#Something small and insignificant can break the balance we have created

[becomingbts]

Time heals (sometimes) - Teaser 1

Summary: 6 years ago, (Y/N) thought that she was finally taking her life into her hands, leaving behind a toxic and abusive relationship with a man who taught her she’d never be worthy of love. However, it became hard to ignore his words when she met her seven soulmates who rejected her without even giving her a chance to prove herself. It took (Y/N) 3 years to realize that it wouldn’t be her end. She would live on to prove them all wrong; she would become what they all thought she wasn’t: someone worthy of love. And as she stands proudly on the stage, under the burning spotlights and the applause and the cries of the delirious crowd, she feels alive. Alive, just like the bond she believed to be broken.

Pairings: Y/N x OT7

GENRE: Soulmate AU!, Idol Y/NAU!, semi social-media AU!, ANGST (mainly), fluff, romance, maybe smut in the series.

Ask or comment to be tagged!

Warnings: The series is going to be heavy with a lot of personal experiences mixed into the fiction, so this is going to be kind of therapeutic for me. Please, consider not reading the series if you are not comfortable with: abandonment issues, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, self-harm (not descriptive and only part of MC’s past), suicide thoughts (in the past), toxic behavior, toxic and abusive relationship (in the past), depreciating self-talk and low self-esteem, a lot of curse, physical and mental pain, near death experience situation (in the past), and maybe smut scenes (happy ending though, but it will probably be quite the ride).

NOTE: I was thinking of “Moonchild” and for some reasons, some memories I’d prefer to have forgotten came back to my mind and instead of making a full-blown panic attack like I used to, I thought that it would make a great plot if I mingled that with a soulmate and idol verse and that’s how I started going into it. This is going to be loaded with personal experiences, even if they’ll probably be a bit differently explained compared to what I experienced. Despite the heavy themes and many warnings, I hope you guys will like it. I think I really needed to write it. It will be a semisocial media AU!, because I like the idea of being to write some of their conversations through texts. However, I do plan on fully writing most of it. Though, you’ll have some updates about their social medias as I will update their profiles soon after you see this. I will probably mix a lot of different media for this story such as songs written and produced by myself. I’ll upload for real MC’s EP. So expect a lot for this story. Please take well care, feedback is always very warmly welcomed, it helps me to write for real. If you need to talk to someone, my dms are always opened and if you really don’t feel well, please call urgency numbers.

Thank you for reading,

-Dolly

"And we will close our night show with the most awaited segment! The audience jumped during the commercial break, it's amazing how many people just joined us! Welcome to our interview segment and especially, welcome and thank you so much for being with us Moon!”

"Of course, thank you for having me on your radio show." 

"Thank you for coming! I have to mention that this is your very first interview with another media than your usual personal platforms like Vlive, YouTube, or Instagram, so we are honored to be the first ones to greet you! Do you plan on making more activities outside your personal schedule for the promotion of your new album?" 

"If I may be honest, not really. I'm the most comfortable in my own safe zone and I tend to try not to get out of it too often. It might close some doors to me but I'm comfortable with my fans that way. However, I often listen to this radio show and a lot of my fans were enthusiastic about that so I thought: why not."

"Ah, thank you so much, it means a lot! Your fans are indeed a strong community and they support you whether you go to TV shows or not. Besides, you've been a very active artist on social media and your whole career started on YouTube and SoundCloud before you signed to your current agency. We have to congratulate you on your journey! It's barely been two years but here you are, with your second EP 'People'! Congratulations on the release!" 

"Thank you very much."

“For our listeners who might not know who Moon is, I’m going to introduce her to you: Moon, your real name is (Y/N), you were born on August 4th, 1998, Incheon and your mother was American so you pursued your studies in America. You have been taking online classes since the start of your career at the HULT, university of Florida, and even recently got your Business Bachelor, now aiming for a Ph.D. You started your journey on Youtube, uploading covers and vlogs until you finally started producing your own songs, releasing them on Soundcloud. You started gaining a lot of followers; thus, you started on other social media such as Twitter or Instagram. One year ago, you release your first EP called ‘BALANCE’  which is the reason why the music label BigHit reached to you and asked you if you wanted to sign with them. Did I get everything right?”

“You are. It feels like you know my life better than I do.”

"Ah not at all, but thank you, I am glad that I didn’t say something wrong! Would you mind sharing the concept of this EP? Many of your fans probably already know but maybe some of our daily listeners might not!" 

"Of course. As you said, 'People' is my second EP, yet the first to be studio recorded. Signing with BigHit is a big step in my career and it created a lot of changes, hence I decided to focus on the people I have met, stayed with, became close to, or detached myself from… This is dedicated to the people who changed my life, whether they intended to or not. It could be interpreted as my social life diary in a way." 

"I see, many of your fans have said that the album held a very distinct duality, with a bright and a much darker side that made quite the storm on social media. ‘Y/N our Moon’ and ‘MOONISBACK’ trended for a few nights on Twitter. Do you have anything you'd like to say about that?" 

"I guess it was a surprise because this mini-album is really raw and uncensored. I didn't try to sugarcoat it nor to romanticize my experiences. I hope it brings comfort to people who haven't been feeling well. Because I think that it’s always easy to say that it's going to be okay to someone who’s not feeling well. Everything doesn’t suddenly become okay. And it's fine to be hurting, you can learn to live with this pain and move on while still hoping for better days. There is no end to hopes, and this is why my EP has a brighter side to it. Not everything is always a vast cold ocean. Sometimes, there are small or big waves that come crashing into our universe and they form something that we couldn't have imagined. They bring a little piece of sunshine in life and it helps to move on. So I hope that people who are struggling know that, despite how insignificant I might be, there is a person that understands and can relate to their struggles. I hope it can comfort them, even just slightly, to know that they are not alone." 

"That's a beautiful way to put it."

"Ah, thank you." 

"I have to ask because I'm really curious and I’m definitely not the only one: a lot of your fans have been theorizing about who could your title track ‘TIME’ be about? I have to ask you on the behalf of everyone. Is it okay for me to break the mystery?" 

"Time is a track that shouldn’t have made it to the EP. It’s a bit like a fit of personal anger that I didn’t know I needed to let out.”

“Your anger was definitely heard and understood. People have been curious about the addressee of the song especially because of the line ‘maybe it’s time I finally let go of you’. So can you tell us who is it about?” 

“Uh...Time was written for my seven soulmates who rejected me years ago." 

"Seven!?"

"Yeah, it's a lot I know.”

“Is that why you have covered your soul mark with this tattoo on your arm? Netizens talked about it a lot; normally idols tend to cover their arm from the public eyes to avoid for their soulmates’ names to be known, but instead, you were proudly showing your tattooed arm, fully covering what might be under the ink. Many people assumed that it meant that you didn’t have a soulmate at all.” 

“Well, I decided to cover the mark because there was no reason for me to keep it without hurting myself. I decided that I have been hurt enough to let myself take a rest. I didn’t see the point in hiding my arm either, I’m proud of my tattoo, I mean; it’s really a beautiful piece in my opinion. But to answer the assumptions, I don’t consider that I have soulmates anymore, hence why the tattoo as well." 

"This is really a heartbreaking story, it must have been extremely hard. Breaking a soul bond is immensely dangerous, my link with my husband already itches when I spend the day away from him, so seven soul bonds? It must have been terrible." 

"It was, but the most important is where I am now. I'm not lingering on that anymore because they made their choices and I thus made mine. I just hope that they all are healthy and happy where they are." 

"I have to say I'm really impressed (Y/N)-shi, you really have a delicate and caring soul. I probably wouldn't be able to have such soft words about your soulmates had I been in your shoes."

"I think living the actual experience made me reflect on myself a lot. I'm comfortable where I am now, I'm able to do music and make what I love. I have nothing to complain about, I'm surrounded by lovely and supportive fans, I have the best manager I could have ever hoped for and a warm and healthy family. I don't need more on my side." 

"I'm glad you are happy then. Many of your fans have pointed out it's really hard to make you smile and some wonder if you are happy, especially after the release of ‘TIME’, I don’t blame some of your fans for being worried." 

"Ahhh, is smiling the only way to prove that we are happy? I believe my words are usually a bit more impactful than my facial expressions. I have to admit that I don't often smile, it's not a bad thing, at least I don't think so, but I just don't feel the need to smile when I don’t feel like it. Besides, I get shy easily when I expose my emotions too much." 

"It's hard to imagine you being shy but at the same time now that I have you in front of me, our listeners cannot see you, but I definitely feel that you have a very shy and reserved aura despite the energy you give off when you are on stage. It’s not unfriendly either, but you’re just very soft-spoken and quiet in everything you do. Like when you came in, I barely heard you entering at all; you’re just silently making your way without a fuss, it’s really endearing, to be honest."

"Ah... I’ve been told that my stage persona and the ‘me’ in real life were two different entities but I don’t really think it’s true. I'm extremely introverted and it doesn't really mix well with the stage. So I just put it on the side for the people who came to see me and deserve to see more than a 24 years old woman who has troubles speaking without stuttering in front of other people." 

"You stutter when you have to speak in front of other people?" 

"Sometimes it happens when I’m nervous, and I’m very often nervous. Like right now, I’m extremely nervous. But it's something I'm working on." 

"Well it's definitely paying off because I couldn't sense that you were nervous at all, just very calm and soft, but I wouldn’t be able to imagine you being nervous enough to stutter."

"A lot of artists actually have stage fright, most of them just don't want to admit it because it doesn't sound sexy when you tell your fans you're actually shaking before going up there for the show." 

"This is very true, but it's refreshing to hear it from someone who actually lives through that rather than fan theories." 

"That's understandable." 

"Our time is coming to the end, do you have anything you would like to add before we sadly get our mics taken away?" 

"Oh uhm, everyone, my new mini-album 'People' came out very recently and yet it already received a lot of love so I want to thank you for that. This EP was a very personal project and I was worried about how it would be welcomed but you all made me realize that I have nothing to fear because we'll always find someone who can relate to our stories. As long as I can help even one person with my songs, then it's enough for me. Thank you for listening to me and my voice. I hope we'll be able to meet soon. Love you my fans and non-fans as well, please take well care of yourselves in those times. Be careful and stay safe. Wear your mask!" 

“Thank you so much Moon for being with us tonight. Our time was short but I really enjoyed it, I hope our listeners were able to feel that very warm presence of yours through the mic. ‘Give Me A Song’ of Moon’s EP ‘People’ will now be playing and we will see each other tomorrow night with IU for the release of her new album LILAC. Take care!”

Comments or Ask to be tagged!

Uploaded : 08/04/2021

#bts #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #bts fluff #bts angst #bts smut #bts ot7 #ot7 #ot7 x reader #ot7 x you #magicshopnet #author: dolly #verse: idol #verse: soulmate #kim seokjin #min yoongi #Jung HoSeok #kim namjoon #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook #kim seokjin x reader #min yoongi x reader #jung hoseok x reader #kim namjoon x reader #park jimin x reader #kim taehyung x reader #jeon jungkook x reader #seokjin x reader #yoongi x reader

[escxpedes]

loopholes (cont.)

I literally can’t even begin to tell you how much everyone’s support meant to me on the last chapter. All your comments and tags were so sweet, it was seriously the highlight of my day. I’m sorry for the delay, I meant to get this out a couple of days ago, but I’ve come down with a bad cold. This part, while fun, was so hard to get right. Angus Macgyver is a genius, his mind goes a mile a minute, and I wanted to do my best to replicate that. This part is a little slow in getting to the Macriley stuff, but I wanted to show how much he really thinks about things. He’s such a complex character, that if I didn’t do him justice, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. Also, there’s dialogue in this one! Sadly, Jack isn’t mentioned in this chapter, but he’s there in spirit. Clearly, we all love and miss him. I hope you guys enjoy, the last part will be out soon! x

~

loop·hole

noun | A loophole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the purpose, implied or explicitly stated, of the system

~

Riley finally moves into her new apartment, but struggles to adjust after the events of Codex and the realization of her feelings for Mac. When Mac finds her passed out over her keyboard after a late night of coding at Phoenix, he decides a talk is long overdue. Just some slightly angsty soft!macriley to help you cope with this season 5 hiatus.

~

of lips that i am yet to kiss (and eyes not met my own.)

It's highly unlikely that you'll find Mac walking down the halls of the Phoenix Foundation so late at night. Without the bustling energy of his coworkers fetching important documents or discussing the best way to break down one of the many mysteries the foundation deals with, the darkened hallways and quiet atmosphere can be unnerving.

Sure, he spends nearly every waking hour employed there, but he'd rather be outside the office in different countries, doing hands-on work and saving lives. When you work in his profession, It can be difficult to separate business and pleasure, but that only makes it more important—if only to conserve what mental health he has left. 

However, in the haste of putting together last-minute preparations for yet another meeting with the Department of Justice and trying to make it back to his house in time for something Desi whipped up, he managed to forget his cellphone.

It's funny, mainly because of how little the small device truly matters to Mac.

It only goes to show how insignificant material objects, or even human beings in general, are. The idea that something so meaningless can affect someone's life so much when, if they just looked past that obsession and considered its part in the profound scope of the universe, another perspective would take shape.

It's fascinating stuff, really.

There's a concept essential to understanding Japanese aesthetics, otherwise known as an ancient set of ideals important to Japanese society, called Yūgen. When applied in the right context, Yūgen underlines this deep awareness of the universe and the experiences we have within it. It's often the feeling interpreted when you gaze at the stars late at night or watch the sunset dip behind a hill.

Mac wouldn't think twice before breaking his phone, or rather, breaking the phone of his nearest friend, open for an obscure part that might make one of his many homemade devices come together. However, when he's the only person able to communicate the scientific specifications of an unheard-of-until-recently base plan for saving the planet, he's practically on call 24/7.

He remembers having it in the labs earlier that day when he stopped by before his meeting to remind Bozer to come by his house on Friday for the team's new weekly attempt in group-bonding.

After the betrayals that surfaced during the climax of taking down Codex, the team collectively decided to spend more time as a group in hopes of eliminating any lingering doubts. 

They used to hang out all the time before the government dismantled the Phoenix Foundation.

Mac still can't believe that, after everything they had been through, he allowed his friendships to dissipate over the year they had been separate.

Bozer is his childhood best friend, and Riley had become a solid foundation in his life. He didn't have anyone outside his team at Phoenix, and while he deeply cared for Desi, their first relationship was proof that too much time—and too little communication—with each other can do severe damage to one's sanity.

If Russ hadn't brought them back together, would they have tried to reconnect at some point?

Mac wants to say they would have but wouldn't blame them if they didn't; they all lost something they cared about, and each served as a constant reminder of it.

It would've been hard, but part of him feels like living without them is a lot harder.

When he manages to access the lab, flipping his shiny new I.D. card over his fingers and into its place in his wallet, his eyes scan the room. It's empty, which isn't unusual at this time, but years of military training have rewired his brain to notify him of threats, even if there aren't any.

Just like he thought it would be, the device sits untouched a few tables behind Bozer's workspace where Mac had been sitting.

Quickly, because he left the house in a hurry and forgot to leave a note, he scoops up his phone and makes his way towards the exit. There's a couple of missed calls, but it doesn't seem like he missed anything too important.

Not that they would let him. 

At any rate, they would probably show up on his doorstep if they couldn't get a hold of him. With days off so few and far between, that's the kind of interaction he's hoping to avoid. Hence, why he came to pick up his phone when he realized it was missing instead of waiting until the next day.

He's nearly made it to the end of the hall when a light flashes in his peripheral vision, coming from the I.T. department.

His body is tense with apprehension; his mind races with several different kinds of possibilities and outcomes. He slows his pace, his movements fluid, silent, and controlled from years of stealth practice.

The light is soft, he notices, as if only one or two monitors are in use.

When he gets to the doorway and nudges open the door, hands at the ready, his entire body sags in relief to see the dark wavy hair he's come to associate with one of his closest friends.

"Riles?"

The nickname falls from his mouth before he can stop it, and even though the light from the monitor creates a halo above her head, shadowing her features, it's unmistakably her.

She doesn't move. 

It becomes abundantly clear why as Mac moves towards her and notices the monitor's screen filling up with a sequence of letters that look nothing like coding despite his lack of knowledge in programming languages.

Her elbow balances precariously on the edge of the table, her arms creating a makeshift pillow for her head. The weight of her forearm bears down on the keyboard, causing the side of her hand to press down multiple keys at once.

He shakes his head a little, amused by the situation unfolding. 

Her cheek rests comfortably on her hand, a serene expression masking the signs of exhaustion that showed on her face.

Mac's lips curved into a soft smile, seeing Riley in any state that wasn't cloaked in layers of worry or anxious determination always washed away any doubts he might have about working in such a stressful field.

The scars that covered his body, the secrets he has to keep, and the pain he has to endure are so unbelievably worth it as long as she out of harm's way and able to sleep peacefully.

Of course, he couldn't imagine anyone else by his side on a mission, knowing they share the same love and passion for kicking ass and saving lives.

However, he also knows that more lies underneath the surface.

He wouldn't wish the hardships of this job on anyone. Seeing it affect someone he cares about, watching it break them down slowly pulls at his heartstrings and fills him with a knowing sadness. 

When a piece of hair falls into her face, his fingers don't hesitate to gently brush it behind her ear, lightly tracing her cheekbone and caressing her cheek.

Kneeling, his hand drops to her shoulder in an attempt to gently wake her.

After a couple of shakes, the expressive brown eyes he's come to look forward to seeing begin to flutter open and nearly render him speechless.

She blinks a couple of times, inhaling slowly, "Macgyver."

Her voice is full of sleep and breaks from misuse, but the way she says his name—like there's nobody else she'd expect to see when she wakes up —has him grinning from ear to ear.

"Good morning, sleepyhead."

Rising from her position on the table, she scans the room before meeting his eyes and scoffing, "It's hardly the morning."

He laughs softly, holding back the urge to mention that technically it is morning considering its past twelve. Instead, he focuses on the matter at hand, or more likely, the question at hand.

"What are you doing here so late?"

She's more alert now, sitting back in her chair and lifting her arms to stretch out the muscles that stiffened while she slept, glancing at her work on the monitor.

Her face drops into a grimace when she notices her mistake, "Matty and I were talking about updating the foundation's firewall and spyware," she yawns, "I must have been more tired than I realized."

Mac's eyebrows scrunch in thought, remembering something Bozer said earlier about Riley spending quite a few nights this week working late.

Between going over his mother's scientific data, trying to patch up whatever relationship he had left with Desi, and making sure he didn't go off the rails with grief, his effort to check in on everyone decreased significantly.

"Yeah, you've been doing that a lot lately," his hand returned to her shoulder to emphasize his point, "Everything okay?"

She waves him off, "There's too much work that needs to be done around here before we can get things running the way they used to."

Riley doesn't lie to him—if you overlook the whole situation with her ex, Aubrey, that is, but the movements she's making indicate otherwise.

Her eyes refuse to meet his, flickering down and to the right. When she talks, her head shakes lightly, and she purses her lips in an attempt to give off a careless impression. Maybe someone who doesn't know her or didn't train to pick up on it would believe her, but he knew better.

She was definitely hiding something from him.

Part of him understands that if she wanted to talk about it, she would. However, his instincts urge him to press harder, locate the problem, and bring back her contagious smile that always seems to fill him with warmth.

As much as he doesn't want to admit it, you can't patch some things together by sheer will and sellotape, so instead, he stands up and drops his hand from her shoulder.

"Let's get you home."

#macgyver #macriley #angus macgyver #riley davis #i really hope you like this

[hypnoshatesme]

Create a Storm With You

for the 93 (if my eyes don’t deceive me) of @hellyeahgerrymichael‘s bingo game because I have been thinking Much about Slaughter!Michael and @takingyournarrative and I are always talking about Vast!Gerry: Ocean Edition

Enjoy :)

*

Gerry didn’t turn around when he heard the approaching steps. He recognised them, in all their insignificance. He felt Michael come to a stop next to where he was leaning against the railing of the roof of a hotel, nine storeys, an unknown city all around it, lit windows in nearly every building despite the late hour of the night. The wind was strong, anticipation of a storm in the air, and Gerry caught sight of blond curls being whipped by it out of the corner of his eye.

“You’re far from the shore,” the tone was joking.

“I’m everywhere.”

Michael hummed. “Mhm, we’ve been over that.” 

He turned towards Gerry. It had been a good while since Michael had seen any sign of him, since the scent of salt and brine had caught in his nose despite him being far from the sea. Gerry looked the same as ever, dark hair and dark coat dancing in the wind, the dim light of the city catching in the ring in his eyebrow, his lip, his ear. The scent of the sea was stronger now than it had been when Michael had picked it up first, had followed it to the roof. Like always. Gerry was never-changing, and Michael grinned. 

“Came to visit me?” teasing, though it sounded more like a taunt, a threat, as most things Michael said did. It was an undertone, ever-present, and Gerry’s lips quirked up at hearing it again.

It was all the answer Michael would get, as usual. They had played this little game countless times now and Gerry was still not going to admit to it being anything but coincidence for them to find themselves in the same place once more. And maybe it wasn’t even a lie. He didn’t give it much thought. It didn’t matter.

“You’re far from home,” he said instead, and finally turned his head to look at Michael, radiant as always, even in the washed out dark of the city. You didn’t need to see him properly to feel the energy, something like anticipation of a wave about to crash into a cliff, harsh and violent. It made Gerry’s spine tingle. It was delightful.

Michael flashed him his knife’s edge grin. “A bit of a holiday.”

The tone was a joke with something sharp to it, or maybe it was the flash of bloodlust in his eyes at the word ‘holiday’. There was blood on his jaw, not much, probably overlooked when Michael washed up. Gerry touched his fingers to it, and they came away wet and faintly red. It was fresh and Gerry watched the dim light catch in it as he held up his hand. 

“Having fun?”

"Oh darling, always." He laughed his strangely piercing laugh and Gerry marvelled at how Michael found such joy in feeding his master, in something as small as ending another pointless life. "You?"

The thunder was distant and the lightning faint when it followed, but enough to bathe them in light for the briefest of moments, enough to catch in the blood on Gerry’s fingertips. His eyes didn't look away from it, but there was a grin on his lips when he spoke, "Always."

A short silent settles between them and Michael watched Gerry’s face, the way his eyes looked positively disinterested but didn’t move from the blood on his fingers. Gerry’s eyes had always been indefinable, the depths of the sea in pools of brown or black, maybe blue, sometimes grey, often all.

"Is there enough human of you left to bleed?" Michael suddenly asked, as always voicing whatever came to his mind.

