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nightwishesworld · 3 years

Note

hello! do you think you could do a chapter with fem!reader whose afraid of thunderstorms and wakes up in the middle of the night because of it but doesn’t wanna wake alcina so she just stays awake but the storm goes on for like a week and this keeps happening until she notices and comforts you through it by like cuddles or talking you to sleep to distract you from it :)

Oh my god I hate the way this came out. My brain just could not process this for some reason. I also couldn't make it as long as a week, my apologies.

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

One dark evening at Castle Dimitrescu a storm rolled in. Relatively speaking, it was quite harmless and most of the inhabitants of the castle were unbothered by the storm.

Except you.

Late into the evening, whilst most were asleep, the storm was at its strongest - the crackle of thunder rolling through the halls as flashes of lightning illuminated the darkest corners of the room. You were trying to sleep, honest, but just as you felt the drowsiness of rest come to take you - a loud crack of thunder would jolt you awake and paralyze you with fear.

You sat with your back against the headboard, your breathing rapid.

You pulled the covers up to your chest and hugged your pillow close to your chest. Resisting the urge to run and hide in the closet like you used to do as a kid was becoming more and more difficult.

Another flash, another boom.

You knew it wasn’t logical, but you couldn’t stop yourself from flinching or jumping as the sounds of the storm roared outside. It was just so loud and you could swear the castle was shaking with it.

You squeezed your eyes shut, white-knuckling the pillow held tight against your chest and humming a song to yourself in order to distract your brain.

The sound of constant rain was suddenly accompanied by heavy hail falling, and that’s when the thoughts started charging at you full force.

What if the lightning strikes the castle? What if the castle collapsed? Did it have the right infrastructure? What if-

“Stop it, God. Stop it!” You begged your brain but to no avail. Your mind kept generously providing you with possibilities and images you did not ask for.

Another loud boom and this time you couldn’t help the cry let out before clapping a hand over your mouth and diving under the blankets.

When you didn’t hear anything for a few minutes you felt it safe enough to come out of hiding. Thankfully the vampire slumbering next to you wasn’t disturbed by your pathetic cries and whimpers. She had a rough day dealing with a very pissed off Mother Miranda and needed rest and relaxation as much as she could possibly get.

You forced yourself to lay still on your back and focus all your energy on controlling your breathing. That was the key to saving yourself a panic attack. You don’t know how long you were staring up at the ceiling, but dawn eventually came and your partner stirred from her sleep.

She would have been happy to see you if not for the redness in your eyes and puffiness surrounding them, obvious signs of lack of sleep.

“Are you alright, draga mea?” She wrapped her arms around your midsection and rested her head on your shoulder, kissing your cheek.

You didn’t answer, even though you knew Alcina wouldn’t just drop the question. She was sweet and caring like that, which is probably why you never had the heart to tell her how much of a coward you actually are.

“You didn’t sleep very well, did you?”

“Nightmares,” you rasped, trying to focus on Alcina more than the low rumbling outside. “I’ll be fine after a cup of coffee.”

She looked as though she didn’t accept that answer but quickly hid any doubts behind a warm smile. “If you’re sure.”

It felt wrong lying to her. You had never felt the need to hide anything from Alcina before, but this was just embarrassing. She’d probably laugh at you told her you were still afraid of thunderstorms.

The day progressed with relative normalcy despite the occasional sounds of rumbling. Alcina busied herself dealing with the mountain of paperwork on her desk for Mother Miranda and the girls were running amuck in the basement. Depending on which room you were in you could hear their laughter below you. Their mischief down there has always been a mystery to you, even now after living in the castle a couple of years. You knew what they were doing, but couldn't fathom the idea of enjoying it so much. You did find it rather disturbing that their torturing frightened you less than a stupid thunderstorm.

You huddled in the back section of the library behind the bookshelves so you couldn’t see the lightning out the windows. The loud rumbling still had you on edge, but a good book is always a welcome distraction. It worked so well, that you didn't hear Daniela approaching. You practically jumped three feet in the air when she was stood in front of you.

“What’s wrong with you?” Daniela asked, her voice was stern, but it also had a concerning tone to it. She had dropped her bag, keeping the knife at her side. Your breathing was heavier than usual as you tried to think of what to say. It was more than embarrassing to tell Daniela the truth. You knew for a fact she out of everyone in the castle would laugh at you. "You scared me,"

She rolled her eyes. "No, Dummy, I mean what's really wrong?"

You shrug and turn the page of your book. “Nothing.”

Another boom. You couldn’t fight off flinched.

“Oh, I think I get it. You’re afraid of-”

“Don’t tell anyone.” You clenched your fists, shutting your eyes tightly. Daniela wanted to laugh, but she didn’t. You watched as she cautiously sat back down. The redhead sat in front of you, the rain somehow sounding even louder than it had before. You looked over at Daniela, feeling the embarrassment creep upon you.

Daniela started at you with a rather confused expression, resting her arms on her knees. “Out of everything we’ve been through,” she began, “everything you’ve seen us do. Everything that goes on in this castle just below your feet,” she paused. “And you’re scared of thunder?”

You sat silently and twiddled your thumbs.

“Why?”

“Doesn’t matter,” you whisper. “It’s not important. You’re only going to run off and tell everyone.”

Daniela rolled her eyes and picked up her bag, headed once again for the basement. “Whatever, y/n, have it your way.”

You spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening shuffling around the library hiding from the white flashes. It was only when Daniela came to fetch you for dinner that you left. Luckily you were eating in the kitchen instead of the larger Dining Hall. The kitchen is much more manageable; marginally fewer windows to see the lightning. The meal carried on as it normally would; the girls boasted about their successes in the basement, Alcina discusses all the work she got done today and complains about the work she put off for tomorrow. It was almost enough to take your mind off the chaos happening just outside the windows. Almost.

The storm carried on just as confidently throughout the evening and into the night. It showed no signs of relenting, which in turn meant another sleepless night.

You wasted no time stripping your clothes and crawling into bed, back to the open windows. Alcina didn’t think much of it, simply chalking it up to being exhausted from the previous night’s lack of sleep. She wasn’t completely wrong, you did feel like you were ready to sleep for the next 24 hours. But you knew the storm wouldn’t allow you that luxury.

Pressure against your back and an arm wrapping around your midsection snapped you out of your thoughts.

“I hope you sleep tonight, my love.”

“Me too.”

An hour later and you were still wide awake listening to the rain being pelted against the windows. An anxious voice whispered impossible scenarios of the rain breaking through the windows and lightning striking you down in the safety of your bed. You tried your hardest to not toss and turn as to not disturb the woman next to you. She's not asleep yet, you can tell by the lack of snoring, but her breathing is starting to even out. You were curled up on your side, back to Alcina. She wrapped you in her arms, her chest against your back and arm across your waist. "Dove..." she whispered in your ear. "Y/n... "

"I'm sleeping, Al." You murmured snuggling further into the vampire’s arms, your eyes still closed.

"No, you're not." She stroked your side absently. “Are you sure you’re ok? You aren’t falling ill are you?”

You sigh. “No, I’m not getting sick. My body is just too exhausted to relax.”

Alcina hummed, burrowing her face in the crook of your neck. “I’ll stay up with you for a while.”

“You will not. Go to sleep Al, I’ll be fine. You had a long day yourself, one of us should be able to sleep."

"Why don't we go sit in the Drawing Room or the Library? I'll hold you in my lap and read to you." God no. Way too many windows. "Goodnight, Alcina." You feel her sigh against your skin, pushing a few stray hairs around. "Can I do anything?" "Stop worrying, it's just insomnia." "I'll stay up with you then. You shouldn't be up all by yourself staring at the ceiling." "I'm not alone, Love, you're right here with me. Asleep or not I'm still in your arms, and that helps a lot." You feel her smile against your neck and pull you closer against her front. "wake me if you need anything."

You actually slept fairly well; only waking up a few times to have Alcina soothe you back to sleep. Being tucked away in her embrace did a world of help, but you still woke up hours before Alcina did. Her eyes fluttered open and focus on your groggy face. She frowns.

"Did you sleep at all?"

You smile and kiss her lips. "Yes, I actually slept a lot better last night than before."

"Good," she pulls you back to kiss you again.

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

Later in the afternoon Bela and Cassandra invited (dragged you really) into the Drawing Room to play a game of cards.

Everything was going really well. You were laughing and playing with the girls like everything was as it should be in Castle Dimitrescu.

You were made astutely aware of the situation outside again when a loud crack of thunder shook the castle. There was another flash and clap of thunder, this time loud enough to make Cassandra flinch.

You abruptly shot up from the table. “Sorry. I need a minute.” You rushed down the hall into one of the guest rooms. Cassandra and Bela shared a confused glance and watched as you hurried away. They’d never seen you so flighty and nervous before. Neither could tell what was wrong.

They laid on the carpet and silently counted to sixty before following you to down the corridor.

“Y/n?” Bela softly knocked on the door. “It’s been a minute.”

There was no response. More thunder. Bela frowned. “We’re coming in, okay?”

She opened the door a crack and poked her head inside. You were nowhere to be seen. “Y/n?” Cassandra called, stepping further inside and glancing around the room. The sisters checked under the bed, then under the covers, even under the shade of the bedside lamp. Then Bela peered out of the rain-soaked window for good measure. Where else could you be?

Just as Cassandra decided she was stumped, she heard a rustling from behind her and a muffled, “I’m in here.” She turned around in confusion because the only place they hadn’t checked in that direction was…

They crept over to the closet and carefully slid open the door. The girls smiled when they found you sitting on the ground, curled up with your head between your knees. “Playing hide and seek now, are we?” Bela said. “Next round I call being the— um, y/n?”

“I’m fine,” you mumbled, staying right where you were. “Sorry.”

“S-Sorry for what…?” Cassandra crouched down beside you. The closet almost had enough space for the three of you to fit.

“Y/n, please. Something’s obviously bothering you, can’t you tell us?”

All three of you startled as another flash of lightning cut into the room, followed by another growl of thunder. You tightened your grip around your legs. Bela’s jaw dropped.

“It’s the storm,” she said, half a question, half a statement. “You’re scared of thunder?”

“It’s childish.”

“Oh, y/n…”

“I’m weak. Something as dumb and simple as loud noises shouldn’t make me so—”

“Y/n. Look at me.” Cassandra’s gently stern tone convinced you to move your head so your chin rested on your knees. You side-eyed the girls, trying to imitate your usual stoicism. It was difficult with red-rimmed eyes.

“A phobia doesn’t make you childish, or weak— do you know how many people have a fear of thunder, y/n? A lot of humans.”

“A lot of Uncle Heisenberg’s lycans as well,” Bela chimed in.

“And are you going to go around insulting them? No, Y/n, because that’s not nice. So don’t insult yourself for the same thing.” Cassandra waved around her index finger as she spoke. Your eyes widened and followed the movement. Both girls laughed.

“Is that what’s been giving you nightmares?”

You shake your head. “I just haven’t been sleeping; too tense.”

Cassandra giggled. “Just ask mother for extra cuddles, not like she’ll say no.”

“Or a more intimate distraction,” Bela winked.

Both sisters giggle at the blush creeping on your cheeks.

“Can we sit here with you?” Bela asked, already taking the vacant spot on your right.

You shrugged— as much as you could in this balled-up position. “You don’t have to.”

“It’s ok y/n, we don’t mind.”

They sat on either side of you, Bela holding your hand, enjoying the comfortable silence that cast over you.

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

A loud crack of thunder jolted Alcina awake. Cursing to herself she eyed the clock across the room–2:06 am. Raking a hand down her face, she jolted again when another crack of thunder echoed through the castle. It wasn’t a minute later that an insistent downpour of rain started pelting the roof and windows followed by an angry howling of the wind. You stirred next to her in the bed. You were mumbling in what sounded like a mix of Romanian and English. Alcina swallowed thickly because she knew what that meant; another night terror. She laid back down and curled herself against you, cocooning herself against your back. Alcina placed a few stray kisses on your shoulders and the nape of your neck, smoothing her hands along your hipbone in the process. You calmed after a few minutes, your mumbling returning to the steadying breaths of deep sleep. Alcina sighed in relief and closed her eyes in hopes that she could drift back to sleep.

KRAK-OOOOOM!

Alcina sat up on the bed and saw you still appeared to be sleeping, though you looked somewhat agitated. She reached over and attempted to run her fingers through your hair but all that succeeded in doing was causing you to jolt awake.

You woke up with a strangled yell and starting crawling out from underneath the sheets. You sat with your back against the headboard, your breathing and heart rate rapid. Alcina crawled over and realized you were having a panic attack. “Y/n, can you hear me?” You nodded, your eyes squeezed shut as tears started leaking from the corners. You clamped a hand over your mouth, and Alcina realized you were trying to silence your breathing. “Honey no, don’t do that, just focus on me,” she pulled your hand away from your mouth slowly. You shook your head and tried to take your hand back. “No no no... I can’t- I-I-I can’t wake Al-Alcina,” you gasped. “It’s alright, Dove, just follow my breathing.” Alcina took exaggerated breaths to demonstrate. You started calming down slightly. “That’s it, everything is alright, just keep breathing.” You seemed to calm down more with the breathing exercises. “I’m going to get you a glass of water“ Alcina started to say, but was cut off by you grabbing her arm. “No! Don’t-don’t lea- don’t leave, please, don’t- don’t” you closed her eyes, her breath quickening again. “Sweetheart, breathe with me. In, out. In, out.” Alcina took your hand and put it on her chest. “Breathe with me. In, out. In, out.” Your breathing returned to normal. After sitting in silence for a bit, Alcina turned to her.

“Another night terror?” She asked. You looked away for a minute, ashamed of yourself.

“No.”

God, you probably woke her up, good job.

Alcina couldn’t keep an amused smile from forming. “Can my little dove not sleep because of the thunderstorm?”

As if on cue, a blinding bolt of lightning crackled down from the sky. The following rumble of thunder seemed to shake the castle. You let out a whimper and shielded yourself from the sky. “How could I possibly sleep when it sounds like the sky is falling?!”

Alcina hums and pulls you close against her. “There’s nothing wrong with a healthy fear, Dove. It brings out the human in you.”

“UGH! Just-!”

KRAK-OOOOOM!

Another shriek, barely muffled by Alcina’s shoulder, had you violently trembling. You were barely holding yourself together.

Wracked with terror, eyes shut tightly, you found yourself unable to prevent the reflexive compulsion to cling to something nearby.

Which, in this case, was Alcina, who was left staring in shocked silence at the violently trembling form with arms wrapped tightly around her midsection. She immediately wrapped her arms around you again and began rubbing soothing circles on your back.

“Calm down. You’re fine,” She spoke softly, ignoring the buzz under her skin as she soaked in the unwitting embrace like a dry sponge in water. Soothingly, she rubbed up to your shoulder blades. “There we are, my love,” Alcina chuckled. “I’ve got you. Listen to my voice,” She rumbled, speaking soft but firm as the thunder forced smaller tremors through the floor. “You’re going to relax. I’m going to help you. Just lay here with me and close your eyes. I’ll hold you all night if you want me to.”

Gradually, the sound faded and petered off back into the loud patter of rain against the windows but Alcina held you tightly still. She could feel the flutter of your heartbeat against her own, almost impressed that you hadn’t passed out from fear alone.

“Why didn’t you say anything? The storm’s been going on for days now you must have been petrified.”

“I didn’t want you to know,” you mumbled into her neck. “It’s a pathetic fear I’ve had since I was a kid. I don’t want you to think less of me.”

“You think something as trivial as a phobia would make me think less of you?” She pulled you even tighter against her. You melted into her embrace. “Clearly I haven’t been a very good partner to you.”

“No Al, it’s not like that. Gods, you’re an amazing partner. It’s just my stupid insecurities. You’re all so fearless and brave. You’re not afraid of anything, and then there’s me; tiny, inferior, afraid of a little thunderstorm.”

She sighed and continued rubbing circles on your back. “I’m not fearless.”

“Yeah right,” you scoff. “What could the great and powerful Alcina Dimitrescu possibly be afraid of?”

“Death.”

You wriggled out of her arms just enough to turn and face her. “What? But, you’re immortal. Death isn’t really something you have to worry about.”

She gave a small smile and brought a hand to cup your face. “I never said my death, sweet one.”

Oh...OH

“The girls are clever, they can get themselves out of most situations unscathed, but still, we can be slain. And there have been some pretty close calls in the past. And you,” she rubbed gentle circles on your cheek. “Your death is inevitable. It gnaws at the back of my mind every time I look at you. Every time morning I have to untangle myself from your embrace I remember that one day I’ll wake up alone and wish I cuddled with you for just a bit longer."

"Al, I didn't-"

"I can't always be there to protect you, including the girls. If I could take the brunt of all conflict for you I would gladly do so, but that's unfortunately not how life works. I'm just left worrying until I know for sure you're all safe."

She hummed into your neck and kissed your pulse point. "How selfish of me, I'm supposed to be comforting you, not the other way around. If I paid more attention I would have known, I’m sorry, my love.”

“Don’t apologize, just hold me.”

Alcina kissed the top of your head. “With pleasure.”

Soon enough you did fall asleep again, your arms still clinging tight around the vampire’s upper midsection. Alcina found a comfortable enough position and allowed herself to drift away as well.

#lady dimitrescu x reader #lady Alcina #tall vampire lady #alcina dimitrescu #bela dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu #daniela dimitrescu #resident evil #resident evil village #resident evil 8

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stevie-wicks · 3 years

Text

red, black and blue

She’d taken the photo in some empty parking lot in downtown LA, sunlight two years younger glinting off the hood of the Camaro. Billy’s moustache was still a couple of stray gold whiskers on his upper lip; his hair just past the tips of his unpierced ears. A different Billy to the one Hawkins had seen, but post-California Billy hadn’t had much time for Max’s amateur attempts at photography. Or for Max, in general.

“It’s a good photo.”

Jonathan Byers was not a formal wear kind of guy. He looked stiff and uncomfortable in his ugly suit- or maybe that was just an extension of how he was feeling. How they all were.

Max wrapped her hands around her elbows, suddenly regretting resisting her mother’s attempts to usher her into a jacket. “Thanks. I know he looks- different.”

Jonathan looked for a moment like he might offer her his ugly coat; then he probably remembered the uglier shirt he wore underneath. “He looks happier.”

“He was.” Max dug her nails into her skin. “He hated it here.”

Jonathan shoved his hands into his pockets. “Listen, Max; I know it’s not- it’s not really the same, but when I- when I thought Will was gone, I-” He swallowed. “Will is my best friend. I know that sounds really lame, but I just thought that. Maybe you’d feel better, or, I dunno. I know what it’s like.”

He was trying so hard. Max almost felt bad for him. “I don’t think you do.”

She’d wanted to sit next to Lucas, but her mom hadn’t. Some murmured nonsense about Neil not liking it; some louder nonsense about how they were a family and that now, more than ever, they had to stay together.

El became the compromise.

Not that Neil was gung-ho about El, either; not with the oversized flannel and suspenders she’d refused to change out of. Light blue eyes bore a hole into the side of Max’s head as she shuffled into the pew next to El. They weren’t the same shade of blue as Billy’s; he’d had more green to his, more like Max’s own. Neil’s were like ice chips.

A bony hand reached over, and Max looked up at Joyce Byers’s warm brown instead. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she whispered.

Stupidly, Max said, “He owed you a plate.”

El stirred. “I owe him my life,” she said quietly.

The last funeral Max had been to had been for some distant Mayfield relative. She’d been six and she’d cried all the way to Glendale because she was missing Jabberjaw. Then Dad bought her an ice cream and she’d forgotten all about Jabberjaw. She fell asleep halfway through the service, and they got home in time for Speed Buggy.

Billy’s service took half as long and felt an eternity longer.

Mom had offered to do a eulogy. She’d brought it up over breakfast, nervous eyes darting between Max and Neil, as if either of them would put up a fight. She tottered to her feet now, shuffling awkwardly to the front, in a dress a few laundry cycles short of being grey. For a fleeting moment, Max wished she had put up a fight. Billy would’ve died-

Max bit her cheek hard enough to taste copper.

Mom cleared her throat. “Billy and I didn’t know each other for very long, but I wish we had. He was a wonderful young man.” She dabbed at her eyes with a ratty handkerchief.

Max sank back into her seat. Maybe it was for the best; she could never lie about Billy the way her mom did. Not when all she could think of was the blood- God, so much blood, his blood- his last scream torn out of his chest by misshapen claws- apologies on a dying breath-

She stood up. Mom paused midway between some crap about Billy’s ‘respect and responsibility’.

“Maxine,” Mom said, mortified.

“I have to go.” She tore outside, knuckling her burning eyes.

The breeze nipped at her skin. She leaned against the wall, rubbing her hands up her arms. It was mid-July, for Pete’s sake.

She should’ve worn the stupid jacket.

She wiped at her face roughly. When her vision cleared, Lucas stood in front of her.

“Your mom’s done talking, if you wanna head back inside.” He kicked at a pebble.

Max kicked it back. It skittered away, just out of Lucas’s reach. “Not really.”

He squared his shoulders. “Mind if I join you, then?”

She shrugged. He hesitated for a moment before sidling up next to her, arms barely brushing.

“Steve’s giving his speech now.”

Max’s eyebrows reached her scalp.

“For the basketball team,” Lucas clarified, then added, a little awkwardly, “None of the other guys showed up.”

