#i went to college with boys who were forced to do unspeakable things while in gangs and they were amazing. amazing people.

[tryst-art-archive]

October 2012: "Please Take My Card Away"

            Every so often, I come into some money and get a little reckless. The amount of money varies, ranging anywhere from one hundred and fifty dollars to three hundred dollars. Admittedly, those are still pretty pitiful sums in the scheme of things, but they’re not chump change either. Whatever the precise amount, it’s usually a larger sum than I’ve had sitting in my wallet or lounging in my checking account for a long time, and magically one hundred and fifty dollars transforms from two weeks of hard work or three potential trips to the grocery store into enough money to buy four or five of the Nice Things I’ve had my eye on for the past few months. My logical mind always knows that what I’m holding is Practical Money—just enough for things like bills and food and T passes—but somehow I’ll manage to forget that factoid and start seeing my newfound wealth as Riches—plenty for food and bills and T passes and socks and shoes and video games and decorations and artists’ works and movie tickets and fancy dinners and tasty snacks and clothes and books and music and so forth and so on. The end result is invariably two weeks to a month in which, while waiting on the arrival of three pairs of five-dollar striped socks and a copy of Spec Ops: The Line, I don’t eat a whole lot, but when I do it’s at Elephant & Castle and I insist on paying for my companion.

            One such occasion arrived with the first semester of my senior year of college. I had spent the summer in the role of [Company Name Redacted]’s design intern—a peculiar unpaid position which left me both blindingly certain that I needed to get out of school in order to be happy and equally convinced that perhaps, maybe, my life plan wasn’t going to hold up—and had, as a result, only managed to scrape by through the generosity of my family and the sturdiness of my savings account, now sadly depleted. The return of school brought with it the return of my job—I’d been working in [college]’s print shop and mailroom since the day I’d come to the school and though I only make around minimum wage, I’ve given over the majority of my weekday free time to [Different Company Name Redacted], resulting in cold hard cash—and thus the return of a stable income. I’d arranged to work twenty-four hours per week which, with paychecks coming biweekly, worked out to a little over three hundred dollars per pay period. After three long months of nothing but the basics, that first three hundred dollar check looked like a fortune, and I immediately, unconsciously, sought out something to splurge on.

            PAX East—a Boston-based video game convention run by the creators of webcomic Penny Arcade—has been a staple of my year since it first took place in March of 2010. It’s expanded rapidly over its short life, being forced to move from the Hynes Convention Center after the first year to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center for the second year and now PAX East 2013 has sold out of three-day passes within one day of those passes going up for sale, surprising its creators who, like so many others, foolishly believed there was little to know [sic] interest for “that sort of thing” out here on the east coast. Silly boys.

            I went to PAX East 2010 first because the notion of a three-day event entirely about video games excited me unspeakably and secondly because I’d never been to anything remotely like a convention before and I rather suspected I’d enjoy it. I was entirely right; I loved the experience to death, even the boring parts, even though I went that year with a boyfriend who would be a hated ex in a mere month, even though I was in the worst phase of an eight-year depression at the time. I adored the exhibit halls where one could preview recently or soon-to-be released games and buy Chessex dice for your favorite table-top roleplaying game. There were tables for trying out every board game, card game, and pen-and-paper roleplaying game one could think of; there were tournaments for fans of Magic: The Gathering and contests for the best-dressed cosplayers (folks dressed in elaborate, detailed costumes of their favorite video game characters) and an overwhelming swath of free giveaways, including the massive swag bag guests received for simply walking in the door. PAX East boasted a huge array of panels from industry professionals and celebrities both in the digital and analog gaming communities, for those interested in discussion, and there were rooms of arcade cabinets, PlayStations, Xboxes, and PCs where one could borrow any game they wished for an hour. An entire hallway was cordoned off and filled with massive bean bag chairs so that people could sit with their handheld systems and play games with these stranger-brethren who gathered to PAX East with them. At night, musical artists like Metroid Metal, the Video Game Orchestra, and Jonathan Coulton provided concerts for PAX East’s guests, and throughout the whole convention one massive competition—the OmegaThon—was held to determine who was the all around best gamer at PAX that year. The concerts were almost a spiritual experience for me—I am not religious, but something about standing there watching an orchestra play an array of songs that not only meant an entire childhood to me but to all of the hundreds of people standing and sitting with me resonated in the way I imagine church resonates for the religious—and I loved the panelists for intellect. The cosplayers had my admiration for their skill, the bravery I thought it must take to put on that costume and pretend to be that character for no other reason than frivolous passion, and the sheer joy on their faces. I spent something like two hundred dollars, not counting ticket price, that first year, forty of which was solely on dice, and I came away with the absolute knowledge that I would attend PAX East for every year that I lived even remotely near Boston and that one day, I, too, would cosplay.

            I did not cosplay at PAX East 2011, though I spent most of the autumn leading up to it thinking I’d don a Team Fortress 2 costume—a Scout or an Engineer. I simply never got around to constructing it; I am dreadfully lazy. For PAX East 2012, I managed to throw together a generic fantasy costume from odds and ends around my apartment—I’ve owned a purple cloak for at least six years and a pale green corset for perhaps two and these, in combination with alternately a beach wrap from 2002 or a long, rust skirt from my Irene Adler Halloween costume of 2011 worked out to something resembling a mysterious elf lady from a fantasy painting who was really risking her skin on the BCEC’s many escalators—but it wasn’t a character from anything in particular; it was a costume, not a cosplay. Perhaps it is no surprise then that when I found myself with three hundred dollars and PAX East 2013 six months away, I decided that I would create a cosplay costume; I would be Chell, the protagonist from Valve’s beloved video games Portal and Portal 2.

            I began the search at work in the mailroom one day. It was a slow day with few customers and very little mail to sort, and I was bored. I did not, initially, think that I would put together a cosplay in a serious fashion. I merely wondered how easy it would be; was it possible? I had recently purchased a white tank top from ThinkGeek with the logo of the game’s fictional research laboratory, Aperture Science, emblazoned on the front. I knew the Portal 2 model of Chell well enough to know I needed about four to five more pieces to have her full look. What if it was easy? What if I could be Chell?

            I decided to search out the little things first. She wore a dark gray pants-like something under a cerulean tanktop, white tank top, and orange jumpsuit. The jumpsuit, in the Portal 2 model, was unzipped and tied at her waist. She also wore Long Fall Boots—fictional footwear that enables its wearer to fall for any distance and fail to completely decimate their legs upon landing—and carried a Portal Gun—an equally fictional, vaguely gun-shaped device for creating two linked portals which defy space, enabling a person to move between them regardless of any intervene distance, gravity, or logic—and wore her hair in a ponytail. There were white bandages around one of her wrists.

            I spent some time staring at various images and renderings of Chell before deciding that the gray, pants-like something was going to have to be spandex shorts. I remained undecided as to what, exactly, the gray, sheer swatch at her midriff was meant to represent, but I figured spandex or athletic shorts would get the point across just fine. As I mentioned before, I am terribly lazy, and so I don’t own anything even remotely akin to athletic wear, nor do I know where one goes to buy such things. I polled my coworkers on the subject, but they weren’t much help, so I decided to go with general clothing stores. I subsequently spent some time on the websites of GAP, Old Navy, Kohl’s, Target, Sears, and Macy’s. None of these turned up results I particularly liked, and certainly not in the shade or size I wanted or needed (I have a very large bum; clothing companies do not cater to people whose bum is twice as large, proportionally, as the rest of them). So I turned to eBay, scummy savior of us all, and wound up purchasing a pair of dark gray spandex shorts—“One Size Fits All,” it said, and I laughed, thinking how quickly my bum would destroy those shorts. The answer turned out to be a single wearing. Not the moment I put them on, quite, but near enough to; they now have a lovely seam along the butt crack that certainly wasn’t there before, but it’s not visible when I have the jumpsuit on.

            At this juncture it became apparent that I was actually going to do it; I was going to make the costume. I immediately set about finding the cerulean tank top to go underneath my white Aperture Science one. This took an absurdly long time, though I searched many of the same places I had for the shorts, and for many of the same reasons. Shirt sizes, fortunately, are not a problem for me—I am almost always a Small, regardless of brand, though if the style calls for cleavage and low necklines, then I either need an extra-small or, more likely, probably just can’t wear it at all—and that was not the trouble here. No, the trouble was the particular shade of cerulean. Oh, there were plenty of light blue athletic tank tops out there, but none of them quite matched the light sky blue with the subtlest hint of yellow that Chell’s tiny scrap of visible under shirt displayed. I think I spent something like two hours trying to find the perfect shirt; it was certainly more time than I’d spent on the pants. In the end, I wound up giving target thirty dollars for a pretty ugly athletic tank in a nerve-wracking extra small. It was the closest match to the color that I could find, though everything else about it displeased me and shelling out thirty bucks chafed. When it finally arrived—I ordered it online; I couldn’t be bothered to try and get myself to a physical Target, not without a car—it turned out that the built-in sports bra was tight enough to restrict my breathing. “Oh well,” I thought. “I paid thirty dollars for it; I’m going to wear it.” (I never return things; I don’t like being an inconvenience to anyone but myself.)

            I figured the bandages would be easily obtained at the Chinatown CVS, and they did turn out to be, and I already had the haircut for Chell’s ponytail. That left the three distinctive items—the orange jumpsuit which had, on closer inspection of images of Chell, a number of fine details; the Portal Gun which I could either buy an over-priced replica of or I could make; and the Long Fall Boots that I would have to make, no matter what. It was several days before I decided what to do about any of these items. The cheapest Portal Gun replica was one hundred dollars on ThinkGeek and sold out until December; there were a number of orange jumpsuits and coveralls to choose from but half of them were low-quality “prisoner” Halloween costumes and the other half were proper, working man’s coveralls only ever available in men’s sizes and typically costing a minimum of forty dollars. There was also a replica of Chell’s very specific jumpsuit available for one hundred dollars, but it wouldn’t be released until October 15th. As to the Long Fall Boots, making them was a daunting prospect. The in-game boots were heelless with a metal strut extending from the back of the calf to the floor that took Chell’s weight, her foot arched as though she wore a high heel. The black-and-white boots also had a massive open section at the shin and were, apparently, held on by straps there; the whole boot needed to stop just short of the knee and had a handful of black designs to be accounted for.

            I do not sew, and I do not know how to operate a lathe. I also was getting three hundred dollars every two weeks and, following a painful and on-going break up, found that my living expenses and, particularly, food bill had dropped to a mere fifty bucks. I didn’t go out much, without the gentleman caller, and when I did it was to see my gaming group; I didn’t eat much, because my response to break ups is to unintentionally starve myself, and when I did I ate poorly and certainly not at restaurants or via Foodler; my rent and bills all amounted to very little compared with my previous lease, and so I knew I could have those well in hand. In short: I had disposable income, and I knew it. I did not sew; I did not know how to operate a lathe; I did not want to cut PVC or sand foam blocks into round shapes or figure out how to wire LEDs; I was and am terribly lazy: I dropped the hundred for the replica of Chell’s jumpsuit when it was released on the 15th, and I made mental plans to drop another hundred on the Portal Gun in December. In the meantime, a twenty dollar plush Companion Cube—another distinctive prop from the game—would suffice as a prop for the cosplay. Sufficient for Halloween at least. I can’t tell you how the Portal Gun will turn out, as at the time of writing, I haven’t bought it, but I can say that the Companion Cube turned out to be the perfect pillow for watching TV while laying on the couch and the jumpsuit ripped along the seam in the crotch as soon as I pulled it on (I must have a large, invisible penis) and is currently awaiting repairs from my roommate, who does sew.

            Thus there were the boots; the things I had to make. I’d already lost at least two hundred and sixty dollars to the costume, not counting shipping. I couldn’t stop now, buyer’s remorse or no buyer’s remorse. I spent some time looking at what other cosplayers had made: there were modified Go-Go boots up the wazoo; there were a few examples of heelless fashion shoes converted through clever plaster work into Long Fall Boots; two people had actually done the amazing and made honest-to-god Long Fall Boots from scratch by sawing the heel of some high heel boots and milling aluminum to create a sturdy strut. These last were absolutely stunning in their craftsmanship and their accuracy to detail, but they weren’t up for sale, and I’m no more comfortable with power tools than sewing. I decided to go the Go-Go boot route.

            Finding the right boots took some long hours of searching; I used the search term “Go-Go boots” because it most nearly fitted what I needed—white, knee-high pleather boots with a small platform and a tall heel. I wasn’t concerned about walking around a convention hall in three to four inch heels, as I wear heels every day and have done so since January 2011, if I’m not mistaken, but I was concerned about finding a style of heel that wouldn’t draw the eye. Most Go-Go boots, it turns out, have chunky, vaguely hourglass-shaped heels. Aside from being ugly and painfully sixties, this kind of heel wasn’t going to fade from sight after I painted them black—photos from cosplayers who had used this kind of boot proved that. No, what I needed was a stiletto, and it took two days before I found one I felt satisfied with through a long chain of store-hopping and modifying search terms. I risked the shoe size on an eight wide—like my bum size, my shoe size does not conform to fashion or factory standards; designers do not make high heels for people with wide feet, particularly not when those people should rightly be a seven or seven and a half in length—figuring that if it was too big I could wear multiple socks and trust to the boot shape to keep the damn things on. The size turned out to be almost perfect—lucky break—and I spent a couple more days staring at the untouched, white boots before I considered getting to work on them. The first step, I knew, was to cut out the front and create straps. I was terrified; what if I messed up? I’d have to buy new boots, and buying them and the supplies to modify them had easily brought the costume’s total cost over three hundred dollars. At this point, I was going to have to wear the stupid thing for every costume-able event for the next three years just to make the whole endeavor worthwhile; it was a damn good thing I counted Portal among my favorite games.

            Finally, after much fretting, I sat in my living room with two of my roommates and my ex–gentleman caller. One of my roommates was gluing coyote fur to himself—he goes to art school and considers himself a therian (if you happen to know what that means), so this is par for the course in my day-to-day life—while the other, his lesbian girlfriend, made some felted birds for a set of commissions my mother had handed to her—the commissions were all from moms, grandmoms, and aunts—and my ex–gentleman caller was trying to improve my white-blue, defensive Magic deck that I couldn’t be bothered to make myself. I explained my nervousness over the cutting of the boots, drew moral support from my three literally and metaphorically closest companions, and set to work. I made cardstock templates for the cuts I would make and cardstock templates for the areas I would paint. I taped my cutting template to the boots with painter’s tape and started cutting. The first came out beautifully; the second I cut too far at one point and had to use a combination of duct tape and krazy glue to mask the massive horizontal slit in the boot. I use cyan dry erase marker to denote where the buckles—actually one-inch silver D rings I’d gotten at Joanne Fabrics—for the straps would go and made slits along those lines. I inserted the D rings and folded over a quarter inch of the edge of my cut and used about four packets of Krazy Glue to make the fold and the D rings permanent—I don’t sew, remember. I wound up with a shell of Krazy Glue over my finger tips because there is no easy or safe way to deal with Krazy Glue and so spent most of the drying time trying to scrape the little caps off. The following day, that one roommate attached a coyote’s tail to his butt, over his jock strap and using a binder of Pokemon cards as a weight to make sure the pressure on the silicone glue was strong, and meanwhile I threaded double-sided Velcro straps through my boots’ buckles, pulling them on and measuring out precise lengths so that the straps would have enough leeway to be adjustable at need but wouldn’t extend beyond the area of the cut out. I took the boots off and applied my cardstock stencils and painted high gloss, black acrylic paint onto the boots, creating a black toe, turning the platform black, coloring most of the heel and all of the stiletto black, and adding a swoosh to the outward-facing side of the boot. This took two coats and resulted in a number of missteps and smudges that I later had to obtain some Titanium White acrylic paint to cover up. I spent maybe four days on the painting, all told, adding numerous layers of both colors to ensure consistency in both hue and texture, buying a tiny professional paintbrush so as to refine the edges of the areas I’d painted black.

            While the paint dried, I took a black, light aluminum, double-sided wreath hanger and had one of my roommates, a jeweler, saw it in half, giving me to gentle aluminum hooks. I filed the rough edge of the cut away and used my hands and a pair of pliers wrapped in scrap leather to bend these hooks into the shape of the Long Fall Boots’ struts. Half of the struts conformed to the back of the boots’ and my calves, while the rest bent outward in a gentle curve before coming back in toward the boots’ stiletto heels. I glue black foam and black felt to the bottom of the struts to prevent them from scratching floors, and then I used several packs of Krazy Glue to adhere the struts to the boots. This, it turned out, was the most nerve-wracking moment. I had thought that cutting out part of the boots was terrifying—what if I destroyed them? rendered them unusable?—but this was far worse. If I messed this up, not only would I be destroying the boots, but I would be wasting what had come out to about three weeks of on-and-off hard work to make these things look just right. These boots had been keeping me sane, through the senior year of college I did not want to have not because I didn’t want to graduate but because I had never wanted to go to college in the first place, because I only attended out of a perceived obligation to, because I suddenly understood those previously inexplicable students who dropped out in their final year of college or high school even though the beneficial, degreed end was around the corner; through the break up with a gentleman caller whom represented everything I had ever looked for in a friend, in a lover, in a partner, in a future but whom did not or perhaps could not return the feeling, could only care for me as a friend—oh, a good friend, indeed—and even as an object of desire but never as a romantic partner, never as someone to honest-to-god love; through the suicide attempt of a close high school friend who chose me, out of all the people in the world, to confide in, who, predisposed to anxiety and depression, had been finally and utterly decimated by the unintentional emotional abuse present in a relationship I had suggest she enter into with my best friend. Here were those boots, and if I did not attach the struts correctly, I would have ruined them, and I would have to start all over—I didn’t need that right then.

