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planetnini · 8 months

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ONE — MAYBE I COULD FIX HIM ?

with the week you're having, you don't have it in you anymore to deal with anymore bullshit and take it out on your asshole of a roommate gojo satoru (3.8k words)

content. cheating (we don’t do the cheating), named ex: hiroto, shoko is an extremely good judge of character, geto suguru the man that you are, gojo is a bit of an asshole, reader goes off at the end (rightfully so) <33

Whoever said that if you do what you love, you'll never work another day in your life was a liar. Sure it was a well-meaning sentiment and while it filled your soul with some semblance of hope on some days, it was the main reason you were struggling with your degree and drowning in work.

So much for dreaming big…

“What’s got your panties in a twist?” the girl questioned. The smoke from her cigarette created an odour that permeated the air as you let out a sigh, leaning back on the wall.

“That shit’s gonna kill you one day.” you muttered moving your head toward the cigarette in between her fingers as you turned your attention to the scene in front of you, waiting for her to finish.

“Make sure I have a nice funeral.” she chuckled before puffing out a cloud of smoke as she pulled the cigarette away from her mouth. When you didn't laugh at her comment, she just stared at you. Your eyes were closed and breathing a little jagged as she observed. Did you think she wouldn't notice?

Ieriri does not reveal much about herself, but everyone that was friends with her knew she was deathly loyal and cared for her friends in a unique way. She put the stick up to her mouth inhaling as she spoke, "You look like shit.”

“You know how my afternoon lectures are.” she sighed.

She put out her cigarette in the ashtray bin and tucked her hands into her pocket. She was not at all convinced by your story.

“Hold it Missy.” she demanded and of course your feet stopped in its tracks before her, “Tell me what’s wrong now.”

“I’ve been hearing things about Hiroto.”

You don’t think you’ve met someone that hated Hiroto more than your best friend herself. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as you mentioned your boyfriend or as she called him ‘he-who-must-not-be-named’. She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed, her lips pulling into a pout. She always had a thing for the dramatics.

"What else is new? Hiroto is a scumbag."

"Ieiri!" you scolded, frowning at her choice of words.

She scoffed with a shrug before she linked your arms in hers and started walking toward the cafe. You had no idea what she had against Hiroto. He was the most popular guy in your university, and he was the one everyone wanted to be with, but it came as a surprise when he chose you. He had eyes for you, and you couldn't understand why anyone would want you of all people so he asked you out one day and you didn't have the heart to say no. Even if you had liked him at the time, which you didn’t, you still couldn't have said no, it would have been an opportunity wasted. He wasn’t the nicest guy but you would say he treated you well so you defended him every time.

“I still don't understand what you see in him.”

You smiled faintly, “As much as you doubt him, he really does care about me."

You could tell that Ieiri didn’t approve. She never made her opinion on him a secret, and you don’t expect her to start now.

She rolled her eyes again and sighed, "Yeah, well you should really find someone better, like a certain someone."

It was your turn to roll your eyes at the thought of who she was referring to: a certain white haired roommate of yours.

“I hope you’re not trying to suggest who I think you are?” you stated as she gave you a sly smirk before shrugging.

“Have things with Satoru been better?”

You paused, contemplating on how to respond as you both walked into the cafe. You turned your attention to the menu as you stood in line. Your eyes scanned over the pamphlet you received when you walked in as you also looked at the assortment of baked goods and pastries.

"I still can't quite figure him out." you muttered as you stared at some of the menu items.

Her curiosity was piqued as you said this, already knowing what she would order as she stared at you now. "What's he up to now?" she asked.

When you got to university, you opted to follow your dreams and your heart and while you looked forward to finishing your degree, reaching your dreams and goals was expensive, which was something you had known as a teen. It explained why you had to get a job that definitely does not pay minimum wage and why you had to room with Satoru Gojo, as per Ieiri’s request, just to be able to do what you love.

At first, you had thanked Ieiri for convincing the prestigious Gojo Satoru to be your roommate at the start but when he moved in, you were less than grateful.

Gojo Satoru was a scion of a wealthy and successful family making him the epitome of privilege: rich, handsome, and effortlessly at the top of his class without ever needing to study– he pretty much had everything handed to him on a silver platter.

The first few months were turbulent, to say the least. Gojo acted like a spoiled prince, which was not surprising, always expecting things to be done for him and showing little regard for your personal space or boundaries. Arguments were frequent and inevitable but you shouldn't be complaining, he was the one paying most of the rent.

Entitlement dripped from his every pore but then something shifted. With you trying to assert your own space and independence against his behaviour and actions, it was as though he had picked up on your growing frustration and decided to turn over a new leaf or whatever.

It started with small gestures- he'd clean up after himself, occasionally ask if you needed anything from the store, and even helped out with chores around the apartment. These moments, though rare, caught you off guard. You couldn't help but wonder if it was all an act, a facade he put on simply because you were sharing a living space. Deep down, you were convinced that the 'nice' Gojo was just a pretence to keep the peace.

Yet, there were times when you couldn't ignore the fact that he seemed genuinely concerned about you, though these moments were fleeting– hidden beneath layers of sarcasm and his usual arrogance.

“He is just utterly unpredictable." you sighed as you put a hand over your eyes in frustration.

"Sounds like Satoru." she chuckled.

“I don’t know, it just feels like he’s nice to me because I’m friends with you.”

Shoko raised an eyebrow, a hint of concern in her eyes. "Are you saying he's being fake around you because of our friendship?"

"Yeah, sometimes it feels that way. Like he's just putting on a show."

Shoko's lips pulled into a small frown, her eyebrows knitting together, "That doesn't sound like him at all. Maybe he's just trying to be friends with you."

You had been so focused on the topic at hand, you hadn't realised you were at the front of the line.

You shrugged, "It's probably nothing.”

"Stop thinking about Satoru, you’re holding up the line." she scoffed as she smiled at the cashier.

You gave the worker an apologetic smile before turning to the person behind you, "Sorry, about that."

After ordering your favourite drink and some pastries, you approached a small table to sit. “I don’t know. I mean I guess Gojo and I are friends but still, I’m a bit suspicious.”

“I don’t think he would do something like that for my sake.”

"It just feels like you're trying to get him on my good side, I wonder why that is." you hummed with a tilt of your head, raising your brows at her.

"I think my best friend just deserves someone better." she shrugged with a pout.

"And Gojo is 'someone better'?" you scoffed.

Her hesitance was telling and you could see the gears shifting in her head, "That's like asking if apple juice is better than orange juice."

You rolled your eyes at her and looked around the café. The coffee beans alongside the soft humming of the machine, muffled speaking, jazz that played through the speakers really defined the atmosphere. Perhaps this place would become a regular study spot if they nailed just how you liked your drinks.

“Thank you for coming with me by the way.”

“No problem.”

You had a small smile on your lips as Ieiri decided to fold the receipt she had in her hand into origami, your eyes leisurely scanned over the cafe's charming layout but then, as fate would have it, your heart suddenly felt like it had been gripped by an icy hand, causing it to skip a beat.

The cafe that once felt spacious now seemed to shrink around you, constricting your senses. Your gaze, once idly roaming the room, had fixated on an all-too-familiar figure.

There, amidst the warm, cosy ambiance of the cafe, sat Hiroto. He was not alone. He was sitting across from another girl, their faces close. A rare smile was etched across his features, who was she to be able to make him look at her like that? He had never looked at you that way…

Maybe it was a friend?

Ieiri, perceptive as ever, noticed the abrupt change in your expression. Her eyes followed your gaze instinctively, and when she locked onto what you were seeing, her face transformed from one of carefree enjoyment to sheer disbelief and anger.

Their smiles were flirtatious and you could feel the creeping feeling of fear settle in your bones.

They were completely engrossed in each other, oblivious to the world around them as they leaned in for a kiss. Definitely not a friend.

Ieiri was right. He was a scumbag.

Your mind couldn't quite grasp what was unfolding before your eyes, reality not even seeming real for a second.

Confrontation was the last thing on your mind. You didn't want to cause a scene, not here, not now, even if every fibre of your being screamed for justice.

Shoko's fingers tightened around her origami creation, crumpling it as her anger flared up. Her eyes locked onto the two with an intensity that could have scorched the room.

She had always been vocal about her disdain for him, and this seemed like the perfect moment to let it all out. Without hesitation, Shoko started to push her chair back, her intention clear: she was going to confront Hiroto, give him a piece of her mind, and let the whole café know about his deceit. To berate him for everything he did to you, everything he did that you were too blind to see. You sat there in silence, your heart heavy with disbelief and betrayal but instinctively your hand reached out for hers. You shook your head ever so slightly, silently pleading with her not to make a scene.

“We can't just let him get away with this." she whispered back, her frustration growing by the minute.

Shoko's anger was palpable, and her lips quivered with the words she wanted to unleash but she respected your unspoken plea, if only for now, and reluctantly sank back into her chair waiting for your order number to be called out. Once you received the drinks and pastries, the two of you continued walking back to your shared apartment, the weight of the situation heavy on your mind as a tear slipped from your eyes. You had no goddamn appetite now.

The evening had taken an unsettling turn for you. After returning from a troubling encounter at the café that you wished you could just forget, you found yourself back in your cosy apartment that you shared with the Satoru Gojo, the most popular boy on campus.

As you pushed off your shoes and set them by the door, you overheard some of Gojo's friends chatting in the main area. Forcing a smile, you greeted the people in the room as Ieiri followed behind you, making her presence known as she greeted them as well. You placed the bag of pastries on the table, knowing that for certain, Gojo would inhale them when he got his hands on them.

“Hey, do you have a smoke?” Geto asked Ieiri as he looked over his shoulder. Next thing you knew, Geto had moved to sit across from you at the island counter while you sipped at your glass of water, mind wandering back to your jerk of a boyfriend. “How are you?” he inquired, patiently waiting for your response.

“I’m alright, thanks,” you mumbled, trying to muster a genuine smile in response to his concern.

Geto waved a hand in front of your face as your thoughts drifted. Suddenly, you were locked into eye contact with him. Leaning down to eye level, he asked, “You sure you’re okay? You look a bit tired,” a playful chuckle escaping his lips.

You sighed a little before shaking your head resolutely, “Just had a terrible fucking week.”

Geto chuckled, “Tell me about it.” he scoffed, commiserating with your struggles. Although he didn’t know the full story, it didn’t matter, you were seen for a second and it felt good, "I swear they have it out for us."

Ieiri was best friends with both Gojo and Geto in high school. You never really understood their dynamic at all but the brief interactions shared with Geto had been enough for you to come up with a comprehensive answer.

Many people around had said that Geto was like the sun personified, radiating this warmth and light wherever he went. His presence had an undeniable magnetic quality, drawing people toward him but he could leave an indelible mark on anyone in his presence. It was quite possible that what was true, made you smile a little.

Gojo's friends continued their lively chatter, sharing stories and laughter and it wasn’t until you heard the tap turn on that you realised Gojo is standing right next to you drinking water aswell.

“Hey. You smoking or what? I don’t have all day, Suguru,” Shoko chimed in, her voice cutting through the conversation.

“That shit will kill you one day Suguru.” he muttered next to you.

“Funny. You said the same thing to me today.” Ieiri commented and you could feel all their gazes land on you.

“I guess we’re a lot alike.” Gojo joked and you feel yourself smile at his words as Geto and Shoko shared a look.

Geto cleared his throat, a hand coming up to your shoulder, “Things will get better, I promise.” he smiled as both he and Shoko exited the apartment for their smoke.

The atmosphere inside the apartment shifted slightly as you were left alone in the kitchen with Gojo.

“What was that about?” he spoke, regarding the comment that Geto had just made.

You turned your attention to Gojo and shook your head dismissively, “It’s nothing.”

“You sure? You can talk to me, you know?”

“I know,” you nodded, “It’s nothing, really.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” he took another sip of his water.

You paused for a moment, “If I knew you had guests over, I would've brought them some as well.” you stated, pointing at the pastries from the café in the bag.

Gojo raised an eyebrow with a smirk. "So those pastries are for me?" he inquired, his playful tone evident.

"Don't push it." you scoffed, your heart warming at his teasing for just a second. There is suddenly a nagging feeling that tells you he is just being nice to you due to the circumstances.

You clear your throat as you tear your gaze away from him, "Are your friends staying for dinner? If they are, I might skip." You weren’t exactly feeling like yourself, and would rather not be spending time around people you hardly knew. You were just getting warmed up to the man next to you anyways.

“They’re not staying over. Even if they were, I don't really encourage skipping meals.” Gojo replied, his tone shifting between genuine concern and playfulness.

You can’t even force yourself to smile at his concern, you wanted to keep the discussion going, but your recent experience at the café had left you feeling on edge. "I guess I’ll see you at dinner then." you teased, your playful tone masking the underlying curiosity you had about his intentions. Did he truly want to be friends with you or was he doing it just out of pity?

He nodded at you and you retreated back into your room to grab some clothes but the voices of his friends drifted into your ears.

“Was that Hiroto’s girlfriend?”

“Yeah.” you heard the familiar white haired boy reply.

Their conversation had been about you, and you knew it. Trying to push yourself to stop them from eavesdropping, you shook your head and continued at finding some comfortable clothes for tonight. You needed to do something to take your mind off the events from earlier.

"Wait, seriously? I thought he was dating someone else."

Their words cast a shadow over your thoughts and only amplified your bad mood. You clenched your fists, trying to push down the mixture of anger and hurt.

“I don’t know how she’s still with him.”

The weight of their judgement had hit you harder than ever, especially after what you had witnessed earlier. As you contemplated confronting them about it, you could hear the hushed murmurs growing louder, escalating your frustration as a couple of voices interject.

“She’s kind of pathetic. Don’t you think so?”

You weren't ready to hear them belittle you any further, so you decided to retreat to the sanctuary of the shower, hoping the water would wash away the bitterness.

You turned on the water, stepping into the shower trying to drown out the sound of their voices echoing in your head. You wished you hadn't noticed how little effort Gojo made to defend you. Perhaps you were wrong to think the two of you were friends to begin with and considering his track record, maybe you shouldn’t have been so lenient to think he was different.

As you emerged from the shower, refreshed but still vulnerable, you were in the confines of your room as you messaged Shoko about what had happened. You knew she would give her a piece of her mind when she saw him next. You laid in bed, letting out some breaths steadying your heartrate as you heard Gojo call for you from outside your door. You weren't prepared for this, not after what you just heard between him and his friends.

With your emotions still raw and your nerves on edge, you slowly opened the door to find Gojo standing there, his usual confident demeanour softened.

His presence in the dimly lit hallway was both comforting and disconcerting. You met his gaze, your eyes holding a mixture of anxiety and frustration.

Gojo's voice was gentle but laced with concern as he spoke, "I sent my friends home.”

You nodded, not even bringing it in yourself to even berate him for being an absolute asshole to you when he thought you weren’t listening.

“I noticed you've been quiet since you got home. Is everything okay? Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?"

Your emotions, a turbulent whirlwind of hurt and anger, surged within you. With a deep breath, you finally found your voice, but your words came out sharp and accusatory, "I don't appreciate it Gojo," you began, your tone wavering but determined, "I know what you and your friends say about me when you think I'm not listening."

Gojo's brows furrowed in confusion. "What?"

"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about," you continued, your voice quivering with anger.

You could see Gojo's expression shift from confusion to realisation, and a pang of regret flickered in his eyes. His usually playful demeanour had vanished, replaced by a sombre and sincere expression.

"I'm sorry," he finally whispered, his voice sincere but unsure of how to proceed.

You felt tears well up in your eyes replaying the pain of your boyfriend cheating on you and the callous things they said behind your back. The disappointment of his apology settled in- he’s only sorry because he got caught.

“That was the last thing I expected from you.” you spat out. "I thought…” you let out a deep breath, your words hanging with every ounce of pain that you’d felt today. You shook your head as you continued, “I thought we were friends."

"We are." he declared, his eyes wavering now. With guilt or concern, you couldn't tell but you knew he didn't really care.

"We're not." you emphasised, still burning with the fury of all the events that transpired today. "Every day, I see you look at me with those eyes that say how pathetic you think I look."

Gojo's brow furrowed in frustration with himself. He wanted to say the right words, to offer comfort, but he struggled to find them. He stepped a little closer, his hands outstretched towards you. You stepped back, your heart pounding erratically, and he instantly retreated.

“You have no idea how much it hurts but I guess I shouldn’t have trusted you to begin with.”

Without giving him a chance to speak, you shut the door with trembling hands. You felt a thud against the door on the opposite end and you could hear him muttered a few curse words as you slid down the surface defeatedly.

His face that was etched with guilt and regret. That look was embedded in your head as you let the tears slip down your face. He gave a resigned sigh before turning away and trudging off towards the kitchen to make dinner– alone.

You stayed in your room until you heard the door to his room close after a couple hours of distracting yourself: with studying, messaging Shoko how much you hated Gojo, and cleaning your room. Retreating from your bedroom as quietly as you can, you see a plate of food he made for you wrapped up with a small post it note on your favourite drink next to it.

I know you're still mad at me, but I hope you don’t skip dinner. Eat well, you'll need the strength... ᕙ(‾̀◡‾́)ᕗ

You scoffed at his note, scrunching it up, putting it in your pocket. It was all just lip-service.

As you sat there alone, your eyes welled up with tears, and you could feel your composure slipping away. The weight of the day became too much to bear. Your heart ached, the hurt and betrayal coursing through you as you sobbed softly.

What a terrible fucking week.

tags! @stsgluver @pandoraium @cottonheadedninnymugggins @satoryaa @bbyxxm @itsthemodelinme @sattosugu

notes. this is not proofread. i don't think the last half of this is as good but... we move!!! i'm sick and wanted to give back with the first chapter since i have some free time to write now <3 it gets better i promise, please comment and give me some love (or feedback), thank you :)

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kabillieu · 4 months

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I feel like there's so much I want to write about. I'm overwhelmed. Things are moving very fast with our move already, and it's hard to wrap my brain around it.

For various reasons we have a lot of stuff we've been dragging around in bins for years that just needs to be thrown away. And we have a lot of baby things that R has grown out of, but it's gotten hard-to-impossible to donate baby gear. There are still things in this house that past tenants left. We have a bunch of stuff in our backyard that we used during the pandemic to the point where it's just worn slap out. So Dominic rented a dumpster, and the size of it is embarrassing. But also we just put a whole trampoline in it. So we needed a dumpster.

