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arhvste · 3 years

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002 SAKUSA KIYOOMI X SHUT UP AND DRIVE SERIES

++ MSBY GARAGE

❝ get you where you wanna go, if you know what i mean, got a ride that’s smoother than a limousine ❞

dt — @omisluvr i hope you like this, i had a lot of fun writing about you and your husband <3

warnings — nsfw : oral [recieving]

“what the fuck were you even thinking when you said yes to him anyway?”

sakusa pinched the bridge of his nose as he stood in the doorway of his high rise apartment. you were looking up at him, eyes glossy and hair drenched. your skin soaked not just from the rain, but from the fresh, hot tears that had run down your face as your hands scrunched the hem of your soaking sweater, the material quickly growing uncomfortable to wear.

the outside hitter sighed before stepping out the way to let you in.

“stay there.” his deep voice rang through your ears as he left to grab you a fresh towel to use.

you stood there, glancing around the sleek apartment as the city lights from down below leaked softly through the windows emitting a soft glow around the room. moments later, you heard footsteps approach as your eyes flickered over to the hallway.

sakusa strode over to you, handsome features highlighted and sharpened under the dim lights. sticking his hand out, he dropped the plush white towel into your awaiting arms as a plastic bag. you looked up at him confused regarding the bag, but before you could ask, he cut straight in.

“strip.”

“excuse me?” you choked out as you stared at the man in disbelief.

“you’re excused.” he muttered bluntly as you wiped your face with the warm towel. “you’re all wet. strip here and go shower and then we’ll talk.” he finished as he turned to leave you standing, dripping wet on the doormat of the entrance.

sakusa walked down the hall towards the bathroom and began to run the hot water and ensure the vents were working for you. having him out of sight, you sniffled and began to peel the wet clothing off your body and toss it into the plastic bag you’d dropped onto the floor. after stripping bare, you wrapped the inviting towel around your cold body and padded towards the bathroom. sakusa had left the light on and had already heated the water for you to prevent any time wasted.

you dropped the plastic bag on top of the white wicker laundry basket and stepped into the wet room style shower. the cool tiles beneath your feet caused shivers to run through your body as you turned the tap on for hot water to flow out.

as a fresh wave of hot water flooded down you, so did a fresh set of hot tears. you did your best to hold back the sobs you’d been keeping in, but it was all too much now.

‘better get it out now before talking.’ you thought as you let the tears flow freely down your face.

luckily, sakusa kept an array of various shower products so you knew you wouldn't have to come out the shower smelling like a six foot plus man who’d had a shower at the gym. after knowing sakusa for so many years, you knew he was picky about his products and you were eternally grateful for his favoured and toned-down scent of ‘ocean waves’.

lathering the soap across every inch of your now warming skin, your sobs slowed down and your breathing less jagged. your chest still hurt, but whether that was your crying causing chest ache or your now-ex causing heart break, you didn’t care anymore. you saw the end of your already deteriorating relationship approaching from a mile away anyway. if anything, you were partially thankful it had come crashing down, ending the anticipation that kept you on edge everyday. you just didn’t think it would actually hurt.

rinsing the soap off and feeling a bit better, you stepped away from the shower head as the water came to a halt. grabbing the fresh towel sakusa had left waiting for you on the radiator, you dried yourself as much as you could before wrapping the towel tightly around your body and stepping out the steaming room.

wandering through the dim hallway, you peeped into sakusa’s room as he scrolled through his phone, slouched on the king sized bed adorned with a firm, but certainly luxury mattress.

you knocked gently as his eyes snapped up at you. his expression still agitated looked, but softening at the sight of you.

“i don't have any spare clothes.” you murmured quietly, stepping into his clean and immaculately kept room.

he hummed before getting off the bed and rummaging through his own drawers. you stood there glancing around all of his medals and trophies won from years of playing in highschool and now pro. you had been present when he had won multiple of these awards. you happened to be one of the lucky few allowed close to sakusa. yes, you had known each other from a young age, but sakusa was ruthless in the sense of cutting people off; you had been someone exempt from that treatment though.

after a few moments, sakusa grunted with a pair of sweats in his hand as he looked down at your damp form.

you were taken aback slightly because despite sakusa slowly becoming more comfortable with personal boundaries, particularly in the recent years, you still grew slightly shocked everytime he willingly loaned you something of his own.

“thanks.” you whispered as you took the dry clothes and headed over to his en suite bathroom.

locking the door behind you, you quickly threw the sweats on and inhaled the natural scent that had rubbed off onto the clothes. sakusa smelt expensive in your opinion. yes, it was his natural scent, but anyone could tell he was a man of serious selfcare just from the scent of his clothes alone.

satisfied with your dry attire, you hung the towel on the radiator before switching off the light and stepping back into sakusa’s bedroom.

the sweats were definitely too big for you, but he had done his best to find one of his older sets in hopes of them perhaps fitting you a little more and for the sake of his own comfort knowing you weren’t wearing any clothes he’d regularly wear and fear catching too many external germs onto. you smiled weakly at him upon catching eye contact as he sighed and patted beside him on the bed.

staying close friends with the germaphobe had definitely benefited you as you had only grown closer to the pro-volleyballer over the years, allowing the two of you to naturally grow physically closer too. there’s not a lot of people in the world sakusa would’ve allowed for them to shower, wear his clothes and especially not sit on his bed, but once again, you were exempt from that, you always were; and he knew why.

“so,” he began, cutting through the thick tension lingering. “what happened exactly.”

always so straight to the point. maybe running to sakusa immediately wasn't the best choice.

“he cheated.” you spoke dryly as sakusa’s frown grew deeper.

“explain.” he pressed as you felt your chest increasingly tighten.

“i showed up to his house and-” your eyes watered as tears began to spill out. opening your mouth to continue, you struggled as no noise came out. scrunching your eyes up in frustration, you sobbed once more but stopped as you felt a warm hand take in your own.

you looked up through blurred vision as sakusa had a firm, but sincere look on his face. tightening his grip slightly on your hand, you shakily breathed out before continuing.

“the door was unlocked, i went in and i saw.”

“saw what?”

“her. the girl he told me not to worry about. the one he promised me was nothing more than a friend.”

sakusa scoffed as you sighed warily, tears dripping down your chin.

“they were um- you know-”

“-having sex. yes, i get the idea.” sakusa quipped as your heart dropped.

“um, yeah. i just left and well, here i am.” you laughed bitterly, face wet once more and vision blurred.

“what a fucking loser.” sakusa spat out bitterly as you hung your head low.

“i don't even know why you said yes to him. what the hell does he even have going for him? tell me what exactly it is that he brings to the table, i’ve been dying to know.”

you looked up as sakusa’s hand held yours tightly.

sakusa looked almost as hurt as you did. you quickly put that idea to bed and assumed it was natural protectiveness. he was your best friend after all. you just didn’t know just how badly he had wanted more than that though.

“he was just- he was just there i guess. someone for me to date. maybe i was just lonely, i don’t know. i, fuck- i dont know omi! i dont fucking know anymore!” you sobbed as sakusa’s eyes softened.

“well. what are you gonna do now?” he spoke sharply, eyes fixated on you.

“nothing i guess. i’ll get over it, i knew it was bound to end anyway.”

“and running to me was your first option?”

“are you really that surprised? i just didn’t know who else to go to.”

sakusa sighed before standing up and urging you to stand up with him.

“where are we going?” you asked, begrudgingly standing up beside his toned form.

“to take you out. i’m not having you soak my sheets with tears caused by a loser.”

“but i’m not dressed for that!” “we’re staying in the car for the most part.” he confirmed, notioning for you to follow him back to the front door where his car keys were left.

you sighed but followed suit as sakusa grabbed one of his own sweaters to put on. looking back at you, sakusa noticed your down expression as his own heart tugged slightly. he could only hope you’d perk up by the time he’d taken you to where he intended. he almost felt bad. almost.

you huffed but followed sakusa out the apartment behind him and waited as he locked the door swiftly behind him. trailing sadly behind him towards the elevator, sakusa watched as your miserable state wallowed in sadness behind him.

waiting for you to get over the damage caused seemed pointless in his opinion. ever the efficient one, sakusa knew exactly how he wanted to go about getting you over your ex faster. he could only hope you’d cooperate with him.

the ride in the elevator with the occasional sniffle from you occupying the majority of the silence. at last, the elevator had reached below ground level and into the underground parking lot for residents to use.

you followed the man out the elevator and stayed close to him and the two of you headed over to sakusa’s reserved parking space. you heart picked up slightly upon locking your eyes onto sakusa’s car.

a matte black aston martin DB11 was parked perfectly into its designated space. the tinted windows showed you back your own reflection as you were met with the sight of your downcast face. brushing stray strands of hair out of your face, you sighed and waited for sakusa to unlock the car for you to get in.

to you, getting into the pro players car was no big deal, you were simply getting into a friends car for a casual outing. to anyone else, this would’ve been a huge deal though. nobody was allowed in sakusa kiyoomi’s car. he denied requests to drop off and pick up others and even teammates. the only exceptions from this rule were yourself and komori. nobody else.

sakusa unlocked the car and you clicked the door open on the passenger side. immediately, your nose was met with the heavy scent of air freshener and leather. the clean and polished interior never failed to impress you every time you rode with sakusa.

the outside hitter climbed into his own seat before shutting his door and waiting for you to shut your own. the leather of the seat cool under your sweats. shivers ran up your spin and the cold temperature car started up at the press of a button.

“strap in.” sakusa glanced over at you before fastening his own seatbelt and looking into the mirror to back the car up safely.

“hold still for a sec.” sakusa muttered as you felt his hand land on your shoulder as he looked back. his body close to yours, sakusa swiftly swung the car out his space as your breath hitched. why the hell did he have to get so close?

“you could’ve held the back of my seat.” you looked over at him as he revved the engine ready to speed out the exit.

“yeah you’re right, i could’ve. i just didn’t want to.” and with that, sakusa hit the acceleration and the car sped out the clear exit at high speed.

your head was thrown back and your heart fluttered at his words but you kept quiet as you tried to calm your nerves. sakusa however, looked like he was out to kill. you were just thankful the roads were clear in the late night.

his jaw tense and eyes sharp, sakusa made no mistakes as he swerved in and out of lanes so cleanly, leaving other drivers with no reason to complain.

“where are we even going?” you spoke up meekly as the man beside you pulled up at a red light. clicking his tongue in annoyance of the hold up, sakusa tilted his head to face you, his wavy mop of hair flopping back as his salient eyes met your own, throwing your heart off course.

“you’ll see.” was all he said as the light flashed amber. head snapping back to the front, sakusa revved his engine once more, hands both tightly gripped the finely stitched leather of the wheel. prominent veins running down the back of his hand, sakusa flexed his fingers before gripping the wheel once more and slamming back down on the accelerator throwing your head back into the headrest for the second time of the night.

if looks could kill, you were certain any driver in your best friends field of vision would’ve been dead at least two times over. you had no idea why he was so angry, but you’d be lying if you said you didn't find him at least slightly attractive. you just couldn't bring yourself to fully admit it though. you were fresh out of an awful break up and the heartache was still there even if sakusa was capable of effortlessly throwing you into a fit of excitement.

you gazed out the window as the car sped along the highway as pulled off the main roads and into the more separated streets. you paid no attention to where it was you were going until a wave of familiarity washed over you. your stomach tightened and your eyes flashed in fear as you quickly turned to see sakusa as focused as before, pulling into a parking space resided along the street of houses next to it.

“what the fuck kiyoomi! why are we here”

“where else would i take you?”

“oh i don't know, 7-11 maybe?!” you huffed as sakusa scrunched his face in disgust.

“that’s not going to help you get over him. this will.”

sakusa nodded towards the houses outside. more specifically, your ex's house.

“i can’t do this, i don’t need this.”

“you can and you want to don’t you?

you stared at him in disbelief as you shook your head.

“not like this, not now.”

“look at me.” sakusa demanded as his hand reached up to cup the side of your face, pulling your gaze directly onto his face.

“he’s a fucking loser. you’ve cried over him enough already and i just can’t sympathise with you anymore, show him that he fucked up.”

you opened your mouth to speak but no words came out. once again, shaking your head, you pulled away from sakusa’s grip as he stared at you confused.

“how? how can i just confront him in this state? you don't understand omi! it still hurts, and i can’t just-”

“-it hurt me too. this whole time it hurt.” sakusa cut in swiftly.

“ever since you said yes to him, i couldn’t understand why it hurt until recently. maybe i should’ve been happy for you. i just couldn’t though. i don’t like him, i never did and you know what? he didn’t deserve you, but i think i do.” he confessed, expression sincere and voice clear and sharp.

“kiyoomi i-”

“-don’t answer me now. it’s not fair of me to just throw something like that at you, i’m sorry but i’m also really not. i’ve been waiting to say this. just please, don’t let yourself fall off over someone like him okay?” he turned away, one hand still firmly gripping the wheel as his other hand reached to start the engine again to drive you both back. your hand intercepted though, stopping him from starting the ignition.

“you’re right, i’m sorry. i promise i won’t so, let me prove it to you.” sakusa turned to face you and raised an eyebrow at your sudden change of attitude.

“i don’t want to cry anymore. not over him, not when i knew it was approaching sooner or later.” you admitted looking up at him. eyes glinting under the dim lights the streetlights provided through the tinted windows.

“then don’t let him make you cry anymore.” sakusa breathed out, voice taking on a soft tone.

“i’m relying on you to keep me in check then.” you whispered slowly leaning into him and letting him meet you halfway.

“well, don’t you worry your pretty little head about that.” his final words muttered out as his slender fingers ran under your jawline as he tilted his head up to meet his own. eyes fluttering shut, sakusa mentally thanked whoever the fuck was looking out for him, because he’d been waiting for this moment for longer than he’d ever care to admit.

pressing his lips onto your own, sakusa’s heart ran laps as you gasped at the feeling his hands gripping your jaw tighter. humming in satisfaction, he deepened the quickly escalating kiss as he pulled you closer and closer to him. god, he just couldn't have you close enough to him.

sliding his hand down to your thighs, sakusa felt the way you had them tightly pressed together as the slow and languid kiss quickly heated with each whine he drew from your lips. growing greedy to hear more, sakusa dominated the kiss completely, teeth scraping along your bottom lip ever so gently, drawing a sharp gasp from your throat. with your lips slightly parted, sakusa slipped his tongue into your mouth groaning at your responsiveness to his actions.

pulling away, he left you gasping but gave you no time to catch your breath as his lips strayed from your own and you felt his hot breath teasing the warm skin of your neck. not wasting another moment, sakusa let his canines dance along your sensitive skin, teasing you and leaving you unaware of his every next move. finally, letting his teeth drag along your collarbone for so long, sakusa kissed, sucked and bit everywhere he had access too. he needed to mark you as his. it would give him enough mental confirmation that you were finally his and you seemed to have no obligation to this in the slightest.

“omi, i can’t-” you whined, frustration building up as the clothes you were wearing now became more and more of a bother.

“i got you princex.” sakusa grunted, shifting his body away ever so slightly.

“please!” you groaned, glaring at the now smirking man.

“whatever happened to ‘i can’t do this’?” he mocked relishing in the control he had over you.

“i didn’t think you meant this!” you whined as sakusa pulled himself off of you momentarily. looking down at your hot and bothered state he felt a wave of pride hit. he did that to you.

“backseat.” he demanded notioning behind him.

“what?” you breathed out.

“you heard. backseat.” you grumbled but obliged regardless, climbing into the backseats of the luxury car. sakusa followed suit and hovered over your aching body as you rested your head against the doors tinted window, waiting for sakusa to do something, anything.

“so obedient.” he sighed trailing his fingers along the waistband of the already loose sweats, hands slowly slipping under the material, tugging them off painfully slow, much to your impatience.

your breathing stuttered as the man pressed a soft trail of kisses along your now exposed thighs, the temperature of the car only increasing as the air got thicker and thicker.

“please.” you whispered as his kisses met the ache between your legs.

eyes lustfully looking up at you, sakusa smiled against the skin of your inner thigh, breath hitting dangerously close to where you needed his attention the most.

“since you asked so nicely.” he praised, fingers hooking under the thin waistband of your soaked through panties. pulling them down, his eyes flickered up to meet your own. a look of sincerity glinted in his eyes as you nodded at him, permitting him to grant what you both wanted, what you both needed. you wanted this as much as he did and he’d be a fool to pass up an opportunity like this. the opportunity to show you what you could’ve had from the start, none of that mattered now though. you could his now, he’d make up for all the time lost, starting with now.

gasping at the sudden feeling of his tongue dipping into your slit, sakusa’s confidence only built up knowing you were comfortable with this. the warmth of his tongue causing you squeeze your eyes shut as shivers ran up and down your spine. fully trusting himself now, sakusa worked his mouth on your clit, hungrily chasing the desperate pleads ands gasps he’d quickly grown attached to. he needed to draw more of these out of you and he’d do just that.

toying with your clit with his tongue, sakusa groaned at the feeling of your hands quickly grabbing the base of his hair, tugging him closer and closer in desperate attempts to get him to go deeper. he made it his aim to get you just as hooked onto the feeling of intimacy as he was and you seemed to be following suit perfectly.

“k-kiyoomi!” you gasped, tugging harder at the dark strands tightly gripped between your fingers. his eyes flashed up at you, an almost unreadable expression shown as he pulled away momentarily. “you’re so beautiful you know,” he sighed before moving his mouth back down to your twitching core “so fucking beautiful.” he praised as he glanced up to memorize each pleasured expression that twisted across your face. he felt so proud knowing he was the one doing this to you, only he could make your eyes roll back the way he did, only he could draw out those pretty sounds that escaped your lips. he knew he was the only one capable because he knew he was always the better choice for you, he was better than your ex in every single way and he was just relieved he was finally getting the chance to prove it to yourself.

completely encasing your core between his lips once more, he swallowed everything you gave him so selfishly, refusing to let anything go to waste and spill onto the seats, it’s not like he could let anything go to waste anyway, not when you tasted this fucking good and certainly not when you were in his clean car.

“o-omi, more!” you chanted as sakusa grunted as you felt the knot inside of you progressively tighten. firm fingers gripping your hips, sakusa curled his tongue inside of you making sure to lap up everything he got out of you. you whined and chanted sakusa’s name like a mantra as he continued to worship your body with his mouth.

“please, please, please!” you recited desperately over and over again as you felt yourself closer to the edge.

“so good for me.” sakusa praised pulling away and loosening his grip on you, your arousal coating his chin. keeping one hand firmly gripped onto your waist, he moved his other hand down for his fingers to pinch and toy with the bud as his tongue quickly dipped back into your tight pussy as you felt your high quickly chase up on you.

“f-fuck!” you cried out as you felt your back arch as the ecstasy crashed down on you. his actions didn’t stop though, as his thumb continued to circle your clit with slow but firm movements only further forcing your mind to go blank. mindless babbles dribbled out your mouth as you slowly came down from your peak, sakusa continued to let every drop of arousal spill into his mouth before he pulled away panting.

face flushed, but satisfied, he caught his own breath and waited for you to fully come back to your senses. your own breathing once again jagged, you looked up at him shyly as you leaned forward to rest your head against his.

“s-shit, i didn’t think it would go this far.” sakusa admitted, grabbing a tissue from the side compartment to wipe his face. a look of disgust flashed momentarily on his face when he saw the mess on the tissue, but silently praising himself for keeping his car free from any spills onto the plush leather seats.

you laughed breathily before fluttering your eyes shut.

“i knew coming to see you was a good idea.”

“you didn’t know this was going to happen, fuck, i didn’t even know this was going to happen. i only brought you here to confront him.” the dark haired male sighed before pulling away from you.

the two of you stayed like that for a few moments, a comfortable silence lingering in the compressed air of the car. you hadn’t verbally confirmed it yet, but sakusa knew from this moment onwards you were finally his. a blissful feeling bubbled up inside of him as he processed what had just happened.

suddenly, a loud tap on the window caused the two of you to jolt in shock as you instinctively gripped the hem of the disregarded sweats in attempts to cover your exposed body. leaning over to the front drivers seat, sakusa peered at the window and was met with the furious face of your ex. scoffing, he slid into the driver's seat and let the window roll down to come face to face with the man you called your boyfriend several hours prior to what had just happened.

“what the fuck are you doing here?” you ex spat in anger as sakusa glared back equally as bitter.

“enjoying myself.” sakusa boredly stated as your ex’s face twisted into an expression of horror upon noticing you climbing back over to the front passenger seat with your clothes now back on, but appearance definitely disheveled.

“with that bitch?” the man outside of the car hissed as sakusa blocked his view.

“first of all, that so-called bitch? mine now, should’ve been from the start actually and secondly, get your disgusting presence away from my car, i’ve already had it deep cleaned this week and thanks to you, it’s gonna have to go back to be cleaned thoroughly again.”

your ex scoffed before backing up slightly.

“whatever, get the fuck out of my parking space though, and you,” he started past sakusa and directly into your eyes. “this makes you just as bad as me now so get off your high-horse.”

“actually,” you spoke up, hand resting on sakusa’s forearm to calm his peaking rage. “it doesn’t. kiyoomi was just a friend throughout the entirety of our relationship, he should’ve been the one to have been more than that though. it was never you.” you spoke briskly and cooly as sakusa smirked beside you.

before your ex could even open his mouth, sakusa let the windows slam but up before pressing the ignition.

“let’s just get out of here, you’re tired and it’s been a long day for you.” he offered a small smile as you nodded. outside, your ex was still yelling and begging for answers as the two of you took no notice. firing the engine back up, sakusa didn’t bother looking back before slamming onto the acceleration and speeding the two of you back through the streets and onto the main highway to take you back to his apartment where the two of you had things to talk about.

there was a lot lingering in the both of your minds, but you were certain the two of you were finally on the same page.

sakusa was upset you were hurt, but it didn’t matter now. you were his and over time, he’d help build you back up again, hand in hand, he wanted to put the time and effort into you that he had been wanting to do from the very start.

there weren’t a lot of people sakusa kiyoomi allowed close to him, would go out of his way for, would even care about for that matter, but as always, each and every time, you were exempt from that.

++ TAGLIST! @crescenttooru @miss-angel-ash @sarahvvictoria @babierin @omisluvr @s0utien @toobsessedsstuff @omibaby @kenkodzu @sugabeaniee @lovesunas @slutawara @bunny-on-crack @shouyouorange @memorableminds @whootwhoot @yikes-buddy @sweetsamus

#LMAOOO I FUCKING HATE THIS #I WANNA REWRITE IT SOMETIME </3 #sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa x reader #sakusa x you #sakusa smut #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu smut #shut up and drive series!

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hangovercurse · 3 years

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I’ll Be Here

Colson tries to take you out for a nice dinner, but things don’t go exactly as planned.

Request: “hey there !! i absolutely love your work and was wondering if you'd consider writing something where the reader struggles with an ED? and Colson finds out? Just an angsty hurt/comfort-y kind of thing maybe? If you aren't comfortable/don't have the time then no worries !! I hope you have a lovely day ♥️🐇”

Colson x reader

Warnings: Eating disorders (explicit), cursing, vomit

A/N: If you are struggling with an eating disorder, there is help. The National Eating Disorders Association Hotline is 1-800-931-2237 and the national hopeline (for any and all crises) 1-800-442-4673. It gets better, I promise.

A/N part 2: This is really personal to me, as I am currently in treatment for an ED and still very much suffer from those impulses. If you are struggling and need to talk to someone who has been where you are, my dms are always open.

Word Count: 3107

Friday nights were always date nights. They had been since you and Colson had gone out on a Friday for your first date, 3 months ago. And tonight was no exception, but you wanted nothing more than to cancel.

Colson had announced he would be taking you to a very fancy restaurant that would be serving you both a five-course meal. “Babe, I won’t be able to eat all of that.” You told him, being completely serious.

He laughed it off, thinking you were just being overdramatic. “Don’t worry, I’ll eat whatever you don’t.” You pretended to laugh along, but in reality, your stomach was churning with the thought of how much food you’d be eating come Friday.

And now it was here, and you felt no more confident in yourself. You hadn’t eaten in almost two days to prepare for this, even though you’d gone longer for less before. You had been trying to eat more whenever Colson was around so he wouldn’t pick up on anything, but he was starting to be around a lot more, and it was getting harder to fake normalcy.

You were getting ready at your house, your hair and makeup done. You pulled the dress you planned on wearing out of your closet, a loose black dress with gold accents on it. You were hoping that it’s flowing would hide your figure. You caught a glimpse of yourself in your mirror, only a bra and underwear covering you. You scowled in disgust at your figure, sucking in your stomach and straightening your posture to try and flatten yourself out, but it didn’t help.

Before you could get more upset with yourself, you turned away from the mirror and put the dress on. “Tonight is going to be a good night.” You chanted to yourself.

Colson picked you up, looking sexy as ever. He was in a pair of blue pants, a plain white t-shirt, and a blue jacket. “You clean up nicely.” You smiled as he pulled you in for a quick kiss.

“You look fuckin’ incredible, babe.” He told you as he separated your lips. “Like, seriously, how did I get so lucky?”

You rolled your eyes, cringing internally but externally walking to the other side of his car. “If anyone here is lucky it’s me.”

The restaurant was, as he promised, hella fancy. The hostess led you both to a table in the far corner of the restaurant, away from peering eyes. You were handed a menu with five course headings on it and 3 options under each.

You looked at Colson with wide eyes, only to find him grinning at the menu. You decided not to say anything, not wanting to ruin his good night with all of your problems. You knew he would find out eventually, but you determined that tonight would not be that time. So, you gave the waitress your orders. Colson ordered a bottle of white wine for you two to sip on.

Before you know it, the first course had arrived. It was small, thank goodness, as it was only hors d’oeuvres, but you usually only ate that much food in a day, you couldn’t imagine how the next courses would go.

You had to admit, despite your hatred for food, the shallot and pancetta tortilla crisps were good. You figured this could be easy if you just let yourself relax. You let yourself fall into easy conversation with your boyfriend.

Then the appetizer came out, stuffed mushrooms. You struggled your way through, eating very slowly so that Colson would hopefully not notice that you were only eating half the amount that he was.

You got about halfway through your salad before your entire body said “stop.” You physically couldn’t eat anymore, the thought of holding your fork made you want to throw up. You got distracted by trying to calm yourself down that you were completely ignoring Colson.

“Y/N, are you listening?”

You snapped your head up from your plate to meet his eyes, a sorry expression coming onto your face. “Yeah, sorry. I just got distracted. I’m good.”

Colson eyed you wearily before continuing whatever he was talking about. The waitress brought out the fourth course in the meantime; your main meal. You had gotten Chicken Francese, hoping it would be the lightest thing on the menu. You were wrong.

The chicken was huge. You tried to smile at the waitress, but you couldn’t even look her in the face, too focused on how the hell you were going to pretend to eat this chicken. Colson sent a look in your direction before giving the waitress a polite, “thank you.”

Once she had left, he glared at you. You looked up once again, “what?” Your voice was quiet.

Colson grumbled, “nothing.” You gave a small pout when he looked away from you, cutting into his food. You decided it was better not to respond to him.

Instead, you returned your attention to the food in front of you. The tossing and turning of your stomach reminded you how disgusting you already felt. You could hear the faintest whispers of the devil in the back of your mind.

You’re gonna eat all that? Think about everything else you’ve consumed already! No wonder you’re so fat.

He’s never gonna stay with someone who eats as much as you do.

You shooed them away, taking your fork and knife in your hand. You cut the chicken into a few small pieces, taking nibbles at them, and pretending to enjoy it. You and Colson had stopped talking, and you could feel his irritation building.

You looked up to see his plate almost half empty, Jesus how could he eat so fast? He met your gaze, glancing down to your plate and scowling. “Why aren’t you eating?”

You looked down, a small sigh escaping your mouth. “I’m just not that hungry, I guess.” You bit your lip, about to continue when he cut you off “I told y-“

“Do you not like it?”

You shook your head, “No, it’s no th-“

Colson let out a frustrated sigh, “well, sorry Y/N. Tried to do something nice for you but apparently even this isn’t good enough for you.”

You wanted to scream at him, “that’s not what this is about you fucking idiot!” But you were in a very nice restaurant and the patrons would not appreciate that at all.

If you kept pushing, it would end up going in that direction, so you decided not to explain yourself. Instead, you forced the food down, showing Colson that you were eating it. He scoffed every time you made a show of putting the fork into your mouth and chewing the chicken.

Every swallow felt like an anchor dropping into your stomach. Your stomach was bubbling like some kind of witch’s brew.

When dessert arrived, you wanted to get up and walk out, but Colson was already on edge and you didn’t want to make it any worse. You both hadn’t spoken much, but you could tell he was getting frustrated with you. It was the worst feeling in the world.

Your stupid insecurities are ruining his life.

You can’t even stop thinking about yourself for one night to let him have a good time?

Talk about selfish.

You pushed the thoughts down, taking a small bite of the apple crème brûlée. It felt like a tipping point, like if you ate anything else you would throw up right then and there.

You placed your spoon down onto your plate, harsher than you had hoped. You mumbled out a quick, “I’ll be right back.” Before standing up and making your way to the restrooms.

Luckily, there was no one inside, though you knew that could change at any moment. You locked yourself in the stall furthest away from the door, crouching down in your heels.

It only took a few moments before the food you had just eaten came up, your vomit filling the toilet bowl. You tried to keep your gags quiet in case anyone were to walk in.

He tries to take you on a nice date and you’re in the bathroom, puking.

Like I said, selfish.

I don’t even know why he stays with you, honestly

You’re not pretty, you’re not very smart, you’re not much of anything at all, really.

You’re a drama queen!

Maybe you should just stop eating for good

Then this wouldn’t be an issue

You don’t know when the tears started, but they were streaming down your face. You grabbed a handful of toilet paper, softly dabbing your face to hopefully clear your skin of any makeup that may have run off.

