#dolores: oh my god why does he have a knife

[encantomybeloved]

6yr Camilo: *running around*

Pepa: what do you have?

Camilo: A KNIFE

Pepa: NO

#dolores: oh my god why does he have a knife #encanto #encanto incorrect quotes #camilo madrigal #disney #dolores madrigal #pepa madrigal #incorrect quotes

[schnitzelbutterfingers]

The Forgotten One (Ethan Ramsey x F!MC)- CHAPTER 3

a/n: first, i wanna wish everyone a happy thanksgiving from my family to yours! please take the time to thank everyone you are so grateful to have in your life, especially god, for letting us live and for all the blessings he gives us. do not take anyone for granted.

next, so sorry for the holdup!! finally, chapter 3 is here! we’ll see what abby feels about the attack, her and ethan conversing, and a surprise ending. read, like, and let me know your reviews! forgive me if there are any spelling mistakes or grammar errors. let me know if you wanna be added to my taglist and as always, enjoy (ɔ◔‿◔)ɔ ♥

summary:  Louise Ramsey, the mother of the famous, brilliant diagnostician Ethan Ramsey, is back into his life. However, Louise holds many secrets, dangerous secrets, that could harm him, Dr. Abigail ‘Abby’ Chacko (my MC), and the very few lives he actually cares about. It is up to Ethan, Abby, and their friends to save each other from what is about to come.

pairing(s): dr. ethan ramsey x f!mc (dr. abigail ‘abby’ chacko) || dr. sebastian chacko x dolores hudson (YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT)

warning(s): angst, and then it’s pure fluff, and then a surprise ending (you’re gonna die die dieeee :)))

word count: 4289

catch up here :)

______________________________________________________________

Abby’s POV

When she wakes up it is with a headache, a throat ache and side pain. When she looks more closely at her nose, she sees an oxygen tube through them. When she looks more closely at her surroundings, she realizes she is in a hospital bed.

Lying down. Wearing a sky blue hospital gown. With an IV through her accessory cephalic vein. 

Jumping Jehoshaphat, what happened this time?

Abby spent many times in the hospital during her childhood. Most of them were due to the number of cuts and bruises she got from her father, in which some of them were very serious injuries. One time she was admitted to the hospital because...

No, Abby. Don’t relive through that phase. It’ll wound you more.

There are many types of pain. Many of her pains were physical, but some of her pains were emotional. By far, she can tell the emotional pain is the hardest to get over with.

Sure, she has been cut with a knife, raped by many of her father’s friends, and whipped with a belt. To her it was normal, and she had gotten used to it. To others, the pain is insufferable. 

Heartbreak hurts. Too much. It can rip people from the inside out, and change them. For better or worse.

Her father caused her many heartbreaks. In return, she studies, skipped five grades, graduated from high school when she was 13, and graduated from Hopkins when she was 21. Some might say she took it too far, but she knows it was just what she needed.

What she needed to prove to her father that pain doesn’t break her. 

What she needed to prove to her horrid patients that she is not dumb.

What she needed to prove to the whole world that she is not as young and innocent as everyone thinks she is.

Death, betrayal, and pain were her three companions, with some delectation in between. She cherished those jocund moments.

And she thanked God. Seb. Jazmin. Ethan. Herself. For all the hard work. 

But what happened right now? Why is she in this bed? 

It feels as if she has fallen into a cactus, her heart being punctured by tiny pins and needles. It’s starting at the bottom of her stomach, and it’s slowly growing. 

The anxiety.

The depression.

It feels like some kind of vaccination, where the shot doesn’t really hurt but the aftermath feels disastrous, cataclysmic. It’s leaving her breathless, as if she is running away from a ghost from her past. It is leaving a certain kind of exhaustion on her.

It’s heartbreak. But why? Why does she feel heartbreak? What could have possibly gone wrong-

Everything. Everything is going wrong. Bingo. She knows what is happening. But she can’t even speak the name out loud. It’s petrifying her. Really well.

 Louise Ramsey. 

Ethan’s mother who claimed to come for him and Alan.

Louise Ramsey.

The one who tricked them, including her.

Louise Ramsey. 

The one who stabbed her. The one who she trusted. 

The one who she believed had a change of heart didn’t have a change of heart at all.

She fooled everyone. She’s a liar. She is manipulative. She is every dark sin written across this universe. She is the next generation of Sat-

Wait. Wait a long moment.

Oh no. Oh no no no no no.

How is Abby supposed to tell this to Ethan of all people? How is she supposed to let him know his own mother tried to harm her? 

But she had to.

Moisture is falling from the tip of her index finger, even if the bed sheets feel cool. Sweat is dripping from her forehead, even if the hospital room is air conditioned. An imaginary shock travels through her body. The sharpness of the pain is unequivocal and indisputable that it sends shockwaves through her bloodstream. If it wasn’t for the bed, she would have crumpled to the floor.

She is currently holding the bed frame with a white-knuckled grip.

The young doctor scratched her arm nervously, mindful of the IV, as she let that horrifying memory fly through her.

Louise stabs her in the side, blood spilling to Abby’s legs and on the floor. She couldn’t say anything, words failing to come our of her mouth, every second making it harder to breather. She starts to lose consciousness, hearing the sounds of the patients in the room screaming for security.

Louise whispers into her ear, “The game has begun.” 

The last thing she sees is Louise running towards the exit and nurses coming towards Abby, before her world evades into darkness. 

That’s what happened. That’s why she’s in the hospital bed, feeling like crap.

That’s why she feels heartbreak, of all the emotions she can feel. She has heard of brother cheating on brother and father cheating on his wife. But a mother disowning her own husband and son, but then comes back only for her to clown them? 

That goes all the way back to Rebekah and Jacob in the Old Testament of the Bible, if you ask me.

She is back to the question on how she is supposed to tell Ethan. 

Does he know? If he knows, how does he feel? Does he feel depressed?

She sure hopes not.

When something happens to Abby, he always blamed on himself. Whether it was his fault or not. She reminisces on when Ethan apologized and was filled guilt when he found out about the trial.

Or when he came back from the Amazon. He didn’t really apologize for that, but the regret and remorse lurking beneath his eyes was the only thing she needed to know. To know that he was feeling guilt. Dismay. Lamentation.

Or when he opened up his bottled-up feelings concerning his mother. He said that he wasn’t planning on ‘dragging’ her into his mess. 

Or when she was in that decontamination room. She remembers his words clearly, words that were etched into her heart.

I wished I hadn’t asked you to stay away.

Or now.

If he knows. 

She knows what will happen if Ethan blames himself for this. He will be a different person. He will start becoming cold-hearted to people he cares about. He will push her away. Again.

Because he tends to believe that it is all his fault that accidents happen to the people he cherishes the most. He thinks that he is a curse. A malediction. An imprecation. She remembers the night when they connected for the first time. What he said.

This is The Ethan Ramsey. The man who can save anyone except the people he gives a damn about. Not Dolores. Not Naveen. And not you.

She was torn by what he said. Not because he said he couldn’t save her, but because he couldn’t love himself. 

The young doctor hopes he already knows what happened. Who stabbed her. She couldn’t even bear the thought of seeing his face crumble. The man who was stoic. The man who every one recognized as an imbecile. The man who every single doctor is head-over-heels in love with.

Ethan told her to tell him everything. Everything that makes her angry. Everything that makes her sad. Everything that makes her happy. 

If he doesn’t know what happened, she will tell him. She promised him that.

*Flashback*

It's normal for Abby to have a panic attack. Keeping her inhaler with her was vital for her to go through the day. Especially this week.

It’s been one week after the incident. That incident. That incident that took two innocent lives. Danny and Bobby. It’s all her fault. 

If Danny was alive, him and Sienna would’ve been a couple, loving each other. Now, she sees a Sienna whose eyes are haunted. Grave. Not filled with any giddy or joy. She doesn’t see her smile anymore, the once blushed cheeks with her beautiful grin that shows off her dimples, gone. Lost. Thrown away.

If Bobby was alive, he could’ve bought his daughter the new car. It was what he always wanted to do. Instead of enjoying his time with his daughter in her brand new car, he’s under the cold earth. 

Rafael is now going under therapy, but he also feels less confident from Rafael the paramedic. She misses the way he smiles. He does smile now, but there is no joy beneath his eyes.

And for Abby, she is not okay. She wishes she died. But she knows she couldn’t. There are people rooting for her. Her brother. Her mother. Her friends. Ethan. Ethan.

When she was informed that the gas in her body was maitotoxin and there was no cure, she accepted her fate and was ready to die. She glanced at Ethan, and his expression wasn’t betraying anything. But the eyes held more feelings than ever. They were pleading. They said, “Please don’t give up.”

She then realized that if they can find a cure within one day, she’ll try and survive. If not for me, then for Ethan and all the people I love, she thought.

Abby starts passing through that hallway. That one hallway. That one hallway that changed her life. No, that one room. And then, she passes through that room.

It’s clean, all the seals, the beds inside with new blankets and pillows. But she can’t see any of that. She can only see her, Rafael, Danny, and Bobby in that room. She sees Bobby dying. She sees Danny being taken away. She sees Rafael and herself being unable to breathe. 

Suddenly she runs away. She can’t take it anymore. You stupid, why would you even come back to the hospital when you’re not ready yet? she scolds herself. Because of Farley. Damn it.

Abby is flooded by her own thoughts when she accidentally runs into someone. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I-”

Only to know that someone is the one. 

She hears his baritone voice calling out to her, finding comfort and solace in it. 

“Abby? What’s wrong? Are you alright?” Ethan wipes something off her cheeks, and she realized that she was crying the whole time. She was so lost in her emotions that she didn’t a single drop falling down to her right cheek. 

“I-” The young doctor tries to speak but couldn’t. She can’t breathe.

“Rookie!” Ethan quickly drags her to the nearest supply closet. He asks her where her inhaler is. 

“Left... pocket...”

He hastily grabs and places it into her mouth. 

“Deep breaths, rookie. Deep breaths.”

She does as she is asked and takes deep breaths. After a few long moments, her breathing level starts to go normal. 

“Rookie, you weren’t ready for your first day back, were you?”

Abby starts to argue. “Of course I am! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you panic attack right now seems to prove otherwise.”

She sighs. He’s right. She wasn’t even ready to set foot into the hospital. The only reason she did was because of Farley’s rash, and she thought it was life threatening.

Ethan sighs, breaking her from her thoughts.

“Go home, Abby, you’ve had a long day.”

Abby is about to snipe back when he stops her by raising his hand.

“On second thought, I’ll take you to my house. We’re gonna take a day off.”

“But Ethan, we both have patients-”

“Who will be taken care of by the other doctors in this hospital. If you think I’ll be leaving you anytime soon, you’re wrong.”

Hearing his words makes Abby feel lighthearted. She is stubborn just like him, but he’ll always be there for her.

After getting a confirmation and a wink from Naveen, they are in the car. It’s 1:00 P.M., and Abby sees couples sitting on the chairs in the outside booths of a restaurant, smiling, one couple holding hands. She dreams of these moments with Ethan, but their relationship is still uncertain.

The car stops at a red light, and she turns around to look at Ethan, who is lost in thought.

“Ethan, are you alright?” she asks him, concerned.

The mature doctor cracks a dry smile towards her. “I should be asking you that.”

“Ethan...”

“Abby... are you having suicidal thoughts?”

Abby was astounded by his question.

“Ethan! Why would you think that?”

“I’m just asking. If you ever feel that, come talk to me immediately. I can’t...”

It hit her on what Ethan was thinking about. He doesn’t want her to leave. As much as the question made her a little frustrated, she couldn’t help but think about what he was feeling throughout the whole ordeal n the decontamination room.

Abby takes a deep breath. “Ethan, I’m not suicidal. I never have been. I was just uncomfortable, that’s all.”

Ethan looks at her deeply into her eyes. She can literally feel him searching for any lies at her statement, his body relaxing when he didn’t find any. 

When he stops the car, she realizes that they’re here. Before Abby can take off her seatbelt, Ethan’s hand on hers stops her from doing anything. She looks up with a questioning expression.

Ethan speaks in a very stern but concerned way. “If you ever have anything irritating or frustrating you-” he kisses her on the forehead.

“Anything that brings you pain-” He kisses her on the nose, making her scrunch it.

“Anything at all, that makes you want to cry out-” He kisses her on both cheeks. 

“You come and tell me. Promise me” He finally kisses her on the lips.

As the final words come out from Ethan’s lips, she wonders about how she is so lucky to have him. Tears were burning in the back of her eyes, but this time, they were tears of gratefulness. To Ethan. For being her best friend. She cracks a smile.

“I promise.”

*Back to present*

“Hello? Ma’am? Doctor?” she is interrupted from her thoughts by a male nurse. When she checks his tag, his name is Caspian Chapman, and he has a light British accent. She hasn’t seen him before. Abby suddenly feels embarrassed. Who knows how many times, he called her like that.

“Hi, I am so sorry,” she says shyly. “I was lost in thought. Were you speaking to me this whole time?”

Caspian gives her a wide smile. “Nope! I just came in! My name is Caspian, and I will be your nurse! I am new here so...” he trails off.

The young resident laughs, despite the pain on her left side. “Haha, don’t worry! I’m not one of those Karens! Now tell me, how long will I be staying here?”

“From the stab wound you received, you will probably be admitted here for a week.”

Abby inwardly groans, wanting to just go home. Of course this would happen. Even if she’s disappointed by the news, she knows that it is vital for her to recover.

“So, did the stab wound affect my liver or...” she winces at her left side.

Caspian sighs. “You are correct. They brought you to surgery quickly, or who knows what would have happened.”

“Wait, how did you know I’m a doctor?” 

Caspian smiles again. “Are you kidding me? You are Dr. Ethan Ramsey’s protege and in the diagnostics team! Not only that, you helped him save Dr. Naveen Banerji! You are also popular on Instagram. Anyone would kill to be in a spot and reputation like you.”

Her cheeks grow red. 

“I suppose so...” she trails off. 

The new male nurse speaks. “Anyways, I should let Dr. Ramsey, Dr. Banerji, and your family know that you are awake! They will be at relief.”

Wait, what? Ethan is here? Naveen is here? My family is here? They must’ve found out the harsh truth. 

As Caspian turns to leave, Abby stops him. The nurse turns around.

“Yes? Is something the matter?”

“I just wanted to know if they knew who stabbed me.”

Caspian grimaces. “Yes, they are well aware. Do you not wish to speak to them?”

Oh no. Ethan knows. What will she do? Should she call in her family first? No Abby, he'll think that I’m mad at him! She inwardly slaps herself.

Okay, Abby, deep breaths.  She took a deep breath, held it for three seconds, and exhaled. 

“Can you do me a favor and call in Eth- Dr. Ramsey first?”

“I will,” he replies back.

______________________________________________________________

Ethan’s POV

He is terrified. Terrified to go and see her. Terrified to talk to her. But he has to. He has to let her know he loves her. He has to let her know that he can’t live without her. He feels a hand on his shoulder. Seb.

“Ethan, buddy, remember what I said. Tell her you love her. Make yourself happy. Make her happy. And she will never blame you for anything that happened. She’s a very reasonable girl.”

He looks into Seb’s eyes, and sees that there is something he didn’t tell him. Some kind of sadness, but there is happiness mixed in. He will find out later.

The older doctor turns around and sees the support written in their faces. Seb. Jazmin. Naveen. They are smiling broadly.

Naveen claps him on his back. “Now go get your woman, Ethan.”

Ethan smiles back. “Thank you, guys.”

He took a deep breath and opened the doors.

There she is. Abby. At once, she turned her head around, and at once,  dusky brown met ocean blue. She looks tired, her body a little weak, but she still gives him a wide smile that sends his heart swooping forward. Oh, he has it bad. 

“Ethan. Hey.” Abby welcomes him and pats at a seat on her bed. He, however, was hesitant to do so.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you...”

She rolls her eyes. “Ethan, I was stabbed, not hit by a truck. Now, be a good boy and sit on the bed.”

He does as he is asked, sitting on the edge, eyes never leaving hers. “How do you feel?”

“My side’s kinda sore, but I’ll survive... How are you?” she asks hesitantly.

“W-What do you mean?” he stutters. Ethan Ramsey never stutters.

“...I know who the perpetrator is, Ethan.” So she does know.

Before Ethan can say anything, Abby replies. “I know you are blaming yourself for what your mother did. But I will say it again and again until it gets through that smart head of yours. It’s not your fault, do you hear me?”

His eyes are shining with tears, his heart all the way up to his throat.

“Abby... I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He blinks, and a droplet fails to stay in his eyes, escaping from the confinement.

The young resident suddenly sits up, wincing a little at the abrupt movement. Her eyes are full of alarm.  “Ethan, c'mere.”

And he does. He hugs her tight, mindful of her side, his nose nuzzling his neck. Abby wraps her arms around him and strokes his hair. The motion gives him a sense of peace. His eyes drop a few more tears. I will tell her.

“Abby, I love you.” She tenses. Before she says anything, he cuts her off. 

“No, Abby, please listen to me. I’ve loved you since the first day you’ve stepped foot into this hospital. I love how you’re always a colossal pain in my ass. I love how your eyes sparkle every time you hear good news. I love how your dimples pop up when you smile. I love how you bite your lip when you think about something. I love everything about you. Your courage. Your admiration. Your passion. I love you body. I love you face. And i now know, that I never want to let you go again.”

When Ethan pulls back and cups her face, he can see the tears glistening, failing to hold still and dropping down onto her cheeks. She half-sobs and half-laughs.

“Ethan, I love you, too.” And that is all he needs to hear.

He kisses her cold lips gently and pulls back, finding his sense of relief. She, in return, kisses his forehead. He promises to himself one thing: he’ll never let her go again.

______________________________________________________________

Seb’s POV

Seeing them crying of happiness makes him smile, his heart feeling elevated with joy. They deserve this joy. They both’ve been through a lot lately, and confessing their love for each other was their first step towards recovery.

“Psst! Seb!” Amma. Behind her is Naveen.

“How is it going there?”

The surgeon smiles triumphantly. “Our plan worked.”

Quiet cheers came out of their mouths. 

“Finally!” Naveen sighs. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for months. Ethan’s too damn stubborn for his own good.”

Seb laughs quietly. “That he is.”

Amma scratches his wool sweater. He just realized the feeling of itch on his skin because of the wool. And he can’t wait to take it off. But they won’t be leaving Abby’s room for the next two days. Not him, at least.

