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vanchlo · 4 years

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The Assistant / Chapter Forty-Three, “The One Where It Happens”

*Gifs not mine*

Clickable Links:

- *NEW* Becky Magazine Cover from an O.C. Tag Challenge

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Word Count: 12.3k words

Warnings: Sensitive topics

Music Inspo: Lay Down Beside You by Carl Storm (click to listen, this song is too perfect for this chapter)

SNEAKYYYYY PEEK

I worry. I fear. I cry. I doubt. I struggle for breath. I grieve. I sob. I ache. Because I love. No, not loved. I love.

Love is what makes me want to go back to her, and cover her broken body with kisses. Love is what scares the living shit out of me, preventing me from doing that in this very second, because I’m afraid that I’ll break her all the more. Love is what sends the words tumbling off of my aching lips.

“‘m alright if yer alright, Becks . . . B-But ‘m not alright.”

Life has many ways of testing a person’s will - either by having nothing happen at all, or by having everything happen at once.

- Paulo Coelho

Today had seemed like a dream, and I was unsure of when I’d get used to that, or when I’d get used to all of this. If I never did, I’d be okay with that, because she just keeps amazing me with every step I take. I never want this dream to end, if it is one after all.

Speak of an angel, and there she is, I think. The thought races to the front of my mind, pushing all of the others aside. She’s always managed to be very good at doing that, I recall.

“I’m gonna get going then,” she announces, clasping her milky

white hands together in front of her after walking back into my office.

A sad smile finds its way to my lips as I admire her, wishing I could spend the rest of my days memorizing every detail of her. The little tan birthmark beneath her eye that she doesn’t cover up anymore, much to my happy findings. The sparkle in her eyes, the left one scattered with more indigo flecks. The always waves in her dark chocolate hair. Her braided silver ring that I’ve never seen her without, always playing with it mindlessly.

“Harry?” she hums. I blink, focusing my eyes back on her.

Becks. My lovely Becks. Maybe even . . my girlfriend? Impossible although it had seemed, my lips reach higher elevations on my cheeks at the thought. I don’t let it run away from me, although I’m itching to let the question leave my lips.

There’s always tomorrow for that, I decide silently as I adore the invisible inquisition toying with her eyebrows.

“Alright?” Becks asks, taking another step forward until she arrives at my desk.

“Ya, ‘m great,” I confess softly, pushing at the lip of my desk to get to my feet.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she ponders nervously, a fire sparking in her cheeks as I near her figure dressed in a sleek black pantsuit. A cream chiffon blouse falls under the hollow of her neck modestly, adorned by the opal necklace I haven’t seen her take off since our first date. Yet another confirmation that that night was real, and so is all of this. My bloody God, I wonder when I’ll ever be able to believe it.

“I dunno,” I giggle, my hands finding their way into the conversation with a shrug of their own. “Jus’ so happy lookin’ at you . . You make me happy, Becks . . Very.”

The dimple finds its place in her left cheek again, and I know then that I’m fucked all the more. A similar sound flows from her lips, and I wish it didn’t have to come to an end as my palm slips into hers.

“You make me happy too, Harry, so happy,” she titters, peeking up at me with those goddamn blue eyes. The very blues that could send me whizzing off into another oblivion, and I’d feel honored for it. I’m given just enough time to catch the glint in her eye, wetness sitting there in the corner before she looks away again. “Today made me so happy.”

“Me too, bug. I can hardly believe I get t’ do this e’ry day . . with you,” I snicker happily, tugging on her hand until my arms are surrounding her shoulders.

“Neither can I,” she concurs, the words tickling the skin peeking out from my hardly buttoned shirt. A second of wetness tickles the skin there when my hand comes to cup the back of her head, pressing a kiss below my thumb a moment later.

“Call me when ya get home, will you? We should FaceTime and watch anotha episode, if yer not gettin’ too sick o’ me yet.”

“Never,” she sighs, nudging my chin towards the sky when she lifts her head. It falls now, to find her moist blue eyes searching for me. It plummets further until my lips catch the hint of a tear at the corner of her eye, kissing it away. “I could never get sick of you.”

“‘s gonna be quite a long time befo’ I get sick o’ you, bug,” I murmur against her cheek, the traces of orange blossoms marking her skin. I can almost taste it on my lips when I leave a kiss there.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says, yanking my eyes to her grinning lips that I envelop with my own. A ‘good’ brushes against her pair between moments of adoring her top lip between mine. The tip of her nose leaves lazy circles drawn on my skin while I sketch my own onto her creamy skin. The moment couldn’t last long enough. I wish I could freeze it in time and enjoy it for longer before my lungs begin to burn for air.

“Drive safe,” I whisper against her mouth, saying goodbyes into her hair with the motions of my thumb.

“I will, don’t worry. I’ll call you when I get home, it shouldn’t take me even fifteen minutes to get there.”

“‘Kay, ‘ll talk t’ you soon then,” I smile, touching my lips to her button nose. “Boops.”

“Now, don’t stay here too long, boss. You’re going to turn into a workaholic or something, Harry,” Becks taunts with her flushed lips drawing me in.

“‘ll try not t’, that’s all I can promise.”

A laugh joins her answering nod before she surprises me with one last kiss, making me want to take back all of the words I just said, and spend a few more moments kissing her. Minutes, maybe.

“Night, Harry.”

“G’night, Becks. ‘ll talk t’ ya later . . my love,” I divulge, enjoying the pink that rises in her cheeks at the mention of the simple words. Simple, yet oh so true.

“Bye, my Harry,” she echoes, squeezing my hand one last time on her way out the door. Her azul blue eyes meet mine over her shoulder when she pulls my door closed, decadent lips curled into a smile just for me. Lips that I already want to have touching my own again, dark chocolate waves I want to be losing my hands in, and that laugh I want to be pulling from her lips.

It’s never long enough with her, but I get to do today all over again with her tomorrow. The day after that, and after that. Stolen kisses in the copier room, her head on my shoulder while watching FRIENDS at my desk, those pretty fingers dancing along my tense shoulders, and a closeness between us that I’ve longed to have for so long. Too long.

A closeness with her that I never want to lose.

The very last unanswered email is whisked away with a whoosh. Finally, I have that done. With it, it drags my eyes to my wrist that vibrates with an alert. A premature smile graces my lips until it falls at the sight of a different name, not the one I was expecting.

“What’s takin’ her so long?” I mutter as my eyes flit over Myles’ text, some joke about firing me if I keep staying past five o’clock.

“Bastard,” I sigh with a shake of my head, pressing my palm to the screen as the time repeats in my head.

5:26 passes.

Then, 5:36 passes too as I wait for her to reply to my texts, or to call.

Reckon she should’ve been home by now, having left at 5, I wonder silently, aware of the thrumming of my heart. I’m sure she’s just making something to eat.

Yeah, Harry, that’s it.

Why am I worrying so much? 5 o’clock traffic is a bitch, anyways. It’s what made me late to our date the other night, so I should know.

“She’ll call soon,” I mumble aloud, crafting a quick text to her, adding to the others I’ve already sent her tonight.

i think today may have been my favourite w/ u so far ;) xo

hurry up slowpoke

rebecca ann ur slow. im kiddin. drive safe bug xo

Sighing, I turn back to my iMac where I already have the next episode of FRIENDS queued up, waiting for her.

A new bloop! sounds when an email arrives in my inbox. Clicking on it, I begin to absorb the words until my office phone interrupts with a loud bringggggg!

“This ‘s Harry,” I say automatically, and am answered with an eerie silence. A darkness trickles into my chest at the little sounds accompanying it. The pangs of worry return, demanding to be felt amongst the mix of it all. “Hullo?”

“H-Harry, this is Skye,” a shaky voice replies at last.

“Hi, what’re you doin’ callin’ me main line?” I joke, hoping to add a lightness to the atmosphere that so direly requires one. The fear threatening at my edges gains strength when I make out the likeness of it in her voice. “If yer lookin’ fer Becks she left half an hour ago, reckon she’s home by now.”

“No, s-she’s not,” she says. I hear it, and I immediately wish that I hadn’t. Denying it with a shake of my head, it doesn’t disappear that easily, the crack in her voice. “She . . d-didn’t make it home, Harry.”

“What’re ya talkin’ ‘bout, Skye? I jus’ saw her half an hour ago,” I contend, rushing through my words as my back straightens to full attention.

“I know . . I just talked to her on the phone f-fifteen minutes ago, but Harry . . ,” Skye continues, words wandering away from her. They’re kidnapped by the tears that I finally acknowledge in her voice, and now echoing on the line. “S-She was in . . an accident.”

“What . . What kinda accident? ‘s she alright? W-Who told you this? That can’t be right, I jus’ saw her,” I argue, losing my footing quite immediately.

Rising to my feet, the words are too close for comfort and my knees threaten to give out on me. A hand races to my hair, carding heavy strokes through it that tug hairs loose, but I disregard the pain. Another form of it demands to be felt inside of me, next to my heart that climbs in speed with every moment absent of words. An absence of Becks being okay.

“I don’t want it to be real either, Harry, b-but an officer just rang me. H-He said a car ran a light and h-hit her . . not long after I got off the phone with her. It was right behind the driver’s side and . . it doesn’t look very good,” she reveals, sobs growing thicker in her voice. My feet run rampant circles around my office as my fingers tug violently at my hair.

“This ‘sn’t funny, Skye, if yer pullin’ me leg,” I begin with a forced amusement, but it doesn’t make it very far. I don’t make it that far until I fall onto the sofa, my words crashing into loud sobs that steal my breath away. “I jus’ got her back . . I can’t lose her ‘gain,” the confession comes, drenched in tears that shake my body.

“I know,” she agrees with echoing devastation as tears paint the inside of my palm clung to my face. “She’s been my best friend for t-twenty-one years, Harry. I-I can’t imagine my life without her, and I know she’d never want to imagine a life without you.”

My head shakes rapidly from side to side as the tepid wetness paints stripes down my cheeks, escaping from my eyes that I press shut painfully. Whimpers flee from my lips, the very ones that were just kissing hers thirty minutes prior.

This can’t be happening. No, I can’t lose my Becks when she just found her way back to me.

“No, no . . no, no,” I sob, each utterance becoming more indiscernible with the emotions consuming them. “Not my Becks,” I mutter, air escaping my lungs with such force that leaves me dizzy in the head.

“She’ll be okay, she’s strong, Harry. She’s made it through so much other shit. N-Not this sort, but . . . she broke her leg riding bike one time when we were eight, and she was fine. S-She cut her finger cooking once and drove herself to hospital all herself,” Skye reveals, the trembling words doing nothing to calm my heart that I’m afraid may bound from my chest at a moment’s notice.

“Strongest person I know,” I concur, a hiccup rattling my voice that fights for composure. “W-What’d they tell you . . ‘bout Becks?”

“They’re taking her to uh, King’s Cross hospital. Reckon there’ll be a waiting room I can meet you at while s-she’s in . . surgery,” Skye explains, and my head rushes up and down with nods now. I shakily get to my feet and take a step towards my door, but once again, I don’t make it far. A wooziness falls over me, and I grab the arm of the sofa just in time to recover. “They said they stabilized her and she was breathing and everything, b-but surgery was in order. Car was totaled, though. That’s not good . . No, that’s not good,” she cries, words falling harder and harder the more she goes on. With every one that she speaks, my sobs thicken and louden against the confines of my palm.

“Don’t say that . . D-Don’t, she’s gonna be okay. She has t’ be,” I defend, wishing more with every second that I believed my own words. If the words themselves could wish it into existence, I’d speak them over and over until it came true.

“I’m sorry,” she confesses breathlessly. “I’ll uh, meet you there. C-Call me when you get there. It’s the . . hospital on the west side of town, not too far from you, I reckon. She’s probably . . already there,” Skye finishes before the dial tone drills into my ears, and I’m left listening to my unsteady breaths.

The phone plummets from my hand to meet the floor with a crrrrrunching sound, but I don’t even care. There’s so little I care about in this moment, because my thoughts are consumed by her. They’re racing, demanding, and making me sick. My chest trembles with another intense sob as my palms press against my eyes. Strands of my hair are taut around my fingertips, my scalp searing with pain.

She’s become all I’ve cared about in these last few weeks, and it’s been magnified within moments now.

“No,” I cry, salt water dripping over my lips and plummeting from my chin. “Becks, no.”

Sniffling, it’s suddenly impossible to ignore the rock sitting in my gut. Jumping to my feet, my hands fall as I cross the room and fall to my knees harshly. The cold, granite tiles dig into my boney limbs as I retch into the bin. Grouting in the tiles leaves marks on my skin when I wipe the back of my hand across my mouth moments later.

Sweat beads on my forehead as the room spins around me. Tears press harshly at the back of my eyes when I envision her standing in front of me, kissing me goodbye just moments ago, it seemed. Shakes overwhelm my body within seconds, and my knees kiss the tiles once more. The coolness is welcomed by my flushed forehead as I curl into myself, her smiling face captivating every thought I have while my body convulses with a new sob. It takes the last ounces of strength I can find to pull myself up to a kneeling position, then to plant one foot against the floor, and another until I’m standing.

“‘m comin’, Becks,” I mumble, voice breaking from the first word. Wiping under my eyes, I rip open the door. Feet pounding down the hallway, I sniffle as another warm stripe cascades down my cheeks. A second and third accompany it when I pass her office, and I yank my eyes away, knowing that I can’t look. I’ll collapse to the floor again if I see her name sitting there on the door, waiting for her to return tomorrow morning.

Patting my pockets hastily, I yank my ring of keys from the fabric only to drop them. Cursing, I bend down to pick them up before rounding the corner. I’m almost knocked off my feet by Myles who skids to a halt. Unbeknownst to me, I didn’t think I could be hurting more until I found the look that dawns on his face.

“Hare, what’s wrong?” he demands, grabbing my bicep.

A sob revokes my words and a hand flies to my mouth. Eyebrows falling, tears interrupt my voice as the explanation plays on a loop between my ears.

“Becks, s-she . . ,” I try to say, but a shake of my head places a gap in between my words. “Was inn’a accident. I have t’ go t’ her . . tha hospital. I wanna be there when she wakes up, and-,” now, I cut myself off abruptly. Tears blur my vision, and soon I’m seeing stripes. A feeling surrounds me, and I find that it’s his arms crushing me in a hug. His name drops from my lips in a choked sob.

“You’re not driving anywhere like this. I’ll take ya, Hare,” he murmurs into my ear, out of place back rubbing following his words. “I’m so bloody sorry, mate. Fuck, I just saw her when she left.”

“So did I. H-How can it be real? I just . . . I jus’ got her back, My’. She jus’ came back t’ me and we jus’ started datin’ finally . . I can’t fookin’ lose her all over ‘gain, not fer real this time . . I don’t think I could live inn’a world that she’s not in, Myles,” I confess into his shoulder, clutching onto him. My chest expands and falls against his, convulsing with every worst case scenario that sends tears flying from my eyes.

“It’ll be okay.”

“Don’t fookin’ say that, ‘coz what if it ‘s not? What if she’s not okay? What if she . . d-dies, My’? I can’t-,” the words run away from me, and for once, I’m thankful for it. They’re drenched by too much reality, more than I can stomach.

I don’t remember following him down to the parking garage, or getting into the car. The next thing I know, my head is tipped against the frosty glass window in his BMW, the lights of London cloudy from behind my eyes.

“I jus’ bloody saw her, and I kissed her and hugged her,” I whisper, watching the words fog up the glass, if only for mere seconds. A warm tear dives from my chin, crashing onto the v of my chest.

‘I knows’ answer me back, as well as squeezes to my arms when I least expect them. It all runs into a blur - the traffic, snow fluttering against the windows, and the pounds of tears I shed into the air. Most of all, the thoughts running rampant within me hardly make much sense by the time we’ve parked. The one thing that’s clear as day is how my heart swells with bittersweetness when her face swims inside of my skull, and the love that pours out from it for her.

I already know that I love her, and it only makes me hurt a million times worse.

“She’ll likely be in surgery for a good while, it’s a rather long affair, Hare,” Myles announces as the automatic sliding doors open for us, greeting us with a burst of hot air.

“I know . . Skye said she’s in tha waitin’ room erm, on tha second floor,” I respond, reading from my phone. My eyes fill with more tears as I swipe a finger under the both of them, sniffling.

“Here, I see a lift.”

Relief ironically escapes me when we finally find Skye bouncing her legs up and down in a chair, arms wrapped around herself as she stares at the floor. It takes her a moment to look up after saying her name, but with her disarray of colorful hair, I reckon she’s the best person I can relate to on this entire floor.

“Hey,” I whisper when I embrace her, surprising myself at the same time. A shy ‘hi’ fills my ears as her thin frame greets mine. Her shaking arms squeeze me around the middle, and I linger there for a few seconds than necessary before pulling away. “Has anybody came t’ talk t’ you?”

“No, not yet. I just checked in with somebody when I came in, and they said to come up here. S-So, I did, and the nurse’s desk told me somebody would come when they have news. Whenever that is,” she sighs, flicking a thumb below her eye to catch a tear that strays from her waterline.

“D-Did ya call Robbie and her dad?”

“Yeah, just now. Robbie should be here soon, and Chuck was just about to leave . . I figure he won’t get here until she’s out of surgery, even though we don’t know how bloody long that’ll take. But, he’ll be here i-in a few hours,” she answers, her voice catching on the last of her words.

“I’m gonna go and find us something to drink,” Myles interrupts, nodding his head down the hallway. I mirror his actions, grateful for the offer as I clear my scratchy throat. It dried up the second those very words rocked me to the core.

Silence ensues as I fall onto the lumpy sofa beside her, a telly across the room murmuring softly in the background. Magazines lie open in front of us on the wooden table, chairs and more chairs surrounding us.

“I wish somebody would just tell us something,” she groans beside me, wringing her hands in her lap. A sob stills in her throat and I watch her face collapse along with it.

“I can go and ask, ‘m antsy too. Only been here a minute and already I am,” I suggest with a tough swallow. The lump in my throat greets me again as she shakes her head ‘no.’

Folding my hands together, they come to sit against my mouth as I now bounce my knee. Eyes flitting in every direction, I will a nurse or doctor littering the halls to wander over to us with their bloody clipboard and lab coat.

“Find anythin’ else out tho’?” I pipe up, dropping a hand and letting it squeeze hers. I’ve only met this woman a handful of times, and yet, I know that she’s the closest thing I’ve got to a friend here. She’s the only other person who could understand how I’m feeling right now, because she’s the only other person in this damn hospital who loves Becky too. At the same time, my actions are unprecedented and alien to me, this entire situation is.

Tears arrive in my eyes as I wait for her voice to make a choppy return, “Just when I got here and checked in, s-so to speak, that she was in surgery. They didn’t say what for really, I suppose only the team working on- with her knows,” she explains, and now, I’m the one nodding. A long breath spills from my lips, and it does next to nothing to calm the thrashing of my heart, and the onslaught of my mind.

The reality of the situation brings my head into my palms again where I spill silent tears, accentuated by the whimpers of my lips. My entire body shakes with every sob, every sob that yearns for my arms to return to her. My eyes to see hers again, those baby blues that now, I can’t stop imagining my babies having one day. That painful thought makes them come harder now while I struggle for air, lungs burning for other reasons now, like nonexistent children that I very well may never have with her now.

Fuck.

I wish more than anything that I could be back in my office an hour ago, annoying her with kisses as she finished up an email. What I’d do to have my lungs burning in need of the air filling hers, and not for the air around me that may not even hold her life anymore.

No, I can’t think like that. If I entertain that thought for a millisecond, there’s no going back.

“You know, you’re her whole world and always have been. She couldn’t shut up about you lately, a-and all of your dates. When I spoke to her on the phone r-right before . . . she was saying how amazing of a day she had had . . with you. She couldn’t wait to do it all over again, she’s so mad about you, Harry. S-She even wrote you this letter once saying how she-,” Skye divulges, the words filling my ears. Instantaneously, they want nothing more than to spit them back out.

“Don’t! Don’t say all o’ that. D-Don’t say it in past tense, or like she’s not . . g-gonna be able t’ tell me all ‘bout it. We can’t act that way . . She’s gonna be okay, she’s gotta be okay,” I insist into my hands, struggling for breaths. Lifting my head, I turn it away from her and towards the window, my lips squashed into a line. Briny tears drip over them as I squeeze my eyes shut tightly, hiccups finding their way into the air.

“I’m sorry, I-.”

“I c-can’t talk ‘bout her like she’s- like that. I can’t t-think ‘bout her like that . . her not bein’ here anymo’,” I exclaim, shooting to my feet in order to change directions.

I thought I couldn’t believe my life earlier today and the direction it’d taken, and now, I can’t believe it one bit. I don’t want to, and I wish I didn’t have to. I thought that I was living a dream today, and now, I know that I’m living a nightmare. I didn’t want to wake up earlier, but I need to now, more than anything.

I want to open my eyes and find her curled against my chest, snoring peacefully with her body warming mine. Like last night, a moment I could live in for forever.

A vibrating in my pocket barges into my thoughts, and I’m unsure whether to welcome it as I reach for it. The same ringtone by The Cure sings from around my wrist, and my heart only falls deeper when I see the name claiming it. It sends a wave of relief throughout my body, but it only lasts a few seconds. The only name that could make it permanent is far from an option, and here I am, still wishing for it with my own two eyes. I wish that she wasn’t in an operating room somewhere in this same building, and instead her voice was singing from my phone. That’s how it was supposed to be, anyways.

“Mum,” I answer softly, steps halting in the hallway. A sob freezes in my chest at the thought of having to speak truth into the nightmare I’m living.

“Harry honey, what’s tha matta?” my mum responds, worry rocking her voice.

“‘s Becks. She-,” I confess, but I can’t say it. I want nothing more than to say something else. When she asks if she’s alright, I want to say yes, and it sends wobbles down my legs knowing that I can’t say that. I can’t say it, because I don’t know it.

“It’s okay, love, take a deep breath.”

“I can’t,” I weep, a wail escaping my lips, muffled by my palm. The tear stained skin flies to my hair that I tug at, ignoring the throb of my head hitting the wall of the hallway. “I can’t breathe, mum . . I can’t not knowin’ if she ‘s okay.”

“Oh, darlin’. What happened to her?”

“She w-was . . . inn’a car accident,” I admit breathlessly, sucking in lungfuls of air that don’t do a thing. A fire still lives deep down inside of my chest, and it was born the moment I heard Skye speak those words. “‘m at tha hospital now waitin’ t’ hear sumthin.’ Her best friend’s here with me, but, mum. ‘m so scared . . that ‘m gonna lose her fer real,” I whimper, swiping my tongue across my trembling lips wet with tears.

“Oh, Harry,” she sighs, my sadness mirrored in her voice. “I’m so sorry, love. Do they know the extent of her injuries?”

“I dunno, all they told her friend ‘s that she’s in surgery. We’re waitin’ fer sumbody t’ tell us mo’,” I answer, hiccups stealing my words away from me. “I hate sittin’ here not knowin’, I should go and ask . . but ‘m afraid t’. Mum . . ,” I trail off, weakness overwhelming my body that sags against the wall. I’m not even aware of the people walking past me and the hush of voices, but I couldn’t care less.

