#billboard BREAKDOWN

[spectrumpulse]

#2024 #music #spectrum pulse #billboard BREAKDOWN #billboard hot 100 #billboard hot 100 april 27 2024 #future #metro boomin #d4vd #cody johnson #chris stapleton #ken carson #the weeknd #lay bankz #dua lipa #shaboozey #sabrina carpenter #Youtube

[greendayauthority]

#green day #billie joe armstrong #mike dirnt #tre cool #21st century breakdown era #american idiot musical #billboard #magazines #2010

[todoriin]

lose something, babe | rin can't leave you if you do it first.

cw: toxic relationship, avoidant gn!reader, angst w comfort, ambiguous ending, unhealthy portrayals of love, read with caution.

The rain hits your windshield like bullets.

Even with your wipers cranked up to the most powerful option, you still can’t see too clearly admist the chaos, streetlights and passing cars becoming nothing but droplets of light in the dark. It’s exceptionally lonely in your car, and cold, too.

Bringing your sweater-covered hands to your mouth, you breathe warmth into them, reaching for your phone. 

No messages from Rin, or any notifications, for that matter. You don’t know whether to be relieved or saddened that he didn’t care to reach out in this weather, not that it surprised you. The only thing Rin will have with him when he crawls over mountains and swims across seas is his pride, and it’s the one thing he vehemently defends, even if it’s against you. 

He makes you feel so small in comparison to him, and in a way, you are. Your name isn’t on billboards, you don’t have millions of followers on social media, and you don’t have the ego of a thousand suns behind you. At any moment, he could leave, and you know that, so you'll do it first.

Even if it means getting trapped in a thunderstorm; your least favourite weather to be stuck outside in.

Your phone rings with the sounds of a call, phone speaker turned up to max volume to break through the thunderous storm.

“Isagi?” You greet.

“Yeah? What’s up?” He answers from the other end.

“Am I interrupting anything?”

“No, you can talk.” 

“Can I crash at yours for a little? I’m… a bit far from home and you’re closer to my location.”

“You’re outside? In this weather? Does Rin know?”

“Don’t tell him.”

“Why not?” 

You’re silent, pondering whether to lie or not. However, your lack of an answer gave Isagi one regardless.

“It’s none of my business, I shouldn’t have pried. Come over, you shouldn’t be alone in a storm like this.” 

“Thank you, it means a lot.”

“No problem. Drive safe.”

“I will.”

It feels a little warmer when Isagi hangs up, his friendliness contrasting the ice that Rin likes to weaponise and throw against you.

The drive to his takes no longer than five minutes, and when you arrive, Isagi is already waiting for you, bundled in a warm hoodie and track pants.

Comfort is standing under the light and warmth of his front entrance, gratitude is being thankful to have a roof over your head. 

“Come in,” the athlete ushers you inside. 

“I’m sorry to barge in like this,” you murmur guiltily, quietly removing your shoes because to make sound was to exist, and you don’t want your presence to be a burden to him. You know that you're out of place here, and that his hospitality was one you don't deserve.

“No, please don’t apologise. It’s what friends do for each other.” 

It’s peaceful at his place. There’s a 90s romance playing on his widescreen TV, an opened bag of chips on his coffee table paired with a no sugar fizzy drink. He ushers around the attached kitchen to pour you a cup of water.

You don’t recognise the show, and you won’t pretend like you do. To make conversation, you ask him what he’s watching, and whether or not it’s good since you’re on the lookout for good shows to watch. It’s only when Isagi’s done with his explanation that your phone buzzes with a message, the notification even reaching his ears.

“Is that Rin?” The dark-haired questions.

“Yeah.”

rin: The storm just reached here, are you safe?

y/n: yeah

Three bubbles appear, and then disappear, and then reappear. “Did something happen between you two?” Isagi asks, sincere and careful with his words. 

“A small argument.”

“Are you sure? I don't know if it was... small.”

The evidence is plastered all over your face. Puffy eyes, dry tear marks, a red nose- all traces of the breakdown you had in the car that you tried to wipe away, but the most observant of people in the world see what others don’t want you to. Isagi’s good at that exactly.

"Small arguments don't cause people to drive so far from home."

You might cry again if he keeps looking at you so pitifully. You’re not miserable, you want to tell him, that you’re happy in your relationship with Rin even though sometimes his thorns pierce your most guarded of layers. There are more ups than downs with Rin, and you work through them together, you just need some time to breathe without him first because it’s easier to do so without him, that’s just how love and relationships should work, and when will this nightmare end?

“It was a small argument,” you pinch your nose bridge, eyes stinging with tears that threaten to fall.

Isagi hums in sympathy, not believing your words. That’s when your phone buzzes with another message. 

rin: Where are you?

you: safe im turning notifications off

Isagi invites you to talk, that if you need the space, he’s offering it to you. What starts off as a small rant blows up into something you can’t control, only spaced out by sighs and noises of exasperation as you go over the fucked up things you both said to each other tonight. 

By the time you’re done, there’s a series of loud bashes on Isagi’s door. Rin’s voice comes from the other side, fighting the downpour outside that still drums down, neither of them relenting.

“Don’t open it,” Isagi tells you, and you remain frozen in your spot. It’s hard to get up, hard to breathe, hard to think as he easily gets up and walks over to the entrance.

Is Rin angry at you for coming here? Has he come to drag you back home? To continue the argument from before you stormed out?

An infinity stretches between now and Isagi opening the door, but time comes crashing down when you hear the abrasiveness of Rin’s voice. He’s demanding for you, asking if Isagi did anything to harm you as if he isn’t the sole reason for your tears and sorrow tonight. As if he isn’t the one who hurt you the most, and here he is, making a ruckus in the home of a man who let you under his roof when you couldn’t go home. 

“Rin, leave Isagi alone,” you call out, finally finding the courage to stand.

It’s silent, but the footsteps come barrelling towards you and Rin turns the corner with a frantic look in his eyes. 

“Fuck, baby, are you okay?”

You were until he showed up. “I’m fine. How did you know I was here?”

“Your location, you’re always sharing it with me.”

“I- then what gave you the right to show up?” You almost choke on your anger, “I don’t want to see you, Rin.” 

His grip on the wall tightens, as if the floor beneath him would give out from any second and he’d be sent tumbling into the abyss of emotions he can’t recognise and refuses to recognise. Despite it all, he can’t stop looking at you, as if tearing his eyes away would cause you to vanish, and he’d be tripping after traces.

“I needed to know if you were safe,” your boyfriend breathes shakily, pushing himself off the wall and towards you. You back away and only stop when your feet hit the couch, and Rin cages you in easily, large hands wrapping around your wrists like chains. “Come home, babe.”

“I want space, Rin.”

“I’ll give you space, I’ll give you everything you need, just- come home,” he begs, leaning in to rest his foreheads against yours with closed eyes. 

It’s airy and desperate, the way he speaks. It is a siren’s song, and you shouldn’t listen, but oh, he is speaking so softly and kindly that it lures you in to a false sense of security. You almost close your eyes- almost, but in the moment it matters most, you push him away, allowing him to see your sorrowful state for the first time since he caused it.

Is love supposed to be as cruel as Itoshi Rin? Is it supposed to make you cry, fight, and thrash?

“Let go,” you try to tear your hands out of his, but he only retaliates by kissing your complaints away, swallowing them with his mouth so that your venom will settle in his stomach instead of his heart. 

He’s insistent and everywhere. One of his legs are slotted between yours, his hands are warm on your cheeks, and the clash of his nose and teeth against yours feel so raw and human that it drains all of your fight out of you. How do you run away from this?

Persistently and blindly, he places kisses along your face, never straying too far from your lips.

No matter how much you want to pull away, you fight for what you love, not against it, so you sink into him instead and let Rin run his course, helpless to his onslaught of affection.

You try not to cower away too much.

“I’m sorry,” Rin whispers. “Don’t be mad anymore, I’m sorry for being a dick, come home, I'll leave, I just need to know that you're safe.” 

He coaxes you into coming home with him, that you can come pick up your car tomorrow because he knows you hate driving in heavy rain. That he’ll pay for whatever parking fees you have accumulated. That you can talk- really talk it out, together at home.

The look Rin gives Isagi is less than friendly when you bid your farewells. You deem it compulsory to go out tomorrow to buy a gift for the poor soccer player, who has been an involuntary witness to the mess that is tonight. 

There is concern in Isagi’s eyes when you turn around to wave goodbye. 

#itoshi rin x reader #rin x reader #rin itoshi x reader #blue lock x reader #cw toxic relationship #todoriin

[thegeneticopera]

after seeing many misconceptions on the ages of the characters and also the general lack of knowledge on relevant key events, I thought I'd create a timeline!

A comprehensive breakdown of important dates in Repo! The Genetic Opera:

1993: Rotti Largo was born (July 14th)

2006: On April 5th, the first ever death for NOS (Neuro-Overstimulation Syndrome) was recorded. GeneCo was then founded later that month in Milan, Italy by Giuseppe Largo and Dr. Michael Whatley who eventually discovered a treatment using an experimental drug called Zydrate and genetic manipulation.

2011: Marni was born (No date)

2016: Nathan was born (No date)

2017: Blind Mag was born (July 5th)

2019: Luigi Largo was born (November 20th)

2024: Pavi Largo was born (September 29th)

2025: By this point, The Genetic Opera, an interactive TV show, was sponsored by GeneCo to promote designer organs and keep the public "status-conscious" in order to continue boosting profits.

2032: Carmela Largo/Amber Sweet was born (August 23rd)

2035: Graverobber was born (No date)

2036: Marni brings Mag to meet Rotti Largo

2039: Shilo Wallace was born (August 27th), Marni Wallace dies, Nathan becomes a repo man

2040: Mag's eye transplants (March 21st)

2048: Blind Mag's Corpus Crusade tour

2053: Tao of Mag, a charity concert event held for blindness

2056: Rotti signs his last will and testament, declaring Shilo as the sole heir of his estate (August 7th). The events of the film take place on November 7th - Nathan, Rotti, and Mag die. Shilo presumably goes missing. Amber takes over GeneCo at a later unspecified date.

Some common misconceptions cleared up by the timeline:

Mag did not receive her eyes at 19, the date listed on her repossession chart says otherwise

Marni and Mag have a relatively large age gap. At the time in which Marni brought Mag to meet Rotti, she was already 25, and Mag was only 19. I personally like to think that Marni was a singing mentor of some sort (since in Chase the Morning we see that Mag has a memory of Marni singing), and perhaps worked with disabled people and this is how they met!

The age difference between Shilo and Graves is only 4 years!

Mag and Luigi only have a two year age difference. Her being under GeneCo's thumb since she was 19 and Luigi was 17 is probably why they have a relationship.

On that topic, Nathan is only 3 years older than Luigi, there's no way him or Mag could have "baby sat" the Largos as children if they're all approximately the same age (excluding Amber, but considering Nathan had his own daughter to raise and was a repoman and Mag was a world class opera singer I still doubt that would be the case)

This one doesn't have a specific date, but I felt it should be added regardless: Pavi's face disfigurement seemingly happened very recent to events of Repo! We see several times within the film that there are posters and billboards of him with his original face, even in the pictures Rotti has he didn't have the scarring yet. The posters say that GeneCo offering face replacements will be happening in 2057. Pavi was the one in charge of that, and he was stealing faces prior to his scarring (as seen in the pictures). We also know from several sources, including Luigi himself, that Pavi's face happened because of a botched surgery. It's safe to assume this was because of the new face replacement campaign that was being offered, and it was within the last year or two before the events in the film.

#repo! the genetic opera #repo the genetic opera #r!tgo #rtgo #mod luigi #blind mag #luigi largo #pavi largo #amber sweet #shilo wallace #repo graverobber #nathan wallace #timeline

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

WARNINGS IN DESCRIPTION AND BELOW

WARNINGS: Epilepsy, Vertigo, Eyestrain, Abuse, Addiction, Breakdowns

Here is the description placed here for your convenience.

I wanted to try and do what “Poison” attempted to do in a better manner. For example with the billboard I wanted to show that for a passerby it just seems like “Oh, it’s Angel Dust promotion” but for Angel himself it comes off as an unpleasant reminder. Maybe not of things directly related to that photoshoot but maybe things that happened earlier in the day or after the photos were taken. I also wanted to try and encapsulate that feeling of “Am I just making this up? Did I really hate it that much?” that I struggle with when I think back on my own experiences. When you live in hell for like 70+ years I’d imagine that sort of thinking hits you really hard sometimes. I know if I was in an environment like that I’d probably end up wrongly gaslighting myself into thinking it’s normal. It’s an incredibly hard thing to place without making it seem like glorification so I truly hope I got the discomfort across properly.

I also wanted to show the uncomfortable feeling of having a breakdown while being incredibly dizzy which is why the echo-ish effect is in a lot of these scenes, especially for when Angel is drunk and angrily slamming his fist on the ground. Being on the floor is a very vulnerable position to a lot of people, myself included. With the blurry and double-vision I wanted to mimic a fleeting sobriety as things really start to kick in. Along with Angel pounding on the floor, I wanted it to look like the opposite of the lyrics accompanying it. “I don’t want to leave this moment ever” being paralleled with Angel slamming his fist was meant to give a feeling of wanting to break away from a situation. In actuality, I wanted a few of these lyrics to seem more like an inner voice rather than actual fact. Little to none of the lyrics with “I want __” and “you” are 100% genuine, and for the ones that “technically” are, like “I just wanna be whatever you want me to be.” are meant to be taken as “I will do what you tell me to because I don’t want you to hurt/yell at me.”

For posing I also tried my best to make sure it was obvious that I wasn’t showing things as graphically as the “Poison” video. There are still frames of Angel in violent situations which can be uncomfortable, but the extent of it is Angel being grabbed or yelled at. I am very aware things like this are incredibly sensitive topics and my coping process/experience will not translate the same for everyone, but I truly hope that I have portrayed these feelings in a tasteful manner.

As for the colour palette and style, I chose black because its both easy to work with and also captures the feeling of being alone in your mind well; and I chose neon pink because it is Angel Dust’s typical colour, but when there’s enough bright colours like that it can become disorienting, which is what I was looking for. I wanted this video to be as dizzying and brain-messy as possible while still being able to tell enough of whats going on for the viewer to understand.

