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thebibliomancer · 3 years

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #235: Havoc on the Homefront!

September, 1983

Welcome to the Wizard’s Mansion of Mechanized Mayhem!

This cover has got it going on!

Where “it” is “multiple things.”

Still, I love covers that are just like ‘here’s a couple things happening today’ and this is a great version of that concept with the things being viewing screens that the Wizard is looking at.

He’s watching the Avengers in various peril channel.

This is a good cover!

So last time: uh, a couple things. Wasp called Vision and Scarlet Witch in as reservists when Annihilus tried to blow up the universe with an invisible dome. The two basically contributed nothing but Vision was thrown into a robotic coma.

Wanda and Vision in a tube moved into the mansion while he recovers and Wanda recapped her entire backstory including new retcon that Magneto is totally her dad.

Then she had a Dr. Strange crossover. Since it also involved Monica, two Avengers makes it notable enough to synopsize in brief. And its titled Assault on Avengers Mansion! so its like its baiting me.

Dr. Strange astral projects to bother Wanda when she’s trying to get some grief reading in. He wants to find the Darkhold and she’s the last known possessor or vice versa because thats when she was possessed by Cththon and had to be saved with a care bear stare from the Avengers. But Dr. Strange really wants the Darkhold to stop Dracula from getting it. Yes, Dracula.

Since the Darkhold is being stored in a vault at Avengers Mansion after Beast brought it back from Wundagore, Dracula’s cult attacks and manages to break into the Mansion. Dr. Strange, Wanda, and Captain Marvel all fight off Dracula’s cult and then Dr. Strange trolls Dracula by teleporting the Darkhold somewhere else.

Also, Avengers Mansion got trashed in a break-in in Fantastic Four #257. Dammit. Whats with all the intertextuality in this era?

So that story there is: mostly a lot of Galactus eating the Skrull homeworld and fallout from aforementioned Annihilus story. Only the last two pages are relevant.

Mr. Fantastic shows up to Avengers Mansion to check on Vision, Wanda goes to make him tea, and then he’s teleported to a space trial leaving a giant melted hole in the mansion.

Honestly, I don’t know why FF got asterisked instead of the Dr. Strange issue. They both messed up the mansion but the Dracula cult was more of a break-in than someone leaving a giant hole in the wall. Although that’s more mysterious.

Anyway, with two different ‘read this also’s between issues that messed up the mansion, no wonder the opening splash has to be devoted to a repair crew patching things up.

Wasp is putting her size-shifting to good use to literally micro-manage. Zipping around at tiny size telling everyone how to do their job.

Captain America who is also supervising and impressing people with how buff he is gets annoyed and goes to tell her to stop but stops himself.

Captain America: No... No. She’s in charge here, and I have to let her handle things as best she can. Her methods do seem to bring results... They’re just not my methods, that’s all. Yeah...

And then he sulks off, ignoring Wasp when she asks what he’s muttering to himself.

Hm. The new leader honeymoon period is off, it seems. Cap was Wasp’s biggest supporter as chairperson and now he’s grumbling and second-guessing.

Dang.

I hope this isn’t snapback to Wasp not being leader because she’s flighty and silly. I hope we’re not just going to do that.

Cap wanders over to where Vision-inna-tube and Wanda are. Wanda is still glued to Vision’s side. And either Wanda can read minds or Cap says something between panels because we have Cap wondering in a thought bubble whether if Vision has shown any signs of improvement and then Wanda answering that he hasn’t shown improvement or worsened.

Cap(tain) America: “Well, don’t let yourself get too worried, Wanda. That husband of yours has been through worse scrapes than this. He’ll pull through!”

Scarlet Witch: “When you say it, Cap, I can really believe it!”

Inspirational Cap! Charisma rolls: Very.

Still, Wanda is sad because Vision is lying in a tube helpless and she can’t even touch him.

Cap wanders off again, without even saying goodbye (rude) while musing how much it sucks.

Cap: Blast it! Those kids were just starting to make a life for themselves, and this had to happen! Why was it that of all the Avengers who went up against the threat of Annihilus -- it had to be a couple of reservists who suffered most?

And then starts musing how weird it is that Scarlet Witch and Vision as reservists since they were active Avengers for so long!

Remember, Wanda joined the Avengers not very long after Cap did! Only a couple months in-universe! She was one of his Kooky Quartet!

Cap: At times I wondered if the Avengers would survive -- but somehow, through all the tumult and changes, the team not only survived -- it grew stronger! I pray it always will... with the menaces we so often face, we can’t afford to weaken. We’ve gone through so many changes lately. We’ve picked up two fine new Avengers in Captain Marvel and the She-Hulk, but we’ve lost Hank Pym... and now we’ve lost Iron Man, too. Even Thor has taken himself off the active roster to pursue a personal mission. I hope he won’t be gone too long.

Cap is clearly in some sort of dour Mood.

A dour and monologue-y mood.

And what’s Thor up to leaving the team roster OFF PANEL?

(Sigh)

Well, since the asterisk is telling me to see Thor #334... oh geez, Don Blake is under suspicion of killing Jane Foster. Thor, and Lady Sif take Keith Kincaid (the non-Thor love interest of Jane) on a trip to get the Runestaff (long story) and restore Jane Foster (long story).

Annoyingly, the Thor issue does show him telling the Avengers he’s going to be gone for a while and to take him off the active roster. And borrowing a Quinjet.

I think that it would have been nice to see at least a panel of that. Or something. I don’t want the book bloated with ‘see alsos’ but I’m confused why it put the most emphasis on the FF one when it was literally two pages where Reed manages to ruin the wall while getting kidnapped.

Whatever.

Anyyyyway.

Even though he thinks the new Avengers are good, Cap worries about having both Thor and Iron Man off the team.

Especially Iron Man.

He was their science/technical guy. And on the current team, the only one with any sort of science expertise is new trainee Starfox.

Who is busy making out and not being on time for his daily training session.

At least he remembers that he has a prior obligation.

And he’s only two minutes late. Or to put it another way, he’s a whole two minutes late. And Cap(tain America) is a notable stickler for punctuality.

Cap: “Punctuality may be an anachronism in this day and age -- and, for all I know, it may be unheard of on the planet Titan -- but in my day, it was something that was expected of people!”

Wow, Cap really pulled a ‘in my day.’

Frankly, I’m surprised he doesn’t pull that more often.

Starfox does seem contrite and apologizes for putting pleasure before business which sends Cap into an introspection about why he’s really being so harsh on Starfox.

Protip: It’s Tony. It’s almost always Tony.

Cap: Pleasure versus duty, that’s what it always comes down to. It was Tony Stark’s ‘pleasure’ which led him to giving up his Iron Man identity... leaving the Avengers. Some ‘pleasure’! He’s crawled so far into the bottle, he may never get back out. And there’s nothing I can do to pull him out... Nothing any of us can do, unless he lets us. That’s what’s really bothering me... isn’t it?

And he accepts the apology with a “just don’t let it happen again.”

You sound so old sometimes, Cap.

Meanwhile, She-Hulk is off on a jog through New York, listening to some Beach Boys’ California Girls.

An overeager driver scoots forward and cuts her off at the crosswalk and (I assume) in frustration, she punches the hood of the car.

And given it’s She-Hulk, she kinda punches a hole IN the hood. And probably engine.

The guy being either an idiot or incredibly unperceptive runs after She-Hulk to grab her arm and yell at her.

She does not care for that at all.

Like, why would you? She’s seven feet tall and green and just punched a hole in the hood of your car.

Luckily for the guy’s skeletal integrity, Spider-Man pops out of nowhere to be Friendly Neighborhood and mediate this conflict.

They both air their grievances.

She-Hulk: “This creep grabbed me!”

Creep: “Hey! She... she crunched the front of my car!”

She-Hulk: “That was you who cut me off in the crosswalk? You’re lucky I didn’t rip out your axle!”

Spider-Man: “Now, now! Let’s keep this friendly! Sounds like you’re in the wrong, chum! The lady had the light!”

Creep: “Lady?!? She’s no --!”

Spider-Man: “I wouldn’t say that if I were you! That’s the She-Hulk, dummy! Remember what she did to your car? Well, just imagine what she could do to you!”

Creep: “Oh yeah.”

And with the power of Spider-Man’s bomb-ass mediation, the guy realizes that he was in the wrong, apologizes, and leaves in a hurry.

(Her skeptical glare cracks me up for some reason)

Moral of the story: Don’t be a jerk. Stay behind the line when the little man is lit up.

After the guy takes off, She-Hulk praises(?) Spider-Man’s amazing mediation skills by saying he should have been a lawyer. And then they catch up.

She-Hulk is still having trouble adjusting to the East Coast lifestyle and lack of beaches so Spider-Man suggests checking out the Jersey Shore.

She-Hulk: “My big problem right now is housing. Avengers Mansion is nice, but I want a place of my own.”

Spider-Man: “It’s tough -- rents are pretty steep.”

She-Hulk: “The real trouble is finding a place I like. With the thousand a week I get as an Avenger, rent’s no big deal.”

Spider-Man: “I guess not, if you’re making a... a thousand A WEEK?!? I passed up a chance to become an Avengers, and they make $1000 a week?!? Oh, NO!!”

Ha ha, that ol’ Parker luck.

Maybe Thor should have mentioned the money when he tried to recruit Spidey.

Meanwhile, at a federal penitentiary in Vermont, a scene change.

Bentley Wittman, aka the Wizard, aka the Wingless Wizard, aka the adult man who thought the best use of his time was bullying a teenager, is being questioned about Plantman Sam Smithers’ escape from jail.

The Wizard claims that he knows nothing about Plantman’s escape and that he barely knows the guy anyway. They were airlifted from Ryker’s in the same helicopter and that’s it.

But a convenient x-ray tells a different story.

And that story is that “the Wizard” doesn’t have any skeleton bones.

... Were we really at the point in 1983 where we didn’t know about the dangers of overexposure to x-rays? They just causally scan both “the Wizard” and the guy questioning him?

Anyway, the ruse being rumbled, the fake Wizard rips the bars out of a window and jumps out to his death.

Or it would be death if he wasn’t just animate wood wearing a fake skin suit.

Kinda gross if you think about it.

Anyway, where is the real the Wizard?

Obviously, he escaped jail a while back. Not only is he a sinister criminal mastermind who has sinister masterminding to mastermind but also he was tired of the prison hair code. Because dammit, he wants to rock the goatee!

(Literally a comment he makes, calling the prison barbers butchers)

The Real Wizard gets a BLIP-BLIP-BLIP priority alert that informs him that the plant-him has been discovered which means that the authorities will be looking for him now.

Wizard: Now every law officer in the nation will be looking for me. Well, let them! They’ll not find me, unless they look here! And if they do look here, they’ll have a fight on their hands! The Wizard will not bolt and run like some common criminal! My home is my fortress! They’ll never get me out of it! Never!

Anyway, within an hour of the discovery of Plant-Wizard, a disgruntled agent of the national security council named Mr. Sirkorski receives a briefing.

Usually, this problem would be Gyrich’s problem but he’s busy somewhere else, probably making mutants miserable if I had to guess.

-checking- Yup, he’s over in the X-books, being involved in Project: Wideawake, the project that will later accidentally shoot Storm with a demutantifying gun that will take away her powers, leading her to kick Cyclop’s ass, leading to him leaving the team and feeling sad about being happily married.

Wow, Gyrich, you’re the worst.

Anyway, since the Wizard is tied to the presidential hostage crisis via Plantman, that makes it Serious Business.

Hence, Mr. Sikorski’s serious business.

And he hates it.

He hates this bonkers superhero universe. He just wants to live in a spy thriller universe without all this specific nonsense.

Mr. Sikorski: “Oh, great! Plant-Men... criminal scientists... prison breaks! Don’t they think I have enough to do, just keeping track of what the Russians are up to?”

Also Mr. Sikorksi, on the following page: “And it’s up to me to call in the appropriate parties. I feel a little weird doing this! It’s hard enough for me to believe there are such things as Avengers! I certainly never thought I’d be calling them for help!”

This guy is great. I hope he becomes a recurring and just continues to be low-key pissed about what genre he lives in.

SCENE CHANGE TO AVENGERS MANSION’s actually looking cooler than ever meeting room.

The table looks enormous and theres a giant viewscreen that they can display stuff on.

Only misstep in my opinion is that the seats don’t have personalized icons on the back.

On the big viewscreen map, Cap(tain America) is displaying for Captain Marvel known properties and hideouts that the Wizard has used in the past.

And then big boss the Wasp comes in with She-Hulk to start the meeting.

Since the government has requested that the Avengers help search for the Wizard, Captain Marvel suggests that she could zoom around and check off the whole list in no time flat by using her lightspeed.

Cap(tain America): “You probably could, C.M. -- that’s up to Jan to decide, of course. It would save us some time. After all, the Wizard could be in any of these places... or none of them!”

Wasp: “You think so? If I’d escaped from prison, I’d want to go home. But that’s just me, I suppose.”

Cool contribution, Jan.

I don’t mean to mock, its just she makes a goofy face.

(Hey, I wonder if her new costume was inspired by the FF’s negative zone’d ones. It’s kinda got a similar palette and rough design)

Anyway, Scarlet Witch asks whether she can be excused from superheroing for the day to keep an eye on the Vision.

Wasp: “Why, Wanda! I should say not! You agreed to fill in for Thor while he’s off in space, and I intend to hold you to that! I’m the chairwoman, and I’ll decide who goes where!”

In fact, since somebody does need to watch the Vision, Wasp chooses the most reasonable candidate.

Captain Marvel!

Who needs her to get the task done in five seconds! She can watch the coma-robot.

You make interesting decisions, Jan!

The remaining Avengers will split up into squads.

Captain America will take Scarlet Witch and She-Hulk to check the hideouts on the east of the map. Wasp and Starfox will check out the western ones.

She-Hulk: “You and Starfox, huh? That’s rich... the All Flirt Squad!”

Pfft.

Cap(tain America) isn’t feeling the humor and tells She-Hulk to save her jokes for when they don’t have a job to do.

Minutes later, the Avengers land a Quinjet on the front drive of the Wizard’s Long Island estate. He has one of those.

Cap: “Come on Avengers -- let’s get this over with!”

Good attitude, Cap.

Wanda notes that the grounds look neatly tended considering that the estate has been empty for the past several years but She-Hulk thinks a gardener was probably kept on retainer.

The Wizard was stupid rich.

When they get inside, Cap changes his tune. The place looks too tidy and ready for occupancy to be empty so maybe the Wizard is here.

So he pulls a ‘lets split up gang’ and splits up gang with each Avenger taking a wing.

Cap: “Oh, and She-Hulk, try not to break anything if you can help it. This is private property!”

Priorities!

Granted, She-Hulk is known to break things. Why just today she broke some dude’s car.

The Wizard is watching all of this on his home security system and springs individual traps on the individual Avengers.

She-Hulk finds herself in a series of identical small non-descript rooms, each more identical than the last.

So identical that its the same room, looping.

Wizard: “Through the circuity in that doorway, I’ve activated a dimensional matrix which will keep your walking back and forth ad infinitum through the same room!”

Except without seeing herself leaving which you’d think she’d be able to see.

It’s a smart way to trap a Hulk, provided they don’t run out of patience or get frustrated and smash something.

Meanwhile, Cap gets locked in a chamber where an anti-gravity field has been activated, leaving him flailing through the air.

Oh, and dozens of high-intensity laser torches pop out of the walls and start trying to carve up Cap.

Meanwhile, Scarlet Witch’s individualized trap is the most individualized of all.

Because She-Hulk’s and Cap’s could be used on any number of people really. But Wanda’s feels like it was created to counter Wanda. Pretty on the ball from the Wizard considering he doesn’t often fight the Witch.

When Wanda enters the room she suddenly starts spinning out of control, flies across the room, and lands in a chair.

Wizard: “Marvelous! I’ve ensnared the Scarlet Witch within something against which her astounding hex powers are useless. My field effect devices have generated a pocket of non-causality within that test chamber! Within the area, all actions have an equal chance of occurrence. Therein, all probabilities are skewed. She won’t be able to stand, much less cast a hex!”

Wow! That’s some high octane comic book nonsense science!

The point being that every time Wanda tries to do something, something random happens instead because its all equally likely. She tried to walk into a room and ended up standing on the roof. She tried to back out of the room, she started spinning. She tried to stop spinning and she flew into a chair.

Sure.

With the Avengers all trapped, the Wizard turns his attention to deciding how to dispose of them.

Except, as cleverly foreshadowed by my snide comments, She-Hulk’s trap is only as good as Jen’s patience.

Which is good forrrrrrr. Two dozens loops.

At that point, she’s sure some bullshit is up and scratches the wall with her nails to leave a tangible mark. When she sees the same mark in the ‘next room’ her suspicion is confirmed.

And now that she knows someone is jerking her around, she decides to ignore Cap’s suggestion to not break private property by breaking private property and rips the doorframe (and the dimensional matrix) to crap.

There’s a backup trap that drops slabs of six-inch omnium steel around her but yeah she’s a hulk and she’s not playing considerate anymore. She starts KRUNGing the walls with her fists.

Meanwhile, Cap uses physics to get out of his jam. He throws his mighty shield to break some lasers so action/reaction will propel him backwards and he can jump off the wall, grab his shield back, and uses one of the broken-off lasers against the others.

Also, meanwhile, Scarlet Witch tries to figure out her own, incredibly specific trap.

Scarlet Witch: This is like a nightmare! Whatever I try to do, something else happens. Just in making the attempt to call on my hex power, I wound up falling flat on my face! I can’t even... wiggle my fingers? I... I can! Oh, but only very close to the floor! Whatever is causing my actions to go awry must be weaker near the room’s outer surfaces! Then there’s HOPE -- !”

Wizard must have gone cheap on the pocket of non-causality projector for that room if it’s not completely covering the area. Sure, the area it doesn’t cover is relatively small but now what’s about to happen is going to happen.

So Wanda gets as low as she can go to the floor and uses her probability-altering powers.

This causes the non-causality field to reverse because why wouldn’t it? And causes feedback through the circuitry which causes the master control to shock the Wizard.

It also causes every logic circuit in the master control to overload and the whole dang thing explodes, Wizard barely flying out of the control room in time.

Right in She-Hulk’s path.

She’s not happy. He’s not going to like her not being happy.

She-Hulk: “After what I’ve been through, it’s gonna be a real pleasure to pound that helmet down around your ankles!”

Wizard nopes right out of her way and decides to abandon fortress.

Then Scarlet Witch probability alters his battlesuit flight controls to malfunction to halt his escape and make him crash to the-

...

I’m pretty sure his neck is broken now.

I mean, it’s apparently not because he keeps talking and moving and living but he look at that panel. Guy should be dead as movie Zod.

Y’know, if the Avengers are going to kill the Wizard, the FF should really get them back and kill one of their villains. I suggest Grim Reaper.

Anyway, surrounded by Avengers, Wizard pulls his trump card.

Wizard: “Your confidence is ill-founded, Captain America. There is one resource I can yet draw upon. There is a thermonuclear devise beneath my house -- powerful enough to destroy half of Long Island and make the remainder very unpleasant for a very long time. Much as I hate to see this place destroyed, I would press the button, so to speak.”

“You being such renowned public heroes, would hate that even more. But unless you allow me to go unharmed, I shall active the timing sequence of the bomb’s detonator.”

And Cap is like ‘do you mean this detonator’ and pulls out one he prepared earlier.

HAH!

You know, ironically, if he had just hidden in a safe room or on the roof or something, the Avengers probably would have came and went without noticing him. Springing traps on them really backfired in oh so many ways.

The threesome return to the mansion, presumably after turning Wizard over to the authorities, and Wasp comments that it sounds like they had a bit of excitement (Starfox grumbling to himself more excitement than he had searching the Bronx with the Wasp ha ha).

Cap(tain America): “You’ll be glad to know, Wasp, that your instincts were correct. The Wizard had indeed gone home. He gave us all a pretty good challenge... a welcome challenge, I dare say.”

Wasp: “Looks like I assigned the right people to search the right place, huh?”

Cap: “Yes, Ms. Chairwoman, I’d say you did!”

And elsenow, Wanda goes to the medical bay to check in on Vision and relieve Captain Marvel.

Scarlet Witch: “Can you hear me, darling? I hope you can. I was feeling awfully blue today... And I was given a duty that first seemed annoying, and later became dangerous. But I didn’t give up... I came back, and I won. I know that you can come back, too, darling! It’s just a matter of time... and hope.”

“It’s funny! I thought the Wasp was silly for sending me on that mission. But -- in a way --it was something I need. I think the others needed it, too!”

Captain Marvel: “Then that’s why she sent you, Wanda... because she knew what you needed! And that’s why she leads the Avengers!”

Secret friend mastermind Janet van Dyne sends you out for punch therapy when you need to punch something.

Reminds me of when Captain America picked a fight with Goliath Hank Pym to lift his spirits. Except with a lot less fighting her own friends and more pointing them in the right direction.

Something I love about this era of Avengers and with the big shift in Wasp after Hank’s court-martial is that while her character has changed she’s still recognizably and uniquely herself. She’s still a bit goofy. She’s still playful. And on top of that, she’s proven that she’s a good leader for the Avengers. It’s not mutually exclusive.

Cap (previously Wasp’s biggest supporter as leader) started this issue grumpy and even had his own ideas what the best tactic for searching for the Wizard would be, but by the end he agrees that Wasp made a good decision.

Despite playing the ditz for a long part of her career, Wasp isn’t dumb. And she’s got a good head for the interpersonal challenges of running a team too.

I’m reminded that during the much later Busiek run, when the Avengers need to expand and modernize to match up to expanding challenges, Captain America turns the leadership of the team over to the Wasp.

My point being, I was worried that there’d be snapback on Wasp being leader because she is flighty and silly. But instead, she can be flighty and silly and still a good leader.

I’m pleased with this take, Stern.

Follow @essential-avengers because there will probably be more Wasp being a good leader. Fingers crossed. Also, like and reblog this post maybe if you also like Wasp being a good leader.

#avengers #the Wizard #the Wasp #Captain America #Captain Marvel #Monica Rambeau #Scarlet Witch #She Hulk #essential avengers #essential marvel liveblogging #the great feud between witches and wizards #wasp does a leadership #Cap be like hey don't break this supervillain's doom fortress its private property

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jaskierswolf · 4 years

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You Set My Heart Ablaze Pt.10/25

The flat was filled with the melodic sounds of sitar strings, or more accurately, the screeching sounds of sitar strings.

Jaskier still hadn’t gotten the hang of his new baby.

It was a truly beautiful instrument but completely different to his usual stringed instruments. The long neck of the sitar had way more pegs than he used to and he just couldn’t get it to sing like he wanted. He was struggling to play with the microtones that the sitar music was famous for. He would probably have to see if he could find a teacher to help him. That wasn’t going to be easy.

He gently put the instrument back in its case and sat down at his piano instead. His flat wasn’t really big enough to house his baby grand piano but he just hadn’t been able to leave the beautiful instrument behind in the shop. It had called out to him like a siren and he’d been helpless to resist its call.

Of course, he’d probably be able to afford a bigger flat if he managed to stop buying instruments.

He laughed. “But where’s the fun in that?”

His fingers idly pressed the keys without him putting much effort in. He closed his eyes and let the music free from his heart.

School was starting back the next day and he’d been up almost all weekend trying to finish up his lesson plans. He hadn’t meant to leave it to the last minute but time had just gotten away from him and suddenly it was Saturday and he’d not done any work. Luckily coffee and cat naps were his bestest friends in the whole wide world and he’d finally managed to get it all done. Just in time to enjoy his last evening before the kids took over his life once more. His kids were amazing but full of energy and it took a lot out of him to be so switched on all day long. He’d already drafted his email to the parents to send out on Friday evening based on his lesson plans for the week, but he still had Geralt’s left to write.

Not that Geralt received any special treatment or anything.

It was just that he needed to be mindful of Ciri’s special circumstances.

Or at least that was the lie he’d told himself all term.

But at least he still personalised each of the emails a little before sending them out!

And so what he he wrote Geralt handwritten letters more frequently than the other parents.

It wasn’t a crime.

The only crime was Geralt’s ass.

It was to die for.

He groaned and shook his head to try and clear out the thoughts of his love, his fingers slipping on the keys of the piano, but there was really nothing he could do to stop the barrage of Geralt thoughts. Since parents’ evening he’d developed a blooming friendship with Geralt and it was making him feel all sorts of things that he really shouldn’t be feeling if he wanted to keep his job.

They had managed to meet up a few of times over the last half of the school term to discuss Ciri’s progress at school, although Jaskier could count on one hand how many times Ciri’s classwork had actually come up in conversation. Jaskier could never resist flirting with the firefighter which Geralt took in his stride. Although Jaskier wasn’t entirely certain that Geralt even realised he was flirting.

