#as i slog through all the prompts i still have

[spacedace]

Reluctant War AU Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

More of the brain worm that has taken me over, gonna probably post it to Ao3 here before too long. Already got another part started and so many ideas for additional stuff, someone please send help I've been consumed by this thing lol

Sorry if Waller seems out of character, outside of fandom I'm mostly familiar with her through Justice League the animated show & Justice League: Unlimited and her vibe there has always struck me as "deeply incredibly unlikable character that also kind of has a point but also has done so much fucked up shit in the name of her goals that you don't really care about her point anymore." So you know, complicated lol. If she's completely unrecognizable let me know, but I'm hoping she feels at least somewhat like Waller.

Forgot to say this in the last update, but still feel free to use all this as an overly long prompt if yall want. Literally anything I throw out to the void should be treated as a prompt lol If there's anything at all interesting to you in any of this nonsense go for it <3 <3 <3

---

Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Ruthless, heartless, vicious, cruel.

She’d been called it all. Wore the words thrown as insults as a badges of pride and valor. Because at the end of the day, when it came to the problems she was given to face, the issues she was meant to solve, those words meant she’d done what others had been too squeamish or cowardly to do. Life was a never ending slog of trolley problems and she the only one unshakable enough to pull the levers that needed pulling.

It wasn’t so simple as a matter of greater good.

Greater good was what the weak willed muttered to themselves after having feelings over doing the bare minimum. A justification used by people on all sides to do what they wanted with fractured, faulty logic thrown around like truth was a thing immutable. To assuage their guilt when they were forced to make a call they didn’t want to.

It wasn’t a matter of greater good. It was a matter of preservation. Of protection. Of digging through the filth to find the threats skittering beneath and crush them with ruthless abandon. Of facing a god and not blinking because if you did it could cost the world.

Of doing what needed to be done, no matter how underhanded or atrocious it was.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the throat of something that could threaten to destroy it all.

When the Ghost Investigation Ward had been shoved her way with it’s sucking wound of a budget, it’s bloated incompetent staff, its asinine methods she’d seen a rotted limb in need of hacking off. It hadn’t been until she’d been conducting her inspection, digging through the trash for a few pearls of effective agents she could snatch up and put to work elsewhere, that she’d truly seen what they were working on. The potential.

Potential to better arm themselves with in the forms of the strange new weapons being created.

Potential for threats far greater than anything even she had thought possible before.

The GIW as it had been when she’d first come across it was a fetid waste of time and resources. A laughing stock agency only secret because no one took them seriously enough to look. Made stupid and useless with its own conceited delusions of importance it didn’t actually have. Yet.

She went to work on it. Hacking away as she’d originally intended, but this time with a different goal in mind. She ripped out the weeds with bare, calloused hands and planted proficiency and loyalty in their place. She took over as director herself, tossing the self-aggrandizing fool that had been running the place into the ground to the dogs as the culprit for misappropriate spendings, saving the agency by tweaking things until their ballooning budget was pinned neatly onto the former director as an embezzling charge.

Then she got to work.

The Fentons were brilliant, if entirely insane. But Amanda could work with that. She’d reigned Harley Quinn in - more or less - she could do the same to the two deranged scientists that so eagerly wanted to be apart of the fight against the dead. Especially when the benefit came in the form of the inventions they threw together so easily, especially when those inventions were weapons.

It took very little to get them on board with her plans for the GIW. Keeping their focus could be a chore, at times, but she didn’t even have to really do much in the way of pressing to get them back where she wanted them. They craved knowledge and understanding nearly as much as they craved the eradication of the entities themselves. Letting them have the first look at a new subject here, free reign over a vivisection there, it took so little to fuel their fervor and keep them busy working on the projects she set for them.

Things had been going smoothly.

For a time at least.

Until Phantom.

He’d been the main focus of the previous director’s attention, the big fish he’d so desperately wanted to catch and put up on his wall. Amanda wouldn’t lie and say it wasn’t a tempting prospect, but not one she’d put above the other projects she had set in motion since taking over. No, Phantom was powerful, enough to be a real problem one day, but she could the awkward youth in the way he held himself, the inexperience in how he handled situations. She had time to get everything else in order before focusing on getting Amity Park’s would-be hero brought to heel.

And he would be brought to heel. One way or another.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the Core of a fledgling god and bending him to her will.

An artifact, old an powerful, recovered with some effort. A means of controlling specters, of chaining them to the will of the artifact’s wielder. Dangerous in the wrong hands. Dangerous in the right hands.

It was shattered, and even whole and functional Phantom was resistant to its power. But Amanda Waller prided herself in her ability to see the potential in things. It could be repaired, be made better. Even gods could be bound, be made to kneel, with the right pieces, with the right application of force.

It was just a matter of time to gather everything needed.

Phantom didn’t know he could single handedly destroy every last member of the Justice League. The baby fat, the innocent eyes, the split-second hesitations when he fought. He knew enough to be confident in fighting the usual ghosts that haunted Amity Park, but he still very much saw himself as a little fish. Maybe it was the part of him that was still Daniel Fenton, gangly teenager not quite sure what he was truly capable of yet.

She had time before the Fenton’s son truly became an issue. Time to judge if his parents’ obsessiveness would overcome their - rather shoddy, by Amanda’s estimation - parental instincts and continue to hunt him once they knew the truth. Time to get as much out of them as she could before hand, should they falter at the idea of attacking their own son. Time for the staff to be repaired and returned to working order, to get the other items needed for the truly big fish hidden on the other side of the veil between worlds.

She had time.

Until she didn’t.

Pariah Dark had not been something she thought she’d have to account for - not yet, at least.

If he wasn’t already dead, she’d ring the Ghost King’s neck with her bare hands. His arrival had opened Phantom’s eyes to what he was capable of, of just how big of a fish he was. Worse still, Phantom’s defeat of the war mongering King changed the state of play. Phantom was no longer an impressively powerful half dead teenager.

He was King Infinite.

He was an Ancient.

He was getting on her last damn nerves.

Phantom’s rogue gallery were now firmly under the boy’s control. Still distinct nuisances around Amity Park, but no longer considered true concerns. They were loyal to their boy king, delighting in ruffling his feathers but never crossing the line into treason or attempted regicide. Which meant that the GIW was the only thing that held his attention.

Amanda took the time to send a care package to the former GIW director in his tiny, dank prison cell. As thanks for his carelessness in revealing to the entire town - both living and dead - of the agency’s existence and their intentions. Had he stuck to standard protocol, Phantom would have been none the wiser to their presence. Would have scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders at the ghost that went missing upon occasion. Would have been boredly uninterested in the people his parents had begun working with. Would have been taken by surprise when they finally came for him.

But no.

No that self-obsessed, fame chasing imbecile had to go and announce to everyone and their dead mother that the GIW existed and exactly what it was they were in Amity Park to do.

Phantom knew what they were there to do.

They could only count on his naive certainty that he could broker peace with them for so long.

Peace. As if he and his people weren’t the invading force, the monsters slipping in through the cracks between worlds, the latest threat that had to be accounted for. As if he himself hadn’t rent their world asunder himself in another world, another time. No. Peace was not something they could hash out with this baby-faced monarch with his too-big crown. Peace was the assurance of safety, security. Of control of the situation.

There could be no peace.

The higher ups were somehow surprised when Phantom took that to mean there would be war.

Amanda Waller was not.

The Fentons, as suspected, took the right side when all was revealed. Steady hands and flinty eyes as they crafted the weapons that would be needed for the coming fight. Minds even sharper in their maddened grief, hearts set on revenge for the son lost and the entity that stole his face and friends and sister in his garish pretense at humanity. They were blinded to the reality of the situation in its entirety, the potential in what their son truly was, but at the end of the day it didn’t really matter. They did what she needed them to do, they could believe whatever it was they wanted so long as they did.

By the time the boy king and his armies marched upon the Amity park facility, preparations had been put into place. The base in Amity had been stripped back to bare essentials, everything of importance moved to more secured locations.

The weapons labs.

The artifact.

The girl.

All tucked well away from the front lines where Phantom and his motley crew could not reach. Their time to be put in play would come, but not yet. First she needed to gauge what Phantom and his people were capable of, what they were willing to do in the name of what they wanted. Amity Park was a pawn well sacrificed on that front. As were the other facilities she’d left easy to find.

The problem with making children gods, with giving them crowns and calling them King and giving them armies to play with, was that they thought there should be rules. That even in the trenches tearing apart their enemies, there was a certain level of playing fair that everyone was held to. They thought there was a way the world worked, of how things should be that blinded them to more effective options even as time stretched on and desperation set in.

It was the Dead’s problem though, not hers.

She reached out to the Justice League. Sour faced, unhappy, bitterly reluctant to accept that she needed their help. Stone faced and barely containing their rage at what little they knew of the situation, they agreed to a meeting.

She didn’t let herself smile until she was well and truly alone in her office.

Greater good. A lie people told themselves. A fairytale told to children. A means of convincing the weaker willed that they had no choice, that they had a noble duty to bend to. A belief that could be wielded like a weapon if the fantasy of the idea had dug in deep enough. And there were few it had dug into so deep as the members of the Justice League.

Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands clenched tight on a victory long in the making.

---

Part Four

#dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc #danny fenton #amanda waller #GIW #ghost investigation ward #Jack Fenton #Maddie Fenton #bad parents jack & maddie fenton #cause none of this is angsty enough yet lol #tw references to vivisection #tw references to death #waller out here playing 3d chess #of course she wasn't surprised by the inevitable war she was just hoping she'd have her secret weapon ready before it actually kicked off #oh well she still has plans B - J to get through #and all the variations for each #gonna take care of her ghost problem and her justice league problem in one fell swoop if she gets her way #just throw some GIW agents into the meat grinder for a bit while she gets stuff in order & so she can see just what Danny is willing to do #anyway wonder what Elle is up to during all this #i'm sure she's fine and there's nothing to worry about #waller playing the long con yall

[salty-an-disco]

Yeah, might as well see what this story is about. [Proceed]

Indeed! We’re onto an incredible adventure you and I, I can already tell.

Ahem.

You walk up to the cabin. A plain wooden structure sat atop a hill. You’ll find the princess within.

I should warn you, before you go any further: She will lie, she will cheat, she will do everything in her power to stop you from slaying her. Don’t believe a word she says.

‘We’re not going through this are we? She’s a princess! We’re supposed to save Princesses, not–

OH, geez. Who said that? Did you say that? But a prompt didn’t even appear! I– I thought that was the established form of conversation. I narrate, monologue, go on different — but fun and engaging — tangents, and you reply with short sentences at the end of it! You shouldn’t change an established pattern like this, at least warn me–!

‘Uhm. Mr. Narrator–’

ARGH. There you go again! Hrrng. Although… it doesn’t really sound like you? Is there someone else here?

‘Yes. Sort of. I’m them, but– not? Me talking is not the same as them talking. At least, I don’t think–’

Then why are you still talking? It’s unsettling! You shouldn’t be able to interrupt my narration like this! That’s not how I work–

‘I’m sorry, but I cannot just stay quiet! I’m also part of this story, you know?’

Hrrrnnng. At least separate your lines more from the narration. I can barely notice you!

‘Uhm.’

Voice of the Hero: Is this better?

Yes, much better. Ahem. As I was saying, before being rudely interrupted, you shouldn’t believe a word–

Voice of the Hero: You already said that part. And you were actually the one who interru–

AS I WAS SAYING BEFORE BEING RUDELY INTERRUPTED–

Voice of the Hero: …

… You shouldn’t believe a word the Princess says.

There. You can say your piece now.

Voice of the Hero: …thanks. Yeah, as I was saying… … I forgot what I was gonna say.

Thank you for your contribution. Very enlightening and necessary to the progression of this story.

Voice of the Hero: Hey, that’s not fair! You were the one who side-tracked me!

#Displaced Narrator AU #tsp narrator #voice of the hero #stp protagonist #crossover au #slay the princess #the stanley parable #stp fanfic #tsp fanfic #choose your own adventure #sal writes

[bradshawsbaby]

snow angels

pairing: rhett abbott x girlfriend!reader

author’s note: based on this sweet prompt from @therebeccaw ❄️

i’ve been loving the rhett prompts you guys have been sending in! they’ve been making me feel super inspired, so thank you!

warnings: rhett being a little bit of a grump, but it turns to plenty of fluff

The snow had just stopped falling when you pulled up in front of the Abbott house, killing the engine of your truck and snatching up the tin of homemade biscuits you’d made before carefully sliding out into a pile of snow that came up past your ankles.

Cecilia had called earlier in the day to invite you over for dinner, an offer which you never refused. Ever since you were a kid, home cooked meals at the Abbotts’ were always a special treat. Though it was a secret you would take with you to your grave, you actually preferred Cecilia’s beef and vegetable stew to your own mama’s. Your mouth was already watering in anticipation as you slogged your way to the front door through a snow drift.

Having known the Abbotts pretty much your entire life, and now being Rhett’s girlfriend on top of it, you didn’t even need to knock to await entrance into their home. Pushing open the door, you stomped the snow off your boots and announced your arrival with a loud “Hello!” as you attempted to untangle the scarf from around your neck with one hand.

Amy came running towards the door with a bright smile, wrapping her arms around your waist in greeting and taking the tin of biscuits out of your hand.

“Hey, sweetie,” you beamed, giving Rhett’s niece a soft hug. You remembered the day she was born, and it boggled your mind to see how big she was getting.

“Grandma and Grandpa are in the kitchen,” she told you, taking your hand and tugging you in the direction of one of the most heavenly aromas you’d ever smelled.

Turning the corner, you immediately caught sight of Cecilia standing over the stove, stirring her famous stew, while Royal stood at the sink, scrubbing grease off his hands and forearms.

“Heya, bug,” Royal said as he turned his head and caught sight of you. “Bug” had been his affectionate nickname for you since you were a little girl, ever since the day you’d run screaming and crying to your mama about how Rhett Abbott had shoved a handful of bugs down the back of your dress after church on Sunday. Rhett had gotten in some serious trouble, but he never dared pull a stunt like that again, and the two of you had become fast friends after Cecilia dragged him by his ear to apologize to you.

“Hey, Royal,” you grinned, standing on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek in greeting. “Hi, Cecilia,” you went on, moving to give Rhett’s mama a side hug as she continued to work on dinner.

“Hey there, sweet pea. Glad you could make it tonight,” Cecilia said, wiping her hands on a dish towel as she turned to smile at you. “Dinner’ll be ready in a few.”

“Can I help with anything?” you asked, already pushing up the sleeves of your sweater.

Cecilia shook her head immediately, shushing your attempts to be of assistance. “No, no, you’re fine. Amy, finish setting the table,” she called out to her granddaughter.

“I’ll help with that,” you laughed.

Just as you turned to assist Amy, Perry suddenly walked through the door, shaking the snow off his jacket and hat. He raised a tired hand to you in greeting, which you returned.

“Where’s Rhett?” Royal asked, drying his arms off and rolling down his sleeves.

“Still in the barn,” Perry replied, shooting his parents a pointed look.

Cecilia sighed, shaking her head. Leaning in closer to you, she lowered her voice and said, “He’s been in a mood all day. There was a big storm in Casper and they just cancelled the rodeo for this weekend.”

You knew immediately that Rhett must have been extremely disappointed. He’d been talking about riding in Casper for weeks, and you’d been looking forward to cheering him on.

“Maybe you can go cheer him up and convince him not to come to dinner like a grumpy, grunting caveman,” Cecilia went on, nudging you with a smile.

“I’ll try my best,” you chuckled, going to grab your coat, scarf, and boots before once more making your way out into the cold December evening.

Tucking your hands deep into the pockets of your coat, you shivered as you made the trek to the barn, seeing the light emanating from the cracks in the door that told you Rhett was still inside. By the time you pushed the thick barn doors open, your cheeks were like ice and your lungs felt frozen inside your chest.

“Rhett?” you called out, not spotting your boyfriend right away.

“Over here,” came his gruff voice from behind a massive pile of hay.

Oh, yeah. He was definitely in a mood.

Walking across the barn floor and turning next to the tall stack of hay, you finally caught sight of Rhett, hefting a rather large bale onto an already impressive pile.