"I never gave it a thought." 

"Would you let me try find out?" Gerry was unsure whether the knife had been in Michael’s hand before, but he was twirling it now, drawing Gerry’s eyes away from the drying drops of blood. 

He met Michael’s eyes, and had Gerry still been human he might have felt a spike of fear. Or considering his history, maybe excitement. Now, he felt amused, grinned because there was such intensity and presence to Michael, such weight in the way he looked at Gerry, curiosity and slaughter in his eyes. Like there was any meaning to them in this moment, like they were more than mere specks of dust in the vastness of the universe. 

"No. It doesn't matter."

Michael’s pouting always looked like a mockery, too much aggression in the harsh curve of his lips. "It matters to me."

Gerry raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Why is that?"

Michael considered, knife still dancing between his fingers, hypnotising. Then he shrugged. "It could be fun."

A chuckle like gently rolling waves. "I can think of other fun things to do rather than find out whether I bleed."

The knife stilled and the pout turned into a grin, predatory. "Like what?"

Gerry countered with a playful grin of his own and another gust of wind threw his hair back. "Like a kiss."

Michael had never had to be told twice, and neither did he hold anything back when he closed the distance and brought their lips together with unnecessary ferocity, probably, but he tasted salt water on Gerry’s lips as they met his, and it felt right as Michael fell. Not literally, he knew that by now, but his body didn’t care when the wind was rushing in his ears and his stomach dropped, and he could hear the crashing waves below, fast approaching. 

He wrapped his arms around Gerry, forced himself to not to hold on for dear life as he used to. Gerry’s arms were around his waist, and Michael faintly felt the metal of the railing at his back. He gave it no mind, indulged in the feeling of falling that always came with Gerry’s kisses and kissed him back with vicious ferocity, buried his free hand in Gerry’s hair to pull, and Gerry gasped into the kiss and let Michael’s tongue slip into his mouth, welcomed it with a hum. 

Michael’s kisses were always so intense, so strangely grounding. It was like being forcefully pulled to a stop from drifting in the endless vastness Gerry had embraced as his state of being so long ago. It didn’t matter, not when Michael kissed him like a wave crashing over him, pulling him towards itself, left him breathless and so very aware of the here and now, of the fact that the air was heavy with ozone and the thunder sounded closer, the fact that the sky lit up in front of Gerry’s closed eyelids. He felt the steadily stronger rain on his skin and Michael’s warm body between his own and the metal railing, all that was keeping them from plummeting down, and it all felt so intense, the way Michael’s nails were scraping against his scalp and the way Gerry could feel the hilt of his knife at his back where Michael was holding on to him and the knife at the same time. 

Little truly thrilled Gerry anymore, but Michael was exhilarating, electrifying and all else beside this moment was forgotten, unimportant as everything should be but wasn’t because Michael’s teeth were grazing his lower lip and Gerry felt like he was on fire. 

Suddenly, Michael bit down hard and Gerry’s lip split and he pulled away with a hiss at the sudden pain. They were both breathing heavily as they looked at each other, Gerry surprised, blood welling up where his lip had broken; Michael’s expression one of triumph as he licked Gerry’s blood from his lips.

“You do bleed,” he breathed, and he sounded so very satisfied with himself as his grin only widened.

Gerry had to laugh, and Michael stopped feeling the metal against his back, felt Gerry’s grip loosen around him so he was leaning precariously over the edge of the roof. Michael grabbed Gerry’s shoulder, the grip in his hair tightening. He didn’t look down. He didn’t hear waves below anymore, but the city at night. It made little sound but Michael could feel the wind and rain, could feel the abyss right below him and his heartbeat picked up in fear, anticipation. His expression didn’t waver.

Gerry’s face came closer and Michael wanted to push him back on instinct, didn’t want the balance to tip any further. He knew full well that it wouldn’t, not if Gerry didn’t want it to. 

Gerry’s nose skimmed Michael’s cheekbone and his lips were by Michael’s ear when he spoke, “Shall we find out next what’ll happen if I drop you?”

Michael held very still as he felt Gerry’s breath, a cool ocean breeze, against his ear. The words, however, made him freeze, especially as he felt Gerry’s grip on his waist loosening, felt himself dipping back just a little further. He shifted his grip on Gerry’s shoulder, just enough to be able to bring the blade to Gerry’s jaw. He held it there, didn’t press down enough to break skin but made sure Gerry could feel it. He waited for Gerry to look at his face again, and the grin on Michael’s lips was a lot harsher than before, more threat amidst the playfulness. 

“You’ll bleed more.” 

Gerry held his gaze for what felt like an eternity, lightning illuminating his own too self-satisfied expression. Michael thought he’d like to carve it off. Gerry felt the blade press into his skin, nearly gentle compared to the violence in Michael’s eyes as he stared up at him. It was making Gerry’s spine tingle, his pulse picking up with a no longer familiar sense of danger, of fear, all mixed with the very familiar thrill that usually accompanied their little trysts.

Then Gerry chuckled, and his grip around Michael tightened again as he pulled him back up in one fluid motion, twirled them so Michael was the one standing firmly on the roof while Gerry had the railing at his back. There was shock on Michael’s face as he regained his balance, then relief, but Gerry didn’t get to comment on it because Michael’s lips crashed into his with the next thunder. 

If anything, Michael simply seemed more than he had a moment before. Gerry could feel his strong, quick heartbeat through the front of their shirts where Michael was pressing their bodies together, and Michael’s fingers were twisting into his collar, the knife no longer touching skin, but still close to his throat, and Michael’s lips were hot against his and Gerry let himself indulge, enjoy, and pulled Michael closer. He drank the remaining fear from Michael’s lips, knew Michael was doing the same, and it was pouring by now, but neither of them minded.

#gerrymichael

[ayameakuma]

Hi, guys!

So, this is one of my many ideas for fanfics (seriously, they are breeding like rabbits inside my head) and I need your opinion on whether you would like to read something like this (it helps me decide if the fanfic idea is worth it or not when friends or other people give their thoughts on it).

Fair warning: This idea may trigger some people because it involves breaking 2 ships from 2 different fandoms that people like very much from what I have seen. I DO NOT INTENT TO START SOME SHIPPING WAR HERE. If this annoys you or you just don't like it, be polite about it, ok? I cannot control what my anime/cartoon infested brain cooks up for a new fanfic. (GOD KNOWS I have TRIED to control them)

Either way, here is a brief explanation of the idea and some explanation on why I chose the pairing(s):

First off, this is a crossover between Miraculous Ladybug and Soul Eater. Marinette, who at the beginning of the story is a 13 years old girl, is the only daughter of Tom and Sabine Dupain-Cheng. Sabine is a Meister - who is very proficient in wielding a variety of weapons - and Tom is her multi-form weapon. The Cheng Clan is - or better said was - very famous in the world for their weapon wielding abilities and for their assassination capabilities, which some even say that were on par with the Star Clan's.

Marinette, however, was kept away from the weapon/meister world by her parents because they wished she would be able to live the normal life they couldn't. But, that did not last long. Around her 10th birthday, Marinette started exhibiting Meister-like skills, and not normal ones either (you can't convince me that the only ones that show the signs of belonging to one of the side of the spectrum are just the weapon, the meisters must also have like early signs of Awakening as a meister too, right?): heightened sense for danger, her body moving on its own when she feels unsafe/sees someone in need of help, and, the strangest one yet, possessing knowledge of how to use a certain object as a weapon in situations that need such expertise (like, knowing how to and where to wound a wolf with just a throw of a sharp rock/a stab of a pocket knife, in order to protect a classmate of hers). These skills brought her more bad than good. For showing such dangerous skills, she was bullied, called weird or even accused of being a "killer in becoming" (kids are stupid and cruel, let's just leave it at that).

Two years pass, during which her signs of awakening as a Meister become more pronounced. Marinette, who never complained about the bullying to her parents, has had enough and tells them what the kids in her school put her through. Hearing this, Tom and Sabine make their decision and, at the age of 12, Marinette Dupain-Cheng becomes one of the newest students at DWMA.

Here, she meets Adrien Agreste, the son of Gabriel Agreste. Adrien is still a model here and is a weapon. His father, Gabriel, was known as one of DWMA most talented students as a Meister and currently is a top fashion designer, his dream of becoming the Meister that made the next Death Scythe now unattainable due to the premature death of his partner and wife, Emily.

Marinette falls for Adrien, who was LITERALLY the first person - besides her parents - that treated Marinette like a human being and not a ticking bomb in the last 2 years. She decides to become the best Meister she can be and become Adrien's pair and possibly his significant other along the way. Her first female friend in Death City, Alya, supports her with all her might and tried helps Marinette get Adrien's attention. The two are also helped by Nino, Adrien's first friend at DWMA, and Alya's Weapon Partner.

One year later, she finally gathers up her courage to ask him to become a meister-weapon pair with her. Things should go smoothly from here on, right? Wrong. Adrien refuses her and, unknowingly, breaks her heart. Depressed, she ends up crying and questioning her worth over the next week, loosing more and more sleep.

A few days after, she ends up being incredibly late for one class that will have the students make pairs for a "pretend fight" as not only to help them with their partnership (for those who already have partners chosen), but also to observe their performance in a more controlled environment before sending them out to collect the Kishin souls.

Along her there is another student who end up just as late as she is, that student being Soul "Eater" Evans. The two, who never really spoke before (besides the morning greetings or just small insignificant chats) are now put to fight as a Meister-Weapon Pair for this only class.

Durring the class, however, something unexpected happened, and, now, by Lord Death's word, the two have to give their partnership a chance by becoming temporary partners for the rest of the school year. Will Marinette and Soul's partnership end up being a success or an utter failure?

ALRIGHT! So, the above is a short summary of like the first 2 chapters, maybe. And as you can see I already changed a LOT of things from the original setting of Soul Eater. (I have nothing planned on how to input the kwami here but... I WILL come up with something, hopefully) Why? Don't ask me. I have zero ideea how this became a thing in my brain and maybe I will have a more clear idea as to why over time. For now, let's leave that as "it just works and that is it".

Now, as you read I have put Marinette and Soul as a (temporary) Meister and Weapon pair, but their relationship before this arrangement is more inspired from my own life. I basically was in the same class for 1 year with this boy, and, besides the group project and greetings, we have never talked at all. One day we just start talking because we were bored and that boy basically became one of my best friends in like 5 minutes. It is this muted chemistry that only clicks for you once you actually interact with that person in a non-official setting or just happens over the course of the debate of one subject that you both like.

Also, yes, I think that Soul and Marinette will be a good romantic (or maybe platonic) couple too. And since, Soul becomes Marinette's weapon, Adrien becomes Maka's.

Now, to explain why these two Meister-Weapon pairs work:

1.Soul and Marinette (Sonette - the name of the ship - given by my best friend who told me I should post this here)

Due to being bullied, Marinette is very shy in general and the only time she becomes more assertive is during battle, even though the confidence/assertiveness dosen't last long. Remember this is a world in which Mari never got to be Ladybug, and because of this, here she is more meek and dosen't know her own value, nor does she have any self-confidence acquired due to responsibilities such as superheroing or being class president. She also didn't have a lot of friends in school before DWMA, a fact that may end up creating situations in which she is very much overwhelmed because someone did a very nice gesture towards her or she may even end up taking blame for thing that were not her fault at all. As such, someone like Soul, who is confident, could balance out Mari very well, besides the fact that LITTLE MARI NEEDS SUPPORT, GODDAMN IT. She needs someone to reamind her she has worth and get her out of her comfort zone in order to give her a push in a better direction. (In other words: Marinette Protection Squad Assemble!)

As for Soul... well, Soul is stubborn. I think that it will do him well to have someone he needs to look after since it will show Soul's gentle side more. Besides this, Soul is still the same Soul we know and love. Personally, I think that these little changes in a character while still maintaining the canon personality can actually make them seem more alive and it makes character development moments more significant in comparison to the original because we see a new side of that character that the canon did not delve into too much.

2. Maka and Adrien

Look, I love Maka and Soul's dynamics and the same can be said about Mari and Adrien's (if only blondie had a back bone *me being salty about the Lila phases*).

But you can't really say that Maka isn't reckless or that Adrien is not a spineless coward most of the time (hate you too, Gabriel, since it is your fault for this).

Why I think they are good for each other?

Well, Maka could learn to be more attentive towards other people and less reckless. Seriously, there is a fine line between courage and recklessness, and Maka seems to need to learn how to discern between the two. Adrien could be good for this since, in this fanfic, he is more or less naive af and needs to be guided by someone other than his father. Maka, in trying to help Adrien, ends up helping herself to some extent and due to Adrien's stained relationship with his father maybe she will even give her own father, Spirit, a chance to mend their own relationship. (It is just a possibility that I could see after pairing them up)

As for Adrien? Well, in this fanfic idea, at least until Maka gets into his mind, Adrien is not better than a doll for his father to play with. Gabriel controls everything than happens in his life. And since here he is not Chat Noir, the only little escape he has is the school, but even that is conditioned by his grades: "If you do not continue to have exemplary results in your school work, then I see no need for you to continue going there." - Gabriel, at some point in the story probably

His father even chose his own partner based on the level of soul compatibility they have together. Basically, Adrien has no voice of his own.

Maka could help him, simply put because she is reckless. Without Soul there, Maka needs to be told what is a good idea and what isn't, even more so when she is not capable of seeing the answer herself. And so, Adrien has to take a stand and say things with his own mouth. He will end up finding his own voice because he has Maka there. (I low key believe if Marinette was his partner, she will have a lots of problems trying to get Adrien to disagree with her, mainly due to her shyness and feelings for Adrien, but that is just me)

Maka and Adrien even have a similar house situation: they both have only one parent remaining that they dislike (no matter how internalized Adrien's dislike is), but they handle it differently which could be a good influence on the other: while Adrien is obedient to a fault to Gabriel because he wants to please his father in hope that Gabriel won't abandon him for not being enough, Maka defies her father due to her dislike for him and for the fact that he exhibits a perverse behaviour while still saying he is in love with Maka's mom (this pissed me off very much about Spirit but at the same time, give him a chance Maka, look at him; he is pitiful)

And this concludes my rant/ depiction of my fanfic idea.

Again, if you don't like it, that is fine. If you do, that is fine too. I just want to ask you: do you think it is worth writing? Would you read something like this if I did wrote and posted it?

Thank you for your time! Bye!😊

#miraculous ladybug #soul eater #mlb x soul eater #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #maka albarn #soul evans #Sonette #this just came to me #this keeps me up at night #plot bunny #fanfic ideas #someone stop me #hear me out #mlb #story ideas #crossover

[ahalal-uralma]

I think one of the most magical things about nature, is that nothing ever remains stagnant. Nothing ever remains the same for long. In nature, there are always new treasures to discover and cherish.

“A river always leads to some inhabited spot. If we do not find pleasant things we shall at least find new things.” -Candide, Voltaire

I think this is why I gravitate towards the woods so much; because, it’s the ultimate reflection of nature existing at it’s best.

Nothing never remains the same in the woods; it is always changing, throughout every season and year, throughout every month and day, it is all becoming something more magnificent than what it was before.

Nature exists as a chaotic balance.

Or is it balanced chaos?

I am not entirely sure, but I crave that balance.

I want to reflect that balance within my own existence, whatever that may mean, or be. I want to find my own chaotic balance (or balanced chaos).

I want to exist at my best.

As much as I can find pleasure in the material world, I have to be able to take a step away from it, sometimes, and realize it’s negative impact on my mental health and overall physical well-being when I allow it to completely consume and dictate my life.

I feel that mankind has conditioned itself into a regular state of misanthropy and pessimism through the corruption of the material world, whilst being taught to reject the lessons of the natural world; and as a result, we ignore the effects of our conditioning and moreover what causes our internal states of melancholy, hostility and self-depreciation/degradation.

We have been conditioned into human-despising, life-hating beings that cling to the stagnation of existence, of which in itself is man-made and controlled; because, we are conditioned to believe/accept we have a physical disconnection to nature, when in fact, we need to maintain the understanding we are actually a reflection of nature.

Humans have created for ourselves a corrupted idea of existence based on material dependency; all the while, coming at the great expense of not realizing we are the artists of our own grief.

“It is likely mankind have a little corrupted nature, for they were not born wolves, and they have become wolves; God has given them neither cannon of four-and-twenty pounders, nor bayonets; and yet they have made cannon and bayonets to destroy one another.” -Candide, Voltaire

I feel when we can desensitize our minds to the suffocating influence of the material world, that’s when we can start exploring an enriching existence away from stagnation.

Nature is liberating—and to be liberated, we must learn how to connect to nature.

Nature constantly shifts and takes on a new form in the woods: young trees rise and old ones collapse; leaves change shapes and colors, or disappear all together from sight; flowers blossom, grow, wither and grow again; and somewhere a new plant or animal is given life. It is constantly moving towards it’s own processs of creation and destruction.

Watch and immerse yourself with nature often enough, and you start to notice the tiny details—a break in a twig or transformation of a flower’s petals. No detail is too small or insignificant. Everything exists in cause effect.

“There can be no effect without a cause, the whole is necessarily concatenated and arranged for the best.” - Candide, Voltaire

It’s just beautiful and mesmerizing and I’ll never seize being enchanted or inspired by it.

#myphotography #photography #nature #woods #trees #plants #flora #spring #spring time #myphilosophywriting

[medprimmer7]

How to being Healthy

We asked three specialists — a naturopathic doctor, a dietitian, and a fitness coach — to reveal to us the best five basic however huge way of life medication transforms they suggest.

Other than giving you three distinct takes on the best way to pick your wellbeing fights, this rundown gives you decisions you can make without being sped off to an unscripted TV drama fat homestead — or purchasing a second cooler for those calorie-controlled, pre-divided frozen dinners.

JAMES ROUSE, N.D.

NATUROPATHIC PHYSICIAN, TRIATHLETE, CHEF, AUTHOR AND HOST OF TV'S "Ideal WELLNESS," HEALTH-TIP SEGMENTS FEATURED ON NBC AFFILIATES IN SEVERAL MAJOR CITIES.

1. THINK POSITIVE AND FOCUS ON GRATITUDE

Exploration shows a solid inspirational mentality helps fabricate a better resistant framework and lifts in general wellbeing. Your body accepts your opinion, so center around the positive.

2. EAT YOUR VEGETABLES

Go for five servings of vegetables daily — crude, steamed, or pan-seared. An eating regimen high in vegetables is related with a decreased danger of creating malignant growths of the lung, colon, bosom, cervix, throat, stomach, bladder, pancreas, and ovaries. Also, a considerable lot of the most impressive phytonutrients are the ones with the boldest tones — like broccoli, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, grapes, and verdant greens.

3. SET A "5-MEAL IDEAL"

What, when, and the amount you eat can keep both your digestion and your energy levels consistently raised, so you'll have all the more the entire day energy. A "5 supper ideal" will assist you with dealing with your weight, keep your cool, keep up your center, and dodge yearnings.

4. EXERCISE DAILY

Did you realize that every day exercise can decrease the entirety of the biomarkers of maturing? This incorporates improving vision, normalizing circulatory strain, improving slender muscle, bringing down cholesterol, and improving bone thickness. On the off chance that you need to live well and live more, you should work out! Studies show that even ten minutes of activity has an effect — something do as well! Wrench the sound system and dance in your parlor. Pursue swing moving or formal dancing exercises. Stroll to the recreation center with your children or a neighbor you'd prefer to find. Hop rope or play hopscotch. Turn a hula loop. Play water volleyball. Bicycle to work. Hop on a trampoline. Go for a climb.

5. GET A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

On the off chance that you experience difficulty resting, attempt unwinding procedures like contemplation and yoga. Or then again eat a little sleep time nibble of nourishments appeared to help move the body and brain into rest mode: entire grain oat with milk, oats, cherries, or chamomile tea. Obscure your room more and dismiss your clock from you. Record stresses or distressing contemplations to get them off of your mind and onto the page. This will help you put them into point of view so you can stop agonizing over them.

CHRISTINA REITER, M.S., R.D.

Inhabitant CONSULTING DIETITIAN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO–BOULDER WARDENBURG HEALTH CENTER FOR NUTRITION EDUCATION AND THERAPIES AND FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE NUTRITION PROGRAM AT METROPOLITAN STATE COLLEGE OF DENVER.

1. CHECK YOUR FOOD 'TUDE

What we eat and how we feel are connected in complex manners. A solid way to deal with eating is fixated on relishing flavor, eating to fulfillment, and expanding energy, as opposed to zeroing in on weight. Check your equilibrium of low-calorie nourishments, supplement thick food sources (giving numerous supplements per calorie), and food sources that are calorie thick however supplement poor. Most Americans need to eat all the more new entire food sources (as opposed to handled, profoundly refined food sources). Attempt to add all the more entire grains, new products of the soil, and vegetables into your suppers. Pair these carb rich food sources with a sound fat or lean protein to expand fulfillment.

2. EAT LIKE A KID

In the event that adding more products of the soil sounds inauspicious, hope to "finger food" forms that preschool kids love — carrot and celery sticks, cherry tomatoes, broccoli florets, grapes, berries, and dried organic products. All are healthful forces to be reckoned with loaded with cell reinforcements.

3. BE A PICKY EATER

Breaking point immersed fats and trans fats, and mean to eat more nourishments wealthy in calming omega-3 unsaturated fats to cut your danger of cardiovascular sickness and possibly improve discouraged mind-sets. What might be compared to only one gram of EPA/DHA (eicosapentaenoic corrosive/docosahexaenoic corrosive) day by day is suggested. Eating cold-water slick fish (wild salmon, herring, sardines, trout) a few times each week will give both EPA and DHA. Amounting to two tablespoons of ground flaxseed and eating meat, milk, and cheddar from grass-took care of creatures will furnish you with a sound portion of omega-3s.

4. USE FOODS OVER SUPPLEMENTS

Enhancements are not a substitute for a decent eating routine. Albeit numerous wellbeing specialists suggest taking a multivitamin and mineral enhancement that gives 100 to 200 percent of your suggested day by day esteem, every single enhancement ought to be painstakingly assessed for immaculateness and security. Explicit enhancements have been related with harmfulness, responses with meds, rivalry with different supplements, and even expanded danger of illnesses like malignant growth, coronary illness, and diabetes.

5. GET SATISFACTION

Both eating and active work are fun, tactile encounters! In both, focus on delight — not agony. Focus on the dietary benefit of the food sources you decide to eat, just as your feeling of fulfillment, unwinding, strain, elation, and exhaustion when you plunk down to eat. Check in with yourself as you eat, reviving your acknowledgment of craving, totality, and fulfillment while thinking about when and the amount to eat.