Jaskier was ninety-five percent sure that Geralt was interested in men, and in him specifically. He’d never explicitly said it and there was nothing about their meetings that really screamed anything more than friendship, but every so often Geralt would seemingly flirt back and it floored Jaskier every single time. How was he supposed to handle that? This tall muscular amber-eyed God was actually paying him attention. The small smiles that Geralt gave him made his heart sing, and to the gods when Geralt laughed, he felt his insides turn to mush. Geralt was usually happy to let Jaskier hold most of the conversation, talking about his new instrumental conquests, books he was reading, the beautiful birds he’d seen on the walk to work, but the white-hair man was beginning to open up.

Jaskier had learnt more about Roach, who he’d mistaken for a large dog in Ciri’s drawing. He had, of course teased Geralt over his choice of name but that hadn’t lasted long when Geralt had turned the table on him and asked what Jaskier would call a horse and the only name he could think of was Greg. Geralt offered up a little information about his teammates but notably avoided talking about his childhood. Jaskier couldn’t blame him for that. He had avoided that topic himself.

He knew that Geralt struggled to find time to cook but always made an effort to cook something from scratch with Ciri’s help at least once a week. Their favourite thing to make was pizza, it was also their favourite take-away. He’d learnt that Geralt tended not to watch much tv unless it was with Ciri and the man could tell you far too much about Ciri’s favourite cartoons, which explained his Apple Jack lunchbox. Geralt preferred to read in his free time instead, normally fantasy books, anything with a dragon in. Geralt’s favourite colour was blue which Jaskier adored. He could pretend that the reason was because his eyes were blue. He had filed that information away to fuel several romantic daydreams which ended in a summer wedding.

His fingers began to dance over the keys in a previously unheard melody.

It was beautiful.

“Ah fuck!” He cursed and scrambled to find manuscript paper as he pushed his glasses up his nose.

It was buried in between his lute and his computer. There was barely a spare page in the notebook but he managed to find one in the middle. Once he’d got the melody captured he would copy it over into a fresher, more organised book that held his complete compositions.

He closed his eyes again as he tried to remember precisely what he’d played before but it was missing something. The chords weren’t quite right and it left the piece sounding almost empty and dead.

“Bollocks!”

The moment had passed and his muse had left him.

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his recents calls until he found the number he wanted. The phone rang twice before the sweet dulcet tones of his younger cousin sounded in his ears.

“What do you want?” Essi asked wearily.

“Lovely to speak to you too.” Jaskier shot back.

Essi sighed. “I’m working, Dandelion.”

“This late?” He double checked the clock. It was almost nine in the evening but then again she was a professional singer. If she had a gig then it was likely to be later on in the day, and now that he paid more attention he could hear the sounds of a bar in the background of the call.

“Not all of us work nine til five, Dandy.” The old nickname slipped out.

“Essi!” He groaned. “I stopped calling myself Dandelion years ago”

“Says the man that realised an album last spring under the alias of Dandelion.”

“It’s a stage name.” He pouted before he remembered she couldn’t see him.

He heard someone calling her name in the background and she yelled back. He winced as the shout hurt his ears. “I gotta go, did you need something?”

He sighed as he ran his fingers over the keys of his piano without making a sound. He could still hear the notes in his head as he desperately tried to recall the tune he had played before. “I just lost another composition to the cruel winds of time.”

“Who were you thinking about?” She asked and he could picture her easily. One hand on her hip, guitar case slung around her shoulder, long blonde hair falling in front of one of her cornflour blue eyes, eyes they had both inherited from their shared grandfather.

He frowned as he considered her question. “Who said I was thinking about anyone?”

She laughed before shouting again at whoever was trying to get her attention. Jaskier held the phone away from his ear this time. Essi really did have a set of lungs on her. “Dearest cousin. Your first album was all about your failed relationship with Pris. The second album was your failed relationship with Stella, and Valdo’s betrayal by stealing away your true love.”

“Wow. Geez. Thanks Essi. You really know how to build a man up.”

“So what failed relationship is it this time?”

“There is no relationship.” He spat back through gritted teeth, wondering why he even bothered with his cousin sometimes. In many ways she was like his little sister and she never hesitated in telling him exactly what she thought of him.

“Sure, sure. That’s why it’s failed. Look I really have to go. They need me on stage. Don’t be a stranger Dandelion!”

The phone line cut off and Jaskier stared at the phone in his hands.

“Oh cock!” He cursed as he realised she was completely right.

He’d been thinking about Geralt.

He closed the lid of the piano with more force than necessary and moved to sit back down on the sofa. He hadn’t meant to think about Geralt. He’d just been thinking about the work he needed to do for school and his thoughts had drifted to his infatuation on their own accord.

As if reading his thoughts, his phone buzzed signalling he had an email.

From Geralt.

“Oh no. No no no. Can’t do this right now.” He moaned and put his head in his hands, knocking his glasses half off his face. “Can’t I have a moment in peace?!” He asked the ceiling.

It was Sunday. He didn’t have to worry about what to say to Geralt until Friday. That was the rules… unless they had a catch up about Ciri but they hadn’t organised another meeting yet. Yes he missed Geralt desperately but he was aware that that was borderline clingy and he didn’t want to scare the man off, and yet here he was emailing Jaskier out of the blue.

It was probably about the present he’d bought Geralt. It wasn’t much, just a voucher for one of the outdoor activity shops in town and a poem he’d written about Roach.

It was terrible.

He hated it.

“Oh fuck off.” Jaskier groaned at his own thoughts and clicked on the email.

Jaskier,

Sorry for bothering you. I know you’re busy.

I wanted to say thank you for my present. I read Roach the poem. She was very impressed.

Jaskier grabbed a pillow from his sofa and hugged it tightly as he continued to read, feeling very proud of himself.

I am sorry I didn’t think to get you anything from me but hopefully you liked Ciri’s gift.

He had. Ciri had bought him a brand new travel mug. It was covered in music notes just like his mug from the staffroom at school. There had also been a little photo of Roach tucked into the card because Jaskier hadn’t stopped asking Geralt about her.

I need to ask you something. It would probably be better in person or over the phone. I’m not good at emails.

- Geralt.

Jaskier re read the last paragraph twice before hitting the reply button.

He sent Geralt his number before he could change his mind and then threw his phone onto the sofa. The phone barely managed to bounce on the cushions before it started ringing and Jaskier lunged to pick it up.

He clicked to accept the call and all at once he felt lighter than he had in weeks.

“Geralt!” He cried happily. “Hi!”

“Jaskier.” Geralt’s gruff voice answered. Jaskier felt like he’d turned to goo. The way Geralt said his name never failed to make him feel weak at the knees.

Pull yourself together Jaskier! He chided at himself.

“So, my dear, what was it that you wanted to ask me?” He kept his voice light like his fingers on his lute strings, not betraying the way his heart thundered in his chest.

Geralt grunted on the other end of the line and Jaskier rolled his eyes and smiled. How was it that he even missed Geralt’s ineloquent grunts?

“It’s not a stupid question, Geralt.” He replied. “If you don’t know something then you should ask.”

“I’m not one of your kids, Jaskier.” Geralt huffed.

He laughed at that and put the phone on speaker. His fingers were itching to move and he was getting restless not being able to play whilst holding the phone.

“Yes yes. I know that.” He hummed as he let his fingers trail across the many different instrument cases that were stacked up against the wall. They landed on his lute, an instrument long forgotten to many but one that remained so dear to him. He’d originally started to play the lute because it was different and he liked to stand out. Every musician in the folk scene played guitar or violin or piano.

He didn’t want to be like every other musician.

He wanted to be the best.

So he’d pick up the lute and never looked back. It was an expensive and delicate instrument so he tended not to bring it into school that often but he often found himself playing it at home.

It was also a reminder as to why he’d begun teaching full time. At first he’d only taught guitar and piano whilst he was at university in Oxenfurt to help finance his music career and pay for his rent after he had had a disagreement with his parents. The lute was the first instrument he’d bought for himself after the argument, to celebrate having enough students to finally make it through the month without begging his friends for cash and managing to save for the first time.

Soon after he realised how much he really enjoyed teaching and after graduating with a degree in music, he went on to study teaching. He’d worked as a teaching assistant in Oxenfurt before moving to Upper Posada where he finally had his own class, the Buttercups.

“Have you put me on speaker?” Geralt asked.

“Don’t you have sharp ears?” Jaskier teased his friend, he was sure they were friends. “It’s just me here, I just needed my hands.”

“You needed your hands.” Geralt replied and Jaskier could practically hear the smirk in his tone.

“Not like that!” He cried. “Honestly, Geralt, is that really what you think of me?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. I just wanted to grab my lute.”

Geralt laughed. “Is that what they call it these days?”

“Geralt Rivia!” Jaskier exclaimed.

Geralt just laughed in response. It was infectious and soon enough Jaskier was laughing along. Once they’d calmed down he began to strum the strings of his beloved instrument gently, fiddling with the pegs to make sure it was in tune.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you changing the subject, Geralt.” Jaskier spoke softly as Geralt’s laughter faded away.

“Right.”

“Geralt!” He all but whined. “You said you needed to ask me something. Come on! The suspense is killing me.”

Geralt hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll finally get some peace.”

“Now hang on!” Jaskier gasped in offence. “You rang me!”

“Regretting it already.”

“I’ll hang up!” Jaskier warned.

“No. You won’t.”

Jaskier sighed. “No. I won’t, but honestly Geralt. Is something wrong? Not that I’m not delighted to be talking to you, but…”

“But you’re Ciri’s teacher.” Geralt finished.

“Yes.”

It was a topic that had come up a few times. They weren’t doing anything wrong exactly. The friendship that had sparked up between them came as natural as breathing. They argued as if they’d known each other their whole lives, an easy banter that was unpracticed and yet almost flawless. Jaskier was fighting his attraction to Geralt the whole time, and he was sure the other man was doing the same with him but there was still this cloud looming over them. The line between professional and appropriate behaviour between parent and teacher.

He knew teachers and parents had hooked up before. It was scandalous and often the topic of vicious rumours in the staffroom. If it was reported to the headmaster and proven those teachers got in a lot of trouble, some of them were often asked to resign. Jaskier knew his professional relationship with Stregobor was rocky at best. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

But he was falling in love with Geralt, hard and fast.

It had moved beyond infatuation the moment he’d sat in the fire engine and they’d began to talk. The more he learnt about the man, the more he fell in love. Geralt was a complex man. He struggled to express himself and he constantly worried about being a good father to Ciri, but he was kind and loyal to his family. He had a surprisingly quick tongue that never failed to make Jaskier cackle. He wasn’t a pushover either, he was strong-willed and relentless in sticking to his own morals.

His determination to be a good man made Jaskier feel all fuzzy inside.

This strong and handsome man was just a gentle giant, one that could absolutely kill him given the chance, but there was just something about Geralt that made Jaskier trust him.

It was probably those eyes.

He adored Geralt’s eyes.

They were so unusual, like swirling pools of amber brought to life by bright beams of dazzling sunlight.

And that was why it was so important that their calls and meetings had to remain professional.

Without the guise of Ciri or work then their friendship was ruined. Jaskier would fall head over heels in love with Geralt and then…

and then…

He’d have to break it off.

He couldn’t risk it.

Even if there was a chance that Geralt fancied him back.

So he constantly reminded himself that they were friends and managed to frame every meeting or conversation they had as a work based thing. It was imperative that he didn’t forget that.

Friends only, and even then he really should be careful. Tissaia was right. Stregobor was just looking for an excuse to get rid of him and if he was shown to be favouring Geralt ,and in turn Ciri, too much then he might as well start looking for a new job.

He closed his eyes and mentally chastised himself for being a fool.

“So talk to me Geralt.” Jaskier pleaded. “What did you need? Did Ciri say something?”

Geralt just grunted again.

“I told you it’s not stupid.” Jaskier sighed. “It was obviously important to you.”

“It’s for Ciri.” Geralt stated bluntly. All traces of their easy laughter was now gone from his voice.

“Good. I am her teacher, what does she need? Did she say something?” Jaskier’s mind instantly recalled every interaction he’d had with the young ashen-haired girl over the last few days, looking for moments where he might have upset her or said something wrong. He couldn’t think of anything but he could have easily misread the situation.

“We went to Lambert’s for Solstice.” Geralt added.

Jaskier frowned trying to follow Geralt’s train of thought and failing. He stayed silent, waiting for Geralt to find the right words.

“He likes this band and Ciri just started screaming.”

Jaskier felt his heart skip a beat in his chest.

A band.

It wouldn’t be.

It couldn’t be.

Barely anyone even listened to his band. They barely had a thousand views online for their most popular song.

“She swears to the gods it’s you, Jask.” Geralt finished.

Jask.

It wasn’t the first time Geralt had called him that. He hated it. It made his heart do weird things in his chest that was not appropriate when talking to a friend.

He took a page out of Geralt’s book and hummed noncommittally. “Right.”

“And then Lambert pointed out Ciri’s Ukulele teacher is called Priscilla just like Dandelion’s bandmate. I thought it was all just a coincidence, but then I realised, Jaskier, Buttercups.” Geralt added, sounding weary. “Dandelions. All flowers.”

“Ah.”

“Jaskier?”

His fingers stilled on the lute strings. He pressed down with the palm of his hand to dampen the resonating sound. “It’s, well, it’s sort of a hobby?”

“You’re Dandelion?” Geralt stammered.

“Hello?” He tried to joke. “Nice to meet you.”

“Fuck.” Geralt swore loudly. “We all told Ciri she was wrong.”

“And now you’ll have to tell her she was right. That’s embarrassing for you.”

“Shut up, Jaskier.”

Jaskier scowled. “Hey! None of that grumpy firefighter stuff. It’s not my fault you didn’t trust your daughter!”

Geralt growled and hung up the phone.

Jaskier gaped at the blank screen.

“Oh no you don’t!” He rang Geralt straight back and to his surprise, he actually picked up.

“I’m sorry!” Jaskier said before Geralt could say anything. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Hmm.”

“Well. I did mean that’s it not my fault and I don’t know why you’re cross that I have a band, but I shouldn’t have said that about Ciri.” He rambled on.

Geralt still didn’t answer. Jaskier had to check the screen to make sure he was still on the line, quickly putting it back onto speaker. “So I’m sorry. I can explain to her tomorrow at school, about the band. Although, you really should be able to admit your mistakes. I know it’s not always easy.”

“Hold on.” Geralt said and then was a thud. Jaskier assumed that was Geralt putting the phone down. He could hear footsteps and the sound of a door opening. He held his breath whilst Geralt did whatever Geralt needed to do.

He picked his lute back up again and began to play. The notes flowed easily this time, the same tune as before. He grinned and scribbled the notes down onto the coffee stained page of manuscript. He got so caught up in the music he didn’t hear Geralt enter the room on the other side of the line, and this time he wasn’t alone.

“Mr Jaskier?” Ciri sounded exhausted. Geralt had probably just woken her up given the time.

Jaskier blushed and thanked Freya that the young girl couldn’t see him.

Ciri wasn’t supposed to know they’d been talking more outside of school in case she got confused or the wrong idea. Why was Geralt involving her?

Unless the wrong idea… was the right idea?

He swallowed nervously.

“Hello Buttercup!” He put on his best teacher voice, smiling brightly even though she couldn’t see him.

“Dad said you needed to tell me something. That it couldn’t wait.” Ciri asked in a small voice. “Did I do something wrong, Mr Jaskier?”

“Of course not Ciri!” Jaskier reassured her. “Geralt just wanted to ask me about the band your Uncle Lambert likes.”

“In the middle of the night?” Ciri groaned.

“Well…” Jaskier searched for a good explanation.

“It’s not as late for adults.” Geralt suggested.

Which wasn’t entirely true. Jaskier had to be up early for work and he was exhausted from his late night the day before. Geralt would have to up early too to get Ciri to school on time. They both needed to get to bed soon but there wasn’t a better explanation.

“Hmm.” Ciri hummed starting to pick up on some of Geralt’s mannerisms.

“Your father said you thought that Dandelion sounded like me?” Jaskier asked cautiously.

Ciri gasped and squealed excitably. “It sounded exactly like you Mr Jaskier! But everyone else said it was impossible and then Dad said my guitar teacher was called Priscilla and Uncle Lambert said a naughty word and apparently you are Dandelion, which I already knew because I’d already told them it was you and then Dad said a naughty word!”

Jaskier chuckled. “I am, indeed, Dandelion.”

“Of course you are!” Ciri answered completely certain in her assessment.

“But I need you to keep that quiet. Have you told any of your friends yet?” Jaskier asked.

“You have to speak, Ciri, he can’t see you.” Geralt answered softly.

“Nope.”

Jaskier sighed in relief, his band wasn’t exactly child friendly and he didn’t want it getting out that he’d inadvertently taught his whole class how to swear like a sailor. “Can you keep it to yourself, Ciri?”

“Yes, but why?” Ciri asked.

Jaskier ran his hand through his hair as he tried to think of a good way to explain. “Umm….”

“The band is something Mr Jaskier does outside of school. It’s good to keep work and play separate, Princess.” Geralt answered for him.

“Will you still play for us?” Ciri asked.

Jaskier laughed. “Of course I will, Ciri. It wouldn’t be Buttercups without song time!”

Ciri seemed to consider that. “Good. Dara likes it. Everyone else assumes he can’t listen to music but he can. Dara said he can hear it through the vibe…vibe—”

“Vibrations?” Jaskier suggested.

“Vibrations!” Ciri agreed “and he can still understand the words. He likes that you don’t treat him differently.”

Jaskier almost sobbed. That was probably one of the sweetest things his kids had ever said to him.

“I’m tired now. I’m going back to bed. Goodnight Mr Jaskier, Goodnight Dad!” He heard Ciri’s footsteps patter away.

“Fuck me.” Jaskier sighed and Geralt chuckled. “She’s a good kid.”

“The best.” Geralt agreed. “I should go too.”

“No hanging up this time?” Jaskier teased.

Geralt hummed in response.

“Goodnight, Geralt. Sleep well.”

“Night, Jaskier.”

Jaskier hit the end call button, his hands shaking in his lap.

“Fuck me…” He repeated under his breath and rubbed his eyes, smearing his glasses.

Geralt Rivia was going to be the death of him, and he would die happy.

______

#the witcher #geraskier #geraskier fanfiction #geralt of rivia #jaskier pankratz #geralt x jaskier #jaskier x geralt #geralt z rivii #geralt/jaskier #modern au #essi daven #cirilla fiona elen riannon #ciri #dad geralt #fireman!geralt #teacher!jaskier #you set my heart ablaze #wolfie's witcher writing

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inkedstarlight · 4 years

Text

Bittersweet: Chapter Five

Summary: College is kicking Nesta’s ass, so she goes to her T.A., Tomas, for some extra help. Note: Read it on AO3 here! Bittersweet Masterlist Warnings: N/A

October

It was only a couple weeks into the fall semester, and it was already hell.

Nesta was drowning in schoolwork, whether it be essays or presentations or hour-long projects. She had exams every damn week, so she was at the campus library nearly every day – typically until the sun set and the stars emerged. But even then, her night was far from over. Nesta returned home only to catch up on the work she’d put off for her paid internship. Elain got in the habit of making Nesta tea and cookies when she returned from the library on those ruthless nights. And every damn time, Nesta would wrap her arms around her sister with thanks.

This was her routine for at least four days of the week. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Needless to say, she was fucking exhausted.

The worst part, though? Nesta’s grades were precariously low despite the countless hours she’d been putting in. And she knew exactly what was causing it.

It had been a month since her father’s death, yet Nesta was still waking up in her own sweat every morning after a nightmare involving him. Of him hanging on the edge of a cliff, begging Nesta to save him. Of her dad screaming at her to kill herself. Of her mother dragging Nesta into the other room as he watches idly by.

Nesta had cursed herself for letting her father’s death affect her in this way. She’d never been one to grieve, especially not for so long. She preferred leaving it in the past. It was easier that way.

Thanks to her merciless professors, Nesta was forced to dedicate nearly all of her time to school, which forced her to neglect her internship. They required she edit ten pieces of work every week, whether it be self-published books, college publications, or online articles. Even though the internship was entirely online – a convenient bonus – she still didn’t have enough time to fulfill the weekly goals. Instead of editing ten works, she was barely scrapping by with five. She’d already received several angry emails from her boss threatening to fire her if she didn’t get her shit together.

And, well… Nesta didn’t get her shit together. On the last day of September, she received that fateful email.

Nesta Archeron,

I regret to inform you that we’ve made the difficult decision of letting you go from Scribner Editorial. While I understand you’re in the midst of earning your Master’s degree, we are looking for editors who can reach – or exceed – the necessary requirements. Unfortunately, you have been lacking in the past few weeks. It has caused other editors to pick up your slack and do more than what we ask for. We are sorry to see you go.

Sincerely,

Ressina Laurent Scribner Editorial

Nesta read and reread the email dozens of times before closing her laptop. Her head fell in her hands, her shoulders trembling with the weight she carried.

She stared out the window, the world a flurry of red, orange, and yellow. Nesta had worked so hard for this, and all for nothing. She couldn’t believe she’d fucked up such a prestigious internship. It’d paid surprisingly well, and that had been the only income she was receiving. Even with the paychecks from Scribner Editorial, Nesta’s financial situation was holding on by a thread. She had used the money her father had passed down to her to pay off the remaining student loans she owned. Her family never had much money and when it was split in three, it didn’t make much of a difference.

Just like that, Nesta no longer had a job.

Fuck.

Within ten minutes of receiving that email, she was already browsing online for job opportunities. Nesta didn’t care what it was, as long as it put steady income in her pocket. There was no way she would be able to finish school without a job.

But unfortunately, after an hour of job hunting, Nesta came up empty handed. The only person who was hiring was the large grocery store downtown. They were looking for a cashier. And there was no way in hell Nesta would even consider working there. She’d seen the crowds they got on weekends. The work were incessantly forced to talk with rude, invasive customers. Nesta was far from the realm of customer service.

Nesta was down to her last resort. She didn't give herself another second to overthink it as she picked up her phone from her desk and texted Feyre.

I was just fired. You know of any job openings in the area?

Nesta sat by her phone for a couple minutes until Feyre deigned to respond.

The only one I know if is Rita’s, the local bar. They’re looking for a bartender, have been for months.

Nesta nearly snorted out her coffee when she read the text. Feyre had to be kidding. Nesta, bartending? There was no way in hell she could be a halfway decent bartender – anyone who’s ever met Nesta knew that. She didn’t possess the charm nor the patience, and she certainly couldn’t deal with drunken men who leered at her all night. In Massachusetts, she'd had her fair share of hook-ups, men and women alike. It was night after night of mindless, drunken sex. But then she'd grown up.

Nesta looked back at the soft glow of her computer screen. There had to be something, right?

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

Wrong.

After scrolling through hundreds of websites with job opportunities (or lack thereof), Nesta collapsed on her bed. She checked the time to find that it was nearly one in the morning. Rubbing her face, she let out a low groan. Tomorrow was Monday. Gods, why did tomorrow have to be Monday? She was so exhausted that she was feeling physically ill: sore throat, cough, stuffy nose. The urge to skip classes tomorrow was tempting.

But Nesta knew she wouldn't skip. What would she do? A whole day to herself and a head full of intrusive thoughts. The perfect ingredients for a panic attack or two.

Her gaze fell to the small stack of bills she had yet to pay – that she couldn’t pay. Bills that would only grow.

With that thought in mind, Nesta cursed Scribner Editorial as she grabbed her laptop and searched ‘Rita’s’ on an open browser.

Then, she composed an email.

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

The next day, Nesta finally got around to contacting her Fictional Techniques teaching assistant. It was by far her most challenging class, and she despised the professor. A big chunk of her studying was dedicated to that course alone. And since she no longer had a job – for now – she finally had the time to meet with him for extra help.

His name was Tomas. He was notoriously known as the “Hardass T.A.” Nesta had heard her peers complaining about his grading on more than one occasion. It was common knowledge that he rarely gave students any feedback on their essays but when he did, it was brutal. It was practically unheard of to receive higher than a C from Tomas.

Nesta never got below a B+, though. And though she’d never spoken with him, Tomas always gave her detailed feedback on her papers, more so than any student.

So that afternoon, she emailed him.

Tomas –

My name is Nesta Archeron and I am a student in a class you T.A. in, ENG-403 Section 003. I have a couple questions regarding the paper that was assigned on September 28th. Are you available to meet after class? It would be much appreciated.

Nesta –

Thank you for contacting me. I would love to help you one-on-one. I’ve noticed the work you hand in, and it is spectacular. Your writing is sophisticated, and you have such potential. Coming from someone who has been in the publishing business for years now, I know several companies who would publish your work. Perhaps I can mention your name the next time I meet with them. How does tomorrow work? We can walk to the library together, maybe grab a cup of coffee (on me). Let me know.

Tomas –

Thank you. That works for me. I’ll see you tomorrow.

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

“Don’t forget to finish up those essays! They’re due on October sixth, and I won’t be accepting anything that’s turned in late. Yes, Mr. Vanserra, I’m looking at you.”

