#but after learning that he was air fitted and also that those air brakes were pretty lame it all comes together well

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

I do love the detail that Thomas can't brake the train he takes to Wellsworth... because the E2s' brakes are said to have been pretty shit.

#before being turned loose on the branch line thom probably had to go to the works to get vacuum-fitted and given push-pull apparatus #i reckon while he was there they also upgraded his brakes XD #i used to question why thomas never got to take trains during the locomotive crisis?? #but after learning that he was air fitted and also that those air brakes were pretty lame it all comes together well #awdry may not have initially conceived of thom as an e2 but it's honestly such a good basis <3 #the weak brakes in his original form are also great coz he's so impatient by nature #it all just fits :'') #fuck the alt-basis game i for one really love all of the canon bases #... except maybe james. a little conflicted on that one. #and i think ed as one of the 1890 seagulls was a missed opportunity— but using any f.r. basis is *so* blessed that i won't complain #ttte thomas #ttte #the railway series

[houseboatisland]

Have any thoughts on Dennis? (fair warning: I'm already getting a little obsessed with him, and if your answer is *too* good I might nick your ideas for Ex-Condor. you know. with credit. respectfully!)

Behold, a unit.

I honestly hadn’t until this ask of yours! But now I wanna give it my all. So, here goes!

I’m just gonna start off by saying it’s wrong of Dennis to carry the number 11001. For the rest of this post, just ignore it, and assume he’s “11002.”

In 1949, Ashford Works outshopped two diesel-mechanical locomotives, which became British Railways’ 11001 and 11002. They had been designed by the famous (and in many circles, infamous) Oliver Bulleid of the former Southern Railway. By 1949, Bulleid was in hot water with the young British Railways and the public in general for his reputation as a spendthrift who got his imagined locomotives built by dubious means. His Pacifics had been built during the war under the notion they could be mixed-traffic, (this was VERY untrue,) and his ongoing “Leader” development scheme was riddled with teething problems, all of which were built to the taxpayer after nationalization. It was under this cloud of scandal that 11001 and 11002 entered service.

The two unnamed brothers lived primarily at Norwood Shed, south of London. If they were to have further siblings built, they were intended for shunting duties and slow freight trains, undoubtably replacing tank engines in this current niche. Historians have failed to agree, but ‘01 and ‘02 are likely the first diesel locomotives built for British Railways, main line or otherwise. No further examples were built, however.

Growing up at the turn of the Fifties, ‘01 and ‘02 would have been absolutely surrounded by steam engines, who found them more amusing than a threat to themselves. British Railways was still running at a surplus, and there were plans for hundreds of steam engines of their own designs to be built in the coming years. Therefore, ‘01 and ‘02 were tolerated and even befriended by their steam coworkers. That would change, harshly.

January 1955. Word had gotten around among engines about a White Paper put together by the Government a month earlier. British Railways’ small profits at the beginning of the decade were gone. The company was now running at a deficit, costing more to run than what money it generated. The Government decided that to reverse this deficit by 1962, it would enact what it called its ‘Modernization Plan.’ The plan called for massive investments into the railway network and its rolling stock, to improve their competitiveness against the roads and win back lost clientele. This involved, among several other proposals, the wholesale replacement of steam engines with diesels and several main lines being electrified.

All eyes fell now on ‘01 and ‘02. They didn’t have a single steam friend in their corner now, and were treated not as friends but as enemies who had snuck in years earlier with this plan in mind the whole time. This obviously wasn’t true, but the steam engines were paranoid and powerless to stop what the company planned to do. The only course of action left, according to many steam engines, was to take this out on the diesels themselves. Other diesels in turn reacted by taking on an air of superiority and inevitable power against the outdated kettles they were now proud to replace. It can thus be said that the first real animosity between Steam and Diesel was in early 1955. ‘01 and ‘02 were in the thick of it all as it unfolded.

The two brothers, rather than join those diesels who decided to begrudge the steam engines in return, took no sides, instead becoming self-isolated and co-dependent on one another. This made any separation of the two terribly uncomfortable for both, and eventually led to them being bullied by fellow diesels as insufficiently hateful of steam engines.

By August 1959, ‘01 was out of service with a failed gearbox. ‘02 was still mechanically sound, having been used less, but was absolutely shattered by the loneliness of his brother being off the road. 1960 couldn’t have been grimmer for ‘02, when he learned ‘01 had been scrapped on New Year’s Eve at Ashford, and he himself didn’t have much time. As a non-standard engine, with scores of new diesel locomotives on the way, he was to be taken out of service as soon as could be arranged.

For a few months, ‘02 lingered in the Out of Use sidings at Ashford Works, surrounded by withdrawn steam engine also awaiting their demise and thrilled at the opportunity to mock a diesel for joining them on the way to the chopping block. To their shock, the Controller of the North Western Region, Sir Bertram Topham Hatt I, had turned up on a visit of inspection. He was searching for a small, slow engine to shunt his works at Crovan’s Gate. As ‘02 fit that bill, and was in need of little repair and historically significant, he was chosen. Bertram was at this time hoping to pad out his stock with older, now-endangered diesel engines as their times on the Mainland came up, and ‘02 was saved to the steam engines’ fury.

‘02, who took the name Dennis after his first driver on Sodor, began his new lease on life uncomfortably. He was surrounded by steam engines, which put him on edge enough, not to mention that several such as James were also hostile to diesels. This discomfort led to a few unfortunate mishaps, and the Works Foreman put Hatt on notice to find another engine for the job. Hatt naturally wouldn’t scrap Dennis, and searched high and low for a new line of work that could fit him.

It didn’t take long, and what he settled on suited Dennis to a tee. The Permanent Way Department had for a few years now wanted a diesel engine to run their trains for them. A diesel would be far better suited to long periods of waiting, and being able to start and stop at a moment’s notice. The job was more ideal still for Dennis in that it didn’t require an engine with train braking equipment. Dennis didn’t have this, and it was doubtful if another job with this same non-requirement would turn up soon. So, he was soon assigned to this.

Dennis came to relish the work, most of all because the workmen treated him as their own engine, not as a steam engine, nor even as an efficient diesel engine, but as Dennis. Some engines resent his new lease on life as dawdling between stations with the track gangs, but despite his reputation for it, Dennis is anything but “lazy.” He found a steady job, he found crews who appreciate what he does for them, and if it means sitting in station loops until it’s time to move, that’s not a rest, it’s legitimately part of his job. The resting’s just a small perk, so leave him be, eh?~

#ttte #ttte dennis #ttte oc: sir bertram hatt i #ttte worldbuilding #ttte james

[marvels-writings]

Star-Crossed

Soulmate AU entry for @versdan​ ‘s writing challenge 

Soulmate AU where both have a birthmark on their left wrist which matches their soulmate.

Word Count: 5,617 

Soulmates aren’t always easy to find.

Some soulmates have a mark similar but they never fit. The reality is a soulmate is supposed to be perfect, but that’s not always true. You were born with the outline of a black widow mark, you always joked about your soulmate being a spider even though you hate spiders. The thought kept you awake at night sometimes. 

This was one of those nights as you stared up at the ceiling of your hideout, glancing at your black widow mark often. Ultron had just hired you and the Maximoff twins, the past few weeks had been a haze. HYDRA had many experiments, you were just another one of their failures, but they managed to keep you alive somehow, so you ran away with the Maximoff twins. 

Throughout your journey, you’d found you could heal faster than both of them, even absorb injuries to a certain extent. You’d learned you could heal some injuries if you felt all the pain of the injury, recently, you’d gained some more strength, which was helpful while fighting, even though you didn’t want to hurt anyone. 

Sometimes you looked at their marks even though they tried to hide them the best they could, Wanda had an outline in the shape of a gem, Pietro had a symbol of a crystal. The vibranium had been stolen, you were waiting for Wanda and Pietro to return to you after checking on Ultron and what he was doing, you tossed a small keychain which you’d had since you were a kid up in the air before catching it. 

“We’re leaving, now,” Wanda stated, appearing in your room standing next to Pietro, eyes wide with panic as she panted.

“Why?” You asked, getting up and tucking the keychain into your black jeans, donning an oversized sweatshirt over your white t-shirt.

“He’s not who we thought he was,” Pietro stated, you could see he was also scared.

You nodded, following them out of the hideout and onto the streets, you roamed around the streets for some time, talking and bantering like you did before you got taken by HYDRA. They had been like your siblings after their parents died, they met you. Your parents had suffered a similar fate, you became close and followed them everywhere, even to HYDRA. 

While in the bazaar, you saw a train running by with Ultron and Captain America in it, you frowned and turned to the twins who turned to face you. 

“Stay here, we’ll be back,” Wanda commanded, putting a hand on your shoulder. 

You frowned and shoved her hand off your shoulder, heading in the direction of the train. 

“I can help, I’m coming with you.” You stated Wanda’s eyes widened as she followed you, putting a hand on your shoulder to try to stop you. 

“You can’t, you’ll get hurt,” Wanda argued, Pietro laughed which confused both of you.

“There’s no point arguing, let’s just go before the world ends.” He joked, you rolled your eyes and sprinted off in the direction of the train.

Pietro picked Wanda up and rushed after the train, you groaned at the action, realizing you weren’t fast enough to catch up to the train. You spotted a bike out of the corner and grinned before quickly hotwiring it and driving after them, the wind flapping in your face a welcome change from HYDRA.

Eventually, you caught up to the train, but you had no idea how to get inside, you waved at Wanda who somehow saw you and used her magic to levitate you inside. It felt strange to fly, you struggled against the magic to try to keep control before realizing you had no control over what Wanda was doing. She pulled you into the train, you turned around and saw Ultron fighting Steve. 

“Holy shit.” You muttered, looking around the train to find some passengers terrified, Ultron had shot the driver of the train, you rushed past him, ignoring the voices of Wanda telling you to stop.

You put your hands on the driver’s shoulders, concentrating to absorb the injuries. You didn’t know why you wanted to help him, you didn’t need to, all you needed was for him to wake up to stop the train. Pain erupted across your back as the injuries started taking their toll on you. You saw the tissue start to heal but you couldn’t, the pain in your shoulder muscles made you stop, the driver was dead. 

After shoving him aside, you tried to pull the brakes but Ultron quickly shot near you before flying out of the train. You winced at the blast, the driver’s blood soaking the floor of the train. 

“I can’t do anything, the controls are completely fried.” You stated, walking back into the first car.

Steve turned around to look at you, examining you for a second before turning around to give orders. In all honesty, you were a little intimidated by him. 

“There are people in front of the train, get them to safety,” He commanded Pietro who instantly rushed out, you turned around to see him run in front of the rogue train, getting everyone to safety the best he could. 

“Can you stop this thing?” He asked Wanda, she nodded as red magic pulsed through her hands and to the train wheels.

You saw the toll it was taking on her and went back to the front of the train where the emergency brake was, you pulled it back quickly. 

“Look out!” Steve shouted you turned around to see the train was about to run into a wall.

Steve jumped in front of you before you could react, he shielded both of you with his shield, you heard something pierce flesh and his breath hitch before he took his shield away, a piece of a metal barrel had ingrained itself into his arm.

“Let me.” You said, putting your hand over his arm, pulling the piece away with a quick motion before using your powers the best you could, Steve’s initial reaction was to jerk his arm away until he saw the blood stop seeping through the wound.

Pain filled the side of your arm, you winced against it and bit your lip to prevent a scream. Steve’s eyes widened as he saw the tissue slowly start to fix itself as the pain in his arm faded to nothing. He saw you bite your lip and your breathing hitch as your hands wandered over the wound until it healed.

Neither of you noticed the train had stopped until Wanda called you over to Pietro. You ignored Steve thanking you and went outside to find Pietro panting with a large bruise on his cheek.

“What the hell happened?” You demanded, hands wandering over the wound before he pushed your hand away. 

“I’m fine, I just need a minute.” He panted, Steve stormed outside of the train as the three of you turned to face him.

“I’m very tempted not to give you one.” He stated, tucking his shield away and crossing his arms, staring him down with an intimidating blue gaze.

“Give him a break.” You argued, Wanda stepped in before you could get aggressive.

“The cradle, did you get it?” She asked Steve turned to face her.

“Stark is going to take care of it.” He reassured, your heart dropped to the floor when you heard that, Wanda took a step back.

“No he won’t,” She whispered, a million things running in her head. 

None of you trusted Stark, you blamed him for taking your family away, you blamed him for all the lives he had taken with his weapons.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve said, but you could sense the uncertainty in his voice, you groaned and looked up at him.

“Ultron made that cradle, do you have any idea what Stark is planning to do with it?” You asked, Steve’s brows furrowed and he opened his mouth to answer but Wanda cut him off.

“Stark can’t tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it, where do you think he gets that?” Wanda asked.

Steve clenched his jaw and shifted on his feet, speaking into his comms but you ignored him, instead taking off your sweatshirt and handing it to Pietro who had started shivering for some reason. He smiled at you grateful and quickly put it on, you laughed at how tight it was on him, missing the look Steve gave to your mark. 

“We should get back to the tower.” He said, trying not to stare at the mark.

You nodded and followed Steve and the twins back to the tower, nervously tracing your mark. 

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

“I’m only going to say it once,” Steve commanded, entering the room where Bruce Banner and Tony Stark were trying to program the cradle...

You stepped out from behind Pietro, looking around at what was in front of you, the cradle was glowing blue with giant tubes sticking out of it. They were trying to bring something to life, the top of the cradle had a gem in the same shape as Wanda’s mark.

“How about nonce?” Tony asked, you looked at him, he looked as scared as you did, he tried not to show it as he headed down the stairs. 

“Shut it down,” Steve said, Wanda stepped out from behind them, you saw Bruce flinch at her, you couldn’t blame him after what Ultron had told Wanda to do. 

“Nope, not gonna happen,” Tony answered, roaming around the cradle and typing buttons. 

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Steve argued, you backed up slightly when you saw Bruce’s eyes turn cold before he spoke. 

“And you do?” He asked all heads turned to him.

“She’s not in your head?” Bruce gestured to Wanda. You stepped in front of her but she stepped forwards. 

“I know you’re angry,” Wanda tried to comfort Bruce but he quickly cut her off.

“Oh I’m way past that, I could choke the life out of you and never even change a shade,” Bruce stated, hands shaking with anger as he tried to shut down his emotions. 

“Banner after everything that happened,” Steve began.

“Nothing compared to what’s coming,” Tony stated, you frowned and turned to face him, gaze turning cold quickly.

Pietro rolled his eyes and interrupted the rest of his sentence by running and unplugging the cradle from the power sources, leaving everyone stunned. He returned to stand next to the cradle, holding up a plug with a smirk. 

“No, no, go on. You were saying?” He smirked, you stifled a laugh at his joke. He sent a wink at you before a bullet pierced the ground below him, he fell onto the floor below. 

“Pietro!” You and Wanda shouted in unison, Stark spoke something about rewriting when Steve threw his shield around the room, effectively shutting down the computers when Tony used a glove from his Iron Man suit to blast him backward. 

The rest of his suit started to come by, Wanda reacted by summoning magic to take him down when Bruce quickly put her into a headlock. 

“Go ahead, piss me off,” Bruce muttered, holding her back. 

You knew Wanda could protect herself, so you leaned over where Pietro fell to see him on the ground, he gave you a quick smile before sprinting off to find a way to you. Steve got up quickly and hit Tony on the blaster before he blasted both of them backward, breaking the windows on either side. Wanda broke out of the headlock by pushing Bruce backward using a blast of magic. 

The next thing you knew, the god of thunder broke the window and rushed in, electricity surrounding his hammer. You backed away towards Wanda who had gotten rid of Bruce, you took her hand nervously, she squeezed yours and backed away as Thor struck the hammer onto the cradle, electricity flowing into it.

The screen quickly flashed power overload before the doors of the cradle broke, a man in red climbed out with a familiar gem in his head as the blast blew everyone back. Your eyes widened as you looked at it, bringing Wanda’s hand up to see the outline of the gem filling in, you turned to see her as shocked as you were. The man looked around, terrified before he rushed at Thor who quickly threw him backward, people.

You rushed out, letting go of Wanda’s hand in your urgency to see what was happening. Everyone else ran after you, the man was hovering outside the window before he turned around, grey material clothing him before he added a cape to the outfit.

“I’m sorry, that was odd.” He confessed, he looked rather strange. His face was red, the gem was somehow implanted into his head, the outfit he chose was grey and clinging to his body. The cape flowed behind him.

“I looked into your mind and I saw the destruction,” Wanda stated, voice wavering when she saw the mark on his wrist filling in, you noticed and tapped the side of her hand, she glanced down at his wrist causing everyone to look.

“Look again,” The man stated confidently before examining the mark on his wrist, then looking up in confusion.

“Who has this mark?” He asked you turned to Wanda as Pietro ran into the room, bewildered as before when he saw the mark on his sister’s wrist filled in.

Wanda hesitantly raised her wrist, all heads in the room turned to her. You clenched your jaw as the man started walking around the room, looking at himself curiously.

“We need to focus, how do we know you aren’t what Ultron wanted you to be?” Steve asked.

“I’m not Ultron, I don’t know what I am,” He confessed then turned around to face everyone. “But we need to go, now.”

He lifted Thor’s hammer, offering it to him. You stifled a laugh at their expressions, reaching for Wanda’s hand and squeezing it lightly before walking off to get ready for the battle with Pietro.

 -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

You hummed a soft tune while picking out a battle suit, eventually deciding on an outfit consisting of simple black leggings, a mid-length black t-shirt, fav/color, and black jacket and put your hair up into a ponytail, playing around with a few strands you took out before taking a picture out of your pocket, still humming softly to yourself.

“What are you humming?” Pietro asked, sitting beside you and smiling softly at the picture you held before pulling out an identical picture.

It was a picture of you, your parents and the Maximoff family at some beach picnic, you didn’t remember who had taken the picture. You and Pietro carried identical copies to remind yourself of the people who had believed in you, even if they were gone.

“Star-crossed by Jon Vinyl.” You answered, still humming the tune before taking the picture and tucking it into the zipper pocket on the fav/color jacket. 

“You like that song?” Pietro asked jokingly, hiding his grief as he tucked the picture away and put on sneakers.

“It’s a good song with decent lyrics.” You argued, slipping on some black Adidas shoes similar to Pietro’s.

“Name one good lyric,” Pietro argued, you rolled your eyes while thinking of the lyrics and heading outside with him, putting the comms in your ear. 

“Forbidden love is beautiful but tragic in the end, but we'll defy the universe, this time the house won't win.” You sang softly, Pietro shrugged in defeat and joined Wanda. 

The three of you headed onto the jet, flying to where all of this had started. 

 -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Steve gave a speech on where everyone should go and why they were still fighting. The twins and everyone else worked on getting the citizens of Sokovia to safety while you went with Bruce to rescue some agent named Natasha. Steve said in case she was injured you could heal her and bring her back to the jet before heading back into the fight.

You hugged Wanda and Pietro a quick goodbye, promising to see each other again before heading down to where Natasha was supposed to be. You chatted with Bruce on the way down the steps, ignoring how the mark was tingling and pulling up the sleeve instead. Bruce saw the mark and grinned, he’d seen the identical mark on Natasha’s wrist. 

“Natasha!” He called out, a redheaded woman who had been sitting in a cell looked up and grinned at him. 

“You didn’t find the key lying around anywhere, did you?” the woman, Natasha joked, you chuckled and picked up a gun, the tingling in your wrist increasing for some reason.

You carelessly scratched it and aimed the gun at the lock.

“I did.” You grinned, winking at her playfully and shooting the lock off once she’d backed off towards the corner of the room

You put the gun down then headed into the room once you saw a gash on her forehead, your wrist left exposed to her when you held up your hand to heal her forehead.

“What are you doing?” She asked, examining your face as your hand wandered gently over her forehead as you focused on healing her. 

“Helping you, I’m y/n by the way.” You introduced, feeling the pain of the gash and clenching your jaw as you focused on healing the injury.

Natasha looked you up and down, examining every part of you to try to figure you out. She saw the black widow outline on your wrist slowly filling up as the pain from her forehead faded. You pulled away and smiled at her, noticing how stunned she was. 

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” You asked Natasha was bewildered as she pulled back the sleeve of her suit. 

You frowned, expecting a gash to be covering her wrist instead of seeing a scarlet-colored black widow mark on her wrist, identical to yours. Your eyes widened as you looked at your wrist, the mark filled up now. You held it next to Natasha’s wrist in shock. You’d finally found your soulmate, Bruce grinned from the doorway before a large tremor shook the cave.

Natasha’s eyes glistened with tears when she realized it, she remembered every single night when she looked at the mark, thinking about her soulmate and if they would accept her. She often thought about it in the red room, using it as a reminder of why she should survive. After every single fight she remembered tracing the outline of it, hoping you won’t see her as tainted. Now that you were here, all her worries seemed to fade for some reason. 

“You’re my, oh my god.” You muttered, too shocked to notice Natasha grinning as she saw your expression, emerald eyes filling with unshed tears as the realization of finally meeting her soulmate hit her. 

You remembered tracing the outline of the symbol at so many different points in your life, first when you found out about soulmates, you remembered your parents telling you about it happily while you stared in wonder at the mark. You remember tracing it after they died, remembering their promise about you finding someone who is perfect for you, and will love you in every way. You remembered tracing it after HYDRA experiments, using it as a reason to suffer through it to stay alive. You remember it at your best times, wanting to share the rest of your life with whoever caused the mark to fill up.

“I don’t mean to break anything up,” Bruce began, you turned to him and hastily wiped at your eyes to stop your eyes from watering, noticing Natasha do the same thing 

“But the cave is going to come down on us and I need to get you to safety.” Bruce gestured to Natasha who frowned, following you out of the cave. 

“You aren’t going to turn green?” Natasha smirked, slowly getting over the shock of meeting her soulmate.

“I have a compelling reason not to lose my cool,” Bruce answered, walking out of the cave but Natasha grabbed his wrist, turning him around and pulling him into a hug. You raised an eyebrow at the action.

“I adore you,” She whispered, you noticed the smirk on her face and could instantly tell she was planning something.

Your suspicions were confirmed when she pushed him down the giant hole in the cave.

“But I need the other guy right now.” She said, looking down the hole, the Hulk climbed up and stood in front of her, grinning at both of you.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

“This was not part of the plan!” You screamed as air rushed past your face as the Hulk carried you and Natasha up to Sokovia. None of you had any idea why the entire city was floating, but you knew you needed to help.

“What was the plan?” Natasha asked you opened your mouth to shout out an answer before the Hulk threw you and Natasha into the sticks. 

Both of you rolled for a bit before reaching a stop, you groaned and got up, not hearing what she said to Bruce as she got up and quickly helped you up.

“Not this.” You muttered, letting her help you up and quickly leading you to a bulldozer to lead you to the center of the city where the fighting was.

“How did all of this happen?” She asked after you climbed into it, she hotwired it and started mowing over the bots Ultron had created on her way to the center.

“I have no idea, ask Stark, the twins, and I just joined this mess.” You answered, hiding the fact that leaving the scepter to Tony was kind of your idea.

Natasha laughed and answered Tony on the comms as more boats started to come in your way.

“So, do you have any magical powers that I should know?” Natasha asked conversationally, you giggled a little before answering.

“I’m strong and I can heal people, but I feel the pain of the injury while healing them. The most I’ve healed so far is a stab wound of sorts.” You remembered the barrel in Steve’s arm as she stopped the bulldozer, shooting a few of the robots in front. 

You followed her, not having enough experience to do any better. The battle raged on, Steve eventually joined you and Natasha to the edge of the city where you had been fighting bots. You headed into the main area where all of the citizens had gone to help them, Natasha came with you to protect you but you waved her off.

You felt all the pain of the injuries the citizens had sustained, there were injuries as little as scraped knees, but some as big as stab wounds. After healing about 10 people, you were completely drained as pain pulsed through you, you headed outside to where Steve and Natasha were. 

“Where else am I going to get a view like this?” Natasha asked you laughed after realizing the view was stunning, it would’ve been better if the circumstances were better. 

“I’m glad you liked the view Romanoff, it’s about to get a lot better.” a voice said on your comms, you frowned as the twins joined you, grinning at the sight of a helicarrier breaking above the clouds.

“Fury you son of a bitch,” Steve stated, Fury retorted something you didn’t really pay attention to, you were too busy looking at the ship.

“This is SHIELD?” Pietro asked, in awe of the huge ship.

“This is what SHIELD is supposed to be,” Steve answered, grinning at the ship.

“This isn’t so bad.” You smiled, giving Pietro a high five before heading to the center of the city.

The rest of the team fought Ultron after some huge monologue he made which no one paid attention to. Your job was to help the injured citizens before they got on the ships back to the helicarrier. Most of them were fine, just a little shocked. Some had minor injuries which you didn’t have time to heal. You helped the ones who had broken ankles or gashes that could bleed out. Every single patient drained energy from you, your lip swollen after biting it so much to prevent your screaming.

You pushed past it, wanting to help these people in a way no one had helped you. Natasha watched you heal everyone who asked for your help, she watched you offer comfort when you could. You were too empathic for your own good. Clint had chatted with her about your past, it amazed her how someone who had been through so much still had the capacity to be so good. You amazed her. 

Most of the citizens were on the ships and on their way onto the helicarrier. Ultron had almost been defeated, his real body had been blown onto a train, no one noticed him hobbling onto the quinjet. The Avengers defeated the bots, Thor and Tony stayed behind to take care of the city, the plan was to blow it to bits once the citizens were safe.

Clint looked exhausted as he headed towards the ship, you tiredly smirked at him, taking care of a woman in her late twenties who claimed she had broken her wrist. You healed her while biting your cheek to prevent yourself from groaning in pain. You’d accidentally groaned once while healing someone who had a broken foot, they saw you were in pain and went away from you.

“You okay old man?” You joked, inhaling sharply as you felt the full pain of the injury before it slowly started to fade.

“Shut up.” He groaned, about to sit down when a mother said she left her child in the bazaar.

He sighed and got up, running to the child. He was halfway back when both of you noticed the quinjet shooting, he was directly in the line of fire. Your eyes widened before you could do anything to help, something silver ran quickly in front of him. 

Pietro spoke something to him with a smirk before collapsing, his shirt filled with red bullet holes as he stared blankly ahead, the light slowly fading from his eyes. 

“NO!” You screamed, running towards Pietro in hopes of healing him.

Clint let the kid run to his mother, trying to stop you by your shoulders. He knew you couldn’t heal Pietro, he didn’t want you to feel the kind of pain of not being able to save him. You shoved him aside forcefully, turning Pietro over and wandering your hands over his dead body.

You concentrated the hardest you could, the pain starting out slowly, it grew intense quickly. You screamed out in pain, the pain going directly to your head. You couldn’t bear it, you tried to push past it to save him, to save your brother.

You clenched your jaw tightly, panting as you looked down at him, the bullet holes hadn’t stopped bleeding, your vision started turning black, the last thing you heard was Natasha yelling your name before you collapsed onto the ground.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

“Y/n, wake up.” Someone said, slapping your face softly. 

You squint your eyes before opening them, feeling the ground below you. You were on the chairs of the ship, you looked around to see Natasha on top of you, shaking you awake, emerald eyes filled with concern. You smiled weakly at her, pain filling your head. You propped yourself up on your elbows and looked around.

Clint was asleep on the seats across from you, looking down, you saw your worst nightmare. Pietro was dead, his face pale, his entire chest red from blood. You gasped, your heart dropping to the ground, you couldn’t save him. 

Hot tears started streaming down your face, you bit your already swollen lip to try to hold a sob in but failed. You pulled your knees to your chest, Natasha rubbed your back to try to comfort you but Steve called her over to calm Banner down, she sighed.

“I’ll be right back okay?” She asked, you nodded weakly but continued sobbing. Natasha sighed and got up to go calm him down.

The tears wouldn’t stop flowing from your eyes, Pietro was like your brother, he had cared for you when no one else had. Even when Wanda was with you, Pietro had always been closer. You knew this would destroy Wanda, you couldn’t do anything to save him.

You turned around to see the Hulk flying back to the helicarrier, you recognized the red hair in his arms and knew Natasha was safe. You rubbed your eyes to see, clenching your jaw as you tried not to look at Pietro. The city dropped as soon as the ship had gone away from it. 

“Shit,” You muttered, Wanda was still there.

You looked out intently, hoping one of the team would fly her out, you couldn’t lose both of your siblings in one day. A few seconds later, Vision was carrying Wanda back to the ship, he set her down at the door, she walked over to you.

You saw her face fall, tears slip down her eyes, her heartbreak at the sight of her dead brother. You pulled her into a hug, her tears soaking your jacket and shirt as she trembled.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t save him. I’m so sorry Wanda.” You murmured into her shoulder.

