#its a picture of where he once saw a buffalo | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

carni-val · 2 years

Text

How to Touch My Dead [Jax Teller]

Part 3: All the Things I Did (Just So I Could Call You Mine)

pairing: Jax Teller x Nicknamed!OFC [could be read as a reader insert]

summary: When Jax makes a grave mistake, it’s up to her to make things right.

warnings: Grief, angst, death, mourning

music: the scientist [coldplay]; come join the murder [the white buffalo]

Picture courtesy of @writer-wednesday

How to Touch My Dead Masterlist | Jax Teller Masterlist

“I didn’t mean to end up here, but I did. I sort of just slipped into the cracks, but I can’t stay here,” she shook her head. “If I stay, I’ll just end up going out the same way the girls did.”

This life had always been taxing on her, but she didn’t realize it until he was locked up in Stockton. Dodging death by a hair and watching others around her do the same, it all weighed on her heart and mind. Sleep was almost a stranger now; she had nightmares of drive-by the night of Half-Sack’s funeral for weeks.

Keeping a barrier between her and everybody else was exhausting too, especially when it came to him. She tried to maintain an air of professionalism with the club, but when people around them died, or got hurt, they clung to each other even tighter. They became a family to her, people she couldn’t deny because they never denied her. They welcomed her with arms open wide and kept their promise to protect her.

She fell into him when she got overwhelmed and just needed a comfortable place to rest her head. Overtime, it just got easier and easier to find her way into his arms.

When he wasn’t there, she found herself going over everything she’d witnessed; every time she’d almost been caught in the crosshairs and was left to wonder how she could ever go on like this.

His blonde eyebrows pulled together, his eyes gleaming with sympathy. He reached out and placed a hand against her cheek, providing her some silent comfort as he always did whenever she mentioned her friends. His elbow rested on the back of his couch as she let the weight of her head fall into his palm. He always held her weight effortlessly, and without complaint.

His affectionate gestures were always accompanied by silence. Neither of them were brave enough to breach the final barrier into romantic territory by saying anything out loud like that. She could sleep next to him in his bed, make him coffee the next morning, and go through the terror she went through today after learning about the trouble he’d found himself in, but she could never make it anymore explicit than that.

It had been years at this point but there was still an ache looming that reared its ugly head in times like these. Times where she’d almost lost him or almost lost her own life.

She would’ve mirrored the gesture, almost longed to feel the warmth of his cheek underneath her palm, but she couldn’t; not without hurting him at least. His face was spotted with bruises and an angry slash of red slanted across the bridge of his nose. His hair was cropped now which made the injuries all the more visible.

It was a close call today and he’d only just gotten out of prison. The Russians ambushed him and Opie when they went to check on their ammo with the Wahewa, ambushing the high of the happy homecoming that took place just a couple of days ago too.

Seeing the smile on his face as he emerged from the van in the parking lot the day he came home was contagious and she watched as his joy only multiplied once he saw Abel.

He was a ball of energy, barely sleeping the night before because he was so excited for his dad to come back home. She had to say, Abel was more affective than Aderall at keeping her up. She’d spent her nights in the Teller home while he was away, looking after Abel to give Gemma a break some nights. She had enough to keep her busy; there was always something or someone to look into for the club.

Staying at his house while he was locked up made her feel a bit better. Sleeping had gotten hard for a while after her friends passed away. She would stay up all night, sifting through different scenarios in which she could’ve prevented what happened to them, questioning if she was a coward for hiding within the club, and ultimately wondering when her day was coming.

She’d learned to distract herself from the thoughts, doing work for the club or trying to find work to do.

Sleep returned to her as she got more acquainted with the club, finding another family by a stroke of luck — not one that could ever compare to the one she found in her friends, but still, healing. His generosity and sincere concern for her was hard to resist, especially once he dropped the flirtatious facade.

Nasty thoughts returned when he was locked up in Stockton, fears of him not making it out of there and ending up alone again kept her up and staring at the ceiling. The moment she questioned how much longer she could survive in all of this, she’d get out of bed to check on Abel before finding herself in the living room in front of her laptop.

Abel took some time to warm up but once he did, she couldn’t deny the joy bursting in her heart when she saw his smile every morning. She was sure his father felt the same way as he rushed to greet him in the T-M parking lot.

It was hard to tell if she was overstepping a boundary or not — looking after Abel almost as if he was her own, but Opie had assured her that she wasn’t.

“I know he’s glad it’s you looking after Abel,” Opie told her. “You did everything you could to help get him back when Hayes took off with him — I don’t think he trusts anyone with Abel as much as he trusts you.”

The high was met with a disproportionate low when she heard Jax’s voice though the phone, explaining that the Russians were demanding their guns and holding him and Opie hostage until the Sons delivered.

Once he was back, he told her the Galindo Cartel showed up to get them out of trouble before the Sons brought them back home to safety. It was a risky game the club was playing; muling blow for Cartel and dealing guns to them, but he played along with it.

“I back Clay in the vote to mule drugs for the Cartel and he backs me when I leave SAMCRO,” he had told her as soon as they were alone. “There has to be more than this life for Abel.”

While his revelation took her by surprise, she agreed in a heartbeat. Imagining his bruises on Abel’s face made her stomach turn, and she never wanted to find him tangled in the revolving door in and out of prison.

When the pain of admitting that washed over his face, she remembered the photograph she found of him in the T-M garage. Him saddled up on his father’s powder blue bike with the same smile Abel wore now. The club was all he knew and being president was the bright future he was looking forward to — it was evident by the glow in his eyes in the photograph. To be just like dad was the goal, but it was weighing on him now. The truths that came to light were too heavy to ignore and they sat saddled on his shoulders.

She felt tension in her chest unfurl at his revelation, though she’d never name the feeling that sprouted afterwards as her hand found his warm one. He entangled their fingers instantly.

“What I’m saying is, if you’re getting out, I want out too,” she whispered now in the vicinity of his living room, paranoia creeping up her spine.

The weight of his stare was almost unbearable. She hadn’t spoken these words to anybody — barely to herself. She felt like a traitor for even feeling this way, as if she was turning her back on the people that took her in when she was at her lowest. Especially him. The person she’d grown the most attached to against her better judgement.

Today was proof of that, the way she’d paced around the clubhouse, waiting just a few feet away from the phone just in case it rang again; the way she would only sit down because Gemma grabbed onto her hand and forced her to, wrapping an arm around her for good measure. Gemma always kept a level-headed front in these situations; she used to be capable of the same thing, but not when it came to him.

The second she heard the car pull up in the lot, she rushed out, finding her place in his arms immediately. She inhaled the scent of his cologne and cigarettes that clung to his sweater, trying to distract herself from the bruises and blood on his face and the butterflies in her stomach as his strong arms held her close.

He looked at her now, eyes gentle and understanding. “Leaving with you was part of the plan,” he admitted quietly.

Her face heated up under his touch and she felt so relieved she could cry. Her heart beat reverberated throughout the emptiness of her body. Days like today cut her up and emptied her out for all she was worth, the shell of her being torn between relief at his words and a bitterness at a goodbye addressed to the club that was now inevitable.

Her knee was pressed against his thigh as they sat on the couch; simple touches that left her wanting more. The closer he leaned into her, the more she could smell his cologne and cigarette smoke embedded in his clothes and she wanted nothing more than to drown in the scent. Before she knew it, he was close enough that she could feel his breath on her upper lip.

The steady stream sent her heart hammering and her mouth went dry, but she welcomed him as his nose brushed against hers gently, being sure to not aggravate the injury there, before he let his forehead lean against hers. Her eyes closed, submerging herself in the bliss of his presence.

Her steady breath hitched in her throat when she felt his facial hair brush against her face. He’d never gotten that close before; she didn’t have a chance to open her eyes to see if it was a mistake before she felt his soft lips on hers and the prickling of his facial hair on the surrounding skin.

The kiss was gentle — a sharp contrast to when he first tried to do this — and only lasted a few seconds before he pulled away. Her mind scrambled to capture every single detail of how his lips felt pressed against hers. She opened her eyes, finding his as they looked down at her. His brows pulled together, jaw clenching as he held his breath. He stared at her, silently pleading that that was okay this time.

Neither of them said anything as he pulled away slightly. She wrapped her arms around his torso, her head finding his shoulder before he leaned back against the couch, securely tucking her into his arms.

“Do you remember when the club held a Mayhem vote for Clay?” Bobby asked her.

She nodded and looked to him, “You voted no and it didn’t go through.”

“And Jax was pissed.”

She remembered that too; she’d never seen him so angry. It wasn’t the usual loud and violent anger though, it was silent, contemplative, and secluded.

“He was gonna try and kill Clay given the chance — whether the club knew it or not. He tried to do it then and he tried to do it now. There was too much bad blood there and it wouldn’t have been over until one of them was dead.”

Her vision blurred with tears.

“You tried to protect him from becoming the person he hated and you tried to protect the club from losing anyone else; that was your job.” Bobby insisted.

Her mind reeled over the past couple of weeks and the long nights they spent together mapping out where Clay could be going, finding a place for Abel to stay, and speaking to DeMarco to get more time to deliver Clay.

“You were damned if you told the club and damned if you didn’t.”

She nodded reluctantly, finding no comfort in the sentiment although she knew it was true.

“And now it’s on you,” Bobby leaned in, “Before I tell you what I know about Clay, I need to know what you’re gonna do with him when you do find him.”

Her gaze fell to the carpet again as she wrung her hands. “I promised him I wouldn’t let this charter fold. If I don’t find Clay then DeMarco’s gonna take someone else out.”

Bobby stayed silent, waiting for her answer, silently hoping she’d make the right one.

“The club’s been tailing me ever since I left Charming,” she told him. “They finished half the job with him and they’re gonna finish it with me. I’m trying to keep my distance until I get to Clay. I’ll lead them to him and let them make the decision — about everything.”

Bobby inhaled sharply and opened his mouth to speak.

“It’s club business,” she cut him off before he could start. “What they wanna do with me and what they wanna do with Clay is up to them, or else I’m running for the rest of my life, and I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

She held his stare, seeing the pain in his eyes as clear as day before he let out a heavy sigh. The room was silent, the occasional raindrop pattering against the window behind them gently.

“I know you’ve got some ideas as to where he could be,” he finally said, glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

“Nothing solid,” she shrugged, “I checked all the airports but didn’t find anything on him.”

“What makes you think he’s trying to leave?” Bobby quizzed.

She looked over at him, eyebrows furrowed. “What do you know?”

“I know Clay’s got a lot of shit, but he’s not a coward,” he sat up again, leaning in closer to her, “He wouldn’t abandon the club at a time like this. He’d stay and fight.”

“There’s not enough bodies-“

“Not yet,” he sighed. “Clay came by last night. He asked me if I’d scope out some of the guys around here that were willing to fight with SAMCRO when he got back to Charming. He’s looking for bodies and he’s looking for weapons.”

The revelation came thundering down on her. Rage and exhaustion mixed together to form a strange cocktail; one that almost convinced her to lay down and give up. Wait for the Sons to catch up to her and finish the job so she didn’t have to deal with any of this anymore.

“He’s going back to the Irish,” she surmised.

Upon Bobby’s nod, she let her heavy head fall into her hands.

She massaged her temples as his pleading voice rung out in her mind again: find him and make sure this charter doesn’t fold. Going back to the Irish ensured that all of his hard work would end up down the drain, that is, if the charter still stood after that.

Finding new business partners to make up for them pulling out of guns with the Irish was no easy feat — it was the last thing he had to do to get this charter straight, and he just barely made it happen.

If the Irish got back into business with the Sons, she was sure it’d be short-lived. They wouldn’t willingly do so if they didn’t have something else up their sleeve.

The charter’s demise was promised right now, but whether it’d be through the Irish or DeMarco and his crew was a new uncertainty she didn’t see coming.

“He’s bringing the Irish to him this time,” Bobby corrected.

Her thoughts stuttered, her head whipping towards Bobby. If Clay was gonna meet the Irish to get weapons, they had to do it at a familiar location to the both of them.

“Oswald’s warehouse,” she voiced.

Bobby nodded, confirming that she was right. “He’s gearing up to fight DeMarco’s crew.”

A newfound urgency sparked in her as she tugged the map out from her bag and spread it out on the table. She grabbed her pen from her bag and began tracing a trail from where she was to Oswald’s warehouse.

“Hold on,” Bobby cut her off.

She stopped, handing him the pen when he held out his hand for it. She watched as he created a new trail, heading east this time. He stained the roads on the map in red before drawing a circle at the end of the line. “You’ll get there faster this way,” he said, “Maybe even get there before Clay,” he handed her the pen back.

She scanned over the trail, studying it and getting a general idea of where she was going. Urgency wound her up and she was itching to get off the couch and back out on the road. Still, she could breathe a small sigh of relief, knowing she was close.

“Are you sure you don’t want anybody around here to check that out?” Bobby asked her, nodding towards her eye as he leaned against the doorframe.

“I’m sure,” she nodded, patting her bag as she stood on the porch, “Got all I need in here.”

He nodded silently, scanning over her, reluctant to let her leave.

“Thank you,” she told him earnestly. “He knew we could depend on you.”

Bobby’s smile gave way to the new pain that was festering in his chest, now that he knew, now that he was infected with the darkness. The bearded man held out his arms and she took a step forward, finding herself in his embrace. He held her tight, rubbing her back comfortingly like a parent would.

“I was always so glad he had you by his side,” he whispered to her. “You always had his best interests at heart.”

The lump in her throat returned and she had to pull away before she got swept up in another tide of emotion. She gave him a tight smile, begging her tears to hold off for a moment longer.

“Bye, Bobby,” the words came out in a whisper as her throat closed even more.

His smile was tainted with more sadness as another goodbye was happening right before him. “Bye, sweetheart.”

She turned on her heel to make her way back down to the car again, but stopped and looked back at him as he was still stood by the door, not moving an inch, “When the club comes by, let them know where I’m going.”

Bobby paused before nodding, allowing her to continue down the steps and towards the car.

“I’ve never seen him so angry,” she rubbed her forehead. “But I wasn’t doing it to make him angry-“

“I know,” Bobby nodded, rubbing a hand on her back as they sat at the bar in the clubhouse. “It’s just…” he trailed off with a heavy sigh, “…Look, I don’t know what happened, but…Jax always needs…somebody and the fact that that somebody is her doesn’t make it any easier.”

Bobby was perceptive — it was something she admired about him — but in times like these, she wished he just went on about his day like everyone else. But he could tell that something had gotten frayed between her and Jax. She told him all she could without mentioning the manuscript. He had pried a bit but it was hard not to spill your feelings to ears willing to listen.

When she felt like she was at a dead end, she found herself turning to Bobby. During her first few months here, she’d been stumbling around as she learned the dos and don’ts of being acquainted with the club, how to navigate Clay’s varying moods, and all the rules of the club — spoken and unspoken.

Juice was still navigating it all himself, Tig was usually too caught up with whatever Clay asked him to do, Opie was still on the sidelines as he toed his way back into the club, and she didn’t know the others well enough to ask them questions that seemed so simple. Jax was always busy with club stuff so she didn’t wanna bother him — already massively indebted to him — but in times like this, some of those unspoken rules pertained to him and him alone.

“I’m just trying to do right by him,” she dropped her hands and looked to Bobby, “Like he asked me to,” her voice was getting tight with frustration.

Bobby breathed out a small laugh, “When it comes to her, all of that goes out the window.”

She huffed out a breath, learning what everyone else knew: Tara was off-limits. The unspoken rule made her blood boil even more; she didn’t know if it was because he was making exceptions or trying to have it all when it clearly couldn’t go that way.

Her eyes narrowed before she shook her head. “Well, I can’t do that.”

It was a promise she made, not just to him but to herself. He’d done right by her when he could’ve easily left her for dead — the club got what they needed from her and her friends, so it would’ve been easy to throw her to the wolves.

When he showed her his father’s manuscript, he asked for her help, ways to turn the club legit so once he got into power, he could lead the club the way his father intended.

“So what does that mean for you?” Bobby asked. “If you can’t do both, does that mean you leave?”

Her breath hitched at the idea. It wasn’t an option; walking out on the Sons made her free game for anybody that had any sort of vendetta against her. She’d be back where she was all those months ago: fresh meat for the hungry wolves that no doubt circled around.

“I can still do work for the Sons,” she voiced, although she didn’t fully believe it. “But I don’t think I can help him anymore.”

“So tell him that,” Bobby insisted. “He’s gonna fight, and he’s gonna yell, and he’s gonna protect what’s his, but eventually it’ll seep in.”

She huffed out a sigh, never thinking that reporting the facts would ever get her into this kind of trouble.

“I didn’t know he told anyone,” Tara went pale, wringing her hands that were probably already accumulating sweat at a rapid pace.

She looked around the empty waiting room for a garbage can because from where she was sitting, Tara looked like she was about to throw up.

“I’m not gonna say anything,” she assured the doctor, knowing the repercussions of ratting would be worse. “But you shouldn’t have made him do that.”

Tara’s eyebrows pulled together and her eyes narrowed. Her frame tensed up defensively, “I didn’t make him do anything, Josh showed up and-”

“And you called him. You. Everyone around here knows he’d come running if you asked him to. And you did.”

“I didn’t know who else to call. If I hadn’t shot Josh, I would’ve called the police instead.”

“It was self-defence,” she replied, trying to keep her voice level, “The cops would’ve locked him up for everything he’d done to you.”

“Yeah, and then he would’ve gotten out and tried to do the same thing,” Tara’s tone turned sharp.

“I know,” she insisted, keeping her voice calm. “But that wasn’t the way to handle it.”

“Oh thank you, I didn’t realize that until now,” Tara scoffed, standing up.

She was quick to follow, standing in her way, not menacingly, but just enough to get her to listen.

“The next time will easier, and the time after that will be even easier,” she spoke lowly, gauging Tara’s tight jaw and challenging look in her eye. But she wasn’t here to fight. “The club doesn’t need a tyrant at the head of the table and you don’t need another tyrant for a boyfriend.”

The thought of mentioning JT’s manuscript crossed her mind, but she decided against it, unsure how deep Jax wanted to pull her into all of this, especially now considering what happened just last night.

He’d been late to Church that morning and nobody was able to get a hold of him. She’d called him multiple times but got no answer. When he finally showed up, he offered little explanation to the club. They let it slide, but she could see the tension wracking his body and how he was partially at the clubhouse and partially somewhere else.

When she got him alone, he bared it all to her. It was the first time he ever killed someone and he begged her not to say anything to anyone. Not just because it was a fed, but if word got to Clay about this, he’d keep putting a gun in Jax’s hand, perverting JT’s vision of the club in a new way with his own son following in his footsteps.

She figured keeping it between the three of them would be okay — it had to be now that she knew.

The doctor sighed heavily, letting her head fall into her hands. She let out a small sigh of relief, to watch her rigid demeanour soften and make way for the fear she was trying to hold back.

“I’m not saying all of this to scare you, but he loves you, Tara, and when a man like that loves you, it comes with responsibility.”

Bits and pieces of Tara and Jax’s history came to light once Tara came back to Charming, as it was preceded by their lingering, potent attraction to each other. The two were high school sweethearts until Tara’s mother died, and she packed up all her things and moved out of this “incestuous, backwards town” as Gemma claimed Tara put it; it made her wonder why Tara was back.

The question piqued suspicion in her, especially after learning about how dangerous Kohn proved himself to be, but she let it go, deciding it wasn’t any of her business. Looking out for Jax only went as far as club business and his place in the club. However, once Jax took care of Kohn, it became her business.

Jax and Tara weren’t in high school anymore and he wasn’t just a prospect, he was VP, determined to turn the club legit as he made his way up to president. This life was filled with people and situations that would tempt him to fall into the patterns of the club and if she was the only force swaying him the other way, she was gonna work like hell to make sure he stayed the course because she knew he was capable of delivering it with the right people around him. She gave them the benefit of the doubt — sure they could work, as long as she was one of those people.

There was a knock on the door of the secluded waiting room before it was being pushed open. Another woman wearing scrubs apologetically poked her head in through the crevice of the door, casting a quick, almost fearful glance in her direction.

“Sorry, Dr. Knowles,” she looked to Tara, “They’re ready for you in OR 1.”

“Okay,” Tara nodded, plastering on a smile. “I’ll be right there.”

The nurse nodded once, throwing another glance her way, before leaving the room and keeping the door slightly ajar.

She turned to Tara, “Go save some lives, doc,” she advised before making her way out of the waiting room.

“Why did you show me the manuscript in the first place?” was the first thing she asked as soon as he opened the door.

He sighed, frustration being muted by exhaustion.

They’d had their fight that morning so maybe showing up that night was a bit too soon, but she didn’t get to say her piece then.

He released his hold on the door, “Evie, I don’t wanna do this right now.”

“Tell me why,” she insisted.

He looked behind her, up and down the deserted road before reluctantly walking inside, silently telling her to follow him and shut the door behind her. She followed him in, closed the door despite the surprise that stunned her at the fact that he actually let her in. He looked so exhausted as he planted himself on his couch.

“If I’m here to help you with the club, then I can’t cater to you and uphold what you asked me to do at the same time,” she informed him, watching as he scrubbed a hand over his face before it settled over his mouth. “I can’t walk that line without tipping over onto one side.”

“You have to when it comes to Tara,” he spoke lowly, getting that primitively angry look in his eye.

“I can’t, especially not with Tara,” she insisted, “If you’re gonna turn the club legit once you get a hold of the gavel, everything you do leading up to that moment is gonna decide the type of man that sits in that chair.”

His jaw tightened as frustration multiplied within him. He wanted to say something, she could tell by the way he was looking at her. The anger was egging him on to have another outburst and to kick her out of his house and out of the protection of the club. But he stayed silent.

“And it’s gonna dictate the kind of man you are for Tara.” Though she tried to remain neutral, she could taste the vinegar in her words as she said them.

He stayed silent but his eyes fell from her.

“I’m just doing what you asked,” she reminded him, “But if that’s too much then I can step away from this and forget you ever told me anything. I'll pack my bags and leave.”

His eyes were back on her with a flash, eyebrows pulling together. “What are you talking about?”

“If we don’t straighten all of this out then I gotta hit the road-“

“You can still work for the club,” he stood up from his seat, “Just because this didn’t work out.”

“I can’t,” she shook her head, “I already got the president making it hard to do my job, I don’t need the VP doing the same.”

His look became cynical, “I wouldn’t get in your way.”

“You already have,” she pointed out.

He opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. She couldn’t look at him as she turned and walked past him towards the door.

For the sake of flicking out the butt of her cigarette, she rolled down the window despite the heavy rainfall happening outside. She rolled it back up as her foot pressed down even harder against the gas pedal, ramping up her speed. Seeing Clay’s face in her mind didn’t make her foot relent even an inch. The bone she had to pick with him was getting larger and larger, lodged between them at a jagged angle that was a pain in both of their sides from the moment they met.

“She can’t be trusted,” she overheard Clay insist to Jax in the Chapel.

“Yes she can,” he fought for her, “We could trust her and her friends before, so why not now?”

“We got bigger problems to deal with than the ones she caused for herself.”

“She can help us.”

Silence fell over the clubhouse and she felt Juice nudge her shoulder comfortingly. She looked to him to see him wearing a reassuring smile as he sat next to her on a barstool in the clubhouse. “I’m sure it’ll be okay,” he whispered to her.

She pushed out a smile in response. He was always optimistic in times like these, but she still hadn’t pieced together if he was trying to convince himself in the process too.

“I mean, if anyone here can handle Jax, it’s Clay,” he continued. “I mean it’s really impressive.”

Just as she saw Juice open his mouth to speak again, she beat him to it, “Thanks Juice,” she said, not wanting to strain him anymore for reassurance.

The way he was fidgeting with his hands as he spoke made her all the more nervous.

Juice smiled at her, silently apologizing and she returned it, silently accepting it before her eyes found the door of the Chapel again.

“We’ll have a vote,” Jax decided finally. “The club will vote on it and if it passes, she stays and helps us.”

“That’s good!” Juice beamed, trying to keep his voice down. “Everybody here already likes you; I know it’ll pass.”

She looked to him, finding him more sincere when he spoke this time and it stretched a small smile over her face. It was true, she’d gotten on well with a lot of the members here — the others like Piney, Clay, and Tig who stayed more to themselves had kept their distance were a bit harder to cozy up to.

“Fine,” Clay replied to Jax before she could speak. "But if it passes and that snake bites the hand that feeds her, know that the venom that seeps through this club is because of you.”

Any spark of joy she felt at Juice’s words died down, the smoke whisking away in the wind as soon as Clay ripped open the door. He began to stalk out of the clubhouse, but stuttered when he saw her. His stare was nothing short of cutting before he took in a deep breath and held it as he pushed on and made his way out to the lot.

Who knew the snake would be sitting at that very table. Her fingers tapped on the steering wheel impatiently, thinking about exactly what she would say to him when she did find him. Clay was a poison that infected two generations of Teller men and ultimately led to their demise. If there was poison circulating throughout the club, it came from his own fangs, but if he wanted her own personal brand of venom, she’d give it to him especially if it was the antidote to his own.

The needle in the speedometer perched straight up to 100 as she flew down the empty road. She glanced over to the map spread out on the seat beside her, checking the next turn she’d have to make.

Her head whipped forward to look out of the windshield suddenly as she heard a faint thrumming outside. She reached over and turned the radio off and rolled down her window, welcoming the heavy raindrops into the car once again to try and hear it better.

As soon as the sound became clear and she realized what was happening, she groaned, “No, no, no!” she slammed her hands against the wheel.

The sputtering of the engine continued and she pulled over to the side of the road. The low fuel signal flashed at her as it had been for the last few miles, taunting her now as if to say, I won.

Quiet engulfed the air once she turned the car off after it stalled. She sighed to release the breath she’d been holding and let the weight of her head fall forward until her forehead pressed against the steering wheel.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

After a few moments, she picked up her head and looked through the blurred windshield. The rain was coming down hard but she had no other choice but to move.