RICK OLDERMAN, M.S., P.T.

A PHYSICAL THERAPIST AND OWNER OF Z-LINE TRAINING IN DENVER, COLORADO, OFFERING REHABILITATION, PERSONAL TRAINING, PILATES INSTRUCTION, MOTIVATIONAL INJURY-PREVENTION SEMINARS, EMPLOYEE FITNESS PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT, AND CUSTOM FOOT ORTHOTICS CASTING.

1. Offer YOURSELF A Reprieve

"I spend innumerable hours doing cardio and never appear to lose that last ten pounds!" is a typical protest I hear from customers. Allow yourself to abbreviate your exercise. In all honesty, overtraining could be the issue. Your body can level if not given sufficient rest to reestablish itself, at last prompting a decrease in execution. Exhaustion, grouchiness, absence of energy, discouragement, and expanded cortisol (the "stress" chemical) are a few signs of overtraining disorder. Making a periodization program — separating your everyday practice into different preparing modes — can help forestall overtraining by building rest stages into your routine. For instance, you may weight train on Monday and Wednesday, cycle on Tuesday and Thursday, run on Friday and lay on Saturday and Sunday. You can likewise help balance your program by essentially joining more assortment.

2. THINK SMALL

Regularly the greatest impediment to improving wellbeing is feeling overpowered by all the accessible exhortation and examination. Attempt to zero in first on one little, apparently insignificant, unfortunate propensity and transform it into a sound, positive propensity. In case you're prone to eat when you return home around evening time, all things considered, continue to walk shoes in the carport or doorway and take a brisk turn around the square prior to heading inside. In the event that you have a jar of pop at noon consistently, have a glass of water two days per week all things being equal. Beginning with little, effortless changes sets up the mindset that positive development isn't really agonizing change. It's not difficult to work from here by adding more sound replacements.

3. Stay with GOOD

You can do quite a few things — yet in the event that you have individual associations with individuals who have undesirable propensities, it is regularly a daunting task. The best individuals are the individuals who have associations with other solid individuals. Get your family or companions associated with you when you walk or plan better suppers. Rolling out sound improvements with a friend or family member can unite you just as inspire you.

4. MAKE A LIST… AND CHECK IT TWICE

Require a couple of moments and record all the reasons you can't start an activity program. At that point take a gander at the premise of each reason. For example, on the off chance that you expressed, "No time" as one of your reasons, maybe that depends on a conviction that an activity program takes a great deal of time. Beginning with even five minutes daily will have a constructive outcome since you will have made a solid propensity where one didn't exist previously, and that is an amazing mental change. A more intensive glance at your rundown will uncover those deceptions taking cover behind each pardon.

5. Pursue AN EVENT

Let's be honest, practicing only for practicing or shedding pounds can get exhausting. Flavor things up by pursuing an occasion like a run/walk race or a cycling ride where you can be important for a group. Doing so gives your exercises another reason, and it's amusing to associate with other people who are practicing actually like you — also that most occasions advantage charitable associations, which pairs your vibe great high.

[readingalcove]

31 Day Horror House, Day 31

   Day 31: what the “main character” (or even you!) becomes when their escape fails and they join the house.

Once you looked into the vulture-beast's eyes, you could not look away. In the darkened room, its eyes glowed with such bright, white light that your eyes stung, but you couldn't blink, nor turn your gaze away. Pain rose in your temples, then radiated back to your eats and the base of your neck, as though something had fastened around your head and squeezed. Your head felt like it was swelling and splitting, and all you could see anymore were the glowing dots in your vision and the purplish auras rippling out from the center each time your eyes twitched out of position.

Most of your audience was silent, but Shade's cackle echoed up and down the walls, surrounding you and making the ache in your ears even worse, all while the bird dug its talons into your shoulders to hold you still.

The pressure only increased, until, at the same time, you shouted and heard a sickening crack. Despite your acute awareness of the pain in your head, you could not tell what was happening to it. Your inability to reach up and feel for what had happened did not help.

Desperate for answers, you kept the raptor's gaze, no longer entirely due to force. Something about the brilliant glow relaxed you, and as the tension in your neck melted, the pain you felt ebbed away, not entirely, but enough to think and take deep, slow breaths to mitigate it even further.

Just as the headache became manageable, the bird hissed again, directly at your face, breaking the eye contact and letting you fall back toward the floor. You hadn't even realized you'd been leaning forward, but the smack you braced for as you fell never came; instead your head bounced slightly and, other than the uncomfortable angle of your neck, the remaining pain disappeared as though it had never been there at all.

The bird stepped back and off of you, then stood to the side. Out of the corner of your eye you saw it surveying the small crowd.

Someone walked up behind you; from the sound of their shoes it was the same person who had caught you and placed you on stage. They knelt and lifted you into a sitting position, but supporting yourself on your hands you turned to look them in the face.

It was Mister Rishel, and it was hard to feel surprised. Despite the darkness in the room, his face was lit by a soft yellow glow.

Whether because you had shown your willingness to retake your body or in punishment for your daring to look at him whilst he manipulated you, he dragged you up to your feet immediately, keeping a firm grip on your elbow, and similarly, you didn't know if that was to prevent escape or to help you balance.

"Excellent, just excellent," said Shade, stepping on stage and standing beside you, boxing you in between herself, Rishel, and the vulture, who crooked its long neck to watch you with one enormous, intelligent eye. You could see through her nostril to the windows above her.

The lights came up, and you saw that it was indeed the rest of the household before you, even Sipos and Jeremy Husk, the latter of which was gagged. Even Letitia, the gargantuan hen was there, though she was not looking at you, but alternating between preening and looking at the other beast. Even AF 4.0 sat in Cynthia's lap. Cynthia's face was strained, and Cornelia , by the look of her dress, was at the edge of her seat, but the children were grinning, as were Benny and Pebble. Sipos and Adelaide both scowled at you.

"And now," said Shade, interrupting your thoughts as though she didn't want to let you exposit your context clues, "the reveal!"

Rishel guided you to turn slightly, and Shade wheeled up a covered mirror.

"Voila!" she cried, ripping the cloth away to reveal your reflection.

The household cheered, but you ran to the mirror, and this time, no one tried to stop you, instead only watching as you prodded at your own face, prying open your own mouth to get a better look at the yellow light within, that which you had projected onto Rishel.

Your hands shook as you turned, looking around the room for a second mirror or some other proof that you were not really looking at yourself. Rishel obliged, holding up a hand mirror, and your pumpkin face stared back at you from it as well.

Looking down, you found your hands still humanoid, but mottled with orange and green. You also took in your clothes to find that you were still wearing the borrowed pajamas on stage, causing embarrassment to mingle with your existential crisis. You looked over the crowd again.

"Don't be shy," Shade said, and when you turned, she was only a flat shadow on the ground. "That took a lot out of me, so hold your head up."

She then turned to her audience.

"Sasha has created a monster, with no need for a virus, or a bite, or even death. All she needed was a human."

The vulture stretched up and spread her wings wide, pushing Rishel and even Shade away, despite her disembodiment.

Even your friends cheered this time.

"I'm leaving," you said, and Shade laughed.

"Where will you go?"

You didn't answer because you couldn't answer, but you continued away from the stage.

"You'll need this," she called and tossed you the key to the arched doorway.

- - - - - - - - - -

Mister Rishel found you slumped on the doorstep.

Since you had left the ballroom, you had paced just outside the door, regularly getting raspily accosted through the gate by Cujo. Your car sat before you, ready to go if you so chose, but for all the hours you had spent pacing, you couldn't bring yourself to drive back to town, not if it meant seeing yourself as a pumpkinhead in the mirror, nor somehow explaining it to your family, if they even let you in after seeing you had a jack o' lantern for a face.

"There's nowhere to go, is there?" you asked. "I can't go home like this."

He paused for a moment.

"We can go inside."

"I want to say goodbye to my friends. My before-yesterday-evening-friends."

A smile flickered on the goat man's face.

"Halloween will be here before you know it."

The end.

I’m not 100% on my ending, but if I want to write good maybe instead of complaining I should be writing things like this before 2:30AM on Halloween. It got where it needed to go though, and that’s what really matters. I went back and forth on more animorphs-like body horror, and on turning into something much worse, but I didn’t really want to change the whole feel of the thing (re body horror) or make the ending either too sad or too bright. I want the character to have a future other than either loving life as a mansion monster or wasting away trapped in some insignificant object. Something that allows for progress if I ever picked this up again, or even just if their life goes on.

And one final thank you to @bogleech for making this challenge and in generally being Halloween inspiring year round.

Challenge First | Previous | Next Read On AO3

#31 day horror house #spooky #halloween #bogleech #writing #mine #31dhhd31 #31 day horror house day 31

[bluepenguinstories]

Happiness Overload Chapter Sixty-Four

I bobbed my head to and fro. Then I decided to practice my speech in front of the designated villain:

“So you have me in your sights. Nowhere for me to run. You can complete your goal, become all-powerful, and more than anything, be satisfied.”

“Something doesn’t feel right,” he muttered as if he were in a Tom Waits song. “I’m supposed to work for this. You’re just giving in.”

“Are you mad that I haven’t experienced the full extent of despair and hopelessness? But you should have known that me having Euphoria within me, that it would be impossible for me to feel anything other than happy.”

“That’s not it. I need to earn it.”

He spoke with such clarity as if all of his jumbled thoughts had been formed because during every moment of his existence, he longed for the one he found himself in.

“You have! You’ve worked very hard and your efforts should go rewarded! You should know, vore isn’t one of my fetishes, but I’m open to try new things.”

“Heh,” his smile once again rest plastered on his face, and I could make out a faint whiff of a chuckle. “It’s as if our personalities have reversed.”

“Not at all! I am, after all, the blank slate!”

“I don’t get it. I must have won. I already know you won’t try to resist. I’ve done everything up until this point and once I devour you and take your power, I can finally rest. But then...why does it feel like I’ve lost?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I almost wanted to shout with glee, but it wasn’t quite time yet.

“I’d say ‘sometimes you just gotta take that L’, but...it’s not really like that. As we speak, The Flashbulb is dissolving. They were an enemy of yours, weren’t they? And if not for the events which you orchestrated, their plans for this world wouldn’t have been foiled. So you won.”

In fact, seeing as things were about to end, I was more than a little curious how things were going back there now that I wasn’t able to support Velvet or any of the other friends I might have made along the way.

That was it, huh? Blanc was gone once again, and in their place was the reality of the situation: that things weren’t quite over yet. No, I already knew that. I was a fool to believe that things would be so easy. As soon as Blanc left, the fight was back on, with a glint of smugness in the eyes of the Flashbulb members. I knew I had to act, but I was still trying to process everything. My friend, gone once more. How many times has it been? Hell, it didn’t even matter. The impact was the same each time.

“Now that that’s out of the way, let’s go ahead and turn back time,” Dr. Humble declared, and that was the moment when I was broken from my trance. I jumped in front of the two Flashbulb members, and whether they were in charge of the whole operation or not didn’t matter much to me. In its own twisted way, it seemed like every member was equal measure all powerful and powerless against the other members. Less a check and balance and more two magnets in the same direction, unable to connect.

Look, the metaphor was better in my head.

Either way, I snatched it out from Dr. Humble’s grasp, and while Dr. Asparagus (or Modest. Potato, tomato. Same difference) tried to fight back and restrain me, I fought back and shoved my elbow into his stomach and stomped on his shoe. Both of them gasped now as I held their device in my hands, and I retreated back toward Coriander.

“What’s the deal?” Dr. Humble protested. How ironic, considering the position of power they held.

“You said yourself that you couldn’t turn back time until the ‘celestial’ or whatever you wanna call it this time is dies along with Earth!” I fired back at them. I didn’t know how to use their time travel device, nor did I care to. Perhaps if my endeavor proved fruitful, however eventual, Coriander and I could work together to find a new purpose for the device. As much as I didn’t want to fixate on it, there was a certain air that things were much less certain ever since Blanc departed.

“Please, that world of yours will come to an end whether we create a new timeline or not, so why not just start now?” Dr. Asparagus argued, his voice with the same smugness one would expect from a moldy piece of asparagus.

“I’ll be the one to decide that!” I declared, and maybe I didn’t have a reason to and maybe he was right, but damn it, this wasn’t just a battle over time preferences, but a battle over power.

When Coriander finally spoke, having been in the background the whole time, motionless, just as dazed as I was sure that I was, she sounded the least confident of all.

“What are we supposed to do now?” She asked. “I wanted to be able to return to the world.” She sounded like she was about to get choked up.

Now’s not the time to lose confidence, I wanted to tell her, but it wasn’t like I was any more hopeful.

“Velvet?” Her voice came in once more.

As soon as Coriander said that name, a screen popped up in the air with my likeness, as well as a series of writing.

“Ah, so that’s who you are,” Dr. Humble was now the one to sound smug. Quite a big deal of humblebragging, I’d say. “You’ve been a nuisance throughout your adult life, haven’t you? Governments have embellished stories of you, making you out to be some larger than life threat, when really, you’ve just spent much of your time with reckless impulses. All of your feats seem to be nothing more than lucky breaks. So insignificant to us, that when figured into the dangers of humanity, you’re not even a thought.”

Sheesh. You get your own Wikipedia page and all of a sudden everyone thinks they got you figured it out. Much of what that profile says about me could be applied to The Flashbulb themselves. Embellished? Check. Larger than life? Check. Nothing but lucky breaks? Also check.

“Is any of that wrong?” He asked me, as if he already thought himself correct.

“I mean, sure, I’ve definitely thought that way about myself,” I shrugged. Maybe it was the whole “nothing left to lose” attitude, but hearing such an amusing report gave me quite the ego boost. “People thinking I was some badass secret agent, when really, I just got where I was through a series of fuck ups. It could be that everything that has brought me here was due to countless lucky breaks, as well.”

They both laughed. I didn’t dare look through the corner of my eye, but I suspected there was a great fear and apprehension from my dear lover.

“I can’t believe this! We were scared over nothing! Nothing!” Both of the two men began to cackle, less like witches and more like they just discovered fire. An ever-widening crooked smile crept on Dr. Humble’s face as he spoke: “I’ll tell you two, hell, if Dr. Katsushika can hear us, I’ll tell that damned wild card as well! We as an organization are eternal! Countless others before you have tried to defeat us, all ending in utter failure to the point where we started to view having enemies as routine! And with that in mind, you thought you had a chance?”

True, they had an impressive track record against their opposition, but something about their speech of villainy just irked me.

“You’re right on that count, too,” I conceded. “We may not survive, either. Hell, I’m willing to bet our chances are slim to none.”

“Velvet!” Coriander scolded. Or maybe that’s what I interpreted from her tone. My head could be a real mess sometimes. But I knew why she would have scolded me, if that was the case. I mean, she didn’t want to die. Nor did I. Plus, it probably sounded to her like I was giving up or admitting defeat. Easy mistake to make, especially when I was less focused on communication and more focused on what should come next.

“That said, even with low chances like those, I’m still going to try and I’ll keep trying so long as I live. You’re probably thinking that all my luck has run out, but I have to ask: are you willing to test yours?”

Without so much as a reaction, Dr. Mumble (err...not Humble, but the other one) reached for one of the buttons on their console and spoke into it.

“Guards, dispose of these two intruders at the front.”

“Loud and clear,” a guard at the other end responded. At once, my heart both ceased to beat, for even just a second, and then it beat way too fast.

“It shouldn’t take them more than a few minutes to get here,” Dr. Microbe (like hell I was going to dignify that Flashbulb goon with their name) explained. “Especially with their numbers. You made a valiant effort, but when all is said and done, it won’t be so much as a footnote in a small section of our history.”

“How?” I balled my fists. They shook and I had to be careful not to crush the time travel device I held in my hand. It wasn’t like I knew how to use it, nor would I turn back time. As lucky as I may have been at times, I still preferred to do things on my own terms. “Popsigirl should have disabled all communications!”

“You’ll find that much like the code to Dr. Etna, much of our system constantly rewrites itself and corrects any errors along the way. Even if communication was temporarily cut off, it was never going to last long.”

Tenser than before, Coriander once again asked, “what do we do now, Velvet?”

I turned to her. As I did, I noticed something else. Call it keen eyesight, or potential for yet another lucky break, but I had to take any chance I could.

“I’m not going to ask you to trust me,” my words were just as shaky as hers had been. “Not when things are looking the way they are. But I will ask for you to check that wall next to you. If you find a panel, well, you know what to do.”

At first she gave me a baffled look, like “English, motherfucker!” But then she nodded.

“Are you sure?” She asked.

“You’re as capable a hacker as I.” While I knew her specialty was more hardware than software, there was a certain amount of blind faith that I had to employ. Not to say I doubted her abilities, but that I had my doubts that anything could have helped us at that point.

While Coriander got to work with visible frustration, it appeared that Humble and Modest (screw it, just this once) weren’t living up to their names.

“Even if you two manage to figure a way out of here, what then? Like always, the predator becomes the prey, and here you are, on the defensive,” one of them spoke. Did it matter which one? I sure as hell didn’t think so. “Even if we were to lose all of our members, we could just recruit new versions of those same people in another timeline! You could kill us right now, in fact, and so long as one of us lives to bring new members in, what can you do? You’re fighting a losing battle!”

Talk it up. Every second you guys waste running your mouths gives me that much more time.

“Got it!” Coriander declared. I turned to see an opening beside us. Hell, as soon as I saw that, I couldn’t help but show off a sly grin.

“Well, not to be as cliché as you guys have been, but as they say, ‘we’ll deal with you later!’”

I shoved the time travel device into my pocket and ran into the opening along with Coriander. As we did so, the wall closed behind us and the two of us were surrounded in darkness. I’ve spent many nights by her side with the lights off, so that moment seemed like nothing to me.

“Good job, bae,” I put my thumbs up. Being as dark as it was, I had to be careful not to stick my thumb up her nose on accident.

“I’m surprised I managed to figure out something, I mean, it was tricky and even then, if we hesitated even just a second more, it might have closed on us.”

“Ugh,” I felt nauseous with what I was about to say next.

“What?”

“It really is the case that every second counts,” I said, just as I knew I would. Oh, the cliché. Oh, the disgust that was mediocre dialogue.

“Oh yeah. Gross,” she dismissed. “I think we’ve got more on our plate than rhetoric.”

We continued to move forward as we spoke. Any second, those guards would enter the room, and I was sure that both her and I knew that it would only take an instant on their end for that same wall to open up for them. We had to be on the move and figure out a strategy. I was aware of the real possibility that they could hear and catch every word we said, but I think our greatest asset was that we didn’t really know what we were going to do next. Really kept them on their toes.

“We can’t return to the world we knew,” her worries spilled forth. “It will still end, regardless of what we do. We can’t even get rid of the angel without having the world be destroyed in the process. I can’t stop thinking about this. How there’s nothing we could do. Bitterly, I already knew that, but I wanted so bad to believe there was a solution where we could reverse course and come out victorious. So what now?”

I gulped. My, how easy it was to give in to despair. I didn’t think she was quite there yet, but I wouldn’t have blamed her if she was.

“It’s easy,” I spoke up, at last thinking that I had an answer. “I know we didn’t get the most satisfying outcome, so now we try for the next best thing.”

I couldn’t tell whether she nodded in agreement, or if my words didn’t inspire much confidence, as with the total darkness, there was any number of ways one could interpret silence. Regardless, we continued to move forward.

We were on our way to bear the bad news when we both heard the announcement. It meant nothing to me, but it shook Dr. Hepburn to her core. She did a little jig, then turned to me and began poking my shoulders with such intensity and I was left wondering why I kept letting her.

“Hey. Psst! Hey.”

“Yes, HR lady?” I smiled. I couldn’t help but imagine that if I were in her position, I’d act the same way.

“You know that feeling when you go around giving people false hope but then you find out that hope is even more false than you realized?”

I shook my head.

“That’s how you’re feeling right now, huh?” I replied.

“Yeah!” She pumped her fists. “Everyone wants to be Grandmaster Flash, but there is no Grandmaster Flash, so everyone’s been vying for a false position at a false top!”

“Right, and I only like true tops,” I joked.

“Sorry,” she looked down and shook her head. “I’m not a fan of hierarchy. In fact, in some ways, this is quite a relief to me.”

“How so?”

“Because now everyone’s morale will be shifted from super low to super high...in your guys’ favor! They’re probably all pissed right now, like they’ve been cheated! Well, the ones who weren’t driven to despair, anyway.”

“Hmm...that’s one way to look at it, I suppose,” I wasn’t sure if that’s how things worked with people, but it seemed like a possibility.

“You know, I was always rooting for you guys,” she snapped her fingers.

“You were?”

“Well, once it turned out you guys were winning, anyway. If you guys were on the losing end of things, I’d be like ‘I wish they’d protest in a way that didn’t affect us’.”

“Gee, thanks,” I scoffed.

“Don’t mention it!” She held her thumb up and grinned.

Soon we entered a room and Dr. Hepburn had me sit next to her as she addressed a group.

“Greetings, I hope all of you in the Design Department are well,” she began. “I regret to inform you that going forward, your department will be laid off. The Flashbulb wishes you all the best in your future endeavors.”

All around the room were blank stares. I’m pretty sure I could be counted as one of those blank stares.

“All right, Hepburn. Cut the bullshit,” one member finally spoke up. Some gruff guy with a gray pompadour haircut.

“No, no, she’s serious,” I waved my hands out. That proved to be a mistake as the guy turned his attention toward me.

“First of all, no she isn’t. Everyone knows none of us get fired or laid off here. We’re stuck here ‘til the day we die, which usually entails us getting killed by someone. Second, who are you?”

Before I could answer, Dr. Hepburn tapped her pen away at her clipboard until his attention turned toward her instead, to which she took over.

“She is my auntie assistant,” she explained.

“What kind of sick roleplay…” I heard him muttered. I wanted to defend myself and go, “It’s not sick! It’s perfectly healthy!” But why would I when it wasn’t even roleplay?

“Anyway, I don’t know why you’re wasting your time with such an excuse when we already know the big secret. Hell, now that the cat’s out of the bag, a big lot of us are asking ourselves, ‘what was ever the point?’ I mean, the obvious point should have been, ‘to help each other improve one another’, but with this sham of a competition, it’s clear we’ve not really been a help to anyone, let alone ourselves.”

Hepburn’s tapping continued with such a frenzied intensity that I imagined she would make a great drummer, if she wasn’t already one to begin with. Maybe if I got the chance, I could convince her to take up the drums. But then maybe she wouldn’t be into that sort of thing. It’s the thought that counts, anyway, right?

