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jtrbluv · 4 years

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we’re not really strangers | pjm

summary: We’re Not Really Strangers is a purpose-driven card game and movement all about empowering meaningful connections. Three carefully crafted levels of questions and wildcards that allow you to deepen your existing relationships and create new ones. Ready?

or alternatively,

your furtive infatuation with your lifelong best friend proves to be hard to suppress when there’s (1) alcohol involved and (2) a card game that forces you to reveal more about yourself than you could ever wish for. in short, no, you are not ready.

[friends to lovers!au]

pairing: jimin x reader

genre: fluff, crack, slight angst

word count: 8.7k

warnings: swearing, alcohol consumption, two emotionally constipated best friend, PG-15

A/N: hi, i’ve been really excited about this fic for a while, and i’m genuinely so happy that i finally finished it! the card game is in fact real and i got inspired for this fic after i had played the game with a couple of friends myself. AHEM! @koushiningg ! we both cried and i do highly recommend to play it! but anyways, i hope you enjoy this fic because i had a lot of fun writing it! sending love always... jumi out!

EDIT: @bangtans-peaceful-piegon i’d also like to thank the lovely pidge for beta reading this 4 me as well! PIDGE I FUCKIN LOB U!!!

PLAYLIST ; SEQUEL

♤ ♤ ♤

Not once in your life did you ever imagine a simple card game to become the bane of your existence.

Yet Park Jimin was able to prove you wrong.

Let’s play ‘We’re Not Really Strangers’ he said. It’ll be fun, he said.

You stare down at the card in front of you—everything else in your periphery was blurry in vision and you can audibly pinpoint the erratic beating of your heart.

The card was practically taunting you, laughing in your face. It was as if there was a sentient being in the room who was aware of your own subconscious and the not so latent feelings you had for the boy sitting in front of you.

Same said being loved to constantly place you in a state of trepidation concerning your current situation—your blood pressure skyrocketing—nearly feeling the muscular pink thing inside of you thrusting itself against your ribcage.

The white card with crimson red writing made sure to leave an impact, making you feel the most ridiculed you’ve felt all night which says a lot—leaving your mind in a complete frenzy although you refused to let it be known.

And so you sat there. Fiddling the card in between your fingers, feigning nonchalance. You were very much on the brink of cracking your facade—your sanity practically crumbling as the minutes ticked by. You didn’t think you’d last this long to be honest. Yet an hour and a half proved to be way too straining on your body, especially your heart.

He simply sat there with his hands folded on the table—void of emotion, whistling a familiar top 50s tune you couldn’t quite put your finger on. You considered shifting your focuses on trying to comprehend the tune—hoping it would ease the concerning state of apprehension you were in.

But then you remember that you aren’t that pathetic. Even though you both had probably been sitting in complete silence for about two minutes now. Up to the point where you could probably hear the crickets chirping outside his apartment, except the only sound that was filling your ears was your own conscience telling you how idiotic you were being.

Your face may be gradually morphing the same shade of crimson as the writing inscribed onto the card itself, and you may have a whole line of sweat encompassing your hairline. But it’s just a stupid little card game. You could say any stupid little answer and the stupid not-so-little boy wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t care. So you shouldn’t care.

When did you become so pathetic after all?

-one hour and a half ago-

“Why can’t we just play Mario Kart or Uno? This sounds like there’s too much thinking involved,” you whine, leaning against the side of his couch.

“One, we always play that. And two, I always lose,” he grumbles, plopping down onto the floor.

Jimin rests his back on the frame of the couch as he sits in the small gap made by the large piece of furniture and the coffee table that resided in front of it. You decide to sit on the floor as well, around an arm’s length away from your friend. He places the red box down onto the table—opening the cap and revealing the contents with a mischievous glint in his irises.

Within the box was a deck of cards, separated into three piles with two pencils on either side. Knowing Jimin, you assumed this game had an ulterior motive you were unaware of, and by the title of the game, you could already tell that you weren’t going to like it very much.

“How do you even play this?” You ask, causing him to look up in return.

He bites his lip, taking a couple seconds to ponder on your question, “I don’t know it’s my first-time playing too,” he shrugs. “I was watching Jin and Namjoon playing it a couple of weeks ago and for some reason, Jungkook started crying.”

“He is a sap,” you hum in agreement, thinking in retrospect of Jungkook crying from various situations such as Iron Man dying or that one time Jin farted on his pillow and he got pink eye for a whole week.

“The biggest,” he concurs, “Hm, there’s no instructions in here.” He mutters while shuffling through the cards.

“Why don’t you just search it up?” You suggest, sliding the box to yourself as he nods and fishes his phone out of his pocket.

While holding the box in the palm of your hand, you scan the contents—turning it around in your palm until your eyes narrow in on the words printed at the bottom.

“Oh, it says something here.”

His head perks up. “Hm? What is it?”

You clear your throat at the sight of the long explanation. “We’re Not Really Strangers is a purpose-driven card game and movement all about empowering meaningful connections. Three carefully crafted levels of questions and wildcards that allow you to deepen your existing relationships and create new ones.” You internally grimace at the words. The game hasn’t even started and you already had a bad feeling about it all. “Ready?” You say through clenched teeth, purposely keeping your head hung low.

Jimin’s lips quirk up into a cheerful grin, unaware of the piercing stare you were giving him. “Okay, I think I got it,” he declares, eyes zeroed in on his phone once more, ”There’s three levels—perception, connection, and reflection. Each level we pass, the deeper and more thought-provoking the questions get. Helping us make a deeper connection and get to know each other better yadda yadda yadda.”

You nod in understanding, sliding the box of cards back towards him—forcing the grimace that kept threatening to plaster itself onto your face into a small, smug smile.

“The first thing we have to do,” he begins, taking out two pencils and two small pieces of paper, “is write messages to each other. We won’t be able to open these until after we leave.” He explains, sliding a pencil and paper towards you.

“Wow, very cryptic,” you tut, biting down on your bottom lip before more distasteful remarks decided to leave your lips. He doesn’t catch your reaction or your comment though because he’s already got his pencil in his hand, scribbling vigorously onto the tiny piece of paper. Knowing him it could very well be nonsensical insults and doodles, or a whole essay about your friendship and what you mean to him. Most likely ludicrous and full of thought, either way, just like him.

Without much thought, you lazily jot onto the paper.

know that i love u, u fucker <3

-y/n

The sound of your pencil falling against the table causes him to look up at you, eyes knit together in confusion.

“You’re done already?”

You chuckle, “I mean, I wasn’t going to write an essay. You already know how I feel about you. But it seems like you’re writing one though.”

His eyes narrow in on you—giving you an indiscernible look before letting out a small ‘hmph’ and lowering his focus back down to his pencil and paper. You dismiss his enigmatic behavior—deciding to mindlessly scroll on your phone while waiting for him to finish his MLA formatted essay.

Two minutes pass and you hear the sound of his pencil being placed onto the table. “Done.”

“You added citations too right?”

He scoffs, “No, but i’ll gladly add some if you’d like.”

You roll your eyes for what seems like the umpteenth time in the last five minutes, “Just start the goddamn game.”

He takes the first stack of cards and shuffles them between his hands. “In all three levels, there are wild cards or basically dares we have to complete. And for each level, we get two ‘dig deeper’ cards. Pretty self-explanatory. So this is the perception level. It’s basically designed for first encounters and strangers, and we’re gonna be asking each other questions about ourselves.”

Your eyes widen at the whole confidentiality of it all. “Are we going through all of those cards?” You blurt out, staring at what seemed to be like 50 cards in his hands.

“Oh no,” he quickly refutes, “It would take hours. We’ll just do like 12 cards each.”

“Alright,” you huff, letting out a small breath of relief.

“Yay! Okay I’ll go first,” he beams, his toothy smile evident as he places the deck in between the two of you while grabbing a card from the top, “What do you think my name is?”

You snort at the conspicuousness of the question, “Jamal.”

He immediately guffaws at your response, throwing his head back in addition. “Hey, I don’t mind that.”

“Are all of the questions like this?” You say in between hushed laughter.

“Nah,” he shakes his head as you pick up another card from the deck, “now you ask me.”

“Alright, what’s the first thing you noticed about me?” You ask, slightly taken aback by the sudden earnestness of the question, causing you to become genuinely curious about what his answer was going to be.

He hums, taking a second to think it through. “I think your smile and your laugh. It’s always been really contagious since the day I met you.” He admits, almost matter-of-factly as if it was something you should’ve known by now, yet you did not.

Your heart nearly disintegrates into a puddle of goop right then and there, but you manage to conceal your reaction, “Aw, you actually like me.” You tease.

He scoffs with a playful grin on his lips. “Don’t flatter yourself. You still cackle like a damn hyena.”

Your eyebrows shoot up, “At least I don’t laugh at every single of Jin’s lame ass jokes.”

He gasps, jaw slack open due to your all too accurate truthbomb, “I did not ask to be attacked in my own residence.”

“Well, what are you gonna do about it then.”

He snorts. “Holy shit, do you remember when I banged my head on the corner of his coffee table.”

“How could I forget? I had the picture of the bump on your head as my lockscreen for like a month.” You reminisce, resisting the urge to pull up the picture from your phone.

“Yeah, and that same month I bought and rotated between the same 10 hats.”

“Hey! It genuinely didn’t look as bad as you thought.”

He whips his head towards you, giving you a piercing glare that made you want to redact your statement immediately.

He grins from ear to ear, the little shit, amused at the reaction he was able to garner from you.

“Aha!” He suddenly guffaws, shooting out of the floor and prancing towards his fridge. He then takes out three bottles of lychee-flavored soju and makes his way back towards the table.

Jimin being the borderline alcoholic he is, it doesn’t come as a surprise to you. Not even after he takes another trip back to the fridge to grab yet another three bottles of soju, mango-flavored to be exact. He has probably one of the stupidest grins etched onto his face as he held onto the bottles—meanwhile you were more concerned about the possibility of having to clean up a bunch of broken glass and wasted soju. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“And do you plan on drinking all of this by yourself?” you say, gesturing towards the bottles.

“I know my liver is strong, but I don’t buy this shit just to enjoy alone,” he retorts. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees you shake your head as you click your tongue, “Playing this while tipsy just sounds ten times better don’t you think?.”

You shrug—although you had a strong hunch for what he was insinuating, “I mean I guess.”

He starts to pour soju into his shot glass, stopping just before it hits the brim. He slides the glass to you and you take it into your hand, eyeing the sparkling fluid and thinking about the way the contents would do its little all-too-familiar dance on your tongue.

“Well, you know what they say,” he says, pouring a glass for himself, “drunk words are sober thoughts,” he finishes while dragging out the last word—downing the first shot in one quick swig. You follow his lead soon thereafter, refusing to let your mind linger on what he had just said and the viable likelihood of you spewing out the words that could just make or break your longstanding friendship and lead to a lifetime of regret.

Obviously, everything’s going fine and dandy for you.

The next 20 minutes consisted of a plethora of superficial questions that would vary from:

“What's your favorite song lyric you can think of off the top of your head?”

Your head shoots up as if the lightbulb in your head just flashed on. “Easy. Shawty’s like a melody in my head that i cant keep out got me singing like-“

He lunges over to clap a hand over your mouth before you could sing the next line. “Na na na na no Y/N. Please stop.”

Or something along the lines of:

“What character do you think I'd play in a movie?” He asks with a smug smile.

“You’d be the second male lead that everyone secretly wants to end up with the main character because you act all sweet and kind and and genuinely cares about her but instead she chooses the other guy because something about him draws her in and it was her ‘gut instinct’ or some shit like that.”

“So I would get second male lead syndrome?” He reiterates.

“Yes.”

He sets his shot glass back down with a glower, clearly taken aback. “That is the biggest insult I’ve ever gotten in my entire life.”

You also couldn’t forget about:

“Oh, this one says to create a secret handshake.”

“No.” You deadpan.

“And why not?”

“Your pinky‘s the size of a vienna sausa—“

He smacks you square in the cheek with a pillow before you could finish your sentence. You don’t even fight back because your mind was so slow to process what he had just done. The fact that you only slept for 5 hours last night didn’t help whatsoever. Your evident lack of energy causes him to jab his finger into your side, causing a loud shriek—your fight or flight response starts kicking in as you grab the back of his neck and slam his face against the fabric of the couch cushion.

Soju was never able to make the two of you full on drunk—buzzed of course, but not enough for complete incoherency. And so you both down a bottle each before finishing the first round.

“I’m surprised we didn’t get any wild cards that round,” he says while resting his head on the couch.

You purse your lips, “You spoke too soon.”

His eyes flash open as he cranes his neck in an attempt to see the card. “Wait actually?”

You can feel your insides churn as you read the words in front of you, and you were sure that it wasn’t the alcohol talking. “Write down the three most important things to you in a relationship for 30 seconds and then compare.”

Jimin reaches over to grab two pieces of paper and pencils while unlocking his phone to find the timer app, “Okay, I’ll put a timer on for 30 seconds starting… now.”

And so the internal monologue in your head begins.

Three most important things… only three? That’s not anywhere near enough to suffice. Wait, what would the first one even be… oh yeah, trust. Trust is very much important yes, yes, yes. What else? Um, communication? Yes of course, that’s essential. Okay, what would the last one be?

You sneak a glance over at Jimin. His cheek is squished against the palm of his hand, making his cheek fat (an area in which he lacked in) more prominent and the pink, plush flesh of his lips appear even bigger than they already were.

The ceiling light emitted a faint, ambient glow—the lights and shadows hitting all the slopes and curves of his face. You never understood how someone could be so effortlessly stunning. Even the mess atop his head that’s supposed to be his hair looks purposely tousled—the ebony strands sticking up in multiple directions was framing his temples and contrasted with the honey-like hues of his skin.

Unlike the glow that radiated from the lights of the worn-down apartment and the radiance of whatever was beyond the glass of the window behind him, everything about him seemed to glow much brighter.

“Hello, earth to Y/N, your 30 seconds is up.” He interrupts pointedly, waving a hand in front of your face.

Blinking rapidly, you shake your head as well as all preceding thoughts that definitely weren’t consuming your mind a few seconds ago, “Sorry w-what?”

He laughs at your disoriented state, “Did you finish writing your three things?”

No, I wrote your name as number 3. “Yeah, I did. You can go first though.”

He nods with a small smile. “Oh, okay then let’s see. First, I put trust. I don’t know, I think everyone puts that to be honest. After that, I put communication. I feel like that’s just a given y’know. Another thing I feel like most people would say.”

You utter a timid “mhm” under your breath albeit zoning out and being unaware of what he was saying. Opportunely, you managed to scribble out his name with the mere seconds that had passed and now you were tapping the lead point of the pencil against the paper, littering the page with a bunch of grey, little dots—incognizant to the fact that he had his eyes focused on you the whole time.

“I didn’t really know what to put last. Three things isn’t anywhere near enough in my opinion. But at the last second, I wrote down vulnerability,” he continues.

You look up upon hearing the last word. “Oh wow, that’s good. I didn’t even think about that.”

He chuckles unabashedly, clearly pleased with your reaction. “Right? I just figured. At first, I thought it would go in the same category as trust but then I thought about it more. Yeah, you can trust someone and someone can trust you, but to what extent does that all go to. Where does it start? And where does it even end? You need to be able to open up to the person I feel like. So I guess trust and vulnerability go hand in hand.”

Impressed with his words, you decide to chime in. “Wouldn’t communication go along with it too?”

“Hm?”

You place your pencil down. “You would open up to each other by means of communication, becoming more vulnerable, and then overall gaining more trust in the end.”

His brows raise at your sudden revelation, “Wait, you’re so right, did you just wax poetic and full cycle all that?.”

You smile, “I mean I guess,” you respond humbly, “ it does make sense though, does it not?”

He hums in agreement while downing another shot, “It applies to us, right?”

You force out a chuckle, but it comes out a lot more faux-sounding than you would’ve liked. “Haha, yeah I guess it does, doesn’t it.” Once again, starting to dive deeper into the abyss of pitiful hope and unrequitedness.

“Describe your perfect day.” He suddenly interjects.

You quirk a brow. “Didn’t I just go?”

“It’s okay, I’ll go for this one too.”

“Alright,” you say, foot tapping on the wooden floor as you look past him and out into the glass window of his living room, “well, I wouldn’t have school of course. And I think it would all depend on how I feel that day. If I was feeling particularly lazy, the day would probably consist of me binge-watching shows in bed while eating a shitton of carbs. And the other case would probably be galavanting around the city or going to an amusement park with friends.”

Jimin listens intently and smiles as you speak, causing you to avoid his stare before pigment threatened to rush to your cheeks, “Both of those scenarios sound really nice. I better be included too.”

You roll your eyes, turning away to hide the grin creeping up your cheeks, “We’ll see.”

He groans, standing up from his spot on the floor and falling onto his couch instead, “My asscheeks hurt.”

Your face contorts into a look of disgust, “And you want me to do what with that information?”

Scoffing lightly, he leans back into the cushions and tilts his head back, “It was a declaration, not a cry for help.”

“Yeah, and it’s the bony ass for me.”

His head perks up. “It’s having a flatter ass than their guy best friend for me.”

Gulping down the sad but unequivocal truth, “It’s kissing up to every teacher’s ass for me.”

His eyes narrow in pure chagrin, “It’s the crying on your teacher’s doorstep for them to round your grade for me.”

“It’s splitting your pants on orientation day for me.”

“Fuck you, people would pay to see this ass! It’s getting a concussion from falling down the main hall stairs for me.”

“For fuck’s sake, I told you that they waxed the floors that day!” You snap back.

“Okay, and who said it was a good idea to walk down three flights of stairs while trying to cram for a midterm? Yeah, exactly no one.” He says incisively, giving you an even bigger urge to push him off of the couch, yet you digress.

“This could go on for hours.” You heave out.

“Is that the sound of someone giving up I’m hearing?”

“Is that the sound of a midget I’m hearing?”

“But I’m taller than you?!” He screeches petulantly, smacking your shoulder. You burst out into a fit of laughter—toppling onto the wooden floor with pure malice.

Gasping for air, you attempt to stifle your laughter and regain your breath. “Wow, I’m on a roll today! I deserve another shot.”

He shakes his head, his anger quelling at the sight of your giddiness. “Remind me to not let you drink and play this game.”

You turn over from your side to lay on your back. “This will be the first and the last time I play this game with you.” You say almost immediately—the words involuntarily slipping from your mouth before you could stop it.

He sinks in his spot on the couch, brows knitting at your comment. “Why?”

Sobriety crashes into you like a colossal wave —your irritation dissipates almost immediately. The exaggerated tone your voice begins to register through your head—as well as the fact that you sounded a lot more disapproving than you intended.

Groaning at your hindered ability to think and process properly, you attempt to clear the air, “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. We just... practically know everything about each other I guess. What else is there to know?”

He hums. “You sure about that?”

What? “Wait what?”

“Nothing,” he chuckles awkwardly, “next question.”

The straightforwardness of the next question causes you to quirk a brow, “How are you, really?”

His eyes widen. “Well, that’s a deep one, isn’t it?”

You smile. “A little.”

He sighs, a small grin lacing his features, “Hm, how am I,” he affirms, adjusting himself in his spot on the couch, “I feel content with where I am right now, I guess. Things can always be better, but at the same time they could be worse too.”

Your number one defense mechanism as of late has been to constantly tease and make jokes at the poor guy—essentially using him as your own mental punching bag. He went along with it out of the assumption that it was all caused by your stress from school while you knew the true origins of your behavior.

You smile at his optimism, "Hey, that's always good to hear."

He chuckles, shifting his position on the couch so he could face you directly, "I don't know, maybe it's the new sense of freedom. Or all the amazing people I've gotten to meet and the opportunities that are offered here. Or the fact that I'm still going to the same school as my best friend after all this damn time."

"Chim, don't get sappy on me man." You warn him while pouting exaggeratedly— slumping onto the frame of the couch while he takes a strand of your hair in between his fingers. You bask in the moment, your eyes shutting close.

"Hey, I'm just being honest! For some reason, it all makes up for the impending student debt and draining lectures and professors that have a superiority complex as fat as their paycheck."

"Too bad their paycheck still isn't as fat as your ass."

An audible gasp coming from the only other person in the room causes your eyes to flutter open.

"Aw," he coos, ruffling the hair atop of your head, "that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me all night. Admit it, you love me."

Out of instinct, you opt to stick your tongue at him instead of replying with a witty comeback. You turn away from him before mumbling to yourself, "More than you'll ever know buddy."

"What was that?"

Shit. "Nothing. Next question!"

After twenty questions and a whopping 10 empty soju bottles later, you are quite literally about to implode.

Your eyes stare down at the card in front of you—everything that surrounds it is blurry in vision and you can audibly pinpoint the erratic beating of your heart.

The card was practically taunting you, laughing in your face. It was as if there was a sentient being in the universe who was aware of your own subconscious and the not so latent feelings you had for the boy sitting in front of you. Same said being loved to constantly place you in a state of trepidation concerning your current situation—your blood pressure skyrocketing—nearly feeling the muscular pink thing inside of you thrusting itself against your ribcage.

The imminent headache was starting to spread towards your temples and you practically felt like you could feel your brain shifting inside your head at this point. Although you felt groggy, you were certain that your heart was at a rate that is way faster than it should be. And sitting on your legs has caused them to lose all feeling from the tips of your toes all the way up to your kneecaps. One attempt at standing and you would come crashing to the floor in a heartbeat.

To say you were mad was an understatement. Out of all the times throughout the entirety of this hour and a half that you were playing this game, he decided that now would be the best time to use his 'dig deeper' card.

There it was.

Admit something.

"Okay fine, I was the one who stuck pink hair dye in your shampoo last semester."

"Y/N, did you really think I didn't know? C’mon I know there’s something else in there.”

You scowl, brows furrowing, “Why would I keep something from you?��

“Why are you getting so defensive over this?”

"What the hell is there for me to admit to you?" You snap back in exasperation, the harsh tone of your voice rendering the two of you speechless.

He averts his gaze, closing his eyes while inhaling a deep sigh. "Ever since we started college, why have you been treating me so differently?"

Your eyes widen in disbelief, stumped. Yet you refuse to wither out of this.

"I– are you mad?"

"No. Of course not," he quickly digresses, softening his gaze, "I just noticed after all this time that you've only been acting differently towards me. Did I do something wrong?"

"No, you didn't do anything wrong Jimin. You never have."

His eyes narrow, giving you yet another indecipherable look, "I'm using my 'dig deeper' card." He deadpans.

And so you sat there. Fiddling the card in between your fingers, feigning nonchalance. You were very much on the brink of cracking your facade—your sanity practically crumbling as the minutes ticked by. You didn’t think you’d last this long, to be honest. Yet an hour and a half proved to be way too straining on you in a variety of different ways.

