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holylulusworld · 4 years

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Stolen reputation

Summary: Losing your job is more than you can bear…

Pairing: CEO!Dean x Accountant!Reader

Characters: Sam Winchester, Charlie Bradburry, Jo Harvelle, Lisa Braeden

Warnings: angst, language, mentions of cancer/cancer treatment, accusation, mentions of anxiety

Nervously chewing on your lower lip, you wait for Dean Winchester to finally say a word. Usually, you work with his brother Sam or on rare occasions with his father but Dean, well Dean Winchester is the man they send you to if you messed up.

You wreck your brain since Jo told you worriedly that Dean Winchester wants to see you at his office. The last time that man talked to you was when he asked if you could bring him a coffee too as his secretary quit yet again.

“Do you know why you are here?” Dean’s voice low and stern brings you out of your thoughts. “I asked you a question Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Jo told me you want to see me, Sir. I know I was late last week but it was the first time and I swear it will never happen again,” apologizing for the only mistake you made in the five years you work for Winchester Inc. you dare not to meet Dean’s gaze.

“You think I would waste my time for nonsense as coming too late to work? This is serious, Ms. Y/L/N. Stealing money from our clients’ accounts is a crime. You are lucky I did not call the cops,” Dean barks and your head snaps upward to meet his gaze.

“I would never steal, Sir. I swear I do not know what you are talking about. I work hard, never make mistakes, and came too late only this once in over five years. I’m loyal and reliable. I never stole anything,” close to tears, you feel your anxiety rise again. Your lips start to quiver, and you need all your strength to not start to hyperventilate.

“Do you think I am dumb, that Lisa is dumb?” You shake your head, wiping a few rogue tears away.

“Lisa? I don’t understand. She talked to me just yesterday, asked me questions about the accounts I had to close as the clients left us,” you want to open your laptop to show Dean the data but he grasps it, tossing it onto the couch.

“Stop lying, Y/N!” He slams the palm of his hands onto the leans of your chair, making you flinch.

“I do not lie, Sir. Cole signed the papers. He would’ve seen any mistake or if money would have disappeared. I swear, there is nothing wrong with my accounts.” Dean doesn’t believe you, rather gets papers out for you to sign.

“You’re lucky I got the money back from the account you transferred it to. This way, we can keep the cops out of this and not lose our reputation for being safer than any bank,” Dean hands you a pen, glaring at you. “You are fired. Sign this, pack your shit and leave.”

“Sir, please, I need this job. I didn’t do anything wrong. Let me check the accounts, or ask Charlie. I know she can find out if I manipulated any account, Sir. Give me the chance to prove I am innocent,” you try but Dean points toward the papers and you know – he will not give you a chance.

“To think I believed you are different, Y/N,” Dean huffs, grabbing your wrist harshly to lead you out of his office. “I’ll stay next to you and watch you pack your things. You are not allowed to enter this building or have contact with one of the employers ever again.

“Y/N,” Jo gasp watching tears run down your cheeks while you toss the few belongings you brought to your working place into your bag. “What happened?”

“Lisa said I stole money,” you sniffle. “Mr. Winchdester didn’t let me prove I am innocent so she won and will get my position.”

“That’s what she wanted after all,” Jo, grunts. “I can’t believe she lied to get your job,” Dean furrows his brows at Jo, searching her face. “Shame, Y/N. How will you pay for your dad’s…” You shake your head, pressing your index finger to your friend's lips.

“I’ll find a way, always did Jo. Losing a job is not the end of the world…”

Three months later…

“I am back bitches and…” Charlie looks at your working place, wondering why Lisa Braeden sits at your place. “What the fuck happened, Jo?”

“Lisa the bitch Braeden accused Y/N she stole money from two accounts. Dean didn’t give her a chance to prove she’s innocent. Cole tried to talk to Dean but he stayed adamant. I think she works three jobs now to pay for her dad’s treatment.”

“Holy fucking shit!” Charlie yells before she waltzes toward Dean’s office. “Why did no one call me or Sam? I bet we could’ve found the culprit in no time and I am sure, it’s not Y/N.”

“Charlie, what the…,” Dean gasps when Charlie shoves him aside to get access to his computer. “Charlie?”

“Show me the accounts, now. I don’t believe Y/N stole money. If you do not give her a chance, fine, but I will check her story before judging her.”

“Fine, check it. I bet you will not find anything proving she’s innocent…” Dean enters his password, opening the accounts. “There. Money got transferred to this bank account.”

“Did you look at the time stamp Dean?” Charlie looks up at Dean, pointing toward the time stamp. “I mean, Y/N was in Melbourne with Sam, Jo, and Cole at that time. I know as we had a great video chat sleepover that night.”

“What? No, this is impossible,” Dean swallows thickly, nervously rubbing his scruffy cheek. “She could’ve accessed…oh, no…we changed the system back then. You can only access the account from the main server at this building.”

“Exactly, Mr. Winchester. Not only did you accuse the poor girl, but you also fired her. Do you know what it means to get fired by a Winchester?” Nodding Dean looks at the next account and the time stamp. “Same date and time, Dean. If anyone stole the money, it was not Y/N, Jo, or Sam. I was at Paris and I don’t think you stole the money to fire Y/N…”

Whilst Dean tries to find out where you moved to or how to apologize for not giving you a chance to prove you are innocent you work three jobs. You even had to move out of her apartment to spare money as your father’s condition got worse.

“How is he today?” Rubbing your sore eyes you look up at Alex, giving the friendly nurse a sad smile. “You look tired, Y/N.”

“Just came home from my night job, had a shower to spend a few hours here before my day job starts,” you huff, hating you lied to your father. “Dad asked why I am always tired, you know, I didn’t have the heart to tell him I got fired.”

“Whatever that guy said is wrong. I know you for three years now. Never would you steal anything, Y/N,” Alex looks at your father, giving you a soft smile. “He’s doing better, the therapy seems to help.”

“It’s worth working three jobs, I know it,” grasping for your father’s hand you gently press it to your face. “One day he’ll get better.”

“Mom, I know that I shall not mess with a Winchester, but that douche fired Y/N. You know, the girl I told you about. Her father has lung cancer, and she spends all the money she earns with three jobs for an expensive experimental treatment. You know Dean Winchester, tell him he’s an asshole for ruining the girl,” Alex angrily hangs up the phone, shaking her head at Jody’s words.

“Was that your mom?” Claire sighs, watching you sleepily read your father his favorite book. “Does the girl ever sleep?”

“Not with three jobs and her dad’s condition,” Alex explains what happened to you, your job, and Dean Winchester, unbeknownst Claire’s father is a good friend of Dean. “Poor girl will break down sooner or later…”

Dean doesn’t know if he’s allowed to enter your father's hospital room. Only stealing glances he watches you talk to your father, telling him it’s an honor to work for John Winchester’s company.

“You know the company dad. Always work, but it’s worth it, just like you said. The Winchesters are fair men,” you almost choke on your lie but your father would worry about you, and that’s the last thing he needs.

“I’m so proud of you, sugarplum,” you nod, holding back the tears when your father drifts back into sleep.

“I wish you had a reason, daddy. I’m working three lousy jobs,” pressing a soft kiss to your father's cheek you forget about your sorrows for a moment. “Get better dad, that’s all I want.”

Dean hides behind a corner when you leave your father’s room. He can see the bags under your eyes, a sign that you haven’t slept for too long. You lost weight too, just like the smile you used to ‘wear’.

“What can I get you? Whiskey, vodka, or beer?”

Dean nervously looks at you, waiting for you to recognize him at the end of the bar. You are busy explaining a drink to a customer so he must wait before you turn your attention toward him.

“What can I…?” You clench your jaw when you meet familiar green eyes, “get you, Sir?”

“Hi, erm…uh, beer would be fine, Y/N,” he stammers pointing toward the other guest. “Some nuts too?”

“Sure,” turning around you take deep breaths. You hate Dean Winchester, but you can’t lose one of your jobs, so you place a beer and nuts in front of him. “Anything else, Sir?”

“Y/N, when do you get off? I’d like to talk to you,” you wipe your hands at your jeans, not meeting Dean’s gaze.

“Sir, I have to ask you to not use my forename. It’s Ms. Y/L/N or bartender to you. If you excuse me now, I can’t lose another job because of you,” you jerk your head toward two waiting customers. “Other people want to have a drink too. Goodnight, Sir.”

“Y/N, damnit,” grumbling Dean moves to the other end of the bar, looking at you, expectantly. “I want another drink, no, the whole bottle, and your company.” He places his wallet onto the counter, slamming two-hundred bucks onto the counter. “Stay.”

“I got no time, okay. If you want to sue me or call the cops for the lies Lisa told about me, do so,” with two fingers you shove the money toward Dean, glaring at your former boss. “I don’t need or want your dirty money. Go and spend it at someone else.”

“Sweetheart,” Dean tries, “Charlie proved it wasn’t you who manipulated the accounts of our customers. I’m sorry for not giving you a chance.”

“Not giving me a chance?” You toss the dishtowel you use to clean the counter into Dean’s face. “Are you fucking kidding me? I lost my reputation thanks to you. I work at night at a bar, clean toilets during the day, and in the morning, I work at a diner barely making any money. Sorry doesn’t fix shit, you son of a bitch!” Emptying the bottle of Whiskey over Dean’s face you nod at your boss who mouths ‘you are fired’. “Fuck you, Winchester…”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you a stalker? Do I need to call the cops to get you off my back? Is making my life even more miserable your new hobby?” Brushing past Dean who waited for you at your father’s house you ignore he tries to talk to you.

“Y/N, please wait. I made a dumb mistake. I never wanted you to lose your job or reputation. Lisa came to me, showing me, the accounts and I did not check the date, okay. I should’ve looked closer at the data, but I was so mad. I wanted you to be the new head of the financial department. I felt betrayed, sweetheart.” Dean grasps for your hand, not wanting you to believe he fired you on purpose.

“I’m not your sweetheart, Winchester. My name is Y/N, not sweetheart, baby girl, or the other shit you call your secretaries. I might not own money, a house, or fancy shit but I got dignity, which means I do not have to listen to your stupid pet names for me.”

“I apologize for the pet names, sw…Y/N. Please, let’s go inside and talk about the data, Lisa’s lies, and the stolen money. Dad, he told me to get you back.”

“Your father?” Not believing John Winchester even knows you exist you blink a few times. “Why should he want me to come back? I don’t think he remembers we ever talked.”

“You’re wrong. My father, he remembers your work, the data you handed him just in time for a big deal. John Winchester only remembers people impressing him. You are one of them.”

“John Winchester remembers me…” Mumbling the words you smile. “I’ll tell my dad John Winchester remembered me.”

“Can we talk now? I’d like to have my best worker back. I will do anything to make it up to you,” Dean offers, holding out his hand. “Let me prove I can be fair.”

“I need to sleep for my job in the morning. Maybe I find some spare time between my job at the diner and my cleaning job,” you turn on your heels, looking for your keys. “If you excuse me now, Mr. Winchester.”

“Jesus, sweetheart you are hard to crack. Shall I fall to my knees?” Angrily turning around, you glare at Dean.

“You don’t get it.” You slap his cheek harshly. “It’s not about losing about a job, it’s so much more. I invested five years into your fathers’ company. I spend more time at my desk than with friends or dating. My father was proud of me. I could pay his bills from the hospital.”

“We can find a way to help you, Y/N. Let me…”

“I am not done!” Your angry eyes meet Dean’s, and he gulps, not knowing if he shall be turned on by or scared of you. Suddenly my job was gone, my home too, just like the reputation I build for years. I lost everything as you used your downstairs brain.”

“What the…oh-I get it,” Dean huffs, hanging his head in shame. “You know about me and Lisa. It was after a Christmas party. I got drunk and you know the rest.”

“Only as you banged her doesn’t mean you had to believe her lies. You could’ve handled the situation like a Winchester. Sam or your father would’ve checked the data and not believe that woman.”

Dean nods, taking your hand to squeeze it tightly. “I’m honestly sorry, Y/N. I should’ve treated you with respect and checked the data. I promise to do better if you give me a chance and come back. Work for us again and you’ll get the respect and position you deserve,” you consider Dean’s proposal, glancing at your watch.

“No pet names,” Dean nods, laughing at your angry expression. “I mean it. Not all girls like to get called sweetheart at work.”

“Okay, noted, Y/N. No pet names at work,” he grins now, looking at your hand in his. “Maybe one day I can call you sweetheart outside of work…”

“You can dream, Winchester…you can dream…”

Part 2

Tags in reblog

#Stolen reputation #dean winchester #dean winchester x you #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester SPN #dean winchester x reader #angst #ceo!dean Winchester #ceo!dean #dean x reader #AU Fanfic #spn au fanfiction

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gothamcityneedsme · 3 years

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I saw this bouncing around my dash and decided to fill it out myself for fun :) I decided to not double-list any games, and I tried to mix up the companies I used too so that the list would be more unique.

Long post, so I’m doing a readmore for my longwinded part lol.

(read more)

Favorite Game: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords - I could talk about this game forever. How it tears apart the Star Wars universe from within, how it creates a compelling story while challenging the usual themes, etc. I could talk for ages about the characters and how their motivations slot in place, and how this game lends itself to interpretation and analysis alongside roleplay. It’s just a wonderful game, one I deeply love and will always love. It’s a game that isn’t afraid to have you talk to other characters for twenty or thirty minutes at a time and honestly I’m always riveted at every line. This game deserves the cult fanbase it has, but I think there’s a lot the fanbase misses in appreciating this game. (Note...gameplay is a little janky and a community made mod restores a lot content that was cut before shipping-the game wasn’t properly finished).

Best Story: Fallout New Vegas - It’s the setting that makes the story here, and all the moving pieces and factions alongside the main conflict really make this game stand out. There’s so many little pieces to find along the way in the world and the way the main quest splits based on who you want in power feels important--and you are choosing a future for this whole region.

Favorite Art Style: The Witness - This game is peacefully wonderful with its visuals. There are wonderful nature scenes and nests of wires and panels spreading in various parts of the island that are fascinating to look at. The environment is half of the gameplay in most areas, so it’s important to look around even though exploration is not really the gameplay. You find puzzles in the world, even in nature, and it’s fascinating. The colors are bright and beautiful. There is even a map in the middle of the island inside of a lake that helps you track your progress if you notice it (it isn’t like a normal ‘map’).