I also thought I was clever for the XXX on the alcohol since its for explicit ratings as well as alcohol.

If you have any questions, thoughts, or criticisms, please don’t be afraid to mention them.

#hazbin hotel #angel dust #hazbin angel #hazbin angel dust #hazbin hotel rewrite #hazbin critical #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin spoilers #hazbin hotel review #hazbin art #angel hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel issues #hazbin hotel critique #Youtube #hazbin hotel spoilers

[idlerin]

nonsense — 18. this is the tactic

you wanted to pull out your hair. slap yourself once, no, twice. it was stupid, this was stupid, why did you still have a reaction when you were around him? you didn’t want to, you didn’t want it.

“hi.” he greeted you, hi? after acting like he didn’t know you and not giving you proper closure for years he says hi? okay, but you don’t blame him much for acting like he didn’t know you at work, you did the same with him, it would be far more awkward if you acknowledged each other. but you were still far too irritated at him, as much as you wanted to act like he didn’t affect you anymore. he did.

unfortunately.

it was no secret.

you stare at him with pursed lips, before getting in your car— well technically kenma’s car but psh details details— preferring not to answer. with a hand on the steering wheel you take a deep breath before starting the car and driving away, not looking back. it was easy to look at him from afar like he was just another poster or billboard, it was more difficult when he was actually in front of you and talking.

instead of driving to the dorms you drove all the way to kenma’s apartment.

you take out your phone once you’re in front of his building, you find his contact number and call him, he answers after a few rings, “hey ken, i’ll be sleeping over,” you state, the guard on duty recognizes the car and you roll down the windows, waving at them, they were already familiar with you, letting you go in. you came over too much.

“thanks for giving me a choice,” kenma drawled. you hear shuffling in the background, you assume he was on his computer.

“i’m already in your building,” you say as you go to kenma’s designated parking space, parking the sleek gray car next to his other cars of names you cannot possibly remember. you stretch as you get off, yawning, you walk all the way to kenma’s unit half asleep.

you knock, you didn’t have to wait for long before you were faced with kenma’s bored stare.

“are you going to have a breakdown?” he asks as you step inside.

“how was work [name]? have you eaten yet? no, it’s are you going to scream and cry [name]?” you plop on the couch.

“are you?” kenma prompts, sitting down next to you.

“yeah,” you bury your face in your hands. “I’ll have to see him again tomorrow morning and it’s fine but it’s also not and i just want to scream.”

it was tomorrow morning.

kenma had to drop you off work because you were really not in the mood after staring off into space on his couch for a while before falling asleep last evening.

“you’re fine,” you state while getting off the car in kenma’s clothes that you borrowed, just some sweats and a graphic t-shirt.

“i didn’t say i wasn’t,” kenma says, handing you your bag.

“i was talking to myself,” you rub your eye to get the leftover sleepiness out.

“okay weirdo, here's your lunch,” he hands you a canvas bag, “don’t forget you have class at like 1pm.”

“yes, mother,” you smile, taking your packed lunch, “really, thank you, ken, you’re the best.”

he looks away, you knew he was getting embarrassed, he still wasn’t used to admitting he was affectionate, “yeah whatever.”

you smile as he prepares to leave to go to the uni and as he does, you shout, “love you!”

you watch as he reaches a hand out to flip you off.

yeah, everything’s fine.

because you have a brilliant plan.

you weren’t just staring off into space yesterday evening for nothing. you were also devising a very smart (you think so), and very effective way of not minding he who shan't be named. And it doesn’t just include you ignoring him anymore!

you call this, the tactic.

the tactic includes three easy steps you need to follow, all according to your very reliable mind.

1. always stay positive

“good morning, akane, riseki!” you wave and greet your fellow interns once you walked in the lobby, they just got here too it seems. they wave at you back just as cheerily, akane was holding a sheet of paper that you look at with curiosity.

“morning, [name] babe, they were giving us new assignments,i’m stuck doing paperwork today,” akane waves the sheet of paper then points to something on it, “it’s no fair! riseki gets to assist the camera crew and watch all the fun stuff.” akane glares at riseki on the side who was shrugging while drinking his water.

“can i see mine?” you ask to reach for the piece of paper, akane hands it to you.

“you’re with the production assistant.. uhm goodluck, friend,” akane pats you on the shoulder, knowing the assistant has a very hectic and difficult job.

your smile doesn’t falter, it still seems fun after all!

you were going to die.

“oikawa-san, do you need anything else?” the production assistant, which you know of as satoko-san, asks the bane of your existence as you stand beside her with a complacent smile holding stacks of paper.

haha no you’re not.. remember number one…

“no thank you, satoko-san,” oikawa flashes his award winning smile at satoko-san which makes the older female smile as well. no satoko-san, don’t fall for his charm too! you resist the urge to make a face at him.

“ah, oikawa-san, may i introduce you to one of our interns? this is [name],” satoko-san gestures to you, you make a tiny, forced wave.

2. speak to him only when necessary.

you bow, “nice to meet you, oikawa-san, you’re a very talented actor, i’m so glad i get to meet you!” i hate you i hate you i hate you.

oikawa gives you an unchanging expression, but you notice the slight twitch of his brow which indicates that he was amused, you hate that you noticed it, “it’s nice to… meet you too [name]-san,” he plays along.

you felt a tick on your forehead.

satoko-san smiles at you before turning to oikawa once again, “now we have to go, oikawa-san, enjoy your breakfast and wait for your makeup artist to come in,” she gives him one final bow and you copy her actions, quickly following after her when she leaves.

3. treat him like the famous person he is, like a nobody to you now.

the long first half of your day has now come to an end, now you must succumb to centuries (hours) of agony (listening to lectures). you’ve already thanked satoko-san and that you’ll see her again on friday, you have come to really like satoko-san since she’s pretty laid back despite all the stress upon her shoulders.

you’ve already said goodbye to akane and riseki since they were working for the whole day. now, you were outside and thinking about whether to just commute or call one of your friends to pick you up, only recently realizing you have no ride.

“do you have class?”

you freeze at the voice who snuck up behind you. why was he talking to you? no, more importantly, why was he even approaching you?

your back stiffens as you fake smile at the actor, “ah yes i do, oikawa-san.”

“you do know that we don’t have to act like we don’t know each other,” he hums, hands in his pockets, he must not be in the current scene if he was out here bothering you.

you look around before mustering up a reply when realizing everybody else was busy inside, “what are you talking about? i don’t know you,” you smile, gritting your teeth. hah.. remember number one.. “sorry if i came off as disrespectful, oikawa-san, please let me off this time!”

“[name]... i…” oikawa finds it difficult to find the right words.

“i’m going to be late,” you don’t let him finish before you start walking away. yes you were avoiding confrontation, yes you said you would avoid avoidance but hey you said that you won’t be avoiding him, partially.

you swear to yourself you’ll do the stupid tactics better next time.

masterlist — previous | next

✦ fun facts !

more like common sense, but we’ve never had much of oikawa’s pov yet

nonsense ! an oikawa tooru social media au

synopsis. you were oikawa tooru’s #1 fan, until you became his #1 hater. you hated him so much you went viral on twitter (accidentally) and literally became known as “the oikawa tooru hater”, doesn’t help that he keeps fueling the fire by subtweeting you. everyone is all in for this new drama. what isn’t known to the public, is that this particular drama’s been on hold for three years (him being your ex and all).

a/n — hope im not going too fast..

taglist is open ! + @kawaii-angelanne @ceneridiankaa @kittycasie @rukia-uchiha-98 @polish-cereal @kellesvt @rockleeisbaeeee @kashxyou @imsoluvly @jjulliette @tooruchiiscribs @littlefreakjulia @gomjohs @qualitygiantshoepsychic @mellowknightcolorfarm @konzumeken @migosple @kuroogguk @sangwooooo @katsu-shi @wolffmaiden @rijhi @2baddies-1porsche @yeehawcity @aishkaaa @crueldinasty @rintarousprincess @yyuiz @epeec28 @llamakenma @penguinlovestowrite @princelingperfect @hearts4faey @yoonabeo @pantherhappy @julia-1901 @godsbiggestmenace @angel-luv-04 @noideawhothatis @bethbat @natsvmie @luna-mothii @lylovw

#haikyuu smau #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #oikawa tooru x reader #celebrity au #celebrity smau #actor au #model au #college au #haikyuu smau series #oikawa tooru x you #haikyuu oikawa tooru #exes to lovers #— nonsense. #— smaus. #haikyuu fluff #hq #oikawa tooru #haikyuu x you #hq smau

[gh0stbeeee]

New Death Note Swap AU:

L and Light are Super Stars while Misa is both the World's Greatest Detective and Kira.

HERE ME OUT.

L was first on the pop scene in 1999, made music under the name "L" and quickly dominated the UK top hits billboard, going international within a few years. Started humble, but with the support of Quilish, was able to get a record deal and it soared from there. Basically, instead of becoming a detective, he became a voice artist.

Light, on the other hand, started his music career after he had a breakdown due to, y'know. Extreme boredom, pressure, and depression because of his lifestyle. It led to him running away because he didn't want to watch his family be ashamed of him. But, with Light being Light, he was able to find work as a small time idol under the name "Kira." Of course, he became super popular, started writing songs in English to appeal to an overseas audience, and went international in 2004. (L is 22, Light is 18)

(BTW, very important, their music styles are based off of gwen stefani, lady gaga, and some nicki minaj, basically they make 2000s/early 2010s dance floor pop music)

L and Kira were household names by 2006, and by god. Did they not like eachother. It started when Light as a rising star was compared to and accused of copying L, but even though it was obvious to anyone with ears that Light's music was more manic than L's heavier beats, it sparked a dislike in Light that boiled over when they met eachother at a red carpet event where L called Kira trashy. They were both drunk and ended up fighting one another, which created a huge rivalry.

(Imagine two twinks in designer paris hilton-esque y2k fashion just beating the shit out of each other in front of the paparazzi, because that is their aesthetics in this AU)

For years, they sang shit to each other in their music, entire diss sections added for each other. On the internet, it became known as "the kira/L bits" in their respective songs.

Then, Shinikami appeared in 2006, and the detective Misa Misa was on the case.

And nothing changed for them for a few months, until Gelus saved them at a party in California from a crazy gunman. Then, when they were staying in the same room at a celebrity hospital, Rem drops Gelus's Death Note in front of them.

And they fight over it, touching it at the same time and sharing ownership because of it.

Rem is annoyed by them at first, but decides to protect the brats as Gelus's dying wish.

After they learn about the source of Shinikami's power's, they're pissed. Attention hasn't been on them because of this supernatural killer!

Oh, and uh, killing people is bad and whatever...

It's unacceptable!

Buying the shinigami eyes with the extra life-force gifted to them by Gelus (they each have 1 shinigami eye due to shared ownership of the death note), they set out undercover to go find Shi and take em down with a panty and stocking type dynamic!

Misa, who has smugly been playing against herself this whole time while Ryuk watched, has no idea what shit is about to hit the fan...

End game is LightxL and RemxMisa obviously hehe

(Detective Misa's story is the same as in the swap au, but she just had a Kira arc as well :))

#im fucking drawing this #my brain is big today #death note #l lawliet #light yagami #misa amane #rem #rem death note #ryuk #ryuk death note #lawlight #misa x rem #rem x misa #death note au #death note swap au #death note superstar au #ig hehe

[brandogenius]

omg could u write an headcanon of julien dating like an it girl? like maybe she’s an actress and super famous (maybe like tswift)??

pls pls pls and thank u

‼️RPF‼️

HC - julien x IT girl reader!

- everytime she sees you somewhere (a billboard or on tv) she’s taking a photo like “THATS MY GIRLFRIEND”

- comes to set when you are filming

- rockstar girlfriend vibes.

- she can be seen hanging out backstage when you’re playing just vibing to the music

- when it’s tour season she’s seen going on coffee runs in your merch

- when i say coffee runs i mean it. is on a mission to get coffee while you do soundcheck- side quests in different states

- you star in her music videos

- both of you rarely go out anymore together unless you both go undercover to not be recognised as fans.

- jb a little sad she can’t take you out to random coffee shops or museum dates anymore

- “we can just throw on a hat and glasses and hop for the best”

- jb is someone who would decline when you offer her free tickets to your shows “i want to experience what both of our fans feel trying to buy tickets”

- fighting ticketmaster for your tour dates “I DESERVE TO BE LET IN IM HER PARTNER”

- you end up saving julien the breakdown from staring at the “in the queue” menus on ticketmaster “baby you’re coming along with me anyway- stop stressing yourself out”

- sharing your bunks !!

- she’s given an ID badge to be around with ever since the first day of the tour security tried to shoo her away thinking she was a fan

- “just keep it with you for the entire tour. write in big bold letters IM THEIR GIRLFRIEND”

- julien sometimes likes to help out on the merch stand. consider you play stadiums, fans will find jb running one of the merch stalls.

- friendship bracelet trading. she prepares the night before. anyone who buys some merch, she takes out her little bag of bracelets and gives them one. putting the rest on her wrists to trade

- really loves to help out with the merch. it’s just a nice way to get to know the fans and help you out too

- having the boys as a special guest one night and the stadium goes crazy

- back to acting. promoting your new movie / tv series, jb is always behind the camera when you do interviews

- totally doesn’t get a bit jealous when you have a kissing scene.

