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disastermages · 3 years

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[read it on ao3]

“Shijie, how do I make soup?” Wei Wuxian wrestles the phone between his shoulder and his ear while he tries and fails to dig through Lan Zhan’s pots and pans quietly. He needs a stock pot, Wei Wuxian knows that much, and carrots and celery and onions. That’s how Jiang Yanli starts most of her soups, he’s seen her cook and pretended to help her enough times to know that.

On the other end, Wei Wuxian hears Jiang Yanli hum laugh softly, “A-Xian, if you’re hungry, you can just come over, I’ll even send you home with leftovers.” It makes Wei Wuxian smile, but he shakes his head, even though his sister can’t see him.

“It’s not for me, Shijie, Lan Zhan is sick, and I want to make something to help him feel better.” Lan Zhan still hadn’t even admitted to being sick by the time Wei Wuxian had convinced him to lay back down. Lan Zhan had been too tired and too uncertain on his feet to argue, not that he could have stopped Wei Wuxian from putting him to bed.

They were supposed to go out for dinner, but Wei Wuxian had canceled that reservation while he sat beside Lan Zhan, running his fingers through sweat-dampened hair.

“Oh! Well that is different, now isn’t it?” Jiang Yanli’s voice only sounds more amused now, and distantly, Wei Wuxian hears clattering on her side of the phone call, “Do you have chicken broth?”

“Lan Zhan has some vegetable broth from Xichen-ge.” There’d been uncertainty on Lan Zhan’s face the first time he’d told Wei Wuxian that Lan Xichen had taken up cooking, but he was getting better at it.

“That will work just fine, A-Xian.”

Slowly, Jiang Yanli walks her younger brother through the process of making a simple soup, her voice gentle and encouraging, even as she reminds Wei Wuxian not to let the onions and garlic scorch in the pan, because it will make the soup bitter.

“My XianXian is growing up.” Jiang Yanli sounds as if she’s speaking to herself, but it makes Wei Wuxian pause, mushrooms in his hands hovering above the stock pot he’d had to climb half way into Lan Zhan’s cabinets for.

“XianXian is three, he can’t even make soup by himself, he needs his Shijie to hold his hand.” Only when he can laugh at himself does Wei Wuxian finally drop the mushrooms into the soup. Carrots and potatoes roll to the top while the stock boils.

He expects Jiang Yanli to play along with him just like she always does, he waits for her to insist that he’s only a year old, but instead she pauses, though not unkindly. “A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli sounds more serious than Wei Wuxian has heard her in a very long time, “you’re making soup for Lan Wangji because you care for him, right? You’re going to want to add some rosemary now, there’s no need to cut it, just make sure you pull out the sprig after the soup has simmered.”

Wei Wuxian dutifully adds the rosemary, the smell of it spreading through his chest and widening like warmth, “Of course I care for him! He’s my… He’s my Lan Zhan.” They hadn’t named whatever it was that they’re doing, but it’s true enough, isn’t it? Lan Zhan is Wei Wuxian’s Lan Zhan. “Do I need to add anything else?”

“You can add some tofu if you like. When you found out he was sick, did you have to think about it, or did you just go right into taking care of him?”

Reluctantly, Wei Wuxian steps away from the stove long enough to look inside Lan Zhan’s fridge for the tofu, jars and bottles clinking in both Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli’s ears while Wei Wuxian pulls the tofu out of a stack with one hand. The soup is still on the stove, unscorched and free of ruin when Wei Wuxian comes back to it.

“I just did it, I guess, I wanted to.” He hadn’t been able to find Lan Zhan’s thermometer and Lan Zhan couldn’t stay awake long enough to tell him where it was, so in the end, Wei Wuxian had kissed Lan Zhan’s forehead and found him to be burning with fever. He’d taken off his leather jacket and set to work trying to take care of Lan Zhan after that.

“You’ll need to cut the tofu, but don’t make it too small.” There’s the light, metallic tapping of Jiang Yanli’s tasting spoon against her stockpot, still spotless, but far more used than Lan Zhan’s. Wei Wuxian nods again and picks up the knife he’d pulled out of Lan Zhan’s kitchen drawers, his sister had told him to find one that felt right in his hand. Wei Wuxian cannot see Jiang Yanli, but he knows that she’s thinking hard about something, her nose wrinkling slightly and her mouth pulling into that small, thoughtful frown.

“A-Xian, do you know that I’m proud of you?” The chunks of tofu land in the pot with wet plops, but Jiang Yanli doesn’t give her brother the chance to ask her what she’s proud of, “I know you don’t like cooking, and you say that you don’t know how to care for someone who’s sick, but you’re trying very hard for Lan Wangji. You could have called Lan Xichen, and he would have come running over to take care of him, but you’ve done it without a second thought. You are growing up, and you’re growing up well.”

“Shijie,” Wei Wuxian starts, but he can’t finish, something big is blocking his throat and making his eyes sting, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“You’ll need to let the soup simmer for a while before you can serve it, keep it stirred, and in the meantime, you should do the dishes and clean up any messes you made while you were cooking.” Jiang Yanli’s own voice sounds wobbly and emotional, now, but it doesn’t mask the pride shining like the sun through storm clouds. “You should serve it to Lan Wangji with some crackers, or maybe toast, it’ll settle his stomach a little.”

Finally, Wei Wuxian can speak, a smile spreading slowly across his face, “Should I call you and ask you how to make toast?”

Jiang Yanli laughs at the joke and sets the lid onto her own pot, “Xianxian could blacken the toast completely, and I think Lan Wangji might still eat it, but only because you made it for him.”

They only talk for a while longer before they both hang up and Wei Wuxian starts to clean up his messes, chasing after thin, wispy onion skins with the broom and wiping down spills that have long since hardened while he was too busy to clean them. He looks in on Lan Zhan, still sleeping, and digs through the cabinets again to find the tea Lan Zhan only drinks on special occasions.

There’s nothing left for Wei Wuxian to do after the tea is brewed and steeped, so he sets about gathering up a tray, taking care to slice the toast into crustless triangles, just the way he’d seen Jiang Yanli do for him and Jiang Cheng when they were younger. With his hands full, Wei Wuxian is grateful that he’d left Lan Zhan’s door open just a crack, though he still kicks it closed as gently as he can.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian calls, setting the tray down on the empty side of the bed, his side of the bed, to lean over Lan Zhan and shake him gently, “it’s time to wake up, Lan Zhan.” He knows he shouldn’t, but he still fixes a kiss to Lan Zhan’s temple, and then his cheek. Lan Zhan wakes up slowly, his eyes still heavy and his skin somehow paler, even as he stares up at Wei Wuxian.

“Wei Ying.” The roughness of Lan Zhan’s voice digs itself right into Wei Wuxian’s heart, and for one moment his smile falters.

“I made you something special, Lan Zhan, it’s going to help you feel better.” Wei Wuxian pulls the tray into his own lap, but Lan Zhan looks at it doubtfully, though he still makes the effort to try and smell it.

“Wei Ying made this?” He asks, and Wei Wuxian beams. He hadn’t burned anything or added too much spice, the broth hadn’t even turned red.

“I called Shijie for help, but I did all the work by myself, I even cleaned the kitchen after I was done.” The statement is half meant to brag, and half meant to settle any worries Lan Zhan might have about a mess left behind in the kitchen.The way his eyes widened minutely hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Lan Zhan takes the spoonfuls carefully as Wei Wuxian offers them to him, bleary eyes still glancing up at Wei Wuxian, disbelief mixed with something else that Wei Wuxian can’t name, but it fills him with hope.

“Wei Ying should not have gone to so much trouble, I cannot taste it.” Lan Zhan admits once the bowl is finished, his hand drifting towards Wei Wuxian’s knee. There’s guilt building up on Lan Zhan’s face like storm clouds, dark and heavy, before Wei Wuxian covers Lan Zhan’s hand with his own, thumb swiping back and forth in a quiet attempt at comfort.

“I wanted to do it, Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian says softly, lifting Lan Zhan’s hand up and kissing it quick, “You know you can’t stop me or change my mind when I decide that I want to do something.” Wei Wuxian couldn’t stop Lan Zhan when he decided he truly wanted to do something either, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t bring that up now, not as he sets his other hand onto Lan Zhan’s back to guide him to lay on his shoulder.

Lan Zhan’s arms wrap around Wei Wuxian’s neck easily, the movements comfortable and automatic.

“Wei Ying will get sick like this.” Lan Zhan insists, his voice stubborn and childish, even as he makes no attempt to pull away, if anything, his arms tighten.