He simply sat there with his hands folded on the table—void of emotion, whistling a familiar top 50s tune you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

You considered shifting your focuses on trying to comprehend the tune—hoping it would ease the concerning state of apprehension you were in. But then you assured yourself that you haven't reached that level of patheticism yet.

Even though you both had probably been sitting in complete silence for about two minutes now —practically anyone else could detect was the crickets chirping outside his apartment, yet the only sound that was filling your eardrums was your own conscience telling you how idiotic you were being.

This was it. There was no point in trying to weasel yourself out of this situation. If you tried, your more than futile attempt could very well end up causing more problems than if you were to go with the latter.

So instead of constantly wracking your brain with witty banter and deceitful ways to gaslight your feelings for the man sitting in front of you, you come to terms with the fact that your time had run out. You internally commend yourself for putting up a good fight, as well as internally become accosted at how immature you were at handling the whole situation.

You sharply inhale through your nose, peering at the man sitting in front of you as his eyes meet your own, "Alright."

He offers you a small yet empathetic smile in return, giving you the tiniest sliver of reassurance. His hand pats the couch cushion next to him, motioning for you to sit down next to him.

You push yourself up from the floor, immediately propping a leg onto the couch to avoid your numb limbs to be the cause of your embarrassment.

You inhale slowly through your nose and out through your mouth. "This is going to sound really absurd. Like more than absurd. Possibly borderline hysterical." No Y/N, why would you say that?

He interjects, placing a hand on your forearm. "I'm beginning to think you're becoming borderline hysterical," he lets out a small chuckle, "slow down Y/N. One thought at a time."

Your jaw is still slack open due to your previous rambling. "I'm sorry, I just—I don't think I've ever felt this anxious… around you at least."

He bites his lip, eyes trailing away from yours as he tries to think of a way to aid you, "Will it help if I turn around?

"Maybe." You reply timidly, smiling to yourself as his back came into view.

“It’ll be pretty funny if we don’t remember this in the morning,” you start off with, “I shouldn’t be saying that either I’m sorry. Stupid alcohol.”

He snickers at your drunken state, it was adorable. “Pretend I’m not here Y/N. Like you’re talking to a wall.” He advises, back still turned.

You nod although he can’t see you. “Okay. Well, hi Mr. Wall. I’ve been keeping a secret from my best friend for as long as I’ve known him and I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve suppressed it all this time in hopes that it would eventually fade away, and it almost did. No really, it actually almost did. But now it’s back again and all the same feelings came, but like freaking twofold. No, tenfold. No, like a hundred fucking fold.”

Jimin tries excruciatingly hard to stifle his laughter, cupping a hand to his mouth so he wouldn’t move and distract you.

“I’m literally in love with my freaking best friend when I know he doesn’t see me in that light nor will he ever. If he did, we wouldn’t be where we are right now because I am so shitty at hiding my feelings that I am more than certain that I’ve let the truth slip a couple of times.” You say all in one breath.

He slowly detaches his hand from his mouth, eyebrows raising in disbelief in the words you had just said. His body urges him to turn around. Yet you continue to think out loud. So he digresses.

“Towards the end of high school, I think my feelings started to become more dormant because I had become more concerned over finishing high school and transitioning into college. I was content and I convinced myself that my feelings were fleeting for once.” You begin with, allowing whatever thoughts that you consumed your mind to spill all out for Mr. Wall to hear.

You sigh, taking a pillow from his couch and squeezing onto it for dear life. “That was until we ended up getting into our top picks and going to the same school. I couldn’t believe it. My stupid head tried to convince me that life had always just paired the two of us up together for some reason. And that maybe, just maybe I had a chance. But whatever I guess. I don’t know.”

A notification causes your eyes to trail to your phone. Really, Professor La, this is not a good time to tell me to finish my research paper. You swipe at the notification, revealing your lock screen—a photo of you and Jimin at an amusement park back at your hometown, sporting matching university hoodies with bright smiles on your faces that were captured mid-laughter.

Setting your phone down, you lean into the couch—letting your head fall into the cushions as your eyelids slowly start to droop shut. “What also didn’t help is how college life just seems to suit him perfectly. He just always looks so happy now. Like yeah, he’s always been a social butterfly. Yet in addition to that he has top notch grades. He charms professors. For fuck’s sake the Dean treats him like a son. His passion, his laughter, his love, his happiness. It’s always been so infectious. But college just made the effect he has on people grow even stronger. I-,” you stammer, pausing breathlessly, “it just looks like he truly belongs here. Like college was just made for him.”

He sits there in a complete stupor—still trying to process all the words that he had just heard. His body is itching to turn around, take you into his arms, whisper soft nothings into your ear. Anythings. Everything. He never wanted you to feel anxious about his feelings for you ever again.

“Mr. Wall, that was a lot, I’m sorry. But I’m really… really tired.” You utter quietly, a long yawn escaping your lips. You fall asleep.

Ten seconds pass until Jimin sneaks a glance over his shoulder, scanning your body as he notices your shut eyes and timid grip on his pillow.

“Y/N?”

You’re unresponsive.

He grins at the sight. Getting up from his seat, he makes his way toward you—slowly prying the pillow from your grasp as you carefully slides his hands under your body and picks you up from the couch.

Instinctively, you wrap your arms around his neck and bury your face into his shoulder as he carries you to his bedroom. You are very much still asleep, yet you always had the habit of needing something to hold onto while you were unconscious.

Kicking the sheets aside, he makes room for you to lie down as he gently places you onto his bed. He quickly scurries to the other side, slipping into the covers himself as he lays down beside you.

The sudden contact causes you to shift in your sleep—suddenly wrapping an arm around his torso. He lays there, completely stunned at your actions and begins to heavily debate whether he should give into his desires or not.

The internal conflict lasts about two seconds before he turns to his side—placing his free hand on the small of your back and pulling you into his chest, leaving a small pocket of space in between your two bodies.

Unknowingly, you close the gap almost immediately—nestling your head into the crook of his neck as your arm that was lazily slung over his torso starts to tighten its hold around his body.

His arm slings over your unconscious form, his hands making his way to your back as he basks in the foreign feeling, being this close in proximity to you. It was different. Yet it almost felt like it was where he belonged. And he was scared because he didn’t want it to end.

While gently placing his chin on the top of your head, he begins to stroke your hair as fatigue starts to wash over him as well. “Things will make sense soon Y/N, I swear.”

He retracts, craning his neck in an attempt to see your sleeping form. His attempt proves to be futile when an indecipherable groan leaves your lips—brows knitting slightly and lips curling downward from the sudden lack of warmth.

His soft laughter fills the room as he obliges—carefully pressing a small kiss to your forehead before reverting back to his original position.

“For now, just know that I love you too.”

The intolerable throbbing sensation in your temples caused you to stir in your sleep.

The only events you could recall from last night was being at Jimin’s apartment, playing that stupid card game, and downing the most soju you’ve ever had in one sitting.

It only occurs to you that you’re wrapped in someone’s arms when you open your eyes and the only thing in your periphery is a firm chest, steadily heaving each time they take a breath.

Your legs were messily entangled with theirs—arms slung around each other’s torsos as you felt a strange yet dense weight on the top of your head.

Carefully, you try to pry yourself from their grasp albeit your haphazard state of mind. You pull back ever so slightly, making sure not to wake them up in the process, discovering that the excess weight was actually their chin that had been resting on top of your head. Their fingers were still twined in your hair as you pulled back, making you freeze in your spot. Curious, you tilt your head, peering upwards and catching a glimpse of their face.

The boy is undoubtedly still asleep. Eyes shut and ample lips slightly parted. Your timid movement, to your luck, which hadn’t phased him in the slightest, as he was unperceptive and nearly immobile at this point.

If it weren't for your abhorrent headache and the even more abhorrent symptoms that had rooted from your hangover, it would be an understatement to say that you would be freaking out right about now. In reality,

You'd be in a complete state of manic.

Because of the fact that your body was paying for the despicable amount of alcohol you had decided to consume the night before, an influx of any intense emotion would cause your body to exacerbate itself even more. And the last thing you needed was to puke all over the poor guy after sleeping together for the first time.

While you were physically experiencing withdrawals, your mind felt slightly inebriated nonetheless. You weren't quite sure if it was from last night's affluence of liquor or the way everything's starting to come back to you. And the longer your eyes linger on the boy's face, the clearer everything starts to become. From the foolish banter to your childish outbursts leading up to your intoxicated yet conscientious confession.

You left your heart all out for him to witness last night, and now the only thing you could do is wait for a response.

Taking a deep sigh, you retreat back to his body—deciding not to ponder any longer on the matter and wait until you had felt physically capable of doing so.

Steaming hot streams of water splash against his back. He stands under the shower head while massaging soap into his hair, replaying the events that had happened last night on loop.

The words that left your mouth were engraved into his mind as they involuntarily kept replaying over and over again—particularly your inebriated confession, which kept garnering the same reaction of both hope and frustration within him.

The solution should be simple. In reality it is, yet he still felt so internally scattered.

“—he doesn’t see me in that light nor will he ever...”

That was the singular line that he just couldn’t wrap his head around. There was never a moment where he would hesitate to drop everything he was doing to be there for you and make sure you were okay.

Yes, he knew that you two were best friends and that it was natural. But what best friend drives across town at 2am because you had the stomach flu and your parents were out of town. Keep in mind it was his mom’s birthday that day.

What best friend ditches their prom date when yours had stood you up. Or coax the drama teacher into giving you the lead in the school play because he saw the ways your eyes glimmered when you saw the words ‘High School Musical’. And damn, weren’t you justthe greatest Gabriella he’s ever seen.

Little did you know that in reality, he always wanted you to be the Gabriella to his Troy, and not Chad. Yet you seemed to have believed the latter all along.

But in the end, what the hell kind of best friend remains oblivious to the fact that for years, past exes have consistently broken up with him for the same reason.

“Your heart belongs to someone else.”

Or alternatively,

“I’m not the right person for you.”

Straight A’s don’t mean shit when no teacher has ever taught him how to realize that he was irrevocably in love with his best friend, and that she had always, almost candidly, felt the same way.

He shuts his eyes tightly, hands aggressively running through his soaked hair as he comes to a conclusion.

Being strangers could never be an option. Being friends, or moreso, best friends was fine. But that’s it. It was just fine. It was normalcy. It has been for years.

And that just wasn’t going to cut it for him anymore.

Your arm traces along the fabric of the bedsheets, alerting you that there was a void of space and lack of warmth from the other side of the bed. Your eyes spring open to see that there was no one laying beside you.

A long yawn escapes your lips as you stretch your limbs, body sprawling all over the bed before selfishly tugging the sheets all to yourself.

Soft hissing from which you assume was coming from his shower was confirmed to be true when your eyes spot the closed bathroom door and the small beam of light that was emitting from it.

A small, folded piece of paper that was taking up the space of where his head was resting was where your eyes shift to next.

y/n <3

You knit your brows together, knowing that it was most likely put there strategically rather than a piece of trash that had slipped out of his pocket.

It was addressed to you after all and so you grab it while making a futile attempt to rub the sleep out of your eyes. Your throbbing headache and churning insides had significantly died down. Regardless of your recovery time you internally make a promise to yourself to never get this wasted ever again. The chances of you sticking to it? Highly debatable considering the current situation you’re in.

Blinking rapidly, you finally are able to decipher whatever is written onto the paper. And it says:

hi y/n, i can already tell by the looks that you’re giving me that you already despise this game and im sorry. all i wanna say is that by the time you read this, i hope that we remain close as ever even though what i plan on saying tonight could obliterate all of that. i wanted to play this game bc i know we’re both hiding stuff from each other and it’s about time we get it out. at least for me. whatever happens, i love you. always will.

- chim :)

EDIT: for fuck’s sake y/n i’m FUCKING IN LOVE WITH YOU TOO I WAS SUPPOSED TO CONFESS TO U FIRST LOSER NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND T-T

“Finally awake?” You hear a familiar voice call out. He walks out of the bathroom, fully clothed (to your dismay) while drying his hair with a towel, eyes immediately softening as they connect with yours.

You swallow down your nerves, “Yeah, I’ve been.”

He walks over to the edge of the bed, eyes shifting to the piece of paper in your hand before reverting his focus back to your face, “What are you reading there?”

“I don’t know,” you huff, feigning ignorance, “why don’t you tell me.”

A soft chortle leaves his lips as he throws the towel to the side, smiling as wide as ever as he jumps onto the vacant spot on his bed right next to you.

Propping himself up, he sits against the headboard, letting out a content sigh before looking down at you once more. “Come here.” He says, reaching his arms out in hopes that you’d fill the idle gap.

And you do, shaking the sheets off of your body as you place yourself in his arms, freshly revelling in the comfort. You wrap your arms snugly around his waist, letting your head rest on his chest while he clutches onto you tightly.

“I’m sorry for pushing the subject so hard onto you last night.” He starts off with, “I guess I just never fathomed the fact that you could return the feeling, and I was too stubborn to even admit it to you in the first place.” He expresses while stroking your back, “I didn’t mean to confront you so harshly, it’s unlike me, and I’m really sorry about it Y/N.”

“Do you think I’m mad about that Jimin?” You inquire, just barely above a whisper.

He pulls back slightly, peering down at you, “Are you?”

“Of course not. I should be the one apologizing anyways for being even more stubborn and resorting to such childish ways.” You disclose whilst mentally beating yourself up.

“Hey, there’s no use in beating ourselves up over it. Look where we are now.”

“Where exactly are we Jimin?” You inquire timidly, head still resting on his chest.

His fingers brush over the base of your chin, gently tilting your head up until your eyes found his.

“Y/N, it’s honestly hard for me to formulate the words but all I know is that I think I’m in love with you. And I think I have been for a long time, no scratch that, I have been for a long time,” he says all in one breath, making you smile at how high-strung he was acting.

The grin remains plastered onto your face, “I’m not drunk still right because did I just hear you say that you’ve been in love with me?”

“Y/N…” he whines, jutting out his bottom lip as he drags out the last syllable of your name.

You can’t help but laugh. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Go on please.”

He bites his lip, “I honestly had a whole speech prepared in the shower but I forgot all of it.”

“It’s alright, I barely remember half the stuff I spewed out last night,” you chortle.

He chuckles, “Well, if you were wondering, you’re cute as fuck when you’re piss drunk.”

The compliment makes your breath hitch in your throat—your heart starting to pick up speed dangerously quick.

A few seconds pass, allowing you to slightly gain back some of your composure, “Why did you um– I mean– when do you think you fell in love with me?” You stutter.

“I was actually trying to figure that out too,” he starts, “in the shower. Well, this is going to sound dumb,” he admits, sharply exhaling out of his nose, “But do you remember when we went on a field trip to that amusement park in 8th grade? Around halloween time.”

“I think so… but what about it?”

He nods. “I still remember that night so vividly for some reason,” he pauses, collecting his thoughts, “There were haunted houses all over the park. And they were all different themes. And I think the first one we went into together was—”

“The clown one.” You deadpan.

“Yeah!” He beams, laughing at the way you shudder after your words, “Anyways, you were walking behind me with your hands on my shoulders, but you had a razor grip and I thought my arms were going to fall off, so I made you walk next to me instead. We had our arms interlocked and you were gripping onto me so closely and you had your head buried in my shoulder the whole time.” He explains, the smile never ceasing to leave his lips.

You don’t take his eyes off of him—smiling sweetly as he explains the retrospective moment that you never knew had held so much significance to him.

“All of a sudden, you grabbed my hand, and honestly, I think that was the scariest part of the whole experience,” he admits, chuckling softly.

“But then I intertwined fingers with you. And I liked it. Thinking about it now, I probably loved it. It felt almost borderline euphoric. Like as if I was riding a high, and when we detached hands, it felt like there was just something missing. And I guess I never really put the pieces together because it just became a normal thing after that. And when our skinship kept evolving from there, I just kept dismissing it over and over again. Like as if that feeling was a normal thing to happen between friends, because I genuinely thought it was. Yeah, I think that’s the moment I pretty much fell in love with you.” He finishes, giving you a close-mouthed smile while he tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

Astounded was an understatement. You couldn’t believe that you both had been suppressing these feelings for so long. Yet somehow, this whole confession didn’t seem out of place or time, it was as if everything that had happened beforehand had led up to this very moment.

“Wow, Jimin I– I don’t know what to say.” You reply.

He shakes his head. “You don’t have to say anything Y/N. I’m sorry for making you wait for so long, after all.”

You interject, “Please don’t say sorry, I think we were definitely both in the wrong here.”

He smiles, except this time his eyes crinkle up all the way, “Alright, but can you at least let me make it up to you?”

“I’m listening.” You jokingly reply.

“Let’s go on a date,” he declares brazenly, “but tonight, after we’ve recovered from our hangovers and what not.”

The corners of your lips upturn so high that your cheekbones sting, “Jimin, I’d love to–”

“Ah, wait! I’m not done.” He cuts you off, head inching forward, leaning in so close that you could feel his breath tickle your ear and the heat rushing up to your cheeks.

“And at the very end of the night, I’ll make certain that you won’t be able to walk normally by tomorrow.” He whispers into your ear— voice low and full of lust.

Shivers run through your body as it feels like all the wind had just gotten knocked out of you. Yeah, this was definitely worth the wait.

MASTERLIST ; SEQUEL

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hongnanglen-arina · 3 years

Text

The Ulzzang Project - Part 3 | Jeon Wonwoo

Read part 2 Read part 4

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Genre: a little fluff and angst, crack

Pairing: Jeon Wonwoo x female reader

Warnings: well, not too angsty I guess but I didn’t re-read.. oh and alcohol consuming

Words: 3.3k

A/N: Hello hello! Sorry for the rather long wait! I thought it could spice it up if someone else is thrown into the pot hehehe (: as always, I’d be happy to know your thoughts about it. Please remember that English isn’t my first language so excuse my grammar ♡

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You tapped the pencil against your chin. Working on a presentation wasn’t your thing and especially the beginning was the most stressful part, always. A brainstorming sketch was on a sheet of paper in front of you and between the person you were with. It was nice to work on it at a public place and you loved to have cafe sounds in the background. That’s why you suggested this cafe in the first place. You’ve already finished on a couple of presentations here and the vibe this cafe was giving you helped a lot. But you weren’t sure if it was the right decision today - for this presentation. You couldn’t hear the familiar sounds of people talking and relaxing with the coffee machine preparing the next order. All you could hear was whispering. Loud whispering. And you could feel the stares shooting holes in your body from every angle possible.

“We should write down some notes for the first part. Hasn’t be too much. Like in 20 minutes we compare our notes and decide what’s best?” You tried to ignore the glares you got, looking at the boy in front of you.

Yoon Jeonghan.

Actually you liked your professor but his idea to team you up with Jeonghan for this statistics project was stupid. All your prayers that he would change his mind or that Jeonghan would complain so much that you would get a different partner were useless. After he saw who you were, he even insisted doing it with you and you didn’t understand why.

So you just settled with the thought of doing it. Not that you had another option anyways.

But all those girls who were watching you two made you uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.

Your project partner leaned back. “I’m fine if you start. I’m sure your pretty head is very useful for this.”

Somehow it didn’t surprise you. His attitude was exactly like you had assumed after everything you head… and also after seeing his Instagram. Was this boy really of no use? Tall and handsome but an asshole? Although you weren’t surprised, you still had some hope that not all good looking people were bad. Best example, your best friend Wonwoo.

The thought of Wonwoo caused you to sigh. Yesterday at this time, you were sitting outside on a bench with your friends. You could even see the place from where you were stuck with Jeonghan if you looked outside the window. After you discovered the new post with Wonwoo’s text, your break was over and everyone left for their next subject. Up until now you weren’t sure what he meant with it. It had to be a joke. Just something to gain more followers and likes. Something fitting for your fake couple page. But why did it make your heart skip a beat when you first saw it? You didn’t know what to say to your best friend or how to address the topic so you thought you would let him take the first step, which hadn’t happened. It made you angry for no reason.

You sighed again. This time louder.

“Are you mad at me?”

Jeonghan’s voice pulled you out of your thoughts. “What?”

“You didn’t react when I was talking to you so I got worried.”

Quickly lowering your gaze, you flipped around an empty page, readjusting the pencil in your hand. “Oh no no, don’t worry. Everything’s okay. I already have some ideas for our project. Just give me a moment.”

The person in front of you smiled widely at your reply, which you missed out on because you were already scribbling down while your brain was working and distracting itself from your male best friend.

“Oh great! I can leave then, yes? Thank you y/n. We can discuss our project later. Maybe tomorrow, same time same place?” He got up from his chair and was about to turn around with a ‘bye’ when you stood up as well, calling his name.

“Yoon Jeonghan, let me remind you. This is a group project. A group project is supposed to be done as a group. In a group. You may decide who will focus on which part but what you just said sounded as if you expect me to do everything alone. Please tell me I’m wrong.”

He turned around to face you again, the smile still on his lips. “I knew your pretty head was useful. You got it absolutely right. I’m looking forward to the outcome. See you tomorrow then, y/n!”

He really was an asshole.

“Stop you little shit!”

Suddenly it was quiet around you but you didn’t care. You were angry.

“The fact that I was writing and actually trying to be productive wasn’t a hint for you to stand up and go away. I want to do this because I have to. No matter if you’re my partner or someone else. Knowing you better shows me that I would probably be happier with someone else that’s not as ignorant and dumb as you. I really hoped you would prove me wrong but it’s just the looks that you have. Everything else is bad. Anyways, if you leave now, I will talk to our prof and tell him about it. I won’t do it with you if you let me work alone. I will give you one more chance or I’m the one that’s off. So?”

Jeonghan looked at you with wide eyes.

You were the first girl. The first that wasn’t following him. That wasn’t only agreeing to everything he said. The first girl that wasn’t head over heels for him.

You were different.

“So?” You repeated, slightly impatient. There were quite some places you would rather be right now than here with Yoon Jeonghan and is admires who were glaring at you for not treating him as the hottest and most wanted man on campus. Who came up with this nonsense anyways!?

“What.. do you… want me to do?” He finally asked you and the way he was standing in front of you seemed as if he was confused, scared even.

“The presentation. It has to be done. And for that, you and I will sit here and work on it.”

He slowly flops down on his chair again and for once you thought he looked cute but you quickly shook the thought off before sitting down again as well, taking your pencil again.

As you wanted to continue writing, you heard him clear his throat, causing you to look up from your paper. “What is it?”

“… can you give me a pen and paper?”

It took you a second until you gave him the things he asked you for. Maybe he had nothing to write. Whatever the reason, you felt great that you made the ‘holy’ Jeonghan work on the project. Maybe he wasn’t an asshole after all.

