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disastermages · 4 years

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this is part five of the au where xiao xingchen is the one to raise wei wuxian

"Is he alright?" Xiao Xingchen asks, coming out of his own tent and watching the way his sister bounces her son in her arms. Wei Ying fought and fussed against any attempt Cangse made to soothe him, his cries only barely muffled against her chest.

The glow of the fire casts a shadow over Cangse's face as Xiao Xingchen comes to stand close to her, and for a moment, that shadow hides how exhausted she was, the worn expression on her face hidden in the night. "I don't know." Cangse admits finally, her shoulders starting to cave in. "I don't know if he's getting another tooth or if he's about to hit another growth spurt, but nothing I'm doing is working."

"Growth spurts can make children fussy?" Xiao Xingchen asks, eyes focusing on his nephew now. Wei Ying didn't look any bigger than he had earlier today.

"I don't know!" Cangse says, her voice too loud for the hour, but she's no louder than her son. "That's what some auntie told me after A-Ying was born! I didn't even ask her, people just tell you stuff when you have a kid!" Cangse's eyes get wide as she speaks, setting Wei Ying onto her hip so she can gesture with one hand and still hold him, his little hands clinging to her robes.

Tears are still rolling down Wei Ying’s cheeks, and Cangse wipes them away with her sleeve, sighing and closing her eyes. "Can you hold him for just a minute? He might like you better than me tonight." Cangse asks suddenly, stroking Wei Ying’s hair back, but looking right at Xiao Xingchen.

"Shijie, I don't-" Xiao Xingchen says, his eyes wide as his sister steps closer to him, already shifting Wei Ying back into her arms to pass him over. Since he'd met up with his sister's family, he'd only held his nephew twice over the last three weeks, and each time Wei Changze had taken his son back after just a few minutes, smiling as if he knew something Xiao Xingchen didn't.

Wei Ying is in his uncle's arms before Xiao Xingchen can finish what he was saying, his eyes owlishly wide as another whimper dies on his lips. Forcing himself to breathe slowly, Xiao Xingchen brings Wei Ying close to his chest, his arms tight around him. Wei Ying liked to wriggle and kick, Wei Changze had told him that, and Xiao Xingchen didn't even want to risk dropping him.

Xiao Xingchen expects the wailing to start all over again, he expects Wei Ying to turn around and grab for his mother, but neither of those things happen. Instead Wei Ying laughs, his tears drying up on his face as he holds onto the front of Xiao Xingchen’s robes as tightly as he can.

"Now he's happy, the little traitor." Cangse says, leaning up just a little bit to brush her finger against Wei Ying’s nose three times. All the stress from before has melted off Cangse's face now, leaving only a sleepy smile in its wake. "Maybe I should just let your Uncle Xiao keep you, what would you do then, A-Ying?"

Cangse tickles Wei Ying as she teases him, making him giggle and twist in Xiao Xingchen’s grasp, and Xiao Xingchen can't hold back the smile of his own anymore, the fear of dropping him evaporating.

The tickling stops when Wei Ying hides his face in his uncle's chest, and Xiao Xingchen can't stop himself from putting a hand on the back of his head, the same way he'd seen his sister and her husband do it.

When he looks over, Cangse is smiling at him. "I can't wait to tell Changze that I finally got you to hold him longer than a few seconds." She says, trying to turn her smile into a smirk and failing as she watches her brother hold her son so tightly.

Xiao Xingchen didn't know his brother in law had been so concerned about it.

"Are you alright?"

Song Lan’s voice snaps Xiao Xingchen out of the memory, the sight of his sister smiling at him disappearing.

Song Lan is the one standing in front of him now, their fingers laced together despite the worried look on his husband's face. Swallowing thickly, Xiao Xingchen shakes his head. "Just remembering something, that's all."

It was still dark in their tent, but Xiao Xingchen didn't need light to know that he was still being worried over. He squeezes Song Lan’s hand in his and leans his weight against his shoulder.

"We still have a few hours before A-Xian wakes up, if you want to tell me." Song Lan murmurs against the top of his head, and Xiao Xingchen chuckles. They haven't been able to leave anywhere before dawn since Wei Ying was eight.

"A-Ying and I have been here once before when he was still small." Xiao Xingchen confesses, this wasn't the exact place he'd made camp with his sister's family, but it was close enough. "My sister and his father were still here back then, we'd all been traveling together, but I was terrified of holding A-Ying. I thought for sure that I would drop him or hurt him, and I told myself that it was for the best that I didn't carry him."

Song Lan’s arm wraps around his waist at the mention of Cangse, though he huffs and smiles against Xiao Xingchen’s hair. Xiao Xingchen couldn't fault him for it, not when he'd so willingly and often carried Wei Ying by the time they met.

Laying back against his husband, Xiao Xingchen smiles too. "My sister finally made me hold him one night because he was fussy, and I thought he'd just keep crying or cry more because of me, but he laughed and held onto me instead."

Wei Ying hadn't been an overly fussy toddler, but he'd had his moments, and after that night, Cangse had made a point of dropping him into Xiao Xingchen’s arms until Xiao Xingchen had started picking him up on his own.

"Today is his birthday, I guess I'm only thinking about how big he's gotten." Xiao Xingchen finishes, looking at Song Lan again and smiling, more honest this time. "I can't pick him up anymore."

Well, he could. Both he and Song Lan could pick their nephew up if they wanted to, but that might earn them reddened cheeks and claims that he wasn’t a little kid anymore. Xiao Xingchen puts the idea away with a quiet laugh. He couldn’t be that mean to Wei Ying on his birthday.

It had only been three days since they’d left Lotus Pier, though Jiang Fengmian had tried to make them stay longer, insisting that Wei Ying and Jiang Wanyin should spend their birthdays together, and Xiao Xingchen had almost agreed, but then Wei Ying had asked him when they were going to leave.

That had been all the permission Xiao Xingchen had needed to leave Lotus Pier with both his husband and their nephew in tow.

They’re near Lanling when they hear the murmurs of the villagers, their voices hushed and their eyes unfocused on whatever was in front of them as they talked about it. Ghosts had all but taken over a village a few miles to the south, luring villagers into rivers too fast to swim against, calling them to the end of a steep cliff by imitating the voices of people the villagers knew, or some of them were even bold enough to try frightening the villagers to death.

Wei Ying is the only one able to work the exact location of the village out of an innkeeper, his eyes widening as the old man looks at him seriously and works the facts into a ghost story, tugging on his beard as though he were a professional storyteller.

Xiao Xingchen can’t bring himself to scold Wei Ying for it, not when the old man had seemed so eager to tell him the story.

The haunting seemed to be a recurring problem, the ghosts cropping up every ten years like clockwork and running rampant until cultivators arrived to put them down for another decade, though by then, the ghosts from the previous years had joined their ranks. According to the innkeeper, Lanling Jin had stopped coming out to deal with the ghosts soon after Jin Guangshan had become leader of his sect, his sniff of disdain hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“I’m afraid we can’t afford to pay for your services.” The village’s leader tells them when they arrive, the guilt on his face obvious, but then Song Lan is holding his hand up and shaking his head.

“We require no payment, sir, we only ask for a place to rest while we’re here.” Xiao Xingchen says, bowing quickly, Song Lan and Wei Ying following suit, and the man still looks unsure, but gestures for them to follow behind him.

They walk in silence as they’re led to an abandoned, but still standing house at the edge of the forest. “Years ago, the spirits dared not come past this point,” The man’s voice shakes as he speaks, and Wei Ying casts a worried look over to his uncle, “now they keep my villagers locked inside their homes all day and night.” The village leader bows deeply to them, then, “We cannot go on as we have in the past, Daozhangs, please put these spirits to bed for good.”

Xiao Xingchen opens his mouth to speak, but Wei Ying is faster, stepping forward and catching the man’s arms, a comforting smile on his face as he speaks, “We’ll do our best, please don’t worry, Sir.” Xiao Xingchen recognized the tone he was using, it was the same one he’d used whenever Wei Ying had nightmares and hearing his nephew use it now pulls at his heart.

“It doesn’t make sense.” Wei Ying says, once the village’s leader has left and they’re alone in the house, all three of them taking care around places where the floorboards seem weak. They’d stayed in worse places, especially during nighthunts, but as long as the house wouldn’t collapse on top of them, it was fine. “If they’ve had Jin cultivators out so many times, why haven’t they done away with the ghosts by now? Why would they just keep suppressing the haunting?”

Setting his bag down on the dusty floor, Xiao Xingchen hums. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been thinking the same thing, but Wei Ying was like his mother, he said the first thing that came to mind.

“A-Xian, some gentry families prefer to keep spirits suppressed with the aid of arrays and traps.” Song Lan explains, narrowly avoiding a hole in the stairs as he comes back down into the main room, wiping the dust from the railing off onto Wei Ying’s shoulder. “What happens to those arrays and traps over time?” Both Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen grin at each other when Wei Ying pouts, wiping at the dust on his shoulder.

“They wear out and break down over time.” Wei Ying says, shaking his head like it was the simplest question either of his uncles had ever asked him, but then realization hits his face, a bright grin following it. “The traps must have a ten year lifespan!”

“That’s just a theory I thought of upstairs,” Song Lan says, “we don’t have any proof that they used traps just yet.” It was a very likely theory though, Xiao Xingchen thinks, the Jin sect was known for overloading forests with spirit nets during nighthunts. A quick walk out into the forest before nightfall would tell them what they needed to know about how the Jin sect had been dealing with this problem.

The traps they do find are old and burnt out, some of them cracked along the edges from where the spirits had fought against them. “None of them have any spirit calming spells inscribed on them.” Wei Ying announces, turning the trap over in his hands again and again, looking up at his uncles as he tosses it to the side. They’d been intended to be a temporary solution to a constant problem, then.

“You don’t want to tinker with it?” Song Lan asks, nudging at the trap with his foot. Normally, one of the more salvageable traps would’ve been tucked into Wei Ying’s bag and only taken out again to be broken down and put back together once it was repaired or improved. This time, Wei Ying only shakes his head.

“These aren’t made to be fixed, I would only break them more if I tried.” There’s a level of frustration in Wei Ying’s voice that makes Xiao Xingchen reach out and put his hand on his shoulder. Everything they carried with them while traveling was meant to have multiple uses, some of their possessions could even be fixed as they failed, nothing was wasted by rogue cultivators.

It was a lesson from their grandmaster that Xiao Xingchen had taught Wei Ying from a young age. Xiao Xingchen could understand his nephew’s irritation at such a frivolous trap.

“A-Ying, I want you to be very careful tonight, stay close to me or Uncle Song when you can and stay on the defensive when you can’t.” Xiao Xingchen keeps his hand on Wei Ying’s shoulder as he speaks, turning him just slightly so he was looking at his uncle. Wei Ying could achieve immortality and Xiao Xingchen would still prefer keeping him close in a fight.

“I’ll be okay, Uncle Xiao.” Wei Ying protests, though he doesn’t shrug off Xiao Xingchen’s hand. The sun had already started to set, and the temperature in the forest was dropping right along with it.

“A-Ying.” Xiao Xingchen says a little more firmly, narrowing his eyes. If the spirits were strong enough to keep villagers inside their homes night and day, Xiao Xingchen wouldn’t let his nephew take any unnecessary risks, he couldn’t.

Their stare down only lasts a few seconds before Wei Ying gives in, slumping against his uncle and groaning out that he would stay close. The pout on his face makes both Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan laugh as they walk deeper into the forest, Song Lan at the front and the other two trailing close behind him.

They’re in position long before dusk, close enough to keep eyes on each other, but not close enough to get taken out as a group, their swords held in their hands rather than kept on their backs. Xiao Xingchen had expected more activity by now, even if the spirits hadn’t risen up at their feet, they should have seen at least a few of the harmless ones wandering.

Turning and locking eyes with Wei Ying, Xiao Xingchen nods, watching as his nephew takes a paperman out of his robes and sends it wandering out past the tree Song Lan was hidden against, letting it stop and look around as it comes to stand in front of a fallen log.

The paperman was bait, something to draw out spirits starving for spiritual energy, but Wei Ying could only let it go so far before he had to follow after it. Xiao Xingchen crouches down behind the boulder in front of him and watches as Wei Ying walks a few feet forward, allowing the paperman to pass in front of one end of the log when a spectral hand reaches out and snatches it.

The connection to Wei Ying’s spiritual energy is severed almost immediately as the paperman crumples and a high pitched shriek explodes out of the log before the ghost inhabiting it emerges, tossing its head in every direction as it tries to find the source of the paperman.

The spirit had been human once, Xiao Xingchen notes, even as it crawls out on all fours, twisted and tormented in death.

“A-Ying.” Xiao Xingchen whispers, and Wei Ying moves himself backwards almost silently, ducking behind a tree slightly closer to Song Lan’s without being told twice.

The screeching of the log spirit seems to draw out the rest, their voices sounding pitiful as they moan in response. Some of them rise up from the ground, others appear from the inside of bushes, but others descend from the trees just ahead of them, their eyes sightless as they toss their heads.

Decades of suppression instead of being put to rest properly hadn’t been kind to these spirits, it had whittled them down to their base instincts, and Xiao Xingchen forces himself to choke down the anger that rises in his chest.

A sharp whistle from just ahead of him brings Xiao Xingchen out of his thoughts and pulls him back into the moment, they would need to start working their way forward if they wanted to keep the spirits out of the village tonight.

Song Lan moves first, stepping silently to the right and forward, drawing Fuxue out of its sheath as he waits for Xiao Xingchen and then Wei Ying to move, Shuanghua and Suibian already held in their hands.

On their third rotation forward, a twig snaps underneath Xiao Xingchen’s foot and he eyes of the spirits are on him, the lot of them moving forward as he steels himself, Shuanghua already poised when a cleansing talisman flies forward and burns away a group of the weakest ones.

Xiao Xingchen can’t turn and look at his nephew now, but he knows full well if he did, there’d be a grin on Wei Ying’s face. Shuanghua cuts through the spirits that come charging at him first, purifying them even as they screech and wail against the blade now that they’ve lost the element of surprise.

Song Lan is working his way through the spirits on the opposite side of him, Fuxue glinting in the moonlight as Wei Ying flits between them, staying just close enough to both his uncles to avoid catching a lecture after they’d finished.

The three of them spend an hour working through the spirits that threw themselves upon their blades when one of the spirits at the center groans loud enough to shake the ground underneath their feet before it breaks away from the weaker spirits, the spectral jaw of it hanging open as it flees up a hill.

Before it goes too far, a talisman flies past Xiao Xingchen’s head and seals itself on the spirit’s back, drawing another scream from it.

“Was that one of your new ones?” Song Lan asks, landing next to Xiao Xingchen and Wei Ying, his eyes trying to track the movements of the ghost. They’d given Wei Ying three new stacks of talisman paper for his birthday a few months ago, and he’d been dutifully working through them.

“I modified the trace of evil spell,” Wei Ying nods, holding up two fingers to show his uncles a glowing character between them, the light of it flickering and growing dimmer as the spirit moved further and further away from them. “We can track it for an hour and a half like this, but I’m working on one that lasts a lot longer.”

Despite the situation, Xiao Xingchen doesn’t stop himself from smiling and patting the top of Wei Ying’s head. He’d never thought of himself as a prideful man until he came face to face with his nephew’s inventions. He almost misses the way Song Lan’s hand comes up and pats Wei Ying’s shoulder.

“We should get moving, wherever that spirit goes, we need to follow it.” Song Lan says, looking into Xiao Xingchen’s eyes and nodding as he takes back his position at the head of their group, though they walk closer this time.

Wei Ying’s talisman leads them to a northeastern corner of the forest, the air getting more and more stagnant as they move, making their clothes itch and seem too warm despite the coldness of the season.

A wail stops them where they stand, the three of them looking at each other before any of them dares to speak.

“Is that a kid crying?” Wei Ying asks, tugging at Xiao Xingchen’s sleeve, his eyebrows drawn together.

“Song Lan, it doesn’t sound spectral, it sounds human.” Xiao Xingchen keeps the panic out of his voice for the sake of his husband and nephew, though he knows his eyes betray him when Song Lan turns to look at him.

Why would there be a child all the way out in the forest if all the villagers were locked in their homes? The thought of it churns Xiao Xingchen’s stomach, but Wei Ying walks forward before he can say anything more, looking back to his uncles with his mouth agape when the character glows brighter between his fingers when he turns towards the wailing.

“A-Xian, I want you between us, now.” Song Lan says and Xiao Xingchen nods, coming to stand directly behind his nephew while Song Lan stands in front, when Wei Ying doesn’t argue, they start moving forward again, climbing up the hill and only communicating silently as the glow intensifies.

It could very well be a trick, all three of them know that, the spirits had been crafty, but if there truly was a child out here, they wouldn’t leave them here.

The crying stops as they reach the top of the hill, leaving them to look around themselves, both for the spirit and for the child that had led them up this high.

“There!” Wei Ying whisper-shouts, pointing out a shape hiding against a bush to the left of them. The child was covering their eyes with their hands and their shoulders were shaking, either with cold or with fear.

Song Lan steps forward, trying to move their group closer to the child, but stops when the ghost appears again, though it’s eyes aren’t focused on them, they’re bearing into the child, the jaws hanging open in a snarl.

The beast moves first, breaking out in a run towards the child at the same time Wei Ying breaks away from his uncles, diving forward to gather them in his arms and then behind a large tree.

It slams against the tree and the child cries out again, vaguely, Xiao Xingchen thinks he can hear Wei Ying trying to soothe them, speaking quietly as Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan make their moves on the beast. They each take a side of it and drive their swords in, ignoring how it howls when they throw cleansing talismans on it.

They go through half a stack of talismans each before they can land the killing blow on the spirit, and even then it fights, growling at them until it fizzles away and leaves a pile of bones, large ones, but not human, behind.

Wei Ying and the child come out from behind their tree once the bones are buried underneath a half dozen calming talismans, their tiny arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

“Her name is A-Qing,” Wei Ying says, swallowing thickly and bouncing her in his grip, “she says she’s five.”

Forcing himself to breathe again, Xiao Xingchen nods and reaches out, turing Wei Ying’s face either way to check for any injuries that needed dealing with right away, and then he sets about prying A-Qing away from him, Song Lan eventually joining in on their circle of soft-talking and gentle encouragements.

Aside from scrapes and bruises, A-Qing is only cold, hungry, and scared after being lured out into the woods two days ago. The village’s leader hadn’t told them there was a child among the missing people.

She clings to Wei Ying on their walk back to the village, whimpering at every noise. The spirits that had surrounded them had long since dispersed, gone from this world and onto the next after the spirit keeping all of them there had been put down, and the eerie feeling of the forest had been taken with them.

Dawn is already breaking when they return, the village leader waiting for them at the tree line with his hands clasped in worry, and then relief when he sees all three of them, plus another, alive and walking towards them.

“A-Qing’s mother died a few days after she was born, and her father was one of the first to be taken by the spirits.” The village leader says, looking apologetically at the little girl, even as she slept on Wei Ying’s shoulder. “She’s been staying with neighbors while we’ve been trying to deal with the spirits, but then she’d wandered off one night.”

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t miss the way Wei Ying’s arms grow tighter around A-Qing, but he doesn’t allow himself to linger on it, instead he turns his eyes onto Song Lan silently for a moment.

They’d discussed it, they’d discussed adopting children many, many times, but talking about it was different from actually doing it.

All it takes is the slightest nod of his head and a clearing of Song Lan’s throat for Xiao Xingchen to speak.

“We intend to ask A-Qing’s opinion on the matter after she wakes, but with your permission, Village Leader, my husband and I would like to adopt her.”

