#since i discovered that song it's been rattling around in my brain and i keep imagining these idiots and it makes me feel nice lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

12tardis · 4 years

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Feel The Pull Of You (Newt Scamander x Reader)

Warnings: none (cabbage if you’re James Acaster)

Requested: Yes @imapartofwaytoomanyfandoms24 asked for ‘a soulmates AU where the reader loves magical creatures and they can only see colour when they touch their soulmate and she runs into him looking for her demiguise. She’s in shock and so is Newt and then she sees her demiguise runs up to it and grabs it and walks back to him and they both stare at each other’ - thank you honey! I hope you like it- I’ve had a couple soulmate ideas kicking around my head for a bit but I hadn’t considered the colour one so thank you!

Summary: You’ve seen in only shades of grey your entire life knowing that meant you had a soulmate out there somewhere. Your demiguise has been acting up lately and leads you on a wild goose chase through the streets of London where you literally fall into the arms of a handsome stranger.

A/N: I had to stop here or else I was just gonna keep writing for lord knows how long because IMAGINE what a trip it would be to see all the creatures with your whole new colour palette.

Words: 1,925

Title song: The Pull Of You- The National - just rewatched the IAETF film last night and balled my eyes out. What was it you always said? We’re connected by a thread. If we’re ever far apart I’ll still feel the pull of you.

Taglist: @moonkissk7 @just-an-outstanding-auror

It had been exactly 3 months since Newt had finally released his book ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them’ and exactly 3 weeks since he’d received the most unexpected letter in the mail from a complete stranger.

There had been plenty of children and a few keen creature lovers that had approached him at his book signings. They were always eager to hear more about his adventures and his case and he’d received a few fan-mail letters, again mostly from children drawing their favourite creatures. He loved those ones especially because he hoped it meant he might have inspired another generation of children to follow in his footsteps.

But there was one letter Newt hadn’t put down since he’d received it 3 weeks ago. He kept it in his pocket and often found himself re-reading it over and over again. There was just something about the elegant scrawl that had completely captivated him from the moment he opened it.

And here he was again, standing beside a cafe in the middle of a bustling street in London, pulling the well worn letter from his pocket and tracing his fingertips along the lettering. He had had every intention of writing back to the stranger but a mishap involving a hungry Graphorn had meant he’d lost the envelope with the sender return address much to his dismay.

‘Dear Mr. Scamander,

I am writing to thank you for your incredible book and the remarkable work you have done in magical creature preservation. I must admit I found myself quite moved by your passion. I am an aspiring Magizoologist myself and I can assure you there is still an entire world of magnificent creatures out there to discover!

I wonder if perhaps you were looking for an assistant to help you with your creatures? I’m sure, a capable set of hands could be of great service to you with your ever expanding case and I am confident I could be of help.

Perhaps we could meet for tea some time and I can show you some of my dearest creatures?

I eagerly await your response.

Yours respectfully, Y/N L/N ‘

As he stood on the street corner reading the letter for what must have been the hundredth time he truly mourned the fact that he had no way to contact the sender because there was just something about it that pulled at his heart strings like he’d never felt before. It almost felt like a puzzle. One that he desperately needed to solve.

The letter had kept him up most nights, wondering about things that would never usually cross his mind. He wondered what the sender looked like? And more peculiarly he wondered what the colour of her eyes were. Or perhaps the colour of her hair?

To most people these questions would be normal to ponder and that was because most people had some idea or reference for colour. But not Newt. For Newt, these questions were completely nonsensical because he only saw in shades of grey.

His colour blindness had never bothered him before because he knew it meant he was one of the lucky ones that had a soulmate. A twin flame that he was destined to be with. He was generally content, and patient biding the time because he knew one day he would meet his other half. But ever since he’d received that letter he had found himself feeling restless and frustrated, walking the length of the city and mourning the entire spectrum of colour he was missing out on.

It bothered him now to realise that he had no idea what colour the letter even was. What colour was the ink you’d used? Logically he knew it was black ink on a presumably neutral toned paper but what did that even look like?

He was so preoccupied in his musings that he barely registered the sensation of his case rattling in his hold as one of his creatures was unsettled because he was suddenly stood face to face with a Demiguise. A Demiguise that certainly wasn’t his Dougal.

“Bunsen! BUNSEN! Oh my stars Bunsen I swear if you don’t get back here right now you’ll be eating cabbage for the rest of the week. CABBAGE!”

You were madly dashing through the London crowds in pursuit of your rogue Demiguise, completely uncaring of the bewildered looks you were receiving from the other locals.

Bunsen had been acting out of sorts for several weeks now, pacing back and forth and frequently leading you on wild chases much like the one you were on now. This time though he really wasn’t relenting and you were just thankful no one else noticed the creature hurtling past them.

Your stomach dropped however when you saw him stop and stand on his hind legs to face a man in a long coat. The man had his back to you but you were certain from his body language that he was very much aware of the rare creature that was now stood in front of him with glowing eyes.

“MERLIN NO!”, you panicked dashing towards the man.

“Sir, please don’t panic! He’s harmless I promise! He can’t hurt you, just stay calm!” you shouted at him as you approached, lunging for the Demiguise that dodged you, of course, sending you careening forward into the very arms of the man you were shouting at.

You gasped, blinking furiously when your vision transformed instantly while your heart seemed to swell to double its size in your chest. You stared down at the ground in wonder, taking in the way the shades of grey slowly bled into all these colours and shades you’d never seen before.

Newt grasped you in his arms with a loud ringing in his ears as he tightened his hold on you instinctively. He gaped back at you, so completely enraptured with the sight of you that he barely noticed the new spectrum of colour he could now see.

That was until you were suddenly moving out of his hold and rushing away from him. His knees nearly buckled as he watched your retreating figure, his brain now vaguely taking in the colours around him. He was still standing frozen to the sidewalk as he slowly came to digest what had just happened.

He had literally just run into his soulmate. Who was chasing a Demiguise. You tripped and he caught you and then you ran away from him just as quickly, and his heart was surely about to shatter beyond repair but then oh-

You were walking back towards him, with the Demiguise perched on your hip and he felt his heart in his throat as he took you in.

You had nearly fallen again when Bunsen had suddenly stopped in his tracks, seemingly content with being in your arms again as you scooped him up. You noticed the way his eyes flashed and he was looking over your shoulder and you remembered that yes, you had just cannon balled into your soulmate.

The person you’d been dreaming of your entire life. “Why you clever little…”, you breathed out, petting Bunsen shakily while your heart slammed in your chest. You closed your eyes and sucked in a deep breath before you turned back around to face the man..

You two stood in front of one another for what felt like an hour, just staring at each other in complete awe. You took in the colour of his hair, fighting back the unexpected impulse you felt to comb your fingers through it and then you looked back into his eyes. And you knew then what your favourite colour in the world was.

Newt was entirely unprepared for the sudden urge he had to just touch. He’d never really understood the need for affection, instead shying away from it but as he gazed back at you his hands seemed to burn at his sides. He longed to run his thumb along your bottom lip or graze his hand down the curve of your shoulder to your waist.

Bunsen had apparently had enough of the silent staring competition going on between you two though because he let out a huff followed by low grumble.

This startled Newt from his stupor and he quickly held his hand out to you “I do apologise for my rudeness, I’m-“

“Newt Scamander”, you breathed out quickly, your eyes bright and a small smile playing on your lips. Newt’s eyebrows flew up in response.

“You know my n-name?”, he stuttered, stunned that a beauty such as yourself would know who he was. And when you took his hand in your own he felt the most overwhelming sense of peace rush over him.

You squeezed his hand in your own, nodding slowly as you smiled wider at him “yes, I wrote to you. A few weeks ago. My name is-“

“Y/N L/N!”, he cut you off this time, his eyes wide as he set his case down beside him carefully, still gripping your hand in his own as he used the other to rummage through his coat pocket. “You wrote this!” he exclaimed, holding the obviously worn letter up for you to inspect.

It was your turn to look at him in astonishment as you nodded again, furrowing your eyebrows.

“I...something about this letter just felt...like home,” Newt explained, shyly threading his fingers with yours as he pocketed the letter once again.

When you stared back at him silently, glancing down at your joined hands he continued.

“I apologise, I really wanted to write you back but one of the Graphorn’s ate the envelope”, he turned to look at Bunsen then, nodding at him.

“I bet you two would get along”, he murmured and Bunsen made a noise of interest, reaching an arm out towards Newt signalling that he wanted to be held.

You looked down at Bunsen in surprise because he had never allowed another person to touch him before but your surprise quickly washed away as you watched Newt take him into his arms, greeting him with the kindest smile you’d ever seen that you couldn’t help but swoon. Of course he would like Newt. He had, after all, been trying to make this meeting happen for weeks now.

“Oh!”, you were broken out of your ogling when a passerby just barely missed knocking Newt’s case over that was still set on the ground beside him. You didn’t hesitate to pluck the case up, holding it securely against your chest and the very sight alone had Newt feeling dizzy with adoration. Not only were you breathtaking but you cared for creatures too.

“So um…” he cleared his throat nervously, looking back at you with hopeful eyes “I know I’m a bit late, but I wonder if you are still interested in that cup of tea?”

You smiled back at him widely, stepping close to him until you were nearly chest to chest and he sucked in a breath of surprise when you lay your hand over his where it was resting on Bunsen “yes, but only if you promise to show me around your case afterwards.”

Newt laughed softly, nodding as he shifted Bunsen to be perched on his hip with one arm so he could thread his fingers with yours again “well I suppose it would help if my assistant knew her way around the enclosures”, he murmured, looking over at you as you fell into step beside him, following him through the bustling streets hand in hand. -MORE WRITINGS HERE-

#newt scamander x reader #newt scamander #newton artemis fido scamander #newt scamander x y/n #newt scamander x you #newt x reader #soulmate au #fantastic beasts and where to find them

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juliandev0rak · 4 years

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First Day of My Life

"Yours was the first face that I saw I think I was blind before I met you And I don't know where I am, I don't know where I've been But I know where I want to go"

The apprentice wakes up in Asra's arms, their first memory is of his face and it seems that maybe they were always meant to be together.

Asra x gender neutral MC ficlet based on the song “First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes which is the Asra x MC song in my opinion

this was originally posted on my ao3

warnings: none

words: 4507

The first thing you can remember is a face. The details are indistinct, the face out of focus, but you remember the eyes- purple.

The next few months are a blur. You don’t know who you are or where you are, and trying to remember hurts. A lot. The only constants in your life are painful headaches and a person with purple eyes. He says his name is Asra. You remember testing the name on your tongue, the first word you’ve said since waking up. He smiled at that, purple eyes scrunching up. He looks nice when he smiles, you hope you get to see him do it more because most of the time his face is downcast and very serious.

For the first few weeks you’re nearly bed bound, you feel so weak that you have to be propped up by a pile of pillows. Asra says you had an accident but doesn’t give any details. You don’t remember having an accident, you don’t have any aches, you aren’t missing any limbs, even though your body is weak the pain seems to reside solely in your head. Sometimes you wonder how you got here and who Asra is, but those thoughts bring the headaches so mostly you just sleep and listen to Asra. He tells you stories constantly, and although you can understand him easily it seems you can’t talk much aside from simple one word answers. His stories are always about magic and about the wonderful, exciting places he says he’s been to. You often wonder if he’s telling the truth, and if these places really exist. When you ask him about his stories, or about himself, he just changes the subject.

Walking is hard. The first time you try to get up from bed Asra has his back turned and only notices you’re up when he hears the loud thud of you immediately crumpling to the floor. From then on he keeps an even closer watch on you, supporting you when you need to get up and eventually while he helps you learn to walk again. Asra has to do everything for you and at times it's frustrating because you can remember, somehow, that you were once able to do all of these simple actions on your own. He has to feed you until your arms get strong enough to hold a utensil, he has to walk with you everywhere, even to the bathroom, until after weeks of practice you finally manage to take shaky steps on your own.

Asra is so happy at every milestone, constantly praising your progress and helping you without complaint. You don’t know who he is, but you’re glad he's there with you. You learn to walk, then to talk in complete sentences, and eventually he teaches you to read and write. It’s slow going at first but once you have the basics down your mind seems to snap into place and you’re able to read books by yourself after a few months. He is so kind to you, never making you feel like a burden or like you’re stupid. He’s just always there when you need him, even sleeping on the couch next to your bed in case you need him during the night.

As you begin to regain your independence Asra begins to leave the apartment more, he always tells you he’s just going down to the shop. You wonder how going to buy groceries, or whatever it is he goes to this “shop” for, could take so long but he’s often gone for hours at a time. Your constant companion is usually Faust, Asra’s snake who he seems to have full conversations with at times. You certainly haven’t heard her speak before but she’s a comforting presence coiled around your neck or wrist as you wait for Asra to come back. When he returns he’s always happy to see you and asks what you’ve read that day, sometimes he brings you gifts like pumpkin bread, which you’ve decided is your favorite food, or a new book.

Your favorite books are all about magic, some of them even seem like technical how-to books. At first it never occurs to you that magic could be real, but over time you start to notice that sometimes Asra does things that you can’t explain. You complain that it’s too cold in the room and are suddenly comfortably warm, you get a paper cut one day and after Asra grabs your hand to look at it it’s suddenly healed. You usually chalk it up to your brain fog or a trick of the light because thinking about it too hard just causes more headaches.

Sometimes he takes you out for walks around the city, Vesuvia, he tells you it’s called. You love those walks and the lively markets and people you meet along the way. Asra seems to be well known in the neighborhood but he doesn’t ever stop to talk. Sometimes people call your name and you look around in confusion before Asra quickly pulls you away to show you another part of the city. You can’t get enough of the feeling of sun on your skin and fresh air in your lungs after so long inside. You ask Asra if you can go on a walk by yourself sometime but he gets upset and starts to rattle off a list of the potential dangers that could face you in the city alone. It seems pretty clear that he doesn’t want to leave you alone, except when he disappears to the shop which you’ve discovered is the room below the apartment.

It’s full of strange looking herbs and bottles and there's a room blocked off by curtains that you’ve still never seen. When you ask Asra what everything is he simply says “Magic” and won’t elaborate when you try to ask him questions. He doesn’t let you wander around the shop alone either and usually insists that you spend the bulk of your day resting.

“You’re still recovering” He offers as reason for his protective behavior. He seems constantly worried about you, always making sure you’re eating enough and asking how your headaches are. As time goes on they start to lessen, but sometimes you’ll be hit by one out of nowhere. You’re frustrated by his overprotection sometimes, but he’s right that you’re still recovering. You’re not weak anymore but your brain does sometimes seem to short circuit, leaving you confused and disoriented. Vesuvia is confusing enough with Asra by your side, so you’re in agreement with Asra’s concerns - for now.

One night however, you discover how real magic is. Sometimes you have really bad nightmares that leave you screaming and sobbing when you wake up. You can never remember what happens in the dreams, but you’re always left with a sense of loss and longing like you’re missing something important, and a headache. You almost always have a headache. No matter how bad the dream is, Asra is always there on the couch next to the bed ready to comfort you. He gives you lots of hugs which were foreign at first but by now you’ve come to love the physical comfort that hugging Asra brings. He’ll sit on the bed next to you and hold you as you cry. He doesn’t ever ask what the nightmares are about, and it’s not like you could tell him anyways. Sometimes he brews a strange smelling tea that makes you fall into a deep and dreamless sleep, some nights it’s the only way you can find rest.

On this particular night, you wake yourself up screaming and look frantically for Asra in the dark but he’s not there. You call out for him in a panic, scared by the dark void of the room which still feels unfamiliar at times. When he still hasn’t come after a few frantic moments you start to sob and throw your head under the blankets. He’s never not been there before. You’re scared to be all alone in the dark but you’re too panicked and confused to get out of bed and fumble for a candle and a match to light it. You think of how the candles light automatically when Asra enters the room and wish that you could do that too. If you could just see maybe you wouldn’t feel so afraid, maybe you could look for Asra. You take a deep breath to steady yourself and throw the blankets off to stand up. You swallow your fear and fumble your way into what you think is the center of the room.

You remember reading in one of your books that magic is simply will and intent, you want something to happen so you make it happen. You’re not sure at this point if you even believe magic is real, but you're willing to try anything. Throwing your arms out you yell “Light!”

Nothing happens.

Your fear is a living thing, hurting your chest as it claws at your speeding heart. You take more deep breaths to calm down, a technique Asra taught you once. You’re determined to try again even as you stare into the terrifying nothingness of the room.

“I said LIGHT!” You nearly scream this time, turning a full circle as you throw your arms out wildly at the room. Suddenly the room is flooded with light and as you stand there blinking at the brightness you hear the noise of the apartment door opening. You turn to see Asra, and Faust coiled around his neck, staring at you with eyes wide in disbelief.

“Asra! I did magic!” You exclaim, running over to him forgetting your fear that he hadn’t been there only moments before. He throws his arms around you and laughs. After a few seconds the laughter becomes hysterical until you suddenly feel his face grow wet where it’s pressed against your cheek.

“Asra?” You pull back to look at his face. He’s smiling but his eyes are quickly filling with tears. “Are you… not happy?” He laughs again and rubs the back of his hand over his eyes.

“No no, I’m more than happy!” He grins. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever do magic again.” That comment makes you pause, again? Once more you’re left wondering who you were before all of this, and how Asra knows you. He seems too distracted to notice your confusion, and slight twinge of pain, at his remark. The look in his eyes is something you can’t place, it warms your heart in a somehow familiar way and you suddenly find yourself brought to tears along with him.

From that night on he begins to teach you magic. You’d been right about him and the uncanny abilities he possessed and he finally shows you around the shop downstairs, explaining what everything is and how to make each of the items. He starts you off small, creating balls of light, warming and cooling, herbal remedies. Eventually he shows you his collection of more advanced magic books and you begin to study more difficult spells and concepts. It seems to come so easily to you and within a few months, around a year since you’ve been with Asra, you’re helping him in the store full time. Everytime he watches you do magic from the simplest of charms to a difficult spell or complicated potion he looks amazed. You catch him watching you multiple times a day from the corner of your eye with the same look in his eyes that he had the first time he watched you light the candles in your room.

He begins to trust you more, asking you to run errands and pick things up from the market. He even starts bringing you along to forage for potion supplies. Life begins to find a rhythm and you begin to feel like you have a sense of self now. You have friends around town, like the baker who makes your favorite pumpkin bread. You have favorite shops, favorite places to sit and enjoy the scenery, likes and dislikes. You discover fashion and have fun looking at fabric and clothes with Asra, who seems partial to his colorful layers of scarves while you usually favor more practical clothing. Your customers and people in town start calling you “the apprentice” and it seems to be an apt title. You start calling Asra “master” as is the custom, not noticing the wince he gives every time you use the title.

Eventually he shows you his tarot deck and you immediately feel a connection to it. It’s not as strong as his connection is, and you still find it difficult to really “hear” what the cards are telling you but you feel confident enough to begin giving readings to customers when Asra is busy. One night after the shop is closed and Asra has gone upstairs to make some tea you decide to ask the cards about your past. It’s been a while since you’ve thought about those questions, caught up in your new daily routine and the joy of learning magic. You haven’t had a headache in weeks and you’ve decided that perhaps thinking about the past might not hurt so much now.

You shuffle through the deck and pull one card, the fool. A voice behind you says “What do the cards have to say?” and you whirl around to see Asra standing in the doorway with a smile on his face.

“I can’t hear anything.” You say in dismay, it seems there will be no more answers tonight.

“Well, the fool represents new beginnings, a blank slate. Perhaps the fool is asking you to forge your own path.” He suggests, pulling the card out of your hand to inspect it. That makes sense, actually, and you start to ponder how the card could relate to you.

“Come on, enough magic for today. Let’s go to bed.” Asra says, offering a hand to help you out of your chair.

You don’t know exactly when you and Asra began sharing a bed, but it was soon after you started studying magic. The two of you would stay up late sitting together and poring over magical books, discussing theories and new ideas over cups of tea. Eventually one or both of you would fall asleep and it just became normal to fall asleep in the same bed. You’re quite used to his physical comfort after all this time and his presence seems to drive away your bad dreams. It’s normal for the two of you to wake up intertwined, Faust usually coiled half around each of you.

It’s nice, this domesticity. You and Asra work as a team, splitting tasks and settling into your roles. He’s better at cooking, and after a few failed attempts to teach you it becomes apparent that he should continue to be the one who cooks, so he always makes breakfast in the mornings while you begin setting up the shop for the day. You tag team in the shop, working around and with each other to help customers, prepare items, and do readings. Your routine is like a dance at this point and you love the comfort that comes from having a place in the world.

Now that you feel like a competent person, and more importantly, a competent magician, life seems brighter. Asra smiles more, you even begin to hear Faust when she speaks and the two of you have become closer. But sometimes when you’re laughing with a customer or focused on a spell you look up and notice Asra looking sad and withdrawn. When you ask him what’s wrong he just shakes his head and smiles “Everything's perfect!” but you don’t always believe him.

Two years after waking up from your accident Asra starts going on trips. He tells you that he trusts you to run the shop and to take care of yourself, but he never tells you where he’s going or when exactly he’ll return. You don’t like it when he leaves, it feels too empty in the shop even though he’s always sure to leave Faust with you to keep you company. Nights are especially hard as you’re used to sleeping next to him. He always seems sad when he leaves, and you begin to ask when he’ll take you with him. He always just good naturedly changes the subject and eventually you give up asking. He seems much happier after getting home from his trips at least, always greeting you with a hug and telling you how much he missed you while he was away.

On a cold night in the middle of your third year with Asra he tells you he’s going on another trip. You help him pack the small bag he takes with him, how he can survive on these long trips with so little you have no idea, but you assume it must be magic. It’s a foggy night in Vesuvia and you can’t help but wish he wasn’t leaving so you could enjoy a cup of tea and a cozy night in together. You walk him down to the shop and watch as he gathers a few random ingredients and books, sticking them into his bag.

“I’ll miss you.” He says with a sad smile.

“Must you leave tonight?” You pout.

“It’s the dead of a moonless night. The right time for beginning a journey.” He explains. “Here… take this, for you to play around with while I’m gone.”

He hands you his tarot deck.

“You think I’m ready for this?” You ask, he never leaves his deck unattended.

“You’ve made incredible progress, but you still haven’t let go of your doubts… Do you think you’re ready?” He smiles, always leaving the answers up to you.

You think you finally are.

There’s a knock on the door and you both ponder at the late hour, but then he leaves through the back door with a final farewell and it's just you. You decide to open the door.

✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦

Over the course of the next few weeks you accomplish things you never could have imagined. You meet people who you know will become lifelong friends, you free a man from facing punishment for a crime he didn't commit, you travel through the Arcana realms, you even manage to bind the Devil himself. Asra’s with you the entire time, and by the end of it things have changed. You’ve started to remember.

You love Asra, you always have. And he’s always loved you. All of his glances over the last three years, his concern, his care for you - it was love, it’s always been love.

The first time he kisses you in the Magician’s realm you feel everything shift. This is what you were missing, Asra is what you’ve been missing. All of your nightmares over the last three years have been about losing him. As you fall back into love with him during your journey you start to remember snippets of your life before. Arriving at your Aunt’s shop, meeting Asra at the masquerade, becoming friends and then becoming more.

Unfortunately this also means you remember what happened to you, the sickness that came to Vesuvia. You remember the arguments you had with Asra who wanted to leave, but you refused. He couldn’t understand why you wanted to risk yourself to help so eventually, he left you behind, both of you too stubborn to do what the other thought was best. You worked to find a cure and, perhaps inevitably, you got the plague and you died.

But Asra brought you back. His love for you was enough to raise the dead.

You can’t help but feel that you were always meant to love Asra, that you are meant to be together. He gave up half of his heart to bring you back and that heart now beats in you. You will not be separated from him again, this you’re sure of. After the chaos dies down all you want is to be by his side.

It’s the final night of the masquerade, which is now being held in your honor at Nadia’s insistence. You’re not quite sure you like all of the attention but you’re glad to have a chance to celebrate with all of your loved ones. Asra’s been reunited with his parents and he seems whole now, every trace of sadness and worry gone from his eyes. You watch from a distance as he converses excitedly with them in the corner of the ballroom. Your other friends are all dancing, except for Muriel who is probably off hibernating in the woods after all of the forced social interactions he’s had to deal with in the last few days. Julian is doing some sort of tango with a random partygoer who seems to be trying to avoid getting hit in the face with Julian’s beaked mask. Portia and Nadia are dancing an intimate looking waltz, their dance actually fits the music that's currently being played (though Julian doesn’t seem to mind).

Your heart feels so full it might burst as you look at all of the people you’ve come to love. Three years ago you could never have imagined the feeling you have right now, you know you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. Though you may never get all of your memories back you’re glad that you have so many wonderful people to make new memories with. Eventually you’re broken from your reverie by a gentle hand on your shoulder.

“You look happy.” Asra says, wrapping his arm around you. His eyes are sparkling and the way he’s smiling at you has you nearly melting into the polished floors.

“I’m more than happy.” You smile back, trying to convey all of your love through your eyes the way he’s doing. He chuckles and pulls you in for a kiss. You do melt then as he wraps his arms around your waist and holds you closer. Both of you are smiling too hard for it to be a proper kiss and when you pull back for air you smile even bigger and he laughs again and presses a kiss to the tip of your nose.

“I love you.” He whispers, just for you to hear.

“I love you.” You will never get tired of hearing those words, of saying those words.

“Shall we go get some air?” He asks, disentangling himself from your embrace but grabbing your hand. He leads you out to the veranda and the coolness of the evening is refreshing after being in the packed ballroom for so long. For a while you both stand there just taking in the evening and the beautiful view of the gardens, basking in each other's company. Asra still holds your hand in his, running his thumb over yours in a comforting gesture.

“I wonder what adventures we’ll get up to next.” He says after a while.

“Where you go, I’ll go.” You reply. Your tone is light but you meet his eyes with intensity. “I don't want to be away from you again.”

“Not even the Devil himself could pull me away from you.” He smiles.

“And not even death.” You can’t help but add.

“No, not even death could separate us.” He agrees, moving his hand up to gently cup your face. He doesn’t seem so troubled by this mention of the past anymore and it gives you hope that the both of you can move on.

“We have the whole future in front of us, we can go anywhere, do anything.”

“As long as it’s with you, I’m up for anything.” He murmurs. “My love, my heart…” he leans in to kiss you and this time you try to contain your smile and kiss him properly. It’s hard when all you want to do is grin, but you manage. One kiss becomes two, then three and before you know it your hands have moved to his hair and his hand is wandering below where it had been resting on the small of your back and you’re too caught up in him to think, to breathe. You’re brought back to reality with the sounds of a whooping cheer and clapping.

“YEAHHHH!” It’s Julian, beaked mask off and definitely a little past drunk. Distantly you hear Portia reprimand him, you think you hear a muffled “Ow.” as she punches his arm and drags him back inside. You’re too caught up in Asra to really care although Asra looks like he’s considering throwing a punch himself. You reach up to run a hand down the side of his cheek and to turn his face back to meet you. His eyes snap away from the door and back to yours with a smile and you quickly resume your previous activities.

“Should we go somewhere a little more… devoid of plague doctors.” You suggest after a few minutes when it becomes apparent that perhaps some of your current actions are not entirely appropriate to be doing on a veranda in full view of a party.

“I love the way you think.” He smiles, a glint of mischief in his eyes. You quickly make your excuses to Nadia and the rest of your friends, who all seem to give you a knowing glance, and leave the party. Both of you just want to go home and the carriage ride can’t pass quickly enough. When you finally arrive at the shop neither of you realize it, too caught up in each other that the carriage driver has to knock on the door.

“Uhm.. ahem.. We’ve arrived.” The driver says, poking their head through the open door. You break off from the heated kiss you’d been pressing to Asra’s neck with a blush.