You flushed the toilet, piecing yourself together haphazardly. You stood up, stumbling out of the stall, and facing yourself in the mirror. Your eyes were slightly puffy, but none of your makeup had smeared, luckily.

Disgusting

You sighed, glancing up to prevent more tears from falling. You put a fake smile on your face, walking out of the restroom and to your table. When Colson saw you, he stood up abruptly. “I already paid, let’s go.” His voice wasn’t loud, but it was harsh enough for you to know he was angry.

He walked in front of you as you made your way to the car. His hand never found yours like it normally would, there was no warmth coming from him, only a cold distance. The car ride to your house was silent. You wanted to say something, but you couldn’t quite find the words. At one point you’d reached out to place your hand on top of his, but he jerked his hand away, his other hand gripping the wheel tighter.

When he finally pulled into your driveway, you sat there for a few moments, studying his face as he looked straight ahead. “Colson,” You whispered.

“Don’t.”

You sighed, your eyes filling with tears again. You hated almost everything about yourself, but you hated when he was mad at you even more.

You don’t deserve him.

You nodded to yourself, opening the door and stepping out of the car. As much as you wanted to explain yourself and beg him to forgive you, you knew what was best for him. If you let him leave now, he wouldn’t have to bear the burden of your problems. He could be free to find something better. Someone better.

So, you went inside, tears falling down your face the entire way in.

Colson almost didn’t catch the glossy look in your eyes, or the red swelling around them. But he did, and it made him feel all sorts of weird inside.

Why did he have to get so mad?

It was just a stupid dinner.

He knew he was being too hard on you, but he was just trying to do something romantic.

Is that too much to ask for?

Apparently so.

But he shook off his thoughts, turning his car off and making his way to your now closed door. Even if he was upset, he needed to make sure you were alright.

When he walked in, the lights were all off, the house very dark and very quiet. You had only gone in a few moments before him, where were you?

His questions were answered by small gasps coming from your guest bathroom, mixed with sobs. He ran to where you were, throwing the door open and turning on the light.

He found you sitting over the toilet, your bile in the bowl. A look of worry immediately flooded his features, and he kneeled down beside you. He wrapped one of his arms around you loosely, his other rubbing your back. You leaned back into his chest, sobs shaking your entire body. “I’m- sorry.” Your words were very choppy, interrupted by your gasps for air.

“It’s okay, baby.” He sighed, resting his chin on the crown of your forehead.

You shook your head, determinately. “I tried,” a sniffle, “really hard.”

His arm on your back joined the one around your waist, rubbing circles into your stomach. You pulled away from the motion, but he kept you firmly in his grasp. “I couldn’t do it.”

Your whispers sounded so weak, so pathetic. Colson wracked his brain for an explanation. This had to be more than just the food not tasting good. Maybe you were sick?

“Shhh, baby. It’s okay. I’m not upset.” He whispered, leaning down to press a soft kiss to your temple. You both sat like that for a while, your chest heaving and his soft words calming you down.

Eventually you were able to collect yourself enough to form coherent thoughts. “I’m sorry I ruined date night.” You mumbled, your hand moving to stop his from their movement.

“It’s okay, babe. You can’t control this shit.” He whispered.

“You shouldn’t have to deal with this shit though!” You shouted as best as you could, your hoarse voice making it sound more like a whine. “If I weren’t so-“ You cut yourself off, wanting to save him the burden of knowledge. If you told him he would either feel disgusted with you and leave or feel sorry for you and stay. You didn’t know which one you were more scared of.

Colson brought his lips to your temple again, “Babe, it’s okay. You should’ve told me you were sick. We could’ve rescheduled.”

His words made you let out a dry laugh, “I’m sick alright.” You mumbled, tears rolling down your eyes again. “But not that kind of sick.” You whispered.

You looked back at your boyfriend, turning so that your entire body was facing him. You could see the confusion in his features. “I want to help you, but I have no idea what’s going on. I can’t read your mind, babe, you gotta tell me.”

You shook your head, looking to the floor. “Trust me, it’s better if you don’t know. You don’t want to know.”

He took your chin in his hand, guiding you up to look at him again, “I do wanna know, Y/N. I wanna help you.”

Your eyes looked everywhere but his, shutting momentarily as more tears fell. You took a deep breath in through your nose, trying to find where to start.

“I have an eating disorder.” You whispered, trying to get the words out as possible so you couldn’t take them back. Colson’s eyes went wide with realization, “I was diagnosed with a purge disorder when I was like, 16. I think it’s morphed into anorexia since then.” Your entire body was shaking with nerves.

He’s gonna hate you now.

You’re disgusting.

Colson grabbed your face with both hands, cradling it gently. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I never should’ve taken you-“

“You didn’t know.” You shut down his thoughts. He shouldn’t blame himself for your problems. “It’s not your fault. I thought I could just suck it up and get through it but, obviously I couldn’t.” You shrugged, letting out a frustrated sigh.

His hands fell from your face, grabbing your hips and lightly dragging you closer to him. He moved your legs to rest on his outstretched ones as he spoke, “I shouldn’t have gotten so mad about it, though. I was so frustrated because I thought you didn’t like it. I was embarrassed because I just wanted to impress you.”

You reached your arms up to wrap around his neck, holding yourself up. “I was very impressed, and it’s not that I didn’t like it. Food is just really hard for me. I’ve gotten so used to eating next to nothing. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to eat like a regular person.” He nodded, a frown on his face. “I’m sorry.” You whispered.

“You don’t have to be sorry; you didn’t do anything wrong. This is just part of who you are.” He looked into your eyes, deeply.

You sighed, “I- I guess. But I didn’t want to have to burden you with all this shit. You shouldn’t have to put up with all this. You deserve better.”

He scrunched his face, “Woah woah woah. Y/N you are not a burden. I told you, this is just part of who you are, and I love who you are. I’m not putting up with anything, I’m accepting you for every part of who you are. I don’t want anyone else; I just need you.”

His words made your heart race. He sure knew how to string lines together. “You love me?” You asked, softly. He’d never said those words to you before. Sure, you had thought them, but you were scared he’d think it was too soon.

He smiled, leaning to kiss your forehead, “yes, you dummy.” He chuckled against your skin.

“I love you.” You whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” He mumbled and you sniffled.

Your first thought was to apologize, but you knew he’d stop you in your tracks. “I just don’t want you to feel sorry for me or think I’m weak. I’ve been dealing with this shit for years now.” You paused, a thought crossing your head. You whispered it to yourself before you even realized he would hear, “maybe I am weak.”

“Hey,” he kept your head in place when you started to drift towards the floor, “you are not weak. This just proves how strong you are. You’ve lived with this for how long now? And you’re still fighting. That’s not weakness, babe. That’s strength.”

“Sor-“ You cut yourself off, “If I was really strong, I’d be over this shit now.”

“It’s a disease, baby. It’s just like a broken bone. It’s not gonna get better unless you treat it. You’ve been trying to hide it for so long now, let me help. We can get you a nutritionist, and a therapist, and we’ll stock up on whatever food you can eat, and we’ll work on it together. Whatever you need.”

“Are you sure? That’s a lot of work, Cols. I’m not sure if I’m wor-“

He cut you off, blue eyes staring deep into your own. “You are worth all of this and more. Don’t think for a second that you’re not. You deserve to be happy and healthy and I am gonna be here to support you for as long as you want me here.”

You paused for a moment, taking in his words. “Thank you.” You whispered, “For tonight and for all this. Just, thank you. For everything.”

“I love you.” He pulled you closer to him, hugging you tightly. “Thank you for telling me. I know it wasn’t easy.”

“I love you too, Colson.”

#mgk #mgk imagine #mgk angst #mgk fluff #machine gun kelly #machine gun kelly imagine #Colson baker #colson x reader #colson baker imagine #colson baker fluff #colson baker angst #colson imagine

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subtlereferencetomyinterests · 4 years

Text

A Misplaced Imbalance of Fear

Ao3, MasterPost

Relationships: Romantic Dukexiety, implied/minor Moceit (platonic or romantic)

From the power of my Art and my Shitposts comes This Fanfiction!!!

Warnings: Panic Attacks, Lots of Cursing, descriptions of gore (horror movies, it gets decently explicit so beware that), mild body horror (Remus is here and he Does Things Like That), Heavy Roman angst for a hot minute in the middle, making out (continuing my theme of remus-centric fics getting more ;3). They do some makeup and drink tea, baby. Mentions of picking one’s skin as an Anxious habit, and also ticking. Also stimming!!! nd sides 4 life bb. Also, a very brief alcohol mention (it’s soup).

Word Count: 6,553

God Fucking Fuck, Virgil was going to have a self-care day even if it killed him dead. Everybody else could do whatever overdramatic fuckery they wanted when they were topside, but he was all set down there in the Mindpalace, thank you very much.

Luckily, mercifully, thankfully, the rest of the sides all seemed keen to let Virgil have his space anyway. There wasn’t a thing stopping him from relaxing.

Well, except for himself, of course.

A thrum of condensed stress and fear tugged at Virgil’s abdomen, bubbling its way over his edges. It was equally his own and the others’, probably due to whatever conversation they were caught up in in the external world. He would not relent to the worry, nor was he summoned to help with the situation, but his body refused to stop shaking. Perched on the top of the couch, frantically clicking the buttons on a fidget cube, Virgil tried to watch the gore playing on the TV in a tired effort to calm his nerves.

Horror movies… helped. They were something for his brain to chew on for a while- their over-the-top and ridiculous plots, the obnoxious characters that almost always deserve what’s coming to them, the attention-attaining action- it was all a recipe for Distraction. But they weren’t working by that point, no matter how badly Virgil wanted them to.

And then- possibly because the universe loved to spite Virgil and Virgil specifically- a walking, talking headache flung himself into the common room about as elegantly as a wolfhound with rabies.

“Heyyyy,” Remus crowed as he sprawled himself out on the couch. Anxiety curled his legs closer under his body, unresponsive- he knew full well that any reaction would just be an invitation for trouble from the obnoxious trait. He’d remember what Logan taught them: don’t engage, just brush it all off.

Unfortunately, Remus seemed to be in a stubborn mood.

“Whatcha watching?”

“Movie,” Virgil grumbled.

“What movie?”

He eyed the side laying out on the couch below him, narrowing his gaze as threateningly as he could manage. He spat the words through gritted teeth and made it clear he was not having this today.

“It’s called Terrifier.”

Remus perked up at that, and oh God, if he was interested then he’d never go the fuck away.

“What’s it about?”

There wasn’t much Virgil could do but answer in as clipped a tone as he could; things hadn’t gotten too bad, too uncomfortable, yet. Maybe he could redirect Remus’ attention, if he was just boring and unresponsive enough?

“Just a cliche creepy clown flick. Not much to it.”

“Is it gory?”

Virgil made a vaguely affirmative sound in his throat, gesturing to the screen. In truth, the movie’s impeccable special effects with gore was its main appeal, as the acting and plot was kinda atrocious. Violence was the exact reason he’d chosen to watch this. But he knew saying that wouldn’t help his chances of shaking off Intrusive Thoughts.

Remus looked ready to spout off something explicit, but he went dead quiet as his eyes fell on the scene on the television. Virgil was grateful for small mercies.

It was exactly the kind of thing that the creative trait would watch, after all; a woman getting sawed in half, lengthwise, starting from the- er, the wrong end. Under circumstances of a more typical anxious flare-up, the scene really could have been one of those ‘helpful distractions’.

These were not normal circumstances.Yeah, this was one of those ‘too passive’ cases, but Virgil didn’t exactly have the energy for anything ‘active’. So, he stubbornly glared at the TV and pretended that his solution was working, because he had no idea what else to do. Perfect plan.

Preoccupied as he was with his internal issues, he very nearly managed to forget about Remus. Until-

“Holy fuck, this is gorgeous, you watch stuff like this?!” The Duke’s eyes were bright, but not with his usual hysteria. They were wide with genuine excitement, shiny and happy. It was- uncanny, that’s probably the word Virgil was looking for. He curled closer in on himself.

“Shouldn’t be that surprising, dude. ‘Scary’ is kind of my thing.”

“I can’t believe I haven’t seen this one,” the creative side was once again completely enamored by the television screen, “Don’t blood and guts and cool things like that freak you out? They always seem to do the trick when I try to mess with you!”

“It’s different. The violence in movies, it- it calms me down, I guess. Cause it’s like, I don’t know, detached from reality?”

There was a pause that had Virgil hoping, naively, that Remus had grown bored at his spiel. But he wasn’t moving, he was just staring, gaze switching contemplatively from the screen to Virgil a few times over.

“It doesn’t look like that. If you were any more tense, all your tendons would be snapping like badly-tuned violin strings!”

“Yeah, no shit,” Virgil pressed his back against the wall and shut his eyes tight. He could still hear- no, feel- Patton and Roman and Thomas arguing, snapping at each other back and forth as the situation escalated.

“Is this about whatever the others are doing? Why don’t you just stop listening to their shitty arguments?”

A harsh laugh escaped Virgil at that, dragging him back down to earth so he could blink his eyes open, glaring at the facet lying beneath him.

“I can’t just stop, that’s not how I work. I need to keep an ear on them. Who knows what could happen if I didn’t?”

“Well, why don’t you just go talk to them?”

If he wasn’t already frustrated beyond belief, that would’ve fuckin’ done it for him.

“I don’t think I’d be much help. Not right now.”

“Why not?” Remus looked halfway between genuinely curious and mischievous, propping himself up on his elbows to get a better view of Anxiety.

“Seriously? Things aren’t exactly, like- normal between all of us.”

“What is normal?”

Virgil opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came through. As much as it sounded like an offhanded, edgy 13-year-old atheist kind of remark, it was a decent point. Virgil had thought that there was something of a status quo forming between himself and the ‘light sides’, but how long had that even lasted for? Especially compared to the rest of his life? Everything was changing all the time. Was there anything to rely on, or was it just Virgil’s own wishful thinking for what their lives could be? After all, even in ‘peaceful times’, there had been plenty of in-fighting and disagreements and horrible uncomfortable conversations and harsh words and-

“Oh, shut that brain up,” Remus’ sharp voice pulled Virgil from his thoughts, “I know what you meant ‘normal’. You meant the six months when you got to forget about us Scary Monsters, and, DUH! It was probably way simpler for all you diet-soda-no-sugar sluts back then, but that doesn’t mean it was better.”

“Yeah, you would think that things are better now, wouldn’t you?”

Remus fixed Virgil with an unsettling sort of grimace, making the other squirm. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so by any means.

“I dunno, but what I do know is that things are getting better. They’ll be the best they could be, soon.”

Despite himself, Virgil laughed. It was a faltering, anxious sound, revealing the true fear behind the taunting gesture.

“Really? With everybody at each other’s throats all the time?”

“While that does sound fun,” Remus sat up fully, twisting around to look directly up at Virgil, “I mean after that. After we’re all accepted. It’s inevitable- Inevitable, Anxious Lil’ Barista,” Remus accompanied the referential nickname with a wink.

Virgil stared at him like he was crazy (well- like- crazier than usual, he guessed?). Remus just threw his head back and laughed before spinning his neck one-hundred and eighty degrees to face the TV while he explained.

“Point is, it’s painfully obvious that everything will sort itself out. It has to, or else the only other option is that Thomas is gonna drive himself insane by trying to suppress parts of himself and end up clawing his own brain out. One of those two things!”

While colorfully phrased, the certainty with which Remus delivered his point had Virgil taken aback. There was no way that Remus could possibly know that, but- in a backwards way it was comforting, how sure he sounded. He didn’t lie, not ever.

Virgil had never thought that Remus would settle for anything less than going out of his way to make others’ lives a hell. But maybe that antagonism wasn’t what exactly motivated the trait’s actions. Maybe it was just an unintentional side effect, akin to what Logan had said when Remus first revealed himself.

The moment of reprieve was over as soon as it began.

“Fuck! He just cut off her tits and wore ‘em, huh?”

Virgil looked up and, to be fair, that was exactly what had happened on screen. Like he said, this movie wasn’t exactly poetic cinema, but it certainly was something.

He scooted along the top of the couch, moving just a few feet before dropping down to sit properly beside Remus.

“3/10 drag look at best, really,” Virgil muttered, mostly to himself. He jumped when Remus shrieked with laughter at it, looking absolutely delighted.

“I didn’t know you made jokes like that, VeeVee!”

Virgil shrugged noncommittally, focusing on the screen and not the facet beside him. Remus’ giggling was loud and distracting, but it wasn’t… unpleasant, unlike his typical villain-cackle was.

Once Remus had settled down (as much as somebody like him could, anyway), he, too, focused on watching. The quiet was uncomfortable, but it didn’t stretch on for long. There was always something in the movie that The Duke felt the need to comment upon extensively, elaborating and giving details on the gore. Virgil found himself listening to the rants silently, almost enjoying the disruption. It certainly gave his overactive mind something to play around with.

“-skin doesn’t slice as easy as that, trust me-”

Aaaand there it was. Virgil winced, trying very hard not to show that the words had struck a nerve. He liked horror, gore, all that, sure, but there were just some specific things- squicks, you could call them. Remus would obviously use that to his advantage, so the only option was to try very hard to zone out and not look like he was disturbed.

“But even then- Hey, why are you making that face?”

Mission failed.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Remus shifted closer- invasively closer, his gaze studying.

“You were calming down earlier, what's with the scrunch-nose?”

Virgil stared at his hands, chipping away his black nail polish. Remus was nearly as good at reading lies as Janus, and twice as hard to get rid of.

“It's just- skin, slicing, that stuff just-” he ticked, head spasming sideways briefly at even the thought of that kind of pain.

“Oh,” Remus said plainly, not even a hint of malice or mischief in his tone as he leaned back into his own spot, “Why didn't you just say so? Well, that last exploding head kill is way more interesting anyway, did you see that?”

That was… it? No taunting, no tormenting, he just changed the topic, like that?

Remus, continuing to be weirdly perceptive, scoffed as though he was reading Virgil’s mind.

“What? Just because I like screwing with you prudes sometimes doesn't mean I want to give you a panic attack. Where's the fun in that?”

Anxiety nodded mutely, bewildered. Remus seemed appeased by that and quickly resumed his running commentary.

And if Virgil eventually decided to take part in the discussion, well, it wasn’t a big deal anyway. Just some polite conversation about bodily mutilation.

The television darkened as the screen was washed by credits, filling the space where the disfigured face of the main character had been mere moments prior, the result of a pretty predictable twist ending. Virgil stood, arching his back up in a stretch. His arms raised higher, one joint or another crackling at the motion. Fuck, he was sore. How long had he been sitting still?

Remus hadn’t moved from his spot on the couch. He tapped his claws along the remote, exiting to the homescreen and looking expectantly at Virgil.

“You don't wanna watch anything else?” He asked abruptly, drawing a confused glance from his companion, “This is fun- and they're still arguing up there, so it kinda makes sense to stay, it’s really the best solution if you-”

Virgil huffed a laugh at the rambling. It sounded like some shit he’d say, for crying out loud.

“Dude, chill, I was just gonna make some tea before putting on another movie,” the clear relief that ran across Remus' face- quickly replaced by a wide grin- wasn't anything shy of… sweet. Virgil was sure this day couldn't get any fucking weirder, if he was finding anything endearing about the walking talking dirty joke before him. “Uh, you want anything? Since you're gonna stick around, and all.”

Remus jumped up, following Virgil into the MindPalace’s small kitchen happily. In one smooth motion, he swung up onto the counter and slid down it, seating himself almost on top of the stove.

“No hot leaf soup for me, thanks, but I will take one of those mugs!”

Virgil raised a brow, staring the creative trait down before shrugging. He passed him one of the mugs, a generic and patternless one- so that the other sides probably wouldn't notice its absence. He busied himself by setting up the kettle, trying not to wince at the loud wet crunch that resulted when Remus took a bite of his snack.

“Hey,” Remus said around a mouthful of ceramic chunks, “I know just the movie we should watch next.”

Virgil shifted around the various tea boxes littering the cabinets, searching for something with a kick. He hazarded a glance to Remus, immediately regretting the decision when he saw the blood dribbling down his chin from the cuts marring his lips. Anxiety cringed, turning his head back and grabbing for the first brightly-colored box he saw. It took him a moment to respond.

“Okay… what is it?”

“It's awful- I mean, really, the acting is unbearable and it’s fucking insane- but it's funny. You like making fun of stuff, right? It's like that, but there's still a ton of agonizing death, which is always a fun bonus.”

“What's it about?” Virgil was hesitantly intrigued, his gaze flicking up from the steadily heating kettle. He wasn't exactly keen on staring down the gory scene of Remus’ mouth, so he settled his focus on the trait’s eyeball brooch.

“Uhn-uhn! No spoilers, this is one you have to see for yourself. It's funnier that way.”

Virgil made a noncommittal sound, tapping his nails against the counters.

“Nothing too bad happens- not that you can't handle, anyway. No slicing and not many jumpscares.”

He resisted the urge to snap 'how do you know what I can’t handle?' because Remus actively trying to reassure him was. Something. Something that he appreciated, maybe, a little.

“Okay, fine. I didn't have anything else in mind. A ‘So-Bad-It’s-Good’ thing sounds alright.”

The obnoxious gnawing of Remus destroying what was left of his cup suddenly ceased, replaced by a stunned silence. Virgil finally met his eyes (finding that the lacerations around Remus’ mouth were already healing themselves, as if they'd never existed).

“You’re taking my suggestion?”

Virgil cleared his throat, finding himself unable to break the intense eye-contact now that it had been established.

“It's not a big deal or anything, man. Just a movie.”

Remus nodded enthusiastically, a grin splitting his face ear-to-ear. Very literally. The expression was so unnatural and cartoonish on a human(ish) face, that Virgil couldn't help but be startled into laughter. Remus looked even more delighted at that reaction, leaning forward over the stove. At that point, Virgil very much couldn't suppress the noises, snorts bubbling up from his throat against his will.

“You look-” another bout of chuckling, “-you look ridiculous, Remus.”

“Aw, thank you! I was going for manic, but I'll settle for that, too.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, hunching in on himself to get his breathing back to normal.

With no warning, Remus lifted himself up onto his knees and craned his body around the vigilant trait, snatching the kettle from the stove and flipping the dial to ‘off’. Instinctively, Anxiety recoiled from the proximity. The tension fell away when he saw that the other was simply pouring the hot water into Virgil’s mug for him.

“Dude, it wasn't whistling yet?”

“I know; it was hissing like it was about to start. You're boring and don't like loud noises, especially when you’re all on edge like this, so,” he set the kettle back down, passing the warm mug to Virgil.

Virgil stared at him, then at the drink in his hand, then back up at the Duke. He was, for what felt like the millionth time that day, unsure of how to react.

He… really hadn't thought that Remus would pick up on stuff like that. He should probably start getting used to that, maybe.

“I'm-” Virgil dragged his finger up and down the handle of his mug, “I'm not that on edge anymore, actually.”

The look that Remus sent him was indecipherable.

“C’mon, I’ll queue up that flick I told you about.”

“Yeah,” Virgil let out a deep breath, one he hadn't even known he'd been holding, “Yeah, okay.”

The floor was bubbling, popping, blistering with red fury. It was lava, sending bright flaming sparks in all directions. Thankfully for Remus and Virgil, sitting close together on the couch and viciously mocking cabin fever, the vicious rage was exclusive to one small circle near the staircase.

Virgil, who had been happily tearing apart the leading guy’s acting, cut himself off abruptly.

“Shit- wait- shit.”

Remus shook himself out of his raucous laughter, looking up in confusion. His eyes finally settled on the crimson patch of carpet, a look of realization crossing them. His voice turned much quieter than what fit him.

“Oh, fuck.”

It was like a volcanic eruption localized entirely within the living room, fire blazing in a tall column. From the emotional display, Roman rose up, face nearly as red as his method of transportation.

There was that brief moment, right when a stressful situation appeared, of antithetical serenity. Virgil felt his muscles slacken in shock, his long-empty mug falling from his hands and landing on the carpet with a dull thud. A rush of calmness hollowed out his chest, lingering for just a few seconds before being replaced by panic. Tension returned to his limbs mere moments after that, like it was pulling him taut.

Roman wasn't even looking at them- in fact, he hadn't seemed to notice his brother or best friend at all. The fire fell back down, leaving a charred patch of carpet that would likely take a long time to repair itself. The passionate trait growled, a sound that bordered on a scream as he clawed his hands down his face. He stamped his boot sharply against the ground, igniting another small fire with the impact.

“Fuck!” He cried, ever oblivious to his audience. With a hasty wave, the flames flickered and disappeared. Roman glared down at the blackened spot where it had been, winding his arms tightly around himself. He took a few shaky breaths, but if anything he only looked worse off for it.

“Fuck,” this time spoken quieter, but with no less vitriol. An immaculately-manicured hand raised itself to cover his mouth, tightening around his face desperately as tears slipped from his eyes down his fingers. He turned on his heel and took the stairs two at a time.

In his wake, as the television had been paused, the only thing that Virgil could hear was buzzing in his skull.

What had happened? What was happening, currently?! Things had gone so wrong and it was all because of Virgil’s negligence- what bad things could have been prevented if he had just been there? Or- or even just listening in! When had he even stopped listening? He was supposed to protect them but he just gave up, just because he ‘couldn't handle it’, and now something was Wrong with Roman and he couldn't even focus on listening to them all now, not like this. He couldn’t hear, couldn’t hear or see anything at all.

A rough, calloused hand wrapped around his wrist. Virgil's shallow breath staggered even more at the feeling, the warbly noise of speech failing to meet his ears. His eyes were closed tight, he realized, stinging with emotion behind his eyelids.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Four seconds, four strikingly gentle presses against the vein of Virgil’s wrist. If it weren't for the slight edge of a claw, he could've confused the motion for one of Patton’s.

The four taps were followed by a brief pause, then a steady round of seven taps. Another pause, and then eight. As Virgil focused, as much as he could anyway, on the presses, the screaming of his mind very gradually abated. First, he pried his eyes open, staring down at the hand around his arm. Watching the tapping, feeling it, was grounding enough for his hearing to return in time. Virgil could hear Remus beside him, breathing deeply as a guide, and copying the exercise became that much easier. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Remus didn't stop when Virgil did it properly one time over, when he was still shaking and teary. He didn't speak up even when the well behind Anxiety's eyes ran dry, after what had to be a dozen rounds of even breaths. It was only when Virgil finally, hesitantly slipped his wrist out of the other's grasp on his own terms that Remus made any sounds.

“Do you remember when you taught me to do makeup? Late teens, early twenties, around then?”

Talk about a topic shift. Virgil glanced up in confusion.

“I guess so? Wasn't that, like, the only time that we hung out and actually got along?” They’d never exactly been close, Virgil had made sure of that. It was, in retrospect, a regrettable decision on his part.

“Yeah. I was so bad at it, remember?”

“Hell yes, I remember,” Virgil felt a tiny smirk tug his lips at the memory, “You literally never sat still. You were and are the most impatient person I've ever met.”

“I’ve gotten a lot better, Vee.”

Virgil glanced at the bruise-like eyeshadow circling the Duke's eyes, but refrained from saying anything. Knowing him (kind of knowing him? Starting to know him better now? Whatever.) it was most definitely intentionally off-putting, and probably not a good way to judge his actual ability.

“But I’ve seen how you do it, when you really, really try; I think you're still better than me with it, ju-u-ust barely.”

“Oh, uh, thank you,” Virgil wasn't entirely sure where this was going, but he couldn't find the soft excitement in Remus’ eyes anything other than enticing. The creative side laughed, flapping his hand.

“It would be fun if you did it for me again! Just like old times, ey?”

Virgil stared at him, considering him carefully.

“You want me to do your makeup?”

“Yes!” Remus leaned forward with his confirmation, but for once that didn't involve violating Virgil’s post-panic attack bubble, “It'll give you something to do with your hands other than peeling back all your skin, at the very least.”

Oh, right. Virgil not-so-subtly lifted his nails from his palms, wincing at the irritated red spots coloring his hands.

Truth be told, the idea wasn't… unappealing. It was an activity well between mindless and active, repetitive and artistic. Plus, he didn't exactly love being alone after attacks, and if anything Remus would be lively company. Company that he sort of, maybe, possibly was looking forward to spending the rest of the day with anyway, unfortunate events notwithstanding.

“Yeah, alright, if you're sure you want-”

“Great! Wait right there, bee-arh-bee,” before the words were even fully out of his mouth, Remus went limp and fell sideways off of the couch, falling right through the floor.

In his absence, there was a void where his noise had been. Virgil stared at the paused movie scene, picking apart the little details of the frame just to have something to do. His mind drifted off to the state that Roman had been in when he entered. The sight of his friend so furious burned itself on the backs of Virgil’s eyelids. He knew that the anxiety wasn't all his own, either; he could feel it like waves from the other side of the MindPalace, the origin point clearly belonging to Roman.

He should check on him, shouldn't he? Or would that make it worse? Virgil certainly didn't feel like he was in any state to help. But then there was Patton to consider- something must have happened up there. Should he look for him, too?

There was a whoosh.

“I leave you alone for five seconds and you get right back to thinking!” Remus strode across the room, flopping right back onto the couch. Held in his arms was an enormous multi-pocketed bag, items clattering around within at every jostle their owner made.

“Overthinking is literally my whole job, man, this shouldn't surprise you,” Virgil shrugged, trying not to sound as relieved as he felt.

Remus simply rolled his eyes and dropped the makeup case onto Virgil's lap, sitting criss-cross parallel to him, their knees brushing slightly.

Virgil hesitated for a moment, scanning Remus' face, but all the other did was smile and blink (one eye at a time).

Virgil zipped open the bag, rifling through and finding an overwhelming array of gaudy colors and odd products.