Students snickered as they filed out of the lecture hall. Nesta grabbed her backpack and made her way down the stairs to the front of the room. Tomas had his own desk in the corner where he chimed in during class discussions.

He was already smiling at her when she approached.

“Hi, Nesta,” he greeted her. He was in the midst of packing his things. “Are you ready to head out?” She nodded.

Tomas had the charm of the boy next door. His dirty blonde hair was cropped short, eyes crystal blue, and he wore an easy smile. It was hard to imagine that this was the guy who gave students Fs for not having a cover page for their essay.

"Did you want to grab a cup of coffee?" Tomas asked her as they made their way out of the classroom. He shot her a smirk "Like I said, I'll pay."

Is he flirting with me?

Nesta prayed to the gods he wasn't. Sure, he was cute and all, but she had no interest in a relationship of any kind. Including a one night stand.

Perhaps I can use that to my advantage...

Nesta dismissed the thought immediately. There was no way in hell she would flirt with her T.A. to ensure a high GPA. She wasn't going to sleep her way to the top. That's not how Nesta did things.

A little flirting never hurt anyone.

She groaned inwardly and shut out that train of thoughts.

Tomas and Nesta chatted while they trudged to the library, backpacks full of textbooks in tow. Much to Nesta’s dismay, he fired question after question at her. Tomas asked about her family to which she miraculously deflected, about her journey to become a writer, and her ambitions. Luckily, Nesta was a pro at this sort of thing, so she simply responded to every question with a question of her own. Not the most subtle approach, but it worked.

The library was teeming with students when they pushed through the doors. Pryth U’s library was a sight to behold. Its foyer was ornate with hand-painted murals, the ceiling stretching far above them. They hopped on the elevator to the third floor. When the doors opened, Nesta inhaled the sweet scent of old books. The bookcases reached the ceiling, thus requiring a rolling ladder in every stack. When Nesta and Elain had toured the campus before the semester began, Elain was quick to jump on the ladder and sing “Be Our Guest.” Her voice was horribly off key. They both burst into laughter, clutching their stomachs until the librarian found and scolded them.

Nesta was pretty sure Elain hadn't stepped foot in the library since.

“Okay,” Tomas said, setting his belongings on a corner desk. He grinned at her. “Ready to be tortured?”

Nesta offered a less than enthusiastic smile. “Let’s do it.”

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

After a couple hours of grueling studying, Nesta hurried to the coffee shop on campus. It was five o’clock and she hadn’t had a cup of coffee since the morning. If she didn’t get caffeine in the next ten minutes, Nesta wouldn’t function properly.

The meeting with Tomas went well; he was certainly a helpful resource to have. He'd even offered to meet with Nesta again to prepare for the next big assignment, to which she graciously accepted. There may have been batting of the lashes involved.

Nesta pulled her wool scarf tighter around her neck. Even with a peacoat and a hat, she was still freezing. She let out a sigh of relief when she entered the coffee shop, grateful for the inviting warmth.

That gratefulness disappeared when she looked at the line.

It was at least a dozen people long. Nesta let out a frustrated groan, managing to put a tamper on her anger and hauled her ass to the back of the line.

After a couple minutes of drooling over the scent of fresh coffee beans, she felt a tap on her shoulder from behind.

“Nesta?” a sultry voice asked. The familiar husk in her words had Nesta turning around to see Amren standing behind her. She was staring up at Nesta through her long lashes, a smirk playing on her face. Nesta couldn’t help but admire her feral beauty: chin length hair, angular face, dark and smooth skin, and exquisite makeup.

“Hi, Amren,” Nesta said blandly. “I didn’t know you attended Pryth U.”

“I don’t,” she snorted. “I wouldn’t last one week in college. This is the best coffee around, and I don’t mind driving twenty minutes out of my way.”

Another coffee snob. Interesting.

“I’m impressed that you even remember my name. I thought you always zoned out during the dinners.”

Nesta huffed out a laugh, and a hint of surprise flashed on Amren’s face. It was gone a second later.

“It’s tempting whenever Rhysand opens his mouth, trust me,” Nesta replied dryly. “But I have my ways.”

Amren’s eyes lit up with amusement. “Oh, I’m going to like you.”

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

That evening, Nesta strolled back to her apartment with a steaming cup of coffee and Amren’s phone number.

It was quiet when she unlocked the door, but the living room light was on. As Nesta dropped her heaving backpack and padded to the kitchen, she noticed Elain sprawled out on the couch, her nose buried in her phone.

“Did you eat already?” Nesta called out as she rummaged through the cabinets. She dug through a shelf for pasta, which was buried under Elain’s many baking ingredients.

When Elain didn’t answer after a couple seconds, Nesta poked her head into the living room. She was still scrolling through her phone, the faintest smile on her rosy face.

“Hello? Earth to Elain?”

Silence. Nesta groaned in frustration. Rounding the overstuffed sofa, she assaulted Elain’s feet with her hands.

Elain’s entire body jerked as Nesta tickled her, pained laughs escaping her mouth. Elain was easily the most ticklish person Nesta had ever met. It made it easy to get information out of her.

“Stop!” Elain gasped breathlessly, laughing all the same. “Please!”

Nesta ceded and raised her hands up in surrender. Elain scrambled off the couch and narrowed her eyes.

"What the hell, Nesta?”

“I was calling your name for a good five minutes,” Nesta crossed her arms. She nodded her head at Elain’s phone. “Anything interesting?”

Elain’s cheeks flushed, and Nesta gasped.

“Is it a guy?” Her voice was threatening. Nesta had always been protective over Elain.

“A guy? No! That’s… that’s just ludicrous. Why would a guy… I mean -"

Nesta let her sister stumble over her words with amusement. She raised a brow. “Show me what you were looking at then.”

“That’s none of your business!”

Nesta gave her no warning as she leaped at Elain.

Elain squealed in surprise, trying her best to deflect Nesta's tickling. They wrestled on the couch, Elain trying desperately to get her phone out of Nesta's reach. But Nesta was taller and stronger.

“Gerroffme -"

“Just gimme -"

“Argh!”

"Ha!" Nesta stood up and held Elain’s phone in her hand triumphantly. Elain was glaring at her from the couch, her hair sticking every which way.

Nesta looked down at the screen to see the Instagram app open. Then, she read the name of the account.

“You’re stalking Azriel?”

“No! I was just following him.”

All Nesta had to do was give her a stern look.

“Okay, fine," Elain threw her hands up. "I think he’s cute. Are you happy now?”

“No,” Nesta glowered, “I’m not happy. He’s basically Rhysand’s brother. I'm not letting another one of those boys seduce my sister.”

“Seduce?!" Elain choked. She shook her head. "They’re best friends! And what does it matter anyway?”

Nesta shot her a leveled stare. “Rhysand’s an asshole.”

“He’s just protective over Feyre,” Elain explained incredulously. “Like you are of me.”

Nesta considered that for a moment. “Touché. But if Azriel hurts you -"

“Nesta!” Elain exclaimed, an exasperated laugh leaving her lips. “We’ve barely talked. I just think he’s handsome.”

“Does Feyre know?”

That got Elain's attention.

“You can’t tell Feyre.” Elain broke out her puppy face: wide eyes, pouty lips, knitted brows. No one in history had been able to resist her puppy face. Including Nesta.

She huffed out a laugh. “I may be a bitch, but I’m not that cruel.”

Elain threw herself at her sister and pulled her into a hug. "Thank you!"

After promising Elain she wouldn't tell Feyre about her crush for the tenth time, Nesta retreated to her room. She was just about to pull out her notes when her phone buzzed in her back pocket.

I’m supposed to go on a date with this guy tonight, but I just met a hotter guy on my way home. Will you judge me if I ditch the first one?

Nesta looked at the phone number.

Amren.

She could help but let out a small laugh.

When in doubt, pick both.

Both?

Both.

Damn, Nesta, I didn’t realize how savage you are.

A couple moments later, another text came in.

Both is good.

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

tag list (let me know if you want to be tagged):

@sjmships @sleeping-and-books @sirgwaines @books-for-sure @blowing-mikey @b00kworm @wineywitch202 @drielecarla @liquifyme @gisellefigue08 @iammissstark @theoverlyenthusiasticwriter @loysydark @superspiritfestival @stardelia @sayosdreams @maastrash

#nessian #bittersweet #my writing #masterlist #nesta archeron #acotar #a court of thorns and roses

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bungou-stray-dingus · 4 years

Text

🎇Gravity🎇

Chuuya x Reader bickering but also fluff .... ENJOY

He had been working late shifts for the past week, usually not even making it home before he crashed on the small sofa that was in his office. It didn’t matter that he was an executive, if he had work to do he would do it, and he wouldn’t stop until it was complete.

By the time he came back to the shared penthouse he was expecting a warm welcome from you. He missed you like crazy, he missed your soft hugs and feathery light kisses that would wake him up in the morning. He missed being home, and by home it was anywhere that you were.

You were staring out the large window that overlooked the city, the lights reflected in your eyes, the silver moonlight lit your face up, it was a sight that he had been long awaiting. “Hey!” He called out to you, shocked that you didn’t come running to him like you usually did when he came home from work. It wasn’t unusual for you to daydream though, so he thought that maybe you hadn’t heard him come in. He walked over to where you were standing, snaking his arms around your waist.

“An entire week this time...” You mumbled, pulling out of his hold. “You could have at least called, told me that you were okay.”

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck was all he could think. He hadn’t called, hadn’t texted you. When he was in work mode, he didn’t think of anything but work. He had screwed up. “You know that my job gets busy. I can’t call you or text you all the time Y/N.” He wasn’t going to apologize, it wasn’t exactly his fault, and to be fair you hadn’t called him to check on him... or so he thought.

“Oh my god, I don’t expect that. At least a hey, I’m not dead, that would have worked.” You sighed. “Do you know how many times I tried to text you... call you?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and tried to turn it on.

“Your calls must have killed the battery. But hey, I’m here now, so see, I’m not dead.” He shrugged and your mouth hung open at his complete disregard.

“I... oh my god, I can’t believe you right now.”

“What? What did I do? I’m home.”

“You’re unbelievable!” You threw your arms up, you didn’t have it in you to argue with him, and he was truly confused as to why you were so worked up about it.

You started walking to the patio, you needed space, you needed to clear your thoughts, calm down. He watched you walk out, happy that you weren’t leaving through the front door at least, but he still didn’t understand what the hell was wrong.

He paced through the apartment, trying to think of why you would be upset. His phone was charging in the corner and it finally buzzed, letting him know that it was charged enough to turn on. He walked over to where it was laying and scrolled through the one hundred plus unread texts.

“Hey, just wondering if you’ll be home tonight? Love you xoxo”

“Guess you’re working late. Dinners in the fridge. See you in the morning. Missing you”

“Damn, tell Mori to chill. You’re still not home. Should I make breakfast for you?”

“Getting kinda lonely...”

“The bed is too big without you.”

“I relly muss u... uyr winr isss gineeee”

“Hangovers suck without you”

“I threw up on myself...”

“BITCH WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU ITS BEEN TWO DAYS!???!?”

“Sorryaboutthelasttext”

“Did you lose your phone?”

“Please come home.”

“It’s like day five and you still haven’t written back....”

“I swear to god Chuuya, please write back.”

“I don’t know what I’d do if you were gone. I need you. Please come back home. I’m scared.”

“You’re dead aren’t you? I know you can’t write back if you are... but... if you’re not, please write back. I haven’t stopped crying.”

“BITCH IS THAT YOUR MOTHER FUCKING CAR PULLING UP?!”

“ASSHOLE.”

“Shit. Ah shit shit shit fuck shit.” He felt awful. You thought he died. You were crying, you missed him, you just wanted him home, you wanted to know that he was alright. He always tried his best to be the best boyfriend for you, you deserved it, you put up with a lot of his shit, plus the constant worrying you went through due to his line of work.

You were still out on the patio, he knew you were waiting for him to come out, but for the first time he couldn’t muster up the courage. He went back to pacing the floor, thinking about what he could say to you to make it all better, or at least get you to stop being so mad at him. He couldn’t leave you out there all night though, it would get cold and then you would get sick and that would be his fault and he couldn’t have that.

So he walked to the patio door, the glass of the door was like a mirror, he saw the dark circles under his eyes, how unkempt his hair was, he didn’t like it. When he looked past his reflection he saw you sitting in the deck chair, your chin resting in your palms as you looked over the city. Even when you were sulking you looked like a queen, you were his queen, and even a king bows down to the queen.

He opened the door slowly, causing you to look up slowly. He saw your eyes were red, you were obviously crying. “Please come back inside. I’m sorry.” He wasn’t used to apologizing, it felt strange. He wasn’t the ‘I’m sorry’ type, and saying it made him feel weak.

“Not until you apologize.” Even you weren’t used to him apologizing, the words seemed to go right over your head, unheard by your ears. You dropped your gaze back down to your feet.

“I just said I’m freaking sorry!” He shouted, quickly shutting his mouth when he saw you tense up at his raised voice. Dammit he thought, rubbing his hands over his face as he tried to compose himself.

You both were exhausted, and you both knew this. “I’m sorry, really. Come back inside and talk to me.” He held out his hand and you grabbed it weakly, letting him help you out of the chair and back inside the warmth of the penthouse.

“I stayed up every night, I tried to get sleep, but I couldn’t. I was so worried about you, the bed was empty without you there, and I couldn’t close my eyes, every time I did I kept seeing horrible things and I didn’t want to see them and I just...” You were talking so quick, and he was trying to take it all in. You couldn’t even finish your sentence, you had started crying by the middle of your speech and by the end you were out of breath, dropping your head onto his lap and curling up into the fetal position as he ran his fingers through your hair, trying to calm you down.

“I know.” His voice was soothing, he waited for your sniffling to stop before he started talking. “Your boyfriend is very very stupid, and sometimes he doesn’t realize that he’s messing up.” You looked up at him, your head still in his lap. His third person explanation was weak, but it made you giggle, and he leaned over to kiss your lips when they pulled up into a smile. “But I promise, I’m taking an entire week off, if anyone had a problem with it they can fuck off. It’s gonna be a whole week just for us. My queen comes first.” You blushed and he brushed his fingers over your burning cheeks, his touch was light as a feather.

“I missed you so much, you’re such a pain in my ass.” You said jokingly. He was lucky that you loved him so much, and although he couldn’t quite understand why you loved him as much as you did, he never took it for granted. He honestly felt like he didn’t deserve you, but he felt like the luckiest man in the world whenever he came home to you, you were truly his.

“I’m your pain in the ass though.” He smiled wide, looking down into your wide, red rimmed Y/E/C eyes. They were bright and full of love for him and him only.

“I wouldn’t want it any other way.” You murmured, and for the first time he felt like he would cry. He was so happy with you, perfectly content when you were in his arms.

When it came to gravity, he might be able to control it, but you were what kept him centered. You had your own pull on him, his world revolved around you.

#chuuya nakahara #bsd chuuya #bungou stray dogs x reader #bsd headcanons #bsd scenarios #chuuya x reader #chuuya nakahara scenarios #chuuya headcanons #chuuya scenarios #bsd imagines #chuuya imagines

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ralfmaximus · 4 years

Text

Living with a Smart Gun

Marta decided she needed a gun after the boost had gone wrong.

Oh, technically, it’d gone flawlessly – 1.2B New Yen siphoned away from Bank Shanghai and into six different offshore accounts, undetected – but when she’d gone to get paid… that’s when things went sour.

She wasn’t a people person. Normally the human relations aspect of her work were handled by Konroy, but he’d fled the country temporarily and hadn’t returned her calls in weeks. She needed to eat. So she’d dug through his list of contacts, found a likely client, and reached out. The job specs they’d sent her seemed easy enough, and it was.

But upon meeting with the lovely folks behind the mail address she realized her mistake: upon delivery she had no leverage over them. The money was boosted, and they had the account numbers and passwords. To her dismay they even had the keys to her secret, 7th account, the one she’d nabbed for herself. Apparently they’d had a tech of their own shadowing her the whole time and she’d been careless.

Hunger will do that to you, she mused, as they broke her left arm, laughing. They beat her ass out into the alley behind the gaming parlor and walked away without looking back. She’d wanted to kill them all at that moment, and if only she’d had a gun…

Broken arm, at least one broken rib, and both eyes swollen shut. Missing tooth.

Konroy wouldn’t have let this happen. But he was gone. She needed to protect herself now. Laying on damp concrete among cardboard boxes and dumpsters, her left arm a shrieking, grinding agony, Marta pulled up a list of clinics from Konroy’s little black book. She selected one certified to install Personal Protection systems and left a message before passing out.

The black clinic was clean and bright, the black part referring only to its off-the-grid status. They never asked questions.

Marta lay in an antique dentist chair, her left arm gripped in padded waldos. It had already been peeled open, radius and ulna exposed, a soft green laser rotating as it mapped the break. She was numb from the shoulder down; a spinal block.

The nameless tech hummed as she worked, watching her arm rotate in 3D on a monitor.

“A simple break, easily repaired,” the tech nodded in satisfaction. “We’ll have you out of here in thirty minutes.”

“Question,” Marta held up her right hand. The tech swiveled to peer at her with calm eyes.

“You install PP systems here, right?”

Without reacting, the tech nodded. “Certified in all forms of PPS. Do you wish to review a catalog?”

“No. I know what I want.” Marta reeled off a make and model number from memory. She’d been researching.

The tech paused, not exhibiting surprise so much as a delay while she accessed databases. Eventually she shook her head slowly. “That model is—“

“Yes, I know. Proscribed.” Marta used her good right hand to indicate the duffel she’d brought with her into the exam room. It was stuffed with New Yen scrip, but they both knew that.

The tech accessed databases again and nodded after a moment. “Yes, that unit is in stock.”

“Well, I want one. Make it happen.”

“Your left arm?”

“Since it’s already open, sure.”

Another pause, the tech’s expression gone blank. “There is a difficulty. Your augmentations are rated at level 5. The smart gun you have requested requires level 6 or higher.” She stopped there, watching silently.

Marta nodded, closed her eyes, entered the crystal wind. Found the public certification boards where her profile lived and… adjusted them. So far as the government now knew she was level 6, certified to work on ESA/ROSCOSMOS space probes and (she noted ironically) smart surgical systems.

Her black rating, if that were something that could be calculated, she imagined as double digits. She opened her eyes and told the tech to check again.

Without discernible surprise the clinician nodded after reviewing the files. “We will need to replace your left ulna, something custom-milled.”

“I know. I’ve read the installation guide.”

The tech switched gears. “Left-handed use is not unheard of, but recommended installation is in the right arm.”

“Don’t wanna mess these up,” Marta waved her tattoos at the tech. Another nod.

“Finally, there will be a bulge. Your skeletal structure is small; the weapon, while compact is—“

“I’m fine with that. Just do it.”

Marta waited three days before peeling the bandages off. Her left arm was discolored from bruising but otherwise pain-free. The extra weight took her by surprise, but she quickly adjusted.

The gun’s embedded manual suggested a week of convalescence before test-firing, since the thing was still knitting itself into her arm, nano-filaments working themselves up to her shoulder for bracing. Using the weapon too soon, despite its recoilless nature, would tear things apart.

That suited her fine. She also had to figure out how to work the damned thing. And so far, its interface was… confusing.

The Crimson Storm Flower 2 (firmware revision 14c) was a typically Chinese name for something so deadly. Its gatling array could fire 1200 rounds per minute of tiny hyper-velocity pellets, or select from a wide array of flechette-slivers: everything from explosives to non-lethals. Marta wondered what use the EMP rounds would be; if her own systems were shielded well enough to even try those. She decided she didn’t know enough to risk it.

Consumables were surgically replaced whenever they ran low. Hopefully, never. She didn’t intend to switch careers or even use the thing except in emergencies.

But the gun’s UI pissed her off. In fact, she couldn’t find one. The armory stores and configuration stuff presented themselves immediately, but she couldn’t find how to actually, you know, pull the trigger.

Also, her dreams had been weird.

She’d grown used to strange dreams over the years as her meat-net whispered to the metal-net in her brain. That was something all IT workers dealt with nowadays. There were OTC medications to help with that.

But lately she’d felt like something – an animal, a presence – had been stalking her. Circling her defenses looking for a way in. There’d even been a few violent nightmares, replays of that night in the alley, where she’d aimed her left arm at the bastards who’d hurt her and instead of doing anything her left arm had fallen off. A cheap plastic doll arm, laying in a puddle. The beating had continued longer than it had in reality, until she awoke screaming on twisted sheets.

None of the Storm Flower manuals suggested how to fire it. She’d reviewed every file, even snuck out into the Chinese mil.net to search for more. The weapon simply didn’t exist except as catalog entries in various black clinics.

One anonymous forum post suggested that Flower was a military experiment. Something tried and discarded, its specs plundered by pirates and sold now on the streets. Or maybe it was a controlled experiment: let the criminals work out the kinks while the military observed from a distance.

Marta’s wounds healed, and the day came when she wanted to test-fire her new toy. She rented time at a gun range and stood, alone, in the tiny, dank bunker, left arm pointed helplessly at a paper target.

Fire. Launch. Activate.

She thought every command she could think of into the weapon’s control matrix but… nothing. She’d even looked up the Chinese equivalents and tried those. Then Spanish, Russian, and even Norwegian. Maybe the weapon’s makers had intended Flower for a specific foreign market.

But no. Nothing happened. Everything felt right – her internal net insisted everything was linked, fiber running a complete path from ulna to spine to brain.

Maybe it was defective.

With a sigh she lowered her arm and dialed the clinic’s number, leaving a message requesting a follow-up visit. These things happened, but dammit she’d paid so much and the disappointment was quickly morphing into rage. Those fuckers. They’d taken her money, smiling as they sawed her arm to pieces. She envisioned the smug clinician’s reaction when she—

Snick.

Her left arm thrummed gently like a motor applying torque to her body. The odd feeling spread up into her shoulder where—

She looked down. A tiny black multi-port muzzle protruded from her arm, completely surrounded by flesh. As if somebody had jammed a gun part directly into her skin and left it there. Marta lifted her arm carefully. It felt pinned by gyros, locked on rails, moving precisely if randomly, wherever she pointed it.

In quiet astonishment, rage gone, she watched as the sliver of black metal slid back under the surface of her arm and vanished.

Snick.

Something locked home inside the bone. The thrumming stopped.

Huh. Flower liked strong emotion, it seemed. Maybe it detected adrenaline and other stress hormones. But that seemed stupid, imprecise. There had to be a way to actually, you know, control it.

The Midtown clinic didn’t return her messages. She walked by the place and it was empty, a realtor’s barcode in the window. Marta quelled the impulse to stop and peer into the dim storefront but the white van parked across the street dissuaded her. The vehicle looked entirely too clean, too government for her tastes. They might as well have painted Homeland Security on its side, so she walked on by.

To keep up the appearance of normalcy she stopped at a sidewalk café two doors down and sat at a table with an umbrella, van within her field of view. She ordered unsweet tea from a waiter wearing a black apron.

When her tea came she took a sip and involuntarily grimaced. Atlanta iced tea came in two varieties: sweet and unsweet. Proper ‘sweet’ tea was made with equal parts sugar and tea; it was undrinkable, something to supercharge kids with before turning them loose in a bouncy castle.

“Excuse me,” she stood, holding the disgustingly sweet beverage out to the server. “I ordered—“

Snick.

Her arm thrummed. Without looking she knew what the server saw, why he dropped his tray and ran. It didn’t matter: she saw his leg explode in a haze of bloody shreds the microsecond Flower coughed.

One target tracked, targeted, explosive flechette selected, fired, target disabled the after-report appeared in her mind. Wow. The manuals were right: virtually no recoil. The glass of tea in her left hand hadn’t even wobbled.

Behind her she heard van doors slamming, and she turned.

Two armored Homeland troopers thundered toward her, SMGs held low. Before she processed this completely they were both down.

Two targets tracked, targeted, armor piercing selected, fired, targets disabled.

Next, the van exploded, one white door sailing over her head to clang against the restaurant’s brick facade.

Vehicle disabled, the after-log finished. She barely had time to scan the whole thing before her arm went snick and Flower shut down. She hadn’t spilled a drop of tea; she drank it all down in one long gulp.

Konroy’s face was a ghost swirling in pixels. His connection was so dreadful it must’ve been bounced through a dozen proxies. From the lag Marta suspected there was at least one satellite involved.

“You did what?”

His voice was razorblades slicing chipmunks. She repeated herself.

“Read me the model number again?”

He’d reacted with amusement about her buying a gun. Her, the tree-hugging hippie cybercriminal who’d once made him take a spider outside rather than kill it. After she transmitted him Flower’s specs he’d sobered up quickly.

“Honey, that’s the blackest of black tech.”

“Do we deal in any other kind?”

“What?”

“Nevermind. Look, I can’t find a clinic that’ll talk to me about it. Can you—“

“Sorry, you’re breaking up.”

“I need a clinic that does PPS. Like, immediately.”