She inhaled deeply, the smell of the tobacco becoming more potent and calming her slightly. It wasn’t until now that she realized just how tired she was. She’d been up for more hours than she could count, and alert for all of them; high on pure adrenaline.

Seeing Bobby was the closest thing she had to a vacation during all of this. It was the closest she got to letting the grief in. She let bits of it seep into her and she let it out just as much; her body rejecting it. Another poison that just dominated her own.

She let herself be still and let the world be restless instead for a second as she latched onto the smell of the cigarettes; clinging onto them desperately.

Was this gonna be the rest of her life now? Grasping onto the sound of a motorcycle’s roaring engine as it passed by or taking in a deep breath of tobacco infused smoke each time a smoker passed her on the street? Was this how he existed now? In pieces; scattered around and only finding her if she was in the right place at the right time?

Tension itched at her muscles. The car was too silent. And she had to get moving.

Mechanically, she turned to the passenger seat and folded up the map that sat there. She put it into a pocket of her bag before turning to the dashboard and picking up the photograph and slipping it into another pocket. After ensuring the rest of the zippers were done up, she pulled the hood of her raincoat over her head and exited the car.

The unforgivable downpour drenched her in seconds; the wind accompanying the storm didn’t help either, redirecting almost every raindrop that would’ve surpassed her right into her face as she began walking along. She clutched onto the strap of her bag tightly, moving her feet as quickly as she could move them.

It had to have been twenty minutes later — ten if the car held out a little longer — that she saw a small plaza in the distance across the street from a gas station. She huffed out a cynical laugh at another taunt from the universe. She shook her head, quickening her steps to finally get out of this rain that she was sure soaked through her coat already.

She took a quick glance in the direction of the gas station then muttered out a curse. Of course there’d be no one there — not in the middle of this storm.

Looks like I’m walking.

The closer she got, the more shops she was able to make out in the plaza: a dollar store nestled between a restaurant and a clothing boutique. She found refuge in the former, huffing out a sigh when she was finally sheltered from the rain. Still, she kept her hood and glasses on, ensuring that nobody would be able to see her, even if it was by accident.

The small store was full of people, mostly huddled near the register, waiting to pay for their items. There were two employees at registers, and they were no match for the swarm of people ahead of them.

The warm shelter of the store made her walk slow down to a saunter as she took it all in. She looked up and down the aisles for an umbrella, deciding she’d need one if she was gonna continue on this journey. Getting picked up in this weather was a long shot; not only would it be hard for them to see her down on the road with her thumb hitched out, but she was sure they’d keep moving in hopes of getting to their destination faster.

She spent a little more time roaming around the aisles, stopping at some points and looking through different items in the store; even some toys she thought Abel would like.

Her heart softened at the thought of the boy. His bright smile flashed in her mind and she couldn’t bear to bring him any sort of pain that was inevitable with the situation at hand. Part of her hoped she didn’t make it to the farm. She couldn’t fathom breaking his heart so severely at such a young age. Would he see through her grief and spot the coward behind it all? The one who hid behind the bedroom door? The one who ran?

The thoughts drained her even more. She couldn’t bare to pass on the darkness — she’d passed on enough of it and still had a supply to last her a lifetime.

She pushed past it all and finally, at the end of the final aisle at the back of the store, she found an array of umbrellas hanging from a display. There were various colours — almost making up a rainbow — but she settled on the black one, needing to blend in as much as possible.

She was only a few steps down the aisle towards the cash register when a unified roar that rivalled the thunder outside got louder and louder the closer it got. She froze in her spot, watching the bikes roll up on the road ahead through the window.

She was cautious in taking a few steps into the aisle to get a closer look. She watched as two of them turned right into the parking lot of the gas station and the third turned left into the plaza.

The bike approached the window; the reaper standing out against the black bike before its engine cut off. It wasn’t until he dismounted that she recognized Chibs quickly approaching the entrance of the store. She stumbled back in the aisle, moving back the closer Chibs got to the door of the store.

She gasped a breath and held it, feeling it tighten her chest. She jolted when she stumbled into the shelf of toys, sending a few falling to the ground noisily. She grasped onto the umbrella tightly as she watched Chibs walk through the door, and that’s when she turned around and headed deeper into the back of the small store.

A door with a sign that said Employees Only was the only thing there and although it was padlocked, she tried her best to open it anyways, praying that some miracle would happen where the knob would release and twist all the way to allow her into a safe hiding place. She pushed her body weight against it, fighting against the locked door knob as much as it was fighting against her, silently pleading for it to open. She relented once her body hit the door for the fourth time.

Her mouth was running dry and her throat was constricting and all she could hear in her ears was her rapid pulse. Her legs trembled and she felt faint. She inhaled sharply through her nose, determined not to let that happen. As far as she was concerned, he wasn’t aware that she was here. She hadn’t heard their rumbling engines on her walk over here so she still had a chance to get away.

She stood next to a man in the aisle, letting his bigger frame shield hers as she watched Chibs’s form saunter towards another aisle on the other side of the store. She held her breath, watching him until he was out of view so she could keep heading on down the aisle and out of the store. She threw glances over her shoulders, ensuring he didn’t round the aisle and approach her from behind.

Once she was out of the aisle and into the swarm of people, she noticed the only way out of here was through the registers. She apologized quietly as she hid herself amongst the crowd, shouldering her way through as carefully as she could. She took on the glares her nestling brought her as she accidentally bumped into a person or two.

She scanned the area continuously, desperate to make sure that she saw him before he saw her. As she moved her way through the crowd, she ripped the tag off of the umbrella in her hand and shoved it into the deep pocket of her raincoat.

“Hey sweetheart,” she heard from behind her, a rough poke of a finger digging into her shoulder.

Her heart stuttered as she turned to the man who stood with a basket of items in his hand. With just one look at his tight features, she knew she wouldn’t be able to talk her way out of this. She was just the target for his pent up anger at the circumstance he found himself in currently.

“The line starts back there,” he hitched a thumb over his shoulder.

She glanced over the crowd, making sure the man’s outburst hadn’t caught Chibs’s attention. She didn’t see him anywhere; not emerging from an aisle, not hiding in the crowd like she was. She still had the element of surprise — that is, if this guy didn’t blow it for her.

Noticing that she was still in the clear, she turned back around, ignoring the man as her attempts to get through the crowd were hastier.

“Jesus Christ, nobody’s got any fuckin’ patience anymore,” the man cursed. “Or the ability to move their asses and work!” his comment was directed towards the people behind the counter.

“Hey, can you shut the fuck up?” another woman in the crowd called to him.

The two got into an argument comprising of passive comments to one another as she threw another look over her shoulder. It was just in time to see Chibs emerging from one of the aisles empty handed. His head swept up and down the expanse of the store and she ducked out of view, as if she was trying to jump out of the crosshairs of a gun.

She turned back around and weaved her way through some more people, apologies flying out of her mouth absentmindedly, persuading — if not begging — those around her to keep quiet.

She tumbled through the walkway between registers and scurried towards the door, her quick pace halting as she got caught between a couple of older women who were tucking their receipts into their bags. She bit back a curse as she slowed her pace, following their lead.

She took one look to her right over to the gas station lot, finding Juice and Happy fuelling up their bikes. The rain had thinned out but there was still enough reason to pull out an umbrella.

Just have to stay calm, she reminded herself. Just pop open your umbrella and walk normally like everyone else is.

A gasp was pulled out of her when she heard someone behind her. She whipped her head around to find a father with his son who was already ripping a toy from out of its package. She sighed, turning her head forward as she walked in tandem with their speed.

A gust of wind preceded the amount of rain pelting down once the door was open and in the blink of an eye, she mirrored those around her as they propped up their own umbrellas. She winced at the sound the umbrella made once it opened, but she was quick to pull it over her head and tilt it so it kept her hidden from Juice and Happy who were still across the street.

She stayed close to the women who walked in front of her, keeping her head low, and making sure she was breathing. Her gaze latched onto the reaper on Chibs’s bike, the one that just took and took and took.

She held onto the handle of her umbrella with a death grip — one that got even tighter when a gust of wind passed through, threatening to rip the umbrella out of her hand and expose her. She listened closely, trying to pick out the sound of footsteps behind her or engines about to rev through the pattering of raindrops on the pavement or the conversation of the women in front of her.

She walked further until the gas station and the plaza were behind her. She watched the women in front of her veer left and down a road leading into a neighbourhood. She tensed again, almost curling in on herself but she kept walking until she found another crowd of people up ahead that were exiting a restaurant a few feet away. She caught up with them steadily, keeping a short distance between them as she continued to walk.

The company was short-lived and she found herself alone again, taking a few twists and turns throughout neighbourhoods while staying on track with the map to ensure Chibs, Juice, and Happy lost her for a bit if they did recognize her. That was the closest they’d gotten and she couldn’t afford for that to happen again until she found Clay.

When she ran out of people and neighbourhoods to hide amongst, she found herself huddled in a long stretch of tall trees that was far from the road.

The rain had returned to its heavy, unforgiving attack and was now accompanied with heavy wind that made her umbrella harder to control. She grasped the handle tightly with both hands, cursing when it flipped inside out at a particularly rough gust of wind.

She stopped and pointed the inverted umbrella towards the wind, impatiently waiting for it to snap back into place. The wind calmed slightly, giving no assistance to fix what it had broken.

“Come on,” she urged through gritted teeth. She shook the umbrella with a force that was almost violent — too excessive but it wasn’t enough to puff it back in to its natural shape.

“Fuckin’ cheap piece of shit,” she shook it some more before her hands raised the umbrella up over her head and slammed it into the ground with the same force that sudden anger slammed into her.

“Fuck this fucking shit!” her hoarse voice called out.

She called out more curses, louder and louder each time, hoping that if the club was close, they’d hear her and put her out of her misery.

Twisting her body, she flung the useless umbrella into the wind. It danced away gently, bouncing on the ground a couple of times before flying off further away.

The way it floated away, unscathed for the most part, only lit the fire under her even more — a blazing, fire cracking fury that even this downpour couldn’t put out. She grasped onto the strap of her bag and swung it deep into the ground. Mud stained the leather but the thump of her bag against the earth was satisfying — as if the anger in her was being expelled through this and back into the earth — so she did it again, and again, and again, monstrous cries leaving her in the process. She paid no mind to the damage she was doing to her laptop. It’d be no use to her anymore — wherever she ended up. She kept going, despite the ache in her arm. It wasn’t until she lost her footing and slipped that she stopped.

She abandoned the bag after she landed on her knees in the mud, letting the strap of it untangle from her tired fingers before they curled up into fists and began pounding on the ground, sending specks of mud flying and landing wherever they chose to — she didn’t care, she couldn’t. She was unrelenting, almost as if she was trying to reach into the centre of the earth — like it had the answers she was looking for.

She found herself gasping for breath when she pulled her fists back. Her sharp sob startled her as she caved in on herself. It wasn’t until she felt the way her stomach clenched with each sob that she realized she was crying. She keeled over, her hands, gentler now as they spread over the ground and planted themselves in the mud as the desperate need to curl up into a ball overtook her. The gluttonous being that grief was would just keep feeding and feeding until there was nothing left of her.

Her head bowed as she sobbed, fingers curling in the mud, grasping at the earth she walked on — the same one he’d be buried in for as long as she lived. It was the same earth but they’d still be too far from each other.

If only she was a mole in the ground.

To dig her way through the layers of the earth and find him again. To be by his side; to take her rightful place and just lie there with him.

The vastness of this woodsy area was large — the earth was even bigger. The thought made her head spin. A world full of people and not one could compare to his presence, dooming her to an eternity of suffering. If the club wanted to kill her, then they’ve already succeeded. All they could take now was the body she inhabited, and right now, it was the last place she wanted to be.

The last remnants of anger — her new protector — sent her fists into the ground again rhythmically, like a child throwing a tantrum, because it just wasn’t fair. The ground was still firm enough to send a shock of the impact up her arms, so she did it again, and again, and a third time before sadness came in, rubbing a comforting hand on her back and unravelling her fists.

She leaned back on her feet, her muddy hands resting on her legs now. Her chest deflated with a heavy exhale as she worked her way towards catching her breath.

She leaned her head back, the hood she was wearing sliding off and exposing her even more to the rain she’d been hiding from. She welcomed it now. The closest thing she’d ever get to his touch was in the way the mud curled into her fists and seeped through her fingers, and in the raindrops that fell from the sky above her.

For the first time in days, she let his name fall from her lips, first in a whisper, then in a whimper, then in a chant, as if it would bring him back.

The house was quiet as the two of them stood a few feet away from each other in her small kitchen. He hadn’t been here since last month, the both of them skirting around each other in the clubhouse, at the garage and wherever else they ran into each other. They ended on a low note, but didn’t let it resonate throughout the club. She was still there, helping, and remaining objective whenever she brought something to the club, but never getting close to her again as they once started out.

Word travelled fast though, and when she heard the news, she was sure that would come to an end. That’s why his presence on her doorstep that evening wasn’t completely surprising — like Bobby said: he’s gonna fight, and he’s gonna yell, and he’s gonna protect what’s his, but eventually it’ll seep in.

She decided to give him a chance; trying to make up for the damage she caused somehow, but also hoping — partially — that the last string tethering them together would be severed tonight.

His absence brought to light some less than favourable feelings she’d developed, and relief at Tara’s departure from Charming only confirmed them.

“I didn’t mean to make her leave,” she spoke quietly, breaking the delicate silence. “I was just trying to do what you asked me to.”

She wrapped her cardigan tighter around herself, hiding the pyjamas she was wearing underneath it. He’d been there for ten minutes but hadn’t made himself comfortable. She tried to help — offering coffee, water, but he declined them all silently with the shake of his head.

It was worrisome; maybe she overstepped a boundary that made an irreversible change. While Gemma subtly applauded her for it, she felt awful looking at how he almost curled in on himself when she saw him at the clubhouse.

“You didn’t,” he finally spoke. His eyes were low and voice grief-stricken. “She’s a runner,” his tone took a sharp edge and his lip curled in frustration.

He finally looked at her, hands in his pockets as he leaned against the counter across from the one she was leaning on.

“She was always half-in half-out with the club. Things got messy and she split — went back to Chicago,” he shrugged, trying to hide his hurt behind his seemingly impenetrable facade. “She just used me to do her dirty work,” he almost spat.

She felt the pain in his words and she took a cautious step closer. He didn’t show any opposition to her action, just watched her with big eyes, his jaw clenching every so often and eyebrows pulling together in a way that almost looked like he was pleading with her to make the pain stop.

When she was close enough, she placed a hand on his arm and she watched the rigidity in his body melt away; all the anger and all the fear of breaking down in front of her evaporated.

She trailed her hand up his arm to his shoulder, her other hand landing on the opposite one before he craned down and fell into her embrace. She sighed as she bared his weight, feeling his face burrow into her neck. Her hands rubbed up and down his back, palms running over the grooves of the patches on his kutte. He didn’t say a word, didn’t cry, or make a sound. He just held her and let himself be held for the first time in a long time.

What are you doing? the voice in her head got through to her.

She silenced it, burying her face into his shoulder, justifying it as just being there for her friend. She missed him and she couldn’t deny it anymore now that he was here. This month had been hell and she’d get a handle on all of this tomorrow, but tonight, she was just gonna be here for her friend.

A minute had passed and she pulled back half an inch, testing to see if he was ready to let go. His head still hung low, his face close to hers as he pulled back too. She continued to move back but his arms steeled around her, keeping her in place.

She barely had a second to understand what was happening before he let his lips collide into hers, his hand coming up to cup her cheek so he could hold her now. The kiss was sudden, desperate, and a silent plea for her.

The twinge of pain in her chest blossomed in the blink of an eye — it wasn’t for her, it was for somebody. She pulled back and ducked her head; self-preservation to ensure he didn’t do it again. The cool air around them found her cheek again when he pulled his hand away.

“No Jax…” she whispered breathlessly, her breath catching in her throat as a swarm of pain and betrayal — as foolish as that was — engulfed her.

She didn’t know exactly what she was saying no to — whether it was to him, what he just did, or how she reacted.

She cautiously looked up to find his chin jutted up, eyes plastered to her ceiling as he rubbed his lips together, almost savouring how steeply they crossed the line. His eyebrows were pulled together and she questioned whether he’d have broken down now if she wasn’t there.

But she knew him and she knew if she fell into bed with him, it’d do him more harm than good. She saw the way he was with women that hung around the club before Tara came back. There was a new one leaving his dorm almost every morning and she knew it was just to stop the bleeding. But she couldn’t be somebody to him. She could only be her.

The club’s future was at stake — and it was too much to be careless with.

She opened her mouth to say something — something to soften the blow — but he just rubbed her arm with his large, ringed hand before he turned and made his way out of her apartment, leaving her with the lingering, seering remnant of his touch.

#jax teller #jax teller imagine #charlie hunnam #charlie hunnam imagine #sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy imagine #writer wednesday

32 notes · View notes

chronicbatfictioner · 3 years

Text

Exchanges and Compromises - Chapter 17

Jason was having the time of his life.

Dick was sure of it. He might grump and sulk a lot more than before, but Dick was sure that he was having fun. Sure, guarding Damian might be a little more than tasking, after a while - especially since Damian was so certain that he could face Bane alone if it comes down to it, conveniently ignoring the fact that: a. he's ten and practically one-tenth of Bane's size; b. the Waynes most likely would detest having to clear intestines off the marble floor if Damian were to be let near a katana and/or Bane, and c. Alfred definitely would detest cleaning intestines or parts of Damian off the floor or walls.

And d. Bruce Wayne seemed to actually enjoy having Damian around and has no qualm in talking to Damian as if he was twice his age. Bruce's age, that is. Not Damian's. Dick suspected that Bruce has spent a lot of time talking to 60-year-olds.

But there were numerous forms of excitement that were offered by the Wayne Manor. First and foremost were the cars. Dick has never learned to drive - being a Talon kind of impeded the learning process of 'common human things'. Jason, however, was an excellent driver. He had mentioned something about being a getaway driver in warzones, and Dick couldn't be sure if he was telling the truth or joking. Either way, he rather enjoyed it whenever he and Jason had to take Damian somewhere in town.

Except for today, as somebody seemed to have tampered with the car.

It wouldn't brake, and they were cruising really, really fast.

Hence Dick's belief that Jason was having fun. He did not look perturbed at the slightest as he controlled the car, swerving crazily over the backroads, making sharp u-turns instead of going into the city roads and went back where they came from. Within a mile from the Drake House's gate, Jason finally managed to cut down the speed to the point where the car's engines died and it rolled to a stop. On the Drake House's gate.

"Seriously, people," Tim remarked dryly as they walked in - leaving the car at the gate and settling their respective adrenaline back down. "I've heard of visiting the neighbors, but must you be like, dying and/or damaging people's property before you come here to say hi?"

"The car was tampered with," Damian reported. "Must be the brute. And I shall replace your gate, Drake."

"I think I'm down to like, eight lives. No-- seven." Dick admitted, "my heart's still beating a hundred miles per minute. Good thing, though, at least that way I know I'm quite alive."

"Dick, you're a bird. Not a cat." Tim deadpanned. His eyes never leaving Jason, who had lit up a cigarette as he walked through the house. "Since when do you smoke?"

"Since I was eleven," Jason replied. "And since I walked into a house that has laser triggers that were set up by a lunatic. Smoke worked to reveal them all."

"I'm... partially scowling because smoking kills. But I suppose laser triggers would kill faster..." Tim replied.

"The lasers are used to trigger booby traps just about Damian's height. If he were to be a common kid and run around the house, he'd be decapitated within the first few days." Jason continued bitterly. "What the fuck is wrong with that giant lump of steroids, anyway? He was ready to kill a child!"

"The nutshell version is that the child would prevent his usurping the Waynes' wealth." Tim pointed out. "The long version is that I don't think he's really the child of Dr Wayne, the Waynes know of it, and they're literally being held hostage in their own home. Also, you people are being watched, too, by drones. I've asked Harper to kill those drones for entering my property."

Tim then explained Bruce's visit and the USB. "Oracle has contacted him and told him we... the Birds, that is - are investigating the evidence."

"How long until we can punch the asshole out of the house for good?" Jason demanded, accepting a bottle of water Tim handed him. Slowly and gently. Making sure his fingers brushed Tim's. And Dick had to swallow a grin.

"That, unfortunately, would be up to the GCPD. Did you guys saw the news? Vicky Vale's article on Damian?" Tim... preened a little, waving his hair as he walked away from Jason. Dick's lips itched, he wondered if Barbara or the other girls -- if Selina or Dinah have noticed this. The two were definitely flirting.

"I have seen it. It had good pictures of my mother and grandfather, and quite... adequate descriptions of both of them." Damian replied. "Evidently father has made a comment to the writer about me looking like him when he was my age."

"Well, you kind of do look like him, except for the green eyes." Dick pointed out. Bruce's eyes were blue - like both his parents. But from the photos of little Brucie around the house, Dick could see a little of Martha Wayne in Damian's still-round face. "When did Bruce make the comment?"

"Oh, Vale called him." Tim snickered. "She still has his personal number, and she commented something about hearing a - quote: 'constipated buffalo sounds in the background' - unquote. She was also wondering if Bruce was in a bullfighting ring somewhere."

"Seriously?" Dick laughed.

"Seriously. Even Barbara couldn't stop laughing hearing that." Tim assured him. Jason rolled his eyes but looking amused, anyway.

"Sooo... a possible off-road accident for the apparent heir is in the books?" Jason suggested.

"I won't put it past Bane. Damian...?" Tim started. But Damian already nodded in acknowledgment.

"I shan't eat anything that is not presented by Todd or Grayson, nor will I frolic the manor on my own. This shall be more to bear witness to your insinuation of my 'child-like' behavior than to take care of me, Drake, as I am quite capable of sustaining my own life." Damian scoffed.

Tim paused visibly for a good two seconds, before nodding, "of course. Furthermore, I can assure you that Alfred is safe, mainly because as a butler, his focal interest would be the actual Waynes. That's in his training - unless an offspring is publicly announced, they are not to be cared for by the Butler. In Wayne Manor, the proverbial child would solely be Bruce - for obvious reasons, and Damian, whom Bruce has publicly acknowledged." Tim explained.

"He was in MI6," Jason remarked. "Alfred, that is. Not Bane. It would be safe to say he's loyal. He told me of the booby traps and that Bane has a daily dose of injection of the steroid-like substance. But I-- we shall prepare you emergency rations - just in case, anyway."

"You guys can always drop by here. And don't think that Damian would be Bane's only target." Tim reminded. "If I was him, I'd take out the big guns - that is you two - first; and then Bruce, because he'll want to be protective of his son; and then Dr and Mrs Wayne last."

"Then I'm afraid you are forgetting one of the members of the household that is most dangerous, Master Tim," a voice spoke; Jason pulled out his gun, Damian automatically hid behind him while pulling out a small dagger.

Dick wanted to lunge right toward the source of the voice until he realized that it was Alfred Pennyworth, both hands raised up to show that he was unarmed.

"How...?" Jason growled, "I didn't hear the front door open."

"Apologies, gentlemen. I should have informed you that there is an underground passageway between the two houses that were once used frequently, but now has all been forgotten." Alfred explained. "You were right that I was in MI6, Jason; as you were right that my focus will and forever shall remain the true Wayne blood, Master Tim. Not ones who claimed as such and refused to provide irrefutable evidence."

"Does Bane know of this passageway?" Tim asked.

"It is located in the staff's wing, and as he is not permitted to be there, I sincerely doubt it," Alfred replied. "I have my own... booby traps and surveillance that should tell me if anyone has been there." he smiled. "I am aware that both of you have prowled the entire house at one point or the other in the past few weeks." he nodded toward Jason and Dick. "You were stealthy, indeed."

"But not stealthy enough?" Dick quipped. "I gotta go back to training... Anyway, why are you here?"

"I saw your vehicle's mishap and its stop here. If anything, Bane is not... stealthy enough." Alfred pulled out a small memory card. "To get to the garage, one must pass the servants' hall. And the garage is my province."

Tim accepted the memory card, plugged it into his cellphone; and then projected its content to a wall. "Huh... this should be enough evidence of tampering..." Tim commented. The memory card showed a clear date stamp - that morning, a few hours before Bane and the Waynes left the house. It also showed Bane himself, jacking the car that was now resting with a dented bumper at Tim's gate, while holding a plier.

"Anyone watching our car now?" Dick commented. "Won't be cool to have it suddenly fixed, will it?"

"Harper should be. Plus, y'all are on my property. If he trespasses, I'll have his ass arrested." Tim huffed. "So... if anyone has ideas--" Jason and Damian's eyes lit up; Tim glared at them and continued "--that do not include sharp and/or exploding objects of how to remove Bane from the Manor..."

"I'm fresh out," Jason replied mournfully. "No sharp objects, no exploding objects... what do you expect me to do? Poison him?"

"But Todd, did my mother not teach you the arts of food as medicine?" Damian piped up.

The sudden silence as all eyes landed on Alfred was quite ominous.

"I will not conduct a crime, young masters," Alfred remarked dryly.

"Oh nooo... not a crime," Jason grinned mischievously. "It's just... you know that Damian was born in the Middle East, yeah?"

"I may have quite a culinary skill, but I fear that my Middle Eastern cuisine knowledge is rather limited," Alfred said demurely.

"Well, mine isn't." Jason grinned. "Besides, what else should one do to celebrate one's entrance into such a distinguished family; but hold a family dinner?"

"You're going to poison him." Dick groaned.

"Not to death!" Jason protested. Dick gave him an unimpressed glare. "Just... to the point where he would realize that he and I have opposing objectives."

"Do let me know of the ingredients you require, Jason." Alfred intoned. "Or perhaps you prefer to shop on your own? I shall fetch a new, un-tampered-with vehicle."

"Oh, please do, Alfred. I doubt we can make a single trip. But they will be fun." Jason replied, grinning.

Dick knew that the sense of foreboding was not in him only. Tim looked like he was contemplating moving away to Alaska.

"For the records, I don't know anything about cooking," Dick said defensively.