Favorite Soundtrack: Shin Megami Tensei IV - I love video game soundtracks, but SMTIV is something special. The music booms in ways that make you really understand the atmosphere of the world, and there’s a great mix of different kinds of tracks for different places. I love the tracks for the other worlds you enter, and the themes of the different routes are done so well. Some of the music draws from past SMT games, but the remixes done for this game really are stunning to me, and there’s so many fantastic original tracks.

Hardest Game: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - I love this game but I literally never touch it without a walkthrough, which is why it gets to be the hardest game on the list, despite being a point and click adventure game lol. Also just emotionally this game is challenging too, but I definitely mean this more in terms of getting a ‘perfect run’.

Funniest Game: The Stanley Parable - Trying to make this list has taught me that I don’t really play many ‘funny games’. I don’t know if a game where multiple endings demand that you kill yourself should count as a ‘funniest game’, but it is also a game where the narrator tells you to stare at a fern and memorize its features, so....it counts.

Game I Like that is Hated: RWBY Grimm Eclipse - I’ve been playing this game since it was in early access and have loved it the whole time. I find the gameplay soothing and fun, and I like playing the different characters. It’s a game I play to chill out and just enjoy some fun battle mechanics. It’s a fun game and I’ve spent over 100 hours in it, so I hope I like it, lol.

Game I Hate that is Liked: Nier Automata - Neither this game’s gameplay or story impress me, and the fact that you have to replay basically the same stuff from a more boring-to-play-character’s pov in order to SEE all of the plot is a huge damper on the experience. The story, to me, someone who engages with a lot of robot-focused fiction, is far from impressive or new, and it hardly engages with genre specifics at all, let alone in a new or interesting way. I view this game as ‘a story with robots in it’ rather than ‘a story about robots’, which, to me, is a detriment.

Underrated: Nevermind - This game is amazing and very unheard of--and when it is heard of, it has been marketed incorrectly. Nevermind seems like a horror game, and does market itself as one a bit, but it’s much more than that. It’s more about trauma, recovery, therapy, etc. This is a game that is so mindful about the topics it engages in that I am impressed by it every time. It’s heavy with symbolism and character, despite lacking conversations or other similar game mechanics. This is a lovely game that I really wish more people knew about-`p5-all of the patients are so interesting, and the focus on recovery and mental health is impressive.

Overrated: Fire Emblem - I sort of mean this as the series as a whole really. I have enjoyed the entries I have played somewhat, but I overall consider the series much less impressive than I was led to believe by others. The gameplay especially is not impressive to me in any regard, even though I sometimes do find myself enjoying it. The stories are alright, but many of them are weighed down by the gameplay and as a writer and person who likes to analyze writing, it’s very hard to do so when it isn’t able to fully exist under the chains the gameplay forces on it. There are ways to mix gameplay and story well, Fire Emblem has not really done that in any of the entries I’ve played. That being said, I don’t regret playing them, and I will occasionally replay, but I consider them mediocre games at best.

Best Voice Acting: Devil Survivor 2 - I love the voice acting in this game. I feel like all the characters are really suited to their voices, and it’s really easy for me to visualize their voices. They really bring the game to life and make both the dramatic and the funny scenes more enjoyable.

Worst Voice Acting: Jedi Knight Jedi Academy - I love this game, I really do, but some of the voice acting is janky. Some of it is okay too--I think Kyle Katarn’s voice actor does fine, and some of the others I like NOW but hated when I was a kid, but the male protagonist voice in this game is just awful. Which is bad when Jennifer Hale is the female voice actress lol. His performance is passable though unless you’re playing darksided--the darksided ending to the game lacks all punch when you’re playing the male protagonist.

Favorite Male: Battler Ushiromiya from Umineko no Naku Koro Ni - He’s the protagonist for most of the visual novels and I adore him utterly, especially once you move past episode 2. He’s a wonderful character who I care about deeply. I love his drive and how he fights--he’s someone who is easy to cheer for. He matures well throughout the series and his character development is just wonderful.

Favorite Female: Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4 - I really like how Naoto fits so well in the game, especially for being a final recruit--oftentimes the final recruit of Persona games (post 3) have a bit of a more difficult time feeling right with the group. Naoto works really well though, and I love her struggles and story as well. I think the difficulties she has concerning living as a woman in her field hit very deep to a problem that has existed for a very long time.

Favorite Protagonist: Connor of Daventry from King’s Quest 8 Mask of Eternity - I’m like, one of four fans of this character in the world, lol. KQ8 is not a very well liked game and it does have a lot of issues, both with age and with how much of a departure it is from the series prior to it. It’s strange to take a puzzle adventure game and make it a hybrid with what basically is a shooter, and it doesn’t really work. Add to that the fact that you spend most of your time in the game without anyone around to talk to and it leads to this really polarizing and weird experience. For me, Conner goes through what I would consider to be the ‘Ultimate Nightmare Scenario”. Everyone in the world is turned to stone except him (and he survived out of mere chance) and so now it’s up to him, practically alone, to save the entire world. There is no game lonelier than this. I adore him for his bravery in the face of it, and how he just picks up to do what must be done because someone should do it, and if no one else can, then he will. I also really love how he apologizes to people who are encased in stone while he takes money from their houses to help him on his journey. I really do think he went back after the game was over and gave everyone heaps of gold to pay them back with interest lol.

Favorite Village: Oakvale from Fable - The first Fable is the only one I really like, and it was one of the games I played when I was little, so the hometown in the game always meant a lot to me. I like how you grow up there and how your tragic backstory is there--and then how you get to return to the town years later after you’ve come into your own, and you can see it completely rebuilt. I like to spend a lot of my time in this town, just wandering around it and playing the minigames. Even though I have a house in every town, Oakvale is where my hero calls home.

Most Hated Character: Merril from Dragon Age 2 - I don’t really want to lay into how I feel about Merril, but what I will say is that it was suggested to me that I totally ignore her when playing, and I did so. I only met her for her quest, dropped her off in town, and literally never spoke to her or interacted for the rest of the game. I had a much better experience for it, honestly. She appeared after I made my choice in the end of the game, which felt weird since I hadn’t spoken to her in several ingame years, but other than that, the game was totally fine without her. I sort of just wish you could kill characters in DA2 the way you can in DAO, then I’d just do that, tbh. It doesn’t suit very many (or any) of the characters I rp in DA2 to keep her around or support her in any way.

First Game I Played: Mixed up Mother Goose Deluxe - I’m not actually sure if this is the FIRST game I’ve ever played or not, but it’s one of the first I played alone as a kid. I really loved it--this is probably what created my love for point and click adventures, and the game was very silly and fun.

Favorite Company: Bioware - I’ve always been a sucker for Bioware games, ever since Knights of the Old Republic 1 was my favorite childhood game. I love how they do stories and party members, and while I’m not a fan of all of their games, I really love what they’ve made and their style of storytelling and character driven plot. Even though sometimes their stories get cliche, I think the suit video games well and most of my early gaming was within their games.

Hated Company: EA - Bioware truly only started to go to shit after the EA acquisition, so I fucking hate EA. I know Bioware had issues before EA too, but I definitely don’t think EA has helped the situation whatsoever.

Depressing Game: The Beginner’s Guide - I relate to this game as a creator and a writer, and it affects me deeply because of the story it tells and the questions it raises. It makes me reflect on how I think of myself as a creator, and it reminds me of friendships I used to have.

Creepy Game: The Path - God, I love this game. It’s just aimlessly wandering around and finding symbolic scenery and watching your current character comment on it. Then, you go off to find your girl’s wolf, and each one is different and unique to her, and you watch it ‘kill’ her--and facing her wolf is the only way each girl can truly mature. Whenever you get to grandmother’s house, the camera switches to first person, and your eyes keep closing, so you can only see while clicking to move. It forces you to keep moving so that you can see, but since you are moving, you only get to see things somewhat vaguely. It’s got a great atmosphere, and I love the symbolic storytelling.

Happy Game: Eastshade - This game is so sweet. There’s some drama around to with many of the quests, but I like this as an rpg without combat, and I think this would be a really good kids game. There’s a lot to see and explore, and the game was made to be really pretty so that you want to paint several aspects of it. It’s really lovely to just wander around in this game and bike around the area, painting anything that suits your fancy. As long as you don’t finish the main quest, you’re free to wander, and materials do respawn, so you essentially can infinitely paint once you get far enough.

Favorite Ending: Virtue’s Last Reward - I love the questions this game asks and where the ending goes. It thematically ties together--the whole reason the game itself exists is to get the attention of a ‘higher being’--the player, essentially. I love how it plays with that concept, and even though the final game in the series doesn’t entirely pick this idea up where this game left it, standalone this game is stunning in how it comes together.

#shitpost #long post #this was fun to do #i made it so every answer was a different video game and i tried to mix up my companies as well #got 3 atlus games on here but mer #2 obsidon #llol #2 sierra too haha but still #beginner's guide and tsp were made by the same guy too but #STILL I LIMITED MYSELF OK #these answers aren't absolute because i was trying to have a good diverse list lol

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snarkybluechristian · 3 years

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Hazbin Hotel: Yandere Alastor x Vaggie Chapter 46

Little did Angel know that his father and brother were watching Angel from the laptop connected to a video camera in the living space of the basement.

The laptop sat on the table in between the plates of breakfast food that were scattered about.

Don Henroin sat at the head of the long table glaring at the door blocking him from seeing Angel in the bathroom while Arackniss sat to his right quietly eating his omelet and drinking his coffee.

Arackniss knew what was coming and helplessly knew it was best to let it pass.

Dr. Red entered the room unsuspectingly humming a happy tune and holding his notepad as he sat down at his place at the table at the don’s left side and served himself a plate of food.

“How is my son, Doctor?” Henroin asked.

“Excellent,” Dr. Red replied, chipperly filling his plates with food. “Anthony has been completely obedient. His behavior was quite promising.”

“Is that so?” Henroin asked.

Dr. Red gave Henroin a confused look and replied, “Of course. He did everything I asked him to. Is there a problem?”

Henroin typed on the laptop, turned the monitor around for Dr. Red to look at, and said, “Watch closely.”

Dr. Red watched the video footage play back to when Dr. Red gave Angel his pill and walked away to put the dishes in the sink. He watched closely as Angel opened his mouth and let his long tongue fall out of his mouth.

“What is he doing?” Dr. Red asked.

“What do you think?”

“He spat out my pill!”

“Yes, we should have known he’d pull some shit like this,” Henroin said annoyedly. “Anthony is not someone who complies easily.”

“Not to worry, Don Henroin,” Dr. Red replied. “I’ve dealt with quietly rebellious patients before. Anthony will be no different.”

“So, what are ya gonna do about it, Doctor?” Arackniss interjected between sips of his coffee.

“I have ideas,” Dr. Red replied.

“What kind of ideas?” Henroin asked with a devious smile.

“Tell me,” Dr. Red replied. “Do you two have porn collections?”

About an hour later, Angel had finished his bath and put on his gray uniform.

Angel looked at himself in the mirror and sighed. His clothing was unbearably dull. He looked and felt completely like a prisoner. Every outfit he had for the next week would look like this. That fact was almost more painful than the therapy he had already endured.

Right on cue to add to his current misery, Angel heard the basement door open and shut and the sound of Dr. Red’s stony feet stomping their way down the stone steps.

Angel exited the bathroom to meet Dr. Red just as he reached the bottom step. He stood there at attention as politely as he could.

“Hello, Doctor,” Angel said shyly. “What do we do now?”

Dr. Red said nothing but grabbed Angel’s wrist and quickly led him to the chair he was sitting in before.

Dr. Red moved briskly in a surprisingly quick manner for his stone composition. Angel was back in the chair before he even had time to be nervous.

“Dr. Red, what are ya doing?” Angel asked timidly, not even protesting when Dr. Red strapped him back into the chair.

Angel waited patiently until the good doctor finished his work and walked away. The silence was tense.

Angel anxiously gripped his knees with his free pair of hands as the basement door opened and another pair of footsteps made their way down the stone steps.

“Uh, doctor, what’s going on?!” Angel asked a bit more anxiously than before.

Angel looked up to see his father with a box stomping angrily in his direction. The anger on his face made him gulp in fear.

Henroin set the box on the ground, stomped over to Angel, and said, “Anthony, why the fuck aren’t you cooperating?!”

Angel shrank back confusedly and replied, “Dad?! What are ya talking about?! I’ve done everything the doctor asked!”

“Not everything,” Dr. Red fumed with his ruby eyes burning, holding a dirty red pill Angel recognized all too well. “We saw the footage from our video camera. Did you really think we wouldn’t catch on to what you were doing?! Do you think we’re stupid?!”

“N-no, I…I just didn’t think…” Angel managed to stammer out.

“No, you didn’t!” Dr. Red interrupted as he headed back towards the kitchen to dispose of the dirty pill. “If you were, you wouldn’t be making me waste perfectly good pills!”

“I’m sorry…I…I just don’t like pills that don’t make me high!” Angel stammered out, blurting out the first lie that popped into his head and writhing in his chair on the verge of a panic attack. “I can’t swallow them!”

“Well then, it looks like we’re going to have to perform some heavy-duty electroshock therapy until you do,” Dr. Red said with a sadistic chuckle. “Don Henroin, please find a way to restrain his spare arms.”

“Gladly,” Henroin said, summoning rope out of nowhere while Doctor Red began pushing the cart back over from the other side of the room.

Angel couldn’t take it.

“WAIT!” Angel screamed in a panic. “I’ll take the pill! I’ll take it!”

Dr. Red stopped pushing the cart, stood up straight, and said, “What was that?”

“I’ll take the pill,” Angel said, hyperventilating on the verge of a panic attack before making himself take a deep breath to calm down. “I’m sorry. I spat out the pill because I thought it would hurt me. I didn’t know what it would do. I’m so used to Val giving me pills that I don’t trust them no more. I’m really sorry. I’ll be a good boy. Just don’t shock me again.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Don Henroin remarked as he made the rope disappear.

Dr. Red smiled happily and said, “A breakthrough! How wonderful! Thank you for your honesty, Anthony! I’m so proud of you. Now let me get you that pill and a glass of water. You’re showing so much promise.”

Dr. Red practically skipped over to the kitchenette in excitement to prepare the pill and glass of water for Angel.

Angel sat in his restraints trying to catch his breath while the good doctor explained, “These pills are meant to calm down your emotions, not unlike an anti-depressant. They’re of my own creation. I have used them on patients plenty of time, and they have very few side effects.”

“Okay,” Angel replied meekly.