- “just saying that should’ve been me”

#pom writes #julien baker x reader #julien baker x it girl reader #julien baker fanfic #julien baker one shot #julien baker au #julien baker angst #julien baker fluff #boygenius fanfic #boygenius au #boygenius one shot #boygenius x reader

[sam-loves-seb]

the fruity four but make it hollywood au (1/x)

actor!steve who’s newly famous for his leading role in last year’s hit romantic comedy, everybody and their mother is in love with the guy, his face is on every fucking billboard across the country, he’s charming and funny and god is he attractive and eddie is so fucking over it.

eddie munson--lead singer and guitarist for successful metal band corroded coffin--doesn’t even know steve harrington but he’s annoyed by him nonetheless. by what, he’s not really sure. his success? his popularity? how his face is literally everywhere eddie turns? who knows! eddie writes him off as another one hit wonder actor who will flop in his next feature or burn out in the next five years from doing too much too fast and not being able to handle the workload or the stardom

but then he meets steve at some 30 under 30 in hollywood party, and he's not at all how eddie expected. they become sort of friends that night, and in the following weeks eddie starts to learn more about hollywood's newest heartthrob

like how steve never really wanted to be an A-list actor, how he never saw himself in the romcom game at first. he learns how steve got his start as a stunt double on a couple of decent coming of age/teenage hijinks action adventure films, how he spent most of his twenties absolutely broke, living paycheck to paycheck and constantly worried between jobs

how steve met his best friend robin (a makeup artist) on the set of his first real gig, and how he pulls her in to any and all of his projects now that he’s a big name (not that she isn’t talented in her own right, she’s damn good at what she does, but they've always looked out for each other like this in the near decade they've known each other). she's been his "date" on more than one red carpet this year, and every couple of months steve has to publicly squash the dating rumors that start to circle them

how steve met his ex-girlfriend nancy wheeler (yes, that nancy wheeler, picture perfect girl-next-door older sister on one of the most famous sitcoms of the last decade) when she starred in a movie where steve was her co-lead’s stunt double, how they dated for about a year and then broke up but stayed friends, even when she went through her rebellious phase and broke out of her cookie cutter miss-teen-perfect shell and had a bit of a "wild child" phase before settling into the indie film scene for a while and fading into the background for a couple of years

how steve never wanted to be an actor--like, not even a little bit--but on this one gig he flirted a little too much with this one casting director that he really liked, and then the next thing he knows he’s being cast as a supporting part in a six part mini series that sort of blew up one summer before everyone immediately forgot about it when fall programming began airing

fast forward a year or so and he’s still doing stunt work--with name recognition comes a steadier stream of gigs, so he's happy with what he's doing, he likes stunt work--when something goes wrong and he gets a pretty bad concussion (just another in a long line of them) and his agent tells him it might be time to hang it up for good for the sake of his health

but he doesn’t know what else to do, he has a little money saved from the mini series but it’s not enough and he needs a new plan, and robin--sweet, sweet robin--tells him about this movie she’s about to start working on where the male lead had to back out last minute and the directors are scrambling and she may have slipped steve’s headshot to the casting director when she caught him having a breakdown in the back room of the studio...

...and that's how steve gets his big break, starring in a well written romcom with an unknown cast that does big numbers at the box office, launching all of them into stardom overnight

and eddie is fascinated by all of this because, well, he thought steve was for sure a nepotism baby or some shit because he’s pretty sure steve grew up with money (he did, but he left it behind to move to LA and pursuit his dreams) and eddie just assumed his dad was a big name producer or something and that’s how steve got into all of this

so the two of them start hanging out and they become fast friends, always photographed getting coffee together trying to avoid the paparazzi or showing up to hollywood's hottest parties together (in an attempt to get both of their agents off their backs and actually show their faces in public) and buzzfeed starts to write these articles about how they're the most unlikely of friends

it takes them six months to start dating.

it takes another year before the press catches wind of it, and by that time they're already living together in a three bedroom luxury apartment in LA with robin and nancy sharing a place right down the hall. steve bought a ring. it sits in robin's sock drawer so eddie won't find it before steve's ready to pop the question

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | ko-fi

#idk should i make a pt 2? #i might have more to say #this started as me rambling in texts to connor #and it spiraled #oops #steddie #fruity four #steddie fanfic #steddie hc #steddie au #my steddie au #my steddie hcs #my steddie posts #hollywood au #fruity four hollywood au #background ronance #trust me it's there i'll explain it in a later post #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #no plot just vibes #steve x eddie #eddie x steve #platonic stobin

[the-starlight-project]

i wonder how sonic is going to react to seeing his image being used to promote stuff (whether it be his show/games, or maybe weird cross promotion like ihop or something). I imagine its probably not going to be good, considering how he's already reacting to everything else. speaking of which, is he going to see a giant billboard when he exists onto the roof (since its a fire exit leading up, seems likely its roof access of some sort) showing his smiling face advertising "his" show, confirming that everything in his life has been a total lie? cause if so, that'd be a perfect way to cap of his existential breakdown and finally make all of his walls completely shatter (I may be too excited for sonic to have a mental breakdown, lol)

LMAO don't worry, I'm eager to get that part of the story too (even if it's going to take a while for him to properly explode).

Also, in regards to advertisement and actual billboards ... let me tell you that it doesn't go too well and he doesn't react to well (in his own sonic-y way)

#starlight au #project starlight #starlight ask tag! #mw replies

[defectivevillain]

ruffled feathers

pairing: Hawks x reader

reader’s pronouns: unspecified but masc-intended ;)

summary: You’re an ordinary barista at an ordinary cafe. One day, when you’re working, you find Hawks—the pro hero himself—standing in line. His eyes shift about anxiously. His shoulders are drawn up tight. There are several people near him, whispering under their breath. You take one look and, before you can think about what you’re doing, you’re walking over to him. 

warnings: claustrophobia/ anxiety triggered by crowds

You feel bad for pro heroes sometimes. 

Heroes are constantly swarmed with crowds of paparazzi whenever they’re in public. It doesn’t matter if they’re out of uniform and waiting in line for a coffee or fighting crime—they will be noticed and likely bothered by fans. To be fair, it’s what they signed up for. Even so, some people—some fans—are batshit crazy. Heroes have little to no privacy whatsoever. It’s hard for you to conceptualize just what that is like. Every waking moment of their day is spent in the spotlight. It must be exhausting.  

This thought rattles around in your mind every so often, but it’s far from your biggest concern or priority. You have a life, after all. You’re just trying to survive that first. You work at a hole-in-the-wall cafe in the city, a few blocks away from several hero agencies. Thankfully, the cafe is rarely busy. You’ll occasionally get a big rush of people early in the morning, but it’s not unmanageable. Sometimes, even heroes will visit after patrols or early in the morning. You try to treat them as normally as possible, refraining from gawking or staring like some people are wont to do. 

One sunny afternoon, a hero walks in. To your surprise, it’s Hawks—the number two hero. He’s stiff and tense in the face of hushed whispers and heavy looks. Your thoughts from before—concerning heroes and their lack of privacy—occur to you once more. 

These thoughts bounce around in your mind as you make some drinks behind the counter. You take a few haphazard glances at the hero. He looks nearly the same as he does on all the billboards and magazines. His wings are a beautiful crimson red. Hawks appears to be off duty, as he’s not wearing his costume. There’s something a bit too familiar to you in the shiftiness of his gaze, the way he seems a bit unsettled. You finish the drinks and set them off to the side before deciding to look over at him again. 

A few girls walk over and stand close to him. It’s evident from the tight set of his shoulders that he's immensely uncomfortable. You try to focus back on the coffee you’re supposed to be making, but you can hear the conversation between them. Hawks says something about being off duty and wanting some off time and the girls still try to get him to take a picture. 

Your hands are shaking—not from nerves, but from frustration. Can’t they just respect his boundaries? It’s not that damn hard. You take a deep breath and set the mug down on the counter, coming to a decision. You walk around the counter and head over to the hero. The girls turn to look at you and you cross your arms over your chest, manifesting a glare. It isn’t exactly hard to do. 

“Hey, give him some space, will you?” At that, Hawks turns to look at you. You pretend not to notice and turn to the girls, who are blushing from embarrassment. They apologize and walk away. You turn to the hero, who is staring at you with an expression far too close to awe and appreciation for your liking. “You alright?��� He blinks once, twice. Despite the reestablishment of boundaries, he doesn’t look any better off. 

“Yeah,” Hawks replies blankly. Despite the reassurance, he looks on the verge of a breakdown or panic attack. You try to think of a way to help him. An idea finally forming in your head, you spontaneously put a hand on his sleeve and pull him towards you.

“Here,” you tug him along lightly, making sure your grip is loose and lacking in pressure. The hero follows along pliantly, but there’s a confused expression on his face that suggests that he’s just following instinctually. You turn down the hall near the back and into the storage closet at your left. Once the both of you are inside, you close the door and sigh. 

”We should be safe in here for a bit,” you say, glancing through the window on the door for a moment before turning back to the pro hero. He’s breathing a little raspily and he’s staring at the ground with glassy eyes. “Hey, are you sure you’re alright?”

”Yeah, of course,” Hawks responds, his gaze unmoving. His arms are crossed over his chest as if he’s shielding himself. Despite the confidence in his voice, the hero doesn’t look to be alright. You mentally berate yourself for the stupid question. Of course he isn’t alright. You take in his twitching hands, restless wings, and blank expression for a moment before doing something spontaneous.

”It’s okay,” you whisper, nodding your head and taking the most minute of steps forward. You’re still several feet away from him and you extend an open palm.  “You’re safe here.” 

The hero looks down at your hand for the longest of moments. You immediately feel utterly stupid for making the movement. Just as you’re about to let your hand fall back to your side, however, Hawks takes it. His grip is tight, but not unbearably so. Hopefully, your touch is grounding him to reality a little bit. 

“You're okay,” you say again, squeezing the hero’s hand momentarily. An immeasurable amount of time later, his hand slips from yours and Hawks looks significantly calmer. He blinks at you, as if seeing you for the first time. You tilt your head to the side, amused when he mirrors the motion. His wings spread out a bit further and knock into a few of the jars spread across the shelves. You wince and he averts his eyes, something like a flush rising on his face. 

“Thanks,” Hawks murmurs, a small smile slipping onto his face for a fraction of a second. He addresses you by name, which kind of surprises you. For a long moment, the two of you simply stare at each other in the dimly lit storage closet. 

“Wait, how’d you know my name?” You realize aloud, crossing your arms over your chest and looking at him. The hero raises his eyebrows for a moment. 

“It’s on your name tag,” Hawks responds, pointing at your uniform. You roll your eyes at him. The confidence and smugness in his expression you initially notice fades in the blink of an eye. It’s as if the nonchalant attitude is all a performance. You look at him in disbelief. One moment, he was smirking, but now, his face is entirely blank and emotionless. 

“Hey, so...” the pro hero starts, looking ruffled. His wings are almost twitching, you notice. You stare at him in bewilderment and Hawks continues to speak, scratching the back of his neck in what must be a nervous tick. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t worry about it,” you interrupt, before he can continue apologizing needlessly. The hero visibly freezes, a confused expression on his face. His gaze is rather intense as he looks at you. It almost seems as if he’s searching for something. You take a deep breath.

“I get it. I mean, I don’t. But I do...? I don’t know. It must be crazy being a hero. They treat you like an object or something, not a real person. I just- It must be overwhelming. That’s why I brought you in here. 

“Anyway. I have to get back to work, but you can stay in here as long as you’d like.” You don’t bother to stay to see his reaction, instead leaving the room and closing the door behind you. Before long, you’ve returned to work and are entrenched in making drinks. 

After about twenty minutes or so, the crowd dies down and the cafe is back to a normal level. You look around, surprised to meet the watchful gaze of Hawks. He’d already been staring at you, evidently. He's sitting at a table tucked away in the corner of the space. You smile at the expression on his face—a far more peaceful one than before. You want to wave, but you don’t want to draw attention to him either. Frowning, you return your attention to the drinks you’re making. 

When you get the chance to look up again, moments later, Hawks is gone. 

author’s note: ohohohohohohhhhh.. this was very fun to write. I must say, as much as I like suave, confident hawks.... I love exploring his character in a more unapologetic and honest way. it may seem a bit out of character for him, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I don’t think it’s super realistic for him to bounce back to being cool, calm, and collected after stressful experiences. hence, he’s a bit frazzled throughout this particular snippet. 

I have PLENTY of ideas for future parts, so lmk if that’s something yall would want 🙏🙏

#defectivevillain #bnha x reader #bnha x male reader #hawks x gender neutral reader #hawks x male reader #male reader #x male reader #masc reader #gn reader #x gn reader

[spectrumpulse]

#2024 #music #spectrum pulse #billboard BREAKDOWN #billboard hot 100 #billboard hot 100 april 20 2024 #j. cole #illit #megan thee stallion #glorilla #benson boone #chappell roan #jelly roll #nate smith #bakar #summer walker #bas #central cee #Youtube

[sightofsea]

pure vibes for baby j acquisition fic. they've been divorced for like a year. they've both drunk called each other at least once but neither will admit to it. every time they drive past a religious billboard in the us the message changes to something else depending on who's driving. crowley in a baby bjorn. aziraphale being terrible with babies to the point of trying to feed the christ child caviar. aziraphale having a breakdown over the snack selection at the local circle k. making out in the parking lot of a barbecue pit restaurant. going in a bender when they inevitably lose the christ child in last vegas and getting shotgun married

[reasonsforhope]

Catherine Borowski has always had an active imagination. As a child, she dreamed that the car park on her north London council estate would be transformed into a garden. The reality was quite different. “No one had a car, so it was empty, grey and depressing,” she says. Now a sculptor and event producer, Borowski has made it her mission to fill unloved urban spaces with flowers – albeit virtual ones. 

She and her partner Lee Baker are the founders of Graphic Rewilding, a project to install huge nature-inspired artworks into the urban landscape. “Where real rewilding isn’t possible, our goal is to inject the colour and diversity of nature into rundown spaces, urging people to notice – and find joy in – the world around them,” says Baker.   

The pair believe that flowers possess serious powers, even when they’re not real. “We know that spending time in nature is good for us, but studies show that even pictures of plants have a positive effect on the mind,” says Baker. He cites research published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, which found that imagery of plants in hospital waiting rooms can help reduce feelings of stress in patients. 

Baker, a painter and music producer, has long understood the benefits of biophilic design. Having suffered a breakdown 10 years ago, he found that drawing flowers was the only way to soothe his buzzy brain. “I would set out to draw dystopian landscapes, representative of my state of mind, but I’d always end up drawing flowers, which uplifted me,” he says.

