' that's so fucking creepy"

"I can lockpick????? Fuck. Yes."

"I broke it :("

Pierce: statue of saint dude for sailors, vandalism, cant even say what language

Me: angry language

Bootleggers: if this (didnt pay attention) gets out, we will get in trouble with you-know-who.

Me: Voldemort?

"Oh, I had a lighter"

"How do I turn it off"

"Hah! You think you can fight me! Oooooh ouch, the penis, she kicked it"

"Ugh, this game is hard. This is why I always die quickly, I just cant stop being sassy"

"Cat looks like she needs to pee"

"Oh no, ah, if I do this, I might owe her a favour... HMMMMMM, god... am I gonna regret this? Probably"

"Yes."

"I dont like to say this, but she should get laid or, ya know, SLEEP, Go and sleep in a soft bed, take a bubble bath... wait, did they have bubble baths at this time?"

"Google says 1940, and this is like 1800 something... go take a relatively warm bath, Cat."

"Shes so angry, is she ok?"

"She needs a hug. Not from me, nuuuh"

"In a romance movie or something, Pierce and Cat would date"

"... or am I thinking fanfics"

"See! Anger and strength isnt the way to go."

"I clearly made a mistake asking for her help. Next play through. Is gonna be better"

Chapter 3:

Game: enter madness

Me: already there, baby

"Its odd that her husband had the final saying on the grave location..."

"Me avoiding the main quest, only to do exactly what the main quest wants me to to do, ugh"

"Okay! The guy, mr winchester is very angry and very scary- and I just got an achievement that says just that"

"I dont understand the way to choose level points, but ok"

"So from what I saw, the couple did have a fight... but there were also a third person... so that's not arson or a crime of passion... but I guess I'll have to say it was a fight"

"Eyy, I got a point I can use on something"

"This is odd"

Pierce: the lyrics of the drunken sailor-

Me: I know that one!

"I want to read lovecraft's books, but they sound extremely scary"

"Hahahha! He burned himself with the lighter"

".... that was a skull... a skull just, flashed in the corner of the scene, what"

"Its so dark in here, isnt there any light???"

"Lol, not gonna lie, the kid's drawings are like the Slenderman game"

"Oh no... the kid got the vision too"

"Huh, that painting kinda looks like pierce"

"!!!PERSON IN MASK"

Officer: where did he go??? Theres no way out!!

Me: dude, they're legit marks on the floor, secret bookcase

"Having some trouble with this damn puzzle"

"Eyy! I found norway on the globe"

"Italy looks like a shoe, and Norway looks like- well, better not say it"

"Damn, either I am really stupid...or this is actually hard"

"Gotta take a pic of the map"

"OH YOY BLOODYBFUCKI-- ARE YOU SERIPUS ARE ANFNAKBQKHDA I AM GOING TO FUCKING SCREAM"

"WOW, OK, HERE I AM- OH THANK YOU XBOX FOT THE ACHIEVEMENT, SO HERE I AM, TOOK A FUCKING PHOTO OF THE FUCKIBG MAP, REALIZING I CANT READ MAPS- AND I, JUST FOR LAUGHS, DECIDE TO PRESS IN THE COMPASS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GLOBE! AND GODAMN WOULDNT YOU KNOW HHHHHHHHHHH I'm so irritated."

"Wouldnt we hear it? If the person ran down there?"

"I wanna say, if this dude stole a painting? Just let him? This is a scary cave"

"I dont want to go there alone ;-;"

Chapter 4:

*spooky Blair witch type of thing hangs from ceiling*

Pierce: it's a dream catcher

Me: *sweating*

"I dont like that the lamp needs more oil, it gives me amnesia vibes"

"Nothing might happen if I touch the 'dream catchers', but I'm not gonna test that, crouching squad"

"Eating that huge whale must've made the sailors mad, crazy mad"

Sailors: we're gonna die, horribly

Cthulhu: here you humans go, a snack :)

Sailors: praise the lord!

Cthulhu: >:(

"100% what happened"

Pierce: OH MY GOD, WHATS GOING ON IN HERE? HMM

Officer: *softly* finally, there you are-

Pierce, not softly: SHUSH, WE ARE NOT ALONE

*very clear echo in the cave*

Officer: fuck. This is your fault, clearly, ugh

Pierce, still not quiet: LETS MEET DOWN THERE

"... theres a bloody, nasty hole in the ground... dont say it dont say it-"

"CTHULHU'S VAGINA"

"Or, I guess butthole"

"Oh no, we fell into it, terrible."

"Ew, 'the pit of horror', yeah xbox, this is definitely that"

"Oh wait, I was here earlier :)"

"Oh my god... I was here earlier D:"

"Cthulhu daddy will speak to me soon uwu"

Pierce: *picks up latin book*

Also Pierce: I cant read latin :(

"Oh... oh ok, 'Y' is where u take away the lighter"

"I dont think that's latin, m8"

"Keyboard smash sounds"

"Wow, they really just assumed cthulhu's gender"

"I wonder if the officer is gonna become a sacrifice"

"UHM???"

Cultist: ah! I... I feel him-

Another dude: shh~ you're gifted, indeed. Let him pass through every part of you.

Me: ... ew what

"Oh fuck. Omg. I thought that was it for me."

"I'm just crawling around, and then a dude, WITH A LAMP walks past me, I just froze, actually held my breath"

"Bradley died, the Charles dude is alive and looks like what a baby would look like, if Charles and cthulhu had a baby"

Chapter 5:

"I'm at the hospital:)"

"That was not a nice thing, I dont want to be a subject, sir"

"Wtf was that"

"BRADLEY IS THAT??? WHO IS THAT"

"I dont like this"

"I'm in a patted room"

"Guess I'll sleep then"

"Oh, where am I now? This looks like a clean place"

"For a 1800th standard"

"OH! Damn, I feel so dumb. Leviathan. Cthulhu, ugh."

"Go on, mr leviathan"

"Hes not very nice to me"

"Alrighty female person, lead the way"

Marie: find a way to get past these dudes lmao

Pierce: how???

Marie: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"Hhhh, the game tells me to be stealthy, I'm scared"

"I can hide in a closet, oh no, I dont like"

"Almost caught"

"This is stressful"

"I'm lost :)"

Pierce, pulls a random switch: have I? UwU activated something?

"Ok, apparently I'm doing something right"

"????? Ok, ok, I'm in, ok..."

"Dude wtf"

Chapter 6:

"I'm doing this in one go, baby"

"I chose to tell the truth to the wife of the crazy man"

"No, I'm trying not to drink"

"Cat is here at the wife place"

"Digging through some stuff here, tell me more"

"Its good to invest in charisma, look at all this info"

"So, he just saw a vision of the Sanders dude stare at the painting... and scratch his eyes out... and Pierce is like 'I must see it', bro???"

"Okaaay, let's look at the painting that's gonna drive you mad :)"

"Is this like smile dog?"

"Omg, ew ew??? Wtf is that????"