“Oh! I’m sorry. Let’s go Asra.” You say embarrassedly, pulling him out of the carriage with you. You thank the driver and are left standing outside the shop, hand in hand with Asra. It feels like years since you’ve been home and you can’t help but feel that even the shop itself has changed somehow over the last few days. You hear Asra laugh and look over at him a moment too late to catch him reach out to pick you up.

“I’m taking you home properly.” He says, holding you bridal style. He’s deceptively strong and holds you easily but you still struggle briefly in his arms, both of you laughing too much for the moment to be serious as he unlocks the door and removes the wards.

“I’m already home.” You murmur, thinking of how home really is wherever Asra is. You’ve been so many beautiful places and seen so many wonderful things over the last few days but you know that your favorite place of all will always be in Asra’s arms, you woke up there three years ago and there you will stay. He’s given you another chance and in this life you plan on loving him with every piece of the heart he gave you.

#this is so cheesy to read back but asra brings that out of me i can't help it #the arcana #the arcana fic #the arcana fanfiction #asra x apprentice #asra the arcana #asra alnazar #im posting older works bc i have no motivation to write anything new rn oops lol

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quicksilversquared · 4 years

Text

The Supervillain Rap

Adrien has imagined discovering Hawkmoth's identity dozens of times- hundreds, even. He thought that he had imagined every possible iteration of how it could happen.

But identity reveal via rap? That’s a new one.

links in the reblog

Adrien tried not to sigh as the Gorilla pulled into the garage. His friends were planning on getting together that afternoon, and once again, he wasn't going to be joining them. It was a common occurrence, really, but this time it was entirely self-imposed.

Photoshoots and too many akuma attacks had meant that Adrien had fallen really far behind on his homework and general studying, and it was pretty stressful to not be completely on top of things. So he had made the decision to not go out this time, and hopefully he would be able to get caught up and not have to stay up past midnight to get things done this time. He had had to do it every single night now for several weeks running, and, well, he was getting worn down.

That didn't mean that he liked missing the get-together, though. Especially since he had gotten permission to go out with his friends this time around, back before he got so overwhelmed and exhausted.

Adrien hopped out of the car once it had stopped, doing his best not to slam the door when he closed it. His father had complained recently about how much noise people were making in the mansion- doors slamming, doors creaking and squeaking, footsteps echoing too loud in the atrium- and Adrien had done his best ever since to not make noise. The Gorilla spent pretty much an entire day oiling and re-hanging doors so that they would be absolutely silent when they opened, not that they had been very loud in the first place. As always, Gabriel Agreste was just being overly picky and dramatic.

Carefully- so that his father wouldn't scold him for running around and making noise- Adrien headed up the stairs. The Gorilla closed the garage door- and honestly, that was the biggest improvement of all the doors, Adrien hadn't even known that it was possible for a garage door to be so absolutely silent- and followed him up. Adrien reached the top and pushed the door partway open. Then he paused.

Because instead of a completely silent mansion, or the muted conversation of a conference call, there was music.

Puzzled, Adrien glanced backwards at the Gorilla. His bodyguard looked just as confused. He placed one hand on the door, keeping it open just that little bit, and gestured for Adrien to keep quiet. Adrien nodded- he was curious about what was going on, and if he made noise, then his father would turn off the music and probably be ticked off at Adrien for not keeping Nathalie entirely up to date on what he was doing and at the Gorilla for- well, Adrien wasn't sure what, but when his father got seen doing something that he didn't want people to know about, he got super ticked off instead of just making up some excuse.

Seriously, though, what was this music? Was his father listening to different music to set to one of his runways or something? Normally- when he was doing proper runways, at Fashion Week instead of just small brand runways to feature Adrien in a low-pressure (well, lower pressure) setting- his music was entirely classical. It fit with the formality of the brand, even if it wasn't exactly what made people sit up and listen.

Maybe Nino's music had inspired his father! This sort of music and beat was something that Adrien would associate far more with his friend than his father.

"Aha! I've got it!" Mr. Agreste suddenly exclaimed, loud enough that Adrien startled. "Nathalie, how is this for the chorus- I will win, and I will rise- all of Paris, akumatized. No more secrets, no more lies. Soon their Miraculous will be mine!"

Adrien's brain screeched to a halt, abruptly more alert. Soon their Miraculous will be mine? All of Paris, akumatized? That- that didn't sound good. But- but his father couldn't be Hawkmoth, that wasn't possible. Maybe he was just doing a Miraculous-themed runway walk and there was a Hawkmoth section.

Nathalie's exasperated sigh cut through Adrien's thoughts. "Sir, are you still working on that song? I don't understand the point. I mean, sure, it's catchy, but don't you have work to do?"

"Perhaps it doesn't seem productive to you, Nathalie, but music is good for lifting spirits. It's sure to be a morale-booster." The background music stopped, cut off mid-song. "And we need it, after the bumps we've run into recently."

"A morale- sir," Nathalie sighed, sounding thoroughly exasperated. "Is a morale-booster worth the time? Or, if you disregard the time- if you consider the chances of someone overhearing you..."

"The chances, which are zero to none. I'm far too careful for that to happen. Now, how about this section-"

Adrien swallowed hard, glancing back towards the Gorilla. They exchanged a look as Mr. Agreste started rapping- rapping!- about a cane and wearing a mask and turning the city evil, and then the Gorilla nodded down the stairs.

The message was clear: we have to get out. Now.

Adrien nodded, stepping backwards carefully. He couldn't make any noise, because if they were heard, if they were seen and his father and Nathalie found out that Adrien and the Gorilla knew...

Well, it wouldn't be good, that was for sure.

"A troubled soul cries- time to akumatize! Fly my faithful servant- dark wing, rise! This rotten cat, that pesky girl-"

The door finally shut, cutting off Mr. Agreste's voice.

The Gorilla herded Adrien down the steps, steering him around the side of the house so that they wouldn't be visible from the office. Once they were in back, the Gorilla tapped on a certain brick, sticking a key into the lock that appeared after a moment. A hidden door swung open, and the Gorilla ushered him through.

"Aren't you coming?" Adrien asked when his bodyguard didn't step through after him.

The Gorilla shook his head. He held up his phone, open to a recording app. Adrien frowned, even more puzzled.

"I thought it was illegal to record people without them knowing?"

The Gorilla nodded, swiping to the side several times, then held up his phone again. Onscreen was a photo of Ladybug and Chat Noir. Adrien considered that, then perked up.

"Oh! So you can show the superheroes!" That was a good idea, actually. If he hadn't heard the song himself and someone came up to Chat Noir and announced that he had figured out who Hawkmoth was because he was singing about it, he would probably think that they were crazy. "Be careful."

The Gorilla nodded, waiting for Adrien to step out of the way before shutting the door, sealing the wall again. There was the faint click of a lock snapping back into place, and then almost-silent footsteps on the other side of the wall. Adrien listened to them fade, his heart in his throat. He knew that his bodyguard was careful and had plenty of experience with being silent and going unnoticed, and he knew where all of the security cameras were, but that didn't make it completely safe.

"Kid, he'll be fine," Plagg said, popping out of Adrien's collar. His voice was uncharacteristically serious. "Seriously. Find somewhere safe to go. Then we'll find Ladybug later."

"Yeah." Adrien sighed, shifting the strap of his bag on his shoulder and starting up the street. "So much for catching up on homework. I'm not going to get anything done now."

The Gorilla managed to snag an amazingly clear audio recording of Mr. Agreste's entire villain song within an hour's time. Ladybug and Chat Noir listened to the recording from the privacy of a study room at the back of the Dupont library, with the Gorilla hovering anxiously over their shoulders.

"Well, you can't deny that that's a banger of a song," Ladybug commented once the recording came to an end. She looked a little thrown off, though Chat Noir could tell that she was far more rattled than she was letting on. "Seriously, why is he a fashion designer if he can just come up with songs like that out of nowhere?"

"Bug, focus," Chat Noir reminded her. "I think there's, uh, more important things to think about than Hawkmoth's song-writing skills."

"I know, I'm just...processing." Ladybug worried her lip, considering the recorder. "Okay, so, uh, we know who Hawkmoth is. And we know who he is because he decided to compose a villain song. A villain song that seems to have a fair bit of work put into composing it. Uh."

The superheroes paused. Ladybug reached out and tapped the play button again. Chat Noir snorted.

"D'you think you're going to get more clues the second time through?"

Ladybug looked slightly abashed. "No, I was just curious- do you think those laughs are his own? Because that is over the top. And I want to say that I can't picture Mr. Agreste doing that, but..."

Chat Noir and the Gorilla shrugged in unison. As stoic as Mr. Agreste acted in front of others, he could be a complete drama queen when he wanted to be.

"Okay, so, what to do next." Ladybug tapped the table once the song came to an end (again), clearly making an effort to pull herself back and be serious, despite how ridiculous the song was. And, frankly, how ridiculous the entire situation was. "Take the Miraculous back, obviously, but we'll need backup."

The Gorilla grunted, getting their attention, then raised his hand. Chat Noir blinked, then grinned.

"You're willing to help us?"

The Gorilla nodded, gesturing again. He motioned like there was a smaller figure next to him, then made a very recognizable protect gesture. Ladybug tilted her head to the side, clearly puzzled, but Chat Noir caught on right away.

"Because you want to help Adrien," Chat Noir filled in for Ladybug's benefit, and his bodyguard nodded. "It's good that he'll still have an adult to care for him."

"Yeah," Ladybug agreed. "Okay, I'm gonna go get more Miraculous. I'll be right back!"

With that, she slipped soundlessly out of the room, leaving Chat Noir alone with his bodyguard and his thoughts. Oddly enough, he didn't feel nearly as conflicted and off-kilter as he would have expected. Like, sure, his father was Hawkmoth- and Nathalie was almost 100% guaranteed to be Mayura- but at least he had the Gorilla still. Add in the fact that the Gorilla was bound to be more flexible and less restricting than Mr. Agreste when it came to Adrien (and also more caring about Adrien's emotions and friends and general well-being), and, well, there was a lot to look forward to post-Hawkmoth defeat. Maybe he would feel differently later, when his father was sitting in the police car and heading to jail, but for now all his brain could focus on was how absolutely crazy this whole situation was.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep getting to him. Honestly, this whole thing was starting to feel like some strange sort of sleep-deprived hallucination.

Most of the time, Mr. Agreste seemed like one of the most straight-laced adults ever. Nino had called him 'the definition of a stick in the mud' more than once. He seemed hyper-competent as he directed an international fashion house, making sure that details were in place and that everything would run smoothly during shows and releases. Trying to combine the image of that man with the supervillain who sent out akuma after akuma with sometimes terribly-thought-through powers, who had managed to akumatize a huge portion of Paris once and had still failed to win, who had decided that it was a good idea to hand over the box of Miraculous to an akumatized Chloe instead of hanging on to them himself or at least supervising a whole lot more closely, who had managed to out himself because he wanted to have a villain song and hadn't been careful enough to notice that Adrien and the Gorilla had returned to the house...

Well, Hawkmoth wasn't the most competent villain in the world. Not that Ladybug and Chat Noir objected to that- not at all- but it was just a funny contrast to how his civilian self operated.

Perhaps that was because universities didn't exactly have classes for Supervillain Strategy like they did for Business Management, so Mr. Agreste had been forced to learn everything on his own.

It didn't take long at all for Ladybug to return, and when she did, she wasn't on her own. A towering man in green followed her into the room, the shell hanging on his back leaving no questions to what Miraculous he held. When he stopped, a small woman stepped out behind him. Her magenta suit was tiger-striped, and Chat Noir blinked.

Well. They hadn't seen the Tiger in play before. Why Ladybug had gone for that particular one, he wasn't sure, but he trusted that it would be apparent before long.

"These are Tanker and Shadow," Ladybug explained, stepping up to join Chat Noir. "I figured that more backup would be a good thing."

"Right," Chat Noir managed. "Uh... Shadow?"

"Because tigers wait in the shadows to strike," Shadow explained. "They seem to burst out of nowhere." She grimaced. "...and I kind of came up blank when I was trying to come up with a name."

"Ah, fair enough."

"I also brought the Ox Miraculous," Ladybug said, pulling a small box out of her yo-yo and sliding it across the table to the Gorilla. "The Miraculous of strength, though I don't think anyone besides Shadow will have to activate their powers. I can give you instructions on the way over, though, just in case."

"Wait, what powers does the Tiger grant?" Chat Noir asked, trying to wrack his brain for the answer. He was pretty sure that Ladybug had mentioned powers for some of the other kwamis at some point, but he had been really tired at the time and hadn't really remembered much. "Why would she have to use her power?"

Ladybug's grin widened. "The Tiger grants the power of invisibility. And we're going to sneak into the mansion and strike before they even see us coming."

Unsurprisingly, it was very easy to slip into the mansion with the help of both superpowers and the Gorilla's knowledge of secret entrances and areas without camera coverage. Their team of five slipped through a back delivery entrance and through the kitchens, doing their best to go unnoticed despite the presence of two very large men among them. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be any household staff members around- it was the chef's day off, and the cleaning staff wouldn't come around until the next day- and so the only thing that they really needed to worry about was keeping their footsteps light and soundless.

Oxen was very good at sneaking. Tanker... well, Tanker needed some work. Thankfully, the house wasn't completely quiet at the moment.

"Once I have their Miraculous, then I'll rule the world! I will win, and I will rise. All of Paris, Akumatized! No more-"

"Sir, if I have to hear that song one more time today, I will walk out and leave you to deal with the Bernardi contract on your own," Nathalie threatened, sounding completely exasperated. "Morale-booster or no, listening to you sing the same thing over and over and over is absolutely maddening."

"My apologies, Nathalie, I wasn't even consciously trying to sing it," Mr. Agreste said. There was the sound of shuffling paper, and then he continued. "It's a little too catchy, I'll admit that. It's gotten stuck in my head now."

"I honestly cannot tell if that is a genuine problem that you're dissatisfied with, or just a way to humble-brag about how well your song turned out." Nathalie sounded fully irritated now. "You know full well that if you keep absent-mindedly singing that song, someone is going to overhear. Adrien is bound to be back from his outing with his friends at some point, and the Gorilla could very well pop in whenever."

Mr. Agreste sighed. "It is, in all honestly, actually stuck in my head and it's a problem now. I hoped that singing it a time or two more might help with that. It's what I saw recommended on the Internet. But that's a fair point. Singing it down here might be more risky than I thought. Perhaps I'll go up to the lair and try there."

"Okay, we have to stop him before he gets out of the office," Ladybug hissed. "He must have a secret entrance in there somewhere. Shadow, are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." She squared her shoulders, gripping tight to her weapon. "All right- Camouflage!"

At once, Shadow vanished, melting away into the - well, into the shadows. There was no indication of where she was at all, and Ladybug gave her several seconds before starting to creep in the direction of the office as well. The other heroes followed, pausing by the cracked-open door and waiting to hear the sound of any unnatural disturbance.

"Frankly, sir, I feel like you'd just be wasting more time," Nathalie told Mr. Agreste. There was the sound of her chair sliding back from the desk, and her taking several steps towards the center of the room and Mr. Agreste. "You've sang that song far too many times, that's why it's gotten stuck. Try finding something else to listen to. Something that won't give away your identity, or mine."

Mr. Agreste sighed. "I suppose. Would you mind reaching out to both Adrien and the Gorilla to see when we can expect them back in the house? I don't want to be listening to the radio when they come back, they'll just question it."

"Sir, if I might remind you of the existence of headphones."

Ladybug hastily pressed a hand over her mouth to muffle her giggles. Tanker's eyebrows were creeping upwards.

"This is the guy who thinks that he can rule the world?"

Gabriel Agreste gave a loud sigh of exasperation. "Very well, fine- ack!"

"Sir, whaaaaa!"

There were two dual thuds, and the superheroes leapt into action. In a moment, they bounded around the doorframe and into the office, landing in the center of the room almost soundlessly. Without even planning it, Tanker and Oxen took the lead, landing right in front of the fallen supervillains just in time for them to sit up, still groaning and rubbing their heads. When their eyes landed on the towering superheroes, they froze and turned white.

"So," Chat Noir said cheerfully, stepping out from behind Oxen and spinning his tail in a jaunty circle. "How's that morale-booster working for you?"

With the help of the adult superheroes, their final battle wasn't really a fight at all. Tanker and Ox kept Nathalie and Mr. Agreste down while Ladybug and Chat Noir snagged the Miraculous off of Mr. Agreste and Nathalie. Then they were unceremoniously frog-marched out of the house and to the curb, where they waited for the police to show up while passerbys stared.

And to add insult to injury, both Ladybug and Tanker were absentmindedly (or perhaps not-so-absentmindedly) humming Hawkmoth's song as they waited. The result was both Mr. Agreste and Nathalie looking like they were close to exploding.

Upon second thought, the humming was probably entirely intentional. It was maybe a little petty, but considering the number of times that the two villains had interrupted their day and tried to kill them and generally been unpleasant...

Chat Noir joined in on the chorus. Oxen snorted. Shadow sighed. Ladybug ducked her head in a failed attempt to hide her grin.

"I'm not even going to ask," the first of the responding police officers said with a sigh when they pulled up. "Besides- Hawkmoth and Mayura, I'm presuming?"

"Correct," Shadow told her. She nodded towards Ladybug, who extended her hand. The Peacock and Butterfly sat in the middle of her palm, glinting in the sunlight. "And we've recovered their Miraculous."

"Fantastic! Oh, Paris will be happy to hear that there won't be any more akumas." Two more police officers came up, starting to handcuff the two former supervillains. "We'll take them off of your hands now. We'll let you know if we need anything else."

"Thanks!" Ladybug told them, smiling. The superheroes stepped back, the police took control of Mr. Agreste and Nathalie, and then they were bundled off into the back of the police cars and taken away. The superheroes watched them go, then retreated back into the house before any of the lingering bystanders could ask any questions.

"Will you need us to keep helping?" Shadow asked once they had gotten inside. "Because we can certainly stay and help, if needed. Otherwise..."

"Oh, you can get back to work," Ladybug said hastily. "I can come get the Miraculous later, I know where to find you. We'll just spend a bit of time looking for Miraculous-related stuff in the house so that nothing vanishes from under our noses."

Oxen grunted, raising a hand and then pointing towards the hidden hallway and gesturing towards Shadow and Tanker. I'll show them out the back way. Ladybug and Chat Noir nodded, and then their teammates were off.

"Would it be safe to assume, do you think, that all of the Miraculous stuff would be in the office?" Ladybug asked once their footsteps had faded away into nothing. She was already looking exhausted at the thought of spending the rest of their afternoon- no, sorry, their evening, it was definitely the evening already- combing the house for what was bound to be well-hidden

"I think the office is the best spot to start," Chat Noir agreed, muffling a sudden yawn. He had been feeling fine earlier, but now- well, all of the excitement of the day was catching up with him, and he was exhausted. All of the adrenaline from the discovery and the planning had been keeping him upright. He wasn't going to leave Ladybug to do all of the work on her own, though. "Dunno how we'll get the safes open, though, unless we detransform and have our kwamis do it."

Ladybug snapped her fingers, suddenly energized again. "Actually, if we could pull Nooroo out, he could probably tell us exactly where to look! He was with Mr. Agreste long enough, surely he knew all of his secrets. Give me a moment, I'll get him out."

Chat Noir blinked. Oh. That was a pretty obvious approach, actually.

"I hope he knows where all of the hiding places are, at least," Ladybug added as she glanced towards the windows, tucking the Peacock away and pinning the Butterfly to the front of her suit. "Otherwise, we're really going to be here all night and I'll never get my homework done."

"Oh, no kidding." Chat Noir yawned again, grimacing at the reminder of homework. If he had been behind before, that was nothing compared to now. Lost time aside, he was just too tired and strung-out to be able to do it now. His teachers would probably be ticked, unless... "Hey, d'you think that finding out that my father was Hawkmoth will be enough get me an extended deadline for my assignments?"

There was a pause. Ladybug blinked at him, and Chat Noir blinked back, puzzled at her reaction. Normally Ladybug gave him at least some sort of answer when he asked her questions, so what about this time was different? Chat Noir ran over his words in his head, trying to push past the exhaustion. He had just asked her if she thought that his teachers would give him an extension on his assignments because he had found out his father was Hawkmoth-

-his father was Hawkmoth-

Whoops.

"What?!"

#Miraculous Ladybug #my writing #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #sorry for the crack

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chickensarentcheap · 4 years

Text

Best Part of Me -Chapter 82

Warnings: none

Tagging: @innerpaperexpertcloud, @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @alievans007

The storm rolls in shortly before nine; torrential rain and howling winds that rattle the windows, bend tree branches, and strip them of leaves. Both the thunder and lightning are intense and incessant; resounding booms that seem to shake the entire house and forks of silver that slice through the coal black sky. The sudden change in weather does little to improve Tyler’s mood; the pressure in the air bringing a migraine that settles in both temples and over his left eye. While the sadness and hints of guilt, regret, and even embarrassment have faded, they’ve been replaced with emotions much more profound and unsettling. Immense hatred. Blinding rage. A desperate and powerful want and need for revenge.

It’s been almost three months since it all began. Kicking off with Mahajan’s badgering of his son in regards to taking over the ‘family business’, escalating into threats against his family that grew more disturbing with each passing day, and culminating in an unwanted return to Dhaka. It’s complicated and twisted; each hour brings an added layer that only pushes the finish line further and further away. His physical pain may be worsening; but it’s his mental stability that is the most concerning. Unable to turn off the emotionally driven side of him and solely look at things from a mercenary’s point of view. He knows he’s on the edge; barely hanging on his last shred of sanity. The games have taken their toll; hearing vile things about his wife and children serving as the final nails in the coffin. Even if he does survive with his body intact, he’s not sure if his brain will be as fortunate. It’s a no win situation. Whether it’s a busted up body or a broken mind, he’ll suffer either way. And so will his family.

He places a call to Kyle’s cell phone, grimacing at the pain that shoots through his right leg and across the small of his back as he takes a seat at the end of the bed. Anil had one of his ‘people’ stop by; a physician originally from Mumbai who’d not only taken the CEO position at one of Dhaka’s private hospitals, but holds the utmost contempt for both the ghost of Amir Asif and those still pledging loyalty to him.

“He’s been dead for seven years,” he’d said. “Yet he’s still sending me patients and putting bodies in my morgue. Old, young; his drugs and his people do not discriminate.”

That had been the extent of conversation. No small talk exchanged as he put Tyler through a series of physical tests to determine the state of his mobility issues. The doctor offering little more than heavy sighs and shakes of head as he discovered things were worse than he initially suspected. Torn ligaments and tendons, the disintegration of cartilage, scar tissue. A lengthy list of things that could be causing problems but would definitely have to be properly -and extensively- investigated by a specialist. For the time being, there’s nothing anyone can do, aside from prescribing yet another painkiller with strict orders that someone else be in charge of dispensing it. He can’t be trusted to do it himself; the first one to admit that he has absolutely no control over the demon of drug addiction. And he’d been more than happy to hand over the responsibility; as long as he’d get some relief.

So far he's pleasantly surprised; the two pills he’d taken an hour ago successfully -and quickly- taking the edge off without making him feel ‘doped up’. The pain is still present, but nowhere as intense or unbearable. Relegated to a dull, continuous throb akin to the agony of a bad toothache.

Kyle answers on the third ring, giving a quick ‘hey’ followed by “I’ll get one of the kids for you.” It’s the first time they’ve spoken since right before he and Esme had left for Dhaka; Kyle still sore over the fact he’d been called out for his poor treatment of his sister.

“Hold up,” Tyler says, smirking at the sound of his brother in law’s heavy sigh. “How’s things there? And don’t bullshit me.”

“Things are okay.”

“Okay as in good or okay as in they could be better?"

“If you’re just asking about the kids, then things are okay as in good. Ovi and I are making sure we keep them busy; filling their days up. And they’re happy as they can be when they’re missing both their mom and dad as much as they are. It’s hard on them; both of you being gone. But they’re doing alright. They’re coping. We’re busting our asses to make sure they don’t catch wind of what’s really going on.”

“Thanks for that. Esme and I appreciate it. Keep an eye on Millie though. She figured everything out, and while she promised she wouldn’t say anything to her brothers, I wouldn’t put it past her if they pissed her off enough. Nothing she loves more than tormenting those two.”

Kyle gives a small chuckle. “I’ll keep an eye on her. There hasn’t been any actual fights so far, but she has threatened to beat their asses a few times. You know, she’s a mind fuck that kid. She’s so sweet and cute to look at…

“But she’s a total savage,” Tyler finishes for him.

“Exactly. She doesn’t take any shit. Esme was like that as a kid; no one dared messing with her because she’d beat the ever loving hell out of them. Small, but tough. How is she? She doing okay?”

“She’s hanging in there. Just ready for all this to be over. Sooner the better. Anything going on there? Anything weird or suspicious or…”

“Other than Anil going ape shit on all the nannies and replacing them all? Things have been pretty quiet. There’s been a couple little things here and there; people getting too close to the house, calling here and hanging up, dead cat thrown over the fence.”

“That’s all rookie stuff. Someone trying to unnerve ya. I wouldn’t put too much stock into it; guys who can really do damage start bigger and end even bigger. They don’t bother with bullshit like that. You’ll call, yeah? If things get any weirder?”

“I will,” Kyle promises. “Keep my little sister safe, okay? I wish she wasn’t involved in this at all, but..”

“She’s safe with me. She always is. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her. You know that.”

“Yeah, I do. But I wish she’d never gotten dragged into all of this in the first place. And I’m not talking now. I’m talking seven years ago. If you’d just thought of her instead of yourself…”

“Is that daddy?” Millie’s voice interrupts Kyle before he can launch into his tirade. “Mommy said daddy was going to call us. Is that him? Can I talk to him? I want to talk to him.”

There’s a slight rustling noise as the phone is passed from person to person, and the first smile of the day manages to make its way to his face when his daughter greets him with a cheerful “Hi daddy! I miss you!”

He tries not to think about it; the threat made against her and the knowledge of what would be done to her. She’s only six. Still a baby. HIS baby. “Hey,” he says. “Hey baby girl.”

“Mommy said you’d call and you did! She said you were feeling a bit sad ‘cause you miss us so much.”

“I am a bit sad,” Tyler admits. “I do miss you guys. You being good?”

“I’m trying. But TJ really tests my patience. He’s so annoying! Why does he have to be so annoying?”

“Because he knows it bothers you. Just try to ignore him”

“It’s hard!” Millie laments. “It’s really, REALLY hard. It’s like he wants me to punch him in the face.”

“Well I’d rather you didn’t punch anyone in the face.”

“But I’m not a pacifist. I’d rather ‘pass a fist’.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“I’m not a snitch. Snitches get stitches.”

“How about you rein in your temper a bit,” he suggests. “Just take it from the source. He’s doing it to get a reaction. Don’t give him one. That’ll irritate him and he’ll get bored and back off. How are you? You doing okay?”

“I’m okay, I guess. I miss home. Can we go back soon? Are you almost done your work? I really want to go home.”

“So do I. And it’ll be over soon.”

“And then you and mommy will come and get us and take us home?”

“As soon as it’s over. Once it’s done, we’ll come and get you guys. I promise.”

“Maybe next time we go on a trip, we can go to Disney World. That would be fun.”

“Have you been talking to Tanner?”

“Maybe…” Millie sing songs.

“Tell you what, when we get home, your mom and I will talk about it, okay?”

“Okay. Is it stormy where you are? It’s really stormy here. It’s kinda scary! The thunder is really loud and it’s really windy. It never gets THIS bad at home. We get storms, but they’re not as scary as this one. I wish you were here; it wouldn’t be as scary. You always built a fort in the living room so we can all sleep together and we won’t be afraid. You always make it fun. Like we’re on a camping trip. We forget about being scared when you’re with us. I wish you were here, daddy.”

He swallows around the lump of emotion sitting square in his throat. “I wish I was there too.”

“Did you watch my video? I sent it to your email. Did you get it?”

“I did. But I haven’t watched it yet. I was going to do that before bed. So I could have good dreams instead of bad ones.”