Then the tapping stopped and she smiled a big smile.

“Good! Now you know why you’re being laid off!”

“Oh for crying out loud!” He got up from his chair and flew into a rage.

“Anyway, now that you’re no longer with the company, wanna burn it down?” Dr. Hepburn suggested.

He froze in place.

“You know what? Yeah. I do. I’m sick of all the micromanaging and the way every department can’t seem to help but do more harm than good. Worse, I’m sick of hearing ‘Grandmaster Flash told you to’ when no, no they didn’t. That’s just an excuse to make me do something you didn’t want to do.”

I was glad he seemed to be on our side. Now there was just the matter of the rest of the Design Department…

I shot my hand up.

“Hey, is there someone here named Dr. Oz?” I looked around and asked. One of the members, a sheepish looking young man with mutton chops and a wool sweater turned to me.

“That me,” he bleated. I couldn’t help myself, I was beaming at the prospect that I could be a matchmaker.

“I met Dr. Phil!”

His eyes widened, like he had just seen a wolf. Jeez, I didn’t mean to put him on the spot like he was some sacrificial lamb.

“Did he say anything abaa-t me?”

“Yeah! He said that he thinks it would be great if you two worked together to rally up more departments! He said his department’s sick of this shithole and he bet he isn’t the only one!

“Did he really say that?” The pompadour guy interrupted, ever the skeptic.

He said some of those things. Look, I’m improvising here.

“Sure did! Who are you, anyway?”

He grunted. “I’m Dr. Toto. What about you? No more games, either.”

I bless the rains down the yellow brick road – no, now’s not the time for that. I have to think of how to answer. Probably not a good idea to make something up, but what else can I say?

“Dr. Hepburn, go ahead and tell them the truth. I’m still a little shy,” I tugged on her sleeve.

She looked down and smiled. She must have known just what to say.

“The truth is, Juniper is best girl.”

I just about fell back in my chair. I was rooting for you, Dr. Hepburn! We were all rooting for you! “Back in her original timeline, there was a contest all around the vote all around the world, and it was decided at the end that she was best girl. The company caught wind of this and just had to find out what all the hype was about, and so she was brought here. There was a raffle in the cafeteria with the grand prize being to meet her. Needless to say, I won.”

That had to be the among the top ten most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.

“Yeah, okay. Seems legit,” Dr. Toto grunted as he nodded.

There were two other members of the Design department, one of which had long, flowing fuchsia hair, and the other had short, iridescent indigo hair. Both of them were pretty, but if I had to choose one over the other...no. That wasn’t what I was there for.

The one with fuchsia hair turned to me.

“How did you do it? Become best girl?” Fuchsia’s voice was soft and soothing.

Way to put me on the spot, Hepburn.

“By starting a revolution!” I declared. Hey, if Dr. Hepburn was going to make a bold claim, so was I.

“Cheers, sis, I’ll fucking drink to that,” Indigo added, and if Fuchsia’s voice was beautiful, then Indigo’s voice was hot, with the way it was husky and self-assured. Still, I didn’t mean to compare the two.

“Anyway, we gotta get a move on and lay more people off. If you guys can work on getting the word out, we should at least have a few more departments on our side,” I explained. Dr. Hepburn gave me a pat on the head.

“You did well as an auntie assistant,” she told me.

“Thanks,” I blushed, though really I didn’t want my hair messed with.

As we left the room, we heard the siren call of an alarm.

“The guards…” I heard her mutter, and before I could react, she took me by the hand and we ran.

Well, wasn’t that just swell?

I mean, I should have expected it, really. If it happened just as planned, then I wouldn’t have found it to be such a masterpiece, just a simple work of art, instead. So revise, improvise. After all, you couldn’t spell painting without ‘pain’ and you couldn’t spell drawing without ‘aw’ and without a doubt, you couldn’t spell revolution without ‘vore’.

Once the alarms outside of my head went off, the alarms inside my head did as well.

Soon, I could hear the click-clack approaching the door to the command room I was in. Which command room? Did it matter? Why did we have so many command rooms? Beats me, but I was sure going to miss this place once it was all over. Which, ‘over’ was just an anagram of ‘vore’. I felt that was worth pointing out.

“Wah! Ha! Ha!” I let out a proud laughter as the door to was busted down and fine chiseled armored specimen stormed in with their suits of shiny metal and their heavy weapons. Each of them fell before they could even pull their itty bitty triggers. Turns out I was right to hold on to Cilantro’s laser backpack. That thing could pack a PUNCH with a capital ‘UNCH’.

As the three guards lay on the ground, I stood over them in triumph and announced:

“It’s just like the tools of the ruling class to be anti-creator. Well I’m here to tell you that I’m pro-creator, and I plan to procreate for as long as I live!”

I couldn’t just stand there over them, as much as that would have made for a fine work of art, as I wasn’t quite sure if they were dead. Yes, I could have fired another shot or three, just to make sure, but there was a beauty in the uncertainty of it all that I just had to relish in. I sniffed the air, which mostly smelled of the smoke produced from that laser blast.

“I was really hoping to catch the whiff of a charred corpse,” I sighed with disappointment. That mood didn’t last, and soon I was back on the drawing board. “Anyway! As they say in Spain, Seeyanara!”

If my calculations were correct (and while some may have thought calculus not to be my strong suit, they would be wrong, as not only was I not good at calculus, but calculating was an art, so being good or not was irrelevant) then Velvet and Lil C should be close. Good! I could return the cute backpack to its rightful owner.

We were still alive, but at a disadvantage. Sure, I could hack into stuff as well, although if someone were to ask me, Velvet was still better in that department. She could roll with the punches and think fast on her feet. Me? I needed total concentration.

At the moment, as we moved forward in pure darkness, concentration was the one thing I did NOT have. It’s not like I wanted to admit it, but it was the reality we were in: at any moment, the walls we found ourselves between would be blasted open and the two of us, shot down. It got me thinking about what our impact would have been. The “close, but not cigar” in terms of success stories of those who went against The Flashbulb? The little clone that could, until she didn’t? It’s not like I cared how I was remembered, if I was remembered at all, I just expected a little more.

Well, my worst fear came true: in front of us, a blast tore through the walls and we both jumped back.

We’re gonna get raided and we’re gonna get shot down without so much as a fight and we aren’t going to have any romantic last words between us it’s just going to be violent and bloody and –

Instead of an army of guards, only one figure entered, one who I wished I didn’t have to see again so soon: that mad artist.

“Smart thinking, you two! Making out while the enemy’s looking for you!” Were her first words upon us meeting, and I was not amused. In fact, I’m pretty sure I growled without so much as a word.

“Ha. I wish,” Velvet joked back, though by now I could tell that was just how Velvet acted when she was tense.

“Anyway, you two should get out of there. Don’t worry, I took care of the guards that were after you. Though there’s going to be a buttload more.”

“Is that the scientific term or…?” Velvet shot back.

Disregarding the useless small talk, we walked forward, through the new hole that was formed. Velvet first, me just behind her. There was no way I was going to trust that popsicle stick lover. Then again, she hurt Velvet before, too. Ugh. Just the thought of either of our wounds was enough to send shivers.

Light illuminated us (get it? Because...oh, who gives a shit?) as we stepped out. I still wanted to keep as much distance from that...you know. I selfishly wished that Velvet would do the same.

“Jeez, I can’t believe you guys didn’t defeat the bad guys yet? How hard could it be?” You-know-who (or you don’t, and if you don’t, lucky you) began questioning. Although not quite accusatory and more playful in tone.

“Gee, I don’t know. Army of guards, code that self-corrects, time travel devices, the list goes on,” Velvet was incensed, no longer playing around.

I didn’t look that artsy fartsy helper in the eye, but I was still compelled to speak up.

“I-It’s not just that!” My fists were balled. We didn’t have time to stand around and argue, but dammit, someone had to set the record straight gay. “So long as one Flashbulb members wishes to stay in power, then we may as well consider the whole thing a loss! They can always go back in time! This is the problem with the organization as a whole! Those guards may as well be members too, because even if they aren’t official members, they have a vested interest in killing anyone who threatens their power! What’s to stop them from forming a new Flashbulb? We can’t just go 75%!”

I began to huff and puff. Hyperventilate. Even though I didn’t see her face, as I refused to, I could just tell that she smiled in return.

“I see your point, and that’s why I’m saying, it’s easy to beat them! You just gotta send them back to their own time and leave them nothing in their possession! I don’t see what’s so hard about that!”

I didn’t give her a reply. I never wanted to speak to her, or around her again in the first place. But I spoke once and that was already too much.

“Now, this is a big organization, so there’s bound to be plenty of departments that don’t care about the lack of a Grandmaster Flash. In fact, they might have been elated when they heard that! You guys will probably have to deal with them. Well, you guys, or the ones who defect. I suspect there’s been a few departments who have been unhappy with this company for a while now, and probably want to tear the whole thing down. So you got that going for you.”

I heard every word, but none of them meant anything to me. Maybe they held significance, but I just let them flow in and out.

“I’ll be real with you guys, you’ll probably still need to kill some guards, unless you can strip them naked and send them flying to some deserted island. Either way, their bodies will have to go somewhere. I’m going to go help out these other departments who are on your side! I’ll be sending plenty of doctorates flying home!”

I looked down and noticed Velvet reach into her pocket and pull out the time travel device that she stole from Dr. Humble.

“I see what you’re saying, but I don’t even know how to use this thing,” she must have pointed to said device as she told Dr. Popsicle.

“Well gee, I’d help you figure it out, but I can already tell there’s more guards approaching.”

That was weird. I didn’t hear any. But then, I heard a little tap-tap sound in the back of my mind, and that could have been them in the distance.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You’re good at figuring things out under pressure. In fact, you should go back in that room you were in and kick those two men out.”

“Really? After we just left with our lives?” Velvet interrupted.

“What better way to practice a craft? As for you, Coriander…” Popsigirl spoke, and I felt like screaming for her not to say my name, but instead I said nothing. “I’ve come to return your backpack.”

I didn’t take it. Instead, Velvet took it and handed it to me. For what seemed like an eternity, I stood in place. Then, arms wrapped around me, the familiar arms that I’ve felt many times before, and I looked up.

“I get it,” Velvet whispered while still in her arms. “She’s gone now. You’re safe.”

“Right,” I nodded. “Let’s just go back there and show those two what’s what.”

At least if Twee-humble and Twee-modest wanted to put up a fight, I could fire my lasers. So for their sake, they should have played nice if they knew what was good for them.

In all my years, I never understood the hype with Audrey. Katharine, however, she was worth all the hype and then some. Really, where was the Katharine fandom when you needed them? If they wouldn’t show up, I would just have to be Special K.

Okay? Okay. Focus. OK? Right. Rikki-tikki...tic-tactile.

My auntie (no relation) assistant, Dr. Not-a-Doctor Juniper was right beside me as someone who just happened to be right beside me. Where were we? I think we were in hiding. In a closet or a broom room. Something about guns and guards and not wanting to die. That sounded about right.

“You look scared!” Junie B. Jones commented. Really, I heard that name somewhere before. Probably in a newspaper somewhere during some time period.

“I’m more than scared,” I assured her. “They probably don’t like traitors, just like they don’t like intruders.

“Well...that makes sense, I guess,” she gave it some thought. “I’ll be honest, I wish I had some kind of plan. I thought things were going pretty well back there with the Design Department, but now I’m losing hope again.”

“I know what you mean. It’s like a civil war here. Flashbulb vs. Flashbulb. It’s like we’re trying to pin each other down, but neither of us wants to be underneath the other.”

“...Did you have to phrase it that way?” She sounded concerned. I didn’t understand, and more than that, I didn’t think there was any other way to phrase it. It was just the reality of the situation.

Even in the darkened room, I could tell Juniper was sullen.

“The truth is...it seems like everyone’s doing their part, but I feel like I haven’t really done anything.”

“Don’t think of it that way! You came up with suggestions that probably wouldn’t have been implemented! I can tell you have a desire to help others, and sometimes that desire is good enough!”

“Gee, that’s real nice of you to say, but…” she looked away. “Is that really enough?”

I shrugged. “Who knows, but sometimes it is, so maybe one of these days, it will be!”

I pressed my ear against the door. From the sound of things, it seemed like all the commotion died down. Though the alarm kept sounding, there was nary a threatening aura to be heard.

I opened the door.

“I think we’re safe for now,” I told her.

Then, as if I just tempted fate (which hey, if I did, that’s pretty cool, I mean, it would have been bad for us, but it would also be just like one of those ironic lines in a movie), other faces met ours.

“Dr. Phil?” Juniper noticed one such face. Some chubbyish guy who looked ready to hit the hay. That was, until he smiled a big smile and right next to a human-shaped hay pile was Dr. Oz.

“Hey! Dr. Juniper! Look! Dr. Oz and I are a couple now!”

Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz shared a passionate kiss and everyone in the Marketing and Design department cheered.

“Don’t worry, I’m not a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Dr. Oz reassured us. “In fact, Dr. Phil and I have been spreading the word, just like you suggested, Juniper! We’ve got the Agriculture, the Housing, and the Clothing Department coming over to help us with possibly others on the way!”

Juniper smiled and I thought I saw a tear roll down her cheek, but she wiped it away, whatever it was she wiped away.

“I’m glad for you guys. I’m glad to have made some friends, even when I thought I’d make enemies and be scared for my life.”

I watched as those two departments and Juniper shared a hug with one another. Meanwhile, I had a No. 1 pencil in my mouth (a rarity. Most of them had been eked out of existence in favor of the inferior No. 2).

“Yeah, yeah, soak it in,” Dr. Toto cut the heartwarming moment short with a cross of his arms. “But we still gotta deal with those guards, as well as the departments that don’t want to defect.”

“Right. Good thing Dr. Glinda and I have constructed a shield to block any artillery,” Dr. Ozma declared.

“Dr. Glinda?” Juniper asked.

I pointed my tender pencil at the member of the design department with fuchsia hair.

“Oh! Fuchsia! So who is indigo?”

I wanted to burst into laughter. I never thought to call Dr. Ozma ‘Indigo’ before. I couldn’t help but think, “my name is Indigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to –” but I didn’t know where I was going with that.

“That’s Dr. ozma, Junebug.”

“Oh! Junebug! That’s a cute nickname!” Juniper grinned. With much brighter spirits, we charged on. I thought to let everyone know that it seemed like none of us had a clue where we were going, but I kept my mouth shut because nobody liked a buzzkill.

Anyway, things seemed to be going pretty fine and dandy. Some guards rushed in and after warning us to go back to our departments. Dr. Glinda and Dr. Ozma raised the protective barrier around the two groups. The next logical thing was the guards opening fire, but after their artillery was depleted, Juniper seemed to gain a new set of confidence and declared:

“We have gay and anime on our side!”

Those same guards ran up to us and tried to break the shield down by bashing their weapons against the shield. It seemed like that was actually working as I noticed our shield start to break. But before it broke fully, each of the guards fell to the ground. Dr. Toto looked confused, but once everyone saw who had taken the guards down, we all froze in fear: the dreaded Dr. Katsushika stood, with several giant marionette dolls beside her.

“Who let her out of her cage?” Dr. Glinda asked as she trembled.

“Coming out of my cage and I’ve been...doing...just…” Juniper muttered, her teeth chattered. Must have been a nervous tick of hers. Cute.

“Nice revolution you have there. Shame if something were to happen to it,” Dr. Katsushika grinned. We all got ready to scream and run, until that same artist laughed. “I’m just messing with you guys! I’m on your side! Let’s go!”

Relieved, we followed behind her. I recall Juniper asked Dr. Katsushika something like, “why’s everyone so scared of you?”

To which Dr. Katsushika replied, “People tend to think I’m evil, that’s all.”

“Aw, I’m sure you’re not that bad. You’re probably just misunderstood.”

“Right!” Dr. Katsushika agreed. “Just give me five, no, ten years, and I’ll be a full-fledged artist!”

It was really nice to see everyone come together, even if it was for the purpose of making us all break apart. Would our organization really be no more? And if so, what would that make me, then? That thought was fraught with a frailty I couldn’t fathom. Some eternal entity, falling. I hoped at least one of us could see the end, if not me, but for the moment, I chose to close my eyes and wait for whatever outcome.

Two figures sitting. Both of us humanoid. Both of us eager for it all to end. Neither of us human. Well, one may be, but at times I knew better. Then at times I knew worse. Even to the bitter end, I couldn’t keep myself consistent.

“I never really cared whether The Flashbulb was defeated or not,” I said once I managed a split hair of clarity. “I always considered them too easy a target. Anger was fine, but anger wouldn’t last me. My true frustration was finding something that would.”

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, or none of the above, looked down on me. Not with pity, not in contempt, but just because they sat on a rock while I sat on a flat surface.

“Is it frustrating?”

“I can’t...be happy...if I don’t find something...that will last me...until death...but...being immortal...makes things...all that more...difficult.”

I didn’t need to space out all of those words. I think I just wanted to for dramatic effect.

“I see, then!” That bright light beamed.

I couldn’t help but smile, even after everything that happened. All that I caused, and all that I didn’t. What I let happen and what I perpetuated. I still never found what I thought to be happiness. Soon, even the dissatisfaction would be gone.

#happiness overload #penultimate chapter #woo #writing #scifi #action #drama #comedy #reference overload #fiction #stories

[sicklyscribe]

hey so if you wanna hit me with that sweet sweet elijah’s characterization meta anytime please feel free. or direct me to any previous posts because my dumb ass is using this time to re-obsess over vampire melodrama.....

It appears that most of my non-tag and non-petty-casual commentary is still in drafts... so instead of finishing the ‘What the hell is wrong with season 4: an itemized list’ meta and finishing answering the ‘What would you change if you could rewrite any of the show?’ ask from a while ago, I’ll just pick out the Elijah bits and add on to them for garnish. (Those posts might exist at some point. But honestly not soon enough for me to worry about people getting annoyed with copy/paste so PREVIEW TIME: ELIJAH FLAVOR)

This is way sloppier and un-cited than I usually meta, by the way, but what the hell, The Fandom is Dead and I Only Have Friends to Entertain Now, so if anyone gets angry and tries to step into my asks then it’ll just be nostalgic rather than annoying.  Here’s the starter, which is from the F*CK YOU SEASON 4 meta and quite a few of these points will be repeated later because you asked for it technically so.

The cracks in the narrative began to show as early as season two, and believe me when I say I’m not saying this because I love him - it began with Elijah. I can make a lot of arguments to this effect, but the only one that I am certain is not propelled by my very strong bias concerns the presentation of the Red Door.

Initially, I was ecstatic at the opportunity to explore Elijah’s past, his perspective, his darkest moments. I was a bit wary in that it seemed as though the narrative wanted to Explain Everything about Elijah through this device, but he was finally getting some attention so I tried to hold back judgement.The result was pretty promising. One of the most gorgeous moments on the show occurs when Klaus enters Elijah’s mind and tells him how much he needs him. It showcases the main pillar of the show - the structural trifecta of Hope, Klaus, and Elijah. And afterwards, as usual, Elijah pushes the experience away.Until it’s convenient. 

Elijah begins to be erratically vicious. At first, I felt as though it wasn’t handled poorly, I could explain away my worries easily, and that was all I needed. But it happens over, and over, and over again, with the same excuse - protecting the family, protecting Hope. Elijah’s triggers, once so crucial, begin to break down, but we don’t see why or how that process occurs. He begins to be the character that is level-headed when it is convenient, and a violent one-track-mind when it’s convenient. Eventually, in order to maintain balanced tension with a softening Klaus, Elijah became violent without nuance in every situation. His continued development is no longer possible, since his character no longer displays depth.

Which is annoying, as a fan. But as a person who loves to analyze narrative, it’s a huge red flag. Elijah is necessary for this story. His love for Klaus, and Klaus’ relationship with him, is one of the things that holds the narrative together as it goes forward. The two of them need each other in order to experience growth, but cannot grow from each other any longer - and that friction is what provides energy and substance that can help drive a multi-year melodrama. This is why I mentioned above that Elijah’s violence was likely intended to balance with Klaus’ changing heart - but there is no balance in the level of development the two brothers experience. It has been shoddy in many places, but attention has been given to Klaus’ journey towards peace and kindness, while Elijah has been given a single metaphor, a single psychosis, and is expected to carry half of the narrative weight. The story has no choice but to make a plot device out of him - he simply does not have the required depth to be anything else, which is made obvious by the attempt to do so in the ritual to bring Inadu to the material plane, which I will discuss later.

When his development is ignored, when he is used as a tool to get from point A to point B time and time again - that’s when the pillar starts to crumble.

Zooming back in on s1, this was actually my only major structural gripe with season 1, so it comprises the entirety of the ‘what would you change’ for that season:

The poison that rotted the whole dang show started very small — casting Elijah too strongly as a white hat, to offset the darkness of the rest of the main family. This was the right move, of course, but it was pushed a twinge too far and it was the tiny weight that set everything wobbling. As an offshoot of that, this was also done with Hayley to a degree. I would have had them bond very similarly to the way they do in the show, but I would have had them connect at least once over the skeletons in their closets. (Only once or twice, again, since their ship relied in this season on the fallacy of each other being saviors). In fact, this was one I felt so strongly about that I actually did rewrite their scene in 1x07 ‘Bloodletting’.

Then season two when it gets more pronounced: 

The rift in the show widened with the swing-and-miss that was The Red Door arc. Elijah became a Problem when it was convenient for the plot and A Fixer/Sounding Board when it was not. They used probably the most INTERESTING and INTEGRAL part of his characterization -- which had been a mystery for YEARS counting The Vampire Diaries appearances -- and Elijah discovering that either from trauma or his mother’s magic, he has repressed the moments which forged him. This lack of knowledge, this lack of control, should have been something much more cataclysmic and its effects should be clear when comparing ‘Elijah Before’ to ‘Elijah After’. Instead, it kind of served to take off Elijah’s ‘White Hat’ that he’d been illy-fitted with in S1, and allow him to accessorize with it or whatever version of Elijah fits the episode at hand.