It shouldn’t hurt, but. “Yeah, well. Didn’t think Steve would, either. He hated Billy’s guts.” She dug her heels into the gravel. “You all did.”

Lucas fell quiet. “I didn’t hate him.”

Max snorted. “’Cause you’re not supposed to hold grudges over people who are-” She blinked back a fresh wave of tears. God, Maxine; you’re such a goddamn girl, Billy would’ve said. “You should. He was awful to you.”

“I didn’t hate him,” he repeated. “I mean, he scared the shit out of me, sure. But still. He was your brother.”

“That’s not an excuse. And he was my step-”

“He was your brother.” Lucas had turned on his side, fully facing her now. “And I know you lo- cared about him. And I’m trying to tell you that it’s okay to cry.”

Her eyes welled with tears. She hadn’t allowed herself to; not since Starcourt, not since she’d read the twenty-eight other names in the paper, not since she’d come home in an ambulance and her brother in a casket and Neil locked up Billy’s room and tore down everything else that had belonged to his son and threw it all in the trash like he’d been waiting to get rid of it-

Lucas held out an arm. Max buried her face in his chest, clutching the fabric of his shirt and turning it translucent with her tears.

She cried long enough for her tear ducts to run dry, and then stood sniffling into the wet shirt. She was probably making it all gross with her snot, but she didn’t let herself get too torn up about it. The Sinclairs could afford a washing machine.

“Maxine.”

Max went rigid. Lucas, unbothered and oblivious, kept his arms around her. “Hey, Mr. Hargrove.”

She turned around slowly, just in time to catch the flicker of revulsion that passed over Neil’s face. “And who are you, boy?”

There was a painful pause. Max’s nails carved crescents into her palms.

“Lucas Sinclair, sir,” Lucas said at last.

Neil’s eyes were glacial. Max barely suppressed a shiver when they trained on her. “Maxine; something you learn when you grow older that there are a certain type of people in this world that you stay away from. And this boy?” Neil cut his gaze to Lucas. “This boy is one of them.”

Max reeled back. “I-”

“You stay away from my daughter, Sinclair; do you hear me?” Neil hadn’t raised his voice once since he’d started speaking. To any passers-by, this would look like a normal conversation. “Stay away.”

He didn’t wait for Lucas to respond, tugging Max away with a harsh grip on her wrist. She didn’t dare to turn around.

“I don’t want you anywhere near that boy, Maxine.” His hold loosened the closer they got to the car- Neil’s car, a respectable Ford sedan. She didn’t dare tug her hand free, either. “I hope you learn your lesson with this. Billy didn’t; not at first. I’m afraid I had to use more- forceful- methods with him. I trust I won’t have to do the same with you.”

Max turned to Neil despite herself. It was the first time he’d said Billy’s name since the Fourth of July.

His eyes gave nothing away. “Do I make myself clear?” His fingers tightened again.

“Yes, Papa.”

“Good.” Neil’s smile was a mirror of Billy’s; shark-like and vicious, moments away from tearing into your throat. “It’s about time you got some new friends, too. Girls your age shouldn’t be hanging around with boys too much.”

“El’s a girl,” Max told her shoes.

Neil scoffed. “Really? Did she show you proof?”

What happened to you, Mad Max? Billy would’ve asked. You’re not going to stand up for your little hick friends?

Or maybe-

I had to use more forceful methods with him - the bruises she’d see on Billy while his own knuckles remained unscathed- Mom whisking her away on impromptu shopping trips whenever Neil and Billy raised their voices- forceful methods -

- maybe he would understand.

★

Billy’s life couldn’t have fit into a garbage bag.

Max hadn’t gone into his room since she’d gone with El, but he had to have more than what Neil had thrown out onto the sidewalk. Outside the four walls of his room, it was like Billy hadn’t even existed.

She slipped out of bed in the quiet.

Billy had taught her how to pick a lock, back in California. “Use a hairpin, or somethin’- you got one of those?”

She unfurled her fingers. The hairpin was damp with sweat. She wiped it on her t-shirt, and slid it into the keyhole.

“Keep your big ears close to the door; you won’t hear squat that far away.”

She held her breath, pressing her ear to the cool wood.

“Wait for the sound- there, you hear that? That’s how you know the tumblers are in place.”

The door swung open with a soft click.

Max half expected to be assaulted by cigarette smoke and hair metal. But it had been almost a week, and all that Billy had left behind were stale air and silence.

She flicked on the flashlight. The blinds were drawn, the bed unmade, half his closet on the floor. Air the room out, and you could pretend he’d walk right in.

His schoolbooks balanced an ashtray; the desk was not for studying. Instead, he’d cluttered it with beer cans and tapes and a tree’s worth of loose-leaf.

She padded over and sat down in his chair, trying to imagine him hunched over the desk, scribbling on page after page in messy letters. Billy’s handwriting was just as angry as he was.

Her eyes flickered over song lyrics- snippets from the racket she’d been forced to sit through every weekday morning and afternoon. Somehow, silent car rides had lost their appeal.

Strange little doodles decorated the margins- band logos and cars and anatomically inaccurate depictions of women. “Gross,” Max said aloud, pushing the papers away with a theatric shudder.

The tabletop had not been exempted from Billy’s artistry; Max shone the flashlight on more band logos and cuss words and names engraved into the wood. Here there was a crude AC/DC logo, the lightning slash extending down to form the ‘t’ in ‘TWAT’. There was a ‘María’ right next to that, the accent mark angled in the wrong direction. Max remembered her; she’d gone out with Billy for all of sophomore year- the longest Max had ever seen him go out with one girl. She’d taught Max how to do makeup.

A few paces away was Tina- the prettiest girl in Hawkins High, everyone agreed- Laurie was a slut, but she’d complimented Max on her hair- and then Karen. Max traced the ‘K’; she didn’t know any Karens who went to Hawkins High- but then again, she barely knew all the kids in the middle school. There could be a pretty blonde cheerleader somewhere, talking to her friends over the phone. “Yeah, I went out with him a couple of times,” Max imagined her saying. She’d twirl a strand of hair around her finger, lips pulled down in a pout. “And now he’s dead. Spooky.”

She knuckled her eyes. The beam of the flashlight caught on the letter S.

She held the flashlight up, frowning at the name that made itself obvious. Stevie- except the ‘i’ was jammed haphazardly between the ‘v’ and the ‘e’, like it had been an afterthought.

She stared at it until the light flickered overhead.

“Shit!”

Max dropped the flashlight, head snapping back to the door. It hung ajar, just as she’d left it. Heart in her throat, she inched towards the doorway.

The hallway light flicked on.

Max held the flashlight close to her chest, knuckles bone-white and stark. She stepped outside, and the light turned on in the living room.

When she stood in the doorway, staring out at the lifeless room, the telephone started to ring.

Her feet felt heavy as cinderblocks. She plucked the receiver from its cradle, bringing it to her ear with shaking hands.

From the other side, someone breathed heavily.

Max pressed the phone closer, hard enough to hurt. “Billy?”

A crackle of static. Some peculiar noise.

Apologies on a dying breath.

Then, “Max.”

ao3

#stranger things #stranger things 2 #stranger things 3 #tw: death #tw: mentions of child abuse #tw: racism #max mayfield #billy hargrove #steve harrington #lucas sinclair #harringrove #lumax #el hopper #joyce byers #post season 3 #stranger things 4

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truth-and-lies-drv3-imagines · 4 years

Text

-sᴀᴅ ᴀᴡᴀᴋᴇɴɪɴɢs

⤷How about characters of your choice comforting their S/O after they had a nightmare of said characters abandoning them?

⤷Contents: A few of the DRV3 characters being soft and fluffy, nightmares, crying, sweet talk.

⤷Summary: S/O wakes up to a nightmare of their beloved abandoning them but they give all of their assurance and comfort denying their claims.

⤷Word Count: 1.4K words

⤷A/N: I LIVE for this request, I love these kinds of asks so much! Just a reminder that requests are opened and you are free to pop into the inbox and request whatever you’d like.

Mod Shuichi~

Blog Masterlist (It’s NOT completely finished yet, but will be at some point.)

Rantaro Amami

- Rantaro is a fairly deep sleeper, it takes a good bit of effort in order to wake him up from his slumber. When you woke up, you were in a void of confusion and doubt. You questioned how you acted and thought about every action you’d do if the horrifying scenes that played out in your dream actually came to life.

-Your eyes started forming small,salty droplets of water which travelled across your cheeks. It was a surprisingly challenging task to contain your sobs from waking up the person next to you, even if you two were in a blossoming and trusting relationship for years the thought of abandonment left chills down your spine.

- According to you, you were an average, normal person while on the other hand, Rantaro was a wealthy and attractive man who everyone would unconditionally die for. He had an alluring vibe to him which brought attention from many. He could practically obtain anybody he wished with just his charms alone, why were you the one who caught his eye?

- Eventually, your sobs were evidently clear to hear, enough to wake up the person sleeping right next to you. What gave you the hint that he was awake was his hand slightly moving from the sheets to your back.

-”Ahh, what’s wrong love?” You turned your body over, the first thing that met your sight was him looking down at you, the crust surrounding the edges of his eyes were quite visible, which was unexpected as the room was so dimly lit. Rantaro pulled you into a light hug, as if he was a shield. He could feel small patches of wetness on his shirt which showed how much the distressing vision impacted you.

-”You’re crying so much, please tell me what’s wrong.” His voice was deep, he sounded exhausted, but his voice is so comforting even in these conditions. It always formed a sense of warmth inside of you which was a welcoming and sweet feeling. It was a strenuous task to try tell him that the reason why you felt lingering melancholy was because of a saddening,fictional and fabricated vision materialised by your brain.

- It wasn’t easy explaining him the reason of your tears, there was so much stuttering and sobs that broke your sentences like fragile glass which made you question his patience and tolerance. Rantaro nodded his head after you finished your confession and he patted your back a few times to show his awarness about the situation.

-”S/O, I honestly don’t know where this dream came from, I can completely understand the fear. But trust me on this, I wouldn’t ever trade you for something or someone else, you’re completely fine for me. You’ve always helped me when reducing stress, I appreciate every single thing you’ve ever done for me. Please don’t think I’d ever leave you for whatever reason.”

- You’ve noticed the reduction in your sobs and stress. Your breathing had finally caught on a composed pace, after his words you had a feeling of warmth and comfort which is a feeling that Rantaro always mananges to accomplish.

Shuichi Saihara

- Shuichi is a fairly light sleeper so even the smallest of things can cause a disturbance to his slumber. Even your trivial, meaningless movements you make while fast asleep could wake him up. This abnormal sleeping habit can be labeled as a bad thing, but on this one particular night it was more of a small miracle.

- You attempted to contain your sobs so it wouldn’t wake up the one sleeping next to you, you were already aware of the fact that it wasn’t easy for him to fall into a deep slumber, he was a busy man who drowned in the waves of papers and mysteries. Sleep is basically his escape from the stress.

-This one particular sob earned a small groan from the detective because of how it was louder than the previous ones, he most likely confused to why he was woken up. The sleepy man then turned to his side to see your body ever so slightly moving from your undisciplined whimpers.

- “Hey, w-what’s wrong?” His voice was toned down and sounded a little croaky but distinctly breathy. Which gave you a sense of peace and assurance with just his voice alone. He was an understanding and patient person with you, it was easy talking to him about your problems.

- Shuichi never rushed you when you were explaining your troubles and worries, he much favored you disclosing your problems in a calm and soothing manner than rushed, sloppy answers where its meaning couldn’t be easily deciphered. He carefully observed your every word and with every sentence brought out, he began to feel more and more pity and confusion as to why you felt that way.

-”Hey, I get that you might be scared. But I wouldn’t leave you without a notice or leave you in general. I really do hold you close to me.” Shuichi always tried to make it clear as crystal that he wasn’t good with words and he’d much rather show his acknowledgment and love through small actions. But even if he strongly believed that his words never held any significant meaning, you still took every single word to heart.

-”Just to cheer you up a little bit, I’ll go ahead and make a cup coffee or tea, or anything else you’d like. I really don’t want you to think that way because of a stupid dream. Okay?” You looked down slightly and nodded your head marginally to show you’ve understood his words. “ You don’t mind, do you?” You asked just to not seem spoiled. “Not at all, I really don’t mind, I don’t want to see you like this.”

- Once he had left the room, the corner of your lips turned upwards to resemble a soft,warm smile.

Kaede Akamatsu

- Kaede isn’t a light sleeper nor a heavy sleeper, if that makes any sense. It wouldn’t take too much to wake her up but at the same time, she doesn’t normally wake up to the slightest and trivial of things. Your awakening from your horrifying slumber caused you to feel perplexed and apprehensive.

-You were completely aware of the fact that dreams are simply just fantasies formulated by the brain but that didn’t help your anxious self calm down. You turned over to Kaede and thought about her every achievement, every single dream she ever had that came to reality. You looked at yourself and started to feel slightly pessimistic. She could’ve easily left for someone who was more “talented” you thought.

- You only realised how much the vision overwhelmed you when you felt a trickling sensation on your cheeks. She seemed to be fast asleep when you were beside her feeling confused and terrified for future events and happenings. You placed your already numb hand on your mouth trying to silence the sobs that came out of your mouth.

- The young pianist could easily detect if somebody wasn’t beside her, and since you were sitting up it caused her to snap out of her dreams. She was beyond bewildered to why you were in that position. “S/o, what are you doing?” Her tone sounded slightly annoyed as just woke up and it’s evident that anybody would be a little irriated if they were woken up. But when she heard light and quiet sobs coming from you the tone of her voice changed to something softer.

- “Please don’t tell me you’re crying, you know how much it hurts me when you’re like that.” Just for her sake, you wish you didn’t have to cry when she was right beside you. You already knew how sensitive she can be when you feel emotions of melancholy. “Whatever it is, I can help you, I don’t mind. I hate to see you feel like this, please tell me what’s wrong.”

- You were aware that saying nothing and allowing only sobs escape from your mouth would just make her feel even more worried. So you started to explain everything from your dream, to your thoughts to how you thought everything would turn out.

- “Please, I wouldn’t leave you like that, all of a sudden, or for anybody else. I really do love you and leaving you would be the last thing on my mind.” It was quite surprising to you how her voice didn’t sound too tired, she sounded clear and calm, which gave you a feeling of warmth inside of you. She was always so confident and understandable when she’s giving comfort, she can just completely switch the mood from a negative to a positive one which is an admirable trait.

- She gave you a little peck on your cheek, she placed her arms around your waist to ressemble a hug, and with that, you were back to sleep with a small smile.

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ashrain5 · 4 years

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Found Family - Ch 3: Disastrous Distraction

Notes: We finally get to the chapter that contains the plotpoint that got this whole thing started! It was this prompt @lizluvscupcakes sent me: If you’re taking prompts, how about Virgil who isn’t up to date on his shots, Logan who knows *just* what to look up and how to do this, and Patton, who needs to half hold Virgil still and half hug him.

Premise: Virgil’s homelife isn’t the best. The day after he turns 15 he packs his bags and runs away to live with the only family who actually cares: his older brother Roman who lives with his best friends Patton and Logan. Virgil is quickly pulled into their little family. He’s never been happier.

Warnings: past child abuse, antivaxx rhethoric, vaccines, injections and syringes, needles, panic, fear, yelling, crying, unsympathetic Remus mentioned, hurt/comfort

Relationships: brotherly Prinxiety, platonic LAMP

Wordcount: about 2.8k

Masterpost

Ao3

Chapter one Chapter two [You’re here!] Chapter four Chapter five Chapter six

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Patton wasn’t sure how the day had gone from normal to… this.

It started during breakfast when Logan looked up from his coffee, made eye contact with Virgil and told him that now that he was living with them he needed to get his vaccinations taken care of.

Virgil paled significantly, scrunching himself down to look even smaller than he was normally. “How do you know about my vaccination status?”

“I checked.” Logan had answered as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“When? How?”

“After you moved in with us. I have taken the liberty to make an appointment with the pediatrician at my medical complex to get your vaccines taken care of and to create a plan to get you all up to date. It is today at eleven a.m. so we can go get lunch after.”

Virgil had nodded, finished his own coffee and bolted out of the kitchen towards his and Roman’s shared room.

Patton looked over at Logan who seemed clueless, then at Roman who looked exasperated and worried. “He’s not going to come willingly is he.”

“Absolutely not. Remus told him so much shit about vaccines, he’s terrified of them. He’s never gotten a vaccine in his life because our mother couldn’t be bothered to take care of him like that. The only one who was vaccinated as a kid was Remus because he was important, in comparison to Vee and me. She also didn’t really- believe in most medicine? She only got Remus vaccinated because it was a condition to him joining this sports club he’s been in since we were kids. You’re gonna have a horrible time with Virgil.”

Patton sighed and put his face in his hands. He’d suspected this since Logan had brought up the topic. It would inevitably be up to him to coax Virgil out since Roman was leaving for “work” soon.

He watched his roommate finish his breakfast and head up to his room to get ready and bid his brother goodbye. An hour after Roman left it was time for the Creature to emerge so Patton knocked at the door of Roman and Virgil’s room.

“Kiddo? It’s time to go, we don’t wanna be late to your appointment.”

“No! I’m not going! I don’t want any shots!” Virgil shouted from inside, sounding angry but unable to hide the little tremor in his voice.

“Virgil, you don’t have to be scared. It’s gonna be okay, Lo and I will be with you the whole time! Nothing can hurt you.”

“Vaccines can kill people! They’re full of toxins! What if my arm starts to rot and falls off!”

“That won’t happen, Verge. And regardless, this is just to talk about a schedule for you to get your shots, you won’t get any yet!” he said, leaving his I hope so at least unvoiced.

That seemed to get through to Virgil as the door opened just a little bit, barely enough for him to peek out at him. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. And I’m sure Ro can come along to your next appointment when you do get a shot.”

He watched Virgil chew on his lip as he contemplated before finally nodding and letting the door swing open wider.

He smiled at him and offered his hand. “Let’s get ready, kiddo.”

Virgil didn’t take his hand but he did nod and step out of the room, following him downstairs.

They were on their way to Logan’s workplace a few minutes later, Logan driving, Patton riding shotgun and Virgil in the back.

The closer they got to their destination the twitchier Virgil seemed to get, fidgeting with his fingers, pulling the strings of his hoodie’s hood, tapping his feet, sliding around in his seat as if trying to find a comfortable position.

By the time they arrived Virgil was actually shaking with how hard he was tapping his feet. Or maybe he was just shaking and the tapping didn’t make much difference.

“It’s okay, Verge. We’re here with you.” Patton reassured him as they entered the building, following Logan who steadily approached the door labeled as pediatrics.

“Hello Remy, I am here for the appointment I scheduled for Roman’s brother.” he announced to the person manning the front desk who didn’t even dignify them with a greeting and just waved them on through the door.

Behind the doors was a brightly colored nightmare filled with overtired parents and loud kids entertaining themselves with the provided toys or crying about being at the doctor’s. Logan frowned at that a little but took a seat next to Virgil, placing the boy between himself and Patton.

As luck had it they were summoned not too much later, a perk of getting the co-worker treatment, for sure. Logan had planned to let Virgil go in on his own since he was old enough to but Patton’s scathing look quickly made him follow them inside.

“Hi! I’m Dr. Sylvia Davenport. You must be Virgil right? Logan told me you’re his roommate’s brother?” The doctor introduced herself, trying to make him relax a little by mentioning Roman. Secretly, Patton was glad they’d ended up with the kind looking middle aged woman with the smile lines around her eyes. She seemed harmless and was obviously good with kids.

“Yeah. His name’s Roman.”

“Okay. And I heard that you and Roman didn’t really get vaccines growing up. I can’t really help Roman in that regard but I can help you. Let’s talk about a schedule to get your immunisations to where they should be for a 15 year old, huh?”

Virgil eyed her warily despite her trustworthy smile and soothing tone. He just shrugged. She kept smiling.

“I think we should start with combination vaccines so we can get as many in you in as little time as possible, that means you’ll get the vaccines for several diseases in one go so you don’t have to get as many shots. Once we’ve exhausted those we can move on to the single vaccines like tetanus or tick-borne encephalitis. Does that sound okay?”

Virgil just shrugged again though Patton could see the panic in his eyes that told him he just wanted to get out, to run, to hide and he felt something in his chest ache at the sight of it.

“Okay! I’ll print out the schedule for you so you and your guardians can keep track of your appointments, then we can get to your first combination vaccines. I was thinking ProQuad and Pediarix. Pediarix will protect you from diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, and polio while ProQuad will help with measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella.” she explained calmly as Virgil’s face drained of color until he was pale enough to almost count as translucent.

“You said I wouldn’t get a shot.” he whispered, eyes not leaving Dr Davenport’s back as she drew up the schedule on her PC. Patton felt as horrified as Virgil seemd.

“Yeah because I thought you wouldn’t.”

He truly hadn’t meant to lie to Virgil or lull him into a false sense of security or break his trust. While he was still mentally kicking himself Virgil had gotten up, wiping sweaty hands on his back.

“Thank you very much but that’s not necessary. I think I’ll head out now, bye.” he said before turning tail and leaving.

Well he tried to leave but Logan grabbed on to the back of his hoodie, pulling him back. “No, that’s not happening. Please ignore him, Sylvia, he’s nervous but he will get the immunisations you recommended today.”

