#hence the yeah buoy

[emblemxeno]

Alm and Celica’s argument at the end of Act 2 in Echoes is honestly fascinating when you think about it more cuz yeah it’s easy reading it on the surface level as a lover’s spat (hell I think even Kusakihara described it as “girl gets mad and boy has no idea why girl is upset, just like real life” which bleh) but it grants very good setup. These certain lines from each of them stick out to me most: 

Alm: Nrgh… If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear I was speaking to a blue blood. My station doesn’t matter, Celica. I’m here because I was called. I have a duty to perform, and I’ll perform it. No more, and no less. [...] Do you think I WANTED this fight? This all started because Lima IV went and angered the empire. If you wish to point fingers, point them at the ruler who failed his people. It’s his fault we’re in this mess.

Celica: That’s not… Well, so what if it is? Maybe you should go become king if it’s such a damnably easy job! [...] You’re awfully free with accusations for a boy with no idea what royalty entails! And now that you’re a “hero,” I imagine the throne is next on the list, is that it?

Celica directly critcizes what Alm is currently lacking as a leader, and Alm unwittingly hits one of Celica’s major insecurities. 

Alm is established as having strong ideals and unwavering views during Act 1, but his awareness of the world is incredibly shallow, not made better by how he’s so sure of how the world should be that he’s unprepared for what it actually requires of him and what it means to be a person of influence, be it an army’s commander or someone of high birth, hence why Celica brings up exactly how he’s ignorant to the kinds of burdens that royalty have to endure. That’s why his parts of Act 3 and 4 have him dealing with exactly that: it starts with his Brand being revealed to Berkut, next he gets the Royal Sword that’s supposed to be royalty only, the conversation with Clive about rescuing Delthea, him finding out Celica is a princess, dealing with killing his own father and cousin, etc. And despite it all, what he has to due is think beyond himself and for the world. He can’t focus on his sadness of losing his family right now, as the heir to Rigel’s throne his responsibility is to make sure the safety of Valentia’s people is secured. That’s the burden of royalty that he was lacking, what Celica has had since she was a kid and what she criticized him for, and the piece of the puzzle he was missing.

Celica meanwhile is established as being incredibly aware of the people around her during Act 2. She takes out pirates even thought it’s not in her mission description because she knows the people are suffering because of them, for example. However, she’s distant. She’s closed off. She knows what’s required of her as a princess, but it can seem like she’s being cold instead of responsible. And despite this, she’s still under the impression that she’s not doing enough, hence why she gets as upset as she does when Alm calls Lima a terrible king, because even though she didn’t like him whatsoever, Celica herself sees herself as a terrible princess. In response, during Act 3 and 4, this insecurity of hers gets put into overdrive. She’s helping people yes, but being Mila’s priestess and the newly revealed missing Princess of Zofia starts having her taking her burdens to extremes. She’s convinced that she has to do everything herself, and that Mila is the only way to fix things. This extreme is taken to the point where she’s too self sacrificing and closed off to the pleas of her friends and the situation right in front of her, that everyone involved gets hurt. Her piece of the puzzle that she’s missing, is the day to day perspective, and understanding that the strength of her friends can buoy her; Alm being raised as a village kid means he was set up to have this way of living woven into his character.

In short: Alm sees what’s in front of him, but needs to learn to see the bigger picture because he’s unprepared for what kind of pain being a leader brings. Celica is very aware of the bigger picture, but needs to learn to lean on her friends or else she’ll end up hurting more than just herself in trying to do things alone.

They each have what the other lacks, but are just unable to reconcile early on because they were separated for so long, hence the argument. But y’know. Hardship builds character and all that. And sometimes hardship means unknowingly killing your cousin and dad, or getting turned into a souless monster and stabbed with a sword.

#fire emblem #fire emblem echoes #fire emblem shadows of valentia #fire emblem echoes shadows of valentia #alm fire emblem #celica fire emblem #what's great is that iirc Ascended Celica's forging bonds focused on exactly this dichotomy #with how Askr just fights the problem in front of them with seemingly little regard for the big picture #now i only hope that the (hopefully) inevitable Ascended Alm's forging bonds will complement this

[kokkili]

I complimented their battletag and a beautiful friendship was born

we played the next game together and then they were gone.... YeehawByLaw you beautiful SOB, I wish you only the best *salutes*

#also the guy who got potg was a dude named steveybuoy #hence the yeah buoy #potg #soldier76 #overwatch anniversary #support main #arcade #my video

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

[checkmate] [3]

Summary: After ten years of fighting and surviving their way through the apocalypse in search of their son, Hugo and Isabel Sulieman finally find Ericson’s Boarding School for Troubled Youth and are ready to reunite with Louis.

Notes: After many hours of writing and rewriting this story, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s going to be way longer than I anticipated [what else is new]. I want to keep the all chapters around the same length [about 5k] so there’s a lot of splitting being done. I think it’s safe to say that there will be more than four parts to this like I had originally planned. 

Anyway, I hope y’all enjoy it! Thank you for reading and for all the positive feedback!

As I’ve said before, this is a part of the contest prize story for @bluebutterfly1​!

Read on AO3

---

Through the crack of the walker’s skull, blood oozes dark, dripping down the handle of the hatchet and onto his hand. Cold, clotted, and disgusting. 

Hugo pushes the dead walker down with a huff just as Isabel finishes off the last one a few steps away. 

They’re repulsive, the walkers. Even now, Hugo can’t over their decaying stench and peeling flesh. These walkers, in particular, are more disgusting- fresher walkers usually are. 

Older walkers- years and years older- are slower, nothing but leathery skin and bone, weak from muscle deterioration and perhaps even hunger. 

Newer walkers are what scare Hugo. Not only are the remains of a humane appearance more present, but they’re stronger, quicker, hungrier.  

Killing them is such a normal thing now, he thinks. It’s easier when he considers it as a prevention of more chaos with every walker he kills. One less fresh walker. One less to wander around and devour innocent, unsuspecting survivors. There’s been too much of that. 

“All clear,” Isabel says, wiping her knife off on the dirty rag attached to her belt. “Can we make this quick?” 

Up close on the pier, the boat is an absolute wreck. Stray pieces of wood jut out of the water, metal stuck swaying with the waves, knocking into the boat. From what he can see, there isn’t a safe enough way for him to climb inside. 

“Yep, it’s terrible. A real mess,” Isabel says. “Worst boat I’ve ever stood before in my life.”

Hugo raises a brow, elbowing her with a smirk. 

“Worse than The Nauti Buoy?”

Isabel wrinkles her nose. “Ugh. I hated that damn thing.”

The Nauti Buoy was the clever name of his brother’s boat, one Stephen prided himself on, even though he stole the name from another boat he came across in his travels to pass off as his own. 

Hugo used to say, “You know how people end up looking like their animals? Well, Stephen looks like his boat.”

Gaudy decor inside and out, painted a terrible antique gold color, much bigger than necessary. 

Well, he thought so at the time. After Stephen’s second divorce, he ended up living in the damn thing. Oh, how proud their mother was. At least he was able to keep his prized watch collection safe and secure, because that’s all that really mattered. 

Hugo only ever brought his family onto that boat once. Isabel grew so sick an hour in that they had to turn the damn thing around and head back to shore. 

Not Louis, though. 

Louis loved being on that boat. Not once did he ever get sick, except Hugo had to warn him about leaning too far over the railing to get a better look at the dolphins he spotted. Nearly fell overboard and gave Hugo a heart attack. 

Seeing Louis’ glowing face as he marveled at the waves and salty air was what inspired Hugo to invest in a boat of his own. 

Louis named it Gus. 

Didn’t really have a reason, he just thought the boat looked like a Gus. 

Hugo smiles. 

“It wasn’t that bad, just ugly,” he says. “What do you think happened?.” 

“I told you, someone blew it to shit,” Isabel says. “What exactly are you expecting to find?”

“Something useful,” Hugo kneels down, pressing a hand against the boat to steady himself as he leans in through a gaping hole. “Clothes, weapons, maybe food.”

“Hey, careful-”

“Look, through there? I can see a couple of crates floating inside. Worth checking out. Here, why don't you go check along the shore, I’ll see if I can grab one.”

“How about I stay right here and help you? I know you’re gonna fall in and I’ll have to fish you out.” 

“I’m not gonna fall in,” Hugo rolls his eyes. “Have some faith in me.”

“It’s not that I don’t have faith in you, Hugh,” Isabel frowns. “I’d just rather prevent a disaster than try and fix one. Who knows what’s lurking around in these waters.”

“What, you think a shark’s going to gobble me up?”

“No, a walker,” Isabel kneels down beside him. “They can move under there much better than we can, and they don’t gotta breathe. If this ship crashed, odds are there were people on it who were thrown into the water. Hence, walkers.”

Well, damn, he hadn’t thought of that. Leaning over the edge, Hugo squints. The water’s pretty mucky, so he can’t tell how deep it is or what the bottom holds. 

“I could out swim a walker, but to put your mind at ease-,” Isabel scoffs “-I’ll look around here some more and see if I can find something to pull the crates closer while you go search the shore, then we can pull the crates out together.” 

“Y’know there’s probably nothing in them but useless, sodden supplies, right?” Isabel says, “I mean, I doubt this was some sort of battleship that carried weapons and first aid. Hell, it probably carried toy cars or something.”

“Toy cars?” Hugo laughs. “If that’s the case, then your little friend won’t need to ride around in your bag anymore. He can drive right beside us.”

“You’re not funny.”

“No?” Hugo smirks. “I’m a little funny, c’mon. Geoff driving around in a little car? Honking at the squirrels? Flippin’ me the bird every chance he gets? Hilarious.” 

With an exasperated shake of her head, Isabel turns on her heels towards the shoreline, saying, “Fine, I’ll walk around. Don’t touch those crates until I get back because I swear if you fall in-”

“I’m not going to fall in,” Hugo calls after her. “I’m as coordinated as the most athletic breed of... cat!” Cats are coordinated, right? 

He wouldn’t know, he never owned one. 

He wishes he owned a cat, but Louis insisted on a damn turtle. 

Isabel snorts a chuckle. “Yeah, okay!” 

“You doubt me?”

“I doubt you.”

“Madam, now you’ve wounded me!” 

“You’ll live.”

“Hey, while you’re over there, let Geoff go for a swim, too! He hasn’t done that in a while. He can scout for water walkers.” 

That earns him Isabel’s lovely middle finger. He presses a hand against his chest, pushing his lip out in a pretend pout. 

“Once again, she chooses the turtle over me.”

That makes Isabel laugh, shaking her head and giving a dismissive wave.  “We meet back in five!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Hugo watches her briefly, taking in the sight of her walking along the shore, stepping over pieces of broken wood and rocks. Her loose top flutters with the rustling wind against the curve of her waist and a strange tingle of emotion cause him to pause.

A lifetime ago, Hugo and Isabel walked along a beach. 

Much cleaner than this one with a much prettier sight. Along the shores of Makena Beach, they walked together barefoot. Isabel wore a dress she bought in one of the shops, one that fluttered in the wind the same exact way her shirt does now. 

She was young, her hair long, curls big and windblown.

Pregnant, about seven weeks along.

“Shit,” Hugo mumbles. 

He wonders what the state of Hawaii is, if their walker population is great or not. 

Not that it matters. 

There’s no way he’ll make it to those shores ever again, much less walk along them with Isabel and Louis. 

He always thought about bringing Louis back there, too. 

