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johannstutt413 · 3 years

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(requested by mathmaticalknight; continuing a series)

“Ya know, I dunno why I thought she mighta been jokin’ ‘bout the tuxes.” Croissant was blushing brightly as she was getting her measurements taken.

Mostima shrugged. “I don’t ever plan on getting married, but one of us was bound to tie the knot sooner or later, and Texas needs to find an officiant who will sign two certificates for her discreetly before it’s even an option for her. Where are your hanger-ons, by the way?”

“With Angelina, doing the same thing we are.” The Lupo had a Pocky stick in her mouth like a cigar, taking it all in. “I wouldn’t marry Sora, though. Exu maybe, but not Sora. She’s a good girl, but the whole ‘idol worship’ is a bit much.”

“She’d really want you to praise her that much?” The Sarkaz smirked.

Texas rolled her eyes. “Funny.”

“If any’n’s worshippin’ any’n, it ain’t Tex.” The Forte chuckled, but had to stop when the tape measure came ‘round again. “Hey, how tight this need ta be? Least gimme a lil’ room ta breathe ‘ere.”

“Don’t question my judgment, ‘less you wan’a punishment. I been wearin’ this look a lot longer than you.” Emperor bit back, making the last few notes he needed.

The three shared a glance. “You wear T-shirts over your feathers, though,” Mostima observed.

“Well, yeah, cuz’ I like the style,” he replied, “but if ya ever see me rockin’ my birthday suit, you’d know I’m just as fuckin’ classy. Got killer shoes to boot.”

“What, yer feet?” Croissant glanced down at the penguin’s openly-visible legs.

He nodded. “Damn straight. The boys will have your suit to ya within a couple days; when’s the big shindig, anyways?”

“Uh...I dunno.” The Forte shrugged. “We’re gonna sign the papers a week from now, but we don’t have money for a ceremony.”

“Well, then, imma have to do it myself.” Emperor opened his notes again and walked away, pen scribbling faster than before.

Texas shook her head. “That’s how you know you’re the Boss’s favorite, Cross.”

“Aw, shucks, I didn’ wan’im to pay fer it.” She sighed. “I’m gonna be payin’im back ferever at this rate.”

“Could be worse - if he died before forever came along, the debt would probably go right back to the company.” And with that, the Sankta left, the other two not too far behind, to meet Bison in the lobby.

Meanwhile, Magallan was moving at a more leisurely pace, listening to Angie recount the proposal story. “That sounds exactly like I imagined. Empy’s was a lot more ostentatious, but I had no idea what was coming, either. WIth him, he could’ve been holding an impromptu concert.”

“That’s the Emperor, alright.” Exusiai sighed. “I can’t imagine what it’d be like to go through something like this. Can you, Sora?”

“Hmm?” The ‘Lupo’ had been doing just that, actually.

Angelina smiled. “Oh, I think she can. I’ve had that look on my face for the past week now...It’s too bad we can’t afford to have a ceremony, though.”

“You can’t?” The Liberi measuring her stopped. “Oh, dear, why didn’t you tell me? I’m sure Empy and I can help you with that; consider it our wedding gift to you both.”

“You’d really do that? But they’re so expensive...” Her fiance’s sense for money was rubbing off on her.

Magallan chirped merrily. “Oh, it’s no big deal; we’re making so much, it’s a drop in the bucket. How does three weeks from today sound?”

“Oh, Magallan, I can’t just blindly agree without talking to my Croissantwich first...buuut that’ll probably be okay.” The Vulpo was about to explode from happiness; luckily, they were done with measurements at this point (because of Liberi efficiency), so she was free to detonate with glee as she burst out of the dressing room. “Croissaaaaaant!”

“Angie?!” The Forte heard her and turned around in time to be slammed by a full-speed makeout machine which managed through sheer enthusiasm to knock her to the floor.

Texas nodded as the other two followed out. “Ceremony?”

“Ceremony,” Exusiai confirmed. “Emp and Maggie paying for the whole thing?”

“That’s what he said...Wonder if he’ll pay for ours.”

Two Penguin Logistics members turned bright red as Bison and Mostima had an intense but muted conversation off to the side...Yep, just another day in Penguin Logistics.

-----------

“Wow. They really did pull out all the stops, didn’t they?” The Doctor and Amiya took back their IDs from the door guard as they walked into the auditorium that’d been taken over. “It’ll be hard to match for ours.”

“Doctor darling, we probably shouldn’t compete with the Emperor like that. He doesn’t like to back down from a fight.” Besides, why would she need a grand ceremony? Just her and the Doctor at the altar, Kal’tsit as the Maid of Honor, Savage and Blaze as bridesmaids-

There was a tap on her shoulder as her date gestured to the seating. “I wonder if they expect to fill the place tonight.”

“Everyone’s sitting so close to the front, it’s hard to tell.” The Cautus shrugged. “Let’s sit back here. It’s a bit crowded there...So many emotions at once might overload me.”

“As you wish~ Oh, they’re about to start, I think. One question: why is Texas on the other side and wearing a suit? And why isn’t Emperor, even though Lappland is in one?”

Amiya shrugged. “Hard to say, Doctor. How did Lappland get to be a groomsman when Bison is- Oh! He’s the officiant.”

“When did he get that certifi-” He stopped as soon as Bison began to read.

“Friends, colleagues, and esteemed leaders of Rhodes Island,” the Forte began. “While I stand before you today acting in a merely ceremonial capacity in this celebration, I cannot begin to tell you how exciting a day this is not just for us at Penguin Logistics, but for Rhodes Island as a whole. Never have I seen a pair more in love than the two who come here today to declare their union in holy matrimony. Will the groom please come forward?”

From a door off to their right, there was a bit of a ruckus, followed by Croissant stepping through with a sheepish smile on her face as Emperor walked her to the altar before taking a front-row seat. Evidently, she’d knocked over a coat rack or something as she’d approached the door, but that wasn’t what grabbed people’s attention.

The Doctor squeezed Amiya’s hand. “Our Croissant is a rather handsome woman, isn’t she?”

“Oh, hush, dear.” She lightly slapped his hand, which was resting atop hers on the chair arm between them. “I think she looks lovely.”

“That’s what I meant, darling, just in a masculine sense. The style matches her perfectly, and the tailoring is also impeccable, honestly.”

She gave him a look. “Have you been studying this sort of thing?”

“It’s important to have a broad knowledge base.” He smiled as the Forte stepped up to the altar, clearly noticed she’d missed her mark, and shuffled a little to get into place. “Oh, Cross...”

“Uh...thank y’all for comin’. Wudn’t sure how many people’d wanna come when we’d already tied the knot on our own, but uh...It means a lot ta both of us, I know. Uh...” She probably had more, but she choked up with tears in her eyes in the face of Rhodes Island’s full support on display. “Th-thank y’all so much...”

As Texas patted her on the shoulder, Bison continued. “Is the bride ready?”

“As ready as she’ll ever be,” Mostima muttered as the opposite door opened to reveal a procession: Greyy with a pair of rings displayed on a pillow walking with Gummy, who was sprinkling the floor behind them with flowers. Behind them, Magallan was arm-in-arm with Angelina, who was wearing a suit of her own.

“Oh my God,” Amiya gasped in wonder. “Doctor-”

He nodded, squeezing her hand. “I see her, too, dear.”

“Hot damn,” Emperor audibly muttered, catching the attendees off-guard and eliciting more than a few laughs.

“Thank you, Emperor.” Angie smiled at him before turning to the crowd as Maggie took a seat. “My parents aren’t here, and I doubt they’d have agreed to attend if I’d told them, but Penguin Logistics is more like my family than anyone. The other day, I finally married into it, and...I just wanna say, to everyone from Rhodes Island who was able to make it, and the folks who had work to do, I appreciate everything you’ve all done for Cross and me since I got here. Even if this probably isn’t what any of you saw coming...Bison?”

He smiled. “Greyy, if you would?” The Perro held out the pillow for the couple to each take a ring. “Excellent. Now, as I wasn’t able to be fully ordained in time for this ceremony, I can’t lead the two in a recital of their vows, but they asked to be able to each say something here today. Angelina, if you will?”

“I think my wifesband should go first,” she teased, grinning at the blush that turn of phrase created.

“Well, ya only get ta do this right once, huh...” The Forte wiped at her eye. “Hoo boy. I was there the night Angie realized her feelin’s fer me, but I’ll a’mit, e’er since the firs’ day I saw ‘er, I ‘ad a pretty good ide-er just ‘ow wun’erful she is. Ain’t a lotta girls in’a world that got both a good ‘ead on ‘er shoulders and a warm ‘eart like she got, but ‘at ain’t e’ry’in ta love ‘bout ‘er either. Not sure if she ‘members this, but first time we met was back when she aksidelly went’n PL lookin’ fer the Doctor. Nothin’ like ‘avin’ some’n so gorjus tell ya ‘Sorry, was lookin’ fer some’n else,’ ya know?”

A bit of laughter from the crowd before she continued. “I reckon I ‘ad the last laugh there, tho’, cuz’ guess ‘oo gets to call ‘erself Mrs. Ajimu now...Angelface, we were friends long ‘fore I thought we ‘ad a chance at bein’ lovers, so you know when I say I’ve seen ya at yer best and yer worst, I ain’t tryin’a diss ya. There ain’t a nuther person in ‘is room as lucky as me t’day, ‘cuz the love of my life loves meh back...Ya prolly shud stop meh, else I’ll just keep ram’lin’.”

“That’s alright; even if these folks have other places to be, I’d listen to every word. You know, darling, if it was a nightmare that inspired you to propose to me when you did, I have to wonder what happens when you have a good dream, but I think I’ve been living in one since the day we had our first date. Between movie nights with the company and waking up to your smile in the mornings, it’s like living in one of the cheesy teen novels I loved reading after floating up to one of my usual spots. Loving you is a flashback and a memory and a dream and a reality all rolled up in knowing that, whatever happens - arguments, deployments that separate us, maybe even one of us getting hurt - there’s nothing in the world that’ll stop me from needing you, wanting you, standing by your side...Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me...” Having said her piece, tears in her eyes, Angie reached out and slid her ring on Cross’s finger, who did the same in turn.

“I think I’m gonna cry,” the Doctor whispered to his date, who already was. “G-good call on the back sea--” And there went the water works.

Across most of the auditorium, actually, save for those physically incapable, and Bison, who soldiered on regardless. “That said, before we get to the festivities provided by Emperor and Magallan for the evening, it’s my duty to ask: if anyone here has any objection to this union - not that it will matter from a legal standpoint - speak now or forever hold your peace...Good, because I’d punch you myself if you did. Then, by the power invested in me by Rhodes Island and subsidiary company Penguin Logistics-”

“When did that happen?” Amiya asked in a hushed voice. “I thought we were just partners with them?”

“Closure and Emperor came to some kind of understanding. I wasn’t there for the process, I just signed the agreement.”

“-I now announce you to the world as Mrs. and Mrs. Ajimu. You may now kiss your bride.”

You didn’t have to ask them twice.

The celebration afterwards was wild as hell. Emperor had an impromptu concert (as expected); Bison proposed to Mostima, who actually agreed before falling apart in a spectacular show of emotion Exusiai had thought was impossible for her; the Doctor and Amiya tore up the dance competition that broke out, but narrowly lost to Croissantwich and Angelface in the karaoke contest afterwards; Lappland admitted that she wasn’t actually in love with Texas but trying to rile her up into a duel so she could get to Exusiai the entire time, which actually got the Texas family’s most composed to go full Mafia Samurai on her ass as the Sankta and the idol looked on in a mix of horror and “omg I knew it;” and through it all, drink was had, and merry was made.

Terra was a difficult place to live in. Poverty, inequality, terror, bloodshed, fear, hatred, jealousy - they’re no less potent or prominent on its surface than any other world’s, a product of the inevitable confluence of humanity’s imperfections magnified across a barely-numerable and broadly-scattered population. With all that said, though, there was much to live for, and as Angelina and Croissant made it home and threw themselves out of their clothes for the ‘real’ celebration of the evening, none of that mattered. Tomorrow would come, or it wouldn’t, but that night was theirs in a way no other would be...

#arknights #arknights fic #croissant (arknights)#angelina (arknights)#emperor (arknights)#magallan (arknights)#texas (arknights)#sora (arknights)#exusiai (arknights)#bison (arknights)#mostima (arknights)#amiya (arknights)#how is it that writing this was faster than the last two...#i love this pair #and i wish them all the best #tbh no idea where this would go from here #but then again it's like that with most fics that people ask me to continue somehow #but uh...yeah #'ave a good'n

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mychemicalxmen · 4 years

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Unfinished Business

hey so I find crt’s recent interactions with the tua fandom to be sus as hell and it got me thinking about the most plausible way I could see him comin back in s3 and the conclusion I came to is a way-shorter and way-simpler version of whatever the hell this is so uhhhh here

2.9k, klave/klave-adjacent

... ... ...

“Is this really a good idea?”

Allison’s words are gentle as she stands in the doorway of Klaus’s room. Well, not his room, per se, but the grey-walled, undecorated space that would’ve been his bedroom in a timeline gone by. The Sparrow Academy doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of homey-ness. They’d ever-so-kindly granted the Umbrellas two nights’ stay in these cold cells while they gathered their bearings and prepared to face the new world they’d fantastically screwed up.

Klaus smiles at her question. “That’s hardly stopped me before, right?”

Allison rolls her eyes and drops her hands onto her hips. “I’m worried about you, okay?”

“Don’t be,” Klaus answers with a swatting gesture. “It’s been easy-peasy since I’ve dropped the pills. Parlor tricks. Did this song and dance tons of times for Madame.”

“Also, we need to unpack your relationship to ‘Madame’ at your earliest convenience.”

Klaus raises an eyebrow mischievously. “What happens in Dallas...!”

Allison sighs. “Okay, well, if things start to get, y’know, mega-spooky panic-time, you’ll just yell, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

“Hey.” Allison’s voice is suddenly calmer. Klaus’s gaze snaps up to meet hers. “You’re sure about this?”

Klaus lets himself breathe for a moment. Tension fights to seize his limbs. He’s really about to do it.

His first six months of sobriety were the absolute nightmare that he knew they would be. They were all the sleepless nights, trembling hands, emotional eruptions, and torturous visions that he’d predicted.

But at some point, his powers became less like a stubborn faucet, run by an on/off switch with not much in between. With time (and Ben’s encouragement), he’d come to better understand his link to the other side. He’d learned how to cut and re-engage the connection at will, how to find faces in the crowd, how to call one forth, and how to sleep peacefully.

Most nights.

“I’m sure,” he says solidly.

He checks himself over, tugging his brightly striped shirt into place, tucking in his dog tag, and running a hand through the hair he’d half-considered chopping off the second he made it home. When he looks back up at Allison, he‘s feeling a bit less brave. “Do I look alright?”

Allison nods with a little grin. “You look great.” God, he wishes they’d reconnected far before this Dallas fiasco. She just cares so much. “Good luck,” she says.

“Love you, sis.” He blows her a lazy kiss as she leaves and closes the door behind her.

He paces around the room, steeling himself for the process. Like he said, it’s no big deal. Easy peasy. Even with that hiccup with alcohol, he’s clean enough to pull it off. He shakes out the last of his nerves with a couple tiny hops before settling in the middle of the room.

He stands firmly, feet apart, and drops his head. He squeezes his fists and lets the energy start to crackle between his fingers.

With all the insanity of this timeline, he needs to know what happened in 1968. He needs to see Dave.

It’s tougher to contact someone not already in the room. He focuses everything he has, and the energy pulses faster and stronger. Come on, come on…

“Klaus?”

He looks up with a start.

There he is, standing four feet in front of him. Those torn-up fatigues. Those searching blue eyes. That curly mess of blonde hair he hasn’t seen for three years.

Dave.

Klaus can’t keep the dumb smile off of his face.

“Hey there, soldier,” he practically whispers.

“Hey yourself,” Dave says - happy, though clearly disoriented. “Guess you weren’t making up all that ‘future’ junk after all.”

Klaus’s affirmative laugh is airy. But when his eyes trail down to the cavity in Dave’s chest, his heart aches in regret.

His jaw aches too. What a week it’s been.

“I have... so much to ask you,” Dave goes on. “It’s been a long time.”

Klaus swallows. Here goes. The million dollar question.

“Uh… How long of a time, exactly?”

He unconsciously holds his breath.

Dave glances to the side. “...Right around when JFK was shot. Must’ve been ‘63?”

Klaus exhales and sits on the bed, face blank.

Dave is wincing at his own memories. “God, I was such a dumb kid, I’m so sorry that you—”

Klaus isn’t hearing him. He’s too caught up on that number. 63.

If the Umbrella Academy doesn’t exist, Klaus Hargreeves doesn’t grow up in the same home as Five Hargreeves. He doesn’t get kidnapped by assassins. He doesn’t get his hands on a briefcase. He doesn’t go to Vietnam.

If the Umbrella Academy doesn’t exist, neither does the Dave that fell in love with him.

His Dave is gone. Really gone.

This Dave was the timid hardware store employee he’d tried to get through to, striving to save his life and instead locking in his fate a few days early. This Dave is still the same person as the other one was. Same upbringing, same interests, same compassion, same smile, same violent death. But...

“—a strange time for anyone. You know how it is.”

Klaus tunes back in to Dave apologizing for his cringey adolescence. “No, no, yeah, I get it, don’t worry about it.”

In the pause that follows, Klaus feels his throat tighten and hot tears threaten to drop down his face.

Within the same pause, Klaus realizes the obvious. Dave is a ghost.

Kiddos and grandmas, or anyone who’s achieved either nothing or everything that their life had to offer them, they get the window to move on right away. One-way ticket to the Great Beyond, or the next life, or whatever the hell it is. Ultimate FastPass, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200. Klaus has learned that spirits don’t tend to stick around on earth unless they have unfinished business. Sometimes they don’t even know what they need to do to start fresh, and that’s always the worst. Those souls become the bitterest, the loudest, the most tortured. Those were the ones who gave him hell in the mausoleum, with question after question that he couldn’t even begin to answer.

Dave seems to have managed okay. Probably spends a lot of time watching over his friends, his sisters, his neighbor’s cat. Klaus wonders what he could possibly have left to do.

“Major case of unfinished business you got there, huh?” Klaus asks. “Been waiting around, what, fifty years?”

Dave squints. “Well, it’s hard to feel it. Time works a little funny over here.”

“Right, of course it does,” Klaus recalls stupidly. He sniffles and swipes a hand under his eye as nonchalantly as he can. “Ah. Any idea what the little brat is waiting for you to do?”

Dave gives a tentative chuckle. “Brat?”

“Oh, Big G, the almighty, you know,” Klaus clarifies. “The bitch on the bike. I met Her once or twice. We’re not too chummy.”

Dave shows startlement, then shakes his head, acknowledging that this information should hardly faze him at this point. “Um. Yeah. Don’t know what She wants yet. Though She’s actually a cowgirl for me.”

“Of course She is.”

And that’s the idiotic comment that causes Klaus’s voice to crack.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Dave asks. He hazards a few steps closer.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

“No... Nothing,” Klaus stammers. He briefly covers his face and lets out a groan. “Ughhh, it’s going to sound crazy.”

“Really think you can beat ‘Time-Traveling Cult Leader with Prophetic Dog Tags and Tidings of Death’?”

“It wasn’t a cult,” Klaus mumbles in futility. He drops his hands and gives it his best shot. “The first time I met you - first time I met Dave - was in a totally different timeline, in 1968. That’s how I knew all that stuff about you. And you died the same way, except I was there the first time. The other time. The same time?”

“You and ...’Other Dave’.... fought together,” Dave offers.

“Yes!” Klaus confirms, relieved that he’s making sense. “Yeah, exactly. Which is why I tried to stop him - you - from going.” He indicates Dave’s abdomen. “And, obviously, I failed. But because of some stuff my family screwed up along the way, you never fought with me, so I remember a lot more than you do, and it’s all just...” He gestures helplessly. “A real kick in the dick.”

Dave tilts his head in a mix of sympathy and confusion. “That... does sound pretty crap.”

Klaus doesn’t expect it when Dave sits next to him on his bed.

“You want to tell me what I missed?”

“Oh, no, no, no, Dave, you don’t want that. That’s a long story.”

Dave shrugs. “I’ve got some time to kill.”

Klaus manages a smile. Talking will keep him from crying.

He tries his best to tell everything chronologically, but almost every step of the beginning requires some Hargreeves Family Lore that he reluctantly recaps as efficiently as possible. Dave is an exceptional listener. Always has been. He lets Klaus ramble on and on and asks little questions now and again to get a clearer picture. Klaus appreciates Dave’s effort to form a coherent narrative out of the scattered snapshots that time has left him with.

Klaus stumbles with pronouns. He makes a point to refer to His Dave with “him” as opposed to “you”, but he can’t help but slip a few times in the middle. Dave seems to understand.

Klaus tells him about the day they met. He waters down the Time Police part of the tale and focuses on what came after. Dropping into the tent at dawn. The casual conversation on the bus. The strange instinct that he got to stick around for a few days.

He tells him about soldiering. He tells Dave how focused and respected he looked on the battlefield. But he also tells him how kind he was to new recruits.

He tells him about their first R&R together in Saigon. He tells him about the vibrant bar and the strangest music and the secluded back hallway.

He tells him about the nights in the jungle they’d stayed up and dreamed up plans for when they’d go home together. He tells him about the day those plans fell apart. When Klaus runs out of story to tell, he just stops. Dave looks at him thoughtfully. Klaus can only imagine what must be running through his head. He knows it’s not judgement, or embarrassment, or anger, or loathing. Dave is too sweet for any of that.

Dave is too good for the rotten fortune that found him, time and time again.

“I’m sorry,” Klaus says.

“For what?”

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t save him,” Klaus answers. He fumbles again. “You. Him? Young Dave?”

“I’m getting a headache keeping track of it myself,” Dave admits.

“You,” Klaus settles on. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

Dave looks into him for a breath. Then, he reaches out and touches his arm. Klaus wants to dissolve into dust.

“I think I understand why I loved you,” Dave says.

A bittersweet laugh tumbles ungracefully from Klaus’s mouth. He tries not to draw attention to the new round of tears that spills over with it. “You do?”

“Yeah. I do.” Dave gives him the gentlest smile. “You shouldn’t be sorry. You tried so hard. I could’ve had more courage, fought back, ran away, something, but I just... wasn’t ready.” He glances down. “And I wasn’t going to be.”

Klaus’s hand closes over Dave’s on his arm.

“But I always remembered you,” Dave adds. “I always thought you were brave.”

“Goddamn, I was convinced I’d pushed your Big Awakening back a good two months, at least.”

“Far from,” Dave assures. His eyes crinkle with the flash of a memory. “I’m... not sure if I should tell you this.”

Klaus cocked his head. “Well, shit, Davey, now you have to.”

“I’m assuming Other Me told you something about Bill, right? Met in junior year, moved to Austin after school, always a bit of suspicion there...”

“Yeah?”

Dave’s face reddens slightly. “I mean, it wasn’t anything serious, but there were a few weeks when I was home, before this last tour...”

Klaus’s eyes widen. This was not an event on his timeline. He mocks outrage and pushes Dave’s hand away. “David Joseph Katz—!”

“The point is,” Dave poorly stifles a laugh, “I had hope. That it was gonna be alright, and that after this round, I’d be back in America for good, and I’d find my place.”

Hope.

Klaus supposes hope is nice. It’s just not terribly helpful with the way things panned out. In the world where Dave still didn’t make it home. In the world where he’s stuck here, waiting for a way to move on. In the world where he’s still around to see how little good that hope did him. And frustration starts to churn Klaus’s stomach, even though he knows...

“...This really wasn’t your fault,” Dave says, reading him just as perfectly as he could in ‘68.

Klaus hadn’t noticed how long he’d fallen silent for. “I know,” he mumbles, and logically, he does. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less. There had to be a timeline out there where everything ended up alright, where him and Dave lived happily together just like they’d talked about, but he is never going to find it now.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “And I still love him. Christ, he made one of the deadliest shitshows in American history the only place I wanted to be. He made me the happiest that I’ve been in a long, long time. He made me feel so treasured. So... strong.”

When the tears return a third time, he stops trying to hide them. He carelessly wipes the heel of his palm across his cheek.

“I wanted to tell him all that,” he finishes. “He gave me something so special that I don’t think I’ll get again.”

A sob escapes Klaus. Dave patiently waits for him to work it out.

“I know I’m not him,” Dave starts, “But for what it’s worth, I think he’d know you still love him. I think it’d destroy him to be apart from you. But I don’t think he’d want you to destroy yourself.”

Klaus knows the spiel that’s coming, and so badly does he want to dismiss it all as disgusting cliche. But he also knows Dave’s sappy tendencies well enough to know that, in this case, it’s probably accurate. Hell, he’s hearing it from the man himself.