“Was there, like, a 'look' that you want to go for?”

Remus shrugged.

“Just go for it! I’m a blank canvas. The worse, the better.”

Virgil chuckled, picking out a few items to fit a theme he was coming up with and getting right to work.

Though it had been years since they’d last spent time together, it wasn’t awkward. In fact, it felt more comfortable than it had back then.

Remus managed to sit almost perfectly still, chattering the entire time that Virgil worked. Yet again his voice served as something like white-noise, wherein Anxiety only had to contribute whenever he chose. Remus only quieted when Virgil had to hold his face, tipping his head back to properly apply inky-black lipstick. And then, he remained silent for a moment, as they surveyed each other.

Virgil had cleared his throat, warmth prickling at his ears, and the ceaseless rambling resumed after that.

In what felt like hours and no time at all, Virgil was finally satisfied with his work.

“Alright, you're all done,” he capped the bottle of mascara in his hand, rifling through Remus' bag for a mirror, “Wanna see?”

Just as he felt the unmistakable cool surface of glass on his fingertips, Remus grabbed his wrist in both hands.

“What-?”

“Not so fast! Now it's my turn,” he announced, his zealous eyes even more prominent on his face thanks to the thick wings of eyeliner around them.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Virgil looked from the assortment of garish colors that he'd mostly stayed away from in the makeup case, and then back up at the Duke.

“Usually: yes. But I am dead serious right now, Vee.”

Remus looked pleading, legitimately pouting.

Virgil huffed. The side had gone out of his way to help him, when he really didn't have to, so…

“You're not going to just use this as an excuse to draw all over my face, are you?”

“I mean, no promises that I'll be able to restrain myself, but! Gimme a chance anyway, I can make you even hotter than you already are! Plus, we'll match then.”

“... Fine. Just- nothing too crazy, alright?”

“Again, no promises.”

Virgil groaned, but he still passed the bag to Remus.

“Holy shit...”

Remus leaned over the basin of the bathroom sink, drumming his hands on the counter excitedly. He was starry-eyed as he observed the dark, dramatic colors covering his face: metallic emerald-green eyeshadow, excessively long lashes, and winged eyeliner sharp enough to cut a bitch. His lips were black as void, but shimmered like glitter. Everything about the look was dangerous, confrontational, and grim.

“This is more out there than I’d usually wear, but. Yeah, holy shit.”

Virgil's expression, despite his best efforts, was equally awed as he peered into the mirror. The color around his eyes was mismatched; a lime to moss green gradient over his purple eye, lavender to royal violet over his green one- both colors contrasted by smudged black eyeliner under his eye. His signature Racoon Look had been maintained in that aspect, but it was even more exaggerated. In addition to that, Remus had taken to drawing various little symbols along Virgil's cheekbones, including things like upside-down crosses. Finally, there was the fuchsia lip-gloss, stark against Virgil’s paler-than-normal foundation.

“It’s okay, I guess,” Virgil breathed reverently.

“I love it!” Remus crowed, clambering onto the counter just to get a better look at himself. Somehow, he'd already managed to smudge the hell out of his eyeshadow, but it kinda… worked for him, if Virgil was being honest.

“Vee, we have got to do this more often!”

Virgil looked from his reflection to Remus', startled in a way he didn't entirely understand. The intrusive facet met his gaze through the mirror, the smile sliding off his face when Virgil didn’t respond to him.

“Right, Raggedy-Anx? It doesn't have to be this, specifically, if you really don't want to. We could just watch movies together, that's fine. Or we could do anything at all! Right?”

Virgil was still silent, lost in his mind. Remus fell from a kneeling position to sitting with his legs hanging off the counter, turning his back to the mirror.

“Was this a one-time thing? That's alright, too, if you just needed help calming down. I'm not as good as the others, I know, but if they're ever too busy again, you'll think of me when you need help, at least. Right?”

Finally, Virgil snapped out of his daze when he heard the panicked edge to Remus’ voice, feeling his anxiety as Virgil noticed the wild look that had completely erased his giddiness. It was a look that Virgil had seen plenty of times before, when Remus had been ignored far too long and was right about to start ripping things to shreds for some scraps of attention. Only then did Virgil fully recognize what the expression actually meant; the deep, terrified need that swirled behind the look, unsure of how to ask for what it really wanted after so many denials of that very want.

“Shit, sorry,” Virgil moved to stand in front of him, eye-level to Remus even though he was elevated by the counter, “Hey, it's alright, Re, everything's fine.”

Remus was still trying very determinedly to smile.

“I know! Hell, I’m not the anxious one, I'm the one that makes people anxious,” his laugh sounded like it came from a throat full of broken glass, “I just- I liked this, ya know?”

“I know,” Virgil leaned forward, coaxing Remus' arms away from where he'd wrapped them around himself, “I like this, too.”

Remus let Virgil hold onto him, surprised into something like obedience.

“You? What?”

“I like this,” it wasn't as though Virgil was expecting to hug Remus, but it seemed to have happened on its own as they moved. It was leagues nicer than he could have imagined, despite the smell. “I like you…-r company.”

“That's weird,” Remus' legs curled around Virgil’s waist. Virgil rested his hands on Remus’ hips. He listened as the creative trait's breathing evened out, vaguely aware that the situation was similar to the one just an hour or so before. Except, the roles had been reversed, of course.

“I missed you. I know I never told you, but I missed you.”

Virgil felt guilt, hot and molten, dripping down his throat. He couldn't lie; he hadn't missed Remus when he left. But now he did, in a roundabout sort of way. He missed what could have been, all of the possible understanding and friendship and likely more that he could have had for so long with Remus- all of which he'd let slip by for years. Due to just writing the artist off as disgusting, or unnecessary.

And perhaps some of that misunderstanding was Remus' fault as well, but Virgil couldn’t find it in himself to hold it against him.

“You don't have to anymore. Miss me, I mean. I'm- fuck, I'm so sorry.”

“Me too,” Remus said, pulling back to settle Virgil with a happy-yet-tearfilled gaze.

“Aw, hey,” he tightened his grip at Remus' hips, smirking, “You're gonna fuck up all my hard work on that eyeliner, Re.”

Remus laughed, loud and shrieky and him, smiling unnaturally and brilliantly wide once again. Virgil's breath caught in his throat- not for the first time that day, he found himself trapped up in that wild, energetic face.

Before Virgil was entirely aware of what he was doing, he was leaning forward, pulling Remus in by the waist. When the cackling finally stopped short, so did he, both much too far and far too close to the Duke.

He didn't have the chance to explain himself, or apologize, or anything, because soon enough understanding flashed in Remus' eyes.

“Oh, oh yes, oh hell fucking yes.”

Remus didn’t wait a second longer before closing the distance and smashing his lips against Virgil’s. A startled sound bubbled up in his throat, dying quickly as he acclimated to what was happening. Just as he did, he was reciprocating the kiss.

Their teeth clashed together uncomfortably, and Virgil was hyper-aware of the threat both his own and Remus’ fangs posed if they weren’t careful, making it far from the perfect first kiss. But he wouldn’t have wanted that anyway, nor would he have expected it. It was, somehow, better.

Remus' hand dragged down Virgil's back, his fingers fitting onto the notches of the facet’s spine. Virgil shivered, pressing himself flush against the counter (and Remus) and digging his thumbs into the trait’s hips. The motion earned him a beautiful whine from the other as the kiss deepened, growing less awkward and more heated by the second.

Virgil was unaware of how much time was passing, but when they finally parted, both were short of breath and significantly disheveled. Remus had his back pressed up against the mirror, his hair even fuzzier than its usual state, expression dazed and face flushed. From what Virgil could make out in his own reflection, he wasn't much better off.

Just as soon as they'd separated, Remus' hand was on his face, his thumb dragging just under Anxiety's lip.

“You fucked up your lipstick,” he teased.

“So did you,” Virgil answered with a smirk, leaning into the touch.

“I guess we'll have to fix it later.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Remus wriggled himself out of his pinned position, twisting around Virgil. He managed to situate himself and drop down from the bathroom counter, his manner suggestive, “Because all I wanna do right now is finish watching Cabin Fever with my new goth boyfriend and makeout during the boring parts.”

“Boyfriend?” Virgil ignored the jolt of warmth he felt at that, determined to stay nonchalant as he (subtly (not subtly)) slipped his hand into Remus’.

“You disagree?”

Virgil pretended to think it over, leading them to the door and taking his time to click it open.

“Nah, I don’t disagree,” he said finally, “I think I like the sound of that, actuall- yyyy.”

Virgil stopped short in the open doorway, voice dragging out in his shock. Behind him, he could feel Remus trying to crane around him to see what was happening, but Virgil didn’t move to accommodate him. Well, more accurately, he felt like he couldn’t really move at all, too busy parsing out the scene in front of him.

In the corner of the sectional- sharing a cushion- Janus and Patton sat, the former holding aloft a glass of wine, the latter snacking on a muffin. They sat with their legs tangled together, and had seemed to be engrossed with each other before the interruption. Both had paused mid-conversation to gawk in Virgil's direction, twin deer-in-headlights expressions on their faces.

“What-” Virgil began, bewildered.

“The fuck?” Remus finished, pushing his way out of the bathroom.

Janus struggled to sit up into a more dignified position and take the reigns of the conversation. It didn't take him long to overcome his surprise at the interruption, his surveying gaze sweeping over the other two Dark Sides contemplatively. The look made Virgil’s skin crawl.

“You know, we- well, we could ask you two-” he gestured at their interlocked hands, “-just the same question, couldn't we?”

For a moment, there was silence. Virgil looked from Patton to Janus. Janus looked from Virgil to Remus. Patton looked at the wall like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Remus looked at everyone and broke the silence.

“You didn't see us,” he announced, sidestepping his way to the staircase and dragging Virgil along with him, “And we didn't see you.”

Janus squinted, tipped his head, and nodded conspiratorially.

“Deal.”

With that little grant, Virgil and Remus darted up the stairs and into the sanctuary of the dimly lit hallway as quickly as they could. Luckily for them, Roman was probably either in a deep depression sleep or far into the imagination by now, and Logan Did Not Engage with Interpersonal Drama if he could help it.

There was a second for appreciating the absurdity of the situation (and catching their breath), before either spoke to each other.

“I’ve got a huge flat screen,” Remus piped up at last, jerking his thumb in the direction of his room.

“Any of us can conjure literally anything we want at any time, so I'm not sure what's impressive about that.”

Remus scowled, albeit playfully.

“Hush! Come watch someone slowly be consumed by a parasite with me!”

Virgil rolled his eyes and let Remus drag him off, his complaints accompanied by absolutely no efforts to avoid the situation.

Things were weird, there was no denying that. Maybe they'd end up being that way for a while yet, and Virgil knew he had a lot of news to catch up on, but he found that thoughts like that were way back in his mind. Whatever happened, he reasoned, he would still have this comfort. The arms of someone he was finally coming to know wrapped tight around him, playing up his back, a mouth trailing kisses on his neck as he half-watched horror films. Yes, things would be difficult with the others, but it was secondary.

There was someone on his side now. Solidly, unarguably there for him. With him. And that made it all feel a little bit easier.

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hoodwinkd1 · 3 years

Text

Your Eyes Whispered Ch 11-13

Ch 8 - 10 here. Ch 14 here.

Chapter 11: morning, her place

Eris jumped out of sleep the next morning, waking suddenly to the pressure of someone attempting to break down his wards. His body tensed immediately, an instinctual growl rising in his throat at the perceived threat. His mind reacted a moment later, recognizing the scent currently trying to break down the front door.

“RHIANNON HARMONY OPEN THE DAMN DOOR.” Interesting. Eris had made it this far without ever asking Rhia for her last name.

He waved a hand, removing the additional wards he had placed on the house last night. Grabbing his tunic from the chair and throwing it over his head, Eris strode downstairs just in time to watch Sofine burst into the front room.

She gave him such a ferocious glare that he froze in place without meaning to. “I suppose you’re the reason Rhia left town mysteriously for two days?”

“I, uh, yes.” Eris really wasn’t used to anyone scolding him. “Rhia helped me out with a...situation at the palace. Coffee?”

He vaguely remembered Rhia owed him a thought from last night. All this relaxation and peace had done some damage on his sharp, cunning mind.

Sofine’s eyes widened momentarily. Whether she was surprised at the gesture or suddenly remembering who she was scolding, her tone calmed considerably. “She keeps the beans above the stove, if you didn’t know.”

Eris nodded, accepting the small olive branch she offered. He lit the front burner with a flick of his pointer finger while filling the kettle under the tap with a flex of his other hand. The movements came quickly, naturally, and some of the tension left his body at the small expulsions of magic.

Quick footsteps skittered to a stop at the bottom of the stairs as the love of his life took in the scene in front of her. Shit. Eris’ thoughts had become pathetic and obsessive without his permission. He would have scowled if the sight of Rhia treading into the kitchen nervously hadn’t been so damn endearing.

“Shit, Sofi, I’m sorry.” Rhia embraced her friend tightly. “I didn’t mean to leave so abruptly; you must have been so worried.”

Sofine laughed softly, kissing the top of her head. “Oh I was very calm. Other than yelling at the High Lord first thing this morning.”

“I’m sure he deserved it,” Rhia hummed. She then made her way towards Eris, who finished steeping the beans at exactly the right second, handing her a steaming cup of coffee as she reached him. “What did you do?”

“Other than drag you into my mess?” Eris inquired, repressing the bolt of guilt that shot through him at the idea of Rhia in danger at the palace. “I placed additional wards up last night.” He looked over her head at Sofine. “I’ll make sure to include you in them next time.”

Rhia raised an eyebrow. “Who gave you permission to place them in the first place?”

Eris noted her light tone and twinkling eyes. “You tried to break into the most heavily guarded building in the Autumn Court yesterday and branded yourself as an enemy to the crown. What if someone tries to arrest you for that again?”

“Rhia,” Sofine gasped. “You tried to break into the palace?” Swiveling her glare to Eris, she demanded: “Why didn’t you let her in?”

At least she was scolding them both now. Eris held his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t know she was there!”

“And I didn’t try to break in, I actually did break in,” Rhia grumbled. “You should really upgrade the security on the eastern external wall.”

Sofine huffed. “Will you both disagree on every little detail? I want the full story.” She sat herself down at the kitchen table, making a big show of getting comfortably situated. “I have time.”

Eris sensed that now would be a lovely time to retreat and leave Rhia to her own devices. “I have to return to the palace and the horrors of bureaucracy.” He leaned forward, giving Rhia half a second to adjust to his closeness, before placing a chaste kiss on her lips. Her mouth upturned into a small smile, one he wished he could spend hours exploring. “I’ll come back when I can, good?”

“Very good,” she replied. “I expect a full report of our Court’s political situation when you return.”

Eris sighed dramatically. “If you insist.” He waved to Sofine. “I hope you won’t be too disappointed in my abilities after hearing the full story.”

“To be determined.” Her face flushed lightly, a female still unused to the High Lord’s presence, but he only felt gratitude at her attempts to treat him as normal as possible.

Eris blinked and appeared in his chambers, taking a minute to change his clothing and wash his face. He uttered some choice words at the pile of paperwork littering his desk, rifling through the to-do lists, save-the-dates, business contracts, and personal correspondences to see if any of it required his immediate attention.

One of his spies, Jyn, had sent him a list of potential candidates to fill the vacant adviser roles that Eris skimmed quickly. He had a half-baked plan forming in his mind to let people vote on the Fae listed on the sheet, maybe even ensuring that each region had specific representation. Gerwin had helped him draft a few new pieces of legislation that Eris would announce during the Autumnal Equinox ball, so one more shouldn’t cause any additional havoc.

“Fuck,” Eris swore again, remembering that his Court’s largest annual celebration was only a fortnight away and he had no idea what the hell was going on with the event.

He already wanted to check on his mother and Liang would know the most about the upcoming celebrations. Two birds, one awkward acknowledgement that they shared a bedroom.

Eris walked down the corridor, stopping to chat with one of the servants to make sure everyone on staff last night had received additional pay for working through an attempted coup. The slender male named Yuri had confirmed that the throne room was completely cleaned of any body parts and that to his knowledge, everyone had gotten the money before heading home.

The Lady of the Autumn Court lived in a different wing of the palace than her husband and sons had, a different wing than where Eris now lived basically alone. As he approached the white double doors, he ignored the urge to open the door automatically and knocked instead.

“Yes?” His mother’s tone was curious and wary, until she laid eyes on him. “Oh, darling! Come in, come in.”

Eris followed her inside, observing how much lighter and joyful she seemed in the glow of day. Her decorations had always used softer colors and more patterns than typical Autumn design; even the gold that adorned the soft blue curtains looked brighter than the gold that detailed his traditional red decor.

“How are you?” he inquired. “Did the healers take a look at you last night?”

She herded him over to the seating area. “Yes, and you have nothing to worry about. I wasn’t harmed by the Night Court.” Eris let out a deep exhale. He hadn’t known how to delicately ask what she’d experienced in captivity, and her warm gaze confirmed that she hadn’t been tortured. “I might not be feared or even respected by the other Courts, but Keir knows exactly who my allies are. And who my family is.”

“If Rhysand hadn’t finally taken care of the trash ruining his terrority, there would have been a list of us ready to kill Keir for him,” Liang grumbled, joining them from the bedroom. “Eris.”

He returned her nod. “Thank you for insisting on the healers.” Eris turned his body to face her more directly. “I actually had a question for you, as well. The Autumnal Ball is supposed to be in two weeks and I--”

“Hadn’t planned anything for it?” Liang teased. “Not to worry. The High Lord typically shows little to no interest in the event planning.” Her words had a bitter edge to them, and Eris knew he wasn’t the High Lord she spoke of. “I can send details to your rooms later today for your approval.”

Eris held his hands up. “I trust your judgement much more than my own. I would be interested in seeing the plans, though, just for my own knowledge.”

“Of course. I’ll at least want your opinion on the guest list, make sure I didn't’ miss anyone important.” Liang sat next to his mother, who raised an eyebrow.

“Is there anyone she wouldn’t have thought to invite, darling?” she asked innocently. “Do you have any new friends we don’t know about?”

Her words made him feel like an adolescent. “You know I don’t have friends. But I might send invitations to the other High Lords; see if they’d like to send a delegation.”

“Just let me or my assistant know if anyone needs to be seated separately to avoid a fight,” Liang offered. “We have over a thousand guests confirmed, so a few more won’t require much adjustment.”

Eris’ eyes bulged out of his head. “A thousand? Where did you find that many fucking people?”

“Language,” his mother admonished. “And we’ve always had a large attendance, though never quite this large.” She grinned at him. “I believe the host might be a bit more popular this year than in previous years.”

He fell into his thoughts as the two females ordered tea and went through some of the other details with him over the next hour. The annual ball was one of the only events that sent out a certain number of tickets to each regional capital, instead of inviting specific Fae individually. During Beron’s reign, only the required attendees who sat in governing roles showed up, but almost all of the optional invitations had been reserved this year with family members, friends, and colleagues. Eris hoped that meant his Court felt more comfortable with him than his father, and not that they all wanted a front-row seat to his inevitable failure or demise.

Liang sent him off with a few blank invitations, spelled to deliver themselves immediately after being addressed. He stopped by his rooms and scrawled out all the High Lords’ names, except for the Night Court’s which he addressed to Carina. She probably wouldn’t throw his letter directly in the fire. He also added a personal note, letting her know that he still owed her a very fancy dress for her help in finding his mother, offering to send his best tailor her measurements if she wanted to call in that deal.

Either through a simple mistake or a stroke of ingenuity, Liang had handed him 7 invitations, leaving Eris an extra blank one. Inspiration hit him like a brick. Rhia.

Would she want to come? See him in his role? Watch the entire fucking island scrutinize him? Normally, Eris would have let his thoughts swirl in a self-deprecating river until he’d talked himself out of the idea. He chose to stop himself this time, however, and practice healthy communication by just asking her.

Would they be able to hide their bond at such a large event? Any daemati would know, if they didn’t maintain their mental shields perfectly the entire time. The thought of hiding his feelings for Rhia, avoiding her gaze and looking at anyone else when perfection was right in front of him, drew a low growl from his lips. For her safety, though, he would do anything. Even if acting like he didn’t care felt so uniquely miserable.

Carina’s response drew him out of his thoughts. Cauldron, he was getting irrationally dismal in his old age. Maybe that was a side effect of patricide.

He snorted internally at the bleak joke.

Of course I’ll be there, idiot. Bryce is coming too. Something about how I never have any regard for my own safety blah blah blah. I’ve attached detailed instructions for your tailor, and I’ll be bringing a backup gown in case it’s not up to my standard. I have a reputation to uphold.

Eris let relief wash over him that he’d have at least one ally present. At the mention of Carina’s mate, he considered asking her for help with the whole mess of emotions that he went through daily. At the very least, she was one of the very few people in Prythian who understood the dangers of power, the sharpness of panic that came with putting loved ones in danger from enemies that normally wouldn’t spare them a second glance.

Hours of meetings and too many decisions stood between Eris and sitting in his favorite chair in a too-small kitchen. He gave himself one minute to hope that the violent chapters of his life had closed permanently, gave himself one minute to dream of what happiness and peace might actually look like, before re-entering his role as High Lord.

Chapter 12: spent their whole lives trying to put it into words

One small TW for abuse (past, nothing graphic). I've put the usually XXX before and after, but as always please let me know if I can make these warnings better and if you want a summary of that section.

“Hold that position. Yes! Exactly like that!” Rhia gasped. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement

Her student’s tiny arms began to tremble slightly at the exertion. Aliar’s face remained focused, however, as he used his leg muscles to push the wave of water higher and higher, until it touched the ceiling.

He dropped it suddenly. “Was that good?”

Rhia grinned. “That was wonderful . Did you see how much higher you raised it using your entire body instead of just your arms?”

He nodded quickly, a slow smile building on his face. Much quieter than the other two students he trained with, Aliar’s smile was equivalent to jumping with joy.

“Go grab some water, then you all can stretch and go home.” Rhia herded the trio of younglings toward the counter dividing the studio and her kitchen, where she always laid out a pitcher and cups. Raquel immediately stole Aliar’s attention, bestowing compliments and advice all in the same breath, at a speed too fast for anyone to follow along. They had a few more weeks before they would master water, all three of them did, but had made good progress nonetheless.

Rhia shuffled past Leyora carefully, from where the female had begun stretching in the most inconvenient spot, towards the dining room table. She eyed the blank parchment sitting there. The memory of the last time she had been waiting for a message from Eris while teaching this same trio hurt to recall, but she shook off any negative thoughts. Today had been good, her sleep undisturbed and her breathing easy.

It’s only been a day, she chided herself mentally. Give him time to respond, you needy wench.

“What is that?” Raquel demanded. Rhia barely stopped herself from jumping at their voice and shoved her hand away from the parchment. “Are you being sneaky with something?”

“What?” Rhia replied. “I’m an adult. I don’t have to sneak anything.”

Leyora raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like something a sneaky person would say.” Alair humphed in agreement.

“You’re all menaces. Raquel, finish your water.” Children could be eerily perceptive when they wanted to, usually when adults didn’t want them to.

As they grabbed their coats and ambled out, weather already turning gloomy before the Solstice, Rhia watched them go with a strange bittersweet feeling. Would she continue teaching if she became Lady--

Shit. That was not a road she had ever gone down and certainly didn’t need to go down. As if she would ever officially court Eris, nonetheless marry him when they hadn’t done anything more than kissing yet. When they still hadn’t talked through their pasts, their hopes, their darknesses.

Still, the thought lingered.

Rhia busied herself with making dinner as the sun set, drawing graceful golden designs on the walls. She sensed Sofine coming up to her door, grabbing two wine glasses as the Fae burst into the room.

“You read my mind,” she purred. Her gaze turned flirtatious as she noticed the wine Rhia had selected. “Feeling fancy tonight, are we? Expecting special guests?”

Rhia clicked her tongue. “You’re special enough for a nice bottle of wine. Sit, sit.”

Telling Sofi the full story, including how the mating bond had shared the agony of Eris’ stab wound, hadn’t been fun. Rhia had let her friend scold her, had let Sofi get out all of the frustration and worry she felt. Of course they both hoped that being Eris’ mate wouldn’t put Rhia in harm again, but the ordeal had created an entirely new set of anxieties.

So tonight, they stuck to pleasant topics. Rhia’s students, Sofine’s attempts to make a new kind of bread (Rhia secretly wondered how one could create a new kind of bread, but didn’t question it). The roasted vegetables turned out perfectly, a lucky feat when one’s best friend could cook better than anyone for miles.

And of course, the parchment glowed at exactly the wrong moment when Rhia had turned her back to bring the dishes to the sink. She heard Sofi’s gasp and whipped her head around, groaning when she saw her reading whatever message Eris had just sent.

“I’m a bit scandalized.” Sofi winked. “Is he always this dirty?”

Rhia gaped. “What the fuck? Give me that!” She moved at the speed of light, snatching the paper.

May I stop by tonight?

“Ugh, you’re such a bitch,” Rhia grumbled.

Sofine shrugged. “You should’ve seen your face. Maybe you wanted it to be a dirty message.”

That was the problem. Rhia would have loved a dirty message. Or she would have run screaming for the hills and never spoken to anyone ever again. It was a toss up.

“Do you mind if he crashes our plans?” she asked, stopping her perilous thoughts once more. Eris had never looked at her that way, at least not that she had noticed.

Sofi waved her glass of wine like a queen would her scepter. “Please. We hang out every other night. The male presence spices up the evening.”

If you don’t mind Sofi and I after two glasses of wine, Rhia wrote back.

Excellent. Shall I bring something from the royal cellar or do you have more than enough alcohol?

Oh definitely bring something. A fruity red, if you really want to win her over.

She couldn’t have counted to thirty in the time it took for Eris to appear in the kitchen.

“How did you possibly grab wine and winnow here that quickly?” Rhia demanded.

Eris shrugged. “I’m incredible like that.”

“Or he was sitting in the wine cellar, waiting to drown his sorrows if you said no,” Sofine piped up. Her cheeks flushed. “Sorry, I’m still not sure if I’m allowed to treat you normally and such.”

“Please,” Eris smiled. “Put me through all the shit you would normally put a male through.” With a mischievous look at Rhia, he added: “And feel free to tell me about those males while you’re at it.”

Rhia snatched the bottle from him. “Absolutely not.” She checked the label. “Cauldron damn me, this is 600 years old! Wait -- Eris, when exactly were you born?”

“I will not be age-shamed after procuring some of the finest wine in Autumn tonight,” he growled. “You know damn well how old I am.”

Sofine sighed. “I hope I’m not that grumpy in four hundred years.” She raised her now-empty glass up to Rhia, who gladly filled it.

---

Eris flicked his wrist and pulled out a glass for himself, then threw his body into the unoccupied chair. He let out a mock sigh at the females’ teasing, hiding his genuine joy at the playful conversation and quick remarks that flew across the room.

XXX

“I’m never throwing myself a birthday party again,” he insisted. “It’s just depressing at this point. I would’ve stopped throwing them years ago, if we hadn’t been...required to.” Eris trailed off. He’d almost shared the darling fact that Beron had forced all of his sons to host birthday galas, as an excuse to demand gifts and promises from various lords and nobility. Beron also loved nothing more than to use the annual occurrence as an excuse to run through the boys’ failures that year. The harsh words stung, but the sharp blows that followed drew a special kind of agony.

XXX

Rhia’s brow furrowed slightly at his sudden change in tone. “I throw too many birthdays for my students anyway.” He appreciated her attempt to lighten the mood, and appreciated the warmth of her hand on his that followed.

“That reminds me.” Eris squeezed her hand quickly, the other darting into his jacket pocket. “I have something for you. Both of you.” Inspiration struck as he handed the ball invitation to Rhia.

Her eyes danced across the sturdy parchment. “The Autumn Solstice Ball? In two weeks?”

Sofine jumped up. “What? Give me that!” She squealed as she read what Rhia had just spoken. “By the Mother, Eris!! Oh, you are such an improvement on anyone Rhia’s brought home.”

“Sofi’s always wanted to attend a ball,” Rhia shared. Eris tried to judge her expression, but he couldn’t figure out what she was thinking.

“And you? Would you be interested in attending?” he probed. “I, I know it might be complicated for you to attend with the whole...situation.” He gestured between the two of them. “We can do this any way you’d like.”

Rhia worked her bottom lip between her teeth. “I want to, I really do.” Eris had to restrain himself from running his thumb over her forehead until the skin relaxed. “I’m worried people will know, but I’m also exhausted already at the thought of hiding it all night, but I know it’d be strange for you to pop up with a mate randomly, and I--”

“I have an idea,” Sofine interrupted. Her eyes narrowed as her brain doubtlessly worked out some scheme that Eris would either detest or fancy. “It would save you both some trouble. You wouldn’t have to hide your feelings, but you wouldn’t have to come up with a backstory about how you met.”

Oh, Eris would definitely love or hate this.

Sofine took a sip of her wine. “Spit it out, you dramatic tart,” Rhia complained after a moment.

“Write your own fairytale.” Sofi let a smirk play on her lips. “Pretend like you’ve never met, as if Rhia and I just received the invitations through some mistake or some administrative process. And then at the ball, poof! The bond.”

Eris let her words run through his mind once, twice. “You think we should act like the bond clicked into place...at the ball?”

Shrugging, she defended her plan. “I can’t say whether or not you both want to bring your relationship into the public domain, but it would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?” Eris would have snorted at the dreamy look in her eyes if he hadn’t gotten the same look whenever he thought about a future with Rhia. “The new High Lord...hosting an extravagant ball...seeing the most beautiful woman grace his presence...falling love with her-”

“Cauldron, Sofi, are you a writer now?” Rhia stopped her friend from writing an entire novel aloud. Her gaze darted to Eris. “It feels a bit over-the-top, though.”