“Your mama sent me to get you for dinner,” you told him, leaning against the beam near your shoulder.

“I’m almost done,” he muttered curtly, sweat beading on his forehead despite the frigid temperature outside.

“She also told me to make sure you don’t come inside acting like a grumpy, grunting caveman,” you added, using Cecilia’s words exactly.

Rhett frowned at that, dropping another bale of hay onto the pile and then turning to look at you, hands on his hips in obvious frustration.

“I’m sorry about the rodeo in Casper,” you told him softly. “I know you were looking forward to it.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he insisted, wiping his hands on the front of his jeans and shaking his head.

Pushing off from the beam, you made your way over to him and rested your hands on his shoulders. “Clearly it does,” you said, watching the way he avoided your gaze. “It’s okay to be disappointed, Rhett.”

His jaw twitched, but he didn’t say anything. Cecilia was right. He really was in a mood today.

“Someone’s grumpy today,” you murmured, voicing your thoughts aloud. Wrapping your arms around his shoulders, you pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “And here I made homemade biscuits and everything for dinner tonight.”

Rhett’s body relaxed slightly under your touch, but he still didn’t smile the way you hoped he would. You knew his frustration wasn’t just about the Casper event being cancelled. His last ride had been a poor one, with him getting tossed off the back of a mean son of a bitch named Midnight after only four seconds, and you knew he was itching to get back in the saddle and make up for it, to prove he was better than that. You knew he was, but you also knew his confidence had been shaken and his pride had taken a serious blow.

“I’m just tired,” he mumbled in a low voice, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. “Just a bunch of backbreaking shit today.”

You just nodded in understanding, taking his hand and pulling him towards the door. “Let’s go inside then. Your mama’s stew smells really good, and then you can get some rest,” you promised him as the two of you stepped outside.

Rhett still seemed on edge as he turned to lock the barn doors, which bothered you. You hated seeing him like that. Chewing on your bottom lip, you glanced down and an idea suddenly struck you. You knew it was an idea that would either brighten your boyfriend’s sour mood, or put him in a worse one altogether, but it was a gamble you were willing to take.

Squatting down, you gathered up a huge handful of the soft, powdery snow, packing it into a tight ball before rising and launching it at Rhett, hitting him square in the back.

Turning slowly, Rhett looked at you with an arched eyebrow, his expression not giving anything away.

“Did you just—”

Before he could even finish his sentence, he was hit in the chest with another snowball as you giggled behind your hands.

“Babe, would you—”

Thwack. Another one hit him in the shoulder.

“Alright, that’s it!” he exclaimed, reaching down to make a snowball of his own.

Letting out a loud screech, you turned and tried to run, but felt the snowball pelt you right in the rear end as you began running in the direction of the house.

“You started this, honeybee!” Rhett called out, chasing after you and catching up to you within seconds. Gripping you tightly around the waist, he launched you both into a huge pile of snow.

Laughing hysterically, you lay back in the snow, not even minding the cold that was seeping into your bones. When you looked up at Rhett, resting on his elbow beside you with a huge grin splitting his face, your heart warmed immediately.

“Remember the snowball fights we used to have when we were kids?” he asked, brushing a lock of hair out of your face with cold fingers. “God, those were brutal.”

“Every man for himself,” you laughed, nodding in agreement at the memory.

“The hot chocolate afterwards always made it better,” he mused with a smile, his breath coming out in little puffs of white air. “Not to mention the bragging rights for the winner.”

“Mhm—king or queen of the snow pile,” you grinned, shifting your legs slightly to keep them from freezing. That suddenly unlocked another fond childhood memory. “Oh, and remember the snow angels? Gosh, I haven’t made a snow angel in forever.”

Giggling, you flung your arms out at your sides and winked over at Rhett. “What do you say, Abbott? Want to make a snow angel with me for old times’ sake?”

“Yours were always much prettier than mine, honeybee,” Rhett chuckled, laying down flat on his back beside you in the snow.

“So? It’s just for fun,” you smiled, beginning to move your arms up and down and swing your legs from side to side.

“How do you always manage to make it so I can’t say no to you?” Rhett smirked, sighing in an exaggerated manner as he, too, began moving his arms and legs to craft a snow angel of his own.

“It’s a gift. I’m very persuasive,” you laughed, turning your head to gaze at him and finding that his blue eyes were already locked on you.

“That you are, honeybee,” he nodded, his voice soft with tenderness.

A few minutes later, you sat up and carefully shifted, wiping snow from your pants as you stood up to admire your handiwork. Rhett followed suit, coming to stand beside you as you both looked down at your design efforts.

“Hmm, I think you were right about mine being prettier,” you teased, trying to maintain a straight face. “Mine is definitely a snow angel. Yours is more like a snow monster.”

“Why, you little—” Rhett grinned as he suddenly tackled you back down to the snow, his body resting on top of yours as he pinned your wrists on either side of your head. “Who’s the king of the snow pile now?” he smirked, winking down at you.

You laughed breathlessly in response, just beaming up at him. This was the Rhett you knew and loved.

His expression sobered slightly and he released your wrists so that he could cup your face in his frozen hands. “I’m sorry for being a dick before, baby. I was in a bad mood, but it wasn’t your fault,” he apologized, pressing a kiss to the tip of your nose.

“It’s okay,” you forgave him, reaching up and running your fingers through his hair. “I know you were upset.”

“You’re too good to me, honeybee,” he said quietly, burying his face in your neck. “Better than I deserve.”

“Maybe not so good,” you teased, taking him by surprise when you suddenly shoved a fistful of snow down the back of his collar, causing him to yelp loudly. “That’s for the bugs when we were five!” you giggled hysterically as he frantically tried to shake the snow out of his clothes.

“Long memory, huh?” Rhett grinned, caging you between his arms once more. “If I recall correctly, I apologized for that,” he added, raising an eyebrow. Smirking wickedly, he leaned in close and whispered, “But maybe I oughta give you a spanking, just like the one I remember getting for the bug incident.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” you gasped, eyes widening as he leaned down to press a kiss to your laughing lips.

“You never know, honeybee,” he winked.

“Come on inside, you two idiots, before you freeze to death out there!” Cecilia’s voice suddenly cut through the still winter air. She was standing on the front step, hands cupped around her mouth. “Dinner’s ready!”

“Another time then,” Rhett laughed, pulling you up out of the snow and into his arms. “I love you, y’know,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

“I love you, too,” you told him, smiling as he wrapped his arms around you and led you towards the warmth of the house and his mama’s beef and vegetable stew.

#rhett abbott #rhett abbott x reader #rhett x reader #x reader #x female reader #outer range #lewis pullman

[almost-a-class-act]

hi I saw your recent post in the tag, so um are you taking Givenson prompts? bc if you are can I request a "9. . .out of fear" from that "things you said" list please? I hope that's okay!

Hello! Thanks for the request! I am just now finding my way in the Justified fandom so I'm excited to hear from new pals.

The prompt was: "Things you said out of fear"

--

It’s the second hat Raylan has lost to a bullet, an “if I had a nickel” sort of situation if ever there was one – except that he’d been able to play down the first one pretty effectively on account of no one currently alive in Harlan County having been there to see it except Loretta.

The second time, he isn’t so lucky.

The sequence of events, as described to him afterward – they’re somewhat muddled in his own recollection, for obvious reasons – are as follows. The bullet passes through his hat, not quite clean, grazing his head. Raylan goes down, as does the fellow who took the shot (cheap, through a window while Raylan stood on the porch), because taking the shot had given him away and Tim needs less than that to punch a ticket at four hundred meters.

By the time he sits up, people are running, which is a relief because it means the situation is going to be handled by someone other than him. Getting shot in the head is no less disorienting than it had been the first time, the sort of thing where you’re scared to touch it in case it’s so much worse than you think. Tim is running, too, and he hurtles up onto the porch, one knee coming down hard on the wood so that he can hunch in and comb away the hair that’s hiding the wound spilling blood down Raylan’s face.

“Think you’re gonna live?” Tim asks, tone as even as it always is, even as his fingertips press into Raylan’s scalp, checking for himself.

“For my sins,” Raylan replies. “Ouch. Do you mind?”

“Looks okay,” Tim says, ignoring him. “Some stitches, maybe.”

Everything is a churn around them, and Raylan patiently lets an EMT with much gentler hands deal with the wound while Tim leaves the porch to congregate in a group with Art and Rachel, within eyesight. Once the bandage is in place, Raylan figures he’s got the okay to do the paperwork on this one tomorrow, and catches Tim’s eye.

They’re only just outside of Lexington, which means the drive isn’t the long slog from Harlan County, and they’re home in twenty minutes. Raylan has a hunch that Tim has a rant locked and loaded, but on the drive all he engages in is a smattering of shop talk – not uncommon for them, to be fair.

In the apartment, Raylan makes his way in the dark to the kitchen, searching out bourbon to cure what ails him. He can see Tim through the doorway to the living room out of the corner of his eye, yanking the curtains across, stopping to scratch the cat behind the ears.

Tim used to closed the curtains on Raylan’s bedroom window every time he came by, too. There aren’t any sightlines to worry about in the apartment they live in now, but it seems to be a force of habit anyway.

And then the light comes on, and Tim is leaning in the kitchen doorway.

“Shoot,” Raylan says, holding up the bottle mutely to ask if Tim wants a pour. He shakes his head.

“Don’t ask me to cover you and then do dumbass shit like stand out in the open.”

“I wasn’t doing dumbass shit,” Raylan says patiently.

“You could teach a college course in doing dumbass shit. Do you think if I wanted to live with anyone else, I’d be living with you?” Tim demands. “You use my mouthwash and you keep letting the cat out.”

“By accident.”

“The circumstances of the situation don’t matter. The cat is still outside at the end.”

Raylan is not going to smile, because Tim is clearly very serious about this, but sometimes the things that come out of Tim’s mouth are very… well, Tim. “Are you telling me not to get myself killed because I’m your last resort?”

“I’m telling you not to get shot in the head.”

He turns and vanishes from the doorway. Raylan has stopped with his glass halfway to his mouth.

“Tim.”

There’s no response, and Raylan drains his glass and follows after. He finds him in the bedroom, enacting the same routine as every night, the same things he would do in the same order no matter the circumstances: Boots, watch, clothes come off, putting on that soft, worn-in Dragonriders of Pern t-shirt and shorts, disappearing into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He always looks young in pajamas, standing at the sink with toothbrush in hand, and Raylan starts to reach for him because sometimes those odd, tense lines in his body don’t go away on their own.

“Don’t touch me,” Tim says pointedly, around his toothbrush, and Raylan redirects.

When they get into bed, sometimes Tim stays up to read while Raylan dozes next to him, but tonight he braces up on his elbow and turns off the light. There might be forty-five seconds of silence, and then Tim rolls over and tucks a proprietary arm around Raylan’s middle, tugging him in until he has Raylan bundled in clumsily against his chest. Raylan lets himself be big-spooned, though he can’t help his bemusement.

“I thought you didn’t want me to touch you.”

“This is me touching you,” Tim mumbles into the back of his neck.

“Got it.”

“Go to sleep." The edge in Tim's voice from before has gone down a little. Now I can keep you where I can see you. “You do less dumbass shit when you’re sleeping.”

#givenson #justified #tim gutterson #raylan givens #fanfiction #roaroftheninth

[toointojoelmiller]

Blind to it all: a last of us fic

Prompt submitted by @two-birds-alone-together ❤️

Heads up for blood and disturbing stuff.

read at ao3 here

———

“I still can’t believe it,” Ellie whispers.

Her face is buried into Joel’s flannel, fuzzy and warm and smelling like soap, because for all of the stress and pain that staying at the hospital has involved, it’s also meant showers every god damn day, as many as she wants, and a sink to wash laundry in every week.

She’d scrubbed her skin raw the day they’d arrived – after the drama subsided. Joel was knocked out for a while, which left her feeling panicky and unanchored. Even though the friendly Firefly surgeon – Doctor ‘Call me Jerry’ Anderson – had offered to show her around, bragging about the machines and equipment they’d managed to salvage, she refused to leave Joel’s bedside until he was up. When he’d eventually rolled over, meeting her eyes with his, she hadn’t been able to hold back the tears. They actually made it.

“I know,” Joel says softly. “I can’t either. But it’s real.” He breathes it out shakily, his voice trembling. She feels the words rumble through his chest and presses her face in against him just a little bit harder. It kind of sounds like he’s still crying – everyone has been, pretty much all day.

They’re curled up together on the small stretcher in the corner of the little room they’ve been staying in for the past month and a half. “Told you they’d have a room ready,” he’d said, leaning against the doorway and grinning at her as she turned the sink on and off – so fucking relieved to see running water again after the dirty, gritty, painful slog here from Colorado.

They’d tried to push back against them being in one room together – tried to push back on Joel being there with her at all, really – but Joel said they were a ‘package deal’, which made her feel all tingly. “You touch him, I’m done,” Ellie had snarled, holding her knife up to her throat when Marlene had first tried to suggest he wasn’t welcome to stay. “I’m not doing shit without him here – I’ll fucking kill myself if you try to take him away.”

Dramatic, maybe. Joel hadn’t really approved of her approach but, hey – it was effective.

The way he’s holding onto her now is the way they’ve spent so many nights here, his arms wrapping her up in a big bear hug as she snuggles against his chest. With his arm covering up the ear that isn’t pressed against his chest, the sounds of music and yelling and cheering from the hallway are a bit muted.

“If anyone could save the world, kiddo, it’d be you.” He says softly into her hair, with so much emotion in his voice it makes tears start welling up all over again for her.

The door bangs open. “Cheers, you two,” Marlene says, as she walks in holding onto two cups.

Joel shifts a bit, his arms tightening just slightly around Ellie in a way that makes her smile. He’s always so fucking protective. “What have we here?” Joel says with a chuckle. “Do I need to remind you she’s only fourteen?”

“Hey!” Ellie says, slapping his chest and getting a laugh out of both of them.

“Fourteen. Forty. Look, she can have anything in the fucking world she wants, as far as I’m concerned,” Marlene chuckles. She puts the cups down on the bedside table, her eyes bright and soft as she looks at Ellie. She looks like a completely different person than the hardened woman who’d sat in front of her and changed her whole fucking life back in Boston. So long ago, now. Everything’s changed so much. She wiggles in even tighter against Joel, like she’s trying to merge into him.

“It’s just juice – don’t worry.” Marlene says to Joel. “Only brought the hard stuff for you.”

She gives him a wink, and Ellie realizes that she’s hammered. She can’t hold back the laughter – luckily, Joel and Marlene are laughing too, caught up in the giddy insanity that seems to be taking over the whole damn building right now.

Ellie sits up eagerly to grab the cups, passing one over to Joel, but giving it a sniff first. The sharp smell of alcohol makes her shudder, and Joel and Marlene both laugh at her.

Her own cup is a bright yellow colour – apple juice, her fucking favourite. She’ll never get used to a drink tasting so good. She downs it in a few chugs, not taking the rim of the cup from her lips until it’s drained. To her delight, Joel does the same, tossing back his drink in a few swallows.

“Not bad,” he says, tipping the now empty cup to Marlene before tossing carelessly it into the corner.

“Thought you might be a whiskey drinker,” Marlene says.

Ellie giggles and chucks hers in the same direction. This whole fucking day feels like a fever dream. She never wants to wake up.

“Well - it probably ain’t gonna be easy, getting to sleep after all of this – excitement. Drink’ll probably help me out, so thanks for that – but I’m thinkin’ we really oughta get some rest. Been a long day.” Joel says out loud, to both her and Marlene.

Marlene nods, slapping her hands on her thighs. “Right. Still leaving tomorrow? Sure you’re ready to say good bye to all this?”

She gestures around to the stark, almost bare room, and snorts at her own joke.

“Soon as things are organized,” Joel confirms. “What time do you think everything’ll be ready?” He’s moved his hand up to stroke Ellie’s hair and she feels her eyes closing involuntarily.

“Shouldn’t take too long,” Marlene says.

“You’re gonna give him his dose first thing, right?” Ellie says without opening her eyes.

“Yep,” Marlene replies. “Don’t worry – you’ve made it really clear that Joel’s going to be part of the first round.”

