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journalxxx · 3 years

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By Hook or by Crook (7)

“So! How does it look?” Toshinori asked, with a booming voice and his best hands-on-hips pose to kickstart the endeavor with a healthy dose of enthusiasm.

He wasn’t particularly successful.

“Daunting. Impossible. Like I’m gonna die of old age before I’m anywhere close to making a change.”

“A little optimism goes a long way, you know?”

“...I may not die before I’ve lugged away some of this.” Midoriya amended tentatively, scanning the extensive length of garbage-filled beach stretching before them. “And… what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger?”

“That’s the spirit!” Toshinori gave him a pat on the back, strong enough to make the boy stammer forwards. He walked around the back of the truck and started unloading the few supplies he’d brought.

“Wear these.” Toshinori threw him a pair of work gloves. He hoped he’d eyeballed the size right. “I trust you’re up to date with all your vaccines.”

“Uhm.”

“Hopefully no one’s dumping organic waste in here, but I’ll bring some traps if you see any rats. They won’t solve the problem, but it’s better than letting them scurry around freely.”

Midoriya’s eyes darted between the gloves and the beach with muted horror. “R-Rats?”

“Scared of rats?” Toshinori couldn’t help but tease. “Did I mention that I had to wade through the sewers for half an hour before finding you and the sludge villain the other day?”

Midoriya instantly looked mortified. “I-I’m sorry-”

“Not your fault! Don’t apologize!” Toshinori tossed his hands in the air. This kid desperately needed to learn the basic mechanics of humor. “I’m just saying that heroes can’t be squeamish! Rats come with the job, as well as a variety of nasty stuff and filth.”

“Right.” Midoriya followed him as Toshinori, cooler in one hand and bag of papers in the other, sat down on the last steps of the stairs. He picked an egg sandwich for himself and fished a folder out of the bag, opening it on his thighs and starting to read it.

It took him a few seconds to realize that Midoriya was still staring at him, as if awaiting further instructions.

“Well? Have at it!” Toshinori gestured widely at his new playground.

“Oh, uhm, okay.” The kid donned the gloves and took a single step towards the piles before pausing to look at Toshinori again. “I thought you wanted to ask me… stuff.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure you can handle working and talking at the same time without building up some stamina first.” Toshinori answered, eyeing the boy’s scrawny frame critically. “We’ll talk while you’ll be taking a break to catch a breather, which is probably going to happen sooner rather than later.”

“Oh… All right.” Midoriya turned away, his arms hanging limply from hunched shoulders as he muttered to himself. “...Where do I even start...?”

“From the small things. Working your way up to the heavier objects.” Toshinori explained patiently, then gave him a pointed look. “I get the feeling you’re procrastinating.”

The boy approached the closest stack… and did nothing. Was he ever going to stop waffling and get cracking? “Meanwhile, you’ll just, uh… do your own thing?”

“Surely you don’t need me to guide you through the elaborate process of moving objects from point A to point B, do you?” Maybe the kid detected the hint of annoyance in Toshinori’s voice, because he finally, finally set to grab the closest piece of junk- “...Oh. Okay, that’s not a great start.”

“What?” Midoriya stopped halfway through picking up what was probably the first electric fan ever invented, all the way back in the Iron Age. “I haven’t even done anything yet!”

“Bend your knees, not your back. Otherwise you’re going to- do you really not know this? Isn’t the correct way to lift weights Household Chores 101?”

“Oh, right, I know.” Midoriya rearranged his stance in a way that was less likely to earn him a slipped disk within the next two hours. “Do people really lift things like this though? It’s… a lot harder than the normal way.”

“For your legs, yes. For your back, no. You’ll thank me when you’ll be old enough to realize you aren’t made out of rubber.”

Toshinori munched slowly while he watched the kid carry his first loads to the truck. That act alone seemed to distract Midoriya to an amusing degree, his gaze often flicking to meet Toshinori’s eyes for just a moment before shooting back in front of him with blatant self-consciousness. Toshinori allowed the boy a few minutes of warm-up, just the time for him to finish his sandwich and sip a small cup of apple juice, before deciding to kick things into proper gear.

“Running from the truck to the heaps and vice versa would help you gain some endurance too, rather than leisurely strolling back and forth.” Toshinori commented as Midoriya walked past him.

The kid stopped in his tracks and regarded him with a mix of horror and aversion that vaguely reminded him of death-row inmates when faced with their executioners.

“What?” Toshinori went on, unperturbed. “Are you expecting to get fit without getting tired?”

“No, of course not-”

“Besides, you’ll need to keep a swift pace if you want to clear the whole beach before the admission exam.”

“Wha- All of it?! Before the…” Midoriya sputtered, arms wrapping more tightly around the broken chair he was holding as if that was supporting him instead of the other way around. “Y-You never said…”

“But of course! They don’t do things by half measures in U.A., so why should you?” Toshinori grinned. “Plus Ultra, am I right?”

Midoriya let out an incredulous chuckle. “You’re kidding, right? There’s no way I can do something like that...”

“Depends on how much elbow grease you’re willing to put into it.”

Midoriya’s expression shifted minutely as he caught onto Toshinori’s seriousness. “But… but that’s impossible! No matter how hard I work, I can’t- I can’t move stuff like that!” He griped, pointing at the wrecked husk of a van half-buried under a mound of assorted refuse. “Even if I do my best-”

“And pray tell, what’s your best?” Toshinori stood up and walked to the kid, ditching the whimsical demeanor. If playful cajoling wasn’t enough to stir him, maybe it was time to bust out the big guns. “What’s the heaviest you can lift? The fastest you can run? The hardest you can push yourself? When’s the last time you actually tried your very best, and how did it fall short?”

Toshinori was already well and truly spent for the day, but he let the provocation and drive in his words stoke the fire within him, and it flared. The Symbol of Peace broke out of his diminutive shell among dramatic wisps of steam, ready to bestow his wisdom more effectively than his rickety counterpart ever could.

“Do you know what’s the only way to gauge your limits? Reaching them. And the only way to get stronger?“ Toshinori held out his arm between them, and clenched his fist resolutely. He relished the sensation of unyielding muscles tensing and bulging under his skin, tangible proof of the truth of his assertions. “Gritting your teeth and smashing past them! Little by little, but constantly!”

Midoriya had only witnessed that transformation once, poorly and by accident, and it showed. The chair had slipped from his hands without him even noticing, and now lay forgotten at his feet on the bare sand. The kid was gawking at him with wide eyes and mouth agape, the very picture of spellbound rapture. It was far from an unfamiliar reaction from whoever was graced by the Symbol of Peace’s presence, and yet it was still flattering, every time.

“You’ll never improve if you keep dwelling on what you think you can do now. Focus on what you want to do next. Visualize it as a clear goal. Build an image out of it, and then carve it in reality. If you really want that van to move, then it will move. If you really want this beach to be clear, then it will be. But you have to put your back, sweat and heart into making it happen!”

All Might captivated his one-man audience with the usual effortlessness, boisterous showmanship and honest positivity deeply intertwined in a way that boggled his detractors’ minds, but that felt so natural and appropriate to Toshinori. He’d made an art out of it, down to the rumble of his voice and the firmness of his gestures and the levity of his attitude, the art of highlighting and displaying the very best parts of himself so that they could resonate louder, better, brighter.

“So what will it be, young Midoriya? Will you clean up this place within the next ten months or not?”

“Y-Yes. I will.” That had done the trick. It was obvious from the way Midoriya’s back straightened and his expression toughened. It was obvious from the spark kindled in his eyes, a reflection of Toshinori’s own passion, still lacking in heat but full of potential.

“Then you’d better get down to it!” The hero sealed the deal with a radiant smile and a thumbs up. “Time’s a-wastin’!”

“Yes, sir!” Midoriya picked up the chair and dashed towards the truck to unload it there, then he immediately bounced back down the stairs and towards the nearest heap of waste. Toshinori observed the boy’s next rounds with his unwavering smile and few approving nods that kept the kid a bit lighter on his feet.

How much easier it was for All Might to touch people’s hearts. How much easier to inspire, to reassure, to nurture. How much easier everything was for All Might, really. If only that shining beacon of hope wasn’t shackled by the whims of a withering body, how much richer society at large would be for it.

Toshinori let out a deep exhale that took more than just air out of him, and the flame settled down to a low glow. He couldn’t hold back a few wet coughs, and he promptly turned his shrunken back on Midoriya’s concerned glance to sit back on the cool steps.

Unfortunately, there was a lot more than motivation to strength training. Right off the bat, Toshinori could tell that Midoriya wasn’t going to last twenty full minutes of workout. He honestly didn’t know that an ostensibly healthy individual could reach the ripe age of fourteen with such poor body awareness. The boy had coordination and balance on par with a toddler’s: he stumbled on his feet, he tripped on sand, he nearly fell off the stairs twice before realizing that trying to climb them while his view was obstructed by the very items he was carrying might be a less than optimal solution. He seemed to be unaware of the existence of entire muscle groups, and Toshinori had to physically get up and mime movements for him to understand how to exert force more efficiently. Not to mention that he needed incessant needling lest his sprints quickly devolved into lax jogs.

This whole training thing was going to be… an interesting experience, Toshinori could already tell.

Exactly sixteen and a half minutes later, the boy all but collapsed on the stairs beside Toshinori, gasping for air and wiping his forehead on his sleeve.

“B-Break?” He pleaded, quite redundantly.

Toshinori took pity on his plight and pushed the cooler in his direction. “Have a drink.”

“Oh, thank you…” The lack of polite refusal made Toshinori suspect that Midoriya had forgotten to bring his own water.

“There’s sports drinks and fruit juice in there too. Save the snacks for after you’re finished, food and heavy workouts don’t always agree with each other.” Toshinori had packed food primarily for himself, expecting their after-school meeting to last long enough for him to slot in one or two meals in the meantime, but he had taken care of adding a few extras for the kid. A good idea, because the possibility of Midoriya face planting on the ground halfway through out of sheer exhaustion seemed more and more likely by the minute.

“Thank you, you didn’t have to…”

“I promised bribes, didn’t I?”

Midoriya flashed him the tiniest smile, and eagerly drank some water while Toshinori retrieved a small journal and a pen from the other bag. He skimmed through the list of preliminary topics he’d scribbled on the first page under Tsukauchi’s advice, wondering which one he should tackle first.

“All right.” Deciding to follow his instinct in spite of basic common sense, Toshinori decided to begin from the end. “These phone calls of yours. Give me an idea of what they’re like. The last one you had with your father was on April 1st, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about it. Everything you talked about, as precisely as you can remember it.”

The good thing was that Midoriya’s memory was very accurate, and he was able to recall the whole conversation basically step by step. The less good thing was that said conversation was largely commonplace and unremarkable, consisting of very ordinary small talk and inquiries about school, grades, news, local events-

“Quirks?”

“Mh-hm.” The boy nodded. “We always end up talking about quirks, in one way or another. Quirks and heroes. It’s always been… a common interest.”

“Always, uh?”

“Yeah, we’ve been doing it since… forever, really. I’ve always found quirks fascinating, and he has lots of great insight to offer.”

“I can imagine...” Toshinori mumbled. Asking who had initiated that habit was probably pointless, it sounded like it had started too early in the boy’s life for him to remember - or even to understand if he had been deliberately led to develop that interest. Some intriguing nature-versus-nurture speculations could be made on the matter, but they weren’t likely to aid Tsukauchi’s case. “And in what way do you talk about them?”

“We… analyze them, discuss them. What is known for sure about a certain quirk, what can be deduced from footage and descriptions of its use, what its unmentioned limitations might be, how it could be further developed… You saw my notebook, right? Basically the kind of stuff that’s in there.”

“Wait.” Toshinori blinked. Could he have already stumbled into a treasure trove of All For One-certified information? “You mean that all that’s written in that notebook was dictated by your father?”

The kid almost choked on his next gulp of water, and shot Toshinori an almost offended look. “No! No, no, it’s all stuff I found out on my own! Well, almost all of it, there are some additions of his here and there, but… Uh, I’d say at least 90% of it is mine, and 10% of it is his… Actually, more like 95% and 5%-”

Well, that sounded less promising, but it was still a lead. “So he’s been basically teaching you how to conduct your own quirk analyses?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say teaching. I wish our school teachers were that engaging...” Midoriya let out a small sigh. “But I guess we do go about it a little like with school essays. Research, deadline, discussion and all that…”

“Pardon?”

“Well, every month we decide which heroes or quirks we’re going to talk about the next time - back in March we chose Hawks, Kido and Snatch for last month’s call, for example. During the rest of the month we gather information and draw our conclusions, and then we compare them during the next chat.”

“You’ve got quite the well-oiled routine going on there, haven’t you?”

“Actually, I think it’s just to give me a chance to make my own deductions with a clear head instead of on the fly.” Midoriya scratched said tousled head in embarrassment. “I bet he doesn’t even need to do any research, he’s always on the top of his game. I’ve never been able to, uh… one-up him, you know? He always knows what I’m driving at, and somehow he always brings my hypotheses two or three steps further than where I stop.”

Toshinori answered with a non-committal hum. No surprise there, the man was a living quirk storeroom complete with its own self-congratulatory, sentient database. “You don’t seem too bothered by it though.”

“Oh, I’m not. It’s not like he’s ever… disappointed or angry or anything, even if I don’t get stuff. He just enjoys chatting, I guess.” That he surely did, Toshinori grimly thought. Way too much. “And I do too. It’s kind of like a game. Or a challenge.”

“A challenge?”

“Yeah, uh… How can I explain…?” The boy drummed his fingers on the bottle as he collected his thoughts. “Okay, for example: one of the first things dad asked me about Hawks was what shape his wings are, and what I could deduce from that about his flight capabilities. Which was a trick question! I knew it as soon as I heard it, because I’d already figured out the real answer during my research.”

“Ah.” Toshinori blinked. “And… how is that a trick question, exactly?”