It was around this time that Baker met Borowski, joining her production company as creative director. The pair have collaborated ever since, launching Graphic Rewilding in 2021. Since then, they’ve installed floral murals at locations including Earl’s Court station, Lewes Castle and Westfield Shopping Centre in Shepherd’s Bush – all hand drawn by Baker. “We love galleries, but we focus on public art,” he says. “This way, our work is out there for everyone to enjoy.”

This year the pair have grand plans to create a series of stained glass pavilions (think greenhouses with colourful floral-themed panels), which they hope might find homes at Kew Gardens and the Eden Project. “The way light shines through the glass is magical,” says Borowski.  

Even so, they concede that art is no match for Mother Nature. “Some people have suggested that our project detracts from real rewilding efforts. But both can co-exist,” says Borowski. “Of course we want more green spaces.” adds Baker. “But we aren’t gardeners. We’re artists. In the absence of nature, we want to create inspiring spaces through art.”

Overall, the response has been hugely positive. “The joy that these artworks bring is palpable,” says Baker, highlighting an early project in Crawley, West Sussex. “Many people in the town were employed by Gatwick airport and Covid had taken its toll,” he recalls. In a bid to spread some joy, the duo painted brick walls, billboards, benches and even bins with their signature floral flair. “Peoples’ reactions were heartwarming. There were so many smiling faces,” he says.

Elsewhere, in Earl’s Court, the pair transformed “a ratty piece of tarmac” into a modern-day pleasure garden, which is now often filled with children dancing and doing cartwheels on the way home from school. “Putting art into a place that previously felt unloved feels like cultivating joy where there was none,” reflects Borowski. “If something like this had been installed on my estate when I was a kid, it would have been a dream come true.”

-via Positive.News, November 6, 2023

#art #public art #mural #muralart #street mural #muralpainting #england #rewiliding #solarpunk #evidence based #stained glass #glass art #activist art #good news #hope #positive psychology #london #uk #public housing

[quaranmine]

The Incandescence of a Dying Light (Chapter Eleven)

This is a story about grief and fire.

Chapter eleven: 13,460 words

<< Chapter Ten | Masterpost | Chapter Twelve >>

Hello everyone! I’m so sorry for the wait. But chapter 11 and 12 together add almost 20k words to this fic, and I actually ended up redrafting and restructuring parts of these chapters a lot. I wanted them to be as perfect as possible, because these chapters are it: the core of the plot paying off. The bad news is it’ll probably devastate you, the good news is that I will be releasing chapter 12 a few days after this so there won’t be a wait.

There's several content warnings that apply to this chapter. It's not obvious because this is the tumblr copy of this fic, but it's marked as CNTW on AO3. CWs: general mental health/breakdown, dissociation, vomiting, death, suicidal ideation (of the abstract kind), fires/burn/injury. I don't think it's too graphic but it is…unpleasant imo.

July 1989

Grian hangs up on Scar with a flick of a button. It’s a lot less dramatic than the satisfying clack of slamming a telephone receiver down into its base, but the effect is just as instant. With a press of a button, he silences the faint static of the radio and Scar’s worried voice forever, bathing him in nothing but the silence of the forest. 

There’s him, the wind in the leaves above him, and the way his hands tremble as he sets the handheld radio down. Nothing else. 

He’s unsteady. It’s a good thing he’s already sitting on the forest floor. He clamps a hand over his mouth and squeezes his eyes shut. He sits there for a moment, trying to regain control of his ragged breathing, as if he can by just breathing through his nose instead. It’s not working. His thoughts are racing. He breathes faster instead. 

He feels—

Broken. Betrayed. Bitter. Burning himself over and over with the same mistakes, pitfalls, and dangerous hopes as always. 

He feels like an idiot. 

He feels like an idiot, because why should he assume someone was in his corner? Why did he ever say anything to Scar? Why didn’t he shut up? Why did he trust that when Scar helped him, it was because Scar believed him? Why did he fall for it? 

He should have known better. He’s alone out here. It’s been like that since the beginning. It was kind of the point, actually. To come out here and be alone, because that’s the only way he’ll fix anything. He failed that goal by making friends with a stranger instead and now he’s suffering for it. It hurts too much.

But perhaps worse, perhaps the most insidious thought that keeps snaking around his mind is—

What if Scar is right? 

The thought is like a giant, flashing billboard in his mind. He can turn away from it, but he knows it’s behind him. He can close his eyes against it, but the lights still blink against his eyelids. When he opens his eyes, he sees the stark truth of it all in each miserable outline of leaves against the sky. There’s some sort of wave crashing over him, and he isn’t sure which way is up anymore. 

Everything is unavoidable, constantly present. Unpleasant. 

He tries to find his logic again, but the bright, clear throughline he’s been following since day one is frayed. It shouldn’t matter what Scar thinks, in the same way it doesn’t matter what Pearl or Jimmy or any of his other friends think. It shouldn’t matter that Mumbo hasn’t been back to collect his things, because this is not proof that anything happened to him. This is only proof that Mumbo got lost, and that’s something Grian has known since day one. There is nothing new here, except proof that Mumbo was in this location at some point. That should be good news, a new puzzle piece for him to worry over.  

It shouldn’t matter, but—

He feels very small in the forest suddenly. The trees around him have no stake in who lives and dies. They stand tall, a witness to the happenings of everything beneath them, but they cannot interfere. There are miles and miles of wilderness around Grian. There are mountain streams and creeks and gullies and canyons and caves that no human has seen for years. There is an almost infinite number of trees and flowers and grasses and shrubs and mammals and birds and bugs that populate this little world, and Grian is but one tiny speck in the midst of this. So is Mumbo. 

He can’t find meaning in this. He can’t dig up some special exception, some reason that Mumbo is uniquely special in this ecosystem and it will all solve itself happily because the very ground itself will vow to keep him alive. This is a place filled with life and death and cutting wind and sharp stones. This is a place where fires raze down forests, mountain lions kill straggling deer, and people go missing. 

These thoughts send him spiraling again. 

So instead he tries to bury the feeling again, with desperate shaky hands. Like a zombie apocalypse, it just won’t stay dead. He’s dizzy. He stands up suddenly, leaving his own pack on the ground next to Mumbo’s, and takes a staggering step backwards to gain some distance from it all.

He has to find the rest of Mumbo’s camp before he moves on.

He tells himself not to dwell on it, but every other thought is punctuated by it. He tells himself to stop freaking out, to keep going, to just move forward, to keep his feet on the ground, but his laser focus is burnt out. These are all the things he’s told himself before, and it worked then. Why won’t it work now? 

He finds Mumbo’s campsite easily through the trees, since it’s only a few hundred feet from where he left his food. The campsite is totally empty. Mumbo clearly packed everything up before he left to make sure he didn’t tempt any curious wildlife. 

It’s rather anticlimactic, really, the way nothing is left here. There is an open space on the ground begging to have a tent set up on it, and a ring of stones encircling the ashes of an old campfire. Maybe Mumbo made that fire. When he went camping in early June of last year there wouldn’t have been any fire restrictions in place yet, at least not until the disastrous Yellowstone fires started shortly afterward. Or maybe it’s just as likely that someone else made it, since this campsite has clearly been used by other people in the past. 

It’s a beautiful place, he realizes. For some reason the realization puts a lump in his throat. Mumbo chose this spot because it was beautiful, and it is beautiful. It is beautiful. 

They’re in an aspen grove, surrounded by stark white trunks and bright green leaves. The aspens always have the brightest green leaves, compared to the darker green of the spruce trees. Grian has learned their colors well after spending so long examining the landscape from his tower. He loves how the different types of trees form a patchwork of different colors on the slopes. These trees will glow even brighter in autumn, when they paint the hillside in gorgeous golden yellow. 

Scar told him once that aspen groves are actually all one tree. An aspen can reproduce by essentially cloning itself and sending up shoots to sprout as a new sapling. All of the clones share a root system, and their leaves will turn color at the same time. But to the person standing in the middle like Grian, it looks like an endless amount of trees instead of a single entity. It looks like eternity, just like the mountains and hills look like eternity from the high point of his lookout tower. 

Aspens also like to grow in recently burned areas. This one, though, hasn’t seen fire for some time. The colony is mature, and from Grian’s perspective the trees are uncountable. He’s surrounded by them, and he’s alone, but the trees aren’t alone. They’ve got all their twins next to them. But there’s nobody to stand next to him. There’s nobody here but him. 

He turns around, and stares at the pair of backpacks on the ground. He needs to figure out what to do with Mumbo’s pack. There isn’t any way he can carry it. He has his own weight to carry, and he has no room to add anything else. For the distances he needs to travel, he can’t afford to add more weight. He chokes a little on this realization. This is just another thing he’s going to have to leave behind. 

There’s a hierarchy of things, and finding Mumbo himself is more important than keeping his belongings. 

Finding Mumbo—

In any way. 

Grian said that once earlier in the summer, about another missing person. He hoped they were found, in any way. For some reason, he remembers saying this now. He remembers finding the poster for that missing person, and thinking so fiercely how much it hurt that nobody was still in his corner after all these years. He remembers the ache that settles in around lost causes, and the deep sadness in Scar’s voice when he talked about how long that man’s case had been unsolved. 

He’s becoming that person who gives up on lost causes. 

No! 

He shakes his head sharply, like it’s going to rattle the thoughts right out. He isn’t going to do that. He can’t do that. He isn’t like that. He isn’t giving up on Mumbo, because there is nothing to give up. This is just the test of faith at the eleventh hour. He needs to press further, because this is just the next step in his case. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. 

What evidence is there, really, of Mumbo being dead? A missing persons report? The endless months on the calendar? The harsh winters? The abandoned survival equipment? None of that is physical, tangible proof. None of that is, is—

None of that is a body. That means he needs to keep going. That means he needs to keep going, even if he hikes until his feet bleed. 

But…what evidence is there, really, of Mumbo still being alive? 

This thought is a cliff, and Grian is stumbling over the edge into the abyss. At the last moment he turns back, flinging out a hand and grasping whatever he can find to keep himself from falling. Going over the edge means opening up a world of possibilities Grian doesn’t know how to deal with, or even begin to approach. It violently resets every facet of his life into something completely different. Something that can’t, and won’t, ever be the same. He doesn’t know how to live with that, and so before the yawning maw of these thoughts can eat him, he shoves them away. 

He scrambles away from the edge into safety.

But once you know the edge is there, it never leaves. 

He has to go somewhere else. He must go forward. The thing about life is that everyone must always go forward. When Grian couldn’t get out of bed last year, he still woke up the next day even if he didn’t remember falling asleep. When he skipped work, the bills still arrived. When Grian took this job, every mile he walked was another piece of the mystery shaved down into something slightly more manageable. 

No matter if Grian is being dragged there or not, all he knows how to do is move forward. The only way to stop is to be dead. Did Mumbo stop? Did Mumbo stop going forward? 

Where would Mumbo have gone? What would his goal have been? 

He must have hiked further upward. The Pinnacles trail is named for its interesting rock formations, and this trail gets much more difficult the further one hikes. There is a pass at the top where it dips down the other side of the mountain and joins the old river trail that fur trappers used to use. Mumbo would have had to hike this trail instead of ride it. That's obviously why he left his bike. There’s too many steps and too many rocks to do anything else. 

So, up he goes. Before he leaves, he places Mumbo’s pack against the tree it was strung up in, upright like a crude headstone. It’s a brightly colored, out of place marker in this natural setting—something crafted and sewn by human hands, carried by human bodies, and left behind consciously by a human mind. 

Grian leaves. 

He barely thinks about where he puts his feet, even when the trail starts to get fainter beyond the pinnacles it is named for. He barely thinks about anything grounded in reality at all with the way his thoughts circle relentlessly. He stumbles a few times, missing steps, but it doesn’t matter. 

The Pinnacles trail is not actually just an out-and-back trail; it’s a spur trail that connects into a larger network of wilderness routes. It’s as well-traveled as a highway up until it reaches the main landmark, and after that it drops off to a route only marked by the occasional cairn. It is clear that most hikers turn around after reaching the stones. Grian knows Mumbo kept going, because Grian knows Mumbo. 

The top of the mountain is not far from here.  It seems like something that would have drawn Mumbo to keep going further. It’s some sort of tangible achievement, with a view to match. Since Mumbo was camped along the trail, it wouldn’t have taken him long to reach the pinnacles, unlike visitors who likely started much farther down by Jonesy Lake. Why stop and waste the rest of the day? 

Mumbo had taken this time off last year to get a break from his job. He used to come home from it looking hunted—chased down with too many demands for too little reward. He used to talk about quitting. He had wondered if it had been worth it to even take the job. He moved to another country for it, after all. 

Whether it was worth it or not wasn’t something Grian could answer for him. He’d just listen to Mumbo complain instead, and then maybe change the subject to something more fun, something distracting. It always bothered him to listen to Mumbo speak like that. 

The answer to the problem was more complicated than just quitting, though. Grian could stay in the country as long as he wanted thanks to his dual citizenship. He was essentially there at a whim, following Mumbo so that he didn’t have to move to another country alone. Mumbo, however, was on a working visa that required him to keep a job in order to legally stay. His job was sponsoring him, allowing him to apply for the visa in the first place. As such, it wasn’t as simple as merely quitting. 

Maybe he just wanted some sort of achievement to take back home, like climbing a mountain. Something he could think about when his boss tried to make him feel worthless. 

Grian keeps going, and carries the pain and the pointlessness of it all as heavily as his bag that bites into his collarbones. 

»»———-　　———-««

It isn’t until Grian is forced to stop, coughing and hacking so violently he feels like he may break his own ribs, that he even remembers Scar’s plaintive admonition. 

Keep your radio on. Switch to the main frequency. Be aware. Come back, please. Be safe.

This message was lost to him in the noise his brain filled with as soon as he tried to think about Mumbo’s fate, but the more he coughs the more his mind is brought sharply back into physical reality. He coughs painfully and keeps coughing, unable to stop at all, until finally he is gasping for breath and fumbling with the water bottle he keeps in the side pocket of his backpack. He drinks half of it down in large, greedy gulps. 

He’s above the treeline now. Somewhat alarmingly, he barely remembers getting here, but the pain in his throat has brought him squarely back into the unfortunate land of the living. He leans against a nearby rock, head spinning from the sudden clarity. 