"Run run run"

"Hhh, this reminds me of Alien isolation"

"I broke a glass to get a knife"

"RUN"

"I JUST SCREAMED"

"AND I JUST DIED"

"That was a loud scream too, its 2am"

"Omg i cant do this, I keep dying"

"What happens if I just stay in the closet? Will he die from a heart attack?"

"Think I'll call it quits, and try another day :)"

"He just screams, I'll try and grab a knife"

"Nah, I died..."

"Uuugh"

"Hmm, it's not scared of the light"

"I'm just trying shit, cuz it's still scary, but idk what to do now"

"Hmmm... died again"

"Okay, another day"

#gaming #funny #relatable gaming thoughts #call of cthulhu #the call of cthulhu #slight horror game imo #spoilers #call of cthulhu spoilers

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izzielizzie · 3 years

Text

Now I’ve Seen You I’ve Seen It All Chapter One

okay so this ask inspired me so am i writing a ten chapter nateywn parent trap au? yes. Is the first chapter under the cut? also yes

“Okay honey,” Bronwyn Rojas says as she puts her hands on her daughter Ellen’s shoulders. “You’ve got everything you need right?”

Ellen nods.

“Toothbrush?”

Ellen nods again.

“All your clothes? Shampoo? Hair brush? Retainers?”

Ellen nods again, four times, and wiggles a little in her mother’s grip. Twelve year old Ellen Rojas has never spent more than a week out of her mother’s sights, and this two month camp is testing both of them.

Bronwyn looks like she’s about to cry. “Are you sure you don’t want me to look over your things one more time?”

Ellen sighs and considers the best way to tell her mother it is time for her to leave. Thankfully she doesn’t have to. A slender woman with dark hair and expressive amber eyes practically materializes in front of Ellen and Bronwyn. Maeve Santos.

Maeve, with her messy bun, face full of freckles, tattered Hodges Camp t-shirt, and denim shorts, looks absolutely nothing like her older sister Bronwyn. Until further examination. They carry themselves the same way, like they belong anywhere they happen to be, and their smiles are the same. It’s hard to tell since Bronwyn’s face is all lines and hardness, and Maeve’s is soft and open. But the smiles, well, they’re identical.

“Hey Bron,” Maeve says. She pulls her sister into a hug, taking care not to wrinkle Bronwyn’s suit. Bronwyn pats her sister’s back, her way of saying “okay enough hugging”. Maeve pulls away with a grin, and swings Ellen up into her arms. Maeve - and her husband Luis - don’t have any kids, so all their attention is directed to Ellen and their nephews on Luis’s side. But mostly Ellen. Ellen hugs her back with all her might.

“Hi Aunt Maeve,” Ellen says.

“Hey Ellen, ready for some fun!”

Ellen giggles and looks around the camp over her aunt’s shoulder. It’s a large camp, with seven cabins for campers: three for girls on one side of the path and three for boys on the other. The seventh can be seen peeking over the trees where the forest meets the large lake (Lake Hodges, where Aunt Maeve got the name for the camp). There’s a large center cabin, fittingly named the Big Cabin meals are served, the counselors congregate during off times, and one room is used as a games room, where Ellen knows air hockey tables and pool tables and foosball tables have been set up. Farther along the path is the arts and crafts cabin, then the nurse’s cabin. The grand finale before the dock and boat house is a large amphitheatre, where plays and concerts are held.

Ellen’s never really seen the camp, not really, but she’s heard enough about it from her Aunt Maeve - the founder/head - to feel as if she’s greeting an old friend, the musky smells and bird chirps as familiar to Ellen as the brick buildings and sound of honking cars in New Haven is.

“More than ready,” Ellen assures her aunt. Maeve grins at her.

“That’s my girl - whoa be careful!”

The last warning isn’t for Ellen, but for the person who swings Ellen high up into the air out of her aunt’s arms. She doesn’t even have to look to know it’s Uncle Luis. Ellen turns the moment she’s on solid ground to give her uncle a hug. Bronwyn often compares Luis to a puppy: energetic, over joyous, and incredibly good at snuggling. She’s not wrong.

“Hey Bronwyn,” Luis says, hugging his sister in law. He doesn’t mind her suit. Bronwyn hugs him back for a moment before readjusting her jacket and looking around helplessly.

“Are we sure this is a good idea? Maybe Ellen’s too young.”

“Mom, you said I could come when I turned twelve,” Ellen protests, trying very hard not to stomp her foot. It wouldn’t be proving her point.

“I know but-” Bronwyn waves her arms around.

“We’re here, don't forget,” Maeve says.

“No offence Maeve but you left Ellen in a parking lot.”

Maeve’s smile becomes a little strained. “That was ten years ago.”

“Still!”

Maeve sighs. “Cooper and Kris are here. Who’s more responsible than Cooper and Kris?”

This seems to calm Ellen’s mom. “Okay, okay, you’re right. That’s true. Alright then, Ellen darling, I think it’s time for me to go.”

If Maeve is hurt that Bronwyn trusts Cooper and Kris Becker-Clay more than her own sister, she doesn’t show it. She looks over Bronwyn’s shoulder as if looking for something. “Okay Bron you’ve got a plane to catch right?”

“Right, right okay.” Bronwyn reaches forward and pulls Ellen out of Luis’s arms, squeezing her tight. “Be good okay, sweetheart?”

“Okay. I will.” Ellen hugs her mother back until Maeve gently disentangles them. With a last kiss on Maeve’s cheek and on Ellen’s forehead, Bronwyn heads back over to her car, pulling away with a wave for the family she knows is watching.

“Well Ellen darling, excited for camp?” Maeve asks as she takes Ellen’s hand, picking up her oversized duffle with the other hand, which she expertly tosses to her husband. He catches it. Ellen loves watching her aunt and uncle work together, since it’s always been her and her mother. Ellen’s never seen two adults who just fit.

The trio don’t get far before a motorcycle comes roaring up the drive. They all turn to see what’s happening as a girl expertly jumps off the back of the motorcycle. She’s wearing white shorts and a black leather motorcycle jacket that matches the jacket of the man on the motorcycle. The girl pulls off her helmet to reveal long black hair.

Maeve grins. “You two stay here, I’ll be right back.” Maeve scurries away to the biker before Luis and Ellen can follow.

“What’s happening Uncle Luis?” Ellen asks, sliding her hand into her uncle’s hand.

“No clue kiddo,” Luis answers, but based on the look on his face, he does indeed know.

They watch as Maeve talks to the man on the motorcycle. Ellen’s too far away to see who he is, and before she can get a closer look he’s waving at the girl and backing down the path to the main road. Maeve and the girl are standing together. They watch the motorcycle until it’s out of sight. Maeve takes the girl’s hand, and the way she’s looking at her sends a flash of white hot jealousy through Ellen. That’s the way Maeve looks at her.

Maeve smiles when they approach Luis and Ellen. “Ali, this is my husband Luis.”

“Hey Ali,” Luis says.

“And this is my niece Ellen Rojas. Ellen, this is Ali Macauley.”