“Because Hawks doesn’t actually fly! Not like a bird, at least, so his wing shape doesn’t matter!” Midoriya beamed, and suddenly Toshinori realized that that was the first real, genuine, enthusiastic smile the boy had given him since they’d met. And, without exaggeration, not crying, panicking or grimacing made him look almost like an entirely different person. “He simply can’t! Humans can’t fly even if you stick a pair of wings to them, they’re just too heavy! Other heroes who can fly properly are mostly transformers, like Ryukyu - their whole bodies change when they shift, bone structure and all - but Hawks’ body is entirely human if you exclude his wings.”

Midoriya reached for his backpack and drew out the same charred notebook Toshinori had signed days earlier. An item so vital to the kid’s daily life that he always had it with him, apparently, even more essential than beverages during a workout session. A peculiar, if questionable, trait.

“What Hawks actually does isn’t flying, it’s levitating!” The kid held the notebook open before Toshinori’s eyes on a spread page dedicated to the hero in question. “He uses the second facet of his quirk, the telekinesis that allows him to control his feathers singularly! That also explains his incredible speed, which is completely unjustifiable if you only take into account normal bird flight aerodynamics. His propulsion is powered by his feathers - and each of them is quite speedy and powerful on its own, so it stands to reason that he would be lightning-fast when his wings contain so many of them pushing him in unison!”

Toshinori politely elected to wait for the onslaught of words to subside on its own, although he already suspected that it was a little like standing right under a waterfall and waiting for someone higher up to turn off the faucet.

“That said, that doesn’t explain everything about his quirk… For example, a single feather of his is capable of lifting and transporting an adult person, that has been extensively documented. Yet, he loses the ability to levitate relatively soon after dispatching too many of them - he becomes unable to float even when he still has at least several dozens of them attached to his body. We couldn’t figure out why that happens with the information we have. Maybe it’s harder for him to apply his power to himself, that is often the case for emitters. Maybe it messes with his proprioception, and he can’t control the feathers he hasn’t detached as finely as all the others…”

If there was one thing Toshinori was absolutely certain of at this point, it was that the kid wasn’t short on breath any more. “And this is the part you inferred on your own.”

“Yep! And dad agreed with all of it!” Midoriya’s smile grew even wider. It was astonishing how much it didn’t look like dad’s deranged, shark-like, nightmare-inducing sneer, and Toshinori could only send a quiet thanks to the heavens for that. “This is all guesswork though. Do you… by any chance, do you know if we were on the right track? I’d be really curious to know…”

“Ah, I can’t help you there, kid.” Toshinori felt suddenly on the spot. “I’m not acquainted with Hawks, nor do I know more about his quirk than the average person.”

“Oh, I thought… Since you’re both- I mean, I thought All Might may have met him during the billboard chart events, what with them both being in the top ten.”

“We passed by each other, yes, but we were never properly introduced. He wasn’t particularly interested in rubbing elbows with the old guard, I suppose.”

“Oh. Well, that’s his loss, for sure.” Midoriya, funnily enough, pouted. “Pity, I was wondering… Even if he doesn’t fly, he does flap his wings in a way that resembles a bird’s. I wonder if that’s intentional, to mislead opponents and prevent them from figuring out how he actually moves. Or maybe he does it subconsciously…”

“I’m afraid I really don’t know…” Toshinori had never met Hawks on the field either, it wasn’t common for accidents to require more than a single big-name hero to intervene these days. Especially if one of them was the number one, who often showed up first and invariably solved any incident in mere minutes-

Toshinori suddenly came back to himself and almost facepalmed in frustration. Why was he letting himself be interrogated about completely irrelevant hero trivia? He was the one asking questions! God, he was bad at this. “And your father had nothing to contribute about all this?”

“Not about this specifically, but he did raise a point I hadn’t considered.” Midoriya looked up at the sky, once again lost in his very wordy, very deep lucubrations. “Hawks has an astonishing control on his quirk. He can use his telekinesis to move hundreds of feathers at once, to sense his surroundings, he can even harden them and turn them into weapons. He made Fierce Wings into an incredibly versatile ability, and he’s so young too… And yet, there’s no record of him attending any hero school or training facility in Japan, nor abroad. He claims to be self-taught, but… admittedly, it is hard to believe. One would think he must have had some excellent education and tutoring to make it into the top ten when he was only eighteen…”

Toshinori didn’t reply. Midoriya looked back at him when the silence stretched, and whatever he spied on Toshinori’s face made him immediately backpedal. “I-I mean, it’s odd, but, uh… not suspicious per se, nor a sign of anything… weird or bad about him. There are many heroes who, ehr, prefer to keep their personal history private, especially geniuses, and that’s fine! They have all the right to! Same goes for their quirks, it makes total sense-”

Toshinori massaged his left temple slowly. Right, better just nip this topic in the bud before it got irredeemably out of hand.

He peered again at the notebook in Midoriya’s hands. So All For One had been imparting occasional, amicable quirk analysis lessons to the kid for a good decade, which sounded suspiciously like the kind of knowledge a potential underling or successor might use. On the other hand, Toshinori could think of a million other ways for the Symbol of Fear to instil skills in his son - all of them remarkably more efficient, safe, manageable and ruthless. The whole thing was contradictory in a way that didn’t sit right with Toshinori.

“Mind if I take another look at that?” Toshinori had been in a bit of a rush the first time round, and he’d only taken a cursory glance at the contents of Midoriya’s notes. But if there was a chance of those pages containing words uttered by All For One himself, a more thorough examination was in order.

“Not at all! But, uh…” Midoriya was fast to hand out the item, but his eagerness to assist was even faster to dampen. “Are you going to retain this as evidence too?”

“Mh, I don’t think that will be necessary...” Right, the poor kid’s house had probably been ransacked even further after Toshinori and Tsukauchi’s first pass. No wonder he was worried about losing this prized possession too. “But if it will be, I can make a copy of it for you to keep, so you won’t lose all your, uh, data.”

“Oh, thanks! That would be great!” The kid perked up instantly. He was so easy to please. “Although… I guess I should make a copy of it myself anyway. It’s already kind of… unrecoverable. I could detach the pages with All Might’s sign and preserve those separately, and just photocopy everything else…”

Toshinori’s imagination mercilessly supplied him with the picture of a new addition to Midoriya’s bedroom decor, his five-second poorly-made signature hung to a wall in an elegant frame. He repressed a groan, deliberately neglected to point out that he could simply provide as many new authentic signs as needed, and directed his attention back to the scorched edges of the notebook. “Right… What happened to this thing, anyway? Did someone put it in a toaster?”

Midoriya let out a totally not nervous chuckle as he wrung his hands in a totally not nervous fashion. “Oh, uhm... You know…” Toshinori didn’t, actually, but the kid didn’t elaborate either.

Well, he was allowed to have a modicum of privacy, still. Toshinori let the issue drop, and nudged the boy with his foot. “You seem well rested. Back to the trash you go.”

Midoriya shuffled to his feet less than enthusiastically, and resumed toiling away at his task. While still checking on him often, ready to poke and prod at the first hint of sluggishness, Toshinori browsed through the kid’s notebook. While the contents were indeed worthy of attention, they were scarce in quantity. It must be rather new, since less than a quarter of the pages had been filled. However, the promise of more material to be discovered made Toshinori withhold his judgement on the matter for the time being.

Once that was done, he continued his perusal of the few files Tsukauchi had already put together about the Midoriya case. Toshinori had practically begged his friend to let him have an active role, any active role in the case: he simply couldn’t bear to twiddle his thumbs until someone else kindly pointed him to All For One’s hideout for another overdue thrashing. He simply needed to be involved, or he’d probably start crawling up walls within a week.

Questioning the kid was pretty much the only suitable occupation for him, currently… Well, it was either that or questioning Mrs. Midoriya, and Toshinori was fairly sure that his brain would leak out of his ears if he heard any more details about All For One’s romantic escapades. He wasn’t exactly an expert when it came to investigative work, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he was going to spare no effort to earn some results. If that meant poring over reams of police reports in the hopes of spotting some helpful clue, so be it. At least it would keep him busy, and busy was good, especially in trying times.

He’d applied the same logic to Midoriya, in a sense. The boy seemed the kind of person who’d very easily overthink himself into a negative spiral, even in less dire circumstances than the messy family drama he’d found himself into. It would do him good to focus on a better future, rather than on his depressing present. Giving him a goal to set his sights on would keep him going more smoothly.

At first Toshinori had thought to motivate him towards his dream career, but it turned out that the boy’s strategy about the admission test was… nebulous at best. Not that he could truly blame him for it: fourteen-year-old Toshinori didn’t exactly have a multi-step plan towards becoming the Symbol of Peace either, one couldn’t help being somewhat scatterbrained at that age.

The illegal dumping site had been a serendipitous discovery, and cleaning it up was the perfect type of goal to incite the boy towards. It was very obvious and straightforward, and required no intricate planning: he simply needed to roll up his sleeves and buckle down. And the muscle he’d build while doing it would serve him well for heroic purposes too, so it was a win-win on all fronts. Not to mention that some good old physical exertion would help him sleep at night, which he was still struggling with, if the persistent bags under his eyes were of any indication. Toshinori dearly missed the times when that trick still worked on him too, when driving himself to the brink of exhaustion was a guaranteed one-way ticket to restful and regenerative dreamland. Nowadays, if he accumulated even a sliver of excessive fatigue, all he got was… well, fatigue. And a metric ton of unrelenting body pains and lasting debilitation.

The rest of the afternoon went by smoothly and unremarkably. Midoriya drudged through many rounds of garbage disposal with decreasing energy and verve, but that was to be expected. Toshinori collected more barely relevant and generally useless information, but that was to be expected too. They were both in for the long haul, there was no point in getting upset about it. Eventually the sun started to set, and Toshinori beckoned the boy back to him with a handwave.

“You have more of these?” Toshinori said, tapping his index on the big 13 on the cover of the notebook still on his lap.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Could you bring them with you next time?”

“All of them?” Midoriya seemed frazzled.

“If you still have them, yes. Would that be a problem?”

The boy scratched his head as his cheek reddened slightly. “N-No, not a problem, but some of them are really… I finished the first one when I was seven. They aren't just outdated, they’re… ehr, childish. Just doodles and misspelled ramblings.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not like I’ll be grading them.” Not yet, at least. Toshinori smirked at his own private joke. Maybe he should grade them, as a small practice run. “I just want to give a quick read to a few things here and there.”

“O-Okay…”

“Good. Well, I think we can call it a day.” Toshinori rummaged in his cooler to fetch a chocolate energy bar, and tossed it to the exhausted boy. “Catch.”

Despite the warning, Midoriya did not catch, and the snack bumped against his chest and fell to the ground with a sad clack. Reflexes were MIA too, apparently. What a rare specimen of a prospective hero Toshinori had crossed paths with.

“T-Thank you!” Midoriya immediately picked it up, unwrapped it and shoved it into his mouth as he hopped into the passenger seat of the truck. Whether it was real hunger or fear of passing as rude, Toshinori couldn’t tell.

The drive to Midoriya’s house was brief. The boy was too tired to chat - as if they hadn’t already had their fill for the day. When they arrived and Midoriya climbed out of the vehicle to be on his way, Toshinori finally addressed one last pressing issue.

“Tomorrow your father is going to call you.”

“Yeah.” The kid’s eyes dropped to the ground. Maybe Toshinori should have brought it up sooner. Way to end the meeting on a sour note.

“How are you going to handle that?”

“I’m not.” The boy shrugged. “Mom will tell him I just got my tonsils removed. It's… safer for now. I think.”

Toshinori nodded. “Let’s take a day off then. Even if you can’t speak, he might want to say something to you, and it would be strange for you not to be at home while recovering.”

“Okay.”

He looked so very small, and so very young like that, bathed in the warm hues of sunset, but with no real warmth to his eyes and demeanor. He was too small and too young to be dealing with this shit. No one was old or big enough to deal with any of All For One’s shit, really. Toshinori would have to make sure no one would have to ever again.

“Thank you for your help today. It’s very appreciated, believe me.” Toshinori offered, with his most sincere smile. “Feel free to text me or Tsukauchi if anything comes up, you should be able to reach at least one of us at any hour of day or night.”

“Okay. Thank you. Have a good evening.”

“You too, kid.” Toshinori watched him until the door of his house closed behind his back, then he drove off.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #deku #izuku midoriya #All Might #Toshinori Yagi

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nellie-elizabeth · 2 years

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Outlander: Sticks and Stones (6x07)

You know, I have one major problem with this episode and it's tied in with a problem I've had with the whole season...

Cons:

I find it insulting that this episode wants us to believe for even one second that Claire may have killed Malva. To me, that's banking on a wholly unnecessary source of drama. The situation is fraught enough as it is, with so many different angles to explore, that I seriously don't think we need to add in this element of "maybe Claire's a murderer!" This is all in connection with the ether thing we've been doing all season. That too feels like an unnecessary element that was added to spice up a story that didn't actually require any more spice. Claire can have her doubts and troubles and traumas without adding in an ether addiction-type thing that makes her hallucinate and causes her to doubt her own mind. There's enough meat on the emotional bones of the story without going there at all!

While I'm glad we get to have the Lizzie subplot with the Beardsley twins, I did think it a bit of a shame that it all happened so quickly in one episode... I wish we'd had the reveal in an earlier episode and then maybe the hand-fast trickery here, to spread it out a bit? This show has a challenge in adaptation that springs from the fact that the books weave together subplots and mete out new information in slow little drips over time. So here, they condense the Malva accusation and her death into one episode, and condense the Beardsley subplot into one episode... I don't know, it doesn't quite work for me on the level of information flow.

Pros:

I'll start with Roger: I'm always fascinated by the subplot of him discovering he wants to be a minister. This is all happening a bit different than in the books, since a big part of Roger's journey there is that his throat is all mangled from his hanging and he can't speak very well. They've done away with that here in the show and I can't really blame them, it just means the focus is on other aspects of this life decision. I like that Brianna kind of knows what's going on but she's a little resistant to it. Not that she's not supportive, but until Roger comes forward and really declares this is what he wants, she's not encouraging. I think that's realistic, and I can understand why Bree would be hesitant!