The man seems flabbergasted at the request, but recovers after a moment, his face going still as he considers it.

“If A-Qing wishes to leave with the three of you, I will allow it.”

“Xian-gege, don’t go!” A-Qing cries, her cheeks red as she tugs at his robes, staring up at him pleadingly. Guilt gnaws at Xiao Xingchen when he finds that he agrees with her, though he tries his best not to let it show as he watches Wei Ying lean down and pick up his younger sister, one arm holding her on his hip and the other hand reaching up to pinch her cheek.

“A-Qing,” Wei Ying starts, leaning his forehead against hers before he sighs dramatically, “Uncle Xiao already wrote to Sect Leader Jiang and told him that I would go to Gusu Lan’s lecture, it wouldn’t be nice for me to change my mind now.”

A-Qing wrinkles her nose at the mention of Jiang Fengmian despite only meeting the man once since they’d taken her in. “I don’t like Sect Leader Jiang.” The little girl speaks with finality that was beyond her years, and Xiao Xingchen doesn’t bother holding back his laughter, they still had a few more minutes before they would meet up with the Jiang attachment.

“Do you have everything you need?” Xiao Xingchen asks, holding out his hands to take A-Qing from his nephew, reaching out with his free hand to straighten Wei Ying’s robes once he has her.

“Yes, Uncle Xiao.”

“You have your talisman papers? I know you’ll go through the ones they give you.”

“Yes, Uncle Xiao.”

“Your winter robes? It gets cold in Gusu.”

“Yes, Uncle Xiao.”

“The sweets Uncle Song made for you?”

“I snuck them into his bag last night.” Song Lan says, coming up behind Xiao Xingchen and brushing their arms together. “Those were supposed to be a surprise.”

Xiao Xingchen throws his husband a look of apology that’s quickly waved off, instead, Song Lan starts his own version of straightening Wei Ying’s robes.

“You have your stationery? Remember to write to us once at least once a week, A-Ying.” The stationery had been something the three of them had worked on together, traditional letters were out of the question, they wandered too far to even consider it.

There’s a hand on the small of his back then, and Xiao Xingchen struggles to swallow down the rest of his questions.

Stepping forward, Xiao Xingchen pushes down the feeling rising up in his chest. “You can come back to us anytime you want, remember that, A-Ying, you don’t have to wait out the year if you don’t want to.” It had been part of his and Jiang Fengmian’s agreement, Wei Ying was allowed to leave Gusu Lan’s lecture after the first two months if he wanted to, and any major punishments were to go through Xiao Xingchen.

Getting Jiang Fengmian to agree to those terms had been like twisting an arm, but Xiao Xingchen had won out in the end.

Suddenly there are arms around his neck as Wei Ying hugs him tightly, and Xiao Xingchen returns it as best he can with A-Qing still on his hip. Her weight shifts and Xiao Xingchen lets out a wet laugh when he realizes that A-Qing has joined their embrace.

When they part, Wei Ying’s eyes are wet, but Song Lan has already started speaking, one hand resting on Wei Ying’s shoulder.

“Behave yourself, A-Xian, if you have to break the rules, don’t get caught.”

A grin spreads across Wei Ying’s face, and he opens his mouth to speak, but then, someone is calling his name and waving their hand at him. It only takes a moment of squinting for Xiao Xingchen to recognize the young man as Jiang Wanyin, taller and more grown into his features as he waves Wei Ying over.

For a moment, Wei Ying looks between the three of them and the Jiang attachment, but Xiao Xingchen only nods at him, his grip on A-Qing tightening ever so slightly, still smiling sadly.

He expects Wei Ying to run and join them right away, maybe he would wave at them over his shoulder before he disappeared from view, but then there’s another hug pressed against his side before it’s gone, and Wei Ying only hesitates for a moment before launching himself at Song Lan and giving him one of the same.

Xiao Xingchen presses himself against Song Lan’s side as they watch their nephew disappear from view, his heart in his throat until he hears Song Lan sniffle beside him.

“He’ll come back to us.” Xiao Xingchen says quietly, to who, he isn’t sure.

#songxiao #xiao xingchen #wei wuxian #song lan #song zichen #a-qing #a qing #wei ying #this chapter turned into a fuckin monster length wise real quick #as usual the ao3 link and links to the other parts will be in the reblog to my main

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honeyrataxia · 3 years

Text

feel like a dream - part 1.

ship ! kim taehyung x min yoongi ( taegi )

genre ! fluff, a bit of angst i think, surely nostalgic, spirited away!au.

warnings ! mention of pills, mention of coma.

taehyung stepped into the meadow with the gentle breeze as his guide. with every step he took, there were wild flowers and soft grass there to cushion his feet. the air smelled sweet; the aroma of roses and lilies drifted in the air lightly and the sweet fragrance tickled his nostrils. the boy felt his lips stretch into a smile as his gaze rested on the peach colored sky. faint streaks of clouds were brushed into the distant horizon, and he spotted the vague outlines of birds soaring high up in the limitless sky.

he walked further, his legs carrying his towards a large oak tree that stood serenely by a calm river just a couple of meters away from him. something told him that he was there waiting.

taehyung arrived at the roots of the tall tree, but there was no one around. maybe he was somewhere else? he walked up to the river and looked down at his reflection in the crystal water. there were little pebbles of varying colors lying at the bottom of the shallow river. a smile touched his lips at the sight of several little fish swimming past.

taehyung stared at the creatures in wonder for a while, until he heard some shuffling behind and then he realized that his reflection wasn’t alone anymore.

« how’d you know i’d be here? » the man asked in an amused tone.

he simply shrugged. « i had a feeling. it was pretty obvious though. »

« you’re the one who said you didn’t like playing hide-and-seek. »

« yeah, i like it when you’re not scaring the lights out of me all the time. »

« but you know, i haven’t heard you scream in a long while » he chuckled, moving closer to him. he snaked his arms around his waist and rested his head on his. he made no move to turn around. he watched their reflections in the river and grinned when he saw his cheeky smile. « i missed you » he murmured.

« it’s only been a day » taehyung laughed. « and sorry, i’ve been a little more busy with homework lately. finals are coming and i need to study. »

« you still need your rest. »

« i rest a lot more compared to my friends, you know » he pointed out. « but sometimes i wish i could have more time here.. time just seems to pass so quickly. »

« i feel the same, but i understand. i guess it’s just something we will have to live with for as long as i am unable to physically meet you again. »

« you never told me why. »

« it’s a reason that i myself don’t know. »

« i see.. »

« well, what do you want to do today? »

« i don’t have much time here. i set my alarm to wake me up in fifteen minutes because i still have work to do. »

« but you’ll be back tonight, right? »

« of course » he smiled. « i’ll be back. »

« well then, i think our time is almost up. so i’ll leave you with this before you leave. » he let go of taehyung and turned him around before leaning in and gently planting a tender kiss on the forehead. « good luck with your duties. see you soon. »

« don’t miss me too much when i’m gone » he giggled.

and then, the world around him faded away.

taehyung woke up with a start to the beeping of her alarm. groggily, he reached an arm over and made a slip-shod attempt to turn it off by whacking it. after three misses, he managed to turn it off and keep lying down in bed for a moment more before swinging the covers off and standing up. taehyung stretched a bit before heading to his study table. stacks of notes were piled on it, along with his pens and highlighters strewn here and there in random corners.

taehyung felt dread rise in his chest when his gaze fell on the readings that he had been looking at earlier before deciding a nap would help him to concentrate. statistics and numbers had never been his sort of thing. to be honest, taehyung felt that his brain could explode from the overloading of information.

a knock came on the door, then his door creaked open as his mother peered in. « tae, do you need me to make you some warm milk? you look tired.. »

« just woke up from a nap » he replied. « or how about some coffee? »

« if you drink it so late, you won’t be able to sleep later. i think i’ll just get warm milk for you, okay? »

« okay~ thanks, mom. »

« no problem. just don’t stress yourself out too much.»

« what makes you think i’m stressing out? you’re the one always complaining about my extravagant sleeping habits. »

« that’s true. then if you’re not that tired, why don’t you get that warm milk by yourself? »

taehyung pressed his palms together as a prey and pouted. « please, mom? »

his mother only shook her head in response with a smile on her face before leaving.

taehyung grinned triumphantly to himself as he walked towards his desk and plopped down on his cushioned wheeled chair. he spun it around, sitting in it limply as he stared blankly into space. humming to himself, he allowed his mind to drift briefly to the man from before. already he could feel a small ache in his chest; taehyung longed to see him again. time was always too short in her dreams.

but no, he wasn’t just a figment of his imagination. he was sure of it.

after leaving the spirit world, yoongi practically disappeared. he never showed a sign of crossing over to meet taehyung again, nor was there an opportunity for him to return to the spirit world. he had returned to the same place where he had entered the spirit realm after getting sick and tired of waiting for yoongi, but all that met him was a moss-covered wall.

it was as if everything had just been a dream.

taehyung would have thought just that, if it weren’t for the strange purple hair tie that he remembered was given to him by a certain kind, old witch he met before, and his strong gut feeling that the vague memories in his head weren’t conjured up by his brain.

and just like that, three years passed without an indication of yoongi’s presence or existence, but then one night, everything changed.

that night, taehyung had gone for a hot bath after club activities ended at eight in the evening. his mind had been blank — he had been too tired to think about anything else other than how soft and fluffy his bed was — and so immediately after showering, without bothering to head down for dinner, he had immediately stalked into the bedroom, switched off the lights, and plopped onto the bed. with his wet hair stuck to his forehead and moisture from his wet towel seeping into his pajamas, he had conked out almost instantly.

correction, his body did, but not his mind.

taehyung had no idea how or when he arrived at that place. all he knew was that yoongi was there, and they could finally meet once more, at the same place they first met.

and that was enough for him.

ever since then, every night without fail, taehyung would enter the spirit realm through his dreams, and every night without fail, he would meet him.

they never ran out of things to talk about or things to do, because every time taehyung seemed to want a change, the next time he came, yoongi would change the setting of his dream. jungles, piers, modern cities, his house, you name anything, and he could bring you there.

taehyung had shared this with his close friend who would never stop teasing him about getting a boyfriend, thinking that he would receive due support in his relationship.

he would have preferred it if his friend had just told him an outright « no », but instead, he received a worse reply « tae, i think he’s just a figment of your imagination. i mean, you can’t possibly think he’s real, right? you’ve only met in your dreams! »

but taehyung stubbornly held on to the belief that he was real. having his parents turned into pigs hadn’t been just a dream; it had been a living nightmare. even if he couldn’t remember most of the details, he clearly remembered the name and the face of the boy who had saved him from it all.

and the promise he made was still vivid in his mind « we’ll meet again sometime.. i promise. »

perhaps when he said that, it didn’t necessarily point to a physical reunion, but taehyung didn’t mind. at least he got to see him again.

« finals are officially over! » taehyung exclaimed and leaned back against yoongi’s broad chest in contentment.

he chuckled and wrapped his arms around him. « i’m glad. this means we’ll have more time together, right?»

« yeah, it does. » they were currently sitting on top a hill, which overlooked meadows and plains and winding rivers, though with the lack of light, it was hard to make out anything but vague outlines and shapes of the mountains standing in the far distance. all they could see was the shimmery blanket of night in the sky, with the diamonds resting above shining little light down on them.

« beautiful, aren’t they? » yoongi murmured as he rested his chin on the other's head.

« i could sit here all night and watch them.. » taehyung replied. « they’re so pretty. i wish i could go right up there and pluck one out of the sky. »

« and very conveniently, you have a dragon who can fly right next to you. »

taehyung giggled. « don’t be silly, yoongi. the stars are too high up there. we’ll never reach them. »

« we could always try. »

« it’s impossible. stars are in space, and we can’t possibly go there. »

« what is ‘space’? » he asked.

« it’s a place above the sky that we see now. »

« is it very big? »

« it’s boundless. there’s no end to it. »

« do you suppose heaven is up there? »

« mmh.. i don’t think so. to be honest, i think dreamland is heaven itself. » taehyung had dubbed this strange place ‘dreamland’ long ago, since he could only come in his sleep.

« and i suppose i’m an angel living here. » he chuckled.

« yeah, you’re an angel. one who can fly even without wings » taehyung grinned.

« then what does that make you? » he asked.

taehyung thought about it for a moment. « i guess i’m just a passer-by. just casually passing by heaven every night in my sleep. »

« a passer-by loving an angel? strange, don't you think? »

« well, strange things happen in heaven all the time. »

« indeed, they do. strangest of all is the fact that you can enter. perhaps you’re an angel without knowing it?»

taehyung turned his head around and giggled at the sight of his playful smirk. « i could never be an angel. i don’t have wings. »

« i can change that. » taehyung felt his arms pull away from him and the boy’s bare feet shuffled behind him as he stood up. he turned around, not knowing what to expect.

« get on » the mighty dragon seemed to say. he didn’t need to say it twice. he lifted one of his legs, allowing taehyung to step on it so that he could hoist him up on his back smoothly. once taehyung was on top of his back and holding on to his horns securely, he began to move forward and climbed up into the sky, drawing closer to the stars above.

taehyung shuffled into the kitchen while rubbing his eyes. « morning mom, morning dad » he said while yawn.

his father, who was reading newspapers on the couch, peered over at his son with a small frown. « you look terrible. didn’t sleep well? »

« yeah.. »

« but you’ve been sleeping so much after finals ended» the mother said from the kitchen. « eight hours of sleep every night, even naps! are you falling sick? »

taehyung sat down at the dining table and propped his chin up on his elbows. « i’m fine »

« what’s the matter, my kid? » his father had put down his papers and walked over to sit next to him. « got something on your mind? are you worried about your results? they don’t get released so early. »

taehyung only huffed. « it’s not that.. i’m fine, really. nothing’s bothering me at all. »

« mmhmmh » he replied, clearly unconvinced. « need me to bring you to the doctor’s? »

« no thanks, i’m perfectly fine.. i’ll be going back to sleep now. »

« already? » the mom shots a disapproving glance in his direction as he emerged from the kitchen with two hot bowls of ramen. « it’s already one in the afternoon and you just woke up, for god's sake! »

« it’s a saturday. i think i have the time to spare to catch up on my rest » was all taehyung said before trudging back into his bedroom.

taehyung closed the door behind him, muffling the disapproving comments from his parents and then he jumped onto the bed, burying his face in the pillow. « what’s going on? « he muttered to herself in angst. « damn it, this isn’t funny, yoongi. »

taehyung closed his eyes again, sighing and trying his best to fall asleep again. truth be told, his body really didn’t need any more sleep; it was fully awake. but he had to go back to that place and find him.

for weeks, taehyung hadn’t been able to meet yoongi, for some kind of twisted reason. he had even resorted to taking sleeping pills just so he could try to enter that place again.

but each time taehyung closed his eyes, he only saw darkness.

it was as if he had just disappeared altogether.

like everything had just been.. a dream.

the brown haired boy took his books up and stuffed them into his backpack. slinging it over his shoulder, he sighed and made his way out of the lecture hall. « tae, do you want a lift? » a friend of him called while waving to get his attention.

« no thanks.. » taehyung replied with a tired smile. then he was gone; quietly made his way out of the dark, quiet campus. not wanting to have his friends catch up to him, he walked briskly out by the front gate and walked down the same road he always took back home.

looking up at the dark blanket of night, taehyung felt tears prick his eyes at the sight of nothingness. it was empty, like a void.

« you promised.. » he murmured shakily. « you can’t just up and leave like that, not when you promised me.. »

he fingered the bracelet on his wrist, continuing to brood in his thoughts. it was not her imagination; it hadn’t been just a dream. everything they had gone through together, they were all real. taehyung felt a familiar ache rise up in her chest as something caught in his throat. had yoongi left because he wasn’t good enough? or was it because he was no longer qualified to stay there?

taehyung shook his head. no. he was just a passer-by, he had always been one.

he was just a boy passing by heaven.

just then, a loud, blaring horn snapped her out of his thoughts. he turned to his right, and only saw a bright, glaring light fill his entire line of sight.

and then, darkness.

#kpop #anime #writing #bts fic #taegi fanfic #btsv #bts suga #kim taehyung #min yoongi #taehyung fluff #yoongi fluff #spirited away #haku spirited away #chihiro spirited away #immagination #dreaming #oneshot #too long #but yeah

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ravenbrenna09 · 4 years

Text

Unattainable - Chapter Five

AO3

...

You guys know what's coming 😏😏😏

I apologize for such a long wait for this chapter. School started back up this week and I'm TRYING to be a good student/get ahead and keep up on my homework so I won't be completely overwhelmed by homework later on in the semester. I'm going to try and get the remaining chapters written, at least roughly, before the end of this three-day weekend or later this week, but I want to write the best that I can for you guys so I'm not going to stress myself out about it.

But, thank you guys for being patient with me. I'm so glad that all of you are enjoying this story and can't wait to see more.

I love you all. Enjoy!

...

bold = sending; italics = receiving (in terms of texts)

...

“You lost miserably!” Robbe teased, elbowing Jens roughly in the side. His black-haired best friend rolled his eyes, shoving him back in the shoulder as he drew Lucas closer against his body with the harsh winter wind blowing them in the face.

Of the group’s significant others, Lucas had been the only one interested in going to play a round of mini-golf with the rest of the group and Noor had decided to hang out at the apartment, waiting for their arrival. Robbe isn’t sure why Amber hadn’t joined them. Jens’ birthday wasn’t for a couple of weeks but, after Moyo had let it slip about possibly mini-golf, he had exclaimed that he didn’t want to do that on his birthday, he wanted to do it now. So, they had spent the better part of Saturday morning at an indoor, blacklight minigolf place, laughing at the way that their teeth glowed purple and going through a second time when Jens and Moyo tied the first time around.

Though all of them played, Moyo had a higher score of the two (Robbe had technically won the second set).

Lucas drew his arms tighter around Jens’ shoulders, pressing a kiss against his jaw. “Well, you’re my miserable loser.”

Jens laughed, and so did the others, as he turned to press a kiss against Lucas’ lips, gripping his shoulder with one hand as he reached to slap Robbe upside the head with the other. “Thanks, babe.”

“Gross,” Aaron spoke. The comment was light-hearted and he was laughing through it anyways. Both Jens and Lucas shoved him away, causing him to nearly fall over. Of the bunch, Aaron was definitely the most clumsy of them all. “Save it for the bedroom later. This is guys’ night!”

Robbe laughed, moving off to the bench that had long since been claimed as theirs. “As if,” Robbe replied, jumping up to sit on the back of it. Lucas sat between Robbe’s ankles, letting the smaller man drape his arms over his shoulders. “Don’t lie, Aaron. You would have your tongue down Amber’s throat if she was here!”

“It’s true, bro,” Jens replied, hovering on the side of the bench as Aaron flopped down beside Lucas.

Lucas nodded his head, patting his shoulder.

Moyo laughed, nodding his head and wrapping his arm around his chest. “Seriously though, the two of you are physically linked. I’m surprised that she didn’t go with us.”

It’s true. In the four years since Aaron had first started dating Amber, in which the three months before he harbored a seemingly one-sided crush on a girl who refused his affections, the two of them had both grown as people and as a couple. What the rest of them had believed to have only been a high school fascination had quickly grown into something more. Aaron had met most of Amber’s family and vice versa. In all honesty, it was only a matter of time before they went further, taking the next step like Senne and Zoë.