“If you couldn’t get back to him, I think he’d just want to know you were happy,” Dave says. “You know? That you kept moving and kept taking care of yourself. And kept looking for the kind of love you deserve.”

Dave shifts to face him more directly. His eyes are bright with intention. “You have so much life left in you. You deserve a new chapter.”

Klaus feels beaten and weary all over. His mind is finally slowing down to the present.

When Dave subtly opens up his arms, he eagerly takes the offer to wrap him in an embrace.

This is the last he’ll see of him. He can feel it. He tucks his chin over Dave’s shoulder and clings onto the fabric of his vest, eyes shut, trying to commit every sensation to memory.

Dave returns, lightly weaving his hand into Klaus’s hair. Klaus recalls with a weak grin that he knew Dave would be fond of the new length.

It’s safe and sacred and almost everything that he’d planned for on that day he’d desperately wandered the mansion halls, calling out for any help he could get, twisting a bundle of rope in his quaking hands.

He hears a whisper of a wind chime.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” Dave mutters.

The blue glow pierces through Klaus’s eyelids. He pulls back to look at Dave.

He’s crumbling apart, piece by piece, and drifting away. Bright light speckles the entire room.

“Klaus?” Dave asks. His voice is soft but threaded with slight fear. “Is this...?”

“Yeah, it is,” he answers. He tightens his grip on Dave’s arms. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me say goodbye.”

A beat passes. Then, understanding washes over Dave’s face. He pulls Klaus close once again, stroking his hair.

He presses a kiss onto Klaus’s forehead.

Klaus doesn’t watch him go. He only opens his eyes when his arms are at last empty.

Specks of glittering blue light still float through the air. Nothing else remains but the wrinkle on the bedspread where he was sitting. Klaus’s face still feels warm where his lips were placed just moments ago.

Klaus buries his head in his hands. “Allison,” He calls out. The sound is pathetic. He clears his throat and tries again. “Allie?”

He hears her heeled boots click down the hall. He can’t bring himself to look up when she opens the door. “You okay?”

“It’s over,” he summarizes.

“What do you need?”

A joint. A fist full of pills. Five shots of tequila. A good sock in the head so he can go back to that pre-Technicolor hellscape and tell that bitch on the bike what he really thinks of Her.

“Can you just sit with me for a minute, please?”

Allison closes the door and obliges.

They talk, slowly and softly, about absolutely nothing at all, while Allison smooths her hand against Klaus’s back. They stare at the cold tile floors together for a long time. Klaus asks if it would kill the Sparrows to hire an interior decorator.

#no beta we die like carl #tua #klave #the umbrella academy

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make-it-mavis · 4 years

Text

Homesick (Entry #29)

(cw: drunkenness, heated verbal fighting, blood) ----------

01/15/88 1:12 PM

Hey.

Writing all this down hasn’t been easy, you know.

When I started, it was hard to even get anything from my brain to paper. It seemed even more pointless than it does now, for one thing, but for another, it forced me to remember things I’d rather just forget. All these memories are still raw. I haven’t been able to bury them yet, as much as I’ve tried, and writing about them, thinking about them, just feels like ripping open dirty scabs. There are memories so awful that they keep me awake, they infect my dreams, they make me physically ill. Those are just the bad ones.

The good ones hurt about ten times more.

That’s why, sitting down to write this entry now, it feels like I’ve taken nearly half an hour just to get this far. I remember everything, down to each minute detail, so it’s all here in my head, already written. Believe me, I read it all the time. I can hardly put it down, despite my best efforts. I can’t say whether it’s good or bad for my well-being, when it comes down to it. I will say that every word I read feels like its own tiny dagger in my heart.

I’m not sure whether writing them down will feel like pulling the daggers out or twisting them. Best I can figure is, I’m gonna bleed either way, right?

So, let’s take a look at what is, without a doubt, the worst good memory of my life.

Before walking through your door, I paused. I don’t know what I was waiting for. I just wavered a bit and listened to the distant and dissonant riffs of your game’s theme that was nearly drowned out by my heartbeat in my ears. I’d been in your trailer not moments before, and left with the intention of really leaving, of going back to my game and presumably drinking more, breaking stuff, or most likely, both. But I didn’t get a few paces away before I stopped short and turned around. Something tugged at me and urged me to go back in. Like I had unfinished business, or I’d forgotten something. Apparently, it was important enough to call me back into a situation that I had clearly wanted to leave not moments before.

It took something pretty bad for us to part ways while still drunk. Whatever ugly situation I’d just left, I was about to make it uglier. On purpose.

I’ve got a talent for that.

Biting the bullet, I pushed through the door, slammed it shut, and locked it.

It was dark. You’d cranked the blackout shutters just a bit shy of closed, so it was still bright compared to a dark room in Niceland, but shady enough that the glow of your eyes really stood out when you turned to look at me. You were braced against the kitchen sink, and you were holding a bottle that you’d just pulled away from your mouth. I got the impression that you’d just drained most of it in one go by the way you smacked your tongue, and, honestly, you looked way too rough to be sipping anything. Your hair was a disaster (an unintentional disaster), and the distinct pride in your posture was just drowning. You looked slower and heavier than I ever thought I’d see you. I didn’t like it.

You didn’t like what you saw, either, if the blunt glare in your eyes was any indicator. You took another hefty swig, sighed wetly, and growled, “You said you were leavin’.”

I held my ground at first, but I could feel something awful pushing up from my chest. “I did,” I growled right back, “and I’m back now.”

“You forget somethin’?”

“Yeah. I forgot to tell you--” I paused, as my sentence had tumbled completely out of my drunken head, “I decided I can’t leave, ‘cause someone has to tell you how ridiculous you’re being, and ain’t nobody else here to do it.”

Your glare sharpened, and you stood a bit straighter. “‘The cuss you just say?”

I stepped forward. “You heard me. You’re being stupid. You’re making such a huge deal over nothing.”

“I--” you pointed to yourself, “haven’t been doing anything! You’re the one who’s been acting weird all night! What is with you?! Did your sense of fun just fly outta your pocket, or what?! Go on n’ just scram ‘til you find it again!”

I took major offense to that. “I’M not being fun?! I’m always fun, dickbag! You’ve been a mopey, grouchy, pissy, boring, complete and total drag all night, and I know why!”

“Oh, do freakin’ tell.”

I swiftly struck a nerve.

“You’re all hung up on this-- this Roadblasters garbage! It’s got you all--”

“Are you KIDDIN’ me?!” you snapped, stomping over just short of me, “That’s what you’re on about!? You think I’m some kinda pathetic, jealous loser?!”

“I’unno, you sure are acting like one! Over nothing! This is not a big deal!”

“I am not a loser, and I’ll never be a loser, because guess what? You’re right,” you dismissively backed off, strolling back to the sink to lounge against it, still reeking of barely-reined-in rage. “It’s not a big deal. You think I’m worried? No one’s ever even come close to stealing the crown from me. The gamers love a shiny new toy now n’ then, but they love me more. They’ll get bored and come back to me before the week is out.”

“You said that last week.”

Your eyes took on a threatening glint. “Yeah, so?”

I scoffed, “So, you gonna say it next week, too? I hate to be the one to spell it out for ya, buddy, but, those gamers? Odds are? They ain’t comin’ back.”

You paused, and there was something in your eyes that I hated. Well, not that I hated you for looking that way. I hated that I put that look there. There was a hint of this wretched sort of disbelief in them. They were angry, they were indignant, but they couldn’t believe I would say something like that. They couldn’t believe I would think something like that.

I hated that look. But I still felt I was in the right to say it. At the time.

You were too thrown to counter right away, so I continued. “The sooner you get that through your head, the better. You keep waitin’ for something that just ain’t gonna happen, you’ll only get more n’ more miserable.”

The shock in your eyes burned away into something far more hostile. You fired back sharply, with so much venom in your voice, “Right. Uh-huh. And is that what happened to you?”

It was my turn to be caught off-guard. I was expecting you to push back, of course. But when I caught a glimpse of where the argument was headed, my insides just twisted and boiled. I was angry. I wanted to finish you off before you could get into my head. I just… wasn’t ready to go down that road with you, down to things that could only be used to cause me pain, even if you weren’t wasted and pissed off. I needed to defend myself. That’s just the way it felt.

I know you were doing the exact same thing.

I stood, frozen solid, glaring daggers at you, just waiting for anything useful to come into my head. “No,” I began sloppily spinning lies, “but it could’ve. I got wise to it real quick once I realized that it doesn’t freakin’ matter.”

You wheezed a short, spiteful laugh, downed the rest of your drink, and tossed the bottle unceremoniously onto the counter. “‘Got wise,’” you spat, “what a joke. I bet the punchline is that you think you know what this feels like.”

It took me a second, but I decided to bite. “Yeah, T. No freakin’ crit, I do.”

“No,” you growled, slapped your palm back against the counter, and pushed yourself towards me. You imposed into my space, leaning in close, but I refused to budge. “You don’t. An Easter Egg couldn’t possibly get this. I’m the Good Guy.”

You knew how often I heard stuff like that. The steaming rainbows of crap I’ve gone through for who I am. And still, you went there. I know you were just angry, and I know, like me, you tend to say things you don’t mean when that happens. But damn if I didn’t feel betrayed. And damn if it was not about to get worse.

I prompted you quietly, “What’s that got to do with it?”

“So,” you hissed, “you don’t know what it’s like to have the gamers love you since the moment you were plugged in.”

Yeah. With that one sentence, you hurt me in ways I’d always feared you would.

My gut reaction, my first reflex, was to hurt you back. I can say and do some really terrible things when I’m hurt. I realize that more and more as I look back on all I’ve done in this story. But I think right around here is the worst of it. You struck deep enough to break out the ugliest part of me. So I struck back with the intent to cut even deeper.

“No!” I shouted, actually startling you a bit. “No, I don’t! And neither do you! The gamers DON’T LOVE YOU! They never HAVE!”

I’ll never forget the look on your face when I said that.

I continued, “They don’t love ANYBODY! They only like you ‘til they get BORED, and then they DITCH you! You wanna tell me that’s LOVE?! You wanna tell me that’s anything I should WANT?! Why do YOU want it?! Why do you let them HURT YOU like this?! A gamer’s love is worth nothing! It’s not real! Why can’t you GET that?!”

You couldn’t retort. Not right away. You were just reeling for a second. Your drunken self staggered back a step and wavered a bit while you stared at me with a look I wish I could wipe from my memory.

Then that look was gone.

“Oh,” you nodded, straightening up and stepping back on your heels. “Oh, okay. I get it. I hear ya loud n’ clear, baby. You think just ‘cause the gamers never loved YOU, that means they can’t love anyone, right?”

You sort of already said that. Hearing you say it plainly hurt way more. Then, just when I thought you couldn’t cut any deeper, you sliced me down to the bone.

“You know not everyone’s coded equal, don’t you?” you began. “Look, sweetheart, I’m sorry to say you’re the only walkin’, talkin’ Easter Egg in this joint, but that’s the thing. You’re one of a kind. You can't act like the way the gamers see you is how they see anyone else. You keep sayin’ it doesn’t matter if the gamers love you or not, and you’re right! It doesn’t! It matters if they love the Good Guys! That love’s everything! Our very games depend on it! Litwak’s not gonna unplug a game just ‘cause the gamers aren’t in love with the cute little surprise that probably won’t be seen anyway, so what’s the point? Don’t tell me that gamers can’t love anyone just ‘cause they’re not wasting their love on you!”

...Yeah.

You sure did say that.

That shook me. Literally. I tensed up and felt myself quaking all over. I didn’t know what I was feeling -- it was some sick, haphazard attempt at anger, but it hurt so bad. I wanted to scream. I wanted to break everything. I just wanted to turn over the entire trailer, throw you out on the grass, spit in your face, and leave you to rot with the misery that I knew you couldn’t handle alone.

But that would be a surrender, wouldn’t it?

So, I limited myself to screaming.

I stuttered, lagged, gripped onto my hair and actually tore out a sizable clump of it. “You-- YOU--” I shouted, moving in close to you, “You IGNORANT, STUBBORN, CONCEITED, steaming heap of GARBAGE! Will you just LISTEN TO ME, for ONCE IN YOUR LIFE?!”

“I AM LISTENING,” you snarled right back, “All I hear is some RAVING LUNATIC making a complete ASS of herself, talkin’ about crap she doesn’t understand!”

“I’m not an ASS! You’re just TOO STUPID to realize I’m TRYING TO HELP YOU! Help you stop WALLOWING in your own DENIAL and realize THEY’RE-- NOT-- COMING-- BACK!!”

“YES!” you advanced with enough force to make me begin to stagger backwards. “THEY ARE!”

“No, they’re NOT, TURBO! Even if SOME of them do--”

“ALL! OF THEM! WILL COME BACK! ROADBLASTERS IS JUST SOME RUSTY BOX OF SCRAP METAL -- I’M THE TOP DOG! I’M KING OF THIS ARCADE! THEY CAN’T LEAVE ME!”

“So what if they DID?! Why do you NEED THEM?!”

“I DON’T! I DON’T NEED ANYONE!”

“You JUST SAID you do!”

“Not ME! My GAME! My GAME needs them!”

“Your GAME?! You think-- YOU--” I seethed, “You’re so-- I can’t freakin’ STAND you! Why do you have to be KING OF EVERYTHING?! Isn’t there ANYTHING more important to you than your EGO?!”

“Oh, you think--” you pointed a shaky finger, “you think this is just about my PRIDE?!”

“Yeah! I do! Literally NOTHING else is at stake, here!”

“EVERYTHING!” your hands curled into claws, “EVERYTHING IS AT STAKE! Aren’t you LISTENING?! My GAME is at stake!”

“Oh, for the love of-- You’re not getting UNPLUGGED! Maybe it’s hard to see from your pedestal way up above our tiny world down here, but being second best DOESN’T get your game killed!”

“Doesn’t it?” your voice dropped suddenly, into nearly a whisper, and your eyes went as wide as saucers. A clipped, strained laugh slipped out of you. “Doesn’t it, though?”

I had no idea what you were going on about, but your sudden shift disturbed me a bit. I just furrowed my brow and stared at you, at a loss, waiting for you to make sense.

You continued, speaking very quickly, “One day, a game’s at the very top. Everyone loves it. It’s Litwak’s favorite. Gamers crowd around and laugh and fight over who’s next, just for a chance to play. No one could ever picture the arcade without it. And then the very next day, this newer, shinier hunk of machinery--”

You threw an arm out, as if gesturing to it, and your voice began to quake. “This usurper with ‘better graphics’ and ‘better music’ and freakin’ guns on cars just waltzes right in and yanks the crown right off the king’s head. Then what? I’ll tell you what. The crowds, the laughter, the fighting over a turn? Gone. Now it’s just a couple gamers at a time. Time passes, now its one gamer at a time. Soon, hardly any come at all. Some other even newer game takes the crown from the usurper, and by then, even that game is old news, so what does that make the very first king?”

Uneasy volume crackled into your voice. There was a distinct note of urgency. You were just stressing yourself out the more you spoke. But, still, you continued, without allowing a breath for me to step in.

“Nothing. It makes him nothing. He’s not old news. He’s no news at all. Litwak finds a new favorite. Gamers don’t even glance at him. They don’t even LOOK. He just drives in the same Dev-forsaken circle all day ‘til his cabinet’s so covered in dust, no one even RECOGNIZES it anymore. Then-- Then when that day comes, when Litwak needs space for some new, exciting idiot cabinet, no one even CARES when he-- when he finally--”

You crumpled into yourself a bit. You plainly shook, like you were about to burst. I knew what I was looking at. I never thought I’d see it in you, but I knew what it was. I knew what it’s like. How it feels.

Truth be told, I realized that watching you break down... felt like looking in a mirror. That’s when I really figured out just why I’d come back into your trailer in the first place.

I won’t say that I wasn’t at least a little nervous. But I also knew it could never be as scary to anyone else as it is to you. I’m sure plenty of sprites would have told me to run, but I knew you wouldn’t hurt me. And if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t have hurt you either. So, like hell was I going to leave. I resolved with iron-clad stubbornness to stay. I backed up against the front door and tried to dial myself back from the hurt and rage I’d been in seconds ago. I had to keep calm and keep still. As long as you knew where I was, I knew you would steer clear.

And I watched uselessly as you had a good ol’ fashioned Mavis-style meltdown.

“WHEN HE FINALLY UNPLUGS THE DAMN THING!!”

You whirled around and slammed your fist against the fridge. Magnets clattered to the floor.

“BAM! GONE! WHEELED OUT THE FRONT DOOR INTO NOTHING!”

You whipped open the fridge door and slammed it back with enough force to send things falling and clattering together inside.

Blindly, drunkenly, with no rhyme or reason, you paced the small space, stumbling into things and attacking them in frustration. It was the first time I’d seen someone else freak out the way I do. I’ll admit that it wasn’t fun to watch. I did freeze up with more anxiety than I thought I would. Not over what you might do, but over what I should have done. I felt like I should have known what to do, since I had so much experience in this field. But I didn’t. I had no idea how to react or respond, let alone help. I barely know how to handle it when I break down myself, and I know that when I’m in a blind rage, I definitely don’t want help. So how could I help you?

My first, feeble attempt took the form of me just saying, “Hey-- Hey-- Turbo-- C’mon, cool it--!”

You carried on, not even hearing me, “SEE-- YOU DON’T GET IT! YOU COULD NEVER GET IT! YOU DON’T KNOW THE PRESSURE! I HAVE TO KEEP MY GAME ALIVE! THE SECOND I STOP FIGHTING TO STAY ON TOP, I’VE ALREADY LOST! MY GAME’S GONE -- I’M GONE!”

You tore a cabinet door off its hinges.

“I’M GONE IF I GO DOWN WITH THE SHIP! I’M GONE IF GO GAMELESS AND WASTE AWAY! IS THAT NOTHING?! ISN’T THAT A BIG DEAL?! AM I BEING STUPID?!”

You swiped a stack of plates to the floor -- it was loud, but they didn’t break. Plastic.

Not to say you were faultless, but guilt just writhed around in my gut. I was the one who upset you enough to make you break down like that. I know how much it sucks, and I hate that I was the one to trigger it in you. Like I said, I turned an ugly situation uglier. My drunken, upset, hideously miserable brain just couldn’t quite fathom why I did it. I knew why I really came back in. I just wished I hadn’t taken so long to figure it out, and that I hadn’t set us both back so freakin’ far before I did. I’m really quite adept at making huge, huge messes, but cleaning them up escapes me, even when I’m sober. So, completely inebriated, unable to just stand by any longer, I made a mistake.

I tried to move closer while you weren’t even looking.

“I’D BE HISTORY! NO-- NO, I’D BE MYTH! N-NO -- EVEN MYTHS ARE REMEMBERED! HISTORY, LEGENDS, MYTHS -- ONLY WINNERS END UP THERE! WHO’S GONNA REMEMBER A LOSER?! I WON’T BE A LOSER! I WON’T!”

You swept your arm across the counter, throwing all the empty bottles from a long night of drinking everywhere, and those that fell did actually break. A couple didn’t quite make it to the floor. Shaking hard, your hand just barely managed to grab one, and you turned your back to me. For a second, your voice jumped into a sort of sing-songy wheeze.

“Hey, remember that game, Turbo-Time? Huh? What’s that? Turbo? Never heard of him. Doesn’t ring a bell. Who’s Turbo? Huh?”

I moved a little bit closer, trying to side-step the broken glass on the floor. I was way too far from my starting point. You couldn’t have known, in the state you were in. You weren't even facing me. I knew that. Why did I move? Why did I sneak? Why didn’t I say anything?

You went eerily quiet for a minute, quivering over the sink, holding your head with one hand, like your mind was going to fall out. Then, whatever was holding you back snapped.

“WHO’S TURBO?!”

Without a glance, you whipped around and threw the glass bottle with all your enraged might. You didn’t know I was there. You thought you were aiming away.

All the same, you threw it right at me.

It didn’t hit, not directly. I dodged just in time to avoid a broken nose, shredded face, and probably a concussion, but I didn’t go unscathed. The bottle exploded on the wall behind me, and a hefty shard ricocheted and slapped me hard across my right cheek, slicing a long gash as it went.

I didn’t yelp. You didn’t notice. But that pain triggered something awful.

The lines between memories and buff hallucinations began to blur and intertwine. A memory I never wanted to see again suddenly began cutting into the one that was playing. My vision glitched. My ears popped with static. My heart started going absolutely nuts. The pain on my cheek multiplied as I felt jagged metal scratch score marks all over my face. My head began to split, my legs felt clamped in traps that squeezed tighter and tighter, and the clothes on my chest ripped into strings as letters started to carve deep into my skin. I heard barking, and I heard shouting. I don’t think I’d ever felt that scale of panic hit me so quickly. It took me right to the brink of total hysteria.

But, just like that, it was all sucked away from me. In a staggering shift, the grip of your hands and sound of your voice snapped me out of it.

You had grabbed onto my shoulders. My head fizzled and ached and my heart burned as my mind tried to settle back into the main memory. I stared at you blankly. I had my hand pressed to my cheek, so you didn’t see the cut. You just looked at me with these wide eyes, and… I’d never seen fear like that in your face before.

“WHO’S TURBO?!” you demanded, as the cold realization washed over me that you weren’t yelling at me anymore. “Who’s-- Who’s Turbo?!”

You were really asking.

Not just asking, but begging for an answer. Your face was desperate, and your tone was pleading, but I still had no idea what to say. Or what to do. I’d never been faced with an emotion like that before, and, honestly, you almost… sort of looked like a stranger. I’d never formally met that side of you before. There was nothing I could think to do but stare back at you, dumbfounded, and try to keep my footing while we teetered together.

I managed to barely breathe, “T… What...?”

“Who’s Turbo?” you asked again, your voice breaking down, your eyes searching mine like they’d lost something in them. Your grip on my shoulders urgently tightened a bit. “Who am I to them? Who am I to the arcade? Who am I to you--?!” you squeezed painfully tight for half a second, but after that, your grip loosened. “...If I’m not a winner? What if I lose everything?”

I couldn’t speak.

“Say I won’t…” you insisted. “Mavis, say I won’t. Say they’ll come back.”

I couldn’t.

“Wh--...” your eyes squinted at the edges with this… awful, fearful pain. You hissed pleadingly, “Say something!”

I wanted to. I wanted to say whatever it was that you needed to hear. I wanted to say even one single word. But what could I have said that would undo the damage I’d done? I’ll keep saying it, but this was beyond anything resembling my realm of expertise. I was useless. I’m still pretty ashamed of that, to this day.

Just then, you let up a bit. Eyes wide, staring right through me, you straightened up slowly and rubbed my shoulders where you’d been squeezing. “No,” you breathed. “No, it’s okay. You don’t have to. ‘Cause I know they will. I’ll get ‘em back on my own.”

You backed off from me, stumbling on a bit of glass (thankfully, your shoes were on) before you made it back to the sink. You turned away from me and braced yourself against the counter, trying to catch your breath. For a minute, I thought you were going to puke right into the sink, so I looked away. I pulled my hand from my cheek wound to assess the damage, and saw a familiar sight that threw little glitches in my vision and sharp pain into my head.

White glove. Red streak.

In all those trips, this was what I’d been remembering.

At the time of seeing it, though, my only clear thought was that it was bleeding way too much to hide, and I was not looking forward to whatever drama it would add to the situation. There was enough already.

And it just kept getting better.

I heard wind begin to whistle in your throat. You tried to keep talking, but your breath was coming too rapidly. Your sentences were cut into jagged pieces.

“It’s fine-- It’s fine-- I’ll get ‘em back somehow-- I always do-- I always do-- They won’t leave-- They won’t-- I’ll win ‘em back-- somehow--” your breathing grew so sharp, it rattled your whole body, “but-- how-- they won’t-- they won’t even-- even look at me-- I’m right-- right behind them-- and they-- they-- they won’t-- even LOOK-- how can I-- get ‘em back-- if they WON’T LOOK-- LOOK AT ME?!”

Dread pooled in my stomach. In every other situation, with every other sprite, with any emotion even a fraction of what you were throwing at me, I’d have been clear out the door, on the other side of the arcade, acting like it never happened.

But, no.

You’re always the Dev-damned exception.

So, I tried to do… something. I put my hands out a bit and slid closer. “T, it’s okay. It’s-- Just breathe. You gotta breathe.”

You crumpled against the counter, and half-wheezed, “They-- I’m-- I can’t--...”

And your knees buckled. I envisioned you fainting right back onto the minefield of broken glass you’d created.

So, finally, finally, I really did something.

Before you could fall, I jumped to your rescue and managed to catch you under your arms. I think, in the heat of the moment, I forgot how heavy you were, and how drunk I was. I fell too. Not on the glass, though, thankfully. I managed to turn us around enough for me to stumble back hard against the fridge and slide to the floor, with your weight pinning me back. You made feeble attempts to struggle away, but you were losing strength fast. You were hyperventilating so hard, you couldn’t talk anymore. You just stared straight ahead, your hands slipping and squeezing my legs on either side of you.