If we were the type of people who didn't get emotionally attached to our things, we wouldn't be in this predicament. But also today I walked down to the dumpster (in our driveway) to throw a bunch of Spanish English dictionaries away, and I saw R's two baby bouncers looking brand new just sitting there on top of garbage, and I immediately burst into tears. We had agreed on throwing them away because of how quickly we're getting rid of things. And you can't donate bouncers to thrift stores, or at least not the ones we use for donations. But I couldn't handle those stupid bouncers being in the garbage, so Dominic took them out and I put them on Facebook marketplace for free, and someone immediately came and picked them up. Maybe to sell on Facebook marketplace (lol), but at least those bouncers aren't in the garbage, and eventually they will hold babies again.

It's difficult to see the amount of garbage we've produced. It's so much. Usually trash goes out in manageable increments weekly with garbage pickup. So to see a big mountain of it you've made over the years, to see your consumerism splayed out like that, how you generate trash that is going to sit in a landfill, and some of it will never break down, and it's all your fault--well, it's a lot to stomach. Some of it is that I'm married to a person who buys something every time he has a big feeling. But a lot of it is that the military hires packers to pack up our shit and move it for us, so it hasn't really penalized us to hold onto the most random assortment of bullshit: bins of 20-year-old clothes and athletic gear, boxes filled with the doo-dads of old hobbies, lots of office supplies (???), all of it stuff that was maybe once useful, that we probably even used a lot. But we don't use these things anymore. So they need to go. Into the trash.

But not the goddamn bouncers.

#we also sold our snoo #which we had to #because it was so expensive #and there's a big secondhand market for them

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breakingsomething · 3 years

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Dawn Station - Part Two

Basic summary: Chase Brody is being kept safe, far away from other people. So he thinks.

Content warnings: gore, body horror, stabbing, emeto, death mentions

Chase Brody is not ok.

Of course he's not. How is he expected to be? Ten people have died, and now he's being told he's next. He's been under police protection for days and judging by the strained snippets of conversation that he's caught from officers, even the others that had been with him are gone. Ten people, they had said. As far as Chase is aware, there were only nine other youtubers who'd been roped into this shit. Who else has this monster that wants them dead killed along with them? Does he even want to know?

He's been in this room for… three days? Four? Fuck, he doesn't remember. All he knows now is white walls, too close around him, with a bed, a tv in the top corner that he doesn't have a remote for, a black bin, a rolling table that's covered in books and other assorted things that he managed to bring with him, and two doors, one of which that leads to a small bathroom and one of which that leads outside. The second door only opens when he's being brought food. No one's telling him anything. He's scared out his mind.

An officer, a pale skinned woman with orange braids and a sympathetic smile, comes in a couple hours after he wakes for the day with breakfast. Toast, cold, with butter slabs and little packets of jam and sugar for his tea. Also cold. "Sorry, we don't have any Weetabix," she tells him with furrowed eyebrows and a sad tilt of the mouth as she clicks the door behind him. "We do have Cheerios and porridge, if you want something more to eat."

It's all he can do not to laugh. "No, thank you," says Chase, in a hoarse voice that hasn't been used in hours. "I want my phone back."

The officer winces. Her eyes are dark, crimson lipstick slightly smudged. Her nametag says "Sarah" on it in violet ink. "I'm sorry," she murmurs, in a voice so soft and falsely sympathetic it makes Chase want to scream. "I don't know if we can do that. We -"

"The others are dead, aren't they?" Chase interrupts. He knows this already. But it's worth saying to see the woman flinch. "All of them. So much for your oh-so-safe "police custody" bullshit."

She attempts to gather herself as professionally as she can, which is seemingly rather difficult. "I'm sorry," she repeats, and something about her tone is more genuine than before. "They are. But I swear to you, Mr Brody, we are doing everything we can to -"

"If I am going to die today," Chase says, interrupting again. "I want to talk to my goddamn family one more fucking time. Please get me my phone."

She stiffens, but gives a jerky little nod. He doesn't smile at her as she leaves. Not much to smile about. But she comes back ten minutes later and wordlessly hands him his slim rose phone, no expression on her face. He manages to upturn the corner of his lips in response.

Once she's left again, he turns his phone on and practically sighs at the sight of his two kids on his lockscreen. Little Connor and Louise, tiny kiddos, dressed up in their pristine school uniforms and grinning cheesily. His heart swells, and he swallows hard as the lump in his throat seems to expand. He can't cry. He's been crying enough lately. To think that two weeks ago, he was ecstatic to be receiving an email from Jack Mcloughlin himself, giving him the opportunity to play his new game's demo early. Look at him now.

Stacy is at the top of his contacts list, but only because he has her favourited still. He's not sure why. It just feels right to have her there. Her picture is a small, grainy image of her face next to a three year old Connor's. He has her looks more than Louise. Louise looks like her dad. She's a daddy's girl. Chase misses her so much it aches, and closes his eyes as he clicks Stacy's number.

She answers almost immediately. "Chase?" she yells, causing him to wince and pull the phone away from his ears. He hears her inhale sharply. "Sorry. Christ, Chase - Where the fuck are you?"

He swallows again, digging his nails into the palm of his hand. His legs are already beginning to bounce. "Police didn't tell you anything, huh," he mutters. "I'm in custody. They're apparently "keeping me safe," but I'm well aware of the fact that the others - Persephone, Rodney, Stanley, and Khia - are. Well." He clears his throat. "Dead."

He says it so matter of factly that you wouldn't know how close he was to tears had you not seen his face.

Stacy shifts, and Chase hears a door slam faintly. Two small voices giggle far off. He bites down on his lip as Stacy talks again. "Yeah. That's… yeah. Chase, I'm sorry. Uh… Jack Mcloughlin's dead too."

Chase sits bolt upright, eyes suddenly wide. "What?"

Stacy sounds alarmed. "I - Yes, did they not tell you? He died maybe two days ago. Same way as all the others. I'm sorry, Chase."

He can't breathe for a moment. Then he's numb and his body settles into cold, unfeeling static.

"Ok," he says flatly. "Great."

"Chase -"

"How are the kids?" he asks before she can finish. He's tired. He's been doing nothing but sleeping and he's tired. "I can hear them in the background, ha. Sounds like a fun time."

He can hear her scratching the space behind her ear. She does that when she's anxious. Nervous habit. She had gotten a little tattoo of a bee there when they were seventeen. It was a dare from their friend Daniel, who had also gotten a tattoo of a crocodile on his left thigh. Chase has a black bear on his right shoulder from the same occasion. When he and Stacy had been together, they would sometimes kiss the other's tattoos and descend into giggles remembering that slightly drunken night back in Ireland. His chest feels tight thinking about it. His eyes glaze over, and he tries to focus on something across the room.

"They're… not great," Stacy murmurs after a moment, making him jump. He had almost forgotten she was there. "Some brat at school told them about - this whole situation. Told them their dad was going to die. Apparently, she made up a song about it."

Chase hisses softly, grateful for another emotion besides grief and missing to focus on. "Fuck's sake. Which kid was this?"

"You know that girl who was making fun of Louise's accent last year and put chips in her hair?"

"That kid again? I thought the school dealt with her."

A sigh. "Apparently not. They came home in tears. I've been keeping them home since then."

Chase shakes his head in disbelief. "Shit, Stace. Can I… can I talk to them?"

She sighs again. "I… I suppose. But - how have you been? I take it its not been great, but are you at least ok?"

What counts as ok? He doesn't know. "I'm not dead yet. So there's something. I guess I can't really say much more than that."

"Papa?" cries a voice on the end of the line, and a grin breaks Chase's face as he recognizes his son, Connor, yelling from somewhere quite close to Stacy. "Is that Papa? Mama, let us talk - Louise, Papa's on the phone!"

Chase can't help but laugh as his daughter also chimes in, two little voices clamoring for his attention. "Calm down, kiddos, there's plenty of me to go round," he grins, pushing his hair back from his face so he can concentrate. "How are you both? One at a time, Louise first."

"Favouritism," he hears Connor sulk, but the boy quiets.

"I'm ok," Louise beams. He can hear her smile, and sees it when he closes his eyes. "I can't go to school cause Megan Penicuik was being mean. We made cookies, though, me and Con-Con! All by ourselves, no help from Mama at all!"

"Now, that's simply not true," he hears Stacy laugh in the background. Chase laughs too, his heart suddenly aching. Something weighs heavy in his chest, but he tries to push it away, feeling sick.

A scuffle on the end of the line, and then it's Connor speaking. "I miss you, Papa!" he cries. "I wanna give you a - a chocolate chip cookie, I have one here." His voice becomes muffled, and Chase hears him chewing. "Yum yum yum. Can we push a cookie down the phone? Like, through the speakers, Mama!"

Chase listens to a small squabble break out, then hears Stacy sigh dramatically. "They're doing just fine," she says, sounding so tired, yet vaguely amused. "I… I hate to say it, but I should probably go. Connor's games club is in half an hour and I haven't gotten ready at all. My makeup's a state." Her voice softens. "Will you be… ok?"

Will he? He doesn't know.

"Stace," he murmurs. His chest feels tight. "I could die. Like, tonight. That's what people are saying. I'm the last one left."

A pause, then Stacy lets out a shaky sigh. "Christ, Chase…"

He gathers his strength. "Listen. Listen, Stace. If I die tonight - I just want you to know how much I love you, ok? Even if we… if we weren't meant to be together anymore. You're one of my best friends, you know? So… take care of the kids. Don't lose yourself. And by god, don't start drinking again."

She gives a choked laugh. "Chase. God, I - Don't fucking die tonight."

He doesn't know how to tell her he won't have a choice.

As soon as the call's ended, he opens up his roommate's contact. He can't stand the echoing silence that seems to go on forever in the minute or so before the ringing starts. He supposes that if tonight is his last night alive, he should say goodbye. Even if it hurts. Even if it makes him feel sick to say it.

He nearly sobs with relief when he hears the line click, and a familiar German accent speak loudly in his ear. "Chase?"

Chase sniffles, laughing softly. "Hey, Henny."

Henrik curses, and something slams. "Mother of God, Chase Brody, do you have any idea - Are you - Fuck, are you alright?"

Good question. "I don't know," he admits, bouncing his leg anxiously, and staring at his chipped black nails. "I mean, I'm… scheduled to die tonight. So probably not. Really, I've been weirdly calm about all this."

Henrik huffs, and Chase can almost picture him getting red in the face, yanking back his hair and staring out the window of their flat with narrowed, pale blue eyes. "They have not done anything about it? Surely it is not possible that a murderer who is killing in patterns cannot be apprehended? You would think that would be easy, especially if you are being held in high security. Motherfucking useless British police. Not that German ones were much better, but Christ -"

Chase cuts him off before he can rant for another five minutes. "How are the others? Are Jackie, Marv and Jem holding up ok?"

Henrik sighs, blowing out his cheeks. "Mhm. Marvin has gone a bit mad. Fucking idiot is spending way too much time online, reading up on your situation. He seems convinced that you are going to die as well. According to Jackie, he spent all of yesterday out of the house and came back saying he had been performing. But Jackie says he had not had any parties scheduled for that day, so he was talking shit."

Chase winces. His friend Marvin is a child's birthday party performer, a magician, and spends a lot of time perfecting fun tricks and illusions to add into his routine. Chase knows how much he enjoys his job. But he also knows that Marvin's habit of spending hours on internet forums and sites, learning things from other performers, can be bad for him. "Christ. I… Goddammit it. How's Jackie coping?"

He hears a microwave go off in the background. Henrik mutters something that Chase can't hear, then keeps talking. "Jackie has been at the gym every day since you were taken in. Overworking himself. He did come round yesterday and, uh, spoke about how scared he was for you. Cried a lot, poor man. I am not good with comforting people, but I tried. He does not know what to do with himself anymore."

This isn't surprising. Chase is well aware of Jackie's habit of overexercising and pushing himself too far when he was angry or upset. "And Jameson?"

Something clatters, like Henrik's rummaging in a cupboard. A fridge opens and slams shut, and then Henrik is back. "He has been round at our flat a lot. Did you know Euan ended things with him? I did not, until he told me the day before yesterday. He was dreadfully upset. The timing was… not great, to say the least. I do not think he is doing too well, but he refuses to accept any of the help I wish to give him. He kept asking about me instead. Really, sometimes I wish he was not such a good actor."

So does Chase. Jameson is never one to be open about his feelings, instead trying to help everyone else first. Chase loves him a lot, but he wishes the filmmaker would be less stubborn and insistent that he was always ok. His heart aches at the thought of Jameson suffering alone, especially now - he and his boyfriend Euan had been so close, as well. The thought that he might never be able to figure out what happened between them hurts. "Me too. God, Hen, me too. Give them all my love though, yeah? Tell Marvin to take some time to do self care, and tell Jackie to take breaks, and tell Jameson to talk to his therapist. And you… don't you overwork yourself either. I know what you're like. Only one cup of coffee a day, dude, remember. Don't make me come over there."

Henrik laughs softly, but there's a sadness to it. "You sound as though you are saying goodbye."

Something stabs into Chase's heart. He tries to catch his breath through the lump in his throat. "Henrik. I'm going to die tonight."

There's a long pause. He can hear Henrik adjusting, rubbing his face and knocking his glasses askew. Maybe he knows his roommate too well. Far too well, maybe well enough that he knows what he'll say next. "There has to be another way."

Chase shakes his head despite Henrik being unable to see him. "No. No, Hen, no. This - this is what's happening, and we can't just… fix it. I wish we could, cause I don't even understand why, and it's so scary, and… God, I wish we could. I have so much left I want to do, and…"

He trails off. Henrik doesn't speak. Chase imagines him pulling the phone away from his face, squeezing his eyes shut and covering his mouth so as not to cry. The image hurts. Chase hurts. He holds the phone tight, aching to be somewhere, anywhere else other than here.

"You know," he says, voice choked as he speaks. "It's ironic how much I wanted to die a few months ago, and now I'm here, and I'm suddenly so scared."

"You are not going to die," Henrik suddenly shouts. There is anger in his voice that Chase knows is not directed at him. "You are not. It will not just all end like that, Chase Brody. I will not let it."

Something hot pricks the backs of Chase's eyes. He swallows hard, his chest tightening, his legs bouncing harder. "Henrik. Henrik, I - I have to go. I have to go. I'm sorry. I love you, dude. You know that? I love you."

"Chase," Henrik practically sobs. "Shit, I love you too. But you are not going to die."

Chase ends the call and throws up in the black bin next to his bed.

Night comes quickly, Chase thinks.

He thinks, because an officer comes to take his phone soon after his call with Henrik ends. He's starting to regret hanging up, but it had to have been what was best. Of course it was what was best. No need to make this hurt so much more than it already does. This is something he has to keep telling himself. No need to make this hurt so much more than it already does.

The officers ask what he wants for dinner that night instead of giving him choices. He gets it. It's a last meal. He takes full advantage of it and orders pepperoni cheese stuffed crust pizza and garlic sticks, his favourite, with barbeque sauce and churros. It all tastes like cardboard. He eats it anyway, because he's bored and his mouth still tastes like vomit and if he's going to die, it's only fitting that he goes out with a Domino's in him.

Before he's even finished eating, an armed guard comes and takes him across the building. It's the first time he's left his room in days, and he's surprised to see how dark it is outside, how little people are around. The few people he does see stare at him, some open mouthed with awe, some with sad eyes like a parent trying to tell their child that their pet fish died. Chase stares at the floor. Stares at the gun tucked into the waistband of the officer in front of him. He's scared, and his heart is racing faster than it has in years, and he thinks he's dissociating a little because he doesn't feel real and his fingertips are numb. Adrenaline thrums through his body, warming him and erasing the painful cold. Fuck, but he's scared. He's so, so goddamn scared.

He's taken to an entirely different room, a slightly bigger one that looks nearly the same, but with wooden chairs sat all around the border. There's no TV in this room. "Sit here," one of the officers says, guiding him to the blue covered bed and gesturing for him to sit. He does so, feeling silly and light with panic. He thinks he's going to be sick again. His breaths aren't coming right and fuck, he might faint from the sudden, overwhelming wave of dizziness that's washing over him now.

One of the officers that has just come in walks over and sits next to him. He's in full uniform, a radio on his vest, a bat strapped to his belt. "Are you alright, Mr Brody?" he asks gently, looking at him with kind brown eyes, and Chase sobs with relief for some kind of comfort.

"H-h-having a p-panic attack," he stammers, shifting on the bed to try and feel something, clawing at his skin under his grey hoodie and desperately trying not to cry. "N-need my - my - my asth-ma in-inhaler, p-please, I can't br-breathe -"

He's brought his inhaler, and he clutches it gratefully, clinging to it like a child. The cold button grounds him. Maybe, maybe if he squeezes his eyes shut tight enough, he'll wake up in his bed at home and be able to get up and shower in a bathroom that's not small or lit too brightly and then he can go downstairs to the kitchen to find Henrik half asleep at the table, three cups of coffee in front of him, wearily participating in whatever Chase's dumb early morning joke is, and then he can eat toast that's not burnt or done too lightly and play his music while he writes or goes on a walk outside. Maybe. Maybe.

The armed guards keep watch over him for two full hours.

Chase Brody is terrified.

It's when it hits the two and a half hour mark that he begins to notice anything different. A faint ringing in his ears. He thinks it's his tinnitus and waves it off, simply swatting at the air around his head like that will help at all. One of the guards notices immediately. "Sir, are you alright?"

Chase nods. He's not, but he doesn't need them dithering over him. Unfortunately, the guard doesn't let up. "Seriously, it's important that you tell us what's happening. Anything at all. Anything that could help you."

Well, that's reassuring. "Strange noise," he murmurs, shaking his hair out his face. "I think it's just me, though, I'm alright -"

But the guard is standing, muttering something into the radio strapped to his chest, and is it Chase's imagination, or are more people entering the room? "What's happening?" he asks, but he gets no response, and he's starting to feel strangely dizzy and tired, like something heavy is dragging his eyelids down. "I don't… h-hey, I don't feel too… too well…"

Someone is speaking to him but the world is already blurring, his head light, floaty. "Stacy?" he slurs, trying to get a grip on the bedsheets beneath him. "Someone needs t'... m'kids, they…"

Chase Brody is no longer in the same room as he was before.