"I'm... truly and fully reconsidering my life choices," Tim admitted.

"Oh, don't worry, Drake. Todd was trained by the best," Damian grinned mischievously. "I pity the fools who think him as a brute. I pity the brute who think that small equals weak."

#Batless!AU #JayTim #Dick Grayson #Tim Drake #Jason Todd #Damian Wayne #Alfred Pennyworth #stray!tim #RedGhost!Jason #Talon!Dick

27 notes · View notes

boreothegoldfinch · 3 years

Text

chapter 12 paragraph viii

Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster? Is Kitsey right? If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement, the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or—like Boris—is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name? It’s not about outward appearances but inward significance. A grandeur in the world, but not of the world, a grandeur that the world doesn’t understand. That first glimpse of pure otherness, in whose presence you bloom out and out and out. A self one does not want. A heart one cannot help. Though my engagement isn’t off, not officially anyway, I’ve been given to understand—gracefully, in the lighter-than-air manner of the Barbours—that no one is holding me to anything. Which is perfect. Nothing’s been said and nothing is said. When I’m invited for dinner (as I am, often, when I’m in town) it’s all very pleasant and light, voluble even, intimate and subtle while not at all personal; I’m treated like a family member (almost), welcome to turn up when I want; I’ve been able to coax Mrs. Barbour out of the apartment a bit, we’ve had some pleasant afternoons out, lunch at the Pierre and an auction or two; and Toddy, without being impolitic in the least, has even managed to let casually and almost accidentally drop the name of a very good doctor, with no suggestion whatever that I might possibly need such a thing.

[As for Pippa: though she took the Oz book, she left the necklace, along with a letter I opened so eagerly I literally ripped through the envelope and tore it in half. The gist—once I got on my knees and fit the pieces together— was this: she’d loved seeing me, our time in the city had meant a lot to her, who in the world could have picked such a beautiful necklace for her? it was perfect, more than perfect, only she couldn’t accept it, it was much too much, she was sorry, and—maybe she was speaking out of turn, and if so she hoped I forgave her, but I shouldn’t think she didn’t love me back, because she did, she did. (You do? I thought, bewildered.) Only it was complicated, she wasn’t thinking only of herself but me too, since we’d both been through so many of the same things, she and I, and we were an awful lot alike—too much. And because we’d both been hurt so badly, so early on, in violent and irremediable ways that most people didn’t, and couldn’t, understand, wasn’t it a bit… precarious? A matter of self-preservation? Two rickety and death-driven persons who would need to lean on each other quite so much? not to say she wasn’t doing well at the moment, because she was, but all that could change in a flash with either of us, couldn’t it? the reversal, the sharp downward slide, and wasn’t that the danger? since our flaws and weaknesses were so much the same, and one of us could bring the other down way too quick? and though this was left to float in the air a bit, I realized instantly, and with some considerable astonishment, what she was getting at. (Dumb of me not to have seen it earlier, after all the injuries, the crushed leg, the multiple surgeries; adorable drag in the voice, adorable drag in the step, the arm-hugging and the pallor, the scarves and sweaters and multiple layers of clothes, slow drowsy smile: she herself, the dreamy childhood her, was sublimity and disaster, the morphine lollipop I’d chased for all those years.)

But, as the reader of this will have ascertained (if there ever is a reader) the idea of being Dragged Down holds no terror for me. Not that I care to drag anyone else down with me, but—can’t I change? Can’t I be the strong one? Why not?] [You can have either of those girls you want, said Boris, sitting on the sofa with me in his loft in Antwerp, cracking pistachios between his rear molars as we were watching Kill Bill. No, I can’t. And why can’t you? I’d pick Snowflake myself. But if you want the other, why not? Because she has a boyfriend? So? said Boris. Who lives with her? So? And here’s what I’m thinking too: So? What if I go to London? So? And this is either a completely disastrous question or the most sensible one I’ve ever asked in all my life.] [That little guy, said Boris in the car on the way to Antwerp. You know the painter saw him—he wasn’t painting that bird from his mind, you know? That’s a real little guy, chained up on the wall, there. If I saw him mixed up with dozen other birds all the same kind, I could pick him out, no problem.] And he’s right. So could I. And if I could go back in time I’d clip the chain in a heartbeat and never care a minute that the picture was never painted. To try to make some meaning out of all this seems unbelievably quaint. Maybe I only see a pattern because I’ve been staring too long. But then again, to paraphrase Boris, maybe I see a pattern because it’s there. [Do you ever think about quitting? I asked, during the boring part of It’s a Wonderful Life, the moonlight walk with Donna Reed, when I was in Antwerp watching Boris with spoon and water from an eyedropper, mixing himself what he called a “pop.” Give me a break! My arm hurts! He’d already shown me the bloody skid mark—black at the edges—cutting deep into his bicep. You get shot at Christmas and see if you want to sit around swallowing aspirin! Yeah, but you’re crazy to do it like that. Well—believe it or not—for me not so much a problem. I only do it special occasions. I’ve heard that before. Well, is true! Still a chipper, for now. I’ve known of people chipped three-four years and been ok, long as they kept it down to two-three times a month? That said, Boris added somberly—blue movie light glinting off the teaspoon —I am alcoholic. Damage is done, there. I’m a drunk till I die. If anything kills me—nodding at the Russian Standard bottle on the coffee table—that’ll be it. Say you never shot before? Believe me, I had problems enough the other way. Well, big stigma and fear, I understand. Me—honest, I prefer to sniff most times—clubs, restaurants, out and about, quicker and easier just to duck in men’s room and do a quick bump. This way—always you crave it. On my death bed I will crave it. Better never to pick it up. Although—really very irritating to see some bone head sitting there smoking out of a crack pipe and make some pronouncement about how dirty and unsafe, they would never use a needle, you know? Like they are so much more sensible than you? Why did you start? Why does anyone? My girl left me! Girl at the time. Wanted to be all bad and self-destructive, hah. Got my wish. Jimmy Stewart in his varsity sweater. Silvery moon, quavery voices. Buffalo Gals won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight. So, why not stop then? I said. Why should I? Do I really have to say why? Yeah, but what if I don’t feel like it? If you can stop, why wouldn’t you? Live by the sword, die by the sword, said Boris briskly, hitting the button on his very professional-looking medical tourniquet with his chin as he was pushing up his sleeve.]

And as terrible as this is, I get it. We can’t choose what we want and don’t want and that’s the hard lonely truth. Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us. We can’t escape who we are. (One thing I’ll have to say for my dad: at least he tried to want the sensible thing—my mother, the briefcase, me—before he completely went berserk and ran away from it.) And as much as I’d like to believe there’s a truth beyond illusion, I’ve come to believe that there’s no truth beyond illusion. Because, between ‘reality’ on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there’s a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic. And—I would argue as well—all love. Or, perhaps more accurately, this middle zone illustrates the fundamental discrepancy of love. Viewed close: a freckled hand against a black coat, an origami frog tipped over on its side. Step away, and the illusion snaps in again: life-more-than-life, never-dying. Pippa herself is the play between those things, both love and not-love, there and not-there. Photographs on the wall, a balled-up sock under the sofa. The moment where I reached to brush a piece of fluff from her hair and she laughed and ducked at my touch. And just as music is the space between notes, just as the stars are beautiful because of the space between them, just as the sun strikes raindrops at a certain angle and throws a prism of color across the sky—so the space where I exist, and want to keep existing, and to be quite frank I hope I die in, is exactly this middle distance: where despair struck pure otherness and created something sublime.

And that’s why I’ve chosen to write these pages as I’ve written them. For only by stepping into the middle zone, the polychrome edge between truth and untruth, is it tolerable to be here and writing this at all. Whatever teaches us to talk to ourselves is important: whatever teaches us to sing ourselves out of despair. But the painting has also taught me that we can speak to each other across time. And I feel I have something very serious and urgent to say to you, my non-existent reader, and I feel I should say it as urgently as if I were standing in the room with you. That life—whatever else it is—is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch. For if disaster and oblivion have followed this painting down through time—so too has love. Insofar as it is immortal (and it is) I have a small, bright, immutable part in that immortality. It exists; and it keeps on existing. And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next.

5 notes · View notes

mikeyhatesit113 · 3 years

Text

forever and never: Chapter 10

My car pulls up to the daycare entrance and Janie comes outside, the overnight bag slung loosely from her shoulder. Her face is blank, but her demeanor is defeated. She walks to my car and she gets in, shutting the door behind her. It’s just us two and a pregnant silence now.

A million questions swim through my mind.

Not to be outdone, she has a million excuses prepared.

“He drove you to work this morning?” I start by asking.

“Yeah,” she says quietly.

After the barrage of text messages from her and Bill, I am still unclear about what the truth is.

He said they met multiple times.

She said once.

He said they kissed several times.

She claimed once.

But whether it was a thousand times, or just once, I had a single question. This question did just pertain to the past 24 hour’s events, but it covered all the happenings over the past two years.

The hotel stays without receipts or bank records. The men who were just friends. The phone calls and text messages dripping with secrecy. The names under other names.

The nights where I watched her walk away.

“At any point throughout any of this, did you ever consider what you were doing to your sons’ home?” I asked.

My voice was not loud. My tone was not vicious.

It was a simple question that any mother should have been asking themselves. An anguished look comes across her face and she leans forward, putting her face in her hands.

Her muffled sobs fill the car and the atmosphere is devastating for both of us.

She had been caught, and another secret love story had been reduced to smoldering ash.

And for the third time in 2 years, I once again had been deceived.

Only this time, I had more answers than questions. I knew she was actually guilty.

Her lips had actually touched another man’s.

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

With this verdict, what would the jury decide?

They were lenient.

My heart wrenched at the thought of leaving her and the boys. After all we had been through, and all I believed we had overcome, I just couldn’t bring myself to throw in the towels.

I had watched those two little boys grow into walking, talking mini-adults.

James was no longer a curious Pre-K little boy. He was now 10, and he was funny. He had friends, and we had a great relationship. He loved Michael Myers just like I did, and he mimicked my wacky antics around the house. He was as close as a son could be.

Brock was no longer a tot in diapers. He was an animated kid who had started school now, and he loved to wrestle in the living room with his brother and I.

After 4 and a half years of being responsible for them, I was supposed to walk away without a second thought?

What if we could overcome this? One more thing to look back on as an old couple, decades later on that typical front porch swing moment. Saying with a smile as we are looking into eachother’s eyes, “We made it.”

“We got through it.”

“We proved our love was stronger than anything.”

“For better or for worse.”

Despite everything I knew, and how dirty I felt, I had decided to stay. I couldn’t pronounce it dead yet, despite what the vitals were telling me.

And as we moved on just days after the Bill scandal broke, I remained disturbed by a single, abstract thought.

I had trusted Bill, and he was a great friend.

He was my groomsman who saw us at our worst and our best.

But the fact that I was blindsided by his betrayal wasn’t because of those things, necessarily.

It was due to something else.

Like, the fact that, Bill wasn’t the one I had my eye on.

I was eyeing another person entirely, and we had already crossed paths.

Let me introduce you to, Steppenwolf.

“Mr. Steppenwolf is so funny,” Janie laughed in the kitchen as she was preparing dinner one day. We were telling eachother about our respective days, and she was telling me about how Mr. Steppenwolf, a fellow daycare teacher, had outsmarted an angry parent that day.

In fact, Mr. Steppenwolf was the director of the program at Janie’s center.

Sound familiar?

“And he has the craziest hats,” she giggled.

“Oh,” I responded. A balding man with gray hair in his 30’s with a wacky hat collection seemed interesting enough, but it quickly left my mind.

He was married with kids, anyway.

But then, Mr. Steppenwolf popped up on my radar again just days later.

I was scrolling through Instagram, and I noticed that Steppenwolf had been “liking” and commenting on almost every one of Janie’s pictures.

Despite the arena I was in, I wasn’t a terribly jealous guy. But for curiosity’s sake, I went to Steppenwolf’s profile and discovered that Janie was doing the exact same thing to his photos.

For instance, his picture of a stink bug had earned a “like” from Janie, and a bonus comment that said, “OMG Mr. Steppewolf, what a creepy bug!”

In addition, I noticed that their social networking relationship was barely a month old, and the commenting/liking had picked up in frequency.

But nevertheless, I wasn’t a jealous guy. However, I did casually tease Janie about the interactions with Mr. Steppenwolf on Instagram. She played it off and changed the subject.

Coincidentally, Mr. Steppenwolf’s profile went PRIVATE a day later.

But perhaps, Steppenwolf was deemed a true threat until one beautiful Summer day.

It was a sunny, July day, and I was going to a Fantasy Football draft at a friend’s house.

Janie, usually opposing my attendance to such events, was surprisingly supportive and cool with my plans to go. In fact, she whipped me up a batch of Buffalo Chicken Dip to take along as a party contribution.

“And I know when you guys get together, you like to stay out late. Just so you know, I won’t be mad if it goes to 2am or something. You deserve to have a good time with your friends,” she spoke.

“Are you sure you’re ok with me going?” I asked as I put tin foil over the top of the chicken dip pan.

“Yeah,” she insisted brightly. “I’ll just hang out around here, or maybe go see my parents at the campground,” she said.

“Cool,” I said, grabbing my keys. I was running a bit behind on time, and I had to get on the road. I had planned to leave 10 minutes earlier, and now I was probably going to be late.

Just then, Janie’s phone on the counter lit up.

Out of habit, I looked at the screen and saw a text.

From Steppenwolf.

“Hey bud, wasn’t sure if we were still on the for the movie? If not, just let me know, and I’ll kick back and hang around the house.”

I read the message, my jaw clenching and my mind beginning to race.

Movie? With Steppenwolf??

What the fuck?

Janie looked at the screen, and immediately after reading the message, she got frantically defensive.

“He’s texting the wrong Janie!” she insisted, her eyes quickly welling with tears. “He must have meant the other Janie in the other program,” she explained.

She picked up her phone and dialed Steppenwolf immediately. He answered, and once again, what she said next would determine everything.

“Hey Mr. Steppenwolf,” she greeted him. “I have a very upset husband standing next to me, and he thinks your message was actually meant for me,” she fake chuckled.

I’m not certain what he said, but Janie’s reaction did its best to make me believe that this was indeed just a big misunderstanding.

“That’s what I said!” she said on the phone, laughing.

She offered me the phone. “Did you want to talk to him?” she asked.

“No,” I said, scowling.

I wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on, but it didn’t look good. As I waited for her to end the call, I knew that I no longer wanted to go to the Fantasy Football draft.

I wanted to dump the buffalo chicken dip in the trash.

How could I go have a good time with these new suspicions?

In terms of timeline, the Bill scandal had not yet happened. That wouldn’t be happening for another two weeks yet.

So in truth, these were my first suspicions since a year earlier when she ran off into the night with Shawn.

But I thought we had moved past that? I thought I’d never feel that way again?

Janie hung up the phone and insisted that his message was meant from someone else. I did my best to believe her, but I was uneasy.

What if it wasn’t a mistake?

I reluctantly left the house and went to the Fantasy Football party, sitting amongst my friends and doing my best to act normal.

Janie, almost as if she knew that I was on alert, texted me frequently.

A few hours later, I left the Fantasy Football party and went to the campground her parents were at. Janie had went to visit them, and she invited me to swing by.

We sat around the fire, talking casually. Janie and I did our best to ignore the serpent between us that had just been resurrected, threatening to strike.

As the days that followed went on, I noticed other little changes in Janie.

She suddenly took a big interest into the sporty attire that the younger girls at her center wore. She suddenly bought several pairs of running shorts, and her behavior at home transformed into more of their demeanor as well.

She’d post pictures online of herself posing flirtatiously with them. Of course, these photos had a thumbs up from Mr. Steppenwolf, who was often lingering in the background and making goofy faces.

Then, she started staying out later at night. She’d cite after-work meetings at a nearby sports bar, but some nights, she wouldn’t come home till after midnight. I’d stay up and wait for her, knowing I’d have to be awake for work in less than 5 hours, but I couldn’t sleep.

I had to know she was safe, and I had to torture myself with secret suspicions.

I’d watch the Lancer pull into the driveway as relief washed over me. I’d run upstairs and crawl into bed quickly so that she wouldn’t know I had stayed up to wait. She’d come upstairs and get ready for bed quickly, and as she’d get under the covers, I’d smell the beer on her breath.

She’d fall out pretty quickly, but I often laid there in the dark as I stared at the ceiling, wondering where her night had taken her.

The weird occurrences continued one day when I saw a mixed CD in her car. It was titled “Daddy Mix”, and it contained nothing but songs with the word “Daddy” in their titles.

“Daddy Sang Bass”, by Johnny Cash.

“Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home)”, by Usher.

“Daddy’s Eyes”, by The Killers.

“What’s this?” I asked, holding up the CD.

“Oh, that,” she laughed. “So, I call Mr. Steppenwolf ‘daddy’ at work, and everyone thinks that it’s funny,” she explained. “So they all got together and put this CD together for me, and slid it in my mailbox,” she said.

The explanation seemed off to me. I’ve found many things my co-workers have done to be hilarious, but creating a mixed CD for them as a result honestly never crossed my mind.

It was such a small occurrence that I quickly forgot about it.

Either that, or I was actively overlooking things as to not find a reason to worry about them.

All I wanted was peace as a husband. I never believed that I had accidentally signed up to be a 24/7 private investigator.

Then one night, I came face to face with Steppenwolf.

It was a night where another after-work meeting was taking place, and she invited me. I sat there amongst her co-workers, and I found myself having a pleasant time as I met people and their spouses for the first time.

Then, Steppenwolf showed up.

I noticed quickly how he presented himself. Though he was a smaller man, he carried himself with an upmost self-importance.

I watched him get out of his purple sports car, and as he walked up, I saw him tug at the bottom of the tight lime-green polo he had decided to wear.

He walked into the outdoor patio area we were all seated at, and his co-workers welcomed him as he took a seat at the far end of the two tables we had pushed together to accommodate our party size.

Steppenwolf did not look at me.

Janie was seated beside me, deep in conversation with a fellow co-worker. I decided to drink some beers, and soon I found myself lost in casual conversations of my own with other people.

It was then I noticed, Steppenwolf and Janie were gone. I looked around quickly, but I could not spot them. I got up from the table and walked inside the crowded bar. After some quick recon, I located my targets.

They were deep in a hushed conversation back by the bathrooms, which were hidden from plain view. I walked up to them and as I stood beside Janie, I crossed my arms and faced Steppenwolf.

Their conversation abruptly stopped, and Steppenwolf shot me a sideways glance as he leaned on the wall. He walked away without another word, and I asked Janie about what I had seemingly interrupted.

“He’s just having an issue with another co-worker, and he was talking to me about it,” she said.

Soon after that night, the Bill events happened.

It was August now, and as Summer was winding down, Janie and I found ourselves in a shattered state.

But were we beyond repair?

The night before Labor Day Sunday, Janie and I decided to go to Hersheypark. It had always been a nice spot for us and the boys, but on this night, it was just us two.

Night had fallen, and the park was clearing out. There weren’t too many people left, and as we walked side by side, I noticed the continued silence between us.

“You ok?” I asked.

“Yeah, I just want to know that you’re ok,” she replied.

“I am if you are.”

The sunset that night, and the emptiness around us, was too eerie for me to ignore. It was symbolic of our love story.

----

The next day, we had a Labor Day cookout planned at our home. Close to the start time, Janie and I walked over to her mom’s house to get some bug spray.

My sister had requested some, and Janie found this as a reason to angrily march off across the street to accomodate my family.

“What is your problem?” I asked her as I followed behind her.

“Nothing, Michael, nothing,” she said.

We both returned to our house and our guests arrived. The cookout got started, and things started off normally enough.

Janie guzzled down alcoholic beverages, and she kept asking her step-dad to admit that she was his princess.

I played corn hole with some of the other guests, but predictably, things took a turn for the worst as night fell.

My father had taken my nephews to a local carnival that night, and he dropped them off at our house because my sister was attending our cookout. However, my father wanted to make a quick job of dropping them off, as his dog had been at home for hours without a bathroom break.

I stood out front with my sister as we casually chatted with our father, and then he got back in his car and drove off.

Janie, however, took great offense to this gesture. He had not come back to the party in the back yard to say hello, and she decided that she had an issue with this.

I picked up on this when I returned to the back yard, and Janie stood amongst the party guests glaring at me.

When I watched her walk in the house, I seized my opportunity to follow her inside and find out what was wrong.

“Hey,” I said as I slid the door closed behind me. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing is ever good enough, is it?” she asked.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Your dad, after all these years, still hates me,” she said. “What the fuck are we even doing?” she asked savagely.

Kelly came inside at that moment, and she saw our confrontation.

“Guys, don’t fight,” she said.

“I’m not fighting!” I said, my temper soaring. “She’s picking another fight with me!”

At those words, Janie scoffed and ran upstairs. When she came back down, she had another overnight bag slung from her shoulder.

The second one I had seen in a month. The third one I had seen in a year.

“And where are you going?” I asked.

“Janie, don’t leave,” Kelly begged.

Janie only wanted to talk to Kelly, but I barreled on, demanding to know where Janie was leaving to go this time.

Janie asked where the Lancer keys were, but I wasn’t about to let that happen.

“You aren’t taking the Lancer,” I said. “You’ve been drinking, and you’re not totaling my car.”

Janie didn’t scream back, though.

As our guests continued enjoying themselves in our back yard, Janie quietly left out the front door. I watched her from the door step as she disappeared into the night, one more time.

There was nothing for it. She was looking for a reason all along.

And I was tired of stopping her.

I was tired of trying.

But seeing her walk away never got easier.

I returned to the back yard, and though some people were aware what had happened, others didn't mind. Janie’s step-dad chatted merrily with our landlord, taking swigs of beer. I wasn’t about to spoil their time.

I walked up to my grandmother and uncle, and I quietly let them know what had happened. I walked them to their car, feeling bad at the failure I had become.

“Well,” my grandmother said. “You’ll have this. And remember what I said, you have a home with me.”

I thanked her and my uncle for coming, and after they drove away, I never felt more alone. Most of the guests had departed, but a few stayed. I walked around my empty home, wondering what to do. I decided to go to bed.

Of course, i didn't sleep at all.

Our Boston Terrier curled up next to me in bed as I listened to Linkin Park’s “Burn It Down” on my iPod.

The cycle repeated As explosions broke in the sky All that I needed Was the one thing I couldn’t find...

I got up several times that night, looking out the window and hoping to see her return. Instead, I remember seeing our landlord and a few of Janie’s family members sitting around our bonfire, still burning brightly.

After a brief stints of sleep and constant exhaustion, morning came.

The sky was full of clouds, and the air was humid and muggy. I walked around our house, seeing the mess in the back yard and the piles of dishes on the kitchen counter.

I was all alone.

I started cleaning up, trying to take my mind off of the situation at hand.

Had Bill re-entered the arena? Or was she with someone else?

I told myself I wouldn’t call, but we were past that point. Enough was enough. I picked up my phone and dialed her number, and it went right to voicemail. I said the only thing I could say;

“I’m not calling to find out where you are or who you’re with. I’m only asking you, out of respect for our time together and the home of those two little boys, to tell me what’s going on?”

I hung up and continued cleaning up the mess.

After a half hour, I called again.

“You don’t understand how serious this is, I need you to tell me what’s going on. Nothing else. Just tell me where things stand,” I spoke.

I hung up my phone.

Then, she called back.

I walked out into the back yard as I answered her call.

“Hey,” I said.

“I’m done,” she said softly. “We fight all the time. Things haven’t been right. We’re toxic,” she spoke. “I’m done.”

“Are you with Steppenwolf?” I asked.

“...yeah, but I slept on his couch,” she said.

Our conversation didn’t last long. What was there left to say?

I packed a few things in a hurry.

I was going home.

As I loaded some things into my car, I saw Janie’s mom sitting on her back porch. I shut my car door after putting my things inside the car and walked across the street.

“Hey,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Ekim,” her mom said. “I don’t know why she’s doing this. I didn’t raise her that way,” Janie’s mom spoke. “I can’t go against her, she’s all I have. She’s my baby,” her mom pleaded.

“I know. She’s with Steppenwolf,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, I heard. I don’t know why she’s doing this.”

---

Walking through my grandmother’s front door was less than ceremonious, but there are places throughout you’re life where you feel safe.

This was one of them.

My uncle had since moved in with her since I had moved out 5 years earlier, and he had my old room. But I didn’t care. I was eager to have any place to call home, and in turn, I moved whatever I had with me into a smaller upstairs bedroom.

It was my room when I was 14 years old before I moved to a bigger room. Since I had moved out of it, it had become a storage room for miscellaneous items and holiday decorations.

The bed mattress was gone, but the box spring was still there. I draped a few blankets on the top until I figured something else out in terms of a bed.

It would have to do for now, like everything else.

That day, I didn’t plan on staying idle and letting my imagination tear me to pieces.

There would be no sleep, no rest, and no peace.

So I might as well stay busy.

I decided to accompany some friends to a back yard cookout, and I needed to take several breaks away from the party to vent to my buddy’s girlfriend.

I was inconsolable. I couldn’t think of anything else.

Luckily, she was understanding and listened patiently while I spilled my guts several times that day.

My life was in pieces, and my marriage was over.

That night, they invited me back to their place to hang out.

I sat beside my one friend on their love seat as they watched the newest episode of the show, Breaking Bad.

I sat next to him and odd as it sounds, just not being alone made my eyes heavy.

36 hours of no sleep was catching up to me.

My head slumped over as I fell asleep, but I couldn’t fall into too deep of a sleep state.

Night was falling outside, and my vicious imagination was going to punish me for not giving it a chance to torture me all day.

I sat there, my head slumped on my buddy’s shoulder as I heard a song coming from the TV. It’s a song called “Crystal Blue Persuasion”, and it was playing on the episode of Breaking Bad. My imagination played a perverse slideshow for me as the melody filled my ears.

I missed her. I just wanted to be next to her.

And he had her.

The music from the TV played as the images in my head haunted me, my stomach turning...