            I attached the struts, and I used scrap pleather from that first hesitant cutting to create a little pouch over the top of the struts so that they’d be a bit more secure in place and would be less likely to stab me in the back of the knee, should I kneel while wearing the Long Fall Boots. I gave them a coat of high gloss black to disguise the glue’s dandruff, and I left them to dry. After several days, the struts still held, and the fabric of the boots did not tear under their weight. Several friends of both myself and my roommates saw the boots and declared them lovely; I myself was utterly pleased with them. Oh, there were some errors, to be sure—the swooshes in particular had been problematic, causing me to go over some rather extensive areas with mistake-hiding white, and there was that slit from my cutting error, and one of the struts was hanging ever so slightly askew, and I wound up having to put a felt liner along the edges of my pleather folds to keep the Krazy Glue there from chafing, and at one point one of the D rings popped out when I pulled on a strap too hard, putting the boots on, so that I had to glue it back in—but most of those errors were only visible up close; at PAX East, no one would be getting that close; from where they would be, in the lighting they’d be photographing (people always photograph the cosplayers) in, those errors would be virtually unnoticeable. I had a workable, aesthetic product, and I’d made them with my own two hands, through some tiny miracle, in the midst of two months of pain and disaster.

            I set the boots on my unkempt floor, beside my bookshelf, and I put away the other pieces of the costume in my red file cabinet with my other, miscellaneous costume pieces, and I began looking forward to Halloween when I would wear the costume for twelve hours, throughout my work and school day—it would be the durability test, and by god, if anything was going to break, it was not going to be my boots.

#old writing #writing archive #nonfiction #personal essay #prose #the more of these i read the more distressed i become #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH #assignments #college #relationships #money #credit card #making things #cosplay #you will see the cosplay #10s #2012 #Age 21

[likeholymary]

— untitled ii.

playlist | masterlist

summary: once dear friends in college, obi-wan and (y/n) have bumped into each other in the capitol city of coruscant while both working there. will they rekindle their old romance from their college years, or will they remain as passing faces in each other’s lives? takes place in college years and 10+ years after.

a/n: fluff AND MORE ANGST awaits you in this chapter! also some good music references await you as well😌 also, just to note, i am a slut for obi-wan and his beard, so yes, he does have a bit of a beard in his college years, i do not accept any slander for this creative decision bc you can’t deny how hot the man is with a beard. also, not as much college content, but there will be more in part three! i hope you all enjoy! please reblog if you like this enough to do so, i appreciate it more than words can say! i love you all☺️ warnings! a few swear words!

word count: 3.7k words

present.

“AUNTIE (Y/N)!”

You could hear the chorus of the screaming twins from your car, a smile beginning to inch its way across your lips, despite the heavy weight of a decade of old baggage weighing down on you more and more throughout the day. At least now you would be able to bask in some temporary, if not chaotic, joy brought by Luke and Leia.

The blonde and brunette came skidding up to your knees, running so quickly they almost knocked you over. You laughed openly, bending down to let the two envelope themselves around you. Luke crawled up on you back, asking politely for a piggy back ride into the house, while Leia simply just crawled up on you, wrapping her legs around you waist and holding onto your shoulders, despite the fact that you were carrying your very large purse. You just hoped you didn’t drop it - after all, it did have your datapad in it, and you did not want to break that thing.

“Auntie (Y/N), have you been crying?” 

Leia was never one to shy away from the facts. That five year old would be the end of you.

While Leia looked at you quizzically, Luke stroked your hair with his little hands. “Are you sad, auntie? We can eat your favorite chocolate if that will make you not sad anymore. I don’t want you to be sad.” And that five year old would probably make you cry again, his sweet natured personality always shining through.

“Whose crying? No crying, we’re all fine!” 

Anakin came rushing through the dining area from the kitchen to the front door where you stood with the twins still clinging to your body, and he nearly slipped and fell on his face as he ran too quickly with socks on the wood floor. 

Luke and Leia giggled as he stumbled and caught himself before the both crawled off of you, now attempting to tackle their father. 

“No, no, no wrestling right now, guys!” 

Now it was you who could not hold back a small snicker, watching the poor father be smothered by his two children. It took him a moment to pry them off his legs.

Anakin leaned against the archway leading into the kitchen attempting to catch his breath as he laughed. “I’m not even going to apologize for the twins because I’m pretty sure you and I were the same way.”

You set your bag down on the bench by the door, shrugging your blazer off. “I don’t know, I think the twins are at least open with one another.”

Music from the 70s played in the background from C-3PO’s portable extension speaker. Anakin looked confused, coming up to rest a hand on your shoulder. “What are you talking about? We tell each other everything, we— oh. Oh no.”

Now, granted, Anakin had thought that keeping Obi-Wan’s return a secret was a good idea. Initially. He now realizes he was so wrong as he looks at the deadly expression on your face, the way your eyebrows are arched, the way you clench and unclench your fists and then shake them as if attempting to shake off your emotions, but he sees you slipping. 

You’re going to kick his ass and he knows it.

Damn, I knew I should have told Padmé and asked for her advice. Anakin thought as ‘Does Your Mother Know’ by ABBA began to blast through the speaker in the kitchen.

“You better start running, Skywalker.”

“You better start running, Skywalker.”

Anakin whipped around the corner, knowing all too well that he was in some deep kriffing trouble. You were hot on his tail, still in your heels, and you would not let him get away. He, after all, was in socks, and therefore would be more prone to slipping. You, on the other hand, had been challenged by Anakin a few years ago to run in your heels as he believed that it was impossible. He had been wrong then, and he was still wrong now.

You both remembered in that moment chasing each other through your homes back in Tatooine, cracking jokes and waiting to tackle each other or wrestle each other for victory. You were proud to say you often beat Anakin because he was.... well, honestly, he was a weakling when you were young.

Anakin was practically your brother, you were everything to each other, and you felt as if this was a deep betrayal. Anakin knew how broken you had been after your unspeakable breakup with Obi-Wan, but he, being the idiot he was, obviously had kept this tidbit of information to himself.

And for what gain? Did he really think you would allow yourself to fall back into Obi-Wan’s arms? Did he really think everything would go back to the way it was in college, that the four of you would go back to having double-dates, that what? you and Obi-Wan would get married and have children of your own?

What a foolhardy dream that was, and you knew it more than anyone. 

Chasing him through the living room, he ran through into the dining room, running around the long table. You caught up just as quickly, grabbing the table and giving it a light shove to knock into him. He stumbled a bit but grabbed the table to ground himself.

“(Y/N), I’m sorry, I should have told you—“

“Sorry?” You said incredulously. You laughed, astounded by your idiot of a best friends stupid response. “Oh, we are past sorry. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! You knew what he put me through. You were there, helping pick up the pieces that he left behind. And only now you think it’s a good idea to not tell me he would be waltzing back into our lives?”

Anakin winced at every word, knowing he had royally forked (his vernacular changed after having children) up. Where was Padmé when he needed her to calm you and your fiery temper down?

You grabbed one of your heels and chucked it at his head, knowing he would dodge it, but you still almost wished it would have at least given him a bruise. And of course, he dodged it.

Anakin began running again, this time cutting through the kitchen. “Anakin Skywalker, you get back here!”

Now, you were wondering where the twins had run off to. Surely they would want to see you kick their father’s butt. 

Well, the twins had run off to go grab their foam swords once you had begun chasing their father, but had a minor argument about whether or not the swords were in Luke’s room or the playroom (they were actually hidden in the hall closet, I wonder who put them there).

“Aunt (Y/N), here, get him!” Leia yelled at you, throwing you one of the foam swords, while Luke politely handed Anakin the other. “Sorry dad, I’m rooting for Aunt (Y/N).” Luke whispered.

Anakin smiled sadly. “Me too, bud.”

The living room was sunken in, and quite an open space, with divider couches in the center of the area, plenty of space to run around and play in. Perfect for having a set of chaotic twins. And now perfect for a foam sword duel between you and Anakin. ABBA still blasted from the speakers, and it only helped in amping your frustrations.

You stood behind one of the couches, panting heavily as you began to pace in place.

You understood why Anakin had stayed friends with Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan was the only real male figure in his life, both like a brother and a father, but after they served together in the Republic army it became more apparent that their brotherly bond was something that could transcend lifetimes.

However, had Anakin so quickly forgotten the state you had been left in after discovering Obi-Wan’s relationship with Satine?

You couldn’t think about those memories right now, having already spent all day dwelling on the past, barely getting any work done.

You charged at Anakin, beginning to beat him with your foam sword, and he took it, as he felt he should, feeling the betrayal you felt with each strike. “Would you at least fight back?” You yelled. “This isn’t much of a fight, and your children are watching. Talk about embarrassing, Skywalker.” You breathed heavily, ceasing to beat Anakin as he grabbed the foam blade you had raised, ready to hit him some more.

“I’m not going to fight you, (Y/N/N).”

You paused, looking up into his soft, crystal blue eyes and you began to feel it.

Your tough, anger-filled facade began to crack, Obi-Wan’s memory once again taking a hammer and destroying any mask you would try and force upon yourself to keep anyone from seeing even a sliver of sadness out of you. A singular tear began to slip down your cheek as Anakin cupped your cheek, frowning knowingly, before enveloping you in one of those infamous Skywalker hugs that you knew was a true gift every time you received one. The twins even came up, both of them hugging each of your legs.

“I wish you would have at least let me punch you,” you mumbled into his chest. You could feel his laughter rumbling through his chest, just as you heard the garage door opening.

“Pads must be home,” you sighed, pushing Anakin away as you went to pick up Leia, Luke running to the door. What a momma’s boy.

Padmé looked forever beautiful, even after a day at work. She kicked off her heels and set down her large purse on the bench by the garage door, grinning as she saw Luke running toward him. She was quick to pick the five-year old up, greeting him excitedly. 

“And where is your sister?” “With Auntie (Y/N)!” 

Padmé turned the corner to find you holding her daughter, doting on her twin buns and poking her nose, thanking her for ‘the sword’ she had given you.

“What’s this about a sword fight?” Padmé questioned with a raised brow and a smile.

“Mommy! Auntie (Y/N) kicked Daddy’s butt!”  “Yeah! He made her cry!”

Padmé’s eyes flashed with both concern and anger, glaring quickly at Anakin and then casting a soft gaze of concern upon you, reaching out with her free hand to graze your arm affectionately. 

“But I’m not really sure why he made her cry... We were too busy grabbing the foam swords.” Anakin mumbled, “Yeah, I thought I had hidden those after last time...” “What!” Both of the twins shouted, quickly slipping themselves out of you and Padmé’s arms to go chase their father and tackle him for the 8th time that day.

“Why did Ani make you cry?”

You bit your lip, chewing on it like you used to when you were nervous, an old habit you couldn’t shake in your most anxious days.

“Obi-Wan is back and Anakin knew. He... he didn’t tell me.”

There was nothing more you needed to say, and Padmé grabbed your hand, dragging you back to her room so you could relay all of the details and she could change after a long day in the office. As you relayed the details of literally walking into Obi-Wan and Anakin’s knowledge that he withheld about Kenobi’s return (“Oh, he is going to regret having kept that from me”), Padmé would gasp from the inside of her walk-in closet every once and awhile at what comments you had made as well as Obi-Wan’s attitude that he could make such a return and act as if there were no consequences. 

She came back out in more comfortable clothes, a teal oversized-cropped sweatshirt and some grey sweatpants with fuzzy socks seemed to be the comfy-mom fit, paired with a low messy bun. How she managed to still look stunning was beyond you, but Padmé could walk around in a potato sack, and the press would call it a fashion statement that would quickly become the latest trend. She was astounding.

Padmé came and sat down next to you on her and Anakin’s bed, pulling you into a warm hug. You took a shaky breath as the tears finally began to fall. He was breaking you again. And you couldn’t stand the feeling of helplessness that washed over you as your shoulders began to shake. You tried muffling your sobs, but it was so hard to hold back the waters after the dam had already cracked and had begun to flood, rushing through you with memories of a now wished forgotten yesterday.

college years. 

You had survived the first few weeks of college thus far and you were more than happy for it. 

Of course, you had a few whacky professors (like the one who didn’t understand his students sarcasm, or the one who talked about anything other than the course work), but you had survived your first few sets of midterms, save the last one you had later this afternoon. 

You made your way to your favorite place on campus, the small Twin Suns Coffee Bar that was nestled inside the student activity center. It wasn’t a place to sit and chat with friends, more just the basic aspect and aesthetic of a regular Twin Suns, simply a coffee bar there to fuel the students making their way to different classes, jobs or internships. 

You strangely loved the busy atmosphere, well, when you yourself weren’t busy, and you had a few hours to fuel up on some coffee and break into a study session before your exam. As you got in line, you enjoyed watching the people rush by, listening to the sound of coffee beans grinding, the soft indie music playing through the speakers. 

As you stood, lightly swaying and breathing in the smell of the rich espresso being poured over some milk, you spotted a familiar head of golden hair headed this way. 

Obi-Wan had his nose stuck in a book, but he easily maneuvered among the bustling of the people as he would through the student center. You tried waving to get his attention, however it seemed he was to enraptured in whatever he was reading to fully pay attention to his surroundings. 

You rolled your eyes and chuckled, he seemed to be like this quite often, or at least, that’s how he seemed whenever you visited his and Anakin’s apartment. Always studying. Anakin tried to convince you that he was the actually amusing individual he described, that he was just busy with his studies as he had some more advanced classes he was taking. Thus far, you were not convinced. 

You finally decided to call his name. “Obi-Wan!” 

His head shot up in an alert sort-of surprise, and after a moment his eyes finally caught with yours and a small smile crossed his features as he made his way towards you at the back of the line.

“I haven’t seen you in awhile, (Y/N).”

“You saw me last night at your apartment.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right.” He chuckled to himself, ducking his head in embarrassment as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose I’ve been rather busy with my courses this semester.”

“Yes, that’s what Anakin has told me. He talked you up so much as some reckless guy like him, but so far I haven’t seen any proof of such an Obi-Wan. Perhaps you’ve gotten too old.” You said slyly, smirking in just the slightest way, your comment causing him to laugh. 

His eyes twinkled down at you, and they seemed to shine in the light from the coffee bar, it seemed almost unfair to be in his presence. He was just too beautiful, those cerulean eyes so captivating and difficult to look away from... 

“Too old? Well, after such an insult I suppose I won’t invite you to the little party Anakin and I were going to tonight.” He looked up, feigning to be studying the menu as his lips curved into a cheeky grin, knowing he had caught your attention now.

“A party?” Your eyes snapped to look up at him, your eyes begging him to look down at you. You composed yourself, mimicking his position as you stared at the menu, even though you already knew what you wanted. “Anakin would take me anyways,” you stated nonchalantly, “but would this party mean getting to see you with your nose out of a book for once?”

Obi-Wan turned to face you now, looking down at you with that impish grin still stuck on his face, his dimples peaking out from his beard. “I suppose you’ll have to determine that, my dear.”

A blush began to creep up your neck, and you could feel your face getting hot as you stared into his eyes, refusing to break eye contact.

“Hi, can I take your order?” The impatient barista asked, watching awkwardly as the two of you stared at each other. 

Obi-Wan calmly turned to the barista, and ordered a nitro cold brew before turning to you, motioning for you to order as he pulled out his wallet. “Order whatever you’d like, it’s on me today.” 

You shook your head, rolling your eyes. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re trying to win me over now by buying me coffee?” “Well, I at least want to seem interesting, and what’s more interesting than a bit of chivalry in this modern world?”

You couldn’t help but giggle at his comment, trying desperately to look anywhere than his piercing gaze.  “You should take the offer.” The barista said, and you stared at her incredulously, biting your lip and huffing before you begrudgingly ordered your favorite drink. 

Obi-Wan walked with you over to the waiting area, grabbing a napkin as soon as you reached it. He pulled a sharpie out from one of the side pockets on his backpack, and then began to scrawl something out on the napkin before handing it to you. His fingers brushed across yours just briefly, but you swore you felt an electrifying tingle shoot up your arm and a warm feeling following.

It had his phone number on it.  “So you can text me later about tonight to let me know if you’re finally ready to get to know me.”

You pointed a finger at him as your eyebrows began to furrow. “Hey, you’re the one whose always too busy whenever I am around.” Now you had him pinned. He was being such a flirt, you almost couldn’t believe his smug attitude, no matter how endearing it felt or how much it made you a little weak in the knees.  “Who said I wouldn’t make time for you?” 

You thought you would collapse then and there. Obi-Wan leaned down, whispering in your ear.  “You only had to ask.” 

Just then the barista called his name, and his lips were gone, having brushed just lightly against your ear. This was not the Kenobi you had imagined when Anakin had told you all about their grand collegiate adventures. 

No, this was so much better.

Obi-Wan handed you your drink, flashing you a smile as he began to walk away, backwards.  “I hope to see you later tonight, darling.”

And then he began to blend back into the crowd, but you could still see remnants of his perfect golden hair moving as he continued to drift from view until you could no longer see him. 