It’s the smoke that is the problem. It seems everywhere now, even though earlier it was just the faintest scent on the wind now and then. Now it clings everywhere in his nose and mouth and throat and lungs. 

This also dawns on him with slow horror: He can’t see his tower from here. 

Given the elevation he’s at now, there shouldn’t be any reason that he can’t look across the horizon and find the tiny man-made angles of his former home. He’s far enough away that it will be extremely small, but it should still be visible to the trained eye. The entire point of a lookout, of course, is its visibility. He cannot see it, however. Even more worryingly, he can’t even properly see the mountain it sits on. 

Instead he sees nothing but haze. The air to the east is dense and orange. Before, the smoke was in a specific direction. Now, it seems like it’s everywhere. 

The air itself seems to have an orange cast to it right now. It feels like a dusty sunset, where the light is intensely copper, and thus Grian’s mind keeps trying to tell him it’s later in the day than it actually is. It’s somewhere around 6 PM in reality. In the middle of summer like this, the sun won’t set for another three hours. And still, the light is so exceptionally orange. 

Dread grows in the pit of his stomach as he tries to pick out where the fire is, and realizes he can’t. Alarm flares in him. This fire is not like the leisurely slow-burn of the Trout Fire last month. It is a behemoth of thick billowing smoke that seems like it has doubled since Grian first spotted it this morning. The intense smoke right now is what keeps Grian from seeing its edges.

How big is that thing, actually? And what direction is the wind blowing? 

The answer settles over him like the particulate matter he’s already inhaling: the wind is most likely blowing towards him. He smells the smoke now. He couldn’t smell it earlier. 

For good measure, he starts coughing again and hangs his head while he does, waiting for the fit to pass. When he finally stops, he digs a bandana from somewhere in the depths of his bag and ties it around his face. It’s a poor excuse for any sort of proper protection, but it limits the amount of smoke making its way into his lungs the best it can. At the absolute minimum, he has a placebo effect working for him. 

He pulls out his radio again, and stares at it for a moment, before caving and turning it on. He dials it into the main Forest frequency, at least the one for the Wapiti District. For some reason, it’s full of static. Is it the distance? He isn’t sure. He knows his tower serves as a repeater, but he doesn’t understand how it all works. This only adds to the mounting dread and he fiddles around, trying to make it sound stronger. He can pick out about half of what is being said, and tries to fill in every few words by context clues alone. Dispatch is clear. The ground crew is garbled. He’s only really getting one side of the picture, and not the side he needs the most. 

While he listens, he watches. 

Jonesy Lake is part of the Two Forks district, his district, and it’s to the west of his tower. The Thorofare district, Scar’s lookout, is north of his tower. This fire had started somewhere on the other side of Jonesy Lake, a little southwest. Pinnacles is further northwest, out of Grian’s district and into someone else’s. 

What is concerning is that this fire, the southwesterly fire, has grown. It is more of a northwesterly fire now. He can no longer see where his trail originated, and he should be able to see it given how high he is on the mountain. His view is unobstructed by trees or hills, and he still can’t see it. He started in a meadow far below, and now he’s at the top. He can’t see the meadow anymore. 

Grian falls back onto habit, and begins to watch the fire like he was trained. His heart beats in his chest like a hammer though—it is far more exhilarating and terrifying than it is from the safety of his tower. He’s going through the motions in his head, listening to reports and checking the wind speed the best he can and tallying the daylight hours remaining and the cardinal directions and running the mental calculations. He’s—

He’s scared. He’s utterly terrified. 

This is a new type of panic, distinct from the call of the abyss he felt earlier. That panic had been earth-shattering. This panic is primal, but it creeps over him slowly. 

The man from dispatch is directing a fire crew on the ground that must have either been flown in or hiked in after Grian did. He says the fire is moving deeper into the backcountry, away from Jonesy Lake. This is both a blessing and curse. A blessing, as it protects the main tourist attraction of the area and historic structures such as Grian’s lookout. A curse, because the deeper a fire is in the backcountry the more difficult and expensive it is to fight. 

It’s also a curse because Grian is on the wrong side of the fire. It’s between him and getting back out. It wasn’t like that earlier in the day, or maybe he wouldn’t have bothered to try to find Mumbo’s campsite after all. He’s not that crazy, he swears he isn’t. He would have waited another day, he would’ve figured something out. He wouldn’t have walked purposefully toward a wildfire. 

The wind has changed direction.

“I can’t go back the way I came,” he realizes, and it’s this spoken-out-loud sentence that finally snaps him into action. It’s like a bucket of ice water was dumped over his head.

He snatches up his bag. He can’t stay here and wait to figure it out. He needs to go now.

Immediately, he turns his back on the fire, looking at the steep final pitch he needs to scramble up in order to cross the mountain pass. If he can make it to the other side, he’ll be deeper in the backcountry and away from the fire. Maybe Mumbo went over there too at one point—further into the beyond that Grian can’t save him from. Lost in the hills of a different set of valleys. 

He takes one step forward, but this isn’t right. This isn’t right at all. He feels information come to him like an uneasy prickle on the back of his neck. It’s a barely uncovered thought, something he heard once while Scar was talking about the Trout Fire and filed away somewhere in his brain ever since. 

Wildfires move faster uphill than they do downhill. 

Like, insanely faster. Deadly faster. 

Scar had told him this, and then he’d made some sort of joke about the irony of their lookouts being perched on the highest hills in the area. He told Grian that sometimes lookouts needed to be evacuated from wildfires via helicopter, and that if a fire reached the base of either of their mountains they would be in imminent danger. Grian, of course, reacted to this much in the same way he did when thinking about lightning striking his tower or meeting a grizzly bear on the trail: fear. Scar laughed in that infuriating way he did sometimes, where danger didn’t really exist and risk seemed to be something he played with ease. 

The danger does exist. Grian’s run his allotment of risk-taking dry. Scar wasn’t laughing anymore about this on the radio earlier today. It’s not just his elevation at play, here. It’s also the wind blowing toward him. 

His heart pounds. 

He should go…down. That’s something people do in these situations. He should go down, and away, as far as he can and as fast as he can. 

He nearly makes a move to switch his radio back to the frequency he and Scar share, just so he can ask. He doesn’t though, stopping himself at the last second. His finger hovers over the button, but he doesn’t press it. It stings more than it should. Right, he’s—

Failing at finding Mumbo. An idiot. In danger. 

—going to have to go downhill. 

His brain snaps onto a new plan immediately: valleys. 

Water runs downhill. Every valley and canyon was carved by water. The snowmelt off these peaks form hundreds of ephemeral streams each spring, most of which flow downhill into a bigger stream. Those bigger streams often flow between the mountains and form the tributaries of the Yellowstone River. He’d crossed a stream earlier in the meadow, a nice little makeshift log bridge covering it. 

Water and fire don’t mix. If he goes downhill, he’ll probably find that stream at some point—nearly a sure bet in this type of topography. He’ll be safe if he goes down. He’ll be safer if he’s next to water. He needs to find water. 

Don’t they use streams as temporary fire lines? Could the fire cross that? He isn’t sure, but he’ll take the unknown over the certain danger he does know. 

Grian picks a direction away from the fire as far away as he can possibly angle himself, gives it a long final look, and nearly flees downhill. 

The route is, to put it lightly, rough. The trail was already steep, but at least it was cut into the mountainside and worn from many feet crossing it. At least it was marked, tried, and tested. The open slope of the mountain is more random under his feet, and every time he steps onto loose scree he nearly falls as it rolls under his boots. He does end up falling one or two times, and it’s more like his feet gently sliding out from under him. He doesn’t run, for fear of tripping, but he lightly hops down and over rocks and pushes past bushes. As he drops in elevation, the amount of vegetation surrounding him increases and the hiking gets more difficult. 

Soon he’s back into the forest, disoriented again. He can’t really see the fire anymore—all he knows is that he was going this way, this way, so he keeps going that way. The air is thick and burnt, heavy with haze. He knows he’s still going the right direction by picking whichever way the air is the clearest. Still, every time he has to go around an obstacle, there’s a fear in his chest that he won’t find his chosen direction again.

The mountain is getting steeper the further he goes down. It is not leveling out like he expected it to. There was a meadow at the bottom, wasn’t there? Or was that—was that more to the southeast? After scrambling down a short drop he stops again to catch his breath, wheezing through the bandana. He pulls out the topo map he took out of Mumbo’s file, tries to look at the lines to find the safest way down, and—oh. 

He doesn’t know where he is anymore. 

He knows what direction he went when he left the trail, and what direction the fire was in, but there’s no way for him to tell which little ripple and bump in the topography has his current location. He doesn’t know how far he has gone, or where on the slope he is. This is concerning, but truthfully it barely registers in his mind. He’s still smelling smoke. He can sort his location out afterwards if necessary. 

He puts the map back into his bag. Right, this isn’t good, but he just needs to keep going down. He needs to keep going down. He shouldn’t think about the smoke he can smell, or the lack of visibility, or his own stupidity. Does it feel hotter or is his mind playing tricks on him? Is he having a heart attack or is he just out of breath? Is he going to die?

Is he going to die? 

The way this question takes over his brain is almost fascinating. He hasn’t—he hasn’t focused so much on himself in a long time. He’s focused every ounce of energy he has into finding Mumbo. And Mumbo—Mumbo isn’t here, but he is, and is he going to die?

Does he mind?

No, of course he minds. The fire might as well be lit beneath his feet instead of further down the mountain with the way he’s running. 

Grian is so busy contemplating if he is going to die or not—and really, his brain shouldn’t be running these two scripts at once, he should be fully focused in the moment, but even now there’s that string of panicked thoughts—that he almost misses it when the ground goes from kind-of-steep to dangerously steep. He scrambles to a stop, disoriented, and finds himself looking over an edge. 

Calling it a cliff is generous. It’s not really a cliff, not in the “hundred foot straight drop” sense. He looks to the side, but there isn’t a clear way to avoid the drop by going down the side. It’s rocky, and he can probably climb his way down if he’s careful about it. 

He swings his legs out of over the drop with the intention of lowering himself a little slower to the next spot to put his feet. He lets the gravity take him, but the backpack he’s carrying is heavy and unwieldy enough to throw off his balance, so—

“Ah!” he shouts, and then lands sharply on his ankles. There’s a split-second of pain before he’s falling to the side, the weight on his back dragging him down when his feet don’t stick the landing. 

And he’s going down again, much faster than intended. 

He’s sliding now, taking dirt and gravel with him, because the rock he’d been intending to land on wasn’t really that stable of a spot to begin with, it was just one piece of a controlled descent, but he’s out of control now. And he can’t stop. 

The rocks tear at his clothes, his limbs, his backpack. 

He lands several feet down, stopped by the merciful branches of a prickly bush. 

He’s okay. He’s actually okay. His heart beats wildly, and he takes a moment to tip his neck back, resting his head on the top of the pack that still sits on his shoulders. He doesn’t even extract himself from the branches immediately. He just sits, and pants for a minute.

There’s another drop just in front of him, a lot further than the one he just fell from. A little less “second story window” and a little more “probable severe injury.”  He stares at it. He could’ve fallen down that. The more he starts to come down from the adrenaline rush, the more his ankle starts to throb. It doesn’t seem to be broken though, just sore. It’s just background noise to him at this point. 

He balls his hands into fists, fingernails cutting into his palms. This is just—this is just adding insult to injury, at this point. This is all stupid. He’s making stupid decisions, stupid lapses in judgement, and he doesn’t know how to stop.  

Can’t he do anything right? Can’t he just do this one, one thing? After all this time, all this effort?

Can’t he just find his best friend? Can’t he do this without damaging all his other relationships, with the people at home who care about his well being? Can’t he do this without upsetting Scar? Can’t he do this without hurting himself, or putting himself in danger, or hurting everyone else? Can’t it just stop?

He just wants it all to stop. 

Something picks him up off the ground, anyway. 

He dusts off his pants, a futile motion for a person who’s been hiking for a day and a half straight. He tests his weight on his ankle which, while definitely feeling weak, holds him. He takes stock of his new location: still somewhere on the side of this mountain, still lost. He dropped from a further height than planned, and the only thing that awaits him is more rock scrambling. Above him are rocks, and below him are…rocks, with maybe a tree or two. 

He thinks he spies some sort of ledge, or at least something he can walk laterally down, so he heads for it. Hopefully he’ll find a spot that’s easier to go down than the one he landed in. He doesn’t really have a choice to figure something out. 

There’s something off about this location though, and he doesn’t know what it is. He almost feels silly for noticing it, and writes it off as his head still spinning from the overwhelming amount of input he’s parsing. His heart still hasn’t calmed yet, and there’s no way he’s getting a good amount of oxygen for his exertion with all the smoke in the air.

He reaches the ledge, and realizes it is part of an overhang. At one point in time, this rock shelter weathered when the softer stone eroded faster than the harder layer of stone above it. Today, it’s just one more feature in the steep northeastern slope of the Pinnacles mountain. 

He looks to the left, and then—

That’s when he spies it. 

He’ll remember it, just like he remembers the day he told Mumbo it was a good idea to go on his trip alone. He’ll remember it, just like he remembers the day the ranger told him Mumbo never made it back to his car. He’ll remember it, just like he remembers when the search was finally suspended after three weeks. He’ll remember it, just like he remembers lying in bed in a daze, thinking about how deep the snow gets in Shoshone National Forest over the winter. 

He’ll remember it, just like he remembers the first time someone told him Mumbo was probably dead. 

There is a figure under the overhanging rock. It’s so random it almost seems comical, if it weren’t for the way Grian immediately feels sick. There’s a figure curled in this tiny spot of shelter on the mountainside, as far as one could possibly get away from the rain or sun or cold.

It is not another rock, or a tree branch, or an animal. It’s—it’s a person. Every contour and slightest variation in shape matches. Grian knows what a person is shaped like, he knows it deep in his DNA, where he’s programmed from the inside out into knowing what another human looks like. It’s instinctual. It’s something he was born with. 

This isn’t an animal, this is something much more important. This is a human. 