(Unbeknownst to Aaron, they all had a bet going on about when Aaron was going to pop the question. Robbe had his money on next December 20th, which was the anniversary of their first kiss. Moyo was betting on sometime in the summer and Jens was saying next October, back when they went to the beach house. Lucas tried to remain impartial and out of the bet, but Noor had willingly jumped in, saying Valentine’s Day.)

“She wanted to,” Aaron replied.

“Why didn’t she?” Robbe questioned, raising his eyebrows.

“Something is going on with her cousin,” Aaron informed them, tucking his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know a lot of the details, but they’ve always been pretty close. She’s pretty worried about him so she wanted to be with him today. She didn’t want to leave him alone so she decided not to come.” Robbe nodded his head and Jens pulled a joint from behind his ear. “But, she did want me to tell you that she’s completely down for another round of mini-golf like next week or whenever her cousin gets better.”

“Hey guys,” Moyo spoke up. The group turned towards Moyo, who was looking off in the distance. There was a slight smile growing on his face, of shock or something completely else. His eyes darted between all of them, before landing on Robbe. “See anything familiar?”

Aaron glanced, letting out an exclamation of “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

Jens turned too, his mouth falling open in shock.

Lucas stood up from between his ankles, giving Robbe the freedom to fully turn around.

Across the river, there stood an abandoned building. The building had always stood across the river from their hang out spot and it had always looked the same, remaining static in their otherwise hectic social and school lives. But, it was different now. And, Robbe’s face was plastered on the side of it, inside of a heart-shaped explosion of the brick wall.

Robbe recognized it instantly from the sketch that Sander had shown him in the apartment.

Chernobyl.

Robbe’s breath caught in his throat.

Imagine it on a big wall with these intense colors.

While Robbe had been flattered at the implication of Sander spray-painting his face on the wall for the world to see, kissing him in the middle of his kitchen, he had never expected the blond Instagram artist to actually do such a thing. But, there it was, for the world to see, in all its bright, intense colors and the implications that strung in Robbe’s core.

If Robbe hadn’t known any better, the entire thing read like a confession of love. It felt like an I love you, but the implication was quickly consumed by the image of a brown-haired girl in the club, her lips on his and his hands on her waist as she pulled him into the dance mob.

“Robbe, did you do that?” it was Moyo, pulling him from diving further into his thoughts.

Robbe gave him a look, knowing that it was a joke. Robbe’s art skills were minimal at best. All he could really do was make a really, really good stick figure and a handful of molecules when he needed to. In fact, he could name a handful of things that he could do better than drawing. Skateboarding is the only one among them that he would ever admit to. As if knowing, Moyo grinned at him.

“That’s absolutely insane,” Jens mumbled, glancing at Robbe. He looked like he was about to say something else before he was cut off by one of the others.

“Who do you think did it?” it was Aaron.

“Looks quite sexy,” Lucas admitted.

Jens looked at his boyfriend with an eyebrow raised. “Is there something that I need to know?” Lucas grinned at him, shaking his head, but Jens didn’t seem convinced. Robbe rolled his eyes. Lucas could play Jens like a fiddle and they all knew it.

“It is sexy. I think it’s something in the look, man,” Moyo agreed, holding up his phone in an attempt to take a picture. To his right, Aaron nodded his head. “I got to send it to Noor. She loves dragging me around the city to look at all the spraypainting.”

Jens sent a curious glance towards Robbe.

“We’ve got to get closer. I’m only getting blurry images,” Moyo announced, tugging on Robbe’s shoulder and gesturing for him to follow. “Let’s go.”

…

“Woah!”

It was Noor, moving towards them and staring at the mural with wide eyes and an open mouth.

Robbe was setting on the edge of the pier, blatantly refusing to be in the photo that Moyo, Jens, and Aaron were taking (Lucas was holding the camera, not wanting to be in it either). It was likely going to be on Instagram within the hour, being tagged in the photo was a definite thing that was going to happen, but Robbe couldn’t stop staring at the mural. From across the pier, it didn’t seem as big as it did right now, looming over the group of them and staring out at the river and the skatepark across the way.

But, it was huge.

The mural easily covered the entire wall and Robbe didn’t want to think about how long it had taken in the cold temperatures that had been hanging around lately because it certainly hadn’t been here last week.

Noor glanced towards Robbe, squatting down beside him. “I feel like I don’t have to tell you that Sander did this?”

For a brief moment, he had forgotten that he had told her and Jens about Sander, about everything that had happened between them. It caught him off guard, but then, he let out a sigh, turning back towards the mural which the boys were still admiring. “Yeah, I know,” Robbe replied, waving at Jens who glanced over. “He showed me a sketch and said something about it, but I didn’t think that he would… Wait, how do you know?”

“I recognize the tags,” Noor admitted, gesturing around vaguely. “We used to spray together back when we were at the Academy. Plus, he was there when I was finishing up the mural.”

“He was?” Robbe questioned.

Noor nodded her head as Jens approached the two of them, his hands in his pockets. Aaron, Moyo, and Lucas were talking, looking over the wall still. Noor continued, smiling at the newcomer, “He walked up to us but you had to step away because your mom called.” Robbe nodded his head. He remembered. If that man had really been Sander, he didn’t have a clue at the time, would’ve noticed. But, he did an excellent job of hiding his identity, wearing a black mask and being surrounded by shadows.

“Yeah, I remember,” Robbe mumbled, running a hand through his hair as he stared at his friends.

Jens glanced at Noor, who returned his gaze.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, spit it out guys,” Robbe spoke up.

“How do you feel with the fact that your face is on a gigantic wall across from the skatepark that you always hang out at?” Jens spoke up.

“Self-conscious,” Robbe admitted.

He had never done well in the spotlight, having all eyes focused solely on him. Even if he genuinely had a good time, the vlogs that they did in high school, and for the first couple years of their college career before they rarely got the chance to do them, were mostly to hang out with his friends and have a good time. Plus, the only people who really saw them were their friends and about a thousand other people that they didn’t really know enough for Robbe to feel that self-conscious.

But, this was something different.

It felt like something intimate, something that should only be reserved between Robbe and Sander, but it was on full display, on a wall plastered for the world to see. Despite Sander’s loving touches and gentle words, he seemed to … love so loud that it was deafening and unwavering and unable to question the sincerity of his words. But, Robbe couldn’t stop thinking about Sander’s actions, both with the mural in front of him but also the texts, the girl…

It made Robbe…

“Confused,” Robbe spoke up. Noor glanced at him. “I’m confused…”

“About?” Jens prompted.

“Everything,” Robbe admitted. “Just everything that’s happened between us. One minute, he’s with me and treating me like… like… I don’t know…” Noor patted his shoulder, sitting down on the concrete, and Jens stood still, listening. “And, then, I get a text saying that we’re moving too fast and that we need to take a break. But, less than a week later, he’s kissing a girl in a club.”

“Maybe he’s afraid,” Jens questioned.

“I don’t know,” Robbe admitted, running a hand through his hair again. “I don’t, I really don’t understand what’s going on or even what his feelings for me are. If I don’t even know that, how is any of it going to work?”

“Robbe,” Noor spoke up, wrapping her jacket tighter around his shoulders. She gestured to the wall in front of them. “No matter what happened, I think Sander just told you how he really feels.”

Glancing at the mural, Robbe knew that she was right. He could feel it in his bones, down his spine, as the other boys moved to leave, pulling Robbe with him. However, before he left, he pulled out his phone, taking a picture of the mural and ignoring Moyo’s comments. Once the picture was taken, he shoved the phone back into his pocket before walking off ahead of them, ignoring his friends’ shouts to wait up.

…

earthlingoddity has posted to his story.

Without even hesitating, Robbe pulled it up.

As his friends moved around him, trying to decide on dinner because they hadn’t gotten that far, as Aaron sent a message to Amber about the mural, he pulled the phone to him, hoping to hide what he was doing from his nosy friends. Robbe didn’t know what he was hoping for in terms of the story. Maybe he was hoping for some sort of indication that he had done it, that he had taken so much time to do it, but Robbe didn’t find anything involving the mural.

Honestly, even though he was slightly disappointed, he shouldn’t have been surprised.

Spray-painting the side of a building was a crime.

There’s a photo of Sander, a croque hanging from between his mouth, and a caption in white letters.

My cousin knows me so well

Robbe swiped to his messages.

He was going to write to him about the mural, ask Sander what he meant by the mural, to get some clarification. But, Robbe paused, his thumbs hanging above the keys, unable to type even a hey. Robbe locked his screen, shoving his phone in his pocket and burying his face in his hands, running one through his hair.

“Hey,” Noor spoke, pulling things out of the fridge. “Is Amber joining us for dinner?”

“No, she and her cousin are having dinner already,” Aaron replied, glancing up from her phone. “But, she might be coming over later. Or, I might be going over there. It depends.”

“Alright,” Noor replied, nodding her head.

“Dinner for six it is then!” Lucas responded, moving to help her.

“Everyone out of the kitchen,” Noor demanded. The Broerrrs all hurried out of there, wanting to avoid Noor’s cooking frenzy. When she was in control of the kitchen, she tended to be mean and she was not opposed to hitting one of them with a spatula if they got in her way.

…

At the top of the messages with Sander, there was a greeting, a “good morning?” from last Thursday, before he had seen Robbe with Senne in the tuxedo shop. Despite everything that had happened, despite the fact that he knew Robbe had been at the club, he had still made the effort. Though Robbe had been angry, and still slightly angry, though the anger had since melted into confusion, it was touching that Sander still reached out to see how he was doing, to wish him a good morning, even when Robbe had not been responding back.

Below that, the messages that he had finally managed to type out and send about an hour ago were hanging beneath his good morning message from last Thursday.

Hey Sander.

Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you yet

But that wall…

That was the drawing you showed me right?

Could you come by?

Or… I could come over to your place, to talk?

The longer that he stared at it, the longer he felt a little desperate to hear back.

But, in all honesty, Robbe wasn’t even certain that he would hear back from Sander.

Robbe had seen the mural on Saturday afternoon, spent the better part of Saturday night staring at the photo he had taken, at Sander’s public, loud declaration. On Sunday, he had spent the evening at the clinic with his mom, but he didn’t want to trouble her with such things so he kept the photo to himself, keeping it from his mother, and trying to pass off the anticipation and stress as something else, stress about a test, or something anything else, trying to remain present with his mom.

“Promise me that you’ll talk about it when you’re ready,” his mother had spoken, mumbling as he started to leave. She had reached out to take his hand, squeezing it gently. “You don’t have to carry the world on your shoulders just become I’m in here. You’ve got Jens and the boys and Zoë and Milan.”

Robbe smiled, kissing her forehead. “I know, Mama,” he replied. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“But, I’m going to,” his mother replied, staring up at him from her bed. “You’re my son. I’m always going to worry about you.”

Finally, on Monday, as his brain wandered to Sander in his afternoon class, he finally managed to work up the nerve, opening his laptop and typing out the messages in rapid succession. The anxiousness and anticipation were bubbling in his chest, squeezing him on the inside as he tried to focus on the same paragraph that he’s been trying to read for almost thirty minutes, maybe an hour. Whatever productivity had fostered in his chest last week had vanished, leaving him paralyzed, flat on his back and unable to focus outside of one, singular thought that ran through his mind.

Sander.

The texts.

Robbe ran a hand through his hair, discarding the textbook to the side so he could roll over, burying his face in the sheets. They didn’t smell like Sander, he had never been over here, but, as irrational as it was, Robbe couldn’t help craving his scent right now, wanting to bury his face in the crook of his neck and hold him as tight as could, like he desperately wanted to. He let out a groan, resting his chin on the crook of his arm as he tried to calm his thoughts.

Maybe, Sander was busy.

Maybe, he had a project or a commission that he needed to work on and that was why he hadn’t responded back yet.

But, Robbe might’ve waited too long, trying to figure out what he had wanted for himself, if he was willing to risk giving his heart to someone who had awoken it then stepped back without releasing his heart fully back to his chest. Maybe that’s why it took him so long to reach out, so long to figure out if he was willing to risk it all over again, because Robbe didn’t know if he would be capable of Sander breaking his heart a second time around.

It had taken him days to send the text, to tell Sander that he had seen the mural.

And, at the end of the day, there was only one reason that it all boiled down to why it took him that long to send those six text messages: he was a coward, unable to handle the prospect of Sander rejecting him.

…

“Sander?”

Robbe doesn’t know how he’s there, because he could barely open his eyes and it was hard to tell if they were open or closed, but he could just vaguely see the trusts of platinum-blond hair and the outline of a leather jacket before his lips are on his, his body hovering over him. Robbe clung to him, pulling him against his chest and wrapping his legs around his waist. Sander sunk against him, putting more of his body weight on Robbe, and his long fingers dug into Robbe’s hair, tugging lightly and causing him to sigh into the kiss.

There’s a mischevious smirk on Sander’s face as he pulled back. Robbe doesn’t know quite how he knows that because it’s still hard to tell whether his eyes are open or closed, but he does, and he cranes up to chase his lips, finding them briefly, pressing featherlight kisses against them that should really only be counted as brief brushing of their lips, before Sander was pushing him back against the bed.

Sander’s lips were on his neck, slowly traveling down along his before latching onto his collar bone, as his free hand pushed up his shirt.

Wait, his mind screamed at him. This wasn’t right.

Robbe shot up in his bed, the textbook that had been on his chest falling onto the floor with a loud thump that resounded through his bedroom. There’s movement from across the hall, Jens must still be awake, and Robbe ran a hand through his hair, exhaling deeply, and blindly reaching for his phone as it dinged. Jens.

You okay?

Yeah, just had a bad dream and woke up.

Must’ve fallen asleep with my textbook.

Okay.

Get some sleep.

You too.

Robbe let out a sigh, running his hands through his hair, the dream rushing back to him in an instant. The path of his neck that Dream Sander had followed lit up like a flame, burning beneath his skin. Robbe’s cheeks and chest flushed and he was thankful that the dream hadn’t gone any further or else he might’ve woken up to something else. Yet, at the same time, Robbe had wanted it to be real.

It had been days since Robbe had sent him those messages, asking him to come over and never getting a response back. He still hadn’t heard from Sander and he knew that Sander had seen them, from the bubble of his face beneath the message. If it hadn’t been obvious to him on Monday, it certainly was now as Robbe flopped back on his bed, ignoring the piles of notes that were surrounding him.

Robbe had waited too long.

He squeezed his eyes shut, pinching his nose, as he rested his phone against his chest.

With each passing day, he was more and more convinced that he should’ve gone straight to Sander’s apartment. He didn’t have a key to get into the front gate, but Robbe was nimble and quick enough (and daring enough) to climb the fence, and if all else failed, he could always ask Nick or Clara to let him in. He should’ve gone up to Sander’s apartment, knocked on the door until he answered or waited until he got home from wherever he had been, because he needed answers and needed to see him, to hold him, to kiss him, to know that it was all real, that painting a gigantic mural of his face meant something and wasn’t something of a thing that he decided to do just because.

He needed to know.

But, because Robbe waited too long, it might’ve been too late for him to get the answers that he needed.

Without thinking, he switched to his messages with Sander, staring down at his own words and the six messages that he used to get it all out. He ran a hand through his hair, wondering if he should say something else, but three bubbles popped up.

His heart thumped.

The bubbles were there, indicating that Sander was, in fact, trying to figure out something to say, and they stayed there for several minutes, floating above the keyboard, before they disappeared completely. Robbe waited a couple of minutes for the message to come through, but it never did. Whatever it was that Sander had been typing, he had deleted it.

Robbe let out a breath that he didn’t fully realize he was holding, locking his phone and putting it against his chest. As he sunk further into the sheets, trying to relax enough to go back to see before his class in the morning, Robbe’s mind wandered to Sander, which wasn’t that much of a surprise because it frequently did as such lately. But, now, Robbe couldn’t help wondering if Sander was just as conflicted as Robbe was.

…

At the sight of the mural, Robbe let out a sigh.

It was still there, bright and beautiful across the water, but Robbe couldn’t help noticing the number of stares that were focused in his direction. There were the skaters that they would normally see, parents who had brought their children to the playground to run around and scream to their heart’s content, and even the old man that was always feeding the birds seemed to be staring at him now.

“Why are people staring?” Robbe groaned, kicking his skateboard beneath their normal bench and flopping down on it.

Jens picked up his board, laying it across on his lap as he sat down beside him. “I don’t know, Robbe,” Jens admitted, his face impassive and straight. “It might have to do with the fact that there’s a giant mural across the water with your face on it.”

Robbe snatched the joint behind his ear and placed it in his mouth. Jens let out a muffled protest as the smaller one of them pulled out the lighter from his pocket and lit the end of the joint expertly. Robbe inhaled deeply, the smoke filling up his lungs, and he had no protests when Jens snatched the joint, rolling his eyes at his friends. Robbe exhaled, the smoke pouring from his lips.

“Have you heard from him?” Jens questioned.

“Huh?”

“Sander,” Jens clarified, gesturing across the water. “Have you heard back from him yet?”

Robbe shook his head. “No,” Robbe admitted, not liking how sad his own voice sounded. “But, he’s opened the messages and I thought he was responding back on Wednesday. I saw the bubbles pop up like he was texting but he didn’t send anything.” Robbe let out a sigh, burying his face in his hands. “Then, he randomly liked two of my Instagram posts yesterday. I don’t get it, Jens.”

“Which ones?”

Robbe pulled out his phone to show him and Jens scooted closer to see.

The first photo had been a group photo with the guys at Zoë and Senne’s engagement party, before Lucas had been such an intricate part of their flat dynamic, before Noor had dragged Robbe off to the abandoned warehouse. It was weird to think about, Robbe realized, how quickly Lucas had gone from barely being there, sneaking away before Moyo and Aaron woke up, to always being there.

The next photo was one from years ago, back when they were high school and back when Robbe was still firmly in the closet. Robbe in the picture had his mouth wide open with his head tilted back, two beers in his hand. He remembered the dare, vaguely, to try and pour both of them in his mouth without spilling it. The photo captioned right before he failed miserably, spilling it over his chest, and his friends had laughed out loud, teasing him.

“That’s suggestive,” Jens mumbled, handing him the joint.

Robbe scoffed, inhaling. “You’re the one who took the photo.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah,” Robbe replied, shaking his head. Jens looked at him and Robbe stared straight ahead, unable to look at him. “I don’t get it. I don’t get any of this. I don’t understand him and what’s going on anymore.”

“Do you still want to be with him?” Jens questioned. Robbe opened his mouth but quickly closed it, unable to figure out what exactly he wanted to say. He turned around, looking towards the graffiti that was plastered against the side of the warehouse, his face in all those intense, bright colors, as he inhaled another drag. Jens gained his attention by lightly slapping the back of his head. “Do you?”

Robbe let out a sigh, smoke still falling out. “Yeah. I want answers.”

“Then, you’re going to have to make him choose,” Jens spoke up, propping one foot on his knee. “You can’t keep going like this. It’s too painful, he’s going to have to make a decision. Either he talks to you or he doesn’t talk to you anymore. It isn’t good for anyone. No, you know what, tell him that.”

Robbe glanced towards him. “Huh?”

“Text him. Now.”

“What? Why, now?”

“Yes, now.”

“Weren’t you just paying attention? He didn’t respond to my last texts asking to meet up. Why would he respond to this one?”

“Because, if he doesn’t, then you have the answer that you need,” Jens spoke. “Robbe, you’ve been constantly waiting for him to respond back and it’s painful and he’s fucking with you. If he doesn’t respond back, then that’s the answer that you need. And, if he doesn’t respond back to you, you deserve someone better in your life, someone that actually tries to be there.”

