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needdatbag · 3 years

Text

Drinking You

notes: Hi! This is my first fanfiction ever. I just wanna see if anyone might like it? Haha...Anyway, if you do, please leave a like or a comment. Hope you enjoy! Oh and this is only the first part.

Summary: You encounter a stranger on your way back from the grocery shop and everything about him pulls you in.

Pairings: Eren Yeager x Reader; Various pairings eventually

Warnings: NSFW; mentions of smoking.

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Part 1-Stranger Danger

You were not ok. Today was a hellish Monday like you rarely encountered. Of course Monday sucked in general but it’s a different kind of pain when you work in a department full of detectives. Everyone is stressed day after day and they don’t have any notion about free time, for them it is equivalent with supplementary work. It’s been 4 months since you started working as the main profiler of the team and you feel as if you need to step up your game. Everyone likes you but the fact that you’re new in the field is noticeable. You do your best all the time but experience is key after all. So here you are, after working hours, walking out of the closest store while holding a beer and a pack of cigarettes in one hand while the other is busy holding the phone to your ear.

’’I will take a look as soon as I get back to my desk, I was planning on checking the brief details we have about this case anyway. I took the file before I left and I will be making an idea about the whole deal tonight. We will receive the rest tomorrow, right? I mean I can get something but without all the information it might just be wrong or incomplete.’’

Your boss sighed and agreed with you.

’’I know. There is a reason behind this lack of information but I am afraid you’ll have to find out tomorrow. I will explain everything to you as soon as we have the OK from the fucking higher-ups. Do what you can tonight, L/N.’’

He was tired but you almost swore you felt a tinge of sadness in his tone. Your gut told you something was just starting. You gulped.

’’Don’t worry sir. You’ll have the draft for the initial report on your desk as soon as I get to work.’’

You said goodbye and hung up while tossing the phone in the pocket of the pyjama pants you wore. You came home half an hour ago, ate a quick dinner and realised you forgot to buy the two things you needed for survival on days such as this Monday: a beer and cigarettes. Unhealthy coping but you got over that thought in college. Regrets were a pain in the ass and you wanted none so you did what you wanted.

As you were walking towards your apartment building you couldn’t help but think about this case. Your team was way on the edge when they received word about it. They were silent about it and that scared you. Because, even if you only knew them for 4 months, you knew all of them were loud, outspoken and chaotic. Your head always throbbed at the end of the day. But you almost missed that today because instead of debates and childish arguments, this day was extremely tense and everyone seemed to be at each others throats out of silly things. As if they disagreed on something you had no idea about. It felt as if a powerful untouchable presence was messing with them and it saddened you but it also stirred your curiosity. Who or what was doing that?

You were so lost in your thoughts you didn’t notice the person walking right in front of you and you bumped into them dropping your cigarettes in the process and almost dropping your beer but you managed to catch it before it hit the ground.

’’I’m really sorry. I wasn’t paying attention…’’ you said as you immediately bent down to pick up your cigarettes but the stranger beat you to it.

’’It’s fine.’’ he answered in a low pleasant voice and started walking away.

WITH YOUR CIGARETTES.

It took a second for you to register what happened and move. He walked away so casually that it pissed you off.

’’Heyo.’’ you said while grabbing his shoulder and making him turn to you. He was tall, well built with medium length long brown hair and green eyes. He was wearing an open black coat with a black cotton sweater and light blue jeans with a pair of some black and white Nike shoes. ‘Well damn’ you thought, ‘this theif is hot as fuck’. But priorities were priorities. You were going to offer him a piece of your mind. And if needed, a piece of your very basic physical training.

He first looked at your hand on his shoulder and then at you with a total lack of interest. Without any facial expression he asked:

’’What?’’

You took your hand off his shoulder and attached it to your hip in a somehow sassy position. Then with the other hand where you held your beer, you pointed at the cigarette pack he held.

’’Give me back my ‘candies’...Stealing is a crime, jerk. Instead you could’ve asked for a few. I would’ve... ‘’

But he didn't seem to pay attention to you anymore as he looked at something behind your figure. He started walking, right past you to the spot where you bumped into him.

You were speechless. You debated a moment if you should chase him again but you decided as soon as you remembered you didn’t have any money on you anymore to buy a new pack. You turned with a determined look on your face. He was picking something from the ground and as soon as you got close to him, right before opening your mouth, he held out his hand to you, holding a pack of cigarettes. He had another one in the other. And then you realised and your face started to redden. ‘Shit’

’’I have my own ‘candies’ though it seems they are the same as yours.’

You grabbed your cigarettes slowly while touching his hand in the process. You got a chill down your spine. This time his eyes were fixated on you and all the courage from earlier was down the drain. You were embarrassed of course but the way his direct look intimidated you was surprising. Your gut was telling you something but you couldn’t quite understand it. You were busy staring right back into his cold green eyes. He looked away first and sighed.

’’Well, if this is done, goodbye.’’ and walked away from you for the third time in 5 minutes.

Somehow that didn’t sit right with you. Your brain was telling you to just walk slowly home and finish the work you had left for today, take a shower and start everything again tomorrow, while your body was already chasing the long haired man, adrenaline pumping through your veins. You told yourself you just wanted to apologise for calling him a jerk but the truth was there was something invisible pulling you in his direction. Maybe it was your toxic curiosity or the silly fact that you two were smoking the same cigarettes, an old brand that made you forget things that screamed in your head constantly, or perhaps it was just the simple fact that he was a handsome stranger. Who knew? The only thing you knew was that you were a fool. But that never stopped you before.

’’I’m sorry! I never meant to insult you….I should’ve just looked around...Usually I’m not such an airhead. I wonder how come I didn’t notice another pack on the ground.. heh.’’ you said while reaching him. You guys were walking in the same direction anyway. He didn’t say anything, he just looked straight ahead not really paying much attention to you but he also didn’t seem bothered by your presence. As you reached a crosswalk and waited for the colour to change you watched his profile as discreetly as you could. He looked as if he was completely lost in thought but at the same time aware of everything surrounding him. He was close but far and that really tickled your brain. You groaned internally.

‘I shouldn’t care, he is just a stranger whom I’ll never see again. Asking him for a coffee out of the blue would be weird too.. And he seems to be completely uninterested in my existence anyway, though I guess that is mostly because of my bloody pyjam..’

’’So what’s up with that pyjama? he said out of the blue.

’’I don’t like to assume things but if you’re following me because you want to ask me out or something I think you might be my best friend's soulmate. He has the same Star Wars pyjamas.’’

Your mouth was hanging open. You looked down at your clothes and then back at him. He was watching you now as well. The light changed and he started walking as you followed.

’’I live on the other side of the road and this is what I usually wear at home, so no, I don’t really bother dressing up for a trip to the grocery store. And I’m just going home, I’m not following you..’’

You bit your lip as you hesitated before continuing wondering if you should say what you were going to say.

’’...and I also have a ..boyfriend.’’

You two reached the other side of the road and he suddenly stopped.

’’You’re lying.’’ he said calmly

Both of you stopped walking. You looked at him wide eyed. How could he know you were lying? He sounded so sure too. His expression seemed to change for a second when he saw your confused face, some sort of realisation hitting him while he shook his head.

’’Nevermind.’’

-He stepped closer to you and tilted his head, a few stray strands of hair falling randomly on his face. This guy was handsome, annoying but handsome. Even his skin seemed to have a special kind of glow, besides the fact that it was a beautiful tan colour and the combination with the kind of green/teal eyes that he had left you almost breathless in close proximity. Of course you lied. What boyfriend? You were working most of the time and you studied people for a living so of course you were overthinking everything about any guy that came your way. You either figured them too fast and they bored you or you didn’t even look their way. You were not easy to deal with either as you had a very straightforward personality on the outside but on the inside you were trying to keep everything from collapsing. You were confusing, caught between being intimidating, bad mouthed and weird or depressed and minding your own business in silence...and those moods were not exactly any guy’s cup of tea.

So lately you always try to play the sweet girl card when it comes to guys, hiding your trust issues for another day. But this time you were not in control...of anything. It wasn’t even a big deal, really.

You were just talking to a stranger. But his presence was dominating you effortlessly. And for some sort of reason you couldn’t even start to figure out why. Your brain was foggy, your breathing was irregular and your knees were suddenly weak when he got close to you.

‘What in the Twilight..’ you thought

You couldn’t read him while he seemed to have no problem reading you. And that bothered you the most.

’’You should go home..’’ he spoke in a lower, raspier voice ’’..I’m not as interesting as you might think. I’m a simple guy actually.’’

His words seemed so honest, his tone too. But something told you that he lied. Or that what he said might have been true. Once. But not anymore as his eyes didn’t meet yours when he spoke the last part.

You tried to ignore the sensation that formed in your stomach when he spoke so close to you in that voice that seemed to echo inside your head. You were getting a little lightheaded and for a moment you thought about the possibility of being physically sick. In this case this would've been the better scenario.

‘I should just go. Ignore everything about the way I feel now as if nothing will ever be boring again. Yes, I should ignore the fact that I don’t need to pretend because there is no point in doing so in front of this person. They see through me anyway. But that’s a bad thing and I’m not thinking clearly right now and he screams ’Stranger Danger’ and for God’s sake I work with the police...What should I do..His eyes are so pretty, his voice is so beautiful and I’m just a curious superficial fool.’

You took a breath and turned around while his eyes never left you. You started walking towards the entrance of your apartment complex and with every step your heart started beating faster and louder. Your ears were captivated by a weird inner buzz. You bit your lip and clenched your fist, your nails actually hurting the skin of your palms.

‘Don’t do it. Don’t do it.’

But in a swift motion you turned around, fear, excitement, some sort of distorted happiness and an unusual laughing sensation taking over you.

’’Come upstairs for a coffee, Stranger-Danger?’’

His eyes were still on you when you turned around. After you finished your sentence he covered his mouth with a hand. He might have laughed at the nickname, you guessed. But he came anyway.

Later on you would come to realise that you saw something flickering in his cold eyes when you turned around. A cunning fire that hid behind that wall of ice. Who knows..?

It might have just been the fact that this was exactly what he was waiting for all along.

But there was no coffee upstairs.

The moment the elevator doors closed you started kissing, like there was an unspoken agreement that this was going to happen exactly then. The kiss wasn’t rough as you would have expected it to be, it was gentle just as a declaration or an apology. But that soon changed as both of you became consumed with each other. The kiss became meaner from both of your sides, egoistical, as if both of you were trying to steal more from each other than the other did. He caressed your cheeks and then his hands travelled to your neck where he felt your skin and your pulse. His hands were cold but the touch of his fingertips on you felt as if it burned your skin, leaving scars even if there were none. You held on to his coat while he pushed your back against the wall. After you stopped kissing, he licked his lips and looked into your eyes. You looked back. Nothing said. He started kissing and biting your neck.

When you entered your apartment clothes started flying left and right and while kissing him, between undressing and tugging at each other's clothes , you could only be thankful that you were wearing the ‘good’ underwear you still had on and not some panties with silly patterns you usually wore at home. Somehow you two reached your bedroom but you had no idea how because you were blind to mostly anything around you but him. He picked you up, your legs now straddling his waist as he walked and you could feel his muscles. His body was very well defined, strong arms,abs and everything, beautiful large shoulders and prominent collar bones. ‘Weird’ you thought...because he didn’t really seem like he worked out. His body looked as if it developed naturally this way. You only saw that at the guys working in your department when they trained, the girls too. Their body developed over the years thanks to all the training.

For a second your mind wandered to what he did for a living.

You didn’t know anything about him... but the way his lips tasted, the way he smelled so fresh yet intoxicating, the way he made you so dizzy when he stared into your eyes, those things left you unwilling to think about anything else besides the feeling of his body on yours. You were drowning in him, his presence overwhelming you. The way you two moved against each other felt like a feverish dream in which you were dancing. He was leading and you could only stare into his eyes even though you knew this wasn’t like you at all.

He was far too intoxicating to be your type, and he was far too in control for you to be his.

While he laid you on the bed gently his hands traced mindless patterns on the skin of your legs moving higher and higher towards your thighs where he started to grab your flesh making you groan. He was either teasing you or enjoying feeling every inch of your body. He started kissing your inner thigh, sucking, licking and biting his way up to your core.

’’You’re going to leave marks.’’ you said breathlessly

He raised his head from between your legs and with a teasing but cold voice he said:

’’Is that a bad thing? Your ’boyfriend’ won’t mind.’’

Your face started to redden at the mention of the ’fake boyfriend’ and you opened your mouth to protest but in a quick motion he reached your face and kissed you. He was trying to shut you up by kissing you ruthlessly, biting your lips and sucking on your tongue. You couldn’t get a break and when you wanted to fight back he was kissing you even harder.

He only stopped when he ran out of breath. You wanted to retort something again but he beat you to it. Between pants of air he said:

’’You sure like to talk a lot don’t you ?...But I guess I’ll drink you anyway.’’

He effortlessly tied his hair in a messy man-bun that fit him weirdly well. The lights were off in your apartment but the street light coming from your bedroom's window was highlighting all the right parts of his silhouette. His abdominal muscles, his strong thighs, the movement of his arms as he fixed his hair, the veins on his arms, his slender but strong neck, his jaw, the right side of his face, his lips, his straight nose, his green eyes who looked directly at you without giving you a break. You were done talking now.

He slowly leaned over your naked torso while still maintaining eye contact and you could feel his warm breath on your skin. He watched you as if he was silently asking if you’re not backing away so you just nodded, ashamed of the fact that you were more excited than embarrassed. It was what it was. Your mind was fuzzy and your body was needy. And he intrigued you. However that was the part you chose to snooze for now.

He started kissing all over your breasts in a soft manner but eventually he transitioned into biting and teasing all over them, especially your nipples. You began slowly moaning because of the sensations that were overwhelming all your senses. He was only teasing your body but you were already melting. When he started placing wet kisses on your abdomen, going lower and lower, you squeezed your legs together and he felt it so he grabbed and squeezed on the side of one of your tights just to let you know that he was aware of the power he had on you.

When he finally reached your most sensible part you arched your back at the sensation of his tongue. Sure, you had sex before but it was almost always dry and this was also the first time someone went down on you. Like they knew exactly what they were doing and where to touch specifically. It was as if he knew what you wanted without even knowing you. It was strange. Suspicious. Addicting. Dangerous.

He trailed his fingers against your back while he ate you out. You were putty in his hands, your body flushed and high on the way his mouth felt. He teased your clit mercilessly, over and over, until you came multiple times. The good kind of torture.

As he slowly entered you he started groaning and placed your hands on his shoulders. You moaned at the sensation of being filled. It felt just right, as if your bodies just ‘clicked’ in every way. He grabbed your face with his hands while he started thrusting.

’’Just... hold on ...to me and... relax.’’ he told you between groans and sighs

You nodded rapidly, not really caring about anything anymore besides the pleasure and relief you were seeking. Your bodies were rocking in sync with each other, both of your pulses skyrocketing with every increase in pace. He was thrusting faster and harder now. Your hands were not on his shoulders anymore but outstretched above your head, his strong ones holding them pinned to the bed as he was losing himself in the sensation of you.

You two fucked as if both of you were running away together but from different things. When both of you reached your high his eyes seemed to light up when he looked at your face consumed by his presence. For a few seconds, while he lost control and pleasure overwhelmed him, you felt as if you saw someone else, still him but different. A real fire seemed to burn in those eyes during those moments but you only gazed at it a little bit and it was gone, replaced by that wall of ice that effortlessly unnerved you.

He collapsed next to you as both of you caught your breath.

You two sat in silence not feeling the need to talk, His fingers were mindlessly drawing battens on the back of your palm. You liked that. Somehow it warmed you. You turned your head in his direction. He was watching the ceiling and you could swear his expression was a little warmer now but something still felt melancholic about it. He turned his head and looked back at you. You really tried to memorise the way his upper lip was more prominent than the lower one, the way his eyes had such a nice, kind shape yet they looked at something beyond what you knew, the way his skin had such a pleasant warm tone, the way his hair fell on his face.

Your eyelids started to become heavy. You were tired but you tried to fight off the request your body and mind had regarding some rest. You really wanted to say something before you fell asleep so you mumbled in a sleepy voice.

’’..The more I look at you...the more...I don’t see you...smoking...I don’t know..why...tho..’’

Your body became heavier and your eyes were slowly closing. The only thing you saw before drifting into the dream world was the faint image of a smile on his face.

‘’I don't.’’ he said

You woke up late the next day and he was gone, as if everything was nothing but a weird illusion. You pushed away the feeling of disappointment, told yourself to grow up and forget last night and took a shower, ate breakfast, dressed up for work in some brown dress pants, a white sweater and some dark red leather heels, grabbed your jacket and bag from the hanger and left for work.

‘I was right. He is a fucking jerk. He didn’t even leave a note or something. I don’t even know his name..but I guess it doesn’t matter. We’ll never see each other again.’

You sighed.

You had more important things to do and worry about. How were you going to tell your boss, or The Captain as your crew called him, that you forgot the file you promised to look over, at work and you had no idea what the case that was assigned to your team and that was stressing everyone out, was about.

’’Captain Levi is going to beat the shit out of me..’’ you said out loud as you entered the building...even so...something bothered you as you could swear you placed the file inside your bag yesterday. You usually double check everything anyway.

You entered the HQ of the Survey Unit, your and your team’s unit and said a quick ’’Hello’’ to Jean, Sasha and Connie who were drinking coffee around Jean’s desk while discussing something intense.

’’Hey, L/N...What is with the panicked attitude? Come drink a coffee with us and stop acting like the sky is going to fall. Need help with something ?’’

You took off your jacket and reached your desk. Nothing besides your cactus and your agenda that you usually left at work. The file was not here either. Hell. Your mind started going into overdrive.

’’The sky is actually falling Jean...and I’m the fucking sky.’’ you said while facepalming. How could you possibly lose the file?? A file with confidential police information.. You bent down and started searching for it under the desk but it was clear it wasn’t there.

Sasha was unpacking one of her sandwiches as Jean and Connie were both looking at you with a confused expression on their face. But their attention switched to Mikasa and Armin who entered the doors while being surrounded by a gloomy atmosphere. Mikasa looked as if she lost weight in the last two days while Armin’s dark circles were obvious testimonies of a sleep deprived individual. Jean and Connie went over to them discussing something you couldn’t hear while Sasha came in your direction.

’’This really takes a toll on all of us...but I really pity Mikasa the most...I guess you read the brief details about the case...Having to arrest one of our own, someone who betrayed us and is also her step brother … Man..I would be stress eating like crazy..I still do it.. but anyway.’’

You snapped your head in her direction.

’’What? Mikasa has a brother?’’

Sasha raised a brow while chewing her food.

’’Yes. Though they are not related, she was adopted into his family when her parents were killed. His parents died too after a few years and they had to survive, together with Armin who was in the same situation. He and Armin had been best friends ever since they could remember. He betrayed us a year ago and went rogue...but we never knew how far he went.. The Military Police assigned him to us. I’m sorry... We never really spoke about this because it’s a sore subject…You must be confused.. Huh?’’

You were speechless. You never knew that. Not a single word about it. But you always that something was missing however you kept your silence about it.

’’Why would the MP assign him to us? It’s cruel and it doesn't make sense..’’

Sasha shrugged and said:

’’My guess is that they need Cpt.Levi to catch him. After all, he trained him. The MPs are big mouthed but they were never able to tame Eren.’’

You raised a brow. ’’Eren?’’

Sasha nodded.

’’Yeah, that’s his n….Y/N did you know you have something stuck on your bag?’’ she asked while pointing at the black bag you owned. It looked like a post it note.

‘What the hell..?’

You picked it up and noticed something written on it. The writing was a little bit messy and squarish.

’’MEETIIIIING!’’ screamed Hange from the conference room

Sasha went ahead: ’’I’ll see you there. Hurry up.’’

The words written on the note were: ’’I’m sorry. You’re a kind person. Thank you.’’

There was no name but you knew it belonged to the stranger you met last night. You started breathing heavily. It wasn't the fact that something felt off about the note but where it was placed. On your bag.

The FUCKING FILE was IN the bag.

In your mind a memory flashed suddenly. 3 months ago, after working hours the whole team went out for some food and drinks. You and Armin discussed your favourite movie series. You froze while remembering the crucial detail of that conversation.

’’It’s kind of embarrassing but I even have pijamas with Star Wars..’’ Armin said while his face flushed red.

You placed a hand on your mouth remembering a part of last night’s events.

’’.. I think you might be my best friend's soulmate. He has the same Star Wars pyjamas.’’

’’L/N! Move it!’’ Cpt Levi’s voice snapped you out of your daze.

You started walking shakingly thinking over and over again about the possibility of this all being a coincidence..but when you entered the conference room and saw the screen, your blood went cold.

/Runaway-Eren Yeager/ Accusations / Terrorism/ Multiple Murder Acusations/ Insubordination/ WANTED/ Dead or Alive/

And right to all these accusations was the picture of a younger version of the guy you met last night.

Your ex-colleague.

You looked at the note in your hand.

It made sense right now. He used you right from the start.

You felt like laughing but you sat down next to Jean, trying to compose yourself and paying attention to what your Capitan was saying.

In your mind only one phrase kept repeating itself.

You just fucked the enemy.

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That was my first ever smut scene...Am I going to hell yet? haha

#eren x reader #aotsmut #eren jaeger #eren yeager #eren smut #attack on titan #levi ackerman #mikasa ackerman #armin arlert #sasha braus #connie springer #jean kirstein #aot fanfiction

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cafcaf22 · 3 years

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Accidents Happen

Chapter 1.

Stardew Valley's newest farmer tends to keep to herself. That is, until she bumps into the Town Doctor. Accidents Happen, y'know.

For someone who works their ass off on a farm by herself each and every day, it doesn't seem like making friends would be the most difficult task on the planet. But it is.

You moved to Stardew Valley a little over a year ago, and you're still stuck in the same horrible cycle: Wake. Eat. Feed the animals. Water the plants. Fish. Eat. Sleep. The routine has yet to change. You spend the majority of your days in the same productive, yet monotonous routine. Motivation gets harder and harder to come by, especially as the summer season ends. This coming winter does not look like it's going to be your friend.

Some evenings, when you really considered the level of your loneliness, you've thought about heading over to the saloon to check in with your neighbors. You thought about it most during the hot days when you needed a refresher after a long day. However tempting a cold glass of beer may be after working up a sweat pulling hundreds of blueberries off the vines in the summer heat, you always ended up chickening out. A common thing for you. You wanted to try- you wanted to reach out, but what would you even say? Hi! I'm the girl who's been isolated on her farm for the last 4 seasons, it's nice to finally meet you! How weird would that be? You didn't want to cause a scene - you never really liked the attention that much, so it wasn't worth the attempt.

One day during the last week of the summer, you stopped by Pierre's to check out some fertilizer for the coming fall season. As you strolled the aisles, eyeing the shelves and brushing past the baskets of the daily offerings, you overheard a lot of chatter about hanging out in the saloon on weekends. The courage you'd need to show up there on its busiest day... Hell, sometimes even Sundays had great turnouts. I probably shouldn't, you thought. If I showed up, it would make everything awkward. They don't even know me that well, and how am I supp-

Your thoughts were quickly interrupted by a body being slammed straight into your side.

"Ow!" You yelped as your wicker basket was thrown onto the ground. You immediately clutch your left side in pain and feel a sharp piercing in your lungs, as the cold floor of the shop shocks your cheek. You blink at the ground, massaging your side as you try to inhale. But that's when you realize you can't. You blink rapidly, trying to take a breath, but the air never fills your lungs. You clutch your chest, trying to feel the rise and fall, but your heartbeat is the only continuous movement. The thumps grow faster, harder. You start to feel dizzy, clutching your chest on the cold floor. I'm hyperventilating. I can't breathe. Am I having an asthma attack? Oh, Yoba. I'm having an asthma attack.

"Oh- Oh my... I am- I'm s-so sorry! Are you alright?" A voice bursts from over your left shoulder as you double over on the ground in pain, trying to find your breath. Fucker knocked the wind out of me, you thought to yourself. You could barely breathe. I need my inhaler- Is it at the farm? The voice continued to apologize, unsure as to whether or not they should step in to aid you. You tried to take another breath, but your lungs fought hard. Fuck, I- I can't breathe, I can't-

"I- I must have knocked the wind out of you..." The voice says to himself, but you don't even register it. You squeeze your eyes shut, clutching your side and focusing on the movement of your chest. It feels like nothing and everything at once. You inhaled to feel the cool air enter your lungs, but it didn't happen. Your body felt like a deflated hot air balloon. The voice continued on behind you, mentioning something about sitting up straight and taking deep breaths. You just want it to stop, can't it shut up already? I can't breathe, I can't-

"Oh my- here! Look at me!" The voice boomed, closer now. He was above you, blocking the overhead lights of the general store. You uncurled from your ball, struggling to breathe. All that comes out are course whispers.

"Inhaler..." You managed to grunt. In less than a few seconds, a cold plastic is pressed against your lips.