Jamie and Roger's scene was a highlight for me, I think their dynamic as father and son-in-law is a precious one, and so much of it is connected with the way their worldviews and conceptions of masculinity are different. Jamie puts a lot of value on certain types of caretaking and manliness, and Roger is squeamish about slaughtering animals for meat. But there's a great deal of affection and respect between them all the same, and I like Jamie encouraging Roger to talk to his wife about the situation. So sweet!

While I might have missed out on something due to the timing of the Beardsley subplot, I do think it's one of the funniest and more wild aspects of the books and I'm thrilled that it ended up included in the show. It's just... so funny. Lizzie is this quiet unassuming little girl and then she starts hooking up with two different guys at the same time. And they're identical twins? Yikes! It's weird, but I love how it all plays out, and Claire having to process this information as Lizzie's revealing it. Jamie tries to handle it practically, having Kezzie hand-fast to Lizzie so the baby won't be a bastard, but then the sneaky little sinners go to Roger and ask him to hand-fast Lizzie to Joe... what an absolutely hilarious mess.

As for the main story this week, one thing I like about the whole Christie family drama is that we, the audience, know that Jamie and Claire are good people. We know this isn't their fault, and we marvel at the ingratitude of the people living on Fraser's Ridge, that they could think so poorly of the Frasers, who have done so much to give them a home. BUT, at the same time, it all makes sense how rumors spread and things go wrong. The Fisher Folk are all newer to the Ridge, with less loyalty, so that fans the flames. The religious differences, Claire's unorthodox ways as a more modern woman, and Brianna's too for that matter... and Malva is pretty convincing, a beautiful young woman who is standing up and admitting to adultery. If she was merely pregnant by an unwed young man, why would she make up such a scandalous lie, instead of just quietly marrying the actual father? Couple that with the fact that Claire is found clutching a knife, a dead fetus, and covered in Malva's blood, and you can understand why it's hard to believe that nothing fishy went on between the Frasers and the Christies here.

And all of that makes for a compelling drama, which is part of why I wish that Claire's whole ether thing wasn't included, but whatever. I like a good dramatic setup where you can really understand all the different aspects, why different people would feel certain ways.

Gotta give a shoutout to the big Claire and Jamie acting moment at the end! Claire's grief, the way she carries guilt around with her for every bad thing that's sprung from one of her decisions, it's all so palpable, and I think it's important to keep the story grounded in those emotional stakes for our lead characters! I love how Jamie immediately retorts against Claire's thinking, though, pointing out that her decision to come back through the stones also lead to all the good things in their lives. If Claire had chosen to leave Jamie sooner, Brianna wouldn't exist. If she'd chosen not to come back, all the people at the Ridge wouldn't have their current homes. And you've gotta have a good Jamie Fraser one-liner in there, that thing he says about thanking the devil for tempting Claire to sin? Hell yeah, man, that's the good stuff.

So that's that. I can't believe next week is already the finale! This season has gone by so fast. I've got to say, the more of this show I watch, the more I do prefer the meandering, seemingly aimless way the books take us through these various plot developments, but I understand why the show can't adhere to such a format. For what it is, I still always enjoy tuning into this chaotic nonsense each week. The finale is sure to be intense, with folks wanting retribution for Malva's grizzly murder. But who's the actual murderer in our midst?!?!

8/10

#review #outlander #outlander review

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psychedellic-phase · 4 years

Text

Fifteen (pt 13)

(gif by me! I use the iphone app momento)

tw: language, angst, mentions of drug use (relapse), mentions of miscarriage

word count: 7.3k (im sorry)

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Spencer got up from the cold tile floor, fuzzy unicorn in hand, and faced the window above the kitchen sink. He stared out of it, admiring the snow that was still falling lightly, wondering if it was raining in Seattle. His memory flashed to the last time he stood in the rain with you, but he tried to shake the images away. Instead he watched the snowflakes hit his windowpanes and melt. He hoped that maybe you were somewhere staring out of a window, admiring the dreary weather, and thinking of him too.

He found his place against the dishwasher again, sliding down as his mismatched socks gave way so he could stretch his long legs out fully. He pulled the nearly empty box onto his lap and appreciated the light weight of it, as he continued with his twelfth letter and thirteenth item. Thirteen, a number whose history of unluckiness stems all the way back to the thirteen attendees of the Last Supper, and tracks through the number of steps leading up to the gallows, all the way to the number of letters in the names of some of the most infamous criminals.

Thirteen was a haunted number, which rightly accompanied a haunting letter.

“This one’s long. It’s a month of tarnished memories packed into a few pieces of paper. So far I’ve gone through half of a college-ruled one subject notebook and I’ve had to change pens twice. It’s nearing 2:30, and the wine is finally hitting my empty stomach. Sorry in advance for the way my handwriting will be. I’ll try to make this make as much sense as I can.

If you look at your thirteenth item it is the notepad I stole from that resort in Florida. There isn’t much around to signify this letter. You don’t keep mementos from one of the saddest days of your life, but for some reason I took this useless paper and shoved it in my purse on my way out. Good thing I did, or you’d have no item to attach to these memories. Though I suppose that might be better.

The resort was where we were going to be at for our ‘babymoon,’ whatever that is. What a dumb idea, I’m still mad at myself for letting Garcia talk us into one. She just made it sound so appealing.

Once everyone knew I was pregnant, Hotch pretty much sat me in Quantico with Penelope. There were a few local cases where I was lucky enough to go visit the ME’s office, but usually I kicked my feet up in her lair while you were out in the field.

“A what?” I said one day as she ran DNA through CODIS. The two of us were drinking herbal tea, and I was barely 16 weeks. I just looked like I had a big lunch in my stomach, not a baby the size of an avocado.

“A babymoon. It’s like a honeymoon, but you go when you’re pregnant. It’s one last trip for mommy and daddy to go on and spend quality time together. How many trips have you and Dad-Wonder even been on?”

I shrugged. We didn’t travel much for pleasure. We traveled for work, so on our rare days off we liked to be at home.

“I mean we’ve gone to Vegas and Connecticut a few times.”

She rolled her eyes, “Visiting family, my dear, is not a vacation! I was thinking you two would go to the beach. You guys relax and wade in the ocean and Spencer can build sandcastles that defy every law of physics!”

I laughed at that. You and the beach? It just didn’t feel natural to me. Probably because you aren’t capable of actually relaxing.

“That does sound fun,” I said and I spoke to my barely there stomach, “And it would make daddy take a few days off.”

Penelope squealed and started clicking at her computer, “I’ll find a resort online right now! Okay so how about Marco Island? It’s gorgeous and in Florida, so it’ll be like eighty and sunny, even in the beginning of December.”

“I’ll have to talk to Spence about it. I mean I know it would be fun and all but we really should be saving money for a crib, and car seat, and bassinet, and high chair, and a rocking chair, and a baby swing, and a—“

Garcia stopped me from spiraling out of control, “That is why you throw a huge baby shower! People buy those things for you.”

I rubbed my tummy again, “Oh no, Daddy is very particular about what things are bought.”

“That’s why you have a registry, Momma Bear. Now, no more excuses.”

Before I could even call you, she had put in both of our requests for days off and we had a week long reservation at this fancy resort that you see listed at the top of this notepad, the “Crystal Cove”.

I was only slightly mortified that she did all this without me asking you. Mostly, I was happy. I was afraid you wouldn’t say yes, but if PG already booked it, you kind of had to agree. And to my surprise, you did.

When you got back from that case we were at home, you eating something I had poorly made from a random cookbook on a shelf. I had decided to start cooking more, so I could make homemade meals. I wanted to be that mom who cuts sandwiches into flower shapes and always has fresh baked bread and cookies laying around. I wanted us to be those parents; the ones who are so sickeningly in love that their kids roll their eyes every time they kiss. We were those parents, kind of, if we could even be considered ‘parents.’ At that point, I don’t think we were. But we were definitely in tooth-rotting, sickeningly sweet love.

“So, I have a surprise for you,” I said, coming up behind you and rustling your hair.

“Hm?” You said, stuffing your face like you hadn’t eaten in days. You probably hadn’t. You’re the king of forgetting to eat. Maybe that’s how you stay so skinny.

“I booked a trip, well I guess technically Garcia did.”

“A trip?” You raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, a trip, to the beach. Penelope called it a ‘babymoon.’”

You laughed, “A babymoon? I’m not familiar."

I smiled and sat across from you, “It’s like a honeymoon, except it's just me and you relaxing and spending quality time together before this lil dude makes his appearance.”

You smiled, “I’m telling you, it’s a girl.”

I rolled my eyes, “It’s definitely a boy, but stop ignoring my offer.”

“Well, it’s not really an offer so much as it is you telling me that we’re doing this.”

“Okay, yes Garcia helped me book it already, and yes she put in our requests for days off, but you can say no.”

You did your little nose twitch scrunch thing, “I’d never say no to quality time with you, Love.”

You leaned over and kissed me, and I squealed, “I’m so excited! I have to buy maternity bathing suits now! Oh and a sunhat!””

Spencer smiled fondly, recounting that day. He was thrilled to go, minus the part where he’d have to wear shorts, and flip flops. Something about the piece that goes between your toes makes him squeamish. He was looking for the right opportunity to use something special he had bought for you, and you had just given him it. A week on a beautiful beach with the love of his life? That would be the perfect time to ask you what he had been waiting to ask you since JJ’s wedding. He was going to take Hotch’s advice; stop waiting, start doing, and get down on one knee with a blue velvet box.

He never got the chance to. The trip was supposed to be in the beginning of December, around your week twenty-four. You never got that far.

He got up from the ground, immediately digging around in a drawer full of pencils and compasses and rulers, finding the blue box in a corner. It was covered in pencil shavings and dust. He hadn’t looked at it in months. He held it delicately in his hands before opening it.

It was plain, but he remembered you said that was what you wanted.

“Oval, of course and silver,” You had explained to Penelope and JJ at a night out years ago. Derek and Spencer sat on the opposite side of the table, but his ears perked up at the mention of rings.

“I like just the band,” JJ said, admiring her own ring, “And I have Henry’s birthstone, the citrine, so I didn’t need another one.”

“What kind of stone Y/N? I’d love a pink diamond! Or a ruby! Imagine!” Penelope gushed.

You shook your head, “I’d take cubic zirconia, if it was coming from the right guy.”

Both Penelope and JJ stuck their tongues out, “Nuh-uh!” Garcia said, grabbing her phone to scroll through more pinterest photos.

“Spence will be getting you a diamond.”

You rolled your eyes and whispered, “Don’t jinx it JJ! And I don’t want a diamond.”

Her mouth dropped, “No diamond? Really.”

“Diamonds aren’t ethically sourced.”

“Lab grown! Get lab grown!” PG piped it, showing you a picture of a ring, just an oval in a plain silver setting.

“That! That’s the one!” You said and Garcia giggled, going on a rant about her dream wedding.

Spencer had gotten that exact ring. Lab grown, oval, classic, beautiful. It was what you wanted, and you deserved everything you ever wanted.

Spencer looked at the notepad. He could tell you had a hard time picking an item for this letter. He knows this letter is the end, the other two are the epilogue of a story he wishes you kept writing. Crystal Cove is the place where he had planned on asking you to marry him, but it ended up being the place where your love story ended. He tossed the notebook to the side and decided that the souvenir for this letter was now going to be this ring. This ring that sparkled and shined, even in the dull incandescent lights of his kitchen. This ring that belonged on your finger, and not in the back of a drawer. This ring that you didn’t even know existed, but if you had, maybe you’d still be together.

“I did buy three maternity bathing suits, and you bought shorts. Spencer Reid in shorts. It was going to be the best trip ever. We were going to snorkel and look at sea turtles and sunbathe and drink virgin piña coladas by the ocean. We were going to get couples massages and spend every moment loving and appreciating each other.

The actual trip? Much different than the one we had planned on paper, but let’s first discuss that time between the hospital and the trip.

It was four weeks. Four weeks of me sitting at home while you were off at work. Four weeks of the door opening and Derek walking through, not you. And on the odd chance that it was you opening the door, you’d be appearing at odd hours of the night to grab a new suit or a file or a snack and then getting back in your shitty car and going to your apartment. Each time I heard that comforting sound of your satchel hitting the floor, I’d crawl out of the cave of blankets I was in to find you, and you’d act like I wasn’t even there.

For the first few days, you asked me how I was and if I was feeling better, then you’d check your phone and wave goodbye. After that, I was lucky if you’d say hello, then I was lucky if I even got a glimpse of you. You never held me. You never kissed me. You never told me you loved me.

I got all my information about you from Derek. Every day I texted you, “Have a good day at work! Talk soon?” And everyday you didn’t answer, so I’d ask Derek if you were okay. He’d always tell me what you were doing. Usually you would take a stack of files of cases to a dark room and make preliminary profiles to send back to the departments, alone. I’d tell him thank you, and the next day would be the same nonsense.

Those four weeks dragged. It was like every minute was an hour and everyday was a year. I was healing, even without you, everyday I felt better and better. But that’s relative to the day before. I haven’t felt ‘good’ yet. I haven’t felt ‘happiness’ yet. But I will. And I’m counting on that.

My mandatory leave was four weeks, and at the end of that Hotch called me in for a ‘mandatory psychological evaluation.’ I didn’t tell you about it because you weren’t speaking to me, and even when you did you were angry and snappy and rude.

I didn’t pass the evaluation. Even though the BAU wrote those damn questions, I still didn’t pass. When my four weeks were up, you were expecting me at work, and I never showed. You didn’t notice how not okay I was because you were too busy handling your own feelings, which I understand. You have to take care of yourself first, deal with your own trauma before touching anyone else’s. So, your trauma was none of my business, a concept you should've applied to my healing process.

I was supposed to come back on a Monday and when I didn’t show you came to the house. You opened the door and yelled my name. It was a sound I hadn’t heard in weeks, and it felt good. I thought you had finally come home. I thought you were finally ready to heal with me, but you weren’t. You were there to judge me.

I think I ran to where you were, a smile on my face that I didn’t think I was capable of making, “Hey!”

You looked so put together in a neatly pressed suit, but your eyes exposed you. They were bloodshot and the bags were so large they almost reached the end of your nose. I had on one of your shirts; it was comforting at the time. Not so much anymore.