“Will it be alright if we go in and interrupt them?” Amma asks hesitantly. “I have an urge to hug my daughter after the incident.’

“I am sure that will be alright.”

Amma knocks the door. After hearing an acknowledgment, all three of them walked in. 

“Hi Ethan, is it alright if I hug my daughter? I do not mean to waste any of your-”

Ethan looks at her incredulously. “Why would you ask me if you want to hug your own daughter? I don’t mind at all.”

The famous doctor looks at Seb with a questioning look, who shrugs.

Mother rushes forward and hugs Abby carefully, sobbing as she kisses al of her face. The resident sighs.

“Amma, look at me.” Abby forces Jazmin’s face to her. “I. Am. Fine.”

“Sorry, Ladoo, your mother was just very worried when we got the call. I won’t try to cry, alright?”

The Chacko smiles easily. “now that’s what I wanted to hear from you. My Amma is strong.”

Abby sighs and looks at Seb and Naveen, smiling cheerily. “Who’s next in line for cuddles?”

Seb comes forward, finally at ease when he kisses her forehead gently. He hugs her as tight as he can, the injury preventing him for hugging her more. 

“Please, for the love of Pete, please never scare us like that again.”

She laughs lightly and cuddles closer to him. “I’ll try not to.”

Seb looks up and sees Ethan with a light smile on his face. He finally feels light, free.

He then hears Jazmin’s stomach grumble lightly. Abby laughs hearing this. “Why did you guys not eat? All of you need to get food. Now.”

“I’m not gonna leave you this time around,” he replies. 

Seb’s sister groans. “I knew you would say that.”

The surgeon has an idea. “How about I get all of us some burgers from a nearby restaurant? Since I doubt Ethan’s gonna like what he gets from the cafeteria.”

The famous attending shrugs and then grins easily. “You know me so well.”

“Only for you.”

Abby is on a strict water diet for two days, so he considers buying a cup of chocolate pudding for her. As he leaves the room, he sees Naveen hugging Abby, which brought some emotions to the Chacko. Naveen is like the father he never had before.

Seb is really joyous and filled with triumph at the love confessions between Abby and Ethan. He only wishes it could happen to him.

But it can’t. Because he lost the love of his life last year. Due to a seizure. While she was giving birth. All of their promises. All of their hopes and dreams. Gone. Forever 

I miss her... I miss her a lot.

Suddenly, he hears a whistle. A familiar whistle. It sounds like her. 

When she was alive, they used to whistle a lot. it was a form of their communication. The whistle that heard now was a way of saying, “Turn around.”

No, Seb, he thinks. You’re just letting yourself get too emotional. Stop hallucinating.

But then he hears it again. And it’s behind him. A little far away from him. 

He’s afraid to turn around. He can’t move. 

He forces himself to turn around, like the whistle had told him to.

And then he sees her. He sees her. He actually sees her.

No way, it can’t be... Suddenly, Seb speaks.

“...Dolores? Is that really you?”

She smiles. That smile. He missed that damn smile. Her face and hands are covered with small bruises.

And she talks. “Yeah, Seb. It’s me. Dolores Hudson. I’m alive. I really am.”

______________________________________________________________

Mystery Man’s POV

I give Louise some cash that she was looking forward to. 

“Great, thanks!” she says with a smile.

“Anything for my wife,” I reply, with an emphasis on the word ‘wife’.

She rolls her eyes. “Ugh, don’t call me that. I married you to destroy them, not to love you. Now where’s that manicure you promised?”

Louise is annoying as hell. Sometimes I wonder how her former husband Alan dealt with her. What a man, I think. 

She gives me a mischievous grin. “Now give me a kiss.”

I groan, and I quickly give her a kiss, not wanting it to last for long.

Then, I feel a vibration in my pocket. It’s my phone. I pick it up.

It’s one of my guards. And I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I bark him an order. Blood rushes through my veins, and for the first time in a long time, I feel fear.

I hang up the phone and look at Louise, whose eyes held confusion. I decide to answer her questioning glance.

“Missing captive alert. Dolores Hudson has escaped.”

______________________________________________________________

a/n 2: hope you liked that ending!

a/n 3: i know dolores died of a seizure while under an emergency c-section, but in this au, i refuse to believe so :)

tags:@missmiimiie​ @aylamwrites @starrystarrytrouble​ @udishaman​ @caseyvalentineramsey​ @queencarb​ @choicesstan1​ @newcolonies​ @arcticrivers​ @angela8756 @takemyopenheart​ @rookie-ramsey​ @ohchoices​ @ohvamsey @ohramsey @natureblooms24​ @drariellevalentine​ @maurine07​ @lucy-268 @thanialis

@openheartfanfics

@choicesficwriterscreations

#pixelberry choices #choices stories you play #open heart #open heart choices #pixelberry #pixelberry open heart #ethan ramsey #playchoices #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey x mc #ethan ramsey fanfiction

[in-tua-deep]

tua rewatch with the roommate

Episode five

Oh fuck the “I found you. all your bodies.” scene

“We died?” “Horribly.” throwback to the ben convo o o f

“If perfectly arranged under rubble and otherwise unharmed counts as ‘horribly”’  - roommate

I like that Diego says he’s going to kill Hazel and Cha-Cha like it’s a challenge?? lol five doesn’t care if they live or die he only cares if u do you big dumbass

“Well I know none of the main characters die bc there’s a season 2... and i’m pretty sure they’re all in s2... like all of the family?”

I mean luther is kind of valid for being frustrated that five didn’t share about the apocalypse but also like,,, the first person five told about it (Vanya) suggested he might be insane. so. i can understand some reluctance on his part on top of the whole “the last time my siblings fought this the Whole World Died Including Them i would like them as far away from apocalypse stuff as possible”

okay okay so five says “they turned me into the perfect instrument” so do y’all think that implies experimentation like in the comics or ????

all i can think about during the kennedy scene though is my high school history teacher. he went over the assassination in intimate detail and i’m pretty sure he was writing a book about it and everything. mr. hansen if you’re out there - 

i like feral beard five more than mustache five tbh if i’m picking 

“Someone ELSE shot the president? Was he supposed to shoot kennedy or was he supposed to kill the person who shot kennedy?” - Roommate

love that five tells luther to grow up over murder,,, though to be valid pretty sure they did actually murder people as kids SO. grow down?

fuck i love mary,, will you love me like you loved me in the january rain??? just shoot me in the heart

GOD rob is such a good actor

“wait a second... how is he wearing pants?” oh roommate you have a big storm coming

i have some serious questions about the commission and their methods of communication. where do?? the tubes come from? where do they go after?

Allison: i have a bad feeling [about leonard]

where are these instincts for everything else tho??? her marriage?

“Vanya. she really is trying to look out for you. i really would trust her. you could invite her to come along so she can see he’s perfectly fine??” - Roommate, whose instincts regarding not trusting leonard-harold are spot on

apparently my roommate knows people who put salt in their coffee. i have. so many questions.

“That’s suspicious?? that’s suspicious right?? did he do that? is he a secret serial killer? is he a FUCKING secret serial killer?” roommate when they talk about helen cho going missing

“What do you mean stop showing up it’s been like. a day” - I mean. the roommate has a point. 

Klaus’s depression bath is a mood :(

did klaus put eye shadow on before his bath or did he get his hands on eye shadow in vietnam?? the questions that will never be answered

Five is so enthusiastic about having someone who understands... he doesn’t even notice absolutely Not Being In The Mood,, klaus is grieving and five is just like !!! where did you go!!!! like it was a vacation

klaus: yeah i’m ten months older now. when i’m done being depressed i will lord that over diego for the rest of our natural lives.

does five write in all caps all the time?? why? 

roommate: I wonder what the upper size limit on the knives her can use. like is it machete length? forearm length? what are the limits on his powers. if he sharpened a very sharp mechanical pencil could he use it? if he sharpened a piece of the chandelier? at what point does something become a knife?

me: could he hurl mia (my cat)? mia and her knife feet?

allison also writes in all caps to write leonard’s address

we stan agnes and hazel in this household

“I never said we didn’t !! i just thought she was just a random extra in the first episode and every time we cut away i think that’s the last we’ve seen of her” - roommate because i keep saying that this is an agnes stan household

“OH THERE’S THE PATCHWORK COAT i was afraid it didn’t come back” - okay though good question he definitely didn’t have the coat on the bus. what is it with klaus and his magically appearing coat????

oh :(  oh klaus :(  every time klaus is sad i am also sad :(

honestly a family conversation IS the threat in this family

god though this random vet in this bar is actually an asshole though like. klaus doesn’t owe him shit. klaus served. he’s clearly having a moment with the photo. that could have been a family member or something who died i don’t even know

agnes: i’m a twitcher :)

“like a twitch streamer?” -Roommate

PLEASE give me twitch streamer!Agnes au

look i just enjoy hazel and agnes

roommate: honey you’re too young for her

me: NO DON’T BE MEAN TO THEM,,, agnes deserves a boytoy

“does diego drive a manual?” my roommate once again focusing on things that i do not

five: i have to find the people whose deaths could save the timeline

my roommate: is it agnes?? is he going to kill agnes????

i’m still laughing about that fact that luther is holding dolores.... over the fire escape... she couldn’t drop that far lads

luther’s dumb sometimes but he does have some nice heart to hearts with his brother,,,, honestly he and five get along pretty well in the early episodes. kindred spirits. body dysmorphia and isolation squad.

my roommate has to keep remembering social media doesn’t exist in this universe

i am still confused as to why

that won’t stop me from giving everyone iphones and youtube accounts in my aus though

diego can curve ANYTHING he throws, usually knives, according to cha-cha’s research. but that doesn’t explain the spoilers i have seen about s2 sO

Klaus: You also told me that licking a nine volt battery would give me pubes

HOW DID I FORGET THAT LINE

oh diego got a bullet graze forgot about that as well?? does he ever get like. medical attention for that? diego?????

it really has been like. maybe two days since helen cho died. is no one??? concerned????? they just immediately jump into replacing her??????????????????? hellO? 

“very clear camera angles to show that this actress did not actually play the violin for this role” - i mean that’s fair but ellen is trying rip

me: who’s your favorite character so far?  roommate: that’s a tricky question. klaus is very entertaining to watch. allison is the most reasonable and i’m very interested to know, well, she seems like the best combination of reasonable and has the least selfish intentions. diego and luther i feel like are both good in a bland way in that they’re both doing good in the best way they can which usually involves punching people. five is fun. five is very fun. five is as fun to watch as klaus, they’re both very fun actors to watch on screen. they’re more expressive than diego and luther tend to be.  me: so which is your favorite?????  roommate: first instinct says allison, though she probably has the least dynamic or interesting arc so far

are hazel and cha-cha the best because their victims never see them coming?? like. they aren’t really THAT competent.

“I do LOVE the aesthetic of an ice cream truck playing ride of the valkyries” - my roommate is valid

“LOVE the hypersaturated background in this scene. it’s more fun that having it be desaturated.”

five looks so baby in this scene with the handler :(

still unsure where five got that handgun but i’m vibing

hate when she touches his face !! awful!!!

the handler’s little “all of them??” like yeAH ALL OF THEM even though they irritate the living FUCK out of each other. siblings man

ben gets shotgun for the getaway !!! go ben!

“I’m starting to think... given how space and reality seemed to be warping during her playing... that her medication... isn’t for anxiety...” - oh, oh roommate

ah i blocked out the leonard vanya make out as well

“DIDN’T YOU MEET HIM TWO DAYS AGO?” - yeah i feel u roommate

yup there’s helen’s body

“CSI call crime scene investigation - that’s going to start to smell real soon”

pogo: and you understand that the children can never know

me: actually pogo fuck you

and that’s episode 5 everyone thank you and goodnight

episode six

i do love a good flashback to klaus

klaus: sees a shirtless soldier and instantly falls in love

they don’T EVEN QUESTION HIM just “KATZ GET THIS MAN A PAIR OF PANTS” and they go with it?? he just APPEARED and they don’t even care

klaus was really just vibing in the 60s huh

wait this is like 1962 or 63 right

when does s2 take place?? also the 60s right???

didn’t kennedy die in 1963 i feel like what i know about s2 contradicts that date but i could have sworn they said a round trip to 1963??????

luther is SUCH A MOOD in the family briefing.

“aww he’s a bad liar” - roommate

“I realize that [the umbrella] was necessary for the title drop but where the fuck did that come from”

@ the handler please stop touching five,,, but also five has such. non reactions to her touching him. which worries me. like she grabs his shoulder walking alongside him and he doesn’t even look at her

why are there gas masks in the briefcase room...

can you IMAGINE if your boss toted a child into the room and introduced him as the Legendary Time Travelling Assassin that the whole office had a betting pool over who would die that one time and is Definitely approaching 60 not 13... and then called him LEADERSHIP MATERIAL. implying that this child will probably get a promotion before you do?? can you IMAGINE?

“again... two days ago...” roommate about leonard and vanya

vanya really chose literally just the worst time to come back to the academy huh

okay but vanya going off?? valid, but also,, i mean. it IS their dads fault that they don’t have any relationship with vanya?

luther: it’s about the moon  roommate: critical role moon theory

hey like. how did the family get together in the first timeline holy fuck. it’s hard enough to get them together when they Literally Know The World Is Going To End

so remember diego getting grazed with a bullet yeah well he has a sling on now which makes sense!! and yet. when five got grazed by a bullet he SLAPS A BANDAID ON IT. someone please address this.

five is such an asshole coworker i love it

i wonder if dot is a mother. or just a nice coworker. she keeps trying to talk to him and invite him to lunch aww

i wonder if it’s purposeful on the handler’s part to call him “mr. five” instead of “mr. hargreeves” to like... further isolate him from his family? by removing his last name they’re sort of removing his ties to his siblings considering it’s not like they’re related by blood

forgot how much i hate the bathroom scene !! wow !! hate it so much!!! there’s so many violations of social etiquette in such a short scene! it’s so deeply uncomfortable!

luther: stop it pogo! you know everything our dad did

i am remembering once again how much i hate pogo all over again!! reginald literally locked klaus in a mausoleum!! he abused the kids! pogo didn’t even speak up about sending luther to the MOON,,, oh luther :(

he just learned his dad exiled him for no reason he has lots of rights his entire world view was just shattered wow i am like infinitely more sympathetic to luther on the second watch

“I knew allison and luther was a thing. you told me allison and luther was a weird thing. still not a fan.” - my very valid roommate

they could have made the fort so much more sibling-y instead of romantic and it would have been so much better honestly

oh dave :(

“I wonder who her primary care physician is and if she can find out what that medication was...” roommate i wish i knew

“I’m trying to decide if he knew ahead to time to try and get at her specifically or like... i don’t know when he took the figurine I was like ‘doesn’t he own an antique shop is he there to steal antiques from the family home’.” roommate on leonard

forgot the handler gifted five a suit. also don’t like that. don’t like her talk about his body and everything either.

“is it too much to ask to give him two outfits? one he can wear now and one with the new body?” - roommate

honestly with hazel’s talk on budget cuts i’m not surprised he only gets one suit

STOP TOUCHING HIS FACE,,,, HANDLER. STOP TOUCHING HIS FACE

five and his sweet tooth. don’t take the candy five. come on. what did your father TEACH YOU. honestly reggie probably was like “let them get kidnapped it will probably teach them a life lesson”

“there were like... villages that needed rebuilding after disasters. he could have been sending these packages to legit lunar research facilities. legit facilities would have adored to have that information.” 

okay but people KNEW he was on the moon. cha-cha mentioned it. it was in vanya’s book. why were scientists not knocking down reginald’s door demanding the research??? if i was a moon scientist i would have the mansion staked out trying to demand info jesus

“love his eye fluttering in the way of ‘oh shit i got something in my eye i can’t break character scene is still going scene is stILL GOING’“ - hilarious observations from the allison luther fort scene 2.0: grown up version that gets erased

did they just leave the fort up all those years. did no one USE the green house??? did grace lovingly work around it all that time?

oh :(  dave :(

grace is capable of lying and pogo is a shadowy motherfucker

“okay now that they’re actually putting it into the plot i understand why you don’t think he’s trustworthy but you really got on my back about that”

in my defense i just hate him tbh i did not like him when he first showed up and i never particularly liked him tbh

allison: i think you’re the only person who knows who i am and likes me anyway

me, remembering the theory that allison rumored luther to love her: HMMMMMM

okay but i think the luther and allison dance scene is fucking HILARIOUS. absolutely ridiculous. i mean i hate that it’s incest but also the fucking LIGHTS DESCENDING. the RANDOM WARDROBE CHANGE. 

roommate likes the green underskirt thing under allison’s random dance dress

are they just doing this in public???

ugh. the kiss. ugh. erased that from my memory as well

“they clearly want romance in this show but they painted themselves into a corner with the siblings thing” - roommate

five and his fucking STAPLERS isn’t this the second time he’s knocked someone out with a stapler?? the bank robber and now gloria??

five please your siblings were finally doing some decent work on their own issues :/

five is the kind of dramatic as fuck entrances 

“love how he just grabs [allison’s] coffee. kid needs a coffee after all that.” - roommate

five actually does a good job of rallying the siblings though?? they just broke the fuck up in the og timeline

“something tells me that harold jenkins might be leonard”

oh roommate

episode seven

uh oh harold was born

i feel vaguely bad for him

“me the night before a convention” - roommate on harold’s tape and cosplay and everything

okay but how did reginald even KNOW harold jenkins had no powers?? did he? keep tabs on all the forty some kids not just the seven he kept?

but also why the fuck are these people laughing at An Actual Child fuck all of them honestly

“did HE kill hargreeves?? I mean. he’s got motive.” - roommate

harold really said “i think my superpower is actually this hammer motherfucker”

how did he get twelve years?? was he tried as an adult?? was he in juvie? how old WAS he

twelve years ago... they’re 29 soooo seventeen? he did NOT look seventeen? he was NOT seventeen in that flashback what???

roommate theorizes that harold ran off after the murder and committed petty crimes until caught and tried for murder when he was seventeen so was maybe 13 in the flashback

okay so i looked up the timeline and he got out in 2014 or something so he was like 13 in the flashback which makes SO much more sense honestly but also what the FUCK was he doing for five years

“he’s actually laying out all the facts as he knows them and I appreciate that.” -roommate about five briefing the team

five?? the only member of the family with communication skills? it’s? somehow more likely than you think?