“Honey—“

The connection washed away in a burst of static then miraculously cleared.

“Konroy? I need—“

“I’ll send you a list of the ones I know. But you already have that, I reckon.”

She nodded, wondering if he could see her. “Surely there’s more?”

“Not exactly a growth industry, especially since the crackdown. If I knew you were gonna—“

The connection broke then, went totally blue. Returned full-screen with Homeland Security’s eagle-clutching-wires logo, which she glimpsed only for a second before slapping the call closed.

Seconds later the phone was in pieces, its battery tossed down a sewer grate, the rest of it in various bushes and dumpsters as she walked. In annoyance she realized Flower had popped open and closed without her noticing… that told her how upset she was more than anything else.

Her dreams became violent. She was a gun, and the world was a rich tapestry of target reticules. Most were green (friendly) but some were not (red) and every time a red one was targeted and destroyed she orgasmed.

After these dreams she woke up exhausted, panties askew, the mattress damp.

While she and Konroy had had plenty of sex, they’d never had orgasms together.

One sleepless night Marta got drunk on tequila and walked up to the first white van she saw, stood outside it with arms outstretched. After a few moments the doors slid open and she was surrounded by Homeland troopers. She tried to warn them about Flower but they were all dead before she opened her mouth.

Then of course, the van exploded.

Marta boosted enough capital to hire an ex-military surgeon from mainland China. She met with him in a hotel room near the airport, where he examined her arm, scanning Flower with instruments he assembled from a pair of aluminum briefcases.

“I do not recognize this weapon,” he announced finally. “But that does not mean we did not make it. Much goes on, in the, you know…”

“I know,” she sighed. “Can you get it out of me?”

He sat back, pondering. “Eventually it will run out of consumables.”

“So I gathered. But I don’t want to wait that long, it’ll take months. Until then I’m afraid to go outside.”

“You do not understand,” he blew out his cheeks. “The weapon, it has bonded with your endocrine system. You and it are one. When it runs out of ammunition it will want more. A gun without bullets is useless, and it wants to be useful.”

“Yeah, so? I’ll just ignore it. If it pops out no big deal. I’ll wear long sleeves forever.”

“I have not explained well. The gun, it will… need more ammunition. Consider it a form of addiction.”

Her stomach dropped. “Addiction? Like heroin?”

The Chinese doctor beamed at her. “Yes! Precisely so. In fact glutamate and dopamine are the—“

She found herself standing, head pounding, shouting. “Get this thing out of me, now! I don’t want—“

Snick

Marta eventually found a clinic in Taiwan that could service the gun. She didn’t miss Atlanta, and everyone around her spoke English anyway. Homeland Security never bother her anymore, not over here.

A network of Flower owners had sprung up around the planet about the time she’d gotten her implant. She discovered her experience was not uncommon, and within this new, strange family she found a place: boosting cash for the collective, so ammunition was never a problem.

Meditation and medication helped control incidents. The collective cheerfully displayed an old-style “44 Days Since Last Accident” cardboard sign in the main dining room with detachable numbers that incremented – or zeroed – over time.

Soon she and the others like her boosted enough capital to purchase a small island off the coast of Taiwan, and moved the clinic there. They began manufacturing Flowers and even improving the design. Children were born and fitted with their own guns as soon as their bones stopped growing, usually in their late teens.

The Chinese project responsible for the creation of the weapon had contacted them a few times, threatened a few times, finally backed off when they were invited to come get their guns back if they could. They tried once, and the score was 27 dead Chinese commandos to zero collective members.

It was just prior to that engagement that Marta had her second, right-arm Flower installed, damn the tattoos.

Fifteen years after that, Marta returned to Atlanta.

Amazingly, the gaming bar where she’d received her beat-down still existed. She entered the place through the alley door they’d dragged her through, walked past uncaring workers in the kitchen and into the smoke-filled main room.

She recognized none of the faces, did not expect to. Wasn’t even sure if this place still hosted the gang who’d hired her forty years ago, or if they even existed. She hadn’t bothered to check.

Marta stood in the center of swirling chaos, of pinging slot machines, of laughing gamers, of pounding late 20th century dubstep, commandeered the PA system via the crystal wind and pitched her voice to be heard over all. Everything crashed to a halt.

“Somebody piss me off. I dare you.”

Many eyes were on her when Marta raised her arms, letting loose black sleeves fall. She stood like that, arms upheld as goal posts, eyes closed.

It took a few moments, but eventually she got her wish.

#writing #me #cyberpunk #remastered

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medea10 · 4 years

Text

Medea’s Top 20 Animes of the Decade

Hey all! Disappointed in some “best of” lists of this past decade? Well…prepared to be possibly disappointed some more because I’m doing one now! Here’s a top 20 list of my favorite animes that came out in the 2010’s. I seriously couldn’t do 10 this time due to how many awesome animes came out this decade. Unlike my anime superlative list, I’m going to be stricter here. Anything that aired in Japan before January 2010 is stricken from the list (which sucks because that means Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood & InuYasha: The Final Act are disqualified). And these are going to be MY favorites from this decade. Be aware that there will be popular animes I leave off the list due to my own personal opinions and the fact that some of them I have not watched yet. So I’m just going to tell you right now, don’t expect My Hero Academia, Hunter x Hunter, or Demon Slayer on this list because I have not watched any of that shit! Let’s get cracking!

20. Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card (2018)

After nearly 20 years since the end of the first series, Cardcaptor Sakura returns with a sequel no one asked for and no one expected to come back. But it definitely brought back the nostalgia for those who grew up watching CCS. This story gives a continuation where Sakura is in middle school and ends up collecting a whole new set of mysterious cards. And the series is what you would expect with the cutesy feel whenever Sakura is with Li or it gets really intense when Sakura’s up against a really powerful card. While the ending leaves us on a bit of a cliffhanger with no continuation in sight, this series was one of the best reboots I’ve watched in recent years.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, FUNimation, & Hulu Coming soon to home video

19. The Rising of the Shield Hero (2019)

This is my first (modern) Isekai and I gotta say I really enjoyed the story. Unlike other anime characters that travel to another world, the main character Naofumi is not praised as a savior nor put on a golden pedestal. Quite the opposite, this guy has to fight for even a shred of respect from anybody. Because after watching past protagonists like Miaka Yuuki, Kagome, and Kirito, that trope gets boring. Despite many of these episodes making me physically ill as I watched Naofumi being shit on by the other heroes and everybody else, it was great to watch this struggle with Naofumi to become a great shield hero.

P.S. Myne is still a raging cunt!

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll & FUNimation

18. My Love Story!! (2015)

One of the BEST rom-com animes out there! The story of a gentle giant boy named Takeo falling in love with a sweet, petite girl named Yamato and their story as a couple. Yeah, the big difference between this anime and a bunch of other anime rom-coms is that Takeo and Yamato reveal their love for each other in episode 4 in a 24 episode series! By anime standards, that’s unheard of because most love stories want to wait until the finale for something like that. This anime is just a cute story of watching Takeo and Yamato bloom with their budding relationship. Yeah, I admit some of the stories can be a little boring. Sometimes the beginnings of romances have a slow-start before we get to the good stuff. But even when they’re doing little things, they’re just so cute to watch.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, HI-DIVE & Hulu Available for home video

17. Durarara!! (2010, 2015-2016)

This story is a complete cluster-fuck, but I don’t care. The stories that come from this anime and the characters make this one of my favorites. Durarara follows the strange stories that happen around the town of Ikebukuro with a headless motorcycle rider, super-human strengthed men, an internet troll who loves to mess with humans, otakus, a mad scientist, a parasitic carrier, and gangs of different sorts. But if you would ask me what’s my favorite thing about Durarara (because there’s a lot of random things for anyone to choose), it would of course be any time Shizuo Heiwajima is on the screen. This guy is just pure rage in a bartender’s outfit. He’s able to casually pick up and throw a vending machine at a person, he can punch the clothes off a guy’s body, and even kick a mid-sized car down the street.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, Hulu & Netflix Available for home video

16. Daily Lives of High School Boys (2012)

If you’re looking for something random and hilarious to watch, look no further with this one. Each episode has random segments, mostly featuring three boys, Tadakuni, Hidenori, and Yoshitake in some of the most absurd moments ever showcased in an anime. Just to name a few fun moments; being caught experimenting with women’s underwear, finding a clever way to kill a hornet (indirect kiss), intellectual talk with a cute girl, using your jacket as a soccer ball replacement, and how to unzip your fly without using your hands! That last one still confounds me. But the show also expands to other characters around school and town. I know this series is severely random to have a coherent plot, but sometimes I prefer randomness. And that’ll continue with the next entry!

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll Available for home video

15. Nichijou (2011)

Yet another random segment anime (only this time with girls)! I know the official title is “My Ordinary Life”, but there is nothing ordinary about an anime where you have a six year old professor, a talking robot girl that was created by the six-year old professor, a talking black cat, high school girls capable of body-flipping police officers, a young boy who rides a goat to school, a high school girl capable of firing a bazooka, and a principal who fights a deer. That last one is just epic! If for no other reason to watch Nichijou, just watch the scene where the principal fights a deer! Much like Daily Lives of High School Boys, this series relies more on the random shenanigans of many of these characters (but mostly the main three girls, Mio, Yuuko, and Mai). It’s silly and fun! Check it out and give this anime a little love. Because there’s no way it’s getting a second season (Japan showed no love for this one)!

Available to watch on: FUNimation Available for home video

14. ERASED (2016)

I don’t care what manga readers say, this was a fine anime, you anal-rententive fuck-wipes (soooo not sorry for that statement)! This murder-mystery captured my attention when it first aired. The story is about a man named Satoru who has this ability to go backwards in time (usually a few seconds or minutes) to prevent a tragedy from occurring. But after an incident involving his mother, he ends up going all the way back to his ten-year old body in 1988 in order to prevent a tragedy from his childhood. This included saving his classmate, Kayo from her premature demise. It was a catchy time-leaping mystery that would enthrall me week after week…up to a certain point. Yeah, you can already guess who the culprit was early on. But all the suspense leading up to this was still a great tale.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll & Hulu Available for home video

13. Panty & Stocking w/ Garterbelt (2010)

GAINAX, you wishy-washy, crazy-ass, can’t give a full conclusion to a story to save your life, leaving us on a decade-long cliffhanger bastards, YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN!

So this bizarre-ass anime is about two bitch-angels kicked out of Heaven, named Panty and Stocking. One likes to fuck men and the other gorges herself on sweets! In order to get back into Heaven, they must exterminate ghosts with the help of a black priest named Garterbelt, a fanboy named Briefs, and an Invader Zim knock-off named Chuck. And did I mention Panty and Stocking use their own lingere as weapons to take down ghosts? This story is balls-to-the-wall insane! And it gets crazier when you pop in the English dub! Dick jokes, fart jokes, and a whole lot of fucks! As any superhero show will do, this anime does stay to the villain of the episode trope with a few leeways here and there. This included a segment dedicated to the late Satoshi Kon and a music video. All of this leading to an ending NO ONE expected to happen leaving us on a cliffhanger that is now going on 10 years. Regardless, this absurdity in a thong is a treasure to behold. I would also advise not doing a drinking game whenever one of them says “Fuck”. You’d be dead by the end of the first episode!

Available to watch on: FUNimation Available for home video

12. Attack on Titan (2013, 2017-2019)

*singing incoherent Japanese*

YEAGER!!!

Get ready to get hooked on two of the catchiest opening themes of all time! I thought it was just about a young boy taking revenge on a race of titans for the death of his mother. No one expected there to be a twisted, messed-up origin to the titan race where the main character is connected to everything! That’s all my messy thoughts coming out after witnessing the climax portion. As for the rest of you, Eren Yeager’s world is turned upside-down when the town he lived in is demolished by titans. As a result, the entire town is demolished and left for dead and Eren watched as his mother is eaten by a titan. Eren ends up joining the Survey Corps along with his friends Armin and Mikasa to take down titans and prevent another town to suffer the same fate as Eren’s home.

Going into this anime, I SERIOUSLY thought this was going to be a comedy. You would too if you were going off of all the memes that emerged in 2013. But this anime takes a sharp left turn when Eren discovers a horrifying secret involving his own body. After that, this lead to more unbelievable discoveries involving people we all initially thought was the supporting cast. And this is as cryptic as I can be without delving into severe spoilers. The only way to get my meaning is if you watch this series. It’s just…WOW!

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, FUNimation, Hulu, & Toonami Some seasons are available for home video

11. Kill la Kill (2013-2014)

A girl with a giant pair of scissors picking a fight with the main bitch at school, all the while wearing a sailor suit that talks to you! That is the balls-to-the-wall insanity Studio Trigger gives you in a show like this. Ryuko Matoi enrolls in Honnouji Academy in search of the person who murdered her father. There, she comes face-to-face with the potential murderer, Satsuki Kiryuin. Satsuki rules over Honnouji as she has a special uniform capable of giving her super-human strength. But what Satsuki doesn’t know is that Ryuko is about to get a special uniform to give her that as well. A talking sailor uniform named Senketsu helps Ryuko in her journey of finding her father’s murderer. Yeah, this series goes all-out with the special powers brought on by certain clothing. Then again, it’s Japan and fanservice is a must in at least 75% of animes! I mean, there are moments where Senketsu gets skimpier on Ryuko, not leaving much to the imagination. As absurdly off the wall this anime was, I enjoyed every frame of it and it’s easily one of Studio Trigger’s best works.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll & Netflix

10. Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma (2015-2019)

You’d think with my picky-ass, I would have never watched an anime about cooking (and if my family is reading this, close this page now and play a wholesome game of shutting your gobs). But Food Wars never fails to increase my appetite. Yukihira Soma ends up in Japan’s most elite cooking school (with a 10% graduation rate) where he finds himself up against Japan’s and even the world’s greatest up and coming chefs. And every now and then, he ends up having to go up against one of these chefs in a cook-off known as a Shokugeki. If it wasn’t for the food orgasms, I would easily tell my cooking-show obsessed family members to watch this. I know no normal person would ever strip off all their clothes and have a raging orgasm when eating delicious food. But hey, it’s Japan! Gotta stick in fanservice somewhere! With inventive ways to spice up a regular dish, I may one day broaden my taste-buds into more exotic food-stuffs. Just, keep the peanut-butter squid away from me.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, HI-DIVE, Hulu, & Toonami Some seasons are available for home video

09. Your Lie in April (2014-2015)

Grab your tissues, children. We follow Kousei Arima as he regains his ability and passion for playing the piano with the thanks of new-found friend Kaori. What can I say about an anime that’s so beautifully animated with likeable characters and music to die for? OHHH…I shouldn’t have said that last thing! Yeah, the main character Kousei goes through quite a bit in his life dealing with the aftermath of his mother’s death and having to relive seeing someone he cares about die the same way. There’s just so much you wish would happen with these characters and watch as it’s dashed away during a Chopin piece. OHHH…I did it again! Well folks, if you’re into tear-bait and classical music, definitely watch Your Lie in April!

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, Hulu, & Netflix

08. The Promised Neverland (2019)

One of the newest entries with one of the most shocking first episodes in recent history! I know in the past decade we got a lot of first episode hookers like Attack on Titan, but if you came in this blind-folded, get ready for a trip. We follow orphan children Emma, Ray, and Norman as they plan to escape their home before they become food for hungry demons. In a weird way, this anime is almost like the 2000 film Chicken Run. I know I’m not the first person to think that up, but yeah, gotta say it here. This was one of my favorite animes of this year and I was hooked week by week with what was going to happen next. It got so intense that immediately after the series ended, I picked up the manga to find out what happens next. And let me tell you, it gets more insane after the events of episode 12. But one thing that always astounded me was watching all of these kids plot an escape so elaborate when all of them range from ages 6-12.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, FUNimation, & Hulu

07. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid (2017)

What would you do if you opened the door one morning and found a dragon standing outside? Not just that but what would you do if you were living with more than one dragon and you now find yourself hanging around other dragons?! Kobayashi’s world changes for the better as she meets a dragon (named Tohru) that loves her so much that she would happily become her maid. And given the stigma for eons between humans and dragons, this series we see cute interactions with humans and dragons. Up to a point that it feels like all these characters are becoming family! There’s a dragon named Fafnir who finds humans horrible people, but ends up changing for the better when he finds himself hanging with a human that plays video games and creates manga. But I’m always so drawn to the relationship of Tohru and Kobayashi. Kobayashi was never really close to her family and when she moved away she mostly spends her nights drinking alone. But once Tohru and Kanna move in, it’s always a fun day with their cute shenanigans. It’s definitely brought Kobayashi out of her shell and gave her a family of dragons to live with.

And there’s this cute little dragon named Kanna! She’s so cute and adorable! Look at her nom at just everything she eats. She’s so adorable! Who’s a cute wittle dragon? Yes you are! Yes you are!

As a final note in this particular entry, I want to mention one particular member of the staff. Yasuhiro Takemoto! This man was the director for Miss Kobayashi, as well as many other animes from Kyoto Animation and I feel the need to thank this man for all the hard work he had done. I’m thankful for all of your work in the anime community and we miss you.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll & Funimation Available for home video

06. Pokemon XY (2013-2016)

It might be cheating a bit to put a Pokemon series on this list since they’ve been around since 1997. But it’s not a continuous shot like Detective Conan and One Piece, so I’m counting the XY arc for this list. Even though this series didn’t show me my favorite character and it gave me a shipping that’s worse than Herpes (with a cult for that ship that’s on par with MAGA), this was one of the best arcs to the Pokemon series. And I was excited for this series when it first came out because with the introduction of Mega Evolution, I was hoping for Ash to delve into that. While Ash wasn’t the one using Mega Evolutions, we did see him grow more through a synchronization method with Greninja that brought about so much in terms of battling. Just to name a few awesome moments with these two, he took down an iceburg pokemon, went toe-to-toe with a champion, and even made it all the way to the finals of the Pokemon League. Now did he win that league? That’s not important! What is important is that these were some of the best moments this series had to offer.

But it wasn’t just Ash we followed, but an anime-only character introduced named Alain as we followed his journey to becoming stronger through Mega Evolution. It felt risky following a different person for 5 or more episodes (without mentioning Ash), but it was all worth it when we came to the climax of the series when Team Flare came from the shadows. Listen guys, I know Pokemon has given some disappointing seasons before (especially the arc prior to XY), but if there’s any season you should watch, it’s definitely this one.

Also, Rica Matsumoto sings this one song called XYZ. I don’t know if you all have heard this song, but I think you should. It’s so bad ass and always pops up in some of Ash’s best battles in this series…in the Japanese version! I love it so much that I always feel the need to bring up XYZ whenever I talk about this arc.

Available to watch on: Disney XD, Hulu, & Pokemon TV Available for home video

05. Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)

I will always be a sucker for magical girl animes. Especially since Sailor Moon was the very first anime I watched fully! But Madoka Magica was…different and edgier. The premise is that a cute, white animal asks you to form a contract with it so you can become a magical girl. Magical girls defeat witches that cause havoc! Better read the fine-print on the contract ladies, because what the little rat doesn’t tell you is that you eventually become a witch yourself and will end up dying a horrible death, thus repeating the cycle. This anime would always leave me in a state of awe when watching it, whether it was the shocking deaths or the clever animation used when a witch emerges. But when you’ve got Shaft Studios animating this, expect some trippy moments. I think it’s because episode 3 was a big turning point that many of us were caught off guard by what happened and were scared of what happens next. Although thanks to Madoka, many other magical girl animes are following down the same path and trying to make it edgier. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I gotta say Madoka has definitely set the bar on edgy magical girl shows.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, FUNimation, & Hulu Available for home video

04. Violet Evergarden (2018)

Prior to this anime’s release, Kyoto Animation had a reputation for putting out anime that was geared to the “moe” genre. But with recent releases of A Silent Voice, Miss Kobayashi, and Violet Evergarden, their style has evolved into something I can’t describe in just one sentence. This anime is just beautiful to look at. The animation is just stunning, look at it. Now, I was a bit turned-off by the main character of this series, Violet. First of all, she literally looks like Saber from the Fate series and has arms that rival Ed Elric of FMA. Secondly, her almost robotic personality really turned me off. But it wasn’t until later in the series where we watch her interact with the people she was helping in each episode that made me truly appreciate what she’s doing.

Violet was once used as a tool for war and would always obey her commanding officer. But once the war was over, she found herself as an “Auto Memories Doll” where she’s writing letters people want to send to someone. Many of these episodes, we watch her see the world outside of the war and hell she was put through in her past. Her words were able to bring people together, heal two fighting nations, bring a family closer together, give closure to a grieving family member, and so much more. Add to that, this series gave out one of the most heart-breaking episodes I’ve ever watched in anime. It made me ugly-cry and that rarely happens! Not just me, but litereally everyone who ever watched this episode, but also Violet herself. This episode (that’s episode 10) was like the first time where she felt actual human emotions for anyone other than the person she once loved. This episode felt like a turning point in how I felt about Violet as well as the show in general.

I feel I have to say a little more on this entry. This anime is without a doubt, the most beautifully animated anime of this entire decade (despite what OTHERS have to say). And it couldn’t have gotten that way without the talented folks at Kyoto Animation. I can’t express enough how much I’m blown away by this series. Only now when I think about it, I get horribly depresssed due to the recent tragedy that struck KyoAni. Only now, do I appreciate all the hard work to put this masterpiece into action. And I wish it didn’t take me until a tragedy to watch this anime. But I’m glad I was able to watch Violet Evergarden. And I wish for you all to take the time to do the same!

Available to watch on: Netflix

03. Assassination Classroom (2015-2016)

Stand. Bow. Kill your sensei! Middle school students being trained by professional assassins to take down a yellow-tentacled monster (who is also their teacher)! These students must assassinate their teacher within one year, otherwise the world will blow up. Now I had my reservations watching a cast this big! I mean, we’re watching an entire 28-person class try to shoot their teacher. Thankfully, I didn’t grow to be annoyed by the concept like with Negima. I loved nearly all of the students and remembered many of them. One of the biggest drawing points with me is that, all of these students were seen as the ones to give up on. They were in the lowest-level class where school, family, and society have just given up on these children. Being in a much similar situation in middle school, I can relate. That’s why when I saw someone like Koro-sensei teach these kids so much more in the world of academics, it made me happy to see these kids have someone to look up to. Many of these episodes were fun to watch. Koro-sensei is a laugh-riot sometimes when the class has to do an activity together. Add to that, one of the hardest to watch goodbyes in recent history. For a good laugh and a good cry, Assassination Classroom is the way to go.

Available to watch on: FUNimation & Hulu Available for home video

02. Yuri on Ice!!! (2016)

AAAAAAHHHHHHH! *random screeching noises*

Why yes I love this series! It is so beautiful. I wish to see more of this in the future. I would like for Viktor to have Yuri’s babies. Don’t at me! I didn’t expect this series to give the female viewers an actual loving relationship between two of the main male characters. But halfway into the series, we get the kiss that cemented the deal. So besides the gay relationship, we’ve also got a beautiful soundtrack, animation that’s stunningly gorgeous, a story about an underdog working his way to receive a gold medal with the help of his hot, Russian coach…God, I just love this anime!

I’m a sucker for a root for the underdog story. And Yuri Katsuki definitely fits that description! Before Viktor came along, he was coming off of a humiliating defeat at a previous competition where he came in dead-last. But throughout the series, we watch Viktor mold Yuri into something audience members have overlooked in this boy. Viktor taught Yuri what love really is in more ways than one. But Yuri isn’t a total zero-to-hero in a span of 12 episodes, but at times he does come damn-near close. Every week, I’m amazed at how much Studio MAPPA put so much effort into this. While the quality did take a slight dip in some of the final episodes, so much has happened before that I’m willing to let that go. Watch Yuri attempt at making history with Yuri on Ice.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll & FUNimation Available for home video

Before I get to my anime of the decade, how about I quickly do my TOP 10 ANIME MOVIES OF THE DECADE? No commentary, just announcing them quickly.

10. The Last: Naruto the Movie (2014)

09. When Marnie Was There (2014)

08. Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms (2018)

07. Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods (2013)

06. Kizumonogatari (2016-2017)

05. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (2010)

04. Pokemon: I Choose You (2017)

03. Your Name (2016)

02. A Silent Voice (2016)

01. Wolf Children (2012)

CLOSE CALLS FOR THE LISTS: Black Lagoon – Roberta’s Blood Trail, Sailor Moon Crystal, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Fate/Zero & Fate/stay night: UBW, Angel Beats, The Wind Rises, Parasyte, One Punch Man, Aggretsuko, Steins;Gate, Inu x Boku SS, and Dragon Ball Super.

And now, #1…oh, you should already know what it is by now. One of my favorite animes came back with the vengeance in 2019 that no other anime can touch it. Rightfully so! You know it, I know it, let’s get it over with! So say it with me now, three, two, one…

01. Fruits Basket: 1st Season (2019)

Thank you! Just…thank you! In a time where I hate reboots, this one was handled with the utmost care. What can I say about this anime that everyone else hasn’t said already? This anime is like warm soup on a cold day. The nice pick-me-up when you had a shitty day on the job! That beautiful rainbow you see after a rain shower!