Robbe let out a sigh, knowing that he was right. Despite all the silence and the no-responses, Robbe wanted Sander as much as he did in his apartment, talking about their favorite actors and parallel universes and eating pizza. It hadn’t changed one bit in the two weeks since it all went down. Jens patted his shoulder. “Pull up your messages.”

Robbe did as told.

“Just tell him: I want clarity,” Jens started. Robbe quickly typed the message, following along with what his best friend was saying. “Either, you choose me or it ends for me here and now.”

I want clarity. Either you choose me. Or it ends for me-

Robbe stopped typing.

Jens noticed, waiting.

“And…” Robbe trailed off. “What if he…”

It was in moments like these that he was thankful that Jens knew him so well.

“If he says that it’s really over?” Jens questioned.

Robbe nodded his head.

Robbe didn’t want that to be an option for him, for either of them. It felt ridiculous to Robbe’s logical mind that he would be feeling this way about someone that he had only been involved with for about a week. But, Robbe couldn’t imagine his life without Sander, both as Sander, kissing him and wrapped up in his arms, and as earthlingoddity, through an Instagram profile, who made him laugh in times where he thought it was impossible and made him wait eagerly for his next piece of art that he wanted to share with his fans.

Without even realizing, the intense crush that Robbe had on the guy behind a famous Instagram profile had become such an important part of his life that he couldn’t picture a point in the future where Sander wasn’t involved.

He wasn’t for sure he could handle the heartbreak if Sander didn’t feel the same way.

Jens gave him a sympathetic look. “Then, it’ll be painful,” Jens replied. “But, it’ll be a lot less painful than this shit going on right now. Come on Robbe,” Jens turned, using his board to gesture to the gigantic mural that was hanging behind him. Robbe turned towards it, taking in the bright colors like it was still the first time that he had seen it all over again. “Someone who does something like this for you… He loves you so much.”

“Yeah,” Robbe mumbled. “But…” he trailed off, remembering a conversation that he had with Milan his first year of uni, back when Robbe got in a relationship with a closeted man and had ended it when he didn’t want to come out to his friends, to anyone. “Does he want to admit that?”

Jens didn’t have an answer, holding out the joint between his fingers to place it in Robbe’s mouth. Robbe opened his mouth to take the joint, inhaling deeply, before letting Jens take the joint away. As he exhaled smoke out of the corner of his mouth, he finished typing out the message and pressed send.

I want clarity. Either you choose me. Or it ends for me here and now.

“It’s sent,” Robbe mumbled, sticking his phone in his pocket. Jens nodded his head. “When are you heading over to the Netherlands?” Robbe questioned, eager to change the subject.

“After this,” Jens replied. “My stuff is already at Lucas’ apartment. I told him that you and I were going to go out for a smoke then I would head that way.” Robbe nodded his head. “Tell me if you hear anything from him okay? Just because Lucas and I are in the Netherlands for the weekend doesn’t mean that you have to give me radio silence.”

Robbe laughed. “I know, Jens,” he replied. “I promise to tell you the latest thing that Noor and I have to stop Moyo and Aaron from doing before they burn down the kitchen curtains and you can laugh and tell us that we should’ve recorded it.”

Jens laughed as Robbe stood up. “Tell Mom hi for me.”

“I will,” Robbe spoke, pulling his board from beneath the stone bench. “You should come with me next week. She’s always asking about you and I’m pretty sure she wants to meet your boyfriend too. You know that you’re the second son she never had.” Jens shook his head as Robbe pushed off, shouting behind him, “Have fun in the Netherlands. Text when you guys get there.”

“I will!”

…

It was past nine by the time that his apartment is insight.

His body was tired, his mind even worse, and he felt ready to crash. It was one of his mother’s off days. She had spent the majority of the visit scribbling into a journal and Robbe had watched her, fascinated with the way that her mind worked. She had been resistant to taking her meds, but the doctor managed to convince her to take them. In their meeting, while his mother was in group therapy, her doctor had told Robbe that she thought that his mother would be able to be home by Valentine’s Day.

Robbe had smiled.

He was thankful.

His mother had been upset for missing Christmas (Robbe had spent the holiday with the boys and later the members of their old flatshare), but she would’ve been extremely upset if she would miss Valentine’s Day as well. Since his father had left them, they had a running tradition of going to a restaurant and spending the evening watching movies. It was always just the two of them. Sometimes, Jens and his little sister and father would join, the five of them lounging on the floor as they bickered and argued over which movie they wanted to watch. But, it always ended up the same way, surrounded by friends and family.

But, at least once Robbe got home, he had the place to himself at least until two.

Jens and Lucas had already arrived in the Netherlands, having arrived home at Lucas’s mother’s house while Robbe was with his mother. Jens had FaceTimed, eager to talk to Robbe’s mom and introduce his boyfriend to his “adoptive” mother, and she had relished in the thought of him thinking of her. As a result, Robbe was also introduced to Lucas’ mother, who had been curious about who they were talking to.

As for his other two (three, technically, four if you counted Amber), Noor had an art gallery showing which was taking place a few towns over. Moyo was with her to support her and they were spending the night in a hotel so they wouldn’t have to race to get on a train late at night. On the other hand, Aaron was going out to have some drinks with some of his uni friends that he had met in his various classes. Robbe wasn’t for sure if Amber was with him, but it was likely that she was. She got along with everyone and Aaron loved having her around.

So, he was alone for the night.

Good, his mind spat at him as he stared down at the opened and the read text message on his phone screen.

I want clarity. Either you choose me. Or it ends for me here and now.

Robbe let out a sigh, lowering his phone as he moved across from the lobby.

How was he going to move on?

At least he could wallow in silence.

As Robbe stepped towards the elevator, the door to the lobby swung open, letting in a light burst of winter cold air, but he didn’t pay attention to it, sticking his phone in his pocket, holding onto it, and reaching to press the up button for the elevator.

“Robbe?”

His breath caught in his throat as he turned to the entrance where the bleach-blond had his head poked in the entrance to the lobby, his eyes trained on Robbe.

Sander.

At the sight of him, Robbe was certain that his heart did gymnastics in his chest and he wanted nothing more than to rush at Sander, kiss him as though his life depended on it, but he stopped himself, watching as Sander stepped inside, letting the door shut behind him. The sound seemed to cut off the rest of the world, the rush of the street outside silenced with the slam of the door, and Sander’s eyes were trained on Robbe as he moved closer, his leather jacket creaking as he walked.

Robbe supposed the obvious question would’ve been how did Sander know to come here and it had taken him a second to remember that the blond had hand-delivered Moyo and Noor’s anniversary gift. Plus, Robbe had mentioned they were roommates. So, he guessed that he didn’t need to ask that question.

Robbe stared up at Sander, who was an arm’s length away, within distance for Robbe to reach out and wrap his arms around. His green eyes were staring at Robbe intensely, looking dark and clouded in the dim light of the lobby at night, and Robbe watched him, trying to figure out what he was going to say or do. Was he going to tell Robbe that he wanted to be with him or had he come to end it once and for all?

Sander’s eyes flickered down, to Robbe’s lips, before he was leaning in, their lips slotting together as easily as breathing. It was gentle and sweet, nothing too heavy or frantic on either end, but Robbe could feel the heat pooling through him like an inferno that was ready to burn him down. Sander’s hand was at his jaw, his fingers in his hair, and Robbe pressed his lips back against his.

But, then, Robbe reached up, his hands fisting in Sander’s black t-shirt and pushed him back.

Robbe had texted him because he wanted clarity, about Sander and his feelings, not because of this.

Sander let out a sigh, his exhale brushing lightly over the skin of Robbe’s face. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to know that Sander understands what Robbe wants.

Glancing at him briefly through his eyelashes, Robbe saw the broken expression on Sander’s face as he leaned against Robbe, his nose pressed against the space between his eyebrows. Sander’s head was heavy on Robbe’s shoulder, gripping onto him tightly, and Robbe let out his own sigh, cursing his own mind and his own uncertainty, but unable to waver. He needed to know.

But, if Sander decided that he had come here to say goodbye to him, give him one final, haunting goodbye kiss, then, at least, Robbe had the moment here, their foreheads pressed together and Sander’s hand on his shoulder, their noses brushing together purposely. Sander’s forehead moved against his, his nose pressing further against Robbe’s and Robbe felt himself mirroring the action.

Inhaling, Robbe opened his eyes fully, training them on Sander’s lips and taking half of a step back. Sander’s eyes were already open, trained on him, but Robbe couldn’t bring himself to look him in the eye. Not right now. Not until he knew.

“You and I,” Sander whispered, catching Robbe’s attention. Robbe glanced up at him, his brown eyes connecting with Sander’s green ones. “One hundred percent, forever.” Robbe searched his eyes for any sign that this was a lie, like his mind was expecting it to be, but, no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find any sign. Sander was telling the truth. “In every universe.”

Robbe felt his eyes fall briefly down to Sander’s lips before he glanced back at his bright green eyes. Sander was watching for a sign, his hand still on Robbe’s shoulder. Robbe felt his heart accelerating a little bit as his racing mind caught up with Sander’s declaration. Sander was here, right here right now, choosing to be here with him, and… There was a look in Sander’s eyes as he watched him, half-lidded and cautious, waiting for Robbe to react.

Robbe swallowed, asking the question that had been on his mind for about two weeks now. “Who was the girl, Sander?”

He could’ve scoffed, told Robbe that he had nothing to worry about and dodged the question, but Sander didn’t do any of that. Instead, he stared at him with a broken expression. “Her name was Laura,” Sander replied. “I thought that… if I was kissing someone, it would make it easier to forget that I had hurt you and pushed you away. But, it didn’t. It just made it worse.”

“Why did you?” Robbe whispered. “Push me away?”

“I didn’t want her to hurt you…”

“Laura?” Sander shook his head. “Britt?” Sander shook his head again. “Then, who?” Sander shook his head for a third time, a pained look on his face. Robbe understood the look. His mom used to give it to him all the time. He didn’t want to talk about it and Robbe hoped that Sander knew that he would be there when he wanted to.

“I mean it, Robbe,” Sander spoke up. “You and I. One hundred percent-”

Before Sander could finish, Robbe closed the distance, pressing their lips together like he had wanted to since he saw Sander last Thursday. Now that Robbe had closed the distance, pressed their lips together and clung to his shirt, Sander reached out, gripping tightly on his sides and holding onto his brown jacket, pushing him back towards the wall. Robbe expected to feel his head collide with the tile on the walls, but Sander’s hand was there, stopping it before his hand cupped his face.

Robbe blindly reached for the elevator button, grabbing onto the lapels of Sander’s leather jacket. When it let out a ding, signaling that it had arrived on the first floor, he pushed the blond in the elevator, separating briefly only to make sure that he hit the right floor number before returning to kiss him desperately.

…

The elevator was empty, thankfully, because Robbe would’ve been embarrassed that Sander pressed him flush against the wall and him, slotting one of his legs between Robbe’s two, and attacked his lips as his life depended on it, his hands fisted in Robbe’s hair, pulling just hard enough to be pleasurable. Once they had reached the floor of Robbe’s apartment and the elevator doors opened, Robbe pushed Sander away, only to guide him out of the elevator and down the hallway so he didn’t run them into any corners or persons that were out in the hallway.

By something of a miracle, the hallway was empty too.

There was a bright, smug look on Sander’s face before Robbe connected their lips back together again. Their kiss was becoming more and more frantic with every passing second and Robbe needed to be inside his apartment with Sander, now, or they wouldn’t make it all the way. Robbe searched for his keys in his pockets, never breaking the kiss. Through his eyelashes, he spotted their apartment number and blindly inserted the key into the lock, pushing the door open and shoving Sander inside. Robbe followed, pulling his keys from the lock and slamming the door.

Once the door was locked and Robbe’s keys were discarded somewhere, Sander’s hands dropped lower to his waist, gripping tightly.

Standing in the threshold of their apartment, Robbe reached up, shoving Sander’s jacket off his shoulders. It slipped down easily, down his arms, but got caught on his wrists. “Off,” Robbe mumbled into the kiss before pressing his lips tighter against the other’s. He heard a laugh in Sander’s throat, felt the coldness on his waist as he reached back to fully take it off, and Robbe took it from him, placing it on the empty hook on the far right which had long since been unanimously Robbe’s. “Shoes,” Robbe ordered, lightly, kicking his sneakers off in the direction of the foot rack.

Sander chuckled, stepping back from him. Robbe whined at the loss, but he spotted that Sander was wearing his Docs. As Sander kneeled down, his fingers frantically and crudely moving to undo the laces, his gaze flickered up to Robbe, who was taking off his own jacket. “Bossy Robbe is hot,” Sander spoke, his voice deep and gravelly which was affecting Robbe more than it should’ve been. Once the Docs were completely and placed with the rest of the shoes, Sander was back in Robbe’s arms, kissing him feverously and gripping at his hair again, as the smaller man pushed him back towards his room.

Robbe waited until his bedroom door was fully shut before he shoved his hands beneath the fabric of Sander’s shirt, running his hands over the warm flesh of Sander’s stomach. His roommates weren’t home and it wouldn’t really matter, but it was more of a personal preference for anything else. But, Sander didn’t seem to have the same hesitations, as his hand had been brushing across his abs even in the elevator. His hands were going higher and higher on Robbe’s chest, pulling at the clothes with the other.

Sander separates their heated kiss only to pull the fabric over his head. Once Robbe’s hoodie and shirt pass over his nose, Sander’s lips are back on his again, his hands still pulling the fabric up Robbe’s arms and discarding them somewhere over his shoulder. Robbe gripped tightly at the hem of Sander’s shirt, pulling it up and over his chest, exposing the wolf tattoo to him once again. Robbe reached out to touch it, running his hand down his chest. Once the fabric of his shirt was high enough, Sander ducked out of it and Robbe tossed it aside, feeling the brush of Sander’s tongue dragging along his lip before their lips officially met again, Sander’s tongue slipping into Robbe’s mouth.

Robbe wrapped an arm around Sander, gripping at his shoulder tightly, as he led him towards the bed.

Once they were close enough, Robbe pushed Sander onto the bed and climbed over him, his hands on either side of Sander’s face and his knees on either side of his hips. A glowing smile crossed Sander’s face, the kind that might’ve broken his face in two, and lit up his entire face by several notches. It was one of those smiles that Robbe hoped was reserved only for him and he only had a couple of seconds to stare before Sander was reaching for him, pressing their lips together and dragging him back against the bed and against Sander.

They both gasped when their hips rolled together.

Dragging his mouth away from Sander’s lips, Robbe trailed his lips against his jawline, pressing kisses and biting down on the skin as he went. Robbe pressed a kiss behind Sander’s ear, left a few marks against the flesh of his neck, and bit down on the flesh where his shoulder met his neck. Sander let out a sigh, his fingers working through Robbe’s hair, gripping tightly at the nape of his neck. But, Robbe didn’t stop, pressing kissing down his chest, pressing one against the bump that he had felt that afternoon beneath the tattoo of the wolf (Sander let out a straggled breathed), and briefly traced the ink as he pressed more kisses along the length of his chest.

It’s only when Robbe hooked his fingers on Sander’s belt, moving to undo it, that he paused.

And, Sander noticed.

“What is it?” he questioned, concerned but not sitting up. Robbe let out a sigh, resting his forehead against Sander’s stomach. “Robbe,” Sander spoke, sitting up and forcing Robbe to do the same. The brunet left his fingers on Sander’s belt and settled down on Sander’s thighs. “What is it? We can stop if you want to...”

“No! No, that’s not it,” Robbe replied, shaking his head. “Um, it’s just that… will you be here in the morning?”

For a moment, Sander was quiet. Then, his hands were on either side of Robbe’s face, pulling him to look up at Sander, into his bright green eyes that were looking at him fondly, and heatedly, if such a combination was even possible. “Of course, I will,” Sander replied, pressing a kiss against Robbe’s lips. Robbe leaned into his kiss, his lips moving with Sander’s, and let out a breath of relief. Sander pulled away, pressing a kiss against Robbe’s cheekbone, whispering. “I’ll be here for as long as you want me.”

“And if it’s forever?” Robbe questioned.

There’s a watery look in Sander’s eyes now, their lips barely touching against the other but not kissing, not yet, and Sander smiled, “Then, it’s forever because from now on, it’s just the two of us.” Robbe smiled and Sander kissed him again, his breath hitching sharply as Robbe undid his belt and pulled it from the loops.

...

I hope I managed to portray Robbe’s confused thoughts during this time justice.

#wtfock fic #rosander fic #sobbe fic #rosander #sobbe #robbe x sander #robbe ijzermans #sander driesen #jens stoffels #lucas van der heijden #vds #van der stoffels (background)#moyo x noor (background)#aaron x amber (background)#if you squint you can see my favorite wtfock crack theory before i reveal it next chapter #enjoy!#i love you all #also sorry it took so long lol

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im-auntie-social · 4 years

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Ahhhhhh @nossbean tagged me seemingly eons ago to share my mugs and I LOVE MY MUGS SO MUCH but I only just got around to posting. Such is life. Also I have too many mugs and I love them all and I WILL use most of them to tell my entire life story so I’m RESTRAINING MYSELF HERE OKAY

The workhorse of the collection-- it has its own infuser basket and lid that you can then put the infuser on so it doesn’t fuse with your counter as it dries because you’re lazy. Hypothetically. Anyway this one objectively makes both chai and orange pekoe taste better. I don’t make the rules. It’s also a wee bit bigger than regular mugs which becomes extremely important by tea time.

I love this mug because it gets the river otter face so right. Most river otter merch makes them... well, too cute. And they’re not. They’re grumpy, tube-shaped little old men who are vaguely disappointed in you. (This mug is also a bit ironic because it says SAN FRANCISCO in big letters and frankly the SF bay is... well, it’s not river otter habitat, that’s for sure, and even sea otters tend toward the actual coast rather than the bay. But I got it at the touristy aquarium at Pier 39 because I follow @aquaristlifeforme and she was working with the river otters there and frequently posted the most wonderful videos of the otters whining and refusing to do things that always made my day. I got the mug to commemorate getting to see Ryer et al. IRL.

This might be cheating but it’s my most recent mug acquisition. I’m helpless every year at the knitting convention when I inevitably walk into the Pawley Studios booth-- I got the last Hufflepuff mug a couple years back and this year it was a close call between this Mandalorian mug and the one that said “Winter is coming (knit faster)” but in the end Baby Yoda always wins. I love the ceramic work that Pawley Studios does but they’re also hand-wash and my family is notoriously bad at remembering what goes in the dishwasher and what doesn’t. So Mando stays on my desk.

#memes #TALKING ABOUT ME #tea #well tea adjacent #also: how much fandom can i cram into ten square inches of my desk? apparently ALL OF IT.

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ladybuvelle · 6 years

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// Sona-mun tells a stream-of-consciousness personal story and reflection about going to the piers this morning and thinking about life. Reader discretion advised.

This morning, just as the sun was starting to rise, I decided I wanted to go out to the piers. Early morning is a good time to walk around my neighborhood since most people are either still sleeping or just heading to bed. The park and pier were nearly empty - save only a small, weird group of people doing god-knows-what drugs, but they were friendly enough (the woman in the group said good morning to me, gave me a thumbs up, and told me I looked lovely).

One of the piers is a designated fishing area, but no one was there that early. I had the spot all to myself for awhile, just looking at the water and the city and the clouds covering the sunrise that bloomed from orange to pink on its way to daylight blue. It was quiet save for the wind rushing over my ears. It smelled slightly sweet yet briny, like seashells from the beach when you bring them home but don’t wash them off and the smell turns to this kind of sea-musk, only not as concentrated. Like salty old wood and city smog and wind that’s been everywhere, humid but not warm yet because the sun’s still waking up.