“Look over yonder, what do you see?”

They start kissing in Steppenwolf’s living room, knowing they have the entire night together...

“The sun is a-risen, most definitely.”

They wander through Steppenwolf’s house toward his bedroom...

“A new day is coming, people are changing,”

They reach his bedroom and lay on his bed...

“Ain’t it beautiful? Crystal blue persuasion.”

The light goes out.

But for me, it was far from over.

Broken, but not beyond repair.

We weren’t finished yet.

“My secrets are buried now From my heart and my bones catch a fever When it cuts you up this deep It's hard to find a way to breathe

Your eyes are swallowing me Mirrors start to whisper Shadows start to see My skin's smothering me Help me find a way to breathe.”

Bring Me the Horizon “Sleepwalking”

NOTE: Though this is my side of the story, including my own personal recollections and opinions, the reader should not consider this note anything other than a work of literature. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

#dating #relationships #depression #breakups #relationship advice #divorce #marriage #mental health #suicide #begin again #new beginnings #taylor swift #never #forever #love #hate #papa roach

8 notes · View notes

thisisthepartwhereyou · 4 years

Text

BEASTARS MINI-STORY #8: “Shower me with Insights” by JCL

---

TEXTBOX: Somewhere in the ghetto, not far from the Back Alley market.

We find ourselves in a neighborhood somewhere in the ghetto, which is mainly composed of poor-looking apartment buildings that stand in close proximity to each other. We are a few stories up, the air between them criss-crossed by old wires and clothing lines heavy with clothes that’s been hung out to dry.

One of these lines is moving, as its content is getting pulled towards an open window. In it we can see Cosmo, the okapi-stripper whose life Louis and the Shishigumi once saved. She is removing the clothes from the line one by one, presumably to feed a basket next to her.

Suddenly, a swift shadow moves across her, as if something is passing over her in the air above. Her ears twitch and she looks up.

COSMO: "Huh?"

She can't see anything except more lines and the outlined roofs of the buildings around her, which are about two stories above from where she is. As she can’t see anything strange or out of order, she lowers her head and continues.

COSMO: "..." (Must've been my imagination)

Pulling off a bra and a Lil Bomber t-shirt, her eyes widen as another shadow moves across her. T-shirt still in hand, she looks up again with a mildly annoyed look.

COSMO: (No, there's definitely something moving up there. What is it, birds playing tag?)

She continues to look up, dead set on finding out what it is. Then, after a short while, she is given an answer:

It is Legosi, who is leaping from the roof above Cosmo. He seems unaware of being seen by anyone as he makes it across and disappears over the roof of the opposite building.

Cosmo drops her t-shirt, stunned by what she just saw.

COSMO: "WHAT THE FU-"

---

We go up and over the roofs, where we can clearly see Legosi chasing Kyuu.

The female rabbit runs and makes short but frequent leaps across the rooftops parkour-style. Peaking over her shoulder, she is looking back at the wolf. He struggles to keep up with her, as the distance between them keeps growing between them.

KYUU: "You're never going to catch me like that!"

Legosi, panting and sweating, realizes that she is right.

LEGOSI: (IMAGINARY CHIMERA)

The blurry image of Legosi's Imaginary Chimera-self manifests over him. While being just an optical illustration, the effect of the technique is clear: The wolf's standard running-style, which is quite rough and wide-stroked, turns more rapid and graceful. It's like comparing a spear thrown by hand suddenly moving like an arrow that has been launched from a bow.

---

We cut to the street down below, where we see a female tiger with her five-year-old son standing by a pedestrian crossing. She has her phone in one hand and her son's hand in the other; the two of them waiting for a traffic light to turn green.

The cub has an ice cream cone in his free hand, which he is licking profusely. Looking up with a bored expression, the cub's eyes suddenly widen as he spots Kyuu getting chased by Legosi from rooftop to rooftop. He turns to look at his mother.

TIGER CUB: "Momma, do bunnies and wolves fly?"

The mother, preoccupied with her phone, replies without looking up.

TIGER MOMMA: "Sure they do sweetie, all the time."

---

Going back to Legosi, we can see that the wolf is now catching up to Kyuu at a steady pace.

LEGOSI: (That's it! Just one more rooftop and I'll catch up!)

Kyuu makes a longer than average jump over to the next building, which is about a story lower than the one she jumped from. She lands on a scaffolding, makes an extra jump over to the roof and runs across it.

Right behind her, Legosi makes the jump as well. But on account of his larger and much stronger legs, his leap allows him to soar straight over the scaffolding. He is still in the air as he homes in on Kyuu like a triumphant-looking rocket!

LEGOSI: (NOW I GOT HER!)

However, Kyuu suddenly spins around. She has pulled out six throwing knives out of her ears, holding three each in-between her fingers. She proceeds to throw them at him in two simultaneous sweeps.

Legosi looks shocked. Having not landed yet, he’s unable to dodge! Out of alternatives, he stretches his arms out in front of him.

He then lands on the roof in front of Kyuu, bending over like he's hurt. But then he stands up. We can see that he is unharmed and has actually managed to catch all the knives between his own fingers.

Kyuu turns around and tries to continue her flight. Her eyes widen though, as she finds herself unable to move.

Legosi stands on one knee, leaning over Kyuu. Zooming out, we can see that he has grabbed her by her lower body. His hand is so big compared to her that his fingers have reached over her back and gripped her around her abdomen.

LEGOSI: "Tag."

His tail is wagging, showcasing that he has taken an instinctive canine delight in catching her. Kyuu on the other hand looks annoyed.

KYUU: "Okay, you won. Take your hand off or lose it."

---

We skip ahead a little, to where the two have returned to the roof of the abandoned breeding house where Kyuu, San and Louis were originally raised for meat-eating purposes.

LEGOSI: "You didn't say anything about having to defend myself while chasing you."

Kyuu, who is fiddling with the knives in her right ear, glances at Legosi.

KYUU: "It'd be very little purpose to train you to deal with surprise attacks if they're not a surprise."

She takes one of the knives out, holding it up so that she may inspect it.

KYUU: "Besides, you would have been fine anyway. These are totally dulled down. At most they would have cracked a rib or two."

Legosi sweat drops at this.

LEGOSI: (Yeah well that would've been a lot better...!)

Kyuu continues to inspect her knife. The edges of it gleams in the light of the sun.

KYUU: "Your defense has improved greatly, but you still show little initiative with your offense. For instance, if I had been an unfamiliar opponent, I could've misread you hunching over as having succeeded in fatally wounding you. My guard would've been down as I had moved in for the finishing blow, during which you could have either taken the opportunity to punch my head off or turn me into chop suey with my own knives."

Legosi grimaces at these ideas and leans back against an air vent. He raises his left hand and wipes some sweat off his brow.

LEGOSI: "I am really not good at forming such dark thoughts...!"

Kyuu lowers the knife and gives him an impatient look.

KYUU: "Mastering parries and dodges without any attacks doesn't make you a great fighter, just an exceptionally skilled coward. I've seen you at your fiercest. If you can master that instead of just using it as a last resort, you might have something. Otherwise you'll remain as half-assed as you are."

Legosi's left ear flickers at this.

LEGOSI: "Half-assed? I think I'm doing pretty good... Didn't I tell you about the buffalo?"

He refers to his fight with Mongo the caped buffalo in The Horny Horror Picture Show. Kyuu doesn't look overly impressed by said feat though.

KYUU: "You mean the muscle bound retard from Old Town?"

Legosi cringes at Kyuu's politically incorrect choice of words, which Kyuu ignores as she looks at him scoldingly.

KYUU: "Don't get me wrong, you are clearly above average, but you NEED to be more than that. You've done well so far, but with your current profession you'll eventually face opponents who are more formidable than you because they have one thing that you lack: a killer's instinct. That's the one thing that separates you from elite-fighters like that horse's ass of a Beastar you answer to. The only time I've seen you really use it is when you're cornered and there's no other way out... If you intend to continue doing this without getting yourself killed, you'll have to be able to whip it out like a switchblade!"

Legosi looks down. He has a melancholic and reluctant look on his face. Seeing this, Kyuu's expression softens a bit.

KYUU: "Speaking of which... Have you thought about what I told you back at that board game place?"

Legosi meets her look, remembering the time from a while back when the two of them talked with each at Yanni's, in Everybody Play the Game.

LEGOSI: "Yes."

KYUU: "And my little proposition in light of that?"

LEGOSI: "Yes."

KYUU: ".... And?"

LEGOSI: "I don't like it."

KYUU: "Like it or hate it, it is the most sensible option. Not everyone of your enemies will go straight to you in order to take you out of the equation. Some will go for where you are the most vulnerable. And in your case..."

---

We shift over to a collage featuring key-people in Legosi's life.

KYUU: "... It's your loved ones. Your former roommates, the members of the drama club, the tenants of the hidden condo and that girlfriend of yours. You can't protect them at all times from where you are now."

This collage feature images of his fellow-701s (Jack, Collot, Voss, Durham and Miguno), members of the drama club (Bill, Juno, Aoba, Kai and Els), his neighbors in the hidden condo (Sebun, Zaguan, Ebisu, Mugi, Raika and Fina) and finally his girlfriend, Haru.

---

The collage sequence ends and we return to Kyuu and Legosi.

KYUU: "Didn't you say you had a grandfather too? He might become a target as well."

The corner of Legosi’s mouth twitches as he thinks about Gosha, his badass komodo dragon-grandpa.

LEGOSI: "I pity whoever tries to go after my grandpa.”

Then his ears go down though as he thinks about his friends and loved ones.

LEGOSI: “But I am concerned about the rest. Most of them have no idea...! Still, it'd feel manipulative to do this without telling anyone about it, especially Haru. She if anyone should know if she's in danger."

Kyuu crosses her arms and gives him a skeptical look.

KYUU: "There are a lot of things that have happened since last Rexmas which you most likely haven't told her. What is another secret on top of that?"

Legosi's ears go even lower. You can tell that he feels really guilty.

LEGOSI: "Another addition to the pile of things I feel bad about... She still thinks I work at the Udon restaurant. I want to hell her the full truth... I am just not sure how she's gonna take it."

KYUU: "Look, I don't know squat about relationships, but if you can live through getting shredded by a psychopathic hybrid, surely you can survive getting yelled at by your girlfriend?"

Legosi turns to look at Kyuu. He is smiling.

LEGOSI: "You haven't met Haru. She can make me feel powerless in a completely different way... It's a kind of power you can't really fight."

Kyuu looks down. Feeling powerless when facing someone you're fond of is not unfamiliar to her, as we can see her think back to her savior and former teacher, Gouhin. Looking up at Legosi again, Kyuu suddenly wrinkles her nose.

KYUU: "...You stink of sweat. My nose is not as strong as yours, but even I can tell that you reek."

Legosi look surprised by the sporadic turn of this conversation. He then rubs the back of his head (which also happens to be drenched in sweat) with an apologetic look.

LEGOSI: "I'm sorry. It's unusually hot for this time of year."

KYUU: "We'll call it quits for today. Just go down and take a shower."

LEGOSI: "You have showers here?"

KYUU: "It's on the third floor, behind the orange door with two-three-seven written on it. There should be some soap and towels in there for you to use."

Legosi stands up with a grateful expression.

LEGOSI: "Thanks Kyuu-chan!"

Being called 'chan' earns him an annoyed glare from Kyuu.

KYUU: "Don't call me 'chan'. It makes me sound like I'm a little kid or something! Just 'Kyuu' or 'Kyuu-san' will be fine! You don't hear me calling you 'kun' do you?"

Legosi scratches his cheek.

LEGOSI: "Well no... But, considering my position... Shouldn't you call me 'aniki' or something?"

SHINK!

Legosi looks down. The knife which Kyuu had previously been holding has now been launched and embedded in between his legs, a few centimeters below his crotch.

He looks up and sees that the mere suggestion of having to call a dumbass, five-year junior wolf 'aniki' has led to Kyuu adopting an exceptionally pissed off look and summoning her own, monstrous-looking Imaginary Chimera, which is standing behind her like a rage-filled demon.

Realizing he may have overstepped his boundaries, Legosi gives off a nervous smile, raises his leg and steps over the knife.

LEGOSI: "Then again, I don't like to be pedantic. Just 'Legosi' is fine!"

KYUU: "Just head to the showers...!"

Legosi does as he is told and runs down the stairs.

---

Legosi manages to find the door on the third floor. Walking through it, he finds himself in what appears to be a changing room-like area with tiled floor and walls. Like the rest of the building it has the appearance of being degraded by time and disuse, with several of the tiles sporting cracks and ingrained dirt. The area is composed of two sections; the small square section that Legosi just entered, with benches and coat hangers along the walls around him.

The next section is longer and rectangular, with about a dozen long showerheads poking in from both sides of the long walls.

Legosi spots a couple of towels and a bar of soap lying on a bench nearby, as well as a few scrubbing brushes and an old raincoat dangling off one of the hooks.

LEGOSI: (I wonder why they would need showers in a place like this)

He then sees something alarming underneath the bench: a long chain with shackles. He looks disturbed.

LEGOSI: "...!" (I don't think I want to know)

He starts to undress, pulling his shirt over his head.

---

A few moments later, Legosi walks into the showers with the soap in his hand. He goes to the middle of the room and turns the closest tap. As he does, the showerhead gives off a strained, metallic sound before spitting out a stream of water that hits Legosi. The wolf shivers.

LEGOSI: "Ugh!" (FREEZING!)

Soon enough though, the water heats up and he becomes more relaxed. He rubs the soap in his hands, making it bubble and foam. As he does, he thinks back on Kyuu's words to him earlier, her face being visible in his background.

KYUU: “If you intend to continue doing this without getting yourself killed, you'll have to be able to whip it out like a switchblade!"

He sighs and closes his eyes as he washes his head and body.

LEGOSI: (Continue... I guess I have to continue, but I didn't get into this line of work because I wanted it... It just happened)

???: "Will you pass the soap?"

The wolf's eyes open wide and he turns to look at his side. He now sees that he is not alone in the showers. Next him stands San, the alpaca. He is naked and taking a shower as well.

Legosi looks surprised and instinctively takes a step back.

LEGOSI: "HUAH?! Where did you come from?"

SAN: "I came in right after you... Man, Kyuu really must drive you hard if you're so exhausted that you can't even notice a naked herbivore approaching you in the shower."

As he talks, Legosi can't help but to look at the alpacas's body. To his great shock, San is extremely skinny... Kind of like Christian Bale's character in The Machinist (2004).

The alpaca extends an open hand to him and raises his eyebrows.

SAN: "Now, if you’re finished with that soap...?"

Legosi politely puts the soap in the alpaca’s hand.

LEGOSI: "Here..." (I can practically see all the little bones in his torso! Is he ill or something?)

SAN: "Thank you."

San takes the soap and proceeds to wash his own body, taking special care of his long and fuzzy neck.

Trying not to look at San, Legosi continues to wash himself. As he does though, he notices that the alpaca is looking at him... Quite unabashedly.

LEGOSI: "..." (Why is he staring at me? He's not even trying to hide the fact that he's looking... Is it because he noticed me looking at his body?)

Legosi gulps and blushes as a thought crosses his mind.

LEGOSI: (Maybe he is into males?)

He turns his head to San with a civil expression.

LEGOSI: (Perhaps he'll stop if I show that I know he's looking) "Did you want something?"

The alpaca appears to be completely unmoved by Legosi's awareness.

SAN: "No, just looking."

LEGOSI: (It didn't work at all!)

Legosi grimaces, thinking back to moments when San has been around as he has trained with Kyuu.

---

We enter a brief flashback, which shows us one of Legosi and Kyuu's previous sessions. This one is special, as he is dodging an oncoming assault from the rabbit, who is wielding a chain sickle.

LEGOSI: (Now that I think about it, I know very little about San...)

We can see that unlike Kyuu, San doesn't physically partake in the training. Instead he sits down on a wooden box in the background, watching the two as they train.

LEGOSI: (He is sometimes around when Kyuu trains me, giving little advice here and there, but most of the time he's not around)

---

We return to the present, where Legosi is still thinking about this.

LEGOSI: (Though with a frail body like that, I wouldn't be surprised if he’s unable to do any physical training)

SAN: "You are a very good-looking animal."

Legosi turns and arches his head back.

LEGOSI: "HUH?!"

SAN: "Your body. Your muscles. They speak of an animal in great health... Do you exercise outside your training?"

LEGOSI: "Not really... I mean had gym class at school and I did some training with Gouhin, but I've never really gone to a gym or anything."

SAN: "Hm, I guess that kind of physique could be pretty average for male wolves then... I haven't showered with one before so I can't really tell."

He then points straight at the wolf's groin.

SAN: "Speaking of which, is THAT considered average by wolf-standards?"

Legosi crosses his legs and covers his junk with his hands. He feels targeted.

LEGOSI: "I ASSUME IT VARIES!"

San gives the wolf an amused expression.

SAN: "Ahaha, so that is the case! I am sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?"

LEGOSI: "YES."

San turns his head and looks ahead, proceeding to soap up and wash the spot between his ears.

SAN: "Sorry, old habits die hard. Checking out the anatomy of others is kind of my thing... Has been so as far back as I can remember… Did you know that our carnivore captors would take us when we were little? If you saw the chains, then you may have already guessed it."

---

We enter a flashback, in which we see a group of herbivore-children between ages three and five lined up in very same showers. They have no clothes and are linked together by shackles that go from ankle to ankle, with a long chain running through them.

SAN: "We would get cleaned, trimmed and deloused. Probably the most care that was ever shown to us."

The showers are running, and the children are all getting cleaned by carnivores in raincoats, who are roughly scrubbing them with brushes.

SAN: "Not that there was any real affection behind it though, it was just business. I mean who would want to eat meat with a side order of typhus?"

In the middle of the chain we see the young San, Louis and Kyuu standing in a row next to each other. San is getting the fur of his neck trimmed with a thinning scissor, Louis gets scrubbed behind his ears and Kyuu gets applied DDT through a large spray pump. The powdered cloud of insecticide causes her to cough.

---

The flashback ends. Despite the dark subject matter, San has maintained a jovial expression.

SAN: "At that time they would also take the chance to check us, to make sure our bodies had just the right amount of produce... It was probably there that I picked up the habit of checking the bodies of others, cause I knew that if I saw someone who looked particularly nice and healthy..."

San’s eyes go down to Legosi’s muscular and scarred torso, rising slowly up to his face. Something in his stare causes the wolf to look increasingly uncomfortable.

SAN: "... He or she would soon be gone."

Suddenly, the soap slips out of San's grip and slides across the floor.

SAN: "Whoops!"

San goes over to where the soap is and kneels down in order to pick it up, water dripping off his fur and forming a pool around his feet. We can see it even clearer from his back that he is alarmingly malnourished, with vertebrae, ribs and shoulder blades sticking out like the detachable appendages of a Mr. Potato-doll.

SAN: "What an upturned world, when being healthy seals your fate… Makes me glad I've always been quite skinny. I mean... Would you really want to take a bite out of this pitiful body?"

San glances back at Legosi with a grim look.

SAN: "Still, if I was cooked well enough, one could probably suck the meat off my bones the same way you'd lick the batter off a spoon..."

Legosi stares at him with an unreadable expression.

San purses his lips, looking kind of disappointed that he's not getting any interesting reaction out of Legosi. The alpaca then tries to stand up, but appears to slip and fall over, his knee hitting the tiled floor hard. He gives off a pained groan.

This prompts a look of concern from Legosi. He rushes over and kneels down next to San.

LEGOSI: "Are you okay? You’re not injured are you?"

San spins around, using a pool of water on the floor as a lubricant to move with a remarkable speed. He then makes a whipping motion with his forearm which launches a splash that is aimed straight at Legosi's eyes.

Legosi instinctively pulls back and raises a hand up to his face, managing to protect his right eye in the last second. The rest of the water hits his unprotected eye though, which he closes tightly. Apparently the soap in it really stings!

San's right hand shoots out at him, aiming at the left side of his chest. Legosi manages to block this blow with his left hand, holding San's bony hand back by his wrist. The wolf grits his teeth at him.

LEGOSI: "Stop! What are you-"

San's free hand shoots up and he pushes Legosi's left shoulder with two fingers.

Legosi's eyes widens. With his hand still around the San’s wrist, he throws alpaca away from him.

San stumbles back. He meets the wolf's shocked look and smiles.

SAN: "She HAS trained you well."

He then puts one of his hands over his other hand in a respectful, Bao Quan Li-gesture.

SAN: "Sorry about that, but I heard you were being tutored in surprise attacks today, so I felt obliged to contribute. I have to say you performed well, pulling a good, though imperfect, block as I splashed at your eyes. If I had managed to hit BOTH of your eyes, you would've been in serious trouble right about now."

Legosi doesn’t seem to hear this though, as his attention is entirely focused on his left arm, which hangs down and looks completely limp!

LEGOSI: "My arm... What did you do to my arm?!"

San raises two fingers and waves them at the wolf in a playful fashion.

SAN: "I hit a pressure point which rendered your arm numb and useless. I know it's a bit of a cliche to use in martial arts, but it's really useful if you ever get caught in and can't get loose. Don't worry, it's an easy fix though."

San walks up to Legosi and uses these fingers to hit the same spot on Legosi's shoulder as before.

SAN: “Boop!”

Legosi twitches. He then blinks, and slowly raises his formerly limp arm. Inspecting it with a confused look, he then uses it to wipe his closed eye. He has San fixed with an open, wary eye.

San scratches his chin and watches Legosi with a sense of intrigue.

SAN: "... Tell me though, did you try and cover your eyes on instinct, or did something tip you off to my intent?"

Legosi lowers his arm. Both of his eyes are open now, though his left has turned pink and bloodshot from the soap water.

LEGOSI: "By the time I knelt down I felt a nagging suspicion. You may look sickly, but as I recall you managed to immobilize Louis in just a few moves the first time we met, so I figured that you couldn't be as frail as you look... At first I thought you were looking at me because you liked males, but now I think you were taking a better look in order to further map out my physical weaknesses… You were baiting me."

SAN: "Exactly."

San gives off a jolly smile again, as if what had just transpired hadn't transpired at all! He then adopts an explanatory pose with his hand raised, as if he’s about to give a lecture.

SAN: "It’s called Deceptive Display: an old technique developed by herbivores that is meant to draw carnivores to you."

We see an illustrative scene playing out in San's background, featuring an old and limping wildebeest with crutches surrounded by the shadows of ill-willing carnivores with their eyes gleaming and tongues sticking out.

SAN: " See, for the average carnivore who is on the hunt, the notions of easy prey is irresistible. This instinctively draws them to the weak and injured before the strong and healthy. Deceptive Display exploits this, taking advantage of their dropped guard."

The illustrative scene fades away. San maintains his friendly smile, but his eyes have adopted more of an edge.

SAN: "However, you're not that average, are you? I had to act out a bit more, drawing you in by your unnatural sense of concern rather than your natural instinct to devour me."

Legosi stares at San, seeing the alpaca in a different light from before.

LEGOSI: (Kyuu-san is a tougher fighter than San, but San has more of a devious vibe to him…! Knowing he's been hiding such techniques this whole time behind such a lax and friendly face…)

His tail bristles and wraps around his leg.

LEGOSI: (It makes my skin crawl!)

KYUU: "Personally I think it's a one-noted fighting style."

Legosi blinks. He slowly turns to look down his right and discovers that Kyuu is standing next to him, stark naked and turning the tap of the shower head next to him.

The wolf's jaw drops, but Kyuu doesn't seem to be embarrassed in the least.

KYUU: "Trickery and deceptive tactics are invaluable if used sparingly, but are altogether too predictable for someone to fully rely on. If an opponent calls your bluff and you don't have anything else up your sleeve, you’re screwed."

She adopts an annoyed frown as no water comes out of her shower head.

KYUU: "Damn pipes...!"

San nods in admittance.

SAN: "Sadly enough, she has a point. I couldn't really fight in underground pits anymore after my opponents figured out how my technique worked."

Kyuu and San turn to look at Legosi, only to discover that the wolf has disappeared from where he was a second ago, leaving a Legosi-shaped imprint in the still flowing showerwater. Kyuu and San turn their heads to look at the way out, deducing from a series of wet footprints on the floor that Legosi has left.

SAN: "... What flew into him?"

KYUU: "Female nudity must embarrass him."

SAN: "Huh, how strange."

Kyuu takes Legoshi's place in the still running shower, and San goes to take his original place in the shower next to her.

KYUU: "I know, right? Males and females only differ in a few fleshy appendages left and right... What is there to be embarrassed about?"

Kyuu rubs her hands over her head, getting accustomed to the temperature.

KYUU: "Then again, he wasn't forced into shared showers when he was a kid. The differences between genders must be a big deal to him because he hasn't been exposed to them to the point of indifference."

Now being completely wet, the rabbit turns to the alpaca and extends an open hand.

KYUU: "If you're finished, hand me that soap."

SAN: "Sure thing."

San begins to hand over the soap, but his fingers pinch it, causing it to slip out of his hand and land on the floor behind Kyuu.

SAN: "Whoops."

Kyuu looks over at the dropped soap with slight annoyance. She turns around, bends over and reaches for it.

KYUU: "Still using the dropped soap-trick, even after my little speech about fleshy appendages and indifference? You're so transparent it makes me want to throw up."

SAN: "What can I say Kyuu-san? I'm male, you're a female. You may be embarrassed by your female drives..."

As she bends over, San can't help but to stare at the bunny's curvaceous backside. We can see that she has a few scars across her back; most likely from previous fights.

SAN: "... But I quite enjoy stimulating my male ones."

Getting up with the soap in hand, Kyuu proceeds to use it as she washes her armpits, her ears and her tail.

KYUU: "Giving into your urges so easily is one of the things that make you so predictable... It was no wonder Legosi could read you right away."

SAN: "Should you really be the one lecturing me on that? I wasn't the one who tried to proposition myself to that wolf the same night we met."

Kyuu’s deadpan expression breaks somewhat. She turns to give the alpaca an unamused glare.