“Breathe, honey, please. Everythin’ will be okay. I know it doesn’t seem that way right now, but it will.”

“Ya can’t say that! Ya dunno if ‘s true,” I exclaim, anger seeping through in my voice, but it’s misdirected. “I jus’ want this all t’ be a dream, I don’t want it t’ be real. I can’t think ‘bout it . . ‘bout her . . dyin’.”

“Shhhh, love. I’m sorry.”

“No, I am. But, God, mum . . I love her. I already know I do. I know it sounds bloody mad seein’ we’ve only been on two dates, but-,” I begin, but she interrupts me, reminding me of where I get my love of it from.

“No, it doesn’t sound like that, honey. I know how you’ve felt ‘bout her these last few years, she’s been all you could talk ‘bout,” my mother says, and the only relief that I’ve seen is offered in her voice.

“I love her, mum, and she m-might-,” I try to say, but I can’t spit those words out. I don’t think I ever could, and my desire to avoid them for the rest of eternity trumps all else.

“Do you think she feels tha same way ‘bout you?” she asks calmly. A huff passes my lips, and I breathe in through my nose slowly. It doesn’t make a difference when a melancholy wave knocks me over.

“Y-Ya . . I think I know she does now,” I whimper, my voice drowning in the tears.

“And does she know how you feel ‘bout her, Harry?”

“Ya, reckon she does. I haven’t been able t’ stop lovin’ on her since our first date. And n-now . . I may neva get t’ kiss her ‘gain or hug her or . . ,” the sob leaves more trails of tepid tears on my cheeks. My thumbs press against my eyes, willing the tears to abate, but they don’t obey. Not one part of my body has obeyed my commands since I heard those nightmarish words.

“Then it sounds like she has somethin’ to fight fer, love. It’s not tha ‘end all be all,’ but tha will to live is a powerful thing, son,” she tells me, the first licks of ice calming my feverish heart.

“I hope yer right.”

“I’m your mum, I’m always right,” she quips, and the first hint of a laugh graces my lips. It’s gone as fast as it came, stolen away by another round of whimpers shaking from my lips.

“Everythin’ will be okay, son.”

“And if they aren’t, and . . . she d-doesn’t make it, mum?” I sob, the words finding their exit between sobs that rip from my chest. Pain soars through the tear at the uttering of the words that I have to acknowledge, and wish that I never had to think.

“Then mumma will be there att’a moment’s notice fer ya,” she replies, and I wish I didn’t hear the crack in her voice. It’s the very one that tore open the slit that the tears poured out through. This all started with the crack of a voice. “Lemme know if you want me to come, Harry.”

“B-But I jus’ got her back, mum. I can’t . . She can’t . . ,” I fail once again, and this time, I’m okay with it. I don’t want to ever have to say that word again, I’ve already uttered them one too many times.

“You’ll never lose that love ya had, Harry. Trust me, I know ya can’t. I miss Robin every bloody day, but his passin’ didn’t take away our love or tha memories we made . . I know that your love with her only jus’ started, but ya had somethin’ special. I can already see that, darlin’, and you’ll never lose tha memories you made with her, and tha love that ya made together . . Think of those happy times ya had with her while you’re waitin’ for her to be outta surgery. After that, ya should get some rest, love. Sometimes surgeries can take long, and that’s okay, ‘cause you want tha doctors to be thorough and to do all that they can fer her. And they will do all that they can to save her, Harry . . It’s almost six o’clock, love, and even after her surgery is done, it takes a while to come outta anesthesia. It’ll be a long night. Try to get some rest, son, I’m sure she’d want you to,” she explains to me, and suddenly, I wish I could get a hug from my mum.

The thought propels me into others, wishing I could hide in the arms of another. She’s always been my very favorite hiding place, and another wave rocks through me at the thought of never getting to escape to her arms again. Her smell sends my heart spinning as I drop my phone back into my pocket, aching to have her hair tickle my nose with the scent. Placing my palms against my eyes slick from crying, I hiccup in between tears. Uneven breaths pour in and out of me, and for a second, I can remember the traces of her weight in my arms. The smell of her orange blossom shampoo, the taste of her cherry carmex chapstick, and the strokes of black and gray ink along her wrist.

“Becks, please be okay,” I mutter underneath my breath. My scalp sings with pain when my fingernails dig into the skin, making me realize this is all real. It’s not a dream that I can wake myself up from, because my life became a dream and then fell away into a nightmare.

“Harry!” somebody calls my name. I don’t know how much time has passed, standing there in the corner of the hallway pouring my eyes out into my hands.

It takes a few moments for my eyes to focus ahead of me, and for a fleeting second, her face appears in front of them. Blinking hard, I rub a knuckle against my eye, and she’s gone in a flash. Instead, I find Skye waving me back over to the chairs where a tall man in navy blue scrubs stands in front of her.

“Coming,” I answer, clearing my throat as my feet remember how to work. The tingles that had settled into my sleeping limbs disperse as I take long, hurried steps until I’m at her side again, trying to forget the words she had said earlier.

“Is this everybody?” the man says, tanned arms crossed over his chest.

“No, wait!” another voice pipes up, and I spin around to find Robbie rushing towards us. “I-I’m her brother,” he continues, voice shaky with emotions. His eyes briefly meet mine before he stops at my side, engulfed by a hug of Skye’s.

“Hey,” I mumble when he pulls away with a nod, his fist brushing along one of his cheeks. The greeting is difficult as my eyes are met with pain and striking similarity. Her very same baby blue eyes sit before me, as well as the wavy dark hair, and a distorted version of her lovely facial features.

“Hey, Harry,” he returns, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat after his words.

When his wet eyes meet mine, more unspoken words pass between us including ‘thank you’s and silent understandings. My squeezing grip is met by his taut arm when I watch the shiny tears fill his eyes. He nods back at me, quivering lips absent of words while another tear breaks free from his Holte Blue Eyes. Those goddamned eyes tear another rip into my heart at the mere sight, drudging up the wishes they conjured within my mind just last night.

Styles babies with Holte Blue eyes.

Please, God. Please let that still be a truth.

“Now that we’re all here, I’m Jack. I’m sorry for the circumstances we’re meeting on, but I’m a nurse on your uh, family member’s team. Rebecca was in a serious accident, and we’re doing all that we can. She went into surgery around ten minutes ago, as soon as she got here,” the towering man explains, achieving the closest thing to quieting my mind. I’m just afraid that when he stops talking, my skull will be vibrating with more thoughts, and far worse ones. “She suffered some fractured ribs that unfortunately pierced her spleen, causing internal bleeding. That is the most urgent of her injuries, but rib fractures are incredibly painful. They can make it hard to breathe deeply or to cough properly, sometimes leading to chest infections. In the accident, she also fractured her ankle, but we’re not entirely sure of the extent of it. Due to the impact of the other car hitting her and the location of it, her right arm was broken and . . Grade 2 concussion . . amnesia,” a cloud passes over my ears then, and I turn away, soon falling into a nearby chair.

Worst case scenarios bloom within the attic of my body, spewing tears onto my cheeks. Waterfalls cascade down them, fueled by the replaying of the man’s words between my ears. Fractured ribs. Internal bleeding. Chest infections. Amnesia. Broken ankle. Concussion. Broken arm. The tears come harder at the realization of every word, and how they laden my heart with further darkness. It falls into the recesses of my chest with each passing moment, the obscenities that left his mouth acting as the anchor that yank it down, further and further.

I don’t hear my name the first few times, or register the hand on my shoulder. Swarms of possibilities that I can’t welcome lift me from my seat and down the hall once again until I repeat the past, and ram shoulders with Myles. My eyes fly to his surprised face, but it’s ephemeral before he’s pulling me against his front, and his hand is pressed against the back of my head.

“She’s gotta be okay,” I plead into his shoulder, finding fistfuls of his blazer in my hands. “B-But internal bleedin’ . . amnesia . . broken bones . . a concussion . . infections. My’, I can’t do this,” the revelation feels prickly on my tongue as I fight to flight.

“You can do this, Hare. You have to. Becky, she- she needs you to, mate,” he insists, hands waving stripes against my back. I shake my head back and forth into him, refusing to believe any of this.

“No, this can’t be real. It can’t. I jus’ saw her, I jus’ kissed her and hugged her,” I weep, repetitive begging pouring from my tongue. My hands let go and I push at his chest for escape. He only holds me tighter within his steely arms, and I make out the first of his tears. “I shoulda told her that I loved her, I dunno if she knew. I shoulda told her,” I relent, my body becoming pliant against his.

“She knew, Harry. I think she knew, mate . . You showed it to her in so many bloody ways, you didn’t have to say it. She knew it, she saw it. You’ll get to tell her, and hear her say it back,” he tells me, but my head hasn’t stopped shaking in denial. “Her friend over there is almost smiling, I think. The nurse is too, it looks like maybe it’s not so meek after all, Hare. It looks like she might be okay.”

“This ‘sn’t funny, Myles, I swear t’-,” I wail, breaths filling my lungs and refusing to remain. A ‘no’ fills my ears, and I’m forced to turn around when he pulls away at the sound of my name. Yet, he’s not the one saying it.

“Harry!” Skye calls, and her hurried steps follow her voice. Smearing the tears from my eyes, I gulp and find the bravery to look up. Becky’s best friend in the whole entire world stops in front of me, eyes rimmed with red. “They sound hopeful,” she reveals, the smallest spark of a smile sitting at the edge of her lips. Robbie stops a step behind her, shoving hands into his pockets while a tear falls from the slope of his chin.

“Really?” I croak, stepping away from Myles until his arms fall from me. She answers with a nod and a rosy smile blooms on her lips before my eyes.

“Yeah, they said her vitals are becoming more stable which is good. They’re amazed that her injuries weren’t worse, they said that she got lucky,” she explains, and it sounds like music to my ears. The first good thing I’ve heard tonight, albeit this whole affair only taking up the last hour of my life. It’s felt like days on end, not mere minutes. “I’m gonna go and call Chuck to tell him.”

My nod answers her words and Myles leaves with a pat to my back, “I’m gonna go and check on coffees again, maybe food later when you’re feeling like eating,” he announces. My hand finds its way to my curls once again, surely free of snarls now after the number I did on them.

“It’s good to see you here. Well, not good given the reason why, but you know what I mean.”

Looking up, I find Robbie’s bleary blues pointed at me. I do all that I can, and that’s a nod.

“You too,” I manage at the last moment, patting his arm awkwardly. His feet wander back over to a line of chairs, and I follow him. Falling into the one left of him, a hushed silence surrounds us.

“Did she ever tell you that she has ‘feelings’ about things?” Robbie mutters, a sniffle interrupting his question at times.

“Ya,” I sigh, my bottom lip numb from my teeth pressing into it from all directions. “Good and bad feelings.”

“Yeah . . I got one that I couldn’t shake tonight,” he reveals. His eyes flooded with glassy tears surprise me again, and I almost see her sitting in front of me. A memory from one of our times at the hospital threatens to break loose from the confines of my mind, but I hold it back. “So I rang her, she was just leaving work . . with you. She sounded so happy, and I couldn’t figure out why I’d gotten it. Now, I know . . ,” he finishes, an ironically melancholy laugh bringing his revelation to an end. “Twin intuition, I guess.”

“Ya,” I mutter again, unsure of what else to say. I can’t figure out what to think sitting here in my puddle of tears, let alone something something to fucking say.

“I hated hearing that bloke say those things, detailing all of the shit that happened to her,” Robbie notes aloud, and I find that I can’t tear my eyes away from my hands when I hear the unmistakable sound of tears letting loose. “But I mean . . it helped, and I think I have a feeling she’ll be alright.”

Conflicting tears run races down the slopes of my cheeks, drenching my eyelashes with liquid sadness. It does little to calm the hammering inside of my chest, but the mannerisms of hers I hear in his voice magnify it just slightly. The brash taste of iron spills across my tongue, and I release my bottom lip from its grasp, but it’s too late because the blood is flowing. My hands blur beneath my eyes, the shocks of baby pink and pastel purple burning in my eyes. The very fingers that she held between her own so delicately just last night, swiping the nail polish brush over their naked canvases. Every other is a different pastel wash of color, and I can still picture the bright yellow and teal that I had painted on hers.

The warm metallic taste concentrates on my taste buds when my lips press together harshly, few salty tears finding their way into my mouth with my new sob.

“Yer sista, she- I-,” I stop quickly, not even sure of what I’m saying. I could tell a thousand stories, but I can’t decide which one is right.

“I know, believe me,” Robbie insists, and at last, I glance over to him. Her dark chocolate locks fall over his forehead, longer than from the first and only time I met him at my firm years ago. The fringe tickles at his eyes, and he pushes it out of his face. “You have something else, you two. I’ve only been telling her to jump your bones for the last two or so years,” he divulges, and a laugh so out of the ordinary adorns my lips. It sputters to a stop, feeling wildly inappropriate, but it comes back to life when a similar one echos from beside me.

His eyes meet mine briefly, and hold me there looking into her blue eyes as we chuckle together. It doesn’t necessarily feel right, because it feels oh so very wrong. When that thought worms its way into my attic, the sound floats away from the both of us quickly.

“I heard it all, you know. Your story’s out,” he tells me matter of factly, but the sarcasm can’t find a place in his voice. It falls away, forgotten. “I told her it was about goddamn time you two started dating. She should’ve listened to me sooner, but no, she’s too fucking stubborn.”

“Yer tellin’ me,” I hum, running the pad of my thumb over the glossy nail polish. If I focus hard enough, blocking out the ringing of the phones and Skye’s hushed voice, I can hear her laugh in the recesses of my mind. Laughing about messing up my pink thumb last night, alarm raised in her honey-like voice. “‘m not much betta, ‘m afraid. I didn’t even get t’ ask her on tha first date, she beat me t’ it.”

“I heard . . That sounds like her, always gotta be in control. She had to do everything first when we were little. Talk first, walk first, ride a bike without stabilisers, or graduate bloody uni first,” Robbie remarks, dragging the sole of his Old Skool mustard Vans along the edge of his leftie. “I dunno how she’s gonna fair having her dominant arm in a cast, she’ll throw a fit.”

“Oh, I know. They betta make it purple,” I comment, and he snickers beside me, the tears still falling although silently.

“She’ll make them do it all over again if they didn’t do it right the first time. It better look all perfect for Ree.”

His tears drill into my ears, yanking at my heart, but a small relief accompanies them. He’s not using past tense, and although hardly noticeable, it makes this bearable. I’ve spoken to the bloke only once in my life, and she was there beside me then, but I find it easier with every second. Save for the moments I peek at him and see traces of her painted all over him. They aren’t bleeding twins for nothing, I admit quietly, even noticing them wearing the same brand of shoes. A pang attacks my heart when I see him spinning the braided silver ring around his middle finger, and too quickly, I could picture it being hers.

“D’ya think she’ll . . ,” I begin, but it feels wrong from the start, and I wish it’d never begun. With a shake of my head, I pick off a piece of purple nail polish from my pinkie. The action ricochets around in my chest, and I blink hard at the searing action. No, I can’t, because there’s a chance that she won’t be there to fix it.

“It sounds rubbish, but our feelings are always right, Ree and I. With our dad, her with you, and me knowing something was going to happen tonight. Now, I think it’ll be okay. Stupid, I know, but I just do. I-I can’t . . . can’t think about her not being okay, she’s my . . . twin sister. I don’t want to think about it,” he confesses in between scattered tears, words growing thick and indistinct.

“Neitha can I,” I admit, my chest falling at the end when more tears break loose from their gates. “She can’t leave, n-not this early. There’s so much I want with her still. She’s made a damn good lawyer already, and I know she’d make a betta mum and-.”

“She will, there’s nothing she’s not good at,” Robbie concurs with a sad smile adorning his face. I blink, and it’s gone as soon as it had come. “She always got back up after she fell too, on our bikes, ice skating, or even with leaving uni and then going back. Working at your firm too, you could even say. I just- I really want to believe that she’ll get back up from this too.”

“Me too . . mo’ than anythin’,” I agree aloud, shuffling my gray rose ring up and down the length of my finger as I picture the flower that adorns her wrist. “I need Becks t’ be okay.”

Phoebe and Joey flit across the screen in front of me, laughs and smiles shared on their faces. My head falls at the realization that those are the furthest things I could feel right now, or do. Licking my chapped lips, another tear graces my tongue. They’re fewer now, however long it’s been that I’ve been sitting in this chair. Asher waits with wandering eyes a few seats over now, and somehow, I’ve only said two words to him. It sends crashing pain through my insides to look at Robbie, her literal twin, but when I look at Asher, avalanches of grief fall inside of me.

The images in front of me spark memory after bittersweet memory, and they try to whisk me away to a time where I was sitting in a chair like this and she was at my side laughing. Shaking my head, I find it in my hands once again, their three voices murmuring off to the side while devouring subs with Myles.

Somehow, it’s already late. The sky is pitch black outside, and the stars twinkling somewhere that I can’t find. My eyes droop and yawns leave me occasionally, but sleep couldn’t be further away. If it was knocking at my door, I’d ignore it then too. There were few updates, and each one sounded more hopeful, but I’m afraid to get my hopes up. I’ve done that far too many times concerning her, and nine times out of ten, it left me broken. I hope that I can curb that if maybe I don’t get excited, and yet, saying goodbye to the hope fuels the fire killing me off on the inside.

I want to turn it off, but I can’t find the remote. I wish I could turn all of this off, but I don’t know how. I can’t let myself fall asleep. No, not until she wakes up, and they just left minutes ago saying she was done in the OR after a successful surgery. I was surprised by how little it had phased me, seeing how Skye jumped to her feet and Robbie was all smiles. Myself though, I couldn’t seem to find one anywhere. I can’t find him. Me. I felt Myles watching me, and worrying. I knew she would be doing the same thing if this was all different, and I couldn’t count how many times I had wished for that truth by now.

I wished that this could all be different, and alas, here I am too scared to believe it could be. The fear debilitates me with every waking second to believe that things could be okay. I’m so afraid to believe that she’ll be alright, because this all seems so sick and that it changes with every corner I turn.

The rest of the episode passed before my absent eyes, and then Skye was coming back from seeing her in Recovery. Tears plastered her cheeks now, more than before, and they didn’t shy away from mine either.

“You should go and see her,” she said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll be honest, i-it’s awful seeing her like that, b-but . . . it’s her. She’s okay.”

Words flee from my lips, replaced with an adamant shake of my head. I can’t even meet her eyes, because the only ones I can see are Becky’s. Now, I try to push them out of my head as I stare at my feet, the splashes of pink and purple begging for my attention. The color I so deeply crave is only within her eyes, and with a whimper, I try to will the image back to me. I fail, and the tears fall harder down my cheeks, making me wish I could be peppering kisses along hers.

I’m on my feet before I know what I’m doing, or where I’m going. The instructing words from before repeat between my ears, pulling my feet around a corner and then another. They take me left, and then right. A long hall appears in front of me, and then I’m searching the walls. Numbers climb and climb until I find the very ones I’m looking for. A sob splashes against my palm when it comes to my lips, pressing hard against my mouth.

208, it reads but that’s not what I see.

February 8th is what I see staring back at me. The day of our first date, only three days ago. How in the hell has it only been three days since? How in the living fuck has it only been three hours since all of this has happened?

My feet freeze in their path, and I ignore the nurses and doctors passing me, zig zagging from room to bloody room. Beeping wanders into my ears, and I painfully wonder which one is hers. Which one of those beeps is from her heart? Will it come to an abrupt stop and bring people rushing to her? Can she even hear it? No, she probably can’t, she’s still ‘asleep,’ or so they said.

I don’t think I’m ready. No, I can’t be. How in the bleeding world could I be ready to see what I’m about to witness? I couldn’t ever be ready for this, and I never wanted to be. I never wanted to be having these thoughts living in my head, more than mere doubts and nightmares planted there randomly. Alas, I know why they’re there, and not for the reason I think first. No.

I worry.

I fear.

I cry.

I doubt.

I struggle for breath.

I grieve.

I sob.

I ache.

Because I love.

No, not loved.

I love.

All of these emotions and signs of pain course through me, one after the other, because I love that girl lying in that bed just behind those curtains. I love her, and I’ve known it all along. It’s what brought me here, in every way possible. It’s what propels me forward when the nurse at the computer nods, sliding open the gray curtain. It’s what pulls my eyes to the bed, and to the false sounds of breathing. Love is what wrenches the sobs from my chest at the appearance of wires, tubes, and machines hooked up to her. Love is the force that spins me around and makes me shoot down the hall, crumpling to the floor once I reach the corner by the vending machine. Love is what fills my tears that carry images of her lying in that bed fighting for her life. Love fights within myself as my entire body is racked with sobs while I curl into a ball, wishing that seeing wasn’t believing.

“‘m alright if yer alright, Becks . . . B-But ‘m not alright.”

My eyes continue to play tricks on me, but once I blink back the swarm of tears drowning in them, I find that this actually can get worse. Far worse. Their familiar glances shoot over to me and I don’t return them, ignoring the tears staining my skin. They disperse, but he remains there in the center of the waiting room, eyes on me. When I meet those sad blues at last, the newest sob is welcomed by my lips. In a blur, his arms welcome me and I let them.

“It’s okay,” he croons against my ear, but my head shakes ‘no’s’ again and again into his unfamiliar shoulder.

“But ‘s not. She’s not okay . . doesn’t even look like her in there. There’s so many wires and tubes and-,” my ragged breaths cut me off in time as his large hands clap against my back.

“She’ll be okay. She’s a fighter, Harry, always has been. She’s already fighting hard, I see.”

“I wanted so fookin’ badly t’ think that this was all a dream, b-but then I saw her and . . . ‘s not,” I whimper, a new smell surrounding me as I clutch onto the back of his cold windbreaker.

“Boops has been a fighter ever since she was born, Harry. Did she ever tell you that?”

“No . . tell me what?” I return, my heart crashing around wildly inside my ribs, about to break free at a moment’s notice.

“Her and Robbie had to stay in the hospital for a week after they were born,” Chuck narrates, his large palms pressed to my trembling back. “Not Ree, though, she was in and out. It only took her four days to figure everything out - how to breathe properly, eat, and even shit. But Robbie, he took a week. She was smaller too, but somehow she beat all the odds. They say that there’s typically a smaller twin who doesn’t get as much nutrition and the like while in the womb. They don’t have as good of chances thriving outside of the womb, but lookie there. Ree amazed us all, and she’s continued to do so ever since, Harry. I don’t think she’ll disappoint us today either, son,” he finishes, pulling away to cup my face with his palm. The Holte Blues stare back at me, and I catch her features mirrored in his. He nods at me with lips pressed into a flat line, and I see the tears welling in front of the blue as he pats my cheek.

“Yer daughter, Chuck, I-.”

“I know you do, that’s why you’re here . .That’s why you’re so scared, and I’m rather damn positive she does too,” he returns, ending his words with a wink.