After he graduated high school, Hugo wanted to bring him to look at the colleges. He’d get into the best school they had to offer, of course, because Louis was a straight A student- when properly motivated- and there he’d get his degree while studying the culture and history of Hawaii and its people, land a damn good job and make a name for himself. 

He can just see his boy now. Tall and handsome with his mother’s eyes and a beautiful smile... happy and satisfied with his life. 

Louis would fall in love with a pretty girl, propose to her, and have a gorgeous wedding on the beach. They’d have a handful of kids, too. Hugo would be more than happy to become a grandfather. 

A grandfather... babysitting Louis’ children while he and his lovely wife went out on date nights...

Hugo rubs his eyes along the sleeve of his shirt, sighing. 

Nostalgic for what never was, he supposes. 

They need to find that school, Hugo thinks. No matter what, once they’re done here- after they’ve scavenged some useful supplies- they’ll head back to the train station to look for a map. 

They couldn't find one earlier, but maybe they didn’t look hard enough. They only really looked around to make sure it wasn’t someone else’s home, then headed back this way to check out the wreckage Hugo spotted. 

They have to be close, closer than they’ve ever been. From the faintest part of his memory, he remembers the road being long and yet hard to find. He had to pay attention to the road signs, but his concentration was more than unfocused with Louis silently fuming in the backseat. 

“You’re only staying for a year, or until we can... until we can sort some things out.”

“...”

“You’ll have a dorm with a roommate. Mr. Davidson told me he’s a good kid, he just... fell down a wrong path, so I don’t want to get any calls about you mistreating him.”

“...”

“This isn’t going to be like your other school. You will be respectful to your roommate, your classmates, and your teachers. No excuses, no exceptions. Understand?”

“...”

“Louis, answer me when I’m talking to you.”

“...”

Hugo glances back at the boat. 

He hopes there’s something to gain from doing this, but at the very least, he got to see an old-timey riverboat like this up close. Little things..

Hugo pays another look to Isabel as she inspects a piece of soggy wood before pushing away from the boat to move along the pier. Over the edge, the corner of what looks to be a crate sticks up. Dropping down to his knees with a slight wince- damn leg!- Hugo rolls up his sleeves, sinking his hands in the chilled water. 

Thoughts of the cool waves crashing against the shores of Makena Beach haunt him, memories of swimming and laughing and kissing-

“Shit,”  Hugo finds a good grip on the crate and yanks. “Knock it off-”

It barely budges, caught on something. 

He tries again, grunting at the horrible pull in his back. A shock jolts through his bad leg, making him bite the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from yelping. Letting go, he adjusts his position.

“There’s nothing over here!” Isabel calls. “Just garbage!”

With a better, firmer grip, Hugo pulls. The crate loosens, lifting up out of the water. 

“Damn it…” Hugo gives an exasperated sigh. 

It’s empty and broken, it’s bottom missing. Whatever goods filled it are nowhere to be found. 

“Damn, damn, damn,” he mutters, standing to rub his dripping hands along his pants, kicking the useless crate back into the water. “Double damn.” 

He opens his mouth to shout out a complain, but sees Isabel down closer to the water, her open bag beside her. Grinning to herself, she holds onto Geoff as he moves through the water. 

Hugo thinks to make a joke both to tease her and make himself feel better about his lack of findings, but decides against it. Instead, he soaks in the sight of her content smile. 

Moving along the pier, he calls out, “Hey, got a question for you!”

“No!” 

Hugo laughs.

“You ever think about growing your hair out again?”

Isabel’s face scrunches up in a way that tells Hugo that’s a dumb question, nearly losing her grip on Geoff. 

“You seriously asking me that?” she shakes her head. “Hair like that is nothing but a death trap! Remember back in Peach Creek? Damn walker nearly took a chunk out of my neck! Not only that, but it got its nasty fingers all stuck in it and there was skin and puss and-ugh!”

“Oh shit, that’s right,” Hugo grunts, bending back down along the hardwood to fish out a piece of clothing- a sleeve of a denim jacket. “That was a nice place.”

A nice place, indeed, but one of many that almost killed them.

One of the worst moments in their lives happened while staying with the group at the Peach Creek Clinic. 

The people there were sympathetic to their dire situation. After losing their vehicle to a bunch of selfish assholes, barely having anything to their names aside from pictures of Louis and his clothes, the group took them in. 

It seemed secure at the time, with a small group and plenty of medical supplies. Scarce food, though. Hugo and Isabel might’ve stayed there longer but anxiousness about getting to West Virginia sent them back on the road after another incident with walkers breaking in. 

Half the group perished during that attack.  They’re both lucky Hugo was there to take care of the walker before it got to her, but he couldn’t stop it from getting it’s fingers stuck and tangled in Isabel’s curls. 

She was hysterical, tears dripping down her bruised cheeks as Hugo cut out chunks of hair to get the damn hand out. Bodies of their fallen friends surrounded them, and he thought they both might pass out.

When he tried to pick out the remaining pieces of rotten flesh and bone all while attempting to comfort her, Isabel insisted that they just cut it all off. 

One of the survivors- shit, what was her name? Yolanda, maybe? Rhonda?- did a nice, clean shave of her head. Short and close to her scalp, nothing for anyone to grab. 

They left the next morning. The survivors at the clinic were understanding and kind enough to send them with a bag of medical supplies they were able to spare, and fish food for Geoff, since all the fish within the lobby tank was no longer around. 

Through the shallow water closer to shore, the falling sunlight gleams off of something stuck in the sand. 

“Ah-ha!” Hugo grins, ignoring the pain in his knee as he shifts into a better position. Rolling up his sleeve, he reaches in to dig through the mushy sand. His thumb brushes something firm. 

“Why?” Isabel asks, kicking at another piece of wood on her way back towards the pier. Geoff drips in her hands, merry after spending time in the water. “What brought that on?”

“Was thinking about Hawaii,” Hugo winces, leaning further down into the water, fully submerging his arm. 

“Hawa- Hey! What are you doing-?”

“Ah!” Hugo flings himself back, victorious with a muddy knife in his hand. “Ah-ha! Got it!” 

“Huh, look at that,” Isabel says. 

“Told’ja we’d find something useful. You can never have too many knives,” Hugo grins, pulling a rag from his pocket to wipe the mud away. With a dull, scratched to hell blade, the knife will be just as effective in killing walkers as any other weapon. 

“Well, I’ll give it to you,” Isabel says, “a knife is much more than what I found over there.”

“Maybe you weren’t looking hard enough,” Hugo smirks, which dies when he notices Geoff's perpetual glare fixated on him. A childish impulse to stick his tongue out at the damned creature overwhelms him. He bites it back and returns the glare.

“That’s not long enough to help us grab the crates.”

“There wasn’t anything over there?”

"A couple planks of wood,” Isabel shrugs. 

“We don’t need anything fancy, just something long enough to push the crates towards us.”

Isabel looks to the bright sky, searching for any sign of evening coming upon them. They have plenty of daylight left, but Isabel’s patience is running out, replaced with anxiety. She sets Geoff down on the ground. 

“Watch him, I’ll grab the one I was looking at.” 

“Watch him?” Hugo frowns, pointing at Geoff with his brand new knife. “Where’s he gonna go?”

Geoff glowers up at him, beady black eyes slitted and neck extended up towards him. 

Hugo leans down, whispering, “Hey buddy, have you ever heard of caouane, by chance?”

---

They’re a cheery duo, ain’t they?

Thomas smirks. 

Hidden among the greens with a shoulder leaning against the sticky bark of a tree, Thomas listens to their bickering. Can’t make out much, unfortunately, but he’s got the gist. Almost reminds him of how he and Julie would talk long ago. Julie was meaner than the girl- what the hell is that she’s carrying?- but that don’t matter now. 

Julie’s dead and it’s just Thomas and the beauty in his hand, fully loaded and itchin’ to be fired. 

Not that he’s going to go up and shoot the strangers. 

They ain’t dangerous from what he can tell- the girl’s got a fire in her but the man’s got a limp. 

He don’t know what they’re looking for in the wreckage. Maybe they’re hoping to find some of the kids, but there’s no way this is where they’d hide. No, those kids got ‘em selves a school around here somewhere, even if he and these two don’t know where it is.

But, from the sounds of it, they got an idea and sometimes, that’s enough. 

Thomas knows that if he scours these woods long enough, he’ll find the school. The problem is would he find it before these two did? He don’t know how many kids there’ll be, but he knows that if they got two capable adults on their side, then things won’t go as smoothly.

Especially if these two actually find their kid.

Thomas scoffs. 

Bunch of twits. 

What makes ‘em think they got a chance of seeing their kid again? He’d bet his lucky dollar that their kid is roaming around here as one of the dead if he’s not already in a shallow grave.

Hell, maybe they will find him. Their little baby boy, gaunt, rotten insides with hollow eyes and a hunger for flesh… charging at them with not an ounce of recognition… and even as they’re begging him to stop, screaming, “Stop, it’s us! It’s your mommy and daddy, son! Remember us? Remember us-”

No, he don’t remember nothing. The dead don’t remember.

The kid’ll just keep scurrying towards ‘em… arms held out and jaw slack. 

Maybe they’ll be so distraught that they just let their kid chew ‘em both up.

Together. Undead.

The gun is heavy in his hand. 

Quiet laughter.

Thomas, fingers wrapped painfully tight around his gun, squints back over at the pier.

They’re trying to get something out of the wreckage, using a long chunk of wood to do so. Thomas leans up, attempting to get a better look at ‘em. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out an old pair of glasses. Not his prescription, but he ain’t the picky type. Though they’ll bring on a mean headache later, they help him get a better look at the couple still struggling to get something out of the boat. 

Down on their hands and knees, they work together to fish out whatever’s in there all while engaging in jovial chatter.

Pretty girl, Thomas thinks. Real nice shape. 

Times like these he wishes he’d find himself a pair of binoculars. 

Raspy groans emit from his right. A pair of walkers trod along, interested in all the commotion being made along the shore. 

Just in time. 

More’ll be coming here pretty quick- he saw a whole handful of them about a mile away, mingling together in search of something to tear their teeth into. He whistled at ‘em, then took off back to where he is now. He’s lucky these two ain’t quick in their accomplishments. 

A walker- male, wearing a heavy coat and missing his left eye- hisses through his unhinged jaw as he crawls closer to where Thomas hides. 

He ain’t worried about it. The more walkers that come, the better. 

Ducking down lower, ignoring the age-old ache forever lining his back, he moves closer. Already the strain of his sight through the glasses brings on a fuzzy twinge behind his right eye. 

“I got it, just need to-”

“Careful-”

Behind this tree, he can actually make out most of what they’re saying now.

“On three, alright?” the man says. 

Together, they grunt out, “One… two… three!”

Thomas almost applauds. They managed to find something in the wreckage, and from the looks of it, that something is a crate. Well, he’ll be darned. 

What else could be floating around in that thing? Thomas never paid it much mind upon first discovery- he wasn’t ever going to explore it. Not worth getting his boots wet, that’s for damn sure. 

Also, he ain’t the best swimmer. 

Let ‘em do the grunt work. He can come back and look through it later. 

“See?” The man says, resting a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Fully intact.”

“Don’t celebrate until we get it open.” 

“Really eager to see these toy cars, huh?” 

“If there are actually toy cars in here, I’m going to strangle you.” 

The man laughs, throwing a playful elbow towards the girl’s shoulder. 

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Thomas raises an interested brow. 

“Don’t be gross,” the girl laughs. 

“You’re right, sorry. I wouldn’t want to talk dirty in front of Geoff.”

Geoff? There ain’t no one else around...