Henroin annoyedly walked over to Angel and grabbed hold of his chin, immediately shaking Angel out of his frightened stupor.

“You ain’t gonna give the good doctor any more trouble now? Are ya?” Henroin asked in the intimidating voice he used in shakedowns and interrogations. “I’m paying him good money to take care of ya, so I don’t want to hear or see anymore trouble out of ya. I’ve invested far too fucking much into bringing you back into the fold for you to fuck this up for all of us now, ya giant shit. So, if ya don’t keep quiet and do what your told, you ain’t ever gonna leave this basement or keep all of your brain, if you catch my drift. You got that?”

Angel repressed his anger as much as he could against his entitled sperm donor. He shook angrily, but he managed to keep his face twisted in fear so that his father could only assume he was shaking of fright.

“Well?” Henroin asked.

Angel couldn’t open his mouth and keep himself under control, so he responded with a shy nod and his father let go.

“Please back away, Don Henroin,” Doctor Red replied, walking across the room with a new pill and a glass of water. “Anthony has apologized. You don’t need to intimidate him anymore. He’ll behave. Right, Anthony?”

Angel nodded shyly again as Doctor Red approached him with the glass of water and the pill.

“Now, take your medicine,” Doctor Red said.

Realizing he had no choice and barely able to hold back his tears, Angel opened his mouth and allowed the good doctor to place the pill in his mouth. Doctor Red then held the glass of water to his lips and Angel slowly drank down the glass of water until there was nothing left.

“What a good boy!” Dr. Red said, enthusiastically patting Angel’s head. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Angel replied with a shy smile.

Doctor Red quit petting Angel’s head and began unstrapping his limbs.

“Set up the projector, would you, Henroin?” Doctor Red asked as he unstrapped the rest of Angel’s body. “It’s in the closet.”

“You got it,” Henroin replied.

Henroin walked over to the closet to get out the projector while Doctor Red got Angel back to his feet.

As he got to his feet, Angel noticed that his head was lighter. His mind felt clearer, and his heart felt somehow calmer.

“Are you feeling alright, Anthony?” Dr. Red asked, snapping Angel out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, just a little light-headed,” Angel replied.

“Oh, the medicine must be working already,” Dr. Red said, gently pressing his stone hand on Angel’s back to guide him over to the sitting area on the other side of the basement.

“What? Already?” Angel asked in surprise.

“Yes, this medicine is meant to calm you down,” Dr. Red replied proudly. “It wouldn’t be much help if it didn’t work quickly. Would it?”

“No, I suppose not,” Angel agreed.

“Of course, this medicine is still in the experimental stage, so I can always adjust the dosage later if you’re not feeling comfortable enough,” Dr. Red suggested.

“Okay,” Angel agreed as Dr. Red sat him down in the fainting couch facing the wall.

Angel felt the calm feeling occupying his mind rapidly materializing into a fog. The fog grew denser and denser until every anxious feeling Angel might have felt was replaced with a sedate, serene sense of forced tranquility.

“Very good,” Dr. Red said. “Henroin, is the projector ready to go?”

“Yeah, Doc,” Henroin replied, taking his spot on the couch against the wall. “We’re good to go. I’d like to stay for this if ya don’t mind. These films happen to be my favorites.”

“Of course,” Dr. Red replied while Angel suppressed his desire to physically cringe at his father’s remarks. “Let’s get this show started. Angel, for this next therapy session, you only need to watch and observe the straight porn on the wall in front of you.”

“Okay, doctor,” Angel replied, getting comfortable on his couch.

Dr. Red pressed the button on the projector and started the film. He quickly crossed the room to shut the lights off and sat himself down in the chair between Angel and Henroin before the credits could even finish rolling.

Angel laid back against the fainting couch and settled in for some “therapeutic” porn.

The cloud inside his head held back any anxiety and panic that he had felt before. His mind felt clearer in a way yet still analytical in another. He felt peaceful yet so disconnected from himself and what made him, well, him.

Angel realized then that this clarity was something he could use to his advantage. He could use this time to figure things out. He would use this time to plan. He would use this time to think of every possible scenario that could happen when he tried to escape so that, when the time came, he would know what to do.

“Oh, this is my favorite part,” Henroin said, interrupting Angel’s thoughts.

“Keep it in your pants, Henroin,” Dr. Red chided. “This therapy is for Anthony, not you.”

“I don’t wear pants,” Henroin retorted. “Besides, isn’t it good for him to be around men having normal reactions to men and women having sex?”

“He’s been around plenty of that, Don Henroin,” Dr. Red said. “Anthony knows plenty about how to mirror the reactions of others. We need to allow him to show natural reactions of his own.”

“If ya say so, doc…” Henroin relented.

Angel hardly paid any mind to their conversation. He barely took any mind of the distorted sexual mess playing on the wall in front of him either.

Angel ignored everything and simply thought.

#hazbinhotel angeldust #hazbinhotel

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migleefulmoments · 4 years

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Abb/y has something to s/ay

Let me premise this by reminding everyone that Abby -like Trump-doesn’t “get” comedy. They literally do not understand jokes, punchlines, or humor. So a satirical show about the Hollywood song writers falls flat. Her time away did nothing to sway her conspiratorial aspirations or her misogynistic hatred of Mia. She watched Royalties not once, but twice... not to enjoy Darren’s creativity and performance, not to support the celebrity she stans, and not even to crack up at the humor, no she watched twice because she was looking for confirmation bias. She wanted to document all of the ways Darren wrote his CrissColfer truth into Pierce’s life and she obsessively listened to all of the diss-tracks he wrote to attack his wife.

Let me also premise this by saying I loved the show. I thought it was funny and the songs are so damn catchy. The lyrics are quintessential Darren- funny, very clever, and raunchy.

******************************************

R/oyalties, the Tale of Two Shows with a Heaping Side of Meta

ajw720. So I just finished watching R/oyalties for the second time, this time solely focused on the meta. Look, we all know, the show is not good, it was not well written and the short format didn’t help as there was no option to develop character or plot. But D knew it would not be good, he apologized for it back in January 2019. And I think the effort he put into acting was the effort it deserved. Ok.

But his songs were genius. As were the videos, hence why i call it the tale of two shows. It truly was like watching content made by completely different people. I concur with MH, D is “intensely talented.” And the part of this show he poured his blood, sweat, and tears into, the songs, are evident of this.

But this is a post about that Heaping Side of Meta. I think D, knowing that that show would not be made in the manner he envisioned, instead used it as a vehicle to make some bold statements and parallels with his career and public life. Shall we begin? And please, unlike the perfect song, this is not a perfect post and after the second round of watching i canceled my Quibi subscription and never plan to look back, so please feel free to add. I know some of these have been pointed out but I thought it was valuable to have one post.

One idea to inpsire the song? A tiny FROG on a dime.

D’s shirt 1st seen in Episode 2: “It is hard to soar like an Eagle when you are surrounded by turkeys”

And of course “Call me Goldilocks bitch” Remind you of something?

How about the entirety of Episode 3 when we are told that an artist is completely the product of the team. That no matter what the artists expresses they want, it doesn’t matter because the Label/manager/publicist/on camera agent/legal will always have a say. And how it will play in America or the Foreign market are key metrics of how the product is produced and presented. I love the line of the songwriter that tells P/ierce and S/ara to “get out while they are young.” Or the line by one of her team “we don’t want something different, we want something the same that is different.” And in the end P&S simply took one of KK old songs and reworked it, making something different that is not different and her team loved it.

And of course, the line that was an utter slap in the face to the most over praised “director” of an indie band video ever when D reminds her of the real director in his life, the man set to direct major motion pictures, “you know who would be perfect to direct? C/hris. C/hris would shatter this.”

Not much in Episode 4, but the gorilla suit in my opinion was mocking of a certain MMR video where we watched Swiller and a banana in a song about a gorilla. Images I never need to see in my head again.

Episode 5, a gem, I am still so fucking proud of D and how he mocked her throughout the entirety of the episode. New lines I love of that amazing song he wrote about her (in addition to those i posted previously here) “Some people say I’m a genius, which comes from the greek word for Latin, and other people will say, alright in fact i’m a fuckin’s genius” “I’m not saying I’m a god, but I’m not saying I’m not a god.” Mocking at its finest made all that much better by the band’s name “Switchback Jacket” that D describes as “butt rock emo” that is performed by a band that doesn’t actually sing, they are just the public image. He literally told us that what we see is an image created for the public and that it is completely fake. And he used his beard to make this statement. Just brilliant. I cannot praise him enough for this, stealing her moment in the sun and making her look like an utter fool, telling us just how narcissistic she is.

Also some wonderful lines from that episode that are beyond telling:

“Power, it felt good to remind Kevin that I hold power over him. You always want to be the one with power”

“p/ierce wouldn’t know where to take a shit if I didn’t tell him.”

“she is like my wife except we don’t have sex and we are friends.”

“alright boss, I am ready to record that song, but where should i take a shit?”

“You will do anything to succeed.”

Episode 8 starring “Poly Amorous and the Unicorn Guild” an episode used to shine a light on how absurd it is that people believe D&PBB lived with platonic roomie B/enny for something like 4 years. 3 grown ass adults, all of whom have money to spare lived together in a relatively small house for four years. It is pure comedy that anyone would believe that this is normal. But hey these are the same people that explained away the infamous arm around her while at an awards show with D looking on:

And the cherry on top of this episode, the inclusion of C/huck (for some background, see my post here).

I really like the one bit of dialogue between P&S, where D pretty much tells us once again that M will use anyone to get what she wants:

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe just maybe, I don’t like where we are now? There were a lot of really great things about the way things were. Things that are worth preserving. Not that you just take and use and through out.”

Episode 9 had some really impactful lines:

“you think i wouldn’t steal for my career? You think I wouldn’t lie? I would do anything.”

The Neils being the nameless individuals, nothing more than a number, who are the ones who actually create the product. And then the song, some of the translations are D telling you how he feels, because sometimes i think in terms of his public image he is just a Neil trying to escape the cage that has been built around him:

“I dream about getting away, I have been locked up in this cage wishing i could make my escape. I hate that I need you.”

And finally Episode 10, where we learn the Neils get no credit and no royalties. This reminds me of a script C wrote that never saw the light of day but suddenly the next season of AHS had the same theme as his script.

And that is all i got, if you have more please add. I think the fact that D took what he knew would be a mediocre project and projected his voice and story throughout it was pretty genius and a smart way to utilize this vehicle, that was clearly payout for so many that have used him for years and to shine a bright light on the truth.

elicc The “perfect song”’s performer is called Bailey Rouge, a clear link to TLOS.

He is a genius.

ajw720 @elicc damn, that was on my list and I forgot. And we all know who Red is inspired by, so seems fitting Bailey Rouge would get the perfect song.

ajw720. Just adding one more I thought about putting in my original post but admittedly think it’s a stretch. But maybe not? Just adding here for fun.

When Theo tells P to bottle up all his romantic feelings I couldn’t help but think of a certain chapter in a book

*******************************************

Oy Vei! Abby didn’t use her time away getting any therapy or perspective. She hasn’t learned any lessons. I have no doubt she’s been reading just as much as she did before and she’s speaking to Cassie, Flowers et al all day. It’s really sad. It’s sad that she can’t see how silly she sounds, what an asshole her version of Darren is. If she could restrain herself even a little bit it might come off less unhinged because turning every single moment of Royalties into some crisscolfer wet dream reeks of desperation.

Abby hates Royalties. In last week’s “Dear D” she had the audacity to say

....Fans that are beyond devoted and mainly because of the way you have treated fans with respect and a level of caring that far surpasses the majority of public figures. And while I am not enjoying the show itself, the music shows how diverse you are as a writer and how you can virtually write for anyone or any genre. The songs are fantastic. Memorable. And really fun.

She knows the the Langs wrote the show and Darren wrote the songs but what she can’t seem to comprehend is that Darren IS Royalties. Everything in the show is Darren’s.

Staying in the closet would be less painful than trying to express oneself through a short-form satirical comedy. Can you imagine trying to express your devastation and pain through Kick Your Shoes off or Break It In?

“I’m the king of the hard fuck....pile drive the bed like a young buck...if you like feathery shit thats pretty cool but I don’t need that...people say I fuck too soft, saying that I can’t please a woman”

BTW Abby- “call me goldilocks bitch” isn’t a reference to TLOS it’s a reference to Goldilocks and Three Bears because because he fucks perfect, not too soft, not too hard. It’s much more believable that he is referring to a random nursery rhyme than it is to believe he is referring to a children’s book his lover/husband/boyfriend wrote 8 years ago. You might love the book but Chris has moved on and written new things.

Darren wrote funny lyrics. I loved Kick Your Shoes Off because it’s written by a man whose watched his wife and female friends wear painful shoes for the same of fashion even though its painful as fuck.

“Yeah, I’m a bad bitch so don’t be mad bitch. I turned the room into a catwalk like a sad bitch. I can’t feel my toes in these stilettos. when I walk out my roomate says you’ll regret those....Beauty is pain but oh I look amazing. You won’t hear me complaining but oh my instep (inside?) is screaming...kick your shoes off (kick em off) ooooooo I do what I want..(Kick em off) ooooo Hey I can’t walk in these, blisters start to bleed now both my feet are swollen. Kick your shoes off (Kick em off).....It’s like i feel so good when my shoes are on, but like i also feel sooooo good when they are off”

Abby’s convinced I am So Much Better Than You is straight up about Mia because Mia is in the video. She listened to it on repeat the day after it came out. In her “Letter to D” last week she said

Especially after you made an effort to mock her for the entirety of Tuesday when her episode aired (and for the record I am still really, really proud of what you did with that episode and how you handled the roll out, that is the fighter I admire and that inspires me. I listened to I am so much better than you on repeat on my drive home from work yesterday).

Good Lord The lyrics are as silly as all the other songs: “My mirror wants to bone me (but it can’t because it’s a mirror)” How did Abby miss the obvious TLOS mirror/ Halloween costume reference here?

“You keep doing push ups while I get buff eating mac and cheese (with overpriced lobster and truffles because I’m worth it)”

“Some people say I’m a genius (which comes from the greek work for latin) Some other people will say yeah I’m right I’m a fucking genius (I’m not saying I’m a god but I’m not saying I’m not a god).

“And even when you sneeze, God blesses me, he blesses me. And even when you sneeze, god blesses me, he blesses me, he blesses me”

“I’m am so much better than you at everything”.

She believes Darren would be- and stay- married to a women that he publicly ridicules and attacks. I don’t get why she thinks that is something admirable .