“If I do, will Lan Er-gege take care of me?”

“Yes.” Lan Zhan’s answer is automatic and unquestioning. Wei Wuxian buries his face in Lan Zhan’s hair for it, breathing in the scent buried underneath sweat and sick. “Will Wei Ying make more soup later?”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t stop himself from laughing before he gives Lan Zhan another kiss, this time pressed to his jaw. “You don’t know how much soup I made, Lan Zhan, I can warm it up for you as many times as you want.” He’d made too much, really, but Jiang Yanli had said that was normal.

“I want to be able to taste your cooking.” Lan Zhan insists, and Wei Wuxian kisses him again, on his forehead and on both of his cheeks.

“You will, Lan Zhan, you won’t be sick forever.” It was only a cold, or maybe a flu, but Lan Zhan will get better, Wei Wuxian will make sure of that.

Wei Wuxian knows that he should get up and he should wash the dishes that they’d used, but when he tries, Lan Zhan only holds onto him tighter and refuses to look at Wei Wuxian for a long moment. “Will you stay until I fall asleep?”

“I will, Lan Zhan, I will.”

Wei Wuxian would stay as long as Lan Zhan would have him.

He would take care of him as long as he was allowed to.

#cql #mdzs #mdzs fic #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #jiang yanli #wei ying #lan zhan #wwx #lwj #jyl #the untamed #theuntameddaily

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cafedanslanuit · 4 years

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Grow as we go || Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

Oh, who said it's true that the growing only happens on your own? / They don't know me and you

a/n: Finally, the last chapter! And the longest lol. I’m really happy you enjoyed this little series. I’ll see all of you around <3 tagging list~ @loeybk @animemelanie360

Part One || Part Two || Part Three

.❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。 .❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。 .❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。 .❀。• *₊°。

Heroes got sick too. You knew that, but didn’t expect getting stuck in your room for two days was going to be as miserable as it was. Yes, you were thankful that pneumonia had receeded to a cold thanks to Recovery Girl but, somehow, this cold felt worse than being hit in training. On Monday you were supposed to go back to classes when the cold symptoms were gone, and even if it was only a weekend away, you couldn’t wait anymore. You had already finished the last book you had bought and has streamed all seasons of your favourite series. Having nothing to do plus the weight of knowing you were missing important lessons and trainings had put you in the worst mood to the point you had asked your father not to disturb you unless there was an active fire.

It was Friday afternoon and he had already gone into your room eight times. You chose a movie on Netflix and while the opening credits played, you looked at your door, thinking about the possibility of putting your bookshelf against the door to prevent it from opening. Would it be over the top? Yes. Would it help you be alone at least until your movie finished? Also yes. Before you could really decide, you heard him knocking your door once again. You rolled your eyes, exhausted.

“Dad, please, leave me alone” your door opened and you pressed the spacebar to pause the movie. Turning to your right, you saw your father entering your bedroom and your ex boyfriend following him. You squealed, covering yourself with your sheets, even if you were wearing pajamas.

“Dad!”

“Katsuki came to bring you some homework, I think?” he looked over at Bakugou, who just nodded. He was still in his U.A. uniform. “I’ll leave you too, can I bring you anything?”

“No, thank you” Bakugou said with a small bow. Your father smiled and left your room, closing the door behind him.

A tense silence between the two of you reigned. You weren’t sure if you were supposed to talk first, and if you were, you didn’t know what were you supposed to say. While grades were important in U.A., they mostly relayed on the final exams, which weren’t due in at least another month. There was no need for him to bring you homework and you couldn’t help but think it was an excuse for him to see you. The idea made your heart skip a beat, holding onto the last bit of hope you still had within you.

“Aizawa asked me to give you this” he grunted, opening his backpack and handing you his notebook. You parted your lips, looking at his notebook and then back at him. Of course.

“I knew Aizawa didn’t like me, but this is just sad” you said with a dry laugh. Taking Bakugou’s notebook, you opened it and started looking for the lessons you had missed. Since you figured he wouldn’t just stand there and wait for you to copy a two day’s worth of classes, you took your phone and started taking pictures of all the pages you needed to copy later.

While you did that, you saw with the corner of your eye how Bakugou started walking around your room. Even if he had been at your house a couple of times before, he had never been inside your bedroom. You both had always spent your time in the living room or in the kitchen if you felt hungry. Still, Bakugou would never let you cook as ‘you cut tofu in sticks rather than dices like a maniac’, so he always took the lead. Not that you complained, he knew his way around the kitchen, which made you love him a little bit more.

In one of those occasions, he had met your father. Bakugou had been stirring a pot of miso soup when your father’s keys opened the front door. You went to the living room and greeted him, informing him your boyfriend was visiting. You had talked to him about Bakugou before, since the both of you had been dating for four months. Your heart warmed when you saw your father greeting Bakugou as an old friend and asking what he was cooking. Bakugou’s tense expression was laughable, as he tried his best not to use swear words around him.

Dinner had been great, you father doing his best to make Bakugou feel welcome, asking about school and praising him for such a delicious meal. Finally, your father gave you both some alone time as he went in to take a shower. You wasted no time in teasing Bakugou about being so tense around your father, but also confessed you were really happy you two had actually met. You thanked him for putting in some effort, earning a grump from him, which only made you smile further.

Having your father like Bakugou seemed like a blessing, but it only felt like torture now that he had let him in knowing you hadn’t been together in the last three months. When you talked about your situation with Bakugou with your father, he had asked you to give Bakugou another chance. You said you were waiting for him to sort out his mind and you had already accepted it could take more time than you wished for. ‘Why do you like him so much, anyway?’ you had asked, rolling your eyes. ‘He just seemed to care for you” your father had smiled sadly at you and changed the topic before you started crying once more.

“Weren’t you eighteen?”

You turned your head to Bakugou, who was holding your Jigglypuff plushie.

“I could say the same about your All Might posters” you countered. You looked at each other and, for the first time, the one who let out a snort was Bakugou. You expected him to shot back another comment, but instead he just kept looking around your room. “Denki actually bought it, you know?” you commented, your eyes fixated on Bakugou’s notebook

“What?” Bakugou snapped.

“He got it for Jirou saying it reminded him of her but she got mad and gave it to me” you chuckled at the memory, taking the final photo with your phone and closing Bakugou’s notebook. “Thanks for bringing this. I was already hating myself for getting this sick”

“Yeah, no shit” he muttered, putting his notebook back into his backpack. “How the fuck did you manage to do that?”

“Uhh, I may or may have not forgotten an umbrella on my way back home” you chuckled, scratching the back of your head.

“Why didn’t you see Recovery Girl?”

“I did! If I hadn’t I would have ended up with pneumonia. Now it’s just a cold. My body just needs to rest” you explained, shuffling in your seat. Now that his mission was over, you knew he had to get back, but you didn’t want him to. You hadn’t talked to each other outside of training since the gym incident happened. The first days were mostly because whenever you looked at him, you remembered the way his hands had held you against the wall, making you flustered and losing attention of any chore you were doing. You had been caught staring at nothing several times by your friends, playing Bakugou’s words over and over in your head.

‘I’d rather have this than nothing at all’

You couldn’t have agreed more with him. Even if he hadn’t approached you, you’d rather have him in your room, at least for a little while.

“When did--”

“My mother--”

A chuckle fell from your lips.

“Sorry, it wasn’t important. You were saying something about your mom?”

“That old hag asked me to give you this” he said, looking into his backpack again. He took out a soup thermos, an individual package of disposable chopsticks and handed it to you. Bakugou finally sat on the foot of your bed, his stern expression never leaving his face.

“That’s so nice of her” you smiled, taking the thermos and opening the lid. A smell of soup warmed your body. “Can I?” you asked, grabbing the chopsticks.

“What the fuck you think it’s for?” he rolled his eyes.

You started eating the soup, noticing how delicious it was. Not only that, it was your favourite kind: miso soup. You didn’t know if it was because you were sick, but it made you feel like you were on cloud nine. Humming contently, you picked a piece of tofu and noticed it was cut in sticks rather than dices.

“How did she know I prefer them in sticks?” you asked with an amused expression. Bakugou’s face turned red, and you watched him in awe as he opened his mouth but couldn’t say a thing. The truth suddenly hit you, making you grin widely at the boy in front of you.

“T-the fuck if I know how! Her cooking is shit and--”

“You remembered” you sighed, feeling your eyes burning. You bit your tongue, doing your best to avoid crying. You set the thermos aside and crawled on your bed, getting closer to Bakugou. You finally kneeled in front of him, his eyes watching you wide open while his eyebrows were still characteristically furrowed. “You actually remembered” you repeated in a small voice. His eyes darted sideways, a deep blush still covering his cheeks.