—

You sat on the floor, back resting against you bed as you took a sip of the new smoothie your mother made. There were too many ingredients, you could only remember it had apple, chia, spinach and banana in it.

Without noticing, your sleepy mind trailed from how you were working on your presentation with Jeonghan to the boy from your shared Instagram account. There was still no message on your phone from him. Did he just write it underneath the post without a meaning? Were you the only one who was trying to read between the lines to understand what he might wanted to say?

Absentmindedly you grabbed your phone to catch up with the things you missed while being with Jeonghan the whole day after your classes. After seeing again that there was no new message from Wonwoo in you chat app - only one from Chan, asking you if you had seen the new choreography video of a dance team you two liked - you changed the app and scrolled through your Instagram feed. Nothing interesting nor new. On Wonwoo’s personal page was no update. On your shared one was no update. Bored, you clicked the like button on a photo of Dokyeom and his selfmade pizza which looked amazing and a photo of Hoshi’s tiger plushie with the text ‘horanghae’.

Sighing, the thought of your friend still bothered you. It unusual for him to be this quiet all day. Maybe you should take the first step and just start a conversation? Casually? There was still a high possibility that he wrote the sentence without a meaning so why not say hi?

[Y/n] Hey, what’s up?

Was that casual enough?

2 Minutes passed. No response.

5 Minutes passed. Still no response.

“Why is he like this?!” You whined, letting yourself fall to the side so you were lying on the floor when your mother came into your room after knocking twice.

“Are you alright dear? Are you exhausted from uni? Or is my smoothie bad?? You can tell me honestly, I won’t get mad, I promise.”

You pouted and mouthed ‘uni’ and she nodded understandingly. “Rest then. You know, if you need anything, tell me. I can cook your favorite dish or prepare dessert. I can read you a book or cuddle you to sleep-“

“Mom!”

She laughed and waved apologetic. “Understand. My little girl isn’t so little anymore. Just call whenever you need me. I’ll be in the living room watching my drama.”

You thanked her and watched her leave your room.

Automatically you looked at your phone again, opening Instagram. While you were working on your presentation with Jeonghan, you two exchanged numbers and followed each other on the app. You had an actually nice conversation and got to know him a little better. He wasn’t so snobbish as you though he would be.

Your eyes were glued on Jeonghan’s update from 2 hours ago. It was a photo of you how you were concentrated on writing down your part from your project, two milkshakes in front of you. His had less while your own drink was almost full and untouched because you had a rush of ideas and decided to write them down before it disappeared. You didn’t know he took a photo. That’s when you saw the text he added to the photo.

Interesting. She might become a candidate (:

A candidate for what?? Cocking your head to the side, you wanted to know what he meant with it when your phone chimed, telling you about a new message. When you saw that it was from Wonwoo, your fingers tapped faster to read it.

[Wonwoo] Bored to death. You?

[Y/n] Same. Park in 30? Crave ice cream…

Maybe you replied too fast but you didn’t care. You were just happy he was talking to you even though you weren’t sure why you were worried he wouldn’t. There was no issue between the two of you or was it?

[Wonwoo] Deal. See ya

Although you were relieved he replied and even agreed to seeing you but something in you was still worried for some reason. But you couldn’t deny the little excitement in the back of your mind.

After finishing your smoothie and making your mother happy with it, you complimented her before leaving the apartment to meet up with Wonwoo. Even though it was dark outside, the fact that you were going to meet your childhood friend made your mother worry less. She knew that he was a good person and if something scary would occur, he would defend or help you first.

With the familiar cheers and wishes that ‘your mother would be overly happy if you two would finally get together as a couple’, you left your home and made your way to the little park. You wondered if Wonwoo was already there.

While you were walking, your thoughts traveled to everything that happened over the last few days.

Last weekend, when you decided to start your shared Instagram and act as an ulzzang couple just to see how many likes and followers you could get within a month. The seemingly normal texts under his posts that made your heart skip a beat. The way he babied you more than once which he had never done before. The overall vide he gave was different. You could still recognize your bestie but there was something that had changed but you weren’t able to tell why that was or what it caused.

Then to uni. Your presentation with the infamous Yoon Jeonghan who you disliked from the second you were introduced to him through your friends and their knowledge about him. He was too handsome that he just had to be arrogant and ignorant. It turned out that he is from the outside but strangely after you scolded him in front of everyone else in the cafe, he was very nice and cooperative all of a sudden. He even told you that he would work on the middle part and you could go through it tomorrow. You still didn’t fully believe him so you might prepare something in case it was all a lie. But you could do that tomorrow. Today your priority was Wonwoo.

When you arrived at the park, he wasn’t there. Maybe you were too happy and walked too fast?

Looking around and making sure that he really wasn’t around, you slowly made your way to the swing and sat down, slightly moving back and forth with your feet on the ground and hands around the chains on each side. You looked down when out of nowhere fear crept up your spine.

Oh your friends: the ‘what if’s’.

What if he was disappointed in you for whatever reason? Maybe for not texting him sooner? What if he was mad at you for not using your shared account? At least not as often as he did? What if he wasn’t happy about Jeonghan teaming up with you for the presentation? But then again, it wasn’t your decision. He couldn’t blame you.

You shook your head. Those questions should go away.

You knew why they have appeared.

Because you missed your best friend.

And combined with the fact that you felt his attitude was different over the last week just added to your pile of anxiety.

A soft tap on your shoulder caused you to snap out of your thoughts. Wonwoo was standing beside you with melon ice cream in his hands, offering you one.

“Heard you wanted ice cream?”

Immediately, you smiled at him, a warmth rushing through your body as you finally saw your friend again and him paying attention to you intensified the relieve.

“Thank you.”

You took one and started eating it while Wonwoo sat down on the other swing, both of you enjoying your ice cream in silence. The noises of your surroundings were kind of far away from you, looking for words to start a conversation.

Once you finished, you looked at the boy beside you, just to notice that he was looking at you too.

“I missed you,” you said in unison and the moment your brains progressed it, you two looked away sheepishly.

It was stupid, you had to admit. It only had been a little over 1 day that you haven’t seen your friend but because of the overall situation, you were were like this.

Again, you were looking for words to form a sentence and to distract yourself from the red cheeks. “W-what were you doing when I sent the message?”

His head turned back to you when he started to talk, “I was playing an online game but it wasn’t my day today. They always killed me with ease. Wherever I was hiding, whatever I thought was a good tactic, they found me and ended my sad life. Your message helped. What about you?”

“Did nothing. Well, complimenting my mother on her new smoothie?”

Suddenly Wonwoo was chuckling. “Sometimes I envy you for not living alone as I do.”

“You’re not alone. I’m literally always at your place.”

Your reply made Wonwoo sigh and you tried to figure out why he was feeling down all of a sudden, waiting for him to answer your silent question but he asked you something else, changing the topic.

“How is your presentation going?”

It took you by surprise but you decided to give him an honest answer, just being happy to have a topic to talk about.

“At first I hated Jeonghan but he’s okay. Really. After I got angry at him, he actually worked on it with me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he even volunteered to prepare the middle part. You know, the most important part of the whole thing. He also listened to me and-“

“You got angry at him?”

“U-uh… yeah. That dude wanted to leave me alone and don’t help with it. Can you imagine? He really thought he could get away with it. But not with me, ha!”

He chuckled again, seemingly approving your previous outburst of anger with the other.

While you were watching Wonwoo from the side and admiring his crunched laughter, you remembered his Instagram post and started chewing on the inside of your cheek.

Wonwoo didn’t notice your nervousness as he was shaking his head at the thought of you making a scene in front of his fanclub. He wished he would have seen it happening. Something told him that it wouldn’t be the only occasion for you to lose your temper with him and that he may see it the next time if he sticked to you more often.

“Wanna skip tomorrow’s morning lectures with me?”

The question left your lips faster than you could think and surprised you as well as him when you met Wonwoo’s expression, but his was quickly followed by a smirk.

“Do I smell a mario kart session with greasy food?”

“Yep.”

Hearing his amused snort made you happy for some reason and when he got up and held his hand out for you to grab and follow him, you did as he wordlessly asked and went to his place, hand in hand. Like you often did.

It seemed as if your anxiety was for nothing. He was the same when you arrived at his place, got out of your shoes and offered you a can of beer. He was the same when he asked you what you wanted to eat. He was even the same when he took the last bite of your dish without asking beforehand. And he was the same when he started a fight when he lost against you at mario kart 4 matches in a row. You felt as if it had been a decade since you laughed as much.

You made a mental note not to think too much again when it comes to your best friend.

After a while you two changed to more comfortable clothes as you opened your third can of beer, Wonwoo was on his fourth. That was exactly what you needed. Although it wasn’t the best decision but numbing your previous doubts and fears and enjoying the company of your bestie was the best right now.

“I love spending time with you y/n.”

Thanks to the alcohol in your system, you weren’t too shy to react to his words and felt kind of adventurous. “Thanks for the kind words but to be honest I expected to hear that you want to take your sexy photos now that I’m drunk.”

“Ha ha ah… you’re not completely wrong though.” Wonwoo readjusted his glasses and took a sip of his beer when you said, “Okay. let’s do this.” Your friend nearly choked on the alcohol but asked again what you just said, just in case he heard wrong.

“I said, let’s take those photos for our Instagram.”

64 notes · View notes

hitsuackerman · 4 years

Text

A Different Hashira (Giyu x Reader) pt 1

At age 10, (Y/N) (L/N) became one of the first Hashira's along side her mentor Sakonji Urokodaki.

However, despite the honor of becoming a Hashira, she does not see herself fit for the title. Only Urokodaki and Ubuyashiki know about her breathing style.

10 years have passed since that faithful day. Now that the Hashira's have grown into 10, she starts to open up to her fellow demon slayers. One of the newer Hashira's catch her attention. The one with the mismatched haori.

-I do not own Kimetsu no Yaiba. None of the characters nor story do not belong to me. -I will try to incorporate some scenes of the anime ;)

-this is also in ao3/quotev/wattpad :)

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

You slowly sheathed your sword back to it's scabbard.

It was a full moon tonight and you admired the silence the forest had to offer. Each chirp the crickets produced, the sound of a nearby river flowing with nature, and a random owl hooting in the distance effectively calmed you.

Still gripping the handle of your Nichirin blade, you reminded yourself to regain control of your slightly trembling body. It took a considerable amount of effort but you managed to take control and used full focused breathing once more.

Feeling that your senses were now tranquil, you opened your eyes. In front of you were the remains of seven demons. All had their heads severed. Save for one of which you ended up disintegrating. But that was your goal so it was alright. Blood stains were now present in your haori. Your haori had absorbed a decent amount causing it to droop a bit.

Tonight's one on one training was rather... unique. Instead of using nature, Urokodaki decided to take you into the woods to see how far you had developed your breathing style.

"You seem to have trained behind my back, (Y/N)."

You hadn't noticed that he was now beside you. Both of you now staring at the full moon.

"The blade hates being sedentary."

The moon cast a yellowish glow to the rocks and grass. Whatever demon you had slain, they were now non-existent. A gentle breeze embraced the two of you. In your own absurd way, you liked to think that the wind was the way of demons saying thank you for releasing them from the curse given to them. Whether it's true or not, you didn't really care.

"Shall we head back?"

Heading back to the water estate, the comfortable silence between you and your teacher got cut with a messenger raven.

"It still perplexes me how you managed to convince Ubuyashiki-sama to give you a raven and not a crow." Urokodaki commented with a hint of pride in his voice. You were one of his protege's and being given a privilege to care for a different messenger bird was a small accomplishment.

"(Y/N) (L/N) to report to Ubuyashiki-sama."

"Even managed to train it to talk calmly. As expected nonetheless." He gently patted your head. "I will be fine on my own, proceed with utmost caution (Y/N)."

Without waiting for a reply, you watched your teacher walk towards your home. His light blue kimono glistened a silvery hue once the clouds showed the moon's presence once more.

"Leggo, Karasutori."

Nipping on your palm once, Karasutori took flight and lead you to the Ubuyashiki manor.

Though the distance wasn't too great, it took a good 30 minutes of walking (granted you got lost). When you finally arrived, you were greeted with his children. Despite people claiming them to look magical, in your head, you still saw them as creepy. The way their gigantic eyes would stare at you always put you on edge. Thankfully, Ubuyashiki-sama has the Soothing Voice.

Tea was served as you waited for the 97th leader to arrive. Fiddling with the chains at the of your handle, you only noticed that each chain had a red glossy finish.

"Good evening, (Y/N)."

"Ubuyashiki-sama." You gave him a bow. Looking at his face sent pain through your veins. You had made it a personal mission to somehow find a cure to his curse. Though you had no clue as to how, yet.

"I see you have quickly mastered your breathing style."

"Not all ten yet, Ubuyashiki-sama. The 9th and 10th are a bit difficult, but nothing too much to handle."

"Sakonji-kun has taught you well."

Simply nodding, you shifted a bit in your seat. In all honesty, you were tired from the training session. You started from morning and barely took any rest.

"What is my purpose here, Ubuyashiki-sama?"

"I have heard and seen your abilities, (Y/N). You see, my foresight has shown me that you will achieve many in the near future." Taking a sip of his tea, he stared at you through his blank lavender eyes. "It is about time you become a Hashira."

"Huh?" Taken aback by his statement, your jaw hung loosely as you processed what he had just told you.

"Become a Hashira, (Y/N). You have all the skills and mastery to be one. I have already informed Sakonji-kun. It is now up to you to grab the opportunity or reap another future."

"I would love to... But my breathing style, Ubuyashiki-sama. It's not suited to be a pillar."

"Nonsense."

"Can I still live with Urokodaki-sensei?"

"For the time being you may, but in due time, you will have to live in your own estate."

The picture of having your own estate boggled your mind. The estate would probably be dark and empty as hell.

"Alright. If it brings calm to your foresight, then I will agree."

As a token of his appreciation, he instructed Kiriya to get a box from his personal quarters. When Kiriya arrived, he held onto a rectangular box. The box was matte black tied together by a gold ribbon. The tips of the ribbon were raggedly cut and stained with black. You couldn't help but smile at the beauty.

With the box in front you, you carefully pulled on the ribbon and lifted the lid.

Inside was a haori. It had a geometrical pattern consisting of red, white and black. The hems were lined black. Lifting it up, you could feel how soft the material was. It was far better than the haori you had on. This one felt luxurious.

Taking your haori off, you carefully folded it and placed it beside you. It was only now you saw just how battered and blood stained it was due to the light of the room. Embarrassment entered your system till you wore the new haori.

In an instant, you felt calm and collected. Whatever thoughts than ran through your head slowed down. It felt as if a huge burden was taken from your shoulders.

"Ahh, you can feel it."

"Is this supposed to happen?"

"Only to that one. That haori of yours is a special one. I specifically made that for you. It's calming, is it not?"

"What if I outgrow this?"

"Inform Amane. She will make one tailored to your height."

This time, you couldn't contain the smile anymore. You continuously thanked and bowed to the leader till he excused you from his manor.

The journey back to the water estate felt surreal. This morning you were nothing but a 10 year old trainee under Urokodaki. Now, you were a Hashira. Running now, you couldn't wait to feel the happiness of your mentor. He had raised you and taught you everything you had to know despite not being able to use Water breathing techniques.

By the time you reached the estate, you could smell the aroma of soup coming from the building. Opening the doors, you were met with the familiar red mask and a bowl ready for you.

"You make me proud, (Y/N)..."

With a pounding heart, you ran towards your mentor and gave him a gratifying embrace. This was not a shock to the masked man since he knew you saw him as a father figure. Patting your back, he could feel the sense of calm engulfing the two of you. Realizing what their master had done, caused him to hum in content.

Letting go of your teacher and waiting for the soup to be served, you fiddled with your haori. Even your blade felt much lighter and clearer.

After finishing dinner, Urokodaki motioned you to follow him to the patio.

The sound of the river was relaxing as ever. The cool breeze that swept your faces, occasional frogs croaking in the distance, and the sound of the cackling fire made things fall into place.

"(Y/N)."

"Yes, Urokodaki-sensei?"

"I am stepping down as a Hashira."

You weren't surprised. After being with him for a good 4 years, you could somehow read his actions. He wasn't too keen on the Hashira lifestyle. If given the option, he would rather live by the woods and chop trees. He did mention he would still train but only if he sees the person fit. Though you were not going to deny, it caused a bit of sadness on your part.

"I understand. Will you still train me if I ask?"

"Of course. You are the exception."

"Where will you go?"

For a moment, only the sound of the rushing waters could be heard.

"I am not sure yet, but I shall send my crow when I settle."

Nodding your head, you stood up and excused yourself. Leaving your teacher to ponder on his thoughts. Exchanging good nights, you silently closed your door and flopped to your futon. Loneliness slowly taking over you.

Dragging your futon near your window, you took in the moonlight. It usually managed to soothe your insomnia.

Though you didn't really mind, you decided that it was time for you to better know who the others were.

One main reason why you chose not to was due to the fact that you were too young and they seemed to be coming and going. Ever since you received Karasutori, you had recieved multpile announcements saying that this hashira had perished in a mission. It just grew to you to avoid the unwanted pain of losing someone you know.

Sleep finally took the best of you.

Waking up with the rays of sunlight blessing your face, you exited your room only to find breakfast ready. Along with a note slipped under the bowl of rice.

You were alone once again.

Knowing that sulking wouldn't make a significant change, you ate your food and took a bath right after.

Taking a piece of paper, you scribbled a small note and attached it to Karasutori.

"Send this to Tecchikawahara. If you make it back in 3 days, I'll give you mochi."

"Bribes. Always with bribes." Your raven replied before speeding his way out. "Make it 3!"

Grabbing your haori and blade, you slowly made your way to the common training grounds. It's time you finally acquanited yourself with the others.

#tomioka giyuu #kimetsu no yaiba tomioka #tomioka giyu x reader #Kimetsu no Yaiba #demon slayer

79 notes · View notes

astrozones · 4 years

Text

Sanders Behavioral Health, Chapter 3: Patton Will Help!

Angst Incoming

My discord server if you wanna scream at me- Astro’s Zone

my friends are lovingly cyberbullying me into tagging the man himself so uh @thatsthat24 and ope there goes my anxiety, rising up into the heavens. If you do see this I recommend reading from chapter one but im not gonna tag again unless my friends tell me to bc i dont wanna be a bother :|

Three hours.

Three hours until school ended for the day and Patton would go home for 5 minutes before heading to Sanders’.

Until then, he had to brave the school day. Patton was okay at school, but had a nasty habit of not saying no to any request, and his time between classes was spent doing favors for others. His time for lunch was limited, and his weekends were booked full. It took a toll on Patton, but he’d do anything to make others happy!

After all, others’ happiness was more important than his own.

His therapist had disagreed, which is why he was transferred to Sanders Behavioral Health. And at Sanders they said the same. Why couldn’t they understand that Patton wasn’t worthy of being happy? He didn’t do as much as he could, as much as he should , and he was a bad person.

Like that one time he had noticed a kid sitting in the seat beside him, his name was Todd, looking at his paper during a test. Patton had glanced at the teacher before nudging his paper closer to Todd, and filling out the rest. Once he noticed Todd had finished, he turned it in.

But he had gotten some of the answers wrong . Todd had been counting on him but Patton failed him, and now Todd was grounded for getting a mediocre grade.

And it was all Patton’s fault.

He tried to apologize to Todd, but had been shrugged off, Todd saying, “Eh, you don’t need to man. It was my fault for not studying.”

Todd must hate him.

The bell rang, signalling him to rush to his next class. Well, “class”. It was time for lunch.

Patton grabbed his items as quickly as he could, shoving them into his backpack. He felt guilty for zoning out in class, but the teacher was already on her computer and he didn’t want to disturb her. Once he had stuffed today’s worksheet into his bag, he slipped out, last to leave the room.

Patton held the lunch tray in his hands, looking for a place to sit. No one had asked for his lunch time yet, so he expected someone to call out to him, which was what usually happened these periods.

What he wasn’t expecting was to be cornered.

The edge of a table pierced his back as he was suddenly faced with none other than President of the Student Council (and Tennis Team), Vanessa E. Cordill. He had stumbled back, and quickly shoved his tray on the table behind him, knowing how close Vanessa liked to get to people.

“Hey, Pat! I was wondering if you could help us with preparations this weekend for next week’s volleyball game?” She batted her eyelashes at him, stepping impossibly closer.

“I-uh, I’m really sorry Vanessa, but I’m all booked this weekend.”

“Surely you could make time for me, yeah? Aren’t I your favorite?” Vanessa said sweetly. His favorite? He didn’t have a favorite, that would be unfair to the others! Patton, of course, wouldn’t say that to her, lest he hurt her feelings.

“I’m sorry, I really don’t have time! I’m doing a lot of things this weekend and don’t have any room. I barely have time to sleep and-” he was cut off as Vanessa drew a finger down his chest. “W-what are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” She purred, winking at him. Get off, get off, geT OFF-

“He already said no, Vanessa Cordill.” Came a voice from behind. Turning his head, he saw none other than Logan Danrow seated at the table he had run into. Vanessa backed up a few steps, glaring.

“Logan?” Patton asked, shuffling towards him so he was farther away from her .

“Wait, Pat, you know this prick?” Vanessa spat, very different from the person he had been talking with moments prior. He nodded.

“Well, yeah, we know each other from- er, yeah we know each other.” he stammered out, hands fiddling with his bracelets. It was getting harder to breathe.

“Again, Vanessa, he already said he was busy. You may leave, lest your boyfriend sees you.” Logan stated flatly, gaze returning to his book. Glancing back towards Vanessa, she pulled a small notepad out of her purse and scribbled something on it, handing it to him once she had ripped it out.

“Just in case you change your mind,” Was all she said before turning around and skipping back to her table to hang with her tennis friends.

Logan turned a page as Patton sat down across from him. Logan glanced back up at him in surprise.

“You want to sit here?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. “I was under the impression that you wished to sit with your friends.”

“Aw, but Logan you are one of my friends!” Patton grinned, grabbing his previously abandoned tray. “Plus, it seems no one needs my help, so until they do, I’m here! I do feel guilty, though…”

“What do you feel guilty about? I’m afraid I do not understand.” Logan stated, setting his book down.

“It’s just… I’m sure I could’ve fit Vanessa’s activity somewhere in my schedule…” he bit the inside of his cheek. “If I just cut my study time by an hour I could have fit her in, y’know?” He fiddled with the stem on his apple, breaking it off with a wince. “I probably could still tell her, actually!”

“No,” Logan said when he went to stand up. “You should not cut your study time to help someone who has enough help. Your grades are important. Vanessa will be fine.”

Patton slumped back into his seat, chewing on his lip. “I suppose… I just… I want to help people. They’re counting on me.” he wiped at a tear threatening to fall. Logan tapped his fingers against the table.

