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much-obliged-timothy · 10 months

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June of Doom #30

The Old Guard - #30 - Buried Alive

“I’m just saying, he should’ve been back by now,” Joe said, pacing by the door of the safehouse. “I’m going to look for him. I don’t like this.”

Andy caught his arm. “Joe-”

“Quynh is free and she’s angry, Andy!” he said. “What if she…what if she found him?”

“She wouldn’t hurt Nicky,” Andy said firmly.

“No, the old Quynh wouldn’t hurt Nicky. The Quynh who’s been suffering underwater for hundreds of years? We don’t know her. You heard Nile; she’s free and she’s furious.” Joe yanked the door open. “He shouldn’t have gone out on his own. I knew it was a bad idea.”

Nile ran into the room so fast that she tripped over the coffee table and Joe just barely managed to catch her before she fell. She was covered in cold sweat, her eyes wide and frantic, hair messy from sleep.

“She has him,” she said, gripping Joe’s arms. “Oh, god, she has him.”

The color drained from Joe’s face. “Where?”

“I don’t know. She tricked him.” Nile pulled away and put her face in her hands. “Pretended to run to him for help. He was comforting her when she killed him.”

“How did she know where he-” Joe froze. Andy subtly pushed Nile behind herself. “Fuck! Nile! You drove us to the safehouse! You led her right to him!”

“Stop,” Andy snapped. “Nile is new to this. You and I should’ve been the ones to know better, Joe. Focus. We can use Nile to track Quynh, just like Quynh used her to track us.”

Andy fought down the feelings rising rapidly inside of her. Quynh, her Quynh, back after all these years.

But what was she going to do with Nicky? Surely she’d never hurt Nicky. The two had been close friends. Quynh had always admired Nicky’s kindness and bravery. Nicky didn’t laugh often, but Quynh got him to laugh almost as much as Joe sometimes.

She must be using Nicky to lure Andy in. Andy was the one she was angry at, surely. It was ultimately Andy who had failed her, not Nicky or Joe.

“She’ll trade him for me,” Andy said, because she couldn’t have Joe losing his composure now. “That has to be her plan. What else would she want with Nicky? She’s probably been waiting for one of us to be alone, and Nicky just happened to be the first one.”

“Where did she take him? What did you see?” Joe demanded, ignoring Andy.

But Nile just shook her head. “She had him in the back of a van. She wasn’t driving and there were no windows. She…she had a gun pointed at him. He was dead and bound.” She looked at Andy with that mix of desperation and fierce resolve that made her such a good addition to the team. “We have to find him, Andy. That rage she feels isn’t just directed at you. She blames all of you, even Nicky.”

“Nile, call Copley. We’ll go see what we can find. And I am calling Booker. He can’t be on his own out there right now, not if she’s going after us,” Andy said, kicking the door all the way open and grabbing the car keys.

Joe and Nile hurried to follow her out. She didn’t need to ask to know they were armed.

She was heartbroken over Quynh’s fate. But it was no fault of Nicky’s, and Andy would do anything to get him back safely and take the consequences herself.

***

Booker met up with them the next day, drunk enough that they smelled the booze on him before he even entered the safehouse. Joe had roughly taken him to sober up, yelling at Booker about how they all needed to be ready for anything and on guard. Booker did not drink again.

Copley tried to track down Quynh. When he showed no signs of success, Booker joined in the search. They debated moving safehouses, but decided to stay in case Quynh sent a ransom or anything of the sort for Nicky. They set up a strict watch rotation and ensured everyone was armed at all times.

It was three days before the letter arrived.

Andy unfolded it. Joe reached for it, but Andy held it away as her eyes scanned over the words and her heart shriveled in her chest at them.

“Andy!” Joe said, pleading. “What does it say?”

She swallowed down bile and read it aloud, her voice monotonous despite the horror threatening to choke her. “You will not find Nicolo. I thought of the perfect way to hurt all three of you at once. You and Yusuf will suffer, knowing you can never save him. He will suffer as I did. I can think of no more perfect revenge than this. He will cry out for Yusuf with every dying breath, and Yusuf will sob for him with every passing minute, and you will live with the knowledge that you were responsible to protect them both. As you read this, Nicolo is dying yet another death, buried alive deep beneath the earth, waiting for help that will not come just as I did. Every time you think of his agony, know you caused it by abandoning me.”

Joe sat down heavily. Nile put a hand over her mouth. Booker pushed a shaking hand through his hair.

“No,” Joe whispered. “She wouldn’t. Not Nicolo. Not him.”

“Get up,” Nile whispered. “Joe, get up. He needs us. I don’t give a fuck what she says. We’re going to find him. We’re going to save Nicky. Get up!”

Andy felt numb inside. Nicky, her kind, caring Nicky, was buried alive somewhere right now, waiting for them to find him and save him. Trusting them to save him. Just like Quynh.

She felt like she was spiraling. This couldn’t be happening again. Not again.

“Andy!” Nile shook her and ripped the letter from her hands, crumpling it up and tossing it off to the side. “Andy, he needs us. We cannot fall to pieces right now.”

“She could have buried him anywhere,” Booker said, shaking his head helplessly. “Where do we even start?”

“Nicolo,” Joe whispered, and began muttering to himself, clasping his hands together and pressing his face to them.

Nile placed a firm, comforting hand on his back. “Andy, think. You knew her best. Where would she take him?”

Andy honestly had no idea. She thought and thought, but they had traveled so many places that she couldn’t pinpoint one. The world had changed too much in the centuries that Quynh had been trapped in the ocean; she had no idea what Quynh would do or where she would go.

Nile waited only another moment before nodding to herself. “Then we focus on surveillance videos. We try to find the van they took Nicky in. It’s better than sitting around doing nothing.”

“Andy,” Joe said, picking his head up. Tears were already dragging tracks down his cheeks. “We can’t fail him. He’s alone. He must be so scared.”

And who wouldn’t be, buried alive by your own friend, knowing you would never truly die? Forced to suffocate in the cold, lonely dark again and again for eternity.

So they got to work, even if the weight of the letter threatened to drag them all down into despair. They searched and searched, abandoning sleep whenever possible to keep going. Nile and Booker took over care for Joe, who would not eat or sleep or stop for a moment unless forced to. Andy was barely keeping herself together, but she managed to cling to her fractured pieces for the sake of her team.

Nine days after getting the letter, they found him.

It was Booker who got the idea when he saw Nile on her phone with Copley. Nicky had been carrying a cell phone with him when he left the safehouse that day.

The phone was no doubt long dead, but Booker managed to track it using something which Andy did not understand but which gave them a general location.

It was just outside a nearly abandoned town, with miles and miles of ground that no longer bore crops. Condemned land left to the wildlife to roam.

They forced themselves to be methodical, mapping the area and breaking it into a grid pattern, each of them assigned grids to dig up. They checked for signs of recently turned over ground, but found none as snow had recently fallen over the area. So they dug and dug, for two days.

And on that second day, nine days after the letter, Andy cried out with relief as her shovel struck a tarp.

She cried for the others, who rushed over and helped her dig it up. Wrapped in the tarp was the lifeless body of Nicky.

“Nicolo!” Joe cried, holding his love to him and sobbing into his motionless chest. He rocked with Nicky as Booker, Nile, and Andy dropped to their knees around them.

He held Nicky until Nicky took a frightened gasp of breath, hands already coming up to try and claw away a tarp that was no longer there.

“Nicolo,” Joe said, cupping the back of his head. “It’s alright. It’s alright now. We’ve got you.”

“Are you real?” Nicky croaked out.

Joe made a pained noise. “Yes, my heart. I’m real. We all are. I’ve got you, Nicolo.”

Andy pulled her jacket off and draped it over Nicky’s shoulders carefully. She reached out and stroked his filthy hair.

“Nicky,” she said quietly. “Oh, Nicky. I’m so sorry.”

Andy could think of no words to describe the trauma Nicky had been through. Buried alive, wrapped in a tarp, dying over and over again for nine days.

The trauma made itself apparent as Nicky began to cry silently, pressing his face forcefully into Joe’s neck and grabbing onto Joe until his knuckles turned white. His whole body shook, shoulders heaving with silent sobs.

“Nicolo, Nicolo,” Joe whispered, crying again himself, stroking Nicky’s hair, holding him as tightly as he could.

Andy finally felt her own tears come as she touched Nicky’s back and felt him flinch beneath her hand. They had saved his body, but Quynh had gotten her revenge by damaging his mind.

#june of doom #june of doom 2023 #the old guard #nicolo di genova #yusuf al kaysani #joe x nicky #yusuf x nicolo #andromache the scythian #nile freeman #sebastien le livre #quynh the old guard #jtdoesjuneofdoom

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non-un-topo · 7 months

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Tagged by @lazaefair. Thank you!!

Rules: Pick any ten of your fics, scroll roughly to the midpoint, pick a line (or three) and share it. Then tag ten people.

I picked some favourites, but also some lesser known/read ones (all TOG, in order of most recent upload)

Jericho, My Moon

A black stallion is joined by his red twin. They bracket Nicolò, circle him. Their proud riders wear helmets of silver moonlight.

all things pass into the night

They’d found Joe and Andy under a white strobe light, facing each other this time and tossing their heads and hair as they danced. Joe reeled Nicky in by his belt loop and without even having to think, Booker used his tall body as a blockade between the two nose-rubbing, hip-grinding men and some of the crowd, downing his beer. Then again, wouldn’t have it been fun to have had to beat someone up that night? Booker hadn’t been presented with the opportunity, and before long he’d flown to the full toilets and dumped his guts onto the floor.