“You love him and you never let him go.” The barista behind you said, looking just as charmed by Obi-Wan as you felt.

“Yeah, I will.” You responded, still left in the daze that now seemed to consume you. How were you going to even be able to study for your test now?

present.

After dinner, the twins had pleaded for yet another infamous movie night with Auntie (Y/N). Of course, you caved, even though you could have probably used a night in with a bottle of wine and some tissues for the inevitable onslaught of tears that were to come once you were alone again.  You were just about three-fourths of the way through Finding Nemo when the twins fell asleep, Luke laying on the pillow in your lap and Leia cuddled up against Padmé. You smiled down at Luke, affectionately running your fingers through his hair as he lightly snored. Just like his dad, you thought. 

Someone’s phone buzzed, but you didn’t really care, just trying to focus on the movie and not think about the day you had just had. Anakin got up as the phone continued to buzz with text after text. “Uh... It’s for me, I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, don’t be too long, I’ll need your help putting the twins to bed soon.”

Padmé turned to look at you, while you continued to watch the Disney movie on the screen, Dory yelling after Marvin after they lost their chance at finding Nemo. You tried focusing on the movie, but after the long, emotional day you had, your thoughts began to slip back to him.  “I look at you and I’m home.”

You tried wiping away the tears, but it was hard to do so with Luke practically sprawled on top of you. Maybe it was time for that bottle of wine. 

You pulled Luke off of you, moving his sleepy body right beside Leia’s on top of Padmé. “Are you leaving?” She asked. You nodded your head, watching as Luke nuzzled himself into a comfortable position, cuddling closely to his mother.  “Well, drive safe, and make sure to text Anakin or I when you get home safely. Speaking of, where is he?”

“I’m sure he’s just taking a breath outside or something. I’ll see you later, Pads.”

You wiped away any remaining tears as you stood by the front door, grabbing your purse and blazer. However, as you stood by the door, you heard quiet muffled voices somewhere in the front yard that sounded like they were arguing. Anakin better not be arguing with the neighbors over mowing the lawn again...

You gently opened the front door, trying not to make too much noise not only for the sake of the twins but also so you wouldn’t spook whoever it was who was outside. When you turned around after shutting the door however, the voices stopped. 

And standing on the sidewalk next to you car was Obi-Wan. 

#star wars #obi wan kenobi #obi wan star wars #obi wan kenobi fanfic #obi wan kenobi x reader #modern obi wan kenobi x reader #modern obi wan #modern star wars #modern!star wars #modern!obi wan #modern obi wan kenobi #modern au #star wars au #untitled #obi wan kenobi au

[sdgew]

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[marshmallowgoop]

On Ragyo Kiryuin

Please note: This post will contain discussions of sexual assault and abuse.

I am not good at talking about Ragyo Kiryuin.

Every time I do, I mess it up. I don’t emphasize her atrocities enough. I emphasize her atrocities too much. I cause trouble for myself and others, and I always end up feeling awful.

My recent writing on Ragyo’s character—found here and here—proved no different. The reception for the first post was so overwhelmingly negative that it spurred on my first-ever legitimate anon hate, and the second post only made things worse. Even now, my inbox is being filled with dismissive, rude, heartbreaking messages that bring me to tears, and though my therapist has told me not to say that I hate myself anymore, it’s difficult not to in situations like these. I hate that my wording was so poor and that I stated my opinion so badly that I incited all this rage and aggression in someone (or someones, a thought that scares me more than I would like to admit).

It may be a mistake to try to explain myself further. But I hurt people with what I said, and that bothers me. I hurt people because I struggle to explain my feelings on a cartoon character well, and I’m sorry. I’m embarrassed. I’m ashamed. I want to at least put in the effort to be kinder, more nuanced, and more sympathetic.

And maybe it’ll all blow up in my face. But I don’t want to not try.

So. Ragyo Kiryuin. Mother of Satsuki Kiryuin and Ryuko Matoi, CEO of REVOCS, and the ultimate Big Bad of Kill la Kill. Love her, hate her, or love her and hate her, she’s certainly made an impression in the anime-viewing world. And though I can’t speak for anyone else’s impression, my personal impression is... mixed.

Let’s go through this bit by bit.

A Good Villain?

Though I don’t see it much anymore, I remember lots of comparisons between Ragyo and the villains of Saturday morning cartoons back in the day. She was described as a generic, two-dimensional “evilz for the sake of evilz” baddie and criticized for her simplicity.

And though I did admittedly agree to an extent—I craved a lot more depth and insight, particularly in regards to her haunting line about “still having something of a human heart” whilst brutally attacking her own daughter in the final episode—I also found Ragyo to be a remarkably compelling, powerful, and horrifying villain even without tons of backstory and explanation. Perhaps my write-up on her first scene in episode 6 best details why; this woman has such a presence, and the visual language of the series amplifies that presence spectacularly. Ragyo’s intimidating and scary without the audience even needing to know anything about her.

And... I’d say that’s a good villain. That’s exactly what a villain should do.

Why Does This Matter, Goop?

I know, I know. My talking about Ragyo’s efficiency as a villain probably doesn’t seem all that relevant to the stuff that egged on an anon hate assault. But I think it’s important to mention that I do believe that Ragyo is a great, powerful villain. My previous posts were so bleak and cynical that I didn’t make this point clear. It does, in retrospect, seem as though I am crapping all over the character and subtly dissing anyone who enjoys her. I’m sorry for that, and I want to stress that that was not at all my intention.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with loving villains—even when they’re morally bankrupt, atrocious people like Ragyo—because loving villains, of course, doesn’t automatically mean that you excuse or endorse their actions. Villains like Ragyo also leave such a strong impression on the viewers, and personally, I’ve been so captivated by this awful woman that my first attempt at my years-in-the-making Kill la Kill fairytale AU featured about a 30,000-word backstory for her. There is a lot to respect, love, and love to hate when it comes to Ragyo and how she’s written, and I never, ever mean to discount that.

However, as with all things, it’s possible to love a piece of fiction or a character or what have you and also recognize that there are problems in the portrayal. And when it comes to Ragyo, as much as I think she’s a fantastic, engaging, terrifying villain, I do take issue with her depiction.

The Sexuality Point

I got a lot of heat for my ideas regarding Ragyo’s sexuality, and I admit: I didn’t express myself well. There was a lot more I should have said and elaborated upon. Maybe I’ll still fail spectacularly, but as I said before, I don’t want to not try.

So first, I want to take a moment to discuss intentionality. While I absolutely value Author is Dead and respect fan interpretations of any work, I also recognize that narrative decisions in fiction don’t happen in a vacuum. The fact of the matter is, Ragyo was originally designed as a father but was later changed to a mother so the relationships Ragyo shares with her daughters wouldn’t seem so “murky,” “gross,” and “perverted.”

And... that disturbs me. The idea, as I see it, is that a father abusing his daughters is, more than appropriately, disgusting, but a mother abusing her daughters is somehow less bad. In fact, writer Kazuki Nakashima outright states that he didn’t want to explore the “murkiness” of these relationships, noting that he “didn’t want to mix [that] ‘murkiness’ into the battle.” My impression—which I understand might very well be wrong—is that there’s the feeling that female-on-female abuse just isn’t as serious or life changing as male-on-female abuse. There’s the feeling that you can just not talk about how devastating this sexual assault is, and that’s totally okay, because the perpetrator is a woman.

I’ve written previously—and perhaps most overtly here—that female-on-female abuse seems to get brushed off way more than it should be. It’s cute when a girl grabs another girl’s boobs, even when that other girl is noticeably and visibly unhappy. It’s adorable when a girl forces a kiss on another girl. Charming. Sweet. If you have a problem with it, you’re a homophobe.

And I think that’s so, so damaging. I wish I had some statistics (oh anon hounding me about facts, if you’re here), but I recall reading about how this mindset—this idea that girls just can’t hurt other girls—ends up keeping wlw in abusive, toxic relationships. And that’s not even mentioning how the notion that women are harmless and can’t do damage is a totally sexist one that hurts men and other genders, too!

With Ragyo, I actually think there’s a lot of powerful potential. Kill la Kill could have shown that there’s nothing sweet or cute or charming or sexy about female-on-female abuse. It could have shown that a mother sexually abusing her daughters is just as horrific as a father sexually abusing his daughters. Both good representation and bad representation are important, and I do see the value in an evil, awful lesbian; as noted above, the idea that girls can’t hurt other girls, that wlw can’t be bad, and that only men can cause harm is a dangerous mindset to have. I think it’s important to address it, particularly in anime, which attracts younger viewers.

In the past, I argued that Kill la Kill did address it. I wrote, “These scenes [depicting Ragyo’s abuses] are full of what may be typically used as fanservice—female nudity, fondling, touching—but they’re all incredibly disturbing, uncomfortable, painful, and tragic. The series makes no joke about just how violating these instances are.” I’ve seen similar arguments made today. 

But personally, now knowing more about the creation of Ragyo and being aware of the gushy, “Wow, this is so hot!”-type comments concerning the notorious bath scene in the official Trigger Magazine, I’ve since changed my tune. I think it’s undeniable that there is some “this isn’t so bad and maybe actually kinda sexy” appeal to Ragyo’s abuses, and that’s very, very disappointing to me. 

Further, being a survivor, I also find it incredibly hurtful. I’ve been too traumatized to even date ever since what happened to me happened, and to see situations like what I went through depicted in such explicit, detailed, fanservice-y ways... it disturbs me.

I understand that my opinion isn’t going to be shared by everyone, but I’ve come to believe in a “less is more” approach when it comes to these hard, real situations. Implication arguably holds far more power. For example, in all of my college film classes, Osama left one of the strongest impressions. In it, a young girl dresses as a boy to provide for her family. She’s eventually found out when she has her first period, and she’s then married off to a much older man. The ending scene of the film depicts the man washing himself just as the girl, in disguise as a boy, had been taught to do after having sex. Unlike in Kill la Kill, you don’t see the unspeakable scene at all. You know exactly what happened with just that one shot, and that one shot has stuck with me ever since. That’s a powerful, respectful way of portraying these very real, very horrific problems.

I know I cannot speak for every survivor, but I personally disagree with the notion that fiction should not discuss these topics. In my mind, fiction absolutely should because these things are real, because they happen. There could have been so much power in Ragyo’s depiction, in Satsuki’s depiction, in Ryuko’s. But the severity of Ragyo’s abuses is brushed off, and, as I see it, fetishized. That’s what I take issue with—not that there’s a potential evil lesbian, not that there’s a depiction of a mother abusing her daughters, but how this is depicted: not respectfully.

Referring more to my troublesome posts, I also want to address my point of how girls showing affection for other girls is often portrayed negatively in Kill la Kill, which could potentially send the message, “Hey, lesbians just be evilz.” Perhaps more than anything else, this hurt my readers the most. I wasn’t very clear and didn’t speak well, and I apologize.

Maybe surprisingly, I’ve also taken issue with the argument that Ryuko kissing Nui shows that a girl having an attraction towards another girl is bad. As I saw it, the kiss was simply a shocking way of showing that Ryuko is not at all herself; someone kissing the person they hate the most says more than words ever could. The scene isn’t an attack on wlw; the protagonist and the villain in this case just so happen to both be girls.

And I still believe this rebuttal. But I also have mixed feelings, which explains my previous responses. I once more have to question intentionality: if Ryuko were a boy, as shonen heroes so often are, would this scene have happened? Would Nui have been so flirty with him? Would there have been so much screen time and detail put into the kiss? Similar to my arguments about Ragyo, could there have been a potentially much more powerful scene whose power comes from its implications, not what it actually shows?

In all my years in the Kill la Kill fandom, I’ve seen reactions to that scene that find it hot, as “proving” that Ryuko/Nui is the only canon Kill la Kill pairing, and that see it in ways that I find to be unsavory. If the goal of that kiss is to cement the fact that Ryuko isn’t herself in the most shocking way possible, I could argue that it failed for a lot of viewers. In fact, one of my more looked-at posts is about why Ryuko kisses Nui. Its execution is confusing, and yes, I do believe it could potentially send some bad messages about wlw, even if that wasn’t intended.

Which, to bring this discussion back towards Ragyo, I want to take a moment to say that bad messages can be totally unintentional. As a writer myself, I think about potential bad unintentional messages all the time. For instance, in my aforementioned fairytale AU, I had a theme going (’cause it’s a fairytale and all): a healthy, beautiful baby is good, a healthy, ugly baby is bad, and an unhealthy, beautiful baby is good. Notice how there’s only one ugly baby, and they’re bad? I realized that this could subtly say something about ugly people, and I’ve decided to make a point about a heroic character being ugly in order to send the message that anyone can be good or bad, regardless of if they’re beautiful or ugly, healthy or unhealthy.

With Ragyo (and with Nui as well), I don’t at all think the intention is to show that girls loving other girls is wrong and bad. But the depiction, to me, leaves things to be desired. A lot of it feels fetishy, and the fact that Ragyo was purposely changed to a woman for “gross” concerns also greatly irks me.

And before I try to write up a conclusion of sorts, I do want to offer this: what if Ragyo stayed a man, but he was associated with white and rainbows as Ragyo is in the final cut? It was stated at this year’s Anime Expo that director Hiroyuki Imaishi has his heroic characters in black and villainous characters in white, which could possibly send messages like Darkness Isn’t Bad and the real villains are the ones who are perverting the purity, goodness, and so on that are associated with white. In the same way, if Ragyo were a man who seemed straight but had rainbow hair, it could send the message that the real villain is the one perverting this symbol of love and acceptance.

I don’t know. Just some food for thought.

Conclusion

I am bad at talking about Ragyo. I am bad at talking about serious topics. I’m sure this post proves as much.

But I hope I’ve done a better job of explaining my point of view than I did before. But if I didn’t—which, knowing me, is likely—I just want everyone to know that I don’t think you’re a reprehensible person if you like Ragyo. I don’t think Ragyo is “too evil” to be representation. I don’t think she’s some terrible, awful character whom nobody can love. (At least, in regards to the writing. I hope there’s agreement that she’s a terrible, awful person.)

While I have problems with Ragyo’s depiction, I don’t think anyone is horrible and wrong if they don’t and resonate with it. I know I certainly like things that others find horrible and wrong, like the Ryuko/Senketsu pairing that I’ve been attacked left and right for, and I more than recognize and voice my own problems with it whilst still loving what I love (and politely disagreeing with the problems that others see that I don’t!)

I know I’m not good at this. But I hope I’ve conveyed my thoughts respectfully, and that, even if you strongly disagree, you know I welcome and am open to your thoughts and perspective, if you would like to share. That’s why I write these posts at all.

#kill la kill #ragyo kiryuin #analysis #ragyo discourse #ramblings #serious talk #the discourse #abuse mention #i'm sorry if this is awful i just got it confirmed that i do have adhd and hyper-focused on this even though i shouldn't have #and i haven't eaten all day 'cause i've been dying to finish this and i've spent several hours on it and... i'm trying #i'm sorry but i really really am trying

[tyrusquacks]

Misdirections: Prologue

Read it on AO3

Cyrus felt like he could kill Andi right now. Despite being far away from her, each stood on the opposite ends of the ridiculously wide street of Broadway, he was certain that the girl was giggling at him. It’s not like she was doing a good job hiding it. Had he not been so embarrassed, Cyrus might have tried to find the humor in the situation. But right now, that was beyond his capability. Instead, his eyes shot daggers at Andi, which he hoped she could feel, while his mind devised all sorts of revenge plots to get back at his friend. The worst part was that it was all entirely Andi’s fault. She knew that Cyrus had very little faith in the drivers of New York City. That he very religiously followed all traffic lights at all times, which, she liked to point out, was not very New Yorker of him.

So why had she egged him along at the intersection, seemingly convinced that 3 seconds would be enough to cross Broadway? Fucking Broadway!!!

Of course, it wasn’t enough time. But Andi, who was already a few feet ahead of him, swiftly ran to the other side long after the countdown was over and the red hand on the light had stopped flashing. Almost immediately, impatient drivers began to move forward and aggressively honk at a panicked Cyrus who gave up midway into the street and ran back to the safety of the sidewalk from which he was currently murdering Andi with his stare. If he was being honest with himself, almost no one cared. It was summer. Which meant that the streets of downtown Manhattan were swarming with tourists who were either too engrossed in the scenery of imposing skyscrapers or too fixated on following their map, physical or digital, to notice a certain 16-year-old’s pathetic and failed attempt at crossing a street.

In theory, Cyrus should have overcome his initial anger by now. Except he didn’t, and this irrational bundle of emotions had now only changed target. Cyrus was angry at himself. Anyone else who hadn’t been in his hormone-fueled teenage mind for the past couple of months would find his reaction absurd, and under normal circumstances, it might have been. After all, he had just rationalized himself that what just happened was practically a non-event for all witnesses, of which there were few to none. The truth was, being extremely self-conscious did unspeakable wonders for the teenage brain.

Cyrus was suffering from a very common, yet rarely spoken about ailment known as the spotlight effect. Simply put, he always felt watched, less in a creepy stalker way than bearing the nagging feeling that people around him not only paid attention to what he did but constantly judged his every move. He felt that way in school, at home, on social media, and now on a hot summer day on Broadway. Perhaps this wouldn’t such a bad thing if he felt confident about who he was and what he was doing. But it was quite the opposite. Lately, his thoughts were ridden of judgment about his own lack of a sense of self-accomplishment. And while he had always been a pensive person by nature, he found himself spending increasingly longer periods of time reflecting on all the things that he either had done wrong, hadn’t done at all, or should have been doing.