I’d saved you from the glass. But I was still lost. I was so, so lost, and way too drunk. I knew you would faint if I didn’t manage to help you. So, what did I do?

I started panicking too. ‘Cause that helps.

“Okay,” I said, my own breathing coming too short. “Okay. Okay. Stop. You need to stop. This is really bad.”

Amazingly, telling you to stop didn’t work.

So, out of deep-rooted reflex, I told you louder. “Stop,” I insisted, “stop, stop, stop--” and I started yelling, “STOP IT, STOP IT! YOU’RE GONNA PASS OUT!!”

Even more amazingly, that made it worse. Bits of your voice rode out on your rapid breaths, but there were no words. Just distress. I think you were trying to sound angry, but you just sounded terrified. And I felt like I’d just kicked you while you were down. Like an asshole.

But, right at that point, something else took over. I realized that this was one of those problems I couldn’t solve by yelling (I hate those). I had to calm down if I was ever going to help you. I’m not even exactly an expert at calming myself down, but I’d wager that I knew more than you did. So, I just thought… I’d do what I had to, and make you do it with me.

I took a deep breath, put my hands on your chest and my head next to yours. “Okay,” I told you quietly, but definitely urgently, “okay, it’s okay. You’re okay. Just breathe. Take deep breaths. Deep breaths.”

You didn’t.

“T… T, come on,” I said, embarrassingly close to tears. “Listen to me. Please. You’re okay. You can do this. You’re gonna be okay -- just breathe-- just breathe--” I needed to take my own advice. I buried my face in your shoulder and tried to slow my breathing against the fabric, and then it hit me. I snatched my hat off my head and brought it over your mouth and nose. Your heels scraped against the floor and you tried fruitlessly to pry me off, but I wouldn’t budge. I was a little afraid of smothering you by mistake, honestly, but thankfully, that didn’t happen.

I told you, “Just-- shut up for a second-- Just trust me, okay? I promise it’ll help, but just-- just breathe. Deep breaths…” I thought for a second as I tried to steady myself. “Breathe with me, okay? Just breathe with me, I’ve got this. It’s okay.”

I inhaled, “In…” waited, and exhaled, “...out.”

It took a moment, but you surrendered. I felt your jumping chest try to rise and fall as I instructed, and it was working. The moment you realized it was, your hand flew up to mine, the one holding my hat to your face. I expected you to tear it off, to insist that you could take it from there, but you didn’t. If anything, you pushed it on tighter. Apparently, you didn’t want me to let go. I didn’t try to.

Eventually, I didn’t have to say anything. You just followed the slow rhythm of my chest pushing up against your back. And finally, we reached steady breathing together. For a while, that’s all we did. We rode that fragile, awkward silence after a screaming fight, probably the worst one we’d ever had.

“Okay,” I sighed again, and hung my head back against the fridge. “Okay. It’s okay.”

As we began to relax, our grips against the hat on your face let up. Your fingers were still laced over the back of my hand as you brought it down slowly and tiredly, but when I felt my hat slip from my fingers and into your lap, suddenly, you stopped. You paused, and looked closely at my palm. My stomach dropped. The blood. Of course you saw the blood.

It took a minute of staring, but once it clicked, you twisted your head back to look at me, looking… alarmed, I guess. Even more so once you saw the weeping gash on my cheek. I tried to avoid your gaze. I didn’t want it to be a big deal.

“Was…” you muttered, the pieces falling together. “Was that me?”

“...Well, I didn’t do this,” I muttered back, “but whatever, y’know. It’s just a little cut. Who cares?”

You didn’t answer. You just watched as I leaned as far away as I could. I saw your hand rise to the side of your face I’d been pushing my own against, and your fingers came back slick with my blood that had been smeared there.

You were silent. And then something about that silence went cold. You let go of my hand. You hung your head.

And you said bitterly, “Get out.”

I replied slowly, “...What?”

“Get out of here, Mavis. Go.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you here,” you growled.

My insides burned a little bit, but I pushed back without hesitation. “No.”

“You heard me -- I said get out!” you snapped and leaned forward, away from me, but didn’t look back. “Take a freakin’ hint, sweetheart! I got nothin’ for you here anymore! It’s over! Now, beat it, and don’t come back!”

Man.

I didn’t enjoy that.

It seemed like, in a single evening, you were making it your goal to check off every possible thing I’d always been afraid you would say to me. You just kept digging deeper into bleeding cuts, hitting harder on broken bones.

But, lucky for me, I’ve got a lot of HP. And for the second time that night, I found myself looking in a mirror. I wasn’t about to fall for my own tricks.

“No,” I insisted again, my voice shakier than I intended, although a lot of that must have been anger. “No. Screw you. I ain't leaving.”

You tried to shoot a sharp look over your shoulder, but I could tell you didn’t want to look at me. “Why?!”

“Because I know what you’re doing!”

“Throwing you out on your ass?! Yeah! What was your first clue?!”

You moved to stand, to leave me sitting there on the floor, alone, but I hooked my arms around you again and trapped you back against me. You fought, but I could tell your heart wasn’t in it.

“Let go of me!”

“No!” I snapped, “Stop it! Shut up! Don’t bullcrit me -- I know you don’t want me to go!”

“Have you been listening?!”

“Yeah! ‘I hear ya loud n’ clear, baby.’ You screwed up, big time! You didn't want me to see all that, and hell, I didn't want to see it either! But now you think I’m gonna ditch you over it! So you’re trying to leave me before I leave you! I know! Don’t try to pull that move on me -- I invented that move, okay?! Just stop!”

You went quiet. But you didn’t relax. You were tensed as if you would try to jump up the second I let go.

After a breath, I continued a bit softer, “You really think I’m gonna leave you? Just like that?”

You countered, your voice just burning with pain, “Well, I never thought that THEY’D leave me, either, and look how that’s turned out! So, why don’t you save us a lot of time and trouble, and just--”

“NO.”

You stopped dead. I squeezed you like a vice, definitely enough to ache at least a bit. I’d never been so offended in my life.

“No,” I said severely, “no, don’t you dare lump me in with them. Ever. I’m not one of them. I’m not just one of your adoring fans. I’m not gonna just suddenly get bored of you and replace you with some other racer. And I’m not gonna run away just because you freaked out. I’m not scared of this--” I half-lied, “--and I’m not scared of whatever else you don’t want me to see. I know why you don’t want me to. I know. Trust me. But I don’t care. It’s not gonna make me ditch you. So cut the crap. You don’t have to protect yourself from me.”

You said nothing.

I felt you give up, let yourself sink back against me again, your whole body shaking. You brought your palm up to your face and didn't lower it. Some of the thickest, heaviest misery I'd ever seen in another sprite emanated from you.

I hate how I could hardly stand to be close to you, right then and there.

I broke the silence and continued softly, more from exhaustion than gentleness, “I'm not leaving. Keep trying to push me away if you want. Be mean. I'll be mean back. But I won't back down, no matter how hard you make it for me to stay. Because, believe me, you're making it really hard. But it doesn't matter. You can't shake me, now.”

You still said nothing.

I decided the fight was over. It was time to carry on like it never happened, as per usual. I'd had enough emotional toil for the day. For a whole month, probably.

“Okay,” I told you slowly, “I’m gonna get up now. I need to deal with my cheek. But I'm not going anywhere near that door. I'm just gonna patch myself up and go the cuss to sleep.”

You leaned forward and freed me from your weight. I got up on unsteady legs and headed to the bathroom. The moment I turned on the light, your voice stopped me from going in.

“Mav.”

I paused and braced myself on the doorframe. Looking back, I saw you still sitting against the fridge where I'd left you, your face hidden in the crook of your elbow draped on your bent knee. You asked me a question in a voice so drowned and low, it almost didn’t sound like you.

“Why'd you come back in at all?”

I didn't want to answer. Of course I didn't. But I also… kind of did.

I looked into the bathroom, and locked eyes with myself in the mirror. There was no glow in my pupils. Just big, beautiful blue eyes, flowy brown hair, and rosy, sun kissed cheeks. One of which was streaked with an open, bleeding wound that looked so much worse than it actually was.

Unlike me.

Maybe it was just my morose, drunk brain talking, but it struck me right then how unassuming I was. How no one would expect me to be capable of what I am. There's so much bad in me. So much more than you'd ever see on the surface. That's never bothered me too much. I'm not the protagonist or the antagonist or even an NPC. I can be whatever I want. And I can't honestly say I have any desire to be good for the arcade.

But in that moment, it shook me just how badly I wanted to be good for you.

Keeping eye contact with myself, I carefully confessed.

“The first time the gamers did this to me… I was alone. I guess I came back in because… I just didn't want you to be.”

I stepped in and closed the door.

#fanfiction #fanfic #wreck it ralph #turbo #make it mavis #original character #homesick

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vanchlo · 4 years

Text

The Assistant / Chapter Forty-Five, “Evermore”

*Gif’s not mine*

Clickable Links:

- Masterlist feat. all chapters and Character Surveys

- Inspo tag

- Hecky Playlist

- Read on Wattpad

- Warnings: Mentions of hospital care

- Word Count: 7k words

“Her face is stuck in every place.

The front door, the ghost of her winter boots on the door mat, the barstools at the kitchen island where we laughed over glasses of her Rebecca wine, the crusty banana bread forgotten on the counter, the head of the kitchen table where we burned our mouths on pot pie, and that’s not even the worst of it. The blanket from Sunday night remains in a messy pile on the sofa, just how we had left it. My chest shakes harder with another sob at the sight of it, and the wine glasses I had forgotten on the coffee table beside the bottles of nail polish.

Memories flood my insides when I sink onto the cushions, my head in my hands as her laugh from only three days ago fills my ears.”

Music Inspo: Hold My Girl by George Ezra (click to listen)

“Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.”

― Henry Miller

I’m woken from my dreams due to movements within my arms. Knuckling at my eyes with a groan, I look around, feeling regrettable about the reality that I had come back to. The one that I was previously immersed in was far better, and brings a reminiscent smile to my lips at the remembrance of. Settling my eyes on her, wrapped up safely inside of my arms, my lazy lips curl into a larger smile at the thought.

Her with her own arms holding a blue-eyed, dark-haired little baby with me at her side. Talk about dreamy.

Her forehead is warm underneath my lips, and soft as ever. The creamy vanilla lotion she uses leaves hints of the fragrance across her face, one of the few necessities Skye grabbed from home today. I brush away the loose waves that drape over her skin, but within seconds, I wish that I hadn’t when I find the stitches and colors claiming her.

A noise interrupts my thoughts and when I look up, the nurse is standing at my side clearing her throat. Her arms are crossed over her chest and she’s shaking her head at me.

“Harry,” she sighs, wagging a finger at me dramatically.

“Kristi, I know, ‘m not s’posed t’ be up here. ‘m sorry, but she was hysterical from a nightmare, and I couldn’t get her t’ calm down,” I confess in a dry voice.

Relenting with a sigh, she whispers her reply, “Alright, but you need to be careful of her IV tubing, as well as her injuries. I don’t want anybody else in her family thinking that we allow this kind of thing,” she pauses to wink, and I nod with understanding. “I’m glad you mentioned the nightmare, though, that’s something that I need to record.”

She follows up her lecture with a few quiet questions about the nightmare Becks had, and she types them in the laptop she brought in with her. Her eyebrows greeted her hairline when I mentioned Becks saying that she’s starting to remember, and that being the sole reason for the nightmare.

It could never feel sufficient, the number of whispery kisses I press to her battered skin, asleep or not. Bloody hell, is she so beautiful, I muse while admiring Becks below me, sleeping peacefully. Finally. I never want to stop kissing her, but soon after those thoughts sound in my skull, my heavy eyelids yell for me to close them. Giving in, they win and I fall into the soundest sleep I’ve had in days.

My own name rouses me from my sleep, and it takes a few moments of adjusting to remember where I am. It’s quicker than yesterday, making me realize how used to all of this I’m getting. I’m not entirely sure how to feel about that, but it’s all washed away when I find the baby blue pair of eyes waiting for me.

“Morning,” she rasps, her voice sounding almost entirely hers now. I couldn’t be happier about it as her head remains on my shoulder, eyes poised towards me.

“G’mornin’, my sweet. How’d ya sleep fer tha rest o’ tha night?” I yawn, tapping her nose with my finger.

“Great,” she smiles and I nod happily, soon echoing her words. “Best I’ve slept here so far.”

“‘m so happy t’ hear that, bug,” I grin and she just stares back at me, something ethereal covering her body in front of me. My, is she something else entirely, I wonder silently. Glancing to my watch, my eyebrows shoot towards the ceiling. “Reckon we both needed it, ‘s bloody ten in tha mornin’, love.”

The softest of laughs tickles my ears, yanking my lips towards the sky effortlessly. There it is, at last, my favorite sound in the entire world. Well, next to her sing-song voice, that’s my favorite song of all.

“I missed hearin’ that,” I whisper, brushing the back of my finger against her satiny cheek. She just continues to smile, and my heart couldn’t feel fuller in this moment.

She’s okay, she’s smiling, she’s laughing, she’s so goddamn beautiful even with bruises and stitches, she’s mine, and she’s okay.

“How’re ya feelin’, bug? I hope I didn’t knock into ya in tha middle o’ tha night, or hurt ya or anythin’.”

“I’m okay, kinda hungry,” she answers, combing a hand through her hair and pausing to scratch an itch. “Head feels heavy and hurts though, and my tummy a little too.”

“That’s good yer hungry, yer appetite ‘s comin’ back. Here, lemme slide out and ‘ll press on yer pain pump.”

“No, Harry,” she objects, grabbing hold of my arm the second I make a movement. “Don’t leave, you’re all warm,” she whines, moving closer to me and grabbing a fistful of my button up in her hand.

Now, it’s my turn to giggle, “‘Kay, but only a few mo’ minutes, I don’t wantcha t’ be in pain, babe,” I coo, beginning to drag my fingers through her hair, but when I watch her eyes close, I stop. I know that she’ll fall back asleep if I do and she needs it, but I’m reminded of the day nurse emphasizing yesterday the importance of her needing to eat. “Don’t fall asleep again yet, bug, ya need yer breakfast. Ya gotta eat t’ heal and get betta.”

“Okay,” she sighs sadly, slowly opening her eyes and looking back up at me.

“Yer eye ‘s lookin’ betta. Reckon it doesn’t help much without yer glasses tho’,” I snicker and her smile grows an inch. “Skye was gonna bring some contacts o’ yers from home t’day, and see if you could wear them. I bet that’d help loads.”

“Yeah,” she hums in reply. “Are you gonna go home too?” Becks asks gently, a curious sadness hidden behind her words. She’s never been very good at hiding her feelings, let alone lying, and I’ve come to be rather good at reading her.

“For a li’l bit, if that’s okay with you.”

“But I’ll miss you,” she answers, looking away to hide the wetness growing in her eyes, but I catch it at the last second. My thumb finds a holding on her chin, and I turn her head to look back at me.

“I won’t be gone long, bug, and it’ll prolly be later when sumbody else can be here with you. Jus’ wanna go home and grab a few things, and shower so I don’t stink anymo’,” I tell her, willing her to look me in the eyes. To my surprise, she does almost the second the thought trickles into my mind. The sight of her glassy eyes wrenches at my heart, and brushing them away with my finger hardly helps. “And t’ pack a bag so I have clothes and me things t’ keep me set here fer awhile so I don’t hafta leave again fer a while, besides showers. ‘ll hafta see if they have a family room o’ sorts t’ take showers here or sumthin’.”

“Okay,” she says, closing her eyes once again. Another tear leaks from her eye and I catch it as soon as it escapes. “Come back.”

“Always, Becks, y’know that,” I tell her, eliciting a nod into my chest.

“I felt so much better sleeping next to you. Safer.”

“Me too, baby. I wish we could do it ev’ry night, I like havin’ ya tucked away in me arms all safe and sound,” I echo, smoothing back her hair before I plant a kiss to the crown of her head. My special spot. “I love you,” I mouth against her hair, much too afraid to let the sounds free from my lips with all that’s going on and the perhaps fluke from the other night. “So much.”

“Stop,” she giggles against my cheek, and I swear, there’s never been a better song written in the whole universe. I continue to scatter kisses across her face, until my last one finds her nose. “Go home, you smell.”

“Hey!” I protest, finding her happy smile with my own two eyes. A sight in and of itself. “I don’t smell.”

“Yes, you do,” Becks giggles, the sound slowly falling away as my eyes find hers. Within a blink, her lips find mine and press a deep kiss to my own. It couldn’t last long enough and then I’m looking into those eyes that I hope and dream my children get to have, but it’s forgotten when hers flood with tears. “I’ll miss you.”

“‘ll be back inn’a hour, love, no longa than that. I promise,” I insist, holding her cheek in my hand, and saddening at her question of what I’m doing again. “‘m goin’ home t’ take a shower, pack a bag, and grab me car. I won’t be long.”

“Oh yeah, I remember you saying that now. I’m sorry, I can’t remember for shit,” she frowns, eyes growing wetter by the second.

“‘s okay, ‘m here t’ help ya rememba. Are ya sure you’ll be okay with me gone for a li’l bit? Skye, yer dad, and Robbie are here. Try t’ get some rest while ‘m gone, ya need it,” I say, drawing waves back and forth on her cheek and pressing a quick kiss to her lips that I can’t resist.

“I’m fine, Harry. I wanna watch Harry Potter.”

“No, ya need t’ sleep, honeybug. Ya watched tha whole second one with me, that’s two and a half hours, Becks. Ya haven’t slept since ya woke up, and that was five hours ago,” I argue, widening my eyes at her and wishing she’d surrender her stubbornness already. “Stop bein’ stubborn,” I giggle, and it only comes harder when her features fall into her famous pout, one that’s harder to resist given the circumstances. She’s just too bloody cute.

“Fine,” she sighs, blinking hard and soon yawning.

“Told ya yer tired, ya gotta listen t’ me sumtimes, cuz ‘m right.”

“No, you’re not,” she smirks, and I roll my eyes with a snicker.

“See ya soon, brat,” I chuckle as her eyes fall closed, pulling the blankets up past her shoulders and tucking them underneath her. The sight of her white arm cast will never get easier, I suspect, but who said that any part of this has gotten easier on Day Two? “‘ll be back inna hour, my sweet. Get some rest, and ‘ll see if tha nurse will let us have a cuddle when I get back. Sweet dreams, Becks.”

“Bye, Harry. Drive safe,” she drawls, words floating away from her as sleep nears her. “Come back.”

“I will, baby. Always,” I hum against her forehead, leaving one last kiss there. Straightening my back, my thumb remains glued to her cheek, only leaving to wipe away the tear that escapes from my eye. “I love you,” I whisper under my breath, taking the first step away from her.

I’ve always found it hard to walk away from her, but I couldn’t hate it more than I do in this very moment. It’s never frightened me so much to leave her, as it does now, seeing as I know how quickly things can change when one leaves.

“She’ll be okay, I’ll sit with her.”

Turning my head, I lose sight of Becks and find Skye waiting a few steps away with a book tucked into her hands.

“Thanks, keep me updated if erm, anythin’ happens.”

“It won’t, but I will, Harry. It’s okay,” she agrees aloud, but my eyes have already ran away from her and back to Becky. Over my shoulder, I can just make out the sounds of her soft snores outside the door of her room. I already miss her, and I haven’t even left her yet, I think as another tear races down my cheek. This keeps happening, I’ve found, but it doesn’t become any easier to leave. “The first time you’ve left her for more than ten minutes, huh?”

“Ya,” I croak, meeting her eyes through my blurry ones. Nodding at her, I lift my leaden feet to take another step. “Take care o’ her fo’ me.”

Her face is stuck in every place.

Memories flood my insides when I sink onto the cushions, my head in my hands as her laugh from only three days ago fills my ears. I can still feel the touch of her knitted jumper between my fingers from that night, the delicacy of her fingers swiping nailpolish over mine, and the sensation of her hands in my hair and her socked foot trailing up my leg underneath the kitchen table. These thoughts fill my head as I drag myself up the stairs, and although she didn’t venture up here that night, I can’t leave her down there. I remember the night she hauled my drunk ass home, even if it was years ago, and helped me into bed. That’s not even touching all of the nights I stared up at the ceiling, longing to hear her voice, and then the nights where I smiled up at it, knowing I’d hear it tomorrow and every day after that.

They threaten to never leave as my wrinkled suit falls to the floor of my bathroom, the sight feeling peculiar and welcomed all in one. Staring at it with a hazy sight, I toss it into the hamper, thinking of possibly burning it until I remember the first day we had at work together in it. Swallowing, the knot within my throat joins the pity party as the hot stream of water cascades down my body. I remain there under the scalding water, observing it disappear down the drain as it washes away the sadness pouring onto my cheeks.

The tears don’t disappear when wrapped in a towel, I sadly smile at the picture Skye sent of Becky smiling lying in bed.

Here’s a smile for you from Ree! She already misses you …. had a little nightmare again but she was okay and I was there. She’s asleep again now, and time for dinner soon. Take your time Harry, she’s ok xx

An onslaught of them now coat my cheeks - regret, anger, and sadness all balled into one being born inside of me at the thought of her waking up scared without me there. Sniffles and whimpers are all that leave me and fill my surroundings as I lay folded clothes inside of the biggest duffel bag I could find, as many joggers, jumpers, t-shirts, and beanies that I can fit before the zipper won’t zip. Only then, do I remember I need to pack other things. Unpacking a few pairs of socks and shirts, I stuff my bag of shower things into the side, chargers, my laptop Myles dropped off from work, deodorant, cologne, a random book I’d always meant to read, vitamins, random snacks, a favorite blanket from the linen closet, and my steel water bottle. I thread a pillow through its handles, glancing over to my unmade bed, missing the person who woke up in it on Monday morning, unbeknownst to the despair and misery that would soon kidnap his happiness.

Exhaling loudly, I drape the strap over my shoulder and begin my steps back to her. I’m coming back, Becks, like I always said I would.

Her soft sounds bounce around the room while the third Harry Potter hums in the background. Finding the remote on her bedside table, I click it off and drown the room in silence. With full hands, I take quiet steps over to her, a smile having already claimed my lips the moment I parked my car. Peace paints her face and I couldn’t be happier being back with my Becks, not wanting to leave her again, and hopefully not again until all of this shit is over.

Her slow breaths tickle my skin when I bend down to press a kiss to her forehead, welcomed by her vanilla scent. Her snoring continues to paint the air as I walk away briefly.

A soft tap! interrupts the absence when I set down the clear vase, swiftly rearranging the stems below me. I leave the small black box beside it and cross the room, leaving my heavy duffel bag on the floor beside the sofa and out of the way.

“Harry?” a voice rasps from behind me. Turning around, I find her little head of dark hair stirring.

“Shh, go back t’ sleep, bug,” I coo, sliding off my coat that I drape over the sofa.

“Are you back or am I dreaming?”

“‘m back, Becks, jus’ got here,” I answer her gently, making quick work of walking over to arrive at her side. “Hi,” I hum happily, feeling a warm jolt to my heart when a smile curls into her cheeks.

“Hi, Harry,” she giggles, a pink at last finding her cheeks.

“Hi, my love,” I smile, dipping down to carefully surround her with my arms and in the process, covering her with kisses. “I told ya I wouldn’t be gone mo’ than an hour. ‘m sorry ya hadda nightmare without me, I hope yer okay . . Hope ya still got some rest.”

“I’m okay, and I did. I’m glad you’re back, I missed you,” she whispers against my neck, pressing a lazy kiss there.

“I missed ya mo’.”

“No, I missed you more,” she argues, a giggle finishing her words. “Most . . I missed you most.”

“Fine, ‘ll give it t’ ya.”

“Good,” she smiles, resigned with success that I find when I pull away to look at her. Shock finds its way back to me at the once again sight of her bruises and stitches after an hour of forgetting them. “You smell good.”

“Why thank you, I took a shower.”

“You look comfy,” she adds on, taking hold of a string from my maroon Rolling Stones hoodie, toying with it between her fingers. The IV tubing dangling from it still sends jolts across my heart.

“I feel betta now, I can tell ya that.”

“Good,” she coos, playing with the second string now too. I can’t resist any longer and steal a random kiss from her lips, finding her blushing smile afterwards. “Aw, did you get me flowers? They’re purple!”

“‘Course they are, I had t’ get yer favourite color, babe,” I answer proudly, stepping away to grab the tall vase from her bedside table. “Looks like ya got a few mo’ since ‘ve been gone too. Ya sure are loved by many, Becks.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Jus’ like sumbody I know, I wonder who that could be,” I comment teasingly, returning to her bedside to show her the vase of violet roses. “Honey, don’t cry, ‘s okay.”

“You’re so sweet, thank you,” she blubbers, tears flying from her eyes that she can’t wipe away fast enough. A long ‘aw’ jumps from my lips as I set the vase back down and return her to my arms.