“Of fucking course I--”

You interrupted him by pressing your lips against hiss. Bakugou let out a surprised groan, but it wasn’t long until his hands were on the middle of your back, pulling you closer. You had his face between your hands, not being able to stop smiling as you were kissing him. It was amazing how much your body seemed to have craved him, even though it hadn’t been more than a month since you had last kissed.

Bakugou pulled away, setting his hands on your shoulders. Your smile fell a little when you realized he wasn’t smiling like you hoped: a preoccupied expression covered his face.

“I still haven’t figured it out” he muttered, looking you straight in the eyes. It took you a moment to understand what he was talking about, but your last conversation quickly popped in your mind.

“Oh. I…” you paused, sitting back and taking a deep breath. “I think you have, though”

“I still feel fucking frustrated. Especially now” he grunted, making you laugh.

“You’re just horny” you teased him. Bakugou flicked your forehead.

“Fuck off”

“Did you feel frustrated while you were making the soup?” you asked, changing your kneeling position to a sitting one, a leg bent while the other dangled from the bed. Bakugou stayed silent for a moment, his face scrunching, a tell-tale sign he was trying to concentrate. You remembered seeing that expression when you looked over at him while you were taking a test. Waiting for an answer made you feel uneasy, but you did your best to be patient.

“No” he said after a few moments. You felt the corner of your lip twitching upwards.

“What did you feel?” you saw Bakugou’s eyebrows scrunch again and quickly shook your head. “No, no, forget that. Just… did it feel good?”

“Yeah, I guess” Bakugou shrugged.

“You love me, then” you smile.

“Because I made you soup?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Because you cooked my favourite soup, cut the tofu how I like it and then brought it to me. Yes, Katsuki, you love me” you grinned, pecking his cheek. You noticed how there was the tiniest of smiles on Bakugou’s face, a sight you had longed for weeks.

“Okay, I love you then”

Bakugou put his arms around you, your face nuzzling against his chest. The smell of caramel and cinnamon invading your senses, making the idea of taking a nap there really enticing. You had missed the feeling of his strong arms around you, making you feel protected, now even more that you knew he loved you. There were no longer idle thoughts wondering what did he think about your relationship or yourself. There was only him, Katsuki, making you feel the most loved you had ever felt. He pressed a kiss on top of your head and you thought you were going to melt right there.

“Wanna stay for a movie?” you asked, raising your head towards him.

“I’m not watching a chick flick” he warned.

“There’s this crime documentary on Netflix, how about that?”

“Fine. But eat the damn soup, it’s going to get cold”

You went back to your original position on your bed, pulling the covers and grabbing the laptop that was left behind. Bakugou sat on your side, grabbing a pillow and using it to rest his back.

Once you two were settled, you pressed play and Bakugou handed you the soup thermos. You took out another tofu and giggled to yourself.

“You love me”

“Already regretting saying that” Bakugou grunted, putting his arm around your shoulders. He let out a sigh and paused the movie again, turning his head towards you. “Listen. I obviously feel a bunch of shit for you. But it’s still… was it that easy? I’ve been putting my fucking head through the wall trying to understand and suddenly the answer was soup?” he asked in disbelief. “I love you. I get that now, but… I’ve never felt that before. So everything is still fucking confusing, not gonna lie”.

You turned your head and pressed a kiss on his shoulder.

“It’s okay. We’re both kind of new at this, so please don’t take it so hard. I mean, yes, think about it, analyze your feelings just know that I’ll be right there” you smiled softly,

“Thought you broke up with me ‘cause I couldn’t sort out my fucking feelings” he reminded you.

“Yeah” you let out a small laugh. “I may have been a tad wrong. I mean, you were an asshole and you did need to sort out your feelings, but... trying to understand our feelings isn’t something that just stops. I think our feelings will always change through time. I think loving me now will feel different to loving me one year from now. But as long as, above all that, it is love... we’ll be okay. I just want to keep growing together, you know?”

“You’re so fucking cheesy” Bakugou sighed, but pulled you closer to him. You grinned and pressed a kiss against his cheek.

“But you loooove me” you teased him, making Bakugou roll his eyes at you. “You know, I may have to thank Aizawa for sending you here. I must have been wrong about him hating me”

“He sent Deku. I found that green shit outside of U.A., told him to fuck off and that I would do it myself” he grunted. You laughed loudly besides him, almost dropping the thermos on your lap.

“You’re so fucking cute”

“Shut up and resume the movie, asshole”

#bakugou katsuki #bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #bakugo katsuki #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha scenarios #bnha imagines #bnha bakugou

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canyouhearthelight · 4 years

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The Miys, Ch. 81

Here we have a bit of fluff mixed in with our main plot. I really enjoy when I have the chance to mix life in with everything else going on, and for this chapter I was able to sprinkle some Maverick and Tyche interaction as well.

Only real trigger warning for this chapter is food, which I am seriously considering just applying to the entire story. In my real life, family and love revolve around feeding people, so I know that gets threaded everywhere when I write.

I snagged my sister on the way out of Xiomara’s office. “Hey.” My tone was soft, out of concern for the face I had seen her making earlier when she mentioned Antoine. “Is everything okay?”

She didn’t even look at me, just opened her datapad and started typing. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she responded tersely. “Just busy, and honestly I’m a little irritated that Xiomara is going to leave us in the dark about this.” She sighed and shoved a hand through her short-cropped hair. “You know I hate not knowing.” Closing her datapad, she sighed and finally looked at me. Her jaw was clenched tightly and her gaze was so intense that I felt like she was trying to communicate with me telepathically. “It’s Wednesday. How do you feel about fish? I could really go for those tacos you make, with tilapia. Especially now that I can eat them with that mandarin habanero salsa you always moan over.”

I felt the corner of my mouth quirk up at her request. I loved fish tacos, and with the technology on board? It was no longer a labor, and instead was a treat. However, I fully understood the message she was giving me: Antoine would not be at dinner. He despised tilapia, and actually referred to it before as ‘fish for people too lazy to use tofu’.

Also, it was Monday. She even told me, that morning, how she hates Mondays. Something was up.

“Yeah, fish tacos sound great. I’ll even teach you how to make the salsa.” Instead of even trying to smile, I bit my bottom lip, scrunched my nose, and nodded. It was a gesture I did whenever she and I were plotting something fun, and no fake emotions were required.

She and I parted just as Maverick stepped over from his conversation with Arthur. “What was that about?” he asked casually.

I tried to wave it off. “Oh, Tyche had a request for dinner tonight.”

Every effort I put into keeping my tone light had been in vain. “It’s Monday, and a certain person hates your fish tacos, because of the fish you use.” At least he kept his tone equally light.

I shrugged. “Pretty sure she actually knows that, but still. Do you mind if she comes over?” The question was sincere, despite knowing that he was well aware something was going on.

He laughed at the question. “Of course I don’t mind. Conor has a late shift, so he won’t be home for dinner anyway. We can totally manage three people on a Monday.”

“Why is he working so late?” I was honestly confused by this one. “He works Alpha this week, doesn’t he?”

“He does. But they are finally rebuilding the platforms in BioLab 2, and he wants to be present to ensure that there’s not a repeat.”

I sighed, but understood. Conor tended to blame himself for any failure of anything he was even somewhat-adjacent to. Being in love with him definitely showed me my own tendency to take on too much responsibility. Which was exactly why I had allowed Maverick and Tyche to convince me to hand our suspicions about the cult over to Xiomara and let her handle it. Bouncing up onto my toes, I gave him a quick kiss. “Speaking of work and shifts, we still have half of our own to knock out. I’ll see you tonight.”

He grinned as I brushed a lock of hair out of his face - he really needed a haircut, but it was so soft. “Fish tacos? Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Somehow I managed to focus for the next five hours, taking care of thankfully-small agenda items. Work assignment swaps, housing transfers, and the never-ending list of suggestions and requests for social activities. Someone really seemed to believe knife-throwing classes would be a hit. Let’s table that for now. Admittedly I was intrigued, so it would probably be brought up at dinner, just to get some feedback.

I made it to my quarters with just enough time to shower, shouting to Maverick the list of ingredients we needed to make everything. As much as I wanted to linger - I had finally managed to use the actual shower instead of the sonic scrubber as of a week ago - I had a feeling Tyche needed me more. I did, at least, remember to put the oil she insisted on in my hair, although she still rolled her eyes when she came in.