He doesn't know when that changed. He can't pinpoint the exact moment where the walls darkened and raised with pipes and doors and panels, he doesn't know when his bed disappeared beneath him and the floor became sticky and black, he doesn't know when the bright light of his room became a soft blue glow, lighting up the room from behind him. He doesn't know when the room had stretched both ways into a long hallway, lined with slivers of light through the windows. He doesn't know why, when he stands, his legs nearly crumple beneath him. And when he turns - god, when he turns, and he looks out the enormous windows behind him - he doesn't know why a calming sensation of numbness settles over him, burning his skin like pins and needles.

He is staring out at the vast abyss of space.

It's a blackness he's never seen before. It seems to go on forever, and maybe it does, and there is nothing but tiny pinpricks of silver light of gaseous stars piercing the inky nothingness. Nothing but that, and the ball of green and blue that Chase knows, somewhere in his mind. Earth. Earth, where he is and isn't, where his body should be, where he never left, and what kind of nightmare is this? What kind of sick nightmare, he thinks dizzily, his thoughts chugging slowly as though through a thick soup. Everything is spinning. There is no sound, the world is broken, and the space is fucking endless.

Move, says the tiny part of his brain that still has sense. Get out. Get out.

His footsteps echo on the metal panes of the floor, and he resists the tightening urge in his stomach to vomit.

He doesn't know why this place is familiar.

The hallway seems to go on forever. All the doors along the way to the left have small, glowing panels beside them that seem to demand some type of access keycard, which Chase very much does not have. Eventually he reaches one that he can open, and stumbles into a large room with a table in the centre, the walls covered in photos and clippings that he doesn't bother taking closer looks at. There is only one small window in here, over a sleek black couch that seems to have nearly been shredded right through the middle. The table has a bolted down chair and a large pile of papers next to a cracked laptop that splutters weakly as it asks for a password. The room is too dark. Chase slowly walks through it, wincing at the sound his boots make on the floor, wincing at the silence, heart racing with the promise of another panic attack that he pushes down forcefully, gripping his own wrist for support. This isn't right, screams the universe. This is too familiar. This is too real. This is too familiar to be real.

Chase has noticed that everything in this place, despite its immediate appearance of immaculate properness, seems to be slightly out of place. This becomes more apparent in the room adjacent to the one he'd just been in, a room filled with sealed metal crates and boilers that bubble menacingly from their perches on the walls, a room which has clearly been nearly destroyed. Black claw marks have torn out chunks of the walls, wires ripped from the floor, buzzing weakly and sparking from wherever they were thrown after their violent uprooting. Dark red stains splash across the floor like a tragic painting that makes Chase's stomach upturn sickly. A vent on the ceiling hisses, and the man jumps and bolts, all last dregs of courage leaving him in an instant. He knows this is a dream. This is a dream, nothing is real, nothing is real, it must be just a dream.

"I've gone to hell," he sobs aloud, clamping both hands over his mouth as a cry climbs up his throat. "O-oh my god, I've gone to hell."

This is what you get for being a shitty, alcoholic dad and husband, he thinks, and promptly throws up on the floor next to the fresh bloodstains.

The rooms start to blur. Objects to objects, light to light, black walls and coloured glow and sparks, hissing, echoing rumbles, all becoming one in Chase's mind. He's long gone past the stage of a panic attack; he's in a state of utter numb calm, now. In one room he finds a long, black lighter and holds it tightly in his hands for comfort, twisting it round and round in buzzing fingers just to feel something solid against his skin to ground him. Please, he prays softly, wiping sweat from his forehead, struggling to breathe as his chest tightens and the world seems to grow hotter and smaller. Please, let me wake up, let me wake up from this, please.

And then something is standing behind him.

He doesn't know how he knows. It's just a sensation of silent shock in him, of I am not alone, a stabbing feeling as the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Something is there. He feels eyes on him. He can't - fuck, he can't move, and all the emotion in him seems to be rising to a painful crescendo. I am not alone in here. I am not alone in here.

"Who's there," he says in a small, cracked voice, not daring to turn. It's barely a question. "What do you want from me."

Nothing but a low hissing, and, most frightening of all, a rumbling growl that nearly sends Chase to the floor in a faint.

He has to look.

He looks.

It's an… an astronaut.

Neither of them move, and Chase's grip on the lighter in his hands tightens, trying to find some form of comfort, anything. "Why am I here?" he manages, swallowing back hot bile that burns his throat and makes him gag softly. "Why, why, what nightmare is this? Am I dead? Did the killer get me and this is my hell?"

The astronaut is silent.

Fury bubbles in Chase's chest, overriding the fear for a moment. "Talk!" he shouts, perhaps stupidly, but he doesn't care. "Please! What is happening?"

Then things get perhaps even stranger, somehow. A glowing 2D box of light appears in front of the astronaut, hovering in the air, too quiet until black text begins to appear on it, cartoonishly video game like blooping noises playing with each letter. Chase watches in awe. He's unable to speak.

<TheAnti.chr_v09> You are the Player.

Chase reads the words over and over and over.

"My name is Chase Brody," he says, voice wavering with uncertainty, because something here is wrong, wrong, wrong, so ridiculously wrong, and he hates the way things are clicking in his mind. "I shouldn't - be here. I think I'm dreaming and I want to go home."

The text flashes.

<TheAnti.chr_v09> You are <player_variable_BroAverage>. You are the Player.

Chase feels like he's above his body, like nothing he's seeing is real anymore. "Please let me go home."

<TheAnti.chr_v09> I am <TheAnti.chr_v09>. I am the Anti. You are the player. Player objective: escape. Anti objective: kill the Player. Initialization - Upon game startup, play <soundtrack_opening2>, set spawn and character sprites -

Chase can't take this. "Stop it!" he cries, and he shouldn't step forwards so confidently, but he does, slashing his hand through the air in front of him. "Tell me what you -"

The astronaut explodes.

No. No, it doesn't explode; Chase's mind is taking a moment to make sense of it, to rationalize the way the helmet has shattered and there is nothing but sheer white and glowing green eyes, hundreds of them, underneath, the largest one on the being's neck, splitting open with disgustingly inhuman squelching sounds, and the way the suit has torn and a mouth has opened up on the stomach, a gaping maw with knives for teeth and a slimy crimson tongue, and the way rips open along the material and more eyes open, burning red skin like charred meat, black veins rising under its skin. It hisses and cracks and growls and hums and it isn't like anything Chase has ever seen before, or maybe it is, because he knows this monster. He's seen this monster. And fuck, now he knows why this world is familiar, because he's been here, he's played this game. This can't be real. This can't be real.

"Posttraumatic nightmares," he can hear Henrik saying to him, the man's voice comforting. "Nightmares that occur after a traumatic event and can contain, what is the word… recurring themes that make you experience intense negative emotions. Maybe that is why you are having such strange dreams, my friend. You have been through a lot in these past few weeks."

That had been months ago. I thought I got over those dreams. I thought I got over those dreams.

He's running. His legs are already burning, chest already tight, why did he have to have used all his energy on his panic attack? Is the monster still following him? Chase can't turn to check, and the blood in his veins is racing through his body faster than he's used to, his heart in his ears as he flies round a corner, barely able to catch a breath. This isn't real, he thinks. It's another nightmare. Please, this isn't real, this isn't -

And then something wet is snaking round his chest, pulsing in a way that makes Chase gag, and something sharp presses into the skin on his back and a burst of numbness runs over him like cold water, causing his body to go limp against the alien - because it is an alien, isn't it, he knew this already - behind him. Cold heaviness seeps through his veins, combatting the light weightlessness that the adrenaline was giving him. He tries to cough again, to speak as his lungs empty of air, but the alien only grips his arms tight enough to piece his skin with sharp claw-like fingers. A glance down at his chest, and he sees the tip of the bloodstained rod jutting through his skin. It doesn't really register. A light laugh escapes his lips, because it's funny, really, how he's about to die at the hands of a video game antagonist.

No, he's not about to die. This isn't real. It can't be, it's another bad dream, of course it is. But if it's not real, then what happened to Jack Mcloughlin and the others, all of those… all of…

The world spins.

And the world lights up in flames.

Chase had briefly forgotten about the lighter he'd picked up for support, and now he's putting it to good use; one flick of the switch and the alien is alight as though it had been soaked in gasoline, burning orange spreading across its suit, the crackling drowning out the monster's screeches. Its grip loosens on Chase's arms, and he pulls free, and the universe spins as the rod in his chest slips out like it's nothing, leaving a gaping emptiness in him. Please, he screams, in his mind or out loud, he doesn't know. Please. Please.

Please, wake me up.

White light. It floods the whole world, for just a moment, and then Chase's eyes are open and he is gasping for air, hands flying to his chest and feeling nothing but the soft material of his shirt, no pain except for the squeeze of his lungs as he coughs desperately into his sleeve. There are people surrounding him now; the police officers and armed guards from before, helping him sit up, holding a sick bucket in front of him as he throws up the little that's left in his stomach weakly, too much noise but nowhere near as bad as the silence of the Dawn Station. Nowhere near as bad as the hissing creaks of the Anti. Nowhere near as bad as his nightmare, because it was a nightmare, of course that wasn't real - nowhere near as bad as the nightmare that he'd thought was going to kill him.

I lived. I survived the night.

He's had this thought before, but this time, it's met with relief.

"You dreamed about the setting of a video game."

"Not just any video game. The, uh… the new Jack Mcloughlin game, Dawn Station. All the people who played the demo… died. I didn't die. The night I was supposed to, after all the others, I - I dreamed about the game. And the antagonist of the game. It's this, uh, this alien thing, in an astronaut suit. Tried to kill me. Apparently it's weak to fire, although I don't remember that from the actual game, maybe it was a secret that wasn't in the demo we were all sent, but I burned it, and it stabbed me, and I got away, not - not in that order. Does that… does that make sense, doctor?"

Dr. Ross scrutinizes Chase for a moment before turning his chair back to face his computer. The sound of his mouse clicking fills the room, off beat from the eternal clicking of the plain white clock on the plain white walls, decorated only with bookshelves and trays of medicines. Chase has never been in a more boring doctor's office. Usually his therapy sessions have more to look at, but this is a different therapist than he normally goes to, and all he can do is fidget with his hands on his lap and stare out the window at the

earth, the stars, the black abyss of emptiness that Chase could get lost in and never be found

setting sun through the trees just outside the building. The doctor's pen clicks, clicks, clicks. It sounds like the Anti's teeth, chattering against each other as it yawns, its maw opening wide enough for a head to be torn right off. Click, click, click. Chase closes his eyes, the repeating sounds like a mantra. He focuses on that instead. It grounds him.

"You have a history of nightmares."

Chase nods without looking. "I was prescribed triazolam by my first therapist. I took them for a year or so without changes except the lowering of doses a couple of times, because I was getting weaned off them. They helped. Nightmares didn't continue after that."

The other man nods slowly. "Hm. I can imagine the trauma of this recent event that you've been through was enough to bring these nightmares back to the forefront of your mind, especially given the contents of this dream in particular. We may have to ease you back onto medication over the course of your next few sessions here, which should be easier, given that it'll be a couple weeks before we send you home. Is that alright, Mr Brody?"

Click, click, click. Chase nods. Sunlight warms his face, and he sighs softly. "Sounds good, Dr. Ross. When will I be able to see my family?"

The man frowns, his forehead creasing. "Hopefully soon, although it will be slightly complicated, given the circumstances." A breath leaves him, and he tilts his head to the side slightly. His white collar digs into the fold of his neck. Chase keeps his eyes trained on that. "And these are strange circumstances, are they not?"

"They are," Chase mutters. He clenches his fists in his lap. "They are, yeah."

He should have died. He doesn't know why he didn't die. He doesn't even know what it was that killed the others. Really, the nightmare he'd had makes sense. It was easily written off as a traumatic event that had brought back old nightmares. Of course there was no way any of it had been real. That's ridiculous. Just ridiculous. He doesn't know why he's thinking that.

His hand trails down his shirt. Underneath, on the skin of his stomach, is a thick scar that hadn't been there before the nightmare he'd had. Right where the rod had pierced his stomach.

Coincidence. Coincidence.

"Do you have any other concerns, Mr Brody?"

"I don't believe so."

"Good."

Click. Click. Click.

#boop writes #jacksepticeye #chase brody #henrik von schneeplestein #antisepticeye #dawn station

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sirmontgomery · 3 years

Text

Such Beauty | Self Para

Title: Such Beauty Timeframe: Three years ago. Tagging: Alec York and Graham Montgomery. Total: 1,642 Triggers: Terminal Illness. Hospitals. Major surgery. Death. Notes: Complete.

"Are you scared?"

"Of a little surgery...?" Graham smiled. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

Alec reached out and took Graham's hand, a small smile on his lips, which didn't quite reach his eyes. It was still a happy smile but Graham could tell that his husband was tired. The treatment they'd undertaken to shrink the tumor had taken its toll on Alec's body. It showed in his energy, which seemed to come in spurts.

"I've seen you reading that brochure at least a dozen times the past two hours." He chuckled. "You must have it memorized."

Graham realized he'd still been holding it in his free hand. The one not occupied by Alec's.

He set it down with a little laugh. Wiped his hand on his jeans. He realized his palms were a bit sweaty.

"I just want to be prepared," said Graham. It was partly his nature as a Dominant and a person. Ever since he was a young boy Graham always needed to have all the facts. His father had always been a responsible person and Graham fashioned parts of himself after Gregory. Another part of this preparedness was also military training. He wasn't a doctor, wasn't an expert, but that didn't mean he had to be useless. He wouldn't be the soldier on the front line but he could have the six of the soldier next to him.

Alec lifted his hand briefly from Graham's hand to stroke his cheek before closing his palm over Graham's again.

"Are you prepared?" asked Alec. There was something in his tone that Graham didn't like.

Graham blinked and stared. He was asking something Graham had kept at quite a distance for a very long time. "Well, the complications of the surgery...seem big..." said Graham carefully. "Though the doctor says these sorts of risks come with any surgery." Graham would be vague in his answer if that's what Alec wanted. "We're doing our part."

They'd chosen the aggressive therapies they had in order to attack the enemy. Cause the tumor to shrink. Get in with a scalpel and finish the job.

"Graham."

The Dominant stood. "The nurse should be by to check on your fluids," he checked on his watch. "Who is it today?" He went to a pile of his things and disentangled a planner from his coat and bag. There were many assorted personal items in that bag, from toothpaste, to deodorant, to dry shampoo and granola bars. "I think it might be Flores," he said casually over his shoulder, finger sliding down the pages.

"It's okay to be scared," said Alec. He had shifted his head on the pillow.

Graham felt his chest tighten. He shook his head. "Why should I be scared?" Graham asked. "I'm not scared."

Alec smirked. "Bullshit."

That's partly what Graham had loved about Alec. He wasn't afraid to call Graham out. He also gave him permission to feel the things he was afraid of feeling. It put Graham at ease to take action. To do all the reading. To keep up on the research articles online. To study the tips in all the forums at odd hours while Alec slept.

"I know you watch me..." said Alec. "At night. Like...it's intense." Alec swallowed. "Like you're waiting for something."

Graham never knew Alec woke in the night.

"Sometimes I watch you too."

He closed the planner and looked at the dark haired sub. "I'm listening," Graham said, finally. "Not watching." Graham held the planner in his hands as he walked back to Alec's bedside. "I'm listening to hear you breathing."

There were many fears that Graham had about what was happening and what was to come. The scariest ones were the things Graham pictured could happen that they didn't see coming. Alec not breathing in the middle of the night because his blood pressure dropped or because a tube wasn't giving him enough fluids or a million other things...all kept Graham up.

"I'm telling our kids that their father was a creep," said Alec.

Graham barked out a laugh. It was unexpected. Alec had the most unexpected talent for bringing Graham out of himself.

"Actually," said Graham. "I was looking at what work we might be able to ask the plastic surgeon to do on you whilst you're under. You know...combine cosmetic with medical..." His humor never would've been so macabre before. This seemed to lighten both of their moods.

"Oh please," Alec rolled his eyes. "You think I'm perfect. What could you possibly want done? God made me a work of art."

Graham smiled down at Alec and ran his fingers over Alec's scalp. His hair had thinned some because of the medicine but they'd had to shave it for the surgery anyway. "He did."

Alec grabbed Graham's hand again. He kissed it.

"If something happens..."

"It won't." Graham shook his head.

"If something happens..." Alec pressed forward. "I want you to...find someone. I want you to find someone."

"Alec."

"I mean, obviously they won't be like me." He smiled. "You know. I want you to be happy."

Graham sighed heavily. Looked down.

"I mean, don't be too happy."

Graham gave a watery laugh. Shook his head.

"Like obviously not as happy as you were with me." Alec smiled tiredly. "But it's okay to be happy."

"I won't be happy," said Graham. "I'll be grumpy."

Alec rolled his eyes.

"I mean think of the paperwork you'll have left me with."

Alec gave a belly laugh. It was enough to crinkle the corner of Graham's eyes. They'd avoided having this talk for so long that Graham felt like it was for nothing. All that fear. This was easy. This was like walking the elephant out of the room and remembering its presence as one did a fond trip to the circus. Amusing to think about but rarely revisted.

"I know you hate paperwork," said Alec. "God, remember that time in third year..."

"Krazinski," Graham chuckled.

"You were in charge of his detail for the duty day and that man couldn't keep out of trouble to save his life."

"How he ever made it to graduation day, I'll never know," said Graham.

"You spent an hour talking to the commander and then another two filling out all those forms saying what happened."

"It was testimony from the others I had to sign as well. It started with that vacuum bin full of the dust that never seemed to fully be clear from the duty hall. He executed a facing movement right into the drill instructor on his way to empty it."

Alec laughed again and held his sides. "Didn't he drop that trash bag too?" Krazinski had. Some of it got on the drill instructor's uniform after they both fell.

Graham smiled and turned on the dim lamp above Alec's bed. He turned off the overhead fluorescents and moved back to his seat. He could tell Alec was getting tired. Besides, his big surgery was the next morning and Graham had been adamant about a bedtime. He'd even set an alarm for it on his phone; it would vibrate soon to let Graham know. But Graham already knew.

“And you got out of having to sign paperwork. Somehow.” Graham rolled his eyes this time.

"Remember when we..."

Graham nodded. "Week before grad week," he knew what Alec was going to mention. "We spent that whole leave in that sweet little town. Our unit was the one with all those merits from the instruction team. You were happy to sign then."