What a stupid name Ellen almost says. Instead she just grunts. She’s not quite sure why, but she doesn’t like this girl in her Guinness band t-shirt and tattered shorts and red flip flops that - ugh - look a lot like Ellen’s. Ali’s glaring right back at Ellen. Clearly, she doesn’t like her either.

“Wow, you guys look nearly identical,” Luis says as he looks between his niece and the newcomer with her oversized backpack.

“No we don’t,” Ali says dryly.

“Oh I agree,” Ellen says. “I would never wear a shirt advertising that tacky band.”

“Ellen,” Maeve says in her warning voice.

“At least I don’t dress like the next queen of England.”

Ellen huffs and looks down at her pressed skirt and matching jacket. Her mother picked it for her.

“Oh you wish you were the queen of En-”

“Okay how about cabin assignments!” Maeve says brightly. Ali looks up at Maeve like she’s the queen, and Ellen’s ready to sock her in the nose.

Maeve looks down at her clipboard as if she can sense Ellen’s thoughts. “You’re both in cabin one. Fun!”

“No it’s not,” Ali mumbles.

Maeve ignores her and takes her hand instead. “Okay, let’s get you to your cabin.” Maeve takes Ellen’s hand after tucking her clipboard under her arm, and kisses her husband’s cheek before setting off, chatting about the camp as she goes.

“You’ve met Luis of course, he’s a chef in New York and he’s in charge of cooking and also outdoor activities like hikes and stuff like that. And our head of arts and crafts is Addy Prentiss, she’s a teacher and she and her wife Keely live in London, where Keely is a fashion designer or something like that I never understand. Cooper Becker-Clay - you probably know him from the Padres - he’s in charge of sports. His husband Kris is our onsite medic.” Maeve pauses to push open the cabin door. “And Knox Myers does all the theatre and music stuff - he’s a Broadway director. Phoebe Myers, his wife, is our counselor. Need anything, go to her.”

Ellen knows all of this, since the people Aunt Maeve is talking about have been in Ellen’s life since she was a baby, so this is clearly for Ali. This annoys Ellen more, since she wanted to tell Aunt Maeve about the boy she thought she was in love with who turned out to not be in love with her. Aunt Maeve is the kind of aunt who understands about confusing things like the heart.

“Okay girls. Looks like you’re the first in here. Pick a bunk.”

“Top,” Ali says right as Ellen says the same thing. Both girls look at each other in surprise and scramble for the ladder.

“Whoa, whoa, girls slow down!” Maeve calls as both girls try to climb up the ladder at the same time. Ali beats Ellen, who’s slowed by the skirt. Ali’s long hair gets in her way, so Ellen uses that chance to climb up the side of the ladder like she does on the fire escape of her building. She’s nearly at the top when she feels hands clamp around her waist and pull her off.

“Aunt Maeve!” Ellen protests as she’s placed on solid ground. She watches as Maeve pulls Ali off the ladder too.

“Don’t ‘Aunt Maeve’ me. Honestly what’s gotten into you two?”

“It’s her fault,” Ali says stubbornly, pointing at Ellen.

“She’s the one who cheated!”

“How did I cheat Ellen?”

“You’re not wearing a skirt.”

Ali scoffs.

“Both of you two stop it right now. Ali, you take that bunk -”

“Hey!” Ellen protests as Ali does a little happy hop.

“And Ellen, you take the one on the other wall.”

Ellen is in shock. Aunt Maeve has never ever chosen someone over her. Not even the time her cousin Matias wanted the last ice cream at his own birthday party and Maeve talked circles around him until he was so confused he forgot about the dessert.

“Fine,” Ellen sighs as she crosses the wooden cabin to the bunk identical to the one Ali is triumphantly perched on.

“Good. Now let’s hope you two get along better in the morning.”

Unfortunately, that does not happen.

The next morning, Ellen enters the Big Cabin with Aunt Maeve and Uncle Luis’s latest foster child, named Nick. Ellen and Nick get along fabulously, something that pleases her aunt and uncle to no end. Ali stalks in after her. Ellen noticed last night that Ali prefers to be alone. She refused to join in on the game of go fish their cabin mates were playing, and she ignored all talk about the cute boys at the camp and past crushes.

“I’m telling you Nick, she’s so stuck up. Like she’s too good for us or something,” Ellen says, continuing her conversation even though Ali is right behind her.

“Maybe she’s just shy,” Nick says. Even though he has no blood relation to any of Ellen’s family members he still looks vaguely like Luis with his good looks and deep brown eyes.

Ellen scoffs. “She wasn’t shy when she stole my aunt.”

“Maeve isn’t stolen.”

“Right,” Ellen says skeptically as she hands Nick a tray. They’re entering the food line, and she graciously lets Nick before her. She ends up next to Ali, who’s glaring at Ellen. “Good morning sunshine,'' Ellen says pleasantly.

Ali glares harder as she takes a tray from the pile.

“Not a morning person huh?” Ellen asks.

“Say another word and I’ll knock your teeth out,” Ali threatens.

“Scary,” Ellen says dryly as they head down the line. She hesitates in front of the last pancake, weighing the pros and cons of grabbing it when Ali speaks up.

“Are you gonna stand there or are you gonna grab that?” She’s already reaching for the pancake in question.

“I was going to grab it,” Ellen lies, stabbing it with a fork as Ali does the same thing. They engage in a sort of food based tug-of-war. “Let go!”

“You let go!”

“I saw it first!”

“You were just mouth breathing on it!”

They both tug hard, and the pancakes crumble into two pieces. The momentum sends them flying. Ali crashes to the floor and Ellen stumbles back into Nick, who steadies her.

“What kind of loser can’t keep their balance?” Ellen asks.

“Ellen, stop,” Luis says emerging from the kitchen. He’s looking half amused and half annoyed. “Ali, you okay?”

“Fine,” Ali snaps. “But your niece is annoying.”

Luis ignores her, and Nick gently tugs Ellen away.

Ellen sulks all the way to the crafts barn, where Addy Prentiss in all her pink haired glory is perched on a table in a pair of faded denim overalls. She hops off the table when the group arrives.

“Alright guys, I thought we could start with bracelets today,” Addy says with her slight British accent, winking at Ellen, who glows. “So, find a table y’all, and let’s see what bracelets you come up with!”

Addy circles the room, and Ellen chooses a table with Cosette Myers, Nick, and - ugh - Ali. Ali pointedly ignores her, and Ellen choses to do the same, chatting with Cosette about the last musical her father Knox took her to. Ellen reaches for a bead at the same time as Ali, and their hands collide.

“Can you move?” Ali asks.

“You move!” Ellen protests.

“I just want a bead.”

“Then wait.”

“Why don’t you wait, princess?”

“Because I was first.”

Both girls glare at each other for a moment before reaching for the beads again, knocking into the container and sending the beads flying over the table and floor. Cosette and Nick jump back. Addy choses this moment to approach this table.

“Are you two kidding me?” she asks, irritated.

“It's Ellen's fault!”