I love her . . more than there are stars in the sky, and more than there are beats of my heart.

I had lost track of how many episodes I had watched of The Office on the telly, but it was wasted, because the images cut in and out in front of my absent eyes. The voices of those around me trickled through when I wasn’t battling with myself. I had long since ignored the gurgling of my stomach, and the buzzing of my phone. The only thing that finally woke me from my drowning senses was when Skye rushed into the room, jittery from the four coffees she'd downed.

“She passed her vent test to come off it and is breathing on her own!” she exclaims, rather close to jumping for joy. Robbie soon finds himself caught in her embrace, and during my escape, I whiz past them and down the hall.

“Becks,” I mumble under my breath, scratching at my cheek as the first new tears in the last half hour arrive in my tired eyes. I ignore their trailing voices, and the new sounds I’ve been drowning out.

I rush past people and their stares, prying and not. Their eyes question me, and I don’t stop, craving the eyes that I’ve been without for far too long. Her blues. But I don’t find them when I delve into that room for the second time in three hours. Yet, I’m met with something miraculous all of the same.

Most of the wires have disappeared from her body, and the tubes previously hidden in her throat are as well. The first hints of relief wash over me when I take another step, and then another until she’s within reach. It’s not the same and not how I pictured it, but there she is, just a step away. I’m so fucking glad it’s not like one of the ways I had thought of. Her skin is warm underneath my lips, singing praises behind my eyes. The splashes of blues and reds painting her face pull thick streams of tears onto my cheeks as I press kisses to hers. Steady breaths of hers tickle my skin, sprouting the first smile in hours on my lips.

It’s my Becks.

It’s her, my girl.

Prickly stitches smatter her skin in places, but I avoid them as I run my fingers through her hair, brushing it off of her angelic face. A whimper escapes from my lips for a second, silenced by my hand as her face grows hazy from interrupting tears. My tears fall onto her ghost like skin, the remnants of orange blossoms speckled here and there.

“‘m here, and yer alright. Everythin’s gonna be alright, my Becks,” I murmur against her forehead, peppering kisses to the freckles hidden amongst her skin. “‘m not goin’ anywhere, bug,” I finish, voice catching on the last word when I’m reminded of her saying the very same thing to me earlier today. “And neitha are you. Y-Ya keep yer promises too . . dontcha, Rebecca Ann? . . An episode o’ FRIENDS came on earlier in tha waitin’ room . . it was our favourite one, ‘Tha One at tha Beach.’ I didn’t wanna watch it without you . . it hurt too much t’, b-but I shoulda known it was a sign that you’d be okay. And now, here ya are, me li’l fighta.”

“I think . . I think I love you, Becks . . I dunno when I even decided that, seems ‘s been that way fer a while,” I confess into her hair, finalizing my words with another peck to her dark chocolate waves. “Please wake up so I can tell you, li’l one . . ‘ll be waitin’ here ‘til ya do.”

The only response I receive is the steady beating of the monitors sitting at her side. I watch them, sniffling, entranced by the numbers that vary only a few. A calmness washes over me as I lace my fingers with those of her left hand, careful of the wires, while watching the steady numbers. My eyes flit back to her, hidden underneath plain white blankets, and the pain makes a return to me once again. I know it’s all masked under there, the multitudes of stitches, casts, gauze, and brokenness. Injuries that I can’t fathom, no more than when that nurse breathed life into them in the waiting room.

“Ya said yest’day at me house that it was scary t’ admit how ya felt ‘bout me, and bloody hell, ‘s this scary t’ admit t’ you . . Last night I was thinkin’ ‘bout what our kids would look like. ‘m gettin’ ahead o’ meself, I know, only been on two dates so far,” I laugh ever so softly, thumbing at my ticklish nose while the whispers drop from my lips. Circles and curly mazes are left on her hand where my thumb draws them gently, even her name left there in invisible ink. “I hope mo’ than anythin’ they’d have yer gorgeous blue eyes, and prolly some perfect combo o’ our brown hair . . I hope they’d have yer cute li’l dimple, and yer beautiful laugh. Bet they’d be smart like you too, bug, and have yer drive t’ neva give up on sumthin’ . . I dunno if we’d be here if ya hadn’t given up on me . . and I promise you ‘m not ever gonna give up on you, Becks. Never . . ‘ll tell ya ‘bout all tha rest when ya wake up in tha mornin’. Sweet dreams, sleepyhead,” I announce, swallowing against my throat akin to a dessert.

Antiseptic and unfamiliarity greets my nose when I lay one last kiss on her forehead, careful of the nasal cannula across her cheeks. The feet of the metal chair squeal when I pull the chair closer to the bed, her hand limp in mine. Shocks of teal and yellow prick at my eyes, bringing the smallest of smiles to my face with a harsh gulp.

Wiping my nose with the back of my hand, my eyes scan over her obsessively, and lovingly. Underneath the strange blue gown, her chest rises and falls while her fingers remain warm in mine. I settle into the chair, adjusting it until I can lay my arm on the empty patch of bed at her side like a ninety degree angle. There, I lay my head, lulled into a quick sleep by her slow breathing, finally assured that she’s alright.

Only because of that, am I alright too.

My dreams had whisked me away, but it wasn’t for nearly long enough. I couldn’t know how long it had been. At the same time, it was too long and yet, not long enough. I didn’t know that I’d be grateful for waking up, and yet at the same time, the bittersweetness would make me yearn for my ignorant dream world once again.

I’m woken by the feeling of something touching me, and as I slowly come to, I find it’s somebody playing with my hair. As sleep begins to drip off the edges of my subconscious, I can only wonder who that could be, until I suddenly know. My eyes fly open and flit to the face peering down at me. Her’s, and yet, it’s not.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” she murmurs in a scratchy voice, propelling my body upwards within a second.

“B-Becks!” I stammer, blinking hard in between rubbing at my eyes quickly, trying to decide if what I’m seeing is real. I find it hard to figure out what I want to be real, glimpsing again the bruises and cuts brandishing her face.

“Hi,” she whispers, trying to smile, but I see that she doesn’t have it in her.

“Becks,” I croak, tears tugging at every breath of the word as my arms go around her, and my face dives into her hair.

“Ouch, careful,” she protests, and profuse apologies fill the air around us. “It’s okay,” she insists, the wires getting caught between us and my body surrounding hers.

I back up instantly at the sound of her painful words, but it’s the very last thing I want to do. Touching her and wrapping her up in my arms has been the only thing I’ve wanted to do this entire time, ever since I got the call. Reality blanketing me sends thick sobs from me, and into her hair that doesn’t even smell like her anymore. The smell of orange blossom and vanilla is absent, and it continues to make this entire thing worse. It makes it too surreal, more real than I can handle.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” she hums gently, a crackly sound to her labored voice. Her hands although dainty before, leave ghostlike trails on my back, adding another tally to the surrealness board.

“D’ya rememba w-who I am?” I ask hurriedly, pulling away to find her exhausted eyes searching for mine. A corner of her chapped lips just barely curls into her cheek, the always present pink color fleeting in the moment.

“Of course, you’re . . my Harry,” she mumbles with a long, tired blink. The mere five words pull thicker sobs from my lips. I just glimpse the beginnings of tears in her eyes when I return to her arms that beckon for me.

“‘m so glad yer okay, Becks, so glad. I was bloody terrified ya wouldn’t be,” I confess into the warm crook of her neck, finding a trace of her fruity-vanilla scent tucked away there.

“Me too, Harry,” she comments a few seconds too late, marked by a clearing of her throat. Although I’m not much better, I hear the evident struggle in her voice like she’s woken up after sleeping, but I know that the raspiness clouding her voice isn’t from that. It’s from the tube that was shoved down her throat to breathe for her, and probably caused the worst sore throat in existence.

She hardly feels the same, body marked by wires and tubes, a scratchy gown, and an abrasive cast all along her right arm. Prickly threads dot her body in places where the glass left cuts too deep to leave, and the antiseptic smell of a hospital sticks to her all over. I want to hold her against me, to squeeze her all over until I know that she’s real and that this isn’t just a dream. The kiss I press to the top of her head is marred by the smell of iron, and the crusty feeling of blood hidden among her hair. The next one I leave on her forehead is better, and the warmth of her skin under my touch scores a point for reality, although a harsh one.

“D’ya rememba . . what happened?” I wonder aloud, painfully. My heart, too shocked from the last several hours, doesn’t even budge when the sight of her again astonishes me. Her swollen left eye is surrounded by blue and purple bruises that paint her face in places.

She nods her head up and down, until her face creases with presumed pain and she stops. My hand covers her entire cheek that I rub with the pad of my thumb, back and forth, back and forth.

“I don’t know. . I only remember saying goodbye to you, and then . . talking to the nurse now. I’m glad that’s the last thing . . I remember,” she replies slowly, the words fleeing her lips at times.

“Y-yer amazin’, y’know that?” I sigh, the tears ever so present, and I’m unsure of when they’ll ever make their departure. A laugh tries to sound from her lips, but not even within a few seconds, her face is overcome with anguish. “Hey, are ya okay?”

“It hurts, but she gave me something.”

“Where’s it hurt, bug?” I question, eyes dancing across her body mostly covered by the thick hospital blankets.

“Everywhere,” she exhales, sounding short of breath. My lips stray to her forehead once more to leave a peck there, unsure of what more I could do. “Mostly my head . . arm, and tummy.”

“Ya, that’s . . . where they cut ya open t’ fix ya up. And . . ya got a pretty nasty concussion, and a broken arm. It was a good thing ya were wearin’ yer seatbelt, love,” I tell her, struggling to resist covering her in kisses. If only that were the antidote for fixing all of this, for fixing her. I would do it in a heartbeat if it made all of this go away, as if it never happened.

“Always,” she almost smiles, making my heart flutter. A smile tugs at my lips as I admire her, sure I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my life, or bittersweet. She adjusts the nasal cannula feeding her additional oxygen, and I just hope it’s enough. I hope that this is all enough, and that so am I.

Her heavy eyes drift closed, but the second they do, they flutter open again. They wander back to me and a stronger smile pulls at her lips, mimicking the same motion on the strings of my heart.

“Don’t fight it, baby, get some rest,” I coo, stroking my fingers through her hair to move it away from her face, careful in doing so.

“I’m okay . . I want to stay with you, Harry,” Becks admits gently, licking her dry lips. A sound of disbelief leaves mine.

“Always so selfless, you are.”

“I’m sorry,” she yawns, wincing again at another wave of pain, making me step forward. If I try to again, there aren’t any more that I can take, regardless of the wishful thought that I have to slip into bed with her. “I can’t imagine how . . upset and scared you’ve been,” she apologizes, reaching a hand out to find mine, and it causes my heart to seize with a dose of happiness.

“No, don’t you apologize. None o’ this ‘s yer fault, ‘s tha asshole who hit you whose fault it ‘s. Yer doin’ so good, Becks, ‘m . . . so fookin’ happy ya came back t’ me . . so proud. My Becks,” I say, smiling through the tears washing out my words. I see the smallest hint of the dimple in her left cheek when they round out from the tiniest of smiles.

“I’ll always . . come back to you, Harry,” she smiles, and I give in, dipping to press my lips to hers. She may smell different, feel different, and even taste different, but the kiss makes me sure that this is my same Becks, and that this isn’t all a dream. Regardless of the fact that I wish it all was just a made-up dream that I could wake up from, I’m okay with the fact that it isn’t, as long as my girl is okay.

Finally, she’s my girl.

And finally, she’s okay.

My Becks.

A/N: Hello, lovely people! Okay.... I am SO sorry for that, but thanks for sticking through it.. I promise Becks will be okay, I would never break up Hecky like that. I apologize for no real content warnings, I didn’t know how to do that without ruining the chapter... Also, please cut me some slack if I get any medical things wrong or they’re unrealistic, I’m not a doctor and I’m doing my best with what Google can give me and from personal experience in hospitals. Thanks SO much for reading all this way into the story, I mean it when I say I’m excited for you to see what’s going to happen! Feel free to visit my askbox if you want to talk after this rollercoaster of a chapter, I feel you. I’d LOVE to talk to anybody about Hecky anytime, or if you want a sneak peek of next week’s chapter lemme know! Make sure to check out the Hecky playlist - although it’s long, I think it has some great tunes on there that remind me of our fav couple! I admittedly had it playing the whole time I was making pasta the other day :P Have a great day, ily c:

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almaasi · 4 years

Text

reaction post typed while watching SPN 15x08 “Our Father, Who Aren’t in Heaven”

THEY JUST. SENT DEAN AND CAS. TO PICK SYMBOLIC “BINDING” FLOWERS ???

06:16pm

probably gonna have to stop in 1 minute for dinner but let’s see what’s happening this week in Mr. Taco/Hotdog Pines For Angel But Isn’t Sure If God Commanded It

06:18

OH YEAH ADAM

forgot about him

06:19

hmm “lucky elephant” casino/bar

1. pink elephants = drunk baby dumbo trippin balls

2. kinda looks like a dick

06:23

the hell is wrong with sam’s face?? he’s looked SO tense and uncomfortable these last episodes

06:24

sam eating salad and eileen eating a burger

given how much food symbolises in this show......i...... kinda wanna say that it means sam sees eileen as a sibling??????? given burgers are bro dean and cas’ thing

either that or she’s one of the family, but then what does it mean about sam’s salad being the odd one out?

....i typed samily there

anyway i wonder if, given how eileen/sam parallels dean/cas, it’s gonna become a thing like “hey eileen i see you as a sibling” vs. dean and cas “cas i love you like a brother” / “BUT DEAN I LOVE YOU IN THE ROMANTIC WAY”

06:27

does dean not know what “achilles heel” means

06:28

why is there porn music playing as cas knocks on a door

is dean gonna be naked on the other side

are they playing babysitter and affronted neighbour housebreaker

.....just saying okay that comedy sting was weirdly placed

06:30

i love that cas is like straight-up Still Here

he was like I’M LEAVING FOREVER and then dean’s like “hey i know i said you ruin everything but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

wish we could’ve had that as an actual scene though

06:37

dean: but cas if u wanna stay here, why don’t you stay here

RUDE

FUCK I HATE THE KNIFE HAND THING

they almost........ touch hand.........

/14 blush emojis

cas uses last of power to make dean feel okie dokie

IS HE GONNA FALL FOR DEAN AGAIN

06:40

welp dinnertime back laterrr

07:50pm

watched the end of “the prince of egypt” and my father (an atheist) was very insistent on proving it factually incorrect while I JUST WANNA WATCH THE ANIMATED MOVIE DUDE

hokay where were we

oh yeah cas was trying really hard not to hold dean’s hand

07:54

team free will enter hell and are attacked by three lady demons

for some reason i’m thinking of cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the gates of hell

07:55

OMG OMGO OmG OmG ROWENA

DID SHE BECOME QUEEN OF HELL

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YES

THIS IS THE CHARACTER ARC SHE NEEDED

THOSE BRAIDS

07:57

someday i wanna do makeup as well as rowena’s makeup magically manifests. that glitter eyeliner over the black wing is mmmmmmmmmmmm

08:00

ahh bless

a bechdel test pass

it’s been too long

*edit* BUT DID THIS EVEN COUNT??? IF SUE IS NOT SUE

queen of hell suits rowena better than any dress she’s ever worn

so we’ve got rowena as queen of hell, billie as death.... need one more lady in charge of heaven to complete a power trio OH YEAH AMARA. god yes give me that......... pun intended i guess

08:03

rowena after looking at dean and cas for 1 second: “what am i picking up from you two? tell auntie rowena”

ROWENA IS THE BEST I LOVE HER SO MUCH

two grumpy grumble butts: “it’s fine”

WOW

YOU HEARD THE QUEEN OF FUCKING HELL YOU TWO

FIX YOUR DAMN PROBLEMS THIS INSTANT

SAM WHAT TERRIBLE TIMING

jeez they really don’t wanna have that conversation in front of an audience

someday they better get NOT FUCKING INTERRUPTED

knock knock

who’s there

interrupting moose

08:09

adam’s facial expressions look so much like dean’s

08:11

for some reason i was just watching dean say “i didn’t wanna jinx it” and looking at his eyelashes and then involuntarily imagined him wearing rowena’s fake lashes

it was a good look

dean looks so, sooo pretty in this blue shirt

maybe blue for cas’ eyes

08:17

cas says to micheal “your father is certainly not who you knew” but not “our father” as in chuck is no longer his father

“you called me assbutt and set me on fire”

yeah pretty much iconic, no?

oohh jeez poor michael, poor adam

sent to hell, comes back and is aggressively greeted by the same assholes who sent him there

dean put a black armour jacket over his vulnerable blue one to talk to adam

08:32

dean sees cas sitting alone and gets himself a beer without offering one for cas

ohhhh that hurts

/takes screenshots of cas’ side profile

what a good profile

dean’s back in his blue vulnerability shirt

OHHHHHHHHHHHHH SEND DEAN AND CAS BACK TO PURGATORY TO FETCH A FLOWER OF SYMBOLIC “BINDING” YES

FIX THE STORY WITH THEIR LOVE

*edit* ............hey. heyheyheyhey does anyone remember those promo posters from season 8 of dean poking his head out around a tree in purgatory and there was a flower there?? and as far as i know we never actually saw the flower in canon and it was Weird? foRESHADOWING or ?????? hindshadowing?

no michael’s not coming on your gay flower road trip, dean

no third wheel this time thank u

TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS WITHOUT BEING INTERRUPTED PLEASE

michael is literally just....sending dean and cas to pick flowers together

08:41

it’s over

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS 10/10 THAT WAS GREAT

I LOVE THE SETUP FOR WHERE THIS IS GOING

rowena as queen of hell 15/10 best thing that ever happened on this show

adam getting his apology and peaceing out yes good

SENDING DEAN AND CAS TO PICK FLOWERS IN FUCKING PURGATORY THE LAND OF THEIR YEAR OF PINING HELL YES

i love how self-referential this whole story has become and it’s so GOOD to have all these loose ends come back to hopefully be tied up one by one

i just....... i just checked the writer for this episode and i AM AMAZED it’s a deadly duo episode?????????????????????? H O W

bechdel test pass?? holy shit (well...... i doubt this now but still)

only woman who died was lilith and she was awful

unless you count sue but i don’t think sue was real to begin with

and there was a black guy.... with lines.... who didn’t die??? astonishing

also the pacing was like... good or whatever. at least i didn’t think it was patchy like their episodes usually are. and the script wasn’t bland and boring ?? what is happening here

PLUS ROWENA POINTING OUT THAT THERE’S soMethING GoiNg On between dean and cas which draws attention to it for later resolution, despite the audience already knowing they had a tiff

colour me impressed, anyway

#our father who aren't in heaven #spn #spn spoilers #Elmie watches things #post of postiness #season 15 #15x08 #Destiel #Destiel breakup

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purplepersnicketywrites · 5 years

Note

For the "mini" fic prompts, can I request #19? :DDD

‘things you said when we were the happiest we ever were’

okay so this is like, one of the SAPPIEST things i’ve written I think! it’s also 3.7k words!

—

“I like you,” Kirishima said.

Katsuki stared at him. The redhead seemed to squirm under his gaze, lower lip bitten between his stupid-sharp teeth, eyes flicking away from Katsuki’s face to somewhere on the ground. When Kirishima had begged and pouted until Katsuki had agreed to take them both hiking, this was not the conversation Katsuki had been expecting to have once they reached the top.

That didn’t mean it was something unwelcome.

Kirishima drew in a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and met Katsuki’s eyes again. “I like you, Bakugou. Um. A lot. So I was wondering if maybe I could ask you out on a date?”

Contrary to popular belief, Katsuki was actually quite familiar with his feelings. It didn’t mean that he always agreed with them. In this case, however, Katsuki embraced the warm and golden glowing bubble that cast its light through his entire being like a miniature sun. Happiness wasn’t enough of a word to describe it.

Katsuki didn’t let his voice waver when he replied to his best friend. “Ask, then.”

“Oh, uh,” Kirishima swallowed with an audible gulp. “Would you want to go on a date with me?”

There was only one thing that Katsuki could say.

—

“Hey Katsuki, what’s your plan after Yuuei?”

Katsuki frowned slightly and paused his braiding of Eijirou’s hair. “Plan? For what?”

“Oh, like,” Eijirou waved one of his hands around, leaning back into Katsuki’s chest. “You gonna sidekick first? Or go pro straight from the get-go.”

“Pro, obviously,” Katsuki said. “Gonna open an agency an’ everything. I’ve got the reputation to pull it off already.”

“Yeah, I guess you do,” Eijirou said, dropping his head backwards onto Katsuki’s shoulder. Katsuki peered at his face and Eijirou grinned at him. There was something not a hundred-percent genuine in that grin and Katsuki almost frowned. “So are you looking for an agency building?”

“Haven’t had all that much time for it,” Katsuki said, watching Eijirou for signs of reaction to anything he was saying . “Googled some shit but I’d want to go and see wherever these places are. Can’t exactly go property hunting in the middle of term.”

Eijirou turned his head and kissed the first part of Katsuki’s skin that he reached, just under his jaw. “How about apartments?”

“Gonna have to be near the agency, so I gotta look for that first,” Katsuki said. “If I want somewhere with decent villain traffic it’ll probably be in one of the more expensive areas with a high population density. The government agency fund doesn’t cover personal accomodations, so I’ll probably have to set up a hammock in my office for a couple of months until the Heroics feedback kicks in and I start earning something decent.”

“Hm,” Eijirou said, kissing Katsuki’s neck again. As much as Katsuki wanted to indulge in that, he had a feeling that something was on his boyfriend’s mind.

“What is it?” he asked, prodding Eijirou’s cheek.

“Oh, well, um,” Eijirou pulled a slightly shifty face. “I was just- I mean. I don’t have as much of an ironclad plan at the moment…”

“So, what?” Katsuki tilted his head. “You’re lookin’ for advice?”

Eijirou’s face skewed a little more. “Not exactly. Uh. I just. Um. Would you ever, uh, consider maybe having two hammocks in your office?”

Oh.

Katsuki stared at his boyfriend and felt overwhelmed all of a sudden. Holy shit.

“Fuck, I love you.”

Now they were both staring. Katsuki could feel his cheeks heating up but damn, it was the truth, and he’d had to say it.

“What?” Eijirou said, the first of them to break out of the stupor. “You- What?”

“I love you, Kirishima Eijirou,” Katsuki said. The words tasted right on his tongue.

Eijirou sat up, twisting to face Katsuki and reach for his face. “You- You- Holy-”

“I love you,” Katsuki repeated, pushing his face forward so that their foreheads met. Now that he’d said the words, he couldn’t stop. “I love you! I fucking love you, Eijirou.”

Eijirou kissed him, hard and sweet. This kiss didn’t last all that long with Eijirou pulling back to pant through his grin. “I love you too.”

A sensation not unlike one of Kaminari’s shocks zipped up Katsuki’s spine. His stomach churned, but in a good way, like all of his insides were dancing. Katsuki felt elated, giddy even, and he wrapped his arms around Eijirou’s waist to bring him closer.