Alec relaxed, as if soothed by Graham's remembering. "That whole time I kept thinking...you were holding something in." He smiled, closing his eyes. "You know I thought you were going to break up with me."

Graham's brows lifted.

"I remember some talk with your parents. About whether or not to invite that ex of yours. His father was going to come or something." Alec yawned. "I was worried...you two had been in touch."

Graham didn't know how to feel about that. Everything outside of this room had seemed eons away. Distant islands to what they were experiencing now in the present. The mention of Cassius' name caused a twinge in Graham's heart but he didn't know why. He wasn't sure what to say in this moment. Cassius was always a love present in his heart. Though his love for Alec had grown somehow beside it in Graham's heart, in the spaces around it. Something that was hard to explain if he should ever have a need to put it into words. Thankfully, Graham never needed to.

Strange how the strands of fate worked. He had once thought it his fate to be with Cassius. To have a family with him. To be his Dominant. Then that relationship ended. In the shambles of those dreams...in the fraying of that strand...he'd found another fate. The end of that relationship had led him into Alec's arms. Perhaps that might have been his fate all along. Though that didn't sit right in Graham's heart either, for some reason.

Graham brought Alec's hand up to his lips and gave their enclosed fingers a kiss. "It was that week on leave when I proposed to you..." he reminded the submissive. Graham remembered everything about it. The trip up the lake. A boat ride surrounded by swans. They'd made love in a clearing just after.

"I see now..." Alec whispered, eyes still closed. "Such beauty...such beauty you have brought me."

Graham's heart twisted. He felt his gut clench. He took Alec's hand though his husband was now asleep. Graham could tell by his breathing pattern.

"You have to be happy," he murmured.

Graham wondered if he was dreaming.

He hoped it was a good dream. As Graham turned off the light above Alec's bed he knew that he wouldn't sleep.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Graham silenced the alarm letting him know it was time for lights out.

He couldn't let go of Alec's hand. He didn't the whole night.

#cruelboy #|| self para.#..#{ // }#{ /// }#{ //// }#such beauty

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chopstickchild · 4 years

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ok i need to rant for a bit (read at your own risk)

also tw for body image issues

for a bit of background, i do ballet, and im pretty damn serious about it. as in its the centre of my life and i plan to make a career of it.

well my mom is rly supportive about this, but sometimes she gets to be a bit too much. as in extremely insensitive about how her « helping me » makes me feel. the subject of obsession tends to be something important, or some milestone, such as a performance, competition, or audition. in this case it’s two audition videos: one for a prestigious international competition (which could change my life if i got in), and the other video is an audition video for my dream school (and again, life changing if i get in).

These two videos are EXTREMELY important, and we wanted everything to be as perfect as possible, but the focus on perfectionism is where the problem lies. i’ve gotten better about not dragging myself down over every single detail, but my mom on the hand has not. she doesn’t obsess over my dancing (i do that enough already) but over details like lighting, camera angle, the line my leotard makes, my shoe color, my bun angle, the amount of makeup, the video quality, etc. she has a really good eye for those sort of things since she used to be an artist (and majored in fine art), and if she was the one filming my videos there would be no problem there.

But evidently there is a problem (which is why i’m writing this all out cause istg if i don’t i WILL lose it). Actually there’s two, one per video, though the second problem has nothing much to do with everything mentioned before.

The first issue is something that’s been haunting me for two weeks, and not in the good halloween haunting way. The video for the competition was filmed over the course of a few weeks by one of my teachers, and she and my mom have an *interesting* relationship. as in ive learned to brush off my mom cussing her out in car rides or at home (which happened today twice lol). My teacher wouldn’t allow my mom to be in the studio to help with lighting, camera angle, etc., saying that the studio wouldn’t allow more than two people in at a time (a lie, cause when we went with my contemporary teacher for one section of the video my mom was able to go in and film that portion). My teacher is a really well intention person by the way, but since my mom is so similar to how her mom was, being in her prescence triggers her which i think may be why she tried to make it so she wouldn’t have to interact with her as much.

So anyways my teacher and i worked on the audition video and we finally completed it, but the way she filmed it was not up to my moms standards. so we filmed it again. and right now it’s STILL not up to my mom’s standards, but at this point there’s literally nothing we can do. the deadline is in a few days and there’s no way we can refilm it then. in terms of my dancing, i feel pretty satisfied, though it’s not perfect, but i feel ok sending it in. but for thé past few weeks i’ve been constantly hearing how the video isn’t good enough, and how it doesn’t present me well enough, and if my mom could just have filmed the barre and centre i would look so much better. and that if i really want to catch the judges eyes then the video quality would need to be better. and i argue back at that point, saying my dancing should be enough to do that, and that i’m not auditoning for a film school but for a DANCE competition. and i know my mom has a point. we are drawn to things well presented, even if the content may not be the best. but after hearing that my video is not up to par for WEEKS it hurts a lot. and if i ask her to stop focusing so much on that because at this point all that is doing is making us feel unsatisfied with something unchangable, i’m ignored and she goes on saying i don’t understand her point. I’m also told that she’s saying all this because she cares so much and wants me to succeed. and that is all true, but i don’t CARE that she’s saying all this because she wants to help me with my goal. there are so many more productive things to do than fixating on unchangable shit, and there’s a voice inside telling me that if she really cared about me, the real actual me and not the dancer side of me, she would take a moment to understand how much certain things she says hurts. no matter the intentions behind, no matter that she always adds that my dancing wasn’t the problem and that it was all my teachers fault (which also pokes me in a different way), i ALWAYS leave that conversation with an extremely tight knot in my chest and a bunch of self doubt. sometimes when the convo evolves into an argument, my mom tells me that it’s cause she’s stressed about this and the video and because she cares so much, but i’ve reached the point where i don’t give a fuck. i’m stressed too, and i care a TON. i sacrificed so fucking much for this (not to say she hasn’t like good lord i worry so much about her sometimes) but being stressed and caring about something does not excuse harping on about something someone has EXPLICITLY told you to please stop going on a bout and try to let go of. multiple times. which is why i really want to scream sometimes, and why i decided to just let it out here. (it’s worked by the way. as of right now the knot inside has loosened and the negative energy about this problem has almost dissolved, which why i’m now moving on to the second issue)

ISSUE NO. 2- thé audition video for my dream school. now this is a different direction than the other video problem because this video hasn’t been filmed yet. so i should start out with saying that as a by product of doing ballet, i have body image issues. it got worse over the course of the past year because i put on a few pounds. and i know that honestly, i shouldn’t worry too much, but doing an art form where your body is constantly critiques in so many ways kinda has a way of making you always wish it was better. now my mom knows about how i feel about my body, and in the past she has completely invalidated my feelings if i try to talk about it (because in her eyes i’m perfect yaddayaddayadda and i’m just manifesting these insecurities out of nowhere cause i have nothing to be worried about). the thing is tho (and i’m pretty thankful for this) is that she will tell me if i’ve gained weight, and she will help me if i want to lose some and stuff. so it’s like she has this weird mix of telling me to not worry about my weight cause i’m perfectly fine, but also telling me that i need to watch what i eat more and that i need to lose a little weight. and i hate it so much. recently i just stopped weighing myself every morning cause i realized i was literally basing how i felt the whole day off the number on the scale. and honestly i’m so much happier now cause i stopped. everything is the same except that one thing, and i have no intention to start obsessively weighing myself again.

And that brings me to issue two. because we were talking about the video for the school, and my mom said “you need to start weighing yourself every morning again”. well i saw every single color of the rainbow when she said that, and i was enraged. because my instinct was to be angry in order to protect one of my biggest insecurities, my body. the implications that came from telling me i needed to start weighing myself more HURT, and thinking about it right now is making me almost cry. and her saying that also pissed me off SO MUCH. because my mom KNOWS how i feel about my body, about my weight, and my eating habits. i have explicitly stated MANY time that i would prefer if she would not make those little comments about those subjects, and i have let her know how much it hurts me. i don’t think she understood that though, despite the amount of times i’ve completely shut down or started crying. but that one comment is hanging over my head right now, acting as a smoke cloud twisting around my heart and making me have some rlly self deprecating thoughts. and so tomorrow morning if she asks me what my weight is i don’t know what i’ll do. i’m considering just saying something above what ik she wants it to be, no matter what i may actually be, but i’ve also considered just tossing the scale in the rubbish bin. actually won’t do that though cause i would get in a ton of trouble lol. but a problem is that as a result of her comment, i’ve also begun considering starving myself, of making myself throw up, and other unhealthy ways to lose weight because right now, i feel like my body is too fat filled, too squishy for ballet. which is bullshit but the negative voice is drowning the positive one out now.

ok i have gotten all the rant energy out now, and no longer feel like punching a wall, cry screaming, cussing out the next person i see, or any assortment of high negative energy release techniques that would hurt others or myself. if you read this far, props to you cause i sure as hell would not have been able to make it thru that 😂.

also i should add that my mom and i are SUPER close and she honestly a great person in every aspect except certain dance related stuff. i really really appreciate everything she has done for me, all her sacrifices and all the effort she has put in to make sure i am where i am now. it’s just sometimes i feel like she forgets that i’m a person with feelings about topics, not just a dancer. thank you for coming to my tedtalk 😌

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bluereferences · 5 years

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YOUTUBE VIDEOS - 008 ; rp starters.

quotes + sentences taken from a random assortment of youtube videos. feel free to change the pronouns as you see fit. some sentences may contain nsfw text.

“Nine percent of me is enraged! Nine percent of me wants to slap the fuck out of you!”

“_____, nine percent African, ninety-one percent rat.”

“Let’s get back to the ten grand.”

“None of this makes sense!”

“If you are the victim, like you say you are, shouldn’t you be the one contacting the police?!”

“Not only is he a freak, but also a very unhygenic one.”

“They were wrong, I am right, that’s just how it is.”

“I can only think what I think. I cannot know what I don’t know.”

“That is complete gibberish.”

“If you ain’t smooching before the night’s over, there’s something wrong.”

“Banter! BANTER! This is fucking next level roasting!”

“This guy is mental! We need to get out of here!”

“Far be it for a prick like me to tell me what to do, but don’t do drugs.”

“I’m a bit frustrated. I’ve woken up to all this bullshit.”

“Oooooh, edgy.”

“What’s going on with the bin?”

“I was hoping we wouldn’t talk about the bin.”

“It’s sad just because I’m having trouble with my depth perception, and I don’t know how far it goes back.”

“It’s Dolmio day in downtown Moscow, or wherever the fuck this is.”

“It says ‘get out’ on the wall.”

“Ah, there reaches a point in every man’s life where their love for anime exceeds the capacity of their display case.”

“This is mental illness.”

“What’s in that... that bowl with the spoon?”

“You know how much I’d give to have such a black jar of pickles next to my computer?”

“It’s making me sad, looking at this.”

“He’s probably got enough plastic bags to wipe out every species in the ocean.”

“The floormat looks like a crepe.”

“I’m a straight male, but damn, _____ is hot.”

“They’re for... Personal use only.”

“It looks like he’s about to thrust with unstoppable force.”

“I struggled to read after it got to the first line and I realised I had to look for the next one.”

“That’s how you read, _____! Did you know you have to read from left to right as well, yeah?”

“I breezed the test so many times they don’t even bother testing me.”

“When they say ‘we don’t need to test you’, it means that you have it, mate.”

“Who thought this was even remotely okay to put this here?”

“Me, standing outside your house with a bat is also a trap. It’s to prevent you from just walking forward.”

“I wish squids were real.”

“Is anime over yet?”

“Towels are a scam. Think about it. A towel is only a towel, but anything that’s like pants or a sheet or whatever is also a towel.”

“It’s definitely a bad thing.”

“This’ll be a video I won’t show my mum.”

“I didn’t say stop. I didn’t say stop.”

“I’m reserving my right to not speak!”

“You are a weeab.”

“This is Netflix, not eHarmony. Shut up, go outside, and get some game.”

“The name of the game is your mum, and let’s just say I’m already fucking playing it.”

“That man’s a fucking legend.”

“Is this an SCP?”

“I have some reasonable information that someone sent me.”

#ask memes #rp meme #rp ask meme #rp ask memes #rp prompts #sentence starters #sentence starter memes #a mixture of baited podcast and soothouse lol

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pseudonym-lux · 5 years

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Character Questionnaire - Astrid Turner

Basic Character Questions. 1. First name Astrid 2. Surname Turner 3. Age When writing the journal: eighteen During the events in the journal: five, ten, sixteen, seventeen

Physical / Appearance 1. Height 5′6 2. Weight 115lbs. 3. Build Athletic/hourglass, lean and a little muscular 4. Hair colour Black 5. Hairstyle Loose, or tied back out of her face 6. Eye colour Brown 7. Scars Plenty. Left thigh, right ankle and right arm from her mother. Many others from her many fights with rogue vampires. Most are hidden beneath her clothes 8. Type of clothes Edgy. Leather jackets, anything black unless it’s a dress or skirt. Ripped jeans. Combat boots. 9. Are they in good health? Well aside from not having a heartbeat and being half-dead, I would say so.

Personality 1. Are they more optimistic or pessimistic? Pessimistic without a shadow of a doubt. 2. Are they introverted or extroverted? Introverted. 3. What bad habits do they have? Keeping secrets. 4. Mental Handicaps Minor PTSD. 5. How do they want to be seen by others? As strong, like she can handle anything the world throws at her even if it should crush her under the weight of it. 6. How do they see themselves? She knows she’s a generally closed off and distrustful person 7. What is their greatest fear? She won’t be able to protect the people she loves, that her secrets will get the hurt or killed or something even worse 8. What are their biggest secrets? That she hunts vampires, doesn’t have a heartbeat and is a Vampire-Human hybrid. 9. When was the last time they cried? When she killed her mother and watched her burn up from the garlic oil she injected into her. 10. What haunts them? Killing her mother. 11. If they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be? Her knowledge of vampires and hybrid status.

Friends and Family 1. Is their family big or small? Who does it consist of? She has a small family. It consists of her grandparents. 2. What is their perception of family? It’s important and you should never take it for granted that you have one. You never know when they’ll be taken from you forever. 3. Describe their best friend. Well, you see, she has two, so I will describe both of them. Hazel Warner is a ray of sunshine. She is bubbly and sweet and kind and the person you go to when you don’t know what to do and just need someone to lean on or listen. Theo Beckett is the defiant jock stereotype. He cares about his friends and is actually really smart and good at school and wants to be a good person. 4. Ideal best friend? Combine Hazel and Theo into one person. 5. Describe their other friends. Ha. Funny. You think she is capable of having more friends. But I suppose that this is the category that Lonnie would fall under. Alonzo “Lonnie” Bonilla is an approximately 300-year-old vampire that was friends with Astrid’s father, Malcolm, and is a reformed vampire that helps to reform other vampires as well.

Past and Future 1. What was your character like as a baby? As a child? She was a very sweet baby and child (up until 5 that is). 2. Did they grow up rich or poor? Neither. Maybe upper middle class. 3. Did they grow up nurtured or neglected? She was nurtured for sure. Her parents were very loving and her grandparents were as well. 4. What is their greatest achievement? The fact that I can’t think of one is very sad. 5. What was their first kiss like? She hasn’t had it yet. 6. What is the worst thing they did to someone they loved? Killed them. 7. What advice would they give their younger self? Life is a shitstorm. But you will survive it. 8. What smells remind them of their childhood? Blood. Ice cream parlours. 9. What was their childhood ambition? To be a ballerina. 10. What is their best childhood memory? Running around in the backyard on a sunny day with both her parents. 11. What is their worst childhood memory? Watching her father be killed. 12. Strongest childhood memory? Watching her dad cut a vampire’s throat, choking on the blood spray and then having to watch as another vampire then killed her dad.

Love 1. Do they believe in love at first sight? She did when she was little but doesn’t anymore. 2. Are they in a relationship? Nope. 3. When did your character last have sex?

4. What sort of sex do they have?

5. Has your character ever been in love? Nope. 6. Have they ever had their heart broken? By someone she’s romantically interested in? Nope.

Conflict 1. How do they respond to a threat? Not well. By trying to fight it. 2. Are they most likely to fight with their fists or their tongue? FISTS. 3. What is your character’s kryptonite? Her friends and family. 4. If your character could only save one thing from their burning house, what would it be? Saying thing implies this to be a material item, not a person, so she would save her book on vampire lore. Since this is her house that would mean all the photos of her parents would be at her grandparents' house and that would be the only other thing she would try to save. 5. How do they perceive strangers? With distrust. 6. What are their phobias? Atychiphobia - Fear of failure (failing her friends and family) Autophobia - Fear of being alone (losing her loved ones and having no one) Heliophobia - Fear of the sun (instinctual, she knows it’s bullshit) Iatrophobia - Fear of doctors (she was poked and prodded a lot by doctors as a kid) Nosocomephobia - Fear of hospitals (again, she spent a lot of bad time in the hospital) 7. What is their choice of weapon? Typically a stake, but she also really likes knives. 8. Have they ever been bullied or teased? Pity the fool who tries.

Work, Education and Hobbies 1. What is their current job? Vampire Hunter. 2. What do they think about their current job? It doesn’t pay, like, at all, but the job satisfaction is high and it’s a good way to get her anger out in a productive manner. 3. What are their hobbies? … vampire hunting 4. Educational background? She hasn’t graduated from high school yet. 5. Intelligence level? I mean, she’s no genius protege but she’s smart for sure. 6. Do they have any specialist training? Does knowing how to kill vampires count? 7. Do they play a sport? Are they any good? No and No.

Favourites 1. What place would they most like to visit? Literally anywhere warm and sunny because that brings the likelihood of encountering a vampire down to practically zero. 2. What is their favourite colour? Black. 3. What is their favourite day of the week? Friday. 4. What is their favourite food? Doritos.

Possessions 1. What is in their fridge? Food. Beverages. Probably lunch meat, cheese, lettuce, assorted fruits and veggies, juice of some kind or another, milk, leftovers. 2. What is on their bedside table? Probably Doritos. 3. What is in their bin? Crumpled paper, wrappers, empty Dorito bags. 4. What is in their purse or wallet? Not a lot. The essentials mostly (ID, debit card, cash, points cards/gift cards). She has a stamp/rewards/etc. card for the ice cream parlour as well that she always carries with her. 5. What is their most treasured possession? The book of Vampire Lore she got from Lonnie.