Axis

The spectre does not move. The fur does not even seem to breathe. It is as if the wind can’t touch it, there in its hiding place. It is fur, Nicolò can see that clearly now. Though of what animal, he cannot discern. A thought occurs to him, then. Perhaps this creature is a guardian of the forest. Perhaps he has angered it.

The Falconer

“You cannot startle me like that, with her here,” he said, and realized how impressively he was failing at sounding authoritative. “In fairness, Nico,” began Andromache, tipping far enough back in the chair Nicolò could already picture her falling and pretending she hadn’t, “how were we supposed to know you’d adopted a feral bird?”

Heard a Joke Once

De Marchi was flattered at the praise, exactly what Sébastien had counted on. Flattery was one thing an artist could simply never resist, no matter their false modesty. Sébastien would know.

Young Man's Game

His mother hummed flatly, which raised the hairs on Yusuf’s head, but she thankfully let him be. For a moment. “Have you put any more thought into Gamila?” she then asked, which was honestly worse.

My brother spits blood.

But before Booker can say anything, Nicky pulls out a key and says, “Come in and get cleaned up. I’ll make you some tea. When Joe comes home, we will see if we can reach Andy.” Wordlessly, and suddenly feeling the weight of the previous night on his shoulders, Booker steps in after him and breathes in the familiar scents of spices and herbs, gun oil and linen.

Primavera

“Can I come with you,” Nicolò asks without preamble. He grips his seat on either side of his thighs as he leans closer to the table. His uncle dazzles him with a fond smile, a proud smile. “Perhaps when you are older. If you go now, who will protect the goats from hungry giants?”

la mer a bercé mon coeur pour la vie

“If you die, I’m gonna kill you,” Joe jokes. Andy laughs to lighten the mood, but she squeezes his arm in reassurance.

Tangerine and Roc

The nightmare returned to Yusuf that night. He stayed awake as long as his body willed it, but inevitably gave into exhaustion at some point deep in the night. He gasped awake, sweaty and shaken by visions of the gnarled beak, his family jumping in. His hand instinctively sought out Nicolò beside him, who remained in his deep, unmoving sleep.

Probably double-tagging a lot of people buuuut I'm tagging @maddielle @captainshakespear @babygirlyusuf @nicolos @the73rdpostscript and @knoepfchen

#thank you friend ;w; this was fun and i really needed a distraction today #cringing so hard at myself though. the self-esteem is in the GROUND today #it is interesting to see where the plot was at at the mid-point of my longer fics! i tend to take a long time with my endings #also i didn't realize just how much i've written from nicky's pov ugh i really thought i'd given all characters roughly equal treatment #he's fun to wriiiiite #god i miss writing #sage writes

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captain-grammar · 10 months

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Booker's exiled. He's lonely. He has nowhere to go. He doesn't know anybody in this world. Nobody he could rely on. Nobody who he could spend some time with, or at the very least connect with while he tries to get his head straight.

Except he does.

He hasn't seen Gael in three years. He likely isn't even living in Murcia any more. He'll have moved on, taken another teaching job, hell, moved to another country.

But Booker doesn't have anyone else. Just a man he spent one night with who may not even remember they did.

Spain is as hot as the last time they wound up here. The cathedral square is just as rammed full of tourists. For a moment, Booker isn't even sure he remembers the apartment building he wound up in that fateful night but his feet sure do.

He doesn't wait to buzz. He takes advantage of a young mother's hasty exit and slips inside.

Booker's heart is pounding in the elevator. Every floor, a chance to turn back and go somewhere - anywhere - else.

Why am I doing this? Every step down the hall to a door he barely remembers. Why, why, why?

Loneliness is too strong a burden to ignore.

He knocks. Silence. Maybe there's nobody home? Maybe he has moved? Maybe this was all in vein?

Relief mixes with utter heartbreak when Booker realises that nobody is there to answer his knocks. Gripping tight onto his satchel, the bare essentials inside, he makes to turn.

But the door opens, and a familiar pair of deep, brown eyes, wide in surprise, greets him from inside.

"Sebastien?" Gael's voice is incredulous, his expression a picture.

Booker smiles weakly.

"It turns out you'll see me again after all," he jokes.

***

Gael isn't distant. He isn't even cold. He's confused and completely at a loss at what to say.

You can't stay here.

Booker hadn't even considered that it might be an option. He just wanted to see him. The only person on earth who knows anything about him that hasn't cast him aside for 100 years.

But maybe... Maybe we can catch up?

It starts with a friendly drink. Ice-breaking. That first night on repeat but with a hint of trepidation and of keeping one another at arm's length. Drinks turn to dinner. Dinner turns to nights meeting Gael's friends.

Is he going to be a fixture here? Gael's friends mock and tease. They know the weight of something between the two of them, even if Booker and Gael are loathe to admit it.

A few weeks pass and the ice has melted into a pool of warm water that Booker and Gael have long since given up pretending they're not wading waist-deep into. A night of quiet talk at Gael's apartment, his roommate casting an enquiring eye over the pair, excusing himself early, even though the sun set hours ago.

Booker sighs, more at one with the couch that he's been with the bed in his hotel room.

"I can't go back there tonight," he sighs, mostly to himself.

Gael offers a sheepish glance.

"Then sleep here tonight," he offers. "You're almost asleep as it is."

Decision made. Booker's here for the night.

Lights off. Pants off. T-shirt and underwear on his one-night stand's couch, lying under a blanket, eyes drifting to Gael's closed bedroom door more often than Booker would like to admit, wondering if Gael's thinking anything close to what's running through his mind.

Of course he's not. Booker shakes his head. Why the fuck would he?

Grunting, frustrated, the warm summer air thick even in the dark of night, he clambers up and pads across the kitchen for a glass of water. The cupboards are suddenly too loud, the tap too squeaky, the water gushing like a torrent.

Booker winces. Don't wake him, don't wake him...

A door behind him clicks open. Booker turns sharply, instincts heightened in his exile.

Gael. Dark curls rumpled. Eyes full of something Booker can't quite place but it looks almost like determination.

"Sorry," Booker whispers, laying the glass on the side. "Did I wake you?"

Gael shakes his head. "I haven't slept."

His glance is fixed on Booker like a hunter stalking prey as he walks towards him purposefully.

"Is everything alright?" Booker can feel his voice waver.

Again, Gael shakes his head.

"Something's missing," he says simply.

Booker's heart jumps but he hardly dare hope. He can't mean what Booker thinks he means, can he?

Gael's closing the gap and saying nothing. Words couldn't do justice to the way he's approaching Booker with a level of certainty that's almost alarming.

Booker's expecting the punch in the face he felt sure Gael would land on him when he saw him again. After disappearing, ghosting, without the call that Booker promised, he'd almost deserve it.

Instead, Gael takes him by the back of his neck and pulls him into a fierce, deep, slow kiss, chests flush, breaths shared.

An eternity passes like no time at all and they part, panting, pressing foreheads together.

"Come to bed with me," Gael murmurs, taking Booker's hands into his own with locked fingers.

Booker's led from the kitchen, through the lounge and into a room he didn't think he'd see again. Into a bed he never thought he'd lie in again.

Into sex with a man that makes him forget anything before it existed.

#shit i write #the old guard #tog #Booker #sebastien le livre #booker / sebastien le livre #OC #booker x oc #this was a half hour no edit piece #and yup I'm inflicting it on all of you because i had FEELINGS

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terresdebrumestories · 1 year

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Work in progress: Together, in the same direction

A fic set in the same AU as All on my own, a TOG fic in which Nico and Yusuf deal with the ups and downs of parenting kid!Booker (with some help from aunties Quyhn and Andy). It is technically a sequel (there's a time gap of 33 years) but you shouldn't need to read AomO to understand the story.

In TitSD, Booker has been missing for eight years and suddenly comes back in Nile's life, his childhood best friend. The fic will be from Nile's POV with endgame Booker/Nile (though I want Nile and the sudden overhaul to her life to be the main focus) but this is perhaps one of the more Booker-focused scenes. Anyway, I just wrote this after eight months of being unable to write so you get the raw, unedited version as teaser :P

“Hi baba,” Basti says eventually.

“Where were you?” Yussuf demands, tears in his eyes. “What did you do? Why would you—do you have any idea how worried you were? The police asked if we wanted to declare you dead!”

Nile winces, rooted to the spot. she wants to interject, to say something in Basti’s defense…but she has thought all of this too. She wondered, and she asked, and as much as she empathizes with the way Basti hunches on himself she can’t make herself stop Yussuf, when he has even more of a right to know than she does.

“I’m sorry,” Basti sobs eventually, “Baba, I’m so sorry, I—”

“Oh,” Yussuf exclaims, anger and hurt vanishing from his voice entirely as he reaches up to pull Basti in a hug. “Oh, helwa, I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I was so scared and so sad for so long, and now you’re here and I’m yelling!”

“It’s okay,” Basti says while Nile breathes a sigh of relief. “It’s okay, I—”

“It’s not!” Yussuf cuts off.

Behind him, Nile can see Nico’s hand play with his collar, the way she’s always seen him do whenever Basti had an episode. It’s comforting and sad all at once, and when he catches her looking she can’t help but go to him and press their shoulders together.

“Baba,” Basti’s saying, it’s okay—”

“It isn’t, but thank you for pretending,” Yusuf says, shaking his head. Nile can’t see his face anymore from here, but it’s so easy to hear the smile in his voice. “Helwa—my son, my boy, I’m so happy you’re back.”