Dr. Davenport, bless her soul, raised an eyebrow at Logan and Virgil, scepticism clear in her eyes. “Are you sure about that?” she asked to which Virgil was just about to answer No I’m fucking not, I want to leave, when Logan shot him a sharp glare, much like his mother always did when he was about to do something she would very much dislike.

So he shut up, stuffed his hands into his hoodie pockets to hide their shaking and gulped. “Yes Ma’am.” he whispered, eyes so wide and terrified Patton wondered how Logan could pull through with forcing Virgil to do this.

Logan nodded, clearly satisfied as he herded Virgil over to the padded examination table, making him lay down in an attempt to make him relax even marginally while Dr. Davenport prepared the syringes.

Virgil watched her warily, trying to keep his breathing even. He lost count on his breathing when Dr. Davenport approached with the little tray holding the syringes and alcohol swabs.

He tried to squirm but Logan was still holding on to him, holding him down.

“No, please don’t, I don’t want this. I really don’t.” he started to babble, quickly drowned out by Logan’s reassurances that Yes, Sylvia, I’m sure, we want this, he needs his vaccines, he’s just nervous. I’ll hold him still.

Patton felt his heart break at Virgil’s panicked look and felt it absolutely shatter when he started crying and begging for the doctor to please stop, please! and he couldn’t stop himself from getting up and sitting with Virgil, grabbing his hand for comfort.

“Oh honey, it’s okay, you don’t need to be scared, I’ve got you, it’s okay.” he tried to soothe him. Needless to say, it was unsuccessful. The more he tried to calm Virgil down, the louder his pleas became.

Pleas became cries became wordless shouts of fear.

Patton felt his ears ring. The boy had a pair of lungs on him and Patton wished he’d stop for his ears’ sake. Until then he had an idea to try and calm him down.

He held his phone to his ear, desperately hoping for Roman to pick up. He let out a sigh of relief when Roman picked up at the second ring. “Roman! Thank gosh, you gotta help us calm Virgil down.” he said, not even acknowledging his roommate’s greeting.

Virgil had apparently heard Roman’s name over his own shouting, fell silent for just a second as he stared at Patton. Then he zeroed in on Patton’s phone, realised what was going on and started shouting for Roman, tears running down his cheeks faster than before.

Patton hurriedly held his phone to Virgil’s ear.

“Roman! Roman, help! Where are you? I don’t wanna be here, I wanna go home! Roman-” he cried, muffling any noise that might come out of the speaker, meaning he was the only one able to hear what Roman said to him. Whatever it was seemed successful though. While he was still crying, Virgil was definitely calmer and not squirming as much as he babbled into the phone. Meanwhile, Dr. Davenport quickly administered the shots, quickly applying bandaids over the injection sites.

Only then did Logan let him go, rolling off the table as he rubbed at his temple with one hand. He had been even closer to Virgil’s mouth, Patton wouldn’t be surprised if Logan had permanent damage to his hearing from this. Heck, Patton wouldn’t be surprised if he himself had hearing loss from this!

But what was definitely true was that Virgil had screamed and cried himself hoarse. His voice was absolutely wrecked as he still cried into the phone.

“Kiddo, hey, it’s okay. It’s over now, c’mon, let’s get you up.” Patton coaxed, gently grabbing his shoulder to help him sit up. “Let’s go, you’re done, we can go now, we can go home.”

Virgil, still clutching the phone, nodded miserably and huddled into his hoodie which Logan had forced him to take off to expose his arms to the doctor.

“Do you wanna keep talking to Ro on our way home?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, honey. You can do that, I just gotta take the phone for just a second okay? I’ll let you talk to Ro again in just a moment.”

Virgil looked at him warily but slowly gave him the phone.

“Hey Roman. We’re done now, we’ll take Vee back home now.”

“Okay. I’m on my way home now, I’ll be there in twenty.” Roman’s voice came through the speaker, somber and tinny, accompanied by the noise of other people and traffic in the background.

“Okay. I’ll take Lo out later to get take out, I think our kiddo deserves it today and I think he could use a bit of down time with just you.”

“Yeah, sounds good. Thanks Pat.”

“It’s no problem. I’ll give you back to Virgil now okay?”

He didn’t wait for an answer since Virgil had considerably perked up at his last sentence, already making grabby hands at Patton. Or more accurately, at Patton’s phone.

With Virgil on the phone with Roman it was easy to usher the teen into the car to start their way back home. Once there Virgil followed them home and scurried to his and Roman’s room, Patton’s phone still clutched to his ear.

“Well this went horribly.” Patton told Logan who just nodded.

“You mentioned takeout. What should we get?”

“Well I’m not sure but Virgil likes pizza. We should ask Roman once he gets home.”

Logan nodded and headed up to his own room.

Patton stayed downstairs and began making hot chocolate a few minutes before Roman was supposed to come home. He waved at him when he came in and handed him two mugs of the beverage to take upstairs for Virgil.

Then he settled on the couch so the boys could have some privacy.

---

Taglist: @3-has-charm @adreamisadishyourmommakes @analogical-mess @bubbliee0 @iris-sanders-athena @letthefandomsbegin @emthetimelady @ilovereadingandilovebreathing @ravenwashere1776 @stormcrawler75 @soulwillriseinperfectlight @why-should-i-tell-youu2 @rabbitsartcorner

#mikey writes #Found Family #chapter 3 #Virgil Sanders #Roman Sanders #Patton Sanders #Logan Sanders #brotherly prinxiety #platonic LAMP

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zenithlux · 4 years

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Cadence- CH 1

In which Vergil meets someone new, and that someone might just confuse him more than anyone else he’s met since his return from the Underworld.

It’s here! And with an accompanying song/lyrics that I feel just fit the chapter (or something I listened to a lot while working). That will continue with every chapter because writing and music go hand and hand for me. Now, I get to share that experience with all of you! 🎶🎶

I hope you enjoy! 🥰 🥰

Hello my name is regret I’m pretty sure we have met Every single day of your life I’m the whisper inside Won’t let you forget.

Hello, My Name Is - Matthew West

After six months in the human world, Vergil still had no idea what he was doing with his life.

He kept himself busy, of course. He took as many jobs as he could. Not because of Dante’s frequent declarations of “who better to pay off the debt!” (Vergil had done many things wrong in his life, but he would never take the blame for Dante’s current finances) but because the work gave him something to do. A purpose, if you will. For someone who often felt that the world should never have given him another chance, it was comforting to know he could do something meaningful.

Helping the small town around Devil May Cry was another one of his projects, though that was one he kept to himself. It was a small and quiet place, which was more than expected considering its location. When the twins had finally found their way out of the Underworld, they’d discovered that the town, which the citizens had unironically named ‘Haven’, was being rebuilt around the ruins of the shop. So, Dante had focused his attention on that. Not for the money potential customers would bring (though paychecks were sorely needed), but to provide some kind of assurance that the demons would never touch this small place again.

Vergil had quietly helped with the town itself, donating a portion of his job money to the buildings that needed a little more work. And aside from a small cut that Dante demanded to “keep the lights on” (which Vergil never understood as they could see in the dark), the rest went to Nero and the orphanage in the form of anonymous donations. It wasn’t much, and Vergil knew it would never be enough. But, as Dante had told him more than once; “You can either sulk forever or move on and make up for your mistakes the best you can.”

Today was one of the very few days Vergil had off. Since the phone had been “conveniently” unplugged that morning, there were no jobs to take. Months ago, Vergil might have argued over Dante’s “oversight”. There were always demons to deal with in a world so damaged by the Qliphoth tree. But today, he let it go. Word on the metaphorical street was that the local bookstore had finally opened its top floor with books sent from Fortuna. Vergil remembered how the owner had proudly announced that she was able to reopen with reduced prices. Rumors had circulated of another donor paying for the building’s renovation, but Vergil (regretfully) had played no part in that.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labor.

The building had an old-fashioned feel to it, as it was filled with paintings of landscapes, bouquets of flowers, and other antiques. The walls and floors were made of wood, but the building itself had been redone with red bricks. Today, it smelled of lavender and lemons from the various candles scattered about. As usual, the owner was behind the counter, reading her own book from a stack she kept on her own personal bookshelf. She was an older woman with curly white hair and wrinkly skin, but she had the energy of someone much younger. Her wide smile was oddly comforting, even for a man who’d much rather keep to himself.

“Welcome!” She said as she set her book down. “We’ve gotten a lot more in stock since I saw you last. Especially in our new classics section.” The old woman’s eyes lit up as she let her reading glasses drop to her chest. “I’m glad our small town finally understands the value of good literature.”

“Indeed,” Vergil said with a curt nod. She was friendly, yes, but he still wasn’t one for conversation.

The woman gestured to a set of stairs next to her. “Some things are still being organized, so let me know if you have any questions.”

Vergil simply nodded and headed up. The top floor was virtually identical to the bottom but much larger as it stretched over the woman’s living space. The dozen or so bookshelves reached close to the ceiling and were lined up in two, long rows. In the back, Vergil saw a trio of tables but frowned when he heard the quiet voice of another person.

Wonderful.

He knew he shouldn’t be bothered by other people. This place needed all the patrons it could get. But he greatly preferred solitude.

Especially when said person started talking rather loudly, and seemingly to herself.

“This is what I was hoping to find,” the unknown woman said. “I’m glad those donations paid off.”

That piqued his interest, as much as Vergil wanted to ignore it. No one knew who had funded the store, just as no one knew of his donations to the housing project four months ago. And a small, insufferable part of him was undeniably curious. Reconstructing this building had not been a cheap endeavor (he’d seen the numbers himself), so he often wondered what kind of person could afford such a thing.

“Foolishness,” he thought. He didn’t come here to make acquaintances. He came here to lose himself in the book stacks and leave marginally more relaxed so he wouldn’t want to argue with his brother once he left.

But the damn woman wouldn’t stop talking.

“And isn’t this a beauty?” He heard a soft thud, likely a book landing on a table. “A full collection of English Poetry. I wish I had the budget for that. I’d buy it in a heartbeat.”

Vergil twitched, and his grip tightened on Yamato. It was irritating how she was somehow saying all of the right things as if she was actively trying to get his attention. But Vergil was certain she didn’t know he was here. And even if she did, there was no possible way she could predict what kind of things would entice him.

But Vergil didn’t want to be enticed. He wanted to read. In silence.

Frustrated, he stubbornly scanned the closest shelf, looking for anything to distract himself. This was normal. Human interactions - or humans in general - were normal. A part of him didn’t understand why he couldn’t quite get over that fact. Maybe it was his time in the Underworld, both before and after the Qliphoth Tree. Maybe it was because he hadn’t had any respect for humans until his temporary split, and now felt uncomfortable (“Guilty,” Dante’s voice echoed in his head) whenever he was around one.

His eyes fell to a simple poetry book - English Romantics - and his thoughts dispersed in an instant. That would be enough. Now all he had to do was find a secluded corner and…

A quiet, but unmistakable chirp caught him off guard. The woman sighed in a dreamy sort of way. “I do need more supplies for something like this,” She said. “Let’s make an order to Fortuna when we get home.”

A second, louder chirp was the final straw.

Vergil whirled around, both irritated at the intrusion and confused at why he was so annoyed with it. And when he found the woman surrounded by an absurd amount of books, he didn’t hesitate. “Do you often talk to yourself?”

She practically leaped out of her seat. A pile of books crashed to the floor, but when she moved to grab one, Vergil saw her flinch in an odd sort of pain. She sat back up and stared at them with a forlorn look on her face. “I’m not talking to my…” She trailed off as she met his gaze. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

He watched her for a moment, assessing how best to respond to keep the conversation in his favor. She was a petite woman, and he knew he would tower over her even if she was standing. Her odd, light-blue locks were pulled back into a loosely curled ponytail, and her cheeks were spotted with a modest, but not distracting amount of freckles. Her green eyes were the most striking; much brighter than any he had seen before. That didn’t change why he had approached her in the first place. “Keep it down,” He said. “There are others here that don’t appreciate the useless chatter.”

“I see that now, but you must be one of the quietest people in Haven.” She watched him warily, but he didn’t miss the smile when her eyes flickered to the book in his hand. “Good choice. I highly recommend it.”

As Vergil stared at her, he realized that he didn’t have much of a plan for this conversation. But, to be perfectly honest, he hadn’t expected a conversation to spark in the first place. Most people didn’t try and converse with him after such a curt demand to be quiet. But there was something about her. Something off in a way that he didn’t quite understand. So maybe this conversation would be more beneficial than he thought. So, he quickly scanned her books, hoping for a suitable topic to continue with, but was more surprised to find that her modest piles consisted of art tutorials, history books, and the stack of anatomy textbooks that had hit the floor. It wasn’t until he found a tome of poetry that he finally figured out what to say. “One should always value the classics.”

Her eyes seemed to light up as she raised her own poetry book like it was her most prized possession. For a moment, he thought her reaction childish. But, in all fairness to her, the blue cover, expertly painted pink flowers, and golden calligraphy made the entire thing rather impressive. “I like to broaden my horizons. This, for example, is a fantastic collection of every great English Poet from Keats to Wordsworth.” Vergil’s frown deepened, but she continued before he could say anything. “Though I have a special fondness for Brontё and Blake.”

That caught him off guard. Again. “Blake?” He said, annoyed at how… confused he sounded. A very small piece of him wondered how this woman dared to fluster him, but the more rational half realized how childish that sounded.

“He’s sorely underrated nowadays,” The woman said, clearly unaware of the chaos in Vergil’s mind. “There’s too much of a fascination with Shakespeare. Even Keats and Wordsworth get more attention than Blake. A crying shame I tell you.” She gave a dramatic sigh as she set the book back down. “But alas, I do not have the kind of time to explore such interesting topics in my old age”.

Vergil wasn’t certain what her definition of “old age” was, as she looked about as young as he did. Though, considering how slowly he’d aged in the Underworld that wasn’t saying much. “I see.”

“What about you?”

That time, he said nothing. He wasn’t certain why, as the answer to that question was both easy and obvious. But this conversation had already spun out of his control, and he wasn’t about to admit it. The woman’s eyebrows furrowed. “Uhh… right,” She said. “I’ll just go back to… talking to myself. But quieter this time.”

“That won’t help,” He muttered.

“Well, I can’t go home for another half an hour so…”

Vergil huffed as she reached for one of her art books. He could feel the war within his head; one side demanding that he walk away, and the other pushing him to talk. V would talk if only to defend his favorite poet. But Vergil would… do something else… maybe.

“Blake is far superior to others of his time.”

The woman’s face lit up again, and Vergil felt an uncomfortable and strange surge of satisfaction at the sight. “Most would disagree with you.”

“And they’d be wrong.”

She laughed. “Care to support your argument?”

Vergil’s eyes narrowed, but his mind raced. A cordial debate then. That was something he could handle. “His works are art given life through his passion. He wrote for a great cause, and never shied away from the issues and progress of his time. He was a visionary, if you will.”

“The same could be said for Wordsworth and Keats. All three were the Romantic Poets of their era.”

“Blake is the most prolific,” Vergil said. “Who never let his relative obscurity hinder his writing. His focus on the future is much more valuable than dwelling in the past or on the present.”

“All three explored similar topics,” She countered, her eyes never wavering from his own. He could see glitters of excitement, and he swore her face had flushed from passion alone. “All three searched for meaning in one’s existence. And while I think looking to the future is certainly valuable, remembering one’s past and the trials can create a sense of hope for the direction they’re heading in.”

Vergil paused. Not because he didn’t have more to say, but because her words hit him a bit harder than he expected. Hope? Maybe a simple human could find hope in their past, but his was nothing but failures and mistakes. He felt his eyes narrow and didn’t miss the way her smile faltered at that alone. “Though I will admit,’ She said slowly. “I’ve always found Blake’s approach to be more… comforting.”

Vergil didn’t know what she was getting at, nor did he know why she was trying to argue in his favor. “Then you agree with me.”

“I never said I didn’t. I just enjoy a good debate.” She shrugged. “Growth is inevitable. The world is harsh, but pain is often necessary to push a person to where they truly need to be.”

Vergil paused again, as the wisdom he’d gained as V circled through his mind. While he would never admit it outright (especially not around his family), he’d been quite humbled after splitting himself. His recollection of both halves was hazy at best, but V’s memories were more prominent. His feelings towards humanity were more real than Urizen’s overwhelming desire for power. He still recalled the guilt he’d felt once he’d realized what he’d done, and how determined he had been to fix it. He’d had nothing. No power. No future. No hope. Yet… V had kept going. V had fought the demon Vergil had believed better than his human half in every way. And while this conversation with her certainly wasn’t as dangerous or world-ending under any circumstances, Vergil could feel V tugging at his mind; reminding of him what he fought for. “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to a man as is.”

“Infinite,” She finished.

A shrill ring echoed around them. And while she reached for her heart in another burst of panic, Vergil simply glanced at the phone she’d left on the table. When she grabbed it, she grimaced. “Unfortunately, this is a call I can’t ignore.” She reached for the smallest stack of books - two art, and one anatomy. Odd choices, but Vergil wasn’t one to judge - before reaching for the poetry book. “Please take this,” She said as she held it out to him. “I’d hate for it to end up on the shelf of someone who can’t appreciate it.”

After a brief moment of hesitation, Vergil took it. Her smile returned as she tossed a side-bag over her shoulder. “I’ll let Maybelle know I made the mess. She’s more than used to it by now.” She bowed her head ever so slightly. “Thank you for talking with me, and I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

Vergil tensed as she passed him by. His demonic senses flared to life as he realized what had been bothering him all along. Something was off about her. Inhuman. But it was so minuscule that he barely noticed. It wasn’t like Dante or Nero who exuded the confidence and power of their demon-selves, but it was something he didn’t recognize. A spike of energy that dissipated the moment she left. She couldn’t be demonic; he would have felt that from a mile away. But...

“Hey, Verge!”

His frown turned to an immediate scowl as Dante’s voice echoed from downstairs. “I’m sorry to bother ya!” He said in an unapologetic tone. “But we got important business to deal with.”

Vergil rolled his eyes. “And here I thought the phone was off.”

“It is,” Dante said. “This was a personal visit.”

That, unfortunately, was vastly more important than whatever demonic thing the woman was involved in. Tucking the books under his arm - might as well take something for his time - he blinked as close to the counter as he could get without startling the owner. Dante was already there, leaning against it with that annoying grin on his face. “I’ll take these,” Vergil said, ignoring him completely.

“You’re all good to go,” The owner said as she tapped the blue poetry book. “I’m glad that’s going to a good home. One of the few I considered buying for myself.”

Vergil blinked. “How much…”

“Oh Roxanna bought it for you,” She said as she fished through a nearby drawer. “And this.” Vergil’s eyes widened as she set an exquisite bookmark on top of the pile. A dark blue sky with stars that seemed to glisten off the plastic itself. Black yarn was braided on the top, with a small star charm hanging to the side. On the bookmark was a very familiar quote; “No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.”

“I don’t…”

Dante yanked the bookmark out of his hand, inspecting it as if it were a priceless diamond. His eyes widened when he flipped it over. “She gave you her number!?” He groaned as he slapped his hand to his forehead. “I can’t believe you got a cute chick’s number before me.”

Vergil snatched it back. “I did not…” He trailed off as his eyes fell to it.

Impossible.

She… wanted to talk to him again? That’s what a phone number meant right? No one had ever done that before, but he’d avoided anything but casual small talk, preferring to keep to himself.

Did he want to talk to her again?

Why did he feel so strange?

Foolish.

“So when ya gonna call her?” Dante said.

Vergil glared at him. “We have a job, yes?”

Dante rolled his eyes as he spun toward the door. “Off we go then.”

Vergil glanced at the bookmark again. The woman gently pushed the books toward him. “Don’t forget these,” She said with a genuine smile. “I hope to see you again soon.”

“Let’s go, Verge!” Dante shouted from outside. “I’m not getting any younger.”

“I apologize for his…” Everything. “Behavior.”

The woman chuckled. “I don’t mind. It’s nice to see people again.”

After another moment of quiet thought, Vergil tucked the bookmark into his gift and left.

Read on AO3 Master List

#zenithluxwrites #And the slow burn begins #Cadence #vergil x oc #VergilxOC #Dante #Vergil #They're both a pair of nerds #But how else does one get to Vergil's heart?

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alphacrone · 4 years

Text

for it's better to burn out than to fade out of sight (1/?)

rating: T pairings: Yuki & Tohru (platonic), Tohru/Kyo, Yuki/Machi, other canon pairings & friendships summary: In the end, it wasn’t sadness Yuki felt, when Tohru Honda had her memories erased. No, it was anger. And anger he could work with. notes: manga spoilers, canon divergence

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i. i thought i found you, just to see you fading out into the night

***

Will you still be my friend?

***

In the end, it wasn’t sadness Yuki felt, nor grief, nor disbelief as Hatori slid his shoes off in their entryway with a muttered, excuse me . He did not feel dread as the doctor bowed to Tohru as she came out of the kitchen, still wearing her apron. Yuki didn’t even feel the cold trickle of fear when Hatori said, in his callous monotone, I’m here on Akito’s orders.

Numbness burned the tips of Yuki’s fingers as Kyo hurled insults at Hatori, at Shigure, at anyone and everyone. An unpleasant warmth bubbled against the skin of Yuki’s neck as Shigure impassively asked if Hatori was mistaken.

I’m sorry , Hatori said in lieu of an answer. He did not meet Shigure’s gaze, nor Yuki’s. He looked instead at Tohru.