“Yer welcome, anythin’ fo’ me girl. I saw all tha flowers you were gettin’ and figured it took me long enough t’ get ya some.”

“It’s okay, you didn’t have to,” she hiccups into my neck, finding holdings on the back of my jumper where she clings to me.

“Yes, I did, and I wanted t’ . . Reckon I should wait on yer present so ya don’t cry anymo’.”

“A present?!” she whispers excitedly, and my giggle soon finds a friend in hers.

Moving away, I leave her with yet another forehead kiss, wiping surprise tears from my own eyes. I catch the budding ones that fall from her waterline before grabbing the little box beside her flowers. ‘Ooo’s and ‘awww’s fill my ears when I open the box and slide the simple gemstone bracelet onto her wrist.

“I saw it and thought o’ you right away, jus’ like with tha flowers. I hope ya like it, seein’ how ‘s purple and all,” I say, pulling on the two ends of the string to tighten it.

“I love it, Harry,” she croaks, tears catching on her words as she stares down at the shades of lavender, cream, and violet claiming her skin.

“Perfect.” With a chuckle, I find my way into her arms after she tugged on my hoodie strings.

“I betta tie those things up, seein’ you already know how t’ use ‘em. ‘s a bit scary really,” I titter against the top of her head, smoothing back her hair. Profuse ‘thank you’s scatter the air, and I feel a stitch begin to heal my heart, ever so slowly. Her tears aren’t alone as I sniffle above her, my arms wound around her shoulders ever so gently.

“Alright?” she mumbles, and a bittersweet smile joins the party.

“Ya, ‘m alright if yer alright, Becks . . Are you?”

“Yes, I always am if you’re there.”

“Me too, babe, me too,” I hiccup, the tears coming hot and fast now, falling into her hair. Always.

Yawning, voices trickle over as the door to the bathroom shuts behind me. Carding a hand through my hair, I follow the familiar sounds until I’m back by the family room scattered with chairs. Now, blankets, bags, and fast food wrappers claim the tables next to Skye, Robbie, Chuck, Asher, and a tall, blonde woman I don’t recognize.

I’m spotted and soon waved over by Asher, “Hey, how’s she doing? Did she eat all of her dinner?”

“She’s good, restin’ now, and almost all o’ it. Didn’t care fer tha green peas tho’, but I dunno how she can’t like ‘em,” I grin jokingly, but it doesn’t remain as my eyes follow the unfamiliar woman standing beside Robbie. “D’ya know who that ‘s?” I ask him, turning to meet his eyes, but they fall away, only hinting at the danger that’s brewing.

“Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met. You are . . ?” the strange lady says, stepping forward with her arm stretched out. A long brown sweater covers her body clad in black jeans and a frilly blouse. The slope of her button nose and slightly oval face quickly piece together the puzzle pieces for me, and I know. “I’m Becky’s mum, Kate. Are you her boyfriend, or something?” she laughs jokingly.

“Ya, I am actually,” I answer coolly, hesitantly shaking her hand while struggling to make eye contact with the very person I’ve heard so many awful things about. Yet, I can see Becks in her, perhaps only hints of her, but I see them. “‘Scuse me,” I mumble, stepping away and with pounding steps, I find Skye perusing the magazines on the shelf against the wall.

“I need t’ talk t’ you,” I tell her flatly, stopping at her side.

“What do you want, Cosmo, Bon Appetit, GQ, Rolling Sto-,” she jokes, flipping her faded blue hair over her shoulder, brunette roots bleeding into the off white.

“No, I don’t want a bloody magazine. What tha fook were you thinkin’ tellin’ Becky’s mum t’ come here?” the question explodes off my lips, and I find it a feat to keep the words between the two of us. Her eyebrows near her hairline and she forgets the magazines, turning to face me.

Arms crossed over her chest clad in a 90’s Rugrats jumper, her features fall into a crouch as I wait for words to leave her, “Ree said that she could come, we asked her.”

“What tha fook ‘s wrong with you lot, askin’ her ‘bout that while I was gone?!” I retort, a hand escaping my pocket to help me do the talking.

“She’s not just yours, Harry, you know that?” she spits back, shaking her head in disbelief, it seems.

“No shit, Sherlock, but how in tha hell did ya think that was a good idea? Huh, where were you when her mum exploded on her all o’ those times at work, callin’ me bloody office t’ speak with her ‘cuz she was ignorin’ her phone, or jus’ a few weeks ago, huh?” I ask adamantly, searching for the answer in her cold blue eyes.

“No, I wasn’t there, but I was there for almost every other time, Harry. I was there comforting her after every row all throughout primary, secondary, and then on. She’s my best friend too, Harry, so don’t you even talk to me about being there for her, because you can’t fucking talk,” Skye retaliates, the words hitting me in the gut, but my mission propels me forward.

“That’s not tha fookin’ point, you should bloody know afta bein’ here tha last two days that she’s nowhere near ready t’ see her mum, Skye. She was inna bloody car wreck - she has a concussion, had emergency surgery, and ‘s on a handful o’ drugs that keep her from thinkin’ straight. Befo’ I left, I told her where I was goin’ and not even two minutes later, she couldn’t rememba what ‘d said. She’s not in her right mind, Skye, so how d’ya think it was okay t’ bloody ask her if her abusive mother could come t’ visit? Yer s’posed t’ be on her side, Skye, on Becks’ side,” I snap, and the fire still resides in my chest when I turn away to stomp down the hall.

I wish I knew how to fix this, because I know that I’ll have to be the one who has to. I wish so fucking badly that I knew how to fix Becks, and I don’t, and I’m all the further away now.

Crack.

I feel it inside of my ribs when I stop in her doorway, finding her eyes pointed towards the small flatscreen mounted to the wall. My throat becomes a sister to the Sahara rather quickly, and I can’t blink away the tears fast enough, because she notices me within moments. Under the spell of prescription drugs and painkillers, and she still has that feeling of hers down pat.

“Hi, honeybug,” I rasp, failing to swallow my pain and all of the words that I’m hurting to say.

“Where’d that nickname come from?” she grins, forgetting the Marvel movie on the television.

“I dunno, ‘cuz yer my bug and yer so goddamn sweet,” I explain to her, sitting down on the patch of unclaimed bed beside her.

“Alright?” she questions, dark eyebrows falling into a line. I can’t find the words and my name falls from her mouth next. I’m sure that if I looked at her heart rate monitor, it would have picked up by now due to concern.

“No,” I finally mutter, freeing my bottom lip that had become trapped between my teeth. Kneading my prickly chin with my thumb and forefinger, I have to look away from the worry harming her face. A warm tear begins a waterfall on mine, and to my surprise, she wicks it away with her thumb.

“Tell me,” she says coolly, cradling my cheek in her hands. Yet, it doesn’t make it any easier to say the next few words I know that I need to speak. Bittersweetness coats my tongue as she holds me in her hands and roots me there to the spot with those azul eyes that fill my dreams.

“Yer mum’s here,” I confess softly, forcing the words until they come tumbling out.

The shock and misery that debilitate her features at my words is next to nothing when we both hear the words that enter the room, “Hi, bunny.” I don’t need to turn around, because Becky’s face tells me all that I need to know, that her mum is already here.

“No,” Becks mutters, eyes glassy with an army of tears. Her head shakes quickly from side to side, and her hand falls from my face to clutch mine with dear life. “Harry, please no.”

“‘m so sorry, bug, it wasn’t me. I promise, I promise,” I confess tearfully, leaving her side to stand. If I had wanted to take another step, she wouldn’t let me, because my hand begins to hurt from how hard she’s holding onto it.

“Hi, Becky, it’s mum.”

“No, no, no, no,” Becky exclaims before me, emotions flying from her blues that beg at mine, sobs shaking her chest.

“Please leave, she d-doesn’t want you here,” I plead, lifting my head to find her mother walking around her bed to the other side.

“Excuse me? She’s my daughter, I-,” she begins, but Becky’s onslaught of ‘no’s pierce the air, threatening to never leave. My other hand comes to cover our joined pair, massaging circles into her skin where the IV doesn’t live.

“She doesn’t want you here, can’t you see that?!” I exclaim, stepping forward and closer to Becks, unsure of what more I can do. The only thing I can think of is to grab her by the shoulders and make her leave, but more than one reason refutes that, including the fact that Becks won’t let me leave.

“She’s upset and tired, she doesn’t know what she wants,” she, whatever her name is again, contends with emotion twisting her features into confusion. Swiftly, the hints of Becky are gone in her and the fear she finds in her mother’s face is shared with me and with those darkening eyes. “She is my daughter and I can-.”

“Harry, make her leave, please!” Becks shouts below me, head going from side to side in denial, and sobs stabbing at my ears.

“What’s going on here?” another voice demands, and already two days in, I know that it’s the day nurse, Shannon. Words flee her mother and I, while Becky’s insistent ‘no’s surround us. “Who are you?”

“I’m her mother, I’m here to see my daughter, Becky,” she insists from across me, reaching out a hand to touch Becks that she shrinks away from. Another crack resounds in my chest at the sound of her sobs growing louder.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to leave, you’re upsetting her too much,” Shannon announces emphatically, mentioning something about Becky’s vitals rising, only now drawing my eyes to the neon numbers. I wouldn’t have noticed it, although I try to tell myself that I would have eventually, but she’s right. Becky’s pulse is well over one-hundred, and her blood pressure is reaching dangerous numbers, and my heart picks up speed behind my ribs. I’m rather sure if I was hooked up to one of those, they wouldn’t look too good, either, with what’s going on. “Please leave before I call security.”

Relief doesn’t find me for several minutes, and it takes twice as long to arrive for Becks who still whimpers below me, the tears nowhere near stopping. The ones waiting in my dugout finally answer their call when the nurse mentions giving her something to calm down.

“No, I got it, jus’ gimme a few minutes. I can get her t’ calm down,” I insist tearfully, swallowing against a desert while rainfall covers my cheeks, and hers. “Hey, ‘s okay, baby, ‘s okay. Deep breaths, ‘kay?” I coo to Becky, but I’m well aware of the lack of conviction in my voice.

“Is she gone?” she cries and I nod quickly.

“She’s gone, bug, and ‘ll make sure she won’t come back, I promise. You don’t hafta worry.”

“I don’t wanna see her,” Becks confesses with a hiccup. Lifting my hand from our intertwined pair, I comb back her dark waves that nudge at her eyes.

“I know, Becks, I know. She’s gone,” I hum, catching her tears with the slick pad of my thumb before going back to stroking her hair.

“Why was she . . ?”

“I dunno, bug, there was a misunderstandin’,” I answer her, unsure of my words and every single thing that I do. I’m unsure if it helps, but I know that there’s nothing I’d rather be doing in this moment. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, even in my ignorant dreams.

“It wasn’t you, I know you wouldn’t,” she cries, shaky breaths escaping her lips when I ask her to take deep breaths with me.

“No, ‘d neva invite her, Becks. I dunno her name even.”

“Thank you,” she says with a hard gulp, with no allusion to what for, but I know. The hair stroking isn’t making a difference, because the tears are still coming at a record speed and I’m lost for words, and everything else too.

“Will you cuddle me, p-please? Feels like I c-can’t breathe,” she almost wails, her pained face dissolving with the words that she speaks.

“‘Course, bug, ‘m so sorry . . Keep takin’ deep breaths, I know you can do it, baby. ‘m right here . . in and out, that’s it. Keep goin’,” I tell her, toeing off my Vans that I wore for her whilst picking the oxygen cannula back up to thread into her nose. “Scooch over, Becks, don’t wanna hurt ya.”

A few more tendrils of relief find their way to me when she’s back in my arms, and I couldn’t care less what the nurse has to say, because nothing could feel more right than this. I’m only confirmed of that when she wiggles her way into my arms almost immediately and her head finds my chest, the tears soon wetting the fabric.

“Can you sing it to me?” Becks requests and an instant confirmation fills the air.

“Wise men say only fools rush in,” I begin, my fingers dancing through her hair and my lips leaving kiss after kiss atop her head. With my mouth ghosting over her hair, my eyes wander to the heart rate monitor. As the song paints the air around us, I watch as the numbers slowly start to fall while her crying quiets.

Only moments after finishing the last line of the song and for the second time, do her snores fall against my chest, and can I finally breathe. I lie there, counting the freckles scattered across her creamy white skin and wait for the tears to at last leave my eyes. Carefully, I move my body away from hers and lay her head down on the pillow, lastly draping the blankets over her sleeping body.

“‘ll be right back, I gotta go and keep me promise,” I whisper against her cheek, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear naked of earrings. My footsteps only begin after pressing a kiss to her cheek, assuring myself I’ll be back within moments to give her another.

The nurse shoots me a quick smile on my way out as I make quick work of the tears, and silent words pass between us albeit for the quiet ‘thank you’ and ‘good job’ she rewards me with.

“You might be my favourite, even though you’re not supposed to be getting into that bed with her,” she grins, her ponytail bobbing as she shakes her head at me jokingly. “You lot sure have a connection, so don’t be going anywhere for too long, she might miss you too much.”

“Thanks, I won’t be gone long. I uh, jus’ gotta go make sure o’ sumthin’.”

“That mum of hers, I hope?” she wonders aloud, turning her body towards me ever so slightly in her olive green scrubs.

A nod of mine answers her words and her ‘good luck’ rings in my ears as I walk away, glancing over my shoulder one last time at Becks, searching for a strength that I need. She’s never disappointed me when I look for it in her, whether it was years ago when she pulled me out of my shell, helped me through my granddad’s death, or just the other night when I found my way back to her and never left. This isn’t one of those dire times, but I know that she needs me to do this for her, no matter the absence of her question.

I’m uncertain if I’m surprised to see the strange figure standing in the family room, or the tension already electric in the air when I arrive. It only worsens when a few of them turn around to look at me, and the blame falls away instantly when Chuck and Robbie’s faces plummet at the sight of mine. It all wads into a ball and is thrown at her when the anger builds on hers.

“You need t’ leave,” I announce, a sniffle worming its way into my words. I couldn’t care less about the sight of my red-rimmed eyes or the tears that fall from them now. All I hope is that my many years in law will pay off for this argument that I so desperately need to win. “It wasn’t a good idea t’ come, she doesn’t want you here. I think that’s rather obvious from what jus’ happened.”

Her features crease into that of a bulldog, ready to pounce, but I was ready for this before I even stepped foot in this room. “What do you know, being her new boyfriend and all? You hardly even know her, I reckon . . She’s my daughter and she almost died,” she insists with a spiteful grin sticking to her lips.

“What’s that matta? Ya weren’t there fer her when she was alive, so why’d ya come now?” I spit out, and am instantly rewarded with the image of the words slapping her in the face. “I do know what’s bloody best fo’ her, and what’s best fo’ her right now ‘s fer you t’ leave and not come back. She doesn’t want you here, I dunno how many times I gotta fookin’ say it. She’s been thru’ hell and back, and ‘s tryna figure out what tha bloody hell this new life ‘s and how t’ function again whilst bein’ on several meds and stuck inna hospital bed. Let her bloody rest so she can get betta and heal, if ya even care ‘bout her ya’d leave her be t’ get betta,” I sigh, turning on my heel to place my back to them. Her fiery gaze beats against my neck as I let the tears fall, not bothering to clean them up, because I can only deal with one mess at a time.

“Who the fuck was that, and who does he think he is?” she retorts, seemingly more to herself and those around her than to myself, her voice only a ghost now.

“That’s Harry,” Chuck answers, something shining through in his voice that I can’t quite decipher.

“Harry? You mean her boss, Harry?” Kate responds, taken aback.

“No, right now that’s Harry. Her best friend and boyfriend, Harry,” he tells her, and I think I hear it finally, just rounding the corner. It accompanies the chuckle that floats down the hallway after me.

It’s pride.

The very same feeling glues itself to me as I take long steps back to her, thoroughly aware of how much better it feels to come back to her than it is to leave her. Even in her sleep, she seems to retain that feeling of hers amidst all of the drugs, because when I sit down next to her, I watch those pretty eyes open.

“Harry.”

“Hi, honeybug. Go back t’ sleep, everything’s okay, yer mum’s gone,” I tell her, cradling her cheek in my hand, because I’m sure that if my words somehow hadn’t done it, that Chuck will make sure of her exit.

“Okay,” she sighs softly, her eyelids fluttering closed. I lean over her and press whispers of kisses to her eyelids, leading me to find that dimple like a ghost in her left cheek. “Harry?”

“What ‘s it, bug? Ya need yer rest, ‘s almost bedtime,” I hum, settling back onto the chair. My eyes fall from her when a warmth finds my hand now, and I smile at the appearance of her hand lacing with mine.

“I love you,” she whispers, and everything stills around me, and inside of me. My head snaps up and over to her calm exterior that soon blurs in front of me as a breathy laugh coats my lips.

“I love you too, Becks,” I return quickly, tears adorning my words and leaving them to break in the air.

The dimple remains alive in her cheek when her eyes creak open and meet mine briefly before I steal a kiss from her lips. So, it wasn’t a fluke the other night, afterall. Hmm.

“Get some sleep, ‘ll be here when ya wake up,” I coo against her hair, cradling her head with my hand.

“You too,” she yawns, closing her eyes and wiggling around in the bed, and I swear that I couldn’t have seen something more beautiful in all of my days. She just keeps surprising me though, and making me wonder how she could ever become more gorgeous, or more importantly, how I could ever come to love her more.

I know that tomorrow she’ll change that, and the day after that, and after that, when my heart will grow another size to love her a little bit more.

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joelmillerthirstqz · 4 years

Link

Fill for this ask~

(slight liberty taken with request for reader to get excited about the shop; Ellie's working through sixteen-year-old, new-to-commitment-as-a-concept with Cat, pre-dina tattoo girlfriend, so i went with that)

Joel, y/n, and Ellie are all out on patrol and come across a small town. In the town, there’s an abandoned wedding dress shop. Y/n gets all excited and goes inside to see there are untouched wedding dresses. Joel’s slightly annoyed when y/n and Ellie want to try some on for fun. But then he sees y/n in a wedding dress and realizes he sees her as more than a friend.

yeah, of course I wrote with reference images up:

texture/sheerness/skirt shape/front dress ref back of dress ref, specifically the window-back with the little covered buttons up over the lower part of the hips

[I evade y/n as a convention like the plague, it’s really immersion crushing for me. However, I’ll edit it for your OC’s name if you hit the ask box, so.]

There's already a second chapter if you we want to get into this, comment or kudos and I'll get brave!

----

Ellie grimaces, scrunching her whole face. She looks across the main street of the town you’d come to scout out, Joel taciturn on his horse a few yards away, scanning storefronts and alleys.

“What?” you jerk your head to her sightline and back at her, unholstering your revolver on reflex. Your horse snuffles below you, hoofing at the ground. You can never tell if the creature is clueless, indifferent, or confident in his rider, but he would certainly be perturbed if there were infected.

“Dude, people had whole shops just for weddings?” Ellie asks, snorting derisively.

You follow her extended arm to the storefront she points to, a frilly off-white dress draped over a sunken model, glass from the smashed display window embedded.

“I mean, you had to have seen them in Boston, plenty of bored people with money,” you supply warmly. You’d grown up there, a cataclysm between the city you’d known and Ellie’s birthplace. Weddings were for people who’d given up, who’d aged out of chasing their dreams, settled into dull domesticity. People, usually the woman-coded partner, whose parents had quarter of a million to drop on a party with lifelong implications.

You’d been a little relieved when social ritual had been mostly taken off the table by the apocalypse, so the wedding pressure never reached you. Hadn’t thought about the concept in years.

You wondered who in Victor, Idaho, just over the border from Jackson, had kept a bridal shop open even before the outbreak. The demand just couldn’t match thousands of dollars of dress.

“Oh, no,” Ellie said softly.

“Well, it was a whole thing. Get some champagne, drag a bunch of girls with you, try on all the shapes and get yelled at by your mom, make jokes about the wedding night. Mostly pointless rituals,” you explain.

“You ever go to one?” Ellie asks.

“I mean, I was my cousin’s bridesmaid, so I got drunk in one and shoved into a blue satin thing, if that counts,” you clarify, shifting in your saddle.

Ellie nudges Shimmer forward, Joel drawing up to your position with a helpless shrug to you.

“It was strange. Were you in Jackson for Tommy’s?” you ask. Maria and Tommy still have that thing where they see each other and tune everything else out, even for a beat, seeming like every sense recognizes the other, no matter what else they’re doing. It feels so belligerently normal, and you watch the younger couples in the town taking note to emulate it, like they knew what they were doing because they were born before.

“No,” Joel says, looking wistful. “Seen pictures,” he adds.

“Imagine they were a bigger deal in Texas,” you say, your horses trotting a few paces behind Ellie.

Joel looks at you, face cycling through the decision to keep speaking, the same circuit you always saw him loop before he bit down on a memory and fell silent. You let the afterimage of a smile cross your face before looking down, feeling like he needs the same privacy he’d proven skilled at respecting in your own expression.

—Yesterday—

“Ask you a favor?” you feel your bones leave your body and slam back into place with fear, registering Joel’s low drawl. You’d groggily found your way into the stables to start patrol, hoodie tucked over a beanie, praying not to be seen. Nobody was supposed to be awake this early—you were avoiding a less experienced, loquacious patrolmate you’d been sentenced to and your throat clasps around itself to find that the previous night’s team, Joel’s, was only just returning.

“How bad was it?” you tip your head at the blood spatter on the side of his jacket, reddened bucket and sponge set where he’d been cleaning the infected byproduct off of his horse.

“Oh, I straggled, rest gone home. Patrol route’s quiet now, though,” he non-explains. You’re not sure if he’s trying to keep his voice low out of respect for the early hour or if that’s just his usual rumbling tone resounding it in the stark, chilly air.

“Mhm. What’s the favor?” you ask, busying yourself with saddling your own horse.

“About scouting that town for the group to search, tomorrow. Ellie’s comin’ and…” he trails off, looking at the wood-plank wall, blinking an eye at the fierce early morning sun beaming through a sliver.

You’ve learned not to rush him, learned he’s easier to talk to with his hands full, and he finishes scrubbing off his horse’s bridle while you tack up your own.

“She talks to you, easier,” Joel admits, face obscured behind his horse, taking his time to brush through the animal’s fur, obliviously slurping hay into its mouth before crinkling it in its teeth.

“Huh?” you ask, marvel of articulation that you are.

“Ellie, she’s more talkative,” he repeats himself.

“No, I mean, what?”

You hear a sigh and he leans around his horse, hands on his hips.

“Please?” he asks, slightest edge of irritation at having to say more than he’d practiced. It's all insecurity, not directed at you, but you bristle anyway.

“Alright. It’s your business, but I’ll lend my girl talk instinct,” you prod with bite, stuffing your foot into a stirrup and swinging a leg up onto Clover, who’d been named before you got to Jackson. Your emotional labor threshold never existed, and Joel was fucking pushing it.

“That’s not what I meant,” he sounds defeated as you look down at him, Clover slowing helpfully. His eyes look full, and you peer at him. He looks a little vulnerable—even if your worst anxieties read it as him noticing that you squint to avoid looking at his mouth—which is parted a little, black beard flecked with, for you, exactly the correct amount of grey. Joel rubs his lips together three times, quick, the way you’d seen when he wanted to stop talking at town meetings, shy of the eyes on him.

You soften, aware you’re irritable from lack of sleep and scarcity of good caffeine. You look ahead, reins creaking in your gloves conspicuously in the still space.

“Owe me a beer when I’m back tonight, okay?” you nod at him and press into Clover’s flank as Joel silently assents, focus snapping back to brushing out his horse. You risk looking back as Clover picks up, relieved and let down to see Joel doggedly focused on his task. You’d taken to drinking with the other patrolmen in the Tipsy Bison, edging into something resembling a social life borne of something like mutual responsibility. The group repeatedly made plain his welcome over the last few months until Joel had started to show up routinely, even murmuring a few words here and there, coming to the point that you’d notice when he wasn’t there.

—

“Okay but, why, though?” Ellie paws at a veil as you enter the store, pompous fabric ballooning halfway down the mannequin’s back.

“Dunno, it’s what people wore. I think that was for modesty, symbolically. Only went to a couple. My friends never hit the ‘wedding season’ stride. Too young,” you explain, your senior year of college on outbreak day. A look crosses Joel’s face and he spins the barrel of his revolver, leaning against the counter, trying to look busy checking the register, just in case something helpful lingered.

“Go try one on, Ellie,” you try, unsure what the sixteen-year-old is working through. Her attention hasn’t drifted to the next shops to explore, yet, so it clearly matters.

“Not for me,” she protests, hands raised. “Will you?”

You laugh ruefully, years away from the last time you’d put on something close to a dress, much less something formal, and you'd certainly never thought about being a bride. Not materially.

“C’mon, I’ve never seen like, a normal human in one,” Ellie pouts. You narrow your eyes for a second, lightly dubious.