Yussuf pulls Basti in even tighter, burying his face in his shoulder, and then Basti does the same, and Nile watches them cry into each others’ neck. She feels Nico put his hand in hers at the same time she realizes she’s crying too, and when she turns to the side his cheeks are dry but his eyes are bright. Nile squeezes his hand, comforted when he squeezes back.

“'Ana jidun masrurun,” Yusuf says, muffled, and Basti sobs again and manages:

“Me too—aishtaqt lak kathiran ya 'abi.”

There is a long silence, broken only by Basti and Yusuf’s gentling sobs. In her hand, Nile can feel Nico’s fingers trembling. He’s quiet still, the same silence that made him seem so much more solemn than he truly is. It’s the same silence that used to scare Basti to death, convinced as he always was that one day it would break and give way to some great disappointment.

Even now, forty years old and a full head taller than his father, Basti can’t quite make himself look him in the eyes. Nile watches him extract himself from Yusuf’s embrace with slow movement, like he’d prefer to stay hidden in there forever. She tries to give him an encouraging smile, though she’s not sure he sees it, and then she steps away from Nico when he releases her hand.

She shuffles, awkward and raw from the tears that still linger in her eyes, and willingly goes into Yusuf’s arms when he opens them for her.

“Thank you for bringing him back,” he whispers in her ear.

Nile chuckles despite herself—wants to say she didn’t do anything, she just drove—but she lets Yusuf hug her and kiss her forehead, happy to soak in the comfort he’s always so willing to give. When she breaks the hug and turns to Basti again, she finds him standing with his face in Nico’s hands, the back of his ears crimson with emotion as he chokes:

“—but it wouldn’t have helped, papà. I was—I—” Basti sobs again, sounding almost like a little child, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his knuckles. “I wanted—I wanted—a way out. And there—there’s only two ways out; there’s—the slow one—or the fast one and I thought—I thought—”

“Oh, pìcolo,” Niccolò sighs, pulling Basti’s head down until their foreheads are touching, “sometimes you are like me in the ways I least wished you to be.”

Nile gasps and feels herself move to speak, but Yusuf’s hand on her shoulder roots her in place. In front of her, she sees Basti try to jerk away, but Niccolò holds him tight and sighs:

“That’s not what I meant.

“Papà—”

“I told you, didn’t I? That I didn’t choose to stop talking to my family.”

Nile has never heard this story. She winces, even as Basti nods, and tries to step back, but Yusuf catches her hand on his shoulder and holds on tight.

“You’re family,” he mouths when she looks at him. “You can stay.”

“I thought it would be fitting,” Nico is saying when Nile swallows and looks back at him. “To die in a place known for the very thing I didn’t want to be, when even Jerusalem had failed to change me.”

Twenty-six years earlier

“No but really,” Nile insisted, ignoring the way her mom tries to shush her, “how did you meet?”

“Nile,” Mom said on her right, Jordan snickering on her left, “if they don’t want to tell the story they don’t have to.”

“No,” Niccolò said eventually, “it’s alright.”

He had very, very blue eyes, the kind that made it easy to forget he and Seb weren’t related. He spoke quietly, seriously, like every answer to every question was important. Sometimes, it made him feel almost austere—that was a new word Nile had heard in school and it suited him—and it scared Seb, but it was also nice to be taken seriously.

“We met in Tel-Aviv. Yusuf was there on annual leave.”

“From Egypt,” Yusuf chimed in, smiling as he reached for his husband’s hand. “Homosexuality is illegal there, you know…so sometimes I gave myself a week to go be gay somewhere where it was okay.”

Nile nodded, trying to look a little like she understands the feeling, even though she didn’t really. She already knew about Egyptian law, because Seb had wanted to do a presentation about the history of marriage equality in their Civic Education class last year. Seb had even mentioned his parents had lived there for a while, despite the risks, so that part wasn’t surprising.

“And I was there because I was gay and didn’t want to be,” Niccolò said, sighing, something like a sad smile at the corner of his mouth. “I wanted to prove to myself that I could decide to be straight.”

“Fortunately, our love was meant to be,” Yusuf chimed in, smiling so bright even Seb—who had rolled his eyes when Niccolò started the story—couldn’t help but smile in answer. “We met, and we talked, and we parted ways—”

“You left,” Niccolò pointed out, quiet but smiling.

“I did, I did,” Yusuf admitted, nodding his head with his eyebrows raised high. “And that was almost the biggest mistake of my life—but! I came back!”

“You did,” Niccolò concedes in turn.

“I searched all the bars and all the restaurants I could think of to find the beautiful man who had stolen my heart and soul,” Yusuf continued, “but I couldn’t find a single trace of him! Even on my very last day—you should have seen me: I was trekking through the streets with my cabin luggage, staring at strangers like a possessed man—”

“You should have combed your hair,” Niccolò said, mock serious, and Nile heard Seb snort in laughter at the same time she did.

“Hayati, I am trying to be romantic,” Yusuf protested, making Seb scoff.

“That’s your default state, Baba.”

“Thank you,” Yusuf said, “I’m glad you noticed. Now, as I was saying—”

“He found me,” Niccolò said, finding Yusuf’s eyes and holding his gaze. “He saved me. I’ve never needed another altar since.”

#The Old Guard #Sebastien Le Livre #Yusuf Al Kaysani #Niccolo Di Genova #Nile Freeman #TOG Fic #Fic: Together in the same direction #Matt writes #LISTEN #I'm just really happy I wrote this #In fact I'm so happy I may try to write more once I posted this even though it's technically bedtime #So there it is have fun y'all

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scorchedhearth · 11 months

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@paris-roubaix i realized the real world connotations of that word at the time but ot3 or trouple doesn't sound as cool as triad so </3

this is my andy/quynh/booker fic, which started with the single image of quynh ripping booker's guts out while calling him andy, and has now devolved into a full-blown exploration of just how messed they can all get if they start to get involved as a group. because there's layers to the insanity here, with booker using andy to replace the gaping hole left by his late families, and andy using booker as a warm body to fill an empty feeling of lost loves, quynh using booker as a way to enact her feelings on andy, the anger and devastating violence as well as the all-consuming and overwhelming sorrow and pain she feels, and booker willingly playing the part because he knows he'll never see andy again and impersonating them for someone is the closest he gets to pretend they're still with him, and of course the terrible baggage between andy and quynh, the terror of being alone for andy and quynh's fear that no one will understand her like andy does and she'll be left severed from others forever.

u put all that in the jar, shake well, add some gore and introspective spirals and u've got a pretty good idea of what this'll look like. there's no real plot sketched out yet, but it'll follow the sequel/vol. 2 ideas with an eventual reunion that messes them all even more than this weird situation they made for themselves

ask me about my wip

#asks

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alixinwwonderland · 2 years

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114, “ Don’t make me come over there myself! ”

This TV gig is different from anything Midge has done before.

There's the cameras, of course, but she did the telethon, and that ill-fated warm-up act for Sophie's show. There's the network standards and practices, but she's dealt with strict bookers before. And the TV audience really isn't that different from live audiences at clubs (just less drunk, which works in her favor as often as it works against her).

No, the real difference is having to work with other people.

It's not that Midge is averse to being a team player. In some ways, it's actually kind of fun to be part of a crew again. She's bonded fast with the makeup and wardrobe girls, and despite their, let's say, awkward start, she and Gordon have developed good banter on screen (her the jokester, him the amused straight man) and an equally friendly rapport when the cameras are off. She's even managed to get Mike to crack a smile once or twice, which, according to Gordon, is the biggest achievement of her career to date.

But it's strange performing as part of a team. When she's warming up the audience or entertaining between takes, it's always an a bridge to something else. When the cameras are rolling, she's constantly adjusting to the unique personalities of each night's guests, having to make them shine while getting in her quips in just a few lines. It's a new challenge, but a good one, and she starts to feel more capable in her abilities to meet it.

That is, until one particular guest shows up on Gordon's couch again.

She does her best to get through the taping without letting on about all the feeling roiling through her brain (and heart ... and stomach). That all goes out the window when Lenny makes a joke - ask her the next day, and she won’t even be able to tell you what the intial joke was - and, from her place behind the microphone off to one side, she sends a quip right back.

There’s a beat as Lenny leans forward to look at her directly.

“Of course, you two know each other, don’t you?” Gordon says, cheerful as ever and completely oblivious to what’s actually unfolding on his set.

Midge bites her tongue at the “interesting choice of words, there, Gordon” joke that comes to mind. Then she sees Lenny’s eyes glittering and his jaw clenching just a bit, and she knows - he thought of the same joke. Of course he did. Isn’t that how it works with them?

“A bit,” Lenny settles on, shooting a polite smile and a silly little wave her way.

“’A bit’? Is that all it meant to you? My word, Mr. Bruce, I thought you were all about breaking laws, not hearts,” she jokes, and the audience laughs along, but when Lenny meets her eyes, still smiling for the cameras, it’s clear to her that he knows what she’s doing.

“I am nothing if not a talented multitasker. Which, in this scenario, I assume you already know, Mrs. Maisel,” and there’s a challenge in those words, and they’re doing what they always do, which is talk about their feelings through roundabout hypotheticals, jokes, and references with more layers of veils than fucking Salome.

Midge pretends to think hard for a minute, then smirks for the benefit of the audience.

“Funny, I don’t know anything about that part,” she says. Turning back to her audience, she continues, “But I do know that this man, America’s most scandalous comedian, likes patterned socks.”

“And this woman, TV’s new favorite funny girl, slurps when she eats noodles!” Lenny calls over.

“Yeah, I do!” she declares. “But at least I don’t write in my books!”

“You thought that was fun!”

“Yes I did!” she yells back without missing a beat.