“allison’s pants that she’s wearing now are the most perfectly tailored things i’ve ever seen. not even a wrinkle when she’s standing still. do you know how hard that is to do?” again my roommate noticing the things i absolutely do not

five. five. you have a GUT WOUND and also jumped a BUNCH OF TIMES. you are not blinking into the police station and getting the file. you need some SLEEP. and REST. and WOUND CARE FIVE FOR FUCK’S SAKE. you still have a GUNSHOT GRAZE on your upper arm and a SLICE on your wrist from DIGGING OUT A TRACKER. FIVE.

diego wants to be batman SO BAD.

five crossing his arms and Not Uncrossing Them because he’s literally HOLDING HIMSELF TOGETHER.

wow luther is really handling this so much worse in this timeline rip

luther is losing validity points for CHOKING KLAUS i knew this happened but i didn’t remember how awful it was !!! bad and terrible! and luther is very drunk and very sad and very angry. oh. he’s saying he never left the house and never had friends for nothing :(

klaus had the realization that reggie was an asshole YEARS ago and he’s just kind of like “aww. luther :(” 

klaus is trying so hard

“Klaus has had the most heart to hearts with the most siblings honestly.” - roommate

allison at the beginning making her laugh in the office with the EYES, five on the steps of meritech, diego after the vet bar, luther on the couch...

wow cha cha really thought hazel was talking about how meaningful his partnership was with her when he was talking about agNES

five limping up the lawn and staggering up the stairs and clinging to the rails baBY SIT DOWN. YOU ARE BLEEDING.

“inspiring leadership” “one of the greats” what a sibling moment honestly.

five really said “i think i will pass the fuck out now”

five really said “hey i am literally willing to die for this mission because this mission is the safety and lives of my entire family and i love you guys :(”

except he doesn’t because five is decent at information sharing but getting feelings out of him feels like pulling teeth at times smh

is leonard trying to vicariously live his “normal child born on the umbrella academy day discovers they have had powers the WHOLE TIME” dream through vanya??

we yell about how leonard and vanya have known each other for like a week but i mean same for hazel and agnes!! he’s literally asking her to run away with him and she says yes !!!!! agnes is here for the romantic adventure with this man she’s really living her first hot girl summer and living for it

“she’s having her own little rom com! she thinks she’s living in a rom com not a dark sci fi!” - roommate accurate as usual

she just called ben the emotional support ghost and i mean... she ain’t wrong

honestly klaus should have just left luther to his rave, he didn’t get to party in his teens or during his college years or anything

i do appreciate the viking yell of “B R O T H E R” that luther greets klaus with though because that’s exactly how i greet my own siblings whenever i see them

oh klaus :(

oh klaus :(

he’s having war flashbacks, cravings, is in withdrawal, AND experiencing sensory overload while reliving one of the more traumatizing moment of his life

oh klaus :(

five in a bed for the second time of the season which is nice for him. if only the first time wasn’t because he passed out drunk and the second time wasn’t because of a whole shrapnel wound. i am now that captain of the Let Five Sleep brigade holy SHIT like at least they imply that the others sleep five is just feral and ready to go at all times

are the police allowed to just. remove someone’s arm sling? is that permitted? his arm could be fucked up? i mean. it is? he was shot?

“I saw everything my brothers and sister could do ruin their lives” VANYA some REALIZATION up in here,,,, admitting that the umbrella academy wasn’t exactly a desirable place to be is actually some real growth for her and leonard just fucking shuts her down? fuck that man

VANYA SEE THE RED FLAGS FOR WHAT THEY ARE COME ON

oh klaus :(  oh luther :(  oh :(

“love his corset side pants, like benedict from violet evergarden” - on the topic of Klaus’s pants

“I made everyone else so I must have made you” says god except for the fact that the kids just... surprise popped up instead of coming about the natural way. maybe god DIDN’T made them????????

oh klaus :(  prepare for disappointment :(

oh i didn’t notice the photos of the umbrella academy in the barbershop the first time i watched this

so klaus gives an age for the mausoleum... thirteen... do you think that was before or after five left? statistically it’s probably after bc it was only a couple of months after they turned thirteen that five vanished

Klaus’s “we were just kids” breaks my heart every time

if i was one of reggie’s kids i would have just not gone to the funeral. rip to the hargreeves kids but i’m different

he doesn’t even call klaus klaus in death, he still calls klaus number four. fuck that man.

“i was gonna say i’d have been very very surprised if they kept him dead” - roommate on klaus waking up

“Five bucks says he set these guys up to try and get something out of her” - the roommate being very perceptive

cha cha is VERY rude to my girl agnes

honestly why DIDN’T hazel just kill cha cha after her whole speech and threats about killing agnes slowly in front of him???? like he literally watched her try to kill him as well

why wasn’t diego arrested in the original day that wasn’t actually?? he was being considered already. he still left the house, albeit with grace instead of allison. why wasn’t he arrested then???????? 

roommate thinks it’s interesting how committed the show is to their old timey shit. she used a nicer words like anachronisms but the point is: w h y

are these episodes even longer than i remember?? holy SHIT

#tua rewatch #honestly these are half proof to my sister that i am watching tua #she keeps yelling at me about s1 #there can't be that many more episodes right #apparently there are ten episodes in s1 #that's a whole 'nother three hours #jeebus #and then ten more hours for s2 #so LONG

[robotslenderman]

Eternal Hearts Liveblog: Part 4: Chapter 7-8

An actual thing I told a friend when I started this draft: “These chapters have been a real let down in comparison [to the face-sitting/dick-key-ring guy chapter]. Altho I’m on the necrophilia chapter now so things are looking up!”

And we start off with a body in the trunk.

RIP Charley.

Don’t worry, he’s not the body involved with the necrophilia, because it wouldn’t be problematic enough otherwise.

WARNING: DEAD DOVE, DO NOT EAT! This a liveblog of Eternal Hearts, which is a book that got de-canoned about a week after publication for good fucking reason!

Today’s warnings are: Necrophilia, necrophiliac rape (”but Dusty, isn’t necrophilia by definition rape?” buddy I didn’t say the corpse was the one not consenting. This is, like, rape squared), fridged WLWs (I wish that was the worst thing that happened to this particular WLW), me pretending Sascha Vykos has a period kink until Lucy refuses to let me lie to myself any longer (it makes sense in context. Unfortunately), corrective rape mention, and the current chew toy of the universe getting kidnapped after we know somebody’s been hinting about wanting to rape her (not Becca).

Yeah it’s rape all the way down.

This chapter is worse than usual. At least dick keyring guy was funny, this chapter’s just...

dear fucking god shoot me now. “The necrophilia chapter” does not prepare you for what is coming (it’s not me. I’m not coming. I’m as dry as the Sahara)

Godspeed, you poor bastard. May god welcome you through the Pearly Gates, although I’m not sure Heaven exists in this shitty shitty universe.

Oh yeah and he wants to murder Becca, clearly.

Trust me, Lucy. WE KNOW. Dude’s gotten laid twice and all he can think about is his sister and it’s the only way he can get off, ewwwww.

Like -- full disclosure? Brother/sister incest, when consensual, has never really fazed me at all. There’s way sicker shit out there (see: this entire fucking novel) than two adults consensually fucking and I really don’t care. “Ooooh, they’re ~*~SIBLINGS~*~, aren’t I an edgelord?” no man I honestly don’t give a shit.

But there’s that, and then there’s... this.

Touching David’s dick or being forced to touch his dick is gross no matter how distant you both are in the gene pool.

Poor Becca. Poor, poor Becca.

Jesus fucking Christ. Do I really need to comment on this one?

David reminisces on his first rapes of Becca. He uses the word “nymphet” which, if you’re well read enough, you’ll recognise as the same word Humbert Humbert uses to describe Dolores in Lolita, specifically a word that he used to describe sexually attractive (to him, mind) ~13YOs.

So he raped her that night and ofc he thought she liked it (which is why he’s calling it “rape”, obviously). Loud sigh. And we get descriptions of the rapes -- Becca takes escalating precautions to protect herself up until she threatens him with a knife, at which point the rapes stop. Because nothing says “I wanna have sex with you” like locking your door and threatening your bro with a knife.

So he’s raped her three times.

Now he wants revenge for her telling Emmet to check him into rehab. Specifically, revenge with his dick.

So David goes to Becca’s house, presumably to rape her, because that’s all he can fucking think about. He is hyperfocused on this bullshit.

Luckily for both Becca, there’s nobody there. Except the girlfriend, who’s dead, because the poor fuck got stuck in a room with Sascha fucking Vykos. And a creepy AF vampire.

(David briefly fantasises about Emmet and Becca banging each other bc... Reasons I guess???)

Anyway, David breaks in and meets a creepy vampire.

Look, let me tell you upfront here, spoilers galore: the Eternal Hearts wiki page lied. This isn’t actually Isabel, it’s Sascha, even though “Isabel” hears a sound and calls out to “Sascha”, thinking it’s Sascha, because of... idk, Reasons???

Look, consistency isn’t this book’s strong point, okay?

Anyway they’re Sascha Vykos, not Isabel, but we don’t actually find that out ‘til chapter nine. So Sascha’s hanging out there, pretending to be Isabel, and is like “ohh hey, I heard a noise, is it... ME???”

Oh yeah, and “Isabel” has beheaded Becca’s girlfriend and is drinking the blood out of the severed head like an edgelord.

I’m choosing to believe that Sascha Vykos brought a blood bag over to indulge a period kink and that the blood between their thighs has nothing to do with the severed head they were just sucking on.

(Blame the author, not me, I’m just the fucking messenger.)

Saschabel starts masturbating. With their fingers. I think it’s really important to stress that they’re using their fingers, given what’s coming up later.

They know David is watching, they’re taunting him. They also think the poor corpse is Becca and are like “hey why don’t you eat me out and taste your sister’s blood?” because Saschabel just HAPPENED TO HAVE A BLOOD BAG IN IT WITH BECCA’S BLOOD LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU

Even David is like “yeah, no.” And also has a surprising amount of sense:

And then:

BLOOD BAGS ARE GREAT FOR PERIOD KINKS AM I RIGHT

Aaaaand then Saschabel grabs the severed head and then starts --

oh

oh

AAAUGH

OH GOD

WHY

WHY

WHYYYYYYYY

There goes the blood bag/period kink idea. God fucking DAMN IT. You couldn’t let me just HAVE THIS for ONCE, could you, Eternal Hearts?!?!

David realises that the corpse isn’t Becca because its (her? fuck) tits aren’t big enough. Also he has a huge boner. Saschabel has noted this fact.

Saschabel also somehow knows that David wants to bone his sister, because...??? idk. Auspex or something.

and uh

then David starts making out with them.

?????????????????????????????????????????

because what Saschabel was just doing was... really hot? yeah nothing turns David on like corpsefucking I guess. And also lapping up the blood on Sascha’s stomach. dear god dude you’re not even a vampire what the fuck you’ve got NO EXCUSE.

David is about to screw Saschabel senseless but Saschabel is like “lol, no, you’re gonna do the corpse first.”

David is like WHAT.

Saschabel is like “(:” and also makes a pun about heads.

Honestly that terrible pun is the most tasteful part of this whole chapter.

(Actually no, scratch that, Saschabel compares David’s expression to an “untipped waiter” and that is genuinely funny. Dude’s about to be raped by proxy with a corpse and his reaction is compared to an untipped waiter.)

(Yeah that isn’t funny at all but look, if I don’t laugh I’ll cry so I’m choosing to laugh.)

David finally gives in to Saschabel’s threats and goes to town and we get to hear about it in sordid detail, which I will spare you. And thankfully, after an explicit couple of paragraphs, we cut to chapter fucking eight!

Thank. Fucking. CHRIST.

This chapter introduces us to Tony, who is a vampire hunter because he’s an adrenaline junky.

Tony daydreams about his guns, then gets horny:

Dude don’t fuck your prey, that’s just --

I changed my mind, fuck your prey as much as you like, it’s gonna be less rapey than this insinuation because at least if you rape a vampire they’ll rape you right back so we won’t feel as gross.

We cut to Odette, the woman Tony is thinking rapey thoughts about, who’s tailing Lucita and thinking about how she could run like hell right now if she wanted.

(PLEASE, RUN. RUNNN. RUN FAR AWAAAAAY)

And then she gets a flashback about being raped by a camp counselor, because... idk why not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is actually really sad, because Odette is absolutely torn about running away from Victoria -- wanting to be free, but also too scared to leave, and too devoted to Victoria to leave. And also Victoria’s clearly been using Auspex on her, and Odette is scared of her mind reading powers.

Lucita seems to spot Odette, and turns around and heads towards her. But before she can reach Odette:

I presume this is Tony, the guy who wants to rape her.

Poor fucking goddamn Odette.

End chapter eight!

#Eternal Hearts liveblog #Eternal Hearts cw because like... if I listed all the warnings again we'd be here ALL DAY #and possibly I'd get the FBI overreaching their jurisdiction just to make me STOP #please kill me #wait actually #given what happened in chapter seven I'd just rather you didn't #I'll make do with a coma or something #VTM #Eternal Hearts #oh god that was horrible #rape cw #I can't believe I forgot to add that Jesus

[soft--dragon]

Home Again

Five is still figuring out how to adjust to his new body and new life, surrounded by real people who cared

In which the Umbrella fam is worried about Five, and Five gets the damn hug he needs

Cursing (I wish I could say it was minor, but this is Five and his chaotic siblings were talking about here)

Don’t really know where this is set, sometime during season 1, I had an idea so I just wrote it (Vanya isn’t in this though she’s every bit deserving to be in the Umbrella Family as the rest of them)

Enjoy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Five knew it wasn’t going to be a good day.

It was a feeling that settled in his gut the longer the day dragged on. He jumped from his room to the kitchen, startling Klaus, and probably Ben who Five assumed was close by.

Klaus quickly got over his momentary shock, blinking a few times, taking in the bags under Five’s eyes and slump in his posture.

“You look like shit dude.”

It was a blunt statement from Klaus, one that deserved an equally blunt retort from Five. “Fuck off.”

The smallest of the Umbrella Academy dumped the contents of the coffee pot into a mug, taking a large gulp of the dark, rich liquid. He sighed at the familiar taste, swirling the half of the remainder before downing that too. Klaus visibly recoiled, eyebrows shooting to his hairline.

“Five, you might want to take it easy on the coffee, you’re in a body that isn’t built to hold that much caffeine.”

“That’s rich coming from the guy that’s killing himself with drugs and alcohol” Five bit back, eyes narrowing at his brother.

Klaus quickly raised his hands in surrender, hoping it might relax the riled boy in front of him. “Calm down Five, I was just-”

Five jumped before he could finish the sentence, taking what remained in the coffee pot with him.

“....That...could’ve gone better” Ben said from where he was sitting on the dining table, a contemplative look on his face.

“Yeah no shit genius” Klaus grumbled, crossing his arms firmly. “But at least he didn’t stab me.”

“Diego’s more likely to do that than Five, Klaus.”

“Fair point.”

Ben turned to look at where Five had disappeared, anxiety prickled at his skin. Something wasn’t right with his baby brother.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Allison wasn’t phased when she heard a loud thump close to her room. In this household, random noises were entirely normal. This was a mansion with six supernatural people, plus a mom robot and a advanced chimpanzee.

But what sounded like glass breaking and a hissed curse made Allison stand and move to the door. What she found, wasn’t what she expected.

Five was kneeling on the floor, rubbing his head and glaring daggers at the shards of glass surrounding him. The carpet was stained with what smelled like coffee.

“Five?”

The boy’s glare snapped up to Allison who had the sense to not react lest she agitate him further. Five was like a feral cat sometimes, had to be slow and unthreatening for him to give you the slightest sign of trust.

She leaned against the doorway, trying to appear casual. “You alright?”

“Fine.” The reply was curt and rough, like Five was trying not to let too much emotion slip out.

“Need a hand cleaning that up?”

“No, I’m more than capable Allison.”

“I know you are, I was just offering to help-”

Five hissed another curse and with a blink of light, he was gone again. Leaving Allison confused and a little hurt in his wake.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t a smooth jump.

Five stumbled over his feet, similar to outside Allison’s room where he dropped the coffee pot. He almost face planted, but managed to catch himself on a nearby desk.

“Jesus Christ Five!”

The shout made him start, leaping into a defensive stance, almost snarling like an animal. His gaze fell on Diego lying on his bed. He was clutching his chest and a knife tightly, breathing rapidly. Probably coming down from the momentary adrenaline rush of fright.

“Why the hell are you in my room!?” Diego asked, but there was no real heat behind his words, mostly confusion.

Five didn’t pick up on the lack of venom, instead challenging the question with his own spiteful words.. “I didn’t do it on purpose asshole!” He snapped, gripping the desk tighter when he felt himself tether on his feet.

Diego must’ve seen it cause he sat up, putting the knife down. His usual glare being replaced by raised eyebrows and worried eyes. “Five, you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine! Why does everyone keep asking me that?!”

Diego’s worry disappeared in a split second at the sharp retort. He glared back in response, feeling his anger rise like a wild fire. “Because we care? Don’t know why we bother though, seeing as you piss on every attempt of basic emotion we give you.”

Five flinched back, gritting his teeth to ignore the pain that sentence gave him, but good god did it sting. He blinked away before Diego saw how much that statement hurt. He refused to show weakness.

But Deigo had seen it. Guilt and regret pooled into his stomach, staring at the spot where Five has just been. “Damn it” he hissed to himself, pinching the skin between his eyes.

Five hadn’t had proper company throughout his years in the apocalypse. He was relearning the ropes of socialising with his family. And adjusting to life in general.

Deigo sagged onto his bed, gripping his knife like a life line.

Why did he never think before speaking?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Luther was probably the very last person Five wanted to see right now. And to make matters worse, he was accompanied by Pogo and Grace.

The universe seemed to love kicking him when he was down.

The trio looked over when Five blinked into existence, close to falling down again due to his exhaustion of late nights and constant jumping.

“Oh hello sweetie” Grace smiled pleasantly, though concern shone through her robotic features at Five’s state. “Are you al-?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine” Five cut her off, waving a hand in their general direction. He needed to jump again. Away from people for awhile.

“Master Five” Pogo spoke up. “You seem exhausted?”

“Late night Pogo” Five replied shortly, hoping he’d be satisfied with the answer and leave him alone. He went to leave the room when a strong, yet gentle grip caught his upper arm.

It didn’t matter to Five that it was gentle. The fact was, it was still a grip.

He swung round in barely contained panic, throwing a fist. It slammed against Luther’s jaw. Though it barely making the bulkier man shift, the look on his face said everything Five knew Luther was feeling.

Shock, concern, anger, maybe even fear.