 Wanda wanted to blame you, she wanted to blame someone but she knew Pietro wouldn’t want that. The choice he made was his, he knew what he was doing. She saw how guilty you felt and knew she shouldn’t blame you, the only person she should blame was dead, she couldn’t do anything else.

You held each other as you sobbed on your way back to the helicarrier, mourning the loss of your brother.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

“Are you feeling okay?” Natasha asked, walking into the room Tony had given you to live in. 

“I’m fine.” You answered, tugging his jacket closer around yourself, Natasha saw you weren’t and sat next to you on the bed.

“It’s okay not to.” She comforted, rubbing your back gently, you ran a hand through your hair, letting yourself relax into her touch.

“I just, I wasn’t enough to save him.” You muttered, Natasha sighed but hesitated to pull you into a hug. 

She got up and held her arms open for you, you raised an eyebrow at the action but sighed and let yourself melt into her embrace. Your head still throbbed from all the pain of yesterday.

“You saved more people than I can count y/n, we can’t save everyone all the time,” Natasha whispered softly. You let yourself take some comfort in her words.

“I don’t deserve a soulmate as good as you.” you laughed humorlessly, she frowned and pulled away, looking at you with a soft emerald gaze.

“You know, for the longest time I always thought my soulmate would be disappointed in me. But when I’m with you, I don’t feel like a disappointment, I feel better than I have in years.” Natasha said softly, trying her best to comfort you.

Her spy training meant she could manipulate people into calming down, but all of her training went out of the window when she was with you.

“You could never disappoint.” You stated, Natasha reached one hand to cup your cheek softly, you looked up at her nervously.

“Neither can you,” Natasha whispered, leaning her forehead against yours hesitantly.

She didn’t know how comfortable you were with physical contact, she felt you shift in her arms and she pulled away, scared she had crossed a line.

“Sorry if I’m moving too fast.” Natasha apologized, standing close to you but not touching you.

“You’re not, I’m just not used to it.” You confessed, a soft smile creeping onto your face at how soft Natasha was with you.

“Neither am I, we get used to it together right?” She asked jokingly, you laughed, she heard the genuinity in your laugh and smiled. 

“Of course, we are star-crossed after all.” You joked weakly, your heart feeling a little lighter after talking to her. 

“There’s a song I heard a few days ago called that,” Natasha smirked, humming the tune before remembering the exact lyrics.

You smiled weakly at the memory of humming it to Pietro before she softly sand the tune in your ear, nervously wrapping her arms around your waist. You slid your hand around her neck, resting your head on her chest, letting her heartbeat comfort you.

“My heart can't keep a secret

I'm all in my chips are on the floor”

Natasha sang softly, hoping you’d remember all the lyrics. 

You smiled, feeling her breath tickle your neck as her heartbeat matched yours. You took in a breath and looked up at her.

“'Cause if we're star-crossed lovers we should act like it.” You sang back, smiling at her. Natasha leaned in hesitantly, searching your face for a sign of reluctance. 

“Can I kiss you?” She asked, you smiled at how reluctant she was and nodded.

Natasha reached a hand up to cup your cheek and leaned in slowly, lips meeting yours after what felt like centuries of waiting. Your lips moved over hers hesitantly, breaths mingling as your hand went up into her hair to pull her closer. Natasha smiled into the kiss, her lack of breath forcing her to pull away.

You felt more at home than you had in years, in the arms of your soulmate, you couldn’t wait to spend the rest of your life with your star-crossed lover.

Tag List: @capcarolsdanver​, @versdan​, @lesbian-girls-wayhaught​, @lovebotlarson​, @dhengkt​, @5aftermidnight​, @hstoria​, @natasha-danvers​, @veryfunnyal​, @xxxtwilightaxelxxx​ , @ophelias-heart​  , @never-didbefore​ , @justarandomhumanhere​, @the-most-unicorn-of-them-all , @thatssocamryn​ , @lesbian-x-blackwidow​ , @marvelbbyx​ , @wlw-imaginesss​ let me know if you’d like to be in any of my tag lists!

A/N: Thoughts? This is hella long so feedback on this would be AMAZING, thanks!

#marvel #marvel x reader #marvel x female reader #marvel x fem reader #marvel x female!reader #marvel x you #marvel x y/n #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x female reader #natasha romanoff x female!reader #natasha romanoff x fem reader #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff x y/n #natasha romanoff one shot #natasha romanoff imagine #marvel one shot #marvel imagine #black widow #black widow x reader #black widow x female reader #black widow x female!reader #black widow x fem reader #black widow x you #black widow x y/n #black widow one shot #black widow imagine #scarlet johannsen #scarjo #my writing

[smuttyanimeslut]

Time

Paring: Tsukishima Kei x fem!reader

Warnings: mentions of sewer slide, cussing, war, death, slight fluff, angst, immortality

Description: Kei is presented with a very special ability, leaving him wondering the world alone for most of history, until he meets you.

Word Count: 2,438

Time. Time does not stop for everybody, least of all those who wish it so. And when it does stop?

It is equivalent to floating in space with endless oxygen. The planets pass by, sometimes ensnaring everything in their gravitational pull before inevitably letting go.

Time is meaningless when it has no bound. Everyday, and any day, blend together so seamlessly, it becomes hard to tell them apart. Minutes turn into days. Days turn into years. Years turn into decades. It goes on forever, because when time stops. When it really stops, there is no end.

Time is picky with whom it shares its secrets, and even pickier with whom it stops for. Kei did not want time to stop. That was not his intention. He wanted time to be over, more specifically, his own time.

The day in question was a sunny one. A pleasant breeze blew the smell of death through the streets. Bodies of less fortunate lay stacked in small buggies as people milled around them. Smallpox had ravaged the town, laying waste to half the population. Those who survived lost friends, and family alike. Kei was one of the unlucky few left standing.

Despite all that had happened to him, Kei was a relatively healthy young man. His family had the misfortune of being poor, but they always seemed to make do with what they had. For most of his life, he was happy. He knew that as the second born son he needed to marry a nice girl and take over her families estate, seeing as his brother would acquire what little his family had, and he was okay with that.

However, with smallpox came a devastation Kei had never experienced before. Loneliness was not a new feeling to the young man, as he was the second born son, but the depths of which he felt it now were unlike that one could imagine.

Kei’s elder brother, Akiteru, was the first to contract the virus. Aika, Kei’s mother, tended to him as his fever over took his body. By the time Akiteru finally passed on, Aika and Kei’s father has also fell victim to smallpox. Kei was the last one left. Surviving on his own seemed nearly impossible. He had always had his older brother to fall back on when things seemed to hard, and always cherished his advice when it was needed the most. Without Akiteru, Kei was not Kei anymore.

The first time Kei had wanted his time to be over was on that sunny day when he lost everything. He had never seen himself as a noble man, but dying with his family fit. Time would finally be over, and he would pass on just as he should have along side those he loved. Only time had a different idea.

That’s the funny thing about time, it has a mind of its own. While Kei succeeds in ending his own time, it only lasted for a moment. The small space between the end and the beginning meshed together seamlessly. The moment his heart stopped, it started right back up again. His cells, organs, skin, stitched itself back together again, and he lived.

The second time Kei wanted his time to be over was in 1353. Another plague stole those he loved from him, and he swore he would never love again. While time does not play by the same rules as those who are slaves to it, neither does those who are not.

Since Kei’s birth in 718, and his family’s death in 736, Kei has dead many times. He has participated in war after war, in country after country, to find meaning in his life. But the young man keeps drifting past planets, not being pulled into a gravitational pull since 1353. Attachments were not to be made by any means.

That is, until he met you. France was beautiful in 1889, as the construction of the Eiffel Tower had recently been finished. The soft sound of music floated down the street as Kei sat admiring the monument. A glass of wine slyly placed between his slender fingers warmed his insides when he first noticed you. The night was slowly coming to an end as you stumbled out of a café, your sweater clutched tightly around your body.

You were breath taking. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the glisten off the Eiffel Tower, or maybe it was just France, Kei didn’t know. All he knew was he needed to spend one night with you. This didn’t break his rules, he thought. One night would not turn into your lifetime.

And so he sat his wine glass down, and uncrossed his legs to approach you. “Madame,” he began enticing you with his golden brown eyes, “I couldn’t help but notice the stars in your eyes.”

A giggle left your mouth as you looked at the tall blonde before you. “Is that so?” You questioned, fluttering your lashes. With so few words, you were absolutely smitten. However, you knew that this one night, would not turn into a lifetime.

So you let him sweet talk you. The cool air of the night never settling as he pulled you in close. His warm breath whispering down your neck as he showered you in complements. And when he offered you refuge in his arms, you took it.

Sticky sweet words passed through your lips that night, and the following morning when Kei awoke, you were not there. The dull feeling of disappointment settled on his chest once he realized you were gone. His limbs still felt the weight of your body, and the warmth of your touch lingered. He thought that be the end of it, but it was only the beginning.

Nearly an hour had past when a knock sounded throughout Kei temporary apartment. Much to his surprises there you stood, with a steaming cup and pastries. “Can I come in,” you asked, giving him a shy smile. 

You did not intend on coming back. When you made it out of Kei’s apartment that morning a shallow ache started in your chest. He had been so sweet and caring, his fingers gently caressing your skin as if you were made of glass. No one had ever conveyed that much longing in one night to you, and it had drawn you back. When you made it to your favorite café you grabbed a few treats and headed to Kei’s apartment. 

The two of you spent weeks together in France, traveling all over the country side. During the day, the two of your were tourist learning the culture, and at night the two of you were one. It wasn’t until Van Gogh died a year later that the two of you separated. 

Years passed, and a few times he thought he had seen you again. Your shared nights in France lingered at the back of his mind on days that were a little too cold. Another war came and went leaving new ideals, but the same Kei. At least, on the outside. While time had stopped for him, it had only planted seeds of hate and loneliness deep inside him. He would forever be drifting through space, alone.

The next time Kei felt hope was at the turn of the century. Standing in a crowd of thousand of people was one of Kei’s least favorite things to do. Time Square on New Year’s Eve signified another year of forever for Kei, why would he want to celebrate it?

In short, he didn’t. A few of his friends from work had convinced him to come out to party the night away with them, and he begrudgingly agreed. Blink 182 took the stage as Kei stuffed his hands deeply into his pockets, looking unamused. He didn’t want to be here on a night like this. Just because he was unable to die, didn’t mean he was unable to feel the cold. He was fucking freezing.

A bored expression encompassed his face as a particularly nasty breeze tossed snow back into the air. His friends hopped along to the music and shouted loudly as Kei stood still, shivering.

When the count down finally approached, Kei was glad. His time in the cold was almost over, and he was about to spend the next few hours getting undoubtedly drunk. That is, until he saw you.

As if it was fate, you turn to smile at a friend as you loudly proclaimed the seconds counting down to one. A beanie sat atop your head, and a scarf was wrapped securely around your neck. But it was you. When your eyes met Kei’s it was as if the both of you stopped breathing.

“Impossible,” you thought, “he looks exactly like the young man in France.” If not for the stunned look on his face, you might of assumed it was a coincidence. Many times you had run into great great grandchildren of a former friend, and this could have been one of those times.

Without thinking, you pushed through the few people between you. The crowd buzzed with electricity as midnight came crashing down. Your lips were on his as confetti and fireworks shot throughout the city.

Kei nearly toppled over when you came barreling into him. His hands wrapped around your waist tightly as his lips pushed back into yours. The cool metal of his glasses imprinted into his face as you snaked your arms around his neck, pulling him in closer. Cheers erupted around the two of you as the new year began.

“Sorry,” you said once the two of you pulled apart, “I thought you were someone I knew a long time ago.”

Kei pushed up his glasses with his pointer finger before examining you further. Your hair was shorter now than it was in France, and your nose ran from the cold. Your eyes, however, held the same stars as they did on the first night the two of you spent together.

“Who did you think I was?” Kei asked, keeping his arms tightly wrapped around your waist.

“Someone who could understand me I guess,” you replied looking into his eyes. Chaos surrounded the two of you as snow and confetti fell from the sky. 

People bumped into the pair of you, braking you from your trance. Slowly, almost longingly, you separated from one another. Scratching the back of your neck you looked away, a motion that Kei mimicked.

The movement of the crowd began to separate the pair as stillness settled into them. Neither knew what to do. Do you press the topic forward, you wondered.

A decision was made for you as Kei grabbed your wrist, bringing himself to your ear. “Why did you leave me in France?” He asked, his words laced with hurt. 

At every point of contact with you, Kei’s skin burned. From the tips of his fingers to the rounds of his lips, the heat radiating from you was like a slab on this cold night. You were just like him, but you had left him all by himself. 

“It was my time to move on. I had been there for years when I met you Kei.” You said placing a hand on his cheek. “I didn’t know you were like me.”

“I didn’t need to be like you to understand why you had to go. You should have told me.” Kei knew his usual stoic face held centuries worth of pain. He missed you when you had left, and mourned your death when he knew you could not have been alive any longer. “Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving.”

“I couldn’t bare to see you look like you do now. I just-” You began as your friend cut you off. 

“Y/N,” they asked approaching from behind, “Are you okay?”

It took you a moment to see that the crowd had finally began to thin out. While being in Kei’s grip, you had lost yourself in time. 

“I’m fine,” You told your friends, and to Kei you said, “Meet me tomorrow at the café down the street from here. Noon. If you don’t come I will understand but I promise I will find you again.”

“Noon.” Kei repeated, slowly letting go of your wrist. 

For a moment, the two of you stayed close together. The crowd was no longer a worry, your friends were not longer a worry, and time had never been. 

“Noon,” You thought as there was a tug at your wrist, “I will see him again.”

The next day as you sat in the café, clock striking 1, you knew Kei was not going to show. The time you had spent with Kei in France was one of the best times of your life, and leaving him was one of the hardest decisions you had ever had to make. Being alive while everyone around you grows old and dies is awful. It is something you feared before you stopped aging. You never wanted to have to see it happen again, and then Kei became such a big part of your life. What were you to do? 

So you left. You left before he even knew what the two of you could have been if you continued. As much as you wanted to feel like you were protecting him from getting to close you knew that your act had been selfish. If you truly wanted to protect him you never would have brought him coffee and pastries that morning and you knew it. 

Standing from your table in the café, you headed out. “I have a promise to keep,” you thought as the cold air of New Years Day hit you, “I will find you Kei.” 

Down the block Kei stood, watching you leave the café after an hour. He had thought about going in and hearing you out. Questions swirled in head while he watched your retreating form. “You made a promise,” he thought, “and if you keep it maybe we can have forever.” 

Kei had thought maybe 2000 would be his year. He had been wrong. The next year when the opportunity presented itself at the Worlds Trade Center, he took it. He had not intended to disappear on that day, but he saw no other way to get ready for his next life. That is where your search halted. For years after the 9/11 attack, there was no new news on Tsukishima Kei. He was a ghost. 

Many years later as you stood in the entrance of a gym, a small orange haired boy yelled, “Nice kill Tsukishima!” 

#kei #kei tsukishima #kei tsukishima x reader #kei tsukishima x you #tsukishima #tsukishima kei #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima kei x you #kei x you #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima x you #kei x reader #tsukishima imagine #kei imagine #tsuishima kei imagine #AU #Haiyuu AU #haikyuu!! #haikyuu #haikyū!! #haikyu tsukishima #haikyu kei #immortal au #i made myself sad #slight fluff #angst

[therealuniverse]

THE FIRST WOMAN IN SPACE: VALENTINA TERESHKOVA Tereshkova became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6. She was born on March 6, 1937 and raised in Maslennikovo, a small town in the Yaroslavl Region. Her family included a younger brother and an elder sister; her father was a tractor driver who was declared missing in action in the Finno-Russian War of 1939-1940. Her mother raised the three children on her own whilst also working in a textile plant.

Tereshkova did not start school until she was eight, once the war was over. At the age of 17 she had to leave school so she could start working at the textile factory, to help support her family. She continued her education via correspondence course and learned to sky dive through the DOSAAF Aviation Club in Yaroslavl, an auxiliary organization of the Soviet Air Force. Tereshkova’s first sky dive was on 21 May 1959 and afterwards she set up the Textile Mill Workers Parachute Club and became its first head. Two years after that, she became secretary of her local Komsomol (Young Communist League) and earned certification as a cotton-spinning technology expert. A month after she turned 24, in April 1961, Yuri Gagarin officially became the first man in space when the Soviet Union launched the Vostok-1 spacecraft (http://on.fb.me/WtbCqM). Kamanin, the cosmonaut chief, believed it was the patriotic duty of the Soviet Union to beat the Americans to put a woman in space. He went to the Soviet Air Force and Chief Designer Korolev straight after Gagarin’s flight, proposing they find a female cosmonaut who would also be a dedicated Communist. With Korolev’s agreement, in October 1961 Kamanin ensured five women were among the 50 new cosmonauts recruited. Piloting was not a requirement for the recruits, as the Vostok was completely automated. Parachuting experience was essential however, as the cosmonaut within the Vostok would be ejected from the capsule after re-entry and would land on the Earth’s surface using a personal parachute. The qualifications were: females under 30 years of age; under 170 cm tall; under 70 kg in weight; physically fit; ideologically pure; who had completed parachute training of at least five to six months duration. Kamanin was one of the founders of DOSAAF so searched for girls matching his criteria among the Soviet Union’s aero clubs. There were 58 potential candidates within the DOSAAF and 40 of these passed the paper review and were sent to Moscow for interviews and physical examinations in January 1962. Tereshkova met all the requirements; though the fact that her father was missing in action rather than killed in action raised the possibility, though remote, that he had deserted or fled. As she was a Komsomol leader this hurdle was overlooked and she became one of five women selected as cosmonaut-candidates on 16 February 1962. Of the five, she was the least qualified and held no higher education; the others were test pilots, world-class parachutists, and engineers. The five women underwent training including weightless flights, parachute jumps, isolation tests and centrifuge tests. Kamanin considered Tereshkova, Solovyova and Kuznetsova to be the leading candidates for the first female flight to space. Tereshkova was very strong in the physical training, but struggled more than the others with rocket theory and spacecraft engineering. The training next included 120 parachute jumps as well as pilot training in MiG-15UTI jet trainers. All women were commissioned as lieutenants in the Soviet Air Force; Tereshkova also became a full member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In May 1962 cosmonaut Gherman Titov and Kamanin joined a Soviet delegation to Washington. They went to a barbecue at the home of astronaut John Glenn, who led them to believe that the first American woman would make a three-orbit Mercury flight by the end of 1962. Kamanin managed to convince Soviet authorities that America may beat them to get the first woman into space, so the decision was made to approve the first flight of a Soviet woman within weeks of the delegates’ return to the Soviet Union. In August of that year the Soviets also achieved the first dual manned spaceflight, when Vostok 3 and 4 orbited in space together, each carrying a cosmonaut. Kamanin proposed that Vostok 5 and 6 should orbit two women in space together; this was the official plan for 1963. Selection for the flights took place on 19 November 1962; it was between Tereshkova and Ponomaryova. While Ponomaryova had the best test results, she did not tow the party line as well as Tereshkova did; when asked 'what do you want from life?' Tereshkova replied 'I want to support irrevocably the Komsomol and Communist Party' whereas Ponomaryova said 'I want to take everything it can offer'. Ponomaryova also maintained that a woman could smoke and still be a decent person, and had gone unescorted into the town of Fedosiya while there for parachute training (a scandal). The plan for a dual female flight was approved right until the last moment, when party ideologue Kozlov and Ministry of Defense Chief Ustinov quashed the idea on 21 March 1963. For propaganda purposes, only one female would fly. There would be a dual flight, but the other cosmonaut was to be a male: Bykovsky. This last minute training for Bykovsky delayed the dual flights for two months. Because Tereshkova was less qualified than Ponomaryova, she was chosen for the mission. Korolev planned a more complex mission for two women, which would involve space piloting skills and a spacewalk. Korolev planned to use Ponomaryova and Solovyova for the more complex mission, so Tereshkova was chosen for the ‘easier’ mission as she was the least skilled of the three potential cosmonauts. It was Premier Khrushchev who ultimately made the final crew selection however; Tereshkova was chosen as she was seen as a reliable communist, a factory worker from a humble background, and a 'good' girl. Kamanin later referred to her as 'Gagarin in a skirt'. Vostok 5 was launched June 14, 1963 with Bykovsky aboard. Two days later Tereshkova became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6; she had the call sign 'Chaika' (Seagull). Kamanin, Korolev, and Mishin published their memoirs after the fall of the Soviet Union, discussing the problems of the flight. Korolev and Mishin both blamed Tereshkova for ‘psychological instability’. Kamanin claimed they exaggerated her difficulties during the flight and that she only had tasks assigned for the first day. When the flight was extended for a second, and then a third day, she had little to do and the ground command offered little support. Tereshkova did not release her version of events until 2007. She claimed the automatic orientation system of her Vostok capsule was incorrectly set up and that her capsule was oriented 90 degrees from the intended direction on orbit insertion. If retrofire was initiated, this would have sent her to her death in a higher orbit, rather than braked for a return to the Earth's atmosphere. It took a day for the ground crew to verify this and rectify the problem. She did vomit in space, and Korolev wanted to bring her down early because of this. She claimed it was due to the food, and not space-sickness. To combat her ‘space-sickness’, she was ordered to stay strapped to her seat and she developed a cramp in her right shin on the third day. She also developed a sore pressure point where her helmet’s ring pressed on her shoulder. Once ejected from the capsule, Tereshkova nearly ended up in a splashdown in a large lake before a high wind blew her to the shore. This resulted in a landing so heavy that she hit her nose on her helmet, giving her a large bruise. For public appearances after the landing, she needed heavy makeup. She worried this makeup would detract from her image as a pure worker girl. Tereshkova completed three days in space aboard Vostok 6. Bykovsky's Vostok 5 landed after five days in space, three hours after Vostok 6. A few people in the Soviet Air Force attempted to discredit her after her historic flight. Some charged that she was drunk when she reported to the launch pad and that she was insubordinate in orbit and deliberately disregarding orders from the Center. It appears those in charge thought she should have accepted death from the incorrect spacecraft orientation rather than embarrass the managers on the ground. In September 1963, 3 months after the flight, the militia alleged she was drunk and had created a scandal with a militia officer in Gorkiy. She denied the drunkenness but admitted to a confrontation with a militia captain. Kamanin defended her against all charges and it was Tereshkova’s opponents who were dismissed. There had been a joke that Tereshkova should marry Andrian Nikolayev, the only bachelor cosmonaut to have flown. The joke escalated into rumours of a relationship; these rumours reached Premier Khrushchev, who thought it would be a great idea for them to marry and applied pressure through Kamanin. On 3 November 1963 at the Moscow Wedding Palace, Tereshkova and Nikolayev married. The wedding party was held at a governmental mansion and Khrushchev presided, with top government and space leaders in attendance. Tereshkova gave birth to her daughter, Elena Andrianovna, on 8 June 1964. By most accounts however the marriage was not a happy one, though divorcing would mean the end of their careers. The couple were forced to remain together. Tereshkova and the other female cosmonauts were never considered for flight assignments on an equal basis with their male counterparts. Flights by women into space were considered only for propaganda purposes during the Soviet era. The number of flight slots was always fewer than the number of cosmonauts so any woman who flew in space was considered to be taking the place of a man. The proposed all-female Voskhod flight was cancelled; in part due to the pressure from Gagarin and the other male cosmonauts, also to allow the space agency to concentrate on the development of the Soyuz spacecraft. Tereshkova gained a graduate level engineering education at the Zhukovskiy Military Air Academy from 1964 to 1969, after which the female cosmonaut detachment was disbanded. Tereshkova became a Communist politician and international representative. In the late 1970’s the Soviet space agency again recruited female cosmonauts, due to impending flights by American women. Tereshkova hoped to be included and submitted to a medical review in 1978. Though Tereshkova did not pass the tests and was not allowed to fly again, she had fallen in love with a physician, Yuliy Shaposhnikov, at the military medical academy. Tereshkova separated from Nikolayev in 1979 and applied for divorce, but the divorce required the special permission of Soviet Premier Brezhnev, which came in 1982. Tereshkova and Shaposhnikov remained happily married for twenty years until his death in 1999. Tereshkova always dreamed of going back to space and particularly wanted to be part of the first expedition to Mars. She was one of many cosmonauts who were prepared to go on a one-way mission if it meant they could reach the Red Planet. Though Tereshkova never flew in space after 1962, she lent her support to many women’s organisations and worked tirelessly for the Communist Party. Among her many accomplishments include: member of the World Peace Council in 1966; a member of the Yaroslavl Supreme Soviet in 1967; a member of the council of the Union of the Supreme Soviet in 1966-1970 and 1970-1974. In 1974 she was elected to the presidium of the Supreme Soviet and was the Soviet representative to the UN Conference for the International Women's Year in Mexico City in 1975. In the 1980's she continued as a Deputy to the Supreme Soviet, Vice President of the International Women's Federation; and several other international positions. She holds two Orders of Lenin; recognition as a Hero of the Soviet Union; the United Nation Gold Medal of Peace; the Simba International Women's Movement Award; and the Joliot-Curie Gold Medal. In the year 2000, Valentina Tereshkova was named “Greatest Woman Achiever of the Century” by the British Women of the Year Association. In 2011, she was elected to serve in the Russian state Duma, where she continues to serve to this day. Tereshkova lives in a brick dacha on the outskirts of Star City; the house has a seagull weathervane on top, to commemorate her call sign. She has two grandsons, Andrei and Aleksei. In 1982 Svetlana Savitskaya became the second woman in space and in 1984 became the first woman to walk in space. There was a planned all-female Soyuz flight to coincide with International Women's Day in 1985, which was cancelled due to problems with the Salyut 7 space station. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian women flew to the Mir and ISS as regular crew members, not for propaganda purposes. “Once you've been in space, you appreciate how small and fragile the Earth is.” Valentina Tereshkova -TEL Read more about Yuri Gagarin here: http://on.fb.me/WtbCqM http://www.astronautix.com/t/tereshkova.html https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/valentina-tereshkova-quotes Image credit: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/50_years_of_humans_in_space/First_woman_in_space_Valentina

#valentina tereshkova #history #launch #vostok #space #orbit #the universe #isuniverse #the real universe

[anogete]

In Between

Hi, folks.  I’m sorry I have nothing to offer as far as fic goes.  Things have been... ::sigh::  You know, I don’t know what things have been.  Not good, not bad.  Just... things.  I wanted to talk--get things out of my head--this morning, but I realized I don’t have a person/outlet who can accept these things right now.  So, I will put them here for anyone who cares to read them.

1) My car blew up.  Well, the engine did.  I was on my way back home with groceries last Saturday, and I lost all ability to accelerate and brake.  So, I puttered out on the side of the road and waited to be saved.  The issue may be covered under the warranty so I had it taken to the dealership.  They’ve had it for a week and still don’t have answers for me besides an offer to lend me a car for free until they can figure out what to do with my car.

2) This deserves it’s own point, though I almost included it on the first point.  I’ve never bought a car without my grandmother.  She was under five feet tall and had a tendency to wear sweat pants and Christmas sweaters year-round.  She smoked Winston Lights and carried a purse covered in rhinestones.  The car salesmen didn’t know what hit them because she wasn’t at all the sweet old lady who would roll over and accept their first offer.  She was hard to read and she wouldn’t give an inch.  She also wouldn’t tell them what she was willing to pay.  No counter offers from her; she’d just tell you to “do better.”  Anyway, she worked her magic when I bought all three of my cars.  When I realized the problem with the engine was serious and might require me getting a new car, I went into a mental tailspin.  Yeah, yeah, I was worried about fitting it into my budget and all that, but mostly I couldn’t seem to cope with buying a car on my own without my grandma there to hold my hand.  I’m almost 39 years old and the thought of doing this without her had me sobbing in the floor.  Except, I didn’t realize my tailspin was due to my grandmother at first.  At first, I just thought I was incapable of handling stress.  Maybe that’s still accurate.

3) While we’re talking about expensive-ass shit, I knew the air conditioner and furnace on this house needed to be replaced sooner rather than later when I bought it last February.  It looks like the time has come.  I managed to find a nice man with very odd hair (think a longer version of the Prince Valiant hair-do, but bright white) through my boyfriend’s dad.  He does this for a living and said he’d give me a discount and do for $5,000 what other places were telling me would cost $9,000.  So, that’s happening next week.  I have the money, but the idea of writing a $5,000 check makes me want to puke.  Ugh.

4) The days are running together.  I’m working from home.  I can’t complain, though.  I’ve got it better than most.  I’m alone all day.  I have a library with a desk.  I can go downstairs and make tea or lunch in my own kitchen.  I’m getting paid my full salary with bonuses.  I can pretty much make my own hours.  The company I work for is taking the pandemic seriously and has told us that we can all work from home until we feel comfortable returning to the office.  Their timeline for “normal” is months.  I don’t think I’ll be back in the office until late summer, if that.  Those who want to return are permitted to, but they can’t use the public areas (kitchen, conference rooms) and have to abide by some strict safety requirements.  And they can choose when and how often they go into the office, working the remainder of the time at home.  So, better than most.