Coming upon a family with a terrible secret, there’s much hesitation on who (if any) can be let in without being hurt. Tohru Honda accidentally learned of the Sohma family secret, where if one of them is hugged by someone of the opposite sex, they’re turned into an animal from the Chimese Zodiac. These people have had to live with this stigma their entire lives. Because of this, relationships are put in turmoil, obtaining friends was damn-near impossible, and everyone has to be on a constant state of worry in case their secret comes out. But Tohru loves and accepts everyone, no matter what. In many of these episodes, we see Tohru reach out to the members of the Sohma family to tell them that she sees the good in them and that they are loved. To reach out to the hurt, silent tiger, Kisa! To reach out to the mentally-scarred rat, Yuki! To reach out to the heart-broken dragon, Hatori! And to give a hug to Momiji…when his momma won’t!

All of these individual stories always gets to me! Even re-told, these stories have improved 100%! And in some cases like Ritsu’s story, done better than the original! I watched the original story God-knows how many times! But with the remake, I found myself re-watching random episodes in my off-time when I should be watching something else. I always have to go back to watching everything from this series. From the good and the sad! From the ultra-laughable moments, to the jaw-dropping moments! In a time where many of us yearn to be accepted for who we are, an anime like this feels absolutely necessary. I know it might be biased of me to pick something from this year and cheating a bit considering at the beginning of the decade I was heavily into the original series. Regardless, this is still my pick for Best Anime of the 2010’s.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, FUNimation, & Hulu

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theartoflivingalways · 4 years

Text

i’ve been awake for over 24 hours

I haven’t been on tumblr in years. i stopped using it after high school, but I don’t know why. but now I’m back tonight, because I needed someone to talk to, but I have no one to listen. i have friends, i have family, i have a boyfriend. i have a therapist. but no matter what: i feel so unheard, so unseen, and so ignored by everyone in my life that i literally feel like i have no one to truly turn to. for anything. so, here i am. hope i get a warm welcome!!!

here’s the thing: i’m NOT a depressed person. i’m not sad, i don’t have any major mental health issues apart from anxiety and some adhd. and before you take that the wrong way, please don’t. i just got my master’s degree in social work and i’ll be starting my new job as a therapist in a couple of weeks.

but, i’m also NOT a happy person. tbh, i can’t really describe my overall ~mood~ or whatever you wanna call it. i kinda just wake up and survive the day, every day. i take it one day at a time ... kinda like what AA says to do; but no, before you ask or the thought crosses your mind, i’m not an addict. at least not a alcohol/other drugs addict ??? sorry

maybe this is why there’s no one to listen when i need them to. i fucking ramble about literally nothing before getting to the point.

it’s weird that i’m writing right now (ok, typing???). i haven’t done this since i was little. it feels good to do this, to have some sort of outlet when you feel so fucking unseen and unheard by every. single. person. around you.

so i haven’t slept in over 24 hours. it’s my own fault for sure and i have adderall to thank for that (yes i’m prescribed). i decided to start a blog again because i’m sitting here, still wide awake in my apartment, alone, while my boyfriend is sound asleep in my bedroom.

so what’s my fucking problem??? why do i want someone to talk to?? i don’t know honestly. i just feel like lately all i do is listen to others, help others, give myself completely to others. and in return, i get nothing. nothing even close to what i give, or to what i’m capable of giving. which is sad. not for me particularly (maybe?), but for others, yes, i think so.

i’m not saying that i expect anything in return for helping others, because i don’t. i didn’t enter the field of social work for the fucking money. and i know a lot of fucked up shit is going on in the world right now, and in no way do i want to minimize ANY of that. i’m just feeling a little lost and lonely, so i’m hoping this is a new outlet for me to sort out those feelings.

the last couple of hours, i’ve had a LONG string of thoughts. if you read through, you’ll eventually found out how they started. but one of the things i’ve been wrestling with in my mind is the type of person i am.

you see, it’s difficult to be “that” person for others your whole life, especially all the fucking time. if you’re anything like me, you know what i mean by that. and if you aren’t anything like me, well, first of all congrats!!!!, and secondly, i’ll explain what i mean.

when you’re “that” person for others, like myself, it’s easy for other people to walk all over you. take advantage of you, take you for granted, expect you to ALWAYS be there no matter the cost. and of course, why wouldn’t they? you’re always there to help. you’re ALWAYS there to offer support, guidance, and advice. you’re nurturing. you listen. you’re a fucking irreplaceable, loyal to death friend. if you’re VERY much like me, you’re also the one person in your family who isn’t a total fuck up (at least not publicly?)

you’re also nonjudgmental, and you were blessed with the curse of being empathic towards others at all times. empathy of course is beautiful and a very good thing to have in this life, but do you know how hard it is to feel for every single person around you.. and not have anyone feel for you???? damn

also, you never let anyone down!! ever. you’re reliable, dependable, trustworthy to the point where it’s almost sketchy because like??? who can be that way to everyone else at all times? you guessed it- people like me and people like u!! (if this is even semi-relatable, i’m sorry)

but people like us, like you, like me, tend to do this thing where we keep the same shitty fucking toxic people around that have hurt us, continue to hurt us both indirectly and directly, and who have let us down time and time again, because we continue clinging on to the fucking useless hope that “someday they’ll change”. someday, they’ll realize how fucking important you are to them and how shitty their lives are, and would be, without you in it.

you- we - also live by honesty and truthfulness, and assume others just live by this as well. but then you’re proved wrong over and over and over again, yet you never fucking learn your lesson because you are STILL hopeful that somewhere, somehow, deep down, other people DO stand by the morals you try so hard to stand by in life. most of the time, though, you’re completely avoiding the reality of other people and their experiences and who they really are, only to try to fit your own narrative of how you see things and how you think things should be.

if this sounds anything like you... i’m sorry. i know it all too well.

i grew up as the “golden child” in my family. not just my immediate family. my entire fucking family. the pressure to be perfect has lead me to develop debilitating anxiety in my 20′s, and it is what it is, but like, why the fuck couldn’t i have anxiety in high school like a normal teenager? why now?

so yeah my anxiety’s pretty bad. it’s pretty bad tonight, which is why i turned here. to tumblr. to try to write out my thoughts. which, by the way, i’m sorry, because this is an absolute fucking mess and makes no sense. if you are reading this, though, thank you. thank you for listening when no one else seems to.

anyway. growing up with the pressure of being *perfect* has a cost. at least for me it did: 1) anxiety of course, and 2) perfectionist tendencies. these have literally- LITERALLY - ruined my entire college and graduate school experience. perfectionism combined with anxiety is a recipe for fucking disaster, and i’ve been cooking it for years.

i am deliberately writing this without proper punctuation/grammer/whateverthefuckyouwanttocallit, not capitalizing my letters etc., because i want to not have to be so perfect all the time on here, if this is something i’m going to stick to. i know that sounds silly but it’s actually been very difficult for me to write in all lower-caps and i’m very worried that no one will even read this and HEAR ME because of my literacy negligence (i have no idea if that’s even a real thing or if it even has meaning but it sounded right)

do u want to know why i decided to write this though, truly? what lead to me feeling like i’m “spiraling” - apart from no sleep in over 24 hours now? well, get ready to laugh, because i truly think i’m pathetic and going crazy.

i went to dinner tonight with my boyfriend and his fam. our waitress was a girl i used to know years ago in high school. my boyfriend knew her too. in fact, he knew her VeRY well. for the sake of my anxious overthinking, i don’t feel like going too much into the details of *that* situation, so thanks in advance for understanding.

anyway. this corny bitch made a joke about the current political environment. i won’t say what exactly, because i’d really like to keep my identity as concealed as absolutely possible on here. but long story short, no one really laughed - every one just kinda smiled awkwardly. but you know who did laugh? my boyfriend :)

TO ME, it seemed intentional. she wasn’t fucking funny, for one. she made a bad - no, a very bad- joke. like one of those corny dad jokes. not even a dad joke actually. a step-dad joke, except your step-dad is a loser that you hate, who treats ur mom/dad bad, has no sense of humor or a horrible sense of humor and idk, just fucking sucks you know ???

sorry that got kinda dark and it was unnecessary but do u know what i mean??? and no, that was literally not relevant to me or my family system/structure in any way. just kinda came to me, ya know? ...writing works in mysterious ways man

alright so if you don’t agree, that’s fine. i already told you to get ready to laugh, because i am well aware of how insane i fucking sound. but you know what makes anxiety & perfectionism 100x harder to cope with? insecurities. and i’m FULL of them.

so anyway. we left dinner. him & i were driving home. i will admit that i did have some wine at dinner, and i wasn’t drunk but i definitely was feeling cocky enough to stir the pot with him. so, i casually said, “hey... didn’t you date _____?” *insert annoying waitress’s name who i knew once upon a time*

i said it very calmly. very coooool. v collected and nice. he said “no? i’ve never even talked to or hungout with that girl”.

i wish u could see my face as i’m writing this right now bc i cannnot. like i gave u a choice.... the opportunity. tHE SIMPLE opportunity - a chance - to be fucking honest................................

this dude. straight up. lied to my face. about this fucking girl. ???????

YEARS AGO, they most certainly did talk. a lot. in fact, my crAZy ass searched their names on facebook to find their old little love notes to each other that they posted on each others’ walls. which were very cringey but nothing that made me feel jealous or insecure (for once). after all, they were from years ago- i’m talking 5+ - so likeeee.... why would he lie (:

oh and they definitely did hang out because.... i remember clearly.... a PICTURE OF THE two of them *together* *hangin* (prob bangin too) (sorry) years ago in this now-waitress’s bedroom. i believe it was a ~webcam photo~ that they took on the new mac computer her parents prob bought her. so this photo is now NO WHERE to be found. and believe me, i looked. no, i LURKED. i went to the beginnnning of her instagram posts and deep into her uploaded facebook pictures. ok, not ‘deep’, i literally got to the first pic she ever posted on FB just to try to find this damn picture. and it took me for. fucking. ever. because this bitch has prolly posted a million pictures in the last 5+ years like who does that???

but i swear to fucking whatever the fuck that this picture exists. i have fucking seen it. i’d describe it in perfect detail right now as if i saw it today, but, once again, i’m concealin my identity, yo, so i can’t do all that. v sorry

anywho. this dude - who i call my boyfriend (and yes i love him very very much and our past is absolutely fucked but that’s a whole other story for a very different time) - had the nerve, the audacity, to tell me to my face, that he “definitely doesn’t have a picture with her” because “they’ve never hung out or talked before” ... ?!??????

obv i sent him screenshots of the dirt i dug up on facebook from 5+ years ago (i.e., the old posts between them in case ya forgot during my rambling) bc like, caught ya in a lie sir. red handed.

i might be late on mentioning this part, but here’s the fucking kicker (and i’ve never used that phrase and i don’t know why i said that but ok?): TODAY, for the first time in MONTHS, literally!!!, bc of the virus and the quarantine and all that, i got ready today for dinner with his family. like actually got ready. i spent HOURS doing my make up. i don’t even remember the last time i did my make up, ok. i dressed in a really cute outfit. i felt fucking very good about myself. i thought for sure when he’d come pick me up to go to dinner he’d at least say something. at least acknowledge it. he has literally only seen me in raw form for too many days now. like, complete bare face and sweat pants basically every day since march.

but. did he even look at me twice?!!? no. did he mention anything about how i looked? how it was drastically different from my everyday attire the last couple months? did he take 2 seconds out of his day to say something corny or flirty to me? even just, “you look beautiful”??? honestly i would’ve even appreciated, “you look beautiful, for once” ???

did u guess the correct answer? well if u didn’t, it’s N O.

but u know who he did look at twice.

our waitress at dinner.

i think i wrote enough for one night. if u think this is my anxiety/perfectionism/insecurities combination spiraling out of control after being tamed incessantly for 20+ years, PLZ TELL ME.

but also, if you have a fucking brain, you’d know that:

1) this is definitely NOT the first time i’ve responded to something like this the way i did, and

2) i really just needed to ramble on and vent about all the shit that’s been going through my mind the last 2 1/2 hours, so there’s that.

have a good night get some sleep!!! thank u for ur time.

#why #me #cantsleep #upfor24hours #adderall #waitress #insecure #perfect #anxiety #sorry #helpme #help #needsleep #dontwanttotho #goodnight #getsomerest #ily #thanku

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mikhailoist · 5 years

Text

clementine

“You okay?”

“Yes, but--”

“Good.”

While the bunker sleeps, Dean remains awake. He sits under a slowly dimming light with a bulb that needs to be changed, his hand resting on the side of a beer bottle. Normally, he’d down two or three in one go, but tonight is different. He can’t seem to muster the energy to lift the bottle to his lips and take a single sip, which is worrying, because drinking is what he relies on to take the pain away.

It wasn’t always. For a while there, he had something else -- someone else, anyway. But that someone is gone, and it’s Dean’s fault, and he’s not entirely sure how to fill the hole in his heart this time around.

“I’m leaving.”

Dean looks up from his laptop, those words piquing his interest slightly more than the article about an apparent ghost sighting in Denver.

“Excuse me?”

Cas shifts awkwardly, his eyes trained to the floor. He’s been doing that a lot lately -- refusing to look Dean in the eye.

“I believe I am no longer of any use to you or Sam,” he states. “So I’m leaving.”

Dean’s eyebrows knit together, his mind swept up in a whirlwind of emotions. He’s angry. Confused. He’s not quite sure he’s hearing Cas right. Why would he leave? Why now?

“Cas, what the hell?” Dean doesn’t intend to raise his voice at the angel, but it happens. It’s been happening a lot during these past few weeks, and he knows it’s not fair to the angel, but he can’t help it. His mom, she… It wasn’t that long ago. Holding a grudge is what he does, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want Cas around.

Doesn’t he know that?

When Cas fails to reply, the anger gets a little louder, rushing through Dean’s veins like violent rain. He stands up, kicks his chair back, ignores the way Cas winces because what the hell.

”You would leave me and Sam to fight every soul in hell on our own?” He walks around the map table, approaching Cas with fire in his eyes. “What the fuck, Cas?”

Cas winces, but the venom in Dean’s voice doesn’t stop him from lifting his head and meeting the hunter’s gaze. And for the first time in weeks, Dean sees it. He sees it all -- the pain, the frustration, the heartbreak -- all in those blue eyes staring back at him.

“You said us against every soul in Hell,” Cas says simply. “And you said it to Sam. I’m not a part of us. Maybe I never have been.”

“Okay, now you’re just not making any sense,” Dean snaps. But the thing is, he’s making perfect sense. Dean understands, and he wants to tell Cas that he needs him here, that they can’t do this without him, but the words die on his lips. He’s just still so angry.

“I’m sorry it doesn’t make sense to you, Dean,” Cas says. “I wish I could put it into simpler terms for you.”

“So what? After everything, you just--” Dean gives his hand a frustrated wave. “You’re just going to throw all of it away?”

“It’s not like that,” Cas says. There’s the slightest twinge of desperation in his voice. Desperation to make Dean understand why he’s leaving. That it’s not because he’s given up on the brothers, or that he doesn’t want to fight this war with them.

It’s because of something else.

And Dean knows it.

He’s just too afraid to see it.

“Then what?” Dean demands. “What is it like?”

Cas shakes his head. He looks exhausted. He sounds exhausted, too, when those next few words fall from his tongue and bury themselves in Dean’s head.

“You haven’t forgiven me,” he says. “And I understand. You need time and space to heal. And I -- Dean, I just want you to be happy again.”

Dean’s breath catches in his lungs. His eyes linger on Cas, unwavering, taking in his broken expression and he’s so sorry. He’s sorry he hurt Cas. And he forgives him.

Of course he fucking forgives him.

“Cas--”

“Goodbye, Dean.”

It’s been weeks. Dean has tried praying. Over and over again, he’s locked his hands together and closed his eyes and begged for Cas to come back. We need you, he’s said. We can’t do this without you, Cas. Please.

Sam says he’ll be back. Says he just needs time.

Time we don’t have, Dean thinks bitterly. Every day, there’s at least fifty stories in the news that could be their kind of thing. A case. But it’s too much. They can’t possibly take on all these souls from Hell, not just the two of them. And yeah, sure, they have Rowena, and a few other hunters helping out as often as they can -- but none of those people are Cas.

Dean stands up, leaving his untouched bottle on the kitchen table as he retreats to his room. He gently shuts the door behind him, careful not to wake Sam in the next room, before lowering himself onto the edge of his mattress. He heaves a deep sigh and buries his face in his hands.

”You’re dead to me.”

Cas should’ve told them about Jack.

Jack killed his mother.

But Dean forgave Jack, he chose not to kill him -- and yeah, maybe that’s what got them into this whole mess with God and a brand new apocalypse -- but there’s no way he could’ve pulled that trigger.

Jack was their son.

Theirs.

And Cas never spoke up because he just wanted to protect him.

“I know why you did it, Cas,” Dean whispers. Another prayer. He knows it’ll go unheard and unanswered, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He has to do something, even if it’s just speaking to his bedroom wall.

“I know why you kept the truth about Jack a secret from us,” he continues. “I get it. Okay? I forgive you, I forgive Jack, I’m… I miss her, Cas, but it’s not your fault she’s gone. It’s not.”

He pauses. The words sliding past his tongue are starting to taste stale. It didn’t take long after Cas left for Dean to utter them the first time, and he knows, somehow, it’s not really what Cas wants to hear.

”It’s not your fault.”

“I forgive you.”

“Just come back already, Cas.”

“Damn it, Cas, why aren’t you listening?”

Dean lowers his hands onto his lap. He sits there quietly for a few minutes, maybe an hour, he’s not really sure. In that span of time, he spaces out, not really feeling anything. Trying to ignore the ache in his heart.

And then -- just like that -- it all comes crashing down on him.

“Cas.” His voice breaks when he says the name, and he should really stop before the tears fall, but the feelings just keep coming. “I’m scared, man. Sam, he’s -- there’s something wrong. That bullet wound, it did something to him. And I -- I don’t know how to win this fight, Cas. There’s too many of them. And it’s God. How are we supposed to beat God?”

He inhales deeply, desperate to steady himself, but it’s far too late. He wipes a tear away with a trembling hand.

“You were always a part of us, Cas,” he mutters. “And I -- I know I made you feel differently. And I’m sorry, okay? I am. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. That’s not the first time I’ve been a dick to you, and you deserve better. For all the times you’ve busted your ass to save me and Sam, you deserve so much fucking better. And I’m sorry. It’s just -- I was angry. That’s not an excuse, but I was so angry that I lost my mom again and I couldn’t think straight. But you didn’t do anything wrong. You were never dead to me, Cas. Never. And you never will be.”

A shaky breath slips past his lips. He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to picture the angel in his mind.

He misses him.

He doesn’t really know what changed, but he knows he’s never missed Cas this badly before.

(Not since the time he was actually dead.)

“I can’t do this without you,” Dean whispers. “I know you said you wanted me to be happy again. But that’s the thing, Cas. I don’t think I know how to be happy without you.”

The tears slide down his cheeks.

They won’t stop.

“I need you, Cas,” he says. “I love you.”

The moment he says it, he feels a weight lifting off his chest. The hole in his heart is still there, but now he knows. He knows there’s only one thing, one person, really, who can fill that hole. And that person, that angel -- he’s not just a friend, or another hunter. He’s not just someone Dean calls when he needs help.

”I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.”

“I did it -- all of it -- for you.”

“When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost!”

“I’d rather have you. Cursed or not.”

“Never change.”

“I need you.”

“You mean too much to me.”

“I love you.”

There it is.

“That took you long enough.”

Dean jumps up in surprise, nearly falling off the bed. It takes him a few seconds to realize who that voice belongs to, and a few more seconds to turn his head and face him.

“Cas,” he breathes. “You came back.”

The angel offers a little half-smile. He stands in the corner of Dean’s room, mostly hidden in the shadows, but it’s him and he came back. He looks a little uncertain, like he’s not sure if Dean will start yelling at him again or not.

But Dean’s tired of yelling.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says. “Cas, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Cas steps out of the shadows, and those blue eyes of his look so relieved and so happy. Dean feels his heart begin to swell. “I know.”

Dean rises to his feet and approaches the angel with caution. There’s still some broken pieces that need mending, and still a lot that they both have to say.

“You… heard my prayer?”

“I heard all of them,” Cas says gently. “But this one… this one felt significant.”

“Yeah.” Dean shyly dips his head. “Yeah, it did to me, too.”

Cas takes a step forward, slowly closing the gap between them. Dean lifts his still wet eyes to the angel’s, his heart weakening under the pressure of a single realization.

He lets himself feel it all, for the very first time. It feels good, it feels right -- but he’s not sure Cas feels the same way.

“I love you too, you know,” the angel says.

“I know,” Dean says. “I know you do.”

“Try not to misunderstand me, Dean,” Cas says with a shake of his head. There’s a faint smile on his lips, though it looks almost exasperated, like he wishes Dean would just finally understand. “The love I feel for you… well, it’s different. And I think it’s different for you, too.”

Dean exhales, a little surprised, swept up in the ocean of Castiel’s gaze. His heart rate quickens, his hands itch to reach out and hold onto Cas, and he knows.

(Although maybe, on some level, he’s always known.)

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he fears he’s about to break apart again. The tears return at full force, and he turns his head away, doesn’t want Cas to see him cry. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

“Dean.” Squinting through the mistiness in his eyes, Dean can barely see a thing, but he can feel it. The arms that wrap tightly around him and pull him against a chest, a chest that feels warm and safe. “You don’t have to apologize anymore.”

“You’ve always been there, Cas,” Dean says with a shattered voice. “Ever since you pulled me out of Hell. And I -- I never could’ve done it without you, man. I love you and I’m--” He wraps his arms around Cas, grabbing a fistful of the angel’s trenchcoat in both hands. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner. I’m sorry I pushed you away, Cas, and I’m never gonna stop apologizing for that, because you deserve so much fucking better.”

Cas pulls away slightly. Tentatively, he lifts a hand and places it against the side of Dean’s face.

“Dean.” The kindest smile forms on his lips, a smile that mends the pain in Dean’s chest with ease. “Don’t you get it? You are better. You taught me how to live freely, how to love, and you were by my side the entire time. You should really give yourself a little more credit, because the way I feel when I’m with you… well, I think that’s what saved me the first time around.”

Dean stares at him. And after a moment, through the tears still shining in his eyes, he finds the strength to smile back.

“Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Cas says. “But I want you to understand why I did it. After… after Mary, you were in a lot of pain. But you were pushing that pain down, as you do, and not letting yourself feel anything. I couldn’t watch you do that to yourself anymore. You needed to start the healing process, Dean, and you needed to do it on your own.”

“I know,” Dean says. “I was really unfair to you, Cas. And you’re right. I didn’t know how else to deal with my crap other than to bury it. But I’m so damn tired of that. I just want to feel something again. Something other than this goddamn hole in my chest.”

“Then do it,” Cas says, softly. “Feel what you want to feel.”

The gap between them is nearly closed, less than an inch of breathing room between their faces. Startled by the sound of his racing heart, Dean holds onto Cas in every way he knows how. He holds the angel’s gaze in his own, enthralled by the deepest shade of blue, and Cas doesn’t look away. And Dean, well, he’s afraid, and he can’t think straight anymore, but he’s tired of thinking. He doesn’t take much notice of his own hands grabbing onto Cas’s shoulders, of the angel’s hands finding a space to rest on Dean’s waist.

Dean breathes in deeply, and he smiles, and finally, finally lets himself feel what he’s always wanted to feel.

He kisses Cas tenderly at first, a soft joining of the lips that’s full of uncertainty. Cas is the one who lets Dean know that it’s okay, that it’s right. You can do better than that, Dean, the hunter can almost hear him say.

So he does.

He deepens the kiss, his hungry lips finally grabbing onto what they’ve craved for a decade now. Those feelings he’s always wanted to feel come rushing in, replacing the violent rain in Dean’s veins with steady spring showers and new beginnings.

Dean moves his hands first to the sides of Cas’s face, and then suddenly they’re tangled in his hair. Cas just keeps pulling Dean closer, like he never intends to let him go, and Dean hopes he doesn’t. He hopes the angel -- his angel -- stays here, completely and utterly bonded with him, no doubts, no regrets. It’s all they’ve both ever wanted.

Dean’s not afraid. Not anymore.

He doesn’t know how long the kiss lasts before he breaks away, panting a little. Cas looks at him, a fire alive in his eyes, his lips a bit swollen. Dean’s hands are still in his hair, and he gently brings their foreheads together.

“Cas,” he whispers.

“Yes, Dean?”

“I’m…” He lets out a little laugh, his hands sliding back down to Cas’s shoulders. “I’m just pretty fucking happy right now.”