I love the smell of water. I love the smell of the sea, and watching waves, and listening to the rush of foam hitting the sides of walls or under the docks. I love the beach and the ocean and how big it is and how terrifying it is, because there’s fucking squids out there somewhere and fuck squids, man. But I can’t go to the beach by myself, and I have no one to go with me, so I’m blessed to have the pier. I’ve never gone by myself so early. I needed to clear my head and think.

In a small way I think I tumbled into a slow breakdown yesterday. And by a “slow breakdown” I mean I was broken up but I never let myself fully freak out and break down crying in a pile like the world’s going to end (as one does). I cried, off and on, but rarely do I ever let myself just lose it. In a way I think I’ve never felt like I was allowed. I’m too rational. Too level-headed. Or maybe it’s just that I feel if I really let myself go I’d be left too vulnerable. You can never be left too vulnerable. That’s when they get you.

But things like that? That gets mistaken for strength. Because I keep myself away from the edge as much as I can, people call me “strong” or say I’m a “rock” - unmovable, steady, sturdy, dependable, reliable, stable and clear-headed.

It’s easy to seem like a rock stuck in place when the rest of the world seems like it’s tumbling around me. I once got praised when I was younger at how thoughtful I was and how I carefully considered situations and gave honest answers; but to me it always seemed like other people just rush things and don’t think anything through, and they all just end up lying anyway.

People lie for no reason at all. My mom lies to me about having the fan on in her room as if to trick me into turning off my own, because she “doesn’t want to use too much electricity”. She could just say that. She doesn’t need to lie.

So when nothing feels real or truthful or stable, it’s little wonder I keep having nightmares really. Because I’m stuck. I’m constantly stuck in an abusive cycle that I can’t escape from, even when the abuser isn’t here anymore. The echoes remain. The ripples, like in the river by the pier, are violent and never ending.

To me, the feeling of anxiety is the feeling that something in my fault. That I’m in trouble. That I did something ‘bad’. That feeling when you get sent to the principal’s office but you don’t even know what you did to deserve it. In that limbo of waiting to be seen, that’s how I feel. Waiting. Nervous. Dreading. What have I done? What’ll happen to me? What will I lose because of it?

Will it be a friend? A community? A chance? Someone’s respect? A family member? A life?

Will it be my fault someone dies because I wasn’t there enough? I didn’t say the right thing? I just didn’t try hard enough? Is it my fault my father drank? Was I a bad kid? Did my grandmother resent me because I was willful? Too much like my mom? Even though I was never like my mom.

Where do I fit in? Where is the space for me? Am I just being selfish to want to have space to breathe, when there’s so much suffering and so many grasping hands around me begging for my stability while pulling me down? The answer should be “of course not!”, but the world doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t slow down so you can get used to the speed. You either sink or swim, and truthfully I never learned how to swim properly. I just know how not to drown for awhile. I know how to float if I need to. You won’t see me doing a backstroke or anything like that, though I’m sure I could learn if I wanted to.

The thing about feeling like the only “stable” one though is it puts me in a weird position. Maybe I’m not actually as steady as I think I am? I.E., maybe I’m actually crazy and nobody has the heart to tell me. Or I’m beyond understanding it. Or really good at hiding it. I’d say “high functioning” but that’s hardly true; I’m well-spoken and I can do a good ol’ objective think-session, but I can’t hold a regular job or do most things “functional” adults are expected to do. So what is it? Am I actually nuts? Am I lazy?

I have so many questions. And in the slow-fall of gently breaking down, I have no answers.

When I was little my neighborhood was really quiet. Lots of abandoned factories all around, or ones that were sweatshops so they were hush-hush anyway. Not a lot of people walking around. I used to pretend I was the only person left; that it was some post-apocalyptic landscape and it was just me and my dog in whatever was left. It felt so peaceful to pretend that. I still covet that feeling.

At the pier, alone, I tried to put myself in that mindset for a moment. That it was just me and no one else. I couldn’t do it. I’m too old. I know better. I can’t let go of my worries like I used to for a little while, I guess. I used to escape into my own mind and imagination so easily. Maybe that’s part of my problem these recent years? My mind is what I want to escape from. And I can’t. There’s nowhere left to go.

I tried wondering, for the sake of it, what it would be like if I jumped off the pier into the water. It’s not a long jump. The water’s only maybe two yards away, and it’s deep enough that I probably wouldn’t get hurt. The only real danger to me would be the water isn’t clean and I’m not sure how I’d get back out. I imagined putting my bag down and taking off my sandals before jumping in, because I wouldn’t want to break my phone or lose my keys or my shoes, right? I imagined what it would look like when someone finally found my discarded bag and sandals. No one would probably go to that spot for hours after. I’d probably have found a way back up long before then, soaked and stupid and gathering my things before headed home anyway for a shower and then going to bed.

I’m too grounded for a real suicidal thought, I think. I’m more afraid of dying than anything. Even squids aren’t that scary by comparison. And I’ve almost died several times over the course of my life, too. I’ve been at the edge. I don’t like it.

I think the only time I’ve ever had anything close to a “suicidal” thought was sitting in my closet crying and begging God to take me. Back when I still sort of believed in God. Even then it’s not that I wanted to die, I just wanted the pain to stop. My father to stop yelling at me, hitting me, telling me how worthless I was. I wanted to get away.

I never thought I’d live past 18. I remember sitting there in my new room at my mom’s house, finally out of dad’s grasp, and the guilt was so great I couldn’t even get off my bed. He told me the whole way there I was making the wrong choice. I was leaving him all alone. She wouldn’t take care of me like he did. This was my fault. This was my fault. I was leaving him all alone when he needed me most. There were literally hills of his laundry in the basement that I could never get all the way through. He never did the dishes because he has eczema on his hands. He had guns in the basement I didn’t even know about. He had no one to talk to. No one to cook dinner. No one to love him after he was done yelling to forgive him.

I can’t stop thinking about how many times he could have killed me, but he didn’t, because he loved me.

Is that really even love? When someone can destroy you but they don’t? When someone stops themselves from their raging because you can’t breathe anymore?

There’s so much I went through that I took - and still take - in stride. There’s so much I haven’t told people because why would I? It happened. That was my “normal”. And the life I have now is so far away from that cage of despair, so why should it matter?

Why do I keep having nightmares about Christmas’ past? Where I couldn’t afford presents for people. Where I forgot my dad’s birthday. Where he yelled and threw things like a child in a 5′10″ man’s body.

He once told me he’d always tried to treat me like an adult. And really, by 4th grade I’d already grown to my full height of 5′9″. I was nearly as tall as him. Some people thought I was his wife.

It makes me want to vomit. The dreams make me want to vomit acid.

When I told my mom one of my nightmares I immediately regretted it. She always blames herself for everything. I’m sure once she left to go upstairs to bed she cried about it, because that’s just how she is. She couldn’t stop him from hurting me.

Maybe part of it was her fault. I’d ran away from home once to go to her, afraid for my life and wearing my dad’s clothes because I was sick and couldn’t get my own at my grandma’s apartment without her knowing. She just sent me back home. I would have gotten beaten if my grandma didn’t tell him to stop.

I still know what he smells like. Metal and exhaust and sweat and oil. He worked as an engineer. I have oily hair just like him.

When I pull my hair back, I can see him on my face in the mirror.

People often said I looked like my father. That used to make me so happy.

It’s been what... 5 years? Almost? Since I last saw or spoke to him. I saw him last at my grandmother’s funeral - the ‘good’ grandmother who loved me so, so much. He touched my face. I wanted to crawl in with her and hug her and whisper in her ear to take me too. She wouldn’t have though.

Life is worth living. She lived so much, and she suffered so much, and she hurt people too. But if she hadn’t kept going then I wouldn’t have known her. She wouldn’t have stopped a crazy man on the street and bought him a coffee. She wouldn’t have shown me seagulls flocking in for a bucket of fish on a cold winter day, or the way she would dance, or her laugh.

So for all the skin-crawling and suffering of it, I endured it. And I’m here. And I’m guilty. But I keep going.

At the pier, I laid on the empty bench for awhile. The sky was mostly cloudless save for along the skyline, so directly above it was just an endless void of blue. I used to get dizzy when I was a kid looking up at the sky. I’d lay in the middle of the baseball field at the park and look up. At night it feels like the sky has a big hole in it and it’ll suck you up. But the blue sky just felt empty. No stars left, no moon, no clouds. Just the tall lamp post next to me that was still lit despite there being plenty of light. Something was tapping under my seat. Probably a plastic bag or something stuck there.

The sun was taking its time when I looked to my side. But I knew in an hour it would be up and bright and hot. Time to go. Don’t want someone to come by and think I’m homeless or something.

I usually try to come up with some comforting resolution after sorting myself out. That it’ll be ok, or that things will get better, or that everything rights itself eventually. And I do believe that. I believe that will all my heart. But my heart, right now, as it was when I was walking home, is so tired. Tired of feeling guilty. Tired of worrying. Tired of losing. Tired of being used. I just want to rest by the water, surrounded by the sound of wind and waves, with the sun coming up and the promise of something better on the horizon. The city so far away, but it looks like I could reach out and touch it.

I just want to sleep. And wake up. And feel better.

#ooc #mun stuff #munday #trigger warning #tw: child abuse #tw: suicide mention #tw: depression #I almost didn't want to post this #since it has nothing to do with the blog and all #and it's very personal #but it's there and I figured I might as well #maybe someone will relate to something in it #even if I don't really provide any answers or comfort

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literarygoon · 3 years

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“This is how you talk to strangers”

by Will Johnson, originally published in Prairiefire

I’ve been reading the King James Bible lately. I like it so far. Sometimes I sit cross-legged on my roof, smoking cigarettes and flipping through Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy. I haven’t even made it to the New Testament. My favorite book so far is Ecclesiastes. Here’s this guy Solomon with nine hundred wives who can’t even sort his shit out. Everything is meaningless. It’s pretty bleak stuff. Actually, that’s what Hemingway named The Sun Also Rises after, a passage from Ecclesiastes. I read that book about three times a year. If those two were alive, I bet they would be fun to drink with. It would be one of those nights where you end up flipping over a table for no reason. The kind of night where you wake up the next morning and you feel totally humiliated in front of no one but yourself.

I grew up in Labrador City, the Iron Ore Capital of Canada. I was a pretty happy kid, actually. My mother loved us and my father made enough money, which is more or less all you need when you’re little. One day I was sitting on this pier with my two older brothers and this seagull started to pick on a smaller one. It pecked at it viciously and fluffed up its feathers and squawked. We all rooted for the smaller gull, even though it was destined to lose over and over again. My brothers kept throwing them French fries to fight over. Eventually the smaller bird just flew away. I don’t know why I remember that.

Isn’t the mind terrible?

I never knew how isolated I was until I left. The first time I drove into Toronto I felt like someone was sitting on my face. So many people everywhere. I’ve done a lot of traveling in the last few years—Chicago, New York, Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Whitehorse, Vancouver, Tofino—but I never really get used to it. Walking on a sidewalk is a contact sport. In the bar everyone looks like a Viking except for me. I didn’t know how I was ever supposed to meet a girl. Shit, I don’t know how anyone ever meets anyone. It seems so illogical. I dare you to go three or four days without talking to anyone. Consider it a spiritual exercise that leads you nowhere worthwhile. Drive around to random cities, listen to On The Road on audiotape, smoke cigarettes and start thinking about everything that’s wrong with you. Seriously, try it. See what you think.

A few years ago I was walking around Charlottetown, just hating my life, and I was looking at this KFC sign. I thought wow, someone’s responsible for making that. I could never make anything nearly as beautiful. If everyone in the world had my drive, we would be living like hobos. I can’t even parallel park.

The greatest moment in life is when a woman lifts her hips, just slightly, to let you pull off her pants. Like this is really happening to me. The second greatest moment is when your car is all packed with everything you own, and you know you’ve got a lot of driving ahead of you, but at the other end is a job. Last year I was sleeping on my brother’s couch and I had been drunk for an entire month. It was time to move on—I was starting to get the distinct impression that his girlfriend didn’t like me very much. As I was pulling out of the driveway my brother ran after me, and when he came up to me in the street I thought he would say something like it’s been good or good luck with the job, man but instead he just wanted to bum a smoke. I gave him my whole pack because I had no idea when I would see him again. He punched me in the shoulder and it was the first time in a long time anyone had touched me.

I got a job as a sports reporter in the Yukon. Every day I go out to these sporting events. Baseball games and track meets and hockey tournaments. I take pictures and I interview people and I doubt they even really notice. I’m just some guy with a tape recorder and they don’t know anything about me. Their bodies are terrifying. They wear tight spandex or bathing suits and they look superhuman. Most of the time I just want to ask them why? Or maybe how? They drink protein shakes and they bike a hundred kilometers a day or they hike to beautiful places I’ll never see. They’re so fucking healthy it gives me the shakes. I covered a 3-day canoe and kayak race, and this guy told me he wears a catheter so he doesn’t have to stop to pee. I wrote a story about it and thought this is it, the end of journalism as we know it. But no one reads the newspaper anyway. And if they do, nobody cares about the fucking sports section.

My favorite song is “Take it Easy” by the Eagles. One time I listened to it fifty times in a row, while I was driving through the Rocky Mountains. I never get sick of it.

I’m terrified of death. Nobody likes it, sure, but sometimes I sit at my desk at work and all of the sudden my fingers don’t work and I can’t function. No matter how much I hate breathing, I don’t think I could ever convince myself to die. Because I don’t know what’s next. My older brother Trent is religious, and he worked for years as a youth pastor at this church out West. That seemed to make him feel better about things, but none of that ever rubbed off on me. Sometimes I think I’ll end up as one of those empty-eyed senior citizens relegated to their wheelchairs. I’ll have friendly foreign nurses that feed me yogurt and give me drugs. They’ll push me to the window so I can look outside. That sounds pretty good to me.

This guy at the newspaper told me to watch Cool Hand Luke. So I did. Firstly, I don’t think there has ever been a more sublimely beautiful human specimen than Paul Newman. His eyes look supernatural. Secondly—damn, is that movie depressing. Not because he dies. More because I’m never going to be that cool. Sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand. I wish I had that attitude. When Luke’s getting the shit kicked out of him by Dragline, he never gives up. He just keeps swinging. One punch and I would be curled in the fetal position, probably peeing my pants and begging him to stop. I really am useless. Believe me. I’m incapable of honest labour. Most of the time I feel lucky I wasn’t born fifty years ago during any of the big wars. I would have been drafted right away and I wouldn’t have lasted a week. I watch these war movies like Saving Private Ryan and I thank an imaginary God that I’ve never had to pick up a gun. My greatest hardship in life has been living on cereal for a week. Or running out of clean laundry.

My second favorite song is “Flowers on the Wall” by the Statler Brothers.

I met this girl Megan in the steam room at the pool. She was doing yoga on the tiled floor with a pool mat and I was trying not to be a creep. But she was contorting her body into these ridiculous positions that made her muscles bulge and flatten in strange places. I watched the rivulets of sweat. They drew jagged lines down her stomach and dripped off the end of her nose. Sometimes I would wait, holding my breath, while one dangled. Her face was pink and the blond hair that escaped from her ponytail would stick to her forehead and cheeks. She had these elaborate flower tattoos that encircled her arms, purple and yellow and red. The vines were ropy and twisted in chaotic patterns behind the petals. We were the only two people in the steam room but I’m pretty sure she didn’t even know I was there. Her eyes were closed and she took the most relaxed, sensual breaths. It was beautiful. Finally I said something. I asked her if there were any good yoga places in town. Her eyes fluttered open. I said I’d always wanted to learn about yoga, which is probably the biggest lie I told that day. She looked at me, squirted some water into her mouth, and smiled. She said yeah, I teach twice a week at a studio in Whitehorse. You should come out.

Every now and then I realize I have a mother. My mother is a nice lady. And she loves me. If she really knew how I was living my life, I think she would have a heart attack. She’s proud of me for getting a job, but she doesn’t really know me anymore. I wish she did.

My attempts at yoga were pitiful. I spent the whole time wishing I could smoke a cigarette. I’ve never been so uncomfortable in my life. But afterwards, after I had a shower and rolled up my brand new yoga mat, Megan asked me if I wanted to go for beer. I though to myself this is it, this is how you talk to strangers and I said sure, yeah. We walked through the snow to the bar. We sat for two hours and whenever I said something funny she would touch my leg under the table. We bought a six-pack from off sales and walked down to the Yukon River. It was starting to get cold. She told me a bunch of personal shit about her life, but really I wasn’t listening to her words. I was watching the way she laughed, the way she moved her hands, the way her breath hung in a cloud and slowly drifted away.

I was covering this downhill bike race later that week when I broke my collarbone. It was my own fault. I was perched on the side of the trail taking photos, and I was trying to get a follow-focus shot. But everything kept coming out blurry. It was muddy and I was hung over, and as I whipped my camera along with the motion of a passing biker I fell down this embankment. It fucking hurt. I mean, I tumbled and rolled and knocked my head against a tree root. I’m lucky I didn’t break my goddamn spine. My publisher was annoyed and the paper was short-staffed, but it meant I got to sit at home and drink for a few weeks. I felt like Bukowski.

I often fantasize about being productive. I see people jogging around Whitehorse or going grocery shopping and I wonder where they get the energy. One day I want to write a novel, but I can barely convince myself to walk to the gas station for cigarettes. The first time I read The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson I was so relieved. I’m not the only one. I mean, it’s not Tolstoy or Dostoevsky but here’s a person who thinks the world is as absurd and terrifying as I do, and he can actually write something half-decent. When I’m bored I Google stories about Thompson. I rented a documentary about Gonzo journalism from the library. One day I read his suicide note, just because I was curious what was going through his head when he pulled the trigger. Apparently they published it in Rolling Stone. The title keeps repeating in my head, like a mantra: Football season is over.

Megan came over a few times while I was convalescing. She made me a meatloaf and I ate it for every meal, three days in a row. I felt awkward around her. I tried to hide my empties and clean up my house before she showed up, but I didn’t have a phone so most of the time she just appeared unannounced. She was usually in a yoga outfit or her karate clothes. I sat on the couch with her one day and I asked her about the tattoos on her forearms. She looked really sad for a moment, and then she pulled the skin tight in places to show me her scars. They were methodical, horizontal stripes. I wanted to die for a long time, she said. But I didn’t want anybody to know.

By the time my collarbone healed, it was starting to get dark. It scared the shit out of me. Don’t listen to the people who live here. The Yukon is a scary place in the winter. The snow blankets everything and it’s freezing cold and all of a sudden leaving the house is like living in a Jack London short story. Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well. The reporters made fun of me when I showed up to work wearing a parka, but I needed that fur against my face while I smoked cigarettes in the parking lot. Megan was starting to sleep over, and I liked watching her muscular back rise and fall while she snored. I couldn’t believe I’d convinced someone to sleep in my bed.

She showed up at my house crying one night. I tried to talk to her but she just cried into my chest for ten minutes. Finally, when I asked her what was wrong, she said its nothing, you’ll think its stupid. I told her no, of course I won’t think it’s stupid and then she drew her head back and looked at me. There was a huge pink pimple between her eyebrows. I have a bindi, she said. I have a fucking bindi. I usually tuned her out when she started talking about all that eastern mysticism stuff. She tried to convince me to read the Bhagavad Gītā but it just stayed on my bedside table. Whenever she talked about her spiritual beliefs it sounded like she was regurgitating these antiquated phrases she had learned in yoga school, or wherever. I didn’t want to seem insensitive, though, so I listened. She told me she was scared the universe was telling her something. She said the universe gave me a bindi to send me a message.

