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buildarocketboys · 3 months

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Ten Years

A little thing I wrote for the 10 year Black Sails anniversary celebration/artbook run by @tobys-walrus-crew - definitely go check it out, it's such a cool project with some great art and other lovely stuff!

James and Thomas celebrate ten years since they were reunited.

[here on AO3]

Thomas pours them both a glass of whisky. Neither of them drinks much these days, but Thomas insists it's a special occasion.

"What's the occasion?" James asks, confused. It's not their anniversary (which they celebrate in March, the night they had first kissed, after James had thrown Alfred Hamilton out of his own house, a lifetime-no, two lifetimes-ago now). Nor is it either of their birthdays.

Thomas raises his eyebrows. "Don't you know?" he asks. James shakes his head. Thomas sighs, but the smile in his eyes makes it clear to James that he's not annoyed with him for his ignorance. "Ten years," he says softly. "Ten years since you came back to me."

James's mouth forms a soft round oh. He's not surprised he didn't know - as far as he's aware, he's never known. The journey to Savannah, all those days after Silver had betrayed him, chained him up, sent him away, is a blur to him. And his reunion with Thomas, sweet though it had been, was tempered with bitterness - now they were both trapped, he'd thought at the time. So he hadn't paid much attention to the date.

Thomas had, though. For Thomas the blur was all the days before, the ten years separated from James and Miranda, first at Bedlam and then at the plantation. The backbreaking work hadn't seemed so hard once he had James by his side. Plus, with James there, he had known that his days trapped on the plantation were numbered. The two of them together could do anything - escaping a slave plantation for unruly sons of lords was hardly the most remarkable thing they'd done together.

So Thomas had marked the date and sworn to remember it. A blessed day.

He had rarely, if ever, brought it up to James - he knows that time wasn't quite so sweet for him as it was for Thomas. But tonight, well, it's a special occasion.

"Ten years," James repeats, voice soft in wonder. He looks up at Thomas. "Does that...that means we've been together now for longer than we were forced to be apart."

Thomas nods. "Quite," he says. "And I think that's something worth celebrating."

James nods, his eyes glassy. A lot has changed in ten years; they're both very different people now than they had been ten years ago on the plantation, let alone twenty years ago, meeting in London for the first time. The one constant has been their love, and even that has grown and changed as they have. He raises the glass. "To us," he says, voice catching in his throat.

"To ten years," says Thomas. "And many, many more, I hope."

James smiles, his eyes shading into sadness. "To Miranda," he says.

A shadow passes over Thomas's eyes. "To Miranda," he says, clinking his glass against James's and draining it. "If only she were here to celebrate with us." It's wistful, yearning - a life lost long ago, but never felt with anything less than earnest grief, even softened by the years of it. Sanded down like a piece of wood through application of time, Thomas thinks. Then he smiles to himself. That's more like one of James's metaphors - son of a carpenter.

James smiles as Thomas does. "What are you grinning at?" he asks.

Thomas shakes his head. "You," he says, and leans forward to kiss him. James tastes of whisky, much like he imagines he must. When they draw apart, James lingers, just breathing him in.

He pulls away after a moment and pours them more whisky. "To another ten," he says, clinking his glass against Thomas's. "And another, and another, until we're dead." Thomas chuckles, and James's lips quirk up on one side. "Because the only way they're taking me away from you again is in a coffin."

Thomas raises an eyebrow. "I thought we were getting buried together?"

James nods. "I'll drink to that," he says.

They drain their glasses.

#black sails #james flint #thomas hamilton #10yearsblacksails #10 year black sails #black sails anniversary #black sails fanfic #my writing

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xoxo-bunnydumpling · 2 years

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It was my cancer anniversary today. I feel like I want to talk about it but I don't want to bother anyone so I'll leave it here.