"Here," the voice says gently. "I- It's mine, but it will do." The voice spoke again. Everything suddenly grew blurrier, and the voice's words became slurred. You barely made out the deep green coat that blocked all of your view, but it was soft and warm against your skin. "Breathe in," the voice said calmly. You blinked wildly, remembering that you needed to actually inhale. You take a deep breath, and taste the medication as it enters your mouth, and flows smoothly into your lungs. You finally gained some sense back. As you sat back against the aisle of the grocery store, you glanced up for the first time.

Your savior kneeled in front of you, an anxious look spread across his face. Large brown eyes took over yours, encompassing you into his with no effort at all. You stared deeply into them, locked in a trance that never seemed to end as you swam in the honey that swirled within them. His glasses sat on the edge of his nose, ignored in the face of your injury and in dire need of a cleaning. A thick mustache framed the lower portion of his face, complementing the way that his cheeks sat happily above them. He smiled the most endearing smile you had ever seen.

"I am... so truly sorry." He spoke, words of pure velvet. This voice, you thought. That's the voice.

After a few moments of slow, medicated breathing, you were finally able to speak.

"Thank you... I think?" You whispered, glancing down at his hand that held a firm grip on your shoulder. He glanced down, recognizing his steel grip on your arm, and quickly released.

"Can you breathe a-alright now?" He asked, leaning back slightly after realizing how close he had been.

"Yes," you replied confidently while fighting a cough at the base of your throat. "I haven't had an asthma attack in months... I usually keep my inhaler on me, but I guess I left it at the farm," you muttered to yourself, attempting to stand up.

"Hey, let's be careful here," he chuckled, lightly elevating your elbow and guiding you to stand. You glanced into his eyes again, hoping to have his meet yours. He seemed to avoid any effort. "I am so sorry for running into you like that... I would tell you the reason why, but it will sound a lot worse out loud." He chuckled again, running a hand through the back of his hair and fidgeting with the pocket of his pants. You raised your eyebrow, giving him a curious look.

"W-Well... I usually stand out in the garden across the pavement, and there seemed to be a..." He drew out the end of his sentence. You narrow your eyes at him, a playful smile spreading across your lips. "A... bee."

You couldn't help but let out an ugly chortle, the first of a real laugh in months. You had barely mustered up a small smile since you'd been in Stardew, not to mention the horrors of your old 9-5 desk job for Joja Cola. To be able to laugh freely in the company of someone else made you feel years and years younger; it was a feeling that reminded you of how often you got to interact with others - which was not much. The laugh quickly turned into a nasty cough, your lungs screaming at you to calm down.

"I'm so sorry- I didn't mean to laugh like that, it just kind of..." but you trailed off the end of your sentence in order to take in the beauty that was his laugh. He began to speak in fits of giggles, clutching his lower belly and covering his mouth in an attempt to stifle the beautiful sounds that escaped from his lips. His lips.

"No, I'm sorry!" He exclaimed in between giggles. You smiled awkwardly, unsure of how to continue on. You weren't the greatest at conversation, but it seemed like he wasn't either, so the two of you appeared to be comfortable in acknowledging the oddness of the whole situation. "I'm Harvey, by the way."

Your heart fluttered. Harvey. The man who saved me from asphyxiation. Well... The man who almost caused my asphyxiation.

He cleared his throat, and you realized you had been silent for a moment. You gave him your name and smiled, feeling your heart beat at the thought of finally having a friend. Maybe.

"How come I haven't seen you around at the clinic before?" He asked, eyes gazing into yours a little more intensely.

"Oh, I don't usually have any issues," you spoke quickly, trying to avoid the topic altogether. Doctors made you nervous. The ghostly white rooms. The empty hallways. The cold, metallic utensils pressed against bare skin. The intense questioning, and the way you're forced to admit things to a stranger about your own personal problems... Not a great way to spend your time.

Why would he mention the clinic? Does he- Oh... Fuck.

"So... you must be the Town Doctor?" You asked, kicking yourself on the inside for being so stupid. How could I be so stupid?

He blushed, and your heart soared. "You could say that, yes. However, I don't see many patients currently- which, I guess is something I should never complain about... I don't ever want to wish ill-will upon my patients. I don't think that's what came across, but I just wanted to... uh, make that clear," he sputtered awkwardly, attempting to save himself from embarrassment. His cheeks continued to flush a bright red. "Oh, and I understand that you don't necessarily have any... 'issues'... But feel free to come by my clinic tomorrow afternoon for an additional inhaler. Free of charge, of course. It's all that I can give you after certainly causing your episode today- which, I am still so terribly sorry for. I just really, really hate bees."

He spoke the words so quickly, you had to remind yourself to breathe as you comprehended everything he said. Mainly because you were busy staring into the void that was his eyes. Beautiful, golden brown. Heavenly.

"Of course, Doctor," you reassured him.

"Great. I'll see you tomorrow!" He exclaimed, a little too enthusiastically. You smiled in return and bent down to pick up the basket that had fallen just moments prior. "Oh, let me grab that for you-" said Harvey, beating you to the wicker basket. Your heads knocked together, clunking against each other as you both attempted to stand up. You both groaned, rubbing your heads and awkwardly glancing at the floor as if eye contact would cause another ruckus.

"Maybe we should wear helmets," you spoke softly, attempting to alleviate the awkward.

"Maybe," he sighed. "I'll see you around, Farmer." He smiled softly, and swiftly walked out of the store.

Farmer. How did he know I was a farmer?

#stardew valley #stardew harvey #sdv harvey #sdv #fluff #fanfic #harvey fanfic #female reader

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simsadventures · 4 years

Text

Not Me: Chapter 5: Confusion

CEO!Bucky x wife! Reader

Summary: Bucky recalls times in your marriage that were ambiguous, trying to find out where the truth is, while going carefully over the contract he signed when he got the company. And he suddenly sees things from a different perspective.

Warnings: angst (what’s new), swearing, mentions of sex, Bucky’s “POV”

Word Count: 2186

A/N: A lot of good’ol Buckaroo and his thoughts on certain issues in this chapter. Thought it might help. So what did you guys think? :) xx Oh btw, I have no idea how contracts work, so bear with me :D

Series Masterlist __ Masterlist

< Previous Chapter

Bucky was sitting on what was previously your bed, reading the letter you left behind over and over. At first, he went straight to his previous way of thinking, believing this was some kind of manipulation from you. But the longer he read it, the more he realised it was genuine. You were genuinely hurt, Bucky suddenly realised, and his heart gave a painful thud in his chest.

Was it all just some weird game somebody else was playing, destroying two innocent people along the way? But more importantly, was Bucky unknowingly destroying you all this time, when you had nothing to do with all of this?

Bucky recalled the night he “proposed” to you. At that time, he thought you were playing some sick game, trying to provoke him with your happiness. But he suddenly imagined your joyous face in front of him, the tears in your eyes giving them even glossier look just made you look prettier. But then, Bucky didn’t want to think of you as pretty or hot. You were the enemy for him and his family, and he tried to do everything in his power to forget about the way you tasted when he finally gave in to his urges.

Sex with you was the best he ever had, and every time he was with a woman ever since he imagined your face in front of him. He thought of the little noises you made when you came for him, and it never failed to make him horny. But he willed himself to forget about it, to think of it as sealing the deal. He slept with you on a few other occasions, always drunk because that was the only way he could look at you the same way he used to when you were younger.

Bucky closed his eyes and sighed heavily. Could he have been doing all that with you all this time, if somebody wasn’t playing you two like puppets?

He laughed bitterly as he realised that the only played person was most probably him. That from the drama in the kitchen and from the letter in his hand, it started to be more than obvious you had no idea what was going on. You were probably just happy to finally have a chance with him, after all those years he tried to make himself as independent as he could.

Bucky needed to talk to you as soon as possible, just to ask some general questions in case he was wrong about you right now, but he doubted he was. Things finally started to make a little more sense. He still didn’t want to think of the people or the person who was actually doing all this, because he had the feeling he wouldn’t survive it just now.

But first, he needed to consult the only other person he felt like he could trust. Steve.

Bucky gave him a short call asking him to come to his house, and Steve didn’t waste a second getting there. He could hear that something was seriously wrong by the tone of Bucky’s voice. His best friend was rarely confused or surprised, let alone upset.

When he came into the house, he called for Bucky, looking around, seeing that some things have changed, and from the weird feeling in his stomach, Steve could say that you were gone. For good. And although it should have been a good thing after the things you’ve done to Bucky and his family in the recent year and something, Steve felt that there was more to the story.

He almost ran up the stairs, finding Bucky in your room, sitting on your bed with something between his fingers. Bucky had his eyes closed, and if Steve didn’t know better, he would say Bucky was actually asleep. But from the set jaw and clenched fist and overall rigid posture, Steve knew that his best friend was just thinking.

“Hey there, bud. What happened? Where’s Y/N?”

“Gone. She’s gone, pal. And while a few days ago I would take that as a victory, I have the feeling I should be mourning and not celebrating. I told you about the little fight we had in the kitchen the night of the party, right?” Bucky asked, and Steve just nodded, beckoning Bucky to continue.

“I’ve had some doubts ever since then, but today, man. Today my father and her father vetoed me in company’s vote, which I didn’t even think was possible. But about that later. And Y/N was sick the week after the party, and then I was too busy to actually take notice of her, but that doesn’t matter. My father came barging in today, telling me that Y/N wanted a child from me or she’ll reveal some new photos that I haven’t seen yet. But, I’m telling you, man, she was too sick to even have her eyes opened, let alone to plot a fucking masterplan. And then I came home, ready to confront her, finally, and I found only this letter laying on her bed, and she is fucking gone,” Bucky sighed and handed Steve the letter to have a look on his own.

They both remained quiet while Steve read over the letter a few times to be sure he didn’t miss anything.

“This actually sounds like she just wants to be free, doesn’t it? Like she would actually be relieved if I signed the divorce papers. Or am I just seeing things?” Bucky asked, genuinely concerned.

“Look, something stinks here. Because this is really Y/N telling you that she wants to have nothing to do with you, ever again, pretty much, and from what you told me about the party, she also acted honestly. So why somebody who is trying to get away from you and whose life you made living hell, I quote here, would want a fucking kid with you? It doesn’t make any sense, Buck, none at all,” Steve mused, looking at Bucky with concern in his eyes.

“What if, all this time, it wasn’t her making all those demands, but somebody else, a third party, and the only thing I did was hurt her over and over?”

“I don’t know, Buck. And why didn’t you pick up her phone? If you have this feeling for some time, you could’ve talked to her today,” Steve added.

Bucky quickly grabbed his phone and showed Steve his missed calls. There were none.

Steve’s eyes perked up as he looked from Bucky to the phone and back to Bucky.

Bucky then went through his contacts, finding yours under simply your name, and when he clicked on the contact, it showed him that your number has been blocked in his phone.

“You blocked her in some tantrum?”

“Have I ever had a fucking tantrum, man? I had never blocked anybody, even that crazy chick that called me nonstop when we were 20. I never tried to contact Y/N, that’s on me, but I wouldn’t block her number. What if she was in danger and she’d call me? I wouldn’t be so dumb.”

Steve scoffed and raised an eyebrow at his friend. “If what you think is true, I don’t think she’d call you if she were in danger.”

Bucky sighed, knowing that Steve was right. He quickly unblocked your number and stared at the screen, musing at whether to call you or not. He didn’t even know what he’d say anymore. He was just confused, and he couldn’t grasp anything that was happening around him. And he hated to feel this helplessness inside him. But if you were really innocent, Bucky thought, you must have felt like this the whole time. And once again, Bucky’s heart hurt at the thought of it.

Bucky didn’t call you that night. He thought he would look into the contract before he made any rash decisions. Luckily, he grabbed it last night as he was leaving the office so he could have enough privacy to go through it line by line.

He was going through it, paying attention to every little detail. So far, nothing caught his attention, everything was the way it supposed to be and what he remembered from reading it the first time.

It was when he got to the almost conclusion of the contract, that he stumbled upon an interesting clause.

In case Barnes and Clark’s families connect through marriage, the company cannot be sold to anybody else, nor can any third party take over the company as such. In this case, the founding members of the company stay in leadership positions, able to veto the CEO’s decisions. Further explanation of this clause to be found in section 17, clause 198.

Bucky furiously turned the pages of the contract between his fingers, trying to get to the section mentioned. When he got to section 17, he quickly skimmed through the pages to find clause 198, but he could only find number 197 before section 18 started.

Ok, now this was more than weird. Where the hell was the fucking section and how in the fucking hell would you even be able to put such shitty clause into his contract? You’ve never even seen the fucking papers. Before this day, it was safely confined behind closed doors of his office. The only people who ever even saw the contract were… his and your fathers.

Bucky’s stomach clenched, recalling the photos of his sister splayed on different surfaces, on various men, doing God knows what. Would any of your fathers be so insane, especially his own fucking father, to use his daughter as leverage against Bucky? And what was the third party mentioned in the contract?

Bucky hoped that his confusion would dissipate after reading through it, but it only caused him to be more upset. It was now more than evident that you had no fucking idea what was happening around you. And that this whole time, you were actually trying to be a good wife to him, just trying to please him and his fucking manners.

He acted like a douche to you this whole time because he thought you were the devil’s spawn, trying to get a reaction out of you and make your life as bad as he thought his own life was, while you had no idea what was going on.

Bucky wanted to die there and then. He quickly picked up his phone and shot you a text message, hoping you two could talk for the first time since you got married, and you could find a way to be civil. He knew that hoping for anything else would be foolish. He would sign the divorce papers to free you from himself. He was obviously toxic for you, and he wanted to redeem himself, even if it meant never seeing you again.

You slumped down on your couch, totally exhausted. You tried to make your apartment liveable and comfortable, just trying to make it feel like a home. Not that you felt like that in a long time. You thought that taking stuff you bought to make yourself feel better in Bucky’s house would prove a good thing, but the more you looked at the fluffy pillows, the worse you felt.

You knew it was a good thing that you left and you had no regrets about that part. But as you were finally alone, you realised one simple thing.

Sure, Bucky made your life a living hell for no apparent reason. And you definitely weren’t forgetting nor forgiving that anytime soon. But you knew you could’ve done more. That you could’ve talked to him, could’ve made him listen to your reasoning. It might have not helped, but you should have tried more.

But that was in the past, you knew Bucky, and you had no future, and you only prayed you could be civil enough to maybe come back to work one day. You got up from the couch to have a quick shower, getting the dirt and exhaustion out of your system.

When you got up, you went to cook yourself some super unhealthy dinner, something you missed terribly in your previous life. You just wanted to check your phone to check the time so that you could cook your meal properly.

Your heart stopped when you saw there was a message waiting for you.

From: James

Hello, Y/N. I know you probably don’t ever wanna talk to me again, and I understand that. But could you find it in you, to see me, possibly one last time? I promise I’ll sign whatever divorce papers you wish me to. I just feel like I should explain certain things. You don’t own me anything, but I’m begging you to give me the chance to tell you some information, and most importantly, to apologise for everything.

Please, let me know if you would be up for this.

Bucky

Oh shit, you thought and had to grab the counter behind you not to fall from all the shock coursing your veins. What the hell just happened?

/Next Chapter >

Not Me:

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Bucky Taglist

@this-kitten-is-smitten @paradisiacalsparks @crazybutconfidentaf @owlyannah @lassini @s-trawberryv-eins @reniescarlett @bxrnsfeyson @the-soulofdevil @haru-ririchiyo @winterboobear11

Marvel Taglist

@voltage-my2dlove @kneel-begyourpardon @lumar014 @ptrs-prkrs

If your name is crossed out, tumblr won’t let me tag you for some reason, I’m sorry.

If you’d like to be tagged comment/message/send an ask. If you like the story, please reblog :) any comments are appreciated, even the critical ones. Always a space to get better, so let me know what you guys think.

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snowdice · 4 years

Text

Little Kestrel (Part 5)[Birds of Different Feathers Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Logan & Patton & Virgil (future Virgil/Patton but not in this story)

Characters:

Main: Logan, Patton, Virgil

Appear: Thomas

Mentioned: Janus

Summary:

It was supposed to be a quick job either way. Either Virgil would assassinate King Thomas of Prijaznia or he’d be caught and get executed. Yet, when Virgil gets the wrong bedroom and gets caught by Prince Logan and his future royal advisor, Patton, the job ends up getting way more complicated for the 14-year-old. He also ends up sleeping in a (actually pretty comfortable) closet for a few weeks…

Notes: Implied/referenced child abuse, assassination attempt, knives, torture mentioned, captivity, teenagers being really dumb

This is a prequel to Kill Dear. I wrote it 100 words at a time on my blog, but this is the edited version. If you want to see how it was crafted, look at the tag proofread stories.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Virgil sat as still as he could in the dark space he’d been put in. He could feel the warning tingle of the binding magic at his wrists telling him not to move too much or else. He was just lucky that they’d chosen to use metal instead of cloth to apply the potion and that he’d been unconscious until it dried. He knew from experience that there was no escaping the pain that type of potion brought until it dried no matter how still you were. Now, at least, if he didn’t try to struggle against his binding it wouldn’t hurt him. It sucked because all he wanted to do was move. He wanted to struggle and pull against the binding at his wrist, but he couldn’t. Even if it wouldn’t put him in crippling amounts of pain, he’d still not be able to get away.

So, instead he just shook. He was such a fuck up. He couldn’t even remember the right room and now he was going to die. No, he was probably going to be tortured and then he was going to die. His breath came quicker and quicker the longer he remained in the closet. He’d tried to murder their king. He’d come into their prince’s bedroom in the middle of the night wielding a knife. There was no way he wasn’t going to be made to suffer for that. It didn’t matter how gently the prince and his… person had treated him so far.

He heard the muffled sounds of people approaching the closet and curled into himself. Oh, god he was going to die. He had been breathing quickly, but now he couldn’t breathe at all. It felt like someone had poured tar into his lungs. The closet door opened, and he flinched, curled into a ball and choking on nothing.

“Hey, hey,” a familiar voice said. Patton, Virgil’s mind offered: the other guy with the prince. When Virgil managed to flick his eyes open, he saw Patton had gotten to his knees in front of him. He dully noted that the boy had reached out and touched his shoulder. “Oh sweetie, I’m sorry. Can you breathe for me?”

What was the point? He wondered, but after a few moments, he managed to suck in a couple of breaths.

When he managed to calm enough to look around, he noticed that instead of there being a bunch of castle guards standing around waiting to drag him off to some dungeon, it was just the prince and Patton again. He blinked up at them in confusion.

“There’s been a change of plans,” the prince explained.

“What?” Virgil asked dumbly. “What do you mean?”

“My father is going to be away for the next three weeks,” the prince said. “Considering you didn’t kill the guards and your only targets seems to be my father and perhaps myself, you are likely not a real danger to anyone if you escape and I’m willing to take the risk with myself. With that in mind, Patton and I have decided not to turn you in yet.”

Well what the hell did that mean? Was that good or bad? On one hand, it meant that he wouldn’t be executed yet, but what exactly did the prince want with him?

As Virgil began to freak out about the possibilities, the prince continued to speak, seemingly more to himself than to Virgil or Patton.

“We will need to figure out how to care for you in the interim. We’ll have to provide you with more food than just snacks as well as find you a place to sleep. At least one of us will have to be with you at all times, and with Father gone, I’ll have to attend to some royal duties. Luckily it isn’t strange for Patton to come into my quarters at will.” He considered Virgil with discerning eyes. “Also, your general health seems to be lacking, so I’ll have to account for preexisting conditions. First thing, first though. I imagine keeping you in those bracelets all the time would be impractical. We’ll need another solution, especially for sleep.”

Virgil did not like the sound of that. He assumed based on what the prince had done so far that he’d enact some sort of magical bondage. From Virgil’s experience, magical bondage ranged from unpleasant to legitimately agonizing.

“Patton, if you will watch him for the time being, I need to go work on a more precise binding potion then the one I’ve been using.”

“Sure,” Patton agreed, but the prince was wondering away before he’d even finished the word. Patton shook his head fondly before turning back to Virgil. “Wanna come out of the closet now?”

He really, really didn’t, but he was pretty sure he didn’t have a choice in the matter. He curled his legs into himself as much as he could and waited to be dragged out into the room, but he wasn’t touched.

“Okay,” Patton said. “That’s fine. It’s a pretty nice closet.” Virgil said nothing but did breathe a sigh of relief about being able to stay. It wasn’t very rational because in actuality he was no safer here than anywhere else in the room, but the closet felt more defensible even if they could drag him out of it whenever they wanted.

Patton seemed content to sit outside the closet and leave him in peace for the moment. A few minutes later Patton made a sound and Virgil looked over to see him yawn. He smiled when he saw Virgil watching. “It was a long night for all of us, I imagine,” he said. “Hmm… actually. Wait there.”

Like he could go anywhere else. He couldn’t get a good enough angle to see what Patton was doing, but he could here him moving around the room and rustling through a few things. He came back into view holding a comical number of pillows and blankets.

“Here,” Patton said. He offered Virgil one of the blankets and then seemed to remember that Virgil could not reach out to take it. “Hmm…” He spread out the blanket next to Virgil. “Do you mind if I touch you?”

“Why are you even asking?” Virgil asked. “You can do whatever you want with me.”

Patton frowned and Virgil scrunched into himself at the expression, but it lightened the next moment. “I know it’s a bit of a bad situation and you are technically a prisoner, but I don’t want to hurt you or make you feel bad,” Patton said.

Virgil didn’t know how to respond to that. There was no way that it wasn’t some sort of trick, but he didn’t dare outright say that he thought that.

“Can I touch you a bit?” Patton asked once again. “Just to help you get onto the blanket.”

“Sure,” Virgil agreed.

The other boy smiled sweetly and grabbed his wrists with gentle fingers. Virgil let his whole body follow Patton’s guidance until he was situated rather comfortably on an unbelievably soft blanket.

“Head,” Patton said, holding up a pillow. Virgil lifted his head slightly and the pillow was shoved underneath it.

Another blanket was settled over him the next. Patton was weird. “There you go!” Patton said. “Now you can take a nap.”

Virgil blinked up at him in confusion. That was… not happening. What exactly about this situation did Patton think was conducive to sleep?

“…Or rest comfortably at least,” Patton said after a moment. He arranged a pillow and blanket for himself and laid on his side, so he was facing Virgil. He yawned slightly again but didn’t close his eyes. They stared at each other for an uncomfortably long moment.

“What are we doing?” Virgil finally asked when he realized Patton was not planning to ever break the awkward silence.

“We’re resting,” Patton said, “and hanging out.”

“Hanging out?” Virgil asked.

“Mmm, yeah,” Patton said popping up onto his elbow to peer at him. “Let’s talk some! We can get to know each other.”

Virgil looked at him suspicious about where this was going. “Talk about what?” he asked, eyes narrowed.

Patton hummed a quiet tune and his fingers tapped against the side of his face as he wiggled a bit back and forth. “Do you like cats?”

“Cats?” Virgil asked. “Uh… sure?”

“I love cats,” Patton divulged. “There are a lot of cats in the castle. Not all of them like people very much, but I like to try to pet them! I even made up a game where I get points for every cat that lets me pet it. The grumpier they are, the more points I get!”

“You… try to pet wild cats?” Virgil asked.

“Uh huh!”

Virgil thought back to the few untamed cats he’d met in his life. “Don’t they… try to murder you.”

“Sometimes,” Patton said with a shrug. He moved his arm suddenly and Virgil startled, but he just rolled down his sleeve so Virgil could see a large, fairly fresh-looking scratch on his arm. “This one’s from Mr. Calico Man. He does not like his ears touched apparently, but he will let me give him chin scratchies!”

This boy was insane.

“I think I’ve pet every single cat in the castle at least once, except for Ghost Kitty.”

“Who is Ghost Kitty?”

“Oh, Ghost Kitty is the prettiest thing in the world,” Patton gushed. “She hangs out in the gardens a lot, but no one can get anywhere near her. She’s completely black and only started showing up around a year ago. I can’t even see her for more than 2 seconds at a time let alone try to pet her, but I will someday and on that day, I’ll get 1,000 points!”

“How many points are they usually?”

“For ones like Mittens and Cleo who I’ve known since they were babies, only 1. For Sandra it’s 5 since she can get a bit tetchy, but usually won’t run away. Lily Flower and Red Hot like to run away but won’t try to scratch me if I do catch them so they’re 10. Ones like Mr. Calico Man are worth 100.”

“So, you are going to try to pet a cat that is 10x more feral than the one that slashed your arm?”

“She’s so pretty!”

“You have no survival instincts whatsoever, do you?” Virgil asked.

Patton smiled wryly at him. “I apparently have a couple,” he said.

Virgil blinked at him and thought back, connecting the dots. Only Patton and the prince knew he was here, and the prince had been in front of him when he’d came into the room… “You were the one to knock me unconscious,” he concluded.

“I’d say sorry, but you were coming in here with the intention of hurting someone I care about,” Patton said with a shrug.

Right. Virgil had almost forgotten amongst his soft tone and gentle countenance that the man laying docilly next to him definitely hated his guts and would probably relish in whatever the prince had planned for him.