“As if we haven’t scarred him enough in the past,” the man adds.

“Just shut up and open the damn thing so we can go.”

Another gurgle, this time closer. Thomas slinks back further into the bushes, breathing slowly, silently. He’s confident none of the walkers’ll find him. They’re as stupid as dirt with no actual hunting skills, thankfully. 

Thomas can’t imagine anyone would’ve made it as far as they have if the damned dead were smarter than the living. 

Then again, lots of folks are dead. 

Grabbing a heavy-duty rock from beside his foot, Thomas eyes the walkers moving past him. They’re foul, both in appearance and odor. Looks like they got torn apart real good when alive, too, given their shredded clothes and chunks of flesh torn from their arms and waist. 

The one-eyed walker crawls past.

What a way to go, Thomas thinks as he chucks the rock towards the shore, sending it crashing into one of the larger boulders with an echoing crack.

 It draws everyone's attention, the walkers practically wheezing with glee- well, Thomas likes to imagine they’re gleeful to have something to sniff out.

The couple jumping to their feet. 

“Ah, fuck!”

“What the hell was- Oh shit-!” 

The walkers approach the shore, quicker now that they have a meal to pursue. 

Thomas checks the chamber of his fully loaded gun. 

---

Hugo almost had it. 

With his knife jammed along the side of the lid, he was ready to pop it off victoriously.

A startling crack broke his concentration, causing him to lose his grip. The knife slips from the crack and jerks, slicing into the muscle below his thumb.

“Ah, fuck!” Hugo cries out, dropping the knife to cradle his bleeding hand. Blistering pain shocks through his fingers and up his arm. 

“What the hell was- Oh shit-” Isabel reaches out for his arm, holding on with a death grip.  “Walkers!” 

“What?” 

The crate before him forgotten, Hugo whips around.

A group of walkers head down the shore, each groaning and moving as fast as their decaying bodies can carry them. 

What? 

Where the hell did they come from? They made sure to scour the woods from the train station to the boat and take care of any straggling walkers that stood in their way. There weren’t that many. The most they had to deal with were along the shores. 

“There wasn’t a single walker for miles,” Hugo exclaims. “Where the hell did they come from?”

“Don’t know,” Isabel says, staring up at him with wide eyes. She does a double-take when she notices the blood dripping from his hand. “Oh my god, Hugh, what the hell?”

“I’m fine, I slipped. It's just a scratch-”

“A scratch? Seriously?” She grabs his hand, inspecting the wound with wide eyes. "Bullshit, a scratch!"

“Forget it,” Hugo grabs the rag from his belt and ties it around his hand. “There’s only five of them. Nothing we can’t handle-”

“There isn’t only five, look!”

She’s not wrong- on their right, more come hobbling out of the woods. 

Hugo looks from the approaching walkers, down to the unopened crate, down to his bleeding hand. He winces, picking his knife back up. 

“We can handle them.”

“We could handle them if they didn’t already see us!”

“I’ll take the ones on the left-”

“Hugh, we gotta go! Forget the damn crates, they’re not worth dying for. Not now!”

Damn it...

"We're not risking everything!"

She pulls him forward with her down the pier, their boots clanking loudly against the worn wood, making the walkers perk up more. 

Isabel jumps over the side, splashing in the shallow water in hopes of cutting across the shore and into the woods before the walkers get any closer. An easy plan Hugo could follow if it weren’t for the three walkers emerging from their intended destination, blocking their path.

A nasty growl from his right sent Hugo whipping around. A walker- a woman with an exposed neck and chest cavity, missing clumps of hair from beneath her hat- hurries towards him. 

Fuck it. 

Hugo surges forward, grabbing the sticky bones of the walker's throat. The knife plunges through the side of its head with ease, and the walker falls to the ground. Hugo lets out a shaky breath, grunting out at the searing pain throbbing in his hand, painful enough to cause spots in his vision. 

“Hugo, I swear to Christ- don’t you dare get that hand-” Isabel kicks the shin of another walker. It falls to its knees, the perfect height for her to stab it through the head before sending the limp body crashing into yet another walker. A chain reaction of the force causes three of the walkers to fall back. 

“Use your gun,” Isabel tells him, attacking those fallen monsters as fast as she can.

“That’ll just attract more!” 

“So what? Kill these bastards so we can make a run for it!”

That’s assuming that he can successfully kill all of them, which he can’t with his last five bullets. 

There’s more than five left. 

More than ten, maybe. 

He can’t count. 

Where the fuck did they come from? He knows they weren't loud enough to attract this many. 

A walker with one eye crawls along the sand, grabbing at his ankle to gnaw on his boot. This knife breaks its skull with a sickening crack, the odor enough to churn his stomach. 

“Hugo, now!” Isabel shouts, stabbing another walker and pushing through. 

Hugo tries to follow. 

Even in its final death, the walker's grip remains strong on his ankle. He stumbles right into the grip of a heavyset walker, this one much younger, fresher compared to the decaying monsters- stronger.

A full set of rotten teeth snap at him. With his forearm pressed firmly against the chest of the monster, Hugo reaches back to grab his gun from its holster.

The shot rings in his ears, rattling his brain as gore explodes through the back of the walkers head. The earth swerves beneath his feet, acids in his stomach rise into his throat. He coughs, spitting into the dirt. 

Through nausea, Hugo aims. 

Another two shots- two walkers fall to the ground, motionless. 

A third. 

A fourth- fuck. 

Hugo lets off his final shot, hitting a walker struggling with Isabel. Seeing it’s no longer a threat, Isabel grabs onto it, heaving it towards another and sending them crashing. She’s by his side again, huffing, “Let’s go!”

Hugo nods.

He has no idea where the fuck these things came from, or how they showed up so suddenly, but he knows she’s right- whatever the hell is in that crate isn’t worth there lives, not when they’re so close-

“Shit!”

A hand grabs his backpack, jerking him backward. The foul stench of the walker's breath warms his ear and everything within Hugo runs cold. He throws an elbow, twisting himself around in the walker's embrace. 

He doesn’t see the fallen walker behind him. 

They both tumble to the ground. The gun slips out of his grip. 

“Hugo!”

A sixth shot.

The walker's blood splatters across Hugo’s face, and for a moment, he thinks he’s dead. The body slouches over him, unmoving.  

A seventh shot- an eighth- 

Isabel grabs the walker by its shirt, hauling it off of him before dropping to her knees. Her hands move all over him as she gasps out, “Holy shit, please, oh please, tell me you’re okay!” 

Several more shots fire, and one by one, the remaining walkers fall. 

Then there’s silence. 

Hugo reaches for his gun, scooping it up from the dirt before Isabel helps him up. He falls forward onto his bad knee. 

“Augh!”

“Sorry- c’mon-!”

Finally on his feet, Hugo surveys the area. 

All the dead are just that- fallen on the ground. 

“Are-” Hugo coughs “-are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Isabel shakes her head, narrowed eyes darting all around the forest. “Pissed off, but fine.” Without taking her sight off the forest, she slips her backpack off to glance inside. “Geoff’s okay, too.”

Terrific.

Because Hugo was so worried. 

Isabel leans down, whispering, “Hugh… someone’s here.”

He assumed so. 

The walkers didn’t shoot themselves. 

“Give me your gun.”

Hugo cocks his head to murmur in her ear, “We’re out of bullets.”

“He doesn’t know that.” 

The snapping of wood and rubber against rocks turns their attention back to the woods where a man walks out, waving over at them with a grin.

“Howdy!” he calls out, voice gruff and accent thick. 

Isabel snatches the gun from his hand before Hugo has a chance to protest, pointing it and stopping the man in his tracks. 

“That’s close enough!” 

“Woah, woah,” the man holds his hands up in surrender, though keeps his grip on his gun just as tight.  

“Belle-” Hugo warns, but the man chuckles lightly. 

“Didn’t mean to scare ya. I mean no harm! Heard the gunshots and saw y’all were havin’ some trouble, thought I’d lend a helpin’ hand. You folks alright?” 

Isabel doesn’t lower the gun, keeping her eyes fixated on the man as he cautiously continues to walk over.

“We’re fine,” Hugo answers. “Fine, no bites, just a little startled. Thanks for the help.”

“We could’ve handled it,” Isabel adds. “Thanks.”

The man nods, saying, “No, you look plenty capable, didn’t mean to say ya don’t. Just didn’t want to see any more folks die, y’know? Not when I could do the decent thing and help.”

He’s close now, close enough for Hugo to better make out the details of his graying, ginger beard and bald head. He pulls his glasses off and pockets them with his free hand, blinking rapidly as he grins. 

“Name’s Thomas,” he greets. “Nice to meet’cha.”

#[checkmate] #twdg louis #twdg clementine #twdg clouis #clouis #twdg louisentine #louisentine #twdg hugo #twdg isabel #twdg tenn #twdg geoff

[jjsjuiceboxx]

LOVE TRIANGLE

POPExREADERxTOPPER

REQUESTED FOR: @letsgofullkook

SUMMARY: a love triangle between readerxtopper and readerxpope

⚠️WARNINGS⚠️: underage drinking, smoking, cuss words, angst.

︎A/N- revamping my stuff so I’m just editing for decoration and stuff to make it pop more and draw attention ( no changes to the actual fic ), happy reading :).

☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎

You were currently on hms pogue with John B, Kie, pope, and JJ you were zoning out looking how the suns reflection could be seen from the water of the marsh, you were pulled out of your thoughts when Kie started to talk about the kegger tonight at the boneyard.

“ok so who is going to bring what?“ Kie asked looking to everyone expectantly.

Across the boat you can see JJ smirk “you all already know I’ve got the weed.”

“I’ll have the kegs filled up and take them both to the boneyard.” John B stated

You were about to speak but was cut off suddenly when you felt a cold chill approaching, “hey are you ok y/n?” Pope asked you slightly concerned.

“Yeah dont worry Pope I just got a cold chill suddenly it’s gone now tho.” You smiles sweetly at him for even noticing and then instantly be concerned Pope eyed you suspiciously he could still see chill pumps on your arms so he walked to his bag and pulled out his hoodie, his favorite one that he won’t even let John b or JJ wear.

Instead of Pope handing it to you he put it over your shoulders letting you slip your arms into them then he zipped it up for you, you blushed at the action heart pounding pope smiled at you.

“Really she can wear your hoodie without asking but when we ask nicely you don’t let us? Man I even say please I never say please!” JJ explained shocked

“She isn’t a cluts like John b and doesn’t spill beer everywhere and I cannot have you making my hoodie reek of weed, besides it’s Y/N we are talking about she doesn’t need to ask” Pope state’s non challenger

“Wow pope you’re a changed man.” Kie said laughing at the end and sending a wink your way

You were close with all the pogues but you and kie were the closest gossiping with one another about kooks and the boys while you did face masks and painted each other’s nails she knew you had a crush on pope which is odd considering he isn’t your type but he is so smart and it’s almost mysterious and he isn’t afraid to tell random people he wants to be a coroner and then proceed to tell them facts about what happens after you die and you couldn’t help but catch feelings.

“Wow pope you’re a changed man.” Kie said laughing at the end and sending a wink your way.

☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎

You and the rest of the pogues were now at the boneyard setting up for the kegger kie brought chips and a speaker to blast music, John b had the kegs and was setting them up, JJ sat down on a big fallen tree with his small contribution his weed, pope had a cooler with ice and more drinks inside while you carried a beach chair and solo cups kie also had you pick up straws for some of the beer in the cooler and it HAD to be recyclable.