And just as instinctually, he also knows that this is no longer a human. It’s a corpse. What once was no longer is, and what lies before him on the stone is something he’s not meant to see. There is a primeval part of his brain, concerned with survival and avoiding danger—concerned with avoiding disease and all those other medieval problems—that tells him he should avoid this at all costs. It’s danger. It was human, but it’s not anymore. He should go, but he’s rooted to the ground. 

It’s—

He’s—

Time stops. The thick scent of smoke still hangs in the air, just as it has all evening, but the wind doesn’t blow in the treetops. The flames in the forest don’t lick any higher. Time folds in on itself until it’s this one, small moment, incapable of folding any further and bursting with unreleased potential energy as everything else holds still. Nothing else matters. There is nothing else but this and this and this, and this and this and this. 

This isn’t Mumbo. 

Mumbo doesn’t exist anymore, and the person Mumbo was before doesn’t exist anymore, because the person in front of him was alive once but is no longer, and the person in front of him is a corpse. It’s a thing, it’s an object, it’s disgusting, it’s—it isn’t Mumbo. Mumbo isn’t like this. Mumbo has endless potential. He’s smart. He’s nervous. He’s kind. He’s silly.

And yet—he knows it’s Mumbo. It is him. It cannot be anyone else. He knows it better than anything he has known before, and he recognizes it immediately even when Mumbo is unrecognizable. He knows Mumbo well enough that he can recognize him even when he isn’t himself anymore, even when he’s something else. 

Even when he’s dead. 

That’s all. It’s a horrifying, horrifying, finality. He’s dead. Two words, one sentence, everything. It’s not real, because it can’t be. It cannot be true, because if it is, then nothing else is true either.  

He’s dead and, and, this is it isn’t it? This is it. This is all there is and all there was this entire time. This is the breaking of everything he believes in, split down the middle, carving into his chest with a sharp knife, cracking open his ribs until there’s blood spattered on the floor. The world sort of spins in his purview, dizzying, and he drops to his knees without noticing or caring about it. 

He wants to touch him, but he can’t. He wants to hug him one last time, or hold him, and tell him it’s alright, but he can’t. He recoils at the sight and stops just short, still kneeling on the ground. It’s been months. It’s been—a year, because Grian knows what he’s always known, what he’s always ignored, what other people have told him over and over again, which is that Mumbo never had much of a chance anyway. He was dead long ago. He didn’t hang in there for a few months and succumb to the winter. He didn’t survive the winter and then fail to find the resources to live through the spring. 

He’s been dead this whole time. 

He’s been—

Grian has been so stupid. And yet, he’d rather be stupid than look at this now. He’d rather not know what he knows now. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to do anything. He doesn’t want to be here at all.

Mumbo might have already been dead when Grian walked the trails by Cloud Lake last summer. He might have already been dead by the time the helicopters were sent out. He was likely already dead by the time the searches were suspended, just like the incident commander had regretfully informed him. He was probably still alive when Grian reported him missing, though. 

He was dead this entire summer, and most of last summer. Grian’s stomach lurches.

It’s been months. It’s…obviously been months. The elements aren’t kind. The winters are harsh and the summer sun is cruel, even in the mild shelter this overhang offers. Rocks can’t protect from everything. The animals haven’t been kind, either. None of the elements know. The wilderness doesn’t know. They don’t know—they don’t know that this is Mumbo, Grian’s best friend, his everything. They just don’t see—

Grian sees. 

Bones. Insects. Desiccated flesh. Eye sockets. No hair, no face, stained ripped clothes, broken and gnawed bones—

He turns to the side and vomits, barely yanking the bandana off his head in time. He nearly chokes on it, spitting miserable bile and unable to take a breath, and thinks, I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to be gone, like he is, so that I don’t have to see this, or feel this, anymore. 

When he’s done he drops his head between his knees and screams. And with that, something breaks inside him, and he’s no longer kneeling but laying on his side, curled in the fetal position. It’s the same position Mumbo was in. His entire body trembles.

The air is thick with too many scents. There’s the ever-present smell of burning, and the smell of his vomit next to him, and the smell of other things he’s never wanted to put a name to. He gags again, and somewhere along the way that heave turns into a cry. 

He sobs. He sobs so hard his whole body shakes with the effort. He sobs so hard that he can’t breathe, and he starts to feel a little dizzy, until that primeval part of his brain concerned with survival takes over once again and drags the breath from his lungs. He wants to, though. He wants to cry so hard he actually passes out. He doesn’t want his brain to force him to take a breath when he doesn’t think he can. He wants to be anywhere but here. He wants to be gone. He wants to be dead.

He can’t live with this. 

He doesn’t want to live with this. 

There’s no point to it, is there?

There’s no point to anything, is there?

His sobs turn into coughing after a while, his throat and lungs dry from the large gulps of air he’s been taking in. It’s painful deep in his chest, but it eventually subsides leaving him exhausted. 

He lies still. His body still shakes. With every shallow inhale and exhale he trembles. His face feels waxy and foreign and his limbs like lead. He uncurls slightly. No part of his body feels like it’s attached to his mind anymore. 

There is him, and there is his body, and there is Mumbo, and none of them are in the same place right now. 

He watches the light move imperceptibly on the cave wall, as the sun slowly gets dragged back down the horizon and the shadows lengthen and bend. Darkness comes early to the mountain hollows, when the trees and the rocks and hills block the sun from view. It was late afternoon when he found Mumbo’s camp. It was early evening when he started back down the mountain for his own safety.

Does his safety matter anymore? Does he want it to matter? Does he even care? He doesn’t know what time it is anymore, but still the sun moves slowly along the walls. 

He watches the light get dragged away from him. 

Grian stays there for a period of time he can’t measure. The shadow drifts along the wall as the light fades more, but the light in the cave doesn't necessarily dim, it just grows more golden. He shuts his eyes against this. Orange might just be his least favorite color, the way it permeates everything from the setting sun to the hazy evening air. 

But—it’s Scar’s favorite color, isn’t it? 

He still has his radio. His pack might be discarded up top, but he has kept the radio in his pocket no matter what. Its yellow light was blinking earlier, back when he was at his towers this morning, hours ago, lifetimes ago. It’s still alive, however. It’s there, just a button press away. He could do it, but it’s like the radio doesn’t even belong to him anymore. 

He fumbles in his pocket with a hand that’s not his. He brings the radio up to his face, dirty and scraped and resting on the rocky cave floor. It’s a foreign object. Slowly, with a thumb that’s not his own, he depresses the side button and hears a voice that’s not his own rasp a single name. His lifeline. 

“Scar.”

The effect is immediate. “Grian!” the radio crackles, but Grian’s head is still funny and none of this is happening in the real world, so he loses most of the next sentence to the growing static in his mind. The connection is clear, but the words are not. “I was trying . . . ages ago, are . . . still . . . Do you . . .”

“Scar,” Grian says again, and this time the voice sounds more like his, and he says it because it’s all he can say. 

“Are you okay?” Scar says. “Please tell me you’re okay, please, you stopped responding hours ago and I—I’m worried, I’ve been keeping an eye on the situation. What’s going on?”

Grian drifts again. He stares at the delineation between light and shadow on the wall, and contemplates the smell of smoke. It’s more acrid than the smell of a normal campfire. It smells like plastic, which is crazy, because shouldn’t the only thing that’s burning be wood and leaves? It’s so strong it threatens to suffocate him. He wishes it would.  

Finally, he formulates something else. “He’s here,” he says, and his voice breaks. 

“Who’s here?” Scar says. 

“It’s Mumbo,” Grian says, with a strangled noise. “He’s here,” and the present tense sounds so wrong and right in his mouth, because he’s not really here but he should be. He’s not a person anymore and Grian is. He’s sitting right next to Grian, but Grian is here and he isn’t.

Nothing about this is fair. It shouldn’t have been like this. It shouldn’t have been like this. 

“Oh, Grian,” Scar says, and his voice is infinitely gentle. Grian could lose himself in that voice, let it cover him and sweep him away to a place where he doesn’t have to think about this anymore. His voice is a facsimile of reality, though. The real world hurts more. It doesn’t mean Grian wants to listen to him any less. 

Scar is still speaking. He somehow knows the things Grian doesn’t say. He knows the things that linger in the air and smoke between them. All he says is, “Oh no.”

Scar’s voice is—Scar’s voice is familiar in a way that breaks Grian all over again. It’s this little bit of sympathy, this person who might come even the slightest bit to understanding, that makes him feel like he can’t handle it anymore. What little he’s doing to compose himself in this situation needs to be handed over to Scar completely, because Scar knows. He can understand. 

Grian breaks at the sound of Scar’s voice. He starts crying again, as hard as before, and he depresses the button on his radio again, nearly delirious and unintelligible, and starts talking to Scar. 

“It’s not supposed to be like this, Scar,” he cries. “I was su-supposed to be here too. He asked me to go with him, and I said no, so he came out here alone, and it’s—it’s my fault. And I never found him in time, and it’s my fault, he’s dead now, and he’s been dead for months, and, and, this wasn’t supposed to happen!”

He doesn’t say You were right. He doesn’t say The search and rescue team was right. He doesn’t say Jimmy and Pearl were right. He doesn’t say any of that at all. He just cries. 

“Shh,” Scar says. “It’s okay, it’s okay. No, it isn’t. I would never lie to you, G. Nothing is okay. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I can’t take this, I can’t take this, I can’t take this,” Grian babbles. “I need to—I can’t—I can’t take this. This isn’t real.”

“Grian—” he doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to. He lets go of his radio’s button, turning control of the tragedy back over to Grian. 

“He was everything, Scar!” 

Grian feels like his chest is a black hole, sucking his body into itself and rending it apart into shattered pieces. There is nothing left. There is nothing left but this, and there is nothing more important than this. 

He’s silent for a long time, with tears slipping down his face and a body too tired to sob any longer. He’s silent for probably too long, because his radio incessantly crackles and warbles, but the words Scar is speaking don’t make sense any longer. It might as well be white noise, like logs burning in a fire on a cozy evening. Grian’s checked out. 

He hears nothing but the distant rush in his ears.

He’s too tired to engage, so he turns the radio off and stares at the light moving across the wall again. In the time he’s spoken to Scar, the shadow has made it to the next crack in the stone. For a while there is nothing but him and the fading light, and the corpse just outside his peripheral. 

There’s him, his best friend, that thick artificially golden light, and the smell of vomit-inducing failure. 

He deserves to die here next to Mumbo. It’s how it should have been, if he’d just gone with Mumbo like he was supposed to have, instead of working instead. Whatever issue Mumbo experienced, Grian should have experienced it alongside him. This is all his fault. It’s all his fault, and he deserves nothing more than to spend the rest of his days right here. 

How could he be so selfish? How could he let his best friend in the world go? How could he know his best friend so little that he couldn’t even find him when he was in trouble? How could he do anything right now except stay?

The air in the overhang is stuffy, and Grian wraps a hand around his nose and mouth like it will help. He expected there to be more of a smell—but that implies he suspected Mumbo’s death at all. Maybe the smoke has wrapped itself around the smell and overpowered it. Or maybe he’s always smelled this, the pungent odor of his failure. The scent of a future he refused to acknowledge. It’s hard work having to breathe when the air is hot and acrid. 

He wants to vomit again, but he doesn’t. Instead his mouth runs wet with extra saliva, a mild comfort to his raw throat, if he ignores the way his stomach twists. 

Eventually that silence rings in his pounding head just a little too loudly, and Grian flicks the radio on again, because he selfishly needs more. He needs that voice again with its promises of something being okay in the end. After all this time, he still can’t accept that this is completely his fault and that he deserves whatever punishment happens. He needs more, like he needs air to breathe. 

 “Scar,” he says again, and it's a plea. It is a life preserver thrown into the dark, inhospitable waters. 

Scar is miles away. He’s always been miles away. He has never been, and will never be, a comforting presence to wrap his arms around Grian. But his voice is familiar and warm. His voice is a constant Grian hasn’t had for months until he took this job. His voice is a constant that might save Grian right now, if he’s lucky enough. 

“Thank god, Grian, when I saw you turned off your radio—are you okay—” the rest of Scar’s sentence dissolves into static once more. 

“No,” he whispers. 

“I know,” Scar says kindly. “That was a silly question, huh? Grian, I’m going to help you. Do you know where you are? I can send someone out. They’ll come help you, and, and—Mumbo.”

“Okay,” he says. Help sounds good. He’s so tired of being alone. 

“Are you hurt?” Scar asks. 

Grian’s ankle smarts from where he fell on it earlier, right before finding Mumbo. It’s the first time he’s even noticed the pain, because the moment he saw Mumbo everything else on his mind was wiped clean. He doesn’t think it’s important, though, so he responds, “No.”

“Where are you?” Scar asks. 

“I don’t know.”

Scar prods gently. “You found Mumbo’s bag and campsite up on Pinnacles.” He says the sentence precisely, and doesn’t mention the way Grian fought with him. He also does not say I told you so, or criticize Grian’s decision. “Are you still on Pinnacles?”

“No,” he says. “No, I left the trail. I went—”

Grian tries to think, but his brain is sieve, leaking information out onto the floor. It’s as dense and unrelenting as the tan smoke blanketing the sky. He remembers being told he lost his job, but that seems so pointless now. He remembers finding Mumbo’s campsite, but he doesn’t remember how high he hiked on the trail beyond it. He remembers the searing jolt of fear he felt when he saw the wildfire’s new positions, but he doesn’t remember a single step he took off trail. 

It’s all a blur of rushing and blankness until he’s here. He can’t think of anything else, because there isn’t anything else. There is nothing else to define about the day, except for the presence lying on the cold stone next to him. This is the only thing Grian will remember about today, and he wishes it was all blank too. There is nothing and there will be nothing else for the end of time. 

Grian can’t think.

The radio crackles again. “Grian, are you still with me?”

“Mm,” he says, because full words are hard. 

“Do you remember the way you came?”

“I was running,” he says. “I went…away. I went down. It’s really steep.”

Scar’s voice is suddenly much more serious. “Grian, what made you leave the trail? Why were you running?”

“The fire,” he responds. “I saw the fire. I went downhill. I wanted to get to the water.”