“Don’t make me come over there myself!” Lenny interjects, wagging a scolding finger in Midge’s direction.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Midge says primly. “And now we’re being very rude and ignoring our host. Sorry, Gordon.”

“Sorry, Gordon,” Lenny repeats sheepishly. “This conversation isn’t over!” he adds, pointing over at Midge.

“I look forward to it,” she says, and the warm feeling she gets when the corners of his mouth turn up in that smirk of hers keeps her buzzing until the director calls for a wrap.

She sees Lenny, lingering in the hall backstage, as she goes to collect her things.

“Drinks?” he asks, and it’s an olive branch and an invitation and a promise all at once.

“Of course.”

#midgelenny #midge maisel #lenny bruce #the marvelous mrs. maisel #tmmm #tmmmfic #midgelenny fic #tv: the marvelous mrs maisel #ship: you're still staring #ch: midge maisel #ch: lenny bruce #ch: gordon ford #mine

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booksandchainmail · 1 year

Text

Pale 5.5

“Like… badness carried it here. Or the culprit of the murder brought it here. And there’s no accompanying stain painting the ground in the direction where it’s carried away.”

so this would seem to imply that the driver was involved, but left before Clem could see them. So probably not driving remotely somehow. Why didn't the driver then circle back and take the CB pieces from those teenagers? I'm trying to think through who it could have been, not sure who could disappear that quickly. Don't think we can narrow it down based on who was free at the time, since everyone started showing up pretty soon after. We know Matthew had confirmed who was in the group before Avery went to meet them, so he maybe had eyes on them at the right time?

“Telling you would be costly,” Charles said. “People would know. I’d be expected to pay a price, and I don’t have much to pay with. If it meant taking him down a peg, I’d risk it. Hurt my enemy, sure. But no. It’s not easy. We made our terms clear.”

oh. so that's why Charles is willing to tell her, in order to get at Alexander. But I'm not sure how that would hurt him? Clem is currently helping Bristow, against Alexander if anything. Or does he also have issues with Bristow?

“Was this person who drove the car and ran-” A distant scream cut her off.

grrrrr. We were getting so much good information! So a local who was uninjured from the crash, but still abandoned the meat and ran. Did they want Clem to find it? Or were they that afraid of getting caught that they wouldn't take a moment to grab the meat?

It was like Lucy was tensed up all the time, and Verona could help with that, in a friend way or a being reliable way, but it only ever really helped a little bit. Having someone agree with her and tell her she wasn’t crazy was like… part of that tension was wondering if she should be tense or if she was overreacting.

Lucy's POV chapters have noted this a lot, never being sure if she was overreacting. I hope she gets a chance to talk to Booker, that seemed to really help after everything with Paul. Good that Clem was here to validate too.

“If I tell you everything, how do I stop from becoming my dad?” Verona asked. “Whining all the time, and being nothing but vulnerable, or nothing but a sad sack.”

:( I don't think Verona has any idea of what healthy communication looks like. And Lucy also has her own issues around admitting vulnerability, so that hasn't helped.

They laughed, and it was a tired, exhausted, loopy sort of laugh, Verona’s hand at Avery’s shoulder, fingernails in her sleeve, leaning on Lucy too for balance, until Lucy hugged her and the movement of Lucy’s chest as Lucy laughed helped set off Verona’s own.

“I got out and I’ll probably keep a space in my heart forever for Ms. Hardy for helping me out of that awful dynamic. I can’t even imagine being stuck in it for…”

“Is pretending enough?” Avery asked. “Because I got pretty crazy into some fantasizing and building up narratives in my head, during my lonely patch. I don’t think it made things that much better.”

...yeah

“I swear,” Lucy said, her eyes fixed on Verona’s. “I will get you out of there if you get too old. I will fight to get you out of there if it looks like it’s too much. I will get a place for you to stay, abduct you, or do whatever else, if it gets you clear.”

normally. I would be thinking through the potential downsides of swearing oaths. but here. I am just happy.

The gold leaf letters glimmered all over Avery’s skin and around her eyes, accenting the misty look with the stark black pupils and the irises that had everything that wasn’t that steely blue now a deep black that branched out a bit past the usual bounds.

ooooh. That's cool. And maybe picking up a new bit of color symbolism? (for my chainmail plots)

Fifteen minutes west from Kennet, it had driven off into a ditch. There was a note on the windshield asking the owners to call some number for what might have been a tow company.

well. Looks like the original driver might have come back after all.

so someone who knew the girls were coming back... that could be basically any of the Kennet Others. Why try to take it out of Kennet now and not before? Were the girls better at investigating than expected?

The ghost hunting site was on fire with the heated discussion of the ‘hoax’ and, Verona saw, a lot of speculation about who she was. A lot of that was working to figure out who she was, looking at class rolls for her school. That was, uh, spooky. Even with the mask on…

fuck. That's exactly what I was worried about earlier. ... probably a good thing it wasn't Lucy who went after Sharon

“When there are enough of them, they all die in that moment, and that old, ugly power comes to earth and millions of mankind and millions of Other all perish. As that parent Other slithers from this to its home in some dark world between two adjacent realms, it will cause things that your news will excuse as natural disasters or plague.”

I love all the bonkers background problems in wildbow works. Kinda reminds me of the vibes from the machine army or the sleeper back in worm.

#booksandchainmail reads pale #pale #wildbow

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the-baddest-of-batches · 1 year

Text

Dar'Aliit: Chapter Twelve - The Hand Fate Deals You (Sneak Peek)

20 BBY Coruscant

"I sent these men with you to keep you safe!"

"Am I not alive and well, sir?" The snark has slipped into my tone more each day. On Kamino they teach you the Jedi are something to be respected. Force wielders, protectors of peace. Good guys.

The amount of spittle on my face from General Nidor's yelling has me convinced otherwise. Jedi are no different than these sith that oppose them. They have power, and they abuse it all the same.

General Nidor about faces and scoffs. "You dare defy me."

"I asked to work alone, unless you've forgotten promising me that."

"Alone does not mean unaided."

"All due respect, sir. I'll disagree."

Nidor flashes a disgruntled glare. "Get out of my sight, clone."

I bow my head and mock a salute. Then I leave. Our arguments have grown into a habit. The General seems to think I need backup wherever I go, and that means every mission I have to take Headshot, Raf, and Booker with me. Nidor doesn't realize all he's doing is putting more men in harm's way. I make sure to correct his errors when I can.

Sometimes I'm not sure how I harbored any respect for the man. For any of the Jedi. They use us like expendable pawns. No one cared then, and no one will care now, so why he pretends to care about my life, I'll never know. Maybe it's just another way of showing off his power.

Kriffing force. It's deluding them to the point they can't even see the ground beneath their boots. A bunch of sages should have never been put in charge of a war.

I stalk down the block. I've gained other habits here on Coruscant, mostly so I don't have to spend time in the barracks. There's plenty of gossip around my tenuous relationship with the General and I'd rather not hear it. I'd rather not see the empty bunks either.

Thankfully the Casino isn't far. The dim lights flicker on and off. I slip inside and a haze of smoke covers everything. There's solace in the fact that half the people here are too stoned to care who I am, what I do, or why I'm here. We're all just doing what we do best. Drowning our sorrows in misplaced confidence.

I slip into a table at the back. The usual faces wait for me. A Rodian with a discoloured face and a scarred eye. A Wookie with matted fur, surprisingly gentle guy for his type, and some humans too. The old man with the droid eye looks at me.

"Back again?"

"Just so I can take your money?"

"What's a clone got to spend money on?"

The Rodian snickers. "Girls."

I slam my boot on his foot and he yelps. "I'm just holding it all hostage," I snap back. "So you can't go spending it on booze."

They break into raucous laughter and I smirk. A droid comes over to deal. The hand isn't great, but I can make it better. Sabbac is an easy game if you know what you're doing and no one cheats. But someone's always cheating. Usually it's Rodo, the man with the droid eye. He hasn't cheated his way to a win yet, though.

I glance at my cards again. Funny how life deals you a hand and you either get a winning or losing one. If only I was as good at life as I was gambling. Maybe then I'd get out of this hellhole, away from that kriffing General, and find something to do with my earnings. Maybe I'd get the rest of the Dar'Aliit, as the other three have been calling us, out of this war machine too.

The future end of this war is a million parsecs from anyone's mind, though. Maybe it'll never end. We've got the Seps on the run from some sectors and they've got us with our tail between our legs in others. It's bound to keep going, bloody and brutal.

"Hah," Rodo throws down his cards.

I lay mine flat. The table groans as I scrape the chips to myself. "What?" I smirk. "You knew it was coming."

"Someone oughta knock you down a few pegs!"

"I'll throw him in the city core."

Kindi, the Woodki, slaps Rodo across the back of the head. More laughter fills the smoky room and we're dealt another hand. I could stay here all night, stewing over what happened. The General doesn't understand, and really I ought to stop expecting it of him, but I can't let him put more people in harm's way.

If life's a gamble, I won't put others on the line.

Another few rounds. Rodo folds. I hold onto my hand but before we can show, my commlink beeps. Kindi looks at me as do the others. I slap down my hand.

"Gotta go, huh, soldier boy?"

I glare at Rodo. "I'll take your money tomorrow, old man."

"I'll take yours ya overgrown sperm!"

Kindi takes a peek at my hand. He busts out into loud Wookie laughter and waves off Rodo's comments. I would've beat the old man anyway.

My commlink beeps again and I sigh, leaving them with a simple wave as I jog out into the alleyway and accept the transmission.

"Report to base immediately." Captain Addie's voice is stiff.

"Sir–"

"Now, Kian. We're deploying."