“Patton,” he started. “How often do you help people?”

“Not enough,” Patton admitted with a hiccup. “Most of my weekend is booked, but I’m sure I could do more if I moved things around. I’m sorry for invading your time, Logan, I’ll leave if you want me to.”

“Nonsense,” Logan waved his hand through the air. “I wasn’t doing much anyway. You know, most people don’t even do half the things you put yourself up for. Do you spend all your free time for others?” At Patton’s nod, he continued. “I recommend taking a weekend for yourself, at the very least.”

“I don’t know, mayb-”

“HEY PATTON! Can you help us?” a member of the Drama Club, Canin, yelled from across the cafeteria, jogging over to him. “Auditions are coming in a couple weeks and we need help choosing a musical to do!” Canin begged. Patton spared an apologetic glance at Logan before following after Canin.

In the final period of the day, the class was told to fill out a worksheet on the periodic table using stations around the room. They were separated into teams of three, Patton’s teammates being Angelica Carter and Skye Johnson. Once they were sent to a station, all three got to work. Well, Skye and Patton did.

Skye was especially smart at science, telling him their dream job was to become an astronomer one day, and to be the first nonbinary person in space. Patton told them that their name was fitting, which caused Skye to burst into giggles.

Angelica, on the other hand, wouldn’t do anything. Once Skye confronted her on it, she claimed that she couldn’t do anything because she didn’t have a pen or pencil.

Just as Patton was about to offer her a pen, he was struck by the memory of himself offering a pen to Virgil on his first day.

Whenever he offered a pen or pencil to others, he almost never got it back, and this was the same situation with Virgil.

Patton had finished filling out his paper, and once he glanced at Virgil the first thing he noticed was the pen in his hands. Patton had wanted so bad to ask for it back, since it was his second-to-last one. But he hadn’t said anything.

And now he was here, feeling guilty that we couldn’t give Angelica a writing utensil. God , this was just not his day, huh? First he couldn’t help Vanessa, then he couldn’t help the Drama Club choose between Little Shop of Horrors and Hairspray, and now didn’t even have a simple pen for Angelica. He was such a failure .

“Maybe the teacher has something?” He offered, Skye returning to the project. Angelica shrugged and walked over to Ms. Alstor.

And even when Angelica had returned, she didn’t help. At all. All Skye did was roll their eyes and mumble under their breath.

Patton didn’t say anything.

All three got an A.

Patton arrived late to Sanders’, again . He had gotten caught up once Jasmine Illes, Vice President of the Student Council, tried to convince him to help out with the volleyball event. He had just barely gotten away with his established schedule intact.

He bursted into the lobby, signing in before Katrine, the one in charge of the front desk, let him in while informing him that the group should still be in the check-in room. He rushed in, Virgil and Logan looking up at him when he entered. Roman was spinning around in his chair, but quickly stopped to greet Patton.

“Sorry I’m late! I got caught up because this girl from school, Jasmine, asked me if I could do something with the Student Council on the weekend.” he quickly announced, taking a deep breath soon after. He grabbed a sheet before plopping down in the nearest chair, taking a few moments to catch his breath.

“Jasmine Illes?” Roman asked. “I know her.” Patton raised an eyebrow.

“You go to Fieldrow? Haven’t seen you there.” Patton said, scribbling out answers.

“Oh, yeah, I just… don’t have the opportunity to go there often.” he replied, looking at the ground awkwardly. Patton was about to say something when Virgil spoke up.

“Yeah, I go there, too,” he muttered, Logan piping up in agreement.

“Aw cool! It’s still the beginning of the school year, maybe we could all join a club that meets on the weekends so we can hang out more!” Patton grinned, looking around at the others.

“I’m not very interested in joining clubs,” Logan started. “I would consider it if it were the Science or Math clubs, but neither of them meet on the weekends.”

“And I don’t really… do clubs. At all.” Virgil continued. Patton let out a small ‘aw’ before turning to Roman.

“What ‘bout you, Roman?” he asked, not acknowledging Logan’s small flinch at the bad grammar.

“Well… I suppose I was thinking about joining the Drama Club… I’m just not sure if it’d work with… me” Roman shook his head. “I’ll decide once they pick a musical.”

Virgil snorted, which caused Roman to let out an indignant ‘wha- hey!’.

“Y’know, I don’t know why I didn’t peg you for a theater nerd earlier, Ro’. It makes perfect sense.” was all Virgil said before Becca quieted them down and told them to start sharing their answers.

Once inside the therapy’s cafeteria, Patton was confronted by Charlie.

“Hey, Patton! I have a new exposure for you.” she greeted. “You ready?”

“Um, hold on-” Patton flipped through his binder, before landing on the page he wanted. He whipped out his pen, and continued. “Yep!”

“Alright, this one’s pretty simple but fits what we’re working on with you! All you need to do is ask a staff to borrow a pen and not return it by the end of the day.” Patton stared at her with wide eyes. His life seemed to be revolving around pens, recently, wasn’t it?

“Do I… do I get to return them next week? Cause, y’know… it’s Friday.” he asked, fiddling with his bracelets. Charlie shook her head.

“It’s better not to. Because, in the future, if you accidentally steal a pen from someone, we don’t want you to freak out much. So it’s better to fight that feeling by keeping them!” she smiled. “I know you’ll do great, Patton.”

Patton scribbled it down in his binder reluctantly. He really did want to refuse the exposure, but that would make Charlie disappointed in him, which would make her feel bad. And Patton hated making other people feel bad. So, discomfort it was.

Patton found himself in front of the two other counselors’, Harley and Ramona’s, office. Peeking through the window he saw that only Harley was present. He knocked on the door before walking in.

“Hey, Patton,” She greeted. “Whatcha need?”

Patton put on his default smile. Act happy, not stressed, he told himself.

“Heyo Harley! I was just wondering if I could borrow a pen?”

After 9 minutes, he had cycled through Becca, Katrine, Ramona, and Vicki. He figured it would be pretty stupid of himself to ask Charlie, so he had to start back at the beginning. Oh dear, what am I supposed to say?

He didn’t have much time to mull it over before Virgil skidded to a stop in front of him. He barely had time to greet him before Virgil was huffing out a response.

“Hey… Patton… sorry one second… gotta catch my breath…” he panted. Patton smiled at him.

“M’kay… This is stupid now that I think of it, but I’m just… Exposures really stress me out, and I have this one where I’m supposed to knock on a staff’s door and just… leave before they can open it.” Virgil started, curling into his hoodie.

“What’s the problem?” Patton prompted when Virgil stayed silent.

“It’s just… really anxiety provoking and- ugh y’know what, it really is stupid, I’ll leave-” Patton grabbed his arm before he could run off. Virgil stilled.

“Virgil! It’s not stupid, Sanders’ can take a lot to get used to. Roman was stressed on his first exposure day, too! Now, I know it’s not your first day, but it still counts! It’ll take a bit to get used to, but it helps in the end!” Patton smiled. “Wanna hug?”

“Erm, no thanks, physical contact scares me. But, ah, thank you. That… helped.” Virgil gave him a small, awkward smile. Patton cherished it. “I am a bit confused, though,” he continued. “It’s about Roman. He said something about my first day being his second proper day, and I was wondering how long he’s been here? Sorry if that was confusing.”

“Don’t worry, I know what you meant. Roman’s first day was Monday, and he started exposures on Tuesday, I think. And then on Wednesday, you came!” Virgil nodded at this, seeming satisfied.

“Now go on!” Patton prompted, gesturing to the staff hallway. “You’ll do great!”

Patton walked into his house, pulling out his phone almost immedietly. He had a plan.

Therapy pals!!

{ Patton } { Heyo!! I made a group chat for us all !!! }

{ Is everyone excited for the weekend?? I am!! }

| Virgil | | ah, weekends. my favorite days of the week to hate myself |

{ VIRGIL NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! }

| lmao |

( Logan ) ( My weekends are spent studying, I’m impartial to them. )

[ Roman ] [ Uhhh youre Logan right? Dont have you saved on my phone yet ]

( *you’re *Don’t )

[ Yup thats Logan ]

( I don’jehgfvurkghds )

| wait what |

[ Holy shit ]

{ Roman, language!!! }

{ And are you okay logan!?!?!? }

[ Santa mierda ]

| what? |

( I apologize, I was walking and a dog ran in front of me, causing me to trip. I am okay. And, Roman, is that Spanish? )

{ OH THANK GOD!!!! }

[ Yea it’s Spanish ]

{ Did you get a picture of the dog???????? }

( I was not aware you spoke another language, Roman. I suppose that makes sense, since you are so bad at English. And no, I did not get a picture of the dog, it ran off rather quickly after I tripped. )

[ HEY ]

{ Aw!! Well at least you’re okay!!! }

| i’m gonna put roman’s spanish thru google translate hold up |

[ Wait no ]

( Please use capital letters, Virgil. Plus, it’s spelled through. )

| ajsjfisdkf |

| patton |

{ Oh no!! Is something wrong??? }

| no just uh |

| pls put roman’s spanish thru google translate |

( I cannot believe you. )

{ Alright… }

( Do you exist just to insult the English language? )

[ oh nooo my phones about to die ahhh ]

| nice try roman |

{ ROMAN!!!! Don’t swear, even in other languages! >:( }

[ Hey Virgil, i gotta tell you something ]

[ i hate u ]

| who doesnt |

{ Hate is a strong word, Roman. }

[ i know ]

{ VIRGIL NO!!!!!! I LOVE YOU LIKE A SON!!!!!!!!!!!!! D: }

| did i just get adopted |

( It’s not adoption if it’s not in a legal document. )

{ YES YOU DID MY DARK STRANGE SON!!!!!!! ILY!!!! }

( Oh. )

[ Logan should be the mom ]

[ I’ll be the strange uncle who you only see once a year but might be a government spy ]

( What? )

| nah roman you’re like the kid next door |

[ Thanks..? ]

[ Wait did i just get kicked out of the family ]

( I’m afraid I don’t understand how I could be a mother, not even mentioning how Patton, Virgil, and I could even be a family. )

[ I cant believe i got kicked out of the family ]

{ Don’t worry, it’s a metaphorical family Logan!!! }

[ What did i do to deserve this ]

( But how am I a mother? )

( Is anyone going to respond? )

// Private Conversation between Roman and Virgil \\

[ I don’t hate you, by the way. ]

[ Like in all seriousness. ]

| lol don’t worry man i got that from the lack of good spelling and no capital letter |

| coz you don’t type like that usually |

[ Oh, good. I was hoping by doing that I wouldn’t come across as serious. ]

| yea |

| so uhhhhhhhh |

| hold on gotta think of somethin to say so this isn’t awkward |

| what musicals do you like? |

[ Congrats Virgil!! You just unlocked an hours long conversation ]

| wait no |

| eh nvm i wasnt doing anything tonight anyway |

[ Kay so im gonna start off with the popular ones ofc! ]

-- --

Patton smiled as he looked over the conversation they all had. Because no matter what happened at therapy, by the end he knew he’d still have his new friends. He giggled to himself, feeling giddy. This was so exciting!

He glanced at the groupchat’s name, which at the moment was simply ‘ Therapy pals!! ’, a spur of the moment decision by Patton. He bit his lip as he thought it over.

Patton changed the name of the group to FamILY! -

Patton smiled even wider than before. Tomorrow was bound to be a good day.

He was sure of it.

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masterofmagnetism · 4 years

Text

Promises

Who: Erik and Charles @burdenedxtelepath

Mentioned: Raven @mysteriousmutant, Jean @jeanelcinegrey, Scott @firstxman, Lorna @mistressxfmagnetism

Where: Charles' office at the Institute

When: 3 weeks after the Raft.

What: Erik finds himself in Charles' office, as he has several times in the last few weeks, attempting to quiet his mind with a bit of silent companionship from his oldest friend. Instead, he ends up accidentally revealing far more than he means to, leading Charles to question his mental state.

TWs: child death referenced, PTSD, hella survivor's guilt

AN: This was a very informal, spontaneous thing in our DMs that was supposed to be fluffy and got surprise angsty, so forgive any formatting errors, etc. Not the most polished thing, but gives some important context about where the boys are at headspace-wise, these days.

CHARLES: He's well aware that Erik is probably up to something. Either that, or this was yet another bout of him acting strange, which seemed to be a thing as of late. However, without access to his thoughts, Charles couldn't draw any definitive conclusions other than maybe Erik was acting on his supposed feelings. It seemed like a stretch but who knows? Even so, Charles scoots over a bit, making room on the sofa. Crossword puzzles were a means to keep the mind sharp and with those he struggled with initially, Erik was more than helpful. "Since when do you like crossword puzzles?" he finds himself asking. And it doesn't go without notice that a certain someone is affectionately leaning on him. At one time, it would have been nothing for him to turn his head slightly and press lips to the top of his head but you know, old habits. Not like he could anyway.

ERIK: Being around Charles was calming, and Erik found himself gravitating back to the Institute more and more often, these days--if only to sit in the man's office and chat with him about nothing, or even just sit in silence while the man worked. Tonight, Charles caved quickly to the request, letting Erik up on the sofa next to him, and within a few minutes, Erik had found himself leaning on the man's shoulder without even recognizing that he'd started, quietly helping with the crossword puzzle.

Charles' question was answered with a soft hum. "I used to do them to help me learn English. Haven't needed to do them for a long time, nor have I had the time, but I enjoyed them," he explains, closing his eyes but continuing to work on the puzzle from memory in his head. "Seventeen down is 'abnegation.'"

CHARLES: He had never minded Erik's presence. Aside from Raven, he was another who often provided the best company, even if he was silent. But sometimes there was little need for words. The aura of simply having another nearby was often good enough to temper one's mood. As was the case with Erik... some of the time.

He quietly scribbles down another word ( a six letter word meaning cold --- chilly ) then moves on. "That's quite the brilliant way to polish one's English and one's vocabulary in general. Crosswords have never been the easiest." He stares down at the final word, frowning. Eventually he fills in the clue with Erik's answer thus completing the puzzle. "Ah, you were right. Two heads are better than one sometimes."

ERIK: Erik cracked open his eyes to peer with satisfaction at the completed puzzle, before letting them drift closed again. "We make a good team," he said quietly. They'd had disagreements often, but usually arguing their case with the other had made both of them stronger rather than weaker. And they'd been able to coordinate on the most important things.... At least before Cuba.

"I liked Sudoku puzzles, too. You know I've always been a numbers person." Though he was damn good with language, too--multiple languages were in his mental toolkit, from years of traveling. Even before he'd gone to Vinnitsa, he'd known German, Polish, Yiddish, and Hebrew. His language skills had only grown in years since.

CHARLES: "We're capable." He leaves it at that as he sets the newspaper aside. The Bugle, per usual, was full of nonsense save for Kara's pieces but at the least the crosswords were still decent. "I haven't done one of those in a long time, but I imagine you'd be a hair better at those than myself. When time permits, I've mostly been doing word searches. Hard to find time to do anything a bit more challenging. Still, they help me relax. I've been needing it lately. Something's...off about me. Can't quite place it either."

ERIK: Erik very nearly snorted. If that wasn't relatable, he didn't know what was--except he, unfortunately, knew exactly what was 'off.' "You seem stressed," he agrees, "But that's to be expected, after the Park." Weren't they all stressed in the aftermath of that? "Don't worry about the safety of the Institute, Charles. The students who leave may need certain things, but anyone here is safe, I promise you that." His new field around the school helped, but it was common knowledge at this point that the school was under the protection of almost all of the known Omega level mutants, and Erik had done his best to make clear it wasn't worth the fight when they couldn't even manage one or two Omegas on their own.

"I haven't had time to do puzzles in... months. And I think I've gotten perhaps sixty hours of sleep in the last three weeks," he admitted.

CHARLES: Perhaps it was only the stress giving Charles these anxious feelings. It was as if he was in a constant state of black cloud, fearing something awful was going to happen. And Erik was right. Charles had no idea what kind of force field surrounded the school now, but he knew deep down nothing could happen to him while within these walls. He just couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to happen. "You're right. Perhaps it is the stress that has me feeling anxious. After the Park, it's hard not to be overly, obsessively cautious. I think we all are."

60 hours of sleep in three weeks. . . That wasn't enough at all, but Charles knew he couldn't say much on the matter. He slept okay when he took his meds, but resting was another story entirely. He hasn't felt rejuvenated after a night's sleep in quite a while but he hid it well enough. An early morning swim here or there. LOTS of coffee and tea. He managed. They both did. They had no choice when so many people looked to them for guidance. "I don't think it gets any easier from here. I think... it's always going to be like this --- hard."

ERIK: The telepath's words sent a pang through Erik's chest, and a response was slipping off his tongue before he could think better of it, one hand reaching for Charles' and stopping somewhere between them, instead. "No. No, it won't. We deserve peace, Charles. We will have it. One way or another." Charles' way, which looked more impossible than ever, or the way that was slowly taking shape on the walls of Erik's apartment, the war would end.

It had to end.

His next words, in contrast to the earnest and confident ones of just moments before, seem almost desperate. "I'm so tired, Charles," he breathed out against the man's shoulder.

CHARLES: This. This was the kind of scene no one was allowed to see. Because if they saw Charles doubting himself... If they saw Erik as someone other than hardened symbol driven by hate, the facade would end. The glamour --- the enamoration with them both --- would cease to exist. And Charles could not let that happen. Eyes close briefly and with some difficulty, he manages to use his telekinesis to get the bolt turned, locking them inside. While he didn't need people walking in seeing them on the couch, doing crossword puzzles was harmless. This? Not so much.

"Just because we deserve something, doesn't mean we will actually get it. I've hoped for peace my entire life but with each passing day... I just... don't know anymore. I cannot abandon my principles, but I am not a fool either, Erik. I see the same things you see sometimes. My dream... seems much farther away now than it's ever been."

There's a moment's hesitation before he shifts on the couch, arm folding around Erik, pulling him close. Another piece of the puzzle falls in place, giving Charles a better idea of Erik's head state. "I know," he answered quietly. "We all are. This... being you... I'm certain it has to be overwhelming at times. The entire mutant world looks to you to be their strength and their guide. That's a large rock upon your shoulders, but you mustn't let it wear you down."

ERIK: Erik let himself be pulled closer, finally let a hand come up and rest at Charles' other shoulder, fingers toying with the collar of his shirt absently as he tried to rein back in the surge of emotion.

"It's not just... not that." And it's not the Phoenix, either. This exhaustion has been settling in his bones for decades, heavier with each passing year, and now its source is stronger than ever. "All I wanted was safety, Charles. I wanted the kids to be safe from those who would see them lying dead in a park for existing. I wanted my children to dread university applications, not the same things I feared. That was all. And they keep taking them from me," his voice cracked, "And call me radical for not stepping aside and letting it happen."

His hand tightened on Charles' shirt, and his next words sound fervent. "Never again. They will not take another one of the kids, Charles, they won't. They won't take any of you again. I'll make sure of it. I can't--."

CHARLES: Charles knew something was up with Erik the moment he landed in the school yard weeks back. He had fed him some line about wanting to see him, but Charles knew better. There was more to it than that and while he expected Erik to eventually give him bits and pieces, he never imagined the other male had so much bottled inside --- at least in such a manner that it would unfold in his lap like this. Charles bit his lip, fighting to keep his own feelings together. Both of them couldn't be near sobbing over the sorry state of this universe. Otherwise, where was the comfort in that?

So no, he would hold it together, never minding the fingers toying at his collar. Erik's words had so many layers to them, but what stung the most was the bit about the uni applications. 'His' children were not just Jean and Lorna and anyone else he'd taken up under his wing. It was the child that was taken away too. She never got a chance to grow up like the others and Charles knew from his own experiences within Erik's head, that Anya would always be in there somewhere. "I know," he whispered. "A man doesn't do the things that you do if their heart wasn't in it for the right reasons. We both do what we do for these children, and the sake of them having a better future. It's just... We're still ONLY human Erik. Mutants we may be but our bodies eventually wear and tear like any other human's. We can't..." His own voice cracks but he swallows it and pushes forward. "We can't be expected to save them all. God only knows we want to, and it tears us apart when we lose someone but... we're tearing ourselves apart in the process. What good are --- what good are YOU --- if you don't... you need time to yourself, Erik. And you don't... you don't need to place so much of our future on your shoulders. It's not your fault... it's not... you can only do so much so please... don't..." He touches his cheek. "We're fine. We'll be alright."

ERIK: Erik is still leaning against his chest, but the metallokinetic seems miles away, now, even with the light brush of Charles' hand against his cheek, which just a few weeks ago would have had the man's undivided attention. "No. No, I should have been there, at the Park, I could've been there. I could've helped the Underground before Lorna had to bring down a building, before she had to wade into a war she didn't want. We're better, I'm better. I should be able to save them. I can, what good am I if I can't--"

Eventually, the steady brush of Charles' thumb against his cheek, the increasing heartbeat he can feel is what draws him slowly back. He's making Charles upset. He doesn't want to do that. He let out a slow breath against the man's chest, let the vice grip on the man's shirt loosen, smoothed his collar back down. "...Apologies. It's... I'm fine."

It's as much of a lie as Charles' own assurance, but he can do little else, coupled with a rare apology that's likewise inadequate.

CHARLES: "No," Charles says firmly, despite his own wavering voice at times. "None of us could have predicted that the park would turn into such a fiasco. Had any of us known, we'd have counted our loses or sent more people. But that one is not on us, as much as we'd like to blame ourselves. Even Jean will tell you... Something about that night was off. We've always been so careful, but I know the truth will come out in time. Someone betrayed us Erik. Or set us up. And when we find out who it was, god help them."

His fingers lightly trace along Erik's chin and the parks of his cheek he can feel but eventually Erik loosens his grip, breathing slowly. Charles wasn't convinced he was okay, but he also doesn't want to sound pushy either. So he doesn't question it. Instead, he keeps gently touching, content to let the silence wash over them for the time being.

It's not your fault... he thinks to himself, but he knows it may be a while before Erik sees it that way. Such is the burden of a leader.

ERIK: Erik hummed his acknowledgement of the words about the Park, but it was clear he didn't buy it. No matter the cause, no matter what had happened, he should have been there.

But instead of arguing the point, he simply remained silent, letting Charles' touch and warmth start shepherding the uncharacteristic outburst of emotion back into the back of his mind. And he was tired, in so many ways, so eventually he started to doze off, body and mind pushed to exhaustion.