She thinks Also You is referring to Ben living with them. Where to start with this one? She says

“Episode 8 starring “Poly Amorous and the Unicorn Guild” an episode used to shine a light on how absurd it is that people believe D&PBB lived with platonic roomie B/enny for something like 4 years. 3 grown ass adults, all of whom have money to spare lived together in a relatively small house for four years. It is pure comedy that anyone would believe that this is normal. But hey these are the same people that explained away the infamous arm around her while at an awards show with D looking on”

I’m gobsmacked. Also You is about Polyamory. She doesn’t even understand her own theories if she thinks that is the message Darren wants to share about Mia and Ben. In no world would someone try to proclaim their wife was cheating on them with a live-in houseguest by writing an episode called Poly Amorous and the Unicorn Guild. Also, someone needs to explain cuckholding to her because her theories about Ben and Mia make Darren a cuck.

OMG I just realized that Darren is a cuck and Royalties proves it. He hired Kether to be his costar in Royalties,...Kether is in You’re the Worst as Lindsay. Lindsay cuckholds her husband. Bam! mic drop.

Why isn’t Perfect Song about Mia, you know, if we are playing confirmation bias “No one is as good as you because you're my perfect song”

#CrissColfer #Darren Criss #Abby Speaks

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batbirdies · 5 years

Text

NaNoWriMo 2019 Batfam fic

So, apologies to anyone who already reblogged or liked this post because I Accidentally DELETED like a MORON.

I’m posting rough excerpts from my NaNo project this year which is a fanfic centered around Jason Todd eventually agreeing to dog sit Titus while Bruce and Damian are out of town. Involving some deep seated issues, unintended animal therapy, snarky text messages between robins and eventually, some reconciliation between father and son.

Takes place in a murky in between time sometime after Damian was resurrected.

A NOTE: These are very rough drafts, I’m copy and pasting from my google doc, I switch tense all over the place, so apologies, but I want to share.

Part 1

___________________________________________________________________

He dreamed that night.

It wasn’t unusual, he had them at least a couple times a week, sometimes more, depending on different factors, what cases he was working, what kind of crap he ran into on patrol, and whatever damn lottery his brain was playing that night.

The downside: They were never good.

Sometimes they started out that way. Completely innocuous.

He was in a grocery store, and he was looking for something he couldn’t find but he couldn’t remember the name of it, or what it was. And he was walking down aisle after aisle of endless produce and there was a puddle on the floor, one of those yellow caution signs set up next to it, a janitor turned away from him, mopping, whistling as he went and it was far away, a long ways down the aisle but Jason recognized the tune. He knew the song but again he couldn’t place it. But it kept getting louder and the closer Jason got the less it sounded like music and the more it sounded like - like laughing.

Jason was shivering, it was suddenly freezing and when he looked down his clothes were all torn up and he - he was bleeding.

Suddenly he realized the shelves weren’t full of produce at all, they were packed full of bombs and the next step he tried to take he tripped, his ankles were tied together. He fell on his face, right in that puddle on the floor and it wasn’t water, it was blood and the janitor was gone but that sound - the laughing, it was so loud, and it was everywhere, and he heard this awful scraping noise in the distance, something thin and metal dragging on the floor and Jason couldn’t breathe.

He tried to push himself up but his wrists were tied behind his back and everything hurt, it all hurt so much. The scraping on the floor got louder, closer, he heard footsteps, and the laughing stopped echoing all around him because it was clearly getting closer too. “Robin, kid, you’re really falling down on the job tonight.” And that awful laugh, that stifled giggle. “I really think you can do better.”

He felt the tip of the crowbar graze his side, just enough to make him shudder.

He was face down in a puddle of blood and Jason couldn’t breathe, he couldn't breathe, he couldn’t breathe-

He came to like a dying fish, gasping and choking on nothing, sitting bolt upright in bed with a cut off scream. His chest felt like iron, like no matter how hard he tried his lungs wouldn’t expand, they wouldn’t take in the air around him.

Jason threw the blankets off, feeling hot and cold all at once, and shoved his face between his knees, trying in vain to slow his breathing because there was nausea crawling up his throat and - and, shit- he managed to make it to the garbage can in the corner before he lost what little he ate for dinner. But like other times, at least, the vomiting felt like a relief. The coughing and gagging that followed were no fun, along with the racing heart and shaking hands. He spit into the can a few times, his teeth chattering together.

It felt like there were ants under his skin, just looking for a way out. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he managed to stumble to the doorway, stepping over the mess of stuff that had spilled out of the box at the foot of his bed, and flicking on the light. It burned his eyes but it at least gave him something to look at outside of the visions clouding up his head.

He still felt the sharp point of the crowbar dragging up the side of his ribs and his stomach gave another awful squeeze that had him rushing to the bathroom just to dry heave in the sink. Turning the tap on and splashing his face with water helped just a little but his mouth tasted sour and his stomach was still knotting up inside him.

Grabbing his toothbrush off the counter he nearly dropped it while running it under the water his hands were shaking so much. He could hear the awful stupid voice in the back of his head even over the stifled groan he let out when his stomach heaved again. He applied way too much tooth paste to the brush and jammed it in his mouth, barely managing not to fall down when he sat on the edge of the tub.

His ribs ached and his knees and shins and his head felt like it was gonna split open. He knew it was a phantom pain maybe because he’d been close to hyperventilating for a good few minutes at that point and he was having some kind of premature brain death from low oxygen but the knowledge very rarely helped. Instead he sat there in the blindingly bright bathroom with his eyes squeezed shut, scrubbing jerkily over his teeth and tongue trying to wash out the sour taste of stomach acid. Trying to scrub out the echoing laughs in his head, the sound of the crowbar dragging across concrete, the muffled thud of it against flesh and bone.

Of all his nightmares, the ones of the joker were always the loudest.

Sometimes he’d talk out loud to himself, or hum, just to try to drown it out but that just ended up making him feel crazier. He brushed his teeth for a long time, concentrating on the sound of the bristles against his gums, long enough that his mouth was just full of foam and there was blood mixing in with it, and then he’d forced himself to stand and spit in the sink. He splashed water over his face and just stood there for a minute, staring down into the drain and watching drops fall from the tap, gripping the edge of the sink with white knuckles, trying to support his weight with his arms cause his knees were shaking something fierce, listening to his own labored breathing.

Amazingly enough Jason Todd did not have cable, and his internet was spotty. It was annoying but the bunker he’d set up for Red Hood had better internet than you could buy plus access to the cave computer and when he moved into his place he reasoned that’s all he really used it for. He didn’t have money to burn and the apartment didn’t come with cable. But on nights like this, when the skeletons in his closet were rattling around like percussion instruments he really wished he could turn on the tv and listen to some bullshit telenovelas or cartoons or reruns of Titanic or he really didn’t freaking care.

He could read a book, that’s what he usually did, but after Joker dreams, sometimes it just - wasn’t enough. There were little tricks, little things he’d learned that helped and he went through the list in his head as he finally wrenched himself away from the bathroom sink, when it no longer felt like the bottom of his stomach was trying to climb up his throat.

There was a lighter on his nightstand next to a heavily scented candle that he lit with shaking hands, nearly burned himself before he set it down to the side and breathed in the biting scent of pine. There was a half empty carton of cigarettes stashed under his bed but he’d been trying to quit and he saved them for when things were really bad.

The trash can in the corner was a problem, one he’d rather not address right then but didn’t want to leave overnight because disgusting and so he took a spare moment to rinse some water in it and dump the contents in the toilet. He splashed some bleach in it and filled it the rest of the way with water and left it soaking in the bathtub.

Music was the next step, he didn’t remember where he tossed his cell phone when he came in and he had to stalk around the apartment before he found it sitting on the kitchen counter just inside the front door, unplugged and with a dead battery. He stared at the screen with an unexpected twist in his chest. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Abruptly, even though he’d woken without tears, just the pounding of his chest and head, he felt like he was going to start crying immediately and he sucked in a deep, noisy breath before making a point of plugging in his damn phone and going back to his room where the smell of the candle was enough to at least put him more in the present. It was the music that helped with the Joker dreams the most though and without it Jason was left feeling jittery and anxious in a way that only seemed to be getting worse the longer he sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his bookshelves trying to decide which one would be the winner for the night.

His knee was bouncing enough he’d probably wake up his downstairs neighbor before something occurred to him. The smashed up box at the foot of his bed was still just where it was when he’d demolished it on his way in. The thought of it made a different anxiety twist in his stomach.

The box was from Alfred. Sort of. The box was full of Jason’s things so he wasn’t sure if it was really from anyone except that one day after patrol when Jason had been high on pain meds, half lying down on a medical cot in the cave with Alfred working on his stitches he’d admitted he missed some of his old stuff, his books, his CD’s, some video games. The conversation wasn’t meant to go anywhere and Jason had no idea why he said anything but Alfred had told him he was free to take whatever he wanted from his old room - it was still his, after all. But the very idea of going back in there made his skin crawl.

He’d heard from Dick that it hadn’t much changed since he died and that kind of made it worse. Jason didn’t want to step back in time, no thanks. The idea that Bruce had turned it into some kind of museum to before he had died did weird things to his insides and he’d told Alfred as much. He didn’t think he could stomach it.

Alfred had left it at that, didn’t push him to keep talking about it or try to tell him he should try anyway, like Dick probably would have. Jason always appreciated that about Alf.

Instead, about a week later Alfred had shown up at his apartment with a weeks worth of meals and a box of things he’d thought Jason might want. It was a nice gesture and Jason had appreciated it but he’d found, despite his earlier musings, that he held the same sort of apprehension to the box as he did to his old room. Everything inside it was part of his old life and most of the time it all just felt - untouchable.

He didn’t know why exactly, just that his years at the manor felt like some weird mix of dream and nightmare he could never quite suss out.

But now, with the Joker’s laughter ringing in his ears he thought it might be the lesser of two evils and he hoped to anyone listening that Alfie packed his old MP3 player.

Jason slid down across his rumpled bed and slipped over the frame, nearly tripped over the crushed box at his feet but fumbled around it until he could sit cross legged on the floor in front of it. He didn’t know where to start exactly, but he decided the best option was getting the MP3 player first. So, he dug in, pulling out old sweatshirts, a couple knit scarves, an old throw blanket. The soft things were all wrapped around the more fragile ones.

Underneath his old clothes and the blanket he finds a stack of CD’s, too bad he doesn’t have a CD player anywhere...There’s a stack of notebooks, a larger stack of book books, an old baseball, and there, the headphones wrapped neatly around it, is his MP3 player. An old iPod shuffle Bruce had gotten him more because it was something other kids had than that he’d known Jason wanted one.

What he was counting on, was good old Alfie, because while the charger for the device was neatly wound up next to it, it had been literal years since Jason had touched the thing and the idea that it might have any battery left was absurd unless Alfred had gone to the trouble of charging it before packing it away for him. With still shaking hands he unwound the headphones rapidly and shove them in his ears, pressing the home button and just praying for some kind of miracle.

“Bless you Alfred.” Jason whispered out over the heavy beat of hip hop music he didn’t ever remember downloading. He took a moment to breathe, sucking in the smell of wintergreen and letting the music drown out the noise in his head. The rest of the contents still sat there in stacks, pushed to the side of the torn open cardboard or still organized neatly inside it.

This was as far as he’d gotten in a month and Jason decided to just bite the bullet and get it over with. He reached for the first thing that caught his attention and pulled out a framed photo of Bruce and Jason at a baseball game. The same one, if Jason remembered correctly, that he’d gotten the ball in the box from. Bruce stood behind Jason, a hand on his shoulder, a half crooked smile on his face that meant it was real, while Jason at 13 years old stood in front of him, grinning from ear to ear with a mit and a baseball held up in his right hand.

He doesn’t remember who took the photo, it must have been some random person at the game, but he remembered being breathless and excited about going, that he’d never been to one before. He remembered telling Bruce that the closest he’d ever gotten was scalping tickets outside the doors of a hockey rink once and being chased off by a security guard. Bruce had gotten a weird look on his face that Jason never knew how to take before he clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed in a way that always made Jason feel weirdly warm in the chest.

“We’ll go to a hockey game next.” He had said. And Jason had been beyond excited.

He swallowed convulsively at the twist in his stomach and set the photo to the side. He wasn’t sure he wanted it anymore. Thinking about the good times with Bruce was always bitter sweet to him now.

Usually more bitter than sweet. The phantom image of a Robin uniform always coming to mind, filled out by some other kid, standing tall and smug. Jason shook his head. He’d decide later.

Next was an old backpack, still filled with his school books. He rifled through one, finding a doodle of a bow an arrow in the corner of one of the pages, a note scribbled underneath he couldn’t actually parse. There were pages of math homework, old assignments with marks ups from his teachers, little notes in red pen.

‘Good work’

‘Nice word choice’

‘Correct formula but you made a common mistake, see me after class and I can explain it better.’

Absently he wondered why Alfred had given him his old school stuff. Not like he had any use for it now and reading through it felt like going through some other kids stuff. It did give him a weird pang of regret. Because Jason had liked school. He’d thrived despite little shitheads in a rich school who thought he didn’t belong there and some teachers alike. Jason felt a weird sort of disgrace at never having graduated High School. Hell, he’d barely started. He stashed everything back inside the bag and set it to the side. He probably wouldn’t get rid of it, thought he wasn’t sure why.

The stack of books was probably what he’d missed the most and he pulled the top most copy off and flipped it open. Jason had a pretty large stash of books at this point, and he had replaced nearly, if not all the novels he’d had in the manor when he was younger already. But it wasn’t the books themselves exactly that he missed.

When Jason had moved into the manor the idea of having books of his own to return to had been a new and glorious thing. On the street, when you needed to keep something for yourself you found a way to mark it, or make it so other people didn’t want it. He’d half ruined most things he’d snatched from stores just so they wouldn’t bother wanting them back if he got caught.

Before his mom had died he’d had access to the Library, which was great, but it meant that none of the books were his and he’d had to keep them nice and neat if he wanted to be able to keep checking them out. It hadn’t been all that easy either, with a drug addicted mother and a lowlife dad who was always bringing other lowlifes around. He’d ended up stashing them under his bed anytime he wasn’t reading them.

The books in the manor were different. They had a library, which Jason treated as such, but Bruce had also expressed that Jason could have his own books. Ones he got to keep in his room that he wasn’t required to return to anyone else or share. He could even make notes in them if he wanted, highlight whatever text interested him or that he wanted to return to.