He jumped for a fourth time, leaving Luther, Pogo and Grace behind in varying levels of distress.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Five hit the ground again, almost screaming every foul word he knew right then and there in frustration. He wasn’t trying to be a dick. Honest to god he wasn’t. But his siblings were just so- so....caring. He wasn’t used to it, he wasn’t used to having others around, except Dolores.

They all wanted to help him. He suspected it was because of his form, he looked so vulnerable that they felt a need to protect and help him any way they could. It was kinda sweet really, but so incredibly forgein to him. He reacted the only way he knew how. With anger.

It was the only emotion he had been feeling these days. Anger at himself for screwing up the equation that got him stuck like this. Anger that he wasn’t able to save his family from the apocalypse. Anger because he wasn’t damn smart enough to figure out how to save the world.

Horror swirled in Five’s gut when his vision became blurred, the tears slipping from his eyes and onto the carpet. He swiped a furious arm across his eyes but it did nothing to stem the flow. He scrambled to his feet, running down the hall. He had to get to his room. If he got there, he could hide, and the others would never know he was crying.

Why couldn’t he jump? His mind was muddled. He couldn’t see. He could barely breathe.

He slammed into something solid. He would’ve fallen to the ground if a tender hold to his arms didn’t stop him. He could hear someone talking, but he couldn’t place them. It was all too much right now. All he could see was ash, taste it on his tongue, feel it on his skin.

He screamed, not knowing what else to do, tears streaming down his face. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, everyhing was too damn loud.

But then he felt...warm? It was like a heavy blanket had been put around his shoulders. He clung into the source of the warmth, desperately to not let it go. To not back to the freak show he’d been forced to live with for 45 years.

“...ive! Five you’re okay, please just breathe for me, breathe you can do it.”

He knew that voice, he knew it. It wasn’t Dolores, it couldn’t have been Reginald he was dead-

“Five please, please just breathe.”

Five complied, trying to draw in air but coughing when he couldn’t get in a full breath.

“That’s it buddy, you’re doing so good, come on, in and out.”

Five tried again, fingers digging into a soft material.

“You’ve got it, you’re doing great Five.”

Five drew in another breath, feeling his head clear. He pitched forward heavily, being caught by a sturdy figure.

“Good job Five” a soft voice murmured praisingly. “I’m proud of you.”

Five blinked a few times, the tears in his eyes not fully receding. Above him was black hair, kind eyes and a soft smile.

“B-Ben?”

The ghost smiled wider, gently squeezing Five’s arms in confirmation. “Yeah, feel better now bud? Got it out of your system?”

Five’s hesitated then his head fell against his brother’s collarbone, sniffing. “Yeah...”

“You wanna tell me what triggered it?”

Five’s fist clenched Ben’s jacket tighter. “Memories” he mumbled.

Ben nodded his understanding. They stayed like that for awhile, Ben holding his little brother tightly to his chest, rubbing his back comfortingly. It felt nice, but Five’s anxiety wouldn’t stop spiking.

“I’m scared Ben...”

The small, unsure voice that spoke broke Ben’s heart. He squeezed Five tighter to him. Wishing he could take away all the pain and fear Five had to deal with during his time in the apocalypse. Take that away and give him his childhood back. See the boy laugh with a sparkle in his eye like he used to when they were all young. He dropped a kiss into Five’s hair, resting his head atop his smaller brother’s.

“I know” he murmured, “and I’m sorry you had to be alone for so long. I’m so sorry Five.”

The pair stood, arms wrapped around each other for a long time. Ben lost track of the minutes that went by. Though he did notice Five was getting steadily heavier in his arms. When he looked down, the boy was out.

Ben shook his head fondly, lifting Five into his arms. He paused for a moment. Had he always been this light? Ben couldn’t remember Five ever feeling so...small.

He shook off the surprise, carrying his sibling to Five’s room, gently easing him onto the bed. He sat on the edge, watching Five sleep, taking in how young he looked, but aware of how old he was. Having seen death and destruction at every turn. Years spent in solitude, forced to survive in a barren wasteland for years. It was horrid of think about.

Ben’s hand phased out of reality for a moment as he brushed it through his brother’s hair. Five nuzzled into the touch, eyebrows finally relaxing and giving him a look of peace.

“Sleep well Five” Ben murmured. “Your family will be here when you wake up, I promise.”

#ben #klaus #allison #five #ptsd #fanfic #the umbrella academy #tua #luther #diego #pogo #grace #i am so sorry five #angst #hoo boy is angst a thing in this #ben is best bro #my fanfic

[headoverhiddles]

Bonnie and Clyde - David Dolores Frank (Marilyn Manson) x Reader

Synopsis: You run into a not-so-armed and dangerous fugitive. 

Thanks to @ask-lizzie for the idea! Kind of short, but short and sweet.

Your first thought when you see the cop car ahead of you is to run. Get the hell out of there, before the driver of the car comes back and recognizes you.

It'd be pretty hard to recognize you dressed like this, though. Beanie, black hoodie, no identifiable features visible. You relax a little, and walk normally by toward your motorbike. Looking like a law abiding citizen is less suspicious anyway.

Hearing the sound of shuffling footsteps quickly approaching from behind, you turn. It's a man in a baseball cap, a jacket and jeans, hurrying down the sidewalk with his hands taped together. He gives you an awkward smile as he tries to waddle by.

"Hey! You okay?" you ask.

"I'm sorry, I can't talk right now or I'm going to be murdered," he says. You look behind him in confusion, and see a cop, most likely the owner of the squad car you just walked by, aiming a gun this way.

"Oh," you nod, "I see your point." You grab and tackle him as a gunshot goes off, and you hear the cop swear about something. You figure you have enough to get this guy out of here, so you take him to your motorcycle, urging him on the back as you get your swiss army knife out to cut him free.

"Um, miss? I'm not wearing any protection on my head, and I feel uncomfortable--"

"Just get on the damn bike, hurry!"

He does so, holding on as best he can, and you take off.

"Damn Hell's Angels!" the cop shouts after you, waving his gun. "That's some Sons of Anarchy shit right there!"

As the residential neighborhood starts to fade away behind you two, you kill the speed a little, and sigh in relief for having survived that. You realize his hands have settled around your waist, and he's holding onto you for dear life.

"Hey. Um..." he says loudly, over the roar of the engine. "Thank you. For... saving me? And not letting me... be killed... yeah."

You stop the bike in a relatively deserted part of the city, and help him off.

"Not a problem. I'm always up to look out for a fellow outlaw." You grin. He blinks at you.

"Oh, I'm not a criminal. I was kidnapped, and... I don't really know what happened, but it involved loud music and a scary dude in underwear. That cop guy." He swallows. "You're much prettier to look at than he was... though..."

You raise your eyebrows, and smile a little. This guy is cute.

"What's your name?"

He sticks his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "My name is David Dolores Frank."

"I'm (y/n). Come with me if you want to live." He stares at you in mortal fear, and you wave your hand. "It's a joke. Terminator? Come on." You lead him down an alley. "We'd better lay low for a bit, just in case the creep decides to follow us."

He takes your hand as you walk, and your smile grows. "Question," he says.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you, um, dressed like a hoodlum?" He points to your hoodie, grimacing. "Because you look like a hoodlum."

You slide down the wall, sitting down. "Unlike you apparently, I'm a wanted criminal." He freezes again, his fight or flight obviously engaged, and you roll your eyes. "I saved your life, I'm not about to hurt you." He nods, and cautiously sits down beside you.

"What did you do?"

"Stole the Mona Lisa."

He puts his head in his hands. "Oh my god. Oh my god, that's like... the biggest crime ever. Why did you steal that?"

"I have my reasons," you shrug. He stares at you for a while, before finally deciding you're okay. You catch him staring, and tilt your head back at him. "You're looking at me like I'm about to grow three heads."

"Well, you did just tell me you stole the Mona Lisa... we’re like Bonnie and Clyde, running away from the cops together." You snort. 

“Except for the fact that you’re not actually wanted.” 

“He wants me.” David scrunches his face up. “That sounds wrong.” 

“Just... relax. Try not to freak out, okay?” He sighs.

 "I'm sorry. You're just really beautiful, I can't stop looking... um... I'm bad at this."

A blush spreads over your cheeks. You haven't blushed in years. "You're sweet, David Dolores Frank." He rests his head gently on your shoulder, and looks around.

"This alley place is creepy. It's kind of exciting."

"Yeah. This is where I hide when shit goes down. Cops never really think to find me in an alley."

"I don't know. This guy-- my aggressor-- was weird. He was so weird. A dirty cop or something. He was very dirty, called me a street hooker."

"Are you a street hooker?" you ask.

"No!" he protests, "I'm not a street hooker. I'm just..." You smile, nudging him.

"It's cool. I get it."

"The dirty cop man had, like... drugs and stuff, or what I think are drugs because I don't know what drugs look like... in his house. And he lived there with his mom... it was weird." You laugh, shaking your head.

"This story just keeps devolving into more and more of a nightmare."

"I'd still be living it if you hadn't have come along," he says, "He would have shot my legs off or something." You hum.

"Forget it, David Delores Frank. I'm just glad I met you. You're nice, and the only person I've met who hasn't threatened to turn me into the police."

"I wouldn't do that," he mumbles. "Even though I don't know you. I just... like you?" He looks up at you, and then the sky. "Sky's getting dark."

"Yeah. You okay with that?"

"Yeah..." You give one last look down both ends of the alley. He speaks up again. "...I would prefer someplace more well lit, though. With brighter lights."

"My apartment's a couple blocks from here. Wanna crash there?" He nods, and the two of you head over there. Once upstairs, he looks around.

"Pretty cool place. You got somewhere for me to play my tunes?"

You shed your jacket on the couch, and smile. "Only if I get to dance with you." David ducks his head, and takes out his iPod.

"You're really going to love this, (y/n)." He scrolls through and grins as he presses play. "It doesn't sound at all like a man who's got his balls caught in a washing machine, trust me."

#marilyn manson fanfiction #reader x marilyn manson #marilyn manson x reader #marilyn manson #david dolores frank #wrong cops #wrong cop #marilyn manson imagine #marilyn manson imagines #mansonite #mansonites

[princesssarcastia]

the day that was(n’t)

edit 4/9/20: now on ao3, if you’d prefer

Allison buys two tickets for Luther and he still hunches his shoulders in, trying to make himself that much smaller.  She hasn’t let go of his hand since they left the park.  Everything is balancing on a knife’s edge in her mind, and if she loses him as an anchor right now she’ll crumble.

Her ears pop as they rise, rise, rise, and she clenches Luther’s hand and finally lets herself wonder if she can do this.  Wonder what words she can say to Patrick to make him understand that this isn’t a trick.  Allison only has two days left on this Earth to see her daughter.  (her daughter only has two days left on this Earth.  this Earth only has two days left) what if he says no what if he calls the police what if five is wrong and she destroys her last chance what if what if what if what if—

Luther pulls her hand to his chest and splays it flat, letting her feel the steady march of his heartbeat and the slow pull of his breath, in, out, in, out. Hers is coming in short, quick (quiet, always quiet don’t let him hear number three) bursts; panic like she hasn’t felt in years is rising in her. 

But.  But Luther is here.  Luther is here, and he’s holding her hand, and he’s breathing.  In.  Out.  In.  Out.

Allison lets her eyes close and focuses on him, for a little while.

                                                               —

Klaus shudders and sobs and smiles because he did it.  Dave is here.

“Klaus,” Dave smiles at him (Dave Dave Dave his heart beats).  “What are you doing to yourself, sweetheart?”

He crosses the attic, floorboards creaking in time with his footsteps, and crouches down next to him.

“I had to see you,” Klaus sobs and smiles and it’s all tangled up inside but it doesn’t matter, because Dave is here.  Dave died in his arms and Klaus scrubbed Dave’s blood out from under his fingernails, but he’s here.  It’s okay now.

“So you tied yourself to a chair?” He shakes his head.  “Wait, are you sober?”  A hesitant look takes over Dave’s face.  “Klaus, does this mean you can see—can see all the others, too?  You don’t have to—not for me.”

Klaus shakes his head.  “No, no, Dave, you’re—you’re worth every second of it.  I love you, Dave, so much.  I missed you so much,” he sobs again.  And oh, this won’t do; his eyes are so watery it’s hard to make Dave out.  He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to ward off more tears.

Dave runs a hand gently over Klaus’s forehead, pushing his hair away from his eyes.  Memories of nights spent memorizing the way Dave’s warm, calloused hands felt against him flash in Klaus’s mind.

Wait.

Klaus opens his eyes and jerks back a little.  Hands.  Floorboards.

“Dave,” he breathes, shocked, and finally manages to pull his own hands free.  The space between them is illuminated with pale blue light.  He reaches up, shaking, as Dave leans down, and their foreheads collide somewhere in the middle.

They press against each other, just savoring getting to breathe the same air.  Figuratively.  Except, well, maybe not?

“How is this possible?” Klaus murmurs, trying to pull Dave even closer.  “Is this you?”

“No, this is all you, sweetheart.”  Dave smiles at him again (hasn’t stopped smiling at him, actually, not that Klaus is any better).

“Hmmm.  Sounds like a problem for tomorrow, don’t you think?”

Dave laughs, and it’s the greatest thing Klaus has ever heard.

                                                             —

“I won’t lie to my children anymore,” Mom says, and lifts her chin ever so slightly.

Diego feels something ease inside him.  It is the first time she has ever called them hers; Sir Reginald never allowed her the attachment.

But his father isn’t here anymore.

“Mom,” he says softly.  “Mom, whatever it is, it’ll be okay.  I understand, I promise.”

She doesn’t smile and says, “Sir Reginald killed himself, in the hopes that it would bring you all together one last time.”

She doesn’t smile and says, “Pogo has been sabotaging my programming to arouse your suspicions, to keep you all investigating and focused, as a team.  As long as I was a suspect, you children would stay.”

She doesn’t smile and says, “Do you remember when I first came to stay with you, Diego?”

He sucks in a breath; it’s—what?  It’s too much at once, but also not enough.  “Why would.  Why w-w-would he kill himself?  What could possibly m-m-m—”

“Diego,” she cuts him off.  Something in his chest curls up; she’s never interrupted him when he was struggling with a word, not once, and it hurts.

Mom reaches out and grasps his shoulders. “Diego.  My sweet boy,” and now a smile flits across her mouth, as she’s looking into his eyes.  “This is important.  Do you remember the nannies you had before I came to stay?”

Something vague drags itself from his memory.  “I.  Yeah, one of them spoke french, right?”

She smiles again, but this time it’s one of Reginald's. He can always tell the difference; this one is meant to be encouragement for answering a question correctly.  “That’s right!” 

And then it slides off her face.  “They were human.  But humans are,” she pauses, “breakable.  Your father stopped employing human nannies after you all turned four.”

Breakable.  “Did we,” he swallows, “did we hurt them?”

She doesn’t smile and says, “You didn’t.  But Vanya did.”

                                                        —

Vanya presses her father’s journal to her chest with one hand and grips her case with the other as she walks the length of the city.

After Ben—when she first moved out, the only thing she could think was away.  Far away.  And Leonard’s house is close—was close—

There’s blood on her face.  There was blood everywhere, my god what have I—

No cabs.  No friends to call.  Just Vanya, making her way to the house she ran away from twelve years ago.

She is a liability you have to have powers to go this is a family matter I heard a              r u  m  o   r

But she loves them.  She loves them.  It’ll be okay.  They can help, her family can help her.  Her family will help her.  Sisters.

Time collapses.

Vanya knocks quietly at the manor’s front door, but nobody answers.  Late.  It’s late.  Her family isn’t ignoring her, they’re just asleep.  She could knock louder, but—(he beats his fist against the book until it’s the only thing she can hear, until it fills her mind and she  s c r e a m s).

Through the kitchen.  Her key fits into the lock and the door creaks open and she’s in the kitchen.  There are dishes in the sink, why are there dishes in the sink?  Mom always puts the dishes away before bed.  (the new nanny cracks as she hits the ground, and doesn’t get up again)

Maybe they’re in the living room.  They were meeting there earlier, maybe they’re still—

She’s in the living room, and she’s alone.  Just Vanya.  Some of the lamps are still on, casting a warm glow on everything.

Late.  It’s late.  Her family is probably asleep.  Vanya could call out for them (she  s c r e a m s) or Pogo (did you know?) but. 

Vanya can wait here.  She can sit here, and wait for them to notice her.  Then they can help, her family can help her.

She perches on the edge of the cushion, journal pressed to her chest in one hand, case gripped tight in the other, and waits.

                                                           —

Seven seconds from the time he drops the grenade to the explosion.  Just enough to get the year, the month the day, but his hands are too goddamn sweaty to fix the hour.

“Shit!” He grinds his teeth and flips the catches anyway.  Two days is better than nothing, which is what he’ll be if he stays any longer.

The heat of the explosion reaches him just as he slips into the void, and gets unceremoniously dumped onto the unyielding oak of his father’s wet-bar.

He gives himself two seconds to lie there and groan.  God, that hurt.  He’s thirteen years old, but you wouldn’t know it from all the aches and pains littering his body.  This is what fifty felt like the first time around. What he wants, more than anything, is to sleep for the next sixteen hours and then drink a gallon of coffee.

What, are you going to sit there and whine all day? Dolores says in the back of his mind.  Get up.  We have work to do.

Everything hurts as he pushes himself to his feet, and there’s a particularly stabbing pain in his right side, but that’s irrelevant right now.

Coffee.  He can give himself one out of two, and then round up his idiot siblings to stop the apoca—

“Five?” Someone croaks.  He recognizes that kind of voice; that’s the voice of someone who’s screamed their vocal cords to shreds.

His eyes land on Vanya, of all people, sitting alone on the couch.  Why would she be—nope, doesn’t matter.  Apocalypse first, issues later.

“Good.  You’re here.”  He marches across the room.  “The apocalypse is in two...” his voice trails off.

She’s covered in blood.  It’s splattered across her face, her chest; her hands look like she dunked them in a vat of it.  There’s a familiar looking book clutched to her chest like a life-line.

“Five,” she croaks again.  Her eyes.  The look in her eyes...Five notes distantly that it’s a wonder she can speak at all, if she’s that shell-shocked.

“Vanya,” he says warily, “what happened?”

“I didn’t mean to,” she says dazedly.  “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t.“

“It’s okay, I know you didn’t,” he says quietly, and takes a slow step closer to her.