“That’s not the best idea,” Joel grouses next to you, looking over both his shoulders like he was expecting an ambush even though it had been placid the whole way up here. Two of your three horses nudge each other for space near the tree you’ve secured them too, whinnying.

“I’ll keep my boots on for running. And you’ll keep a lookout,” you reply blithely, rolling your eyes at him.

“Yell for help!’ Ellie still discovering nuptial detritus she’d seen alluded to in comics at most.

You busy yourself finding something not set through with rot, moving towards the back of the store. Ellie swings open a display case and picks up a circular, springy fabric, a pale blue garter, squinting with the effort of discernment.

“Were the hair tie things a thing for a reason?” Ellie asks Joel, looping the blue-ribboned elastic around her wrist for later. Joel’s eyes widen in horror, ready to run towards the nearest infected to avoid explaining the whole garter thing to Ellie.

A second, more frigid wave hits him, remembering his own wedding day, Tommy helping him get just drunk enough to go through with the embarrassing ritual that complemented the bouquet toss. Sarah’s mom had loved all the stupid little wedding-day-things, though, so he’d accepted the shot(s) his brother snuck him and was grateful his red face would be under a skirt. He’d barely been eighteen, doing the right thing with Sarah’s mom pregnant, and two-years-younger Tommy held it together for him the whole day. He thought of not being here for the day his little brother had gotten hitched, a candid Polaroid in focus in the reel of guilt he’d built for himself these last twenty-some years. Tommy looked like his brother as he was before in it, looking up Maria with rapt awe as he accepted her hand to be led back to the dance floor. The crinkling at the corner of his eyes, though older, looked like Tommy again, and the joy Joel felt for him was dulled by the impossibility of ever speaking enough words to draw a partner near.

“Joel?” she pokes, twanging the elastic a little to jar him. He eyes it warily, expression the most intimidated you'd ever seen him.

You trudge past Ellie, awkwardly dragging a plastic-encased parcel of a voluminous dress, the best-preserved and least yellowed you’d found. You really didn’t relish the idea of figuring out how to get it on alone, but seeing their exchange, you fully self-preserved your way away from that particular explanation to the changing space.

“Fuck me,” you grimace, noticing the trail of covered buttons leading from the open mid-back to the very last point it could presentably grace between the dimples on your back. Wrestling this on would be a chore.

Before you shuck everything but your boots and socks, you try to smooth your hair down, the moss-flecked mirror of the changing space indicating how hopeless it is. You re-strap your pistol holster to your thigh, an overabundance of caution rubbing off on you from Joel's mere anxious proximity.

You look at your reflection a minute, appraising heavy breasts, softer hips than before. You’re proud that your abdomen and arms remain taut and toned from a combination of riding and patrolling, sprinting for your life, and helping around Jackson. For once in your life, you fall asleep at night when you hit the pillow, naked and alone, no longer captive of the ceiling’s backlighting of unidentifiable darting thoughts. Blinking your musing away, you remember how your cousin’s bridal attendant had made a circle of the dress for her to step into, and do your best to prepare it so you can slide it up and ask Ellie to help.

—

Ellie slingshotted the something-blue at Joel’s face as he finished explaining the garter tradition, hushing her ferociously and finally placing both palms over his whole face, crossing and re-crossing his ankles where he leant against the counter, rifle over his shoulder.

Ellie rolled her eyes, haughtily full of recent knowledge of thighs and what they connect to from Cat, fern and moth tattoo freshly peeling over her acid burn.

—

“Ellie!” you call once the skirt is over your hips, bodice with laced cap sleeves over your shoulders. You feel a little bad stepping past the carefully sewn fabric in your hiking boots and high socks, grimy from the trail’s dust, trying to hold it up while keeping the bodice straight.

She smiles wryly as her head pokes around the corner.

“I’ll help if you tell me if people really launched their bouquets at people and one person really pulled a—uh, shit, uh, thigh lingerie thing—off of the bride in front of everyone?”

You honk a laugh, a horrible sound, thinking of the velocity with which you’d seen Ellie launch bricks, knowing she has no sense of the soft lob of flowers at friends that she refers to. You guess she's picturing a full-bodied overarm spike ending in flower shrapnel instead of the over-the-shoulder choreography towards the bride's most single friend that happened in reality. You clasp the delicate buttons at your lower back together as best you can with your palms.

“Sounds like that was regionally universal in America, yeah, but—”

“Holy shit,” Ellie comments, suddenly shuddering in a very teenage, possibly exaggerated ripple of disgust. “Looked like a hair tie,” she mutters.

“Just—please help,” you hold the tulle and hand-cut lace near the buttons out to her.

“Wow, this was for everyone to see you in?” Ellie asks, alluding to the sheer fabric that gave the impression that the lace filigrees were directly applied to your skin. Asymmetrical, hand-sewn flowers cinch around your breasts and middle when she finally secures it.

You turn to the angled three-part mirror, noticing where your epaulet tattoo complicates the sheer effect the designers intended by the lace, nose bunching up. Not the flesh of the intended buyer of this thing, for sure.

“Come on, in the light!” Ellie goads gently.

Bracing to self-deprecate, you tuck your hair up in one hand and hold the front of the dress up and away from your muddy boots. You and outward, finding the weird little podium that was apparently customary—you remember your cousin twirling on it a similar one in delight when she’d found the right dress.

“Yeah, fuck, I can’t do this for long,” you bristle, feeling ungainly in the garment, dropping the skirts around your feet.

“And you’d just walk up to someone and kiss them in front of everyone and that worked?” Ellie prattles, tailing you closely.

Joel’s retreated to the store entrance, hunting rifle comfortable in his hands but pointedly ready.

He turns in the middle of running some sort of ten foot patrol route along the length of the store’s entrance, inevitable that he’d face you eventually. You realize he’s just pacing, the town quiet, stuck in a situation he accidentally created.

Ellie gives you a look that looks through you, and you recognize the contemplation in it. She’s thinking of someone, and what formalizing intimacy means, probably. Certainly where your mind was at around her age. Fuck, you’d not go back to sixteen for all the pre-outbreak world.

“I’m gonna go check the horses,” she mumbles, maybe in her own head, maybe more deliberate than that.

Your eyes bulge as you realize you’re stuck in this fucking thing and Ellie’s across the street.

You turn to Joel with a prepared face, tugging your dimples into a self-effacing “look at this shit” face.

“Wanna try one on?” you jab first, trying to get there before Joel can make this worse, more stupid. He’d kind of asked you, or asked for a favor that led to this, so you felt contented blaming him for it. You definitely will if his slight over-caution is vindicated and you get rushed by anything hostile while you're wearing this. Your holster may feel comforting, but the weight of the skirt would put a real drag on any reflexes you had if you actually needed your pistol.

Joel halted at the midpoint of his circling, rifle slack in his hands, hanging limp before him. The light from outside rings his form, broad shoulders and imposing frame worn uneasily in his posture.

His mouth parts the way it had when you’d ridden past him in the stables, chest expanding and falling in quick iterations, hazel eyes stranded on you.

You breathe as you hold his eyes, unable to back down from any time he proved capable of holding direct eye contact. Now that you had it, you realized you’d been teasing it out of him for months, forcing him to look right at you, any creative way you could, driving him up the wall.

Joel might as well have been waist-deep in water for how slowly he moves towards you.

“Sorry, not meaning to bring up anything—” you swallow the word painful, revising quickly, “from before,” you finish weakly. Gold star, idiot. You had no idea, but what if it had been a wife he’d lost? Fuck’s sake. Though, Ellie wouldn't be cruel like that—

Joel shakes his head absently, dismissive. He was run aground, captive to taking you in. The dress made no overtures to performative modesty, sheer tulle slits up to the edge of your hipbones, catching on your holster where you shift. Joel assesses the fabric spread over your chest quickly, mouth upturning too subtly for you to feel 100% confident you’d seen him do it. You’d seen him get the lay of a whole horde in a split second, and stood curious what it was he’d noted from the two and a half seconds his eyes drifted over you.

“‘m here, now,” he mumbles, looking down and pulling the bolt back, a dull click as it confirmed he’d chambered this particular round ten times in the last five minutes. If a weapon could sound exasperated with him, it did, and he jerks his head without turning it to Ellie’s retreating form.

Joel’s mind sprints between stations, picking up an artifact of your expression at each one: your body, your easy conversations on patrol, fumbling between them all, not sure where to start.

Ellie wasn’t far enough away for Joel to start this now, to cross the shop and kiss you, podium leveling you to the perfect height for him to lean into, hands on your face. Something in his posture looks ready to move quickly, and it's not to use the weapon his knuckles whiten around.

The edges of his eyes pinch, like he’s struggling to make sense of an indescribable noise. The tendon running from your ear to collarbone stands out as you look to the side, pretending to appraise the way the dress fits over your hips, snugly buttoned. Joel’s face shifts from startled to starved while you take reprieve from his focus.

Your furrowed brows while you watch Joel watch you spark understanding of the mechanics of a constant, firm draw towards your person. He’s recognizing you as more than a formidable shot he can be at ease with, not just a pleasant confidante with different but complementary pre-outbreak life experiences and a healthy sense of privacy.

Joel glances down one more time, catching your eyes on the way back up as he clears his throat, finding you looking at him sheepishly. He hadn’t tried to say a word in minutes.

“I’m. I’m stuck in here. Ellie—” you stammer, face reddening viciously. This was going to be a long, tiring patrol excursion, and you worried you had already made it weird.

You idly wonder where he might put his hands on you if you were alone, right now, and your terror is visible as the thought drifts by. If he would.

Joel doesn’t look back at Ellie where you’d normally expect a concerned jolt at her name, hazel eyes heatedly dark. You can chalk it up to the dimmed interior of the shop, but enough sunlight streams in to make you doubt its just the environment.

Grimacing at a clearly out-of-earshot Ellie, you need to be out of this fucking thing and redouble.

“Joel, can you? I feel bad ripping it and would really like my jeans again,” you offer weakly.

Joel’s fingertips, fingertips you wish you didn’t know were callused and so goddamn cautious when they’d had the occasion to meet yours, flex on his gun.

“Not sure I know how to, I mean, those seem—special?” he stammers at the prospect, you having turned to bare your back to him.

Joel breathes in a way you can hear on the silent street, usually so contained.

She’s just helping you see the buttons. Joel thinks, counting out twelve of them, in total.

Joel steadies his gaze, tipping his head forward and choosing to take in the slope of your back, mostly bare and deep-dipping expanse scantly wreathed in lace. His face looks like he’s staring something potentially fatal down, gritted jaw muscles pulsing. He steps towards you, though. He’d never done anything in the right order, not Sarah, not with Tess, not a bit, one single time. Might as well get you dress off before he can even get the courage to kiss you.

Slinging his rifle’s strap over his shoulder, Joel keeps his fingers at a careful angle, purposefully not against your skin. Pushing the top button through the satin loop containing it, he steps up on the podium with you, only because it puts his lips well out of an easy distance to drag along the nape of your neck. Hoping he can feel his way down the buttons without touching or looking at you, he fails three buttons down, knuckles brushing the bottom of your spine.

You laugh nervously, looking back at Joel. Every part of your core is twining into a spiral, abdomen first, then a layer deeper, then a clench you won’t register because then you’d have to admit that something was going on.

For his part, his dark brows are furrowed in effort, decidedly back in the realm of watching every movement to avoid the electrocution he’d just experienced from grazing you. Now was the time for accuracy, not speed.

Joel takes in your little cap sleeves between buttons, down to the eighth of twelve. The hand-cut lace outlines your shoulders, leading to lean skin below, dipping lower in the front than he should be noticing now that you’ve turned away from him—but he’s too tall to miss it once you’re standing on level ground. He wonders what you would do if he pulled you against him now, back pressed to his front, his mouth on your neck before your own.

‘Thank you,” Joel says.

You crane your head to meet his eyes again, hands pressed to opposite shoulders to prevent the now-loosened dress from slipping all the way. Maybe you didn’t need the rest of the buttons, but there they went. You blink at him, wondering what would happen if you leaned against him.

“What?” you feel all wrapped in half-fabric, half-suggestion, no idea what the fuck he means.

“For comin’,” he gives. “Didn’t, uh, thanks for…” he trails off, so unaccustomed to indirectness and illocution that he doesn’t know what to call it. He clears his throat.

Joels hits the tenth button and breathes deep, flicking through the last two like he’s reloading, stepping back to reclaim his rifle and get so, so many feet away from you.

You turn to him, holding the weighty dress flush against your skin with both hands.

Joel’s chest is rising and falling every three seconds in rapid cycles, peculiar as you’d patrolled enough together to hear how he can silence his breath, the infrequent draws of someone yards underwater. He either can’t control this or made a choice to stop, and you can only think that the rust colored plaid he’d worn today was truly nice on him.

The rest of your scouting trip is deafeningly quiet, like Joel riding next to you and his surly expression produce volume equivalent to standing under a roaring set of falls. Ellie punctures it every few minutes with an attempted joke and you can almost feel Joel groan before you hear it each time, thoughtful.

Notes:

Here's the meta you didn't ask for

In current 2020, hard to see in weddings as anything other than class signifiers/routes to wife-n’ up, but:

holy shit does the apocalypse , esp. Tommy’s hope-imperative thing, make room for meaningfully coded rituals and aspirational ideologies not hijacked by the wedding industry’s profit motive.

Joel’s coming from the context of a wife who left Joel alone because having Sarah ruined her young life, so his view of it is understandably dismissive. Reader was more interesting to make opposite—college-aged asshole without responsibilities on Outbreak Day, less room for traditions.

But: Jackson is frozen in time and CRAVES ritual. Where it was meaningless in a world of abundance, you need markers of the years and ways to say “that person is my person;" it's joy as resistance.

For instance, something about Christmas hits different when you’re not fist fighting consumers for prelit trees after scuttling past a Salvation Army Santa in a mall. Jackson feels so sincere, every decoration scavenged or hewn with love, with purpose and forethought.

There’s joy in scarcity and glut in abundance is my point, I guess. Joel gets that on a basic level, even though he’s obstinate as hell about letting himself have anything good or even open to the idea.

#prompt fills #joel tlou #tlou #tlou ii #dumb epiphanies #joel miller #joel x reader #joel miller x reader #the last of us joel #the last of us #the last of us fic #the last of us ii #the last of us 2 #asks #filled prompts #prompts #joel/reader

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revelaare · 4 years

Text

Shit said in the Crimson Discord & VC, taken out of context part 2, (the sequel)

Big NSFW warning, probably

his meat slid off and then slid right back on

[PRONOUN] can punch me in my uterus and make a hammock out of my ovaries

it’s one of the worst fucking things i’ve ever heard, and i’ve heard someone literally shit their pants

they tagged me and my ass clenched

this man just said “I want to eat ur ass and then kiss you” ok buddy

a man with a plan

my grandpa is texting his hoes from his flip phone

god my lawyer was a hit but idk if she will be the chosen one or not

hello give me your toenails

i'll touch you in a non-weird way

he was in that movie with the people, he was the human.

i want her to brush my hair

If we have dick glasses they have to be of the highest quality for the best experience

i don't wanna watch that white nonsense

i would throat him like a fine wine

these millenials can't live without ac? back in my day we lived on the sun

yall better put those goats on a wheel, tell them to start running

he looks like a bitch

yes or no, u wud punch the light bulb out of thomas edisons wrinkly pruned hand and asked him if he believed in god

still has skin and a working body

i needed to wait until my voice changes

you thought i was snacking on joe biden’s savory meat stick

barack guckin oglizzy, oguckma, barack osugma, Joe choden, OglchnnngggHHHYynnUUUnnghhma

why did i have a dream that i was taking the lid off my car

false gods require wine, real gods require coochiefice

fettucine wet ass pussy

that was all you sent me. the picture of a raccoon and then nothing

it isn’t hate, it is ‘continuously let down by’.

i never went to school who science

i’m gunna go peer pressure my mum into a shot

thank you for furthering my career at hot topic

i will suck the ingrown hair off of him

it has huge jackman in it

i chomped on this eggshell, got my calcium in for the day

i will take you to touch the mango

i want to see all the big things

[PRONOUN] has collar bones so deep you could hook a clothing hanger into it

no asscheeks in fucking family chat you animals

he will eat you alive and suck out your intestines like its a spaghetti noodle

[NAMES]’s Tiggle Biddie’s

dropped acid, cried the whole night.

my stomach is hooping and hollering, i’m about to eat some sleep

you want my throatsac ??

please dont know me as the toenail eater

you have to keep the skin on one side while you eat the other, thats basic mango physics

i mean he is some good sasuage

calm down dick Hannibal

respectfully, what the fuck is this

tbf i only eat my steaks where they need tampons

you committed acts of culinary terrorism

does your refrigerator whimper and cower in the corner when you approach it. that's your fridge trying to use echo location to locate a safe space

thundercuck

i almost met Jesus, I almost got an autograph. Almost got a greatest hits signed album.

respectfully, are you smoking fucking crack?

my left testicle could play better than you

i’ll eat him with ketchup

son of a biscuit eating bulldog!

now it’s back to me sucking, all is right in the world.

holy fuck weasels.

holy fuck, weasels!

why does the bad guy look like the Statue of Liberty?

this is a man that sometimes willingly dresses like a lumberjack

and me, being an emotional cripple, must make jokes about this.

hey my name is [NAME] i'm **definitely** who i say i am

[NAME OR PRONOUN] offered a back massage by calling it the “tickle thing”

i love a man who puts his parents in a nursing home.

my brain is going to take a hot shower

wait have u seen steve harvey's coochie

if it were me i would simply not be pregnant

look im not about to be out here saying i love [NAME OR PRONOUN] feet, but i am about to be out here saying that their feet are some of the nicest feet i've seen in a long time

i named my cloyster renesmee

[NAME] was texting me from the bathtub

you’re pregnant? That’s unfortunate.

do I say dumb shit? Perhaps. Do I take ownership? Perhaps.

i pay for things in blissful ignorance

i am an emotional vagrant

i am an emotional fragrance

to make a long motherfucking story short...

this enchilada tastes like asshole and sadness

you are not an ugly bitch, you’re just a bitch

that’s not a nut shot, buddy.

i’m sad because i sucked the meat off of this pumpkin spice latte

i want to make a blanket out of his eyebrows

what are you disgracing my Christian eyes for?

he be looking at that dick like why does it go so much to the left?

I want her to record an audio book for me so I can fall asleep listening to her voice.

Can I lick you like an ice cream cone? Asking for science.

like you're out to lunch with your bromie and you're eating some rubens or something and you wistfully look over the rim of your sunglasses and just: You ever buss 2 fast

my accent is flaccid

timotay chalamaymay’s sweet ass

on the bright side mcallister’s gave me 3 pickle spears. Almost enough to make a whole pickle.

you think they came from the same mommy pickle?

HIS DOODLE IS OUT

i thot that meant [NAME] wanted to...doodle his noodle

i don’t use commas, i don't respect u enough, fuck ur reading comprehension.

does australia have seasons

i want someone to embalm my body with mcdonalds sprite

his hermione grangina

purrrr my last email

its lore locked beneath 30 layers. u can only understand it if uve had a near death experience

LET'S GET FUCKY

i wanna have the heart of a stoner

his man titties look like little tattooed pillows

SWIGGITY SWOOTY COMIN FOR THAT BOOTY

there were no cheeks to shake. nothing to clap. no noise to be had from her literal slices of wonderbread

u ever just fuck around and ur tits fart

put a lil mint leaf on it for authenticity

alright brother god bless may u be fertile

i feel like im being advocated for something i shouldnt be advocating for

and i am adam with my fat pendulous balls lol

i’m making whuppie with whoopie godberg

theodore tits fart rex

yeah man do u also have the third toe on ur shoulder

the green spaghetti monster is coming for me and i can't blame him

today i learned starfish do not poop

that was nothing compared to some other things I saw

listen I'd willingly watch [NAME/PRONOUN] in a cell for 24 hours. Imagine that sounded less creepy

i'd lick a dirty flip flop off her abs

i’m tempted to show you all the gravity defining boobs, maybe tomorrow

my brain is on vacation

good morning! i ate breakfast and im ready to go to bed

tape the titty in

ive unironically had nightmares with [NAME] in them

the peanut in the auditory canal

so far this feel all comfortable, does this all make sense?

i know it's kind of a schlep to get through

nail polish or no nail polish for the shower?

and then he saw those big tt honkerz... and it all went down hill from there

can y’all stop chanting curses in the chat my furniture is stuck on the ceiling

EH?! CIAO? HELLO??

in Russia this is not ok

i can’t buy pants here on Sunday either

IT'S LIKE TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS TO EAT ON A SOGGY PANCAKE

imagine me going up to [NAME/PRONOUN] and being like i love the way ur flesh smells

in a supermarket. The sickly blue light where humans congregate. Animal human masses. Nameless faces. Whole lives boiled into generalized categories like "asshole who definitely does need 4 boxes of cheerios". Yout hink and realize while stabding in line u didnt grab the bag of frozen peas...but its 2 late

its truly the only picture that gives me pure joy

are weasels real

my work mum just messaged me the phrase "use your booty call wisely" with no context

"let's bring u to the mustache chair"

If you’re not doing coke under the coke sign what is the point?

#⋆ ˚｡⋆˚ meme day #HERE U GO U SINNERS.#THE SEQUEL.

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xsecretblastsx · 4 years

Text

1x10 - High Society

Finally I’ve reach a double digit episode, and what an episode, I feel this is where I really start questioning characters decisions, but I also love drama so, withouth more preamble, here’s the recap. Again it got insanely long.

Thoughts I had while watching the episode:

I love “comin home baby”, so right there this show is making me so happy.

I’ve actually paused the episode to see the date of the debutante ball a.k.a Cotillion

I love Blair’s red tigh outfit, also where did that guy Prince Theodore came from?

Chuck’s proud face when Nate mentions how happier Blair seems lately, and also, dude really you don’t miss your girlfriend haha

Honestly I feel this scene with all these parallel conversations about Cotillion is great, right up my alley.

All the subtle drama in that rehearsal, the secret glances, Chuck and Nate keeping their eyes on Blair all the time, this is the kind of content I’m here for.

I would like to know why everyone is in their preppy uniforms and then there’s Kati and Is who look like they’re part of Flashdance

Lilly rolling her eyes the moment she sees CeCe, and then really enjoying Cece’s mortification when she realizes Dan is a Humphrey. I love Lilly.

And from Cece’s horrified face we go to hottest PG-13 make out ever. For real though I love this scene, they both look so good and so into it, and they’re so deliciously flirty and their chemistry is out of the charts. Great choice in music too.

I don’t know who is more frustrating by Nate interrupting Chuck or myself.

Chuck’s little smile when Blair says to Nate they should move on, only to be whipped out in the next minute

Two things about the heart pin: that was an incredibly smart move on Nate’s part, and if you had any doubt Blair Waldorf is such a hopeless romantic.

Cece such a manipulator, it’s unbelievable. Imagine if Serena was more like her family...

Nate’s tux fitting deserves an honorable mention just for the fact that Blair’s actually wearing jeans. Also he kind of deserves she’s lowkey ignoring him

I mean, Dan is so annoying, like yeah I get his point Cotillion is such an elitist unnecessary event, but the way he goes about it gets on my nerves.

Hello Carter. I actually don’t mind him this episode.

Out of all the seasons I feel like Season 1 is the one where it’s weirder for the final reveal of who gossip girl is, right now it makes the guy really look like a sociopath, with all the stuff he pretends not to know.

Oh Nate! This scene is so fun, like Chuck is so done with the conversation and then “you guys are still pretty close aren’t you?” Dude you have no idea. And the Cherry on the cake “Could you find out who she’s seeing? - Me” he told you Nate, he told you.

Cece’s words to Dan are cruel, but it is the crux of their relationship,, right until the very end and he deals with it in the worst way possible, and why in his mind, every issue in their relationship is always Serena’s fault. Ugh.

Between Dan and Carter, yeah she should have ended with Carter, too bad Cece’s word weren’t profetic.

I wish we had a clearer view of Blair’s outfit in that scene she’s talking with that New York Times guy, because I think it’s purple, and I wish we had seen her using that color a bit more.

Chuck is so jealous and Blair’s like yeah whatever as if. But a jealous Chuck is scheming Chuck.

I love Rufus, you go Dan (just for this one time)

I’ve always felt Serena’s look for Cotillion was a lot of gold, not in a good way, but right now? I’m kind of feeling it. And she looks gorgeous.

I mean I think there was probably a better way to say that Grandma Cece is evil, but still I’m not sure it would have matter Serena didn’t want to listen, she never does actually now that I think of it, the end of S3 comes to mind.

Blair has the funniest lines “I’m gonna go Naomi Campbell on you” Is so sad though that we got to see so little of that Erickson Beamon necklace, it’s lovely.

“Hey Beatiful” oh the things one notices when one no longer hates Carter and VanderBaizen is your second Serena ship.

Lily and Cece’s faces at Serena’s presentation stament are to die for.