It was 13 years ago today that after 2 days of almost dying in ICU and two and a half months of slowly bleeding to death (turns out it's not extremely normal to still be bleeding heavily for that long after having a baby) they finally pinned down what was wrong with me after an unmedicated bone marrow biopsy during which I was held down by 4 nurses while they drilled into my bones...and they did not stop even when I begged them. They technically saved my life and I try so hard to be grateful. Every year I try so fucking hard to not be angry.

I told Eli this today. I should have told him on the day I went to the ER and had a full blown panic attack over blood draws but I didn't. He knew about the cancer, in fact, it was the first serious conversation we ever had. But sitting down and telling him everything today, telling him WHY I needed to be alone to feed some ducks and buy pants...I don't think he'd put two and two together before. I don't think he knew how close I was to dying, or how I was, or how I'd just had Red not long before.

Red was a baby. Two months and two weeks old when his dad carried me to the car with blood running down my legs...terrible deep dark clotted blood, and zero strength of my own left. When I looked at myself in the side mirror on the way to the hospital, I thought I was already dead. I was so pale, the dark circles under my eyes were so profound...I looked like the only dead body I'd ever seen in my life at that point, my great grandmother, and I wondered if I was about to join her. When I looked over at Jeremy, he was just as pale.

I didn't have enough blood for them to draw. They were in the midst of trying to milk my finger for a few drops when something in my head told me this was it. Say goodbye. You're done for. The world dipped, started to go black. When I woke up, a day later, they told me I said "I'm not done yet". When they told me I had cancer, I know for certain I said no. When they repeated themselves, I said "FUCK THAT". Cowboy up, bitch...you're not gonna fucking die, dying is stupid. I was not sad, I was pissed. I didn't see Red for another month and when he came to see me he looked like a completely different kid...and I was so tapped I spent 10 minutes with him and fell asleep.

I had chemo on and off for two years. Lost my hair twice. Had a stroke, learned to walk again, to swallow, to talk, to write and type, to not shit my pants. All good things to learn and learn again. But I also learned I'd die one day, and how to be scared out of my mind. Up until that point, I really hadn't been scared of much and at 22 with a new baby I surely wasn't aware of my mortality yet. Now some days it's all I can think about. I call Red every day to make sure he's alive. Every time Eli coughs I'm afraid he's having a heart attack. It's not normal...I know. But I also know now, forever doesn't exist. We are here for but a blink of an eye and yet I waste so much of that blink consumed by fear. Death has touched me once and it will take me some day and I think about this more than I care to admit.

But for right now...my husband has my feet in his lap and is asking me how the fuck I fit all this ass in my new jeans. If I know him like I think I do, gentleman that he is...because I've had a doozy of a day, when he stretches himself over me in a few minutes he'll kiss me lazily, slowly, with his hands cradling my face instead of roaming inside my shirt. I don't know what we're doing tomorrow, but the next day, Red will be here to make fun of my clothes, eat all my food, and then ditch me for Fortnite...but at least he'll be here. We'll all be here, together and alive.

Every year I just have to get through today. Two more hours and it's done until next time.

#cancer #cancer anniversary #diagnosis day #survivor #leukemia #bad brain time

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pbandjesse · 5 years

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It is my dad's birthday and my parents wedding anniversary and it's a full moon and it's Friday the 13th and it's the anniversary of Scooby-Doo. There's so much good and powerful energy today. Specifically I want to say happy birthday to my dad though because I love him so much and he's gone through so much in the last couple years but he is always attacked the day with kindness just like I tell everyone else to do. I hope you have a very good birthday and I love you and thank you for being my dad.

But on my end for the most part today was not my day. I just felt really sad. Frustrated. I just wanted to come home. And it wasn't even like a real reason just everything was wrong.

I woke up this morning and I felt fine. James had to leave early because he had to go to the dentist. But he made me a sandwich before he left because he's the best. And then I got ready and left it at the bus. But even though the ride was nice I was really early. Which is normally fine but I got to the building and it was locked and the lights were off. And my anxiety just absolutely peaked.