They traded words and kisses and smiles and words again, over and over and over.

It occurred to Katsuki that he hadn’t actually answered Eijirou’s question, so he pulled away slightly - and only slightly, with their noses still brushing and Eijirou’s breath hot against his mouth.

“You do know we can share a hammock, right, dumbass?” Katsuki asked.

Eijirou very being seemed to brighten at the question, and he responded with his own. “Does that mean that you do wanna live together after Yuuei?”

There was only one thing that Katsuki could say.

—

Katsuki wasn’t normally one for nerves in intense situations, but this was something entirely different. It wasn’t like some fight against a villain where Katsuki could explode and explode and put his feelings into action. It wasn’t remaining calm while his partner was injured, letting everything condense into a laser-focus until Eijirou was safe.

No. This were the fluttery, flurry-of-emotions type nerves that Katsuki didn’t know how to deflect into productivity. The kind of nerves that part of him enjoyed, the nerves he had felt just before leaning into his first kiss as he tangled his fingerss into red hair, the nerves that had shuddered through him in waves when he had knelt on one knee in front of Eijirou with a ring in one hand.

“Yo, how’re you hold- Ooh, not so hot,” Kyouka said, poking her head around the door. She glanced around the room and at Katsuki, who was sitting on one of the haphazardly scattered chairs. “They left you alone in here? Fools.”

“The fuck do you mean ‘they’, Headphones? You’re on my side, too,” Katsuki grumbled.

“Oh it’s Headphones right now, huh? Man you’re sweating buckets,” Kyouka said, putting her hands on her hips.

Katsuki glared at her. “No fucking kidding.”

“Hey now, it’s just Eijirou,” Kyouka said. “Think about that dumb grin he’s gonna be wearing. Just for you.”

God, Eijirou’s fucking smiles. Eijirou was easy with them, flashing a grin here, showing off a smirk there, but not that easy. Some of Eijirou’s smiles were rarer than others, and Katsuki adored drawing them out of him. Like the way Eijirou smiled when he woke up, so soft and sleepy and content. No one else got to see that.

“I love him so fucking much,” Katsuki said, groaning and burying his face in his hands. “That’s not the- Ugh. We shoulda just eloped.”

“Says Mr ‘If These Napkins Aren’t The Right Colour I’m Gonna Commit A Crime’.”

“Shuddup,” Katsuki said. “Someone who doesn’t think leopard print or pitch black tablecloths are an acceptable wedding aesthetic had to be in charge of decor.”

“So that ruled out all of your friends,” Kyouka said, grabbing a nearby chair and sitting down. “Because we’re all either from the same dimension that Hawaiian Shirt designs are stolen from, or goths.”

“Exactly,” Katsuki said. “Useless, the lot of you.”

“Denki threw a bangin’ bachelor party, though, right?” Kyouka asked.

“I guess,” Katsuki said. Pikachu had taken them all to a theme-park with enough express passes to skip the queue for any of the rides. It had been fun. He had made out with Eijirou on the ferris wheel like they were teenagers again, and no one had asked for his autograph.

“There, see? You’re smiling again, Blasty,” Kyouka said. Oh, well, the distraction had helped. “Think about how powerful you’ll feel when you can say ‘my husband’.”

“So fucking powerful.”

“Precisely! It’s a good feeling,” Kyouka grinned. “Remember when Denki kept dropping ‘my wife’ into nearly every conversation?”

“Too well,” Katsuki said, shaking his head.

“Well that’s gonna be you and Eijirou, soon. You’ll be rubbing it in everyone’s faces,” Kyouka said. Fuck, that sounded good. “Alright, final check. You got your suit on properly?”

Katsuki looked down at himself. “Pretty sure.”

“Tie, shoes, any weird decorative things?”

“All there,” Katsuki said. He was wearing Red Riot themed cufflinks, and he knew Eijirou had a matching pair with his own brand.

“Makeup and hair?” Kyouka asked, tilting her head.

“Jeez, it ain’t like this is a broadcast production,” Katsuki muttered. “But yeah. It’s all sorted. If you can’t see it then Mina did her job right.”

Kyouka studied him for a few minutes. “Vows?”

“Hell yeah,” Katsuki said. “Everything’s ready. It’s just the fuckin’ waiting.”

“Good job you don’t have to do that any more,” Kyouka said, glancing at her watch. “It’s time to go, Katsuki!”

“Oh, shit,” Katsuki said, standing. “Shit, shit, shit. Fuck, okay, let’s go.”

Everything after that was blurred by adrenaline, until he was standing up near the altar at a very familiar pair of red eyes as Eijirou approached up the aisle. Katsuki couldn’t tear his eyes away - wouldn’t, in any case. The very world was glowing.

“Hi,” Eijirou whispered, once he was standing in front of Katsuki. God, he looked so fucking handsome. “Are you ready for this?”

There was only one thing that Katsuki could say.

—

“Whoa!” Eijirou said, laughing from where he was pinned to the wall next to the door in their apartment as Katsuki adorned his throat in kisses. “Uh, what’s the special occasion, Blasty?”

Katsuki shook his head. “Just kiss me back already.”

Eijirou planted a smacker on Katsuki’s cheek. Ugh, he hadn’t meant like that and Eijirou knew it, judging from the mischief in his husband’s eyes.

“Gonna make me guess, huh? Was it something that happened today?”

Katsuki rolled his eyes. Fine, if Eijirou was gonna be like this… He leant in and began to work up a hickey on Eijirou’s collarbone.

“That’s a yes, huh? Augh, I’m gonna have to cover that u- Katsuki- Gonna have to cover that up! Was it something I did?”

Katsuki nibbled his way up Eijirou’s throat up to his ear.

“Hmm, was it the b- Oh.”

Eijirou grabbed his face and pushed him back. The redhead was staring as Katsuki with his big wide eyes and a kind of thunderstruck expression.

“Is- So you weren’t joking, earlier? With that baby?”

Katsuki grinned at him. “Nope.”

“Katsuki!” Eijirou cried - literally, there were tears forming in his eyes. “You- Soon? Really? You’re ready for kids?”

Katsuki took in Eijirou’s radiant, adoration-filled expression, pictured it directed at a couple of rowdy brats storming around the room with blankets tied onto them as capes. Damn, they’d probably have to move into an actual house - good thing they could afford it now with their ever-growing popularity.

Katsuki pictured reading storybooks together, being woken up in the middle of the night by a kid who’d just had a nightmare, sticking scribbled drawings up on the fridge they were going to have in their big fancy-ass kitchen.

Fuck yes, he was ready for kids. He wanted to be a father with Eijirou so badly that it burned, hotter and brighter than he wanted to be the number one hero.

Katsuki kissed Eijirou, as deeply as he could when his husband was bearing that big goofy grin of his.

“Oh my god,” Eijirou said, arms sweeping around Katsuki’s waist to lift him up and spin the pair of them across the room. “You wanna be a dad with me?!”

There was only one thing that Katsuki could say.

—

“She hasn’t had the best start to life,” the social worker said, looking at her paperwork with a troubled expression. Katsuki didn’t remember her name but Eijirou definitely knew it. “She doesn’t remember all that much - as she was very young - but her birthparents were villains and she was retrieved during a raid on their house. She was rather neglected.”

“Sounds a little like Eri,” Eijirou muttered, and Katsuki grabbed one of his hands to try and stop him from clenching his fists too hard.

“She’s been responding well to her foster family and making progress on all of her developmental targets,” the social worker continued. “But ideally we’d like to get her to a permanent family as soon as possible, so if you’re unsure about proceeding after you’ve met her, let us know as soon as you can so we can go back to looking for another match for her.”

Katsuki nodded. The idea of giving up on the kid rankled with him already, but the rational side of his brain reminded him that if they didn’t end up being compatible, it’d be better for everyone to say so.

“She has two older siblings placed with other families,” the social worker said. “And she currently had regular contact with them. Would you be willing to accomodate this?”

“Oh, yeah, sure!” Eijirou said. Katsuki nodded again.

They had been stood outside of this two-year-old’s foster home for far too long while the social worker briefed them. Fuck, he just- He wanted to see her already.

“Alright, let’s head in.”

The social worker knocked on the door. The woman who opened the door greeted them with a smile. She was small, but kind-looking, and reminded Katsuki a little of Auntie Inko.

“Welcome!” She said, but the rest of the pleasantries flew over Katsuki’s head. Fuck, he was just too excited. They might be meeting their daughter today.

The foster carer led them into her house and into a kitchen. There. A little girl with a shock of bright, shaggy blue hair sat scribbling furiously as a piece of paper with a green crayon. Katsuki remembered from the paperwork that she was three. He didn’t know how big three-year-olds were supposed to be. Was she tall for her age? Short?

She looked up at them as they entered the room, and Katsuki felt his heart lurch. Her eyes were red. It could be something they all shared. Shit, was he about to start crying? Where the fuck was his composure, what the hell.

“Aoimi,” said the foster carer - that was the girl’s name. “We have some guests today.”

Aoimi narrowed her eyes and looked between the three new faces.

“Why?” she asked. Her foster-mother laughed.

“I thought it would be nice to have some company! Be nice to them, okay?”

“Maybe,” Aoimi said, going back to her colouring.

The foster-carer laughed again. “She has a bit of a personality on her!”

Katsuki met Eijirou’s eyes - his husband was beaming at him.

“Good,” Katsuki said, sitting down in the chair he was pointed to. “You wouldn’t wanna be boring, huh kid?”

Aoimi looked up at him again, as considering as a three-year-old could be. “Wanna see my quirk?”

The girl’s foster-mother looked like she was biting back a grimace. “Now, Aoimi-”

“Yes,” Katsuki said. He looked up at the foster-carer for a moment. “If your quirk’s not too messy to use indoors.”

“It is not,” Aoimi said, wiggling a little in her seat and sitting up straight. Her foster-mother sighed and nodded. Aoimi grinned, and Katsuki watched as the tiny girl’s teeth sharpened. Claws grew from her fingers, and blue fur began to sprout over her skin. A long, thin tail with a tuft of fur at the end of it began to wave around behind her, until the girl Katsuki was looking at was more of a cub.

“That’s pretty cool,” Eijirou said, leaning around Katsuki from his own seat to see Aoimi more clearly.

The girl nodded, teeth still bared. Katsuki thought that as she got older, her canines might even longer than they already were, like a saber-toothed cat. Aoimi detransformed slowly, fur receding and teeth shrinking back into shape. “What are your quirks?”

Katsuki held out one of his hands and let it spark a few times. “I can make explosions.”

“Whoa,” Aoimi’s eyes bugged out a bit. “That’s like Ground Zero!”

Katsuki grinned. “You could say that, yeah.”

The little girl studied him for a long moment. “You are Ground Zero.”

“Yep, my real name is Kirishima Katsuki,” Katsuki said. He pointed at Eijirou. “And the big lug over there is my husband, Kirishima Eijirou.”

“Red Riot,” Aoimi said. She seemed to be taking this quite well. “You’re here ‘cause you wanna adopt me, right? I think you should, it’d be cool to have hero dads.”

Huh.

“Aoimi,” her foster-mother said, sounding exasperated.

“I’m not stupid,” Aoimi said, jutting her chin out. “I can read.”

Holy fuck, it was like looking in a mirror, kinda. Katsuki found himself grinning even harder.

The meeting continued, with Eijirou asking more questions than Katsuki could have thought about this kind of stuff, and Aoimi herself making a pretty big impact on Katsuki. He’d known pretty much from the moment he’d met the girl’s eyes, really, but the more he talked to her, the more determined he was.

He nearly cried again when they were waving goodbye to Aoimi and her foster-mother. God, he was turning into such a fucking sap, wasn’t he?

The social worker reached her car and turned to address them.

“Well, you’ve met Aoimi now. Do you need some time to think about it, or would you like me to put that you’re happy to proceed with the adoption on my report?”

He could tell from the look in Eijirou’s eyes what their answer would be. Eijirou nodded at him.

There was only one thing that Katsuki could say.

—

“Katsuki! Katsuki come here!”

Katsuki bolted into the room at the sound of Eijirou’s voice. “What’s-”

“Look!” Eijirou pointed to the TV, where some sort of news was airing. “There, there, look! A pair of hero interns from Yuuei just debuted, Katsuki! Guess who it was!”

“Holy shit,” Katsuki squinted at the screen, at the bright blue blob he could just about make out talking to a couple of police officers in the background. “Aoimi?”

“Yes! I just turned the news on and there she was!” Eijirou crowed. “She and her friend on the other internship with Gevaudan apprehended a purse-snatcher with a crocodile quirk. Here, I’ll rewind so you can see.”

“She’s okay, right?” Katsuki asked as Eijirou rolled the news footage back.

Eijirou nodded, bouncing up and down in his seat like he was an excitable teenager again as the takedown of the crocodile villain happened. Her fellow intern looked to have some sort of speed-boosting or strength-based quirk and he had flung Aoimi in her cat form at the villain. She’d been big enough to pin the villain to the ground until the other intern and Gevaudan showed up.

Katsuki found himself beaming. Damn, that was his daughter.

Once Gevaudan had taken over the arrest, Aoimi reverted back to human and grabbed her friend in a tight hug. A very tight hug. Katsuki’s eyes narrowed.

“Man, I wanna call her,” Eijirou said. “I’m gonna call her, got your phone on you?”

Katsuki handed it over, and Eijirou immediately went to Aoimi’s number.

She picked up after three rings. “Dad! Pa! I debuted!”

“We saw on the news, honey!” Eijirou said. “We’re so proud of you!”

“Aw, thank you! I- Yeah, it’s my dads. -I’m so glad you saw it!”

Katsuki leant in to the receiver. “No one can keep Hellcat down! You fuckin’ killed it out there, lioncub.”

“Augh, don’t call me that baby name,” Aoimi complained, though she didn’t sound too put out. “But thanks!”

“It’s my job to call you baby names, snugglekins.”

Katsuki could see Eijirou trying to smother his laughter.

“Pa, you’re so embarrassing.”

Katsuki cackled. “Oh yeah, that reminds me - bring your boyfriend over this weekend and we’ll celebrate the two of you taking down your first villain with a proper meal.”

“Wh- N- We’re not- Shut up, Pa!”

“My mistake,” Katsuki snickered, handing the phone back to Eijirou.

“Seconding the invite, though,” Eijirou said. “Debuts are something worth commemorating!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Aoimi said. She paused and said all the rest in a rush. “We’ll be there, love you both, bye.”

Katsuki put his phone back in his pocket and leaned over onto Eijirou. “She’s growing up, Ei.”

“And growing up well,” Eijirou said, curling his arm around Katsuki’s shoulders.

“Definitely doing better than me at that age,” Katsuki snorted.

Eijirou pressed a kiss to his temple. “I think the next generation of heroes is gonna be a good one, huh?”

Katsuki turned to kiss his husband on the lips. Well, with their daughter among them...

There was only one thing that Katsuki could say.

—

“Whew,” Eijirou said. “I’d forgotten how much a mountain can take out of you.”

“Baby.”

Eijirou laughed, still wheezing a little from the climb. “Man, I haven’t been a baby for a long-ass time now, Katsuki, and neither have you.”

“I dunno,” Katsuki said, reaching out to grab his husband’s hand. “Ya still got a baby-face.”

Eijirou rolled his eyes, and Katsuki took a moment to let himself stare at the other man. Yeah, they might both be a little decrepit now, but Eijirou still took his breath away. A lifetime of laughter lined Eijirou’s eyes. Laughter that they had shared, so no doubt Katsuki looked much the same.

Eijirou squeezed his hand, and together they looked out over the view. It hadn’t changed much over the years. Maybe the trees had grown a little. It was still the same landscape that had stretched out before them back when Eijirou had first asked Katsuki out.

“Hey, Katsuki,” Eijirou said. Katsuki turned his head to look back at the best part of the scene. “If someone gave you the chance to go back in time, right back to when we were kids… Would you say yes onther time? Would you do it all again?”

Katsuki stared at Eijirou. What kind of fucking question was that? Did Eijirou really think that Katsuki would want to choose any other life than the one they had carved out together? With all their friends, and their daughter and their grandchildren?

If Katsuki looked back over his memories, his mind was flooded with a golden wash of joy. He’d had a good life. The best life. He had shared it with Eijirou - and fuck, they weren’t even that old yet! There were decades still ahead of them.

Would you do it all again?

There was a twinkle in Eijirou’s eye, and Katsuki snorted. His husband already knew the answer. He’d probably always known the answer.

There was only one thing that Katsuki could say.

“Yes.”

#kiribaku #bakushima #my fanfiction #fanfiction #let-me-wander #reply #ask meme #fic: the only word #i'll reblog with the ao3 link in a sec owo

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shiro-0197 · 3 years

Note

Omg that sounds so cute 😭😭😭 I do that sometimes too. Mostly little faces and hearts and the beats turn out horrific 😳 I'm glad you had the time to do so, love :D

awww thank you, I feel much better about it now. You're right, taking a rest is suitable. I was just so focused on other stuff I never got around to studying, but I will definitely do so next month 😅😚

oh I see!! Good luck with those, you're gonna do so amazingly well xx 💖💖💖 hmm they're not the same. So we start our school year in January, and we have a first quarter exam in march, then another midterm in June/July, then a second quarter exam in September, and our finals somewhere in November (and then we get a break from November to December, and resume on the 2nd of January), tho we have many week-long holidays in between, like after our midterms (two weeks) and after the quarter exams (one week each). That's before quarantine. Now, due to quarantine, we didn't have our finals because school was out, so the school postponed it to January, when school reopens xD it sucks because we didn't even have lessons for most of the topics which are supposed to come out, and self studying is rubbish, honestly. But I think I'll be okay if I put in the hours <3

awww 😭😭 that's okay maybe use a pillow to muffle it. Oh how I'd love to give you a headpat rn. I love headpats, do you like them too?

RIVER PHOENIX BESTEST BOY. I love his name so much too, ahdbsksj!! I mean... LOOK AT HIM?? PRECIOUS, BEAUTIFUL, ANGEL.

(He's not alive anymore tho... He passed away on Halloween's day 27 years ago. His story is such a sad one, actually. I have to hold back tears when u think about it)

I'm glad you liked them!! I don't share classical music recommendations with people, you're the special exception, but I'm so happy you like it. It's very soft and soothing, and river flows in you is my favourite thing to play on the piano 😣💖

KSBSKSHSKJ CUTE CUTE CUTE YOUR VIRTUAL DATE SOUNDS ADORABLE GOSH IM MELTING. 😭😭 Poor Kuro, I hope the store restocks some of that juice for him skdjsksk. It's nice that you have someone to spend time like that with. Life is so much more fun when you have someone with you to spend the boring days away. I'm so glad you have Kuro, the two of you sound so wonderful together.

ah yes!! Abigail made it. She's hoping to start a baked goods business in the future, so she practices a lot, and that's nice because whenever I go over the house smells really good. I loved seeing them all too. I nearly cried when I saw Hri (anime protagnist friend sjdjsks it's such a mouthful to type, so that's his nickname xD) because I'd missed him a lot, so I was really really happy. He sat on the floor and let me braid his hair and tie it up, since it's grown so long now!!

Really? I didn't know that but I'm so glad you think so. You make me so happy, I hope you know that.

AHHH yes I really did miss you more, bae 😭💖 didn't not think about you :) I'm glad, it's always so nice to rant with a best friend. I hope things with his family get better!! and oof 😭😭 I never knew that about phones, but it makes sense, extremes of temperature would definitely affect the battery life :( shame that it happened tho!!

I love you too, my wonderful Shiro. Thank you for existing, and always putting a smile on my face.

—miss i'll-braid-your-hair-someday-too-shiro 💖

Heheheh, yes, every time the sounds are like music composed from the cries of the sinful souls right from Hell. It's too fun to pass, though

I'm really glad, also thanks a lot!!!

Damn ... school system is so differnet everywhere. Even the school start, ours starts at first of September😭 It's usually 3 exams per term for each subject, and there are 4 terms. 2 of the exams are for the unit we had passed, and the 3rd exam is what I like to call the final exam, and its has questions of everything we had passed in the term. Or semester. idk how it's called anymore😩 I just know that they're not divided equally (one is two months, one is three, one is 3,5, the other one is 2,5 or something🤨) and it bothers me a lot. Could've done it a little more organized.... pain😞😞

Yeah, selfstudying is really hard... you just lose focus and it's difficult to understand something with all those weird words. For me, at least. With a study buddy i could at least brag that I'm ahead of them XDD I'm sure you can do it, though! Good luck<33

I like to give out headpats!! But, I guess, to have one from you would be lovely😭

Omg!!!! He looks so gorgeous??!? It's such a shame he died at such a young age:((( rest in peace, River Phoenix😖

Ohhh!! Am I, now? That's cute, I'm glad🥺 I'd love to listen to you playing it someday🥺

Hahah, I know right!! I've been thinking about how cute it sounded, tbh I wanted to draw that but really haven't been feeling up to it XD I'm also very happy to have him. It gets lonely around here :( I'm also very glad to have you! And your sweet messages. It's really a relief, knowing someone so wonderful cares about you. Makes me feel even more special, you know?

Ohh that sounds so good!! I wish her luck, I'm sure she'll succeed. That cookie looked gorgeous, bet it tasted great too😋😋 Also that's so sweet omg???? I'm glad you got to see him🥺🥺 and he let you braid his hair what a wonderful man😍🤭

You make me very happy too!!<33

You're making my heart dance rn wth😭😭💞 you're right, it's really nice to just ramble on about stuff with you♡♡ I really hope so as well, but I think it's really better to hope that they can move out. I wish I could help them fjnancially:(

Yeah phones are kinda annoying like that sometimes >:(( it sucks, but at least they do what they need to hehe

Thank you so much for everything, for everything you've told me, for everything you showed me and everything you wished me, you never fail to make my day better💕💕💞💓

#Ari💕#from your dear mr. i-cant-wait-till-you-braid-my-hair-😩😩😩

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amazingphanisnotonfire-imagines · 5 years

Text

Toni//Old Friends, New Love

Request: Can I request a Toni/reader where when she transfers to Riverdale, you stand up for her and the serpents, it turns out you grew up on the southside but moved before high school, maybe she remembers hanging out with you?

The doors to Riverdale High swung open, and you stuck your head further into your locker. Students from the Southside were transferring today and there were rumours going round that they were from the Serpents. A gang you were all too familiar with.

The sound of their boots was the only thing to be heard in the corridor, well apart from the quiet mumblings from around you. You could almost feel the stares of the new students as they walked down the corridor, stopping in front of the desk Veronica had set up. In your opinion, it was the worst thing she could have done. Serpents hated the Northside, and that was the most northsierish thing you had ever seen.

“Friends!” Veronica greeted happily. “On behalf of the students and faculty here at Riverdale High, welcome to your new school.”