“I hate to even say this, because you know it isn’t a priority for me, but Gerwin would murder me if I didn’t consider how good of a public relations boost this could be.” Eris winced. It felt unbelievably shallow and inconsiderate to worry about his reputation while discussing his most intimate relationship.

Luckily, Rhia waved off his concerns with a hand on his arm. “Well maybe that’s something I care about.” She turned to her friend. “Do you mind giving us a moment?”

“I’ll give you all night,” Sofi smirked. “Take all the time you need to...talk. Bye!”

Her joke left them both groaning. However, Eris did take advantage of Sofi’s absence to pull Rhia away from the table and towards the much comfier couch across the room. She sat facing him, tucking her legs underneath her as she always did.

“Can I?” Eris stretched out his arm. Rhia gave him the softest smile and nodded, pulling herself closer until they were properly cuddled up next to each other.

“We obviously don’t have to this,” Eris began. “There’s ten other ways you could attend, not attend, whatever you want.”

She scrunched up her face. “Don’t ever repeat this, especially not to Sofi, but I’m completely in love with the idea,’ Rhia confessed. “It’s so silly, I know, but it feels nice to create some fake story. We could keep everything else private.”

Eris loved the idea for entirely different reasons, pretty much of all of them that he would get to dance with the most delightful Fae in this world in front of everyone without having to explain himself to anyone. However, he could work with this.

“So then? Should we do this?”

Rhia rolled her eyes. “Why does it feel like I’m signing my life away to some top-secret mission? Yes, let’s do it.”

He stayed over again that night, except this time they stayed awake talking until an obscene hour. Eris fell asleep with images of their future lulling him into peace.

Chapter 13: your eyes whispered (have we met) take 2

Eris threw himself on his bed, letting out a dramatic sigh that no one could hear. It had been a week and a half of pure stress that saw every kind of crisis, from interviewing potential advisers that ended up having criminal backgrounds to finding out the ballroom floor had somehow deteriorated and needed a fix immediately. Now, the day before the Solstice, Eris found himself wishing Auster had succeeded in his coup, if only for the fact that dealing with these logistics seemed a fitting punishment for treason.

His thoughts, as always, drifted to Rhia. They’d only had a couple nights together since, and Eris had to run back to the palace both times after a couple hours. The last interruption came at a particularly inopportune moment, right as he finished telling her the story of his darkest moment.

“Fuck,” Eris swore. Gerwin’s note made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that he had to come deal with a fight that broke out between some of his people. “I--”

“Go deal with it,” Rhia commanded, her voice unnaturally calm.

Eris let out a loose breath. He had literally just told her about Mor, about leaving a dying woman alone in the woods rather than offer her any aid because she had dared defy their fathers. “I don’t want to leave like this.”

Rhia hadn’t dropped her gaze at any point during the conversation and held his stare even now. “Are you worried that you’ve upset me beyond reproach? That this conversation is my breaking point?”

“Maybe.” He broke first, using the excuse of throwing on his coat to look away. “It’s what isolated the Autumn and Night Court permanently; why the precious Inner Circle will never tolerate me beyond my usefulness as an ally.”

Rhia snorted. “If we had more time, I’d spend all of it convincing you that this most certainly is not my breaking point. But we don’t.” She moved closer into his personal space. “So go deal with your drama and I’ll prove to you that the bridge between us is unbreakable another time.”

She always complained about his cheesy one-liners, but that sentence had carried him through the entire evening and subsequent morning. It wasn’t until that night, until he lay in his bed alone, that doubt began creeping in.

Eris’s mind raged a violent battle. The logical, rational part of him argued that Rhia had insisted they were fine, insisted she wasn’t upset at him. The dark, twisted part of him sneered at that optimism, insisted that she would never look at him again. Why would she, after hearing about his tragic engagement? After all, Rhia looked up to the Inner Circle as if they were deities, the same people who declared Eris a mortal enemy.

Sleep finally stole him from his painful journey through his memories, but his dreams offered little comfort. They swept him from memories of kisses and laughter to visions of tragedy and heartbreak at terrifying speeds.

---

Rhia finished her cup of tea. Sofi stood in front of her, buzzing with excitement, as they both eyed the sheer bags in front of them.

“I can’t stand it anymore,” Sofi declared, throwing her hands up in an overly dramatic gesture. “I’m opening them.”

She untied the lovely ribbon keeping their gowns wrapped in the protective shields before Rhia could protest. “Oh my goodness, Rhia, look .”

“Treya outdid herself,” Rhia agreed. One of her student’s guardians had offered to make them dresses for the Ball for a heavily discounted price, claiming that she had overstocked on specialty fabrics that weren’t selling.

She ran a hand softly over the gold silk. It felt luxurious, obscenely so, and Rhia found herself questioning if she deserved this. Not just the dress, but the entire situation. After so many years stuck in one place, doing one job, with basically one friend, the thought of changing her life overnight seemed beyond daunting. For Eris, though, she would try to step out of her comfort zone.

If only I could step far enough out of my comfort zone to jump his bones, Rhia thought to herself, half-humorously and half-miserable.

Sofi played with the straps of her sparkling red gown. “Where did you go just now?”

“Just wondering how the hell I got here,” Rhia answered. They played this game whenever either drifted too far into their own heads, a way to mindfully reenter the present. “It’s like a fantasy, isn’t it? Finding true love and prince overnight.”

Her tone must have struck bitter, because Sofi stopped admiring the fabric and looked her dead in the eye. “What are you worried about? That you don’t deserve this?”

“Yes, but it’s not...” Rhia fiddled with her gown once more. “We’ve talked a lot about what our life after tonight will look like, and it’s not like we’re about to get married or anything, but is it strange that I wish we were further along in our relationship? How can we just declare ourselves to the entire damn continent at this point?”

Sofi raised an eyebrow. “I would say this is a completely normal stage to tell your circle of people about a relationship. Eris’ circle just happens to include the general public.” She refilled her own mug, then froze. “When you say further along, you don’t mean sex, do you?”

“And what if I do?” Rhia challenged. Her cheeks flushed a bit. It’s not as if Sofi hadn’t seen her at her worst moments and through every failed relationship since, but this admission felt more embarrassing, for some reason. “I’m about to meet his mother and we’ve barely felt each other up.”

One beat of silence, then:

“I’m sorry,” Sofi cackled. “What is your logic here?” Her laughter grew as Rhia frowned, making her words difficult to decipher. “‘Hey Eris! I know everything’s just peachy emotionally, but I can’t go public with you until we’ve fucked!’ Rhia, you’re smarter than this.”

Rhia was smarter than this. “It sounds worse when you say it like that! I just...I’ve never waited this long before and it feels like I’m failing somehow.”

Sofi stopped giggling. “Hey,” she said softly. “You can’t compare relationships, or males, or even yourself in different situations. You’re happier than I’ve ever seen you, and that’s all that matters.”

“I am,” Rhia agreed. She took a deep breath, letting her thoughts settle. “I am, and you’re right.” Saying it out loud had helped calm the tornado of insecurities, helped her realize the fallacy of her worries. “Honestly, I think it’s a good sign we both overthink every tiny thing. As if we’re both terrified to damage what we have.”

Her friend clicked her tongue. “As long as that overthinking doesn’t create any damages itself.”

---

Eris was definitely overthinking their plan. Rhia had written him a short note about an hour ago, letting him know that her gown was perfect and she couldn’t wait. Somehow, her simple positivity had sent Eris into a swirl of anxiety that led him to interrogate Liang about every last logistical element.

“You’re hovering,” she snapped, as he followed her down the hallway. “Why are you asking me about the greeting line? You’ve done it a hundred times.”

Eris usually found her temper refreshing. Not today, though. “Yes, but we don’t normally greet everyone. How long will I be in line?”

Liang gave him a bemused look. “I don’t know, thirty minutes? How chatty do you plan to be? And it’s only for the appointed representatives from each village, like every single other time.” She turned sharply, narrowly avoiding a group of Fae carrying large trays of food to the main hall.

“Don’t follow me,” she called out, not bothering to turn her head to look back at her High Lord. Eris stopped walking, but still heard her mumble several profanities under her breath.

He ran a hand through his hair. Somehow, he had to conclude official introductions and make it into the main party before Rhia showed up, so their “first-glance” would seem authentic, without offending any local politicians by cutting their discussions short. If dinner began too soon, they’d have to wait for dancing, but would it even make sense to lock eyes after two hours at the Ball?

“Pull yourself together,” he mumbled to himself. Eris hated feeling out of control, but he simply couldn’t force a thousand people to move exactly how he wanted.

The plan stressed him out immensely, yet would provide political protection for their relationship. Technically, the law required Eris to disclose any “personal liaisons” to the palace staff and advisers, for security reasons and to allow advisers to approve any potential marriages. He obviously hadn’t done that under Beron to protect his lovers, and really didn’t want anyone saying a damn thing about his future spouse. Luckily, Prythian held mating bonds in the highest regard, and no one would dare say shit about him and Rhia, especially if the bond seemed to appear at an auspicious time of year.

“Talking to yourself now? I heard that’s a sign of mental exhaustion.” Eris turned to face his brother. “Why aren’t you up in your chambers getting pampered and prepared?” Lucien asked.

“I’m going there now,” Eris grumbled. “I was checking on any last minute issues.”

Lucien placed a hand on his shoulder. “How dedicated. Funny story, though, I had only just stepped into the entrance hall when Mother accosted me and demanded I send you back to your chambers.” He let out a small chuckle. “I believe the words ‘nuisance’ and ‘in the way’ were used.”

“It��s my party. I think I’m allowed to help out-”

“You don’t give a shit about event planning,” Lucien interrupted. “Go do your hair and make yourself pretty for your...special guest.”

Eris started. He hadn’t mentioned anything to his brother about Rhia. “What are you talking about?”

Lucien stepped back and put his hands in his pockets. The prick had spent way too much time in the Night Court. “Only that Carina seemed a little too excited for you. Anyways.”

Eris watched him walk away. Of course she had blabbed to his brother, probably immediately after Eris had confided in her last week. She was dogmatically good at keeping secrets when necessary, but notoriously good at gossiping about personal matters.

Still, he winnowed to his chambers and started a bath. His hair did look a bit a shabby, now that Lucien mentioned it.

----

The trees lining the cobblestone path twinkled with golden light, leading the way to the palace. Rhia and Sofi did their best not to gape at the scenery, at everything from the decorations to the masses of people. While they both had visited cities before Amarantha’s reign, the influx of sounds and sights overwhelmed their small-town sensibilities.

Rhia craned her neck to observe the massive double doors that were flung open to allow entrance. “Do they truly leave the doors open all night? Seems dangerous with all these crowds.”

“The only Fae who might break in has an invitation tonight,” Sofi snorted. She nodded at the thick parchment in Rhia’s hand. “Don’t even think about scaling the west wall.”

“East wall,” Rhia corrected automatically. Her heart had begun to race as they neared the doors, the entrance hall now visible over the other guests’ heads. The guards worked efficiently, splitting the crowd into three lines to check their invitations and scan for weapons.

The duo exchanged no further words until they reached the checkpoint. The guard let them through with no hassle, and Rhia let out a small breath. She didn’t expect to be denied entry or thrown in a prison cell, but her last encounter with palace guards had tainted her memory. Hopefully none of the members on staff tonight had arrested her previously.

“He certainly has taste, you think?” Sofi commented as they swept down the spacious hallway. Rhia nodded, enjoying the bright colors of the Autumn Court represented on ornate curtains, plush carpet, and detailed murals. On another occasion, she might have taken her time to admire the artwork like the other guests, but Rhia dragged Sofi quickly through them, with only one beautiful thing on her mind.

An extremely tall Fae stood at the end of the hall, in front of another set of large doors. Unfortunately, these were closed shut.

Rhia frowned at the sight. “Did we have the time wrong?”

“Oh, they just have to finish up the greeting line.” Rhia and Sofi jumped at the sudden comment. “They should open them shortly.”

Rhia grinned when she recognized the Fae next to her. “Gerwin! What are you doing out here with the rabble?” She placed a hand on Sofi’s wrist. “This is my dearest friend, Sofi. Sofi, this is Eris’ weapon master and all-around savior, Gerwin.”

He bowed slightly. “May I get that glowing compliment in writing? Pleased to meet you.”

Sofi laughed. “Likewise. I always think it’s good to know someone who knows where all the weapons are, in case of emergency.”

“The doors are now open,” droned the lanky Fae. Indeed, they swung open slowly behind him, revealing orchestral music and overlapping conversation. Gerwin shot them a quick wink and entered first, careful to act like a friendly stranger rather than an insider on the biggest secret of the year.

“Are you ready?” Sofi whispered under her breath. She slid her hand into Rhia’s, giving it a quick squeeze. “Last chance to run for the hills.”

Rhia scoffed. “Keep walking.” She forced her breath to come out evenly, slowly, hoping her body wouldn’t betray her by fainting before she even saw him.

The lights seemed even brighter, the music swelling to unprecedented volume, as she took those final steps into the ballroom, her eyes darting across all the irrelevant people and things. She only wanted to look at one person, only wanted to think of one thing tonight.

And then her eyes met his.

---

“Do you think you’ll make a trip to the Southern cities this winter? I spoke with the company maintaining your Milton estate, and it couldn’t be in better condition.” The dark-skinned representative beamed.

Eris attempted to return his enthusiasm. “Possibly. There’s still quite a bit of work to do around here. Thank you for coming.”

“Of course, my Lord. Have a wonderful evening.” As the Fae moved towards the dance floor, Eris dared to look back at the closed doors behind him. The official representatives had been let in forty minutes ago, and finally, he could see the end of the greeting line. If he could get through the next two conversations without screaming in frustration, he’d treat himself to the largest drink he could physically hold. Unless she arrived before he made it to the bar, then he’d settle on treating himself with a dance with the love of his life.

“The doors are now open.” The doormale’s voice sent a shot of adrenaline through Eris’ blood, grabbing his attention from the last group of dignitaries from the Dawn Court. His mother’s smile tightened, but her face remained diplomatic as she took over the greeting from her distracted son.

Eris strode away from the politicians and foreigners, away from his role as High Lord. As he walked, his prior thoughts and insecurities rose like a cloud of poison, choking him with doubt. This was the last time he could dream about what would happen when they saw each other’s faces again, the last time he could wonder if she’d come to brighten up his dull palatial life. The last time he could hate himself for offering her a choice to stand by him publicly, as if that wouldn’t put her in danger of scorn and harm.

Eris could barely breathe as he approached the edge of the dance floor. The string octet transitioned to louder music, meant to pull the crowds to their feet and into the arms of a partner. The first line of general guests darted in, chatting excitedly about the extravagance and the notable Fae already in the room.

He truly did stop breathing the moment he saw the tail of a silk golden gown. His eyes raked up the flowing skirt, small sections twisted into rose-like shapes until they reached the tight bodice. Then, his eyes devoured the low neckline and bare shoulders, stopping to note the one sleeve slipping down a smooth, brown arm, mocking the hand he wished to brush down that same arm.

Finally, after several seconds or an eternity, his eyes locked in on the most beautiful face he would ever see. Eris prayed to the Mother that he wouldn’t slip out of consciousness in that moment, when he looked his unbelievably perfect mate in the eye.

Rhia offered him the smallest smile, her hands rising to sit delicately at her stomach. She took a step towards him and--

Eris held back a snarl when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Gerwin mumbled an apology.

“You were standing so still that even I believe this was the moment the bond clicked in,” the weapons master remarked. “I think about half the room has noticed so far.”

“Good.” Eris turned back towards her, towards the angel he would never deserve. And yet, his doubts had completely vanished in her presence, leaving behind only the desire to hold her immediately. “I want them all to see this.”

With a final grin to his best friend, Eris walked across the floor. Fae jumped out of his way, and the gossip increased by a tenfold at his determined pace.

Sofi stood proudly next to her, failing to hold back her grin. She leaned over to whisper something in Rhia’s ear that Eris barely managed to catch. “I think you’ve caught someone’s attention.”

He was now close enough to inhale her scent. Cauldron, he must look like a besotted fool. Luckily, that was his role to play.

“My Lord.” Sofi bowed. Eris shot her a glance that might have appeared disdained to onlookers. She pursed her lips to hold back laughter.

“Have we met?” Eris asked. His tone came off light, casual, hiding the turmoil of love and desire flooding him. “You are absolutely enchanting.”

Rhia blushed and he almost gave in, almost kissed that blush right off her cheeks. “I haven’t had the honor, my Lord.”

“Eris,” he breathed. “To you, always Eris.”

“Rhiannon,” she countered. “Rhia, if you’d like.”

He held out a hand. “Will you do me the honor?”

She took it, and the warmth of her skin blazed across his body. Eris led them out to the dance floor, which had emptied in his journey across it.

The musicians changed their tune mid-note, slowing the tune down until a sweet, romantic song claimed the room. A few cautious couples stepped out from the edges of the crowd, but most of the room stood completely still and held their breaths, straining to figure out who had stolen their High Lord so abruptly.

Eris pulled Rhia close with one hand on her waist, keeping the touch gentle for her comfort. Their intertwined hands rose as their feet moved.

“Why aren’t they dancing?” she asked nervously.

“Don’t look at them. Look at me,” Eris urged. “It’s an old Court tradition, letting the highest ranking nobles have the first dance. They’ll join soon.”

“Why did you ask me to dance?”

He smiled at the question. She was still playing the game. “You must know that you’re the most flawless person in this room. I was wonderstruck.”

That beautiful blush appeared again. “I’ll guess you didn’t pass any mirrors on the way down here, then. I can’t take my eyes off of you.” The hand on his shoulder flexed as Rhia dared to let one finger brush his neck. He shivered.

“Please tell me you felt it too.” Eris’ instincts kept them from crashing into other dancers, since his eyes couldn’t be bothered to leave her face. “Tell me I’m not alone here.”

Passerbyers heard that one. His words spread across the crowd, the gossip faster than his flames ever could.

“Everything vanished when I saw your face,” Rhia replied. Her tone softened, her head tilted. “Yes, I felt it.” She leaned in, lips brushing his ear. “You’ll never be alone again, my love.” The words were murmured too softly for anyone else, an admission that was for him alone.

Gerwin would never let him forget it if he cried in front of everyone, so Eris swallowed back the rage of emotions in his throat. “Thank the Cauldron. Literally, since you’re my-”

A roar of thunder shattered the room, followed by a flash of darkness right in the center of the floor, several feet from where they stood. Some guests screamed, and the guards surged, but Eris merely sighed and held up a hand.

The night black vanished, leaving behind an unfairly attractive couple. The female waved to the crowd, flipping a lock of her raven hair over her shoulder. Her partner stood impassively next to her, his Illyrian wings marking him as obviously other.

Eris inclined his head. “Thank you for coming, Carina.”

#acotar #sjm #eris #eris vanserra #acosf #autumn court #ballgowns #dancing #all the good stuff

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for-i-am-dying-of-such-love · 4 years

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that time I watched Antony + Cleopatra

I don’t even know where to start with this one. Please don’t mistake my criticism of the episode with my hating it, because I actually think there’s a lot going on here with Xena (and Gabrielle too, but I am less focused on her arc) that’s quite nuanced and compelling. I love that Xena’s role in orchestrating Marc Antony’s downfall contributes to her moral and emotional conflict. What I abhor (and refuse to accept) is the suggestion that it’s born out of her falling in *love* with him, especially when there are far more consequential things in Xena’s life, past and present, fueling her angst in this moment. I have my own reading of what’s causing Xena’s uneasiness here, but more on that in a bit.

First: I think my greatest frustration is with the show itself. Like, THE FUCKING AUDACITY to foist a Boyfriend of the Week on us with just a handful of episodes left in season five. After everything, *everything*, that Xena & Gabrielle have suffered through (actual, literal HELL), and the continued devotion they show for one another, it’s just not believable that Xena would fall in love with someone else, let alone a ROMAN GENERAL. The emphasis here is important, but patience grasshopper, I’ll get to that.

Now, here’s where we start to get into the weeds with this notion of ‘Xena falling in love’ and there’s a lot to unpack around it, but before I do, let me just finish unspooling the threads of frustration I have with the show and it’s AUDACITY. Because it’s important to note that the show’s intention *was* to frame Xena’s attraction for Marc Antony as romantic - on top of whatever else she may have initially felt (indifference, intrigue, lust) - and not just sexual. And while I’ll concede that a story where Xena is forced to sacrifice her heart for the greater good by killing the man she loves is intriguing, it’s one we’ve already seen (Immortal Beloved). More than that, it’s a story that doesn’t fit with the Xena we know now, and the show, better than anyone, should have recognized this.

I know I’m being hard on the show runners here, so allow me this small tangent to give a little contextual understanding before furthering my arguments. As much fun as it is wrestling with the internal logic of this show (a surprisingly uphill battle all the time), I understand the unfortunate truth is that character motivations don’t always drive the story in the ways you would expect. Sometimes external factors complicate the stories XWP wants to tell and the ways it’s *allowed* to tell them. I get that.

I also get that Xena: Warrior Princess - both the show and the character - was expected to be sexy (hello, an easy win because Xena & Gabrielle). And that means, from time to time, it had to tease the audience with sex and seduction and romance (I guess fighting demons in Hell for the soul of your SOULMATE is not romantic enough, but I DIGRESS). What that often translated as on screen was a parade of Boyfriends of the Week for our two favourite Gal Pals, and by this point in the show, well, frankly it had been a while since Xena had had her a boyfriend (the Ares arc in season 5 doesn’t count). Simply put: a Marc Antony type was past due.

In this case, he wasn’t just past due, he served a dual purpose - fulfilling their Boyfriend of the Week quota, but also helping to re-establish Xena’s sexuality after she’d had her baby. I happen to think the latter take is overly simplistic and misguided (because, what, pregnant women are not also capable of being sexual creatures?), but it’s something Rob Tapert has commented on. So, ok, sure, fine whatever.

To be fair, I’m not sure if the show was deliberately signalling the return of Sexualized!Xena, or if it was simply a byproduct of the chemistry between the characters, and the inherent sensuality of the story’s setting. Regardless, the end result was certainly titillating. And I get it. I get why they want Boyfriends of the Week sometimes. Sex sells, and this episode was a blockbuster.

And before I return again to being hard on the show runners about dumb boyfriends, I just want to point out that my specific problem isn’t that Xena has been given a *boy*friend. Xena is bisexual, so men are always going to be an option when she’s considering a romantic or sexual partner. My issue is that she’s considering *any* romantic partner at all! By the gods, she’s essentially married to Gabrielle at this point.

Ay, but there’s the rub. Because the same expectation that dictated XWP should be sexy, also dictated that it should be heteronormative. The show can repeatedly double down on Xena’s & Gabrielle’s emotional and spiritual fidelity but it can never be seen explicitly to be sexual too (just a reminder, I haven’t seen S6 yet). That’s the unfortunate and uncomfortable reality of television in the late 90s and early 00s.

But this is where I take umbrage: XWP may’ve been limited (by studio notes) to giving us a chalk outline of what Xena’s & Gabrielle’s relationship really looked like, but they most definitely had the ability to control how they coloured the relationships Xena & Gabrielle had with their Boyfriends of the Week. And again, in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ the show chose to frame it as a love story, a romance, when simply playing it off as Xena’s libido run amok would have satisfied the episode’s need for sex appeal, while also honouring the fact that her heart has long been spoken for (don’t worry: taking Xena’s heart out of the equation won’t lessen her moral or emotional conflict any - I’m getting there!).

Because here’s the thing: Xena getting caught up in the heady thrill of a seduction play, especially with a man as attractive and powerful as Marc Antony is totally believable. And really, Xena taken in by *lust* makes sense, especially at this point in her life. I mean, it’s been a while since she’s had to play this seductive cat-and-mouse game (Ares doesn’t count) and maybe she’s forgotten how easy it is to slip into this character, how much fun it can be. Maybe it’s even a little liberating - this return to form from when she was wild and free - because a lot has changed since she last had to do this; she’s changed and in ways she never anticipated. She’s settled down, even if she’s still travelling the known world. Made a commitment to Gabrielle to share a life together, had a baby, and now the three of them are carving out their own little domestic sphere. And all of this is happening while she’s still reconciling the person she was before with the person she is now. Maybe she’s a little itchy.

Because this… this tension, the cadence of a feint and parry charm offensive, it’s familiar. Comfortable in a way she didn’t know she missed until she felt it again. It would be easy to see her drunk with dark delight, to momentarily lose sight of her head. It would be believable. What’s not believable is that she - a pragmatist - would ever lose sight of her heart. Because the stakes of the game are so high, for Egypt but also for her. (And for you in the back who’s clearly read ahead on the syllabus and is about to point out Xena’s checkered romantic history and her self-proclaimed soft spot for Bad Boys Who Love Like Fools - don’t worry, we’ll get there too.)

What I’m taking a generous amount of time to say is this: if they simply wanted to give us a lush and sexy episode, they could have delivered on the sexiness without attaching it to a love story! We are long past believing Xena only kisses people she’s in love with, or that she’s in love with all the people she kisses. There’s no need to pretend her sexual agency is only relevant or operational within the confines of a romantic plot line. But more than that, throwing an unbelievable romance into the mix really only serves to threaten the integrity of Xena’s motivations, because it risks reducing the entirety of her turmoil to: Xena loses another boyfriend, how le sad. And that is absolutely not the point.

Because the point is this: Rome fucking corrupts and perverts everything it touches. And Xena’s motivations are built from her (and now Gabrielle’s) tortured history with the empire and the men who run it. And if you’ll permit me, like 4,000 words, we can get into it and, hopefully, you’ll agree that shit is heavy enough on Xena’s mind without a ‘star-crossed lovers’ storyline. Remember, it was only a year ago that they both were nailed up by Romans and left to die under a cold, grey sky at the foot of Mount Amaro. That cross alone, and the long shadow it casts, is more than capable of supporting the dramatic weight of this episode, never mind the crosses that came before it.

So, I can’t overstate the importance of Xena’s past connection with Caesar and Rome. It informed so much of who Xena was to become, as a cruel and bloodthirsty warlord, and then later, as a warrior fighting for good. Even now, after Caesar’s death, that connection is still informing her. It will never stop. And, Rome will never be absolved of its sins against Xena & Gabrielle. There’s simply too much trauma in that shared past. Trauma that‘s telegraphed onto every interaction Xena has with Rome and its strongmen going forward.

And it’s exactly the reason Xena would never fall in love with Marc Antony. She might well lust after his body, but she will never pine for his devotion. Because, even in that moment under the stars when he is just a man with his chest cracked open, offering up to her his heart, beating strong and hungry in want of her affection, she can’t help but see the hardened, black veins where the love of Rome - like a creeping scourge - has left its vile mark. Of course she recognizes it, her own heart bore the same disease. A gift from Caesar. The pretty boy with his pretty words and his pretty promises, who so subtly disarmed Xena and then skillfully stripped away her defences until she had bared her heart to him. Who didn’t hesitate to flay it with a knife of her own making, it’s blade poisoned with his love for Rome.

He did not take her heart - sometimes she wished he had - but left it to rot in her chest, slow and angry. And it nearly destroyed her. Nearly drained her of every ounce of humanity she had left, as hatred and spite and cold brutality filled her up instead. He had weaponized Xena’s affection for him and used it against her and she was forever changed. In that singular moment she saw Caesar, and Rome - because Caesar was Rome and Rome was Caesar and they were one and the same - for what they truly were: insidious and unrepentant in their calculated villainy. And she hated - not just the man who betrayed her, but the monster who nursed him with poisoned milk, and all the other strongmen who nursed at the same teat. Because in that moment too, Xena learned that all the men who kneeled before Rome and lusted after her glory were the same.

But she didn’t let her hatred go unproductive. She had been careless and imprudent in her dealings with Caesar, and nearly paid for it with her life. Except she survived and then thrived, in her own insidious, unrepentant, calculated villainy. And she never forgot what Caesar had done to her, how he had done it. She turned it over and over and over again in her mind. Studied it from every angle. Studied *him*. Until she knew how he thought, how he moved, where he was weak and unsuspecting. Until she knew every single one of his plays, and how best to counter them. Where and when to lay siege. A secret weapon she cultivated, not just to destroy the man who destroyed her heart, but to lay waste to all the fools who followed in his footsteps. She wouldn’t be taken in by Rome again.

And, to be fair, the episode doesn’t try to run from this history. It just doesn’t linger in it any longer than is necessary to give a brief nod to Brutus and the crucifixion (which is a shame, because it informs so much of both Xena’s & Gabrielle’s psychology, but we’re getting there!!!). Even still, Gabrielle’s first words are loaded with its legacy, if not also quiet resignation: “Are we really going to do this?” Because: Fuck! Rome, again? They’re only willing to go another round with Rome because of Cleopatra, only willing to embrace the ghosts this will stir up because they feel they owe it to a friend.

So, of course they’re going to do this. Only, it’s no longer about vengeance, at least not the white fury that once burned hot in Xena’s veins. This is different. Xena’s ire still seethes, but she doesn’t plan to wield it like a mighty sword, rather she’ll channel it with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel poised to excise a tumour, deliberate and clinical. The plotting is easy - Xena has a library of schemes stored away in the vast reserves of her grey matter - but made easier by the fact that she knows Caesar’s playbook so intimately. The man may be dead but he lives on in Rome and the hearts of all the faithful men who love her - proud and predictable. Puppets whose strings she knows she can deftly manoeuvre. The problem is that Xena’s too comfortable in her self-assuredness. Her plan and her assumptions of how Roman strongmen operate and her ability to manage everything is founded on her understanding of Caesar. And none of these men are the next Caesar. And it’s a problem, because this was supposed to be a quick and straightforward trip up the Nile to Memphis to do a little housekeeping on behalf of a friend and it’s been complicated by the fact that her pawns are not being cooperative.