The idea of marking them up in anyway had horrified Jason when Bruce had made the suggestion, but he liked part of the idea. It made reading feel more like he was an active participant, like he could go back and forth with the characters, like he was involved in the story.

He’d never taken a pen to a book, but what he had done was fill all of his favorites with sticky notes.

Jason still did it sometimes, though he didn’t read as much as he used to as a kid when he was only patrolling on the weekends and just had school to think about. He flipped through the first few pages of Frakenstein, one of his favorites, perusing his own messy handwriting on bright pink paper, faded with age. Again though, the nostalgia twisted hard in his stomach. He was glad to have them back, thought he might actually read through them someday, but what had been something he missed...felt a lot like something he could still never have, now that he was holding it in his hands.

There were all these mixed up, tangled feelings twisted around Jason’s childhood. Sometimes when he was high on pain meds, or drunk maybe, it softened the edges enough to make all this seem like a good idea. But harshly sober and coming down off a nightmare….they just felt kind of like a sad joke.

Like looking at the props from a movie you used to think was real life.

“Whatever.” He mumbled to himself as he grabbed a pile of the books and stacked them back up in a haphazard pile. His bookshelves were neatly organized, lining his bedroom walls on three sides. He made sure to leave room for more, and the second bedroom still had blank walls he’d thought about repurposing for just such an occasion that he ran out. Normally things were organized by genre, then author, then title. But this particular collection he would keep together. He shelved them all on the lowest empty shelf near the floor, next to his dresser.

The picture frame he stuck face down in the drawer of his nightstand to think about later, the baseball, and the mit he dug out to match, he left sitting on his dresser. The couple sweatshirts smelled like fresh laundry, which wasn’t surprising, so he didn’t bother washing them, just hung them up in the very back of his closet. They’d never fit him now, and just looking at them when he tucked the arms of the hanger through the neck hole nearly had him reeling at how tiny he used to be.

His notebooks he didn’t even open, remembering clearly enough the awful drawings he used to make and his own amateur attempts at writing. Journaling had initially been a suggestion from Bruce, back when Jason had frequent outbursts of temper and never wanted to talk about it afterwards. Bruce wasn’t exactly a shining example of talking out your issues, so the journaling had probably been a nice cop out for him, but he still occasionally did some.

The throw blanket, Jason realized when he picked it up, was the same one that Alfred had knitted him for his first Christmas at the manor and that did get him a little choked up. It was red, and a little faded, the color clashed pretty badly with his bedspread if he was being honest but he didn’t care. He took the time to make up his blankets and folded the throw neatly at the end of his bed. Then he settled himself back on the floor in front of the nearly empty box.

There wasn’t much else he expected to find in it. It was large enough that Alfred had managed to fit his old skateboard, which Jason chuckled to see. Despite his skills as robin he had never gotten very good with the thing. He left it leaned up against his bedroom wall behind the door and went in for the last item, sitting neatly at the base of the box. It was wrapped in brown parchment paper and tied in twine, about the size and shape of a book if Jason had to guess, and a badly wrinkled card was tucked underneath the string.

Jason assumed at first that it was a gift from Alfred, stashed at the bottom of the box as some sort of surprise but the obviously crumpled and reflattened card couldn’t have been the butler. So Jason slipped out the card, a nice stock with a simple picture on the front of a sailboat that looked oddly familiar to him.

Upon opening the card he was momentarily confused. There was obviously a decent amount of text written out at one point, but it had all been scribbled out pretty damn thoroughly, he squinted at it for a moment, trying to make out the words as a slow dawning unease settled on his shoulders. He couldn’t quite make out the words but somehow the handwriting still looked familiar, a messy but somehow still graceful looping cursive that could only be Bruce’s.

Jason swallowed roughly, eyes scanning the card over again and then peering into the box like it might now suddenly contain a poisonous snake. It didn’t make sense.

That there was possibly a….gift stashed somewhere in his room from Bruce that he had never known about didn’t make any sense. And the idea that Bruce would have for some reason gotten him a gift since he was out of the manor and asked Alfred to deliver it made even less. Unless it was something related to their vigilante lives maybe. Maybe it was useful to Red Hood somehow and the scribbled out card was code for something.

But something told him it wasn’t. Bruce was ridiculous and paranoid and overly dramatic at the best of times but a secret message disguised as an old gift instead of making a phone call or telling him in person on one of the not infrequent times they might run into each other on patrol made little to no sense. And the gift did seem old he realized.

Reaching in and picking it up out of the box he found the brown paper covered in a layer of dust, brushed off in a pattern that could only have been someone’s hands moving it to begin with. The twine was brittle and snapped at the knot with a very light tug.

There was a feeling Jason sometimes got, like he was swimming in the ocean and he could sense some huge and dangerous coming up beneath him, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. In general it didn’t usually represent (wrong word) anything positive but he was already waist deep in this whole thing and that feeling didn’t tend to leave him until the cause was addressed. So he took a single deep breath and tore the paper off, trying to brace himself for any possibility.

However, when the paper came off he was left with a complete absence of any reaction. He hadn’t known what to expect but somehow what he found was still entirely unexpected.

It was two items, stacked neatly one on top of the other. One, which was, upon retrospect, predictably a book. A hardcover copy of Pride and Prejudice, with a swirling and beautifully designed cover in deep navy blue, overlaid with gold.

On top of that was a slim DVD case with a photo of Kira Knightly looking artfully to the side with a blurry Matthew Mcfadyen in the background.

“What the hell.”

Jason yanked the headphones out of his ears, suddenly feeling the need for the quiet to digest whatever the heck he as seeing. He grabbed up the crumpled card again and opened it flat, smoothing it out on top of the book and squinting in concentration at the scribbled lines of pen. If Bruce wasn’t a pretentious asshole who always wrote in cursive he thought he may have been able to make it out but as it was the only thing that wasn’t in cursive was a cluster of numbers in the upper right hand side of the card that had only been partially scribbled out. He should have noticed them immediately but he had been more intrigued by what he was apparently not supposed to see.

The numbers though, they were clearly a date. A date that Jason stared at with a numbness in his bones while his brain calculated where he was and what he was doing when it was written. It was dated nearly a year ago. Right around the time that….that the two of them had talked. That Jason had agreed to play by Bruce’s rules.

“What….the hell.” Jason repeated to himself. His voice strangled and clipped. Dropping the card he suddenly flipped the book open, flipping the pages in a fan and looking for something more, turning the book face down and shaking out the pages hoping for some other information. Nothing.

He cracked open the DVD case next, popping the disc out and the little leaflet of information thinking there had to be some kind of hidden message somewhere.

“This is such bullshit.” He whispered to himself, incredulous and weirdly lost.

A strangely frantic idea was occurring to him and he picked up the card again, stumbling to his feet and going for one of the notebooks he’d stashed in his closet. He took the one on top and tore out the first blank page he came to and then spent ten minutes digging around for a pencil, ending up with the single sheet of notebook paper and the card, standing in his boxers and a t-shirt in his kitchen. The card he laid out on the countertop, putting the notebook paper on top of it. He angled the pencil carefully and began brushing gentle strokes across the paper.

It was an old hat trick Jason used to read about in ancient detective novels like it was some genius level trick, it would create a negative image of whatever had been written on the page before it was scribbled out, provided the original script was written with enough pressure. Bruce tended to have a heavy hand so he thought it’d be enough but the way the card was crumpled up made it a special challenge, leaving other divots and lines through the text.

When he was done he stared at the sheet of paper with a scrutinizing gaze.

“Damnit.” It looked like scribbles, which was exactly what it was, but maybe a tiny bit more like actual words than before. He studied it, trying to make out the individual first and last letter of each word.

The first word was clearly his name, he took the pencil and carefully wrote out “Jason” below the scribbles.

The first line he could make out sparing words from. He went through the note methodically, writing down words he could make out, leaving a line on the page for each word he couldn’t, carefully counting each word until he was at the bottom of the card and his hands were shaking again, worse than when he’d woken up from the dream.

He stared at what he had, trying to make heads or tales of it.

Jason,

I know ___ ___ ___ this book, ___ ____ ____ more ____ ___ copy. I think I remember ____ ____ me at some ____ ____ I ______ you of Mr. Darcy. ________ I was ______ and _____ _____ if my ______ ______ right.

Maybe you’ve ____ the _____ _______ too, ____ for me to say. It’s ____ a _____ _____ ____ talked _____ books and movies. But I saw this pair _____ sold ________ in a classics __________ at the ______ Bookstore in Gotham and I _______ of you. ____ _______ you might _____ it, ___ a good _________ of the book, if ___ _______. _____ __ _____ watch it ________ and _______ notes.

I miss you.

The vast majority of it didn’t make much sense beyond being clearly about the story and probably not some hidden message, but Jason didn’t care a whole lot.

Instead he stared at those last three words, feeling a tremor run up his spine. He dropped the paper on the counter like it burned him and took a step back, swallowing convulsively. His eyes were burning and his chest felt tight and this was not the bullshit he’d been expecting in that damn box.

“Fucking Alfred.” Jason scooped up the crumpled card and the sheet of paper and stomped back into his bedroom, grabbing the book and the movie and dumping it all in the bottom drawer of his dresser with old electronics and chargers he wasn’t sure went to what to be forgotten about. The drawer slammed closed and he stood there breathing like a freight train for a split second before he went back to the foot of his bed where he tore the empty box until it was flat and recyclable, he stashed it under his sink and he fumed.

Glancing at the clock on his microwave told him it was nearing 5am, meaning he’d gotten maybe three hours of sleep and that the the sun would be coming up in a couple hours. He stomped around his kitchen, dragging out coffee beans and milk and generally making as much noise as possible while making coffee just hoping his downstairs neighbor would come pounding on the door so he could scream in someone’s face.

“Fucking Alfred.” He hissed again, feeling utterly unsteady and hollow. Like someone had scooped out his insides with a spoon. It was such a bullshit move.

Jason wasn’t an idiot. No way Bruce knew that was in Alfred’s little care package. Bruce had probably forgotten the thing existed, had probably thought it had all been thrown away. He’d clearly meant to dispose of the card, probably had, and Alfred had rescued it from the trash and kept it on hand, just waiting to leave it like a bomb for Jason to find. Probably hoped it would open his eyes.

Make him see the light.

Jason was not going to be manipulated by some shitty card that Bruce had thrown in the trash rather than actually give him. And what kind of bullshit was that? Bruce thought he could give him some crappy copy of a book and a movie with a casual little note and things would be good?

He was insane. Bruce was insane and Jason had known it for years.

Jason was shaking his head, pulling a mug out of the cupboard for the coffee and setting it down harder than he needed to. What had he even been thinking? What? That if he gave Jason a present he’d just forget about all the other shit?

Oh, except that he didn’t give him the gift. Instead he threw away the card and put the gift somewhere it was gathering dust for the past year.

There were dishes in the sink from his dinner and he went about washing them by hand instead of using the dishwasher, needing to move, needing something to occupy his hands.

Needed something to work out his aggression on so he could keep hold of the anger in his chest.

He’d bought Jason a gift.

He leaned against the counter sink, gripping the edge hard and feeling the sharp edges of his indignation stuttering and losing their shape. He tried to grab onto it, hold it in place like the shield it was.

But - Jesus he doesn’t really know what to think of it. So Bruce bought it for him, and then what? Couldn’t bring himself to actually give it to him? His stomach twists in knots over it. He remembers meeting up with Bruce, sharing burgers on the hood of the batmobile and agreeing to work by Bruce’s rules.

He remembers he’d been in a good mood that day, that he’d felt more exasperated and amused by the request/demand than he would otherwise normally be. He remembers Bruce being blank and awkward and the good feelings slowly draining. Remembered Bruce cutting the meeting short and making some excuse for it and leaving Jason with that same souring bitterness he always ended up with with Bruce.

He hadn’t gone back on the agreement, he wasn’t really sure why exactly. Except that maybe...maybe him asking meant he didn’t believe Jason was some kind of lost cause.

Not that Jason cared, he had nothing to prove, not to Bruce.

But sometimes there were reasons to prove things to yourself and Jason wasn’t sure he had yet.

It didn’t matter. For now he wasn’t killing anyone and he was on the Bat’s good side. It didn’t explain the movie. There was a date on the card but for the life him Jason can’t remember exactly when they had their chat at the Batmobile. It was....around that time, but was it before or after? He can’t remember, and for some reason that really bugs him.

He doesn’t want to think about this stupid shit.

But Bruce had thought about him apparently. He….he missed him.

It was ridiculous. It wasn’t true.

Jason had to resist the urge to go dig that stupid card out of his dresser and try to parse out the words again.

“God damnit!” He slammed his hands against the edge of the sink.

He wasn’t supposed to care about this crap anymore. He didn’t. He didn’t care.

Jason didn’t care and he was going to stop thinking about it.

…..God he was going to need a shit ton of coffee to make it through the day.

#Jason Todd #Fanfiction #nanowrimo #Batman #Batfam

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frostinmyshadows · 5 years

Text

Please read all of this. It will be hard, but I really, really need you to.

I had a nightmare about you the night before last. I was reliving the moment you told me you couldn’t love me over and over and over. I woke up panicked, sweat sticking me to the sheets. I’ve been revisiting that nightmare ever since. I wish it had only been just that; a simple nightmare. Not a memory. One of my last memories of you.

I’ve spent the last seven months mourning you. At times hating you. I’ve officially been apart from you for longer than I was with you. It had gotten easier, being alone. It had gotten easier to suppress the memories, to ignore the parts of me that are stuck on you. and the parts of me I left behind with you that day. But the last few weeks I’ve felt myself slipping. I’m having a hard time writing more poems about loving you when one of the last things you said to me was that you couldn’t love me.

What would have happened if I hadn’t done what I did, in the end? What would have happened if I had simply left, and gone home, and carried on? Part of me wonders if you would have called me a few days later, missing me, taking everything back. But another part of me fears that you would have treated me like you treat a lot of people in your life- disposable. I watched during our time together the ways you found new friends, made them think you cared about them a hell of a lot more than you actually did, had a really intense relationship, and then it ended. You told me yourself that you didn’t know why you had this habit of making people think they meant more to you than they did. The whole time we were friends I feared that I was just another one of these relationships. That I would be disposed of shortly, and that I better just enjoy our friendship while it lasted. And the day you said those terrible things to me, I felt that my fear had come true.