“It was not Aunt Addy, it was Ali!”

Addy looks between the identical looking girls and huffs. “Pick them up.”

“What?” Ellen asks.

“El, you heard me.”

Ellen glares halfheartedly at Ali as she sinks to the floor to pick up the scattered pea sized beads.

Cosette and Nick slide to the floor to help as Ali starts on her side of the table.

“She’s a monster,” Ellen hisses. Cosette and Nick exchange glances.

Twenty minutes later, the girls find themselves near the lake, lined up next to Cooper Becker-Clay, who’s teaching the finer details of the ever important sport of wiffle ball.

“Okay guys,” he says, pulling off his baseball hat and running his hand through his sandy hair. “I need some volunteers please.” His blue eyes roves the crowd of excitable preteens and lands on Ellen and Ali, who are both glaring at each other while pretending the other person doesn’t exist.

“Ellen. Ali. What about you two?”

Ellen shrugs, and Ali scoffs. “You’re choosing the person who wears skirts?”

“But she’s… not wearing a skirt,” Cooper says, looking a little confused. It’s true, Ellen is wearing a camp shirt tucked into a pair of shorts.

“Ignore her, she’s being weird,” Ellen says, stepping forward. Ali glares. Cooper shakes his head as if straightening out his thoughts.

“Okay. Ali, take the bat and stand on the base. Just like that, yeah. And Ellen, come here. Okay guys pay attention. Ellen’s going to put her left foot forward since that’s her non-dominant side, and she’ll pull her right arm back and yeah - no Ellen wait!”

Ellen, after being raised with both Uncle Luis and Uncle Cooper, knows exactly how to aim a perfect fastball. And, being her mother’s daughter, she’s able to figure out how to compensate for the lighter ball - flicking her wrist just so - until her pitch is perfectly aimed straight for Ali’s nose. Ali, who isn’t expecting this, doesn’t swing and instead stands still as the ball comes flying towards her nose with a sickening crack.

And, being Addy’s goddaughter, Ellen knows how to act too. “Oh my gosh Ali I’m so sorry,” she cries, sounding incredibly believable as she sprints after Cooper towards Ali, who’s got her hand pressed against her nose. “Uncle Cooper, really, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to.”

Cooper looks between Ali, Ellen, and the other campers who look gleeful - they were expecting to make friendship bracelets and sing weird songs at camp, not see the greatest feud of their adolescent lives.

“It’s fine El. Take Ali to Uncle Kris okay?”

“Okay, oh my gosh I feel so bad.”

Cooper, of course, being both not an idiot and the father of triplet girls, knows Ellen isn’t sorry in the slightest, but he lets her lead Ali to Kris’s med cabin.

Once at the cabin, Ellen considers leaving Ali when Kris calls her in.

“Hey Uncle Kris,” Ellen says as Kris lifts Ali onto a bed in the cabin lined with beds. Kris raises one perfectly arched eyebrow, his green eyes roving over Ellen’s face.

“Hello Ellen. How are we today, girls?”

Kris takes one look between the girl he’s known since she was born and the identical looking girl on the bed and knows exactly what happened.

“Fine,” Ellen says.

Ali mumbles something, and Kris pulls her hand from her nose. He touches it gently.

“Well Miss Macauley, it’s not broken, just sore.” Kris looks over Ali’s face and notices a small cut, which he instantly starts cleaning.

“You know one of the wonderful things about camp is the ability to make new friends, right girls?” Kris asks, looking pointedly at Ellen.

“Yes sir,” Ellen says. Ali mumbles again.

“You know some friendships last a lifetime.”

“Yes sir.”

“It’s important to be open to new friendships too.”

“Yes sir.”

Kris laughs as he lifts Ali off the bed, her cut freshly bandaged and a wax wrapped caramel slipped into her hand. “Yes sir, yes sir. You’re not listening to a word I’m saying are you?”

“Yes sir,” Ellen repeats with a grin. Kris grins right back and hands her a caramel too.

“Okay, be good you two.”

“Yes sir!” Ali calls as she skips out of the cab. Kris shakes his head as he watches the girls go. He knows that’s not going to happen.

And it doesn’t. Their next class is theatre with Knox, where they’re putting on a production of the Wizard of Oz.

“Alright guys, I have the cast list for you.” Knox rattles off names and assignments: Cosette is the Wicked Witch of the East, and Nick is the Cowardly Lion. “Ellen Rojas and Ali Macauley, you guys are Munchkins.”

“How come I’m a Munchkin when I’m taller than Ellen?” Ali asks, her voice a little warped because of her swollen nose.

“Am not!” Ellen protests.

“Are too!”

Cosette and Nick roll their eyes at each other and Knox sighs.

“Girls, girls, you two are identical if you haven’t realized.”

Both girls stop their squabbling to stare at Knox. They look at each other, studying one another.

“No way,” Ali says.

“Agreed,” Ellen says.

“I’m way better looking than Ellen.”

“Excuse you! You look like you’re gonna sell drugs on the street in high school.”

Ali opens her mouth in shock as Knox startles and begins to reprimand Ellen. “Ellen Maeve Rojas you can not say things like tha-”

“TAKE THAT BACK!” Ali interrupts with a shout, lunging at Ellen. Ellen maintains her ground, and pushes back, aiming a punch at Ali’s already injured nose. Ali, being an inch taller in her Docs, gains the upper hand as she rolls on top of Ellen and is about to punch her nose when another person arrives in the amphitheater.

“Hey Knox I’ve got that box of props you wanted and Ali what in the world are you doing?”

Everyone turns to Maeve Santos carrying an old cardboard box under one arm. She’s in mom jeans and a Bayview High t-shirt today, a bandana covering her hair, and right now, she’s fuming.

“She called me a future drug dealer!” Ali points at Ellen. “I was defending myself!”

“She started it!” Ellen protests, pushing Ali off her and sitting up.

“No I didn’t, you started it!”

Maeve watches with pursed lips. Knox, having known Maeve for years, steps back. He knows an angry Maeve when he sees one.

“Both of you, come one, you’re moving to cabin seven.”

“Cabin seven?” Ellen repeats incredulously. “There are spiders and bugs and pests and stuff there!”

“And? You’re being a pest. Both of you. I’m disappointed in you. So you’re living together until you learn to get along.”

Her voice is calm, conversational almost, but her amber eyes are flashing dangerously. This is a Maeve you don’t cross.

Sadly, Ellen doesn’t always have common sense.

“My mom won’t like that,” she says.

“Your mother is a…” Maeve stops, taking a deep breath to compose herself, and for a moment, both Ellen and Ali are actually scared. Ellen’s heard about the Aunt Maeve of yesteryears, the one who pushed people away and lashed out when hurting or scared because she never knew how to accept love. Bronwyn says Maeve used to be different, and Ellen can see what she meant.

Ali and Ellen glance at each other, and they come to an understanding: they don’t need to talk to one another, or even acknowledge each other’s presence in Cabin Seven. But Maeve Santos should not be angered.