“That’s a good idea! Maybe you can send ME a video and I can watch it before bed and that way I’LL have good dreams too.”

“You know what I’ll do? I’ll make a video for all of you and then you can all watch it before bed. Sound good?”

“Sounds good!”

“I gotta go. I’ve got an important meeting I have to get to. But I’ll make the video and I’ll send it to Auntie Nik’s email. You tell her I’m doing that, okay?”

“Okay. I miss you, daddy. I love you.”

“I miss you too. And I love you. ALL of you. So much. And I’ll see you guys in a few days.”

“You promise?”

“Yeah.” He hopes he sounds more confident than he feels. “I promise.”

****

It takes four attempts before he gets a usable video to send to the kids; trying to keep it light and cheerful and finding himself stumbling over his words and fighting back tears. The last thing he wanted was to turn a bedtime message into something so dark and depressing. Even Millie -who is incredibly intuitive and had known from the start that Mumbai wasn’t a normal family holiday- doesn’t know the full extent of just how serious things are. He doesn’t want to scare them; seeing daddy emotional will only cause them to ask questions no one truly has answers for. And it would only send their fears and anxiety -especially Tanner’s- through the roof. In the end he’d been able to hold it together. Reciting one of their favorite bedtime stories by heart and telling them how much he loves them and misses them; promising that they’ll all be heading home soon. The latter had actually helped lift his own spirits. Saying the words out loud doing wonders for his confidence; the promise itself -and not wanting to break it- giving his motivation a desperately needed kick in the ass.

By the time he journeys downstairs, Yaz has already arrived; joining Esme, Koen, Rata and two of Anil’s men -who’d been ordered to help out in each and every way possible- in the living room. And the younger man pauses in the setting up of his laptop in order to greet Tyler with a warm, tight hug and a playful backhand to an unshaven cheek. He sees the exhaustion that clouds Yaz’ eyes and dampens his smile; his own fears and worries revolving around a heavily pregnant girlfriend back home. It’s been hell on everyone; long hours and restless sleep and one stumbling block after another. There’s finally some light at the end of that very long and winding tunnel. It’s faint, but at least it’s there.

He pours himself a coffee from the freshly brewed pot in the kitchen and then joins the others. Returning Esme’s smile as she looks up at him, giving her a wink before taking a seat beside her and then pressing a kiss to her temple as he leans into her. Her hand slides along his inner thigh and then settles on his knee; squeezing lightly before her fingers locate the most tender area and begin digging and manipulating. She doesn’t need to be asked; always knowing where the painful spots are and never hesitating to provide even the smallest bit of relief.

“I hope this weather isn’t some kind of bloody omen,” Raka grumbles. Nervously bouncing his legs and both jumping and looking towards the sliding glass doors with each boom of thunder that shakes the house.

“Forty damn years old and he’s scared of a wee storm,” Koen scoffs.

Rata glares at him. “A wee storm? Sounds like Mother Nature is getting ready to blow shit up!”

“Do you need your favorite blanket? A warm bottle of milk? Someone to cuddle with you? It’s nothing but some wind and a bit of rain.”

“That’s more than just some wind and some rain!” his friend argues. “It’s like the end of the world out there! And if this some kind of omen about how things are going to go down…”

“Ain’t no bloody omen!” Koen laughs “Don’t tell me you believe in all that shit. Signs and karma and all that hoodoo voodoo, hocus pocus crap!”

“I d0n’t know,” Esme says, as she reaches for a mug of tea sitting on the coffee table. “I like to think that karma exists and that it finally caught up to my ex. Because if anyone deserved to be hit head on by the karma bus, it was him.”

Tyler nods in agreement and takes a swig of coffee.

“So what’s it looking like?” Koen addresses Yaz. “End getting close or what?”

“Depends on what news you guys have for me. I know where I stand on my end of things. What about over here?”

“I was able to get an extra twenty four hours,” Esme says. “But I really had to up the ante; an extra five million wasn’t going to cut it. I had to promise another ten. I tried to talk them down, but it was either the extra ten or pieces of Neysa and Aarev start washing up on the shores of Buriganga in a few days' time.”

“And Anil was willing to up that much?” Yaz asks. “IF it comes down to having to pay the ransom?”

“He didn’t hesitate when I told him. I don’t know where he gets all his money from, but he acted like it was nothing more than pocket change. He’s prepared to pay IF all else fails. But they still won’t give me proof of life unless I agree to meet them at Asif’s house and have them take me to where they’re being held.”

“Which is NOT happening,” Tyler says. “There’s no way in hell that’s happening.”

“Now hold on a second,” Koen speaks up. “It’s the way that makes the most sense.”

Tyler frowns. “What are you talking about? It makes no sense. You really think they’re going to keep their word? That they won’t hurt her? They’ll use her as bait. She won’t get anywhere near Neysa and Aarev; they won’t take her there. They’ll keep her at Asif’s and do God knows what to her until I show up to get her out.”

“She won’t be going alone,” Koen points out.

“I don’t give a shit if there’s ten of you going with her. She’s not doing this. She’s not going there. No fucking way.”

“But when they take her there...US there...you just follow behind and…”

“You’re not hearing me, mate. They won’t take her anywhere. They’ll kill you, then use her to bait me. And they’ll do all kinds of sick and twisted shit to her. You’re just going to take them at their word that they won’t hurt her? I know you’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you’re not THAT stupid.”

“Okay….” Esme speaks up. “...why don’t we all calm down and talk through all of this rationally. There’s got to be another way to find out where Neysa and Aarev are that doesn’t involve having to go to Asif’s house. We all know it’s a trap. We can’t trust a single word they say and there no doubt in my mind they’d keep me in order to get Tyler to show up.”

“She’s NOT going,” Tyler stresses. “End of story. After tonight, her part in this is down. She did everything we needed her to do. Enough’s enough. I’m not risking her or the…” he catches himself. “...I’m not risking her. We gotta find another way.”

“I think I have one.” Yaz says. “It unfortunately does involve sending people to Asif’s house, but not in an official capacity. What if I can get people to plant tracking devices on a few of the cars that are always coming in and out of there? We’ve had eyes on that place since we got here; there’s a constant flow of the same six vehicles going in and out at all hours of the day. If I can get some guys close enough to put some GPS trackers in place, we just sit back and see if any of them visit a storage facility.”

“The storage thing was just something I pulled out of my ass,” Tyler admits. “What I saw in the pictures and the videos reminded me of where we held McMann. That’s the only reason I said. Could be a factory or a warehouse for all I know.”

“What if it’s Asif’s basement?” Esme asks. “Does that place have one? Or a cold cellar or something like that? Cements walls and floors? Could be a basement or a cellar of some kind. It would explain no windows.”

“Well that makes it even more complicated if it is,” Koen grumbles. “How would we ever find that out? We can’t just go on up and knock on the front door and ask for a tour.”

“Any way of getting eyes in there?” Tyler asks Yaz. “It wouldn’t hurt ruling it out. Kind of fitting if it is where they’re holding them. Almost like they’re offering them up as some sacrifice to Asif. Appease the Gods of whatever the fuck they believe in.”

“I’d have to study the blueprints again,” Yaz says. “I didn’t see a basement, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. A lot could have changed since the originals were made; people renovate and add on all the time. We definitely need to check it out. Better to be safe than sorry, right?”

“Can you do it?” Tyler inquires. “Get eyes in there?”

“It’ll be hard. But I’m sure I can come up with something. There’s got to be a way of getting in there without tripping the alarms or grabbing their attention. I’ll work on it.”

“I think the bigger worry right now is the bridges,” Esme pipes up. “Koen and I saw it with our own eyes. They are locked down and both the police AND the military are manning the road blocks. And they have pictures of me, of Tyler, and they’re comparing them to everyone that goes in or out. Whether they’re walking or driving.”

“They do have them locked pretty tight,” Koen confirms. “There’s no way we could get him across without him being seen.”

“What about going in from the north?” Esme suggests. “Does anyone know if they’ve got things blocked off up there too? If you go north into one of the smaller towns, you can backtrack your way into Dhaka, You can’t send a chopper right into the city; you just can’t. Not when even the police and military are wanting to cash in on the bounty. A chopper is big and noisy and that’s way too much attention right off the hop. But if you take one into one of the towns north of the city, you can drive back in. IF there’s no roadblocks that way.”

“That’s a big if,” Tyler says.

“I can send some people to check it out,” Yaz offers. “There’s a lot of remote areas north of Dhaka. Could them in, get them to see what’s going and probably have an answer in five or six hours. Gotta mobilize them first. Have they sent anything? For proof of life? Any pictures, videos…?”

“The last proof Anil received was three days ago,” Esme sighs. “Nothing since.”

“So they could be dead,” Koen concludes.

“There’s no way they’re dead,” Tyler says. “They need them alive. They know if I don’t come there, they’re going to have to settle for the cash. Which means they have thirty million reasons to keep them alive.”

Or they could kill them and just let on that they’re alive,” Koen argues. “Bait you there with the impression that they ARE still breathing.”

“That’s highly unlikely,” Yaz speaks up. “This is a huge pay day for these guys. If Tyler bails, the money is all they have. They’ll take it.”

“Then why not just bail?” Rata asks. “Why not just say ‘fuck it’ and get out of here? Just let Anil give them the money. Hand over the cash and Neysa and Aarev go free, that’s it.”

“It isn’t just about Neysa and Aarev,” Esme reminds him. “It started with the threats against them and it escalated into a whole lot more. WAY more than any of us thought it would. Did any of us image it would get this far? Did any of us really think it would get this bad? It never should have led to this.”

“This is about my family too,” Tyler adds. “Look at all the shit that’s been said. About my wife, about my kids. You think I’m really going to sit back and let them get away with it? If it was you girl, would you just tuck your tail between your legs and run?”

“Of course I wouldn’t. I’d fight too. But haven’t we fought enough? We took care of all those people on that list. Just like we were supposed to. It’s not our fault that Mahajan changed the game when he grabbed the woman and the kid. We did what we set out to do. So why don’t we just say fuck it and go home?”

“Why don’t YOU just say fuck and go home?” Tyler retorts. “If you can’t handle it, just say so. If you’re scared to do this…”

“I’m not scared of shit!” Rata interjects. “I just don't understand why we keep busting our asses like this. Haven’t we done enough? We got all the names checked off the list, Anil is going to take care of Mahajan. We’re done.”

“We are NOT done.” Esme argues. “They have Neysa and Aarev. And Nathan. Did you forget about him? I know he’s no one’s favorite, but they have him too. We can’t just leave them there.”

“And we can’t leave Asif’s people alive,” Koen adds “They’re too much of a threat; especially to Esme and the kids. We leave them alive and they’ll always pose a threat. We have to get rid of them so Tyler and his family can leave in peace.”

“If you want to go, go,” Tyler says. “You want to walk away, no one will fault you for it. This has been sheer fucking hell from day one. If you’re tired and you’ve had enough then just walk away. I won’t hold it against you.”

“I sure as hell will,” Koen snarls.

“I ain’t leaving you two useless assholes here!” Rata protests. “Someone has to make sure things get done right. Might as well be me.”

Koen gives a derisive snort and shakes his head.

“Well it’s true,” Rata mutters, and leans back against the couch, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m the one who’s been doing it all right since the beginning.”

“I’ll get trackers on the cars right away and send people north,” Yaz announces, and snaps the lid on his laptop closed. “We’re in the end game now. Everyone needs to keep on their toes and be ready to go at any given moment.”

“What happens when we get where we’re going?” Koen asks. “When the shooting starts? That’s going to bring a whole lot of attention our way. We’re going to have every fucking drongo in Dhaka showing up. Regular people, cops, military. How do we deal with all of that?”

“That’s why we have guns,” Tyler informs him. “They shoot at you, you shoot back. And shoot to kill. Injuring them will do shit. You gotta put them down and put them for good.”

“What if someone creates a few distractions on the bridges?” Esme addresses Yaz “I’m sure Anil has some extra people he can lend or even people here in Dhaka that he can convince to go against Asif. If we have people causing a disturbance on the bridges, all the attention will be down by the water.”

“Not just a pretty face,” Koen teases, and shoots her a playful wink.

“I like that idea,” Rata enthuses, “Stir up some chaos. Shoot some people, blow some shit up.”

“Well I was thinking relatively non violent,” Esme says. “But yeah, that works too.”

“Just remember to not shoot unless you’re being shot at,” Yaz instructs. There’s a lot of Dhaka. Good, innocent people. We don’t want their deaths on our hands. Know your target before engaging. And believe me, you’ll know your targets.”

“They don’t waste time shooting,” Esme adds. “Thankfully, most of them can’t shoot for shit. So your chances are pretty good that you won’t get hit.”

“Until they shoot you from behind,” Tyler smirks. “Then all of a sudden they’re really good shots.” He immediately regrets saying it; noticing the way Esme’s entire body stiffens and hears the heavy sigh that escapes her lips.

“Ask me, that was just luck,” Yaz remarks. “Extremely bad on your part, extremely good on his.”

“Can we NOT talk about?” Esme irritably requests. “We don’t need to talk about this.”

“Gonna need eyes in the back of our heads,” Rata grumbles. “If these fuckers are known for cutting you down from behind. I don’t want to be catching one in the throat. I wouldn’t be so lucky, that’s for sure.”

“No sense rehashing all of that,” Yaz attempts to derail the conversation. “It was a long time ago. Let’s concentrate on now and…”

“I’m just saying,” Rata continues. “If we got kids out there putting bullets in our backs or our necks…”

“Enough,” Tyler orders. “We all know what happened. We don’t need to talk about it.”

“You got lucky,” his friend informs him. “Someone was there to save your ass. All you bastards would high tail it out of there and let me fend for myself.”

“This conversation is not for me,” Esme declares, and shrugs Tyler’s hand off her shoulder when he tries to prevent her from standing up. “I’m not talking about this. I don’t even want to hear about it. Bad enough I had to go through it. Last thing I want to do is relive it.”

The next thirty second feels as if it lasts thirty minutes. Tension filled silence and a painful awkwardness; all four men attempting to avoid eye contact with one another and trying not to acknowledge the obvious tears sparkling in Esme’s eyes and the way she drops her empty mug into the sink with a loud clatter. Or the way she hurries from the room; light footsteps impossibly loud on the stairs.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Koen angrily elbows Rata in the ribs. “You know we don’t talk about that. We never talk about that.”

“It’s been seven years! I didn’t think it would be such a big deal.”

“It’s a big fucking deal! To her, anyway. You better start kissing some serious ass, you fucking drongo!”

As his friends continue to bicker, Tyler leans forward and places his forearms on his thighs. Eyes on his feet as the fingers of his right hand fidget with his wedding band; twirling it back and forth, pulling it up to the knuckle and sliding it back down again A nervous habit that creeps up when his anxiety rears its ugly head or the PTSD is gearing up to unleash hell.

Yaz slips into the empty seat beside him, then leans in close. “Still a sore spot for her, huh?”

Tyler nods in confirmation.

“It won’t be much longer until go time. Think she’s going to be able to handle it?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I honestly don’t know.”

******

He manages an hour and a half of sleep. Waking to the sounds of Esme muttering and whimpering beside him. Her body drawn impossibly tight and her hands tightly gripping the bottom sheet; heels digging into the mattress as if trying to push herself away from an attacker. He opted not to shake her awake, wanting to avoid sending her into a panic and turning her extremely combative. He’d learned the hard way how NOT to handle a night terror. Confronted by a five foot nothing woman with the sudden strength of three grown men and having to physically restrain her until the nightmare released her from its clutches and she came out of it on her own.

Instead he took the easier approach. Rolling over onto his side and laying an arm across her midsection and draping one leg over both of hers and effectively keeping her flailing limbs and trembling body still. A forearm resting lightly on the top of her head and his fingers reaching for her face; gently clearing tears off of her cheeks and lightly tracing random patterns on her forehead and down the bridge of her nose. Within minutes she’d been successfully comforted. Body finally stilling, tears ceasing, eyes never opening as she issued a heavy sigh and moved onto her side.

After that, all hope of getting back to sleep had abandoned him, and for the last hour he’s been lying there in silence. Holding her as tightly as her body will allow him to; face buried in her hair as he listens to her soft, rhythmic breathing. And when her body grows uncomfortable with the heat radiating from his own and the weight of his limbs becomes too much, she moves away and he gives up on rest entirely. Sliding out of bed and then bunching up both of his pillows and placing them -one on top of the other, lengthwise- behind her back. If she rolls over in her sleep and blindly reaches for him, she’ll at least discover the pillows; his scent hopefully enough to comfort her.

He’d fallen asleep fully clothed. Wanting to be ready at the drop of a hat; whether it be a phone call from Yaz or a threat on their doorstep. And he picks up the holster -gun securely stored inside- from it resting on the nightstand; clipping it to the waist of his jeans and then shoving his feet into his combat boots, lacing them tightly before leaving the room.

He grabs some fresh air; giving the guards a nod in greeting as he steps out onto the back porch. While the storm had settled hours ago, it had brought no relief. Heat near stifling, the humidity already oppressive; causing sweat to quickly bead across his forehead and to gather at his temples and the nape of his neck. The air is thick and heavy, yet he barely notices it as he sits on the edge of the deck. Jaw firmly set, elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped together; eyes dark and staring out into the stillness of the night. He neither sees or acknowledges anything around him. Not the movement of the guards patrolling the darkened perimeter or their quiet conversation. Not the faint music coming from the neighbouring home or the chirping of the crickets.

His mind is switching over now, and soon his senses and instincts will kick into high gear; his brain thinking of nothing but the task directly in front of him. The adrenaline is starting to build; that rush of blood in your veins and the anticipation that causes your heart to speed up and your stomach to flutter. For now he’s still experiencing other emotions as well; worry, nervousness, fear. Haunted by the thought that he could be called upon at any given moment and he many never return to his old life. To that sprawling, beautiful home on the beach with its million dollar view. To the sound of his children laughing and playing. To kissing his wife good morning when she wanders into the kitchen clad in one of his t-shirts. To kissing her goodnight and having that warm, supple body snuggled into his; her breath tickling his skin and that familiar smell clinging to her hair.

It’s shortly before one in the morning when he heads back inside. The house shrouded in silence; the open concept living, dining, and kitchen area illuminated only by the light above the stove. Instead of returning upstairs, he sinks into the easy chair in the living room; relieved that he’s able to stretch out his legs without wincing or groaning from discomfort. The two pills he’d taken almost three hours ago effectively reducing both his pain and stiffness yet not leaving him groggy or with altered senses. It’s a temporary fix; he knows long term usage is out of the questions. His body will get accustomed to both the drug and the dosage and soon the need for more will start. The cravings will kick in soon afterwards, and he’ll find himself desperate for a fix and willing to do anything to get it. Seeking out a doctor is the safest and only hope he has; whether it be through extensive physio or surgery. And he’s more than willing to put in the time and the effort. After all, it’s the only way he’ll be able to keep his life from falling apart.

“Tyler?”

His eyes snap open at the sound of her voice, and he glances towards where she’s paused at the middle landing of the stairs. “Yeah?”

“Just checking to see if it was you. I didn't want to come down there and sit on someone and find out the hard way it’s Koen.”

“Might give the guy a heart attack. Probably the most attention he’s had from a woman in a long time.”

“Everything okay?” she asks, as she descends the remaining stairs and joins him; settling herself sideways on his lap with her legs dangling over the arm of the chair.

“Everything’s good.”

“You feeling alright?” She pushes a hand through his hair, palm settling at the back of his head, nails lightly massaging his scalp.

“I’m feeling pretty good, actually. Those meds are doing their job. For now anyway.” He turns his face into hers and places a kiss to each corner of her mouth before covering it with his own. One hand sliding up and down her back as the other settles on her hip. “You okay? You were having a pretty bad dream, huh?”

She nods in confirmation.

“Want to tell me about it?”

“Not really,” she says, and rests the side of her head on his shoulder.

“So it was about me?”

Another nod.

“That bad?”

“Bad enough. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t have to,” he assures her, and rests the tip of his nose against his forehead, feeling the tickle of her lashes when she closes her eyes.

“Nice attempt with the pillows though,” she says.

“It usually works.”

“I woke up completely this time. And then I panicked; I was worried you’d gotten the call and left without saying bye.”

“I’d never leave without telling you. We have our thing, yeah? Shit we always say to each other before I go? It’s like my good luck charm; say those words and everything will go right.”

“It’s held up so far. You started saying it when you went back to the job the first time and you’ve been saying it ever since.”

“Pretty good track record. I wouldn’t risk screwing things up by leaving without waking you up and telling you. You sure you’re alright? Dream still got you rattled?”

“A little,” she admits. “It was scary. And gruesome. I haven’t had one that bad in a long time.”

“Thought you didn’t want to talk about it?”

“I don’t.” She nuzzles the side of his neck with the tip of her nose, then presses a kiss to it. “It was bad…” her voice cracks. “...it was really bad.”

“It’s okay…” the hand on her back moves up to her hair, slightly stroking it as his other hand rubs her hips. “...everything’s fine. I’m right here.”

“For now.”

“We knew this was coming.”

“Doesn’t make it any easier. I know you have to go, but it doesn’t mean I want you to.”

“Would it make you feel better if I wore my lucky underwear?”

“You didn’t bring them. I packed your bag, remember?”

“And you didn’t put them in? What’s wrong with you?”

“The only thing those underwear are lucky for is making babies. Declan, Addie. I bet you were wearing them when this one was made too.”

A hand moves to the small baby bump already straining against her pyjamas pants. “I wasn’t wearing any.”

“You don’t even know what day this one was made on. How do you know if you were wearing underwear or not? You can’t remember what you had for breakfast most days.”

“I figure if I don’t wear them six days a week, the chances are pretty high that I wasn’t wearing any that day.”

“Maybe THAT’S why your sperm is so good. You’re not suffocating them all the time. They're free range. They’re not penned in and they can come and go as they please. Like how the chickens in Colorado used to poop out butt nuggets everywhere.”

Tyler chuckles. “Butt nuggets.”

“I used to call eggs that all the time when I was a kid,” Esme muses. “My dad taught me. We’d have a big family breakfast every Sunday; like we do now. And he’d always ask me how I wanted my butt nuggets cooked. My mom would get so mad! She hated that we were so close. I think in a way she was jealous. I was her first girl and I wanted nothing to do with her. She couldn’t figure out that she was the reason I didn’t want to be around her. And here we are, thirty some years later and she still has no clue. Makes me sad for our kids; they don’t even have one grandmother. Your mom would have been so good with them. I just know it. Her only kid...her son...having kids of his own?”

“She would have spoiled the hell out of them. She would have loved them; there’s no doubt about that.”

“She’d be so proud of you. For how you turned out.”

“Something tells me she wouldn’t he completely on board with the whole hired gun thing.”

“I’m not talking about that. I mean how you turned out as a man. If she was alive right now, she’d know all the struggles you went through and saw all the battles you fought and how you beat every single one. And she’d see how you turned out as a husband and a father despite not having the best role model to emulate.”

“Growing up I told myself that I’d never be like him. That I’d never turn out like that.”

“And you didn’t. You work hard at it every single day; to not be like him. It would have been so easy for you; to end up the same way. But you went in the opposite direction.”

“You keep forgetting that the first time didn’t turn out so good.”

“You were a kid when you got married the first time,” Esme reasons. “And judging by the stories I’ve heard she wasn’t exactly wife material.”

“She had her flaws , that’s for sure. One of them just happened to fucking anyone that showed interest.”

“Well if you ask me, she must have been crazy. Cheating on the likes of you? Why give up filet mignon for ground beef?”

“So I really AM just a piece of meat to you,” he teases, and she giggles when he kisses the side of her neck and playfully pinches her side.

“I’m just saying that I don’t get it. Why do you cheat when you have an amazingly hot husband that’s a god in bed? There has to be something seriously wrong with someone. And don’t get me started on how you were deployed when she would do it. Your husband is off...in the Middle East...getting shot at it and trying not to get blown up by roadside bombs...and you’re back home serving as the base slut? That’s the lowest of the low!”

“I guess both of us weren’t very good judges of character when we were younger.”

“There is a bright side though. To what we both went through the first time around.”

“What’s the bright side?”

“Well if things had been wonderful in either of our first marriages, neither of us would have ended up doing the job. You probably would have stayed in the military and I probably would have been a happy little housewife. In the PTA and driving a minivan and taking the kids to soccer and drinking Starbucks.”

“You take the kids to soccer now. Except it’s a thermos with homemade coffee with Bailey’s in it. “

“That’s in the cooler weather. When it’s hot, it’s pink lemonade with vodka.”

He grins and presses a kiss to her forehead.

“Hey, it’s not the most exciting sport in the world; I have to get through it somehow. And I also have to survive all the thirsty females that show up whenever you coach. I don’t know how they know when it’s your turn, but that many never show when you’re not there. And they show up in their slutty little outfits and their make up done. And there I am; no makeup, ball cap on yoga pants and UGG boots and one of your hoodies. And you wonder why I have self confidence issues.”

“Who cares about the thirsty women? I only have eyes for you, you know that.”

“I care when they’re openly discussing my husband’s ass and his muscles and his bulge.”

“You should have married an uglier guy with a small dick then,” Tyler teases.

“I did that with my first marriage. I traded up the second time around.”

“Just ignore them. I do. I don’t pay attention to them. I don’t need to. I’m already married to the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Wow…” she’s grinning as she pulls back to look at him. “...do you ever know how to lay it on thick.”

“It’s the truth. That’s how I see you. I’ve always seen you that way. It’s how I’ll always see you. So fuck ‘em. Who’s the one I go home with? Who’s the one I share a bed with every night?”

“Me. Lucky little old me.”

“Exactly. It’s always been you. It always will be. I choose you every day.”

“Even when my hair hasn’t been washed in four days and I’ve got baby puke on my clothes and dark circles under my eyes and I’m a raging bitch?”

“Even then.”

“Now THAT is true love,” she says, and places both hands on the side of his as she kisses him. Nothing hurried or overly needy; soft and languid, lips moving slowly against one another. And when she pulls away he sees the tears that sparkle in her eyes and the way the corners of her mouth droop.

“Baby…” he combs his fingers through her hair, then kisses the bridge of her nose and cradles her cheek in the palm of his hand. “...don’t…”

“I don’t want you to go. I know you have to; it’s the only way this will ever be finished. But I still don’t want you to leave. I wish there was another way; to end all of this.”

“Believe me, so do I.”

“I’m scared. This is the most scared I’ve ever been. I wasn’t even this scared seven years ago.”

“We barely knew each other then,” he reasons. “But now…”

“There’s so much to lose. Way too much. If something happens to you…”

“Stop…” he lays a hand on the back of her head and draws it down to his, pressing their brows together. “...just stop.”

“You have to come back for me. You HAVE to. Promise me you’ll come back for me.”

“Esme…”

“Promise me, Tyler,” she pleads, fingers tightly gripping his hair. “Promise me.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t.”

“At least promise you’ll try? That you’ll do whatever it takes to get back here. Can you promise me that at least?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” he vows, and places a kiss on her forehead. “I promise.”

#Tyler Rake #Tyler Rake fan fic #Tyler Rake fan fiction #Extraction #Extraction 2020 #Extraction fan fiction #Chris Hemsworth character #best part of me

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turtlepated · 4 years

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The Handbook for the Recently Married (to the Deceased)

Chapter 2:

[TW: mild peril. It’s not explicit or graphic, but there is mention of hanging. I debated for a bit whether to keep this part brief so I could get to the next bit which I’m really looking forward to writing faster, but it feels like this is a better segue than jumping right in feet first.]

Tag list: @sapphic-florals , @beetlejuicebeadoll , @do-ya-hear-that-sound , @imtherain , @imsuchahobbit , @pastelnacht , and @tialanderrol

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I discovered quickly that the disembodied noises that echoed around me in what was apparently a vast empty space containing nothing my myself, the slide, and the distant door were emanating from the living room. Whatever the cackling green-haired guy in the stripes and his teenaged cohort were getting up to, they were evidently having a blast. Every few minutes it seemed I could hear peals of laughter, screams, dull sounds of impact as of people jumping around and even dancing. I was fairly sure that strains of upbeat music drifted to me, some sort of loud and boisterous song about a beautiful sound? I kept climbing, working my way steadily up the slide toward the landing that floated disconnected from any structure and the door that stood upon it.