“I just...” she looks down and seemingly pries her arm from around the book and holds it out to him.  “I found it.  Under his bed.  He had it under his bed the whole time.”

Another step, and another, and gently, he lifts the book from her hand.  He hesitates for a second and replaces it with his own hand, letting her clutch at him instead while he examines the book.

It’s dad’s journal.

A slow, uneasy feeling stirs in his gut.

Vanya blinks, and turns her head to look up at him.  She looks fragile, and not all there yet, but it’s progress.

“Vanya, where is everyone?”

“It’s late,” she says dully.  “I didn’t want to wake anyone up,” she continues, and then shudders. 

Right.  He’s pretty sure even Diego would have gotten up to help Vanya if she showed up looking like this, but there’s clearly something else bothering her about the idea.

“I was waiting for them to notice me.  They can help me. They can help me,” she repeats, and sounds a little stronger.

“Of course they can.  I can help you too, Vanya.  Just,” he sets the book on the end table and sits next to her, “tell me what happened.”

She starts shaking.  “I think—I think I killed him, Five.  I killed him.”

There’s enough blood for her to have killed several ‘hims.’

“Who did you kill?”

“Leonard.  It was an accident,” the word start pouring out of her, “It was an accident, Five, I didn’t mean to, but I found dad’s journal and he’s been reading dad’s notes about me, manipulating me, and he wouldn’t stop hitting it it was so loud I couldn’t help it and I screamed and he was,” she gasps, “He was dead, I killed him, I killed him!”

Vanya keeps gasping at shorter and short intervals until she’s crying, sobbing.  Five throws his other arm around her shoulders and pulls her into him and feels helpless against the onslaught of tears; he’s never seen her this emotional before.

Then again, to his knowledge, she’s never killed anyone before.

“it’s okay.  It’ll be okay, we’ll fix this.  I mean, do you have any idea how many people I’ve killed?”  He tries for levity and then immediately regrets it.

But somehow, it works.  At least a little.  “You’ve killed people with your powers, too?”

He blinks in shock.  “Powers?”

Dad’s journal, the one he took notes about their training in; it’s bound to be full of dangerous information about all of them.  This “Leonard” had their Dad’s journal.  He was manipulating Vanya with it.  There’s information about Vanya in it.

Vanya has powers?

She jerks her head in an imitation of a nod, but doesn’t say anything.  Five doesn’t say anything either, just absently pulls her a little closer while he mulls this over.

His equations were always off.  It all makes sense now, though, because he was missing a crucial piece of data.  Vanya has powers.  How could he not have known?  How could any of them have missed this?

She still has tears running down her face, which is a step above shock, but not great.  All it means is he can worry about the details later.  He can feel the pieces of their lives slowly coming together in the back of his mind, but Vanya can’t wait until he figures it out.

“Alright.  Here’s what we’re going to do.”  He pulls away from her enough to help her sit up.  “You’re going to wash all the—take a shower,” he awkwardly switches tacks when he sees the look it gives her.  “And then we’ll find the others and figure out what happened.” 

And then he and Diego will go hide the body, he adds silently, but even he can tell Vanya is in no state to hear that.

“We can help you, Vanya.  We will help you.  Everything’s going to be okay.”

#umbrella academy #allison hargreeves #luther hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #dave katz #diego hargreeves #grace hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #five hargreeves #fic #umbrella academy fic #fanfic #umbrella academy fanfic #snippets #i was inspired y'all #this is the most i've written in WEEKS #there may be more to come in the next few days but idk yet #after five gets Vanya calmed down #diego bursts into the house like 'vanya has powers!!!!" #and five deadpan snarks at him 'one step behind as always number 2' #and then they're both suitably concerned about vanya #and after a while ben finally gets through to klaus and convinces him (and dave) #to go check out what the fuck is going on with their sister #allison's situation gets complicated fast but she's trying so hard #the day that wasn't #long post #no readmore sorry i'm not feeling it #they're all having mental breakdowns simultaneously #though klaus is having a happy one

[panda-noosh]

before the world burned {Diego x Reader}

Words: 7.6k 

Summary: Five finally manages to return to his family after spending many years wandering through the rubble of the burned world. Too attached to leave you behind, Five brings you back home with him on the day of his dads funeral - and it is there that you meet his siblings. Specifically, Diego Hargreeves. 

Genre: fluff i guess oof

Warning: PTSD

Notes: masterlist - support my writing or ask me about commissions :) - i loved writing this so much!! i hope you guys enjoy reading it!! 

---

Five had really done it this time.

    All his talk had finally come full circle, and you were not equipped to believe it. 

   For months he spoke about getting back to his own time. For months, he'd tried to convince you that he could, indeed, go back in time, that he wasn't actually from the time you met him in. For months, you really thought he was insane.

   He hugged that stupid mannequin all the time. He spoke to himself. He went on about his dead siblings, and the end of the world, as if you hadn't watched it crumble just as much as he did. You only stayed by his side because you had no one else, and – quite frankly – you were a little worried to leave him on his own, afraid of what he would do if he had no one there to keep an eye on him.

   He told you he had Dolores. You'd smiled at him, patted his knee and went back to eating whatever scraps the two of you managed to conjure up that day.

    But today, he'd proved you wrong.

   The way he grabbed your hand, so excited, not even waiting for you to get fully ready – that was the first red flag. Though Five was a strange individual, he wasn't hyper. He kept his head down and he minded his own business. He never got excited – not about anything. In the years you've known him, you've never once seen him get bubbly.

    But his face was alight on this specific day, eyes shining. He grabbed your hand, didn't explain anything. The only words you got out of him were a rushed, “Hold on tight,” before you felt like your body was being ripped to shreds.

    You tried to cry out, but it didn't work. At least, you didn't think it worked. Your heart was thundering too loud in your ears, the blood rushing to your face, the pain unbearable. Your skin was surely sliding off your bones. Your fingers were slipping out of Five's. He was grinning from ear to ear.

   And then you fell to your knees.

    You gasped for air, shooting upright just in time for a knife to find purchase at your throat; you stiffened, mind too muddled to make much sense of what was going on – you could smell rain. In the distance, someone was talking, but you couldn't really hear what they were saying. Beside you, Five shot to his feet and looked round his surroundings with the determination you were so familiar with seeing.

    You followed his eyes, and immediately your heart fell.

   Standing before you were five other people, all of whom were staring at you and Five with wide eyes; they were dressed in normal clothes. They didn't have ash streaking their faces, had no holes in their attire, weren't coughing up a lung or rubbing their eyes free of dust.

   They just looked. . . normal.

  Except for the man standing closest to you. He was dressed entirely in leather, with a mask to match.

    “Five?” a tall woman with curly hair said, snapping the shocked silence in half.

   You looked up at Five. “What the fuck did you just do?”

   Five didn't even look back at you when he said, “Y/N, meet my siblings. It seems as if we've crashed my fathers funeral.”

     “Dad isn't gonna be happy with you,” a brown haired man holding a cigarette muttered. “You know what he thought about bringing guests to the house.”

   “Diego, take the knife away,” Five ordered. “We've got more important things to worry about than my acquaintance.”

   The man dressed in leather continued to stare down at you, his knife still firm in his grip. You had half a mind to headbutt him in the groin, but decided against it when Five sent you a sharp look of warning – he was going to try and handle these strangers. You'd be better off just staying silent.

   Nonetheless, you couldn't help but look up and give the man in leather – Diego – a sarcastic little smile. He scowled before slowly pulling away, knife and all.

    You slumped forward. “Great. Now can someone explain to me what the fuck is going on?” You covered your mouth. “Are people allowed to swear at funerals these days?”

   ---

    Apparently, Five's dad died.

   Five had been unaware of this, of course, but looking at him now, it didn't look like he cared all that much. You sat at his kitchen table, a warm cup of tea having been prepared by the ape that was apparently the Hargreeves butler – you'd learned not to ask too many questions. Having lived with Number Five for this long, you'd grown to expect the rest of his siblings to be just as messed up.

   They sat around the kitchen island, Klaus sat on the counter top with his legs folded beneath him. Allison, Vanya and Luther surrounded him. Five was pacing the kitchen.

   And Diego was in the corner with his eyes set firmly on you.

   You tried to ignore him, tried to listen in on the oh-so-interesting conversation the other Hargreeves kids were having, but it was difficult to do so when you were expecting Diego to jump across the kitchen counter and stab you in the throat at any given moment. He had the knives for it, and by the sounds of things, the temper, too.

    “I don't ever remember Dad teaching you how to go back and forward in time,” said Luther. He was built like a brick house; you kindly didn't comment on it.

    “Dad didn't need to teach me anything,” said Five. “I was always capable of doing things entirely on my own.”

   “What a waste of time,” Klaus scoffed. “Dad didn't put us through that shit just for you to go off and learn on your own. Whatever you've been doing these past few years-”

    “He's been hanging round with strangers, apparently.”

   You bit your lip, flicking your eyes up at Diego; he had such an issue with you, and you couldn't pinpoint why. Even when your eyes met his, he refused to look away. He just continued trying to look intimidating, arms folded over his chest, eyebrows furrowed as if he was trying to figure out who you were, where you came from.

   If he'd asked, you would have told him. The stories you had to tell couldn't be nearly as weird as the stories you've heard today, as getting served tea by a British walking, talking ape.

   Five waved a dismissive hand in your direction. “Y/N was just an altercation. Don't mind them.”

  “Thanks, asshole,” you muttered.

   “No, no, wait,” said Allison, stepping forward. “I don't want to just ignore this. You disappear for years, and then suddenly you show up again with a friend who we know nothing about – you literally fell out of the sky.”

   “This is what I've been saying!” said Diego.

   Five narrowed his eyes. “I've just tried to explain the entire situation to you all. Why do you care so much about Y/N?”

   “A stranger,” said Luther, as if it was obvious. Maybe to them, it was. You couldn't help but feel a little attacked.

   You sighed and leaned back in the chair kindly offered to you by Klaus, the only one of the Hargreeves siblings who didn't look like they would blow your head off at the first chance available. “You know, if you have a problem with me, you can just tell me to go.”

    “Y/N-” began Five.

   “I don't know these people,” you pressed. “I don't know what the fuck you lot are even talking about. I'm sorry about your Dad, but I couldn't give two shits about what happened to him.”

   Klaus laughed. “Join the club!”

    You stood up. “I'll just go and hang out outside until you've all discussed what you need to discuss, and then you can ask me whatever you want to ask. How does that sound?”

    The Hargreeves siblings paused, regarding you with narrowed eyes – none of them looked alike, but you were beginning to understand why. Though none of them confirmed it, it was becoming more and more clear that they weren't related by blood.

    “I don't trust you just standing outside on your own,” said Diego. You turned, scowling at him. He was the one you were having the most trouble with. “I'll go with you.”

    “Or you could just stab me.”

  Five clicked his fingers in your direction before pointing towards the door. “No arguments. Just go and stand outside – Diego, keep an eye on them.”

   You gawked. “Five!”

   “Go!”

   You groaned, glared at Diego one more time before you marched out the front door. The sun had finally come out, a direct contrast to the storm that had been taking place during Reginald Hargreeve's funeral. The little tree his ashes were buried beneath still stood tall and proud, a tiny dab of blood on the trunk from where Luther and Diego had apparently gotten into an altercation only seconds before you and Five fell from the sky.

   You approached the tree now, tracing your fingers along the bark; it had been a long time since you'd seen a true, healthy plant. After the world ended, they all just died off – there was the odd one here and there, but they'd become more of a rarity than anything else.

    Looking at it now brought you back to that god awful time Five had managed to free you from; though the little bastard got on your nerves, you would never be able to thank him enough for what he'd done for you. You remembered the screams, and the smoke, watching your family run directly into the fires because they didn't know where else to go – the world was ending. The fires were everywhere. People were everywhere.

   And then they weren't.

   You still aren't sure how you managed to survive it all. Maybe it was Five. Maybe the world just looked at him and thought He really can't be left on his own and then they threw you in his path and left you to look after him. Who would have thought it would be him saving you in the long run?

    “Why are you here?”

   You didn't turn at the sound of Diego's voice. You froze, however, with your fingertips still brushing the bark. You were scared to step away from it, lest it disintegrate into ashes like all the other plants you'd seen.

    “Five brought me,” you replied.

   “But why? How do you two even know each other?”

   You shrugged. “I don't really know.”

   Diego hummed, as if that answer made any sense at all. You heard him rattle around behind you, sitting down on a nearby tree stump. Glancing over your shoulder, you saw him tugging grass from the ground and sprinkling it on his leather boots.

    “How did you two meet?” he asked, not looking up.

    “He was in the ash, and so was I.”

   “Do you ever talk like a normal person?”

   You shrugged. “Depends who I'm talking to. Five and I can have pretty deep conversations sometimes – though most of the time he's just getting on my nerves.”

   Diego scoffed. “Yeah. Same here.”

   “Did you think he was dead?” You weren't sure why the question was there, or why you even cared, but it was out before you could ponder over details.

   Diego looked up, eyes meeting yours for a brief second before he looked away again. “We all did. None of us knew he'd learned how to mess around with time.”

    “Must have been hard. He told me about Number Six.”

   “Ben.” Diego nodded. “Yeah. He died a few years after Five went missing.”

    “And then you guys just. . . stopped talking?”

    “We moved on,” Diego corrected. “None of us ever wanted to stay with our dad, so we left as soon as we could. I guess we lost touch with each other, as well.”

     It was a sad thing to think about; Five never spoke about his siblings with any particular fondness, but he spoke about them often enough for you to know he cared about them. When he wasn't speaking complete gibberish, he was talking about his family life, how much his siblings annoyed him and what they'd gotten up to as kids – when they had the chance to be kids. Though he never specified, you had the vague idea from his stories that Reginald Hargreeves didn't want to raise children – he wanted to raise heroes.

    “The Umbrella Academy,” you said, the name suddenly appearing in your mind from the stories Five told you.

   Diego perked up. “How do you know about that?”

  “Five told me a bit about it.” You grinned, glancing at his leather suit. “I see not all of you have moved on, huh?”

   Diego grumbled, tugging on his leather trousers. “This isn't a superhero costume, before you start making fun of me.”

   “Then what is it? Were your boy shorts in the wash?”

   Diego rolled his eyes. “It's got a lot of pockets.”

   You paused.

   Diego looked up. “I have knives everywhere. It gives me easy access to them.”

   “Ah, right,” you drawled. “Why do you need knives, may I ask?”

   “That's what I'm good at.”

  “You're good at knives?”

   “Well, what are you good at?”

   You shrugged. “Surviving. Winding up superheroes, apparently.”

   Diego stood up. “I'm not a superhero! I'm a crime fighter!”

   You snickered, unable to help yourself. Diego's face reddened, fingers tightening at his sides until you were fairly certain you'd crossed a line – no matter how much you laughed at him, there was no denying that he was, indeed, good with knives. You'd felt the kiss of metal against your throat just seconds after laying eyes on the man.

    You quietened down, covering your mouth timidly. “Sorry. Yes. You're a crime fighter, not a superhero. I should know the difference.”

   Diego's expression softened. “Good.”

   You slowly sat down on the ground, leaning your back against the tree trunk. Diego watched you, and you didn't miss the way his fingers twitched towards his knives – though you were unarmed, he clearly still saw you as a threat, someone he needed to keep an eye on.

    “So what kind of crime do you typically fight?” you asked.

    “All of it.”

    “Every single thing? So you just walk up to a poor kid who's been pirating music and you whip out your blades-”

   “Who gave you the right to tease me so much?” He folded his arms over his chest. “You don't even know me.”

   You shrugged. “I watched the world burn, Diego. I've gotten past the point of caring what people think of me, and therefore, I'll say whatever I want.”

   He raised a brow. “So that's where you and Five went. To the end of the world.”

   “That's where Five, and Five alone, went. I was there first. I'm an original.”

   If you'd looked away for even a brief second, you would have missed the tiny twitch of Diego's mouth. It was the closest thing to a smile of affection you'd managed to coax out of the crime fighter this entire time, and it felt like a triumph. You crossed your ankles and looked up at him.

    “I might just stick around and experience it all over again,” you said, even as the words planted some type of fight or flight response in your system. “We can experience it together!”

   Diego raised a brow. “You're a sick son of a bitch.”

   You grinned, sending him a wink.

   ---

    The sweat was always the worst part of waking up from one of these nightmares.

    Sure, the dream itself was horrific, but once you were out of it, it was gone, finished. You could go back to sleep and start all over again.

   But the sweat made you get up.

   Your breathing ragged, heart thumping, you stumbled into the nearest bathroom and locked the door. Five wasn't in his bedroom, no doubt too busy working on whatever stupid project he'd locked himself in this time, so you didn't even bother going to him for any sort of help.

   You bent over the sink, trying to catch your breath. There was a physical pain in your chest, only soothing when you put a tiny bit of pressure against it. With one hand curled into your collar bone, you used the other to rub water on your face, ridding your forehead of the disgusting flood of sweat you hated so much.

    Who would have thought watching the world burn would give someone PTSD?

    The nightmare had depicted it happening all over again. As per usual, it was in chunks, little snippets you could barely make out – it wasn't even the visuals that got to you. It was the sounds in the background, the screams, your mother crying your name just seconds before an explosion went off beside her and she was suddenly no longer existing. They echoed in your head even after you'd fully awoken, even after you splashed the water on your face, even after you told your reflection to man the fuck up.

    That's what Five always said to you when you woke up. He'd look over at you, raise a brow, give you that smug little smile and he'd say, “Man the fuck up,” and you'd go back to sleep with that advice being your comfort blanket. Five may have showed his love for you in strange ways, but you'd spent long enough with him to know it was there, whether his words depicted it or not.

   But now, he wasn't just there. He was away in his office. He had rooms to explore, a whole world with working shops and other people – he didn't need to stay tethered to your side at all times, so you were entirely on your own right now.

   You brushed some more water down your face before the knock on the door startled you upright. You glared at your reflection, examining whether or not it would be a good idea to open the door – your appearance had you leaning more towards no, hair wild and eyes bright red.

    Instead, you opted for simply calling out an, “Occupado!”

    “I know.”

   You closed your eyes. Diego. What did he want?

   “I heard you run in here. Is everything okay?”

  “Everything's fine,” you lied. “Do you need to piss?”

   He sighed. “Do you want me to get you anything?”

   If you were any less wise, perhaps you'd be able to convince yourself that Diego Hargreeves actually sounded concerned. The mere thought was enough to have you grinning in amusement.

    “Do you have any alcohol?” you asked.