“We’ll get our stuff,” Ali mumbles for the both of them.

“Good,” Maeve says.

“Off to the isolation cabin?” Knox teases. Maeve turns her glare to him, and he steps back.

“Forget I said anything.”

#bronwyn rojas #nate macauley #maeve rojas #luis santos #cooper clay #kris (oou)#addy prentiss #keely (oou)#phoebe lawton #knox myers #oc kids #izzielizzie's fics

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omgkalyppso · 3 years

Note

Coffee Shop AU writing prompt for your FE OT4: :"There is a big storm outside and yes, we were all warned, but some people have to work and now there is this group of people starting to make this small café their own for the next couple of hours till the storm eases up or we get rescued"

Hi. Thank you for this ancient ask. I struggled with this. Although I love reading coffee shop AUs, I've never written one. Why would you hit on a cashier? So. This is Something. 2,454 words below the cut; 2,600 words total.

"This puddle is disgusting," Fae said, in dark water past their ankles. A chill ran up their spine as they tried not to think of why it might be slushy.

"This is awfullll-ugh!" Hilda groaned from her place on Fae's back, tilting her toes to purposefully avoid it.

"We just need to go into the next open business," Lorenz repeated with a frown.

A wall of sandbags protected them from the veritable river flowing down the main road, where blocked and overworked catchbasins failed. The depth of the water had rendered it unsafe to use the rental vehicle, some distance away, and Lorenz wondered whether it would ever start again, when the storm had passed.

"But what if—" Fae started to object.

"There!" Hilda interrupted, pointing to where a bar, a pizza place and a coffee shop stood in a line across the next side street.

They were only out here because of a job interview that she should have refused, and Hilda was eager to get her friends out of the storm. Even if she got the position, if they were unwilling to reschedule in these circumstances, they seemed like they would be a nightmare to work for.

They waited as the wind scattered a few more sheets of rain between them and their destination, and ran in an arc uphill to avoid the depth of the water on the main road when they made their was across the side street. Still Lorenz leaned out as far as he could, to marvel over where the sea threatened to spill up into the city of Derdriu, a dozen blocks away.

The bar was actually full, extra sandbags by their patio ensuring the safety of a crowd who looked out at the trio in the storm with judgment and incredulity. Lorenz exchanged a glance with the others, and then they continued past. The pizza place was empty save the staff, and they likely wouldn't want to face three relative tourists.

This meant that they ducked inside Tall, Dark and Delectable: a three story cafe that boasted of comfort and meeting spaces.

Though they couldn't see it, the uppermost floor had signage requesting quiet, intended for library-like study, and though they didn't know it, the second floor was tragically treated like a high school cafeteria by their usual clientele, messy and loud. The main floor had the smallest amount of public space, three scattered tables, two couches and twin armchairs, and a counter meant for take out.

The tables had been pulled from the front of the shop, the floor damp and occupied by a Caution Wet sign, because the large windows were opened to the storm, allowing rain to scatter naturally. Upon their entry, two of the three people in uniforms stood, one rushing to a mop by the door to tend to the scant puddle, and the other approaching them with a customer service smile.

Besides the staff, one of the tables was occupied with another crowd of four, and it made the intruders feel a little less self-conscious about their entry. They were regretful about being soaked however, Fae and Lorenz especially from the knees down, but the staff seemed more sympathetic than anything about the muck and water they dragged in around them.

Hilda's heel slipped on the slick floor as Fae set her down from their back, and she threw a hand back to try and catch herself, but ended up slapping the door so that it opened half an inch, but, luckily, Lorenz caught her opposing wrist to stop her from falling through it or back outside.

The server held up a hand in front of his chest.

"Nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Me too," Hilda peeped, brow furrowed and lips pouting, humiliated and fighting adrenaline as she let Lorenz squeeze her wrist and shoulder, confirming her stability.

"You're okay?" Fae confirmed, feeling guilty, moreso when snickers came from the occupied table.

"I'm fine."

"Sorry about..." Lorenz trailed off, gesturing behind him.

"Excuse me?" Hilda exaggerated, insulted.

"The puddle!" Lorenz said purposefully, offended that she would think him so insensitive about her momentary slip.

"That's probably some of our fault," the other server said in apology, sweeping the mop around the caution sign.

"So long as you're alright," said the staff member who'd come to meet them. "Maybe take a seat and not a sofa, though? At least until you dry a little. I imagine you're here for the long haul?"

"Is it likely to wind down?" asked Fae.

The server chuckled softly. "Uh, no. You might want to walk uphill and call a cab, but rideshares are ... sparse, charging a premium, and the wait'll definitely be a few hours."

"So might as well have a coffee," Hilda said, in better spirits, or trying to be.

"Now you're getting it," the server teased with a wink, extending a hand as Hilda walked past him.

"Do you have a reduced menu, under the circumstances?" asked Lorenz.

"Not yet, anyway. Might be fun if you pick something complicated."

"Oh?" Hilda balked. "A lot of teas. I'll try rose grapefruit?" She looked at Lorenz as she added, "Whatever's your largest size?"

Lorenz nodded, and the server asked, "Name? Nope. Sorry, force of habit." He rolled a pen between his fingers in a fluid motion. "I'll know who you are."

"Black rose?" Lorenz requested. "And Fae?"

"I'll try the chocolate earl grey latte?"

"Perfect," agreed the server.

"Should we eat something?" Lorenz asked the others.

Hilda sighed, as if disappointed. She plucked a sandwich from the fridge in front of Lorenz and left it on the counter, and he and Fae followed suit. Lorenz added a chocolate bar that could be broken into squares, and watched as the server rang them up for small sized beverages.

"Oh! Wai—"

"Don't worry about it," the server said with a wink. "You look like you need to catch a break."

Lorenz sighed, feeling guilty about their circumstances. He tipped ten dollars on top of whatever change he was owed, and shrugged at the man behind the counter as he stepped away to sit with Fae and Hilda.

They moved to the table farthest from the windows, as their damp clothes and the continuous breeze had Hilda's teeth chattering. The temperature was warm, but for the most part, the wind had a cooling effect inside the business, and Fae sat Hilda beside them and across from Lorenz, where they could wrap a warm arm around her, and he could extend a hand if he were feeling bold.

"Hey Cyril, you going to help me?" Claude asked when their latest customers moved to sit.

"No, thanks," Cyril said simply, dropping back down into one of the armchairs.

Claude rolled his eyes, partly because he didn't really need the help, but mostly because he was frustrated that Cyril was still holding Claude's uncle's decision to keep the shop open against him, as if he'd had any say in it. Having an aversion to working with or for family, Claude had been at this job for less than two months, and if anyone should have argued on their behalf, it should have been Hubert, but he had his own reasons to enjoy the work.

Currently in hushed conversation with his friends, Hubert was as distracted as he always was when that fair haired woman came in.

Claude was pretty sure she was slowly leaving an abusive household, whether romantic or familial he couldn't guess, but he could appreciate why Hubert was slow and awkward about expressing his affection, and why he never objected when she and her friends came in to loiter.