Over the subsequent hours as I rose incrementally higher, the formerly indistinct voices on the other side of the door sharpened enough that I caught snatches of the conversations. I had no trouble recognizing the exuberant, raspy voice of the man in the stripes, so I came to the conclusion that the teenaged girl was named “Lydia,” since he said the name several times with evident reference to her. His name was harder to pin down, since Lydia only ever seemed to refer to him with nicknames: “Beej”, “BJ”, “Bug Juice”. But they were clearly making the most of whatever strange and unusual dynamic they had going on, judging by the terrified screams that I could only imagine came from other hapless guests at the door.

At some point I heard mention of some sort of handbook, then Lydia asking insistently, urgently about using the book to find her mother. Parts of the conversation were incomprehensible to me, but I overheard enough to pick up on the fact that Lydia was taking the book upstairs? Were there other people in the house after all? The man? demon? ghost? that she called BJ (it was very ambiguous just what he was) yelled plaintively after her and I heard his words with perfect clarity: “You’re leaving me? But what am I supposed to do?!” There was a desperation in his voice that surprised me, as though he had suddenly found himself adrift and unsure without his partner in crime even though she had only stepped out of the room. He lamented his loneliness to an unknown audience, though it was difficult to determine how much of it was genuine emotion and how much was play-acting. But on some level I understood how he professed to feel. I wasn’t a stranger to loneliness and disconnect and unfulfillment. Perhaps there was more to him than I’d given him credit for. I paused in my ascent, frowning deeply. What was that? Where had it come from? This….person had terrorized and attacked me! I should not be empathizing with him!

“After all I’ve done for her! Alone… again…” Even with his grating, sandpaper-to-the-ear-canal voice, I couldn’t ignore the hurt that seeped into his tone anymore than I could ignore the twinge it caused in my chest because, in spite of everything, at the very least I understood that hurt. I was so taken aback by this revelation that I missed the next part of his speech, a portion of which was again delivered in song form and included allusions to a “super evil plan going down.” I licked my lips and resumed my uphill battle with renewed fervor. Whatever that moment had been, whatever those feelings may have been, I was more than ready to get out of here before anything else horrible happened.

As I drew closer to the landing, things upstairs seemed to go quiet for awhile. Minutes or maybe hours later, it was hard to keep track of time in this strange empty place, I heard more hushed voices. But these were unfamiliar. One was a man, whispering loudly for Lydia. Maybe it was her parents! Maybe they could get me out of here. I started shouting for help, but it became apparent that while I could hear them, they could not hear me. At long last, I was nearing the end of my ordeal. The landing was just a few feet ahead of me, if I kept going in no time at all I’d be able to pull myself up onto flat ground for the first time in what seemed like ages. I couldn’t help the grin that split my face when I finally, finally grabbed hold of the bannister at the top of the slide and hauled myself up and onto my feet. Triumph and relief were overwhelming me and I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. But that decision could wait, it was time to get the hell out of this place!

All at once the activity in the house above me resumed with more ferocity than before: raised voices shouting things I couldn’t quite make out, a strange mechanical sound, a rumbling like thunder. Over it all I heard Lydia speaking loudly, practically screaming out some sort of rhyming verse: “Spirit nearest, hearts entwine! Love infernal, shades unbind!” The landing lurched under my feet and I staggered with a frightened gasp, grasping the door handle in one hand and the railing with the other. Everything shook, the house groaned around us as though it were trying to wrench free of its foundations. “Lydia!” “What’s going on?!” I had to agree with the sentiment, but I was more focused on getting the door open as everything around me continued to shudder as though in an earthquake. “I summon thee, lend Ceres’ breath! Devoted soul, released from death!” I twisted the knob, flung open the door, and hurled myself through.

Curiously I landed flat on my belly with a grunt, finding that I had apparently emerged from the fireplace on the opposite side of the room from the stairs to the basement. The sight that met my eyes could not have been stranger if it had been written in a script. The entire room was bathed in the ghostly bluish-purple light emanating from a squat machine placed on a plinth. Standing in the living room with their backs to me were two men and woman I hadn’t seen before. Lydia stood on the first landing of the stairs, looking down on us all. Her face looked pale and stricken in the draining violet light. A blood curdling scream made me leap to my feet. There was another couple in the room, a man in a green plaid shirt and brown khakis and a pretty blond woman in a floral printed dress. She was floating a couple feet off the floor, her eyes wide and round and unfocused as she shrieked again. “What did you do?!” demanded the man beside her, frantic, gripping her by the wrist and trying uselessly to pull her back to the floor. “I don’t know!” Lydia cried, thumbing wildly through a thick, battered book. “It was supposed to be my mom!”

The floating woman screamed again, sounding like she was in agony. The man beside her looked helplessly from one face to another of the assorted onlookers. “Somebody help! What’s happening to her?!” A familiar, gravelly voice sneered loudly from all directions, thrumming in the air, making the furnishings and décor rattle on the walls. “Exorcism: death for the dead!” There came a flash of burning red light and he appeared again, the man in the stripes. He looked different than he had when he chased me into the basement. Before, even when he was tearing his face off to scare me, there had been this playfulness about him, like it was all in good gross fun. That was gone now, his entire countenance was much more demonic. His hair, formerly bright grassy green, had turned a fiery, angry red as he pointlessly adjusted the frayed cuffs of his suit jacket.

“Hey guys! Awesome séance!” he snarled in sing-song, snapping his fingers in a whip-quick gesture that made the overhead light fixtures explode in a shower of sparks that rained down on our heads. “Lots of good, old fashioned chaos! You lose! In your faces! ‘Cause look who’s holding all the aces!” Lydia and the dark-haired man rounded on him at once, getting as close as they dared. “You did this!” the man shouted, pointing at him. With a smile that was all eye teeth, the furious demon jutted his chin at Lydia. “Nope. She did!” He then laid out his “super evil plan” for our benefit: unless Lydia would agree to marry him, Barbara, who must be the floating woman, would suffer an unspeakable fate. This was met with the expected responses of outrage and incredulity, so he promptly clarified that it was “a green-card thing.” When that still didn’t clear matters up, he snapped angrily, “I’m tired of being alone! And life is the only way out!” Once again, even though the rational side of my brain had me cowering against the wall with the others at his violent outburst, something in his voice made my heart go out to him.

Was all of this really just because he was lonely?

While I was occupied with my internal musing, Lydia agreed to his proposal, he snapped his fingers a few more times and floating Barbara lowered to the floor. Clapping and cheering happily to himself, the red-haired BJ attempted to dispose of Barbara and the man who I assumed must be her husband by sending them through a strange door that he drew on the wall with chalk. Just as it seemed things were about to start calming down, Lydia unexpectedly bolted through the door and disappeared in a green mist, followed quickly by a man in a smart suit who called after her. In the tense and stunned silence that followed, BJ let his head roll back on his neck and shouted to the ceiling, “Why does everyone keep leaving me!” Quickly composing himself, he announced that now we would all die. Todaaaaaay. In a panic I was shoved ahead of the nicely dressed Asian man who let out a shrill scream as the visibly smoking demon stalked toward us.

Even while it was still happening, I couldn’t say for sure how the minimalistic/modern living space spontaneously transformed into some sort of brightly lit studio gameshow set or why I was suddenly dressed in a silvery dress studded with rhinestones and a mermaid skirt. I was equally unsure just where the enormous board of rotating panels that loomed beside me had materialized from. Canned applause echoed from somewhere vaguely overhead when Mr. Bug Juice reappeared. He’d changed clothes again, now wearing a garish yellow blazer with pronounced lapels. He produced a microphone from an inside pocket of his jacket and spoke loudly and cordially into it, gesturing grandly as if to a live studio audience. “Thank you all for joining us today for another exciting round of America’s favorite game: Extreme Hang Man!” Frightened whimpers above and to the right of me drew my gaze up, where the Asian man in the nice suit stood on a platform with a gallows erected behind him. A rope dangled from the arm of the gallows, ending in a noose around his neck. He caught my eyes, his own blown wide in abject terror but was apparently unable to move from the spot.

“As always, I’m your host with the most! How about giving it up for our three contestants!” BJ crowed, waving toward three cartoonishly proportioned podiums where the blond woman, Barbara, the man in the green shirt, and the other red-haired woman were standing as more applause sounded. Written across the front of their podiums in spikey handwriting were the names, “Barbara”, “Adam”, and “Delia.” Adam leaned forward over the top of his podium, addressing the demon. “Beetlejuice, this has gone too far!” he admonished, only for Beetlejuice to gesture forcefully with an angry growl: “Put a sock it in, stiff!” Adam gagged around a rolled up pair of fetid looking tube socks that were suddenly crammed into his mouth as BJ (or Beetlejuice, apparently) ran a hand over his hair, which was once again a dark green. Clearing his throat once, he grinned at his imaginary audience with much more strained mania than I’d seen thus far. “Aaaaaaand, here we go!” he said, and I gasped when the panels in the board spun of their own accord to reveal a series of underscores. “Let’s have our first guess! Babs! Pick a letter!”

Barbara’s mouth opened and closed a few times, at a loss for words as Beetlejuice pointed to a pair of floating digital numbers that appeared out of thin air above her head. “Ten seconds on the clock, Babs, chop chop!” Stammering, Barbara called out a letter. It quickly became clear what was happening; it really was just like a game of hang man with a live man. With each wrong guess, the platform he stood on would lower incrementally as if on hydraulics, tightening the noose around his neck and drawing a petrified wail from him each time. The trio of “contestants” were doing an alright job of guessing the words and phrases Beetlejuice put to them, even though his abysmal spelling made it a bit more difficult for them.

The words and phrases themselves were all rather baffling: things like “Sandworm” and “Breathers suck” and “Why don’t you love me, Mom?” I cringed as Barbara correctly filled in the sentence “Everything is pointless”, causing Beetlejuice to let out a frustrated growl and the man on the platform a relieved sigh. The irate demon made another forceful gesture at the board, setting all the panels spinning at the same time as the next puzzle appeared. It took up the entire board and I glanced up at the man on the platform, who had blanched to a sickly gray. Beetlejuice cackled wickedly, pacing over to the three podiums. “Time for the sudden death round!” I worried my lip with my teeth, wracking my brains to come up with some sort of plan. This whole thing was getting out of hand, someone was going to get hurt. Or worse. I had to put a stop to it, but how? Clearly Beetlejuice commanded forces that I had no way to match, but there had to be something I could do. Fighting him was a no-go, I wasn’t sure I was wily enough to outwit him, which really only left me one avenue: give him what he wanted.

Well, what did he want? To be alive, it would seem, as evidenced by the many times he had said so aloud since the botched séance. And the only way to accomplish that was… The man on the platform whimpered piteously as Adam guessed a letter that was somehow not present in the ludicrously long puzzle and I steeled myself, realizing what I had to do and surprised to find that I was feeling very at peace with my decision. Beetlejuice had come to stand at the base of the scaffold, reaching out a hand to gleefully jiggle one of the rather flimsy legs and causing the whole construct to sway gently. Up on the platform the man gasped in fear.

Without preamble I stepped up to him and said point blank, “I’ll marry you.”

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Thanks for reading! And if you’d like to be tagged in upcoming chapters, give me a shout!

Chapter 1

Chapter 3

#beetlejuice #beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice broadway #beetlejuice x reader #beetlejuice x self insert #at this point I think it's safe to say this is now an AU #my writing #Pate writes

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alwaysdowntohidewithyou · 4 years

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Florence Welch Interview

Transcript of Florence Welch’s interview with John Seabrook for the New Yorker Festival.

October 11th, 2019.

New York, NY.

Edited for clarity.

John Seabrook: I’m going to properly introduce you because I think a woman this accomplished needs a proper introduction. For those of you who read the New Yorker this week, let me assure you that I wrote this myself, no machine helping me. In ten years as a band, Florence and the Machine have released four chart topping, award winning studio albums. Lungs, 2009, Ceremonials, 2011, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, 2015, and High as Hope last year. These many-layered works weave together a range of different styles, from the bands punky first single “Kiss With a Fist,” to the rich choral and percussive tapestries of songs like “Shake It Out,” to Neo-Soul such as “Where Is the Love” (sic), and to the startlingly honest lyrics of “Hunger.” Heartbreak and loneliness rarely feel as delightful and inviting as in a Florence Welch song. The music performs the very rare trick of remaining true to its indie roots while at the same time, sounding expansive and monumental. While British listeners sometimes look to Kate Bush as a musical antecedent, here in New York, we are maybe more inclined to think of Patti Smith, in her path-finding career as a poet who found a way to address the big issues of literature, death, love loneliness, and beauty in the idiom popular song. And we are especially inclined to think of you as following Patti tonight because you are literally sitting in the seat that Patti was warming only an hour ago.

The band has also released two live albums that established themselves as major festival headliners, with a sound big enough to fill the green fields of Glastonbury and deserts of Coachella—where the artist broke her foot performing in 2015. With lyrics intimate enough to touch each individual heart in the crowd of 100,000, Florence lent her extraordinary vocal talents to Calvin Harris’ “Sweet Nothing,” and her eye for clothes and visual imagery to the band’s 29 music videos. She has also recorded several outstanding covers including “Stand By Me,” “Tiny Dancer,” and Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away.” And finally, and most relevant to the discussion tonight, Florence is the author of this book, “Useless Magic,” which is a 2018 collection of her lyrics, poems, journal entries, and sketches, which will serve as our primary text for this evening. Here ends the introduction.

Florence Welch: (Laughs) Thank you so much for having me. Oh, British people find it really hard to hear the things that they’ve done.

J: I know, you’re so modest. It’s hard to hear all that.

F: Everyone’s cheering and I’m like, “Oh no.” This is my nightmare.

J: Let’s take a deep breath and not talk about your accomplishments any more.

F: Okay, good. That’s done, that’s done. (Laughs)

J: Let’s talk about—you’re on a bit of a hiatus at the present from touring. Can we start there? Talk about how that happened, where that came from.

F: Yeah, of course. Well, I definitely wanted to do the New Yorker, because I love the New Yorker so much. So, this was the last thing that I said yes to. I’m very glad I did, you guys are very loud! Yeah, the last—well, I’ve been touring, oh my gosh, I’ve been touring since I was twenty-one? And it is kind of a cycle of two years of—actually we did not stop touring between Lungs and Ceremonials, because we booked a U2 tour somewhere in the middle when we were supposed to be making the next record, and they were like, “You’ve got to do this. This is pretty big.” Like, oh. Okay. And you know, that was a big thing that helped get us going in America. But I was trying to make Ceremonials as well, so yeah, Lungs and Ceremonials was just sort of one—ugh, I don’t know how long that was. Like five years of touring?

And then I had a break. And it was also kind of a breakdown (laughs). Which is what happens when you don’t stop touring for five years. But actually, I don’t know. I don’t think that was because of the touring, I think it was then when the touring stopped, all the structures that I’d been using...with touring you’re kind of very taken care of, so you can be quite a high functioning fuck-up, which is what I was. Very high functioning, but so self-destructive and with such a lack of any will to take care of myself. People take care of you on tour. Like, if you show up and do the show, people get you dressed, and you ripped all your clothes, and they’ll carry you to a plane. The thing is that I never messed up any shows, which was weird. Like I would mess up hotel rooms, and my whole life, and my relationships, and blah blah blah. But never the shows, so, I don’t know what that was about (laughs).

Then I went back on tour for How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, after my break slash breakdown, and that was the first tour that I’d done sober and...yeah, it was amazing. The whole process of that record and kind of how heartbroken I was not just over a relationship, but also the breakdown of my relationship with partying and how those things that I thought defined me didn’t work anymore.

And this person really didn’t want to go out with me. Which now, in hindsight, I really don’t blame them for because I don’t know if you want to date someone who shows up at your house with a bottle of vodka shouting, “Why will you not go out with me?” And they’re like, “Because of this. All of this.” And I’m like, “I don’t understand!” Now I kind of really respect them for that. Like, “Oh wow, ‘cause like you had a sense of self, and you had self-respect, I get it!” But yeah, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, was a huge healing process, and when I came to the end of it, I did this thing where I dove straight into making High as Hope. I think I’m a person who works in extremes, so again, I didn’t stop working for...I just didn’t stop. I don’t know how to relax. I think that’s probably clear, so I started making High as Hope immediately and that meant that the next tour came around really fast. Although I would say that these shows that I’ve just done have been my favorite I’ve ever done, I loved them.

J: Where were they?

F: Well, all over the world. They were in loads of different places. But it was again, like a year and a half of travel and I’m not a natural traveler. Like I’m not—

J: You don’t like flying I think? F: Oh my god, I’m so scared of flying. It’s the worst! I had hypnotism on it and it wore off (laughs). Nobody told me that hypnotism wears off! Or I just think my anxiety is so powerful that it destroyed the hypnotism. It like, defeated it. I remember reading that the lead singer of The Liars is also really afraid of flying. I think it could be a lead singer thing as well, ‘cause you think that you are the center of the universe and if something really dramatic and catastrophic is going to happen, it should happen to you. So I think there’s a level of ego involved with the fear of flying that I’m hoping in time, I will dismantle.

I find travel in itself, and being away—especially without kind of the crutch of, you know, partying—I get lonely and it’s hard. Although I love the shows and performing, it’s such a big part of me, I...after this tour, I was just worn out by the travel. I was like, I just need to not get on planes for awhile, and I really need to just stay in one place, and try and be like, a human, because although performing runs in my veins, touring is so monotonous, and it starts to feel like you’re losing your mind—and I don’t have much left to lose. So I need it.

J: And there really isn’t any better way to do it probably, right?

F: I keep wondering. I was like, to my manager, “I’m thirty-three, I can’t sleep on a bus anymore!” She’s like, “This is how it is.” You know, I keep trying to think of ways to make it more holistic, but we’ve tried everything and there’s just no getting around the travel because people want to see you, and I’m so lucky to have the fan base in so many places that I do, and I appreciate people and I want to see them. But it means you’re going to have to sleep on a moving vehicle. Which is fucking weird (laughs). When you’re not passed out drunk it’s weird.

J: It’s not like, you curl up in your bunk and the bus takes off and you wake up in the next place the next morning?

F: I don’t know, my brain is so juttery anyway, like sleeping on something that is juttery is a nightmare for me. When I’m trying to sleep on a bus, I’m already someone who tends to get really stuck in their head, and my head is a place that rattles around, so to be in the actual physical representation of that every night, is like a nightmare. I’ve always had a hard time sleeping since I was a kid, and I’m a really light sleeper, always kind of dreaming. I don’t know if I ever get that deep, so yeah. Some things are easier when you can just pass out drunk.

J: Right. We’ll get to that part. Let’s jump back to the beginning of your career. We’re talking about a decade here, so it’s really not a great deal of time but you hit the ground running. I thought we would sort of go through your life by talking about a few songs and your professional life. We’re gonna start with “Dog Days Are Over,” which isn’t the first single I think from the album. I think—

F: “Kiss With a Fist,” yeah.

J: In a way, this is the second single, but perhaps ultimately the bigger hit from the album. I’m not sure, but I feel like this is a song where you first discovered your sound? Or at least for me, I feel like this is where I first heard your sound. Maybe for a lot of us. So I wondered if you could talk about how this song happened, and the lyrics are up here. We can talk about a few of those too. But talk a little, generally, about where this song came from, and how it fit into what work you’d been doing at the time.

F: Ehm, what was I doing? I think I was still at art college, and I—or maybe I’d dropped out?

J: You were at Camberwell College of the Arts, for one year.

F: I wasn’t a very committed art student. I made a lot of installations. I already loved patterns and fabrics and fake flowers and I’d make these big installations, and then kind of sleep in them, and pretend it was an art piece—I was just really hungover. Like, “It’s art! It’s definitely art. Don’t touch it!” I was making flyers for the first Florence and the Machine shows using the photocopier. So I’m sorry for the use of supplies and then not handing anything in.

I’d met Isa of “Isa Machine” fame. She is amazing and we kind of grew up together. She used to babysit my cousin, and then we kind of lost touch. So in South London, for awhile there was a big art collective that squatted the buildings that I lived really near, so when I was a teenager I used to break into all the squat parties, and they would bring all these christmas trees, and everyone would be wearing like, bin bags and crazy outfits, and I was like, “Oh I found them! I found my people!” I was at one of those parties and Isa was there. She was the DJ. She called herself “Laydee Isa,” but it had like seven E’s and seven Z’s. She was like “Oh, I used to babysit your cousin!” And I was like, “Heeey!” I was kind of out of it, I think. She said she had a studio, and that I should come down and make a song.

At the time, there were so many boys in bands. It was around that time of The Libertines, and The White Stripes, and The Strokes—it was a very band oriented time. So I had been writing some songs but because everything was on guitar, and I didn’t know how to play guitar, I just assumed that I would be a singer in someone else’s band, or I’d be a front-woman. I think there was a kind of internalized self-doubt as well. I know I’m not a trained musician. I didn’t have the attention span to sit and learn the piano, or the focus. I was good at singing. I think my attention span doesn’t work...I was like, “I’m already good at this thing.” I could never focus enough to properly learn, which I really regret, actually. I really regret that. So I didn’t have the sort of—I didn’t have the idea that I could make my own band basically. I thought I would be a front-person for someone else’s, but then I started writing songs, and there were so many guitarists about, and that’s how I wrote “Kiss With a Fist.”

They were kind of little gothic fairytales. There’s so much guilt and drama involved—I don’t know what I was. It was kind of like, I think I was already trying to process...I just think from an early age, I felt so much shame, and I don’t really know why. I don’t know where that came from. I think those songs were a way of trying to process what I felt was wrong about me, and through these metaphors—like, this idea that you’d done something terrible, but a bird has seen you do it. So you get the bird, and kill the bird and you eat it so that it can’t tell anybody what you did. I don’t know what the fuck I was doing. But then, you go to sleep, and you’re like, “It’s fine, I got the guy, I’m good.” But when you wake up, you try to speak, and all that comes out of your mouth is the bird singing what you did, and that’s the only thing you can say—which is so dark for a nineteen year old. I think I was just snogging people I wasn’t supposed to or something. But even before, I always felt sort of sensitive as a kid, and I don’t know. I felt like other people had a ticket to kind of get through life that I didn’t know. And how did you get that thing? And everyone seems to have a map, and I don’t. I think these songs were a way of trying to express through these little metaphors how it felt. I was already really obsessed with death in the way that you are as a teenager, and kind of imagining my own funeral all the time. I put these songs with guitars, ‘cause that’s what was around, so that would be like “Birdsong,” in which I wrote with Dev Hynes of Blood Orange. ‘Cause there were so many musicians about—like Kid Harpoon was around, Dev was playing with the Test Icicles at the time, and you could kind of play with anyone. Me and Dev were just sitting in the top room of a pub, and we kind of came up with that song just before we did a show together. That’s kind of how I would make the songs with whoever was around. Isa was sort of the first person who gave me the instrument, who was like, “Why don’t you just try and do something on this?” We called it the “shit keyboard,” it cost like 100 pounds, it was a Yamaha. It burned in a fire!

J: Before or after you used it?

F: After! It burned in a fire. She was the first person who—I think as well because she was another young woman, I think, as a female songwriter...I don’t know if this comes from, like—I had to kind of unlearn deference. I had to really stop deferring. That’s something that’s quite hard, especially when most of the people I was writing with were male. I was instinctively deferring because I was a young woman. I think with Isa, we were kind of the same age, and we kind of bossed each other around! There wasn’t any sort of power imbalance or anything. So she handed me this keyboard and she’s like, “Just do what you want.” The first song that I actually wrote, which you can tell because it’s just an ascending scale, was “Between Two Lungs,” and that was kind of the first thing that sort of felt like it really came truly from me. I was so excited by that, then that the next song we wrote was “Dog Days.” That was like, the first two. They’re not the most complicated chords, but because I never fucking played anything, I thought they were amazing! I was just like, “I’m making this sound? Can you hear this?” Like yeah, it’s fucking piano. It makes that sound for everybody. But because I was the one getting to put them in order and stuff, I just thought like, “This sounds incredible.” She only had like a little...it was in Crystal Palace, which is in South London, we didn’t really have any equipment. We stole drums from someone. The sound of the drums—which I now realize is the same beat as “People Have the Power” (Claps hands to “Dog Days'' percussive rhythm). Which is what we were doing in Patti’s show. We used pens and stuff, and it was kind of, the feeling of that song just came from a lot of enthusiasm, but not really any skill or equipment. So, that’s how it came about.

J: Can I ask you a little bit about the words in the song? “Happiness hit her like a train on a track,” and then later, “happiness hits her like a bullet in the back.” Is it happiness that’s chasing her here? Because it sounds like a celebratory song. Like, the dog days are over and now we’re gonna have some fun! But then it seems like happiness is the thing that’s after her.

F: Well it kind of always was in my mind because I would have such extreme feelings of joy but then I would end up staying out for like three days, so the happiness would always come back down to just terror and panic. I also think that my joy and excitement switch is very close to my panic switch, and I sometimes I don’t know which one is going to go. I think somehow I also equated—I was very mistrustful of happiness, and I think already by the time I was writing the song, I was a very messy person. Not like, untidy, but kind of messy emotionally. I think I’d already done quite a lot of damage to myself and others by that time. We start young in England. By the time I wrote this song, I think I was already, like...yeah, happiness hit her, like a bullet in the back, struck from a great height, by someone who should’ve known better than that. It was sort of like, I didn’t deserve this. You should know better, and I also knew I wanted to be a singer and a performer, and there is this sense that you’ve been struck from a great height, but you are the fucking wrong person (laughs).

J: Huh… okay (laughs). Let’s go from there into writing songs versus writing poetry, because the book is mainly songs, but actually there are poems in the back, and the preface has this interesting line, which I will read. “The act of singing gives the most mundane words and phrases reverence and glory, you can make a shrine out of anything.” I was just wondering, are there certain poems that don’t become songs, and why? Is there something that makes it a song, and something that makes it a poem?

F: I think the first things that I ever started writing when I was a kid was poetry. I mean it wasn’t good, but when I was seven or eight, I was writing poetry. Then I think when I started to think about actually writing my own poetry—like High as Hope is actually an album formed out of poems to begin with. It was a friend of mine called Robert Montgomery who was...he’s a poet, but also a visual artist, and he takes his poems and he turns them into big art pieces with neon lights, and he had said to me, “I think you’re a poet, and I think you should try and write some poetry.” So with that encouragement, I was like, “Okay, okay. I’ll try.” The first thing that I wrote, that wasn’t consciously in mind as a song, but it was a poem, was just a list of things that I thought I couldn’t put into a song.

J: That’s in here! That’s very interesting.

F: Yeah, it’s about getting kicked out of Topshop for drinking Rosé in the changing rooms. I was like, “I don’t know. It doesn’t sing well. So I guess it’s going here.”

J: But you also said in this poem that is not a song, “I’m not sure I can put these things into a song, these muddy trinkets, not beautiful enough. Too bloody and ragged. I always felt the songs should transcend the swamp.” F: Yeah, I think there was a way that I could use metaphor and my imagination to kind of beautify the things that had happened to me, or that I’d done, and in a way kind of own them. Like, when I talk about giving things reverence, I never wanted to actually have the songs written down because I thought that if you saw how sometimes ordinary some of the words are—like the word “kitchen sink” is in “Dog Days,” but when you’re singing something you’re turning it into a hymn almost. You’re giving it a spiritual quality, so I was worried that if the songs were written down, they would maybe lose that. So when I was writing, and I know it’s a song, I feel as if there’s a character or something that’s coming through me that’s bigger than me, and has very big ideas. It’s quite clear on things, kind of understands the bigger questions and I just have to let it happen. So when I was writing poetry, it was a different voice, and it felt like it was almost an even more personal voice because these things were just going to stay on the page. They weren’t going to be viewed with the grandeur of song. They were just going to live there, and who is that person? The drunk Topshop person?