Ellie listens to her footsteps getting further away, and then stop. She opens her eyes to peek, and sees Marlene standing in the doorway, looking at them. The look on her face is suddenly so different. It makes Ellie’s stomach pang with worry. She looks - sad, maybe?

Her voice sounds more somber too. “I want to say… I know this hasn’t been… and easy process. For either of you.”

Ellie snorts at the understatement, thinking of all of the pain from all of the nightmarish testing - the hours she’s spent shaking and puking on the cold floor while Joel wiped her face off and tried to keep her from losing her mind – the awful, out of body flashback she’d gotten lost in for a day when they kept insisting she needed to be in a hospital gown for tests, and she found herself flat on her in a cold room, looking up at faces she couldn’t recognize, touching her and hurting her - thinking of when Joel had broken off a piece of the wooden bed frame in a rage, wedging it under the door when the nurses came knocking for her early one morning and she’d broken down in tears, pleading, needing just one fucking day to sleep –

Yeah. It hasn’t been easy.

Marlene shakes her head, like she can’t believe any of this. “You both understand. I know you do. How important this is. So thank you, for everything you’ve given up so far. For all of the – for everything. I know it’s – there’s been a lot of suffering. The world won’t ever forget it. Won’t ever forget the two of you.” And then she leaves, closing the door gently behind her.

Ellie doesn’t think she’s ever going to be able to sleep. Her heart feels like it could explode – excitement, giddiness, overwhelm, shock. Gooey, warm, stupid affection for the grumpy old man who seems just fine with holding her like this, even though she’s basically a grown ass adult. Who keeps staying with her, even when it doesn’t make any sense.

But Joel’s steady hand stroking her hair has never failed to do the trick, and just a few minutes after Marlene’s gone she’s feeling the tug of sleep, her whole body going mushy. Joel must be falling asleep too – she can feel his arms relaxing around her, the hand in her hair slowing down. So even with the noise of the celebration going on in the hall, she drifts off. The last thing she remembers is Joel kissing the top of her head and whispering, “We’re finally going home, baby girl. You did it.”

----

It takes a long time for her to wake up, and a lot longer for her eyes to open. But as soon as she can feel her body again, she knows something is horribly fucking wrong.

There’s tight pressure on her wrists and ankles. Cold, and hard. It’s fucking metal – thick bands locking her in place against the hard chair she’s in. Her heart starts pounding – this can’t be real. This is just a nightmare – this isn’t - she tries to squirm but she can barely get her muscles to move. Her neck feels floppy, too, like she can hardly hold it up, and her blood runs cold as she realizes she’s been drugged.

The fucking drinks – Marlene – Joel -

She’s in an empty room. The walls are concrete blocks. There’s almost nothing – just speakers in the ceiling overhead, a solid brown door in the wall to her left. A long, wide window in front of her, showing what looks like a dark room. She glances down and sees that the legs of the metal chair she’s in are bolted to the ground.

“What the fuck,” she tries to say, but she can’t get the words out right away. Her tongue feels thick and heavy in her mouth.

“Looks like she’s waking up,” she hears someone say faintly, and after a moment she realizes it’s coming from the other side of the window.

“Joel? Joel?!” Her words come out in garbled, slurred sounds. She tries to scream and it’s hardly a whimper.

All of her senses feel like they’ve been cranked up – she’s shaking, feeling every bead of panicked sweat that’s building up on her skin - hearing her own rapid breaths coming and going, faster and faster. Her mouth goes dry – she’s going to throw up -

There’s a sudden loud click, and a crackling noise floods the room before a voice starts talking. Ellie jumps before she realizes it’s coming from speakers overhead.

“Ellie, it’s Marlene,” she hears. “Don’t be scared.”

But she is fucking scared, because Joel’s gone, and that can only mean one thing.

“Where’s Joel?” she whispers. “I want Joel. I don’t – what’s –”

“You’re okay,” Marlene says. “I’m – I’m so sorry, Ellie. We don’t have any other choice.”

“Let me go,” she tries to say, having a bit more success with getting the words out.

“We’ve done some… really interesting preliminary tests,” another voice that she vaguely recognizes but can’t pin down starts to talk, cutting Marlene off.

“We’ve discovered some frequencies that seem to – have an interesting effect on active cordyceps infections. We’ve done some promising trials with live infected, and we have reason to think that this might be a pathway towards a potential cure.”

She’s getting more control back in her limbs and starts straining hard at the restraints, her skin aching as she digs her flesh into the metal edges. Her breathing is getting more and more panicked - she’ll be lightheaded soon, she knows, if she keeps it up.

“But we have the cure,” she gasps, desperately. “We – we already –”

“No, Ellie. We don’t have a cure. We have a vaccine, because of you,” Marlene says, her voice soft but sounding distorted through the speaker. “And none of us can ever thank you enough for that. You’ve saved so many people. So many lives. But - a vaccine can only keep people safe if they haven’t already been exposed. It won’t help anyone who’s already turned.”

“Why am I tied down? What’s happening?”

“There are so many more people to save, Ellie,” Marlene says, talking faster and sounding a bit breathless herself. “And we think we might have a way to make that happen. I know how much that matters to you. It’s – Anna would be so proud of you.”

There’s a long pause, and then the speaker clicks off. Ellie can hear a whining sound coming out of her chest and throat. She doesn’t fucking want this – she wants Joel, and he isn’t here, and it’s harder to breathe with every second that she can’t feel him next to her, where he’s supposed to stay forever.

“Where’s Joel?” she cries. “Please – I want Joel. Please.”

The silence continues for a few more seconds before the crackling sound comes back. “We’ve learned a lot from our previous tests,” a male voice say, one that she knows well. A nice person – someone she’s grown to really like and trust.

“Doctor Anderson,” she sobs, “Jerry – help me, please -”

“We learned a lot, Ellie – but we need to know more. We need you. None of our previous… subjects could communicate with us. You’re going to be the key to this - we need your help.”

“I’m not helping with fucking ANYTHING UNTIL JOEL IS HERE!” She yells, kicking her legs furiously and making zero headway other than worsening the pain from the metal cuffs. She can feel the bruising pain with every strike of her ankle bone against the metal. She can’t stop.

“He’s gone,” Marlene says. “He left-”

“You’re a fucking liar!” Ellie screams. The sound of her own voice is bounced back at her, her eardrums throbbing from it. “What the fuck did you do to him!”

“This is a waste of time – we’ve indulged this brat long enough,” another gruff voice says, and then there’s some back and forth arguing that she’s too distressed to really make out before the harsh sounding man says firmly, “Carly, please, get the sample ready – are we recording?”

Something in her brain falls apart. She doesn’t know what the fuck is about to happen, but she knows it’s going to kill her.

“Time is 0600 - first phase of testing – baseline, reference number B203 at - 50% initially - ”

The speaker clicks off and the voices stop.

“Let me go,” she’s sobbing.

A noise starts coming into the room from the speakers. It’s a low, humming sound. It goes on for about a minute while she thrashes around and yells, struggling against the restraints in what she knows is a hopeless effort to get away.

The sound stops, and with a click, another voice starts talking. “Do you feel nauseous?”

“Fuck you,” she snarls, “I’m not doing this – I’m not doing another fucking thing for you pieces of shit –”

“Do you feel nauseous?” the voice says again.

Ellie decides that the only option she has is her hands – and it won’t make a fucking difference with her ankles still attached, but if she’s going to die she’s going to at least try every fucking way to survive first. She starts trying to force her hands through the metal cuff, wincing but not letting up as her skin pinches and tugs painfully and the pressure on her bones builds up. She tries to curl her hand as narrow as she can get it, yanking hard – letting go and then yanking back again – she can feel her bones screaming in protest, but she’ll fucking break them all if she has to -

The door bangs open. She turns to look and feels her heart fall into the pit of her stomach.

It’s Joel. Held up by three men, one of his feet rolling to the side and looking like he’s barely able to stand. There’s a pillowcase over his head, horrifyingly bloody. His hands must be tied behind his back.

“You’ll answer every question we ask if you want him to live,” the voice says.

“Joel,” she wails.

As soon as he hears her voice, it’s like something is possessing him. His entire body jerks and the men holding him are instantly struggling to keep him contained. Another couple of guards slide into view to help control him – “Ellie!” he yells, so much fear and rage in his voice – but his voice cuts off completely with a loud and pained wheeze as he’s hit hard in the stomach, folding forward – fresh blood pouring out from the pillowcase, down his neck, soaking into the fabric -

The door slams shut.

All she can hear is the sound of her own rapid breathing. His yell echoing in her ears. Her heart is racing so fast she thinks it’s going to stop.

How can this be happening? She thinks about snow and blood and stitching up a warm and gushing wound, just for him to die here – fire and brains spraying onto her, into her hair -

“Do you feel nauseous?”

“No,” she whispers.

“Do you have a headache?”

It goes on for a while –

“Is your vision blurred?” -

“Have you lost sensation in any part of your body?” -

“Count to thirty, and then count backwards to zero by twos.” –

When the questions are finally done, another sound starts up – over and over, until she loses all sense of how much time has passed. More fuzzy, low, weird sounds, but sometimes shrill and sharp and high – always getting louder, sometimes left playing for minutes at a time. Sometimes hurting to listen to.

One sound in particular is so loud she thinks it’s going to make her lose her hearing – she tries to shrug her shoulders up, desperate trying to cover her ears with no success. They let it run for a long time.

She can’t think of what the fuck to do. Joel would find a way out of this, somehow. But with their threat hanging over her all she can think to do is answer their questions.

What if they’ve already killed him? What if they closed that door and ended his life right there?

After the awful noise comes to a halt she says, “Prove he’s still alive. Or I’m not answering anything else.” She can hardly hear herself over the ringing in her ears.

There’s nothing but silence for a few long seconds, and then a click, and a voice saying, “Answer or he dies. We’re not saying it again.”

She probably shouldn’t, but her temper is so fucking flaming hot she can’t hold back - “If you kill him this is fucking finished,” she screams. “You’ll get fucking nothing from me.”

The door opens again next to her and she spins her head to face it, wide eyed and desperate to see Joel, but it isn’t him. It’s a man she doesn’t recognize. He’s wearing what looks like a fucking space suit, plastic and white and crinkling as he walks over to her.

“Fuck you,” she hisses, spitting at him.

“Ha - that’s what the suits for,” he says casually, barely looking at her. He has a butterfly needle in his hand, and he pins her bicep in place as he jabs it harshly into her elbow, taking two vials of blood. He still doesn’t look up, but he says, with a menacing sort of grin on his face, “We’ve got plenty of ways to make you talk. Don’t start thinking you have any control here. This whole thing is bigger than you.”

Before he walks out, he grabs her head firmly and forces it to stay still while he looks into each of her eyes for a few seconds each. She squeezes them shut but he uses his fingers to pry them open. “Nothing yet,” he calls out loud. When he lets go she tries to bite at his hand, and he laughs in her face.

The door closes.

“Do you feel nauseous?”

She’s hit with a new wave of despair, sobs rolling through her.

A light is turned on in the room on the other side of the window. It wasn’t empty at all – just too dark for her to see anything. There are so many people, all staring at her – Marlene leaning against a counter against the wall with her arms crossed, not looking at Ellie. Tears leaving streaks down her face that shine in the light. Dr Anderson is talking into a little rectangular device - one of the nurses that was always so nice to Ellie is sitting next to him, taking notes on a clipboard.

And then she sees Joel – still alive. The guards are surrounding him, pinning him against the wall as he struggles. She can see the blood-soaked pillowcase moving side to side as he fights to get free. A rifle is pressed tight up against his head.

The light goes out.

“Do you feel nauseous?”

She feels like she’s going to float away from her body as she goes through their questions. When they’re done she hangs her head.

This can’t be fucking happening.

She closes her eyes and tries to go back to before – end this nightmare – get back to being wrapped up in Joel’s arms and feeling like everything was finally going to be okay -

“Time is 0710 hours – initiating testing series zero-one at full volume –”

The sound that pours into the room is like nothing that’s come before it.

Instantly, pain blooms in her head. There’s a stomach curdling, shifting, dragging sensation behind her eyes – movement – and she starts to scream, the jagged noise ripping out of her throat. She has no control over any part of her body anymore – it all feels like it’s burning, itching – her head rolls back in agony as her muscles clench so tightly they feel like they’re going to explode –

The sound cuts off after only a few seconds, and in it’s absence she can suddenly hear what she knows is Joel, yelling, roaring on the other side of the window, accompanied by loud thuds.

Ellie’s head hangs limply, chin against her chest. She’s going to pass out soon, she thinks. She’s pulling in ragged, painful breaths that don’t feel like they’re doing enough. Her whole chest is on fire.

The crackling sound that comes next isn’t followed by the question about being nauseous, but rather the voice of fucking Jerry – the same guy who used to sneak her extra popsicles after dinner and shot the shit with Joel about sports and raising a teenager – asking excitedly, “What did you just feel? What happened?”

All she can do is sob. A few seconds pass before Jerry says, like he’s begging her, “Ellie, come on. Don’t make us do this the hard way. Please.”

Quietly, behind Jerry’s voice, she can make out the sound of Joel groaning - crying.

“Hurt,” she whispers. “My – head.”

It takes a few minutes for her to get out more words, and then come the routine questions. As they get to the end she starts to panic, her body filling with terrified dread at what is going to happen next.

She’s right – it’s worse.

A new noise comes out of the speakers, and she feels the most severe pain she’s ever felt. Her whole body rocks forward and backwards, and then she’s arching up in the chair, trying desperately to get away from it – her muscles tensing and twisting until she thinks she’s about to snap her wrists from the force – and a knife is twisting into her head. The moving sensation behind her eyes is unbearable – revolting, disturbing, unrelenting - she hears herself shrieking as her vision goes black.

And then there’s a sudden popping noise. She can’t tell what it is, through the pain and the blaring, droning sound – but then the window shatters in front of her and she recognizes faintly that it’s a gun. She wonders if she’s going to get hit with a stray bullet and wishes for it, anything, anything at all for this to stop.

The sound is abruptly cut off and she goes limp.

She can make out other noises -

A few more shots. A yell cut short. A heavy weight, slamming into the ground. Gurgling.

The door swings open once again, and -

“Ellie - I’m here, baby, I – oh my god.”

“Joel,” she sobs, writhing desperately in the restraints.

“Fuck,” he grunts, and she feels him digging his fingers between her ankles and the metal rings. “I gotta – I gotta find somethin’ to get you out of here, baby girl – we’re gonna be okay – ”

There’s more shouting in the distance, getting closer. After a few loud, ear splitting gunshots it’s quiet again.

“I gotta – I gotta find the key, baby, I’ll – I’ll be right back,” Joel gasps.

“Don’t leave,” she wails, knowing it isn’t fair and doesn’t make any sense, but too exhausted to stop herself.

He lets out a sob of his own. “Ellie, I have to – I’m sorry baby, I’m – I’ll be right back - ”

She cries as she listens to him run out of the room. He’s back in a few seconds that feel like hours, rushing to her side.

“I got you, it’s okay now,” he says. His voice sounds more panicked and afraid than she’s ever heard it.

His hand briefly touches her face – and then he’s fiddling with the bottom of her jeans, trying to find where the cuffs unlock. The metal feels so cold against her hot skin. She can hear the clanging of metal on metal a few times – his hands must be shaking – and then he finally gets one of her legs free.

“Okay – just a few more and we go,” he’s saying.

“I can’t – Joel, I can’t –” she says, crying, struggling to get the words out.

“You’re okay,” he says, “Everything’s gonna be okay –”

Finally she gets herself to say it. “I can’t - I can’t see anything.”

The sound of his frantic movements stops. He chokes out, sounding like he’s been punched, “Can’t – see?”

She starts bawling so hard she can barely breathe. “Everything went black,” she sobs. “I can’t – I don’t know what’s – Joel, please.” She melts into tears, not able to get any more words out.

“Okay – you’re okay,” he says. She can tell he’s crying again. “I promise. You’re gonna be okay. I’ve got you.”

She feels her grip on reality starting to slip. Everything feels fuzzy.

As soon as Joel gets the last restraint off of her wrist he’s grabbing onto her, sweeping her up in one fluid movement and cradling her in his arms. She buries her face into him, breathing him in as she cries. Fuzzy, warm, soapy.