    Diego paused. “Pogo might know where some is.”

   “I'll have anything you can give me.”

   “Then you're gonna have to come out.”

   “Just pass it through the door.”

   “How are we meant to have a drink together if there's a door between us?”

  You opened your mouth, quickly closed it and cocked an eyebrow at your reflection. “You want to have a drink with me?”

    “Well, yeah. There's no way I'm getting back to sleep now.”

    It would have been wiser to just say no. He would ask you questions, make you go through the nightmare you'd had, and that was the last thing you wanted to do. It was one thing reliving the horror in your dreams, a different thing to speak them aloud.

    Nonetheless, your willpower wavered. You needed a drink, anything to help you get back to sleep after the night you'd had – you may as well give Diego a chance.

    So, you shakily inhaled and pulled open the bathroom door. You didn't miss the intake of breath Diego sucked between his teeth at the sight of you, but neither did you stick around to question it; you shoved past him and headed down the hall, giving him nothing but a single, “Where's this alcohol you promised?”

   ----

   As it turns out, Diego wasn't much of a talker when he had alcohol in his system.

   You sat across from him, one leg folded over the other. The wine Pogo hesitantly gave you was doing nothing to calm your trembling hands – trembling hands that Diego saw and thankfully decided not to bring up; maybe he could sense talking about your nightmare wasn't what you wanted to do right now. Maybe he just didn't care.

   Either way, the conversation wasn't flowing at all. You just continued to stare at him, taking the occasional sip of your wine. You were beginning to regret agreeing to this at all.

   Diego swirled his wine, gazing down at the liquid lazily. He was already on his third glass, and clearly had no plans of stopping.

    “Maybe you should slow down a little bit.”

   Diego glanced up. “Or not.” He took a long swig, downing the remainder of the glass before reaching forward to pour another one. However, you were quicker, managing to snatch the bottle out of his way before he had a chance to curl his fingers around it.

   He sighed, slumping back. He splayed his arms out behind him, not caring that the tiny droplet left in the bottom of his glass tipped over the back of the sofa as he did so. He regarded you with a lazy gaze, a scowl on his face.

    “What do you want from me?” he asked. “You're not gonna let a man have a drink?”

   “You've had a drink,” you replied. “Three of them.”

    “It's my wine.”

   “It's Reginald's,” you corrected. “Who, apparently, you don't give a shit about.”   Diego snickered, tossing his head back. “Didn't give a shit about. He's dead.”

   You frowned. “That's a bit morbid, Diego. He was still your dad.”

  “He was the man I happened to live with.” Diego looked up. “I don't have a dad. I never have.”

   You pursed your lips, deciding not to pry; Five had said things along a similar line, claiming Reginald Hargreeve's wasn't somebody he was fond of associating with. Of course, Five had said it with a little bit more insanity and a little less alcohol, but you could see the two brothers walked along a similar path.

    “Whatever,” you mumbled. “It's best for you to not drink any more, anyway.”

    “Who gave you that authority? You're in my house.”

    “Because clearly the alcohol has put you in some kind of mood.”

   “It's not the alcohol. It's you.” He reached over and snatched the bottle from your hands; you didn't even try fighting him, instead watching him with narrowed eyes. His cheeks were glowing bright red, yet he smiled even as he poured his fourth glass of wine and took a swig almost as soon as he put the bottle back down on the table. “So why don't you start telling me what you were doing in that bathroom earlier on?”

   You froze. You should have expected the question to make an appearance at some point, and yet the words falling so violently from his lips gave you pause. You looked down, biting your lower lip in your attempts to keep your anger at bay – he was drunk, and you had to keep reminding yourself of that. He wasn't in his right mind.

    “That's none of your business, Diego.”

   He raised a brow, looking at you over the rim of his glass. “When you say it's none of my business, that just makes me more curious – what have you got to hide? You and Five aren't fucking, are you?”

   “That's disgusting. He looks like a twelve year old boy.”

   “Mm. I heard time warps will do that to a person.” Diego snickered. “You two didn't even kiss when you were alone together?”

    “What the fuck, Diego? Why are you even asking about this?”

   “Well, you two have been so private about everything else, and I've never seen Five get so comfortable with someone before. I just want to know what makes you so special.”

   “What makes me so special is the fact I was the only one left,” you hissed. “Now can you stick your nose out of my business and drink your fucking wine before I shove this bottle so far up your-”

   “What's going on in here?”

   Both your heads snapped round as Five wandered into the living room, Pogo trailing behind him. The ape looked slightly guilty, looking at you over the rim of his circular glasses; you wondered if he ever slept. Did creatures made by human hands need sleep?

   Five raised a brow in your direction, glancing at your half finished glass of wine. You quickly set it down on the coffee table and stood up, flattening your hands over your pyjama top. “Nothing. I was just getting up to leave.”

  “No you weren't,” Diego grunted. “You were just about tell me all of your dirty little secrets.”

   You looked at Five. “Does he ever shut the fuck up?”

   Five sighed, rubbing his fingers into his eyes to clear them of the anger building. You'd know that look anywhere; Five wasn't in the mood for this.

   “It's been a day,” he said. “And already you two are at each others throats.”

  “He's drunk,” you said.

   “And you're not?” Five nodded to your glass. “You haven't touched a drop of alcohol in a long time, Y/N. The tiniest bit is gonna have you on the floor. You should have known better.”

   “Oh, go to hell, Five,” Diego scoffed. “What right do you have telling us what not to do? You're the one that disappeared for years on end, and won't explain why.”

    “And I won't explain why until I feel like you're going to be mature enough to handle it,” Five snapped, before turning to you. “What are you doing up?”

   “Nightmare.”

 It was as simple as that; with Five, you wouldn't need to explain yourself, wouldn't need to go into the details of what you'd been dreaming about. He heard the word, and he just knew.

  His eyes softened only slightly before he sighed and pointed to the door. “Go back to bed.”

   “Yes sir,” you grumbled. Diego snickered as you left, amused by the way Five could so easily boss you about – he didn't understand. In truth, being around Diego in itself was making you angry. You needed to get away, and if it made you look like a complete kiss-up in the process, then that's what happened. You would take any and all excuses right now.

    You wandered back to Five's bedroom and fell to the mattress on the floor. Your muscles ached. Your hands were still trembling, and sweat was still coating your forehead, no matter how often you wiped it away. Why the nightmares were getting worse was beyond you, but you didn't want to ponder too deeply on the subject – that would mean facing it, and you couldn't do that right now. Five had a mission, had chosen you to help him out with it. He wanted to save the world, and you couldn't get distracted from that task right now.

   ---

   Weeks passed before you finally found your footing in the Hargreeves household.

   Allison and Luther had finally warmed up to you, though they continued to treat you as more of a guest than anything else; on the rare occasions you actually saw Vanya, she spoke to you like a friend; Klaus was just high all the time, so it really depended on what drugs he'd taken that day to determine what mood he would take on with you. Most of the time, however, he was fairly polite.

    Diego, on the other hand, was a different matter.

   It wasn't like he was hostile, because he wasn't. He had an edge to him, but you noticed he had that with everyone. You were not a special case – at least, not in that way.

   The two of you bickered like an old married couple, and it drove you insane because that wasn't how it was meant to be; he was a pain in the ass. Once upon a time, ignoring people like him had been easy – that was your go-to method of getting rid of them. But with Diego, his comments struck a nerve in you that had you turning and firing back even worse insults.

    And he was attractive, which made it all ten times worse.

   Even in that stupid leather suit of his, you still could not look at him without feeling those butterflies rise in the pit of your stomach. Even though you sometimes wanted to knock his teeth into the back of his throat, you would be lying to claim his smile did not absolutely floor you.

   It was so frustrating.

   This morning, you'd been woken up by yet another jarring nightmare. The clock read five am, and you'd rolled out of bed and gone downstairs, waiting for the sun to rise so you could officially start your day.

   The first person downstairs was Diego.

   He had a towel round the back of his neck and was wearing a casual outfit consisting of a plain, tight black shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants, rolled at the cuffs to reveal his ankles. His hair was ruffled, slightly damp from the shower.

   You looked at him from the sofa as he approached the fridge and started looking for something to make. “So you're still here.”

  “Mhm,” he hummed. “So are you.”

   “Crazy. Are you making coffee?”

   “No. Coffee can give you stomach ulcers.”

   “Oh.” You paused. “Can you make coffee?”

    “Make your own damn coffee.”

   You raised your hands in mock surrender. “Alright, alright. I was just asking.” You shoved yourself up from the sofa and headed into the kitchen, making sure to nudge his hip on your way to the coffee machine. He grunted, kicking you in the back of the leg before going back to his breakfast-rummaging.

    “Did Five get you into coffee?” Diego asked.

   “No,” you replied. “I've loved coffee since I came out of the womb.”

  “So you have a coffee addiction?”

  “Yeah.”

  Diego hummed. “Good to hear you admit to it.”

   You shrugged, placing your cup beneath the slow dribble of water. The smell of the caffeine was already waking you up a little more, though the screams echoing in your head had done that job many hours ago.

    “How long have you been awake?”

   You looked at the clock. “Three hours.”

  Diego shot upright. “You woke up at five am?”

    “Had a bit of a nightmare.”

   His eyebrow twitched. “You have an awful lot of those.”

   You shrugged again. The conversation was starting to tilt onto icy ground, and you weren't entirely sure whether or not you were willing to dive in to that side of things just yet; yes, it had been a few weeks, and Diego had already been subject to your trembling morning self on multiple occasions, but actually sitting down and talking to him about the psychology behind these episodes was something you wanted to avoid. You didn't even understand them just yet.

     “You know, maybe coffee isn't the right thing to be drinking if you've got night terrors.”

   You scoffed, grabbing your cup and taking a swig despite the beverage scolding you. “No, Diego, I think it's the perfect thing to be drinking when I've got night terrors.”

    “Have you ever tried green tea before bed?”

   “No, but I lit a green tea candle once and Five tried to smother me with his wife's t-shirt.”

   Diego blinked. You hid your smile behind the rim of your coffee mug, staring right back at him. You could watch the cogs turning in his mind, trying to figure out whether you were joking or not – you wouldn't be the one to tell him that this event had genuinely happened, and was one of many times Five had woken up in the middle of the night, thought you were some kind of murderer, and tried to kill you.

    You'd done the same to him on multiple occasions, so it was fine.

    At last, Diego sighed. “What about taking a walk before bed?”

   “Diego, I'm fine-”

  “I can go with you if you're scared of getting lost.”

   You paused. “You'd take me on walks?”

   He shrugged, leaning against the counter. For the first time, Diego Hargreeves actually looked a little bit sheepish. “If it helps you sleep, then I don't see why not. I've got nothing better to do until the police let me back on the force.”

    You could already imagine how this little walk would go – it would just be one big argument the entire time.

    “Alright then.”

   Diego's eyes shot up. “Yeah?”

   “As you said, I don't see why not,” you said, shrugging. “I've got nothing better to do.”

   ---

    The city was breathtaking at night.

     Breathtaking and dark, and busy and loud, and it smelled of smoke.

   You tried not to concentrate too much on the smell of smoke as you and Diego walked through the streets. It was smoke from cigarettes, from chimneys, from burning wood – it wasn't smoke from the ashes of dead people.

    That hadn't happened yet.

   Diego sighed, his breath fanning out in front of him. He'd pulled on a beanie before leaving the house tonight, and you had to admit that the messy, underdone look he was going for was one you thought he suited.

     “I didn't realise it would be this fucking cold tonight, you know.”

    “It's not that bad,” you replied, even as you curled your fingers up in the pockets of your jacket. “I think you're just a bit of a wimp.”

  Diego scoffed. “I'm tougher than you. At least I can get a good nights sleep without having a nightmare.”

   You fell silent. He hadn't meant it in a bad way, and you hadn't necessarily taken it badly – you just didn't want to retort with something you knew would be a weak comeback.

   Because he was right, of course.

    Diego flicked his eyes over to you. Even in the darkness, you could feel his eyes burning holes into the side of your head, knew he was about to ask you something personal.

    You beat him to it. “I have nightmares about the end of the world.”   Diego paused. “Why?”

    You shrugged lazily. “Because I lived through it, I guess.”

   “So they're like flashbacks?”

   “If you want to call them that. Nightmares makes it sound more sinister, less like a That's So Raven episode.”

    “So...” Diego inhaled, grasping for the right words. “So the end of the world gave you PTSD?”

    “I didn't come out here to be diagnosed-”

   “It's not a bad thing.” Diego looked at you. “And I'm not diagnosing you. I'm just trying to understand.”

   “There's nothing to understand. I have nightmares. That's it.” You bit your lip. “Hopefully these walks will help a little bit.”

  Diego's shoulders slumped. The two of you continued to walk in silence, the only sound being the cars screaming past. Sometimes, a group of rowdy teenagers would make an appearance, but one look at Diego and they immediately quietened down – even so many years on, the Umbrella Academy was still a known phenomenon around these parts. People recognised Diego, saw him as the fierce kid who was born under such confusing circumstances, gifted these abilities that everyone wanted but only he and his siblings had been given.

   In truth, Diego Hargreeves was a very interesting character. Try as you might to make him out to be the biggest bastard on two legs, he was someone you could analyse for hours on end and still not have all the answers. He picked and he chose who he told his secrets to.

   You were thankful that he'd decided to open up – even just a little bit – to you, a person he barely knew, a person he seemed to hate in the beginning.

    You glanced at him now, his body tense as he tried to fight off the cold. Maybe you shouldn't have seen him as normal. Maybe you should have been like everyone else, looking at him in awe because he had this fantastical past and these powers that nobody could really explain.

   But in the same breath, maybe he should have been looking at you in the same way; you were the person who witnessed the end of the world, the person who went back in time.

   You balanced each other out, and maybe that was why you were able to walk beside him and feel so calm.

    ---

    It was the worst one yet.

    You hadn't even meant to fall asleep.

   These sleepless nights had finally gotten the better of you, and you couldn't keep your eyes open. Sitting in the Hargreeves' living room, your head had fallen to your shoulder and you'd drifted off into a sleep that was totally uncalled for, and certainly unplanned.

   It ripped you apart.

    The screams were doubled. The ash was rising, rising, rising, choking you, filling your lungs and staining your teeth and it wasn't just ash from cigarettes, or a chimney, or a burning pile of wood – it was the ash of bodies. It was burned human beings, because that was all there was left; rubble and ash, and it was in your mouth and your hair and your lungs-

   “Y/N!”

   You cried out. The noise was ripped from your throat as you lurched forward and immediately dug your fingers into Diego's shoulder blades; he didn't flinch away. His own hands dug into your waist, holding you up as tears poured from your face – you couldn't even process your own emotions at this point, too busy trying to fight back to reality.

   Diego was in front of you. That was one thing you were sure of.

   His eyes traced your own, a franticness to them that you'd never seen in the usually calm, collected and confident man.

   “Fuck,” you hissed, hands trembling. “I fell asleep. I wasn't meant to fall asleep-”

   “Hey, hey, hey.” He brushed a strand of hair from your face. “Calm down, alright? Take a deep breath and talk to me.”

   You inhaled deeply. Your body took the air in well, assuring you there was no ash in your system – it was a dream. Just a dream.

   A memory.

  “Did you have another flashback?”

   You closed your eyes. “It was really bad this time.”

   “Do you want me to get Five?”

   Your eyes snapped open, fingers digging a little harsher into his bare skin. “No. Don't leave.”

   Diego's expression softened. You caught the flicker of surprise, but it was quickly covered by his nod. You leaned back against the sofa again, this time dragging him down beside you. His hand curled round your waist, and without even asking him to, he pulled you into his side and let you rest your head on his chest.

    His bare chest, considering the man was shirtless.

    “I'm sorry if I woke you up.”

   “Don't be an idiot.”

    “Was I loud?”

   Diego shrugged. “It doesn't matter.”

   “Just answer the question, jackass.”

   He sighed, tilting his head back to get a good look at you. “I went into Five's room to check if you were asleep, and you weren't there; when I came down here to look for you, you were thrashing about on the sofa, sounding like you'd swallowed your own tongue.”

   You winced. “Yeah. I dreamt there was ash in my mouth.”

  Diego raised a brow.

   “Don't ask,” you mumbled, before tucking your head back beneath his chin. “I said I wouldn't go to sleep tonight. I promised-”

   “You can't just stay awake for the rest of your life,” he said. “You've gotta learn how to deal with these flashbacks you keep getting.”

    “I am dealing with them. By not sleeping.”

   Diego flicked your forehead.

   You reeled back. “Diego-”

  “I'm serious,” he said. “I don't like seeing you this way.” He grabbed your hand, waved it in front of your face. “You're trembling, for fuck sake.”

   You snatched your hand back. “And I'll get over it.”

   Diego shook his head; even without looking up at him, you could tell he was frowning. You'd grown so used to that frown, so fond of it these past few weeks.

  It made you smile.

  Even with your trembling hands and your thumping headache, just winding Diego up was enough to make you feel that little bit better. The added help of his warmth tucked against your own was an added bonus.

  “Do you ever get nightmares, Diego?”

  He froze for just a second. “Sometimes.”

  You shifted, tilting your head up to look at him. “About what?”

  “Everything.” He bit his lip. “My childhood, mostly. I have this nightmare all the time of my dad getting really mad at me and kicking me out of the house because of my stutter.”

  You raised a brow. “You don't have a stutter.”

  “Y-yes I d-d-do.” Diego groaned. “It only comes out s-sometimes, but it used be v-very bad when I was a kid.”

   You chuckled, tapping his chest in reassurance. “That's cute.”

  “Yeah well. My dad hated it.”

  “By the sounds of things, your dad hated everything. I wouldn't think too deep into it.”

  Diego chuckled, shocking you just a bit by nuzzling his head against the top of your own. You fell silent again, basking in his warmth and the sound of his heartbeat. It was a nice change to lean your head against him and not be able to feel the bumps and ridges of knives hiding beneath his clothes – this was just Diego. Purely Diego, and nothing else.

  His fingers traced a line up your spine. You shivered.

  “You should try and get some sleep,” he whispered. “I'll be here to wake you up if I think you're slipping into a nightmare.”

   You looked up. “You need to sleep, too.”

   “I've already had a few hours. Plus, you look exhausted.”

  “I'm not tired,” you insisted, and it was partly true. Logically, you really were tired – drained. Your body hadn't seen a decent rest in weeks. But in this moment, you were able to push that exhaustion away, because the feel of Diego against you was so much more appealing than the idea of sleeping. You didn't want to waste this moment.