The windows rattled, and everyone turned to look at them, but when nothing broke and the wind died down, Claude went back to working.

He'd been surprised by the tip, but figured that his concern about strangers in the storm had simply been mirrored by the customer's sympathy for workers in the storm. It was really flooding now, it wouldn't be the first time he'd expect a boat to sound out that supplies and medical attention were available, but for now, the loudest noise in the shop was him clattering away at the equipment, preparing three extra larges.

He walked over to the destined table, where they were in hushed conversation, and hesitated in a way that he hoped wasn't impolite, catching sight of the three joined hands on the table's surface before they all snapped back towards their owners.

"Here you are," Claude said, by way of offering them their drinks.

"Thank you," said the pink haired woman with the rain smudge eyeliner. Her eyes drifted across him, and she added, "Claude."

He ran a hand over his nametag absently, smiling as he realized he wasn't being scrutinized — maybe.

"No problem." He could've left it at that, but instead he asked, "Tourists?"

"Mostly," agreed the green haired patron.

"How'd you get trapped in all this?" he asked, gesturing with a finger.

"I had a job interview," confessed the pink haired woman, swiping her fingers through her bangs, "but now I don't know that I'd even want the job."

"Well, from personal experience, I've found that moving to Derdriu for professional reasons is ... challenging," Claude said, leaning on the free chair at their table, and then he didn't know what he was doing, feeling as though he should leave them alone. "I work on whatever projects I can pick up for underwater filming."

"You go diving?" asked the purple haired man.

"Not in this," Claude teased about the weather. "But whenever I can. Have three homemade cameras to take with me."

Was it because he'd felt he'd walked in on something personal that he felt it was only right to open up? Was it that they were easy to talk to?

Claude sat one table over, still measuring how invasive he was being, but the conversation seemed amical, and easy. They didn't formally introduce themselves, but he easily pieced together their names, and a little bit more of their business than he'd intended to collect, while gossiping about what Derdriu was like for foreigners, and where they might want to check out after the streets finished draining in about two days.

He only hesitated again when, halfway through their drinks, their sandwiches finished, Lorenz opened and snapped apart the chocolate, offering pieces to each of his companions. It should have been companionable, there wasn't anything decidedly un-friendly about it, but Claude still wondered about the ritual of it, and what else they shared, with care and practice.

He was glad Fae was telling a story then, realizing how dry his mouth had become. He raised a finger to request a moment and poured himself a glass of water before returning to the table.

Hilda opened her mouth to speak, but found herself interrupted by a bang, the sound of an accident less than a block away, and half the cafe yelped as the power went out.

Claude rushed to the door just ahead of Cyril, and after a moment or two of muffled yelling, Claude was cursing as he forced Cyril back inside as he chased after him, water rushing in behind the duo.

"What the shit, Claude?" called Hubert, standing.

"Someone drove into the hydro pole at the corner," said Claude as he and Cyril secured the door as best they could. "It hasn't fallen yet, but it might, and when the guy from the Venomous Knight came out on his cellphone to put in a call about it, he knocked over three of the sandbags."

Hubert growled and disappeared into the back, soon followed by Cyril while Claude closed the windows. Claude wondered how they looked to the patrons in the cafe, as he joined in the march, piling seven sandbags around the door while Hubert tried reaching his uncle.

To no one's surprise, they were going to close. One of Hubert's friends had a house, and the destination of their crowd was settled. Cyril had his bike and lived uphill, and he was raring to leave. That left Claude's new friends of mostly-tourists, staying at a hotel that was maybe a twenty minute drive down the highway, but at least a two hour walk on foot.

"Is there a closer hotel that you know of?" asked Lorenz, and Claude felt his heart fall through the floor. That was a far more reasonable solution than his mind rattling around with the idea of inviting them back to his sixth floor apartment. Even if it was more expensive.

The crowd was escorted out the back of the shop, and Hubert scoffed when Claude implied he was going to walk their three latest customers to a hostel six blocks away, but that was fine.

It was slow going, with Hilda's poor choice in footwear and the wind, but also because of the continued conversation. Claude had dark brown rainboots and a bright yellow raincoat to change into, but he kept the hood down, even as water saturated his hair and rushed over his eyes, gossiping about other harsh weather and assuring the others every few steps that they were nearly there.

Fae pulled Claude into the hostel when they arrived, so they could bring their phone to life in a drier environment, and ask him about sharing numbers, maybe to thank him later, or else to ask about scuba diving in a few days. He wasn't sure there needed to be a difference, and against Ignatz's advice, texted them once he arrived home, to assure them he'd made it through the storm.

The hostel had rules against sharing rooms, and so Fae, Lorenz and Hilda found themselves crowded in the communal living room with two other couples, for the sake of keeping each other's company a little later into the night.

Lorenz sat on a chair by a window, Hilda in his lap. She would be warmer wrapped in a blanket in bed, but she was making due with leeching off Lorenz, one hand on her thigh and the other holding the back of an upper arm, cradling her close and transferring body heat. Fae sat in the windowsill and when their phone buzzed again, Lorenz looked to the clock on the other end of the room before expressing his surprise.

"Are you still texting him?" It was nearing midnight, and while there was little else to do at the hostel, Lorenz worried about boundaries.

"He's still texting me," Fae said in their defense. "Besides, what's the harm in making a new friend in Derdriu?"

"He was very kind," Lorenz agreed. "He left a very good first impression. But I wouldn't you to be lulled into complacency. He is a stranger."

Hilda snickered as she sat up from Lorenz's chest. "You sound like an old man."

"You're worried he'd want sex?" asked Fae, so nonchalant that Lorenz scoffed.

"I'm worried he'd be obsessive, or otherwise hurt you. Or us."

"That's fair," Fae conceded, leaving Claude on Read. "I just thought he seemed fun."

"And cute," Hilda contributed, her tone making plain that she thought so too.

Lorenz blushed and swept a hand over his lips, squinting in his own meager defense when the other two looked at him. He murmured, "Did you see his shoulders while he carried those sandbags?" When Fae and Hilda giggled, Lorenz rolled his eyes and pointed at nothing as he said more forcefully, "That's not a character assessment."

"No," Fae agreed, "but it might be enough to invite him to get ice cream or something, as a thank you."

#long post #faedolyn #claude. hilda. mc. lorenz #i don't think they'd 'hook up' with claude for months. he'd be a friend and they'd need to assess why his relationship would be different #to them than other friendships #my writing #i made this #the fanfiction i mean

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nakedmossy · 4 years

Text

Depth Over Distance - Part One [Rudy x Reader]

[A/N: I haven’t found a hometown Rudy fic yet soooo I wrote one. I have no idea where this story is going to go and I’m honestly finding it hard to get out of writing JJ and get into writing Rudy, but here we go anyways. I wanted to write something where the reader and Rudy were hometown friends before he moved to LA, and to explore the idea of how that would change/what it would look like when he comes back. Get ready for a S L O W. B U R N. my dudes. Peace and love, Mossy x]

The sky was grey and the air was wet - it had been raining for 4 days straight. You sat in your car with the heat cranked, your window down slightly so that the humidity didn’t fog up your mirrors. Living on the Alaskan coast was beautiful most of the time but horrible some of the time, especially when you had to waste gas just keeping warm and dry at 6pm in the beginning of ‘Summer’.