Virgil let his fists clench, but otherwise didn’t let onto his distress as Patton softly brought the conversation back to the previous topic and continued to ramble on about the different cats of the castle.

Want to read more? Click below!

Part 6

#sanders sides #logan sanders #patton sanders #character thomas #virgil sanders #adriana writes #little kestrel #birds of different feathers #implied/referenced child abuse #assassination attempt #knives #torture mentioned #captivity

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pl-panda · 4 years

Text

Damienette arranged marriage: part 11

I literary wrote it right after publishing the previous part. Surprise. But you will kill me again because this time this is serious cliffhanger :)

Credits: Miraculous Ladybug team for the elements I take from MLB show. DC for their characters, @ozmav for the AU, @maribat-archive for giving me access to so many different stories to have take inspirations from, @thyladyanput for idea for Chat Damian and me for the plot.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Damienette arranged marriage: part 11

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Instead of taking the ring he closed boy's hand around it, cupping it in his own. "No son. I told you I can't do this alone. I want... I need your help. We can bring your mother back together."

"Thank you father. Your trust means the world for me."

-----------------------------------

Now

Chat Noir crashed through the window right into the room where Marinette, Damian and Chloe were having a friendly conversation. He looked different. His ears and tail were real instead of accesories and instead of bell on his neck he had only a choker with word 'Marinette' written on it.

"My Purrincess! I come to save you!" He said in almost seductive tone.

"Chat Noir? What is the meaning of this?!" Chloe jumped in front of Marinette. "Do you know how expensive this windows are?! And look at you! Ridiculous. Utterly Ridiculous! What have you done to yourself?!"

"There is no Chat Noir here. I am Chat d'amour. And I came to save my Purrincess!"

Damian growled and went to grab his sword, but before he could do anything a staff hit him in the chest and pushed him into the wall. While normally the young vigilante would shrug this kind of damage off, this cat was actually strong like a lion.

"You! You stole my purrincess!" The akumatized hero purred aggressively. He walked to the Wayne heir who was trying to get from the ground but his body was still hurting. "You corrupted her. She never skipped classes before you came. Because of you she became friends with... with... With Chloe!" He finally shouted. "She is the walking Akuma factory!"

Damian spat into cat's face. Using the momentary distraction he dashed forward, ignoring the pain he felt in all his body parts and tackled him. "Run!" He shouted to the girls. Marinette was in too much shock and confusion to react, but Chloe grabbed the bluenette and dragged her out. They were already at the doors, but they couldn't open them. Chloe locked them to ensure nobody would eavesdrop on their talk. Before she managed to open them Cat's staff locked them.

"My Purrincess! I will not let them take you away!" Chat d'amour dashed forward and grabbed Marinette, only to then jump through the window and out into the city. Neither Chloe nor Damian could react in time.

Wayne wanted to leave, to call his brother, to do anything. He switched between trying to open the anti-breakin doors, calling his family, calling police and just striding around. At the same time Chloe managed to call her father and get him to send police after chat noir and already got her social media profile and all her followers to hunt for the cat. Damian just ended another unsuccessful call to his brother.

"I swear if the reason Drake's not picking up is because he is making out with Brown I will castrate him!" He got angry and kicked in the doors. Then second time. By the third time he cursed in arabic as excruciating pain filled his leg. Chloe grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him to the bed. She then looked at him expectantly. "You can't think I will touch anywhere near your bottom leg! Ridiculous! Utterly Ridiculous!"

"I don't have time for this! She is out there! With this idiot!" Another colorful string of curses left his mouth, this time a mix between French, Arabic, English, Mandarin and surprisingly Spanish.

"You are in no condition to help her lover boy and it would be best if you didn't kill yourself just doing that. The ambulance is already coming. Now since you can't move, care to explain what was that part about you and Dupain-Cheng being married?"

Damian paled. He read files of everyone in the class. Only two people who knew Mandarin were Adrien Agreste and Marinette herself. They considered it safe language as long as the blonde boy trouble was not present.

"Yes, I know Mandarin. I kept Adrikins company when he studied and he made me learn it to practice. Now spill. I'm not letting it go."

For a moment, Damian was considering letting Chloe go from the top of the hotel. It could look like an accident. He could tell them she slipped and fell through the open window. Nobody would doubt him. And everything would perfect. But he couldn't take away Marinette's last friend. As much as he disliked her, she had cathartic effect on his wife.Funny how in twenty-four hours of knowing her more closely he already accepted this fact... FOCUS WAYNE!

"I assume it would be prudent to try and dissuade you from pursuing this?"

"Spill." was her answer.

"Fine." It took him a short moment to form a plausible lie that would keep the girl off the track. "A month ago my mother kidnapped me. I recently turned fifteen which is marriage age where I grew up. I awoke tied in front of the altar with Marinette next to me."

"What! Ridiculous! That's utterly ridiculous. What mother does that to their ..." Then Chloe suddenly shut up. Her mother didn't even know her name. Maybe it was not as surprising as it should be, but she was shocked nonetheless.

"My mother is not a good person. She threatened that either we go forth with the ceremony or she will kill her."

"The two days..." Chloe put three and seven together to make a solid ten.

"tt. Yes."

"But forced marriage is illegal. And stupid. Utterly stupid. And you are both underage."

"Mother doesn't care about this things. Right now if either of us backs from the deal there will be many deaths."

"Just who the fuck is your mother?" Chloe shouted. ------------- Marinette was trying to escape the better part of the way, but Chat held her tight and if she actually succeeded, she would fall and risked serious injury. And here there would be no miracle cure to save her since there would be no next ladybug for quite some time.

Finally, they arrived at a rooftop with a picnic blanket and basket awaiting. Chat put Marinette on the ground near the wall, very carefully. "Voila!"

"Chat Noir. What in ladybug's name is this?!" She screamed at him.

"My purrincess! This is all for you! I made it. You are safe here. They will no longer corrupt you with their toxic purrsonalities. You can be all mine now!"

"What?!" the bluenette wanted to say... something, but her mind had hard time getting the idea that Chat got himself akumatized.

"They were giving you all the wrong ideas. You are not some bully. You are beautiful, smart and kind. The two of them just want to have you all for themselves.

"And you think that by doing this you saved me?!"

"Yes! And I think I earned a reward..." Chat leaned and tried to Kiss Marinette on the lips. The only thing he didn't account for was that her hands were free.

Marinette didn't hold back. She delivered a haymaker straight into Chat's nose. There was a crunching sound and the Akumatized hero stumbled back. Stream of red was going down to his lips, making them even more red. This punch would be enough to knock any normal person or probably even hero out cold, but the mixture of akuma and black cat miraculous caused the boy to just bleed profoundly.

"They turned you against me!" He screamed and pinned her hands on both sides of her head. There was madness in his eyes, amplified by akuma. "But a true love's kiss will heal you!" He slammed his bloody red lips onto her.

Marinette felt an excruciating pain in her chest. It was like her heart burned alive. She kicked Chat Noir right below the belt. He let go of her and stumbled back, this time falling onto the blanked an holding his manhood. Marinette also fell. A green light covered the general area of her heart.

——————————————————————————————————–

Taglist (sorry if I missed you)@pheonixashtree @sassakitty @unabashedbookworm @vixen-uchiha @maggiecc12 @actualdisasterwoman @tired-butterfly @shizukiryuu @floralfi @imanerddealwith @northernbluetongue @krispydefendorpolice @toodaloo-kangaroo @dast218 @bluesoulblueheart @theatreandcomicfreak @disneyfoxuniverse @mindfulmagics @alwaysnumberonetruth @nyaabinch @jardimazul @lenamau @rosep16 @dramatic-squirrel @sonif50 @daminett4life @lulutheawkwardess @weird-pale-blonde-person @mooshoon @jeminiikrystal @mochegato @moonlightstar64 @dragonflyswing @silverwhiteraven @shamefullove @magic-miraculous @valeks-princess @heaven428 @mlbchaosqueen @winter-gardenflower @spicybelladonna @emo-elaine13 @vetilora @karukofox21 @my-name-is-michell @sturchling @lokiifriggasonn @redscarlet95 @melicmusicmagic @interobanginyourmom @the-fusionist @razzledazzle247 @miss-mysterys-blog @darkthunder1589 @i-is-mysterious @catthhay @the-one-woman-army @zestyzealot @dahjokester @write-for-your-life2 @mermaidreject @peachedpocky @sassakitty @dahjokester @crazylittlemunchkin

#maribat #maribat au #marinette x damian #guardian!marinette #maridami #miraculous lb #miraculous ladybug #mlb #mlb x dc #batman #arranged marriage au #damian al ghul #damienette #redeemed!chloe #evil!adrien #crossover #marinette dupain cheng

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adore-holland · 4 years

Text

Under Renovation |T.H.| - Chapter 5

Pairing: Tom Holland x Celeb!Reader

Warning: Actually not a whole lot? Actual fluff?? (Is that even possible?)

Word Count: 3000+

A/N: I know it’s been long! I’m so sorry! School got in the way with lots of tests because of everything going on, and mild writers block and yeah... But it’s here! Also, let me know if a Tom’s POV chapter is wanted! <3

Series Masterlist

Chapter 5:

It’s always seemed weird to you how time always seems to move quicker when you don’t really want it to. It had been two months now, since your breakup with Tom, seven weeks since you moved to the states, and yet time had gone by so fast it barely felt like any had passed at all. Your last seven weeks had been scheduled down to the minute. The producers had assigned you an assistant, Jessica, who brought you your meals right on time, made sure a car was always ready to take you to your next location and so on. You hadn’t really had a moment to yourself. You would wake up in the morning to go train with a personal trainer to get in proper shape for the movie, after that you barely had time to shower and eat breakfast before you had to go practice new choreographies with Mena for a couple hours, after that it was meetings and readings and all the other things that kind of just melts together in your brain. Fortunately filming starts tomorrow, and it’s been a while since you’ve been this excited for a project.

Not today though, today you actually have a day off for just yourself, and hopefully some time with Dan. He had been quite busy too, having gotten a job as an assistant photographer at some fancy magazine you couldn’t really remember the name of.

Life had kept you busy, and you can’t figure out whether you’re grateful or annoyed. It’s not that you don’t like being busy. You are back to dancing every day, getting back in shape and in general just feeling better and better and more like yourself for every day that passes. At the same time, it’s weird to think that it’s already been so long since you left your life in London behind. You haven’t seen Tom in two months, and the fact that you’re slowly becoming okay with that fact freaks you out, just a tiny bit.

It’s always hard to explain how one processes a breakup. Easily is not a good word to describe it, but you had just slowly begun to think less and less about him. Your life had kind of just taken over, and the spaces that would usually have been reserved for him had been filled by something else. Weekly date nights or phone calls had turned to going out with Ashley and Chrissy. Dancing in the kitchen at 3 am had turned to dancing in the studio with Mena and so on and so forth. Life just kind of seemed to move on without him.

Strangely, you weren’t really sad anymore so much as confused. You still had no idea why he broke up with you, of course there was that girl people now suspected was his girlfriend, but that would make no sense considering he tried to kiss you. But you can’t really do anything about that confusion. Of course, you could reach out to him and ask him why, but life seemed calm now, the nights really being the only time you had time to think about him, and he is very much still in your dreams, but life was still. Reaching out to him would be like removing the cast way before the bone is set again or packing up the puzzle with pieces still not placed.

When you had called him, he had tried to say something, but you had hung up. A part of you kind of hoped that he would try harder to reach you. Somewhere deep inside you wanted him to chase you, but you also knew that wasn’t going to happen. You don’t chase someone you broke up with.

But despite the confusion, you’ve begun thinking about him in a different light again. Despite the heartache, he was with you through the most transformative years of your life, played a huge role in who you are today and the way you view love and relationships. Despite the pain you’ve felt these last two months, you not only still love him, but also all the memories you have involving him.

You’re sitting on the edge of your bed, looking out of the large windows that cover the entire wall, just watching the place you now call home. Dan is downstairs cooking up his famous pancakes, but you can’t quite bring yourself to go down there yet. You lie back down on the bed, closing your eyes and just feeling the comforter welcome you.

:)-(:

~Three years ago~

“That is literally so cliché!” Tom exclaims loudly as he points to the people on screen. “That would so never happen in real life.” He runs a frustrated hand over his face, before brushing his hair back, and you swallow a thick lump in your throat at the sight of his muscles slowly flexing and relaxing under his shirt, and his luscious curls that swallow his fingers and god you want to run your fingers through his hair in a much less innocent way.

“You don’t believe in clichés?” You ask, chuckling when he turns to you with furrowed brows and puckered lips. “You are literally a walking cliché, mate.” You can’t help it, so you reach over and mess up his hair, noticing the way his brown eyes stay on your face, watching the small smile on your lips.

“What are you on about?” He smirks now, and you hum before letting your hand fall to his bicep, resting it there, because you really just can’t help yourself. The tight white t-shirt and his low-hanging sweatpants and perfect pinkish lips, and oh god... You’re staring. You let your hand fall back down into your lap.

“You’re literally the world’s golden boy, Tom. Everyone adores you, every single girl on this planet would run naked down Oxford street if that meant just a chance at meeting you.” With a sigh you scoot a bit closer to him, almost sitting impossibly close now. You breathe out, watching a thoughtful look settle on his beautiful face. There is no chance in hell you would ever admit it, but you would probably run naked down Oxford Street for him to even think of you as something different than just his best friend.

“Right, and how many guys do you have thirsting over you every day?” He winks at you, and you’re suddenly sitting too close to him, a space much too intimate for you and him, and there’s a line. A line that’s keeping you from what you truly want, but also one that’s keeping you from losing someone you barely know if you can live without - and now you’re scooting back away from him.

“You know how many of my mates have asked me to set them up with you? I’m your first line of defense against those tossers, you should be thankful.” He chuckles and grabs your waist to prevent you from removing yourself from him any further.

“Thank you? What if I wanted a guy in my life? What if you’re the reason I’m gonna end up as an old maid?” A surprised squeal leaves you when you feel Tom’s fingers beginning to tickle your sides. “Don’t you dare” you warn, but the huge grin on his face softens you up. Big mistake.

“You don’t need any guy, y/n. And if you need someone to reach the higher shelves, I’m here.” He looks at you intently, his hands slowly making their way down and up under your shirt to settle on your waist again. This is a very dangerous game. The heat from his hands is spreading all throughout your body, to places he probably wasn’t intending to reach, but here you are, flexing your thighs slightly to resist clenching them together. Falling for your best friend was the worst idea you had ever had.

“Like you could ever reach that high,” It’s your turn to wink at him, and a blush bursts out on his cheeks before he starts moving his fingers against your sides again, forcing you to lay down on the couch, in an effort to get away from his skillful fingers.

Your entire body is bubbling with laughter as tears begin to make their way down your flushed cheeks. Your soft grey sweater has ridden up to just under your bra, and Tom’s soft fingers brush against your sides mercilessly while he hovers above you, a huge grin plastered on his beautiful face.

It’s a typical movie night. You, Tom and Harrison had scheduled movie nights every last Friday in the month. When you had told your friend Marie about it, she had warned you that your crush on Tom wouldn’t go away if you kept snuggling into him all the time, and while you knew she was right, you also couldn’t help but crave the safe feeling that came from being tucked under his arm and against his chest. The amount of times you had fallen asleep on him was getting ridiculous at this point, but he didn’t seem to mind so you kept on. In truth, it was breaking your heart, to know that one day he would get in a relationship with someone that wasn’t you, and it wouldn’t be acceptable for you to cuddle with someone’s boyfriend.

Your laughter halts when Tom’s fingers stop moving. He glances down at you, a smirk playing on his lips before he nods his head in the direction of the TV, where a couple is making out, heavily. With a squeak you reach your hands up to cover your eyes, thankful that Harrison is in the bathroom so he can’t tease you about the very compromising position you are currently in, along with the heavy breathing and moaning from the movie.

“Oh god, make them stop!” Your voice is barely above a whisper, but Tom obviously hears it. His face is suddenly nuzzled into your neck, his laughter making his breath puff out onto your skin, and you swear your heart stops. He’s not even hovering over you anymore, just straight up laying on top of you, while you can hear the couple on the TV getting it on.

“Tommy?” You ask softly, slowly removing your hands from his face, and instead placing one of them between his shoulder blades, and the other on his neck, tangling your fingers in his hair, pulling slightly. With your hand resting on his neck, you feel his pulse quicken, almost matching your own at this point.

Carefully he hoists himself up so he’s resting on his forearms, head right over yours.

“Y/n, I could do more than just reach shelves for you.” Another surge rushes downwards in your body at the sound of his husky voice. He has never spoken to you like that before, and the way his eyes are staring into your soul right now, along with the feeling of his breath on your lips and just everything - you have to try your hardest not to let out a desperate whimper. Instead, you furrow your brows, not sure what he’s talking about.

“What do you mean?” Your voice is so low now, you’re barely even whispering.

“Y/n…” He looks at you, devastated and confused. You reach one hand up to play with the curls on the back of his neck, and with your other hand you rub soothing circles on his bicep.

“You have no idea how much better I would treat you than any of those wankers out there.”

You stop breathing, stop moving, stop everything. Did he just say that?

“What did you just say?” Slowly, you let your hand slide down so it’s resting on his cheek, and he nuzzles into it, your breath immediately catching in your throat.

“You’re right. I am cliché, but that’s your fault.” The way he’s looking at you makes fireworks go off in your brain, happy ones. Like the first time you celebrate New Year’s without your parents, and the first time you don’t need ear plugs. It’s excitement, happiness, new beginnings and so much joy that you barely have enough room for it.

“You made me fall in love with my best friend… And I know this is so fucking cheesy; but be a cliché with me?” He chuckles nervously. His eyes searching your face for any response, but you’re just smiling, new tears brimming in your eyes. You nod.

“Oh, thank god.” He huffs out, his nervous smile now replaced with a lazy but excited one. “Does that mean I can kiss you now?” You nod again, not trusting your voice to work and the moment he leans down to capture your lips with his, the fireworks stop. The heat is still there, the joy and the adoration is there, but there are no fireworks. Instead, you feel as if you’re coming home from a long night out, a busy work weekend, a terrible day spent mostly in traffic. You’re home and you can finally relax, every worry of the day ripples off you as his lips move gently against yours - it’s the comfort of a warm shower before going to bed, a homemade meal with the people you love, handpicked flowers instead of a store-bought bouquet. As he kisses you, gently and carefully like you’re gonna slip away any second, you realize that this right here is home. Not his apartment, not London, not even England. He is home.

:)-(:

~Present~

This is home now, you remind yourself. LA is home now. Without further thought you stand up and make your way downstairs to Dan.

“Morning Moviestar, did ya’ sleep well?” Dan greets you with a side hug and a kiss on the top of your head. You just nod into his chest before walking over to plop yourself down on the kitchen island.

“I was thinking we could go shoot some photos today. I really want to add some to my portfolio, and you’re literally the perfect model.” He watches you as you snuggle into your cropped hoodie before letting out a deep breath.

“We could do that, and then maybe board games tonight? Oooh and tea, it’s been so long since I’ve done anything remotely british,” you laugh.

“Deal, but first! Breaktfast! The most important meal of the day!” And with that he turns back around to continue his cooking. As if on cue, your phone starts buzzing from its place beside you. A photo of a very drunk Mena from your first night out pops up on your screen.

You and Mena have gotten close over the last weeks. You’re bound to given all the time you’ve spent together, and he’s been a pillar of support for you. There are no romantic feelings between you, and it’s been fantastic to have a guy you can talk straight relationship problems with, no offence to Dan of course. You pick up the phone.

“Hi! You’re up early,” you chuckle. 9 am on a day with no work sounds about impossible for the Mena you’ve come to know.

“Well! All the good vegan breakfast places all get overrun if I don’t get to them fast enough.” You can basically hear the smile in his voice.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Dan smiles before flipping the pancakes. He would never admit it to you while sober, but he has definitely garnered a slight crush on your new friend. Mena knows, and to be honest he’s flattered. But honestly, it’s no wonder. One look at Mena and most girls fawning over Tom would fawn over him too. They’re very very similar with their dark hair, dark eyes, height and just all-around happy personalities. The only reason you’re not interested in him, as far as you can tell, is that despite all the similarities, Mena isn’t Tom.

“Remember our rebound date plan? Could we do that tomorrow night? My ex texted me last night and I damn near wrote that I missed her. I need the rebound y/n!” He chuckles, and you smile. After everything you’ve heard about his ex, you know just how similar your situations are. Except of course, you didn’t get cheated on. Or… at least you hope you didn’t.

“I should have time then, where do you wanna go?” You watch your feet dangling above the ground. Just thinking about feeling any semblance of romance makes you giddy. You’re a sucker for romance and anything that has to do with that intimate bond you get with someone, and while you will admit you’re not all the way over Tom, it will be nice to do something romantic again.

“Fantastic! If you’re up for it, there’s this vegan restaurant I think you might enjoy. If not we can find somewhere and just make sure they have some options for me.”

After discussing the last details of the date-thing, you hang up and glance back up at Dan, who is now nearly done with his batter, a beautiful stack of pancakes teasing you from beside him.

It is going to be weird, going on a date again. Your first date with Tom was perfect, every single aspect of it. Same goes for the second and third. All of your dates with Tom were perfect. The thought saddens you a bit. Despite your efforts, you just can’t get him out of you head. But to be fair to yourself, you did think he was it for you. Even if he wasn’t it for you, he was still good for you, you remind yourself.

“Hey, you alright?” Dan nudges your knee with his hand

“Yeah, was just thinking about Tom again.” You watch carefully as the confusion flickers across Dan’s face. “In a good way though.” A smile falls on your lips when Dan sighs in relief.

“Yeah, how so?” He returns to the pans, quickly checking the consistency of the pancakes before humming with approval.

“You know, just all the good times we had together, how much he changed me for the better? I was thinking about our first kiss earlier. It’s kind of crazy to think about now.”

“Very true. I still can’t believe Harrison managed to walk in on that without freaking out.” Dan chuckles pouring a new batch of batter onto the pan. “Didn’t he manage to get a picture of you?”

Your blood rushes to your cheeks. Harrison had walked in and caught you, and as you found out later, he had grabbed his phone and taken a very lovely picture of the two of you. Your families found it adorable, but the three of you all new what scene was playing on TV and couldn’t take the romantic atmosphere seriously because of it.

“Yeah, it should be in the box I brought with me.” With a hum you reach over and grab one of the banana pieces Dan has cut for the pancakes, but not without getting a slap on your hand first.

“Wait.. A box with pictures?” He asks, halting his actions. “Like, a shoebox with ‘Tom’ written on it?”

You hum, going to grab another banana slice.

“Y/n.. Don’t hate me. But when Tom came over, I kinda figured you were gonna give him his stuff, and I thought that box was meant for him, so I put it down with the rest of his stuff…”

“You did what now?” Fuck.

Taglist:

@spider-manholland @cinna-minseok @trumpettay @racewife2004 @paradisiacalsparks @farfromshawn @lovely-geek @plutoneu @primadonnasdream @panicattheeverywherekid

#tom holland x reader #tom holland imagine #Tom Holland Fan Fiction #tom holland series #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #under renovation #tom holland angst

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arda-tourism-board · 4 years

Text

My writing (part 1)

I know nobody wants to hear about it, but I've been writing the same stories but slightly to the left each time since 2013 so I may as well share them. I haven't published anything, but i’m hoping to one day.

Also every time i do “quotes” it’s not a quote it’s just words to that effect.

Lillith (part 1)

Lillith (More/many) and Lucian (either enchantment or indebted) (the names were a joke about chosen ones that got out of hand), twin descendants of Arwen and Aragorn, recieve a Silmaril in their parent's will and they now have to hide it. An accident throws them back to the year 2000, before they've even been born, and they suddenly have to navigate the year in a new country, discovering the truth behind their long lost heritage while dodging the unawakened reborn Fëanorions and their "father", Kane Fey.

They start this by almost being run over by Nimrodel, who takes them in for some reason without question.

They don’t recognise them at first in the slightest, and Lucian (now Lukas) strikes up a friendship with “Tyler” before Nimrodel strikes it down.

They manage to befriend them, but things get more complicated when the eldest, "Russell," begins to remember who he was, and seems to recognise Lillith and her real name.

Without the binding of the oath, the Fëanorions are friendlier, less rageful, but their past life haunts them.

Lillith is apparently almost identical to someone they knew in Aman, who had a long affair and children with Caranthir, and disappeared with them around three years before the death of Finwë.

Lillith, who remembers nothing of this, and is most definitely human, is confused to say the least, but they just chalk it down to coincidence.

She and Caranthir - Matt - get closer anyway, but it doesn't work out because she feels he's trying to replace her with her apparent double.

Lucian gets involved with Idrillien - explain later - and begins getting involved with rediscovering their heritage even more. Lillith avoids them due to the political issues surrounding the Silmaril, opting to hide it instead.

Cut to 2020. Lillith has the Silmaril, and an accident occurs where she, her younger self, and her brother, are thrown back in time. This completes the 2020-2000 loop, and starts an 80,000 year loop.

Lillith (part 2) girl falls into middle earth is like, my brand.