You looked me up and down, a small scowl forming on your face, “Where were you today?”

I took a deep breath, and I lied, because lying to you felt easier than telling you the truth. The truth that I was not deemed stable enough to come back, even though I wanted to. I needed to be distracted. I was ashamed, scared, confused.

“I-I didn’t go.”

“Didn’t go? You’ll get fired Y/N.”

I sighed, “No, my leave got extended.”

I could feel the way your eyes bore into my skull as I dodged eye contact.

“Extended?! It’s been four weeks.”

“I’m not ready!” I desperately wanted you to see through it. I thought I was ready, but the papers disagreed.

“Hotch let you do that?” Your voice was increasing and I found myself inching away from you.

“He encouraged it!” Another lie. He didn’t ‘encourage’ it. He forced me.

You rolled your eyes, grabbing your bag and opening the door again.

“You’re leaving? Spencer c’mon I-”

You cut me off by slamming that door in my face.

That’s when I started closing myself off. I started dreading the sound of your feet against the floor at three am. I started to put my own walls up, but they would dull in comparison to the Great Wall of Spencer you built around yourself to keep me out.”

Spencer was always good at putting walls up. In fact, you were the only person to ever get him to take (almost) all of them down. There’s a side of him he doesn’t show anyone, a side of him that he reserves for himself, and when something happens, that’s where he goes. He goes to the corner of his brain where he feels safe, and the walls come up to protect him.

And in those last four weeks, he did just that. He put the walls up, shut you out, and decided that was better. Except it wasn’t better, it just was easier. It was easier for him to bypass you and find a new outfit for work tomorrow. It was easier for him to disappear in the office until the odd hours of the morning. It was easier for him to hide away from you, because when he’s exposed he always gets hurt. It was easier to act like everything was fine, even though everything was the opposite of fine.

He never needed to go to the house, part of him was drawn there like a moth to a lantern. He was drawn to you. As much as he didn’t want to see those four walls, he still needed to check on you. He just did it in his own damaged way. He’d get a glimpse of you in old sweats and a shirt with a hole in it, hair a mess and mascara from two weeks ago adding to your eye bags and he’d be reminded that he couldn’t be there for you. He would never be enough, and he’d retreat into the comfort of solitude.

He was so preoccupied with being hurt, that he didn’t realize just how much he hurt you too.

“I had forgotten about the stupid trip, and so had you. You were too preoccupied with work and not speaking to me and I was preoccupied with crying and trying to speak to you. I only remembered the trip when I got an email from the airline about the flight, they had to move our seats or something stupid. I decided that was a reason for you to actually need to speak to me like I was a person, so I took advantage of it.

I intercepted you at home one day. I had been sitting in the kitchen waiting for you. You came home at two am.

“Hey,” I said, immediately as you walked through the door. You looked surprised that I was up.

“Hi, I’m just gonna—“

“Spencer, stop. We have to talk.”

You crossed your arms, not leaving the threshold of the door, “No. I told you a million times Y/N, I don’t want to talk.”

“Not about...” I couldn’t find the words and you started up the stairs.

“Are we going on this damn trip or not?” I said, my voice cracking from lack of use.

You stopped, looking over the banister at me, “You didn’t cancel it?”

“I didn’t think of it until now. We’re supposed to leave in two days.”

You groaned, “Why didn’t you cancel it?”

I threw my hands up. As if all of this was my responsibility?

“I was preoccupied! Did you cancel your days off?”

You shook your head, rubbing your face, “No, God. Can we still get a refund?”

I was hurt that you didn’t want to go, but not surprised. As I stared at the front door from my spot at the kitchen table I decided that I was going to go no matter what. It was going to be refreshing to look at the ocean instead of an empty nursery. That would be my distraction.

“I-I’m going. I’ll pay for your half, but I’m going. I’m losing my mind here, Spence.”

You looked at me again, still contemplating your options.

“I get it, okay? You can’t be in this house, but neither can I. Maybe we can talk and stuff on neutral ground. I-I just want you there with me, the way it was supposed to be.”

Then you took me by surprise, you nodded, “Yeah, yeah we’ll go.”

I’m sure I lit up like Rockefeller Center at Christmas, “Really?”

You rubbed your eyes, “Yeah, we can go Y/N.”

I was feeling lucky, so I pushed it, too hard, “Are you staying tonight?”

Your voice went from sleepy to sour, “No.”

And you vanished up the stairs, taking all my hope in us with you.

I knew deep down it wouldn’t end well. I knew it was going to be fighting and yelling and arguing, but any time with you was good time with you at that point. And I favored the little bit of serotonin and dopamine you flood my brain with as opposed to staring at the gray walls of the kitchen alone.”

Spencer only agreed to go because he thought he was getting there. Everyday he felt a little better when he’d walk through the door, but he still wasn’t ready. He thought a week of no work and no one to talk to except you would bring the walls down. This would finally be the catalyst in a reaction that was taking far too long to complete. He also couldn’t stand the thought of you flying and spending a week alone. He felt better about you being alone here because you weren’t really alone. You had Derek visiting, Garcia dropping off baskets, phone calls from Emily, the odd visit from Rossi, and apparently phone calls to Hotch, but on that island you’d really be alone, and he was worried about how you’d handle it.

“So two days later we got on a three hour flight to Miami, and I drove our rental car to this resort. We didn’t talk much the whole time, besides some small talk about the flight and other odd comments. It was painfully awkward, and I regretted even coming.

We didn’t speak until I used the keycard to open the door, and we stared at the one king sized bed in the room.

“Oh,” was all you said when you realized you’d have to share with me.

“What?”

“There’s only one bed.”

I rolled my eyes, “Spencer, we’ve shared a bed for three years.”

You just stood at the door with your hands fidgeting on the handle of the suitcase, “I’ll call down and ask for a cot to be brought up.”

“A cot? Are you serious?” I couldn’t believe you, “Why come if you wouldn’t even share a bed with me? I said I’d be fine alone.”

You opened your mouth to speak, but changed your mind.

“Great communication skills Spence. Really, I’m impressed.” You rolled your eyes and finally started to unpack your bag, “I came because I was worried about what you’d do here all alone.”

Part of me was happy you were worried, but a bigger part was annoyed, “I’ve been handling being alone fine, thanks.”

You scoffed, “Yeah. That’s why you need Derek to bring you food everyday, because you’re doing so well.”

I bit my tongue and tried to speak calmly, “Well at least someone checks on me everyday.”

That shut you right up.

The three days you were there went as follows: we slept as far apart from each other as we could, despite how badly I wanted to cuddle into your arms. We’d get up in silence, eat breakfast in silence, walk to the beach and read in silence, eat lunch and dinner in silence, and each night we’d yell at each other until we fell asleep on opposite sides of the bed.

Remember what I said to trigger the fight on December third, your last day there? How could you forget? It’s the fight that broke us up.

“So, I was thinking of going to a counselor,” I said, staring at the waves lap the sand from the balcony of our room. The air felt cold for eighty degrees. But maybe that was just because the air between me and you had been cold for weeks.

You were sitting next to me, but I could tell you were worlds away.

“Spence,” I nudged, trying to snap you out of your daydream.

“Hm? What?”

“I said I’m going to go to a counselor.”

You twisted your face, “A counselor? What for?”

I shrugged, “I-I think it’d be good for me. It’s a grief counselor.”

You turned to look at me, your brow covered in sweat and your eyes watery. You were incessantly bouncing your left leg, rubbing at your nose, and you seemed disinterested in every single thing I was saying or doing. In fact, you’d been acting that way since the first day you disappeared to your apartment.

“Counselor? Yeah,” You were fidgeting, barely making eye contact.

A feeling I can only describe as pure dread formed in my stomach. I thought I might puke, but I swallowed the feeling and kept talking, “I got a recommendation from Hotch. He said he went to Dr. Stevens after Haley died. He said it really helped.”

You were still not listening.

“I think it’d be good if we went together.”

That finally got your undivided attention. “Together?” You snapped, “No.”

“Why not?” I said it with an air of exhaustion and despair. I was tired of this. So fucking tired of it.

“I’m not going to a damn therapist, Y/N,” You seethed, your metal deck chair scraping against the concrete as you stood in front of me.

The sky looked stormy, palm trees whipping in the wind as you came before me. The bags under your eyes looked like bruises, and you had on sleeves. It was eighty and you had on sleeves.

“Okay, I’ll go alone then. I think he could really help us though.”

I was giving up on fighting. I didn’t understand how when I was at my absolute low you could just keep kicking me while I was down. All I wanted was for you to go to someone and talk about it. That’s it. You were acting like I’d asked you to move a mountain for me, which, might I add, at one point you would have done.

“He? You really think a male therapist is going to help? You lost a baby, Y/N—“

“WE,” I clarified, for what felt like the fiftieth time, “We lost a baby.”

You rolled your eyes and ignored me, “You lost a baby. How does a male therapist help you through that?”

I was angry now. It was bubbling up to the top and I thought I might explode.

“He’s a grief counselor! He’ll help me through my GRIEF! And I think you should go because clearly you have a lot going on. You always have! You should’ve been seeing someone for years.”

“Oh, I have a lot going on?” You sneered, “Of course I have a lot going on! I go to work everyday to bring you home a paycheck so you can sit around all day and do nothing.”

I stood up, got close to your face, “I’m on leave.”

“Yeah, sure, keep telling yourself that.”

You bypassed me and went inside, and my hot anger turned into wet anger and fat tears were rolling down my cheeks.

“Do you know how traumatic this was on my body? Do you? Everything hurts and you were supposed to be there! You were supposed to take four weeks off too! You were supposed to be there for me!”

“Yeah and who’s there for me!” You yelled, louder than I think you ever had; at me at least. You had thrown your suitcase on the bed, haphazardly grabbing your clothes from the drawers and shoving them in.

“I would’ve been,” I said softly, coming up behind you to grab your arm lightly, “If you had let me.”

You pulled back, “Don’t touch me!”

I reached up to wipe my eyes and crossed my arms in front of myself defensively, “I want to be there for you, Spencer. I do. Why won’t you let me?”

You didn’t answer, because even you didn’t know why. You just stood over the suitcase, one arm on either side of it, hair matted to your sweaty face, panting and panting.

The facts I had chosen to ignore were staring me in the face again. Or maybe I was just that oblivious.

“I’ve never seen you like this. This isn’t you, Love,” I tried to say in my most soothing voice. The dread had clawed its way back up to the back of my throat.

“Or maybe this is me,” you said softly, and I swear you were crying. Or maybe I hoped you were, that way we were both sobbing. That’s as close to togetherness as we could get.

“Maybe this is who I am now, or who I’ve been all along.”

I reached out for you again, but stopped myself, “No, Spencer. The real you isn’t this angry, and bitter, and mean.”

You slammed your hands against the bed, “Yes it is!”

“Is that what you’ve been doing all this time?” I said sadly, shaky breaths between words, “Is that what you’ve been going to your apartment and doing?”

You turned around, skin sweaty and eyes red, “What? What are you talking about now? God, do you ever stop talking?”

I snapped, ignoring your last jab there, “Are you using?”

Your face contorted into a sour expression, “Am I using?”

“Yeah, Spencer! Are you? Because I can’t see any other reason for why you’re so irritable and sweaty and out of it! So I’ll ask you again, are you going through withdrawal?”

You looked like I had literally punched you in the gut, and I kind of had. It was a low blow, I’ll admit it, but I was seriously worried about you. If an event would trigger you, this would’ve been it.

“What? No!”

I wasn’t sure whether or not I should believe you, but I knew I had to support you either way. I love you, even when you’re angry at me, I still love you. Even when you throw clothes and seethe at me through gritted teeth, I still love you. That’s my fatal flaw. No matter how many reasons you give me to stop loving you, I never will.”

Spencer let out a shaky breath, lower lip pinched between his teeth. Was he really that terrible? He didn’t remember being so spiteful. Reading it back, he understood why you thought he was high, and he had thought about it more than he cared to admit. But he hadn’t touched the stuff in seven years, and he wasn’t about to start again now.

‘No matter how many reasons you give me to stop loving you, I never will.’

That line made him want to cry, hands clenching the ring box as if it were a stress ball. That line simultaneously felt like a stab in the gut and a breath of fresh air. He had given you so many reasons to walk away, and the one reason to stay was there in his palm, unused.

““It’s okay if you are. I understand this is a... hard time. I’ll support you through this,” I put my hands out to touch your chest.

“I’m not high and haven’t been in years!” You swatted my hands down.

“Then what the hell is going on!?”

“I’m angry and I’m sad and I’m heartbroken!” You yelled, going back out onto the balcony to stand in the rain that had started pouring down in sheets.

“Spencer! Stop!” I followed you out, tears mixing with rain to the point that I didn’t know which was which.

“I’m just confused! It’s hard to see the point in all this anymore. Maybe it’s just not worth it,” You said, yelling at the ocean not at me. Rain soaked our clothes instantly. Part of me was hoping this scene would end like the ‘notebook’ we’d kiss and you’d spin me around. I guess this is kind of like the notebook, it’s a story to help you remember us. Except you don’t have Alzheimer’s and I wrote 15 letters, not 365.

“Maybe what’s not worth it?” I was yelling too, just so you could hear me over the sound of the wind and the rain.

“This!” You gestured between us. I felt like you knocked the air out of me, my whole body stinging.

“But I love you!”

“All of this has made me realize that love isn’t everything! I love you too but we need more than that!”

That was the first time I’d heard you say ‘I love you’ in a month, but it was a double edged sword. I bit my lip so hard I think I started bleeding, “Love isn’t enough? Are you kidding me, Spencer?”

You swallowed thickly, “No! I’m not kidding. I’ve never been more serious!”

“So what? That’s it?” I said it quietly, but I wanted to scream at you. I wanted to scream that you were being an idiot. You were being ridiculous. You were being unnecessarily cruel. But I didn’t. I was tired and water logged. I had finally given up.

You ran your hands through your hair, “No–it’s–we we aren’t over Y/N. I’m just saying that it’s gonna take more than love to fix us.”

“Well maybe if you were ever home, we could actually try. But you aren’t. You’re always gone! So explain to me how we’re going to fix this. What’s it gonna take Spencer? What do you want from me?”