My favorite poem for a long time was Invictus by William Earnest Henley. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. But then Clint Eastwood took the title and turned it into a goddamn rugby movie.

I was covering this karate competition one weekend when a guy came up and shook my hand. I didn’t recognize him. He said his name was Eiji Matsumoto, and told me he was Megan’s karate instructor. What a cool name. She’s a very gifted student, he said. I nodded like this was something I had given some thought. I realized that we had been dating for months and I had never seen her fight. I had abandoned yoga after a second try. It made me feel like a bad person, knowing there was this huge part of her life I didn’t know anything about. This guy Eiji was easily a foot taller than me. He looked like he could lift me up and break me in half over his knee. He had the most luscious brown skin and beautiful dark eyes. It made my balls shrivel up into little prunes. Suddenly I wanted to shave.

It was a Thursday morning when I crashed my car. My windshield wipers weren’t working and I was trying to light a cigarette and all of a sudden this truck was stopped in front of me and I swerved off the road. I remember hurtling along. The whole car was shaking and I was wrenching the wheel around like a goddamn child playing with a video game and then I was upside down. One of my windows shattered and glass was everywhere and then everything stopped. All I could see was white, stretching out as far as I could see. People were calling out to me hey, hey are you all right in there? Are you okay? I thought about that bible verse where Jesus says he’ll come like a thief in the night. Some blood was drooling up my nose and I realized I was suspended over the ground, held by my seatbelt. I don’t know where my cigarette ended up.

My older brother Trent was arrested a few years ago. They found child pornography on his computer, and there were rumors he even molested some kids at the church he worked at. I didn’t know how to respond to that information. I still don’t.

For a week after that Megan drove me to work and back. She seemed really impatient, so I tried to spend time with my friend from the newspaper. We sat in the bar and drank too many beers. He kept saying embarrassing things to the waitress, and then we started arguing about Hemingway. He was saying Hemingway would drink beer and I told him no, Hemingway liked drinking Mojitos and bagged wine. We did some whiskey shots and then went out in the snow for a bit. I wanted to go down to the Yukon River, but my friend said it was too cold. We finally wandered into this dingy pub on Fourth Street, and the first thing I saw was Megan. She was sitting with her back to me, having dinner with Eiji. Eiji Matsumoto. My friend said what’s wrong and I said nothing, let’s just get out of here.

Whenever I’m feeling sorry for myself, I think do you know how old the universe is?

My father called me around that time. My mother was in the hospital in Winnipeg and he wanted to buy me a plane ticket. We don’t know how serious it is, he said, but she would like you to be there. I told him I would need a couple of days to arrange things with work, and he said that would be okay. I thought about Hemingway and Thompson, each of them perched over their shotguns. It seems cruel that not everyone gets to choose when they’ll die. My father told me my brother was already driving out from Edmonton with his girlfriend. The others were coming out from Halifax. He told me my mother had been sick for a while, but he didn’t want to worry me. I wandered around the twilight streets and I tried not to think about how fucking scared I was of everything. Relax – this won’t hurt.

You don’t really know much about yourself until you try to share space with a woman. Megan complained about crumbs on the counter, my unmade bed and how I always left empty packs of cigarettes everywhere. She kept pestering me to quit, and even convinced me to try the nicotine patch. She played this weird, mystical music and she meditated in our living room when I wanted to watch TV. I felt like Neal Cassady, always hiding things from his wife. I hadn’t brought up seeing her with Eiji because I didn’t want to be that guy. I’m not the jealous type. I kind of liked to see her angry, though. She never seemed like she was in control of her actions, and her moods would jackknife back and forth. One night, while we were having sex, she slapped me. Then she slapped me again. It turned me on so much she just kept slapping me until she was clawing at my chest and pulling my hair. The only ones for me are the mad ones.

I often wonder what would have happened if I never saw Eiji kiss my girlfriend. It was midday and they were coming out of a sushi place on Main Street. I had just bought a magazine and I was standing across the street smoking a cigarette when they emerged, pulling on their jackets. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. It looked like a goddamn coffee commercial, like there should be music playing or something. I don’t remember crossing the street. I don’t even remember what I screamed at him. Maybe I took a swing, maybe I didn’t. All I remember was the way he looked as he reared back and kicked me square in the sternum. I flew backwards like you see in movies. My lungs felt like they were going to collapse. I was laying on my back on the sidewalk, struggling to breathe and panting when he leaned over me. Football season is over. I looked up at him and Megan while I lay there in the slush. I think I need to go to the hospital, I said. I think I’m really hurt. Help me.

I got drunk on the plane to Winnipeg. They just kept bringing me gin and tonics. I brought the King James Bible with me, but it was starting to lose my interest. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. The New Testament sounds too much like those corny televangelists. I’m not too keen on Jesus, either. But there’s a poetry there, like Shakespeare. By the time we touched down the words were starting to mix together on the page. When the stewardess came to check our seatbelts I held out my empty cup. One more?

My father picked me up from the airport. It was the first time I noticed the deep wrinkles around his eyes. His handshake almost crushed my fingers. We drove through the grey streets for nearly an hour before we got to the hospital. I asked him if Trent was going to be there, and he reminded me that Trent was in prison and probably would be for a long time. We barely spoke after that. I didn’t even really recognize him anymore, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Neither did he, I guess. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. He led me up the stairs, someone gave me a coffee, and then I was standing in the room with her. Machines were beeping at me and she looked so small. I came to the side of my mother’s bed and her eyes fluttered open. It’s you, she said. It’s my son.

You can’t go long in the Yukon without hearing a Robert Service poem. They’ve got him painted on walls. They teach him in elementary schools. Sometimes you’ll walk into a bookstore and someone will be reciting his poems over the loudspeakers. There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men that moil for gold. The first time I visited Dawson City, I went to the bank where he used to work. It’s right on the main drag, just a stone’s throw from the river, this saggy, dilapidated eyesore. One night I saw kids break into it to get drunk. I peeked in the windows and inside it looks like a warzone. There are spider webs clinging to the heaps of garbage on the floor. I hear there’s talk of restoring it, maybe building a heritage site, but chances are they’ll just eventually tear it down.

My mother reached out to me with these wrinkled hands. A long tube trailed out from her wrist. She touched my face and then she held my neck. I thought she might cry, but she didn’t. I leaned down and kissed her. She smelled like cleaning products. I wanted to tell her all my stories. I wanted her to pull me into her lap and rock me while I fell asleep. I thought about this time, when I was a little kid. My brothers had gone on a trip with my father and left me home sick for the weekend. She took me to the new shopping mall in Labrador City to see a movie. Afterwards we walked through these towering empty halls like we were in a cathedral. She bought me a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and a cinnamon bun. She told me this is our little secret. Don’t tell your brothers or they’ll be jealous. On the way home I fell asleep in the passenger seat.

Do you know how old the universe is?

My mother was discharged a few days later. I went back to work. Megan had already moved her stuff out of my basement suite. The snow was starting to melt, finally. Most days I sat at my desk and listed to John Prine or Willie Nelson. I stood on the sidelines of soccer games. I took pictures of people playing hockey. It cost me an entire paycheck to get my car fixed, so for two weeks I ate nothing but microwave popcorn and scrambled eggs. The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to its place where it rises. On the weekends I walked down to the Yukon River and watched the ice slide into the water. One afternoon a giant chunk tumbled down the riverbank.

It flowed slowly downstream until I couldn’t see it anymore.

The Literary Goon

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creepykingdom · 7 years

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Episode 133 / Creepy Day 2 Halloween Time at Disneyland

SHOW NOTES:

On our second Creepy Day of 2017 we take a look at all of the Halloween offerings this year at the Disneyland Resort! Including all of the brand new Halloween fun at Disney California Adventure and a review of this year’s Mickey’s Halloween Party!

REVIEW: (by Melissa A. Camacho)

It’s amazing what a little lighting and fog can do to get you in the Halloween spirit. At this year’s Mickey’s Halloween Party at the Disneyland Resort, both Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure were decked out in fall and Halloween decorations. And for the first time ever, your ticket to Mickey’s Halloween Party allowed you into either Disneyland or DCA prior to the main event. In this review, I will be covering both parks and also giving you tips on this year’s party.

For those of you who have not heard of Mickey’s Halloween Party, it is a separate ticketed event that happens on select nights starting in mid September to Halloween at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim. At this event, the park is closed early for regular attendees and the park is transformed into a full blown Halloween Party. Complete with a trick-or-treat candy trail, a dance party, Disney Villain appearances, the Frightfully Fun Parade and the Halloween Screams Fireworks; not to mention everybody is allowed to come in costume. Each year, this event sells out, and this year was no exception. So for those interested in attending next year, I highly recommend buying your tickets early.

We start off at Disney’s California Adventure. If you want to get a head start on your spooky day, take advantage of the early entry park-hopper and enjoy what DCA has to offer for the fall season. Early entry to either Disneyland or DCA starts three hours prior the main event. Unfortunately, I missed early entry this year (traffic coming up from San Diego was unusually bad) but, I was at DCA a few days earlier so I’m happy to report my take on the park on a regular day.

Before you even enter the park, you are welcomed by Oogie Boogie on top of the DCA entrance. As a huge fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas, I was already sold. I have never been into DCA around this time of year, so walking into Buena Vista street and seeing the vintage purple banners and bats immediately put a smile to my face. Going in farther, there is an epic Headless Horseman statue that exhales out smoke through its nostrils. It also makes noses and and lights up as the day goes darker.

Another new and bigger thing at DCA for this Halloween season is Cars Land’s Haul-O-Ween layover. Now, I am not a huge Cars fan, but this themed section of the park is my favorite. So adding a dash of spooky made it 10x, better in my opinion. There were car parts that created spider webs and ghouls. Many of the signs had creepy layovers which referenced classic Halloween and horror movies. Not to mention the perfectly themed treats they offered there which have been featured on numerous videos and instagram accounts by now. Luigi's Rollickin Roadsters had new music for your cars to dance to. And Ramone's House of Body Art was Day of the Dead themed complete with an altar for one of it’s characters. As a Mexican-American, it was really refreshing to see my culture being represented as genuinely as possible, considering the context of the land. I enjoyed it. My tip for this section of the park is to arrive at sundown. That’s when all the neon gets turned on and the whole environment feels different. Still cute, yet spooky.

Continuing with our trend of Day of the Dead, there is a Coco experience near Paradise Pier that features activities, music, dancers, folk art and food inspired by the Mexican tradition and movie. When I went to DCA a few days prior, I did not get to experience this part of the park myself, so I can’t give a first hand account of this seasonal experience. But, thanks to the internet, you can view all the colorful displays they have up.

Another new thing that DCA offers this season was Guardians of the Galaxy: Monsters After Dark, ride layover. Right out of the gate, the Guardians ride is noticeably different. The lights and projections on the building are different and kind of creepy. The story of the ride also changes, as you are now trying to help Rocket save Groot from the space monsters that have been let loose. I also felt that there were way more drops in this incarnation of the ride, which I highly enjoyed. The cool thing about this version, is that it’s not an all day layover. So if you want the little ones to enjoy the original, ride it during the day. My tip if you want to experience this scary version, is to ride it at or after the sun sets. It’s a digital layover so it gets converted in a short period of time.

Overall, the three hours you have at DCA will be enough time to look at all the new decorations and maybe ride a few things. Now onto onto Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland.

I have attended this event for the first time last year and I immediately fell in love. If you’re a fan of Halloween and all things Disney, then this is the event for you. My boyfriend and I Disneybounded as Oogie Boogie and Jack Skellington, respectively. The one thing I love about Mickey’s Halloween Party is the small crowds. There is practically no wait for any of the rides. Another thing that makes the event so different is ambiance of the park. It immediately puts everybody in good creepy mood.

As huge Disneyland fans, we all know that Disney spares no expense when it comes to their seasonal decorations. Besides the cute fall leaves and pumpkins on main street and other parts of the park, Disney bumps it up a bit for their Halloween party. The colored lights turn on, the spooky sounds creep up and fog covers Rivers of America as the Cadaver Dans start making their way down on a raft. If there’s one section that screams out creepy Disney, it’s New Orleans Square by Rivers of America. If that’s not your thing, then I suggest taking a stroll down the newly opened Big Thunder Trail. If you’re coming up from the Frontierland side, keep an eye out for the creature that lives in the old train ride tunnel. I honestly don’t remember if that was there last year, but it really freaked me out. The sound effects and lighting in that little section made me feel uneasy. Which looking back… still freaks me out just thinking about it. I still don’t know what that was suppose to be and no Google search is helping me. So if you’re brave, go check it out.

Besides my irrational fears of things unknown, the majority of the event was amazing. If rides are your thing, as they were for me and my boyfriend, I highly suggest riding Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy and Haunted Mansion Holiday. These rides have seasonal layovers that really put you in the Halloween (or Christmas) spirit. As some of you might know, each year the gingerbread house in Haunted Mansion Holiday is changed. And this year, it features a humongous Oogie Boogie gingerbread man. Again, I am a sucker for this guy, so I loved it. Biases aside, I wish the doombuggies would move slower at the ballroom scene just so everybody can see and appreciate all the little details of the gingerbread houses. Especially considering that it is all real gingerbread and sweats. While Haunted Mansion Holiday is less scary once Jack takes over, in my opinion, I can’t say the same for Space Mountain’s layover. So if your children get easily frightened, I say skip Ghost Galaxy. I think it’s a bit loud and the projections might be too scary for your younger counterparts.

Now it’s not a Halloween Party without costumes and candy. While you see your usual and more traditional costumes, there are some that certainly stand out. Maybe it’s the Disney magic that sparks people’s creativity or the photo opportunities that the park offers. Either way, some people went all out. I only captured some spooky ones, but there were plenty more varieties that people dress up as too. While you people watch, I suggest taking advantage of the treat trail that spans the whole park. I personally didn’t stop at all of the candy spots, but I got enough candy to fill my Zero popcorn bucket. When you first enter the park, you are given a treat bag and a map of the treat trail. At some stops, there are healthier and allergy friendly options for the trick-or-treaters.

I am not one for Parades or Fireworks, but for this event, I try my best to make some time to watch it. First is the Frightfully Fun Parade. Before the parade begins, the Headless Horseman makes his way down on a real horse holding his pumpkin head. Then parade begins. The floats are given as much detail as the regular parade floats but better because they feature spooky characters and Disney Villains. The parade itself is rather short but cute for what it is. They run it twice throughout the night. Now for the fireworks, I highly suggest either being in front of the castle or in the middle of main street. Both the castle and main street have projections casted on them. I was on the side of the castle closer to Frontierland and still had a decent view. Like I said before, I’m not much of a fireworks person, but this one sold me with the theme, projections, synced fireworks and pyrotechnics. If you ever attend Mickey’s Halloween Party, I suggest finding a good spot and watching it at least once.

Overall, Mickey’s Halloween Party is defiantly one of my favorite events to attend at Disneyland. I’m an annual passholder and I will gladly pay the extra money to attend this event. It has the perfect mix of Disney and creepy. I give this year’s event a five poison apples out of five poison apples rating.

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PICTURES: (By Melissa A. Camacho, Little Nikki, & James H. Carter II)

#podcastepisodes #disneyland #halloween time at disneyland #disney halloween #Mickey's Halloween Party

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delos-mio · 7 years

Text

Six Months - Logan/Westworld AU - Part 2

Chris rolled to a stop in front of her brick building I remembered so well. There was the porch step where I first kissed her. She was wearing a kelly green dress and shoes she thought made her tall, but she was still half a head shorter than me. In the dirty stairwell was where I first heard her moan- that sweet sound that fell from her lips still filled my ears most nights. I got out of the car and rang her apartment number 308. She buzzed the front door unlocked and I bounded up the puke green carpeted stairs to her door, still careful not to crease my new suit picked just for the occasion. I knocked softly on her door, anxious to see her again. She finally opened the door, a breathtaking low-cut, navy dress hanging on her body.

“Hey,” I breathed out, handing her a bouquet of fresh peonies. She took them with a small smile, her eyes narrowing a little.

“What do you want?” she asked, putting the flowers in a vase on her kitchen table.

“Not sure what you mean.”

“You brought me my favorite flowers after six months of silence. You have to want something,” she quipped, picking up her clutch and walking out the door to join me.

“I want to have dinner with my favorite girl,” I smiled, motioning for her to walk in front of me down the stairs. Although it’s chivalrous to let a lady walk in front of you, I had to admit a big motivating factor was to watch her backside as she descended.

“Oh, are we going to be joined by another woman for dinner? I hope you got her flowers too,” she bit back as I opened the car door, allowing her to slide in to the other side.

“Still got that sharp tongue on ya, huh?” I laughed airily and slouched into my seat.

She looked out the window most of the way to dinner. The sun was just beginning to set and the colors painted in the sky had transfixed her. She was even more beautiful than I had remembered- just sitting here with her legs crossed was sexier than any pictures I had saved that she sent me. I wanted nothing more than to pull her in my lap and run my hands all over, but she had made it very clear that I had to tread lightly. Finally, we pulled to a stop at the dock, a confused expression crossing her face.

“What are we doing? I thought you said dinner. I agreed to dinner,” she stated, turning to face me.

“We are having dinner. But we’re having dinner on my boat,” I grinned before letting myself out and walking around to open her door. She was still hesitant, but I flashed her my best smile to let her know it wasn’t a trick. We walked down to the end of the pier and boarded the great white yacht, watching the city pass by slowly as we set off down the river. My staff had already set up a small table with several candles just under the overhang of the top deck; it was everything I had asked for. The wind was down as I pulled out her chair, her eyes still narrow in suspicion. I took my seat across from her and leaned back in my chair.

“So, you took me out on the river so I can’t walk out on you or what?” she finally asked after eating a forkful of salad. I laughed and smiled back at her. She’d always given me a hard time. Probably because I had made it my mission to be a perpetual pain in everyone’s ass.

“Of course not. I took you out here because I wanted to have a beautiful dinner with a beautiful woman,” I smirked before taking a drink of my wine.

“Jesus Christ Logan, really? You think you can throw a couple lines at me and…”

“It’s not a line! Both you and the city are truly a sight,” I said happily. She rolled her eyes a little, but a small smile was tugging on the corners of her mouth. “So tell me, how was Barcelona?” Finally, a real grin was on her face. Her eyes did that little crinkle that I liked as I watched her collect her thoughts.

“It was…life changing. I learned a lot, saw a bunch of amazing sites, and ate way too much goat cheese,” she beamed.

For the first time since I’d knocked on her door, I felt like she was being herself with me. She was being that woman who made me duet in karaoke with her, the one who left behind bags of M&Ms when she left the condo. We continued talking about her travels, about my work- anything really. It felt like I was finally at ease and that I could breathe without a 10 pound weight laying on my chest. Dinner was over now and I watched her finish the last few drops of her wine.

“Refill and then take a little walk?” I asked, already tipping the bottle opening into her glass. She giggled and nodded her head. I could tell by the color of her cheeks that she was feeling buzzed, so I walked over and grabbed her hands, helping her out of her seat. We walked out to the edge of the deck and leaned on the metal railing. The wind gently blew her hair back, the light radiating from the city dancing on her face. I took a moment to drink her in from head to toe, maybe lingering a little long on the line connecting her thigh to her perfect ass. “I missed you a lot, Y/N,” I said finally, crossing my arms on top of the railing.

“No, you didn’t Logan,” she said definitively, shaking her head.

“Do you really think a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about you?” I asked into the river, not able to look at her straight on.