Unsurprisingly, the prospect of beginning his junior year in a few months and having to start serious conversations with himself, his friends, his parents, and his school officials about college and his “future”―whatever that entailed―had exacerbated this feeling. And if somehow that hadn’t been enough, the disastrous status of his romantic life was also becoming a trusted source of insecurity. Somehow, that’s probably what he felt most guilty about.

Cyrus Goodman has been out as gay to practically everyone he knows since middle school. In the liberal bubble of New York City, his sexuality was never an issue with the people he interacted with on a daily basis, and he was well aware of this privilege. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there must be something wrong with him when everyone around him was having some kind of romantic experience and he wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t the case, but it definitely felt like it.

In some regards, the environment of nearly automatic acceptance he was is only made things worse. As fucked up as he knew that sounded, he couldn’t even blame homophobia for his lack of romantic encounters. It also didn’t help that living in such a big city, he couldn’t pretend that a lack of possible romantic interests was the thing that was holding him back. It should be the total opposite. In fact, Cyrus believed he had run into more cute boys his age than he could count, and that according to the law of probability and probably some other principles that he had no time for, some of these boys were bound to like other boys. At this point into the endless pit of self-deprecation, the question he would ask was:

Then why hasn’t any of them liked me yet?

Before he even had time to mentally go down the preexisting list of all the possible reasons why, Cyrus was abruptly pulled out his thoughts and back into reality by a soft tap on his left shoulder, followed by a rather polite “Excuse me.” Startled, he briskly turned to face whoever was trying to get his attention. A girl with long blond hair, approximately his age or a little older, stood in front of him and began talking as soon as he made eye contact with her.

“Hi, sorry if I scared you but you look like you’re from here so I was wondering if you could help us,” she explained with a smile.

The “us” she was referring to consisted of her and the taller blond boy who was standing next to her, sporting a reluctant smile which signaled that he did not want to be part of this interaction. But the girl seemed nice, so Cyrus decided he would try to help. Only a few moments ago, he had been spiraling down some fairly unhealthy thoughts, but it only took a split second of hesitation before he returned their smile and replied:

“Sure, what do you guys need help with?”

“Do you know if there’s a Subway around here? It should be on this block but we’ve been walking around for like 20 minutes and we can’t find it,” she answered, her polite smile wavering as her despair became more obvious.

Although it didn’t show outwardly, Cyrus began to panic. He was horrible with directions and he knew it. That’s the main reason he never really went anywhere without his trusted best friends, Andi and Buffy. Worst of all, he didn’t live in the area they were in. He was merely being dragged along by Andi on one of her surprisingly frequent craft supplies shopping sprees. But now that he had already committed to helping this girl and her decidedly silent companion, he felt too awkward to tell these tourists the truth about his less than exceptional navigational abilities. So instead of saying: “I’m sorry, I don’t know,” which he really didn’t, he kept trying to help.

“Um like which- which one do you need?” he asked her, as he uncomfortably shifted his all his weight to one foot.

The girl seemed confused by the question. She gave a questioning look to the boy next to her who only shrugged in response.

“Well uh, I don’t know, whichever one is closest. I didn’t know there more than one in the area,” she admitted, visibly annoyed now. Her response made Cyrus chuckle internally. She had to have known that there was more than one subway line. It seemed like a no-brainer, even for a tourist.

“I mean… yeah, it depends where you wanna go. Do you have like an address?” he asked. Had he known what he was doing, he would have sent them to the nearest train station he knew of. But since he didn’t, he strategized to stall for as long as he could until they hopefully gave up or asked someone else. Unfortunately for him, despite her friend’s mildly uncomfortable silence, the girl seemed intent on getting a concrete answer out of him.

“No, we don’t have one. We didn’t think we’d need it. A friend told us there was a Subway on this street so I didn’t think it would be so hard to find. Could you just tell us if we’re supposed to go north or south?” Her tone was still polite, but growing increasingly forced. But Cyrus could tell that she wasn’t annoyed at him specifically, but frustrated with the situation as a whole. Now he was feeling awkward and guilty that he was being practically useless to these strangers. Suddenly, he felt unable to keep the charade going for much longer. After all, he only had to say north or south. Plus, he was sure that either way they would eventually stumble upon a subway station because as far as he knew, they were often not too far apart.

“Yeah okay. In that case, you should definitely go north,” he affirmed with all the fake certainty he could muster. He thought he was off the hook until the girl spoke again.

“So this way?” she asked, pointing in a general direction to their right. Now, more than ever, Cyrus wished Andi was still with him. She would have known what to do. For the first time since he’d started speaking to the stranger, he glanced across the street to find Andi looking down at her phone, waiting for him. He also noticed that the pedestrian light indicated that he could cross, so he decided to end this conversation as quickly as possible so he could escape to the other side of the street before the light went red again.

“Yup it’s that way,” he responded with more of the false confidence from his earlier reply, while vaguely gesturing to his right. The girl seemed satisfied with his answer and her face visibly relaxed as her smile became more genuine.

“Thank you! Thanks a lot,” she said while simultaneously beginning to drag her friend―or whatever he was―with her. “Have a great day!” she nearly shouted, already walking away, without waiting for Cyrus’ response.

Both relieved and a little panicked about what he’d just done, Cyrus wasted no time in crossing the street as fast as he possibly could until he reached Andi who was still on her phone. Needless to say, his encounter with the tourists had dissipated his anger towards his best friend, rendering all murder plots useless. Once he stood directly in front of her, Andi looked up at him and shoved her phone in her pocket.

“Who was that?” she inquired.

“Just some strangers. They were asking me for directions,” he responded, scratching the back of his head. Almost immediately, Andi’s eyebrows shot up.

“You? Giving directions? Since when-”

“Since never,” he interrupted her. “I panicked and just pretended I knew what I was talking about until they went away.” His tone was brusque and he clearly didn’t want to elaborate any further, which Andi must have noticed because she started walking again without a word, although Cyrus could tell she trying to suppress a chuckle. Still, grateful of her silence, he just followed her pace, sure to keep up with her this time to whatever thrift store they were headed to. As if his efforts to catch up with her had reminded her of what happened earlier, Andi turned to Cyrus to ask him about it.

“Hey, why did you run back? We were already in the middle of the street so you could have just run to the other side with me.” Her voice was soft and Cyrus couldn’t say that she was annoyed, just sincerely confused at his counterintuitive reaction. For his part, maybe he was no longer angry at her, but Cyrus wasn’t any more thrilled to discuss what he still felt was an embarrassing moment, so he didn’t. Instead, he looked away and just shrugged. Once again, Andi seemed to understand and didn’t pry. They had been walking in comfortable silence for only a few minutes before something caught Cyrus’ eye.

Subway.

The food franchise, not the mode of transportation. Cyrus stopped in his tracks, staring at the green sign as a wave of realization hitting him. Maybe she was talking about the restaurant this whole time. Then he thought about how confused she’d seemed when he asked her which subway line she wanted to take. Come to think of it, he hadn’t specified “subway line”. And when he asked her for the address she was headed to, she probably thought he meant the address of the restaurant.

Andi, who had noticed that he stopped walking, turned around and shot him a questioning look which he ignored as the maybe in his head turned into a most certainly. He looked back to where he was walking from, now painfully aware that he sent two strangers in the very opposite direction of what they were looking for. He definitely messed this up for them. His only consolation was that they were clearly tourists visiting the city so there was no chance he’d run into them again. Right?

Next: Chapter 1

#tyrus #Andi Mack #tyrus week #misdirections #tyrus fanfic

[bisectionalbisexual]

Feathery Wings

This fic is directly inspired by the song of the same title by Aurelio Voltaire, and any words that are in italics are lyrics directly from the song. Please give it a listen! It’s a really beautiful song!

Word count: 5,322 Pairings: Moxiety TW: oh boy here we go… suicide, suicide attempts, suicidal thoughts, etc. Blood, swearing, descriptions of Pain, Major character death, burning, overall just a lot of bad and I’m so sorry. (Let me know if I need any more!!! Plz!!!) A/N: I cannot apologize enough for what you are about to read, but THERE IS A HAPPY ENDING, so that’s a good thing. Also, this story is in no way trying to promote any religious agenda or make fun of anyone, I didn’t look anything up, everything is from my own knowledge, and my own made up stuff I just pulled out of thin air. Summary: Virgilius (pronounced with a “V” sound, I know it wasn’t back then but we’re sticking with it) was an angel who had fallen from Heaven for crimes against God. He is now burdened with the task of trying to save “The Lost Ones” over and over and over again until finally, he meets a young man with a spark. A young man that just might make Virgilius’s time on Earth just as divine as Heaven.