The Nitwit fire, named for the idiots who started it, is rapidly growing in area and risk. The memory of it trickles eerily back into Grian’s brain. When he’d been closer to the top of the mountain and realized the danger he was in, he’d been absolutely terrified. He knew he needed to move or it would kill him. Depending on the environmental factors, outrunning a fire is impossible.

He doesn’t think he can move anymore, though. Fleeing doesn’t sound so appealing, not when there’s nothing left to run towards. He turns over this thought with detachedness. It’s over now, so what’s the point?

“The fire? Are you in a safe spot right now?” Scar demands. “How close was it when you saw it?”

Grian doesn’t really process this question. Scar is being insistent, urgent, but nothing seems that way to him anymore. He didn’t see the fire at all, just its smoke. He doesn’t care about a safe spot. This is the only spot he needs to be in. He doesn’t respond. 

At his silence, Scar continues. “I’m guessing you went northwest,” he says. “That’s the opposite direction of the fire and there’s a creek in the valley on that side.” There is a rustle of paper on the other end, like he’s pulled out a map. “Does that sound right? I need to figure out exactly where you are.”

Scar asks a lot of questions.

“Grian,” he says sharply, almost rudely. “Grian, come on. Talk to me.” 

Where is he? That doesn’t matter. 

The internal compass in his brain isn’t working particularly hard right now, since every time he tries to stretch his consciousness beyond this overhang he gets snapped right back. Mumbo is just lying there, slightly out of his peripheral vision. He can’t even turn his head without catching a glimpse of it, and it feels like dying every time. How could he think of anything else?

Mumbo is just lying there. 

“Scar,” he says, ignoring everything he was just asked. “Scar, I don’t get it. What is he doing here? Why did he come here? Why is he here? Why isn’t it me? Why wasn’t I here? I think he fell Scar, I think he fell just like I did. I think he hurt himself and couldn’t get back to his camp. And I wasn’t even there to help him.” 

“You fell?” Scar urges, like all his attention is zapped on that word. “You didn’t say that, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says automatically. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Kind of hard not to, G.”

“I’m fine,” he repeats. “I’m just—Scar, I can’t go anywhere! I can’t leave him. What if I never find it again? What if this is it? I don’t want to go anywhere else, I’m staying here! Next to him!”

“But you need to go,” Scar says. “Come on, I need to know where you are. Help me figure it out.”

“No, no, no, no,” Grian says. “I can’t leave. I—if I go, what if I can’t come back? What if I can’t find it? What if I lose this place, and he’s really gone forever?”

“I won’t let that happen! Hey, if I figure out where you are, then I’ll know where he is too. We can tell the rangers, and, and the search and rescue people or whatever. They’ll find him again. It’s okay. You did your part. You found him. I wanna do mine.”

“I can’t leave him again,” Grian says. “I never should have in the first place.”

“I don’t think you ever left him,” Scar says softly. “He always had someone who believed in him this whole time. Some people don’t have that.”

“I can’t leave.”

“I need you to.”

“I don’t care.”

“But I do.”

And it’s difficult to keep arguing the matter when there’s someone in his ear who won’t take no for an answer. Someone who is desperately pleading with him over his own life and his safety. Maybe Grian is to Scar what Mumbo is to Grian. Maybe Grian can’t inflict that type of pain on someone else, even if he’s perfectly willing to inflict it on himself. Maybe if he does this he’ll be guilty of hurting one less person. 

Grian screws his eyes shut. “It hurts,” he says finally. “It feels like everything hurts.”

“I know,” Scar says and—

Grian knows that he does know. 

Somehow, at that point he makes a decision. His brain still feels slightly untethered and foggy. He isn’t himself anymore, not really. He doesn’t care about that person, the one who was a best friend and an architect and then a fire lookout, anymore. He doesn’t care about that person’s outcome. But he does care about not causing any more harm than he already has, even if it means keeping that person alive. 

For once more, and the beginning many more once mores in his life, he rallies himself to go forward again. 

“I don’t know where I am,” he says to Scar. “Or how close the fire is. I think I was going northwest, but…I got lost. I don’t know if I always went that direction, because I had to move around things sometimes. I just went down.”

He sits up. It’s a monumental effort, and his head spins again like the world is tipping instead of becoming right-side up. He has his back to Mumbo and it sends prickles down his neck.  

“It’s really steep here,” he continues. “Like a cliff below me, maybe. If I fall I would get really hurt. It’s rocky above me too but not as bad. I’m sort of in the middle of it. I was—I was looking for a safer way to get down when I…” He trails off. He can’t finish that sentence. 

“Okay,” Scar says. “That’s helpful. I can—I can probably find that a little easier, it’ll show up on the topo map that there is a big change in elevation. Can you see any other landmarks?”

“No,” he murmurs. “Too smoky.” 

“How smoky?” Scar asks, and that edge is back in his voice. It’s worry.

He swallows. “Worse than earlier.”

Scar doesn’t respond for a long time. Grian regards his radio while he waits. Its light is red now. It blinks. That’s not good. He has no idea how long it’ll last before it dies. This reality still seems sort of distant though, like he can’t quite muster up the energy to care about it. Oh look, there’s a little blinking light. Oh look, there’s a fire. Oh look, his best friend is dead. Oh look, he might die too. It’s all just…pointless. There is so much potential danger in his situation and he’s numb to all of it. 

He just watches the little light blink over and over again. He feels like a statue. 

Grian doesn’t really like the silence Scar has left him, nor does he really understand why. Except it’s not really silence right now, is it? He tilts his head. There’s been sound this entire time. What he assumed was just the blood rushing in his ears is actually a very real roar. 

He pieces together what it is the moment Scar gets back. 

“I found it!” Scar cries suddenly, the radio exploding into noise again. “I found you, on the map I mean, which I guess means I also found…him. But I know where you’re at! I think!”

And Grian simply says, “I think I hear the fire.”

“What?”

“They’re loud, aren’t they?” he says. “Wildfires.”

“What—yes, they are, they’re super loud,” Scar says something that gets a little lost in interference, “you need to go now.”

Despite making the decision to go, Grian somehow feels rushed about it, like he said he was ready but he wasn’t actually ready. He stands up, and nearly stumbles back down again. When he goes to put a hand out to support him, it’s shaking. “Which way?” he whispers into the radio.

“Anywhere,” Scar says. “Um, down. I’m gonna—” he sounds distant like he’s leaning away from the radio’s mic again, and it occurs to Grian that this is what has been happening with his voice the whole time now. “—gonna try to see if I can relay your information to the hot shot crew. Like, uh, a nava—navi—whatever they’re called.”

Grian realizes, abruptly, that he has to leave his pack as well. There isn’t any way he can move quickly while carrying it, it’s far too heavy. He holds his radio, and looks out into the smoky air and trees. Then, pulled back by forces unseen, he looks back behind him. This place they’re located, it isn’t even a cave. It’s hardly an overhang, too. It wouldn’t have been a comfortable place to shelter. 

He wants to say that he can’t leave again, because his boots might as well be filled with lead. But they’ve already had that argument, haven’t they? He made his decision to leave without even looking at Mumbo. It’s the least he could do to spare him the courtesy of looking at him now. 

He lays his bag down closer to him. Then he pulls out his jacket and, carefully, gently, reverently, the closest he’s gotten to Mumbo so far, lays it over his head. 

With tears slipping down his face, he steps back into the harsh warm light.

»»———-　　———-««

Grian fights his way down the hillside, and fight really does feel like the applicable word. 

The first thing he has to do is a fair bit of boulder scrambling, since there was not, in fact, a good way down the cliff. It’s a maneuver that would have been greatly impeded by his backpack, so it’s a good thing he left it behind. Grian’s apathy actually does him favors for speed: he hops onto a rock he isn’t sure will hold him before testing it. He uses worse handholds in favor of spending more time finding safe ones. He doesn’t falter even when he slips; he leans into it instead. He’s down after only a few minutes, leaning on a tree, wheezing in the smoke, wishing he hadn’t abandoned his water bottle along with everything else. 

The noise continues to rage around him. 

Scar tells him to keep going down. Scar tells him that there is a temporary fire line at Sulphur Creek and that the hot shot crew is focused on manually digging a line on the other side of the valley. Scar tells him that they’re aware he’s trying to evacuate. Scar tells him it will be okay, because a lot of people are working on this now. Grian isn’t even sure where Sulphur Creek is. It’s not like he can see anything, after all. 

“Run,” he says, “I’ll tell you where to go.”

Grian looks back up to where Mumbo is, and realizes he can’t see him either. It all blends into the rocks and bushes and trees. How was anyone supposed to have ever spotted him? His heart clenches at this, stuttering for just a moment. None of those helicopters would have been able to see him. People on the ground could barely see him. He’s being swallowed into nature again, a final resting place to entomb him. 

Then, he glances up to the left and realizes that for the first time all day, and in fact all summer, he can see actual flames. 

They’re weirdly beautiful. He watches them lick up around the trees, greedily eating up the brush. He fell down there earlier, and now everything he touched is being steadily converted to ash. He sees the flames in the tops of the trees forming bright halos. There’s little, if any, separation from the fire on the ground and the fire in the sky. Active crown fires are the most dangerous, he remembers. No wonder it’s so loud. How much combustion energy is happening right now, as these trees ignite?

He tells Scar. 

Scar tells him in no uncertain terms that he needs to be going the opposite direction as fast as he can right about now. He urges him to run. 

Grian obeys, but the heat and sound licks at his heels anyway. 

How fast do wildfires run? How many miles can they cover in an hour? How many meters high can the flames go?  The units mix in his head as he tries to work it out, but the calculations are mostly a background narration to the sound of his boots crunching gravel. Scar wants him to run, so he will. 

He stays ahead of the fire, or at least he thinks he does, until suddenly a spark is thrown onto a tree in front of him. The needles, dry from weeks without rain, catch instantly. And Grian just…stops in his tracks, and watches it ignite. He watches the baby flame grow, greedily sucking in oxygen and new found fuel. 

He thought he’d been going opposite the wind. 

He can’t help but wonder if Mumbo felt like this. If he felt this same sudden door slamming shut in front of him, trapping him somewhere he had no hope of escaping by himself. If he had, when he’d found himself stuck and lost, had this realization that he wasn’t going to be able to make it out. The thought resonates through his body, aching in every part. It’s the fear. It’s the hopelessness. 

Grian can’t outrun this anymore. 

He goes to call Scar on the radio, to ask him for any advice or even to just talk to him again, but when he presses the button on the radio it does nothing. He presses it, again and again and again, but there’s nothing. No lights. No transmissions. 

It’s dead, because he didn’t bother to charge it since before he left for the District Ranger’s Station, three days ago. 

“Idiot,” he mutters to himself, “idiot, idiot, idiot!” He hits the button again and again and again, as if that’ll somehow work. Then, he hits the entire radio hard into his other hand, hard, as if he’ll shake and abuse the thing into submission, but it still doesn’t work. The screen is black. The lights don’t turn on. 

The fire is even louder now, and even hotter. It’s howling. He’s losing his sense of direction. The trees and rocks around him are only shadowy figures in the smoke. 

And maybe, in his deepest thoughts and miseries, Grian doesn’t want to live. Maybe, if you asked him, he’d say that he was fine with this, because there was nothing left for him here. There is no Mumbo, so there is no point. He’s okay with that—at least, he’d say he was okay with it if there were anyone around in the world to ask. But there’s Scar listening in on a dead radio miles away, who can’t even know if he’s safe right now, or why he isn’t responding anymore. And there’s something deep within Grian that isn’t his dark thoughts, something written into his very cells, that pushes him to look for shelter anyway. 

Because he’s scared. Because this is a truly terrible way to die. 

The only things around him are rocks and more trees. He goes for the rocks. Instinctively, they feel like a more solid option: surely something that’s already millions of years old can survive another million years.  

He finds a spot beneath a boulder, and wedges himself as close as possible between it and the ground. It lies between the fire and him, but his eyes already burn so badly it might as well already be here. He pulls his shirt up so that it covers his nose and mouth, but that does little, so he tucks his head in near the ground, near the rock, like it’ll be protected in this tiny space he’s carved out of nothing. He inhales dirt anyway. 

He screws his eyes shut, as if it’ll help, and waits. 

It isn’t hard to tell when it’s here. 

Everything feels like eternity. When he tries to breathe, there’s nothing there—no air at all to fill his lungs. Instead, everything is hot and stuffy, suffocating, astringent, wringing all the oxygen from the air. His chest burns like he’s being squeezed. It makes his head feel funny, his thoughts slipping right out before he can register them. The heat is overwhelming. It’s like being baked in an oven. It’s like the first time he got a sunburn as a child, his mother wringing her hands in dismay and guilt over his face. It’s like he’s being strangled and peeled and stripped and decimated at once.

He wonders if maybe the concept of hell was just written up by someone who’d walked through fire themselves.

It feels like it’s been hours, but eventually the white-hot heat fades into something warm and passive. It can’t have been hours, because he’s still here and feeling all of it. Grian twitches his foot, and then tries to curl in on himself afterward. The movement seems to trigger something in his body, something that says I’m not dead yet so now it’s your problem, and he begins to cough again, violent motions that shake every part of his being. He coughs for a while, choking on the ash and lack of air, before finally controlling it enough to breathe. His nose and throat feel raw. 

He opens an eye. It immediately waters in the presence of thick smoke and heat, so he closes it again, the feeling burning hot beneath his lid. His cheeks are sticky with the feeling of tears from his watering eyes that dried just as quickly as they were produced. His teeth are gritty, even though he never even remembers opening his mouth. He runs a tongue over them, tasting the char. Every minute change of facial expression causes the grit to rub against his teeth. 

A few minutes later, he stirs again, this time pushing himself up off the ground in one motion until he is sitting up—he’s not a quitter like that. 

The world spins for a moment, and then swings back into place. 

He opens his eyes again, looks at his hands. They’re red, but not badly burned. Of course, how would he know that? How would he be able to tell? He clenches them once, twice, three times, and his fingers stiffly and painfully move to obey him. The rock next to him is singed and blackened. The vegetation immediately next to him is sparse, but burned completely through. The pine needles are gone. The area is thick with dark smoke. Somewhere ahead of him, the air glows orange still, a beaming, glowing beacon in the gathering darkness of evening. 