This entire endeavour is not what she was expecting, Antony is not at all what she was expecting. He’s disarmingly handsome and charming, like many of Rome’s great strongmen, and their chemistry is electric - a bonus when you’re really trying to sell your part in a seduction play - but she realizes a little too late that the game she plays with him is not the one she had planned on. It’s actually much more dangerous.

And, I get that many fans believe Xena’s sexual attraction to Marc Antony is meant to telegraph an underlying romantic attraction as well. That as their physical encounters become more intimate and intense, so too must Xena’s feelings for him. And it’s easy to read it this way because Gabrielle’s own jealousy seems to reinforce the very idea, and Xena, herself, looks increasingly unsettled after each interaction. But I think it’s too simplistic an answer. Xena’s unease about Antony is growing because her plan has been frustrated by unforeseen hurdles, none of which include her falling in love with him. And Xena is frustrated in return.

We totally see this play out in Xena’s treatment of Gabrielle. She is curt and cool and dismissive (at least until their balcony talk), especially after Gabrielle puts a spectacular halt to Xena’s picnic with Marc Antony. But Xena’s distance here is not because she’s being defensive (at Gabrielle’s continued suggestions that she’s lost the plot), or because she’s angry for the interruption (ok, I’m sure there’s a very base part of Xena that *was* disappointed), or because she’s hurt (how could Gabrielle not have faith in her?). It may come across that way, but, really, Xena’s just acting out her frustrations.

Because this whole situation with Marc Antony, if a little intriguing at first, is irritating. And Xena’s frustrated. On many levels. The most obvious, and least surprising, being that Antony’s attentions have left her itchy and it’s distracting. And not because the chemistry between them has set off a chain reaction of romantic feelings for him - Xena is not spending her free time daydreaming about the man behind the General. It’s simply because there’s a kind of fire in her veins now that she wasn’t expecting to deal with this time out and it has the tendency to keep her on edge. And it’s not that she can’t handle it - spontaneous combustion is sometimes an occupational hazard when she’s playing at desire - it’s just that this particular element was not part of her plan.

That’s the real frustration: Xena’s not used to her plans being stymied. Her opening move - rolling herself, naked and chained, out from a carpet - though, brazen, should have been the perfect lure, should have painted her Cleopatra as an easy, if not unwilling, target for Antony’s ambitions. Because all Roman strongmen are the same: pretty boys with pretty words and pretty promises and pretty predictable tastes for cunning and seduction that they weaponize for the glory of Rome; heartless but for their love of res publica.

And so, this exact play is one Xena is confident any ambitious Roman would pounce on - remember: she knows their playbook, was once herself on the near-losing end of such a gambit, back when she was still a little naive and the right words could soften her heart; before her legs and her psyche endured the full force of Rome’s wrath. Except Antony doesn’t take the bait, like she expects, and it catches Xena flat-footed, a position she rarely finds herself in and one she isn’t particularly fond of. And so now she finds herself having to regroup and change tactics on the fly, which is fine - she’s used to that too - it’s just that her forward momentum is frustrated by the fact that she can’t get a good read on Marc Antony, doesn’t quite know his angle. He’s an unknown and unpredictable variable in a plot that already has a lot of moving parts and it introduces just the tiniest element of doubt into the equation.

Which is why it doesn’t help that Gabrielle is dubious of Xena’s motivations surrounding Antony. Not that Xena blames her for her concerns. She knows they aren’t really meant to provoke - that they come from a place of genuine anxiety, born from Gabrielle’s intimate understanding of Xena’s unhappy past with both bad-boy types and the ravages of Rome. Knows that Gabrielle, whose heart has traced all the scars of that past and let her love be a salve, is steadfast in her belief in Xena, even when the wheels are falling off. But Gabrielle’s questions do provoke. They pique Xena’s frustrations. It leaves her feeling cagey - like her back is up - and she hates it because it means she’s dangerously close to being on the defensive.

And really, by the time Marc Antony invites her to meet him under the pyramids, Xena is running out of options. Her back isn’t just up, it feels dangerously close to being backed up against a wall. She’s only playing this game because she’s confident she’ll win - that’s why she led with such a shameless opening bid, presenting herself to Antony as she did - but with each round Antony’ coyishness has forced her to up the ante while she waits for him to play his hand. Once upon a time she might have enjoyed and encouraged this slow, deliberate back-and-forth - would have been willing to play it out until she was out of chips (and her clothes) - but she no longer has the patience. Not that she’s entirely immune now to the thrill of what they’re doing - Xena has always enjoyed the hunt and then playing with her food - it’s just that she needs him to reveal his hand before he can call her bluff because there aren’t anymore chips to spare and she has too much on the line to go all in.

But Xena’s emotional conflict isn’t just being driven by her frustrations with the way her plan is playing out - it’s priming the engine, to be sure - there are other feelings at work here too. And chief among them is a deep and growing unease with the roles she and Gabrielle have cast themselves in and the very real consequences that will come from their interference. It doesn’t sit well with Xena, the way they’re toying with the futures of Egypt and Rome - as if they are just prizes to be won and Brutus, Antony and Octavius are the game pieces that need to be maneuvered around the board until a winner appears. As if there aren’t millions of lives at stake. She hates it. Hates that she has been somehow cast above it all, to dabble, like some unworthy god, in the lives of so many, and yet also stuck in the thick of it, an unwitting pawn herself.

And the longer Xena’s game is in play, the murkier everything becomes. What seems like a straightforward plan on paper, is actually a mess of competing interests, each as cold and ruthless as the next. And right at the heart of it all: Xena (and Gabrielle too), judge, jury & executioner. Because despite her business-like approach when they arrived in Egypt, Xena’s ability to remain detached and objective is under pressure, especially as all the players in her game reveal themselves and their motivations resolve into finer focus.

And there’s something about Marc Antony. He’s truly unnerved Xena. Because he didn’t play by her rules, the rules she owed to Rome - and he, a Roman no less. Maybe there would have been a time in her past when this would have endeared him to her, but now it’s left her uneasy. He needles at her resolve, the confidence she has in her plan. There’s a part of her that starts to wonder if she’s mis-read him completely, and that’s the start of a slippery slope into thinking she has mis-read this entire situation. And she doesn’t have the time for back-sliding.

But the problem is this: no matter how she looks at it there’s no clear answer, only devastating consequences if she’s wrong. For herself, for the lives she’s playing with, and probably for most of the known world. Because Rome and her strongmen will stop at nothing to take it all. And that thought never leaves her. Rome is a constant drum beat in her mind: Rome Rome Rome. Xena knows what Rome is capable of, what these three men jockeying for her power are capable of, even if Xena doesn’t know *them*. It echoes in her mind every time one of them is before her - even as Marc Antony’s kisses leave behind a fever in her blood - Rome Rome Rome.

And while her mind whirls constantly, turning over strategy and tactics, she’s tried to keep her heart mostly out of this affair. Left it unburdened by the machinations of statecraft and violent political intrigue. Except for a dull ache - when she thinks about Eve downriver in Alexandria, or when her eye catches Gabrielle in an unguarded moment - Xena could almost believe the desert sun had turned her heart to dust. Almost. Except that ache is there and, like her frustration and unease, it’s been growing more persistent.

Because Xena has more than herself to consider now. Sure, she’s spent the last five years dedicated to preserving the greater good - whether fighting for her closest friends or the nameless, faceless masses - but it’s different now, she’s different, and not just because she has a daughter who needs her to come home. She has Gabrielle too. They have a little family. And even though Xena has loved Gabrielle for years, she feels fiercely protective of Gabrielle’s heart and love now, in a way she’s never felt before, with anyone. But then, maybe it’s not surprising: they did battle demons in hell for each other’s soul. That sort of thing changes everything.

And Xena can see how this is affecting Gabrielle, even if she doesn’t say it out loud. Remembers the pierce of iron through the flesh of Gabrielle’s hands as surely as she remembers it through her own. Rome has robbed them both and Xena sees the weight of it in Gabrielle’s gaze. Sees, too, the way Gabrielle traps her bottom lip in her teeth as Xena smiles seductively at Antony. Watches the flush creep across Gabrielle’s pale skin when Antony’s kisses become more emboldened. Catches the dangerous flash in Gabrielle’s green eyes. The one that hasn’t gone away since they arrived in Egypt. Xena sees and it makes her heart lurch. To watch her beloved watch her take delight in the charms of another. And to know the sight of it is a white hot grip on Gabrielle’s heart. Xena feels the burning clench around hers too.

And this is the Xena we see when she meets Marc Antony under the pyramids. Frustrated and uneasy, heart aching. Tired. Tired of this game and her role in it. Tired of Rome, but mostly tired of all the horrible things that happen by her hand because of Rome. And then there is Marc Antony waiting for her. Disarmingly handsome and charming, unnerving in his refusal to play into her hands, a Roman above all: a pretty boy with pretty words and pretty promises. And like all Romans, she expects the promises to be lies. Except, there’s something in the way he’s played his hand, the way he’s held back all this time, that tells her there might be truth in his words when he tells her he wants her love.

She can sense his confession even before the words are out. Maybe on some level she always knew, had seen the inevitability of this moment even as she refused to believe in the possibility. But his words pierce the haze that has kept her from seeing her own folly. And it’s like lightning in a bottle. The way every frayed nerve snaps and jumps and arcs all at once - the rain of sparks illuminating everything that had left her mind and heart unsettled - in an instant of sudden, total understanding. It steals her breath and slices at her heart, this clear and unbearable realization. What she’s done and what she still has to do to bring this absurd game to a close.

See, she’s made a terrible miscalculation. Because in her mind Roman brutes are heartless. Capable of loving only Rome. And her seduction of Marc Antony was only ever meant to be a power play. How could it be anything more? She had weaponized lust and sex in the past to get the things she wanted, this was to be no different. Except that it was. And her hubris - her prideful overconfidence in her infallible, little plan, coupled with her resolute belief that all Roman men are Caesar at their core - has led her to overplay her hand. Not that she won’t still find a way to win. It’s just the cost will be much higher than she could have anticipated.

Because she has unwittingly weaponized Marc Antony’s affection for her and now she is going to have to deliberately use it against him. It is devastating. To see his chest bared to her so willingly, and to know that she must flay his heart with a knife of his own making. It shakes her resolve. It brings tears to her eyes.

But of course it brings tears to her eyes. She has done the unthinkable: she herself has become Caesar. The thing she hated most. The man who won her trust and her love and then betrayed her. Cold and hard and heartless. Brutal and ruthless and willingly so. In this moment she is Caesar. And soon she will become Rome, sacrificing another man, who might yet have been good, in the name of her unrequited love.

This moment under the pyramids is so important. Everything hangs on this declaration from Marc Antony, on Xena’s tears. I know people see it as confirmation of Xena’s feelings for him - and she has feelings to be sure - but they’re not romantic. Xena’s emotional reaction, and the genuine unease she wears thereafter do not hinge on her being in love with him. Xena’s humanity is enough to soften both her heart and her regard for Antony in this moment. Her compassion and regret are not dependent on attraction or attachment. And so the story doesn’t need to frame her tears for Marc Antony as a lover’s heartbreak, because her heart was always going to break for him, as it breaks for herself and Gabrielle and the ruin left in their wake.

And there will be ruin. Xena is certain of it. Although, for a moment, she might have held a glimmer of hope for Antony. This Roman who’s willing to give up his army for love. For love. Not that she wants what he’s offering. She just wants to believe he could be different. Not for her. For Rome. But then his sword is hilt deep in the belly of one of Brutus’ men and then slicing through the throat of another. And Xena knows - even as she and Gabrielle dance around the subject hours later, bathed in moonlight and disquiet - that any hope for him is misplaced. Knows exactly what he will do with Brutus’ army and Octavius if he prevails. Is keenly aware of what awaits if he learns of her deception and is allowed to live.

Because once upon a time she was the one who trusted and loved and was betrayed and lived. And thousands paid the price at the end of her sword for Caesar’s treachery. Xena can’t even imagine what Marc Antony, favoured son of Rome, might do. Can’t risk the chance. So he must pay the price at the end of her sword too. Xena wishes it weren’t so, tries to avoid the fight that will take his life - because now that she’s seen the humanity in her enemy she wants no further part in this madness she’s helped to orchestrate - only she doesn’t have a choice now. Alea iacta est - the die is cast, and her blade and her betrayal find Antony’s heart all the same. And when the end comes, there’s Xena, soaked in blood and rain and tears, in the middle of this fucking mess, the dead and wounded scattered about her. She can’t escape the truth of it then: she did this.

And it’s this! All of this - the many layers of trauma in need of reckoning and Xena’s tangled heart, twisted further by the part she is forced to play in Egypt and the goddamn fucking senselessness of it all - that carries the emotional weight of the episode. Who needs a Boyfriend of the Week when there’s already all this angst?

And, ok, I hear you say: Pattie, you’ve made some valid points about Xena’s state of mind, but why can’t Xena’s emotional and moral conflict be born from this fraught personal history AND from the fact that she *was* falling in love with Antony? Wouldn’t that make it an EVEN MORE dramatic and powerful story? Because she was specifically falling in love with a ROMAN GENERAL, the very epitome of the thing she has spent most of her adult life hating?

I would like to agree with you, dear skeptical reader, but the simple truth is that there isn’t room for both in *this* story. The reality is this: a 44-minute-long, action-focused show like XWP just doesn’t always have a lot of extra time to linger on the emotional beats. And this episode, in particular, already so busy with all the palace and political intrigue, has even less. So much of what we’re able to read of Xena’s psychological state - and *why* it’s so deeply fraught - doesn’t even come from this episode. It relies on past emotional beats to inform our understanding of her behaviour. (And, I don’t know, perhaps this is why a casual viewer might pass off Xena’s and Marc Antony’s interplay as romantic - because most of the horrible things that have happened to Xena by Roman hands are left unsaid, and surely, if we’d been reminded of them we would never accept that Xena would fall in love with a golden boy of the empire.)

As it is, there’s barely space for any kind of meditation on how either Xena or Gabrielle are feeling about the roles they are being forced to play and the seemingly callous and ruthless tactics they increasingly use to do so, let alone a tenuous romance. And the former is what this episode should be actively engaging with: the moral ambiguity that has been driving season five and will continue on through the end of the series.

Further complicating things with a love story, doesn’t make the episode more dramatic, it just takes up emotional bandwidth that could be better served elsewhere. Because, yes, Marc Antony is the epitome of the thing Xena has spent more than a decade hating! Xena’s history with Caesar and Rome (and everything they both stand for) is richly layered and devastating. It cannot be erased or ignored. To suggest that she is capable of falling in love with Antony (and to ask us to then believe it) without also deliberately exploring the tension inherent in that act is obtuse.

Those kinds of emotional beats need room to fucking breathe. And the episode doesn’t do this because there’s just too much happening. It tries - in broad, moody strokes - to capture the tenor of Xena’s emotional landscape, and it succeeds in wrapping us up in the same angst that drapes Xena, but the source is nebulous. Her haunted looks and tears - under the sphinx and when her sword finds Antony’s belly - can only telegraph so much, especially when we have been given very little reason to feel invested in her supposed affection towards him.

And here’s where we finally touch on Xena’s checkered romantic history - and her self-proclaimed soft spot for Bad Boys Who Love Like Fools (10 points to Ravenclaw for your patience) - because I’m sure you’re about to suggest that Marc Antony’s air of a Bad Boy is itself cause enough to garner Xena’s affection. Powerful, disarmingly handsome, and charming? Check, check, check. Capable with his ‘sword’? Bonus: super check. But just because her past is littered with dysfunctional relationships and Bad Boys - though I’m sure not all were bad, and some were definitely women - doesn’t mean she’s interested in repeating her mistakes. The Xena of old is vastly different from the one we know by season five, even if there are parts of her that are very much the same.

The principal driving force in her early adult life and formative romantic relationships was lust. It ruled over every part of her. Lust for: power and for violence and for blood and for riches and for infamy, and, of course, for sexual gratification. And so, she sought out partners - themselves driven by the same hunger - who could satisfy all of her desires, not just her (very) carnal appetite. She fell hard and fast and burned white hot until something, or someone, else came along and made her feel even more incandescent. In those early days, Xena wasn’t looking for *love*, she was looking for a good time.

Now, that’s not to say Xena’s past romantic entanglements were frivolous or lacking in genuine sentiment. At the very least, I suspect many were sustained by the warm affection that comes naturally from the intimacy of sharing your life with someone, whether they’re riding into battle alongside you or just warming your bed over a long winter. Nor is it meant to be dismissive of whatever fondness she felt for her lovers. Because: not all love looks the same. There are different kinds of love and different ways to love.

For Xena, though, whose heart had been so thoroughly and devastatingly mangled by Caesar’s betrayal, love was immaterial. At best, it was the unintended, if pleasurable, byproduct of a mutually beneficial arrangement. At worst it was a weakness that her enemies could exploit. Mostly, it was just a silly notion to scoff at. And the feeling Xena would come to associate with love - whether she acknowledged it as such, or not - was informed by both the dynamics of her relationships with Bad Boys and her own dark, irrepressible designs. It was selfish, and often cruel. Grounded in hot blooded impulses and savage desire, rather than growing out of an honest and patient connection.

And it became so thoroughly ingrained in her psyche. It was her overriding view of love. Even after she came to recognize how different love could be - and look and feel - once it was no longer centred in selfishness, when it was open and giving and kind, it was a struggle for Xena to undo her conditioning, to rewrite her love language. Because: first, she had to accept that she was worthy of this new kind of love, and then she had to actually accept it once it was offered.

But, old habits die hard, even for Xena, and I’m sure there were times - when she was just beginning to reframe how she viewed love and was learning how to reopen her heart - that she slipped back into her outmoded ways of thinking. Conflating lust with something else; allowing herself to be tempted by dalliances with partners who stoked her selfish desires, instead of tempering them. And maybe if Xena had crossed paths with Marc Antony then - back at the beginning of the series when her history with Rome was still messy but not nearly as tortuous as it is by the end of season five (you know after Britannia and its fallout which was the beginning of The Rift, and the deaths of Crassus and Ephiny and Pompy and the countless others who were the collateral damage surrounding those events, and, of course, Xena’s & Gabrielle’s own death on the cross) - I’d be willing to believe that she could love him.

Because, at one time Xena might have been interested in a man like Antony, might have been able to look past the Roman tunic and pursued him, taken in by his magnetism and allure. But by this point in the series Xena just isn’t interested, and not because her duplicity has made it impossible for her to be, but because by now her entire understanding of love - of being loved and giving love and nurturing it and making room for it to grow - has fundamentally changed. It’s been re-centred in selflessness, and everything that Marc Antony represents is antithetical to this new appreciation.

And I get that there’s an argument in here somewhere, that suggests Xena’s new approach to love might have softened her heart in such a way that she’s both able and willing to see the man behind the General, and be open to loving him too. But I would argue that the very things, the very people, whose love has transformed Xena’s heart are also the very things that would stop her from ever letting her heart go there. It’s not just that her point of reference on love has changed, it’s that she’s had years now of lived experience to break that cognitive dissonance between her attitude - knowing the kind of love she wants, the kind of love that’s *good* for her - and her behaviour - choosing that reaffirming, selfless love instead of the tempestuous, selfish one. She’s not blind to her past weaknesses, she knows exactly the sort of temptation Marc Antony offers - as surely as Gabrielle does the moment she lays eyes on him - but recognizing it is not akin to considering it. Because: Xena’s already found the love she needs and wants (and knows she’s earned and deserves).

Ok, but what of Xena’s admission on the balcony, when she cops to having a soft spot for Bad Boys Who Love Like Fools? I think it’s less about admitting (to herself as much as Gabrielle) that she’s developed romantic feelings for Marc Antony, as it is about Xena acknowledging a certain sort of fondness she feels for these ‘Bad Boys’. A fondness that’s born from a mutual understanding. Because: I think Xena sees herself in these men - at least an earlier version of herself - when she was ‘bad’ and foolhardy at love, and her heart tugs at the memory of it. Some curious mix of nostalgia and empathy, that softens her regard for them.

And she certainly sees herself in Marc Antony. The parallels between her story with Caesar and the story she’s now playing out with Antony are unavoidable, and if she’s cast herself as Caesar in this shadow play then Marc Antony is her younger self. Of course she would have a soft spot for him, she knows how this story ends. Knows, specifically, what it’s like to be willing to give your trust and your love only to be betrayed in return. And, of course, it’s made only more complicated with the knowledge that she’s the one who will ultimately be his ruin.

So, finally, exhausted and exasperated and, like 7,000 words into this, I hear you ask: what does it really matter? Xena doesn’t choose Marc Antony in the end, so what does it matter if it was lust or love or guilt or a fucking mid-life crisis that was driving her in this episode? Well, dear, patient reader: it matters because Gabrielle deserves better (THIS IS A BOLD STATEMENT, I KNOW, AND IT’S NOT AN INDICTMENT ON XENA’S CHARACTER EITHER, IT’S JUST THAT I FEEL VERY PROTECTIVE OF GABRIELLE’S HEART, OK! AND THE ONE THING THIS EPISODE DOES IS GIVE GABRIELLE THOSE LITTLE BEATS WHERE WE LINGER ON HER VISIBLE REACTIONS TO XENA’S TETE A TETE WITH ANTONY AND SHE’S CLEARLY JEALOUS AND HURT AND WORRIED AND SO, LET’S NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THE FACT THAT HER EMOTIONAL STAKES ARE ALSO INCREDIBLY HIGH IN THIS EPISODE, NOT JUST BECAUSE HER LIFE PARTNER IS SEDUCING SOME DUDE, BUT ALSO BECAUSE THE LEVELS OF BRUTALITY SHE’S INCREASINGLY HAVING TO EMPLOY ARE ALARMING. AND SO, SOMEONE IN THE WRITER’S ROOM WAS THINKING ABOUT THIS WHEN THEY WERE OUTLINING THE STORY - UNDERSTANDING THAT THERE’S AN UNDERCURRENT IN XENA’S & GABRIELLE’S RELATIONSHIP THAT WOULD MAKE SEEING XENA WITH ANTONY UNCOMFORTABLE, BUT THEN NOT ALSO RECOGNIZING THAT THAT SAME UNDERCURRENT WOULD MAKE IT EQUALLY UNCOMFORTABLE FOR XENA. AND IT’S JUST LIKE: TEAM, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DO THAT TO GABRIELLE? HER HEART MUST HAVE BEEN IN A TERRIBLE STATE. AND WHY DID YOU HAVE TO MAKE XENA COMPLICIT IN THIS?)

But, seriously, I’ve spent all this time diving deep into this episode and the ways it comes up short and why, and while I’ve alluded to it, I’ve mostly avoided the elephant in the room.

We need to talk about Gabrielle.

Because: Gabrielle is at the heart of why a romance between Xena and Marc Antony feels contrived and unconvincing. At this point in the show, it’s clear Xena & Gabrielle are fully and completely committed to each other (and, yes, I know that doesn’t necessarily preclude either of them from also seeking romantic or sexual partners elsewhere... I just don’t think they’re the sharing types, but I DIGRESS) - I mean, we *just* had ‘Kindred Spirits’ where they were nesting and talking about domestic bliss and privately teasing each other about their sex life in the most blatant way possible and failing miserably at breaking up but winning at being cute and married and adoringly in love. And I think it’s important to acknowledge the weight of Xena’s decision to very clearly have Gabrielle as her *life* partner - because implicit in the act of choosing to commit yourself to another person is a vow of fidelity, a bond that would be near-holy to Xena, whose word means everything.

But more to the point: Xena loves Gabrielle and Gabrielle loves Xena, and their love has been the beating heart of this show from the beginning. Gabrielle’s care and tenderness has been transformative - everything that Xena has come to understand about love, everything that she does to honour and protect it, is because of Gabrielle and the heart she’s so selflessly given of. And it’s this love story - and how the show has framed its slow and beautiful unravelling - that becomes the bench mark, the gold standard, for how all other love stories in this universe should be viewed, for how Xena, herself, now views love.

So, I guess what I’ve been saying all along is this: Xena can’t possibly be falling in love with Marc Antony because she’s already in love. Deeply, profoundly, bound-for-all-eternity in love. And no one, in this life (or any other, let’s be real) will ever compare. Not pretty boys with pretty words and pretty promises. Not Bad Boys Who Love Like Fools. Not even a god himself. There is only Gabrielle.

#xena #xena warrior princess #xwp #otp: for i am dying of such love #xena and gabrielle #S05E18: Antony + Cleopatra #pattie has some thoughts #the fucking audacity #i still cannot even

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aaalllice · 3 years

Text

Random night in Small Heath

idk if i ... maybe i should explain this ... it's like 3am and i just wanna hang out with the boys in peaky blinders world ... that's too much to ask ?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

imagine you just relax in a random night out with jonh finn micheal and isiah.

( I let you decide your life) (are you a peaky blinders? or just live you to Small Health nothing more? it’s up to you ))

Wearning : mention of rape on the reader , bad words, alcohol

the story is not at a previous moment in the series (just that Finn is a little older and Michael is already there)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, you are friends with the youngest Peaky Blinders and except Isiah, they are all part of the Shelby family. You are not afraid for your life, you are more than well protected, you fear nothing or nobody, the feeling of invisibility makes you a bit arrogant.

Tonight is another night and like every night in Birmingham the bars and the streets are full. You and the guys love this atmosphere, being the kings of these streets and that nobody resists you, you love to hang out, drink, laugh, do bullshit ( like throwing firecrackers at people who are fucking in the street )

So it was a good night the whole gang was there, you were going to have fun, John was already very drunk, Michael was never really drunk, but he already had a glass of whiskey in his blood. Finn and Isiah had already had two beers before coming, so you were the only one with a dry throat so far. We had to fix it!

~~~~~~~

I’m gonna go the first person -I-

~~~~~~

We’re all rushing to the Garrison, in addition to having free drinks, Arthur became the owner so an atmosphere of madness is guaranteed.

after a few drinks, I realized I was alone, the guys were gone, the traitors. I got up hard, I took a few steps before getting accosted by a bastard, 2 short minutes without the guys and here, and I get fucked up. The man looks at me as if I were a piece of meat, he starts touching my hip.

Okay, either I kick his ass or I ignore him and rush out to the door, I chose the second option, I feel too drunk to try anything (how many glasses I have to drink 5 or 6 can be 10), arrived at the door, the man pushes me out, I’m falling to the ground, damn it, I shouldn’t have drunk so much, I’m having trouble getting up, I shouldn’t have challenged John to box before yesterday, I still have bruises everywhere (of course he didn’t want to hit hard but I told him and that if I didn’t teach myself to hit I could never defend myself).

Before I was even standing I felt raised and pressed against a wall, the asshole is trying to take off my top, all right, this is the time to remember John’s moves, but as usual, I’m never really focused when I’m with the guys, fuck me!

Well, like anyone living in Birmingham I have a knife in my pocket, I push him as hard as I can, to get him off my neck, he pulls back a few inches, by the time I grab my knife, and in less than a second, I stick him in his left leg.

He throws a chilling scream in my back, pulls out the knife, and sends me back more violently than the first time, that’s when I realize what’s going on, I’m going to get raped. No, it’s not possible. I push it, I hit it hard. I’m too drunk and upset to succeed.

Call for help, we’re a Small Health, everyone’s too high to see what’s going on, I feel his teeth sticking my skin, I’m in so much pain, I push him harder. When suddenly I feel it gone, away from me, but not because of my blows but rather because of an external force.

I fall to my knees, caught my breath, and raised my head, I had come to my senses in a second, ready to hit that bastard, some movement I learned before yesterday came back to me in memory. but And there, just as I was about to get up, I saw the man’s body fall heavily to the ground.

what the fuck? ; I didn’t think I could put k.o someone just with my thoughts.

So, you might need another private boxing class ; said he has half in blood, and drunker than at the beginning of this evening.

Are you fooking kidding me? I thought I was going to die ; say I, with arrogance mixed with anguish (my honor was at stake, if I was seen weak it was over for me)

Ok ok come this way; he put his arm on my shoulder, I feel protected, it was comfortable

thanks, John-boy; he gave me his famous arrogant smile

I think I saw the boys on that street, let’s go; we started walking, still in the same position

Bloody hell, I thought I was gonna lose a tooth ; he touching his jaw

Would the great John Shelby have been afraid of losing ? ; with sarcasm

No never, he hesitated, maybe a little, I mean a little fear for you

he just said... no we’re just friends he’s worried because we’re friends nothing more but maybe.... no.... not John one of my best friends, no way,.....

I was going to answer when a big firecracker fell right on our feet, we are throwing to the side to avoid it, half surprised, we heard laughing. it was the boys, who try the new firecrackers to steal from the Lee family, Michael threw them on us.

we are looking at John before we laugh, we joined them running (John always with the bloody face) We threw 30 firecrackers that night, drank some more beer, and set fire to a nice car before returning to the Garrison, where everyone had gone, only Arthur who fucks a woman on the counter, He greeted us and told us to go fuck ourselves in passing.

We settle in the backroom, the youngest is asleep quickly. With John, we waited until Arthur left to close the garrison and return to the room at the back. I sat on a bench, ready to try to fall asleep. After what had happened to me, I had tried to forget, but nothing did, I begin to worry, what if the man came back? No, John, he took care of it, but what if it happened to me again? And if it was my fault, maybe I shouldn’t have come tonight. John comes to bed next to me (or rather on me if you want my opinion)

he looks at the ceiling,

It was a good night, don’t you think? I mean, after...