I understand , she had replied, smiling bright as the sun, even as she cried. I understand .

She didn’t understand, in Yuki’s opinion. This wasn’t about keeping a secret; it was about punishing him .

Kyo was gone before Tohru even sat down across from Hatori. Yuki wished for that sort of freedom when his legs felt shackled to the floor. To run from this latest tragedy would be bliss.

Does it hurt? Tohru asked, hands clasped tightly together on her lap.

No , Hatori said.

Not you , Yuki thought. This won’t hurt you. Not in a way you’ll know.

She nodded, wiping at her damp cheeks as she met Yuki’s gaze. Thank you , she whispered. For everything.

Yuki didn’t cry as Hatori touched the side of Tohru’s head. He didn’t scream as she slumped over, eyes rolling back. He didn’t say anything at all as she looked up at Hatori, unseeing.

Were he that stupid cat, he might’ve raged, might’ve broken down doors or throttled Hatori for daring to take away his friend again . But Yuki bit his tongue as the good doctor left and stood still when Shigure led Tohru back to that damned tent, all alone in the woods. She would wake up in the morning and remember nothing of her time in this house. To her, Yuki would be a distant classmate, another face in the sea of students who made up the background noise of her life.

No, it wasn’t sadness Yuki felt.

It was anger.

Yuki knew grief well, knew how it frosted over his heart and froze his limbs. But anger was something new to him in this world outside the walls of the Sohma compound. He’d watched as it burned Kyo from the inside out, had felt its flaming tendrils lapping within his chest when Shigure was cruel or the cat needled him into a fight. But now, as he stood alone in the first place he’d ever considered home, rage sparked like stoked coals in the pit of his stomach.

Sadness was debilitating, but anger? Anger he could work with.

The night outside grew dark, but Yuki’s path forward seemed clearer than ever.

***

There is one thing...please...

***

Yuki didn’t mean to be in the classroom when Tohru’s friends confronted her, but in his defense, he hadn’t thought they’d have this conversation at school .

He was doodling aimlessly in the margins of his notebook, letting the morning chatter of his classmates down out the messy thoughts in his head. The two girls—Uotani and Hanajima—jumped up the moment Tohru walked into class, Uotani brandishing a crumpled piece of paper at her as she waved in greeting.

“Is this true?!” Uotani shouted. Behind her, Hanajima stood expressionless. “Did your gramps kick you out? I’ll kill him !”

“W-what?” Tohru paled and read the paper Uotani shoved in her face. “I-Yes! I mean, no! I- I didn’t mean to keep it a secret from you, I just didn’t want to worry you-”

“Of course we’d worry-”

“-a-a-and Grandpa didn’t kick me out, his house is being renovated! And he asked if I could stay somewhere else-”

“-a tent in the woods, do you know how dangerous -”

“-and Hana’s family is so big and you always say your place is too small for you and your dad-”

“-friends help each other, Tohru!” Uotani slammed her hand against an empty desk, causing Tohru to jump in surprise. “You aren’t a burden!”

Tears filled Tohru’s eyes, and she looked down at her feet. Hanajima stepped forward, having remained silent this whole time, and placed a hand on Tohru’s shoulder. “You’re going to come stay with me, okay? Mother and Father were very worried when I told them you didn’t have a place to live.”

Tohru was crying in full now, face buried in her hands. Uotani was sobbing, too, and she pulled Tohru into a tight hug, Hanajima wrapped her arms around both of them and stood patiently, eyes closed, and the other two apologized to each other in shaky hysterics. Yuki averted his eyes, wondering if he should have chosen a better time to slip that anonymous note into Uotani’s locker.

Perhaps this was for the best. Tohru would live with Hanajima’s family, then return to her family, and she’d live a normal life away from the Sohma curse and all that came with it. She would be safe; Akito would never be able to touch her on the outside.

But…

But Yuki was selfish, selfish and angry and greedy for more than watching Tohru smile from across a classroom. For once, he’d let someone near his heart, and she hadn’t run away. She’d fixed his crooked tie and protected his secret base and asked a dirty, unnatural rat to be her friend. Tohru deserved better than someone like him, but Yuki would be damned if he let her go without a fight.

He glanced at Kyo’s empty seat; the idiot had skipped class every day since Tohru had left. Yuki didn’t care what the stupid cat did with his time, but he felt a twinge of something akin to sympathy anyway. If anyone’s anger could match Yuki’s own, it was Kyo’s. The cat was born into injustice and fed nothing but pain and fear.

Yuki would rather cut his own tongue out than ever admit it out loud, but perhaps this was something they could ally against. Perhaps…

Mayu-sensei’s arrival broke Yuki from his thoughts, and he quickly shook them away. The cat was no use to him, now or ever. It was foolish to dream.

***

If my memories are erased...

***

“ You can stay at Kaibara, ” Hatori had told him over the phone, the night Tohru left. “But you cannot talk to Tohru Honda. If you or Kyo talk to her, you’ll both be transferred. My method is powerful, but not foolproof, and talking to her could spark something.” There was a pause, then, “This is what is best for everyone, no matter Shigure thinks.”

None of this was surprising, but Hatori’s cold tone was gasoline tossed on the fire of Yuki’s rage. Yuki had clenched his jaw, but did not shout when he asked, “Do you remember, when you erased the memories of my friends, when I was young? Do you remember how much I cried?”

There was a pause, then a sigh, and a soft, “Yes.”

“And Akito laughed,” Yuki had continued. “Akito laughed until he cried.”

“I’m sorry.” And Yuki believed Hatori felt remorse. He knew not a soul among them could defy Akito’s direct orders. But it wasn’t enough.

“I’m not crying now,” Yuki told him, voice cold and clear. “And when this is over, Akito won’t be laughing.”

He’d hung up before his nerves could overtake him and sank to the floor, burying his face against his knees. Threatening Hatori wasn’t as dangerous, as forbidden as threatening Akito but…

Yuki scrambled to the bathroom, barely making it in time to empty the contents of his stomach into the toilet. He retched, again and again until nothing was left. His body shook uncontrollably, adrenaline and fear and newfound power coursing through his veins. Yuki stood, shaky as a fawn, and felt a lightness in his limbs he’d never known before.

He couldn’t help but laugh; Yuki was toeing a dangerous line and it felt like freedom.

***

... will you still be my friend?

***

Opportunity had a funny way of sneaking up on a person.

It was raining the day Yuki noticed Tohru eating alone at her desk, for once not surrounded by Uotani and Hanajima. She didn’t seem sad or lonely, smiling softly to herself and glancing over her class notes, but Yuki could only see that tired girl emerging from her tent in the woods, feverish and small.

Don’t speak to Tohru Honda. He could hear Hatori say. This is for the best .

Who would want to be friends with someone as useless as you? Mother hissed in his head.

If normal people knew your secret, Akito had once said. It would sicken them.

They were right, he was being stupid, he was broken and cursed and disgusting. Yuki was an abomination, a shell of a person hiding an ugly truth, and Tohru was-

Will you still be my friend?

Torhu was someone he’d made a promise to, someone who’d seen the truth and smiled. Yuki took a deep breath and slowly approached her desk, lunch clutched in his hand as the classroom around him blurred into nothingness.

“Honda?” His voice came out softer than he intended, shakier. But Tohru looked up, eyes bright and kind as always, and his nerves settled. “You’re eating alone today?”

Tohru looked around, as if just realizing her friends were gone. “Oh, Sohma, hello! Um, yes, Hana needed to return some books to the library and Uo’s home sick, so it’s just me.” She smiled awkwardly.

Those ugly voices still screamed in his head, but the newly-burning rage roared louder. Yuki took another deep breath and focused on the warmth that always seemed to radiate from Tohru. She looked at him curiously, sweet and open and kind. He could do this. He would do this.

“Do you...do you mind if I join you?”

***

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#fruits basket fanfiction #fruits basket #fruits basket spoilers #furuba manga spoilers #yuki & tohru #anna writes things #x-posting from ao3

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fanfic-scribbles · 5 years

Text

Dragon Princess

Fandom: MCU Captain America/Avengers

Summary: You don’t let anybody in easily. Steve doesn’t mind a challenge. Hopefully he also doesn’t mind getting his armor singed in the process.

Quick facts: Romance – Steve Rogers/Reader – female!disabled!Reader]

Warnings: Female pronouns for reader, reader uses a wheelchair, reader is a Grumpy Gus (with a heart of gold), some ableism

Special Disclaimer: Reader is in a (manual) wheelchair for an undisclosed disability. I don’t use a wheelchair myself, I just go behind one, so if anything I said is offensive then message me and I’ll try to edit it. I did my best but unconscious bias is a bitch and trips up even the best of us.

Words: 2903

A/N: I love. Writing grumpy characters. Who are secretly soft. Can’t stop won’t stop. Anywho; this didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted but I quite like certain parts of it, and I’ll never not love writing troll-Steve, especially with cranky reader-characters. It’s just fun.

It has been a long day and you just want to go home. So it’s with no small amount of delight that you tear down the open space between bookshelves and tables and make a spectacular turn down the aisle you need– only to come to a complete and sudden stop.

That guy.

It’s a little harsh, but he’s standing right in front of the shelf you need. Captain America is a regular around here; so much a fixture that you can pinpoint the newbies and the visitors by how long they stare at him. Right now you stare a little too because, hey, you actually haven’t really interacted with him– it’s not like you have the time normally, but your co-workers won't shut up about how wonderful and nice the guy is. Nice, maybe. Easy on the eyes, certainly.

But not nicer than your bed and definitely not easier to look at than the inside of your eyelids.

You roll up next to him and find the spot where the book goes. Blocked by his thigh, of course. Grayson owes you big time for this ‘real quick favor.’

You clear your throat and steel yourself. “Excuse me.”

Captain Rogers blinks and looks down at you. Like he can’t fathom what you're doing here. You realize he’s zoned out just as a spark of life returns to his eyes. “Oh, um, can I help you with something?” he says. He then scans the upper shelves and looks down at you, meaningfully.

You sigh but temper yourself. “No, I know exactly where this goes.” You give him your brightest smile and hit the epic tome against your other hand. “On the shelf right above your kneecaps. Both of which happen to be at the perfect level.”

He jumps back and you’re able to slip the book right into its spot. He actually looks pretty amused. Since he’s a good sport about being threatened with a hardcover edition of “The Tale of Genji” (which might have to be registered with the state of New York as a deadly weapon, you’re not sure,) and since you’re only a week away from beating your record for number of days gone without a complaint, you sit back and say, “Since I’m here, is there anything I can help you with?”

“No ma’am, I’m just browsing. Thank you,” he says and goes back to staring at lettered spines, leaving you free to escape work for the day.

That went pretty well, all things considered.

It’s another long day when you come across Captain Rogers again. (Mr. Rogers? Captain America? Whatever.) You’re cleaning up the tables and he’s sitting at one, quietly reading. He’s got a small stack of nonfiction, the titles of which are all so boring that your eyes glaze right over them. As you get closer he raises his head and smiles at you. You’re not sure what your face does, but his lips twitch up against his best efforts and he looks caught between laughing and being concerned. “Sorry, did I do something…?”

“Other than be a nice guy to exactly the wrong person? No, you’re…fine. I guess,” you say. “If you want a smile you’ll have to go to the front desk; I’m the only one in this area.”

He laughs, which isn’t a half-bad sound. You roll your eyes and gesture at his stockpile of Boring Nonsense. “You done with any of those?”

“Yes,” he says and immediately puts two of them next to you. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” you say, grab them, and leave him be.

For a while. He’s still working on something that makes him scowl like he’s going to start fighting it when you come back over and drop a book right next to him hard enough to make him jolt. You smile. It’s the little things, sometimes. You pat the cover. “This is my favorite piece of trash. It has dragons and swords and is basically the book version of the most terrible-wonderful fantasy movie you can imagine. Give your brain a break before it goes on strike.”

His smile broadens, and he pushes the other, actual trash away so he can put your beloved trash in its place. “Enjoy, Captain,” you say and start to turn.

“Steve,” he says as if instinctive. But then he looks at you. “If you don’t mind.”

You shrug, but since you’re trying to be polite you tell him your name before leaving him to read in peace.

“Can I ask you a question?”

That’s as good as a loaded gun, as far as you're concerned, but you’re in a marginally good mood today so you face Steve with as much patience as you can hold at any one time. “Yes?”

He frowns. “Do you…” He sighs. “This is so random, but do you have any recommendations for books on food?”

That’s…not what you expected. “Huh,” you say as you actually have to think through the card catalogue of your mind. “I guess, but I think I should ask Grayson about–” Steve’s face does something terrible that is also delightful. “You already asked him.”

“He has to be joking,” Steve says desperately.

You crack a smile, already aware of the sorts of things your more exuberant and…adventurous coworker likely said. “Some, yeah, but probably not all.” You think you know what Steve’s aiming for. “Hold that thought.”

“If it’s too much trouble you don’t have to–”

You shush him– this is a library after all– and continue on your mission. You have to wave off one of the volunteers at one point but you manage to retrieve the book you’re looking for. When you return, Steve is focused on his book again– the poor, trusting fool. Nobody else is around, so you take great pleasure in making it slam right next to him. This book being bigger makes a louder sound than the last– he jumps, you laugh, and the day has gone from good to great.

“You like making me jump,” he accuses, poorly hiding a smile.

“My coworkers say I’m a sadist. Too bad for them I’m good at my job.” You flip open the book you brought him. “Ta da. The modern American cooking bible. Enjoy.”

Steve is immediately fascinated, leaning over and flipping through. “Betty Crocker is still a thing?”

“Oh yeah,” you say. “Still in grocery stores and the books get revised all the time.”

“Wow.” He smiles at you. “Thanks.”

You wave him off. Just as you’re about to go, though, you think of another possible concern. “By the way, Grayson talks a big game but he’s not serious. I mean, if he were single, yeah, but he’s got a wife and kids he loves more than anything. His flirting is all in good fun.”

Steve nods like it doesn’t bother him, but stops mid-motion. “What about Alex and Martha?”

You snort. “Good luck.”

He rolls his eyes. “Wow, thanks.”

You smile sweetly at him. “Always here to help.”

“Ooo,” Alex says under their breath and straightens their shirt.

You’re too annoyed to ask what they see. You find out anyways when Steve strolls up to the counter and says hello to Alex and then pointedly does the same to you, smiling like he’s gotten the best news of his life.

It’s fucking irritating and you wave him off like the obnoxious fly he is. Like the obnoxious fly he is, he remains. You give him a dirty look. “Away with you and your happiness.”

Steve laughs, showing his true colors for all to see. He leans on the counter closest to you. “That kind of day already, huh?”

You turn in the stool to properly glare at him. “I have great arm strength and three complete editions of “The Lord of the Rings” as well as the rest of our Tolkien collection. Do you want to find out how many copies of “The Silmarillion” are needed to take you out?”

Steve is unaffected. This is what you get for being nice– burning irritation and the blood of Captain America soon to be on your hands. Not to mention how all of your coworkers are probably going to give you the cold shoulder. Or worse– make you man the information desk.

You shudder. No, even Steve’s stupid fat head getting clocked by elven moping isn’t worth that.

“No,” he decides, smiling bigger as he watches you. “But I’ve been meaning to read “The Children of Húrin” if you happen to have it.”

You grab the book and…hand it to him, because you aren’t really a monster who would harm an innocent book just because someone else was irritating you.

Steve beams, the bastard. “Thanks!”

“Ugh, your sunshine hurts. Go away you fucking sadist.”

“We have that in common then,” Steve says and honest-to-god winks before strolling away to his area in the back. He’s so fucking jaunty that if he wasn’t in a library you’re pretty sure he’d be whistling.

“Nerd!” is your parting shot before you turn back to the task at hand. Alex, however, is gawking. Fucking great. “What?”

“‘Your sunshine?’” Alex points at you. “You were flirting!”

This might be the day you murder someone. And not a patron– that’s unexpected. “I was not!”

“And he was too oh my god.”

Blood rushes to your head. “Is this really how you want to go out? I made three 16 year old boys cry because they drew dicks in our books, my blood is pumping, I could fight a bear, don’t test me.”

Alex runs. To gossip; you’re not fooled. You shake your head. The problem with threatening people all the time is that eventually they find out you’re not actually violent. Not that those teenage brats know better, thankfully.

On that note, you do hope Steve enjoys their artistic interpretations of his text.

It’s too late to be irritated by the morning and too early to be irritated by the rest of the day, so you’re at the front desk, doing busywork to while away the slow mid-morning.

“Hi.”

You lift your head. “Do you live here now?”

“I wish,” Steve says. Your boss, William, is off to the side with Martha, and Steve politely greets them before focusing on you. He puts two books on the counter. “I wanted to return these.”

“Book drop is right over there,” you say.

“And deprive you of something to complain about? I would never,” he says.

Martha snorts. You magnanimously ignore her. It was pretty good, and you notice the first book you gave him sits on top. “How’d you like it?”

“It was fun.” Steve brings out a piece of paper. “I wrote down the author’s other work if you want to take a look?”

You take the list and give it a look-see before going at it with a pen. Some of the titles get stars, some get a ‘meh’, some get crossed out, and some of them get Sharpied out of existence.

“Do you need help?” you ask as you hand it back.

“No; I’ll just browse,” he says and holds it up. “Thanks,” he says, nods at the two useless observers, and goes on his way.

You open the first book to check it in and see a piece of paper folded in half. “Hey, you–” But Steve is gone. “Jeeze; even his bookmarks are dumb and big.”

You unfold it though and it’s– it’s a drawing. A really nice ink drawing of a snake-bodied dragon, fierce and blowing fire but…coiled at the bottom to sit on a throne of books that floats above the ground. Next to the picture is calligraphy that reads, ‘Thank you for always helping me.’

William and Martha crowd in, so you put the picture on the counter to let them see. You don’t look away from it but you can hear them admire it (as they should).

“Is…is he calling you a dragon?” William asks warily.

“This…” You breathe. “…Is the nicest thing ever.”

Martha and William scuttle off to gossip like the tweens they secretly are. You appreciate the drawing for a little while longer before you carefully fold it back up and slip it in your notebook under the counter.

God damn. He is flirting.

And god damn, you’re into it.

If you’re being honest, you’re not really that rude to strangers. Not most of the time, anyway. You know some who might argue that, but you love reading and books and stories and libraries and you want other people to love them too.

Some people, though, are hopeless.

“Here?”

“Next shelf over,” you say. “Left–” The guy moves his hand down and you sigh. “To the left, sir.”

He moves his hand, somehow, just over the book. “Yes! Th–” aaaaand he passes right by it.

Short of magically teleporting the book out of its spot and into his face, you're not sure what else you can do.

“Why can’t you just get it for me?” he whines.

You’ve had people practically strain their necks in effort not to look at the chair, but this is ridiculous. You rub your temples to ease the stupid. Someone is hovering in the aisle on the opposite side of where you’re trying to direct this disaster of a puppet show. Hopefully whoever is waiting has more patience than you. “I’m sorry sir but I don’t know how to be any clearer about it; you’ve literally passed over it–” Wait a minute. “Twice…” Wait a minute.

His mouth hints at a smirk even as he tries to look annoyed. Really? This is how he wants to harass you? This is weaksauce. He could have gone to Martha and done the same thing, she’s so short.

You smile politely. With fangs. “Sir, given our interaction here, I have to say I don’t think that book is right for you. The library has a great children’s section; I could show you the books for new readers. They’re well suited to your reading comprehension and your maturity level.”

It takes him a second. Unsurprisingly, he has the gall to get offended. “What did you say to me?!”

“We both know what you’re doing,” you say flatly, losing the gracious veneer. “Are you going to waste more of my time or can we stop pretending?”

He flounders for a moment, obviously too shocked by the turn to process. “I– I want to speak to–”

“His name is William and he’s at the front desk. Knock yourself out.” Please.

Asshole storms off and you sigh. It doesn’t seem fair that your ‘days without a complaint’ is about to get reset because of that, but maybe you can argue it. William is a reasonable guy. If he wasn’t you’d have been fired your first week when you heard someone making fun of their friend for reading Laura Kinsale and you signed the jerk up for every romance newsletter you knew of.

Steve steps out from the next aisle over and walks down to you. “Ah,” you say. “I should have known that particular looming.”

He blushes. That shouldn’t be legal. “Sorry; I wanted to talk to you so I decided to wait.”

Oh. “Then…thanks for not stepping in.”

“You had it handled. In fact…” He cracks a smile. “You were surprisingly patient.”

“I have to be.” You shrug. “My job involves dealing with the public. You know how it goes.”

“I do,” he says, smile growing. “Would you like to commiserate? Maybe over dinner?”

You try very hard to clamp down on your own smile. It peeks through anyway. Traitor. “Misery does love company.”

“Is it okay if I don’t think I’ll be miserable?” he asks.

“That’s fine, I can be miserable enough for the both of us,” you say. “You sure you want to go on a date with a dragon? You seem more like a princess kind of guy. White horse and all.”

He laughs and puts his hand to his chest. “Don’t let the suit of armor fool you. Besides, there’s more than one kind of princess.”

You shake your head. “I guess we’ll talk about it,” you say. “Over dinner.”

“Thursday?” he suggests.

“I get off work at six.”

“I’ll pick you up here then.”

“Cool.”

“Good.”

“Great.”