“Your hair is a mess, as usual,” she grumbled. Without hesitation, she grabbed the end of a longer section and held it in front my eyes. “Oil goes on the tips first, dork. That’s the old part, so it’s the driest.”

Maverick smirked as he brought over all the ingredients we needed, and I just shrugged. “I at least remembered to put it in there.”

“Will miracles never cease,” she agreed, grabbing a knife and the server of fish filets. “Maverick, can you heat the oil please? One-seventy-five.”

“One-ninety,” I corrected. “They’ll never crisp up that low. One-seventy-five is for the shells.”

“Right,” she nodded, absentmindedly. I was starting to worry about her using that knife. However, she seemed entirely aware that she was distracted, because she never put her fingers near the blade. She very carefully held the knife by the handle, with her hand flat on the back of the blade.

I started mixing the spices and flour together, before moving on to shredding the cabbage. “Miys, please restrict monitoring of my quarters to medical-only, override strictly keyed to myself and Tyche Reid.”

“Understood, Wisdom. Please remember that restriction is limited to four hours.”

“Thank you, Noah. Can you advise me of the ending of the restriction?”

“Of course.”

A glance over my shoulder showed an approving nod from Maverick. When I looked back at Tyche, she was wide-eyed. “Did you really just do that?”

All I could do was snort. “Of course I did. Clearly you’re worried about Antoine, and you wanted to discuss it in private without him present. He has medical access to room logs, as I’m sure you’re aware, especially since he’s listed as my primary medical provider on board. Not recording anything means there is nothing for him to hear, and he’s already aware that we were talking to Xiomara about the cult today, so we can easily say we discussed that. In fact, I just said it, so it’s not even a lie.”

She sliced the final fillet into strips, scooped them up, and dropped them in the breading with a sigh. “Thank you.”

Maverick cleared his throat gently. “Oil’s getting hot…. Tyche, would you be more comfortable if I needed to get more tortillas from the commissary?”

That, at least, got a smile out of her. “I appreciate the offer, but not only is it okay for you to be here, that is the dumbest excuse you could probably think of.”

“Hey, it was short notice,” he winked at her. “Conor is better at those kind of excuses.”

I pitched my voice low enough to croak. “Oi, I forgot to tell Charly when to be on site tomorrow. She never wears her databand off work… I’ll be right back.”

“See? That is a much better excuse.” Tyche laughed before turning serious again. “But, no. I need both of your opinions, and Conor’s, too, when you get a chance to talk to him.” She started gently tossing the sliced fish in the coating. “Antoine has been… off, lately. Quieter than usual, things are always coming up at the last minute that keep him gone for long periods of time…. Don’t get me wrong, I like my me-time, but I’m starting to get worried. As weird as it is to use the term in our relationship, he’s been distant.” She stopped, hands limp in the bowl, head down.

“Hug or no hug?” I asked, stepping around the counter.

“No hug.” She shook her head firmly.

I snagged the bowl of fish instead and started dropping it in the oil. “Okay. So, are we worried he’s having an affair, just losing interest….?”

She moved to the sink to wash her hands. “That’s the thing. I’ve thought and thought and thought about it… You know how I over plan stuff. And, really, it all kind of goes back to when we first started noticing people behaving suspiciously.” She may have been scrubbing her hands more vigorously than strictly necessary, but that was a good sign.

For what felt like an eternity, the only sound in my kitchen was sizzling oil. Maverick recovered first. “Tych. Sweetie, do you… You think he’s mixed in with all that?”

“I don’t know,” she moaned, more irritation than fear. The nail brush clattered in the sink. “The timing is just weird as hell.”

I scooped the first batch of fish out and dropped the next, careful not to gesture with the spider strainer and flick hot oil everywhere. “Okay, so. Let’s start at the worst case scenario. Say Antoine is involved with this cult. The suspected leader is a survivalist with very Norse-oriented leanings, who thinks that we are moving from Ragnarok to our new beginning. Yes, they are antisocial enough for the two of us,” I pointed emphatically between myself and my sister, “to think they are going a wee bit overboard. But, what percent probability is there that Antoine will actually stick with a group of people that rude?”

She tipped her head side to side with a grimace. “He spent the End holed up in a senior care facility and robbing people for heart medication. I’m going with ten percent?”

“So, statistically possible, and we have a baseline probability.” I took a deep breath. “In that vein, this also started after the thing with Else. Which, I want to remind y’all, involved him butting heads with his direct superiors, putting me in a couple of comas, trying to figure out what a delirious Grey was trying to say - filtered through a couple of non-medical people, all while sick himself.”

“So he may just be exhausted?” Maverick asked for clarification.

“Or fed up,” I shrugged.

She nodded reluctantly, snatching the strainer to take out the second batch of fish before I burned them. “Even conservatively, that’s more in the eighty-to-ninety range. Either of them, really. I doubt he expected to sign on as a sidekick to the Futuristic Winchester Sisters.” After adding the next batch to the oil, she groaned. “Fuck. This means I have to actually confront him, doesn’t it?”

I smirked involuntarily and started dicing onions for the salsa. When I grabbed the cilantro, she complained but relented when she saw it was maybe a teaspoon worth, diced fine. “It’s either ask him, or go by faith that the most likely outcome is the correct one.” I reached for the next ingredient.

“Cucumber?” She scrunched her nose. “In salsa?”

“Balances out the strong flavors,” I clarified. After mixing everything together, I set half of it to the side and grabbed two whole habaneros. After trimming out the stems, I started dicing them.

“You have got to be joking,” Maverick begged.

“Nope,” I popped. “The recipe has four habaneros, so for half it’s only two.”

“But. The seeds too? Aren’t they the spicy part?”

“Nah. That’s the membranes,” Tyche piped up. “Even I know that, and I couldn’t eat this stuff for decades.”

“Just tell me you left some mandarin pieces for me?” He gave an impressively good puppy-dog eye.

I just laughed. “Babe, you’re fine, I swear. I had you get a double batch, so there’s plenty left for you to eat later.”

All the breath in my lungs was forced out in a whoosh as he whirled me around. “You are psychic, and I love youuu!” My squeals and their laughter drowned whatever worries we had for the night, leaving us all breathless as we finished dinner.

Crisis after crisis? Bring it on. I wasn’t trading this moment for any world.

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#the miys #humans are weird #found family #original fiction #science fiction #food #aliens #apocalypse #slow apocalypse

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rhapsody-crossing · 6 years

Text

S2: IYHO Tournament - A Reflection [Part 2]

(Continuation from THIS post) (See all series posts HERE)

5) Some Tournament Facts

There are a total of 11 teams and 50 squids who signed up for the tournament:

The tournament runs in a Double Elimination format, allowing everyone at least one chance to continue battle after a loss. Using Challonge, the brackets below were created:

6) Dawn of the Battle

What makes one join a competition?

I joined competitions with a faint hope of winning, but winning was never the main goal. Honing my skills and just giving it an attempt was usually were my priority.

However, my reason to join Ink Your Heart Out is different. I was prepared to win, and I really want to win because, despite all the paranoia, I have great faith in my team and skills that we can do it, and that it is still “within reason” to win. That, perhaps, was why I pushed my teammates to practise.

On that fateful day of the battle when the brackets are released, louhai drew a poster of our upcoming battle versus Team 7:

It garnered some laughs and merriment, and also inspired Team 7′s artist to draw a picture in return:

Furi also made her own, to symbolise how hard we train as well as a jab’s to louhai’s tofu drawing:

The fanarts and louhai’s merrymaking made the community lively for the day.

The exchange of words with BK (a fellow OC and also Team 7 member) reminded me that, sometimes, team competitions doesn’t have to be all about winning and rivalry, but it’s also about bonds one forged and gaining something out of an experience.

Team 7 was filled with members who were strangers in the beginning but the tournament made them into a tight-knitted group of friends. The exchange of goodwills resulted in two teams deciding that, win or lose, we would take a group photo to symbolise our sportsmanship and friendship post-battle.

Facing this, I really hope that all contestants would gain something positive out of it...

6) To Battle!

Pre-battle moments are always scary. It is said that one of the teams had two members got sick from the pent-up tension (one vomited, one had stomachache).

Nevertheless, Team Tofu was ready. Furi rushed dinner, slap went to McDonald for better internet coverage, louhai tried turning on Do Not Disturb function (but failed), Low moved his monitor closer to the modem, I lit a josstick in a prayer room.