You took a deep breath, uttering words I was so sick of hearing, “We need space and time.”

“Space? Time? It’s been a month Spencer! I let you go to work. I let you spend every day at your damn apartment. I stopped calling. I stopped checking in. How much more space and time do you want?”

“Thirty-four days,” you mumbled, just so I could barely hear. The thunder rolled, mostly drowning it out.

“What was that?”

“It’s been THIRTY-FOUR days, Y/N. Thirty-four. I don’t know how you expect me to be okay after only thirty-four days.”

“I don’t expect you to be fine! I expect you to speak to me! To look at me! I want to go to bed crying and have you there next to me. I want to be there for you when you’re crying. The only way we get better is if we do this TOGETHER!”

The anger looked like it melted off of you, and I took that as my opportunity to approach. I threw my arms around your soaked body as you shook with sobs into my shoulder. I held you like my life depended on it, because in a way it did. You wrapped your arms around me too, and everything felt okay. We were standing in the pouring rain, holding each other as we cried, and somehow I felt more okay than I had in the thirty-four days prior. It felt like maybe you were coming back to me.

You weren’t.

We stood like that for what felt like hours, and eventually I pulled you inside. I wish I didn’t. I wish we stayed there, holding each other in the rain until the sun came up and dried us off. I foolishly thought the rain washed our sins away.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said, my head on your shoulder as we wrapped ourselves in towels, “I promise.”

You shrugged me off of you, going back to packing your bag.

“Spencer, stop packing, please,” I begged, grabbing the items you were putting in and taking them back out.

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” you said plainly, taking a shirt and putting it back in.

“I-I thought—“

“Thought what, Y/N? That because I cried to you and told you I loved you that we were magically okay?”

I stammered, “No. No! But I thought it meant we were in this together now.”

“You just accused me of relapsing an hour ago.”

“And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, but that’s not a reason you should go,” I pleaded, reaching for you again. I thought if you walked away I’d never see you again.

“You don’t trust me,” your voice cracked.

“No, Love, I—“

“Don’t call me that.”

The pain in my chest bloomed, sending a wave of heartache through my entire body. A heartache I still haven’t been able to shake. It’s still there. Some days it's a thunder crack and sometimes it's a low grumble, but it’s always there. The rain hasn't stopped.

I hadn’t even realized that you were completely packed until you zipped the suitcase shut.

“You’re really leaving?”

You stopped at the door, hand on the handle, to turn and face me. I didn’t need to use my profiling skills to see how much pain you were in, and my pain doubled at the sight. I’ve always been an empath when it comes to you, feeling what you feel like it’s my own.

“I am.”

I crossed the room and threw my arms around you, sobbing into your chest. To my surprise, you wrapped your arms around me lightly.

“I understand,” I said, looking into your eyes, “We can’t be there for each other the way we need to.”

You nodded into my shoulder, “Stay. When you get home from this we’ll talk. I just need a few more days.”

I shook my head, finally coming to the realization that we didn’t work anymore. We weren’t healthy anymore.

“Don’t bother. The writing’s on the wall, Spence,” my voice wavered, and I regretted every word as they left my mouth, “I’ve been waiting for that person from the hospital to come home to me. I’ve been waiting for the Spencer who lends me his shirts and fact dumps and eats IHOP and ice cream with me to come home.”

I felt your breath stop under my arms, “But that Spencer, the Spencer I love, isn’t here anymore. We need to be alone.”

I felt you shake with tears under me, and that triggered mine, “We have to break up.”

I wish I never said it. I wish I gave you those few days, but we both know those few days would’ve turned into weeks and months and we would’ve ended up here anyway. I wish you didn’t let me say them. I wish you kissed me to shut me up and told me I was being stupid. I wish I didn’t watch you go down that elevator, tears on your cheeks. I wish I didn’t spend the other four days in an empty king sized bed, crying for you.

I realize now that you changed. I did too. Instead of wishing for the old you, I should’ve learned to love the new you. I think I would’ve, if I had given it a chance. Actually, I know I would’ve. I think I’d fall in love with every version of you that could ever exist or has ever existed. You and I, we’re meant to be together.

I know you probably don’t believe in it, but I like to think that we’re twin flames; we’re two halves of one soul that somehow ended up in two bodies and constantly pull to find each other again. I’ve read a lot about them recently. Twin flames don’t necessarily end up together. They can even just be two people with an intense friendship. They’re people who help each other grow, even if that means they’re only in your life for a short time. I like to think that we are that case, and that in some parallel universe I’m with you and we have our daughter and we’re happy. I just wish that I was in that universe now.

I know it’s for the best that we went to the damn Crystal Cove and broke up. I’m sure someday in the future I’ll be pleased with that decision, but for now, I still regret it.”

Spencer stared at the notepad, eyes flicking between that in his left hand and the ring box in his right. He took the ring out and admired it in the light. It glinted and glimmered, delicately refracting light onto the cabinets. He slid it halfway down his ring finger because that’s as far as it would go. He imagined it was on your slender, perfectly manicured hand instead of his, but an ache formed where his heart was when he realized it’d never end up here.

Spencer grabbed the notebook. It was unlined and the paper felt flimsy and thin. He got up from the floor to find a pencil in the drawer the ring had been hidden in, and took it out to scrawl his own letter to go with his own memento. A sixteenth letter for a sixteenth item you had no idea even existed.

“Y/N,

I’d like to consider this letter sixteen, to go with the engagement ring that’s in my palm. I bought this ring the day after we ate dinner at Rossi’s and showed everyone tiny FBI onesies. I have your perfect ring here in my hand, a plain silver band with a lab-grown diamond in a four-prong setting in the center, just like you told Garcia you wanted. I should’ve given it to you the day I bought it, but I waited until the perfect opportunity presented itself.

What you didn’t know about the trip to the Crystal Cove was that I was going to propose to you there. I was going to get down on one knee in the sand at sunset after dinner. I even had a whole speech planned. I was going to tell you that I never thought I could love anyone as much as I love you, or that anyone would ever love me the way that you do. I was going to say that it amazes me how everyday, I wake up and love you more than I did the night before. And everyday I think it’s be impossible to love you and our daughter more than I do right now. I wanted to tell you that I want to wake up every morning and feel that for the rest of my life. I want the good, the bad, the ugly, I want it all. I want Korean film festivals and IHOP breakfasts and to talk to the moon. I want tubs of ice cream and overly sentimental flowers hanging from the wall. Most of all I wanted to say that I want to spend every day of my life making you happy.

That speech still applies today. I still love you enough to ask you, but I don’t think you love me enough to say yes.

It’s okay. It really is. I haven’t decided what to do yet, but if you do read this, just know that it’s okay. I promise you, it’s okay. I’m not the bitter, angry man I was at the Crystal Cove anymore. I changed again, and I hope you’re right. I hope we are twin flames and your soul will come looking for mine, and I hope it happens in this universe, not the infinite parallels that may or may not exist. I miss you and I want nothing more than for you to come back. Come home, Love, please come home.

-SR”

He stared at the notebook page, before tearing it off and folding it in half, placing it in his pocket for safekeeping. He went on his computer and bought the cheapest one-way ticket to Seattle that he could find. He needed to see you. He needed you to see this letter, see this ring. He needed to make this right.

The flight was a red eye, leaving at midnight, so he’d get to the Seattle field office by eight. He looked at the leather watch and saw that it was nearly nine. He decided had to finish, and he had to finish now, as he grabbed letter #14.

PART 14

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Taglist!

@l0ve-0f-my-life @aperrywilliams @helloniallslovelies @random-ravings @ajwantsapancake @andiebeaword @boiled-onionrings @frnks-stuff @icantevenanymore1 @mellifluouswildbluebells @rottenearly @sammypotato67 @blushingwueen @peaxhyjaes @justanotherfangurlz @juniorgman187 @mbowles23-blog @blameitonthenight21 @goldentournesol @rainsong01 @thelifeofadumbbitch @swimmingtrashwobblersludge @youre-a-wallflower-charlie @eldahae

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid angst #spencer x you #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fic #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #cm #matthew gray gubler #mgg #dr spencer reid

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slocumjoe · 3 years

Text

2 headcanons per companion

Cait:

- Touchy person. After learning and understanding that it doesn't inherently mean pain, learns to speak and hear it as a love language. Her touches are very jock, though. Shoulder slaps, light punches, hair ruffling, kind of an older brother form of physical affection. Often gets into play-fights with MacCready.

- Has a lovely singing voice, but no one knows because she never sings. Ever. If she sang, it would be a quiet, raspy croon. The type of singing you'd expect to hear in a castle ruins at the coast during a storm. Haunting and enchanting.

Curie:

- Amazing baker, not so good at cooking. Baking is a science, cooking is more about intuition and creativity. She's a by-the-books girl, and unless she has an exact recipe, her cooking is going to taste like anxiety. Great at breads, burns eggs. Always makes delicious muffins, her soups and stews are flavorless and soggy.

She has no idea. Thinks it's fine, and no one will dare tell her to stick to dough-based foods.

- The first time she got drunk, it was off wine. She woke up with her head in agony and on the roof of a shack about 50 miles away from Sanctuary. And with a tattoo on her back. Doesnt know about the tattoo. No one knows about the tattoo. It's a spoon. A very poorly done spoon. Possibly a ladle.

Danse:

- This man may as well be a bear. He has a big appetite, sleeps like he's hibernating for winter, is covered in thick body hair. Danse will wake up only for his natural alarm, his clock alarm, or someone walking up to him and telling him to get up. No noise or physical disturbance will wake him. Nothing. As for his stomach, he isn't a glutton, but look at him. Big guy needs fuel. He can eat a normal amount and be fine, but could get himself kicked out of Golden Corral.

- Speaking of food. He eats everything with no reaction regardless of if he likes it or not. It looks like he's bored even if he's eating the rare good meal. Food is just something neutral, with cons to certain things. He prefers plainer flavors, but is immune to spice. Can drink an entire bottle of Tabasco sauce, Sriracha sauce, and a chile sauce with no expression. The blank stare and spice immunity aren't synth things, Curie and X6 are just the opposite.

Deacon:

- Takes long walks at night through settlements. Feels at peace in liminal spaces. The ruins of Boston and all the other destroyed cities don't have the same effect. Something about being the only one aware, living unnoticed in a place filled with people. It's lonely, but nothing gives the same clarity.

- Hates subway tunnels. Go on forever, too long to see what's at the end, something could be at any corner - they creep him out. If you still, you'll hear something. Machinery even when the place is inactive. Shuffling. Even stiller, might hear breathing echoing from way down a tunnel. Hates it to hell and back. Has to take a long smoke break if he has to go in one alone.

Hancock:

- Weird with kids. Likes them, but worries about himself. He isn't the...best example. He has no filter, they can tell something is wrong about him, and he just doesn't know how to act. They're just tiny humans, but there are rules. He doesn't want to accidently hurt them or inspire them to follow his screwed up footsteps.

- He doesn't care about what people think unless he cares. Some schmuck sneering at him when he pops a mentats? That guy's issue. Nick's frown? Curie's wide-eyed fretting? The way Cait's face goes soft and her eyes crinkle in sympathy?

...that matters.

He starts using less.

MacCready:

- Extravert. He needs his space, but hates being alone. Not having a support to fall back on is terrifying. The most anxious he'd ever been since Lucy died was his time alone in the Commonwealth. Sure, he had people, but not...not people of his own. Not a family. Leaving his boy was hard and being alone just as. Was often nauseous and prone to headaches until the SoSu.

- Hates the acknowledgement of intimate body parts in public. Hancock and Cait went on a tirade of sex jokes and he was just as, if not more, squeamish as the other prudes. While exploring a vault, a sex ed video came on the projector and he was red as a tomato for hours. It didn't help that he was standing in front of it and...well. You know what happens when you stand in front of projectors.

Goes all blushy when more adult talk comes up. Apparently Danse didn't know what m*sturbation was and that moment in that room nearly had him crawling out of his skin.

Nick:

- Has a little switch in his brain that decides if he's capable of math. One day he'll be a walking calculator, another he'll forget that 7 is more than 6. He was a weird math student. Did all the reading and none of the work, aced the tests. You put him under pressure and he'll crank out the craziest equations, but you ask him to multiply two 4 digit numbers and you can see a little blue swirl in his eye before he sighs and goes to fetch scratch paper. Being a good tester doesn't mean he's not a born theater kid.

- Coat pockets are portals to other dimensions. Has everything you need. Bobby pins? Check. Ammo? Check. Food rations? Clean water? Smokes? Check. A small statue of Cappy? A page from a magazine that was never released due to a MLM scam in the publishing company? Half a pair of sunglasses?

Sometimes puts random garbage in his pockets just to screw with Ellie. Other times, genuinely doesn't know where things come from. Once found a yao gui claw in his chest pocket. It's a good luck charm, but he never picked it up and no one could have slipped it in. Jokes about the coat being haunted, but only half joking.

Piper:

- Opposite to Nick, things go missing in her coat. Nick calls it "the washer" for some reason. She'll drop a pen in a pocket and never see it again. Double checks the pockets for holes and splits before heading out. Still loses things. Once lost a whole pistol.

But more interestingly. She lost a purple gel pen.

Week later, Nick pulls a purple gel pen out of his pocket.

Has a corkboard for the theories about the connection.

- Makes an amazing stew of yao gui, carrots, potatoes, stingwing honey, and various herbs. Its a family recipe that just isn't a normal stew, there's something different about it. When asked, will joke that it's human meat. Very few people realize she's joking. Either way, it has a flavor that sets it apart from other stews.

The secret?

There's a mutated form of garlic in the southeast part of the Commonwealth.

Only her family knows where it grows and what it looks like.

Preston:

- Not so much of a night owl as much as he just...doesn't have a steady circadian rhythm. You can find him in the kitchen at 1 pm asleep on the counter in the middle or awake at 1 am making a 3 tiered cake. Doesn't have an alarm clock. His sleeping pattern bothers even the poorest sleepers. Danse is visibly upset when he describes his schedule.