Lillith is under a land with only starlight, the desert surrounding her and the only thing in her possession being the Silmaril.

In a fit of madness she eats it (yes I know the plot point is weird but stick with me). This connects her to the two trees, and gives her youth.

She eventually finds her way out of the desert and reaches the path of Eldar heading to Aman.

She joins them, learning the language with them and realising that she's in Arda. This is confirmed when they encounter Oromë, and he points at her and goes "wtf you're not an elf."

She ends up living in Alqualondë, but when she meets a young Morifinwë, she realises that the person she'd been jealous of and thought he was trying to replace her with was herself.

They have three children. Lillith refuses marriage. Marriage would bind her to stay by his side, and she knows what's coming next.

She steals her daughters away to Ennor, and spend the rest of her days in Rhûn, avoiding watching the inevitable.

In the end she falls in love with a Lindi (Nandorin) elleth, Ovranen (abound). Together they travel the world, visiting the most Eastern and Southern continents, eventually returning to Arda and Lillith finally meets Arwen and Aragorn, and finds out the fate of her daughters.

The first, named Helleneth (Sky Maiden), went to Doriath, and met and married Thranduil, a Sindarin Lord. She met her fate to grief from the loss of her fourth child, stolen from the crib (plot point for later on). At this, she confessed her heritage and was banished from Eryn Lasgalen, but an incident meant that everyone thought she was dead. She travelled to the Grey Havens under a new name, Lalyanon (traveller), and sailed home.

The second, named Kemeninya (Earth maiden), stayed in the North, living in Gondolin for a time, but when it fell, ran Northwards, eventually joining with the rangers of the North.

The third, named Rúnanen (freer), eventually rejoined with her father, and joined the Ñoldorin cause. She met the same fate as her father, run through with a sword, but instead dying at the gates of Sirion.

Lillith visits Kemeninya, now going by Dolenath (hidden), and they reconnect.

Lillith and Ovranen then recount their travels for archive, and then continue to travel, never settling down.

80,000 years old, Lillith calls on Nimrodel, and asks her for a favour. Take care of her brother.

Lost

I know crossovers are literally the worst thing in the world but I don't care so you can pry this one from my cold, dead, hands. There’s some romance in this one, but it doesn’t come until much, much, later.

Haruka, a Jedi master, on the run from the Empire, discovers a backwater world where she can disguise herself perfectly. Almost too perfectly. The customs throw her at first but she’s trained to adapt to anything.

She clips a translator to her ear, and she gets a job as a servant in Imladris.

Everyone thinks she's really young, and they're right. She's 32, and elves aren't fully matured until they're 50, but nobody told her that. She wasn't even aware she shared a species with them. Or anyone.

She's more concerned about the fact she needs to hide her left leg because it's made of metal and could rat her out to one of the very criminal merchants that could know about the Empire’s very large bounty on her head.

She does manage to evade the merchants, but when she leaves her leg on her bed at some point she has to explain that,,, maybe she isn’t local.

A diplomatic visit from Eryn Lasgalen in the form of the Crown Prince does change things though. Celeberyn points straight at Haruka and goes “you look exactly like my little brother. That’s weird.”

She’s panicking now because she actually has no idea where she came from, and just nods, and goes, “cool.”

Internally she’s freaking out because he mentioned that said brother had a missing identical twin (yes, you heard me, identical) and now she’s trying to figure out if she’s ok to exist here, cause she’s come across a lot of cultures and there isn’t a 100% track record with that.

After a long day of asking people random questions, she figures out that she’s fine here.

Her translator chip finally breaks (one of the twins stepped on it) and she just doesn’t talk to anyone for a month straight.

She turns 50, and offhandedly mentions it to someone because she’s kinda surprised she hasn’t aged yet and they just go what

Turns out she’s meant to go to school and stuff. And learn to write. That isn’t a class thing here, so they’re super concerned because this is a baby and she only has one leg and can’t write who did this to her

Turns out going “oh yeah I was a general in this war” when prompted to explain the situation has so many questions raised.

Everything is pieced together between her and Lisbeth, the youngest after her, in a clearing.

Turns out Haruka is the long lost twin “prince” of Eryn Lasgalen, stolen by someone looking to make a quick buck by selling her to the Jedi because of her hypersensitivity to the force. (elves are born very far and few between)

She swears Lisbeth to secrecy, but it all comes out when Legolas visits Imladris and demands to speak to her.

Turns out they’re linked, even across galaxies, and whenever she went through great physical or emotional trauma, he felt it, but Haruka learned to block out her emotions a long time ago, so never felt any of his. (Turns out that’s why her phantom pains are so realistic, because she was feeling the sensations on his leg to compensate.)

She is unable to deny the fact of her identity now, but she (rightly) refuses to go by her birth name, mainly because Haruka has been her name from the start anyway (it’s gender neutral).

She decides instead of facing her family, she’ll go back into space (because flat earth arda for elves is a mindset and she’s never even heard of it).

She manages (somehow) to find a merchant, and doesn’t realise she’s been followed by Elrohir until she’s dropped off on Lothal and he taps her on the shoulder like “hey where are we and what are all these creatures i’m scared”

She drags him with her to meet with the new Republic, and she gets a new translator chip, leg, and dyes her hair for fun (this is stressful she deserves the dark blue hair).

They eat lunch at a street café, and have a long conversation about Haruka’s torrid backstory. They don’t bond, but they do become friends.

Before, their dynamic was “random servant number 5″ and “lord” but now it’s “jedi master” and her “friend who only knows three words.”

She offers to take him home, but he declines on the basis that home will be there a lot longer than this will.

They start working together at the new republic. Turns out Elrohir makes an excellent fake body guard (he can fight but that’s not the point), and Haruka helps bring some of the old Jedi practices into the new order.

When the new jedi order falls, Haruka steals as many of the students away and takes them and Elrohir back to Arda.

They chill out in Imladris, hiding out for a few years before Haruka remembers that she left because she was avoiding the whole family situation, and has to confront the fact that she is royalty, and finally meets her dad (her mother’s fate is discussed above).

It goes a lot better than expected. The first thing he asks about is why she’s a woman, and it’s awkward, but they eventually fall into a good conversation.

Haruka thinks, “hey, maybe I can exist here in a family.”

But at the same time she’s got her found family in Imladris (cause you know she basically got adopted the minute she, a child, mentioned that she’d been in a war) (have i read too many salvage fics? yes. will i now compare elrond to hakoda? yes. you saw it here first folks only in this story she’s adopted by the entire serving staff.)

Haruka doesn’t venture to the stars for another for hundred years. For now, she’s just content on Arda. She takes to the stars again sometime after the end of the third age, now bored and eager to explore again. Elrohir comes with her. Together they build a new found family and crew, exploring the galaxy.

Part 2 coming soon

#my writing

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pocket-clown · 4 years

Text

Smile | Arthur Fleck x reader

// AN: I’m going to be entirely honest: I’m very shy about sharing this. This was actually the first thing that I ever wrote for Arthur, and I had posted it awhile back but deleted it within a few hours because I felt (and still kind of do) very... insecure about it, especially since I was, and still am, trying to get the hang of writing for Arthur and I worry that I write him too ooc.

My mental health has been kinda down in the dumps for the last few months (which brings me into thanking the few people that I’ve been DM’ing with on here and how patient with me they’ve been); a lot of stuff that I thought was calming down ended up suddenly flaring up really badly again, and so I wrote this in the span of about three days because I was feeling too bad to sleep those nights, and I needed some way to comfort myself.

Summary: Reader recalls the recent, first meeting she had with a certain neighbor of hers and hopes that it’ll bring about some sort of positive change to her life. Both reader and Arthur are, essentially, total strangers in this - something they both, secretly, hope will change.

Continuation can be found here

Words: 3,064

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Very few feelings carried the same weight that emptiness did, and the heaviness that was settled in the bottom of your stomach made your entire body almost ache with physical pain. You’d been able to stave it off for most of the day, but once you were home and left to your own company did it grow in size, and no longer were you able to just ignore it. It permeated your entire being, soaking into every bit of your conscience much like how the dampness of the freezing rain that was pouring down outside would’ve soaked into your sweater if you’d gone out without an umbrella, the thought of which making you curl further into the blanket you had wrapped around yourself as you lay in bed.

Regardless of how hard you tried to force yourself to think of other things, like the good instead of the bad, or whatever was playing on your small television, you just couldn’t stop your mind from eventually wandering back to the thoughts that did nothing but remind you of how absolutely lonely you were - how utterly meaningless your life felt. It was nothing new - quite the opposite, in fact - but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with, especially since you were in a new environment where you were unfamiliar with pretty much everything that surrounded you, apart from the small amount of your personal belongings that filled your cramped apartment.

Though they varied in intensity, the feelings of loneliness and isolation never actually left you completely; they’d loom over you, day and night, sometimes only a light breeze that tickled the back of your conscience and other times a pest that gnawed a hole into it, and their presence alone made you dread your inevitable return to your small apartment in the evenings where you’d be left with nothing but yourself, your thoughts, and whatever program you could find on TV in a fruitless attempt at distracting yourself. You were just so unbelievably fed up with everything; fed up with feeling so stuck, fed up with feeling so miserable - fed up with just being. Even amongst your coworkers and the crowds of strangers that filled the grocery stores and the seats around you on the subway did you feel so far out of reach, so far out of touch with everyone, that sometimes you felt that you could stand in place and start screaming at the top of your lungs and not a single person would even so much as bat an eye at the outburst. At times you had a hard time even fathoming the fact that you existed alongside them, and you found it an increasingly hard feeling to cope with as time went on and you realized you weren’t really feeling any better like you thought you would’ve. You were beginning to completely isolate yourself; social affairs and being in public had little appeal when compared to the safety of your apartment, and leaving for work was really the only thing you could psych yourself up enough to actually do.

Why you’d even decided to move to Gotham of all places boggled your mind, but deep down you knew it was a pathetic attempt at trying to surround yourself with more. Deep down, you craved more; more people, more places, more opportunities - because despite your general lack of interest in socialization, part of you actually desired some sort of connection that would give your small existence even a smidgen of something close to true life - something which you were beginning to feel was impossible to find. You’d hoped that moving to a highly populated place with cramped streets and the hustle and bustle of city streets and plazas would’ve encouraged you to come out of your shell, but it was beginning to feel like that was never going to happen, regardless of how much you tried to convince yourself that it eventually would.

That was, until, you actually made the move and found yourself your very own apartment in one of the many neglected complexes that the city had to offer. It was nearly vacant with only a handful of other tenants occupying it, but given your small savings and what little you made from your job it was all you could really afford. Though your hours were close to the normal 9 to 5, overtime for a meager addition to your pay wasn’t uncommon and you found yourself frequently returning home a few hours later - usually around 7, occasionally closer to 8.

At first, you absolutely hated returning home so late - days at work tended to leave you completely drained of energy and the extra hours left you with little time to take care of non-work related responsibilities - but as the days went on, you realized that if it weren’t for the extra hours that you initially regret picking up, then you wouldn’t have met Arthur like you had.

Arthur - your socially awkward, almost-neighbor; the same guy you were actually warned to stay away from by another tenant when you first moved in. He’d told you something about how Arthur was unstable, something about him being weird and making everyone uncomfortable - but if you were going to be entirely honest, you really didn’t listen. You had always tried to keep yourself from judging someone on a superficial level, especially when you knew next to nothing about them and what little you did know came from the mouth of someone who didn’t even bother telling you their own name. Despite your disincline to believe what you were told about Arthur, though, you really didn’t feel the need to seek him out for any reason or another. He was another guy that lived in your building that you’d probably cross paths with on occasion, and that would be that.

Or at least, you felt that way up until the day you actually met him.

-----

Purse in hand, you’d stepped out of your apartment without even a glance up as you rummaged through your bag. Plagued with some of the worst brain fog you’d ever had, you were beginning to develop a terrible habit of forgetting things and not realizing that you were missing something until you were well away from your apartment, and considering how absolutely atrocious your day had already been the absolute last thing you needed was for you to get to the market and realize that you’d forgotten your wallet, keys, or something else equally as important. It was late, nearly 8:30 in the evening, but an impromptu trip to the market was called for as you’d been putting one off for nearly a month and you were starting to run low on quite a few necessities as a result.

Mind far too preoccupied with both making sure you had everything you needed as well as attempting to make sense of the messy mental shopping list you’d made, you were so lost in thought that you failed to notice the presence of someone else in the hallway, and thanks to your complete lack of awareness you collided right into them - the two of you slamming together hard enough that your purse fell to the floor, sending what little contents it had in it scattering, and the other person stumbling backwards and onto the floor with a soft oof.

That other person had actually been Arthur, which you learned eventually, but at that moment you had no clue who the person you’d run into was, and that almost made you feel even worse about knocking them over. You were still new around, and you really didn’t need the others in the building to think you were both careless and rude.

“- Jesus, I’m sorry!” You blurted out, completely pulled back to reality as you regained your balance and looked down to see who it was you’d run into. “Christ!, I wasn’t even paying attention - I’m so sorry, are you alright?”

Your eyes met the soft green ones of the particularly tired looking man on the floor in front of you, and for a brief moment you’d forgotten that you’d just knocked him right over as the two of you just stared at each other. He seemed much more caught off guard by the interaction than you were (though you couldn’t really blame him since you doubt he really planned on getting shoved over), and you could feel your face redden with the heat of embarrassment once you realized that aside from your initial apology almost half a minute ago, neither of you had spoken a word or moved from your spots.

As you stepped forward, prepared to stoop down and offer your hand to help him up, he stopped you before you could by pulling himself up, sweeping his hands behind himself to lightly brush the back of his pants off as he stuttered out a quiet apology.

“Are you alright?” You’d asked him, a bit bemusedly considering the fact that he had apologized to you when you were the one at fault. You kept your attention on his face, looking for any signs of discomfort or irritation; God knew that with the majority of Gotham’s citizens, most would’ve blown up at you for knocking them right on their ass like you had and so you’d braced yourself for the impending blow up - but when it never came and his response was much calmer than you had expected it to be, you couldn’t help but actually smile a bit out of pure disbelief.

“Yeah - I’m alright. I’m fine.” His voice, his deep but soft voice, sounded strained as he spoke, almost as if he were trying to keep himself calm. He probably didn’t want to be in this situation anymore than you did.

“Are you sure? You fell pretty hard there.”

“It was my fault, I wasn’t watching where I was going -”

“Oh, no! Not at all, it was my fault - I was too busy messing with my… bag.” You cut him off, voice trialing off as you gestured loosely to the items scattered on the floor. “I should’ve been paying better attention.”

Silence fell over the two of you, neither knowing quite what to say, and you couldn’t help but shift awkwardly in your spot. You debated on apologizing again or maybe even introducing yourself to him, but you figured that if he wanted to know, then he would’ve asked.

I really need to get going.

With a quick glance at him, you knelt down so you could collect the scant amount of items your purse had spilled, trying your damnedest to not be any more clumsy than you already had been by dropping them again, a task that proved difficult as you were so flustered that you were trembling. He seemed to hesitate in front of you for a second, as if he were trying to figure out if he should just leave you to your mess or help, and after taking a moment of what you assumed was contemplation he surprised you by joining you on the floor and handing you your runaway chapstick, an action you earnestly thanked him for.

The two of you were silent as you collected everything, and once you had the last item it in your hand, you realized that you didn’t actually recognize it - a white, kraft paper bag that was rolled up to keep its contents from spilling out. It felt light in your hand, and when you turned it over to get a better look at it you were able to read the name FLECK, ARTHUR that was printed in bold, small letters along the top of the label that was stapled onto it.

Oh.

This was Arthur.

This was Arthur - this was the guy you were warned to stay away from? The guy who was helping you pick up the stuff that you spilled, the guy who apologized to you when you were the one who’d knocked him over? It made no sense.

“Huh - I think this is yours. Arthur, right?” You couldn’t help but pray that he didn’t think you were trying to be nosy. You almost regret saying his name; he hadn’t even told you it yet so one could only assume that you’d figured it out by reading the bag, which rattled slightly as you handed it over to him. “I wasn’t trying to snoop or anything, I just wasn’t sure what it was -”

“Oh, it’s okay. I didn’t think that you were.” He took the bag from you and smiled; it was such a gentle, albeit a bit unsure, smile that you couldn’t help but mirror as something about it was so incredibly contagious. “And, yeah. Arthur - My name is Arthur.”

“Well, it’s nice to finally meet you, Arthur!” Your voice wavered ever so slightly, despite your best attempt at keeping it as cheery as you could. It was nice to meet him, but you couldn’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable - though not with him. You really weren’t expecting to speak with anyone else aside from the cashier at the market, and actually having to push yourself to interact with someone on a more personal level wasn’t exactly what you had prepared for. Arthur was kind, from what you could tell, and so you hoped that he wasn’t judging you for how you were probably making the situation much more awkward than it needed to be.

The soft expression on his face seemed to falter ever so slightly, and you realized that the way you had said “...to finally meet you” carried some sort of connotation; it told Arthur that you had already heard about him, and considering how he was spoken about to you it didn’t exactly take a genius to know that Arthur could only assume that what you had heard about him hadn’t been the best.

“Oh, it wasn’t anything,” You tried to dismiss any concern he had as you motioned towards the other apartments down the hallway. “Someone just kinda gave me a run down of everyone else living here - mentioned some names, told me who was around. You were the only one I hadn’t met, yet.” Which was a lie, but Arthur didn’t need to know that. He didn’t need to know that you were so socially inept that you had been putting off meeting your damn neighbors, and he especially didn’t need to know how he was spoken about.

Before the conversation could continue any further though, the weight of your purse in your hand reminded you of why you’d even left your apartment in the first place.

“Hey - I’d love to talk more, but I gotta run. The store’s closing soon, and I gotta pick up a few things. You sure you’re alright?” You took a step backwards towards the elevator, but kept your eyes on Arthur. You really did feel bad about knocking him over, though something told you he wasn’t that unused to that sort of thing.

“I already said that I was, didn’t I?” His voice was soft, his question rhetorical. You couldn’t help but smile, and you took a second to really look at him; even under the hallway’s incredibly unflattering, shabby lighting you could see that he wasn’t bad looking in the slightest, though he did look a bit tired - he looked like he needed a good nap, or three. He was, obviously, older than you were, but if anything it just added to his charm, as did that slightly too small yellow hoodie that he wore over top of his brown button up sweater. He looked soft, if you were being honest with yourself, and softness was something you learned was becoming incredibly scarce in the world.

“...So I won’t keep you any longer,”

Wait - had he been talking this entire time?

“Maybe I’ll see you around?” His voice was tinged with hopefulness, and you found yourself nodding eagerly in response. He didn’t seem to notice how you completely spaced out there for a second, or if he did, he really didn’t seem to care.

“Yeah - of course! I’m right there,” You pointed to your apartment door, “So, yeah, I’ll see you around. Sorry, again, for knocking you over - have a good night!”

And with a skip in your step, you pivoted around and walked towards the elevator, pressing the call button about four times as you listened to Arthur’s departing footsteps and the rustling of the Rx bag in his hand as he walked in the opposite direction.

In its usual fashion, the elevator took a good minute to open its door, but there was little time to be annoyed as your attention was pulled from it by Arthur’s sudden “Hey!” from down the hallway, and you stuck your head back out into the hall, arm propped against the door to keep it from closing as you looked at him.

“Yeah?”

“You - You have a really nice smile. You should smile more often.”

Though his voice was a bit uneasy - shy, almost - he sounded so sure in what he was saying that you did little to fend off the smile that bloomed on your face in response.

“I can try to, but only ‘cause you said so.”

Though you said it with much more panache than you really meant to, you did mean it. If there was one way to get you to do something more often it was complimenting you for it, and something about the fact that it was Arthur who said it gave you butterflies.

With a quick wave of goodbye you ducked back into the elevator, letting the door slide shut behind you as you tipped your head back and gazed up at the flickering light on the ceiling. Now alone, you let the smile on your face grow as you let Arthur’s words sink in, and you bid him a mental goodnight as the elevator began its rickety descent.

Exiting the elevator and heading out the front door of the building, so long gone from the eighth floor where you previously were that you didn’t see how Arthur lingered in his spot for a moment, eyes fixed on the door of the elevator where you’d disappeared into before he turned and continued down the hallway, the smile you had become so fond of in your short meeting with him settled on his face.

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taglist;

@tahliamalfoydepp @tsukiakarinobara (let me know if you’d like to be added!)

#arthur fleck #arthur fleck x reader #arthur fleck x you #joker 2019 #joker x reader #joker 2019 x you #joker 2019 x reader #arthur fleck imagine #joker 2019 imagine #joker imagine #mine

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panharmonium · 4 years

Note

Hey! Loving the Merlin takes on ur blog, and I wanted to ask—what are your opinions on Morgana? Haven’t seen a lot of talk abt her. I loved her, esp in season 1, which is also my fav season cuz after that I feel like things started to make less and less sense, lmao. I understand her descent into villainy (mostly, but why does she start to hate Gwen so quickly? feel like that could’ve been handled better) but I would’ve loved to see some solidarity between her and merlin!!!!!

hi there! :D

so, i LOVE morgana. most of what i’ve said about her has been in the tags of gifsets that are now scattered haphazardly around my blog; i don’t think there are larger pieces yet besides my finale round-up (urgh lol), and most of that is just a function of time - i can’t possibly write expansive tracts of meta about every single merlin thing i love, because i love the whole show; i’d never leave my computer again. i generally sit down to write long essays about whatever grabs my mind at a particular moment, even though there are a bazillion other things out there i love just as much. XD

but with morgana, i also feel like part of the reason i haven’t written much about her is because up until three and a half weeks ago (....oh my god, was it THREE AND A HALF WEEKs??? IT FEELS LIKE A YEAR) i hadn’t even finished the series yet, and the whole time i was watching this show i was sort of...waiting to see whether they would finally tie her arc together. i didn’t feel like i could say too much about what was happening with her, because my evaluation of her arc was going to depend on where the writers finally chose to take it and whether they brought it to the place i thought it needed to go.

and...they didn’t, obviously, which is what i sort of suspected would happen, though i was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt all the way up until the end, because i don’t believe they ever wrote themselves into a corner with her. there were things they could have handled with more depth, definitely, but i do not believe that they ever dug themselves into a hole they couldn’t climb out of.

i. what happened to you, morgana

essentially my opinion (just mine; nobody else is obligated to share it) of morgana is this: that the series ended before her arc was over.

to me, season 5 was the nadir in our characters’ journeys. they had reached their lowest point, their...“darkest hour,” to quote the show itself. and in many familiar storytelling formats (the ones that have the most in common with bbc merlin, at least), we take our characters to a moment where they hit rock bottom, where everything is going wrong and things seem hopeless, and then we light a spark under their butts that starts the process where they fight their way out of it. the nadir isn’t the endpoint of the curve; it’s the point where characters start climbing their long, slow way out of the pit. it’s what they have to overcome in order to earn their eventual triumphant ending.

to me, season 5 was that nadir, for morgana and everyone else. i never would have imagined season 5 to be the final season of the show, if i hadn’t known it was beforehand. i would have read season 5 as the show’s ‘empire strikes back’ moment. the episode that ends with our team losing, but with a whole other episode remaining where they can fight to Make It Right.

i view merlin bbc as tantamount to a cancelled tv show, to be honest. i know that’s not necessarily what happened (though it does feel pretty weird that they officially announced S5 would be the final season only four weeks before the finale was about to air?? very bizarre), but regardless of the actual behind-the-scenes-whatever, the fact of the matter is that for me, the series doesn’t end. it stops. and those two things are not the same.

this is particularly relevant to morgana because, as you said, there are aspects of her character arc that weren’t handled as deftly as they could have been, but if the show had brought morgana’s arc to the place where it felt like they were going in 5.09, they could have rescued so much of what came before.

to get into more detail -

i think the biggest issue with morgana’s arc for me isn’t so much what she does, it’s what we’re not shown as she does it.

i fully believe that morgana would eventually start working to ensure uther’s downfall. (obviously. she’s been presented as the voice of moral authority on this show since episode one, and there’s no reason to believe that she wouldn’t ultimately start rebelling against the king’s oppressive policies.) i believe that she would reject arthur, eventually. and i believe that she would reject gwen, too. but i don’t believe the show illustrates enough how painful this would be for her, or how conflicted it would make her feel.

and again, as i said, there are my own personal opinions, couched in...some personal experience with certain kinds of family conflict - but i do understand where morgana’s bitterness toward arthur and gwen comes from. arthur, for all that he’s “a better man than [his] father,” never fully breaks with uther the way morgana does. he has his own little rebellions, yes, but ultimately he always falls in line. he tolerates his father’s actions even if he doesn’t necessarily agree with them, and he continues to support uther even after uther is revealed to have lied about being morgana’s illegitimate father. and because of this tacit acceptance of uther’s poor behavior, arthur reaps benefits and privileges galore. morgana is cast out with nothing, whereas arthur, who didn’t even take a stand for justice, wants for nothing. arthur is sitting pretty on the throne of camelot because he continued to bestow his honor and respect upon a man who deserved neither of those things, because he chose the villain of the series over his sister, even knowing what uther did to her. and that’s gutting, for her. he betrayed her.