This tension, and this chaos should have been much stronger and much more messy than simply putting the Suit back on and being Pretty Much Okay (barring one plot-insignificant diner massacre) only a few episodes later. It would make the therapy scene later with Camille even more gorgeous than it already is and it would then place Elijah’s moment of catharsis, and the beginning of his attempts to move on, with Klaus’ monumental forgiveness in 2x11. I think this is what was intended, but it was not at all achieved, because Elijah is such a tricky character to write, and it is so very easy to use him for whatever the scene requires. Because of this, Elijah’s struggles got dropped just long enough for Klaus’ forgiveness to hit powerfully in viewers for Klaus, but not for Elijah. The writing began to lean on Elijah as a Drama Everyman more and more throughout the show, and it’s just tragic to me that The Red Door wasn’t utilized to its potential. (And that we didn’t have a Klaus/Tatia conversation, but hey, I have an unfinished fixit for that whole saga on Ao3, you’re welcome and I’m sorry).

In season three, we got a few good glimpses of the kind of complexity that Elijah should live in -- the way he kills Arianne, for example, I’ve linked what I called a ‘headcanon’ but in retrospect it was pretty explicitly canon -- and we see the youth and terror and involuntary power in him in the flashback where he discovers that Klaus killed their mother. But the relationship between Tristan and Elijah? The man that he made, and that made him? That was far too pedestrian to have produced either of them. If Elijah learned ‘nobility’ from Tristan, learned what ‘superiority’ looked like, and this was the time that he began to change... we should have had words between them, or a scene highlighting just them, at least once in the flashbacks. 

If this season was supposed to be about the creation of the Trinity, the First Children (because Finn didn’t tell no one that Sage is actually the oldest ‘cuz he’s an ashamed little bitch) why did we see only TWO of the THREE transformations? Klaus turned Lucien accidentally, trying to heal him. Rebekah’s sympathy and love were used as Aurora’s tool to turn herself. When and how did Elijah turn Tristan? It is explained that Elijah turned him in order to create a third vampire for his plot to trick Mikael into chasing them instead -- it is explained that Tristan, Aurora, and Lucien were compelled to believe that they were in fact Elijah, Rebekah, and Klaus in order to make their decoy impeccable. But when this compulsion was shattered -- when Lucien learned that he had been used and made monstrous as a tool for a monster who wasn’t even noble -- did he confront Elijah? Did they ever speak, or was their next meeting the day Elijah learned that Tristan had taken over Elijah’s coven? I would argue that Elijah needed equal weight in the France flashbacks even though he didn’t have a flashy romance (though if early press release rumors were true, he and Tristan could have had one and that would have been perfect) 

Season four is really where you can pick an episode and Elijah will put on the stage makeup and play any part. It’s also -- BIG COINCIDENCE -- where the plot deteriorates completely. Here’s just one example from my Excuse You What the Hell? Season Four meta: 

On to the next moment that showed major neglect (I know this has been Elijah-heavy so far, but again, this is where the problem started so I want to carry this thread through for a while before addressing other issues) - the ritual to bring Inadu to the mortal realm. The purpose of this ritual was to scare viewers with the risk of Hope’s safety and hype the Hollow’s “bad”ness, but also to make the first move in the ‘Letting Go’ thread between Hayley and Elijah. Elijah was supposed to be forced to choose between children's lives and letting the Hollow loose upon the world, and decide to kill the children. That was the dramatic point of placing this ritual in the narrative, but it isn’t mechanically sound.

It is stated outright that the ritual has to end with the death of the children linked to the spell. The children were linked via their totems found in 4x03 - placing Hope definitively in this group.

But we only ever see four of the five in one place. Maybe it was worth it to the Hollow to reach as far out as Hope was to bind her via her hairbrush, maybe it was worth it to the Hollow to drain her from afar, I’d buy that easily. But they made no attempt to kidnap her and place her with the other four children during the ritual. The ritual that required the deaths of five children. Unless it required Hope to be there only on standby, which is absolutely ridiculous. They had the kids on an alter, even if it was just for show. But why not all of them? If the real goal of the ritual was to lure Klaus and/or Marcel, wouldn’t kidnapping Klaus’ child be a more surefire way to accomplish that rather than just hoping the Mikaelsons would come to the right mystical diagnosis in time?

The reason why Hope wasn’t there was because the ritual was never thought through. The reason she wasn’t there is because it didn’t make sense for Elijah to want to kill Hope to stop the Hollow, which is what this ritual actually demanded if it actually worked the way Vincent claimed. In actuality, all that was desired was for Elijah to display a willingness to kill innocents in front of Hayley, and in doing so it demanded that Hope’s life both be at stake and not at stake at all. This failure to coherently execute a single-episode arc is plainly poor storytelling. It displays not only disrespect to the narrative structure, but a blatant flippancy towards one of their main characters and arguably the most complex one on the series. The sloppily contrived tension here between Hayley and Elijah does eventually contribute to the supposed theme, yes, but at what cost?

Elijah was neglected because he was hard to write, and even harder to write well as a ‘light’ foil to Klaus. Marcel should have fully owned that role, and not been similarly jerked around as a plot-serving every-man once the mystery of season 1 and the reasons behind Marcel’s ‘senseless’ cruelty were revealed. 

Elijah was always the cornerstone of the family’s narrative, because he was complex enough to carry it. Camille provided an additional column of support to Klaus’ individual journey as a person/father, but she was bulldozed for Allmighty Plot as well. By the end of season three, both she and Elijah had effectively been thrown in the garbage one way or another, and the show tried to go on without them. It couldn’t. 

I will say that Elijah’s conversation with Hope in that ludicrous backdoor pilot did make me feel things. I did also see the clip where Elijah and Klaus have a heart-to-heart in some sort of european flashback, which was touching, but felt incongruous for their relationship/dev at the time. Hope asking Elijah how old he was when he made his promises to Klaus, though? Elijah offering carte blanche to Hope for how to punish her friend’s bullies? TWO OF THE THREE SCENES INVOLVING ICE CREAM? 

SOME of season 5 is valid but ONLY because it stole scripts from my headcanons.

#anamysis #preview of some metas in progress #hey guys does anyone here want to talk about ELIJAH? #*pepe silvia voice* #Anonymous #asks

[snarkomancy]

Night Without End

                                                                 @suresaint​

“A ghost can be a lot of things. A memory, a daydream, a secret.”

“You speak true. A ghost can be all of those, and many more.” A shiver runs down her spine, a profound sense of discomfort at the sense of loss she feels against her will.

Philippa runs her fingers through her hair, separating curls, pulling sharply at knots and tangles. A small discomfort to ground herself in. The moon is bright and full above a sea so calm that it is almost like a mirror, its reflection so flawless, so perfect, one could easily mistake it for the real thing. Somewhere above, a nightbird cries out, its voice like the edge of a knife.

Philippa looks straight ahead, focussing on something in the distant dark that may or may not be real, straight-backed and regal – no, tense.

“We all have our ghosts, Zelda. But after all is said and done, it’s up to us to decide whether or not we allow ourselves to be haunted.”   

There’s a trembling in her chest which feels oddly like brewing laughter, but it feels so weird, so out of place and unfamiliar, that she places a hand to her ribs and holds herself until the involuntary fit subsides. A few faint lines crease the middle of her brows and she puckers her lips to keep from grimacing, sitting in the sand beside Philippa. She thinks she has as much control over her body and its emotions as one has over nature sometimes. There’s no way of knowing what’s to come, or directing it. Storms come and go as they like.

 “Not all ghosts are malevolent. And some of mine keep me company…” 

Old, sweet memories of her years at Kaer Morhen. But more often than not it’s a wish, or a day dream. Often times the only companion she has are her thoughts and fantasies. But she finds the more she lives in them, the lonelier she feels out here, in the real world. Brothels quenched a desire which only ran skin deep, but they could not touch her anywhere other than her flesh. And monsters? The only thrill she got from them was knowing that this could be her last fight. She could die, and being made aware of her own mortality gave her a momentary flare for life, a revival of a fire inside of her, if only until the threat was dealt with. 

“Are you haunted, then? Philippa?” 

The sorceress lifts her left hand, her mind reaching out to tug on the silverbright strands of power that glimmer, half-hidden, in the unseen portion of the world. This is a busy place, many threads running together, intersecting and branching off again, complete and utter chaos and at the same time a perfect balance.

The sand begins to dance under her gesture, moving out of its own accord, forming walls and towers, roofs and balconies. A perfect reflection of the keep of Kaer Morhen as she gleans it from Zelda’s mind. Philippa smiles softly, visibly pleased with her handiwork, enjoying herself in the process of creation, of seeing things come together, a whole made up out of millions and millions of tiny pieces.

Just grains of sand. That’s all we are, too, in the grand scheme of things. Nothing but grains of sand.

“What was that? Oh.”

The question tears her from her reverie, and she is grateful for it – there is nothing that puts her on edge like the threat of insignificance. She wants to be more than just a tiny piece in a gigantic puzzle, she has to be more.

The nightbird calls again, a little closer this time.

“I could be, if I allowed it. But I do not. Benevolent or not, I have no time for things that dwell in the past. I much prefer to keep my eyes fixed on the future. Why fawn over memories when you could look to opportunities instead? Trust me, Zelda – what is dead is dead, it’s dead for a reason and nothing good ever comes from trying to drag it back.”   

For a time, her memory of kaer morhen seems all the brighter. It appears in her mind more vivid than it has done so in a long time. If she was to close her eyes and breathe in, she would even be able to hear the way the wind used to pass through the tall trees, and the birds as they sang, and how it had always smelt faintly of sweet berries and honeysuckle, or sometimes of firewood as it was piled and burning in the courtyard below. It had smelt of home, and she had not smelt anything like it since. It is nice, getting the opportunity to sit there, beside Philippa, and have those fond memories play through her mind for a little while. Eventually, however, it all trickles away with the tide.

“I kill monsters for a pittance and spend it on food and women. I don’t see any greater opportunity in my work, unless you know of another way I can put my skills to use.” 

In another life she would have made a perfect negotiator, owing to a skilled tongue, which she seems to have had since she was young. It is sometimes impressive how persuasive she is, and whilst she can be almost insufferable to be around sometimes, there are few who hate her; those who had in the past now tolerate her, or even find themselves being endeared to her. Maybe she would have made a good sorceress. She entertains it.

“A woman once said I would make a great queen.” She muses, half amused by the idea of herself on a throne with a crown on her head. “Granted, I think she was only saying that in an attempt to get more coins out of me. But it was nice nonetheless.” With a careless shrug, she buries her palms into the sand and leans back on them, looking at the sorceress with a subtle thoughtful furrow to her brow. Then, a loose smile. “Perhaps I’d ask for you as my mage, if I had a gold crown on my head. How about that?” 

“You’d suit a crown, if I am to be perfectly candid. Something sleek and sharp, set with sapphires. A circlet.” Her hands begin to dance again, the air shimmering brightly, only glimpses of an image to begin with, but soon something solid, tangible. An elegant circlet, just as she has described it. A perfect illusion. Well, maybe not entirely perfect, but the closest thing to it, and that is enough.

“There you are. It’s yours.” She gestures out over the mirror calm of the sea, towards the distant nocturnal horizon, a different shade of darkness. “As far as your eye can see. Queen of all you survey, for a night. Wait, let me just...”She plucks the circlet out of the air, leans across to place it on Zelda’s head. “It suits you. Just like I said.”The song of the cicadas rises to a crescendo, a coronation hymn that is soon joined by the frogs. Even the nightbird makes an appearance to add its haunting harmonies.

Philippa closes her eyes, breathes deeply. There is a calmness inside of her that she doesn’t quite know what to do with, a sense of ease that she hasn’t felt in a long, long time.

“If it pleases your Majesty, I’d prefer to be my own mage, just for once. With only myself to be accountable for, only my own whims to indulge, only my own burdens to bear. All my life I’ve been a tool, fit for some glorious purpose, and I’d quite like to know – what does it feel like to be a person, instead?” A pause. Is she speaking too candidly? Is she revealing too much of herself, giving away secrets that could come back to haunt her, to undo her? But the words are spoken, and she cannot take them back.

She glances at Zelda again, delighting in the way the circlet complements her features and once again feeling rather pleased with herself. “But you wouldn’t know either, would you now? Because you, too had your choices taken from you. More so than mine were, even. And so, you grieve. You grieve for who and what you could have been. But what if I told you that you’re all you need to be?”

There is a solemnity to her as the crown is placed atop her golden head, and it really suits her, like she was meant to wear it. It is more a testament to Philippa’s magic, she thinks, that the sorceress would create such a beautiful circlet. A perfect one meant only for the Witcher. Feeling it rest upon her head, she feels noble. She is striking in it, but oblivious to it. A smile breaks across her face meant only for Philippa, and she listens to her request with an upwards tilt of her chin, her eyes the brightest, sincerest of blues, as though Philippa’s wants and desires are the most important thing in the world to her. 

There is something about Zelda. She has this way of often unwittingly making people feel like they are the only person who means something to her. And it is neither dishonest or deceiving. It just is. “Philippa Eilhart!” Clearing her throat, she sits up and dusts off the sand from her palms. She moves so that she is face to face with the sorceress, taking Philippa’s hand in her’s and giving it a gracious, brief kiss. 

“As Queen of literally everything, I grant you your freedom, to be your own person, where you are accountable only for yourself and your own actions, where you may indulge your own whims and desires to your hearts content, and have only your own burdens to bear! All mistakes are your own, all successes are your own, and everything in between. I beseech you to be selfishly and undisputedly yourself.” With that, she poises herself as a king would, shoulders pulled back, chest expanded, her other hand to her hip. She bows, amused by it, even as the last of Philippa’s words sink in. They ring true, though she refuses to believe it. The smile she wears twitches at their corners, but she keeps it there.

She doesn’t want to think about all of the choices she had had taken from her, or the lives she could have lived, but will now never know what they could have been. So distracted by Philippa’s words, she remains holding Philippa’s hand. Pondering. If she knew exactly who she was, maybe she would be happier than she is. She says nothing on it, only looks half despondently up at the sky, noticing the birds circling above them. 

“I accept this most gracious offer with gladness, your Majesty. And I commend you for your kindness.” The magician inclines her head gracefully. She has spoken those same words too many times to count, but tonight, she means them. Zelda’s hand is warm, the skin rough and callused from wielding a blade where her own is cool and smooth as polished marble. Philippa fortifies her mind, out of habit rather than necessity. She has said to much, she’s certain of it now.  The sorceress withdraws her hand, with downcast eyes.

“I’d ask another favour of you, if you will. More than a favour, actually – a promise.”

It would be so easy to slip inside her thoughts, to manipulate the delicate threads of memory to simply erase the conversation from ever having taken place. So easy, and so effective, and yet she cannot bring herself to do so. This feels good and right and safe, despite the possible consequences, despite the fact that she has let her mask drop and made herself vulnerable, if only for a fleeting moment. Philippa Eilhart has learned a long time ago that placing one’s trust in another is careless and foolish, she knows better than this and yet – she wants this memory to remain intact, untainted. A grain of truth in this empire of lies.

“Promise me that you’ll keep this to yourself. Everything I have told you. Every word I’ve said.” She tilts her head back, her gaze following Zelda’s, the circling nightbirds nothing but fleeting, dancing shadows above them, sleek black shapes every now and again outlined against the pale moon.

“They speak to each other. They speak of hidden places, of secrets yet to be revealed. They speak of the coming sunrise, and they speak of the nights gone past. They’ll speak of us, too, in time. Of a witcheress who became a queen, and of a mage who was granted true freedom. Let them be the only ones to tell this tale. Promise me.”  

Zelda doesn’t understand why Philippa would want her to promise such a thing. It seems such an innocent admission, one which has made her seem more human than anything else the Witcher has ever learnt about the sorceress. And who is there for her to tell? And why would she? There is no part of her which thinks about using this crumb of knowledge for her own gain. So she is bewildered by the sudden request. 

Confusion flickers across an otherwise loving expression, her brows tugging together, questioning it as her gaze goes from the birds to Philippa’s profile. She takes a moment to respond, but only because she is trying to figure out what the mage’s motivation is. Then the Witcher shifts and faces Philippa fully. 

“Of course, Philippa.” Of course! “I swear it. On my life. I will tell no one. Have no desire to tell anyone. Will never. Could never. More so if it is important to you that no one else ever finds out. I have no want to break your trust. Do you think that I would? Why would I?”

The Witcher has nothing to gain from breaking her promise to Philippa Eilhart. She will gladly go to her grave being the only person who knows this about the sorceress, not because she fears the repecurscsions of telling anyone else but because she is decent, and honest, and honourable. The Witcher moves, touching Philippa on her forearm.

“What can I do to prove to you that I can be trusted? Because I will do it. I have no trouble with it. You can even charm me so that I will tell you only the truth, if it will put you at ease. But I am hoping that you know the kind of person I am, and that by giving you my word it will be enough for you to rest easy at night, knowing beyond a doubt that your secrets are safe with me. That I will take them to my grave.” 

“Because no one can be trusted. No one in this whole entire rotten, magnificent world. Because all it takes is a push into the right direction, with enough force, and the secrets will spill out, one by one. I’ve seen it happen too many times. Maybe you don’t see it the same way as I do, but trust me”, a bitter laugh at the irony of that. “Trust me when I say that this is simply the way it is. Human nature.”The magician smiles sadly. The horizon is slowly turning a lighter shade of midnight, a subtle reminder of the fact that the sun will rise eventually, that life’s responsibilities can not be put on hold forever. That there will come a time to part.

I don’t want to go just yet.

“I’m due to return to Tretogor by nightfall tomorrow. Of all the fools I’ve met in my life, King Vizimir stands out as the most stubborn one. I have him well and truly under control, of course, but what I have to do to maintain it... He likes to think he’s asserting his dominance by keeping me on my toes, having me chase after phantoms, petty magics that are below my station and result in nothing substantial. A waste of both my time and my intellect. And yet, my hands are tied and all I can do is obey, lest I risk losing his trust and with it my influence.”A heartfelt, although slightly dramatic sigh, as she rests her head against Zelda’s shoulder. “There’s plenty of room in the carriage, you know? You say you wish to prove your word? Then come with me to Tretogor.”  

The Witcher listens carefully to Philippa’s words and considers the truth behind them. Maybe Philippa is right, but when Zelda thinks on it she can’t imagine any scenario where she would find reason to spill any secrets the mage has told her, nor any perceivable vulnerabilities she may have. What purpose will that serve a Witcher like Zelda? Of course she has her own ambitions but not one of them involves power. They are selfish but innocent goals. She had been born with an immunity towards deceit. She could not be affected by it even if it smothered her. What reason would she have to betray her? If Philippa had enemies they would have to find other ways of uncovering her secrets. The Witcher would keep Philippa’s secrets as safe as if the sorceress had whispered them to a tree, or a rock, or into the wind.

“Then it is a good thing that you told your secrets to a mutant, and not a human. ” For all she has had to witness, and learn, and give up, she sees the world differently to humans. Philippa is a stubborn, beautiful force of nature and Zelda is aware that her words probably do little to sway the sorceress on her views, but she will say them anyway. Better that than keeping quiet, she thinks. Zelda can smell Philippa’s hair where she rests her head on Zelda’s shoulder,  and the Witcher allows herself to indulge a little by tilting her face close enough that her cheek brushes Philippa’s forehead. Then slowly she breathes her in, catching the natural scent which clings faintly to Philippa’s hair. Wanting to remember it, expecting this moment to end soon and for the two to part ways.

She doesn’t expect the sorceress to offer a seat in her carriage. So much so that when the offer arises, she lifts her head in surprise. “Tretogor.” There is some uncertainty which twinges in the pit of her stomach as she says it, and she looks out at the dark ocean whilst considering it. “How would that prove my word to you? Wouldn’t it raise more questions? Having a Witcher by your side. You don’t need to keep such a close eye on me. Unless the reason is that you’re enjoying the view too much to give it up so soon.” She smiles a little. 

With as much subtlety as she can muster, she brushes her fingers daringly over the backs of Philippa’s, almost like she is toying with them. “You know that if I came with you to Tretogor, I wouldn’t be able to stay for too long. Not with what I am, what I do. But…” The sweet scent of Philippa’s hair still swims through her thoughts, and even if it is not sweet, or Philippa has used nothing to wash her hair but water, it is sweet to Zelda nonetheless. It affects her. “I have no work currently. So I’ll accompany you to Tretogor. Even though it’ll mean less room for you in your carriage. I am lankier than you. And fidget.” 

Philippa smiles. It is the ghost of a smile, a fleeting light that flashes across her face, reaching all the way up into her eyes. This is not pretense. For this mere moment, she has put the cards aside, has removed the pieces from the board. Just for now, Philippa is no longer playing a game. This is her. This is real.

And she is terrified.

Terrified of the implications, of the betrayal that surely will be imminent – it always is, after all. People get hurt, around her, for the sole reason that she won’t allow anyone to hurt her first. Never again. She’ll never have her heart ripped out of her chest again, she’ll never again be run through with contempt. She will leave first. Because there’s nothing on this earth more painful than being the one who gets left behind.

This is real, and one day this too will end.

Philippa is tired of endings, tired of happiness slipping from her grasp as soon as she’s caught it, tired of that endless void inside of her that she can’t seem to be able to fill, no matter how much she tries.

Zelda’s touch burns against her skin, and she cannot tell whether the sensation is one of pain or pleasure. Maybe they’re one and the same. Does it matter? At least she’s feeling something.

The sorceress closes her eyes.  She is still as a statue, unmoving, frozen in time.

The sky begins to change, the ambiguous pre-dawn light dissolving the shadows. Shades of grey. The world is shades of grey and her dark heart beats a little faster at Zelda’s affirmation.

“I am not asking you for, you know – commitment.”She’s back on her lies again, picking up effortlessly from where she left off. Just like that. It is, after all, her nature.

“How long you stay is entirely up to you, but let me tell you that there’s a lot to see around the city. A lot of things to catch one’s interest. The people, however, are rather dull and self-absorbed, as if their petty, short-lived complaints mattered in the Grand Scheme of Things.” She turns her hand slowly, interlocking her fingers with Zelda’s. “I shall do my best to keep things interesting for you. If that’s what you want. Or alternatively, I can offer you complete and utter boredom, not a single mountain to climb, not a single monster to slay, only comfort and all the luxury you could possibly desire. Anything you want. I mean it. ”

Do you want me? Do you want me for me?

She laughs quietly, there’s a tinge of bitterness in it.

“But you’re not one for boredom, are you. And just as well, because neither am I.” She falls silent, whether for the fraction of a moment or for an eternity, she does not know.

Dawn is breaking.

#suresaint #completed threads #THANK YOU this thread was so much fun #and i can't wait for the rest of their story to play out #lmao this is just under 4k words

[c-j-writes]

Fictober 2019

Prompt #1 “It will be fun, trust me.”

[Untitled gay mess]

Rating: T

Warnings/Tags: will involve drug abuse in later chapters

Chapter One

"Andy! Get down here for breakfast!" 