I was convinced that I wasn't supposed to be there and that we weren't supposed to come in or they were a different site and I was so upset and distressed and convinced I did something wrong. I stood outside for about 10 minutes and finally Sarah and the other Jessie came But anxiety was still pretty bad for most of the day because of that.

We spent the first hour just kind of brainstorming by ourselves. Coming up with ideas and figuring stuff out for our lesson plans. I had a lot of ideas already written down so I just did a bunch of research and started flushing things out a little bit more concretely.

For the most part it was a good guy. But then I realized I accidentally sent all of me and James's new gardening stuff to the old apartment and I was so bummed. I just felt so stupid and I just kind of sank into myself because I was so upset. James is an amazing boyfriend though and when I told him how upset I was he took the extra time between the dentist and having to go to work to go to the old apartment and get everything to bring back so I wouldn't be sad. He's so good.

But then my new phone was attempted to be delivered to the apartment and because it needed a signature they didn't leave it. I'm glad they didn't leave it but I thought they would take it to a pickup point. But they didn't. They're just going to wait till Monday and try again and I was so bummed out. I really wanted that to come today and when it didn't I was just like super sad. And I kind of just put a damper on the rest of the day for me. I was able to figure out how to make all of my UPS packages go to the pickup point from now on and so my phone will go there on Monday so I won't have to worry about not being here. But it's still a huge bummer and I feel very dumb. Thankfully it's not like my phone is broken. I was just excited about a new thing. I wanted to get it set up tomorrow while I was at the BMI since it will probably be slow. It's all right. I'll be fine.

We had a good afternoon at work though. We went through and talked about all of the artists that we were considering for research for testing our kids. And we went through a lot of really awesome artists and it was funny that me and fitsum or actually thinking about two artists that were very off the beaten path so that was cool. And I'm really pleased with the final list that we came up with. I am sad that one of the other side of Hope for got knocked off the list that doesn't mean I'm not going to teach you about her just that she's not going to be on the test. And I got my way on the layout of the semester's so that was cool.

We finished up a little bit early and I went to grab the bus but then miss Helene drove past me and stopped and she ended up giving me a ride to Dick Blick. I knew I wouldn't see James until much later because after he's done work he's going to go to his parents house to get the car and then he's going to go to the grocery store to get ready for our cookout tomorrow.

So I went in and I gave him a hug. His other manager made a joke that a customer wanted to see him very specifically. Made me laugh. And then I walked back here.

On my walk I ran into a co-worker from the BMI and that was cool. I posted in the group today about the job openings at access art and apparently everyone was talking about how great I am over there today and have felt really good. It's not the first time someone's told me that they talk about me over there and how they say a lot of positive things so that feels really cool I'm loved. I don't always feel that way. So it's nice to be reminded.

I had to make a stop at the hardware store to look for something for James but they didn't have it so I came back here. I did a whole bunch today actually. When I got back here I kind of snack and then I started working on some drawings. Our gardening stuff was here because of James so I made little tags for the all the herbs were going to put in there and the tomatoes. And then I set up the garden itself. I probably could have bought more rocks but I still think it'll be okay and I'm going to put all of the herbs in small Planters to start with anyway. And it was pretty excellent. It was fun playing in the dirt. I also dyed my hair so that I would look all nice tomorrow. And I worked on one of my Furby tarot cards. I'm actually going to go make something to eat and then do another one. My Hope Is that in the next week we'll get everything photograph so I want to have at least a couple cards finished. Start selling them as a small set.

James should be finishing work now and then he'll go start shopping for stuff. And I'm just going to hang out here. Hopefully he'll be home soon though because I miss him. I hope you guys all have a great night. Tomorrow I have work at the BMI and then we have our little get-together. I hope people come. Seems like it might be kind of small but I don't mind that. It'll be fun to show off our new place to everyone.

Be safe out there guys. Take care of each other. Good night.

#ootd #weird dog #cat #drawing #in progress #furby #tarot #friday work #frustraited

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