Cas smiles. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

The angel is the one who initiates the second kiss, and they hold onto each other as everything falls into place. Even though the world outside is coming to an end, even though the future is dark and unknown, at least they’re finally together.

At least they’re finally happy.

#inspired by 15x01 yeehaw #also the spoilers that cas is gonna end up leaving the boys in s15 #i also posted this on ao3 if y'all wanna go check it out #subscribe to ofmyeuphoria :)#deancas #destiel #dean x cas #dean x castiel #deancas fanfic #destiel fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #dean winchester #castiel #cas #supernatural #spn

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princeleyjeans · 4 years

Text

Why Internet Justice is NEVER fair: An example-

TikTok, basically Vine and Musically’s derpy lovechild, yet as of recently, a place of rising tension, drama, abuse, and constant “My POV of the situation” videos. Mob mentality: prevalent in society both on and offline, basically whatever you do, say, see will be sliced into a number of pieces and divided amongst hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions and whether you were right, wrong, innocent or guilty, those people, will have an opinion and either take your side wholeheartedly or be against that side or even just not care and be on their own island of “Leave me the fuck out of it”. Can’t blame them, I’m the same most days, unless it’s juicy or I’m just bored and need something to read/judge because as you can tell by my blog, I do not get out much, even before Corona. The reason for this post? Because I’m pissed. Why? Because the internet, as always, well, social media, well, TikTok, Well, life generally but we can slap that ass later. Over the last week, I’ve seen posts about abuse, cheating, manipulation, harassment, all that, and while watching those coming out to present their evidence, I looked at the comments and saw all these people, dismissing them, their evidence, their physical proof/snapshots/convos/pics/etc, these users, were getting laughed at, brushed off, told they wanted/encouraged said abuse/harassment because of what they did for a living, what they didn’t, how they acted and spoke and dressed, even for characters they cosplayed, and I was just sat there, wanting to smash through my ipad and address these idiots because god knows if it was them, they wouldn’t be saying shit like “What do you expect when you make ‘insert character here’ content?” if it was them, and I get that, everyone can be a hypocrite but we do so much to help and support victims of abuse/harassment/assault to come out and get justice, that people thinking this response is fine is just, utterly astounding, it blows my mind how the internet can be so pro, yet also, incredibly, violently anti to anybody, anybody, ironically, mostly those trying to actually get help/support. The internet is as dangerous a place as it is amazing, and I guess, that’s the thing, pros, and cons, good and bad.....fair and unfair. Now lemme say a thing, lemme tell you a story that adds to this whole theme: A few years ago, I was a blog on here, left for so long and came back late last year after being away following a military-grade assault on my account via a bunch of rad stans who decided I was annoying/outspoken enough that they needed to get rid of me whatever way possible, which lead to me being hacked, accused of being a pedophile, assaulting one of their friends (On the other side of the world, even tho I was beyond broke, anxious af and could hardly stand human touch by anyone, including my own family), being a racist, gay fetishist, using my gender identity/sexuality to avoid justice, lying about my parents being dead (They liked to call me adopted/a runway/kicked out because nobody wanted me, lots of lovely things), sexualizing everything (Minors, animals, etc), these people went after my friends, some of whom, were victims of abuse/assault/violence themselves, they received messages similar to the comments in the Tiktok posts, one who was even a victim of child abuse, received sickening messages about how they wanted/deserved it, someone who simply refused to listen/be apart of the drama caused by these people and kept to themselves, they were attacked as viciously by so called “Justice bringers”. As the arguments went on, any post I made was cut up, repasted and turned into something entirely different, or used in alternate context when literally I could be talking about something made for lunch and somehow it would become sexual/racist/disturbing, I couldn’t sneeze without it being policed. Eventually, and not all that shocking, I left, after being broken down, hunted, mocked, abused verbally and dropped by people once known as friends, there were even threats of doxxing, which as you can imagine, did not aid my already shattered mental state. Despite no real evidence, and scraps the radical Stans tried to use against me being debunked quite quickly thanks to my depressed butt never going anywhere or doing anything other than posting online, people turned, a lot of people turned and treated me as though I was guilty, some even demanding I block them because of how disgusting/troublesome I was, despite everything my harassers had being proven as bullshit and obvious lies, their side was taken, users excused their behavior as simply “protecting other tumblr accounts”, doing the fandom a favor and stomping out trouble makers, defending those who couldn’t defend themselves. As you can understand, that event caused me lots of issues with trust and posting online, some I’m not over today, and even making this post scares me despite best efforts to laugh off everything with dark humor and a smug attitude. When I was accused, few took my side, those few I’m still thankful for today and cherish because it showed me who my friends were. But despite being innocent, I was treated as guilty. And on TikTok, those guilty are being treated as innocent, defended, supported while the sufferers of their abuse are attacked, mocked, treated like the criminal despite having evidence to back up their claims. Seeing that just hits a sore spot and so, I wanted to make this post. The internet isn’t fair, but speak up anyway, demand to be listened to and don’t let those who’ve hurt you get away with it, you’re loved, you’re special, you’re wanted, you’re going to be okay, and if someone doesn’t believe you, keep shouting, keep making noise, keep believing yourself. Get your justice. Nobody should go unheard.

#I need sleep #support #post #venting #kinda #bye #uhhhh my soul

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soft-foxxay · 5 years

Text

Neglectful • foxxay

Lately, Cordelia had been putting more effort on her position as supreme than anything else, including her relationship with Misty. And lately, Misty had been feeling way too lonely that she started to think that Cordelia is neglecting their relationship on purpose. They barely have little night conversations that usually don't happen because Cordelia is often too tired.

That night wasn't much different, Cordelia was out to manage some stuff leaving Misty alone to deal with her loneliness. Misty was trying to get herself busy with some plants at the greenhouse before she started suffocating with her own overthinking. The tears threatened her eyes and she felt her explosion approaching, so she let go of what she was doing and decided to go back inside and drown all the useless thoughts with sleep.

As she got in, she caught the sight of Zoe and Madison chattering in the hall, more like lowly arguing, with the fireplace dimly illuminating the white walls. She tried to make her steps unheard as she made her way upstairs, avoiding any kind of contact with the other witches.

She turned the light off as soon as she entered the room, letting the room drown into the darkness, as if she was afraid invisible creatures would see her tears if they fell. She buried herself beneath the covers and gave sleep a way into her, but sleep wasn't there to come.

This was even more torturing to her, to lay awake in bed, surrounded but the emptiness of the room and struggling with her demons that started to swallow her alive.

In that meantime, Cordelia shut the door behind her as she got into the big white mansion, her eyes scanning the place on hope to find Misty somewhere around, but instead all she could find was the two girls disagreeing with each other as usual.

"Where's Misty?" The supreme questioned, a serious tone of concern adoring her voice. Her voice made the two girls lift their heads up towards her.

"How am I supposed to know? My girlfriend or yours?" Madison hurried to answer, clearly showing her annoyance.

Cordelia let the sigh drift out of her lips at Madison's unhelpful answer, and decided to go look Misty by herself. Guilt was running in her veins and burning her up on the inside, she wished that she had spent more time with Misty, not only because she knew that Misty was probably upset now, but also because she missed her so much. She missed everything about her one true love.

She was met by the darkness of the room once she stepped in. Unlike every night, Misty wasn't waiting for her, which grew heartache in her at some point. She took off her shoes and every cloth that covered her body except her underwear and bra before she lied in bed with her arms wrapped around Misty's still waist.

"I don't wanna talk to ya." Misty uttered, which caused the other woman to let go of her much needed sleep and pour her attention on Misty.

"Why is that, love?" Cordelia let her voice fill the room as she planted a bunch of gentle kisses of Misty's bare shoulder.

"Ya know why." The swamp witch tried to suppress the tears within her eyes, but seemingly all her attempts fell off a cliff when her cheeks got damp with tears.

Cordelia did know, by rewinding everything that happened between them through the previous week she came to realize she was pretty neglectful, in a painful way. Her eyes were opened to the fact that she'd been treating Misty like any normal witch in her coven more than a girlfriend. And by that time she came to understand why Misty was upset, she had the right to be.

"I'm sorry I-" She tried to speak, but not even apologizing could wipe away the guilt she felt. How did she not realize before, how did she not see how hurt her lover was, because of her.

"Yeah sure." Misty immediately replied, cutting off Cordelia. The pain her voice added more onto Cordelia, crushing her heart into dust.

She pulled Misty even closer, nuzzling her head into her neck. She filled her senses with Misty's scent like a needed medicine. In one moment she felt like her tears were about to burst out of her eyes in a way she wouldn't resist, but she knew she had to stop herself.

"I'm so sorry, baby. Listen, I know I've been- a big great pain in the ass and I'm not saying I'm not the one to blame, I was wrong for being so damn neglectful. But hey, maybe we can make up now? I was already planning for something for us tonight but to find out that you've already went to bed ruined it, but we're good, okay?" The supreme spoke, in a gentle voice tone that was a little shaky, brushing away a hair lock that blocked the view of Misty's face.

"It doesn't matter, we make up tonight but as you wake, you're no different." Painfully, Misty replied, stabbing a thousand knives right into Cordelia's heart.

"At this point, you're wrong. I just don't want you ever think that all this neglect we've been going through is intended or anything, it's just a tough while we're going through and it will be washed away, from now." She gently whispered into Misty's ear ever so lowly as if she feared someone from outside the walls would hear. She pressed her lips softly on her lover's cheek in a soothing manner, tasting the slight taste of salt the tears left behind.

"We're good, aren't we?" In more like a worried voice Cordelia asked, her heart started beating with concern and her mind made images of what she feared most when she got nothing from Misty as a reply.

In that very moment, as if Misty could tell how concerned Cordelia was, she turned towards the supreme, face to face with her lover as she planned on exposing what was in her heart like an open book.

"I - I was just too scared you don't want me anymore, you don't want us. That thought got me losin' my shit. I - I don't wanna lose you, Delia." She bit on her inner cheek in hard attempts to gather the tears inside her eyes, to make her voice come out as strong as she desired, but before she could even tell, she broke down in tears and became a raging mess of sobs, like a fragile piece of glass shattering in between Cordelia's arms.

"Hell, no no no! This is not happening, erase this thought off your head!" Cordelia tightened her grip on Misty, as if she was trying to keep her together, to keep her from falling apart. She wiped as many tears as she could with the palm of her hand but Misty's tears couldn't seem to stop.

Cordelia tilted the swamp witch's head up a little so she could see the sparkles in her eyes with more of the clearance. Fireworks started lighting up her chest the moment she looked at Misty's eyes, realizing all over again how beautiful everything in her was, in the same time realizing how much of an asshole she was to not care much for such an angel.

She tangled their lower limps together in the form of a cuddle, and wrapped her arms tight around Misty's waist as if to keep her close forever. Only then, Misty's tears stopped flowing like a river out of her eyes, and there was finally an end limit to her sobs that seemed endless a moment ago.

"I want you to be with me forever, no force in the world could ever tear us apart, and that's the only thing I know for certain. I wanna spend every moment I have left with you because during this time I was distant I figured out how fucked I'd be if you ever wanted to let go of me." She smoothly said, more like a whisper, while running her fingers through Misty's wild mess of golden curls.

"You are more like the oxygen I breathe, maybe even more important, more like the light to my eyes. Your existence in my life is an actual necessity, quite simply. If I didn't have you I'd sure be lost, lacking love and maybe even life." She continued her business of brushing Misty's mess of a hair as she spoke.

"I - I love you, like so much." She heard Misty whisper back at her, her voice sounded faint and ever so fragile, lovely in all definitions. With this statement, she was finally feeling the peace of mind, knowing that everything will be just fine even before the sun of the morning shows itself.

"I love you, oh well I adore you. I need you, most of the time it just gets difficult to live knowing that you're not around. I want you, forever." As she spoke, she seemed to be drifting away in her own fantasies and wild imaginations.

Her index finger escaped her control and went under Misty's chin in order to tilt her head up enough for Cordelia to look at her straight in the eyes. Once Cordelia's eyes met Misty's she saw glimmers of hope and love adorning the ocean blue eyes, she saw an entire galaxy of stars roaming in her eyes, beautifully. A hint of a smile lit up the once sad face, giving it a whole different kind of perfect.

Every part of her disobeyed, every part of her ran away from her control, and this effect became significant on her when her lips hovered over Misty's, hesitant to make the move until an urge in her crashed her lips against the petal soft lips of Misty in a gentle kiss that worked absorbing all their discomfort, all troubles away, throwing all to the ocean as if it had never been.

The kiss grew more passionate, more heartfelt when they both needed such thing a long while ago to regain their vitality. Cordelia took Misty's lips in hers ever so gladly, letting her silently know that she'd go to the ends of the Earth to get this kiss if she had to,and on the other hand, Misty kissed back quite soulfully to complete their passionate action.

Seconds after, their lips parted, still leaving a sweet effect on each other. Misty's head rested comfortably on Cordelia's chest, with Cordelia's arms already wrapping around her and running her fingers through her hair. They went back to the state of peace they wished to return to, and finally, the quietness after the storm was theirs to claim.

"I will be with till my last dying breath, and that's my promise."

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iamfitzwilliamdarcy · 6 years

Text

Title: The Haunting Blessing of Wayne Manor Summary: Tim is convinced a demon has moved into the Wayne Manor; Jason decides it's past time Wayne Manor is blessed. (Set in Catie's Fr. Todd AU) (ao3)

It’s @catie-does-things ‘s birthday today!! Happy birthday Catie!!!!! The Manor seems like an excessively Massive place to bless but Fr. Todd’s gonna Do It Anyway!!! Hope you enjoy and have a great birthday :D (as a sn: this is based entirely on house blessings that my college chaplain did for us...but the last one of those was 3 years ago; also semi-based on a story from one of my chaplains that it’s also been about 3 years since I’ve heard...I think most of it is pretty Accurate to how Life Works tho)

“I think there’s a demon in the Mansion,” Tim says, and Jason doesn’t look up from the Halloween lesson notes he’s preparing for the elementary and middle-schoolers at the school Dominic’s been assigned to.

“You can’t keep calling Damian that,” he says absently, starring a place he thinks can reword.

“You’re the one who started it,” Tim says sullenly. Jason looks up when he shifts in his chair, and frowns. Tim’s face is twisted and serious, and though he clutches the mug of coffee Jason’s made for him, he hasn’t taken a sip of it at all. He looks tired, not strictly unusual, but pale also.

Jason snaps his notebook shut and gives Tim his full attention. “I was just there last week for dinner,” he prompts. “Nobody mentioned anything abnormal.”

“Bruce thinks I’m being suspicious,” Tim admits, and Jason can tell that stings. “I think Dick is starting to come around, but he didn’t believe me at first either--” just a hint of bitterness, bygones of Dick’s Batman days--”and who the hell knows what Damian thinks. Cass agrees though,” he adds as if that’s all that matters. The two of them, through thick and thin.

“Have you been spending the night at the Mansion?” Jason asks, surprised. Since moving back in with Cass, he’d figured Tim, who had a bad habit of withdrawal, had been keeping mostly to himself. He made sure to keep his appointments, like his weekly coffee or brunch get together with Jason, but, when not patrolling, stayed holed up in his apartment.

It’s part of why Bruce approves the living arrangements--someone’s keeping an eye on him.

Tim shrugs. “Late patrols, working a case, Cass is in Hong Kong. Anyway,” he adds pointedly, like that’s not the point, “the point is, there’s something. It started in my old room and I think it’s moved to the sitting room.”

“Unhelpful,” Jason says. “There’s a million sitting rooms.”

Tim eyes him. “The only sitting room that matters. You know.”

Jason laughs. He does know, it’s essentially Tim’s sitting room at this point, though Jason favors it too when he comes to visit--it has the best natural light in the Manor, great for naps for someone like Tim, who, cat-like, seeks out sunny spots of solitude.

Tim still looks troubled though, and Jason sighs. “I’ll talk with the pastor,” he says. “And I’ll come by and bless the Manor.” He pauses, thoughtful, and adds, “That’d be a good thing to do anyway.”

“You think sprinkling some water will work?” Tim asks skeptically.

“Hey, you came to me,” Jason reminds him.

Tim chews on his lip. “How long?”

“Probably tomorrow,” Jason says. He’s torn--ordinarily he’d suggest confession for the sacramental graces, but only Bruce and Dick had ever been baptized Catholic (and Jason’s not even sure about Dick). Tim, neglected in more ways than one, has never been exposed much to religion outside of an academic context at all. And Damian...well he’s a special case.

Instead, Jason impulsively he reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a Rosary. He drops it gently into Tim’s cupped hand, saying, “Here, take this.”

Tim stares down at it. “I don’t know what to do with it,” he admits.

Jason bites down on the suggestion that he ask Bruce--Tim would take it as a dismissal, even if Jason definitely doesn’t mean it that way. Instead, he starts, “The big bead is the Our Father, and then the next ones are the Hail Marys, see it’s a decade, and after ten Hail Marys comes the Glory Be and the Fatima Prayer.” He goes over each prayer with Tim, who is absorbing it all, and then sends him off with a reminder that Bruce, though rusty, knows all the prayers if Tim forgets.

Tim gives him a glare, knowing what Jason is half-suggesting, but he says, “Thanks,” softly and is on his way.

Jason comes by the Manor the next day, armed with a prayer book and holy water. The pastor has been called away for a hospital visit, and Dominic is on retreat with his middle schoolers, so Jason is left by himself.

Damian sniffs haughtily when he sees Jason. “I expected more tools for Drake’s exorcism,” he says.

“I’m not an exorcist,” Jason reminds him. It’s a conversation he’s had frequently with his brothers, who, after discovering the diocese exorcist is kept secret, have decided, firmly, that it must be Jason. “And no one would perform an exorcism here,” he adds for good measure.

Damian grumbles something and leaves just as Bruce comes into the foyer to greet Jason. Jason returns his hug, but eyes him disapprovingly. “You should know better than to dismiss Tim like that,” he says softly. “Especially over a spiritual matter. You’re not a skeptic.”

Bruce’s brow furrows, but he accepts the scolding.

“Okay,” Jason amends. “You’re a detective, so you question, but you’ve seen too much to doubt the reality of a demon.”

“That’s fair,” Bruce agrees.

Jason waits a beat, and then adds, “And he’s the one who always believed you were alive. He found you.”

Bruce nods in acknowledgement. “Tim and I have already talked,” he says. There’s an implication Bruce apologized, and Jason is glad. He’s getting better at that. Jason’s always a little surprised when Bruce just listens to him these days.

Bruce’s mouth slants down, not quite a frown. “I’ve been worried about him, but I think seeing you yesterday helped. He seems...almost excited about the blessing. Intrigued.”

Jason’s lips quirk up. “He’ll be disappointed. This isn’t an exorcism, as I keep telling Damian.”

Bruce laughs a little. “Cassie will be back from Hong Kong soon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you got a call from them to come bless the apartment.”

Jason shrugs. “I should’ve done it ages ago.”

“Well come in,” Bruce says, gesturing, but Jason says, “I think it’d be best to be thorough and start here.”

Bruce nods. “I’ll get Tim,” he says. “And round up the others.”

“Other than Damian?” Jason asks, and Bruce shrugs. “Dick has been in and out.”

He returns with Tim, no Dick or Damian, but he’s also brought along Alfred, who offers Jason a pat on the shoulder and water bottle; Jason accepts both gratefully.

Tim still looks pale, but he grins at Jason, who says, “We’ll lets get started. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…”

They work their way methodically through the Manor, Jason finding prayer passages for rooms he didn’t even know still existed. (He realizes it’s a mansion but why does there have to be a ballroom? He mentally says an extra prayer there, thinking of children subjected to boredom at galas while adults hunt for iniquity in the name of charity; he says an extra prayer in the library as well because the smart asses of this house, himself included, could use some actual Wisdom sometimes). Damian joins them somewhere along the way, lurking behind them and acting disinterested, even though he’s definitely listening.

They pick up Dick along the way, too. Jason focuses on the prayers and the blessings, but it doesn’t escape his notice that Dick slips an arm around Tim and whispers something in his ear that makes Tim smile, even as he shushes him. He even crosses himself a few times, right to left, and Jason files that away because did he know Dick was raised Orthodox? (Eastern Rite, maybe? He definitely didn’t know.)

When they reach the sitting room, Tim flinches. There is a drastic drop in temperature, and even Jason shivers. It’s not like Tim to be afraid, though, and he takes a few steps into the room after Jason, whispers, “It’s in here.”

Jason nods, and flips his book to pray the sitting room prayers, and, when done, sprinkles the holy water, three times, In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Then he’s done with that, and they continue. It’s a while before the whole Mansion is blessed, and Bruce even lets him bless the Cave, where he finally concludes, blessing his entire family, In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

When he’s done, he takes a long drink of water from the bottle Alfred’s provided. He’s taken sips throughout the blessing, but the blessing has still left him thirst. He wants to catch Dick, gently suggest to him that Tim might still be harboring some hurt from Dick’s time as Batman, but before he can, Dick drags Tim off to the computer, and Bruce, brow furrowing suspiciously, follows him. Perhaps Dick realizes that, or maybe he just feels guilty about being dismissive of Tim initially. Jason doesn’t give his older brother enough credit, sometimes, but he does resolve to bring it up, along with Dick’s religious background, next time Dick stops by the rectory.

Alfred retreats too, to finish dinner, a pointed look at Jason that tells him he’s staying and will be returning with food for Dominic and his pastor. Jason smiles back, but before he realizes it, he’s alone with Damian, who, with arms crossed tightly against his chest, dog firmly at his side, clearly wants to talk. Jason waits.

“Could my grandfather--,” Damian starts, not looking at Jason.

“Maybe a curse or something,” Jason answers, shrugging. “It’s not unheard of. But,” he adds, gently, “the Manor is very old. There’s a lot of trauma here, too. I couldn’t say for sure where it may have come from.”

He pauses, frowning at the boy, and then ventures, “You know your grandfather isn’t actually a demon, don’t you? He’s a man who’s prolonged his life artificially.”

“No,” Damian corrects. “The Lazarus Pit--,”

“I don’t mean through modern medication or anything like that,” Jason interrupts gently. “I just mean we’re not supposed to live that long. Death is natural. Immortality is not; he’s cheating death. It doesn’t matter what he calls himself, it doesn’t change the nature of what he is, and that’s a man and a mortal.”

“And a coward?” Damian asks, and Jason’s mouth twists. Whatever Damian might say, Ra’s Al Ghul is still his family.

“That’s not for me to decide,” he says quietly, finally. “But I would caution anyone about fearing death of the flesh more than death of the soul.”

Damian hums, then says, clipped, “Thank you, Todd,” and Jason breathes a sigh of relief that this conversation has gone better than the one they’d had last month regarding animals’ souls and whether or not they go to heaven.

Jason stays for dinner, and, as predicted, is plied with numerous tupperwares of food for him for the week and for Fr. Dominic and Fr. Paul, his pastor.

“The parishioners will think you don’t appreciate them,” he teases Alfred, as he accepts. Alfred sniffs a little and says that that is hardly his intent, but he returns Jason’s kiss on the cheek with a fond hand pat, and several more slices of bread.

Jason says his goodbyes, and Tim hops up, ostensibly to help him carry the tupperware to his car. When they’re outside, though, Tim says, earnestly, “Thanks for believing me, Jay.”

Jason catches his hand and squeezes it. “If it doesn’t go away, you know where to find me. We have a process.”

Tim’s eyes glint mischievously as he shakes his head and mutters “Catholics.”

“Hey,” Jason says, lightly, “if you’re jealous, it’s not too late to join us.”

Tim snorts, but when Jason tells him to bow his head, he does. Jason gives him another blessing. After he’s finished the Sign of the Cross, Jason snags Tim around the neck and rubs his knuckles against his hair.

“Hey!” Tim protests, batting at Jason’s hands and trying to wriggle away from the unexpected nougie attack. “I was trying to be reverent!”

“Aren’t we all, kid,” Jason laughs, releasing him. He gives him a little push towards the Manor. “Go get some sleep, Tim, you look like death.”

“Memento Mori,” Tim quips solemnly, rubbing at his head. He flashes Jason a grin, though, and heads back inside.

Jason stands for a minute beside his car, looking up at the Manor and the grounds sprawling behind it. It’s dark and imposing at night, but Jason knows the depth of warmth and love inside. It wells up inside him now, too, and says a little prayer of Thanksgiving, before returning home to the rectory.

#Jason Todd #Tim Drake #batfam #fanfic tag #my fic #Fr. Todd Au #Damian Wayne #Bruce Wayne #Dick Grayson

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bethlehembroclub-blog · 6 years

Text

chapter 1 - it’s beginning to look a lot like christmas

written by @sweatereddies and @gingerbreddie

word count: 2.9k

pairings: reddie, stenbrough, benverly

warnings: swearing, drug/alcohol use, pineapples on pizza

want on the tags list?

new chapters every day in december, follow us for future updates!