The pretty little liars song! But since I haven’t watch that show, this one is going to remain a Gossip Girl song for me.

Seeing Cece and Lily at Cotillion makes me think that Blair’s parents are the worst, it’s their daughter debut and none of them could be bothered to attend the event

It didn’t remember this was the first time they mentioned the Santorini incident, less of all in the way Carter tells it, I thought this was first mentioned in S2,

Not exactly a fan of Lily’s scene with Dan, because yes I agree at this point for the most part Dan is a good influence, but she almost makes it look like Serenas change is thanks to Dan, and that’s not the case. She had decided to change even before she met him.

Also this is feeding Dan’s ego and his belief that he’s the best thing to happen to his girlfriends.

Oh Chuck finding out than when it comes to Blair scheming is not an easy feat, and to think this in only the first time this is going to happen.

Poor Chuck, that hurt. Nate’s wink adding salt to his wounds ouch.

That phone between Ruflus and Lily, yes you shouldn’t have let her go!!!

Oh how I used to like that last scene between Dan and Serena.

Seeing that scene of Cece taking her pills made me think of S5, and that’s probably the episode I hate the most in the whole show.

Blair and Nate finally get to it, but seriously Blair doing it with Nate while wearing the necklace Chuck gave you, is tasteless. Also compared to a certain scene at the start of the episode, this looks a bit dull..

Chuck running away, also him looking at the news paper where Blair is happily smiling with some guy, reminded me again of S5.

Ending this episode with “Apologize” was so 2007, remember how popular this song was?

This was a really packed episode. It introduces us to Cece, and gaves a bit more insight into Rufus and Lily’s history. We have Jenny picking the UES over her family, she’s changing. A dash of Van der Baizen, and our first glimpse to their shared past. Dan and Serena having another clash of worlds, that ends with Lily finally acepting Dan for real; and finally the end of Chuck and Blair 1.0 and the star of Nate and Blair 2.0.

While interesting Jenny’s and Rufly bits this episode, they’re a small part of the episode, Jenny’s in particular feels like a setting up of events to come and as such I feel I have not much to say about it right now. So this episode Dan and Serena had to deal with quite an opponent: Grandma Cece.

Cece while manipulative did raised some interesting points, mainly how out of place Dan feels in the UES, all those things she mentioned are things that Dan resents about the UES, and he may be brushing it up aside for now, but that doesn’t mean it won’t linger and fester in his mind. And then we have Serena who for some reason (which i can’t help but feel is related to Dan) has decided to ditch Cotillion, the even that according to Lily she wanted to attend since she was much younger, and sure people change, Serena is proof of that but in this case I feel her not going is in part to annoyed her mother but also to prove Dan she’s the girl he thhinks she is, i know I may be projecting my dislike of Dan and Derena on this, but it just feels like that to me, and it’s a troubling aspect of their relationship. Also when Dan mentioned to Serena about Cece’s ploy, she doesn’t believe him, doesn’t want to hear it at first, and I just feel for her because sadly is not the first time she’s going to have to accept that her family is not who she think they were.

Last but not least there’s Chuck and Blair. So their secret fling lasted only a month, since the beginning it took Chuck much less effort to embrace the situation, for all his playboys ways the morning after their first time... he wanted them to get breakfast, and it took him Nate messing up again for him to convince Blair of giving them another chance. So when Nate shows interest in Blair, this is Chuck’s worst nightmare come to life, Blair had her whole life with Nate planned out since she was a little girl, she only gave up on that dream when it was clear Nate wanted no part of it, and sure Chuck knows the potential they have, he lowkey always knew, and that’s why he falls so fast, because subconciously he was halfway there since foreve, but it’s very hard to compete with years of Nate, Nate Nate, in Blairs head. So he panics, he gets jealous... and he plots. And it backfires horribly. And for the first time in his life he gets his heart broken.

I don’t judge Blair on this one though because well she knows Chuck, he has an agenda always, and him being Chuck Bass it never occurs to her that he may be realy into her beyond just sex, to her all they being doing is fooling around, she tells Chuck that he needs to learned to behave for them to move to something more, and Chuck behaving is an eufemism of so many things: trust,knowing that she matters to him enough, that he cares. And that’s a big step and it’s a conversation that needed to happen.. and then it doesn’t. Thanks Nate. But really having Nate finally wanting her, and then Chuck seemingly only caring for himself and his own amusement is not suprise she picks Nate.

I do feel for Chuck because when he gets desperate he doesn’t think properly at all, he knows Blair, how smart she is and that she’s a good at him at plotting and manipulation,and yet he fails to take that into account, like this episode, he wants Nate to cause a scene to shatter Blair’s image of Nate, because she tells him he would never, so it’s not hard for Blair to see that Nate only caused one because Chuck manipulated into it, it’s transparent. And this is a lesson that sadly he’s not going to learn anytime soon.

Random bits I would like to mention: ( a bit surprised I got so many for this episode)

So Blair’s birthday is the 15th of november, this means Chuck and Blair version 1.0 lasted a month. Common knowledge I suppose, but I’ve read fanfics where the timeline is much shorter.

A bit of personal trivia: I love the song “you’re a wolf” (the one playing when Chuck and Blair are making out) and last year was kind of weird for me and I had like a thousand mood changes so anyway, so there was one week I started listening to this song, and I just couldn’t stop re playing it, just so out of nowhere, I played it so much, it ended up being my most played song last year according to Spotify.

I remember when the type of purse Jenny has was on fashion, and it was cool because it got to the point that street markets they were sold really cheap because they made them out or recycled materials

Chuck tells to Nate that “like the book says she’s just not that into you” and it made think that this was so long ago that there was only the book, the movie wasn’t out yet, wow..

I wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t fight with Dan, because then Carter wouldn’t have been at Cotillion, and then the drama between Chuc, Blair and Nate could have ended up in a completely different way.

The Palace does likes like a good place to have the Cotillion, not sure that would have been the case in real life, but here it fits nicely.

Irrelevant but apparently Kati and Is do everything together at such an extent they were scorted by two guys that I guess were brothers because they had the same last name.

You won’t believe but The Pierces have a 2020 version of Secret, it came out on my new releases list on Spotify last week.

#gossip girl #gossip girl recap #gossip girl rewatch #1x10 #high society

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wintersoldierland · 5 years

Text

our worlds colliding

In the cryo, time is irrelevant. James is aware that he’s there, it’s not like Hydra, but it still feels like torture.

He cannot escape the pain and the guilt, and each second is agony when he sees the eyes of his victims, life slowly dripping out of them.

He cannot escape Stark.

Try as he might, James can’t forget the sight of him there, in that bunker, broken and sad and so so resigned. He can’t forget how he didn't want to fight but somehow the Winter Soldier won against him again. How the triggers that activated him also kept him close to the surface.

The Soldier likes to fight.

He can deny is as much as he wants, but James knows that the part of him that’s the Winter Soldier likes the fight. Likes the adrenaline, the danger, the feeling of being a better fighter.

It’s yet another reason to hate himself as if he has too few of those.

But the cryo that felt like a blessing turned into a curse.

He’s just stuck here, in his own head, mangled and fucked up, and he can’t escape, can’t tell them to get him out, can’t close his eyes because it’s all in his brain.

James just has to be there, exist, and suffer.

That’s when the images start.

He’s sitting on top of a tall Tower that’s overviewing New York, calm and happy. The sun is setting and he knows that Tony will be here soon. It's their tradition.

“Hey, handsome,” comes a quip and James smiles, turning to face his husband and opening his arms.

Tony falls into them easily and cuddles close, fitting into James’s body like he was made to sit there.

“Hey, baby,” James croons quietly, nuzzling into his hair. “Tired?”

“Yeah,” Tony sighs. “I swear, it’s like having toddlers!”

James laughs fondly. “Yeah, they’re a bit much, sometimes,” he agrees. He loves their team but, by God, they sometimes had one collective braincell and weren’t all that keen on using it.

“Steve spilled champagne on Nat’s new dress and I think she was going to murder him but then he looked ready to cry...” Tony trails off, before picking the story up again. “And that’s not the worst thing! Clint had the audacity to suggest that since the dress is already ruined they can...ruin it further and I’m pretty sure I almost caught them going at it in the bathroom.”

He almost chokes laughing, both at the situation and at Tony’s tone. It is kind of like catching your sibling having sex. Pretty gross.

“Poor darlin’,” he coos then, rubbing his hands up and down Tony’s back under his shirt. His husband melts right into him. “How ‘bout a bubble bath and some hot chocolate?”

“Hmmm... I love you,” Tony sighs and kisses his neck.

James just laughs and hoists him up. Tony looks stunning in the setting sun-

-then he jerks away from the dream.

It must be a dream, James knows that, even if it feels like a memory. he knows that because he’s currently in cryo in Wakanda and Tony Stark rightfully hates him. Rightfully hates Steve as well.

Life isn’t that golden, sun-kissed version he just saw.

Yet, the dreams don’t stop. James dreams about normal things - visiting the most amazing lab he has ever seen, cuddling in bed, showering together, early morning and late nights, the Avengers getting called out.

He feels like the time has slowed, and he’s living the life he will never get but desperately wants.

James always waits for those dreams because they’re the only break he gets from the memories of pain and blood. Sometimes his, sometimes others.

Those sweet, soft and golden dreams keep him from going insane inside his own head, keep him from begging for death.

James doesn’t deserve this kindness but he still selfishly grabs them and tries not to let go. It’s easier to live in that fantasy than in the hell of his own making.

The dreams escalate until there’s one he loves with all of his heart.

He and his husband are sitting on the sofa, watching a stupid movie when Tony comments on one name in particular.

“Chelsey is such a stupid name,” he mutters under his breath. “All I can think of is a bitchy cheerleader.”

“So you wouldn’t want to name our child that?” James asks before he can stop himself and for a second, everything is frozen. They never talked about kids.

“You-,” Tony starts, before choking it back. He looks down at his husband to see the tears in his eyes and the disbelieving smile on his face. “You want kids with me?”

He sounds like he’s in awe and James can only laugh wetly. “Of course,” he says softly but with passion. He’s never been surer. “I want everythin’ with you, love.”

Tony stares at him for a second before hugging him tightly, arms wrapped around his waist, whole body shaking. James just hugs him back and hides his tears in his husband’s hair.

“I’d name a girl Morgan,” he hears Tony whisper, voice still awed and soft.

“I love it,” he comments, wanting to look at Tony so-

-so James opens his eyes and gasps, seeing the bright light over him and concerned voices around.

He’s wet and shaking and the world is turning at normal speed again, but he still can’t help the sob that’s tearing from his chest.

James wants that reality back. He wants his husband and his team and the baby girl they will end up having.

Morgan.

He wants Morgan.

But all he gets is Steve’s concerned face, the cold water on his skin and only one arm.

In another universe James Stark-Barnes surges up on the bed, shaking from imaginary cold and then gladly collapses into his husband’s warm arms. He looks into Tony’s concerned eyes and manages a shaky smile.

“They’ll get there, darlin’,” he murmurs in a shaken, rough voice. “I know it. It’s all comin’ together.”

Tony kisses him lightly and smiles back, albeit sadly. “I just hope their Tony will hug the hell out of their James.”

James snickers. “They’ll get there,” he repeats. “You’ll see.”

another part of my dream au, which is here and here

#winteriron #bucky barnes #tony stark #my writing #dream au #im sorry if its confusing bucky is hard to write #blame riot i guess #the idea is theirs #im fixing canon i promise #one fic at a time #it'll get better!!!#i promise promise promise #alternate universe #they'll be happy in mcu as well #idk how i'll do it yet tho

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nerianasims · 4 years

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Billboards #1 1963

Under the cut.

Steve Lawrence – “Go Away Little Girl” -- January 12, 1963

"Little girl" didn't mean "little girl" in songs of the era. She could be 49 for all we know. And yet, having to constantly remind onesself of that does not make for a pleasant listening experience. Nothing about it is a pleasant listening experience. Okay, he's drawn to someone he shouldn't be and doesn't know if he can resist. That's a common enough human experience. But he's so smarmy about it. And musically, it's light and boring lounge schmaltz.

The Rooftop Singers – “Walk Right In” -- January 26, 1963

It's okay. It's catchy. I can believe the singers are living breathing people, and not automatons, which is saying a lot for folk-pop of the era. There's some nice acoustic guitar work. I just can't get over the feeling this was originally either about drugs or sex work and has been sanitized. It's fine though. Which is a major improvement over the offensively bad "Michael" two years back.

Paul & Paula – “Hey Paula” -- February 9, 1963

They want to get married as soon as possible because they just can't wait. Why is not said -- this song is Wonder Bread -- but it's obviously because of sex. Also they're singing to each other's stage names, Paul and Paula. "Hey Paula" and "Hey Paul." Getting married very young because you can't handle not having sex any more is a really bad idea. Anyway, it's hard for me to think about the lyrics much because the music is so bland I think it killed some brain cells.

The Four Seasons – “Walk Like A Man” -- March 2, 1963

Can't sleep, Frankie Valli will get me. That falsetto. Dear lord. Anyway, his girlfriend has been spreading lies about him and he's gonna "walk like a man" to get away from her. I'd run like a woman to get away from his voice.

Ruby & The Romantics – “Our Day Will Come” -- March 23, 1963

Now here's a wonderful voice. Ruby Nash has a rich, beautiful contralto, and she puts a lot of joy into it. She's telling someone not to be upset about waiting, because "our day will come" and they'll be able to live happily ever after together. The bossa nova arrangement is nice, but this is all about Nash's voice. Quite good.

The Chiffons – “He’s So Fine” -- March 30, 1963

The narrator is in love with a shy guy whom she's having problems getting close to, but she's determined. "Sooner or later/ I hope it's not later." A nice bouncy girl group song. Also George Harrison ripped the melody off for a much worse song years later.

Little Peggy March – “I Will Follow Him” -- April 27, 1963

In high school, one of my friends and I made up words to this song that went "I hate him/ I hate him/ I hate him" and etc. So uh. This song. As-is, I find it annoying. It's a good jumping off point for you and your friends when you're deeply pissed off at some guys, though.

Jimmy Soul’s “If You Wanna Be Happy” -- May 18, 1963

If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, don't marry a pretty woman, marry an ugly woman who can cook. This song makes me laugh. It's dated and problematique. Whatever, I find it amusing.

Lesley Gore – “It’s My Party” -- June 1, 1963

Johnny and Judy are colossal jackasses. They timed starting to go steady at Johnny's girlfriend's party, sheesh. It's all rather unlikely. Considering she's going through something that would be both heartbreaking and horribly embarrassing, Lesley Gore doesn't sound too terribly broken up about it, even if she is supposed to be crying. It's still a good song.

Kyu Sakamoto – “Sukiyaki” (originally "Ue O Muite Aruko") -- June 15, 1963

Kyu Sakamoto had a wonderful voice for pop songs or light tenor roles on Broadway, and he used it well. This is a bittersweet song in Japanese about looking up when you walk after your heart is broken so no one sees your tears -- after your protest movement against U.S. interference in your country fails. Hm. We tend to underestimate how much people in the past knew, and it is entirely possible this song became a hit partly in solidarity with that protest movement. Or maybe because people happened to hear it on TV because of the movement. Or maybe just because it's a pretty song, sung beautifully.

The Essex – “Easier Said Than Done” -- July 6, 1963

The narrator's friends are saying she should tell a guy she's into him, but she can't seem to do it. It's a buoyant little song, but nothing more than that.

Jan And Dean – “Surf City” -- July 20, 1963

This song is explicitly not for me. "Two girls for every boy" sounds no fun at all. And they keep singing it in falsetto. As for the sound, it's an early 60s surf song. Yawn.

The Tymes – “So Much In Love” -- August 3, 1963

The narrator and his fiancee are so much in love, and his backup singers are snapping and woo-wooing to support him in the background. It's nice, and kind of a big nothing at the same time. There's something very assembly line about it.

Little Stevie Wonder – “Fingertips (Pt. II)” -- August 10, 1963

Stevie Wonder was 13 at the time. Which means I don't like this song. He's just too young. Also it's live and sort of all over the place, though it's mostly harmonica. I'll be much happier to hear Stevie Wonder when he's back a few years from now.

The Angels – “My Boyfriend’s Back” -- August 31, 1963

I consider this song close to perfection. It's musically fun and taunting, and the taunting is serious. "Look out now, cuz he's comin' after you." This piece of shit who's been spreading rumors about and sexually harassing the narrator is about to eat dirt. Oh yeah, I love it.

Bobby Vinton – “Blue Velvet” -- September 21, 1963

Apparently David Lynch named a movie for this? I avoid David Lynch like the plague, so that doesn't influence my hearing of the song. The narrator and the woman in blue velvet were in love, but then she "left." It's melancholy enough that I feel she may have died, not just left. Pretty, sad, but that's about it.

Jimmy Gilmer And The Fireballs – “Sugar Shack” -- October 12, 1963

The titular "sugar shack" is supposedly a coffeehouse. I have my doubts. They had to bury implications under a lot of layers in 1963. Or maybe I'm just trying to make the song more interesting, imagining the narrator wants to marry a sex worker and not a waitress. The song is bouncy and bubbly and dull.

Nino Tempo & April Stevens -- "Deep Purple" -- November 16, 1963

I find this song very unpleasant due to Nino Tempo's singing. There's something about it that grates on me, the woo-woo's especially. This is about dreaming an old -- possibly dead -- lover is coming back to you. And it's sure cheery and peppy. Also there's a spoken word section that's not good at all. I do not like this rendition of this song one bit.

Dale & Grace – “I’m Leaving It Up To You” -- November 23, 1963

No Ray Charles this year? I'm in desperate need here. Sigh. Grace's voice is high and nasal and I have nothing to say about Dale. The idea of the song is that they're leaving it up to the other person in the relationship whether to keep going. The lyrics are nothing special, but they're fine. The music is boring except that Grace's voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I don't know how much more stuff like this I can take.

The Singing Nun – “Dominique” -- December 7, 1963

Well, it's different. It’s French. Jeanne-Paule Marie Deckers, the Singing Nun, wrote this cheery song about the founder of her order. He chose poverty and only talked about God, you know the drill. I don't connect with it, and I also have nothing negative to say about it. It's a refreshing song.

BEST OF 1963: My Boyfriend's Back and Sukiyaki in a tie WORST OF 1963: Nino Tempo & April Stevens' rendition of Deep Purple, though there were many contenders

#billboard number ones

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elshopper · 6 years

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Wish You Were Here

Hi, so I wrote something - shocking right? I’ve been sitting on this one for what feels like forever, so I felt like it was just time to post it... no time like the present! It’s multi-chaptered, and I’ve only posted the first, but I wanted to share it on here just for kicks and giggles. Long story short, this is canon compliant with s2, but once s3 stuff kicks into gear I’m just gonna call it a future AU.

Wish You Were Here

Rating: T

Ch. 1 WC: 6,839

Summary: It’s a quiet summer evening in 1989 when all the shit festering in Hawkins comes back from the dead after about 5 years of normalcy. After a tip that his worst nightmare is on the first bus back into town, Jim Hopper sets his paranoia-fueled back up plan into motion – to get his daughter as far away from the threat as fast as possible.

Only he knows his daughter, and he knows she would never leave her family to deal with the mess she felt like she made. So, he enlists the help of the only other person he is entirely confident would die to protect her if he had to – her boyfriend.

Anxious Mike Wheeler and a reluctant El Hopper embark on a road trip with no end in sight, on the run from the bad men that still haunt both their dreams. With this, they are forced to confront the darkness barreling toward them – supernatural or otherwise – and defeat it one last time.

Read on ao3 here, or down below!

Chapter 1: The Night Shift

June 12th, 1989 – 7:08 PM

As the night grew on, Hopper felt as if the stale yellow lights in his office were buzzing just to annoy him. They were blinking too. Not in any type of peculiar way, just in the way that pissed him off. It set his teeth on edge, but it was his fault that he had paperwork to finish. If someone would have told him about all the paperwork before he went to the police academy, he might have chosen another path in life. So, he blamed his current suffering on himself.

In an effort to refocus (and to avoid reaching for those emergency Marlboro Lights he kept in his bottom left desk drawer), Hopper stood up to stretch his legs. A few steps around the office couldn’t hurt him. He found himself roaming aimlessly in-between the tables and chairs, peeking onto other peoples’ desks. He looked at the pictures and calendars and flyers that adorned the paint-chipped walls. There were smiling families. A couple of posters for lost pets and bikes.

Above Flo’s desk, there were groups of pictures of the station at holiday parties past, dating back decades. The faces were faded and some of them were now course with age and experience. Some of the people had cycled through, moved away, retired, passed on. As he thought to himself about what ever happened to that George McDermott that graduated two years above him and joined the force when he moved to New York, he noticed something. Hopper wasn’t in a single picture until about four years ago.

He had been to these holiday parties in the past, and hell, they usually sucked ass. Someone always overcooked something, the Secret Santa gifts were always disappointing (somehow, Hopper always ended up with a coffee mug and a fresh pack of cigarettes), and he was always surrounded by the people he worked with – the people he didn’t want to be around in his free time. So, he would stop by, drop off his gift (a 12 pack of Budweiser) and pick up his coffee mug, and get on with his night. That came to a stop though, around five years ago.

For the snapshot of Christmas ’87, all were gathered around Powell, who was showing out for the girl he chose to drag along with him whose name Hopper didn’t even bother to catch at the time. He had a pair of sunglasses on, and a cap on sideways. Rolling his eyes, Hopper’s focus shifted to the back-right corner where he was standing. El was standing on her tip toes to the left of him so that she would be visible in the back row, a cheap Santa’s hat sat lopsided on her head, smiling as big as ever. He remembered when Flo brought the developed pictures a couple of weeks after, how he had to bite back a few tears. It had been the happiest he’d seen her in a long time.

Christmas ’88 was a similar story, except this time El was held piggy-back by Steve Harrington, just so that she was tall enough to hold the mistletoe over an oblivious Powell, who had his arm around a different woman than the year before. Hopper stifled a laugh, and crossed the room.

Those few steps led him to the corkboard that hung to the right of the entryway. There were always notices from officers, the occasional wedding invitation, a couple of baby pictures, along with a picture of a cheeky Harrington at his graduation from the police academy. He smiled at that, remembering the party afterword Steve had thrown. El had begged him to go, and he reluctantly let her, and pretended not to notice when she and Will came home smelling like whatever cheap beer kids were into these days. He didn’t even ask.

Next to that was the newest edition; the edges of the freshly developed image were still crisp and flat unlike the rest. This was the picture he was most proud of, the only one in the office he had proudly hung himself.

Standing in front of a red velvet curtain, El had the biggest smile on her face. She held her newly-received high school diploma out in front of her, the black graduation cap slipping off to the side of her head just a little. As Hopper remembered, she had tried all day to pin that damned hat to her head, when in the end she just tossed it during the ceremony. She was pretty peeved about the whole thing, but Mike Wheeler had made sure to take her picture under the “Hawkins High Class of ‘89” banner that hung above the stage anyway. Hopper was really glad he did.

The phone rang.

It made him jump, just a little. The shrill bell cut through the air like a knife, reminding him exactly where he was. A second ring.

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” Hopper said, to no one in particular.

Probably those damn Petevsky kids out doing god-knows-what.

“Hawkins Police Department, this is –“

“Jim?” the voice on the other line shot back before he could finish his sentence. Shit. He really hoped that voice didn’t belong to who he thought it belonged to.

“Uh… yeah. May I ask who’s calling?”

“Jim, this is Murray Bauman,” the voice said.

It all came flooding back to him then. The last time Hopper had seen or heard of the likes of him was in ’84, when he had written him a check…

“…for your trouble.” Hopper said, slipping the envelope into Murray’s hands. After taking a quick look inside, Murray slipped it into his interior jacket pocket.

“Oh, Jim, that’s really not necessary, you know – “

“I know you’re going to keep your nose out of my town.”

“Seeing as the case is closed, yes,” he replied. “But if you hear anything about that Russian girl…” he trailed, a knowing, teasing smile on his lips. Hopper loathed it.

“Yeah, yeah, and one more thing,” Hopper said, taking a step closer. “Keep an eye out for a Dr. Martin Brenner for me, would you? If he shows up anywhere, for any reason, you call me.”

Murray nodded.

“I see.”

“I can’t imagine you’d hear anything, but just… do it. Understand?”

“Won’t be a problem,” Murray said, with a sleazy smile, before sneaking back off to his van and disappearing down Main Street. Never to be seen or heard from again…

“Bauman?”

“I have an update on your target.”

“My target?” What target…

“I’d assume you’d rather not discuss this over the phone?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he answered, trying to sound casual, but instinctively checking his surroundings and reaching for that bottom left drawer.

“I’ll be with you in 5,” Murray said, and just like that the line went dead.

Hopper took in a deep breath. Surely that call wasn’t about who he thought it was about, although he had no idea what else it could be. After years of nothing, he thought for sure he was really dead. He had every reason to believe so.