While Veronica was talking you decided to sneak a peak at the new students. Jughead was obviously leading them, the usual brooding look on his face, either side of him were two boys that looked annoyed, one of them significantly taller than the other, and the rest of the students to be honest. And then there she was. Toni Topaz. You and Toni had been best friends for a small part of your life. When your mom’s company had been struggling you had to move to the Southside for a short period of time, meaning you lived in the trailer park, a few doors down from her. She looked the same as she did all those years ago, but that may have been because she hadn’t grew much. She was more beautiful now, with long hair that had bits of pink in them, you remembered when you used to braid it, at one of the many sleepovers you would have. However that all ended when your mom’s company started to pick up again and you could afford to move back to the Northside. After that, you never saw her. Being a Northsider again meant you were unwelcome on the Southside, especially if you’d lived there and then moved back.

“To ease this transitions, I’ve set up a registration desk, where you can get your locker assignments, schedules and a list of sports and extracurriculars.” Veronica explained, and every single serpent rolled their eyes at almost the exact same time. Yep, you knew they wouldn’t like this. You may have only spent a brief amount of time with some of them (really only Toni) but you knew what they liked and what they didn’t. “We encourage each and every one of you to drink deeply from the cup that is fair Riverdale.” She added making you snort with laughter. Veronica, Archie, Kevin and the Serpents all looked in your direction and your eyes widened before you quickly averted your attention back to your locker. Hopefully the door was covering your face enough.

“Stand down, Eva Peron!” Cheryl shouted from the top of the stairs and everyone’s attention turned to her. Her, followed quickly by Reggie Mantle and a small army of River Vixens walked down the stairs and your sighed. You looked back towards the Serpents who were all looking at her, annoyed expressions on their faces. Basically, they looked like they were gonna fight somebody at any minute, and they’d only been here for 2 minutes.

“There’s the school spirit I so fondly remember.” Jughead said sarcastically.

“Cheryl, no one invited Fascist Barbie to the party.” Veronica commented. You decided that people were distracted enough for you to stop hiding in your locker so you could watch what was going to happen properly.

“Wrong Veronica.” Cheryl crossed her arms. “No one invited Southside scum to our school.”

I’m sorry what did she say? You thought, raising your eyebrows.

“Listen up, ragamuffins.” She said loudly, the serpents attention moved from Veronica to Cheryl and they were certainly gonna fight someone, but then again, maybe so were you. Toni and the serpents had taught you a few things when you lived at the trailer park, and one of those was how to punch somebody, hard. “I will not allow Riverdale’s above high GPA to suffer because of classrooms overcrowded with underachiever. So please, do us all a favour and find some other school to debase with your hardscrabble ways.”

“Cheryl.” You walked towards her, making her turn her attention to you and raise an eyebrow. Okay, what are you doing? You’re drawing attention to yourself. Why are you continuing to walk towards her? “Please, for the love of everyone here and their will power, shut the fuck up with your nonsense talk. You sound like a 70 year old woman stuck in a teenagers body and it isn’t a good look. You also have the views of a 70 year old woman. Why don’t you go find someone else to piss of with your backwards views because like it or not, Serpents are here to stay. And I for one, think Riverdale High will be better with a bit of diversity around here. They may not be rich like you, but they are far better people, and we all know, the majority of people’s GPA results are only high because they either cheated, or their parents paid off the teachers. Now, which one are you?” You finished, complete silence fell over the corridor, students were staring at you wide-eyed and open mouthed. The Serpents were smirking, looking impressed, and Cheryl looked like she was going to murder you. But by God did it feel good to stand up for them, even if she was going to make your life a living hell. You felt like you owed the Serpents.

“Excuse me?” Cheryl asked. Oh boy. “Who the hell asked you Y/l/n? Why did you decide to crawl out from your little shell? Are you one of them, or are you sleeping with one of them? That would make sense, seeing as though no sane person would ever want to be friends with you let alone date you.”

“Don’t talk to her like that. Just because she disagrees with you.” Toni stood up for you, standing in between you and Cheryl. The Serpents were stood around you, which made you feel slightly at ease.

“Oh shut up Strawberry Shortcake.” Cheryl rolled her eyes.

“Cheryl.” Jughead said in a warning tone.

“What do you want hobo?” She replied and turned her attention away from you and Toni.

“Hey, thanks for sticking up for u-”

“Everybody get to your classes. Now!” Principal Weatherbee’s voice boomed down the corridor and you quickly walked away from Toni and the rest of the Serpents. You already had a target on your back, now that you’d defended the Serpents, that target had grown 1000 times bigger. You didn’t need to hang around and talk to them, as much as you wanted to.

--------

“Hey.” Toni’s voice made you jump a little before you turned to look at her. You were sitting outside during your free period. Which meant you were hiding underneath the bleachers so nobody could find you. Apparently, it wasn’t that good of a hiding spot.

“Hey.” You sent her a shy smile and moved along so she could sit beside you.

“I’m glad I found you.”

“Really?” You asked surprised. “Why?” Did she remember you? She didn’t seem to when she tried to talk to your earlier. Ever since your encounter with her earlier, you couldn’t get Toni out of your mind. She had been your best friend and you thought she’d forgotten about you, but then she defended you, so maybe not. But then, it seemed she looked straight through you, it was like you were stranger, which then made you even more confused.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you.” She replied. “For this morning and the whole defending thing. I tried to thank you earlier but you ran away before I had the chance. But me and the rest of the Serpents really are thankful. It’s nice to know that at least one person has our backs.” She smiled at you. Oh, she really is as pretty as you remember. Just the sight of her smile made you slightly breathless.

“Its no trouble.” You shrugged.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” You replied.

“Why did you stand up for us exactly?” She asked and your chest started to feel tight. She definitely didn’t remember you. A part of you was thankful, you didn’t want her to hate you, but the other part, the part that had longed for her since you’d left the Southside, felt as though it had been smashed.

“Oh.” Your voice wavered slightly. “Ya know. I just didn’t think it was very fair that you, I mean the Serpents were being targeted like that for doing nothing wrong...” You trailed off.

“Oh.” She nodded and looked straight ahead. You let out a small sigh of relief before she whipped her head back round, a bright smile on her face. “ I know you don’t I!?”

“What? I err, I don’t think so.” You stuttered.

��No.” She shook her head. “I do. It’s Y/n right.” She asked.

“Yeah.” You nodded anxiously.

“Your parents used to live a few trailers away from mine?”

“Yeah.” You replied quietly. “We used to hang out and have sleepovers. You braided my hair and I taught you how to fight.”

“Yeah.” You replied. A nervous smile on your face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked.

“I thought it would be best for everyone if you just didn’t remember.” You shrugged. “Plus, I thought you hated me.”

“Why would I hate you?” She asked confused.

“Well because I was there for like a year and a half and then I just left to go live back on the Northside.” You explained.

“That wasn’t your fault.” She replied and placed a hand on your back. “I’m glad that you were able to move back.” She added with a reassuring smile. “I did miss you though.” She shrugged.

“I missed you too.” You replied. “But I figured I wouldn’t be welcome on the Southside anymore.”

“That may have been for the best.” She replied with a slight smile before nudging you. “But I’m glad we can hang out now.” She added. “Maybe going here isn’t going to be as bad as I thought it would be.”

“Hopefully.” You replied.

“Can I ask you another question?” She asked nervously.

“Sure.” You laughed.

“Do you wanna go on a date?” She replied and looked at the floor.

“What?” You asked confused. “You wanna go on a date with me?”

“Yeah.” She replied. “Listen, I know we knew each other when we were like 13, but I liked you then, and I kind of never got over it. It grew over the years and well, I let you go one time, I’m not gonna let it happen again.” She explained.

“Pop’s?” You asked and she looked at you confused. “Do you wanna go to Pop’s for our date tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” She nodded quickly, a bright smile taking over her features. “Just one question?” She asked and you nodded. “What exactly is Pop’s?”

“What?!” You asked shocked. “You don’t know what Pop’s is? Maybe Cheryl was right about you lot.” You teased.

“Hey.” She shoved you and you both laughed. “Do you wanna go hang out with the others?”

“Nah.” You shook your head. “I want it to be just us for a bit. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

permanent taglist: @lover2448

#toni #toni imagine #toni x reader #toni topaz #toni topaz imagine #toni topaz x reader #toni topaz x you #riverdale #riverdale imagine #vanessa morgan

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lizzieraindrops · 4 years

Text

Your chance to make the sun rise thrice (Chapter 2)

a river that still runs (8803 words)

Beth Childs has come to Helsinki to meet her best friend Veera for the first time in the Herbs on the windowsill universe, an alternate timeline where the original Helsinki massacre was prevented and DYAD routed by Clone Club Alpha’s successful publicity stunt back in 2001. Veera Suominen and Niki Lintula survived and decided to live in a little apartment together as qpp’s. Numerous Leda clones worldwide are now in contact via a secure online network that Veera maintains.

Note: This chapter is a bit heavier than the rest of the AU. Beth is still struggling with a lot of the same challenges in this universe, even if the events causing them are somewhat different because of such early canon divergence. But the whole point of this story is that things can end up okay no matter how rough it's been. She's getting the help she needs and she's gonna be alright. That said, warning for soft discussion of past abuse, the effects of trauma, depression and anxiety, and some suicidal ideation. And of course, lots of love and learning how to heal, with support from her best friend.

Fun fact: Veera's username is 3mika, and she always sets her font to the precise warm turquoise of hex color #2299aa. She thinks she's hilarious, and she's right.

Also on AO3 | Playlist | Aesthetic sideblog

Part 1: Herbs on the windowsill

Part 2: Someday colors

Part 3: Your chance to make the sun rise thrice | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

***

Beth wakes on a squashy couch that isn't hers. Morning-soft sunlight pours through the window above her, bouncing back off the walls to fill even the shady corners with a warm secondhand glow. Her limbs are soft, splayed under unfamiliar blankets and sinking into the cushions. She doesn't move yet.

The apartment. Helsinki. Beth's really here. She holds herself still, letting the truth sink into her. She half expects the usual anxious tension to clench her into a ball the instant she moves a muscle, but it isn't there. Neither is the invisible weight that so often pins her immobile. She still wakes frequently with both of them holding her body hostage, keeping her muscles unmoving but restless, even in sleep. Right now though, they're gone. She just lies there, soft beneath the window.

It's quiet but not silent. The occasional car on the little road outside chuckles as it passes. A soft rush of water echoes through pipes in the walls, running toward an early riser in another unit. These sounds fall strangely on Beth's Toronto-bred ears, isolated in the stillness of this of this little apartment on the outskirts of the city. Still, the early-morning atmosphere settles comfortably into her jet-lagged bones, murmuring a rhythm for her to sink into. The temporal upheaval of a transcontinental red-eye and a series of exhausted naps yesterday have left her a little unbalanced. And yet, here she is waking up with the day, and the ground under her feels so much more stable than she’s used to.

Beth breaks her stillness with a deep, deep breath that she can feel expanding all the way down to her feet. She stretches, too, but soon pulls the toes that get exposed back underneath the warm, scratchy blanket. The cushions of the old couch creak a little in complaint as she shifts, but her limbs remain supple. For a time, she just observes the sensations. Then, her awareness spreads beyond the couch and the window to the rest of the room.

All around her, an oddly blocky pattern covers the walls. It's one of the first things she noticed when she walked into the apartment yesterday afternoon. The pattern isn't wallpaper like it appears at first glance, but actually a multitude of small photographs. Most of them are unframed, but taped up in crisply aligned rows. In them, she sees the same face infused with a hundred different lives. Just above her, a sleeping, slack-jawed redhead with bulky headphones around her neck sprawls on the very same couch Beth's laying on now. A few rows down, a brunette and a blonde with their long hair in matching wild waves are leaning all over each other and grinning like devils. One of the few framed photos shows a girl with a hospital-short buzz cut and a delighted expression, sitting in front of what looks like a mouthwatering strawberry shortcake. Beth can see at least six others in the background behind strawberry girl. Among them are Mika with her unmistakable scars and Niki with her bright blonde hair, their arms around each other's shoulders.

Morning light glances off the glossy surfaces of the photos on the west wall. The particularly bright reflection off one of the framed photos draws Beth's eye. With a tiny jolt, Beth recognizes one of her own selfies beneath the glass. In it, she's wearing the same old turquoise blue sweatshirt that's spilling out of her suitcase next to the couch right now. Underneath it, she's wearing her track gear, so the photo is at least two years old. She'd had to quit cross-country so she could try to get the shitshow her life had become under control. She vaguely recalls sending it to Mika a long time ago. It's strange to think that her presence has been in this apartment for so long.

She's here. In Finland. Staying with Mika – Mika - and Niki. Far, far away from everything.

Sprawling on the couch she slept on with a sigh as if she hadn’t a care in the world, Beth can't believe she's really gone and done it. She's run so far away that there's an ocean between her and her problems. It’s so much better than she's dreamed, even if it's only for a little while. It’s worth it, even though she'll be going back far too soon. For the first time in years, it feels like she’s where she’s supposed to be right now.

It had all started out as foolish idea she'd floated one Saturday morning, months ago. She hadn't been serious at all. She'd woken up so relieved at not having to get up and go to work, until she remembered her weekly therapy appointment with a hopeless groan.

Putting off the genuinely daunting prospect of hauling herself out of bed, she reached out to snag her phone from on top of her dresser, checking to see if she'd heard from Mika overnight. After all, Helsinki was nine hours ahead, so Mika had already seen most of the day that was just beginning for Beth. They talked so often these days, since they'd first made contact over two years ago. Rarely a day passed without touching base. But there wasn’t anything since Beth had checked last night. She took it upon herself to send the first message of the day.

runwaterblue: god, i dont wanna get up and deal with any of thsi shit today

After her world fell apart, after finding out about Project Leda, after realizing that all her nightmares and more were real, after her father...

runwaterblue: wish i could come visit u and get away form everything for awhile

Mika replied almost immediately.

3mika: you can

It was evening in her time zone, but to be honest, Beth had no idea if she had anything resembling a regular sleep schedule. The girl was always online.

3mika: though you really should go to your appointment. you always feel better afterward

runwaterblue: howd you know i have therapy today

3mika: you always have an appointment saturday afternoons

runwaterblue: yes but how do you remember that? i cant evne remember my own appts lmao

3mika: you mentioned it months ago when you switched from sundays to saturdays

Beth shook her head with a smile. Mika was so good with details.

3mika: anyway. you’re welcome here, if you can get here

3mika: it would be great to see you

3mika: Niki wouldn't mind. we've had a bunch of Ledas visit us here, it's always fun

3mika: except that one time Dani and Ary got into a fight over football. some French-Italian team rivalry thing. that was not fun.

Beth laughed. It was funny how Mika was so good at making her do that, even on days like these. She leaned back against her pillow and held her phone over her head without sitting up, being careful not to drop it on her own face. She'd done that before. More times than she'd admit.

runwaterblue: i was kidding. id love to visit, but idk how id get there

runwaterblue: u should see the americans go off abt their football lmao. they're nerly as bad as the hockey freaks here

3mika: pls no

3mika: no more sports. it was a year ago and I’m still exhausted

3mika: sports are banned in this apartment.

Beth snorted. Mika wanted nothing to do with sports of any kind, and with Beth's athletic record, the topic had become a point of mutual teasing between them.

In so many ways, they were such different people, DNA be damned. Mika was reticent where Beth was outgoing. (Or at least, Beth had been. She was never quite sure how to think of herself these days.) Clone drama aside, Beth had been a pretty average Canadian high schooler. She got reasonable grades, played a few sports, and kept mostly out of trouble because there would be hell to pay if she didn’t. Mika was a brilliant homeschooled autistic orphan who had been raised in near isolation by her guardian after surviving the hospital fire that marked her skin for life. Beth mostly listened to pop music, and where no one else could hear, the occasional classical symphony. Mika held fast to Finland's weird obsession with death metal and dabbled in literally everything else.

And yet, Mika understands Beth like no one else does. And it's not just because they've both been through all this Project Leda bullshit. Though Beth doesn't know what she would have done without Mika to help her through that, too.

Beth won't ever be able to forget the moment that everything changed. Recognizing a her own face from the mirror on the evening news stopped her in her tracks, as something in her gut caved in with the hollow certainty that it wasn't her. Then face after face flickered before her, a flipbook barrage of déja vu. Blonde and smiling. Scarred and pensive. Braids and piercings and a rakish grin. Beth was rooted in place as people she had never been wearing things she had never worn said things she was never supposed to know.

That utter strangeness on the screen immediately seeped into her life like an oil slick into a river, tainting every thing she thought she knew with clinging uncertainty. Her father was inexplicably even more upset about it than Beth was, yet adamant that they shouldn't look into the matter. But it was already too late to stop herself from thinking. With slow horror, the truth of what exactly his behavior must mean dawned on her. And yet, even with the desperate growing certainty about who her Leda monitor must be, it was hard to believe that he could be anything other than her plain stern father.

He was always a bit strict and overprotective - probably well more than a bit, she realizes these days. But she’d thought that's just what it was like to be a cop's daughter. He'd never done anything really extreme, nothing beyond the firm discipline any kid could expect. He was just not a man to be trifled with, that was all. So until everything she thought she knew shifted that day and threatened to topple every assumption she’d built her life on, she had never truly dared to cross him.

Outright daring him to say to her face that he wasn't her monitor was probably considered a step beyond trifling. He did not take it kindly.

Two months later, Beth and her mother were living in an apartment on the opposite side of the city. It took two months for the two of them to lay plans to leave together, for good. For two months, her every move was watched. She spent two months knowing there would be hell to pay if she didn't give the performance of a lifetime pretending everything was fine, even while sirens blared inside her day and night. Two months was more than enough to teach her things she never wanted to know about the hidden marks fear leaves on the body.

Even after she finally escaped, her life was in tatters and nothing made sense. It wasn’t just the sudden jarring discovery of Project Leda, or the crisis it had forced her to confront. It was learning that, deep down, she had known that she’d never once felt free. She’d unconsciously kept herself from knowing to avoid exactly that conflict of wills that she’d known she would lose.

Trying to come to terms with what had happened and how it changed everything, Beth was continuously losing her balance. Questioning which parts of her life had been screwed over by her father and which by being part of some ridiculous supervillain science experiment was like trying to stand on two kickboards in a pool. She couldn't find her footing, and all she could do was try and stay afloat. She had to repeat her whole junior year of high school that she lost to this shitshow, while starting over at a new school, and only barely scraped her way into senior year. Now that she knew how honestly terrible she'd been at judging who in her life she could trust, it was as hard to talk to old friends as it was to make new ones.

Therapy helped her start sorting out what she was feeling, and how the environment she’d grown up in was really not the healthiest. She hadn’t realized how much she’d learned to doubt her own perceptions. That made constructing any kind of new understanding of her situation an uphill struggle. And of course, her therapist couldn’t help her confirm anything about a human experiment that was so illegal it had been an international secret. As she continued to stumble forward, Beth even started doubting her former certainty of the identity of her Leda monitor. She questioned herself and everything she knew until she wanted to scream with frustration or weep with confusion. The floor of the counselor’s office could have been mopped with her tears. It was, quite literally, driving her mad.

So, finally, Beth had taken up the invitation on the banner of every Leda news feature to "Contact the secure, clone-run Clone Youth Group Network (CYGNet) for answers by emailing [email protected]."

She wanted something concrete that would help convince her brain to stop reenacting these head games that warped her reality. It still insisted on playing through the patterns it had been taught, even in its teacher’s absence. She needed something that could brace her against the ideas that she was really just paranoid, overreacting, accusing, that this was all her fault for making a big deal out of nothing. Even with his other faults (cruelties, her mind whispered) aside, at least his involvement with Project Leda was unforgivable, and she wanted proof of it. Maybe if she had that, she could stop being mad at herself for not wanting to forgive. And if anyone had that proof, CYGNet would.

Maybe it was just because of the sheer blunt honesty about her motives, or the inescapable vulnerability of the message Beth sent, but Mika had replied to her within a day. And she'd been so gentle about it, too, enough to make Beth later question where the stereotype of autistic brashness came from. Then again, over email, Mika had all the time she needed to compose her thoughts and lay them out as softly as she wanted. She didn't have to spit them out as fast as she could to keep pace with a quick and painfully overwhelming world.

Hi Beth Childs,

I'm so sorry for what you had to go through. I still don't know how they got away with doing things like this for so long. I suppose people will always find ways to be cruel. But we've survived this long, and the whole point of CYGNet is to help us all heal. The experimental network has been dismantled, and we are assembling resources to help us. We've brought mental health professionals on to the project to develop custom programs for our needs. We can make them available to you, if you are interested.

I attached scans of some of your files that we recovered from DYAD. There are a few case reports with the signature of the person you asked about, spaced throughout your lifetime. There are also financial records with his name in the list of paid employees. He was without a doubt part of the Leda monitor program. I can provide all of the documentation that we have related to you, if you like, but I thought that would be too much all at once. I know these are hard to look at, but I hope they help let your mind rest. They are very real, and every awful thing we have experienced was also real, no matter how they tried to convince everyone that we were making it all up.

Please take your time with these, and stay in contact if you want to. You can join our mailing list, if you want to know when we have new information or new resources available. We're here for you.

And hey, if you just want to talk to someone who knows what it's like to deal with all of this, I'm here, too. You can reach my personal inbox or IM me at [email protected]. It'll be okay.

-Veera

Beth had started crying before she even finished reading the letter, much less opened the attachments. She cried so often these days. She only knew why half the time. But this time, it felt like the tears were extracting some of her pain as they left her, instead of just overflowing from the unending wellspring of her directionless distress. All of this was real, and someone else knew it.

Though she was grateful beyond measure for her mother’s untiring support, they were each other’s too-close, ever-present reminders of what they’d survived, trying to act like they weren’t, trying to convince each other and themselves that they were okay. Beth had needed something else, too, something until now unnamed.

This was a handhold, a backstop Beth didn't know she'd been desperate to find. It wasn't just the confirmation of what she’d concluded about her father. The ability speak plainly to someone she didn't feel the need to pretend around was an exhale of a breath held too long. At least one person in the world not only understood, but really and truly didn't want or expect her to act like any of this was normal or okay, or that she would ever be the same again.

Veera – or Mika, as she often went by online – made good on her offer of a sympathetic ear. Their correspondence started off with awkward, grammatically correct messages about the less painful details of their lives. Mika told her about the farmer’s market three blocks away where she went walking early in the morning before it got busy, and the plant stand there that her best friend and roommate Niki (also a Leda) had to ask her to stop buying so many succulents from.

At first, Beth tried to chatter like she used to, but there were no safe subjects. What had happened had touched all of her life. Normally, she’d talk about school, or sports, or her friends. But she was trying to start all over again at a new school with all the struggles that came with it. She didn’t have the time or energy for sports anymore, and talking about them hurt, now. Running used to make her heart sing. But no matter how she tried, there was no joy in the motion anymore. To top it all off, it was as hard to connect with old friends from her old life as it was to try and make new ones. She spent most interactions either doubting her own character judgement or dreading the moment people recognized her Leda face from the news.

She didn’t know how to talk about any of it to anyone. Maybe she could have if it had been just the clone thing or just the dad thing. But the two were inextricably entangled, and she still couldn’t even explain it to herself. It was all unbelievably horrifying, and any time she tried to be honest about it, people ended up disbelieving or horrified. Shocker.