5) I’ve been doing this social distancing thing since March 19th.  It’s not difficult for me.  On good days I’ll exercise (I have a Peloton) before logging into work around 9am.  On not-good days (which seem to be more often than not), I’ll skip the exercise and just log into work early.  Work keeps me busy and I spend a decent amount of my day on the phone with clients.  I go to the grocery store once a week, but I order for pickup.  Someone else does the shopping for me and loads it into my trunk.  This is nothing new.  I’ve been shopping that way for years.  Now it’s just harder to get my usual pickup slot because everyone else has joined the party.  I do miss taking a break from work and leaving my office to grab a coffee and sit outside on a bench downtown.  I guess I could do that outside my own house, but it just doesn’t feel the same.

6) A few months ago, a husband and wife who are clients came in to meet with me at my office.  They’re in their 80s and both were having trouble walking.  They parked in the garage next door and couldn’t find the elevator to exit.  I walked over and escorted them to our office building.  They were both struggling with walking and the wife (Rose) had been fighting lung cancer for a couple years, so I suggested they wait outside and I’d valet their car once we were done.  The thought of making the trek to their car alone was painful to me because it was a monumental struggle for them to walk down a hallway.  Their daughter-in-law called me two days ago.  Rose passed away two weeks ago.  The husband, a former literature professor for a university, was in the hospital with four broken ribs because he’d fallen shortly after Rose’s passing.  He was a Jewish child in Nazi Germany during the war.  He’d told me stories about hiding from the Nazis, surviving off of tree bark and whatever he could find in the forests.  He also jokingly told me that he’d live until he was 120.  Now, it looks like he won’t survive the year.  He and Rose would tease each other all the time, but you could see all that love between them. Whenever I’d call him, he’d ask me in that wonderful accent to wait while he got “the boss” on the phone as well.  Rose thought it was silly that she was “the boss,” but she humored him.  You know, they’re shorties, too.  Five foot, nothing.  Just like my grandma.  Hearing that Rose was gone and Dr. (he’s a PhD) was likely soon to follow just broke my already fragile heart.

7) Fragile heart, huh?  Yeah.  After the car situation and the realization that one day I’m going to have to do big life things without having my grandma to help me, I was feeling pretty raw.  But I’ve been trying to be responsible and do things I’ve been putting off lately.  So, I gathered up all those medical bills from Ferguson’s illness last September.  (Ferguson was my soulmate little chihuahua mix that I had for over 13 years.)  I had pet insurance on him and hadn’t bothered to make the claim because I couldn’t handle it.  But it’s been almost a year so I pulled out the invoices, which were over $2,000, and logged into the website and starting inputting the info to file the claims.  The little box asks for a description of why I took him to the vet.  And answering that question just brought back all that shit like a wave.  I remember reading this nice description of grief and how it is like waves.  At first they’re big and they knock you around and you can’t breathe.  But over time they get smaller and you learn how to navigate them.  Still there, but manageable.  Filling in that box resulted in a bit of a tidal wave that knocked me on my ass.  My boyfriend came home to find me sobbing at my desk like a lunatic..  He’s... not so good with emotional shit.  And I usually keep it bottled up so that no one knows what’s going on inside me.  But some days...  Some days it just overflows.  So, after confirming that nothing terrible had occurred and that I was reliving September 2019, he slowly backed out of the room to leave me with my grief-wave.

8) I want to be one of those succulent people.  You know, the ones who have succulents lining their windowsills.  The dining room and kitchen windows are full of this oddball little plants.  The boyfriend hates it, but I told him he’d have to deal.  I’ll die on this hill.  I’m a succulent lady.

9) I’ve been reading memoirs or, rather, memoirs through collections of essays.  I don’t know if it’s the mental state I’m in or if social distancing has got me subconsciously reaching out for life beyond my head, but I can’t seem to read much else.  I loved Liz Phair’s Horror Stories.  I’m reading The Book of Help by Megan Griswold right now.  I’m determined to procure a signed copy of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young.  He did a virtual event for a local bookseller recently and they have signed copies available for purchase.  I just need to muster up the will to call them and ask them to hold one for me.  The little snippets of their life and experiences via these memoirs through essays bring me some measure of comfort.

10) I tried to watch Euphoria on HBO.  I managed to make it through the first episode, but I don’t think I can watch more.  I can’t relate, but that normally isn’t a necessity for an enjoyable story.  Maybe it’s just too depressing for me right now.

11) I binged Dollface on Hulu and wish I had more to watch.  Parts of it hit me hard.  I’ve always had trouble maintaining friendships, period.  But maintaining friendships while in a relationship has been damn near impossible for me.  Just like Jules.  Except, I’m not nearly as cool or gorgeous as Kat Dennings.  And I have no friends in this city to go back to.  Just friends at work. 

12) I haven’t worn makeup for 2 solid months.  I’m starting to miss it.  I found old selfies I’d taken in which I don’t recognize myself.  Did I ever look like that?  I must have since here is photographic evidence.  I look like shit now.  I’m forever in yoga pants and a hoodie with half-wet hair from the shower.  Maybe putting on a pair of jeans and a cute shirt and some makeup will make me feel like a human being again.  Maybe I’m not doing as well as I thought in quarantine.  Huh.

13) I hope you all are well.  If you’ve sent me a message, I’m so sorry for not responding.  My mental state has been delicate lately and the silence from me has nothing to do with your kind words.  I promise I read and treasure and appreciate anything that is sent to me.  I’m also sorry for having no offering of fic or a promise of something to come.  I haven’t written since last summer.  It’s been almost a year.  I guess I’m in a dry spell.

14) Since I’ve been struggling with loss/grief lately, I’ll leave you with a quote from Philip Pullman, taken from his novel The Amber Spyglass.  It’s about death, I suppose.  Or maybe just a transition to something else entirely.  It’s nice to think of my grandma and Rose and my sweet, sweet love of a dog falling in the raindrops and riding on the wind through tall grass.  If it wasn’t raining, I’d take my computer outside right now.

“Even if it means oblivion, friends, I'll welcome it, because it won't be nothing. We'll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves; we'll be falling in the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze; we'll be glittering in the dew under the stars and the moon out there in the physical world, which is our true home and always was.” 

#Anogete in real life #personal #coping with grief #Mental health where did you go #adulting #struggle bus

[merife]

— mayday

pairing: Jotaro Kujo x Reader

summary:  he's alive, you're alive, everyone around you is alive, but there's still not enough air.

word count: 5483

previous

02. of (not)healed wounds

As soon as you open the door to the apartment, the party, which seemed non-existent, appears in all its glory. A couple of people kissing passionately break away from each other: they have dissatisfied look, but their eyes narrowed more at the bright light from the corridor than Oisin and you, that violated an atmosphere of intimacy in the hallway between someone's bags, jackets and other discarded in a fit of passion things. And will it really help you? How can a noisy gathering of strangers help at all?.. [it can. By making the memories of the past flow away and the moments of the present expand even more, it can]

His hand doesn't let go of yours — the path from the entrance to the next room without light on the floor covered with things is inconvenient, but there is no other choice. You stumble a couple of times — yourheart jumps a little in the chest and immediately returns to its place, and the support in the form of Oisin's hand saves you from falling. In the central room, only a pair of lava lamps can distinguish silhouettes, giving off an orange colour on the walls and faces. It seems that you saw a similar one once upon a time in the attic of parent's house among the rest of the trash, but you never dragged it to your room. The smell of alcohol — especially ethanol — mixed with a mix of cigarettes and something else, more organic, but burnt, makes the air feel sticky. It's something you thought you'd never feel again. In a similar way, you used to get together with your friends at one of their homes when their parents were away and you started playing board games, secretly getting alcohol that you would buy with fake documents, so that you could have a heart-to-heart chat. Back then, you had almost no secrets from each other, so everyone just shared present experiences. And you haven't remembered an evening with them for a long time. They must be doing good now. It can't be any other way. You'd even call them if there was anyone else's number — oh, right, you can ask your mother the next time she contacts you.

"Here," Weaver says, handing you a red disposable cup with probably something diluted in it. When did he leave and come back? Oisin quickly clinks his glass with yours and drinks a good half of it. You take a very small sip: cola on the tongue is not different from the usual, but most likely there is something stronger in it. Plan is not to get drunk to oblivion today, you just need to try to relax and unwind. You've been on these parties before, this time nothing should be different, "there are a couple of people I'd like you to meet", but you don't need any contacts- "and I know what you're thinking, but you still need to chat with someone besides me," apparently, the displeasure on your face, he learned to read almost faultlessly. Not a bad skill, Oisin. Next time, shove it away.

"Since you know me so well, why don't you just talk to everyone for me?" you smile sarcastically, and Weaver just nudges you playfully, encouraging you, only to grab your free hand and lead you on. People on your path don't pay attention to you — there's no malice or secret intent in their eyes, which allows you to relax a little, straighten your shoulders, unconsciously hunched in a physical attempt to close. Nothing bad will happen. Here's Oisin, which means that you are not in danger [here's Oisin; this is not Jotaro, this is not Kakyoin — there is no aura of anxiety around him, and you have never felt such pain around him].

Oisin says something: his speech is mixed with David Bowie songs and noisy exclamations from different sides, and you can't pick out a word, so all that remains is keep looking at his neck, where the hairline begins. Why is he deals with you? More precisely, why is he still deals with you?

 Brown hair stops. Oisin brakes sharply, you catch this action a little later than you should and stumble into the air, spilling a few drops of cocktail on the already dirty floor. And then you catch a couple of keen interested glances at yourself.

"This is Marina and Leslie," guy tilts his head to you and smiles, waiting for your reaction to... Two girls who interrupted the conversation to turn all their attention to you. Marina smiles cautiously: her eyes are not aggressive, but she seems to be waiting for something from you. Doesn't trust immediately — and that’s fair. She has beautiful hair with a hint of ginger, which may be real, or may be a consequence of the red colour spreading around the room. And from her appearance, you can safely say that Marina is unlikely to have problems more than a couple of bad grades. It would be nice if this is true. The last thing you want to find in someone else is suffering, because today version of you, real version of you — can't help people who hide their moral pain. All you have left is stand's magic and Oisin's quick-healing bruises.

Leslie, for her part, resemble like the average head girl: she immediately looks for something in you that, apparently, can be useful to her and gives her hand as a sign of acquaintance. She probably knew Oisin because of some club that had already met in advance and discussed plans for the year. Probably, she and Marina roommates, since they keep a physical distance from each other, but their communication is quite brisk — definitely not an empty conversation. There is no stand flying over any of them. It's good.

"Hi! Oisin told us about you," You turn to Weaver, but he doesn't look at you — pretends not to notice the directed scrutiny, however shakes his head, confirming the words, "nice to meet you," you shake her hand with a slight delay that you hope Leslie won't notice, "you're studying in the same department as me, so we'll probably see a lot of each other," she smiles. Friendly. And you repeat it, though not entirely sincerely.

"Oh, that's good," feigned politeness is not so bad as it seemed to you before, "to be honest, you're almost the first who besides me is interested in such things," you speak softly, almost drowned out by the music, but three people next to you smile understandingly and Leslie begins to chatter — which, of course, she is interested, because it's so exciting and unusual and more people should think about this direction, but we are lucky, and-

 Still, how did that guy from the Speedwagon Foundation find you? Your parents couldn't tell them, and grandma Oria perhaps didn't even know about this organization. Oisin also probably has no idea what this Foundation is, and those few people from Italy that you know certainly didn't run to write to the Foundation about your location after the dialogue with you. Did they trace you from your documents? It's possible, but they are not the bureau of investigation, where would they have such information? Besides, why would they want you?

 You nod your head in agreement with words that you don't really listen to. The focus is lost, you're just looking at… Lindsay's nose bridge? But your silence doesn't bother her, just as it doesn't bother Marina that starts talking with her friend. As long as nothing is expected of you, you can safely be near them.

 "Well, I think, you would like our group," girl slaps you on the shoulder — and is mired directly on scar, still feels like a phantom pain on your body, from which you bend over, and unfamiliar hand slides down on fabric sports sweatshirts. A brunette with a succinct name on L raises her eyebrows and looks at Marina.

"It's nothing," a melancholy smile appears on your lips, "just hurts from time to time," in the eyes of Lindsay — her name was something else — a look of surprise changes to a small interest and… It's not what you expect. And right now, you miss the moment when you can stop words from falling from her lips.

"Did you go to the doctor? Maybe it's something serious," you don't have time to prepare for her question, which is already climbing further than the girl opposite suspects. A small word pricks the blood vessels from the inside with its syllables, and an unprepared body trying to pull the trash out from the inside only boils with tension. Oh, she doesn't know how much, but she won't hear that story from you. You don't want to think about it. You don't want [only the starry sky of Cairo is already blooming in your eyes. Only in the chest it becomes as heavy as it was then].

"Let's not talk about it," you take a couple of sips from a cup. Lindsay and Marina are silent, and you just look around at the people near you, suddenly realizing that Oisin has gone somewhere. And right at the moment when you need his presence. Who does that? He knows that for you is hard — to talk to people without someone else. Damn it, Oisin.

 That's why you don't go to the parties. Not to mention the constant need to make sure that people around you aren't dangerous, conversations with them always get out of control and touch on topics that you would rather not discuss [this is like a constant descent of a spiral staircase-there is no end to it and you go lower and lower, not paying attention to people passing by, advising you to stop the descent or sending you further and further down]. In addition, the conversation is already ruined and the girls probably feel awkward trying to come up with another topic, so that the vacuum silence created between the three of you will finally resolve.

 "Excuse me, I'm going to get Oisin," invented reason immediately allows you to leave their company. It's not in your wishes to return, but Lindsay still throws a loud "we'll wait" after you, which is unlikely to come true — you all know that.

The familiar top of the head is still nowhere seen and you have to get rid of an almost empty glass, putting it on one of the tables — the girl with the glass bottle in her hand smiles at you and asks if you want to add more, but you just nod your head in dissent and disappear from her field of view. When you go back to the entrance, you still don't see Oisin. And at this moment you realize: air around you is too viscous — it's impossible to breathe. Filled with smells and smoke, without open windows, it resembles the steam of a sauna, from the high temperature of which even your cheeks starts to burn. It's not nice to leave Oisin alone, but he was the first to go somewhere without you, and now you have every right to at least get some air. And, perhaps later, go back to your own dorm, pleading on fatigue.

 Fresh air fills your lungs even before you step on the balcony. And the second your foot crosses the threshold and your gaze goes unconsciously to the figure on your right, you think… You think you have the ability to stop time, too. As though Queen threw her hands in exactly one second ago and now, in this moment, stretched for a few brief, you examine his back in the search for inaccuracies, errors, extra pair of buttons on the sleeves or incorrect bending of the visor caps — whatever, just to reality is not confronted with an outcome that you've imagined a thousands of times. But every little thing coincides with the unconsciously expected.

"So, White Queen?" disturbed by a sudden sound, the mynas immediately flap their wings and fly away in the direction of the nearest park, while your attention shifts from a landscape around to the person who has approached. Jotaro pulls a cigarette from the pack, then lights it and takes the first drag before returning his gaze to you. It's more relaxed than you expected — there's tension in it, but not the same as you saw at school. And some unconscious nostalgia along with dissatisfaction spreads in your chest, which is why you stop looking at him. The paving stones under your feet don't seem more interesting, but they are an alternative that you humbly accept.

"Yeah," he doesn't come any closer — he stays behind to the bench and doesn't take a step toward it or away. You can't feel his gaze, but something tells you that Kujo is still looking at you. You would have watched if he had turned away as well. The silence of the back courtyard of the hotel, whose name you forgot about two hours ago, is only broken by the trill of cicadas, the rustle of leaves from a small wind, and the distant hum of the highway.

"And how long?" Jotaro exhales cigarette smoke — you can feel the smell of burnt tobacco coming to you. This… Strange, to hear his peaceful voice with some interest after all this time. When you still took attempts to restore conversations, he only snapped irritably or completely ignored your remarks. When you had to come to terms with the fact that you were no longer friends for some unknown reason, your communication was reduced to a minimum, in which you once were on school duty with him and experienced so much tension that you preferred to leave him alone. Since you are so disgusting to him, then wonderful — without any celebration, you can grant him silence in return. You were angry at him all this time, but this anger is now gone somewhere, leaving behind a tart sadness — as if there was no wordless wall, built in an instant and going in a few years.

"Since childhood," you put your own elbows on your knees and put your chin on your hands, looking at the small garden in front of you, "about eight years or something," ("I can introduce you to my friend, but my parents can't see her! She has cold hands, but she's very kind and I think you will get along!") and then you sigh softly, closing your eyes for a moment so that you can turn back to Jotaro. He immediately catches your glance, "and Star Platinum?"

"A few days ago," he says casually, clenching the cigarette between his teeth, as if he told you not about the fact that his soul has recently received the personification of a guardian spirit, but about some trifle. He also looks tired — there are no bags under his eyes, but his posture is not so even, a little distorted in the hips and shoulders. After all, he's probably worried about his mother, no matter how much he tries to look indifferent. Of course, anyone would have been concerned in his place — it was obvious, but the strangely calm that at first glance was filled with the guy, was a little confusing. Not to mention his habit of being silent and pushing his own emotions too far [once you shouted at him — if Jotaro will continue to behave like that, he will explode from unspoken tension sooner or later].

"And you handle it so quickly," even with a little envy and a small admiration. Though the acceptance of your own stand passed quickly, the realization of what happened appeared only a few years later, when White Queen was still close to you, yet your friends no longer had imaginary companions. His eyes, covered by the brim of his cap, reflect the light of the lanterns. Jotaro always was...

"What's there to "handle"? If he's my soul, then he knows exactly what I need," this. For a moment it seemed neutral-general conversation, like the dialogue of ordinary people, but now it began to take on the shades of those rare conversation that you still picked up during school: sharp, ragged. You have neither the desire nor the strength to argue with him, and you just turn away again.

"When I realized that Queen really existed, I thought my parents would send me to a psychiatrist," your wrists get a little numb and you lower your arms and straighten up. He won't tell you what his first contact with Star Platinum was like, which is why you're sharing the memory of your own stand, "I thought I should tell them all about her, and then… We discuss that there are no ghosts, which means that Queen is hardly real."

 Jotaro used to always listen to you — because it was more convenient for him to be a listener than a speaker. You weren't the chattiest person on the planet, and that's probably why you've been in touch for a long time. The silence was calm, but your voice didn't break it — it just added a little colour to the canvas, so that the cotton clouds and honey stars under which you sat together finally can bloomed. You spoke with words, and he with actions, and you were sure that there can't be a better friendship.

But then there was a devastating emptiness and instead of warmth in his eyes, you found only irritation. The question "why" asked thousands of times remained unanswered, and you asked another, longer— did he want to communicate with you at all, or did you give a different meaning to all his actions?

 "You don't have to come with us. Stay with your relatives," much rougher than before. Jotaro throws out the cigarette butt and turns around — most likely, going back to the hotel, but you have your own opinion on the situation and you won't be silent.

"I... Want to," you turn your head. Maybe to see his reaction, or maybe for some other reason, but all you can see is the back of his black school uniform and the hair sticking out from under his headdress. Even in the deep evening, he wears this strange cap, " Seiko-san is in trouble, and besides, your company could definitely use a stand with Queen's abilities."

 You mean: you need my help. You mean: i don't want you to get hurt.

Kujo is silent. He stands motionless and silent so you feel a little uneasy — as if the aura around you is changing and you're momentarily breathing harder than before.

"No. This is a bad idea. Go back home," and Jotaro starts walking toward the entrance, as if this is the end of your little dialogue and he's the one who put the end to it.

"Jotaro, I'm not doing this for you, but for your mother, first of all," you sneer, clinging to the bench with your fingers, "she's a wonderful woman and I'm grateful to her for many things that she has done for me."

"I'm not going to mess with you," he said, already annoyed and angry. Caught in his sharp look, you feel like a burden again.

"I'm not five to "mess" with me," frowned already before that eyebrows fall even lower, and nails dig into the wooden beams. Despite all attempts to convey your point of view, the last in your conversation is, indeed, sounds of his voice.

"Then mind your own business."

You close the balcony door as abruptly as you opened it. Then quickly reach the turn and press the elevator button as hard as possible — you notice the blood rush to the tense finger and immediately pull it away. You don't turn around — you want to turn around and make sure of something, but you also stand still and wait for the elevator, bending a little. And when it comes, you immediately press the button to the first floor. The warm air outside makes it difficult to catch your breath. Even when you get further and further away from the building. Even when you sit down on a bench.

 He's dead, you're dead, everyone around you is dead and they're breathing, they're breathing so much that you can't get a breath inside this mess — they've taken all the oxygen. He's dead — you hold his head in your hands and weep, weep, weep, mixing mud and blood and sweat with your tears, trying to pull a rib out of your chest so that you can save him and, if necessary, sacrifice yourself. He's dead, and you wake up knowing that he's still alive, just too far away for you to hold his head in your hands. He's alive, you're alive, and everyone around is dead and you're crying along with Kakyoin's mother, because you're no longer able to continue. You wheeze in the black gakuran and ask, beg him to never leave, stay close, no matter what to be together. The answer is silence, but he puts his good arm around you, lays his chin on top of your head, and you wake up. He's dead and the ocean holds him to its shore while you try to crawl to him with broken legs, wasting your last strength to even see his face again, but time ceases to exist, and you wake up. You're dead and the burst capillaries of his eyes make that raging blue even brighter when he squeezes your shoulder with one hand and covers the emptiness of your chest with the other, and you wake up. He's dead, Dio's nails pierce your skin, go through your muscles and bones and suck the blood out of your arteries, you hang like a doll without thoughts or desires, you watch yourself being thrown against the wall and then your collarbone is broken with unfamiliar foot, and you don't wake up.

He's alive, you're alive, everyone around you is alive, but there's still not enough air.

 "I'm going crazy," you admit to yourself, lifting your head from your hands just a little so that only the lower part of your face is hidden in it. The light from the nearest street lamp reminds you of the sun, and you look at it, look at it until you see black dots and pulsating spots, so then you won't see anything.

 You used to call him Jojo. In a voice higher than it's now. You would come to Seiko-san's house and greet her joyfully, then call out his name as loudly as possible and wait under the spreading pine tree. The pine was far away from his room, but at the perfect angle so that you could not intrude and still see Jojo a few seconds earlier than he said hello. Little Jojo and little you ran around a small pond in the garden of Kujo's house — koi fish with reddish bellies repeated circular movements following your and his example and Jojo smiled, putting his hand in the water. His smile was so bright that you repeated it yourself; it didn't matter that your front tooth had recently fallen out because of something that didn't remain in your mind, and the rest of the world around you hasn't been preserved at all because of the age of the memory. Because it wasn't as important as that boy's smile and koi's red bellies.

You called him — no, no, — you called him Jojo another — don't, please don't — one — no, n-o, n o You called him Jojo when you were dying.

 Your thumb grazes the earring painfully, and you suddenly realize that you're shaking again. The shoulder feels a phantom pain — you've learned that damn description of "phantom" pain thoroughly, because all that's left of the wound is a scar and a recollection that reproduces and reproduces this aching emptiness under your skin. And you grab it, whine softly and wish to shrink to a ball, just to disappear from this world. You don't need anything, nothing. Nothing more. Nothing-nothing-nothing

 You know who's coming to you before you even hear the voice.

"What are you doing here?"  your lungs get stuck in your ribs: you can hardly breathe, and in the middle of it you're interrupted by a sharp pain in your chest and hold your breath in a panic for a split second. «The same question I can-» no. Don't even think about it, no, no. White dots appear in your eyes of how much you squint them and you feel sick. «You» no more questions!

"So, Lester was right," his voice annoys you — it's like sandpaper goes right through your eardrums, and you cover your ears to make this sounds hardly heard. His voice irritates you; his invisible figure irritates you, his existence at the moment irritates you. You take a breath, then another and again, which makes your head a little cloudy, doesn't get any clearer, how it supposed to be, and you open your mouth to take another ragged and noisy breath.

 You don't remember any Lester, you don't remember anyone, and you know what, Jotaro, go to hell.

"What are you doing here?!"  your voice is hoarse, and every word you say crushes the previous one with its volume, stupefaction and anger. Control over your own body also seeps through your fingers — you think that you still sitting, but in that moment also feel the tension in your standing legs as acutely as stones caught under the sole of your sneakers.

"Can you not scream for a second?"  and of course those are the words you want to hear right now. Nothing else, just Kujo's eternal need for calm. Maybe you also want peace of mind. Maybe you need it, too, but he's standing there right now, ruining a whole year of your hard work, and you don't want to see him. You don't want to see him, because you've seen him die so many times in your unconscious "what if" fantasy that you're afraid to see his face. He's alive, he's standing by and nothing good has come of it in all the years of your life [he's fine — something far away in you whispers and the faint threads that still grip your heart in panic unravel. Since he's fine, maybe you can afford it too]

"And can you answer my fucking question?!" you howl into your own hands, making the sound uneven and sonorous. You don't care how you look from the other point of view and even more so, whether you attract someone else's attention. All that matters are the answer to the question, why [the man from your nightmares? Your only hope? A bundle of the most incomprehensible emotions for you? Someone who was too close? The reason and the solution at the same time?] your former classmate is standing here. Not in Tokyo, not anywhere else. He wanted to do something related to the sea. Thought about Tokyo University and ... refused? Why? And why was he here?! It's... Lester, the guy from the Foundation! What do they want from you?

"I study here."

 Is he... is he mocking you?

It sounds so improbable and stupid, as if the best lie just can't come to his mind. It sounds so strange and ridiculous that it sounds too much like the truth, which makes you turn your head to him to make sure. Jotaro has never lied to you in his life, and there is no reason why he would actually give you such nonsense.

"Are you... Kidding me?" your voice is hoarse. You catch his silhouette in the gap between your fingers, under which you still hide your face, and you just can't quite believe — it's him, it's really him. Because to spit on things, to spit on height, these eyes you will never be able to forget. You don't want to get lost or forgotten in them, no. They scare you. They cause the skin on your neck to goosebumps, and you yourself to seek shelter, just to escape from this green-blue hypnotic colour. Relief comes with a new lump in your throat.

"Good grief, Y/n," you expect the guy to touch his own cap, but still freeze for a few moments when you actually see familiar repeated movement once again. This is true Jotaro, and the fantasies of your meeting that fills your skull to the brim don't have one where you meet him under the polluted night sky of Miami, shivering with the legion of memories that have come to you.

"No, no, no, don't start," you put your hand out in front of you, as if trying to protect yourself or stop him, "that's the guy from the Foundation, right? I told him I wouldn't work with you. Figure it out for yourself, I just-" it's so hard to breathe between words that you stop for an inhale. There is no room for air in the panicked lungs.

"You're too noisy. Calm down," you can see your own hands: they are clean, but the feeling of dirt on them doesn't leave for several minutes. You need to get rid of this. You need to get rid of everything around you in order to find peace in the sterility of your thoughts and body.

"I just got it all back together again. I just stopped seeing them, and then you come in and-"

"I said," he puts his big hand on your shoulder and it's like a physical anchor for getting back, "calm down."

 You say: i'm scared You say: god, Jotaro, I'm so scared.

But you don't utter anything out loud, barely holding on to familiar hands.

  Recently washed bed sheets smells of powder, freshness and chemical lavender. Its scent is gentler and more cautious in life, not so obtrusive, but you can get along with a fake — it's not the worst thing that a rented apartment can smell. Outside the window, the sun shines full, but it doesn't completely pass through the emerald curtains, that fills the bedroom with a faint greenish hue, which is cut by a strip of pure light exactly in the middle. It crosses your hand and seems that if you close your hand now, you can catch a piece of light. But you just keep watching the dust motes move in the air on that strip. Something about this light reminds you of magic and old dreams that the world is not a boring grey box. It wasn't — it stopped at the age when you didn't understand much about taxes and working in an office, which is probably why you envied Oisin and your remaining friends in hometown: their life was boring in some moments, but most of it was peaceful. Small skirmishes with unpleasant acquaintances and, perhaps, fleeting quarrels with relatives — you didn't guess, you knew that their daily life was just like this. And perhaps unconsciously you still belittle their problems in comparison with your own, but you have the right to do so. You didn't smash your father's car to pieces, you didn't fight with your teacher about a low, unsatisfactory grade, and you never went on a bad date, because instead, in your junior year of high school, the concept of "problems" went too high, making all the everyday tinsel still seem too small. Although, over the past year…

You roll over on your side.