“Y/N you know even at parties we have to save the turtles and other animals and our only earth.” She said seriously when you went to object she gave you a stern look.

“Yeah yeah....right the straws” you said kinda scared

“recyclable straws recyclable is important” she hollered after you now you were putting the straws on the table and putting solo cups out to be easily grabbed when you saw a few kooks show up a little earlier probably to set up their own beers and what not

But you couldn’t help but think Topper would be here yes he was dating Sarah but he always flirted with you before and during the relationship you at first hated it but one day when he stopped you realized you miss it so you decided the next time you saw him you would flirt first and so you did he then offered to get you a coffee and eat and you really got to know topper not kook topper, he hated pogues and was rude to them but he has never said anything bad about you atleast not to your face he always bullied the others.

As more people showed up you started to get anxious about toppers arrival you knew he was coming he always does the question was when ? And do you go up and talk to him ? When it’s just him and you you guys always talk about real stuff and you see that topper is just like the rest of us just slightly more perfect and put together.

You decided to start getting drunk to calm your nerves once you had two cups you were tipsy still sober enough to remember things and control yourself but a lot more relaxed and care free you saw pope walk away from taking to a girl and decided to dance with him.

“Pope come dance with me I love this song” you said cheerfully while spinning around

“Fine but If you get sick from spinning I’ll be mad” he laughed grabbing your hand

You and pope danced for 30 mins or something laughing and joking around and then suddenly you caught a glimpse of a tall tan boy with frosted tips along with Sarah and Kelce right by his side a slow song was playing and pope had you facing the entrance to the boneyard suddenly you and topper made eye contact he Gave you a slight nod in which you returned with a smile but it suddenly shifted when he looked away shaking his head so pulled back from pope and started taking his hoodie off

“I’m getting hot from all the Dancing I’m gunna grab a drink and cool off” you told him Pope pulled you into a tight hug that lasted about a minute.

“Thank you for dancing with me I’ve always wanted to slow dance with a pretty girl.” Pope stated shyly scratching the back of his head.

“Aww I’ll slow dance with you anytime handsome” you said blushing getting on your tip toes and kissing his cheek letting it linger for a bit you back off seeing him blush under the moonlight you handed him his hoodie and walked to get a drink.

While waiting in the line for a drink you looked up to see Sarah climbing a red buoy and Kelce and topper trying to get her down safely you looked away not wanting to catch their eyes. You hadn’t noticed but topper gave up as Sarah was being rather difficult while kelce climber up with her to pry her hands off the top of the buoy.

You felt a light tap on your shoulder prying your eyes away from John b trying to impress tourons by juggling some beers, your eyes met a pair of eyes you were all familiar with, topper.

“Hey there ken of the outerbanks, hows it hanging in the Barbie dream house?” You questioned amused

Topper laughed at your nickname you gave him “it isn’t the Barbie dream house when she isn’t my Barbie you’re” topper declared

You and topper during many of your hang outs tho you like to calls them private dates where you just talk and laugh he was wearing a bright salmon polo and khaki shorts with a belt and some sperrberrys to match and let out a little chuckle and said he looked like your old ken doll you have “accidently” taken from school, oops.

Topper laughed “ok ok fine I’ll take it but you have to be my Barbie” he said laughing

“Ok I’ll be the Barbie to you ken”

And hence the day the nicknames had been born. By this time it was your turn to get your drink topper took your cup and filled it up and gave it back to you while he did his.

“Wow who knew topper Thornton could be such a gentlemen” you mocked

“Oh haha you’re so funny aren’t you Barbie” topper said sarcastically

You were about to come up with a remark when he suddenly turned to you stopping you in your tracks looking at you seriously.

“Hey can we like uh talk somewhere?” He questioner awkwardly.

“Yeah of course top Ik a good place” you motioned him to follow you in a set of bushes near the woods looking around once you got there for any horny drunk teens only to find none.

“Is everything ok topper? You’re never really serious unless something is wrong” you said worrying you know a conversation with topper was serious when you said his name and not a nickname.

“I know you’re friends with pope and I’m with Sarah but I can’t talk to Sarah or rafe and Kelce the way I can with you I feel like the real me I had forgotten about and you help me find it again, I don’t know I guess I got slightly jealous seeing you dance with Pope and laughing while wearing his hoodie” topper said quickly

You put your hands on either side of his cheek making him look you in the eyes you stared at him in an adoring way “topper I feel the same but I’m a pogue you’re a kook even though we understand one another not everyone can see it that way, I mean rafe could unfriend you Sarah wouldn’t be around and I don’t want you to lose that because of me” you said softly

“I know I know it just sucks because I do really like you I want To be with you, don’t get me wrong I like Sarah too but I feel pressured because of my parents saying and putting words into my head makes me wonder if I really like her or if I just think I do, but one thing for sure I know I like you” topper stated stepping closer

By this time Sarah was looking for topper him being gone far to long for “getting a drink” when she neared the keg topper was no where insight “hey kie I know you hate me but have you seen topper? He was getting drinks and now he is gone” Sarah explained looking around

“ I saw him walk down the beach following someone too dark to tell who, I know what you’re thinking that I’m saying that to upset you like or whatever but I’m not” kie defended rolling her eyes.

“No I can tell when your lying I believe you thank you” Sarah said walking off in the direction joe pointed too.

“Topper I like you too but I don’t know how this could work and I don’t want to hurt you saying this but I also like pope but we don’t flirt nearly as much as we do he doesn’t know I like him” you said looking down not wanting to hurt him

“ hey hey it’s ok friends who spend all the time together are bound to catch feelings whether it’s one sided or not I’m not upset thank you for being honest” he said smiling softly tucking some hair behind your ear you smiled leaning into his soft touch.

Pope was a little further down the beach then Sarah was pope sat in front of the fire with a marshmallow on a stick while John b laughed at pope trying to teach JJ how to roast a perfect marshmallow for the worlds best s’mores, “JJ you need to hold both hands one on top of the other at the bottom of the stick and then push your marshmallow down at the top till the stick poked through the marshmallow so it won’t fall into the fire and waste the marshmallow, then you hold it just above the flames. No not like that it’s too close you will catch the marshmallow on fire....again. Now you wait 5 mins then rotate it to the other side and then wait 5 mins and do the same all over so it gets a perfect brown shade don’t catch it on fire because one it’s bitter two it is a lot more hot and three some sparks could be left on it that you can’t see and will burn the shit out of your tongue possible 2nd degree burn that grants a hospital visit now you see mine is perfectly brown on all sides now you take your graham crackers and put the marshmallow on one then the chocolate then you sandwich it all together like so and bam you’ve got yourself the worlds best s’more” Pope said with a chefs kiss after he did a technical tutorial on the proper way to make a smore for the poor boy who has never learned how.

“Eww mine looks like toe cheese” JJ said grimacing.

“ I don’t want to know why you know that man.” John b said watching it play out amusingly.

“Just eat it JJ it’s good the best ever honestly, off topic have you seen y/n I havnt seen her in 30 mins” pope asked curiously

“Aww pope you have a crush on the baby pogue” JJ said teasingly

“JJ leave him alone who cares if he likes her damn, but uh I saw her walk the way” John b Pointed in the direction you had went

Pope stood up nodding his head going in that direction to look for the girl he was soo in love with still ahead of Sarah.

You could feel the tension between you and topper being so close to one another he started to lean on slowly and you did too not being in control of your body you were so lost in his eyes your lips finally touched and it was slow and passionate and it felt like time has stopped just as it was getting more heated you heard a twig snap and looked behind topper to see a wide eyed pope standing there.

“ y/n....what’s going on why are you kissing topper ???” Pope asks shocked

“I..I” you stuttered startled that pope who you like caught you kissing another guy you also like

“Topper you there?” You heard Sarah’s voice from behind a tree

“He’s right here” Pope deadpanned looking you straight in the eye

“ topper there yo- what are you two doing?” Sarah asked confused

“We were just talking babe.” Topper said softly

“Yeah If by talking you mean tongues in each other’s mouths” pope said angrily

Sarah stares between you and topper shocked “is..is this true topper?” Sarah asked quietly when topper looked down and didn’t say anything she knew her answer.

“Wow and after all I’ve told you about my past and you do this, you told me you loved me” Sarah said walking away.

“Pope look I ca-“ you were cut off by pope speaking

“No no you don’t get to talk right now, I thought you liked me? I know you never said it but I can pick up some ques, I gave you my favorite hoodie so you were warm I danced with you and I stood for an hour waiting for you and you never showed. Was I just a toy for you to use when topper isn’t here?” Pope asked sad

“What no of course not I like you a lot Pope I really do, but I also like topper as well and I’m so confused I don’t know why or how anything would work with any of us with the no pogue on pogue macking rule and the whole kook vs pogue thing I...I just don’t know” you said ashamed

“Wow, you were just talking shit about topper the other day and now you like him? I’m sorry y/n I can’t do this right now you don’t like me because if you did you wouldn’t have has another guy so pick topper” Pope said tears in his eyes leaving the seen fast.

You looked at topper tears running down your face he immediately wrapped you In his arms rubbing your head as a loud sob shot out of your body and a bunch of oh my gods.

“Hey hey it’s ok just let him cool down and then you can speak it him rationally I’m not mad you like us both I get it all I ask is that you give me a chance and Pope too and then when you’re ready you can choose who you want or choose neither of us” topper said reassuringly.

You pulled out of his embrace nodding your head as you wiped your tears away planning on what to tell pope when everything is calmed down.

#topper #topper outer banks #topper obx #obx fanfiction #obx x reader #obx #outer banks imagines #topper thorton x reader #topper thorton imagine #pope outer banks #pope hayward imagine #pope heyward

[gvldenfleece]

something is rotten in the state of covington......and honestly it’s me quoting shakespeare every five seconds bc i have no self control and i think i’m dick!!! but pls meet my fav tortured prince under the read more! o also i’m lexi, i’m 19, and i use she/her pronouns!

name: richard william braxton age: twenty-two gender: cis male pronouns: he/him major & year: theatre major and fourth-year faceclaim: nicholas galitzine occupation: looking like this is hard enough work as is

taking this part straight from my app:

i specifically created richard as a sort of richard gansey, james farrow, harry potter type hybrid for this skeleton. i think he really works as the golden fleece because he’s kind of gentle, meek, and quiet, and does his family’s bidding all of the time, but he’s also searching for something epic in his life? he’s too caught up in his own weird obsession with shakespeare to realize that he’s kind of a sellout.

he just kind of quietly goes on with the perfectionist they need him to be, while being completely distracted by the eccentric things he’s actually passionate about. his father is a famous playwright and his mother is a famous actress, so he’s got big shoes to fill! and he definitely goes along with whatever plan they have written out for him. but he feels like something is lacking in his life and he’s perpetually seeking to find whatever that is. at the same time, he’s a little entitled because things always go his way–he just doesn’t get that, because he’s so absorbed by his own little world.

richard wants to be profound and legendary and he’s kind of perfect?? to the outside eye. hence, the golden fleece. he’s untouchable. or so he thinks.

personality-wise, richard is kind of hard to explain. he’s your classic rich-boy-clouded-by-his-own-privilege, but at the same time, he typically means well. he doesn’t really think about performing acts of charity or helping people because most of the time, he’s in his own little world. but he also doesn’t actively attempt to be a jerk to anyone.

for the most part, he does whatever his parents tell him to do. he’s a buoy just floating along the sea of life. he doesn’t protest much; he’s not picky. but he also isn’t tuned into the rest of the world half the time. his mind goes a million miles a second and it’s hard to focus on anything else.

he’s very overprotective around the rest of the braxton clan. he treats his younger siblings like kids sometimes, but means well. when they were younger, he definitely took the fall and (tw: child abuse) the hit for them and tried to give them the best image of their dad??? like he would do anything to protect his precious siblings.

while you would probably expect the leading man of the theater department to be bold and loud and obnoxiously charming, dick has more of a quiet charm to him. he’s soft and subtle, but simply irresistible onstage.

once you get to know him, though, he’s a fucking weirdo. he’ll annoy you with dumb questions about your favorite king henry and then follow it up with some shit like this. he gets v distracted and off topic all the damn time.

he’s super witty and cracks a few jokes when he’s around close friends. in reality, he doesn’t have too many close friends because he has a lot of walls up after being wounded so many times as a kid.

the man loves tweed. he will die in it someday.

also, his hair is always messy and somehow it always looks good. people are mad about this.

we all know this man is obsessed with shakespeare but! his absolute favorite character out of any of his plays is hamlet. he’s a drama queen. the amount of times dick has erupted into a to be or not to be soliloquy while he’s walking around campus is… embarrassing. truly.

he can be an asshole when he doesn’t mean to??? i mean, the guy thinks he’s a king, so. yeah. not everyone will vibe with his self-absorbed ways.

things i want badly:

pls give me enemies to lovers........ pls

a raven cycle-esque ragtag group of friends!!!