J: You even talked about that—“This new voice, this me voice, is it conversational? Confessional?” Actually there is a poem (New York Poem (for Polly)) I put up here. This is one of the poems from the book. It’s a beautiful poem and it also has your parents and New York in it. So I thought it would give us a jumping off point for your parents. Your mother and father both appear in several of your songs, and have been part of your life. Your mother is a renaissance scholar...

F: Yeah, she is. She’s very smart.

J: And what’s her focus? What’s her specialty?

F: Her focus is the renaissance, above all else. I think even in our childhood her focus was definitely the renaissance (laughs). She’s written four or five books on renaissance studies. It’s funny, she’s always having...she’s always horrified by my exquisitiveness (sic), and how much I love clothes, and bags. But I’m like, “You write books on renaissance shopping, and when we go to museums, I have to stop you from touching things. You love stuff too! Just stuff in the past.” So she’s very interested in what people wore, and textiles, and how people shopped, so she’s read a lot of books about that. And I love shopping too, mom!

J: Didn’t she say to you, when you said you could remember every single outfit you wore, “What a horrible waste of a brain?”

F: (Laughs). I was like, “Oh, you know how I remember things mom? I remember things by what outfit I wore.” She went, “Oh what a waste of your brain.” I was dyslexic as a kid, and she’s worked so hard to get into the upper echelons of academia, and she just keeps getting more and more titles that I can’t even remember now.

J: She’s a provost.

F: Oh, she’s a provost! She’s a provost, yeah, but it just keeps going up. So I don’t know—

J: Dean?

F: No, she’s been that, yup. But I think it’s higher now.

J: So what’s next, chancellor?

F: I think that’s next! But she’s such an impressive person; she would tell me that when I was a baby she was trying to finish papers, or finish books, and she would rest me on a photocopier—it seems like me and my mum both love photocopiers. She just kept working, but I think...none of her children went into academia, and she’s a huge advocate for higher education. That was something that...I was really dyslexic when I was in school, and I couldn’t spell and I struggled at school. I mean, I still don’t think I can do my times tables. Numbers is like a foreign language to me. She’s very staunch; she’s so within herself. She’s incredibly strong, she’s been through so much. I always felt like I was unacademic, emotional, and creative, and sometimes she would look at me as if she had given birth to an octopus. Like, “What is this thing?” I always really looked up to her though, for her drive and her work ethic, and how much she...we’re both very hard workers, I think. I definitely got that from her. And obviously her love of the renaissance has affected me (laughs).

J: And your father comes from, well a journalism family, right? His father was the editor of The Spectator?

F: He was the editor of The Telegraph. I think maybe and The Spectator. I think maybe both, yeah.

J: Okay. And he was a frustrated writer? Or a wishy was-writer, became an advertising guy?

F: Yeah, I think my father is incredibly charming and charismatic and he should have been a performer, really. He is a sort of poet as well, and he was always so imaginative, and would tell me stories when I was a kid that he would then...he was like, “I’m writing a book now!” He moved to Russia when I was fourteen to write a Russian crime novel that my mother tries to pin all my therapy on. Like, I think there’s other stuff. Like not just Dad moving to Russia to write a spy novel, I think there’s other things at play.

J: Did that in fact have a big effect on you?

F: I don’t think it was just that (laughs). I think she’s deflecting slightly. He’s a really creative person and actually he was much more encouraging of me going into the arts. My mother was so desperate for me to go to university. She just didn’t see music. She saw music as a dangerous career, it wasn’t a “forever” career, she was worried I was going to get hurt. She was like, “Get a degree, get some stability, and then do your music thing.” She would, every time I got paid, be like, “It’s not forever money. Put that away.”

But my father, he was always—I mean they’re divorced, so they were like two sides of, you know—they had very different opinions about lots of things. So they didn’t work together. He’s a true bohemian at heart, and he tour-managed us for our whole tour that we did with MGMT around Europe, and England. He did it in his camper-van! MGMT offered us this tour, and it was the first tour we’d ever got. It was a huge break for us actually. We didn’t have any money, and we couldn’t afford a tour bus, so my dad took his sundance camper-van, and we drove all the way around Europe! I mean, MGMT are out there, but I think they thought we were really crazy. So we would just show up there, pots and pans clanking, like, “We’re here!” The first show we did—I mean, I did the show as an early, pre-Lungs era shows where I’d be wearing one of Rob’s t-shirts, drunk and screaming and that was the show. It was excellent (laughs). Then I fell off some speaker stacks. We all had to share a dressing room, as well. That was really cute. Then MGMT came off stage after that show, and they all came off stage, and they’re all like, “Oh my god. The ghost Andy Worhol was in the fucking audience.” Then my dad walked in.

J: Oh, that was your dad? F: It was my dad! Because he had this grey hair, and he kind of dressed as an Andy Worhol, and was right up front. I was like, “Yeah, this is my father, who is managing us.” Then I moved from the tour bus, and then I brought my girlfriend on tour with me. I was like, “Yeah, just come with us!” We got banned from MGMT’s tour bus for being a bad influence (laughs). Which, if you know MGMT, that’s a big achievement.

J: Yeah, that’s a big achievement. Congratulations! Well that gets me into the next subject, which is drinking. Which we both have in common.

F: (Laughs) J: So after the success of Lungs, you were thrown into the world of success and fashion. In particular, you became a darling of fashion. You did the costume ball—anyway, when you read your interviews from that time, you bragfully...in interviews you’re falling apart! You’re drinking at your hotel—you set your hotel room at the Bowery hotel on fire? But the bar bill was more than the hotel damage cost!

F: Yeah, it is (laughs).

J: Anyway, I guess it’s not surprising that with this life came drinking, but it got to a point where it was not manageable.

F: Yeah, I remember waking up and I mean, when you wake up and there’s a huge flame mark on the side of your room, but you’ve been asleep in that room, and you’ve got to figure out where it came from, you’re like, “Was there a fire? And I slept through it? Dope.” Like that is really...I called my publicist at the time, and was like, “Something’s happened!” He was like, “Oh my god, yes, ‘cause there’s a huge bill on my credit card.” I was like, “I think it was the fire.” That was the bar tab. The fire was cheaper than the bar tab.

It was hard. I’ve grown up in South London, and that whole scene is like punk on a pirate ship, it’s sort of pirate folk, and everyone fends for themselves, and the whole gig is like an extended drinking game where you just have to play in the middle. And the game carries on. It was just like an interlude. That is the scene that I grew up in, and I was kind of insecure, I think, about singing pop music.

J: In your family? F: Just in general, and I kind of thought as a way to subvert that, I would just party the hardest. I think as it was a very kind of male dominated scene—like the indie scene that I came up in—it was also a way to kind of outdo everyone. I was very proud of the fact that I could drink as much—and more—than all of the guys. I was the only woman on the first NME tour, and we were opening and they were fucking terrified of me. I think I came into the second show with a black eye, dressed as a bat, jumping off things. I think that’s kind of what I understood, that that was rock and roll, and if you couldn’t go the hardest, you were letting rock and roll down. You were letting these legendary people down.

I was someone who struggled with hangovers, just because I could go...I had insane endurance, but also people would come up to me who I thought were the craziest drinkers and drug-takers I’d ever met, and be like, “Woah. You go harder than anyone I’ve ever met!” I was like, “Oh my god.” But I’ve always had a lot of energy, but I think really why I would stay out for so long is my...you know that sense of shame I spoke about in the beginning? That was there before any of the drinking and the drugs. I already had that. Then to escape that, you know, it would give me an escape from that, but the things I did, or the things I would say, or the way I would treat people just confirmed the way that I felt as a kid. It was just like, you are bad. There is something wrong with you, and then I would carry on trying to escape it in that way, but it would just keep getting worse.

My psyche is pretty fragile; I’m not actually someone who should have a lot of stimulants. They gave me a vitamin shot today, and I’m like, “I’m fucked. I’m high on vitamins! I’m going to have to go to hospital for vitamin overdose!” That’s from a b12 shot. So I don’t know what I thought I was doing when I was partying. Some people are tough, I’m kind of a fragile person. I have a fragile sense of self. The hangovers that I had didn’t seem normal, they were like, “I’m dying. I can’t think, I can’t breathe, like I feel like my skin is—” Maybe it’s ‘cause I drank more than everyone else? I don’t know, but it’s a particular quality that was telling me this does not work for me, but I kept doing it, again and again, and it was always the same feeling. You’ve been doing that in whatever way since you were fourteen, and by the time you get to 27, it’s just—ugh. I didn’t want to feel that way anymore, and it was so repetitive. At some point, the fun bit had gone. As much as I tried to get it back, I just couldn’t. When the fun goes, I’m sorry to tell you if any of you are umming and ahhing, it does not come back. The first year that I stopped, I felt like I’d really lost a really big part of who I was, and how I understood myself. I also felt like I was letting down rock and roll history ‘cause I couldn’t cope. I had to kind of rebuild from scratch a little bit. The thing is that now, I don’t know, it’s almost like the idea of rock and roll that we had...we’ve seen it so many times, it doesn’t end well. I don’t want to be part of that story. J: The 27 year old story.

F: Yeah, I was 27 when I stopped and my mum, literally the speech she gave at my party, where I’d arrived already out of my mind drunk; like I was on the table and she was trying to make a speech. She was like, “Please, just keep her alive. Please.” I laughed about it at the time, but if I think about it now it makes me feel so sad for my mum and how scared she must have been. I feel like at that point there’s...this poem is kind of about that, because I felt like there was a split, there is the person who carried on partying, and didn’t come back. So there’s this ghost version of me. Then there was the person who got to carry on living, and doing the things that I’ve done. It really feels much more rock and roll than anything I ever did when I was drinking. I was doing shows, and connecting with people, and that to me—especially with everything going on in the world—to be conscious and to be present and to really feel what’s going on, even though it’s painful, it feels much more like a truly reborn spirit of rock and roll. It feels like that’s what it should be about right now.

J: The last album was sober, and this song is a remarkable song. It’s maybe not specifically about drinking, but it’s confessional nature I think is what’s a part of whatever transformation you went through. So could you have written [Hunger] as a drinking person? Or do you feel something changed in your songwriting?

F: Oh my god, no. I could have never, ever. I don’t think I could have written this song. I couldn’t have even written this for How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. In the recording of How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, I was sober but a lot of the songs weren’t sober because I’d written them when I was drinking, so it was like trying to pull things that were just a big mess. Like, “Okay.” I was in a terrible state. In your first year of your sobriety you’re just insane. So I definitely couldn’t have written it then, but sort of four years down the line, what started to happen was I decided to see underneath—’cause when you’re out there drinking there’s so much surface chaos. You literally can’t see beyond what you did last night as you’re trying to clean that up, and make sure nobody finds out what happened, and who saw? And was there a camera phone? You’re just living in this constant...you can’t ever get any further than the drama that just happened yesterday. So after some time, and some time getting to re-know myself, I started looking at the stuff that was underneath that, that was at the core of it. That’s when I felt able to write this song. I think also I just wasn’t so ashamed of myself at the time. When you’re drinking like I was, you carry around so much shame, and so much of that has lifted that I felt able to say and be honest about things that I just never, ever would have.

When I was really in disordered eating, I would make pacts to myself every night that I will never tell anyone. That was the thing. You can carry on what you’re doing, but you can never tell. Living with that kind of—

J: You kept that promise, because I think when your sister saw this song, she read the first lines, and said she never knew.

F: No, she didn’t. Like, my mum didn’t know. My sister was like, “You better tell mom. You’re putting this out as a big pop song.” I was terrified. I was so scared. I luckily had really good people around. I had my manager, Hannah Giannoulis; she heard this song, and she… I was doing it as a thought experiment. I was never going to release it. I was like, “This is an experiment. This is not for public consumption.” And she heard it, and was like, “This is a really important song.” I was really scared. I was so scared of anger. I’m really bad with anger anyway, but I think it’s because I have so many years of internalized anger against myself for what I was doing, or the way I was behaving that to say it, I expected anger. I expected people to be furious with me for putting something like this out there in a song. I tried to put it off, I pushed back the whole touring schedule. Actually when it was released, people were so kind. I don’t think I gave people enough credit. It was so liberating and it changed me as a performer actually, because once you’ve said your most shameful thing, it’s almost like you’ve got nothing left to lose. So the performances just became so much more open and free, and also when the people who listen to your music accept you at your worst, it is the most beautiful thing. I felt so connected with people on this tour. I’m so grateful to everyone.

#florence welch #florence + the machine #fatm #edited for clarity aka removing florence's adorable rambling that she always does while she collects her thoughts #i love this interview so so much but the quality is pretty poor and therefore pretty inaccessible to non-fluent engl speakers and hoh people #so i put my typing skills to work #if there are any other interviews you'd like transcribed let me know!#this is how i'm putting off writing oof oof oof #also really cant tell if she's saying mom or mum? it sounds like when shes referring to her she says mum #but then if shes speaking to her its mom

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tainted-musix · 4 years

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Why Romance Is Flopping.

I’m cutting the bullshit in this post, because people need a wake up call. But before I possibly get dragged I just want to state that I love Camila’s music (I believe that OMG deserved better, but that’s neither here nor there). In this analytic post, I am cutting out the relationship talk except for in one point I have to make. I am writing this as if I am not a big fan. I will show some grace but not much. With that being said lets begin:

“I think this particular moment after such a successful first album, it’s literally a make or break situation. Everyone’s watching this time, whereas the first time I could make a lot of mistakes and it didn’t matter too much because I was learning. This time around there’s a lot more stressful experience. It’s whether I can be a career artist fro the rest of my life or I had a very big album in 2011. That’s the difference, it’s a artists of the times or a career” - Ed Sheeran (nine days and nights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKRzg6UfVZM

If you watch the video at 2:10 - 2:50 Ed Sheeran discusses the importance of an artists second album. It’s make or break, in a sense. I heard these words around 3 months ago and ever since the Romance release date it’s been rattling in my head. Naturally, I tried to push it off. I was like there’s no need to worry Camila is a talented artist with loyal fans there’s nothing to worry about...... WRONG!

I’m going to list the 2 MAJOR problems and then the rest of them in a second, but let me paint you a picture. Señorita has dropped. Every time I get on google there's a new card speculating Camila and Shawn are dating. A week or two goes by they are dating, blah blah. Fast forward to early last week I get a google card that reads, “Why Camila Cabello’s album is flopping”. I was like no, not possible. A few days day before Billboard releases the album ranks I read the article. It basically says the numbers aren’t looking that great like the first album. So I’m like no there’s still time. A few days later Billboard says Romance is #3.

So what went wrong? I’ll tell you.

The 2 biggest problems:

1.The comparison between Romance and Camila

2. Too many singles

BUT before I talk about those we need to talk about the other BIG problem. Problems started WELL before the album release date and tour was announced.

Albums are already hard to create to begin with, concept albums are even trickier. A concept albums purpose is to tell a story or show a theme through lyrics. Camila chose Romance. Concept albums are tricky because they risk being repetitive and depending on the topic unrealistic. This album struggles with this. An article from Vulture says this and compares Camila to Romance. The main point of the article is basically saying Romance doesn’t do in 47 minutes, what Camila in 37. They make the claim that Camila was clear and direct and the only songs that really do that in Romance are First Man, Cry for Me, and Shameless (basically). They also go on to talk about the deep cuts of Camila, “Consequences” and “Real Friends”, and how Romance lacks that emotion besides the maybe 5 songs. And I would be lying if I said some of the things said there aren’t true.

The next problem toes the line of the comparison problem. Shameless and Liar simply should not have put out at the same time. I understand completely why it was done. She talked about it with Zach Sang.

https://youtu.be/JCh2rBNZNNE

In this video she talks about how she likes putting out two singles. And that’s perfectly fine. She doesn’t have to follow the “written” rules of pop. Again I understand why this was done because Havana and OMG happened just like this, but the issue is that sometimes that kind of roll out only works once. And in this case that’s true. And the different is the song that wasn’t intercepted well didn't make the album. In this case both songs did. Those songs also had rappers on them and that’s just a formula that works.

And on a smaller scale Liar gives a “Havana” remake vibe and it just doesn’t work and was my least favorite of the two personally. In her defense though I don't think it’s fair to ask artists to constantly invent something that's never been done before. However, in this industry growth and change are the thing that separate the career artist from an artist of the times.

The third issue is South of the Border and Señorita. This is the beginning of the second BIG problem, too much music.

I didn’t see this as a problem until I read the Forbes article on it. And I can understand the issue. Camila spent a decent amount of time away from the public eye. She is not an artist that is always releasing music like rappers or some r&b artists. So over saturation can/is a major problem.

So Mi Persona Favorita comes out. It's a feel good song that got her a Grammy, tugs on the heart strings. Then Find U Again comes out. I’m like ok this is a nice little situation. It’s summer, I’m like ok album will come out 2020, she’s easing us into it (I’m into it, whatever trouble that you're thinking I could get into it). AND BOY DID SHE GET INTO SOME TROUBLE with the next release, Señorita. And right here is where you STOP! The marketing department really fucked this one up. If you know somethings going to be hot before it’s released and you know you’re going to milk a relationship and you are going to put your focus on that DON’T RELEASE ANYMORE MUSIC! But apparently, as must of us already discovered, Epic only hires buffoons. South of the Border drops and I love it. Gives the latin vibes everybody wants at the end of summer. We are having a great time then Liar and Shameless. Then the videos, the relationship, The VMAs. The announcement of an album all while beginning to get hated on for a relationship that didn’t need to be created.

While people are calling bullshit on the relationship. Cry for Me is released. At this point, I’m confused. Like are we putting out the whole album now. Then we have the making out in the street and release of Easy and then SNL. And more relationship and release of Living Proof and AMAs performances (seriously she performed 3 times that night) and the announcement that the Romance tour tickets are going on sale soon and the album will be out December 6................................................................

I just want to know what the thought process was. THAT is WAY TOO MUCH CAMILA and the album isn’t even out yet.

And on top of that, album hasn’t even dropped yet and Presale tickets are on sale and a few days from then regular sale. So HOW EXACTLY? I just want to know who was in charge of the numbers. Because anybody with half a brain can CLEARLY see that some of these songs weren’t charting well or staying on the charts for that matter. So who gave the green light to be like ok, release the album. This is the worst roll out for an album, thank you, next right after Sweetener was WAY better than this.

WHO SCHEDULES AN ARENA TOUR BEFORE ALBUM SALES EVEN COME OUT! Realistically she wasn’t selling out every single show last tour, but all of a sudden we are doing arenas. Camila has fans I’m not saying she doesn’t but there are a lot of unsold tickets and things aren’t looking good right now. They oversaturated the market and now they are scrambling to put the pieces together. AND LETS NOT FORGET the album was leaked 2 weeks before the release.

AND another big problem with all these singles is that the other songs left that people hadn’t heard weren’t strong enough to carry the weight of the leak and the songs that weren’t heard besides maybe 2 were repetitive. Half the album was already out and one of the songs was leaked a year ago. The other one was already come and gone from #1. The album release should've either been pushed back or all those singles shouldn’t have been released.

The label needs to stop with the lying and trying to save face because they fucked up. This relationship has caused some fans to leave, people don't want listen to the album because it's repetitive, she's getting slut shamed on social media and she's supposed to do Cinderella soundtrack.

And the is a problem on it's own and is my biggest worry because that soundtrack could turn into Camila’s version of Ariana’s Charlie’s Angels Soundtrack really quick and that went TERRIBLY. And for her sake if it goes poorly I don't want that project. It's too much Camila at once. There was no pacing and that is the problem with this album. She was gone for months and when she comes back it’s her team trying to put her in the headline EVERYDAY. We get it you’re spending New Year’s with Shawn.

This era is just repetitive and predictable. Talent and songwriting are not going to be the downfalls of her career. It's going to be the lies she’s forced to tell, the secrets she’s supposed to keep, and her likablitly going down the drain.

Links to articles:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2019/10/09/is-camila-cabello-promoting-too-much-music-right-now/#d225cef37d5f

https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/camila-cabello-romance-album-review.html#comments

https://www.latinpost.com/articles/142968/20191215/camila-cabellos-album-and-tour-unsuccessful-critics-claim.htm

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polandspringz · 5 years

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“You shouldn’t go alone, remember last time?” I believe you have an oc named Eclipse?

I’m going to confess that I’ve been waiting forever to write this and it’s based of the Tangled song “Set Yourself Free” because my goal is to write every thing I can for Eclipse to that show’s music. By the way, this is a fic about my RWBY OC! Clover belongs to @cammie-maccloud and Euca is by @ellseisaskullswindler Thank you for letting me write such a self-indulgent piece for the OCs I made less than two months ago.

Eclipse was almost a step out the door when she felt the a hand curl around her arm, causing her to freeze where she stood. She turned around, expecting to see Euca’s amused face, ready to bonk Eclipse on the head for running out of the dorm without her purse or her scroll, and Eclipse was already preparing to laugh at herself and apologize like she always did. It was getting easier for her to accept her airheadedness as not something to be ashamed of, and with Euca she had been better about not letting little things like this lead to her self-loathing or bottling up feelings about how she was causing trouble for anyone. So, as she turned around with a smile and a light-hearted, simple apology ready to leave her lips-

-She felt as though someone had punched her in the lungs when she met Clover’s eyes, narrowed and green piercing through her. The hand around her wrist burned, hot and wrong, and the other girl seemed to sense this as she let go when Eclipse jerked back. All of the fluttery feelings Eclipse had prepared herself to exude were squashed when Clover touched her, Clover hated being touched, Clover hardly ever acknowledged Eclipse (not in a mean way, she just wasn’t the most personable leader). So, everything about this situation was wrong, and it set alarm bells screeching inside Eclipse’s head.

“Oh, Clover…!” She tried to sound cheery, rubbing the spot of her arm that still felt as though it was burning. But my semblance isn’t activated, she thought to herself, as her body seemed to heat up even more, flushing pink as more and more thoughts began to build up in her brain. She wants you gone, you’ve finally done it, she’s going to tell you- “What can I do for you?”

Clover gave the other a strange look, the distrust and wary expression always sending shivers down Eclipse’s spine at the fear that it was reserved for her and for something she had done wrong. They stood there for a minute, every ticking second heightening Eclipse’s anxiety as she waited for the stinging words to come. But, then Clover sighed and walked over and grabbed her scroll from the desk and marched past Eclipse and out the door, stopping once she was in the hallway to wait for the girl.

“Look, you shouldn’t go alone, okay? Remember last time?”

Eclipse blinked at her confused, but then realized what she was talking about, and it was as if her life had been simultaneously ripped out and put back inside her, as she jolted at just what Clover was implying.

She doesn’t want to go, see? You’re just being a burden, causing problems. You can’t even walk around the school without bothering everyone to look after you. Maybe it would be better if you-

Wow, Eclipse really thought that she had gotten over these things. Apparently not, she stuffed everything down as she forced a smile.

“It’s okay, Clover, I wouldn’t want to bother you-”

“Just come on, already. I don’t have all day. Besides, I don’t want the other two or the teachers bugging me when you go missing again.”

Clover marched down the hall, and Eclipse gripped the strap on her purse tighter as she bit her lip, trying to calm down the raging, raw emotions that had been torn back up inside of her.

She had woken up inside a cage, and the sad part was, it wasn’t a foreign thing to her. Ever since her semblance had been discovered, her life had been sleeping inside the iron barred wagons as they went from show to show. Sometimes, when it was a really dark night, they threw her inside the walled in wagon, the windowless prison cell because they didn’t want her “light” keeping them up at night.

She slowly pieced together what had happened. Even with her head still ringing, she could figure out that this was all her fault. She thought she had escaped the circus when she got away that one night and was rescued by Bram, she thought that she was actually free when he enrolled her Sanctum and she was, Grimm, she was a fool to even believe that, finally free when she made it to Beacon.

But then, they had rolled into town. It had been years, but she should’ve known their routes, she should’ve known that there was nowhere they didn’t perform. Sitting up in the wagon, she started pulling her hair out in frustration at her naivety. She should’ve never gone to the show, she could have dealt with Euca’s disappointed looks, she could have suffered through a few weeks of Clover calling her names for being a letdown, anything would have been better than this. Being locked up, knowing that she had walked right back into this trap. She had been to tent, she had been in the audience. They must have seen her face, they must have followed her home. They must have taken her. Her contract wasn’t up yet, after all.

“You have a lot of Lien to make up,” a voice chuckled, the shadowy figure waltzing up. She didn’t even need to see the spinning cane to know, “How was your adventure? Learn any new tricks?”

“Ringmaster.”

A part of her wanted to spit at him, but she was too weak hearted, and as he pressed a hand to the cage and looked inside at her, she found herself quivering in the corner. The chains on her wrists and ankles rattling as she drew her body up into a ball.

“I’m sure you’ve improved your act plenty. Now, it would be foolish of us to take you out during this show when so many people… know of you, so you won’t start performing again until we are well out of Vale. Don’t worry though, in the meantime, you’ll get plenty of practice and work beaten back into you. You’ll remember the old routine in no time.”

Before she could even cry out, he lifted something up and sprayed it through the bars.

The next time she woke up, it was night again, but not the same night. They hadn’t put her in the dark cell yet, but that might just be because she wasn’t prone to start glowing randomly anymore, and they figured she was scared enough not to try anything. It was true, she feared the wrath of the others if they saw her trying to get out. Too vividly she remembered being forced to witness what the others would do to the Faunus who tried to escape…

She was in the back of the fairgrounds, hidden behind many tents, structures, and glowing lights from the week long festivities. She wondered how long she would be left back here, she was getting hungry.

She tried to fall asleep, but the Ringmaster came by again, mocking her as he asked about where she had been all this time.

“You couldn’t have gotten to Beacon all on your own. Who sheltered you all this time? Maybe you slept your way up here? You always had… “ He eyed her over, and Eclipse found herself wishing she was in solitary confinement. She could handle his voice, but she could never handle his eyes.

“Please, stop,” Eclipse whispered, tucking herself further back and shutting her eyes tight as tears began to roll down her cheeks, her body beginning to shake with ugly sobs.

“Just tell me, Moonie. If you do, maybe we can bring him here to join you in the little act.”

Eclipse didn’t respond, but that didn’t deter him. He seemed to be even more pleased at the sight of her whimpering in the corner.

“Or… was it a girl who saved you? We saw you with your team last night, you seemed awfully close to one of them. The red head? Does she got something good we can use?”

Eclipse thought of Euca, her voice, how happy she always looked singing or dancing, and her stomach twisted into sick knots as that thought transformed into singing becoming something she would hate, being whipped after shows when her voice had been used raw from nonstop nights. Eclipse’s skin used to burn when she was forced to activate it night after night, still learning how to use it, and they would beat and bruise it, making it extra sensitive, but it didn’t matter because the moonlight she exuded always covered it up.

“Please, don’t…” was all she could manage, pressing her hands into her eyes as she tried to stop herself from imagining bright Euca turned miserable and even suicidal from her time here. Eclipse had gotten lucky, she had managed to get out before and then the universe had decided to give her a sliver of luck in the form of Bram, but she doubted she would be so lucky again, and if they ever saw her acting suspiciously around Argus, they would stop their shows there. He would catch on quick, he always did, and then Bram would be left wondering where she went, forever in the dark-

“It’s been a whole day already, and I’ve been in town. Neither one of those girls have been looking for you. They must be really thankful you’re gone, huh?”

Eclipse lifted her head out of her hands, breath shuddering.

“What are you….”

“You never were good at anything. Always skinny and weak, acrobatics can’t get you far in a school where you need to fight, and you’ve always been so scared. It must be a relief that they can get a new teammate.”

“You know nothing,” Eclipse cried out, “You don’t know anything about me!”