To hell with this last year. As soon as a small part of the past appeared, everything immediately returned to its place, as if there was nothing between Egypt and America [And this is so convenient to blame Jotaro, that you slowly, with your eyes closed from yourself, move all the arrows in his direction — that it's because of him memories return with a frenzied speed, that it's because of him tonight, when you awoke from an empty dream, you met the gaze of your own stand. And somewhere, where the threads of your heart get tangled again at the mere mention of his name, you refuse to make that decision. Only it is so far away that you simply don't have the courage to go to such a depth of your own personality, which is why the usual defence mechanism continues to work].

You just need to calm down and look at the situation from a different angle. Then there will be a way out and everything will be as normal as possible. Maybe you should go to the Speedwagon Foundation. Since Kujo is here and they and the Foundation have invaded your life anyway, one of the solutions is simply-

avoid, you need to avoid them and hide, escape again. They won't help you and will only cause more wounds, and you will again weep until your throat is hoarse and-

at least find out what's really going on in Miami. As if something serious could be happening here.

#jjba #JoJo's Bizzare Adventure #jotaro kujo x reader #jotaro x reader #jojo imagines

[welcometothepenumbra]

JUNO STEEL AND THE MONSTER’S REFLECTION (PART THREE)

SOUND: RAIN. TRAIN ARRIVES, CREAKS TO A STOP. DOOR CLANKS OPEN.

CONDUCTOR: Ah, good evening, Traveler. And welcome… to The Penumbra.

SOUND: DOOR CLANKS SHUT.

Take your seat, please, take your seat.

MUSIC: STARTS.

The junction lies ahead, so if you’ll allow me just a moment.

SOUND: TRAIN WHISTLE.

Pay no mind to our train’s backwards motion, dear Traveler. We are now passing through decades of the past.

SOUND: TRAIN BRAKES.

Our next stop? Juno Steel and the Monster’s Reflection.

SOUND: DOOR CLANKS OPEN, RAIN.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

***

SOUND: CLOCK TICKING. RADIO TUNING, STATIC.

VOICE 7 (FROM RADIO): …Eh-eh-eh-ehndromeda! How did you get here? The waves around Queen Pisces’ castle are ih-ih-ih-impossible to escape!

ANDROMEDA (FROM RADIO): Your cursed waves are powerful, Capricorn – but in suffering’s wake my chains always sail true. Chain Whip!

SOUND: METAL CHAIN CLANKS.

VOICE 7 [CAPRICORN] (FROM RADIO): (YELPS) My staff! B-b-b-b-but that was the only way off this island! We’ll neh-eh-eh-ever get home!

ANDROMEDA (FROM RADIO): And because of you neither will Prince Pod, warlock. Chainmail Fist! Haaaaaaaaaah!

CAPRICORN (FROM RADIO): Nooooo… (FADES OUT)

TURBO (FROM RADIO): The good guys always win!

JUNO: Nope.

TURBO (FROM RADIO): It’s a fact— (FADING OUT)

SOUND: RADIO TUNING.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): A cop? You? (LAUGHS) You look so smug. Counting your chickens before they’ve hatched. A year from now, you’ll be stunning some homeless half to death and you’ll be too stubborn to admit you never even wanted chickens anyway. (CHUCKLES) I called the cops when you handed our lives away. Came in, looked around, and left with two thousand creds in family heirlooms, and a hell of a story for the old water cooler. “Kid said he was robbed by a cartoon! And his mom believed him! Haw haw!” Stupid. Stupid!

You’ll fit right in with people like that.

I’m right, aren’t I? Biting other people so you don’t get bit. You’ve been like that from minute one. I paid a lot of creds to make you and your brother happen on my own, and for nine months you fed on my insides, and every day since you’ve carved off a piece of my life, and now that there’s nothing left, you want something bigger to chew on.

What the hell are you still doing here? You took your bite. Go choke on it.

SOUND: RADIO CLICKS OFF.

JUNO: (SIGHS)

SOUND: RADIO TUNING, STATIC.

Come on… come on, there’s got to be something on this stupid—

SARAH (FROM RADIO): …whole sun was covered in shifting darkness, the sky blotted out completely by the millions of butterflies the king had sent them. And so the harpies were trapped. They could never see the sun, and they could never fly to the top of their mountain, and they could never look out over the ocean, from what had been the mountain’s peak, but was now the king’s high tower. And they felt deep in their hearts that all things beautiful had been taken from them… except one. And so what did they do?

JUNO: They sang.

SOUND: SPED-UP GLITCHY NOISES. STATIC ENDS.

SARAH: (LAUGHS) That’s right, my little monster. They sang. They sang their sad, sad song just like they always did, with the long notes like cloud-swirls, and the short ones like raindrops, and even when they weren’t so sad anymore, they still sang the same sad song, because it was what they wanted, and it was how they knew they would always be harpies, and no king could change that.

BEN: What’s playing? Anything good?

JUNO: This is the… last good night.

BEN: Not even you could believe that—

JUNO: Shh.

SARAH: And when the king heard the harpies’ song he became sad again, and when he realized he was sad, he got angry. So he parted the wall of butterflies and he asked, “Harpies! How could you be so ungrateful? I heard your sad songs, I found out you like colors and butterflies, and so I gave them to you – every butterfly in the entire world! And still, you sing so sadly? Why aren’t you grateful?”

The king couldn’t see what the harpies saw, or hear what they heard, and even when they spoke, he did not care to listen. But if he had, he might have learned that even without a single butterfly, the harpies had everything they wanted: a sky, an ocean, a home where they could be sad if they wanted, and voices to let the air know it.

Juno? Benzaiten? Are you asleep?

Because I missed my boys so much today… and if they were just pretending to fall asleep to trick Mommy…

SOUND: CHILD GIGGLES.

There you are! Wanna watch something?

SOUND: TV TURNS ON.

MUSIC: FROM TV.

JUNO: I meant our last good night in Halcyon. A few hours after Turbo came.

I didn’t ask you to come back.

BEN: Maybe not out loud, but, I felt it. That’s a brother thing, not a brain-ghost thing.

SOUND: SPED-UP GLITCHY NOISES. CLOCK TICKING.

(AFTER A PAUSE) So…? what’ve you been up to?

JUNO: Flipping through stations. Trying to find something.

BEN: Like what?

JUNO: I don’t know. Something’s just… wrong.

BEN: Sniffing around like always. You know I could never even touch your stuff without you knowing it? Ever? I’d take pictures, and memorize exactly where I found it, and then I’d put it back exactly right… but you always caught me.

JUNO: Sounds like a pretty easy problem to avoid. Just don’t touch my stuff.

Or my brain. Could you let go of that, too? Kinda using it right now.

BEN: Can’t. I live here now. (CHUCKLES)

Mom used to be a pretty good storyteller, wasn’t she?

JUNO: Is that why you stayed with her? Her stories?

BEN: (SIGHING) Juno…

JUNO: Right. I don’t know, you don’t know.

BEN: So? You wanna go solve a mystery?

JUNO: I mean, yeah, but—

BEN: Then let’s do it.

JUNO: Jeez, Benten, you’re dead and I still can’t get a word in edgewise. Do I want to figure this out? Sure. But I can’t even tell what the hell I’m supposed to be figuring out anymore.

BEN: So all this makes perfect sense to you. Old bedroom, a haunted radio and clock and everything?

JUNO: I mean, obviously not, but…

What was that?

BEN: Forget it. Just keep going.

JUNO: I mean… sure, this place is weird, but… your death, Mom killing you – I can’t find any leads. There are none of those weird patches, the parts that don’t make sense. There’s just a… bunch of stuff I don’t know.

BEN: Sounds frustrating. Also, doesn’t actually sound like a problem.

JUNO: The hell are you talking about? A case without any leads is a dead end, Ben! It ends here!

BEN: Alright. Then it ends here.

JUNO: That’s what I just said! It ends…

…here.

Your murder… that’s not the case I’m here to solve, is it?

BEN: It’s already been solved, Juno. Almost twenty years, now.

JUNO: It was, but—

BEN: They linked the laser burns to the gun with her fingerprints on it. She confessed. It… was a pretty simple case.

JUNO: But… what about her pills?

BEN: Lost ‘em. She lost things all the time.

JUNO: And why—

BEN: She told you. About twenty minutes after she did it.

JUNO: But… you…

Why did you stay with her, Benten? Why?

BEN: (CHUCKLES) Man, it used to drive me nuts when you’d listen to the same song for two weeks. Think how I must feel listening to these same questions on repeat for two decades, huh?

JUNO: It just… it didn’t have to happen. I keep thinking that—there were a million ways it could have been avoided, it– it just feels like… like…

BEN: Almost nothing has to happen, Juno. Things just… do. Then the world’s different, and more things happen later.

Like… like a road trip. Right? You just keep driving forward and sometimes the car stops for a minute so you can get out, look around, imagine staying there forever. And then someone says the car’s leaving, with or without you. And you’ll miss that place, sure. You might regret leaving. But, if you want to keep seeing what’s ahead… you gotta get back in the car.

I’m sorry I’m not on the road with you anymore. I miss it, if that’s worth anything.

JUNO: I miss it too, I just… (SNIFFLES)

…Okay. So your murder’s not the case. Fine. Then… what the hell; why the hell am I here?

BEN: Business again, huh?

I don’t know, man. Maybe you and I aren’t the point.

JUNO: Who else? It messed my life up, it killed you, so who—

…Mom. That day she was talking about. You think… Mom’s the victim?

BEN: Theeeere we go.

JUNO: (SNORTS) You want me to feel bad for her? You know how many victims she made in her life?

BEN: Yup. But, I never said we have to forgive her. And the Turbo thing doesn’t make sense, and you said when you’re solving a mystery, you start with what doesn’t make sense. Ipso-facto, presto-changeo, sounds like a mystery to me. Can we go now?

JUNO: I’m not going to forgive her! She’s just evil.

BEN: Seems like a strong word.

JUNO: If she wasn’t evil, then who the hell is, Ben—

BEN: Didn’t mean evil. I meant just.

JUNO: But…! She…! You…!

BEN: (YAWNS) Listen—

SOUND: RADIO TUNING, STATIC.

—Super-Steel, I get that you have all these questions, but we’re kind of running out of time, here.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: At the sound of the tone, the time will be. Eleven fifty-three PM.

SOUND: TONE.

BEN: So?

JUNO: (GROWLS) Fine.

SOUND: RADIO CLICKS OFF. SPED-UP GLITCHY NOISES.

BEN: Let’s start like last time.

JUNO: ‘Cause that worked so well.

BEN: My turn, shut up, thanks! So, tell me: what doesn’t line up here? Besides the cartoon part. Also, the robbing us blind without actually taking anything part.

JUNO: (SIGHING) I don’t know.

BEN: Nothing she did or said that doesn’t make sense?

JUNO: I don’t know what to tell you, alright? She was barely even home that day. It was just us, alone, and then we broke something—

SOUND: STATIC FADES IN.

—because we were alone, and then you ran outside alone, and…

Hang on.

BEN: Here we go!

SOUND: SPED-UP GLITCHY NOISES. STATIC ENDS, BIRDS CHIRPING DISTANTLY.

JUNO: She checked her locks constantly.

BEN: Yeah, you’ve proven that, like, three times. So what?

JUNO: So how the hell did you run outside, Ben? If she checked every lock a million times, how the hell would she leave the front door open?

BEN: Well, she was irresponsible. You said so yourself.

JUNO: Sure, irresponsible. But she wasn’t stupid.

SOUND: RADIO TUNING, STATIC.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): …rules, okay? Be safe, stay together, and don’t go into the office. You won’t be alone long, I promise. Mommy loves you.

SOUND: RADIO TUNING.

…missed my boys so much today…

SOUND: RADIO TUNING.

…came home as soon as I heard, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my little monsters, I didn’t—

SOUND: RADIO CLICKS OFF.

JUNO: …Wait, what?

BEN: What what?

JUNO: I don’t remember that. We didn’t hear that one before, did we?

BEN: Uhhh, good ear, officer.

SOUND: BANGING ON DOOR, DOORKNOB RATTLING.

SARAH: (ECHOING) Juno! Benten! Just hold on one minute, I’m almost—

SOUND: DOOR OPENS.

Oh, you’re okay! Oh my god, you’re okay!

SOUND: DOOR CLOSES, CLUNK. QUICK FOOTSTEPS.

I came home as soon as I heard, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my little monsters, I didn’t know, c’mere.

SOUND: RUSTLING.

I missed you. I should never have left like—it was stupid, stupid! But I’m so glad you’re okay. I’m sorry, Juno, I’ll do better, Benten, I promise, I– I’ll…

I’m so glad you’re okay. When things settle down, it’ll be different. After tomorrow I promise I’ll be… all better.

JUNO: That was… new.

BEN: Almost forty years old, actually.

JUNO: (SNORTS)

BEN: Think about it. That memory’s been inside you this whole time, waiting. So why’d it take ‘til now for you to remember?

JUNO: I…

…I don’t think I would’ve believed it if I saw it.

BEN: You said to start with what’s weird, right? Weirdest thing here is you, easy. Mom comes up and all you can talk about is monsters and pure evil and—

JUNO: I lose the evidence. If I’m the tool all this evidence gets collected through, I have to… think about what the tool’s weaknesses are.

BEN: And strengths.

JUNO: Easy for you to say. It’s just so hard to remember her like that. Even now, I can feel it slipping. Like it was all so real a minute ago, but now—

BEN: Then use it now. Mom came home and said all that. What does that tell you?

JUNO: She was… surprised? She didn’t expect to be gone that long, or maybe, she didn’t expect us to be home alone?

SOUND: BANGING ON DOOR, DOORKNOB RATTLING.

The door.

The door was locked when she got home, but unlocked when you left.

BEN: We could’ve done it.

JUNO: That door needed a key. Every lock in here was analog and only Ma had the keys.

BEN: But she locked the office.

JUNO: I mean, yeah, obviously. She never wanted anybody to go in there; she even had a different key for it. So if she left the door open, that means, she must have been expecting someone. Expecting…

SOUND: RADIO TUNING, STATIC.

A babysitter.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): …don’t go into the office. You won’t be alone long, I promise. Mommy loves you.

Come on, Steel, you stupid sap, hurry it up, can’t miss your bus, you— (CALLING) Oh, and be nice to the babysitter, you two! He’s supposed to be here in five minutes.

(OVERLAPPING WITH ABOVE LINE) Five minutes?! I don’t care what your records say, I reserved a babysitter two days ago, from eleven to four; you said, they were five minutes away, now I’m home and guess what? No babysitter! My kids were home alone all day! You could’ve killed them, you stupid—

Don’t you tell me how to raise my kids! If you knew what I was going through, I just needed one day, before tomorrow, or I was gonna– it’s not my fault, it’s not my—

Yeah, I’d like to lodge a complaint. I’d like to lodge a complaint right up your—!

SOUND: RADIO CLICKS OFF.

BEN: Remember when my guidance counselor quit the day after Mom came in to talk to him? That makes more sense now.

JUNO: Okay. Okay, now we’re gettin’ somewhere.

BEN: Like where? So Mom couldn’t figure out how to schedule a babysitter. Is that really so hard to believe?

JUNO: If it all started that day, maybe not, but… she said she reserved the babysitter two days before. She would’ve checked it a million times. She was like that about everything, her locks, her pills, her plans, it was constant.

So… okay. She scheduled a babysitter from eleven to four; they never showed and the service had no record of them, but she must’ve seen something, and that means that she left a reservation… somewhere.

BEN: Where?

JUNO: …I don’t know.

But I know who does.

SOUND: RADIO STATIC.

TURBO (FROM RADIO): And if anyone asks, you must tell them Turbo did it.

SOUND: RADIO CLICKS OFF.

BEN: So… a cartoon robbed us, and started up a phony babysitting service.

JUNO: No, but Turbo, whoever they were, knew exactly when to show up to rob the house. Right? And it’s not like they could’ve cased the place based on Mom’s past movements, either, because she barely ever left the office.

BEN: So you think someone lured her out, then broke in, and then… didn’t take anything?

JUNO: Exactly.

BEN: Why?

JUNO: That… I don’t know.

(QUIETER) I don’t know.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

Evidence is all here, Steel, come on, think!

BEN: Don’t leave me out. We got the lead, we found the thing that doesn’t make sense. What’s next, officer?

JUNO: What?

BEN: Let’s trade. I’ll tell you how a pirouette works, if you tell me how a mystery does.

JUNO: I don’t care how a pirouette works.

BEN: Rude. Tell me anyway.

JUNO: I don’t know. Evidence, leads, it’s all…

You look at everything you got, you follow one lead until it’s dead, then you check the old ones with the new info and see if a new path opens, and…

What the hell was she doing that day, anyway?

BEN: I mean… we already heard, didn’t we?

SOUND: RADIO TUNING, STATIC.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): …things settle down, it’ll be different. After tomorrow I promise I’ll be… all better.

SOUND: RADIO TUNING.

…knew what I was going through, I just needed one day, before tomorrow, or I was gonna– it’s not my fault, it’s not my—

JUNO: Before tomorrow… the meeting where she lost her Northstar job.

That’s the motive.

BEN: What’s the motive—

SOUND: SPED-UP GLITCHY NOISES. STATIC ENDS.

Whoa.

???: Times have been hard. You know that. The coffers aren’t as full as they once were—

And cuts have to be made. Big ones. It’s not fair, but. There it is.

SOUND: STATIC FADES IN.

They’re only keeping one writer.

SARAH: What!

???: You’re on the list.

SARAH: Of course I’m on the list! I practically am the list!

JUNO: Not this time!

SARAH: God damn it. God damn it!

So how are they choosing?

SOUND: RADIO TUNING.

BEN: Losing reception again…

JUNO: Yeah, I know!

SARAH: What kind of pitch?

SOUND: STATIC.

BEN: Remember, Juno. And if you can’t remember, think. Who does that have to be?

JUNO: (GRUNTING)

TURBO: (FADING IN, ECHOING) …but think about where the company is, Sarah! If they’re out of money, they’re out of money. They can’t hold us longer just to be nice.

SOUND: STATIC FADES.

JUNO: Got him!

SARAH: (ECHOING) They want a pitch in a month! They want the keys to the project that’ll save them in thirty days? Idiots. Idiots! (GRUNTS)

SOUND: GLASS SHATTERING.

I don’t even have to ask who my competition is, do I? It’s just you and me, isn’t it?

TURBO: The rest of the team’s already gone. They’re only hearing two pitches.

JUNO: Turbo.

SARAH: So they split up their best writing team and put them at each other’s throats. God damn it. God—!

SOUND: CLINK.

TURBO: I don’t see how tearing your apartment to pieces is going to solve this.

SARAH: I know, I just…!

Why the hell are they cutting creative?

TURBO: I don’t know!

SARAH: It doesn’t make any sense! We’re behind in the race, so we lose weight by dropping the engine? Why not drop a few zeroes from marketing, Killbourne or Li, or, or what about that jerk in R&D, what the hell’s his name, when’s the last time he did anything worth a damn for this company, huh? When?

Pitting us against each other… it’s sick. It’s sick, and it’s gonna get them nowhere.

TURBO: I know. And we have to do it.

SARAH: I know that.

(SIGHS) You have to leave. Now. I’m sorry, I know this wasn’t exactly tea and biscuits, but… if you stay here, I’m gonna do something stupid.

SOUND: CREAKING. FOOTSTEPS.

TURBO: Well, then.

I hope you’ll take care of yourself, Sarah.

SARAH: Shut up.

TURBO: Your work has always been excellent, but if the pressure gets too high… you know how paranoia can—

SARAH: Go!

TURBO: Right. Sorry. Goodbye, Sarah.

SARAH: Bye—

TURBO: Turbo!

JUNO: What?

SOUND: GUNSHOT, WIND HOWLING, STATIC.

Aghhh!

TURBO (FROM RADIO): —must tell them Turbo did it.

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): It didn’t have to be this way! If he didn’t hand our lives over to Turbo—

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

BEN: Juno! You’ve gotta take control, man, you have to pull out of there!

JUNO: I… can’t…!

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): …handed our lives away, because someone said please.

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

Where’s Turbo now, huh, Juno? Where is he!

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

This stupid pitch! I don’t want to be like this, I’m trying, I’m trying, but then it’s like a trap door opens and I’m somewhere underground, somewhere everyone wants to get me, even– even you…

TURBO (FROM RADIO): It’s going to be alright, Sarah, just remember: (LOUD, ECHOING) The good guys always win!

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

BEN: Juno, come on! I’m right here!

SOUND: SPED-UP GLITCHY NOISES. WIND & STATIC STOP.

JUNO: (PAINED YELL, PANTING)

SOUND: CLOCK TICKING. RADIO JINGLE.

TURBO (FROM RADIO): At the sound of the gunshot that killed your brother, it will be eleven fifty-seven PM.

JUNO: God damn it, no you don’t!

TURBO (FROM RADIO): It’s a fact—

SOUND: GUNSHOT CUT OFF BY RADIO CLICKING OFF. CLOCK TICKING CONTINUES.

BEN: (AFTER A PAUSE) You did better that time.

JUNO: Got enough lies to deal with as is; you mind not adding to the pile?

BEN: No, really! You pulled yourself out, and… it… was… shorter?

JUNO: Goody. (GROANS)

SOUND: FABRIC RUSTLING.

I don’t think I’ve got another one of those in me, Benten.

BEN: So… what? You’re just gonna die?

JUNO: Who cares?

BEN: You do, moron.

JUNO: (GROWLS)

SOUND: FABRIC RUSTLING.

BEN: Get up.

SOUND: FABRIC RUSTLING.

Get up.

JUNO: (MUFFLED) Hey, quit it—

BEN: You want to live. You care. Not caring’s been your get-out-of-problems-free card for years, and you don’t know how to do anything else. Now you do care and you’ve got no idea what to do with it. That’s not brave, that’s not even being depressed, Juno, it’s just being a dick.

JUNO: Well… I mean, if I’m a dick, it’s ‘cause—

BEN: You’re a private dick? Got there first! Punchline’s mine.

JUNO: Damn it!

BEN & JUNO: (GIGGLE)

SOUND: STATIC, RADIO JINGLE.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: At the sound of the tone, the time will be. Eleven fifty-eight PM.

SOUND: TONE. RADIO CLICKS OFF.

JUNO: That sound can’t be good.

BEN: Juno? What’s up?

JUNO: Just a feeling. We’d better get started. We’ve still got a lot to figure out, and… not much time left.

BEN: Really? I think we’re pretty close. You got the where, when, why, and even the how and the who, kind of.

JUNO: You mean Turbo?

BEN: I mean whoever Turbo was. So what’s missing?

JUNO: Where, when, why, who, how… the what.

BEN: I mean, yeah; I just said what’s missing.

JUNO: What?

BEN: What, exactly.

JUNO: The hell are you—

(GROANS)

BEN: (LAUGHS) God, you’re easy.

JUNO: By what you mean what was stolen, right?

BEN: Yep.

JUNO: Nothing is the short answer. Mom said so herself; cops couldn’t find anything missing… besides what they took.

BEN: You think she would’ve gone that far off the rails over nothing?

JUNO: It’s a theory, alright? Imagine Mom realized the morning of the presentation that she’d got broken into, had a meltdown, and carried that meltdown with her all the way to work. Turbo could’ve messed with anything for that to happen. Just moved her chair a few inches to the left, she would’ve noticed.

BEN: Oh, come on. We’re back to this again? Crazy Sarah Steel with her hair-trigger?

JUNO: I didn’t say that.

BEN: Alright, let’s play it your way. Let’s assume Mom would’ve flipped no matter what was stolen. If that’s the case, the whole set up to this thing doesn’t make sense: the disappearing babysitter, Turbo at the door, all of it. It’s all pointless.

JUNO: Pointless. Pointless…

You’re right. If Mom’s hair-trigger really was that sensitive, Turbo could’ve messed with her anytime; hell, he could’ve just… chucked a brick through the window the morning of. Hoping she wouldn’t notice he’d entered ‘til the next morning, setting up a dummy babysitting service, telling me to keep quiet? That’s a big risk for no payoff.

I need to see the house again. Whatever Turbo took was in there, and, I think I know what it is.

SOUND: SPED-UP GLITCHY NOISES. DISTANT BIRDS CHIRPING.

BEN: Our old bedroom? You really think he took something from here?

JUNO: Not here.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS. FOOTSTEPS.

The pitch meeting the next day; it wasn’t just that she flipped out. Her presentation… there was something wrong with her presentation, too.

BEN: What?

JUNO: One of her old coworkers said that a little over a month ago—

SOUND: STATIC.

—when I took a case in Polaris Park.

VEGA (FROM RADIO): …everything we’d made was on the line. We only had the money to keep one of our writers and then your mother, trying to steal someone else’s work…

JUNO: Her work. It was whatever she was working on. Turbo must’ve taken it. And that means—

BEN: Her office.

But, the door was locked. And what happened to “robbed us blind without taking a thing?”

JUNO: That’s the one part I don’t have yet.

But of course she’d flip over that. She was convinced it would help her, convinced.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): …once this is over, I promise, Juno, Ben, my little monsters. Once this is all over, and I’ve finished this, I’m gonna be all better. No more worries, no more stress. Nothing like this is ever going to happen again. And I know, I’ve said that before but I mean it, I really do, you’ll see, and it’ll all… be worth it. Just, one more hour, please.

SOUND: RADIO CLICKS OFF.

JUNO: She wanted to be all better, and she thought whatever she was working on would get her there.

That’s all that mattered to her; we were just hurdles on the way there.

BEN: But why did she think her work would… I don’t know, fix her?

JUNO: Who knows? She was nuts.

BEN: Right, good point. Why try to figure out the complexities of a human being when you can just throw her out in one word?

JUNO: Oh, drop it.

BEN: No, I think you’re onto something. Maybe next time I’m in a bookstore, I’ll just go down the biography aisle, tear out all the pages, write ‘nuts’ on every cover.

JUNO: I get the point.

BEN: Is that how you think of yourself? Like a few problems are enough reason to call yourself trash?

JUNO: What the hell do you know about problems, huh? Benzaiten Steel, Mr. Dancer, Mr. Everybody’s-Favorite, Mr. Galaxy’s-Best-Smile. The hell do you know about—

BEN: We’re both Sarah Steel’s kids, Juno. We both inherited that weight around her neck. Just because I dealt with it differently than you, doesn’t mean you get to pretend it wasn’t there.

I’m just saying. Crazy’s as bad as all better, and you know it. It’s an ending. We don’t get those, alive or dead.

JUNO: Okay, alright. She’s not crazy. I’m not crazy. You, though—

BEN: So why did she care about her work so much?

JUNO: Uh, what?

BEN: Some people work for money, fame, whatever. I danced ‘cause it felt like flying, like freedom, in a life where that was hard to come by. You bust bad guys because it makes you feel like the world’s got a shot. So what did Mom work for?

SOUND: RADIO TUNING, STATIC.

JUNO: How the hell am I supposed to—

SARAH (FROM RADIO): …if you want to live out there, you need someone to live for. You need someone else, so that when you’re not tough enough, they can be; so that right when you want to give up, you remember you can’t. Because you’ve got someone better than you to worry about.

And that’s what you are to me. I love you, my little monsters.

SOUND: RADIO CLICKS OFF.

JUNO: …For… us?

But then why would she have—

All those things she did to me, to you…

BEN: Oh really. You don’t believe someone could be scared of not living up to what they love most? So scared they’d just… throw it away?

Also, are you really still mad about that Galaxy’s Best Smile thing?

JUNO: Shut up.

BEN: That was a poll in our third grade class, man. A bunch of kids thirty years ago writing names on slips of paper—

JUNO: We had the same goddamn smile, alright? Just shut up. It doesn’t matter.

BEN: (CHUCKLES)

JUNO: But… your point is, she was doing all that for us. Trying to, anyway. And even at the time she was roughest on us when we were interrupting her, or trying to sneak in here, or…

Because if we hurt her work, we’d be hurting ourselves. So…

I’ve got to get into that office.

SOUND: KNOCKING.

BEN: But… why?

JUNO: Evidence, something…

SOUND: KNOCKING.

I have to see what she was working on. Help me get in there.

BEN: I told you, if you didn’t see someplace in here, it’s just… nothing.

JUNO: I did see it.

BEN: What? We never went into Mom’s office. She would’ve killed us.

JUNO: You were there too, Ben. We were in Mom’s office before Turbo ever showed up.

SOUND: RADIO TUNING, STATIC.

TURBO (FROM RADIO): …I’ll just go into her office now… put it all back together… nobody will know…

SOUND: RADIO CLICKS OFF.

JUNO: You hear that? Whatever we broke was in her office.