Deploying? Where?

"Yessir," I mutter. Someone shoves open the door behind me and stumbles out, vomiting into the alleyway. It stinks of alcohol and bile. I wrinkle my nose, give the man a side-eye glare and he returns it.

These people hate us because all we mean to them is an ongoing war. I wish sometimes they knew how much we wanted it to end. How much I wish I could be just like them.

I step over the man's stomach contents and walk back to the barracks. I can dream all I want, but this is the hand I've been dealt.

Full chapter coming tomorrow on Wattpad and Ao3!

#dar'aliit fanfic #fanfiction #star wars #clone wars #clone trooper oc #star wars the clone wars #ao3 fanfic #wattpad #writerblr #fic writer #jedi oc #clone troopers #reblog is appreciated #sneak preview #sneak peek #part one #chapter twelve #serialized fiction

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epilogue-and-prologue · 2 years

Text

Falling - II - How You Fall For Each Other

A story I had in my WIP for the last few months and in my head since seeing the Old Guard.

Booker x Female Reader!with a sister

Warnings: Throughout the story mention of depressive behaviour, endangerment of others and one self, two sisters relationship, smut at some point but it will be signalled, loneliness and angst at first and during, speaking in French because I CAN.

You hoped he was alright.

“’ Lia, don’t forget your lunch.”

You handed the small bag to the young girl before she pecked your cheek and rushed through the door. On the way out, there stood the neighbour slightly in better shape than the last time you saw him.

She slammed her hand on his back, making you both jump.

“Good day to you neighbour!”

She then proceeded to leave without another word.

He raised an eyebrow at you, a smirk on his face.

You raised an eyebrow in return, a smile drawn on your face.

“I don’t control what she does, Sir… Although I am sorry, that was… inappropriate.”

You swallowed hard, pinching your lips. His smile slipped.

“It’s alright. I’m guessing it’s payback for Sunday morning….”

You opened your mouth to answer that but he cut you short with a raise of his hand.

“It’s fine. I am sorry I went to you that day. It was weird and uncalled for. We don’t know each other…”

You snickered.

“I don’t even know your name, dude.”

The look of shame on his face, made you regret that. He simply pinched his lips, lowered his head, and looked at his shoes. He closed and locked his door. Before going downstairs, he fidgeted with his keys, head somewhat still looking at his shoes, barely looking at you.

“My name is Sebastien.”

You felt your eyes grow wide. You felt the heavy touch of the name on your tongue, not quite infatuated with it yet.

“People call me Booker.”

You looked at his face, his eyes on you for a split second, a split second of your smile. He started leaving and by the time you realized what had happened, you ran to the small balustrade, bent slightly over it and heard yourself shout your name to him.

He looked up, eyebrows knitted in confusion when he saw you. He looked back down, his hand holding on tightly to his keys.

“I know.”

He smiled a little before leaving.

You were left on the staircase, a bit starstruck for a minute before remembering you had to get to work and ran back home as rapidly as you could.

He hoped you were alright.

He was coming back with groceries and almost collided with a running Ophelia. She stopped abruptly looking him up and down curiously. He pretended not to notice and kept on climbing up the stairs. She called after him.

“Dude! Could you do something for me? Neighbour to neighbour?”

Booker’s brows furrowed a little. Curiosity got the better of him though.

“Depends. What is it?”

Ophelia smiled brightly. Not a good sign if you knew her. Not at all.

“My sister is sick. I’m supposed to get some medicine at the pharmacy. Do you think you could keep an eye out? She’s got this nasty habit of working even though she’s sick.”

His pupils grew wider in surprise and his mind started reeling. Something he thought he forgot how to do centuries ago. But Ophelia did not have the patience for his antics.

“The flat’s open anyhow! She’s on the couch you can’t miss her!”

She bolted away as if running for her life.

He stayed there for a solid minute before smiling to himself and leaving the hallway.

Once arrived he dropped his groceries in his entryway and closed the apartment right behind him.

Your flat’s door was left open, he just had to push it. As the door closed behind him he missed having his gun in his hand at this very moment as if you were a threat. He remembered you could be but dismissed the thought so easily it surprised him. You were not defenceless, you could be a spy or a newly hired kidnapper to torture him. He just knew you were not. That he would trust you. Somehow.

The main room was poorly lighted, leaving him in the dark, the kitchen counter to his left, opened in a living room, blue light coming from the TV screen on some show you weren’t even watching. He closed the door behind him, walking in slowly and carefully so as not to wake you up.

But what he saw was entirely new to him. And it was saying a lot.

You were sitting in a large plaid shirt, leggings on and a heavy blanket over you. On the coffee table, tissues used and unused, several medicine books opened, your laptop on your knees, music blaring from your earplugs, your glasses slipping from your nose not even bothering you although they did fell when you turned to see him and got scared. Your laptop almost followed.

He was looking at you as one would look at a desperate mental case. His hands in the pockets of his jacket, his head tilted to the side, a smirk on his face. You wondered if he wasn’t sick himself there for a moment.

“What are you doing here?”

He inhaled slowly, trying very hard not to smile. He deemed it impossible.

“Your sister told me you were here. Sick.”

He gestured to the books and computer.

“And not supposed to work. - Ha! That traitor.”

You looked him over, making his cheek flush a little. You wondered if his cheeks would feel just as you imagined they would in the palms of your hands.

“What are you doing here then? - Supposedly keeping an eye on you. - …OOOOkaay. Serve yourself some coffee. You can sit in the armchair over there.”

You vaguely indicated an old green leather armchair left of the TV, back to the windows.

“Not like I’m going anywhere, anytime soon…”

Your mumbling did not escape him as he poured himself a cup. He poured a second one and left it on the coffee table. Just in case. You barely raised your eyes from your screen to register it.

“Thanks but I don’t drink coffee. Nice touch though. - …You’re welcome?”

He pulled the curtains on the windows back a little. Just enough to enlighten your working space. You grunted a little at the bright light before diving back in.

Booker’s hand was firmly attached to his cup of coffee as he went to see what your library consisted of. Old habit. They were displayed on the wall opposite the window. As if asking to be touched and considered. The pull of a good book was always something he looked forward to. Somehow his chest felt a little tighter at the thought that you did too. He noticed mostly classical work. Dostoyevsky, Tolstoï, Dumas, Zola, Dickinson, Dickens… A few fantasy books, and young adult novels, probably belonging to your sister. A strange thing caught his attention though. All the French ones had worn covers and were written in French. The others were in English. He turned to you, sipping his coffee as if it wasn’t a surprise for him. A good poker face was his only salvation in this world. Or so he thought.

“You…speak French?”

It took you a minute and a sneeze before answering him. You took a tissue and blew your nose loudly before looking up at him, your glasses on the edge of your nose again. You pushed them up.

“Yeah. I did a year of residency in Lyon. - Residency? You’re a doctor then? - Yes. Well. In training, still. Oncologist.”

You looked at him sideways trying to decipher what had elicited such questions.

“You speak French too?”

He sighed, a bit embarrassed.

“I am French.”

Your whole face lit up and you went to get out of your cover clumsily.

“OOOOh, that’s so much fun. Do you think we could do language dates? I miss those! I used to meet up with people so I could practice my French from time to time and…!”

Your computer fell to the floor in a clatter you took notice of and ignored. It had seen worse. But you tripped over and he barely had time to catch you before you hit the ground. His coffee cup was long forgotten on the floor.

Disoriented, you wondered why your eyes were seeing his shoes rather than his face. And when you looked up, his face was so very close, you lost all common thought or breath for that matter. His eyes dived into yours, worry etched in them, his right hand on your waist bushing up the fabric of your shirt there, the other on your elbow. You could feel his muscles tense under your hand. It felt warm.

“You’re okay? - Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

You dusted yourself off and left his arms. It felt like a loss on both sides.

“Sorry about the coffee I’ll clean it up. - Don’t worry, I’ll… - You were NOT supposed to leave the couch ‘til I came back, you idiot !”

Fortunately, Ophelia’s return was not something to dismiss as quickly as what had just happened.

The moment was gone.

He cleaned up the coffee, cleaned up the cup without a word, as your sister almost hand-fed you your medicine. You bickered with her so much, that he left without a sound. Or a goodbye.

You sought his attention

You hadn’t met him after that incident. Booker seemed like a reclusive person and never did anything to prove this hypothesis wrong.

‘Lia often mentioned him off-handedly, in passing as if she had not been trying to test the waters about him. You managed to get off easily with a good big sister act, telling her to clean her room or to go get you something at the store. She could never refuse but always tried to stall as much as she could.

“Come on! There was something there, right? - No. There wasn’t. Even if there had been something, it is none of your business. I can handle my life on my own, thank you very much.”

She burst into laughter so dramatically you thought she would strangle herself on her laugh. Your hands crossed on your chest you looked at her sideways. After she comically swiped off the tears from her eyes and caught her breath, she added: “ Yeah… No. Mom was always behind you to push you. And now I am here and I won’t let you end up all by yourself! You don’t even have friends outside of work. You barely go out, and on weekends, you stay cooked up in here rereading French books until they can’t stand on their own.”

Your arms dropped to your sides and you sat down on the arm of the armchair near the TV. She was right. You hated it when she was right. That almost 16-year-old giving you life lessons was way more than your pride could handle sometimes.

“I have to go to school. Pick me up after your shift? - I can’t. I have a staff meeting right after. - Okay. See you tomorrow then.”

You chuckled a little as she kissed your cheek and left in a hurry. She was always late. Always speeding to go here or there, never stopping, never hesitating. Very unlike you.