El maintained that all through her high school years. Any hesitation from Hopper about seeing a movie or going shopping at that damned new mall was met with an eyeroll and a brash reminder…

“He’s dead, remember?” El said, curtly, her eyes flashing dark, but just for a second. “I have nothing to worry about, neither do you.”

That memory felt cold and distant. He had believed her. He felt like, out of everyone, she would be the one to know. He didn’t want to ask questions, to press any further. Especially about that, about him. If she felt safe, then she was. Simple as that. On that logic, the past five years had gone by pretty smooth.

The more the silence continued, the more the lights above him buzzed, the more Hopper stared at El’s graduation picture on the corkboard… the more frantic his thoughts became. They whizzed around in his brain, and he slowly but surely lost the ability to control them. He reached for that emergency cigarette box in his bottom left drawer, lit up, and waited.

With each passing second, Hopper could only feel more and more regret. And why, he wasn’t entirely sure.

(Did El really think he was dead?

Or was she just lying to make him feel better.

But, she wouldn’t lie… would she?

Unless, she was lying to make herself feel better…)

But, none of it mattered now. His mind jumping from place to darker place, he took another drag of the cigarette.

He planned for this, he remembered. He never thought it would happen, but he had planned for it anyway. He had always been paranoid, he had just pushed it away, to the far corners of his mind where it was lying in wait – ready to reach out and grab him.

Another drag.

He should have seen this coming. He should have known. Hopper was slipping, spiraling internally – his heart rate matching how fast he was thinking about his next step, when –

Tap tap tap tap tap.

Hopper jolted, putting the butt of his cigarette out in an old cup of coffee and rushing to the door.

When he opened it, he saw the exact same annoying little man he had known five years ago. Not a thing about Murray Bauman was different, sneaky look in his eye and all.

“What is this business about ‘my target?’” Hopper asked, trying to sound like he hadn’t been meditating on the matter in the excruciating minutes between his phone call and Bauman’s arrival at the station.

“Dr. Martin Brenner. What. A. Case!” Bauman replied, walking right past Hopper and into his office as if he was returning back home from a long day at work.

“At first, I thought you gave me something just to keep me busy.”

Hopper stared at him as if he had gone insane (which he may or may not have) as he tried his best to mask all the thoughts that were swimming in his brain. Murray was completely unphased, slamming down a large stack of files and folders in front of him on the nearest desk. He started to rifle through them while keeping eye contact with Hopper and pressing on.

“Or maybe he was just some old hack from the old Department of Energy Lab that you wanted to make sure got the axe in ’84 during that… uh… mass casualty. I knew I had heard that name before.”

He stood still, and could only nod his head in response.

“But then…”

The space between what Murray had just said and what he was about to say seemed absolutely infinite.

“I heard some chatter.”

Murray opened a green file, and fished for a piece of paper, still moving at a pace that almost made Hopper’s head spin. How on earth could he know anything in this mess?

“About a year ago. A Dr. Martin Brenner. In New York! Now, I thought ‘that’s a pretty common name’ but then they mentioned something about him being in the WPP and that was obviously a huge red flag.”

“The WPP?”

“Witness Protection,” he answered without missing a beat. Everything he said seemed rehearsed, like he had spent the entire car ride over perfecting every line.

“Long story short, your guy is back on the grid.” Bauman said, finally coming to rest with his papers. Hopper felt his blood pressure rise even further (if that were possible), and his lungs ached for another cigarette, bit his feet stayed nailed to the floor. He was stuck.

“The grid? What do you mean by the grid?” Hopper asked, his voice hushed, despite the fact that no one was around to hear them. Force of habit.

“I mean, I have your guy.”

“You have him?” Hopper asked tentatively.

“He’s in Indianapolis. Here!” Murray passed him the green folder. “Here are his flight records.” He shuffled some more papers out of his interior coat pocket. “And here are copies of the record for the hotel in Indianapolis he’s been living out of for… eh… about a week now.”

Hopper studied the coffee stained, crumpled up papers, and lo and behold, there he was. Along with his flight records, there was a photo ID image plastered on. Staring back at him was Martin Brenner’s face, still cold as ice. The years the years had worn it down, the lines were deeper and the look in his eyes was even more distant. But it was him, Hopper knew it was him.

“He’s been in hiding, as far as I can tell.” Bauman kept on. “Since ’83. Maybe ’84.”

Hopper sifted through the papers, his expression hardening with every passing moment.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

“Maybe he’s been living under an alias. No way of tracing that, unless of course, we have the alias.” Murray laughed at his own words, but Hopper couldn’t be bothered. In fact, he wasn’t really listening anymore. The gears in his head were turning, dusting off thoughts in a corner of his mind he never dreamed he’d have to visit again.

“You’re sure.” Hopper said. It wasn’t really a question.

“Beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Bauman answered, smiling. Pleased with himself.

It made Hopper’s stomach churn, but he forced a smile and a nod.

“Well, it’s been really nice to see you, Bauman. It really has. But, I have business I really should be tending to,” he said, moving towards the door to show Murray back out to the parking lot.

“Business? It’s an empty office. It’s almost 8:00!” Bauman responded, backing out the door. He laughed as Hopper pressed him towards the humid summer night from wince he came.

“Yeah, in the middle of summer. Kids are out of school…” Another step, and Murray was back out the door, still facing him. The yellow light from the office shining off his glasses.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” he said, with that same, slippery smile.

“Thanks, Bauman,” Hopper said, trying his best to sound sincere.

“If you can ever find it in your heart to repay me, I’m still looking for that Russian girl…” Bauman said with a wink. Hopper would have shut down his reply with a hasty denial for the hell of it, but he had already shut the door. In fact, he was already deep within his office, fumbling around for a little brown lock box. Damn it all if he had lost it. He never thought he’d need it, so he hadn’t taken great care in making sure he remembered where it was… how stupid that had been.

As he shuffled though the depths of his drawers, he picked up the phone on his desk and dialed home without even looking up.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end rang out.

“Joyce,” Hopper responded, “Listen.”

“Hey! How’s the night shift going? “she teased.

He figured the answer to her question would come the longer she stayed on the line.

“I need you to meet me up here. Its urgent.”

“Why? What is it?” her tone wavered, switching almost immediately to worrisome. He didn’t want to trouble her over the phone.

“Just get up here. Please?”

“Do I need to bring the k– “

“No,” Hopper cut her off. “No, don’t tell them you’re coming to meet me, just slip out. Can you bring the wagon?”

Just as she answered yes, Hopper’s hands finally landed on that little brown lock box. Sifting through his giant ring of keys and cursing himself, Hopper looked for the right fit.

“Come on,” he grunted, shaking the key as he turned it. Once the lock clicked open, he breathed a small sigh of relief. Miraculously, everything was still there, just as he left it. He almost laughed to himself… He had actually thrown this whole plan together a couple of years ago, it was a fail-safe. A last resort. He took a deep breath.

This is never going to work.

After a few moments in the silence, lost in his thoughts, staring at El’s picture on the cork board, and waiting to hear Joyce’s tires on the pavement outside, his answer hit him.

Unless…

June 13th, 1989 – 3:36 AM

It wasn’t a good night of sleep anyway.

Despite how painstakingly average the day was, Mike had felt like something was just… off. And what really pissed him off was that he couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

It had been a scorcher, with the temperatures “projected to be the 2nd highest on record!” Holly so promptly informed him as he cranked up the AC in his car on his way to take her to the pool. He had rolled his eyes, only to be met a bright red sunburn by the afternoon.

Max had been there today, off of work. She and El had opted to spend the majority of their time by the pool gushing over some new novel that had hit the shelves the week before. Not that he minded. Will was there too, albeit he arrived a little late. He told Mike to put sunscreen on, and he didn’t listen.

They sat around in the sun it crept down below the tree line, which was when he drove El and Will back home just in time for Ms. Byers to offer him a seat at the dinner table – one he would have to politely decline. He knew his dad was cooking out tonight for God-knows-why. So, he had to be home. No funny business.

Shockingly enough, dinner was uneventful. More talk about college this, and responsibility that. Mike stared blankly at his baked beans. Still, despite having an alright day, something felt off. Like a picture being just a little off center when you get it developed.

“Michael, your nose looks red.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Did you put sunscreen on?”

“No, I forgot.”

“Responsibility, Michael…”

“I know, I know.”

And that had been it.

But still he tossed and turned, only finding sleep in rare patches of the night. He wasn’t having any nightmares. He didn’t have anything to be nervous about… that he knew of. He still felt weird, nevertheless. He would call El, but he didn’t want to bother her about it – whatever it was – if she was asleep. He would see her tomorrow, they were going to grab dinner on Main Street. If he still felt weird then, he would tell her.

When he woke up for what felt like the zillionth time around 3:00, he thought he would radio El, just in case. Maybe she could tell him why he couldn’t get to sleep. She always did a good job of clearing his mind anyway. He would apologize, but he really wanted to hear her voice.

He tried twice, and didn’t get an answer. Static. He sat his walkie back on his bedside table with a groan into his pillow. What was wrong with him?

His mind was still wrestling with unconsciousness when he heard what sounded like a soft knock at his window.

Mike sat up, blinking. His clock shown 3:36. It had been about 12 minutes since the last time he checked.

Tap…

…tap…

…tap

This time it was a little more defined, more urgent. There was definitely someone at his window.

That’s why El wasn’t answering, he thought. She was just on her way over.

It wasn’t a far bike ride, she came over sometimes when she couldn’t sleep… maybe she had been feeling just as off as he was.

Throwing himself out of bed and rubbing sleep out of his eyes, Mike shuffled over to the window.

Where he expected to see El’s face was just the empty, foggy glass. The faint yellow light from the nearest street lamp unphased by anything blocking light. What on earth had been making that noise? Whatever it was, he couldn’t see it. Mike was now fully awake, adrenaline pumping through his veins and his palms starting to sweat. He could feel his hair sticking to his forehead.

There’s a good chance this is a nightmare, Mike reminded himself.

But it wasn’t.

More timidly than he would care to admit, he stepped towards the window. In a last-ditch effort to protect himself, Mike grabbed a dusty, old toy light saber from behind his bed – it hadn’t been touched in years, probably. Mike opened the window with the end of the light saber, and it creaked up slowly.

In the silent summer night, he heard a whistle.

That was when he swallowed his childish fear and stepped up to the window, and he was relieved (and then scared all over again) to find Hopper in his driveway, leaning up against the hood of Will’s mom’s car.

“Is… is everything okay?” Mike whispered out into the night. “What are you doing here?”

All Hopper did was nod at him, signaling for him to come down and meet him. Something was wrong. Mike wordlessly backed up a couple of steps, and made his way towards Nancy’s old bedroom – her window was right over the garage, and ever since she had moved out for college, Mike had made sure to use that window to his advantage.

Within a minute, Mike was standing in front of Hopper in his pajamas, breathing a little too hard to be proud of himself for making it off of the garage roof unscathed.

“Oh, so that’s how you sneak out of there. And I always thought you just jumped.” Hopper said, whispering.

Mike rolled his eyes in response.

“What are you talking about?” He was painfully aware how much he sounded like a liar. “I don’t sneak out of the – “

“Listen, kid, I’m not in the mood.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Hopper smelled like cigarette smoke. That, to Mike, was the giveaway that something was really wrong. There was a reason he felt off. He wasn’t going insane. He swallowed.

The only person who ever kept Hopper from smoking was El, and if she were here, she would really let him have it about how she could smell it on him. The more confident a communicator she became, the more she would whip the cigarette in Hopper’s hand into the nearest cup of liquid with a flick of her head.

Mike could see the scene in his mind perfectly, at dinner a couple of years ago when Hopper came back from the store with a box in his right hand and a shopping bag in his left.

“Those are bad for you.”

“I know, but what really matters is that you don’t –“

“Have you ever heard of second-hand smoke?”

El finally coaxed him to quit, argument after argument. Mike figured he snuck the occasional smoke every now and again, but he didn’t want to be the one to tell her that.

Back in the present, Hopper sighed, his eyes trained on the driveway where Holly’s chalk drawings painted the pavement.

“I need to ask you a favor,” Hopper said, his eyes unmoving from the faded sunflowers and rainbows.

Mike took a quick breath.

“Is El okay?”

“Yes,” he responded, annoyed. “She’s in the car.”

Mike looked past him to see El, asleep in the passenger seat, hugging the pillow that sat between her head and the leather.

“She’s asleep.”

“I can see that.” Mike responded. “Why? What are you doing here at 3:00 in the morning?”

Hopper took his right hand and moved it up to rub his brow. He closed his eyes for a brief moment before standing up all the way off the hood of the car and moving away from it, like he didn’t want El to hear, even though they both knew she was a heavy sleeper.

At full height, Mike was proud to say he was almost as tall as Hopper. Almost.

“Look, I don’t really know how to ask you to do this. So, I’m just gonna…”

An agonizing pause.

“…start talking.”

Mike stared blankly ahead at Hopper, waiting to hear what he had to say. Was he skipping town? Taking El on a vacation without telling her? Dropping her off? None of his ideas made any sense, so he chose to listen instead of guess – a pretty rare occurrence, he figured. He chalked it up to being startled out of bed a few minutes prior.

This still could be a nightmare, Mike reminded himself. Although, he feared he was wrong about that too.

“In the event of anyone… finding us, I always had a backup plan. Ever since El started school. Just in case. I saved up some cash, made some false papers, untraceable license plates and car registration. Just because I was so… paranoid.” Hopper swallowed.

Mike nodded.

“The plan being to just get her out of town while I deal with things, with people. You know. Make sure she was as far away from them as possible. I dunno. Send her with a map out west to the middle of nowhere for her to hide out for a second.”

“And then, I actually got to know her. I know how her mind works. The way she thinks through her problems. I know how stubborn she is,” he stifled a small laugh. “And I know, without a doubt in my mind, that she would never leave any of us here to fight any battles for her…”

Mike nodded his head again, ignoring the way his pulse quickened as he listened to Hoppers words. He pushed away the questions in the back of his mind (Who do you have to deal with? Where out of town? For how long?).

Hopper nodded this time, finishing his thought as he met Mike’s eyes.

“By herself.”

Mike’s eyes narrowed. Hopper continued.

“I’ve gotten some information that they, um…” he trailed off, almost like he was evaluating whether or not he really needed to finish that sentence. “I really need you to take her out of town. Just for a little while.”

Mike was dumfounded.

“How long is a little while?”

“Just until I can take care of things.”

“Take care of who?” Mike took a step closer, and the volume of his voice rose too. Hopper shushed him.

“Why don’t you let me worry about that.”

“Where am I – “ Mike started. “Where are we supposed to go?”

“I feel like it’s best if you don’t tell me.”

“What?” Mike spat, a little bit louder this time. “I mean… what! Do you realize how crazy this sounds? You just want me to just drive off and not tell you where I’m going?” He felt the words just falling out of his mouth. “You think I’m a terrible driver!”

“Geez, and I thought you’d be excited,” Hopper snorted, but it was cold. Forced. Mike wasn’t nervously laughing though. Not this time.

“Kid,” he started. “Please. I swear, this is our best bet.”

Mike wasn’t so sure.

Maybe it would help if Hopper would tell him what this perceived threat actually was. Or maybe it would make more sense if their friends tagged along too – isn’t there strength in numbers? And he was surprised Hopper picked him in the first place… what sane father sends their daughter off in a car with her boyfriend in the middle of the night to not tell them where they were going?

This is some kind of test, Mike thought. One glance at El, still passed out in the passenger seat, and her bag in the back, made him think otherwise. Dammit.

As far as he knew, aside from the occasional nightmare and her fear of loud storms, El was doing just fine. Just normal. She made it through high school. She had a family. Hopper adopted her. She had friends. Mike thought that fixed a lot – if not all – of her problems. And she hadn’t caught any attention from suspicious neighbors either. Everyone in town believed she was Hopper’s kid – transferred to his custody from her mother in the city. People whispered, but not for the reasons he feared. Just bullshit reasons.

Monsters and darkness and other dimensions were things of the past, and if Mike was being completely honest, they didn’t even feel like they actually happened. The only thing that reminded Mike that El had any type of superpowers was her blatant refusal to get up and change the television channel. All of the circumstances in which he met El in the first place just didn’t feel real. They never talked about it. He didn’t like to think about it, and neither did she.

Mike wiped the palms of his hands on his flannel pajama pants.

This was the first time – in a really long time – that he had to confront just how different El really was. He always felt like they would talk about it someday. He wanted to know what happened to her when she was a kid, even though he knew it would just make him sick. He was still curious, and he figured that one day she would be ready to tell him about it. He didn’t think that day would be coming anytime soon.

“I will take care of explaining to your mom.”

Mike barely registered that Hopper was still talking to him.

“Just sneak back in your house and grab a bag and pack as much as you can.”

Mike still didn’t move, his fingers twitching and his eyes trained on one particular pebble on the driveway.

“Try to be quick, and don’t wake anyone up.”

Mike’s eyes moved back up to meet Hoppers’ but he still didn’t make any moves. Hopper leaned back against the hood of the car, and pulled out a box of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket. Mike watched, a slight disapproving grimace on his face.

“Do this for her, okay? She needs you to.”

He lit it up, and took a drag.

“Just doesn’t know it yet.”

Ten minutes later, Mike yawned as he traipsed back across the driveway, fully dressed and duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Hopper dropped his cigarette butt on the driveway and pressed it with the sole of his boot. He motioned Mike around to the back of the car.

“These license plates are new and registered under a fake name. That shouldn’t be a problem for you since you would never speed past a state trooper and get pulled over, but just in case…” Hopper whispered.

Mike rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to get pulled over.”

Hopper didn’t even bother to respond, passing Mike a thick and worn manila envelope.

“In here are some false ID papers, and some cash to get you through.”

“How much money is in here?” Mike asked.

“A little over…” Hopper stalled. “ten thousand.”

Mike’s eyes flew open as wide as he’d ever felt them go.

“DOLLARS?” he whisper-yelled. Hopper shushed him.

“Yes.” The confirmation didn’t lessen Mike’s expression. “To be used for food, gas, and cheap places to stay only, you got that?”

“Yes sir,” Mike answered.

“My spare pistol is in the glove compartment.” Hopper said. “You remember how to use that one, right?” He didn’t stop to hear Mike respond. “There’s a box of ammo in there too. Emergencies only.”

“Of course,” Mike said. He could hear his voice shaking.

Of course, he remembered shooting cans out behind Hopper’s old cabin a couple of winters ago. Just in case, he thought at the time. It sent a shiver through him to realize – that just in case feeling in the back of his head that made him ask Hopper to teach him to shoot a gun was probably the same one that made Hopper save up all this money and forge all these papers.

Shit.

“Just, take the car, pick a direction, and drive. There’s a map in the console.” Hopper continued on, almost like he had practiced this speech in the car on the way over. “Don’t tell me where you’re going. Don’t tell any of your friends either. Don’t call them. Don’t write to them. The more people who know where you are, the easier it will be to find you. I’ll tell them what they need to know. Understand?”

Another nod, and after a second of thought…

“Wait…” Mike started. “How are we going to know when it’s okay to come back?” If it’s ever okay to come back?

Mike looked wistfully off in the direction of his house, thinking for the first time of what his mother was going to think. What Holly was going to think. He didn’t even want to know what his dad was going to think.

“Every Sunday, at 7:30 eastern time – mind the time changes – I’ll be talking.” Mike’s forehead creased in confusion. “You tell her to come find me,” Hopper said, and Mike remembered. “I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come home.”

“Okay,” Mike said, nodding his head. “Okay.”

It wasn’t okay.

“My mom…” Mike trailed.

“I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of her.”

“When El figures it out… when I tell her why we’re leaving town… she’s going to want to come back,” Mike said. To his surprise, Hopper actually stopped to listen. Nodding, as if he knew Mike wasn’t done talking. “She doesn’t want you to deal with… anything, anyone… alone. She wants you to be safe. So do I.”

No one wanted to keep El out of the grasp of bad intentions more than Mike. Maybe with the exception of the man standing in front of him, Mike thought, even though they sometimes disagreed on just what that looked like.

All events of the past 20 minutes considered, Mike was pretty sure keeping El away from whatever threat was headed towards Hawkins was probably for the best. And, if he was being honest with himself, he knew what the threat was. Who the threat was. What convinced him, finally convinced him, to climb into the front seat of the car and put it in reverse was that Hopper agreed with him.

“I won’t come back until you say it’s safe,” Mike said. Hopper leaned into the window.

“Even if she tries to make you?”

Mike nodded.

Hopper shoved Mike’s bag in the backseat next to the one he’d packed for El (the bag was actually Will’s, Mike noticed) and closed the door as quietly as he could. The passenger seat was still. Mike envied her. He was a shitty sleeper, and she would probably miss the end of the world.

“Don’t let her be too mad at you for too long,” he said, an uneasy laugh escaping him as he did. “You’re doing the right thing.”

Without another word, Hopper passed the envelope through the window.

“Be smart with that money.”

Mike nodded again.

“I will.”

“And the gun is for emergencies only.”

“Yes sir.”

“And be safe, will you?”

As he shifted the car into drive, Mike watched him take a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and light it up. Mike was waiting for him to turn and saunter off in the direction of his house, which was really only a few blocks over and to the left. He had the route memorized like the back of his hand, and he laughed to himself just a little remembering the day that Will told him they were moving. They were all moving. Together. So close.

But then, he remembered where he was. What he was doing.

Hopper stayed put, watching the car drive out of the cul-de-sac. Mike watched him take a drag through the rear-view mirror, and once he crested the hill, Hopper was out of sight. For some strange reason, Mike breathed a sigh of relief. A loud one too.

El shifted in the passenger seat at the noise, causing Mike to whip his head around waiting to meet her eyes. Instead, she sighed in her sleep and hugged her pillow even tighter to her torso and brought her knees in closer. Figuring she was cold, Mike fumbled with the air conditioning with one hand while shakily driving out of the neighborhood with the other.

He couldn’t help but watch her sleep in between lengthy glances at the road ahead of him. She looked so peaceful and so blissfully unaware. Part of him wanted her to stay that way for as long as possible. He knew, once her eyes opened to focus on the dawn of a new day, she would have questions for him that he couldn’t answer. Not without her getting angry at the response.

He knew she wouldn’t be happy knowing Hopper was left alone to deal with whatever mess she felt like she created. She would want to go back, demand he turn the car around, give him the cold shoulder for a few hours.

She had spoken to him before about it, the guilt. After some time passed, she would tell him about her nightmares – of tunnels, dark and spooky forests, and the Upside Down. With time, all those faded away and became shadowy memories that no one dared speak of – as if speaking about it would bring it back into their reality. What really bothered her after all this time was the guilt, she would say, with tears in her eyes.

El’s steady breath was starting to cause the window to fog. Mike smiled.

She felt the guilt when Will had to go to the doctor. When she saw the pictures of Barbara Holland in Nancy’s old room. When Max woke up from nightmares filled with screaming monsters. When Will’s mom sat on their porch in the mornings, distant and lost in thought about Bob Newby. She had even felt it when Ms. Henderson went on and on about their lost cat from a couple of years ago.

It was because of this that Mike tried his hardest to keep his most violent and real nightmares to himself. Sometimes, in the silence of the middle of the night, he could still hear Bob’s scream.

It was everywhere for her. Everything – every inconvenience – made her feel at fault. Mike spent a great amount of mental energy focusing on ways to convince her that wasn’t true. Because it wasn’t. Every time he tried, she always thanked him for being supportive and patient. But Mike still had the sneaky feeling that she was just saying that so he wouldn’t waste anymore breath. He knew she felt horrible for the damage she caused. Even though she didn’t mean to, and all the wounds in Hawkins were healing.

He mindlessly took a right at the red light on Elm, and decided it was time he start focusing on where he was actually going.

He knew the streets of Hawkins like the back of his hand. He’d never driven that far outside the town, so passing the Hawkins city limit sign felt a little like space travel.

He always knew he would leave someday, or at least he hoped he would. Mike knew his departure for college was coming up soon. August 27th, he reminded himself. He’d been dreading it, if he was being completely honest – it being saying goodbye to El. Not like he didn’t have a way to talk to her or like he’d never see her again. But, still. That didn’t mean he was super eager to see her standing in his rear-view mirror in the same way he had just seen Hopper about 15 minutes ago. But, just like a lot of their past and childhood traumas, Mike and El just felt it best if they just didn’t talk about it at all.

He never pictured leaving Hawkins like this. In the middle of the night with his one duffle bag in the back. His sleeping and unsuspecting girlfriend in the passenger seat.

Oh God, this isn’t kidnapping, is it? I’m not going to jail, right?

It was then that Mike decided his brain was a little too worn out for all this deep thinking. So, he just kept his eyes on the road and listened to the very small and distant sound of the radio.

At the next stoplight, his headlights bounced off the red and blue marker for Highway 30.

Good enough for me, he thought to himself. We’ll end up somewhere sooner or later.