“But, Moonie, I do. I’ve known you since your semblance first appeared, since you started having an identity, since you started thinking for yourself. And I know, they don’t care about you. I don’t even have to talk to them to tell. I saw you at the circus, saw how that green-eyed one rolled her eyes whenever you talked, how the red head looked at you sympathetically. They all pity you but find you annoying, and they’ll be glad to have the burden lifted off them.”

Eclipse didn’t say anything to him. She wrapped her arms around herself tighter and tucked her head into her knees. Eventually, she heard him sigh and walk away.

“Just give it up Moonie, you’ll be better off where I can see you.”

“My name is Eclipse,” she panted, tugging her oily hair out of its disheveled, knotted style as she knelt and shook the bars of the wagon. It had been three nights since she had been taken. She remembered, because the moon was boring into her soul. How had they not found her? How had they not gone looking for her?

How had they not cared-

No, she shook that thought away, her nails clawing into her scalp as she forced it out. She was starving, they had given her water, but she had drank it sparingly. The cell was starting to reek- it always did when they were breaking in the caught fugitives again. A part of Eclipse’s mind, the sane part, was telling her they were trying to break her, trying to get her to feel like a caged animal so that when she got out she would be terrified of running off again, that when they gave her food she would beg for more, and she would slowly get indebted to them. They would play these mind games until she was near dead, and then they would finally open the doors and clothe her and bathe her and put her on stage within a few hours all nice and pretty. They would be asking her to shine and glimmer and dance and clap and smile as people oohed and aahed in amazement, even though if she was caught doing the same thing in town they would laugh and point and call her a freak. She hated this, she hated this stupid semblance, she hated-

“You were very strong to escape all on your own. But, you can get stronger.”

She let go of her hair, a rush of memories overwhelming her. The moon was rising in the sky, and in a few minutes, the grayish indigo on the horizon would drift overhead and then in a few hours, everything would turn black.

“You escaped, and you can keep escaping your entire life, but I can’t figure out how to free you from this unless learn how to do it yourself. I don’t know what you went through, but one day… You’ll find people, or maybe just someone, that you can confide everything in, and when you do that, you’ll know how to set yourself free.”

This was her fault, she knew that even as she laid down in the cell, pretending to have fainted as she listened for the guards to come on shift. If she had told the rest of her team the truth, had explained why she didn’t want to go to the circus, well, they probably still would have gone, but Eclipse would have had back-up, and they would’ve annihilated them. Even if Eclipse stayed at home, she knew everything would be taken care of, but perhaps it was better this way. She thought this as she heard grumbling, jingling, and then the tell tale sign of the the cage being opened as they got ready to drag the unconscious girl out. She cracked one eye open, and glanced at the sky.

Pitch black.

Perfect.

A hand curled around her ankle, and then she felt someone reach in over her, going around her waist to lift her out.

She gladly jumped up and socked him in the face.

“Clover, really, wait a minute,” Eclipse finally managed to say when she met the girl at the end of the hall. The team leader turned around with a raised eyebrow, obviously perturbed that she had been stopped again, “Look, if this is about not realizing I got kidnapped then-”

“Eclipse, I told you. Shut up and come on-”

“No!” She shouted, startling Clover and herself as her voice echoed off the walls in the empty hall. She swallowed and kept pushing forward though, “Listen, you don’t have to make it up to me or anything. It’s okay, I’m okay, really. You don’t have to feel bad about it.”

“That’s not it. I told you, it would be troublesome if you were to-”

“Then, I’ll take Prime! They’re a robot-”

“A stolen Atlas robot.”

“Yeah, but we reprogrammed them, remember? So, nobody will mess with me and if they did, he can stop them. Or I can!”

Clover ran over the girl with her eyes once more. It was true, Clover had not even noticed Eclipse had been missing. She was sure the other two had mentioned something, or tried to get her to come with them to do something, but hadn’t been listening too much. So, when she was trudging back to the school from some late night gambling after curfew, and saw this white light running through the courtyard like a shining beacon, she had been more than surprised, especially when she had been tackled by said light, which smelled revolting and filthy from three days rotting in a rusty circus wagon.

When she realized it was Eclipse, perhaps it wasn’t the most apt thing to say, “Woah, you were kidnapped?” when the girl started rambling and crying, but after they had talked as a team, and talked to the teachers and Mr. Ringmaster arrested and everything else squared away, Clover had to admit, she did feel a little bit shitty about the whole thing.

Still, Eclipse seemed insistent enough, so she sighed and relented.

“Remember, if you aren’t back by eight, they’ll chew me out again,” She said, continuing to walk towards the stairs leading down to the common area.

Eclipse smiled and gave her a loud “Got it!” before she dashed back towards their room, ready to turn on Prime and roll out.

Clover listened to her leave, shuffling her cards in her hands as she stared at the coffee table. Eclipse ran out into the street, her Atlesian companion following close behind.

It was winter, and the sky was getting darker earlier. As she made her way to the courtyard, Eclipse spread her arms wide and breathed in, and for the first time in a while, she let herself glow.

She hadn’t escaped everything. She still had thoughts, still distrusted, still felt indebted to some friends more than others, but as she ran to the train station to meet with Bram, she knew that at the very least, she was free.

#ask poland #ask prompt #team cele #rwby oc #writing #my writing #eclipse

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writerunsolved · 6 years

Text

The Drunken Mistake - Ch. 1

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Category: F/M

Fandom: Real Person Fiction

Relationship: Tom Hiddleston/Reader

Genres: Fluff and Humor

Language: English

Chapters: 3/?

Summary: You're a young up-and-coming singer based in London who has just released her first album.

After a wild night at the VMAs and some heavy partying and drinking at the afterparty, you write and publish a drunken tweet about a certain celebrity and one of their friends. You only realise what you've done the next day when a slew of texts and calls wakes you up to a dreadful but expected hangover. You immediately delete the tweet, but you're left to deal with the consequences. A public apology would probably be enough to make everything go away if you hadn't been invited to a movie premiere where said celebrity is most certainly going to be.

You decide that the best course of action will be to try and avoid them, but your plans almost never go the way you want them to.

Chapter One - Never Tweet Your Deepest Fantasies

The light streaming in through the window right onto your face, though annoying, wasn’t what woke you up.

It was instead the insistent vibration of your phone, sitting deceivingly innocently under your pillow and making your brain rattle in your skull. The frankly inordinate amount of alcohol you had consumed the night before certainly wasn’t helping, either.

Resigned to having to face your hangover eventually, willing or not, you finally took out the phone and through bleary eyes, you saw you had a disconcerting number of missed phone calls and messages from your manager; in addition, your phone kept blowing up with social media notifications in your hand.

Panicked and confused, you tried to remember the night before.

You’d left the house quite early in the afternoon, dressed to the nines and wearing make-up, all thanks to your stylist Nadia and your make-up and hair expert Linda, and a car had picked you up to bring you to the VMAs where the red carpet had been waiting for you. When you’d first started attending big events like this, you had soon realised what a long day they made: the red carpet usually started pretty early in the afternoon, and by the time the actual event took place you would have been standing on high heels for several hours already. You’d grown tired of wearing them almost immediately, so now when you attended events of this kind you would usually swear off the stilettos and go for a trendy pair of flats.

This time had been different, though. It was an important night, and you wanted to look your best. Moreover, it had been a while since you’d worn heels, and you’d forgotten the actual pain they caused you. So, as with any other event, you’d been dropped off at the venue and walked the red carpet while a never-ending number of pictures of you was being taken and after what felt like an entire day and night, you’d finally gotten off your feet and taken your seat in the audience, not too far away from the stage.

You could still feel the phantom pain of the shoes where they’d scraped off your skin behind your ankles, you reached your hand to lightly touch the spot and moaned in pain, both because of your feet and because of the sharp pang the movement caused to your hungover brain.

You laid back down with your head on your pillow and tried to go through the rest of the night. You immediately remembered winning the award for Best New Artist and happiness pervaded you once again, you still couldn’t believe that had happened! You sought to remember where you’d put the award. You looked for it around the room and noticed it on the floor, right next to the door, propped to keep it open. You reflexively slapped your forehead in reprimand - which only worsened the headache - that was no way to treat your first important award!

After receiving your reward, and hopefully not making a fool of yourself during your acceptance speech, things got a little muddled. You remembered wanting to celebrate and leaving with some of the guys in your staff and some other artists who’d been attending the event. Drinks had begun flowing, which was exactly why your memories were so hazy.

You attempted to squeeze more memories out, but you’d drank so much your brain must have gone into overdrive at some point. Normally, you weren’t one to overdo it with alcohol, but it had been a special night and the award had come as a huge surprise, so it hadn’t been hard to convince you to make toast after toast. Everyone around you had been having fun, it was only natural for you to get carried away with the euphoria of your first real award.

You couldn’t remember anything else after that, so you still had no idea what the reason for your social media blow-up might be. You reassured yourself with the thought that it would just be some kind of article full of embarrassing pictures of you completely dishevelled and visibly drunk. Sure, it wasn’t ideal and it would leave you ashamed for the rest of time, but it would blow over in relatively no time when one of the Kardashians would be spotted buying a pair or jeans or something equally trivial. You shot a quick text to your manager Nina to let her know you were awake and alive, and resolved to find out what was going on as soon as possible. You were just about to open up Twitter when another text from Nina made the matter that much more pressing. It read: “You need to take that tweet down RN!!!!!!”.

You immediately sat up, headache be damned, and scrambled to open the Twitter app. Without bothering to scroll through your timeline, you went directly to your own profile and right there it was, mocking you and punishing you for your questionable life choices, your most retweeted and liked tweet:

[ID: Displayed name: A WINNER @ THE VMAS

Twitter handle: @trebledwoman

Tweet content: h cmoe on who wpldnt want 2 be RAWED by t hiddleston &chremsworth at the sme time?? ? ? if yoy wouldnt ure either a coward or yur lyin]

Dread immediately filled your lungs, you wanted to close your eyes and stop seeing what you’d done but the sheer disbelief kept them wide open, staring unblinkingly at the screen while your brain tried to process what was happening.

You couldn’t fathom doing something so stupid and reckless. It was one thing to be caught after a night of enthusiastic celebrations, but involving others in the show business industry was an entirely different ordeal. Bigger celebrities than you had gone down for much less and putting your whole career at risk because of one night of heavy drinking was the stupidest thing you could have ever done. Seemingly on their own, your fingers started scrolling through the responses you’d gotten and you could see people responding with memes, some even hilarious, but you weren’t really in the mood for a laugh at the moment. Others loudly announced having taken screenshots and having saved the tweet on the internet archive. You weren’t exactly surprised, the internet was forever after all. Even though several hours had passed since you’d posted it, and it was obviously too late for it not to have already spread all over social media, you deleted the tweet without a second thought.

You exited the app and called Nina.

“Jesus, finally! Have you taken that shit down?!” was her answer.

You brushed back your hair restlessly and replied with a sigh “Yes. God Nina, that was so stupid!! What am I going to do? This is a disaster, right? How could I possibly recover from this?! And I just got my first award, too, why did I have to drink so mu-”

“Honey, honey, listen to me. You need to calm down.” she interrupted you “People seem to have taken it as a huge joke, and there was no public reaction from neither Chris Hemsworth nor Tom Hiddleston.” she laughed nervously “I know it was up for several hours, but it’s good that you deleted it, and you will have to publish an apology as soon as possible.”

You took a deep breath and tried to unclench your jaw. Finally, you closed your eyes and said “Okay, so that’s our action plan for now? A public apology? And then what?”

“And then we hope the Buzzfeed articles will be humorous rather than accusing, and we keep on making music, ok?” you could feel and picture her warm smile through the phone “Seriously, we can get through this. Your career has just started and I have no intention of letting you go just yet.”

You’d really lucked out with Nina, she was such a supportive and incredible woman. As soon as she’d discovered one of your songs online, she’d seen a talent in you that not even you’d known you had. You felt a wave of guilt come over you, this was going to affect her too. “I’m so sorry, Nina. I shouldn’t have put you through this.” You shook your head resignedly “It’s one thing to make a mistake, but to let it reflect so badly on everyone around me… I really hope you can forgive me.”

“Oh, sweetheart…” he voice was kind “Don’t say that. I told you, we’ll recover from this. It’s not as bad as it feels right now, and don’t doubt for one minute that I will eternally make fun of you for it.”

That pulled a laugh out of you, she joined in then continued “Tom Hiddleston, though, really? I can understand Chris Hemsworth, he has muscles for days, but I would never have guessed you would be into the unassuming British type.”

A blush stained your cheeks, you were grateful she wasn’t there to see it or she would have never let you live it down. “Hey now,” you started defensively but with mirth “he’s cultured and polite. Plus have you seen his pecs? I bet you haven’t, you huge lesbian.”

Nina let out a rambunctious laugh that lasted several seconds, then said “Oh well, I guess you’re right.”

There was a beat of silence or two, then Nina concluded “I really have to go now, honey.” you never got tired of the pet name “As soon as you’re done writing down an apology, send it to me and I’ll let you know if you’re okay to publish it.”

You nodded, then remembering she couldn’t see it, you told her “Will do. Thank you so much, Nina. See you soon.”

“Later, sweetie.” with that she hung up.

You sat there for another beat, legs still half-covered by the duvet and phone in hand. You took a huge breath that filled you up from your shoulders to your abdomen, trying to gather the energy to face what was showing all the signs to be an interminably long day.

Your head was swarming with possible ways to go about apologising, you wondered whether to address part of it directly to the objects of your tweet or if it would be better to keep it vague and only concentrate on your behaviour. On one hand, you felt like you owed an apology to Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth for objectifying them like that, on the other you were conscious of the fact that that wasn’t the only reason why you were so ashamed of the tweet.

You regretted drinking so much. In hindsight, you realised that you’d put yourself in danger by being so reckless and that if you intended to pursue your career seriously and to win more prestigious awards, you couldn’t resort to that kind of behaviour again. At least it was a lesson learnt.

You put those thoughts aside, dwelling on guilt wasn’t going to help matters. For now, it would be better to concentrate on the task at hand and to look to the future. Lesson learnt, lesson ended.

You got up from the bed and crossed the room barefoot, on the way outside the bedroom you grabbed the award from where it was still standing up propped against the door and brought it with you to the kitchen through the dining room. The first thing you’d done with the earnings from your first album under your new record label had been to buy a small apartment in a building not too far away from central London. One of the things you’d hated the most about renting was the uncertainty of not having a real home that was your own, the possibility that at any moment you would have to pack up all your stuff and move away and start all over again. Furthermore, you loved reading and owning books, and when you were still renting it was impossible for you to maintain a decent library.

You thought back to first joining your sister in this great big city, and how terrified of the future you were. To be fair, the fear had never really gone away, but that was just the kind of person you were. Your sister had already been living in London for several years, she had a great job and all her life together, and she’d been pushing for you to move here too almost since the beginning. You had preferred to wait, though. You’d only just finished university and felt like you needed more time to figure yourself out, but eventually, the time had finally felt right and now here you were.

The small planner you’d been looking for was exactly where you expected it to be on the kitchen counter. You’d left it there before leaving for the VMAs and in it was basically your whole life. You had a detailed calendar of all your work and social commitments and several blank pages to use should the need arise. That was exactly why you’d been looking for it. You knew the apology would have to be published online and rewritten digitally, but pen and paper always helped you to better put your head in order.

You put down the award you still had in your hand right next to the planner and started idly flipping through this month's appointments, searching for a blank page to use and already wording the beginning of the apology in your head. You’d calmed down quite a bit since first waking up, and even your hangover headache seemed to be dwindling down on its own, so you felt much more centred about your current situation. And then you saw it -

September 4th - precisely one week from now - “New Marvel movie premiere”.

It came back to you in a flash, and really it was entirely your fault for forgetting, that in a week you would have to attend the premiere of a new Marvel film for the soundtrack of which one of your new songs had been chosen. How could you have possibly forgotten having written a song for a Marvel movie?! Alcohol was officially cancelled.

You felt a wave of nausea hit you, either from the residual hangover or from the realisation that you would come face to face with the flesh-and-blood consequences of your actions in a week from now. You couldn’t remember specifically what movie the London premiere was for, but even if it wasn’t another Thor movie there was simply no universe in which Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth wouldn’t be attending.

You grabbed a glass from where it was drying on the side of the sink and filled it to the brim with the coldest water that came from the tap, and while you were downing it in one single go, you made a resolution.

There was absolutely no way for you to skip the premiere, but you had to avoid Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth at any and all cost.

Chapter 2

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston fanfiction #tom hiddleston fanfic #reader x tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fic #tom hiddleston imagine #tom hiddleston x you #fanfiction #reader tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston reader #tom hiddleston fandom

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jadekitty777 · 5 years

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Successive Failure

I’m a little later then I said I would be on this one. I intended to release this one in-between the hiatus, but one of the final scenes was giving me some trouble, but I still hope it was worth the wait! Ever since this volume decided to bring Qrow’s addiction as a more prominent plot point, I wanted to try my hand at a proper introspective piece for him, and this is what resulted.

Rating: K+

Word Count: 6k

Ao3 Link: Successive Failure

Warnings: Lots of cursing and alcoholism

Summary: No matter how many times Qrow has tried, he has never able to put the bottle down for good. You’d think that’d be his greatest failure in life. You’d be wrong. [A What-If scenario of Volume 6, Chapter 9 – What if Team RWBY found Qrow in a different way]

“Give me the strongest you got.” Qrow ordered the moment he sat down.

The bartender’s curvy mustache waggled as he gave him a sharp look over. “You ain’t from around here, are ya bud?”

Annoyance tinged through him. He knew some bartenders were always out looking for the next strange person to talk with; but Qrow certainly wasn’t interested in spilling his life story. “You’re a regular ol’ Sherlock. Can I just get my drink?”

The other was not amused with his attitude, not that many ever were. In answer, he reached under the bar and placed a bottle on the desk. It was pretty unassuming, just a shade of dark-green, with a label on it that read ‘King Taijitu Venom’ on it. The two-headed Grimm hissed at him from underneath the title. “Argus’ breweries are some of the finest in the world. To the point some of the bottles need special permission to be exported. But this one right here?” He tapped the bottlecap. “Is so potent it’s been illegalized for transport. Only people in Argus can purchase it, and only by the shot.”

As he scanned the words, he quickly discovered why. 67.8 APV. He’d never had anything stronger than 35 before, and it had knocked him on his ass by the end of the night.

He had to admit, it got his interest piqued. “Is it that good?”

“Let’s just say one shot has put even the biggest of guys under the table in the hour. You? I’d give twenty minutes.”

He slid a lien card across the bar, smirking confidently. “That a challenge?”

Qrow has had many terrible ideas over the course of his 40-year lifespan. Sneaking from one bar to another to take two shots of pure poison in a bottle somehow only ranked in the top five.

Still, as he wandered around the streets of – where was he again? Didn’t matter. As he wandered the streets, trying to find his way back to the house, he had to wonder why he didn’t try this sooner. He felt great! The liquor had burned like whiskey but tasted as fine as a martini. Worth every bit of the 200 lien it cost him.

“W-Whoa!” Qrow stumbled as the ground underneath him upheaved, grasping onto a light pole to keep himself upright. A bubbling in his chest turned into laughter and he swung himself around it, doing a decent rendition of ‘Singing in the Rain’ in one of those wishy-washy musicals Tai liked to watch. He let go of it, kicking up some snow bunched along the curb of the sidewalk, before tapping and twisting across the road, going on about sunshine in his heart and other such nonsense.

As he twirled once more on his heels, he noticed two bright lights coming towards him. Ah, right, the spotlight! Time for the big finish! He held up his arms, grinning widely, as the lights sped towards him.

“QROW!” The voice – a fan no doubt – was echoed with a great big noise that must have been the baseline reaching the crescendo.

He took a deep breath, ready to belt out the chorus for his audience – when something slammed into his body with enough force to jar his bones and rattle his brain around in his skull. It made the whole world spin.

“What were you doing?!” The voice, his fan, shrieked from above.

He blinked away spots, confused on how he’d suddenly ended up back on the sidewalk. He craned his neck, trying to focus on the tiny lady atop him. As her face came into view, his heart leapt. “Flowerbud?”

“Ruby!” Another, more boisterous, woman yelled, before she came into view. Huh, when had Raven dyed her hair? “Is he alright?!”

Okay. Not Raven. She wouldn’t care about his wellbeing for a millisecond.

“What kind of idiot stands in the middle of traffic like that!” This third lady was much shriller as she came to stand beside not-Raven. Unfortunately, even in his wildest woes of drunkenness, he couldn’t forget the face of a Schnee.

Which had an even more unfortunate side effect of pulling him out of his stupor enough that he realized it was not Summer but his niece hovering above him. It was also her fist that hit him hard enough on the chest that some of the air rushed from his lungs, making his voice squeak ironically when he gasped out, “Pipsqueak?”

“How much have you had to drink?”

“Uh,” It took a moment to calculate, “Just two shots.”

“You’re lying!” Something seemed off about Ruby’s voice, but he couldn’t place why. Maybe he was still hearing Summer’s ghost in its tone.

Another hit jolted him from that train of thought. He swiped out for her hands – and was she using her semblance to keep them away from him because he was having an awfully hard time catching them. “Will you cut that out? Everything’s fine.”

“Fine? …Fine?!” He flinched a bit, her voice too loud. “Nothing’s fine! Oscar’s missing, everyone’s upset and you almost got hit by a truck! You, you-!” Lost for words, she just gave a yell of rage, before she was up and storming down the sidewalk, her cloak billowing behind her like a windstorm. After a moment, she gave another cry, kicking a Styrofoam coffee cup so it skittered across the concrete.

He knew something was really wrong though when she fell to her knees, pulling her hood up over her bowed head, wailing loudly.

“Ruby!” Yang hurried over to her.

Above him still, the Schnee and – wait, where’d the fourth come from? – shared a look, before the former nodded her head towards the sisters. “Go on. I’ll get him home.”

“Are you sure?” Blake looked between her and him warily. Not that he cared about that. Not one bit.

“Don’t worry. I’ve… done it before.”

He did however care about his niece who sounded really, really bad. “Kiddo?” He called to her, struggling to get to his feet. By the time he’d managed it though, dainty fingers were wrapping around his bicep, tugging him away from the sidewalk and away from his niece. “Hey, leggo!” His assailant didn’t answer nor concede. He tried to pull away, only to stumble even more when black glyphs appeared under his feet, magnetizing his boots and forcing him to stay on the path. “Ice princess, ya hear me? I said let go! I have to check on Ruby!”

“You’ve done enough.” She wouldn’t even look at him.

He was glad she didn’t because he knew that tone. Had heard it all his life, sewing itself into his head like a song that he couldn’t find the rest of. A tune that just wouldn’t quit replaying those few beats, no matter how many times he tried to distract himself from it.

It was the tone that said: I’m disappointed in you.

When Qrow was 30, he had hit rock bottom.

It had been a slow weathering. At first it was simply the pressure of the underground mission, the secrets so few knew looming along his back like a phantom. Then, Raven left, carving a hole in his team and family that not even Summer and her boundless optimism knew how to correct. She didn’t get long to try before her life was stolen next and with it, she might as well have taken Tai’s as he lost himself to grief so endless, no amount of effort could pull him out of the pit he’d fallen into. Qrow, left alone for the first time, felt like he’d lost all semblance of control. Aimless, guideless, he turned to the only thing that could bring him joy anymore, as false as it was.

He was no stranger to drinking. In the tribe, it was common place for twelve-year-olds to be declared men, and with it, were allowed to sip on the neck of a bottle. At Beacon, he made a lot of his connections through rave parties and throwaway dances, always with a cup in hand and praised for his ability to find ‘the good stuff’. Maturity and fitting in, that’s what drinking meant for him.

Until it didn’t anymore. For as much as he scoffed at his sister for it, he knew – whether physically present or not – he was just as good at running away.

As the years progressed, he became more of a master at that than anything else. By the time he’d truly woken up, Tai had gotten a new job as a teacher, Yang was seven, and Ruby was five. And apparently Qrow, drunk, stupid Qrow, was their babysitter.

But that was kind of the thing about black out drinking. He made promises he hardly remembered and had entire weeks months of his memory just splotched out like a gothic painter got a little too eager when they put the paintbrush to his brain.

So when he finally woke up to a puppy he hadn’t even known Tai had adopted yapping incessantly at him and found the house disturbingly empty, nothing but the grooved tracks of the girls’ play wagon disappearing into the forest left behind, he knew he had fucked up. Cursed himself as he rushed out after them, taking to the sky as he prayed to whatever Gods he didn’t believe in at the time that they would just let him be lucky.

Just this once, please, just this one time and he’ll never drink again.

They answered and he got to bring both the girls home that day.

He repaid Them by trying to convince a seven-year-old to keep a secret she shouldn’t have to hold.

Tai found out anyways, because Ruby was too wide-eyed over just how cool she thought her uncle was to understand why she wouldn’t tell her daddy about his brave rescue.

Qrow remembered that day with more clarity than he would have liked, down to the very way Tai manhandled him out of the house and tossed him into the dirt.

“I’m done.” Tai had seethed. He was beyond livid, red in the face and every inch of him shaking as he contained the need to pummel him six feet under. “You either get your fucking act together or you get the fuck out of my house.”

Though he’d later be grateful, the Qrow that day was nothing but indignant as he rose against him, “The fuck? I save your kids and you kick me out?”

“You were supposed to be watching them!” Tai shrilled back. “I’ve tried my best to be patient and understanding and all you do is spit that back in my face! And you know what? I’m tired! I’m tired of giving you extra money every week. I’m tired of calls at 2 A.M to come pick you up from the bar. I’m tired of having to explain to the girls why their uncle is never around, even when he is.”

“At least drinking’s a better excuse then the damn pity party you’re still throwing.” Even as he said it, he knew he had crossed a line, and deserved every bit of the black eye he received for it.

“You know what? Fuck off.” Tai snarled down at him, before turning back for the house. Turning back from him. “You want to go kill yourself, then be my fucking guest!”

“Y-Yeah well-!” Qrow scrambled for a response, digging as dirty as he could go, “I’m sure you’ll be happy to be rid of me! Better off without your bad luck charm hanging around, right?!”

For a moment, it made his brother-in-law pause but when he looked back at him, there was no sympathy, only disappointment. “Wow. Playing the manipulative card? I thought you were better than that.”

And then, to add salt onto the newly cut wound, the door was slammed in his face and Qrow found himself homeless.

He’d like to say he’d immediately cleaned up his act and came back into the house with his tail-feathers tucked between his legs, but that’d be a lie, so he didn’t. In fact, he never told anyone how he spent the next few months, scavenging about and doing less than savory missions for quick cash to feed his addiction.

His second awakening came when he found himself locked in a prison in Vale after trying to steal a six-pack from the grocery store. Nothing was more pathetic than being given his one phone call and realizing he had absolutely no one to dial.

So he called Ozpin, explaining without explaining that he found himself in a bit of trouble and needed some cash. He had expected to be hung up on. He had hoped to be wired the money. What he got was his former headmaster coming down to the station in person to bail him out. And boy, was that ride back to Beacon ever awkward and uncomfortable, Qrow silently wishing he could sink into the leather seats until he disappeared for good.

Oz didn’t ask any questions until they were closed up in his office, making Qrow feel like he was seventeen and about to be scolded for breaking the holographic projectors in the computer lab. Again.

“So, care to tell me what that was all about?” Ozpin asked, pouring him some hot chocolate.

“Don’t suppose I can just say no and accept a week’s detention like the good ol’ days, huh?” Qrow accepted the cup, even if he likely wouldn’t drink it.

He chuckled in return. “I’m afraid not. Being a graduate means I can no longer dole out corporal punishment.” He pushed off from the desk he lent against, saying as he rounded it, “However, I’m still an excellent listener, if you want to talk about anything.”

He stared hard at his reflection in the muddy surface. “Who says I got anything to say?”