- His history of partners, both romantic and purely sexual, is crazy. He has the most interesting and horrifying stories. One girlfriend was convinced she was the reincarnated Mistress of Mystery. A boyfriend cheated on him with his step grandmother. He was once involved in a multi-person break up because apparently his boyfriend was in a poly relationship that went south on all fronts due to a chem deal's profits going missing as they were about to split the caps.

Don't ask about Marge.

Marge was...probably something he imagined during a fever.

X6:

- His pantries and fridge have nothing but junk food. He likes vegetables and fruit, but they take up valuable sugar space.

Once ate a giant, 200+ year expired cheesecake and puked for an hour. When Nick found out, popped a fuse. X was out of commission for...so long. Turns out he's lactose intolerant.

- Has been flirted with so many times. Each time, turned pink and lost all control of his words. He becomes a stuttering, cherry-cheeked mess at romantic interest. Not because he reciprocates, he just wasn't trained for it. There is no protocol for "Wanna come back to my place?"

Someone kissed his cheek and he actually ran and jumped out of a window to escape. Hancock has it on video and sometimes watches it to produce serotonin.

#fallout 4 #fo4 #paladin danse #nick valentine #robert joseph maccready #gangpost

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nightowlfandom · 4 years

Text

Yandere! Ignis Scientia- Freedom

So I’ve been gone less than a month and it’s been so boring smdh. So hey I’m here to write something.

Disclaimers- yandere, blood, gore, violence, mentions of abuse, a man getting turned on my his own violence. I will include line breaks with notes of where the violence will get pretty intense. No smut here, maybe in another post, but yeah.

This was based off a nightmare I had a few nights ago. What may be a nightmare for me might be a distant fantasy for some...do what that what you will with this info I don’t know.

If you readers like my yandere stuff and want more, feel free to let me know by just dropping me a message. Hopefully you’ll catch me on a day where my computer or phone won’t act up like the useless circiut board it tends to be at times. (Just kidding i love my computer, please don’t shut down on me.)

CHECKOUT MY PROMPT LIST HERE!

Leggo.

...

For you, this was normal treatment. Your good for nothing "siblings" always thought the worst of you, and they treated you as such too. You were the dirt they walked on. Even after you moved out and managed to escape them for half a year, they never really escape your life. Why? Why the fuck would you know?

It was like your life didn’t belong to your anymore and it nearly drove you crazy.. Well, almost. You had one person who didn't make you want to scream bloody murder. Your long time closest friend, Ignis. He was the best guy friend you could ask for in a world that seemed like it hated you. He was your rock. You could go to him for nearly any and everything. He was your only source of happiness in your messed up bubble you called a life.

For you to be left at the side of the waters, crying into your fists while they all laughed at you. You could hear echoes of “Good one Emile.” “She deserved it.” “That’ll teach her.”

You were humiliated by the people you were supposed to call family. You didn’t know how to feel anymore. You only had one person you could go to.

...

By this time, it was pouring down rain. The thunder was nearly shaking the sidewalk and you walked like a zombie down the street. You were getting soaked but you didn’t speed up. You felt completely numb like you were hollow inside. There was nothing.

Ignis was busy cleaning up his space when he heard the knocking. He didn’t recognize it. Five evenly spaced dull sounding raps against the door.

“Who the fuck-” he grumbled lowly. Ignis slowly walked over to the door, picking up a freshly polished blade off of the coffee table. It wouldn’t be the the first time someone tried it with him in his own palace. “Who is it?”

He didn’t hear a response, which caused him to grow annoyed. He hated annoyances. They were so inconvenient. Hiding the blade behind his back he yanked the door open. His face instantly twisted from angered to worried when he saw you standing there staring at your feet.

“Sweetheart what are you doing here? Did you walk here in the rain?!” he asked.

You couldn’t answer, instead you tried to step back to prepare yourself to walk away only to nearly fall. It didn’t help that you had managed to hurt your ankle on the way over. Ignis dropped the blade and stepped forward, putting both his hands on your shoulders. Not caring if your clothes were soaked, he pulled you to his warm chest.

“T-they broke it it.” you shuddered. “They b-broke the crystal.” you croaked. You voice sounded so hoarse that you didn’t want to speak again. “T-they-”

“Shhhh.” he cooed. He knew exactly what you were talking about. A long time ago for your birthday. Ignis had given you a necklace. A crystal charm that he said was ‘an emblem of his care for you’. You never took it off. That is until you made Emile angry enough to yank it off your neck and throw it off a small cliff into the creature infested waters not too far from your home. You had watched it shatter into bits and pieces as it hit the sharp rocks at the bottom. She had walked off with a satisfied smile on her face as you were left to scream at what she had done. “Y/N if you shake any more you might faint.”

“I’m so sorry Ignis. I should have- I could hav-”

“Y/N.” he said sternly, causing you to cease all talking. “You couldn’t have done anything.” he explained. “I’m not mad.”

“You’re not?” you found the wits to look up at him. He took note of your bloodshot eyes, dilated pupils and red nose.

“No! I’m more upset that you risked getting sick just to come here and tell me this.” he shook his head at you. “Get inside.” he let you up the steps, an arm wrapped protectively around your waist.

As soon as you were inside he shut the door causing you to jump.

...

Ignis left you alone to get changed. You had put your wet clothes in the sink. Lucky for you, forgetting your old clothes at his house was a habit. So much so that he started keeping them in a drawer for you when you would need a change of clothes for whatever reason.

You stared at the stranger in the mirror, unable to recognize yourself anymore. You didn’t glow like you used to, you didn’t smile as much as you used to, you weren’t as ambitious, as bright eyed, as curious...as happy as you once were.

All because of them. Those assholes who made it clear that their one and only intention was to make sure you never smiled again. You sat down on the bed, kicking your legs.

“Y/N?” Ignis peeked his head in the room. “May I come in?”

“Oh...Iggy.” you jumped a little. “Y-yeah. I’m all set.” you tried to muster a smile. “Thanks for putting up with me. I shouldn’t depend on you so much.” you sighed. “I feel like i dump my problems on you.”

“Never.” Ignis smiled that handsome smile of his. “If it was up to me, you’d never leave my side.” he chuckled. “I’d lock you up in this house and protect you all the time.” he joined you, sitting down beside you.

“You say such strange things.” you giggled in reply, thinking he was joking.

“...I’m serious.” Ignis’s smile fell. “I’d take you away from it all. You’d never have to feel miserable again. In the middle on the night, when everyone’s asleep, I’d pick you up from your bed...and take you away just so you could be with me forever, and you wouldn’t have to worry about a thing.” he held your hand tightly.

“I wish that was possibly. Those assholes would make sure that would never happen.” you shook your head, looking away from him.

“So we’ll tiptoe around them, get them out of the way.” he slipped his fingertips under your chin, turning your head towards him. “I can’t stand by and just watch this happen to you.”

“Well what can you do.” you gave in and leaned into his touch, resting your palm over his knuckles.

“One day, we’re gonna pack up all our things, and I’m gonna take you somewhere nice. Where ever you want. We’ll settle down and just live. You wouldn’t have to worry about another thing ever again.” he hummed. When he saw you confused face, he couldn’t help but leaned down and kiss your forehead. “Come here.” he wrapped an arm around your shoulder, allowing you to lean on his shoulder.

“We’re gonna go on a trip, sweetheart. I’m gonna take you to somewhere beautiful. We’re gonna forget about all those troubles in your pretty little head. Would you like that, darling?”

You didn’t answer, as you had already fallen asleep.

“I’ll take care of you, Y/N. I’ll take care of everything.”

... (This part gets violent. Skip this part if you’re squeamish)

You woke up the day pretty late in the afternoon. Ignis had laid your now clean and dried clothes at the end of the bed. You couldn’t help but smile a little at the little poorly drawn heart note he left amongst your things.

You got dressed without a hitch, only to realize you had heard banging in the distance. It sounded like someone was struggling. Was Ignis in trouble?! How long had this been going on?! Your curiosity led you to the basement, where a showdown was taking pace.

His loud psychotic laughter echoed off the walls, penetrating your ears and sending off all kind of alarms on your head. You watched as Ignis stared at Emile still laughing. He put his head in his hands before running his fingers through his hair, staining both his face and sandy brown locks in blood. You had noticed his hair fell in his face, making it hard to see his true expression. He wasn’t laughing as if he had heard a joke, that was for sure.

"I was saving you for last." He moaned as if this was giving him pleasure. He shuddered, biting down on his lip. "I wanted my Y/N to have a few words with you before she watches me end the life that made hers so miserable all the fucking years." He giggled. "Aahh fuck." He winced. "I wonder if your blood tastes as disgusting as you are as a person." Your eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting, allowing you to see who he was talking to. Emie!?!

You knew her voice anywhere, you estranged tep sister of sorts. If you could even say it that way.

You covered your mouth in distraught. Fear ran through your veins a million miles a second. What was he doing? He was waving around his weapon, pointing accusingly at her and spitting on her everything she opened her mouth to scream for help. What was he doing?

“You’re sick!” Emile growled. “She’ll never love you, especially not if she sees what you’re doing to me.”

Where they talking about you?

“Please.” Ignis scoffed. “I’m merely doing her a favor.” he sighed. “I just wonder if my darling is getting a good view from where she's hiding." He sang. Your heart instantly dropped. Your shaking body didn't dare make another sound. You were you petrified to even consider an escape plan. “She really isn’t good at being quiet. Her shoes make too much noise.”

You stared down at your boots, wide eyed. You were tip toeing! How the hell did he-

"Y/N...come out before I come and get you myself." His cheerful tone dropped an octave or maybe even two. “I don’t want to play cat and mouse right now. I have business to take care of.”

Deciding you had no other choice, you limped around the corner.

"Iggy" you began." You don't have to do this." You whimpered. You could barely stand, so you kind of just hopped over. “Please don’t-”

"Y/N look what they've done to you!" He motioned to your lack of ability to walk comfortably, the bruise on your shoulder. Well technically that was all you...but the rest was their fault.

“Ignis please!” you tried to reason with him. “She isn’t worth it, none of them are. Don’t do this...”

“I’ve watched you put up with these people for too long, my sweet.” he glared. “You want to show these people mercy when they wouldn’t show it to you?”

“That’s not how that works.” you choked. “The wrong thing for the right reason is still the wrong thing.”

“It could be. It could very well be the right thing, Y/N.” he held the dagger out to you. “You could end your pain and suffering. She’s the last one.”

“You mean- Dina...Dexter-” you choked. “Yumi, Wes?”

“All six feet under my darling.” he cackled. “I made sure none of there organs went to waste though.” he motioned over to a pot on the table. “I’ve been using them to keep Emile here alive and well.” he laughed.

“You cooked my family? YOU SICK BASTARD!” she gagged through her cries.. “Y/N HELP ME, PLEASE. I’m sorry for how I treated you in the past but you have to help me!”

Emile? Pleading for mercy from you? You must have been dreaming.

You took the dagger from him, assuming he wouldn’t lower his arm until you took it. You looked between Emile and Ignis. Both of them looked like they expected you to stab the other.

“Y/N we’re family!” she tried to reason. “We’re supposed to look out for each other, remember! That’s what Uncle Sammy would have wanted!”

Call it sadistic, but for whatever reason, that made you mad. Using the only family member who ever showed you affection against you?

“Family?” you glowered. “Since the day I met you, you’ve done nothing more than make my life a living hell.” you pointed out. “And now-” you strode past Ignis. “Now I’m your family? You’ve effectively taken everything from me...even the clothes off my back at one point and now you want to call me-”

You didn’t know what was going on, but you felt an influx of rage building up in your soul. It didn’t feel good at all. You actually felt like you were going to throw up.

You suddenly began having flashbacks. Everything you had endured, everything you had lost, or had taken away from you. Your true family, your real family , your friends, pets, the abuse you had to endure day after fucking day...all because of them. They were the reason you couldn’t ever escape...and it was about to change forever.

“Y/N, my dear.” Ignis sang. “If it’s too much...”

“Do it.” you cut him off. turning away from Emile. “Do it Ignis.” you whispered. “Free me from their grasp.” you pleaded through hooded eyes. “End my suffering and take me away from here...do it.” You handed him the dagger. “Do it Iggy.”

The moment the words left your lips, Ignis smiled a sinister grin. He leaned forward and pecked your lips gently. “Your wish is my command, darling.”

“No...Y/N please-AAAAAAAHHH”

You turned away from the sight as Ignis got in front of you. You ears will filled with screams followed by sounds of ripping flesh.

(OKAY YOU CAN LOOK NOW)

Ignis finished the job. Emile’s body slumped over, still and dead. You thought you would feel disgusting, a sense of dread or hatred towards Ignis or even yourself. You felt nothing but warmth building up in your chest.

“Sweetheart.” Ignis said from behind you. He expected you to be scared and upset at him. He was taken aback when you spun right back around and hugged him tightly.

“Thank you.” you spoke shakily. you had no idea what else to say. You were finally free. Albeit in the craziest manner, you were still free.

“Like I said Y/N...anything to protect you.” Ignis stroked your hair. “Now...do you remember what I said about running away together?”

(....I got goosebumps while writing this...and not in the best way. Like I said this was based off of a nightmare I had a few nights back.)

95 notes · View notes

andavs · 4 years

Note

Oh Leda! Another thing I've been thinking about lately is how fandom always makes stiles to be squeamish of blood, and this stems from that time Derek told him to cut his arm off. "Are you going to faint at the sight of blood? I might at the sight of a severed arm!" And then later he faints when Scott is getting a tattoo which is more about needles than blood? There are so many scenes where he interacts with blood without any discomfort and yet! LOL

The best part is that when Derek asks if he faints at the sight of blood, he says “No, but I might at the sight of a chopped off arm!” He straight up says he’s not and yet...

Squeamish around blood, curly fries, popping the p.

Oh, and calling Derek “big guy” or sourwolf to the point where I’ve started to wince whenever I read them.

Like, have you seen You’ve Got Mail? And the scene where Tom Hanks is scraping all of the caviar off of a dish at a party, and Meg Ryan gets mad like “What are you doing? You’re taking all the caviar? That caviar is a garnish.”