KYUU: "I didn't proposition myself. It was part of his training."

San laughs.

SAN: "Yeah right, I bet that's all it was... I guess I would be way off for thinking you just wanted a taste of that desirable carnivore-strength through the raw, sexual onslaught of his HUGE-"

FWUP!

San looks stunned as the bar of soap gets launched into his mouth. He gags and spits it out. As he starts to cough up bubbles, Kyuu starts to whistle the Bubble Bobble (1986) theme song while she wrings the water out of her ears.

---

We skip over to when Kyuu and San have finished in the showers and are putting their clothes back on. San, now with his pants on, has taken a seat on one of the benches. He has his hand over his mouth and looks sick.

SAN: "My mouth still tastes like soap...!"

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Kyuu puts her own pants on.

KYUU: "Be glad that's all I did, considering your little street fight in the showers."

San looks up at her with a skeptical look.

SAN: "... What, you didn't like it? I just added a bit of extension to your lesson today. Considering surprises are my speciality, it’d be criminal if I just stood on the sidelines and did nothing to contribute."

KYUU: "There's a big difference between throwing a knife a dull knife at his face which you know he can catch and poisoning him and expect him to build up immunity to it on the fly."

The alpaca adopts a confused look.

SAN: "What are you talking about?"

KYUU: "Don't play coy."

Kyuu puts on her t-shirt and then her red training jacket over it.

KYUU: "I saw the whole thing. You tried to hit the pressure points on the left side below his ribs, which would've affected his heart and liver."

Kyuu turns around. Her deadpan eyes have become sharp and her lip has turned up to form an angry sneer.

KYUU: "If you had made a successful hit, he could’ve gone into cardiac arrest, putting his life in danger!"

San looks unaffected by Kyuu’s accusation. He leans forward, cups his chin in his hand and stares at her.

SAN: "... Why are you so upset? You mean to tell me you don't endanger his life during your training?"

KYUU: "I don’t throw lethal techniques at him before I'm confident he can handle them! He's not ready for what you're trying to pull… He probably doesn't even know that pressing pressure points is a real-life thing! You'll end up killing him if you pull more of that crap. And that’s not the only reason I’m upset."

Kyuu proceeds to pull something out of her pants pocket: one of the throwing knives she used earlier.

KYUU: “I took these for the training knowing they were dulle... But guess what I discovered just a little while ago?”

She then throws it across the room, aiming at a raincoat that dangles next to San. The knife pierces through the coat and becomes embedded into the tile on the wall behind it.

San turns to look at the knife. Meanwhile, Kyuu glares at him.

KYUU: “They had been sharpened. Sharpened to the point that I could penetrate the aluminum of an air vent! I sure as hell didn’t sharpen them, so it couldn't have been anyone except you! If I had hit Legosi with even one of them…!”

SAN: "If he would’ve died, he would’ve died.”

Kyuu looks a little shocked as she hears this from San. The alpaca turns back to give her a cold look.

SAN: “Survival of the fittest Kyuu, that’s the rule of the back alley market. If someone isn’t strong enough, fast enough or clever enough to keep the death at bay, then why should he amount to anything more than chopped liver? Isn’t that the exact words you’ve used in the past?"

Hearing this, Kyuu looks down and thinks back to the moment when Legosi asked her to command him to 'stay' in preparation for his fight with Melon; seeing that very memory play out in her background.

KYUU: "That was before..."

SAN: “I’ve been keeping watch you know. The training sessions you’re giving him now are freaking filler compared to when you started. You’re not acting like someone who wants to further him as a fighter. I don’t see a trainer teaching a pupil, but a girl who is enjoying a males company.”

Kyuu starts to look increasingly irritated (and quite possibly a bit embarrassed) by what the alpaca is suggesting.

KYUU: “Watch it...!”

San stretches his arm out and pulls the knife out of the wall. He looks down at it with a sneer.

SAN: “Just admit it already: You’re soft for him, otherwise he wouldn’t have caught back on that roof.”

---

We enter a flashback, at which we can see San standing on the roof of the building. Looking through a pair of binoculars, he spies on Legosi and Kyuu from a long distance.

SAN: “I could see your face.”

He witnesses the moment right after Kyuu has thrown the knives at Legosi. As Legosi bends over, San can see Kyuu’s face clearly.

She looks concerned.

SAN: “You looked concerned for him.”

Going back to San, we see him lowering the binoculars with a grim look.

SAN: “It distracted you, made you hesitate. It wasn’t because he was better that he caught you, but because your concern for him delayed your reaction.”

---

Returning to the present, we see Kyuu looking at San with a pair of big eyes. That look though is enough for San though as confirmation that his statement is true.

SAN: “You ARE soft for him… And because I am not, one can say I am a far more impartial teacher than you are being right now.”

Kyuu looks down. She seems to struggle at coming up with an appropriate response.

SAN: “... Let me ask you something, what is it about him that makes you THAT concerned about him?"

Kyuu grits her teeth at him, the question clearly irritates her.

KYUU: "... Louis and Gouhin trust in him. Isn’t that enough?"

San shakes his head at this.

SAN: "Louis and Gouhin also trust the Shishigumi, but I don’t see you hanging out with any of them in your spare time, acting all playful."

Kyuu blinks. Then she crosses her arms, fixing the alpaca a squinted look.

SAN: “Then again, maybe you would. With all that friendliness you are showing that wolf, maybe you would like a lion or two for the sake of variation. Maybe teach them an Imaginary Chimera or two while you’re at it?”

KYUU: “... Is that the core of your issue? Me being friendly with carnivores?”

SAN: “That tone in your voice makes it sound like I’m being petty. Don’t treat it like it's a small thing…! It’s when herbivores and carnivores kid themselves that they can co-exist as friends that they set themselves up for misery and bloodshed, with the herbivores getting maimed and carnivores weeping over their bloodied corpses."

San bends over and grabs a hold of the chain under it.

SAN: “You and Louis and this whole damn society is heading to that place because you forget one important thing:”

He throws the chain over to the floor in front of Kyuu.

SAN: “Every carnivore is the enemy of a herbivore. Remembering that is what keeps us alive!”

Things go quiet between them. Kyuu looks down at the chain... Two of it’s shackles are open and almost look like they're reaching out to bite her.

KYUU: "... Before Gouhin freed us, either of us were not seen as people. We were just consumable items… Meat to be eaten.”

Her arms go from being crossed to reaching further around her body and hugging herself, reservedly displaying a rare case of vulnerability.

KYUU: “Afterwards, each of the numbers went their separate ways… Found homes and families and what-not. The only ones who stayed here were you and me… We’ve spent our whole lives together… You’re my closest friend San, and because of that, you see me exactly as I am: A weak and self-serving turncoat... You may not say it aloud, but you KNOW IT. You don't judge me for it, and you’re my friend despite that... I am grateful, but I’ve also come to realize that that’s part of the problem.”

San stares at her, looking confused as to where she’s going with this.

KYUU: “My point is that I have never been seen as more than what I am… EXCEPT by that stupid wolf. For some reason, he thinks MORE of me, even after knowing what an ungrateful affair that has been to him! I still have no idea why he trusts me so whole-heartedly... Or why he doesn’t just see me as the gutter-filth who sold him out for money!”

She looks increasingly angry and frustrated the more she talks about this.

KYUU: “The Kyuu inside his head must be so far attached from the real thing that it’s laughable...! HE’S SUCH A FUCKING MORON I SOMETIMES WANT TO PUNCH HIM! And yet..."

Kyuu's imagination paints up a picture of Legosi's friendly face from before, as he thanks her and calls her ‘Kyuu-chan.’ This appears to melt her anger, making her adopt a calmer expression.

KYUU: "He’s made me realize that I want more out of this life… Not just possession-vice, but to be more as a person. Because of him… I want to be less like the Kyuu I am and more like the Kyuu he believes in."

San stares at her for the longest time after she says this. He then snorts and grins at her.

SAN: “Sorry, but… What a load of bull!”

Kyuu’s eyes widen and her arms go down on her sides.

SAN: “I know you. You want to be close to Legosi, and Gouhin if I remember things right, not because you think either will make you a better person, but because you HATE other herbivores.”

Kyuu tightens her fist and grits her teeth as San continues his talk.

SAN: “You hate us, thinking our line of thought and sense of self-preservation is what is holding animals like you down. Socializing with carnivores is just a way of catering to your envy of them… To make you feel more like one of them than one of us.”

Kyuu looks so angry at this moment that she appears unable to talk. But then, her fist loosens and her face relaxes. She closes her eyes, sighs through her nose and opens her eyes to meet San’s look.

KYUU: “Believe what you will… But consider the fact that you may not know me as well as you think.”

Kyuu turns and walks off to the door and opens it. She stops in the doorway and looks back at San over her shoulder.

KYUU: “I don’t hate other herbivores... But just because I am one, doesn’t mean I am required to love them.”

Her eyes turn sharp and bitter.

KYUU: “Carnivores may have kept us, carnivores may have wanted to eat us, but it was herbivores who sold us to them to begin with!”

She then walks out and slams the door after her, leaving the alpaca by himself.

---

Kyuu walks back to her room. Passing a staircase on the way, she stops to look down like she's noticed something.

We see that Legosi is still around, sitting at the bottom of the stairs.

KYUU: "You're still here?"

Legosi looks over his shoulder as he hears Kyuu. We see that he is still quite wet, with patches of water soaking through parts of his shirt (as he was in such a hurry to get away from the showers that he didn't stop to dry his fur off). He rubs the back of his head.

LEGOSI: "Ah... Well... I figured it would be rude to leave without saying goodbye, so I waited until you were done."

Kyuu gives him an incredulous grimace.

KYUU: "... What the hell? You don't have to be so polite. If you were gone, I would have just assumed you left."

LEGOSI: "Still, it wouldn't have felt right..."

Kyuu shakes her head at this, like she's thinking 'he's unimprovable'.

Legosi then stands up and gives Kyuu a more serious look.

LEGOSI: "I also wanted to tell you I've thought more about your suggestion... And I’ve decided on something."

KYUU: “Oh?”

LEGOSI: "I want to tell Haru first, before I say yes or no."

Kyuu blinks. Then she sighs, goes down the stairs and sits down in front of Legosi.

KYUU: "Very well then... When will you tell her?"

LEGOSI: "Golden week."

Kyuu raises an eyebrow.

KYUU: "... That's in like two weeks, why not right away?"

LEGOSI: "There are other things I want to tell her in the meantime... Some of which I think are better told as she meets someone very special to me. Golden week is the best time for that."

KYUU: "How very ceremonious of you. Personally I think the sooner the better but whatever, I’m not your fucking nanny. Do what you think is best.”

Legosi nods.

LEGOSI: “Thank you Kyuu-cha- I mean Kyuu-san. Oh, and thank San for the lesson too... It was very educational.”

Kyuu tilts her head in a questioning manner, like she’s not exactly sure whether the wolf is serious about appreciating San’s dangerous lesson or if he’s just being sarcastic.

Legosi turns around, looking like he’s about to leave. But then, he pauses and turns back to face Kyuu. He looks like he wants something.

LEGOSI: “Um...”

KYUU: “What now?”

LEGOSI: "Well, before I go… You know those swiping moves you made with the throwing knives... What do you call that?"

Kyuu gives the wolf a confused look.

KYUU: "Call?"

LEGOSI: "I mean, what is the name of the attack? What would you cry out while doing it?"

Kyuu gives him an incredulous look.

KYUU: "Cry out... What do you think this is, KAMEN RIDER?! What would be the damn point to cry out the name of a technique for the whole world to hear?!"

Legosi holds his arms out in an urging gesture.

LEGOSI: "Cause it'd be cool! You know, people would be like 'oh no, Kyuu's about to do her famous KNIFE SPLASH!'"

Kyuu stares at him with an open mouth, like she can't even compute the nonsense she is hearing.

KYUU: "... Knife splash?"

LEGOSI: "You know, cause the way it spreads is like water splashing... And it kind of sounds like 'knife slash'."

She continues to stare at him.

KYUU: "... Knife splash."

The rabbit smacks her mouth with an odd look, like she's trying to taste the word and it's turned out to be an acquired taste.

KYUU: "Knife splash... You'd like me to yell KNIFE SPLASH on the top of my lungs whilst doing it?! You don't do anything like with any of your attacks!"

LEGOSI: "Well not externally anyway."

KYUU: "Why Gouhin took you under his wing I'll never understand...!"

As they continue their banter, we go up the stairs and see that San is standing leaned up against the wall just out of sight. He is listening in on the conversation with an unreadable expression.

THE END... FOR NOW.

---

#beastars #jcl #2020 #legosi #kyuu #san #grey wolf #rabbit #alpaca #training session #fight #fanfiction #script style #mini story #shower me with insights

4 notes · View notes

sagessoftwings · 5 years

Text

Everything Takes Time Ch1

summary: After a toxic relationship, you retreated to Tony, basically the father figure in your life. You have a tragic past but a famous super soldier does as well. What happens when you and Bucky get closer and closer ;)

Warnings: small tang of angst, Tony being Tony. FLUFFFFF.

A/N: THIS IS FOR THE SWEETEST THING THAT REQUESTED THIS. OML yall, their such a sweetie!! Hope you all enjoy this, I’m actually excited to carry this on!

The AC blasted as you drove the U-haul truck down the road to the Avengers compound. Tony personally asked you to be there, coming up with all sorts of excuses, but after getting out of a toxic relationship a new scenery wouldn’t be too bad. “What could it hurt?” you asked yourself, putting the car in park. Not even two seconds after getting out of the truck, you were engulfed in Tony’s arms, he’s always been like a father figure to you. Ever since he rescued you from Hydra’s grasp from using you as a weapon, you’ve always respected him… even after the accords. You know where he was coming from, just protecting people.

“Oh… oh they grow up so fast!” he exclaimed and you rolled your eyes squeezing past his grasp. “I’d prefer to get all this in, you know? Cause the weather and I aren’t exactly agreeing.” He smiled and tucked your arm in the elbow pit of his, “Ah yes, well you see. I’ve taken the rails here”. You looked back to see a group of moving men grabbing the boxes “But Tony I have va-” a crash of glass meeting hard concrete interrupted you. “Valuables”. Tony winced at the noise, a nervous smile crossing his face. “I’ll pay for that, Seven years of bad luck Happy!” he yelled out before pulling you into the compound.

“ Wow-” you spun around, trying to take all of it in and a chuckle erupted from Tony. “Y/N… this is only the front desk and office area”. You blinked a few times and then tried to play it off, “Psh.. yeah! Yeah” you muttered and Tony lead you to the elevator. “Since you’re my favorite, don’t tell Rhodey, I gave you a room with a view. Just, the bad part it is, tin boy is on the same floor.” he crossed his arms and looked out of the window… wall? Whatever. You raised a brow, “You do realize I have no idea who these people are, right?” you asked and he chuckled. “Yeah that’s why you’re meeting them now” the doors opened and chaos erupted.

Steve was trying to get everyone in a line, but nobody was having it. The only person who was actually listening was Scott who just gave a thumbs up. Steve sighed “I hate these people” he hissed turning to you who stood a little behind Tony. A cough was heard and everyone turned to where you stood behind Tony. “Everyone this is…” he pulled you forward. “This, is Y/N. Play nice, I need her.” he shoved you softly and you stared at all the eyes that bored into yours. “Hhiii” you squeaked out and Steve stepped forward holding his hand out. “Steve Rogers, it’s good to finally put a face to the name” he smiled and you let out a sigh of relief.

“This is Bruce, Thor, Scott, Vision, Sam, and Rhodey. And most likely the only ones you care about, Wanda and Natasha” he smiled. After shaking everyone's hand, and having a good conversation with Nat and Wanda, things died down and you decided to help Tony with bringing groceries that he had delivered. After dispersing all the food in the Freezer and such Tony hopped up on the counter while you leaned. “Tell me, do you remember how to make that killer buffalo chicken alfredo?” he asked and you shook your head. “Yes” you smirked already grabbing the ingredients and telling Tony to do certain things like chop up garlic and heat the stove. After making enough food to feed an army, Tony set the table and you went to your room to change.

You tore the boxes open, settling with athletic shorts and an oversized hoodie. You looked at the bookshelf and the desk set up in the more than huge room. You ran a hand along the soft comforter on the bed smiling at the hints of blue and yellow, picking up a sticky note you noticed Tony’s terrible handwriting immediately. ‘Always was your favorite color scheme, or was it mine? Oh well, enjoy! P.s glad you’re here’. You smiled at the sweet note and stared out the window. “Well, he wasn’t lying” you rolled your eyes and open the box filled with pictures and little trinkets Tony would collect on missions and send them back to you. After half an hour of decorating your room and quite literally screaming the lyrics along with Britney Spears, you pulled out the mini white lights you got from Target, and danced around. Singing may have not been your forte, but shaking your hips was. As you screamed at the top of your lungs, two supersoldiers were being escorted to your room by Tony. You never heard the knock that came from Tony so he opened it and nearly spit out the wine in his mouth. “Some Avenger” Steve joked, elbowing Tony.

You jumped when Tony let out a cough, ending with you dropping the shampoo bottle you were currently singing into. F.R.I.D.A.Y shut off the music and you kicked the bottle into the bathroom connected to your room. “Hi” you spoke softly and Tony laughed “It’s dinner time , trainwreck” he waved and fled to the elevator in a fit of laughter.

“Hey!” you yelled and crossed your arms, looking up at Steve who stood in your doorway. “Oh, my turn. This is Bucky, he was training when you got here. Um, yeah” he said also taking off for the elevator. You smiled softly at the much bigger man. “Hi Bucky, I’m Y/N. Nice to meet you” a smirk cracked across his face. “Pleasure, doll. Well, I guess we should walk down to dinner?” he looked at you with a raised brow. “Right! Yes,” you squeezed past his bigger frame and he followed behind you. Once on the right floor, you turned and opened your mouth but nothing came out. “Cat got your tongue?” he asked and you let out a genuine laugh, that may or may have not made the super soldier blush. “Are they always like this?” You asked and he nodded.

“You have no idea, just wait till morning”

After dinner, you and Sam washed the dishes as everyone dispersed to their room after a long day. You grabbed a bottle of water before stalking up to your room. Since you were in a different time zone, you accepted the fact that you weren’t getting any sleep. Around 3 you did doze off, but noise made you shoot up and… was that screaming? You slid you hoodie back on and the screams led you to Bucky’s room. A hand grabbed your wrist making you throw your head up, your eyes meeting Steve’s. “Bucky…Buck- he gets nightmares. Pretty often but” you opened the door and saw Bucky writhe in his sheet, his hair sticking to the sweat drenched forehead.

Steve tried to yell for you but was scared he would startle Bucky. You looked at his form a second before running a hand through his hair. You crouched and whispered sweet nothings, it’s what Tony did when you had nightmares. Bucky woke up with a jump and his icy blues met your eyes. He stared at you, his body still shaking, he scooted back when you moved towards him. Tony peeked from behind Steve and a smile made its way to his face. “Bucky it’s okay.” you spoke softly and your soft palm spread out against his cold one. “No- I. I can’t let you see me like this.” he whispered softly. “You can, Bucky. I’m not judging, I just want to help”. The words came out so sweet and he met your gaze, “Please”. He broke down in a matter of seconds, gripping onto your hoodie. You looked back at Steve and he nodded closing the door, but he remained sitting down outside. Bucky let non-coherent whimpers into your shoulder as you caressed his head. “It’s okay Bucky, I see you” the words caused him to look up. “How.. how would you know?”. His sobs broke your heart, the way he bared his teeth. It was who you were, a long, long time ago. You sighed pulling up your shirt to show him your back, that showed scarred whip marks and a hydra symbol imprinted on your skin that must have been with scolding iron. “Y/N.. I” you smiled and turned back around. “We may be more alike than you know”.

You wiped the tears from his face and then his nose. You were about to go get Steve but Bucky’s metal digits wrapped around your wrist. “Can you stay, please? I don’t want to be alone.” you could see tears starting to brim his eyes, so you grabbed a pillow off his bed and a spare blanket and sat on the couch across the room.

“I’m not going anywhere”.

#bucky barnes x reader smut #bucky #Bucky Barnes #james buchanan barnes #james barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader smut #bucky x reader fluff #bucky barnes x reader fluff #Tony Stark #Steve Rogers #sam wilson

173 notes · View notes

hockeygods14 · 5 years

Text

Auston Matthews - For the First Time

Masterlist

Word count: 2,473

The number one thing on my bucket list is to go to a hockey game in every arena. So far I have been to ten.

Growing up in a state with no hockey sucked for a hockey fan. The only thing Alabama really cares about is college football. My parents moved to Alabama from Buffalo when I was about five. They grow up watching hockey so I grew watching hockey.

None of my friends liked hockey they didn’t know anything about it. So when the game was on I would go on twitter and just tweet about it and then I just talked to talk to other hockey fans on there and that is how I meet my six best friends on twitter.

I first started talking to Rachael, she is a die-hard New York Rangers fan. She was friends with Emily who is a St. Louis Blues fan. I saw Maggie bash on my Sabres so I bashed her Maple Leafs and somehow we kept talking. I congratulated Sam on the Capitals cup win last year and we had a long conversation about both our teams. Elizabeth tweeted me asking how I was a fan of Buffalo when I live in Alabama so that stared a long conversation, she’s a Lightning fan. Last but not least Jessica the Montreal Canadiens fan, I tweeted her about Carey Price because I have a soft spot for that man. So in our group, we have a Rangers, Blues, Sabres, Leafs, Capitals, Lightning, and Canadiens.

We all have started traveling to go to hockey games together. Right now Rachael, Emily, Sam, Elizabeth, Jessica, and I are all on our way to meet up in Toronto. Maggie has been bugging us all to go to a home Leafs game.

Something that the girls don’t know is that for the past six months I have been talking to Auston Matthews. I know me a Buffalo Sabres fan talking to Toronto's golden boy. Auston messaged me on Twitter after I posted a picture of Maggie and me, her in a Leafs jersey and me in a Sabres one. He thought it was weird that we were friends when we should hate each other. I told him Maggie and I fight about it all the time but we are still really close friends. The next day he messaged me asking how my day went and we have been talking ever since.

Once I stepped off the plane my phone started ringing. I took it out expecting it being one of the girls but instead, it was Auston, a smile appeared on my face and butterflies start flying around in my stomach.

“Hello?”

“Hey beautiful, are you in Toronto yet?”

“Just stepped off the plane actually.”

“What are you doing for dinner tonight?” I could never get tired of hearing his voice.

“I don’t know I haven’t spoken to the girls yet. You’re the first one I have talked to.”

“Well, some of the guys and I were going to get something to eat. I really want to see you.”

“Y/N!” I turn around and see Elizabeth walking fast to me.

“I will have to see what we are doing but they don’t know I have been talking to you yet but I really want to see you too Auston.”

“Okay, I will text you.” And with that, we said goodbye and hung up.

“Elizabeth!” I put my phone in my back pocket and got ready for impacted.

“Even though we saw each other last month it feels like it's been longer.” She wrapped her arms around me and I did the same.

“I know. How was your flight?” She picked up her bag that she dropped before she gave me a hug.

“It was good. There was a cute guy sitting next to me.” She pulled out a napkin with writing on it. “And yes I got his number.” I laughed and made our way to the front doors.

All our planes are supposed to land around the same time so we didn’t have to make so many trips to the airport.

“Well well well look who we have here.” Elizabeth and I turned around and see Rachael looking at both of us. “A Lightning and Sabres fan in a Toronto’s airport.”

“While you're looking at us have to you seen the Rangers play lately?”

“My dear Elizabeth it doesn’t matter how bad the Rangers are doing I will still cheer them on no matter what, Y/N should know all about that.” I rolled my eyes and went up to hug her.

“I don’t want to hug you right now but I will.” As I pulled away I felt my phone go off telling me I had a text. I looked at it and saw it was Auston.

Auston

I forgot to ask you if you thought about what we talked about yesterday?

Yesterday Auston had asked me to stay in Toronto for a little longer then just the couple days I was planning. Its all I really thought about on the plane.

Y/N

I have. We will talk later

“And who are you texting?” I look up at Elizabeth.

“We should go find Jess, Maggie, Sam, and Emily.” I ignored her question. I was laying on telling all of them about Auston I just wanted to tell them all together.

“We see you ignoring that question?” I knew the was Emily by her voice. “Now tell us who you were texting.”

“Were you eavesdropping?”

“There you go again.” Ignoring all of them I start walking ahead of them.

I start looking around for Maggie. I see her, Sam, and Jessica looking around for us. As soon as they see me they start to walk over.

Y/N

Where you and the guys thinking about eating?

“I’m hungry so I say we get something to eat,” Jess says we get in the car.

Maggie starts naming places off that we could go to.

Auston

CN Tower, we are about to call to tell them to have a table ready for us how many girls are there again?

Y/N

Seven total

“What about CN Tower?” I asked

“Oh yeah, I want to go there too,” Sam said looking at Maggie who is driving.

“We are going to have to call to get a table then.” It's now or never.

“There is something I need to tell you guys.”

“After I call the CN Tower,” Emily said looking up the number.

“No, it needs to be before you call.” They all looked at me. “So I probably should have told you all this a while ago but I didn’t know where things were going to go but I have been talking to someone.”

“Not trying to be rude or anything Y/N but why did I have to wait to call till after you told us that?”

“I’m getting there,” I took a deep breath in “We first started talking on twitter. I thought it was just going to be that one conversation but we have talked every day for the past six months.”

“Six months?!” They all said at the same time. Maggie pulled into a random parking lot and turned around to look back at me.

“He lives here in Toronto.” Maggie’s eyes went wide along with everyone else.

“Are you going to tell us who it is or show us what he looks like?” Rachael asked

“Is he going to be at CN Tower? Is that why you suggested we go there?” Sam asked

“Yes he and some of his friends are going to be there and you guys kinda already know who he is.” They looked at me confused. This is a lot harder then I thought it was going to be. “His name is Auston. Auston Matthews.”

“As in Toronto’s first-round pick in 2016 Auston Matthews?”