But when I got home from inpatient, I spent hours and hours poring over the notes you wrote me, looking at the pictures, the friendship bracelet you made me, the silver bracelets with the date we met on it. I spent hours upon hours in therapy trying to piece together the puzzle, how you could have written me these things and given me those gifts, if just weeks later you’d decide you couldn’t love me and didn’t want me in your life anymore. There was this great divide between these things, and what you said that last day. If you don’t remember the things you wrote to me, here are some examples:

“This is the gayest thing I’ve ever done. You find pockets of happiness in the most unexpected places. Amidst a world seemingly tumbling down around me, I found one. This time, my pocket is you, Em. You’re humming and fixing your hair in the reflection in the window. You’re wearing all burgundy but who cares. Oliver is making noise and rustling in tissue paper. We’re putting up Christmas lights and decorating the tree in November, going to any store open at 1 am. Tonight, you’re not alone in the dark, and I’ve learned that hot chocolate has caffeine. Now, it’s almost 4 am. I’ve got class in a few hours, but it doesn’t matter. The sun is starting to touch the tips of the horizon and I know I’ll be tired, but my best friend is sleeping in the other room, our kitten is sleeping on the back of a chair next to the Christmas tree we decorated. The lights are a little out of focus, and it’s okay. I’m safe at home, at home in a pocket of happy, watching life unfold through my runny egg (tear) eyes. I never thought I’d make it here, Em. Thanks for being my home.” -11/29

“... I know with 100% certainty that without you in my life I would not be here, alive, writing this. You are my guardian angel, and I thank our she-god every fucking day for that. You know more about me than anyone or anything that has ever existed, and you still love me. When I tell you something that in my head I’m like, “this is it, this is my most unloveable moment, I deserve no compassion or love right now,” you shower me in it. That in itself is the greatest gift you could ever give me. You’ve loved me in a way that has given me the freedom to grow and be myself, which is the best way you could ever love someone... I love you Emily Adair, even when I think you’re the dumbest person to ever live, and even when you don’t fold towels into perfectly proportioned thirds. We’re two pods in a pea and we’ll always be slices from the same pie. I know these last months haven’t been walks in the park, but I’ll walk with you in light or in dark. I loved you then, I love you now, and I will keep loving you, you digbat.” -2/14

The list from my fridge of the weird food combinations I eat. The parking slip from when we went to Arctic Monkeys in Seattle. A receipt from a Thai restaurant. The lotto ticket you bought with my money and then forgot to ever check up on. The polaroid of yours and Oliver’s footprints on our balcony from the first snow. My “I Voted” sticker, which for some reason you saved. The valet ticket from when we went to Twenty One Pilots. The lady bug you stitched me, with my nickname: “Love Bug.” (I have to tell you that it stings that you call Emma “Lady Bug.” I mean, come on. Emily, Love Bug. Emma, Lady Bug. When I learned that, it was like watching you replace me in the most literal way possible.) A sticky note: “You’re a star, I’m drunk, your love would be too much.” The photo strips we took at some point that winter, on the back of one of them you wrote “Two pods in a pea. I love you. Slices from the same pie.” The ad we put out when searching for a roommate. The polaroids from Halloween, you in your hippo suit, me in my Commander’s Wife dress. A polaroid of you and Oliver. The ring you gave me. One of your car keys, which I had carried on my keychain. Finally, a thumb drive that has every picture and video I’d ever taken of us on it. All of this is kept in the box you gave me for Valentine’s Day.

How could you have loved me with such impossible intensity, and then decide you didn't want me anymore?

I understand that taking care of me burnt you out. But the thing is, I never asked you to take care of me. I could feel, as the months went on, that the scale of our friendship was vastly imbalanced. I started to resent the way that you felt the need to do everything for me, the way you were clearly doing more for me than I could have possibly done for you, being so sick. And I think part of the reason you felt compelled to do so much for me is because it distracted you from your own problems. I began to understand that you were doing to me what I had done to G. I just gave, and gave, and gave to him without him asking me too, me trying to rescue him while expecting an equal amount of effort towards me in return, when he was so incredibly depressed that he couldn’t have possibly done so. The resentment grew between us, me resenting him for not being as good of a friend, him resenting me for putting him in a position where he felt he constantly was indebted to me This revelation was what led me to meet him for coffee and apologize. I told you, afterwards, about this analogy between our relationships, and you nodded but I don’t think really understood what I was trying to say- that you needed to back off and take care of yourself, or else you would get burnt out, while I constantly felt indebted to you for things I never asked you to do in the first place. Trying to rescue me would eat you alive. And then, ultimately, our relationship would end with the same abruptness and pain that G and I’s did. You were trying to keep me afloat when we were both drowning.

Even when I did try to return the support to you, you would shut me out. If you were having a depressive episode (when you would spend a day or two in bed) I would try to help in whatever way possible, but you wouldn’t let me. You had a hard time being vulnerable. You isolated yourself, and wouldn’t let me be there for you. I felt so helpless. This made it especially hard to keep our scale balanced.

I can’t say enough how sorry I am for hurting you. I didn't see the impact my illness was having on you until you and Kelsey and our moms had that sort of intervention with me and you guys cried so hard, pleading me to go home for help. I’m so, so sorry for staying in the apartment as long as I did. I know I hurt you and Kelsey very much by staying when I got to that really terrible point, and if I could I would take it back. But in the moment, I couldn’t face the pain of leaving you. I wanted to keep living the way we had been, going on midnight runs to the store for holiday decorations and candy, getting high and spilling our guts to each other, doing absolutely everything with you that was giving me a purpose to live at that point. The idea of going home for months, where I would be so completely alone, was terrifying. Most of all, I was worried you would forget about me when I was gone. That our friendship would fade, and you’d move on to someone else. Which is why I panicked when you went days at a time not texting me, growing distant, and why I came up again so soon to visit. Which is when it all happened.

Those words you said were probably the worst possible way to say what you were trying to say. You could have simply said “I need to take care of myself right now, and that means we need some distance.” If our positions were swapped, saying the things you said wouldn’t have even occurred to me. I don’t understand how they could have to you. I want to know. I don’t understand. I just don’t. Even in the moment I remember asking if you could love me when I was healthy, and you said yes. I replied “I love you because you are you. In sickness and in health, in good times and bad. How could you choose to only love me in health?”

I know you’ve apologized, and explained the way you felt then and feel now. I appreciated that immensely. You have no idea how much it meant to me. And I do forgive you, for everything. But I just still can’t piece the puzzle together. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to. Maybe it’s less of a puzzle and more of a shattered mirror. Too many millions of pieces to put together, leaving a distorted, hazy image even if they manage to be put together correctly. Maybe it’s possible that you really could have said those terrible things while still really loving me, though not letting yourself love me. Maybe these opposites were true, simultaneously.

Though it was mostly wonderful, our relationship was very codependent. I had lost my sense of identity with being ill and unable to live the way I always had, so I poured myself into you and made you my identity. Looking back, I see the red flags of our relationship. I so willfully ignored them at the time they occurred, but now I see how our relationship got to be the way it was. Our friendship was the most intense, beautiful thing I have ever experienced- but it had fatal flaws. We are imperfect humans, and we both fell into different traps with each other. I’ve spent a lot of time at home going to therapy and learning about how to have healthy, non-codependent relationships. I hope in the future we can both experience these relationships. I think it would be a good idea for you to learn about the topic as well. I put my entire self-worth in your hands, which I never should have done, and it ultimately almost killed me. I gave you too much power in my life. I didn’t understand balance, I didn’t know how to achieve interdependence instead of codependence. I didn’t understand how to set boundaries or follow yours. I just desperately loved and needed to be loved by you, at whatever the cost.

Since coming home, I’ve gained ten pounds. I’ve fixed my posture. My issues with eating have virtually disappeared. I’ve tried several new treatments, including ketamine therapy for my mental health and fibromyalgia pain; (it didn’t work, but it was fun while it lasted.) I’m back in college. I have a steady job. I have a couple of friends, including G. I learned that I have Infection from Chronic Mold Exposure, my doctors said it was probably the black mold that was in the bathroom at our apartment (we had our house checked and it came out clean.) There was probably some also in the hole they made in my bathroom wall that time. I believe this is what made me so sick in Bellingham, to get better only in a matter of weeks in La Center. This realization has made me very, very angry. What would have happened to us if I had never gotten so sick in the first place?

I’m so fucking angry that this all happened. I hate the fact that I’m not with you right now, decorating our Christmas tree early and watching holiday movies. I hate the fact that I can’t remember your smell. I hate that I’m starting to forget the sweet sound of your voice- thank god I have the videos we made to remind me. They help me remember the sound of your laugh, and all of your facial expressions. I hate that we aren’t laughing like crazy together on the kitchen floor right this minute, unable to compose ourselves over some stupid joke. I hate the fact that we aren’t grocery shopping together, singing along to the music in the car together. I hate the fact that we aren’t leaving each other cute notes, I hate the fact that we aren’t sleeping just down the hall from each other. I hate the fact that I couldn’t be there for you when that disgusting guy did that to you, that I couldn’t hold you tight and kiss your forehead and tell you that everything was going to be okay. I hate the fact that I won’t be spending my 21st birthday with you by my side. I hate the fact that our memories are finished being made. I’m angry about so, so many things, but being angry won’t bring you back. It won’t reverse what happened.

I want you to know that you will always and forever be the first girl I loved. I don’t know if I will ever really stop loving you. I don’t think I can. You are simply a part of my heart. It’s so, incredibly painful, and some days I don’t think I can move forward. I fear I will never have the same level of connection with anyone ever again. I fear every relationship will pale in comparison to ours. I fear I will spend my life comparing everyone I meet to you. I fear I will always be alone. I fear so many things. Mostly, I think I just fear that our time together was the best my life will ever get. That it’s all downhill from here.

If you ever even for a second doubt that you are loved, just read To The Girl With The Hazel Eyes. I meant every word of it, I poured my entire heart into it. You are the most special, beautiful ray of light that I have ever met, and I’m so sorry, and so unbelievably angry, that our time together had to end. I made mistakes. You made mistakes. We tore each other apart, in the end. We burned so bright we burnt out. But that flame was warm and beautiful while it lasted. I will always be chasing that light.

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afewmarvelousthoughts · 6 years

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Taking Time Epilogue

Master List | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Request:

Could you do a Thor request where the reader is Tony’s sister and Thor and her always had feelings for each other but timing was never right and right after Infinity Wars, everyone goes to regroup and rest, she and Thor find comfort in each other since she doesn’t know where Tony is and he’s lost everyone he love (but her)?

Pairing: Thor X Reader (There’s some platonic Steve feels too.)

Summary: For years you and Thor have had a tumultuous relationship, to say the least. After the snap, you meet up with what’s left of The Avengers at the compound to not only figure out where the hell your brother, Tony, is but also to lick your wounds. Thor is among them and the two of you finally take the time for one another because if you’ve learned nothing from this nightmare it’s that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

Warnings: Loss.

A/N: My. God. Why. Can I write something and not be heart-wrenchingly invested in the reader character? No, apparently I cannot. I’ve enjoyed going on this journey thanks to my lovely anon requester and I appreciate you all going on it with me. Just going to go ahead and apologize for any tears shed because this def put me in my feels.

Tags are open!

@disagreetoagree @fandoms-pizza-wifi-ym13 @dorkprincess @badpvn @unalive-mee @breezy1415

Every single person, even Rocket who had no dog in this fight, was ready to have something to do when you presented them with your plans that night. Things were getting chaotic everywhere. People needed whatever was left of The Avengers to step up.

Clint Barton had turned up the next day, having lost his whole family. You all welcomed him with open arms. While you all thought he’d opt to lay low he instead wanted to work.

Bruce was helping you pick through Tony’s research. Happy to finally be back in a lab.

Steve, Thor, and Rocket were ground ops tasked with going into the selected hubs to more accurately assess the situation. Steve even shaved his beard and donned his trademark red, white, and blue to gain people’s trust.

Natasha and Barton were on covert ops, in times of chaos there will always be people who will take advantage of that. They would sniff out the biggest threats and lay out a plan of action.

Rhodey was coordinating with the government. In the wake of The Event (as all the news outlets were calling it) the Accords were scrapped. The US and really any government was, for better or worse, ready to take any help they could get.

You would intervene in any team as necessary working under the Iron Man mantle. Your suit may be different in color and sleeker in design but there was no mistaking that look. Just like Cap’s patriotic get up it would garner trust.

Ten days after the event, when the teams had been dispatched for their first round of fieldwork F.R.I.D.A.Y. chimed in while you were in your office sorting through the nanotech research.

“Y/N, I have a pre-recorded message from Mr. Stark.”

Your breath catches.

“Would you like me to play it?”

Would you… “No. I… Fuck… I’ll view it in the lab.”

You run and burst through the doors of Tony’s private lab. In the days since you have been here you’d felt sick every time you thought of coming in this space. Now… Your heart is thundering in your ears your skin covered in cold sweat.

“Breathe,” you whisper. Trying to calm yourself. You place your palms against his main desk, whole body trembling. “Fuck,” you groan as you collapse into his chair.

No paper littered Tony’s space, he scoffed at analog whenever he could. But there were still traces of him left here. A coffee mug with a sip still in it. A book face down to mark his spot. A picture of him and Pepper. And… you cover your mouth to hold in a sob. You and Tony at your graduation from M.I.T. You were on his back, faces pressed cheek to cheek, smiles big and genuine. Rhodey had taken it. You hadn’t ever paid much attention to the photos he kept and this one genuinely surprised you.

Things were always touch and go between the two of you. Two orphans with too much fucking money and too many unresolved issues to function anything like a normal family. But… what was normal?

You’d slept in his bed for six months after your parents’ died because the terror of losing him would wake you up shrieking. He was there.

When you were at boarding school in England you developed a raging heroin addiction. You’d overdosed behind a seedy pub. Your high society friends left you there rather than end up on the front page as being present when the Stark heiress died. Tony was by your side when you woke up, bleary eyed from lack of sleep and tears. He was there all through your detox… and the next… and the next… He never judged you, never held that against you.

There were countless times you had failed one another, countless times you screamed both drunk and sober about your hatred of the other. Times when you wouldn’t talk for months… But still you loved each other as best you could.

The picture held tight to your chest you take a shaky breath. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., play it.”

There he is, sitting right where you are, looking morose.