“Love you! - Yeah, yeah, love you too! Bye!”

As soon as the door closed behind her, you felt the 12h shift you were on yesterday weigh down on you swiftly. It was barely 8 and you couldn’t even stand up on your own.

You crashed on the couch, an arm plopped up against your eyes trying to still your breathing and have a quick nap. You still had to revise new patient results, enter data in your research program, finish preparing for the symposium next month and call your assurance company about the sick days you took and how much they’d cover for that.

As soon as your thoughts started drifting off, they went straight for Booker. How he must have felt, the anxiety making you think the worse, maybe he did not want to talk anymore, maybe it was so awkward for him he just wanted to ghost you, maybe his face was so warm so close to yours was because he was so embarrassed to give you false ideas about his intentions, maybe he was just being friendly and a good neighbour but he had guessed that you were not looking at him as just a neighbour… Damn him! Seriously! With his lean figure, his strong muscles, his sky blue eyes, profound and drawing you in, his face, his gentle shyness, his kindness, his solitude you wanted to take him out of, his misery written all over his face after alcohol took him there… How much you wanted to feel his arms around you as you fell asleep, how much you wanted to discover more about him, talk with him, tell him your secrets and hear his…It was a spiral of infinite questioning and you kept falling deeper and deeper.

Notsleeping, nor working. You huffed and puffed with no other effect than annoying you even more. You stood up quickly, a little dizziness taking hold before receding.

You had only one way of finding out what happened in his head. And that was to ask him. More importantly ask him now, before your nerves got the better of you. It was that or weeks of insomnia. And you had already done the latter.

Now, in front of his door, you felt your hands twitch a little, your legs bouncing, your eyes not knowing where to look, sweat dripping down the ape of your neck and your temples. You pushed your glasses up and before you could register what you were doing, you saw your hand knock on his door.

Your heartbeat was in your throat. You had had crushes before, just…usually not this intense. Not this hypnotizing, not this heated. It felt as a writer said once as if by just seeing him you knew he would be a part of your life one way or another. And strangely enough, you couldn’t seem to think that you could let go of him.

The keys turned in the lock and you stopped breathing. He leaned against the doorframe, his face still not rid of sleep yet. He must have been asleep! You hadn’t even thought of that!

“Oh… Hi. I – I’m sorry, I should have waited, it’s so early I should have known you were sleeping I’m so sorry- - It’s fine. You needed something?”

He rubbed at his eyes and stifled a yawn. You could see his collarbone revealed by his loose shirt. You swallowed hard.

“Hum… Not exactly. I… I’ve been meaning to ask you something…But I can come back if it’s better for you…”

He ran a hand over his face, his eyes not yet completely open and half-smiled at you.

“Well, you’re here now. Just ask me.”

You licked your lips, biting down with overuse of strength on your lower lip. You took a breath.

“I…About the other day… I wondered if you’d be okay to meet up with me for coffee or lunch to practice my French. If that’s alright with you of course…”

Booker was taken aback. He remembered the “other day” pretty vividly. Your face so close, the cloth of your shirt in his hand, the soft lull of your heartbeat beneath his fingers, the softness of your skin against his, the curiosity and worry written in your eyes. He thought that he probably could not forget it even if he wanted to. He smiled at the memory.

It had been such a long time since someone turned his head as you did. His wife maybe, once upon a time. An air of melancholy crossed his face before he gained back his countenance.

“Do you mean… right now? - Oh! No! No of course not. Maybe sometime next week. I have consults and shifts and somehow a lot of work I can’t seem to go through on time.”

He chuckled, his eyes low. It made you smile.

“I was thinking… We could go get a coffee. I know a small coffee shop called The Unicorn which makes the best cinnamon rolls in all of London. It’s close to the hospital so we could meet there Thursday evening next week? At 6?”

He nods almost hesitantly, his eyes a little bit sad, without you knowing why.

“Let’s do that. - Alright. See you next week then.”

You smile brightly one last time, before walking back to your door. As you closed it you saw his stare fixed on something on the floor. His eyes fall back on you and he smirked a little, closing his door as well. You could not stop smiling.

You knew you were too hopeful. You always were. It took a little bit of your joy away from you for a second. You realized that it was just a meeting. Not a date, not anything romantic just too people meeting to talk. In French.

Thursday arrived with the slow rhythm of a snail’s pace. The day itself passed by in a hurry of meetings and appointments and students asking questions. When you were finished it was 5 past 10 already and you ran to get changed and leave the building.

You walked to the coffee shop. When you arrived, you saw him on a couch right by the window, observing his surroundings. There were books everywhere, plants and soft lights. It was as soothing as it was cluttered with a mystery of objects you had no idea what use they had for.

“Hi! - Hi.”

You sat in front of him, and quickly the waiter asked you what you wanted. Booker already had a cup of coffee on the table in front of him making you think that he might have arrived a little earlier than you did.

“A mint green tea and a cinnamon roll, please. - Right away then. - Thank you.”

He smiled at you both and left.

An awkward silence started to take hold. You coughed in nervousness.

“I love this…”

You gnawed on your lip remembering why you were here in the first place. It took you a second before you managed to form a proper sentence.

“J’adore cet endroit. Il y a une atmosphère qui est tellement… paisible. »

[I love this place. There is such a peaceful atmosphere to it.]

Booker chuckled, somewhat surprised by your slight accent, but delighted by the sounds you were making. As his mother tongue, he had lost touch with it, as if it was a burden for him to bear, not to be able to reconnect with anyone through that medium. Not really. And here you were, making the effort to talk to him and trying to understand his language. And even if you did not know how much it meant to him and how much warmth you procured him at that moment, he could not help but thank you. In his own way.

“Pourquoi m’avoir demandé de t’aider à parler français alors que tu le parles déjà si bien ? - Je pensais que j’étais plus…rusted que ça. - Rouillée. Je pensais que j’étais plus rouillée que ça. - Je pensais que j’étais plus rouillée que ça. Ok. »

[Why ask me to help you speak French when you speak it so perfectly already? - I thought I was more… rusted(she doesn’t have the translation for that so he gives her) than this. - Rusted. I thought I was more rusted than this. - I thought I was more rusted than this. Ok]

A small smile crept up on you as the waiter brought you a steaming cup of tea and the roll you had asked for. Booker leant in as you grabbed the pastry and cut it in half.

“Tiens. Prenez en la moitié. - Merci. »

[Here. Take half. – Thanks.]

He took the pastry from your extended hand, your fingers touching in a heated talk as his hand almost covered yours. It lasted a second too long, your eyes avoiding each other passively.

“Tu as mélangé le tutoiement et le vouvoiement. - Ah oui ?! Pardon, je n’avais pas fait attention. - C’est rien. Et tu avais raison, ce gâteau est le meilleur que j’aie jamais goûté. - Ah bah tu vois ! »

[You mixed tu – you informal – and Vous – you formal. - Really? Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. - It’s nothing. And you were right, this cake is the best I’ve ever eaten. - Ha! You see!]

You laughed as he let go of your hand, and took another bite into the pastry, sipping his coffee. You started eating yours when you noticed him staring at your lips.

“What ? Est-ce que j’ai quelque chose ? - Ne bouge pas. »

[What? Do I have something? – Don’t move.]

His fingers found the corner of your mouth slowly erasing a trace of something you could not see. He licked his thumb slowly.

“Tu avais du sucre au coin de la bouche. - Oh. Merci. »

[You had sugar at the corner of your mouth. – Oh. Thank you.]

Heat growing in your cheeks, you kept eating in silence. The silence went on for a good five minutes before you cut into it. Or smashed into it to be more precise.

“Qu’est-ce que tu fais comme travail ? Je ne t’ai jamais vu partir à des heures de travail, ni ramener du travail à la maison. - Je ne travaille pas. Enfin, si. Je fais des missions en tant que travailleur indépendant. - Oh. Comme quoi ? - Beaucoup de choses dans le domaine militaire. Je ne peux pas vraiment en parler. »

[What do you do? I have never seen you leave at work hours or bring back work at home. – I don’t work. Well, I do. I have missions as an independent. -Oh. Like what? – A lot of things in the military. I can’t really talk about it.]

Booker knew it was a lie. But better lie than put anyone in the line of fire. He was a soldier. He knew the price of civilian lives all too well. You nodded slowly, nibbling on your cinnamon roll, and sipping your tea trying not to get burned by it. Happened more often than not.

“Oh. Ok.”

A pause. His eyes were looking at you with curiosity.

“Et du coup, pourquoi tu es à Londres en ce moment ? »

[So, why are you in London these days?]

He took a big sip out of his cup, not meeting your eyes, looking everywhere but at you.

“J’ai pris ma retraite anticipée. Mon équipe et moi pensions que c’était… la meilleure solution après notre dernière mission. »

[I took an anticipated retirement. My team and I thought it was… the best solution after our last mission.]

You frowned.

« On dirait que la décision a été prise sans ton accord. »

[Looks like the decision was made without your approval]

He shrugged.

« C’est sans importance. Maintenant c’est fait. - Hmm. Et tu as toujours des contacts avec eux ? - Oui. Mais seulement avec la plus jeune. Nile. - Comme le fleuve ? »

[It doesn’t matter. It’s done. – Hmm. And do you still have contact with them? – Yes. But only the youngest. Nile. – Like the river?]

He chuckled thinking about what the young woman would say hearing that. She probably would not show how bothered she was by always being referred to as the river in Egypt.

“Oui. Comme le fleuve. -C’est un joli prénom. Comment ça se fait que tu n’ai pas de contact avec les autres ? »

[Yes. Like the river. – It’s a pretty name. How come you don’t have contact with the others?]