Shut up, I don’t want to think about it anymore

Oh yeah okay,......., you just want to feel my strong arms around you ; said he with a light laugh

I pretend to give him a slap

in fact, yes

I didn’t have time to add a word that he had already put his arms around my shoulders

good night darling

good night john-boy

and this is how normal nights end at Small Health, even if in my stomach something fly, drenched, explode, a strange feeling that I had not felt before, John and I had always been close but no more than with the others of our band. I always found John handsome nice and funny and caring but he was just my best friend that’s all, nothing more

But that night was almost like all the others, for once I fell asleep on something more comfortable than the sidewalk, stairs, or my bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

this is not what I wanted to write basic, I wanted to make a story short folds with more chill and more gangster atmosphere.

I don’t think to make a continuation but well if you wanted to tell me.

I mention a serious matter, that should not be taken lightly

ispiration song : freaks

High Enough

Love Is A Bitch

Wisky in Hell

#peaky blinders #peaky fookin blinders #john shelby #micheal shelly #finn shelby #birmingham #small heath #xredear #fanfic

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slytherinbarnes · 4 years

Text

Sub Rosa [13]

xiii. we are grounders, pt 2

Pairing: Bellamy Blake x reader

Word Count: 4.9k

Warnings: It’s a war, baby. Bleeding, injuries, fighting, shooting, swords. Language, angst, sad goodbyes.

Summary: The war is here. People die, goodbyes are said.

a/n: IT’S THE FINALE!!! So, I wrote the first season of this series on a whim, with no idea of how it would be received. you guys have been so lovely and I’m v thankful for that. WHO WANTS SEASON TWO NEXT?!

previous chapter // season masterlist // series masterlist

Clarke calls you and Bellamy into the dropship, and you step inside as she is cauterizing Raven’s wound. Her screams cut through the air and dance around you, reminding you of what she did for you and Bellamy both.

“That should stop the external bleeding.”

Finn looks between you and Bellamy, “I don't understand. How did Murphy get a gun?”

“Long story.”

“We got lucky.” Raven turns to look at Clarke. “If Murphy hit the fuel tank instead of me, we'd all be dead.”

“Wait, there's rocket fuel down there?” Raven nods and Clarke asks, “Enough to build a bomb?”

“Enough to build 100 bombs...if we had any gunpowder left.”

Bellamy cuts them off and holds up Lincoln’s notebook, pointing to a drawing you’re sure will give you nightmares later. “Let's get back to the Reapers. Maybe they'll help us. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?”

“Not this enemy. We saw them. Trust me, it's not an option.”

Finn cuts her off, “There's no time for this. Can she walk or not?”

“No. We have to carry her.”

“The hell you will.” She struggles to pull herself up, and you don’t miss her gritting her teeth against the pain. “I'm good to go.”

Clarke drops her face down to Raven’s, voice low and serious. “Hey, listen to me. That bullet is still inside you. If by some miracle, there's no internal bleeding, it might hold until we get somewhere safe. But you are not walking there. Is that clear?”

“I'll get the stretcher.”

Bellamy watches him leave. “Can't run away fast enough, huh? Real brave.”

You throw him a look, but he ignores you. “Dying in a fight you can't win isn't brave, Bellamy, it's stupid.”

“Spoken like every coward who's ever run from a fight.”

Bellamy comes around the table to get in Finn’s face, and you feel your anger flare. “Enough!”

You step in between them and glare at both of them. “We have enough to worry about with the Grounders out there, we don’t need you two fighting on top of that.”

Clarke agrees and adds, “It's time to go.”

“If they follow? It's a 120-mile walk to the ocean.”

You turn to him, shocked. “120 miles?” He holds up a map in Lincoln’s notebook and nods, and you look back at Clarke, shaking your head. “Clarke, we’ll never make it.”

“Look, we're wasting time. If they want to stay, they can stay.”

She throws a sharp look at Finn’s retreating figure, “No, they can't. We can't do this without either of you.”

“What do you want me to say, Clarke?”

Her eyes are on Bellamy, pleading, “I want you to say that you're with us, Bellamy. Those kids out there, they listen to you.”

“They're lining up to go. They listen to you more.”

“I gave them an easy choice. But 5 minutes ago, they were willing to fight and die for you. You inspire them. I'm afraid we're gonna need that again before this day is through.”

He sighs and turns to look at you, searching for your answer. Clarke reaches out and grabs your hand, squeezing, and you drop your head, already knowing your answer. Because no matter how hopeless things seem, or how impossible a 120 mile walk looks, you won’t let Clarke leave you behind. Bellamy senses this, and steps towards the door. “I’ll go get my things.”

Clarke pulls you into a hug, whispering, “Thank you.”

When she pulls away, she turns to head out of the dropship, leaving you alone with Raven. You step around the table to look at her, and you start to worry as soon as your eyes land on her. She’s pale and sweaty, and you can tell by the way she pulls her eyes open to look at you, she’s weak. You grab her hand, and squeeze. “Thank you, Raven. You saved my life.”

You hear her scoff, and she protests. “I did what anyone would have done.”

“Maybe. But no one else could have done it. Seriously, thank you.”

She nods, before glancing at the door. “You should probably go pack.”

“Right.” You let go of her hand and give her a smile, before leaving the dropship in search of Bellamy. You find him in his tent, shoving his few belongings into a bag. He meets your eyes when you walk in.

“Are you packed?”

You gesture at your body, “This is all I own.”

He pulls his pack closed and plops down onto his bed with a huff. “This is a mistake.”

You sit down beside him. “Maybe.” You glance up at him, eyeing the bruises on his neck. His expression changes, and his brows furrow.

“You said something, before, about a curse? What did you mean?”

“I thought I was going to die. It’s just something I said." You start to stand, hoping to avoid this conversation, but he catches your hand and pulls you back down.

“But that’s why I know it means something, because you knew you were about to die. I could see it written all over your face.”

You think of the look he gave you, the one you couldn’t identify. And now you realize it’s because it was a few looks rolled into one. Realization that you had accepted your fate, anger that you were giving up, sadness, regret. And you think back to the relief in his voice after you opened your eyes, and the extra weight you have given him to shoulder after you pulled away, and how it wore on him the same way it did to Clarke. And you know you owe him this, because what if this is it? What if one of you is dead by sundown?

You sigh, glance over at him, and then back down to your hands. “I’m cursed, Bellamy. Everyone I get close to ends up dead or hurt. My parents, Clarke, you…”

“That’s why you pulled away?”

“I was trying to protect you.”

He shakes his head, uses his fingers to lift your chin until your eyes meet his. “I need you to listen to me, because this needs to be said before we leave this tent, this camp, and into a war zone. Bad things happen to you, and around you, but you are not the reason. Do you hear me? The Universe has done cruel things to you, but it is not your fault. You are not cursed.”

You open your mouth to protest, but snap it closed again when he gives you a serious look. “None of this is your fault.”

You nod, slowly, still unsure. But something about the way he said it, the way he’s looking at you...You want to believe him.

Before he can say anything else, Clarke is yelling both of your names from outside the tent. Bellamy drops his hand from your chin, and stands, lifting his pack and taking one last look at his tent. You follow him as he leaves, bag slung over his shoulder and gun now in hand. Bellamy stands in the middle of the camp, spinning, looking around at the empty grounds with sorrow.

When he stops, you look towards the open gate, where your twin stands, and then back to him. “Ready?”

He offers you a nod before walking ahead, leaving you as the last person to exit the camp. You turn around and look at the camp one last time before pushing yourself through the gate and into the unknown.

The walk in the woods does not last long.

You, Bellamy, and Clarke bring up the rear, keeping a sharp eye on the landscape around you. You can hear laughter and conversations drifting back to you, and you want to scold everyone for being too loud, too obvious.

As the sun starts to set, the group comes to a stop. You know Octavia is in the lead, and you tense at the thought of her seeing something. Bellamy pulls his axe from his belt and hands it to you, before raising his gun to his shoulder. Your eyes scan the woods quickly, finding nothing, and you will yourself to slow down and look again. You are checking each shape and shadow when Jasper’s yell from the front of the group reaches the back. “Grounders!”

You turn to the group and yell to be heard above the noise, “Back to the camp!”

You, Bellamy, and Clarke lead the teenagers back to camp, tearing through the woods as one thunderous, terrified unit. You and Bellamy reach the gate first, and you both push it open and wave everyone inside.

As soon as the last teenager crosses the threshold, Bellamy runs to one of the gunner posts, and you and Clarke follow, jumping up to stand beside him. All three of you watch the woods, looking for any sign of movement. “Where are they? Why aren’t they attacking?”

You glance at him, shake your head. “I don’t know, I don’t see anything.”

Clarke grows still beside you and mutters, “Because we're doing exactly what they wanted us to do.”

“What are you talking about?”

She spins and finds Finn. “Lincoln said the scouts would be the first to arrive.”

Octavia shrugs, “If it's just scouts, we can fight our way out. That's what Lincoln would do.”

Bellamy jumps down from the post. “We're done doing what that Grounder would do. We tried it and now Drew is dead. You want to be next?”

Finn snaps at him, “That Grounder saved our lives.” He glances at Octavia, and then locks eyes with Clarke. “I agree with Octavia. For all we know, there's one scout out there.”

Jasper turns from his Gunner post. “One scout with insanely good aim.”

“Clarke, we can still do this.”

Bellamy looks up at Clarke. “What's it gonna be? Run and get picked off out in the open, or stand and fight back?”

“Clarke. If we're still here when Tristan gets here…”

He trails off when she lifts her hands in frustration, and she turns to you. You can tell how overwhelmed she is, and now all eyes in the camp are on her. You grab her hand to support her, and whisper, “It’s your decision, Clarke. You have all the variables, you’ve seen the Grounder Army. Whatever you decide, we’re going to back you up.”

She nods and you watch as she thinks, running through scenarios and conversations in her head. “Lincoln said ‘scouts’. More than one. He said, ‘Get home before the scouts arrive.’ Finn, they're already here.” She turns away from him and over to Bellamy. “Looks like you've got your fight.”

He jumps into action, “Okay, then. This is what we've been preparing for! Kill them before they kill us. Gunners, to your posts! Use the tunnels to get in and out. From now on, the gate stays closed.”

Everyone in the camp jumps into action, heading to their predetermined posts. Octavia tries to run past Bellamy to the tunnels, but he grabs her. “O, O, O. You're not a gunner.”

“No, I'm not. Like you said…” hHe lifts Lincoln’s sword. “I'm a Grounder.”

He shakes his head but lets her go, before nodding for you to follow him. Yot both jog to the dropship and step inside, joining Clarke, Finn, and Raven. Everyone gathers around Bellamy’s war plans, and Clarke asks, “So, how the hell do we do this?”

“We've got 25 rifles with 20 rounds each, give or take. Roughly 500 rounds of ammo. While you two were gone, we made some improvements. Thanks to Raven, the gully is mined.”

She shrugs, “Partially mined. Thanks to Murphy.”

“Still, it's the main route in. If the Grounders use it, we'll know.” He nudges the small box of grenades on the table. “She also built grenades.”

Clarke winces, “It's not many.”

“Again, thank you, Murphy.”

“We'll make them count. If the Grounders make it through the front gate, guns and grenades should force them back.”

Clarke eyes his layout skeptically. “And then?”

You meet her eyes, “Then we close the doors and pray.”

“And pray what? That the ship keeps them out? Because it won't.”

“Then let's not let them get through the gate.” Bellamy lifts the radio to address the others, “All foxholes, listen up. Keep your eyes and ears open. Inflict casualties, as many as possible. You can hold them off long enough to make them turn back. That's the plan.”

You watch Clarke as her eyes quickly shift over the makeshift battlefield, planning. You ignore Finn and Bellamy arguing beside you and ask, “What is it Clarke?”

“It can't be that simple.” She mutters, before turning to Raven. “You said there's fuel in those rockets, right? Enough to build 100 bombs?”

“I also said we've got no gunpowder left.”

She shakes her head, “I don't want to build a bomb. I want to blast off.”

“Draw them in close. Fire the rockets. A ring of fire.”

Bellamy smirks, “Barbecued grounders. I like it.”

“Will it work?”

Raven turns to you, answering your question directly. “You give me enough time, I'll cook them real good.”

Bellamy looks at the trio, “You three work on blasting off, and we’ll keep an eye on the camp, buy you some time.”

Everyone nods and breaks apart, preparing to do what needs to be done. When you and Bellamy get outside, the sky is dark, the sun now gone, the moon rising to take her place. You both immediately start working on reinforcing the camp the best you can, dragging stuff in front of the gate to reinforce it, making sure all the posts are filled, checking for any weaknesses in the perimeter.

The moon is much higher in the sky when you hear it.

War drums.

You and Bellamy are on opposite sides of the camp, and your eyes meet before you jog closer to each other. “We need to get out to the main foxhole. There aren’t any guns left so stay behind me.”

You nod and pull his axe from the loop in your pants, holding it at your side as you follow him through the tunnel and into the main foxhole. He jumps in beside Miller, lifting his gun, and you duck down beside him, keeping an eye on the woods. Bellamy quickly surveys the people in the foxhole. “Where's Octavia?”

Miller scoffs, “She left 5 minutes ago. Didn't say where to. She thinks she's a damn samurai.”

You see the small smirk on Bellamy’s face and remind yourself to tell Octavia about it later. He nudges you, whispering, “You see anything?”

“No.”

Monroe is on the other side of you, and she shifts from foot to foot. “What the hell are they waiting for?”

“The longer they wait, the better. This is about buying time for Raven.”

Sterling’s voice crackles through the radio. “I see them. They're moving! I count two, 3, no, wait, there's more. I don't know, man. There's too many of them!”

The end of his report is punctuated by the sound of gunfire, and Bellamy asks, “Who was that?”

You whisper, “Sterling.”

“South foxhole,” Miller adds, and Bellamy picks up his radio. “South foxhole, report now.”

“Yeah, yeah. We're ok. They didn't attack. It's like...it's like shooting at ghosts.”

Monroe yells, “There! I see them!”

Everyone in the foxhole starts to fire, and Bellamy yells over them. “Stop! Stop. Hold your fire! Reload. Now.”

“Those were our last clips.”

“We should...we should fall back.” You can hear the fear in Monroe’s voice. Bellamy can too, but he ignores it.

“No. If this position falls, they'll walk right to the front door.”

More chatter comes through the radio. “I don't see anyone. They're too fast.”

“I hit...I hit them. I think I hit them.”

And then, Clarke’s voice joins the mix. “Jasper, we need you in the dropship right now.”

Bellamy grunts, “Negative. We can't give up the west woods.”

Two large explosions ring out in the distance, near Jasper. “The west woods are mined, Bellamy. The Grounders just figured that out. Jasper, get in here.”

You hear more gunfire in the distance, coming from every foxhole. You watch as the Grounders run past, parallel with you. Behind you, someone grumbles about the lack of ammo, and then it hits you. You stand and grab Bellamy’s radio, yelling out to the others, “They want us to run out of ammo. All gunners, listen up. The Grounders are not attacking. They're making us waste bullets. Don't shoot when they're running side to side!”

You pass the radio back to Bellamy, and he backs you up. “She’s right. Don't fire until you're sure it's an attack. Repeat, do not fire until you are sure.”

The woods are silent for an alarmingly long minute before chaos erupts. Gunfire punctures the air nearby, and the radio comes alive with overlapping messages. One line is repeated by nearly every foxhole: “They’re coming.”

In the main foxhole, situated at the bottom of a small hill, you watch in horror as a wave of Grounders surges over the hill, screaming with rage. Around you, everyone fires off their last few rounds of ammo, killing a few Grounders. Monroe bolts from the foxhole, leaving you with one less person.

Bellamy grabs the back of your shirt and pulls you to your feet before pushing you to the side, just as a Grounder leaps through the foxhole and lands on top of him. You scream his name, before running forward, axe raised, and plunging it into the man’s back. He rolls off Bellamy, the axe hitting the ground nearby. Before either of you can celebrate, you are pulled backwards, and another Grounder attacks.

To your left, you hear the sound of a bone snapping and Miller’s cry of pain, but you can do nothing to help him as you’re pinned beneath a Grounder. His hands come up to close around your neck, and you fumble for something to use as a weapon as he squeezes the air from your lungs.

Finally you close your fingers around something sharp, cutting them in the process of blindly finding the handle. Just when you think it’s over, your hand closes around the bottom and you lift your arm quickly, plunging the blade into the Grounder’s neck and pulling it back out again. The action sends blood flying towards you. He reaches a hand up to stop the flow, unsuccessfully, and you push him off and turn to Bellamy, watching as Octavia sends a sword through the Grounder’s skull, freeing her brother.

“Admit it, you want one.”

Bellamy smiles up at her and you scramble to your feet, running over to them when Octavia catches an arrow to the leg. Bellamy catches her and yells at Miller to retreat, before turning to you, Octavia still in his arms. “Get back to the camp!”

“No! I’m not leaving either of you!”

He grunts but doesn’t argue further, before turning and stumbling in the direction of camp with an injured Octavia. The radio at his side crackles to life as you all avoid the Grounders. “They've broken through! There's hundreds of them! They're heading for the gate! Game over, man!”

Bellamy ducks behind a large tree, and you follow suit, peering behind it to find that you are just outside of the camp’s walls, along with hundreds of Grounders. You turn back to Bellamy, “The only way out is through.”

He starts to respond, but a large explosion echoes around you, and as you all look around in confusion, Octavia points to the sky. “Look!”

Your eyes find the large fireball in the sky, watching as it breaks into smaller pieces, surrounded by falling debris. You whisper, “The Ark.”

Almost immediately, your gaze tears away from the sky to the whooping and hollering in the woods around you. You peer around the tree again and spot a new group of Grounders, different from the ones you’re battling now. You hear someone yell, “Reapers!”

You turn to Bellamy and he whispers, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” He turns back to Octavia, “They're distracted. Let's move.”

Behind you, the sounds of battle resume, with the clanging of swords ringing out into the night. Octavia leans against the tree, panting. “We'll never make it. Leave me. I'll find another way.”

Bellamy shakes his head, hard. “I'm not going anywhere without you.”

“Octavia.”

You all turn to the voice in shock, and Lincoln materializes out of the shadows, pulling Octavia into a hug. Bellamy watches them, tense, and you put a hand on his knee to calm him. He nods to the Reapers, “You did this?”

“With Finn.” He leans down to inspect Octavia’s wound. “It's deep. I can help you, but you have to come with me now.”

“Go.” Octavia’s head snaps towards her brother in shock, and he turns from Lincoln to meet her eyes. “Let him help.”

“No way. I have to see this through.”

“Octavia,” you start to protest, but Bellamy beats you to it. “You can't walk and I can't get you back to the dropship.”

“He's right. This fight is over for you.”

The siblings lock eyes again, and you hear emotion rise in Bellamy’s chest. “O, O, listen to me. I told you my life ended the day you were born. The truth is...it didn't start until then. Go with him. I need you to live. Besides...I got this.”

He tries to smirk, reassuring her, but you can see the doubt in her face. Still, she reaches forward, pulling him into a hug and whispering, “I love you, big brother.”

You smile at the exchange, and she pulls back and reaches for you. You hug each other tight, and whisper, “May we meet again.”

The boys help her stand, and Lincoln lifts her into his arms. Bellamy’s eyes are now locked on the Grounder. “Keep her safe.”

Lincoln nods, serious, and you know he’ll keep her safe or die trying. Octavia scoffs and grabs your hand. “Keep him safe.”

She cuts her eyes to Bellamy and back to you, and you smile and squeeze her hand. “I will.”

Lincoln turns and takes off running, and you both watch until she’s gone, before you duck behind the tree again. You’re catching your breath, gathering your nerve and sharpening it into steely resolve when you hear a Grounder yell, “Now to the wall!”

You and Bellamy lock eyes, and you know it’s time to go. You jump up quickly, ready to leave, and Bellamy follows. You never make it to your full height. Instead, Bellamy shoves you to the side, pulling your body beneath his. You land on the ground in a tangled heap, and before you can ask why, an arrow hits the tree right where your chest was going to be.

Your eyes meet Bellamy’s, both of you panting, adrenaline buzzing along your skin. His eyes drop to your lips, and back up to your eyes seconds before he grabs your face and pulls you closer. Your lips meet in a clash, tongues darting out to meet in an instant, and you reach up and tangle your fingers into his curls. You think of all the fights, and the curse, and of nearly dying. You think of the moments of comfort, the quiet moments where Bellamy reveals who he really is, like when he doctored your cut or comforted you after your mom’s death. You think of it all, pouring it into the kiss, hoping that he knows. Hoping that he gets it. His lips pull away, forehead dropping to rest against yours, your breaths mingling. Bellamy lets out a new sound, a quiet chuckle, happy, and you file it away for later. Your head feels light, from the kiss or adrenaline, you don’t know. But you know that if you die in a minute, or ten, or tomorrow, that he knows, and you know. And that’s enough.

You hear the gate fall, and the sounds of battle rush back to you, reminding you where you are. Bellamy must hear it too, because he jumps to his feet and pulls you up, grabbing your hand and pulling you back into the woods. “We’ll never make it through there, we have to backtrack and take the tunnels.”

You and Bellamy fly through the trees, hoping you don’t come across anyone, now weaponless, save for an axe and a knife. You duck into the tunnels and you can hear the grenades exploding on the surface, before you and Bellamy burst from the tunnel and into the camp. You both have a split second to survey your surroundings, bleeding teenagers, Grounders on fire, bodies at your feet, before you hear Clarke screaming your names, followed by, “Run!”

Bellamy scoops up a fallen rifle from the entrance of the tunnel, pulling you behind him as he shoulders the weapon and aims for the one Grounder in the way. When Bellamy squeezes the trigger, the gun clicks, and you have to stop yourself from falling down a memory, back to the bunker and learning to shoot.

The Grounder has reached Bellamy now, swinging his sword, which Bellamy barely dodges, but he doesn’t dodge the punch to his face. He rears back, turning from the force of it, and blood is gushing from his nose and over his mouth. He yells at you, “Run!” before he catches a knee to his stomach.

You think of nothing other than survival and anger, and you run towards the Grounder, colliding with him. You don’t shift him much, but you shift his attention from Bellamy to you. You shake off the feeling of hitting a brick wall, just quick enough to avoid a sword to the shoulder. You jump backwards, and he misses you, giving Bellamy the opportunity to swing the gun and hit the man in the shoulder. He recovers quickly and delivers a kick that sends Bellamy flying, and you scream his name in horror.

You turn your anger to the Grounder, screaming with rage as you run at him, and he meets you with a punch to your face. You swear you feel the bones in your cheek disintegrate beneath his fist, and fresh blood rushes from your lip, into your mouth and over the dried blood on your face from earlier. You hear someone scream your name, but your brain doesn't have the energy to identify who. And as you await another blow, a bullet zips through the air.

The Grounder grunts in pain, and turns in anger, looking towards the source of the wound. You have enough time to register a hand coming towards you before you are tossed onto the ground in favor of the next victim. You hit the ground hard, turning to look towards your savior, watching as Finn hits the Grounder so hard, they both fly to the ground. Somewhere in the distance you can hear your twin screaming your name, and Finn’s name, and Bellamy’s, voice broken and full of hurt.

Bellamy rushes forward and drops on top of the guy, delivering punches until he is rolled beneath the Grounder and given the same treatment. You jump to your feet and push the Grounder off Bellamy, but he recovers quickly and swipes your feet from beneath you, knocking you to the ground. He backhands you and you feel blood drip down your face, but you can no longer tell from where. Finn jumps to his feet and descends on the Grounder with Bellamy, fighting in unison to keep him distracted.

The distraction gives you enough time to make eye contact with Clake, who is crying now, tears streaming down her face. You can see Miller behind her, trying to pull her to the dropship as she screams and fights against him. You nod your head, giving her permission, telling her it’s okay, telling her you love her, and she fights Miller even harder. You pull yourself to your knees, and set your face, fighting against the feeling of being left behind, and you scream at her. “Clarke, go! Start the Ring of Fire! Go!”

She gives in and you nod again, turning away when you hear a yell behind you. You roll to the side, but not fast enough, and his sword catches your arm. You scream in pain and he lurches forward, hit from behind. He turns back to Finn, and you glance where Clarke stood, finding it empty, the dropship door closing.

You jump to your feet, running over to Bellamy and pulling the axe from his belt, waiting until Finn and Bellamy have the Grounder distracted again. When he forgets about you, you sneak forward and swing the axe, catching him in the stomach. He knocks you away, and you know that the axe didn’t go as deep as you hoped it would. But you scramble to your feet, using his injury to grab Bellamy and Finn, shoving them towards the tunnels. They look at you in confusion as you push them ahead of you, running as fast as they allow. You yell, “The ring of fire!”

And as the pieces click in their brain, they speed up, flying through the tunnel as fast as they can, with you running right behind. You swear you hear someone in the tunnels behind you, but you don’t have any time to think before an explosion cracks through the air. Seconds later, the heat reaches you, and then the world goes black.

next chapter

#bellamy blake x reader #bellamy x reader #bellamy blake x you #bellamy blake fanfiction #the 100 #the 100 fanfiction #bellamy blake x y/n

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isitreallyok · 3 years

Text

Therapy, Medication, And Mental Help

I’m gonna level with y’all here. This post will likely not be quite as articulate as some of the other ones. It’s been a really rough morning, but I wanted to address this issue while it is still fresh in my mind. I have yet to ask for advice or feedback on a single one of my posts, but if anyone has any I’m definitely not opposed to receiving it on this one.

Uh oh. That doesn’t sound great. What’s going on?

I’m going to attempt to keep this as brief as possible, and it likely will still be quite lengthy, but I’m going to have to give a bit of context here as well. My current life situation has been radically altered in the last year. 2020 has thrown so many wrenches in my plans and Covid isn’t even the biggest of them. However, lets take this from the top.

When I was 9 years old my parents divorced. Not a huge deal. It happens to a lot of kids as sad as that is to say. I grew up with my mother, brother, and sister in a single parent household with a skewed picture of who my father was and didn’t want too much to do with him. Fast forward a few years, my dad moves to Idaho and remarries and has a wonderful relationship with my stepmother. I wasn’t able to visit too often, but it wasn’t horrible when I was able to make it out there. As much as I minimize the normalcy of being a child of divorce though it still had a horribly impact on my emotional well being and my mental health as a child. Many other kids throughout school came were content with their home life. They were able to enjoy being children and did not have to worry about the pressures of caring for their siblings started at a young age. I, on the other hand, was not content with where I was at in life and wanted desperately to change it.

My mother was incredibly supportive of us kids as best as she was able. She made sure that we had routine trips to the doctors, that we had what we needed in terms of food and shelter, and even got us therapy and psychiatric help. I was blessed to have that available to me as a child. Many children going through similar situations do not have access to that level of external help for a myriad of different reasons. However even though I had these things I still ran into trouble. As I was growing up my father discredited mental healthcare as a practice so I always had that rattling around in the back of my head. By the time I was 15, I decided to stop taking my bipolar and depression medications because I didn’t feel like they were helping me. This is honestly the biggest mistake I’ve made in my entire life. I continued to see my therapist, until I not longer had insurance at age 18, but I didn’t feel as if I was making any real strides there either because I had also adopted the mindset that nothing was working and therapy and caring for my mental health was a joke.

Wait. Isn’t this a place where you talk explicitly about your mental health and how to manage and cope with various aspects of it?

Why yes. Yes it is. I’ve been handling my manic depressive bipolar disorder unmedicated for the last 13 years. It has been absolute hell most days. A few years ago I hit rock bottom and realized that I needed help. The girl that I had been dating for a few years, was living with, and planned on proposing to cheated on me and I ended up moving back in with my parents because of the situation, I slept on a futon mattress on the floor for months before we ended up moving, and due to this my mental state deteriorated to the point of suicidal ideation with intent.

This is when I realized that I was wrong in my views on medication and therapy. I had been putting myself in a position where I was running people out of my life due to the fact that I was using my friends as free therapy and they drew a line and I had to respect it. There was only one problem with finally accepting that I needed to get help. That problem is that help is expensive. I had been uninsured for mental health since I was 18. I accepted the fact that I needed to get help, but the fact that I could afford it drove me even deeper into despair about my circumstances.

So what did you do? Did you get the help you needed? Clearly you didn’t give into your suicidal tendencies.

Well. Yes and no. I didn’t get the help I needed, but I managed to find a way to distract myself from the troubles of the real world. I poured myself into my job and decided that that was the time to go to college. I do understand the irony or going to college after complaining that therapy was too expensive. Believe me that is not lost on me. The difference is you can’t get student loans for learning how to take care of yourself.

Rather than allowing myself to begin working through the existing trauma in my life, I decided to put myself in a position to where I could start to try to live a “normal” life again. Whatever the hell that means. I had a routine, albeit a poor one, I was socializing, albeit minimally in my classes and typically only for group projects, and I was too distracted by other pressures to reminisce on how much I hated my life. I started taking steps that I felt like a therapist would tell me to and began working towards chasing a dream again. This felt different, but I don’t think I’d venture as far as to say it felt good. It was just a different kind of stress that I was piling on myself. I still felt like I needed help handling the day to day. Learning to cope with my bipolar unmedicated took years and the singular trauma of living with my family again meant that all the coping mechanisms I had worked to develop became even more difficult to manage and I had to once again learn different strategies to handle all the new challenges.

Instead of schooling and attempting normalcy on your own wouldn’t it have been easier to get help?

Easier? No. More beneficial? Absolutely. The hoops that one has to jump through even to get seen by a therapist nowadays is challenging enough and that doesn’t even include financial ramifications for those without health insurance that covers mental health, which most workplace insurance plans don’t. With that in mind, the benefits of getting the help that you need often are not able to outweigh the cost.

Realistically, even if I had been able to afford to get myself the care that I need I likely wouldn’t have. I have always been the type of person to do everything on my own until I have exhausted all of my options. This is not something I recommend. One of the biggest things that I want to learn to do is ask for help when I need it instead of asking after I am already at the end of my rope. Even as I’m typing this I am beyond frustrated and want nothing to do with with the stress I’m under from today and it took me hitting that point to finally open up about talking about it even though it was among the first topics I decided to address when I first started this blog. Asking for help at appropriate times is a topic all on it’s own so we’ll save that conversation for another day.