MORE THEATRE DEPARTMENT KIDS

#covintro #ooc.

[sigritandtheelves]

The I in Team

Part 4: Communication

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Rating: Mature Timeline: season 6 Tags: ANGST, bitches; MSR-ish (getting there) Words: 2.8k (pt. 4)

A/N: This one is a lot of… talking. Hence the title. But I think we’re headed for the home stretch (one or two more parts, maybe). Tagging @marinafrenzy because I’ve embedded your prompt (yay!).

_+_

Mulder did not, after all, go for a swim. He sat and watched the pool until the angle of the sun purpled the sky and the mosquitos embarked on their quest for blood. He was thinking about what he really wanted; she told him to think about what he really wanted. In all the world, after all these years, at the end of the path, among all other spatio-temporal clichés, what he really wanted... he’d never even let himself consider. His sister, of course. Answers, of course, about the depths of the lies and their continuing extent—how far their tentacles reached and what he could do to stop them. Answers to what had been done to Scully. And, of course, he wanted her with him. He wanted her. With him.

Somewhere inside him he hid a lockbox of truths too secret to bear. One was that he thought Samantha was probably dead. The other… the other was his love for Scully, the thing that rattled the air-tight cage and screamed to get out. Just partners, just friends, he said to it. Just partners, just friends. Soothing words to calm the beast. And yet it howled.

He had not even let himself consider the damage he was doing to her by holding her at arm’s length. But her eyes today, in that seminar room, when he let her down with his answers, they haunted him now. And her red nose beneath her glasses at the pool. This beautiful creature had given so much of herself, had worked so hard, had only wanted to be seen, had let him touch her for christ’s sake—and what had he done?

Bug-bitten and overwarm from the afternoon sun, he returned to his room where he scrounged a pen and paper. He would think on the page: Dear Scully.

Dear Scully, when you talk about leaving I feel physical pain. Dear Scully, I’m sorry you’ve had to work so hard to protect yourself from me. Dear Scully, I love you so much I’m afraid it will destroy you. Dear Scully, I’m sorry for ruining your life. Dear Scully please love me anyway.

He did not write these things. They were too fragile and true. But he tried. He made loose approximations with the words he had.

Heartsick, terrified, with shaky hands, he folded his note inside the questionnaire from the morning, torn from its booklet and scribbled all over with his desperate revisional confessions and apologies. When she did not answer his soft knock, he slipped the pages beneath her door and returned to his own room, where he waited and waited. With the sound turned down, he stared at the television, unseeing, for hours.

---

She stood on a beach in moonlight, where the sound of the ocean beat a soothing rhythm. Sandals hung from the fingers of her left hand while the cold water washed over her toes. In rolled-up jeans and a sweater, she held his folded note against her hip. 

The last line said, “There’s a campfire on the beach at 9. Please come.”

So she had. The theme of the evening was “Communication,” which was a fitting coincidence. She had come to hear him out.

Behind her, the voices of the other teams mingled into friendly white noise, buoyed by the melody of someone’s guitar. She listened as she waited for him to find her, standing separate, watching the dark tide. And then she felt his fingers brush the back of her arm. She turned, already alight with the electric buzz of anxiety that bordered on dread.

“Hey,” he said, dropping his hand. He wore that sweater again, that oatmeal henley that made her want to run her fingers across the bumpy fabric of his chest.

“Hey.”

His eyes were hooded, exhausted maybe, and she heard the nerves in his voice. “You got my note.”

She tapped the corner of the folded paper with her index finger. “I did.”

“You read it all?” he asked.

Of course she had read it all. She’d read it fifteen times. Nearly memorized it. Dear Scully, I can’t even imagine what you must be thinking… “Yeah,” she said, voice raw.

Wind whipped his hair out of place. A wave crashed around his boots, her bare feet. She shivered, and he touched her elbow to guide her up away from the water. “I meant those things, Scully. It was hard to write them down, but I know I owe them to you. After everything.”

(I’ve been so lost…)

She sighed. “Did you mean them only because you thought I might leave?”

(I couldn’t even see myself, let alone you, and I know that’s no excuse…)

Wounded. That’s how he looked. Good, she thought. “Scully…” He ran a hand over his face in frustration. “I’m trying.”

(If I you weren’t with me, I don’t know what I’d do…)

She nodded. “I know you are, Mulder.”

(I need you. You’re the only partner I ever want in my life…)

He’d said he was lost, and he looked it now. She could see he thought he’d been so brave with his note. Heroic, even, in confessing these things. “I wanted you to know,” he said.

(I wouldn’t even let myself think it before. I couldn’t. But I love you.)

She sighed, worrying the note between her fingers before stuffing it into her back pocket. “I appreciate it, Mulder. I really do. I’m glad you were able to write those things down. It’s good.”

He could sense her hesitation. “But?”

“But it takes more than a note, Mulder. If what you said is true... it takes more than a note to make them feel true.”

He raised his hand and carefully, so gently, cupped her cheek with his palm. “It’s not just a note. I’ll say it, Scully. I love you. I love you I love you. You’re the best thing I’ve ever known, and I need you with me.” 

She watched him watching her, wanted to believe him so badly. He was so good at this part, the keeping her with him part. His fingers on her face were warm, perfect, his skin on hers at last. They were everything. He leaned forward, just slightly, and when she didn’t push him back, he bent to kiss her, mouth salty with the sea air and she couldn’t help it, she kissed him back. His lips were like silk, a perfect slip against hers, full, hot like she remembered. And when his tongue touched her bottom lip, she opened for him. She fell into the kiss, was falling, was consumed with a blinding, red-hot need that she’d thought she left behind eight months ago. His other hand came to her waist, held her steady. She leaned into him, felt the hard length of him against her soft belly. She could taste his urgency, feel it in her bones, stretched through her sinew, and God how she wanted him back. It took everything in her not to give way. 

But it was not right--not this, not yet. She reached her hand up to the scruff of his cheek and pushed gently, separating them. Her head came back. She looked into his dark eyes, her own watering with want and terrible restraint.

“No,” she said, thumb against his bottom lip, still wet with her own saliva. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“They’re just words, Mulder.” She took a deep breath, trying to pull herself back together, to unfeel the desire and the hope and the inevitable love that all moved through her like water. “You always feed me words. But words aren’t love, not really. You say things to me, like those things in your hallway, and they sound like love. Then you risk everything to save me, and I think you must mean them. And then we…”

She remembered the feel of her breasts pressed into his hands, the arch of her back under his touch, his mouth on hers hot and frenzied. The sense of being alone in a world where only the two of them mattered--he made her feel that, then.

“It was good, wasn’t it?” she asked.

The look on his face said he remembered, too. “Yeah,” he said, like warm gravel. “It was good.” His fingers twitched to touch her, but he held back.

“I thought it meant… something more. But then you pushed me away,” she said. “I mean, Jesus, Mulder, what did I do that was so wrong? Did you regret it so much? Resent me for letting it happen?”

“No!” He shook his head. “Scully, I don’t regret it.” Anguish on his face furrowed his brow, reflected his agony. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want these things said. 

But she was going to say them anyway. It was now or never, and they were going to talk, goddamnit.

“Did you change your mind about all those other things you’d said, then? You told me you couldn’t trust me, Mulder! You said you wouldn’t accept my work. You wouldn’t believe me. You said I was making it personal.” At this last sentence, her voice almost broke. She held on to her composure, a fragile tendon threatening to tear, to snap. She was trying to breathe, but her heart, it hurt so much. Her fingers felt numb, so she squeezed them together, pinching her knuckles until they hurt, but it wasn’t enough.

“No, I… I meant them all.” His voice, lower, his index finger snuck out to touch her wrist. “I loved you the whole time.”

She was shaking her head, remembering—those phone calls, him slipping away, that leg across his hip. Her eyes were wet, and an ache so deep she thought it might be in her spine settled into her. “Then why did you do it, Mulder?” she whispered.

His eyes held that wounded look again. So earnest. “Do what, Scully?”

Finally, a tear got away from her. She clenched her jaw, steeled herself. “I know you’ve been with her. That you have been this whole time.” She shook her head again and there were more tears now, growing angrier the more she made herself remember. She wished she hadn’t let him kiss her. 

“I saw you,” she said, and forced herself to look at him.

He was a deer in the headlights. His skin was gray as the sand. “You did?” he croaked.

“In the storage closet.” She swallowed hard. “And you weren’t going to tell me.” Her anger was building, compounding with the weight of so many months of frustration and hurt. “You fucked her, Mulder, while I was three floors up and waiting for you. How many times? How often? Since when? Before Antarctica? And you wanted me to believe we were fine.” A small sob choked free, a wild thing that could not be contained.

“I wanted to tell you,” he moaned, but she didn’t believe him. His face was in his hands, fingers at his temples. “I would have, Scully.”

“Do you even know, Mulder? Do you know how much you hurt me?” Her face, crumpling like tissue paper, tears hot and wet on her face. Then her voice, soft: “How can you say you love me? How can you say that when you were with her this whole time?”

“I couldn’t—I didn’t—” the words wouldn’t come. “Fuck, Scully. It wasn’t like that. I don’t love her. I stopped it! I haven’t… I told her no.”

“When?”

“After El Rico,” he says, and all she can think was after: counting days, trying to guess when. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Her look, glacier cold, “Well, I did.”

Scully’s face was stone, but her heart was breaking. It was cracking apart, leaking hot into her ribcage, burning her, even as her exterior cooled. There were wails inside her that wanted to get out, but she clamped them down with all the force of her need for self-preservation. All she had left was herself, and she couldn’t let that slip here.

“I do love you,” he said, as if it could fix this.

“Then why did you hurt me?” Her gaze, so earnest, her wound out in the open, heart spread out all over the sand between them.

“Because it’s what I do,” he said. “I’ve never known a love that wasn’t also hurt.”

His face when he spoke was misery, and God, she suddenly wanted to touch him again.  Because she knew. She knew it was only part of who he was, this fumbling and failing at love, that he’d been broken also. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she needed to make him understand.

She let herself touch his hand, and he gripped it tight, like the last lifeline on a sinking ship. “It hurt, Mulder, because of how I feel for you. Because I… it felt like you chose her instead—someone who would hurt you, instead of me.” She brushed her thumb over the back of his hand.