Gonna put the “Keep Reading” right here in case someone accidentally reads what they don’t want to.

~~~

It burned so badly.

The feeling of falling from his dimension was unbearable. At least it used to be his dimension. The pain was scorching hot through his wings, tears were streaming down his face and floating up into the dark abyss that was the cosmos. He used to think the stars were beautiful, now they were only dim light. He was approaching Earth, he could feel it, the burning became so searing that it almost felt cold. The fall to the ground caused the ground to shake violently, but he couldn’t feel it. He only felt the numbing pain throughout his entire body, not to mention the aching tightness in his chest. An unfamiliar metallic taste arose in his mouth. Was it blood? It had to have been.

By using what strength he had left he turned his head to see what had become of his elegant pure white wings. The sight he was met with elicited a shrill ear piercing scream. His wings were tainted with black, scorched by flames, and covered in Ash. What made him beautiful was gone, he was cast down by what he loved, and now his pure blood was soiled. He laid there and sobbed for hours, to him it felt like a couple millennia before the rain came down. He figured it would bring relief, but it only brought the stinging pain of a thousand needles piercing through his flesh. He needed cover, he needed safety, he needed warmth. But none came, he tried lifting himself up just to fall limp, he was too weak, and therefore useless to help himself. He was now one of the fallen, an Angel cast down from heaven as punishment for unspeakable deeds. He went by many names through his many years of existence, but those he cared for had called him “Virgilius.”

Virgilius had grown to like his name, it made him unique against other Angel’s whose name’s had meaning of righteousness and Holy Value. But he also feared his name, because it felt as though it meant he didn’t fit in up in heaven, he was unknown, he was a mystery. His name landed him here, on Earth, to suffer amongst the mortals for all eternity. So, The Dark Angel laid there for weeks, he could have remained for years, hopeless in going back home, he could never regain his pure wings once more. 

One day, however, he felt a strange pulling at his heart. Something beckoning him to get up, to move, and it felt urgent. He didn’t know why he was forcing himself up for the sake of this unknown force, but he had no choice, and before he knew it he was rising to his feet. It took him a while to gain his footing, but once he was steady he managed to gently outstretched his wings, wincing at the stiffness coursing through his entire being. His strength had returned, and the pain was lessening, so without a second thought, he began trudging his way on foot towards the tugging in his chest. The feeling became stronger as he grew closer to what was calling to him, and the stronger it became the more intense pressure his body was being put under, he felt himself swaying in and out of Earth’s plane of existence and he wasn’t sure if anyone could even really see him, but he didn’t care, he needed to stop whatever was going to happen. He found himself on a bridge above an aggressive body of water. The waves were crashing and slamming into the sharp rocks below as if the height wasn’t deadly enough. Virgilius’s eyes landed on a young boy standing beyond the barrier of the bridge, and if he were to let go of the platform he would surely fall. But maybe he intended it to be that way.

This young boy was 18-year-old Logan Pierce, senior in High School, straight-A student. He had a very bright future, he was going to be a brain surgeon. That thought alone left a sour taste in his mouth, he hated the idea of cutting people open and holding the fate of their lives in his hands. But there was no escaping his fate, his family was putting so much pressure on him to be successful and have a wife and children, but that’s just not him. He wanted to be an astronomer!… He wanted a husband!

But it didn’t matter, what he wanted didn’t matter, it never did. Virgilius felt this young man’s pain deep in his soul, no one understood him. His family had shunned him. He managed to face the puppet master and cut his strings, but now he had nothing. Logan stood there looking down at the water below him, it was almost calming. The sound of the waves almost brought a smile to his face as he breathed in the cool crisp fall air, but then a honking car drove by interrupting his blissful silence. That’s it, he can’t take it anymore, there was no such thing as silence, everything was so loud-!

“You, there on the bridge,” Logan paused, looking around only to see no one, the only sound being the wind, whistling by as it sang to him. “Where have you been? What’s your name?”

There it was, some kind if voice calling out to him but he just couldn’t find the source.

“Hello?” He rasped out, his grip tightening on the concrete platform, “Who’s there?!… I-I’m Logan…” ‘You’re going crazy, Pierce,’ He thought to himself, ‘there’s no one there. You’re all alone…’

It didn’t take Virgilius long to realize that his celestial status prevented the mortals from seeing him, his existence only coming off as an illusion, his words becoming a song in the wind. He tried to get closer, to somehow grab the boy and pull him to safety, but it was too late. With a slip of footing creating a scraping sound on the concrete, the boy had fallen off the bridge.

“No! Wait, please!” Virgilius ran to the edge of the bridge, watching the boy’s silhouette fade away, and the pain in his chest abruptly stopped.

He failed.

He saw that boy’s future flash before his eyes, he would have minored in Astronomy in college, he was going to meet the love of his life in the hospital he would work in, a charismatic grief counselor named Emile Picani… but now Logan Pierce ceased to be.

Tears began to stream down the Angel’s cheeks, and his breath picked up to a frightening pace. He was so unfamiliar with crying, but he seemed to have been doing it a lot lately. Something about this planet was giving him this sensitivity to human emotion that he had never felt before. Why was this happening? Why was he connected to this boy? He felt the dreaded tug in his chest again, but this time he didn’t know where it would lead. He took a deep breath to calm himself as he outstretched his wings feeling his feet lift up off of the ground. At least he was still able to fly, but he could no longer soar as he used to.

He drifted down from the bridge, he needed to find this boy. If the pain came back then he must still be alive, he had read of humans performing miracles all the time.

'He must be here. He had to be here!’ Virgilius quickly saw the dark red liquid polluting the water as the stream carried on undisturbed. He followed the flow of blood to the source to find the broken and battered body, his face pale and cold, and not even a glint of life was left behind in his eyes behind his shattered and bent glasses. Now Virgilius knew the pain in his chest, it was mourning, heartache, loss, however you want to describe it. He knelt down next to the body, praying the soul be sent to heaven regardless of how he died, he wished mercy upon this boy. Voices beginning to accumulate above him broke him away from his thoughts. He looked up to see a crowd forming on the bridge with what he assumed were what the humans used for communication, and he saw flickering lights of red and blue.

The guilt that plagued his being hit him like a strike of lightning, but the crowds of people coming to observe the boy told him that it was his time to leave. He just needed to get out of here. He needed to go home. There was too much pain here, he just couldn’t take it. He stood and ruffled his feathers as he rose to reach the stars. But his efforts bore no fruit when some invisible force kept him from leaving Earth’s atmosphere. His wings were not gone, but they were no longer of heavenly divinity. Like any fallen angel he must earn his wings back, he must redeem himself for his sins, but-

“I failed…” A soft whisper escaped from his lips as he fell back to the Earth’s surface.

That was the tug, what lead him to poor Logan Pierce, he was fated to save that boy’s life, and he failed.

He landed somewhere different this time, rather than the softness of Earth, he felt cold hard asphalt beneath his feet. He tore his eyes away from the sky to see that he landed atop a building. His chest became tight, his heart pounding against his ribcage telling him that something was wrong. 'No… no, not again, please!’ His head whipped around left and right, he was alone on the roof. The pull was coming from below, and he rushed down the stairs to follow it. Whoever this person was, Virgilius needed to save them, this was his second chance. He scoured every floor until he got to the very bottom, and the pain only worsened as he got closer. But as soon as his hand touched the door the stiffness abruptly stopped.

'Oh no. God no.’

He barged through the door to find the body of another young man, hanging from the ceiling by a rope made with scarves tied together. Virgilius’s hand was brought up to cover his mouth, silencing the audible gasp slipping from his lips. He took slow steps further into the room, as he looked around he saw a rejection letter from a popular Performing Arts school, as well as an open laptop with a note typed on the screen.

“Dear Valerie,

If you are ever able to read this… I’m sorry. I just wasn’t strong enough. You were the only one that was there for me, you were the only one who never rejected me. After my parents kicked me out, and what happened to Thomas… I’m sorry. You don’t deserve this pain, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. You’ll move on, I’ll become a faint memory in your amazing mind. You’ll lead a wonderful life.

   -Roman.”

As Virgilius read the letter he saw the life of young Roman Murphy, he saw his past, present, and future. This letter was to his childhood friend, Valerie Taylor, she was the one who stuck with him through every part of his life. The good and the bad. She was there when his parents disowned him after he came out about his sexuality, after his older brother Thomas was killed by a drunk driver in an accident, and she would have been there to console him through the rejection of his dream college. Roman Murphy would have lived to become a High School Drama a teacher after a semi-successful career as an actor. He would have been a devoted husband, and an even better father, and after every show, he would have been greeted by his son Remy and “Auntie Valerie” backstage while his husband, who went by “Dee”, waited outside with roses.

Virgilius knelt once more and wept, holding his head in his hands. He wasn’t fated to save these humans, he was fated to suffer as he watched the life drain from their face, to know he couldn’t do it.

He would never be able to save them.

This torture continued for years. The pain in his chest migrated into his entire being the longer his punishment went on, and he always remembered the names and lives of the souls he couldn’t save. In the times he wasn’t too late, he would urge them to stop as he tried to do with his very first, Logan Pierce, only for his voice to get lost in the air.

He wanted them to realize the permanent consequences to what they were doing.

“You, there on the wall, where will you go to once you fall?” He needed them to see that there was help! Just waiting for them. Waiting to be seen. “You, lost at sea, do you need me? Do you need directions?” But they were all lost.

Virgilius felt entirely broken when he came to the home of a Patton Matthews, a 26-year-old college dropout just struggling to get by. Today was a bad day.

Patton had come home to an empty house, empty being that his dog Skip had somehow gotten out and ran off somewhere. This wasn’t the first time, but Patton just aimlessly wandered around the apartment until he stumbled into his bedroom. He felt numb, he hadn’t genuinely smiled in forever, the only thing keeping him here walked out of the door a long long time ago.

Virgilius was desperate to save someone, to just tell them to stop, and he was saying anything to try and get them to snap out of their toxic state of mind, just for a second, just to listen to him. He walked in on Patton loading a revolver and aiming the barrel at his head. This boy’s life came to Virgilius in a flash, just as all the others did. He needed to act fast, but he felt just as hopeless, his voice kept breaking as his sobs slipped through his voice.

“Hey… put down the gun… what were you thinking?!… You were someone’s son!”

Patton tensed, dropping the gun into his lap and he looked down at his hands, “what… What am I doing?!” The numbness subsided, and the heavy reality of what he was doing set in as he began bawling into his hands. He needed to go, he had to find his dog, he needed to call his mom! He needed help. He stood and turned to completely dispose of the gun only to freeze, seeing the mysterious figure standing behind him.

“What the-? W-who the hell are you?!” Patton gripped the gun with shaking hands, pointing it to the stranger in his bedroom.

Virgilius seemed just as shocked as he looked around, then down to himself, “wait, wait, you can see me?” He asked, the tears streaming down his face coming to a halt.

“Of course I can! Why… why wouldn’t I?”

The Angel slowly raised his hands to show he wasn’t a threat but Patton’s grip on his gun never softened. Making sure to be gentle, Virgilius outstretched his wings for Patton to see.  Patton’s jaw nearly dropped all the way to the floor and his hands fell to his sides,

“you're… you- wha… what are you?!”

“I’m an angel, from heaven, and I’m here to help you.”

This all sounded like complete and utter bullshit to Patton, but he couldn’t deny what he was seeing. There was an angel, right in front of him. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued, and he was curious enough to set down his gun to ask his questions.

Watching Patton put down his weapon made Virgilius nearly hysterical, but the tears welling up in his eyes were now of joy, he finally stopped one, he did it…  'I did it!’

“Uh, hey? What’s wrong?” Patton tilted his head wiping his own eyes with his sleeve, as the Angel dropped to his knees.

“Thank God!!! Thank you! Thank you!”

“Um… okay? You want some water or something?”

Virgilius assured the human that he was alright, he simply had to explain. He told Patton the story of how he began his attempts to save who he began calling “The Lost Ones” in order to earn his wings after he had fallen. Patton was amazed as he heard his tale, but it made him wonder all different things about angels and heaven and hell, to which Virgilius responded with “You were lost, but now I have found you, I finally found you.” He’ll get his answers later.

Once Virgilius had finally calmed down enough to rise back to his feet, he spun around to see his white feathery wings, to feel the wind in his hair once more as he ascended to heaven… but they weren’t there.  They were still dark, torn, and burned. He was still broken.

“No… no, no, no, why aren’t they fixed? Why can’t I go back?!”

His breath became frantic as he desperately kept fluttering his wings to see some kind of change but he was left with nothing. Patton watched as the angel nearly descends into madness over his wings, and he couldn’t help but step in.

“Hey, hey, calm down. I-it’s okay,” he took careful steps forward, “it’ll be okay, alright? Just take a deep breath.” ‘Well this just did a 180,’ Patton thought.

“No! It’s not okay! My wings, they’re the same, they didn’t change back… they were supposed to change back!…”

Virgilius had worked himself up so much that he just melted into Patton’s arms once he was close enough. He hugged him tight muttering into his shoulder as Patton hushed him as his mother used to when he would get all worked up. He led Virgilius to the living room and sat him on the couch then got him a glass of water.

“Just keep breathing, okay? You can crash here until you get this whole wing thing figured out.”

He gulped down the water and took a deep breath before speaking, “you… would do that for me?”

“Well, sure,” Patton shrugged, “I mean you did just save my life… I don’t got anything better to do anyway, so… -Hey, I never caught your name.”

“They, um, they call me Virgilius.” He answered, wiping his eyes and relaxing into the soft couch.

“Virgelio-?”

“Virgilius.”

“Vertigo-?”

“Virgilius.”

“…”

“I’mma just call you Virgil,” Patton said with a snap of his fingers.

Virgilius pondered the name choice for a moment before nodding, “that sounds like it would work, and you are Patton.”

“Yup, you got it,” Patton smiled softly, a small smile that “Virgil” happily returned. Patton plopped down next to him with a heavy sigh, needing to just contemplate all that’s just happened. He wanted to die, and that feeling hasn’t really left him yet, but this miraculous creature just appeared to stop him… that had to have meant something, right?

“So, tell me, what is an angel doing down here?… And what would an angel be doing saving a nobody like me?” Virgil pondered his question for a moment, leaving back to stare at the ceiling.

“Well…  A long, long time ago, I fell to this place from another dimension. And thrust amongst the beast, and the way they behave, it borders on dementia…” Virgil closed his eyes shaking his head with a wince, “And now after all these years I can barely take it, I don’t think I can make it.” He opened his eyes and stared up as if he wasn’t even speaking to Patton anymore. “Take me away from here, I wanna go home… I’m so sick and tired of, the taste of tears. The sting of pain. The smell of fear. The sounds of crying… I just wish I could have saved them.”

Patton watched as the Angel turn away to collect himself, he thought for a moment in hopes to comfort him, so with a sigh, he rested his hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, those are, uh… some pretty wise words. Ever think of writing them down?”

Virgil turned to look at Patton’s attempt at a small smile with confusion, “write down my words?”

“Yeah, totally,” He got up and rummaged through some drawers before pulling out a notebook, “let me show you.”

He came back to the couch and sat down, flipping to an empty page and starting to write down while murming the words to himself. “Okay, what’s next? Just relax and tell me what comes to mind.”

Virgil stayed quiet as he thought, but he couldn’t think of how to put words together now that he was put on the spot. Patton frowned and tapped his chin with his pencil, he perked up with an idea the tossed a pillow over to the opposite end of the couch, “lay down and rest your head a bit, been a long day.” Virgil nodded and laid back, resting his head on Patton’s lap nonchalantly. He froze holding his arms up watching Virgil kick his feet up on the pillow.

'Well then…’ he thought to himself before sitting back with a sigh, ‘I guess it’s not so bad…’ “Anything?”

“Well,” Virgil spoke up, “I just… I wish that I could really speak to these people, I mean, they were at the edge of their lives, but isn’t a life supposed to be fulfilling? Was it all really the way they wanted?”

Patton scribbled down in the notebook for a moment before tilting his head in thought, “in my case? It was because my life wasn’t fulfilling… I would always try to smile at the end of the day, make everyone think I was okay, but I really never was.”

“But you are so young,” Virgil sat up and turned to Patton sitting criss-cross, “sure you don’t have eons, but you have an entire lifetime to grow and change. To make your smile genuine…” His eyes darted downwards as he came to a realization, “to earn your wings.”

Patton felt a faint smile tug at the corner of his lips, “huh, never thought about it that way.”

Virgil hadn’t either, but it seemed to had just occurred to him. He studied Patton, seeing his life just as he did the others, “this… wasn’t your first attempt, was it?”

His face flushed red in embarrassment then he let out a nervous chuckle to hopefully defuse the growing tension, “I- um, yeah… but I wouldn’t really call what I did a suicide attempt, right?” Virgil just stared at him, knowing fully well that purposefully walking in front of cars caused more than an adrenaline rush.

“Okay yeah it was, but things were really complicated. Being 15 was hard, you know? Well, maybe you don’t know, but things were really complicated. My parents split when I was 7, and for over half of my life, I had to watch my father just… slowly kill himself in front of me. He’s alive, mind you… but in jail… so that’s fun.”

Virgil listened carefully, understanding why Patton would be hurting in that time, but he didn’t want to press the issue further. Virgil saw something else, this time Patton’s future, but somehow… it was Virgil’s as well. He saw the two of them living together for quite a while, he saw Patton, Virgil, and a small dog named Skip living happily in a tiny apartment. He seemed content, comfortable… human.

“So, um- listen to what I got: As you stand here at the edge of your life, what do you remember? Was it all you wanted? I’m trying to earn a set of feathery wings. I wish I could protect you here, please don’t cry now. Smile, as you stand here at the edge of your life, your troubles are over, mine are just beginning. I’m trying to earn a set of feathery wings. To take me away from here, it’s me you leave behind.”

“Well, then,” Virgil said putting on a small smile, “sounds like you’re the poet, not me.”

Patton couldn’t help but chuckle weakly before shaking his head and going back to scribbling down in the notebook.

~~~

Virgil and Patton grew very close over the years, and with the chest pains suddenly stopping, Virgil almost forgot about the arduous task of earning back his wings. He almost wanted to stay on this miserable planet, just to be with Patton. He had taught him the ways of humans, and he introduced Virgil to the interesting form of expression that he would learn to love deeply- Poetry. Virgil wrote his thoughts in a notebook that Patton gave him, and at the end of every week Virgil would read his new poems to Patton whenever he got back from school. After dropping out of college, Patton thought he was a complete and total screw-up, but once Virgil came into his life he had an entirely new outlook on the world. He enrolled in a small beauty school and is on his way to becoming a licensed cosmetologist. All the while using Virgil to practice as much as he can.

Whenever Patton was away at school, Virgil was at home taking care of Skip and working on his writing. Virgil spent hours scribbling down what he was feeling with Skip resting in his lap. Through all his time with Patton, he learned what friendship was, he learned the true value of a relationship with somebody. But as Virgil learned more about human feelings, the more he began to feel. The majority of his poems seemed to be all the pain and fear he saw in the human race, but now all he thought about was Patton.

He had a good understanding of friendship, but whatever he was feeling felt like it was more than that. So he did the only thing he knew how to do to express himself, he wrote a poem for his Patton.

‘You were once lost, but as was I. When seeing your pain, it made me cry. But now through all these years, I’ve seen you grow into a man, one you were fated to be. But never in my wildest dreams, would I see you here with me. You gave me a new purpose and cared for me in sickness, I need you as you need me. Together we have no weakness. You are my wings.’

Patton came home with boxes of takeout for dinner, making him have to shoo away Skip who was whining for a taste at the smell. Virgil got up with a smile to greet his friend and eagerly showed him his new poem.

He usually wasn’t worried about Patton’s opinions on his work, because he always loved whatever he wrote, but now Virgil seemed to be nervous.

Patton read the poem carefully, unable to hide his blush as his lips turned up in a smile. When he was finished he immediately hugged Virgil, squeezing around his waist tight. Patton was a hugger, Virgil learned that the hard way, but he was starting to get used to it.

“I love it, Virge,” Patton murmured as Virgil hugged back.

That was another new occurrence over the years, Patton had already come up with the nickname of “Virgil” from his previous name Virgilius, but he started making his shortened name even shorter through other similar variations. “Virge, Vee, Virgie,” and so on, but Virgil preferred to call his friend just Patton, which was fine by him.

Eventually, the hug broke away, and they spent the whole night just talking. Patton told Virgil about his day, and Virgil told Patton about his. Virgil’s were always less eventful, but Patton still listened intently.

And so began their flourishing relationship, it started out slow, but they both got a handle on it. Patton taught Virgil how to hold his hand when walking together, and made the rule that Patton had to always sit on the right of Virgil, since he was left-handed, so his dominant hand would always be free when their fingers would be intertwined. It was the little things like that that made their relationship special, it wasn’t that Virgil was an angel at all. In fact, he became more human every single day, eating regularly, and sticking to a healthy and normal sleep schedule alongside Patton. But Virgil could pretend to be human all he wanted to, but that wouldn’t change the fact that he was an angel. Patton was fated to live a long healthy life with Virgil, but they could never grow old together, Virgil could only watch as Patton grew slower with each day. Patton was now in his early 70s, but Virgil hadn’t aged a day. Their relationship went from Patton taking care of Virgil, to Virgil taking care of him up into his last moments on Earth…

Patton Matthews

January 15th, 1992- May 29th, 2065

Aged 73

You may be gone, but you will never be lost.

It looked as if Virgil was the lost one, standing in front of his love’s grave, gripping a crumpled piece of paper in his hands as he tried to fight back the tears.

“Y-you'll… you’ll never be lost again…”

His voice broke before he immediately broke down in violent sobs, falling to his knees to clutch onto Patton’s gravestone, pulling himself closer to it. He would be lying if he were to say Patton was gone too soon because he lived a long happy life. He became one of those “sassy gay hairdressers” as he would say, who didn’t have to retire due to arthritis. And the light of his life was an angel in the darkness, a being not meant to be on our planet but was there indefinitely, a free-thinking individual who decided to stay and live his life with this one human. Virgil wrapped his black, torn, and burnt wings around the grave as he wept. He hadn’t cried like this in a very long time, and now it’s possibly even harder than when he was first cast down onto this planet. He sat there for hours until his tears ran dry, forcing him to let go, unfolding the piece of paper that was crushed in his grip.

He kept swallowing the lump in his throat as he tried to speak, it was the end of the week, and Virgil had to read Patton his new poem. “I’m trying to earn a set of feathery wings, to take me away from here… It’s me you leave-” He stopped closing his eyes tight, fighting down the urge to cry tears that weren’t there. “You’re gone from here. Don’t leave from here… Don’t leave me here! I hate it here! You’re gone from here, don’t leave me here. I need you here… I need to see you smile…”

He dropped the paper to hold his face in his hands, now that his Patton was gone, what was he to do with his eternity here on Earth? The coldness of the rain coming down was interrupted by the feeling of a warm hand on his back.

All of his senses were suddenly in a haze. He wouldn’t dare move his hands leaving his eyes useless, and there was a deafening ringing in his ears and all he could feel was the heat of an unknown light. Then all at once came back to him, he removed his hands to see a sight that was all too familiar. He was home, he was nearly blinded by its heavenly glow. The feeling of joy washed over him as he looked from side to side to his clean, fluffy, and pure white wings making him turn around fluttering and flapping them with a smile. He froze when his eyes landed on the familiar figure in front of him, with their soft cuddly pet cradled in his arms.