He starts moving – rushing forward, almost in a run. Ellie feels him press his lips against her head, whispering, “We’re going home, baby girl.”

----

cross posted to ao3, feel free to leave me a kudos if you enjoyed :)

#bad things happen bingo #last of us fic #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #joel and ellie #joel did nothing wrong #ellie and joel #tlou #the last of us #prompt: sound torture

[hb-writes]

Ch. 8 - Don't Keep Things From Me

You don't keep things from me.

Charlie sat in her first period class with Como Agua Para Chocolate open on her desk, slogging through the Spanish in the short time before class was due to start. Louisa rolled her eyes when she finally found her there. She had been waiting just inside the main entrance while Charlie and Harvey finished up their conversation, but she had somehow missed Charlie pass through.

Or maybe Charlie had been avoiding her. Avoiding this. There were other—more roundabout—ways to get into the school. Louisa figured Charlie had sought one of those out rather than facing her.

"What is with you this morning?" Louisa huffed.

Charlie didn't bother to look up and the silence held between them for longer than was comfortable. Louisa huffed, her arms snapping to her chest and her black kitten heels starting to mechanically click on the hardwood floor.

Charlie set her thumb between the pages of the book as her gaze traveled to Louisa's foot, and then eventually to her face. She meant to keep her face neutral…she meant to allow just a hint of subtle annoyance and nothing more, but the corner of Charlie's mouth dipped into a betraying frown and Louisa sighed gently before sliding into the seat in front of Charlie.

"So?" Louisa prompted, swiftly shifting backwards in the seat to rest her arms on Charlie's desk. "What is it? What's wrong with you?"

"Seriously?" Charlie hissed. "What's wrong with me—?" She closed her book and set it on top of the pile on her desk— "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Charlie pushed the books forward, towards the edge of her desk creating a barrier between her and Louisa.

"Me? I was just trying to help the situation," Louisa said. She pulled her arms off Charlie's desk and shifted back in her seat, seeming a bit wounded by the mere insinuation that she could have been trying to do anything other than help by propositioning Charlie's brother. "You certainly weren't going to help yourself."

Charlie took a measured breath, inhaling and exhaling deeply through her nose. She pulled off her hat, setting it on top of the books and pushed her hands through her hair as she leaned back to stare at the ceiling.

"It's beyond help," Charlie muttered, closing her eyes as she kept her head tilted up to the headache-inducing fluorescent lights. The situation was beyond salvaging. Charlie wasn't quite sure if it was Louisa's fault—things had already been bad—but if anything, Louisa's intervention had made the situation worse. She had pissed Harvey off. And Louisa's inserting herself had confused things.

And all for what? A guy Louisa liked? A party Charlie didn't even really care about going to?

It was stupid. All of it. Whatever had happened this morning in the car…the stuff Louisa had said. The stuff Harvey had said. The stuff she had said…it was all stupid. None of it meant anything, but now it was all blown up and out of proportion.

Charlie was mad, but she hadn't wanted this—she hadn't wanted to argue with her brother. Not about this.

She wanted to scream and cry and maybe even punch Harvey, but it wasn't about being grounded or getting to go to a party. Charlie wanted her brother to feel just a hint of the anger and fear and confusion she felt. She wanted him to wonder what was behind her sudden rage, her attitude. She wanted him to realize what he had done without her having to say it because it didn't feel fair that Charlie should have to be the one to voice it. To have to figure out what to say or to hold it all on her own.

Louisa was watching Charlie when she finally pulled her eyes from the ceiling, an expectant look in her gaze. Charlie ignored it, blinking long and hard to quell the watering of her eyes before she glanced around the classroom.

Their teacher still hadn't arrived and the other desks were still nearly empty, just a few other students busy with their procrastinated homework assignments or sleeping with their heads down on the desk. "Where's Noah?"

"How should I know?" Louisa followed Charlie's gaze around the room. "Just tell me what's going on."

Charlie looked back to Louisa and raised an eyebrow. She didn't really want to explain herself more than once. It would be better to wait for Noah. "Do you two even communicate?"

Louisa shrugged. "You know how it is."

Charlie snorted softly. She did know how they were even if she didn't particularly understand it. Before Charlie transferred in, Noah and Louisa had spoken solely through the use of insults. There were days when the two continued to lend preference to that method.

"He likes to talk," Louisa mimed with her hand and her pink, polished fingernails shimmered with the movement. "I like to text."

"Yeah, right, of course, I know." Charlie rolled her eyes. "Why do I get the feeling that you two wouldn't even be friends if it weren't for me?"

"Probably because we've known each other since Pre-K and the princess here didn't have a nice word to say to me until you waltzed into our lives." Noah set a drink holder on a nearby desk and handed coffee cups to both girls. He smirked at Charlie as he pushed an errant strand of hair out of his eyes.

Charlie held back a comment pointing out that the 'nice words' Noah referred to were still few a far between. She offered him a quiet thank you instead, some tension releasing in her as she took a warm, velvety sip.

"Well, aren't you clever?" Louisa answered, though something thawed and relaxed in her, too, as she took the first sip of coffee. It was from Louisa's favorite place—a little out of the way cafe they'd found one afternoon wandering around after school.

"I am, thank you," Noah said, pushing himself on top of the desk adjacent to Charlie's and pulling his own drink free from the holder.

Louisa scoffed, turning to glare at him. "It wasn't a compli—"

Charlie cleared her throat and Louisa closed her mouth, but she didn't pull her glare from Noah. And Noah held Louisa's gaze, the little smirk that infuriated Louisa held there in the corner of his mouth.

Charlie was almost grateful that they were seemingly ignoring her, glad that neither of them looked at her. She stayed quiet, considering the opportunity to let them go on with their harmless little routine. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe…

Noah's smirk disappeared as he moved his gaze to Charlie, his eyes flitting across her face. Louisa's gaze followed, and then the two of them were looking at each other, not glaring or smirking, but a silent bit of communication passing between them that only went on for a few seconds before Noah looked at Charlie again. "What's wrong?"

Charlie stayed quiet long enough that Noah was about to break his silence and direct the same question at Louisa, figuring either that she already knew what was going on or had been the one to cause it, but Charlie shifted in her seat so he settled in, bringing his coffee cup to his lips.

"I…I found a letter from my father," Charlie mumbled. "Harvey had it hidden in his desk."

Noah gulped down the hot coffee before pulling the cup from his lips. "From your father or your father?"

Charlie glanced at Noah as she clarified. "Biological."

Louisa swallowed and her features shifted as the information settled in. A letter from Charlie's biological father. Charlie had told them all about her past, about her family, but they hadn't talked about the man in ages.

Charlie glanced at Louisa, but found she was looking down, watching as her thumb trailed around the lid of her coffee cup. Charlie idly wondered what Louisa was thinking about. Whether she was feeling guilty about her morning's endeavors…about inciting things with Harvey considering what Charlie had now revealed.

Or maybe Louisa was thinking about her own messed up parental situation. Charlie realized she didn't really know what was going on with Louisa and her family. They hadn't really talked about either of their fathers in ages. And since Louisa wasn't bringing it up…since Charlie had been focused on other things, she hadn't even thought to ask.

But Louisa had her own issues where parental figures were concerned. When Louisa told Harvey she'd never been grounded, she wasn't lying. It just wasn't for the reason she had implied. Louisa's father was just rarely home. And even when he was, he wasn't particularly interested in his child. Certainly not enough to employ any sort of discipline or care. Where Harvey was involved enough to ground Charlie for weeks at a time, to lecture and discuss and sort out her less savory decision making, Mr. and the second Mrs. Sorenson took 'business' trips around the world for months at a time, leaving his only child with minimal supervision from their nanny-housekeeper.

The circumstances were different, but Louisa identified with Charlie on the subject of parental figures. She sympathized with the murky feelings that came from the confusing relationships with imperfect mothers and fathers—especially absent ones.

"What did it say?"

Noah's gentle question tugged on Charlie's focus and she left Louisa to her thoughts without prodding. Charlie shrugged even though she had been the one to bring this up, even though she had no intention of keeping this from her friends.

There was no embarrassment in it. Noah and Louisa already knew everything there was to know about her history anyway. They knew about her mother leaving her. They knew about her dad dying from a heart attack. They knew that her other father, her biological father, was in a prison upstate serving a fifteen year sentence. And she didn't want to be alone in this. Holding it to herself for a little over an hour had been bad enough.

And yet the words stayed lodged inside of her.

Charlie shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, her resolve. "I only got through the first few lines."

Charlie had panicked and shoved the letter back in Harvey's desk when she heard him moving about down the hall. There had been a second paragraph that she hadn't gotten to, but the first had given her more than enough to think about.

Charlie glanced up, surveying the classroom. The room was beginning to fill in, students finding their seats as their teacher began writing something on the board at the front of the class. Charlie reached into her bag to find her homework assignment.

"He asked me to come visit," she offered.

Louisa and Noah stayed quiet and Charlie was sure they were sharing a look, but Charlie remained focused on smoothing the paper out against the desk even though there were no creases needing such thorough attention.

"In prison?" Noah asked as he pulled his own assignment from his bag. "How long has it been?"

Charlie took a deep breath, trying to ignore the shaky, straining ache that pulled in her chest. "Never?" she guessed. If Charlie had been to see the man in prison at some point, she certainly didn't remember it. She barely remembered him as it was. "He used to write to me sometimes…birthday cards, little notes, stuff like that…back before I moved in with Harvey."

Gordon had always read the letters and cards with her, letting her decide if she wanted to send anything back. The mail was so irregular that Charlie could probably count the number of notes she'd received on her two hands, but she remembered them. She supposed she remembered sitting with her dad and reading them, more than anything. She remembered him teaching her how to address an envelope and put on proper postage. She remembered him walking her to the blue collection box three blocks from their house in Riverside to send it out. The memory of the letters was more tied to Gordon Specter than anyone else. And she hadn't received anything since he passed.

"Are you going to go?" Louisa asked.

Charlie shrugged again. She hadn't finished reading the letter and she hadn't really had the time to think any of it through. Charlie had been looking for her cell phone when she came across it in the drawer of Harvey's desk. She almost wished she'd found the phone or been found out before coming across the letter.

Charlie rubbed her eyes. She was tired. She didn't want to think. Not about her brother or the stupid letter. She glanced at what her teacher was writing on the board. She didn't want to think about derivatives or functions or integrals, either.

"I just can't believe he kept it from me." The words hurt as they came out, her voice a bit hoarse, tinged by her brother's betrayal.

"Maybe he just got it," Noah suggested.

"It was postmarked three weeks ago," Charlie said, playing with the lid of the coffee cup, "so I think he's had it awhile."

"Well, maybe he just didn't know how to tell you," Louisa said.

Charlie raised an eyebrow. Harvey so rarely had trouble finding the words. He delivered all sorts of news—good, bad, neutral—on a daily basis. She couldn't imagine why he'd have trouble telling her this.

"I doubt it," Charlie said. "He probably doesn't want me to go, but it's not really his choice. It's not up to him."

"Maybe he just didn't want to upset you," Louisa suggested. "Or maybe he was waiting until you weren't grounded anymore?"

Charlie stilled. It was quite possibly the stupidest thing she had ever heard, and even though it probably wasn't true—that probably wasn't why Harvey was keeping it from her—the mere prospect still sent her head whirling.

"Maybe he's just being an asshole," Charlie countered. "He's always talking about trust, trust, trust and here he is just lying to my face about my father. He has no right."

"So, say something to him," Noah offered. "Harvey's cool, as far as adults go. And there's nothing good that'll come from hiding it."

Noah was often the voice of reason between the three of them. Harvey had even said so on more than one occasion. One of his parents was a psychologist and the other worked for the UN. He was a natural mediator who saw both sides of every issue. Charlie wanted to hate him for it a little just now.

"Noah's right, Charlie," Louisa answered. "Doesn't happen often," she added as she glanced at him, "but he's right."

Charlie prickled at their sudden alliance. "He's just going to go all lawyer and turn it around on me." She shook her head. "He'll just be pissed because I was in his stuff, and especially after that stunt you just pulled…"

Louisa shrugged and Noah didn't even bother asking what stunt she had pulled.

"So, what if he's a little annoyed?" Louisa had seen Charlie's brother get that way plenty of times. "Frustration sort of suits him." Louisa shrugged.

Charlie scoffed, shaking her head. Louisa had always had a little crush on Harvey and she was rarely ever subtle, but Charlie wasn't in the mood for it.

"What?" Louisa smirked. "I'm just being honest. Your brother is handsome. You can't deny that."

"He's a liar. And an asshole," Charlie answered, the last part barely above a whisper, "and you're—"

"You're being a fangirl," Noah interrupted, "and it's not the time, Isa."

Louisa scoffed, turning to Noah. "If anyone's a fangirl, it's you. Trying to be Harvey's little protégé." She waved her hand in the air. "Like he'll ever let you intern there."

Charlie let their arguing settle her, grateful for the shift in their conversation. She didn't bother explaining to them the intricacies of Pearson-Hardman's internship program. She didn't bother trying to get their conversation back on topic because she wasn't ready to figure out what to do next. And she wasn't ready to commit to confronting her brother either.

"And what if I said your mom is hot? How would you like that?" Noah answered, lifting his hands in faux surrender when Louisa shot him a glare. "Just being honest."

"She is not my mother and she's certainly not hot," Louisa answered before turning to Charlie and offering a smile. "but Harvey is handsome. You can't deny that."

Charlie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, he's my handsome brother and it's barely 8 am, so I'd appreciate it if you calm yourself."

Louisa smirked, shrugging her shoulders. Charlie knew that someday after they went to college, that girl would find herself someone rich, successful, handsome and well-dressed to settle down with—someone just like Harvey. Even now, Louisa went from the more popular boys, dragging Charlie along to parties thrown by college kids—Hudson school alumni, mostly. People who had graduated when Charlie, Louisa, and Noah were freshman. People who had stayed in town and now attended Columbia or NYU.

"Well, at least he seemed open about Saturday," Louisa mused. "You shouldn't have to do much more convincing and once he says yes to you spending the afternoon with me, I'm sure spending the night will be fine."

Charlie let out a hollow laugh. "Open? You thought he seemed open?" She shook her head. "You're delusional, Isa. I wouldn't be surprised if he tacked on an extra week now."

And Charlie had been so close. So so close to freedom. He probably would've concluded her punishment in a few days if it hadn't been for this morning. Louisa shrugged.

"What's happening Saturday?" Noah asked.

"There's an idea," Charlie said, nodding towards him. "Why don't you take Noah instead?"

"Take me where?"

"Just a party," she said, dismissing it though Louisa's cheeks tinged pink. "But you're going out of town, right?"

Noah nodded, his eyes going a little wide.

Charlie turned to him. "You are?"

"Yeah, it's supposed to be nice out," he answered with a shrug. "Pop wants to go hiking,"

Charlie nodded, surprised she hadn't known, seeing as Louisa had.

"There, see," Louisa argued. "That's why I need you to come. Noah's busy."

Charlie would never suggest Louisa go to the party alone even though the imprudent suggestion was on the tip of her tongue. It probably wasn't even smart for Charlie and Louisa to be going to the parties.

"Well, you'll have to sit this one out because it's not going to happen," Charlie answered. "He's pissed now. And I'm almost free. It's not worth pushing him and getting grounded again."

And the truth was, Charlie didn't even know if she wanted to go. She'd had fun the other times, but that was when they'd been basically anonymous, when the two of them had mostly kept to themselves, just getting a little tipsy and dancing before going back to Louisa's apartment. But now people who knew them. Now there were drinking games…hangovers…later nights. And all of it seemed harder to hide.

Noah stepped in before Louisa could argue. "Well, you look like you want to stay grounded…and get detention," he said, a smirk playing on his lips as he nudged Charlie's boot. "You get ready in the dark this morning, Specter?"

"Oh, shut up," Charlie answered, hitting him with her book. "I was preoccupied this morning."

Noah laughed, nodding at Sam Hansen as he came down the adjacent aisle. Noah scooted from Sam's desk as he approached and swiped Charlie's homework assignment from the top of her books, lingering in the aisle as he waited for Louisa to sift through her color-coded folders to find her worksheet.