Spirituality 1. Who or what is your character’s guardian angel? Ha. 2. Do they believe in the afterlife? She wishes that she could. 3. What are their religious views? If, and this is a big if, there’s a God out there, he’s abandoned Earth. 4. What do they think heaven is? She doesn’t think there is one. 5. What do they think hell is? Her life? 6. Are they superstitious? Not generally. 7. What would they like to be reincarnated as? She doesn’t want to be reincarnated. 8. How would they like to die? Peacefully.

Values 1. What do they think is the worst thing that can be done to a person? Being turned into a Vampire. 2. What is their view of ‘freedom’? Having the choice to do what you please, when you please, without having to worry that the potential consequences could cost someone their life or cause an injury or something else bad to happen. 3. When did they last lie? She told her friends she imagined the “man” (vampire) that she saw watching them. 4. What’s their view of lying? Sometimes it’s necessary to protect people and keep them from worrying.

Daily life 1. What are their eating habits? Doritos. 2. Do they have any allergies? Nope. 3. Describe their home. Homey? Cluttered in a “lived in” sort of way. Cozy. 4. Are they minimalist or a clutter hoarder? Whatever the middle of that spectrum is. 5. What is the soft drink of choice? Dr. Pepper

Miscellaneous 1. Who is their hero? Her dad. 2. What or who would your character dress up as for Halloween? She wouldn’t if it were up to her. 3. Are they comfortable with technology? She’s a teenager living in 2017. She’s very comfortable with technology. 4. If they could save one person, who would it be? Her dad. 5. If they could call one person for help, who would it be? Lonnie. 6. What is their greatest regret? If she had to pick one, maybe killing her mother. But even if it’s something she is haunted by doing, she doesn’t necessarily regret it. 7. What is their perception of redemption? It’s very possible, but it takes a lot of work and effort to truly redeem yourself. 8. Do they believe in happy endings? Not really. 9. What is their idea of perfect happiness? No Vampires and her parents are alive. 10. What would they ask a fortune teller? To fuck off. She doesn’t believe in fortune tellers. 11. If your character could travel through time, where would they go? Back to when her father was killed. 12. If they could have a superpower, what would they choose? She would trade her “superpowers” for a normal life any day.

#Children of the Dark #astrid turner #the journal of astrid turner #original story #original character

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nblynera · 2 years

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seeing posts and sighing and buckling down to do the usual: making things that will literally only appeal to me where posting them online will be akin to russian roulette

#fun fact i used to look at callout posts and go 'but that doesn't sound *that* bad...' and then rb them anyways #due to Fear Of Social Repercussions #and now im Better but in a constant struggle with my own brain #anyways this is abt posting vi and jaune stuff w a slightly more fucked up relationship dynamic bc whump fun #that one goddamn fic with 'please‚ youll never see me again' 'i know ill never see you again. thats why im doing this' got me fucked up #me cracking open yet another wip like 'it aint much but its honest work'#the assorted bullshit bin #my posts #i am still going to post this online when its done btw i just expect it to have like a 50 50 chance of mini callout post

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mpgiswiki · 7 years

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the rest of this post will be under a readmore cause its really just for me to have handy an itll probably be a little long

ok so like i said a bunch of times already today, i keep having dreams about one specific tooth of mine falling out??? so now im convinced its actually gonna fall out

anyways now im gonna try and write down and analyze my dreams (or at least the ones i remember) and try to figure out How My Poor Tooth Will Go

so from what i can remember, the first dream i had about this tooth falling out was earlier this month (may) or late april. the dream started out normally?? like more normal than having a tooth fall out i guess…i was in my ap lang class and the teacher wasnt my normal teacher, it was this math teacher at my school that everyone just fucking hates. she was being a real bitch and when i answered one question wrong, she literally kicked me out of ap lang? the whole class like i wouldnt get credits for the class and i couldnt take the exam or anything i was just gone for good. obviously i was pissed about this, so i screamed and kicked things and did my usually anger breakdown thing and walked out of the class, heading to guidance. i cant remember which of these events happened first but at one point i was walking down the hallway (which now that i think of it, seemed more reminiscent of a hallway at my middle school) and i saw 3 of my friends (maybe 4 i cant remember) and they were doing karaoke in the middle of the hallway since there was a tv hanging from the ceiling. paige was singing and she was really getting into it. at another point in the dream, like i said, not sure if this was before or after the karaoke thing, i had to get on a bus in order to get to guidance. while on this bus, i had to talk to this girl i used to be friends with but told to fuck off freshman year cause she was toxic and i wanted to get ride of her. she just talked to me like normal?? like she didnt hate my guts for calling her an annoying bitch lmao?? and i just talked to her normally too which was fucking weird…anyways after i got off the bus, i was at guidance. the door to the guidance offices looked like the? jungle?? or whatever??? like some environmentalist designed the place…there was even a hug recycle bin there. i just kinda stood by the door for a while…i think my Dumb Ass couldnt figure out how to get in the door. i just kinda gave up i literally just said “fuck it i gotta go im late to drama practice” which is weird bc im not even fucking in drama. but nonetheless, i went to drama practice. drama practice was held in some huge ass library and the only other people there that i was talking to were my friend dana and my?? drivers ed teacher??? we were supposed to be practicing a scene from les mis which i guess was what play we were doing (i think?? i was cosette and dana was eponine and my fucking drivers ed teacher was marius…) but instead of practicing, we were just talking about the bullshit that was the fact i was kicked out of ap lang like a week before the exam. and then?? my tooth (top left, second from the front left tooth) just fuckign fell out and i started gushing blood and then i woke up…

after that, i had an assortment of little dreams i can hardly remember where my tooth (the same one as always) either falls out or is pulled out. i remember in one its very violently pulled from my mouth and the only other thing i remember from that dream is that this bitch, holly, was there (she didnt pull out the tooth tho i think mikan tsumiki pulled out the tooth). in some other ones, i remember that my tooth was already pulled out before the dream and i would like keep it in the socket in my mouth and pretend like it was still attached?? which leads me to my other very vivid and most recent dream,

so, this one i had last night. its kinda in the opposite order the first one was in, it started with the tooth and ended with ap lang. so in this one, i started off in a dentists office. my dentist was actually my psychiatrist?? but in the dream i just saw her as my dentist but anyways i was talking to her about my teeth and whatever. she asked if there was anything else id like to say before we ended the appointment (kinda like how she would at my irl psychiatrist appointments) and i was like “oh yeah, my tooth fell out” and i just kinda take my tooth out of its little socket. apparently it had fallen out before (like, i long while before) and i had been keeping it in cause i didnt want people to know it fell out i guess?? and when i showed my dentist she was like “oh you pulled out your cracked tooth huh” or whatever and i got really confused because i was under the impression that it had just fallen right out but she pointed out that the tooth itself was cracked. then the bell rung and suddenly i was in the cafeteria at my school and i had no idea what fucking class i had next. so i was just kinda slowly walking out of the cafe when the fire alarm started to go off. i was super confused cause we had just had a fire drill the day before so it didnt make any sense why we would have another. until the principal said on the loud speaker that it was For Real and i started to FLIP. i finally figured out we had D period next, meaning i was supposed to be going to ap lang so i had to find that class so i would be accounted for. i was about to bolt the fuck out when i noticed my ap lang teacher was like right near me. i asked him why he was down by the cafe and not near his room and he said it was cause theres a lot of stuffed lions (tigers?) in his room and he was having electrical problems so it was only a matter of time before one of them caught on fire. so that was weird. anyways we went outside to where we were supposed to wait if there was a fire and i played some kind of hopscotch? game with some kids ive seen around school but have never talked to. none of them were in my ap lang class but whatever. the fire department quickly put out the fire and we all had to fucking continue school because of fucking course we would. so i went to my ap lang class and looked into the door window of the classroom and it didnt really look like it was on fire it looked more like one of the classrooms in corpse party…we held class in the class directly next to it with the other ap lang class and we were basically coloring. someone stole the seat i was sitting in when i got up for like a second. then like sparks started flying off god knows where and something caught fire and then i woke up.

wow this is already super long…ok well here goes my analysis of the dreams and my prediction.

so the reason im so insistent that i might actually lose my tooth is cause a lot of times, i can correctly predict the future. it happens a lot with dreams especially. like if you know me you probably know im kinda a little psychic ?? in some ways. so im kinda taking this recurring dream as an omen. anyways the fact that in all the ones i can remember, theres something that has to do with school and especially ap lang?? makes me think somethings gonna happen in there. i thought before, in the first dream, the whole ap lang part was because i had my ap exam coming up and i was nervous about it but now that ive finished that and stuff im not too sure. i feel like the karaoke gang will end up being the people i see on my merry way to the nurses office with the tooth in hand, especially dana who has a really big presence in the first and last dreams?? dana was in the karaoke scene, she was there when it fell out in the first dream, and she was in the cafe with me when the fire alarm went off. i think ill probably talk to her about it right after it happens..i dont think she’ll be the reason i get my tooth knocked out tho bc if it does happen in ap lang like i assume then she wouldnt be anywhere near me at the time. i believe the reason my drivers ed teacher was also there was because at the time i had the first dream, i was taking drivers ed. and he was probably marius cause i hate marius and him. also the bitch i hate was there cause i have dreams about her and i being friendly constantly so that means nothing in regards to my tooth. the fact that i was so shocked the tooth was cracked may be my dream just telling me that its gonna crack off and not that it just falls or is just plainly pulled out. my psychiatrist was there because the other day i was wondering when my next appointment was. and the whole stuff with the fire probably came from the fact that we had a fire drill the other day and it also may symbolize the panic and whatever when my tooth fucking breaks off in class. now how exactly do i think itll go down, based on the dream + other stuff??? well like i said, itll be in ap lang most likely. how does one chip off a tooth in fucking ap lang? well right now my teacher is teaching the chinese students that are visiting about american sports so he has a bunch of sports balls sitting on the table in the front of the room. before he comes into the classroom to start class, some kids pick up a ball and play with it for a while. so im guessing my shit luck will cause someone to accidentally hit me in the face with a ball, hard enough to break my tooth. i, or someone else, will then probably have to pull my cracked, loose tooth out of its socket. there will be tons of blood. i will walk to the nurses office and maybe at some point see dana and tell her what happened. and thats what the fuck ive been thinking about all day.

so ya tldr; some kid is gonna knock my tooth out in ap lang probably so

#WOO that was fuckign long #anyways ive accepted my fate i just want my tooth gone #dream log #the world according to britt

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explorerezreal · 7 years

Text

The Final Post (For real.)

[[ Hey guys.

As everyone knows, I officially retired this blog in December of 2016 after three great years of roleplaying in the League of Legends community. However, it just occurred to me that I have an unfinished piece of writing that I had been working on for NaNoWriMo 2015 that I never released. This original Ezreal origin story will be the final post on this blog, and my final gift to all of you wonderful people. I hope you enjoy! Love always, Ezruul @w@

Initium

Written for NaNoWriMo 2015

This writing is purely a work of fiction. And by that, I mean fanfiction. Sorry guys, I’m not creative enough for anything else!

That being said, I don’t own League of Legends or any characters or specifically named locations mentioned. That honor goes to Riot Games Inc.

I wish to give thanks to my community for your undying support and faith in my writing.

I don’t remember how it started.

I remember when I figured out that everything was complete and utter bullshit, though. It was an early Tuesday, and I’d once again been reprimanded for doodling my ink-dipped quill pen all over the piece of blank parchment that had been thrust in front of me and expected to be covered in notes involving complicated mathematics that were supposed to aid in techmaturgical blueprints for future energy-saving devices that would be built across the entire City of Progress. The instructor took it upon himself to crumple the start of a shoddy ebony labyrinth that I’d created and mercilessly dump it in the trash bin beside me before handing me a new sheet, an exasperated sigh splitting his lips as he did so.

“Do you think maybe one of these days you’ll actually take notes instead of drawing all over everything, Mister Forcher?” he spoke with an edge, clearly on his last nerve with me despite it being my first lesson of the day. Good morning, indeed. Despite being a mere seven years old, my young tongue had already garnered its fair share of teeth marks from being bitten back so many times, and although I tried to make myself move, I’m not sure anything happened on my face. Or body, really. All I knew was that this thing I was in. This damn school. This damn stuffy classroom…

Had been suffocating me as though it were a toxin-filled gas from the very beginning.

Prodigy. That’s what they’d called me. I had heard the word so many times in my young life but I never got to really understand what the meaning was until I’d turned five and was placed into an educational environment that far surpassed anything that a normal child should experience. Other so-called prodigies littered the shining halls, but none as young as me. Hell, some were even university-age and beyond, but considering where it was, this wasn’t exactly surprising, though I’m sure it was a definite blow to their egos. At first, I was carefree. I of course knew I’d be starting school soon. It sounded like fun in my inexperienced head. My parents’ instructions and newfound rules were very clear, though. Instead of attempting to make friends with the neighbors and playing out in the grass, dirt and concrete beneath the dim illumination of the aged hexlight that lay just at the end of our street, I would have to study. Hard.

“You’re giving up scraped knees for papercuts.” Is what they’d say to make me feel better when my skinny fingers had grown tired of constantly turning pages and attempting to make sense of words that even my above average mind couldn’t yet comprehend. On a particularly warm day when the glare of the sunlight showed itself through the window, I found myself entranced with the red-orange swirled horizon instead of the technological banter in front of me, and the possibility of what lay beyond the walls of the only place I’d ever known captivated me like no other feeling ever had.

I wanted to be out there more than anything.

“Ezreal.”

The sound of my name was like an unexpected clap of thunder, and my small form quickly whipped around to face the textbook, again and at one point, I fantasized that it was the book itself that had spoken to me, but I’d know my father’s stern tone anywhere. I wrinkled my lips and shrank back, waiting for the inevitable.

“Please stop looking outside, Ezreal. You know why you have to do this, right? You’re a prodigy. Act like one. Your education is costing us good gold and the sooner you apply yourself and realize your potential, the better it’ll be for everyone.”

I didn’t know what this word, “potential,” was. But it sounded neat. I rolled the word over and over again in my head, considering what letters went where in its spelling. Potential.

“Potential.” I repeated out loud, nodding my tousled blonde head as I fingered the word of the book I’d stopped at, my eyes brightening with a soft, golden hue; a side-effect of the magic that lay running within my veins alongside the blood. When my father left the room, with a yawn, I’d continue to sneak peeks through the window, each glance checking to see how far the sun had gone down since I last looked. I still wanted to be outside, but wondering what was beyond the glistening white towers of Piltover wasn’t going to help me reach my potential.

I continued studying dutifully in the best ways I possibly could over the next two years, but it didn’t take long before I soon became restless, and my mind would always revert back to subjects that were far, far more interesting. I didn’t have a word for this particularly warm feeling that had settled itself in the pit of my stomach, but as I grew older, I discovered it.

Wanderlust.

It was this lust for wander that had compelled me to begin scribbling onto that sheet of paper that my instructor had thrown away, and it was also what caused me to once again start doodling instead of taking notes or focusing on what was being said in the classroom. The stale words seemed drowned out by the wondrous and vibrant images that took shape in my imagination, and I daydreamed of being somewhere else. Somewhere dark and full of danger. Somewhere unknown that had been quietly itching to be discovered. I dipped the end of my pen into the ink and started making one full line down, but before I even finished the first stroke, the instructor was back, his eyes showcasing that the last of his patience had been drained away.

“If you’re not going to pay attention, Mister Forcher, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Again.” He said, and I could feel the eyes of the other students, particularly those of the much older ones, burning into every piece of me like small branding irons. Some were apathetic, but most were annoyed. Confused. Angry. Possibly even moreso than the instructor himself. Because they didn’t understand how someone as apparently gifted as I was wouldn’t take advantage of the situation that I’d been dealt. I did not speak my response, and instead, I gathered up the leather satchel that had been slung over the back of my chair and departed the room in silence, hungry for the fresh air that would greet me outside of the stuffy walls.

The door clicked behind me, and I could hear the expected sigh from behind it, and then more words. Words that I had absolutely no desire to hear. I started walking, counting the number of times my boots crunched on the leaves as I made my way to my favorite place in the entire esteemed techmaturgical academy; a rock beneath a tree with a weather-stained bench surrounding it. Flopping my satchel atop the bench, I dug my fingers into the pockets and produced a tiny, spiral-bound book with a piece of charcoal hanging from a string attached to the center of the spine. This book was blank, aside from an assortment of sketches that I’d drawn from various areas around the campus. Since I wasn’t doing any assigned work, drawing and sketching was how I preferred to pass my time at school.

Despite my young age, I wasn’t an idiot. I’d stopped officially doing work weeks ago, and it was only a matter of time before my parents found out. I had to tell them eventually, though, that I wasn’t sure that this whole prodigy thing was really for me. When I had done the work that was expected of me, it was forced and passionless, but I’d always assumed that one day I’d realize that this was what life had in store for me. That I’d learn to love and appreciate it. But instead, every textbook I’d ever received had just made me more listless and bored.

I raised my head and took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the spring-laced oxygen. It felt cool, warm, clean, and dusty all at once. I sneezed with force, and following that, the metaphorical hunger in my stomach pleaded to be noticed as though it had physically punched me. I swallowed hard, then looked down at the sketch I’d been absentmindedly creating with the sharpened end of my charocal. It wasn’t a fantastic sketch by any means. All it was was a crude likeness of one of the leaves that had been sitting there before I’d even made the walk to the bench and invaded its personal space.

I could draw rocks and hallways and leaves all day if I wanted. Despite every leaf looking different, the overall environment was the same. And it, unfortunately, was one that I already knew. I took another breath, and then closed the sketchbook, letting the wind ruffle my hair as though it were comforting me from the troubling thoughts that were bubbling inside me. I closed my eyes, allowing it to soothe me.

Then I looked toward the sky and realized that this was never going to get better. I just simply didn’t have the drive for science like so many other Piltovians did, and I couldn’t just choose to ignore it, could I? Maybe I could. It wasn’t too late to start doing assigned work again and actually making an attempt to pay attention in lectures. I was only seven. I had a lot of time ahead of me, didn’t I? Surely I’d figure it out when the time arose, and at this point, it was probably better to just not say a thing.

My imagination caused my father’s voice to touch the sensitive insides of my ears as though it were being carried on the breeze, and my muscles bunched up beneath my skin as though an icy chill had just overcome my small body. “Your education is costing us good gold.”