He’s…

Still here. 

On the other side of the fire. 

Alive. 

Alone.

His brain works sluggishly, taking several moments to take in the information around him before it computes. Then, without any ceremony, he bursts into ugly tears. Or, there would be tears, if tears were falling from his eyes. He’s so dehydrated now that nothing is being produced anymore. Instead he just sits there, sobs wracking his body, taking deep gulping breaths of dry, dry air that keep his already sore throat rubbed raw. He cries until he’s too tired to do it anymore, and everything is just rough and painful.

Some people would rather be brave. They’d rather face each challenge head on, and not let it get to them. They’d rather never cry in order to save face. 

But Grian? Grian just wants it all to stop. Who does he have to be brave for? He wants to not have to deal with this anymore. He wants to be safe. He wants his best friend to be safe. He wants his best friend to be alive. He wants someone, a real person, to place a hand on his shoulder and tell him he’s okay, it’ll be alright. It won’t be alright, of course, but he wants to be told that. It’ll make things, at least, a little easier. 

He’s tired of it being hard. He’s so, so, tired of it being hard.

Grian stands finally. It takes a lot of energy to do so, and there’s a faint feeling of pain that radiates through his body like a high fever, coming in waves every time he moves. His fingers smart as they brush the fabric of his pants, the barest hint of a touch sending needles along his nerves. At least he’s got nerves. 

The forest is gray. 

The greenness is gone, and what has settled in its wake is white and gray ash. There’s a still, grim curtain that hangs over everything. There is no sound except the fire’s roar—not even a single bird. Grian pushes the dirt with his boot a little, and everything crumbles and flakes apart into fine dust. A glowing ember is uncovered beneath it. It looks vibrant against the pale death of all his other surroundings. 

The bottom of his feet feel hot. These boots will be trashed by the time he gets back. He’s sure their rubber soles are all messed up now. He’ll have to buy a new pair. 

The real meaning of the thought hits him just a moment after. When he gets back. Like he’s already accepted that it’s part of his plan, that he’s going to leave here. And then what? He doesn’t really know but…he’s going to have to get back. He will. 

He heads toward the fire line. 

He isn’t sure where it is, but the fire being in front of him now affords him the time to make mistakes. Down is still the best direction to head, so he goes that way, kicking up fine ash and dust as he goes. The trees are blackened husks, rising into the sky. Some of them still have leaves at the top, but some were less fortunate. All the ground brush has been burned away. 

The forest looks like a wasteland. He knows it’ll be green again in a year. 

It doesn’t actually take that long for him to walk into an unburned area. He wonders if this is a mosaic, like Scar taught him all those weeks ago, but he doesn’t find another burned area just beyond this. It’s full of green trees. He can hear the distant roar of the fire, but now he can hear birds again, too. 

It’s twilight when he sees movement in the forest ahead of him, and he squints to identify it. He steps a little closer and—yeah, it’s a person. It’s another person. It’s actually another person out here, dressed in eye-shocking yellow. 

He raises a hand, and starts to call out to them, but he doesn’t make any sound. His throat is completely hoarse. He’s not sure he could make a sound if he tried. 

The person spots him anyway. The next few events sort of blur in his memory. The other man shouts something to his colleagues, whom Grian hadn’t seen in the trees around him. They call someone over to him. They say something to Grian. He doesn’t respond. They ask if he’s Grian, and he nods. They tell him that someone on the radio had said to be on the lookout for him. They give him water. They assess his injuries. 

Grian thinks he’s fine, but they seem to think otherwise. 

He’s still standing. His heart is still beating. That’s more than he can say of Mumbo. The thought of it makes him want to crumple and curl into a tiny ball, but he stays standing still. As long he’s upright, he’s okay.  

“Martinez is going to walk you out,” one of them says and Grian nods. Martinez is a guy with a kind-looking face and broad shoulders. He doesn’t even seem phased by the idea of saving a stupid civilian who got caught out in all this mess. He looks like it’d be his pleasure to help Grian out. 

This plan does not, for some reason, happen. Maybe it’s because Grian stumbles when they try to make him walk again, his ankle that he fell on hours earlier finally deciding to revolt. Maybe it’s his utter exhaustion. Maybe it’s because one of the wildland firefighters is especially concerned about Grian’s breathing, and the way his chest sounds funny. Maybe it’s his cough. Maybe it’s because he can barely speak to them, only hoarsely answering their simple questions. 

Night falls fully while they talk it over. The sky is dark, no stars, all blocked out from smoke, but a glow still sits on the horizon. Most of the other members of the hotshot crew have moved on, continuing their jobs in the noble quest to keep the fire from spreading to this side of the valley. 

Grian hears the radio crackle at various intervals, but none of the voices talking are Scar’s. At first he strains to try to hear him, trying to listen with his entire body. He hears nothing but strangers. His own radio is heavy in his pocket. It’s just a paperweight right now. 

The firefighters are probably giving information about him to someone else back at the dispatch office. They’re probably asking for some outside evaluation on what his condition is, or an order on what to do next. He zones out while they speak. He finds it difficult to care about anything else that happens to him now, least of all to him. 

Instead, two of them—Martinez included—walk him to a meadow, and tell him that one of the helicopters is going to pick him up and take him back to town. 

“It’s the fastest way to get you back, that’s all,” Martinez says brightly. He keeps trying to cheer Grian up, which is sweet of him, but failing. “Don’t worry about it, it’ll be fun!”

“I think we have different definitions of fun,” Grian rasps. 

He doesn’t tell them about Mumbo. Right now it feels like his own little burden to carry, an anchor suspended around his neck for him and him alone to drag. He’ll have to tell someone, as soon as he’s back in town. He’s sure that Scar has already told someone. But right now, at this moment, he carries the weight by himself. Alone. One last private moment with it all, waiting in the dark meadow with two strangers. 

He closes his eyes.

He thinks about the first time he and Mumbo met, when they were not even preteens yet. Grian was a new kid in a new school and a new town, and mad at everything in his life. Mumbo was the partner his teacher assigned for him to work on a project with. But more importantly, Mumbo was kind.

He thinks about evenings spent at Mumbo’s house, or the times they spent roaming around the town doing errands for Grian’s mom. He thinks about the time they both got detention because Mumbo—not Grian!—had a terrible plan to prank one of their teachers. He thinks about the miserable two years that they went to different colleges that led into a purposeful coordination of which university they would study at. He thinks about the emptiness of their apartment the week they arrived in Colorado, and how they ate takeout together while sitting on the boxes. 

The helicopter arrives some indeterminate time later, and Grian blinks his eyes back open to rushing wind chapping his face and lips. The noise is loud, but it’s not as loud as the fire was. Nothing will ever be greater than that sound. He’ll never forget that sound. 

The firefighters bid him farewell. He only knows one of their names, but he waves back. He’s taken into the helicopter. 

As it takes off, he looks through the window straight past a woman who is talking to him, but he isn’t able to see the forest like he anticipated. This forest, this wilderness he’s spent half a summer living in, isn’t visible. Instead the total darkness of night wipes it into a blank slate of inky blackness, punctuated only by the Nitwit Fire in the distance. No other lights. 

Miles and miles of nothing, and Mumbo. 

<< Chapter Ten | Masterpost | Chapter Twelve >>

#grian #goodtimeswithscar #hermitcraft fanfic #hermitcraft #hermitcraft au #quara fanfic #hc_firewatch_au #ummmmm. 0.0 dont kill me

[bakugotrashpanda]

Two Truths and a Lie

Chapter 2: Life Goes On

Bakugou x Fem!Reader

◈ Pro Hero, Fake Engagement ◈ Word Count: 1433

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You’re suffering and it shows.

The following three weeks of your life are an absolute nightmare. The quality of sleep you get goes from fantastic to subpar. Sleeping on the couch to avoid the bedroom and the inevitable breakdown you’d have is the only logical choice to keep going.

And your suffering isn’t contained to your apartment. Your way to work is lined with advertisements and billboards of Midoriya. No matter where you go, you can’t avoid seeing him.

It doesn’t help that you don’t have anything to fill your time with. Staying home binge watching shows and crying into your meals only lasted a day or so. Typing, deleting, and retyping social media posts could only get you so far. And sitting in the darkness letting the soul crushing reality that you are in fact alone is your least favorite of the ways you spent your evenings. As a result, your work performance began to suffer.

It’s just a normal day of typing up your interrogation notes and staring off into space when an email pops up at your computer from your boss marked ‘urgent’. Your blood pressure and anxiety skyrocket.

Rubbing your hands on your pants, you knock on your boss’ door. She looks up from her keyboard and waves you in

“You wanted to see me?” you ask.

“Close the door.”

Never a good way to start a meeting. Sitting in the leather chair across from her, your boss takes off her glasses and rubs her temple.

She pulls out a stack of files. Complaints. “We need to talk about your performance.”

“What, are you going to fire me?” The sarcastic jab leaves your mouth before you can stop it.

Snapping her glasses back into place, she opens the top folder and glances at the report. “No, but you’ll be pulled from active duty if you don’t get your shit together. Showing up late, being abnormally callous during interrogations-”

You can’t hold back a snort. “Oh, so now you don’t like the way I talk to people?” Your job is to grill people – get information needed by any means necessary. “Should I just not speak ever again?”

“Insubordination.” Your boss sighs and takes off her glasses. A flash of irritation makes you want to reach over her desk and snap the glasses in half… Maybe she does have a point. She pinches the bridge of her nose, her brows scrunched together. “I get going through a breakup. I really do. But you need to leave the baggage at the door.”

There’s a pause as her words sink in. They simmer inside you, a low burning heat in your chest that slowly bubbles into anger. She gets going through a breakup?

Does she get being surrounded by nothing and yet everything at the same time? Does she get only being able to use half of what used to be a home? Does she understand that you have absolutely nothing going for you?

So yeah, you’re a little rough around the edges right now. And your fuse is a little short. And you probably should talk to someone about it, but you’re not going to. Not right now.

A breath you didn’t know you’re holding hisses out your nose. Message received; don’t be a dick at work.

“If that’s all,” you stand abruptly and wait for her to nod like she usually does to let you leave.

Except she doesn’t. “I’m recommending taking a week off. A soft reset may be just what you need.”

Icy dread shoots through your veins and extinguishes your anger. “Don’t,” you say softly. Your boss raises an eyebrow. Your knees weaken and you sink back into the chair. “Don’t make me take a week off. All I’m surrounded by in my apartment are memories I want to forget. Don’t make me spend a week by myself in that hellhole.” What the hell would you do with a week of probation?

Hard amber eyes soften slightly. Her head softly tilts side to side as if weighing the pros and cons of keeping you around. Sweat prickles your back the whole time. “One more day,” she decides. “I better not have a single complaint cross my desk, is that clear.”

“Crystal,” you murmur and stand. Your boss nods once and returns to her paperwork, the stack of complaints disappearing somewhere into the abyss of her desk again.

Christ. You didn’t think the break up was affecting you that much. Plastering on a smile, you sarcastically tell yourself to ‘think positive’ and head back onto the floor.

Back at your cubicle you look at your schedule. One more interrogation and then you could in theory clock off early. It should be easy, just another robbery where one of the guys got caught. He’s not spilling where the rest of his team is or where they stored the cash.

That’s where you come in – sweet talking your way into whatever information you want. If you lay your quirk on thick, you could have him wrapped around your little finger spouting off his personal banking details in a matter of minutes. And you’ll do everything by the book.

But, you might as well see what you’re working with before marching straight into the interrogation room. You head to the back room and see a coworker standing in the dark. The two-way mirror shows the criminal with a quirk inhibiting bracelet slapped on his wrist.

“I take it he’s not speaking?” you murmur.

“No.” Your coworker hides a smile by taking a sip of water. “But I know you’ll get the truth from him, Verity.” You watch the man fidget at the table and tug at the cuff – as if that would take it off or stop the terrifying feeling of having your quirk taken away from you. 

Gotcha right where I want you.

“I’ll get you a location,” you say confidently and leave. This’ll be a piece of cake.

“You always do.”

And you did. It took you a minute of talking to loosen the guy up before he responded, but once he did, he was yours. You charmed the information right out of him without over doing your quirk and made sure there would be nothing but glowing reports all around. Probation would be a nonissue for you.

A cold evening breeze kisses your cheeks as you leave the office. Averting your gaze from the giant screen advertising a new underwear brand with your ex as the model, you let your feet take you to your new favorite watering hole on autopilot.

The bar is a little hole in the wall favored by up-and-coming heroes and sidekicks. It’s less about schmoozing and elbow rubbing, and more about unwinding from the day with a cold one with friends. Plus the cook makes some of the best food for cheap. The few tables in the place aren’t filled yet, but give it an hour or so and you would find four or five people all squeezing together to fit at each.

You take your place at the bar – your new ‘usual’ spot and find a beer sliding your way.

“I’m gonna need something stronger than this,” you smile wryly at the bartender and take a sip from the bottle.

“How strong are you talking?” the bartender asks.

“Dealer’s choice,” you hum. Ten seconds later a shot glass filled with clear liquid is plopped in front of you.

“Bottoms up,” you salute before downing the shot. The beer you chase it with tastes like water in comparison. You nearly choke on it though when your eyes glance over at the TV in the corner.

“Too strong for ya?” the bartender asks, but you ignore him. The ticker tape headline sears your brain.

“Pro-Hero Deku and Uravity announce their relationship on social media.” Your drink turns to sludge in your mouth. Pro-Hero Deku fucking what? The alcohol burns in your mouth and the whole way down. Your stomach churns – from the news or the drink, you’re unsure.

Deku and Uravity. Two friends from highschool who decided to take their friendship to the next level. Lovers reunited at long last.

There’s no mention of you or the fact that Midoriya got out of a relationship almost a month ago down to the day in the report. All you can see are candid pictures of the two of them in public, looking all cute and shit. It makes you want to vomit. Or throw your bottle. Or both.

“Well if he’s fucking dating her, then I’m engaged to Dynamight,” you mutter to yourself. “Can I get a few more shots down here?”

Truth: You can’t escape your ex.

Truth: It hurts to know he moved on so quickly.

Lie: You can recall everything that happened at the bar.

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