That’s how I feel when fandom overuses those little things. They filled their dish with what was supposed to be a garnish and now it’s in every bite.

Also that gif is perfect because it’s fandom, so if you tell people not to do something, they look you dead in the eye and do it harder.

And yeah, I think it was the needles that got him during the tattoo scene. My favorite part of that scene is that he says he doesn’t like needles and then leans in to see more, and immediately passes out because of it. Is that Stiles in a nutshell or what?

“I’m fully aware this is going to go poorly for me, but I’m curious so I’m going to do it anyway.”

#hey look i'm alive!#theladypeartree

92 notes · View notes

ograndebatata · 4 years

Text

After The Storm

So... if I had to guess, this must be some sort of very absurd record.

Explaining a bit better what I mean, I wrote this for the weekly challenge in the EoA Discord server, for the prompts ‘Future’ and ‘Dancing’.

Needless to say, it’s beyond late, and I honestly don’t know how well it meets either of those prompts.

But I liked it enough to want to finish it and post it... so here it is.

I hope you like it.

Note: Like the bulk of my Elena of Avalor fics, this one is set in my Tales of the Ever Realm AU. However, in this particular fic, I feel there isn’t anything glaringly incompatible with canon, so I think it can be read blind ‘fairly well’. Again, I tried my best to make it strong enough to stand on its own, but readers will tell me if I succeeded.

Note #2: I don’t own the lyrics to the song ‘Once Upon a Dream’ used below. They belong to their respective creators, just as the Elena of Avalor main universe and any elements you recognize from it belong to their respective creators.

With this said, please check below the cut for the actual ficlet.

///

After The Storm

In the Kingdom of Aravallia, February 19th, Year 9147 of the Ever Realm Calendar...

Trying to hold back the concerned frown that tugged at his face, Fiero strode fluidly through the beach’s wet sand, his tamborita thrust out before him as it sent an invisible magical ripple across the sand to clear a trail through the leaves and twigs and other bits of litter that had been blown across the sand by the previous night’s weather. Some might call him squeamish, but he wasn’t in the mood to keep flinching whenever he stepped on something sharp with bare feet, and the only other person around to see what he was doing wouldn’t think poorly of him if she saw him.

Which she didn’t. Because she wasn’t facing him. Like she had been about half an hour ago, Gracia was staring into the horizon as she stood by the water’s edge, her long black hair flowing in the wind, the pink wrap and yellow sundress she wore contrasting against her dark skin as they undulated around her, the dress' hem swaying around her legs and flapping against her tamborita, which she held in her left hand.

From a distance, she’d seem alright to a casual observer. But Fiero had always been perceptive. Even two years ago, when he first met Gracia, he had been able to tell she was different from all other malvagos he had met. If he had seen her like this back then, he would have been able to tell how sad she was in the way her head hung slightly, in the edge of a slump to her shoulders. Now that he and Gracia had grown so close, had learned to read each other like written pages, she wouldn’t be able to trick him even if she wanted to, just like he knew he knew was true with him regarding her.

Of course, neither would try it by now. Even before they had come to an understanding, they had barely been able to treat each other like threats. Now that they had grown so close, neither would even consider trying anything underhanded towards the other.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Gracia’s shoulders briefly rose, then dropped again, her body shuddering in what seemed like a deep sigh. Again, Fiero’s face itched to shift into a concerned frown, joined by a weight in his chest and a shiver that washed over him as the wind briefly picked up, no doubt aided by the large cloud that kept blocking the sun, even though most of the others had cleared away to reveal a pristine morning sky.

Perhaps leaving her alone while I made breakfast wasn't the best idea. He thought.

A slight pang sank into his heart at the thought. He had meant well when he did so - he’d only wanted to give her a warm meal to enjoy when she came back - but now that she had stayed outside for so long, not to mention wearing only a dress in this weather, he started to get worried. While he did want to respect the fact she might want to be alone, he also didn’t want to leave her in pain without trying to comfort her. He knew from personal experience that having no support when one was in pain was not pleasant.

To put it mildly. He thought, the old scars from all the times that had happened to him briefly flaring up.

The breeze picked up around him, stronger, chillier, sending a second shiver through him before it settled down again. No doubt, his white t-shirt and light grey trousers weren’t the best outfit to shield him from this weather, especially with the latter pulled up to mid-calf. Gracia had to be feeling it even more, standing barefoot in the surf with the occasional wave washing over her feet and ankles, but she didn’t even flinch. Either she withstood it better than him, or she was so lost in her thoughts she didn’t even notice.

Yes, she had her wrap over her dress, and could use her tamborita to cast a spell to warm herself if she needed, and even without it she was powerful and skilled enough to use her magic to do so. But still, he couldn't help but worry.

Don't be like that. He told himself. She's an adult woman who's about as powerful a malvago as you. She can take care of herself.

His concern didn't fade. He knew that was all true, and he also knew he couldn't be consumed by worry all the time, but he couldn't just not worry to any degree, especially when he knew she was hurting.

The ground under his feet suddenly became even colder, an edge of actual wetness meeting his skin as he stepped onto the sand by the water's edge. He lowered his tamborita and retracted his magic; there was no litter to clear away here. The weight in his chest grew as he got a close look at Gracia, clutching her wrap to her with her right hand, the pain and sadness she emanated ever more visible, as if he was approaching a campfire.

In a way, it was expected, for lack of a better term. Gracia was only human, and life hadn’t been kind to her recently. But it being expected didn’t make him feel better. The idea of her being in pain cut him up inside like a row of knives. Gracia had already been dealt far too much suffering; she didn’t need any more.

And yet, life kept giving her further helpings of it.

It’s not fair. Fiero thought, pain cutting through his heart as he finally got close enough to see her violet eyes, glistening with unshed tears. It’s just not fair.

The urge to rush over and wrap his arms around Gracia came over him. He pushed it back and stopped, then cleared his throat, careful to be loud enough to be heard over a distance.

She started as if she was coming out of a trance, her tamborita swaying slightly with her movement.

“Fiero?” she asked as she turned to face him, showing him that, instead of the heavier makeup she wore with her malvaga outfit, she had chosen a more subdued look to go with the sundress. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you up when I left?”

Before he could answer, she blinked, her eyes briefly widening. He guessed she had somehow noticed how much time had passed. So whether she’d noticed the chill or not, she had indeed been lost in her thoughts.

The concerned frown pulled at his face yet again. Pushing it back, he smiled, closed the gap between them.

“Don’t worry, you didn’t,” he reassured, running the backs of his fingers from her cheekbone to her chin. “And even if you had, you wouldn’t need to apologize,” he added as he reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

He said nothing else as he slid his hand away from her ear, cupping Gracia’s cheek. A hint of light returned to her eyes, her lips curling upwards as he caressed her cheekbone with his thumb. Then, she stepped closer to him, stretching up a bit. Mirroring her motion, Fiero leaned down, his lips meeting hers, their mouths lingering together before they drew apart.

Then, as he straightened himself, her nose scrunched up, her right eyebrow arching.

The shift in expression working as well as a verbal question, Fiero explained. “Breakfast is ready.”

Her eyebrow arched another fraction, her nose scrunching up again. “What is it?”

“Misto quente,” he replied, caressing her cheek again. “Your favorite.” His need to be specific protesting in the back of his mind, he added, “It’s a bit different from the one made in Paraiso, but it's the best I could do with what’s sold in Aravallia.”

Her smile widened slightly.

“I’m sure it’s delicious.”

Despite her words, she made no move to walk back to their cottage, or any kind of move, other than letting her mouth fall back into a frown.

The weight on his chest seeming to turn into a crack on his heart, Fiero moved his hand down and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. For a moment, her eyebrows knit together as if she was deciding what to do. Then magic flowed out of her right hand and into her wrap, two of its corners twistingly themselves together into a knot. Once the garment was secure around her shoulders, she switched her tamborita to her right hand and settled her left arm around his back. Wordlessly, Fiero drew her into him, her full figure settling against his lean profile as she leaned her head on his shoulder.

A wave washed over their feet. Fiero flinched in surprise, but no shiver came over him, the water somehow warmer than the air.

“If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen to every word,” he whispered into her hair.

Her left arm curled around his torso, her cheek shifting with her deepening frown, the change conveyed even through his t-shirt.

“Is there really anything I can say?” she murmured, snuggling her cheek into his shoulder.

He kissed her hair. “I understand if there isn't."

She curled her fingers more tightly over his side, a long exhale mixed with a pained whimper flowing from her. Again, Fiero kissed her hair. A softer, calmer sigh flowed from her, her form relaxing slightly against his’.

For a while, they stood in silence, the quietude broken only by the hushed murmurs of the breaking waves and the occasional caws of seabirds.

Then, Gracia found her voice.

“I suppose there really isn’t anything to say.” She took a breath, the sound telling Fiero she was either considering if there was anything to say after all or if she wanted to say it to begin with. “I just… I'm just still having trouble taking it all in. I’ve known my family was not very family-like for a long time, but that it has people who would go as far as they did…” She fell silent, her fingers loosening against him. “It's just... difficult to deal with.”

Fiero didn’t say anything. He simply kept his arm around Gracia’s shoulders.

“I admit that, in a sense, it shouldn’t be so shocking,” Gracia went on. “I’ve been a malvaga for over seventeen years. And I've met plenty of rotten people even before I was a malvaga. And I’ve seen my share of families who don’t act like families at all. And yet…”

She trailed off, briefly tensing up against him as if forcefully holding back the memories of the unpleasant discovery she had made. Fiero drew her even further into him, his other hand curling more tightly around his tamborita’s handle.

“I’m sorry you got such a short end of the stick when it comes to family,” he breathed. “And that you learned what those four are like in the way you did.”

Again, she curled her fingers over his side, her left hand running up and down his ribcage. “Don’t be. It’s better that I got to know. At least now I definitely won’t hold any illusions that things could have been different. Not with the four of them anyway.” She paused again, a shaky breath flowing out of her. “Still…”

Again, the words died in her mouth, her hand loosening again. Another wave washed over their feet, covering them up to their ankles. This time, it was followed by another stronger gust of chilly wind, the ambience around them darkening a fraction, as if the weather itself had decided to try and make them shiver. Neither of them blinked.

“You don’t need to explain,” Fiero soothed. He slid his hand from her shoulders and caressed up and down her back. “These things are always difficult to deal with. Especially when they happen to us personally.”

Again, Gracia didn’t give a verbal response, but the way she leaned against him, tired and drained while at the same time tense, spoke for her well enough.

“I can’t help but be shocked also,” he went on. “I’ve been a malvago for almost thirty years, I ran into plenty of nasty bastards even when I was a wizard, and I got to see firsthand how charming your family is, even before everything happened. Still, to learn what those four wanted to do to you...”

He cut himself off, an invisible foot suddenly kicking him. He’d gone more than far enough.

“Point is, if I feel like this, I can only imagine how you feel,” he finished.

Another deep, tired sigh flowed out of Gracia’s mouth. Then, he felt her shifting against him as her cheek left his chest and her arm pulled away from him. Looking down, his green eyes met her violet ones, the crack in his heart growing at the sheer pain within them.

“You know the worst part?”

Fiero curled his eyebrow in a silent question.

A briefer tired breath leaving her mouth, she replied, “On how I said it shouldn't be so shocking… In a way, it actually isn't shocking at all, considering what they have always been like. Looking back on it, the writing was always on the wall. I really should have known their natures from the beginning, rather than held any hopes about them.”

Another sigh crawled out of her, slow and heavy as if she was trying to exhale wet clay. Pain flared up in his chest as if both halves of his heart were being pushed apart. A lump started to settle in the back of his throat. He gulped to force it back, curled his arm more tightly around Gracia as he kissed her hair again.

“Don’t blame yourself,” he whispered. “ It’s not on you.”

Her gaze shifted towards the sand at his words, self-reproach all too plain in her eyes. The pain in his own chest throbbed harder. A wave ran over their feet once more.

"Please, look at me,” Fiero begged, his voice thick from the effort he was making to keep it calm and soothing, rather than filled with all the anger he felt towards Gracia’s so-called family.

Slowly, Gracia’s eyes turned up to his, pain roiling in their depths more intensely than ever before, just as the landscape around them seemed to grow darker once more, as if a thicker layer of cloud cover had just gotten before the sun. Carefully, Fiero brought his other hand up and, stretching his fingers as well as he could without losing his grip on his tamborita, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“It’s not on you,” he repeated. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You tried to follow their values as well as you could without compromising your own, you tried to step into their shoes time and again, you tried to give them the benefit of doubt multiple times, to believe there could be a sliver of kindness hidden deep within them, to help them when they needed even though they never showed a sliver of gratitude for, and yet all of them treated you like dirt.”

A reminder flaring in the back of his mind, he added as he lowered his hand, “Well, almost all. But most of them treated you like dirt. And those four monsters actually started plotting to have you killed just so they’d get their hands on your money. And yet when their plot was discovered, they tried to beg for mercy by appealing to the fact they’re family!”

He winced as he suddenly realized his voice had started to slip into a shout. He knew Gracia knew him well enough to understand he wasn’t angry at her, but he still didn’t want to further upset her by raising his voice.

Nevertheless, he seemed to have built up enough bile that he couldn’t avoid rolling his eyes and adding, “It’s beyond belief. They try to frame you for murder so you’ll be hanged and then say they’re family the moment they realize you found out their plot.” A sharp scoff blasted out of him. “Family, my…” Catching himself as he realized the word he was about to utter, he said instead, blood rushing to his cheeks, “Well, my that certain body part which is located on the side directly opposite to my front side, on the region right below my waist.”

A bout of laughter bubbled out of Gracia, a happy glow blooming in her eyes. Though his cheeks kept blazing, Fiero smiled at the sound, feeling every muscle in his body loosening from it.

“Are you sure your phrasing was verbose enough?” Gracia drawled once her laughter faded, her smooth contralto a fraction deeper and huskier than usual. “You might have been able to add two or three more sentences to that description.”

Unsure of what to say, Fiero could only shrug, though none of the defensiveness from his youth flared up within him. With Gracia, he always knew that when she teased him or poked fun at him, she did not mean to offend or hurt him.