Maybe, though, it wouldn’t be weird to talk about it with Mika. Mika already knew the worst. Beth didn’t have to hide that hurt from her to keep from shaking her world, or to keep her dismissal from hurting Beth. Maybe that’s what was hurting the most: the feeling that even after escaping, she still had to pretend to be okay. That compulsive stifling feeling choked her whenever it bubbled back up. On her bad days, a simple “how are you?” could reduce her to a blank face plastered over a raw tangle of emotions held motionless her own iron grip.

But Mika mentioned having bad days, too. Days came where she was too scared and nightmare-weary to do anything but make herself some tea and soak up some sunlight in the safety of home. Beth could casually say things like after those two months, i still twitch every time i hear a door open, and i wish my body would quit feeling like it doesn’t exist, my legs feel numb. It barely broke the surface of what it was like in her head, but was discomfiting enough for people that she held her tongue at school.

Sometimes, Beth got tired of constantly thinking about all this shit and tried to lighten things up. On one comically disastrous occasion of cultural exchange, she liveblogged Mika her attempt at eating the infamous Scandinavian lutefisk, along with an audio recording of the incoherent horrified noises she made after tasting it. In return, she received a recording of someone, presumably Mika, laughing harder than she’d ever heard anyone laugh before. It made Beth smile. Not many things did, back then.

Slowly, as the formality fell away from their transcontinental conversations, their heavier stories seething below the surface seeped in. Beth had been in therapy long enough now to know that she couldn't just recklessly unload on people the way she did in counseling sessions. But a counselor couldn't always provide the same kind of unspoken solidarity that someone in the same boat could.

Bit by bit, slipped into the chats that were becoming a daily occurrence, they talked about monitors, about what the experiment had really all been for, why that both was and wasn’t important, and how they'd discovered they were a part of Project Leda. Putting words to the pain hurt, a lot. But the ability to lay out long-unspoken truths in front of each other, knowing they were believed in the way that only people who have shared something can, was a healing kind of pain instead of the festering one Beth had been living with.

The two of them had more in common than they'd thought, growing up a world apart. Beth's experience raised under the subconscious wariness of her father's hovering thumb felt a lot like what Mika described growing up largely isolated with her former guardian. But sometimes, whenever they realized that something they'd both thought was normal was pretty not, they got a good laugh out of it despite the weight of their pasts. Mika seemed somewhat accustomed to her normal being considered pretty weird, so she usually took the revelations in stride better than Beth did. Beth wouldn't find out for at least a year after meeting her that it was because of her Asperger's, since it was a topic Mika seemed quite sensitive about.

Mika explained it once, in a conversation full of long pauses on her part and watching the typing icon disappear and reappear on Beth’s. The way she put it, it just meant that her brain worked a bit differently than most people's, processing sounds and sights and all the information it took in at different speeds and with different emphases. The difference could turn everyday things like the sound of a refrigerator running into a splitting headache, or something as simple as the soft texture of her favorite jacket into a kind of bliss. That alternative way of processing also extended to things like words and emotions as well. Sometimes, it took her longer than the world was willing to wait to process them into something that made sense. It often made communication tricky, trying to compensate for the gap in mutual understanding with most people. The world and the people in it could be so overwhelming sometimes, so fast and bright and full of noise and uncertainty and bewilderingly arbitrary social conventions. But the biggest challenge was other people expecting her to do everything the same way they did, ignorant of the fact there were any ways to exist other than their own, and completely oblivious to the fact that she was already putting in at least twice as much effort to communicate with them as they were with her.

And yet, even coming from such a different perspective, Mika gets it. Beth says sometimes i dream of drowning and its not a nightmare and i wake up not knowing how to feel, and Mika says I still dream of burning and wake up not knowing which fires are real, and they both say yeah. And they sit there across the world from each other knowing these things, knowing that it doesn't fix anything. And yet, it does change something. Nothing's any better, really. But somehow, the knowledge that someone else understands makes it a little easier to bear.

And that's just it. Somehow, without ever even having seen her face, Mika sees Beth clearer than anyone. All of her, all the ugly parts she hides so that they can't hurt anyone, and all the good parts that she also hides so that nobody can hurt them or take them away from her. Mika sees all of that and then just tells Beth another story about the Northern Lights she sees on the regular. Apparently, in Finnish, they’re called "fox fires." Beth hardly ever sees the aurora, living relatively far south in a bright city. But her stories about life in the metropolis by the lake intrigue Mika as much as the tales of the twisting green lights do her. And Beth can talk about something lighter again while not having to pretend that the heaviness isn’t there, too, even while she’s just once more trying and failing to explain poutine. For her, the weight never really goes away. But the effort of pretending she’s not carrying it takes more out of her than the weight itself. Mika understands that.

Maybe that’s why Beth had talked it over with Mika first, even before her mom, when she was considering taking a gap year after she hopefully managed to finish her senior year of high school. (God, it was so hard to think about English or math or whatever when just that morning she’d woken from a nightmare about being back in a not-home house that she never escaped.) Beth's mom had been so unbelievably supportive of Beth's recovery, even while she herself was adjusting to the wrenching change in both of their lives. It was both inspiring and a little intimidating. If her mom managed to run a household and raise a daughter all on her own, even while trying to heal from her own trauma, how could Beth not do her utmost, too? She was grateful to be able to talk to Mika about it, to get a reality check from someone who both understood her situation intimately and didn't make Beth feel that pressure of expectation. In the end, Beth did decide to take a year or two off before considering college, and her mom was again nothing if not supportive. Beth figured, after this entire mess, she deserved some time to herself to work on sorting her shit out, and her mom agreed.

After graduating with reasonable if not flying colors, Beth worked a series of part-time and odd jobs that didn't stress her out too much, letting herself focus on her own healing. In between her mom's support, seeing a counselor regularly, and the security of having a friend she could really trust, Beth felt like she was making progress. Slow progress, sure, but progress, nonetheless. Considering that she had seventeen years' worth of lies to unbelieve and emotional trauma to finally acknowledge, Beth figured that there was only so much she could do in the three years she'd had.

Her days were still hard. Getting sleep and waking up and eating and even just existing were still so fucking hard sometimes, and it was horrible. Some days, the thinnest sheet trapped her in bed like it was a car pinning her down. It felt so stupid for such simple things to be so hard. But then her therapist would remind her that that’s what mental illness and trauma was, that this was what the wounds in her mind and heart made her feel like. And once in awhile, sun broke through the shadows, and she had a day that reminded her what an okay day felt like – that okay days existed. That more might.

Now, she’s here, lying in a bright living room so far from home, with her dearest friend in the next room. She’s comfortable, except for the knot in her neck from sleeping oddly on the couch. The soreness pales in comparison to the usual tensions that are so strangely absent. Beth can’t remember the last time she felt this okay. She’s not steeling herself to go to work. She’s not dreading the next conversation with her mother that goes quiet as they both remember awful things they don’t mention. She’s not bracing herself for the next time her brain runs rampant worrying about whether she’ll run into the subject of her restraining order somewhere in the city and have to wonder if he'll honor it.

None of that reaches her here. There’s something about this quiet little pocket of space. It’s overrun with a proliferation of potted plants, from the sprawling lacy-leafed monster in the corner, to the fern peeping out of the kitchen, to the vine cuttings spilling out of an oddly familiar leaf-shaped glass bottle on the sill. Sunlight streaks through leaves and windowpanes and across the colorful patchwork of rugs on the floor. In the midst of it all, Beth is held by a palpable aura of gentleness. It holds her so softly that she doesn't need to hold herself in. It's like the layer of caution that she always keeps wrapped between herself and the rest of the world has simply dissolved away. In this moment suspended in morning light, she is okay.

She feels safe.

The realization undoes something in her. She feels the tears starting, and she expects the taut tension of involuntary stifling that always comes with them to return. But it doesn’t. She lies still and soft on the couch with the water creeping over her cheeks, breath occasionally catching but flowing freely. She savors it in the quiet.

The soft thunk of an ill-fitted door opening breaks into her odd reverie. Mika’s up. Beth sniffs and scrubs at her eyes halfheartedly, but she can’t hide them right now and she doesn’t want to. Mika notices immediately, and comes trotting over with quiet steps, leaning forward all concern.

"Beth," she says softly. She shifts from foot to foot like a nervous cat, watching Beth with enormous eyes. Beth has never met anyone else with such an intense stare. Or maybe it's just the fact that Beth knows beyond all doubt that she's being looked at by somebody who really sees her in her entirety. It's like she's staring right into Beth's soul. But Mika was able to do that long before they saw each others' faces. They've shared so many thousands of words over screens and seas, so many emotions that have gone otherwise unspoken, so many too-early mornings and too-late nights on the fringes of each other's dawns and dusks.

“What’s wrong?”

Finally, a flash of that sick tension runs through Beth’s body. It’s been okay when Mika has asked that before, when it was just silent letters on a screen. But out loud, the question falls on her ears like every well-meaning inquiry she’s ever had to scramble to find an acceptable answer for. The strain begins to cinch tight around her again like coarse ropes across barely-healed skin, ready to compel her to replace the truth with something safer. Her arms and legs tied, she begins to freeze, railing against herself for tainting the softness, the safety of this place.

"Beth." Mika says again, softer but more urgent.

In the gap between thoughts created by hearing her name, Beth seizes the chance to redirect them to the present. She clings to the welling in the corners of her eyes, the warmth of the sun caressing her back. The leaves of trees whisper outside the third-floor window in a mild breeze. The brightness spills over the sill and across Mika’s asymmetrical, half-craggy face and lights up tufts of her short hair as she steps closer. The couch dips as Mika sits down next to her, tilting Beth toward her.

Without meeting her eyes, Mika lifts a hesitant hand that hovers in the air between them, uncertain yet reaching. Her gentle palm falls onto Beth's forearm as softly as a floating leaf. The fingers curl around Beth’s arm just below the wrist, firm but not tight. Comforting.

The softness surrounding Beth seeps back into her, saturating her. As the memory fades like a ripple into water, the tension slackens. But it leaves her shaky, with traces of a familiar ache in her neck muscles, one that goes deeper than the simple stiffness from the couch. She sucks in a few unsteady breaths while Mika gives her arm a gentle squeeze.

“Sorry,” Beth says in a small, awkward voice.

Mika tilts her head. “Why?”

“Uh, I didn’t mean to bring all – this mess, in here.” Beth rubs the back of her neck with her free hand. “It’s so... soft, and okay, and – I don’t wanna ruin it,” she says, trailing off into a mumble.

“Hey.” Mika moves her hand from Beth’s arm to her shoulder. When Beth looks at her, she’s looking right back. Mika's eyes dart down to the floor for a moment, but then return to hold Beth’s with deliberate steadiness. “It’s alright. It’s like this here because we wanted it to be safe to be messy. You’re not ruining anything.”

“... Oh.” She’s steadied by Mika’s fingers curling around her shoulder, by the tendrils of sunlight spreading across her head and back and arms. Mika’s voice is small but steady, and somehow it comes from the same throat that makes that huge pealing laugh. It’s so strange how they sound nothing alike. Until yesterday, Beth hadn’t heard her voice since the lutefisk incident. They’d mostly kept to text and pictures. It had seemed easier, the way it gave them both plenty time to think before they spoke through their different uncertainties. Beth was already planning her trip before they realized that they’d never actually called each other. By that point, it sounded like more fun to meet in person the old-fashioned way.

"I'll make you some tea." Mika abruptly stands and lets go of her. Beth is sad to lose the contact. She flits across the room toward the kitchen in her soft cotton pajama pants, complemented by yet another black graphic tee for yet another Scandinavian metal band Beth's never heard of. Or at least, she'd never heard of them before Mika, who has something to say about all of them, and now Beth knows more than she'll ever need to.

Mika moves in and out of view behind the half-wall that separates the little living room from the kitchen. The fronds of the fern on the counter make a green rustling as she brushes by them. It sends soft feathered shadows waving across the wall opposite the window. Beth hears the rush of water boiling out of sight, and soon sees steam rising from the mug that's being handed to her.

"It's hot," Mika says unnecessarily. She sits down next to her again, this time leaning into Beth with her arm. Beth’s glad for it.

"Have you ditched the bags and gone loose leaf?" Beth says, eyeing the fragments of bright green leaf free floating in her mug.

"It didn't come in a bag. It came from the window."

"The window?"

"It's basil tea. For the fear and pain. Five large fresh leaves in two hundred and fifty milliliters water. We grew it here."

Beth takes a cautious sip. It's surprisingly sweet, and the savory smell of the steam rising from it curls into her sinuses. The aching in her head and neck begin to relax. It's unfamiliar, but it feels like home should, just like everything else here.

"Thanks," Beth says. On an impulse of craving closeness, she leans her head onto Mika's shoulder with a sigh. The sensation of contact deepens as Mika leans against her, too.

Beth holds the cup close, fingers wrapping around its warmth. She takes another sip and gets a bit of leaf stuck in her teeth. The way she scrunches up her face trying to dislodge it pulls a tiny laugh out of Mika.

“You don’t have to be okay here,” Mika whispers. “You can just be. That’s what we do.”

Beth finds her eyes wet again, but she smiles while she sets her mug down and wipes them away. “Kinda already wish I could stay here,” she says with a chuckle.

“... That’s probably not impossible.”

“Really?” Beth asks wryly. “Not even twenty-four hours, and you’d already be willing to put up with me?”

“Twenty-four hours and twenty-seven months.”

Beth melts a little even while waving the idea aside. “I wasn’t serious.”

“I know, but... weren’t you looking at the school here?”

“I mean, yeah, but... really, my mom just thought I deserved a break to get away for a little while. She’d saved up a bit, and I didn’t want to make it a big deal or anything, but she really wanted me to. She knew I wanted to come see you. Checking out the school was mostly an excuse. I know it’s a great place, but... I don’t really think it’ll help with what I wanna do.”

“What do you want to do?”

Beth sighs and leans back, looking at the ceiling. Mika follows her so that they’re still shoulder to shoulder, and pulls her feet up to tuck them in cross-legged.

She flounders for a moment, trying to find where to begin. She hasn’t told anyone this yet.

“This Leda crap has been kind of awful, right? It’s screwed so many of us up. But there’s only, what, a few hundred of us? And that’s not the only reason things get messed up.” She swallows. Her eyes trace irregularities in the ceiling: a knot in an exposed wooden beam here, a sealed and repainted crack there. “Kids like me are a dime a dozen. There’s so many people out there going through hell, just because they got stuck with people who are hurting so much that they hurt other people. And then they go on and hurt more people. It’s a cycle that’s really fucking hard to break.”

Breaths that have become harsh force her to pause and let them lengthen again. A touch on her knee draws her eyes down to a hand resting on it palm up, offering. Beth takes it. Mika squeezes her fingers in reassurance.

“When I was little, I wanted to be a cop like my dad, did you know that?” Mika, eyes wide, shakes her head. “Yeah. That was always my plan. I used to think he was so brave. Wanted to be just like him.” She shudders. Mika grips her hand, steady. “Even if I could do it better than he did, the system is still full of people like him. It’s broken. I couldn’t – I can’t end up like that. I can’t keep being a part of this shit. I want to actually help people.

“I never thought about it before I met you, but the people you brought in to do therapy programs and all for CYGNet? They’re amazing. The stuff I’ve gotten from them has helped me so much. And I don’t know what I’d do without my regular therapist. These people really help people like me. Like all of us. Those are the kind of people I wanna be like.”

Beth’s voice drops and becomes small and secretive, but firm. “I’ve been looking at the social work programs at home. There’s some really good ones at the uni near where mom and I live now. And that’s the city where I grew up. I know how things work there. I know it won’t be easy, but. I could really... do stuff.”

Silence stretches. Beth looks at Mika, only to be completely thrown off by an expression she can’t make heads or tails of. “What?”

Mika’s face is blank yet soft, only barely hinting at her thoughts in the faintest crinkling of her eyes. It’s funny, how quiet her face is most of the time. Beth never would have guessed, going off her online impressions of her. Mika’s so expressive and eloquent with her written words. In person, she is much more subtle. But even after only a day spent around her, Beth is already starting to see how her movements speak volumes in a language of their own. The flickering of her hands flares to life with excitement. The casual shake of her head tosses her hair out of her eyes even when it’s not in the way, like she’s clearing the slate of her mind. And much like Beth these days, she goes very still and tense when she’s getting uncomfortable or overwhelmed, the way she did after a particularly loud whistle at the train station. It shows in her shoulders. They’re soft now though, and she just watches Beth and squeezes her hand once more.

“You’re really amazing, you know,” Mika says.

“Wh- huh?”

“Well.” She looks away and turns their hands over, but doesn’t let go. “After the awful things you’ve been through – nnnh! Don’t pretend,” she says, looking back sharply as Beth begins to protest that she didn’t have it that bad. Mika knows her so well. Beth can’t help but laugh a little. “After all that, you just want to help people. All I ever want to do is get away from them, most of the time.”

Beth quirks a brow at her with a bemused grin. “Really? Because setting up and running an organization that provides mental health resources and extremely important information to a few hundred people is a really shit way to not help people.”

“I never talk to most of them! And CYGNet only has one hundred and thirteen members, not hundreds.”

Beth rolls her eyes with an exaggerated motion. “Yeah, so, you’ve somehow convinced, what, a whole freaking third of a huge group of scared strangers to trust you?”

“A lot of that was Niki and the press team, she’s way better at talking to people th–”

“And you’ve been careful enough and clever enough to keep them and all the information you got from DYAD safe and secure? I can’t even imagine the organization and, and cyber-security and whatever the hell else you put into all this. That you still put in. And look what you’ve done. You’re helping so many people. You found something only you could do, and do it really damn well.”

Mika looks down into her lap, half her face flushed. The raised ridges and swirls of the scarred side are pink, but not as dark. Her shoulders curl in a little, but she doesn’t pull her hand away from Beth’s. If anything, she holds on a little tighter.

“You don’t have to like talking to people to help them. You don’t have to be someone you’re not,” Beth says gently, then pauses as a new thought occurs to her. “Why did you talk to me?”

Mika gives a tiny shrug, eyes still downcast. “You reached out to me. Most people are scared, or suspicious, or hard to talk to, but you were just... honest. You told me exactly what you needed, even if that meant sharing your painful secrets with a stranger. I...” She trails off, looking toward the closed door of Niki’s bedroom. She blinks slowly.

“It reminded me of something Niki said a long time ago. When we first met. We didn’t trust each other at first. But when things got bad, we needed to, and she just... We’d only known each other for a day. She told me a true story that people had called her crazy for, and trusted me to believe her. And when I told her about... my Asperger’s, about being autistic, she just told me something about herself, too, another thing that a lot of people get cruel about when they know. This was back before she came out, too. She was hardly out to herself, then, really. But she told me anyway. ‘Secret for a secret,’ she said.”

“She’s really special to you.” It’s not a question. How could it be, with the sheer softness of love rounding out every syllable and making Mika melt into the couch and into Beth’s shoulder.

“She’s... yes. She’s my family.” Mika looks out the window, and the bright light dances over her nose. “I don’t remember ever having one.”

Beth slings an arm around Mika’s shoulders and smiles as she curls closer into Beth’s side. “Looks like you’re part of a pretty big one, now,” she says, waving a hand at the dozens of photos on the walls circling them.

“I guess so.”

“No need to guess. The evidence is right there. And I’m right here.”

Mika turns those huge eyes on her again. She’s done that multiple times now, even though Beth knows she rarely looks people in the eye. Eye contact is too much, most of the time. She describes it as too intense, too distracting, too intimate. Meeting those eyes – so like Beth’s own, but filled with such a different kind of light – Beth thinks she understands a glimmer of it. If every eye she met were as overwhelmingly expressive as Mika’s, Beth probably wouldn’t meet them all either. It keeps taking her by surprise, coming across their eloquence in an otherwise quiet face. Caught by that gaze, every emotion that lives in it touches Beth. Right now, it’s soft with adoration but shaded with a gradient of doubt. The width and depth of Mika’s eyes reveal a clear view of a vulnerable, aching, healing heart that spent eleven years starving for the love it needs and still hasn’t forgotten the famine.

It might be breaking Beth’s heart. No wonder Niki is always showering her with hugs and kind words and gentle hands on rounded shoulders. Maybe one of these days, Mika will have spent long enough finally getting to soak up all that affection that she won’t look at Beth like this when she says the simple truth.

“Hey. Here I am. Really.” Beth’s voice is a little choked up. She pulls Mika into a proper hug with both arms. Mika squeaks in surprise at being squeezed so emphatically, but returns it all the same. God, but she gives the best hugs of anyone Beth’s ever met. All contact and even, firm pressure and steadiness. “It’s so damn good to see you. I can’t believe you’re...” real, Beth thinks but doesn’t say. I can’t believe I didn’t imagine you. I can’t believe you’re just as kind as your words. I can’t believe how good it feels to be around you. “I can’t believe I’m really here.”

Mika doesn’t say anything. For a moment, one of her hands leaves Beth’s back to fiddle with something, then comes back to give her a little squeeze that Beth returns.

Beth’s phone buzzes a notification behind her on the little glass-top table next to the couch. The table’s wooden base is a round blob carved into the shape of a very fluffy and very ugly sheep with curly horns. Beth’s arms loosen from their embrace as she turns to look at it, bemused. No one but Mika really messages her except for her mom. But if it’s morning here, it’s about time for bed at home. She checks it, just to be sure she’s okay.

But it’s not from her mom.

Mika reaches out to gently grasp her forearm again as Beth shoots her a quizzical look and opens the message.

3mika: I'm glad you're here.

Beth's heart quails.

To think, that her darker days might have kept her from ever being in this moment. Beth might never have gotten to this point, hurt but healing and here. Here, she's seven time zones and an ocean away from the cycle of pain she grew up in, barely aware she needed to escape. She might well feel safer right here in this crossroads of time and place than she has at any other in her entire life. It's a realization that's as humbling as it is nourishing.

Already, the distance this journey has taken her has given her so much perspective. She wasn’t sure, before, whether the work she’s been considering was just a response to what she’s been through – or just a way for the cycle to keep her within its spiral. But she’s seen what Mika can do, what Beth could do one day, if she keeps on.

It won’t be easy. She’ll go back, and deep-seated memories will try to drag her back into small dark places. But being here, even for only a few hours, has already changed her. She can change, and she can grow, and she is already tapping into new strengths that her past has yet to reckon with. She is here, right now, in spite of all of it. And today is not a dark day.

“Me too, Mika. I’m glad to be here, too.” Beth’s tongue stumbles over the name, because she’s never said it out loud before, only read it on a screen.

Surprise sends Mika’s eyebrows up and her eyes wide again, like she’s never heard it before, either. Maybe she hasn’t. She tilts her head again like a question, touching her ear and looking at Beth.