I put the sketchbook back into my satchel, slipped it over my shoulder, and soundlessly crept away from the bench, heart lightly fluttering in my throat. The last thing I wanted to do was the walk of shame all the way back to the classroom that I’d been kicked out of, so that only left one other place: the university library. No, I couldn’t go there, either. Libraries were quiet, and being surrounded by silence would only make my own thoughts louder, which was something that I most definitely did not want.

If I didn’t go to the library, the only choice left was home. Maybe if I slowed my stride enough, I’d arrive there at the same time I would if I’d gone to class and no one would suspect a thing. No, that was stupid. I’d almost forgotten it was still morning, and it wouldn’t take more than an hour for me to get back, even if I avoided using the small city paths that I’d discovered that cut the already short time in half. I’d always been good at finding directional shortcuts even when the route was already easy, but I of course had no idea how this would influence my life until a great bit later.

Again, I was internally conflicted, and I blew air out of my lungs in such a way that if anyone were around, they would have seen how intensely frustrated I was, which would prompt the more curious ones to ask why a child was seemingly so stressed. Venting to a stranger sounded nice and all, but everyone around here knew who I was, and if I’d openly shared what was ailing me, I had no doubt it would get back to my parents in some way, and that was a risk that I couldn’t afford to take.

I raised my blue eyes toward the sky that almost perfectly mirrored the shade and set off without a direction in mind, my small hand clutching to the strap of my satchel to keep the weight steady across my meek shoulder. I had no idea where I was going or where I’d end up, but the thought of getting lost had always been somehow comforting. Besides, I was pretty sure I knew how to get back to the university from any place in the entire city. Considering how tall the glistening argent pillars of the entrance were, it would really be hard to miss, even from a distance. Before long, I’d passed said pillars and came into the sight of returning students whom were ascending the steps in an almost synchronized manner, and I could see the way their eyebrows raised upon seeing me.

I lowered my head and brushed through them as though they were invisible and continued my trek, though their whispers were louder than I think they’d intended them to be.

“Shouldn’t he be in class right now? That kid’s gonna flunk.”

“He’s never in class.”

“I wonder why? Maybe he has a tutor at home?

“I don’t know. No one really d-…”

Part of me still thinks that to this day, they’d done that on purpose to get my attention and to possibly gather some information about my recent lack of attendance in the classroom, but I guess I can add it to the list of things I’ll never really know or have an answer for. All I could really do now was hope that they wouldn’t tell or that a teacher or someone of importance wouldn’t see me leaving the campus. I raised my head and darted my gaze left to right. A bird trilled in the distance. All clear as far as I could see.

For some reason, this made me grin. I remember the muscles in my cheeks turning up and me being unable to get rid of it. Maybe it was a good thing. Frowning would just draw more outward attention to the conflict within, right? If I looked happy, no one would ever suspect anything. That is, unless they too realized that I was supposed to be in class at this hour like any other typical student. I breathed in, feeling the air stretch my lungs, and then my feet were moving again, carrying me away from the university like a big burly savior, but this time, it wasn’t just a walk.

It was a sprint.

I still don’t know why I briskly moved as though a beast had been chasing me, but by the time I got to the next street over, my mouth was open and I was panting, my cheeks flushed with a dark coral tint. On the opposite side of the concrete sidewalk, I could see fellow Piltovians standing around and the distant chatter of what was probably an attempt at meaningful conversation, but my focus was swiftly drawn elsewhere. I’d been down this street a number of times before, but I’d never noticed that far off in the distance to the right there seemed to be an area that looked, well…closed off.

I squinted. It wasn’t new, and I’d realized that. The shadowy area had been there the entire time. But why had I never felt so compelled to look over there until this very moment? It didn’t make sense, but then again, I’d never had the best attention span, and really, I still don’t. Wrinkling my nose, I began a steady stride once more, wondering if anybody would see me, a child to normal eyes, attempting to enter what was possibly a forbidden and dangerous area. There weren’t any signs telling me to keep out, though, so I assumed it was alright.

Regardless, I flattened myself against the aged brick wall, holding my breath as though making any noise at all would cause me to burst into flames and then fade into nothingness. I took one step forward, then another, almost as though I was floating toward the darkness and acting like it was a bright beacon instead of a dreary shroud. My shoe crunched on the cracked, uneven cement, and I realized right then that whatever was over here had been there so long that the floor was literally crumbling.

I couldn’t see past the darkness, of course, but I could somewhat make out what looked like a really large circle in the back corner. A hole? Or a covering for a hole? At the current distance I was at, I couldn’t tell. But I wanted to know. Needed to know. I took another step against the crumbling ground, but the sound of gravel separating beneath me was drowned out by the loud gasp that had abruptly slid down my throat and the feeling of being flung back by my collar. The world spun for a few seconds before I realized what had happened and whipped around, my eyes wide with surprise. Someone had stopped me from venturing onwards. Someone had tugged me back into the light of the City of Progress.

I opened my mouth to speak, but the man got there before I did.

“Now just what on Runeterra did you think you were doing over there, young man?” the tall stranger asked me, his lips pressed together into a tight frown and his arms crossed to his chest. He seemed huge. Towering, even. But it’s not like that was really a feat when it came to being compared to me. I knew I should probably be scared by a dark-haired menace, but I wasn’t. At all. In fact, I crossed my arms right back at him, though my motions weren’t as fluid considering I had the weight of my satchel on my shoulder.

“Exploring.” I answered simply, suddenly realizing with each passing second that maybe this stranger wasn’t as old as I’d first assumed he was. Tall, yes, but he had a boyish face and a youthful physique. Teenager, I decided. Not grown up. Possible threat, regardless, though. “I was gonna explore that shadowy place over there. What’s over there? Do you know?”

There was no harm in asking, right?

The young man rolled his eyes, then looked over me and narrowed his icy blue gaze into slits, behaving as though he too had known all about the mysterious area in the close distance but had never really thought about what exactly it was. He put a gloved hand to his smooth chin and lightly rubbed, his voice vibrating with a low hum as he pondered, pulling his thoughts between what whether it was right to indulge me or simply leave me to wonder. He then turned toward me, and his face softened, making him look even younger.

“They say that the tunnels of ancient Piltover before it became civilized are down there. No one’s ever gone down into the sewers to take a look, though, so I don’t know if it’s true.” He said, his broad shoulders rising and then quickly falling again as he shrugged, arms still crossed. “It’s honestly probably just an old city rumor. Nothing a kid your age should be concerned with, and definitely not something you should be trying to get into. You could have fallen down and gotten seriously hurt, you know.”

His gaze hardened again, and I pursed my lips, then snorted. Really, it was a terrible thing this young man had done, giving me this kind of information. My already intense curiosity was suddenly severely heightened, and I hoped it wasn’t evident on my face. I wrinkled my nose, trying not to smile.

“Are you gonna be called a hero then? For savin’ me even though I didn’t really even do anything or get hurt? I was just lookin’, honest!” I said, putting my small palms up toward him as though surrendering for a terrible crime. My neck was starting to ache from where my shirt’s collar had been violently pressed against it during my “rescue”, but I didn’t think it would be enough to leave any sort of mark. Boy, would that have been hard to explain.

The dark-haired teen smiled and I could see his straight teeth were a flawless, pearly white. He certainly looked like a hero, and I wondered if it were true. My eyes must have become as round as a supper saucer or something, because he laughed, and then reached forward to place his large hand atop my flaxen head, rubbing it as though he had known me for years and this was simply a thing that we’d both come to know and expect from the other.

“Maybe. Though I don’t think anyone was around to see my so-called heroic deed.”

I glanced around the young man to see that his words were true. How was it possible that there had been so many people walking around just minutes prior and now it was only the two of us as far as the average eye could see? I certainly hadn’t gone out that far, had I? Unless I horribly misjudged the distance between the civilized street and the darkened corner and was so entranced I’d paid no mind to just how far I’d walked.

I turned my focus back up to the teenager and shrugged, absentmindedly adjusting the strap on my satchel; a habit I was sure to never break. “Good. I’m gunna go back now, then. Won’t be goin’ over here again. Too dangerous, like you said. Don’t wanna get any scraped knees or look for any gross underground tunnels.” What a lie. I brushed past the other boy’s shoulder when I felt the pressure of a hand atop my own, rightfully stopping me. I turned around again, my thin brows furrowed and my expression visibly annoyed.

“You’re really weird.” The teenager said. “Like…really, really weird. I have no idea why a kid your age would even be out here alone in the first place. Much less want to explore something that not even the Piltover protection force will touch without bare hands. What’s your name, anyway? Are you lost? Can I help you get back?”

He looked so suddenly concerned at the possibility that I’d become separated from my parents that I would have felt bad giving him the silent treatment (or lying, really), so I cleared my throat with a small cough before looking up at him once again. Man, he was tall. Even back then, it seemed almost ridiculous just how much height difference there was between us even with the gap in our ages. I huffed, then shook my head side to side, causing strands of light blonde to obscure my vision.

“Name’s Ezreal. And I’m not lost.” I said, my foot slipping back a bit to shake off some of the small bits of dirt that I’d collected on my shoe during my brief venture into the shadows. It wasn’t much. In fact, I would have liked if they’d gotten even dirtier in the midst of my stint. Something about sullying those pristine-looking leather lace-ups was incredibly satisfying. “I was just exploring like I said. And I’m okay! So I’m gunna go back now.”

Something about his tilted head and tension-ridden jawline told me that he’d stopped paying attention to everything I’d said immediately after learning my name, and pinpricks of tension formed in the pit of my belly. Adrenaline throbbed in the back of my neck, and I pondered if running would be a wise thing to do. Why did I tell him my real name? Why didn’t I just lie? It probably would have been a lot easier, considering the teenager now looked as doubly concerned as he did just a few seconds prior to learning that little tidbit.

“Ezreal. The prodigy Forcher boy? The kid that was enrolled at the techmaturigal university at age five?” he asked, spilling the information regarding my young life all over the ground as though it were a handful of small rocks. I bit down on my lip, and if my young mind had known any curse words back then, I surely would have whispered them to myself instead of standing in guilty silence. I inhaled softly, but I was soon cut off by the teen continuing to speak.

“Do you know what time it is? Shouldn’t you be in class? I mean…” He looked down at the rust-colored hexwatch that adorned his thick wrist, but it ended up being upside down, causing him to groan out in frustration as he twisted his arm the other way to right it. “Ten in the morning. Seventeen minutes past the hour. Lectures are in session for most university students right now, and yet I found you out here, trying to get into trouble.” He continued, maneuvering his other hand to press it to my forehead beneath my fringe, feeling for a temperature. “You, uh…you sick, kid? Little warm, there.”

“Magic.” I said, slapping his hand away from me with a weak fist. “Always got a temperature. Mom says it’s because of the magic I was born with or something. I don’t feel sick, though!” I chirped, wondering why I kept talking to this young man when he seemed to know everything else regarding me and my business aside from the fact I was warmer to bare touch than a non-mage would be. He nodded, then gave a thoughtful hum, seemingly satisfied. “Oh, right. I forgot about that. The papers just said you were apparently a genius and seemed to focus on it more than anything else. I forgot about the magic, too. That’s a rarity around here, you know? You should be happy, Ezreal.”

And I should be in school.

“…and in school right now! I’ll walk you back. How about it?”

Called it.

Arguing was futile since he not only knew who I was but also spoiled the fun that I was hopefully going to have in the mysterious dark corner, so I just limply shrugged, which he quickly took as an approval to start walking back in the general direction that I came from, seemingly knowing the way back to the university. I really didn’t want to go back to school, but what choice did I have? At least he didn’t seem like someone who would tell my parents, or anybody, really, about my absence in the classroom and the streak for danger that I seem to have developed in a matter of minutes. I quietly started to follow (quite literally) in his shadow, when he abruptly turned around, almost whacking me in the head with the point of his elbow.

I had never been pleased with my small height until that very moment.

“I’m Jayce, by the way.” He said, finally introducing himself, and to finally have a name to match the face made me feel a little better, but I still couldn’t help but resent him for both putting a dent in my curiosity but also heightening it to levels that I never even thought were possible. Why didn’t the Piltover protection force go down under the city’s ground? Why did the alleged tunnels only have to be a rumor? What if there actually was nothing down there at all and our plane of existence was above a mass of dirt? Or worse, air. Would the city eventually collapse in on itself and become nothingness? Would we become the tunnels?

My head felt like a cyclone with so many questions blowing around in it, but I was at least able to find my voice again before it became apparent that something far more interesting than introductions was taking precedence over everything else. I once again readjusted my satchel strap and forced a smile, but since I couldn’t see it, I’m sure it probably came off as extremely awkward. Despite my youth, I rarely had a true, real smile, and even back then, I knew that was kind of depressing. But, hey, what else could you look like when you’d been forced to study boring textbooks day in and day out?

“Hi, Jayce!” I squeaked, the high, grating pitch causing my face to flush with undisguised embarrassment. Making myself sound deeper would just seem weird and unnatural, though, so I continued on like nothing had happened. Jayce, though, didn’t seem to notice how I sounded and instead just grinned right back at me, and I wondered if maybe what I’d heard was completely different than what he’d heard. I’d hoped so. “Thanks for savin’ me, I guess.”

I wasn’t really thankful for it, but he didn’t need to know that, right?

“No problem.” He answered, tone proud and beaming as though this had been his intention from the start. Maybe it had. Maybe he’d secretly been following me out of boredom and now was making it his self-proclaimed duty to save naïve Piltovian kids that could possibly end up in trouble or bad areas. I could just see him now running back to his home after depositing me back at the university and fashioning himself a spandex onesie with a bathroom towel attached to it. I wanted to laugh out loud at the thought, but then he’d notice and I’d have to tell him, so instead I just bit the insides of my cheeks.

“You should just try not to give into your curiosities like that again, though. The last thing the City of Progress wants is to find out one of their brightest kids got hurt doing something stupid and unavoidable. Your parents wouldn’t be too happy either!”

They’re never happy, anyway, I wanted to say, but my cheeks were still being crushed between my upper and lower rows of teeth, the pressure becoming increasingly painful the longer I held them. It was much more fun when I was trying to avoid laughing. Now I was avoiding speaking altogether, for good reason. I was suddenly conflicted with this thought. Had my parents always acted so unhappy toward everyone and everything? Or was it me myself that made them unhappy? Had they always been so strict? Or did having a so-called prodigy for a son cause an abrupt change in the way they lived everyday life?

Too many questions for too young a mind. Even despite the sharpness of my intellect, these were things that I certainly didn’t want to bother myself with, though I knew that it would eventually be inevitable.

Sometimes I really hated having so many inquiries.

Quietly, we continued walking, though I could tell that Jayce was itching for conversation that he more than likely wasn’t going to get out of me. It seemed really odd that someone like him had been out wandering around in the morning hour and just happened to be in the same place I had been. Didn’t he have friends he could bother or something? He looked like the popular type of guy that had never been left needing attention in his life, constantly surrounded by praise and adoration by peers, teachers, adults in general, anyone.

I glanced up and was greeted by the towering white pillars of the university in the distance, catching the rays of spring sun, and I shivered inside, thinking about how close it was but also comforted by the warmth of it also being far enough to have to squint to see clearly. Really, I had walked a fairly great distance for the timeframe I’d been missing, and I wondered how far I could really go if I put my mind to it. I had no concept of how long I’d walked prior or even now. My legs just seemed to move on their own even with unwanted companionship. I knew I could stand to be a tad more observant of my surroundings and observant of details in general though. Like doing a sketch, but ingraining it within my eyes and mind instead of on a piece of parchment with a stick of charcoal.

“So…”

Jayce’s deep voice broke through my thoughts. Again. This was becoming an annoying habit. I looked up at him for a split second to let him know I’d heard him, then focused on our melding shadows on the concrete as they swayed with our walk. It was funny how the dark reflections seemed to be the same size despite us being not even close. Light tricks. Weird.

“Hm?” I answered, knowing my split-second glance probably wasn’t enough to let him know I was aware and that he needed an audible cue. I could sense the danger, but I was braced for it, a feeling that would someday become the bane of my godsdamned existence.

“Are you ever going to tell me why you ran away from the campus?”

Yeah, danger. Definitely heading into dangerous territory. Young me might have not had as great of a cognitive grasp as older me does, but I’d never, ever been an idiot. Ever.

“Nope.” I mumbled, refusing to look up again. Why should I tell him? He was still a stranger, for all I knew. He had no business asking me something like that and actually demanding an answer. Then again, he also had no business interrupting my curiosity and quote-unquote saving me. Big jerk.

“Oh, okay. Are you going to do it again?” A pause, then an exhale. He seemed to be searching his internal dictionary for the right thing to say. It took a few seconds, but he apparently found it, the continuation trickling out like a steady stream of water that had come to an abrupt end. “…do I need to be on the lookout? Just in case you get into trouble? I really don’t want to see your face on the papers for anything other than some sort of prodigy thing, if that makes sense.”

“Nope.” I lied. Probably the biggest one I’d ever told in my life thus far. But I couldn’t have him following me around even as a preventive measure, could I? Even now, I still wasn’t certain that he was going to tell my parents, though he never gave any clues that he knew their names or where even to find them, so I figured at least in terms of that, I was as safe as I possibly could be. Still, I thought he might have needed more convincing, so I continued to speak, hammering in the false truth like a nail in a plank. “Not gunna do it again.”

“Good.” Jayce answered soon after, satisfied finally by my lie. I’d never thought of myself as a fantastic liar, but perhaps he assumed that I’d had a glimpse of the danger and wouldn’t dream of getting myself into something as potentially unfavorable as trying to figure out whether or not there actually were tunnels under the city. I put on my best, most thoughtful grin, and continued walking with a spring in my step, feigning excitement about getting back to school when in actuality, I had all intentions of going back to see what the mysterious unknown had for me. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not a week or a month from now.

But someday.

By that point, the university was in plain view, and Jayce gave my tousled head a gentle pat before he turned on his heel and made his departure. I waved to him, but his back was toward me, and I wondered if whether or not I’d ever see him again. It seemed unlikely considering Piltover’s large population of both humans as well as yordles, but something told me that he was going to keep an eye out for me regardless of me saying I’d never wander off toward what was deemed a dangerous place ever again. I gazed up toward the ivory pillars and slowly ventured back onto the campus.

One day, I thought. I had a personal motive and something that finally mine and only mine to work and strive toward.

If I believed in myself enough, I could make it happen.

I could make anything happen.