The other sat down, humming, “Well, I suppose if you don’t we can merely spend the time catching up. It has been quite awhile since I’ve last seen you.” Qrow slunk down a little more in his seat, pretending he didn’t know why that was. Oz went about pouring his own cup, adding as he did, “It’s a little ironic you showed up, actually. Taiyang called a few days ago, asking if I’d seen you.” Brown eyes peered at him over shaded spectacles. “He’s worried.”

That finally got him to snort, crossing his heels on the edge of the desk. “Yeah. Sure he is.”

There was a sigh, Oz dropping all pretenses that he didn’t already know what was going on. “Qrow, I understand why you might feel that Tai’s actions were out of spite, but-”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a burden.” He slumped further, setting the full cup on the floor. “Got it.”

His old headmaster gave him a reproachful look, before sternly saying, “No. You are not the burden, Qrow. Your drinking is. You need to separate yourself from the vice if you hope to beat this.”

Beat it? He could hardly live without it. “Drinking IS part of who I am.”

“Do you truly define yourself in your head as a drunkard?”

“Well… what would YOU define me as?” He challenged right back.

“A huntsman.”

It was so simple.

And yet so wrong.

“Ha, haha!” Qrow smacked his own forehead, craning his neck over the back of his chair as he laughed towards the ceiling. “You got to be kidding me! Oz, I haven’t done an honest mission in years.”

“Then do one.”

“Okay, it was funny the first time, not so much the second time.” He spat.

“I’m being serious.” Oz turned slightly, bringing up a display to the left of him, scrolling through a listing. “How about Grimm control in the western sector? Or escorting the trade lines in Argus?”

“H-Hey.” Panic suddenly clogged his throat, Qrow sitting up straight. “Oz, wait. I’m out of practice.”

Hardly deterred, the man hit a few keys to pull up a new list. “Well, there are certainly plenty of easy rank missions to be done as well. How does transporting rations to stationaries sound?”

“Bad. They all sound bad.” He snapped. When that didn’t even earn him a cursory glance, he smacked the top of the desk. “Oz!”

There was a horrible screech as one of the cogs underneath the glass surface suddenly popped out of place, the rest of the gears coming to an awful, ear-piercing stop. They both looked down at it, Qrow giving a low groan before thumping his forehead on the cold, glass surface.

After a moment, he heard a sigh. “It’s easily fixed Qrow. Other things, I’m afraid, are not. Especially the longer you allow them to remain unrepaired.”

When he turned his head to peer up at him, he didn’t know what to make of the look Ozpin was giving him. It was full of compassion and, worse yet, understanding in a way that made his stomach flip sickeningly. “Look, Oz,” He said as he sat up, “I get what you’re trying to do and I appreciate it, I guess. But, it’s not…” that bad. The rest of the sentence faltered in his throat. He hadn’t slept in a bed or had a decent meal in weeks.

He tried again. “I can-” Stop? If he had the means to get it, he’d be downing a shot in a heartbeat.

“I don’t-” Need help? He was just in jail, for maiden’s sake!

And as he tried to find a way, any way, to justify himself, to argue for a desire on the worst of days even he hated, he realized he’d run out of excuses.

If he didn’t do something now, then what? How much further could he lose control of his life, until he couldn’t come back from it?

For the first time in a long time, Qrow remembered what it was like to be afraid of himself.

The strength he found to finally speak was tenuous at best, coming out as nothing but a whisper, “I’ve really fucked up, haven’t I?”

Oz’s smile was kind. “We all do things in life we regret. But, it’s not in those errors that we should crucify ourselves. Rather, it’s in those choices we make after those errors that we should judge ourselves.”

And so, Qrow made one.

For the following months, he stuck around Beacon and spent his days in a waking hell as he forced himself through a rough detox. Daily shakes, cold sweats, physical, aching pain that wouldn’t quit no matter how many painkillers he swallowed down. On the worst of them, the ones where the need became so strong he knew he was going to fail himself, he would have Ozpin lock him in the vault, knowing it was the only place his wings couldn’t get him out of.

When he returned to Patch, it was on orientation for Signal’s new school year. He never really felt cut out to be a teacher, but being a headmaster himself, Ozpin was able to secure himself the opportunity, encouraging him to take some time to recover and retrain himself while also helping the future generation do the same. In a few years, Oz told him, he’d want to see him return to the field as a Huntsman once more.

It was the first time in a long time that Qrow felt eager for something that didn’t come in a bottle. After being lost for so long, finally he was able to remember what he had wanted in life. To be a legend, unforgettable and revered.

But, first, there were a few people he needed to make things up to.

Ruby and Yang were simple. Young as they were, they couldn’t grasp the full impact of what had happened that resulted in his sudden disappearance, just the sorrow left behind and the joy of his return. However, blindsided as he was, Taiyang wasn’t so easily swayed, making it clear he’d have to earn his trust back. So used to breaking things in life, Qrow wasn’t even entirely sure how to fix that, but for once, he wanted to. This was the only family he had left, and by Gods, he was going to make sure he kept them. So, he stuck around and proved to Tai, to the girls, and even to himself that he really could be a functional adult and he didn’t need a crutch in life to get by. What had weathered away was rebuilt even slower, but little by little he was invited to spend more time at the house, doing everything from sharing dinners to marathoning series together. Eventually, he started to call it home again.

It wasn’t until Tai gave him permission to train Ruby that he truly felt forgiven though. He’d never taken anything so serious in his life as he did showing his niece how to be the extraordinary huntress he could already tell she would be.

Despite all his efforts though, he never stopped drinking, not really. He couldn’t manage to fully abolish the itch that would bite at his skin whenever the temptation would get to be too much. The most he accomplished was making sure his addition wasn’t the thing running the show anymore. But it was something. Something he could take a measure of pride in and hold onto.

His life was his again and he was going to make the most of it.

At 40, Qrow found himself waking up in a hospital and was hit once more with the realization he had fucked up.

Three problems made themselves immediately clear the moment he opened his eyes:

The headache beating across his skull was so terrible, taking a jackhammer to it would have been kinder.

The incessant beeping coming from somewhere in the general vicinity just needed to shut the hell up.

The soft whimpers of someone crying was simultaneously the least bothersome and the most terrible.

The last measure was magnified tenfold when he finally turned to see who it was.

“Ruby?” His tongue felt heavy and slurred, even though he knew he was anything but drunk right now.

She jerked, a startled gasp escaping her. She hurriedly wiped at her face. “Uncle, you’re awake!”

He glanced around the room, at the high-tech gizmos settled against the walls and the IV line going down into his wrist, and a sinking feeling started to settle in his gut as he pieced together where he was. “Why am I here? What happened?”

“When we got back, you were on the floor and you wouldn’t wake up. We thought you hit your head.” Ruby swallowed some, her lip trembling. “We weren’t even sure you were breathing and even when Jaune tried to heal you, you just started to-” Her voice caught and she looked away.

Something in him felt like it was breaking, seeing her cry like this. “Rubes, hey.” He tried to reach out for her, but she dodged his attempt, hurrying for the door.

“I got to go tell the nurse your awake. He needs to check, things. I’ll be back in a second.” She couldn’t manage to even look at him as she slipped out the door.

It was more than a second, or even a few minutes, and Qrow didn’t have to wonder why. The image of Ruby, strong, surefire, almost unshakeable Ruby, probably holed up in a bathroom somewhere to compose herself because of him left a bad taste in his mouth and a guilt so heavy he was sure it’d crush him. (Gods, he wanted a drink.) The least he could do was try and look a bit more presentable by the time she got back and not like… not like he was dying. He struggled to sit up, but just a few inches sent a ripple of pain through his stomach and he swallowed down the instant nausea before he could throw up over himself. He laid still as much as possible, waiting out the agony until it passed.

Alright, bad idea.

He looked around, trying to think. Some beds came with remote-y things, right? It was Atlas tech but Argus was a close enough neighbor, maybe they’d imported.

He had just spotted a possible candidate to his plight, tucked away in the corner of a side table, when the door opened and in walked his niece and a young man in earth-toned scrubs. A gray and white banded tail curled around him as he approached the bedside.

“Mr. Branwen, it’s good to see you up. I’m Nurse Arma.” Qrow tried not to snort over how on the nose that name was. Unperturbed, the nurse continued, “Let’s sit you up, okay?”

Sure enough, the remote he had been eyeing was the right one, and the gears underneath it whirled, slowly lifted him into a sitting position. Qrow had to shut his eyes against another roil of pain – not just in his gut but all over, like he’d been zapped by a thousand volts of lightning dust.

A hand fell to his arm, pinching lightly. “Looks like you’re mostly hydrated again. How are you feeling?”

He glanced quickly to his niece, hidden in the far corner of the room and still refusing to look at him. “Well, ain’t the worst I’ve ever felt, if you can believe that.”

Arma chuckled, writing some things down on the chart he carried as he looked over one of the nearby machines. “Glad to see the alcohol poisoning didn’t destroy your sense of humor.”

“Wait, what?” The fact hit him like a train wreck. He’d been bad before, but he’d never… “That’s what happened to me?”

The smiles were gone, the other turning away from the IV bag to focus on him. “Do you remember anything from last night?”

Last night? A quick glance at the window told him that the sky was a soft, pale shade. He had grown so accustomed to reading it during his years when a clock and a calendar weren’t exactly common finds in a woodland camp, that he knew it was early morning. “I left one bar to go to another and then, I think there were some lights? That’s it.”

That was apparently not what the nurse wanted to hear as he frowned down at him, before glancing across the room. “Ruby, would you like me to tell him, or would you prefer to?”

She withdrew a little further in her corner, murmuring back, “You can. I can’t say it.”

“Alright.” Arma set his clipboard down on the side table, turning his full attention back to his patient. There was nothing about that piteous look that Qrow liked. “The story I was told is your nieces and her friends were out looking for one of your teammates that had gone missing.” Missing? Who had-? “During their search, one of them spotted you running into the street, right in front of a truck. Your niece here used her semblance to get you out of the way, but you were so intoxicated you couldn’t answer why you’d done it. You don’t remember that?”

Qrow could barely breathe. “I… N-No.” Had he been trying to…?

Oh gods, and Ruby and Yang had both witnessed it.

The armadillo Faunus only nodded and continued, like he wasn’t shaking up Qrow’s entire psyche. “One of them brought you back to the house, before going back out to continue her search, hoping you’d be able to just rest it off. But in the meantime, your blood alcohol concentration continued to rise, until it reached dangerous levels. That was when your teammate that was supposedly missing returned to the house, and he found you lying on the floor, unconscious and unresponsive. He called the rest of your team to notify them of the emergency, and they all rushed back home. One of your other teammates tried to use his semblance to heal you. He didn’t think that it wouldn’t work for a non-physical wound.”

He braced himself as he braved asking, “So, what happened?”

“If I had to guess? His semblance probably jumped your BAC into the highest peak possible.” The man held out his hands like a consolation even as he delivered the blow, “You had a seizure. Two, in fact. One there, and one shortly after you were admitted to ER. During the first one, you bit through your tongue enough that we had to stitch it.” Well, that explained why talking hurt. “The one here was much more severe. You would have asphyxiated on your own vomit had you not have had anyone to clear your airways. After that, the doctor ordered a catheter to clear some of the fluid in your bladder and an IV for the dehydration. We’ve been monitoring your progress overnight. Thankfully, no other complications came up; but, as you can imagine, it was a pretty scary experience. For everyone involved.”

Qrow couldn’t look up anymore, and instead stared down at his trembling hands, feeling the shame and humiliation tangling its way through him. “Yeah…”

He heard a sigh, Arma picking back up the clipboard. “You’re very lucky, Mr. Branwen. Had they been even an hour later, you probably wouldn’t be here anymore.” He stepped towards the doorway, saying as he went. “The doctor will come check on you in a bit and release you once she’s confirmed you’re well enough.”

With him gone, the following silence was almost suffocating. It felt like it took everything it had in him to speak up. “So uh, hey kiddo, what say we order some hospital food and complain about how awful it is?”

No answer.

“Or, maybe a game? I’m sure my Scroll’s somewhere.”

He saw her jaw twitch but her eyes remained stubbornly focused on the window.

His hands curled into the sheets. “Ruby. Say something. Please.”

“You want me to say something?” She said, turning, a storm in her gaze. “Okay. I’ll say something.” She stomped towards him, stopping at the end of his bed and yelled, “Do you know how mad I am at you?!”

“I-”

“No! Shut up!” She cut her hands through the air, her voice rising another octave, enough to make him flinch. “Do you have any idea what it was like, coming back to you just lying on the floor like that? I’ve never been so terrified as I was sitting out in that waiting room, wondering if you were even gonna make it!” She hitched over another breath, tears flowing anew. “What was I gonna do if you died, huh?! What was I gonna tell dad? That his best friend was just too STUPID to control himself? And Yang’s so upset with you, she won’t even come in here!” She lifted her arms up to the ceiling as if to curse the heavens, “I don’t even know I feel! I’m hurt and sad and, and- I just want to shove Crescent Rose through your head!”

As quickly as it was there, the bluster blew out of her, and as her arms fell and her body slumped, Ruby looked almost small again, in a way that made Qrow remember the innocent, little girl who so looked up to him for so many years. Looked at him like her idol and hero and who would go around school telling anyone who would listen about how her uncle was just the best and she was going to be just like him. Who would bounce at the end of his bed, bright-eyed and begging him to tell her another story about his missions or who would don her blanket like a cape and go running down the halls, fighting off imaginary foes.

And in her visage now, he could see that vision of him shattering around her. It pained him, to realize he’d caused it. He never meant to fail her too.

Ruby sniffled, saying to the tiles, “I know what Professor Ozpin did hurt you, Uncle, and it’s been real hard for you. But you were wrong about something.” She looked up, catching his gaze and holding it in a way she couldn’t before. “You said no one wanted you, but that’s not true. I will always want you to be a part of my life.” The words struck him in the chest, and he couldn’t breathe again. “If dad and Yang were here, they’d say the same. I know you think you’re unimportant and unneeded, and I think you focus so hard on that you can’t always see it, but you are family. And us losing you will break it more than you think it will.”

Qrow twisted the sheets in his hands. “Ruby, I-” His voice faltered. Fuck.

“I just…” She lowered her head. “I don’t know what else to do, uncle. What am I doing wrong?”

His eyes widened.

“If I could just figure out how to-”

“Stop.” Though his voice had been firm he barely felt steady, everything around him ready to upheave. He watched the way his knuckles turned white, the way his arms trembled. The way a single droplet fell from his chin, splotching a wet spot into the sheets. “Look. I know you want me to say I’ll just quit and everything will just be fine. But, I’ve been trying for years. I… don’t know how. To stop.” He chuckled bitterly, hitching over a sob. He couldn’t remember the last time things hurt this bad. “It’s like my semblance. I don’t want it, but I can’t get rid of it, either.” In the corner of his eye, he could see the blur of red growing closer. “But none of this is your fault, kiddo. All this? Being here today? It’s on me and me only. You, Yang, Tai?” He finally looked up at her. “You guys aren’t the reason I fail. You’re the reason I try at all.”

This time, when she hugged him, he didn’t try to pull away like he had at the farm. Instead, he sighed and sunk into it, enjoying the rare warmth and comfort it brought, even if he wasn’t sure he deserved it.

“Uncle Qrow?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

Qrow blinked his eyes open, staring at the silver rose-patterned emblem pinned to Ruby’s coat, seeing his reflection in it. He smiled weakly back at it. “Yeah kiddo, love ya too.”

Qrow stepped out of the bathroom, adjusting the last button to his dress shirt. “Gotta say, my normal clothes are definitely more comfortable than that scratchy gown y’all threw me in.”

“I’ll lodge a complaint with the fashion department, just for you.” Arma quipped, placing a tray on the side table, nodding to it. “Your personal artifacts.”

“Thanks.” He still felt sore and his tongue was a definite mess – he’d decided to take a look at it the moment he had access to a mirror – but after a small meal and enough water to fill a lake, his nausea and his headache had both tempered. Enough for the doc to clear him for release.

“Take care, Mr. Branwen.” Arma headed for the exit but as he reached the threshold, he paused, looking back. “And… for your sake, I hope I don’t see you back here.”

“Yeah, me nether kid.”

Once he’d left, Qrow crossed over to the table, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He pocked his scroll. Slowly slipped back on his bracelets. Then his rings. And, finally, his necklace. All the while avoiding the largest item there until it was all that was left.

He sighed, reaching out and picking up the flask, hearing the slosh as he did. It triggered the itch, the one that left his skin tingling, his mouth watering.

If drinking two glasses of the strongest alcohol in the world was only in the top five worst things he’d ever done, he was pretty sure him undoing the cap of his flask was vying for the number one slot.

“You’re such an idiot.” He whispered as he lifted it.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, following the signs down the hall to the lobby. It wasn’t hard to spot Ruby, between her standout clothing and her high-pitched voice shouting his name as she waved him over.

“Gee, glad the whole cavalry didn’t come running.” Qrow jibed.

She shoved him for it. “They’re outside. The staff doesn’t like a lot of us, uh, ‘weapons-toting kids’ hanging around.”

“Well, at least we’re already here when firecracker decides to deck me right back through the front door.”

“Uncle…” She reprimanded as she turned for the exit.

He followed after her. “Bet you five lien she does it.”

“That’s awful!” A beat, then Ruby smirked. “How about a box of chocolate-chip cookies instead?”

“Deal.” He chuckled, throwing an arm across her shoulders as they walked through the doorway.

Back in room 104, it wouldn’t be discovered until the orderly finished cleaning up the room.

Left upturned in the sink just outside of the bathroom was single item.

A metal flask, the last droplet of alcohol having drained out of it some time ago.

#qrow branwen #ruby rose #ozpin #rwby #fanfiction #Chase Firekitten's Tale

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featherquillpen · 5 years

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Marco/Jake/Cassie in Dæmorphing

Now that Marco/Jake/Cassie is official Dæmorphing canon, I wanted to take a moment to help out the folks who had trouble picking up on the subtext for the ship I’d built up over the series. If you felt blindsided by the ship in “Destroyer of Worlds,” or you’re just curious about how I went about slow burning it for so long, this masterpost is for you.

Origins

I originally intended Dæmorphing to be completely gen, without even the canon ships. I just wasn’t interested in it. But Bridge to the Stars threw me off the rails. You can keep your pining and your soulmate AUs, because I discovered over the course of this fic that my favorite shipping tropes are people infesting each other, and leaders abdicating leadership to their trusted lieutenants. So I started out writing Bridge to the Stars sticking to my guns about no ships at all in Dæmorphing, and by the end of writing it I was shipping Rachel/Tobias and Marco/Jake/Cassie desperately. These parts are not intentional subtext, but rather the passages where I accidentally convinced myself that this ship would be perfect.

Bridge to the Stars, chapter 3:

So I did something I wasn’t sure would work. I relaxed a part of my brain, the part that felt thankful to Marco for saving us all from the inside of my own head. It must have worked, because Marco showed me something too: amazement that I’d let him take over my body, even for just a second – and thanks.

Bridge to the Stars, chapter 6:

“Cassie,” he said hoarsely. He looked up at me with bleary eyes. “While I’m sick, you’re in charge of this mission.”

My mouth went dry. “Me? Why me?”

“Normally I’d pick Rachel or Marco,” Jake said. “But they’re not the right ones for this mission. They don’t understand Yeerks the way you do. They’re too suspicious of Yeerks, even dedicated Peace Movement Yeerks. You should listen to them when they get suspicious. They notice important things. But right now we need trust more than we need fear.”

Merlyse looked at me with big dark eyes, then up at Quincy on her antler. “Take care of them for me, will you?”

Quincy nodded. I had a sudden, wild impulse to kiss Jake. But that would only get me sick too.

Building up Jake/Marco

Once I decided I was going to go with these beautiful shippy feelings I felt, I knew an important part would be building up the Jake/Marco leg of the triangle, because Jake/Cassie is canon and doesn’t take too much convincing to get going. This bit in chapter 2 of The Bright Clear Line is the first intentional subtext:

I covered my face with my hands, trying to keep my breath in, so I wouldn’t have to hear it.

Hands closed over mine and gently pried them from my face. Jake. It had to be. He didn’t die in the boat. Was it really him? I squinted open my eyes. Yes, it was him, and he didn’t even have his serious face on. Just a confused little boy face, like the time he told me about seeing his dad cry. Behind me, Merlyse was a tiny bird on Dia’s shoulder, singing a quiet song. “Hey, Marco. There’s something important you need to know, but I need you to be calm before I tell you, okay? I need you breathe with me. In.” He sucked in air, showing me how, then exhaled. “Out. Do it with me, okay?”

I’ve talked a close friend through a panic attack, someone I love dearly but not in that way, and let me tell you, it does not by any means require you to gently touch the panicking person’s hands and face, or to sing them a song. The calm, steady speech and the breathing together bits are the necessary and helpful bits that Luis would have taught him; the rest is all Jake’s heartache at seeing Marco in pain. Also, in what will become something of a theme, Marco cries in this scene in front of Jake. It is excruciatingly difficult for Marco to cry in front of anybody, even his best friend.

Abel or Cain, chapter 2:

Dia rested her head on Merlyse’s talon. Marco looked at me sideways. “Ax had this idea. From the Andalite military. He calls it the chain of command. When you can’t lead, there’s a lieutenant. Someone who can take over for you. Even when you think you don’t need someone to take over.”

“And that’s you,” I said. I scrubbed the tears from my face with a few hard swipes. “Duh. You’re my best friend, Marco. If you ever again tell me I’m losing it, getting too involved, losing my head – ”

Marco’s words were cool, distant, but Dia squeezed around Merl’s leg, like some weird kind of hug. It was only then I realized how close our dæmons had gotten, closer than Dia had dared ever since David grabbed her.

“What are we, anymore, Dia?” Merl said quietly, looking down at her long, powerful body. “What’s happened to us?”

She didn’t answer. She just rubbed her head against the soft down of Merl’s leg feathers, then slithered back down the bedpost.

This bit is crucial. Part of it is just self-indulgence, not meant as subtext for the reader necessarily, because I seem to have some kind of deeply rooted fetish for leaders letting their lieutenants take over leadership for them. That part’s for me, not you, because that’s what makes me ship it.

Here’s the part that is for the reader. One is that Jake is crying in front of Marco – this is incredibly hard for him, even in front of his best friend, just like it was for Marco last fic. The other is that Diamanta was profoundly traumatized by David grabbing her, and hasn’t touched another dæmon since then, but she works past that trauma because she wants to touch Merlyse so badly. This is gay, folks. It’s gay.

Building up the trio

The Guided and the Lost starts a theme where two of the members of the triad team up to help support the third. This has become one of my favorite things about this ship. Here, Marco and Cassie take Jake home after he (and Marco) were tortured by Taylor. They’re working together to help him but they’re not sure how.

The Guided and the Lost, chapter 2:

I stared down at Jake and waited for Cassie to do something Cassie-ish that would fix this. Dia hissed in my ear, “She’s going to cry. Do something, quick, before she cries.”

I had no good ideas, but anything would be better than Cassie crying. I asked Jake, “What do you do to get to sleep?”

Quincy nipped the back of Cassie’s hand with his fangs. She swallowed hard and pulled herself together. She pulled up the chair from Jake’s desk and sat down. “Okay,” she said. “I have some history for you. The barn’s been in my mom’s family for generations. Let me tell you about it. See, her ancestors were here before California was a state. They were a mestizo family from Mexico who built a ranch up here.”

I stood there awkwardly, listening even though I always found history kind of boring. I wondered again if I should leave. But Cassie gestured for me to sit at the foot of Jake’s bed. I sat down, feeling weird about it even though I’d had sleepovers in this room a million times before.

Here, Marco feels awkward and jealous because he’s had so many sleepovers in Jake’s bedroom, and now he and Cassie are both in Jake’s bedroom and Jake and Cassie are having a Moment and Marco feels like a third wheel. A bedroom is an intimate, private space, and Marco is used to sharing it with Jake and Jake alone; he is not ready to share that intimacy with Cassie, and he feels usurped. At the same time, he feels pathetically grateful to Cassie for helping him deal with Jake’s feelings.

Putting Down Roots:

We passed by Marco, who had ended up dancing with Cassie after all. He was keeping it slow and simple with her so she could keep up. I was kind of surprised to see that she was having fun. She was always so awkward at school dances I figured she didn’t like dancing at all. But she was wearing a nice blouse and slacks instead of a dress, which I’d picked out on the hunch she’d be more comfortable in them. There was no pressure, no other girls trying to ask Jake to dance, and she was laughing at Marco’s over-the-top gentlemanliness.

Marco is tuned in enough to Cassie and Jake’s relationship that he understands that Cassie feels awkward and a little hurt that Jake won’t dance with her. So he steps in and dances with her, doing everything he can to make her feel more at ease.

In Chapter 8 of The Tree of Life, the Animorphs get the news from Evatran that under their instructions, the Sharing is starting new programs to round up the homeless and disabled as hosts. Continuing the theme, Cassie and Jake team up here to make Marco feel better after hearing this news.

Jake stayed behind, though. I caught him in a pleading look at Cassie that read something like: help, Cassie, he’s having an emotion! Quincy mantled his wings to cover his face. Merlyse became an Arctic wolf and gave her an even more pleading look, with puppy eyes.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s okay, you dweeb. Cassie can stay. It’s not like she can’t tell I’m having a mini freak out over here, anyway. She always knows.”

“Hey,” Jake said, looking back and forth between us. There was a crushing weight behind his eyes. He pulled me and Cassie into a hug, which actually worked, since Cassie and I are short and Jake is a big block of a guy.

“Cassie,” I said, muffled into Jake’s arm. “He’s trying to crush us to death. Aren’t you gonna stop him?” Merlyse huffed as Quincy bit into her neck fur, where it was too thick to hurt. Dia hissed a laugh and flicked her fuzzy white leg with her rattle tail.

When Jake let us go, Cassie said, “This changes everything. I think. The war is getting – I don’t know.” She shrugged, and held out her hand for Quincy. “I just have a feeling.” And she went into her house.

I looked at Jake. “Does she always say stuff like that?”

“I dunno. Sometimes. Why should I know?”

“Because she’s your girlfriend?”

“I don’t know what we are,” Jake said.

I stared at him and shook my head. “God, you’re an idiot.” And before he could ask me why he was an idiot, I left.

Here, Jake and Cassie team up to make Marco feel better. Cassie talks to Marco, helps him see the situation from a different perspective, and Jake pulls them into a group hug. The bit at the end with Jake and Marco is Marco being jealous and resentful of him and Cassie again – Cassie can be more open about her feelings for Jake, because of heteronormativity, and even with her feelings more open, Jake still won’t act. So what kind of hope does Marco have?

In Chapter 2 of Welcome Home, Marco and Cassie team up to make sure Jake doesn’t offer up his own family as a sacrifice to the Yeerks to save everyone else.

Diamanta reared up and hissed, making all of us flinch except Abineng. “That’s bullshit and you know it! Yeah, Dad and Nora are top of the list because my mom’s a Controller. So how does that put you, the family of a Controller, at the bottom of the list?”

“Tom’s dead as far as they’re concerned,” Merlyse shot back.

“So you think they’ve forgotten he has a family?” Dia said.

Jake opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “Put me last,” I said. “Marco’s right. All of your families are related to a high-ranking Controller. Mine’s not. My parents can wait.”

This is very much Cassie showing her love for Jake in the most concrete possible way: putting his family ahead of hers.

In Chapter 4 of Welcome Home, Jake and Cassie learn about polyamory for the first time in their lives, and their reactions are.... interesting:

Ket considered this. “Ghat have husband, Dref, and wife, Meret. Is gay?”

While my brain tried to process that, Cassie said, “Wait, so was this a three-way wedding today?”

Ket laughed. “No! Ghat marry Dref before. In cage, in Yeerk Pool. Now Ghat marry Meret.”

“Won’t Dref get jealous?” I said.

Ket tilted her head at me. “What is jealous?”

Merlyse started laughing, then I joined in. I shook my head. “The Hork-Bajir are so cool. You have it all figured out, don’t you?”