“Masochistic tendencies,” he said, and there was something like a smile on his lips that was really more a grimace.

“I wouldn’t have hurt you, Mulder,” she said, voice small. “I wouldn’t lie. I wouldn’t tell you what you want to hear to get what I want…” She pauses a moment, to find his eyes with hers, to tell him this thing she’s so needed to say. “But I won’t let you keep hurting me either. I’m not your sidekick or your employee. I believe in you, Mulder. I trust you. But that doesn’t mean I owe you blind agreement. That’s not why I’m here.”

“I know,” he said. “I know, I know, I know. I’m so sorry.”

“I need more than empty words in times of crisis. I need more than grand gestures. Or if that’s not something you’re capable of… I need you to tell me. And to let me go.”

He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Then what can you do?” she asked. It was an invitation, not a rebuke. Please, it said. Please show me it’s okay to love you. She gave him one last look and then turned and walked away.

---

February 17, 1999 Alexandria, VA

Diana finds him after the meeting with Kersch, after the massacre at El Rico, after she managed to save herself and not the others: the families. She knocks on his door. He expects it to be Scully, maybe, finally, with fight back in her eyes. Maybe ready to tell him off like he deserves.

“Oh,” he says when he sees.

“Can I come in?”

He opens the door wider and she walks in like she owns the place, like she owns him. She seems frustrated. “Well, you got the X-Files back.”

He closes the door behind her, crosses his arms over his chest. “We did.”

“You know I didn’t know what would happen. No one knew.”

He shakes his head. Scully knew. Not about the fire, but that sacrificing your soul wasn’t the way to save those you loved. She’d always known. “Diana, you can’t walk with the devil and expect not to get burned. Even if there hadn’t been a rebellion… it was the wrong decision.”

“So what’s the right one, then? Sit back and pretend like nothing’s happening? Bury your head in hunts for bigfoot and small-town mutants? This project is the future, Fox.” She steps toward him, puts her hand on his shoulder. “We can still fight this fight together.”

“Scully is my partner, Diana.”

Her hand moves to his neck, touches the fine hair behind his ear. “I’m more than your partner. I know you, Fox. She’s not committed to the work like you are. Like I am.”

He feels dizzy, confused, overwhelmed. He thinks of Scully: standing up for his work, defending him when no one else would, even shooting him to protect him, holding Skinner at gunpoint for him, grinning at his hospital bed after rescuing him from arctic death (they are even in that way, now). He thinks of her in a hospital bed with cancer, the empty screen of her face while she holds a dying child—glassy eyed and made of steel, hardened by the things done to her. Scully who has never, ever lied to him, never betrayed her sense of justice. He looks at Diana again, this tall seductress who leads him with bolstering words about his role in the future, who has known about women with cancer and doomed children and junk DNA and done nothing.

“She is not a pawn in this game,” he says.

“She’s not a player either,” Diana whispers, and she is moving closer, is pulling his face toward hers, and he almost lets her do it—almost lets her make him feel powerful again. But then he lets himself see what she’s doing: feeding him false assurances about his entitlement to a place on the field—by birthright, by careful positioning, by his proximity to powerful men. And so he stops her.

“No,” he says. “She’s not.” He pushes her back from him, turns and paces, hand coming to cover his mouth, mind racing. How blind, he thinks. How blind he’s been. How stupid not to see. “Neither am I,” he realizes. “I’m not some key player, and I won’t be made one.”

He stops moving to look at her, at the surprise on her face. “You need to go now,” he says. He crosses to open the door.

“Fox, come on—”

But he cuts her off with a shake of his head. “No. Please go. And please don’t come back.”

She gives him one last look, long and contemplative. “It may be your last chance,” she says.

“Good,” he says, and he closes the door.

(end part 4)

Go to Part 5: Trust

#a thing i wrote #part 4 #angst #s6

[withastolenlantern]

“I don’t suppose this thing has an air conditioner?” Davis said into the microphone that hovered precariously over his mouth. The helmet was ill-fitting, and he’d done a poor job of tightening it properly; it jostled about as he moved his head or futilely mopped his brow with a kerchief.

Chatham chuckled. “I’m afraid not Mister Santomas. Just be thankful you’re not wearing thirty pounds of gear and haptics.” The Carribean sun was blistering hot, even as they cruised above the sea at 100 knots in the retired Merlin she’d requisitioned from the Royal Navy. It felt not dissimilar from approaches she’d made from the upper Indian, flying in low over the vast sea, although the water here was different somehow. The spray was saltier, she felt, and had an almost greasy feel on her fingertips. She’d sailed three of the world’s four oceans before, and found they all had their unique quirks. How many of them were real, or imagined, or a product of man’s indifference to his impact on the aquatic biosphere, she could never say for sure.

The fab loomed in the distance as they approached, an imposing structure. It appeared roughly the size of the old oil rigs she’d seen in the holos, back from before sea-drilling had become cost-prohibitive. The main facility was buoyed on four articulated legs that undulated with the sea. “Those are the wave generators, there,” Santomas said, pointing to large barrel-like supports at the bottom of the crab-like supports. “The gyroscopic legs keep the fab facility statically level, and we’re able to kinematically capture enough energy from the motion to power some of the low-voltage devices inside.” 

The detective was impressed, but noticed the sea swell was currently fairly calm. “How well do they work during storm surges?”

Santomas rotated his hands at the wrist in reply. “Your average low pressure front is no problem, even the tropical depressions. Hurricanes are another matter. We generally shut down production for anything above Category 2. The ballast in the legs is enough to keep the whole thing upright, but you can imagine doing precision machining over thirty foot swells is not, let’s say, optimal.” 

“And it’s entirely self sufficient?”

“That’s the idea. The wind and solar plant on the roof provides higher voltage power for the heavy industrial equipment. Raw materials are brought in by the Logistics Union, typically via drone barge or hovercraft. Bigger stuff we have to bring in via copter, hence the helipad,” he said, pointing toward their destination. “Not all of them are this big; this is one of our largest models. I think they used to build cars in this one. Chang’an-Ford had the lease for a while, if I remember right, until we went idle. Or were supposed to, anyway.”

They took a low pass around the structure, it’s steel facades glistening in the sun where the salts of the sea spray had not yet turned the surface to corroded reds and browns. The Merlin autopilot chimed that it had picked up the transponder signal and was ready to begin the landing procedure. The detective keyed in her assent, and the helicopter lowered them toward the heavy concrete pad off to the side of the main fabrication building. They landed with a gentle thud, and the rotors started spinning down automatically with a decreasing whine.

Chatham hopped from the deck of the aircraft down onto the helipad, the tarmac broiling in the hundred-plus degree sun. Even the thermoelectrics in her tactical vest were having trouble keeping up. She thought that Santomas, dressed in heavy cotton khaki, must have been roasting alive.

“I always forget how fucking hot it is down here,” he said, confirming her suspicion as they walked across the pad toward the huge garage doors leading into the fabrication facility. “Let’s get inside.” 

“Is the temperature regulated inside the fabricator? I assumed it wouldn’t be necessary since everything’s automated,” the detective said.

“No, the internal HVAC keeps everything at about 20C,” he explained as he pulled up his mobile and transmitted his credentials to the receiver next to a huge garage-style shutter. “Most of the equipment puts out its own waste heat and gets cranky above a certain temperature. There’s some cryogenic-based processes that run as well, depending on the model and production application.” 

The receiver opened a holographic display terminal and he input a sequence of characters, and then a scanner took a retinal snapshot before chiming its recognition. The enormous door creaked alive and slid open slowly, the motors almost groaning at the weight. A breath of cooler air spilled out into the tropical sun, and it seemed downright Arctic against Chatham’s face. 

The detective was taken aback at the cavernous space they entered. A central corridor led from the door straight through to the far side of the fab, with various machines whirring and thumping to either side of her off into the horizon. She noticed that the corridor and spaces between the machines were lined in multi-colored LED stripes pulsing in time, and overhead she saw several heavy drones flitting about hauling various pieces and parts. The cacophony of production was overwhelming, almost symphonic in its rhythm, as if an unseen conductor was directing a post-modern orchestra in an oddly tempoed concerto. “Fuck me,” she gasped breathlessly. 

“Yeah, it sure is a thing,” Santomas replied with a smile that devolved quickly into concern. “Problem is, none of this stuff is supposed to be, uh…. on.” 

#the world ocean

[excessivelysizedtuber-blog]

Custom shipgirl design for the USS Neosho, a Cimarron Class “Fast Fleet Oiler” (hull classification AO). She was sunk at the Battle of the Coral Sea after she and her escorting destroyer were mistaken for a heavy cruiser and an aircraft carrier and subjected to a 70 plane strike launched by the Shokaku and Zuikaku. Despite being struck by seven bombs and one aircraft, she managed to shoot down four of the attackers and stay afloat for the next 72 hours until rescue arrived, buoyed by her empty oil compartments essentially acting as watertight compartments.

So basically I like doing custom deigns for little known ships, but generally I keep them independent from my more fetish-y things. Fortunately I decided for a cowgirl motif because...well fuck it, she’s literally an AO. I did keep it as down-low as possible, but yeah. She is equipped to *provide*, that’s why there’s a pull-tab. Her namesake is an old Indian river name, hence the extremely stereotypical getup and delicious brown skin. Basically I tried to make a more in your face American Kamoi (even though Kamoi was built in New York, but whatever).

Anyways yeah, I don’t expect most people to take interest in her, but fuck it. I think she’s cute.

#original character #cowgirl #shipgirl #Neosho

[awed-frog]

"Most native speakers will think it's cool that you're learning their language".... that may be true for any other language but not for english, native english speakers expect everyone to be fluent in it and if you're not well hello time for mockery..

Well - first of all, I don’t want you guys to think that I answer everything with HP quotes, but here is an HP quote: “If you are holding out for universal popularity, I’m afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time”. Some people are going to be dicks, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Learning how to recognize that you can’t change people’s behaviour and people’s opinions of you, and that you should do your best to be a decent person and let everything else go is a life-long process, but so worth it. So if people mock you for your accent or your grammar mistakes, shame on them. You did nothing wrong.

Second, I read that post in a cute ‘we’re all learning languages for fun’ way, but it is true that for many people (myself included, actually) learning English was not a hobby, but a requirement. Maybe your only choice is to emigrate to an English-speaking country or maybe knowing English is essential for your job, or in your field of study - in any case, being forced to learn a language is time-consuming and unfair as hell (there was even a Freakonomics episode about this) and being mocked by native speakers on top of all that - that’s not a language issue, it’s about politics and class and racism. So what this means is that these people are not really mocking you for your English skills - they’re mocking you because you’re different, or browner, or poorer, and that’s a whole other level of shitty, and, again, that says a lot more about them than it does about you. 

And finally - anon, you’re preaching to the choir. I’ve been there - I’ve had people laugh in my face because my English wasn’t good enough, and, more often, people walk up to me and expecting I’d speak English as a matter of course - but in my experience, this is problem is with a) shitty people and b) people who’ve got zero knowledge of the outside world. 

(I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in a wild, unexpected turn of events, those two categories seem to overlap a lot.)