Booker’s shoulders fell. You could see his head lowering, his tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth before he answered with a tight smile.

“Nous avons rencontré des tensions au sein du groupe. C’est mieux comme ça. »

[We had tensions inside the group. It’s better this way.]

You did not press the subject.

“Tu as de la famille à Londres ou est-ce que tout le monde est en France ? »

[You have family in London or is everybody in France?]

You felt him pause as his eyes locked with yours over the table. He leans back in the cushions.

“France. Je ne les vois plus vraiment. -Vous avez coupé les ponts ? -Quelque chose comme ça. »

[France. I don’t see them anymore. – Burned bridges? – Something like that.]

You tilt your head a little, furrowing your brows at the mysterious man in front of you. Visibly broken by life, left aside and ditched as if he didn’t matter. He leaned back in to take his cup and as he got a hold of the handle you put a hand over his.

“Je suis désolée, je n’aurais pas dû… -Ce n’est pas grave. Tu ne pouvais pas savoir. »

[I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… - It’s fine. You couldn’t have known.]

His hands now cover both of yours in a warm embrace. You stayed like that for a moment, only looking at your hands interlocked.

You pull back first, as you notice the hour on your watch.

“Damnit, I was supposed to go pick Ophelia up! -Go. I’ll take care of the check. -What?! No, no, don’t... -Don’t worry I’ve got it.”

You felt sorry for a second before kissing him on the cheek, rushing out with a whispered: “Thank you”.

He stayed there, awestruck, barely touching his cheek, skin tingling like it hadn’t in years. The joy he feels is soon erased by a sense of sadness.

He knew he shouldn’t hope. He’ll outlive you, he’ll hurt you, he’ll lose you.

But even immortals are still human in the end.

So was he.

#the old guard fanfiction #booker x reader #booker x female reader #sebastien le livre x reader #sebastien le livre x female reader #the old guard #tw: depression #series: falling

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nicelytousled · 3 years

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so I was thinking about this tweet and what bits the team would do to annoy eachother

Joe will point out random thing to Nicky and say 'that reminds me of us.' Two pigeons fighting over a sandwich, reminds me of us. Footballers on TV shaking hands after a game, reminds me of us. Two umbrellas in an umbrella stand in a cafe, reminds me of us. A pair of those shitty commemorative teacups with some random royalty printed on them, reminds me of us. He does it sparingly for maximum effects and it annoys Nicky because he's gotten into Nicky's head, so he can't help but look at things in pairs like ThAt ReMiNdS mE oF-

Sometimes if he really wants to get on Nicky's nerves Joe will say this about absolutely nothing. He'll just gesture vaguely in a random direction and say 'reminds me of us' until Nicky realises he's not referring to anything.

In the middle of conversations Nicky will just say "sorry I don't speak [insert language here]" and pretend to be utterly confused by whatever Joe is saying. He does it whenever Joe is trying to give him simple instructions or directions, and Joe gives him the silent treatment in return, which Nicky finds very funny and is not at all an effective deterrent.

Andy will creep up behind Quyhn when she's busy and give her a moustache with her own hair. Quyhn mostly just pretends to hate it but sometimes Andy will do it when she's asleep. She'll wake up with a strand of hair placed neatly across her upper lip and for a moment she'll feel the wrath of ten thousand suns.

Quyhn pretends to be totally amazed by and clueless about modern technology. How does this contraption turn water into coffee? Is it coal power or is it a m i r a c l e ?

Quyhn will also stand behind Joe and Nicky during conversations and mimic how they talk animatedly with their hands. Booker finds it far, far too funny and always gives her away.

Lykon used to sew the ends of Andy's shirt sleeves shut if the opportunity arose. Although now lost to history, for a time there were local legends in a concerning number of villages about a gleeful man who was chased through the woods on the full moon by a mad shirtless woman wielding an axe.

Booker sometimes offers a bite to eat of whatever is in front of him like it's food. He does it when he's reading or making fake ID's or maintaining weapons. He'll see whoever’s zoned out watching him work and be like "what, you want a bite?"

"No, Booker. I. Do. Not. Want. A. Bite."

Andy has a running joke where she pretends to have never heard of France.

Booker has a running joke where he mansplains what France is.

Everyone else is stoic and noble in their suffering as they endure this endless back and forth.

Sometimes Nile will yell HOLY SHIT YOU’RE IMMORTAL when one of the guard dies and comes back to life, like she's forgotten. Copley joins in on this bit whenever he can. He'll sit them down and say very solemnly "I've been thinking and I've come to the conclusion that you can't die" and Nile will be like "WHAT?"

Now that she's mortal, whenever Andy doesn't want to do something she'll just be like "Can't you see I'm dying here."

Nile also likes horrifying everyone by making up weird food combinations and pretending they're American classics.

To annoy Copley they all pretend that there is a 7th living member of the guard named Vopiscus.

Vopiscus has a rich and extensive backstory as a mysterious, beautiful loner and the greatest philosopher they have ever know. They see him once a century.

“To quote Socrates, an unexamined life-” “Vopiscus said that first, Copley.”

“It's a shame you were running late, James. Vopiscus just left."

They crack when Nile goes to fetch something from Copley's office and on a whim she flips his whiteboard and sees his Vopiscus sociogram on the other side, covered in passive aggressive post-its, at which she laughs so hard she chokes and literally almost dies.

#the old guard #andromache the scythian #quyhn #yusuf al kaysani #nicolo di genova #sebastien le livre #lykon #james copley #one of the four cornerstones of found family is lovingly bullying onw another for hundreds of years

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wickedpact · 3 years

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I liked script Nicky a lot but Luca really captured a serene 1000 year old cryptoid soul so perfectly that I appreciate the choices he made even more now. Script Nicky almost seems like a younger Nicky to me.

yeah tbh a lot of what the script is doing is fun & charming, but a lot of it is just 'this is funny, but i like the movie more'. (excluding the quynh stuff, a lot of that was just Good)

ive seen a few people say smth to the effect of 'the script feels like fanfiction! (complimentary)' and yeah... it does. which that isnt an insult, im not saying fanfic is bad (its not) but the script, in terms of tone & usage of humor, doesnt. . .. quite feel like the movie, therefore it feels a little fanfic-y.

i mean when you look at how tog does humor, its generally more subtle, banter-y stuff, rather than 'nicky and book brawl over salt' or 'booker makes c4 animals fuck'. which... suits the movie, bc it has such a melancholy tone and such serious themes to explore. theres levity, but its not overly silly, you know

(and as much as i find booker and nicky playfighting over salt EXTREMELY COMEDIC, i do have a bit of a grudge against the idea of that scene bc im not a fan of the trope where 'all the men in the group are manbabies and the women/woman in the group are the mature one(s)/their mom'. i mean

'like schoolboys'... one of my 10 million things i love abt tog is that the maturity of the men matches the women. andy is just as Gold Of Heart, Dumb Of Ass as the rest of the boys, she's not their keeper.)

and like, yeah, theres a lot of little comedic things which are definitely funny and definitely fun to read in a script, but i definitely prefer what we got (and it varies too. 'booker making c4 animals fuck' isnt the same as 'nicky pretends to fight book over salt' which isnt the same as 'andy suffers as a random lady rambles to her about the size of her head' which isnt the same as 'joe and nicky banter about copley's shoe pile')

however in terms of the examples of these things ^ we do see in the movie (the selfie lady, joe's reaction to the shoes, etc) i like how theyre done in the movie more, theyre a little more mature/serious. which. gina's influence, probably.

#and this comes from a person who made a post about loving litleshit!nicky like two days before the script dropped!#i just think they went a little too ham on the funny bits & i agree w you anon i like the nicky we got more #as much as the confirmation that he Is a lil shit is Hashtag VALIDATIOOOOOOON #so yeah tldr loved to see it but i love the movie more. also give us the deleted scenes #i mean its a draft of the final product. and it feels like one! and thats fine! its abt the serotonin <3

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fromthefishbowl · 3 years

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Can you elaborate on how they don’t see Marwan as a person please ?

Okay, so... here's the thing: most, if not all, the people who claim to be constantly working against racism in fandom are, themselves, so fucking racist it's incredible. Racist and xenophobic and antisemitic and overcompensating like hell because they know they're shitty people but actually working through their problems is too hard so they have to pretend it's the others, who are racist and xenophobic and antisemitic.

They pretend to like Marwan because they can use him as a prop for their internet wokeness and virtue signalling, and they pretend to care about racism in fandom spaces because it's one of the easiest ways to gain attention and followers. But we all have seen what they do when one of them is outed as being actually racist to the point of using racial slurs against MENA people: they fall into silence and make excuses and then get mad when people won't let them move on as if nothing happened because they think they didn't do anything wrong ever. Sending death threats, rape threats, insults, harassment, writing slurs against the people they pretend to be campaigning for... all this shit is normal, to them.

Their attitude towards people like Marwan pops out when they interact with actual MENA and Muslim people: they belittle them, insult them, send them links to articles written by white Americans about how to discuss Islam.

Just look at how they write Nicky: they perceive him as "white" - lmao - so they use him as the token racist character that can embody their dumb thoughts about Joe/Marwan - which... again, it's incredible how xenophobic these people are too. Like, it's clear that they are in this fandom because "brown man give us brown points uwu" and they couldn't give a shit about any of the characters, not even Joe, because if they actually cared they wouldn't have propped up an artist who draws him a thousand shades darker than how he actually is -. So Nicky, the character who is canonically always shown as being head over heels for Joe, turns into a racist, ignorant gremlin uncaring of his husband's culture and who doesn't respect him.