BEN: I mean… I guess that makes sense, but—

JUNO: Found it. A little piece of plastic from one of the Turbos. It’s wedged in the doorframe here so the bolt can’t close all the way. I remember… that’s why I remember the analog locks. I bothered Mom for hours trying to figure out how they worked, her and…

BEN: Mom and who?

SOUND: STATIC.

JUNO: I don’t know.

TURBO (FROM RADIO): (ECHOING) It’s a fact!

JUNO: We have to get in there. How the hell did this work? Just, grab the plastic and push?

SOUND: CLICKING, FOOTSTEPS.

BEN: Stop. Move over.

JUNO: Wha—

BEN: You always figured out the trouble. But I was better at doing it.

JUNO: You’re right.

SOUND: CLICKING, SCRAPING.

BEN: Hook it… so it can’t come loose… make sure I don’t lose that little part… push… and then…

Done.

SOUND: DOOR CREAKS OPEN.

Juno, I don’t know if… I don’t know what it is, but, I don’t think I can…

JUNO: It’s okay. I’ll go in. You just… stay here.

BEN: Alright.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

JUNO: It’s a mess in here, obviously. She was like that, paper everywhere…

SOUND: PAGES FLIPPING.

Was Mom an artist?

BEN: (DISTANT, CALLING) Writer, I thought.

JUNO: These must just be doodles, then, or… test runs, or something. Two little alien-looking guys, a bull, a ram, and… dragons.

That’s not what we were fighting over, though.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

It smells like her. This room, it smells like… crisp paper and bourbon. Files, folders…

Ink stain on the carpet. I bet we knocked something over here.

BEN: (DISTANT, CALLING) So, this was the first time we ever went into her office?

JUNO: Might’ve been. There was something we both wanted to look at, something we’d been waiting for…

SOUND: RADIO TUNING, STATIC.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): You can say please as many times as you want, kiddos, it’s not gonna happen.

BEN: (DISTANT) Holy hell, I thought that was really her for a second, almost jumped out of my—

JUNO: Shhhhh.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): (OVER THE LINES ABOVE) I know you want to see Mommy’s next project. You and everyone else… seems like nobody can shut up about it, you or—

SOUND: STATIC.

TURBO (FROM RADIO): It’s a fact!

SARAH (FROM RADIO): But this one’s… important to Mommy, okay? I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and… it’s gonna bring us home, my little monsters. We’re finally gonna go—

SOUND: DISTANT BOOM. STATIC ENDS.

TURBO: (DISTANT) Steady your crying now, young hero, and Turbo will help you with turbo speed!

BEN: Hurry, Juno. We have to get out of here.

JUNO: We wanted to see the next big project. Those sketches wouldn’t’ve satisfied us. The real stuff, where would she keep—

SOUND: THUDS.

TURBO: Your brother Benten broke it, you say! And your mother will be angry!

BEN: Juno…!

JUNO: Couldn’t’ve reached the filing cabinets, wouldn’t’ve gone in her desk, so—

Wrong question. It’s not where we found it, it’s where we put it after you ripped it.

Carpet around the potted plant’s a mess. Not Mom’s kind, not papers and booze and ideas, just… dirt.

SOUND: RUSTLING, CLINKS. SCRAPING. THUDS.

TURBO: Here comes – the Man of the Future!

BEN: (DISTANT) Juno, I’m trying to hold on, but the closer he gets—

JUNO: Found it!

This is it! This is…!

BEN: (DISTANT, FADING) I’m sorry! I can’t stay, I wasn’t—

SOUND: WIND BLOWING. PAPER RUSTLING. THUDS.

JUNO: Proposal: New Intellectual Property for Northstar Entertainment, designed by Sarah Steel. Tentatively named…

Chainmail Warrior Andromeda.

SOUND: DOOR CREAKING.

You did this. You stole her project. She didn’t show up empty-handed, she showed up with the Galaxy’s greatest hero.

VOICE 8: Juno? What are you doing here?

SOUND: DOOR SHUTS.

What’s wrong? Where’s Benzaiten?

JUNO: You lied to me. You used me. I trusted you, whoever the hell you were, and you used me.

VOICE 8: Ran outside… really?

Too brave for his own good, that boy…

Not like you, Super-Steel, eh? You and I, we like to watch, to learn. Shhh, don’t cry, now. You’re a smart boy; now use that big brain of yours and think.

JUNO: Who are you?

VOICE 8: You have to calm down, Super-Steel. Shhhh-sh-sh-sh-sh. Nobody’s going to let anything happen to Benten, nobody. But first you have to calm down.

JUNO: God damn it, stop haunting me! Don’t hide again! Just show your goddamn face so I know it’s you!

VOICE 8: Come on, it’s me. Take a deep breath and say it with me, Juno.

JUNO: Show it!

VOICE 8: It’s a fact…

JUNO & VOICE 8: (IN UNISON) I can count on Jack!

SOUND: GUNSHOT. WIND HOWLING.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): Bye, Jack.

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

My little monsters, look who it is! Jack’s here!

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

VOICE 8 [JACK] (FROM RADIO): Be careful, Sarah. Paranoid behavior…

SARAH (FROM RADIO): I know, Jack, I know, I…

JACK (FROM RADIO): You have to rest. A day off, perhaps. A babysitter—

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): How could you do this to me? To them! They love you! They still ask for you, Jack Takano, and—

SOUND: GUNSHOT. WIND STOPS.

JUNO: (PANTING)

JACK: There you go. See? I’m proud of you. (GRUNTS) Now. Tell old Jack what happened, hm?

JUNO: It wasn’t me. It was my turn. Benten ripped it.

JACK: I can see that. My, he really did a number on this, didn’t he? And with Sarah so high-strung these days…

You don’t think she’d hurt him, do you?

JUNO: Where is Ben? Where—

JACK: We’ll find him in a moment, but first… there must be some way out of this, hmm? We don’t want your brother to get hurt, not even a risk of it, we love him, of course…

Ahhhh! An idea! But, you must have had the same one, right? A smart boy like you.

JUNO: Where’s Ben?

JACK: Shhh, Juno, now isn’t the time. You want to be good, don’t you? You want to help people like your friend Turbo, hanging in your hand there?

SOUND: SQUEAK.

TURBO (FROM TOY): Have you helped anyone yet today?

JACK: See? Your mother and I made Turbo together, you know. She loves a hero. She always tells me, “Jack, my boy Juno is going to grow up to do such good things for people – just like you.” (CHUCKLES) Well, maybe I added that last part. I’ve been thinking about it myself, you see, a great deal.

And so I will take away all the broken things, and leave behind copies, so she never has to know. That way Ben is safe, your mother is happy… it’s the best outcome we could hope for, isn’t it?

Isn’t it?

JUNO: Yes, Jack.

JACK: In everyone’s best interest, what we’re doing here today. I should take it, she could never handle it, the pressure, and the company, and all those people…

(CHUCKLES, SIGHS) But being good is always hard, Juno. And when you do it, a part of you feels… lost. Like you took the wrong turn somewhere.

JUNO: We have to help Ben.

JACK: We are, Juno. We are.

Listen here.

SOUND: WATCH TICKING.

JUNO: (GASPS)

JACK: Do you hear that ticking, Juno? Lined all in a row they seem like they’ll never end, don’t they – but one day, you and I will both hear our last tock.

JUNO: …it’s… you.

JACK: (VOICE SLOWLY TURNS INTO RAMSES) And so… if we want to do as much good as we can before our time is out… we don’t always have time to ask for permission first. It is sad, but… aren’t so many things?

(CLEARS HIS THROAT) But we can’t have your mother finding out… I couldn’t bear what might happen.

SOUND: SQUEAK.

TURBO (FROM TOY): Here comes Turbo! The Man of the Future!

RAMSES: (VOICE SLOWLY TURNS INTO JACK) That’s just it. Look at me. A great many good people rest on your small shoulders, Juno Steel. If you want to be good… you must say nothing. No matter what. For Ben’s sake, and for yours. Do you understand?

And if anyone asks, you must tell them Turbo did it.

(GRUNTS) People need to be helped. I’m glad you agree.

Farewell, my partner in good.

SOUND: STATIC. GUNSHOT. WIND HOWLING.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): Turbo?!

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

You little idiot, I oughta—

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

I love you, my little monsters. It’s gonna be okay. We’re going to find a way to… it’s gonna be okay.

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

JACK (FROM RADIO): Your mother will be fine. She needs our help, whether or not she accepts it, so we all have to try to—

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): Stop sending me money! I don’t want your charity, I don’t want your pity, I want you to give back what you took!

Don’t play dumb! I know it was you, Turbo! I know it was you, and I know you were scared of me, you’ve always been scared of me. Because you knew I was better than you—

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

VEGA (FROM RADIO): Well, we were all a little scared of her, of course. Jack is really the only one who could ever… talk to her. So for her to accuse him? Well, none of us believed her, even for a second. Jack’s one of the most dependable men I know. Still, the way she betrayed his kindness… horrible. It makes me shudder to think it.

VOICE 9 (FROM RADIO): Could you say a little more about that fear, Dr. Vega? Did she ever threaten any of you, or…?

VEGA (FROM RADIO): No, no, no, nothing of the sort. Nothing you’d believe she really meant. But a person like that, well… they’re unpredictable, aren’t they? There’s no telling what they might do. (LAUGHS) Why, I-I-I think… I think steal isn’t even the right word for it. The way she watched Jack’s presentation before her own, the hate in her eyes… I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Sarah really believed she had made Andromeda. A mind like hers, powerful, but so chaotic…

Inevitable. Nothing any of us could have done. Tragic, and… inevitable.

VOICE 9 (FROM RADIO): And is there anything you’d like to add, Mr. Takano?

JACK (FROM RADIO): Of course, we all wish Sarah the best…

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

SARAH (FROM RADIO): A restraining order, Takano? You didn’t even have the guts to say it to my face?

SOUND: GUNSHOT.

JACK (FROM RADIO): …and I hope she knows we believe in her fully. I certainly do. And once she gets past this, once she understands why we had to act as we did… she is an incredibly talented woman. I am confident that she has a bright future ahead of her.

SOUND: GUNSHOT, STATIC & WIND END.

MUSIC: STARTS.

JUNO: (PANTING)

SARAH: You took your sweet time getting here. What’s the matter? Had something better to do?

JUNO: This day… again.

Mom?

SARAH: It’s been months since you’ve seen old Ma, and I don’t even get a hello?

JUNO: No. I’m not gonna play this game again.

SARAH: So you can do what, exactly? Think for a second. You never. Think.

JUNO: Stop it. I want to talk to you.

SARAH: Or, y’know, if you don’t think you can manage that, why don’t you just sit down, and shut—

JUNO: I said I want to talk to you!

SARAH: (AFTER A PAUSE) Fine. You wanna talk? Let’s talk.

JUNO: I—

SARAH: Just sit. You look like an idiot standing there, gearing up for a moral crusade.

You look tired, too.

JUNO: Hmph.

SOUND: RUSTLING.

SARAH: So? You got something you wanna say to me?

JUNO: Don’t think this means I forgive you.

SARAH: Ha! Why would you? I don’t.

JUNO: Doesn’t make this any better either.

SARAH: Sanctimonious… you were always like this. Holding people to standards too high to reach, you miserable little monster.

JUNO: Maybe, alright? Maybe I am sanctimonious. Maybe there were times when I was unfair to you, and maybe sometimes when I hurt you it really was my fault. But I am not a monster.

And neither were you.

SARAH: (LAUGHS) So, I’ve received your blessing, have I? Oh, thank you, kind sir! My spirit has been freed! No longer will I haunt—

JUNO: Not my blessing. Not my forgiveness. Listen. For years now, it’s felt like you were the beast lurking inside me. Like the part of me with the short fuse and the bruised knuckles had a name and that name was Sarah Steel, and every time I felt you in my hands, or heard you in my voice it was a sign that my days were numbered. That one day I was gonna be just like you. Causing as much pain as you. Feeling as much pain as you.

SARAH: And now you’re finally ready to get rid of me. So he’s an exorcist, too.

JUNO: No. I’m not getting rid of you. I’ve tried that already and it doesn’t work. You are always going to be a part of me. I am always going to do bad things and feel you in them.

But you weren’t a monster, Mom. You were just a person. A person who let her own hurt pour out and hurt other people, yeah. But…

SARAH: …But what?

JUNO: No, not but.

And. You hurt people and you cared about them. And you scared people and you made things nobody else could make. And you were brave, Ma, brave enough to push yourself as hard as you could, and you weren’t smart enough or patient enough or something enough to see that you never should’ve pushed yourself that far in the first place.

And I don’t have to be scared every time I feel you in me anymore.

SARAH: (AFTER A PAUSE) Little monster’s all grown up, isn’t he?

JUNO: Not yet. Workin’ on it.

SARAH: Lazy. How much longer you gonna take?

JUNO: Got a due date penciled in for a few seconds before I die, but I might ask for an extension.

SARAH: (LAUGHS) Look at you. A real hero. Funny, too.

SOUND: CLOCK TICKING.

(SIGHS) The last hero I ever made. I put so much of myself in her. The Homeless Hero. Then even she turned on me, and after that, hell, it was just… hard.

But look at you.

JUNO: Uh… sure. I’m lookin’.

SARAH: Principled. Strong. Stronger than I was.

And now you saw him do it. Now you know Benzaiten wasn’t my fault—

JUNO: Nope, that definitely was.

SARAH: Not all my fault. Jack, Ramses, whatever you call him… he took our life from us, Juno. Think of where you could be, where Benten could be, if he hadn’t done that. I think about it all the time. I think about it so much it makes me wanna puke, and I keep thinking about it.

JUNO: I… what?

SARAH: He ruined our life. He’s the monster. You’re the hero. And what do heroes do to monsters, Juno?

JUNO: Back off, Ma, I’m not—

SARAH & TURBO: (IN UNISON) Kill him.

JUNO: What?

SARAH: He took away our home, and we can never go back. You have to punish him for it, Juno.

JUNO: I’m– I’m not gonna—

SARAH: Then you’re just going to let him go free? You’re going to let Benzaiten die for nothing?

SOUND: FABRIC RUSTLING.

JUNO: (GASPS)

SARAH: Coward. Lazy little coward. Stand up and fight, Juno, and when you meet true evil on the road, you do not walk on until his body lies dead in the dust, because—

SARAH & TURBO: The good guys always win.

JUNO: No.

SARAH & TURBO: A hero heeds the call.

SOUND: THUDS.

JUNO: No!

SOUND: RUNNING FOOTSTEPS.

TURBO: Stop right there, Juno!

JUNO: (PANTING)

TURBO: (ECHOING) Have you helped everyone today? Did you know? You can count on Juno! You have finite breaths, detective!

BEN: Juno! Over here! Quickly!

JUNO: Ben!

TURBO: (ECHOING) You have finite lives to save! Feeling good isn’t the point.

BEN: Grab on!

TURBO: (ECHOING) Doing good… that’s what you’re for.

SOUND: SPED-UP GLITCHY NOISES. CLOCK TICKING. RADIO TUNING, STATIC.

TURBO (FROM RADIO): Turbo’s here with turbo speed!

BEN: Juno, I can’t turn it off!

TURBO (FROM RADIO): I hired you looking for a bodyguard!

SOUND: RATTLING.

I found a partner in good!

JUNO: The clock!

BEN: What about the dumb clock?

JUNO: When we were in our real bedroom today, did you hear a clock? We never had one! And this… isn’t a clock, either! (GRUNTS)

TURBO (FROM RADIO): This is my city!

SOUND: CRACK. GLASS SHATTERING.

I’m not proud of it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth saving!

JUNO: (GRUNTS)

TURBO (FROM RADIO): (VOICE WARPING) We could do some real good together!

SOUND: WATCH TICKING. STATIC FADES. GLASS TINKLING.

BEN: You’re right. It’s not a clock. It’s…

JUNO: A watch.

SOUND: TICKING STOPS.

BEN: (AFTER A PAUSE) So. Long day?

JUNO & BEN: (LAUGHING)

JUNO: Benten… buddy, I don’t know how I could’ve done it without you. I don’t… (SIGHS) Come on… sit down. Stay a while.

BEN: (CHUCKLES) I’d love to, man.

SOUND: RADIO JINGLE.

You know there’s nothing I’d love more.

But…

RADIO ANNOUNCER 2: At the sound of the tone, the time will be. Midnight. Please move your calendars forward to a new day.

SOUND: TONE. RADIO CLICKS OFF.

JUNO: This is it, isn’t it?

But we barely got to talk, and I fought with you, and…

BEN: Not enough time? Meaner than we should’ve been? Sounds like life to me, Juno, and it’s calling one of us now.

SOUND: DISTANT THUNDER.

JUNO: I don’t know if I can do this, Ben. Not again.

BEN: I bet it feels that way.

JUNO: All that, and now… nothing?

So, what, I found out that the jerk in my present is the same as the jerk in my past? I found out I have some superhero in me, shouting platitudes about being good? And after all that I don’t even get two seconds, to just be with you, just to—

BEN: You found out more than that.

JUNO: Like what, Ben? Like what?

BEN: Why did I stay with Mom, Juno?

JUNO: What the hell kinda question is that? If I don’t know, you don’t know…

MUSIC: STARTS.

You stayed with Ma, because… you still saw the good things in her. When it all started to hurt, the only way I could deal with it was to look away from everything human and just see the monster, but… you could never stop seeing the person she could’ve been.

BEN: It wasn’t the right choice. It wasn’t a noble choice. But it was my choice.

And I think it’s about time you let me take responsibility for my choices. Okay?

JUNO: Okay, Benten. (SNIFFS) I love you so much.

BEN: I love you too.

Don’t miss your ride, Juno. You only get one.

JUNO: Goodbye, Benzaiten.

BEN: I’ll be right here when you need me, Super-Steel.

SOUND: BREEZE BLOWS.

MUSIC: FADES.

SOUND: ELECTRIC BEEPS, MACHINES HUMMING.

JUNO: (GROANS)

JACKET: (MUFFLED, TUNELESS HUMMING)

JUNO: Ben? Ben, where the hell—

This is… Hanataba’s.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I was too scared to check. I checked anyway.

There was a bandage covering where the Theia had been, and I was alive. I was too tired to make it to the door. I barely had the energy to breathe, but… but on the bedside table lay two things: another page of Hanataba’s instructions… and the Theia Spectrum.

And it was so small. For such a huge nightmare, the thing itself was… just a little marble, still and dead.

I reached for the eye… then picked up the page instead. The instructions had only one step, written in doctor’s scrawl: “You are alive. This is the gift you have been given. Use it as you see fit. Signed, Hanataba.” Use it as I see fit, huh? (SNORTS) Not sure I’ve ever done that before.

Because when your world’s black and white, split clean down the middle into monsters and superheroes? When you spend all your time running away from your own blood or running towards some vague good nobody ever stopped to define, well… how you see fit never really comes up, does it? It’s all reactions, reflexes. Mom would do this, so I can’t; a good guy would do this, so I have to.

So, Steel. What do you want to do next?

The thought made sleep even heavier in my head, so I lay down a spell. It could wait, I thought. When you’re not always running towards something, from something… tomorrow can wait.

MUSIC: ENDS.

***

SOUND: TRAIN MOVING, MUSIC.

CONDUCTOR: If you’ve enjoyed this tale, please consider donating to The Penumbra on Patreon. Our artists work tirelessly to bring you these stories, and if you have the means, we hope you will support our efforts. Every dollar helps. You can find that page at patreon.com/thepenumbrapodcast. If you support us on Patreon at the $10 level or higher, you’ll receive access to commentary tracks like this one, from actors Matthew Zahnzinger and Kiki Samko, and co-creators Sophie Kaner and Kevin Vibert:

SOUND: TRAIN STOPS, DOOR SLIDES OPEN, RAIN.

KIKI: …and I just, I listened to a lot of Juno monologues and I was trying to sort of, capture that… y’know, that… (SIGHS) That, quali– that, like, sort of—

SOUND: LAUGHTER.

Gravelly, like… whiskey, late-night quality, y’know, so. (CHUCKLES) Um, uh, which I just naturally have. Uh… um, and, uh, Andromeda was a lot of fun to develop because it has always been my goal to become a cartoon character…

SOUND: DOOR SLIDES SHUT.

CONDUCTOR: You can also support The Penumbra by liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter @thepenumbrapod, following us on Tumblr @thepenumbrapodcast, telling your friends about us, telling your friends to tell their friends about us, and especially by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. Every rating, comment, and kind word spreads our stories further and inspires us to keep creating more and better tales to come.

We would like to give special thanks to all who support us on Patreon, but especially to Camille Blanton, Jay Iannuzzelli, Karin Z-H, Canteloupe, Fiona Parker, Ota Arcana, Regan, Ko, Kim Zeugin, Atha Lang, Vron, Charlie Spiegel, Minchowski, and Jaimie Gunter for their incredibly generous contributions per episode. Thank you.

Did you know that The Penumbra has merchandise for sale? It’s true! The Penumbra has partnered with DFTBA to bring you the posters, shirts, and pins your heart desires. Just go to dftba.com and search for The Penumbra Podcast.

This tale, Juno Steel and the Monster’s Reflection, was told by the following people: Joshua Ilon as Juno Steel, Marc Pierre as Benzaiten Steel, Kiki Samko as Sarah Steel and Chainmail Warrior Andromeda, Matthew Zahnzinger as Jack Takano, Ramses O’Flaherty, and Turbo, the Man of the Future, and Bob Mussett as Lorenzo Vega.

The Penumbra is created and produced by Sophie Kaner and Kevin Vibert. If you wish to know more about our ever-expanding, infinitely-creative team of artists, musicians, editors, designers, and managers, you can read about them in the show notes of this episode.

I’m afraid this is the end of the line for today, dear Traveler. We hope you will ride with The Penumbra again soon.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

#juno steel

[sabine-leo]

Solid Chaos - Part 4

Note: I got a request from @drakesfiance for a fic  

Summary: Living in a world were The Avengers exist and save the world repeatedly you find yourself one morning with inhuman abilities of your own. How will your boyfriend Tom react when he get´s back from his audition?

Author: @sabine-leo

Idea of: @drakesfiance

Part: 4/ 5

Genre: Angst, Humor, Fluff, Uncertainty, Slight Smut

The wait for the other shoe to drop was stressing you out. You were back in New York for 2 weeks now. Tom and you had enjoyed the little piece and quiet back home in London. Loki had teased Tom permanently and had tried to walk in on the two of you more than once after the first “incident”.

 There was a connection between the 3 of you that was undeniable.  Tom and Loki had fought about how to protect you the best and came to the conclusion that they´d just sandwich you between them when it would come to a fight. Leaving them to their discussion with an eyeroll you went into the lab to see what Bruce and Tony has accomplished in the last 2 days.

 “Hey there!” You greeted them and Tony looked up with a half-smile.

“Ohhh good that you came, we are actually ready for you to test the suit.”

“Are we?” Banner asked a little surprised. “What about the glitches and the…”

Tony shut him up. “glitches...snitches…what would live be without a bit of risk!”

Bruce wanted to disagree again but Tony had made his way to you and clicked a delicate looking bracelet onto your wrist. He winked at you and activated it with a little tip of his finger.

The look Banner had on his face was not very encouraging, and your face probably looked as shocked too. You felt a tight material forming around your arm and looked down in stunned silence. A suit build itself around your body in mere seconds. Looking like black leather with hints of blue and green streaks forming a delicate ornateness and hugging your body. But it wasn´t leather…it was an even more shielding material which could take some hits without you being injured.  

 “Wow!” was all you got out as you watched your body transform and then in its state of dress in the reflecting glass front.

 Tony grinned and looked at Banner as if he wanted to say TOLD YA

Banner just shook his head and began to explain to you.

“This suit is a formidable armour against many threats that could come your way. You can activate a head shield if you want by just saying so. It´s programmed to your voice and will react in a blink of an eye. Also, there are hidden sheets for knives and your katana on your back. You need to train to move in it but it should not feel different to you for more than a day.”

Tony stood in front of you like a proud dad and grinned saying:

“Just say …retract…or think about it and it will vanish. Leave the bracelet on at all times, its so delicate that it should go with everything you want to dress in.”

 You laughed “Since when are you into fashion Tony?!” Banner snorted and coughed out a laugh.

You tried to think retract and the suit was gone in a second. “Awesome!” you grinned.

 “When your abilities grow, the suit will grow with it. But now let’s see how you move in it…”

Tony shushed you into the gym. On your way you met Tom and Loki who both were searching for you. “There you are darling…!” Tom kissed you and looked into your eyes. Before you could say anything, Tony began to speak.

 “(Y/N) will have a merry go around with the both of you. Get ready. She will defend herself against both of you. And I hope she´ll put you on your sorry behinds.”

 Tom and Loki looked at each other in disbelief.

 “Don´t think I …or JARVIS… didn´t hear your discussion about shielding her in a fight. Don´t belittle her abilities and training.. TRUST her!”

 Tom and Loki said in unison : “We do trust her.”

 “Well then let´s see how good she got!” Tony winked at you.

“Great pep talk…” Banner added “…way to go to make her nervous.”

 You went into the gym and took your position in the middle of the mats. Tony threw you the trainings katana and nodded at you. Tom was hesitant at first but Loki just shrugged and came at you full speed. You ducked his first blow and rolled to your left. Then Tom decided he´d join in and you had to do a double spin to get out of his range. It wasn´t easy to have your eyes on both of them but you managed to defend yourself for a minute. “NOW!” Tony yelled “Attack not only defend!”

 “Shield!” You said and the suit formed around you as you flipped back to get out of the way of Loki´s kick. Seeing the astonishment of Loki and Tom and the sudden stop in their action made you grin and boost into an attack. With a sidekick you lifted Loki of his feet onto his behind and Tom suffered the same fate as you unbalanced him with a trick you learned in self-defence.

Sure, it was not fair that you had taken the moment of advantage but HYDRA wouldn´t fight fair too, so you´d better start to earn some tricks yourself.

 “Darling…” Tom stared at you and his grin got a little wicked. “You look ravishing!”

Loki snorted not very princelike and rolled is eyes. “There we go.. his mind is in the gutter already…But I must say you do look rather scorching in that leather with MY green curling along your sides…” He grinned pleased with himself and his comment.

“Oh please, the blue is like the blue of my eyes…and it´s front and centre…not ONLY on the sides”

 Looking down on those two men who looked a bit alike but were like night and day you grinned a little. “Now.. would you get up and fight like a god and a very talented, hot human who is MINE or would you like to discuss fashion a while longer?” Tom grinned and jumped up, held out a hand to Loki and said “If I get to her first you need to stop walking in on us!” Loki laughed and his gaze got mischievous. “And if I win, I get to join in!”

 “And if I win you both admit that you became friends in the last weeks. And tell everybody that you dressed up as the other one that one night to get on my nerves.”

Loki looked a bit horrified and Tom laughed out loud.  

Now it was time for Tony and Bruce to stare in disbelief before they started to chortle.

 The brakes were off now. This was the test you needed. The three of you fought in chilling and mind-numbing crashes of swords, knives and bodies. Loki and Tom trying to get to you separately at first but soon joining the effort. You had some close calls were they almost had you but your suit was just awesome. It somehow sensed their moves and helped you to duck and roll out of range. With the headshield on you could analyse their movements and arrange an attack in milliseconds. Tony and Bruce hadn´t told you about that feature but they fist bumped as they saw you in action.

 Sweaty and breathless the three of you called a tie after half an hour.

“retract” You gasped and lay down on the mat. Tom crawling over to you and kissing you panting himself. “I love you (Y/N) that was tremendous…tiring and bruising but tremendous!”

 Loki hoisted himself up in a sitting position. “Forget the threesome, I´m rather fatigued.”  

That made the three of you laugh to disbelieving stares of Tony and Bruce again.

The next day Tom got a suit of his own. Banner had worked tirelessly to get it done while Tony had focused on yours. In form of a stylish watch Tom now had his amour on him without anyone being the wiser. Seeing your boyfriend in a leather black and blue suit made you daydream a little. He looked so very hot in it that he sure as hell wouldn´t need to defend from HYDRA women soldiers, because they wouldn´t attack…only stare.

 After another 2 weeks of training you decided with Tom to move back into the hotel and see what would happen next. You were as ready as could be, training your abilities with Loki had helped you a great deal to get them under control and not accidentally falling through a wall or disappear into thin air again. Behaving as a normal couple on a holiday Tom and you tried not to look around to suspicious when outside.

 One night you surprised Tom with two tickets to a Broadway Show. Tom kissed you until you could only giggle and wrap your arms around him. “This is the best surprise ever darling.” You smiled and said “Dress up love, I want to see you in a sexy suit tonight” Tom grinned and winked at you.

“You only want to undress me afterwards!” Giggling by his comment you nodded.

“You may be right, but you haven´t seen me in my dress…be careful as you might have that wish yourself!”