Something happened to me after my brush with the possible underground tunnel system, and I don’t think it’s something that anyone was expecting. If you can believe it, I actually started going to classes again and diligently completing any and all work that had been assigned to me. Yeah, I know. Crazy, right? I still wasn’t the most talkative student in any of my lectures, but the instructors honestly didn’t care so long as I kept turning work in. The load off my back was comfortable, but if anything, it was just a very potent distraction from the things that were really captivating to me. Honestly, this sudden spurt in my academic career was probably just something good to draw my attention to while I attempted to swallow down the urge to slip away from my seat and make my way back to that darkened corner of the City of Progress to debunk the mystery of what was beneath the concrete once and for all.

The work I completed was as passionless as it had ever been, but every test was returned to me with a perfect score. Every assignment flawlessly completed. At one point, I imagined that I’d get so sucked into techmaturgical studies that I’d eventually forget about what I might possibly find outside the same four walls of a classroom, but I knew in my heart that this would never be the case. I wouldn’t deny, however, that it felt great to not be reprimanded every single goddamn day by both parent and instructor alike, and as my eighth year came to pass, I wondered how long it would take before my urges broke me.

In the weeks following my birthday, the adrenaline that pumped inside my veins alongside the blood and magic seemed to push me toward a new course, and one day, in the midst of a break during my morning lecture, I gathered up my books and notes inside my satchel and headed off toward the front of the university campus, knowing that this was the day I’d both been hoping and dreading for.

I was going to find out what was under the city. And no one was going to stop me. I hadn’t seen Jayce again since our first meeting, and I hoped that there was a chance that he’d forgotten all about me by now, though that seemed too good to be true. I pressed my back against one of the pillars and inhaled, keeping my air safely locked away in my lungs as though I was hoarding it for the winter, and then took off in a rush, the wind I’d made with my run stroking through my blonde locks. From the left and right, eyes of wondering fellow students burned into me, but at least no one would think my leaving was too suspicious, considering this was around the usual time that classes had a short pause during a long lecture.

A half-hour was never enough in my opinion.

I moved with such a pace that it was almost like there was grease stuck to the soles of my shoes and I was skating across the ground, but hopefully it didn’t look quite so obvious to the other people that were around me. I knew I was being stared at, but this wasn’t a particularly new occurrence, considering I was still and probably would always be the youngest person enrolled in the university. I swallowed hard and tensed as though someone was about to scoop me up into their arms and force me back between the pillars, but nothing happened. I had made it outside once again, and now my gaze was darting left to right as I scanned the fastest route to get to the corner with hopefully the least amount of people.

Left. I should go to the left. And I had to keep an eye out, just in case Jayce decided to pop out of the woodwork and meddle. Again. I briefly wondered if I should have fashioned myself some kind of disguise before attempting to trek out toward the area that had so captivated me, but I was already on my way, and it was a bit too late. I wasn’t the only person in Piltover with vibrant gold hair, but it sure as hell made me stand out. Especially when the sun was high in the sky and casting its warm glow on the entirety of the city. I nearly tripped over a crack in the concrete, and only then is when I finally slowed my stride. Walking too fast was sure to garner more attention, anyway, and I instead took to walking at a normal pace, though my lips were still parted to allow my heavy breathing in and out with ease until that too dissipated into a slow, steady pattern.

Inside my chest, though, my heart was beating like jackhammer against my ribs, with little to no intention of stopping. Would someone be there to catch me? Would they stop me like Jayce had a few months prior? I scanned the streets for real threats, but none were detected, and I once again stole a breathy inhale before taking off in a burst of speed, gripping the strap of my satchel tightly to reduce the amount of noise the metallic buckle would make as it smacked against my hip while I ran. There were people in the distance. Of course there were people, and I’d have to take care to not make myself look like I was so obviously up to no good.

Was simply being curious really worthy of getting negative attention, though? I had no answer, and I continued my pace of running and then walking. Walking and then running. A stop-start pattern intended to get me toward my goal without one or the other drawing too much focus on myself. Soon, I saw it. The darkened corner of the City of Progress that had been on my mind from the very second I’d seen it. Taking care and knowing to expect the cracked ground this time, I crept through the dusty fog and then pressed myself against the brick wall, holding my breath. The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I braced myself for either Jayce or someone else to once again play hero and stop me from accomplishing my personal task, but as I slowly expelled the air from my lungs in an invisible line, I realized that no one was coming. No one was around. No one was going to see me or stop me this time. I couldn’t help the sly grin that had stretched my lips as I carefully waded through the shadows and into the farthermost corner, looking down at the hole in the ground that seemed utterly endless and dreary. Not that I could really see much of what was there, anyway, but I was willing to take that risk. Of course, I couldn’t just simply jump down into the hole without knowing there was either something to grab or land on. At best, it would cause both of my legs to be broken, and at worst, I’d meet my end at the very bottom of an endless hole.

At least my parents would never see my body that way.

I took a step forward and crouched down, knowing the knees of my black pants would be incredibly dirty as a result of all the dust and cobwebs adorning the corner I’d burrowed myself into. I didn’t care, though. Dirt and dust was honestly the least of my worries at this point, and I thrust my hand down into the hole, throwing all caution and hesitation to the wind. I blinked, feeling something hard brush my small fingers. Hard and lined. Wood? Old wood. I moved my hand to the right and gripped. Rope. Rope and wood.

A ladder.

There was a ladder.

My heart leaped with undisguised joy as my smile stretched even farther, and I couldn’t help the small giggle that had crept up my throat and expelled out through my lips. I quickly silenced myself, not wanting my happiness to bounce off the walls of the aged, ebony brick and possibly into the ears of someone or something unfavorable. There was another dilemma of course, though. I’d felt the ladder, but I had no idea how far it went down. By this point I’d already leaned forward a bit more and pressed my hands lower, feeling that there was indeed at least two more pieces of wood, but that wasn’t really a straight answer. The only solution was to either try to find out myself, or to come back another day with some sort of light source.

I didn’t know if I’d be lucky enough to come back with no one stopping me another day, so I already knew the answer. I had to try to get down there myself. I wasn’t scared, no. Fear had always had a difficult time gripping my throat and it wasn’t about to suddenly get stronger. I had mentally weighed the pros and cons, and as of right then, there had definitely far more pros. Besides, what would I do if I didn’t go down there? Go back to school? Over my more than likely dead body.

I swallowed hard, then breathed the dusty air into my lungs and congratulated myself for not coughing and causing an attention-seeking ruckus. I maneuvered myself to begin the downward descent into the hole, my tiny hands shaking as they gripped the old rope. Could it hold me? Would it hold me? Was Jayce right? Would my name and face really end up in the Piltover papers if something terrible happened to me? Surely they didn’t care that much. At least, not when I was doing something not school related.

I pressed my foot against the first block of wood and hesitated before pressing the second one down, my knuckles turning white with the effort in which they gripped the rope. If the blocks gave way, would I be able to pull myself up to safety? Should I scream for help and give away my plan? Should I quietly accept death?

These were not questions that a child should ever have to think about, but yet, there I was, eight years old, attempting to disappear under the city that had raised me in order to possibly extract its treasures.

My grip loosened a bit when I discovered that the ladder apparently could carry my weight without giving away, and I gave a small sigh of content before slipping my hands down the rope, intending to descend to the next step. And the next. With each passing second, more of my uncertainty fell away, and as the moist, metallic smell of whatever was underground permeated my nostrils and the hole that lead back up to the outside grew farther and farther away, I knew what the word for what I was feeling inside was.

Courageous. I was being courageous.

At least until I realized that there were no more wooden blocks for me to put my foot on for support. I had grown so accustomed to the feeling of something there to hold my weight, and when I felt nothing but air beneath me, I couldn’t help but let out a small yelp. There I was, in complete and total darkness, hands gripped to an old rope that would probably eventually snap, without any knowledge of what was beneath me.

Even to this day, I’m not sure how I did it.

I held my breath, then let go of the rope and hoped for the best. My heart stuttered in my chest for a few beats before I realized that the ladder did go all the way to the bottom. I was safe. Unharmed. Though I had no idea what the bottom was. Or what it even looked like. I knelt down in the blackness and graced the surface of the ground with my fingers, my sense of touch incredibly heightened with my lack of vision. It felt like concrete, but much smoother. And colder. Metal, perhaps? Metal and dirt. That squishy softness was definitely dirt.

I got back up on my feet and felt for the ladder, finding it almost instantly. I gripped it in my right hand, holding tightly to it.

“Hello?” I spoke into the blackness, noticing immediately that my voice became a garbled, echoing mess that almost grated the sensitive skin of my ears. Whatever this was, it wasn’t at all a narrow, suffocating crevice. Considering that I was still answering my own greeting, I concluded that it was huge and open. A hall, perhaps. And if that was true, how could something so hollow be supporting our city beneath it? It didn’t make any sense.

Maybe it didn’t go as far as I thought? It wasn’t like I could see anything.

“Hello!” I called out again, this time louder than before, and the noise once more reverberated on the walls and right back into my own head. I might not have had use of my eyes, but after that time, I knew that my surroundings were far bigger than I could have ever imagined. Miles long, maybe. But miles of what?

I needed to know. I needed to come back down here with some source of bright light. But what on Runeterra would be big enough? A hextech flashlight wouldn’t cut it. Not at all. A lantern might work better, but that would only let me see what was a few feet in front of me at best. It would be easy to come by one, though, considering that the Arcanum at the university had them, and no one would think twice about me borrowing one, so that seemed to be my best bet, and at this point, I was going to take whatever I could get. I exhaled and I swore I could see my breath, and that’s when I realized just how cold it was down there in the middle of nothingness. Wearing a scarf in the beginning of spring wasn’t exactly common, but I’d definitely need one for a venture down here. Or even a jacket.

As much as I wanted to stay below the surface, I knew that I couldn’t be down in the dark forever, no matter how comforting it was. I was already late for class again, anyway, effectively tarnishing my perfect record over the last few months. Using my sense of touch and nothing else, I hastily gripped the rope and began dragging myself up the wood blocks until the small circle of light grew bigger and bigger. Refusing to pause to look back down into the depths, I scurried out of the hole and squinted hard, the pain of the sudden brightness impaling both of my eyes. Despite the discomfort, I was grinning. Hard.

Now that I’d known that it was safe (for the most part) to go down there, nothing would stop me from going back.

And tomorrow seemed like as good of a day as any.

I wiped the telltale dust off the knees of my pants and the length of my shirt and jacket and hoped for the best before bouncing back toward the university, hoping it was unlikely that anyone would say anything about my disheveled appearance. I knew that would be giving them far too much credit, though.

For the rest of the day, I sat quietly in my seat, scheming and dreaming of my future career as a brave explorer and guru of the mysterious Piltovian underground. I was lucky, I suppose. No one, including my parents when I arrived home, noticed anything different regarding my demeanor or the fact I was still covered in dust. What was noticeable, though, was that the very next day, I had awoken before the sun had even shown its face through my windows, and I raced down the stairs already prepped and ready for school as though I’d been waiting for the moment my entire life.

My father had awoken with the noise of my hurried stomps and demanded to know why I’d made such a ruckus, his blue eyes so reminiscent of my own burrowing into my face as though trying to force an answer out of me with one single look. Was that where I got it from? Another ugly lie crawled up out of my throat, but I continued smiling, trying to look as excited as possible when talking about school even though the very thought made my belly sour.

“I’m gunna go study! Bright and early! Gotta take a test.” I spoke, nodding my head up and down almost to the point I’d made myself dizzy. My father looked confused as he raised his hand to his chin, lightly stroking his index finger across the stubbled skin, but then his gaze ceased to be narrow, and he reached forward to stroke his palm across my head. It reminded me of Jayce, which I wasn’t sure was normal or not. I just couldn’t remember the last time my father had shown any affection toward me at all, and this secretly disgusted me.

I had to lie to him just to get some affection? Bullshit. Always was and always would be.

“Alright, then, Ezreal. You should eat something, though. Can’t cram on an empty stomach.” My father said as he turned his back to me to get to the hexfridge in the corner of our small kitchen. He rummaged around it, muttering to himself as he did so, before presenting me with a couple of frosted biscuits in a thin plastic wrapping. Not the best or most nutritious breakfast at all, but frosted biscuits weren’t something I normally got, and it was far more exciting than the bland-tasting porridge I forced down my throat all the other days of the week.

“Thanks, dad!” I squeaked, taking the packet of biscuits in my small hand and running out the door, wondering how on Runeterra I didn’t at all feel guilty about lying to my father and essentially scamming sweet treats off of him. It wasn’t like I’d asked for them, though, right? He gave them to me, so I really shouldn’t have even felt bad in the first place. I brought one of the biscuits to my lips and obnoxiously bit into it, letting some of the frosting get stuck in the corners of my mouth as I watched the sun cast its familiar and comforting gold glow over the entirety of the City of Progress.

The yellowed hue, something that I’d never seen before since there was no possible way I’d ever been to school this early in the past, made the techmaturgical university look oddly warm and inviting, and if it wasn’t so damned stuffy inside, one would think I’d actually want to willingly go there to cram my head full of useless information that others deemed was apparently important for my future as well as the city’s future. Considering the sun had barely risen, it was a miracle that it was even open in the first place.

My shoes, a different, now clean pair, clacked against the smooth tiles of the hallway, and I clutched my satchel’s strap tightly to my chest, trying to imitate a busy and dedicated student as best as I could. My legs carried me to the Arcanum section of the university, and I pushed the oakwood door open with an offending-sounding squeak that caused my teeth to grit and goosebumps to trickle down the length of my spine. If that was the noise that happened every single time someone opened the goddamn door, it was no wonder I hardly saw anyone in this part of the school. At least the inside smelled nice. Leather and…charcoal? Huh. Weird.

I looked around and momentarily became frozen by the plethora of books that lay organized in neat rows atop many, many shelves, and I resisted the urge to run over to look through them in the hopes of finding something interesting, reminding myself of the reason that I’d even come here in the first place. Considering there was no one watching over the front desk, I supposed it would be alright if I took one of the lanterns myself without asking permission. If I were being technical, there was no one even around to ask for permission, so with a soft sigh, I ducked down behind the front desk and fished one of the lanterns out, surprised that there were so many in such a small place. Why were there so many? What good did lanterns serve in a place that already had so many hexlights strewn about?

I shrugged to myself and grasped the handle of the lantern tightly with one hand, then slinked away from the library without a single sound aside from the stupid squeaky door, which they never oiled, by the way. Pretty sure it’s still doing that even to this day.

It was some sort of otherworldly miracle that no one saw me not only take a lantern, but also take it far away from school grounds. In fact, no one seemed to notice me at all, and I had one moment of completely wondering if I’d somehow activated one of the magical spells from the Arcanum’s library and I’d become invisible. Wouldn’t that have been easy? I walked across the streets of Piltover with precision and determination, though I wasn’t unaware of the fact that Jayce could potentially pop out at any given moment and possibly stop me. Again. But I hadn’t seen him aside from that one time, and it was still relatively early enough that I expected a great majority of the city’s population to still be catching up on their beauty sleep. I moved in the same direction as the morning shadows did, mingling myself with the darkened areas to disappear within them and not give my position away. One thing was certain: by now I’d gotten very good at holding my breath and pressing myself into tight spaces, and I imagined that this would be a thing that would come in handy later.

Finally, I saw it. The darkened corner with the rickety old wood and rope ladder. I almost wanted to happily greet it as though it were an old friend, but I resisted, my eyes as sharp as they could be while I surveyed my surroundings, looking for any danger. And by danger, I meant people. Nothing. Good. I slung the lantern’s handle over my left shoulder and immediately bounded over to the hole, peering down into it. I wondered if using the lantern’s light now would be a good idea or not, but ultimately decided against it as I began to descend down into the hole once again, putting one cautious foot in front of the other.

The last piece of wood, or rather, the lack of the last piece of wood, still startled me despite my being prepared for it, though, and I gasped out into the darkness before letting go of the rope, the soles of my shoes echoing on the ground. I breathed in the blackness for a few seconds before sliding the lantern off my shoulder and hastily turning it on, though I can’t say I was prepared for what was about to be revealed.

The light blazed out from within the center of the lantern, and, to my surprise, nearly illuminated everything within a twenty-foot radius around me. At first I thought this was a normal occurrence considering just how dark it had been in the depths, but I soon realized that the lanterns in the Arcanum were not normal lanterns. They were enchanted lanterns, rich in illumination spells.

I was luckier than I thought, but I didn’t really have time to marvel over it as much as I would have liked, considering I nearly lost my grip the thing and felt the muscles in my jaw grow loose as my mouth dropped open in shock.

It wasn’t dirt or rock beneath me. It was metal. Metal tunnels. An underground system of abandoned, metallic tunnels that more than likely had pathways spilling out through the entirety of the entire city. Of course there was some rock and dirt in the corners and the sides, but otherwise, it was slick. Shining. Gleaming.

Jayce was right. It wasn’t just a rumor. They really existed. They were here. In front of me. Still, I pinched myself on the wrist just to make sure. It stung. I was awake.

And all of this was mine for the taking. I would be able to prove to the entire city that the tunnels existed. But then what? Would they discipline me for skipping school to quite literally hide underground? Would they congratulate me for doing something no one else had the courage to do? Would they praise me?

What about my parents? It seemed odd that I’d almost forgotten completely about them. Surely they’d be supportive of my endeavors no matter what, right, right? Even if it meant throwing everything away that I’d been working for for years already.

Oh, who was I kidding? They’d be pissed and I knew it. Oh well. Their loss.