“As in the guy that had fours goals in his first NHL game?”

“The Auston Matthews that Maggie always says is better than Jack Eichel and you guys always fight about it?”

“That is the Auston Matthews I’ve been talking to.”

“Not going to lie Y/N but I’m kinda jealous,” Elizabeth said.

“Wait are we having dinner with him?” Maggie asked looking at me in panic. I just nodded my head yes.

After they all freaked out a bit Maggie more then anyone we made our way to the CN Tower. Auston text me saying that they were already there just waiting on us. As a ready that I started to get nervous. I’m about to meet the person I have been talking for six months.

We all go out of the car and I just looked up at the tower and couldn’t move.

“Are you okay?” Jessica looked at me and I didn’t say

“What if I’m not what he is expecting? I mean we have FaceTime but seeing someone on the phone and seeing them in person is a lot different.”

“You have nothing to worry about.” I followed them but I stayed back.

Once we got to the front they asked us the name of our reservation name they all looked at me and I probably looked like I was a deer in headlights.

“They’re with me.” Everyone’s head snapped at who just spoke.

“So it's true,” Rachael said looking back at me. I tried to say something just nothing came out.

“Can you show these women where our table is, please?” Auston asked the guy at the desk he nodded his head. The girls followed behind him and I stay put and looked at Auston walking over to me.

“Y/N”

“Auston” I smiled up at him and walked a little closer to him and hug him. He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me a little tighter then I did.

Dinner was very interesting, to say the least. Maggie freaked out a bit because not only did she meet Auston she always meat Mitch Marner, Patrick Marleau, William Nylander, Frederik Andersen, and Kasperi Kapanen. A lot of the time while sitting down at the table Auston and I was in our own conversation not paying any attention to the others at the table.

“So yesterday at dinner you and Auston didn’t really talk to anyone except each other,” Maggie said while she was getting ready.

Maggie had decided to get stay with us at the hotel instead of going back home last night.

“I know and I’m sorry about that-“

“No don’t be sorry Y/N, I just never seen you like that before.” I went to grab my jersey for tonight. “I really hope you aren’t playing on where that Buffalo jersey of yours.”

“In fact, I am planning on it. Is that a problem?”

“Your dating Auston though,”

“We aren’t dating,”

“It looked like you were yesterday,” I didn’t say anything and looked at my Sabres jersey. Since the girls and I started going to game together we would always wear our team's jersey it didn’t matter who the teams were that were playing. Today is the only day I thought about wearing a different jersey.

“I thought about this while packing my jersey you know. What I would wear to the game. I thought about buying a Leafs jersey but I would be a Sabres fan getting a Leafs jersey. I also thought about I’m Sabres fan talking to a Maple Leafs player who I’m also started to have feelings for.”

“I have a Leafs sweatshirt I can wear tonight you can wear my Matthews jersey.” Maggie handed me her jersey. I looked down at it. “And when we all go to a game in Buffalo I will wear a Sabres jersey to make up for this.” I laughed at her and took the jersey.

Maggie and I made our way down to the lobby of the hotel where the others were waiting for us. As the doors of the elevator opened we saw the girls standing there they looked at us and their eyes went wide. I smiled at them I did a little spin to show them what I was wearing.

“My skin is burning just so all of you know.” They all laughed and we made our way to the arena.

Auston

Meet me at the locker room?

I looked down at my phone and smiled.

“Loverboy texting you?” Emily asked walking next to me.

“He wants me to meet him at the locker room.”

“Are you going to go?”

“Yeah, I think I am.”

Auston told me how to get down there. It was weird walking these halls see Maple Leafs pictures all around. Some of them were of Auston which I stopped and looked at and just smiled at the man in the picture.

Once I got where he told me to meet him I waited till he came out. Once I heard a door open I looked at the direction the open door and see Auston walk out with Mitch right behind him. Auston looked up at me and down at the jersey I was wearing.

“I’m going to tell you hat I told the girls, this jersey is burning my skin and it-“ Before I was able to say anything else Auston walked over to me and kissed me. I have thought about kissing him so many times. I just didn’t think about kissing him in a Maple Leafs jersey.

“I’m surprised you didn’t kiss her last night.” We pulled away when we heard Mitch joke.

“Will you get out of here” Auston turned to Mitch and he just nodded and walked back in the locker room.

“So didn’t you just telling me to come here so you can kiss me?” I asked the man standing in front of me.

“No I wasn’t planning on kissing you right now but seeing you in my jersey I couldn’t help myself.” I smiled up at him. “I actually wanted to ask you something. So we have been talking for about six months and we just officially meet in person yesterday but I wanted to ask you if you would do me the honor and being my girlfriend and before you answer I know it might be hard at times but we can make it work I promise.”

“It is going to be hard I know that. It was hard talking to you for the past six months but here we are. My answer is yes.” I stood on my toes and kissed him. “I also have an answer to what we talked about the other day about me staying here a little longer and I would love to see Toronto a little bit longer maybe someone could take me around.”

“I think I know someone who could do that.”

#auston matthews #auston matthews one shot #Toronto Maple Leafs #nhl #hockey #hockey imagines #Hockey Fanfiction #nhl imagines #nhl fanfiction

204 notes · View notes

frankiefellinlove · 5 years

Text

Bruce's eulogy for the BIG MAN:

I've been sitting here listening to everyone talk about Clarence and staring at that photo of the two of us right there. It's a picture of Scooter and The Big Man, people who we were sometimes. As you can see in this particular photo, Clarence is admiring his muscles and I'm pretending to be nonchalant while leaning upon him. I leaned on Clarence a lot; I made a career out of it in some ways.´´

´´Those of us who shared Clarence's life, shared with him his love and his confusion. Though "C" mellowed with age, he was always a wild and unpredictable ride. Today I see his sons Nicky, Chuck, Christopher and Jarod sitting here and I see in them the reflection of a lot of C's qualities. I see his light, his darkness, his sweetness, his roughness, his gentleness, his anger, his brilliance, his handsomeness, and his goodness. But, as you boys know your pop was a not a day at the beach. "C" lived a life where he did what he wanted to do and he let the chips, human and otherwise, fall where they may. Like a lot of us your pop was capable of great magic and also of making quite an amazing mess. This was just the nature of your daddy and my beautiful friend. Clarence's unconditional love, which was very real, came with a lot of conditions. Your pop was a major project and always a work in progress. "C" never approached anything linearly, life never proceeded in a straight line. He never went A… B…. C…. D. It was always A… J…. C…. Z… Q… I….! That was the way Clarence lived and made his way through the world. I know that can lead to a lot of confusion and hurt, but your father also carried a lot of love with him, and I know he loved each of you very very dearly.´´

´´It took a village to take care of Clarence Clemons. Tina, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for taking care of my friend, for loving him. Victoria, you've been a loving, kind and caring wife to Clarence and you made a huge difference in his life at a time when the going was not always easy. To all of "C's" vast support network, names too numerous to mention, you know who you are and we thank you. Your rewards await you at the pearly gates. My pal was a tough act but he brought things into your life that were unique and when he turned on that love light, it illuminated your world. I was lucky enough to stand in that light for almost 40 years, near Clarence's heart, in the Temple of Soul.´´

´´So a little bit of history: from the early days when Clarence and I traveled together, we'd pull up to the evening's lodgings and within minutes "C" would transform his room into a world of his own. Out came the colored scarves to be draped over the lamps, the scented candles, the incense, the patchouli oil, the herbs, the music, the day would be banished, entertainment would come and go, and Clarence the Shaman would reign and work his magic, night after night. Clarence's ability to enjoy Clarence was incredible. By 69, he'd had a good run, because he'd already lived about 10 lives, 690 years in the life of an average man. Every night, in every place, the magic came flying out of C's suitcase. As soon as success allowed, his dressing room would take on the same trappings as his hotel room until a visit there was like a trip to a sovereign nation that had just struck huge oil reserves. "C" always knew how to live. Long before Prince was out of his diapers, an air of raunchy mysticism ruled in the Big Man's world. I'd wander in from my dressing room, which contained several fine couches and some athletic lockers, and wonder what I was doing wrong! Somewhere along the way all of this was christened the Temple of Soul; and "C" presided smilingly over its secrets, and its pleasures. Being allowed admittance to the Temple's wonders was a lovely thing.´´

´´As a young child my son Sam became enchanted with the Big Man… no surprise. To a child Clarence was a towering fairy tale figure, out of some very exotic storybook. He was a dreadlocked giant, with great hands and a deep mellifluous voice sugared with kindness and regard. And… to Sammy, who was just a little white boy, he was deeply and mysteriously black. In Sammy's eyes, "C" must have appeared as all of the African continent, shot through with American cool, rolled into one welcoming and loving figure. So… Sammy decided to pass on my work shirts and became fascinated by Clarence's suits and his royal robes. He declined a seat in dad's van and opted for "C's" stretch limousine, sitting by his side on the slow cruise to the show. He decided dinner in front of the hometown locker just wouldn't do, and he'd saunter up the hall and disappear into the Temple of Soul.´´

´´Of course, also enchanted was Sam's dad, from the first time I saw my pal striding out of the shadows of a half empty bar in Asbury Park, a path opening up before him; here comes my brother, here comes my sax man, my inspiration, my partner, my lifelong friend. Standing next to Clarence was like standing next to the baddest ass on the planet. You were proud, you were strong, you were excited and laughing with what might happen, with what together, you might be able to do. You felt like no matter what the day or the night brought, nothing was going to touch you. Clarence could be fragile but he also emanated power and safety, and in some funny way we became each other's protectors; I think perhaps I protected "C" from a world where it still wasn't so easy to be big and black. Racism was ever present and over the years together, we saw it. Clarence's celebrity and size did not make him immune. I think perhaps "C" protected me from a world where it wasn't always so easy to be an insecure, weird and skinny white boy either. But, standing together we were badass, on any given night, on our turf, some of the baddest asses on the planet. We were united, we were strong, we were righteous, we were unmovable, we were funny, we were corny as hell and as serious as death itself. And we were coming to your town to shake you and to wake you up. Together, we told an older, richer story about the possibilities of friendship that transcended those I'd written in my songs and in my music. Clarence carried it in his heart. It was a story where the Scooter and the Big Man not only busted the city in half, but we kicked ass and remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship would not be such an anomaly. And that… that's what I'm gonna miss. The chance to renew that vow and double down on that story on a nightly basis, because that is something, that is the thing that we did together… the two of us. Clarence was big, and he made me feel, and think, and love, and dream big. How big was the Big Man? Too fucking big to die. And that's just the facts. You can put it on his grave stone, you can tattoo it over your heart. Accept it… it's the New World.´´

´´Clarence doesn't leave the E Street Band when he dies. He leaves when we die.´´

´´So, I'll miss my friend, his sax, the force of nature his sound was, his glory, his foolishness, his accomplishments, his face, his hands, his humor, his skin, his noise, his confusion, his power, his peace. But his love and his story, the story that he gave me, that he whispered in my ear, that he allowed me to tell… and that he gave to you… is gonna carry on. I'm no mystic, but the undertow, the mystery and power of Clarence and my friendship leads me to believe we must have stood together in other, older times, along other rivers, in other cities, in other fields, doing our modest version of god's work… work that's still unfinished. So I won't say goodbye to my brother, I'll simply say, see you in the next life, further on up the road, where we will once again pick up that work, and get it done.´´

´´Big Man, thank you for your kindness, your strength, your dedication, your work, your story. Thanks for the miracle… and for letting a little white boy slip through the side door of the Temple of Soul.´´

´´SO LADIES AND GENTLEMAN… ALWAYS LAST, BUT NEVER LEAST. LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE MASTER OF DISASTER, the BIG KAHUNA, the MAN WITH A PHD IN SAXUAL HEALING, the DUKE OF PADUCAH, the KING OF THE WORLD, LOOK OUT OBAMA! THE NEXT BLACK PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES EVEN THOUGH HE'S DEAD… YOU WISH YOU COULD BE LIKE HIM BUT YOU CAN'T! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE BIGGEST MAN YOU'VE EVER SEEN!… GIVE ME A C-L-A-R-E-N-C-E. WHAT'S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! WHAT'S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! WHAT'S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! … amen.´´

´´I'm gonna leave you today with a quote from the Big Man himself, which he shared on the plane ride home from Buffalo, the last show of the last tour. As we celebrated in the front cabin congratulating one another and telling tales of the many epic shows, rocking nights and good times we'd shared, "C" sat quietly, taking it all in, then he raised his glass, smiled and said to all gathered, "This could be the start of something big."´´

´´Love you, "C".´´

34 notes · View notes

amitojo · 4 years

Photo

What inspired me to turn vegan

In July 2018, I made a choice to turn Vegan; and no, the food in “featured image” is not vegan, it was one of the first meals I had in Kenya — JusClarifyin

This choice was out of the blue. I couldn’t even imagine myself being a vegetarian, let alone vegan.

I did try to turn vegetarian once when I was in college (around 2011). I don’t recall the reason but I did decide on that. One day into my decision of being a vegetarian, I went to McDonald’s and had a McChicken 🤦‍♂️ without even remotely being present to the promise I made to myself just the other day. It only lasted for one day! 😂. After that meal, I gave up on the idea of turning a vegetarian. I mean, I couldn’t even remember it for one day! It just wasn’t that important to me I guess.

My eating habits resumed to its usual after that 1-day episode — having non-vegetarian at least once a day.

Fast forward to July 2018, I went for a family trip to Kenya and nothing was the same.

We traveled to Nairobi, Mombasa, and Nakruru. We visited Masai Mara National Reserve and Lake Nakruru National Park in Nairobi and Nakruru respectively, and in Mombasa, we enjoyed some peaceful time at the beach. It was just beautiful!

Attaching some pictures I took during the trip. Some of the best pictures I have ever clicked were from this trip but unfortunately, I lost those due to hard-drive failure 🤦‍♂️. Managed to recover only a few 😢 — Ensure you have your data backed up. Extremely important!

Anyway, we spent a total of 5-6 days going on safaris and witnessing the beauty and sheer vastness of nature, and various animals including the “Big Five” – Lion, Leopard, Rhino, Elephant and African Buffalo.

I remember just observing all the animals, some from afar, some from real close and I could see Hugo (my dog) in them. The way these animals were being/behaving by themselves and amongst each other, lying around, licking themselves, scratching, yawning, playing with each other; All of this reminded of Hugo. I just wanted to love them and pat them. I was even calling them Hugo! I had never noticed this similarity earlier in my life. We got Hugo in mid-2016 and I just never noticed, not to this effect, at least.

My eating habits during the trip were just as they’d been — preferring non-vegetarian food in all courses (tried some new meats) and occasionally a pint or two of their local beer – Tusker

Anyway, the trip ended and we came home having had an amazing time and lots of memories to cherish.

As we entered our home, we met Hugo and I’m sure you can imagine the reception! In my experience, I don’t think any human can match the way dogs welcome and greet their fellow humans.

Hugo slept in my room that night (he usually doesn’t sleep in my room) and I was just loving him, telling him I met his friends there and how much I missed him.

Later that night, I was just laying in bed and recollecting what all I’d experienced during the trip, going through memories, photos, etc. I could hear a buzzing noise around me and I noticed a mosquito. I was contemplating if I should kill it or not. Usually, I don’t like to kill insects. The very thought of it grosses me out. Yes, I have killed them 🤮 out of necessity but I try to not do it as much as possible. That’s when I started thinking about my eating habits. I was reminded of all the animals I saw and how I was in awe of them. How I was loving them as if they were Hugo. I got present to how we are all made up of the same energy, part of the same ecosystem, and I thought to myself, here I am grossed out at the thought of killing an insect and on the other hand I eat dead animals? That thought didn’t sit well in my mind. I saw myself as a hypocrite where on one hand I was being extremely thoughtful for one form of life and, on the other hand, I was not being thoughtful at all for the other form. All forms of life are life at the end of the day and ideally, I don’t want to take away someone else’s life. Who am I to decide which life is more valuable or who should continue to survive and who not. I guess It was easier for me to eat meat because I wasn’t the one doing all the killing? I knew I would never even think of eating Hugo or any other dog for that matter, so why do I eat other animals, I asked myself. All animals are the same. In that moment, something shifted inside me and I made an immediate choice to turn vegan.

I was up for the better part of the night that night researching about veganism, what is it to be vegan, what all I can eat, and so on.

That day/night, a whole new world opened up for me. The first thing I learnt was that veganism is not just a diet, it is a lifestyle. Diet is one part of it.

“Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.” https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism

Its been almost 2 years now since I made that choice and I have to say, I feel great on so many levels. I still am in transition, it is a journey. However much I love this philosophy, I can’t turn my whole life around so soon.

I used to 80/20 rule to prioritize my habits. First I attacked my diet and I am on about 90% vegan diet now. Indian home food is pretty much vegan if we take out dairy and meat, and believe me, there are A LOT of options. When meat was my first preference, I didn’t realise there are SO many options in vegetarian food. It’s funny, how people think going vegan would reduce their choice of food (or at least I thought so) but honestly, I think I have more options now than I had when I was a non-vegetarian. Earlier, I used to eat chicken every day in some form or the other but chicken nonetheless. Now, I have so many distinct choices of food.

I still seldomly consume some butter, mayo or other dressings when I go out to eat but that is changing thanks to the growing awareness on the topic, there are various places that serve amazing vegan food options and that number is on the rise.

I have to admit, at first I did miss eating meat, at least at social gatherings/weddings where I could see and smell non-vegetarian food around me. My taste buds really craved for that but it was shortlived. At such times, I was reminded of why I made this choice and honestly, that “why” is too big for me to slip. [Bigger the why, easier the how!]

Being a vegan, like anything is a matter of habit. Initially one might have to be vigilant/conscious about their choices but once the habit is formed, it is a routine — it is on autopilot.

Each day I am being more conscious of my buying decisions, for example, I check the ingredients before I buy packaged food; I ask the waiter what all is in the dish that I plan to order, I read labels on clothing to see what they’re made of, etc.

Initially, a lot of my family members asked me — why no dairy? dairy is fine; or why vegan? vegetarian is fine, and so on — And for that, and for anyone who is inspired to take on a vegan lifestyle or is at least intrigued, I am listing down a bunch of links that helped me become aware of veganism, its benefits (360º), what all we can consume, and the condition of the dairy and meat industry. If you say you love animals, just like I do, you won’t like what you see/read about the meat and dairy industry.

Bigger picture — choosing not to consume animal products doesn’t only benefit those animals, it also helps reduce carbon footprint. You can read detailed benefits, from various perspectives, of being a vegan here: https://www.vegan.com/why/

A detailed list of vegan foods along with suggested substitutes: https://ordinaryvegan.net/vegangrocerylist/

Learn what all food/products are vegan: https://www.vegan.com/foods/

—

In my previous post, I mentioned how Hugo has impacted my life. This post also comes under that category. Hugo has made me and continues to inspire me to be a better person. I will be sharing another insight I learnt from him in the next post. Till then you can read the first post of this series here: A conversation with my dog that changed my life forever!

Lastly, thank you so much for reading till the end! I hope this added value 🙂

If you liked the pictures, you can follow my photography page “MentalPictures” here:https://instagram.com/pictures_mental

#vegan #vegan life #non veg #non vegetarian #vegeterian #diet #plant based diet #food #health #lifestyle #travel #animals #nature #kenya #nairobi #mombasa #nakruru #masai mara #lake #beach #ocean

1 note · View note

falseroar · 5 years

Text

Dark Laughter Part 10: You Look Like Me

((Here’s the link to the previous part, Part 9: Storm Warning. This is definitely the darkest part of the series, with physical violence, suggested choking/stabbing, and suggested major character death. No gore and limited details, but still important to know going in.))

“Dark?” Wilford’s voice boomed out as he roamed the empty halls of the ego house. “Come on out, you silly goose!”

He opened a door at random and frowned at the darkened study. No one there.

The slam of the door met the rumble of thunder in the distance.

Wilford blinked, pink slipping in around the brown of his eyes as he went to the next door.

Another study, this one smaller with a single desk covered with notes and books. Newspaper clippings and photos were pinned all over the walls alongside post-it notes covered in erratic scribbles. In the typewriter, closely typed lines filled the page, some of the words merging together in the writer’s haste to type the same sentence over and over again.

“Well that doesn’t seem right,” Wilford said, his tone overly cheery as he shut the door.

He paused and opened the same door again to find a bedroom on the other side. Probably Ed Edgar’s, judging by the number of cowboy hats, but Wilford wasn’t one to judge.

Rain pelted the window on the far side of the room and a streak of lightning flashed outside. It briefly lit up a mess of covers and clothes strewn around a massive bed, a broken picture frame lying on the floor where a man in a uniform stared back at the camera. And then the room was back to normal, from the industrial-size tub of mustache wax at the foot of the bed to the posters of Buffalo Bill and Billy Mays on the walls.

The crash of thunder this time completely covered the sound of the door shutting and rumbled on as Wilford went through the house, his path becoming increasingly erratic with every roll of thunder, every flash of lightning. He moved from door to door and floor to floor without passing any of the space in between, but the longer he searched, the more what he saw just stopped making any sense.

Then again, when did anything here make any sense?

Wilford kept searching but, funnily enough, it was getting harder to remember exactly who he was looking for.

Well, whoever they were, he’d find where they were hiding eventually.

He had to.

Another burst of thunder shook the house and he laughed, but for some reason it sounded more like a broken, cracked sob.

---

“How?”

Dark moved closer to the mirror, staring intently at the District Attorney standing on the other side.

“How are you here, like this?”

They spoke, but after a few words Dark had to shake his head.

“I can’t hear a word you’re saying.” He moved closer to the glass, aware that he did not seem to have a reflection. It gave the impression that he was looking into a window which just so happened to have an identical version of your room on the other side than an actual mirror. They did not back away, but their eyes narrowed as he approached. “You…you’re the one who remembers.”

They nodded, once.

“Y/N—The other Y/N, do they know you’re in here?”

They shook their head.

“How long have you been in here?

One shoulder up and then down again in a half shrug.

Dark paused, letting this information sink in. He knew how you referred to the District Attorney, to the one who remembered as if they were a separate person. He’d thought you were just trying to blank out those memories, that with the right…incentive you would remember more than just the random flashes. That is, until he “borrowed” your body in the events leading up to his eviction. In that short time, he’d felt a second presence hiding in the back, stirring up memories and…other things best left forgotten, the same presence that had tried to fight him before he left them in the mirror all those years ago.

“Can I assume you just didn’t want to go back to where you felt more…at home?” he asked, rapping a knuckle on the glass of the mirror.

They scowled and made a gesture that Dark had no trouble identifying.

“Rude. And foolish, considering your situation.” Dark spoke with practiced confidence, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of them. This was…well, more than unexpected. It was interesting. He only managed to meet their eyes, the decades of pain and anger there, for just a few seconds before he looked away. “Then explain or stop wasting my time.”

They shook their head and sighed. After taking a moment to look past Dark, they turned and walked toward the back wall of the bedroom reflected behind him, where your board with its pictures hung above your dresser. They studied the pictures and took two down before returning to their place in the mirror opposite Dark, where they held up two different pictures of you, one from the beach and one from a project you had helped Mark on recently.

“Not the best pictures,” Dark answered and they sighed again. Remembering everything seemed to have done a number on their supply of patience. That, or they grudged every minute of this “conversation” with him. “I get it, you and Y/N.”

They shook their head and pointed at the first picture.

“Y/N.”

They nodded and pointed at themselves and the picture again, then held it possessively to their chest. It took a few more variations on the gesture before Dark said, “Your Y/N?”

The District Attorney nodded and their glare quickly made the smirk forming on Dark’s lips disappear.

“Fine, your Y/N. Then who is that supposed to be?” Dark asked, gesturing toward the second picture.

They looked around before giving up and taking their own fingernail to the picture. By the time they finished scraping away at the image and held it up for Dark to see, the you in that picture’s eyes had been completely marked out and a smiled scratched above the lower half of your face.

Any breath Dark had he lost as he stared at the image. With more vivid detail than he ever wanted, he saw you again, bloody and smiling in the mirror downstairs. He remembered the split second when he woke up in his office and saw “you” leaning over him, but your eyes…

There was nothing there.

“The Mask,” he whispered and the District Attorney nodded. “No, it…Why…If you knew it was here, why didn’t you do something?!”

The District Attorney gestured helplessly at the mirror.

“Don’t give me that! You and Y/N, you’ve warned them before, you’ve stopped me before, you should’ve been able to—”

They shook their head and help up the damaged picture of you, of the Mask, and laid it over the normal picture of you before pantomiming it pulling the normal picture away from their outstretched hand.

“It’s keeping you from them.” Dark stared at their reflection as this sank in. The District Attorney, locked away again, not even able to warn you of what was coming. How many times had they tried to reach out to the others, and he was the first to notice? “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

The District Attorney’s eyes went down to the pictures in their hands and he watched as their anger and impatience with him turned into worry and sadness.

“It isn’t, is it?” Dark asked, but the District Attorney didn’t look up. Two sets of memories, but one existed before the mirror, while the second was created inside of it, inside of that house, in another place entirely based on what you had said before. You weren’t made to walk around this reality, at least not alone.

“Y/N, where are they now?”

The District Attorney went back to the pictures and returned with one of several of the egos posing in front of a sandcastle, but their finger pointed out one in particular.

“Dr. Iplier. The infirmary?” When they nodded, Dark realized he needed to go, but thought he should point out one possible solution to their problem. “Y/N, you don’t have to stay trapped in this mirror. The…’other’ you may be unavailable at the moment, but there is an alternative.”

They took it about as well as Dark expected them to, which is to say that if any stare could turn him to stone, theirs came extraordinarily close. He didn’t need to be able to read lips to guess what they said in response, but he could practically feel the venom coming through the glass.

“Well, it’s your choice, of course,” Dark said and turned to leave but stopped short when he heard another knock on the mirror.

The District Attorney had moved to the back of the reflection and now stood next to the dresser. As Dark watched, they pointed at the bizarre stuffed animal sitting on top of it, the one Wilford gave you.