Eddie Kaspbrak was late for class. While this was not an entirely unheard of event, it was uncommon, and frustrating enough to ruin his morning. He cursed both his manager and the powers that be as he glared at the patrons in line, each of them feeling just as impatient as he. He had told his manager explicitly that he needed to leave the shop with enough time to get to campus, but because of the rush not only had he lost his travel time but it was now five minutes past when he knew his lecture had been started. Shooting his coworker a pleading look, he was only met with a mouthed “I'm sorry” before they both dove back into the rush. Eddie sighed to himself.

This is gonna be a long day.

______________________________________________________________

“So you're not going to your aunt’s this year?”

“Nah. She has to work super early for Black Friday and doesn't wanna do all the work for two people.”

“That makes sense.” Ben carefully avoided the unsaid question between them, instead choosing the safer but not quite completely safe option. “You know, if you're bored or whatever on the day you're more than welcome to come to mine. My mom and my aunt make more than enough for the five of us.”

“Thanks for the invite, I’ll consider it.” Bev smiled at him over her notebook.

“Plus, the Kappa boys and i are having a sort of “friendsgiving” at the house the day after if you want to join.”

“What, no crazy shopping spree?” Bev smirked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, I'm leaving that to Stan and Eddie. I think they're taking Chris this year, though.” Ben laughed.

“Well, if they hit up radio shack tell them to ask for Linda.” Beverly chortled, turning her page and focusing back in on their work. “God, this project is gonna kill me.” She sighed, changing the subject.

Ben let her. “I don't know, it's not that big.”

“To you, mister three-point-eight.” She griped. “Some of us dummies have a much harder time with this shit.”

“Oh come on Bev, you're not dumb.” Ben replied, genuinely.

“Yeah, well, my GPA begs to differ.” She muttered, starting her paragraph. Ben smiled softly, before picking up his pen and doing the same.

______________________________________________________________

“Stan, thank fuck.” Eddie breathed into the phone as he continued power-waking at full speed.

“Christ Eddie, it's eight in the morning, what's got you so heated?” Stan grumbled tiredly into the phone.

“The fact that it's eight in the morning and I'm not in class right now. My dumbass manager didn’t let me out on time and I’m late. Do you have the car today?” Eddie panted, sprinting across a crosswalk.

“No, Tyler took it home for the next two weeks remember? No one’s-”

“Shit!” Eddie cursed, skidding to a stop near the bus station. “I’m gonna have to get a fucking Uber or something-”

“At eight in the morning? Good fucking luck.” Stan sighed. “Need me to call you one?”

“No…” Eddie sighed, watching a bus pulled up near him, the marquee reading the neighborhood near the college. “I’ve got it covered.”

______________________________________________________________

“So you guys don’t have any plans this weekend? Seriously? It’s end of term, bro!” Bev laughed as she and Ben walked to the campus coffee shop.

“Eddie said, and I quote, ‘if one of you fuck heads drags me to some dumb rager the night after I finish the semester, I will push you off the roof of said frat house.’” Ben said in a mock high-pitched voice, imitating Eddie’s classic Grumpy Tone.

“It’s that bad, huh?”

“I think Trig broke him. He was screaming along to an Enya song at like, three in the morning last week.”

“Who even does that?” Bev laughed.

“Someone whose brain has officially been fried.” Ben sighed. “He’ll be fine after the break. He just needs to relax.”

“Is he going home for the holidays?” Bev hugged her books to her chest, shrugging her purse strap back up onto her shoulder.

Ben shook his head. “I don’t think so. He’s been blowing off all his mother’s calls. Besides, I think he has work.”

“What about Stan?”

“Fourth quarter. He couldn’t get a day off if he died.”

“Corporate America hath its brutal ways.” Bev sighed dramatically. “Well, I think I might be joining you guys for this “friendsgiving” you’ve coordinated.”

“We’ll be happy to see you there.” Ben smiled.

“On one condition.” Bev smiled mischievously. “You need to get the boys to come with you,” she gently poked his chest, “And I,” she turned her finger to herself. “To the End of Semester party the Omega Nu’s are having this weekend.”

Ben raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? You want us at a party?”

“Of course. It’s only gonna be the greatest party on the block.”

“On our block more like. Aren’t the Omega Nu’s across the street from us?”

“And one down!” Bev joked.

“Wow, a whole house down.” Ben laughed. “I don’t think we’ll much be able to avoid it in that case.”

“So you’ll be there?” She looked at him hopefully.

“Of course I will, but.. I’m not so sure about the boys.” He shrugged. “Stan is a toss up, but I’m positive Eddie will say no.”

“Tell him if he wants me at friendsgiving he has to come.” Bev pouted.

Ben sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.” Beverly smiled exuberantly. “But I can’t guarantee anything.”

“Call me for the time, Haystack.” She smiled as they reached the coffee shop. She leaned up and dropped a kiss on his cheek. “See you later.”

“See ya.” He waved as she ducked inside.

______________________________________________________________

The sound of a book slamming down on the table in front of his face jarred Richie Tozier from his sleep.

“W-wake up, asshole. I’m not d-doing this project alone.”

Richie groaned, a hand scrubbing over his face as he arched up. “Fucks sake, Billiam, could you slam that book harder?”

Bill dropped an equally large volume onto the table next to the first, causing Richie’s head to throb all over again.

“Jesus H. Christ Bill, does it not hurt you too?” He pouted.

“It does, but it’s worth it.”

“How come the only sentences you can get through are the ones where you’re making fun of me?” Richie grumbled, squinting up at Bill as he pulled the closest book towards him.

“E-excuse you?” Bill glared, raising an eyebrow as he sat down across the table.

Richie shot him a tempestuous glare, communicating more than enough, but added a middle finger for clarity.

“Shut the fuck up and d-do your section.” Bill griped, pulling his notebook out of his book bag.

“Shut the fuck up and d-d-d-d-d-do your section.” Richie mumbled to himself in a mocking tone, two fingers massaging his temple in desperate hopes of relieving the growing hangover headache. Bill didn’t respond, killing Richie’s need to continue his teasing. He gave in with a sigh, pulling his supplies out of his bag as well.

It took all of five minutes of attempting to study before Richie was over it. He glanced around the library, taking in the filtered sunlight dripping through the high arched windows. Someone across the way tapped an uneven beat with their pencil. A door upstairs closed. A girl from his Trig class crossed the shelves in search of an unknown tome. He watched her as she moved, both distracted and interested. Bill snapped his finger in front of his face.

“Tozier.”

“What?” Richie snapped, eyes still on the girl.

“Wh-what did you get for f-fourteen?”

“Fourteen? Fuck, Bill, I haven’t even gotten one. It’s too hectic in here. I don’t wanna work. Let’s go home.”

“Hectic my a-ass. There’s like, no one here.”

Richie pointed at the girl. “Yeah there is.”

“Oooohh, one o-other person, ‘scuse m-me!” Bill drawled dramatically. “Rich, this is our l-last assignment, p-please. Let’s just get it done.”

“Somewhere else?” Richie pleaded, dropping his head so his chin was resting on his folded arms atop the table.

“Wh-why?” Bill complained, throwing his head back.

“I can’t focus!” Richie whined. “I’m so sick of homework, Big Bill. I wanna party!”

“We p-partied last night.” Bill griped.

“I know, but that was just the beginning! I wanna go home and work on the bash. We only have a couple of days, we need decorations! Supplies…” He trailed off, giving Bill a strange look.

He shared the expression. “We also only have t-two days left of t-term.” He pressed. “So we have to get this d-d-done.” Resolutely, he turned back to his work.

Richie sighed, tapping a finger on the table in agitation.

He let Bill get about fifteen minutes in, before interrupting again.

“What’re you doing over break, again?”

“I t-told you Rich, I’m not sure yet.”

“I’m gonna stay.” Richie adjusted his position in the library chair, yet again. “I’m sure ole Went will be disappointed but he’ll just have to deal.”

“Your m-mom won’t be?”

“Don’t talk about my mom like that.” Richie joked. Bill looked up incredulously.

“That- wasn’t even a-”

“I’m tired, sue me.”

“Your brain runs on autopilot.”

“I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

“Or a good fuck in awhile, christ.” A new voice joined their conversation. “You look like shit, Tozier.” Mike Hanlon smiled his golden boy smile, swinging a chair around backwards before sitting in next to Richie.

“Mike and Ike, thank the lord! Here to rescue me from the clutches of Big Billiam.” Richie dramatically feigned a faint, leaning heavily on Mike only to be shoved off with a laugh.

“Fat chance. You know you need to do your homework, and you’re not leaving till it’s done.”

“Fine.” He sighed, sitting upright in his seat. “But I’ll have you know, I have indeed been laid plenty.”

“Lies.” Bill and Mike said in unenthusiastic (but accurate) unison.

Richie dramatically placed a hand to his chest. “How DARE-”

“Shut up and work, Rich. We have stuff to do today.” Mike playfully dope-slapped him.

“Like w-what?” Bill looked over at Mike, confused.

Mike gave them both a mischievous smile. “We are now the only frat south of fifth street planning an end of semester blow out.”

Richie pumped a fist. “Yes! How’d you manage it, man?”

“Gave the boys over at Alpha Sig some food for thought.” Mike said nonchalantly, examining his nails. Richie laughed.

“Fuck Mike, that sounds menacing as hell.”

Mike chortled in return. “Get straight Tozier, I didn’t fuckin kill them. I just gave em what they wanted.” He eyed Richie, who finally understood. “So now we will officially be the best party in the whole of college town.”

Bill smiled to himself. “Wh-what about Christmas? D-did they say anything about th-then?”

“Couldn’t get them to spill holiday plans, so it looks like Christmas is still any mans game, but we’ve got the market cornered on end of term.”

“Guys, we’ve got to get holidays too. I want the streak this year!” Richie pleaded. “You’ve got to stay this year, Bill.” Richie turned to him, hands folded in prayer. “Pleeeaaaseeeee please please.”

“F-fine, I’ll stay.” Richie whooped, earning a dirty look from the other patrons. “But only so we can w-win.”

“It’s hilarious how competitive you guys get over this.” Mike shook his head with mirth. “There’s no official contest.”

“Um, unofficial for sure, and who just spent an hour negotiating our party status with the enemy?” Richie quipped.

“Firstly, they’re our classmates, not enemies, and secondly, I did not say I was there for an hour.”

Bill raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, so it was like an hour and a half. You should be thanking me, assholes.”

“We thank you kindly, good sir.” Richie saluted Mike.

“Now do your homework so we can go buy decorations and booze.”

“Now that’s more like it!”

______________________________________________________________

“Honey, I’m ho-ome!” Ben playfully called into the house as he closed the door. One of his roomies, Chris, was sitting on their couch, pounding away at an apparently rousing game of Halo. He grunted noncommittally, barely taking his eyes off the screen. “Eddie and Stan here?”

“Upstairs.” Chris nodded towards the stairwell.

“We got invited to a party this weekend, you in?”

“Leaving Friday, but thanks.”

“No problem.” Ben called behind him as he started up the stairs.

Stan and Eddie’s bedroom door was adorned with a large whiteboard, which often contained doodles and messages the other boys would leave. Ben’s poorly scribbled banana and bird drawings were faded and half erased in the corner, still there from nearly six months ago. The center of the board had been erased (mostly) and bore a new message:

STAY THE FUCK OUT WE’RE STUDYING

Ben laughed to himself, knocking lightly on the door.

“What?!” Came Eddie’s annoyed voice.

“It’s Ben, can I talk to you guys?”

“Yeah, come in.” Stan replied, clearly much less stressed.

Ben swung the door open, only for it to collide with a solid object.

“What the fuck-”

“Oh, sorry.” There was the sound of some scrambling and then the door opened all the way; Eddie stood before him, arms full of books, with more (and about half the contents of his backpack, by observation) strewn all over the floor.

“You spread out again.”

“I told him not to.” Stan said calmly from his bed, where only a small pile of work accompanied him. “I’ve been trapped in here for awhile because there was a hazard on the floor.”

“I’m trying to get this fucking project done, Stan-”

“Eddie, hey, it’s okay.” Ben laughed lightly, clapping a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “You’re stressed, we get it. But maybe leave a walkway, okay?”

Eddie sighed weakly. “Okay…”

“What’s up?” Stan asked, setting his book aside, pen inside to mark the page.

“Just came to ask you guys about something. How was your day?”

“Just fine. Actually had a reasonable shift, so that was nice.”

“And you, Eddie?” Ben said, sitting in their office chair.

“Terrible.” Eddie flopped back onto his bed. “I worked opening today, so I was there hella fuckin early, and then the rush started right when I had to leave, so my manager kept me an extra half-hour! So I was late to class, and Tyler went home with the car so Stan couldn’t come get me. I have like, four dollars in my bank account so I couldn’t get an uber, so… I took the bus to school.” He shuddered.

“You took the bus?” Ben and Stan asked in unison, each shocked.

“Yeah. It was disgusting. I had to sit through all of Trig just… imagining what the fuck I’d contracted. I took like four showers when I got home.”

“He did.” Stan said when Ben shot him a look. “I thought somebody puked on him or something.

“I never wanna go outside again.” Eddie said dramatically, hands over his face.

“Not even if it would mean having Bev over for Friendsgiving?” Ben prodded.

Eddie sat up, sizing him up with a glare. “What’re you planning, Hanscom?”

Ben held his hands up in defense. “Hey, this scheme wasn’t my idea. But I did invite her.”

“And?” Stan asked.

“She says she’ll come.”

“There’s a but.” Stan confirmed.

“There’s always a but.” Eddie sighed, resting his chin in his hand.

“But- she wants us to go to the Omega Nu party this weekend with her in exchange.”

“No fucking way.” Eddie threw his hands up.

“I’m down.” Stan shrugged. “I hear they throw a good bash.”

“They do, I went to one with Mike last year. It was great.” Ben turned to Eddie. “All you have to do is show up Eddie. It’s right down the street, you can walk back home after like, five minutes.”

“I don’t even wanna go in the first place! Those guys just throw dumb shitty ragers, I don’t want to actually get thrown up on.”

“Eddie, please, she said she’d come to dinner.”

“I’m not being pimped for a date!”

“Quit being such a buzzkill Kaspbrak, oblige the poor man. Love hath made him a fool.” Stan snickered, smirking at Ben’s look of distaste.

“I hate parties Ben, you know this.” Eddie tried.

“Just show up with me. Then you can turn around and go right back home.”

Eddie crossed his arms.

“I’ll pay you.”

“In what? And don’t say arcade tokens, I’m not twelve.”

“Firstly fuck you, you’re lucky I can get free tokens to give out. Second, I was thinking actual adult money.”

“You can pay me in pizza.” Stan cut in with a shrug.

“Shut up Uris, you already agreed.”

“I still want pizza.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll pay you in one half of Stan’s damn pizza and fifty Real Adult Human American dollars.” Ben said with resignation.

“I want fifty individual one dollar bills, because what I’m most angry about is the inconvenience, pineapple on my half, and if, IF, all my projects are done, you have a deal.”

“You are NOT putting pineapple on my pizza, Kaspbrak-”

“PINEAPPLE OR NO DEAL.”

Ben looked between the two boys. “Fine. You have a deal. Shake on it.”

“Pineapple, Ben, really?” Stan whined.

“I need him to come!”

“You’re a monster. Sacrificing your morals, nay, my morals, for a lady.” Stan shook his head as Ben and Eddie shook hands.

“Pineapple on pizza is not a moral offense.”

“To some it is.” Stan mumbled.

“This is my revenge.” Eddie grumbled. “Now leave me alone, I have to finish my shit.”

“I’ll go get the damn pizza, then we can eat and I’ll help you guys.” Ben stood, filled with excitement about the weekend ahead.

“Thanks, Haystack.” Stan said, turning back to his work.

“Yeah, thanks.” Eddie said quietly, already lost back in the storm of his trigonometry project. Ben left the room, closing the door behind him gently and smiling to himself. This was gonna be a great weekend.

______________________________________________________________

authors notes: welcome to the party you guys!!! we’re very excited to get this fic to y’all <3 if you ever have any questions, shoot us an ask! if you want on the tagslist, please let us know! we’d love it if you could reblog our account/story to spread the word!! we hope you enjoy what’s in store ❤

tagslist: @ayyyymichele @megelizabethvh @flickerflies @beepbeep-losers @tapetayloe @gazeboseddie @finnwollfhards @turtleneckrichie

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chessala · 7 years

Text

Ok, I’m still in love with @victorsporosya‘s Little Mermaid AU casting Yuuri as the prince and Viktor as the mermaid. I’m probably getting way too invested in this so I apologize because I have the feeling there will be more ficlets ahead! (In my defense, Ariel was and still is my favourite disney princess and this AU just goes along so well with me.

Enjoy!

History: Part 1 | Parts 2

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Washed ashore after a storm, you’re so luck that Yuuri found you! It must have been horrible to go through that.”

“It really was! I was so scared!” Viktor said cheerfully right before blowing some of the strange foam from his hands. Upon arrival at the castle, Viktor, now somewhat steady on his feet, had been pulled away by two of the servants right away. He had been dumped into a barrel filled with water and the best smelling sea foam Viktor had ever seen before. He didn’t know why, but the female servant had suddenly lost a lot of blood from her nose when she had removed the jacket Yuuri had so kindly provided him with. He hoped he would get it back, it smelled like him.

“It’s Prince Yuuri, Yuuko. Don’t let the Madam hear you drop the title again.” Minami said, glancing around nervously. While Prince Yuuri insisted all the servants just called him by his name, everyone caught doing so by Madam Minako was due a an hour long lecture. If they were lucky. Servants disappearing for a whole day to be educated hasn’t been unheard of.

“I’ve known Yuuri since he was two years old, one would think she would stop fussing about it.” Yuuko said with an exasperated sigh.

“What kind of person is Yu- Prince Yuuri?” Viktor asked, ears perking up at the topic of the man of his dreams.

“He is wonderful!” Minami started gushing instantly. “He is humble and kind to everyone. He never orders the servants around and helps out in the kitchens whenever he can. Everyone loves him!”

Viktor could definitely understand that. He had only gotten a glimpse at the prince while sitting on the outside of the ship. His smile had been radiant and genuine, capable of lighting up the whole ship despite it being night. He had the cutest furry animal with him, a dog called Vicchan as Viktor knew now. Viktor had a pet seal called Makkachin at home as well that he hoped to introduce to Yuuri eventually.

“But he has also been a bit sad lately.” Yuuko continued for Minami. “A few weeks ago he almost drowned in a storm just like you but it seems he was saved by a mysterious man with long silver hair and blue eyes and he has been looking for him since then. He even had painters recreate his face by his description and the portraits are all-over his ro-” Yuuko stopped in the middle of her sentence and looked at Viktor with a frown. “If it weren’t for your short hair, I could swear you look just like him….”

Viktor beamed at her, grasping her hands in his.

“It was me! I watched Yuuri on the ship and he was so wonderful! But then the storm came and I just couldn’t let him die even though Yakov hates humans. But then I couldn’t forget about him and asked the sea witch to turn me into human!” Viktor rambled down, almost forgetting to breathe in the process. Yuuri remembered him! Yuuri had been looking for him! Yuuri hadn’t been able to forget about Viktor, just like Viktor hadn’t been able to forget about him.

“Merman?” Yuuko asked with a raised eyebrow. “Are you sure you didn’t swallow too much water? Merfolk are old fishwife tales!”

She took a jug full of hot water from a table and helped rinse Viktor’s hair and eyes. Viktor sighed, suddenly feeling very alone. Of course they wouldn’t believe him,l Yakov had done all he could to ensure that humans and merfolk don’t interact. It didn’t really matter, all he wanted was to be with Yuuri anyway.

“Don’t tell that story to Prince Yuuri, it will upset him!” Minami said to Viktor with a scolding voice and Viktor nodded. Minami helped him out of the bathtub, causing the female he now knew was called Yuuko to bleed from her nose again. Humans truly were strange creatures after all.

“Let’s get you dressed!” Yuuko said after putting some paper into her nose. “You might not be Yuuri’s mysterious saviour but that doesn’t mean he can’t fall in love with you rather than chasing a dream.

---------

“And did you see that ASS!” Phichit said excitedly, making Yuuri roll his eyes. It wasn’t exactly possible to not stare at the ass of the man they had found at the beach. Phichit looked at him from the corner of his eyes, causing Yuuri to blush.

“I-I would never!” Yuuri stuttered, trying to swallow the tightness in his throat away. Why was it suddenly so hot in here anyway?

“You know….” Phichit continued, sounding more serious suddenly. “Why don’t you forget about that mysterious stranger and instead focus on what’s right in front of you?”

“I don’t even know his name, Phichit.” Yuuri started to protest just to be interrupted by Phichit.

“Didn’t stop you from looking through every village within a two-days ride to look for a, and I quote you here, beautiful stranger that swims around in the ocean and saves princes from drowning.”

Yuuri groaned. He had indeed said that, exact words and all. After waking up on the beach, the stranger with the long silver hair and blue eyes was everything Yuuri could think about, dream about, fantasize about. He blushed a little when some of those fantasies came back to him now, some of them including a very particular reunion on the beach.

“I just want to thank him for saving me!” Yuuri said weakly, knowing full well that his friend would see through him right away.

“Well, he obviously doesn’t want your thanks, so just let it rest Yuuri.” Phichit said a bit softer. He stepped behind Yuuri and helped him to straighten his loose shirt so it fell just the right way to expose a bit of chest and accent his hips. “As for his name, I’m sure he will tell you if you manage to actually use your mouth to talk instead of just drooling.”

“I didn’t...I mean….Phichit!”

Phichit laughed happily, obviously satisfied with flustering Yuuri to oblivion. Yuuri couldn’t deny that he had stared at the stranger just a little, even after giving him his jacket. And his face looked so much like the one Yuuri remembered from waking up after the storm, except that his hair was short. But his eyes had the same beautiful shade of blue that made Yuuri want to get lost in them.

And he seemed nice, if not a bit over-dramatic. After Phichit and Yuuri had steadied him on his feet, he had gushed on about how glad he was to have met them and that he wouldn’t have known what to do if they hadn’t come by. Yuuri could also swear he saw a crab glare at him right before it disappeared into the sea. Crabs didn’t glare, Yuuri was at least sure of that.

“Yuuri!” Minako’s familiar voice filled the room even before she the open the doors to Yuuri’s bedroom. “What do i have to hear about you bringing home a stray man from the beach?”

“M-Minako!” Yuuri said with a slightly panicked voice, taking a step back automatically. Minako was the head servant and like a second mother for him. Whenever his parents had been too busy, she had taken care of Yuuri and made sure to educate him. He loved her but she always had a talent to get involved in everything that was going on.

“He was washed ashore.” Phichit explained. “So we brought him here.”

Minako squinted first at Phichit and then at Yuuri. “He is real this time, right?”

Yuuri sighed and let himself fall on one of the cushioned chairs. Of course she would tease him about this as well. No one believed Yuuri that he had really seen someone on the beach. Phichit said he had been alone when he found Yuuri groaning on the sand. He knew the man had been there, though, how could he have imagined the soft feeling of his hair and those beautiful eyes.

“Be it as it may.” Minako continued when Yuuri didn’t reply to her teasing. “I want to see this man. We can’t allow random strangers to roam the palace and endanger the royal family. He will join us for dinner.”

“What!” Yuuri choked out, almost managing to fall off his chair. He couldn’t possible have dinner with the man, he didn’t have his feelings under enough control for that. “Minako, isn’t that too dangerous?”

“What exactly could he do? Impale the king with chopsticks?” Minako asked, raising her eyebrows and resting her hands on her hips.

“He might!” Yuuri countered, doing his best to keep his voice strong and his heart steady. He couldn’t possibly so fickle to forget the stranger in favour of a set of nice abs and a perky ass. And a pair of beautiful eyes and a smile to die for. And a voice that made his skin feel too tight in entirely the wrong way.

“Fine…” he relented with a sigh, heart already beating faster. Seemed like he was that fickle after all.

“Good I’ll let your mother know. She took over the kitchen to make Katsudon.” Minako said with nod.

“Wasn’t today supposed to be stuffed crab?” Phichit asked. It wasn’t often that the royal menu changed so suddenly after all. Minako shrugged and turned towards the door.

“Seems there was a series of accidents, something about aggressive crabs.”

#yoi #yuri on ice #little mermaid au #victorsporosya #disney au #yes yuri is a crab #writing #ficlet #the little mermaid #I'm weak for red hair ok?!?#don't judge me

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thrashff · 6 years

Text

This is how it happens.

Title: This is how it happens.

Word Count: 5,454

Synposis: Jung Hoseok's life, and everything in between.

Pairings: Hoseok/named female OCs, YoonMinHopeKook love square (??) and a dash of OT7 brotherhood

Warnings: Mature for (very) mild cursing, minor character death, substance abuse, and a lot of angst

Setting: Run Era madness, a soulmate timer AU and koi no yokan concept with a twist

A/N: I’m baaaaack! Sort of.

Dedicated to @chamabolmanhae! I’m two months late with your birthday present, but thank you for always kicking my ass and getting me to write again.