Hell yeah, we’re ready.

vs Team 7 (BK, Mazur, BlackKri, Ray, [ ])

BK and I are from the OC. We have played on the same side as companions, and have also fought on opposites as friendly enemies. As such, I knew that he is not easy to be trifled with.

His other teammates, though? I wasn’t too familiar.

Though I have faced Mazur in training, I knew his name for a while as he’s been a rant topic of a friend, so I knew he’s at least not new. He’s a cheeky player, alright, smacking people with his trusty roller.

I have played with BlackKri in a Malaysia Splatoon Gathering few months ago, but wasn’t sure of his current ability. Ray, on the other hand, was a mystery until our match (a solid Brella user!). [ ] is a substitute player who was still exploring the game.

The match begun with a face-off between me, Low, Furi and slap vs BK, Mazur, BlackKri and Ray.

There wasn’t much concern. I left the killing to the others as I turfed the ground. Port Mackerel was a familiar ground, being one of maps in the initial release. We took control of the majority of the map quickly, though they managed to wipe us all out once. The paths are so narrow that my Tenta Missiles hit their mark often, even getting 2 kills in the end. I did really well in this one!

(Note: To explain the stats below, the percentage is how much control each team have on the ground. The three figures beside the player’s name are kill counts, death count, and ability usage count.)

Second match in Manta Maria was close. Low disconnected halfway through the match, but the three of us managed to secure a close win.

We took a group photo post-battle.

Slap complained about the necessity of taking screenshots. It was later revealed that he had forgotten to bring his Switch and phone charger to McDonald. This caused a mild freak out among our group, heck, I was tapping so furiously on my phone that I accidentally tapped yes to a phone system update. My Splatoon 2 runs on phone hotspot. I was out of commission.

When Furi joined the tournament, I expected louhai, Low or even slap to be subbed due to connection issues. It was an irony when -I- had to be subbed instead. To this day, the thought amuses me so.

vs EPDS (Eddy, BE0314, PG, YukiSaki)

While I didn’t get to participate the battle, I wasn’t too worried about this round; EPDS is a team from Johor that comprises mostly of newbies.

As such, the following statistics are pretty self-explanatory:

Low mentioned it was a massacre, but it gave slap some time to shine.

Nevertheless, the members (particularly Eddy) did show some promise, except their goals and motivation weren’t aligned. I can only hope they would learn from this tournament and fight on.

vs GuGu Clan (APLeu, Pochi, Eddeh, Ki-ra, flurk, Rix)

APLeu is yet another member of the OC, and any apples from the OC are pretty strong. Pochi is an ACNL friend whom I’d witnessed her growth in Splatoon 2. Eddeh I’m unfamiliar with, but it is said that Ki-Ra is apparently new and also the main reason why GuGu participated the tournament.

(This was also the group that had two members sick from tourney stress).

My phone had not finished its update, so the others have their fun on the first match.

Come second match, I was up again. APLeu mentioned that their team morale was pretty down, so I decided to chill turf instead of doing my best. Had a bit of fun shooting at APLeu and falling off the ledge. :x

vs littleSOTONGS (sotongSTAR, jp_BoomSS, siang, Onnzai, LIMXINZHE)

Initially, we predicted that we would be facing Avengers in the semi-finals.

So, when littleSOTONGS beat Avengers, puzzlement filled us. Was it due to the lack of turf coverage in Avengers’ part? Or was littleSOTONGS just that tough? We could only find out in battle.

A quick match was enough to find out that the real threats are sotongSTAR and jp_BoomSS. Remove these pillars, and the team crumbles.

The perks of main-ing a weapon is that you knew the limits of said weapon and the potential strategy that comes with it; facing them felt like facing myself, for one uses my main weapon Tri-slosher and the other my old main Splat Roller.

I had a lot of fun on the first match as I crippled jp_BoomSS’ curling bombs sneak attack and danced around his rolls.

Match 2 was a bigger challenge as Kelp Dome is a wider map. There were some power struggle in the beginning, but it all ended in our favour. Incidentally, I was able to harass them with Tenta Missiles a LOT. The match was ours.

After this match, we had some time to rest as loser brackets had yet to sort out its winner. We waited.

(TBC)

#splatoon 2 #iyho series

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the-revisionist · 7 years

Text

The Tristan Chord, chapter 15

[Edited to fix typos, thank you @farminglesbian, and to change a musical selection that came to me out of the blue.]

xv. the book of miracles

The tragedy isn’t that love doesn’t last. The tragedy is the love that lasts. —Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus

“High fructose corn syrup.”

The phrase, dropped like a gauntlet at dinner, brings idle conversation to a halt. It is spoken by Lawrence, who points in a very melodramatic j’accuse fashion at Flora.

In turn, Flora blinks at him slowly, decides he’s playing at something, and giggles.

Why do I not have normal children? Caroline wonders. One is terrified of Latin and cries at soppy commercials on telly, the other apparently hears voices and is seriously considering going to clown school. The jury, however, is still out on Flora. Please be normal, she silently begs the child. If I screw you up somehow, I won’t be able to bear it. Meanwhile the others assembled around the table—Alan, Celia, and Greg—stare at her, awaiting a Solomon-like proclamation on Lawrence’s bizarre declaration.

Caroline makes them wait. She gulps wine, girds her loins, and unfurls a mighty sigh. “What are you on about?” she asks Lawrence.

“She said it.” Lawrence wags his finger at his sister. “The other day. Quite clearly, I might add. At breakfast, I swear she was looking right at the cornflakes box—”

Greg gasps. “You didn’t let her eat any of those, did you?”

“What? No.” Irritated at the interruption, Lawrence screws up his face in a profoundly unattractive fashion, the expression on a scatological scale somewhere in the not-so-vast plane between taking a shit and actually smelling one.

“Good,” Greg says, “because they do have high fructose corn syrup in them. Corn flakes are the devil.”

God, I am going to be completely pissed before this night is over if this keeps up, Caroline thinks as she polishes off her second glass of wine. “Can I quote you on that?”

“That’s not the point,” Lawrence says. “The point is, like, totally out of the blue, she just says ‘high fructose corn syrup.’ Just like that. And I was like, ‘What did you say?’ And she looked all smug and wouldn’t say anything else! Not a single word. And she won’t say it now. She just won’t. I’ve been trying all day to get her to say it.”

Bright with paternal enthusiasm, Greg gives it a go: “Flora. Sweetheart. Say, ‘high fructose corn syrup!’”

Celia pinches her brow.

Thoughtfully Flora regards her dinner plate. She positions several tiny pieces of broccoli upright on their stalks near a mound of uneaten casserole, creating a little mini-forest surrounding a hilly terrain. Caroline interprets this as a potential clue to a future occupation: Maybe she will become a naturalist. Or an urban planner. Or a demented celebrity chef.

“See? Nothing. She’s gaslighting me,” Lawrence says.

“Very significant achievement for two years old,” Alan observes. His mobile pings and he pulls it out of his pocket.

Celia glares at him. “Don’t look at it.”

“Just a peek.”

“I said don’t look at it.”

“I’m looking at it.”

“Don’t look at it.”

“I have to!” Alan protests.

“It’s dinnertime. You’re being very rude.”

“You know I have to,” he repeats. “Could be urgent.”

“They’re fine. The worst is over, that’s what the weather service says.”

“It’s still raining,” Alan says plaintively.

It’s been raining for a week, and as a result the valley is flooded. Well, Halifax is flooded; as for Harrogate, Caroline cannot help but summon words of wisdom from Gillian’s own personal saint, Morrissey: the rain falls hard on a humdrum town. It’s not exactly flooding of biblical proportions all around, as a rather hysterical local weatherman had decreed, but bad enough that Gillian’s farm and sheep have felt the effects: washed-out roads, power out, ruined hay, sheep driven to higher ground, and bad enough that Raff has been bunkered at the farm alone with his mother for three days and serving as the reluctant point person in keeping everyone else informed via increasingly irate and desperate texts to his grandfather.

“Well?” Celia prompts. “What does our Raff say?”

Alan squints at the mobile and enunciates slowly: “‘Is matricide a crime?’”

Lawrence gives his mother an inscrutable look. Caroline glares back in a manner that, she hopes, conveys that she will not be very easy to kill. Which he should certainly be aware of by now. He sulks and resumes surveillance of his sister, who tosses a piece of broccoli in his direction; whether it’s a peace offering or a come at me bro challenge cannot be discerned.

“Oh, dear,” murmurs Celia.

“Also, they’re almost out of toilet paper!” Alan places the mobile on the table. “That settles it. I think I should go out there.”

“But the roads may be bad, love.”