“Uh yeah, actually I do,” she huffed. “I think there were 6 months’ worth of days I was nowhere near your mind. Because I feel like if you really were missing me, you’d call. Or text. Or fucking email me- I don’t know.” She exhaled deeply and tapped at the inside corner of her eye with her ring finger. My insides felt like they were rotting; the last thing I ever wanted to see was her cry again because of me. She had asked me to let her go, to let her be and live her life. I saw now that I’d done a really shitty job of letting her know how I felt.

“Sweetheart,” I moved to stand behind her, my hands wrapped around the rail on either side of her, “I…I thought I was giving you what you wanted,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. That is what she wanted, right? When she left she had begged me to let her go, much to my contesting. She turned then to face me, her chin tucked down to her chest.

“Well you weren’t, ok?!” She wiped another stray tear. “You gave me exactly what I needed, but not at all what I wanted.” I stood silent around her as she took deep breaths, clearly trying to calm herself down. I knew she was trying to be cool for me. “When I told you I needed to go and that you should let me, I was only saying that to save myself, Logan. I didn’t want to fall even more in love with someone who could never love me.”

It cut like a knife. Every cell in my body was bleeding. Why had she never told me she loved me? Oh right, we both knew exactly why- because that would have been the kiss of death for us. My greatest talent was tricking good girls into loving me and then tossing them aside. She wanted to leave before I’d inevitably leave her. But…I don’t think I ever would have. No one drove me as absolutely crazy as she did.

“For the record,” I started, wrapping my finger under her chin to lift her face towards mine, “I think you’re pretty loveable.” I tested my luck and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. It took everything in me not to swipe my tongue over her bottom lip and beg for permission to enter. She gently kissed me back, allowing me to move my hand from under her chin to the back of her neck. I parted from her and rested my forehead on hers. “Is it terrible that all I can think about is how fucking good you’d look standing naked out here?” That earned me the smack on my arm I was fully anticipating, but we both laughed anyways.

“What are you trying to pull, Logan?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I told you, I missed you. I want to make up for lost time,” I crooned, running my fingers softly through her hair. “Stay with me tonight.”

“Logan…”

“We don’t have to fuck.”

“Charming,” she laughed.

“You know I have a way with words. C’mon…just tonight.”

“No fucking,” she chided before grabbing my hand and walking back inside as the boat pulled back up to the dock.

----

Seeing her standing in front of the large windows of my place felt right. This was the image I had played over and over again in my head for the last six months. Of course, she was wearing a lot less the way I chose to remember it. She kicked off her heels and let her toes sink into the carpet, a small smile on her face. I could have watched her all night just reacquainting herself with being here.

“I’m sleepy, Logan.” Her admission snapped me out of my thoughts and I focused again on her. I walked over and took her by the hand, leading her up the small set of stairs to my bedroom. She let herself in and crawled over to her side of the bed. If I were being honest, it had become my side since she left. I’d never let another girl sleep on her side- it just felt wrong.

“So, what? You’re just going to sleep in a cocktail dress?” I teased, shrugging out of my blazer.

“Well, I don’t have anything else with me and I sure as hell won’t be sleeping naked. I know you better than that,” she quipped. She wasn’t wrong. That whole ‘no fucking’ thing would have been damn near impossible.

“Lucky for you,” I started, walking into my closet, “I still have a few of your favorite things.” I walked out with one of my old crew neck tees. This olive one had been one of her favorite things of mine to steal. Something about how worn and soft it was had drawn her to it. She smiled and leapt up the moment she saw it, rushing over to take it from my hands.

“Thanks, Lo,” she smiled. She turned her back to me and moved her hair over her shoulder, signaling me to unzip her dress. My fingers fumbled their way down her back, watching as it dropped to the floor around her ankles. Her ass was finally exposed to me, causing my cock to twitch right where I stood. But as soon as I had been reintroduced to a part of her I loved so much, it was being covered by my own goddamn shirt. I sighed and continued to disrobe until I was in just my boxers and tucking myself in next to her.

“Would it be ok if we cuddled a little?” I asked as we laid facing each other in the dark. She didn’t say anything, instead she rolled over so her back was to me and scooted so every inch of our skin was touching. I wrapped my arm around her waist and nuzzled into her soft hair, letting the gentle rise and fall of her breathing lull me to sleep.

#logan #westworld #logan westworld #westworld fanfic #westworld au #ben barnes #masterlist #logan x reader

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hellooogaynow · 7 years

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1-100

omg ok tbh i forgot that i reblogged that ask thing but thank u fren here u go

1. spotify, soundcloud, or pandora?

spotify

2. is your room messy or clean?

um ok so my room at my mom’s is technically the office and just full of mine and everyone else’s storage so it isn’t really my room i guess and my room at my dad’s is nearly empty and i haven’t been there more than a couple times in a while and i’ve been crashing at friend’s and family’s houses and living out of a suitcase for weeks so i’m just gonna say i don’t really have a room

3. what color are your eyes?

dark brown

4. do you like your name? why?

alright well this is complicated because i hate the name emily and lately i’ve been going by emmitt for a while and it’s just weird because i feel so disconnected from emily and not super connected to emmitt either and i feel like i should just be a nameless person because i hate being referred to as anything tbh

5. what is your relationship status?

happily in a relationship with someone i really care about

6. describe your personality in 3 words or less

a detached mess

7. what color hair do you have?

my natural dark brown color

8. what kind of car do you drive? color?

ah it’s a purple mini van that’s rusting and dying

9. where do you shop?

target lol

10. how would you describe your style?

almost exclusively button ups and baseball shirts

11. favorite social media account?

tumblr probably i use this the most out of all of them

12. what size bed do you have?

queen

13. any siblings?

i have 2 sisters

14. if you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why?

i honestly have no idea how to answer this question i don’t have a dream destination or anything

15. favorite snapchat filter?

omg probably the cute cat one that changes ur voice cuz my friends look so cute when they use it

16. favorite makeup brand(s)?

i don’t know anything about makeup

17. how many times a week do you shower?

every day sometimes multiple times a day

18. favorite tv show?

buffy the vampire slayer and dollhouse kill me

19. shoe size?

idk i’m pretty sure i’m a 6

20. how tall are you?

5’1

21. sandals or sneakers?

sneakers

22. do you go to the gym?

no lol but i do plan to start going once i actually move in to my new place and get settled

23. describe your dream date

i want to spend a day in chicago with emily doing whatever we want just walking and wandering into stores and go to a zoo or a museum or navy pier or honestly just anything at this point i miss her so much i don’t care what we do as long as we’re together

24. how much money do you have in your wallet at the moment?

25. what color socks are you wearing?

they’re both different variations of black white and light blue

26. how many pillows do you sleep with?

at least 2

27. do you have a job? what do you do?

yeah i recently got a job in the mental health field and i work primarily with adults with various mental illnesses in a 24/7 supervised living area at the moment it’s mostly individuals dealing with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and borderline personality disorder and i help them with symptom management, building the skills they have chosen to work on in their treatment plans, and help them carry activities of daily living so they can become self-sufficient and can transition out and live on their own

28. how many friends do you have?

ah i mean i know i have a lot of friends but as far as really close friends i know i can count on and will most likely always have around i’d say i have about 8

29. whats the worst thing you have ever done?

ah fuck well i went through a really destructive phase in my recent past where i was just in a bad place and i withdrew and lashed out a lot and was super emotionally unstable and i hurt a lot of people and i regret it

30. whats your favorite candle scent?

omg i have no idea i usually just smell all the blue ones and go from there

31. 3 favorite boy names

elliot (this is my favorite name in the world probably)

max

derrick

32. 3 favorite girl names

bennett

caroline

sara

33. favorite actor?

i thought about this for a solid 5 minutes and no one is coming to mind i’m gonna leave this blank

34. favorite actress?

eliza dushku and alyson hannigan kill me every time i watch dollhouse or buffy i’m in love with her

35. who is your celebrity crush?

amber liu

36. favorite movie?

selena

37. do you read a lot? whats your favorite book?

i used to read a lot when i was a kid and the music of dolphins by karen hesse has always stuck with me for some reason idk if it’s my favorite but when i was a kid i checked it out at least once a month on our elementary library visits and even now i always find myself thinking about it

38. money or brains?

well if u don’t have money u can’t survive in this capitalist society so i mean

but if this question is asking what i want in a person i’d want the smart

39. do you have a nickname? what is it?

my family calls me mimi and tbh it’s the only thing i actually feel comfortable with weirdly

40. how many times have you been to the hospital?

i’ve been to the hospital multiple times to visit people but i don’t remember actually needing to be there myself besides when i burned my hands as a child

41. top 10 favorite songs

this is def subject to change depending on my mood at any given moment but for right now:

hold me tight by bts

house of cards by bts

lie by bts

all mine by one ok rock

deeper deeper by one ok rock

we are by one ok rock

decision by one ok rock

clock strikes by one ok rock

como la flor by selena

moon river waltz by shinee

42. do you take any medications daily?

no i had issues with family and insurance so i had to stop seeing my psych and taking meds

43. what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc)

dry

44. what is your biggest fear?

my mom having anything else bad happen to her

45. how many kids do you want?

this is most likely not going to be my choice lol i don’t have a number in mind if i do have kids

46. whats your go to hair style?

short and whatever it wants to do when i get out of the shower

47. what type of house do you live in? (big, small, etc)

well i don’t really live in a house rn but my mom’s house is huge she just moved in and it’s crazy big i’m so happy for her also the house i’m gonna move into soon is p small but still cute

48. who is your role model?

idk probably my mom she’s been through a lot and is still going strong

49. what was the last compliment you received?

“you’re so sweet, you know that?” from a client

50. what was the last text you sent?

“nini

51. how old were you when you found out santa wasn’t real?

tbh i have no idea i was probably in elementary school

52. what is your dream car?

something that runs, is either blue or grey, and magically doesn’t cost me anything to drive it

53. opinion on smoking?

it smells terrible and i don’t like to be around people who smoke

54. do you go to college?

yeah i just graduated

55. what is your dream job?

i have no idea i don’t know what i want i haven’t really thought that far ahead but i love my job so far so i’m alright with where i’m at

56. would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs?

i don’t really have a preference as long as i’m with and near people i care about

57. do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels?

i don’t think i’ve ever personally done that

58. do you have freckles?

yeah i have a couple scattered around

59. do you smile for pictures?

i make this weird stupid half smile face and i can’t stop

60. how many pictures do you have on your phone?

761

61. have you ever peed in the woods?

i have not

62. do you still watch cartoons?

i never want to not watch cartoons

63. do you prefer chicken nuggets from wendy’s or mcdonalds?

i don’t like chicken nuggets from anywhere

64. favorite dipping sauce?

wait for what

i like soy sauce for potstickers

65. what do you wear to bed?

usually shorts and a t shirt

66. have you ever won a spelling bee?

no i’m terrible at spelling out loud

67. what are your hobbies?

i like to dance idk not much else tho i guess

68. can you draw?

nooooo

69. do you play an instrument?

i played guitar once but i forgot everything smh

70. what was the last concert you saw?

the bts wings tour

71. tea or coffee?

tea

72. starbucks or dunkin donuts?

dunkin donuts

73. do you want to get married?

yes

74. what is your crush’s first and last initial?

e g

75. are you going to change your last name when you get married?

i’ve thought about this actually and i’m mostly just hesitant about how difficult it would be to change my name on like all the legal paperwork and like bills and work things and it just sounds super complicated but i wish it could be easier because i hate where my last name comes from and if i married my current gf we would literally have the exact same name and we would be able to confuse people even more and i just think it would be funny

76. what color looks best on you?

black i think

77. do you miss anyone right now?

yes oh my god

78. do you sleep with your door open or closed?

closed always closed

79. do you believe in ghosts?

yeah i do

80. what is your biggest pet peeve?

ok i get so mad when i go to a friend’s place who has long hair and i’m walking barefoot through their house or i’m sleeping over or i’m under a blanket or something and it just makes me so mad when i feel dumb long single strands of hair in my toes i hate it so much it makes me so mad idk man but this happened to me last night and i’ve been thinking about it ever since

81. last person you called?

ah well the last phone call that i was on was with the director of all the residential living things at my work

82. favorite ice cream flavor?

idk probably chocolate and vanilla with caramel

83. regular oreos or golden oreos?

regular oreos

84. chocolate or rainbow sprinkles?

no sprinkles pls

85. what shirt are you wearing?

black and grey v neck t shirt

86. what is your phone background?

a picture of my gf i took a while back of her from a distance with the river and sunset in the background

87. are you outgoing or shy?

shy with everyone besides my friends

88. do you like it when people play with your hair?

only like a very specific like 2 people but when it’s anyone else i get really uncomfortable with being touched and you’d think that people wouldn’t just come up to you and start touching your hair and telling you how soft it is but it’s more common than you think and it makes me want to d ie

89. do you like your neighbors?

my nonexistent neighbors r gr8

90. do you wash your face? at night? in the morning?

i always wash it in the morning but sometimes i wash it at night too if i feel gross from the day

91. have you ever been high?

nope never

92. have you ever been drunk?

yes

93. last thing you ate?

a blizzard from dairy queen with pieces of brownies in it

94. favorite lyrics right now

ok i’m gonna be honest and just say i’m not in a place to listen to music rn i’ve been listening to exclusively podcasts and i have not listened to a song and not zoned out completely during it in a very long time and no lyrics are coming to mind

95. summer or winter?

summer

96. day or night?

night

97. dark, milk, or white chocolate?

ah milk or white i guess i’m not a super big fan tho

98. favorite month?

june cuz my birthday also gay

99. what is your zodiac sign

gemini

100. who was the last person you cried in front of?

my dad

#asks #anon #thank u

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high5nerd · 4 years

Text

Alone Together---Chap. Eight

I don't remember moving from that couch, but we were outside in the cold air that night, watching the sky darken and the stars come out. So far that dream I had seemed possible, and I wasn't sure if I was welcoming that idea. As long as we both meant it...that she meant it...I'd gladly have that dream be a reality.

But it was much different. She and I were lying under the stars, hands behind our heads and happily enjoying the silence. Though immune to temperatures, she was bundled up snugly with her jacket, gloves and beanie. She was still shivering from the biting wind. Twice, I suggested we go inside, but she refused. She wanted to see a shooting star so badly, she said she would rather freeze to death than miss it. A comet shower would happen soon, and there was no reason to make her change her mind.

I like how stubborn she is. It's refreshing. Almost amusing as well.

"See any yet?" she asked, wisps of her breath curling into the air.

"No, but that satellite is throwing me off." I pointed to the sky, right where a tiny pinprick in the sky was lazily drifting further to our right.

She laughed, and moved her body closer to mine for warmth. I smiled and teasingly raised a brow, "I thought you said you could handle the cold?"

"Oh come on, it's colder than you would think." she bumped my side with her elbow.

"Short people have a tendency to be more prone to being cold. Nothing to be ashamed of." I teased, looking back at the sky.

"Ugh, God you're annoying." she groaned. I knew she hated being shorter than me. I couldn't blame her. I was a massive six foot three feet tall. She was a shrimp compared to me. Okay, maybe not a shrimp, but a head shorter than me.

I chuckled, knowing she was smiling along with my dry humor.

But then across the sky shot a bright, wicked star. A white-hot tail left its mark quickly in a matter of milliseconds before dying out again.

"Saw one." I grinned, making a silent wish.

"Darn! I missed it." she snapped her fingers, but then turned her head to mine and asked, "What did you wish for?"

"...I honestly don't know what to wish for." I blinked slowly. My mouth seemed to say the words without my brain registering what I was speaking. I was still thinking about the beauty of that shooting star.

"Really?" she looked up, looking quite surprised, "Not anything?"

"Nope."

"Not power, fame, connections...anything?" she was starting to give me a suspicious look.

"...Well, there is one wish. But I know it will never happen." Yep. My mouth was no longer connected to my head. It was foolishly flapping all on it's own while my brain is shouting at me to shut up and not let this woman see inside myself.

Damn her and her kindness. Damn it all for making me so vulnerable.

"What would it be, even if it would never happen?" she asked, rolling onto her back again, inches away from me. Darn. I liked having my arm draped around her shoulders.

I thought about it for a while, maybe a good two minutes before finally-and quite truthfully-telling her. Before I gained control of my own being, the fearlings would often whisper and hiss in my mind that the Boogeyman must be the strongest of all spirits, showing not only no mercy, but no feeling and no honesty. And for a while...I believed that. I soon found it disgusting and disturbing to see others confessing feelings or sharing personal thoughts that would have no beneficial improvement on their current predicament. It still slightly irks me. Where I'm from, men refused even the slightest 'are you alright' questions. It was because even at birth, we're born to be warriors. We were born to be strong, fearless pilots of the spaceships and fight off the darkness that consumed every constellation in the universe. That is, until I...uh, switched sides.

But this world was different from the one I was from. In some ways, even brave soldiers confide in each other and those they trust. Humanity here had a strong connection to their thoughts and feelings...which in a way is beneficial to us spirits as well. Fear, dreams, hopes, wonder, memories...they all came from the whispers of trust.

Maybe Alice was one of those people I could confide in.

"A family."

It was quiet. She stared at the sky, her mouth unmoving, closed in thought. I looked over at her. Maybe I shouldn't have truthfully told her what I wished for...it definitely wasn't 'Boogeyman' material.

She finally looked at me, and I felt my heart stop. It even ached seeing her tears. She gave a small smile before wiping her tears away.

"Me too."

There was another warm silence between us, nothing too bothersome. Well, maybe it was slightly bothersome to her. Because right as I was about to open my mouth and change the subject, she blurted out, "Not that Sadie isn't family. I just...I just want Mom and Dad back."

"I know." I said, looking at her seriously.

"Do you remember your parents?" she asked, almost whispering it out so I couldn't detect her voice wavering.

"I'm willing to change the subject if this bothers you, Alice. Really." I stated, and it made her smile, at least.

"That's sweet of you, but I'm okay. Trust me...Well?"

Honestly, the only memory I have of my parents back in the Golden Age was when they attended the ceremony of my becoming of a general and their hopeful faces as I left the piers to fight the fearlings...I couldn't even recall their first names besides Mother and Father. I can't even remember if I had any siblings. Sad, isn't it?

So when I told her that, she looked surprised. Then after more explanation of what era and universe I lived in before here, she seemed to understand. I could tell not by her nodding, but by that twinkle in her eye.

"So you're as old as the mountains and rivers, basically. I can't blame you for the memories fading away."

I raised a brow at her, smirking, "Hey, I'm not as old as Pangea, missy."

"I wasn't implying that." she laughed, nudging me with her elbow as she sat up.

"It sure sounded like you were. Well, in a poetic way," I sneered at her, "which doesn't ease the insult any better."

"So how old were you before you became yourself?" she asked, genuinely curious.

Again, I had to think about it. Let's see...became an officer at nineteen...married at twenty two...general at twenty four...father at twenty five…

"Thirty, at least." I finally said.

She laughed and touched the hair on my head, "Oh, so those aren't highlights?"

I blinked, eyes widened. "What are you talking about?" I couldn't help but feel shivers run up and down my spine as her fingers played with my hair. It oddly felt good.

She gave a quite attractive, mischievous grin before saying cheekily, "You've been under a lot of stress for all these years, huh? It's showing handsomely in your hair."

Immediately my hands flew up to my hair and covered it, causing her to roll back and laugh, covering her mouth to quiet herself before Sadie could hear us outside when she was supposed to be sleeping. I glared at her, trying to hold back a smirk. Cheeky wench.

"At least you said handsomely. Besides, you have no idea what stress is like when you're immortal." I huffed, sitting up myself.