 Coming out of the bathroom after dressing and putting on a little makeup Tom gasped as he took in the sight of you. Your shoulder-free long black dress with a cut out back was fitting your curves well.

You could see him gulp and undress you with his eyes. They became hooded a longing.

The sight you had was no less ravishing. His 3-piece suit in a deep black with a bow tie and white dress shirt look stunning on him. You could see his lean frame hugged by the fabric and he held himself like a king ready to greet his subjects. This man in front of you was yours, you still couldn´t believe it, even after all those years.

 “Darling…” Tom came over to you and lifted your head with a finger under your chin.

“You are a sight to behold.. in that dress, in your suit ..it doesn´t matter when I look at you.. all I can see is my future with you….” Smiling at him you took his free hand.

“I love you with every piece of my humble heart…” he ended and kissed you.  

 The show was fantastic and you and Tom had a good time together. Relaxed and not looking over your shoulder every second you enjoyed the time. Walking out of the theatre hand in hand you smiled at each other and walked to the car Tom had leased for tonight.

Coming nearer your bracelet got hot and Toms watch malfunctioned. Looking at each other you watched the car for a second and saw a little red-light blinking. “SHIELD!” both of you yelled instantly and ran as fast as you could away from the car.

 BOOM

A big fireball erupted and the shockwave send you flying against a nearby door. Completely shielded you only needed to grasp a new breath as the last one got knocked out of you.

“Get Loki!” Tom said into his suit system and stood up ready to defend.

You followed and stood by his side.

 “We wanted you to come with us in peace at first.” A menacing voice sounded out of a dark corner of the parking lot. “But now that you have teamed up with those abominations of heroes…You need to be extinguished.” The voice came into the light and with it his 4 companions. All huge and frightening looking man…inhumans with weapons you hadn´t seen before.

 Tom looked strained and stressed out a little at the sight of them.

“Don´t get hurt darling, I need you in one piece to marry me when this is over!”

“What?” you gasped and look at him.

“Just throwing it out there as an incentive to survive!”

 Loki appeared next to you in that second. “You and I need to have a talk about wooing woman and proposing after that Tom.” He took out his 2 knives and grinned devilish his voice from exasperated with Tom getting menacing and dark as he addressed your opponents.

“You choose the wrong ones to mess with this time. KNEEL or be ready to die fighting!”

 After that all hell broke loose. You were pretty sure that not a single car would be usable after this fight would find its end.

  You hoped to got that the end would be to your favour.

@markusstraya @saxgirl21 @confessionsofastrugglingteen @drakesfiance

#alternate reality #tom hiddleston #Loki #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #god of mischief #you x tom hiddleston #reader x tom hiddleston #marvel fanfic #marvel fan #tom hiddleston fanfiction #loki fanfic #bruce banner #iron man #the avengers

[littlemessyjessi]

“Feeling Stabby”: Connor Slaughter (Wolves) Imagine

Connor Slaughter Imagine Fall Imagines Connor Slaughter x Reader

Imagine carving pumpkins (pumpkin carving contest) with Connor...

If you were being honest...you wanted to slap Angel right about now.

Seconded only by your desire to choke Cayden.

Why?

Because those two shits had decided to stick you and Connor Slaughter together.

Explanations you say?

Well, after all the bullshit between Connor, Cayden and Angel and the whole kit and caboodle....they'd somehow managed to make peace between them.

Cayden and Connor were trying to have some kind of decent father-son relationship and hell, Cayden and Angel got on your damn nerves because they fucked like bunnies every chance they got.

It awkward as hell.

Oh, who am I kidding?

It was just fucking weird.

See, Connor had had a thing for you for a very long time.

And he hadn't exactly kept it a secret but you'd shut his ass down so fast and hard that he just backed off.

You were an aggressive little fucker with a big mouth, short temper and a tendency to stab if someone got a little too close for your liking.

Connor knew that had to be a big part of why he liked you so much.

You had fire and grit...and for someone like him...that was attractive.

So naturally, you were just unimaginably radiant to him as you sat there like an irritable little badger.

You did more ripping and stabbing to your pumpkin than you did gutting and carving...but that was alright by him.

He could feel the heat radiating off your skin in irritation from where he sat and he nearly choked to death just trying to keep down his laughter as you grumbled to yourself.

"Pumpkin carving....stupid....ridiculous tradition...fucking awkward bunnies...stupid oaf...stupid pumpkins....stupid Angel....stupid Cayden...stupid me." you grumbled as you lost your temper and promptly stabbed your pumpkin about five times in it's 'face' repeatedly.

Seeing your gritted teeth and pinched face made Connor finally lose his cool and he broke into a fit of laughter.

"Hey!" you said looking up at him with a furrowed brow and a knife thrust in his direction.  "You shut it, Slaughter! Or I'll gut you..."

With another grumble you stabbed your poor excuse of a jack - o - lantern right through the top.

"Poor Jack." Connor chuckled and you just yanked the knife out again and swept it off to the side to make room for your next victim.

"Why did I have to come to this little 'family' outing?" you grumbled, stabbing your next pumpkin with enough ferocity that the woman next to you actually moved over some.

"Oh, relax." you said. "It's a pumpkin carvin contest.  If you didn't want pumpkin guts on your precious shirt you shouldn't have worn it."

"I don't think it's pumpkin guts she's afraid of, sugar." Connor chuckled again.

You glanced at her and offered a hollow sorry before 'carving' a little less enthusiastically.

"And I think they made you come as a favor to me." he said, keeping his eyes on his carving instead of meeting your accusatory glance.

"I will use this." you threatened.

"Oh, calm down." he said.  "It was their idea.  Not mine."

"Yet I see you did not object." You said pointedly.

He glanced up at you, those vivid eyes of his dancing in the light.  

"No, I didn't." he said.

"Why?" you questioned.

"You know why." he counted. "Look, I've never beat around the bush about this with you.  I like you and you know it."

"Yeah, so?" you quipped.  

"So, nothing." he said with a shrug.  

"If it's nothing, then why am I being carted off to some fall festival and miraculously paired up with you for every. single. activity? you said lightly stabbing the pumpkin with the last three words.

"Because they're young." he said simply.  "They'll learn that romantic movies with happen chance circumstances don't change if one party doesn't like the other."

"I never said I didn't like you...." you grumbled....in addition to more stabbing of the pumpkin.

Honestly, just poor pumpkin.

Connor's eyes snapped up, "Excuse me? What? You've tried to stabbed me on more than one occasion."

"Tried?" you narrowed your eyes. "I've suceeded a few of those times actually."

"Uh, yeah, I know.  I'm the one with the scars." he said. "No one appreciates those little wolfsbane dips you do."

The mention of your blade coat and soaking agent brought an evil smirk to your face.

"Don't be a pussy." you said.  "I knew it wouldn't kill you and you'd heal fast.  You always do."

"It still fucking hurt." he said in disbelief and some irritation.

"Well, I had to test it somehow." you said shrugging your shoulders.   "There aren't exactly very many pure breeds around here, Connor and if I'd stabbed someone else I might've killed them."

Connor just stared at you for a second.

You'd pissed him off, made him say something filthy to you and stabbed him solely for the purpose of testing out a new invention of yours.

Hell, if he wasn't so impressed he'd probably tear your damn head off.

Well, that and the fact that he loved you.

"Ok, so putting the topic of you stabbing me in the name of science for a just a second and you can bet your ass that we'll definitely be back to that....let's return to the original narrative." he said.

He moved both of the pumpkins over, took the knife away from you and took your hands.

"Do you have feelings for me?"

"Define feelings." you countered...squirming like the little worm you were being at the moment.

He leveled you with an unholy glare.

"I FEEL very irritated that you took my knife away..." you trailed off.

"Y/N."

"I feel very stabby."

"Y/N."

"I FEEL slightly enraged with Angel and Cayden because they are no where in sight and I feel like they've slunk off to be whores together again.  Fucking bunnies...I swear to..."

"Y/N."

"I FEEL like I need to stab something again but I also FEEL angry because you took my knife!"

And with that statement you grabbed your scooping spoon and tried to stab his arms.

Connor's face was the epitome of done as he simple pulled your ass over the table, threw you over his shoulder and headed for less distractions.

"I'm FEELING very angry!" you said trying in vain to pummel him to death.

He eventually threw your ass in the bed of his truck, blocked your exits, pulled a bottle of water from the ice chest in the back and set it down in front of you.

"Are you ok?"

His sudden question threw you.

"You're getting skittish and excited." He pointed out.  "I figure it's because you're over stimulated and you need some air.  It's impossible to get anything out of you when you're like that."

"How did you know that?" you snapped though it was all bark and no bite.

Connor sat down on the gate of the truck and looked over at you.

"Honey, I've been in love with you for a long time."  he said. "If I don't know anything else....I know you."

"That sounded very Edward Cullen of you." you said.

He rolled his eyes at your smart mouth.

"Now tell me." he said.  "Do you have feelings for me or not?"

"I feel..."

"Don't start beating around the bush."

You threw the water at him, "Let me fucking talk!"

He stared at you for a moment and for a second, you wondered if you'd maybe pushed his final button.

"I feel...very strongly for you.   I don't really know which direction it is in at the moment.  I'll try to keep you posted." you said.  "But...I feel like I like the deer meat that's the freezer at the moment and how it makes me feel taken care of."

Connor actually couldn't meet your eyes at that moment.

"I know you're the one who brings the kills from your hunts, Connor." you pointed out and damn if there wasn't a little rosyness to his neck at that comment. "No one else around here will make a move towards me or retaliate even if I initiate because they know you like me."

Nothing was said.

"I feel very safe around you despite the danger that seems to follow you." you said.  "You're only wolf I know who would repeatedly let me stab them when I know you could easily take my head off without blinking. Sidenote...neither Cayden or Angel takes very well to that."

Connor snorted at your mouth....a welcome breather to the heavy topic.

"Who would take well to being stabbed, sweetheart?" he said.

You shrugged, "I didn't realize everyone was such delicate creatures."

He just chuckled.

"Honestly, Connor, like I said- I don't really know how I feel right now.  I don't dislike you but I don't know that I'm just ready for romance or anything either." you admitted.  

Connor was about to tell you that you could take all the time in the world.

But you opened your damn mouth again...

"I mean, I certainly wouldn't mind having you in my bed." you said.  "Or on the couch...or the floor... or hey, are the safety brakes on in this thing?"

Connor fell back against the side of the truck laughing his ass off.

Only you.

You took advantage of the moment and sidled up next him.

Both of your backs pressed against the truck, legs stretched out in front of you both and sides pressed together.

"Maybe I like you a little." you admitted.

"Ok." Connor said when he'd finally sobered up.  "I can work with a little."

"And maybe I want to be a little physical with you." you said.

"Ok, I can definitely get behind that." he said.

You slowly took his massive hand in yours and pulled it over to rest on your thigh.

"I'm weird so-"

"Yeah, I got that much."

You pounded your fist on his hand and squeezed it in momentary anger.

"I wasn't finished."  you said. "As I was saying, I'm weird and I get a little odd about a bunch of PDA and I know you like that...but maybe just like gimme some time to get used to it?"

Connor didn't say anything and just brought your entwined fingers up to his lips for a little kiss.

"Sweetheart, take your time." he said.  "I'm perfectly fine to sit here like this."

A few beats of silence passed.

"Though I'll admit I'm not opposed to the whole truck bed notion." he said.

An absolutely evil grinned ripped across your face and he let you pull him over until he was flat on his back.

You hopped up to sit on his waist and he let you play out your 'dominance' display.

"I got some rules." you said.  "One, I really just wanna make out right now."

"Ok, done." he said. "Next?"

"I feel like you should lose that shirt of yours.  You look awfully overheated. Poor Connor." you said and he smirked before removing said article of clothing.

"Three." you said. "I'm hungry now.  I'm telling you this because when I've had my way with you and it's all done....I'll be starving.  So I'm going to want to eat.   We're going to need to plan for food....immediately after."

"Steakhouse?" he offered.

"Deal." you said.

And that my friends is how Connor Slaughter's truck rocked so hard that it flipped.

To this day, he won't get rid of it because he swears every dent was worth it.

Heeeeeeeeey, smoochies!!! I hope you enjoyed this imagine with the ever smexy Connor!  I loved writing with this fiesty reader insert! She was such fun!  Random, rage-y and really cute, lol.  If you liked it please be sure to let me know in the comment section!  If you want to see more like it please tell me!  Happy Reading!!!  

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Love, Kenny

#connor slaughter #connor slaughter imagine #connor slaughter x reader #connor slaughter wolves #wolves #jason momoa #connor slaughter fanfiction #littlemessyjessi #kennysaurus #reader insert #jason momoa imagine #fall imagine #fall #autumn #autumn imagine #pumpkin carving #werewolf

[ptrbprkrs]

not ready to give up

summary: tom and you see each other four years after your break-up and both of you realize that you’re still in love with each other. based on the starting line’s the best of me. pairing: tom holland x reader warnings: former relationship, slight angst, fluff, happy ending  word count: 1.9k words notes: please listen to the starting line’s the best of me while reading for Extra Feels™

gif posted by thwiptom

In a crowded house, full of family and friends, Tom sat on the living room couch and was surrounded by many, telling his recent acting gigs and celebrity stories. It’s not like he hated it, but he didn’t love it either. Whenever he came back in town, he always expected this from large family gatherings.

However, one thing he didn’t expect to see was you, standing near the doorway, smiling as you were greeting various Holland family members and close family friends.

The storyteller paused abruptly in the middle of his anecdote, slamming the brakes in his head.  

Four years have passed since the last time he saw you. Tom could remember both of you screaming at each other, tears falling from both parties involved, and yet, memories filled with love and laughter flooded his mind in that exact moment, crashing into his heart.

Tom swore a spotlight was shining above your head; you glowed elegantly among everyone. He knew he had to do something about the little voice in the back of his mind, urging him to not let you go this time.  

“Tom, you okay?” one person asked, slightly shaking Tom by his shoulder.

He nodded senselessly, eyes still focused on you, saying, “I’m sorry, I’ll be right back.”

Several people expressed their “awes” and “wish he finished that story,” but Tom ignored the comments, pushed past everyone, and made his way towards you.

The two of you were kids when you first met. Your families were close and would often attend dinners and events together. Tom and you got along just fine, but nothing ever sparked until you two hung out more when you were teenagers.

You realized you liked him when you were jealous over his first kiss with a girl he was utterly head over heels with during his time on Billy Elliot. Despite the kiss, he was devastated, knowing that she didn’t reciprocate the same feelings. Comforting him, you told him everything would be okay and that someone would come along the way to love him.

Of course, you were implying to yourself, but you didn’t want to say anything because he was just getting over her and you wanted to let him heal in due time.

Unfortunately for you, Tom found love soon enough and dated for a while—two years to be exact. Standing on the sidelines, you supported him fully and watched him blossom into a better person each day. Moreover, you were so proud and happy for him that his acting career was thriving.  

And when that relationship ended, you knew how to carefully pick up the broken pieces of Tom’s heart, as you had done before, but this time you also knew to confess your feelings right away.

If he didn’t want to be in a relationship with you, then so be it, you told yourself. At the very least, you two would still be great friends.  

But as it turned out, Tom wanted you as much as you wanted him and accepted your confession with open arms.

Not to anyone’s surprise, the pair of you made great friends, but even a better couple. You didn’t think it was possible for the two of you to become closer and trust each other more than before. Everything fell perfectly in place; the two of you were two puzzle pieces that fit impeccably together.

The one thing that neither of you saw coming was how the harder you fell for each other, the more harder it’d be to work on the relationship. In retrospect, both of you would learn that love isn’t love without the fighting, the miscommunications, and the misunderstandings.   

Your future selves couldn’t forewarn yourselves four years ago as both of you dealt with insecurities, jealousy issues, and more. All of it was a blur, a vague memory of the past that both of you buried in your minds, and each of you realized they were mistakes of your youth.

“I’m sorry I said those things! I didn’t mean them!” you screamed at Tom with hot tears running down your face. You didn’t know that this would your last fight with Tom.

“If you didn’t mean them, why did you say it?!” Tom raised his voice to meet yours, with tears running down his face as well. He didn’t know this would be the last time you would speak to each other.

You groaned in frustration, your younger self believing Tom would never understand, wishing he could see your mistake simply as a mistake and nothing more.

“I’m leaving, Tom. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Fine, go! Go for all I care!”

Both of you didn’t know this would be the last time time you would see each other until four years later. Tom became obviously busier with his acting schedule, and you were off at a university miles away, rarely having time to visit home. Even when you did, Tom’s and your schedule never coincided with each other.

Until now, where you just recently finished up school and were finally back in town.  

Each second, stepping closer and closer, making his way towards you, all Tom could think of was how he still loved you since four years ago. Granted, both of you were still young, but you were also older now. Tom was ready to mend the past and the pain, knowing he was naive moons ago.

Standing in front of you, he licked and bit his lip, uneasy and unsure of how to approach you after so long.   

“Hi,” he greeted you with a small smile. You looked older than the last time he’d seen you—more mature, confident, and radiant.

“Hi,” you reflected the same smile, taking in the sight of Tom. It may have been four years since you’ve seen him in-person, but you’d be lying if you said you haven’t watched every single movie he had starred in since then. He was the same shining star he always had been since he was a kid.

Everyone around both of you dispersed throughout the house, aware that you two needed privacy. Straight to the point, Tom asked, “Can I talk to you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Tom then led you to the backyard and both of you looked up at the stars in awe, taking the exquisite sight in.

“Remember when we used to lay here and look at the stars?”

How could you not? You hummed softly in response and recalled to yourself long nights in his backyard, laying side by side, twiddling with each other’s fingers and kissing softly under the stars.

He interrupted your train of thought, “Actually, I think we still have some blankets nearby…”

As Tom left, you fiddled your fingers awkwardly, unsure why you even said yes to talking to him in the first place.

It’s been four years, sure, but could the two of you make it work, especially now that Tom’s career has reached international fame? Soon enough, Tom came back with said blankets and set them on the grass. You nervously walked over and laid beside him on the grass.    

Peering at the stars, you inquired, “What did you want to talk about, Tom?” You expected him to slowly ease into the conversation about the two of you, but he didn’t.

“I’ve missed you,” The words rolled smoothly off his tongue, and his brash words caught you off-guard; they were words you dreamt of for so long, and they echoed inescapably in your head. “Have you missed me?”

Just be truthful. If he’s being truthful, there isn’t any point in lying to him.

You nodded with your eyes still focusing on the stars. Several minutes of silence passed and you still kept your attention on the gorgeous night sky. You could feel that Tom still kept his eyes on you.

Tom whispered the following command into the night air, “Say what you’re thinking right now.”

Inhaling calmly with closed eyes, you tried to gather your thoughts to express yourself in a coherent manner, but you realized it didn’t matter. All the words you could muster up were nothing to the amount of love you still had for Tom.

With an ache in your chest, you anxiously turned your head to face your former flame and let all your thoughts spill out.  

“I’ve been thinking about you ever since the last time we saw each other. I’ve never stopped thinking about you and it’s hard to believe that—I know because it’s been four freaking years—but I haven’t stopped. I regret so much and I think we ended on really stupid terms.”

You continued, “I am so proud of you for what you’ve achieved over the last four years and I’m pissed at myself that I couldn’t—didn’t have the nerve to even text or call you to tell you how I proud I am. I wish I was there by your side…”

“I really haven’t loved anyone as much as I’ve loved you, Tom.”

“I haven’t either,” the brown-haired boy whispered before he caressed your face with one hand. You closed your eyes and sighed at his touch, both memories and fantasies pulling you apart. Your hand came up towards your face to touch his hand, and his hand pulled away from your face to intertwine fingers with you.

“I’ve thought about you every day and it kills me to not know how you’re doing and I was so stupid—”

“No, I was stupid!” you interjected.

“I was more stupid, but anyway,” Tom continued as you laughed at his kind words. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry and if you’re willing, I’m willing to give us another chance.”

You searched within Tom’s eyes. The cynic in you tried to find a sliver of lies behind his eyes, still scared that he would break your heart again.

On the other hand, the optimist in you told you that even if things could and go awry, you were wiser than you were four years ago. Both you and Tom would be able to analyze and dissect situations with a sensible mind. Even so, Tom and you would never lose each other like you did before.

You moved in closer to his face, as he did to yours, and both of you placed your foreheads against each others, readying for the kiss that each of you have been waiting for after four long-awaited years.

“Tom!” his mother’s voice called in the distance before calling out your name as well. Both of you immediately jerked upwards to sit up and face her. “Come in soon! We have dinner ready.”

“Okay!” Tom called back to her with a hint of annoyance in his voice.  

You followed Tom back into the house and the rest of the night flew by with laughter and love. You rekindled immediately with Tom and could only retell so much of your last four years to each other, but it was okay. You would have the rest of your lives to catch up.

By the end of the night, your mom interrupted the two of you to grab you to head back home.

“How long are you in town for?” you whispered close to Tom’s face as he stood in front of you, holding your hands in his.

“I actually have to leave tomorrow for filming, but I’ll be back soon.”

“Well, now that I’m done school, I’m not going anywhere. Text me when you can.”

“I will. I promise,” the handsome figure kissed your cheek and hugged you tightly for a lifetime until your mom had to call for you again.  

A bittersweet farewell followed, but both of you knew that things would be different this time around.

Tom promised to himself that next time that he was back in town, he’d pull you straight into his arms, kiss you with all his might, and never let you go ever again.  

#tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland imagine #one shot

[xcvfgt]

A girl in grey on a dying horse

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[thetrendingfashions]

World Bicycle Day 2020: Learn about the history of Bicycle Day ...

New delhi date. 03 June 2020, Wednesday

The position of the bicycle in the form of a vehicle is important. Bicycles are a popular way to get from school to college to the office. Cycling is not only beneficial for our health, it is also beneficial for the environment.

International World Bicycle Day is celebrated on June 3 every year. People are encouraged to use bicycles to cover the distance around them. Using bicycles instead of bikes or other diesel-petrol based vehicles to cover short distances, especially in cities, would save thousands of liters of petrol per day and reduce urban pollution. The importance of the bicycle has increased, especially in the Corona era. It will also ensure compliance with social distance and keep people safe. Learn about the history of this special day and the benefits of cycling ...

First cycle day

The first official World Bicycle Day was observed by the United Nations on June 3, 2018. This day has been celebrated enthusiastically in India for the last two years. This day is celebrated to promote a simple, cheap, reliable mode of transportation and environmental protection. The significance of this day has increased in the Corona period.

Bicycle history:

- The idea of ​​using bicycles in European countries came to the minds of people in the late 18th century. However, the idea was first put into practice by a Parisian artisan in 1816. This was called Hobby Horse.

- The pedal wheel was invented in 1865 by the Lalament of Paris. It was called Velocipid. He was also called Bone Shaker because he was so tired from running.

Due to the growing popularity and demand of Velocipid, machine manufacturers in England, France and America made many improvements and gave it a beautiful look in the year 1872. A thin strip of iron was wheeled into it. The front wheels ranged from 30 inches to 64 inches in diameter and the rear wheels were about 12 inches in diameter. It was also fitted with bearings and brakes. This was known as the modern bicycle. There are many types of bicycles available in the world today.

Growth from bicycles in India:

Bicycles have played an important role in economic growth in India. Bicycles became an important part of transportation for many decades after independence. From 1960 to 1990, most families in India had a bicycle. This was an important and inexpensive tool.

- Became a means of delivering the crop to the market for the farmers in the villages which is still there today. Bicycles are still a very useful tool for those who sell milk. This is a very important vehicle for laborers.

- The entire system of the Indian Post Department was run by bicycle. Even today, postmen deliver letters to people by bicycle.

Benefits of cycling:

- Cycling for half an hour every day reduces weight, especially belly fat.

- Cycling every morning also provides fresh air and maintains your fitness.

- Experts say that cycling also keeps the immune system healthy. According to one report, cycling activates immune cells and lowers the risk of disease.

- According to a research, the brain of a person who rides a bicycle for 30 minutes every day is more active than that of a normal person and the brain power also increases by 15 to 20 percent more.

- Bicycles are a very affordable means of transportation. It does not require diesel or petrol and also maintains health. It does not spread pollution, so the bicycle is environmentally friendly.

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#Fashion #Style

[wincestmelange]

John teaches Dean how to drive the Impala in slow steps: first, he sits the boy on his lap and lets him steer around the parking lot; then, he steers while Dean shifts them cautiously between ‘drive’, ‘neutral’, and ‘reverse’; and, finally, once Dean’s tall enough to see over the dash, he lets him press his tiptoes down on the accelerator and trundle them slowly down a residential street. (Dean gets the hang of it on the first try, same as he did with aiming a gun. And it’s a good thing, since it’s only two weeks after that that a ghoul nearly takes John’s leg off at the hip, and John has to hold his leg together while Dean drives them in fits and starts back to the motel.)

He tries to teach Sammy the same way—Dean was four, when John put him on his lap, bounced his knee and let a giggling little boy wave at his mother and wrap chubby fingers around the steering wheel, and John winds up being grateful that Sammy was three weeks old at the time and too young to grab a fistful of Dean’s shirt and screech, “Me, too!” He tries to teach Sammy with the wheel first, and then the gearshift, and then the pedals, but Sammy is having none of it, climbs over Dean and nearly rips the gearshift out of the steering column when he’s barely three. Sammy’s favorite word is “Why?” and the word he never wants to hear is “No!” but “When you’re older” follows close behind.

(Dean yells at Sammy for ruining the lesson. John’s surprise lasts long enough for Sammy to start caterwauling—nothing shatters his youngest son’s composure faster than his big brother’s anger, not even the hated sight of broccoli on his dinner plate—but Dean’s normally a pretty even tempered kid. John would love to say he got that from his mother, or even from the Winchester side, but the truth is that Sammy’s explosive tantrums remind John of the pots Mary slammed onto the counter and occasionally hurled at his head. Dean’s calm isn’t something he picked up from his parents’ marriage, that’s for sure, though when Sammy digs his elbows in Dean can shout as loud as any Winchester or Campbell in a brawl.)

So Sammy learns in whatever order he chooses, latching onto whatever John is teaching Dean and asking a million questions about how the steering column works and why it’s a wheel and how come they don’t have to spin it to make the tires turn. Then two seconds later he’s bored and he wants to get out of the car and no he doesn’t want to climb underneath with Deano and see how it works. (Though John can’t really blame him for that one. The last time they’d been changing the oil, and Dean had loosened the screw and let the old oil drip all over Sammy’s head. It took three baths and an entire bottle of Joy soap to get Sam clean.) He learns about the gas and brake pedals before he learns to steer, because Dean convinces him to curl up in the footwell with one hand on each pedal and Dean’s dirty sneakers on his shoulders and push down with whichever arm Dean kicks.

(John never had any siblings, not counting the step-siblings living in their own world. Neither did Mary—they’d both agreed to have at least two kids, maybe three, and John isn’t sure exactly how it’s supposed to go, raising brothers, but he watches Dean get mud all over the back of Sammy’s shirt, hears Sammy’s outraged shriek followed by the giggle when Dean stops driving and leans over to tickle under Sammy’s ribs… John’s not sure how it’s supposed to go, but he thinks they did what they’d hoped to do, he and Mary, making sure their kids didn’t know how it felt to be alone.)

John lets Dean take the car out on his own once he turns sixteen—a reward for killing his first werewolf, John says, because he’s not above turning a necessary grocery run into a reward, and Sammy’s so desperate to do everything Dean does that he tags along and they both leave John to nap in peace. He makes sure to teach Dean about the blind spot, because the Impala’s a beautiful car but she’s definitely blinkered on the left side.

Dean doesn’t believe him. He doesn’t say so, of course, Dean’s kept his head on straight since those few months at the boys’ home, but he sits in the driver’s seat in the motel parking lot and makes Sammy walk from the trunk to the sideview mirror and back again over thirty times. (Sammy’s too skinny, Dean decides, doesn’t look anything like the rare car coming by to pass, and so he makes Sam grab some cardboard pallets from the dumpster at the diner next door and hold them out like wings and do it again. Sam balks; John could have told Dean that he would. Though he only balks after the third time, sweating from holding up the giant pieces of heavy cardboard and nose wrinkled from the stench.)

It’s Dean, of course, who finally teaches Sammy how to put all his out-of-order steps together and actually drive. Sam’s fifteen and finally growing, and John’s left them the car and left them in peace for the last month of Sammy’s freshman year and taken one of Bobby’s deathtraps out after reports of glowing eyes that might be just what he’s been hunting for. Neither boy ever tells John how it goes, but Sammy refuses to drive again for two damn years, only takes the wheel because his brother’s bleeding from the gut and Sam shoves John hard across the street, insists he can get them to the nearest hospital twice as fast.