“Roads are fine now, rain should stop tomorrow.”

Celia’s eyes narrow. “Thought you said Gillian isn’t convinced the rain will stop.”

“Well—”

“‘She knows rain,’ you said. You always make her sound like she’s some sort of bloody American Indian, out on the prairie doing a rain dance.”

“There’s a mental image,” Caroline says. She starts clearing the table.

Alan frowns. “Harry will come with. If I ask, he will. We’d be all right, together. I just want to know they’re all right, want to see with my own two eyes.”

“Why don’t you sleep on it?”

“‘Sleep on it,’” Alan grumbles. “You’re just hoping I’ll forget.”

“Yes, dear, I am.”

In the kitchen Caroline stacks plates on the counter and grabs a casserole dish to scrape out before putting it in the dishwasher. As she turns around she finds her mother has magically materialized before her with the shocking stealth of a malevolent, enchanted garden gnome; rearing back to avoid certain collision, the contents of the dish—mixed remnants of noodles, various vegetables, and crumbly tofu in some kind of peanut sauce that Greg said was inspired by West African cuisine even though Caroline thinks he probably knows as much about West African cuisine as she knows about Renaissance poetry or the inner workings of her Jeep—find themselves gloppily splayed against her chest before gently sliding down her shirt and plopping onto the kitchen floor.

She counts to ten—normally an effective way of tempering her reactions, but in this case with random food gunk clinging to an expensive silk blouse finds herself going full on sacrilegious: “Jesus Fucking Christ!”

Lawrence enters the kitchen and then quickly backpedals out.

“Must you sneak up on people like that?” Caroline shouts.

“Must you swear like that? Gillian really is an awful influence on you.” Celia frowns at the floor. “Now that’s a right mess.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“I’m sorry but I wanted to talk to you alone, while I had the chance,” Celia says in an undertone.

“Well you’ve a captive audience now, so fire away.”

“You need to go to the farm tomorrow.”

Of course, the old woman would ask her to do precisely the one thing she does not want to do. “Why?”

“If you don’t go, Alan will and he’ll drag Harry along, and those two together—good God. If they don’t get stuck in the mud somewhere or lost God knows where while chasing errant sheep, Harry will drink all of Gillian’s wine and you know how she gets about that. In other words, they will drive her right ’round the bend and none of us, ever, will hear the end of it—well, I won’t hear the end of it, because she’ll blame me for not keeping her father put. She said as much to me when the rains started. She actually called me, can you believe it? She never calls me unless someone has a gun to her head. But she told me to keep him here.” Celia pauses to recharge from this breathless petition and plays with her necklace—pearls, a gift from Alan on their first anniversary. “He’s in fine fettle these days but I know, I just know, he will push himself trying to help her if he goes out there now and I don’t want him to risk making himself sick again.”

“I understand, but why me? Why not send—Greg?” As Caroline marvels at the nonsense out of her mouth, Celia seems to seriously ponder it but exactly five seconds later they burst into simultaneous fits of laughter.

“You are really funny sometimes,” Celia chortles.

“I know. Missed my calling.”

“But really, love. It’s not like you’d have to actually do anything strenuous. Just take them some food, you’ve got that leftover origami—

“—orecchiette,” Caroline says.

“—oh, and toilet paper, and just sweep the floors, wash the dishes, say an encouraging word or two and you’ll have done your duty.”

Like a wife, Caroline thinks.

“So will you?”

She sighs. “If you think it will—”

“Ah, wonderful! Thank you, love! You’ll go tomorrow then, will you? I’ll tell Alan right now.” Celia whirls out of the kitchen.

“I didn’t say yes yet,” she shouts at Celia’s retreating form.

Celia cackles triumphantly. “You’re my favorite daughter!”

She stares at the greasy smears on the floor.

The beginning of the flood had arrived at a most inopportune time: immediately after the pub kiss, which had left her fiery-cheeked and dazed on the ride home, quietly holding herself as she stared at pearl drops of light random and fleeting against the panorama of darkness. Twice William asked if she was all right. Later, alone in bed, she touched herself briefly and found no satisfaction in doing so. Bored before I even began, she had thought and then, oh Christ, quoting Morrissey, and finally, dismally she threw herself off the cliff into sleep. She woke to a morning heavily cloaked in rain and fog, the relentless downpour hissing with such persistence that when it briefly let up three days later the air rang with empty glory, not unlike the ripe silence following the violent peal of church bells.

At least Raff will get a good laugh out of seeing her in Wellies; she will actually get use of the pair that she bought years ago at the last threat of flooding. In fact, she is excited to wear the boots because they are a lovely, glossy black that will go smashingly with practically anything. Oh Christ, she sighs, and imagines the women’s mag headline: Dressing for Natural Catastrophe: What to Wear!

The drive to the farm the next afternoon is fraught with detours and muddy roads along a horizon that reminds Caroline of a Rothko: dark gray land and light gray sky cauterized together with a ragged white line across the horizon, the gleaming line absorbing every bit of light that daytime can possibly spare. Splinters of thin, light rain fall against the windshield. In the drive up to the farmhouse the Jeep gets caught in a muddy rut; she manages to back out and then maneuver around it, but the flood-damaged dirt road is bumpier than usual and despite the Jeep’s otherwise excellent shock absorbers Caroline gets a shaky, tediously unsatisfying ride that brings to mind the nadir of her sexual relationship with John.

As she pulls up within sight of the farmhouse she sees that Raff has spotted the Jeep from afar and he awaits her impatiently, bouncing on his heels. She is unprepared for the intensity of his greeting: He throws himself into her arms like a long-lost son or lover. She doubts she will receive a similarly enthusiastic reaction from Gillian; Christ knows you certainly don’t deserve it, she thinks.

“Thank God!” he says. “A normal person.”

“It’s nice to be thought of in that way,” Caroline replies.

“Please tell me you brought—”

“—toilet paper, yes, and pasta, sandwiches, biscuits, salad—”

“None of that healthy stuff for us,” Raff says. “Oooh, look at those fancy Wellies! Very chic, Cazza. You look like a farmer on telly—like you could be on a show about a sheep farmer who solves murders all the time.”

Caroline rolls her eyes in mock exasperation. “So where’s your mum?”

“Out in barn. I find it’s best to keep her out there, away from polite society.”

After they’ve unloaded the Jeep she reluctantly follows Raff out to the barn while he talks of dead sheep, wet hay, and power outages; the sheep were two dumb, young ewes that fell down a ravine, some of the hay might be salvageable but at least half of it might be bad, and the power is back on.

They find Gillian pulling an empty wheelbarrow into the barn. From the knees down her jeans and boots are spackled with mud. Her left elbow looks skinned and the sleeve of the flannel shirt on that arm is torn, and her hair is greasy and pulled back into a ponytail. At the sight of Caroline she drops the wheelbarrow; the clatter echoes and Caroline jumps. Gillian frowns and tugs at her work gloves.

Over the past week Caroline has rehearsed various speeches in her head ranging from the florid to the plainspoken, but all these thoughtful peregrinations made her wish she could simply present Gillian with a Venn diagram of intersecting emotions where each panic-riddled state or practical consideration included Gillian as the common element. Additionally the circular aspect of the diagram alluded rather obviously to Caroline’s typical mental roundabouts on the subject. Even allowing for Raff’s presence, what comes out of her mouth is still light years from either an articulate summation of the current chaos of her mind, or a poetic expression of inchoate desire:

“I come bearing toilet paper,” she says.

As expected she gets Gillian’s flinty look of irritated incomprehension, not unlike the time Greg tried to educate her on the nutritional value of mung beans in refutation of Gillian’s steadfast refusal to eat anything called mung.

“Sometimes you don’t get the hero you want,” Raff says as he claps a hand on Caroline’s shoulder, “but the hero you need.”

Gillian shuffles, stares at the floor. “That’s great.”

“There’s food,” Raff adds. “She’s brought food.”

“Good.” Gillian pretends that peeling off work gloves and tossing them onto a tool bench is an effort requiring both massive strength and supreme concentration.

Resigned to his mother’s surliness, Raff merely shoots her an exasperated look.

Look at me, Caroline thinks, but now Gillian busies herself with wiping dry the handle of some dangerous-looking tool that could easily be used for disembowelment and so she quickly turns her attention back to Raff. “Are you hungry?” she squeaks at him.

“I am, but I was gonna shove off—” He hesitates, fixing a glance on his mother. “—if that’s still all right.”

Gillian nods, digs around in her jeans pocket. In flight, the keys to the Landy flash across the barn.