“This?” Dark asked as he picked it up. “You can’t seriously expect me to take this with me.”

The District Attorney nodded solemnly, their eyes meeting his with every ounce of sincerity.

“Fine,” Dark said, if only because he didn’t have time to argue. He tucked the rabbit or bear or whatever the thing was under his arm and pretended like he couldn’t see the smile on the District Attorney’s face. “But once I’m done fixing this, you owe me.”

At the door, he glanced over his shoulder again, but the District Attorney was gone. Holding on to the ridiculous stuffed animal, Dark disappeared into his aura and took the more direct route to the infirmary.

He stepped out of the darkness and, with perfect dramatic timing he could have done without, the thunder outside roared as he took in the sight of you, shivering in your sleep on one of the infirmary beds. There was no sign of the doctor anywhere, and the only other person in the room was the broken Google android that lay just outside the storage room door, the ‘G’ on its green shirt faded and dark.

He could hardly count the other you sitting perched on the foot of the bed as a person, with its blank eyes focused on the door and a smile on its face as if it had been expecting him.

“You certainly took your time, didn’t you? Not like there’s anything important on the line for you though, so…” The Mask swung its legs back and forth a couple of times before jumping up to its feet. “I can’t blame you too much. Still was really looking forward to seeing you again after our last little meeting, do you remember that?”

Dark stood his ground as the thing approached but felt his aura swirl protectively around him. Did he remember? Even just looking at those empty eyes and the complete and total nothing behind them he felt the pain in his arm again where it had carelessly broken it over a year ago. That, when he had come at it with everything he had. He’d learned then that whatever this thing was, he couldn’t fight or manipulate it. He knew of creatures like this, demons or manifestations or whatever the human word for it might be, but that was just the point: it wasn’t human. It wasn’t even on the same level as that glitch, because at least he could pretend to reason with Anti or at the very least steer that homicidal rage into something beneficial, but Dark had no idea what this thing actually wanted. Well, beyond spreading like a virus to possess and make everyone “look like” it.

But he wasn’t here to fight it, or talk to it. Right now, he just had to get close enough to you that his aura could get both of you out of this room and away from that thing’s influence. If that meant playing along and distracting it, then fine.

“I seem to recall an…incident,” Dark said, careful not to take his eyes off of it. “But you were wearing a different mask at the time.”

“Maybe I thought it was time for a change?” The Mask shrugged and appeared next to your bed, where it looked down at you and smiled. The color had faded from your lips, which pressed together with another shiver. Aside from that small movement you were still, chest barely rising with each breath. Beside your body, the Mask looked like a faded version of you but not by much. Less “real” in comparison, like it wasn’t fully here yet, but at this rate that wouldn’t last for much longer. It was growing stronger for every moment you grew weaker.

The Mask turned its head toward Dark, the same stagnant smile in place. “No, maybe it’s because of the way you all look at this mask. Even your dear blind ‘favorite’ hesitated, and he knew in an instant what he was looking at.”

“The Host?” Dark asked, stopping short in his attempt to move closer to the bed. If anything, that smile grew wider as he measured his reaction. At least one casualty already then, not including a Google, but Dark knew he had just left some of the egos minutes ago. They couldn’t all be infected, not yet. And it could all be undone, if they could just get rid of this thing again. Priorities, then: keep talking. “You’ve been busy, although I suppose you would need to make up for lost time. You said I took my time, but it took you over a year to even show any kind of face around here.”

“I…Was curious, of the one who sent me back after so much time together in the place beyond the mirror, of the man with all the masks and all these parts to get to play, of all these lovely puppets and fans and of so much potential to consider. Of the curious little house who became a voice and offered a choice and became…something else.” The Mask was back in front of Dark again, this time its version of your face far too close to his own. “Now isn’t that interesting?”

“Your rhymes could use some work,” Dark replied.

He immediately regretted it when the Mask laughed. It sounded nothing like your own laugh, or like any sound a living creature would want to make in any state of mind, and it continued for far too long.

Dark’s eye twitched as his aura began to ring, the darkness gathering in around him as the lights overhead flickered. “Your interest is…flattering, but my condition is old news at this point. I’m more curious about what you are. Why are you here? What could you possibly want from these idiots and bleeding hearts that you couldn’t find somewhere else?”

“See, you’re missing the point here, just how simple it is. Me—no no no, the question is, what do you want?” The Mask giggled and began to pace around the infirmary, fiddling with the corner of your blanket or the curtains as it passed by, but always, always keeping that smile and those hollow eyes on Dark. “I learned so much watching you, saw how…alike we are. Let’s be honest, nothing would make me happier than to see the Entity smile one last time.”

Dark turned as if to keep the Mask in sight, but the movement brought him closer and closer to your bed. Just a little closer, but at those words he stilled and his aura took on a violent hue, with a split-second afterimage snarling at the figure across the room.

“We are nothing alike—You are just a pathetic creature playing at being someone else. Without that “mask” of yours, you are nothing.”

The mask in question tilted its head without responding, but that smile on the image of your face twitched slightly.

“And you do not get to call me the Entity, or Celine, or Damien. I am them and so much more. I am certainly more than a pointless, messed-up reflection like you.”

“You don’t like my mask? Oh, yes, you did throw this face away when you had the chance, but maybe you’ll…Understand the desire to have a body of your own, a face of your own, even if you have to take it from someone else first.” It picked up a scalpel from among a line of Dr. Iplier’s instruments and twirled it between its fingers as it spoke, and Dark swore one of those blank, hollow eyes closed for a split second in a wink.

“…You might be projecting a little,” Dark said, and the smile grew just that much wider.

“Look at you, how far you’ve come, it’s…inspired me. Only you let all of these ‘idiots and bleeding hearts’ you called them hold you back, treat you like you’re nothing again? One has to wonder if you just want to go back to being a whisper in the darkness, a…suggestion in the mind. Knowing how fun that can be after my own experimentation, it’s still…disappointing.”

Experimentation? Dark briefly wondered what this thing had been doing besides haunting him but brushed the thought away. He feigned walking closer to the Mask, the path just so happening to bring him closer to your bed. It moved like Wilford, often skipping the space in between it and where it wanted to go, but Dark just had to get you in his aura and it wouldn’t matter.

“I, unlike you, understand the value of patience. I don’t need to possess everyone to make them do what I want when a word here and a word there is so much easier. And, you’ll notice that they chose to bring me back while you are just going to be thrown back to whatever crack you slithered out of. They know, and they will always remember, how much they need me.”

“Lovely speech,” the Mask said in the same cheery voice as always. “Is that what you tell yourself? Knowing that, you certainly don’t need some loose end getting in the way after you thought you took care of it so long ago. Easy enough to take care of that for you.”

Dark blinked and the Mask was gone from its spot on the other side of the room beside the instrument tray. Behind him, he heard a giggle and turned in time to see it balance the scalpel still in hand as it stood next to the head of your bed.

“No!”

It laughed as the word escaped from Dark’s lips.

“Maybe not then, maybe there’s something that could be done to make…Everyone so much happier, so much more ready to smile for me.”

Dark moved at the same time as the Mask, aura lashing out to keep it from getting any closer to you, but he was not prepared for it to lunge toward him instead. It reached for him with its mask of you, your hand gripping Dark’s throat as it bore him down toward the ground.

Dark’s voice and breath couldn’t escape as his aura lashed out wildly, tearing into the false form of you, unable to look away from your face that wasn’t made to smile that way, your eyes that lacked any spark of anything beyond that cold emptiness and, somewhere in the void, something else looked out.

But the Mask continued to smile as if it could not feel the cuts while its other hand, the one holding the scalpel, moved and Dark gasped. His aura reacted to the pain, splintering into multiple afterimages as the Mask added its weight to the point.

“Beneath it all, beneath that face you stole…You look like me.” It shouldn’t have been able to smile any wider or tilt its head that way as it saw the darkness of his aura begin to split and flicker between red, and blue, and, because it was looking for it, an echo of green. “Even after all this time, you just can’t let them go. But don’t worry, this will help. You’ll have all the time you need to realize where you went wrong, where you lost control, and who knows, maybe we’ll meet again…Entity.”

It watched, and smiled, as the last of Dark’s aura faded away until he stopped struggling.

((End of Part 10. Thank you for reading. Just a random question, but have you ever noticed anything about the way Maskiplier talks?

Link to Part 11: Heartbeat here!

Tagging: @silver-owl413 @skyewardlight @withjust-a-bite @blackaquokat @catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @purpstraw @weirdfoxalley @95fangirl @lilalovesinternet-l @thepoolofthedead @a-bit-dapper @randomartdudette @geekymushroom @cactipresident @hotcocoachia @purple-anxiety-blog @shyinspiredartist @avispate ))

#markiplier #fanfic #wkm district attorney #wkm y/n #darkiplier #wkm colonel #maskiplier #everything's fine #dark laughter #This is not the end #A secret hidden within a friend #The Smile never seems to learn #The Darkness can always return

33 notes · View notes

mst3kproject · 5 years

Photo

307: Daddy-O

I am nearly convinced that Alphabet Antics represents some kind of early MKULTRA experiment. There’s something about the juxtaposition of the chaotic imagery and the narrator’s soothing voice… like it’s trying to put me into a trance and a seizure at the same time. I don’t yet feel any need to ask my neighbours if they’re communists but it might take a while to sink in.

On to the movie. Our hero is Phil, who’s sort of a prototype of Buffalo Bill from Riding With Death in that he’s a singer, a trucker, and a racecar driver all in one. As the film opens he’s just met a girl named Janet who’s even worse at both driving and social skills than he is – clearly they were made for each other. Sure enough, they team up to investigate the death of Phil’s nerdy friend Sonny, and discover he was making deliveries for a drug ring. Unusually for a movie like this, they do end up agreeing to call the cops, but only after they have committed several more crimes, and this waiting nearly gets them both killed.

I don’t like Daddy-O, but that’s not so much because of anything the movie does wrong as just because it’s not the kind of film I enjoy. As MST3K features go, it’s actually not bad – not great, certainly, but solid enough. The race scenes aren’t all that exciting, but we’re never at a loss for what’s going on. The exposition can be clunky, but it tells us what we need to know. The main character doesn’t make much of an impression, but we’re only gonna be spending seventy-three minutes with him and there’s enough going on that it doesn’t matter, and the movie never tries to do anything that’s beyond its meager budget.

The music, meanwhile, is pretty good. I’m not gonna run out and buy the album (was there an album?) but the songs are quite catchy in a good way, and the score as a whole isn’t bad. I guess that makes sense, since the John Williams who wrote it was in fact that John Williams. Like Vilmos Zsigmund shooting Mixed-Up Zombies or J. J. Abrams mixing sound for Nightbeast, everybody’s gotta start somewhere. The music even approaches having some story relevance: the first song Phil sings is Rock Candy Baby, about a woman whose defining feature is her sweetness, and whom the narrator views as a possession (Rock Candy Baby, you’re mine). Wait’ll I Get You Home suggests a less innocent relationship, in which both parties are a little more aggressive – he directs this towards Marcia, but we are meant to see that his tastes have changed as he grows to like the abrasive Janet.

Why he likes her I don’t know. I don’t know why any of us are supposed to like Janet (it’s so weird to think there was a time when that name could belong to a cute blonde in a sports car, rather than a woman who wants to speak to your manager). She’s smug and rude the first time we meet her, lies in the knowledge that the road workers will take her side because boobies, and only changes her attitude towards Phil when she realizes he could make a pretty convincing case that she’s a murderer. She’s supposed to be a ‘liberated woman’, doing what she wants and keeping the company that pleases her, but Phil disapproves of this and so does the movie.

The way Phil behaves towards Janet isn’t particularly admirable, either. He talks down to her and manhandles her, and declares several times that if she were a man he’d punch her. I hope nobody in my audience is the type of clown who’d ask ‘if women are equal does that mean men are allowed to hit them?’ but in case somebody is: I don’t think people should hit each other at all, outside of in self-defense or sports that require it. Since neither of these apply to Phil and Janet then no, he should not hit her, no matter how obnoxious she’s being, and this would be true if she were a man, too.

Why are we supposed to root for these two to hook up? None of their interactions are romantic and their arguments, rather than building sexual tension, just make it look like they can’t stand each other. The ‘rivals to lovers’ trope was already old when Shakespeare did it, but Much Ado About Nothing makes it clear from the beginning that Beatrice and Benedick are actually rather fond of each other and enjoy their insult contests. When our first interaction between our romantic leads has one party threatening to deck the other, that doesn’t work.

Another character I don’t quite get is Daddy-O’s criminal mastermind, Mr. Sidney Chillas. Between his way of talking and his love of steam baths and manicures, I have a feeling he might be a gay stereotype of some sort, but I don’t know enough about the 50’s mindset to say. He seems to think very highly of himself, particularly his intellect, and yet his reasons for hiring Phil don’t make much sense. If he were half as smart as he claimed to be he would have turned this man away as soon as he learned that Phil had been taking an interest in Sonny’s death – or at least watched him far more closely, as he implied to his lackeys he would.

Is this the joke, that Chillas thinks he’s smart and he’s not? If so, it should be a repeated source of humour, rather than just a single doozy of a stupid mistake. Or is he actually supposed to be a brilliant strategist and businessman? Because if that’s the case, then I don’t buy it.

Chillas’ questionable intelligence is linked to another thing in the plot that doesn’t work – it seems to be a complete coincidence that he decides he wants to hire Phil. When I sat down to watch the movie again, I remembered it as Phil deliberately seeking employment with Chillas in order to find out what happened to Sonny. I think this is supposed to be part of the reason, but it’s mostly implied, and it’s Chillas who approaches Phil in the club to talk employment with him. At this point he should have already seen that Phil was hanging out with Sonny the night the latter was murdered. Or if Chillas sought out Phil specifically to keep an eye on him (or indeed, both), that would work, too, but Chillas specifically says he does not find Phil suspicious. The movie has already had a big coincidence when Sonny just happens to die along the route where Phil and Janet were racing. It’s not allowed a second one.

Other than that, though, the movie works pretty well. Events follow one another in a fairly logical sequence, and the clue that Sonny left exists for a reason other than being A Clue. Daddy-O really isn’t trying to teach us anything, but that’s okay. All a movie really has to do is tell an engaging story, although ones that don’t have a psychological theme often end up feeling, as this one does, a bit unsatisfying. The only thing it really emphasizes and returns to is that women are bad drivers.

Janet’s driving and her bad manners are the focus of what I guess is her character arc – at the beginning she’s driving like a madwoman and nearly causing accidents just to entertain herself, at the end she’s using her skills to deliver Chillas’ lackeys to the police. At the beginning she’s rude and abrasive to Phil, by the end she’s fallen in love with him. We’re not given any better a reason why she likes him than for him to like her. He’s been a jerk to her, too.

Phil’s arc is supposed to be falling in love with Janet, and that’s pretty much it. He doesn’t learn anything much about himself or the world in the process. It seems like he ought to confront the fact that his best friend, Sonny, didn’t trust him with the truth – shouldn’t there be some angst about that, or the fact that Sonny didn’t ask Phil for help paying for his mother’s treatment rather than turning to a life of crime? Between that and the fact that Janet turns out to be a lot nicer once you get to know her, the movie could have been about how you can never be sure you know somebody, but they didn’t bother.

The friendship between Phil and Sonny was particularly poorly-handled. Phil says, some people have brothers, I had Sonny, but this is the epitome of telling rather than showing. When we see the two interact, Sonny refuses to talk about what’s bothering, gives Phil a locker key, and vanishes. We know nothing about Sonny other than that he apparently wasn’t too bright (he hid the drugs in his locker at a gym owned by a guy he must know works for Chillas), and so we find it hard to get involved in Phil’s quest to find out what happened to him. We believe far more in Phil’s driving skills because we saw those in the opening sequence. It’s disappointing that the later scenes mostly just show him at a steering wheel in front of a projection screen, but because we’ve already seen him on the road, we can believe in it.

The problems in Daddy-O are pretty easy to pick out, and could have been fixed with just one more script rewrite – none of them would have required more money or even better actors, and they would have made the whole story much more satisfying and meaningful. The movie as it is works well enough for a crummy B-picture, but just a little more work could have made it an A. It was also supposed to be career musician Dick Contino’s big break into film, but he ended up being in only four movies between 1958 and 1960 before deciding it just wasn’t worth it. Since one of the other three was Girls Town, that means no less than half his entire filmography was featured on MST3K!

#mst3k #reviews #daddy-o #50s

31 notes · View notes

hockeyplayerstories · 5 years

Text

Rasmus Dahlin | Comfort Is All I Need

College assignments to be done, crazy things happening at work was all that I was thinking about at the moment. These assignments would help boost my grades up but I can’t seem to get to them because of my job. The reason why I am attending college is to get a good job that paid me well but now that I think about it, I love the job I have now. I am just going to college because my parents wanted me to go when in reality being main merch creator for the Buffalo Sabres was what I always wanted to do. When I was little, I loved playing hockey and always dreamed about working for my favorite NHL team. I always loved art and would draw my ideas hoping that one day they would get used and they did and all the fans loved them, that made me happy. I also helped the equipment managers order new equipment occasionally.

Currently sitting in my office at the rink taking a break from drawing new merch ideas, I think about everything that has happened to get me to this point and can’t help but think about all the school that I had to do before the holidays start which only adds to the stress I already have from making sure that all the fans have what they want ordering online. I actually have thought about quitting college before, didn’t because my parents weren’t happy when I brought it up and now have stopped talking to me so I think it’s okay to just stop going, I will just call. Now that I think about it, it does make me sad that my parents aren’t talking to me all because I don’t want to get a better job than I have now but c'mon who wouldn’t want this job. I made friends with half the team, cried when a couple would get traded and laughed with the new players, the veterans or the coaching staff would introduce me as Champ which was the nickname my first Coach gave me and it has stuck with me growing up. I remember the first time the team heard my nickname, the Coach who coached me from novice to peewee’s came to visit me and at that time I had a whole squad in my office just hanging with me talking about ideas while sitting on the few furniture I have in my office while watching TV, he walks in looks at me and goes ‘Hey Champ’ and then continues his way down the hall while everyone in the room asked me why he called me that, after that they started asking me to play some shiny with them about once a week.

I didn’t realize I was crying until a tear dropped on to my desk, it's a good thing I don’t wear make up cuz then it would be all over my cheeks with the way i was wiping my tears away. They still went down my face as I started answering emails from the equipment managers since they were asking me to send out orders. I completely forgot that Coach was showing some players around because I was so focused on thinking about what to do to reduce my stress. The tears still fell as Coach opened the door “this is Y/N also known as Champ, she takes care of the orders of equipment and the merch” when the players looked inside, I just waved and smiled a watery smile. They all just stared at me, I notice Rasmus has a soft look on his face, even the Coach stared at me “you okay?” He asked me “yeah I will be fine” I say, tears still slowly going down my face as I wave it off as if it’s nothing and look back at my computer and laptop sat on the desk. What I didn’t see was when they were leaving, I assumed Coach told them I would be fine, Rasmus whispering that he would come back to see me after and Coach nodding his head as he closed the door behind him. I just continued my work planning on taking a break for about an hour, being good friends with the people who take care the rink, they let me use the ice when I want which I only use during times like these when I have to get rid of stress, shooting a puck and skating around does the job.

Wiping my face one more time, I make sure the email I just hit send on is sent before pushing my chair on wheels back and walk to the makeshift mudroom/closet where I keep my equipment and other things, it even has a little kitchen area with a small fridge and toaster oven on the counter, the room was just a little smaller than my office but it was beneficial. With my helmet on my head, gloves and stick in one hand and skates in the other, I make my way out of my office door and to the elevator. On my way there, I pass by the Coach talking alone with Rasmus, before I pass them I slow down enough to point in the direction of the ice looking Coach in a way of asking silently, very thankful when he nods his head. “Hey Y/N!” I hear Rasmus yell from where I am standing at the elevator, I turn to look at him still standing with the Coach “Do you mind if I hang out with you today?” He asks, I just shake my head as if saying I didn’t mind at all. It was the perfect idea and I know he wasn’t the only one thinking that because as he walks to me after saying goodbye to Coach, I see Coach smiles and give me a nod turning around to return to his office. It silent as we wait for the elevator, I feel his eyes on me and I don’t know what to think about it. He is probably judging me for how red my eyes still are, I sniffle a couple times before I reach the bench to tie my skates while he went to get his equipment.

Done with tying my laces, I notice he hasn’t returned yet but I didn’t really care since it was his choice to hang out with me, he probably found another rookie to hang out with. Making sure my visor is clean and that I can see through it as I place it on my head snapping the snaps to keep it on my head, I shove my hands into my gloves and grab my stick while stepping through the open bench door onto the ice. I skate the first three laps a low speed to not waste my energy, on the forth, I shift to skate backwards just in time to see Rasmus sitting on the beach watching me, it seems he has been sat there for a couple of minutes. After a few minutes, he tosses ten pucks on ice and I place them in formation of a drill I loved to do as a kid in the center circle to practice edge work and stop on the farthest blue line after moving the net closer. I tap my stick on the ice asking for a puck and I receive one that slowly glides to my stick, I wait looking at Rasmus to signal go in a position ready to take off. No whistle? Just clap your stick on the ice. With the clap of his stick when he steps onto the ice, I control the puck around the pucks while skating as fast as I can, taking a wrister top shelf when I successfully went through the pucks without touching them. The sound of clapping makes me look up from the ice to see not only Rasmus leaning against the bench’s boards but also about half the team is and Coach is there is well, I can’t help but smile a little. I get back into position waiting for a puck but not before get a little advice from Buffalo’s captain “when going around the pucks, tuck and lean a little more in towards where you are turning, that was perfect other than that” Jack says, everyone else agrees. They continue to cheer until I am done with my ice session, feeling a lot better than before.

It has been a hour since we, Rasmus and I, got back to my office and haven’t said a word. While I continue my work, he watched TV with his shoes off and feet up laying across the couch. It’s all fine and dandy for a couple of minutes until I am reminded why I was sad,I looked through my phone notifications where a text message from my mom asking if I did my assignments still was and before I know it tears are streaming down my face but I am silent and try to make it seem like I am okay. I put my hands on my face to hide before Rasmus could see me but he already knows, I hear his socked feet walking towards me. “Hey, you’re okay shhh I got you it’s okay” he pulls me out of my chair and into him until my head is on his chest. I hug him back tightly for a few seconds before he pulls away to look me in the eyes and pulls me to the couch, he stops and sighs “I know we just met Y/N but I’ll be honest, I have completely fallen for you..........and I want to try a relationship because I hate thinking about you and another male and I want to be the one to make you happy and help you when you are upset. It broke my heart when I saw you crying earlier today, will you give me the chance?” all I can do is smile because he sounded nervous and nod my head, pecking him on cheek. He smiles back and lays down on his back before motioning me to lay on him, we cuddled and talked about what was going on and how to fix it until we fall a sleep. Alex Nylander even took a picture when walked into my office to see me and posted it Instagram “Aww look at the new couple all cuddled up” it got so many likes and lets just say I almost killed him when I woke up but didn’t because it looked adorable.

### I am sorry if it isn’t what requested, if you requested it. I don’t like writing about sadness, its just isn’t my style. if you don’t like it don’t be afraid to tell me and I will fix it. The skating to reduce stress is what I actually do, I go to skate about four times a week and it absolutely helps. I love feeling the wind in my face, through my helmet of course, when I pick up speed. I do plan on trying hockey but because i started late I have to wait until i am 18 to play for the local team. It gives me time to work on perfecting my skating so I am not upset about that. Oh! and the nickname Champ is my actually nickname at the rink, well my friend calls me that because he was there since I started at 15 and has told me I have gotten faster and better ###

****Reminder: I won’t be writing about Rasmus again, so please request another player and make sure I haven’t already written with that player. I did another Rasmus because I did have this in mind so I wrote it. I mean I would be glad to write more than one with the same player but my original plan was to, like I said, write one imagine for each player****

#rasmus dahlin #rasmus dahlin imagine #nhl imagines #hockey imagines #NHL Rookie Imagines #buffalo sabres

47 notes · View notes

jastenes-league-unlimited · 5 years

Text

How A Single Music Can Change The World

There's this someone who told me that "A poetry can't stop a battle nor can stop a war tank." But little do we know that the song Silent Night / Sille Nacht impromptly made a history of ceasefire for a day in World War I and made soldiers sang Christmas songs in the midst of cold night?

In WWI 1914, a German soldier named Walter Kirchhoff sang the said song in top of his lungs, following some of his buddies, his fellow soldiers, and also their enemies. And troops crawled forward into no man's land, shook hands with their fellow British enemies, ended up playing football and giving some souvenirs.

*the original photo of German and British met in no-man’s land*

The day after, soldiers wrote home to their families, wives, and parents...

What was happened?!

"It was a beautiful moonlit night, frost on the ground, white almost everywhere; and about seven or eight in the evening there was a lot of commotion in the German trenches and there were these lights – I don't know what they were. And then they sang 'Silent Night' – 'Stille Nacht'. I shall never forget it, it was one of the highlights of my life. I thought, what a beautiful tune."

- Private Albert Moren of the Second Queens Regiment.

"I shouted to our enemies that we didn't wish to shoot and that we make a Christmas truce. I said I would come from my side and we could speak with each other. First there was silence, then I shouted once more, invited them, and the British shouted: "No shooting!" Then a man came out of the trenches and I on my side did the same and so we came together and we shook hands - a bit cautiously!"

- Captain Josef Sewald of Germany's 17th Bavarian Regiment

"Suddenly a Tommy came with a football, kicking already and making fun, and then began a football match. We marked the goals with our caps. Teams were quickly established for a match on the frozen mud, and the Fritzes beat the Tommies 3-2."

- Lieutenant Johannes Niemann of Germany's 133rd Saxons Infantry Regiment

Then, it ended up in afternoon...

"I fired three shots into the air and put up a flag with 'Merry Christmas' on it on the parapet. He [a German] put up a sheet with 'Thank You' on it, and the German captain appeared on the parapet. We both bowed and saluted and got down into our respective trenches, and he fired two shots into the air, and the war was on again."