CHARLES: This was beginning to get worrisome, and not at all because he was tired of having moments with Erik. That couldn't be farther from his mind if he willed it. No, this was about how Erik was making a habit of retreating to the telepath's office --- as if to hide from the world or shield himself from it. It troubled Charles to no end, especially since Erik had never been the type to hide out. Nothing thrilled him more than being out in the open, taunting their opponents with his antics. But lately he seemed aloof, even when gazing at him with those doe eyes of his. He seemed more guarded, but at the same time a switch would flip and his feelings would fall all over the place. It practically gave the telepath whiplash. And then... to cap matters, he would fall asleep; doze off just mere moments after a conversation. It only confirmed Erik's confession that he wasn't sleeping well, but Charles wasn't buying that it was only the Park incident keeping him awake at night. Something else was up, but he guessed he should leave it be. After all, at least Erik knew that despite all that's happened, he could still come home and find refuge from all the day's bothersome drama.

Charles eased himself off the couch, his legs letting him know he hadn't much time left to walk. But he was quick, placing a blanket over Erik and tucking him in while he slept. Charles promptly made his way to his chair, deciding he'd better get in it before he has an accident. He watches Erik for several minutes, his heart feeling rather heavy. Only when his phone beeps would he snap out of it. It was time to finish his lesson plans and then later, to bed himself...

#c: charles xavier #d: promises #f: discord #tw: death mention #tw: child death #tw: ptsd #tw: survivors guilt

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artemis-entreri · 5 years

Photo

[[ This post contains Part 1 of my review/analysis of the Forgotten Realms/Drizzt novel, Boundless, by R. A. Salvatore. As such, the entirety of this post’s content is OOC. ]]

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Generations: Book 2 | Legend of Drizzt #35 (#32 if not counting The Sellswords)

Publisher: Harper Collins (September 10, 2019)

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Additional Information: Artwork for the cover of Boundless and used above is originally done by Aleks Melnik. This post CONTAINS SPOILERS. Furthermore, this discussion concerns topics that I am very passionate about, and as such, at times I do use strong language. Read and expand the cut at your own discretion.

Contents:

Introduction

I. Positives (you are here) I.1 Pure Positives I.2 Muddled Positives

II. Mediocre Writing Style II.1 Bad Descriptions II.2 Salvatorisms II.3 Laborious "Action"

III. Poor Characterization III.1 "Maestro" III.2 Lieutenant III.3 Barbarian III.4 "Hero" III.5 Mother

IV. World Breaks IV.1 Blinders Against the Greater World IV.2 Befuddlement of Earth and Toril IV.3 Self-Inconsistency IV.4 Dungeon Amateur IV.5 Utter Nonsense

V. Ego Stroking V.1 The Ineffable Companions of the Hall V.2 Me, Myself, and I

VI. Problematic Themes VI.1 No Homo VI.2 Disrespect of Women VI.3 Social-normalization VI.4 Eugenics

VII. What's Next VII.1 Drizzt Ascends to Godhood VII.2 Profane Redemption VII.3 Passing the Torch VII.4 Don't Notice Me Senpai

Positives

I've found that the untrammeled positive elements of Boundless exclusively have to do with solid turns of phrase peppered throughout the book. There are also semi-positives in terms of characterizations and literary devices that Salvatore uses, but these are at best mixed.

Pure Positives

Salvatore pulls off some surprisingly good descriptions in Boundless through the usage of a more varied vocabulary than his standard repertoire, evocative imagery, compelling metaphors, and other effective strategies. An example of a good passage is, "The demon responded with a word of its own, a croaking, grating combination of hard syllables that sounded to Regis like a porcupine being rubbed across the flesh of a giant frog." in normal Salvatore tradition, the description would've been left without the metaphor. Heck, I'm not even sure that "croaking" and "grating" would've been employed in regular Salvatore fashion. In addition to speaking to the imagination, the metaphor evokes the fantastical nature of the world, a world where giant frogs exist, ones that wouldn't simply rupture when a porcupine is rubbed against them. Furthermore, the metaphor harmonizes with the adjective earlier in the sentence, for even though the frog is not the thing doing the croaking, "croaking" matches frog, just as grating matches porcupine quills.

Another example of solid writing in Boundless can be found here, "Every syllable hit Rethnorel the way the flowing breath of a speaker might make the flame of a candle blow back." Like the previous example, this one combines the usage of a noun associated with an uncommon adjective and demonstrative imagery to good effect. The metaphor shows us that the character is buffeted in an almost soft manner, for such is the flicker of a candle, but it is a continuous assault. A line that is almost too good to imagine coming from Salvatore is, "...scurrying along like a pair of giant rats fleeing the purring pursuit of a hungry displacer beast." This description is short, concise, and yet contains so many effective elements: "scurrying" instead of "running", the alliteration in "purring pursuit", and of course, alluding to a unique creature specific to the world. Putting all of these elements together paints an expressive image of an earnest and high-speed chase, the predator full of pleased anticipation but the necessity of its hunt not allowing its contentment to tamper its progress.

A passage that I wish every Salvatore paragraph could emulate is this one, "Even the way she talked grated on him, every bitten-off word making him feel like someone was running the bark of an old and gnarly oak tree down the back of his neck. It seemed like this drow woman could barely get the words out of her mouth, so tight was her jaw, and when they did come out, they carried the hissing timbre of an open fire in a downpour." The standard Salvatore version of this would be something along the lines of, "Even the way she talked grated on him. Every word was bitten off tightly", which, granted is more concise than what was published, but falls far from embodying the soul of wit in its brevity. The imagery in the published metaphor more than lets us hear the way the female character talks, it lets us feel it. So, too, can we feel what it'd be like to try to talk while our jaws are locked. "Hissing timbre" is a beautiful description on its own, but combined with inciting a sound that everyone can at least imagine, even if they may not have heard firsthand, results in a punchy and effective description. An example of another effective description, and one that doesn't make use of a metaphor is, "Some time later, they lay beside each other, the soft glow of candlelight catching pinpricks of sparkle in the beads of sweat they both wore." Sweat is not normally an attractive feature, even when it's associated with a sexy scene. The way that this imagery is presented however invokes a sense of soft decadence, as though the characters were covered with a delicate and exotic garment strewn with countless pearls. The many sparkles from this "garment" help to further set the romantic mood far more than the soft candlelight would have done by itself. Although the description, "bag of demonic despair", doesn't look like much when presented by itself, and isn't as strong as the preceding examples, it's worth a mention because of how it adequately serves as a concise summary. The object that it refers to is Entreri enveloped in an unbreakable cocoon that an unknown demon trapped him in. The word "cocoon" shows up many times in relation to this object, and admittedly, is an concise, if a bit bland, way to describe the object from both within and without. Inside the encasement, Entreri is held in a state of perpetual torment, whilst outside Dahlia, and to a much lesser extent, Regis, are worrying about his condition. Perhaps "demonic" could be replaced with another adjective but overall I'm fine with the way it is, for anything referring more to Entreri's suffering might run the risk of sounding melodramatic.

"Running stride" is also worth noting because in a world that doesn't use the same units of measurements that we do, it's always jarring when inches, feet, and miles are cited, especially when readers of the text hail from countries that aren’t the US. Without the known common terms, it is understandably difficult to effectively convey distances in a concise and comprehensible way, so units of measurements like this example are wonderful because they use something that we all understand, and do so without breaking immersion.

Tasteful omission is as important as smart inclusion. I'd criticized Salvatore for trying too hard in Timeless by using "fashioned" in in awkward way, and he's dropped this altogether in Boundless. By the same token, "six hundred pounds of panther" doesn't appear at all. Salvatore's favorite adjectives, "magnificent" and "fine", are both used better in Boundless. The former appears thirteen times in Boundless but unlike in Timeless, the usage of most of them aren't vague and lazy ways of characterizing splendid objects, characters, or actions. Six of those thirteen usages can maybe be improved still, but that is already a huge positive change from the fourteen out of seventeen occurrences in Timeless. Meanwhile, "fine" appears fifty times, but many of that is part of modifiers like finer, finest, etc, and through a cursory scan, by itself, relatively few are used in inane ways.

Muddled Positives

Aside from the examples in diction above, Boundless does contain praiseable elements, specifically even in areas where I usually criticize Salvatore. There are moments of decent, even good, characterization, and some of the negative potential I'd feared Timeless was leading towards are not realized in Boundless. Furthermore, there are improvements to be found in the themes that Salvatore employs, and some descriptors stand up to fact-checking.

One of my biggest criticisms of Salvatore is that he routinely disrespects what I describe as the beautiful tapestry of the Realms, which was woven together by the hands of many creatives who worked in harmony. In Boundless, the amount that Salvatore insensitively scribbles his name in Sharpie over the tapestry is reduced. Ironically, sometimes Salvatore scribbles over the portions of the tapestry that he'd worked with others to create, but in Boundless, he doesn't perpetuate this disservice to both himself and others as much as he has in the past. For better or worse, Salvatore did create a lot of information about drow, though his work is mostly limited to the city of Menzoberranzan. While the Drizzt books contain the most drow content than any other FR novel series, they've done so through their sheer volume, and they mainly portrayed the drow in a one-dimensional fashion. Just as there are many more drow settlements than the fanatic Menzoberranzan, so too, are even Menzoberranzanyr drow capable of qualities other than scheming self-service in the name of dedication to Lolth. In Boundless, we see more dimensions to the drow characters presented. Zaknafein is not the only drow in Menzoberranzan who possesses a moral compass. Loyalties born of motivations other than pride exist beyond the Do'Urden bloodline, with familial concern and the kind of love that'd been described as being unknown to drow inspiring or dissuading murderous deeds. In previous books, the closest that we got to "non-evil" drow were drow who had the potential to be good, perhaps even living for awhile in a goodly way, but eventually and inevitably squandering that potential. For example, Drizzt's sister Vierna was not as cruel as the other Do'Urden females, but ultimately, through trying to seduce her own brother and then turning a different brother into a drider, turned out to be just as bad as the rest of the Lolthites. Another similar example could be found with Tos'un Armgo, whom although having created a family with a surface elf, ultimately participated in the murder of his own family and returning himself and his daughter to the depraved society of Menzoberranzan.

In Boundless, although the priestess Dab'nay Tr'arach follows a course similar to Tos'un, her path is much more nuanced, and although she squanders her morality for station, she does so with great ambivalence and regret. Dab'nay's house is long destroyed, with she and her siblings' surnames changed to reflect this. She stands to gain nothing by preserving members of her bloodline, but nonetheless, she endangers her own life to see that her brother isn't killed, a selfish thought of rebuilding her long-lost house not at all factoring in to her concern for her kin. It is also clear from actions such as Dab'nay running her finger playfully along the top of Zaknafein's nose while telling him that he, not his services, were worth waiting for, that the feelings that she develops for him are more than those a female in a matriarchal society entertains towards a favored pet or sex object. Dab'nay allows her vulnerability to show in Zaknafein's presence and does not conceal the tears she sheds for the way that they must live their lives. She also fears for Zaknafein's safety even though she'd arguably stand to gain from his demise, and feels guilt for implicating him negatively for the sake of her own survival. Before the Generations trilogy, these qualities were not possible in any genuine or long-lasting way in any priestesses of Lolth, not even a disgraced one. Prior, a disgraced priestess who isn't killed or turned into a drider would become even more dangerous, with having nothing to lose by concentrating the proverbial venom in her veins.

Dab'nay isn't the only Menzoberranzanyr drow who demonstrates the capacity for multiple dimensions in Boundless. So, too, does Harbondair Tr'arch and Arathis Hune. Harbondair possesses the same familial loyalty as Dab'nay, and, like his sister, possesses the ability to genuinely overcome past prejudices. Despite Zaknafein having destroyed his house and despite Zaknafein issuing him a death threat should he attempt to harm him again, Harbondair grows to develop a real friendship with Zaknafein. Arathis, while definitively more "evil" than the Tr'arch siblings, is motivated by more than his rank in Bregan D'aerthe to eventually go to a head against Zaknafein. It's never stated that Arathis' rivalry with Zaknafein isn't based solely in Arathis feeling threatened in his second-in-command position. However, from the way that Arathis is described to behave while Zaknafein is absent, Arathis appears to be motivated by jealousy that he's no longer Jarlaxle's favorite and most trusted follower. Jarlaxle makes it abundantly clear on numerous occasions that he considers Zaknafein and Arathis equally valuable, hence why he prohibited either from trying to kill the other, so were Arathis worried about his position in the mercenary band, he needn't have gone so far because he and Zaknafein were equals in that regard but Zaknafein was definitely his better in combat. However, there can only be one favorite, a fact that Arathis couldn't engineer, but because he could ignore it when Zaknafein was away, his mood was noticeably better when he was the only lieutenant by Jarlaxle's side. It's actually quite pleasant that Salvatore didn't spell out the nature of Arathis' motivations, the way that Arathis is successful in that it is shown and not told to us. Unfortunately, Arathis' fate is soon met, which is probably for the best, as this lets him safely fall into the "gets killed off before too many books ruin him" category that I'd previously (and prematurely) populated with Zaknafein.

Although the Boundless version of Jarlaxle continues to be consistent with the Timeless version of Jarlaxle, ergo de-fanged to his current timeline self rather to the much more morally ambiguous character he was in the earlier Drizzt books, there is a comical and memorable scene in Boundless that is true to Jarlaxle's irrepressible humor even whilst in the middle of delivering a solemn ultimatum. While forbidding Zaknafein from going after Arathis Hune, Jarlaxle manages to bring a smile to the very angry weapons master by assuring him that in any other circumstance, "I promise you, if we two were trapped in a cave alone and starving, I would not kill you. But if you died first, I cannot promise that I wouldn't eat you."

There are improvements in Boundless even when it comes to the less morally gray drow of Menzoberranzan. One such individual that gets a more profound treatment is Mez'Barris Del'Armgo, the future Matron Mother of the second house of Menzoberranzan. During Boundless, her mother holds that title, and House Barrison Del'Armgo is far from its destined ranking. High Priestess Mez'Barris, the most promising member of her house, has her position recognized by being the only one allowed to copulate with the strange and giant Uthegentel, a dubious honor that the other priestesses aren't interested in anyway. Other priestesses tease Mez'Barris' preference of Uthegentel because "it was unusual, almost unheard of, for a drow woman to be attracted to a man so physically superior to her". However, "Mez'Barris couldn't deny the thrill she felt when Uthgentel so easily tossed her up upon his hips, holding her aloft while he took her, never tiring. He threw her about as if she were a child, but he knew how to throw her indeed!" Other than the more than slightly disturbing analogy to a child in the context of a sexual setting, which really could've been better done comparing Mez'Barris to anything else, a rag doll maybe, or heck, even an animal, there are a lot of things going on in the description of Mez'Barris and Uthegentel's relationship dynamic that are pretty outstanding for Salvatore. First, it is made clear in no uncertain terms that Uthegentel's size is unusual, which directly addresses the misconception that elves in the Forgotten Realms are larger than humans. Elves are larger than humans in worlds such as Middle-Earth and Azeroth, but this is not generally the case on Toril. Second, Boundless specifically states with regards to Uthegentel, "He was stronger than the women, too -- another anomaly among the drow -- and was easily the strongest dark elf in the city. Even with magical assistance, other men could not match him, and even with Lolth-blessed spells of physical enhancement, other women couldn't, either." An extremely too-oft practice among the many people who love the very popular drow race is to ascribe Earth human characteristics to them: that the males are usually bigger than the females. Drow of the Forgotten Realms, like many animals of our world, are a species in which the females are larger and stronger than the males. The aspect that stands out the most about Mez'Barris and Uthegentel is a message about reversed gender roles and how, by conforming to the norm, one might miss out on some very exciting experiences. I don't really dare hope that this is a message that Salvatore was consciously conveying, but it would be pretty awesome if it was intentional on his part. Taking that message and reversing the genders for our patriarchal world, if Salvatore could encourage the idea that men do not become any less masculine when they break conventional ideologies of what a man should be, I would be willing to consider putting serious effort into building him a pedestal, and even gazing upon it favorably from time to time.

There's one other thing going on with Mez'Barris with relation to Uthegentel, specifically, "as it pertains to the other priestesses' teasing, "'How can you be with a man who is stronger than you?' most women asked, seeming sincerely aghast at the thought. 'It isn't natural! Are you sure that you don't simply prefer the bed company of women?" Mez'Barris was sure." I'd actually completely overlooked this three times: as I was doing my read-through, as I was organizing my notes, and as I was reviewing my notes. It occurred to me, while I was writing the previous paragraph, that Mez'Barris' certainty about her preference of Uthegentel isn't based in anything sapphic, which, added to the fact that Boundless doesn't contain any gratuitous lesbian sex scenes means that Boundless is the first Drizzt book in quite possibly forever in which Salvatore doesn't fetishize female/female non-heterosexuality. This is, if it is what it is, HUGE. One of the things for which I regularly criticize Salvatore is how frustratingly often he drops in a female/female sex scene or has implied female/female sexytimes going on. Specifically its that this happens in a totally non-representative manner because, of course, the same treatment isn't even considered in terms of male/male representation. I've gone into this enough in the past and I'll go into it again later so there's no need to do that here, but seriously, just the fact that not once do we have anything even close to some random priestess whose name we won't remember banging this other random priestess whose name we similarly won't remember is such a large improvement. And with Mez'Barris conveying the reverse gender role ideology with Uthegentel, if Salvatore intentionally did all of this, I would totally consider, yet again, and pardon my french, building that fucking pedestal and putting him on it.

Dab'nay and Mez'Barris are two very different priestesses, but their respective scenes of intimacy are better done than such scenes in previous Drizzt books. The passion in Dab'nay and Zaknafein scenes are marked by affection, whereas in Mez'Barris and Uthegentel they're solely lustful. There is tenderness, even hints of trust, between Dab'nay and Zaknafein, whereas what's between Mez'Barris and Uthegentel is detached and mercenary. One is a silken handkerchief while the other is a stinging riding crop, and though each priestess doesn't feel jealousy that her lover is ridden by others, one willingly rents him out, while the other has thoroughly accepted that she is not entitled to possessive emotions.

The drow aren't the only characters who enjoy improved literary treatment in Boundless. The dramatis personae of the World Above receive some refreshing new dimensions. Wulfgar specifically, who has been hammered flat even prior to his resurrection, becomes more than a plot device that fights as much as he beds. Since his resurrection, the carefree barbarian has been primarily embodying getting the most out of his second life by sleeping with anyone and everyone willing to do so. In Boundless, we're told that Wulfgar has been with Penelope Harpell exclusively, even though she is a much older woman and, as Penelope herself realizes, Wulfgar can get practically any younger woman that he wants so he chooses. However, Wulfgar chooses Penelope and exclusively Penelope, because he's enamored with her confidence and authenticity. One of the things that I criticize Salvatore for is his poor handling of female characters, especially with regards to how the most redeeming features for his female characters are youth and beauty. For instance, Drizzt and Catti-brie's supposed great love has never been tested "on screen", for Catti died in her forties and was returned to Drizzt's side as a hot young thing. We never got to see how the glorious hero would've behaved as his mortal wife grew old and frail while he remained young and hale. Drizzt might've told himself that he'd never think Catti ugly, but he was never tested. Admittedly, Penelope isn't super old, but having the hunk that is young Wulfgar faithfully and exclusively stay by her side goes some distance in making up for the previous treatment and portrayal of women in the Drizzt books. The only downside to Wulfgar and Penelope is that their scenes of intimacy are awkward to the point of cringe-worthy, which suggests to me that Salvatore is writing outside of his comfort zone. Nonetheless, he's giving it an honest effort, and even though it doesn't work out, it looks to be a genuine attempt, for there aren't any contradictory messages in Wulfgar and Penelope's relationship.

Boundless is the first time that we see Dahlia up and about since Night of the Hunter. I'd feared that Salvatore was going to have Kimmuriel fix more than the damage wrought unto her by Methil El-Viddenvelp. It would've been an easy and lazy plot device, along the same lines of Idalia's Flute and the aboleth's influence in "developing" Entreri. Thankfully, Kimmuriel has not undone Dahlia's past traumas, nor even eliminated the more recent ones and the personality flaws that she has as a result of those traumas. What we see in Boundless is that Dahlia is still who she was during the Neverwinter Saga, modified by the experiences of her relationship with Entreri. As we follow Dahlia through a Waterdhavian nobles' ball, in addition to learning more about her through her thoughts, we're able to glean additional information through her physical appearance. Most of those details that are mentioned in the past, but certainly don't hurt to see repeated. For instance, "She was tall for an elf, nearly six feet, with black hair that she dyed with streaks of cardinal red." Specifics like height tend to be vague in Salvatore's writing, for after so many books it's clear that he can't keep track of his own details, so it's good to see Dahlia's, and even better that, once again, Salvatore reminds the readers that elves in Toril tend to be short. It's good to see that Dahlia still wears the diamonds she'd accrued from her years of being a black widow, for even though she's abandoned those practices, she hasn't abandoned her past and who she was. Furthermore, she now wears her hair in the manner that she'd use for her softer guise when she was with Drizzt, except this is presumably neither an illusion nor as a result of trying to manipulate Entreri as she did with it and Drizzt. It's a subtle reminder of how things have changed for her in a lasting way.

In the previous books, we'd only seen Dahlia be angry, vindictive, selfish and petty. Although I'd always liked her more than any of Salvatore's other female characters, my opinion regarding Dahlia is an unpopular one. Dahlia felt very much like a character that Salvatore wrote for readers to hate. In Boundless, he appears to be trying to make her more than that. During the ball, Dahlia is comical, even silly, both of which can begin to endear a reader to a character. Throughout the rest of the book, Dahlia exhibits courage and loyalty so steadfast that it's easy to forget that she was once a villainous character, but she doesn't do so in such a way as to come across as goody two-shoes either. Dahlia is still very much not a goodly character, nor should she be at this point. Unfortunately, there exists a rather large problem with Dahlia, and that is her relationship with Entreri. In just as artificial as a way that it started, so, too, are we told more than that we're shown, namely, that Entreri had overcome his childhood demons and is now helping her overcome hers. The thing is, that whole plot with how Entreri overcame his demons by doing Drizzt-like good deeds doesn't ring true at all, and we're not shown how Entreri has been helping Dahlia overcome her own demons. I doubt we ever will, but I'll discuss the poor handling of Entreri in this book later. For now, I will add that I thought it was a good touch by Salvatore to have the apartment shared by the couple to be located in the Southern Ward of Waterdeep. The Southern Ward is, as of fifth edition D&D and the current timeline (~1490s DR), is no longer the poor ward that it used to be, which is very fitting for Entreri because he wouldn't want to live in the grimy Dock Ward or the destitute Field Ward any more than he'd want to live in the aristocratic Sea Ward, the Watch-infested Castle Ward, or the noble-infested North Ward. The Southern Ward is inhabited by common folk instead of hoity-toity nobles, with a good portion of its population hailing from southern Faerûn. Although Entreri's Calishite heritage is not given much treatment in the Drizzt novels, it would make sense if, even with his rough and austere childhood, that associations of home would bring some degree of comfort or at least familiarity. Waterdeep's Southern Ward is home to some of the best singers of Calishite music and probably the best examples of Calishite cuisine. The location of homes above stables or around inn yards allows us to accept that Entreri would have been able to ensure a good sightline of the goings-on around his domicile, likely a necessity for one of Entreri's nature. The only downside to all of this is that Salvatore calls the Southern Ward the "South Ward", a nomenclature that only fools would use, according to Volo's Waterdeep Enchiridion.