Cassie and Quincy looked at each other. He pricked his ears at me. Cassie raised her eyebrows and said, “You think it’s cool, huh? That Ghat has a husband and a wife?”

I blushed. “I think it’s cool that they can do stuff like that without worrying they’ll get divorced over it, yeah.”

Why is Jake blushing here? It’s because he’s subconsciously thinking about the possibilities of polyamory like the Hork-Bajir’s, and he’s more intrigued than he’s ready to admit to Cassie. But Cassie still picks up that Jake has more than a passing interest in the concept.

Chapter 6 of Welcome Home is a huge step for the trio. This is where Marco and Cassie get more on the same page, recognizing the parallels and commonalities between them, and Cassie starts to get a clue that there’s something developing between the trio.

I crumpled into Marco, on the side where Diamanta wasn’t draped over his shoulder. I cried with the force of my whole body, shaking against him. For a moment, he stiffened. Then he laid a hand on the back of my head, so lightly it barely flattened my afro, and turned his head so his cheek touched my forehead. I remembered the look on Marco’s face when he said goodbye to Eva, and fresh pain wracked me. Our mothers had made their choices, and we had to live with them. Live without them. Let them go.

Something hot and wet trickled down my forehead. Marco was crying too, here in the night when my face was hidden and no one but Diamanta would see.

I stared at it. “Oh, hell with it.” I took a long swig. “Huh. That tastes way better than the red wine my parents drink sometimes.” I smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek. I tasted a hint of salt from where he’d cried on me. “You’re sweet.”

Marco went brick red.

“First of all, Cassie’s not my – she’s – ” He shot me a frantic look and flushed pink. “Look, Tom, it’s none of your business, but she can kiss Marco on the cheek if she wants to! Second of all, how do you even know what they were doing?”

My tongue tied itself in a knot. The words hovered in the air: Cassie’s not my – Cassie can kiss Marco on the cheek if she wants to. I should say something about that. Or about the stupid mission I’d just run behind his back. But I just couldn’t right now. So instead I told Marco, “Save it for another night. Then all three of us can pass it around.”

“Ooh, Cassie, repeat offender,” Marco said. “Who would have thought? And dragging Jake into her wicked ways too!”

It’s the only way we’ll talk about the things we really need to talk about, Quincy thought. I smiled weakly. “Yeah. That’s me. A wicked, wicked temptress.” And I walked back to the yurt, feeling like I’d missed out on a chance to come clean.

Again, following the theme with these three, Marco is able to cry in front of Cassie here, which is not an easy thing for him.

I use blushing strategically, folks. Marco blushes because he likes the kiss and doesn’t know what to do with that. Jake blushes while talking about Cassie kissing Marco because it’s giving him the warm tinglies and he doesn’t know what to do with that.

I explicitly foreshadow the way the trio are going to get together when Cassie tells Marco to save the rest of the limoncello for another night. Cassie wants Marco to do that because she already understands at this point that there’s something going on between the three of them and the only way the other two are ever going to talk about it is if they have alcohol in their systems. Ah, our beloved manipulative Cassie.

Then our other huge step comes when, yet again, Cassie and Marco team up to help Jake, this time when he’s going back to keep watch for Tom, not knowing what his fate will be.

«You look like Ax’s jock brother. You’re on the football team, he does fencing. You make fun of him for being a fancy nerd.» Marco’s face broke into a doggy grin. «You’re both pretty cute, though. All of us should have kids. We obviously have primo genes.»

Friends, Romans, countrymen, this is bi as fuck.

«I dunno. She’s pretty hardcore for a cute little bird,» Marco said. He started rubbing his head against my thigh and licking my hand. It reminded me so much of Homer I almost wanted to laugh. I scratched his ears, and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. «Ohhhh man,» he said. «Now I know why dogs are so wild about getting their ears scratched. That is awesome.»

It should have been weird. Marco wasn’t Homer, after all. He was my best friend, and I was petting his head. Not to mention Cassie was a Yeerk in my head while I did it. Maybe it was just so weird it went all the way back around to being okay, somehow. Whatever it was, I gave into it. I sank into a crouch and scratched the thick ruff around Marco’s neck with both hands. He licked my face. “Hey, stop that! You’re not Homer, you have no excuse.”

That hetero feel when you rub your head against your bro’s thigh and lick his hand. That hetero feel when pet your bro while your girlfriend is a slug in your head. Just some relatable, totally straight feelings.

And this is how I finally got to bring the relationship from subtext to text in Destroyer of Worlds. What a journey it’s been!

#daemorphing meta is go

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soundrooms · 6 years

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Soundrs: Jaeden Camstra

We can’t stop listening to Jaeden’s brilliant ➜ BeatTape, so we reached out to this talented producer to learn a bit about his production process.

What’s good y’all. I’m Jaeden and I make Lo-Fi/Chillhop along with trap music.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/_jaeden_c

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaeden_camstra/

SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/jaeden-camstra

What are your inspiration sources?

My inspiration comes from a range of things. Cartoons, nature, and other music are the main three. But also, inspiration comes in all shapes and sizes. If I’m frustrated about something or my day just has nothing going, that can really motivate me to create. While at the same time, seeing a supermodel on my timeline can do the exact same.

What are your favorite cartoons?

I’ll always love the old technicolor ones from the mid-1900s, Tom and Jerry stand out and I actually really enjoy the really old Speed Racer cartoons as well. I’m big into anime too, mainly shows done by Shonen. Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, and Yu Yu Hakusho have a dear place in my heart. Spongebob takes the crown though, I grew up with him on the TV nonstop. There are so many more I could comment on honestly hahaha, but those are the highlights for sure.

Tell us something about your workflow.

My workflow used to be a mouse and laptop based, click and drag style when I started making music. In fact, I still use this style when making trap beats. When it comes to sampling and lo-fi however, it’s now a lot of chopping on my SP-404sx and finger drumming on my Akai MPD218. Those are the two machines my workflow really revolves around. I also have a Korg Kaossilator which is great for fx and electronic sounding blips and such. Eventually, I run percs, vox, samples, and fx all through my SP to really get that nice beat up sound.

How would creative rituals benefit your workflow?

Creative rituals would be great just to gain a grasp of some sort of mental organization or an agenda.

Do you have any creative rituals?

Not really actually, I guess deep breaths from time to time if I need to recalibrate mentally. It’s always good to take a good thirty second break to just listen how things are complementing each other. That’s why it’s good to always have a drink or something for those little breaks in time.

How do you get in the zone?

I don’t have any specific way to enter a zone honestly. Usually a certain sample will, but I just hop onto my laptop in FL Studio and I’ll enter one eventually as I’m working. Usually when the tempo is set for a song or when the general bounce settles is when the zone creeps in.

How do you start a track?

Digging! Whether it be straight from vinyl or YouTube, the sample is always a spot I enjoy starting at. Listening to some vintage, dusty, and warped jazz has always been enjoyable for me.

Do you have a special template?

Completely empty. New track new world.

What do you put on the master channel?

Nothing! Only rarely I put a limiter if a mix sits really boomy or big, but that’s not often.

Do you care about mastering your tracks?

Personally, mastering is an avenue that I don’t have much experience in at all so I usually just mix to the loudness I prefer. I only have Dre Beats Pro Headphones along with a Beats Pill to do all of my mixing and I guess you could say “mastering” (bedroom production at its finest hahah). Being in my bedroom right next to my neighbors, I was never allowed to get the studio monitors that would allow me to do so. Do I care about mastering though and see the value in it? Of course. For example, when I made ➜ Knockout with Engelwood for Yung Gravy, the engineers that mastered that file really made us sound like gods hahaha. Overall, mastering is definitely something I’m gonna want to be able to do.

How do you arrange and finish a track?

In terms of arrangement, I think a lot about balance. Things will progress just as layers are added to either the drums or melody. The transitions between these layers is what takes a track far. Whether it be a cymbal roll, a stutter, chant, or some extra warping, it adds flavor. I try to think of tracks as sonic collages, you just gotta make sure all the pieces compliment each other and blend seamlessly.

Finishing a track has always been difficult for me and for many I’m sure. I just try my best to gain a listener’s point of view that is as unbiased as possible and listen from start to end. If I feel it’s just full enough, but not overbearing is the point when I deem it complete.

How do you deal with unfinished projects?

I keep ‘em! There’s always new techniques that are learned and could be applied to old projects and could totally revive them. There isn’t a need to just throw away an idea.

How do you store and organize your projects?

I organize them based on project folders and feel/genre.

How do you take care of studio ergonomics?

I’ve got two screens for my DAW which is plenty and just enough table room for my small amount of hardware. I keep my drumpad closest to me since it’s the only one that really takes two arms. Luckily my desk covers about 180 degrees so the rest of my equipment is just a little spin away on my chair. I deal with a lot of wires, but it is what it is hahah

Tell us something about your daily routine, how is your day structured, how do you make room for creativity?

Well at the moment, I’m on summer break so I’ve got all day to be creative. If I’m not making something, it’s either to eat, go on a walk, or watch tv. I just create whatever it may be until I fall asleep. Same thing for when I had school. It would be get home, do whatever work for school, then create ‘til my brain says it’s time to sleep. That carries over into late hours pretty often though. I’m a night owl, so I like working during those late hours. I go to college pretty soon though, so I’m going to have to really discover a new way to make room for creativity.

Share a quick producing tip.

Don’t let your eyes work for you while in your DAW. It’s easy for something visually on your screen to steer you in another direction. Trust your ears.

Share a link to an interesting website (doesn’t have to be music related).

https://www.hudl.com/profile/2094843/Jaeden-Camstra

These are some highlight of me playing basketball in high school hahaha

List ten sounds you are hearing right this moment : )

Air conditioner hum

Light Bulb rattling in my ceiling fan

Springs on my bed flexing

My soundcloud likes

Keyboard typing

Air coming out my nose

….

That’s all I’ve got hahah

Thanks Jaeden! If you want to get featured, send a message here on tumblr or email [email protected].

#soundrs #soundrooms #interview #creativity #workflow #workspace #Music Production #music producers #producers #audio production #audio producer #lo-fi #lo-fi hip hop #chillhop #electronic music #flstudio #jaeden camstra

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this-basic-witch · 6 years

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Which fan fic should I write?

Nanowrimo is days away but I really don’t want to get back to the novel I’m supposed to be finishing. So...procratination fan fic time! But, I can’t decide what to write:

1. Dragon Age Inquisition: Bart Trevelyan thought he was done with The Chantry after being kicked out of Templar training seven years ago for...reasons. Until his mercenary company is hired to play bodyguards at The Conclave. Ariel Lavellan is the First of Clan Lavellan, but she seems more interested in digging around ruins and hoarding various junk human travellers leave behind than the duties of a Keeper. When she’s sent to spy on the mage-templar negotiations she jumps at the chance to glimpse the human world for herself. Neither are meant to be leaders, yet that is exactly what they must become when they emerge from the rumble with the answer to Thedas’s salvation burned into their hands...

So yeah, this would be a story with 2 Inquisitors with the power of the mark split between them so they have to work to together to seal rifts. Oh, and Adaar will show up as Bart’s merc boss and become the glamazon girlfriend Blackwall always wanted. Also, Trevelyan/Cassandra and Lavellan/Solas action (or they could end up with each other who knows haven’t planned that far ahead).

2. Dragon Age 2 Modern AU: For years now barman Varric has been scrapping pennies to try to buy The Hanged Man from its absentee owner and finally run it the way he wants. Lin Hawke is a wannabe comedian/musician/ ‘I don’t know it’s like...Flight of the Condors...sorta’ trying to turn her past as a Blight veteran and Feralden refuge into something more funny than painful. After seeing her perform on The Hanged Man’s open mic night Varric ropes her into his latest get rich quick scheme with the promise of becoming her manager and giving her top billing every night when he owns the place. But another regular, a mysterious must-probably-a-con-woman known to patrons only as Isabela, threatens to put a spanner in the works when her troubles follow back to the bar...

This’ll start out as an off-beat romantic comedy with Hawke/Isabela as the main ship, evolving into a crime drama as the events of the game play out in some kind of modern equivalent. I have not idea if I can write the jokes/songs that’ll be needed for Lin’s performances, but I do love her character and this AU version of her.

3. Mass Effect: The only joy Marlene Shepard got out of life after her father died in the First Contact War and her mother uprooted them from Texas to take a job on the Citadel was joyriding in rich people’s cars, throwing empty beer cans off high places, and telling C-Sec where to shove it. Especially some stick-up-his ass Turian rookie, who seemed to make it his personal mission to put an end to her D-Grade delinquency. 14 years, a stint in military school, and one weird run-in with a Prothean beacon later, Marlene’s path crosses with the now more experienced and jaded Officer Varkarian once again. Can they put their past aside long enough to help each other, or is that past just the connection they need to get through all that is to come?

So yeah, a Shakarian fic with a chapter or two set before the events of the game and following the canon after that (except maybe at the very end cause you know why).

4. TMNT 2003: Galaphenia had been fascinated by Earth ever since her people discovered a decades-old probe sent out by the planet with videoes of all the wonderful music and art humanity had created. But it all seemed like a fantasy world to her, especially after the harsh realities of having to flee her own planet when The Federation invaded to some backwater system, losing all her family except her older sister in the process. That is until four strange green teens showed up claiming to be from that legendary place. She and her sister agree to use the skills that helped them escape The Federation the help the brothers do the same on the condition they get to come back home with them. But when Gal arrives there, without the last of her family, she’s met by an Earth that is nothing like those visions of the past, a place that is not ready to meet an alien like her. Instead, she must live in a world of shadows beneath it all with the mutants that bought her there, and things don’t any easier when she finds herself being drawn closer to their leader...

Yeah...I’m gonna be honest here, this one is more me trying to appease the 12-year-old me after I nostalgically binge-watched my favourite show last month than anything else. I’m pretty content keeping this one to myself but who knows, there must be some reason this idea has rattled around in my brain for 10 years, and there’s an audience for everything. Anyway, it’ll pick up at the start of the Turtles In Space arch from the second series and follow the main storylines from there with that shoehorned canon character/OC melodrama we love.

Do any of these sound not horrible?

#fan fiction #fan fic ideas #fan fic concepts #tmnt #tmnt 2003 #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age 2 #mass effect #shakarian #hawkabela #adaar/blackwall #lavellan #trevelyan

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kellyinboston · 6 years

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Life so far...

Look at me, two posts in a week. Exciting stuff people.

I struggled with how to talk about the last three months, because I want it to be somewhat condensed because you guys don’t want a novel but I also want to be extremely comprehensive because I want to remember everything. See my dilemma? I also realized I haven’t shown you a photo of Dominic yet…that will change!

The easiest thing for me would to break down the last few months into categories of sorts, just to keep a somewhat coherent train of thought. My brain seems to have lost some brain cells.

Update on Snoop

Let’s get the most important “person” out of the way first. How is Snoop doing with Dominic. Very good. She has accepted that this little creature is here to stay. She likes to give him LOTS of kisses. We try to keep it to a minimum but she is quick about it so we don’t always catch her. She is very interested in the noises he makes and seems somewhat protective, although that could just be me making things up. She is jealous, but not in an aggressive way. If Neil and I are both focusing on Dominic she will run over and throw a stuffed animal at us requiring us to pay some attention to her. I cannot wait until Dominic gets older (I mean I can wait because I don’t want time to go by too fast) so they can be best buds.

Update on the parents

So, we are managing to keep Dominic alive, so points for us there. We are tired, but a functional tired, we enjoy the little guy and get a kick out of him. I have been with Dominic A LOT more than Neil but that is about to change.

I am happy Neil will be able to spend time with Dominic but a little jealous because Dominic is starting to become more engage, interactive and really just a little human the last few weeks. I exclusively pump which is nice because other people can feed Dominic (i.e. Neil) but pumping can be a bit annoying as well. I have been very fortunate with my milk supply (A LOT!) and I pump 4x a day (totaling about 1hr50min) and I produce about 35 ounces a day (more or less). Dominic drinks about 25 ounces a day (I’ll get more into that below). So needless to say, I am freezing a decent amount of milk. Pumping can get old and sometimes it hurts (not normally) but I will do it for as long as a can (but not beyond a year). I recovered fine from the c-section. I gained around 35 pounds and have about 5-8 more pounds to lose. My clothes fit, but many of my pants do not fit well. My stomach is just a bit weird from the surgery. I haven’t really made much of an effort to lose the weight to be honest. But these last pounds are not going to come off without significant effort on my part, which is annoying. But I want to fit into my old pants so I need to get started doing something…probably eating healthier (my mac and cheese + ice cream last night isn’t helping) and moving my body more. I have ran maybe 3 times since Dominic arrived and that is about it…so I just need to do something, it is hard to find the time and when I do have the time I am tired. Excuses, excuses…I know. Neil is the relax/chill parent while I am the nervous/uptight parent. Any surprise there?

Update on Dominic

This is the good stuff folks! Dominic is almost 4 months, which is crazy. The time has gone fast but slow at the same time. Hard to explain! I had an easy pregnancy (at least I think I did…), the birth didn’t go as planned but we got Dominic so that’s okay and we have a pretty easy baby. However, Dominic has not been without his issues. First thing is that Dominic isn’t super interested in eating. Does NOT take after his parents in this regard. He has struggled to gain the appropriate amount of weight. He is gaining, just at a slow pace, which (to put it mildly) has caused us some stress. I know you are not supposed to compare your baby to what other babies are doing but it is hard when so many of my friends/co-workers have had babies all within a few weeks of each other. So, I won’t compare...Dominic drinks about 25 ounces a day…sometimes these ounces come easy sometimes not. This is the minimum number he should be getting, ideally, he would be drinking between 28-32 ounces. So…it can be a bit frustrating when it is time for bed and he is at 22/23 ounces. He has gotten better in the past couple weeks, fingers crossed this continues. The doctor had some blood work done to see if they could figure out why he wasn’t gaining enough and we found out his thyroid was borderline high. I won’t get into the specifics because I don’t really know too much about it myself, but a “normal” thyroid (TSH and Free t-4) level for someone his age is 1-9, his tested at a 10…so the doctors are being extra cautious and prescribed Dominic medicine he needs to take daily. This could be something he has to take his whole life or something he outgrows. We won’t really know until 3 years…so it seems like we are in it for the next 3 years at least. He may have hypothyroidism. But this isn’t the reason he isn’t gaining a lot of weight. I was hoping he would get on the medication (which he has been taking over 2 months now) and then his appetite would increase but nope! This was stressful news to get and obviously it is not ideal that he could have a chronic “condition” but hypothyroidism is completely treatable with a daily pill so in the grand scheme of things it is not that bad. Not ideal but what can you do!

In addition to his slow weight gain and hypothyroidism – Dominic had a severe diaper rash for almost 2 months. By diaper rash I mean sores on his little bum. It was bad and very stressful because I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere because the second he pooped his diaper had to be changed because you don’t want that acid to sit too long on his butt. And we have all these creams that we use…it was just a lot. The diaper rash didn’t seem to bother him too much except towards the end. It seems to have gone away now…but we still put cream on after every change just to keep it at bay because we think he has sensitive skin on the bum. We have started calling Dominic “Dominic the Difficult”

Okay…now that I got all that out of the way, have I mentioned that he is just the perfect baby and we love him so much? Have I mentioned that he is such a calm, content baby who smiles and makes the cutest faces in the world?

Have I mentioned that he sleeps great? Have I mentioned that he doesn’t cry really at all, he has a “witching hour” between 4-7pm where he tends to get fussy (not the whole time, just during that timeframe) but even then, he is so cute that it is okay. Have I mentioned that he is starting to touch the books when I read them or spins his own rattle? Pretty much a genius. He loves music (the ABC phonics song in particular), loves weird noises that come from our mouth, farts and poops really loud, has discovered his hands (so they are in his mouth all the time), loves the changing table and pooping mid-diaper change, likes baths, loves opening his mouth really wide, is on the verge of a laugh, can roll from his stomach to back and back to stomach. Burps loud. He does not like the camera. His hair is turning red. He makes the cutest noises.

I could go on and on. I never expected to love him so quickly and so intensely. That sounds cliché but it’s true. He is our son and he is perfect.

I know that everything I just said about him can change tomorrow (the rate at which he changes from week to week is crazy) but I will take this all in and embrace the changes that come along (unless it means he becomes a bad sleeper, I won’t embrace that change…but I will have to accept it).

I think that is it for now!

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woodsens · 4 years

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Where to Find Guest Blogging Opportunities on fireinsidemusic.com

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens tracks that she wrote greater than ten years in the past, the lady who arrived for being acknowledged only as being the piano Trainer offered what, in hindsight, seems like an eerie glimpse of her possess foreseeable future.

Im shifting away right now to a place so far-off, where by nobody is aware my identify, she wrote while in the lyrics of a tune known as Relocating.

When she wrote that music, she was young and vivacious, a piano teacher and freelance songs writer who beloved Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river Seems, extended walks and every little thing about New York.

On a type of beloved walks, by means of Central Park in the bright sun of a June working day in 1996, a homeless drifter beat her and tried to rape her, leaving her clinging to everyday living. Once the assault, the terms to her track came legitimate. She moved away, away from New York City, away from her previous lifestyle, and all but her closest mates didn't know her identify. To the remainder of the planet, she was — much like the additional famous jogger attacked in Central Park 7 many years before — an nameless symbol of the urban nightmare. She was the piano Trainer.

Now, over the 10th anniversary of your assault, she is celebrating what appears to be her entire recovery from brain trauma. She's 42, married, with a small child. She's Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano teacher, and she or he wants to notify her story, her way.

Her health care provider informed her it will choose 10 years to Recuperate, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I experience my life is redefined by Central Park, she claimed many days in the past, her voice comfortable and hopeful. Just before park; immediately after park. Will there at any time be described as a time After i dont think, Oh, This can be the tenth anniversary, the eleventh anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch home in a very wooded subdivision within a Ny suburb. She sat in a eating home strewn with toys, surrounded by photos of her cherubic, darkish-haired two-year-outdated daughter. A Steinway grand stuffed fifty percent the space, and at one particular point she sat down and played. Her enjoying was forceful, but she seemed embarrassed to Participate in quite a lot of bars, and shrugged, as an alternative to answering, when questioned the title from the piece. She asked that her daughter and her town not be named.

She calls that working day, June four, 1996, the working day Once i was harm.

Hers was the first in a very string of assaults by a similar man on four Women of all ages around 8 days. The final victim, Evelyn Alvarez, 65, was crushed to Dying as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleansing store, and ultimately, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to everyday living in jail.

But the attack over the piano Instructor may be the just one persons look to recollect quite possibly the most. A part of the fascination should do with echoes of your 1989 attack around the Central Park jogger. But In addition it frightened individuals in a means the attack to the jogger did not mainly because its situation had been so mundane.

It didn't happen inside of a distant Portion of the park late at nighttime, but near a favorite playground at three during the afternoon. It might have took place to any one. The tension was heightened with the mystery with the piano lecturers identification.

For 3 times, as police and Physicians attempted to discover who she was, she lay in a coma in her clinic bed, nameless. Her mothers and fathers were on getaway and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Last but not least, one among her learners regarded a law enforcement sketch and was ready to identify her from the healthcare facility by her fingers, since her deal with was swollen further than recognition. The police didn't launch her name.

The very last thing she remembers about June 4, 1996, is supplying a lesson in her studio condominium on West 57th Street, then putting her extended hair in a very ponytail and heading out for the stroll. She doesn't keep in mind the assault, although she has read the accounts with the police and prosecutors.

To me its like a reality I realized and memorized, she claimed. As though I were being a pupil at school researching historical past.

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She will not consider the man who did it. I might need been angry for any minute, although not much longer than that, she stated. How could I be indignant at John Royster? He was declared not crazy, but I guess by our standards he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her medical doctor at New York Clinic-Cornell Professional medical Heart, as it was identified in 1996, explained to reporters that she had a ten % potential for survival. Medical professionals had to get rid of her forehead bone, which was later changed, to produce space for her swelling Mind. When her mother made a community attract pray for my daughter, thousands did.

Immediately after eight days, she arrived away from a coma, first within a vegetative state, then within a childlike condition. As she recovered, she slept small and talked continually, at times in gibberish. I was receiving mad at people after they didnt respond to these terms, she mentioned.

Like an Alzheimers individual, she experienced minor brief-term memory and would fail to remember readers the moment they left the place.

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More than many months, she needed to relearn tips on how to wander, dress, read and compose. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, frequented every single day to Participate in guitar for her. He encouraged her to play the piano, from the advice of her Actual physical therapists, who believed she could be disappointed by her incapacity to Participate in just how she once had. Mr. Scherr performed Beatles duets along with her, enjoying the left-hand element though she played the right.

That was my finest therapy, she said.

In August, she moved back again property to New Jersey, together with her father, an engineer, and mother, a schoolteacher. She visited aged haunts and called good friends, hoping to restore her shattered memory. I was incredibly obsessive about remembering, she reported. Any memory reduction was to me a sign of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists considered her development was fantastic, but her two sisters protested that she wasn't the deep thinker she had been.

What bothered her most was that she experienced dropped the ability to cry, just as if a faucet within her brain had been turned off. One particular evening, 9 months following she was harm, she stayed up late to observe the John Grisham Motion picture A Time to Eliminate. Just immediately after her father had long gone to mattress, she watched a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on trial for killing two Adult males who experienced raped his young daughter.

The faucet opened, along with the tears trickled down her cheeks. I thought about my mom and dad, my father, and the things they went by means of, she mentioned. Minimal by very little, my experience returned, my depth of mind returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went back to high school and acquired a masters diploma in new music education.

Not everything went effectively. She and Mr. Scherr break up up 5 years after the attack, though they remain good friends. She dated other Adult males, but she often informed them concerning the attack immediately — she could not support it, she explained — they usually under no circumstances called for a second date.

We've got to search out you anyone, her Good friend David Phelps, a guitar participant, said four many years ago, ahead of introducing her to Liam McCann, a computer technician and newbie drummer. For as soon as, she didn't say just about anything concerning the attack right up until she bought to learn Mr. McCann, after which you can when she did, he admired her energy.

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Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had usually frequented her at her bedside when she was during the healthcare facility, married them in his Situations Square Business. She wore a blue dress and pearls. Whilst she was pregnant, inside a burst of creativeness, she and her pals recorded Even though Have been Youthful, an album of childrens tracks that she had created prior to the attack, including the song Transferring. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, developed the CD. On it, her spouse performs drums and he or she plays electrical piano.

Is her existence as it absolutely was? Not precisely, however she's reluctant to attribute the differences to her injuries. Her final two piano students remaining her, without contacting to explain why, she explained. She has resumed taking part in classical new music, but basic pieces, because her daughter won't give her the perfect time to apply. As for jazz, I dont even check out, she stated.

She wish to push much more, sensation stranded within the suburbs, but she is easily rattled. She tries to be information with keeping dwelling and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a clinical professor of neurological surgical treatment at exactly what is now termed Ny-Presbyterian Medical center/Weill Cornell Health-related Centre, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann after the assault, reported previous week that her level of recovery was scarce. Shes essentially typical, he said.

Other industry experts, that are not Individually knowledgeable about Ms. Kevorkian McCanns case, are more careful.

Regaining a chance to Participate in the piano may perhaps require an Virtually mechanical procedure, a semiautomatic remember of what the fingers have to do, said Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of scientific rehabilitation drugs at Big apple College College of Drugs. As soon as brain-hurt, you are often brain-injured, For the remainder of your life, Dr. Ben-Yishay reported. There isn't a get rid of, There is certainly only intense payment.

The greater telling Element of a Restoration, in his look at, is psychological, and on that score he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns relationship and youngster as a major victory.

For her aspect, the piano Instructor knows she has adjusted, but she has produced her peace with it. I had been type of a hyper —— I dont know if I used to be a kind A, but I used to be formidable, she states. Why was I so ambitious? I had been a piano Trainer. I dont know what the ambition was about. I actually did return to the person Im designed to be.

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