There’s an awkward moment where it feels like there’s something else– or should be something else. You know what you want, but…

Fuck it. You crook your finger to bring him in and Steve obeys, until he’s close and bracing his hands on the arms of your chair. You move to the side of his face and place a very light kiss on his cheek. He lingers for a moment and then stands, radiating carefully muted joy with a small smile that looks ready to erupt.

He’s going to ruin your reputation as a hardass. That doesn’t bother you near as much as you think it should. “Thursday,” you say and swallow. “It’s a date.”

He grins, like a sunbeam through the cloud. Yep. Ruined. “I’ll let you get back to work then,” he says and steps back. “Try not to set anyone on fire?”

Your smile shows teeth. “No promises,” you say and turn your throne around. This hoard isn’t going to manage itself, and you can’t just wait around for your knight– you’re not that kind of princess.

#steve rogers x reader #captain america fanfic #captain america reader insert #avengers fanfic #avengers reader insert #troll steve rogers #grumpy reader #tw ableism

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ksaysthings · 6 years

Text

I posted this on Pillowfort because I’ve got a prompts community over there I’m building up. But it’s still a small community so I’ve decided to migrate a few things over.

Title: Drop and Run Prompt: Week 17 – Accidental Baby Acquisition Fandom: Superman (Supergirl) Main Characters: Clark Kent, Lois Lane Pairing: pre-relationship (pre-het), Clark/Lois (has that got a ship name? Apparently it's Clois.... I'm not using that.) Rating: PG Summary: Clark leaves Lois with a gift. Warnings: fluff Word Count: 1,483 Additional notes: This is an amalgimation of the Supergirl TV show's Superman, my assumptions of the kind of Lois that would suit him, and a bit of Lois and Clark from the 90's because we work with what we know.

“What is that?” Lois demands as Clarke bustles in under her arm and into her apartment, “Hey- no- wait-!” but he’s surprisingly fast and by the time she’s made the grab to catch him he’s across the room dimpling at her.

“I know you’ve seen babies before, Lois.” He teases but also gets straight to the wiggling bundle of a point cradled in his ridiculously muscled arms. She squints at him, distrustful and folds her arms firmly across her chest because one, she knows she’s about to have to put up a fight, and two, she’s just remembered that she’s in her pyjamas and no-one sleeps in a bra.

“I know that,” She stalks towards him, “but what is it doing here?” she says each word clearly, because Clark has a way of fumbling around like he hasn’t understood a direct question if it’s not, well, direct.

He looks left, towards her kitchenette, holds the baby in only his right arm and scratches the back of his neck. He looks positively adorable and uncertain. Lois braces herself fiercely ready to say, ‘no’, and ‘no’, and ‘don’t you dare’, because there is nothing good that comes from Clark not making eye contact. She steps closer and holds her ground a foot from him, aware, so aware of that little danger to itself braced and secure in the nook of his arm. She’s marginally afraid for the kid’s safety, but there is no way the man before her would ever let a child fall. Her faith in that is absolute.

He looks at her, around the apartment, and before she can decide his end game he barrels out, “I need you to mind him.” And then there’s a baby being pushed into her arms, and her fear of dropping it is so primal that she grabs and holds like it’s life depends on it. She realises her error when she gets her baring’s and finds him backing towards the front door, a bundle of bags at her feet.

“No,” she breathes, utterly betrayed, and he keeps fleeing, “Clark Kent,” she warns, and the bundle in her arms gives a hiccup like it might cry which freezes her still. She hisses out her words at him as quietly as she can afraid to move a muscle, but the rage is pure, “where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m so sorry, Lois.” Clark’s expression is pained, apologetic, and somehow fond all at once, and Lois knows he’s going to actually leave her, with a baby.

She flounders, “Where did you even get a baby, Kent?” The thing in her arms makes another slightly louder noise at her tone and she looks down, panicked, and then back up again to find him standing in the open doorway. His expression is arrested, it’s an expression she’s see on him before, in glances and surprised moments. It’s fond and adoring, the curl of a smile on the edges of his mouth, and it makes her insides twist and squeeze because he doesn’t look at anyone else like that and she’s still not sure what to do with it.

“I’ll be back. As soon as I can.” He promises, and then he leaves her.

She makes a choked sound of surprise that is more squeak than is strictly dignified and then the baby begins to wail.

“I’m going to kill you,” She seethes when she looks up from her fort of blankets, pillows and baby products to find Clark standing over her. “How are you inside?” She follows with quickly, because she’s camped out on the lounge room floor still, the last refuge of the insane, because this was the only place, in the whole apartment, that the baby would stop crying at. There was no rhyme or reason, no purpose to the choice, the baby had simply chosen and after ten hours of crying and screaming and nappy changing (thank you YouTube) Lois no longer had the will to fight.

He crouches down and reaches out to check on the baby, but she slaps his hand away before it can touch.

“Don’t you dare,” She hisses and curls protectively around the sleeping bundle careful not to touch it, “this monster has been screaming my eardrums out for the last six hours, if you wake him up I’ll kill you myself. Now answer the question.”

Inexplicably Clark smiles at her, a bitten off smile that crinkles the edges of his eyes in a way that makes even her exhausted heart pitter patter. “You gave me a spare key three months ago after the Rival News debacle.” He speaks lower than normal, and it feels like an early morning rumble, even though it’s close to midday and her hair is a mess, and she feels tacky in a sticky way, not to mention how she knows she must smell.

Clark reaches out, pushes some of her tangled hair behind her ear and his expression relaxes, softens. “You okay?” He asks, and she’s torn between wanting to claw his eyes out, and curl up and go to sleep because he’s back and that means whatever he had to do, because she’s not dumb enough to think he’d do this on a whim, has been done.

“Are you?” She asks in that same quiet voice and peaks up at him, still afraid to move and upset the child, but he looks okay, maybe tired, but whole and hearty squatting down beside her nest like he belongs there.

“We found his parents,” He tells her and when he reaches out to touch the baby she lets him because it’s Clark. His hand dwarf the little thing, but he’s gentle as he carefully gathers the bundle up and pushes up to stand without jostling it. The baby doesn’t stir, safe. He holds his hand to her as well, and she wants to stay in her nest, recalibrate because that little thing has been her life for such a short time, but everything realigned for it and she’s not sure what she’ll be when she puts herself back together again. She reaches out despite her doubt, and he effortlessly pulls her up against his side. She smells, she’s a mess, and he smiles down at her like she hung the sun.

“They alive?” She needs to know, because she had time, while firing off angrier and angrier texts to him until she’d realised his phone was in the baby bags he’s left with her, to open some news pages and look for clues.

“Yeah.” He smiles, blinding and happy, because he takes pleasure in the safety of others and it is so incredibly hopeless that she feels the answering happiness build in her. “And they’ll be going straight into witness protection the moment I get baby Jason back to them.”

She arches an eyebrow at him, and steps away, because she’s been too close to him for too long. “I’m pretty sure his name is Hellspawn.” She says dryly.

“Lois!” he sounds outraged but his expression is brighter, his teeth flashing in a grin, and she grins back at him.

“Let me shower,” She dictates, “and I’ll come with you to give him back.” She hesitates, looks up at him again because he’s so ridiculously tall even when she forgets, “If that’s okay?”

He looks her over, and his expression becomes mock solemn, “If you think you need to.” She smacks his arm and forces the smile down before it can encourage him. Then she leaves the two of them, hesitant to turn her back, but bullying past it because she’s an award-winning journalist and she is not going to get clingy about a baby she barely knows.

By the time she’s stepped out of her shower and changed, the lounge room doesn’t look like it’s been hit by a tsunami any more. Everything is probably neater than it was before Clark had shown up at her door and he looks flushed and proud.

“How’d you do that without him crying?” She demands, furious that he could do anything of the sort.

“Practice.” He replies, fake solemn again, and she pokes him in the ribs and grabs her handbag.

“No really.” The floor looks like it’s damn, like it’s been mopped? “My shower wasn’t that long.” She frowns at the room as she makes her way to the door, leaving Clark to trail behind, baby and bags in tow. She stops at the door, standing in the exit and baring his escape, because honestly.

And his smile quirks up wicked and teasing and he says, “I was very, very fast.” Then laughs hard, the baby in his hold jostling and instead of the screaming she expects the little thing catches on and gurgles happily up at the man.

She sighs and lets him past, “Well that’s just not fair,” she grumbles and locks the door behind them.

#superman #clark kent #lois lane #trope #writing #fanfic #my writing #clois #that ship name is terrible guys #ck/ll #which is better #but only marginally #there are a lot of good options for these guys #I should not spend my notes badmouthing a ship name #drabble #short story #supergirl #supergirl tv show inspired anyway

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fifteenleads · 6 years

Text

hearts for sale

In another time, Otabek was an angry boy, his gaze piercing and his words scathing.

In another time, Otabek wore his heart on his sleeve, his skates leaving deep cuts on thin ice.

In another time, Otabek was fire on ice, impassioned, impatient and infectious.

Then came a time when Otabek ceased to be all those.

This is how it happens.

❄

They had placed his mother on a table and stuck a needle near her heart. She screamed and screamed until she could scream no more. Bright yellow fluid containing years and years of tears, laughter and tempered emotion; was sealed in a bottle and taken away. After the procedure, they received bundles of cash in a black, bloodstained briefcase. The money had been enough to keep them alive for six months.

The first month after was the worst. His mother never spoke, never left her room, never played with them, never helped with homework. And just as well, his father said; he was very afraid of her white, lifeless eyes.

They thought she was as good as dead.

Little by little, though, she got better. She tried her best, but it wasn't enough.

And soon, the money, too, was not enough.

❄

Otabek comes home to a small apartment with thin walls and a leaking ceiling. He does not like the way his father is shouting tonight; it's getting worse day by day. His sister is crying in the corner; his brother has not come home since yesterday.

So he keeps to himself in his room. In the drawer are his three medals, one won from a competition and two "consolation" prizes. The stuffed teddy bear from his sister is on his bed; he has taken to hugging it tightly while he sleeps, a blanket and two pillows blocking out the noise from downstairs.

Oh, careful not to drop the skates - the right boot could fall apart.

He sets himself down beside the bed with a thud. He is tired, tired, tired. He knows better than to say so, however, lest he gets yet another bruise on his thigh. His coach - oh, poor Miss Anna - bears the brunt of all his frustrations, as do his worn skates. Someone said he needs anger management - they do not understand him, what he is going through.

His father's voice keeps getting louder and louder - no food, no tuition, no money. And somewhere in his long, angry tirade, Otabek hears his name.

His mother does not answer back, still a far cry from what she used to be. Give it a few months, the doctor had told them. She'll be back to normal soon.

But not in time, he added. They can't operate on her again until after another six months.

And they badly need the money.

His father calls his mother a useless bitch.

So Otabek steps in and rams his father into the wall, hard enough to render him unconscious. He takes the operation form from his mother's trembling hands and walks away despite her tears and weak protests.

❄

Psychocentesis

– the medical procedure of evacuating arduous humor, a compartment of the cardiovascular system that is said to contain human emotions.

Indications:

(Psychiatric) Therapeutic evacuation of arduous humor in cases of massive effusion, manifesting as extremely heightened emotion approaching manic levels

(Medical) Pleural congestion, general fluid overload or non-diuresis, manifesting as increased intracranial pressure, edema of internal organs and extremities

Relative Contraindications:

Uncorrected bleeding diathesis

Cellulitis at site of puncture

Complications:

Loss of emotion, flattened affect

Altered sensorium

Pneumothorax and/or hemothorax

Major vessel rupture and massive blood loss

Technique:

Ultrasonography is performed to confirm the location of the effusion. Standard aseptic technique is performed, and the patient is prepared for the procedure. Local anesthesia is infiltrated around the puncture site, and a large-bore needle is used to puncture the site at a depth of 3 cm. Gentle aspiration of the desired volume of arduous humor is done, and the needle is removed. Standard wound care is then rendered.

The fluid is collected in a sterile bottle and stored at 5°C, or sent to the laboratory for analysis.

The medical encyclopedia does not say anything about the illegal arduous humor trade.

There are relatively few known cases of successful arduous humor transfusion worldwide. It is said that the risks outweigh the benefits by a huge margin, and has fallen out of practice since. Those who need the transfusion instead turn to the black market, which has soon grown into an industry of exploitation for the less fortunate.

Clearly, Otabek knows what he is getting into.

He knows for a fact that this shady clinic located in an even shadier back-alley is not to be trusted. He knows that he is endangering his life and his career, subjecting himself to a dangerous, unnecessary procedure without compelling reason. He knows he is being reckless and stupid, as he is placed under sterile drapes and he is slowly put under, under, under.

He also knows how much money they are paying him after this.

It's the only way.

❄

The first month after is the hardest. Otabek is confined to his room, unable - no, unwilling to move from his bed. His mother tries - and fails - to get him to eat. She had sobbed for days when he came home with white eyes, hurt, limping and practically lifeless.

The second month, he is able to walk, and the first place he visits is the rink. The others shower him with hugs, yet he doesn't feel a thing. Miss Anna tries to probe him, ask him what happened, why he didn't ask for help. But he cannot summon the strength to speak.

Skating proves to be more difficult than he’d thought he remembered. He wills himself to jump - and he does, but the fire in his eyes is gone. The rage in his heart has been silenced, and he has no story to tell. And a skater with no story to tell is no skater at all.

Later, Otabek bangs his fist into his locker - or he thinks he does. What really happens is that a piece of a skater slumps against the cold, metal door, thinking he can be better - he should be better. His small hiccups do not make tears, and he is left even more frustrated than before.

He knows - he knows what he got into.

But he cannot bear it anymore.

❄

Give yourself time, the doctor tells him. You'll be back to normal before you know it.

The words ring in Otabek's ears, loud and true and disturbing. The fourth month sees him no better than the second, but at least he is able to shop for groceries again. It'll be okay, his mother says, with tears in her eyes and salt in her lips. I love you, son. No matter what.

She really does understand him.

A single tear (finally) falls down his cheek.

"You're holding the line, Mister," he hears an annoyed drawl from behind. Otabek is momentarily brought back to his senses, and he quickly shuffles away with his two, large paper bags. As he turns away, he is met with bright, green eyes, flickering with impatience.

It sticks with him forever, and he is filled with purpose once more.

❄

The Miracle Child, they call Yuri Plisetsky. Beyond his unadulterated skating genius and masterful storytelling on ice, he is known as the only survivor of the Emerald Tower Tragedy from six months ago, when some past miscalculation during its construction caused it to crumble years later, leaving its thousands of residents dead.

Images of Yuri confined to a wheelchair made major news websites, his eyes white and lifeless and dead. He disappeared from the limelight for a short two months, his coach Yakov Feltsman citing intensive training and therapy as the reason for his absence.

This leaves Otabek confused as to what the same Yuri is doing on his feet, in his rink, skating quite differently from how he used to. Miss Anna says the accident has sparked a fire of determination in his eyes, bringing his skating to new and glorious heights.

But all Otabek sees right now is pure, unadulterated rage. Passion. An inferno.

Himself.

❄

Yuri is as secretive in real life as he is emotive on ice. But he does consider Otabek a friend, and friends tell each other things.

"I'm tired of the media hounding me at every turn," he whines. "Asking me what happened there, when they saw it happen for themselves."

"You don't have to answer them if you don't want to," Otabek assures him, because it's the only thing he can do. He wishes he could do more - hold him tight, stroke his hair, tell him... no, he can't. He mustn't.

"But that's not all," Yuri continues. "They've started... suspecting. How I quickly recovered. Why I'm in Almaty instead of in St. Petersburg. Where Yakov is."

Otabek has seen more than enough news articles. In the weeks he has known Yuri, he, too, has had his own suspicions, some leaning on the impossible.

"Some say I made a deal with the devil. They might as well be correct."

Otabek's breath hitches all of a sudden, and he realizes the truth all at once.

"The black m--"

"Don't say it!" Yuri cuts him off, clamping his thin hands over Otabek's lips. Green eyes meet gray ones, and they see anger, emptiness, loneliness -- themselves -- in each other. And Yuri finally realizes it, too.

"No... Otabek... Why..."

A deal with the devil, huh. Otabek never thought of it that way, but Yuri might as well be correct. Suddenly the clothes on his back and the shoes on his feet feel heavy all of a sudden, like he doesn't deserve them.

Perhaps the past six months were the price he paid.

It doesn't sound as bad anymore.

As long as it saved Yuri.

Yuri knows this, too. Otabek finds himself enveloped in a tight hug, Yuri's tears staining the front of his shirt. "I... don't know what to say... I-I can't believe..."

"Me, neither." And he means it in the gentlest of ways, for all the things they have gone through to lead to this moment has become a blessing for them both. "For what it's worth, it has led me to you."

Yuri puts their foreheads together, his warm breath a healing salve to Otabek's soul. “You’re not alone, Otabek,” he says. “You and I - we’re both the same. I’m glad we met.”

His smile is beautiful, Otabek thinks.

“Stay close to me,” Yuri asks. “You saved my life; I’ll help you find yours.”

So Otabek does.

#yuri!!! on ice #otayuri #otabek altin #yuri plisetsky #medical fiction

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canyousevmyheavydirtysoul · 6 years

Text

on the 10th day of 🎄, canyousevmyheavydirtysoul gave to you...

A late update.

(aka Movies with My Chemical Romance.)

Gerard:

“You’re joking.”

“Nope,” you said, popping the ‘p’ for extra emphasis as you rounded the kitchen island and started for the living room, Gerard behind you, “I’m dead serious.”

“But it’s the most iconic Christmas movie ever,” Gerard stated softly as he shook his head, trying to comprehend how in the hell you hadn’t seen the film.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” you pointed a finger at him as you sat down on the sofa, pulling the blanket over your body, “I can think of a ton of other Christmas movies that are more iconic. The Nightmare Before Christmas, for example.”

Gerard sighed as he plopped down next to you. “Alright, maybe it’s not the most iconic,” he conceded as you nodded in agreement, “But it’s definitely in the top five. Top three, even. I seriously can’t believe that you haven’t seen it.”

You shrugged and slipped further into the comfort of the sofa, lifting your legs and then resting them over Gerard’s; he was still shaking his head and sputtering in disbelief.

“I just never got around to it,” you stated simply.

“Alright, well, we have to do something about that,” Gerard tsked, gently moving your legs off of him so that he could stand up and grab the remote from the TV stand.

Resuming his position of lounging next to you, he brought up the Netflix site and began scrolling through the Christmas movie collection, looking for the one you had yet to watch.

His eyes lit up once he found it, and with a few clicks of the remote, he had started the film.

“I’m gonna go make us some snacks,” you said, starting to get up. Gerard pushed you back down.

“No!” he protested, and you flinched slightly at the sudden rise in volume, “I’ll go get the snacks. You stay here and watch. You’re gonna love it,” he beamed as he rose from the sofa, and you couldn’t help but smile at his excitement.

“Okay, baby,” you cooed, repositioning yourself as your boyfriend walked to the kitchen – backwards so that he could make sure that you were paying attention to the screen.

~Approximately 1 hour and 55 minutes later~

“Annnnndddddd?” Gerard questioned with a creepy smile once the movie had ended, leaning in so much that he was practically laying on top of you, “It was amazing, wasn’t it? It was. Right? Right?”

“Uh,” you responded, gently pushing him away, “Yeah, it was alright.”

Gerard’s face fell. “Just ‘alright’?”

“Well…” you tilted your head side to side before sighing, “The movie itself wasn’t really that bad. I mean, watching the kid come up with all those elaborate booby-traps and then seeing how the bad guys suffer through them is really entertaining. Except that…” you sighed again.

“Except what?” Gerard frowned, annoyed that you didn’t instantly fall in love with the film.

“The movie is called ‘Home Alone’, and watching it, it makes sense why that would be the title. Until you realise that there is no real reason why he has to be alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s a young boy living in a suburban area… why doesn’t he just go and hang out with his friends? Or at least invite them over.”

Gerard looked at you for a moment, sitting silent and unblinking. Then, a minute later…

“Motherfucker.”

Ray:

“Can we please watch something else?” you groaned, practically pleading with your boyfriend to not put on that damned movie, “This is the fifth time we’ve watched ‘Elf’. And it’s only November 4th.”

“It’s a great movie, (Y/N),” Ray replied calmly, not at all put off by your recurring grunts and groans of disapproval; he proceeded to insert the disc into the DVD player, grinning crookedly as the screen lit up with the starting trailers.

“It is,” you agreed, “But not when it’s played on a continuous loop!”

Ignoring you, Ray grabbed the bowl of popcorn and starting munching away, perfectly content.

“What did I do to deserve this?” you huffed, throwing yourself into the nearby throw pillows as Ray became engrossed in the movie, paying no attention to you whatsoever.

Over the course of the next few weeks, ‘Elf’ was essentially the only thing that was played on the TV in your house (you managed to sneak in a quick screening of The Grinch when Ray was at the studio one day), and it was driving you absolutely bonkers. You couldn’t understand how someone could watch the same movie on repeat for weeks on end and not get sick of it, but Ray somehow managed to do just that. It was annoying, to say the least. But if he could be annoying, so could you.

“Hey, (Y/N), come cuddle with me!”

“Not now, Artic Puffin!” you called back, making Ray furrow his eyebrows in confusion.

“Did you just… quote ‘Elf’?”

“I planned out our whole day,” you replied, ignoring his question and strolling over to stand in front of him, “First we’ll make snow angels for two hours, then we’ll go ice skating, then we’ll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse Cookiedough as fast as we can, and then we’ll snuggle.”