- Captain Charles "Buffalo Bill" Stockwell of the Second Royal Welch Fusiliers

The epic story became an advertisement. You may see it YouTube with the title 1914 | Sainsbury's Ad | Christmas 2014 or you may just click this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM , and ready your tears because you it get eventually emotional to those soft hearted people like me. These are some of the original letters of Christmas truce from soldiers to their families...

A full summary of Christmas Truce from “Tom” to his sister “Janet”;

Christmas Day, 1914

My dear sister Janet,

It is 2:00 in the morning and most of our men are asleep in their dugouts—yet I could not sleep myself before writing to you of the wonderful events of Christmas Eve. In truth, what happened seems almost like a fairy tale, and if I hadn’t been through it myself, I would scarce believe it. Just imagine: While you and the family sang carols before the fire there in London, I did the same with enemy soldiers here on the battlefields of France!

As I wrote before, there has been little serious fighting of late. The first battles of the war left so many dead that both sides have held back until replacements could come from home. So we have mostly stayed in our trenches and waited.

But what a terrible waiting it has been! Knowing that any moment an artillery shell might land and explode beside us in the trench, killing or maiming several men. And in daylight not daring to lift our heads above ground, for fear of a sniper’s bullet.

And the rain—it has fallen almost daily. Of course, it collects right in our trenches, where we must bail it out with pots and pans. And with the rain has come mud—a good foot or more deep. It splatters and cakes everything, and constantly sucks at our boots. One new recruit got his feet stuck in it, and then his hands too when he tried to get out—just like in that American story of the tar baby!

Through all this, we couldn’t help feeling curious about the German soldiers across the way. After all, they faced the same dangers we did, and slogged about in the same muck. What’s more, their first trench was only 50 yards from ours. Between us lay No Man’s Land, bordered on both sides by barbed wire—yet they were close enough we sometimes heard their voices.

Of course, we hated them when they killed our friends. But other times, we joked about them and almost felt we had something in common. And now it seems they felt the same.

Just yesterday morning—Christmas Eve Day—we had our first good freeze. Cold as we were, we welcomed it, because at least the mud froze solid. Everything was tinged white with frost, while a bright sun shone over all. Perfect Christmas weather.

During the day, there was little shelling or rifle fire from either side. And as darkness fell on our Christmas Eve, the shooting stopped entirely. Our first complete silence in months! We hoped it might promise a peaceful holiday, but we didn’t count on it. We’d been told the Germans might attack and try to catch us off guard.

I went to the dugout to rest, and lying on my cot, I must have drifted asleep. All at once my friend John was shaking me awake, saying, “Come and see! See what the Germans are doing!” I grabbed my rifle, stumbled out into the trench, and stuck my head cautiously above the sandbags.

I never hope to see a stranger and more lovely sight. Clusters of tiny lights were shining all along the German line, left and right as far as the eye could see.

“What is it?” I asked in bewilderment, and John answered, “Christmas trees!”

And so it was. The Germans had placed Christmas trees in front of their trenches, lit by candle or lantern like beacons of good will.

And then we heard their voices raised in song.

Stille nacht, heilige nacht . . . .

This carol may not yet be familiar to us in Britain, but John knew it and translated: “Silent night, holy night.” I’ve never heard one lovelier—or more meaningful, in that quiet, clear night, its dark softened by a first-quarter moon.

When the song finished, the men in our trenches applauded. Yes, British soldiers applauding Germans! Then one of our own men started singing, and we all joined in.

The first Nowell, the angel did say . . . .

In truth, we sounded not nearly as good as the Germans, with their fine harmonies. But they responded with enthusiastic applause of their own and then began another.

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum . . . .

Then we replied.

O come all ye faithful . . . .

But this time they joined in, singing the same words in Latin.

Adeste fideles . . . .

British and German harmonizing across No Man’s Land! I would have thought nothing could be more amazing—but what came next was more so.

“English, come over!” we heard one of them shout. “You no shoot, we no shoot.”

There in the trenches, we looked at each other in bewilderment. Then one of us shouted jokingly, “You come over here.”

To our astonishment, we saw two figures rise from the trench, climb over their barbed wire, and advance unprotected across No Man’s Land. One of them called, “Send officer to talk.”

I saw one of our men lift his rifle to the ready, and no doubt others did the same—but our captain called out, “Hold your fire.” Then he climbed out and went to meet the Germans halfway. We heard them talking, and a few minutes later, the captain came back with a German cigar in his mouth!

“We’ve agreed there will be no shooting before midnight tomorrow,” he announced. “But sentries are to remain on duty, and the rest of you, stay alert.”

Across the way, we could make out groups of two or three men starting out of trenches and coming toward us. Then some of us were climbing out too, and in minutes more, there we were in No Man’s Land, over a hundred soldiers and officers of each side, shaking hands with men we’d been trying to kill just hours earlier!

Before long a bonfire was built, and around it we mingled—British khaki and German grey. I must say, the Germans were the better dressed, with fresh uniforms for the holiday.

Only a couple of our men knew German, but more of the Germans knew English. I asked one of them why that was.

“Because many have worked in England!” he said. “Before all this, I was a waiter at the Hotel Cecil. Perhaps I waited on your table!”

“Perhaps you did!” I said, laughing.

He told me he had a girlfriend in London and that the war had interrupted their plans for marriage. I told him, “Don’t worry. We’ll have you beat by Easter, then you can come back and marry the girl.”

He laughed at that. Then he asked if I’d send her a postcard he’d give me later, and I promised I would.

Another German had been a porter at Victoria Station. He showed me a picture of his family back in Munich. His eldest sister was so lovely, I said I should like to meet her someday. He beamed and said he would like that very much and gave me his family’s address.

Even those who could not converse could still exchange gifts—our cigarettes for their cigars, our tea for their coffee, our corned beef for their sausage. Badges and buttons from uniforms changed owners, and one of our lads walked off with the infamous spiked helmet! I myself traded a jackknife for a leather equipment belt—a fine souvenir to show when I get home.

Newspapers too changed hands, and the Germans howled with laughter at ours. They assured us that France was finished and Russia nearly beaten too. We told them that was nonsense, and one of them said, “Well, you believe your newspapers and we’ll believe ours.”

Clearly they are lied to—yet after meeting these men, I wonder how truthful our own newspapers have been. These are not the “savage barbarians” we’ve read so much about. They are men with homes and families, hopes and fears, principles and, yes, love of country. In other words, men like ourselves. Why are we led to believe otherwise?

As it grew late, a few more songs were traded around the fire, and then all joined in for—I am not lying to you—“Auld Lang Syne.” Then we parted with promises to meet again tomorrow, and even some talk of a football match.

I was just starting back to the trenches when an older German clutched my arm. “My God,” he said, “why cannot we have peace and all go home?”

I told him gently, “That you must ask your emperor.”

He looked at me then, searchingly. “Perhaps, my friend. But also we must ask our hearts.”

And so, dear sister, tell me, has there ever been such a Christmas Eve in all history? And what does it all mean, this impossible befriending of enemies?

For the fighting here, of course, it means regrettably little. Decent fellows those soldiers may be, but they follow orders and we do the same. Besides, we are here to stop their army and send it home, and never could we shirk that duty.

Still, one cannot help imagine what would happen if the spirit shown here were caught by the nations of the world. Of course, disputes must always arise. But what if our leaders were to offer well wishes in place of warnings? Songs in place of slurs? Presents in place of reprisals? Would not all war end at once?

All nations say they want peace. Yet on this Christmas morning, I wonder if we want it quite enough.

Your loving brother,

Tom

#christmastruce #epichistory #world war 1 #humanity #silentnight #sillenacht #war and peace

8 notes · View notes

m-raines-blog · 5 years

Text

STAR CROSSED CITIES: The beautiful city of Paris & Marne-la-Vallée!

Before visiting France, I always dreamed of cycling through Paris with a pretty beret on my head, eating gorgeous pastries as the Eifel Tower twinkled in the distance. The media portrays Paris as the ‘City of Love’, the ‘City of Light’, and the ‘City of Men with Curly Moustaches’. Funnily enough, I didn’t even know Marne-la-Vallée existed until I got the chance to travel to France for the second time in my life!

I first travelled to France at the age of fourteen. My only thought? “Finally, I get to meet the Disney Princesses!”. I waited for all of my childhood, dying to go to Disneyland; that is the ultimate dream for children growing up. Even though I was a teenager, I was excited to go all the same. This first trip to France was a blur, I didn’t get to visit the city of Paris or venture outside of the Disneyland Park which, despite me not knowing at the time, is located in Marne-la-Vallée. Marne-la-Vallée is a small town just outside of Paris– so close yet so far.

Four years later, I finally got the opportunity to return to France in March of 2018. Thanks to an academic trip with my college, I was able to travel here yet again. However, this time, I was determined to see the Eifel Tower just like I dreamed of.

The Eifel Tower is breath-taking, there is simply no other words that can describe it! The pictures that I saw over social media didn’t quite do it justice; the figure is so much taller than I ever expected and so much more beautiful. Although before the trip I was desperate to visit the Eifel Tower, I didn’t expect to be so amazed by it. When we arrived, we made a short walk until we were in front of it and when we were finally there, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was in shock because I’d always dreamed of this moment, and it was right there before my eyes. We took so many pictures, and I almost didn’t want to leave. Visiting the Eifel Tower was by far one of the most magnificent parts of my trip to Paris, if I were to go again, I would definitely want to see the Eifel Tower once more without a doubt.

After seeing the Eifel Tower, my two friends and I decided to find a place to eat among the many restaurants along the street. It was a hard decision, but we eventually decided upon a restaurant and settled down at our table. The weather was beautiful, which made us decide to take a seat outside for our lunch. Our waiter was extremely polite, even with the restaurant being busy, he even spoke English which was extremely pleasant, and a bit of a relief since not one of us was able to speak French fluently besides the occasional ‘bonjour’. From all the restaurants that we checked out; the menus were all surprisingly familiar even though I expected to be overwhelmed with foreign dishes. At this restaurant, I ordered pasta while my friends ordered pizza. The service was fast, and the meals were lovely. It’s safe to say that when we left the restaurant, we were very happy and pleasantly surprised.

Once our time there was over, we all took one last glance at the Eifel Tower up close and then boarded our coach. Driving around the city in a coach wasn’t as bad as I initially expected; although there was some traffic, being able to stare out of the coach windows at the passing streets and amazing architecture was really interesting and made the journey worthwhile. Once we arrived at our destination, it was finally time for our sight-seeing river cruise down the River Seine. During this river cruise, we were able to view different angles of the Eifel Tower. Our group were also able to take some of the most beautiful pictures here. Although it was a bit windy, the sun was bright, and it shone beautifully over the water and the city landscape. Our river cruise lasted somewhere between one or two hours.

In the picture above, you might notice I was finally able to get my first beret, which I bought from a small market stall as we walked along the streets. After a coach journey and short walk, we eventually ended up at the iconic Notre Dame de Paris. The Notre Dame is a medieval Catholic cathedral, famous for being the finest example of gothic architecture. As of today, the cathedral is shockingly 856 years old! I had the blessing to be able to visit the Notre Dame, as you can see in the pictures above and it was stunning to see. We stayed here for a while, taking in the view and impressive architecture. When we left the Notre Dame behind, we had no idea that in April of 2019 it would be severely destroyed by a catastrophic fire that lasted as long as fifteen hours. Although the building is under repair, this event made me realise that travelling the world and sightseeing is extremely important as these famous monuments will not last forever!

After parting ways with the Notre Dame, we headed for the Love Lock Bridge. This is a bridge where sweethearts attach love padlocks to the fencing as a symbolisation of their love. On our way, we passed the Louvre, which is the largest art museum in the world and a historical monument of the city. Even though we weren’t able to stop by and visit the Louvre, it is without a doubt on my bucket list for the next time I visit Paris! When we arrived at the Love Lock Bridge, I was very touched by the concept, it was extremely beautiful. There were street vendors all over the place, some setting crepes and some selling locks! Several of my friends attached locks which they wrote our names on as a symbol of our friendship. During this, I started a live video on Instagram to show the magnificent view to all of my friends back in England.

Our final moment in Paris was spent at the Montparnasse Tower Observation Deck. This gave us a panoramic view of the city; it was undeniably the best view of Paris. I’d strongly recommend going here to anyone. I could have watched the view forever.

Finally, our time in Marne-la-Vallée arrived. Many do not know this, but despite its name, Disneyland Paris is actually located in the small town of Marne-la-Vallée, I only knew this shortly before my second trip to France!

Our first trip to the amusement park was in the evening when we experienced Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. This is a live arena show featuring special appearances by famous Disney Characters like Mickey and friends. Upon arrival, we were given cowboy hats which colour coordinated us into seating and teams. We also got to enjoy a lovely ‘Hearty Texan Meal’ which consisted of a western style meal and dessert served to us at our seats. Members of the cast even interacted with the audience, kids and adults! Overall, the show was amazing and we all got a lot of laughs out of it.

The next morning, we headed back to Disney Land by coach. On arrival, we were extremely excited (even our tutors). Surprisingly, the park was not as busy as I expected and that is because of the season. During the early spring, the park isn’t as manic as the summer holiday period, which is what I experienced on my first visit in 2014. This was a blessing as it meant the queues weren’t as long for both rides and shops, it certainly gave us a lot more freedom.

Being in the park felt safe and, even though our group had the age bracket of 17-18, we felt we could act like kids again. The rides were fun for everyone. Visiting Disneyland felt like age didn’t matter anymore.

My initial perception before my trip to France in comparison to the actual reality of the experience is somewhat different. Based on what I commonly saw on the media, I knew that France, particularly Paris, was one of Europe’s most popular destinations. Media sources describe Paris as ‘The City of Love’ and ‘The City of Light’, because of this one of my concerns was that visiting France would be overwhelming or too busy. In actuality, thanks to the season I travelled within I was pleasantly surprised. Another one of my perceptions was that Disney Land would be too childish and a bit boring for someone that is from my generation, as promotions for Disney Land often show children. However, visiting the destination certainly changed my mind as it was so versatile and enjoyable for all ages despite what I saw on the media. If I had the opportunity, I would certainly visit Paris and Marne-la-Vallée again– if not several more times!

1 note · View note

frisbee-camp · 5 years

Text

Let Me Help

AO3 Link//Wattpad Link

Tj and Cyrus have been friends for a long time, but will that change after life comes crashing down and impulsive decisions catch up to them? (Angst, Ambi, love notes, slow burn, aged up so they're all in high school, god tier ships, mental health, and like a whole bunch more ladies! Let’s get this angst.)

Chapter 6 Why do you even care?

Cyrus had had a rough week, but this episode wasn't nearly as bad as usual. He had spent Monday in bed but was walking Nala by Wednesday. His parents had noticed but chose to give him space, they only opened his door to give him his dinner. During times like these, his mom always gave him encouraging post-it notes with pictures of cute dogs and quotes saying "You matter" and "Even waking up is an accomplishment." Cyrus' roughest episode was after his brother had died, he had spent two weeks in the dark and didn't feel like himself for another year, that was when he was 13. That was when his parents had decided to put him on SSRI's. "Hey there champ," Todd had said as Cyrus was finishing up the homework Buffy had dropped off. Cyrus was sitting on his bed with Nala in his lap. Having her there always made the world feel more manageable. Cyrus looked small and beaten down. He knew he had nothing to be sad about, but he felt horrible anyways. It was as if the sadness of seven billion people had been transported to his chest, it was unbearable. In a small voice, he said, "Hi." "Hey, honey. Feeling any better?" his mom said as both of his parents sat on the bed. His sets of parents tended to trade off on this after-depressive-episode-speech. Cyrus closed his book and held his breath, "Yea" he said under his breath. "Honey we've talked about this. You can't keep going off your meds whenever you feel like. They're there to help you" His mom had said as she gently finger-combed his hair. "Yea I know mom," He knew it was a mistake to stop taking them, but he just wanted some control over his life. "Cyrus, what is it? Why have you gotten so distant? Is it the teenager thing or something else?" Todd said as he sat next to his wife. Cyrus shrugged, his eyes started to water. Don't be so lame he thought what is it this time anyway? Why do you always have to be such a baby? "Let's try another question," his mom said gently "why'd you go off your meds Cy? You haven't touched them at all this year. You know this always happens when you go off them." Cyrus looked up at the ceiling for inspiration, hope, courage, anything he didn't have. "I-" he started, but he couldn't finish, his tears had caught up with him. He sobbed into Nala's fur. "I-" he tried again, only to get caught on his own emotions, "I don't know, I-" he felt his parents rub his back, he felt their compassion." I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry." he pleaded to no one in particular. He didn't know what was happening to him, everything felt like too much, too little, too confusing. It was too much for a 15 year old. "What do you need from us, Cyrus?" His mom said as she brushed his bangs back, He couldn't look into her eyes. "We're here for you, all four of us." All Cyrus could do was nod and cry. Normal he thought, I just want to be normal. Cyrus had spent a good part of the week wallowing in his own misery, but he was feeling more like himself after he had cried in front of his parents. He spent the rest of that day finishing homework and texting his friends. Andi and Buffy (and even Jonah) had made sure to flood his phone with dumb vine compilations and cat videos. Andi had even come over to give him his very own flower crown, complete with daisies and baby's breath. They had crowned him 'Prince of the Good Hair Kingdom.' Even Nala had gotten a little crown. Buffy had dropped off his homework and hugged him for twenty minutes straight, she knew her words wouldn't help him. Jonah had flood his dm's with cat videos and frisbee videos, occasionally cats playing frisbee and anything else Jonah thought was entertaining. Cyrus had expected his friends to contact him, but he didn't expect TJ to text him at all that week, he didn't think he'd notice his absence. Cyrus felt as though he couldn't reply to TJ's messages. Sure, he had spilled his guts to him the other night, but their friendship was just different. He didn't want him to see him like this. He liked the idea of TJ thinking he was as put together as his outfits. Buffy, Andi, and Jonah all knew he wasn't perfect, but TJ had only seen him fall apart once, and that time wasn't even that bad. The next day, the good hair crew had decided to get ready for Amber's party at Buffy's house. Jonah would meet them there. "You know," Buffy said as she helped Andi get into their elaborate jumpsuit, "I really do hope we all have fun tonight, let loose and stuff." "Did Buffy Driscoll just tell us to let loose?" Cyrus had said exasperated, he was sitting on the floor surrounded by Andi's makeup, he had just finished doing his hair. He was smiling again. "Yeah, I'm cool." Buffy said, Andi and Cyrus both laughed, "You guys! This is our first real high school party, we should enjoy it and all its trashy perfection. We've worked hard! We deserve to get completely wasted. Plus, we told our parents we'd be at Andi's right? So we're good" Buffy was now rambling to herself. "Buffy, we're fine," Andi said, "we're supposed to do trashy teenage stuff. It's part of the American school system." "I for one, am not going to get wasted. I don't want everyone from school to see me like that! I have an image to keep up" Cyrus said. "Whatever you say Cy" Buffy said, "Just know that when you do get trashed, we'll have your back." Around 9pm and after eating two bags of pepperoni pizza rolls, Andi, Buffy, and Cyrus walked to the address Amber had sent Andi. "I thought this was Amber's party?" Buffy noted as they reached the door. It was a seemingly normal house on the outside, but Cyrus could already hear the trap music moving the ground. "Me too," Andi said as the door opened. "HEEEYYYYYY" Screamed Iris. "Iris?!" Cyrus stood with his mouth agape. When was the last time he had seen her? "Oh my god! Cyrus! You're so tall now! Come in come in." She gave them all light hugs and motioned for them to come in. "Is this your party?" Andi said. "Oh yeah, Amber didn't tell you? My parents are out this weekend. Everyone's in the living room right now. Drinks are in the kitchen. You know the drill." She turned to walk towards what Cyrus assumed to be the living room. He could smell the teenage musk from here. "Oh! and upstairs is off limits" she added smiling. When was the last time he had talked to her? Did she know he was gay? Probably, right? Cyrus thought about taking twenty shots right then and there, seeing Iris embarrassed him beyond repair. Seeing her reminded him of his failed attempt at a love life. He didn't want to think about his love life, but seeing her flooded him with reminders of his faults and insecurities. Plus Iris probably thought he was still a nerd. Had she told people he was a nerd? Or that he was a bad kisser. Oh god, what if she told everyone he was a bad kisser? "Okay team, Amber should be here soon, same with Marty and- Cyrus? Are you okay?" Andi waved their hand in front of his face. "Me? Cyrus Goodman? I'm great. There's a reason we're called Goodman, because we're good, always chilling, like surfer brahs ya know how it is," Cyrus said as he nervously looked around the living room. He saw a couple people he knew from his classes, but most of the people there were in the grade above them. People had been trickling in behind them and he noticed that the room was not big enough for all of them. He felt cramped. Why did he think this was a good idea? OH my god he thought what if TJ's not coming and i'm left alone as the fifth wheel? Buffy and Andi had made their way into the circle people had created in the living room. Cyrus sat down next to them. Soon enough, Amber, Jonah, Marty, and TJ had shown up. "Hey" TJ said as he sat on the other side of the circle. "Hey" Cyrus had responded. For some reason, TJ wasn't looking at Cyrus at all. Cyrus noticed that Rester had shown up too, he looked away. "Okay ladies and gentlemen" Iris had said, "This game is called 'Buffalo-" Cyrus had stopped paying attention to whatever stupid drinking game Iris had come up with, he was now looking at TJ. Tj was in a corner talking with Reed and Lester, they were smoking something, but that wasn't was Cyrus was angry about. Cyrus felt betrayed by TJ, how is it that he spent so much time worrying about him only to not want to talk to him? Why was he hanging out with Rester again? Cyrus felt someone nudge his side and pass him a red cup that smelled like grape cough syrup, he tasted it and grimaced. He looked over at TJ with his dumb perfect hair, who was now laughing with Reed and Lester and took a big gulp of what tasted faintly of coke. "Andi, I want you to know-wait, Marty, Buffy! I want you guys to know that like you're my bestest friends in the world and like, You guys. The world is so hard you know? And like dogs are so good and stuff but everything is still hard even though we have dogs" Cyrus didn't remember where he was, all he knew was that it was somehow darker inside and everything was fuzzier. He didn't really know where his drinks were coming from, but he didn't care. "I just- love you guys so much" Cyrus was talking to his friends who were all on Iris' couch nodding in serious agreement. They too had rub cups scattered around them. Am I on the floor? Cyrus vaguely remembered seeing Andi and Amber laughing hysterically, if he thought back hard enough he could even remember seeing Buffy smile and pet at Marty's face while he twisted his fingers into her curls. He vaguely remembered seeing Jonah dancing and laughing with Walker. He thought he saw them holding hands too, but it could've just been his imagination. He definitely remembered them basically sitting on each other and he definitely remembered laying on the floor alone. He could hear the other party-goers talking and laughing but only vaguely, everything was a little cloudy, dreamlike even. It was as though this house didn't exist in this dimension, as if anything that happened here wasn't real. "Hey," Cyrus heard from above him. He could see blond hair. "T?" Cyrus slurred. He tried to sit up but his body had suddenly gotten a hundred pounds heavier, so he stayed on the floor. His eyes focused a bit. "No," Cyrus could see Reed move his mouth "it's Reed dude, you're like sooo out of it. You should drink some water bro." Cyrus hummed and closed his eyes. He thought about how Alcohol made gravity work ten times better. "Reed I don't like you," Cyrus said. Reed chuckled a bit and said, "Okay bro" as he helped Cyrus sit up. Cyrus kept his eyes closed, but he noticed that Reed had brought him something to drink that didn't smell like medicine. "Hey" Reed said again, "dude, are you good?" "I don't like you, you're mean," Cyrus said. "Yea I got that thanks." "You messed up my hair," Cyrus said as he opened his eyes a bit and looked over at Reed. "I'm sorry about that," Reed said, "hey who's taking you home? Do you have somewhere to go?" "Hey! What are you doing to him?" Cyrus heard someone say to Reed. He didn't understand some of the words but he didn't care. He closed his eyes again. "Did you give him something?" He heard the same voice say. "Yo, chill. I just gave him water. I was just trying to help. Why do you care so much anyway?" Reed said. Cyrus heard his voice grow more distant. There was yelling and cursing and he thought he heard someone scream, but it felt far away. Everything felt so far away. "Whatever Reed fuck off. Your shit was shit by the way!" Cyrus heard the voice get closer "Cyrus? Hey. It's TJ." The voice kneeled in front of him. "Oh," Cyrus said "Tyler James" Cyrus saw his arm move to touch TJs head. He grinned and sang "your're jealousssss" "And you're drunk," TJ said. "Ooo says the jealous boyyy. You cangetme water too" Cyrus laid on the floor again. He liked the floor. It was comfortable. "Okay Cyrus. How much have you had?" "Uuuhhhh like a lil lil lil bitty bitty bit, I'm not even that drunk." "Underdog, you're on the floor right now." "And you're up there. So tall. Like a building," Cyrus laughed and blinked slowly, Cyrus could barely hear the music. "Uh huh now come on, get up" TJ tried to get Cyrus to stand up, but all he could do was him to sit up. Cyrus looked at him and asked "Am I really your favorite person?" Before throwing up on TJ's shirt. "Oh my god. Okay Cyrus I think it's time for you to go. Who's taking you home? Andi? Buffy?" TJ said as he sat on the floor next to him. Cyrus didn't understand what words were being said to him and whether or not he was supposed to respond so he just grinned and said "You have pretty eyes" TJ blushed furiously and called to someone. Cyrus felt himself get lifted away, and next thing he knew he was in a car and then in a bed and then he was asleep.

#andi mack #andi mack fanfic #tyrus fanfic #tyrus #muffy #ambi #tj kippen #cyrus goodman #reed with the weed #rester #wonah #buffy driscoll #marty from the party #iris #ladies this is my fav chapter so far #enjoy #let me help #my fic

3 notes · View notes