[[ UNFINISHED FOREVER ]]

#ezreal #finalpost

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omgnsfwisnsfw-blog · 5 years

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15: Don’t Need Your Sympathy

John slowly began to open his eyes. He had learned by now that it was much wiser to squint through the light the fluorescent tubes brought forth. He rolled on his side and faced the white cement wall. The shade of paint was just as unforgiving as the lights above him. He traced a finger on the groove of the wall. He guessed it was morning. The slot in his door would open and they would slide in breakfast. John rolled over and swung his legs off the bed. His bare feet touched concrete floor and the chill was a jolt to the system. He raised his arms into the air and stretched while omitting a long yawn. John listened for the footsteps. They weren’t there. Not normal for him to deviate from his routine but stranger things have happened. He usually woke up just in time for the morning shift to begin. He shrugged. That’s alright. He got up. Stripped off his underwear. Relieved himself. Brushed his teeth in the sink built into the same stainless steel toilet he just used. He sequestered the previous day’s dirty laundry in a closed container under his bed. He looked into the bin right next it to find a stack of carefully organized clothing, retrieved them, and put on his clean underwear, white jumpsuit, and slippers. Still nothing. What time was it? That’s okay. He made his bed. It had to be just right. He stripped the non standard linens and pillows he’d earned as some pittance for good behavior. He examined them meticulously. He would make sure that they didn’t need be laundered along with his previous day’s clothing. After the bed was made to his satisfaction, John stood around with his hands on his hips. He was getting a little agitated now. Most likely due to hunger. “Hello?” He said pointlessly. Nothing. His mind recalibrated the list for the day. What’s next? He’d been reading Papillion. It resonated with him. It was laying on the floor beside his bed. Henri had just arrived at Devil’s Island when … “That makes no sense.” John said to no one. There was a small television set suspended high above and bolted to the corner of the cell. He had specifically refused this amenity. There was no need for it. TV dulled the mind and while to some that would be a welcome respite, it would be a reminder of something that he could never have. Hey, here’s your 7-day weather forecast. Remember your umbrellas, folks. It’s gonna rain cats and dogs out there. Here’s Scott with the latest sports highlights. “Hey, Johnny. You like your new toy?” John froze. Fighting through paralysis he craned his head downwards toward the grate at the foot of his toilet. Maybe if he stayed quiet… “I heard you flush. I heard you chatting it up with yourself. How we ever going to get along if you don’t communicate with me, boy?” The bones in his hand cracked as he tensed up and in the relative silence, it was easily heard. “That’s alright. Baby steps. Now let’s settle this out right. You know I’m dead, Johnny. Government made sure of that.” Sick sputtering laughter seeped out through the grate. “I ain’t an apparition. That’d be fuckin’ silly, boy. And I’m not you. What a twist that’d be, wouldn’t it? I says we were alike but I’d rather die than be a big fuckin’ dummy like you. Self-fulfilling prophecy, right?” The television suddenly turned on. Just snow. “Oh oh oh, the show’s bout to begin. Hold your britches, though, cause I got a bone to pick with you. Why you lying to that fuckin’ dyke? I open up to you. I bare my soul to you and you go and say that you don’t reciprocate. That’s callous, friend. That’s beyond reprehensible. Hey hey, tell me something. You get a tingle in your johnson the other night? That fuckin’ airhead had a point.” More laughter. “Creep Away! What a hoot n’ hollar she is. Although to be fair I was never much in the way of toleratin’ a woman’s mouth. My old lady, she loved jokes too but that hammer was the best punchline she ever done told. Fuckin’ hilarious!” John just stared blankly at the vent. Channel 2. He turned his gaze to the TV. The voice in the grate bellowed. “I like this show. Look at these two dum dums. You. Oblivious to the goings around you. Whoever the fuck. Making this much effort for a fuckin’ piece of cooz. Witness the intrepid adventures of these ignorant sons of bitches and lament in their fuckery.” Hands on 6 and 10. After the events of Monday night, John would have assumed that the party was off. That was the worst of him thinking that. He was hoping that they would use the time to convalesce. He couldn’t figure it out but prim and proper Natalie Young got him. He remembered the first interaction. A little moment at work. When he rebuffed a handshake, her withdrawal wasn’t one of indignation. She instead waved with a smile and John waved back. Then she shook Mike’s hand. That was before the glowing smile Mike exhibited as they weaved closer and closer to her abode. This was good, he thought. Mike blamed herself for letting Carlos sneak his way into the match. John countered that he was put out of commission himself. Duggan and Carlos stayed true their word. His body has been still aching from the tremendous effort it took to retain the television championship. He reiterated that they were a team and nothing would stop them. And now they could leave that in the rear view. John was starting to learn that the business had more benefits than just the obvious. He was starting to like some of the people he was meeting. There was Mike. There was Natalie. David texted with him every once in awhile and last time they debated on the effectiveness of the key lock. Mike read the exchange and her eyes seemingly glazed over but then she patted John on the back and acknowledged it with that warm grin. And while there was a twinge of resentment towards them, the new number one contenders to the tag team championships were still regarded highly by them both. And then there was that guy. As Mike yelled out one evening: the guy who likes to fuck. John didn’t get it. But he was kind enough. He was starting to see something that he never understood in the past. This was a brotherhood and now he was a part of it. Finally. “Hey.” Mike’s brows furrowed a bit as they looked up from fiddling with their phone. They looked mildly concerned. “You okay, bud? I can take the wheel for a while if you want.” It happened sometimes. John was right beside them, yet he seemed ten thousand miles away. They couldn’t help but wonder where he went, but perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to be wherever that was while driving. “Huh?” John liked driving. He was cautious at the power this car exhibited but at the end of the day, it did everything every other car he had driven, albeit a little better. Keep it between the lines. Use your left and right indicators. Be a courteous yet defensive driver. Eyes on the road.“I’m alright. You did all the driving last week. Only fair that I do my share.” “I don’t mind. You know me. Cars’re my fuckin’ life. Well, my life that ain’t wrestling.” They chuckled a bit, rolling their shoulders, one hand running idly along the edge of the crimson leather bucket seat. “You just seemed someplace else just then, thought you might be getting tired. We’ve been going a long time.” It would be a roadtrip of epic proportions and they’d packed for such- from Natalie’s place in North Carolina, they’d be making a serious trek for the opposite coast. The plan was to make good use of Route 66 to cut across the western half of the country, making a few stops at the vast assortment of quirky roadside attractions along the way. What fun is travel if you don’t make the most of it? “Just daydreaming, I guess.” The voice chortled, “Dreaming of me, Johnny. I dream of you every night. I thinks to myself: Is you as lovely as before?” “Might not want to while you’re driving if you can help it. I mean I know it’s a straight shot and there’s not much to look at but motherfuckin’ corn, but you never know what might jump outta nowhere. Deer, fuckin’ rabbits… kid cult members servin’ some fucking Lovecraftian bullshit… anyway. If you’re good, that’s cool, Just lemme know if you wanna switch.” John acknowledged that with a curt nod. More time passed in silence. These kind of silences were starting to seem okay. In these first road trips, they would grasp on something to discuss but now it seemed okay to just be in each other’s company. If something needed to be said, John and Mike would discuss it. “Been meaning to thank you for that whole arrangement you got for me. It was a nice touch.” “Aw, bud, you don’t need to thank me for stuff like that. It wasn’t no trouble. Like I said, the owner of the Vamp owed me a favor since I fixed his fuckin’ hearse. He said if we needed to use the place again during the day he’d let us do it for cheap, seeing as it’s a nighttime joint anyway. So we got that if’n you ever want to use the setting again.” He tapped a finger on the top of the steering wheel and shook his head. “Appreciate it. I think…”John sighed. “I think that took a lot out of me. I feel like something was going unchecked.” “It’s good to get stuff out like that sometimes though. Y’can’t carry that weight around forever or you’ll wind up getting fucking crushed.” They fiddled with the tattered brim of their ever present Mets cap and bit the inside of their cheek a bit, inwardly scolding themselves for the touch of hypocrisy. “Anyway. Speaking of which, you mind if I turn the camera on? We can talk about your match while you’re driving. If you don’t mind me fuckin’ sayin’ so, you really let Orianna have it. Not that she didn’t have it coming with the two-faced shit she was talking with her stupid little friend. I mean, we can wait till we stop if you’d rather do that.” “Good time as any.” Boisterous laughter intermixed with coughing. Coughing so harsh that John could hear the phlegm, “You know how much I love hearing you talk. Talk to me, Johnny. I’m all ears.” “No.” John had retreated to his bed. He sat as far away from the vent as could. The voice kept pulling his attention away from reality. “Ohhhh-wee, that’s the word I love to hear from you!” Mike framed John in the shot perfectly. In this sweltering heat, John and Mike alike had opted for matching NSFW tank tops. Just in time for the summer. Wear your own stuff. Sell, sell, sell. John’s biceps flexed as his white knuckle rigid style of driving was on full display. “Today is going to be a good day. I can’t speak for my partner but I had my fill of patriotic revelry Monday night. Mike?” “I have never in my fucking life seen a title belt explode like that. It was fucking GREAT.”John’s partner isn’t visible, being on the other side of the camera. However, her distinct voice, colorful language and all, is clearly audible. “That it was. We didn’t manage to get it done when it comes to the tag team title scene but Rome was not built in a day. NSFW is here to stay. And so is Natalie Young. I’m not going to repeat what she told us but someone had better watch out. But today, we got ourselves an old-fashioned ball to attend.” “Barbecue, bud. Not a ball. Remember? Miss Natalie said you try to wear somethin’ fancy and you’ll probably get barbecue sauce all over it… but knowin’ you, Mister Impeccable Fuckin’ Neatness, you’re not gonna get a drop on anything.” There’s a definite tone of fond amusement in Mike’s voice. “I swear it was. Nevermind that. Imagine the pageantry, Mike.” He cleared his throat. “So barbeque it is. Can’t wait to bite into a good ole’ veggie burger fresh from the grill.” “You’re such a romantic when it comes to fancy shit, you know that?” Though unseen, her smile is nigh audible in her tone of voice. “One of these days we’re gonna wind up in Vegas and it’s gonna be awesome. We can be a couple’a super swagtastic high rollers. But before that, oh my fuckin’ Christ. Pittsburgh to North Cacky-lacky, then all the way to Cally. This is the roadtrip legends are made of, Church. If we manage to make it coast to coast in this car without whaling on each other outta cabin fever, then nothing in this entire fucking world will ever tear us apart.” She laughed brightly. Obviously, any ill mood she had due to their loss had dissipated far before they packed up Alundra and hit the highway. “That’s right. Oakland, California. We got a long night in store for us but as my next challenger learned on Monday, I don’t make excuses. There is a new alliance to contend with and Mike? That’s great. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” “That’s alright. Every Coke has to have its Pepsi, I guess. Don’t get us wrong, Nos. You’re a good guy. Fun dude. We had a lot of fun blowing up Garcia’s stupid fake belt with you, and we totally appreciate the donation to the Trevor Project you made for lettin’ you buy the dumb thing from us. But man, we gotta call you out on your suspect choice of friends.” John nodded as if that were his cue. “Orianna Johnson for one. Let’s focus on that. With Lavender out of the equation, it’s just you and me. You have yourself another opportunity for the Television championship. I wish I had the same excitement that I did before. I touted you as possibly the future of this industry. Sure, I questioned your commitment to this business. After all, you’re only eighteen-years-old. Believe me, Orianna: when you opened your mouth, you lived up to every stereotype one could conjure up with that dismissive statement.” He shook his head as if to show his disappointment in his challenger’s recent antics. “And understand that I am not being dismissive of your skill. There is clearly the potential to live up those initial observations I had of you. There were moments in that bout where you were less than a second away from grabbing that brass ring. And so if that were the gist of it, I’d say that I was looking forward to this and wave goodbye. Good luck and best wishes.” John paused. There was no wave. Because this match is no longer seemingly about that for John Bishop Church. “But you opened your mouth. Your friend and you chose not to make this about the television championship.” Mike piped up. She was trying to keep her interjections minimal: after all, this particular part of the story wasn’t hers. Still, she just couldn’t help herself. “You two stupid giggling little hyenas just had to go and make this personal. Big fucking mistake.” “Undeniably there is power in words. And I heard you loud and clear. You view me as a charity case. You view me as that feel good story on the evening news. He did it. He redeemed himself. Orianna Johnson, for all of the tape you supposedly watch, you missed one thing: This isn’t about redemption. I am taking what is mine. I am the Television champion purely through my ability. Ruthann Hunter did everything to remain where she was and as you hopefully learned, it wasn’t enough. The thing is, she met me in that ring as a warrior and she left a warrior. You exhibited that adversity turns you into a sobbing mess.” “Oh noooooo, I let everyone dooooown, boohoooooo. You know what, kid? You lost. It happens. As my awesome partner likes to remind me when I overthink, it’s not something you fucking dwell on long. You’re a fighter in a fucking fighter’s profession. Fucking act like it.” “And normally, I’d reprimand myself here. I’d tell my partner: this is too damn far.” John stopped as a semi-truck started to encroach in their space in the lane. He let the 18-wheeler past and continued. “You got a hell of a mentor, Orianna. And there is wisdom in his words. Although, I question the legitimacy of his training regimen if it truly involves baseless imitations and comedy routines that should have hit the cutting room floor. I’m so old. I’m so ineffectual. Ask yourself Orianna, did that scouting report amount to much of anything when this old man used you as a means to end the contest? You watch one tape and one tape only. The one where you failedeveryone.” “Sad, really. You come off as such a nice little thing. But you’re so fucking self absorbed that you don’t got no consideration for other people, except maybe your sidekick and, of course, your precious Ace King. Everybody else is fuckin’ dog shit, from your opponents to the poor Wal-Mart workers who had to fucking clean up after your ridiculous shenanigans.” “But it was just fun. Your new credo. I know that you wanted so much to come out with your new companions and make a formal declaration that you are the champion. You would have smiled and it would have been a confirmation of everything you said. I guess you could gloat about NSFW falling short in the tag match, I mean if you want to prove that you really don’t understand NSFW. After all, everything you said was without merit. You don’t know anything about me. You know what you read and watch and your comprehension is sorely lacking. I would wrestle all night if I could. And so would Mike McGuire. NSFW loves this business and we’d be the whole show given the opportunity. That’s what we train for after all.” John, dangerous in his mind, took a hand off the steering wheel and extended a fist to Mike. It came out of nowhere last night but Mike just did it after an intense workout in the ring. John looked at it and replicated the gesture. Beaming off camera, Mike’s hand juts into the shot and taps knuckles briefly with his fist before pulling back. “We play fucking hard. We work even fucking harder. And yeah. We got the opportunity? We’d do it all night long.” She paused. “You people know what I mean, get your minds out of the fucking gutter.” “The gutter, Mike. Lowest of the low, right? That’s where Orianna put me. You feel sorry for me? You would make it right for me? You’d physically assault someone for me?” He laughed at the audacity of her words, “I don’t want your help. I don’t want your sympathy. I want you in the ring one on one so I can show you that you haven’t learned a thing from your betters. I told you. You made this personal. You questioned my commitment. But worst of all, you doubted the convictions of my friends.” “Don’t you fucking DARE name drop me, kid. Not in that fucking capacity. I don’t doubt my partner… no, fuck that. I don’t doubt my BEST FRIEND for a goddamn second. I would NEVER hold anything like that against him and fuck you to Hell and back for saying so.” John’s mouth curved upwards slightly into his version of a smile. He liked that. A couple of months ago, he’d flinch at every F bomb she dropped. Now he knows exactly why she says what she does and he wouldn’t have it any other way. “You asked me something, Orianna. Was Natalie worth it? You had the gall to ask me if making sure a friend of mine didn’t get maimed by someone as seemingly two-faced as you was worth it. Maybe when you’re through having fun, you’ll see that is what being a friend is about. Consequences be damned. I’m not sure you understand that very well, though. You seem to be a pretty poor judge of character. What did you say? The man that is still the disputed champion of this company is just misunderstood. I think Natalie, Mike and myselfunderstand the cowardice he is capable of now. Maybe you’re still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Considering what company you keep. So Orianna Johnson, leave your theories behind. Leave your little pal behind. Stop playing TV star. Dry those tears. And prepare to face me one on one for the gold. Because I know that I am the current reigning and defending television champion and I intend to show what it takes to remain just that.” Mike gave a slight nod and a mouth of the word ‘nice’, something she always did when she was particularly impressed with something John said. She didn’t need to interject further: what was said, her friend’s own words, was a potent enough final blow. She clicked off the camera and flicked to her Google Maps app. “Another hour and a half or so. Should get to some fucking civilization soon, too.” She paused, slipping the phone in her pocket. She’d need to charge it once they got to Natalie’s. “Meant that, by the way, with all my fuckin’ heart. I think, maybe… you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” John stammered. “Okay. I-I mean, I feel…” And he struggled a bit here. Get it out. “I get you.” Mike smiled, and nodded. It may as well have been an elaborate declaration. She got him too. “Fuuucccckkkkkkk youuuuuuuuu. Turn that garbage off. You believe that shit, Johnny? Best friends? I’m your best friend. I’m the best fuckin’ friend you’ve ever had. Fuck her. Fuck you. Fuck all of you.”Hysterical laughter now. “Listen, Johnny, can I confide something to you? Don’t tell no one. It’s our little secret.” And in a hushed whisper. “You were the sweetest piece of ass I’ve ever had.” The TV had turned off now and it was just John and the voice now. In a ridiculous thought at this point, he wished he had something to eat. Breakfast. Lunch. Anything. “And I hopes you understand something else. I mean, I know you feel the same. I love you, Johnny. We ain’t ever had much in what you call eye to eye contact. And you don’t seem very talkative. But that’s alright. You know me. We’re kindred souls. That’s what that dumb bitch never understood. She didn’t know when and when not to use her mouth. But Johnny, you sure did. Been so long since I seen you. Talkin’ is talkin’. That ain’t enough and we never got no proper goodbye before they pushed my Kentucky fried ass off the mortal coil. Lemme hold you in a loving embrace, what you say about that, Johnny?” “No.” John curled up in a fetal position on the bed. He could not look away from the vent though. “No? No! I pour my heart out to you and that's what you say? No, no, no. Johnny, you don’t seem to understand. You can’t fuck off with your flowers no more,” This snicker was the cruelest. It sounded feminine and quite familiar. “Tell me that fucking pathetic story again. Story time, Johnny. Tell me about how serene she looked.” “No.” “Whatever, fuck you. I’m here, boy. I’m here and I’m inside you. I made you feel every fucking inch of me once upon a time and you don’t ever dare forget it. You think you got a reprieve now. You got friends. You got your livelihood back. But Johnny, I got you by the balls and I ain’t ever letting go. Here I come. What you think about that? I don’t know what the fuck this is but I like it.” The voice was getting louder. It didn’t sound like it was on the other side of the wall anymore. “Funny thing is, I don’t feel bound to the rules of reality no more. Here I come, Johnny. And you don’t got nowhere to run. I love you so much.” The grate cover began to rattle. “You sorely been lackin’ my tender affection.” John’s eyes widened as a hand burst through the cover. First, the hand, and then the forearm covered in sludge, “Johnnyyyyy …” “Holy shit. Get a load of this gorgeous fuckin’ place. Oh, hey, Church, check it out, there’s Miss Natalie!”

#Archive

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