“You did it again,” he pointed out, to which you gave him a broad smile, “What’s going on? And why are you smiling so evilly?”

“I just like to smile,” you shrugged, widening your smile, “Smiling’s my favourite.”

“Okay, haha, very funny,” he snorted once he finally caught on to what was happening, “I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to annoy me just like I’ve been annoying you. Well, guess what? It’s not gonna work.”

“YOU SIT ON A THRONE OF LIES!”

The next day, you happily bounded your way into Target, a worn out and noticeably irritated Ray trailing sluggishly behind you. You hadn’t stopped quoting ‘Elf’ since you started yesterday and although he wouldn’t admit it, you knew it was starting to have the desired effect on Ray.

‘Deck The Halls’ started playing over the loudspeaker, and you let out a gleeful gasp before singing along heartily.

“I’m singing!” you exclaimed rather loudly, gaining a few weirded out looks from surrounding customers, and a wide-eyed gaze from Ray, “I’m in a store and I’m singing!”

“(Y/N),” Ray scolded through clenched teeth, “Cut it out.”

“Why, Ray? The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!”

He let out a booming groan before finally giving in. “Alright, alright, okay? You win. I’ll never watch ‘Elf’ again. Just please, for the love of God, stop quoting that stupid movie!”

You scoffed, yet a sliver of pride coursed through you. “It’s a great movie, Ray.”

Mikey:

“Baby, I’m gonna put on a Christmas movie, alright?” Mikey called out to you, removing the disc from the cover and placing it in the player.

“Oooo,” you gushed, walking from the bathroom to the living room, “Which one?” Mikey handed the cover to you and continued setting the movie up, “’It’s A Wonderful Life’. Aw, it sounds so cute, babe, of course we can watch it.”

~Approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes later~

“YOU MONSTER,” you growled through a train of sniffles and an endless flow of tears, “Why would you do this to me?”

“I love this movie,” came his emotionless response as he handed you some more tissues from the box on the coffee table.

“Yeah, but you know how emotional I get! I cry for commercials, damn it,” you grumbled, lightly punching your boyfriend in the arm, “How could you make me watch this?”

“It’s really not that bad. I think you’re overreacting.”

“Your opinion is invalid since you have no fucking emotions at all!”

“Hey,” he defended, “I cried that one time when you were in the hospital, remember?”

“That was only because you thought you killed me,” you retorted, “You showed emotion by default.”

“Yeah, well…” he trailed off, chucking a block of chocolate in his mouth and returning his gaze to the TV, which was now displaying some re-runs of sitcoms.

You frowned as you stared at your boyfriend with a hardened glare. He didn’t acknowledge you at first, but when he did, he exhaled heavily.

“What?”

“You’re a horrible human being.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. I can’t even look at you right now.”

“And yet you are.”

You averted your gaze immediately, folding your arms and focusing your attention on the sitcom.

“You know you can’t stay mad at me,” he whispered, trailing his fingers along your thigh.

Gathering all of your will power, you shoved him away before quickly getting up and storming off.

“Where are you going?!”

“To have a wonderful life. Without you!”

Frank:

“December is Star Wars month,” you argued, shoving Frank out of the way of the DVD player, “I have to watch it!”

“Hey, you know what other month December is? CHRISTMAS MONTH!” he sassed, shoving you back, “We’re going to watch a Christmas movie!”

“No, we’re not,” you growled, shoving him with all of your might, resulting in a shocked and marginally pissed-off Frank falling to the ground. You used the advantage of him being on the floor to hurriedly place the disc into the player. “HA!” you bellowed triumphantly, sticking out your tongue.

Frank ran his tongue along his teeth as he slowly picked himself up off of the floor. “Okay. Alright. If that’s how you wanna play it, fine. Just know that I won’t be participating in this disrespect to holiday films,” he jeered, gathering his copy of ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’ before stomping towards the stairs, “I’ll be upstairs,” he called over his shoulder, “watching a Christmas movie like a normal person!”

“Normal people all know that a Star Wars marathon in December is absolutely necessary!” you yelled back, earning a guttural groan from your roommate in response.

Rolling your eyes, you turned up the volume on the TV and got comfortable on the recliner, sighing blissfully once the iconic intro rolled onto the screen.

“Daa daa da da da da da, da da da da da, da da da daaaaaa,” you sang along happily, smiling widely as the joy of watching your favourite movie took over you. But as was customary in your living arrangements, Frank ruined it.

The opening narration of ‘The Grinch’ began playing – at a volume exponentially louder than was necessary – and you closed your eyes while inhaling, trying not to get irritated.

Calmly, you reached for the remote and turned the volume of your movie up enough to drown Frank’s out.

Not too long after, the intrusive sound of dialogue in ‘The Grinch’ filtered through to your ears once again.

You turned your movie up even louder.

But then, so did Frank.

Then, you turned it up again.

So did Frank.

You.

Frank.

You.

Frank.

You.

Fra-

The distinct sound of your friend yelling in distress cut through the air. “SON OF A BITCH, (Y/N)! THE SPEAKERS BLEW!”

You chuckled evilly, thrilled that you had won. But your elation was short lived, since the speakers in the living room blew as well. You yelped and jumped in your seat, since you weren’t expecting it. But once the initial shock wore off, the anger started bubbling up inside of you.

“FRANK, YOU IDIOT!”

“I’M AN IDIOT?” he scoffed, rushing into the living room, “THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU JUST AGREED TO WATCH ‘THE GRINCH’ INSTEAD!”

“STAR WARS COMES FIRST!” you argued, “AND THE STUPID SPEAKERS WOULDN’T HAVE BLOWN IF YOU HADN’T STARTED A VOLUME WAR IN THE FIRST PLACE!”

“AND I WOULDN’T HAVE STARTED A VOLUME WAR IF YOU WOULD’VE JUST WATCHED MY MOVIE AND CUDDLED WITH ME!”

“Wait, what?”

“What?”

You slowly got up from your seat and walked over to him, eyes narrowed; he looked nervous, to say the least. “All of this was just because you wanted me to cuddle with you?”

Slumping his shoulders dejectedly and rolling his eyes, he caved. “Yes, okay! The plan was to put on a nice festive movie, make some hot chocolate and snuggle. But you ruined it!”

Amusedly, you raised an eyebrow and smirked at him. “Why didn’t you just say so? We could’ve snuggled during Star Wars too.”

“Psh,” he snorted, “As if that would ever happen. You get way too excited and jittery while watching Star Wars; there’s no way you would’ve sat still enough for us to cuddle.”

“True,” you nodded, cocking your head to the side before looking at your frazzled roommate and giving him a small smile – coupled with the usual eye roll of course – and extended your hand out to him, “C’mon.”

“Where are we going?” he asked in confusion, but still gladly took your hand.

“To cuddle. But we’ll have to settle for Netflix on the laptop. Thanks to you.”

_______________________________

Thank you for reading x

#christmas #gerard way #mikey way #frank iero #ray toro #my chemical romance #mcr #imagine #imagines #fanfic #preferences #Gerard way x reader #mikey way x reader #frank iero x reader #ray toro x reader #band members #band member imagines

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kimisioux98-blog · 6 years

Text

let’s talk.

We need to talk for a minute about something really important with all jokes aside.

We’re going to go back to an oldie but a goodie and listen to the wise words of Crenshaw. In one of her resound works she states, “where systems of race, gender, and class domination converge, as they do in the experiences of battered women of color, intervention strategies based solely on the experiences of women who do not share the same class or race backgrounds will be of limited help to women who because of race and class face different obstacles.” (Mapping the Margins, 1246). Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw has a point here that I firmly believe we FAIL to acknowledge. We can talk all about how the feminist movement lacks intersectionality, but how about the consideration of safety- especially safety of women of color. Thes women have never and are not being treated with the same dignity as white women even when they are in the exact same circumstances, the only difference, as Crenshaw would say is that they are doing their actions “while black”. Racism still exists no matter how fucking intersectional we claim to be as a culture. As shitty as it is, the color of skin affects the help society gives to women in all aspects of their lives. The number on the paycheck can impact whether or not a woman will survive a life-threatening illness- social class matters. This stuff IS important. How we treat people actually matters.

IA Girl Like MeWhy? My dad is a wealthy businessman. Does this mean that I am a rich, filthy, feministic bitch? No. However, it does mean that I have the responsibility to think outside of my personal situation and learn what other individuals experience in their everyday life. The best part is that I have the privilege to do this. I have the opportunity to educate myself and go to an institution where I can take classes on things including race and socioeconomic status. I can’t sit here in my own little bubble of the “perfect life” while women like me are being beaten in their own homes.

I’m so sick and tired of seeing statistics like this. I would talk about how disgusting this is, but I think that to some extent we have all seen numbers like this, and by now whether or not we admit it, we kind of skip over these numbers and just accept that “that’s the way it is.” It is almost as if these statistics are romanticized today by how often they appear on the screens of my college lectures. We need to stop showing these facts and do something. Yes, us white girls (and native Americans, and blacks, and latinas). We must come together and use the extra money that we have to #1 educate ourselves and our loved ones on morality when it comes to being “different” and #2 take action. We have to eventually come to understand that the literal color difference in the pigment of the skin makes NO difference in our human rights. That can mean a million different things, but sitting here at the Butler University library crying because of this statistic won’t do anything. Yes, I should be sad, but more importantly, I should be angry. So angry in fact, that I open up conversations, do research, and take action. I need to be an advocate- an ally. I need to walk with, not behind these women of color that are facing injustices every second of the day that I will never be able to understand.

Beyoncé, the star I have talked about for days on end in my blog may help us to understand the problem with lack of intersectionality (truly understanding this concept) and perhaps how we can help motivate, love, and walk with women of color in the fight towards equality of our sisters. According to Marla Kohlman, “Beyoncé to the extent that she reminds us that it is imperative for black women to purposefully develop a positive sense of sexual empowerment, even as well engage in difficult dialogue about black female sexual politics that span several generations of popular media” (Beyoncé as Intersectional Icon, 34). I could not agree more. Beyoncé does encourage black women to develop a strong sense of self-confidence in a powerful way. If you forget how she does this, take a look at formation, and I think you’ll get begin to understand. Beyoncé opens up about her personal life and discusses the intimate details of struggles she has endured. She does this to relate to black women so that she can love them and encourage them to be bigger than the stereotypes. She talks about sex, rape, injustice- all things that are HUGE in the black community. She is an intersectional feminist icon not only because she is a black feminist, but because she believes in the power black women have to achieve their greatest dreams. She thinks nothing less about women of color, but rather she acknowledges the past of severe injustice and is fighting to help all women learn and grow from the past.

With this being said, not everyone would agree with this statement. A clear example is when Tia Tyree and Melvin Williams stated, “seeing her (Beyoncé) pretty hypersexualized behavior and overexposed image can lead to damaging, unhealthy and disempowering behaviors and competition among girls and women. (Flawless Feminist or Fallible Freak?,127). I could not disagree with this more. Beyoncé is beautiful and happens to have a sexy body- I don’t think anybody would deny that… but to shame her for her “hypersexualized” behavior??? WRONG. She was created with both the looks and the heart she has. Do you want her to get plastic surgery to become ugly? Really.. what are we expecting?

Has anyone EVER considered that she may be acting in this way to get people to pay attention. She may be using her beauty to expand her platform- which is actually a brilliant business move. This woman understands that sex sells, and since she has a powerful message to send, why the hell does not use the sexiness she possesses while she has time to appeal to all of her fans while she still has them? She is more than how she presents herself. Her actions should speak louder than words- isn’t that what all the quotes say? I think these two women are finding a way to criticize simply because they want to find a flaw within Beyoncé which is difficult to do (the woman really is amazing). However, she is flawed, and she is not afraid to say that. What’s more important is that we focus on what girls say and do, not just how they present their image. Yes the image is important, but how we act in times of trial really determine who we are.

I want to take a look at this quote for a minute. I think Emma Watson has a point here that can relate to black liberation within the feminist movement. The real problem, friends, is that we are not talking about how black women are oppressed. Due to this, these women are shut down before they even have the opportunity to use their voice. They are marginalized before a word can come out of their mouths- which of course ensures that what they say means nothing due to pre-conceived societal ideas that they are less than due to the melanin in their skin

Let’s be real- We cannot change feminism if we only understand what it feels like to be a feminist individually. We have to listen and open up the conversation to people who are different from us- those who hold different ideas and different shades of skin. Arguably, more importantly, is opening up this conversation. We have to feel welcome into entering this conversation which will only happen if normalize these conversations. What are we afraid of? Let’s do this.

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artificialqueens · 7 years

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6 AM ||Shalaska|| - Kitt

A/N: not good at sickfics or fluff whoops

Everyone was in Alaska’s room. She literally wanted to die. It was six o’clock in the morning, a whole hour before she actually needed to get up. She was too hot and too cold and felt like literal shit. Naturally, her first response was to wake up Willam, who didn’t take kindly to the idea of waking up early (“Suck a dick, I’m trying to sleep”), whose decided to get Sharon (“‘cause, y’know, you like her an’ all.”). Sharon brought Jinkx (“Don’t leave me, it’s dark!”), who brought Adore (“I think Alaska is dying.”) who told Courtney (“I’ve got to come, I’ll make her feel better!”). The next thing she knew half of her dorm was in her room. She buried her head in her pillow and sighed. Courtney patted her back, but that just made her feel worse.

“Courtney, if you don’t fucking stop that I’ll literally vomit. Don’t try me.”

Courtney removed her hand from Alaska’s back sharpish. Alaska still felt sick. She was visibly shivering. She rolled onto her back, an effort which took all the strength she had in her.

“I’ll get you a glass of water?” Adore offered, tilting her head. It was early, but she was totally wide awake. But she always was. Jacked up on Red Bull 24/7, Courtney had told her. The perkiness of her voice was only slightly getting on Alaska’s nerves.

“Yeah, that’ll help.” Courtney agreed. Willam rolled her eyes and straightened her pyjama top. It was blue and covered in little St Bernards, and Courtney thought that was incredibly cute. The volume in the room was increasing and even Willam thought Alaska would want a little peace.

“Look, you,” she pointed at Naomi,”And you, at Bob,”You, you and you,” Chad, Latrice and Phi Phi,”Out. Now.”

They grumbled but obliged anyway. Phi Phi gave Alaska a gentle hug, which was strange since they’d barely spoken outside of arguments. This earned a roll of Sharon’s eyes which, luckily, went unnoticed by Phi Phi.

“Hope you feel better for double chem.” Chad joked, her voice edged with amusement, shutting the door behind her. The sudden ‘bang’ was enough to wake up the entire school, let alone the dorm.

“Fuuuuuuck!” Alaska groaned, rolling over and burying her head in her pillow. Jinkx gave her an, ever so slightly awkward, pat on the back. It took all of Alaska’s willpower to not turn around and snap at her. She was trying her best but couldn’t help but mumble a feeble ‘stop, Jinkxy’. What a shame ‘Jinkxy’ didn’t hear her. She patted her back again, because, y’know, Jinkx really believed she was helping.

“Jinkx! Fuck off!” Alaska sat up and whipped her head around so quickly that Jinkx nearly fell off of the bed all together. Alaska probably yelled louder than necessary but, if Jinkx didn’t cut that shit out, she’d regret it.

“Sorry, ‘laska.” She squeaked, looking wounded as she relocated from the bed to the floor. Courtney giggled sympathetically before pulling gently on the sleeve of Adore’s pyjamas,

“Should we go? I think they’ve got this and, if you don’t get any more sleep, you’ll be pissed at me for not telling you to go to bed.”

Adore shook her head and laughed, but knew it was true. Before Alaska knew it, there was only her, Jinkx, Willam and Sharon left in the room. Jinkx still looked a bit offended when Alaska looked down at her, so she flashed her one of the famous smiles she usually only gave Sharon. That seemed to do the trick.

“Sorry for annoying you, Alaska.” She smiled, fiddling with the sleeves of her pyjamas. Alaska shrugged. She wanted to reply with actual words but, if she opened her mouth, she felt she’d literally be sick. And Willam probably wouldn’t appreciate that.

“What’s up, baby?” This time it was Sharon speaking to her. She sat down beside Alaska and gave her a somewhat hesitant hug. Another shrug. She wanted to pull away from Sharon, lie down, suffocate herself with her pillow, but something told her Sharon was making an effort, so she went along with it.

“C’mon, Lasky, what’s wrong?”

Willam was looked through narrowed eyes at Sharon from the opposite side of the room,

“If you make her fuckin’ vomit on the carpet, I’ll kill you.”

Sharon simply laughed in response to this. She brushed Alaska’s hair from her face before pulling her away, appearing surprised.

“Willam, she’s really warm.”

Willam shrugged before making her way to the door,”I’ll go get someone, then.”

She wanted out and then was the perfect opportunity. Jinkx watched the door shut before turning to Sharon,

“H-“

“Go with her, Jinkx.” Sharon cut her off. If she was to stay, Sharon knew Jinkx would inevitably be a third wheel.

Indifferent to being interrupted, Jinkx gave a small nod,”Ok, whatever. See you later, Sharon. Uh, Alaska? Hope you feel better.”

It was quiet after everyone had left. Alaska still felt like shit, but marginally better shit. She sniffed. Sharon didn’t know whether it was because her nose was running or she was crying. She guessed the latter.

“It’s ok, Alaska, you can cry if you want to.”

Alaska laughed slightly, but Sharon knew it was forced.

”I’m not crying, you fucking idiot, it’s my nose.”

But only seconds after she’d said that her giggles had turned into quiet, snuffling sobs. She couldn’t see Alaska’s face; she had turned away. It hurt Sharon to see her in such a mess, no matter how much they quarrelled. They were famous throughout Miss Charles’ School for Girls for their… disputes.

“Oh, Alaska.” She murmured, taking a deep breath. She’d never been good at dealing with tears.

Alaska gave a small sniff and buried her head in the crook of Sharon’s neck. Sharon began to absentmindedly run her hands through Alaska’s straight, blonde hair. The poor thing was still unbearably warm.

“Why are you crying, babe?” Sharon tried to keep her voice soft and quiet and not yell as much as she normally would? It was a bit of a dumb question, given the events of the morning, but Sharon didn’t have any words in her head that would make sense at that moment. Alaska shook her head. Sharon didn’t ask again. Instead, she chose to wrap an arm around her shoulders. And, eventually, Alaska spoke up.

“I feel so shit.”

That was all.

“Aww, I’m sorry.”

Because she didn’t know what else to say.

“At least you’ll get sent home. And miss double chemistry, like Chad said. Fucking lucky. But I guess you could’ve picked a better day; It’s Friday! You’d have been going home tonight anyway.”

“I know.” Alaska sniffed, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her PJs,”Boarding school fucking sucks, huh?”

Sharon shrugged, pulling Alaska’s hands from her eyes and using her own sleeve to dry the tears.

“Boarding school means I get to see you every day.”

Alaska had never heard Sharon say anything so mushy. It made her feel a little better to know they weren’t arguing. Again.

“I love you, Needles.” Her voice was only just loud enough for Sharon to hear. She kissed her hot forehead and Alaska thought if Sharon could just stay with her like this all day, she didn’t want to go home.

“I love you too, ‘Lasky. I’ll miss you today. It’s art and you’re not gonna be there to fucking crush me in paint.”

“Willam will probably do it. Tell Phi I said hi?” She joked, fully aware that Sharon would punch her playfully for even saying such a thing. Regarding Alaska’s current state, Sharon would usually come out with a mouthful of abuse about Phi Phi but she more or less dropped it. After all, Alaska probably didn’t want to hear her bitch about other people.

“Yeah, in your fucking dreams.”

Alaska smiled and everything was quiet.

“And… and will you come see me tonight?”

“You don’t even have to ask, even if you weren’t dying I’d still come.” Sharon giggled.

“That’s kinda poetic.”

“What else would you expect from me this early, on about three hours of sleep, a Red Bull and a wish?”

“Nothing less.” Alaska shrugged, but Sharon knew it was an effort.

“I hope you feel better tonight. You’re no fun when you’re sick.”

Alaska gave a faint giggle, looking bemused,”I can’t fucking help it.”

Sharon smiled,”I know. But if you’re gonna-“

She was interrupted by a sneeze.

“If you’re gonna be like this, you won’t let me leave. I’ll be stuck fucking cuddling you forever.”

“I don’t see what’s so bad about that.”

“You’re like my fucking cat.”

This seemed to lift Alaska’s mood ever so slightly. She gave a half hearted playful ‘meow’,

“I love Cerrone.”

“Sometimes I wonder if the only reason you’re with me is my cat.” Sharon cackled.

“Never! I’m with you for your good looks… your charming personality… your, uh…” She pretended to think, stopping,”I dunno.”

“Maybe my willingness to come to your fucking room at six am?” Sharon snapped, but it was only in a playful manner.

“Yeah. That too, I guess.”

#kitt #sharon needles #alaska thunderfuck #shalaska #fluff #au #boarding school au #rpdr fanfiction #sick fic #lesbian au

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hmhteen · 7 years

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HMH Teen Teasers: Read an Excerpt of THE DISAPPEARANCES by Emily Bain Murphy!