The best-developed member among the resurrected Companions of the Hall is Regis/Spider Parrafin, and this continues to be the case in Boundless. In the past, I'd criticized Salvatore on numerous occasions about how his heroes perform a lot more questionable actions on screen than do his villains. In the travesty of the series, Hero, I'd specifically noted that Regis and Wulfgar kicking people who were already lying down to be decidedly not heroic, even if the victims of said kicking were highwaymen. In Boundless, Regis doesn't do anything of the sort. No, in fact, he actually performs what would be a humbling or even degrading act himself by normal Salvatore standards, and conveys a surprising and important message thereby. Much like how I'm uncertain that the message conveyed by Mez'Barris and Uthegentel is intentional, I'm not sure if this is the case with Regis, but Regis admits to using his looks to get what he wants, which is unfortunately a strategy traditionally attributed to women alone, both inside and outside of Salvatore's books. When Regis states to Dahlia, "Because I do the same thing, as does my lovely wife, Donnola" as he points out that Dahlia knows how to use her looks to gain an advantage in her negotiations, he, in my mind, is performing a much more admirable feat than slaying a hundred rampaging ogres singlehandedly. Humility is a mark of any true hero, and although Drizzt and his companions are supposed to possess tons of humility along with other virtuous qualities, we see so little of those qualities. Instead, much of their actions are full of sanctimony and self-satisfaction. Another thing that was done well with Regis is his reaction to being in Entreri's presence. Despite the significantly de-fanged current nature of Entreri, and Regis' intellectual knowledge that the assassin wouldn't hurt him, Regis struggles to suppress the fear he feels in Entreri's presence. This is one of the few instances in which Salvatore correctly portrays trauma. Regis has more than enough reason to behave the way that he does, Entreri inflicted significant distress in his previous life, and, as Regis notes, "Was there any amount of time and any number of deeds that could fully erase that?" Regis' musing is at the core of many trauma victims' journey to recovery. Furthermore, there is no contrived PTSD in Regis' experiences like was the case with Drizzt in Hero. Accurate, too, is the way that Regis' struggle is focused on the stub of his pinky, with which he fidgets while fighting to hold his voice steady. This shows us rather than telling us that Artemis Entreri is still very much a trigger for Regis, and speaks more to Regis' courage in facing that trigger than had he been the one facing down Demogorgon in Menzoberranzan.

Those are the major positives in terms of characterization and literary devices employed in Boundless. There are also good points dispersed among the descriptions and interactions with lesser characters and incidental elements. While we're not quite sure what the demon possessing the little girl named Sharon is (or if it's a demon at all), Salvatore did a decent job of making Sharon unsettling and creepy under the creature's influence. It's also refreshing to see intrigue in a Drizzt book that isn't confined to Menzoberranzan. Although Salvatore doesn't do the intrigues of Waterdeep justice, he does make an effort to include them, and even if he doesn't show us a great amount of it, I appreciate the nod that he gives to its complexity through indicating that despite months spent in the City of Splendors, one as acute as Entreri hasn't been able to unravel the mysteries he'd been tasked to solve. Unfortunately, there's a total hiatus from the further development of the Neverember plot. The final thing that I wanted to mention for this section is a detail, that, although minor, stood up to fact-checking, which delighted me. A lot of Salvatore's action scenes and descriptions, despite going into overlong detail, are often impractical or simply incorrect. Towards the end of Boundless, we see Drizzt running with everything he's got, "his arms pumping for maximum momentum in the desired direction". I'm not a runner, so I had to research this, but I was ecstatic to find that pumping one's arms does actually help one run faster! Bravo, Salvatore!

That concludes the positive-oriented analysis of Boundless. From this point onward, I'll be performing my brutally critical and honest breakdown of the novel. Fair warning, it's not going to be pretty, because Boundless isn't. Sit tight though, and I'll tell you all the ways that it was bad in excruciating detail, for better or worse.

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so-shiny-so-chrome · 5 years

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Witness: Weirdness_Unlimited

Creator name (AO3): Weirdness_Unlimited

Creator name (Tumblr): Burn-your-face-upon-the-chrome

Link to creator works: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weirdness_Unlimited/works

Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?

A: In the Mad Max universe, anything that is completely absurd and outrageous is represented as the norm. Leather fetish gear? Oh, that's just the security guard uniform at Bartertown. Those guys over there are wearing black and white face paint? No, you're not at an ICP concert, those are War Boys, also run. Whoa, there are acrobats being flung through the air on poles attached to moving vehicles! No worries, that's just any Tuesday in Gas Town. I love this fandom because pretty much any nonsense my skull meat can come up with, as long as the mechanics of it work, I can throw it into my fics and not a single person will bat an eye. As a matter of fact, the weirder, the better.

Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?

A: Life is gross, humans do gross things, and the environment around you could not care less about any of your moral dilemmas. I suppose you can say my style is a lack of it. I like things straight forward and I know this characteristic often weakens any aesthetic appeal to my writing. “To Love Reptiles” reads from Slit's perspective the same way a radio manual does but with a lot more cursing. I try not to make it too complicated to digest. I'd like for people to be able to fill in any blanks with their own interpretation of the situation and then move on to the next.

Themes though, I go heavy on themes. The main theme is interpersonal relationships, coping with failure within them, and personal growth. Other themes include coping with mental illness, codependency, hunger, greed, warfare, trauma, etc.

Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?

A: The most fun work of my own, by far, has been “To Love Reptiles.” It has also been the most popular, most successful, and my most favourite. The most difficult has been an original work with no working title. I can't give away much about this original piece but it has to do with local myths and survival in the wilderness. I quit working on the rough manuscript when my grandmother passed away several years ago. I'll be picking it up again soon. It may turn up on AO3 in the next three or four years.

Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?/

A: Gritty but hopeful, I think. The wasteland is nasty but humans need hope, right?

Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?

A: Alright, so that's an interesting question with a pretty messy answer but I'll try to make it brisk. Step 1: I start with a summary of the story as a whole with a point A (the beginning) and a point B (the end). Step 2: I break that summary down and and fill it out with events that can ferry the characters from the start of the story to the finish on a drawn timeline to keep things in chronological order. I also have note cards. I break this down further into named chapters. This can take a while. Step 3: I summarize each of those chapters to figure out if this story needs more than one installment. It depends out how the series of events land and how many minor arcs are included with the main arc/objective. Sprinkle some drama in there, scrap some unnecessary things, narrow an installment down to thirty (30) chapters at maximum. Step 4: I summarize individual scenes within the chapters and hack out important dialog. This takes weeks. There's typically between four and ten scenes per chapter. Also more note cards. Step 5: I try to flesh out one scene per day. (key word: Try)

I get the most writing done in the morning over coffee and before work. I usually sit at the breakfast table with my phone and spit out about 500-ish words before my husband wakes up. I'll write intermittently throughout the day. Lately I haven't been writing much because of holiday junk and winter being kind of a bummer.

If I'm in a rough patch, I can break though it by sitting in a room with no internet access and forcing myself to scratch out a scene or two in a notepad. Usually these notepad scribbles are so awful that they get torn out and chucked in the waste bin but the next day I'm keen to do the job right.

Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?

A: Ambient sound, white noise, or nothing. I do listen to music and there's a lot of songs I associate with stories, fics, characters. Tove Lo is a big one for Dune. Most of the time I find that music with lyrics or a high tempo is distracting if I'm in the act of writing something but it can be a source of inspiration separately.

Q: How do you keep track of all the details as you're writing? How do you keep details consistent in your works? How do you fact-check your writing?

A: I have a little memo pad with numbered facts that do not change at any point through the story. These are kinda the cardinal rules. I can't tell you the rules because they contain spoilers. After the “RULES” there are miscellaneous details that I'd like to remember in case they come up later. Things like birthmarks, scar placement, mannerisms, things I've hinted at without exposition that will need to be revealed later.

I fact check by googling stuff and falling down research holes for several hours until I forget what I was doing. EVENTUALLY I'll come back to writing and realize that's why there are things in my search history that probably have me on some kind of government watch list.

Q: What motivates your writing?

A: My motivation. Real talk? For AAL it's to get to a particular scene in the planned third installment. Scene thirteen in chapter seven. I know that answers exactly nothing and is weirdly specific but... yes. Other works of mine, I'm motivated by the idea that some of my ideas might entertain someone out there, even if it's just one someone then I've succeeded.

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?

A: Time management. I have a lot of hobbies and finding time for individual projects is... Hard. I made a boredom jar that lets me pick an unfinished task/project/piece at random to do whenever I'm bored so that I can stop myself from starting anything new when my apartment is already full of unfinished junk.

Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?

A: Yes. My organizational skills have improved by miles and my attention span is better focused. Grammatically my work has undergone general improvement.

Learned anything about myself? Hmm, I learned that my opinion of what is canon and what makes good fan fiction are two completely different things. If you ask me anything specific about the Mad Max franchise you will probably get both opinions. As an example: Does Maxosa make for good fan fiction? Heck Yeah! Will canon Max Rockatansky or Furiosa ever be mentally and emotionally healed enough to actually be in a relationship? Probably not and that's okay. I can happily read Max and Furi getting cuddly and domestic and enjoy the heck out of another writer's interpretation of these two overcoming the hurdles of their respective traumas. I can do this knowing full well that Max and Furiosa probably never canonically saw each other again after the closing scene of Fury Road. I'm okay with this because that's the magic of fandom and why I love it.

Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?

A: I relate to Max the most, and I think the reason I haven't yet published anything written from his perspective is because he'd be the most difficult to write without touching on my own fears and inadequacies too much. Max is not interested in being involved with the dramas of anyone else's life. He's already seen too much turmoil and had a hand in it too many times to actively seek people and their inherent problems, however, when presented with zero alternative he'll do what needs to be done and suffer though forming new attachments to very mortal people who may drop dead at any minute. He isn't comfortable with the process of forming attachments and he'd rather avoid it. He doesn't want another ghost. At least that's my interpretation of him.

Slit, remarkably, is my favorite to write for in spite of the fact that I don't relate to him in any way and my interpretation of his portrayal in the film is, simply put, a blunt edged euphemism for abusive relationships. He's just... a guilty pleasure to examine and write. I blame my fondness on the stunning character design and Josh Helman's energy on screen. The character says and does ridiculous things and it's just hilarious to watch Slit dig his own grave and humiliate himself. Case and point: I've got his boot! My understanding of Slit has grown through writing about him. He's probably (canonically) deeply insecure and his way of thinking very toxic and self focused. There's gotta be trauma there (I took massive creative license in that area) and a whole host of personal issues that explain his behavior, but will never excuse it. Does that make good fan fiction??? Parts of it do, the rest has to be that very human ability to grow and improve, although I don't think he'd have that opportunity in canon or accept any form of assistance... If he'd lived.

Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?

A: I think you kind of have to self-insert to a point. Writing tends to involve exaggerating your own experiences and the imagined interactions in your own head in order to make the experiences of the characters relatable. I'd rather not examine every individual facet of the issue but yes, I think Dune is an unintentional self-insert to cope with health problems before I was consciously aware of what I was coping with and since that realization, lately, she's a lot harder to write.

Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?Honestly? Close platonic friendship. Emotional intimacy is interesting. I draw a lot of inspiration for friendship in fiction from Mulder and Scully in early seasons of The X-files.

Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?

A: I see more minor details and the context of silent interactions. Some of these details are unsettling, some of them are so subtle and subliminal that they're easily missed when you watch the films, especially Fury Road. Oddly enough, I'm a lot more- Ah whats the word? Not quite critical of but unnerved by my own observations of Capable's relationship with Nux. I'm not sure why. It could be that I'm misinterpreting the actress's tone or George Miller vision/direction, but I watch the movie now and find that the way Capable looks at and talks about Nux so intensely makes me uneasy. The previous is just an example among many that I've spat out so far, it's not important.

Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?

A: Everything I write within the Mad Max fandom with the exception of collaborative works will probably be linked together and consistent with one another because that means less to remember and fewer mix-ups.

Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?

A: If you have to, break it. I'll read it. I like my fandom unlimited, baby. In my own works I try to keep with canon somewhat but I resurrect a lot of characters who almost certainly died because if I didn't, it would really only leave seven (I think) named characters with dialog who did not die in Fury Road. (The surviving women of the Many Mothers weren't named.)

Q: Share some headcanons:

A: 1) Max has intestinal parasites. He ate a live (two headed) lizard in the first thirty seconds of Fury Road. You really really really should not do that.

2) Furiosa didn't want to kill Ace. She could have just blown his head off instead of punching him in the face with a pistol. She didn't shoot him.

3) Ace did not go under the wheels. Foxy Grandpa lives.

4) Miss Giddy is also alive somewhere

5) Actually, most people in the wasteland probably have intestinal parasites.

Q: If you work with OCs walk us through your process for creating them. Who are some of your favourites?

A: My original characters tend to create themselves. I don't know how they do it, they kinda just decide for themselves for better or worse what they'll look like and how they'll behave. Dune was an accident and the “About a Lizard” series wasn't supposed to happen at all. It was supposed to be a one-shot word dump of what Slit's final moments might have looked like. Slit was supposed to die in a fleeting but intense two seconds of delusions about Valkyries and Valhalla... And then be eaten by a scavenger cannibal. The whole thing kind of just happened on the fly. Ardith, Phil/Crank, Featherknife, Bones, and the kids were also accidental. I had no idea where I was going with the encounter with Crow Fishermen. They just popped into existence of their own will and the rest is history. The only original characters that have been planned and designed well beforehand have been villains. This probably says something about me as a writer though I'm not sure what.

Q: When creating a new character for the AAL series, how do you approach their first interactions with your main characters?

A: The first thing I ask is “What does this scene need” and sometimes it needs a new character for villainy or friendly acquaintance reasons or for a skill-set the main characters do not posses. New characters have a habit of changing a chapter or making it much longer than intended. First interactions with Slit probably won't surprise anyone. He phases through distrust to dislike to begrudged cooperation and from there he's either on his way back to dislike or entering the tolerance phase. Beyond the tolerance phase is... The Complicated Zone. The Complicated Zone is where Nux and Dune are situated. Dune has two basic instincts with people: Should I shoot you? Or should I befriend you? Bizarrely, being friendly is the weirder option in the wastes. Shooting is almost always a consideration if she's taken by surprise.

Q: If you create original works, how do those compare to your fan works?

A: My original works are probably darker and deal more with modern problems. I turn to fan fiction for fun and to indirectly work through things.

Q: Who are some works by other creators inside and outside of the fandom that have influenced your work?

A: A lot of the fandom, too many names to name but one stands out and I can't remember their name or the title of their work. It was about Ace growing up and there was a dingo and a young Miss Giddy. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, please help. I've been looking for this fic for ages.

Q: Is there a specific author(s) that inspired your work when you began writing TLR?

A: I don't think any specific author inspired me while I began TLR but The Dark Half by Stephen King is one of my favorites and I recall re-reading it shortly before getting deep into fan writing. I may even have unconsciously plagiarized a few lines off that book. In my latest attempt to re-read that novel I'm feeling like there's a lot of Thad Beaumont in my portrayal of Slit.

Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.?

A: Don't be afraid to write things that are too soft or too dark or too this or too that. Sometimes readers crave that stuff that makes us feel warm and safe and sometimes we're also here for things that make us wonder how the @!#$% the characters will ever recover or IF they will ever recover. The real world is full of all sorts of feelings, situations, serendipitous coincidences. Take us down whatever funky road you got! You're the driver, you decide. Your fic is your world. Write WILD things sometimes because it's fun.

Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?

A: I would love to take a trip to Australia one day to paint scenery in oils but that predates my time in MM fandom. I really want to go to Wasteland Weekend in the next two years but finances, necessities, costumes, etc need to be sorted out first.

Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project.

A: Well, I'm buying up model car kits to make little Mad Max cars for nerd purposes.

Thank you @burn-your-face-upon-the-chrome

#mad max fanfic #Mad Max Fandom Creator Spotlight #Mad Max Fandom Spotlight #fury road fanfic #fanfic author spotlight #fury road fandom #mad max fandom #weirdness unlimited

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artificialqueens · 6 years

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cirque d'amour - chapter eleven (trixya) - cal

i’m sorry, i posted this to ao3 ages ago and again, forgot to submit here…I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY, if you haven’t already read it! the next chapter is coming very soon…

HUGE HUGE HUGE TRIGGER WARNING: abuse, mental illness, mentions of attempting suicide *IF YOU WANT TO SKIP OUT TRIXIE’S FLASHBACK FROM HER PAST, IT IS ALL IN ITALICS* okay, whooOoO. this one’s a journey, you guys. starts out adorable & ends up pretty heavy.

part one of trixie being the ross we deserved back in the last season of friends.

sorry it took a while ~ i hope you enjoy, i know this one’s a wild ride <3

Trixie leaned to whisper delicately into Katya’s ear beside her. “Did she really win drag race?”

Katya’s perfect mouth formed an ‘o’ of surprise, and she clasped a hand over her lips to conceal it. “Trixie!”

Trixie grinned sheepishly, her eyes trained on Alaska as she performed a questionable rendition of Oasis’ “Wonderwall”. The party were collected by the stage in a cluster of excitement, encouraging the strange Alaska with intoxicated wails of approval. Trixie and Katya, the only two of the group who were stone-cold sober, were wincing every time the incredibly drunken Alaksa attempted to hit a high note.

Trixie, despite her recent plight, felt lighter than she had in the longest time. Her admission to Katya took huge courage and she could still feel the shivers across her spine she had felt when she had finally said it. Their relationship may well be impossible to pursue, Trixie knew, but she was enjoying being with Katya this night all the same; with no secrets and no tension between them, just pure, true feeling.

Latrice, his bar-tending abandoned after he had consumed one too many mojitos, clocked Trixie’s presence in the little crowd. “Tracyyy! Go and help 'Lasky, we have a - hic - guitar backstage!”

Trixie grimaced - her guitar playing could improve the situation, seeing as Alaksa was wailing with no backing track - but she was still fearful of playing in front of a crowd, even one as small as this.

“Go on, Trix,” Katya hissed through clenched teeth. “You can only make this better. Besides, everyone’s a mess.”

“You’re not.”

Katya grinned knowingly, and Trixie felt her stomach somersault. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Trix—eee,” Latrice slurred, approaching her with a huge pout. “Pleaseeee.”

Trixie huffed a tiny breath of fear, her eyes training on the spotlights that flooded the stage. You can do this, bitch. It’s nothing. It’s only for fun.

She gave Latrice a wobbly smile. “Okay, okay. Where is this guitar?”

Trixie was stood side-stage a moment later, an ageing Fender gripped in her clammy hands. She watched as Alaska garbled over the words of the ageless song, and she winced with the blatant massacre of it.

Trixie inhaled sharply and held the breath in her chest for a moment, before stepping onto the glaring light of the stage.

The gabble of drunken people screamed, but Trixie could hear only Katya among them; the loudest, the most feeling. Trixie felt warmth flood her body at the sound.

Trixie smiled awkwardly, feeling eternally grateful for the glare of the lights that mostly distorted every face that was now watching her. She fiddled with the microphone stand that Alaksa had abandoned, cradling her own mic into the top of it.

Alaska had paused in her din, grinning broadly at Trixie as she joined her on stage.

“So, anyway,” Trixie muttered into the mic, startling herself with the sound of her amplified voice. “Here’s Wonderwall.”

Trixie couldn’t help but cast a glance at Katya then; Katya, who was doubled over and wheezing with laughter. Trixie felt braver every time she looked at her.

Trixie began strumming the simple chords, her confidence rising with every strum of her fingers and every slide of the fret. She felt the familiar joy she had felt back in Chicago, when she had played for the Cirque in their tiny apartment. The little crowd had silenced themselves when she had started to play and, much to Trixie’s surprise, so had Alaska.

Every pair of eyes were trained on her, but the only eyes Trixie truly cared about were Katya’s – and she could see them now, through the glare of the lights, staring up at her with unmistakable admiration. Trixie felt her heart soar, and her confidence bloom; the song was overplayed and cliche, she knew, but she poured her soul into the words and the chords regardless of that fact.

“Maybe,” she sang, her eyes closing for a moment as she let the atmosphere of the club wash over her. “You’re gonna be the one that saves me.”

When her hazy eyes opened a crack, she saw that the room was dimly lit now with various lighters and torches from phones – a tiny sea of lights at her feet. Trixie smiled; she felt delighted, in awe. She felt at home.

After what simultaneously felt like forever and a heartbeat all at once, Trixie ended the song to tremendous applause from the little crowd below her. She took a bow, the redness in her cheeks growing as the reality of what she had just done dawned upon her.

“Oh, wow,” she breathed, blushing furiously as everyone continued to cheer for her.

She stole a glance towards Katya; Katya, who was jumping up and down like a crazed wild woman, clapping and wailing louder than anyone else.

Trixie jogged down the steps by the stage, exhilaration stealing her breath as she grasped Katya’s arm.

“Hey, Katya?”

“You were so good, mama, like wow, I’m—“

“Katya!”

“Oh…sorry…yes?”

“I’ll do it,” Trixie’s eyes were sparkling.

Katya tilted her head, confusion pinching her face. “Do what?”

“Perform,” Trixie gasped, excitement gushing through her veins. “At your closing show.”

Katya’s eyes widened. “Oh, bitch!”

The next day Trixie spent hauled up in her room.

It was how she had spent the majority of the week, but today, it wasn’t because she was riddled with guilt and haunted by the demon of depression; it was because she needed to focus.

She had decided to write her own song for the finale of the Cirque – a risky choice, she knew, but somehow it felt right.

She was nestled in a bright pink bathrobe, a handful of moleskin notebooks piled messily in front of her. She had always wrote music- it had gotten her through the darkest times of her life – but she felt she needed to write something new for such a special occasion.

She chewed the end of her pen thoughtfully as she gazed down at the chaotic scribbles on various open pages, trying desperately to make them all fit.

The door of her bedroom opened without a knock, as it so often did – and Trixie instinctively rolled her eyes.

“Hey, it’s a good job I’m celibate,” she huffed, not looking up. “Or you’d be catching me in the nude with all this blatant invading of my privacy.”

Courtney, forever looking insufferably perfect, glided across the room towards Trixie.

“From the sounds of things,” she scoffed, seating herself on the edge of Trixie’s bed with no invitation to do so. “Your celibacy won’t be for long.”