(and there are things to be said on arthur’s end of this, too, of course - morgana doesn’t ever confide in him; she doesn’t come to him for help or give him a chance to even be informed about what happened to her before she jumps into invading camelot and dethroning uther - so for arthur, her sudden turnaround comes as a total shock, and HE feels betrayed, like he has no choice but to fight her - i mean, it’s just a big mess.)

but i understand why she hates him. he continues to stand with a man who did demonstrable evil, despite the harm that was specifically done to morgana herself. and by shutting up and letting atrocities be committed in front of him, arthur escapes the harm that morgana suffers for speaking up. i understand why morgana is so bitter about it.

and gwen is a very similar situation - from morgana’s point of view, gwen is playing the arthur to arthur’s uther. gwen sides with arthur over morgana, despite knowing full well that arthur’s policies harm people with magic. gwen abandons morgana for her love interest, and for morgana that’s just like - “why would you do that? i was your friend before he ever cared about you, i loved you before he ever did - don’t you see the evil he’s perpetuating? don’t you care what he does to people like me?”

that’s why morgana tells merlin, “don’t think i don’t understand loyalty just because i’ve got no one left to be loyal to.” she feels like everybody who supposedly cared for her ultimately dumped her because her situation interfered with their comfortable, morally uncomplicated lives. they weren’t willing to acknowledge what was done to her, and they stuck by the man responsible for it, and it seems incomprehensible to her, that they would make that choice, when his misdeeds are known and out in the open. i can’t blame her for wanting to raze the city to the ground.

HOWEVER.

while i believe that all these things are completely plausible, i don’t believe that the series shows us appropriately how these things would be tearing morgana apart inside, underneath the rage and the armored front of ‘you brought this on yourself, so burn in hell, i don’t care.’

there are moments where the show gets it right. when morgana wakes up after uther dies and says that she felt his pain - it’s not presented as gloating; she’s - almost confused. uncertain. like she doesn’t know what she feels. when she confronts arthur at the end of season 4 (i thought we were friends/as did i) there’s real pain under the surface there. when they confront each other at the beginning of season 5, too (what happened to you, morgana/i grew up) - you can feel the undercurrent of something deeper there, too. and that moment with mordred in 5.09, when he appeals to her humanity (i hope one day you will find the love and compassion which used to fill your heart) - that is an amazing scene. the show absolutely nails that moment. morgana hesitates. you can see the grief and the - the conflict written all over her face. it’s perfect. it’s exactly the turn i would have expected morgana’s arc to be taking, at that time in the series.

but then the show just stopped. and without taking morgana’s arc further - without following it through all the way to its conclusion - there’s never any resolution to all the ways the show dropped the ball earlier. all the moments where morgana appears to be just...evil-smirking her way through her revenge, the way she suddenly seems to have no feelings for gwen whatsoever, the utterly lost opportunity that was the “enchanted gwen” arc (which could have been such a powerful exploration of their broken relationship) - all those could have eventually made sense and fit into a narrative where morgana’s conflicted feelings finally begin to escape the stranglehold in which she has them choked, where we start to see the pain of these destroyed relationships rising to the surface.

i can understand how morgana would just - shut off her feelings about these people. she had to close her heart to them - the alternative would have been too painful. but underneath - we know it wouldn’t be that easy. we know it eats at her. and it’s just - so incredibly frustrating that the series was starting to go there - the moment with mordred in 5.09 feels like the beginning of morgana’s big crisis of faith - and then the show just Stops.

so the thing about morgana for me is that, like you said, the show does drop the ball on illustrating her quick descent into evil-villain territory, and they especially drop the ball on her break with gwen, but all of it could have been salvaged, if they had committed to following her arc all the way through to its conclusion. instead they chose to kill her (and everybody else, lol) just as her deep-rooted internal conflicts were finally starting to rise to the surface.

ii. we can find another way/there is no other way (aka the merlin problem)

i’ll say right up front that anything i say here is, as always, just my personal interpretation of things. this is not necessarily the One True Way this show is meant to be understood; it’s just my own preferred read.

i have definitely seen some things in my brief foray into internet fandom that are sort of...piling on merlin for abandoning morgana or “gaslighting” her, most of which seem to be centered around the beginning of episode 2.03, which is weird to me, because the whole point of that episode is that merlin does help morgana, in the end - he’s the one who doesn’t gaslight her. he defies gaius and takes her to the druids, specifically so they can tell her yes, she does have magic. he tries to distract the attacking knights in order to enable morgana to escape with the druids permanently, like she wants. and when the attempt fails, and they’re brought back to camelot, he comes to morgana’s chambers specifically to check on her and to assure her that he won’t reveal her secret to anyone, and she’s grateful for this - she thanks him, she’s appreciative of everything he did for her, she feels comforted to know the truth and to know that someone else knows it, too. this episode ends with their relationship at a high point - it’s overwhelmingly positive, and it doesn’t take a nosedive until 1.12, when morgana gets in way over her head and merlin thinks she’s trying to murder them all. (and even in that episode, it’s worth it to note, merlin is still covering for her magic in front of arthur, giving her chances.)

(and obviously also, of course, the end of that particular situation gets Real Bad Real Fast, which could be a whole post in and of itself, so let’s stay focused on the earlier eps, for now.)

the criticism of merlin in those earlier episodes seems to stem solely from the fact that he doesn’t out himself to morgana, which i can understand - i mean, i like the idea of a ‘merlin+morgana secret magic squad’ AU as much as anyone - but i’ll be honest and say that nowadays, i’m not quite as willing to condemn him for it as i might have been on my first viewing.

i’m not willing to condemn him for it at all, actually.

(and again - as i said, these are my own opinions! everybody else is welcome to have different opinions! we all engage with media differently, and there isn’t a right or wrong way to approach this situation, just whichever way feels best to you.)

so, for me, i’m not interested anymore in telling merlin that he should have revealed himself to anyone, at that point in the story. it would be different if he had been like - continuing to tell morgana ‘oh, no, you don’t have magic, don’t be crazy,’ or if he had been pretending to hate magic like everyone else so he could blend in, but he doesn’t do that, at the end of the episode. he sends her to the druids. he chases after her when he realizes she's in danger. he openly acknowledges her magic, he supports her in having it, he makes sure she knows she has nothing to fear from him. by the end of 2.03, he’s gone to great lengths to help her; he’s already made certain that she knows he’s on her side and that she can trust him. she clearly knows that he accepts her and that he supports her - those are his responsibilities to her as a fellow human and as a friend, and those are exactly the responsibilities he makes sure to fulfill. she knows her secret is safe with him.

now - whether or not merlin feels safe enough to out himself, after making sure morgana knows he accepts and supports her, is his own business.

i think there are a number of reasons why it wouldn’t be fair for me to criticize merlin for continuing to conceal his secret, the first of which is something i already mentioned in another piece - that a marginalized person’s first responsibility is to their own safety, when forced into hiding under oppressive social conditions. merlin isn’t obligated to reveal himself for anybody. he’s not obligated to put himself in danger out of some kind of...responsibility to the community. (not at this point, anyway. it gets more complicated later, as merlin becomes more powerful, which i also address in that other piece, but that’s all in the future for him and not relevant at this moment.)

i think it would be easy for me to forget that merlin isn’t safe, in the early seasons. we’re so used to thinking of merlin as ‘the greatest sorcerer to ever walk the earth,’ because that’s what we keep being told he’s going to become, but again, that’s all so far in the future for him. merlin in the early seasons can do some things with his abilities, but not consistently, and not to the level where we can reasonably expect him to resist the entirety of camelot’s army, if they were to come for him. merlin is in real danger, and he’s not evil for being unwilling to share a secret about himself that would ensure his death, if it somehow got back to the wrong people.

second - i don’t think it would be fair for me to discount merlin’s personal history, either. merlin’s life didn’t start in camelot, and he hasn’t even been in camelot for all that long, comparatively, by the time we get to S2. season one takes place over a few months, starting in either spring or summer and ending in the fall (after the referenced harvest in 1.10/1.11, but before winter sets in). the weather is nice by time season 2 starts, so we can probably assume that S2 takes place once winter has passed (although, it’s technically possible that S2 takes place over the same autumn as S1, I guess...but it’s not made clear to us, timeline-wise.) either way, we just really have to remember that merlin’s stay in camelot by the time we reach 2.03 is still this blip compared to the rest of his life.

it would be very easy for me to say that merlin should have told morgana, that there’s no way she would ever have given him up - and i probably would have said that very thing, after the first time i watched the show - but like - nowadays, i really think i have to step back from that certainty and be a little more gentle. we say we “know” that morgana wouldn’t have willingly betrayed merlin’s secret at that point, and sure, i agree, that’s probably true - but does merlin know that?

of course not!

i think he hopes that. i think he would dearly like to believe that. i also think merlin grew up in a situation where he couldn’t fully trust even the people he’d known all his life, with two (vital!!!) exceptions, and he has been in camelot with a bunch of brand-new people for less than a year, and he can’t be certain of them, however much he wants to be. (and that’s not even considering the possibility of accidental betrayals, or coerced ones - remember, the witchfinder shows up in S2 also, as just one example.)

remember that exchange merlin has with freya, later this season?

“you can’t always trust people.”

“i know. that’s why i left home.”

merlin is not used to showing himself to people. he has been taught all his life to NEVER, EVER show himself to anybody. everyone in camelot who finds out about his magic finds out either by accident (like gaius or lancelot), or necessity (like freya and gilli - though gilli is interesting, because i think merlin’s decisions there are motivated precisely by the choices he didn’t make with morgana - which i’ll go into more later).

in twenty-odd years, merlin has only ever told one person about his magic. and even that generous assumption requires a little bit of inferencing for us to determine, though i think it’s likely enough, if not confirmable.

(i am, in case it’s unclear, referencing 1.10, when merlin is explaining to will why hunith sent him away to camelot: “when she found out you knew - she was so angry.” that, to me, has always been a signifier that merlin told will about his magic, as opposed to will finding out by coincidence. i know there are a lot of headcanons floating around out there about various...accidental situations that may have occurred which forced merlin to reveal his magic in front of will, and those are all obviously totally fun to play with, but after hearing this particular line - i never understood that to be the case, to be honest. we’ve seen hunith enough to have a pretty solid understanding of her character. she and merlin are always easy and gentle together, she’s so kind and calm and thoughtful - i can’t imagine that she wouldn’t have understood, if there had been some kind of accident that forced merlin’s hand. she’d be just as afraid for his future safety, of course, and she would have wished he’d told her right away, but she wouldn’t have been “so angry.”

...she might, however, have been “so angry” if she’d found out that merlin had specifically undermined every sacrifice she’d ever made to keep him safe/ignored every single one of her warnings/rejected every cautious thing she’d been telling him for his entire life and TOLD somebody about his magic when it wasn’t remotely necessary. that’s the only scenario i can imagine that would prompt merlin to say “she was SO angry” in that half-awed, half-intimidated tone, with that little headshake, like it was such a singular event, like it’s still formidable for him to remember.)

so anyway, that said - it’s too easy for me to say ‘he should have told morgana/gwaine/gwen etc; they would never have turned on him,’ as if it would have been such a simple thing for him to do, as if there were no dangers associated with their knowledge even if they would never have willingly given him up, as if he was refusing to do it because he didn’t want to, or because his fears were overblown, or because he was foolish for thinking they would ever hate him for his gifts. i think that really minimizes the reality of his struggle, and the danger of his situation. without the pressure of some crisis to force his hand, merlin has only ever willingly revealed himself to one person. that person is dead. that person died specifically ensuring that merlin could stay safe and hidden from the rest of the world, morgana included - merlin’s continued secrecy is a gift that was bought at an impossibly high price, and it’s not simple for him to contemplate squandering it, especially with no guarantee that things will turn out okay.

because there IS no guarantee that things will turn out okay! a lot of the “merlin should have told morgana” online talk centers around the idea that knowing about merlin’s magic would have kept morgana from feeling alone/betrayed, thus preventing her from turning to the “evil” methods she uses later, but again, i don’t think we actually know that at all. solidarity between merlin and morgana would have been a nice thing, definitely; i’d like to see that too, but i don’t think the fact that she and merlin are both magic-users would have guaranteed harmony between them. merlin and gilli are both magic-users, too, and merlin expects this to be enough to convince gilli to “see the light,” but the fact of the matter is that merlin and gilli just have very different ideas about what it means to do the right thing. merlin thinks it means biding his time and waiting for change to come from the top (because he’s been TOLD by greater powers that this is the right course of action, of course; let’s note again that merlin’s situation is extremely complicated) whereas gilli thinks that doing things merlin’s way makes merlin complicit with an unjust regime. gilli says ‘i shouldn’t haven’t to wait for someone else to give me my rights. i’m going to take them myself.’

the fact that merlin and gilli share a bond as magic-users doesn’t protect them from an ideological divide that puts them on different sides of the same struggle. i’m not sure that merlin and morgana wouldn’t have still ended up in the same situation, eventually, if merlin had chosen to out himself to her - but doing so would certainly have made him a thousand times more vulnerable to attack.

third - it’s also important to remember that if we’re going to hold merlin to this rigid ‘he should have told morgana everything/confided in her/trusted her at the expense of possibly his own life despite the fact that she exists at the completely opposite end of a rigid social hierarchy as him and he’s known her for less than a year’ then maybe we ought to raise the bar for morgana, as well. morgana is very clearly shown to trust and appreciate merlin at the end of 2.03, but by 2.11, when alvarr and mordred show up and convince her to steal the crystal of neahtid, she doesn’t hesitate or come to merlin at all, despite the fact that we never see him do anything to lose her trust between then and now. she never asks him for help, even when she’s uncertain about alvarr’s methods, and that leaves merlin in the dark, only privy to confusing images of her sneaking around and acting suspicious. and even with that, merlin doesn’t condemn her for what she does, the same way he doesn’t blame her when she tries to kill uther in 1.12 - he helps arthur retrieve the crystal, but he doesn’t give morgana up. and he doesn’t hold any kind of grudge, either - in the next episode, merlin doesn’t even suspect her, at first - he thinks it must be her magic protecting her; he doesn’t even consider the idea that she has anything to do with the illness, not until kilgharrah tells him.

and even after that, he STILL covers for her in front of arthur, and he gives her a chance to come clean to him - but she doesn’t take it.

i’m not condemning her for that - i get why she would be afraid to admit to such a big mess - she was in way over her head and didn’t know what to do. but if we’re going to cut morgana this much slack and accept her fears as a valid enough reason to block a potential moment of connection, then we have to accept that merlin’s fears were valid, too - morgana’s descent into “villainy” was not something we can pin solely on merlin’s already overburdened shoulders. the end of season 2 was not some kind of one-way failure.

in summary: merlin and morgana were trapped in an impossible situation. they were both victims of the same oppressive regime, and both of them had very real, very dangerous obstacles to letting themselves trust in and reach out to others, and i think pitting them against each other while forgetting who the real villain was is unfair to them both.

also, a brief postscript: circling back to the first section of this piece, where i talked about how season 5 just stopped before anyone’s arc was finished - merlin and morgana could have had so much more, if we’d gotten another season. their relationship is really in the pits, by season 5, but there is this deleted scene where arthur is reflecting on what happened to morgana and blaming himself, and merlin says arthur shouldn’t take the blame, that “there were others better placed to help morgana” (implicating, of course, himself) and that was SUCH a jumping off point for their story to have continued. merlin wanted to do better by her. he blamed himself for what happened to her. and morgana, for her part, was starting to question herself, as we saw during her confrontation with mordred in 5.09.

there were places for this relationship to go. it wasn’t a lost cause. but the writers decided that it made more sense to just...eliminate everybody at the exact moment when things were poised to possibly change.

the story wasn’t over at the end of season 5. but the show was, and i am always going to regret those many lost opportunities.

#the once and future slowburn #meta #replies #long post

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halffictionalwritesstuff · 3 years

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Hello:0 I have written more stuff with my Oc’s:3 this one features Josh and Dawn:> They’re at a magical school of sorts! Dawn is dealing with some stuff haha.

This is them vvvvvvvvv

Outside the coat closet, music was blaring at some stupid “mandatory school celebration”. Thousands of voices overlapped to create a suffocating sea of voices that had seemed to attack Dawn from every side. Bodies crashed into eachother as uncoordinated teenagers pretended you could actually dance to poorly chosen trap music. All the docorations and flashing lights had attacked Dawn’s eyes from every angle and the smell of sweat, cheap Cologne, and perfume make Dawn sick to the stomach. How could people stand these events without wanting to die?

The closet was much safer. It was dark and quieter. The only smell was of winter boots. She could sit there and be alone. Being alone was safer for her. There were less expectations when you can’t be seen. Dawn picked at the bottom of her skirt, rolling the seam between her fingers methodically. She should have brought something to do. Maybe a book to read or a sketchbook to doodle on. She had even left her phone on her dresser in an attempt to force herself to socialize more like she had promised Noir to do. But Noir was on a mission, and she was alone.

Dawn leaned her head back and slowed her breathing. Deep breath in. The voices in her head were louder today then usual. They cried out for murder and screamed curses at her for what she had done to them. HOW DARE SHE LIVE WHILE THEY WERE FORCED TO DIE!? Breathe out. Dawn was shaking a little, but she couldn’t let herself show too much emotion, just in case someone came in.

Breathe in. YOU DID THIS TO US HOW DARE YOU- breathe out. It was her fault the voices were there. She was the one who had hurt them. It may have been the pitch that was controlling her body, but it was her fault too for being weak enough for the pitch to control her. Breathe in.

Breathe ou-The door creaked open and a figure quickly shut it behind them. Dawn held her breath for a moment before quietly letting it out. Once they were in the dark of the room, Dawn could hear a sigh of relief followed by quiet muttering.

“Thank goodness.”

“Oh of course it’s him.” Dawn thought sarcastically to herself as Josh sat down in the closet, oblivious to Dawn’s presence. He let out a loud sigh and leaned back, running his hand through his probably gross and sweaty hair. He was breathing deeply, as if he had just been dancing or moving.

“Surely he’ll leave soon. After all, ‘Sunshine’ is the beacon of humankind and to deprive his worshippers of his presence would be a crime.” She thought sarcastically while rolling her eyes. A second quieter thought came to her soon after. “You stupid jelous idiot. You just wish you were one of the people he wanted to be around.” Dawn quickly shoved that thought down into the pits of her mind and hoped to never think of it again.

Josh kept muttering. ��Can’t they tell that I don’t want to be at this stupid party.”

He changed his voice to a sarcastic tone and imitated whoever he had been hiding from. “Oh Josh. I would love if you could focus on me all the time. It’s not like you have a life too. Oh and how about I talk only about how terrible it is your dad died! So funny hahah!”

He shook his head and started pulling off the jacket he had been wearing. Dawn edged closer to the closet and prayed that he didn’t see her sitting there. It was hard enough trying not to panic, let alone try to avoid Josh. Ever since Noir had forced them to train together, things had been weird. Dawn actually had to talk to him and he actually had to use his brain.

She pulled her legs closer to her chest and moved as close to the corner as she could. Just hurry up and get out of here, Josh, I’m trying to have an attack of some kind and you’re making it hard.

Another wave of panic swept over her. The voices were screaming now. Crying out for vengeance. It was overpowering. The sounds of the dance faded away until all Dawn could hear was screaming. Horrible, we watched screaming that made Dawn wish she could claw her ears out. She couldn’t even make out what they were saying at this point. Which may have been a blessing, if the sound wasn’t so chillingly monstrous.

“Are you ok?” Dawn could hear Josh’s worried voice from amongst the screams.

Her chest was pounding and it felt like the devil himself had a grip on her heart. Stuttering out some stupid sentence that she couldn’t remember saying, Josh put a hand on her shoulder. He repeated the sentence, but this time Dawn couldn’t hear him this time. Part of her knew she was crying and tried to stop, but she just kept sobbing. The pain spread from her head into her toes and clutched at her chest even more. Without thinking, Dawn lurched forward and hugged Josh. She didn’t even know why, she just knew that he wouldn’t hurt her and that he was...a friend? She hated him. But. She trusted that he wouldn’t tell about how pathetic she was acting.

“S- sorry sorry I don’t mean mean to be weak uhh like weak like this.” Dawn somehow got out between deep breaths. Why was she doing this? IDIOT. She buried her face into his chest and stumbled out another sentence. “Sorry. Sorry. If if you want me to me to uhh le. Leave I-i will.”

Instead he gave her a hug. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying? Are you ok?”

Dawn whispered. “I can’t tell you.”

Internally her head was pounding as if it was a toy drum that some over enthusiastic kid was banging on. Dawn tried to focus on anything but the voices, but was instead met with the horrible music from the dance. Then she felt something get put on her head. It took a moment for her to process, before realizing they were headphones. There was no music coming out of them, but they blocked the sounds of the dance out fairly well.

Josh leaned close enough that she could still hear him talking through the headphones. Dawn noticed he kind smelled like s’mores up close, which was a weird realization to have.

“Look, I can’t force you to tell me what’s wrong. But at least let me try to help…”

He sounded genuinely worried and maybe even a little scared. But mostly worried? Dawn couldn’t really tell. One of the voices screeched it’s a high pitched tone that felt like a needle sewing itself up her spine. Dawn let out a painful gasp. Of course it had to be one of those days when they could hurt her physically. Dawn could feel Josh tense as her hands started shaking uncontrollably.

To be fair, it was probably kind of weird to see her looking this way. Most of the time Dawn tried to look aloof and strong. She was a tool. Not a person. Dawn repeated that thought in her mind.

You’re a tool. Not a person. A tool. Not a person. Why was Josh even still here? Why was she glad he was still here? He could leave. He should leave. Weak. Weak. WEAK. How could she be so weak?

Josh broke her stream of negative thoughts by starting to stand up and pulling Dawn up with him..

“Come on, let’s get you back to the dorms.”

Dawn was silent. The last thing she wanted to do was go back in to that mob of people. But to her surprise, Josh poked a nail in the wall and a small trap door flew open. A gust of cold wind blew through it and filled the warm closet with a chill breeze. Dawn shivered as the cold attacked her skin. All her hair stood on end for a moment before a huge jacket was placed on her shoulders, warming her as Josh took her hand and let her into the small tunnel. He looked back and let out a shy laugh.

“I found this a few weeks ago when Noir had us do that weird team training thing.” He turned back around to lead her down one of the paths.

Dawn blinked and finally took in what was happening. The voices were quieter now that her mind was busier with other thoughts. How had Josh been able to find these passages when Dawn, who had been here years previous hadn’t been able to? The corridor they were in looked old and carried a musty smell that was similar to the smell of the old school library. It couldn’t be a new passage, could it? Then again, this was a school for magic and it could have shifted to account for new generations of students.

Dawn looked up at Josh and realised that he was leaning over, hunched in the barely 5 foot tall corridor. Her eyes moved down the corridor for a moment, before suddenly realizing that Josh still had a firm grip on her hand.

One of the voices taunted her at this realization. Although that may have just been her conscience. It could be hard to tell some days. Especially just after all the screaming that occasionally plagued her. But part of Dawn was happy to have him here. He was like a sunny day, and no matter how much he may annoy her, Dawn genuinely hoped they could maybe be something that’s kinda like a friend hopefully? Dawn kept holding onto his hand and let him lead her. She could trust him.

In front of Dawn, Josh was panicking. What just happened? Why was Dawn panicking and crying? Why did he think it would be a good idea to take her back to the dorms through this way? Oh gosh what if she thought he was trying something. Internally Josh screamed at the thought that she might think even worse of him.

Ever since they had met, there had been accident upon accident that had messed Josh’s chances of being friends with Dawn and the last thing he wanted was for her to think he was a bad person. After all, the last few weeks had shown him a lot more about Dawn then he had originally thought.

She wasn’t an emotionless brick who hated people. She had been the mystery person who kept helping everyone behind the scenes and not accepting any of the credit. But what was up with what had just happened? She looked so unusually and absolutely terrified. The way her eyes had flashed between her usual blueish pupils and a fully black iris had left Josh feeling a panic he couldn’t quite place. Not to mention she had actually given him a hug. THAT was different.

Josh turned to look at Dawn. Her breathing had slowed and she seemed much calmer. It was too dark to see her exact expression, but he could see that it was more relaxed. She noticed him looking and they both immediately whipped their heads to break eye contact. Which was probably a good thing, because Josh could feel himself turning pink with embarrassment.

They kept walking in silence, each consumed in their own thoughts until they reached what looked like a dead end. Josh pushed another nail and another secret door swung open to reveal the common room. Fumbling, Josh edged his way into the room, with Dawn trailing slowly behind him.

She didn’t look up at him, but rather looked at her feet awkwardly and tried to stitch a sentence together in her mind. Now that they were away from the party, it had all seemed so ridiculous. Why had she been panicking, it was just a party? Why had she been let herself be so vulnerable? Dawn dropped Josh’s hand and walked quickly to her door. Nope. She wasn’t here to get attached to people, let alone Blondie. Nope. Not today or ever. She determined to make herself hate him some more. Yet, she couldn’t seem to leave without saying something.