"Coming!" I yelled down the stairs, pulling my ponytail tighter against my scalp. Glancing in the mirror to check my overall appearance, I only caught a few flyaways, enough to leave be. I walked across the hall to my room. The sun wasn’t even up yet, so I nearly tripped over my backpack trying to find the light switch. Once it was on and the room was visible, my eyes caught sight of the bed against the wall. It looked like a bomb had gone off overnight.

My mother used to tell me when I was younger that the best way to start any day was to get up and make your bed. Before anything. Okay, maybe stretch and wipe the sleep out of your eyes, but before anything else. It was important, she said, because if you start every day with a made bed then that’s at least one productive thing you’ve done in the first few minutes of being awake. That’ll give you a precedent to keep up the good work for the rest of the day. 

It always seemed insignificant to me. What could rearranging a few sheets and pillows really do to affect the rest of my day? I didn’t pay much mind to it until I started playing soccer. When I got into my first league in middle school, I wanted to follow any and every rule and superstition my mom could tell me from the sport. Like wearing my socks inside out for games and using the same pair of shoes for the entire season. I wanted to be just like my mother, a national soccer champion. So, when she told me it would bring good luck to make my bed in the morning, I made a deal with her. On days that I knew I’d be practicing or competing, I’d make my bed. Otherwise, it was a disaster of the cotton variety. 

“Your breakfast is gonna get cold, Andy.” 

“Coming,” I replied, but I couldn’t move from where my feet sunk into the carpet I stared at my pillows all scrunched up and the blanket on the floor. There was no game today, no practice. I’d picked up on my consistency when she got sick. I started making my bed in the mornings that I visited her in the hospital. When she didn’t come back, I just stopped. 

A quick glance at my phone told me I had about twenty minutes until my ride got to the house, so I wasn’t rushing too much. My father, however, believed that any minute spent awake before ten o’clock should be spent at hyper speed. 

I breathed in through my nose, imagining the air filling my lungs, held it for six seconds, and breathed out through my mouth. A promise for a good day. While my father liked to start out with mile a minute productivity, I found it was easier to start with a few seconds of calm before the storm of the day hit. 

“Andy!” Sometimes, impatience won over peace of mind in this household. 

“Yeah, I’m on my way.” I dragged my bookbag onto my shoulder and walked down the hall, rounding the corner to step downstairs.

"What's for breakfast?" I asked after jumping the last step to the kitchen. Dad turned around with the Faultz family smile already adorning his face. I never got that smile, my dad said I got my mother’s.

"Eggs, bacon, and sausage for you, pancakes for me," Dad answered. He put the plates on the counter and started eating. I could tell the grin he had on was trying to hide his own amusement.

"What, that's not fair!" I grumbled, making my way to the table to sit across from him. I stared at the plate in front of me, not making any moves towards the silverware to the side. 

"An athlete needs a balanced meal, Andy, you can't eat pancakes.” His cheeks were already full of his own sugary start to the day. I grimaced, not wanting to start yet another conversation about talking with his mouth full. 

"So, if I quit being an athlete, I can eat waffles?" My dad was so surprised he almost choked on his food. His face turned a bit red from the whole ordeal.

"Don't worry, I'm kidding," I said, chuckling. 

“You better be, your soccer scholarship is getting you into college." There was no way I’d forget that. Soccer had been my life for the better part of fifteen years. It was one of the only things that my mother and I had in common before she died. That’s part of the reason why Dad has been so adamant about me pursuing it. Because what kind of daughter would I be if I didn’t carry out my famous mother’s legacy?

"I know, I know.” I sat back, losing more of the appetite that hadn’t really been there in the first place, what with it being six in the fucking morning. “I can't believe I'll be going to college next year."

"It took a lot of work, don't ruin it. If you don't break some more records this year they could revoke it." He was always worried about that. Sometimes I wondered what he’d even think of me if I didn’t have soccer. 

"Oh come on, Dad. I'm me, breaking records is in my blood.'' I had a right to be confident. After all, I was the first girl in my school to make varsity team captain in my sophomore year. And I’ve defended that role since. 

"I know." He smiled at me, chuckling and shaking his head. I glanced over to the entryway, catching sight of my ripped up shoes from the summer.

“Speaking of soccer, could you pick me up some new shoes for practice?” I shot my dad a sugary smile.

“Weren’t you supposed to be getting those yourself? Isn’t that why you got a job over the summer?” He wasn’t wrong. I slaved away for two months at some ice cream shop when I could’ve been on the field practicing. 

“Yeah, but,” I started, trying to think of some valid reason to not bring up the fact that I’d blown too much of my money on snapbacks and new band tees, “don’t you want to buy them for me, for old time’s sake? This is my last high school season, isn’t that like nostalgic or something?” 

Standing up, I set my plate in the sink while I waited for his reply. He opened his mouth just as a car blared its horn outside. Three short trills. “That’s Sophie,” I commented, picking up my bag and taking off for the door. I stopped to grab my skateboard and glanced down at the shoes, then at my father. He rolled his eyes.

“Fine, I’ll see what I can do,” he sighed. I let the smile split open my face. 

“You’re awesome, thanks. See you later, Dad.”

“Bye, kiddo.” His reply was cut off as the door closed behind me.

The headlights to Sophie’s car blinded me as I walked to the passenger side, she turned off the beams on my way. My best friend waved excitedly from the driver’s seat. She loved the first day, it was always her favorite. With a shake of my head, I pulled open the door and got into Sophie's Lexus. 

"Hey Soph," I said as I sunk into the plush cushions. Her parents were loaded, naturally, so she got top-notch everything. From her car down to her pencils. They were the type to flaunt their wealth simply because they could. But then, it was Southern California. Our entire town reeked of wealth.

The aroma of her fancy, iced coffee filled the small vehicle. I didn’t understand how she could drink something so sweet this early in the morning, but I nearly squealed when I noticed the cup sitting beside hers. 

“You are a goddess,” I said, taking a swig of the scalding liquid. As much as my father believes in productivity, he doesn’t believe in coffee, especially if you’re under thirty years old. Soph knows my order by heart with all the times that she’s been my hero and taken me to the nearest cafe or brought me a quick pick me up under my dad’s radar. 

“Yeah, I’m aware,” she replies, smiling as she looks behind her to pull out of the driveway. “But don’t stop telling me.” I shake my head, watching the headlights move across the street and create warped shadows along with all the houses. “So, you excited for the first day, Ands?”

"Not as excited as you. Like normal high schoolers, I don’t function properly until after seven, so my system is still booting up. Sorry.” The suburbs blurred by, townhouses and pretty green yards blending together like an old painting. “Not to mention, my Dad’s already on my ass about soccer. I mean, we haven’t even started conditioning. The season isn’t until next semester."

"Don't worry, everyone knows you're going to be a huge star, like always." She turned to smile at me, long enough to make me question how she got her license. “Just like your mom.”

"Thanks, Soph."

"No need to thank me, it's the truth," Sophie said. She turned and smiled at me again, this time her gaze trailing down to my feet. "You're seriously gonna ride home on that?" She gestured at my board. I nodded, smiling out the window. I liked to skateboard home, to avoid the annoying interaction with Sophie’s boyfriend, who she would definitely want to drive home. Sophie was never one for the ‘tomboyish’ parts of me. She nearly blew a gasket when I started hanging out at the skate park with my now ex-boyfriend. It wasn’t her thing, and she hated that there was anything that I liked that she wasn’t a part of. Most people call that controlling or clingy. But with Soph, it was more sisterly. Because that’s always what she’s been to me.

A few more glances and frightening close calls later and Sophie pulled into the school parking lot and parked the car. We climbed out, staring at the building that we’d seen for years. The school was already packed, which was not surprising given how we only had ten minutes or so before the first bell. It was windy, but it was always windy, so it didn’t really faze anyone. 

Sophie and I grabbed our things and started walking to the front gates. A few guys from the athletics department waved at me or punched my shoulder, body language in place of good morning. We walked to our lockers, which we made sure were side by side after last year’s fiasco of being across the school from one another. It took me all of fifteen seconds to unload my bag and grab the only notebook I’d need. Whereas Sophie had so much decorating to do, she could have taken an hour if there wasn’t a bell. 

Just as we were about to take off for our first class, which we had together, Sophie’s dick wad of a boyfriend sidled up beside her.

“Hey, babe,” he said, leaning down and kissing her neck. She giggled at the contact. Her neck was the most ticklish part of her body, something only I really knew. Millions of sleepovers and countless nights spent on the beach tended to bring out the deep secrets in anyone.

“Hey, Derrick,” she replied, turning to lean into his arms. They were the typical high school couple. Jock and cheerleader, if you could call a swimmer a jock, which I didn’t really.

“Sup, Ands.” Derrick nodded at me. I nodded back, not responding to him. After almost a year of ignoring me every time I told him not to, he still called me that. It used to be just Sophie’s nickname for me.

“Hey, I’ll meet you in class, Soph, I don’t want to get a tardy on the first day,” I commented, turning to walk to our first period, English. Sophie didn’t even respond, she was too entranced by the brown-eyed bag of balls. 

Now, I wasn’t much of a fan of school in general, but seeing the douche that is Derrick Hansen regularly? That was straight up hell. He thought he was apart of my group of friends because he was on the swimming team as if wading around a few days a week is really a sport. The asshole acts like he’s the coolest shit since sliced bread as if no one knows that he’s probably the nerdiest kid here. I mean, he’s gotten the state record on his science exams since eighth grade. I hated him. With a burning passion.

But he was Sophie’s favorite person in the world at the moment. A role that I used to cherish. That he bumped me from the first chance he could get. Sophie didn’t see how shitty he was, she never saw. She was blissfully ignorant of the truth of the matter. And I had no way of explaining to her how fucking terrible the guy was. Not without crushing her, because that’s the kind of person she is. Fragile.

Mrs. Dells, the English teacher, was that teacher who has assigned seats on the first day of school. I had her last year for English because the school is so small that they have teachers who teach three different classes. 

When Sophie finally got to class, five seconds before the late bell rang, she had to sit across the room from me. Which we both should have expected; Mrs. Dells had us both last year, she knew how much work we got done when we sat together. The class started and Mrs. Dells began introductions. Then onto the inevitable, brain-numbing first-day activities. 

When the bell rang, I swear I was a bullet shooting out of my seat. I nearly ran to my locker, not even waiting for Sophie. If I waited for her, I’d definitely be late for PE.

"What's the hurry, Andrea?"

Hearing that name and the voice that came with it stopped me in my tracks. I turned to see Mackenzie Dalton leaning against the locker beside mine. She smiled warmly, I glared at her.

"What do you want, Mack?" I said as cold as I could. This girl infuriated me. Not exactly waiting for an answer, I shoved her away with my elbow, a bit harder than necessary, and opened my locker.

"No 'Hey, Mack' or 'How’ve you been, Mack'?" She said, stepping slowly closer to me. "No, just 'What do you want, Mack'" she chuckled, finding herself hilarious like she always did. Her head leaned against the lockers, but her eyes stayed set on me. I tried to ignore the way her gaze burned into my cheek.

"I don't have time for this, Mackenzie," I said, closing my locker after grabbing my workout clothes. I spun around and started walking to the gym. After a few steps, I heard her walking after me. "Seriously, what do you want?" I spat, not bothering to look at her over my shoulder. She caught up enough to match my stride beside me.

"Chill, cougar, I have P.E., same as you I'm guessing." I frowned, confirming her suspicion. "Yay, I get a gym partner.'' I couldn’t help the sarcastic snicker that left my mouth.

"Yeah right, I want nothing to do with you, Mackenzie."

"Hurtful," she fake pouted. "But I'll forgive you." She did this annoying move that she always does, which is jogging ahead a few steps and turning around to walk backward in front of me.

"What is it with you? Why won't you leave me alone?" She almost tripped over a trashcan by the wall but didn’t let it stop her.

"Because of your amazing conversational skills," she looked at me and continued smiling. "Why do you hate me, Andrea?" She said it gently, not accusing like I would’ve expected. Though I learned not to expect anything normal from Mack a long time ago. Her short, brown hair was bouncing around in her face, which didn’t seem to bother her much. It was different than the last time I saw her, longer. Instead of a pixie cut, it laid at shoulder length, like she’d given up cutting it and just let it grow however it pleased.

"Stop calling me that, my name is Andy." I looked up at her. I wanted to slap that goddamn smile off her face.

Before Mackenzie could call me out on not answering her, I walked into the gym and found three of my teammates. Wherever Mack went wasn’t a concern of mine, I tried to ignore her presence as much as possible. She knew not to come up to me when my teammates were around, that was one of the few boundaries she respected. I slid my phone out of my pocket to check Insta for anything new.

“Who’s that?” Liv, one of the newer girls from last year’s recruitment, asked. I looked up at her and turned to where she was staring. I groaned softly enough that the girls didn’t notice over the dull roar of students around the room. Of course, she was looking at Mack. I simply looked back at my phone, leaving my other teammates to answer.

Darian made the first guess. “Maybe she’s a freshman?”

I scoffed, along with Hailey, who commented, “You seriously think she looks like a freshman? Girl’s taller than me. She’s probably from out of town.” I stayed silent. She was right. Mack was from out of town. Her family moved here just after the school year ended. But they didn’t need to know that I knew that. And they definitely didn’t need to ask me why I knew that.

Academics weren’t my strong suit. I’ve known this for a while, but once I started playing soccer, it became less of an issue. I had something more important to worry about. This logic, of course, is the reason I’ve had a record of attending summer school since seventh grade. My teacher’s always managed to keep my grades tilted just enough to keep me on the team, but the state tests never went well. This past summer was my first summer of freedom. It was also the only summer that I had time to get a job. One that ended up taking up more time than any summer school I ever had. 

Science was one of my worst subjects. I dreaded every minute of last year’s biology course, but I managed to pull off a low, but passing score. This year’s chemistry wouldn’t be any easier. Last year I had to lock myself in my room with no phone and no laptop, just textbooks, and notes, for hours on end to make myself study. It was the worst part of the school year. 

Walking into the chemistry classroom, I took a deep breath before taking a seat. A few football players nodded at me as they entered. We talked about their first game of the season, which would be next week. One of them mentions an after-party that I have to come to. 

“Damn, is she new?” One of them, Cody, asked. Hearing the words, I’m ready to roll my eyes as I glance to the doorway because of course, she’d be in another class with me. But instead of green eyes and layered, brown hair, I find a blondie with a loose ponytail and an undercut. Her eyes look tired but still bright as she scanned the room. The guys started commenting on everything I was thinking about, but I kept my mouth shut and kept staring at her. My gaze followed until she stopped at a desk directly in the front and sat down like she was in a throne. Cody whistled quietly, but loud enough that the girl heard. She didn’t look at us, simply flipping her hair behind her back and turning her attention to the board.  

The teacher walked in and started talking, but I barely paid attention, memorizing the curve of this girl’s profile instead. The universe was making it really hard to have a chance of passing this class. A few minutes later, Cody nudged me as he stood up. I glanced over and scrunched my eyebrows in question. “Seating chart.” He nodded toward the front of the room. I rolled my eyes as I glanced at the board and looked for my name. 

My seat was two tables behind the one I’d been at. I dragged my backpack behind me and looked around to figure out who was migrating over to meet me. As I surveyed the room, I found the dreaded brunette that I’d thought I was free of this period. Mack smiled at me, sitting at the table next to mine, but on the side where whoever would be my partner would have the pleasure of sitting closer to her. What did the universe have against me? Was it trying to make this class as hard as possible?

Mack opened her mouth to make some unwelcome comment, but before she could, a figure stepped in front of her and sat down next to me. Suddenly I was staring at a blonde ponytail and a face that was much more angular up close. My mouth opened to introduce myself, but no sound came out. Then her eyes turned to me expectantly and I floundered. 

“Um… I… uh... Hi,” I muttered. She tilted an eyebrow at my sad excuse for an introduction.

“Hey, I’m Kloe,” she replied. I nodded, watching her eyes flicker between both of mine and wavering even more under the direct eye contact. “This is the part where you tell me your name.”

It’s probably safe to say that a blush covered my entire face at that comment. “Right, ah… I’m Andy.” I smile, mentally shaking myself out of the haze I’m stuck in. “So, you’re new, right?” 

“Wow, there is a brain in there.” She looked down at her notebook. I laugh softly, even though that was definitely an insult. “Yeah, I just moved here.” She reached up and tucked a few flyaways behind her ear. I followed the movement with my eyes, entranced. I opened my mouth to ask her where she moved from, but the teacher cut me off.

“Okay, everyone, I’m going to go over a few things for you to keep in mind this year…” 

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to zone out of the lecture, but in my defense, there was a very intriguing girl right next to me and I couldn't take my attention away from her. I was powerless.

By the time I heard my father’s car pull into the driveway, I’d spent almost two hours on my phone and less than five minutes on the homework I’d been assigned today. I rubbed my eyes and closed the textbook in front of me. Standing up and stretching my limbs out, I stepped towards the hallway to meet him downstairs. I’d barely gotten out of the room when my phone began chiming in my pocket. 

I wasn’t expecting any calls, so it had to be Sophie. With a click, I answered, “What couldn’t handle being away from me for a few hours?” I heard her laugh on her end as I sit down at the top of the stairs.

“You wish,” she replied. “Derrick and I are going to a party at some baseball player’s place.” I know where she’s going before she has to ask and she knows I do because she just says, “Want me to send the address?” 

I look down at the carpet on the stairs, picking at it absently. “I don’t know, Soph, the baseball crowd is basically just a bunch of stoners.” There’s rustling in the background, she’s probably picking out an outfit.

“Yeah, but it’s the first party of the year. What? Are you just going to sit at home and have dinner with your dad instead?” I roll my eyes. She does have a point, the first party of the school year is basically the last hint of summer we get. “It will be fun, trust me.”

“I’ll ask my dad, but no promises, okay?” She squeals in response.

“I’ll send the address, see you there, Ands.” I hang up the phone and take a deep breath, closing my eyes for a few seconds. The sound of my dad bumbling around the kitchen fills my ears and I sit for a few seconds. I think back to a few short weeks ago when I could get out of any plans, with my father or Sophie, with the simple excuse of work. 

My work life was like a whole different world. I stepped into that building and I wasn’t the huge soccer star or the popular jock. I was just another part-time worker there for the summer. Nothing I did there would affect my real life. It was like an escape. I spent countless hours slinging ice cream and even more lounging on the beach while everyone in my real life thought I had been scheduled. 

But now my life was back to being completely real. No more escaping

#original story #untitled gay mess #fictober19 #prompt 1 #my ocs

[harunoheart]

Oneirophrenia C6

Oneirophrenia C6

———————

Sasuke Uchiha

———————

She fell asleep so peacefully.

I remember when we used to go on missions as Team 7, Naruto would pass out snoring and sprawled out so falling asleep around him was always difficult.

But without the dobe taking over the space everything felt different.

Once her breathing evened out I opened my eyes. The moonlight filtered into the tent just enough to see her outline.

I tilted my head so the hair that was covering my left eye shifted and suddenly she was much brighter.

The Rinnegan, for all its cursed power, has allowed me to see a lot of things more clearly, in the literal sense.

Sakura’s face was suddenly bathed in blue moonlight, her lips gently parted as she drifted off to sleep.

I watched her shoulders rise and fall with each breath and drew my eyes up to her forehead which was now glowing green as I could see her chakra being channeled there. It was a small trickle of movement, just the barest minimum of chakra flowing to her forehead at all times. It was impressive, really. She’s been storing chakra a little bit every single day for years to achieve that reservoir. That control is so second Nature to her now that she can do it in her sleep too.

I watched her sleep for just a moment more before closing my eyes and drifting off myself.

—-

Sakura’s chakra spiked rapidly and quickly. It felt like an electric shock waking me up from a deep sleep. Sakura sat bolted upright and panting for air.

I reached out to try and comfort her but she instinctively slapped my hand away. She quickly pulled her hand back after realizing what she had done and apologized. Her right arm was draped over her stomach, caressing it with her thumb as if to insure that she was still in tact.

“Gomen-ne, Sasuke-Kun. I didn’t mean to wake you.” She reaches into her bag and grabbed her water bottle and a small pill from her bag.

Before she could pop it into her mouth I grabbed her fist with my hand.

“What are you taking,” I asked. I was too tired to beat around the bush.

“Daijoubu, it’s just Melatonin. Good for going to sleep.” I released her wrist and she popped the small pill in her mouth and took a swig of water to wash it down. She tucked her hair behind her ears and took a deep breath.

“Are you ok?”

She looked at me, surprised by the question. “A-ah.. I’m fine,” she smiled softly.

I looked down at her hand still clutching the spot on her abdomen. She realized what I was looking at and released her grip on the spot.

“Misete.”

Her eyes widened for a moment before lifting up her shirt to show a scar that was much bigger than I thought. It was about six inches or so long and was a thick keloid that looked hastily healed. I pulled the hair in front of my rinnegan out of my eyes and got a better look at it in the dark.

It looked aged and settled into her skin. This was a rather old scar.

“There’s one on my back to match,” she said, chuckling to herself and pulling her shirt back down.

She laid back down to go to sleep but I couldn’t stop thinking about what kind of weapon made a scar that deadly, and how she could’ve possible survived the wound. The bleeding alone would’ve been fatal with a gash that size straight through her kidneys.

It seems Sakura has more demons that I realized.

I reached out once more...but her back was facing away from me this time. I let her withdraw and go back to sleep but now I was wide awake and all I could think about was someone putting their sword through her.

I thought about how I made her believe I had put a Chidori through her chest. I wondered if she woke up from nightmares about that too.

—-

She was gone.

I felt her absence before I even opened my eyes. The sunlight pouring into the tent was blinding. Once my eyes adjusted I saw her abandoned pillow, covered with a few pink hairs that caught the light.

I could feel her distant presence nearby, her chakra had a very unique quality to it. Sakura’s chakra control had always been so precise that it ebbed with her breathing.

There was only one problem. Waking up I felt unnecessarily aroused by the thought of her. I furrowed my eyes in annoyance at the inconvenience. Either it will go away on its own or I’ll be have to deal with it.

It’s been more of a problem lately than it ever had before.

I felt dirty, after her nightmare last night. I shouldn’t be thinking about that while she was suffering through ptsd. But this feeling in the pit of my stomach, that worry of protecting her at all costs was the only thing I could think of as I struggled to fall back asleep last night.

Sakura frequented my dreams in ways that haunted me. A different kind of ghost than Itachi’s memories and a little more guilt and regret on my end. I wanted to pull her closer, to protect her.