THE DISAPPEARANCES is truly a book with something for everyone: an historical mystery with fantasy and paranormal elements and, of course, a breathtaking romance. Here, we’ll let this STARRED REVIEW from @publishersweekly explain it better: “Sumptuous worldbuilding, richly developed characters, and a swoon-worthy romance elevate this delightful, fantasy-tinged mystery."

Here’s the synopsis, and you can read the first two chapters right after!

What if the ordinary things in life suddenly…disappeared?

Aila Quinn’s mother, Juliet, has always been a mystery: vibrant yet guarded, she keeps her secrets beyond Aila’s reach. When Juliet dies, Aila and her younger brother Miles are sent to live in Sterling, a rural town far from home--and the place where Juliet grew up.

Sterling is a place with mysteries of its own. A place where the experiences that weave life together--scents of flowers and food, reflections from mirrors and lakes, even the ability to dream--vanish every seven years.

No one knows what caused these “Disappearances,” or what will slip away next. But Sterling always suspected that Juliet Quinn was somehow responsible--and Aila must bear the brunt of their blame while she follows the chain of literary clues her mother left behind.

As the next Disappearance nears, Aila begins to unravel the dual mystery of why the Disappearances happen and who her mother truly was. One thing is clear: Sterling isn’t going to hold on to anyone's secrets for long before it starts giving them up.

CHAPTER ONE

Aila

Gardner, Connecticut

September 27, 1942

I want something of hers.

There’s a teacup downstairs, the last one she used before she died. She didn’t finish her chicory coffee that morning, and what she left stained the porcelain in a faint ring. Her lipstick remains smudged in Red Letter Red along the rim. It’s been three weeks and I still haven’t been able to wash it away.

But I shouldn’t choose the teacup. Nothing fragile is going to survive today.

“Aila?” Cass opens my bedroom door, her white blond hair pinned up in a plait, her wide eyes darker than normal. “Your father says I can come with you to the train station, but we have to leave in five minutes.”

“I’ll be ready,” I say softly. “I would be more worried about Miles.”

She nods and disappears back into the hallway. Her footsteps fall on creaking boards and then the house returns to its solemn hush, so quiet you can almost hear the dust settle. As if we have all already left it.

Five minutes.

I go to my parents’ room.

It’s been tidied since the last time I was here; the day of my mother’s memorial. Now the bed is made. All of the flowers have been cleared away. Her vanity is free of her compacts and even the precious glass vial of “Joy” she always displayed but hardly ever wore. I open her drawers, run my fingertips over her jewelry, but it’s all tangled and gaudy and I want to leave it there, just as she left it. As if she could come in at any moment and clip on her big, ugly earrings, as bright and jagged as suns.

I turn to the bookshelf. It, too, has been sorted, but I prefer the way it used to look, when the books were all jumbled and wedged in at odd angles, threatening to fall onto my feet.

My eye catches a large leather volume, its spine dwarfing all of the rest. I’ve never seen it before. I kneel down in front of it, my knees finding the threadbare place where the rug has worn almost through to the floor.

I pull out the book and flip through the pages. They whisper against my fingers, thin and delicate like moth wings. It is Shakespeare, a collection of his plays and poems, and my mother’s handwriting is everywhere in it, littering the margins and cluttering the white gaps between sentences in different colored ink. The pages are yellowing, as if Mother has had this book for a long time. I wonder where it’s been hiding until now.

An envelope is taped to the back cover. It is blank, and unsealed, and there is a note inside.

“Aila! Miles!” Father’s voice rings out from the kitchen.

“Coming!” I call back.

The note was written recently; I can tell by the way her handwriting shakes like it did when she was nearing the end. It says:

Stefen: You will find what you asked for within this. I will always love you.

Your Viola

My attention snags on the two names. Because the first one does not belong to my father. And the second, though it is definitely my mother’s handwriting, was not her name. My mother was the other well-known Shakespeare heroine. The one who also died young.

Juliet.

“Aila!” my father calls again. This time, it’s more of a warning.

Leave it, I think. You don’t even like Shakespeare.

And maybe I don’t want to know who this Stefen is.

I put the book back on the shelf and decide that I want the teacup. It is my mother just as I remember her: safe and familiar and still marked by her touch. I’ll bring it even if I have to hold it on my lap, cupped in my hands like a butterfly for the entire journey.

I hurry down the narrow stairs, which seem to slope more and more to the right each year. I’ve never lived anywhere but this house—what we fondly call “the Tilt”—and I know just where to place my hand on the banister to keep my balance and where to step so the stairs don’t creak. When I reach the landing I hear my next-door neighbor, Mrs. Reid. She’s in the kitchen with Father, taking final instructions for watching over the Tilt while we’re gone. She’s opening drawers and closing them, and I’m sure she’s the one who organized my mother’s books. Maybe out of guilt.

“I’m sorry, again, Harold, that we aren’t able to take the children,” she says. I pause on the staircase, in the shadows. All I can see are her stockinged calves and the worn leather of her pumps, but I picture her lips pursing down, her white hair wispy and always looking as though it’s being swept heavenward by the wind. “With Earl’s health,” she continues. “I just didn’t feel like we could manage them both.”

She means that she would have taken me, but not Miles. She doesn’t want to be responsible when he inevitably steals something or sets a fire. The creases in Mrs. Reid’s pumps deepen as she shifts her weight. “I thought someone else in town would surely be able to help, but….” She trails off.

“Well, thankfully we’ve found other arrangements,” Father says stiffly. Then he turns away to yell again, but I appear in front of him before he can say my name.

“I’m here,” I say. My eyes fall from Mrs. Reid’s overly rouged cheeks to her hands, where she’s been anxiously fiddling with something. A tea towel embroidered with green leaves—and my mother’s teacup, scrubbed shiny clean.

I swallow. “I forgot one thing,” I say, turning, and running back up the stairs. I touch my mother’s dresses one more time, hanging in neat, still lines in the closet, knowing they will be packed in storage or given away by the time I return. Then I grab the book of plays, stuffing it into my knapsack without another thought.

Father drives us to the train station in our mud-streaked Studebaker; he and Miles in the front and Cass and me in the backseat, my knapsack with the book laying heavy on the seat between us. “Think Mrs. Reid can handle the Tilt while we’re away?” Father asks. He smiles at me in the mirror and reaches over to ruffle Miles’ hair, but Miles just stares straight ahead. I don’t let myself look at the browning dahlias in Mother’s flower boxes as we pull away.

Everything is in motion when we arrive at the station, like the air itself is anxious. Posters flutter on the walls, pigeons flap and peck, tow-white strands of Cass’s hair whip loose from her braid. She helped me set my wave this morning because I’ve always liked the way she does it best, but I can already feel it starting to fall. My dress clings to my legs and my ankles are sweating inside my bobby socks. It’s unseasonably hot for late September. Cass and I step into the shadows of the eaves while Miles and my father purchase our tickets. I lean against a war poster that warns, “Telling a friend may mean telling THE ENEMY.” An advertisement over Cass’ head promises an “ALL-AMERICAN sugar with energy crystallized by the sun!”

Overhead, the clouds swirl like soup.

“You’ll come back soon,” Cass says.

“You’ll write,” I answer.

“I wish you could stay with me,” she says, tears brightening her eyes. She is my oldest friend, the one who climbed into bed behind me on the day my mother died and braided my hair until I fell asleep. The next morning I found she’d woven in her favorite ribbon, the cerulean one embroidered with flowers, that she’d always planned to wear to our first school dance.

“I wish I could, too,” I say. Being stuffed in a room with Cass and her three older sisters sounds better than the unknown ahead, even though I’ve always been a little frightened of Cass’ mother.

Cass stares at the suitcase at our feet. “You’re not going to fall in love with some swoony out there and never come back, are you?”

I squeeze her hand. “Maybe now Dixon Fairweather will finally realize what a dish I am.”

She starts to cry-laugh as my father joins us on the platform, looking down at the newly purchased tickets in one hand and clutching my brother’s suitcase in his other. “Where’s Miles?” I ask, and my father glances up with the pained look of someone who has spent too long staring at the sun.

“He was just here,” he says.

Our train is coming down the tracks, its white smoke pillowing up into the sky. The brassy clang of the bell grows louder.

“I’ll check the entrance,” I say, snatching up my bag.

“Lavatory,” my father says.

“I’ll take the staircase,” Cass volunteers.

There are people everywhere in the depot, mostly women and children, now that so many of the men have been plucked away to fight. I walk through the snaking line and peer out into the street, the heat and train bell in my ears, my heart quick and light. He is not there.

I’m searching for the burnt copper of his hair but on the way back to the platform I glimpse the tweed of his cap instead. Miles is sitting on the floor of the station, eating a half-melted Peppermint Patty he must have hidden in the pocket of his shorts.

I want to jerk his arm, or at least rip the candy from his hand. Instead I stand and let my shadow fall over him.

“Golly gee,” he says flatly. “You found me.”

“Miles,” I hiss. “We were looking for you. Why did you run off?” I ask, although part of me wishes that he had actually gone far enough to make us miss the train.

“Use your eyes,” he mumbles. “I was hungry.”

“Use your head. This is why no one here was willing to take us,” I say, but I soften the words by offering him a hand up. He follows me, dragging his feet, back out to the platform, to my father and Cass.

“Found him,” I say unnecessarily.

I can tell my father doesn’t want to yell at Miles in these last moments we have. He squints at us and picks up our suitcases, his broad, tall frame sharp against the sagging leather. He won’t leave until tomorrow, heading in the opposite direction. A plane to San Francisco. Then out to the endless Pacific.

“It’s time,” he says.

I embrace Cass first and try to think of the perfect words to say but Father’s foot is tapping, his eyes never leaving the nearest conductor, and somehow Miles has managed to ruin even this. “Well,” I say, suddenly shy. “Goodbye.” I take out one of my own ribbons and push it into her hand.

Then I turn to my father. He’s shaved for the first time in weeks and his cheek is so smooth I want to stay there for just a moment longer; breathe in that smell of star anise and lather. I used to lay awake at night, fearing that he’d be called up in the draft. But now that it has happened, I know that he will not die in the war—because my mother just died, and that will serve some sort of protection around him, like a halo. This makes perfect sense to me. So I press my cheek against his one last time, and then let him go.

“It won’t be long before I’ll see you again,” Father says. Miles sets his chin, but then drops his bag and throws his arms around our father in a hard hug. “It’s only temporary,” Father says. He swallows, his voice catching. He lets go of Miles and leans down to whisper in my ear: “my little elf.”

Miles and I board the train and Cass stands just below the window, tears streaming down her face. She’s tied my ribbon into her hair. As the porter loads my suitcase its tag turns over like a browned leaf, and I catch the swirl of my mother’s handwriting.

I wave to my father, but he has already turned away. Now there is not a doubt left that I will see him again. Because this can’t be my final memory of him, with his shoulders weighted under a sky the color of graphite; with my reflection flickering and fading as I wait for him to turn back one last time and watch us go.

The train ride north to Sterling is six hours. I don’t mean to fall asleep but halfway there I do. My neck has a crick in it when I jerk awake. Every dream is the same. The bright puffs of flowers around Mother’s bed; how still she is, her hands like marble when I reach up to touch them; and then the chill that echoes through to my bones until I gasp awake.

For a moment I think we’ve missed our stop, but Miles is sketching across from me and there’s nothing out the window but fields and sky.

I reach for the hidden tip of my knobby right ear, a habit of childish comfort I’ve been trying to give up. I can tell Miles notices by the way he smirks down at the notepad in his lap. His fingers guide various pencils over the page until the familiar curve of our mother’s headstone appears, wreathed with a rainbow of flowers.

It’s all he draws lately, the same picture repeating, just like my dream. I wonder which one of us will stop first.

“Are you hungry?” I ask. I unwrap the peanut butter sandwiches Mrs. Reid packed and hand a half-smashed one to Miles. The train car is almost empty now. We eat without talking, and when I tire of staring out the window, I pull out the Shakespeare book.

The cover is thick and bound with burgundy leather. I flip through the pages, wondering where to start. There are pen markings under certain lines and she’s written nonsensical notes in the margins, circling words like “nose-herb” and “Sounds like Var’s….”

The play Twelfth Night seems to have the most markings. Some of the pages are bent and the ink is smeared. I flip to the end again but this time I ignore the envelope. The back cover is lined with velvet and my fingertips leave patterns on it like they would on a frosted window.

And then I notice the smallest tear fraying at the corner.

I glance at Miles. He is absorbed with drawing the yellow burst of a sunflower, and so I pull on the cover’s thread. It comes away and I realize it’s been sewn on in faint stitches. My curiosity catches like a white flame and I work out the stitches with my nail, staring out the window so that I won’t draw Miles’ attention. When the flap is loosened enough, I slide the book back into my knapsack to hide it. Then I sweep my fingers into the opening.

Even before my fingertips feel glass, I know it.

There’s something hidden inside.

CHAPTER TWO

I tear the opening a little more to give my fingers space to work. Whatever is hidden there feels cold and smooth. I draw it out and examine it in the palm of my hand.

It is a colorless jewel, clear as water, with a teardrop suspended inside and set in a gold band. The familiar chill from my dream suddenly seeps through my fingertips. It’s my mother’s ring. I never saw her right hand without it, and I assumed it had been buried with her. Her rings were usually caked with dirt from her garden, but this one looks as though it’s been thoroughly cleaned. It stings a little, to see it now. This is what I would have wanted to take with me, if she had given me the choice. Why would she hide it in a book and plan to send it off to some stranger named Stefen?

I slip the stone onto my finger but it’s too big, so I hold it in my palm. It takes not half a minute for Miles to notice.

“What’s that?” He looks up from his drawing, eyebrows knitting.

“It’s Mother’s ring. She gave it me,” I lie, and hurriedly unclasp my necklace, exchanging my small heart pendant for the stone. It clinks against the buttons lining my dress.

“Next stop is yours,” says a gruff voice behind me, so near that I jump. The conductor’s breath is stale with coffee, staining the air around us. I haven’t seen any signs of a town since I jerked awake from my dream, and fields stretch out endlessly from beyond the window, only occasionally split by a farmhouse or barn. Gardner had been a small town to grow up in, but this feels like being dropped in the middle of an ocean. An ocean of cornstalks, burnt gold by the sun.

“The finishing word,” Miles says, putting his boots up on the seat next to me and closing his notepad. “Go.”

I play with the clasp of my tortoiseshell barrette. The finishing word was Mother’s game and I’m not sure I ever want to play it again. But as the train slows I think of Cass going home to her sisters, and of my father spending his last night in our home, alone. I jiggle the clasp back open. Every mile on this train, every minute that passes, is taking me farther away from my old life. The life I still want to be living.

A thought comes to me gently, and it is in my mother’s voice. That ship has sailed, honey. Now you can either drown or hitch a ride on the next one.

Will anyone put flowers on her grave while we are all away?

Even though I’m only half-thinking, I have a stroke of genius. “My finishing word is ‘Palimpsest,’” I say. I snap the hair clip triumphantly.

Miles slumps back in his seat. “I’ve never heard of that word. You probably made it up.”

“No, I didn’t. You know tabula rasa?” He gives me a vacant stare. “We’re starting over with a blank slate, but we haven’t completely left our past.”

He chews on his cheek as if he’s trying to decide whether to believe me. “What’s yours, then?” I ask over the train’s shrieking brakes. A patchwork of fields is rolling into the paved streets of a small town center. “My finishing word is ‘forsaken,’” Miles says.

“How dramatic.”

“Fine. Then I’ll make it ‘emprise.’ A fancy word for adventure.”

“That’s a good one,” I admit. “You win.” It’s a strong finishing word, especially for an eight-year-old—even if I hadn’t already decided that I would let him win. “Grab your bag.”

Miles’ eyebrows arch together and then his green eyes narrow.

“What will you do if I don’t get off?” he asks.

“You will,” I say, picking up his bag along with mine. I pretend they aren’t as heavy as they are.

“No one would blame me, you know,” he says, but he shimmies down the aisle toward the exit. “My mother just died.”

“Right, because I have no idea what that feels like,” I say, and when Miles pauses on the train step, I give him a shove. Then I take a deep breath of my own and step down onto the platform.

There are only two people waiting in the shade of the station’s overhang: a middle-aged woman and someone I assume is her son. I recognize Mrs. Cliffton from my mother’s funeral. She was the only person not from Gardner, so she had stuck out in the blurred line of mourners who went through the receiving line that day. She had been formal and reserved when she took my hand. “Matilda Cliffton. I was your mother’s best friend from childhood,” she’d explained, and I recognized her name. “My mother was always so pleased to get a letter from you,” I told her, and I had already moved on to greet the next person when she suddenly hugged me, as if she couldn’t leave until she had done it.

I overheard her offer to help my father however she could. I’m guessing she probably hadn’t envisioned Miles and me stepping off this train three weeks later.

“Hello!” Mrs. Cliffton calls, stepping towards us. Her black crepe funeral dress has been replaced with a day suit the color of plums and a matching hat. Her red hair is pulled up in a smart bun. She is more handsome than I remembered. But maybe it’s because this time she’s smiling. “Welcome!” she says. “Aila, seeing you here is like stepping back in time. You look just like Juliet did when we were young.”

“Thank you,” I say. I am grateful that she can say my mother’s name. That we can still talk of her. “You remember my brother, Miles.”

Miles sticks out his hand. “Miles Quinn,” he repeats solemnly as Mrs. Cliffton takes it. Our father’s pomade has evaporated and Miles’ cowlick now stands up like a missed clump of grass.

“Welcome, Miles. And this is my son, William. He’ll get your bags,” Mrs. Cliffton says.

“Will,” the boy says, extending his hand. He looks to be about my own age, with dark hair that is slightly overgrown, and I can’t help but notice it covers the tips of his ears. His teeth are slightly crowded in his mouth, and his eyes are a blue I’ve never seen before.

He’s sort of handsome.

“So this is Sterling,” I say quickly, glancing around.

“Actually, no,” Mrs. Cliffton says. “Sterling’s still a good drive from here, but this is our nearest station.” She glances up at the darkening sky. “We’ll want to try to beat the rain.” Will takes our bags from the porter and Mrs. Cliffton leads us to a Ford station wagon with wood paneling so smooth it looks glazed.

Miles nudges me. “Just so you know,” he whispers, “your ear is showing.”

My hand flies to the right tip of my ear, but it is still hidden under the carefully arranged layers of my hair. Miles’ face breaks into a grin wide enough to reveal the small space between his two front teeth.

“The finishing word just became ‘insufferable,’” I hiss. I ignore his wiggling eyebrows and climb into the car.

Mrs. Cliffton opens the driver’s door and takes her place behind the steering wheel. She starts the engine and pulls out onto the road, hunched forward, her gloved fingers wrapped around the wheel. She doesn’t make much conversation, and when the car heaves and jerks, the corners of her mouth tighten. It takes her a moment to find the windshield wipers once the raindrops begin to splatter like paint against the window glass.

“Thank you for bearing with me,” Mrs. Cliffton says, her foot easing and catching on the clutch. “We recently lost our driver. I suppose we’re all doing our best to adapt.” She colors as if she realizes how this must sound to us. I nod rather than answer. “We are all so hopeful that the war will be over quickly,” she adds.

This is just temporary, my father’s voice echoes in my head.

My mother’s ring is warming with my touch.

The Clifftons’ car sends up thick plumes of dust behind us on the road and we don’t pass any other drivers or dwellings for miles. “We’re largely farm country,” Mrs. Cliffton explains.

“What does Dr. Cliffton do?” I ask politely.

My question provokes the slightest moment of hesitation. “He’s a scientist,” Mrs. Cliffton says. She glances back at William. “He… looks for ways to improve our quality of life. Now, dears, look ahead—here is Sterling.”

I peer out the window as we come into town. The main street is lined with American flags. There are a handful of stores, all crowned with tan awnings. Letters are painted across the glass windows of a tiny diner.

“That’s Fitz’s,” Will says, nodding toward the rust-red bricks of a general store. We pass a bank, a hardware store, a milliner, a bakery, an empty Texaco station. It looks like any other sleepy farm town, but this is the one where my mother grew up. Maybe something of her is still here for me to find, like sunlight catching a handprint on glass.

“Home’s just a bit farther,” Mrs. Cliffton says, humming, and turns onto a smaller road. Houses and farms are scattered along it like jacks between fields and a thick patch of forest. The sky is wide and laden with heavy clouds. Mrs. Cliffton turns off the road and Will jumps out to open a large cast-iron gate. When he returns the rain has speckled his white shirt with gray. Then the car climbs the curving drive, and the Clifftons’ house comes into view.

The house falls somewhere between the cramped and cozy nooks of the Tilt and the sprawling mansions my Father once took us to see on the cliffs of Rhode Island. Lights blaze from a first floor window through the shimmer of rain. Four chimneys rise from a slate roof and rooms spread from the central house in two glass-covered wings. The red bricks glow as if they would be warm to the touch. I suddenly notice a faint stain blotting the hem of my dress and move my hand to cover it.

“I’m sorry, we seem to have forgotten the umbrellas,” Mrs. Cliffton says, pulling around the circled drive to the front of the house. “We’ll have to make a run for it. The three of you go on in, and I’ll be right behind you.”

Will opens the door to a crack of thunder and even though Miles and I sprint up the stone steps behind him, the rain soaks my dress until it clings to me. The careful wave Cass set in my hair this morning is now slicked to the side of my cheek.

Will pulls open the heavy front door to a bright yellow foyer and I hurry inside. The rainwater runs down my legs into a puddle on the checkered marble floor. A chandelier hangs two stories above our heads, twinkling like the sun.