Beth grins. “Mika.” A smile blooms on that curious face, lighting it up. She’s the one who pulls Beth into a hug this time, and it’s both fierce and soft. When she lets go, she leans into Beth’s side again and they stay like that, arms over shoulders and comfortably curled up together, soaking in the warmth of each other’s presence like leaves drink in light. The simple sweetness and companionship of it soothes Beth’s heart, seeking its way into the aching crevices. It’s an odd feeling, both seeping inward and flowing outward, trickling all the way through her until it warms her cold toes in a way that feels both new and strangely familiar.

A long, sleepy yawn announces that Niki’s awake now, too. Soon, she comes out of her room stretching her arms over her head. Mika reaches a hand out toward her to wave in greeting, though she leaves the other arm draped over Beth’s shoulders. Niki smiles at them. That kind smile, too, adds to the warmth washing through Beth. Her feet practically itch with it, and with a growing sensation of déja vu. She fidgets her toes against the floor as Niki walks over to brush Mika’s outstretched hand like a touchstone.

“How'd you sleep? Isn’t that couch the comfiest?” she says to Beth.

“Well, I’ve got a crick in my neck, but I still slept better than I have in years.”

Niki turns her sunny smile on Beth. “Good to hear it. Weird, though, I nap there all the time and my neck’s always fine. Huh. Anyway, I think I might make waffles. You two want some breakfast?”

Mika nods, but doesn’t let go of Beth yet. Beth is lost in thought, trying to remember what that light, floating feeling in her feet reminds her of.

“Sweet.” Niki ambles toward the kitchen and bends down with pursed lips to peer at the fern perched on the counter. “Hmm. You still look a little pale. Let’s get you some more sun.” She brings the plant over to the living room and is fussing over settling it on the sheep table when it clicks for Beth. A physical memory washes over her, for once welcome. She lets it fill her, refreshing like a deep breath of cold morning air her lungs are suddenly hungry for. She flexes her calves and ankles, her legs remembering the joy and freedom of stride and strike. Her bones are finally recalling how they once carried her with ease, even while they're adjusting to the new weight of who she's become. Fully alive again for at least this moment, her soles are practically prickling with the desire to eat up ground.

“How about you, Beth? Do you like waffles?” Niki asks, fluffing the fern’s crinkly green leaves. Mika squeezes her shoulder.

Beth grins and plants steady feet on the blue rug in front of the couch. “Save a few for me? I think I might actually go for a run first.”

#orphan black #clone club #veera suominen #beth childs #niki lintula #mk ob #mika ob #herbs on the windowsill au #lizzie taking up space #lizzie's adventures in writing #welcome back yall #long post #fic #ob fic #that a garden will grow

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roxybefab · 4 years

Text

The Ink Artist

The art classroom was quiet, the only sound heard was Riley’s even breathing and the sound of the ink covered pen she held.

Her animation was almost complete and many basic sketches of the two main characters littered the table she sat at. She was currently working on an idea for her next episode.

Her wavy chocolate brown locks were in a loose side braid.

She was about average height but still wore heeled brown boots to make her look a bit taller. Her body was what she considered ‘fluffy’, an excuse for her slightly chubby body.

She wore a baggy hooded plaid shirt, red and black, and black leggings underneath.

Her eyes, hazel and huge, were protected by a pair of big round glasses and her cheeks were rosy.

Her skin was beige (although it was hard to tell by the ink that covered her hands), similar to most hispanic people, and her lips, plump, were a gorgeous shade of pink.

The door opens and in comes Amanda Mary Drew, Riley’s best (and only) friend.

Mandy was a pretty and kind girl.

Like Riley, she was ‘fluffy’ and sported rosy cheeks.

Her skin was a bit lighter and she wore some fake glasses, which she claimed were repelling blue light, that made her look good and smart at the same time.

“H..Hey, Muh-muh...Mands!” the brunette’s face turned a light pink in embarrassment as she struggled to speak. She sighs and looks down to keep working on the outline.

Mandy smiles at her, a quiet ‘hey’ leaving her lips as she sat down beside her.

“So, you’re still working on these two goofs, huh?” Mandy picks up the paper, the two main characters from before on the paper.

Riley smiles and nods.

The names Candy and Charlie were in big letters and two children were on the page. Both looked to be made of candy, marshmallows, and sported crowns on their heads. The girl, Candy, and the boy, Charlie, both siblings. Mandy smiles back and puts the drawing back down.

“Hey, did you hear? Jeff killed someone else.” Riley perks up at the familiar name, her attention turning to the smaller female as she opens her bag and pulls out a newspaper. The words, ‘JEFF STRIKES AGAIN’ on the front. It showed a picture of a woman, crying, holding her child. The little boy had a grin cut into his face and you could see that he was stabbed multiple times. Riley smirks to herself, opening the paper and reading,

Jeff the Killer strikes again, murdering a twelve year old boy by the name of Allen. He was found in his bed, stabbed about twenty times and a smile carved into his face. Police haven’t found him quite yet and it is very obvious that they are getting frustrated with how this killer keeps escaping from them—

She sighs, handing it back to Mandy who takes it and shoves it in her bag.

“Hey, wanna g-go out and get suh-suh-something? Lunch starts i-i-in thirty muh-muh-minutes and I really whu-whu-want some Mcdonalds.” Riley suddenly asks, putting down her pen and getting up to stretch. She heard Mandy let out an ‘Okay.’ as she begins putting away her supplies.

“I’m home!” Riley groans in annoyance, turning up the volume of the tv. A cartoon was playing, Spongebob is what the brunette remembered it was called, and Riley couldn’t help but ignore her mother’s boyfriend when he walked in the room with a bag of chinese takeout.

“Hey, dude!” he exclaims once he sees her, a smile on his face as he sits next to her. She smiles at him, “Hey, Duh-Duh-Dylan” leaving her lips before she goes back to her drawing. She hears the crinkling of the plastic bag , the smell of orange chicken and chow mein hitting her as soon as she looks up at him with a questioning look on her face.

He was young, 34 from what Riley remembered, with dark fluffy hair and an average body. He was always around, more than Riley’s mom, and Riley couldn’t help but feel like he was her father. He smiles his huge, white smile at her as he started to put food on a plate.

“Your mom is gonna work late,” he hands her the plate, “So I decided we could hang out.”

“Yeah, t-th-that sounds c-cool.” she smiles, putting her sketchbook down as she starts to dig in.

“So, you still drawing in ink only?” he asks before taking a bite of his food. Riley nods, glancing down at the inked sketch from before.

“Maybe t-t-tomorrow I’ll c-c-color it?” Dylan laughs, making the teen lift a brow.

“What’s s-so fuh-funny?” She asks, slightly glaring at him.

“Kid, you always say that! Last week you said you’d color in the last one but you ended up not doing it.”

“Yeah, but that d-d-doesn’t mean I-I-I won’t th-th-this time!”

Riley remembered how she only colored her art when her dad was around. When he died she stopped adding color in anything. She remembered her dad, a tall and cheerful man who loved his family more than anything.

But things change.

An hour passed, it was now 10:30 of the night and Villainous was now playing on the tv.

Riley yawns, drawing in ink like always and glancing at her soon to be step father. He was watching the spanish cartoon intently, chuckling whenever Dr. Flug did something goofy.

The front door opens, footsteps sounding as they made their way to the living room.

“Oh, hey, love!” Her mother says, walking in and heading straight to Dylan to give him a kiss.

“Hey, Lori!” He chuckles when she grins at him before she glances at her daughter and sneers at her.

She still doesn’t forgive me..

Riley sighs, looking away from her mother and to the tv. Black Hat was advertising some kind of villain summer getaway.

Lori Lawrence hated her daughter. She didn’t hate her for no reason, no, she hated her because Riley’s father had died two years earlier in search of a perfect birthday gift for their wonderful talented daughter. They had gotten a phone call at 1 in the morning and apparently some guy hit him with his car after looking down at his phone. Lori had fallen into depression, not eating or sleeping. Whenever Riley went near her she’d scream and yell at her, telling her that it was her fault. That if she didn’t exist then he wouldn’t have left the house and he wouldn’t have gotten ran over.

And as she got better, she started to be gone. Longer than the day before. She had left, once, for a month. She never answered the phone when it was her daughter. Luckily for Riley, Dylan soon came into the picture. He had added some happiness in her life as well as Mandy.

“I’m going to b-bed.” she mutters, standing up and making her way to her room with her sketchbook in hand.

It wasn’t her fault that her dad wanted to make her happy.

But it still hurt the sixteen year old that her mom blamed her for her dad’s death.

That night Riley lay awake in her twin bed. This wasn’t the first time, she’s had insomnia since that fateful night. But she always ended up asleep by midnight.

She glances at her phone, the screen illuminating the room for a couple seconds as she reads the time. 3:13 it read, before turning off.

The sound of footsteps in the hall got her attention, shuffling and breathing passing her room. She knew it wasn’t her mother or Dylan, they were out at some bar getting drunk. With a shaky sigh, Riley pulled the duvet off of her and sat up, stretching a bit before making her way to her door.

The shuffling stopped as soon as she opened the door but she heard glass drop in the kitchen, and the ‘crunch’ of walking over the glass.

Taking in a deep breath, Riley quietly makes her way to the kitchen. There was part of a glass plate lying on the wooden floor, the other half smashed into bits all over the floor. No one was in the kitchen but once the young teen looked out the window her heart sped up and she felt the color drain from her face.

There was a tall man under a lamp post, all other light on the street gone other than the one that hit him. He wore a suit, and he wouldn’t have freaked Riley out much if she hadn’t noticed that he had no face. Tentacles came out of his back and he was ‘staring’ at Riley.

He tilted his head when she quickly clutched her chest, her heart beating fast and her throat closing from the fear.

The light quickly turns off, darkness taking over the street and he was gone.

Riley was too busy trying to control her breathing to realizes that she fell to her knees on top of the glass shards, her vision was getting blurry and she only heard static before she passed out.

“What’s w-wrong with y-you?”

Mandy jumps, the fluffy haired girl visibly deflating in relief when she sees the ink artist. Riley noticed her tear filled eyes and quickly hugs Mandy.

“What’s w-wrong?” Riley asks again, more quietly this time.

“My parents.. They.. Kicked me out..” Mandy burst into tears in her friend’s arms.

“You c-c-can stay w-w-with me i-i-if you’d like.” Riley said.

Mandy had really strict parents who usually made her do what they want. They had disowned one of Mandy’s older brothers just because he was bisexual so Riley didn’t really question why they would kick out Mandy.

“Are you sure? What about your mom and Dylan?” Mandy looked up at the brunette, “I don’t want to be a burden.” Riley smiles at her.

“Don’t worry about it, Mands. They’re buh-both guh-guh-gonna be gone f-fo-for a month to Hawaii. T-to make u-up the h-honeymoon the-they never had.” Riley rolls her eyes, slowly letting go of the shorter female, “My mom c-can’t s-say anything a-about it, she’s ne-never home anyways.”

“Okay, thank you so much,” Mandy smiles, her eyes were now puffy, “If it’s okay, can you drive me to your place then? My parents didn’t let me get any of my things..”

“Y-y-yeah! I’ll text you whu-what my car looks like.”

“What do you have after lunch again?” Mandy asks, putting her backpack on.

“I-I-I have a-a-art, dummy!” Riley giggled as Mandy facepalms.

“I’ll see you later then, Riles.” Mandy says, walking out the door.

“Hey, R-R-Riley!” Devin, the school douche says as she passes by her, shoving her to the side as he made his way to his seat. The art teacher walked in shortly after and started taking role. Then he began speaking about drawing something christmas themed because the finals were coming up.

She’s been drawing the creature she’s been seeing.

Tall man with no facial features, just a pale white face, and tentacles coming out of him.

She hasn’t stopped seeing him.

Three times now.

That’s how many times she’s seen the creature in the past two months.

The second time he had been standing on her front porch and she had noticed him through a window.

The third was at school, she was busy trying to finish her Lit Writ homework outside of class and had looked up to see him a couple yards away.

They always ended with her passing out.

And slowly Riley noticed some other things appearing.

Jeff the Killer had shown up in her room the night before.

But he didn’t kill her, no, he just stood at the foot of her bed and stared down at her. He had slowly made his way to stand next to her before he whispered the words, ‘Go to sleep’, gently tracing a smile on the younger girl’s lips and up to her cheeks before she passed out.

Riley looks down at her sketchbook, opening it up and adding more ink to the newest drawing.

She was drawing Jeff this time, just in ink, her emotions going through her and onto the page.

She sighed, glancing down at her hands that were covered in ink. The sticky dark substance was covering her arm, all the way up to her elbows.

Strange.. She thinks, staring at her arms before going back to the sketchbook.

“He said something christmas themed, you stuttering freak!” Mandy’s boyfriend slams his hand on her sketchbook, laughing at his own comment before he quickly throws her pens and sketchbook to the floor.

It’s going to be a long day.. Riley thinks, glaring at the male before picking up her supplies.

Two hours later, Riley and Mandy were in her home eating leftovers from the night before.

“Hey, why are your arms covered in ink?” Mandy asked the quiet girl, watching her inking a drawing that she recognized as Jeff the Killer.

“I-I don’t know. It won’t co-come off. I b-blame Devin and his fuh-fuh-friends. I have spanish with th-them and tha-that class always ha-ha-has me asleep by the e-end so..”

Mandy nods, watching Riley get up and walk to the living room.

It was lunch again, Riley was in the art room eating and drawing. The art teacher told her to try and get the project done so she decided to just do it at lunch. It’s been a month, the ink on her arms has only spread up her body, her legs and arms were dripping ink everywhere and she often spit out ink. She sighs, tugging the sleeves of her plaid shirt down more. Her mom had arrived two nights ago but left in the morning. Riley stares at the drawing, wanting to color it but deciding against it.

A yell made her whip her head up, her bangs covering an eye as she stared at the door. After a couple seconds and hearing another yell followed by laughter, she quickly got up and walked to the door.

Was that Mandy? Her only thought. Her heart beat sped up and she felt the ink dripping faster.

Taking a long and deep breath, Riley quietly opened the metal door. The sight made her angry, the sight of her best friend in pain making her hate Devin more than ever.

Her blood boiled at the sight of Devin lifting his hand to smack Mandy again, tears were streaming down her cheeks and Riley could see the red outlining of a handprint on Mandy’s cheek.

Devin’s friends were surrounding them, two turning to see who opened a door.

Riley felt the ink fall to the floor, but instead of hearing the drip drop of liquid, she heard a ‘clang’.

The kind that metal hitting the floor makes.

Riley looked down, noticing that it was a knife; a long bladed knife with a dark handle and it looked like the thing was melting.

It didn’t take long for Riley to notice that it was made of ink and that’s why it was dripping.

A ‘smack’ was heard, followed by laughter again and Riley picked up the knife, looking up and glaring at Devin and his friends.

“Let her go.”

Devin looked startled and looked over at Riley for a second. Mandy stood next to him, tears rolling down her face and a trembling lip.

The sight made Riley even angrier than before.

Devin rolled his eyes and nodded his head at the tallest kid in his ‘gang’.

Riley recognizes him as Julio, the douche who’s been making fun of her stutter all year. Anger burned through Riley’s veins and she felt like she was melting because of it.

“What the fuck is happening to your face?” Devin gaped as Riley tilted her head in slight confusion, “it’s melting!” Devin took a step back. Julio made a disgusted sound but didn’t back down, just stood in front of the ‘melting’ girl.

Julio took a step back, making Riley whip her head in his direction before a feeling started to form inside Riley. She knew what the feeling was, knowing it was not a feeling but an urge. Something that she really craved. A low growl sounded, coming past her lips made Julio take a step back one again. Riley then launched forward, stabbing and punching the teenage boy in front of her.

Nothing could stop her from hurting him, her anger only growing as she sliced at his body, the crimson blood oozing out of the cuts and onto the floor.

Riley felt something in her brain snap, wondering if it was her sanity before a huge grin starts to take place on her face.

The teenagers in front of her stared in terror, not knowing how to react to what they were seeing.

Riley’s irises had changed to cut pies, similar to the old Pac-Man, and her mouth was stretched up to her ears in a Cheshire cat like grin. Her teeth had sharpened. Ink oozed down her face, coving an eye as she shoved the tall teen against a wall, her knife long forgotten. Something flowed down Riley’s forehead, covering her eyes till the only thing she saw was the dark oozing color of ink

Her arm starts taking a different form, the ink crawling up and forming a long spiked spear. The boy she had against the wall sobbing. Riley felt her grin widen even more at the sounds he was making, inky drool slowly falling to the ground as she lifted her arm up and stabbed him in the abdomen. She didn’t stop there though, no, Riley couldn’t stop the anger she felt.

Angry because her mother hasn’t texted her.

Angry because Mandy wouldn’t defend herself from her boyfriend.

Angry because Devin was running away, phone in hand and calling the cops.

Angry because the boy under her was surprisingly still alive.

So she did what only her biggest role model did.

She turned to where she had abandoned her knife earlier, her arm lifting up and shooting a strand of ink at it and yanking it towards her.

That was just like spiderman! She turned back to the kid who was still clinging on to life, her giant grin turning to a huge sharp toothed sneer as she started stabbing him repeatedly in anger and madness. The only thing that stopped her murderous rage was when the police arrived. They found her sitting next to the body, that Cheshire grin once again on her face as she watched her masterpiece.

Julio Henderson had fifty three stab wounds, thirty in his abdomen and the rest either on his chest or throat. His face had dark bruises on it from Riley’s punches and he had deep claw marks on his arms and cheek. The cops stared at Riley, hunched over and giggling as she talked to something that wasn’t there.

It was hard for the cops to get the girl into their car but once they did she was driven down to the police station. Once she had arrived they had dragged her to a room and sat her down.

“Full name?”

“Riley Diana L-Law-Lawrence.”

“Age?”

“Si-si-sixteen.”

“Family?”

“Lori Lawrence, m-m-mother, Dylan Greene, h-h-her boyfriend.”

“Lori Lawrence? The lawyer?” The man stared at Riley with wide brown eyes. He was an average man with combed back hair and a frown. Riley nods.

“We didn’t know she had a daughter.”

“S-she doesn’t s-speak of m-me muh-much..” he makes a face, something that looks like a ‘I can see why’ look.

“Motive for attacking?”

“Devin ha-has b-been abusing m-my best friend. His fuh-fuh-friend had th-the nerve to do it a-as well and I snapped.”

He nods, writing something down before getting up. Riley started giggling to herself, looking down at her cuffed hands before bursting into laughter. The sound of her joy echoing through the halls.

When the man returned, all he found was a couple of drops of ink and the cuffs laying on the chair, the echo of Riley’s laughter sounding through the room as the man ran out in a panic.

NEW KILLER ON THE LOOSE

There’s a new killer on the loose, many know her as Riley D. Lawrence, the daughter of Lori Lawrence, the lawyer. Lori is devastated at the thought of her daughter going insane and is retiring from her job in hopes of waiting for her daughter to come home. No one knows where Riley is but we do know that she is near. Last night a boy by the name of Justin was murdered by Riley, his organs were hanging from the chandelier and his upper body was outside of his home. The words ‘The Artist’ were written on his room’s wall multiple times. It appears that she won’t be leaving anytime soon.

A scoff rang through the kitchen, the sound of a fork scraping a plate heard. Lori glared at the paper, glancing down at her phone that marked the time.

11:22

In half an hour she would be leaving on a date with Dylan.

“She just wants attention..” she muttered, standing up and turning to go to the living room.

A giant puddle of ink stopped her.

Lori stared at it in confusion, that had not been there when she walked into the kitchen. The ink was bubbling, dark huge bubbles of ink and after a couple seconds a giant bubble appeared and popped.

Lori stared in terror at the sight. It was a girl, with long wavy chocolate brown locks and hazel eyes. But her irises were cut pies, like the old Pac-Man or Mickey Mouse and she sported a Cheshire cat like grin that went up to her ears.

The Artist glared at her mother, her grin ever present as her mother took two steps back in fear.

“Hi, muh-mommy.” she whispered, ominously.

There was another figure standing in the shadows, shaggy burnt hair and white leathery skin making Lori scream as she realized her daughter had a partnership with Jeff the Killer.

Riley wasted no time in stabbing her mother, a cackle leaving her lips as she stabbed her repeatedly.

Lori Lawrence was dead.

And The Artist was ready to go after many other people who had ruined her life.

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fvthomsbclow · 5 years

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COURTNEY EATON, GENDERFLUID, THEY/THEM. — looks like LUKE ANDERSEN is attending AURORIA UNIVERSITY in auradon. they're the TWENTY year old child of ARIEL & ERIC ( * adoptive ! ) , which means they're from ATLANTICA. heard they're HONEST & CRAFTY, but can also be EASILY DISTRACTED & SELF-SERVING ; we all have our bad days. people normally associate them with LOOSE WHITE SHIRTS BLOWING IN THE BREEZE, WHISPY BRAIDS OF DARK HAIR, STANDING ON A BEACH IN THE MIDDLE OF A STORM, CRASHING WAVES ALONG THE DECK OF A SHIP. — hylia, 9teen, est, she & they.

when i’m sad , oh god i’m sad , but when i’m happy, i am happy and there’s just no place in-between for us to meet. playlist. pinterest. to listen as you read.

howdy folks !! so my name is HYLIA , and I’m here to play the sailor datemate of my dreams , LUKE ANDERSEN. I’m still sort of getting the hang of them since they’re a very new character , so I’m sorry if this intro is all over the place !! No TWS for now save for mentions of death , the ocean , and drowning. Hopefully this isn’t too messy !

HISTORY

So Luke is adopted - the child of one of King triton’s servants who passed away from illness. Originally , Triton was going to take them in himself , but instead , Ariel volunteered to care for the little merbaby and raised them as her own. As a result , Triton gave Luke the ability to grow legs on dry land as well as a tail when touched by large amounts of saltwater.

But , they weren’t told of their true heritage as a child. So they believed they were a human for the longest time.

They grew up loving both of their parents to the max but it was DEFINITELY evident they took after Eric more so. They wanted to travel , wanted to explore - and their dad , with his ship and naval prowess , was their hero. So from a very young age , they would accompany their dad on his travels.

It went to the point in which they were taught to pilot a ship themselves - and they even asked for one for their sixteenth birthday. Nothing else , just a vessel of their own. And they got one , naming it The Queen Jocasta.

First voyage on The Queen Jocasta resulted in an attack by pirates - sixteen year-old Luke tossed off the side of the ship , thinking they were about to drown. But , that power they were unaware of for all this time shifted their legs into a tail , and at that point they realized , Wow , Mom and Dad really haven’t told me SHIT.

So that was when they were explained that yeah , they were originally born a mermaid , and yeah , they were royalty both on the surface and under the sea. And that prompted Luke to spend a year in the ocean to get to know their mother’s family - returning to the surface to finish their time in Auradon Prep afterwards. This meant they graduated a year later at nineteen.

And then when that was over , Luke decided ‘ hey, I’m gonna take a trip all around Auradon by BOAT ’ since... that’s their brand , and spent another year just sailing around the different parts of Auradon ( and on the outside of it ) for the fun of it. They’re only just now getting back to Auradon to attend Auroria.

PERSONALITY & FACTS

So one may describe Luke as an ‘old soul’ - they’re very laid back and relaxed , for the most part , keen on their interests and someone who really seems to know a lot beyond how old they are.