As Noah stepped away, bringing their homework papers to the teacher's desk, Sam slid into the desk beside Charlie, catching her eye, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips as his gaze traveled from her boots to her hat, acknowledging that he'd overheard the exchange between Noah and Charlie.

"You ready for the Spanish quiz?" he asked, pulling his eyes from her and nodding his head towards the book on her desk.

"Si," Charlie confirmed. "Estoy lista," she answered even though she scarcely felt prepared after barely skimming the chapter due today. She had planned on getting to it on the way to school, but had completely forgotten after finding the letter in her brother's desk. "You?"

Sam answered her with a lengthy set of sentences Charlie got a bit lost in, only able to pick out a few words here and there as she envied his easy Spanish. He was clearly more than ready, and Charlie was a bit jealous of how good he was with it. How easily learning Spanish had come to him when she was just passably decent, but still had to study and practice for that distinction. And whenever she did speak the language, she spoke with a terribly stilted accent, unable to roll her r's with any semblance of the naturalness that Sam seemed to have.

Charlie didn't answer him, not that she'd even know where exactly to begin, her gaze lingering until Noah passed back between them on his way to his seat. By the time Noah sat down, Sam had turned his attention to the front of the room, to their teacher and her lesson, and Charlie let her gaze follow. She tried to focus on her teacher's lecture on differential equations, and when that didn't work, she tried to at least use her time to review for the quiz she knew was coming in Spanish class, but her mind continued to wander back to her brother and the letter so she closed the book she held subtly open behind Louisa's back and leaned her head into her hand, her gaze directed vaguely toward the front of the classroom.

Things just weren't adding up. Trust was important to her brother. He was also big on her being honest and open with him no matter what. They were family. And they needed those things in their relationship in order for it to work. Harvey didn't care if whatever it was ended up being uncomfortable for either of them. He didn't care if she'd done something wrong. He didn't care if she'd done something stupid. He didn't care if whatever she needed to talk about was weird or personal. He didn't care if it was something that would make him want to wring her neck. Harvey expected his sister to come to him with issues and questions sooner rather than later.

The lawyer part of him knew it was easier to deal with things quickly, before they became complicated. Before they became real problems. The brother part of him knew that his sister tended to over analyze and catastrophize. He knew that while that was true, she could also be impulsive.

Either way, it all boiled down to loyalty, integrity, and trust from Harvey's perspective, and those things were non-negotiable. And a violation of those things was the only thing Harvey ever got really upset about when it came to his sister.

But by keeping this from her, wasn't Harvey violating those same principles? Didn't Charlie have every right to question her brother's loyalty? His integrity? His trustworthiness? The unanswered question validated her anger, her frustration, her hurt because though Harvey shouted at Charlie pretty often, it was pretty rare that he was truly upset with her.

Charlie still remembered the first time that had happened. She doubted she'd ever forget the way it felt, knowing she'd let Harvey down like that, broken his trust.

"You don't keep things from me," he had snapped at her.

Charlie still remembered Harvey's exact words…the exact tone he had used, his irritation bared to her as a heavy rock settled in her stomach. She cringed even just thinking about it—physically in her math class though she was emotionally and mentally sat beside Harvey in the backseat of Ray's car about half a decade ago.

Charlie could understand it now, why he had been so upset with her. Being her guardian was still so new to him then and Harvey hadn't appreciated being made to look like a fool, like he was unprepared or uninvolved, especially when he'd upended his life to take care of her. And it was Charlie who had done that to him, made him feel that way.

Or something she'd done, at least. It wasn't so much that Charlie had been failing her math class—her father had passed away and she had just moved homes and transferred schools and she hadn't caught up on the material yet. It had been expected, but Charlie didn't know that. She just knew that she was supposed to try her best at school. She figured that trying her best meant she was supposed to be the best. It meant she was supposed to get A's. At Charlie's old school, she had always gotten top marks, so it had never been an issue, but those first few months at her new school were hard on her. She struggled with new teachers and new classes and new friends…new everything, and rather than risk the unknown repercussions of failing, she tried to keep it to herself until she could get her grades up. She got away with it for some time, using Harvey's signature stamp at the office to sign off on the quizzes, but it had quickly come out in the wash at her parent-teacher conference.

Harvey had tried not to look caught off guard when the teacher mentioned Charlie's performance and the failing grades, but he hadn't exactly seen it coming. His Charlie was a straight-A student and she certainly didn't keep things from him. Harvey would've never thought her capable of something like that, but his signature was stamped right there at the top of each failed quiz and test.

He was annoyed. Disappointed. Confused. But in front of Charlie's teacher, Harvey pretended that all was well, like he had known of the quizzes all along. He would deal with her lying and signature forging on his own because they were supposed to be a united front. They were a team and even if she'd lied to him, broken his trust, he was going to be loyal to her.

Charlie hadn't lied to him about her school since then. Overall, Charlie tried to live up to her brother's standards in a more general sense. Harvey knew that she didn't bring everything to him, but for the most part, she told him the truth when it mattered. There was some hesitancy on her part, sure. And there were certainly things she omitted, but Harvey understood and expected that. Charlie was a teenager and Harvey the guy who doled out reprimands. Charlie wasn't a masochist and he trusts she was smart enough to know that some things could be reasonably omitted without breaking his trust. And Harvey knew that she usually came to somebody—to him or Marcus…to Donna or Mike—when it really mattered.

For the most part, it worked. Charlie told her brother far more than most kids told their parents. And he was far more open with her, too. Or that's what Charlie had always thought. Maybe she was naive for thinking that if Harvey expected her to be honest with him, the whole thing was supposed to work reciprocally, too. He wasn't supposed to keep things from her.

Not things like this.

It had never even occurred to Charlie that her brother might be keeping things from her, especially considering how forthcoming he always seemed to be, but then again, maybe Harvey omitted some things. Maybe he shared just enough to keep her happy and oblivious.

And maybe that was fair.

It wasn't as if Charlie actually told her brother everything either.

LTLB Masterlist (Everything)

LTLB Masterlist (Chapters)

Chapter 9

#suits #suits tv #suits usa #suits netflix #suits fanfiction #harvey specter #harvey specter fanfiction #specter!sister #charlie specter

[silvermoon-scrolls]

So Dean knows about the @deanobingo event (kinda). And he did kind of challenge us to try to write about an as obscure character as possible, mentioning a Snacker bar commercial he did when he was 12.

So here you go. ~700 words inspired by combining ‘Snacker-bar-commecial kid’ with the bingo prompt ‘Bro code / Girl code’. Of course set in the late 80s/early 90s. ^^

--

The wind whips through Billy’s hair as his skateboard zigzags down the street. A good thing it’s downhill all the way to the arcade. A hella slog back home though. 

After taking a sharp turn he automatically sticks one hand in the front pocket of his hoodie to make sure he still has his Snacker bar. Wouldn’t wanna lose that.

As the arcade comes into view, he immediately recognizes Jessie standing outside waiting for him, but it takes him a moment longer to identify whom it is he’s talking to. Billy lets out a low whistle when he realizes that it's Amy – Jessie’s longtime crush.

But considering the way Amy keeps looking over her shoulder like she’s searching for an escape route, it doesn't look like it’s going too well. Time for a distraction.

Kicking up his speed, Billy sets his sight on the curb. At the last moment he pops the board off the ground, turns it, and slides along the curve. Jumping off right next to Jessie and flipping the board up into his hands. He can’t help himself from grinning wildly. “What’s up?”

“Wicked trick,” Amy says, inspecting Billy and his skateboard appreciatively.

Billy’s grin fades a little when he notices Jessie’s disappointment at having his crush once again forget him. Oops. Thinking on his feet, Billy smiles widely. “Yeah, Jessie taught me that one.” He slaps his friend on the back for good measure.

“Really? I didn’t know you were good with a board,” Amy says with an impressed smile, her attention back on Jessie.

A little caught off guard, Jessie still rolls with it fairly well. “Ehem, yeah. I don't like showing off, you know,” he explains only a little hesitantly, trying to wave it away.

“Too bad. I think it would be fun to watch.” The hint of a teasing smile she bestows on Jessie is apparently enough for him to drown in those big, brown eyes of hers because he’s just standing there smiling stupidly while she holsters her bag as if to go.

Billy elbows Jessie out of his stupor. “You wanna hang together at the arcade?” he finally blurts out. “We could talk more about skating?”

Amy shrugs. “I don’t really know much about skateboarding,” she says noncommittally. “Except the music is really rad.”

“Oh!” Jessie’s eyes light up – Billy recognizes his geek mode activating. “I just put together this new tape,” Jessie exclaims excitedly. He slings off his backpack and starts rummaging through it. “It’s got all these sick beats I caught on this new radio station I discovered.” He brings up his walkman. “Maybe-- maybe we could go to the park and listen to it?”

To Billy’s astonishment it looks like Amy really is considering it, though Jessie’s hopeful smile begins to fade a little when her answer drags a little too long. 

“I can’t,” she finally says. She actually looks genuinely sorry. “I have band practice later and I need to get home and grab something to eat.”

"Oh." Jessie lets out a disappointed sigh.

Bummer. So close. Billy chews the inside of his lip, but decides that Jessie is worth it. “No way!” he exclaims, pointing at something behind Amy. “Do you see that?”

The moment Amy turns around to look, Billy quickly fishes out the Snacker bar from his pocket, holding it up for Jessie to see, before dropping it into Jessie’s open backpack and gesturing with his eyes towards Amy.

“What? I don’t see anything,” Amy says, turning back.

“Oh, I thought I saw a cat with a top hat. My bad.” Billy gives her his most innocent smile, which only earns him a totally weirded out look in return.

Jessie hurriedly bends down to search his bag once more. “Uhm. What if we could eat at the park? I’ve got a Snacker we could share.” Jessie holds up his prize.

“Oh. Okay!” Amy says smiling, clearly won over by the promise of a delicious snack. 

Jessie is grinning from ear to ear. “You don’t mind, do you Billy?” he asks.

“‘Cause not,” Billy assures him. Mates looks after each other.

Besides, he’s got more bars at home.

#the things i choose to spend my time on sometimes... 😆 #creative writing #deanobingo2024 #snacker #dean o'gorman #silvermoon writes

[narrators-journal]

Ring, ring

This, like the last post lol, is inspired by the prompt list I currently have for a potential yandere prompt list I’m debating throwing out. This one is based on the prompt ‘creepy calls’ and comes from my stalker/serial killer au for some funsies <3

CW: Stalking, mentions of breaking and entering, generally kinda dark.

“God damn...stairs.” Minato grumbled as he made his way up his apartment building’s creaky, poorly lit stairway with his groceries in his arms. “If they bothered getting that fucking elevator fixed, I wouldn’t be nearly breaking my neck just to get god damned food.” Yet, it was only natural that his grumbling went unacknowledged, as he was alone in the discolored, wet-carpet-smelling hallway that led down to the chipped and cracked door that Minato called his. Once there, the dark-haired emo put down some of his bags to fight the jammed door open.

The small apartment that Minato called home wasn’t anything to brag about. The smoke-stained walls were thin enough that he could hear his neighbor’s television almost perfectly clear, cramped, and, most importantly, it was cheap. The tile in the tiny slice of a kitchen was cracked and discolored like the front door, with a small fridge that Minato stocked with his groceries. Then, he moved to the living room, which had sticky carpet and a perpetual smell of dust, but he could deal with that, especially after the slog that was his grocery trip. So, with a sigh, the shaggy-haired boy flopped onto his couch, his television flicked on to fill the silence and stifle the sounds of his neighbor’s show.

At least, until his cellphone rang with a telltale cartoon criminal laugh. The ringtone he assigned to Ryoji Mochizuki.

Minato’s stalker.

Though, instead of a normal person’s terror in that situation, the shaggy-haired emo just sighed in annoyance and answered the phone. “What.” He answered blandly. “Awww, so mean to me, funeral lily.” Ryoji pouted through the phone, “Can’t you just pretend to be happy to answer my calls?” “No.” the blue-haired man said blandly, “Considering you threatened to break in if I don’tanswer these stupid fucking calls, I have no real reason to be happy to talk to you.”

At Minato’s remind of that factor, Ryoji groaned in annoyance. “God, you make it sound like I make you talk to me at gunpoint, Mina.” “You kinda do.” “I do not. You can always ignore my calls and just lock your door. How is that ‘at gunpoint’” The brunette argued, which only made Minato roll his stormy eyes as he sat up on his couch. “I repeat, threats of breaking in. My parents always locked the doors at night, yet you still got in there like the cockroach you are.” Minato argued back, getting a bright laugh out of the man, “Okay, you got me there. But you still can’t hide that you just enjoy talking to me~” Ryoji teased, his words enough to earn a dark scowl from Minato.

On some dark level, the emo knew his stalker was right. Ryoji had basically forced Minato to chase off all of his friends or risk them being killed in the crossfire, so, these morbidly casual phone calls were the only real source of socialization Minato had left. But, whether he was lonely or not, he wasn’t about to admit that to the infatuated nutjob. “Why do you even call me? You follow me around everywhere I go, it’s not like we can chat about how my day was.” He huffed, the unacknowledged point left between the two men like a rotten chunk of meat. “I just like hearing your voice, funeral lily! It makes me feel less lonely.” Ryoji hummed simply, dark amusement woven into his words, as if he knew the deepest of Minato’s unspoken thoughts. “But! I actually do have things to do today, like you, I’ve gotta go grocery shopping, so~” He sang, “I’ll call you tomorrow, love you, dear.”

With that, Ryoji Mochizuki hung up, and Minato was left alone in his cramped, smoke-stained apartment once more. Only the television to keep him company, now.

#Male!Persona 3 protagonist x Ryoji Mochizuki #Ryomina #persona 3 #persona #persona 3 reload #Yandere!Ryoji Mochizuki #Makoto Yuuki #Minato Arisato #Yandere #Ryoji Mochizuki x Minato arisato #Ryoji Mochizuki x Makoto Yuuki #male!persona 3 protagonist #persona 3 au #au #serial killer!AU

[rosemaidenvixen]

If you still need some more prompts how abouttt. “I… i think I have fangs.” for Mary, Darci & Claire.

And

“Is that really red syrup? Please tell me it’s syrup.” For all five of the kids (Jim, Toby, Mary, Darci and Claire) or if that’s too many just Toby & Jim.

First prompt answered here

Urban Legend

Ao3

“Dude I think that was a dead rat,”

“That was just plastic, now focus,”

“Tobes I’m pretty sure that one was real,”

“Jim we passed a silicone zombie, two fake giant spiders, and no fewer than four killer clowns who did not in fact kill us. The rat was fake now get your head in the game,”

Jim glared up at him, the furious look on his face still visible even though the only light came from spotty moonlight “Why did you drag me here again?”

Toby inclined his head to the trio walking ten feet ahead of them “To impress the ladies, that’s why,”

The official popular clique at Arcadia Oaks High had a very specific initiation ritual. The upperclassmen would bring any freshmen that wanted to join to a sewer tunnel, with a map and detailed instructions on how to make it to the other end. Anyone who finished the gauntlet was in.

Of course there were dozens of rumors about people going missing and monsters living in the sewer tunnels, but everyone above the age of thirteen knew those were just urban legends bolstered by the rumor mill and the Halloween decorations the seniors put down there to scare the pledges.

Toby happened to strike gold when he’d overheard Regina briefing Mary, Darci, and Claire on the date and time of their initiation. Knowing a once in a lifetime opportunity when he saw one, he’d jumped in and asked if he and Jim could come along. To his delight Regina had agreed.

Well her actual words were ‘I guess you can tag along but that doesn't mean you dweebs are in’ which was fine with him. If Toby ever became popular it would be on his terms and no one else's, even if that meant he never was part of the ‘in’ crowd. He knew he and Jim were cool, and hopefully by the end of the night Mary, Darci, and Claire would to.

Sure they had to slog through a river of muck, and the sewers smelled like the bottom of a dumpster mixed with low tide, but it would be worth it.

“I’m not sure getting my socks soaked through with sewage is worth getting Claire to notice me,”

“First off, that's just rainwater, black water runs in a completely different line. Second I think what you meant to say was ‘Thank you Toby for the opportunity to talk to Claire Nuñez, who I have a very obvious crush on, without interruptions’,”

The gloom of the tunnel did nothing to hide the bright red of Jim’s face “I’ll…I’ll talk to Claire when I’m ready,”

Toby held back a deep groan, knowing Jim ‘When he was ready’ would end up being his eightieth birthday. Time to shove the baby bird out of the nest and watch them fly. 