People like that will automatically assume you’re slightly (or massively) inferior to them because you do not belong to their community - and I’m talking communities here because if you dig deep enough, you realize this is not even about foreigners in the most common sense of the word: look at the accent wars in Italy (which have been a thing for at least eight centuries), or in the UK (where native speakers, I was shocked to learn, take lessons to ‘fix’ their pronunciation so they’ll be considered for better jobs); hell, look at French - Jesus, people can’t understand I’m not a native speaker but can pinpoint exactly where I learned the language, hence the immediate teasing and snobbery because yeah, not Paris and eff you. Mogli e buoi dei paesi tuoi, as we say (Pick wives and oxen from your own village) - my guess is that this has been pretty much a universal thing everywhere since forever, and any hope I had we could somehow eradicate it thanks to the Power of the Internet and Bringing People Together has basically vanished now we’ve entered the era of the echo chambers. Ugh. But, on a cheerier note - most people are simply not very good at dealing with New People. Sometimes this has to do with racism, but not always. For instance, as silly as it sounds, if you never learned a language you might not realize that some words or structures in your own native language are more difficult than others, or that repeating the same sentence five times at the same speed won’t help. Hell, I even met perfectly nice and rational people who seemed to think shouting would solve the problem? This was particularly noticeable in Japan, a country with basically zero foreigners and a very poor record of language learning, but obviously it’s also a thing elsewhere. And this goes for things other than language too. I want to believe many people are genuinely doing the best they can, and we should all give one another the benefit of the doubt, especially when traveling. 

More importantly, though: whatever your reason for learning a language, never making any mistakes is not an option, so please - don’t let that stop you from practicing. Chatting with native speakers is an excellent way to get better, and you shouldn’t let a bunch of assholes preventing you from doing so.

#ask #language #learning languages #linguistics #fluency #native speakers #english native speakers #are also hell as customers #because they mostly don't know #how to work with an interpreter #they don't realize #what it's like to talk to an audience #who can't understand them #but hey #that's imperialism for you #and not everyone is even aware of this problem #also if i have to be honest #i know how easy it is #to think #'they don't know the language = they're stupid' #because that was basically what i thought #subconsciously thank god #until i was thirteen? #then a turkish girl changed my mind #ask me if you want to know #but it'll need to wait until tomorrow #it's very late here #but anyway #i'm sorry if you were mocked #you seem fluent to me

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Never say never - Chapter 11

Yeah, by now, you know the drill :D

WIP of my heart and so on :D

°11° ~Victoria~

Victoria had not even noticed that the time had flown; she had been so entranced by this strange tale that was so unlike the ones she had been allowed to read at home. There was an immature, sick longing in her gut whenever that strange, stern man came on screen; he reminded her much of the men she had grown up around and it repelled and attracted her in equal measures. Then again, Thornton was much more handsome than anyone she’d ever seen before.

Hiddleston sat, motionless, on his chair, watching her as much as he watched the movie.

His heart broke for her when she gasped and hid her face in her hands during the botched demand for Margaret’s hand, and he smiled along with her every time Thornton’s mother spoke.

“My mother would have loved a son like that, I think. Unfortunately, none were granted to her.” Victoria confessed to the screen, wiping her eyes angrily as new tears welled up against her will.

They had finished their cakes and their tea and now sat with their hands in their laps, watching an old movie.

The doorbell rang and she paused the movie to go down and see who it could be. The darkness outside took her by surprise; had that much time passed? Was it evening already?

“Are you crying? What has he done to you?” Liza pushed past her, but Victoria’s hand shot out and grabbed her arm.

“He’s been nothing but kind and helpful. It is the movie…it…startles me.” Victoria confessed, looking up when Hiddleston came down the stairs, a broad smile on his face.

“I’m sorry, I know I was not invited, I…” Jenna murmured in a hushed voice. Victoria understood though, she knew how desperately one could long to see a pretty face again. The huge box Angie was holding in her arms that had been left on her doorstep was a testament to that.

“So…how do you find Thornton?” Angie asked, putting the box in a much more reasonable corner of the hallway than Victoria had previously chosen for her books that were still lying partly under the treacherous hallstand.

“He’s…a sourpuss.” Victoria replied, walking to her kitchen to get the number of the pizza delivery.

“Richard was roughly your age then.” Liza prompted her. “Armitage? He looks better now.” Victoria replied with a shrug.

“He doesn’t. Get out!” Liza cried out, stumbling over the books as well as she followed Victoria into the kitchen.

“What would you know?” Victoria laughed, earning a wink and a nod from Hiddleston which made her prouder than it should have. His support buoyed her spirits, she found, and she gave him a warm smile.

“I have known the man for years.” Liza snapped, laughing at Victoria’s dumbfounded face.

They ordered pizza and no-one had the heart to tell Hiddleston to leave, so he retrieved his chair from upstairs and they got comfortable in the small parlour looking out on a neat, little garden while waiting.

“Let me see what you’ve got here.” Liza, brazen as always, started piling up the books and, opening the box, spreading the ordered movies on the table as well. Her jaw went slack upon discovering the scope of Victoria’s “research”.

“Hmmm, this reminds me,” she said, looking up from the piles, “Armitage lets you know that he’s starred in a few horror movies. He thinks you might take pleasure in that.”

“Naaaaa, he’d certainly die. The pretty ones always die.” Victoria replied, trying to snatch away her books and movies from the prying eyes of her friends…without much success. “Hence why he thought you’d like them.” Liza quipped.

“I’m not a monster, Liza! I have been deplorably rude to the man, but that does not mean that I’d enjoy seeing him die.” Victoria shook her head, still grabbing at her possessions only to have them whisked away by Jenna and Angie.

“You might want to stop with the movie you’re presently watching then, dear.” Hiddleston commented, an uncomfortable expression on his face. He and Liza exchanged a worried look over the table, glancing down on the DVDs spread out under their noses and then back at each other again.

“You’re right. The pretty ones always die…so do the evil ones.” Angie offered carefully, but Vic rolled her eyes.

They were putting words in her mouth, she thought, she had never called the man “evil”, had she? She had thought and called him “dangerous”, but she could not pass judgment over his soul, if he had one that was.

Victoria bit her lip, these thoughts: stupid, rash, inconsiderate words that might easily have spilled out of her mouth, were the very reason why everyone suspected that she secretly hatched some dark plot to assassinate Armitage.

“I’ve known evil men. He doesn’t directly strike me as being evil.” Victoria skirted the unspoken question. “But indirectly, he does?” Liza dug deeper within a moment.

If Victoria hadn’t known better, she would have believed that she was on the verge of being married to Armitage; only nobody had told her about it beforehand. Why did everyone care so much about what she thought about him?

“I…meant that he oftentimes…inhabits…erm…performs…you know.” Angie drew helpless shapes into the air. “He’s the bad guy, he plays the bad guy.” Liza interrupted harshly, observing Vic’s face.

“Makes sense. What a scowl.” Vic laughed, turning to retrieve the pizza when the doorbell rang, humming to herself.

Only, it was not the pizza. It was Martin Freeman, holding a stack of papers and asking for Liza.

“Liza? It’s Martin. Why is he at my door? How does he know where I live?” Vic called into the house, stepping out of the doorframe, and letting Martin enter. “Welcome to my humble abode.” She laughed, shaking her head.

“Ah, you come when the work is done!” Hiddleston cried out in mockery, but went to retrieve a chair for the newcomer, nonetheless. “Here’s the…what do you mean?” Martin gave up on the business-conversation he was about to have with Liza and turned to Hiddleston instead, who was more than happy to recount his whole afternoon with Vic in detail.

Victoria knew she should be mortified, but her mood had mellowed considerably after her shopping-spree, and it had been pleasant to sit in the failing light with Hiddleston and watch that mysterious movie everyone seemed to know.

“I also have a gift for you, so your withering anger will not fall on me.” Martin said with a humorous gleam in his eye. Making her promise not to attempt any kind of voodoo or other witchcraft on them, he presented her with two dolls. She took them with a confused look on her face, waving her hand at Jenna to turn on the little lamp in the corner of the room.

“Oh. My. GOD.” She exclaimed as she recognised the characters. These were not the kind of hard-plastic dolls she had thought of; in her mind, she had seen actual action-figures, but these were funny and adorable, like cartoonish bobble-heads.

“Look at them, Liza, Angie, Jenna, come look at them.” Victoria exclaimed, holding the dolls up with such obvious, child-like delight that the men couldn’t help but stare. There were obviously shards of a broken childhood embedded in her soul and she had grown around them, making her 70% scar tissue and wounds.

“I…I am glad you like them.” Martin said, carefully; he had expected mockery and outright rejection, he had been prepared to have his dolls thrown at his head in disdain, never would he have been able to predict the joy with which she cradled the effigy of men she seemingly despised.

“Are they collectibles? Am I to keep them in that box?” Victoria asked, insecurity making her voice tremble. “Not really, you can if you want to, someone might pay a pretty penny for them one day, but…they’re not like the Ming-vase or the Persian rug…You can take them out and play with them.” Liza answered, holding her hand up discreetly so none of the others would say anything careless that might hurt Vic deeply in her vulnerable, open state of mind.

The doorbell rang again, and Liza nodded to signal that she’d go accept the pizzas. “You go ahead.” She said to Vic who was ever so carefully taking her dolls out of the boxes, placing them on the table and providing a napkin for them to sit on comfortably.

“Thank you so much, I want to say that my anger is not withering…but you have my deepest affection right now.” Vic mumbled humbly and hugged Martin awkwardly. “You are an astonishing woman. If we had known that a Bilbo- and a Thorin-doll would make you so happy, we’d have started by that.” Martin chuckled, gazing at the two inanimate objects he had seen be showered with a tenderness, so earnest and deep, he had never seen her grant to any living creature.

“Stay and have pizza with us.” She invited Martin when Liza came back, carrying the steaming boxes.

~Richard~

He didn’t even want to pick up the phone when Martin’s name appeared. The last time he had done that, things had taken a terrible turn for him, and he was not eager to repeat the experience.

He should have known better than to think that his friend would give up that easily though, and, after a few solid minutes of unnerving vibration, Richard gave in and accepted the call.

“Hey. I found the way into Vic’s heart.” Martin declared without preamble, describing her reaction when he had handed her the dolls that were now resting on a chair reserved for them while Hiddleston was sitting on the carpet.

“Wait…you’re at her place? You’re having a party and I’m not invited? Wow, thanks.” Richard knew that he was petty and that his tone might betray that he was not entirely joking either. “I just swung by to deliver some documents, Liza gave me the address and because I made an appropriate gift, I was asked to stay.” Martin sounded weirdly proud of himself.

“What are you doing? Who are you talking to?” Vic’s voice resounded in the background, followed by a mumbled complaint about how she was not running a boarding house. “I just told Richard about how much you liked the dolls. Shouldn’t I have?” Martin’s voice was contrite, but also a bit challenging.

“Armitage? Oh, hello.” Victoria’s voice grew very quiet instantly and Richard hated the fact that the mere mention of his name made her joy flicker out like a candle in a draught.

“He feels left out.” Martin snitched. “I had no intention of having any of you here, it has just happened.” Victoria squeaked helplessly, but she could see how this must look.

“I didn’t know anything about this meeting until this afternoon. Jenna was not invited, Tom helped and stayed, you came here with a gift…” Victoria tried to justify herself. “I cannot ask Armitage to come here and watch his own movies with me, can I? Or have him play with my dolls?”

“Richard, how do you feel about shameless narcissism?” Martin asked him suddenly and Richard had to do a double take to even find the words to reply to such a ludicrous question: “Erm, I don’t know.”

“What is going on?” Another voice called from far away and he heard Vic yell back that Martin had ratted her out to him and that now, he was disgruntled at not having been invited to a completely unplanned and chaotic get-together.