Extremely intelligent - there’s a rumor going around that Luke has an eidetic memory , but they won’t confirm or deny it. ( It’s true. )

OBVIOUSLY AGAIN, OCEAN CHILD. Luke loves the ocean and always hangs out on beaches or the docks if they’re not on their actual boat. Because Luke doesn’t have a dorm - no , Luke sleeps on The Queen Jocasta in their cabin. Captain’s quarters and all that.

They love traveling just for the sake of traveling , and they can read a map like it’s nobody’s business.

Big into the classics like art and music DESPITE the fact they can’t paint , draw - but they can carry a tune well and for that reason , they play guitar nicely.

Honestly they’re smart and into the classics and shit but also this can come off as slightly pretentious since they don’t hesitate to remind people how good of a thinker they are - they don’t say it , but they show it.

Also they know how to dance , taking ballet classes when they were younger !! It’s just not something they remind anyone of much.

One more class they took was swordfighting in attempts to learn how to defend themselves . . . and yes , they’re great at it. Scary great.

In terms of a more direct description of their PERSONALITY , Luke tends to approach situations with again , a very laid back attitude but also one that’s brutally honest. They will let you know if they’re pissed off with you and . . . do have a bit of a temper when their nerves are ticked. Luke’s also got a bit of a dangerous tendency to always think they’re on their own and look after number one ( themselves ) and forgets that they can lean on other people for help. This doesn’t mean they don’t care about their allies - no , they greatly care about them. But Luke’s sort of used to being a mysterious , aloof , brooding traveler that they often forget they now have people they can confide in.

They’ll do things that perk their interest - Luke really isn’t going to go out of their way for something unless there’s either something in it for them or they have a personal interest. Also , if they care for the person , but yeah.

There’s a slight cynical streak to them for no other reason than the fact they just always think they have to watch their back - and for the fact people have secrets , like their parents keeping the secret they were a mermaid for a good portion of their life.

I promise they’re not a conceited selfish prick Luke is just VERY . . . aloof. I know I said that before but they’re distant and sort of keep to themselves and what they want.

Their opinion on the villains and heroes coming together is that they really . . . couldn’t care less. They never were really one to focus too much on the Auradon vs. Isle debacle anyway , but also - they can understand why some VKs are pissed. BUT , since this is Luke we’re talking about - that doesn’t mean they’re going to be exceptionally nice to the villain kids , treating them the same as Auradonian kids - casually , trying to get a read on them , probably the same aloof & ‘I could care less’ demeanor they normally keep up.

Also I should mention !! Luke is genderfluid , preferring they/them pronouns like stated before - but when addressing them with their royal title , they prefer to be addressed by the title of Prince. But Captain is even more so preferred.

Captain Luke Andersen just sounds like BDE I’m ,

Listen I love them so much they’re the myserious captain datemate of my dREAAMS

WANTED PLOTS & CONNECTIONS

OKAY SO. When the main puts up their WC page I will be submitting this one but I’d love an ARRANGED MARRIAGE plot for Luke. Basically , arranged while Luke was away traveling - they could either already know this person or are just meeting them now , but they’re not too keen on the idea of arranged marriage but aren’t really doing anything to fight it since it is what it is. They can either get along or hate each other , be best buddies or the like , but I think it’d be so funny if Luke - a wayward soul - was supposed to be arranged to marry someone who always has to make sure they’re not getting into trouble or something since Luke . . . CANNOT stay in the same place. At all. Bonus if this person is super duper sweet and polite in contrast to Luke’s nature of being absolutely crass & unrefined.

Their fiance: I’m so sorry for them Luke: I’m not, peace sign + middle finger motherfucker

And if this evolves in2 an actual ship that’d b up to chemistry n shit but the main idea I had was just. An arranged marriage. Rly we can do whatever n I’d b cool w/ it.

I’d love a crew for them pls. Again - this can be with both Auradon and Isle kids , since Luke gives no shits , but I’d imagine there’s a few Auradon kids who’ve been with Luke for quite some time.

PIRATE RIVALS PLSSSSS bc I know some Isle kids are pirates and that’s B^) juicy shit 2 me.

In general I’d just rly like some friends who try to get past Luke’s aloof & distant & brooding(tm) nature and let them b... soft n stuff.

also friends in general?? great. gimme soft platonic shit bc mgod thats what gets me all the damn time

if there are some royal kids out there who wanna bfriend luke’s ass since childhood n will stick w/them... give it to me.

Flings that Luke’s had either traveling or also just in Auradon in general bc uh yeah they’re lowkey a huge flirt

not 2 be THAT guy but Luke is a dreamboat haha... hahaha...

please clap

first love !! maybe !! idk sb who definitely luke had a thing 4 but it got lost in luke being. well. luke.

“my only love is the sea” stfu

gimmE SOME ENEMIES

AURADON KID ENEMIES

ISLE KID ENEMIES

PPL WHO THINK LUKE IS A FUCKIN PRETENTIOUS DICK BC THEY ARE

PPL WHO ONLY WANNA SEE THEM CRASH N BURN

FRIENDSHIPS THAT TURNED HOSTILE BC AGAIN, LUKE IS... LUKE.

PPL WHO HAVEN’T LIKE LUKE SINCE CHILDHOOD N THEY’VE ALWAYS GOTTEN INTO FIGHTS AND STUFF

I’m so bad writing wcs so maybe one day I’ll sit down and write formal connections so yeah.

BUT YEAH THAT’S IT !! pls pls pls feel free to either like this or hmu for plotting - I highly suggest contacting me on Discord ( rocky lynch lovebot / hylia.#0329 ) bc I’m always on Discord but Tumblr works too !! I promise u guys I don’t bite. I love u all I’m so excited 4 this !!! :^)

#usoa:intro #* &. abt / ☆ ❛ ɪɴ ᴍʏsᴛᴇʀɪᴏᴜs ғᴀᴛʜᴏᴍs ʙᴇʟᴏᴡ ❜#tht reminds me i gotta #do tags #whOOPS.#drowning mention #ocean tw #death mention

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airis-paris14 · 5 years

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Dress Up 1

Summary: She’s not his fiancee, but no one else needs to know.

Warnings: None

A/N: Before we get started, I know the Xhosa is not translated. That is done on purpose, as you read I am sure you will understand why. It was a deliberate stylistic choice. I hope you guys enjoy as I am truly having a blast writing this story, Redemption will be back soon. I’ve just gotta take a moment to get myself back on track with that story. Please Reblog, like, and comment! I love hearing what you guys have to say. Much love.

“Eh, you’ve got another letter to mail?” The post office clerk smiled as the young woman made her way through the front door. “Actually I’ve got three for you today Mrs. Zula.” Sirobie grinned, her hand buried in her art bag. She emerged a second later with three sealed envelopes. “I would just like to let you know, that you, are single handedly keeping this post office open.” the clerk teased, a gentle beep emerging from her tablet as she scanned each of the envelope postmarks. “You do know you are in Wakanda right? Most technologically advanced country in the world ring a bell?” Oni Zula teased, jumping out of her chair to sort the letters into the appropriate bins.

“Yes, I just prefer to write my parents the old fashioned way,” Sirobie shrugged. “So you aren’t in here mailing letters to your secret lover every week?” the older woman teased, climbing back into her seat. “Ha ha ha, very funny,”Sirobie frowned. “Well are they gonna write you back? It’s been two months and I haven’t gotten any letter back for you.”

“It’s complicated.” Sirobie frowned. “Well, you know my offer still stands. My and Ebram’s front door are always open,” Mrs. Zula smiled. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.” Sirobie waved goodbye, her bag flapping against her as she began her trek to the park.

The city was alive around. Children's laughter floated through the air. Mixing with the throng of voices floating towards her from the market. Gossip, bartering, and lover’s sweet nothings glided through the air. Sirobie sighed deeply as she came upon the large expanse of green space in the city center. The midday sun reflected off of the glass of the palace before her. She shaded her eyes, and choose to settle under a large tree in the corner of the park. She quickly set up her easel and unpacked her supplies. A cardboard sign advertising watercolor portraits for $10 dollars attested to her existence. She pulled a tiny clipboard from her bag and canvases the area around her. A mother and daughter dancing a short distance from her draws her attention. She begins to sketch the two dancing.

“Excuse me,” a voice broke through the sound of her pencils on the parchment paper. “I’d like a portrait,” Sirobie pulled her braids out of her face. She squinted up into the sunlight, unable to make out the face of her customer. “Umm sure, she gestured at the stool in front of her easel. It’ll take about 20 minutes,” she began to explain. She observed her subject before pulling the appropriate watercolor pencils and beginning to outline her portrait. “You’re not from around here are you,” the lady asks.

“Is it that obvious?” Sirobie quickly glances at the woman once more. “Many of our artists don’t do this kind of work.” the stranger replies, “ I saw it once in an American movie. You are from America, yes?”

“Uh yeah,” Sirobie stutters, her mouth falling slightly open as she actually looks at her subject for the first time. Her large brown eyes sat nestled in her face the same way Sirboie’s did. Her round face accentuated the cupid’s bow of her lips and her box braids were parted in the same manner as Sirobie’s. “Um, yeah. I am an exchange student from Howard University in DC.”

“That is the place where your president lives correct? That’s a state but not really a state?” The woman smiled. Sirobie froze, the woman’s smile was eerily reminiscent of her own. “Yeah, I guess,” she finally answered, finishing off a basic sketch of the woman’s face. “What is your classification?”

“My what?” Sirobie, shook her head out of the daze. “Your classification. Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior? I was under the impression that American universities and colleges did not refer to students by year,” the woman explained. “Oh yeah, I am a senior. I graduate in about two months.”

That must be exciting,” the woman smiled. Sirobie nodded, grabbing her pencils and beginning to fill in the woman’s face. “It is.”

“How long are you in Wakanda?”

“Another two months, then I head back to finish preparing for graduation. Sirobie worked quickly and efficiently to spread color to the rest of the sketch. Relishing in how the subject came alive on the page. “We have quite an uncanny resemblance do we not?”

Sirobie snorted, “I don’t think that even begins to describe it.”

“It seems like we could almost be sisters,” the woman insisted. “Yeah, we could,” the artist smiled. She sat back to admire the woman on the page. “Would you like to see it?” she offered.

The woman moved to stand next to her. “That is beautiful! How much do I owe you?” the woman opened her purse to grab her wallet. “Ten dollars please,” Sirobie replied leaning close to sign the work of art.”

“Shoot, I knew I forgot something at the house,” the woman cursed. “Here love, take these,” the woman replied handing over her kimoyo beads, “now hand me your student ID.”

“What why?” Sirobie frowned. “As collateral. Proof that I am going to come back and pay you. I have to come back and get my kimoyo beads from you as well. I am just going to run to my house and grab my wallet so I can pay you.”

“I don't know,” sirobie hesitated. “Trust me, it’s not like I am going to leave the country with it. This is Wakanda. You are a foreign exchange student. Your ID would not be of any use to me anyway.”

Sirobie sighed and handed over her ID. I’ll be back in ten minutes,” the woman ran off into the crowd. “Wait! I don’t even know your name,” she yelled after her. Once she had disappeared into the crowd Sirobie sighed, settling back into sketching the mother and daughter.

The smell and sound of her charcoal pencils calmed the young student. She gently wet her brush opening the expensive paints that sat at her side. She glanced up once more, then proceeded to begin painting the mother’s clothes. She lost herself in the intricate pattern of the fabric. The darkening of the sky around her startled her out of her focus. “Oh you found it,” the student smiled, wiping her hands on her rag before looking up. “Oh I’m sorry, I thought you were,” Sirboie closed her mouth as the soldier in front of her began speaking. “Ubuphi?

Bakukhangela kuyo yonke indawo.”the bald headed woman fussed. She motioned for two of the other women to grab her things. “Wait what are you doing?” Sirobie fought back. Grabbing her things from the women’s arms. “Ukusinda kwakho okuncinci sekuphelile. Sifanele sibuyele kwibhotwe ngoku. Ube efuna wena.”

“I don’t speak xhosa!” Sirobie yelled as the leader physically restrained her. “Udala indawo,” Okoye hissed. “You have the wrong person! I do not know what you are saying!”

“UNksz Kamyra, nceda uze nathi ngokuthula. U kumkani akayidingi isikhalazo esingaphambi kwesango lakhe,” Okoye calmed, leading Sirobie away from her seat in the park.

The guards encircled the woman as they walked through the park. Sirobie shrunk in to herself as she was marched through the streets. The miniature procession caught many the wondering eyes around the marketplace. The 23 year old had never ventured this far into the city. Often opting to stay within her own triangle of comfort. Her apartment, The Zula’s home, and the park.

“Where are you taking me?” The fine arts major asked again. “The palace,” the leader replied. “So you understand English?” Sirobie exclaimed.

“Yes. And you know this. What I do not understand is why you refuse to speak your native tongue,” The warrior scowled. “English is my native tongue!” Sirobie insisted. The warrior led Sirobie up the grand staircase at the palace before pulling her aside. “Look Kamyra,” The woman hissed. “You’re hurting me,” Sirobie whimpered.

“I do not like you. I know you do not like me either, but T’Challa is my friend. And for some reason he insists that he must marry you. I do not know what game you're playing. But stop it this instant. You have worried everyone in this building sick for the past few hours. Now the game is over. Your engagement ball is tonight. So you have four hours to get your act together.”

“I am not Kamyra,” Sirobie cried once more. “Kamyra, I swear to Bast if you do not stop this instant…”

“Okoye, did you find Kamyra?” An older woman stood at the top of the stairs. Her headdress stretched up towards the sky. She looked very familiar but Sirobie could not place her face. A teenager emerged from the palace to stand next to her. “Queen mother,” Okoye bowed her head slightly, “Yes, we found her in the park but she insists that she is not herself.”

“Okoye thrust Sirobie out in front of her. The poor girl went stumbling. “What do you mean?” Ramonda frowned, eyeing the young girl. “She only speaks in English.”

“I have yet to her her speak,” Ramona replied. “No good morning today?”

“I am so sorry, but you all really have the wrong girl,” Sirobie tried to explain. Ramonda raised both eyebrows, she glides down the stairs to Sirobie’s side. She gently raised Sirobie’s chin. “Who are you?”

“My name is Sirobie Johnson,” the girl replied.

“I believe you. But if you are here, the where the hell is my daughter in law,” Ramonda frowned. “Okoye,send a search party.”

“This is not my son’s fiancée.”

The general signaled for the rest of the Dora’s to leave. The women marched off in a professional line, as the Queen guided Sirobie down the palaces intricate hallways. The Queen pulled Sirobie rather quickly, ushering her into an empty bedroom.

Sirobie settled in a chair, as did Queen Mother. Shuri opted for the couch and Okoye stood behind them. Sirobie gulped under their gazes. Bowing her head, her fingers suddenly very interesting.

“The resemblance is uncanny,” Queen Mother murmured, one finger perched under her chin. “They look exactly the same,” The teenager added in.

“I see how you got them confused General,” The queen sighed. She pulled off her crown and set it on the table beside her. Her gray locs fell from their bun down her back.

“What is your name?” The teenager asked moving closer. “Sirobie,” The college student smiled slightly. “Shuri,” The teen smiled. “May I?” She gestured at the bracelet. Sirobie nodded.

“Where did you get these,” Shuri pulled the beads off of her wrist. “I think the woman you all are looking for gave them to me.”

“You saw Kamyra?” Okoye asked, moving closer to the woman. Sirobie backed away, nodding. “She never told me her name. She asked me paint her picture. She said she was going to get her wallet to pay me. She took my student ID in exchange.”

“Where exactly are you in school?” The older woman asked. “I attend Howard University. In the States.”

“With your ID where could she have gone?” Shuri asked. “Nowhere really. It just grants access to my dorm room. You can’t buy anything outside of the cafeteria with it.”

“Queen mother, should we alert T’Challa?” Okoye asked. All eyes fell to the older woman. “Whatever for general?”

“Mother, his fiancée is missing,” Shuri frowned. “What do you mean? She is right here,” Queen mother smiled at Sirobie. The student’s eyes widen as everyone began to grin at her. “No, No. No! I am too young to be marrying anyone,” Sirobie dismissed. “Kamyra is only a year older than you. T’Challa is only two years older than you.” The queen moved to sit next to the young woman. “Still. I haven’t finished college yet. I’m only here for two more months.”

“We just need you to pretend to be Kamyra while we search for her. We hope it will not take that long to locate her.” The queen reassured. “Wakanda will owe you a great debt.”

“This all just sounds a little too crazy to me,” sirobie waved her hands. “How are you paying for your education?” the queen asked. Sirobie bit her lip and looked down. “Loans,” she murmured. “If you do this, Wakanda will pay off all of your schooling debt. No questions asked. You will also live here in the palace and live the life of a princess.”

“Are you joking?” Sirobie looked up. “No. Why would I be joking? This how Wakanda will repay her debt to you.”

“Please?” Shuri spoke up from the corner of the room.

“You’ll let me go home after you find her?” Sirobie asked again. “If that is what you desire,” the queen nodded.

“I’ll do it.” Sirobie sighed.

The three women broke out into grins. “Okoye, please find the nearest maid and ask her to fetch the stylist, hairdresser, and make up artist. As well as send someone to grab a late lunch for Shuri, Sirobie, and myself. I have a feeling we are going to be here for a while.”

Okoye saluted the Queen. She tapped her staff twice before leaving the room.

“Now, Sirobie. Tonight, my son is throwing a ball in honor of his fiancée. All eyes will be on you and we must prepare you for that. Physically and mentally. First, I suggest you get a quick bath while Shuri and I find a dress for you. We’ve got much to do. With little time to do it.”

Sirobie nodded quietly. “The bathroom is right through that door. Please be quick, but do everything you need to do.” The Queen gestured to the door. “Thank you,” Sirobie half curtsied. “Please, don’t do that tonight,” The Queen grimaced, “We’ll work on that later.” The young woman blushed before fleeing to the bathroom.

“Do you think she can do it?” Shuri moved to stand by her mother. “I know she can.

Transforming Sirobie into a royal fiancée was very easy. Physically at least. Following Kamyra’s routines turned the student into a carbon copy of the woman. Until she spoke. Or ate. Or moved, at all. “Now, you move your spoon away from you at all times.” Ramonda demonstrated, tilting the spoon in the opposite direction in the empty bowl. “That just makes it unnecessarily complicated,” Sirobie sighed copying the queens movement. “It is to help deter you from overeating.” Ramonda explained.

“No when do you stop eating?” Ramonda quizzed, signaling for a maid to switch out the dishes in front of them. “I have to stop?” Sirobie sighed, letting her head fall into her hands. “Please Sirobie. I know this is hard, but you’ve got to try.” The Queen soothed. “I don’t think I can do this,” the girl murmured into her hands.

“My Queen,” The stylist called. “We have one hour till the party, we must dress the lady soon.”

“Of course,” Ramonda sighed. “Sirobie, I believe in you, we all do,” The Queen whispered the girl’s ear. Sirobie smiles sadly as the queen stood. “Shuri, let's give ,Kamyra, some privacy. We will be back before T’Challa arrives to escort you.”

“I have to walk in with him?” Sirobie paled.

“Yes! He is your fiancée,” Shuri laughed overzealously. Her apology written all over her face. “We’ll be back soon.”

After much prodding and poking. Shape wear and fashion tricks, Sirobie looked absolutely regal. The white fabric fell in waves around her. The center of the dress adhered to her figure, carefully outlining every curve perfectly. The silver thread and diamonds littering the bodice of the dress glittered in the light of the setting sun. The student spun slowly as the beauty team observed her appearance. The college student ran her hands over the embroidery. Gently fingering each of the flowers and vines that traced their way over the gown.

“I think she is ready for the final touch,” the lead stylist nodded. The others murmured their agreement and watched as she walked over to a black box.

The woman walked over to her box and pulled out a set of jewelry. “These are royal family antiques,” she explained, gently displaying the large drop diamond earrings. “Queen mother wore these necklace on her coronation day.” She gently lifted a simple diamond necklace from the box as well. “Those look perfect,” Sirobie smiled. The seamstress nodded beginning to adorn the student with jewelry. When she was finished she lead Sirobie over to a large full body mirror. Sirobie bit her tongue to keep her jaw from dropping open. She allowed a small grin to slip through. “Thank you so much,” The 22 year old smiled at each of the staff in turn. “It was a pleasure your grace,”She smiled before two knocks rang through the room.

“Come in,” Sirobie called. The Queen and Shuri walked into the room and smiled as Sirobie came into view. “A carbon copy,” the queen smiled. “Just one more thing,” the queen approached, her day wear replaced by an elegant blue gown. Her crown had also changed,now draped in the same fabric as her dress. She gently grabbed sirobie’s left hand and slid a large diamond ring onto her finger. “There, absolutely breathtaking.”

Sirobie smiled sadly at the ring. “What’s wrong my child.?” Ramonda raised the woman’s chin. “I had just always hoped,” Sirobie sighed, fiddling with the ring, “That the first time i wore one of these, it would be from someone I love.”

“Oh, my child,” Ramonda cooed, “I know it’s dumb. Im literally living the life of a princess and I am complaining,” Sirobie rolled her shoulders back. Ramonda gripped her hands gently, “ you have every right to any emotion you may have right now. You will meet him someday, and it will make you feel just as joyous as you hope. That is was love does to people, it brings you indescribable joy.” The queen smiled, gently cupping the student’s cheek. Sirobie smiled back.

“Actually it’s perfectly describable.” Both of the women turned to the sudden interruption of their conversation, “ You know love releases endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. It’s all one big cycle of chemical reactions in your brain. Reactions which are catalysed by the stimulation of certain neurons in the temporal lobe. All of the reactions happen instantaneously, or almost, hence the butterfly feeling. Studies have shown that the feeling can be considered comparable to the same high that is felt when one is doing cocaine. So if you want to feel it now, it is much more convenient to just go and get high on the closest thing. I mean obviously not cocaine, but maybe we-” Shuri trailed off. Her mother’s frown quickly causing her to back track, “ I mean not that I have ever tried it myself. I mean-” She turned to Sirobie and mouthed, “I’ll explain it to you later.”

Ramonda and Sirobie burst into laughter.“My love,” T’Challa’s voice sailed through the door, “I can hear that you are having a good time but, we will be late if you do not,” The king froze as he noticed his mother and shuri in the room. “Brother, you are early.”

“No you all are ten minutes late. Is everything alright?” T’Challa strolled further into the room. “Everything is fine. Why would it not be?” Ramonda glided over to her son to place a kiss on his cheek. The king allowed her to pull him close as he eyed Sirobie. “You all tell me,” the king started moving closer to Sirobie. “No greeting today my love?”

“Hello,” Sirobie replied cautiously. Shuri facepalmed behind her brother. “What is going on,” the king demanded, his eyes never leaving Sirobie. “T’Challa,” Queen Mother started, moving to stand next to the girl. “Meet Sirobie. Your fiance.”

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*THE TAGLIST IS OPEN*

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