You had never lived anywhere else aside from the summer you spent in Vancouver with your cousin when you were 19. Now, at 23, you were working full time at the local bookshop that was an 8 minute drive from your house in the winter and a 20 minute walk/skate in the summer. Your car was parked street side, waiting for your friend Lizzy to finish her shift at the cafe. The smell of the rain and the Ben Howard song on the radio made you nostalgic about the times you and your friends from high school had spent hours skating down these streets, beers in your backpacks, no helmets, dirty shoes and clothes, no pressure, no responsibilities, no cell service...no worries.

Since graduation a lot of your friends had moved out of town, either to Anchorage or down to Washington, or further south. Your best friend Lizzy had stayed close to home, helping run her families business and working part time at the cafe. You had stayed local too...your dad owned a fishing guide business and your mom was an admin assistant for the MD in town, but neither made enough to cover all the medical bills you had racked up over the last few years. You figured once the debt was paid off you might leave...but you had no idea where you would go.

You missed all of your friends, but you missed the boys the most, aside from Lizzy you didn't have a lot of female friends, and your boys had been like brothers to you. You spoke to most of them every few weeks on FaceTime, except Rudy. He had gone to LA for awhile and had kept in touch loosely, but after the first few months he started to drift.

You felt the loss the hardest for Rudy. He had been your closest friend the longest, you had spent nearly every day of every summer together since you were 9, and every school year you worked the same part time job at the seafood restaurant on the water. Now, the last you heard, he was coming back for the summer to ‘reconnect’. You had low expectations and tried not to let yourself get excited, but truthfully, you wanted him to spend some time at home and be around his own kind again - he had always been a homebody and you were worried that being gone for 4 years would go to his head or change him.

Lizzy tapped on the glass, causing you to blink out of your reverie and smile at her. You rolled the window down and let her reach in and open the door from the inside (the handle had been broken since high school). She threw her backpack and skateboard in the back seat, climbing in and closing her door.

“Ugh.” She grunted as her teeth chattered and she rubbed her bare legs.

“You know its only May, you shouldn’t even be wearing shorts yet. The snow just melted.”

Lizzy glared at you playfully and put her hand out to do your handshake. You did it, then put the car in drive and started slowly down the street, windshield wipers moving rhythmically.

“How was the shift?” You asked as you checked your mirrors and wiped some humidity off the rear view.

“Same old” Lizzy leaned back in her seat and pulled the visor mirror down to fix her hair. “That old man Collins from the cannery keeps coming in and harassing me.”

“Jack? The one with the eye patch?”

Lizzy nodded dramatically as she held the bobby pins in her mouth and started to twist her straight black hair off her face.

“That guy-“ She finished placing the final pin and slammed the visor closed “-Is an absolute creep.”

You snorted a sarcastic laugh and rolled your eyes.

“He’s like...70. And widowed. Don’t be rude.”

“I’m not being rude. Im just...asserting my boundaries.”

“You literally have a 3 foot counter between you at minimum, at all times.” You looked over at her and raised your eyebrows.

“Whatever. All I’m saying is we need hotter men in this town. Like...soon.”

You nodded in agreement and felt your eyes wander all over the road, remembering the time you and Rudy had taken your longboards down it after a torrential downpour and you had crashed and gotten such bad road burn that he had to call his dad to come pick you both up because you couldn’t walk.

“Hey, Y/N, are you listening?” Lizzy cut back in, staring at you.

“No, what?”

“I said, speaking of hot guys, I heard Rudy is coming back for a few months.”

You pinched your face and looked at her then at the road, then back at her.

“Rudy is not hot. Rudy is....Rudy. What are you talking about?”

Lizzy looked at you disbelieving and closed her mouth, trying not to smile.

“What!” You repeated, smacking her arm.

“Hey!” She laughed, then shook her head and looked out the window. “Whatever you say man, I just think....” She grabbed her water bottle and began to screw off the lid “I just think...he’s not gonna be the same Rudy that left 4 years ago. He’s like...a movie star now.”

You couldn’t even begin to touch that one. You knew what she was doing...she was always harping on you about going on dates or taking trips with her to the mainland to hook up with the pilots during their layovers. You never went, and always insisted that you were just fine and were not interested. She never listened. Part of that was true...you were fine, and usually not interested. But sometimes, when the water was calm and the sunset was colourful and the fish were jumping and your beer was cold...you wished you had someone to share it with.

“I’m going up to Skagway this weekend with my dad” You said, changing subjects. “He’s short a guide and needs someone to drive the boat.”

“Lucky you” She said sarcastically, screwing the lid back on her bottle. “Another weekend spent with men twice your age who have zero ability to catch a fish and even less ability to smell nice.”

“It’s good money.” You said flatly, annoyed that everything seemed to revolve around men with her. “And in case you forgot I’m kinda in need of that at the moment.”

Lizzy licked her lips and put her hands up, dipping her head.

“Alright...noted. Chill out Kemosabe.” She giggled under her breath and looked out her window, drawing a small penis in the moisture on the window.

“Babe, seriously. You need to get laid.” You said, shaking your head.

“I know” She replied, working on the veins. “Trust me. Im in a state of national emergency by this time of year.”

Lizzy was absolutely one of the girliest girls (and most beautiful girls) in the south of Alaska, which was ironic considering the house she grew up in. Her dad was an overweight German restaurant entrepreneur who had opened a world class seafood restaurant in Juneau back in the 90s and had shacked up with her mother who was this drop dead gorgeous Haida warrior woman who you had literally seen kill and skin a bear with her own hands.

They had forged this chain of restaurants local to Alaska that people flew hundreds of miles to eat at, but still lived in an off-grid cabin that hadn’t been insulated since 1960 and used wood heating. Not really the type of family that screamed southern belle femininity - yet somehow Lizzy came out of that union with a pink bed set, refusing to ever wear camo or sweatpants, and still had never shot a gun - which her mother reminded her of weekly.

Lizzy had hit puberty at 10 and had used her breast advantage over every girl in your class for the next 3 years like some sort of distinction of better genetics, as if she needed boobs to prove that. Unlike you, she was naturally thin and tall (6ft to be precise), had long, thick straight black hair and olive skin, and perfect hips. You felt like a prepubescent boy standing next to her, with your uneven complexion and your frizz and your awkward thigh fat distribution. You were envious of her genetics - her mother graced her with the body of an athlete and the thick black hair, and her father had given her height and cheekbones that could slice through glass. You looked down at your arms, covered in freckles, pasty white from lack of sun, and cringed, looking back at the road.