Trixie’s glare was instant – her song-writing forgotten for the moment.

“What’re you talking about, sis?”

Courtney raised her sculpted brow, a no-nonsense look on her face. “Bitch, anyone within a 20 mile radius can see you and Katya fucking each other with your eyes.”

“Ex-cuse me?” Trixie gasped, a laugh escaping her with a strange mixture of embarrassment and surprise.

“We been done knew,” Courtney wiggled her shoulders, smiling triumphantly at Trixie’s blatant embarrassment.

Trixie heaved a sigh; clearly lying to Courtney was a pointless fete. “Okay, okay, yes. I like her. I like her a lot. Can you drop it now?”

“Nope.”

“Courtney!”

“Listen,” Courtney said, and something about the sudden hint of seriousness in her tone took Trixie aback. She gazed at Courtney, noting the drop of her lips and the furrowing of her brow.

“Listening,” Trixie whispered.

“Katya is my friend,” Courtney said simply, crossing her arms over her breasts. “Please, please don’t hurt her. She’s very…delicate.”

“I have no intention of hurting her,” Trixie mumbled, feeling a spark of irritation. “I’m not even trying to get anything from her. We agreed - we’re friends.”

Courtney’s face betrayed her disbelief, which only irritated Trixie further. “No offence, but since when did it become your business?”

Courtney’s eyes widened with surprise, and Trixie regretted her heated words in an instant as she rose from the bed. “Court, I -”

“Forget it,” Courtney said bluntly, waving a hand dismissively. “You’re right, it’s nothing to do with me.”

Courtney exited the room without a glance in Trixie’s direction and not for the first time this chaotic week, Trixie felt like a garbage human person.

Katya I can’t believe the final show is tomorrow, tracy! are you excited for your debut?!

Trixie was in line at Starbucks, trying desperately to juggle her heavy laptop, her phone, and a handful of change all at once.

“Um -” she muttered the moment the server asked what she would like; her turbulent brain forgetting the order she made every single time she visited the place.

“Ah - oh!” Trixie had a eureka moment as the disorganised cogs in the mind begin to turn once more. “A hazelnut soy latte, please. Sorry.”

Trixie collected her coffee at the end of the line, trying desperately to hide her burning cheeks from the prying eyes of the other people there. She slid into an empty seat in the corner of the room, opening her laptop with a grunt of dissatisfaction as she realised that the name on her cup spelt 'Trinksy’.

“Trinksy?” Trixie muttered, her eyebrows raised. “Really?”

Trixie no

Trixie flipped through her moleskin notebook, trying to locate her messy scribbles and idle-minded doodles. She decided, after days of chewing anxious dints into multitudes of pens, that she would leave the prison of her bedroom and combine her notes into some form of chord progression and lyrics that made sense - the day before she needed them. Trixie Mattel was organised.

Katya oh mama, you’ll be fine. you’ll be amazing!! i’m so excited, jsefjsfklkajbs

Trixie wasn’t hugely satisfied with her song-writing - she oftentimes was critical of her own work, that much was true, but she didn’t feel safe enough mentally to allow her emotions to write her songs. With everything that had happened recently, she’d had to place her feelings in an iron vice and keep them clamped there safely before they spilled out into everything she did.

Trixie typed away, her nails clicking against the keyboard, as she sipped absentmindedly at her lukewarm coffee.

In the midst of her vain attempts to focus, a single thought kept pronouncing itself at the forefront of Trixie’s mind; her exchange with Courtney a few days ago. They had seen each other a few times, usually crossing paths in the mornings where Trixie glared at her laptop in desperate search for a job, and Courtney silently pouring herself a coffee into her giant flask. She missed their silly banter; Courtney had become a very valuable friend to Trixie, and she decided that she had to overcome her fear of confrontation and address the problem that they had.

Trixie huffed a breath, pulling out her phone and typing a rapid text to her.

Trixie Hey…I’m at starbucks. Do you wanna come drink overpriced coffee and shamelessly people-watch with me?

She then, after giving herself a mental pat on the back for doing something so grown-up and so not Trixie, typed an orderly sequence for her Cirque song whilst humming it against the rim of her cup.

Once Trixie had finished, she skimmed the song with a critical eye. The end result she found she was pleased with, and she smacked her lips with satisfaction as the closed her laptop down.

She glanced at her phone – no response from Courtney.

Trixie sighed. She hated that Courtney was upset with her and she was irritated with herself for allowing her tone to turn the way it had done when they had last spoke; though Trixie was certain that was more to it than that.

She was about to pack up and vacate her table when the front door of the cafe opened to reveal the unmistakable silhouette of Miss Courtney Act.

She glanced about herself, clearly trying to locate Trixie. Trixie raised her hand and wiggled her fingers to get her attention, and smiled when Courtney noticed.

She flounced over to Trixie’s table, her work bag slung over her shoulder. She dropped herself into the vacant seat opposite Trixie with a dramatic sigh.

“God, what a fucking day,” she grumbled, gracefully running a manicured hand through her curls. Trixie stifled a chuckle; she had missed her.

“Bad day at the office?”

“The worst,” Courtney rolled her eyes. “So I was down for this.”

“You didn’t reply to my text, bitch.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Courtney tossed her hair over her shoulder and gave Trixie a glare.

“You’re here,” Trixie agreed with the beginnings of a smile. She hesitated for a moment, before steeling herself to speak again. “I’m sorry, you know…about the other day.”

Courtney’s eyebrow was raised in mock-surprise. “Is Trixie Mattel apologising?”

“You’re a dick,” Trixie mumbled, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Did she really come across as someone who isn’t sorry when she’d done wrong?

Courtney chuckled. “I’m kidding. And hey, it’s cool. I guess I overstepped the line. I just really love Katya. You know?”

Trixie’s phone lit up at that moment from where it lay on the table – a string of new notifications were rapidly multiplying at Katya texted her chaotic thought stream. Trixie couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah. I know.”

Trixie and Courtney parted ways after their coffees – Courtney was spending the night at Milk’s little flat, which she often did, painfully aware that soon she would not be seeing him for a number of weeks. Trixie was afraid to think about the impending tour, so she refused to allow herself to. She knew with a frightening certainty that she would miss Katya with an ache that ran deep.

Trixie decided to wander the streets of L.A to clear her mind after the exhausting task of song writing. It was fast approaching dusk, and the sky was bleeding brilliant orange against the pastel blue. She was paying little attention to the treads of her feet, staring instead at the beauty of the sunset against the skyline, her mind pleasantly blank and her mood high.

She stumbled quite suddenly into a small girl who was waiting at a crossing, her fingers interlaced with someone who Trixie assumed was her father. “Oh, I’m s—“

Trixie was cut off by the gruffness of the man’s voice. “Izzy!”

Trixie’s heart began to hammer in an instant. The voice was eerily familiar. Her wide, fearful eyes darted to the man’s face – no, it’s not him. It’s not him.

“I’m sorry about that,” the man mumbled with a kindly gaze.

“Oh, uh, it’s —“ Trixie stammered, her hands visibly shaking by her sides. No, it’s not him. Stop it. Calm down. Everything’s fine.

“Are you okay?” the man seemed concerned.

“Kiss his cheek, Beatrice.”

Trixie’s tiny eyes were suddenly huge; she giggled nervously, fiddling with the trim of her t-shirt. “N-no.”

The man beside her became a towering darkness - her step-father wasn’t tall by any stretch of the imagination, but to the tiny 9-year-old Trixie, he was impossibly huge. She winced, noting the rigidity of his limbs and sensed what may be coming.

“You ungrateful brat,” he spat, his eyes growing wild. “Mark very kindly let you stay in his house for the weekend, and you won’t even say thank you?”

His words became a growl, and her step-father crouched to his knees so that Trixie couldn’t avoid the fire in his eyes. Mark shuffled uncomfortably, unsure of how to handle the situation.

“Oh, um,” he stuttered, running a hand through his hair. “It’s okay, it’s really not necessary…”

Trixie felt intense pain as her step-father tore at her hair, her scalp burning and her eyes clamping shut. A huge, fearful sob escaped her lips as he released her, a clump of her perfect blonde curls gripped in his closed fist.

“Next time I tell you to do something,” he sneered darkly. “You better do it.”

Trixie’s tongue was a lump in her mouth. Her anxiety was fast mounting towards panic, and much as she mentally begged herself to calm down, her body was responding quicker than she could think.

She jolted into a run, stumbling against the pavement in her haste to get away. Her breath came in ragged gasps, the streets blurring into grey nothingness as tears crowded her eyes. Adrenaline was gushing through her veins and every rapid thud of her heart pushed her to move, to run, to hide, to disappear.

Trixie ran for a long time. Just how long, she would never know. Once her muscles started to protest against every stride and sweat was pouring from her temples, she was forced to stop.

She lent against a park bench, panting rapidly. Her heart was in her mouth and her eyes kept darting about herself, as though she was a startled rabbit being hunted by an unknown predator. The people enjoying their sunset stroll in the park were casting curious glances in her direction, but Trixie was none-the-wiser.

For the first time in her mad flight, Trixie’s logic broke through the chaos in her mind. Call Willam. Call Willam. Call Willam.

With shaking hands, she fumbled with her phone to locate her list of contacts. She pressed clumsily against Willam’s name, almost dialling the wrong person.

The phone rang once. Twice, three times, four.

Trixie almost sobbed out loud. What if she doesn’t answer? What if she —

“Trixie?”

She answered.

Trixie began to cry, heaving and huge sobs. Her voice was obstructed by her own fear, her misery, and her flutter of relief that Willam had answered, but she couldn’t verbalise any of this. All she could do was cry.

“Trixie,” Willam’s voice was thick with concern. “Trixie, where are you?”

Trixie tried desperately to form the words she needed, but all she could do was stammer.

“Trixie. I need to know where you are so I can help you. Please, try to breathe. Remember, like we used to do together?”

Trixie nodded against the phone, even though she knew Willam could not see her. Her cheeks were slick with her tears.

“Breathe in now. And count to 5.”

Willam’s voice was soothing as Trixie closed her eyes and drew in a broken breath. She tried to count, but her mind was still a hive of fear, and she couldn’t concentrate.

“It’s okay.” Willam said softly. “It’s okay, try again. Start again. You got this.”

Trixie did as she was told. She drew in a shuddering breath, and found that this time, she was able to count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

“Good job Trix - and out.”

The pair of them did this for 11 more minutes – Willam, encouraging, soothing, instructing, and Trixie, just breathing.

Eventually, Trixie found that she could speak. “Willam.”

“Yes?”

“I freaked.”

“I know.”

“I thought I saw him.”

There was dead air from Willam’s line for what felt like a lifetime. “Was it?”

“No,” Trixie admitted, goose bumps dimpling across her arms. “I knew, I knew it wasn’t. And I still couldn’t—“

A car pulled up at the side of the street, and Trixie’s neck snapped up in an instant.

“Willam, how—”

“I have my ways,” Willam’s voice responded, as Trixie watched a somewhat dishevelled Katya warily approaching her from the abandoned car.

Trixie’s jaw was gaping. “W-Willam. Thank you.”

“Anytime. I told you that, didn’t I? Now…tell her, Trix.”

An empty dialling tone hummed against Trixie’s ear, and she gazed up at the confused and concerned Katya.

“What do you need?”

Trixie’s breath was a shudder. “Take me home.”

Katya extended her hand, and Trixie lay her own against it without a moment’s hesitation. “Okay.”

Trixie didn’t speak again for a while.

Katya drove the pair to Trixie’s flat in a car Trixie had never seen before; nor did she care to ask.

Katya followed her into the flat once they had arrived with an air of hesitancy, as though she didn’t know what she ought to do, or how to behave.

Trixie merely shuddered in the hallway, apparently unable to make a coherent decision about where she should go or what she should do. She suddenly felt the soft caress of Katya’s strong hands against her shaking shoulders, somewhere behind her.

“Shall we get you into bed, Trixie?”

Her voice was so gentle and so familiar that Trixie felt herself relax ever so slightly. She nodded, allowing Katya to manoeuvre her across the expense of the apartment maze, until they found themselves in Trixie’s bedroom.

Katya parked Trixie on the bed and quickly enveloped her in the pink bathrobe she had abandoned on her bed earlier that day. Trixie’s shivering started to abate as the shock gripping her body began to ebb away.

She became suddenly aware that no doubt her eyes would be black circles and that Katya - Katya - was crouched by her knees, gazing at her with a mixture of maddening emotions.

“I-uh,” Trixie stammered, reality dawning fast. “Wow. How did — okay.”

“You okay?”

“I —” Willam’s words reverberated in the chaos of Trixie’s wound up mind: Tell her.

Heaving a defeated sigh, Trixie lay and rolled across the expanse of her bed. “Katya - lie with me. Can you — hold me?”

Trixie, facing the wall, felt the dip of the bed as Katya clambered onto it. She felt a snaking arm around her side and the comforting warmth of Katya’s body pressing against her back. Katya’s face became entangled in her wild hair - and she whispered; “I’m here.”

That was all it took - Trixie descended into sobs once more, her body shaking with every heave of breath. Her chest ached and her muscles stung from her merciless run. Katya tightened her grip ever so slightly as Trixie cried. “It’s okay, I’m here. You’re safe.”

Trixie felt overwhelmed - it was almost as though she was a young girl again, completely defenceless and immobile, unable to protect herself. She knew she was safe with Katya - but she was lost in a past that only she could see.

“I — I need to tell you,” Trixie stammered, sniffling, trying to grasp at the present and ground herself where she was. “About something.”

Katya said nothing; merely squeezed her again.

Trixie wiped harshly at the tears collecting beneath her eyes. “I - I was abused. As a child.”

Trixie felt Katya’s body tense against her, but she said nothing.

“And, uh,” Trixie’s words were like tar in her throat - dark, burning, drowning. “Two years ago I - I was once hospitalised for trying to —”

Trixie took in a sharp breath.

“For trying to end it.”

Trixie felt Katya’s cheek press against her bare shoulder quite suddenly.

“And, uh. I had therapy. I’ve like - worked through the abuse. I’m like — okay. But sometimes - sometimes I have some pretty vivid flashbacks, and um. I saw someone today who I thought was — him. My step-father.”

Trixie felt a tiny surge of growing courage with every word she spoke. “And Willam - Willam knows. Willam has seen me at my worst, and Willam wanted me to tell — someone. To tell you. So that someone else knows. She’s always afraid of seeing me like that again. It messed her up — you know?”

Trixie felt Katya shudder against her, and she immediately turned to face her. Silent tears were rolling down Katya’s reddening cheeks as her shoulders shook.

“Fuck,” Katya gasped, vainly attempting to conceal her face. “I’m sorry.”

“Katya,” Trixie said softly, grasping Katya’s tiny wrists in her hands. “You’re crying?”

“I just —” Katya sniffled, her bottom lip wobbling. “I hate that someone did that to you. I hate that you felt that bad. I hate it, Trixie.”

Katya descended into sobs then, wrapping her arms around Trixie’s larger frame and pulling her close. Trixie’s face was pressed against the soft fabric of Katya’s loose t-shirt, feeling comforted by the sensation of it against her cheek and the ever-familiar intoxicating scent that was Katya: the intriguing mix of vanilla, incense, and the smell of outside.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you again,” Katya mumbled against the crown of Trixie’s head. “And I want you to tell me, if you ever feel bad again.”

Trixie nodded in response.

“And I think you should tell Court, too. 'Cause…someone needs to know, while I’m —”

“While you’re gone.”

The silence that enveloped them then was almost deafening. Katya heaved a sigh that caused Trixie’s head to rise and fall with her breath. This was the first time they had broached the subject of Katya’s impending absence.

“I don’t want to leave you. Maybe I — maybe I should stay.”

Trixie pushed herself away from Katya for a moment; so that she could meet her eyes with the fiercest glare. Katya’s cheeks were still red from her crying, her make up smudged messily across the space below her eyes. Trixie still thought that she looked beautiful.

“Listen,” Trixie said, her hand gripping Katya’s. “You are going on this tour. It’s all you’ve talked about for weeks and I would never stand in the way of your dreams. I won’t talk to you ever again if you don’t go.”

Katya’s crimson lips parted in a wobbly smile. “Okay. But — will you be okay?”

“I’m always okay,” Trixie assured her, feeling stronger than she could remember feeling; lying here with Katya, knowing that despite that she would always have some degree of adversity to overcome when it came to her past and her mental health; she was okay. She would be okay.

#cal #rpdr fanfiction #cirque d'amour #trixya #katya zamolodchikova #trixie mattel #courtney act #willam belli #alaska thunderfuck #lesbian au #circus au #fluff #slow burn #smut #pining #angst #tw trauma #tw child abuse #tw mentions of suicide

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aswithasunbeam · 7 years

Text

Recovery, a Hamliza fanfic, Chapter 3 / 4

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 4

Summary: Yellow Fever was no small illness to overcome. Hamilton and Eliza head for Albany once they're deemed well enough to travel, but Eliza can't shake the feeling that something is still wrong with her husband.

She woke up alone.

When she made her way down to the breakfast table, she greeted each of her children with a kiss on their heads, but found her husband and her father absent. Kitty Schuyler made her a plate while she made her rounds. Eliza smiled and thanked her mother.

“Have you seen my husband this morning?” she asked as she started on her food.

Her mother smiled. “He disappeared into your father’s office around dawn. He said needed to work on correspondence.”

“Papa was mad,” Jamie noted from down the table.

Eliza looked over at him, surprised. Hamilton rarely lost his temper, and especially governed it around the children. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

He looked up from his plate. “Papa was mad,” he repeated. “He said he was going to get back on the ship today and go away.”

“He said he would do that only if the mayor didn’t see reason,” Philip corrected.

“Didn’t see reason?” Eliza echoed, thoroughly confused.

She glanced at her mother, and found Kitty Schuyler wearing a curiously guilty expression. “Mother?”

“Your father may have made certain…assurances…to ensure your welcome in Albany. When your husband heard, he was less than pleased.”

Eliza continued to stare at her mother, silently pressing for more.

Kitty sighed and continued, “He promised neither of you would leave the house once you arrived. Hamilton seemed to find that a violation of his rights as a citizen.”

“He said he didn’t fight a war to be a prisoner in his own family’s home,” Alex added helpfully.

Eliza looked over at her children once more. “Were all of you witness to this conversation?” she asked.

“Only me, Alex and Jamie,” Philip said.

“Wonderful,” Eliza huffed in exasperation. If Hamilton was going to go off on a rant about civil liberties, he could at least avoid doing so in front of their impressionable children.

She pushed back from the table and stood. Stalking down the hall, she pushed open the door to her father’s study without knocking. Hamilton was bent low over a sheet of paper, writing feverishly. He barely glanced up at her before going back to his work.

“Hamilton,” she demanded.

He scribbled a few more words and looked up. “Do you know what the mayor demanded? We’re practically prisoners, Eliza! I’ll not stand for it. I will go back across the river and re-enter under new terms if I must.”

“Does it really matter?” Eliza asked.

“Of course it matters!”

“You should be resting anyway, darling. You have no cause to be running around town.”

“It is the principle of the thing. I didn’t fight a war for freedom to be told I’m not permitted out of the house without the permission of a state official.”

“Hamilton,” she began.

“I will not stand for it, Eliza,” he repeated firmly. “They have no cause to act this way. We were cleared by the doctor in Philadelphia, and again before entering the city. Neither of us poses the slightest danger to society.”

Eliza hesitated. He fixed her with a pointed glare. “What?” he snapped.

“Sweetheart, you…you still seem a bit…unwell, is all. I simply worry over you,” she said, holding up her hands to placate him. “I wish you wouldn’t get so worked up so soon after your recovery.”

He softened a little, but shook his head. “It cannot stand.”

She nodded, giving up on fighting him when he was in this kind of mood. Sighing, she told him, “Come have some breakfast when you’ve finished.”

“I’m not hungry,” he replied.

“You need to eat,” Eliza urged.

He nodded vaguely, his attention already back on his work.

~*~

“General Schuyler? A messenger is at the door,” Prince announced.

“A messenger?” her father repeated. He stood slowly, wincing as he put weight on his bad foot. Eliza glanced at her husband, who was dozing in the armchair before the fire. That he was still falling asleep in the middle of the day concerned her, but he gave a little snuffle that made her smile fondly.

Moments later, her father returned, carrying a letter. He had that erect bearing and proud grin that told her something had reminded him of his son-in-law’s prestigious position. Sure enough, he held up the letter as soon as he was fully in the room and said, “A message for Secretary Hamilton from the President of the United States.”

Hamilton opened his eyes and sat up, rubbing his hand over his face. “How did he even know I was here?” he mumbled, still half asleep.

“I’m sure he knew you’d make your way up here soon enough,” Philip answered, limping forward to put the letter in his hand. “Government business never stops.”

“I wish it would,” Hamilton muttered, staring down at the letter.

Eliza’s head shot up from her mending. She’d never heard him voice a desire to leave his position out loud before. She saw her father standing beside him, looking equally startled.

“Now, son, I know public service can be trying at times,” Philip began, voice soft.

Hamilton laughed derisively. “Trying?” he repeated. “I work fourteen hours a day trying to repair the financial state of our nation. In return I receive no gratitude, no appreciation. I’m hardly compensated enough to feed my family.”

“Son,” her father repeated, looking lost for words.

Hamilton glanced up and Eliza saw realization pass over his face, as though he hadn’t known he’d been speaking aloud. He shook his head. “My apologies, sir. I was…talking nonsense. I’m just tired.” He stood abruptly. “I should go read this.”

Her father met her eyes when Hamilton left the room.

Eliza placed her mending down and stood. “I’m going to speak to him.”

She followed his path from the parlor to the office and watched him pacing the floor, clenching the letter in his hand.

“Is everything all right?” Eliza asked.

Hamilton started and plastered on a smile. “Oh, yes. The president is just asking for advice on a constitutional question.”

Eliza nodded, stepped fully into the office, and closed the door behind her. “What sort of advice?” she asked.

He paused in his pacing. With a sigh, he held the letter out to her. “Go ahead,” he urged.

Eliza scanned the message, her heart sinking. The president was looking for a way to call the government back together. He wanted everyone to meet in Pennsylvania once more, preferably in Germantown as Philadelphia was still overrun with the fever. Washington was asking her husband to advise him on the constitutionality of the President calling for the government to assemble somewhere other than the capital.

“It’s not constitutional, right?” Eliza asked.

Hamilton shrugged.

“No. Everyone will just have to wait until the fever abates in Philadelphia,” she said. He wasn’t ready for another long journey. He certainly wasn’t ready to go back to government work.

“When did you become such a constitutional scholar?” he asked with a teasing smile. “I helped write it and I couldn’t answer so quickly.”

Eliza shook her head, refusing to let him distract her. “You can’t go back yet.”