He lets out a long sigh, “You know, Y/N… I’ve been making these things since after the attack on New York. I kinda thought,” he runs a hand absently through his hair making it stand up, “they’d get easier… they don’t. Especially the ones to you. I think,” he clears his throat, “I think it’s because more than anyone I hope you never have to see this. I, uh, have this program set up that if I don’t provide authorization every 10 days F.R.I.D.A.Y. will send this to you. I figure 10 days is a pretty solid indication that something is very wrong. So just in case… There’s just things…” He trails off and leans his elbows on his desk, cradling his head in his hands.

He looks back to the camera, his eyes glassy, voice shaking. “Things that,” he clears his throat again, “that you need to know… that I’ve never had the spine to really say to you before… Y/N, I could not be more proud of the woman you’ve become.” A tear slides down his cheek and he quickly brushes it aside, save for snark and anger neither of you were good with emotions. “God knows that’s no thanks to me. I have no clue how you turned into this light of a person but I do know I’m lucky you’re my little sister. I know things haven’t always been easy, I know I haven’t always made them easy. I’ve fucked up so many times… but still here you are. I guess here we are. Both trying to save the world in our own ways though I do think you’re doing a better job…” That crooked smile curls his lips. “And I know… I know for a fact mom and dad would be proud of you too…” He takes a second, breathing deep.

“You should know that anything good in me, any heroic bullshit I’ve ever done… It wasn’t to save the world or to be a hero. I just…” Tears slide out of his eyes, “I just wanted to be good enough for you, to make sure things were safe for you, first and foremost you… And I know that may be hard to believe since I… I know I’ve apologized but I will be doing so until the end for showing you that video… I,” his voice breaks, “I hate myself for that, Y/N, and for the shit before it… I’m so sorry. If you can tell Rogers… tell him I was wrong… Fuck.” He stands and paces for a minute.

“Anyway,” he breathes deep, “I just need you to know that I’m proud of you, that I love you, and that I’m sorry for all the times I failed you. If I’m gone… well I’m sorry for that too. I hope you have Thor, that big blond idiot loves you even though I’m sure neither of you have admitted it to each other. You should by the way, admit it.” He smirks, knowing. “You should also know that the Iron Man is yours now. Do what you want with it, use it, retire it, find someone you can trust with it, whatever. F.R.I.D.A.Y. has all the schematics you could need and I have no doubt you’ll just make it better.” He sighs. “I’m sure there’s a whole hell of a lot more I should say but this is all the emotion I can handle for the week. I love ya sis. You’re going to be ok, kid.” Then he’s gone.

You sit, unmoving, for what seems like a long time. Then something snaps. Every ounce of sadness, of rage, of fear, hits you. Not once since The Event have you allowed yourself the space to feel this. Holding on to the notion that Tony was somehow alive, that he was coming home. But now…

There aren’t tears just a rage filled roar as you knock everything off Tony’s desk with a swipe of your arms. The mug shatters, frames crack. The desk, now devoid of accoutrement is nothing but a target. With a flick of your wrist the armor encases your right hand and you blast a hole through the top of the desk. You take a step back and release another, and another, screaming all the while.

You don’t even hear Rhodey come in. “Y/N!!” He yells over your screams. “Hey!” Grabbing your arm.

“Get the fuck off me, Rhodes!” You look at him, wild, before stalking away and firing at the glass wall separating the lab from the test area. It shatters with a satisfying crash and suddenly Rhodey’s arms are wrapped around you, pinning your arms to your sides.

“I got one too, kid,” he says softly and your knees begin to buckle, “I know… I know.” His voice is thick with emotion. “I know it hurts.”

“Oh, god,” you croak and crumple to the floor. The armor retreats and you cover your face the tears flowing freely. “No, no, nononono,” you repeat over and over through your sobs. Rhodey stays behind you, arms wrapped tight around you until your sobs quieten.

He looks around at the destruction you wreaked, “Ya know, there are times I doubt you and Tony are related and then I’m always reminded that there is no doubt.”

Sniffling you pull away and sit on your knees across from him and take his hands. “Why do you put up with our shit, Rhodey?”

He laughs, tears in his eyes, “Because life without the Starks is too fucking boring.”

You shake your head, “You should work that out in therapy.” Both laughing you embrace. “Thank you, Rhodey, for everything.”

“It’s nothing, kid,” he wipes the tears from your face. “You’re family.”

Five weeks pass.

You’re all managing the best you can. Working on a four days on three days home system for the most part. The beginnings of Foundation outposts have been established in New York and Houston, providing medical care, food, and housing to thousands. You and Rhodey were working to figure out a way to ethically and legally seize homes and former offices that were empty to be used for rehoming people closer to the city centers. Things were… as good as they could be.

Every moment you’re able you and Thor find ways to be together. You both make it a point to carve out time every single day you’re apart to at least have ten minutes to talk, to remind one another that you love them. On days when you’re at the compound you sneak off any chance you can, stealing moments to kiss, fuck, and talk. It was as though you were both determined to make up for all the time you lost.

He tells you incredible stories about his childhood. Pranks Loki would play on him, how he’d somehow always fall for it. Battles won and lost. You’d tell him far less fantastical stories about the wild shit you and Tony would get into, the last minute trips to Singapore and Monaco, the debauchery and fuckery. He loved them even though they lacked giants and magic. Those are the best times.

It’s one of your three days with everyone back at the compound for debriefing and taking a breather. You’re all around the kitchen eating whatever is on hand for lunch chatting when F.R.I.D.A.Y. pipes up.

“An unknown spacecraft has just entered the atmosphere.”

“Fuck,” you all seem to groan in unison.

“Can you tell it’s trajectory?”

“I cannot be certain but it seems that it may be heading close by, I’ve tried to communicate but have gotten no response.”

Without another word you’re all bolting for the door grabbing any necessary gear as quickly as possible. You’re fully suited before you’re even outside, Thor close at your side.

“If they’re hostile let me take the first blow,” Thor growls. You nod.

Suddenly you see it clear the trees just to the west of the compound. Without a thought you’re off, Rhodey bringing up your left.

The craft lands with an earsplitting crash, digging a deep ravine into the earth.

“Still no response from inside the craft but I do detect two life forms,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. informs you.

The rest of the team has brought up the rear while Rhodey, Thor, and yourself remain on the front lines with Thor on the ground and the two of you hovering about 10 feet up.

You hear sounds rumble from inside. “Whoever the fuck you are I highly suggest you come out slowly and unarmed unless you want a hole through your chest.”

Clanking, voices, and a hatch finally bursts free, your weapons hum to life ready to fire any moment.

Hands raised, human hands. “I wouldn’t have given you the fucking thing if I thought you were going to shoot me with it.”

You lose your focus and crash to your knees with a thud helmet retracting and you stare at the haggard visage of your brother.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, shocked, landing with much more grace beside you.

“Stark,” you hear Steve whisper.

“Rogers, Rhodes,” he looks around and you know who his eyes are seeking out.

“She’s not here man…” Rhodey says looking down.

Tony sniffs hard, “I figured. Honestly, didn’t expect any of you to be here…”

You’ve been staring at him, brain unable to process fully what you’re seeing. He’s still a good distance away and suddenly you stand, your feet move of their own accord, suit retracting with each step.

When you’re in front of him you slap him, hard, across his face. “What the fuck Tony!” You scream. You punch him in the shoulder, “What were you thinking?!”

Vaguely you hear Rhodey say to someone, “No, let them do this.”

You push him hard with both hands, “Getting on a fucking hostile alien ship, not knowing where it’s going or what’s happening.” Your voice is starting to crack, you push him again, “with no back up, nothing!” You raise your hand ready to hit him again and he catches it, holding tight, dark eyes that match your own unwavering.

“I’m sorry, Y/N, I’m… sorry,” he whispers.

The fight leaves you in a rush and you collapse into your stupid, reckless, heroic brother’s arms. You both hit the ground in a heap, sobbing into one another. Each of you saying sorry like it’s a mantra, like it will make up for everything that either of you has done to the other. Each of you knowing you are two of the luckiest people alive.

Your whole body is violently shaking, you can’t seem to stop. “Hey, hey,” Tony whispers rocking you back and forth. “It’s ok, we’re ok, kid.” You look up and Rhodey lays a hand on your shoulder.

“I told you, he’s a stubborn son of a bitch,” he says eyes glassy. The two of you rise and the men embrace. “Don’t fucking pull that shit again, Tony.” All Tony can do is nod.

No one else has moved so you all approach the shell-shocked team. Rocket is talking to a blue woman and you can’t even be phased at this point. You reach a hand out for Thor and he takes it, smile bright and eyes filled with tears.

Steve’s eyes are glued to the ground, tension radiating from him. “Rogers,” Tony croaks out, Steve looks up through his lashes not moving, “I’m sorry, man… I…” Steve cuts him off by pulling him into a bone crushing hug. You know they’ll have to work out their differences but you know that right now they’re just thankful to have their friend back.

“Y/N,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. pops up and you hear a distant rumble. “There seems to be another ship approaching.”

“You are fucking kidding me right?!” You groan, suit slithering up your arms.

“Oh,” Tony clears his throat. “Yeah. Point Break,” he looks at Thor, “picked you up some souvenirs on the way home.” A large ship lands, with far more grace than Tony’s heap had.

Thor looks at you confused, “How the hell should I know babe?”

A hatch hisses open and a dark-skinned woman saunters down. Thor’s face is shocked. “Valk-“

“Yeah, it’s me,” a crowd gathers behind her, “Your orders were to go to Midgard so,” she gestures behind her, “here we are.” It hits you that this ragtag group is what’s left of Asgard, of Thor’s people.

He rushes up to her picking her up hooting. Your jaw hangs open, tears streaming down your face. Thor’s laughter rings through the still afternoon air.

Tony wraps an arm around your shoulder and you lean into him. “Have you told him yet?” He’s smirking.

You cleat your throat, “Yeah… yeah we did finally get that out of the way.”

“Good.” He plants a kiss on top of your hair.

There’s still so much to be done. So far to go. But right now you all take the time to revel in a little happiness, savor this victory, no matter how small.

#thor x reader #tony x reader #avengers au #avengers fic #avengers imagine

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ficdirectory · 6 years

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Somewhere Inside (Disuphere series #4) Chapter 60

(To listen, click here) - 13:23

It takes Levi a little bit to realize that he and Mariana are the only two in the cabin. Pearl and Jesus are next door, at home, and Dominique and Frankie are out having nature time. Levi finds Mariana in the living room on the couch with her I-Pad in front of her.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

Mariana sighs, frustrated. “Trying to catch up on reading I missed so I can eventually go back to school, but at this rate...I’ll be reading forever. And it’s not like it matters anyway… Moms don’t think I’m ready to go back. They plan on keeping me home. Until I’m 30,” Mariana mutters.

“Why won’t they let you go back? Like, what did you do that was so bad?” Levi asks.

“You don’t know?” Mariana seems surprised. “Pearl...Frankie...nobody told you?”

“No,” Levi answers. “And if you don’t want to, that’s fine. It just...seems a bit extreme to me…”

“I was in a car accident...a year ago, in March. I got a brain injury or whatever. And, yeah, it’s changed me. But they seem to think...that I’m...some...whatever...damaged… They treat me...like I’m damaged. Like they...have to settle...for this broken Mariana...and they resent it.”

Levi just looks at Mariana. He hopes she can see the compassion in his eyes. That he cares about her. “That’s messed up,” he offers. In case his POV isn’t clear.

“See? I used to be really smart? I built robots in high school. Like...a total math and science geek. And now…? I mean, I have one Elsa moment at home. Where I, like, took it out on our room. Wrecked everything in it. Swore at Frankie when she tried to come in. But I was trying to protect her. ‘Cause, like Elsa, I didn’t really know, like, how to do emotions like this. For the longest time, I didn’t have energy to...do anything...and all of them were trapped...” Mariana shares.

“Under the cotton?” Levi asks, remembering how Mariana had described her disconnect from her feelings.

“Under the cotton, yeah,” Mariana confirms.“It was when Moms told me I...couldn’t go back to school...because nobody knew if I’d still...be able to...even do it?”

Levi cringes. “Sounds like a reasonable reaction to me. Yours, not theirs. Haven’t your moms ever heard of accommodations? Kids at my school got them all the time.”

“I mean...Mama works at a Charter school. That’s where all of us went. There’s no kids that need accommodations. Even Frankie is...like...disabled on the DL. Nobody knows at school and she doesn’t get any help, even where she could really use it.”

“That sounds...so illegal…” Levi breathes.

“I guess Charter schools have the right to do it that way. Anyway, this is their...like...where they come from. This world,” Mariana tries to explain.

“Where any disability is hidden?” Levi bristles.

“And so...my reaction...to them...canceling school on me. College. Whatever. They took that as...the biggest ‘inappropriate outburst,’” around this, Mariana makes finger-quotes. “For a while, they wouldn’t let Fran near me. Another time? We were doing game night. Moms are… They love Monopoly?” Mariana squints.

“Why?” Levi whines. “It’s so boring…”

“And...not ideal...for someone who...has trouble with numbers...and filtering...and reading...and stamina,” Mariana lists.

“Yeah, sounds like a rude choice,” Levi comments.

“Oh, it gets ruder. So Moms decide we’re gonna play Monopoly Junior…”

“Oh...no, they didn’t…” Levi gasps. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Mariana echoes. “Like I wasn’t gonna notice they suddenly switched from the regular game to the game that 5-year-olds could play. Frankie was ten. She’d been playing the real version forever. She hated the kids version. Said it was too babyish.”

Levi winces.

“But it was still too much to look at. Spaces on the board in different colors. Cards. Money. Game pieces. Dice. I had a headache to start with. It was after dinner and I just had no energy left. Even looking at the board was exhausting me. I took a turn, and Mom corrected me. I tried to get up and leave. She told me I should be a good example. A good sport. So I stayed.”

“So you had to stay in overstimulating hell?” Levi asks, sympathetic.

“I took a few more turns. Every time, I did something wrong. Grabbed the wrong game piece, misread the dice. Like, didn’t factor in having to pay for a space someone else owned? Finally, it was my turn again and I just flipped the board. Everybody was mad. And Moms talked behind my back about how unpredictable I was. How I might not get any better.”

“How do you do it?” Levi asks, incredulous. “How do you stay?”

“Someone’s gotta be there for Frankie. They treat her...not the same...but they don’t factor her CP in at all. It’s not fair.”

“If you guys ever need a friend? Video chat me. I’ll always be around. Except if I’m working in hell, as Pearl calls it.”

“You gotta get fired from there…” Mariana objects.