“One day you’ll thank me for this,” grasping his friend by the elbow, Toby yanked him along forward as he jogged ahead.

“Wait Tobes don–”

“Good evening ladies,” Toby greeted as they caught up to the trio “How are you enjoying Arcadia’s finest sewer?”

Claire and Darci gave him questioning looks while Mary just rolled her eyes “It’s nasty as hell, thanks for asking. And if you’re here to protect us from the big bad sewer monsters don’t bother,”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, I just wanted to see what kind of mannequins the seniors managed to stash down here. Although if a sewer monster did show up I’m confident you three could handle him,”

Trying to be the big tough knight in shining armor was a rookie mistake. These girls were absolute queens and they knew it. They didn’t need a guy to protect them, they could do that themselves thankyouverymuch. What they needed was a guy who appreciated how awesome they were, standing by with a shield while they chopped off the monster’s head themselves.

Mary narrowed her eyes and said nothing, Claire looked neutral but Darci actually giggled a bit. 

They had their opening.

“I mean look at that guy,”

Toby gestured towards a dummy dressed as a businessman, plastic axe buried in his head surrounded by fake blood “I mean who wears business casual into the sewers? And that blood, totally not realistic, Jim remind me what the recipe for fake blood is?”

Still flushed, Jim managed to stutter out an answer “You do it by mixing corn syrup, corn starch, water, and red food coloring. Although I think for the fake blood on Mister Business the just used red food coloring without adding any other colors,”

Mary’s eyebrows rumpled “Wait I thought blood was supposed to be red?”

“It is, but adding just a hint of other colors adds contrast that makes the red hue richer,”

“Yeah Jim’s pretty much a genius in the kitchen,” Toby patted his friend’s back “He makes a mean cordon bleu,”

“What about you?” Darci elbowed him with a grin “What exactly does Toby Domzalski bring to the table?”

“I’m a man of many talents. Geology whiz, legendary DM, anime expert, and I’m no chef Jimbo but I do make a mean green bean casserole,”

“Speaking of food check out the blood on this guy,” Claire walked over to a small side tunnel where another mannequin was laying sprawled against the wall “They definitely went the extra mile on the blood,”

The rest of them followed her, gathering around the small side tunnel and the body inside.

This one was definitely a cut above the others. It looked like a scruffy white guy dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, with impressively realistic looking dirt and grime. A nasty gouge cut out of his neck with blood running down his front and smeared along the tunnel wall, even congealed in some pl–

Wait…how exactly did they get corn syrup to congeal?

Come to think of it, how exactly had the seniors managed to get a mannequin this good, it almost looked like…

Something cold settled in Toby’s chest, an idea too awful or horrifying to even consider so he didn’t let it fully form.

After all there’s no way this could actually–

“Is that red syrup?” Mary whispered, voice tight, prodding Jim with her elbow “Please tell me that’s syrup?” 

Jim didn’t say anything, but his chalky face and gaunt expression did all the talking for him.

Claire stepped forward and gently reached out to tap the mannequin’s–

It was a mannequin it had to be a mannequin 

Cheek with a single finger.

The instant it made contact Claire whipped it away, a scream choked into a strangled cry escaping her throat.

Toby’s heartbeat boomed in his ears as the thought he’d been desperately trying not to think about blasted to the front of his mind.

“Guys that’s…that’s not a mannequin,”

No one said anything but the silence that filled the tunnel spoke volumes.

Suddenly Toby was very aware that he was in a dark sewer tunnel in the middle of the night, no one knew where he was and no one would hear if they screamed.

“We need to get out of here, now.” Darci said, voice low and serious.

Toby agreed wholeheartedly, and was about to join the others in hauling ass out of this sewer when Claire actually took a step down the side tunnel.

“I think we should check this out,” 

“What!? You want us to go down the spooky tunnel with the dead body in it!?” Mary hissed.

“Yeah that’s basic horror movie 101, you do not go down the dark spooky tunnel with an actual human corpse in it!” Toby was psyching himself up to start grabbing shoulders and dragging, but before he could do anything Jim stepped up to Claire’s side.

“Someone else could be hurt or stuck, and if they are, we need to help them,”

Whatever objections Toby had died in his throat. Going forward was still a boneheaded idea, but deep down he knew Jim was right. Maybe it was a stupid move, but if someone was there and in trouble they couldn’t just walk on by.

“Ok but let's be smart about this, we need people watching our front, back, and sides at all time,”

“I’ll take front,” Jim and Claire said simultaneously, glancing at each other.

“I’ll watch our backs,” Mary added.

Toby looked towards Darci “You ok with watching right while I watch left?”

Her expression was gaunt but she still gave a sharp nod of acknowledgement.

“Then let’s go,”

The five of them made their way down the narrow tunnel, scant moonlight gone, lit only by the light of their phones, the smell even more intense in the small space, following the streaks of rusty red along the wall.

After a few minutes of walking the red along the wall curved away into an even smaller passage. The five of them having to go single file, cautiously creeping inside a small chamber at the end.

For a second Toby forgot about the very real dead body they’d just passed and thought that the seniors must have set up some kind of fake mad science lab. The room they found themselves in was cluttered with bubbling beakers over smoldering burners, lit by the cool glow of fluorescent lanterns. 

Then the smell hit him and he realized this was anything but.

“Guys this is a meth lab we need to get out of here now,”

Claire whipped around towards him “How the heck do you know what a meth lab looks like!?”

“Watching Breaking Bad how else!? We need to go before–”

“You brats aren’t going anywhere,”

They all froze at the sound, Toby’s heart shooting straight up into his throat, turning to see a guy who looked just as scruffy as the dead guy pointing a handgun at them.

“I wouldn’t let Jason narc on me, and I won’t let some random brats–”

Whatever else the guy had to say was lost when Mary threw a boiling beaker full of something in his face. Whatever it was making a nasty hissing sound when it made contact with his skin. He howled in pain, dropping the gun and pawing at his face, and the five of them booked it out the room.

The five of them sprinted down the dark tunnel, not even seeing where they were going. Pain flared in his knees and elbows as Toby banged into the walls in his mad sprint but he didn’t slow down. They were so frantic in their running Toby didn’t notice until too late that they’d made a wrong turn at the small tunnel.

“Guys I think we’re lost,”

They came to a halt at a crossroads, whipping around at the various tunnels surrounding them,  Claire pulling out her map.

“Any…” Jim pulled in a deep shuddering breath “Aanyone know the way out?”.

“That way…I think,” Claire looked up from the map and pointed down a side tunnel, this one with a very real rat crawling along–

A thunderous boom and the rat vanished in an instant, the concrete behind it spattered in red.

Toby whirled to see scruffy, splotchy red burns covering his face and a shotgun tightly gripped in both hands. At the sight his entire body went cold all over. A handgun was bad but a single bullet could easily be dodged, but a shotgun in this small a space–

Oh god they were going to die.

“No one’s going anywhere!” Scruffy barked “I’ve worked too long and too hard to let it get screwed up by–”

There was another skittering sound to their side, Scruffy whipped the gun around and fired.

Toby stared at the spot, but to his surprise instead of the red spatter of another rat this was green…and thick looking, stray arms and legs still twitching.

What the fu–

The cocking of the shotgun pulled his attention back to scruffy.

“Now all of you against the wall before I–”

“Waka chaka….”

The voice, so low and raspy, for a second Toby thought he imagined it, echoed from behind scruffy. Along with the clicking of claws on stone.

Scruffy whirled around, allowing the others to see the creature.

It was green, about the size of a cat, round fat body with spindly limbs, pointy ears and wide frog-like mouth lined with large teeth.

The creature hissed at Scruffy, who yelped and fired the shotgun again. Turning the creature into a green puddle with a loud blast.

“Waka chaka…”

Another identical green creature crawling in from a side tunnel, Toby and the others dove for cover as scruffy blasted it away to.

“Waka chaka…”

“Waka chaka…”

“Waka chaka..”

More and more green creatures poured in from all around them, seemingly endless, scruffy firing this way and that. The deafening booms echoing in the small space. But for every creature he blew away two more took its place. Soon the entire space was swarming with green creatures, all of them streaming towards scruffy as he struggled to keep them at bay with his shotgun.

And Scruffy pulled the trigger only to hear the gun click harmlessly.

He bellowed and started batting away creatures with the butt of the gun, but then one jumped on top of his head, another two on his back, and a third on his chest sent him toppling to the ground.

Scruffy vanished in an instant as the creatures swarmed over him with various cries of ‘Waka chaka’ his shouts of alarm turning to howls of pain.

It was horrible but Toby couldn’t look away, staring at the writhing mass of green creatures while scruffy screeched in agony underneath them.

A tug on his elbow startled him, whipping around to see Darci, face a mask of desperation, pulling him in the direction of a side tunnel. The others already standing outside it poised to run.

Right, this wasn’t time to stop and stare. They had to get out while the getting was good. Toby hurried after her, filing into the tunnel with the others, sparing the writhing green mass that concealed scruffy one final glance before it vanished from sight.

But his screams followed them as they went down the tunnel, getting softer and softer before abruptly cutting off in a wet gurgle.

Toby forced himself to not think about what that meant and kept running.

Finally, he felt the cool breeze of fresh air on his face as the five of them staggered outside. Darkness of the tunnel giving way to swaying trees beneath a starry sky.

“What…” Mary managed to gasp out between panted breaths, sinking down on her hands and knees in the dirt “What were those things?”

They all shared a tense look but no one said anything.

Frankly Toby had no idea what those things were. And he knew that later, after the adrenaline faded and he actually had time to process what the hell they’d just seen, he would question everything he thought he knew about their town, the world they lived in, and the creatures they shared it with.

But right now he was just grateful to be alive.

#tales of arcadia #trollhunters #jim lake jr #claire nuñez #toby domzalski #mary wang #darci scott #arcadia quintet #tw death #tw mild gore #rmvwrites #halloween prompts

[qqueenofhades]

If you’re still taking prompts, how about R&R OT3 - 10 and/or 18?

For around the fiftieth time, as they slog through the black, freezing murk of the Depths and the ossuaries of ancient bones that gaze down at them from narrow passages, Derossi Vargo grimly reminds himself that he did, in fact, sign up for this. A fetid, frigid fog curls off the dark water, making it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead, and as the only member of the party without enhanced senses, skills, or sight, he's afraid of falling behind and getting eaten by a skeleton or something. He misses Alsius' nattering even more than usual. The old man would probably have something useful to say, or could at least serve as a second pair of eyes on lookout. No imbued magical hood and costume for him, of course. Though if he's going to be running around with not one but two legendary outlaws, maybe he should look into that. It seems like a sound business decision.

"Wait," Vargo pants, clambering over one last slippery barricade of rocks and landing with a splash on the other side. This is what he gets for becoming too much of an Upper Bank cuff, too comfortable in well-appointed warehouses and masquerade balls rather than the filth and grime of the Nadežran underworld. "Blast it, wait!"

Up ahead, as if only just realizing that they've lost the third member of their party, the Rook and Rose slow down and glance around, silhouetted eerily against the bones and graves and secrets of the Old Island, the Depths, the city of Nadežra itself. They look eerie, timeless, and it gives him a shudder. Vargo knows perfectly well that it's Grey under one hood and Ren under the other, but down here in the mist and dimness of this Masks-damned place, it can be hard to tell. But they both hurry forward and give him a hand, pulling him over the porous stones, and hold on for several moments on the far side. "Are you all right?" Ren asks anxiously. "You probably didn't need to come along -- and if you're still healing from the kidnapping -- "

"I'm fine." Vargo huffs and straightens up, brushing himself off. "And besides, what was I supposed to do? Let you two come down here on your own? You'd undoubtedly manage something like resurrecting the Tyrant before the day was out, and then we'd really be fucked."

The Rook snorts. "I doubt that."

"Do you?" Vargo gives him the fish-eye. "You paid attention to anything we've been doing lately, Serrado?"

The Rook, or rather Grey, slaps at his arm instinctively, as if warning him to shut up, even though there's nobody down here but the three of them and the endless, echoing chambers of the dead, stacked up over centuries. They huddle close instinctively, craving each other's warmth, each other's presence, and neither Grey nor Ren has let go of Vargo's hands. He doesn't remember how it happened, exactly, and sometimes he's afraid of saying anything to draw their attention to it, in case it makes them come to their senses and decide to stop. But he's blood-sworn to Grey and knot-mated to Ren, and it just... happened, that's all. The first time he kissed Ren, he was terrified that Grey was going to haul off and punch him in the face. Grey did, for a moment, look like he was considering it. Then he grabbed Vargo's arm and pulled him down and kissed him too, violent as if it was in fact a blow, biting and scrabbling, and Vargo took mental notes that there was a great deal for him to teach the bastard, legendary outlaw or otherwise, about how to make proper love to a man and he should set to it with due diligence. And then, well. He did.

He tries to act casual about it. He tries to pretend that he could leave any time they told him to, stroll out and resume his old life. He still has his own townhouse, of course; tries not to spend more than a few nights a week with Grey and Ren, lest someone take notice of the pattern. He doesn't know what a szorsa's cards would reveal about it, other than what it's always been. He loves them. He loves both of them so much he can hardly stand it, and what's it the Vraszenians say about three parts of a soul? It's them. It's them.

Not wanting to get too distracted with maudlin sentiment when they could still very much be eaten by said cursed skeletons and/or resurrected Tyrants at any moment, Vargo clears his throat and gets back to business. "We should keep going. Oh, and. If this is going to be a habit with us, any chance of me getting one of those things?"

"What? You mean a Rook's hood?" Grey sounds unflatteringly skeptical, and Vargo is tempted to punch him again, just a little, for old time's sake. "I'm not sure you're exactly the model for a -- "

"We'll think about it," Ren interrupts bossily, and both Grey and Vargo snap to attention and look at her with meek yes, alta expressions. (Grey's is behind the Rook's hood, but there's no doubting that it's there.) "Now let's go, you two. I'm freezing."

(And so, the three of them together as always, they do.)

#anonymous #ask #rook and rose #ren x grey x vargo #fic prompts #spooky season #YES NONNIE #YEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

[copperdaisy]

Yu-Gi-Oh! OC Week Day 5 - Swap

This one is a little late because I immediately crashed into a four hour nap after work. Before I knew it, it was 10:30pm and I had yet to put word one on the digital paper, and then my net went down. Anyway, for this prompt I decided to go with a role swap AU. Never actually written anything where Sanura has an Item despite her being around since 2005.

(@ygoc-week)

(I am almost out of artwork and want to save the last piece for another prompt so, old design swap Picrew from a couple of years ago it is. As I understand it this particular Picrew no longer exists, otherwise I'd link it.)

Day 5 - [Role] Swap Word Count: 857 Characters: Sanura, Atem, Seth, Mahaad Rating: G

Most days at court were dry and uneventful slogs. Streams of petitioners filed in before the throne to plead their cases for special political or religious matters, or to seek justice for criminal charges that lower courts had been unable to pass judgment on. Pharaoh Akhenamkhanen listened to them all. It did not matter to him how petty or ridiculous or inane a request was. He was a fair man who did his best to guide his people and protect them. For that, Sanura could not fault him, even if she did think he was stretching himself thin. His health was not as strong as it had been when she became part of his inner circle. The stresses of fending off the invasions of years past had greatly aged him.

Still, there was strength left in him yet, and he was not slowing down. But that did not mean that he was not preparing for the inevitability of death. He had begun to take more obvious steps to preserve the peace and prosperity he had wrested from the jaws of defeat. More and more often days at court involved visits from delegations from the far reaches of the kingdom. Today was no exception.

Today was, however, special. Today was the day Prince Atem's betrothed arrived. It was not something that the Prince in question was excited about.

He already had his eye on someone. Sanura had sat through several venting sessions from her friend about it and had attempted to reassure him each time. The marriage was a political move meant to strengthen the ties between the throne and the far northern tip of the kingdom. It didn't have to mean that Atem had to give up all thoughts of marrying the person who he had chosen himself. He had given her the flattest look each time she pointed out that multiple marriages were not unheard of among the royal family. There were no doubts that he would go along with the marriage out of loyalty to his father and duty to the throne, but he still found the whole situation uncomfortable.