She finally calmed herself and nodded, "Yeah, I give you full credit for that. You're pretty strong."

I smiled and looked away, pulling out green blades of grass and throwing them somewhere else, away from me. She watched me for a while before giggling out, "Not good with compliments, huh?"

"Nope. Never have been, never will." I winked at her, and she gave one last beaming, white smile before getting up.

"Come on, I need sleep myself. You wanna spend the night again?" she asked, helping me up gracefully.

"I think I've earned that right after you pointed out my greying hair." I pouted, and it caused Alice to smile again.

"Call it peppering. I think it's very pretty with your hair, since it's already dark. It gives it shape."

"Oh, so now you're a hair stylist?" I laughed, causing her to roll her eyes at my playful jab.

Meanwhile, Sadie peered out the window as we walked towards the patio once more, the moonlight making the backyard bright enough to show that her beloved sister was in fact smiling and having fun. She smiled to herself and turned to Sanderson, who was happily sitting Indian style on her bed with children's playing cards spread out on her quilted bed.

"I'm glad Pitch is making Alice happy." she sighed, jumping back onto the bed and picking up her cards.

Sandy nodded as well, his smile showing just that. He put down an ace with fishes, and Sadie snapped her fingers disappointedly.

"Is this his first time talking with real people?" Sadie asked, drawing two cards from the thick deck.

Sandy touched his chin in thought, his mind reeling backwards in time to recall such events. Finally, he shook his head and held up two fingers.

"Second? What was the first time?" Sadie raised a brow, accidentally bending a card between the pads of her fingers.

Sandy conjured up an image of Jamie Bennett, and Sadie immediately recognized him. She beamed brightly, "The storyteller? He really met Pitch? That's so cool!"

Sandy silently laughed, his sparkling eyes crinkling with amusement. Through his chuckles he pointed at her cards to pick, and she quickly put down a five of jellyfish before slapping the deck, making Sandy crinkle his nose teasingly. Sadie giggled before moving her left card over to her right hand.

"Someday, can I meet North and the others?" Sadie asked, hushing herself when she heard the sliding door of the patio open, following the murmurs of her sister and Boogeyman friend.

Sandy raised a golden eyebrow, intrigued at the question. North hasn't ever had children over at his place, not even Jamie Bennett. The big man himself also knew how much Sadie meant to Sandy, for she was his Devout Bond. Maybe he would allow her to visit the place, just for a while.

Sandman smiled and gestured to her, his way of saying, Like right now?

Sadie gasped as her smile grew wide, "Yeah! Right now!"

Sandman nodded excitedly and jumped up, Alright! First we'll stop by the Island of Sleepy Sands, and then we'll take a ride in the Dream Ship to Santoff Claussen, okay?

Sadie quietly cheered as Sandy opened the window and morphed golden stairs to help them leave the room. After a quick shake of his finger, Sadie retrieved her white winter coat and light blue mittens. She was so filled with excitement, she ran up the stairs and onto the stingray that flapped slowly in the air, waiting for it's passengers to board. This wasn't the first time Sadie had a ride on one of these magical beasts, it might have been her fifth or sixth. She always loved late-night rides like this with the Sandman.

Rolling his eyes, he grabbed her light blue scarf and hat she forgot before following her to the stingray. Behind him, the window shut closed firmly, and the sand stairs fell to nothing once more, but a pile of glowing sand, barely visible to the naked eye.

#rotg fandom #rotg fanfiction #rotg fanfic #fanfiction #fanfics #rise of the guardians #rise of the guardian fanfics #pitch black #pitch black x oc

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ciathyzareposts · 6 years

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Missed Classic: A Mind Forever Voyaging – Jewel of the Quad-State Area

Written by Joe Pranevich

A Mind Forever Voyaging isn’t like any game that I have played before. It takes its time introducing you to the characters and the plot, encouraging you to explore rather than setting out a stream of puzzles for you to solve. It is content to follow its own rules. I absolutely love that Infocom is unafraid to experiment with their conventions; it makes their games a joy to experience for the first time. If you think back on how different Deadline and Suspended were from the puzzle-adventures that preceded them, you have an inkling for how I feel experiencing this game for the first time. It might even be a game that is best experienced in a second playthrough. As I wrap up another five or so hours of playing, I am just now seeing the shape of the game that Steve Meretzky has built and it is impressive. I’m just not sure yet how it will play out as an “adventure game” and whether I will run out of patience before I run out of game. Only time will tell.

As we left off last week, I had just entered the 2031 simulation for the very first time with a set of tasks to complete, nine events or places that I need to make recordings of, and return them to my boss/creator, Dr. Perelman. I had mapped out 30 locations, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. This is a big game, the first that has come close to the 150+ rooms of the original mainframe Zork. Welcome to Rockvil, the “Jewel of the Quad-State Area”!

Even without obstacles, this took several hours to map.

Talking about this game will be more difficult than most. At least so far, the setting rather than the puzzles or the characters is the most important aspect of the game. Most games can be discussed chronologically, even if we skip some of the details to help the narrative flow. This game has its plot beats, but much of how I am coming to feel about it is based on the softer experience of a world begging to be explored. A less capable designer would not have been able to pull this off. Meretzky took the way I felt slowly exploring the abandoned base in Planetfall and expanded on it. It’s not a lonely world, it’s one that is full of little moments and characters going about their days. And yet, I’m not sure that I can convey this experience as well as I could if it were a plot-based game.

I spent hours mapping out every location in the city. I count just shy of 150 distinct locations, but I may have missed some here or there. The map that was included with the game helped a great deal, but it was designed to be insufficient. For one thing, the map is of Rockvil in 2021, but the simulation takes place a decade later and some features have changed somewhat. It also fails to document the majority of the stores and alleyways in the game, the warren of pedestrian passages through skycar lots and parks, and all of the other twists and turns that are so critical for getting from place to place quickly. Was mapping all of this necessary? I honestly have no idea. The manual recommends mapping so I am treating this like a traditional adventure, but it remains to be seen how I will use it as the game progresses.

Let me walk you through the city as I came to explore it, starting in the center, heading southwest, and then working clockwise:

The game opens in Kennedy Park, a green space in a downtown business and administrative district. This is where we find “Main Street”, city hall, a hospital, a post office, a courthouse, and a public library. There are also restaurants as well as buildings that we cannot (yet) enter. The eastern side of the area includes Rockvil Mall and “Heiman Village”, an enclosed mixed-use residential/retail area. Although we have a mall, we can’t seem to buy anything there although there are “joybooths” that I can play around with later.

A college district, Halley University, is off to the west and includes low-cost restaurants for students and places to hang out. We can visit the dorms and a lecture hall, but there’s not too much to do. It is bordered to the north by Halley Park and a museum.

North of there and a bit clockwise, we reach a district with entertainment options including a zoo, a stadium (with three skycar parking lots!), and an aquarium. In the outskirts of town, we also find an overcrowded prison and a high school. Despite what my 1985-self may have thought, those two are not the same thing. The school has its own large athletic field nearby. Also hidden away in this area is a Methodist Church and a dental school.

In the far northeast of the map is a military base that I cannot enter and the international airport before it reaches the river which makes the eastern boundary of the simulation. The river incidentally is the Little Missouri River, a real river in the Dakotas. More on that in a bit. This northern part of the river is home to a cultural district including a symphony, several theaters, and a cinema overlooking a river park. This is also the location of “Bodanski Square”, the only place in the city where you can buy a newspaper. At the southern edge of this area is St. Michael’s church and a large cemetery.

The southeast and south sections of the city are “the other side of the tracks”, literally. A seedy pier area contains a bar and a pool hall, while further south is the power station, industrial areas, and warehouses. Houses here are row houses in the north, but quickly becoming run down tenements as you head further south. There is also a strangely-nice used bookstore tucked in here, the only bookstore in the city. The text even remarks on how strange it is to find such a great little bookstore in such a seedy area.

They don’t have Google Maps in 2021.

Although the environment is huge and very well-built, it’s also shallow. Nearly every place that you visit is in a single “room”: the post office, the stadium, etc. You need to use your imagination to see these are lived-in places, but the descriptions are evocative enough that you your mind’s eye can fill in the details. Infocom really did put their graphics where the sun didn’t shine! The game would have been even more unwieldy if every interior location had a half-dozen rooms and this feels like a necessary compromise. Only a handful of locations are given more than one room. Off the top of my head, I can only think of the mall and the hospital, both with two rooms.

Although we explore Rockvil in 2031, Meretzky keeps the sci-fi to a minimum. It’s not retro enough to be retro-futurism, instead just a light coat of future-paint on top of 1985. Cars are largely replaced by aircars, although our character doesn’t appear to own one and the streets are still designed for terrestrial vehicles, including a highway to the west. Cash transactions are gone, entirely replaced by credit cards. Even the city’s stock market is closed thanks to the advent of electronic trading. And yet, that’s pretty much it. My character (as we will see in a bit) doesn’t own a computer and still uses a standalone word-processor which must have seemed quaint even in the 80s. This makes the environment feel relatable even though it is 46 years later, although some of the choices are mildly distracting to someone in 2018. Overall, it comes together to good effect.

Alas, I doubt we will have flying cars by 2031, but at least we have the Internet.

My apartment is located in the southwest portion of the city, a short walk from the college district. I have to use my key to get in and I remember to set up my recording because that was one of my goals. Inside is Jill, an artist with a partly-completed painting in our (?) living room. She was Perry’s girlfriend in virtual 2021 in the manual; it looks like we’ve become much more in the last ten years. She asks whether I’ve heard back from my agent, but I say no. The apartment is small, but there’s a surprise inside: a baby in a crib tucked away in our bedroom. It really pulls on the heartstrings. As a father, I’m going to be very upset if this virtual baby in this virtual world gets hurt. I hope Mr. Meretzky doesn’t go there for a cheap emotional response.

This both confirms some things and confuses some others. The “future” 2031 is an extrapolation of my (Perry’s) life had he continued living in the simulation to 2031. He has a wife and a kid. Was Jill a real person? Is she a conscious AI like Perry is? Or just a construct? If it took 10 years to simulate Perry to his 20th birthday, and this is a continuation of that original simulation, how did they get to 2031 in such a short time? Does Perry have memories of the last ten years? Or is he just as surprised as I am to find that Jill is his wife? How does he feel knowing his girlfriend is not real? How does he feel knowing his baby is not real? There are a ton of implications in this exchange that I cannot even begin to fathom.

With the city mapped, I start gathering up the rest of my recordings. For the most part, they go quickly:

My first goal is to attend a court in session, but it just underscores that I’m not sure I’m doing the recordings properly. Once at the courthouse, there is a woman there being charged with petty theft. I cannot talk to her or the judge as they are (naturally enough) pretty busy. Do I need to stay for the whole trial? How much of it do I need to record? I wait around and it does not appear to be a scripted event, so I just make a recording for a few turns and leave. I hope that is sufficient.

I find a government official to talk to at City Hall. He seems happy about the way things are going.

I head up to Bodanski Square next and the city’s only newspaper stand. I buy the paper and record myself reading it. It seems that President Ryder (!!) has ushered in a decade of amazing prosperity and economic growth.

I watch “Upbeat Patrol II” in the cinema, or at least the first 15 minutes of it. Apparently it is too boring to sit through. I hope that is enough.

I do the “riding public transit” goal next and record a trip on the subway. In the process, I realize that I missed several of the subway stations. I end up riding both the Red and Brown lines to the end and marked several Tube stations on my map.

For the “eating a meal” goal, I pick a fancy restaurant off of Bodanski Square. I have to request a table and sit down before I order. Other than payment in advance (and like $65 for a soybean salad), the recording is easy to capture although the whole event took too long. I should have grabbed some fast food.

The Church Elder at St. Michael’s is thrilled how church attendance is climbing and the moral fiber of the country is improving.

Finally, I visit the power station. Strange that there are no workers or anyone to stop me from looking around, but I capture a recording of it anyway. Good thing I’m not a terrorist or something; they really should hire some guards.

Just as I finish, I get a message that the recording buffer is full. Whew! Made it just in time. I’m not sure what would have happened if I did not capture all of them in one go; I would hate to have to do them all over again.

I abort the simulation and return to the project site. I have to wait around a long while as there was nothing new in any of the locations I could access, but eventually Dr, Perelman informs me that they are reviewing my recordings. This time I try to sleep to make it go faster. Dr. Perelman wakes me up to tell me that I need to visit his office.

He has good news! Everything is great! My research shows that the Plan is going to work and Senator Ryder will be passing it into law soon. The President is still against it, but our efforts will have convinced him to sign it. We won!… right? Well, not quite yet at least. Now that we’ve run through it all, the Simulation Controller was able to make the environment even more accurate. All this sounds very fishy to me, as if the books are being cooked. Was the first simulation rigged in Senator Ryder’s favor? If so, by whom?

How many parts do you think there are?

Part II begins with a new splash screen and a quote from Edgar Allen Poe. I like that the game is doing something different with these splash screens, but it also feels a bit like Meretzky is trying a bit too hard for this game to be taken “seriously”. I check the clock and it is only twelve hours later and not a huge time-skip. As before, I have to wait around for anything to happen– I explore the whole base over again, but there’s nothing new– and eventually I am brought into Dr. Perelman’s office for a series of psychological tests. Dr. Grimwold wants to do a basic “ink blot” evaluation on me and all I need to do is respond with the first words that come to mind. Simple enough, but I hope I don’t have to remember my responses to all of these for a puzzle later.

OMG! ASCII art!

These tests are presented in ASCII art. The first one, in my opinion, looks like a flower. He accepts that as the answer and moves on to a different design. I know the real question on your minds is whether this will be enough to qualify for the much-desired “pity point” in the Sound & Graphics category, but I’ll decide later once I see how else they use this new feature of “Interactive Fiction Plus”. The next several pass quickly: a butterfly, a vase, a tornado… do these answers even matter? At the end Dr. Grimwold leaves and I’m left alone with Dr. Perelman. He eventually forgets that I am around because he calls his family and I overhear him apologizing to son that he’s unable to get out of work on time. Once that is done, I try grilling him about Grimwold, but he doesn’t say anything that seems important. Are we going to get new tasks soon?

Answer: No! I wait long enough and Perelman tells us that the Plan has been approved… but he has a funny feeling about it. Something doesn’t sit right. Unfortunately, he’s too busy to assign me any tasks right now and just hopes that I am keeping busy. That attitude sums up my experience with this game nicely

With nothing else to do, I re-enter the simulation and this time I am given a choice: I can select to “visit” either 10 or 20 years into the future. I return to the 10-year / 2031 simulation first to see how it might be “more accurate” than before, but I do not find any differences. After a bit, I abort and switch to 2041 instead.

Time passes.

2041 is surprisingly mostly the same as 2031, but with a handful of adjustments. The courthouse, for example, has a man facing the death penalty for attempted rape rather than petty theft. Is crime up or sentencing harsher? I’m not sure. There are no longer joybooths in the mall, although I forgot to check out what those did when I was in 2031. The Church Elder is worried about the Church of God’s Word and the erosion of religious tolerance in the city. Speaking of which, the disused train station near Bodanski Square is now the Church of God’s Word World Headquarters which may explain why they have such a presence in the city. When I visit the university, I wander into a police drug raid on campus. At the airport, there are more guards there, plus signs that read “Our security procedures exist to protect YOUR country and YOUR way of life.” I’m impressed that Meretzky managed to predict the TSA so accurately!

I couldn’t keep myself from checking up on Jill and the baby. I arrive to find that our “baby” is now 11 years old and playing on an electric toy. Our apartment doesn’t have enough bedrooms and he sleeps in a curtained-off area in the living room. Just like last time, Jill is painting and she asks about whether I heard from my agent recently. Moments later, the door is burst down and the Border Security Force raids the apartment. They overturn everything, leaving the house in shambles, but they find no illegal aliens. They apologize and leave, but Jill is shaken. I comfort her as best I can and clean the room a bit. This gets her back to normal, but it’s hard. Protections against illegal searches appear to have been weakened in favor of a zero-tolerance policy against undocumented immigrants.

What am I supposed to be doing exactly? Should I gather all the same data again? Wait for additional instructions? With absolutely no idea what to do, I follow the same list and make the same recordings as before. While some things like the restaurant and power station are more or less the same, there are some differences. The newspaper has an article about how there is lower than expected food production due to environmental problems, plus it seems slimmer than usual with less actual news. President Ryder still has a 71% approval rating, although no mention is made that he’s been in power now for more than a decade. I learned last time that “The Plan” included extending Presidential terms to eight years and I expect that must be how he’s held onto power. I still have some recording time left when I am done, so I also capture the new Church of God’s Word headquarters and informational pamphlet, plus the drug bust at the university. I abort the simulation to see what happens.

I emerge from the simulation and it’s evening; Dr. Perelman has gone home for the night. I “sleep” and dream of Jill. I suppose that having an 11-year old son you never met before is emotional even for an AI. Or am I supposed to think he now has memories of his kid growing up? I’m very uncertain on that point. It almost seems mean-spirited that he’s in love with, and had a pretend kid with, someone that doesn’t really exist. In the morning, I receive a notification that there is now an IRS auditing system installed in the PRISM system, although I have absolutely no idea why. Maybe now that I’ve helped them approve the plan, I’m going to be an AI with a second career as a tax auditor?

Once Perelman arrives for the day, I tell him about the recordings and he agrees to look at them. A few hours later, he grabs me and tells me that he and the others are concerned. They want me to collect more data from the simulation and report back. It sounds like I discovered the plot! Even better: the simulation is now open to 2061. I wonder how much worse it will be then…

Time played: 5 hr 50 min Total time: 8 hr 00 min Inventory: <nothing>

The course of the Little Missouri River.

Where is Rockvil?

As you are no doubt already aware, Rockvil, South Dakota isn’t a real city. In our reality, there are no large cities in northwest South Dakota although Mr. Meretzky did give us a few clues to help us pinpoint where the city would be. The most critical of these is the river that borders the simulation to the east, the Little Missouri River. This is a real river, although small enough that it isn’t even labeled on Google Maps for its entire course. That river runs from south to north from its head in Wyoming, through Montana and South Dakota, before joining the “real” Missouri river in North Dakota. Despite being the longest river in North America, the Missouri never receives as much acclaim as its cousin the Mississippi. I mostly know of it from the folk song “Oh Shenandoah”. Give it a listen!

Little Missouri River near Camp Crook, SD. (Image from Google Maps)

At the approximate location in South Dakota where the game takes place, the Little Missouri is not a huge river. It is neither wide nor deep enough to accomodate the shipping traffic that would have supported the growth of a mighty inland city. At this point in the water’s course it is a bit of a muddy creek. It’s not even wide enough to support the pier, let alone the seedy pub-and-billiards neighborhood on the bank.

This looks vaguely familiar…

That said, I have a theory. While the game was likely not patterned off a specific city, it has some superficial resemblance to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Instead of the “Little Missouri River”, Sioux Falls has the “Big Sioux River”. Looking at a map of the city, we find it has an airport in the north, is bordered by an Interstate in the west (I-29 instead of the fictional I-27) and a river-front park in the east. The zoo is also in approximately the right location. There is an equal amount that doesn’t fit (at least using a 2018 map), but I’d be willing to wager that Sioux Falls was on Meretzky’s mind when he was building the layout for Rockvil. Do you think I am on the right trail? Do you have your own theories on the origins of Rockvil?

Next week, I’m off to 2061. I’m not sure how many time periods we are going to explore, but I look forward to finding out.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-a-mind-forever-voyaging-jewel-of-the-quad-state-area/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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