“Get fired from hell?” Levi smirks. “Nah, I could never. We need groceries. Plus, it’s not like Peanut Butter Cookie can bother me anymore.”

“I know, I just… You hate it there.” Mariana points out.

“I really do. But it’s a job. It pays the bills....actually it only pays the grocery bill, but that’s something.”

“It is.” Mari nods. “Are you okay? Like...with all the stuff this week?”

“Nervous about going back…” Levi confides, nodding next door. “Last time I was there? It was like, she tossed the place. Like she was looking for something. Everything was there. She didn’t take anything. But it still feels…” Levi trails off.

“Like, yeah, I know what you mean. The only thing I can think of is aliens arriving...”

“Because alien invasion,” Levi’s eyes light up. “It is! It’s an invasion. I love how your mind works.”

Mariana scoffs. “You don’t have to say that…”

“I know I don’t. But it’s true. I think it’s cool. The connections. The approximations. How you cope.” Levi observes.

“Moms keep telling me I need to keep working. In therapy or whatever. They don’t want me to plateau,” Mariana wrinkles her nose.

Levi looks at her, confused.

“I guess it’s this thing, in brain injury recovery? Once you reach a certain point of progress, you just…” Mariana demonstrates an upward slant suddenly leveling flat, and staying flat.

“Oh,” Levi says.

“Yeah. They wanted Frankie and me to come here. Like, so they could have a break. But they also tried to get me to stay at the last minute. To keep doing rehab stuff. And, of course, I wanna improve. But they don’t get that sometimes? I need a break.”

“I get that,” Levi says.

“But they think I shouldn’t get a break until I’m back…” Mariana looks away and blinks back tears.

“Back?” Levi echoes, concerned.

“Mariana, the math genius…” she manages.

Levi just listens. Opens his arms and she scoots closer, nodding. Levi puts his arms around her. Just holds on. ��“They’re so mean to you,” he says, sympathetic. “You don’t deserve that.”

He just holds on for a while, glad to be able to be here for Mariana, when she’s come through at some major times for him. Levi’s glad that he can reciprocate.

Eventually she backs out of the hug, and wipes her eyes. “Sorry. It’s just like...this is my life now. And I can’t even share it with Jesus. ‘Cause he’s not there.” Mariana shrugs.

“I’m glad you came,” Levi tells her.

“I’m glad you were here,” Mari tells him.

It’s quiet for a while. But neither one of them rush to fill the silence. Eventually, he offers. “If you need...like if...audio’s better? I can read that out loud?” Levi gestures to her tablet.

“No, you don’t have to. It’s boring,” Mariana insists.

“I’m offering,” Levi points out, matter of fact.

“Okay. Just...however fast you usually read? Can you slow that way down?” Mariana wonders.

“Sure,” Levi agrees, and for a while he just reads aloud. The material’s dense, so reading slowly is a good idea all around.

After a few pages, Mariana stops him. “Okay, that’s enough for now.”

“Okay,” Levi agrees and sets the tablet aside.

“See? If I said that to my moms? They’d instantly push back. Want me to do more.”

“Well, there’s these things called boundaries, and respect and consent. Maybe they’ve heard of them,” Levi quips.

“Oh, they have. They just think...they only apply to Jesus. And even then? Only sometimes.”

Levi makes a face.

Then, he takes a breath. Hesitantly. “Speaking of not pushing…” Levi ventures. “I really appreciate how you haven’t pushed to know specifics of…”

“Peanut Butter Cookie?” Mariana fills in.

“Right,” Levi nods. “If it were me and Pearl knew something but I didn’t, I know I’d probably feel really left out and like it was personal. I’m glad you get that this isn’t. Personal. And at the same time, it is. Very personal,” Levi manages.

“I get it. I had a thing happen. Things happen. When I was little. Usually, Jesus was around to stop it, but if he ever wasn’t or fell asleep.” Mariana shrugs.

“I’m sorry.” Levi apologizes and means it. And then, “I had a thing happen, too.”

“It changes you,” Mariana allows.

“Yeah. I guess I’m realizing...trauma does that…” Levi manages.

“We have a group if you wanna join,” Mariana offers.

“I’m already in The Avoiders. Like, officially,” Levi says, confused.

“Yeah, this is different. A support group? For people, who’ve had the things happen to them.” Mariana explains. “I’m in it, and you might recognize some other people, too.”

“So, it wouldn’t just be me and strangers?” Levi asks.

“Nope,” Mariana says. “And it’s online, so you don’t have to go anywhere. But no pressure.”

“I wanted to thank you,” Levi says clearing his throat. “I mean, while we still have time...for being there for me through all the versions of Peanut Butter Cookie.” Levi reaches in his pocket. Pulls out the apple hand sanitizer. “Thought you might want this back.”

“No, keep it,” Mariana insists. “I have peach and cucumber melon in my purse, so…”

“Oh, wow. But I got apple, because…” Levi wonders.

“It’s the strongest. I know sensory triggers are the worst. I know we need something strong to fight them.” Mariana says simply.

“Can I have details on this group? For people who’ve had things happen?”

“Yeah. It’s Friday nights. 8:45. The time changes, but that’s what it’s been.” Mariana fills him in.

Levi makes a note in his phone. He watches Mariana do the same.

“So, I’ll remember to add you into the call.” Mariana says. “And obviously, this group is like...private. Like, we don’t share names or details or anything about anybody else. And nobody else shares about you ever.”

“Got it,” Levi nods. “Thanks for including me.”

“You’re one of us. You’re always included.” Mariana insists.

They sit together for a while longer. Exchange birthdays so they can put them in their calendars.

“Can I like...put an L in every April?” Mariana checks. “So I know to check in with you about Peanut Butter Cookie?”

“Can I know your traumaversary date?” Levi asks. “So I can check in with you?”

“March 4th,” Mariana confides.

“Cool if I put an M there?” Levi checks.

Mariana nods.

“You like cards? Or think they’re corny?” he asks.

“I like cards,” she nods. “You?”

“Not sure there’s a card for that…” Levi bristles.

“Video chat?” she checks.

“Yeah. I’d love to see your face. Whenever,” Levi says.

Mariana blushes.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it..like that…” Levi stutters. “I mean, I would love to see you, I just...made it super awkward. I’m sorry.” Levi grins, embarrassed.

Mariana laughs. Levi realizes this might be one of the first times he’s heard it. Or really tuned into it. It’s like music. He’s gonna miss all of them when they go. But maybe, especially, Mariana. Even though they haven’t spoken a ton, Levi has always felt understood by her. And judging by her openness with him? Levi might venture to say Mari feels similarly.

He just can’t imagine being without her. Without all of them. Come tomorrow.

“Super awkward is perfect for me,” Mariana reassures. “Same?”

“So same, I can’t believe it,” Levi smiles.

#fic: somewhere inside

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sweet-xoxo-thatcares · 3 years

Text

It's like everytime some shit goes bad or I feel wronged, my head starts spiraling, spinning like grandma's record player.

Thinking bout Jay, Ayunna, Terrell, Tatyana, My old jobs, sometimes in that exact order...

Just anything that pisses me off or feels similar and I'm ready to strike again, I'm ready to beat some ass for making my heart feel cold, feel numb like this.

The idea that people don't care about my well being, my mental health, just like these 4 idiots.

I want them executed from my life, burned like witches at the stake for causing me pain in my brain, my heart, the headaches....the tears I don't tell anybody about from remembering every single little thing about when they wronged me, they played me, Jay pushed me away, taty pushed me off of her and told me she didn't want me to touch her, Ayunna using me and Jay not caring cause they were doing it too....Its like I can't even yell at them anymore or tell them how it feels to be hurt a year or more after they hit me on my back. That spot Jay hit me at....

I'll always remember and that's what sucks. And these assholes don't even give a fuck because it's not their pain.

If they could take a walk in my shoes, with my enormous brain remembering everything and everything playing in my head like silly school children in my class, talking about my past, what I wanna be, where I wanna be, and then time is calling you but you don't even know if you're actually in the wrong class or distracted from what's the truth.

I hate looking through bad mirrors, they make you see that I chose to be with them all. All four of them and I did not like it. I dated Terrell to get over the fact that Jay didn't want a commitment with me but still wanted me to be the groupie, the friend, dragging me in, leading me on whenever I would try to actually get the relationship I deserved. A real life, hugging, loving, kissing boyfriend from which I thought was him, I thought it was Teddy and it wasn't right. He ended up revealing his true self that he tried to hide from me, and all I ever wanted to do with him was to forget Jay, stop liking Jay, and be treated to a date by somebody who actually wants to kiss me whenever we want to, hold my hand, walk me down the street, proud to claim me and make me feel special, like it was just him and me. And Teddy cuddled me all night long, he even hugged me. Sex felt so much nicer with him because he let me do whatever I wanted to with him and we even did public stuff. Like there was no rules and I was so happy to be finally treated and wanted that 1st couple of weeks with him. Jay never let me do any of that with them because of Ayunna, but real talk I think it was because of Jay's dysphoria and intimacy issues as the reason why we never made out, never held hands, and Jay only hugged me once out of 2yrs of us being friends and I've never met a person who had such a serious against, against approach to commitment, sex, kissing, or even just me asking them some personal questions about their past. It was like they were so scared for me to see them without the masks on masks they wear around Ayunna and especially other people's families.

Jay wasn't the right man I was looking for to have a family with, even though I got so close to them, but they weren't close to me. Only time Jay revealed something was when they figured I was gonna leave or date somebody else.

which also leads to my other rebound Taty, who I just blocked on insta cause I hate seeing her face now since she won't do the reciprocal courtesy of returning me my only hoodie from College. I want it back cause it's mine, and I alreadypaid $10 to get hers sent back. She's slow and petty. and it's already been a year since I broke up with her. At first I thought we could be friends after breakup, but I realized her being the nicest girl.....at first.....then switching up on me, blowing me off, not talking, ignoring texts for hrs just to play video games after I already waited to text her when she usually got up at 3pm or 5pm due to her lupus....that should have ended sooner because I wanted a gf to do gf stuff with, like yes, serious relationship with somebody who actually went out of their way to sow me a handmade pillow by herself and even wrote a beautiful love letter, like I always wanted to have from someone who means alot to me. Poetry included.

I really thought taty wouldn't let me down and was serious about me like she had meant in her gifts and attention in the beginning. I didn't like how after she told me her depression was making her disconnect from me, that she goes and hangs out with her friends more, not really making plans with me anymore, like I was the one planning quality time...

And she didn't care how that made me feel and I felt so alone about it. Like they went on a trip up in the great lakes and she didn't think to ask me if I wanted to come and other people bfs went....like wow

Slowly cutting me off, like if you were losing interest in me why not say so, so I could end it earlier?

And then she goes to tell me she's dating her married friend, whose wedding we were supposed to go to together. Like no wonder, you blew off quality time with me to go stay at her house after the bridal shower? And I took a 40 min ride all the way up there to come see you....like get your priorities straight.

Obviously I didn't matter that much to you, so yea I broke up with you.

There's only so many times I can tolerate being blown off or pushed away and then I go ghost, I go cold and numb, and yes the truth is revealed, and then I turn into a bitch. And I hate getting like that. Especially if I'm over on the other side, by myself, cause weren't communicating with me.

And I hate her for that shit too. Cause she thinks she did nothing wrong. As if she has every right to keep my Hoodie, my personal property, just because you don't feel like it. Your grandma practically still takes care of you. We ain't a good match either.

so now I'm alone....no new friends yet....still bitching.

cause I don't know if the next time I trust somebody, are they gonna use me, make fun of me like JA, take my money, hurt my soul, and showoff that they care in front of my face, but really out here doing shit behind your back for themselves...

I don't trust anybody right now, not even family so much too. And I don't wanna go down that road.

Maybe I just need to go in the gym like Hodgetwins and get so swollen and buffed up that it won't matter how exes used to treat you in your old body. They can't disrespect in my new one, cause Imma feel 10x better, and 10x stronger than before. Cause I don't want no immature, shallow fuckboats try to treat love like its a business or a silly little ass girl who don't even know the 1st thing about true, mature relationships like I've seen or had to deal with all by myself.

I've never had a partner who treated me like their future was present and that I was the only woman they needed in their life to really make my dream of real true love come true. And I'm disappointed in everybody who let me down and to believing that the right one for me is gonna treat me right, and not hurt me like the dumb bitches they all were. I hate them for that. They make me wanna give up my love for love and just work without even really going for anything because it's scary.

It's scary knowing that even when someone who asks you out, tells you they like you, hugs you and kisses you, can switch up on you and not think you're the one that whole experience you were with them.

I trusted everyone and they hurt me right back.

And they didn't care

And I can't make them see that, how unfair it was to be always waiting, being treated like I was so unwanted, but just want me to be there when they wanted me to.

It hurts that I can't call or see Jay face to face to actually get closure on why the fuck did you play with my head for so long and my heart for so many years, while you jeopardized every sexual relationship I'll ever have later on in life because I can't trust another man, another girl, who kisses me or even touches me because I'll always think I need to wait or runaway before they hurt me like you did me. Lying to me with a smile, a kiss meant nothing to you, but it did to me and you knew that. You steady manipulated and led me on, thinking that we could just move on from the damage because you didn't want to say sorry or treat me better, or do things right. You always acted like when I tried to call you out, I was too emotional, too sensitive when honestly the stuff that you said, the things you did, I could have sent you to jail for.

You're a dirty, low down thief, a tyrant, an opportunist. And I hate every single piece of shit who reminds me of you. The sociopathic, sadist, Narcissist with dissociative identity disorder that they probably need to see a psychiatrist for to get that checked every year. Jay abused me and used me, and I thought the power of love would have brought us together in peace, in good harmony, able to speak our minds freely and friendly, be on one accord with each other.

But Jay's too sick in the head to even care or even Apologize and own up to what they said. Felt like chutes and ladders, always going up and down and around my old self for them. Even bringing my child like self into the bedroom, the one I should have kept protected.

Jay is nothing but a coward, a weakling. Changing their name to escape the past they brought upon themselves or was inflicted on them by someone else. Never really showing who they truly are or who they care for, except Ayunna. Just like playing cards. They played themselves when they thought I could never change, I could never learn who they were, when they repeat the same moves in different stories.

Jay never thought that I could outgrow them and they not know where I am or who I'm bringing a baby home to, or who I am today. Jay needs help, medicine, therapy and a solid family home.

And I have to keep forgiving even on days like today when it's hard to not think about grandma and me not wanting to go to this interview because I don't need anymore pressure 🙃

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