Raff swipes at the air and catches them. His face softens as he jiggles the keys in his palm. “You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. I told you it’s all right. So go on already, go see your girls. Come back tomorrow.”

Not content to proffer a mere thank you, Raff strides across the barn and engulfs his mother in a bear hug. Caroline allows herself to be amused at the spectacle of Gillian squirming, looking irritated, then pleased, then smiling, and then berating her son’s manhood: “All right, stop hugging me before you start growing ovaries.”

Would that be such a bad thing? Caroline decides not to say this.

“I love you, man,” Raff drawls oafishly in imitation of an American drunkard.

This makes Gillian chuckle and Caroline experience a brief fit of jealousy. There was a time when she used to make Gillian laugh; was that gone now, did the leaden intensity of this thing between them somehow drain the light from their relationship as the cursed, bloody flooded valley drained the sun from the sky?

She clears her throat and asks, “Is there anything I can do?”

Back to the squinty glare. “Yeah.” Gillian grabs a wide broom. She swaggers in Caroline’s general direction and then effortlessly tosses the broom at Caroline, who manages an awkward catch of it. “Sweep in here. Muck it out a bit.”

Once again irritated at Gillian’s behavior, Raff asks pointedly, “What are you gonna do?”

“Well,” Gillian drawls as she continues walking away from them, “since we’ve got toilet paper, thought I’d celebrate by taking a shit.”

They watch her leave. While she walks down the path to the house she occasionally glares up at the sky, as if daring it to rain more.

Raff shakes his head. “She’s really too much.”

You have no idea, Caroline wants to say. Instead she hugs Raff again before he sprints out to the Land Rover. As he drives away, he waves with frantic, grateful desperation, as if she ceded a place on a lifeboat for him. It’s like Titanic and she is Leonardo DiCaprio, Raff is Kate Winslet, and Gillian is the fucking iceberg. No matter, Caroline smiles bravely in a quintessentially English well chaps we’re doomed fashion while waving listlessly back at Raff and murmuring, “God help me.”

After sweeping the barn Caroline sits gingerly on an ancient stool that should be consigned to the woodpile. The stool wobbles and abruptly she stands. She rubs her back, stares at the large metal tool chest tucked under the tool bench. The red enameled exterior has clearly seen better days; the tool chest’s squat body is covered with dents and dings and dirt. There are five drawers of varying sizes, ranging from the smallest at the top to the largest at the bottom. The largest drawer looks a bit crumpled, as if it had been targeted in Gillian-driven fit of pique; as a result, it does not close properly. Caroline is not certain what compels her—other than sheer nosiness—but she pries open the drawer. It is crammed with books: Both paperbacks and hardcovers, all in varying stages of age and decrepitude. History, poetry, literature. Even a Stephen Hawking book. Philip Larkin. J.B. Priestley. Wallace Stevens. Barbara Tuchman. A book called The Transit of Venus catches her eye—her hope that it is actually about astronomy is immediately dashed by an abstract, pastel cover that indicates it’s a novel or perhaps poetry. Some of the paperbacks are warped with damp, their pages as furbelowed as the skirts of a Victorian matron.

All of these, Gillian’s books–as hidden and damaged as she is.

Caroline knows now that she has misjudged Gillian from day one. Thought she was reckless when in fact she possessed patience borne from a lifetime of denials and disappointments. Thought she was fragile and frail until Caroline discovered the untold muscles and sinew coiled under her skin and the sure and steady grip of her hands. Thought she was an uneducated rube and not a woman who secretly read books in a damp dim barn—probably because she didn’t want her shit husband to find out and knock her upside the head and who does it now simply because it’s a force of habit or is unwilling to admit to anyone that she needs the grace of solitude. Or both. Thought she was incapable of fidelity or love when she would gladly accept the smallest scrap of anything remotely resembling love, including its many seductive duplicities.

Tell me a lie, tell me you love me.

The glinting rain, which had stopped shortly before she arrived, picks up again, deepening the puddles and dips along the rough path that leads to the farmhouse. She imagines Gillian walking this path everyday, through all kinds of weather. Day in, day out. Sun warming her skin, wind stiffening her clothes, rain soaking her bones, snowflakes dusting her hair. Or on days when she’s hungover, or menstruating, or too wired on coffee, or walking with a spring in her step because she had if off with someone she met recently and it was good. Or walking slowly because Eddie has broken her ribs and they’re still mending.

Gillian told her this story while in that strangely lucid state of drunkenness that lent itself to her compulsive confessions: She had been too frightened to go to hospital because they would have asked too many questions, so she spent a fortnight in bed feigning a bout of flu to everyone until finally, with her torso bound up with bandages—the perpetrator himself had gently wrapped her up while crying and saying it will never happen again, I swear to you—and stuffed with as much paracetamol and oxycodone as she could take, she went back to work, doing some light chores every day. The path to the barn every morning was the hardest bit, she had said, like walking a gauntlet and every uneven step sent waves of pain beating against her core; once she got past that, everything seemed easier. A miracle then, a bloody fucking miracle that she did not die, a miracle that the man Celia Dawson reacquainted herself with after so many years was not just a widower but a bereft parent showing them photos of his lost child—a handsome, weary woman with haunted eyes the elusive shade of sky, sea, and earth commingled. There, that’s her, that’s my Gillian.

Caroline riffles the stiff, yellowed pages of The Transit of Venus. As words flutter by she encounters her name in the book several times. There are signs and miracles on this rainy day to be interpreted and treasured in equal measure, and the last one is divination for the disbeliever: She stands here looking at Gillian’s books and know that this, all of this, is heading where it’s heading despite her complete and utter lack of faith.

CHAPTER SOUNDTRACK:

The Smiths:

“There is a Light That Never Goes Out” “William, It Was Really Nothing,”

EDITED TO ADD:

Patricia Barber, “You Don’t Know Me”

Note: The great Shirley Hazzard died recently, so the reference to her novel in this chapter is a hat tip to an extraordinary writer who, I fear, will not be as remembered and revered as she should be.

#are we cool vincent #Caroline x Gillian #the one with the books

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genericpseudonyms · 6 years

Text

teach me how to live

Chris comes to me in a dream. She looks exactly as I remember her from 2005, before she got sick.

“Buck up kiddo,” she says. There’s a mysterious quirk of her lips, not quite a smile. And she does it again. She takes her thumb and forefinger and plucks the shoulder of my shirt sleeve. She used to do this to me any time I was being an overdramatic teenager, which was often. “You’ll be fine.”

It’s been about three years since she died and longer still since she was a big part of my life. This is the first time I’ve dreamed of her since the funeral.

K-Town is always so crowded on Friday nights these days. It’s strange to think it’s so popular now—you actually see people of all colors walking 32nd at all hours of the day. It’s a relief. They’ve stopped assuming I’m one of them.

I used to hate coming to K-Town for food. Mainly because it felt like the servers always knew I was Korean. They’d come, ignore all my friends, and speak to me. I understood every word they said, but could only answer in English. I wasn’t brave enough to try piecing together the phrases I knew in public.

The look of surprise on their faces always hurt.

I push these thoughts away as I walk into the BCD Tofu House. I picked this place because soondooboo jigae has always been my favorite. I can’t go too long without it before it becomes a craving. Lord knows, I’ve never been able to cook it for myself.

John is already standing there with my roommate. They spot me and I wave. Maybe it’s weird to still get dinner with your high school guidance counselor more than ten years after you graduated. I don’t particularly care.

We used to cram into his tiny office, a whole crowd of us. Didn’t matter if we had class, didn’t matter that he wasn’t our assigned counselor. We’d pop in at odd hours of the day when we should’ve been in class.

“Oh god,” he’d say. “I know this isn’t your free period.”

“Nope,” we’d reply, as we shrugged off our bags and piled into his chairs. He’d sigh but he never kicked us out.

Now that our party is complete, the servers sit us down at the very back. It’s a Friday, so after a week of trying really hard to be optimistic, I am as usual, worn down. That’s how my weekends usually go these days. Cry a little on Friday night, mope on Saturday, rally with friends on Sunday.

“You look tired,” he says.

“I’m depressed John,” I quip, and I flash him a toothy grin.

“Oh,” he says, nonplussed. “That’s not what I said though.”

“Okay, okay. The long answer is ‘I’m not tired John, I’m depressed.’”

“I warned him,” my roomie says. “I already told him that tonight was gonna be heavy.”

Good, I think. This is only the millionth time I’ve had to recount the trials of the past eight years, but it’s John. It’s easy to be honest when you’re talking to someone you know won’t judge.