So I’m starting to see a bit of where you’re coming from, but what happened today?

So this part of the background info I plan to address more in depth in the future and will keep the context of this very brief. Remember how I said that my dad and I had a strained relationship even after he moved? Well that changed once I was about 20. We reconnected and for years spoke nearly every day and he became a close confidant and more of what most people with a healthy relationship with their father have. We disagreed on a lot of things, but we were able to understand each other. A few years ago my stepmother passed away. Even before she passed my dad was diagnosed with early stage dementia. He had been having memory issues and it felt like he was a completely different person. At the start of this year he moved back in with my family and that has been a challenge having my divorced parents living under the same room without the ability to properly communicate with each other.

Fast forward to this morning. I woke up to both my mother and father bickering with each other about something related to Dad’s socks. Rather than handling it like adults they were both fighting like toddlers from what I could hear in my bedroom. This has become an increasingly common occurrence. One gets frustrated with the other, situation escalates, I feel pressured to step in and deescalate the situation, I typically end up frustrated and my mood is shot. Dad feels more comfortable talking and listening to me, Mom backs off because I get what needs to be done done, I wind up once again in the middle of a weird situation between my parents. I tolerate this because of the fact that I am able to assist in my father’s care in a way that is beneficial to his understand of what he needs and it eases the burden on other people that are trying to convey the same message with zero results. However over time this would wear anyone down and that point is where I finally reached this morning.

Rather than being able to calmly handle the situation with a level head I ended up snapping at all partied involved. I snapped at Dad for not wanting to do anything to mitigate the problems he complained of, I snapped at Mom for escalating the situation, I snapped at my sister who was just checking it see if I was okay, I ran the gambit of getting frustrated with people. Instead of handling the situation the way I normally would with patience and dignity, I mismanaged the situation and likely made it worse.

This is where we get back to the topic at hand. I have finally managed to actually get myself on some half decent health insurance that has wonderful mental health coverage. This kicks in at the start of the year and I will be able to finally get some help with handling the fact that this entire situation has been traumatic and has left some serious scars. I’m excited but this also got me wondering about the part that I need help on.

My bipolar and resistance to most psychotropic medication had to come from somewhere, as it’s a disorder that is tied to genetics, and my mother is not bipolar. This tells me that my father, who exhibits clear symptoms of having bipolar depression, is where I got my proclivity for the development of this condition. That being said, with my father’s resistance towards getting psychiatric care, and being medicated to balance any chemical imbalances, puts me in a weird state for doing what is best for him and his care. Do I force this help on him? Do I accept that he’s not ready for it and sit idly by and continue to watch him deteriorate? With his dementia he’s less likely to be able to receive the care he desperately needs due to his inability to create a coherent thought in regards to what his needs are for the large scale rather than just being fine in that exact moment. So I truly am at a loss. This is the part where I ask for advice. If anyone who has read this far has any experience with dementia and psychiatric care I could really use some advice on how to best have these conversations with my dad. This has been one of the biggest hardships I have faced and I am getting to be at a proper loss for words in how to help the situation which as you can tell by the verbosity of this post is difficult to do.

You’re totally fine in not knowing how to handle this situation. This is a difficult situation to be in regardless of who you are. You’re doing well.

Thank you. All of that stuff is an absolute nightmare to handle and life has been absolute hell, but I hope that that helps you to understand where I’m coming from when I encourage you all to once again remember the three reminders! I know most days, including today, I need to remember them to so lets run through them together before we end things for today. You are so much stronger than you think, you are beautiful inside and out, and jinkies you are worth love, kindness, respect, admiration, and all those things you think you’re not worthy of. Lets turn today around together and kick some butt and take some names.

#suicidal tendencies #suicide #dementia #mental health #bipolar #bipolar disorder #depression #help #i need advice #three reminders #self help #Psychiatry #Therapy #Medication #cognitive dysfunction

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docholligay · 4 years

Note

Angst Prompt Day: McCree and / or Yael, "Cowboy Medicine: Whiskey Internally & Externally Applied"

McCree wasn’t a stupid man, depending on when and how you asked him. He wasn’t exactly educated, that much was true, but he had a raw sense of things, and he was a good shot, and a capable rider, and he could follow orders and cooked pretty well. Yael had more or less told him these things enough that he believed them, being as Yael handed out compliments like she was on hard rations.

But God, gunfights just happened so fucking fast. They always would, to him.

He didn’t get hit hard, and for that he knew he should be grateful. But it’s hard to be grateful leaned up against a rock, seeing that edges of the would ain’t exactly going to close neatly.

They were perched in an outcropping that was near the top of a canyon, where Yael had drug them through a an old mine tunnel that must have been used mostly to get to this place for smoke breaks, but was perfectly defensible, at least for the moment.

“God, I hate the fuckin’ gov’mint.” Yael had a small metal box open on the ground as McCree sat with a bandanna pressed to his side. “Jesse, what you going and gettin’ yourself the hell shot up for?”

Jacinta chuckled from her positon at the edge of the rocks, but did not move her eye from her scope as she suggested in Spanish that it hadn’t been McCree’s first plan. She shot. A drone exploded, in the canyon. Perfect hit.

“Pues, si el no quiere some GODDAMN CANYON SURGERY, quizas--”

“The hell did you say?” McCree tipped back his hat and looked at her.

Yael’s eyes flashed with a sense of prairie lightning. “Did I fucking stutter or somethin’? You think that wound’s gonna close up on it’s own?” She took a bottle of whiskey out of her pack. “You think you can ride with it? You tell me, Jess.”

He bristled. Yael was no idiot, neither, but she wasn’t exactly known for her surgical skills or her bedside manner. And that was definitely fishing line and an embroidery needle. But she wasn’t wrong, either. It edges of it were ragged, and it was too deep, and while it wasn’t going to kill him sitting right here, if he left it open, well, going to the hospital was an option that generally involved ending up arrested.

“It’s just some stitches, you little bitch.” Ashe laughed and leaned up against the rocks, looking down the tunnel she was defending.

“Bitsy?” Yael turned her head. “If I want any shit out of you, I’ll squeeze your head.”

Ashe tipped her hat and looked back down the tunnel as Yael took her lighter out of her pocket and ran it the length of the needle.

“Drink that.” She pointed her chin to the bottle of whiskey, then continued in a mumble. “Gettin’ in stupid fuckin’ fights with the goddamn gov’mint when we know damn well we’re outmanned and outgunned, swear to god I should let ‘em all die and have God sort ‘em out.”

McCree would have argued, but this wasn’t meant for him so much as the general world and any God that Yael may or may not currently be believing in at the moment. He didn’t try to keep track anymore. There was no prayer she didn’t or didn’t say, action she did or didn’t take that proved it one way or the other, and he’d just as soon not be involved in the debate.

So McCree took her good counsel and drank deep the bottle of whiskey, letting the pleasant fire burn through his throat and into his gut, hoping Yael would wait until it started to take effect, knowing that she probably wouldn’t bother. She said something under her breath, in Hebrew, and then took the bottle from his hands and handed him a small length of braided rope.

“Bite this. Can’t have you screamin’.”

He didn’t have time to discuss before she poured the whiskey into the wound, and he bit down deep on the rope as the fire that been so pleasant in his mouth became pain. She wiped at it quickly with her bandana and gave McCree a look.

“I’ll be quick as I can, Jess.” She took a breath, looked at the bottle, and took a deep drink of it herself.

Years later, when Hanzo would run his hand over the scar and ask about it, McCree would say, that it hurt plenty. And that was true. All the rest of his life, he’d remember the taste of that rope between his teeth as Jacinta picked off the machines that were looking for them. He’d remember Yael’s rough hands against his belly, and the prick of the needle as it went in, the tug of his skin as she pulled it taut. He’d remember how it ached with every gallop, the whole way back, under the cover of night. He’d remember throwing up, and Yael accusing him of wasting good whiskey.

But he’d remember how Cary’d brought him dinner in bed that night, and how one of Yael’s good cigarettes was on the side of the plate. He’d remember how Ashe had ridden out in front and wheeled to the side to distract anyone who might be following, while they went all the slower to ease it for him. He’d remember how Jacinta teased him, but cleaned the blood out of his shirt, and meded it.

He’d remember how he’d thought them family.

#as Jetty calls him #McCree the unlucky cowboy #and she's not wrong #april showers writing #seolh

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rainforestgeek · 4 years

Note

Ok I'll hit you. #1-20 please, if you're up for it :)

1. who is the hardest character for you to write?

Hmm. Maybe Pidge. She’s a challenge because she’s an emotional person but she’s not in-touch with her emotions.

Okay, actually the HARDEST is Allura. She and I are such unbelievably different people and it’s so hard to get inside her head.

2. who is the easiest character for you to write?

Lance. For all that he’s wonderfully complex, he’s so external that he’s just not difficult to write. Unlike Pidge, he knows when he feels all the things so I don’t have to hide his motivations from him, if that makes sense. He usually knows why he’s doing what he’s doing - even if it’s dumb as hell.

Also, I get to pour all my stupidest, weirdest jokes into his dialogue! I don’t have to think “is that funny enough to include?” If it’s funny, great! If it’s not, it’s still totally in-character for Lance.

3. How do you know if your writing is “in character”?

Part gut feeling, part review. There have been times when I wrote a scene and thought “this is contrived,” so I take a closer look to see what’s bothering me.

I put a lot of effort into understanding the characters’ psychology. Most of the time, before I write a conversation, I think about what mood they’re in and what subconscious stuff might be driving them unknowingly. That last one is actually a great source of conflict.

Once I’m really in tune with a character, it’s like they’re making the decisions and I’m just the conduit. I once wrote a Plance scene that was just supposed to be a straight confession and getting together fluffy moment, but Lance and Pidge were like “nope, gonna fight,” and boom, the fic was another chapter long

4. Where do your story ideas come from?

Thin air.

For real, it depends on the story. Sometimes it’s “but what if this happened instead?” and sometimes the idea pops up out of nowhere and I jot it down to expand on it later.

5. Do you tell the people in your life that you write fics?

I’m very particular about whom I tell, but yes. My family and closest friends already know I’m weird as hell, and when I get an especially awesome comment on a fic I want to tell my mom and say “that’s the good part of the internet!”

6. What has been the hardest fic for you to write?

Lemme scroll through ao3 for a sec...

Prompts are challenging for me, don’t know why exactly. In another way, smut can be hard (ha) because I don’t want to rewrite the same sex scene each time so I gotta come up with new acts, descriptors, turn-ons, etc.

Oh, like specific fics? Those ones are unfinished and unpublished.

7. What fic of yours makes you the most emotional?

Either Smile the Brightest or Teenage Soldier. They both deal with some hard and controversial topics and I have no idea where they came from, they just kind of happened.

8. What is a scene you wrote that you are most proud of?

Most of my battle scenes. Those are tricky, took a long time, and I like how they turned out!

9. Is there one character that you refuse to write? why?

I can’t think of any hard no’s off the top of my head. There are probably some.

10. When you write fics, how much of canon are you willing to ignore/skip over?

If it’s a canon thing that I severely dislike, or if it’s canon that aired AFTER I started writing it. For example, If you lose your strength to stand was started after season 5 of Voltron came out. There was no way I’d just scrap the story I had in mind because season 6 decided to be hella weird, and eventually it became a fix-it of sorts?

Small things may be done away with if they’re inconvenient.

11. Do you prefer to be cold or hot when you write?

If those are my only two options, then cold, definitely. I’m a cranky, bitchy piece of shit when I’m hot.

12. What is your ideal writing area?

Somewhere quiet and alone. I need to be able to groan in frustration and pace and mutter to myself in peace.

13. How do you come up with your titles?

I’ve started doing the thing where I steal song lyrics. Often I try to match it to a theme in the story.

ONCE, I had the title first, that was Smile the Brightest

14. How do you come up with chapter titles?

Usually I don’t. Sometimes I use song lyrics. Sometimes I try to think of a catchy phrase with minimal success.

15. At what point in writing a fic, do you decide to quit?

At the point when I’m tired of writing and think it’s good enough to post. I have a habit of posting first and proofreading later.

16. How much of your personal life do you put into fics?

Small aspects here and there. Mostly to do with emotional stuff. I have a few where there’s an autistic character or a depressed character, and with that I pour a lot of myself into it.

17. What is the most supportive comment you have gotten?

“I just want to say that you are an amazing writer. Not in a pervy way, although that smut was great, but just in the way you write. The comedy and little bits of dialogue made me laugh so many times, and you captured the relationships these characters had to eachother super well. A m a z i n g fic. Definitely write more.”

“Damn whenever you update the chapters, I just want to read more HAHAHHAJSJS thank you so much for writing!! I really love the emphasis you placed on each character’s developments and relationships as well as the real-time consequences of actions instead of like, y’know, making a big wrap-up to the show while it’s still tangled with unused storylines and character potential >:(( ahshdhjd but anyway, thank you so much for writing this and i hope you have a great everyday!”

There are some other very lovely ones but they have spoilers in them, soooo...

My favorites are when they say I did the characters really well.

18. What is the most negative comment you have gotten?

I haven’t gotten much in the way of negative comments. I’m very happy about this fact.

19. How do you handle negative comments?

I engage. I don’t recommend it as a solution.

20. What story that you have written makes you the happiest to re-read?

Hmm...I gotta go with If you lose your strength to stand. I’m really proud of it.

#ask #writer ask #author ask #fanfic #voltron #vld #plance #pidgance #flirtyrobot

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always5hineee · 3 years

Text

Hell and Back- Chapter 35: Test Tubes (Trials 61-70) [Part 1]

Word count: 4151

Chapter warnings: Mild language and themes

-----

She finally worked up the courage to open the app again. No one wanted to keep going. Why would they? This was a nightmare, it had to have been. She'd remembered everyone's constant warnings and predictions, which had been so frequent at the beginning of the game that they were borderline annoying. Things were always bound to get harder. Was it worth continuing? Or were they all just so broken by this game that they were mentally married to the idea of going on?

Congratulations! You have completed the Delegate Trials. Welcome to Round 6, the Vat Trials! Round 6 will consist of 10 simultaneous trials, one for every player. If a player cannot continue or chooses to drop out, the trial will be null for that player and they will be penalized with the dropout fee. Other players are not affected. Round 6 will end after trial 70.

"Are we really doing this?" Xiumin asked, trying to get one of the other members to make eye contact with him. "After..."

"If you don't want to do it, drop out." Kai said curtly. "None of us will blame you."

"No, that's not..." He tried to defend himself, but just fell silent. They were all waiting to see who would take charge. Everyone listened to Suho, but now that he was gone, there was sort of a power void. While everyone wanted direction, they also didn't like it being anything other than their status quo. If Kris were to take charge, Chen would be upset. Same with Kai. But if Chen took charge, the reverse would be true. Sehun and Xiumin weren't stupid, but they also weren't forceful enough to demand anything from the stronger members. Kyungsoo was the most logically thinking, but he was too sarcastic and confrontational for anyone's liking.

Finally, Y/N was the one to make the decision to continue. She didn't want to, but she was the best choice they had right now. She was by no definition a leader of their friend group, but no one really had a problem with her, and no one wanted to upset her, so she had a good feeling they'd listen to her, or at least pretend to. Not to mention that she was the one who had entered them in the first place, so it was sort of her responsibility.

"It says the trials are simultaneous, that means we're all doing them at the same time." She said, looking at the message again. "We could end up separated. Do we have a plan?"

"As if making any sort of plan against this thing is going to be helpful." Kyungsoo said. It was unlike him, he was generally the first proponent for a designated course of action. Still, he wasn't wrong, nothing they did would really be of use.

"Everyone has their phones?" She asked, receiving only nods. "And their items?" Nods again. "Alright..." There was no putting it off. She pressed the button to start the trials.

The first instruction they were given was simply an address. It was about thirty minutes out of town, an empty distribution center that had ben poorly located, so much so that it ended up abandoned. Sooner or later, as the city expanded, someone would buy it, but for now, it was desolate. They all piled into Kris's car, which was admittedly less crowded, not that anyone liked it that way. They spent the first few minutes in silence, but eventually she couldn't take it any more.

Sehun, who had the window seat, had already fallen asleep because of the monotonous vibrations of the car, with Xiumin leaning on him from the middle. She couldn't see Chen or Chanyeol well, as they were in the very back, but they certainly weren't paying attention to anyone else. Lay had passed out in their row as well, half on top of a slightly squished Kyungsoo, seemingly tired all the time. Kai was staring out of his window side, ignoring Baekhyun to his left, who was messing around on his phone with earbuds in. They had given her the front seat now that Suho was gone, and obviously Kris was driving since it was his car.

"Do you care if I put music on?" She asked. He looked over momentarily, then shrugged.

"Yeah, whatever, go for it." Plugging her phone into the aux and scrolling through her options, she put on a tune all to familiar to him. The electronic vibe, the crushing bass, it was the kind of music he loved. And created. It was one of the songs he'd been working on for the band- she didn't usually partake in writing or singing, but as their friend/manager/supporter, she tended to help them organize it all. In doing so, she tended to hear everything they were working on. So what if she saved it to her phone?

"Ah, come on, don't play this garbage." Kris laughed, moving to turn the volume down. She slapped his hand away, turning it up two clicks.

"No, it's so good! Leave it be!" He looked mockingly dissatisfied, shaking his head in distaste. As she poked his arm and began to sing the melody purposely off-key, the grin on his face grew a little wider. He couldn't help but hum along a little. By the time the song had come to an end, they were both full-on belting. She knew he was being loud to be funny, but he was actually really talented.

"Could you two cut it out?" Kai grumbled from behind her seat.

"Aww, come on, Kai, have some fun!"

"Nothing about this is fun." He muttered, glaring at Kris's hand on her knee as they continued laughing. Ignoring him, she asked Kris what he wanted to listen to next. It wasn't until they arrived at the distribution center that they bothered to turn it down to a relatively normal volume, Y/N looking in the rearview mirror to see how everyone was doing. Kris put the vehicle into park, stepping out into the crisp air. This far out and with the distribution center not running, the atmosphere was actually quite clear. She stepped out as well, followed by Kai and Baekhyun, then Chen, Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo climbed over the seats. She walked around to the other side, gently opening the door so Sehun wouldn't fall, shaking him and Xiumin awake lightly. They both sat up, making similar funny faces as they rubbed their eyes, glancing around.

"Well, I..." She looked over to the building. "I guess we go inside?" They all looked between each other, but no one had a better plan. They made their way to the entrance of the building, which was loosely boarded and marked with faded condemnation tape. They easily busted through it.

"Hey, Chen, you still have that flashlight?"

"Yeah," At this request, the boy turned it on, illuminating the long, dirty hallway in front of them. He took the front of the line, Y/N following closely, holding onto his waist to make sure that she didn't get left behind. He didn't say anything, so she hoped it didn't bother him. After the first few steps, though, it flickered out.

"Shit! Are you kidding?!"

"That's not funny, Baekhyun." Kai said, completely unfazed.

"Ah, you caught me." The boy laughed, the flashlight coming back on.

"Now's not the time to be messing around."

"Au contraire, my friend," he corrected, "It's always the time to be messing around." The continued down the corridor, the end dimly lit by an external light from theirs. It was coming from under a door, clearly where they were supposed to be going. Swallowing nervously, Chen looked at it.

"So, uh... who wants to go first?"

"You're in the front." Sehun said. "Good luck." Chen rolled his eyes in annoyance, but agreed. Y/N still hanging onto him, he reached for the handle, swinging it open. It was heavier than he had expected, but it wasn't locked, clearly different from the rest of those in the building. The hinges were well oiled, it didn't squeak, and it opened smoothly. Staring in, his jaw loosened considerably. The boys crowded behind him, trying to get a glance.

The room that stood in front of them was objectively huge, and lit with a strange type of whitish-turquoise LED strips across the ceilings and around the edges of the floor. Up on a slightly raised platform in the center, (not taller by any more than a few inches), there were large glass tubes reaching floor to ceiling, ten in total. Each was numbered as such from left to right. The walls were completely comprised of some sort of sheer, black, smooth material, unrecognizable by her.

"This is insane." Sehun said under his breath.

"It's incredible." Kyungsoo chimed in, whether out of agreement or contradiction. "The craftsmanship that must have gone into this? And to sustain it in such an environment, I-"

"What does it say to do next, Y/N?" Chanyeol interrupted, causing her to let go of her grip on Chen and go for her phone. He seemed annoyed at this, but didn't say anything, just straightened out his shirt.

"Oh, shit, there's a lot." She said as she looked over the text. There was a full paragraph of substance for them to go over, the rules of the next trials. "Do you want me to read it out?" They all gave a mixed response of shrugs and nods, letting her go ahead.

"The Vat Trials will consist of one trial for every player, adding up to ten trials in total. All players will choose and enter one vat. They will be permitted to leave all belongings outside of the vat, including their chosen items, or bring them in as they wish. Once all players have chosen and the start has been commanded, the vats will begin to fill. Each vat has a different substance depending on the number. The players will not know what these are until the trials have started. For the vat trials to end, one of three things must occur. First, if all vats are filled to the top, the trials will end and the vats will drain. Second, if three players drop out, the trials will end and the vats will driain. Third, if three players are rendered fatally unconscious, (similar to dropping out), the trials will end and the vats will drain.

In the event that a player chooses to drop out, that player will be subjected to the dropout penalty, the maze. If the player completes the maze, the player will be allowed to continue in the trials at his/her discretion, or leave with no further penalty. If a player is non-fatally injured in the maze, they are required to leave the trials, but will suffer no further penalty. If a player is fatally injured, their name will be removed from the game as though they had willingly dropped out.

The limited power is..." It was here, after all of that reading, that she paused. "It's me again." She said.

"Why do they keep doing that? You have no-" Kyungsoo started to say, but Kai elbowed him in the side, reminding him that he was being insensitive.

"Whatever. The dropout penalty is this 'maze', like you heard."

"So, we just... pick tubes?" Kris asked.

"I think we should maybe consider it a little more than that." Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, walking up to the raised platform. He attempted to see up into the tops of the vats, looking for any potential clues on what could fall from each. Xiumin tried to assist him, but shook his head.

"It's just dark up there, man, there's no point. We should just start early and get it over with."

"I call number one." "I call number one." Both Kai and Kyungsoo spoke at the same time. Glaring at each other, they both ran for it at the same time in a strange showing of male bickering, but Kai, being taller and slightly stronger, made it there first. Sticking his tongue out, he slid open the high-tech door, shutting it in Kyungsoo's face. Rolling his eyes in annoyance, the boy walked all the way over to number 10- the next best thing.

Chanyeol chose number 2, and Sehun looked torn. Finally, he chose the third one, likely because he didn't want to be standing alone while everyone else chose. Baekhyun chose four, despite it being widely considered an unlucky number. Lay, who hadn't really said anything since they'd gotten there, just stumbled to five. Chen picked eight- that was Suho's favorite number. Whether or not that was why, she didn't know. Kris picked nine, which left Xiumin and Y/N with six and seven. Looking between the two, seven just gave her a better feeling, so she picked that, and Xiumin stepped into 6. All the doors shut, she looked down at her phone. As she skimmed over the rules one last time, she'd realized that she hadn't noticed who did and didn't leave their stuff outside the vat. Oh well, it wasn't bound to matter anyway.

"Is everyone ready?" She asked, her voice echoing off the glass walls of her tube. It was hard to hear each other, but not impossible. Searching for nods or calls from the rest of the group, she took a deep breath, pressing the start button on his phone. There was a loud rumbling above them as the mechanics in the ceiling whirred, the soulless noises putting her off. Then she watched as liquid began to flow down the sides of her tube. It wasn't impossible to see out, but she had to find gaps in the substance in order to do so. It was white and cold, giving her a few guesses as to what it could be. Before she determined for sure, though, she heard screams from the other tubes.

"What's going on?" She tried to yell, some of the boys freaking out still. "Hello?" She heard Sehun's distinct scream from all the way to the side. How was she able to hear him so clearly if she was four tubes away? "Sehun? Are you alright?"

"Everybody calm down so we can decide what we're going to do!" Kai yelled. Finally, in a whimper, everybody stopped talking and shouting at each other, just leaving the low humming of the machines.

"Okay." She breathed, grateful to Kai for controlling the situation. "Let's start with Kai, since he's in vat one. What's in your tube?"

"Ice." He said, not sounding too upset about it. "It's like, crushed ice, from a vending machine or something."

"Okay...Chanyeol?"

"N-needles." He said, more torn up about it than the boy before."

"Needles?"

"Y-yeah, like, seeing needles. They're falling down the side walls and onto the floor, b-but once they start to get too high, I-"

"It'll be fine, just hold on. Seh-"

"Bugs!" He yelled finally, as if he were just waiting for the second in which he could go back to freaking out. "There are fucking bugs all over the place, it's disgusting, there are centipedes and worms and roaches and-"

"That's so gross-" Chen said, quite obviously.

"You think I don't know that?! I can't do this, I'm not gonna be covered in bugs, I-"

"Hold on, all of you, we just need to know what's going on first." She continued repeating monotonously. "Baekhyun, please tell me yours is better."

"I have snakes." He said, trying to sound calm, but evidently a little freaked. "They're not really doing anything, they're just... Slithering around. I can't tell if they're poisonous or anything."

"Venemous." Kyungsoo corrected.

"Whatever."

"Okay, so that's ice, needles, bugs, and snakes. Not really great options." She sighed. "Lay?"

"Uh, it's kind of yellow, and smells like... citrus-y. I think it's some sort of juice. Maybe pineapple?"

"That's not too bad." She said, not really willing to think through the side effects of swimming in pineapple juice at that moment. "Xiumin?"

"I- I don't- This-" He was stuttering and tripping over his words.

"What? Are you okay?"

"I- I'm not 100 p-percent sure, but it's- it's red, and sticky, and it s-smells like metal, I- I think it's..." he paused for a second. "I think it's blood." She didn't know where they could have gotten that much blood, or rather, whose it was, but she had to admit it was disgusting. Shaking her head, she looked at her own substance again. Pressing one finger to the glass and letting it flow over, she held it to her nose.

"Alright, I think I have milk." She finally said, refraining from sighing in relief. She got off lucky with that one. "Chen?"

"It's some sort of weird, pink... paste stuff? It smells really bad, and it's super thick, like frosting. Except it's definitely not frosting."

"Taste it." Kris laughed from his vat, earning a glare from Chen. If he hadn't wanted vat eight, he would have moved as far away from him as possible.

"Speaking of, Kris, what do you have?" She asked.

"Red, runny, smells like alcohol? I'd say this is a nice cabernet." The an responded smugly.

"He got wine?" Sehun groaned from the other end. "What the fuck did I do to deserve this?"

"Quit complaining, we're not done." She scolded him. "Kyungsoo?"

"I have wood chips. It's another one that's fine for now, but as it gets higher and higher up, it'll be less than pleasant."

"Alright," she recapped. "Ice, needles, bugs, snakes, pineapple juice, blood, milk, pink... stuff, wine, and wood chips." She took a deep breath. "Wow, that is a lot. Now we just have to decide whether we want to wait it out, or have three of us try... whatever the dropout fee means."

"The 'maze'?" Kyungsoo asked skeptically. "That sounds less than pleasant."

"More pleasant than swimming in needles." Chanyeol argued.

"Stop!" She said. "We can't just fight with each other the whole time. Who is in favor of trying to get out?" She asked. She heard calls from Sehun, Chanyeol, Xiumin, Chen, and Baekhyun. Kai, Kyungsoo, Chen, herself, and obviously Kris, were all fine with waiting for the tubes to fill up.

"This isn't fair!" Sehun yelled, still panicking. "You guys want to stay because your tubes aren't full of fucking spiders!" Looking down to her feet, she saw that the milk came up just past her ankles now. True, it was uncomfortable, but she could barely even see the two vats on either side of her, so it wasn't as if she could tell what exactly was going on in the others.

"How long do you think this could take?" Chen asked as a counter, hoping that the time would be short enough that they could wait. Kyungsoo leaned over in his own vat, examining the woodchips.

"The substances have filled up about six inches in five minutes." He looked up. "The vat seems to be a about double my height, so at a rough guess, that would be twelve feet. Double that for six inches, times five minutes..." A moment later, he declared, "Two hours."

"Two hours?!" Sehun yelled.

"Well, actually, it would take forty-five minutes, give or take, for the stuff to reach our noses, so then you'd either have to float, swim, or cover your mouth to create an air pocket and keep bugs, or needles, or wood chips," he referenced his own dilemma, "From falling into your mouth. It's doable, just barely." Looking over, he continued, "Another option for people with solid objects, like me, Sehun, potentially Kai and Chen, is to pack it down and create a surface to stand on as we go up, until we're close enough to the top that we can sit and wait for it to fill up with no isses."

"I am not sitting on a platform of dead, squishy bugs." Sehun demanded.

"Yeah, you're probably right, that would make it take longer to fill up, might even double your time."

"Can we stop arguing over whether we are or aren't going to drop out?" Kris groaned. "Just sit in your vat, and if you wanna drop out, do it. None of us can stop you. We don't need Y/N's permission, there's a damn handle on the sliding doors. Just leave if you wanna be a baby." He didn't say anything. It wasn't that he was afraid of Kris calling him a wimp- that happened all the time anyway. He was scared of the punishment, of the maze.

Kris's plan of 'just do what you want' was actually not very time effective. By the time three people got around to quitting, they may have been halfway done, or more. After the first half an hour, Kai was beginning to change his vote, as the ice around him was growing colder and colder by the second, seeping into his bones. Chanyeol was getting increasingly uncomfortable, muttering with Sehun in a low enough tone that she couldn't hear what they were saying. All the people with liquid substances were uncomfortable as well, but she was continuously reminding herself that it was probably good for her skin, or something like that. It could have been worse, obviously.