“There’s my Angel.”

~~~

OH MY GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?! If you read this and actually enjoyed it, thank you so much. I worked really hard on it and I was in a place where I just really had to get out all the dark stuff in my brain. Love ya!

#thomas sanders #sanders sides #virgil sanders #sanders sides angst #patton sanders #winged virgil #sander sides au #moxiety #heed my warnings

[bookaddict24-7]

FIRST CHAPTER CHALLENGE!

I wasn’t very surprised this week with the books I drew from my mug. My immediate thoughts as soon as I had them in my hands was that I was probably going to unhaul at least two of them. I mean, I wasn’t wrong. Goodreads helped a lot this time around.

A gentle reminder: Just because I’ve unhauled the books in this post and in future posts, it doesn’t mean that they’re books not worth reading. They’re just not right for me. This is more of an incentive for me to free up space and give these books better homes than my basement.

Also, there might be some spoilers. If you’re interested in reading these books, tread with care.

Read my original post and how I’m going about this challenge here.

Have any of you practiced this challenge this past week?

Enter Title Here by Rahul Kanakia

Decision: Unhauled

I started reading the first page and I just wasn’t that interested in the story. And then, much like I do when I’m not sure about a book, I checked out the synopsis. From what I read, I imagine that this book might be about a girl who enters a relationship and friendship with ulterior motives. I might be wrong, but if this book is like that, then I should probably mention how that kind of novel tends to give me anxiety about when shit hits the fan. 

Synopsis: 

“Reshma is a college counselor’s dream. She’s the top-ranked senior at her ultra-competitive Silicon Valley high school, with a spotless academic record and a long roster of extracurriculars. But there are plenty of perfect students in the country, and if Reshma wants to get into Stanford, and into med school after that, she needs the hook to beat them all.

What's a habitual over-achiever to do? Land herself a literary agent, of course. Which is exactly what Reshma does after agent Linda Montrose spots an article she wrote for Huffington Post. Linda wants to represent Reshma, and, with her new agent's help scoring a book deal, Reshma knows she’ll finally have the key to Stanford.

But she’s convinced no one would want to read a novel about a study machine like her. To make herself a more relatable protagonist, she must start doing all the regular American girl stuff she normally ignores. For starters, she has to make a friend, then get a boyfriend. And she's already planned the perfect ending: after struggling for three hundred pages with her own perfectionism, Reshma will learn that meaningful relationships can be more important than success—a character arc librarians and critics alike will enjoy.

Of course, even with a mastermind like Reshma in charge, things can’t always go as planned. And when the valedictorian spot begins to slip from her grasp, she’ll have to decide just how far she’ll go for that satisfying ending. (Note: It’s pretty far.)” 

Gray Wolf Island by Tracey Neithercott

Decision: Unhauled

I was about 80% sure I wanted to unhaul this book, but as I read the pages of the first chapter I felt my curiosity growing. But then, I came upon a part in chapter one that just completely threw me off. Unsure of whether I really wanted to unhaul this book or not, I went on a hunt on Goodreads. I found a bunch of mixed reviews and even one that compared this book to The Raven Boys (and I don’t mean it as a compliment--more like a copycat of The Raven Boys). I decided that this needed a better home than my shelves. 

Synopsis: 

“Right before Sadie died, she begged her sister, Ruby, to do the one thing she could never do herself: Find the treasure on Gray Wolf Island.

With just a mysterious treasure map as a guide, Ruby reluctantly allows some friends to join her on the hunt, each of whom is touched by magic: a boy allegedly born to a virgin, a girl who never sleeps, a boy who can foresee his own death, and a boy with deep ties to the island. Each of them is also keeping a secret—something they’ll have to reveal in order to reach the treasure.

As the secrets come to light, Ruby will have to decide: Can she make peace with her friends’ troubled pasts and continue to trust them? Can she forgive herself for doing the unspeakable? Deep in the wilderness of Gray Wolf Island, Ruby’s choices will determine if they make it out with the treasure—or merely with their lives.”

Charmed by Michelle Krys (The first in the series is Hexed)

Decision: Unhauled

This was a double whammy. I have the first book in this series, so that’s two books gone. Have you ever started reading a book that you’ve kept for a while because you were sure you would like it, but as you read you try and ignore the characters and how horrible they are? Yeah, this happened to me with this book. I almost kept reading it, even though the main character was a jerk. Sure, that isn’t enough reason to stop reading a book, but then Goodreads came in and I learned a little more about this book. 

Synopsis: 

“If high school is all about social status, Indigo Blackwood has it made. Sure, her quirky mom owns an occult shop, and a nerd just won’t stop trying to be her friend, but Indie is a popular cheerleader with a football-star boyfriend and a social circle powerful enough to ruin everyone at school. Who wouldn’t want to be her?

Then a guy dies right before her eyes. And the dusty old family Bible her mom is freakishly possessive of is stolen. But it’s when a frustratingly sexy stranger named Bishop enters Indie’s world that she learns her destiny involves a lot more than pom-poms and parties. If she doesn’t get the Bible back, every witch on the planet will die. And that’s seriously bad news for Indie, because according to Bishop, she’s a witch too.

Suddenly forced into a centuries-old war between witches and sorcerers, Indie’s about to uncover the many dark truths about her life—and a future unlike any she ever imagined on top of the cheer pyramid.”

Have you read any of these three books? What were your experiences with them?

I’ll be back next week with another three picks!

Happy reading!

#books #bookish #booklr #bookworm #bookaholic #bibliophile #book blog #book blogger #first chapter challenge #first chapter tag #first chapter #Features #read #reading #reader #book unhaul #unhaul #February #2019 #on reading #write #writing #writer #reviews #my opinion #long text post #text post

[a-jew-leaf]

My Spiritual Journey

This is VERY long but something I had been meaning to hash out for a while.

Last weekend I attended the retreat Let My People sing and was privileged to study with Taya Shere, co-founder of the Kohenet Institute, among other amazing folks. I think the timing in my own life as well as taking in the teachings Taya had to offer inspired me to spend the weekend looking inward and focusing on myself and my own spirituality rather than branching out in search of new friendships and social connections. I left the weekend with an incredible sense of peace that stuck with me through the next five days. As I tried to shrug off the impending deadlines of work (and that I need to accomplish in order to have a truly restful, spiritual, and peaceful Days of Awe) in order to settle in to shabbat, I lost that background zen that had been helping me keep it together through the last week. Today, as I was thinking about trying to find some peace and rest before heading to work tomorrow, I found myself reflecting back on what about Taya and the particularities of what she brought from her own Kohenet practice to services and teaching spoke to me so profoundly and also how to reclaim the peace she inspired.

Something that I have been meaning to do for a while (read: years) is truly reflect on my own spiritual journey. I have, at times, considered myself a spiritual person but that has been an exceedingly small minority of my history. Before stumbling my way into Judaism, I had spent many years referring to myself a staunch and life-long atheist. That is not quite true, either, but I do not think I had the understanding or language to describe it either.

I grew up thinking I was Christian because those around me were Christian. My family celebrated Christmas and Easter. One time, we went to a church service for Mother's Day because my mom wanted to; I found the whole thing very alien and strange. Once, I spend spring break attending Vacation Bible School at a friend's church because I liked my friend and she said it was fun; all I remember was making a purple glittery cross that I proudly displayed in my room lest my friends think that my non-churchgoing family was not Christian enough. I liked that I got two full days of weekend and sleeping in. I did not have to put on annoying fancy clothes, especially since I am sure it would have been a weekly fight against wearing a dress. I formulated what being Christian and believing in God and Jesus must mean based on bits and pieces gleaned from Christmas specials. I did not believe Jesus was a real person because he seemed just like another character in a non-existent fantasy land. I did not realize Bethlehem was a real city that still existed today!

In eighth grade, I started attending a Presbyterian church with my neighbor. I had always been insecure about the fact that my family did not attend church, although I do not have any memories of anyone even saying anything to me about it. I joined the youth chorus, which I loved. I got to sing tenor which was *gasp* a boy's part. I got to spend more time with my new best friend and neighbor. We were both bored through sermons but got to make silent faces and jokes at each other. When I did listen to the sermons, however, and when I went to Sunday school, I slowly began realizing that the story I had put together from Christmas specials was not the whole story. The Jesus of love and forgiveness who inspired poor drummer boys to play for him was not the same in church. When my neighbor and I got in a full blow-out fight over something I cannot now recall, we stopped speaking. I stayed in the chorus through the concert out of obligation, and then never went back.

Also, in eighth grade, I met another best friend. She began to dabble in Wicca and I, recently alienated from Christianity, followed. I borrowed books from the library, read up on it, and found it to be somewhat meaningful. What I found most meaningful about it was that I was free to make it my own. I liked that the God and Goddess were both manifestations of a greater unspeakable force. I also liked that it did not invalidate other pagan gods of old. I learned that many wiccans chose to pray to and follow gods from a variety of pantheons; they too were just manifestations of certain aspects of that same unspeakable force. I knew there was a force or forces in the world that were beyond explanation, but I was unsure of whether or not they were truly divine. That was ok, it was allowed too. It seemed plausible that one could learn to focus energies and cause magick to happen, but I was not really interested in that part. I grew up with a sincere appreciation for nature, and I began to seek quiet moments in the bits of forest that existed in the suburbs and under the moon whenever possible. The full moon shined perfectly in my bedroom window onto the foot of my bed. I found peace and meaning in opening the blinds, putting my pillow at the other end of my bed, and sleeping bathed in the moonlight. I spent evenings in my room with the light off, lighting candles and incense, and listening to music. I loved the band Godsmack because the lead singer was Wiccan.

I knew at the time that it would not stick. I was not really interested in joining a coven and I did not think that if magick was real it was something people, let alone teenagers, should be messing with. There was a lot I did not understand about it or myself. Looking back now, I think I figured something out. I think a lot of teenage girls are drawn to wicca because it is empowering. The focus on the divine feminine is refreshing. I did not know that I was trans then, but I knew I hated being a girl and hated the idea of celebrating my own supposed womanhood. What I did like, however, was the existence of the divine masculine. Even though Christianity is so patriarchal, I do not think that there really is a divine masculine. It is more like men=good, women=bad. Here was something telling me, however, that the feminine and the masculine were parts of the same whole. There was also a lot about everything embodying both. Even if I was full of feminine that I hated, there was some masculine inside me too. I also like that if the feminine/masculine divide did not appeal, I could find comfort in other gods that embodied traits that I admired. My patron god was Thor and I lived for summer thunderstorms to restore me. I was also terrified of getting struck by lightning, which was either ironic or a healthy fear of the divine.

It did not stick. I got in a huge fight with that friend when I fell into a love triangle with her and her boyfriend, monogamy required that he choose, and he chose me. I wore my pentacles for a while, but I found myself connecting less with nature, the moon, and my candles. I settled more heavily into being a goth and relishing in anything heretical. Anne Rice, her vampires and witches, and their heresy became my new religion. This was quickly followed by adding Jacqueline Carey's Terre D'Ange, her gods and goddesses, and the divinity of sex and kink proposed in her novels. If all gods were made up anyway, I might as go with those from recent books. They were more real to me than any God set forth in the Bible. I envied book characters who knew their gods were real because they got to interact with them and they made real, if not misguided, alterations in their lives.

As my goth phase wore away, I think I began to claim more toward the atheist label. I still remained particularly drawn to anything heretical to Christianity. I loved arguing against the merits of Christianity and what I thought were the downfalls of all organized religion. I pushed against my friends who were Christian hoping I could convince them to drop their nonsense. My boyfriend at the time was incredible grounded though also an atheist. We debated ethics and whatnot and it helped form a lot of my life philosophy even today.

My time at college was one of the darkest times of my life. While I get the impression that going away to college is an exciting time of freedom and exploration for many, I feel that I lost myself completely. Teenage hormones and drama aside, my sophomore-senior years of high school were times where I spent a lot of timing writing, introspecting, and finding myself. I intended to come out as trans at college and go by my gender-neutral middle name. I was determined to be my true self. I chickened out immediately. I fell into a questionable relationship that quickly became controlling and bordering on abusive. Everything that I loved about myself and my hobbies became suspect. Heavy metal music was too "stressful." Video games were a "waste of time." Cartoons were "mindless garbage." Even worse, the food allergies that I was suddenly developing were suspect as well. Despite having had a physical reaction to something indeterminate, when I started reacting to a wide variety of foods, she declared that it was in my head. My anxiety spiraled out of control and I was ashamed. I became completely dependent on her for fear of anyone else finding out the demons that were plaguing me. Especially since I was so crazy I thought I was allergic to so much food! (Spoiler alert: I was actually allergic to that food.)

There was no spirituality during this time. I hardened down on my atheist stance. My ex also referred to herself as an atheist but really wanted to go to church. I refused. I was not going to miss out on precious weekend sleep to go worship a god we did not believe in for a religion that hated our queerness. Even though they were gay churches in town, I was uninterested. In addition to my resistance to church, my anxiety was so bad, and I had lost my sense of self so completely, that any time spent alone in my head was torture. I did not seek out quiet spots in the forest or under the moonlight. My thoughts would catch up to me. I might realize how horribly my life had ended up.

Skipping a lot of the relationship details, towards the end of that terrible stint in my life, I found certain aspects unbearable and came out as a trans man. I had chickened out upon going to college, but I could not keep denying myself and enter the professional world expecting to be successful. I began dating another trans man who was heavily involved in the MCC church, the specifically gay denomination of Christianity. He aspired to go to divinity school and become an MCC pastor. I was completely infatuated and amazed to be in a relationship with someone who loved and admired me and did not treat me and the things I loved as if they were unworthy. I still thought my food allergies were in my head, but he did not guilt me into eating things that made me uncomfortable. For him, I attended church. I did not believe in anything they were saying, but I found the power in a good orator and there were lessons to be learned that were true whether or not Jesus was God or God was real. I began to envision my future life as pastor's husband, the atheist church choir director. Our relationship burned hot and brief, so it never came to that.

I left Virginia and my relationships there to move to Massachusetts. My spirituality remained dormant although as a geology major I re-discovered my love of the outdoors. In particular, I have always enjoyed finding spots that really brought home the idea that the world is so much bigger than me. Geology is also good for that, setting our tiny lives in the context of 4.6 billion years. I dabbled briefly in attending UU services when they were down the street, finding some meaning in community and the singing, but never particularly inspired by the whole thing.

I will leave my journey into Judaism for a separate essay, but I would like to tie in how I believe now into what I have laid out here. I have always found a feeling of smallness, which may or may not be connecting with something larger than myself, and even perhaps divine, in two places: music and nature. A lot of what spoke to my eighth grade self about wicca is the same thing that speaks to me about Judaism, plus it includes extra music. As I struggled through my young adult life to reclaim the sense of self I lost in my late teens, I have found myself reconnecting to many things that were meaningful to me in high school. One of the things I have found most meaningful in Judaism is a syncing up with the seasons. I am now building my connection to the natural world in a way my young wiccan self trapped in the endless suburbs never could have dreamed. Now comfortable in my own masculinity (and complimentary femininity), it was interesting to revisit that world over the weekend. I see now the peace and mindfulness that appealed to me as a young teen that was always a part of the deal if I had stuck with it. I see now that peace and mindfulness is important to my own development of Jewish practice. I am looking forward to moving forward from this new place of understanding and reconnection with my past.

#personal #jumblr #spirituality #judaism #jewish #wicca #journey #queer #trans #jewish convert

[lilacsolanum]

For your headcanons meme: Darwin and/or Madra (Sorry if this is a repeat)

THIS MADE ME SCREAM WITH DELIGHT even though I didn’t really have headcanons about Darwin and Madra so I had to THINK OF THEM, sorry this took me so long, also sorry this is kind of more of a fic(?) about Eva but Darwin and Madra are there, it’s just what happened when I started brainstorming. And also sorry to everyone who is particularly sensitive to horror of getting infested because CONTENT WARNING: THIS IS A LOT OF THAT!!!

Send me a character and I’ll write 10 headcanons!

As soon as Eva heard Marco’s voice, both she and Edriss went quiet. There was a certain calmness shared between the two of them, a revelation and a premonition. They both knew how resilient the “Andalite” bandits were, and they both knew how carefully Marco had played Eva’s rescue. Her son never played impulsively unless the odds were somewhat in his favor. They knew that Edriss would die, and Eva would be saved.

Edriss did something in that moment, something she had never really done before. She opened up the connection between them, and let Eva see through Edriss’s brain in the way Edriss always could Eva.

In the height of her starvation induced insanity, Edriss’s memories were scratched and imperfect. Human faces had crooked Gedd teeth or blood red Taxxon eyes or had no faces at all. Sound was distorted, mixing with memories of Eva’s own Edriss induced screams. Languages were were a harsh, unnatural, jumbled mess, but because Edriss understood them, Eva understood.

Eva saw Edriss seeing a blue sky and feeling sand whip across her face. She felt the unspeakable pleasure of writhing beneath Hildy Gervais and knowing he was Essam. She felt the hardly suppressed joy of those increasingly rare moments when ten-year-old Marco would put his head in his almost-mother’s lap. Through it all, she saw two ever shifting images, two faces that Edriss was desperately trying to build with her tortured, fragmented mind.