“Thank you. I’m sorry you had to see that. Please- please don’t tell the others what happened.”

Josh looked up from where he was closing the trap door and smiled.

“Of course. “ he paused. “And hey, if you ever need someone to talk too, I’m all ears.”

Dawn shut the door.

#im in pain #writers on tumblr #writeblr #excerpt from a story i'll never write #actually it’s a comic #Oc’s #my ocs are my children #ship dynamics #i will go down with this ship

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stevemoffett · 3 years

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A Hard Nap, The Fall of Math, The Star Wars Holiday Special, Disco Point, and There You Are

In January last year, I noticed a sign in myself of the same cancer my dad had back in 2008. Unlike the usual symptoms that set off my paranoia, it wasn’t some vague feeling, it wasn’t an intermittent pain, and it wasn’t a general ill feeling—it was clear and unambiguous, out of the ordinary and one of those symptoms that, if you google it, is under the list of “call your doctor if you experience any of the following.”

It was also nonspecific: this symptom could mean cancer, but it could also mean about five other cancer-unrelated conditions. I called for an appointment that morning with my general practitioner, who said that the earliest available date was about two weeks later.

I knew that the only way my fear would be effectively relieved was with the one sure-fire diagnostic tool for this type of cancer, one that’s recommended for everyone, but not until about age 50: a colonoscopy.

For the two weeks before my GP appointment, I mentally prepared for death. For the record, I do this every time I interpret my body’s signals as cancerous, but the mental preparation usually stops after a few days when the symptom either goes away or when a clear alternative cause presents itself. This time, I didn’t get that kind of relief and, in fact, the symptom repeated more than once between setting the appointment and going to it. Each time, it was like an intrusive thought come to life: you’re going to die. You’re going to go through surgery and chemotherapy like Dad and you’re either going to die early, or find out like he did that the cure is worse than the disease, or maybe you’ll hang on just long enough to experience both.

Winter mornings in Texas can sometimes be surprisingly cold. While stepping out the door on a midsummer morning is like walking into someone’s hot exhale, as you might expect, a 33-degree morning is more like a slap in the face. When I packed everything I figured I’d need to move here a couple of years ago, I threw away my winter coat, thinking, I won’t be needing this anymore. (The coat was also about ten years old at that point.)

My first winter in Texas, I layered a bunch of shirts underneath a light jacket and wore a scarf on freezing days. The second winter, I decided that I’d had enough of being cold. After all, I rationalized, here in Texas it was monetarily possible to never have to feel cold again if you really don’t want to. So I bought the warmest coat I could find, an unstylish, bulky parka made by Caterpillar, the company that makes construction vehicles. No more layering, no more checking the weather before leaving in the morning. I could just put this coat on and not worry about it.

But now, under the shadow of a cancer scare these January mornings, wearing the big coat made me feel less like I was smarter than the weather and more like I was trying to smuggle a terminal disease wherever I went. Under my coat, tie, button-down shirt, undershirt, skin, fat, and muscle, something was growing silently in the dark. While maybe it had slipped up and showed some of its handiwork to me, it was already too late to do much about it now.

Since it has affected my life several times before, and since it is such an exquisite mixture of dread and uncertainty, cancer is one of my mind’s biggest bogeymen. I feel personally insulted by the idea of it. I treat you so well, body—why would you betray me? Was I not nice enough? Is this poetic justice for my vanity? Is it, as the old anecdotal saying goes, due to my worrying?

Not only did I feel like I was smuggling cancer under the big coat, I was also warming it up by drinking my coffee. I was feeding it directly when I ate something too sugary. And I was probably even giving it an evil sense of satisfaction when I got stressed out about it. If I was able to keep my mind off it by working in the lab, mixing and pipetting, using kits, and doing arithmetic in my head, it would come crashing back into focus when I was pulling my gloves off to wash my hands.

I pulled up incognito mode on my phone’s browser during my breaks, googling “5-year survival rate colon cancer age 35.” “Cancer staging colon prognosis.” “Colon cancer smoking.” “Colon cancer smoke one pack in college.” “Colon cancer smoke one pack 18 years ago.” “Colon cancer smoke one pack after seeing Luke Wilson smoking in The Royal Tenenbaums.”

At home, I suddenly started noticing the expiration dates on my nonperishables. What will last longer, I thought, the freshness of this baking soda, or me.

I knew I wasn’t going to be comforted by the first GP visit. After all, they’re usually the first stop to a specialist, unless you have a PPO insurance plan, which I don’t. The doctor listened to my symptoms and family history. “Well,” he said, “Given your history, it’s a good idea to refer you to a GI. But, you seem like you lead a healthy lifestyle otherwise, with none of the other risk factors, so we’ll see what he says.”

I made the GI appointment and had to wait two more weeks for it, with the same circular worrying and googling. At the GI appointment, I sat in the waiting room, the youngest patient there by a few decades, and I felt a little bit ridiculous. On the other hand, I’d also just read a harrowing story about a woman in her late 20s who had colon cancer and died from it. That was a real person, I thought, who at the first phase of it probably went through all the same feelings I was now, the I’m-being-ridiculous and is-this-worth-the-time-and-vacation-days, all the way up until her diagnosis. Not just because I was scared, I felt a pang of sympathy. A disease of the old picking a victim from the young is terrible luck.

And I figured, if it could be her, it could be anyone. But most of all, it could be me.

That last bit, I think, is one of—one of—my greatest flaws, the vanity of always thinking that the worst things will happen to you, in spite of the odds. It’s a way of making yourself feel special, but it has no upside. You don’t feel confidence with this type of special-feeling. In fact, you’re more likely to be timid and self-centered, and you just come across as weird to the outside observer. They might think, There’s only a few steps between that guy and Howard Hughes. Somewhere, deep in your mind, they think: Wires are crossed.

Shortly before I went in, another patient arrived, a man around my age or maybe younger who, despite a dozen or so free seats, declined to sit down. My name was called, and I passed a sign on the way to the back that said, “If you have recently traveled to China and have a fever you must let our staff know.”

This doctor’s exam rooms had floor-to-ceiling windows, the kind you’d see in a movie, instead of the usual dull and bulby, off-white plastic exam room interior. A Spanish medical student came in to give a pre-appointment questionnaire and to take my vitals. He asked, in much better English than I could have mustered in Spanish, “So. There is some blood in they crep?”

When he came in, the GI repeated what my GP had said, and since he was also the person who would be performing a colonoscopy, he said I should set an appointment for one with him. I managed to get a date three weeks later.

From other people’s stories, I knew two things about colonoscopies: they are no fun, especially the night before, but the general anesthesia on the day of the procedure, on the other hand, is fun. I was nervous enough on the day before that I actually asked someone at the pharmacy for help finding the items I was looking for: Polyethylene Glycol (or PEG, which we use all the time for lab experiments, and which I was going to have to drink 2 liters of), Gatorade, and laxative pills. I had to take about 800% of their recommended dosages, each.

The bodily effect of those chemicals was dramatic, and I will spare the details. The worst parts of it, I found, were the generally exhausting physical toll it took, and the feeling by the end that I had some kind of dangerous sodium imbalance: I was sweating between my fingers, for example, but the rest of me felt as dry as paper. At 10PM, I was too tired to do anything, but too nervous to sleep for more than a few hours.

One smaller worry that I felt the next morning, as I took a selfie in my hospital gown to send to a friend back home, making a backward peace sign to show off the IV sticking into my hand and also how brave I was being, was that I might just die right there on the table from the general anesthesia. Part of my grad school research was on Propofol, the most-used general anesthesia nowadays (which, incidentally, also killed Michael Jackson). This was the same drug I was to be given.

I’d never been fully put under anesthesia before. It was astronomically improbable that I’d have an adverse reaction to it and die (and by the way, Michael Jackson abused it, using it far outside of medical praxis—if you’re afraid to get a colonoscopy yourself, don’t be, it could save your life), but keep in mind what I said about my vanity.

“Hey, I’m really scared,” I told the anesthesiologist. He said something, muffled by his mask, that sounded like, “It’ll be all right.” Then he busied himself with a syringe, connecting it to my IV. He depressed it about a third of the way. “This should help you,” he said.

The last thing I said was, “Whoa…I feel it.”

After what felt like a hard, late-afternoon nap, I said, “Hello?”

My head was wrapped with something. When I touched my face, I could feel that there were cotton pads underneath the wrapping, holding my eyes shut. I guess that at some point either mid-procedure or after, my eyes had opened, unseeing, and they’d done this to keep them from drying out. “Hang on, sir,” I heard a nurse say, and my head was unwrapped.

“It’s over?” I asked.

“You’re all done,” he said.

“Gimme a minute, please,” I said, my South Jersey accent peeking out. “I feel a little weird.”

Eventually, I sat up. Two of the nurses helped me stand, and I pumped my arms like I was lifting light, invisible dumbbells. As I put my glasses on and looked around, I thought that they all seemed like they were fighting to not smirk. What did I say while I was blacked out? I wondered, with a twinge of panic, before deciding that it would be worthless to speculate. It could have been anything. There are literally millions of possibilities. Again—it would be worthless to speculate, I told myself, firmly.

An Uber driver, I had been told by hospital staff during a consultation, was not a legally strong enough party to take responsibility for me at discharge. Someone I knew would have to escort me to my apartment. Also, they said, they really would do that thing where you’re back in your own clothes, and they push you to the exit in a wheelchair when you’re all finished. After my procedure, my co-worker stood waiting in the discharge zone with his car as an orderly wheeled me out of the hospital exit. I stood up from the wheelchair and got into the passenger seat of his car, for some reason more aware than usual of the heat coming from the vent and the smell of the car’s leather upholstery. “I still feel weird from the anesthesia,” I said to my friend.

“I’ll bet you do,” he replied.

It was about lunch time, and I had taken the rest of the day off from work. When I got home, I ordered a pizza and lay on my bed. I ate the pizza and watched Star Wars. I had not felt any euphoria when I woke up, I thought hollowly. And my first solid meal in almost forty hours tasted unremarkable. I was still groggy, but not in a pleasant way. I felt cheated.

The hospital staff had put a manilla envelope into my hands as I left. It contained sheets of images the doctor had taken during the procedure. Once lucid, I leafed through them and compared the thumbnail-sized images on printer paper with googled images of cancerous tumors viewed through a colonoscope, trying to diagnose myself.

A couple of the images on the papers had shapes that looked weird, with what seemed like variations in the texture or color of my colon wall that to me, at least, appeared one hundred percent fatal. It was another two weeks before I had a follow-up appointment to go over them with the surgeon.

“See this?” The GI said, two weeks later, pointing to one of the images that had seemed completely normal to me, unlike other ones I had thought were much more scary and unusual-looking. “That’s a low-risk polyp. Of course, now it’s a no-risk polyp, ‘cause it’s gone.”

This medical episode ended only three or so weeks before the whole world changed, but I was all the more grateful for that. If I’d waited to be checked out, then I would have been weighing whether it was worth getting tested against the possibility of being infected with COVID.

The doctor recommended that I get a colonoscopy every five years from now on, but added, “If you want, you can go earlier than that.” I told him thanks, but once every five years sounded fine.

I wrote about the first seven weeks of the pandemic in my last entry. After that, May and June passed in the same way as March and April had. I went back to work in mid-June for two weeks before the first summer COVID spike closed things back up. I continued to play Quake, and I continued to fret about my family.

I had a job interview for a position in northern Maryland in April. I didn’t get it, but I had a good idea why I’d been turned down: the position wanted people with proven math skills. Which makes sense—for the last few years I’d said repeatedly that I wanted to have a job that involves less lab work and more data analysis. This was one of those jobs.

My graduate program gave me a degree in “Computational and Integrative Biology.” Sometimes I shorten it to “Integrative Biology,” or “Computational Biology,” but I always feel sort of dishonest when I tell people my degree. (Apparently this feeling is common among grad students). My own reason for feeling dishonest was because, in any other college, the work I was doing would probably just fall under normal old “Biology.” While it was true I had done course work that reflected “Computational and Integrative” Biology, they were courses taught in a remedial way.

When I say remedial, I mean that they were courses designed to get biologists up to speed on how to do higher-level data analyses with their experiments. For instance, in my “Biomath” course, we went over ordinary differential equations and graph theory. Those are both intermediate-level math types, ones you’d encounter in the later part of an undergraduate math degree program. Throughout that course, there was a lot of handwaving whenever I asked questions.

“Eh…,” the professor might have responded to something I had asked, “that requires a lot of background explanation we don’t need right now to handle the problem here. Just take it as a given for what we’re working on.”

In grad school, it’s common to be well-versed in only your narrow little research tunnel that leads outward to the edge of “known” biology. But a few times each month, several of us students would head to the bar down at the city’s waterfront after work to talk about our research. It usually began with a complaint—“This is the third time this kit wouldn’t work this week and it takes twelve fucking hours to run it each time,”—but to give us a more context for their problem, whoever was griping would have to go back and start at the beginning, recounting all the steps leading to their experiment’s failure.

This was a useful exercise, since a pair of new eyes on your work meant that at least you could get feedback on how to better relate the subject matter when you talked to a non-science audience, and at most, you might get a real solution for the problem you were bumping up against.

But I would sometimes get privately upset, as I sipped my beer and glanced out the window at the river, when a math-centered Computational and Integrative Biology student would start talking about their research. As someone who feels an unpleasant, TV static-like anxiety in my chest the moment I see letters in italics, or one of those big, orphan sorority sigmas following an equal sign during a math seminar, this upset feeling was directed at myself. Because, as a result of my insecurity, I would start listening to the beginning of the math student’s explanation of their research, trip over the first unfamiliar term I heard, lose the thread of what they were talking about, give up, and zone out. The math students, overall, just seemed light years ahead of me.

A critical vocabulary word that I began to mentally tie to the situation—slumming, these math types were slumming when talking to us biologists—was the grain of sand to my insecurity’s oyster. By the time I got my diploma a few years later, it had developed into a little pearl; now I had the feeling that I was, relative to those who’d come from a math background, a fake computational biologist.

Unhelpfully, the people in charge of hiring for the jobs I want nowadays seemed to agree. All the job listings I was interested in applying for made me feel the same panic that advanced math symbols on powerpoint slides did. The subjects they wanted their applicants to have experience in—machine learning, deep learning, regression analyses—were all frightening, impregnable terms, reminding me either of some kind of giant machine made up of endless tubes and valves, all spitting dangerously hot steam, or of a highly secure, underground bomb shelter that requires fingerprints or eyeball scans to get into. I knew from my previous learning experiences that if I didn’t understand the fundamentals and learned only the higher-level, applied stuff, it was just going to make me feel unworthy, and I’d forget it at once.

But summer had come—it was midsummer now, in fact. The pandemic wasn’t going anywhere, so what was I going to do if I didn’t start learning something? I ended up registering for three classes at a community college back home, which offered their fall semester online. For two thousand dollars, including textbooks, I got a spot in Introductory Statistics, Linear Algebra, and Calculus III.

Calculus III was a risk. I’d taken Calc I and II in undergrad, now about seventeen years ago, and I had earned Bs back then. I didn’t remember much of the material from either class. I’d tried watching Khan Academy videos at various points in the meantime, but could never stick with it. I’d watch several videos in a row, feel like I understood things, try a practice problem, get it wrong, and forget about it after a day or two. But now, I had put actual money into it and, in a few months, a grade would be spit back out, so this time I had real skin in the game.

But I had misgivings that I was too old to learn new stuff, or that I would be one of those students I remember when I was in undergrad, the older students who would grind class to a halt with their endless questions. Or maybe I would get worse grades than I had in undergrad, despite taking things more seriously now.

Two of the classes were taught asynchronously, meaning each lecture was a video that you could pause or replay at your leisure, and all tests were take-home, but the other class, Statistics, was done over Zoom. You might think a Zoom class could be a better way to learn—clarifying questions can be asked immediately, for instance—but for me, at least, it was not. Instead of focusing on the material being taught, the whole time I’d be thinking, “They can see me. Everyone here can see me. I can see me, and I have a dumbass expression on my face. Can they tell that I have a bedsheet instead of a curtain over my window blinds?”

My mind wandered during class just as much as it had while sitting in a lecture hall when I was eighteen, but now, these classes were held later at night, after I’d been working all day and had eaten dinner. As a result of this, and the fact that I find Statistics to be boring when it’s taught as a series of don’t-worry-about-how-we-derived-it formulas to plug numbers into, I did the worst in Statistics.

But Calc and Linear Algebra were more interesting. When I watched the class videos, I got familiar with the disembodied voices of the teachers, who each seemed to be trying to do an impression of Khan Academy videos. My Calc teacher, with his strong Vietnamese accent, would punctuate every few lines of derivation or proof with, “So what does that mean then?” Every time—new topic, new chapter, new problem, exactly the same tone of voice: “So what does that mean then?”

Eventually, in my head, his cadence merged with the tones of Woody Woodpecker’s laugh, and I began saying it to myself as I did chores around my apartment. “So what does that mean, then?” I’d half-sing at my garbage can liner as I cinched it shut. “So what does that mean, then?” I’d say to a wrinkled button-down shirt, enjoying the pepper shaker-y smell of my iron when it’s turned up to its hottest setting. “So what does that mean, then?” I’d say to the window blinds, when considering whether I should replace the bedsheet I’d hung there with an actual curtain, before answering myself that No, this apartment is too temporary for something as tony as curtains.

Sometimes I’d say it three times in a row, like Woody Woodpecker himself:

“So what does that mean, then?”

I kept a Google Sheet of how much time I spent doing work for each class, and found that I averaged about 20 hours a week total. That broke down to approximately an hour and a half each weekday, and on Saturday and Sunday I would go for about six or seven hours each. I’d get up at 7:30 those weekend mornings and brew a pot of coffee, then sit taking notes and working through every part of each assigned homework, not moving on from a problem until I understood everything about it.

I think that those Saturday and Sunday mornings may have been the happiest I felt during the year 2020. In the middle of a difficult Calc problem, not having the answer yet but certain I was on the right track, while also buzzing on caffeine, as a beam of early horizontal sunlight hit my kitchen backsplash and filled the apartment with more brightness than all my lightbulbs put together, I for once did not feel worried. I was unworried about my parents, my sisters, my brother, my sister-in-law, my niece and nephew, and all the pets. Unworried about COVID, or cancer, or the work stresses of the week. Unworried about getting older, about being alone still, or about enjoying being alone too much; unworried about letting all of this time go by and still feeling like real life hasn’t started; unworried about my dad having another stroke, or about my mom just suddenly up and dying out of nowhere, or cancer, or whether my hairline is changing, or the fact that my heart has been skipping a beat sometimes lately, or whether my friends who I speak to on the phone were getting sick of me, or whether I am too graphic when I describe symptoms I am afraid mean I might have cancer, or whether my apartment neighbors will keep me up with their noise again tonight, or whether the tooth sensitivity I feel drinking cold water lately means I need to risk a dentist visit during a pandemic, or whether I will be able to have healthier boundaries with my parents whenever I return to the northeast, or whether I’ll ever feel truly satisfied and content, or whether I’ll ever feel actual joy some day, or whether my hang-ups, and anxieties, and fears, and regrets about my personal and professional choices will end up all ganging up on me at once, or, of course, whether at any given moment, I might have cancer.

My attitude going into the classes was that I would disregard whatever grades I got and simply aim for as much comprehension as possible. But about halfway through the semester, I lost my nerve and began to think of my grades as a direct indicator of my level of understanding. So I started fretting about my grades, and on days of Calc III exams during the second half of the semester, I took vacation time so I could spend the whole day working on them.

It got a little crazy toward the end, but finally, it was over, and I managed to get all As. That made me happy, even if I knew that that kind of satisfaction is a bit immature. But I felt like I was making up for some of the sins I had committed as a college student, my laziness and my previous lack of appreciation for education finally, in a small way, absolved.

I spent Christmas here in Texas. When I think back on Christmases from previous years I find that I can remember the past two years very well because I flew home and packed a lot of family and friend time into a few short days. Before 2018, though, I can’t remember any specific Christmas well enough to recount anything that happened on the day.

But when I was a little kid, I remembered each Christmas perfectly, mainly due to the gifts I got and the room where we put the Christmas tree—where “Christmas happened”: in 1990, it was in the back room and we got a magic set, and also my brother pretended to faint when he saw he’d gotten Reebok Pumps. In 1991, it was in the family room, and my brother and I got the Nintendo game “Base Wars.” In 1992, it was in the living room and we got a Sega Genesis along with the game “Sonic 2.” In 1993, it was in the family room again, and I got a Hot Wheels Key Force car, and my brother got the Genesis game “Hard Ball 3 With Al Michaels.”

In 1994, my grandfather died a few weeks before Christmas, and we got a Sega CD. That was the year I became aware that the Christmas spirit was vulnerable to external forces, one’s first experience with death being the most offensive of those forces, and after a few months I also became aware that a hot new gaming console like the Sega CD could “fail,” slipping into obscurity with a small and unremarkable library of games. As a result, the indestructible-seeming sheen of Christmas fell away, leaving behind a better idea of what Christmas really is: a bare, thin-glassed lightbulb plugged into the middle of the year’s darkest period. After 1994, I can’t really remember what happened each Christmas.

This past Christmas will always be memorable, though, because I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day pretty much doing one of three things: playing Quake (yes, that hobby still refuses to die), watching something Star Wars-related, or video chatting with my family. At any time when I wasn’t speaking to family, I had Christmas music playing in the background, including while Star Wars was on. I turned the heat up in my apartment to 75 degrees and enjoyed how money-wastingly hot it was getting, until my nose started to bleed from the dry air.

I want to take this opportunity to say that I much prefer Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. Christmas Eve is generally all anticipation and guest arrivals, buoying the mood long into the falling night. From the viewpoint of Christmas Eve, any miracle might happen the following morning. But then after a late, over-buttered breakfast on Christmas Day, there’s nothing much else to do except think about cleaning up and regret how much you’ve eaten. The “anything could happen” feeling is now all gone, collapsed from a dazzling infinity’s worth of possibilities down to one homely outcome.

I hadn’t put up any decorations for my apartment, unless the Christmas music can be considered a decoration. This ended up being a good thing, though, since I didn’t have to take anything down once the holiday was over.

I started taking walks pretty early in the pandemic, my first walk happening after about one week of lockdown. That day there was a surprisingly large amount of people also walking. We all stayed far away from one another, since none of us were wearing masks—the width of even a modest suburban Texas street is still impressively wide, so there was no safety issue. I always took the initiative to be the one who crossed the street if I saw someone, exaggeratedly swinging my arms as I crossed so the person walking toward me could see my intentions even from far away. I did this because I figured it would be harder for the dog-walkers to wrangle their dog across the street and get out of my way, and the people without dogs were either old or were walking in a group.

In the beginning I was walking maybe twice a week, which then became three times, which became five. It held at five times a week during the fall semester because I’d have to be on Zoom from 6:30-8:30 PM Tuesdays and Thursdays, which took up the whole span of time in which I would usually walk. Nowadays, no longer taking classes, I walk every night.

For a while, I tried to get home before sunset, because I’m afraid of being hit by a car in the dark. After the clocks shifted back, I had to choose between walking earlier, during rush hour when everyone was arriving back at their houses from work, or waiting to walk until after the sun has set. I ended up buying one of those reflective construction worker’s vests for $8 on Amazon and waiting for nighttime. I feel like a dork when I wear the vest, but most of the people walking at night who I see are also wearing reflective clothes. Theirs are more chic than my vest, though, looking like they were ordered through an expensive fitness-wear catalogue. I’d buy the same type, but to me, walking is a meditative, solitary act, and I don’t want to feel that I’m catering to externalities like looking stylish while I’m trying to feel solitary. It also acts as a tacit acknowledgement that I’m not a criminal: “I’m making myself as visible as possible! I’m not casing your houses to break into them later on!”

Even though the focus of COVID is on the transmission of disease through shared, respired air, I still pay a lot of attention to contaminated surfaces. When I go out anywhere, I have a routine: first, I put on my going-out clothes (newly clean), then my shoes, which are possibly dirty, since I have to re-tie them sometimes with unwashed hands, so before I touch anything else after tying my shoes, I wash my hands. Then, I put on a mask, turn off all the lights except the one at the front door, pick up my keys with my right hand, slip my phone into my left pocket, and walk to the door. I put my keys in my right pocket (my wallet is already there), open the door with my right hand, turn out the light, step out the door, and take the keys out of my pocket to lock the door with, again, only my right hand.

I use my right hand pretty much everywhere outside—to push or pull open doors, to open my car to retrieve something from it, to open my mailbox and carry my mail in—because I know that if I use my left hand, my phone-operating hand, I’m going to have to put the phone into a little UV light phone-sterilizing box that I bought when I get home. And for some reason, I feel like it’s a small moral failure to have to use that UV box, so I try to keep my left hand from touching anything except for the phone. But I know that if I drive anywhere, all bets are off—both my hands touch the steering wheel, my left hand touches the car door handle while getting out, and I push open doors with both hands whenever I get somewhere. I’m sure that my left hand ends up touching something that may have SARS-CoV-2 on it as I carry out an errand, and therefore into the UV box my phone must go when I get home. But, when I go out to walk, there’s a good chance that I won’t need to touch anything with my left hand between leaving the apartment and coming back. If that’s the case, I can use my phone freely while walking if I want to, but when I get home, I can still just take it from my pocket and place it on my desk, no ultraviolet sterilizing waves needed. But of course then I still have to wash my right hand.