That said, I sat on this for days and wrote it out in a rush so feel free to come yell at me. I love you, Hoseok and I love you Bangtan. What have I done.

In another life, this is how it happens.

On the morning of Jung Hoseok’s 16th birthday, he wakes up to the timer on his wrist starting to count down.

What he should feel is elated—even in a world where everyone (almost. everyone?) has their timers appear at some point, numbers a digital, violent red the color of fresh blood signaling the amount of time before one is supposed to meet their soulmate—having yours start at 16 is practically unheard of. There are stories of people’s timers starting in their 50s, 60s, even a couple of cases of people going through their whole lives with their other halves missing only to lay on their deathbeds to have the countdown finally start. A week, a day, maybe even scant seconds that they never get to see because their hearts are no longer strong enough to keep waiting.

So when Jung Hoseok wakes up on the morning of his 16th birthday, an unpredicted cold snap making the February air frigid even in the stuffy confines of the orphanage dorm, the branches of the tree outside the window brittle to the point that a strong gust of wind will break them off, what he should feel is elated—but no one warned him that having your timer appear hurts.

When Jung Hoseok wakes up, he is screaming. This should have been his first warning that things don’t always go the way you expect them to. The way you want them to. The way you hope.

Hoseok screams, and he wakes up everyone in the room. As he sobs in the tiny kitchen, one that is in no way equipped to handle the demands of feeding a house full of twenty-five orphans of every age, the people who run it congratulate him. As he cradles his aching wrist, stabs of pain still shooting up his arm and straight to his chest, the younger kids all pushing and shoving to get a better look at the numbers, barely visible over the angry red of his skin, he wonders why having a soulmate hurts.

He wonders what he or she will be like. If they are the same age. If they will like dancing as much as he does, if they listen to the same music. If they will look at him with pity or with understanding for his lot in life, deposited at an orphanage by a mother that considered him a burden but he still holds out hope will return; too old for adoption and too young to be on his own. He wonders and hopes, fiercely, naïvely, if his soulmate will be his new home.

It isn’t until three years later when he finds out. Three years and an unceremonious exit from the orphanage later, when he is living with a boy named Kim Namjoon in an abandoned train car on a stretch of unused tracks, putting food on the table by busking in Hongdae and Namjoon’s occasional tattoo clientele.

All things considered, he’s lucky to have met Namjoon. When they’d met on the wrong side of early morning, Hoseok exhausted and defeated behind a club in Itaewon where he’d thought no one would mind if he would just sit for a couple of hours and gain a little reprieve from two straight days of wandering with nowhere to go, Namjoon had had no reason to take him in. No reason for him to share the tiny home he’d carved out on the fringes of a city with no room for the likes of them.

Sure, there were things that Hoseok has had to turn a blind eye to, like Namjoon’s well under-the-radar business of tattooing over timers, illegal in a day and age when the government uses them as a way to keep people in line. When timers are vaulted, valued. Paired mates are considered first-class citizens—tax breaks, more opportunities for work, the works—because paired mates are submissive, docile. They want for nothing more as a completed set. After all, how can you rally and rise against an oppressive system when you have everything you could ever want tied to you, bound to you for life?

But on the other side of it there are those whose timers have yet to start, like Namjoon. There are those whose timers have begun their countdown but refuse to submit themselves to the hands of fate, like Namjoon’s friend Yoongi; who believe that love is more than red numbers on your wrist. That it should be a person’s choice who to love and live with—not the seemingly random process of selection that no one, not even the best scientists in the world, have been able to figure out.

Because of course, of course there are horror stories. Good people who are bound to bad ones. People who follow the rules their entire lives, who celebrate when their timers start and wait for the numbers to tick down with bated breath only to be disappointed. Only to suffer, sometimes die, at the hands of people they are told are their better halves.

On the day that Hoseok’s timer starts to count down from hours to mere minutes, Hoseok is walking. Namjoon tells him that he should, that wherever he is when the red lights finally stop shifting and stay steady at 000:00:00, whatever unearthly light powering them finally bleeding out to leave those zeros tattooed on his wrist forever, a sign, ideally, of nothing but better things to come, that Hoseok’s soulmate will find him. That fate will take care of the details. That Hoseok will know, somehow, where to go and what to do.

But with minutes left, Hoseok’s feet don’t know where to take him. He wants to run, wants to go back to the train car where Namjoon and Yoongi are waiting, to ask Yoongi how he keeps his timer glitching at 546:23:58. To ask Namjoon if he knows what will happen when his timer ticks from 000:03:23 and no one finds him. If it will hurt, physically or spiritually, if no one does.

All of Hoseok’s questions come back to him, all of the hope-fueled musings that he’s never voiced to his jaded companions. Will they be pretty? Will they be kind? Will they have a home to offer me? Will they love me? Will I be enough?

000:00:12

Hoseok learns that the answer to all of the above is yes.

In another life, this is how it happens.

Jung Hoseok, all 19 years of him and his gangly limbs and the stress-induced smattering of teenage acne on his cheeks, meets Kang Nayeon outside of a record store in Hongdae. She is 22 years old, fresh out of college and living on her own, a stranger in a city she’s never known but whose language she had grown up with. She is beautiful and she is kind, and when they meet Hoseok expects fireworks but feels like he is underwater instead. Not in the push-and-pull kind of way that he imagines tides must feel like because he hasn’t been to the ocean yet, but in the way that being submerged in a warm bath must feel, like that one time Yoongi had sold a song and treated him and Namjoon to a day spa. Comforting and warm, with the promise of coming out cleaner than he’d been coming in.

On the day when his timer blinks 000:00:00, the red numbers settling, permanent on his skin, he learns that Kang Nayeon listens to Dynamic Duo, that she can’t dance but wishes that she could. That she’s allergic to shellfish and can’t stand spicy food, that she loves dogs and all things soft and fluffy. Nayeon cries over every movie—she likes horror the least and animated ones the best—and maybe most importantly than the compendium of all these tiny tidbits and maybe useless facts: she looks at Hoseok like he’s the sun.

That first day ends too soon, Hoseok untangling himself from her comfortable limbs on her comfortable couch in her comfortable apartment that smells like pine cleaner and fresh laundry. With anyone else the skinship would be strange but they’re soulmates, after all, and the physicality of them falling into each other like they do is nothing more than the gravitational pull of two halves finally becoming whole.

It’s hard, for Hoseok to leave now that he has her. Now that they have each other. Nayeon feels it too, the wrongness of distance now that fate has allowed them to be together. She asks Hoseok to stay the night, so Hoseok stays. For the next week, Hoseok stays and doesn’t leave, cocooned in happiness, this all too beautiful bubble of completion. They learn more about each other, they learn everything about each other. She watches him dance on the streets, her face beaming with he’s mine, and Hoseok tucks her into bed, his heart full of I’m hers.

But the thing about bubbles is that they burst, and it isn’t until the following week, when Hoseok moves his meager collection of worldly possessions from the train car and into her apartment, that she tells him the truth. That she is sick, and there’s nothing she nor Hoseok, nor the slew of world-renowned doctors that her parents in the United States have found, can do about it. It’s only been a week, but Hoseok learns the most important thing about Nayeon:

He isn’t allowed to keep her.

Eight months later (eight entire months of Nayeon refusing chemotherapy, of Hoseok watching his other half slowly wither away, of holding her brittle bones and bruised skin so close to his chest so that he can memorize how she feels in his arms) and Nayeon’s body is sent back to her family. In the way of all transitory, fleeting life experiences, the last eight months have been beautiful, and Hoseok wants to feel lucky. Wants to, but understandably has a difficult time accomplishing it.

Saying goodbye to her body, nothing but an empty shell now of the girl he had loved, the girl who had made him finally whole, is easier than the goodbyes they bid in her hospital bed. Hoseok unleashes a seemingly endless supply of tears and snot that he is unashamed to show her, to drown her in, because this is not how the story goes. This is not the Happily Ever After that either of them deserve.

“Who says I didn’t end my life Happily Ever After?” Nayeon asks him, letting him hold the birdlike bones of her hand hard enough to bruise. (One last time.) Not that it had mattered then, not anymore. The pain would be over soon for her, and Hoseok was no where near cruel enough to point out that it would only begin for him. Nayeon doesn’t even cry. Instead she smiles. (One last time.)

The other thing that no one had told Hoseok about soulmates is this: how to live after you’ve lost them.

“Chase the sunshine,” Nayeon tells him. For parting words, final ones, they make sense to no one else but the two of them. Nayeon loves (loved) the summer, always said that sunshine made her feel healthy and clean. She’d called Hoseok her sunshine in turn, that his smiles and enthusiasm for life even in the face of it ending were her endless season.

Not that Hoseok had a choice. He’d showered her with as much love and life as he could, rending his own self empty just to keep both of them from going under the swell of sadness in both their souls.

Hoseok hopes that wherever she is now is bright and sunny, full of life and the season she loves (loved). Wonders if she’s waiting for him. Wonders if she isn’t the only one who died that day in the hospital.

It isn’t until a month later, thirty days that Hoseok spends catatonic on the spare futon in the train car having crawling back to his friends, the only family he knows, with his tail between his legs and more broken than he looks on the outside, that he musters up the courage to return to the apartment. Nayeon’s family has been kind enough to let him keep should he want it.

He doesn’t. Doesn’t know if he can live in rooms where he still expects to see her curled up on the couch watching Pixar films or singing off-key to G.D. in the kitchen. But he comes back because in the time he’s spent away, Namjoon has made a new friend in the form of another lost boy named Kim Taehyung, and Yoongi has adopted a dongsaeng in the form of a wide-eyed boy named Jeon Jeongguk, and for some reason another man named Kim Seokjin has joined their motley crew of outcasts, too handsome and too put-together to really look like he fits in but at the same time too fragile to be anywhere else.

See, Kim Seokjin’s timer has also run out. The red zeroes on his skin have settled, sunk in, permanent, just like Hoseok’s, and Hoseok knows, even after all this time, that it’s no work of Namjoon’s. Namjoon’s, whose timer still hasn’t appeared, and neither has Taehyung’s or Jeongguk’s. Yoongi’s is static, eternally in glitch either by force of his fucked up fate or sheer stubbornness on the musician’s part, so Hoseok knows Seokjin’s soulmate isn’t one of them, and he spends far too much time on the tracks to have one waiting for him somewhere.

(It’s one of the few things Hoseok now knows about soulmates: time apart is painful. Tenfold, when they are gone.)

Even though Hoseok doesn’t ask, he knows. Understands the sadness behind Seokjin’s eyes, the brokenness he hides under the pressed collared shirts and perfectly-coiffed hair. Hoseok doesn’t ask because he knows and he understands completely, so when Seokjin tells him he needs to get out of bed and get clean clothes from the apartment, he goes. Because Seokjin knows. Seokjin has survived, and Hoseok knows that Nayeon would want the same for him.

In another life, this is how it happens.

Hoseok returns to the apartment where he’d lived an all-to-brief life with his soulmate Kang Nayeon and finds her left-over painkillers in the bathroom cabinet. He packs his things, allowing himself to keep a single framed photo of them together, and lugs the bags into the living room where Yoongi and Jeongguk are fawning over the entertainment system and Seokjin is sitting politely on the edge of the couch. Namjoon is digging through the bookcase even though there’s barely anything on it, and Taehyung is blinking wide-eyed at the room, the demand to know why Hoseok would prefer a cramped train car over a nice, clean apartment on the tip of his tongue.

“If you aren’t going to stay here you might as well rent the place out,” Yoongi grunts, flopping onto the couch and kicking his booted feet up on the coffee table. His heels are muddy and Hoseok should tell him off, but it doesn’t matter anymore. None of it does.

“Sell it,” Hoseok says, tracing Yoongi’s gaze back to the entertainment system. “Sell everything.” Everything is in his name now, after all, and dead people don’t miss things. They don’t anything, period. “I don’t care.”

And it’s wrong for Hoseok not to care. So very, very wrong, but none of it matters anymore. Nayeon is gone, the apartment is his but he doesn’t want it, and Hoseok is too fuzzy from the painkillers he’d taken while no one was watching to have any of it touch him in the way that they should.

“Okay,” Namjoon says, dimpled grin behind the lollipop stick in his mouth. Hoseok came back and he was in the middle of trying to quit smoking, so he’s always talking around candy these days. Hoseok’s happy for him. Is glad for the reminder that life goes on, that his friends are changing.

Hoseok could do with a little bit of change. Could do with a lot of it. What he needs is them to be loud and raucous, for their lives to be big enough to fill up the void that his soulmate has left behind.

He needs and he wants, still, but he doesn’t know what, exactly. Wanting Nayeon is a dead end, and death just another. The pills help. They blur the edges until they almost fill the gaps. They help Hoseok pretend that the life that had upended to make room for his other half still fits. They help the curb the growing emptiness, they help fill the chasm.

They use the money to rent a house. On the wrong side of town, still, dilapidated and run down, but it’s not like any of them would fit in any other kind of place but this. (It’s not like any of them would with in with anyone else but each other.) Namjoon continues to work out of the train car because now he doesn’t have to shit where he eats, and Yoongi and Jeongguk move in from wherever the hell they had been staying. Jeongguk looks at the house, still too small for the four of them, like it’s a palace, so Hoseok doesn’t bother asking what kind of hole Yoongi had dragged him out from. They’ve all got demons, pasts that are best left behind all of them. A group of lost boys just trying to get to the end of the day, except at least now they have somewhere to come home to.

Hoseok thinks it’s the only good thing to come out of losing Nayeon. Considers it her way of helping him, still, by letting him be with the only people who give him a semblance of the kind of comfort and sense of belonging that she had given him.

Seokjin, always working behind the scenes, does his best to make the house feel like more than four walls and a place to sleep. Slowly, Seokjin fills the place with furniture and pots and pans and most nights with the smell of freshly cooked food, and the few times he’s sober Hoseok wonders where Seokjin’s money comes from. If Seokjin works. How he pays the bills for his own empty apartment, neglected with how much time he spends with them.

Most days it doesn’t matter how much Seokjin cleans up, really, even though Hoseok appreciates the effort, because Taehyung is always over, spray painting walls and leaving a mess in his wake. A mirror image of the chaos inside all of them, buzzing with violence that they learn resides within his own home. It’s refreshing, and Hoseok falls in love with all of them in a way that he would have bet money on his inability to, not after being paired and all-too-quickly unpaired, but he loves them. No one understands except Seokjin, and even at four in the morning when they’re the only two awake, Hoseok numb and high out of his mind and Seokjin’s eyes dark and haunted, they don’t talk about it.

They don’t talk about it, because there really isn’t much to say. They’re all angry, all broken, fallen through the cracks in a system that doesn’t even see people like them. What is there to say except fuck it? What is there to be, really, but this?

In the end it’s Yoongi who finds him. Yoongi, the angriest out of all of them, hair dyed a radioactive green after losing a bet with Jeongguk. Jeongguk, who has started to look at the hyung that had dragged him out of hell and given him a home with them with the same kind of eyes that Hoseok had seen Nayeon through. (It’s the only reason he knows what those eyes are even supposed to look like.) Yoongi, who is oblivious to it all, too concerned with how his timer has finally started ticking again, whose wrist still bears the marks of him trying to scratch the now-days off in a drunken rage.

It’s Yoongi who finds Hoseok, ditched cigarette burning feebly in the sink, voice like smoke as he tries and fails to wake him from his bed in the bathtub.

In Hoseok’s defense, he hadn’t actively been trying to drown himself. He’d collapsed somewhere along the Han (going where?) and had woken up at home (how had he ended up back here?) aching with emptiness like he always does these days. He’d taken a couple more pills and gotten himself into a bath, desperate for the same comfort he’d felt on the day he’d met his soulmate; that easy submersion, senses stretching past his skin into oblivion.

Yoongi finds Hoseok and Yoongi screams for Seokjin, who drives them to a hospital that Hoseok spends the next week comatose in. The whole time a boy screams in the bed next to his, his wrists carved up from his own nails as he pulls against his restraints, again and again and again like clockwork, like a metronome, and it’s the sound of complete and utter agony that drags Hoseok from the other side of the river Styx and back into the land of the living.

Jimin. The boy’s name is Park Jimin, and he becomes the seventh addition to their family.

Hoseok likes Jimin. He’s…something else. One second his eyes are happy little crescent moons on the milky white sky of his face, and the next he is screaming, screaming, screaming. Hoseok likes Jimin, because he gets it—how easy it is to switch from one to the other, to ride that in-between. The boys like Jimin, too, because while they don’t understand the switch as well as Hoseok does, they all have a need to protect. So when Hoseok takes Jimin and gives him a home, Jimin becomes theirs, too. To have and to hurt, to love and to destroy.

It’s Jimin, with his easy smile and hair-trigger, who gets Hoseok back into dancing again. For Jimin, the dance studio is the only place he can stay himself for longer than a couple of hours at a time. For Hoseok, it’s the only place where he can move quickly enough that the face that stares back at him in the mirror looks less like a stranger.

Weeks pass, months. Hoseok stops asking Yoongi what he’s doing watching them in the studio. Stops asking where the hell Jeongguk is. Stops asking what happened when his timer ran down.

Hoseok thinks he knows, but Jimin, who keeps his wrists and his scars and his own red zeroes covered up by the sleeves of his sweater, looks at him the way Jeongguk looks at Yoongi. The way Yoongi looks at Jimin. Hungry, and desperate, and angry. And Hoseok is still getting used to feeling so much so soon that he doesn’t want to touch that hive of bees with a ten-foot pole.

Hoseok is allergic to bee stings. Hoseok is allergic to feeling anything.

In another life, this is how it happens.

Namjoon comes home with Taehyung under his arm, nothing more than a broken baby bird under Namjoon’s equally broken wings, and for a second Hoseok thinks that a spray paint can must have exploded on him again before the red that stains the boy’s arms and chest registers as what it is: blood.

Namjoon comes home with Taehyung under his arm, and Taehyung is covered in blood.

This is different from the days that Jeongguk comes back with his face and knuckles nothing but open nerve-endings, from the nights they have to hold Jimin down to keep him from hurting himself too badly. This time the blood isn’t Taehyung’s own, even though it might as well be for all the life that’s already bled out of his eyes.

A day after the mess is sorted out by the police, a day after Taehyung says goodbye to the sister he’d sacrificed himself to protect, Taehyung moves into the house. He moves into the same room as Namjoon, because Namjoon has the same blood on his hands. Namjoon vibrates at the same wavelength, speaks the same language of weighted silence and necessary violence that Taehyung has learned overnight. Hoseok moves out of the room and into Jeongguk’s, which probably isn’t the best idea because Jeongguk has his own ways of coping that clash with the new ones, better ones, healthy ones that Hoseok is trying to get into the habit of, but it’s better than the alternative.

It’s better than the poor kid having first row seats to the Yoongi Pining Show, featuring Jimin Pining for Hoseok.

It’s a mess. A goddamn mess, and Seokjin, the only house of cards left standing in a room full of jokers, valiantly tries to pull their frayed ends back together.

The beach is as cold and as empty as it is in Hoseok’s dreams. The beach Seokjin takes them to looks like it’s never once felt the hands of summer, the kiss of the sun. It’s desolate and echoing—the entire shoreline might as well be one they’d find under the waves instead of running parallel to it, but Taehyung is singing and he is running, his long limbs a blur of motion through the air. Jimin’s smile is sincere, and he hasn’t once turned it to Hoseok the entire time, which Hoseok wants to take as a good thing. Namjoon is dancing, is trying to, valiantly; Seokjin’s trashy, shameless pop music his backing track as it fries the speakers of the pick-up truck. Jeongguk is quiet, he always is these days, and goes missing for a bit until Yoongi returns with him in tow, both with the same secret smiles that had been missing since the day Jeongguk punched him and Yoongi had broken the only mirror left in the house.

The beach Seokjin takes them to looks like it’s never once felt the hands of summer, and Hoseok loves it. His friends are loud, their lives and their beings big enough to fill up the empty space left in his, and when Jeongguk and Taehyung dunk him under the water, Yoongi screams, still a little traumatized, and Hoseok laughs and holds the water in his throat until it burns. When he comes up, Yoongi and Seokjin are in the water, the only two people who understand; whose brains are still sharp enough to fear, whose hearts are still big enough to hurt for him. Hoseok laughs again, maybe the first real one in years, and he coughs up saltwater and eight months of Nayeon and two years of missing her.

When Hoseok comes up and Namjoon wraps his battered leather jacket around his shoulders and Jimin places his red beanie on Hoseok’s head, Hoseok leaves the hurt and the ache and the pain and the longing in the ocean—a sacrifice to the gods of tide and timing, a final goodbye to summer and all the good things in it.

When they are camped out in their favorite lot behind the house a couple of hours later, Yoongi builds a bonfire to help Hoseok get rid of the remaining chill left in his bones. They’ve left the ocean behind them, as well as trashed a restaurant like the uncouth, uncultured, malcontent misfits that they are, and Hoseok likes to think that they’ve also dropped some baggage in their wake.

In another life, this is how it happens.

A week after their trip to the beach, Seokjin goes missing. Jeongguk is inconsolable, and not even a crowbar can pry Taehyung from Namjoon’s side. Yoongi and Jimin are sitting side by side on the couch, both buzzing with the need to break, but they’re holding onto each other’s hands in a way that Hoseok can see both their timers, their tattoos set to zeros.

About time, Hoseok thinks, through the Seokjin-sized hole in his vision. About time, he thinks, through the Seokjin-sized hole in his heart.

About time. It’s a funny thing, and it’s Taehyung, with his voice broken and his lips chapped, a boy when he’d met them but a man now with a lifetime’s worth of regrets, who points it out to the room at large.

“Hyung,” says Kim Taehyung. “Hyung, your wrist.”

Hoseok looks down and his first impossible thought is that it doesn’t hurt this time. Hoseok looks down, and the red numbers on his wrist are lit up like the bonfire, like the stars behind his eyes back when the pills had made everything simultaneously better and so much worse, like the sun setting over the shore, burning everything its light touched.

About time: it’s a funny thing.

Hoseok’s world comes crumbling down because Seokjin is the last lynchpin holding them all together. He’s disappeared without a trace, and without him Namjoon retreats back to his train car, Yoongi and Jimin vanish, Jeongguk dissolves back into the shadows he came from, and Taehyung goes back to what’s left of his other family.

Seokjin takes every picture and video he’d taken with him, and without those it’s easy to pretend that he’d never existed. Seokjin, with his windshield wiper of a laugh, with his broken hands struggling to cook them fresh meals, with those dark, dark eyes that carried the weight of a thousand lifetimes lived, is gone. All Hoseok is left with is an empty house full of broken things, paint and blood staining the walls, and an unbelievable, improbable, impossible countdown on his wrist that should feel like death coming.

Hoseok knows all about death. Has seen it, lived it, brought himself back from its clutches more than once, so when the miracle of his timer blinking with a new countdown happens, Hoseok knows that it should feel like death. Should feel like another ending, because his life is full of those. He is surrounded by it on all fronts in the form of the cigarette butts Yoongi leaves in the ashtray on the coffee table, the legs of it broken by one of Jimin’s fits and put together by his spit, duct tape and prayers. In the form of Taehyung’s last piece of work on the inside of the front door, a dark, nameless thing with wings that should have stayed in his nightmares but he’s brought to life with no heed for how his housemates will feel about it. In the water rings of Seokjin’s cups of tea on wood of the kitchen counter, in Namjoon’s forgotten sketches still taped to the living room walls. In the bomber jacket, a birthday present from Yoongi that Jeongguk probably couldn’t bear to bring with him, still hanging on the back of a kitchen chair.

It should feel like death but in the wake of so many other things ending, Hoseok (fiercely, naïvely, blindly) hopes, and that takes root in the cavern of his chest.

Will they be pretty? Will they be kind? Will they have a home to offer me? Will they love me? Will I be enough?

Will I get to keep them, this time?

In another life, this is how it happens.

Jung Hoseok is 23 years old and he has lived through a thousand heartbreaks. He has stared death in the face and lost his soulmate to it; he has stared death in the face and come back to tell his tale. He has been left behind by everyone who has ever mattered to him, but still, he is stronger than even he himself gives him credit for because he is still trying. He has been called sunshine by the most important people in his life, has been loved to the ends of the earth and back around by a group of lost boys who loved each other so much that they couldn’t bear the weight of it. He has been battered, bruised and left broken, and he is alone in a house full of ghosts.

But none of this matters to Na Ri, because she’s in the middle of a game of hide and seek with her nephew when the timer on her wrist blinks to life. None of this matters to Na Ri, because she has lived 22 years on this Earth and given up hope that she is one of the lucky ones blessed with another half.

None of this matters, because Na Ri screams when her timer blinks to life, not with pain but with joy. She cries not with hurt but with relief.

Because when the timer on her wrist blinks to life, it reads 000:29:38, and it means that her soulmate is finally ready to meet her.

#BTS #bts fanfiction

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