I reached down and grabbed it, then immediately regretted it.

“Fuck.”

I slammed my head back into my pillow. I hated dealing with this fucking problem. It was hard enough going to the bathroom in the morning.  

I sat up and tried opening the door of the tent. When I got to the mesh screen I could see Sakura stretching at the other end of the campfire. Her face was relaxed and serene, with no signs of the panic she showed last night. Sakura knew that whatever bothered her was just a Dream...And I envy her for that.

“Ohayo Sasuke-kun!” She shouted as she bent at the waist with her hands and feet on the ground. Her hair was brushing the grass as her head hung upside down.

I watched as she changed into a plank position and lowered her body to the ground before she arched her back in an elongated pose.

Meanwhile I was at full attention. Watching her body move was mesmerizing. She was wearing a sports bra and shorts, her muscles moving slow and deliberate as she flowed from one pose into the next. Her abs were flexed and defined. Her legs were strong. Everything about her body looked strong and capable. She is beautiful. And My body ached to bring her closer to me.

In our years as a team I never took the time to look at her enough. I took her for granted as a kid. But now Sakura isn’t that little girl anymore... In more ways than one. As I watched her move and shift with so much confidence and strength I realized that the dobe was right.

I love her.

I felt a strange feeling in my chest, as if I unshackled a weight I didn’t know I was carrying around with me.

I’ve been lying to myself for a long time.

I’ve loved her for a long time.

I just never thought I was worthy of her. And now, looking at the woman she has become, I know that I will never be worthy of her. She never gave up hope for me to be happy.

And I know I never want to break her heart again. Every time I felt like I had to do it, it killed me. Betraying her trust and her faith in me was one of the hardest things to do. Almost killing her was the most selfish thing I’ve ever done and I can’t believe I fell so far.

I was such a stupid kid.

At least that train of thought got rid of my problem. I climbed out of my sleeping bag and put on a black Undershirt and my pants.

Getting used to only having one arm has been interesting. I’ve developed my technique by now but it’s finally starting to feel almost normal...or at least as normal as my life could be.

Bringing Sakura on this trip has been an interesting decision, though not an unplanned one. I just needed the right reason; the right timing. Her optimism was a breath of fresh air from my last travel companions. And without Naruto there was no bickering or posturing to worry about. It felt almost peaceful...

I looked out at her again. She was balancing in a headstand and lowering her legs into a split.

Being this close to her and alone was dangerous, if only for the fact that I feel like my self control is being tested. This is new territory for me, and I’m not sure how I should approach the subject. I half expected her to bring it up first but she seems to be content tiptoeing around it.

“It’s your move, buddy.”

I hate that he’s right.

————

“Alright Sasuke-kun, what’s first?” She asked, skewering the fish she caught for breakfast while I handled the campfire.

“First, we establish an escape route.” I said. She nodded and stuck the last stick next to the flame. “Our main objective is to explore Kaguya’s castle, but to get there we have to enter Kaguya’s core dimension.”

“The one with the mountains.” Sakura chimed in.

I nodded. “The one where she is currently sealed inside of the new moon we created. So there is that to think about.” I poked the fire a few times and turned one of the logs over to get a more even burn. “We will have to start there, before we travel anywhere else. We have to learn as much as possible about the kind of toll it takes on our bodies, on our chakra, and what kind of environment it is and if it’s survivable should we get stuck.”

“That’s where I come in,” she said proudly.  “I also had a few theoretical questions I wanted to look into while we are dimension-hopping. For example, does our geographical location in our dimension affect where we end up in Kaguya’s dimension or if there is only one ‘doorway’ we can enter through.”

Now there’s an interesting thought.

“Every little bit of intel we can get from this will help us. So if you notice something, even if it seems insignificant, tell me. And write it down.”

Sakura pulled out an empty scroll from her backpack and a pen. On the front of it she wrote the kanji for Mountain 山. She opened it up and began to write.

“Here’s what we know so far. The Mountainous dimension is a core dimension. We know that this is the center linking our dimensions with hers, so through here we can access the other doorways. Kaguya can recharge her chakra from the victims of the infinite Tsukiyomi here so it has some properties of transference... the entire dimension is likely to have its own chakra network.” She said, scribbling away. She paused and looked up at me, “How much dimensional travel have you been doing alone?”

“Just once. I landed in the Mountains and lost the use of my sharingan for 24 hours. Luckily I had brought rations with me and waited it out but realistically right now I am not capable of efficiently traveling on my own.”

“Don’t worry Sasuke-kun,” she tapped the diamond on her forehead with the back of the pen, “I’ve got you covered.” She smiled.

“How long does it take you to restore your reserves?” I picked up one of the fish and handed it to her. She took it and then I grabbed one for myself.

Through a mouthful of food she said “about a week, if I’m at zero.” She swallowed and continued, “If I’m channeling the chakra to you and not fighting, it may be less. My base chakra will restore overnight much like yours if my body isn’t damaged and healing.”

“We should try to keep at least one of us in fighting shape at all times. We are no use to each other if we’re both injured. How good is your Kenjutsu?” I nodded towards the sword that was resting by my pack. Sakura looked at it and scrunched her eyebrows together.

“Not great, I’ve been training more with axes lately.”

“I’ll train you.” I said. She looked surprised.

“Really?”

I nodded, “If, for whatever reason, I become unable to use it, you should know how to wield it as well.”

I finished my fish and grabbed my water bottle.

“Let’s get started.”

———————

Sakura Haruno

———————

“Ok now shift all of your weight to your right foot, and twist your hips, dragging your left foot behind your right.”

I shifted my stance the way he instructed and the hilt of the sword naturally fell into my hand. The movement was subtle and quick.

“Now, step back and draw the sword.”

I tried to do it in one fluid motion, but Sasuke’s sword was long. The tip of the blade got stuck at the opening of the sheath and I had to completely readjust my position to get the whole thing out. I sighed in embarrassment over how clumsy I was.

Why can’t I just punch things? That’s so much more straightforward.

We’ve been practicing for about half an hour and that’s just been the basics. At least Sasuke was more patient than Tsunade-shishou...

“Try it again,” He said, “this time stop when you step backwards, don’t draw the blade.”

Shift.

Twist.

Step.

My hand gripped the handle and I froze, like he asked. Sasuke came over to me and looked at my stance.

He adjusted the sheath so it sat lower on my hips instead of my waist and pulled my shoulders back. When I dropped my eyes to watch what he was doing his knuckle lifted my chin back up and straight ahead.

“Don’t take your eyes off your enemy,” he said softly. He pushed my rear foot back a little more and then his hand cupped my waist and pulled me backwards, shifting my weight to my rear foot. I kept my eyes locked onto the tree that was supposed to be my target but all I could focus on was the way his touched lingered.

He circled back around to stand in front of me.

“Draw.”

I pulled the sword smoothly out and watched the tip of the blade slice across Sasuke’s figure, just a hairs breadth away from being cut. I heard the air pushed away by the blade.

Sasuke smirked.

I could feel the smile on my face.

He was so tragically beautiful. Honestly it was unfair. It blows my mind how much he’s changed since he was a kid...but at the same time he was so familiar. Like I had forgotten this part of him still existed. The part of him that could be playful or happy. Even for a moment.

“You look happier, Sasuke-Kun,” I said. He looked taken aback and embarrassed. I laughed.

“No, really. You look...lighter. If that makes sense.” I handed him back his sword and he put it away next to a tree.

“I feel lighter.” He said looking back up at me.

“I’m glad.” I said softly, looking at the wind moving through the trees. The sound of the wind was so nice to hear after having been stuck in a hospital for the past few months. I couldn’t remember the last mission I carried out... was it the Daimiyo’s daughter...?

“What happened?” Sasuke asked, breaking my train of thought.

Shit...I kind of expected him to pretend it didn’t happen. I don’t get nightmares that often but last night I couldn’t help but think of Chiyo baa-sama. My subconscious sort of spiraled from there.

“I’m fine Sasuke, really. It was just a dream.” Or rather, a memory.

“Not last night,” he pointed to my shirt, “How did you survive that scar.” He asked.  

He caught me off guard again.

“I...ah...” I stammered, unsure of where to begin.  “It’s a long story...”

“Who did that to you?” He asked instead. A simpler question.

“Akasuna no Sasori.”

His eyes got wide. He looked back down at my shirt where the scar was hiding.

“That was you?” He asked. “I had heard he was defeated by his grandmother and a young kunoichi...” He asked, visibly processing the information.

I nodded my head as we walked back towards our campsite, picking up a few sticks and logs along the way for more firewood.

“It was an honor, fighting by her side.” I finally said. “She was truly a great ninja.” I smiled, thinking back on how skilled and experienced she was. Watching her fight was a sight to behold and I will never forget it.

“So the puppet master left you with a scar through your kidney?”

“I jumped in front of the blade, actually,” I confessed. Sasuke stopped walking as I said that. I turned around and saw him scowling at me, His fist was clenched at his side.

“You did...what?”He said slowly, through an obviously clenched jaw.

I immediately went on the defensive. “What, are you gonna call me stupid? Reckless? Or tell me I shouldn’t have gotten in the way?” I crossed my arms, kind of irritated at the attitude he was pulling.

He let out a breath and stretched his fingers out, trying to calm down. “No. That wasn’t-“

“I’m a ninja, I have to be prepared to die.”

“You’re a medical ninja, Sakura. If you die who heals everyone else?” He bit back at me. His words echoed with Tsunade’s voice behind them.

She told me the exact same thing when we were training how to dodge enemy attacks.

I turned around and kept walking towards the campground with Sasuke trailing right behind me.

“Sakura. Sakura, wait.” He said, flash stepping to catch up to me. He grabbed my wrist and spun me around to face him.

Our eyes were locked on each other’s, both equally frustrated.

“What.” I spit out. I regretted how bitchy it sounded but I can’t take it back now.

Instead of blowing up at me like I expected, Sasuke took a deep breath and stepped in closer. He looked at me with this deep sadness in his eyes that immediately made my chest want to collapse.

He held my hand tightly in his palm and pulled it to his chest.

“Tell me the whole story.”

—————

So I told him.

Starting with the forming of Kakashi-Han, the bell test... Gaara getting kidnapped, Kankuro getting poisoned, the antidote... everything.

Much to my surprise, Sasuke sat and listened to the whole thing. He asked a few questions here or there that sent me off on another tangent but overall he seemed to be absorbing all of the information I was giving him.

“I knew the blade was poisoned...and I knew that my antidote had worn off. But I wasn’t strong enough to battle him alone so it felt like the only way I could be useful. Provide Chiyo baa-sama with an opening.”

I nibbled at a granola bar as we sat and at lunch by the river.

“I began to heal the wound with the sword still in me... I could at least stop the bleeding that way but I thought the poison would’ve gotten me for sure. I felt it...” I touched my hand to my Ribcage and felt the scar through the fabric. “It was...excruciating. Like slowly being burned alive from the inside. But Chiyo she...she didn’t take the antidote I gave her. She shoved it into my leg and then at least the burning stopped but I still had a sword going through my body and every slight shift of my weight opened a new wound.” I ran my fingers up and down the length of the scar, remembering how much it hurt just to stand.

“She found her opening. Got him right through the last piece of his humanity sticking out of his chest. In the embrace of his mother and father puppets...”

I closed my eyes and could see him whisper to me about the rendezvous at the bridge. About Orochimaru and his spy. I could hear the clicking of his jaw as the chakra faded from the puppet he inhabited.

“You told me how you survived the poison, but how did you survive the sword?”

I smiled up at Sasuke, grateful for his questions. “Reanimation jutsu. Life force for a life. It’s how she saved Gaara too.” I looked down at my hands, “I carry her with me wherever I go.” I closed my hands into fists and put them behind me, leaning backwards with my feet dangling in the water. The sound of the water trickling through the rocks filled the silence for a moment.

“I understand.” He said finally. “I carry by brother with me.”I looked over to him with his fingertips touching his eyelid. “These eyes... “ he paused. It was like he was looking for the right words to speak. He dropped his hand instead and looked out at the water.

“That’s right, I kinda met your brother for the first time right before I fought Sasori.” I said, trying to encourage the conversation. Sasuke looked up at me, a little unsure of where this story was going.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No, he fought Kakashi and Naruto. I stayed out of it for the most part.” I explained, “I remember thinking...you two looked a lot alike, and he was terrifyingly strong...” and I hated him for what he did to you... “but it wasn’t even really him, it was a jutsu where he could take over someone else’s body. A diversion.” I clarified.

“My brother was...rigid.” Sasuke said. He took his cloak off and began to relax his posture. I think he’s given up on trying to explore a dimension today. I felt bad but I was also enjoying the opportunity for conversation. “He was always disciplined... I suppose he had to be with how deep undercover he was.” He picked up a rock and threw it into the river with a ‘plop’.

I hesitated to tell him the truth of what I knew, afraid that he would be mad at me for meddling in his past...but I felt like I had to be honest with him.

“When Naruto left to train with Jiraya I had a lot of time to myself in Konoha,” I said, picking up a rock and throwing it into the river just like he did. It felt really satisfying and helped to ease some of the anxiety I was feeling. “I scoured through as much history and records as I could trying to learn about you....about your family and what happened...” I started picking at the grass as a distraction from how fast my heart was racing. I didn’t dare look up at him. “I found entire bookshelves of redacted scrolls. Sealed with the blood of the Sandaime Hokage. I learned what I could from newspaper articles and the investigative report of the crime scene that called it an open and shut case but...there wouldn’t be that much redacted information for a massacre like that without there being a dark secret behind it.” I finally turned to look at him.

“There are answers. I know where to find them but-“

“I don’t need any more answers, Sakura.” He said gently. “I spent a lifetime mourning their deaths. I want to try to remember how they lived.”

He looked solemnly at the water and took a deep breath, “I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot, actually.”

I turned towards Sasuke, eager to listen.

“What was she like?”

———-

End chapter 6

Thank you so much for reading!

I wanted to explore Sasuke and Sakura’s conversation and communication dynamic more in this chapter especially after the Boruto Episode

Gives me all the feels.

#sasusaku #fanfiction #chapter 6 #sakusasu #sakura haruno #sasuke uchiha #naruto #blank period #sakura uchiha

[pileoftrashsstuff]

@mean-scarlet-deceiver aww why thank you! Making my own creations question their own made up world is my favorite hobby :D

#But it is mainly just my thoughts on reading fiction in general #Like what clothes are they wearing? Usual garb or modern? #But it is also there to call my own forgetfulness out because ya boi sometimes forget to set up a setting or something else entirely #Many questions and many answered or left unanswered #Not to mention that every world we create can be manipulated to our liking or we spent so much time making it that #Something small and insignificant can break the balance we have created #Or we can get around the problem by setting up a new path that smoothly goes with the flow of the story #But Vagueness is something to be mastered and very much so #Leaving little details unanswered or unsaid can make or break the flow you know? Makes for a good foreshadow or blast from a past fic I say #Or just leaves a lot of readers confused like I did when I opened that god forsaken fanfic like Pile I swear to god stop reading that hng- #But do not worry about making your story like very complex or has a lot of dialogues that can change the game of the character arcs #The story can be as simple as you want #Have fun using it as a creative outlet honestly because I did #Not to mention it prepares me for a huge amount of essay homework in the past like my teachers are scared of the student with 11 sentences #All in all I have made a lot of great memories with the fics I made in the past #Some I share to friends and others I keep for myself because it is self indulgent ya know? #Anyone and everyone is allowed to make their own fic and use it as a creative way of saying hi to everyone or establishing yourself #And that are my thoughts on writing and a lot more unsaid #Pile talks #Writing #Review #Pile's writing

[adamgeorgiou]

Eulogy for Pappou

Adamos Georgiou has passed away. Finally, he is allowed to rest.

The obvious and uncomfortable irony of trying to memorialize him now is that he's been gone, in truth, for a long time. The mind of the man who passed away was not that of the man who created his legacy, my family's legacy. It is a harsh thing to point out in such a sensitive setting, but my pappou's late condition is necessary to note in order to properly prioritize the simple, tragic, and relatively short-lived character of his later years; against the bold, sturdy, remarkable stroke of his long past. It's too easy to think that his more recent life was the more relevant, and therefore that it should be what I talk about now. But his dementia stands insignificant and unnoticeable next to the massiveness of his past.

Another irony of this eulogy is that I'm likely not the right person to make it. I mention this not as false humility, but as a proper acknowledgement of the fact that I did not know Adamos Georgiou for the majority of his lucid life, and even when I did, I was just a dumb kid intimidated by this grizzly bear of a man who spoke in foreign poems with a straight back and wise eyes that could just as easily be iron as clay.

I look back and I remember silly but vibrant moments.

Him sitting at his kitchen table, from his reserved corner seat, telling me the old stories of Aesop and Socrates and Plato. I can still see and hear him describing Icarus flying too close to the sun, how the beeswax that held his wings together melted, his pride becoming his downfall. Or how Socrates willingly drank the poison he was sentenced to die by, rather than flee, in order to prove his belief in the righteousness of the justice system that convicted him.

I remember Pappou not liking it when I preferred pizza and hot dogs to his gourmet curries, but always passing a well cut slice of an apple or orange to the backseat during long road trips upstate.

I remember him fiercely giving my sister and me his famous single syllable roar when we were being too rowdy in the car on the way home from church, and us instantly cowering away silent and terrified.

I remember him waking up before dawn with my dad and me to go fishing out in Greenport, him ready with a meticulously packed tackle box full of lures, lines, and savory snacks for both us and the fish.

I remember his gardens, before he gave them up. Me, useless and happy with dirty knees and a spade, always impressed with how he managed dozens of vegetables and herbs, when at our house we only ever had tomatoes and cucumbers.

And I remember his shed, in it a small, red, trapezoid toolbox made out of steel, full of rusted tools; and shelves with a half dozen spools of different types of string, one type, waxy and thin, he would use to make elaborate grips to knives and fishing poles, and another, nylon and white, he would use to hold tomato vines to their supports.

Everything he did was a detailed project that he was consciously steering towards success.

That's why they called him the Captain.

Adamos Georgiou was a man who took life seriously. He didn't let life happen to him, instead he grabbed it in both fists and bent it to his liking as best as he could. When it was time to make a decision for himself and his family, he didn't wait, he acted.

Moving from Cyprus, to The States, back to Cyprus, and then back to The States -- chasing opportunity, avoiding war and risk, and refusing to be disheartened by material injustice -- he never gave up, he never stopped working, and he never compromised his principles. You couldn't break the guy. He wasn't the type that would let his own animal impulses distract him from his higher goals. He believed in the potential for people to create meaning, to create good works; and he knew he was responsible for realizing that potential in his time on Earth.

He took responsibility. That's what I see as the overwhelming theme of his life. He took responsibility. Consciously, and with intent instead of dogma, he took responsibility. And in so many cases, he won the games that he played.

He raised and supported a beautiful, healthy family. He was hospitable to the communities he operated within. And he imparted so many wonderful, significant traditions with such a hearty charisma.

When I was younger, I used to hate going to Greek School. In theory, Greek School was an extracurricular class where you were taught the Greek language through a strict, proven method in a focused, formalized environment. In practice, Greek School was a bunch of Church ladies cycling between filing their nails, picking students to read from single-ply textbooks sold by the Greek Scouts of America, and propagandizing you to be more patriotic through the door-to-door selling of cement and sawdust chocolate bars. I still have flashbacks to one of those teachers spitting on me as she howled, "YOU MUST BE PROUD, ΠΑΙΔΙΑ! Be PROUD THAT YOU ARE GREEK!" And I still have some of those chocolate bars in the back of my freezer. All I ever wanted back then was to get out of that repurposed house-turned-classroom and to go to Taco Bell.

One of the yearly chores of those classes was to memorize a Greek poem and recite it in the church basement for Greek Independence day. This was simultaneously one of the more interesting and nerve racking assignments, because it involved memorization, which I viewed as a kind of game; but also you had demonstrate this skill in front of the entire parish. Year after year, I would do this. I would get on stage, and recite the sounds and syllables I had committed to memory over the weeks, no idea what I was actually saying, and then I'd pass the microphone to the next kid in line, and breath easy until after the ceremony when it was time for bagels and glasses of milk. (Meanwhile you’d get yelled at by the church custodian, Marco, for taking glasses of milk, because as everyone knows milk is for coffee not for children.) None of this ever meant anything to me beyond the moment's anxiety. But then one year something different happened.

I remember our class got off the stage and they invited my pappou up to say a few words. This had never happened any of the years before, to my pappou or any other adult, as far as I can remember. Usually, it was 5 to 6 classes of kids, each a year older than the last, each shuffling through monotone and rote read poems of imperceptible difference, each poem a test of patience and self-control and maddening boredom for those sitting around waiting for the others to finish.

But now my pappou is on stage. I know that guy. He's alone. Why is he up there? What is he doing? And in the brief instant during which all these questions were popping into my mind, he boomed into a multiple paragraph poem, energy overwhelming his posture, and exiting through both his voice and an outstretched finger, which would come down to mark the significance of a specific stanza or piece of punctuation. His greatness in that moment was undeniable and the church-goers sitting in that basement hall stayed silent the entire time, and then when he finished, many minutes later, they crashed at him with reverence and applause.

My pappou had faith in the power and beauty of words and ideas, and he knew it was his responsibility to pass them on and keep them alive, for if he didn't who would? I knew then that many of the adults in that room didn’t have the courage to be onstage, let alone the talent to deliver the words with such confidence or even the knowledge of knowing the words in the first place. And that meant that my pappou likely didn’t start with that talent or knowledge either. At some point in his life, he made the choice to develop and to learn. Someone once said, ‘Courage isn’t an absence of fear. Courage is the willingness to act despite fear.” In that moment, watching my grandfather, I began to understand what it was to be a man. I was proud to be Greek and proud to be his grandson.

My own love of books; of telling stories; of the balance between hospitality and gratitude; of nature, the mountains, the sea, the animals. Every backyard BBQ, every early morning adventure, every household project. The focus, the finesse, and the brute force, at times. The desire to achieve and to persevere and to preserve.

All of the things that together add up to being a good man. All of the things I hold as ideals.

They are rooted in him. In Adamos Georgiou.

When I think now about his death, I truly don't feel sad, as in the heartache of lost love. That grief has already been paid slowly over the years.

Instead, I am overwhelmed with a combined sense of respect and inspiration and thanks.

And if I am sad, it is the sadness of a disappointment that he couldn't be around longer so that I could've thanked him as a man, and so that I could of continued to have learned from him directly, instead of simply through his legacy.