She saw Darwin, and she saw another young girl, and it did not take someone of Eva’s abilities and wit to figure out that she was Madra.

Edriss couldn’t quite give her exact addresses, but Eva managed to pick out street names through the flickering images. She picked out street numbers, and she saw the city maps Edriss showed her, and she figured it out.

Edriss managed.

Eva replied.

–

Edriss had send her twins to two separate places, both far from Santa Barbara, but not too far. She still liked to visit them. Through Edriss’s jagged memories, Eva learned she would take temporary hosts, then pose as some sort of teacher or doctor or friend and talk to Darwin or Madra. This explained away Edriss’s odd day trips. At least once a year, Edriss would tell Peter and Marco that Eva was going to some kind of retreat with her friends. Then, she would find some guileless junkie in the seedier areas of the city, and convince them to get in Eva’s car. She would then go to a Yeerk controlled gas station, drug the addict, and blindfold herself. One of Edriss’s trusted lackeys would drive them to some cabin. There, Edriss would set up a television with a feed to the outside of Eva’s house. She would explain that the house was set up with explosives, and if Eva tried to run and attempt to find her way back to Santa Barbara, her lackey would wait until both Peter and Marco were home and hit a button. Eva would always, always promise to behave. Edriss would wash her new host’s body, make it presentable with make-up and expensive outfits, and leave.

This would continue even after Eva’s “death,” though the temporary host was often presented to Edriss by the lackey rather than Edriss risking getting caught out in the city herself. Eva watched what happened to her bright, beautiful boys in the aftermath of her false death. Edriss found joy in her pain, and once bugged the inside of Peter and Marco’s apartment, just to torture Eva more. They ended up moving, and Edriss never found the time to bug the new place. Then, Peter got his shit together, and Eva started delighting in Marco and Peter’s progress. Eva never bugged their new places. If she had, the Animorphs would have been found out within weeks. To this day, Eva freezes with the nearness of it all.

When Edriss returned to the cabin and reinfested Eva, she would kill the temporary host. Eva knew the blood on her hands didn’t really belong to Eva, but her nightmares didn’t.

—

Edriss was obviously going to infest Darwin and Madra one day, that much was clear. But Edriss wanted to control the infestation, make sure that her children were given to high ranking Yeerks that Edriss trusted. That was why she found parents that lived so far away. When Eva thought back to it, she had a feeling Edriss was priming two of her subordinates to take Darwin and Madra, a Sub-Visser Forty-Nine and a Umlash 979. Edriss had always a strange and sickening parental attachment to those two. She forced both of them into human hosts, even if Umlash had a strong attachment to Hork-Bajir. Edriss would occasionally call one of them into her quarters simply to talk, or to give them a gift, or to offer them sweets. Once, she forced Sub-Visser Forty-Nine to lay xir head in Edriss’s lap, and Edriss stroked xir hair while singing in Korean. 

Gom semariga hanjibe isseo. Appa-gom, eomma-gom, aegi-gom. 

Eva could still hear her voice singing tunelessly, her tongue perfectly enunciating words in a language Eva did not recognize.

Eva had never understood it, but neither had her chosen surrogate children. Eva could feel their hesitance, sense their bafflement, but somehow Edriss could not. Eva suspected Edriss turned off the connection she had to Eva in those moments. She was living out some fantasy, and Eva did not belong in it.The first and only time Eva had mocked Edriss for these meetings, Edriss silenced Eva with drugs, pumping their body full of hallucinogens and then disconnecting herself from the effects. Eva never said anything about it again.

–

At first, Eva did not want to find Darwin and Madra. They were not her responsibility, because she was not Edriss. Edriss was her captor, her slaver, and she had said goodbye to her when she crushed Edriss in her hand. However, after a few months of perfect strangers seeing her and breaking down in grocery stores, Eva accepted that Edriss was part of her. It was not a happy acceptance, but it was an acceptance that would allow Eva to move forward with her life.

Eva couldn’t shake the idea that if Edriss was part of her, then so was Alison Kim, and so were her children. While Eva doubted her ability to help Darwin or Madra in any meaningful way, she knew Eva herself would never feel truly at peace until she tied that loose end. They were not her responsibility, but without Alison or Edriss, no one would ever take responsibility for them. They were not her children, but they would grow and they might wonder about their birth mother, and Eva was the closest thing they would ever have.

She wouldn’t speak to the kids. She would, however, set up some arrangement with the parents.

-

It was happenstance that the Yeerks had found Darwin at all. As it turned out, Darwin’s mother wanted to pursue television writing, so Darwin’s father got a job at the University of California Santa Barbara. They moved to a suburb somewhere between LA and SB. The commute was killer, but there weren’t a lot of colleges that needed a professor of medieval literature, so Darwin’s father took the Santa Barbara job with grace. Darwin’s father was the sort of young, hip college professor that drew trust from his students, something an unfortunate controller managed to zero in on. It was child’s play to use The Sharing to draw Darwin’s father into The Pool. Darwin’s father became Avis 2771, and Avis was fond of taking Darwin on walks. One day, a man stinking of unwashed clothes, urine, and liquor approached them. It would have been annoying but otherwise unremarkable if the man had not directly asked Avis if he was a Yeerk.

Avis took the man home and got as much of a coherent story from this “Spacey” as he could. Between Spacey’s half sentences and the fact that his mouth was the same shape as Darwin’s, Avis managed to piece together some of the story. 

Avis went to Visser Three immediately, hungry for a promotion. They infested Darwin, and formulated a plan to use Darwin against Visser One. Avis became Sub-Visser Eighty-Seven.

By the time Eva found the family, they were all in post-Host recovery. They had all gone through it, and were very supportive of one another. They had moved closer to Santa Barbara to allow Darwin access to other post-Host children. 

They were doing everything right, and that warmed Eva’s heart. It was more than she could say for her own family.

—

She set up a meeting with them through the school, making sure she saw the parents without Darwin. She knew the sight of her would be a bit much for a ten-year-old child. 

“I know you know who I am,” she said calmly. “And I know you know the origin of your son. You may also know by turning on the television at any given moment of the day that my son is currently making me more money than I can spend. Would you like a college fund for the boy? Perhaps a new house?”

Darwin’s parents agreed to the college fund, but said they were happy with their current home. They didn’t want to disrupt Darwin’s life too much. They told her Darwin didn’t really understand his parentage, and that his memories of being a host were spotty at best. Eva was more than happy to hear it.

—

Madra was harder. Madra had been sent to a sweet but dangerously naive family, the sort of family that defined themselves by white fence standards and didn’t seem to have soul. Eva hated the mother especially. She was the sort of woman Eva would meet at her old churches, before she found a community that truly understood and delighted in the pure joy of Jesus. These women were more into the idea of absolution than they were in living the radical Word, and Eva had never liked them. She could see hypocrisy in the woman’s exact shade of Stepford red lips, could read lies in the shape of her eyebrows. This woman had probably stood in front of her church and proclaimed God told her to adopt, and most likely found more joy in the attention for her “sacrifice” than she found joy in the actual child. Eva had a feeling that if she tried to tell this woman her adopted daughter was the product of a sick Yeerk marriage, the woman would simply call the police. The father wasn’t much better. He made ball-and-chain jokes about his wife, and spent as much time away from his spouse and their children as he possibly could.

She would need a different tactic. She would also need a different face.

—

She thought about asking Marco. She knew her son had a few alternate human morphs, and she didn’t blame him. Her son couldn’t walk outside without getting mobbed these days, and if he had the ability to disguise himself beyond a wig and sunglasses, Eva was all for it. Only she knew he wouldn’t like that she was finding and supporting Edriss’s lost children. Marco was far, far more sensitive about Edriss than Eva. Eva had lived through being infested, and she found power and healing in being frank about it, because she had been in her mid thirties and had decades of experience to hold her up. Marco had lived through a hell of his own, with all of thirteen scant years to help him. He tried to bury his nightmares by acting like it had been a fun adventure. When Eva spoke about Edriss, Marco bristled. Eva understood why, and knew that forcing him to think like her wasn’t going to help him heal. She just made it clear she would support him, and when Marco did open up, it was always to her. If she wanted him to continue to open, she had to never, ever tell him about Darwin and Madra.

So she called Jake.

—

Marco never shut up about how Jake never returned his calls (and his tears over the situation were one of those rare moments he only showed his mother) but Jake got back to Eva almost immediately. Perhaps because it was very, very odd for Eva to reach out to Jake at all. They had been close before the infestation, but after Eva’s “death” and their shared time in the Hork-Bajir Valley, they weren’t exactly on speaking terms. It wasn’t malicious, it was just that Eva tried to reach out to Jake multiple times, but between her lack of stability and his, every outreach ended up awkward and went nowhere.

Still, she had been Auntie Eva, and sometimes she had even beenmom, so Jake returned her call. When she explained the situation, Jake immediately agreed to help. There was a sort of desperation it, a need to give what he could to those affected by a war he didn’t start, but accepted blame for. Eva would have contacted Jean about it, but Jean was afraid of her these days, and all Eva could do was wait it out.

Eva fed him a story, and Jake fed it to Madra’s mother. Jake appeared as himself, which was much easier for Stepford Mom to swallow than Eva would have been. Jake was a good guy in the invasion story, and his face was only associated with stories of triumph. Eva’s face did not have the same association.

Jake (through Eva) spun a tale of a sacrificial woman who aided the Animorphs when they needed her most, who had made Jake promise to help out her daughter and her son. Madra was delighted at news of a long lost twin, the secret fantasy of nearly everyone. Jake agreed to set up trust funds not only for Madra, but for her two siblings (biological children of her adopted parents.) It was a happy story, full of closure. The family took pictures with Jake.

—

Darwin and Madra met for the first time in a McDonald’s. Madra taught Darwin how to dip fries into a milkshake. They played in a ballpit, giggling and free

Eva was there, in her wig and sunglasses. She whispered to Darwin’s parents, and they agreed not to tell Darwin and Madra the truth until they were eighteen.Eva didn’t plan on finding out how that went down.

I did what you wanted me to, bitch, she thought to a blissfully empty place inside her. Your children are happy and safe. Now rot.

#animorphs #zarohk #eva #madra #darwin #yeerk horror #I don't think I technically put up the ten headcanon meme #but I did reblog someone's about Jake #so I think that's what this is???? #if it's not if it's some other thing I reblogged #bro I'm so sorry #I'm so sorry about the way I am #but so many of y'all can send me asks I'm so here for it

[trashytacosan]

Echoes of Silence

Pairing: IwaOi 

Rating: T

Warnings: Angst with a content ending, supernatural elements, & fluff

Lightly dusting the tofu squares with potato starch, Oikawa hums quietly to himself. He's been preparing all evening and well into the night. Truthfully, he has been preparing for this day since the month of October rolled around. Halloween comes but once a year. To ensure that he doesn't forget anything, he begins his preparations early. Then again, that could just be Oikawa's excitement.

Oikawa can't recall the last time he's been this excited about anything. That's not true. He was equally, if not more excited last Halloween. It seems to be the only thing that makes him feel alive these days. Smiling to himself, he shakes off his negative thoughts because there's no point in dwelling on that now. Once the clock strikes midnight all of his worries will feel lightyears away.

While the tofu fries, Oikawa prepares the garnishes for the dish with the kind of ease that comes with repetition. To think that there was a time when he couldn't cook to save his life. Agedashi Tofu, as simple as the recipe is, was one thing that he couldn't quite grasp. But now, Oikawa makes the best Agedashi Tofu. At least that is what his fiancé tells him. It's the only opinion that matters to him, honestly.

Ten minutes to midnight, Oikawa has the table set, he's lighting the candles on the centerpiece, topping off the finishing touches. Once he's done the only thing left for him to do is anxiously bite his nails and glance at the clock three times a minute. Despite having to wait an entire year for this day to come, those minutes leading up to midnight are always the hardest for him.

To pass the time, Oikawa goes upstairs to his bedroom to check his appearance in the full-length mirror. Oikawa knows that no matter what he wears, his fiancé won't mind but tonight is special and he intends to treat it as such. For the occasion, Oikawa is wearing black, slim-fitted slacks and a cream dress shirt with two of the top buttons undone. He's debating on rather he should wear a tie or not when his wristwatch chimes at the stroke of midnight.

Just like that, Oikawa disregards any prior thoughts and hurriedly heads downstairs. Making it to the top of the staircase, his breath hitches at the sight of his handsome fiancé. Eyes welling with tears, he has to grasp the wooden rail to keep himself upright.

"Iwa-chan," he whispers softly, bringing a hand up to cover his mouth.

Wordlessly, Iwaizumi opens his arms, beckoning Oikawa forward with a gentle smile. Only moments ago, Oikawa couldn't wait for this exact moment but now that it's here he wants to drink it in. Slowly making his way down the stairs, careful not to miss a step, he admires Iwaizumi, noting how the man looks exactly as he had last year and the year before that.

Oikawa knows why that is, still, it amazes him. Reaching the bottom stair, he settles between Iwaizumi's outstretched arms, cupping his face. It's been a year since he's felt this skin under his fingertips. He barely touches Iwaizumi but that contact surges through them both, an electric shiver traveling down their spines. Iwaizumi pulls him into his arms, bringing a hand up to nestle his lover's head.

"I miss you so much," Oikawa says.

Iwaizumi kisses him on the temple. "I miss you, too, Tooru." He kisses him again, his lips lingering, "You cooked?"

"I made your favorite, of course."

"It smells amazing. Let's eat before it gets cold, okay?"

Nodding his head, Oikawa quickly dries his eyes. They walk to the table and take a seat across from one another. Oikawa's eyes are glued to Iwaizumi, watching his expression as he takes in the spread he has laid out. Iwaizumi's eyes are sparkling, his tongue sneaking out to lick his lips.

It's the reaction that Oikawa was expecting. "Eat up," he says picking up his chopsticks, "I made enough this time."

That seems to be all the man needs to hear before he digs in, literally. Oikawa is simply content with watching Iwaizumi stuff his face. Resting his chin on his hands, he smiles fondly. After a while, his fingers tingle and his feet tap against the linoleum restlessly. The roundtable is small yet the distance between them feels like the size of a planet.

Sensing Oikawa's anxiousness, Iwaizumi wipes his hand on his napkin. "Come here, Tooru," he says with a warm smile.

Oikawa waves him off. "I'm fine. Just eat. I want you to enjoy it while you can."

Sighing, Iwaizumi gets up from his seat. "Fine," he says, pulling Oikawa's chair back so that he can sit on the man's lap. "And don't whine about how heavy I am."

Turns out, Iwaizumi isn't as heavy as he used to be. Oikawa doesn't say anything, though. He sticks to the script. Pretending to be annoyed, he flails around miserably. "You're going to crush my thighs, Iwa-chan!"

"I figured you'd grow out of your noodle limbs," Iwaizumi chuckles, "Guess not."

Actually, Oikawa has a very lean, muscular figure. However, in elementary, he went through a noodle leg phase that Iwaizumi refuses to let him forget. Just like Oikawa likes to pretend as though Iwaizumi is far heavier than he actually is. Iwaizumi fits perfectly in his lap. So perfectly that Oikawa can no longer keep up the pretense. Succumbing to his emotions, he circles his arms around Iwaizumi's torso, resting his head against his back.

"Hajime," he says, voice wavering.

"I know," Iwaizumi says, "I know."

The half-eaten food is forgotten as another, carnal hunger takes over. For Oikawa, it isn't about a release; the same goes for Iwaizumi. This is just the only way for them to feel closer to one another, to fill that hollowness within. Iwaizumi unravels Oikawa down to his core, and vice versa, in a beautiful, unspeakable circle without ending. When they're too boneless to move a muscle, they fall asleep in the safety of each other's arms.

The first time Oikawa Tooru saw a ghost was at his grandmother's funeral when he was eight-years-old. Of course, his parents didn't believe him when he told them that his grandmother was sitting beside him, assuring him that everything would be okay. They chalked it up to a child's way of coping with the loss of a loved one. But Oikawa soon found out that that wasn't the case.

A week after his grandmother's funeral, he had another encounter with a ghost. This time it was a teenage girl who'd died in a car wreck on her way to school. Oikawa had been in the car with his father when the girl appeared next to him in the backseat. She wanted him to tell her parents that she was sorry. He had no idea what she was sorry for and he didn't ask.

He also didn't relay the message to her parents. Cut him some slack, he was only eight-years-old. For the most part, Oikawa simply ignored the strange encounters as best he could. Sometimes, the ghosts went away if he ignored them. Other times, he'd get the stubborn ones that couldn't accept their fate. Even still, the most they'd do is yell at him or make an object near him either levitate or fall on the floor.

Oikawa didn't start to see his gift as an actual gift until he met Iwaizumi Hajime. Iwaizumi's family had moved next door to him during his final year in elementary. Their mothers became fast friends so by default Hajime and Tooru were forced to hang out with one another. Initially, they didn't get along. Oikawa preferred to stay indoors reading or playing video games while Iwaizumi spent the better part of his day outdoors exploring. With their mother's help, the boys decided to take turns planning their playdates.

One day, they were outside catching bugs, because Iwaizumi was odd like that, when Oikawa was approached by a very persistent ghost. As much as he tried to ignore the ghost, it seemed determined to get his attention. Long story short, the ghost attacked Iwaizumi and scared the shit out of them both. Oikawa had to promise the ghost that he'd help it with whatever it wanted if it left Iwaizumi alone.

Turns out the ghost wanted Oikawa to send someone to his apartment; he'd been dead for days and no one seemed to notice. After the encounter, Oikawa feared that he'd lose yet another friend. No one wanted to be friends with the kid who often talked to himself; he was actually talking to ghosts. However, Iwaizumi proved, yet again, that he was weird as hell.

Iwaizumi thought that it was the coolest thing ever that Oikawa could see ghosts. For the first time ever, Oikawa felt as though he didn't have to hide. Eventually, Iwaizumi convinced him to stop ignoring the ghosts because maybe most of them were like the guy who just wanted someone to find his body so that he could be properly laid to rest.

So, with the help of Iwaizumi, Oikawa started to use his gift to give families closure and help souls find peace. They kept it up for years, in secret, up until their college years. Somewhere along the way, Iwaizumi and Oikawa's feelings for one another blossomed. Neither of them really confessed. They'd been inseparable for so long they didn't notice when the line between friends and lovers was blurred. When Iwaizumi proposed to Oikawa their senior year of university, it didn't come as a surprise to anyone, not even their parents.