Like... even the whole debacle of "if Nicky rapes Joe it's fine because colonialism" is so fucking stupid. These people just like to imagine Joe/Marwan being abused. It's a fetish they turned into morality. Like... it's fine if you want to be fucked by Luca, you don't have to make up a discourse around it. You're fine with the thought of being dicked down by Chris Evans, you should be fine with the thought of being dicked down by Luca Marinelli too. Literally the only difference is that you're xenophobic and it really shows.

But to go back to Marwan... I was talking about it with a fandom friend, and they said that they like to "defang" him and his characters: they are scared of him, so they need to neuter him, take away from him any characteristics that make him """big""" and """scary""". It really says something, the fact that Len the Defender of the Weak Moroccan People and Undiscussed Maghrebi Princess, in that long ass post about how much of a victim she is, talked about MENA men being dangerous thugs and used Majid as inspiration: she couldn't make him defenseless and small and uwu, because Majid is aggressive, hot headed, a criminal - which... what a fucking shallow read of his character, my god - so he scared her and was the first thought when she came up with the idea of "lemme write a woe is me post and include how dangerous and unruly the MENA men I know are".

So when they write Joe they make sure to eliminate every possible thing that scares them. Canonically, Joe is protective, active, aggressive when people hurt his family; he is open and charismatic and loves deeply, but he also doesn't forgive easily; he hunts down Keane with the specific purpose of murdering him for having shot his husband and insists that Booker needs to be exiled for a hundred years for what he did; he is not religious in any possible way, and when he swears, he says the names of Catholic saints. But he can't be these things, because Marwan is a brown man - fuck, how much I hate relegating people to their race. So fucking American, I swear - and if a brown man does these things then he scares them, so they turn him into this... weak, demure creature who cannot get mad because otherwise it's racist, who cannot stand up for himself and his family because otherwise it's racist, who cannot do this or that because otherwise it's racist. They make him religious to the point of being almost a fundamentalist, but orientalize Islam by taking away any restrictive aspects and make it all flowers and rainbows. They write Joe as the stereotype of the Noble Savage: he can only be positive things because somehow he hasn't been corrupted by the evil white civilization to the point that he even lets his husband insult him. Ooooh, how big is their Joe's heart!

And the same thing is applied to how they want people to perceive Marwan: he's just a widdle boi. When people were joking about him being a Dutch fuckboi - which... he is, he really is -, they were going mad and saying it was racist. Why would it be racist? How? Because Len told you about that stereotype about MENA men she got completely wrong? Marwan is a charismatic, handsome guy who clearly knows how he looks and who works in an industry where he is constantly around people who are as beautiful and charismatic as him. He is aware of how good looking he is. He talked in interviews about how he likes to "chat up girls". He makes fun of it himself, and yet we can't talk about it because "Brown man with a sexual life they can't control" scares them, it makes him an actual person and not just a picture or a video they can reblog with dumb tags about his looks immediately followed by racial slurs.

They defang him. They neuter him. They take away his humanity because, if Marwan were human, he'd have "bad" characteristics too, and they just can't have that because then he'd become scary again.

And like... let's always remember that when Len saw him with a look she didn't like and that made him look like probably 50% of MENA men who are over a certain age, her first instinct was to insult him with a racial slur and think it was something cute to do.

#fishie answers #anon #marwan kenzari #joe al kaysani

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sophiamcdougall · 4 years

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So, there’s something I think is missing from the Booker Discourse and the focus on anger vs forgiveness, and whether Booker’s “punishment” is too harsh and who’s responsible if so, and its absence is beginning to slightly disturb me and it’s this: They don’t punish Booker. At all.

No, really.

It’s one of the things I really like about the film -- how compassionately it treats Booker, both on a narrative and on an inter-character level. In most genre films wrongs against the good guys are usually settled with riproaring vengeance, even if in some the hero conveniently gets not to be the one to enact it directly. But in the moment Booker’s betrayal becomes clear, character beats we have taken for mere melancholy click into place as heartwrenching grief and suicidal depression. We’re encouraged to grieve for him. We see Andy and Nile’s empathy for him. We see Nicky urging Joe to stop shouting at him even before they yet have any hope of escape. We don’t see a moment of explicit compassion/restraint from Joe, but he does instantly put aside his anger to accept Andy’s decision that Booker’s coming with them, and does nothing to sabotage that choice. (In fact, it’s unthinkable that he would, but in plenty of action films it wouldn’t be.) And I agree with some of the arguments I’ve recently seen – the intensity of Joe’s fury isn’t necessarily a measure of how long it would last.

And then, as I say, they don’t punish him.

They don’t beat him up. They don’t work off steam killing and re-killing him. They don’t leave him for Kosak, or for the police. Of course they’d never do a full Quynh on him but putting him a box for ... a year? Six months? A week? It would be an option. They don’t do that, either.

They simply stop hanging out with him. And they have the extraordinary grace to promise this won’t be permanent. And Andy, whom he shot in the back, sees him off with a goodbye hug.

I’m seeing a lot of debate about whether Joe (hotheaded, passionate) vs Nicky (still waters run deep) is The Angry One and which one of them might, by contrast, have been totally fine letting Booker back into the group immediately. I think you can plausibly headcanon the first part of that various ways. Personally I think Nicky would take a more severe line than Joe, although, as I’m about to argue, I don’t think that necessarily has to mean he’s “angrier”.)

What I don’t think you can plausibly headcanon is that either would actually be “fine” taking Booker back immediately, or any time soon.

Now I want to preface this with pointing out that anger is a completely natural and appropriate response to being hurt and whoever is The Angry One out of Nicky and Joe, has every right to that feeling. And to be fair I don’t think that’s really being disputed. But there does seem to be the idea that The Situation – Anger = Everything’s Fine Now! And I do think it’s slightly ... victim-blamey, like the barrier to HEA isn’t what Booker did, it’s how long the people he hurt retain one specific emotion about it. Whoever’s angriest is being staggeringly generous to Booker, and the result is 100% compatible with their not being “angry” at all. It’s compatible with “forgiveness” having already taken place. Just for a minute imagine writing to ... Captain Awkward, or Dear Prudence or Reddit Relationships. And explaining that your friend placed you in the power of people who wanted to hurt you, deliberately exposed you to very serious danger and your worst personal fear, and caused you to watch your partner trapped and in pain for somewhere in the ballpark of 48 hours ... BUT, he is going through some very bad shit, guys, and you really do feel for him. Imagine what the response would be. (”My friend wanted to commit suicide-by-cop, so he planted weed/guns in the car with me and my husband in it and called the police, although he knows we both have a particular phobia of cops after what happened to another friend who was arrested a while back. Oh and he attacked our other friend, because he wanted to be totally sure the cops would come for him, but he only meant to knock her out not to nearly kill her and he’s depressed and very sorry. I still want to put our friendship on a break. AITA?”) They would yell at you to oh my god get away from him WTF how is this even a question please get some therapy learn to love yourself.

And if you repeated that he’s really sad! And it went down worse than he thought it would! And you don’t want to hurt him! they would yell that it’s not about hurting him it’s about protecting you. Just ... think about it. Imagine you’re either Joe or Nicky. Assume your anger has already completely evaporated, whether you think that’s in-character or not, and imagine you feel truly sorry for Booker. Take the most generous stance on what he did that you can. Fine. But every time you turn your back on him, or see him go off on a mission alone with one of the others ... how do you feel? Even if you don’t think he’d actually do this again, do you feel safe?

And imagine trying to recover from the trauma of what just happened to you. Imagine how much it would help to take refuge in all the soft, “family” touches which were also such a refreshing distinguishing feature of this film. Gift exchanges and bets and TV and hugs. Imagine trying to do that with the person who put you through it right. there.

Nicky and/or Joe could honestly wish Booker no suffering at all, nothing but recovery and healing and peace, and Booker would still be a walking PTSD trigger and working/socialising with him would be downright self-destructive.

Now, of course this is unpleasant for Booker because he’s already lonely and self-hating and it’s difficult -- though not necessarily impossible! -- for any of them to form a support system outside the group. But that really isn’t the team’s responsibility and, what is really the alternative?

Maybe it’s being framed so much as “punishment” because Andy says “there has to be a price.” And there does; the consequences of Booker’s choice will unfold in some way whatever they do. The team do not have the option of simply resetting to normal, even if they wanted to. The only question is only who carries the weight of those consequences and how. Should Nicky and Joe have to pretend to feel comfortable around Booker, should they force themselves to go through the motions of friendship – hug him, smile at him, pass him a coffee – while their shoulders go up around their ears whenever he’s in the room, regardless of what that means for their own healing?

The injustice of that should be obvious but even if they did it, even if they made that colossal sacrifice for the person who just hurt them, would it really help Booker? Imagine being him and settling down to watch the football beside Joe and knowing what he likely remembers whenever he looks at you. Honestly, I don’t see that being a healthy path to recovery for him either.

Or OK. Maybe they don’t put on an act. They keep spending time with him, but they don’t try to hide the nightmares and the flashbacks or the way their smiles drop whenever he comes into the room. Maybe they flinch whenever he gets too close and sometimes they yell at him but they all have to put that on hold every time there’s a mission and somehow they also they try to be his therapists?

I don’t know, it sounds a lot kinder to everyone to just get some fucking space.

Not hanging out with someone who gravely hurt you isn’t punishment, it’s basic boundaries and self-care for you and I’m beginning to worry about what it means that many of you don’t seem to know that.

#The Old Guard #long post #Oh my god Sophia shut up #anger #forgiveness #Fixed the broken sentence now #The Booker Discourse #Booker

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