Atem was doing a remarkable job at hiding his apprehension as the northern party was ushered in. Standing on the dais next to Akhenamkhanen he appeared composed, his expression carefully neutral. It was his standard court mask that Sanura had come to recognize from him. His social skills were still rough around the edges but attending official proceedings had taught him how to hold his emotions close to his chest. He never wanted to embarrass his father.

As Akhenamkhanen rose to greet their visitors Sanura let her eyes roam over the assembled group. They were a mostly unremarkable bunch though none would question their social status. The representative that spoke for them was a thin wisp of a man with graying hair, dressed in crisp linen dyed a pale green and adorned with a near garish amount of jewelry. He nearly outshone the nobleman's daughter standing beside him. Her dress was a soft sandy shade trimmed in sky blue, a golden belt and a gem set bracelet her most obvious accessories. She was doing her best to present herself as confident but there was a bit too much fidgeting for the illusion to stick properly. Sanura found herself wondering if the girl had ever been so far from home.

The thought was short lived. As her gaze shifted to the man shadowing the girl a slight jolt ran through her. The Ring stirred around her neck, vibrating enough to lightly jingle the tines that dangled from it. From the corner of her eye she noticed Seth shooting a subtle glance in her direction. He must have heard it, or had seen her subtle change in posture. She ignored him and the Ring settled after a few moments. Whatever had triggered it must have been a source of interest, not danger. The Ring seemed to have a mind of its own and she had come to accept its odd quirks. It continued to hum in the back of her head as she reexamined the stranger that had caught its attention. The man was easily the tallest member of the party that had been let in. Broad shouldered, solidly built, dressed in simple plain clothing and trace hints of gold – the personal guard of the daughter, perhaps. He was observing everything with a placidity that spoke of strength and self assurance. But there was more than that, something that Sanura could not put her finger on. Judging from how Seth shifted his weight and narrowed his eyes when they met the stranger's she was not the only one who felt that way.

Whoever the man was looking at him put her on edge. But there was no reason to make a scene and interrupt the introduction of the nobleman's daughter. Sanura was certain that there was something potentially dangerous about him, but the same could be said about any guardsman. The Ring sensed no immediate threat from him. For now she would stay quiet and keep a close watch on him until she had him figured out.

#YuGiOh #YuGiOh OC #YuGiOh OC Week 23 #Copper's OC #OC: Sanura

[courtanie]

how were you able to get into writing and did you ever struggle? i'm currently 20 years old and attempting to develop my skills, but it feels so infuriating knowing that i'm somewhat behind in comparison to other people my age. the comparison thing is a major roadblock - i read tons of media and whenever it's my turn to write, i look back on whatever i've written, read, then boil in envy. i don't know how to write well without making myself feel bad.

Well first off, take a deep breath and know that every writer has gone through exactly that and continues to do so. It's a game of never-ending improvement and backsliding and reusing any prose you come up with that you actually liked a teeny bit and honestly it's all just a mess.

But it can be a fun mess.

I started writing when I was 15 and it was literally just an outlet for my teenage rage at that point. Then trauma happened and it became a trauma outlet instead. But also I was just bubbling with ideas and no one wrote things that I wanted to read in particular so clearly I just had to do it myself. Which is literally what I still do. No one else is writing Kyle having a bad time in the exact way I like it so I gotta take the reins.

I know the rule of thumb is "never compare yourself!!!!" but literally no one heeds that. No one can. I compare myself to others, too (which is half the reason I stopped reading don't do that like I did srsly it's a bad idea). But like here's the thing: Do you want to get your stories out? That's literally all that matters. It doesn't matter how bad/good/mediocre it may be, you're writing for you. And you just have to accept that sometimes you're gonna write badly. I still do alllll the time. Sometimes my chapters are really poor because I'm slogging through them trying to get to the exciting parts that prompted the story idea in the first place. Sometimes I have to go back six years later and edit a large portion of a story because I want it going in a different direction or I just thought that what I had didn't hold up. I've deleted so many of my old stories, I've cringed and apologized to my audience and myself so many fucking times.

I shouldn't've.

Bad writing is still something that wasn't there before you brought it into the world. It's still creative and enthralling and a piece of you. Babe you're gonna cringe and you're gonna get angry with yourself and you're gonna get hung up on a sentence and not be able to look at that chapter again to work on it for a couple months because you're so frustrated and lost. But that's okay! It's the process. That whole "we're our own worst critic" adage holds a lot of water, but you have to embrace it and just keep pushing forward regardless. Write it and if you still don't like it, go back and rewrite the entire thing again with the first one open as comparison. You'll make wild changes and settle into it better, trust me.

And believe me, I've struggled and continue to do so. I am literally being roasted by my readers because "oh wow the annual update!" which. Is hilarious and true. I'm really struggling right now due to real life stuff and I've gone on several hiatuses in my 15 years writing. I am notorious about shittalking my style and my lack of creativity. I am wildly out of practice and it's showed lately so I'm back crawling my way up the hill trying to find my footing again and improve after my backslide. But that's what happens with any skill, if you don't use it, if you don't do your damn scales and arpeggios, you're gonna lose what you've gained. And it's disheartening, but it's a reason for you to just keep pushing forward and write the damn thing regardless of self-criticism.

There is always going to be someone better than you, that's how it works for all of us, especially in this subjective of a hobby. But that also means you're better than some people. And the wild thing is, no matter how 'bad' you think you are? You're gonna be someone's favorite author, I absolutely guarantee it. Some of what I considered to be my "worst" stories have had people coming and telling me they were their favorites, that they reread them every night and have their own special binder on their bookshelf. Just keep fucking going, dude. You're never gonna stop improving unless you stop altogether.

#buck up babe #remember that it's all for fun #writing is not life-or-death #do as i say not as i do

[wooahaes]

farmers market

pairing: non-idol!junhui x gn!reader

prompt: farmers market [private fall prompt list]

word count: 0.9k~

warnings: food tw. talks of marriage/proposals.

daisy’s notes: god its been forever since i’ve gone to a farmers market. the one we have here usually isn’t great :(

If there was one thing you enjoyed the most about cooking with Jun, it was the farmers market trips you’d take together.

While there were plenty of times that you two opted for the grocery store instead--certain prices being cheaper, for one, even though you’d always prefer paying the extra money to support local workers (sometimes money would be a little tighter), or things being out-of-season that you’d have to get from a store that imported it--you still liked these trips. Jun would always slip his hand into your own, a bag on his shoulder and the list in his hands (more capable than your own--you lost the list every time you carried it and had to rely on your combined memories to get everything), and smile at you with a soft “Ready?” before you started your little shopping trip. Most people would remember the two of you, primarily because Jun would usually get into deeper conversations with people for a few minutes. Always about things like how their crops were doing, or the process they took to make their jam: little things that made people’s eyes light up as they talked about what they loved. You knew that was why he always did it, even if it lengthened your trips tremendously.

“We should come back and get pumpkins to carve,” he said, squeezing your hand. “We can puree the insides for soup...” He rambled on, talking about separating out the seeds and roasting them.

Even if Jun was the better cook between the two of you, you liked to hear his thoughts. You liked how he also tried to use everything to create as little waste as he could, even if it had lead to some more... creative endeavors in the past.

“Are sweet potatoes on your list?” You asked after a moment, slowing down when you saw the stall. “We should have another barbecue before it gets too cold.”

“With the others?” He adjusted his beanie. Some might argue that it’s already getting a little too cold, but that was nothing warm food and good company couldn’t fix. “If we can’t cook out, we can still host dinner.”

A joy both of you liked: feeding his friends good food. Some of them were still in school, after all--some in med school, others just finishing up undergrad or slogging through their graduate programs. You knew how well you were eating during your undergrad, at least, and you knew for a fact that Vernon probably was relying on ramen and microwave meals only because you and Jun had chewed him out before.

If his friends needed food, they could come to you and Jun. Or to Mingyu, who worked the same job as your boyfriend and could afford to cook for someone. The two of you liked taking care of people, after all. That’s why the two of you always extended little invitations out to both his friends and yours: you made too much food as it was. If no one bit, then the two of you had leftovers. Truly, a win-win situation.

“Ooh, we should! We could just do roasted sweet potatoes instead.” You gently tugged Jun by the hand toward the stall. “If we do that, we could also make a pie or something--We still have that apple pie recipe my mom sent us.”

Jun politely greeted the sweet older couple behind the stall before turning back to you. “If we come back for pumpkins, there’s a pumpkin chiffon pie that Mingyu told me about...”

Sometimes you swore Mingyu was trying to steal Jun from you. He always knew that new recipes enticed him. “We can definitely try it,” you said, watching him examine sweet potatoes.

Almost as if on cue, the gentleman working looked over at the two of you. “Still not engaged, I see...”

“Not yet,” Jun had said, smiling. “We’re waiting a little longer.”

“You two always sound like we did when we were young,” his wife sighed wistfully. Another thing that the two of you always heard from this couple. “We still cook together when we can, you know.”

You did. It was one of the things they prided themselves on, actually. You always thought it was sweet, even if the first few times you came alone they tried to hook you up with their grandson. He was handsome and kind, sure, but you always waved them off and said that your boyfriend was cuter. You were pretty sure they practically adopted Jun the moment they met him.

Jun, to be fair, had that effect on a lot of people. But at the end of the day, he always said that his heart only belonged to you--even though you didn’t need the reassurance. You still liked to hear him say it, because he’d always give you this cute, charming smile and kiss you goodnight.

“I hope we’ll be the same way, too,” Jun said, stealing a small smile at you. 

(You never knew that the ring box was in his nightstand and hidden at the back. He was always just waiting for the perfect moment.)

You squeezed his arm, “We will,” you said. “I’m sure of it.”

There was no one else you’d rather grow old with, after all. There was only one man who got excited over trips to the farmers market, who looked at recipes with this cute glimmer in his eyes, and had become your entire world so easily--as if the two of you were destined for each other. Jun was also the romantic between the two of you, truly, but he always said you’d have him beat if you kept saying things like that.

(And maybe, if Jun had the ring on him right then and there, he would have heard you immediately say yes.)

general taglist: @wonuziex​ @twancingyunhao​

#wooahaes.fic #seventeen imagine #seventeen x reader #seventeen x you #svt x reader #svt imagine #svt x you #junhui x reader #junhui x you #jun x reader #jun x you #wen junhui x reader #wen junhui x you

[allisonreader]

I don't know why I'm thinking about this at this particular moment. What prompted it I do not know, but here's my thought of the moment.

There are times where I feel well rounded in what I've read and there are other times where I feel like I've hardly read a drop in the bucket (which will always be true to some extent. There's only so much that CAN be read in one lifetime). And I suppose that it all depends on who is around and your talking to. You can be well read in one area and not in another. So if you're talking to someone who is well read in that area that you're not, then of course you're going to feel less well rounded than if you're talking about an area that you are more well rounded in.

Like I'm definitely not as well rounded in some of the classics as I'd like to be. I have a bunch of freebies of classic books (ebooks) that I have yet to try and read. I did start to try and read War and Peace once, years ago. I think I got like 30% through and then didn't return for one reason or another yet.

Thinking about it, I don't actually know if I would consider myself well rounded in any particular category. Maybe Titanic related stories, because I have read quite an assortment of those. And for awhile my parents and I were reading quite a few Harlequin published books, not saying that they're high literature as some of them I would consider having serious issues (at least for me) in them. (I mostly have three books in mind, one was a mystery where there was no way no how that you could have guessed who did it. There was no lead up, no foreshadowing, no hints or clues just literally the plumber/carpenter did it. Very unsatisfying. And then the other two were books by the same author; which was extremely clear, as the style had something that I couldn't quite place, but made the books hard to read. Quite the slog and between myself and my parents, none of us could quite say what it was, other than it made it hard to read.) I guess; at least when I was younger, another "genre" so to speak that I could have been more well read in was unsolved mysteries. I was big into reading about that type of thing. Everything from cryptics (sasquatch, Nessie), spontaneous combustion, the older information about whether Anastasia actually managed to survive or not, and such.

As of now I feel like my reading fits more into rereads, though I've always have done a lot of rereading. Like now I'm sort of trying to reread a childhood series that I enjoyed when younger. It's still a good series, but I am struggling with it a bit now, as it's definitely written for the age of when I first read it. Though I just read the one book that scared me a bit when I was younger. Not so scary now, but at the original time of reading, I had to check/double check with my mom that phantoms weren't real. Cause I was a scaredy cat with an overactive imagination, who in no way would have been able to read Harry Potter at that age, as I couldn't even watch Star Wars. (Still have that overactive imagination and have to be careful of what I watch or read.)

#this turned into quite the little ramble that I didn't expect #I sort of feel like there's more to say but at the same time I think it's not on the original point #and I don't actually know what else to say except to ramble on without more direction #I don't even know what else to say or if there actually needs to be more

[m-m-m-myysurana]

ZevWarden Week 2022

Culture

So this is extremely rushed and unedited, and I'll be honest it got away from me a little so it doesn't really cover the prompt as well as I intended, but these things happen when you're having too much fun letting the characters do their thing. Anyway, have a drabble!