The walk is the same route every night now. It’s a vaguely circular, level 2.7 miles, starting northbound, bearing west, south, then east. It takes about forty minutes for me to walk the whole thing, plus or minus four minutes, depending on how warmed up I get while walking. My heart rate generally goes up to about 115 beats per minute for most of the walk, according to my watch, then spikes to 135 as I climb the stairs to my fourth floor apartment at the end.

Insulated by the sound of music or an audiobook on my headphones, and with my hands stuck in my pockets, actually holding onto the cloth pocket linings themselves, I feel less like a person on a walk and more like someone steering a large, inertia-filled thing—a sailboat that I have to tack against an unfavorable wind, or a bobsled whose blades I have to turn out of deep ruts on the ice. But despite feeling bodily awkward, I find suburbia to be a soothing place to move through. I really don’t understand how some people think of the suburbs as some kind of dystopia, to be honest. My neighborhood has wide streets, as I mentioned, and the houses are almost all ranch-style. The trees, like the houses, are shorter than they are in the northeast. Some of the trees look more like very tall shrubbery. As for the ground, the blades of grass are wider, and the soil is just a bit sandier. Sometimes, I see two-inch-long cockroaches, what people back home would call “water bugs,” creeping across the sidewalks.

I can’t remember the names of the streets on the walk, except for Forrest Street, which I noticed once when I saw the street sign while I was running and it made me think of “Run, Forrest, run!” and Kenilworth Street, which has the same name as a street back at home. Other than those, I only know points along the route by the informal names I’ve assigned to them. There’s a road where it changes direction from heading north to heading east, and it looks over a little park. The lack of houses there gives an unobstructed view of the western horizon. For that reason, I call that part of the route “Sunset Bend.” At another point on the route there is a house where, in the beginning of lockdown last spring, a family was always outside, the parents sitting motionless in Adirondack chairs while their kids all went nuts on the front lawn, playing with the sprinkler, or doing hopscotch, or sitting at one of those tiny plastic picnic tables, playing some board game. That part of the walk I called “Kidville.”

There were other houses that were always so inactive, so abandoned-seeming—the blinds were always closed and there wasn’t a car in the driveway—that I started to wonder if anyone lived there at all, and whether maybe the neighborhood association was mowing its lawn to stave off the shabbiness. But after the switch from walking in daylight to nighttime, I saw that some of those houses, while still shut up and silent, had lights on inside in rooms not facing the street. Looking at those houses is like staring into the vents of a space heater in a dark room.

Eventually I started thinking about how the walk is exactly 2.7 miles. Then, idly, I realized that if you multiply 2.7 by 30, you get 81. That number of years, eighty-one, seems like a decent amount of years to hope to live—it’s not greedy, you’re not asking for a hundred years, for example—but also, maybe when I get closer to 81, there will be better medical treatments and 81 will seem younger. Assuming that doesn’t happen, though, I think of 81 years as more or less “a complete life.” It is very sad, but not exactly a tragedy, to die at 81.

With this in mind, I started translating the distance along my walk to human ages. For instance, 1.0 miles into the walk, times 30, would equal 30 years. And 1.2 miles times 30 would equal 36 years, which is how old I am now. Since by the time I’d discovered this “conversion formula,” the walk was already so familiar to me that I had a very good perspective on how far into the walk any given point felt—the precise moment when I sense that I’m transitioning from the middle to the end phase of the walk, for example. So when I came up with the multiply-by-30 conversion formula, I was interested to see exactly what part of the walk 1.2 miles, or 36 years old, corresponded to.

The answer is that it was later in the walk than I’d hoped. The moment I reach 1.2 miles is long past the most scenic parts of the route; it’s just after a left turn that puts me on a long straightaway of modest houses leading to an arterial road, known to me as the hook-around part of the circuit where in past walks, I had thought, “Now I’m on my way back home.”

Over the next few evenings, I noted other points, ones that had come before the 1.2 mile marker, and compared them to parts of my already-lived life: I graduated high school at 0.6 miles into the walk, which was the beginning of Sunset Bend. I got my master’s degree in a spot where, at nighttime, a streetlight shines through the leaves on a tree, giving the street a dance hall, disco-ball kind of lighting (hence, “Disco Point”). That friendly, lighted patch of street, with a jaunty-looking house standing next to it, makes it my favorite part of the walk. As for points I have not yet reached: still ahead of my current age distance, at around 1.5 miles, is Kidville, but I haven’t seen anyone in the front yard there in months now.

Toward the end, almost back home, there’s a large school property. I’ve never seen anyone on the grounds, except for the occasional person who sneaks onto the running track to jog it. Along one of the fences that borders the school, in springtime last year, someone started zip-tying laminated sheets of paper with jokes written on them to the chain links. The jokes are all clean, and pretty lame—these days it seems like almost all kid-friendly jokes are just puns, like “How did the farmer find his wife? He tractor down!”

One time, I saw a kid about ten years old on his bike, riding along the sidewalk and stopping to read each joke. The fence ends at a small park for toddlers. There’s a big plastic sign at the entrance of the park, faded but still legible, that has a boy’s name displayed on it. Below his name is written a tragically short span of years, and below that, a message: “This park is dedicated to the memory of (the boy’s name), and to all of the little tykes of (the neighborhood).” Whoever it was putting up jokes on the schoolyard fence stopped replacing them with new ones some time during the fall, and I walk too late to ever see anyone playing at the playground. Well, that’s not quite true: very rarely, around 9 PM on warm nights, I might see what appears to be a young mother scrutinizing her phone as her kid swings in the dark.

I haven’t been to the gym to lift any weights since lockdown started. I’ve been able to do cardio in my apartment, but the result of all the cardio and all the walking is that I’ve lost a decent amount of lifting strength, as well as about ten pounds. This is consistent with how life in general has evolved: I have also reduced the list of spaces I travel to, leaving my apartment only to go to work, to pick up groceries, and to walk through my neighborhood. My body, and the edges of my life, have gone through a great miniaturization, but my perspective has adapted with it—each feature within this smaller space seems more detailed, and the day’s moments are of a finer grain. Inside my apartment, I have realized how much the lighting affects the atmosphere, and as a result the mood, so I can change which lights are on when to reflect the mood of each time of day. When I walk at night, sometimes I have the same feeling I did the week before I moved here from New Jersey, a sort of farewell feeling. That feeling started in the fall as a dessert-like flipside to my happy mornings spent doing math homework. Those evenings, I also felt like I was saying goodbye, to a more insecure, more ignorant version of myself, I guess. Nowadays, I get the feeling that I’m saying goodbye to the person who had, until now, always feared that he was missing out on things.

There will be a time, closer to now than now is to the beginning of the pandemic, when I will leave Texas. I will be happy and relieved to return home, whenever that is. But at the same time, there’s a new feeling that is starting to take root, and it’s a weird one: for all the hardship that the pandemic has presented to me, the anxiety for my family and the limitations it’s put on my mobility, social life, and career, for more than ten months now, its most memorable effect, unless I’m affected by the illness itself, will be that it made me love my neighborhood. I have walked more than 500 miles of it over the months, and scores of miles remain to be walked before I move away. I’ve walked during steaming afternoons, during cloudy sunsets, in pre-dawn twilight on cool mornings, and during soft, breezy evenings. It’s always picturesque, pleasant, very green. The houses look inviting, and the dog-walkers wave to me. I listen to music that suits my mood and do the geographical equivalent of palm reading. That’s all, really.

Can a person love a place? Feel gratitude toward landscaping, houses, parked cars, and people viewed only from a distance? Can someone feel affinity to a fox seen in a churchyard and streetlights shining through leaves in the night? Affection for lawn mower exhaust, for the noise of an approaching SUV slowly carving out a bend? Love for landmarks that correspond to moments in one’s past, or to moments that one might encounter in the future?

There will be a time, I hope, when my years in Texas are far in the past. But some day, I will hear a song, or see a house with a certain architecture, or smell a variety of grass, and Texas will return to me. At the same time, I also hope that it isn’t too overwhelming. I’ve found that I can never tell how potent a memory of a particular time or place will be until there’s a lot of distance between me and it. Sometimes, a memory will come gently, settling on me like a haze, ready to be indulged, even laughed at. In such cases I turn up the music that brought the memory, or take a luxuriating whiff of the scent, and I think back on the time, feeling only a little bit sad.

But other memories swoop down like some kind of predatory bird, and in those cases, the nostalgia feels more like the punch of the bird’s talons in the back of my neck. The sense of missing is so strong that it feels less like nostalgia and more like a distilled, portable homesickness. Ridiculously, I’ll even want to return to the memory’s time and place, despite knowing that in reality it had been fraught with pain or unease. Which makes the sneaking feeling growing during this time, at this place, all the more uncanny. I mean, all that this span of time has been, is me, and some terrain, and the wind, and the light of the sun or the moon. No one else. My nostalgia for anything before this was always about times and places with other people. So who will I be missing?

Someone once said, Wherever you go, there you are. But now, I wonder: is that really true?

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kaysreadingarchive · 4 years

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Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing: Part 1

Pairing: Jacob Seed x Reader, slightly John Seed x Reader x Joseph Seed

AUs: Omegaverse, werewolves

Warnings: Cursing, mention of character death, guns, mention of violence

Word Count: 2,952

A/N: Some of you may be asking if I'm abandoning my other work. I am not. I will continue to write for both of my stories I just came up with another idea for Far Cry 5. It's still an omegaverse story because I will forever be obsessed with this au. I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Also, this is sort of a birthday present to me and I felt like we need more things to enjoy now that the world is going to hell and we honestly don't know what's going to happen.Thank you guys so much for being this patient with me and my numerous schemes. It means the world to me! And like always, give me some feedback on what I could do better or what I did alright, where you wanna see this whole mess go, or something you just don’t understand. I also really want to know what your theories are for the coming story. I always love reading your guys' analyses.

Masterlist Omegaverse rules ---------------------------

When people imagined small-town America, they would instantly think of a tiny general store, maybe a white church. Large pastures that held grazing cattle. Hope County was the very definition of small-town America. It had a tight-knit community filled with very unique characters. Doomsday preppers, anarchists, and conspiracy theorists. It didn’t take long to notice these people. The County was full of them. You knew the moment you stepped into The Hope County’s Sheriff’s Department that things were different in your little piece of Montana.

You grew up in Fall’s End. Your parents lived here, hell, your father was even a Deputy. Your mother ran the Spread Eagle with a close friend Irene Fairgrave. Your childhood was filled with tales from your father. It was mainly him stopping the bad guy and saving the day. You and your mother both knew most of them were fake. Nothing ever happened in the sleepy town of Fall’s End.

The only bad thing that seemed to happened was your mother’s illness. It came in October as simple fatigue. She grew tired more often and she felt pain in her shoulder. The pain got worse as time went on and Aunt Irene finally took her to see a doctor, it was too late. She waited too long. She had stage-4 Chondrosarcoma, bone cancer. They tried chemo but it didn’t take well and she passed away the next summer. Your father wasn’t far behind to say it better. He had a fatal heart attack and died in the hospital.

You were only eleven when this happened. You understood what happened but your growing mind still didn’t understand that they weren’t coming back. You watched them get buried together, but you still held up hope it was a lie. A sick joke. You had nowhere to go so one of your dad’s coworkers adopted you. Earl Whitehorse was roughly in his early forties and all his children had moved out. He bought everything new for your bedroom in his ranch house. You had taken to calling him pop-pop. He really felt like a grandfather to you and he raised you as if you were his own.

When you graduated high school, you knew what you wanted to do. You wanted to be a deputy like your dad. You wanted to make him proud even if he wasn’t here. When you went to the academy outside the county you felt off. All these hotshots in your class made you feel weak. You felt like they pointed and laughed as you walked by. Look at the country bumpkin! There’s no fucking way a farmer could be a police officer! You hated your time at the academy. It felt like no one was on your side.

When you finally graduated it felt like you were on top of the world. Pop-pop came to see you and both of you celebrated by having wings and a beer at the Spread Eagle. Nothing had made you happier when you got your uniform and badge. Rook was proudly displayed on a silver name tag and Staci Pratt became your partner. Staci mainly dragged you everywhere he went, you had no say in the matter.

You got comfortable being his partner. Everyone seemed nice. Especially Joey Hudson who invited you to drinks the moment you closed the door behind you. Her partner, Danny was odd. He seemed very religious, always had a crucifix around his neck. He was very into playing bible music in his joint office. Nancy seemed very motherly. She made a routine of bringing doughnuts into work from a bakery in town. You absolutely loved her for it. You were the first one in the break room as soon as you saw her minivan park.

You shared a tiny office with Staci and he was a mess. His paperwork was scattered everywhere and he always left his empty monster cans on the floor. Other than that, he was only an asshole 70% of the time.

----

Today was a very slow day compared to most days. There was no paperwork to file nor did you feel like sorting the archives for the fifth time. You sat at your desk, playing with a wad of paper. Stacy sat at his desk downing another energy drink while his hands could barely function from the other sugar. It was absolutely silent as you went about your day. Nancy had come in that day with donuts and they were gone, so you couldn’t really eat your boredom away like you usually would. Something felt odd about the silence. It made your insides flutter and sweat began to drip from your (h/c) hair.

Something definitely felt wrong about today. Was there gonna be a big robbery or shoot out? Nah, those things never fucking happen here. A sudden knock on the door startled you from your thoughts. Joey peeked her head through the crack and gave you a smile and then looked over to Staci. He didn’t seem to notice her, stuck in his own world like usual. “Staci!” Joey suddenly yelled. He flinched and dropped his can to the floor. The green liquid spilled out onto linoleum.

“What the fuck Joey!” Staci just looked annoyed as he looked at the now spilled drink. Some of it soaked into his green uniform and pants. Joey held back a snicker as Staci reached for the tissues on his desk as his cheeks flushed red. You had to look away before you burst out laughing.

“Don’t be a damn baby, Staci. Clean yourself up and come meet me and (Y/N) in the lobby. These three weirdos came in asking for a permit to carry and Whitehorse isn’t happy.” Joey looked at you from the doorway and waved you over. You followed behind her down the small hallway and she opened the door to the tiny lobby. You could hear the yelling already. It sounded like Pops and a random male voice.

Pops never really got angry. He had control over his nonexistent temper. If he was really going at it, whoever this guy is must be a prick. There was indeed three weird-looking strangers arguing over the dispatcher desk. Nacy could do nothing but go back and forth between Whitehorse and a wealthy-looking man. His blue eyes were slitts and his beard covered lips were pulled back in a scowl. A handgun was placed on the desk with the safety on.

Two other men stood beside them. One had his hair pulled back into a man bun like a fucking hipster and his lips were pulled into an uneasy smile. The other sent a shiver down your spine and not a good one. He made you feel uneasy as his blue eyes roamed over you and Joey. His red hair was brushed to the side and he too had a full beard. What were these guys? Millennials? The redhead continued to watch you two as you made your way beside Pops, their conversation stopping for a brief second.

Whitehorse took a deep breath in and closed his eyes for just a moment. “I’m sorry, but I can’t validate your permit without a criminal records background.”

The irritated looking of the three narrowed his eyes even more than before. He opened his big mouth but the man-bun stopped him. “I’m so sorry about this sir. My brothers and I just moved here from Georgia and we’re still new to these parts, please forgive us for our rudeness.” The man slowly let go of his brother’s shoulder and pulled out a card.

“This has my phone number and name, I’ll have someone be in contact with you about John’s criminal records background.” He handed the business card to Nancy who looked at it with an odd expression on her face. “God bless you.” All three of them walked out without another word, But the red-haired brother gave you one last look before getting into the white truck outside.

“Do those three give you the creeps or what?” Joey commented as she took the business card from Nancy. She scanned over the info and passed it to you. Joseph Seed, an odd name. His cell-phone number was underneath but what was weird was the symbol in the corner. It stood out with black ink against the white paper. It looked like a cross and a name was underneath it. “The Project at Eden’s Gate, huh.” The name sounded odd on your tongue. It felt uneasy to you. Anxiety began to build in your system at what these men could possibly be.

You had never seen those three before or heard of them. They must have just moved. “Did you say the Project at Eden’s Gate? I know those guys, they bought a run-down church near the Henbane. They call it, “Eden’s Convent”. Don’t know what they want with that piece of shit but they seem to keep to themselves.” Staci’s voice pierced through the silence as he walked in, still dabbing the energy drink on his pants.

Pops said nothing as he lifted his hat and gave his head a scratch in thought. “Whatever they want, they’re gonna have to do it legally. Nacy, keep an eye on those three for me. They’re gonna go snoopin’.” It took you good second to realize he was talking about Stacy, Joey, and you and not the three stooges that walked out minutes ago. What the fuck? Did he not trust you or something? It made you kinda upset to hear someone you looked up to for so long say that. Especially when it was your adopted grandpa.

The anxiety from before slipped away as you forgot about the three brothers as the day went on. It didn’t feel like your own thoughts were torturing you for once. You got a good night’s sleep without any nightmares to scare you awake, but there was still this tugging in your chest. No matter how much you tried to clear your head, it didn’t go away. It felt like something bad was going to happen. Like, really bad.

------

A week went by before the feeling returned. Pops had just pulled into the parking lot when it felt like a stab to the gut. A little voice inside your head was begging you to turn around, but you just ignored it. When you finally got to your desk you locked it away in the deepest part of you mind and filled your fear with a cream-filled doughnut and a cup of coffee.

You slumped into your chair, staring at the computer screen as it took forever to boot up. It felt like it was mocking you by making your day worse. You would look up every once and a while from the screen to the window. Half expecting someone to be there. Only there wasn’t, just fields and cows. Before you knew it, it felt like tie was passing at the speed of light. 8 A.M. became 10.

“-N)... (Y/N)! You awoke with a yelp and glared at Staci. He hastily took his hand away, as if you were going to bite his fingers off. You had considered it many times, with him being such a fucking asshole. There deserved to be less of him.

“What Staci? What the fuck do you want?” You rubbed the sleep away from your eyes as you stretched your legs in your uncomfortable chair. You hadn’t even realized you had fallen asleep. Staring at absolutely nothing was hard work.

“The old man wants us to check out a disturbance at the Spread Eagle. One of the guys from a week ago is harassing everyone.” This was a shock to you. Pops didn’t send you and Staci on any calls before. He says he didn’t trust Staci enough to do his job, but since you were just a Junior Deputy, you couldn’t do it by yourself.

“What about Joey and Danny?” Weren’t they capable enough to do this? Joey was good at her job, but Danny was a different story.

“They’re on another call.” You only nodded and gathered your stuff. You put a can off pepper spray into your belt. You couldn’t have a gun, but Staci could. You had wondered what idiot gave him the approval to carry a deadly weapon. You had wished in the past that whoever they were, they were in jail for giving out false permits.

“Alright, let’s go.” You both walked out of the station and made the small walk to the Spread Eagle. Staci opened the door and the bell rang. Both Mary May and one of the brothers, the rich looking one, turned towards both of you. Mary May looked pissed and the Seed brother only smirked when he saw you two walk in.

“Really, Mary? You called the police on me? Haven’t I’ve been a decent customer?” His tone was cocky as he sat back in one of the stools. His expensive-looking coat was tossed over the bar and his tattooed hands were gripping onto a stack of contracts. His hands crumpled the papers as his smirk widened. His mouth said one thing but his eyes said another. He looked like an absolute asshat. A spoiled baby. It made sense now, this little shit wanted a fucking audience. He was a god damn performer.

He gave you an uneasy feeling just like his redheaded brother. But it wasn’t from being uncomfortable, it was the feeling of dread. Like he could crush your puny existence with the snap of his well-manicured fingers.

“My normal customers don’t threaten me! You’re not getting this fucking bar, John. Now, why don’t you hightail it out of my town before Widowmaker runs your ass over.” Mary May wasn’t someone to mess with especially when she had her mom’s temper. Maybe that’s why Irene and your mom got along so well.

Both of them had pictures on the counters behind the bar. A vase of fresh daisies was next to them. When you saw the picture, it felt like she was still here protecting you. Like a guardian angel.

When you were trash as a deputy, you thought of your dad. He would be so proud of you, you just knew he was with mom. Where ever they were, they were happy. It still felt so fresh and to have someone like John Seed try to tear that away from you made you feel as angry as Mary May.

“Let’s not get too hasty. How about I add another zero to the offer?” John pulled out a checkbook from his pocket and started to write. Your eyes started to get wider as the number got bigger. This guy must have been loaded. Great, a rich and spoiled scumbag.

You also noticed the symbol from before, the cross, was on the checks. But, instead of the name John Seed, John Duncan was printed on them instead. What the fuck was going on? It felt like a big conspiracy theory was unraveling and you had to know the truth.

The name Seed was something that made you feel sick. It sent shivers down your spine and your forehead broke out into cold sweats. It felt like you were doubting yourself when you heard the name. Like was a lie. It made your anxiety flare up again and it constricted your lungs. Were you going to have an anxiety attack in the middle of a call? Just your fucking luck.

“For the last time, I don’t want your fucking money!” Mary May hiss and brought a pistol out from under the bar and sat it right on his papers. John’s brown hair stood up on the back of his neck. He glared down at the contracts and brought the papers up to Mary’s eye level as he ripped them clean down the middle. He stood up from the stool, grabbing his coat jacket and stuffed the pieces into his pocket.

A voice yelled from above as the sound of boots stomping on wooden stairs echoed in the now silent bar “Get out of my bar, Seed. Go home and cry to Joe and Jake and tell them Gary said fuck off.” Gary Fairgrave walked down from the apartment above the bar, a shotgun in hand. He pointed it right at John. His nose flared out in rage as he stepped back out of Gary’s line of fire.

His blue eyes seemed to switch to something darker, something red. You blinked and the red was gone. His eyes were blue once again but filled with more anger than you’ve ever seen in a person. His neck took on a deep shade of pink that worked its way up to his cheeks. It looked like he was gonna pop a blood vessel.

“Woah, we don’t need anyone dying here.” You finally stepped in while Staci stood there with his mouth hung open. John looked over to you and his blue eyes softened just a bit before going back to glaring at Gary.

“You’ll regret this Fairgrave.” John stomped to the door and slammed it shut behind him, almost breaking it off the hinges. His threat sounded real. Not like the bluff most people gave. It wasn’t an empty threat. You just didn’t know him at all, you couldn’t tell if he would act on it. As if you didn’t find him creepy enough, he was making googly eyes at you. And the red eyes didn’t help either. You tried to tell yourself it was just a trick of the light. Like a camera flash.

But deep down you knew it wasn’t a light trick. This was real and it already felt like hell.

#far cry 5 #fc5 #reader #reader insert #joseph seed #john seed #jacob seed #omegaverse #werewolves #jacob seed x reader #joseph seed x reader #john seed x reader #faith seed #cursing #mention of death #guns #mention of violence

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kasdeyathebitterwoman · 4 years

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A Ninja Warrior Love Story - Part 1

Welcome back to the world of Lily and Henry! Honestly, I have no idea how I ended up deleting my old account, but I’m genuinely more upset that I had no backups of my original work. That aside, I am beginning the slow process of rewriting my original series, A Ninja Warrior Love Story. I hope you enjoy it!

Let me know of any other imagines or one-shots you’d like to see! Also, if you’d like to be added to the tag list, just send me a message!

CW: none

Word Count: 2,230

The Story: Lily is a single woman working at a parkour gym when she meets Henry Cavill. Are they meant to fall in love or is it just a one-time thing?

At 4:30 in the morning, Lily’s alarm went off. She rolled over in her small bed and smacked her alarm to turn it off. Groaning, Lily pushed herself out of bed. With two steps, she cleared the small apartment bedroom and entered the even smaller bathroom. With the efficiency of a well-known routine, Lily got dressed in simple workout clothes. She glanced in the mirror to see a tired face looking back. For the past six months, she had been working hard to earn extra income so she could afford time off and a plane ticket to see her best friend at college. So far, it wasn’t really working out, but she had been able to save some money.

Once dressed, Lily dashed out to her beat-up old truck right outside her apartment. At 4:45 am, no one was out on the roads, so she wasn’t concerned about being late for one of her three jobs. Lily worked at a gym - not just any gym though. This was a Ninja Warrior gym. About four years ago, Lily met the gym owner, Donovan, who offered her a chance to work out at his gym. He remembered her from her track days and wanted someone to open his gym in the mornings since he was, in his words, allergic to any time before nine am. Lily quickly and easily agreed and almost immediately found herself in a world of her wildest dreams. She loved working out and training on the courses there and even considered applying to be on the show one day.