You turned the corner leaving the main road and starting on the dirt road that led to your favourite part of beach access. Lizzy pulled her hoodie out of her backpack and took off her seatbelt, leaning forward to pull it down over her head. You leaned forward and looked up, this was your favourite part of the drive. The dirt road which was lined with moss and ferns and other foliage wound along the base of the snow capped mountain that was at least 1000ft in elevation. The mist and fog from the coast was thick and creeped through the tall cedar trees, black ravens and falcons flying overhead stark against the white mist. This was the most idyllic picture of northwest coastal living you could find.

When you parked at the trail head Lizzy slipped off her work flats and into her Teva’s, you grabbed your yellow Vans out of your trunk and slipped them on. You usually drove bare foot, a habit you had started in high school after Rudy had thrown your shoes off the dock at the restaurant and you had to drive home without any. You grabbed your sweater and your backpack which had the beer in it. As you were both gathering the rest of your things...beach blanket, hats, and rain cover, you heard a car pull up behind you. You stood up out of the trunk and squinted to see the car through the fog. It was a black ford pickup you had never seen before.

“Who’s that?” Lizzy chimed in from behind you.

“No clue” You said as you lifted your hand to wave once.

The truck had tinted windows and looked brand new. When it pulled up beside you, the drivers side window began to unroll, revealing Junior - your high school (ex) sweetheart.

“Holy” You said, eyebrows up, nodding. “Nice truck - where’d you steal it from?” He rolled his eyes at you dramatically.

“Whatever kid - its a rental. Got it to drive to the airport in.” His chest puffed out and his expression read so proud.

“Airport?” You said inquisitively. “Since when does Alan pay you to drive new trucks to the airport?”

“Since Rudy hired him for the pick up service and apparently is incapable of driving his own ass around anymore” Junior snorted and waved at Lizzy.

“Or he doesn’t have a car here anymore” You noted, rolling your eyes at him.

“Either way, I get this bad boy for the next 24 hours and I intend to give her the royal grand tour of our humble town.” He ran his hand up and down the steering wheel, stroking the new leather. “Wanna go for a rip?” He said, winking. You shook your head and crossed your arms over your chest.

“Well I do” Lizzy piped up from beside you, walking closer to the window. She smiled at Junior and began to put her hair in a pony tail. She nudged your arm as she began to walk to the passenger side door. “Come on, granny. Let’s go!”

She laughed as she climbed up into the truck, but you shook your head again.

“I’m good...you kids have fun. Say hi to Rudy for me” You said to Junior, who shrugged his head and muttered ‘definitely wont do that’ under his breath.

Lizzy blew a kiss at you and waved once before Junior put it in drive and started to go up the dirt road north of you.

Junior and you had ended on okay terms, but he had concocted a theory that you had broken up with him because of another guy, and the unspoken suggestion was that that guy had been Rudy. Small town guys had a heck of a time with the idea of girls and guys just being friends.

You sighed and watched as the truck disappeared around the corner, and turned back to your own car. You grabbed your backpack and slammed the trunk closed, walking down the path alone. You weren’t mad at Lizzy for going with him - she was flighty and bailed on you at the bar all the time - but you were mad the beer was going to go warm before you could drink it all. Not that you should even be drinking 6 beers alone by the water when you had to drive yourself home. Doubtful the 2 cops in this town would even be awake to see you though. Whatever.

You reached the end of the path and rounded the corner, revealing the coast line and the rocky beach. It was your favourite place to sit and think, sit and smoke, sit and be yourself. The beach curled in a U shape, giving you a private spot where the rest of the shoreline was blocked from view and all you could see was the ominous cedar forest that stretched up the mountain, the snow caps at the top, and the horizon over the cold pacific.

You had intended to share the joint you had in your pocket with Lizzie, but...well, her loss. You spread the blanket out on the softest patch of sand and rocks you could find (which still meant you were guaranteed to get at least 2 rocks in the ass) and placed your bag down, kicking off your sneakers. You took a deep breath for the first time in a few days and lit the joint, taking one long, deep inhale. You felt it tingle through your chest and your arms and legs almost immediately, relaxing you. Being here alone always sent you into a spiral of memories and thoughts that you worked hard during the day to suppress. Most insistent lately had been thoughts about your health problems. You called them ‘health problems’ but in reality it was just an eating disorder. You could go 2, sometimes 3 days without eating anything, and never felt hungry. It started after graduation.

You had lost weight, dramatically, going from a stable 120-125 to 95 at most and 90 at worst, in the span of a month. And for the next three years you had never gained it back, you had stayed at a relatively stable 95, which still left you looking sickly and too thin at 5’3”. Your frame wasn’t built for that kind of weight drop, you were Scottish and Cree, sprinkled with a little bit of German and Irish. A classic northwest cracker mix. You weren’t naturally small, you always had a bit of something to grab onto, but it was normal to your body, healthy.

Some part of your brain knew that it had something to do with leaving school...and the pretence that came with that. The expectation...the responsibility. You were never that kind of person, and it never really bothered you, but suddenly it had. You never planned to go to University right away, but you had no back up plan. It wasn't something you and your friends really talked about. But suddenly Jacob had gotten into U of Washington, Dan had left to backpack Europe, and Rudy had not so graciously announced he was deferring his acceptance and scholarship to culinary school because he wanted to be an actor, and flew to LA the next month. You had been left behind, with Lizzy of all people, and it had hit you hard.

You looked around the beach, dragging on your joint quicker than normal, trying to knock the thoughts out of your head. An Eagle screeched above - scaring you - and you laid back on the blanket, closing your eyes. You needed to chill the hell out. This was the first time in a few weeks that you had gotten a night off from helping your dad with his guide business and you didn’t plan on wasting it riddling your brain with anxiety and worrying about your body.

You looked up at the sky and watched the mist and fog kiss the clouds, the sunset colours dancing across them. As it usually did, the rain had stopped just as the sun was going down, the clouds parting briefly and letting the smallest sliver of sunlight through, just enough to burn the grey light out of the sky and allow the pink and orange hues to fade along the horizon. You sat up and cracked a beer, enjoying the fresh smelling air and the rhythmic sound of the waves licking the shore line.

Two beers in you had put on your jacket and placed your Bluetooth speaker next to you on the blanket, blasting a playlist that Rudy had made you for your graduation party.

Three beers in you took the jacket off, standing up and dancing by yourself on the beach to the music.

Four beers in you laid down on the blanket, balled your jacket up and used it as a pillow, and started looking for shapes in the stars.

Five beers in you fell sleep.

———

Many hours later, as the sun rose and was bright on the water and the early morning bird feed was in full swing overhead, you were drifting in and out of sleep to the squawking when a shadow came across your face, alerting you to groggily open your eyes.

“What’s up, Little Fern?” His voice had gotten deeper. Wait, what?

You opened your eyes and blinked, raising a hand to block the sun. There, in your very awake and very not dreaming state, was the unmistakable silhouette that you had spent the last 18 years dreaming about and 18 years being a friend to.

Rudy.

#rudy pankow #reader x rudy #depth over distance #nakedmossywrites #jj maybank #outer banks #obx

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