At an hour in, it was reaching their shoulders, meaning that Kyungsoo's estimate had been a little low. Xiumin knocked on the glass of his tube from next to her, drawing her attention away from her fleeting thoughts. It was honestly a welcome conversation. At least, until it actually happened.

"Y/N? I think we have a problem with Lay." Concerned, she tried to peer through the white film of her vat, wiping it away with her sleeve as best she could. Just barely, she could make out his half-lidded eyes, swaying as he struggled to stay standing. "He's fallen asleep twice now, he's going to accidentally drown himself." He said with worry.

"I'm sure he'll be fine..." Just as she said this, he collapsed for what, as Xiumin has said, was the third time. But after a few seconds, he hadn't woken back up. "Xiumin?"

"Oh my God, Oh- I-"

"Xiumin! We have to do something!"

"Uh, I- I can- I can freeze him in place, maybe?"

"He's under the juice, he'll die!"

"M-maybe if I only do part of it, it'll rise to the top! Ice floats, right?"

"Well, if you think it'll work, do it then!"

"B-but what if-"

"Xiuimin! He's going to die!" Panicking, he held out his hand, trying to direct his frost powers towards Lay's midsection, wrapping him in a ring of ice from the outside in. Still, it was sticking to the sides of the vat, only starting to become loosened by the continuous flow of liquid.

"Come on," she muttered under his breath. "Come on, come on, Lay, don't die on us now," She didn't know if it was the new juice, or Xiumin's powers, or her sheer willpower, but the ice freed itself from the clutches of the chilly glass and shot to the top of the vat, dragging Lay's body with it. As his face broke the surface, he shot awake, choking on the juice that had made its way into his lungs. Coughing, it started spewing out of his mouth and back down into the vat, clearing itself of his body.

"That was too close." She said under her breath as he looked around, dazed. She'd have to start swimming soon. Not only that, but it would become incredibly more difficult to hold her phone above the waterline. She wondered if the rest of them brought their phones. Maybe Xiumin could do the same ice-float thing for her that he'd done for Lay? Looking around, noting Xiumin's relieved face, she saw a shadowy figure move past the veil of milk in her vat. Moving to a clean spot in her glass, she saw that it was Chen, vaguely covered in what she could only assume was the mystery paste fro his vat.

"Chen? What are you doing?!" She said, beating on the glass, grabbing his attention.

"None of you even want to try and get out of this. I don't mind my vat, as disgusting as it is, but this is going to get really hard for most everyone in no more than a few minutes. If..." He stopped for a second, but decided to finish his sentence. "If Suho were here, he would have been the first to try and do this. Someone has to try it now." Reaching for his phone, (and simultaneously answering her previous questions), he pressed the drop out button in his own app. At this, the room began shaking, and the black wall on the far side began shifting, as if it were a a one-way mirror becoming a window. And behind this window, it sat.

The Maze.

Go to Chapter 36

#exo #exo x reader #exo fanfiction #exo fanfic #kai #kyungsoo #baekhyun #lay #xiumin #sehun #suho #chen #chanyeol #kris #luhan #tao #kpop #Kpop x reader #Kpop fanfiction #Kpop fanfic #x reader #trials

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hamletandthegang · 3 years

Text

Pirates (Part 2)

“Hamlet!” Rosencrantz screamed into the mass of people for the hundredth time. “Hamlet, where the hell are you?!” He grabbed Guildenstern’s wrist and yanked them both to the ground as a gun went off in their direction.

They scrambled to their feet and dashed towards the side of the boat in an attempt to get clear of the fighting. Looking around, they decided that they had never known true chaos until that moment. The sound of clanging swords and gunshots rang out in the night, the ocean waves constantly rammed into the boat with a righteous fury, and the wind blew so harshly it was nearly impossible to hear anything. The sailors were fighting the pirates, the innocent passengers were fighting to stay alive, and from the few glimpses they had gotten of Hamlet, he was fighting, well, everyone.

“Should we get below deck?” Rosencrantz shouted above the wind, struggling to be heard.

Guildenstern shook his head. “They’ll tear the boat to pieces and we’ll be left to drown.” His brown curls were flying around his head, and he had his hands clamped around his ears in an effort to stop his external implants from being knocked out of his head.

Rosencrantz muttered a curse that no one heard. Their options were down to about zero. “What we need to do is find Hamlet so we can come up with a plan.”

“He’s somewhere in the middle of all of that mess.” Guildenstern gestured towards the horde of brawling people. He squinted and stared out into the ocean ahead of them. “Is anyone even steering this thing?” The boat they were currently standing on was sailing parallel to the pirate ship, though theirs was veering a bit off course. Neither ship had cast out an anchor, for reasons unknown to them. Everything had happened so fast.

“So, no chance of rescue, murderous pirates, and awful sailing weather combined?” Rosencrantz ticked off the list items on his fingers as he went. “Seriously, what are we going to do?”

Guildenstern bit his bottom lip, trying in vain to concentrate with all the distractions around him. “Um, we could always stow away on the pirate ship, I mean-” He looked around wildly, searching for ideas. His eyes met Hamlet’s, standing aboard a small motor boat that was beginning to drift away from the ship. “There!” He shouted, and both he and Rosencrantz ran over to the edge of the deck and leaned over to Hamlet. Guildenstern shouted for him to come back over and let them get in, but Hamlet frowned, flipped him off, and turned away from them as he let the boat begin to speed up.

Rosencrantz laughed instinctively, then realized and immediately started yelling over the waves at him. Guildenstern almost didn’t hear him, all the chaos around him blurring into white noise through his hearing implant. He flinched as it buzzed, and looked up at Rosencrantz, “I don’t want to die here.”

Rosencrantz looked back at him, and noticed how tense he was. He realized his implant must be malfunctioning, and wrapped his arms around him to hopefully calm him down.

Both of their heads snapped towards the fight as a shout of victory rose up among the pirates. The two of them realized with dismay that every single one of the king’s men were sprawled across the deck, dead. Rosencrantz grabbed his friend’s arm and dragged him behind the flapping sail, doing his best to keep them hidden from the bloodthirsty pillagers.

“...Alright boys, light it up!” The apparent leader said, with a peel of growling laughter. The pirates cheered again and rushed back across the planks that had been laid between the two decks with all the plunder they could carry.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern looked at each other in alarm. “Did he just say-”

Before they could move, one of the pirates dumped a barrel of gunpowder onto the ship from their much taller ship. It rained down from above, the wind scattering it all across the deck. The last of the pirates returned to the other boat and removed the gangplank.

Rosencrantz sprang up and sprinted to the side of the deck, Guildenstern following behind, hands still clamped over his ears to keep the buzzing at bay. “What are you going to do? We can’t just jump off the-”

“We have to move.” Rosencrantz said, and signed over his shoulder at him quickly, just in case

“What!?”

“Now!”

He grabbed Guildenstern’s hand and they jumped off the side of the ship, hitting the water with a crash right as multiple lit matches were thrown into the gunpowder.

To say there was a deafening explosion would be a lie. There were actually several deafening explosions. The two of them swam away from the ship as fast as they could as it blew to pieces behind them.

Splintered sections of driftwood rocketed from the ruined ship and splashed into the ocean around them. They quickly, and with some difficulty, grabbed onto a piece floating nearby them and held on as best they could.

“Okay, now that we’ve caught our breath, we need to try and catch up with the pirate sh-” Rosencrantz stopped as he looked around and the pirate ship was gone, merely a dot on the dark horizon.

“But- but Hamlet-”

“Yeah…”

“He just left us…”

“Yeah.”

They stared after the rapidly disappearing spec, both entertaining some last hope that their friend would turn it around and come save them. Alas, no such thing happened, and they were left floating in the middle of the sea with nothing to bring them home.

Guildenstern flinched again as his implants buzzed, telling him that they would die within a few hours. He hoped he’d be able to salvage them later from all the water-damage.

The realization that they would most likely be dead soon hit them several minutes after the pirate ship faded from view. Rosencrantz was still rattling off plans, from homing beacons to makeshift rafts, but they were all quickly shot down by Guildenstern and they were still in the ocean with no hope of rescue. They halfheartedly kicked and paddled the piece of driftwood in the general direction the other ship had gone, but the turbulent sea had sent them in so many different directions they had no idea which way that was anymore.

The waves still came with ferocity, and their little raft took it much harder than the boat had. It was becoming more and more difficult to stay holding on, and they both slipped off several times.

The minutes went by until an hour or two had passed. They could barely hear each other over the waves and wind, so eventually they ceased talking altogether. They were hungry, they were thirsty, they were tired, and they were cold. Though they were not aware of it, hypothermia had set in some time ago, and their body temperatures were getting dangerously low. They were both losing strength, losing the will to live.

Neither of them would have admitted it for all the money in the world.

They each stayed silent for the benefit of the other.

At one point a particularly vicious wave crashed into them so violently they both lost their grip on the driftwood before frantically grabbing for it again. Guildenstern let out a sigh of relief, then noticed that the roaring sounds of the sea seemed to have stopped entirely. He was extremely confused for a minute before realizing the wave had knocked out his hearing aids. They were lost, nowhere to be found. A new fear rose in him, and he tried to sign something to Rosencrantz but didn’t dare let go of the driftwood, his only lifeline.

He turned to his friend and looked him in the eyes for the first time in a while. He was so pale, so lifeless, barely clinging to the wood. It made Guildenstern so sad that it took him a moment to notice Rosencrantz was trying to say something to him.

Panic rose in his chest, like he was nine years old again and couldn't hear the fire alarm. "Rosencrantz!" he shouted frantically, hoping he could be understood. "Rosencrantz, I can't hear you!" His breaths started coming faster and faster until he was practically hyperventilating, and he started to search the waves around him, somehow hoping that the hearing aids would magically appear beside him. The wind he could do without, but he needed to hear his friend’s voice-

Rosencrantz risked letting go of the raft with one hand to place it on top of Guildenstern’s head, turning it back towards him. It’s okay, he mouthed. He had only been trying to ask him about his hearing aids.

Guildenstern calmed down a little and gave him a weak smile, nodding his head. He looked away and realized that there were a few tears streaming down his cheeks. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to feel all of his emotions and seal them away at the same time.

He almost didn’t notice when a colossal wave came their way. It smashed into them with enough force to send the raft soaring many feet forward through the air. Guildenstern, his eyes still closed, held on with all his might, his knuckles white with strain.

When it was over and the driftwood had settled again, he looked beside him.

Rosencrantz was gone.

He looked all around for his friend. His grip must not have been strong enough. He must have slipped off the raft and ended up somewhere in the ocean behind him. The hypothermia must have made him too weak. He must have… he must have…

“Rosencrantz!” Guildenstern screamed, though he wasn’t able to hear his own voice, he just prayed to any God that his friend could hear him. “Rosencrantz! ROSENCRANTZ! Where are you?!”

He looked back over the towering waves, but didn’t catch a glimpse of him.

If Rosencrantz was crying out for help, Guildenstern couldn’t hear him.

Maybe he was already dead.

This has to be a dream, Guildenstern thought desperately, still searching around him for some sign of his other half.

A hand shot out of the water and grasped his arm. He jumped, but immediately broke into a grin as Rosencrantz sputtered out of the water and grabbed hold of the driftwood. He didn’t say anything, all his energy was focused on staying alive, but Guildenstern began to feel tears of joy and pure exhaustion drip down his face.

The hours mixed into each other, there was no way of telling how much time had passed. They were barely staying conscious, the hyperthermia taking over their limbs and slowly prying their blistered hands from the wood. Guildenstern looked over as something brushed against his arm, and it didn’t feel like a fish. It was a small orange buoy. He tapped Rosencrantz’ shoulder, but he didn’t react, so he shook him gently. He opened his eyes after a moment, and looked over at him. His eyes widened when he saw the buoy. They used it to turn the wood around, and looked off in the other direction, to see many other buoys, leading all the way to… land.

It was the English sea-shore, with multiple boat docks for little private sailboats and motorboats. They couldn’t see much, just the tips of the sails winking at them from far off, but it was hope. Finally.

Rosencrantz seemed to come to life when he saw it, and they began, slowly, to paddle their way through the water and towards the shore, using the wood as a kick board.

#hamlet #hamlet modern au #shakespeare #hamletandthegang #guildenstern #rosencrantz #tw hypothermia #tw violence #hatg1

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arabellaflynn · 4 years

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Hello, all. It has been a rough pandemic.

As you may have figured, since I am in the performing arts, I have been completely out of work since this shitshow began. The earliest venues will open up here in MA is September, which is not helpful for me, because I need to be out of my current place by 8/31. No one will rent to me on my Patreon income, so I've been trying to figure out how to supplement that with other online work.

My first thought, frankly, was camming. I'm attractive and I know that, and I don't care about being naked in "public". I have a lot of opinions on the legitimacy and legalization of sex work, but making a statement would be a convenient bonus; I'd be in it for the tips. As the appliance menagerie on the Flintstones used to say, "Eh. It's a living."

The best camera I currently have is attached to the slightly-less ancient laptop. You know, the one with the broken hinge that won't hold the screen up on the right. Only the wifi on that computer has quit working. The onboard chip was always kind of flaky, but for some reason it has chosen now to deteriorate to the point where it no longer acknowledges a router on the other side of the goddamn wall. Shooting in the living room with an ethernet cable is not an option, because another housemate is already doing that.

I bought a dual-band USB wifi adapter with antenna. It's a Realtek chip -- not gold-plated, but also not total junk. I specifically checked to make sure it worked with Ubuntu Bionic before I ordered. I have now installed three separate sets of drivers in three completely different ways, read everything ever written about this on AskUbuntu, and still the computer refuses to acknowledge its existence. Not even if I blacklist the onboard chip to keep it from falling back into previous bad habits.

The other elderly laptop (with the working wifi) has a cam that tops out at 640 x 480, which I suppose might squeak by as a tiny facecam on Twitch, or for tutoring where no one cares about pixelization. The microphone, however, is crap. It's a tinny omni on the screen bezel that likes room noise more than my voice. I don't have an external microphone, and there's no onboard Bluetooth for my wireless headset. So I bought a USB Bluetooth adapter, which this computer is ignoring as hard as the other one is the wifi dongle. I have a wired headset with a mic, but because this computer is probably mere months too old to know what to do with an inline mic on the same jack as the output signal, it doesn't register at all.

The camera on my phone is potato quality, because that is honestly about how much the phone cost. Ditto the refurb Kindle. Neither is smart enough to keep up with streaming video, which I found out when I tried to do a video rehearsal for something months ago.

I have no place to do any kind of professional non-entertainment streaming work (e.g., tutoring) with my terrible equipment in any event. I don't own a desk. If a free desk appeared on my doorstep tomorrow, I would have nowhere to put it. My bedroom is small enough to contravene the Geneva Convention requirements for POW cells and I'm basically stuck in here, for reasons of both air conditioning and not having to interact with a house full of people who very much want me gone.

What I do have is a set of working emulators and some free video editing software, so I decided to take a stab at a subtitled Let's Play. I can certainly ramble on for 30 or so hours of Final Fantasy II. At the very least it'll give me something scheduled to do. So I pulled everything out and set it up, only to find that my controller was "pining for the fjords" -- no lights, no acknowledgement from RetroArch, no response to any button presses.

...

...okay, well, at least we're down to a level of equipment I can afford to replace. So I am waiting for the mail carrier to bring me another $10 gamepad, whilst stuck in bureaucratic hell. I'm down to emergency public assistance, which keeps asking me to send them random documents, inconveniently one at a time. Even when I can submit them online I'm required to wait a minimum of 2-3 business days before a human can look at them. I'm trying to not be mad -- they are clearly horribly overworked -- but it also leaves me with a lot of time to do nothing but busy-wait. They've finally decided I'm destitute enough for food stamps, so now I have to sit on my hands until the card arrives in the mail.

The chronic, crushing lack of resources is not helped by (or helping) the fact that I'm just not functioning very well. I was already on the edge of disintegration when the lockdown orders hit anyway; I was taking every piece of work I could find in an effort to scrape together enough for first/last/deposit on a new apartment, and honestly that's more than I can handle. I can consistently get to about 20 hours of "stuff that can't be done while in bed, wearing pajamas" per week, with occasional spikes up to about 30, before I start losing the ability to take care of myself. I skip showers, let my living space become a complete disaster area, and go to bed without dinner because the whole process of choosing something to eat, preparing it, eating it, and cleaning up after myself is so overwhelming that I just burst into tears and don't do it. I fed the rats twice a day and cleaned their cage once or twice a week, but couldn't manage to do the same for myself.

It's difficult to explain to people the state of being physically and mentally exhausted without also being sweaty and shaky from muscle fatigue. Perhaps the single most salient example I can give is lying in bed at night and realizing I kind of vaguely needed to pee. Not like urgently -- just enough that I knew if I didn't, I'd wake up the next day with an uncomfortably full bladder. Then just lying there anyway, not because I thought suffering was noble or I deserved it or anything idiotic like that, but just because taking care of it would involve standing up, walking into another room, and initiating a new task, and I did not have the capacity to do any of those things.

If you suggest I start making a to-do list, I will sit down right now and invent a brand new Blunt Object Transfer Protocol (botp://) expressly for the purpose of punching you, personally, in the face over the goddamn internet. I will even credit you in the patent application. I will not share the licensing profits, which judging from social media right now, would be approximately all of the money on the face of the Earth. I do not need "life hacks".

What I really need is a case worker, or possibly a babysitter, or just to have shown up at the ER about two months ago, because that is the only way I have ever found to get people to pay attention when I ask for help. Otherwise I get triaged out of sight and out of mind -- they ask if I'm suicidal, I tell them no, they tell me 'okay, here's a prescription for six Xanax and a packet of resources, go home and fix it yourself'. I'm just like, you sons of bitches, do you think I don't know how to Google things? If I could fix this on my own, I wouldn't be talking to you. Except I can't right now, because plague.

Everyone wants to fob me off on someone else. I was referred to an SSDI attorney by a friend, because frankly that's where I'm at right now. I wrote to them, specifically mentioning his name and the associate who helped him, and explained that I was basically a vegetable and I needed help applying for disability. I'm a college-educated suburban white girl, who grew up hearing her parents make rude jokes about welfare queens -- I have no idea how any of this works and I'm so broken I kept losing my place in a blanket whose pattern was literally "knit-purl-knit-purl to end of row; turn work over; repeat". Their response was "Sounds like you need some help applying for SSDI/SSI disability. Here's the website for the Boston Bar Association, good luck!" Crisis lines of both the psychiatric and financial varieties keep directing me to one of two national clearinghouse sites for social support services, both of which direct me to each other, because neither has any programs in my area.

I am trying really, really hard not to resent the ever-loving fuck out of anyone who has any sort of support system right now. One housemate has almost the exact same list of medical problems that I do, and is also completely out of work right now. She is married to the one who has a grown-up salaried WFH IT job, and will never have to worry about having a roof over her head or food in the cabinets. The single housemate has supportive family literally a five minute walk down the street; if she ever gets her feet kicked out from under her, she can stay with them temporarily while she scrambles back up. Another friend yote out to California right before lockdown to stay with his family. A local offered to help me with paperwork, then ghosted me intermittently before explaining that he was having a hard time himself right now and barely had the capacity for his own life. I have an elderly rat, no more savings, and no options.

I don't even know how I'm going to move the little I own. How do you even ask people to do that in the middle of a pandemic? If I don't have the money to move, I definitely don't have the money for a moving company, and I'm envisioning all of my community-minded friends pursing their lips in judgement and declining because like all the good people they are diligently social distancing.

I have also discovered, while hauling an empty suitcase out to Watertown and a full one back home again, that I do not cope well with face masks. It's fine if I'm not doing much, especially if I'm in a climate-controlled space like a store or the T, but as soon as I exert myself at all, I see spots. And no, it is not a matter of "just get used to it"; I have tested this by trying to wear a mask during my home workouts. It is just stuffy enough under there, and there is just enough reduction in air flow, that the world keeps going all film-grainy and dark on the sides, which I know from experience is the first step on a very short path to the Magical Land of Syncope. I had to stop during the outdoor trek and sit on the suitcase about twice a block through the commercial district, where it stayed on because there were people. This was when it was 72 whole degrees out (and the AC is generally on 74°F inside) which doesn't bode well for moving my heavy shit around in late August.

I'm normally good at catching things at the weird-vision stage, although enough random strangers and T employees have asked me if I'm okay that I have to assume I look as ill as I feel at that point. And I have an absolutely tragic talent for talking people out of calling emergency services when I do actually keel over, but everyone is so health-panicked that I don't think it would work right now. I know what's happened and why, but I can't exactly communicate that to bystanders when I'm unconscious. As nice as EMS is, I don't feel like waking up to a round of Twenty Questions ("How many fingers am I holding up? Who's the President? Do you have a seizure disorder?"). So I just don't go out.

Alison over at Ask A Manager got a question about this the other day that suggests this is considered legitimate can't-(always-)wear-a-mask territory, and I am able to wear a mask where required in MA, which is indoors/during interactions with other people when it's actually useful, so I don't have any qualms on the scientific or legal front. I have just never been a good judge of how much potential peril/damage it's "reasonable" to put up with, and I don't have the capacity to explain myself over and over again a million times a day.

I'm fucking tired. I'm tired of covid, I'm tired of living in a big glitzy continent-spanning banana republic, I'm tired of anxiety, I'm tired of other people carping at me to do things I can't in order to fix their anxiety for them, I'm tired of not having the space to dance, I'm tired of asking for help before things fall apart and being told 'well, come back when it is an emergency', and most of all I'm tired of this cycle where I tell myself "I'm going to stop being lazy! I'm going to put on my big-girl pants and wake up early and work 40 hours a week and support myself like an adult!" and then fail at it again because I just do not have the capacity to do that. I do not know how to make the system understand that I need some kind of support right now.

Sorry for yet another depressing update, but that's where I am right now.

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#IFTTT #Blogger #Unsolicited Advice

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buckyownsmyheart · 5 years

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Training Day and The Bet [one-shot]

⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Words: 1,500+

Summary: There is only one way to settle a bet. Spoiler - it involves sexual tension and an extreme game of laser tag

Warnings: miniscule amounts of swearing

A/N: This is for @itsbuckysworld summer writing challenge! Massive thank you for letting me take part. The prompt was "What can I say, I have a weakness for people that can lift me over their heads”, and I had an absolute blast writing it!

This was it. The time that everyone was waiting for. The first Friday of every month. Training Day. Where the entire team played a game under the premise that it would help teambuilding and tactics. Last month, the team tried their hand at go karts (obviously to aide their get-away driving), the month before that had been paint-balling. Others included capture the flag and a particularly intense game of hide-and-seek with a twist. The twist being the sniffer dogs that Tony deployed unexpectedly.

Today was laser tag and this was the game that mattered the most because of the bet that had been going on between you and your fellow Avenger, Bucky Barnes. Since you joined the team 2 years ago, you had formed a strong love-hate relationship with the man, and it had only intensified with time. So maybe you wished the relationship was more love, but there was no way that you would admit that you often dreamt of the way his muscles rippled in the gym, or the way his eyes sparkle after he’s told a corny joke, and how you ask him to plait your hair, just so you can relish in the feeling of his fingers scratching at your scalp. That was a secret you would take to the grave, and at least your current friendship allowed you to spend more time together, even if it was to make jibes at the other.

It all started in one of the first training days that you had participated in. You had headed one of the teams and Bucky led the other. You narrowly won, and after many untrue accusations of cheating, a rematch was set for the next month, and the month after that, until a bet was set. The first to win 10 games won the bet. If you won, you got his prized Harley Davidson motorcycle. However, if he won, he got your room. Your room was well renowned by the Avengers to be the best in the compound. It had the best view, looking over the forest with the sea in the distance, and the fact that it was next to the swimming pool was an added bonus. There was absolutely no way in hell you were letting him have it. You were currently running at an 9 all tie, meaning that this match was the decider.

With Natasha and Sam away on mission, your team consisted of Steve, Bruce and Peter. Bruce often played a key planning role, but on the field, he was a bit of a liability, and refused to answer to code green. Peter often got distracted. Apparently, he needed full on violence with a detailed backstory to be able to fight a fight. So, there was that. You couldn't trust Steve not to take Bucky's side, no matter how much he promised not to, meaning you were in a bit of a dilemma.

Bucky's team was Tony, Rhodey and Clint. Rhodey was the one who had recruited you after a particular tour in the marines, but no matter how hard you tried to persuade him to spy for you, he refused. Damn his loyalty and good morals. Tony was no use either, he couldn't be bribed and was far too competitive against Steve to let you win. Your last hope was Clint, who was pretty useless in these games; he usually hid in the vents before swooping down in the last minute and claiming victory.

Both teams were sitting in the briefing room where you and Bucky were going through the rules.

"No cheating," Bucky listed, "No tampering with the electric vests, no powers."

"No external influences," you cut in, staring pointedly at Tony, "Canine or otherwise. You know the rest, team footloose with me to talk tactics."

"Team hotshot we’ll stay here.”

Once you gathered in your respective teams, the plan was set into motion. Peter was already giving everyone codenames; he had been watching lots of James Bond recently and was getting very much into it. You were Eagle, and to be honest, you were pretty chuffed with it. Bruce was Eeyore, for his docile manner and maintenance of a realistic, if somewhat pessimistic, outlook on life. Steve was Eton Mess, due to his blonde hair, pale complexion and now slightly burnt nose from a mission the week before, and Peter was Excel. The reasoning behind that is unclear. You think he just really likes Excel.

"Alright," you began, "You all know how important this is to me. Bucky cannot win, under any circumstances. There's a lot riding on this, and if he gives me one of his damn smug smirks, someone will die. He's beyond competitive and will take any opportunity to rub it into our faces."

"Come on, (Y/n)," Bruce said, "You're just as competitive as he is!"

"That's absurd, I'm far more competitive and you know it." You stated, before continuing with the plan. "Peter, you're gonna go all sticky on those vents and flush out Clint, I turned off his hearing aids this morning, so it'll be easier for you to sneak up on him. Bruce, I need you to try and engage with Rhodey, distracting him with talks of peace and all that shit, before taking him out. Steve, I need you on Tony. He'll be flying high in the suit, trying to suss out the plan from above. You need to lay low until he hits the ground, and then take him out once he gets cocky. I'm going to take down Bucky, and he will suffer."

⁎⁎⁎

Half an hour in, and the plan was working. Mostly. Peter had successfully taken out Clint, but Tony had managed to shoot Bruce from above before he could talk to Rhodey. Steve shot Rhodey in the distraction, but Tony got him too. You had managed to shoot Tony whilst he came down to gloat to Steve. You had allowed yourself a small smirk before finding Bucky. Peter was still hidden in the vents and had taken to talking in your ear at a rapid pace.

"Eagle! Eeyore said that bird's eye view was the easiest option, so maybe we should rendezvous at East exit where Eton Mess was eliminated, Excel over."

"That was a hell of a lot of E's there, Parker," you spoke quietly into the comms. "We're gonna need to clarify these codenames because we are barrelling towards a misunderstanding."

The comforting weight of the rifle in your arms allowed you to focus on the task ahead, whilst ignoring Peter’s blabbering into the radio. You stalked along the side of the building, holding your breath. As you were about to round the corner, you saw him. Bucky was stood behind a low wall, pointing his rifle over the top and very much on guard. He made a move towards the building that you had been heading for, and you pointed your gun to aim at him. As you looked down your sights, you saw Peter also pointing his gun at Bucky.

"No!" You shouted, hurtling towards Bucky. You barely registered Bucky's shocked face before you lifted him over your shoulder in a fireman's lift, and slammed him against the wall he had been standing behind moments before. You'd be damned if after all this you weren't going to be the one to take Bucky down. You needed as much gloating material as possible. Before you could act further, Bucky threw you against a make-shift boulder, pressing his entire body against yours. As he pinned you down, you felt an unmistakeable hardness against your upper thigh, and you had to fight hard to keep a smile under control.

"What are you doing?" He growled.

"Wanted to make sure I was the one who shot you," you smirked, "But now it seems I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place." You raised an eyebrow and peered down at the offending appendage.

Bucky moved back from you, his eyes wide. A pink blush dusted his cheeks and the tips of his ears. Despite his clear embarrassment, he let out a gentle laugh.

"It would be so much less hassle if you two just kissed and got it over with," Tony interrupted your moment. He had clearly given himself access into your comms as well. In response, before Bucky could do anything, you pushed him back onto the opposite wall, pressing yourself into him, and leaned close to his ear.

"Whaddya say, Sarge?" you whispered, making sure your breath reached his neck, and relished when goose bumps appeared, "Don't tell me you haven't thought about it."

"What can I say, I have a weakness for people that can lift me over their heads." He murmured back, his lips moving against your neck as his deep voice reverberated through you. He dropped his rifle and wound his arms around your waist.

Before he could get a grip on you, you stepped back, aimed your rifle at his chest and fired. His vest lit up red, the lights flickering to show he had been killed, and you were victorious. You couldn't help the smug smile that formed on your face as the look of shock and subsequent rage laced Bucky's features.

You turned, and before strutting away, you called over your shoulder. "At least ask me out first, and to think I thought you were a gentleman!” You paused for emphasis, turning slightly in his direction to gauge his reaction, “I've recently acquired a new mode of transport though, so I can come pick you up." And with a joyful laugh and a wink in his direction, you went to join the rest of your team, swinging your rifle over your shoulder. Boy did victory feel good. Nearly as good as Bucky pressed up against you, but that was for another time.

#ibwradsummer19 #bucky x reader #bucky barns x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #bucky barnes #bucky #bucky imagine #avengers #paintballing

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