“Well, your house, your rules.” The other voice replied, and Victoria uttered a low grunt of frustration.

“Please, tell Mister Armitage that he is as free to come startle me at my home as any of the people here now.” Victoria spoke haughtily to Martin before withdrawing again. “Really?” Martin called after her. “Really.” She replied from further away with a small peal of laughter.

Martin then proceeded to swear that this had not been planned and that he genuinely did not believe that Victoria had taken any precautions to consciously exclude Richard. “She really liked the doll by the way and there’s a whole stack of books and movies on the living room table. Many of them…with you in them.”

Richard had no idea why Martin was telling him all that, but he was feeling lonely, and it was somehow nice to be told anecdotes and funny stories about people they both knew. It turned out that Hiddleston had indeed stayed and helped get the mysterious drawing room into shape for the furniture Vic had ordered and received the same day.

Must have cost a pretty penny, Martin joked. He also described the slight chaos and the many colourful clothes lying around. “I haven’t seen the drawing room yet. Want me to go check?” He said in a mischievous tone.

Informing the others with a careless call into the direction of the living room, he made his way upstairs, and towards the room from which a blueish light was emanating.

“Mother of Christ.” He cursed and Richard was invested enough by now to almost beg his friend to describe what he saw.

Martin was more than happy to oblige, telling him that it was a lovely room with big windows that let in a lot of light during the day. Now, the room was plunged into darkness though and against the faded tapestry stood an antique bookshelf, ready to welcome all the books he had seen lying around downstairs.

He also described the dainty and distinctly feminine ottoman in the middle of the room and the treadmill in the corner that seemed so anachronous compared to the other pieces of furniture.

“Don’t.” Martin whipped around to find Vic standing in the door, nodding at the still on her screen. “Don’t what?” Richard asked, curiouser than ever now, as he heard that Victoria had followed Martin upstairs.

Maybe, she was afraid that he was secretly taking pictures of her underwear for Richard?

“She…She’s watching porn on her new telly.” Martin blurted out and Richard heard the shocked gasp from Victoria.

He was not exactly sure that this was the truth, Liza had said something about North & South, but would Martin call that “porn”? Yeah, he would, without batting an eye.

“Ah, Richard, Vic wants to talk to you.” Martin said while he was still deep in thought, damn it, would she always take him by surprise? “Hello Mister Armitage.” Her voice was heard now, shy and demure, maybe even a tad embarrassed.

He thought that this might well be the first time that she greeted him unprompted and his name in her mouth gave him a tiny jolt of pleasure. There was still that distance in her tone, but right now, it sounded a lot more like reverence than like rejection. “Hello? Sir?” Her tone faltered and he kicked himself into action. “Hello Miss Victoria.”

A tiny sigh was heard, followed by Martin’s cackle and the sound of something heavy thudding to the floor.

“I just wanted to say that we did not purposefully exclude you. I don’t want you to think that.” She sounded apologetic, he thought, and by the shifting of the background noise, he could tell that she was pacing around the room.

“It was a joke. I am not that self-absorbed that I really believe that everyone has to invite me everywhere.” He said quickly, embarrassed about being taken literally when he was just acting like a mopey brat.

She didn’t immediately reply to that, and his spirits sank, of course she wouldn’t really want to have him in her home, would she? She had never hidden the fact that she hadn’t taken to him particularly and it was his own problem if he let that hurt him.

#richard armitage #ao3 fanfic #fanfiction #writing #rpf #long #romcom #ludicrous #trials and tribulations

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/neptune-stations-directout-of-chaos-emerges-clarity/

NEPTUNE STATIONS DIRECT~OUT OF CHAOS EMERGES CLARITY

NEPTUNE STATIONS DIRECT~OUT OF CHAOS EMERGES CLARITY

By Sheri-Horn Hasan 

Neptune, the second slowest moving planet in our solar system, takes nearly 165 years to complete a full orbit through the zodiac. Invisible to the naked eye until observed by telescope September 23, 1846, Neptune is the only planet in our solar system discovered through mathematical prediction rather than via empirical observation. 

This belief that Neptune existed—based on French astronomer Alexis Bouvard’s deducing that an unknown planet was causing unexpected changes and gravitational disturbances in Uranus’s orbit—set the stage for our modern astrological “take” on Neptune and its meaning in our individual charts.

King of the oceans, the Roman Neptune (Greek Poseidon) rules primarily the seas and all other waterways, earthquakes, and horses.

Water shape shifts; it flows; such fluidity helps us all adjust, fill, buoy or, more negatively, drown. Ergo, Neptune’s not exactly a black and white kinda energy…

Often, water correlates to mood, intuition, sensitivity, and empathy. Represented by the ebb and flow of the ocean’s waves as the tide rises and recedes, Neptune’s indicative of a collectively eternal situation that calls for a certain amount of surrender in order to go with the natural flow…

Because of the shape-shifting nature associated with Neptune, often we may have difficulty with boundaries between ourselves and others, as well as with seeing emotional situations clearly.

Hence, Neptune correlates to the state of chaos–of not intuiting clearly if we’re up or down, emotional or rational, realistic or fantastical—you know, the kind of dilemma that often befuddles so many of us mere mortals here on planet Earth.

Neptune intuits, it doesn’t think, it has no opinion, as Jungian astrologer & artist Erin Sullivan points out in her book “Planetary Retrogrades.”

“It has moods, feelings, sensations, images, fantasies, nuances, hints and visions,” Sullivan explains. “It is redolent with insinuation.”

NEPTUNE’S LAST RETROGRADE

When Neptune last stationed retrograde back in , or appeared stop in the sky and move backward in June 19, at 18°43′ Pisces, this represented part of its annual planetary motion for approximately five months.

All planetary retrograde motion is actually an optical illusion. However, both ancient & modern astrologers recognize retrograde periods as times of internal withdrawal. When Neptune began its backstroke through the heavens, it was time to allow ourselves to go inward, into that liminal space, as Jungian astrologer Liz Greene would say, and allow ourselves to dream.

Neptune retrogrades affect us all on a subtle level because Neptune is defined in modern astrology as an “unconscious” planet. Its retrograde periods allow us to withdraw by obscuring the boundaries between the “real” and “imagined.”

It’s here, in this liminal space, that our dreams arise out of unconscious desires rather than rational ones. 

However, because Neptune’s energies are not initially discernible (read: not conscious), its effects are both more subtle and longer term. Thoughts, beliefs, or behaviors may come without a fully rational explanation or concrete understanding of the “why” behind them during Neptune’s retrograde period.

YOUR NEPTUNE STORY

As the planet of illusion, confusion, & delusion, Neptune’s retrograde—through whatever house in your chart–tells us where you may be, shall we say, a little less reality-based, and a little more prone to ignore or transgress emotional boundaries.

Neptune’s location in your birth chart by sign, house, and aspect, also tells us where you may be, to put it more bluntly, a little more delusional. The degree to which this influences your life will vary, depending on how your soul chooses to both perceive and manifest your natal Neptune energy into the world around you…

I like to use the word “devotion” when describing the energy of Neptune, because I find it to be the planet that connects us to our own individual sense of what’s worth surrendering for (or to) based on the rest of our natal energies.

In the 7th House of partnership, for example, it might be devotion to relationships; in the 2nd House to a sense of one’s values. Devotion would be defined in either realm through both a more romantic, spiritual, and/or charitable mindset.

This is not by far the only way to interpret Neptune natally in these houses, I’m simply using them as examples…in addition, having Neptune in configuration with other planets in one’s chart can cause one to manifest certain patterns of “Neptunian” behavior in the outside, objective, empirical, ego-oriented world.

The question, as always with Neptune, is are our perceptions based on reality?

TIME TO TAKE OFF THOSE ROSE-COLORED GLASSES!

Just as organic life emerged long ago out of the chaotic “soup” mixture of non-living inorganic molecules through some form of physical and chemical reactions between water and matter, so does Neptune’s movement from retrograde to direct motion allow us to flow from chaos to clarity.

In a sense, Neptune’s retrograde period is often a chaotic one because we’re asked to right brain it, visualize, believe in the psychic and spiritual world without requiring (or demanding!) empirical proof that either one exists.

Neptune direct is a time to draw back the curtain, pierce the veil, and generally let in the light of day so we may see clearly once again. But that’s only if we’re willing to wake up, take off our rose-colored glasses, and look at both ourselves and the world around us from a new and different perspective…

This is the only way to bridge the gap between what formerly seemed “real,” but isn’t. This is the only way to integrate the energies of the subconscious into the conscious brain and to move forward in holy matrimony of these two, with peace everlasting, until death you do part…

GROUNDING OUR DREAMS

Now that he’s stationing direct again—meaning he’s moving forward in the sky rather than appearing to swim backward—Neptune calls us all to move forward and ground what we’ve been dreaming about into concrete manifest reality.

What helps us to ground our dream?

Understanding that we are capable of achieving anything we want in this lifetime, and evaluating how much of the things we want to accomplish out in the world are driven by unrealistic attitudes or unfounded suppositions.

Saturn in Capricorn allows us to see that what we’ve dreamt about from a more realistic lens then while Neptune was retrograde. This is an extremely grounding energy.

And, while Saturn in Capricorn may be quick to dismiss our ideas as pure fantastical thinking, we all know that the seeds of reality (read: clarity, discernment) lie in chaos.

Those who don’t distinguish between the retrograde and direct motion may move forward attempting to ground dreams, but lacking the ability to do so. But if we use his energies wisely, Saturn in Capricorn will test our hypothesis and tell us what is concretely possible.

However, Saturn in Capricorn can also bring us down, down, down, which is not a place we want to go. The shock of our incapability to manifest our more Neptunian dreams in the real world will be proportionately equal to how unrealistic these dreams were in the first place. That’s how the universe rolls, as always it seeks balance…

I’m mindful of Katy Perry’s lyrics from her song “Wide Awake”:

“Falling from cloud nine Crashing from the high I’m letting go tonight Yeah, I’m letting go tonight…

Gravity hurts You made it to sweet Till I woke up On the concrete…”

Neptune’s retrograde periods are about assisting us to bridge the gap between romance, illusion, fantasy, and our psychic and more spiritual orientations (read: less egoic, less belief system oriented.)

So, the question becomes: do we allow ourselves to entertain the practical, useful, physical, tangible, concrete methods of grounding a dream that might have seemed grandiose or impossible or wildly unrealistic when in the Neptune retrograde period?

We may now discover ultimately that what we thought a person or situation was about is far removed from the actual factuality of their situation.

I CAN DREAM, CAN’T I?

The key held by Neptune is that it allows us to lessen the gap between complete fantastical thinking and overly pessimistic or naysaying hardcore reality…

Nobody says not to dream. In fact, evolutionary astrologer Steven Forrest would say that if you have Neptunian or Piscean energy anywhere in your chart—and we all do somewhere—that it’s necessary and beneficial to be allowed to dream…

However, as Neptune proceeds to move forward in the sky from now until June 21st 2019, we are all called to integrate whatever we’ve dreamt about—whether relationship, career, money, or anything else—during its last retrograde period.

That means we can all ask ourselves where we may have set out to save, conquer, or martyr ourselves for the sake of another or others, and/or otherwise sacrifice ourselves for a devotional purpose we felt was bigger than simply our more shallow, mundane, earth-bound world.

Now is the time to find a way to make our dreams come true by using sound judgment and rational–rather than fantastical–thinking in order to discern where adjustments now may be necessary to bring some of these wilder, more fantastical thoughts, plans, and dreams to fruition.

Namaste…

******

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