They were preparing for graduation, as well as their wedding when the unthinkable happened. After a long shift at the hospital, Iwaizumi was crossing the crosswalk heading to their apartment when a drunk driver hit him. He died before the ambulance arrived. After a long shower, Oikawa walked out of the bathroom to see Iwaizumi standing in their bedroom. He'd tried to hug the man but his hands went right through him. And, that was how he found out about his lover's tragic death.

In his grief, Oikawa went back to ignoring the spirits that visited him. It got so bad that they stopped showing up altogether. Without Iwaizumi, Oikawa saw no purpose in anything. Then, Halloween rolled around; his first Halloween without Iwaizumi in thirteen years. Surprisingly, this was the only day out of the year that Oikawa wasn't bothered by ghosts.

The veil between the planes no longer exists on Hallow's Eve so the ghosts don't require his help. This also means that, for twenty-four hours, Oikawa is allowed to physically be with Iwaizumi again. The first time they discovered this, they spent a majority of the day in bed, crying over the future that was snatched away from them. The year after that, they actually talked and enjoyed their time together as much as they could. This small measure of peace isn't much but it's better than nothing. Oikawa cherishes every second that he gets to spend with Iwaizumi.

Still, it isn't enough. So far, it has been four years since Iwaizumi's death. And, after every annual visit, Oikawa asks Iwaizumi if he can go with him. Iwaizumi's answer is always no, and when Iwaizumi is gone, Oikawa is left counting down the days to October 31st all over again.

While Oikawa prefers to lay around in bed all day with Iwaizumi, after a shower, they venture off to the first floor of the house. This is the home that they picked out together; they'd planned to move in after the wedding. Since Oikawa couldn't bear the sight of anyone else living here, he moved in by himself. His family thinks that his coping mechanisms are unhealthy and that he should seek professional help. Not only is he still wearing his engagement ring but he uses the cologne Iwaizumi used to wear on his pillows so that they'll smell like the man. He can't hold a conversation about Iwaizumi without tearing up or reacting violently.

It's been four years, he should be over it by now, right? Of course not. The human body can't function without its heart. Oikawa can't live while a major part of him no longer exists. Why can't anyone see that? Most of all, why can't Iwaizumi see that?

"Are you sure you want to do this, Tooru?" Iwaizumi asks, eyeing the objects laid out on the coffee table.

Picking up one of the Nerf guns, Oikawa smirks. "Just like old times," he says.

"The last time we played with these I hit you in the eye with a dart and you cried for hours."

"We were kids!"

"Actually, that was our freshmen year in university!"

In retaliation, Oikawa aims the plastic gun at Iwaizumi, firing a dart at the man's chest. As always, Iwaizumi's reflexes are quick. He blocks the dart with one hand and picks up a Nerf gun with the other. Then, the war begins. Yesterday, Oikawa was sure to move all the furniture out of the way so that they'd have more room to move. Every year he tries to plan one activity that they've done in the past. The goal is to not sit around all day sulking.

They run around the first floor of the house, shooting darts at one another, exchanging insults without any real heat in their words, their minds absent of how their time together is trickling down. Iwaizumi intentionally keeps Oikawa occupied enough to keep the man from anxiously checking the time like he normally does. Immediately after Iwaizumi declares himself the victor of the Nerf war, he straddles Oikawa and kisses his complaints away; Oikawa has always been a sore loser.

Head fuzzy from the kisses, Oikawa snuggles close to Iwaizumi on the couch as they debate on a movie to watch. Every year there are movies that are released that Oikawa thinks Iwaizumi would like so he keeps them on his television for them to watch together. All of the date ideas that crosses his mind are tucked away for this one day. Trying to stuff so much into twenty-four hours can be a task but simply being with Iwaizumi has always trumped all else.

"I'm sorry. I'd thought that movie would be good," Oikawa says, the credits for the film Passengers are rolling, both of their faces mirroring their disappointment with the overall production. "We can watch the Kingsman sequel next."

Iwaizumi kisses Oikawa on the chin, once, twice, and with more purpose the third time. "No more movies," he whispers lowering the kisses to his lover's neck.

Time is winding down. Oikawa can tell it by the urgency in Iwaizumi's movements. To Oikawa, it doesn't seem like they've done much of anything today. Yeah, they had morning sex, a Nerf battle, watched three movies, and pigged out on junk food in between those movies, still, it isn't enough. And, he hates to seem like he's being selfish or that he isn't satisfied with the way things are. He understands that not everyone gets to have this time with their loved ones.

Oikawa is lucky enough to be one of the few who get to touch spirits during this day. But the fact remains...

Iwaizumi is trailing kisses down his stomach now in hopes of distracting him. Yet, that small distance induces his panic. He needs Iwaizumi to be closer. Before they know it, it'll be midnight and Iwaizumi will have to leave him once again. Another year will go by at a snail's pace while Oikawa waits for his return. The days without Iwaizumi are always the worst, too. Today is the most he's ever eaten in a day. Today is the most he's ever smiled, laughed, or felt remotely alive. Sometime's he thinks that maybe he died that night along with Iwaizumi because since then he hasn't felt like himself.

"Tooru," Iwaizumi calls him, cupping his face to wipe his tears away with his thumbs, "we still have time."

Maybe that's true but what's an hour or so compared to an eternity? "Take me with you," Oikawa pleads.

"No. You have to stay here."

Oikawa shakes his head stubbornly. "I can't do this anymore. I've tried, Hajime. I've tried." He really has. The fact that he's made it this long surprises him. But, even the strong can only bear so much. "Please, take me with you."

Iwaizumi chastely kisses Oikawa on the forehead, his hands coming up to cup his face delicately. "You can't give up on your life here for me, Tooru. I won't let you."

Angrily, Oikawa shoves Iwaizumi away. "What life?! You call this living?" 364 days out of the year, he's mourning Iwaizumi. That isn't a way to live. "Without you, I feel dead already, Hajime," he confesses quietly.

Hearing that breaks Iwaizumi's heart, it's clear on his face. "I'm so sorry, Tooru..."

"Take me with you," Oikawa asks again, "We could be together again. Don't you want that."

"More than anything."

"Then, what are you waiting for?"

"Do you understand the gravity of the situation."

Of course, he understands the gravity of the situation. He's only had four years to think it through. Truthfully, Oikawa thought he'd be able to move on to at least function without the thought of Iwaizumi bringing him to tears yet it never happened.

The sudden chime of his wristwatch has Oikawa's heart racing. Tears brim his eyes. He can't believe they were so caught up in their argument that they allowed time to past them by. Panicking, Oikawa skittishly glances around the den for a solution to his problem. For anything that can prolong his stay with Iwaizumi. Out of all of the spells he's tried and the money he's spent on back alley sorcerers, he knows that there is no way to keep the veil open for a longer period. There is only one, sure way for him to spend more time with Iwaizumi.

"Fine," Oikawa says, standing to his feet, "If you won't take me with you, I'll find my own way."

Iwaizumi quickly jumps to his feet. "Tooru," he warns.

Ignoring him, Oikawa hurriedly steps into the kitchen heading toward where the knives are kept. In his haste, he forgets about Iwaizumi's supernatural abilities. The man appears in front of him just as he's reaching for the knife.

Oikawa looks at his watch, noting that only eight minutes remain. "Get out of my way, Hajime!" Iwaizumi's crosses his arms over his chest stubbornly. Angry tears well in Oikawa's eyes. "It doesn't matter. Your time is almost up, anyway. Once you're gone, I'll do it!"

"If you do that, you won't be with me," Iwaizumi says, hands dropping to his sides, "You'll end up someplace different."

Shoulders slumping in defeat, Oikawa drops his head, resting it on Iwaizumi's shoulder. "Why did this have to happen to us?" he chokes on a sob, "We helped so many people. So, why did this have to happen?"

Iwaizumi cradles Oikawa in his arms, his chin resting on the top of his soft, brown hair. "Life isn't fair, Tooru. You know that. Think of some of the cases we've worked on. Most of them were children."

"Then, take me with you," Oikawa asks one last time with only a minute remaining, "Free me from this suffering, Hajime. Please."

When Iwaizumi doesn't respond, Oikawa clenches his eyes shut and waits for the inevitable. Once Iwaizumi leaves, he'll be left to pick up the pieces of his heart like he does every year. It'll take him months to get over Hajime's visit. Another month to learn how to not feel again. By the time that happens, it'll be October 31st again; old wounds will reopen. The clock sounds off, twelve consecutive chimes announce the day's end.

Oikawa squeezes his arms around Iwaizumi one last time, hoping that the gesture will convey the emotions that he can't put into words right now. After the clock's final stroke, his heart drops. But, then the strangest thing happens.

"Tooru," Iwaizumi gently calls.

Slowly, Oikawa lifts his head. Iwaizumi is still there holding him, except, they're no longer in his dark kitchen. A bright meadow surrounds them. At the sight of it, every negative feeling that Oikawa previously felt sheds away like dead skin. His body feels light without any earthly burdens weighing him down. But the most notable difference is that Oikawa can still touch Iwaizumi. They're finally together again and this time, it'll be for an eternity.

Oikawa smiles; it's his first genuine smile in years. "Thank you, Hajime," he says.

The End.

#iwaoi #Iwaizumi Hajime #oikawa tooru #supernatural themes #haikyuu!! #ghostfic #kinda #i guess #lol #angst #but it's not that heavy #omg just read it and reblog please

[bbcky-barnes]

Destiel Fanfics RecList

(Reminder that these are not in any specific order!!)

1. Painted Angels

Words: 105K 

Summary: Author Castiel Novak has finally hit the big time, with a book based on his failed college relationship with a brilliant painter. He's put all his pain behind him, but at a book signing, he comes face to face with Dean Winchester for the first time in twelve years, and the reunion doesn't go like Cas hoped. Dean's a broken man, with a lot of scars and secrets, shoulders weighed down by his demons and self loathing. Cas sees a second chance with the man he's never stopped loving, but Dean's moved on, and is about to get married. Sam launches a "brilliant" plan to reunite his brother and his best friend, but Cas is worried it will all blow up in their faces, and he'll go through the agony of losing Dean a second time.

2. Easy Now, With My Heart

Words: 50K

Summary:  Dean Winchester is a kindergarten teacher. Castiel Milton is a writer slash works-in-a-coffee-shop. He also happens to be the extremely hot one-night stand that Dean never intended to see again other than in his own fantasies (he’s classy like that). But suddenly Cas is everywhere and Dean is convinced that Fate is out to get him. And maybe they do this thing backwards, but that doesn’t have to mean they can’t make it in the end, right?

3. Sweaters & Cigarettes

Words: 150K

Summary: Dean Winchester is in high school, crushing hard on Castiel Novak, the unbelievably hot goth who Dean does his very best to convince himself he hates, despite the fact that he can’t really stop staring at him. Dean tries, but when the two of them finally cross paths, their first conversation takes a surprising turn. And suddenly, they both find themselves falling harder and faster than they ever could have expected.

4. Freefall

Words: 129K

Summary: Kindergarten teacher Dean Winchester spends his days elbow deep in play doh; the most exciting his life gets is when he plays mechanic in his uncle Bobby's shop on the weekends. That is until a birthday party goes tequila-nova and he trips into a one-night stand with an incredibly hot firefighter named Castiel.Dean's life gets a lot more exciting after that.

5. California Waiting

Words: 173K

Summary: Dean and Castiel's relationship has evolved over time- from strangers to roommates, roommates to friends, friends to best friends. The most troublesome evolution came to pass when they went from being best friends to "We're just friends."

6. Appoggiatura

Words: 121K

Summary: Castiel leaves the religious commune of Heaven Farms to study classical piano after winning a full scholarship paid for by the Deanna Campbell Memorial Foundation, and answers an ad in the campus newspaper: 1 bedroom to let. Meals provided. 50mb wifi, quiet odd music student preferred.

7. Heaven & Hell Escort Service

Words: 124K

Summary: Loosely based on the film 'The Wedding Date'. Castiel Novak is a high class escort, and an expensive one at that. He likes to help people, and being an escort allows him to do that... barely. Dean Winchester is a mechanic/waiter who may have accidentally told his father he has a long-term boyfriend to bring along to Sam's wedding. Desperate times call for desperate measures... an escort service might not be what he wants, but it could be exactly what he needs.

8. Cursed or Not

Words: 115K

Summary: While experimenting with magic when he was a kid, Sam accidentally cursed Dean. Now, Dean is forced to wear a spelled amulet constantly, or he'll turn into a random animal. For a little over a decade, he's learned to live with the curse, and has even found it useful in some cases, but he sure would be happier without it.When he meets a witch named Castiel, he's offered a deal. Instead of assuming all witches are bad, Dean can spend a season getting to know him. If at the end of the season, Dean still thinks he's evil Castiel will send him away with his memory wiped of the whole experience. But if he learns that Castiel is not the monster Dean assumes he is, he'll lift Dean's curse.It's an offer Dean can't bring himself to pass up.

9. Satin and Sawdust

Words: 160K

Summary: When Castiel moves out of Jimmy's house and into his own place for the first time, he saves money on buying a home by investing in a Fixer-Upper. He knows nothing about how to fix the many problems the house has, but he figures he's smart enough to figure it out. Unfortunately it's not too long before he learns that he's way in over his head.Thankfully his new neighbor Dean is a handyman, and agrees to help him out. He knows Dean has a bit of a crush on him, but he's not taking advantage of it, really. Dean's a great guy, and quickly becomes a good friend.But a flash of satin under Dean's toolbelt changes everything.

10. Muscle Memory

Words: 20K

Summary: Dear Castiel, Hello – it’s Castiel. This must all seem very confusing, and I’m sorry for that. Dean says to tell you that this isn’t some kind of ‘time-travel stunt’, although I’m sure that won’t be your first thought. I know it wasn’t mine. I’ve told Dean to leave now, as this is my notebook and I want everything in it to come from me – or rather, from you. I know you think it's the fifteenth of January, 2010, but it isn't. At the time of my writing this, the date is the fourth of October, 2013. Dean Winchester is your boyfriend of a year and a half, and you no longer work at the library, and in early 2010 you were hit by a car and hospitalised. I’m sorry.

a.k.a the 50 First Dates Dean/Cas AU where Castiel wakes up on a day just like any other, except that three years have passed without his knowing, and Dean Winchester is in the kitchen wanting to marry him.

11. Morning, Teach

Words: 174K

Summary: Art teacher Castiel Novak has just turned 29 when he meets Dean Winchester at a gay club. After sleeping with the boy, he leaves in a hurry, trying to cope with the guilt over betraying his girlfriend and his overly conservative parents. But forgetting Dean becomes close to impossible, when Castiel's new job at a High School in San Francisco reveals Dean to be a most troublesome student.

12. Hot Water

Words: 151K

Summary: Castiel hated public showers. In which Castiel is forced to use the company shower after hours and ends up doing unspeakable things he never thought himself capable of...

13. Waves  

Words: 55K

Summary: Dean Winchester is the average guy: football, college, kid brother, nice car, girls and beer; his life is black and white, that is until he meets Castiel Collins: pretentious, slutty, sweater-wearing genius, who won't even take the time to look up at him from his obscure novel while he insults him. And then everything is shades of gray and Dean is drowning.

15. Soft Touch Raw Nerve

Words: 152K

Summary: Due to a hunt gone wrong, Dean has an injured leg; he has to stay in a rehab-center for the next six weeks, while Sam continues the hunter's life on his own. The only glimmer of light is Castiel, Dean's physiotherapist, and how they come closer to each other as time goes by.

16. How To Save a Life

Words: 48K

Summary: Having lost both of his parents in a terrible car accident, Dean Winchester lives a life filled with guilt and self-hate. That is until he calls a suicide hotline and the soothing voice of 'Cas' turns his life upside down...

17. Porcelain

Words: 73K 

Summary: High School AU ~ Dean Winchester has it all. He's captain of the football team, a self-confessed ladies' man and one of the most popular guys in school. But, is all of that about to change when he meets the mysterious Castiel Novak in an online chat-room?

Side note: do NOT read this if you’re looking for fluff and no angst at all bc even though this shit is amazing, it’s also sad as fuck :)

18. The Open Sky (Is Mine Tonight)

Words: 22K

Summary: Castiel Novak is a wedding planner in San Francisco who doesn’t have the time or the energy for a relationship right now. After an accident introduces him to the charming pediatrician Dean Winchester, he thinks that might change. Unfortunately, Dean is engaged to Castiel’s new favorite client, Anna Milton, and it’s suddenly a game of tug-o-war between what Castiel wants and what Castiel needs — but as he comes to find out, often times those things are exactly the same.

19. Peace And Good Luck To All Men

Words: 32K

Summary: Christmas in the Milton household was difficult enough without the added complication of guests- and if Luke and Gabriel placing bets on who can get with Sam first wasn’t bad enough, then Cas developing a ridiculous crush on his sister’s boyfriend definitely is.

20. Danger Danger

Words: 101K

Summary: Life turns upside down for Detective Castiel Novak, when his partner and lover Balthazar is shot by a member of a crime syndicate. Life gets even weirder with rookie Dean Winchester showing up as his new partner and somewhere in between revenge and grief the explosive duo becomes closer than they thought they would…

21. Small Town Charmer

Words: 82K

Summary: By ten a.m. Dean had seen his dream of expanding the hardware store dashed. By one, his baby had been impounded off the street. By midnight, Dean's personal space had been invaded by an angry, wet bookseller with hot blue eyes and an armful of natty first editions. There was also a cat. Maybe we should start at the beginning..

22. The Breath Of All Things

Words: 66K

Summary: Dean Winchester was twenty-six years old when a car accident killed his father and left him paralysed from the waist down. A year and a half later, Dean is in a wheelchair and lives in a care home in Kansas, where he spends his days waiting to die. It's only when Castiel Novak starts volunteering at the care home that Dean starts to wonder if a changed life always equals a ruined one.

23. Kiss The Baker

Words: 113K

Summary: Jo is pregnant and craving something a little bit unusual. When she sends Dean on a mission to find her some chocolate cake donuts with bacon sprinkles, he's sure that he'll fail. Luckily his partner Benny comes to his rescue and introduces him to a quirky little bakery that sells all kinds of weird (and delicious!) baked goods. And they do special orders!Dean finds excuses to keep going back, and Castiel finds excuses to keep giving him special treats.

24. Like Real People

Words: 135K

Summary: Dean Winchester is a respected literature teacher at Lawrence's best private school, yet he feels like he's still a complete and utter travesty of a human being. Months after his father's death, he's yet to come to terms with the negative impact John Winchester had on his life. Though he's determined never to admit it, the only thing Dean's ever wanted was an Apple Pie Life: it's something that's been dangled in front of his face, though he's certain he could never deserve it.While Dean struggles to come to terms with the isolated, lonely life he's made for himself, a disruption comes in the form of Castiel Novak, Lawrence Private's newest faculty member. Those blue eyes and raspy voice are things Dean can't ignore for long, and when he's forced to stop fighting his affections, Dean finds his lonely life turned upside down.Is it possible he could deserve an Apple Pie Life after all?

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