  Diego frowned down at you, and you couldn't help but grin. He narrowed his eyes.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  “You're not even gonna tell me off for being a stubborn bitch?”

  “I don't see the point – you've made it very clear these past few weeks that you don't give a shit about what I have to say.”

  You hummed. “True enough.”

  “You know, if you stay awake, you have to tell me the truth.”

   You froze. “The truth?”

  “About you and my brother.”

  You groaned, throwing your head back. “Diego-”

   He laughed, grabbing your chin to turn your head to him. You looked him dead in the eye, unable to hide your own smile at the look of pure amusement etched across his features. “Just tell me if you two had anything.”

  “He's married.”

  “To a mannequin!”

  “I respect Dolores too much to try and go for her man.”

  Diego rolled his eyes. His voice lowered when he next spoke. “So you're saying you have no feelings towards Five at all?”

  You shook your head.

  Diego scooted a little closer to you. “You've never had any feelings for him?”

  You leaned in, lips inches from his ear when you whispered, “Not ever.”

  A low growl emitted from Diego's throat. You could basically hear his restraints snapping when he finally reached out, grabbed your face and kissed you with an intensity that had you seeing stars.

  Your body lit up immediately. You shifted, straddling him, kissing him back as best you could with what little experience you'd had; Diego kissed like it was his day job, lips working professionally against your own. You could almost cover the fact that you had very little idea as to what you were doing.

  He bit your lip when he pulled away. Your eyes popped open, wide and telling, but Diego simply grinned.

  “Good?”

  You swallowed. “Very good.”

  He traced his thumb along your jaw, gently brushing it against your lower lip. You bit down on his thumb nail for just a second before he pinched your hip, causing you to yelp and jump a little in his lap.

  He opened his mouth to say something else, to probably tell you to go to sleep, but his words were cut off by the sound of a groan coming from the living room door.

  Your head snapped round, body freezing at the sight of Five shaking his head, arms folded over his chest.

  “I bring one friend home with me, and already Diego has you sitting on his dick.”

  Diego sighed, tilting his head against the back of the sofa. “Do either of you ever sleep?”

  You and Five glanced at each other. At the same time, you both said, “Nope!” a little too cheerfully. Diego rolled his eyes, and you pressed a very light kiss to his lips in silent apology.

#the umbrella academy #the umbrella academy fic #the umbrella academy fanfic #tua #tua fanfic #tua fic #diego hargreeves #diego fanfic #diego fic #diego tua #diego hargreeves fanfic #diego hargreeves fic #diego tua fic #diego tua fanfic #diego the umbrella academy #diego the umbrella academy fic #diego the umbrella academy fanfic #tua imagine #the umbrella academy imagine #diego hargreeves imagine #diego tua imagine

[cleaduvalls]

i watched all 20 episodes of spy kids: mission critical in about a week and here are my thoughts (3/5)

1.9

i havent watched this in like 2 days i dont even remember what happened last time

why is everything in the desert the desert sucks

alsjhiajgdf i love tom kenny

listen i know hes like a superandroid or whatever but i really hope he and therese fall in love

wait hold up. i thought they already had midterms???? like the did that before scorpion went to her fashion shoot. AND they were kupkakkes midterms. whats up with this school

no drinking in class???? rude. let them hydrate

that seems imbalanced

aHh

thats only like 10

also that book is dummy thicc

its ok ace my nose whistles too

shut up carmen youre just jealous because shes pretty

there are no seasons its a desert

ok dude stop breathing so hard

he JUST said that

anywhere between an hour and umm... 11 months

you put it on one page why are all the pages back

me but with physics

thats literally the best line in the whole series

juni how do you not know that you were at a safe H O U S E

theyve been gone for like 2 hours are they not allowed to study?????

what even is AWOL???

absent without leave. neat

talon gives off some big draco energy

tick tock???? how dare you

slkdhfa she called sir awesome honey shes such a mom

dont make it obvious

oh look they made it obvious

roll credits

i was in cleveland when i watched this episode - well actually i left that day - and i was s h o o k e t h

also hes right. no spy would be in cleveland. theres 3 buildings

oh me too

right bc shes the only “I.A.”

ew

eW

this isnt HARRY POTTER. or maybe it is. talon is a hardcore draco

oh right bc swearing is for Men™

update tumblr decided to break AGAIN (im boutta cry btw) so we lost about 5 minutes from the end of 1.9 and 7 from the beginning of 1.10

1.10

its a DOORBELL do they not have those in the outback steakhouse

lots of people. doofenshmirtz, other people who i cant think of right now, etc

???? no it wont????

did your troop leader not give you The Talk??? you NEVER go in the customers house

ace no. youre allowed to not buy treats

theres a triforce on her vest, too

shes just gonna go to another house yall. shell be f i n e

oh my God shes holding hands with mauly im gonna c r y

yeah its called saliva

nope only scorpion lives in a castle

stop bringing up spy sense and tell him you saw her glare at you

HES ALLOWED TO LIKE FOOD

how do you know that he doesnt have his phone if YOU dont know where it is and HE cant tell you

i love how she says "floor. ceiling. more thumb"

haha i found the birth of venus

oh and the creation of adam

hes like squidward, which would make sense bc goldies voiced by tom kenny who voices spongebob

"sebastian oliver" "shadow operative" S.O. nice

why do you have a trailblazers badge. youre 4. i didnt get one til i was a cadette

also sebastian???? isnt that the toymakers first name????? you cant have 2 sebastians

also why do you have braces. youre still 4

"SIR MEANIE FACE" IF SOMEONE SAID THAT TO ME ID BE D E V A S T A T E D

SCORPION LET HER CRY SHES F O U R

so really, spy sense DID help

oooooh, sentry duty, thats gotta hurt

WHAT THE H E C K YOURE F O U R

she looks like frickin plushtrap

aCE NO YOURW GONNA D I E

oh trust me they hurt me more than you know

dude theyre so thin youre f i n e

eh, still worked

clicking her teeth together so hard must H U R T

i think she can get out of there. also shes concussed now

why was that so quiet. why did it get louder

thats not a y shape

no, they spy kids

oh shiitake mushrooms thats what THEY said

whenever they say pinnoquinoxx i always think of pinnochio

ahdhhsjak i miss pizza parties 😔

well now we ALL expect it

also, no one????? pick a cooler code name. your regular name was cool and now youve ruined it

2.1

oh theres finally a skip intro option. im not taking it

stop saying that its weird

EWWWWWW CRUSTY THATS SO G R O S S

haha shes shopping w the goon. love that

oh yeah i didnt get to tell yall yet but i absolutely h a t e gablet

a lot of people, juni

listen i know a jt (but he doesnt go by jt) and uhhhhhhh were not gonna go there

why are you happy. what about second semester makes you so happy

boi thats a tardis

the design on his hoverboard looks like the aperture science logo

i paused to read the Floops label and it says "fried corn and sugar loop shaped breakfast substitute, net wt. 13 oz" ITS NOT EVEN A CEREAL ITS A BREAKFAST SUBSTITUTE IM C R Y I N G

listen i know hes technically scorpions dad but i dont think he can legally be in the dorm rooms

aww, thats sweet

i dont think gablet has an attached printer

gablet always sounds like shes mocking people

oh dear God its dolores umbridge

haha nerd

awesome no im gonna die

whenever carmen yells she sounds like link

ok so i didnt find a reason why she sounds like link but i DID find that theyre making a wherea waldo tv series so uhhhh thats fun

why does the cat have a bandaid

GABLET S T O P

OH!!!!!! ON THE WALL!!!!!!! ITS THE TUMBLR POST WITH THE FORK AND KNIFE ETIQUETTE PICTURE!!!!! YOU KNOW THE ONE!!!!!

oh no fart jokes

its even the basic fart sound effect

BAHAHAH MY PHONE VIBRATED AT THE SAME TIME HE FARTED THAT WAS WEIRD

oh no i hate him

stop SLURPING

uh yeah???? you heard them yelling about it

how??? does that work??? you cant just like catch electricity in a cup.... can you???? i havent studied it since 4th grade

oh worm??

goldies such a boomer

worm??

psi shouldnt be at the drawing board right now. he also shouldnt be confused

what happened to the lasers

wait nvm we havent gotten to that episode yet

ace is valid, dark is Scary

im gonna punch gablet in the face

that doesnt sound realistic

do you not have stairs??????

dont you mean inside AND out??

that flashlight did NOTHING

how did it die so fast?????

who else would you be talking to??

isnt that bowser from the mario movie we dont speak of??

i havent gotten a chance to tell yall but i absolutely love clemp. hes such a mood

hes the greatest spy

does it use a mini transmooker???? ig it doesnt bc gablet works but thatd be lit

SEE SHES IMMORTAL

me when i see something interesting

ME WHEN IM NOT ON MY PHONE

i dont think you can legally say that

you killed her

me

wow nice promo

also just???? bring a charger????? like youre the tech girl why do you not have one at all times

how?????? did you go so fast

machete electric bubbles??? nice

just task manager him

mother of all boards sounds like it could be a cuss...mother of all fuckers

also throwback to 1.7 when she says "his ai firewalled his motherboard" i keep expecting her to say "his ai firewalled this motherfucker"

yes i said keep ive watched that episode too many times to count

worm??

why did you giggle and make a flirty pose. are yall supposed to get together???

did you????? kill him????????? holy shit

2.2

thats what my dad does. he loves hospital corners

idc what it is you have a bazooka

ok if it was a spider id get it, australia has some deadly ones, but does it have deadly ants too???? like is that a Thing????

also ants in your room are gross

was that just a cameo??? i dont remember what happens in this one

haha because he said grapevines and wine has dregs and wine is made of grapes

for the boys??? thats so cute

listen idc how evil you are EVERYONE should cry over otters

so one of the parents has a sister or sister in law named roxanna..... hmmm.......

if you dont use your turn signal h*ck u

hes gonna D I E

i just looked at my shoe and i think theres blood on it???? what the h*ck

suspicious??? about.... what???? having fears???? not being perfect?????

juni that was awful wording

JUNI WHAT DID YOU D O TO HIM

like i know what he DID but the way it plays out makes it seem like something significant

i thought his name was heavy meddle not.... deth metal???? thats how the subtitles spell it

hahah me

he sounds like bling bling boy

yeah ik im a fool thanks for reminding me

what are you gonna do??? kill juni????

POOR WORD CHOICE JUNI

oh he gives exactly 0 h*cks

a shoe doesnt make that sound

crack bugs?????

see thats why you dont mess with things

im a god among boys??????? what????

did you... kill them????????????

thats any australian person

theyre so stupid i love them

good i hate her

i thought the gunk just like... disappeared from the guitar but actually it shot off

he died... 😔

uhh.... yeah????? was it not obvious?????

me when i have 5 dollars

#spy kids #spy kids spoilers #spy kids mission critical #carmen cortez #juni cortez

[notesunderhills-blog]

The Truth And Nothing But

Here is a short story I wrote taking on the persona of a mentally unstable woman who believes she is in love with a man called Robert. It is unsure whether the man really exists and whether the two ever met or if he is simply work of her imagination. This was a super interesting character perspective to work with. Enjoy!

I craved him. A starving baby longing for milk. An addict crippled on the floor begging for opium. I needed him.

I would have died for him, you know, a knife to my neck or a bullet to my brain. For him, it just seemed easy. I would lie awake at night in his absence, staring out the window into darkness as loneliness’ maggots squirmed and gnawed in my guts. When I saw him they’d wriggle away to places unknown; they were scared of him. They knew he’d rip their heads off. Tear their heads of Ulrich; tear them, tear them off.

If I had three wishes, the first would be to shrink like Alice. I’d make a toast “To My Love!” and then I’d shrink. Shrink. Shrink. Shrink. I would be tiny, like a spider, crawling my way around. You wouldn’t even see me creeping up the walls. Maybe I could crawl through the drains and out of here. Maybe is a funny word, isn’t it? (I laugh)

The second wish would be for magic ladders. Ladders, so small that I could climb down them into his brain. Step. Step. Step. Down I would go and nobody could stop me. Carefully now; one foot after the other.

Then I would wish to learn to swim, so I could submerge myself in him – swimming in his blood-lagoon and floating on his feelings. I’d be his own personal brain nymph. I’d never drown if I could swim.

Dolores, Dr Phillips says, concerned.

What? I ask. But I know.

I think I wanted to become him; I wanted to be him. A sort of ravaging desperation – and it was choking me, flooding my veins and suffocating me from the inside out. I was dying and nobody batted an eyelid.

Nobody helps me, Doctor. How strange it is. (I pick at my nails and the index finger is bleeding now).

I am here to help you now, Dolores.

Yes, I reply.

His name was Robert, my Robert, and he was a pianist at the Savoy hotel. The first time I saw him play was at a ball that I attended with my family. Everyone was marvelling at him and I resented them for it. Once, my sister was throwing herself at him, flashing her long and erotic eyelashes and being nothing but a whore. It was most retched. So I cursed her. I cursed her under my breath and wished she were dead. She deserved it. She said that she was going to catch him after the show. But she didn’t know that he spoke to nobody - nobody, except for me.

Is that true?

Yes, the truth and nothing but.

He did not discuss his shows with anybody. You see, he was a shy soul with a troubled past life and sought refuge from it. He had nothing, leaving behind his family, and was so very empty. It hurt me to see someone so hollowed out, doctor; sometimes it made my bones tremble. He said that he was desolate before me; that it is the exact word he used, and he was seeking love, for he had never had a woman. He was saving himself for me; he knew he would find me. He had seen me in his dreams, just as I had him. He was crafted by angels. I think he was the Son of God.

Jesus was the son of God, Dolores.

I know that. But I expect that Robert was his half brother.

I’m afraid that’s not true.

You know nothing of truth.

We met one evening, I walked out of the hotel lavatory after a show and whilst passing through the reception I saw him. I could spot him in any crowd. I suppose I was always looking for him, anywhere I went. He was slim, with tired eyes that made him look fragile. He had these delicate, feminine lips, so plump and tender. I always watched his lips when he spoke, in a desperate craving, urging to hear more and more words come out his mouth. His voice set me on fire. I miss his voice. I miss his voice more than anybody could possibly ever imagine. It was wet and sweet, a gentle and perfumed sort of voice that tattooed your skin with each word.

I remember the first time we kissed. We had sat in his small garden, outside the narrow town house, and lit up a cigarette and a conversation. I did not smoke until I met Robert. (I take a drag of a Chesterfield cigarette). I coughed the first time I had inhaled the smoke and he had laughed at me – the kind of laugh that was both charming and mocking at the same time. I want to hear it again. I will hear it again. Perhaps, once I return home, I may find him again.

           Dolores, do you remember why you are here?

Oh, yes, because Mama’s insists on me working on my etiquette. She probably told you about my poor posture too, did she not? (Dr Phillips sighs, taking his pen to paper for the first time in the last twenty minutes.)

I dream of seeing him. I dream of kissing him. I want to kiss him, just like the first time, all over again. I have planned the kiss, revised and modelled it on him, on Robert. It is delicate, yet steady, passionate but gentle; the Robert kiss. My Robert kiss. My Robert.

I love him. I tell God, every night before I close my eyes, then I tell him again in my sleep. I have written to him, although I have not received a reply. I expect he does not have the money for stamps. The piano was his passion, but it did not pay well. He could never take me out to dinner; he could only afford to take out his sister, you see. Family always come first. Ask Mama, if you don’t believe me. (I waggle my finger at Doctor).

His sister? You said that he did not keep in touch with his family. He was running from his past was he not?

Not running, Doctor. Perhaps jogging.

And his sister?

(I hesitate) Sorry I am forgetful; forgive me. They weren’t close. Often she just stayed at the house or they went for dinner. I never met her. She was the only one he kept in contact with.      

I see.

He did not like his sister too much, though. In truth, I was the only person who’s company he desired. How lucky? Although he did have this little ginger tabby cat. She was lovely. Robert found her wandering the streets when she was very small. He was always helping those who struggled. He prided himself on his charity. The cat’s name was Margit and I liked her very much. She was very soft. Margrit. I think that was her name.

Margrit, Margrit. He found her when she was very small. She was very small. Margrit the small tabby. The small grey tabby.

Margrit the tabby cat, with the soft fur.  

Margrit, Margrit. No that wasn’t her name. Marjery, Maggie. Margrit. (I am picking my nails harder now and the shakes begin. Then the bulging of my eyes).

Dolores, calm yourself. Let us talk some more about your family.

I cannot remember. I cannot remember. I cannot remember.

Dolores, have some water.

I love him. I love him. I love him.

Nurse Winston, please call Dr Townsend to assist me.

I love him. I love him. I love him.

I love you, Robert.

[turtle-paced]

GoT Re-Watch: Fine-Toothed Comb Edition

Sorry for the delay - Easter, exams, that sort of thing. But here we are at the start of season six, isn’t that exciting?

6.01 - The Red Woman

(2:11) It’s a lovely opening shot of the Wall and Castle Black, at least.

(2:57) Anyone know why Sam’s dog cares so much about Jon? The showrunners just haven’t done the work to show the direwolves are magically significant.

(4:41) Yes, Jon is dead. This scene is moving at a glacial pace. I mean, you should dedicate time to allow the viewer to process a major character’s death, but we’re getting almost as much time to show Davos and Dolorous Edd reacting to Jon Snow’s death as we saw Sansa react to the deaths of Robb and Catelyn.

Get used to comments about the scene moving slowly. I spent most of season six hollering “GET ON WITH IT” at my laptop. The pacing in this season is absolutely shot to hell, and it’s not because they didn’t have enough plot or potential plot. They absolutely did. But once again that plot was compressed to maintain “shocks” and big end-of-season events, leaving the characters to make small talk for multiple episodes.

(5:02) Edd trusts the men in this room, who we’ve never seen before. It’s like they’re placeholding for other characters, characters who may have been shortsightedly killed off earlier…

(6:20) It took us about four minutes to inform three characters of Jon Snow’s death. Nothing else. Just establishing he’s dead. Glacial.

(7:20) “But I never once disobeyed an order.” This line is, I think, supposed to tell the audience that Thorne is loyal to the Watch and killed Jon out of what he saw as necessity; the telling-not-showing thing leaves me with the impression that Thorne is going for the most facile loophole imaginable, “well he never told me not to kill him.”