(He does; mapped the whole city in his head, apparently, while he was researching the family’s crypt. John means to say “good job,” he does, but his oldest son’s in surgery and he has Dean’s blood soaking his cuffs and he needs a goddamned drink, and what he actually says is: “What the fuck were you thinking, Sammy, taking so long to fire a fucking gun?” And Dean’s not there between them—Dean’s unconscious in a goddamn OR, the baby he and Mary made cut open with his torn intestines on display—and so there’s no one to stop Sammy from spitting, “Fuck you!” in his father’s face, shaking hands clenched as though he’d like to do more than spit in John’s eye. “You knew there was a second spirit! You knew!” Sam gets his temper from his mother, from his father, and John needs a fucking drink.)

They never tell John that Sam’s a nervous driver—not that John would ever know, since the only times he sees Sam drive it’s because Dean can’t, and who has time to be nervous when they’re terrified, bone deep?—that, the first time Dean told him to pull out onto the state highway, Sam was so worried about edging over the double yellow line that he kept veering Baby to the right and nearly taking her off the road.

They don’t tell their father that nothing wears through Dean’s patience quicker than Sam, but twenty minutes of his ass vibrating as they ride the rumble strip also does the trick. Dean likes massage chairs and vibrators and magic fingers, he does, but he’s fucking sick of bumping over the right side of the road. So he leans across the seat and shoves the wheel to the left.

It’s just a nudge.

Only, Dean had expected Sammy to be white-knuckling the wheel. He’d expected that he’d need to throw the wheel hard to the left to make it move at all. Instead, he sends them weaving across the double yellow line Sam had worked so hard to avoid, and there’s a semi coming at them with lights all across its grill and Sam sees it barreling down, slams both feet too hard onto the brake and tries to steer right but the brakes lock and the Impala spins and shrieks and Dean’s hand is still on the wheel and it smells like burning rubber and the hot metal of the semi’s grill and the sound of car horns –

And then the road is gone and the tires are sliding over yellow, ripening grain, spinning into a wheat field and bumping to a stop.

Sammy heaves great hiccupping sobs that Dean remembers from Sammy’s childhood tantrums, when he’d scream until he couldn’t breathe and then panic because he’d used up all his air. (Dean had hoped that after Sammy turned five, he’d never hear his little brother gasp for air ever again.) He kicks at Dean when Dean stumbles around the car to drag Sam into the grass, trying to unfold Sam before his brother hyperventilates in the front seat. He catches Dean right in the chest, kicks hard enough to leave a shoe print over Dean’s ribs, and Dean takes it, bullies Sammy flat into the grass and revels in Sam’s teary, furious struggles because Sam’s alive. Sam’s alive.

(They never tell John; and so he doesn’t understand, years later, what it means for his youngest son to be sitting behind the wheel when the semi bears down on them at full speed, never knows what it takes out of Sam to hear the shriek of the crash, to open his eyes in a field, expecting his big brother and finding a demon instead. He never understands that Sam will kick Dean until Dean wakes up, if he has to, that he needs his big brother there to make him catch his breath.)

They never tell, and John isn’t there when Dean strips the wheel down to its metal two years later—two weeks after Sam leaves, takes half of the pile of shirts they’d shared and a handful of polaroids from the shoebox that he maybe thought Dean wouldn’t miss, the way Sam wouldn’t miss every damn thing he’d left behind. (Sam leaves and John goes through three bottles of cheap whiskey before calling Caleb and finding himself a hunt in Maine, sending Dean down to Georgia, as far away from each other and from California as they can get. Winchesters never lick their wounds, never break down sobbing into a flat motel pillow and a fifth of Jim Beam, not unless there’s no one else there to see.)

Dean takes the steering wheel down to the metal, careful to salt and burn the old leather saturated with years of Winchester and monster blood before he wraps and sews on the new. Below the leather—not that anyone knows, not that they ever will—there’s a shaky, blurry polaroid wrapped and taped, a picture of a lanky teenage boy with red eyes and tear tracks down his cheeks, mouth gaping as he pants for air, Baby’s sleek black metal filling the right corner of the shot. The boy is tan from the summer, surrounded by golden wheat, his fingers tangled in his big brother’s shirt and out of the frame; the picture is a reminder of all the reasons Dean has to drive safe. (John would call it sentimental, but he’d be wrong. Dean’s a hunter. Dean’s been a hunter for just as long as his dad, and he knows the power a talisman can have. The Impala’s cradled him and Sam, baptized them in oil and spun them out of harm’s way. Sam’s gone, maybe, but he’s there under Dean’s hands, safe between the leather and the metal and road.)

#ficlet #sam and dean #weechesters #snapshots from the road #stanford era #briefly #dean winchester #sam winchester #john winchester #baby the impala

[cupnoodle-queen]

CHASING SUNS: Chapter 9 Family

3,083 words

LOL OOPS I WROTE 3K WORDS ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So yeah. This was a fun one. Also!! Raine and son Lucas from @nifwrites story We Intertwined make an appearance! I love the Scientia family c:

Cam sat perched on the railing of the armory, grinding a wet stone against the edge of her sword when her phone went off. She freed her hands to take the call. “Hey, Greyson.”

“Hi Cam, hey can you pop over to the admin office when you have a sec? Dave called a quick meeting.”

“Will do, be there in five.”

Her weapons sheathed across her back Cam headed for the office, nodding at several familiar faces along the way. She’d become a recognizable person at HQ, due in part from the sheer amount of hunts she turned in to date and Gladio may have let it slip that she disarmed him. Couple that with her form-fitting leather armor and pants and she gave them a reason to stare.

Cam knocked on the door to the office and was let in seconds later by Greyson. “Hey, we’re just waiting on Prompto.”

Dave leaned against the desk, reading through a list of jot notes until Greyson resumed conversation with him. Gladio gave Cam a lazy wave as she entered the office and she took a seat next to him, just as Prompto all but hopped into the room and pulled up a chair beside her. The room went quiet as everyone looked to Dave to speak.

“Thanks for coming, all. As you probably know, our research scouts detected some spikes in infrared readings just north of here.” He paced around the room as he continued. “They’ve also received reports of increased daemon sightings in the area. We’ve reason to believe the security here in HQ could be compromised, and soon.”

The air of the room was uneasy. Dave looked at Greyson. “I got the guys at Culless to double our order for this week-”

Greyson’s thick eyebrows shot up. “Double??”

Dave nodded. “With the recruits from the city getting trained plus the estimated threat level, we’ll need the extra stock for sure. I’m already looking into our armor vendor increasing next week’s order.

“That being said, due to the larger than normal load I’d rather have an experience provisioner transport the goods, and you three-” he motioned at Cam, Gladio and Prompto, “-are on guard duty. With increased daemon presence comes chance for looters and poachers, something we can’t afford to incur. Budget’s already tight as it is even after double supply run orders…”

The group nodded in unison and Prompto sprang from his seat. “Alright, let’s get this show on the road.”

“Right now?” Cam checked her phone. Half-past five in the evening. “Kinda late, don’t you think?”

Greyson considered it. “Actually, we could make it there and back tonight, easily. Dave, can you have some guys available to unload say, for eight-ish?”

He pulled out his phone, tapped the screen and replied, “Consider it done. Take the twelve-footer, gonna need the hauling power.”

“No way,” Greyson scoffed, “that thing is ancient, how is it still in commission?”

“It’s still running fine, just go easy on the brakes.” Dave pulled a set of keys from a safe and tossed them to Greyson. “Call me if there’s any issues.”

They left for Lestallum with the addition of Ignis, hitching a ride back so he could visit his wife and two year old son, possibly stay home with them for a while especially if a difficult situation with the daemons was potential. As they reached the outskirts of the city Prompto dotted on the subject. “So, Iggy, family life treating you well?”

Ignis replied from the back seat. “Certainly has decreased my chances of inevitable death. Though challenging even during the best of times, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I often wonder what I’d ever done to deserve a woman as remarkable and clever as Raine.”

From the front, Prompto turned back and gave Ignis an incredulous look, despite the fact that he couldn't see it. “Dude, you existed. That’s all that mattered.”

Cam scrunched her brows together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Beside her, Gladio spoke up. “Iggy and Raine are soulmates.”

Cam tensed at the word, struggling to keep her heart rate steady, the electricity buzzing between her and Gladio. “Oh, I see.”

Once at the gate outside of Lestallum, the guards opened the doors to grant access without needing to stop and they drove through, slowing to head down into the parkade, taking the spot on the end due to the large size of the vehicle. They piled out and Greyson made a call to his supplier. “Yeah, we’re in the parking lot. Head on over when you can.”

The weapons dealer pulled up in an equally large truck, popped the hatch and they got to work loading the truck with crate after crate of knives, guns and ammo. Ignis stood off to the side chatting with the supplier before pulling his phone out and calling his wife, announcing with a smile that he was back in the city for a spell. Cam overheard part of their conversation and it gave her a pang of grief. She missed having someone to come home to. She missed having a home to come to, period.

Greyson packed the last crate on the truck, closed the hatch and wiped his hands on his pants. “Alright, done and done. Ignis, join us for a bite or?”

Ignis smiled, tucking his cane under one arm to adjust a glove. “I appreciate the offer, but I must take a raincheck. Nothing would make me happier than spending the evening in with my family.”

The group headed across the street and into the city hub, Prompto commenting on how he was expecting more people to be out tonight. Cam had to agree, the pedestrians roaming about were in far less numbers than when she was living here. And lucky for them, the main restaurant in the centre of town had some free tables. They’d have to snag those as soon as they came back through.

On the way to Ignis’s house, Gladio pulled out his phone and called someone. Cam noticed his voice was softer as he spoke to the person on the other line. “Hey, Iris. I’m in the city, you want to meet up with us for dinner?....Awesome, yeah that’s the place, we’ll meet you in a few.”

Prompto overheard and piped up. “Iris is joining us?”

“Yeah,” Gladio replied with a serene smile. “Be good to see her again.”

Must be family, Cam thought. Steph would murder anyone else who came near him.

They passed the old market square location and Gladio noticed Cam looking on from the distance, a mixed expression of melancholy and bittersweet thoughts. He felt for her, or at least something made him feel for her. It was as if a switch flicked and he could detect the anguish in her mind. Strange. Invasive.

A short ways onwards and they reached a set of separate houses, Gladio leading the way towards a specific one from the group, one with a white exterior and blue door. He guided Ignis to the proper one, knocked, and waited.

Moments later a stunning young woman answered the door, a small toddler seated in her arms. His eyes lit up instantly. “Dadda!”

“Ah, Lucas.” Ignis set his cane down and his wife and son pulled him into a tight hug, the innocent lilting of the child’s laughter and joy at seeing his father again warming Cam’s steeled heart. She’d wanted children someday, and had shit not hit the proverbial fan she might have gone through with it, but Nolan declared he could never bring a child into a broken world, and so they gave up on that lifelong dream of hers.

Gladio felt a wash of heartache without reason, followed by a muscle spasm at his hip. Automatically he looked up at Cam and noticed a second too late that she had tears in her eyes. She turned away, furiously wiping her eyes and trying not to draw attention to herself, pacing off to the side. Was it possible they’d synced up so well that their emotions were affected by each other?

No, he thought. Not possible.

“Cam?” Ignis called out behind him.

Cam shook her head, forcing a smile on her face as she approached the Scientia family. “Yes?”

“I’d like to introduce you to my wife, the love of my life, mother of my so-”

“Okay, okay,” Raine interjected, chuckling lightly. “Name’s Raine, pleased to meet you. Cam, right?”

Cam nodded. “Short for Camellia. My parents weren’t very creative with names so my mother just picked her favourite flower. I hate it.” She felt several eyes on her. “Just call me Cam.”

Pretty name, Gladio thought.

Raine helped Ignis inside and turned back to the group of hunters. “Thanks for dropping my husband off, it’s impossible to get out of the city these days, obvious reasons.” She eyed down to the small child, who was now clinging to her leg, shyly peeking out every now and then. “I appreciate it.”

“No prob, doll!” Prompto beamed at the woman. “We’ll have to visit for some of those amazing cookies soon.”

They left the Scientia house and headed towards the restaurant, which thankfully still had some free tables. They grabbed one and pulled up an extra seat for their expected guest.

Said guest was approaching them now. “Gladdy!”

Cam whipped her head around towards the voice. A young girl in her later teens but still very small, with cocoa hair that dusted her shoulders. She could tell a definite relation to Gladio, had to be his sister.

Her suspicions were short-lived. “Iris, Cam. Cam, Iris, my little sister,” Gladio introduced them.

Iris’s eyes widened. “You two look so alike!”

Cam’s face scrunched up. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your faces,” she wagged a finger up and down over her left eye. “You match.”

Gladio chuckled. “Yeah, she thought mine was cool so she got on-” A well earned smack to the bicep from Cam cut him off.

They ordered food and chatted about this and that. Iris had taken up a job at the clinic there, learning first aid from a retired doctor. She stayed with some members of the Crownsguard, but was getting bored of her day-to-day. “I feel like I’m helping out, sure,” she clinked ice around in her empty glass with a straw, “but I don’t feel like I’m really doing anything, like I could be doing more.”

Gladio tensed, giving Iris a look of warning. Apparently this was a topic of  previous conversations, because he replied simply with, “No.”

“Come on, Gladdy,” Iris groaned, setting her glass down with a clank. “I’m not a child anymore and there are hunters out there younger than me, and I’m seventeen!” She pursed her lips into a hard line. “I thought if you would train me I’d learn from the best, and you’d trust me more.”

The table settled in awkward silence, Greyson texting on his phone and Prompto looking around, anywhere but towards them. Cam picked at a fingernail, trying to drown it out, but she felt...rage? Why would-

“No means no, Iris. End of discussion.”

Iris growled. “You aren’t the boss of me!”

SLAM!

All eyes turned to Cam, who’d brought her fist down on the table so hard that the plates bounced and clattered. Cam’s eyes widened, her hand stinging from the impact. “Uhhh, Cam?” Prompto whimpered.

Cam scanned their faces, all in different degrees of confusion and shock. Gladio, however, looked...afraid.

“Um,” Cam stuttered, “S-sorry about that, not sure what came over me there…”

When they paid their bill and headed down to the truck to take off back to HQ, bidding Iris a strained goodbye on the way, Gladio fell into step with Cam. “What the hell was that all about back there?”

Cam sighed. “I-I don’t know, okay? I just, felt really mad for no reason at all. I don’t even remember doing it…”

His voice softened, and he stopped her in her tracks, “I’m not… great with talking. But, if something’s bothering you, talk my ear off. I insist.”

This was new. “Oh, um…” Cam wasn’t certain how to proceed, mixed emotions in his eyes. She leaned to the side, crossing her arms. “I’m okay, I think…”

Gladio sighed. “Y’aint invincible, Cam. Thought I taught you that already.”

“I know,” she replied, keeping eye contact, the sun flaring at her side. “I guess...if anything, it’s seeing everyone’s families.” Feeling her eyes sting, she shut them to prevent tears from spilling over. It was no use; they fell from her cheeks and onto her collarbone. “I-I just, I just-”

Without another word Gladio wrapped Cam in a hug that surrounded her, completed her, heat enveloping her body and soul. He had a jacket on and Cam slid her hands around his back beneath it, holding him as if her life depended on it. In some way, it did; he gave her a life worth living, the strength to survive in this wasteland, light where there was none.

A sun when the sky was black.

Cam felt his chin rest on top of her head and a hand brush the loose hair that fell from her ponytail behind her ear. “Cam, I-”

“We need a mechanic.”

Cam pulled away from Gladio at the sound of Greyson’s voice. “Truck’s toast. Transmission’s about to give out, and the radiator is overheating and I haven’t even taken it out of park yet.”

“Shit,” Cam breathed. “Any around town?”

Prompto joined the group, panting from running up the flight of stairs. “Cindy’s in Hammerhead for the night, just texted her. She can’t make it in tonight.”

The group looked around, uncertain what to do next. Even if they called someone to pick them up, they couldn’t just leave the goods there, and the other supply truck they had would need at least three trips to get everything.

A sign caught Cam’s attention. “Say we book a night at the Leville and get the truck looked at tomorrow.” She checked her phone. “It’s already seven-thirty.”

“Not a bad idea,” Greyson replied, turning to Prompto. “Have Cindy meet us in the morning. I’ll call Dave and tell him what’s up.”

They were lucky to get a room in the first place. The single bed, starter suite was not suited for four adults, the queen sized bed and sofa the only means for sleeping. Cam flat-out refused the bed, recalling the stiff mattress that murdered her back during her stay there. She called dibs on the sofa instead, and Greyson and Prompto joked about sharing the bed. Gladio took the floor between the two options, the hotel staff kind enough to offer extra pillows.

Prompto was flipping through the channels on the television, the same re-running broadcasts and played-out shows on screen. Greyson was turned over, out already.

Cam laid on her back scrolling through her gallery in her phone, far passed the daemon bounty kills. She found a set of photos from her stay in Galdin Quay with Nolan, back when the sun was still around. Vibrant pastels and sharp hues of red, pink and purples blotted the sunsetting horizon, breathtaking. Alive.

Cam missed color.

“Nice view,” Gladio croaked from the floor below her.

Cam scoffed. “Rude to look at someone’s phone without permission.”

“Sorry, just…” He sighed. “I miss it, too. Fucking darkness is getting to me.”

“Same.”

Cam flicked to the next picture, a selfie with Nolan and her. She tried to go to the next one, but he’d already seen it.

“D’you miss him?”

Cam swallowed, hard. “Sometimes.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re saying sorry too much, stop it.” Cam looked down at him, giving him a jestful warning look.

He blinked up at her. “...sorry.”

Cam rolled her eyes. “You’re terrible.”

Prompto turned the TV off, the only light in the room spilling in from the bathroom, a strange orangish wash from the sconce painted everything in a warm hue. He tucked under the covers and adjusted his pillow. “Night, guys.”

“Night,” Cam and Gladio said in unison.

The room was so quiet it made Cam’s ears hum. She looked down at Gladio again; he was staring at the ceiling. “What are you thinking about?” she murmured, low enough that the other boys couldn’t hear her.

Gladio exhaled through his nose. “I was thinking about what you said earlier. About...family.” His eyes flicked to hers. “Iris is, the only family I have left. Knowing she wants to learn how to hunt? It’s...not easy.” He rested his hands behind his head. “I can’t control her, either. Eventually she’ll do what she wants either way. But...dammit. She’s all I got, so…”

Cam could detect his internal struggle, because she began to feel it as well. “Look, you’re right. She will someday do as she wants, and you won’t be able to stop her.” Cam rolled over onto her side to face him. “The best thing you can do at that point is support her. You’re… all she has. And, what she needs is you to back her up.”

He considered her words before letting out a long sigh. “You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right.”

Cam checked her phone. “Okay, we need to get some sleep.”

“Right.”

She pocketed her phone, adjusted her pillow and laid on her back. “Night, Gladio.”

“Night, Cam.”

Gladio stirred several hours into the night. He repositioned himself, the pillows beneath him bunching up awkwardly so. Once comfortable he set in to go back to sleep. But not before catching a glimpse of Cam, lost in a dream, her face relaxed and almost childlike.

Her hand was dangling off the side of the sofa.

Why he did what he did next, he’d never know, but he gently slid his hand underneath hers, their fingers interlacing.

Gladio’s hip ignited, but it didn’t bring pain; the warmth that radiated at his side was like sun shining on his skin...something he’d missed for so long. Something he’d trade a thousand days of night for, for this single day of light...

His heart swelled, her touch bringing him a comfort nobody, no woman, had ever made him feel. The calmness spread throughout his fingertips to every inch of his body, sleep claiming him without hesitation, a small smile on his lips.

Cam’s eyes opened, well aware of Gladio’s hand in hers.

She flexed her fingers and held onto him through the night, hoping he’d never let her go.

#gladiolus amicitia #chasing suns #chapter 9 #gladio soulmate AU #gladio #angst #hurt #ffxv soulmate AU #soulmate AU #ffxv fanfiction #we intertwined #ignis x raine #gladio x cam #lol can't use that tag yet OH WELL

[ticknart]

Between Busses

Dipper Pines stood and stretched as the other passengers pushed their way into the aisle of the bus to try to be the first off. He yawned and scratched his stomach, watching those who made it into the aisle shuffle and trip over their own feet. He didn't understand why people had to rush. It would be so much easier if the people in the front of the bus got off first, then the second, and so on.

People didn't work that way, though. Logically, that is. Sometimes someone tapped the brake pedal and thirty minutes later there was a traffic jam, despite a lack of exits or accidents. Why did everyone for miles down the freeway have to push their brakes, too? Dipper thought that was an answer best left to the psychologists of the world.

He stretched again, picked up his backpack and checked to make sure it was zipped up before slinging it over his shoulder, and then he sat down. He'd already spent about ten hours, overnight, on the bus, what were a few more minutes? The all night bus ride was the only way he could finish his classes on Wednesday and make it home in time for Thanksgiving dinner. He'd have to do this again at Christmas, too, when the dorms closed. His parents had made it clear that he was no longer a caterpillar, but a butterfly that had been released to the world to find its own way. At least they kept him on their insurance.

He looked at his watch. The bus had arrived about ten minutes later then it was scheduled to. He looked out the window. Mabel, his twin sister, was supposed to meet him at the bus station. Of course, he didn't see her. If it hadn't been for him, she would have been late to everything for the last eighteen years.

He wondered if she was ever on time to her classes across the bay. Two lines into San Francisco went through the station nearest to home, so that shouldn't delay her. The station in the city was close to her school; she could walk without much distraction. The bus to the BART station, though, that would be her problem. It only came a couple of times an hour. If she missed the one she needed, she'd be late.

Less people were coming down the aisle. Dipper stood up and straightened his backpack before stepping behind a leathery looking woman.

As he walked he wondered if he should set some alarms on Mabel's phone while he was home. So she would leave for school on time. No, he should set the alarms for her. He wanted to help her even though he wasn't there with her. The real question was if he should ask her if she wanted the alarms. There were too many times in the past couple of years when she'd get upset at him when he offered help and she hadn't asked first. It was just another part of getting older and growing apart. Too often he missed the days when they were best friends.

There was a time when they were practically inseparable. When she wanted more paint, he would go with her. When he wanted to drool over telescopes, she'd go with him. They both went to the library as much as possible for a long time. They could talk about anything and one wouldn't judge the other. Best of all, though, was when they could just be in the same room together and simply be. It was those times when Dipper had felt the most comfortable in his life. Too bad they had to go to high school.

He smiled sadly as he stepped off the bus, out into the November air. The Greyhound station smelled like stale exhaust, but when a chilly breeze came through, he could smell the ocean. It smelled good and he took a deep breath through his nose to get as much in as possible. He didn't realize how much he missed that smell until this moment. His school was too far away from the ocean to smell that freshness. This was the smell of home and he hadn't known that until this moment.

He shivered a little and pulled the beany he wore down, covering as much of his ears as he could, as he looked around the station. Mabel was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the bus driver, who was supposed to open the storage so that passengers could get their luggage. Like waiting for most people to get off the bus before getting up, Dipper knew it would be easier to stand away from the bus and wait for most of the passengers to collect their luggage before he got his.

"dipper." he heard in the distance and turned his head toward the sound.

"Dipper!" he heard again and smiled.

"DIPPER!" he heard a third time, and started to move.

"DIIIIIIIIIIP-EEEEEEEEEER!"

"Mabel!" he said as soon as he saw her, raising his voice over the sounds of the station, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and just a little bit of anger. "I'm over here."

She turned to him. Her brown eyes lit up and she smiled, "Dipper!" Mabel ran and threw her arms around him. "You're home! You're finally home! I've missed you!"

Dipper felt his anger drop away as he hugged her back. "I've missed you, too."

"When did you get here?" she asked, stepping back from him. Without taking a breath she asked her next question. "Have you been waiting a long time? I'm sorry I got here late. Where's your suitcase? Did you leave it at school? Why would you leave it there? How much of your clothes did you leave at home? When did you start wearing a beany? I like your beany, but I think I liked your cap better. Why did you start wearing a ball cap again? You used to love that woodsman thing that Wendy gave you. You wore it all the time, even when it was hot, and then you stopped. Why was that? Do you want me to decorate a beany for you? I'm going to decorate one for you."

The questions came so quickly that Dipper didn't have time to answer. The best he could do was start to answer, but by the time he finished the first work Mabel was onto another question. She was always exuberant, but never like this. That meant she really was excited to see him. He smiled at her as she continued to bombard him.

Mabel looked good. Her long brown hair was in one think braid that fell halfway down her back. She always talked about cutting her hair short, but never had. Her eyes sparkled and shone due to some trick she had learned while helping with make-up at a local reparatory theater. She wore one the sweatshirts that she had decorated. This one was for Thanksgiving. It featured a family of dancing turkeys with their heads at their feet. He thought it was dark, but funny.

The sweater also fit her better than the ones she'd made and wore through high school. It actually made her look like a woman rather than the fourteen-year old boy her old sweaters made her look like. He'd seen her at home, he knew she had the only things that most boys were looking for, she just wore boxy sweaters she'd bought from thrift stores. Someone finally convinced her to buy at least one fitted sweater. She looked like the beautiful girl she'd always been inside.

"-as the trip? It was long, wasn't it? I bet it was. Did your bus have a bathroom? Did you use the bathroom? How do they keep the water from sloshing out? Is there wat--?" She paused. "What are you smiling at?

"I'm just happy to see you," he said. "I've missed being around you. I've missed your energy."

She blushed.

"I still need to get my suitcase," he said. "It's stored under the bus, but I didn't see the driver when I got off. We'll probably have to wait."

"Is it locked?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"You didn't check?"

"Why would I check? You're supposed to wait for the driver to pull the luggage out for you."

"That's just a suggestion," she said. "Which one is your bus? He pointed to it. She grabbed his hand and pulled.

"But Mabel," he said, "he wasn't there to unlock anything."

"Haven't you been watching the other drivers?" she asked, waving around at the station. "They all get off the bus, unlock the storage under the bus, and then run to the bathroom. We can get your luggage and go."

As they approached his former bus, she let go of his hand and pushed through the crowd of passengers. Once she reached the bus, she grabbed the first handle she saw, gave it a twist, yanked it open, looked inside, and then moved to the next. The crowed surged forward and Dipper lost sight of her as he waited.

It didn't take long before he saw her pushing her way out of the scrum, pulling a suitcase behind her. The suitcase had been gift from her for him to take to college. Mabel had taken a simple black case and turned it into the night sky. She didn't simply paint on white dots as stars when she decorated. Somehow she made a swath of the Milky Way across the front as it looks in the night sky. She took the time to put a true piece of art on a silly suitcase for him.

As she walked toward him, she said, "Come on, Dipping Sauce, we have a bus to catch. A bus that waits for no man."

He fell into step with her and they headed to the street.

The entire way home, Mabel peppered him with questions. Yes, school was hard. No, he hadn't made any friends. Yes, he got lonely some times. His roommate was a brilliant, drunken jackass who he couldn't get along with. Yes, there were buses and they were really crowded. No, he hadn't been to any museums. On and on she went and he answered everything he could. He tried to make is sound like he was having a great time all the time.

One question made him uncomfortable. She asked him if he "like-liked" any of the girls in his program. His answer was no, but Mabel had never show that kind of interest in his love life before. Unlike her, he hadn't really dated anyone in high school. He went to the big dances, but always with a friend and never with someone where romantic interest would follow. Being a beard for was a great way to get a non-romantic date for the evening.

And the truth was he hadn't wanted romance for over two years. That was the last time he spoke with Wendy Corduroy. The time she gave him a very special birthday gift. She was gone the next summer, when he and Mabel visited Gravity Falls and the only time he heard from her was when she sent an "I'm okay" e-mail. After Wendy he figured no one else could ever catch his interest. How often does your best friend become more than your friend but is still your best friend? How did you say that to your twin sister?

They got off the bus, Mabel still pulling his suitcase, and walked the few blocks home. She kept asking questions and he answered, but didn’t pay too much attention to her. Everywhere he looked while walking he saw familiar places. Houses where old friends had lived. Houses he was forced to go to for birthday parties. Many of the houses were empty because of the holiday. Others had extra cars lining the street because of the holiday. He wondered if other college freshmen felt this nostalgic after being gone for only a few months.

"Are you excited?" Mabel asked as they turned onto their street.

"About what?" he asked.

"Being home. Seeing Mom and Dad. Thanksgiving dinner. A weekend away from school!"

"I'm happy," he said, smiling at her, "but I'm not excited. I've been to Thanksgiving before."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know."

"Dur, you're and idiot."

"No, you’re an idiot."

They turned up the walk to the front door.

"You are."

"You are."

"Nuh-uh."

"Uh-huh."

"Pfft," she said, opening the door and then holding it for him.

Dipper turned his nose up to her and said, "You should really keep your stinky mouth farts outside the house, thank you very much."