Neria finally reunites with her brother, and Zevran gets a culture shock of the emotional variety.

~~~

"When you said the middle of nowhere, you really meant it."

Zevran groaned as he stumbled over yet another log. The weather had been anything but fine, and they'd been searching for this dalish clan for weeks, and he was beginning to feel like he was back in Ferelden. A nightmare.

"I have to give your family credit, they're certainly dedicated," he said. "If I had to traipse through dank forests like this every day to stay hidden I think I might go insane!"

Neria laughed. And shook her head at him.

"There's a lot less discomfort than you might think. The aaravels are often well appointed, and the dalish have a way of moving through the trees. Even the aaravels pass through the forests with ease. Magic plays a part in every aspect of our culture."

"Magic?" Zevran repeated. "So you're telling me the Dalish glide through the trees like its nothing, and yet here we are slogging through mud and tripping over brambles. Not to mention all that time we spent dead on our feet during the Blight. Why have you not brought this up before?"

"Not all of us are tripping," she retorted, a mischievous twinkle in her eye as she glanced over at him and deftly leapt off of a fallen log. "And I never brought it up because I don't know how to do it. It is a rare spell, handed down only from keepers to their firsts. If it were too widespread, others may be able to use it against us to pursue us through the forests. They are our last remaining refuge against the shem."

Zevran noted her shift in phrase as she spoke, from "the Dalish" to "us," but he did not comment on it. Neria had been torn about whether or not she still belonged with the Dalish, and about whether or not they would even accept her back. It was good to hear her speak so comfortably about them now. He had no doubt that her family would welcome her back with open arms, but him? He was fully expecting to have to wait outside the camp.

"Were you not intended to be a keeper?" he prompted.

"Yes, one day. But I was young when I was separated from my clan. Too young to have developed the delicate control that is necessary for that kind of magic."

"Ah I see." Zevran smirked as he looked anywhere but at his dear warden. "Control has never been your strength."

Neria was silent, but Zevran could practically feel her gaze burning into him. When he finally risked a glance, her expression was exactly as he'd known it would be. Her eyes were narrowed to slits, and her lips pushed into a pout.

"Oh do not misunderstand me carina, you know it is a trait I very much admire."

"Thankfully it's a trait no one but you ever sees these days."

"Indeed. Truly a tragedy, but I relish it all the more because of it." Zevran stepped closer and caught her hand, tugging her gently toward him. "Every single night."

Neria waved her other hand at him as if to shoo him away, but made no move to separate herself from his grasp. Her smile only grew as Zevran brought her hand to his lips, kissing first the tips of her fingers, then her knuckles, then the back of her hand and wrist.

"In fact," he said between kisses, "I'm beginning to think that perhaps every night is simply not enough."

"Oh stop," Neria said with an overly dramatic roll of her eyes, her smile widening into a grin as Zevran gradually made his way up her arm.

"I think I should very much like to see it again."

Neria raised her brows at him. "Now?"

"Oh yes."

"In the mud and brambles?"

He shrugged. "What are mud and brambles compared to your beauty?"

These words he spoke with his lips against the sensitive skin of her neck, and watched as goosebumps formed at his breath. Though he had mostly been teasing, the sight was too tempting. He renewed his efforts more seriously, kissing a line from her collar bone to her ear where he played gently with his teeth to feel her shudder against him.

"Mmf… Zev," she murmured, tilting her head back to allow him better access.

"Ahem."

Neria spun out of his arms in a blur, sword drawn and raised almost as fast as Zev's own shorter blades. Together they faced the source of the voice.

Facing them across the clearing were two young elven men, bows drawn and aimed at their throats, and wearing a shade of green that Zev recognised immediately. It seemed they had finally found the Dalish. Or the Dalish had found them, as the case may be.

One was glowering at them, his mouth set in a dramatic expression of distaste. The other was struggling to keep from laughing, his bow quivering from the effort.

"Are we interrupting?" The first stranger said dryly.

This did nothing to help the other man's valiant attempt at staying serious.

Zevran didn't bother to conceal his own amusement, and broke into a wide grin which only served to make the first man's scowl even deeper.

"You scared the shit out of me," Neria scolded them, holding her sword and gaze level with the first man. "Don't you know it isn't polite to sneak up on people and intrude upon their privacy?"

"It is you, and not we who are intruding," the man sneered. "The Dalish have laid claim to this area, we will not suffer shemlen here."

"I am not shemlen," Neria said with far more patience than she was feeling. "I am Neria Surana, former second to Keeper Adira of clan Velaryn."

The second man's eyes widened until they were bulging out of their sockets, but the first man's sour expression didn't budge.

"That's impossible," he practically spat at her. "Neria Surana is dead."

Zevran stepped forward a fraction to cut in, gesturing dramatically with his blades as he spoke.

"Oh, many have tried to kill the great warden and hero of Ferelden, myself included." Here he threw a wink to his dear warden which earned him an affectionate roll of her eyes. "But I assure you, none have succeeded. The evidence is right before your eyes if you care to look."

"It does look like her Ferin," the second elf said tentatively.

"I don't know what you think you're playing at, but-"

"What's this then?"

Ferin's disgruntled outburst was interrupted by a voice from behind them, and all eyes turned to where a tall, pale, dark haired elf with striking blue eyes had just stepped into the clearing. He carried a staff with him, long and intricate as though the branches of a tree had been woven together as they grew. It was like nothing Zevran had ever seen.

"Nothing you need concern yourself with," Ferin said. "Taemel and I were just sending these lying shemlen on their way."

Neria scowled darkly at him.

"It does not seem as though they wish to leave," the dark haired man said with an amused smile before turning his full attention to Neria and Zevran as he began to close the distance between them.

"No, we don't," Neria replied. "But we mean you no harm."

The elf nodded to the others to lower their weapons, and they did, so Neria and Zev did too. This was younger than the others, though taller, and they seemed to treat him with respect, deferring to his judgement.

"What is your business here?" he asked.

"I am Neria Surana," Neria repeated. "This is my partner Zevran. I am here to find my family."

The newest addition to their party halted in his tracks, eyes widening in shock even as his brows turned down.

Neria seemed to take his expression for confusion, and continued to explain.

"Their names are Nessa and Varron Surana. They had a son, my brother, named Elior. He was a mage."

The young man just stared. He looked as if he'd seen a ghost. Zevran couldn't help but think there was something familiar in the way his eyes shifted.

"I don't know if they made it to your clan," Neria continued, undeterred by the strange look on his face. "They were headed here when last I saw them. It was many years ago now."

The man began walking toward them again, slowly this time, his eyes never leaving Neria's face. It was certain in Zevran's mind now that he knew her.

"They did make it," he said, his voice barely raising above a whisper.

"It can't be her," Ferin protested. "She was lost to the Templars years ago. You know what they do to-"

The taller elf held up his hand and the man fell silent immediately, stepping away to let him pass.

As he stepped closer, Neria's eyes widened, her lips falling open in shock.

"Elior?" Neria said, her voice cracking on the first syllable. She reached up a hand as if to touch his face, but froze at the last second. It hovered there, unwilling to pull away but hesitant to close the gap. "My da’assan?"

Elior nodded slowly, and after a long moment where they simply stared at one another, his face crumpled. He leant his cheek into her palm and his carefully held posture collapsed as he slumped down to match her height.

"It's really you," he managed, choking on each word.

Neria nodded and stroked her thumb against the freckles that were dotted lightly across his skin.

"It's me."

The floodgates burst then. Elior broke down and tears began streaming down his face.

"Oh Eli," Neria whispered as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to her shoulder. "I'm here now."

His staff fell unceremoniously to the forest floor and his arms held her tightly as he sobbed.

Neria stroked his curls and murmured words Zevran couldn't understand to her brother. He had learnt some elven in his time with the warden, but only enough to get by in basic conversation. In this moment he was almost glad he could not understand. Those words were surely meant to be kept between her and her brother.

She looked over at him then, eyes red and streaked with still flowing tears. He felt he should look away, afford them some privacy, but to his surprise she reached her hand out toward him.

When both their tears had run dry, Elior pulled back finally and clasped both of their shoulders.

"Where have you been?" He asked, a desperate note to his voice. "How did you survive? We thought you dead for so long. We mourned you!"

"I'm sorry, I really am. It took me years to finally escape the circle, and when I did it was only to be forced into yet another organisation I wanted no part of. But I am free of both now."

"And so you have returned to us."

"Not without a great deal of effort mind you," Zevran said. " You are a hard to find bunch."

Elior grinned. "That's the way we like it."

"I'll explain everything later," Neria said. "First I need to see mamae and papae. Are they here? Are they alive?"

Her brother nodded. "They are well. I have no idea how they will react to seeing you. I'm still half convinced that I'm seeing things right now."

Neria reached out with her free hand and grabbed Elior's, knitting their fingers together like they had been doing it all their lives.

"I'm not going anywhere."

Elior smiled and fresh tears welled in his eyes, though they didn't fall. "It is so good to have you both here," he said, turning to Zevran. "It warms my heart beyond words to know that my sister has not been alone all this time."

To Zevran's great surprise, Elior's hand shot out to complete the circle, fingers knitting with his in the same way as with Neria's. He squeezed tightly as he grinned from ear to ear at the two of them. The look he gave Zevran was no less warm than the way he'd looked at his own long lost sister, and Zevran found himself lost for words.

"Come, let us go find our parents."

Elior dragged both of them off in haste, leaving his forgotten staff for the two elves they'd met to collect.

Something coiled tight in Zevran's chest at how quickly Elior had accepted them. Accepted him. His first encounter with the Dalish had not gone quite so smoothly, they had not trusted a city elf not to have been indoctrinated by his human masters. To be fair, many were.

In contrast, Elior had immediately opened his entire heart. And not just to Neria, but it seemed to Zevran as well. It was uncertain how much of that was the culture in which he'd been raised, or just the kind heart of this one boy. It shouldn't surprise Zevran, Elior was related to Neria after all, and yet as he walked it became a struggle to fend off tears of his own.

#zevwarden week 2022 #ive forgotten how to use tumblr completely apparently #how does one create a post break on mobile?? #ah well #neria and zev #dragon age fan fic #culture

[almost-a-class-act]

Happy Pacific appreciation week!

Prompt: Day 2 ( February 7th ): Favorite dynamics Pairing: Snafu/Burgie Author's note: It's Wednesday and I'm already behind on these but I'm having fun writing them! I have such a soft spot for Burgie, y'all. Anyway, as with yesterday's, this will probably end up on AO3 after I have some time to go over it again. You can find me there under roaroftheninth.

--

There is no part of Snafu that had expected that he would see anyone he had served with, after the war.

At first, he hadn’t been confident there would be an after the war. Never one with the arrogance to assume he would be allowed to die any time soon, he had mostly pictured it as a ceaseless slog, taking every last inch of Okinawa and then mainland Japan with innumerable buckets of blood until the thing at very last was done and every last marine was a feral animal who didn’t know how to do anything but kill. They would probably lock them all up, he supposed. The public could pay a nickel to come and ogle. That was fine with him. He would ogle right back.

Then, when it had become clear that the war would, indeed, end, and the thing began to pick up speed and actually happen – went from it will end to it is ending to it has ended – he had looked around and realized that none of these men, these comrades in arms of his, were people he thought he would recognize in peacetime. He is pretty sure they wouldn’t know what to do with him, either, to be perfectly fair. It is not a tragedy, exactly, since he will simply go from being a marine who lives in the canvas-green pockets of these people to a regular person who does not, and they will belong to a part of his life that he has scratched and clawed and bitten his way free of.

He won’t miss it. It stands to reason he won’t miss them, either. Better to put the whole thing out of mind.

He had gone right on assuming that he would never see any of them again until the knock on his door in the early morning hours of the first day of shiny, new 1947.

He’s still awake, anyway; he had decided to try and make it to midnight on the off chance it feels any different, this first year in quite some time that he won’t put on a uniform. It doesn’t – there’s no more magic in a new year than there is in any regular midnight – but he’s got a couple of bottles of beer in him by then and is not in the mood to take himself to bed yet. Instead, he sits by the open window and smokes one cigarette after another, listening to the far-off sounds of celebration from town.

When the knock comes, he checks his watch, knowing it’s late. For a long moment, he simply leans back in his chair and watches the door, considering. He’s not expecting anyone – when is he ever expecting anyone? – but when the knock comes again, abrasive in the nighttime quiet, it nudges him to his feet.

His foot falls are nearly soundless on the floorboards, and he leans against the wall next to the door noiselessly too, arms folded. “State your business,” he drawls, loud enough to be heard through the door.

There is a beat. And then, quiet and desperate: “It’s me.”

He pushes away from the wall at once, grounded hard and fast. Before the knock, there had been some elusive quality to the landscape of three o’clock in the morning, as if he could have sat for long enough that his body might have bled away into the dark and he would have simply become a string of thoughts, until those went away too. Being on your own in an apartment in the city at night can do that, in the small hours, when you are surrounded by evidence that the world exists but you are alone anyway. It reminds you that you are ephemeral, a transient part of the fabric of which everything is made.

Now he is back in a reality even stranger, because he knows that voice.

That voice that had belonged to the war, a thing he had been certain he would be able to put cleanly out of his mind.

“Burgie?” he asks, to be sure, because it wouldn’t be the first time he’s let himself think something was true when it wasn’t.

There’s another pause, briefer this time. “Yeah.”

Snafu reaches out to draw back the bolt with one hand, his other hand already on the door knob to pull it open.

Burgie nearly topples into him.

He puts a splayed hand in the middle of his chest, automatic, and Burgie, too, manages to catch himself with a hand on the door frame, so between the two of them, they get him righted. He has deep, bruise-like circles under his eyes and he’s at least as drunk as he had wound up getting on the night they found out the war was over, but the quality of it is not the same.

There is no reason for him to be here. The last time Snafu had seen him, a happy homecoming through a train window, he had been looking forward, not back. Perhaps it is a trick of three o’clock in the morning. And yet:

“You better come in,” he decides, and he only takes his hand off of Burgie’s chest once the latter looks him in the eye, confirming that he’s steady.

He steps back into the apartment, and when Burgie follows, he reaches out to push the door gently to behind him, never taking his eyes off him. Burgie drifts to a stop, and Snafu reaches out, hesitating for a moment before he puts a hand awkwardly on his shoulder.

“Come and sit at the kitchen table,” he suggests, flipping on the kitchen light. “I’ll make you some coffee. You still drink it with too much sugar?”

It’s a comment made to elicit a response, but Burgie doesn’t seem to have one. He rubs at his eyes, slowly, and then says, “I need to go to bed.”

“You should drink some coffee.” It feels necessary to insist on it, in some strange way because he suspects that Burgie might have been better at this, had it happened the other way around.

“I just need to sleep,” he says. His eyes are very blue in the patchwork tiredness of his face. “Even – if you have an extra blanket, I can sleep on the floor.”

“Listen to you,” Snafu marvels. “Gonna come down to Louisiana and sleep on my floor, he says.”  

“I’ve slept worse places.”

“We’ve all slept worse places, cher.”

Shutting off the kitchen light again, Snafu squeezes the back of his arm as he passes, follow me, and leads the way to the tiny bedroom off the living room. The bed is tidily made – the marines did that – but there is a jumble of clothing on the dresser and an overflowing ashtray next to bed. With only the ambient light from the city beyond the window, it is mostly shapes and shadows anyway, and Burgie climbs right on top of the blanket and sprawls out on his stomach, pulling a pillow into the crook of his arm like he’s been homesick for it.

Snafu sits down lightly on the edge of the bed, and turns his head to find Burgie already looking at him, his eyes nothing more than a gleam in the near-darkness.

“You ever feel like the rain washed something right out of you on Gloucester?” Burgie’s voice is thick and miserable, as if there is some version of him left that hasn’t gone to war yet and doesn’t understand, that thinks he’s talking nonsense and wishes very much he weren’t.

“Yeah,” Snafu says, clasping his hands between his knees. “Sense. Shoulda taken one look at Peleliu and gone right the hell back where I came from. Had no business being on Peleliu.”

Burgie doesn’t immediately respond to that. Snafu finds the downtown city lights on the horizon visible through the window and lets his eyes soften, lets the lights blur and become kaleidoscopic blots of yellow. They could be long-ago campfires. They could be navy battleships ablaze in the bay.

Burgie breaks the silence, exhaustion dragging at his words. “Where are you going to sleep?”

Snafu hadn’t been sure if Burgie would have the presence of mind to realize that this might present a conundrum. When he cuts him a glance, his eyes are closed. “Wasn’t planning on heading to bed just yet,” he says, which is not quite an answer. Maybe he’ll have a better one by the time the sun starts to come up and he has no more cigarettes to smoke.

“You could stay.” It’s not a request so much as a suggestion.

Snafu looks out at the battleships again. “I don’t know if we’re that kind, R.V.”

“That kind of what?”

Snafu is no wordsmith, but he can usually trust Burgie to fit the pieces together. They have always had an understanding, after all, new marines together at the same time, Burgie somehow inoculated to the way other people look at Snafu sometimes, in a way that makes him want to act out and confirm the worse things about him that they believe to be true. “That kind that gets comfortable,” he explains.

It is one thing to love someone like a hard, gritty thing at the heart of you, something that wants to be soft but isn’t, something that takes the ordeal they were mired in and distills it down to the real sacrifice either would have made. Not, put me in the ground and say I died for my country. Rather: Put me in the ground and say my sacrifice was for you.

What else could possibly have mattered? What does a country mean to a man who might not see it again? He had spent much of the war focused instead on the bright knife-sharp blue of Burgie’s eyes, that steadiness, Burgie giving him shit (only and always when he deserved it). He had focused on, if you make it to the end, then what we did here matters.

So it is one thing to love a man like that, and it is quite another thing to be here, the ordeal over, the two of them cut suddenly loose from the moorings that had made them irreplaceable to each other. Intimacy is a crack in the door not quite wide enough to wiggle through. He can see how easy it must be for other people, but it’s out of his reach. “Maybe we’re that kind that aren’t supposed to get too comfortable. Get too comfortable, and then what?”

Burgie’s sigh is nearly imperceptible. “I’m not asking you for anything, Merriell. You can stay if you want.”

He’s not asking for anything, but he came here.

Snafu gives no answer. He sits there on the edge of the bed, unmoving, listening as Burgie’s breathing evens out. Eventually, he gets up and drifts out to the living room, collecting his cigarettes from the table and returning to the bedroom.

When he eases himself down onto his back next to him, Burgie doesn’t stir, curled up on his side facing away from him. Snafu takes in the shape of him in the dark, too close to make much of in the shadows, and then turns to look up instead at the ceiling.

He lights a cigarette.

At some point it will be morning, and then it will be the second day of 1947, and then then it will be spring, and then summer. Right now he can work out how to be until the end of this cigarette, and then after that, he will probably light another one. They will while away the small hours, two undistinguished souls, surrounded by evidence that the world exists but alone anyway – reminded that they are ephemeral, a transient part of the fabric of which everything is made.

And then everything else will come after.

#tpweek2023 #hbowardaily #the pacific #fanfiction #roaroftheninth