“I dreamed about Chris recently. She did the thing,” I mimic the motion of plucking my shoulder.

He smiles.

When Chris was dying, Mama kicked me out of the house. Or, more accurately, she could not stand my grief and I had to leave.

It’s hard to speak of my teenage years with Mama. She gets cagey. She forgets. But that time, she exploded. She accused me of being so caring for a woman who wasn’t family. I was making multiple hours-long treks from the outskirts of Queens, deep into Brooklyn. All to visit a dying woman I hadn’t seen in ten years.

There’s no way, Mama said, that I would do the same for her. She knew already that I would not take care of her grave. That it’d fall to my cousin, the good one. I was rotten, she said. I was a curse of a daughter. Ungrateful and spiteful and with a heart incapable of love.

I forget exactly what she said that made me pack up my bags and leave. I know I was upset though—I only told her about my grief because I needed help processing the impending death of someone who meant the world to me. Someone who helped me through the darkest moments of my adolescence.

I told her, I showed her my heart, and she reached in with her hands and smashed it.

I spent the next week on my friend’s couch. I went to the memorial service and saw all the teachers I loved. It’s weird seeing them as an adult—you relate differently. They’re people, with their own grief and problems. Chris had helped us all through them.

I kept it together mostly until I saw the scrapbook we’d made for her when she retired my junior year. It was a little yellowed, but she’d kept it. All those years, she’d kept it. I read the message I’d written her and the pictures I’d drawn.

But the only thing I could think was: She’d kept it.

We took turns sharing our memories of Chris at the memorial service. Her children spoke first, then John. He cried and called her the great love of his life. And to my surprise, I also spoke. How could I not? I don’t remember what I said, just that I started sobbing halfway through because I never got to thank her properly.

She gave a lonely kid a place to feel safe. She was the first one to encourage my writing. She talked me down off ledges. For three years, she listened to me and made sure the things I said were heard.

She saved my life.

After dinner, we go to the Pret-A-Manger between 6th and 7th ave. I have dropped many truth bombs tonight. My rape, my childhood abuse, my heartache, my depression, my nervous breakdown.

Conversation starts light. Black Panther and Wakanda Forever. TV shows and why John should give Stranger Things a chance. He is a nerdy, crotchety old man and it is wonderful. A part of me wonders if having a kind father is something like this. Then I wonder if I will be looking for surrogate parents my whole life.

And then my mind spirals. I hate when it does that. I am with people I love. Why is that not enough? Why can’t I snap out of the funk? Why won’t my brain stop hamster wheeling the same negative, repetitive thoughts over and over and over again?

“You know,” John says. “It’s sort of like being in mourning. You’re grieving what you’ve lost. Right now, you’re going back and forth between anger and denial. A little bit of bargaining. The goal is to get to acceptance.”

“I don’t know how to be angry,” I say. “Or, I don’t know how to stay angry at people. My therapist says I don’t let myself externalize it.”

“But you are angry,” he replies. “That’s the simplest definition of depression. Anger, turned inwards.”

I don’t know what to say, because it’s true. I have a hard time staying angry at other people. I’m quick to empathize and forgive. Because I know how hard it is to wake up everyday, try and make sense of life, and then be a good person on top of that. But against myself? I will always, always blame myself first. I will never forgive myself for mistakes. I will never forgive myself for not being better, for not being perfect. For not trying harder. For being unable to fix things. For not helping more people. For asking too much from others. For being such a burden.

For not being the type of person that people want to be around.

For not being the kind of daughter my parents would have loved.

“Why do you give them so much power over you?” John asks quietly.

“I don’t know,” I say. I’m being honest. “It’s easier to stand up for myself when they’re right in front of me. But I carry their ghosts with me. They haunt me constantly, and I’m so tired of it.”

“You’ve let them define your story. You’ve let them define you.”

“No I haven’t,” I say. “Not entirely. I’m a writer. That’s a long and sad story, but I fought for that. I fought really, really, really hard for that. I just think of having to fight that hard for everything and...it’s too much.”

“So why do you let them limit you now?”

It’s reflex. Every child wants their parents to love them. You learn to adapt to their needs, to make them happy and proud. I didn’t care if it was at the expense of myself, because I loved them more. They were unhappy and lived such hard lives. Was it really so hard for me to be the daughter they wanted?

“It’s only been a little over a month. It’s going to take time,” I say. “They taught me to view the world in absolutes. False binaries. Black and white. This or that. I know that’s not true. Life has shown me it’s not true. I know that everything is a spectrum. I know that up here,” I point to my head. “But I still don’t understand that here,” I point to my heart. “I don’t think I’ll ever get it.”

“Well, all these things that have happened—it’s a lot for any one person. You’re trying to process everything at once. You’re just being pessimistic right now.”

I snort. “Have you met me John?”

“I have. And I think you’re an optimist at heart.”

“What? Really?”

“You’re sitting here right now. To go through what you have, to be here alive and trying—that requires some measure of strength. So yes, you are.”

I don’t feel strong. Most days, I feel weak and stupid. I tell John this and he sighs. When he asks what I want from my life, I tell him I just want to die a kind, open, and honest person. That if I manage to do that, I will have led a good, worthwhile life.

“Do you not think you’re those things already?” “What? Kind, open and honest? No. I don’t.”

“Well,” he says, “I completely disagree.”

The last time I see Chris, death is knocking at her door. I’d heard the phrase skin and bones before, but I’d never actually seen it. She’d always been rail thin, but now there really is no flesh to her. Her skin is stretched tight over her frame, and when she curls up in the bed, it is like watching a skeleton come to life.

It is so hard to see someone you love in that much pain. She is bleeding in her jejunum, a part of the small intestines. It is killing her slowly.

“Chris,” John says, “Do you know who these people are?”

“I knew them as soon as they walked in the room. Come here and give me a kiss.”

We do. I kiss her temple, which is soft and leathery. I forget what we talked about after. She isn’t lucid for much longer. Her blue eyes start to glaze over and she starts muttering gibberish. I keep a smile on the whole time, even though all I want to do is cry.

It’s not always about you. Chris taught me that.

Birthdays were a sore spot for me in high school. We stopped celebrating mine after I was seven or eight. My parents said I was too old for it. But Sweet Sixteen. That was a thing I wanted because every other girl had one and I wanted to be normal. Sixteen is a magical year—it’s the year in The Sound of Music where a boy will dance will you in the rain in a gazebo. Everyone wants to feel special and I only ever felt invisible.

And what do I do when I’m hurt? I pretend like it doesn’t faze me. I still do, to an extent. Back then, I said things like “I don’t see the point in celebrating birthdays. You’re just going to die anyway. I hate them.”

In the week leading up to my birthday I was insufferable. Chris just gave me a look and plucked my shoulder. So I told her and she listened. Really listened. Then the bell rang, and I went to class.

And then on my birthday, there in her office, there was a surprise party. There was decorations and all my friends had skipped class. Someone had bought a cake. There were presents and card. I didn’t know what to do so I just cried. Chris was there, and I didn’t have to ask to know it’d been her idea. In her soft voice, she told me that sometimes, birthdays are not about you. It’s for people who love you. And all you have to do, is let them love you.

Then she read me a poem she wrote for me. I still remember it.

I think of it, and her, on my birthday every year.

On the train ride home, we talk of simpler things. My morbid love of Darren Arronofsky’s The Fountain. Why we should let Hugh Jackman sing all the show tunes he wants now that he’s no longer Wolverine. My roomie and I bicker about something or other, and how she’s leaving me soon. John rolls his eyes. We get off the G at Church Avenue in Brooklyn. It’s a bit of a walk for all of us, but the F train is a piece of shit. I don’t mind. I don’t really want to say goodbye yet anyway.

“What they did was child abuse,” John says, “If we’d known, we would have called the ACS.”

Relief washes over me. I didn’t know a fever dream in January would unlock so many memories, but I’ve been questioning them this whole time. Whether I was overreacting or not. If this just wasn’t part of the immigrant family experience. To hear him say it fills me with validation.

“She hid everything back then,” my roomie replies. “None of us knew.”

“I miss Chris,” I say.

“You can visit her,” John replies. “She’s right by here in Greenwood Cemetery.”

“We will,” my roomie says. “And let’s get together again soon.”

John nods. “When the weather gets warmer, you’re welcome to my house. We can do a barbecue.”

Before we part ways, he plucks my shoulder.

I smile.

#spilled ink #spilled words #memoir #excerpt from a book i'll never write #personal #my writing #prose #tw: depression #tw: child abuse #friendship #teachers #essay

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