She snorted and started laughing. So did he. His laugh came from deep within. It'd been a long time since he'd laughed like that.

When she settled Mabel called out, "Muh-om, Da-ad, Dipper's home!"

No answer. The house was silent.

They walked over to the stairs and found a note taped to the wall:

Sorry kids. Mom was called in to cover a shift and there's a server emergency at work that I have to take care of. Turkey's in the fridge. Potatoes are on the counter. Don't hold dinner for us. I doubt we'll be back. --Dad

"Dangit!" said Mabel.

"It just wouldn't feel like being home if Mom and Dad had been here for dinner," Dipper sighed.

"Yeah, well," Mabel said, turning to Dipper. "Let's get your stuff up to your room then we can start cookin'."

"Okay, but we're not making the yams." He handed her his backpack and took the suitcase from her then started up the stairs. Mabel followed.

"I like the yams."

"You like the marshmallows."

"So what?"

"You don't need the yams to eat marshmallows."

"But they're not warm and crispy and gooey straight out of the bag."

They reached the door to his bedroom. He placed the suitcase just inside the room, out of the way of the door. She threw his backpack onto his bed. He cringed, thankful he had put his computer into the suitcase before he got on the bus the night before. They headed down stairs to go to the kitchen.

"You don't need yams to heat marshmallows."

"Then how do you do it?"

"Mabel, you've roasted marshmallows before."

"That's true," she said. "But tell me this, smarty pants, how do I roast marshmallows at home? I shouldn't light a fire in the middle of the kitchen, should I?"

"We have a gas stove."

"So?"

"You can roast marshmallow over the flame."

"Oh, I guess you can."

By this time, they had reached the kitchen. Turkey was waiting for seasoning and roasting. Potatoes were waiting for peeling and boiling. Cans of green beans were waiting to be opened and combined with cans of mushroom soup and topped with crispy onion things. And a pumpkin pie was waiting to be tossed into the oven to bake.

For Mabel, marshmallows were waiting to be roasted and eaten. She was willing to share, though.

Together, between marshmallows, the twins cooked a successful Thanksgiving dinner. The potatoes were lumpy, but full of flavor. The turkey was juicy and the gravy thick. The casserole was exactly the same as it always was. And the pie was a pumpkin pie, a little boring, but sweet and filling.

As they ate, they watched movies. Mabel choose Alice's Restaurant, as she did every year. It was a movie that rambled like the song that inspired it. The problem was that the movie went on for two hours instead of the twenty minutes of the song. Mabel liked it though and there were some funny parts and it actually took place at Thanksgiving, unlike his choice.

Dipper picked Little Women. Yes, he picked Little Women every year, but at least there were lots of versions of his movie. This year was the one with Katharine Hepburn as Jo. Probably the most perfect Jo ever in a movie. Jo was the reason he choose Little Women each year. She was the first crush he'd had, way back when he read the book in third grade. He'd loved how smart and funny she was and how she refused to live the life people thought she should and choose to live the life she wanted. Every time he saw her turn down Laurie's proposal he cheered. This year, Mabel heard his little cheer and gave him a look because she knew why he was so happy and thought it was silly. That was her word: silly.

After the movies they cleaned up. Dipper made sure to put together two plates of food for their parents. He had no idea when they'd get home. His mother was probably filling in behind a twelve-hour shift and if she had been home when Mabel left to meet him at the bus station then at the earliest she'd be back after eight, but she usually stayed later just talking, and this being Thanksgiving she would probably stay even longer. There was no way to estimate when his father would get home. Any time he had an emergency he called it a server problem because he didn't think his family would know what he was talking about otherwise, so there was no way to know what the problem actually was. His father also didn't say where he was working. Was it at the small office in San Francisco? Was it in San Jose? No way to know.

By the time he had changed into his pajama pants and brushed his teeth, it was still just him and Mabel at home.

Dipper walked over to Mabel's room tapped on the partially closed door, and pushed it open. She was working on her tablet. The stylus flew across the screen He wondered what she was drawing and if it was for school or simply for her. He hoped it was for her.

"I'm going to bed," he said.

"Not yet," she said, "come here."

He crossed her room, shuffling his feet so he didn't step on any of art supplies and clothes she had tossed on the floor. He pushed whatever he could off to the left and right to try and make an actual path from the door to her bed. He stood next to her and waited as she finished what she was doing.

She put the tablet down then looked up at him and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Come on, you rode the bus for, like, days and Mom and Dad aren't even here. And it's a holiday."

"They always miss holidays when we stay home," he said. "Work’s more important to them than us. I got used to that years ago."

"Well, what about-" she trailed off before she finished her question and looked away from him. She sighed, took a deep breath, and then said, "This morning you said that you got lonely at school and, well, I know how hard it is for you to make new friends."

He sat on the edge of her bed and said, "That's what I have you for. You make new friends for me."

"But that's the problem. You don't have me. You're hundreds of miles away. I'm not there for you. You need me."

Smiling, Dipper said, "I do."

She frowned.

"I do need you," he said. "You help me with the things I'm not good at. You help make me a more complete person. But I had to be on my own sometime and learn how to make friends on my own."

"But you're not. You haven't."

"I spend most of my day in labs and doing homework. I could be more like my roommate, he has a lot of 'friends,' but then I'd be drunk five nights a week and probably be kicked out of school at the end of the quarter."

"I just- I worry about you. The last time I talked to Soos he said the last time he heard from Wendy was in April and she's probably the only other person you e-mail besides me."

That was true, but he didn't want to admit it.

"I'm sure she's okay," he said, hoping to change the topic. "The last time I heard from her she was in Alaska working at a husky farm. Can you imagine her planting and watering puppy paw to get those things to grow?”

Mabel frowned, “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Okay then, imagine trying to feed all those fluffy puppies? A dozen or more. They probably jump all over her when they’re not frolicking in the snow."

"That would be the best job ever."

"I thought you'd like it."

"Can she take any to sleep with her at night?"

"I don't know. I'll make sure to ask her in the next letter I send."

"Can you imagine snuggling with two or three fluffy doggies every night? I'm so jealous."

Having successfully changed the subject, Dipper yawned and said, "It's been a long day, Mabes. It lasted all night. I need to get to sleep."

"Okay. See you in the morning bro-bro."

"See you tomorrow."

When he pulled her door partially closed, he saw that she had picked up her tablet and had started working again.

Friday, Dipper spent his day doing two things, washing the clothes he brought home from school and studying. Sure, midterms were over, but it was only a couple of weeks until finals and he wasn't going to start his college GPA lower than perfect. He copied the notes he took in class over to a second notebook, leafing through his text books to add context or clarification. When his phone buzzed he hopped up and headed out to the garage to clear out the dryer and move the stuff that had just been washed into dryer. He thought about folding right out of the dryer, but figured that it was better to wait until everything was clean.

Mabel was not okay with Dipper's plans and she made sure he knew how not okay she was. She wanted to do something. Anything. She thought holidays weren't for homework. Holidays were for fun, she argued. They should head into the city and visit the buffalo in the park or check out the new exhibit at the comic art museum or just get out of the house and stop doing homework. Every forty minutes or so, she'd interrupt him with a new idea. The only way he could get her to stop was to promise to do no homework on Saturday and go out with her to do anything she wanted all day long. He agreed right away because he wanted to focus on his work. It wasn't until Mabel had skipped out of the dining room that he wondered if he had made a mistake.

---------------------------------------------

"Dipper."

He heard the whispered word, but ignored it. It was just a dream.

"Dipper."

The voice was closer to him, but still whispered.

"Dipper."

Turkey breath.

The voice jumped onto the bed and kept bouncing. He knew, though, that if he didn’t move the voice couldn’t see him.

"Come on, Dipper. It's time to get up. I let you sleep all the way until eleven, but now it's time to" -- the bed stopped moving and he felt a body press into his -- "WAKE UP!"

"AHH," he screamed, his head jerking back, hitting Mabel in the chest.

"Ow," she said, sitting back and rubbing where she'd been hit.

"Serves you right," he said, rolling onto his side and looking at his sister. "There are better ways to wake a person up."

"Yeah," she smiled, "but the litter box had been cleaned before I could get to it."

"We don't have a cat."

"Why do we need a cat to have a litter box? Now get out of bed. Get showered. We're going out!"

He watched as she got out of bed and crossed to the door where she turned around and said, "If I don't hear that shower going within the next five minutes I'll drag you into that bathroom and scrub you down myself!"

Dipper got out of bed quickly, be he took his time in the shower. Unless he got up really early at school or took one at night the showers were always cold. Always. The dorms were built to hold dozens and dozens of people, who thought it was a good idea to put in a home sized water heater? Also, he wasn't exactly excited to go out with Mabel. All he really wanted to do was sit around and relax before he had another ten hour bus ride.

He didn't get down to the kitchen until almost noon. Mabel had made a sandwich for him. He was deep into his second bite when she came in.

She looked amazing. Her hair was loose around her shoulders. She wore a sweater that was simply a light purple -- lavender, maybe? -- Not decorated at all. It fitted her better than anything he'd ever seen her wear before. Below that was a darker purple skirt that came just to her knees. Her tights were blue and pink spots on black. And she wore her cruddy old sneakers on her feet. She used a light hand with her make-up, just enough to enhance her natural beauty. Her lips were a deep red, but when they caught the light right the red shown fiercely. People would be staring today and dipper felt uncomfortable for paying this much attention to how his sister looked.

He briefly remembered the first time he noticed that she wasn’t just his sister. They had been playing in the sprinklers in the back yard, running back and forth across the lawn. Sometimes it was a race and sometimes it was a chase. After running around for a particularly long time, he noticed that Mabel was breathing hard. Her chest went up and down in a way it never had before a way that his chest couldn’t. Before this moment, he knew that she was a girl, but he didn’t know she was a GIRL. It made playing in the sprinklers awkward for him. He spent the next several days reconciling the fact that she could never be just his sister again.

"When you're done, we're heading out," she said.

Through his third bite he tried to ask where they were going, but he couldn’t without sandwich leaking onto the floor.

"The Oakland Museum of California," she said, exited. "Pixar's got a new exhibit. One whole room is supposed to be full of the actual models they make before they sculpt on the computer!"

He had to admit, that sounded pretty cool. He stopped chewing long enough to smile at her.

"I knew you'd like it!"

They headed to the bus stop, chatting about what they hoped would be there. Dipper wanted to see a piece of the software they had designed in house to make their movie. That was art. Mabel hoped for something about the color and light and how they were used in the movies. They continued discussing the nuances of Pixar's art as they rode the bus and transferred and rode again. They only stopped when they got to the museum.

Some guy ran up to Mabel, picked her up, and swung her around. After he put her down, she kissed him on the mouth. What the hell?

Mabel laughed, "Andy, what all that for?"

"Just saying hello, sweetie."

The guy was tall, blonde, and ... not doughy. Dipper refused to think of any positive words to describe him. Mabel never had a physical type when it came to boyfriends. Her only type was fun and considering the greeting, this Andy guy must be fun. Dipper cringed.

"Andy," said Mabel, "come meet my brother."

"The one with the birthmark?" Andy asked.

Mabel nodded.

"Bro," said Andy, grabbing Dipper's hand, squeezing, and shaking it, "you gotta let me see that thing."

"Uh," said Dipper, "I'd rather not."

"You gotta," said Andy.

"Maybe later," Dipper said, pulling his beany down lower.

"I'll hold you to that, bro," said Andy.

Behind this Andy person Mabel was talking to an extremely tall, dark-haired young woman. Before this moment, Dipper had never understood how someone could be called "willowy." He understood, now.

"Dipper," Mabel said, "Come meet Zia."

He walked over to Mabel.

"Zia," said Mabel, "This is my brother, Dipper."

She reached her hand out and he took it to shake. "Nice to meet you, Dipper. How'd you get the name?"

She was taller than Dipper was. Her eyes were at the level of his forehead. He looked down at her shoes. She wasn't wearing heels.

He looked up into her eyes. They were dark brown, but he saw flecks of green and gold in them. On any other day her beauty would have stunned him into silence.

"Our parent's hated me," he said, flatly.

Zia's furrowed her brow.

"Ha ha," said Mable. Andy's arm was around her and hers was around his waist. She continued, "he got the nickname from his birthmark."

"Oh," said Zia. She turned back to Dipper and asked, "How does that work?"

He resisted grabbing his beany and pulling it even lower. He said, "My birthmark is in the shape of the big dipper."

"The constellation?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Cool."

“Not rea—“

"Come on you two, let's go!" said Mabel.

Dipper did not have fun at the museum. He spent most of the time fuming at that Andy guy and his stupid actions. Mabel kept laughing, but Dipper was annoyed by him. She shouldn't be with such an idiot. She deserved so much better. And this wasn't the normal protective brother thing, no. Andy was a moron who belonged in an alien zoo displayed as the common puer fraternitatem.

Zia annoyed Dipper, too. She constantly followed him and kept asking him questions. What did she care what his major was? Why did she want to know what he planned to do with a degree in physics? Did he like to travel? What did that have to do with anything? Was she planning to take him across the Pacific to the land of her ancestors?

His only question was why Zia wasn't spending more time with Mabel. They were friends, not him and her. He just wanted to go home.

He didn't, though. After the Pixar exhibit they looked at some paintings, Dipper had no idea what connected all the painting together in the exhibit. Next was a series of photographs of naked people and how they look at younger and older ages. Finally they went out into the gardens. As with most gardens, this one wasn't really worth seeing at the end of November.

As the sun began to set, Dipper started to feel relieved. Finally this was over. No more Andy hanging off Mabel and no more giants following him around. Time to go home. Time to relax and calm down before leaving tomorrow.

"Where are we going for dinner?" asked Mabel, practically hanging off of Andy.

"Let’s go into the city," Andy said.

Dipper suppressed a grunt.

"We could go to Zia's family's restaurant," said Andy. "Get the good stuff."

Zia laughed, "Fine, but no family discount.”

"We're not family anymore," Andy whined.

Dipper rolled his eyes and followed the other three to the nearest BART station.

Dinner took forever and no one cared except Dipper. It was Saturday night, the place was packed and it took them sixty minutes to get seated. Worse than that, while they waited they could order drinks from the bar. Dipper got a cola. No one else ordered a soft drink. Andy ordered a whiskey, Zia had a Manhattan and Mabel got herself a Long Island Ice Tea. She had to show her ID to get it. They all did. He wondered who at Mabel's school was selling.

None of them knew how to drink. Andy kept throwing back his whisky like it was a shot. Zia drank half her drink in a single gulp. And Mabel would fill her mouth up an swish it around before swallowing. This evening was not going to be fun for Dipper.

Zia ordered for them in Cantonese. Dipper was surprised and felt a little guilty for not trying to get to know her. After ordering, Mabel and Zia went to the bathroom. Andy and Dipper sat in an uncomfortable silence for a while before Andy said he saw a friend and left too. Dipper waved down the busboy that seemed to work this section. He gave the busboy a twenty, asking him to keep all the waters full, if he saw any getting close to half full Dipper wanted him to fill it right away.

The meal was the best he'd ever had in Chinatown. Nothing was like that breaded and fried American stuff you could get anywhere, the stuff that always tasted the same. There was some sort of fish, opened up so the ribs pointed in all directions that was sweet and salty. Green beans that still snapped if you bent it. Soup that wasn't quite like anything he'd had before. He wondered how many other places had food not on the menu that could only be ordered by people who spoke the language. Maybe he needed to learn Cantonese so that he could keep eating like this. Maybe he should learn every language so he could get the good stuff everywhere.

Mabel drank more and talked and laughed with Andy and Zia. The three of them were having a great time. Dipper watched the water to make sure it got filled and worried about his sister and about his sister's friends. He didn't know where they lived. How could he make sure they got home okay? It was hard enough to be responsible for Mabel. He really didn't want to be responsible for these other two as well.

The four of them received the family discount for the meal. All they had to pay for were the drinks, except for Dipper's cola. Before they left, Mabel insisted that they go to the kitchen to thank Zia's family. While Mabel, Andy, and Zia talked to the crew, Zia's aunt told Dipper that she loved Mabel like another niece. He looked over at his sister, telling a story and making everyone listening laugh. He understood. She was something special.

Zia left the group outside of the restaurant. Across the street was her cousin's apartment. He had to be in the restaurant early each morning for deliveries. He'd let her sleep over. Dipper watched as the willowy woman very carefully made her way through the crowd and across the street with a grace he never thought a drunk person could pull off. She disappeared around the corner of the building. He hoped she'd be safe.

"We gotta get the two of you to the BART station," said Andy, quite a bit louder than he needed to.

"Where do you live, Andy?" asked Dipper. "We should get you home first."

"No," said Andy, still too loud, "we gotta get the two of you to the BART station."

"Yeah," said Mabel, "the BART station."

"The Bart station!" Andy shouted, taking her hand.

Several of the people waiting pointed toward Market Street. Some said "that way," others spoke in languages he didn't understand. Dipper chose to believe they also said "that way" rather than something derogatory.

Andy and Mabel started walking before Dipper could thank everyone who had pointed, even though he already knew where he needed to go. They were leaning on each other, but Dipper was pretty sure that each was trying to take support from the other.

Dipper kept trying to get Andy to say where he lived. Each time he was asked Andy just said they needed to get to the BART station. Mabel kept agreeing.

A walk that should have taken no longer than fifteen minutes felt like it took hours, but they finally reached the escalators down to the station. On TV it was funny watching drunk people get onto an escalator. In real life, and when you twin sister was one of the drunks, it was scary. Dipper constantly thought she'd fall over, tumble down the moving stairs and break her neck. Fortunately it was only worry. Both she and Andy made it down without incident. They even step off with all the confidence a drunk could muster.

"The BART station!" Andy shouted. "We made it to the BART station!"

"How do we get you home, Andy?"

"We go over there," Andy said, pointing behind him, then pointing to the left, then pointing to the wall.

"I don't understand," said Dipper.

Andy looked thoughtful then shouted, "L to Sunset!"

"MUNI?" asked Dipper. "You need to get onto MUNI?"

"L to Sunset," Andy said again.

During this whole conversation Mabel had been sitting on the floor, tracing the spaces between the brick. Dipper squatted down, took her hands, and pulled her up. With one hand holding Mabel's hand and the other on Andy's back he worked their way to the MUNI Metro's entrance.

Andy bumped into the closed gate a few times.

"Give me your wallet, Andy," said Dipper.

Andy handed it to him. Dipper let go of Mabel to take it. It was made of zebra stripped duct tape. Dipper held the wallet over the sensor and the gate opened. Andy walked through and kept walking.

"Andy," called Dipper.

Andy stopped and turned around and waved. Dipper waved the wallet. Andy walked back over and grabbed it.

Before letting the wallet go, Dipper asked, "Where are you going?"

"L to Sunset," said Andy.

"Yeah," said Dipper, releasing the wallet, "you tell that to anyone who asks.

Andy nodded, turned around again, and walked away.

Dipper watched until he couldn't see Andy anymore. He figured Andy had made the trip home like this many times before, but he still worried about Mabel's friend.

The last one he had to help get home was spinning in the mostly empty station. It was too late for the family tourists to be traveling and too early for most people out on the town to go home.

Mabel saw Dipper coming toward her. She stopped spinning and walked toward him. She took his left hand in her right, held them up, and spun into him.

"Do you hear the waltz?" she asked, her left hand on his shoulder and her hips swaying. "Can we dance?"

He put his right hand on the small of her back and they danced. Mabel's smile was infectious. The station fell away. He could hear an orchestra. The universe was the two of them dancing.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Mabel said, resting her head against him.

He stopped. "We have to get down to the train."

"Yeah," said Mabel, "we have to go home."

Dipper got them down the train platform and into one of the cars. He was grateful for the time day because there were plenty of seats and if Mabel got sick her mess probably wouldn't get on anyone.

They sat as close to the exit as they could.

"I'm cold," said Mabel.

"Sorry, I don't have a jacket," said Dipper.

"Give me your beany."

"It's not going to help."

"You lose ninety percent of your body heat through your head."

"That's not true."

"Come on, Dipping Sauce. Please."

"Fine," he grumbled and pulled the beany off his head, static crackling in his ears.

Mabel took the Beany and put it on. He smoothed his hair down while looking at his reflection in the window. He wanted to make sure his birthmark was covered.

"You shouldn't do that," she said as she straightened the beany.

"Do what?" he asked.

"Hide who you are."

He looked away from the window and at his sister. "What?" he asked.

She reached up and brushed his bangs away from his forehead. "Hide who you are," she said again and began tracing his birthmark with one hand, the other holding his bangs back. She looked into his eyes and he felt like she was looking into the depths of his being. Part of him wanted to turn away, but he couldn't.

After she finished the tail she dropped her hands and looked out the window. Dipper watched the back of her head for a minute before facing forward and smoothing his hair over his forehead.

"Zia liked you," Mabel said.

"She did?"

"She thought you were smart and sweet and cute."

"When did she say any of that?"

"In the bathroom."

"Was this a setup?"

There was no answer.

"Mabel," he said, "tell me. Was this a setup? Were you trying to set me up with Zia?"

"Yeah," she said, sheepishly.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think you'd come."

She was right, he wouldn't have.

"Why did you try to set me up at all?" he asked.

She turned to him and said, "I don't want you to be alone. To be lonely."

"And Zia was the answer?"

"No." She looked deep into his eyes again and said, "No, she was a beginning. Like training wheels. A safe way to get you started to do this on your own. So you can love someone and be loved and not be alone. Not lonely."

"Just because I'm alone," he said, frowning "doesn't mean I'm lonely."

"I know but-"

"Mabel," he said fiercely, then sighed and calmed himself down. "Mabel, at this point in my life, I've been in love with two people, but only sort of in a romantic way, kind of. One's disappeared into the giant world. The other- the other's just not possible."

"I just don't want you to hurt."

"Hurt's not a bad thing. Hurt is part of love." He put his arm around her.

"I can't be happy if you're not."

"You can, Mabel. I give you permission to be happy."

They sat in silence the rest of the ride under the bay. By the time they were waiting for the bus back home Mabel had moved out of the sad/thoughtful drunk back to the fun/silly drunk. He just wanted to get home. He was tired, physically and emotionally. He needed sleep to drive everything away.

They got home and Dipper had to push Mabel up the stairs. She had been saying she needed to pee for half a block, but she also wanted to dance again. She wanted to dance more than she had to pee. He didn't trust her enough to dance with her again.

When he finally wrangled her into the upstairs bathroom, he leaned against the wall across from the door and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. It had been a long day. Longer than that stupid bus ride. Maybe the longest day since his first summer in Gravity falls.

"It's your turn," she said as she opened the door. "And you can have this back." she tossed the beany to him.

The beany got shoved into his pocket as he went into the bathroom to do his business and try his best to not think about his life.

After he finished, he stepped out of the bathroom and yawned and stretched, reaching his hands up as high as he could. The lower part of his shirt lifted, causing the bottom part of his belly to show.

"Oh ho," Mabel said, leaning against the wall across from the bathroom.

She took a step and stumbled a bit.

He caught her. Her face was in his. She smelled awful, but she was smiling.

"Dipper," she said as he got her back on her feet. "Dippity do dah." She leaned toward him. "Dippity doppity doo." She drunkenly smiled at him, lifted his shirt up a little, and lightly moved her fingers over the hairs that ran down from his belly button. "I want you to know that I know where these lead." She put her lips to his ear and whispered, "I do." She dropped his shirt and moved toward her room.

He froze. His face and neck got hot, hotter than anytime he could remember. What the hell was this? How did that fit into this night? Into this life? Was this a joke? It had to be the alcohol speaking. Right? Just some crazy drunk joke.

When he could move again, he headed to his room. He shut the door and turned out the light. He climbed into his bed without changing his shirt or taking off his jeans or socks. He stared at the ceiling, but didn't see the glowing stars he’d put up there as a kid, not even his namesake. He didn't see anything above him. He could only see Mabel's drunken smile and feel the lightness of her touch. She hadn't touched actual skin, only the hairs. He shivered as he thought about it over and over. Never in his life had he imagined such a sensual experience existed, let alone that he'd get to experience it.

Sleep was a long time coming that night.

---------------------------------------

"I can't believe my head isn't pounding this morning," said Mabel as they walked to the bus stop. "I drank so much."

"Yeah you did," said Dipper. "I paid the busser to keep your water full. I knew that when you finished your tea you'd reach for the water and start sipping. Why do you hate having a full glass of water at the table?"

"I don't know. I just don't-" She shook her head. "I just don't like it."

They walked in silence the rest of the way to the bus stop. Dipper felt awkward because of what happened last night and he didn't want to talk about it. He hoped that Mabel didn't remember. He pulled on his beany, making sure it was in place, and looked over at his sister. She was wearing another nicely fitting sweater. This one was a dark blue and she'd lightly drawn in many of the northern constellations. His birthmark was right over her heart.

At the bus stop Mabel asked, "Did I barf?"

"Not while I was with you."

"The good ole iron stomach comes through again."

"You feel sick now?"

"No," she said. "Just tired and embarrassed."

"Why embarrassed?"

"Because I was so stupid."

"You weren't the only one."

"Maybe not, but you didn't drink at all, did you?"

"Nope."

"One of us had to be the smart one," Mabel said sarcastic.

"One of us doesn't have a fake ID."

"Uch. The smart one."

The bus pulled up and they got on.

After they sat, Mabel said, "You remember what you said the other night?"

Dipper's stomach dropped. Did she want to talk about last night now? They weren't far from the Greyhound station and him leaving. Why would she want to start something so serious now, right before he left?

"Remind me," he said, trying to play cool.

"You make me a more complete person, too," she said. "I think I need you even more than you think you need me." She rubbed tears away from her eyes.

"I'm only a phone call away."

"But you never answer your phone. You never call back."

"I always text or e-mail."

"Yeah," she said, sniffling. "Sometimes I just want to hear your voice."

"Then the next time I see that you're calling, I'll ask WWMD."

"What would Madonna do?"

He laughed. "No. What would Mabel do?"

"I'd pick up the phone."

"I know."

They got off the bus and walked over to the Greyhound station in silence. They both walked in and over to the ticket agent. Dipper handed over his printout and was pointed to the door out to the busses. Mabel followed him.

"Hey," they both heard, "you in the blue sweater. You can't go that way without a ticket."

"Sure," said Mabel, letting go of Dipper's suitcase, turning around, and walking out of the building.

Dipper stood there, dumbfounded, but not for long because the voice started saying he was holding up the line. Dipper didn’t see any line.

He saw Mabel again in front of his bus.

"What-" he started.

"You don't have to go through actual station to get to the busses," she said. "Remember how we left on Thursday. Straight out to the street."

He felt stupid.

"Kid?"

Dipper turned and saw the bus driver.

"Are you taking that" - she pointed to the suitcase - "on the bus with you?"

"No," he said, handing the suitcase over, "thank you."

The driver put the suitcase under the bus and locked the storage up then said, "I'll give you a minute to say good-bye to your girlfriend, but we're leaving on time with or without you."

"She's not-" started Dipper, but he was cut off by Mabel raising her voice saying, "Thanks. I'll make sure he's there."

"What was that about?" he asked.

"Just easier."

"Yeah but-"

"Don't worry about it. Now come over here and give me a hug good-bye."

He did. She squeezed him tightly, so he squeezed a little bit harder.

She let one of her arms drop and whispered, "I remember everything." She ran her hand over the bottom of his stomach. "And I love you very much." She kissed him on the cheek, but it didn't feel like the pecks his aunts had given him over the years. It felt like a promise.

She let go of him and gave him a little push. "Now get on the bus."

He turned away from her, stepped onto the bus, and climbed the stairs, his hand on his cheek. He walked down the aisle, still stunned. Could another best friend really love him like that?

He found an empty seat and stood at the window. The bus had started and Mabel has taken several steps back. The windows didn't open, but he wanted to get his attention. He hit the window and she looked his direction. Could she see in? Were the windows too dark? He held his hands up to his chest, curving his fingers, straightening his thumbs, and putting the two hands together to make a heart. Could she see it?

The bus started pulling away. She had to see him. Please let her see him, he begged the universe.

As the bus began to turn out of the station, he saw Mabel put her hands into the same shape on her chest then he couldn't see her any more.

Dipper Pines collapsed onto his seat and sighed.

This story was inspired by this picture by @in-your-face-elizabeth.

I could never do justice to such a fun image -- that's not the kind of writer I am, yet -- but it made me wake up at 3AM one morning with the idea for this story in my head and I couldn't get back to sleep.

Also, there's no way I can heap enough praise on the art and writing on her/his tumblr. The art over there is what started me reading this pinecest stuff because I could see that sometimes it was more about the emotional themes rather than the adult action.

#Gravity Falls #Dipper Pines #pinecest #Mabel Pines #fanfic #Original Character #Alliterative Association