Five minutes to 5 am, Lily pulled up to the Hustler Ninja gym in Taylor, Texas. Taylor was about 45 minutes outside of the DFW area. It was basically the middle of nowhere with one good Walmart, a ghosted - albeit historic - downtown square, and surprisingly a very fancy looking Hilton resort. The keys jangling in the lock, Lily opened the gym and began turning on the lights. Donovan rented the building which was incredible in size. Large enough to house two ninja warrior obstacle courses, a half rock wall in the back, a decent-sized free-weight section, and even an outdoor mini-course. The whole place was huge and everything Lily wanted in a gym. Within two months of working there, she’d been promoted to assistant manager. She was here every Monday through Friday from 5-9, then Monday through Thursday, she went to work at her uncle's barbershop. Finally, on Fridays and Saturdays, she worked at one of the three bars in town to earn as much extra income as possible.

After dropping her gym bag in the locker room, Lily stepped out into the gym and looked around. Donovan and Daniel, or The Dude, did a good job cleaning up last night. It was actually a little surprising considering they rarely did any cleaning. Lily usually spent most of her time cleaning up after everyone. Weird. Regardless, she enjoyed the reprieve and made her way to the free-weights to start a warm-up. After 15 minutes, she was ready to begin her real training. It started with the salmon ladder followed by a few balance obstacles and finally ending with a grip training on the waving board. She was enjoying herself and almost didn’t hear the front door open again. Glancing over, she saw a tall, long-haired figure striding past her towards the locker rooms.

“Morning, Dude,” she called out. The Dude smiled and waved at her and continued on to the locker rooms. A few minutes later, The Dude appeared ready to go in long shorts, a fitted t-shirt and his long hair pulled back in a low ponytail. The Dude was the only guy Lily could think that could pull off the man-tail well. He saddled up to her and watched her jump down from the wave board.

“Morning Luck,” The Dude said to her. Lily groaned and rolled her eyes.

“Can’t anyone forget about that?!” she asked, jumping down off the raised platform and stood next to him. In comparison, Lily looked relatively tiny. Where she was about 5’5” of lean muscle, The Dude was 6’4” of muscle and weight. He got his nickname from his long hair and easy-going attitude. The Dude laughed, throwing his head back a little.

“Nope, it was too adorable,” he replied, making Lily roll her eyes even harder. “So you excited about tomorrow?” he asked when he finally stopped laughing. Lily looked at him confused.

“What’s happening tomorrow?” she asked in response to his question. The Dude looked down at her stunned.

“Tomorrow? The big celebrities are coming by the gym to check it out?” he said as if she should know already. Lily continued to look surprised by his information. “It was in the email that Donovan sent like, two weeks ago.” Lily scoffed.

“You are aware I haven’t actually checked my email since probably about 2016, right?” This time The Dude rolled his eyes at her.

“Aren’t you a manager here or something?” he asked. Lily laughed.

“Or something,” she replied. The Dude laughed with her.

“Girl, get it together,” he said, gently pushing her shoulder. “Tom Cruise and that guy that played Super Man are coming by to check out the gym. They need parkour training and Donovan is going to teach them.” Lily’s eyebrows shot up.

“Are you serious?” she asked. Tom Cruise was major. She remembered watching some of his old movies with her dad. Suddenly a pain gripped her chest and she forced herself back into the present.

“100% serious,” he replied. Lily was shocked. She definitely needed to check her email more often. They stood there talking about their favorite Tom Cruise movies for a few minutes when the opening of the front door caught their attention. Much to Lily’s surprise, her old “friend” Celeste walked in the door. Celeste was a tall beauty with olive skin, long brown hair, and stunning green eyes. She had on a matching navy blue sports bra and leggings which showcased her olive skin perfectly. Her brown hair was pulled back into a tight, clean ponytail and even from the distance she was at, Lily could tell the woman was wearing makeup.

“Well I’ll be damned,” The Dude said under his breath. Lily watched incredulously as Celeste found them and made her way across the room to them.

“Hey guys!” she said awkwardly breathlessly as she stopped just short of the two of them. The Dude and Lily exchanged a look before turning back to Celeste.

“Hey Celeste,” The Dude said cautiously. Celeste gave him a wide, fake smile that made Lily’s intestines turn. “What brings you back to the gym? We figured you didn’t have a membership anymore.” He didn’t have to look at Lily to know what she was thinking. Celeste waved her hand dismissively.

“No, silly,” she started. “I just took a few months off; went back to Cali for a few weeks; saw my brother in New York,” she made a point to look directly at Lily. Lily immediately dropped her gaze and felt her ears grow warm with embarrassment. The Dude cleared his throat.

“Sounds fun,” he said, disdain evident in his voice. Celeste picked up on it and smiled warmly.

“I just wanted to come back and get back into my routines,” she said. A thought occurred to Lily and her eyes shot up.

“You were hoping to see one of those celebrities,” Lily said, more accusation in her tone than she meant. It didn’t matter because she was right. It was evident on Celeste’s face. Celeste shifted in her spot.

“No, of course not, why would I be excited to meet a celebrity? I’ve met dozens of them already,” Celeste replied. Lily smirked realizing she’d made her uncomfortable.

“They’re not here,” Lily said, causing Celeste to look her in the eyes. “They won’t be here until later.” Lily glanced over at The Dude to see if he would correct her. He didn’t.

“Oh, okay,” Celeste said, glancing around the empty gym. “Well, I guess I’ll go get ready to work out then. It’s been great catching up with you two,” and with a small smile and shoulder shrug, Celeste bounced off to the women’s locker rooms. The Dude and Lily watched her leave and once she was safely away in the locker rooms, Lily looked directly at The Dude who shared a similar look.

“Fuck,” she sighed.

—

At around 8:30, Lily dashed from the gym floor to the locker rooms. She quickly showered and dressed in her usual barbershop attire: dark jeans, a blue or gray t-shirt, and her black and white Converse. Her general wardrobe consisted of these same pieces, with a few variations in the mix. She walked out of the gym to find The Dude helping another regular, Megan, on the rock wall. Though he was tall, The Dude was nimble and able to understand situations that required a certain skill. She walked over to them.

“Watch your heels, Rapunzel,” Lily called out to Megan. Her nickname came from the fact that Megan had insanely long blonde hair. It was beautiful and well-kept, but extremely long. Lily loved it. Megan grunted in response and did her best to heed Lily’s advice, but unfortunately couldn’t quite get it. She stumbled backward and landing on her feet on the mat. Groaning, she turned around to Lily and The Dude.

“I’m never going to get it,” she said with pained certainty. Lily smiled at her.

“You’ll get it,” she said. “You just have to stop pushing it and start feeling it,” she looked over at The Dude who was rolling his eyes at her.

“Haha, very funny,” he said, making Lily and Megan laugh. Lily smiled at The Dude.

“Well, I’m out y’all,” she said waving at both of them. Megan and The Dude waved back and Lily headed out to her truck. It was a very old, very beaten blue Chevy Silverado. It was actually her dad’s, but he had no need for it any more, so Lily got it. One of the few good things her dad did for her. She climbed in, started the loud engine, and puttered off into town.

The barbershop where she worked was in the historic downtown square of Taylor. Her uncle Ray owned the shop and had for several decades. Ray was an older, stout man of 60. He had a decent sized beer belly, a handlebar mustache, and piercing blue eyes. Ray wasn’t actually Lily’s uncle, but he was as close to one as she could get. He took care of her during her senior year of high school and later on when she returned from college to find nothing and no one waiting for her.

Parking her car just outside the shop, Lily got out and darted across the empty street to the diner. Inside, she ordered four cups of coffee to go and a few donuts for everyone. When she got her order, she once again crossed the empty street and walked into Ray’s shop. A few regulars were sitting in their respective stylists' chairs. Lily’s station was towards the front. She pulled a cup of coffee out for herself placing on her station, then went around the room handing the other cups of coffee out. Everyone greeted her with kindness and respect. They knew what she had been through with her parents.

Once everyone had their coffee, Lily settled in at her station and waited for her first customer, Mr. Ortiz. At 9:15, Mr. Ortiz hobbled into the shop and straight to Lily’s station. She jumped up and vacated her chair for him. He sat down and told her he wanted the usual, which for him meant a general trim of his hair and beard. Lily immediately got to work and 45 minutes later she was done and checking Mr. Ortiz out at the register. She sat back in her chair after cleaning up the area and decided to check her email. It was overflowing with spam and other junk, so she specifically searched for the email from Donovan. It was there postmarked two weeks ago. She opened it.

Hello team,

I hope this email finds you well. I want you to be the first to know that I have accepted the chance to teach and train two actors for an upcoming movie. They’ll be filming the majority of it in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, but we are one of the best-rated ninja warrior/parkour gyms in the country (go figure!). That means they will be here for a while getting the hang of certain moves and choreography.

The two actors in question are Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill. They are going to be here on Wednesday, the 17th at 7 am. We all know Lucky doesn’t read any of these, so someone please tell her. Other than that, you are all amazing!

Best,

Donovan Troy

Lily rolled her eyes at the line that she wouldn’t read the email. Though it was true, she hated how easy it was for him to read her. Anyway, she easily recognized Tom Cruise and could think of several movies she had seen him in. But, who the hell was Henry Cavill?

----

@taglist:

@maeleeme

#henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fan fic #henrycavillfanfic #henry cavill fan fiction #henry cavill fanfiction #fanfiction #fan fic #writing #writer #stories #daydream #fantasy #a ninja warrior love story #henryxlily #henryxreader

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amnachil · 4 years

Text

The College Society Chapter 4 Part 5

And here’s the next part! An important one in many aspects.

TW : there are mentionning of rape

Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey Sunday March 31

So the old fart had been informed. The junior's phone started to ring at 7 am. At first, he decided to ignore it. Maybe the old codger would let it go. This is only false hope but whatever. Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey dissembled he didn't know where is phone was. But he needed it to answer the baboon's texts. They were planning a date for this afternoon before he started to work. He wanked off in order to ignore the ring bell, but it didn't work. Of course, he could've put his phone on silent, but it won't change the matter. The old fart was going to call him the whole day until he answered. Even the whole week if he needed to. He's a pain in my ass. Eventually, the junior gave up and picked up the phone.

"At least you deign to answer gummy bunny." mumbled his father without even a hello. "I think we've something fuckin' important to talk about."

The lad sighed. He had hoped this silly conversation would never happen.

"There are thousands of idiotic students in your lame university who can be fucked. I'm sure you could've find a pathetic boyfriend in the whole town easily. And yet, you decided to date the one and only damned Strucker around ?! Are you fuckin' kidding me kid ?"

"Don't be disrespectful old fart." retorted Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey. "Your insolence annoys me."

"Oh don't be like that you brat ! Seriously a Strucker ?! The filthy descendants of Isaac should rot in hell you know that !"

Well, a few months ago, the junior had been thinking the same. Isaac Strucker was an asshole, who betrayed their family's trust to earn money. Business men like him were the worst. However, the baboon had made himself a big place in Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey's life. He's more important to me than I would admit. It was a weird feeling, something like a disease. Honestly, for such a good hunter, it was beyond understanding. The blond couldn't explain it but... I just feel nice with him. Like if it was... right to be with him. He had never experienced such a thing before, and yes, he was curious. I want to see where this relationship is going. So the family's hate towards the Strucker couldn't get in the way.

"Look dad." he mumbled. "The fact is, Liam and his siblings don't want anything to do with their father. They've been raised by their mother, who is actually involved in legals proceedings with Isaac. So they ain't our foes."

A long and strange blank followed. The student perceived muffled noises and guessed his old man was talking with the old hag. He distincly heard her scream however. What the hell ? She continued to yell, completely over enthusiatic. It didn't last long before he also heard his sister laugh. What the fuck ? What is all this commotion about ?

"I can't believe it..." whined his father. "You called me dad ! You were 5 when you decided old fart suited me better ! I can't believe it !"

Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey felt both embarrassed and very annoyed. What the hell was wrong with this family ? They were nuts. Less than the baboon, but even so.

"So it's must be very important for you gummy bunny." continued Robert Smith. "You are very serious about this relationship, aren't you ?"

"Yeah, I guess so..."

This whole talk was very awkward.

"I'm ready to give him a chance." decided the old fart. "I want to meet him and see for myself."

"Meet him ? When ?"

"Soon."

When he arrived to the baboon's place this afternoon, Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey was quite pissed. Not only his father planned to come here soon, but he had also heard from D.R. As the head of their community, she strongly disapproved the bounty. She said the culprit would be found and punished, aswell as anyone who actually earnt money from the hunt. But in reality, she couldn't do much. As long as she didn't know who the asshole was, she couldn't arrest him. As for the hunters, as long as they were hunting without acquiring profit, they were authorized to do so. In other words, these bitches were allowed to hunt the baboon for now. They are only forbidden to claim the bounty, but that won't stop them. They can take it and never tell anyone. Anyway, the couple found a private area and sat together. Almost thoughtlessly, Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey sat on the baboon's lap, and started to feed him his recently cooked pastries. While doing that, he began to complain about this and that.

"I mean, my father isn't a bad person." he was explaining. "But he can be annoying. I want us to take the time, and he's going too fast... like my mother... he wants to meet you already. I can't believe what I'm saying baboon. Do you imagine ? Me, I want to take my time ? That's the biggest joke !"

On the spur of the moment, he also commenced to punch (gently) his boyfriend's belly. This one was listening and eating at the same time, only nodding from time to time. The food seemed to please him, which made the blond feed him faster.

"All that shit is new to me you know ?" continued Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey. "Of course, I've already been in a relationship but not... not this kind. I'm sentimentally involved here you know ? This is your fault, with your cute eyes and all. I'm... like a teenager again. Everything you do is cute to me and this is ridiculous. And you know what ? I think I suck at being a good boyfriend. My family is already bothering you and all, pff. Not to mention the bastards who are... nevermind, I shouldn't say that."

It continued for a while. The junior complained, fed and punched his boyfriend all at the same time. Eventually, the baboon stopped the punching hand and smiled timidely.

"Babe... urrp.... Sorry ! Can you stop hitting me ?" he asked. "It's kind of.. burrp. Sorry again... It hurts now that I am getting full."

"Today is my whining day, you don't have the right to lament too !" mumbled Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey, but he stopped even so. "Just eat that and listen to me."

He shoved a delicious chocolate brownie in his baboon's mouth.

"Where was I ? Oh right, and so my sister's husband is..."

He blathered during at least half an hour before Liam's taunt belly pushed him off his lap. The chestnut boy had grown like a balloon. His belly had swollen to the size of a watermelon. When Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey gave him some space, Liam groaned. His hands quickly rubbed his distended middle section. He belched loudly.

"That was... uuurrp... good..." he moaned. "You can... urf... continue.... I'm.... uuurp okay...."

He didn't look okay. Wait... I fed him the three bags ? Two were supposed to be for his friends and him during the week ! Oh crap. Why this dummy hadn't stop him ?! Softly, the junior put his hands on the baboon's side. This one grunted. His belly made discomforted noises. Kindly, Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey started to rub this complaining tummy. Of course you've a stomach ache if you ate that much ! Idiot.

"Dami... burrrp... Just so you... urrp know... I'm very bottom when I'm.... overstuffed uuurp."

Among everything he could've said, why on earth did he decide to say this ?! The blond lad glanced at the baboon's crotch. He had a significant boner. Oh my god... I already saw him in speedo but they were right when they said he was well-endowed !

"We won't do that on this bench in the middle of a park." he whispered, honestly short of breath because he was thrilled by the idea.

"Oh no... buurp. I'm not... uuurp ready for that... But you seemed like... you could've used a little... buuurp... distraction from... burrp... your problems. Now you'll... uuurrp... be thinking about... burp me."

Oh the little pervert.

Liam Tuesday April 2

The freshman was showering after an intense training. He had many things on his mind. His relationship with Dami was improving for the better. He could feel some... sexual tension now. At the same time, Nate continued to worry him. His general condition recovered but there were still moments when he was suffering. About his family's case, things were yet to change. For now, nothing happened and he didn't have any idea how to help his mother. And Liam was also preoccupied by the unicorns endless war against the witch. Everyday, this pawn of the forces of evil tried to murder him. She was everywhere, following him like a plague. He felt safe only when Dami was around.

"Dat ass..." mumured an high-pitched tone.

Liam turned and faced a girl. In the men showers. Well, he wasn't judgmental : maybe this person identified as a male. He was about to go back to his business when they came suddenly closer.

"I guess I got the wrong shower !" they chortled. "I'm Miranda by the way."

So she was a girl or not ? What is she doing ? He stepped backwards when she tried to touch him. She had only a towel to cover her bare body. What was she thinking exactly ?!

"You're hot." she continued. "Don't tell me you ain't a little tempted ?"

Tempted by what ? She doesn't have food... (Liam isn't a complete idiot, but... yeah he was off track). She came closer and dropped her towel.

"Ooops my bad." she chuckled.

Liam quickly turned his head and grabbed the towel.

"There." he said. "You should go back to your shower before someone else see you."

The girl smirked. She looked right at his crotch. Wait a second. WAIT. Only now he realised he was also naked. Oh man this is very embarrassing. As fast as possible, he hurtled to the lockers and wrapped himself in his towel.

"I'm sorry." he stammered. "It must have been very awkward !"

She frowned.

"Okay I think we're not on the same page here." she mumbled. "I offer you my body. Come and take it please ?"

Your body ? Was she a fanatic who was ready to sacrifice herself ?! Did she want him to summon a demon ?!

"I'm sorry." he repeated. "I don't think killing you to protect myself is alright. No, I'm pretty sure it's not."

She gawked, astonished. She looks very disappointed. But he couldn't sacrifice few to save the many. The chestnut lad dressed up hurriedly.

"Again, sorry. Thank you for volunteering though."

And he left her.

He headed back to his apartment, where Dami was waiting for him. It was kind of a quiet place for them since Nick and Nate were perfectly aware of their relationship. So it wasn't very surprising when the junior lay down on the couch and put his head on Liam's lap. He leaned on his soft belly while texting to someone. He's often on the phone but he doesn't know how to use it. Nick was slumped on the floor, using a lot of cushions to be comfortable. He was focusing on his game anyway. As for Liam, he was peacefully munching on Dami's most recent cooking : oatmeal raisin cookies. He's very good at cooking but his desserts are the best of the best. Behind them, Colton was in the kitchen, busy with his homework. Their friend and Nick were apparently growing closer since the first was giving swimming lesson to the second. So seeing them all here, Liam thought they could be happy. But of course, it didn't last long. The forces of evil were always right here, hidden in the darkest places. Nate bursted like an hurricane and rushed to their shared bedroom in a split second. Dami stood up straight.

"What the hell was that ?"

They heard muffled noises which looked like sobbings. Liam quickly joined his bestfriend, only to find him huddled up under his blanket. His eyes were red and full of fear. He was shaking and crying his eyes out. The chestnut lad was instantly at his side, a reassuring arm around his shoulders.

"Hey Nate, I'm here..." he whispered. "I'm here..."

The shortest boy curled up even more. He seemed so scared, so frail.

"You're safe..." Liam insisted. "I'm right here with you okay ?"

The others stayed at the entrance, but they were all worried aswell. Even Dami looked genuinely concerned. It took a while before Nate managed to speak.

"Can you... can you call Archie please ?" he asked. "I... I need him ?"

Liam nodded and glanced at his boyfriend. This one took his phone and moved away to call. In the mean time, Nick brought tissues, some cookies and water for their crying friend.

"I was on my way when they bumped into me..." sobbed Nate. "I know it was only a bunch of drunk girls... I know it... They were probably only trying to chat me up..."

He whimpered. He nestled to his bestfriend, deeply afraid.

"I don't want them to do it again... Don't let them do it again please..." he begged.

The room felt silent. Liam didn't know what to say, but he stayed there, hugging his soulmate as best possible. A tear fell on his cheek. Why him ? Why did it happen to him ?

Nicolas Tuesday April 2 – Wednesday April 3

It was almost almost 10 pm when Archibald showed up. He went straight to Nate and asked for privacy. Nick frowned, a bit annoyed to be useless, but when he noticed Liam's face, he just obeyed. They knew eachother for approximately eight months now and he had never seen this expression. His roommate was like... so angry and sad at the same time that his face couldn't chose one emotion. They gathered in the living room, where Liam sat in silent. I don't know what to say. Or what to do...

"Did you know since the beginning ?" asked suddenly the chestnut lad to Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey.

This one sighed.

"Not exactly. I had my doubts, but he never shared with me what really happened. And he asked me to not tell any of you. That was his story to tell."

For a dreadful moment, only silent followed. Liam was a slow thinker, so he was probably realising slowly all the implications. Nick clenched his fist. What was the proper way to react ? What am I supposed to do with this knowledge ?!

"Can you say it ?" asked Liam. "What happened to him ? Or else I won't be sure..."

"I don't know the specifics..." mumbled his boyfriend. "But I think you got it right. Nate has been raped."

It didn't take long before Liam blew a fuse. First, he stood up and hit the lamp next to him. It fell on the floor and broke, but he didn't notice it. Nick immediately grabbed his console and games. His friend punched the wall. His breath was short, his body shaking. He took his head in his hand and howled like a wild beast. I feel you... The raven-haired lad glanced at Colton and Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey. Oh wait... that's new. Slowly, he approached Liam.

"Bud'... I know this must be very hard for you but please... you have to calm down." he whispered.

His friend glared at him with crazy eyes. If Nick didn't knew him, he would have run for his life.

"Liam... here just look there." he said while pointed towards Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey.

It worked pretty fast. The chestnut lad's breath simmered down. Well, it must be said, they had never saw such a face from his boyfriend. The Dean's grandson was sincerely feeling guilty. It something they weren't used to.

"I... this is not your fault Dami." stated Liam. "I just... I don't know what to do... I'm... I'm just lost."

Nick sighed. We all are.

"Shall we call the police ?" asked Colton.

"It won't help." suddenly intervened Archibald. "Okay guys, I think we need to talk."

The quaterback explained Nate had fallen asleep. According to him, it was a sort of panic attack triggered by some random girls which reminded the dramatic event to the poor lad.

"You must keep in mind this is normal." he assured. "Anyone who experienced a rape will have memories of it haunting them for a very long time, even forever."

They were all sat around Archibald and listening in silent. Nick heard his computer ring from a notification. His virtual friends were waiting, but it didn't matter. Not tonight.

"I don't intend to lie." he continued. "Nate needs to be seen. His body had been stolen from him but he has been also mentally affected of course. It won't heal easily, and maybe never completely. The Nate you knew will never come back. But it doesn't mean he can't overcome it. There are many ways to help, and most of them are very simple."

It picked Liam and Nick's interest. I think we're feeling the same thing. Clueless and useless. The raven-haired lad was already hating himself for not having noticed sooner. He couldn't imagine how his roommate was dealing with this feeling.

"First of all, Nate needs a safe environment while he works on himself and his newly acquired insecurities. Until now, you have been providing this place for him, and it worked very well. However, I advise you to never let him go somewhere alone, especially when it's dark. But in the same time, do not confine him in here. It's important he doesn't feel trapped."

They nodded. This is only logical I guess...

"I will say the obvious, but Nate needs you." carried on Archibald. "Thanks to your presence, he's constantly reminded there are people who actually care about him as an human being. This is why despite what happened tonight, you must act as normally as you always do. Being there to comfort him when he's feeling bad is only one aspect of the work you've to do. The more you show him a normal life with happiness, the better. Liam, this is were you part is very important."

"What do you mean ?" asked the chestnut lad.

"Well, he told me how much you're important for him. He's definitely trusting you more than anyone else. That's why he didn't want you to know : he doesn't want you to see him differently than before. I know it can be hard, but you've to carry on with your actual life. Go on dates with your boyfriend, enjoy your meals, talk about unicorns and stuff... Show him you want him in this life. If you're constantly looking after him, you'll only made him feel even guiltier."

"I think I understand... but I don't know if I'll be able to do it now that I know the truth..." Liam confessed.

"You'll." assured Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey. "If it's for his sake, you'll."

"Okay, I think this is it." concluded Archibald. "Oh... about the culprits... It is better if you don't think about them at all. Let me be clear, Nate knows his rapists, but there is no point in asking him, you'll only made him recall this night. Besides, collecting evidences is very hard in this kind of case... Nate will talk to the police only once he's ready to do so. Don't push him, okay ?"

They all agreed. He did say rapists... So several people... This was so... so disturbing. Something else tormented Nick. He decided to ask whatever might be the answer.

"How come you're so well informed about this stuff ?" he wondered.

Archibald looked at him. The others were also interested.

"We shouldn't talk about that." intervened the Dean's grandson. "It is private and not something you want to hear, trust me. All I'll say is : Archie has way more experience than anyone here, me included. So it's better to listen to him."

The answer is obvious tho... Nick nodded.

"It's past midnight. You should all go to sleep." claimed Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey. "Archie, a word outside."

To be continued

Well, a bit of everything.

Some development for our favorite couple. A crazy family part 2. And a sad story... Nate needs all the help and all the love!!

#the college society #cs #Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey #Liam #Nick #stuffing #some sex talk #Liam is overfed #Nate's story #Nate's a victim #He needs help #Drama #Chapter 4 #Part 5

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