He wasn’t even one hundred percent sure where Highway 30 would take them. But that was the point, wasn’t it?

Merging on to the dark and deserted highway, Mike chose to take advantage of his quiet time while El snoozed all curled up in her pillow to figure out exactly what he was going to say to her when she woke up and realized they were about 400 miles away from home.

Blinding him, another bright green sign caught his attention.

INDIANA HIGHWAY 30 TO PLYMOTH, VALPARAISO, CHICAGO

Chicago it is, Mike thought to himself, glancing over at El, still passed out cold.

El’s going to love Chicago.

AN: I have it all mapped out from here, I just have to write it.... wish me luck on my first chaptered fic! lol, hope you enjoy <3

#stranger things #mileven #stranger things fic #stranger things fanfiction #mileven fic #st #mike wheeler #eleven #hopper #writing things #marty writes #lookee i did something!!!!#hope u like it :)

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writebythenight · 5 years

Text

The Silence

Chapter Twelve

Rose was sharpening her knife. It had started to drag the last time she used it when Rick approached her for what she knew was going to be one of the worst conversations of her life.

"Ya alright?" He asked her when he came to a stop.

"Cut the shit... please?" She said sadly. "I know you think I fucked up but nothing bad happened."

"It could have."

"I was armed. He wasn't" Rose shrugged. "I saw the proof that he was sick spilling out of that bucket! You really think I didn't think about it logically? He was sick, unarmed and if he managed to get past me then Eddie was outside..."

"And what if he got past Eddie too?" He growled. "What if he had gotten to Judith?"

"He would never...!" She stopped herself before defending Negan but the look on Rick's face told her he already knew what she was going to say.

"He's gotten to you." Rick looked at her with the look he saved for the times he really needed it, she called it his cop face.

"No..." As much as she tried to hide the uncertainty in her voice she knew it was pointless. "I let a sick man be more comfortable, that's all there is to it Rick. If I really thought anybody could have come to any harm I wouldn't have done it."

The man just stared back at her for a long time looking for any part of her expression that might give away her true feelings. Rick was sure she was starting to soften to the man he wanted kept away from everybody and he couldn't help but feel slightly responsible for it, he had asked her to do just that. How could he be angry at her?

"Shit..." He said under his breath. "Okay." He knelt down in front of her and placed his hand over the one that held her knife. "I trust you, Rose." The sincerity in her eyes told him he could.

"I would never do anything I thought would put Judith in danger." She told him quietly. "Any of you... I fought alongside you!"

"I know." He nodded to her, feeling stupid that he would ever doubt her, she was a strong and capable woman. That was exactly why he trusted her to do it in the first place.

"Rick came to see me yesterday." Was the first thing Negan told Rose.

"Oh yeah?" She asked sitting back in her chair.

"Told me about his day like I'm his fuckin' wife or somethin'.'" He made a sound of disgust. "Kept talkin' about the future you're all creatin' out there." Rose noticed something different in his voice. It wasn't the usual warm tone but empty and her stomach dropped, already knowing what was coming having seen it so many times before. People always ended up here.

He had done so well so far. She stayed silent knowing by now that if he started a conversation he wouldn't need much coaxing.

"I got to thinking' how I'll never be a part of that." He stayed sat on his cot, leaning up against the hard wall one of his long legs bent and the fact that he hadn't come right up to the bars like usual bothered Rose to no end. "I'll never get to just sit outside with a beer, watch people do stupid shit." He paused but it was a heavy one. "I'll never get to have you." He finished.

"Negan..." She started quietly as she stood up at the bars but she just didn't know what to say.

"That day with you..." Negan said softly. "It fuckin' broke me." His voice cracked with the strain of the emotion he was holding in. "The second I got back in this cell I just felt cold, alone... fuckin' hopeless. The silence... it's too much for me, Rose."

"Come here..." She said quietly, not having anything else to say while her heart broke for him. The only thing she could think of doing was touching him, that always made him feel better right? If she could just...

"Im no good for ya." He spoke in the same monotonous way he had when he began this conversation. "Just like I wasn't for Lucille."

"You need to let go Negan. You've been beating yourself up over that stuff for too long."

"I don't want you comin' in here anymore, ya hear me?" He rasped still looking at the wall.

"What?"

"I don't deserve you spendin' all your time in here. You can deny it all you want but I know you got feelin's for me." He laughed slowly, maliciously. "I've always had the worst luck. So meetin' the girl of my fuckin' dreams in the god damned apocalypse while I'm locked up with no chance of a future with her... that sounds just like fuckin' like me."

"Negan you're bound to feel like this! The worst thing would be to be alone... I'm not leavin' you alone to rot in here."

"So what you gonna do spend the rest of your life pining over me like one of them desperate, lonely, ugly fucks who fall in love with people on death row?" He lazily rolled his head to look at me now. "Cos' that's what I am sweetheart. I'm gonna die here. I give it the big fuck you to Rick and everybody but I know I'm not gettin' out."

"Whether you like it or not Negan... I'll be coming to see you everyday."

"Oh shit! You really are desperate aren't you."

"Stop being an asshole cos you think you can push me away." She said not taking anything he said to heart.

"Go find some normal, boring fuck and stop botherin' me would ya?"

"Funny you should say that... Gabriel's started to look real good."

"I'm fuckin' serious, Rose." She had stupidly thought making a joke would perk him up alittle, the fact that he didn't come back with some snark remark worried her. He was right, this was serious. "I can't give you what you deserve. I'll never be able to."

It went pretty much the same way every single time Rose went to see Negan. He wouldn't eat, she got no reaction from him even when she offered to flash him and she as being serious. No matter what she did he stayed in that deep dark pit of depression she has seen so many others in before, had even helped people get out of. This time she felt helpless.

"He's not eating." Michonne seemed to be making a habit out of searching Rose out and begging her to clean up her and Ricks mess. Rose threw down the trowel she was using and stood up to face her.

"You know what Michonne. Neither am I!

He's depressed! Of course he's fuckin depressed! It's fucking cruel. What do you want me to do for him? Give him a prescription!"

"I don't... I just thought..."

"You thought I have some kind of connection with him right? That's what Rick asked me to do! Make a connection with a imprisoned man but get the third degree off you both when I actually try to help him."

"I get it." Although Michonne looked like she wanted to rip Rose's head off she just walked off.

"You've been talkin' to Michonne." Rose's voice echoed in the cell which felt completely empty. No reply.

"You had a lot to say to her apparently." Rose sighed.

"It's been a week. Are you gonna give up?"

Nothing.

"I miss you."

Silence. Rose squeezed her eyes shut feeling stupid in a hundred different ways for having said that.

"You asked me once... what the worst thing I've ever done is?"

She heard him shuffle and hoped she'd finally got his attention.

"Ask me again again and I'll tell you."

"What's the worst thing you've ever done?" His voice was still flat but at least it was words.

"It was a while after this whole thing started... I was with two other women and there was these guys, four of them." The same dread that always filled her whenever she thought about it came in floods and she had to take a deep breath. "We joined up with them, safety in numbers and all that. One night they were talking to themselves, laughing about stuff and kept looking over at us. I knew straight away something was off, men have that certain look when they're thinking about doing terrible things. I told the other two, Erin and Abi." There name made her eyes fill with tears. "To keep hold of their weapons and I remember thinking first thing in the morning and we're gone."

She looked up to see Negan had turned to face her now.

"But it was already too late. They came over one with a gun and the other three grabbed us. Pinned us down and I fought, I fought so god damn hard and I was lucky. That's all it was. I wasn't any stronger than the others and the guy who came to me was a little smaller. I got away just before he... I stabbed the sick fuck. There I was running away, half naked lucky it was dark so the shots the guy fired after me, missed." She began crying now and she knew it was an accumulation of everything... the loneliness, her unwanted feelings for Negan, the hostility from certain members of the group but most of all the shame and guilt. "I just ran off. I didn't help them!"

All that could be heard was her soft sobs as she tried to control herself. "I got out of the place we were holed up and kept moving until morning. I've no idea how I survived any of it. I was just lucky. That's the only difference between them and me."

"You did what you had to do." His voice made her jump. "I'm so sorry that happened Rose."

"Don't!" She snapped. "Don't feel sorry for me. It's those poor women..."

"I don't know what the hell you hoped would happen by tellin' me that. All it's made me do is get angry that I can't hold you! That it could happen to you again and I'd be locked up in this FUCKING SHIT HOLE!" He raged worse than she'd ever seen him before. "Yeah you stand there like a fuckin' deer in the headlights darlin' cos there's nothing I can do for ya! So just fuckin' leave!"

Rose hesitated, not knowing what to do until she came to a harsh conclusion. "You're right. There's nothin' either of us can do for each other." She said quietly, in defeat. "I thought I could help you. That was so naive of me."

And then she left.

"Rose.." Negan said so quietly she didn't even hear. "Fuckin' shit!" He shouted, enraged that she was carrying around guilt because of some sick fucks and just as angry that he couldn't do anything about it.

Later that day Rose had been doing paroles around the walls having needed to get out. Walking back to her house she was intercepted by Scott, his warm friendly eyes looking concerned.

"Is it all sorted?" He asked.

"What?"

"Maggie..."

"What about her?" Rose asked getting frustrated.

"I thought you'd have been told... Maggie turned up at here about ten, fifteen minutes ago... I told Michonne..."

He didn't even finish his sentence before Rose was racing off to the place she knew Maggie would be. The panic pushed her to run even faster knowing all too well what the only reason the woman would have stepped foot in Alexandria.

Chapter Thirteen

A/N

So sorry for the cliffhanger but this is close to 2000 words and I don't know if anyone would want a chapter that long.

Thanks as always to anyone who has followed or left comments. It means so much!

#twd negan #negan fanfiction #negan x oc #neganxoc #negan x rose #the silence #the walking dead fanfiction

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nctsukashii-archive-blog · 6 years

Note

Most disliked arc (chapter)? Why?

The saltiest cracker you know is me, Bepsi!10. Most disliked arc (in this case, chapter)? Why?

I bet you saw this shit comin a mile away huh?

Chapter 2.

Now, it might surprise you, but Hoshi dying isn’t even the worst part of the chapter for me. That’s more emotionally gut punching me and my hopes and dreams that joke characters can live past chapter 3. Actually, Hoshi is without a doubt the BEST part of Chapter 2 even with his death, just because of how amazingly he’s written.

Sadly, even Hoshi cannot save this chapter from showing just how RUSHED and UNPOLISHED it is. Because holy jeEZ THERE’S A LOT WRONG (albeit it’s personal opinion for the most part). So while you may know them, or may learn something new from my opinion, that’s all cool! Under the cut as Chapter 2 is dissected and torn into to learn why it is sadly, my least fav of V3.

- RUSHED.

Now, this is really easy to see, and I’m sure many others have noticed it as well, but it bears a lot of repeating because it’s a problem. Chapter 2 was rushed to high heavens, in the sense that it mainly serves to push the plot along and nothing more. Things happen too quickly in the story at that point, and while the rest of the game is better off for it, this is the ONLY chapter that REALLY does it so blatantly, and it feels very choking as a result of it.- Tenko’s attachment to Himiko needed to happen, absolutely, but I feel like more should have been done in Chapter 1 to show Tenko trying to talk to her more? Maybe, “OOO maybe himiko wants to be my friend??” and more interactions that show that Tenko isn’t just attaching herself to Himiko b/c she’s “the creepy gay” character. - Toujou becoming the fucking supermaid. This one is the most obvious, but mmm. Everyone relying on her suddenly feels super forced, as characters like Shinguuji and Hoshi and even Maki herself, all ask Toujou to do something for them. It feels out of character for them, and the fact that THAT interaction is the MOST she gets in Chapter 2 before the trial is fucking trash and I’ll explain why in a later point, but you can just TELL that they needed SOMETHING to give her ANY story relevance, and it hurts her character a LOT. - Kaito suddenly wanting to help Maki’s super fucking weird. Maybe if it showed Kaito like “sorry Shuichi maybe later, I wanna try talking to Maki” more in this Chapter to really see that he wants to help her, or even just him going more like “hey Shuichi wanna include Maki in our training? I feel like she could use it.” or ANYTHING that mentions Kaito reaching out to Maki more. Because as it is now, it feels like he’s suddenly placing an all or nothing bet and it makes him, p unlikable at that point b/c Shuichi just goes with it for seemingly no reason because “yeah I guess i gotta progress the plot”. - Those are the main points. Maki is done surprisingly well, actually, she’s really good here. Being sus like that and actually not letting you do FTE’s was cool, and i liked it a lot. Angie’s slow buildup was also pretty good as well, but I think they coulda put Tsumugi in w/ Himiko at some point so it’s not ‘suddenly everyone’s brainwashed!’ in chapter 3, as a slower buildup would do it good! Or at least, more buildup, I should say.

- CLUNKY.

This one is a bit harder to explain, and it goes in hand with the pacing issue, but lemme try. Some of the events and dialogue in Chapter 2 just feel, really clunky? Like, Shuichi’s an emotional guy and I totally understand that, but I don’t think he’d just spill his feelings to the guy that punched him for showing weakness not even 2 days ago? I dunno, maybe it’s just me. It feels like a lot of Chapter 2 was glued into the story as requirements rather than actually to tell a story. It comes in a lot of ways, as previously mentioned a lot of relationships are just ‘suddenly there’ rather than actually built up, IE Kaito and Maki, Tenko and Himiko, etc... and it makes the entire Chapter feel like it’s meshed together with ideas that Kodaka REALLY wanted to be in the game or knew would happen later on, but just couldn’t fit them in, so he shoved them in an early chapter and hoped for the best.

- TOUJOU’S ABILITY TO DO JACK DIDDLY SHIT IN TERMS OF STORY.

Somehow, they managed to make one of the stars of this chapter barely active in it. Can you fucking believe that? Like, no really, if you work off of fan translations I want you to open the translation you have, hit CONTROL+F and search for Toujou and see like, the 30 lines she has before the trial. It’s so MINIMAL, it’s so BASIC, and in those 30 sentences she’s treated like a PLOT DEVICE rather than a CHARACTER. I’m sure a bit of the reason as to why Toujou isn’t as popular as most of the other girls is just how hard the Chapter hits her in terms of not giving her any character development (even in the bonus interaction she’s just “i do this for my job” for fucc sake). Like, even if it was played for a laugh that she’s just so constantly work-focused, or the writing took it as a bit of a punchline for some dry humor (”hey toujou what’re ya doin?” “working.” and just have awkward eye contact and the ‘WOW this is awkward’ thought in Shuichi’s head after a few “...” between the both of them as it happens. easy comedy. see???) it at least would make her seem somewhat important compared to the cast. Honestly, it’s like the Tsumugi Effect but in 2 chapters instead of 6. By doing nothing in terms of plot, she basically puts on this huge fucking sign that says “HEY GUYS IM NOT STORY RELEVANT BECAUSE NOTHING IS HAPPENING TO ME SO I WILL PROBABLY DIE AS A KILLER OR VICTIM” Her trial behavior is really hit or miss as well, because some might find her ruthlessness to be really cool and makes her actually fucking interesting at any point in the story, while others might find it unlikable, excessively cruel, or just out of character for Toujou no matter how desperate she may be. Let alone that her US demographic prolly tanked quite a lot w/ her story focusing on POLITICS of all things (one of the three no-no’s in any conversation), making her very very hard to like, besides on an aesthetic level. Let alone her FTE’s are the worst in the game, as you still barely learn anything about her outside of “im a maid and im good at my job” or other points that the main story already tells you (besides that she once coddled a man so hard he became dependent and that her only weakness is not cutting konjac right ever). It just makes her feel like a barren and incomplete character.

- TOUJOU’S ABILITY TO DO EVERYTHING SO WELL SHE CAN EVEN FUCK HERSELF OVER AMAZINGLY.

Everyone has heard me go on and on about this, but if it doesn’t get said no one will know it so I keep repeating it until the end of time.By making her plan so complex, she basically fucks herself. By making a crime that only someone as competent as her could accomplish, it fucks her because only she can do it. XD. Literally, who do you think would have been able to do all that shit in one night? Saihara’s too weak to drown Hoshi. Don’t fight me on this, because if you seriously believe the detective in training with little self defense training (he worked on infidelity and missing pet/kid cases for fuck sake, his life isn’t really on the line all that often so he prolly wouldn’t know or have to train all that much to protect himself) can take the tennis player that killed over 200 people and has been playing tennis basically all his life (enough to go INTERNATIONAL in MIDDLE SCHOOL) in a fight, we’re gunna need to have a talk.Gonta’s too heavy to use the ropeway.Kiibo’s too heavy to use the ropeway and too weak to carry Hoshi’s body.Himiko’s too weak to drown someone and attempt to shove them in the staircase (which I will touch on real soon here on why even attempting to frame her the way Toujou tried to was dumb as shit).Angie’s... lbr here, prolly missing a few too many tools in her toolbox to really think of a ropeway to kill Hoshi with.Shinguuji’s too weak (and before I get arguments on this, if u think this underweight twig of a man can take out Hoshi when Hoshi’s prolly faster than him and could just run ur wrong)Maki who was the Child Caregiver at the time would be seen as too weak to do anything to Hoshi too (even if she lifts kids, again, Hoshi is fucking rIPPED and has killer legs)Ouma’s too weak (i mean he’s underweight and looks like a twig)Kaito’s a fucking moron when it comes to master plans and wouldn’t have been able to plain something like a ropeway murder (let alone his idol complex wouldn’t have let him kill Hoshi most likely... unless it was a Mondo situation but that’s a later talk)Tenko’s also a fucking moron when it comes to long term planning let alone she wouldn’t touch a man unless to flip him to death, which makes the ropeway seem almost pointlessTsumugi’s too weak to (i mean... rlly. u rlly think she could take him down? under the assumption she isn’t the mastermind ofc at this point in the story, but even then sneak murdering all the kills seems kinda.... eh? too hard for her to do.) Miu’s also a fucking moron that wouldn’t think of using a ropeway (actually, she prolly woulda done the smarter option and just pushed Hoshi’s body out his fucking window since a ropeway would be too much effort)By process of COMMON SENSE, only Toujou would make something so NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED in an attempt to murder a guy.

- THE DUMBEST PLAN ON EARTH AND HOW YOU COULD PLAN A SIMILAR MURDER AND GET AWAY WITH IT EASY.

Toujou’s plan is fucking dumb when you can think of SO many other ways to get Hoshi killed with more leeway as to who coulda done it. So I bring up the window in his lab, because literally you could just push him out of it and the fall would prolly splatter that midget cunt on the ground no problem. Hell, even handcuff him. Nearly anyone could have pushed Hoshi out of the window, meaning there’s a possibility that Maki or Kaito could have done it w/o that stupid fucking ropeway let alone anyone at night (or hell even during the DAY since time of death was obscured), and it wouldn’t LEAVE THE FUCKING GLOVE.MMMM OKAY RANT HERE REAL QUICK I MEAN IT THAT FUCKING TRASH BAG GLOVE IRRITATES ME. Like, hhh I know Kodaka wanted to make a case where something like the glove gets the killer caught, but HOLY SHIT was it poor to use in a case like this. It not only feels like it’s out of place for her not to just get it in the morning, but why the fuck would she use her gloves anyways?? Why not use Hoshi’s hat? Anyone could use Hoshi’s hat as hand protection down the moronic ropeway and since it’s a beanie it’s prolly made of more strong material than I guess whatever her shit gloves are made of, since they tore like fuckin trash when she went down the ropeway. As someone that wears cut and heat protection gloves because of my job, the gloves she uses are HORRIBLY inefficient (let alone if she’s cleaning before touching food w/ them on... like please don’t that can cause so many health problems) to try and stop ropeburn. She could have also just poisoned everyone, or killed them all in their sleep, to make her job easier on herself. Can’t have a trial if no one’s there after all right? No one would suspect Toujou working on her fuckin job to come and snap their necks during the night or w/e, or poison their food before the show. But also framing Himiko is really fucking dumb. Like, she expects me to believe that Himiko, who is only 2 more pounds than Hoshi mind you, managed to drown him and stuff him in that staircase, and pull him out during the show in under a minute. LOL no. Hoshi looks like he can break her arms like fucking toothpicks without even trying?? Let alone her laziness makes it look REALLY hard for her to have planned a fucking murder. The fact that like, the first hour of the trial wants me to believe Himiko could be the killer is asinine, just because of how basically fucking illogical it is.What Toujou could have done instead, was leave his body drowned in the sink. Yeah, it’d be harder because not everyone can drown Hoshi (ie. Himiko and Ouma and prolly a few others that are considered sticks or weak), but there are a lot of people who could, and drowning someone is a lot easier than the stupid ropeway piranha bullshit. OR PUSH HIM OUT HIS WINDOW. JUST KILL EVERYONE THAT WAY COME ON.Actually, she coulda killed two people easy. Just have someone gullible like Saihara come to meet her at night in the lab after she’s already pushed Hoshi out the window (or even just come running to his room with a bullshit excuse that she saw a shadow ‘running away’ and saw that something happened in the tennis lab) and push him out the window too. Boom, makes it look like a murder gone wrong, and the only alibi that’d be able to testify about the events is hers. Easy win, everyone else gets executed.I get it, in the end, it needs to be a solvable mystery in a mystery game, but it ends up making Toujou look like a complete moron as a result of it, which is unfortunate.

- MOTIVE VIDEOS ARE RIGGED AS SHIT.

Upon learning what hers and Hoshi’s are, it seems almost rigged that they would have to be the killer and victim respectively. Hoshi’s telling him to ‘kys’ and Toujou’s saying ‘lol go kill someone’ makes it like... even if everyone else saw theirs that they’d be like.. the only two to really act on theirs besides MAYBE Miu or POSSIBLY Angie. And then we also see Ouma’s?? And his is just actively “lol u don’t kill bitch but u should do it anyways” making it seem almost counter productive. Like, bitch it just said Ouma made a rule that no killing was a thing and u genuinely expect his ass to break that? ha. The odds were stacked against the two of them, which makes it only seem more forced in the long run. Which is great from a meta standpoint, but a story can be meta while still being fun, enjoyable, and flowing functionally and logically. Which this chapter isn’t really.

- THE SADLY NOT REDEEMING BUT STILL SUPER GOOD HOSHI FACTOR.

Now, the one thing that I can praise this chapter for really well despite all its shortcomings is Hoshi’s characterization and his story. For one chapter he really makes a hard hit at the time, and it’s easy to become engrossed in his little background story about him wanting to find a reason to live. The real cherry on top is his writing and his interactions with the few people he interacts with. with Kaito, it really shows the disposition that Kaito has against him and just how Hoshi is so understanding of others and like... nice. Even when he wants a goal that goes against everyone, he still respects them. “I won’t do something reckless to endanger everyone.”, and acknowledging that it’s an entirely selfish reason why he wants to find the videos and will still not hurt anyone to do it. He may have threatened to show Maki’s video to everyone in exchange for his own from her, but he never hits her or directly harms / threatens her w/ violence or anything extremely dirty. It’s respectable. Ohhh, and Saihara’s dynamic with him is just so sPOT ON HERE. Between the great advice and compliments in general he has for Saihara such as “the world can be bright for someone that’s looked down for so long, be careful” and “you’re confident compared to before, like a weight is lifted off your back. it’s a good look for you” and other such flattery, to Hoshi being a bit more open to Saihara about his feelings (feeling jealous about everyone else having a reason to live, wanting to find one himself, openly admitting he feels he has no purpose in his life and wants to find a reason to be happy like everyone else, etc.). But this dynamic goes both ways, as Saihara also can read Hoshi super fucking well. Like, seeing the Tennis Lab is a great example of it. When Hoshi states the past is behind him, Saihara thinks to himself ‘but then why are you looking at the court with such sad eyes Hoshi-kun?’ and it’s like, just really nice that Saihara’s not dense? Like, Hoshi expresses himself pretty poetically, with the way he talks and whatnot, acting like a wise sage type w/ endless wisdom all the time, so Saihara being able to read past all the flowery language to just hear “god i miss tennis” or “im depressed” is really REALLY refreshing, and a nice balance to see. If you do Hoshi’s FTE’s it personally makes it even better, but that’s not a requirement so moving on. Even just Saihara asking him things like “are you doing well?” or “Is this what you want?” or “or just the small but surprisingly deep talks they just seem to have with one another are tiny details that really complete the dynamic that they can both read each other and can react to one another super well. It feels balanced between the both of them, even in Chapter 1, and it’s a shame Hoshi had to die because I would have LOVED to see how far it could go and how much it could have been expanded on in the later chapters.

Sadly however, no matter how great Hoshi is, it can’t save Chappie 2 from it’s endless faults and gripes that I have with it, that ultimately make the story less entertaining as a result.

#reciprocation :: response #negative tw #//oh yes #my essays never stop when I have such thrilling subjects to rant about #//muaahahahaha!!!!#//thank u for sending in this one too!#//i had a blast with it.#blindedhope #parchments :: inbox

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