(7:40) Then we end up with tense problems. No, not that sort of tense. “Jon Snow was going to destroy the Night’s Watch.” How? By letting the Free Folk through the Wall - oh. Shit. A bit late, huh? The lack of the Pink Letter has led to this problem: if letting the Free Folk through the Wall alone was enough to kill Jon over, it was enough to shut him up on the wrong side of the Wall for. Instead, the mutineers let Jon and all the Free Folk through, then killed Jon, which fixes nothing and causes even more problems.

(8:08) More tense problems. “What he thought was right would have been the end of us.” Okay, smartypants, but the Free Folk are still through the Wall. Your problems still exist in the present. Just because the writers know this plot is effectively over for the season doesn’t mean the character should.

(8:56) Davos is clearly at a bit of a plot loose end, with Stannis dead. His motivations aren’t completely clear - while he liked Jon, and I can understand that he’d prefer to work with Jon over the mutineers, I’m not sure what he thinks he’s accomplishing.

(9:40) Oh wonderful. This scene. Timer on!

(9:48) “The kennelmaster’s daughter. She smelled of dog.” Profound.

(10:05) Okay, stop, because this is bullshit. Myranda was absolutely afraid of Ramsay, as we saw back in season five, and it’s really damaging for the show to say she wasn’t after the fact and leave it as the last word.

(10:40) I still don’t know whether this is Ramsay hamming it up or being genuinely sad. One’s a waste of time and the other’s offensively privileging the abuser’s perspective of his victim without chance for rebuttal.

(10:50) And timer off! That was a minute and ten seconds of Ramsay mourning for Myranda, for the same plot and character effect as we could have got if Ramsay just shrugged off her death entirely in two lines.

(11:20) Poor Roose. He got stuck with the recap. Ramsay defeated Stannis, Ramsay married Sansa yes yes we watched season five, more fool us. Not to mention his only plot function is to nag Ramsay ineffectually.

(11:45) “[The North] won’t back us without Sansa Stark.” And yet we will see just as many Northern lords back the Boltons as the Starks, and twice as many sit the fight out entirely.

(13:01) I wrote it back when I first saw this episode: this river is here so the writers could include an exchange with Sansa wanting to give up and Theon spurring her into greater courage. Even now Theon’s telling her just how bad Ramsay is and she really needs to believe him - I think she knows already. This wouldn’t be so bad in isolation, but it doesn’t stand in isolation. It’s not even an isolated event in this episode. There is a consistent pattern of the writers writing Sansa as weak so that others (usually male characters) can show their strength.

(14:08) But the hug is very nice, especially as the panning out to show both of them together conveys that the comfort received is mutual.

(15:03) I swear, nothing a Stark or Stark-adjacent character does is allowed to succeed. Theon says Sansa’s dead, not an unreasonable proposition given the fall plus the run through the frozen landscape plus the river, and immediately this guy says “liar.”

Incidentally, imagine if this guy had been all like “dead? We better go look for her body!” “But sir, the footprints -“ “I said, we had better go look for her body! We will be searching in that direction over there. It will take us hours. A shame nobody’s looking at the road north right now.” Same plot outcome, but conveys that disloyalty is something the Boltons are having problems with.

(15:50) Deaths: 1. Brienne’s kill.

(16:21) After a brief exchange of blows that shows how the choreography has gone downhill (a hit to the sword made Brienne spin away dramatically at one point), deaths: 2. Brienne’s kill again.

(16:42) Deaths: 3. Pod’s kill.

(17:01) Deaths: 4. Brienne’s kill. Another injured man, who says “no, please” before Brienne cuts his throat with what can only be described as an expression of savage glee.

(17:13) Deaths: 5. Theon’s kill.

Hey, you know who hasn’t done anything in this scene? Sansa. I am so reminded of the hill clan attack back in season one, where Catelyn just tucked herself up next to a boulder and didn’t get in the way of any of the fighting…in spite of picking up a knife and killing a man herself in the book. Sansa has not done so much as shout “behind you!” or something like that.

(17:32) And now’s the time to talk about Brienne’s appearance. Last season she had to choose - kill Stannis or save Sansa. Here at the beginning of the season we see that that choice has zero consequences. Brienne gets to do both. There isn’t even a cost to her relationship with Sansa. It completely undermines that moment of choice. What is even the point of writing that choice if it doesn’t make a difference?

(18:03) Not to mention the choice Brienne made undermines her sincerity in this offer. Brienne will do anything for Sansa, anything, I say, there is no knight more dedicated to a lady - oh wait hang on a tic personal vendetta over there just gotta pop out in this crisis situation for a bit of revenge murder.

(18:10) Theon nods his approval of Sansa accepting Brienne’s vows. Which one of them has met Brienne before, again?

(18:28) Goddamn it. This starts off so promisingly, with Sansa gathering herself to accept Brienne’s vows formally, but then she freezes up and needs Pod to prompt her. This instance is especially bad, as Sansa remembering her manners in trying situations is her jam. Nobody expects Sansa to be perfectly put together through all this - but we’ve already had two instances in this episode alone (the river, the fight) of Sansa needing the help of others. At this third point, it’s time for Sansa to demonstrate her own strengths.

(19:27) It’s good that our first sight of Cersei involves her fiddling with with her much shorter hair. It shows us that the haircut meant something to her.

(19:46) What’s odd is that Cersei is completely alone. She’s still being accused of things like murder and treason, but she is completely unattended by anyone. Which could be an oversight, but as we’ll see later, Margaery (accused of perjury), is constantly shadowed by a septa.

(20:02) We have multiple shots of Cersei traversing the castle to go greet her daughter. Padding! How would we understand that Cersei walked through the castle to greet the boat if we did not see her walking through several other rooms first?

(20:16) Myrcella’s shroud is indeed gold.

(21:29) This discussion of bloated Lannister corpses has got to be some sort of reference to the putrefaction of Tywin’s corpse on his bier…but it’s not the fact that Tywin’s body succumbed to biology and decayed, it’s that it did so while lying in state. It’s the same thing as Tywin’s magnificent white charger taking a dump in front of the Iron Throne after the Blackwater.

(22:01) Show!Cersei continues to be a far better parent than book!Cersei, able to recognise that her daughter was a separate person whose desires did not necessarily align with her own, and able to value those differences.

(22:16) While I’m comparing writing to Catelyn’s scripting, this bit from Cersei, “she was nothing like me, no meanness, no jealousy, just good” reminds me of Catelyn’s monologue in 3.02 reminding everyone that she’s a horrible, horrible person.

(22:42) Reminding the audience that Cersei is motivated by a prophecy. A prophecy that she will have three children, all of whom will predecease Cersei. The fact that show!Cersei has had four children aside, she also says to Jaime, “you couldn’t have stopped it,” which kind of undoes the whole point of making Cersei driven by that prophecy. Everything she does, she does precisely so she can stop it coming true.

(23:10) “Fuck everyone who isn’t us.” Jaime Lannister’s lack of character development in five words.

(24:00) The way Margaery’s voice breaks over her demand to see her brother - Natalie Dormer is way too good for this nonsense storyline.

(24:36) So’s Jonathan Pryce, walking in with a perfectly executed good cop act. At least, Jonathan Pryce’s acting is perfectly consistent with a good cop routine, in a context where a good cop routine makes an awful lot of sense. The High Sparrow may be sincere in everything he says…

(25:01) …but he’s saying the exact same thing as the “overzealous” Septa Unella, just in a gentler tone. Like with Melisandre, this doesn’t look like religious sincerity, this looks like a trick.

(25:34) In addition to this, the scene accomplished nothing. Nobody has changed their minds about anything. Nothing new has occurred. A minute and a half of episode wasted.

(25:53) Doran’s reminiscing about a dead relative he loved very much. He’s toast.

(26:48) Deaths: 6. Tyene instakills Areo Hotah. Must’ve been a critical hit.

(26:56) Deaths: 7. Tyene kills the maester.

(27:10) Ellaria here gives us a motive rant. She references Elia and Oberyn. She says Doran’s people are disgusted with him, as the guards watch impassively.

(27:43) “Weak men will never rule Dorne again.” Deaths: 8. Doran, killed by Ellaria.

What the fuck happened there? Last season, Doran was a clear good guy in this storyline, behaving reasonably and rationally against the super-obviously-evil Sand Snakes who wanted nothing more than to murder an innocent girl, and he had sufficient support of his guards to arrest the malefactors when they acted. This season, Doran’s a weak man who doesn’t deserve to rule, Ellaria and the Sand Snakes are representatives of girl power even though they haven’t changed their position on revenge murders, and the Dornish guards apparently don’t care about anything beyond murdering weak men.

In itself, this really plays like the villains triumphing. Ellaria gets away with murder and commits another, goes on a fucking motive rant, and disparages someone trying to stop a destructive and futile war against massive internal opposition as “weak.” Obviously bad, right? Right. And yet we get to the end of the season and apparently this is a positive step for the Dornish?

(28:03) Trystane is still on the ship. Obara and Nymeria apparate on board undetected, having caught up with this ship somehow. Okay then.

(28:13) Ah, cousin murder, so empowering. Nobody really cares about kinslaying in Westeros.

(28:42) Deaths: 9. Trystane, killed by Obara.

(28:51) Woman called “bitch”: 1. A wonderful and positive example of women interacting, completely necessary to wind up the scene.

(29:05) “We’re never going to fix what’s wrong with this city from the top of an 800-foot pyramid.” Gosh, if only Dany was more a woman of the people. That’s her problem, her rule doesn’t take the lower classes into account enough. (Back in “Hardhome”, Dany’s problem is that she’s ruling without the rich.)

(29:30) Varys is a eunuch: 1. It took just over thirty seconds to get to that “joke”.

(30:07) This bit where Tyrion gives a coin to a starving woman so she can feed her baby…I’m going to quote from the excellent How Not To Write A Novel, because it pretty well encapsulates my feelings about this bit. 

“Perfect people are boring. Perfect people are obnoxious because they are better than us. Perfect people are, above all, too good to be true. […] An unprincipled gold digger who gives twenty dollars to a beggar is enchanting. A crusading human rights lawyer who volunteers at an animal shelter and also pauses on his way to court to give twenty dollars to a beggar makes us gag.”

The narrative’s lost sight of Tyrion’s interiority. The problems he faces are external, not requiring him to change or compromise, not based around his flaws. He already knows the best thing to do - the problem is doing it. But that means that show!Tyrion is now a flat, static character.

(30:35) Abs & pecs: 1.

(30:53) We see here that the Red Priests are preaching in favour of Dany, as is consistent with the anti-slavery stance they had back in season five. Note also the over-explaining of the effect Dany’s removal of slavery has on politics here. I’ll get back to this next episode, where certain things are under-explained.

(31:10) Abs & pecs: 5.

(31:13) So this sermon here is framed as being the Red Priests preaching that Dany has abandoned the former slaves of Meereen. Yet this speech contains lines such as “the people who love the darkness chased [Dany] away” and “will you fight for your own salvation, now that Queen Daenerys is not here to fight for you?” They’re not preaching of Dany’s abandonment, they’re depicting her as a champion of the former slaves driven out by the true enemy and in need of their activism while she’s gone. This Red Priest asks “will you take up her flames yourselves?” This is an unambiguously pro-Dany message, emphasising continuity between Dany’s cause and the current needs of the former slaves, rather than rejecting Dany as too timid and beholden to the Masters. I prefer to think that Tyrion’s established-to-be-crappy Valyrian is getting in the way, because otherwise he’s really bad at interpreting the messaging here.

(31:37) Oh, that’s Dany’s other problem. “You can’t fight an enemy you don’t know.” Man, if only Dany had thought of finding out who the Sons of the Harpy were. Truly, Tyrion is bringing exceptional insight into this situation.

This show is very clearly only as smart as the writers.

(32:12) Abs & pecs: 6.

(32:33) The burning of the ships (in a nice shot, incidentally) was the only new thing to happen in this scene, and it doesn’t have time to breathe. It’s all well and good to re-establish the situation at the beginning of the season, but we had three minutes checking in with the state of Meereen’s economy, and thirty seconds of a major attack on Dany’s future interests. These proportions seem to me backwards.

(32:48) Meanwhile, in the extremely Irish Dothraki Sea…

(33:33) “You keep coming back. Why?” “You know why.” Ooh, ooh, so do I! It’s because Jorah’s a stalker who cares not a whit about Dany’s repeatedly stated desire not to have him anywhere near her! It’s not a romantic tale of unrequited love but a depressingly common romanticisation of behaviour that’s genuinely dangerous!

(33:45) Daario here explicitly mentions that Dany doesn’t want Jorah the way he wants her (a formulation Jorah accepts), and then calls Jorah’s actions romantic. There’s no subversion. No questioning. The show thinks that Jorah’s disregard for “go away, I don’t want to see you again” is romantic.

(35:10) So these master trackers found a ram that was very clearly killed by a dragon and obvious tracks from a Dothraki horde, and yet it takes that fucking breadcrumbed ring for them to conclude “Daenerys was here, the Dothraki must have taken her.” This is not the LotR movie’s “not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall” (not familiar enough with the books and don’t have the time to reread them right now sorry) - in that story, the pursuers were already on the trail, already aware of who the kidnappers were, and the discovered pin was more proof of life than anything else (“not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall” = “that didn’t drop off a Hobbit corpse, that had to be torn off by someone”).

(35:50) Abs & pecs: 7.

(36:24) Plot-critical speculation about whether the carpet matches the drapes, brought to you by Game of Thrones. Just kidding. It’s not plot-critical at all.

(36:55) So that was thirty seconds of dialogue devoted to two unnamed minor characters dicussing how they’d like to rape Dany. Good use of time, writers!

(37:16) Once again we return to shots of butchered meat in the open air as an indication that these people are primitive and uncivilised. Guess what? Food preservation tech back in King’s Landing isn’t great either - but we sure don’t get the shots saying “look how backwards these people are!”

(37:23) Abs & pecs: 8.

(37:48) Abs & pecs: 9.

(37:55) The women, naturally, are immediately jealous of and threatened by Dany. Of course. That’s what women are like, in Game of Thrones.

(38:41) Then we get this wonderful comedy routine about how stripping Dany against her will would be among the five finest things in life.

(39:23) Look, I know that Dany’s seemingly constant appeal to her own titles back in season two was comical, but she was set down for it back in season two. What’s she supposed to do here, not give her name and as many titles as she can heap on, when the alternative is (as has been so clearly articulated) rape?

(40:19) Here’s the better way of showing how grossly misogynistic Dothraki society is, without solid minutes of rape threats - Khal Moro only backs down when Dany says she’s Khal Drogo’s widow. That gets the message across. We could have saved minutes of rape threats.

(41:14) But there’s the plot progression, after six minutes of Dany listening to sexual threats. She’s being taken to Isengard Vaes Dothrak. Six minutes. Alternatively, we could have cut to the chase and shown Dany arriving at Vaes Dothrak. The pacing this season…

(41:22-41:43) We need twenty seconds of following this guy’s shopping trip to understand that this is a street full of beggars, and, gasp! Arya is one of them. You can tell the imagination is running dry, you really can. Earlier seasons would have done this in literally half the time.

(42:16) I do like the out-of-focus background and the very focused street noise, including how we hear the Waif before we see her on screen. That gets across Arya’s internal experiece of blindness nicely for a visual medium.

(42:42) However, I do not understand why this stick-hitting is taking place on the streets, in public. Seems a bit overt for a bunch of covert assassins. Not to mention that once again the Faceless Men can’t teach for crap. Pummeling students is bad teaching, and by all logic will most likely result in a student with broken bones, a deep resentment of their teacher, and an only marginally increased ability to fight with sticks once the broken bones heal.

(43:01) That was two hits to the face, with a staff. God but I hate hate hate what the showrunners are saying about education with this storyline. This is not toughening Arya up. This is beating her up. But it’s all worth it in the end since she becomes a badass assassin!

Did the writers understand what was going on with Alliser Thorne, Jon Snow, and the conflict over training in book one? Randyll Tarly’s attempts to make Sam a knight? I rather think they didn’t.

(43:13) Two more hits to the head with a staff, and a couple of nasty body blows as well. Maybe we can count Arya’s lack of severe injury here as foreshadowing for how she survives that gut wound later.

(43:23) Meanwhile, the other beggars on the street are completely unaffected by the sight of a woman beating the crap out of a girl. Not even “geez, take it off the streets!”

(44:01) Meanwhile, back at the Wall, an armed standoff has developed. I understand that Jon’s supporters are in danger from the mutineers, but this is all just killing time. It’s unnecessary, much like the stuff with Dany, since it neither advances the plot nor develops characters. Skip straight to the fight between the Free Folk and the mutineers. Get to the point.

(45:55) Cut to Melisandre starts here. Just so you all can appreciate how long this scene goes on for.

(46:31) Melisandre looks in a fuzzy mirror.

(46:53) Boobs: 1. What, you think it would be a season opener without tits?

(47:03) Female butts: 1.

(47:39) Gasp! Shock! Horror! Melisandre is old!

(47:44) Boobs: 2.

(47:53) Have a niiiiiiiiice long shot of this naked old woman. Be repulsed and horrified at the fact that women age. The show feels reasonably free to put unattractive naked men on the screen from time to time, but when there’s an unattractive woman on screen, it’s the focus of an episode’s reveal and everything is framed so we can appreciate just how unattractive she is.

(48:01) Female full frontal: 1.

(48:19) Female butts: 2.

So that was the reveal, everyone! What a shocking twist. In hindsight, we can see how knowledge of Melisandre’s true age and appearance makes a huge difference to the plot. Except no, it doesn’t come up again, the only difference is that after this point the showrunners won’t write in topless scenes for Melisandre, because now the audience knows how saggy she really is - it just wouldn’t be sexy anymore. Who needs a whole walk of shame when the same thing can be accomplished in one ponderously slow scene of a woman getting into bed?

The episode is named for Melisandre, and the “important” thing we discover about her here is that she’s old. She doesn’t do anything of plot relevance, and she’s going to be bringing someone back from the dead very shortly. The Red Woman! She’s actually old!

Game of Numbers S06E01

Deaths: 9. Brienne kills three people, Tyene two, and Pod, Theon, Ellaria, and Obara one each. Doran, Trystane, and Areo Hotah were amongst the casualties.

Boobs: 2.

Abs & pecs: 9.

Female butts: 2.

Male butts: 0.

Female full frontal: 1.

Male full frontal: 0.

Woman called “bitch”: 1.

Man called “bitch”: 0.

Varys is a eunuch: 1. Oh, it’s been too long since the last gratuitous mention of Varys’ mutilation!

#anti got #fine toothed comb edition #cw: violence #cw: rape #cw: abuse #only love pads the show #season six