[houseofvans]

ART SCHOOL | RACHEL KATSTALLER

Inspired by traveling, architecture, seasonal fashion, and Nature, Austrian Alps based artist Rachel Katstaller's illustrations center around strong female figures and playful bold colors. With upcoming various book projects, including her first children’s book, Rachel balances her work and life with skateboarding, travel, as well as volunteering at her local animal shelter. We find out more about Rachel’s artistic process, her art school tip, and about some of her upcoming projects in 2018 – including her first board graphic! 

Make the Leap! 

Photographs by Florian Trattner

Introduce yourself?   Hi there! My name is Rachel Katstaller, and I’m an illustrator from a teeny tiny country in the Central American tropics. Two years ago I moved to the Austrian Alps with my Salvadorian street cat Hemingway, who terribly misses the palm trees and warm tropical weather back home.

Tell us a little about your illustrations.  How would you describe your work to someone who is just coming across it? My work centers around strong female figures and playful color palettes. These are deeply inspired by the vivid color combinations you can find when traveling in the tropics.

When did you first get into drawing?  Who were some of your early artistic influences? What artists inspire you these days? Ever since I picked up a pencil as a kid I’ve never stopped drawing, but I honestly never expected to be able to turn it into a career. I graduated and worked as a designer for a while, but it never really fulfilled me. Four years ago I decided to take the leap and pursue my real dream of becoming an illustrator. It’s been quite a ride with lots of ups and very low downs, but I’d never turn back!

My very earliest influences where definitely my grandparents, both architects who loved to make beautiful sketches of cities or oil paintings of Salvadorian market days. Also the gorgeous use of space and color by Miró counts as one of my earliest inspirations. Nowadays I find myself always checking out work by other wonderful illustrators and artists such as Carson Ellis, Tuesday Bassen and Cleon Peterson to name a few.

Take us through your artistic process? What’s a typical day in the studio like? Inspiration strikes at very strange times sometimes, so whenever I have an idea for a new illustration, I start working it through in my head, imagining shapes and colors. Once I get to the studio I most of the times just lay out the colors I want for the piece, sketch it and then get to work on the final art. It all sounds super easy and fast, but sometimes these ideas shape themselves through several days in my head until I finally see them clearly enough to put them to paper. Sometimes it feels like it takes forever! I’m a creature of habit and that’s why I try to have very regular office hours during the week. I’m the most motivated and creative in the mornings, or in the late afternoon so those hours are mainly reserved to paint and draw and dedicate myself to being creative. Afternoons I spend writing e-mails and planning out ideas, working on my online shop and mapping out personal projects. Before leaving I always make sure my workspace is clean and organized so that I have a blank slate to begin with the next day!

What are your essential art tools and materials? I love jumping from one medium to the other, it all depends on the project and client, as well as what feeling I wish to convey through my pieces. Of late I have loved combining gouache with colored pencil textures, as well as graphite. But I also love working digitally in Photoshop with my Wacom tablet, since this allows for mistakes to be easily corrected.

It’s mentioned that you’re currently living in the Alps. How has this environment or that city influenced the work you create?  What’s your favorite thing about residing there? Yes, I’ve been here for a bit now and I absolutely love it! Back in Central America we only have two seasons (rainy and dry), so actually being able to have four different seasons has been quite the experience. I love how the colors change over the course of the year, not only in nature but also in how people dress, it definitely influences my work. I also draw inspiration from architecture, which is so very different in every place I’ve visited. It’s a constant source of ideas. But what I think has been my favorite thing about living here has to be having taken up skateboarding. I’m a terrible skateboarder, almost deeply embarrassing so, but I try to get as much practice as I can. It’s led me to a wonderfully supportive group of girl skaters with whom I enjoy spending time with. They not only inspire my art but also motivate me to keep practicing and keep challenging myself to become better!

What was your last adventure that showed up in one of your illustrations, thematically or just visually? Maybe not my last but my favorite adventure was last year, when I went to Tromsø, Norway for the first time to see the northern lights. The whole 10 days I was there the sky was cloudy plus the full moon didn’t allow us to see anything! I was super disappointed about leaving without really having seen them. On our very last night there, my friends went to a party but I decided to stay home and go to bed early. I took a walk outside of the house and saw the northern lights just above me. It was such a magical experience and one that I will definitely never forget!

What advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps and pursue art? It is hard to give advice to others as I pretty much still feel really small and insignificant in the art and illustration world! It is easy to feel lost and as if what you do doesn’t really matter. What I’ve found has helped me to keep moving forward is to stay as true as I can to myself and my own journey as an artist. The work we do is a reflection of our inner selves, so as we grow, so does our art. Try to not look at others and compare yourself to them. Even if it sounds impossible at times, believe in yourself!

What’s your best Art School tip that you want to share with folks? I will have to second Martin Ontiveros and say that copying is not always the proper way to praise another artist’s work. Finding your voice as an artist is a long process and there are no shortcuts to get there. It’s totally ok to get inspired by other artists, but you are unique and your work should be too.

What’s been your biggest challenge career wise and how have you overcome it or how do you continue to persevere against these challenges? My biggest challenge as an illustrator so far has been keeping constantly inspired and motivated to create new work. Last year, after working really hard on some big projects, I found myself feeling completely empty of any good new ideas. Instead of taking a break, I just continued to push myself harder and getting more and more frustrated at myself for not delivering. This brought me close to burnout and it ended up becoming a vicious cycle of sorts. I’m slowly learning to listen to myself and understand that it’s ok to need breaks from work. I’ve realized how important time off is, how traveling helps me find new ideas and refreshing ways to see the world.

What are your favorite style of VANS? Definitely the Old Skool Pro, they combine comfiness with great style!

How are you not just ONE thing?  Illustration is a very lonely job, I spend hours cooped up in the studio working and concentrating on my things. That’s why I’m extremely grateful for skateboarding. It’s as much a relieve from work as it is a downtime to connect with others. Nothing compares to hanging out with my friends and challenging myself to try out new things. I’ve also found purpose in what I do when I find that my art connects or resonates with others, even when they’re hundreds of miles away. Central America still is going through major issues regarding women’s rights and it’s something that I like voicing through my work, in the hopes it reaches the right hearts and minds. I recently collaborated with the “No Estamos Todas” project in Mexico, illustrating a victim of femicide. It’s a horrible side of our reality back home, but one that needs to be talked about and put at the center of our attention. I’m also a cat mother and do volunteer work for the shelter where my cat comes from. I try to help out as much as I can through my work and give back to the community.

What’s coming up for you the rest of 2018? I’m as much excited as I am anxious about this year to be honest. I have some big book projects coming up, one of them being the first children’s book I also do the writing for! I’m also launching some skate related merch mid year, which will include my very first board graphic (keep checking my Insta for updates! :)). I can’t even explain how excited I am!

In between projects I hope to have some time to dedicate to myself and develop my art practice further, working on personal projects and just enjoying the process of creating! Thank you so much for interviewing me!

Follow Rachel | Website | Instagram | Shop | Las Furias

#Art #Vans #Vans Art #Vans Girls #Art School #Rachel Katstaller #Illustration #Interview

[inktae]

water ripples

↳ a christmas story.

◇ pairing: jungkook | reader ◇ genre: soft angst and fluff ◇ word count: 3.482 ◇ warnings: none ◇ author’s note: mildly inspired by when marnie was there and your name. please enjoy! <3

When the shift happens, nobody notices.

No one except you, that is. It is a flicker in time, the twitch of a piano key vibrating through the very, very still silence of the night. There are no winds, no clouds. Only a round moon hovering weightlessly, strangely sharp and unmoving, right above the sea that unfurls boundlessly. There are no waves that make your boat sway in the slightest. If you close your eyes, you can fool your senses into believing you are still on the firm ground.

But you keep your eyes open — you cannot close them now. Not as you wait, and wait, just as quiet as the night, the sea and the moon. Your breaths seem raucous amidst such peace on Earth, one that is not entirely natural. Your exhales are warm and visible as they glide through the cold air, one that does not feel as threatening as it did back on the ground. Right here, in this very moment, with the moon witnessing your puffs of air and expectant gaze, there is no such thing as coldness, and the passing of time crumbles into a small, dense speckle, one that almost seems insignificant. Right now, time and space do not matter.

This very patch of sea, where the water separates your village and the lonely island that floats quietly a few miles away, unlocks a door on the nights when the moon glows the brightest and fullest it can be. Said door is large and dense, just like the starry night that glints above your head, but invisible to your eyes. You are sure it is visible to someone out there, though.

Maybe Jungkook can see it, even if he has never acknowledged it. Maybe he feels it stirring on his skin as he crosses the threshold that should not be crossed, prickling at him every time he comes to meet you on his own jagged boat from his home on the island.

The thought of his name seems to call out for him, because seconds later he is waving in your direction as he paddles your way, the sight of him growing bigger and bigger as he approaches your spot in the middle of the sea. His eyes are always the first thing you notice, and you always wonder if the door opens for him because they are able to reflect the entirety of the moon on them. No matter how many times you meet, his eyes manage to rob your breath away. For a second, you can’t breathe.

His boat reaches yours, and he smoothly stops right by your side. He is wearing a threadbare brown jacket that seems too big on him, an ascot cap and new looking gloves that do not match the rest of his attire. He drops the paddles and lifts his hands, showing them proudly.

“My father’s Christmas gift!” he beams gleefully, getting up and jumping over to your side. Both your boats sway violently at his eager movements, disrupting the quietude as newly formed waves drift away in circles. The water smacks against the wooden base of the crafts, creating a paced melody that slowly fades into silence again.

Jungkook sits in front of you, smile still in place as he extends his hands in your direction. For a second you hesitate — you always do before the first touch. It is a habit you are not able to shake off, a nagging thought that rubs behind your ears in the form of flimsy whispers born from your biggest fears.

What if he is not real?

But he is. He always is. No matter how many times you wonder with a strained heart, the knot lets loose the moment you touch his hand. Relief floods your features and Jungkook understands, eyes serious for a flicker of a second, as if he has the same fears himself. You feel the smooth texture of his new gloves against your palms and smile, skin flushing with delight when he squeezes tenderly.

“They feel soft,” you say, feeling exposed as your voice breaks through the silence. It is a strange feeling, not unsettling or uncomfortable, but rather thrilling and fascinating. Like your words are gliding over foreign land, like you should not be here, but you are welcome all the same. An outsider teetering over a world she should not be aware of.

“My father got them made for me. Nobody has ones like these,” he retrieves his hands, looking down at his gloves for a moment. You know that look, can see it in sharp detail, even through the dim glow of the moon. His eyes are soft around the edges, and his lips are not exactly curved up in a smile, but you can see warmth and satisfaction flooding his expression. It is the look he gets whenever he feels like he belongs — as a son to his father, as a member of his family.

“But it’s still Christmas Eve,” you look at his hands, still resting on his lap. You ignore the sudden desire to hold them again. “Do you open presents the night before?”

“I found them by accident,” he says cheekily, eyes glinting. Your heart leaps when he gets up and slides in the spot next to yours, and this time you do not hold back the urge — you grab the hand closest to yours, firmly and surely. He seems comforted by the gesture, fingers intertwining as he tilts his head so he can look at you properly.

You stare at each other for a few seconds, and you can almost feel the light of the moon seeping through your winter clothes and circling around your limbs. Warm and tangible. The feeling reminds you of freezing nights spent in front of the fireplace, your mother sitting by your side as she sips on her cup of tea while you flicker the pages of your favorite book.

“How much time do you have?” he asks in a quiet voice, like he is afraid of the answer.

“Family dinner in an hour,” you sigh, looking back. The small town that has been your home since your earliest memories glints in the distance, vibrating with more life than usual under the festive bloom. It has always been a comforting sight, an anchor that keeps you from drowning under the prospect of an uncertain future. Right now, though, you feel strangely detached — in a way that makes you want to swim away, to untangle the secure ropes that tie you to the only place you have ever known.

It is in this exact spot where that sensation reaches its peak — that torn feeling between home and the unknown. And as scary and puzzling as it might be, you know Jungkook meets you halfway, with his own wonder brimming in his eyes as he gazes at your home with interest, fear, excitement.

“I wish I could go with you,” he murmurs, voice as gentle as the docile sea. “I wish I could meet your family, see all of your friends, go to your favorite places and see all the things you’ve seen,” he inhales a sharp breath, tearing his gaze away from your village, settling them on your dazed eyes. “Do you think it’ll be possible one day?”

He asks like he’s genuinely curious, hopeful, even though you both know.

You have tried countless times, after all.

The large, unfailing door is lenient in this part of the sea, with Jungkook’s family island on one side and your town in the other, allowing both worlds to connect inside a hidden glitch of the universe. Invisible and not known by many, but unmistakably alive. Time is only a trivial concept here, where the past and the present — or the present and the future, depending on how you look at it — reach towards each other and clash in a silent explosion. Two different moments become one, defying the laws of physics as their one hundred year gap vanishes into dust.

And just like that, you are allowed to touch the hand of a boy that belongs in 1917.

But the door has its limits, and you have tested all of them already. Just like the water ripples, it stirs feebly under the faint motions of your boats, gliding carefully across the sea until the universe halts its movements. Trying to go to Jungkook’s island, which shines in all of its splendor with a life that has long since passed, distorts time and space in forbidden ways. You are always found alone hours later, head aching and unconscious, on the now abandoned and barren island, a place that barely quivers with past memories.

Jungkook struggling to slip into your present only results in the same painful events, and after countless attempts you are now adamant in not toying around with such precarious mistake of the universe. Because it is just that — a mistake, even if it does not feel like one. Not as Jungkook holds your hand, now tighter than before, with a warmth that feels like home and a familiarity that should not feel so strong and timeless.

“I’ll take your silence as a no,” he smiles, not too happily, and you return the gesture apologetically. You feel something clamp around your heart as you look at his youthful expression, and a particularly sore memory crawls to the front of your mind, one you do not like to think about in his presence.

Not right now, you beg your mind as it starts recalling the day you learned about Jungkook’s future. You shove it away as forcefully as you can, and Jungkook notices your inner struggle, letting go of your hand to stand up.

He reaches the front with decisive steps, making you giggle as he purposefully makes the boat wobble under his weight. He faces you, smirk light and playful, and his brown eyes flare with a life you are not supposed to see, but that is inherently bright nonetheless.

“So, it’s Christmas Eve,” he begins, hands on his hips. His voice is loud, firm, and you do not have it in you to ask him to lower his tone. You have always been the scared one, always afraid and reeling over the edge, fearing the door will close if you are not careful enough.

But Jungkook — Jungkook keeps his gaze up, and his feet struggle to find their balance as he tries to keep still on the bow of the boat, but he manages, and his expression is sure and determined when he places his gloves hands on his hips. Jungkook meets you halfway, but it is him who unlatches the door and keeps it open, even if he does not know what lies on the other side.

“I prepared something,” he continues, finding your eyes. “I know we agreed not to give each other gifts in case we mess this up,” he gestures around him. He has never known how to call it, though he was convinced it was witchcraft for a while. “So I… um… decided to give you a different kind of present. Something you can’t really take with you, but you can still keep in another way— your memories.”

Your heart drops at that. You did not prepare anything for him. “Jungkook, you didn’t have to…”

“Hey, it’s okay. If it makes you feel better, I got the idea just yesterday,” he smiles again. “I couldn’t sleep, and I just… started writing. And I— well. My mother is the singer of the family, not me, but I have always wanted to give it a shot. So… yeah,” he takes a deep breath, eyes wide with sudden nerves. “Here we go.”

He wrote a song. He gives you no time to prepare yourself, voice gliding along a sweet melody, slightly broken and unpracticed. His face slowly turns into a faint shade of pink as he sings his song, eyes shifting between yours and the moon and the sea, not entirely sure of where to settle his gaze. For a second you can feel your senses heightened, and you are able to notice every slide and rustle of the water, the moon inching away in its imperceptible speed.

He sings about Christmas, with overly cheesy words that crawl out of his throat in effort, and it feels absolutely magical.

He draws closer the moment his song finishes, looking timid and unsure. “So? I was hoping it would make you laugh at least, I know I’m not the best singer—”

“I’m in love with you.”

Well, there it is. The worlds fall from your tongue with embarrassing ease, one that makes you lower your head immediately.

“Wow,” Jungkook mutters from above you, making you whine in mortification. “So that’s the reason why you’ve been so quiet.”

“You know me too well,” you lift your gaze, smiling sheepishly.

The words have been stuck in the back of your throat all day, threatening to climb up every time you open your mouth. It was the first thing you said this morning, when you opened the windows of your bedroom and allowed the sharp breeze inside, almost losing your mind when the fervent realization hit your head. Your mother opened your door right as you screamed I love Jeon Jungkook at the bright sky, which earned you a funny look and an embarrassed laugh on your part.

Just a dream I had, you simply explained, which is not entirely a lie.

Jeon Jungkook does feel like a dream sometimes, with his old fashioned hat and carefree smile and made up songs carried by a surprisingly talented voice. And you know that fear, that nagging thought will never stop following closely — you will always wonder if he is real, even during times like these, with him standing right in front of you and eyes just as intense and earnest as the remarkable moonlight.

“You don’t need to say anything back,” you get up, needing to look at his face more closely. Your knees wobble as the boat oscillates, and Jungkook’s hands shot up involuntarily, holding you by your elbows. You return the gesture, your own hands gripping at his elbows as a smile stretches your lips. “I’m just… I’m glad I can see you, and hear you, even though I shouldn’t. I’m glad I can hear you sing. Thank you for that,” you smile, gently rubbing the back of his arms. “I’m lucky.”

It may be a mistake caused by unreachable forces, but it is not a curse, like some may think. Meeting each other, being able to touch each other but being forbidden to stay close beyond the limits of the sea could be considered torture — where is the pleasure in getting a taste of something you cannot have, an ephemeral spark in the night? in getting wings that can’t make you soar, no matter how many times they flutter?

You have long since learned that is not what this is about — it is not about wishing for more, nor extending your hands towards something that is out of your reach. It is about letting your heart swell under quiet moments like these, with his fingers curling around your arms through your thick jacket, with his impossible closeness and the affectionate smile fixed on his lips. You have learned to put it all into perspective — how the mere fact of him knowing your name already reaches beyond any desire your hands might try to attain for themselves.

He knows you when he shouldn’t, and that is more than enough.

“You’re silly,” he chuckles. “I just serenaded you. Did you seriously believe I wouldn’t say it back?”

Your cheeks flare up, a nervous laugh slipping past your lips. “I mean… that was a Christmas song—”

“A Christmas love song,” he clears up, making you snort. Suddenly turning serious, one of his hands lets go of your arm to settle on your cheek, still covered by his glove. It feels warm and velvety, and for a moment you wish it was his bare hand against your skin. “I still have a hard time believing you’re from the future, my future— but if it feels this real, then I don’t care how insane it sounds. We found each other when we were trying to run away,” he recalls, making you nod quietly. “And I knew that had to mean something. I know it still does.”

Said memory, particularly dim and fuzzy, zips past your mind. The first time you crossed paths Jungkook was wearing a distraught mask, one that was eerily similar to yours. It was easy to see in his eyes that he desperately wanted to disappear, because you felt exactly the same way. Your inner demons immediately recognized Jungkook’s, as if they belonged to the same kin.

“It was so… easy not to feel lonely anymore from then on,” he continues, smiling again. “How could I not fall in love with you after that?”

“Ah— you’re too much, Jeon Jungkook,” you lean forward, letting your forehead drop against his shoulder. You feel his quiet laughter vibrate through his chest, and feeling him so close, so alive, makes your own chest stir in overwhelming bliss. His hand is now on the back of your neck, fingers drifting up and down and making you shudder pleasantly.

Your movements are slow as you pull back, hands reaching up to his shoulders as you look into his eyes. The stilled moment only lasts for about two seconds, quenching down all hesitation as you press a quick, nervous kiss on his parted lips.

“Merry Christmas,” you mumble, suddenly frozen in fear. And Jungkook understands — holding you tighter and reminding you that you’re still here, that your feet are still holding your weight and that your eyes will never lose his.

Because every step you take forward will always make you wonder if the door will finally close for good; if by being bold and holding him just a little closer, the invisible boundaries set by the moon will get torn apart. The universe has always been delicate and complicated, and the mere action of your lips pressed together might be more than enough to finally untangle this slip-up of time.

“I’m here,” he reassures you, nodding firmly. His eyes are vehement, reminding you not to let your mind float away in distress. “Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah,” you smile through the worry that creeps up your bones, feeling as it grows smaller under his enamored gaze. “I… I should go back now.”

“You should. I don’t want them to think you’ve gotten lost again,” you both share playful smiles at his words — you have lost track of the times you and Jungkook let the hours fade into oblivion, completely immersed in each other, only to go back home to anxious parents and long, firm scoldings.

“I would kiss you, but I have the feeling you’re too scared to try that again,” Jungkook says quietly. You slowly pull back, heart stuttering at his words.

“Soon,” you assure him, smiling in encouragement. “Let’s… go slow.”

Jungkook nods, eyes glinting. The prospect of something more together feels realer now, floats heavily in the air and slithers inside your skin, making it burn. You enjoy the heat more than you would like to admit. His movements are swift as he jumps over to his own boat, and his cheeks are dusted in sharp hues of red as he waves in your direction, contagious smile in place as he grabs onto the paddles.

“See you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” you reply, the same words of every night. You both start paddling at the same time, but you are always slightly slower than him. You always wonder if he notices — how you always hesitate, asking yourself if tonight will be different if you decide to follow him to the island.

You never listen to your thoughts, though. You always go back home, eyes shifting between Jungkook’s fading gaze and the island behind him, one that holds no life in your present. Right now you can see it, though — what once was, shimmering through the flickering lights of a towering mansion, a long sea and a hundred years extending between. But you intend on keeping the door open for as long as possible, and if Jungkook’s entire life has to be out of your reach for that to happen, then you can be happy with only getting a faint glimpse of it.

That fear of losing him will never vanish, but you know you can learn to be fearless in front of it — as long as he glides your way over the sea every night, like a lost soul finding itself again once time stops.

Maybe you will find a way, one day. But for now, knowing Jeon jungkook is more than enough.

#this came to me very suddenly this morning sdlkfjds #bangtan bookclub #armiesnet #networkbangtan #goldenduonetwork #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook scenarios #jungkook fanfic #jungkook oneshot #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #bts fanfic #bts angst #bts fluff #bts oneshot #bts scenarios #bts x reader #bts x you #writing