“Wow,” Miles says, gaping at the raised ceiling, his boots squeaking against the polished floor. At least the rain has masked the stain on my hem.

Raindrops bead on Will’s forehead and drip down his lashes. He reaches a hand to brush them away. “I’ll get us some towels,” Will says, and by the time he returns with them, Mrs. Cliffton is coming in through the front door. She starts when she sees us still standing there and heavily sets down our luggage.

I look again down at the water that has pooled at my feet and narrow my eyes.

The wind has taken on a shrieking tone. The rain continues to beat against the windows. Yet Mrs. Cliffton and our leather suitcases are perfectly dry.

We towel off and meet the Clifftons’ only remaining staff: a live-in cook and housekeeper named Genevieve. She is tall and rail-thin and has hair the color of smoke. The tea she offers us is scentless but strong. It feels like embers going down my throat, heating me from the inside as we follow Mrs. Cliffton on a tour of the house. I try not to compare it to The Tilt, but I can’t help noticing that the door handles are made of curved brass rather than our rounded glass knobs. There’s no beautiful grandfather clock that clicks and bongs throughout the night, no collection of frog knickknacks with little pieces of paper wedged beneath them so they don’t slide down the slope of the shelves. Instead there are decorative books and patterned curtains and tiny painted porcelain boxes that sit in perfectly level display cases. The hallways bear paintings of vases and bowls spilling over with fruit rather than Father’s nautical maps and sketched prints of archipelagos. Maybe he’ll get to see more of the ocean while he’s away, I think. Maybe he’ll bring new pictures back with him.

Some of the furniture looks as though it’s never even been used. But Mrs. Cliffton is enthusiastic when we round a corner and she points out a wooden chair.

“Will built this for me when he was thirteen,” she says proudly.

“It’s really more functional than beautiful,” Will says.

“I adore it,” Mrs. Cliffton says.

“You’re my mother,” Will says, smiling at me with a hint of embarrassment and running his hands along the scruffy hair at the back of his neck. He trails behind as we tour the sunroom and formal dining room and Dr. Cliffton’s library, where books cover the walls with spines as ordered as piano keys. I’m examining an old Victrola and a tidy line of wooden canes when Miles reaches out to twirl the large, midnight orb of a celestial globe. I grab his wrist. He still has peanut butter smudged on his hand.

I shoot him a look before turning to Mrs. Cliffton. “Your home is lovely,” I say.

“Yes,” Miles echoes. He wipes his palms on the tail of his shirt. “Thank you for having us.”

Mrs. Cliffton waves this off. “Your mother was like my sister,” she says. She blinks rapidly and for a moment I worry she’s going to cry. Miles stiffens like a rod next to me. “So you and Miles are almost family,” she finishes, and smiles instead, and Miles’s shoulders relax again.

“Shall we head upstairs? You can get settled in.” Mrs. Cliffton leads us back to the foyer, where I grab my knapsack from the floor and Will collects our suitcases. “Aila,” Mrs. Cliffton says brightly, leading us up the stairs, “do you remember the time I came to Gardner? Not for the funeral, but years back? You were still very young then. Actually, William was with me as well. Do you recall meeting as children?”

“No,” I say after a beat. The pins in my hair are starting to tug and I want to find my room and take them out.

“Juliet and I turned our backs for one minute,” Mrs. Cliffton says, reaching the second floor, “and the next thing we knew you were both down in the field covered head-to-toe in dirt.” She stops in front of the first door beyond the balcony. “We promptly threw you both in the tub.”

When I realize that this means Will and I have seen one another in our unmentionables, and possibly even less than that, I do everything I can to avoid his face. Miles makes it worse with a muffled snicker.

“That’s right,” Will says quickly, juggling our suitcases for a better grip. “We were burying something we’d found in the field, some treasure. I can’t remember what it was. Maybe with some Mind’s Eye we could….”

The way he cuts off makes me look up to catch the most peculiar expression cross his face. His mother’s hand jerks back from the doorknob, and the air strains and crackles with a sudden tension, as if they are waiting for some sort of reaction from us.

“What is Mind’s Eye?” Miles asks, and Mrs. Cliffton gives Will an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

“Oh, just something we can talk about later,” Mrs. Cliffton says to Miles, pushing open the door to the first guest bedroom. “Aila, that’s a lovely necklace,” she continues, changing the subject as she ushers us inside. “I remember that ring. Wasn’t it your mother’s?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Did she really give it to you?” Miles asks quietly as Will places my suitcase on the floor. I nod, uncomfortable with how intently both he and Mrs. Cliffton are looking at my neck.

“She didn’t give me anything,” Miles says, and I wait until their backs are turned, and then hide the ring behind the collar of my dress.

My bedroom is simple and cheerful, with yellow walls that are cozy even with the storm beating against the window. There is a white four-poster bed with an embroidered quilt and a window seat that looks out on the branch of a large oak. Mrs. Cliffton has placed tight puffs of cabbage roses and a picture in a silver frame on the bureau. The image holds younger versions of her and my mother. Juliet and Matilda wear matching school uniforms, their arms slung around one another, their faces caught in openmouthed laughs.

I’ve never seen a picture of Mother at my age. Her hair was a lighter auburn than mine, but she has my gray eyes that are a bit too wide, small nose, and sharp chin. It’s startling how much I look like her.

I unpack my dresses and line my toiletries on top of the milk-white sink, then shelve the poetry volumes I’ve taken from the castaway pile at the Gardner library over the years. Stevenson, Frost, Dickinson, Yeats, and Wilde, each missing its cover or spidered with stains the color of light tea. I can’t bring myself to unpack my winter clothes just yet. Maybe we’ll be home by then. Instead I arrange my father’s dulled throwing dart, Mother’s Shakespeare volume, and Cass’ ribbon on my nightstand. Then I run a bath in the porcelain claw tub and dress for dinner. There are no mirrors in the bathroom--odd for a house that has just about everything else. I wonder if it would be too forward to ask Mrs. Cliffton for one.

I do the best I can with my hair, feeling only by touch, and head downstairs for dinner.

Dr. Cliffton stands from the mahogany dinner table to greet me when I enter the dining room. He is an older, softer version of Will, with blue eyes that aren’t quite as striking and are framed by wire-rimmed glasses. I make polite, stilted conversation—”I’ve never been this far north before;” “The rain sure is coming down”—over a dinner of watercress and grilled peach salad, roast chicken, and some sort of squash tart, all served by Genevieve. We did not eat like this even before the war and the rationing started. “One of the benefits of living in farm country,” Dr. Cliffton says as he notices me eyeing the small pat of freshly churned butter. I want to smear it, salty and smooth and creamy, all along my slice of bread, but I pretend that I don’t care for it and pass the plate on. Miles takes my cue and declines as well. We are impinging on the Clifftons enough without eating their precious butter.

Dr. Cliffton clears his throat. “Did your mother speak often of Sterling?” he asks me. He pauses in cutting the tart. His knife and fork hover over his plate.

“Only a little,” I say. In truth, she’d barely spoken of it at all. There is a long beat, as if this wasn’t the correct answer. For a moment all I can hear is cutlery scraping; the sound of my own chewing.

“She told me once she didn’t much like it,” Miles offers, followed by a yelp as my heel catches his ankle.

Dr. Cliffton laughs graciously but there is something else in it as well. He pushes his chair back in concert with a loud crack of thunder and says, “You know, I believe I’ve just the thing for this occasion.” His right foot drags as he leaves the room, and I recall the collection of canes I’d seen during my tour of the house. I suppose that means the draft will never come calling for him.

Dr. Cliffton reappears a moment later trailing bright strains of Glenn Miller from down the hall. It helps to drown out the steady patter of the rain. “Shall we move into the library?” Mrs. Cliffton suggests. “Genevieve could bring us some coffee, maybe even some ice cream?” Miles jumps up with a nod.

They are all trying so hard, I realize. But I don’t have the energy to keep up. “Actually, I think I’ll turn in,” I say.

“Long day,” Mrs. Cliffton says, nodding. The lights flicker.

The four of them move on to Dr. Cliffton’s library and I climb the stairs to my room. “Goodnight, Miles,” I call from the balcony, and he gives a short wave without really looking.

I change into my nightgown and brush my teeth, staring at the blank wall in front of me. Tomorrow I’m going to ask about the mirror.

I climb into bed, rolling my father’s dart between my hands. I hear Will challenge Miles to a game of checkers, followed by an amused “Hot dog!” barely five minutes later. Miles rarely loses games. He never loses at checkers.

Someone changes the record to Billie Holiday, drowsy and warm. She was Mother’s favorite. I return my dart to the nightstand and use my pillow to block out the music and sound of the rain.

It’s the first night in three weeks I do not dream of her.

***

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lucius-of-cornwell · 7 years

Text

A Long Way Home [drabble]

Lucius had heard of any port in a storm, and he supposed that any church would be a safer place to pray than the dingy back alley he found himself in. The chapel that he wanted so badly to be in was well out of reach now. Oh, it wasn’t far. They couldn’t be more than ten miles away. But might as well have been across oceans. No one could get to the Cornwell manor now—especially not what remained of the Cornwell family.

It had been roughly a week since they’d first fled the manor, at Lady Carolyn’s insistence. Raymond had protested loudly, Lucius had protested quietly—but Her Ladyship was adamant, and Lord Phillip was no less relenting. Lucius had feared this day was coming—so, he knew, had Raymond—since they’d sent Priscilla to Etruria. The four days they spent away from the manor were very long. Raymond said nothing, but everything from his posture to his lack of appetite made it abundantly clear that he was worried. On the fifth day, he declared he was going back. Lucius wondered if he shouldn’t, perhaps, have tried harder to stop him.

He wondered that even more, now.

It had not been a death sentence. At least, he didn’t think it was. He was sure it had been exile. It was possible he had misunderstood, or maybe the sentence had been changed after they had been sent away. How he’d managed to stay conscious, never mind standing, was a mystery to him. Had you told him that he’d bear witness to a tragedy like this, he’d have been certain he’d collapse immediately.

He would never forget.

It had surely been staged, but by whose hand? The candles were extinguished. The prayer book was closed. The sacrament cups stood on the altar; bottle of wine between them, where the chalice would normally be. The lord and lady lay before it, dressed in their finest and hands entwined. Peaceful as if they had just fallen asleep there. Sunlight streamed through the stained glass window, glinting off the diamonds in their wedding rings.

He was too frightened to scream, too hurt to cry. He dropped his tome, and barely heard it hit the floor. The only thing he could hear was the way Raymond’s breathing shook. Had he ever seen proud Raymond cry? He wasn’t sure. But he had now. Raymond, kneeling between his parents, tears streaming down his face and gritting his teeth against the sobbing.

He knew that he fell from the dark bruises he found on his knees later that night. But he didn’t feel it. Raymond could hold the tears back no longer, and Lucius didn’t even try. He wrapped his arms around his lord and wept.

How many families am I fated to lose? Would this misfortune have come if I hadn’t been here?

How long they stayed there, Lucius wasn’t sure. Long enough that he ran out of tears to cry, and they both fell silent. Long enough that Raymond stopped trembling. Long enough that his entire body felt like lead, and like it was no longer in his control. He ought to move. He ought to perform the Last Rites. He ought to—

Voices.

The sound couldn’t have been louder than a whisper, but Lucius reacted as if a whip had been cracked. The chapel door stood ajar, anyone could find them here if they took the time to look. They needed to flee. They’d been told to flee four days ago, and here they were. They might as well never have left. What would happen if they were caught? He had no idea.

What if we’re accused of murder?

How far of a stretch could it be? Anyone who could find it in themselves to accuse Phillip of Cornwell of corruption could surely find it in themselves to pin a murder on his son.

They needed to flee.

They couldn’t leave.

They’d been told to run.

They couldn’t leave.

Lucius grit his teeth, and clenched his hands around Raymond’s coat. Courage, Elimine had said, is fear that has said its prayers. And by the Goddess, he needed to be brave.

He’d never performed Last Rites. He couldn’t bear to let go of Raymond to reach for a prayer book, so he could know he was doing it correctly. He wanted to believe that someone would do it properly, if he didn’t—but how was he to know? How could he be sure? His eyes stung, his throat felt raw, and he dared not speak above the softest whisper—but someone needed to say a prayer for the Lord and Lady. There was no way he could be sure the next person to find them—the traitors, they’d spit, like the word itself tasted vile—would give them that final respect they deserved. It was out of his control.

Raymond had never been one for praying. He’d doodled in the margins during religion lessons and flipped absently through the hymnal during services, no matter how many times Lucius nudged him under the table. He hadn’t expected to hear Raymond saying the words with him now. The words caught in his throat, but he dared not cough—lest someone come investigate.

When had Raymond grabbed the prayer book? Lucius wasn’t sure, but he felt it when the young lord wedged it between them. The meaning was clear—do it right.

And so he had. Only then did they flee. As the Cornwell manor disappeared behind the trees, Lucius knew that he had, once more, lost his home. It was not the first time—he feared it would not be the last. Surely there was a reason he was being put through these trials—what was it? It wasn’t his place to know. All would be revealed in due time. He had to have faith. For now, he had no option but to pray for strength and carry on. Raymond would need him—for if anyone had the right to fall apart, between them, it was him. Raymond was the one who needed a shoulder to cry on. Lucius would give him that.

The road was hard in ways Lucius couldn’t even have foreseen. The weight of their situation didn’t crash down on him all at once. It grew slowly heavier, as if each worry and fear was a stone being placed in the bag he carried. Raymond walked beside him in silence. Lucius began to fall behind. Each step was harder than the last. It hurt his soul to call out to Raymond—but he could go no further.

And that was how they had ended up in this dingy back alley. Lucius was sitting on his bag, trying not to tremble. His chest hurt, his head throbbed, his limbs ached and he wanted nothing more than rest. Rest and relief. But nothing could relieve the pain when it was brought on by the suffering of the redhead leaning against the wall beside him. Whatever Lucius felt, Raymond surely felt tenfold beneath that stoic face. When had he gotten so good at that?

Be strong. Keep going.

But he couldn’t.

“There’s a church about a mile from here,” Lucius said softly, willing his voice to not waver. “Lord Raymond…”

“We’ll stop there,” he answered at length. “Are you…okay?”

“I’ll be all right. Please, don’t worry about me. I just need to rest, just for a little while. I’ll be good as new…”

The monk bit down on his lip as he climbed to his feet. The world tilted alarmingly. He reached for the wall, but it wasn’t there. Raymond caught his arm to steady him. Who was meant to be supporting whom, here? Who was the vassal and who was the lord?

Well, neither of them, now.

He was right to fear that this was only the beginning of a very long journey.

#drabble: long way home #prompt from raven-of-cornwell #I tried #it's not as feelsy as some of Yuan's but I tried #[pre-game]#raven of cornwell

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thelittlegreenprince · 7 years

Text

Story time.

(Content warnings: derogatory language regarding LGBTQ community, mention of depression, trauma.)

I had a bad day at work last week. Like, really bad. Crying-in-the-back-room-and-wishing-desperately-not-to-exist-kind-of-bad. But let me back up.

I had a shit time finding a job after I graduated from college. I moved to two different major cities, interviewed for several dozen positions ranging from research assistant to barista, and eventually had no other choice but to move back home with my dad.

I grew up in a really conservative part of rural white Pennsylvania. It was pretty normal to hear classmates use homophobic slurs, racist language, and rape jokes in everyday conversation at my high school. Trying to figure out all of the beautifully weird things that I am was really difficult when I was a young person. Trying to cultivate a sense of self-worth was next to impossible.

Fast forward to the summer after my first year of college. My dad, a pharmacist, had just opened his own drugstore (potentially jeopardizing my family’s ability to front the fraction of tuition that I hadn’t managed to cover with financial aid, scholarships, and federal loans) and I was obligated to return to my hometown to help him run the place. It was hands-down the worst job that I have ever had. Anyone who has ever had to work for their parents knows how awful it is to be micromanaged by someone who has it in their power to not only hold your paycheck over your head to make you do whatever they want, but who also controls your ability to go home and feel safe and secure after the work day is over.

I was pretty much the store’s only full-time employee, often working overtime (though paid minimum wage!), and our customers were the county’s most infamous. And since it was just my dad and me in there, they would come in and feel entitled to pretty much do and say as they pleased. I remember one nasty old woman who would sidle up to the counter, order her prescriptions with a glare, and pointedly say to me, “You know, you remind me of my granddaughter... She looked just like you... Used to be such a sweet person, and so smart too; she had gotten her PhD you know. But then she left her husband and became a disgusting LESBIAN. What a waste. Now she’ll never amount to anything! Sick in the head, that’s what people like her are.”

It’s difficult to reproduce the viciousness in her tone through a Tumblr post, but believe me, there was venom in those words. This happened each time she came in. Like clockwork. And like clockwork, I would look over to my dad, pleading silently for some sort of support -- to see him laughing. Cracking up! I talked to him about it after work one time. Got really upset. “It would be really nice if you didn’t laugh at me when someone said something that offends me and insults who I am. In fact, it would be nice if you stood up for me and told them not to say those kinds of things to your employees in your place of business.” He blew his lid and shouted at me that he was not going to make his drugstore a political battleground.

Anyway, after that summer, I swore to myself that I would never again work for my dad. Six months after I graduated college, two cities, and more than a few burned bridges later, right back there I was. If I didn’t have so many problems with the word, I would say that it felt emasculating. Instead, I’ll just admit that crushing depression pretty much consumed me for those first few months. But that’s a pity party I’d like to keep somewhat private.

Fast forward to last week a few minutes before I wound up in the closet crying like a ninny. My coworker Heather was talking about a gay man that her husband knew at work and called him “gayer than a three-dollar bill.” Now, Heather is the kind of straight person who manages to convince other straight people that she’s gay-friendly. But when you go around doing things like calling gay men “flamers” behind their backs... Look, if you’re not willing to say it directly to a person’s face, then you know that you’re saying something offensive, and you should really just stop.

So, I got annoyed, and said that I didn’t quite understand the phrase “gayer than a three-dollar bill.” At which point, the staff pharmacist, Harry, cut in. Harry is what some people would call crude. I call it meanness thinly veiled as humor. He said loudly, “Well I think the real phrase is QUEERER than a three-dollar bill--”

Alarms started going off in my head and I tried to stop him from talking by saying, “well, historically, that’s a pretty offensive term, and I’d prefer if you didn’t use it.” I didn’t even get the first word out. He steam-rolled me every time I’d try and his voice just kept getting louder.

“--you know, that’s what people would say, QUEERER than a three-dollar bill, but it’s because you’d never see one of those, QUEERER than a three-dollar bill, she’s saying he’s QUEER.”

He tacked on the end as an afterthought, “But yeah, that’s definitely more offensive.”

Allow me to pause here and mention that I don’t... really have any inherent problem with the word ‘queer.’ Hell, I identify as queer. I majored in Women’s Studies in college. We throw that shit around all the time! It’s a noun, an adjective, a verb, an adverb, and a whole body of academic theory. But... as with any word whose origins lie in oppression, despite the work that has been done to reclaim this term by the communities it was once used to hurt, the weight of the word is still incredible. It is still, in many contexts, a derogatory term. And this was one of those contexts.

After my experiences working at the drugstore that summer after my first year of college, I learned not to expect my dad to advocate on my behalf with regards to pretty much anything -- least of all my identity as a queer person. This is difficult when I am also his employee. At another place of employment, I would have gone to my manager, spoken to them about this upsetting incident, and worked out a solution. If necessary, I would have quit. But those things aren’t options in this scenario, where my boss is also my dad. Which means all of those years of mustering the self-worth to feel angry, to self-advocate, to know that I deserve to *not* be reduced to sobbing and ashamed of myself for it in the back closet at my place of employment -- just have to be quietly put away for another day, another year, however long.

I can’t expect anyone to advocate on my behalf. And you can bet that Harry isn’t facing any repercussions for his behavior. Apparently, he brought it up with my dad at the end of the work day after I had gone home and said, “your daughter is really sensitive, isn’t she?” and my dad just shrugged and said he didn’t know what had happened. No apologies. To the contrary, I was implicitly blamed for having gotten upset.

However, I am surprised to find that I am being given the option to opt out of having to work with him this week (I can’t say anything about future weeks). In other situations, I’ve not been allowed to change my work schedule at all. To digress, there’s an assistant pharmacist who comes in once a week to help out. He’s an old man who never fails to trigger trauma-brain relapse for me whenever I have to work with him because of his tendency to get... touchy. My complaints about this have been dismissed, and I have had to keep working with him until very recently, when I managed to argue my way out of working on that day of the week for unrelated reasons.

Anyway, I am allowed to take off for the two days that Harry works this week. This is good, because I would rather not deal with the tension of working with this person. But I am upset at the idea of sacrificing my hourly wages because of this asshole. I am angry with myself for letting him get to me enough to make me cry. But I’m more angry that his derogatory language goes without so much as an apology while my paycheck gets reduced in what feels like an awful concession to my own marginalization as a bisexual nonbinary person.

I am sorry to say that there is nothing in this story that I have heroically overcome. There’s no moral, there’s no hidden meaning, there’s no inspirational message. There’s just a microcosmic example of systemic oppression, the personal experience of traumas being triggered, and the lack of financial autonomy to declare independence from relatives or move away permanently. If you’ve taken the time to read all of this, I appreciate you.

#personal

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