“Can’t I?”

“You’re not well,” she snapped. Closing her eyes, she fought down her temper and added in a more measured tone, “You need to rest and recover. A long trip wouldn’t be good for you right now.”

A long pause followed.

“I’ve been thinking about resigning,” he said in a whisper, as though confessing a great secret. She felt horribly conflicted, torn between the reaction she should have, and the reaction she wanted to have. Truly, she’d love for him to resign. She hated the long hours and the stress and the constant attacks that came with his position.

She forced herself to be the dutiful, republican wife. “Darling, you’ve just recovered from a terrible illness. Now isn’t the time to be making these kinds of decisions.”

“I was thinking about it before I got sick,” he told her. “Getting sick just made the decision seem more obvious. We spend so much time apart, Betsey. So much. And the first time you stayed by my side, you nearly died. I don’t know what I’d do if you died.”

“Honey,” she tried to interrupt him.

“ Do you know what that man wanted? The other day, on the sloop?” She shook her head. “He wanted to talk about how my bank is corrupting the souls of America. And then he had the audacity to inquire what I thought was a proper price for bank script! I…I don’t even remember why I’m doing this anymore.”

Eliza took two steps further into the room and wrapped him in an embrace. She could feel him trembling in her arms. “You are creating a strong, stable country to pass on to our children. You are founding a nation that will revere your name. That’s what you’re doing.”

He nodded a little against her.

“And if you want to stop, I will still love you every bit as much as I do right now.”

He pulled away and gave her a weak smile. “Thank you,” he said with a reverence she’d never heard in his voice before. He sniffled lightly, then held up the letter he was still clutching in his hands. “I should answer this.”

“Right,” she said, easing her hold on him. He stepped over to the desk, and she asked curiously, “Is it constitutional? Ordering the government to assemble somewhere other than the capital?”

“Oh, not even remotely.”

“So you’ll have time to rest?” she said, nearly sighing with relief.

“No.” He laughed when he saw her look of confusion. “He can’t order the government to meet somewhere else, but there is no harm in his recommending it.”

“Doesn’t that amount to the same thing, just worded slightly differently?”

“It’s called lawyering, darling. I do it professionally,” he grinned. He seemed rejuvenated somehow, as though her permission to stop had spurred him to recommit himself.

Well done, she berated herself as she left him to write his letter. She’d just convinced him to do the very thing she’d been begging him not to do when she’d followed him into the office.

~*~

Eliza looped some thread around her finger, held it before her to measure, and then cut it to the proper length. She had to squint in the firelight to thread the needle, but she managed it after only one false start. Just as she was about to begin the next section of the handkerchief she was embroidering, she heard her father’s heavy boots in the hall.

Hamilton looked up from the book he was reading in the armchair across from her. “General,” he greeted Philip Schuyler with a smile.

Her father looked uncomfortable. He inclined his head slightly, and he closed the door to the parlor behind him. “I need to speak to you both.”

“What is it, Papa?” Eliza asked.

“I’ve given it some consideration, and I cannot allow you to take the children with you when you leave this week.”

Eliza’s eyes widened. He wouldn’t allow them to take their children? Had he gone mad? She looked over to Hamilton to see his expression had gone tense as well. His voice was low and falsely calm when he asked, “What do you mean, sir?”

Sensing their mood, her father held up his hands and forced a smile. “I’m only thinking of you and them. You know how much I adore you all.”

Neither of them said anything in response, so he continued. He fixed his gaze on Hamilton and said, “Son, you’re not well.”

“I have been assured by two physicians that I’m no longer contagious and that I’m fit to travel,” Hamilton retorted immediately.

Philip nodded. “I’m sure they were correct that you are no longer in danger,” he assured. “But I can tell you’re still feeling under the weather. The trip to New York and then on to wherever the government will be meeting will be long and difficult. Many areas are still teeming with the fever. Do you not think it safer, for their health and yours, for them to stay here? They will be protected from the fever and neither of you will need to overexert yourselves caring for them.”

Hamilton met her eyes, silently seeking her opinion. Eliza sighed as she considered her father’s argument. He was right, she decided. Hamilton was still obviously unwell, and they were both to be traveling back into the heart of the epidemic. She held his gaze and nodded once.

Her husband’s shoulders sagged a little as he looked back at her father. “You’re right, sir. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Eliza and the children should stay here.”

“What? No,” she argued immediately. “I’m going with you.”

“It’s too dangerous. You had fever in the first place because I didn’t wish to part from you. I would never forgive myself if you became ill again because of me. You should stay here where it’s safe.”

“I’m going with you,” she repeated. “How do you think I would feel, if you became worse on your own in the city?”

“Eliza—.” He began.

“There’s no point arguing,” she cut him off. “We will leave on Thursday as planned, and the children will remain here a bit longer, until it’s safe for them to follow.”

A little smile quirked his lips. “Our wedding was some time ago, so it’s a little difficult to recall. Was it not you who made the promise to obey me?”

She stared hard at him, utterly unamused.

“I’ve always thought that should be the other way round, myself,” her father added with a chuckle.

“It would be more honest, certainly,” Hamilton remarked. The smile was still on his lips. “We’ll do as you say, my dearest. I have little hope of convincing you to remain if you do not wish to.”

“I do not wish for my husband to work himself to death while I remain in the comfort of my family home,” she said sternly.

“Very well. You’ll come with me to watch me work myself to death up close.”

She glared at him.

He laughed. “I’m just teasing, my angel.”

“I don’t find your health to be a laughing matter,” Eliza told him.

“Nor I yours,” he replied. “So you will continue to place yourself in harm’s way for my benefit, and I will continue to resist you. I believe that is the marker of a good marriage.”

At last, she gave him a tiny smile in return.

~*~

Their children saw them off with red eyes and mournful faces.

“It’s just for a little while,” Eliza assured them. “Just while everything gets settled. Then we’ll all be together.”

None of them looked cheered.

She was giving Johnny a face full of kisses when she saw her father lean in to speak to her husband. Philip Schuyler placed a hand on Hamilton’s shoulder and whispered, “The work you do for the country is vital, and very much appreciated by every reasonable citizen in this nation.”

“I know, sir. I was just tired and… emotionally overwrought from the illness, I suppose. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Her father shook his head. “I would hate to see you give up your position and the good work you are doing,” he continued. Hamilton nodded quickly and opened his mouth to respond, but her father held up a hand. “But I want you to know, you have my full support and constant affection, whatever you decide.” Her husband’s eyes went bright.

Her father patted him on the back firmly, then turned to her with a wide smile. “Have a safe journey, my beloved child,” he wished, embracing her.

She kissed each of her children once more, then allowed Hamilton to assist her into the coach. He was stepping up himself when his foot slipped. He caught himself on the door and placed a hand to his temple as though he’d been suddenly overcome with vertigo. All the color had drained from his face.

“Hamilton,” she cried, sliding over and reaching out for him.

He smiled weakly. “I’m all right,” he whispered. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her or himself.

As the coach bumped down the road away from her childhood home, she was overcome with a horrible sense of foreboding. This was a terrible idea.

#hamilton fanfic #alexander hamilton #eliza schuyler hamilton #hamliza #historical hamliza #sickfic #yellow fever aftermath

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beanaroony · 7 years

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Bean’s 15 tips for beginner (digital) artists...

TO THE ANON WHO SENT ME THAT ASK FOR BEGINNER TIPS~

I drafted my reply stupidly and tumblr ate it. Oops.

DISCLAIMER: I am by no means excellent with digital art. I’m deficient with color schemes/the concept of “color” in general (I’m definitely not colorblind, but there’s definitely a screw loose somewhere,) I rarely if at all have the patience to line my art, and forget painting altogether because I don’t get it. So I’m flattered you’re asking me for advice even though I consider myself the last person you should (haha~.)

TIP #1: TL;DR it took me years to get to where I am. Some people don’t need that long. Change may not happen on a day to day basis. Try to be patient.

We hear it all the time, “practice makes perfect.” It’s actually “perfect practice makes perfect” and I don’t believe there is such a thing as “perfection” when it comes to art. When people say it’s “all practice,” they’re full of nonsense. There is definitely a role for talent, in that some artists pick up on stuff really quickly and advance at unreal speeds. I am not that. I started with mouse drawing before I got my first tablet in 2005, followed by the second around 2013-ish (maybe.) I’ve been art-ing in general since I was a wee bitty toddler.

Here’s my progression over the 10+ years I’ve been doing this:

MOUSE PIECE, 2005 (age 14:)

FIRST TABLET PIECE, 2005 (age 15:)

COMPARISON PIECE FROM 2011 (age 20...so about 5-6 years of practice:)

RECENT PIECE, 2017 (age 26...another 5-6 years later:)

TIP #2: Appreciate even the slightest improvements. Maybe it’s easier for you to draw out a smoother line. Maybe you figured out how to use a new tool! Maybe one tool works better than another. Maybe the software needs to be simpler to use. I’ve never been comfortable with Photoshop; I’ve instead used OpenCanvas or Sai.

TIP #3: Please, please, please don’t expect to learn new tricks in a day. If you do, then awesome! If you don’t, then keep trying and you WILL get there eventually. If you’re frustrated, move on to something else. Getting comfortable with digital art isn’t about getting the hang of all of it in one day. There’s a lot to absorb.

TIP #4: Try tutorials. There’s a bajillion out there. They’ll help you work towards “mastering” a skill, or maybe even a few skills, at a time. Once you’ve gotten the hang of a skill, you can then work towards molding it into something of your own.

TIP #5: Practice motions, whether it be with a mouse or with a tablet pen, with doodles. Try doodling different things. Focus on those subjects or themes that are in your comfort zone when using traditional media. Getting used to the feel of the hardware, the texture of the drawing surface, and the motions your fingers need to go through to click or flip through swiftly takes practice.

TIP #6: If you’re not sure how to draw something, use references! Trace over the references at first if you need to for your own benefit (don’t be tracing over other people’s art and posting it as your own, of course.) Sometimes we need to learn from example to get the hang of new skills.

TIP #7: When using references, you may try to mimic different styles. That’s how I started. It took this long for me to finally say, “hey, I think I have my own style and man, I’m actually happy with it!” The whole style business was the bane of my existence as an artist. When you finally find your own way, drawing will come a bit more naturally.

TIP #8: Take breaks. I took a 2 year break. It doesn’t have to be that long, of course, but it actually allowed me some new perspective. I started fresh. Do what you need to do. Don’t overload and crash. Frustration just makes it that much harder to progress.

TIP #9: Set small, achievable goals. “I want to shade hair in *this* way.” Work towards that. If you get the hang of it, then move on. If you don’t, that’s okay! Maybe there’s another method that you may find more achievable. Maybe you’ll achieve a different kind of result that appeals to you more.

TIP #10: EXPERIMENT! There’s more than one way to draw lines. There’s more than one tool you can use to color. If there are rules then I don’t know them nor do I care. YOU DO YOU!!

TIP #11: Take your time, please. Art isn’t a race. Yes, it’s annoying to spend hours on something that doesn’t look the way you want it to. Yes, it’s unbelievable that so-and-so artist painted a masterpiece that could rival the entirety of the Sistine Chapel in a matter of 2 hours. If they got there overnight, then...savants are few and incredibly far between. If you enjoy creating art, then use that extra time you spent as a learning opportunity. If you’re frustrated enough, make the next thing you draw quick and simple. You might surprise yourself.

TIP #12: This is a more personal thing, but one of the most important things I’ve come to accept is that my art WON’T AND SHOULDN’T BE PERFECT. Those little scribbles I leave in my linework are the motions made my by hands, by my own design. They’re an expression of what I’m feeling and thinking. Who cares if my lines are not thin and pretty? I got my message across in my own way. That’s what matters the most. It took me this long to realize that. =P

TIP #13: CREATE YOUR OWN DEFINITION OF “IMPROVEMENT!” Becoming the next Michelangelo is admirable and all, don’t get me wrong, but if YOU feel like you haven’t gotten there despite all you’ve practiced, then it doesn’t matter how much praise you get. Don’t put yourself down, either. I’m so guilty of this and set an awful example.

TIP #14: I cannot emphasize this enough - use software that you can understand and adapt to first, then work your way up. If you use like...3 things to make traditional art, maybe Photoshop is going to be kind of a lot. I mean, I used to draw with a mechanical pencil and eraser. To go from that to Photoshop 7 was mindboggling. Baby steps.

TIP #15: Consider yourself awesome for even trying. When I told job interviewers that digital art is one of my hobbies, they were amazed. Like woah, what a concept. Digital illustration? “I can’t even draw a stick figure!” We’ve all heard it, and well, y’all could if you tried hard enough, I mean it doesn’t have to look one certain way to be a stick figure.

...My point is, digital art is HARD. But listen, people go to school for this stuff. Give yourself some credit.

#long post #art tips #digital art tips #tutorial #art tutorial #this turned into a pep talk #I hope this helps even a little #beanaroony rambles

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gothika666faerie · 7 years

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Let it Go

He should have been more contented. Happiness was too much of a stretch and honestly, no one could ever be truly, blissfully happy. At least, there was the possibility-or there should have been-of him reflecting back on his life with some feeling of accomplishment. Here he was, an established Duke of Ramsford, the highest and most noble aristocratic family in Cordonia. Certainly, not anything to sniff at. Bertrand Beaumont stared listlessly at the sheaf of papers on his desk, waiting to sorted through, read and more often than not, crushed and chucked away in a frustrated fury.

He was discontented. Unhappy even. One could even label him miserable beyond belief. His father always bemoaned the curse that his elder son was so inclined towards random bouts of depression but now at this stage in his life, Bertrand swore it could become a regularity. He was already in his thirties and living the life of a true blue blood, with all the boredom, the stifling responsibilities and the many forever watchful eyes of society laying into his back. He rests his chin on his palms and lets the text blur into streams of black scattering insects. Eventually, he had reclined all the way in his chair and stared straight up into the ceiling. When was the last time he did something truly interesting or exhilarating?

Skinny dip for the hell of it? Eat ice cream straight out of the tub while dancing as though no one was watching? Hell, he could barely remember the last time he laughed so hard, so long and so loud that his sides hurt. Along that note, when was the last time he had a pulse-pounding, ecstatic and breathless orgasm....that wasn’t by his own hand? He reached a hand up to finger his thick hair, always slicked back and hugged closely to his head and frowned.

And great. A grey hair already. Just perfect.

Outside, somewhere in the lounge, Bertrand could hear rollicking, careless laughter. He sneered. Of course, at least he was having fun. Maxwell always had fun. He never needed to aim for valedictorian in finishing school, go for etiquette lessons or watch his every move lest he were to ruin the name of the house. Bertrand was the heir, Maxwell was the darling of the family. How his parents fawned over the little puppy who cooed back in return with his haphazard crayon scribbles and hideous attempts at cartwheeling. Oh, and what was Bertrand doing? Learning how to play Mozart because “you would want to impress your guests when you hold your soirees. Oh, don’t talk nonsense, Bertrand! Maxwell is too young and he is already so naturally charming. You need a special talent to make sure you don’t bore your guests to tears.”

Rage coursed through Bertrand’s veins as the memory and he sits back up, gripping tightly at his arm rests. It was not fair to Maxwell to be so angry, so resentful. Maxwell loved him and had been through the thick and thin with him; defending him when their father never saw any good in him, sometimes crawling into his room and imitating the old bastard for a laugh and always there to force him to look on the bright side. In return, Bertrand knew he needed to look out for his excitable and often too flighty little brother. When their parents died, he truly needed to be the man of the estate and that meant ensuring Maxwell would grow up right as rain. However, the boy was as stubborn a boy as always. They were just too different. Bertrand was cold, reserved and apathetic. Maxwell was warm, exuberant and a live wire over everything. It was no wonder the latter always had friends.

Bertrand groans as he remembers their respective sixteenth birthdays. Maxwell’s was teeming with guests from all over and he watches from the sidelines, shadowed over by balloons as his little brother break dances on the floor and gets applauded and blown kisses by the girls around him. His birthday was his parents, his little brother and the towering pile of presents sent from all over by relatives and other noble families. He received about eight of the same set of suits from that pile of “gifts”. This was his lot in life; he never was the type to socialize so whatever. He was a grown man. He reaped what he sown. He just was not Maxwell. He was thirty-four to Maxwell’s twenty-five. He was old. Over the hill. Used up. At a standstill.

He slams a fist on the desk and stands up, determined. He could still do something. Anything. He gazes at the hanging wall clock; the short hand at eleven and the long hand just past one. He rummages through one of the desk drawers and removes a small box with a lock. Fishing out its companion from his lapel, the box snaps open to reveal a ring of jagged keys and a key chain that bore their family crest of crossed tentacles and topless sirens.

With his new bounty in his pocket, the duke marches out of his office and down the stairs and was nearing the door when he hears the voice he really did not want to deal with right now.

“Bertrand....where are you going?” It is Maxwell of course, in a simple pajama set of Crown and Flame shirt and boxer shorts wrapped up in a blanket. Oh Christ, was the boy really having a marathon at this time of night?

“Out.” The reply is short, curt and unfortunately, unsatisfactory. Maxwell’s brow furrows as his brother reaches for the doorknob ready to unlock it and leave. He grabs onto Bertrand’s jacket.

“Bertrand, it’s 11:10 pm. It isn’t like you to go out so late for no reason. Is something wrong?”

“Maxwell,” Bertrand’s voice was cold and heavy, his brow creased with a sternness that made the boy shudder. “You’re the younger brother. You don’t need to keep tabs on me. I can take care of myself.”

“I know...I just...you haven’t looked really happy nowadays. I just don’t want you to do anything stupid alright?” Bertrand sighs at his brother’s thoughtfulness and softens, placing a hand on Maxwell’s shoulder.

“I’ll be fine. I...I just need to go for a ride. To clear my head.” Maxwell smiles up at him and nods. “I understand. Just be careful alright? And don’t come back so late...wow, it feels weird sounding like you.”

Bertrand snorts and shoves at his brother’s head but cannot help the smile spreading on his face before he is finally out the door. Maxwell holds the front door ajar and peeks out, staring at his brother as he heads for the gates and pushes them open, locking them behind him afterwards. Convinced and satisfied that his brother could take care of himself and was admittedly, more responsible and cautious than he was when he went out on late night partying escapades, Maxwell retreated inside to continue on season 3 of The Crown and Flame and was certain eventually Sei and Dominic were going to fall in love.

Bertrand was not going to take the limo. Nor a horse. His choice of ride tonight was going to fit his mood. He enters the garage at the far back of the estate, surrounded by their plantation of Cordonian rubies and white roses and sidesteps around the array of their expensive, vintage cars before considering the vehicle at the far end, covered unglamorously with a silver tarp. He tugs it off and smiles in nostalgia as he takes in the polished exhaust pipe, the buttery leather seat and the handlebars ergonomically designed to be gripped tightly when the bike would take to rougher terrain.

It had been his one moment of teenage rebellion; saving up his hefty allowance to get himself his own motorcycle; a Harley Davidson no less and he remembered tearing down the highways and pavements with the wind whipping his face and hair as he laughs in virile triumph, scraping the bark of an apple tree here and there. Obviously, that phase never lasted and his father had confiscated the keys, given him a good tanning with the rod and Bertrand had been sent to a commune to think over his indiscretions. Maxwell was given the bike as a last minute birthday gift on his nineteenth birthday but oh, the sweet lad could never dream of enjoying the fruits of his brother’s labor and merely kept it clean and running before giving it a home in their garage under that silver tarp.

Bertrand traces the sleek body of the ride with fond affection, smirking when he got to his initials that he had spray painted on the side in violet indigo, a stark contrast to the iridescent silver of the paint job. It was settled. Tonight, he was not going to be Duke Bertrand Beaumont. He marches towards the metal lockers lined parallel to the wall and opens one to reveal a duffel bag hanging on a hook. He takes it down, unzips it and removes the articles of clothing inside along with a pair of aviator sunglasses. He makes quick work of his suit, first the jacket, that awful sweater vest, his tie and shirt and folds them up neatly, stuffing them in the bag. He catches sight of his half-naked form in the mirror in the locker and smirks. Maxwell may be limber and flexible but he had nothing on him.

On goes the deep blue, almost midnight black shirt that drapes against his broad firm chest. The leather jacket slips on snugly afterwards. His sensible pants were next to go and were replaced by some well-fitting-thankfully, still fit-black jeans and lastly his Oxford shoes were tucked away as he slipped on some ragged, sturdy boots, as soft and rugged as his jacket. All that was left was to ruffle his usually put together hair (fuck that grey strand) and slip on the aviators. He finds a pack of Menthol cigarettes too in the bag and lights up, knowing it was positively foolish to smoke in a garage with flammable objects just within reach but he honestly could not care. He blows out a stream of the tobacco fumes and breathes in the intoxication he was going to immerse himself in tonight. Letting it carelessly fall to the ground, he snuffed it out with his heeled boot and kicks up the stand of the bike, wheeling it out of the garage and positioning in the driveway.

Key in the ignition, Bertrand gives it a few turns till the engine was putting and purring like a jungle cat that had come out of induced tranquility. Bewildered, confused but raring to pounce at any minute. That was him right now. He straightens his jacket to fit tightly onto him and mounts the ride. He revs it up and soon enough, he was tearing up the paved road, leaving his castle, his home and his prison for this one night and oh how he laughed. He laughed. He laughed. And he laughed.

The stars were winking down on him as he whoops, getting on the expressway and weaving in and out of traffic, finding that empty lane where he could just go at full speed, let the wind mess up his normally neat coif even more and truly let it all go. The wind billows out his leather jacket and the sunglasses keep it from getting in his eyes but they are still watery. He had never remembered feeling this alive, this free and as he gets on the shore road and gazes out to the expanse of the deep blue sea that surrounds Cordonia, he realizes that he had been missing out for far too long.

This could be a nightly ritual. No one would find out. He just had to keep in disguise. He could go out to the slums of Cordonia, the seedy nightclubs and brothels and drink till he fainted, do lines of imported drugs till his blood was set alight and actually remember what it felt like to fuck a woman.

He had been hiding, been forced to hide since he was young. It was high time he let go. The night air was getting chillier and the wind picked up. Above him, thunder roared but Bertrand could only laugh in the storm’s face.

The cold never bothered him anyway.

(( Written out of pure randomness and also, cause we KNOW Bertrand is the Elsa of The Royal Romance. I like to thank @ladyashtonofcordonia and @smartlillian. Their fanfics have been inspirational. Also, this goes out to @ohmymaxwell and @mochimicho who also absolutely adore Bertrand (and think he is hot like me) so yes, you beautiful people, thanks so much))

#because I love him #was inspired by fanfics i found #bertrand beaumont #bertrand needs love #maxwell beaumont #maxwell doesn't know #elsa parallels #let it go

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