“Well, what I said was specific enough already, I figure,” he said in an affected nonchalant tone, the red in his cheeks fading.

A mirthful spark in her eyes, her smirk shifted into a tender smile as she briefly curled her fingers around his side again, running a brief caress over his ribs.

His voice calmer, Fiero went on, “Point is, they were just rotten, period. And they were beyond lucky that they not only lived to see another day but didn't even end up in prison. If they still want to be dirtbags rather than try to better themselves, it’s on them, not on you.”

Gracia’s smirk returned, though this time it didn’t reach her eyes. Knowing what was on her mind, he added, an edge of tension creeping into his voice, “Not those four in particular. 'Greedy heartless monsters' would be more appropriate for them. 'Dirtbags' is a label for your other relatives.” The same reminder from before flaring up again, he added, “Other than Esha and Anjali and Lavanya. And their husbands and children, as far as I can tell. But that still leaves literal dozens of people in your family who are…”

This time, he was the one trailing off, his mind drawing a blank on a word good enough to refer to the kind of people most of Gracia’s relatives were. Still, her arm slipped down to his waist as her face fell.

“I know.”

The weight over his heart returning, Fiero pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered.

He knew he was repeating himself, but he meant what he said now as much as he did before.

He felt her face leaning away from his shoulder, though her arm moved up to rest over his ribs once more. He looked down; their gazes met again.

“It's alright,” she replied. “You did nothing wrong either. You don't need to apologize.”

A long sigh washed out of him. He drew her back into him, as she let her head rest on his shoulder again.

"I only wish I could actually do something about this."

///

Hearing the sorrow in his voice, Gracia leaned up and put a kiss to Fiero's cheek, briefly pressing her hand to his side as she did so, feeling the breeze blowing over them both.

She knew he meant what he said, but she'd never dream of asking him to do more than he already did.

He looked out for her well being, he tried to help her to the best of his abilities, he listened to her when she wanted to talk, he always respected her boundaries, and he was there for her.

That was all she could ask him to do.

She knew him wanting to do more for her meant that he cared, but she also knew that there were things he just could not do. All magic had its limits, and malvago magic in particular was very limited when it came to things unrelated to destruction. Having been a malvaga for as long as she had, Gracia knew that from personal experience. And even ignoring those limits, there were lines that no person with a sliver of decency and humanity crossed, and Fiero had much more than a sliver of either.

It was more than she could say of many people she had met, including some who claimed to be paragons of virtue, only to turn out nastier than some fairy tale villains.

Like ‘those four’ as Fiero had labeled them. They claimed to walk the path of righteousness, to follow the values of old, and then they had tried to have her killed, and for such a mercenary reason to boot.

Not that any reason would have been good, but doing it only because they wanted her money to add it to their very much not-paltry fortune… It was just… it was just beyond low.

Don’t think about that anymore. An inner voice tried to insist. It’s not worth it. They're not worth it.

A knot materializing in her chest at the thought, she took a deep breath, mentally pushing back the remains of the whirlwind within her as if the air she took in would do the job. Not thinking about them was easier said than done, especially after what they had done to her.

Having taken the deepest breath she could, she released, willing herself to let it out calm and slow, yet with purposefulness flowing through her. As the air rushed out of her, Fiero rubbed his shoulder over her wrap, pressing his lips to her hair once more, his embrace tightening a bit again.

‘It's alright.’ She read in his touch, even through the fabric. ‘Take all the time you need.’

Turning her head slightly upwards once more, she gave him another smile. The corners of his mouth curled upwards in response as he rubbed another circle over her shoulder.

Her smile widening, she closed her eyes as she took another breath, slightly faster and shallower than the last, but still allowing the salty air to flow into her lungs, to mentally will what she could only call its ‘calming essence’ to flow through her being. Just as she let it out, the breeze around her softened, grew warmer, everything around them and their own bodies seeming to lighten a few shades, the sun finally peeking through the clouds. Another wave washed up the beach, moving past them until it rose past their ankles. Then, as it retreated, it seemed to take yet another bit of her inner turmoil with her, the knot in her chest softening further.

A small sigh trickling out of her, Gracia nestled her head into Fiero’s shoulder, pressing her hand to his side once. Thinking about something else might be easier said than done, but it was better to do it than dwell on what those four had done just for the sake of it. And a good way to start thinking about something else was to start talking about something else.

Fortunately, while enjoying each other's company in silence was not a problem for them, finding things to talk about wasn't either.

Her gaze met his’ as she spoke up.

“Speaking of doing, is there anything you'd like to do once we get to Bansagubat? Other than following up on the lead we found on the Scepter of Night, I mean?”

He blinked at her question, confusion flickering in his gaze. She knew without having to ask that he'd found her change of subject sudden. But she also knew that he'd go along with it as long as her attempt at not dwelling on the recent events didn't fail.

Sure enough, his brow furrowed into the focused look he often assumed when he was in deep thought, though he didn't bring up his left hand to hold its thumb and forefinger to his chin, due to the tamborita he held.

“I don't think so,” he replied after some time. “At least for now. I don't know enough about Bansagubat to have an idea of what to do there.” He cocked his head to the side, curling an eyebrow. “What about you, mi alma? Is there anything you'd like to do?"

He punctuated his second question with a knowing grin, telling her he'd guessed the basics of her answer.

Gracia smirked in response. He did know her well...

“Indeed there is, mi amado,” she replied, her voice a fraction lower and slower again.

His knowing grin widened a fraction.

"Any chance I can know exactly what it is?"

Gracia started opening her mouth to reply, but the teasing tune she was mustering faded like a snuffed candle as she realized a few things.

"I'd tell you if I knew, but I'm not sure yet myself. It will depend on how long we stay there, and on where we have to go to find our next clue, if it even exists to begin with."

Her eyes narrowed into a glare at the thought, Fiero's expression mirroring hers, both recalling how many fake clues on the Scepter of Night’s whereabouts there seemed to exist throughout the world.

“But there are quite a few dancing festivals in Bansagubat, at many places and at many times of the year," Gracia went on before her mind could start wandering down another bad path. "I’d like to be able to go to a few. Or then take a few classes on the local dances, if I find any. Maybe do both things, if we find the time.”

Her chest seemed to grow lighter as she went on, a familiar giddiness rushing through her at that line of thought. She had only been to Bansagubat once, and the stay had been too brief for her to do much of anything, but she had read about the kingdom, and, more relevantly to her tastes, about its dances. It was true that seeing drawings and reading descriptions on the written page didn’t compare to the real thing by any means, but the authors had been good enough that she could join the picture and the text to somewhat visualize what the real dances were like. And even if she hadn’t, she had always liked learning new dances, and Bansagubat had plenty that she wanted to learn.

A faint shift in Fiero’s face brought her back to reality - his knowing grin had become a fond one, no doubt at the view of the joy she felt bubbling within her and which she now realized had spilled over onto her features.

That was one of the things she loved about him. While she knew he didn’t hate dancing per se, she also knew he wasn’t particularly fond of it. But he still wholeheartedly loved seeing her so happy doing something she loved, and was genuinely happy to do it with her just because it made her happy.

“I don’t see us staying at Bansagubat for less than several months,” he said. “I think we’ll find the time for that." He pursed his lips shut, as if struck by a sudden thought. "Or, if you’d rather I did so, I can also read up on Tolome’s treasure on my own while you have your dance classes and we read up on it together whenever you’re not in class or practicing.”

He winced right after he spoke, as if he thought he’d just put his foot in his mouth with his suggestion. Giving him a comforting smile, Gracia shifted around so that she now stood before him, her hand flowing from around his back to rest on his shoulder, on cue with another wave washing over their feet. The landscape seemed to grow a few more shades around them, though this time the breeze strengthened for a moment, as if unsure of whether to let up or intensify.

“I get what you mean,” she told him. “And I don’t mind going to classes for some of those dances on my own. But we find classes for some others, I confess I was hoping you’d come with me.” Suddenly afraid of how her words might be taken, she added, “But I will accept if you don’t.”

She punctuated her sentence with a calm smile to reinforce her words, meaning it from the bottom of her heart. She would indeed like it if Fiero went to classes for those specific dances with her, but she wouldn’t try to force him to if he really didn’t want to. Even before her time with her family, she knew how awful it was to be forced into things one didn’t want to do.

At first, Fiero’s forehead crinkled in puzzlement. Gracia knew without asking that he was wondering what kind of dances she might want him to go along on. But then, his warm smile returned as he raised his now free hand to rest it on her cheek, running a slow, tender caress over it.

“I’ll go with you,” he whispered. “Whatever the kind of dances you’re talking about, as long as you want me to go with you, I will.”

Gracia’s smile widened a bit further, her whole being suddenly lightening. It might be the kind of line too easily uttered, but again, she knew just from his tone and expression that Fiero was doing it willingly, because he knew it would make her happy. The fact he hadn’t even asked what dances she was talking about only reinforced it.

She snapped out of her thoughts as a hint of a scowl returned to Fiero’s face, as if something had just reminded him of an unpleasant memory.

A frown replacing her smile, she asked, "What’s the matter?"

Putting his smile back in place, Fiero reached down and held her hand in his’, raising it up until it was level with their chests.

“Nothing serious,” he soothed. “Just a few bad memories of the last time I had dance classes.”

Gracia’s eyes opened a bit wider, a mix of amazement and realization pricking at her.

“So you did have dance classes…” Again reading a silent question in Fiero’s face, she explained, “I thought you had them from the first time I danced with you. You danced far too well to be a novice. But I confess it does seem a bit surprising.”

His own smile still in place, he briefly squeezed her hand more tightly.

“I know. I didn’t ever think I’d have dance classes before I started them either. Dancing was never among my top-favorite activities until we started seeing one another.” Again wincing right after his sentence, he added, “Not that I ever hated it, but…”

He trailed off, unease creeping up into his eyes. Smiling again, Gracia rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb.

“I understand. I liked learning magic well enough when I was younger, but I didn’t throw myself into it until I became a malvaga.” Feeling the shadow of more unpleasant memories starting to creep over her, she went on before they could settle in. “Though now I’m curious on why you had dance classes if you didn’t particularly like dancing.”

Fiero’s shoulders dropped at the question. This time, a sigh actually flowed out of him, his hand slipping off of hers. Gracia knew without having to ask that whatever he was recalling, it was not pleasant.

But before she could tell him he didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to, he explained, “I felt I should when I started training to be the Royal Wizard of Avalor.”

Gracia’s eyes opened a fraction wider.

“What does dancing have to do with being a Royal Wizard?”

He sighed again.

“Nothing. But I wanted to destroy any possible grounds for criticism. They included failing to mingle and dance during formal events. So besides studying up on all the magic I could, I started learning other things I thought would help me for when I became Royal Wizard. Ballroom dancing was one of them. I was never actually tested on that during my so-called exam, but I guess that’s just as well, because my instructor said that if I didn’t get rid of the snake-like edge to my movements, I’d always be a lost cause.”

Gracia’s face hardened, her eyebrows settling into a straight line, her blood suddenly warmer.

She already knew enough about Fiero’s time trying to be the Royal Wizard to be angry on his behalf at pretty much everyone involved, but it still seemed that the more she learned, the more reasons she found to be angry. It still didn’t excuse what he had ended up doing, of course, but Fiero himself had always acknowledged such a fact whenever they talked about it, and just because she didn’t excuse the way he had snapped it didn’t mean she couldn’t feel sorry for him. As personally motivated as he might have been to a degree, Gracia knew Fiero had also wanted the post because he wanted to help people. Yet, it just kept turning out that more and more people involved in the game were against him, and for all sorts of nonsensical reasons at that.

And to think people from Paraiso were seen by Avalorans as high and mighty jerks, more shallow and vain than parrots! If she ever got to meet those particular Avalorans, she’d certainly have a few choice words for them on that matter.

But most of them were dead anyway, and if they hadn’t been able to recognize Fiero’s worth before, her ripping them a new one wouldn’t do anything on that front. Not to mention that, unfortunately in every sense of the word, Fiero couldn't be a Royal Wizard anyway. Malvagos couldn’t be Royal Wizards because of the limits to their magic, and once wizards became malvagos, there was no way for them to be wizards again.

Some of her anger drained away by her inner tirade, she willed the remainder back into the depths of her being. Then, smiling at him once more, she held his hand and raised it, this time rubbing her thumb over his palm.

“Well, take this from someone who danced since she was three and was a professional dancer for over thirteen years.” She paused for a moment longer, until Fiero’s gaze was locked on hers. “You’re better than some of my dance partners, and I’m talking of people who danced for a living. And that’s a fact as far as I’m concerned.” She paused again, this time to make sure her sentences sank in. “But even if it wasn’t, there are only two rules that one needs to follow when dancing.”

Fiero’s lips parted slightly, in a clear relay of his amazement.

“Really?” he whispered.

“Well, not if you’re doing it professionally,” Gracia admitted. “Then the audience will expect nothing but the best, and in a competition in particular, the judges tend to have a mile-long list of standards, and failing to meet even half of them will rob you of any chance.” She released his hand, then rested her own on his cheek. “But when you’re dancing for fun, there are only two things that need to be done. To dance from the heart, and to choose a partner you like dancing with and who likes dancing with you.”

His smile returned at her words. Warmth again enveloped her hand as he put it to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles as he finished, his moustache tickling her skin.

“As long as I’m dancing with you, none of those things will ever come into question.”

“Likewise,” she replied as Fiero straightened himself, their gazes meeting again.

And that was all either needed to say on the matter, their eyes telling each other everything else they needed to know as the breeze flowed around them, a wave again trickling over their feet and then pulling back.

Then, slowly, like a spark spreading across kindling, sunlight spread across the whole landscape, a warmth seeping into their surroundings, the breeze settling down even further until it merely ghosted over them, like the settings in the kind of fairy tale moments common in the ballets Gracia had performed in.

She knew this one was entirely natural and just a lucky coincidence, but she was more than happy to go with it.

"Dance with me?" she requested, squeezing Fiero’s hand.

He squeezed hers in return, his eyes twinkling.

"Of course, mi alma."

Her chest fluttering, Gracia slowly withdrew her hand from his’, then raised it until it was before the knot in her wrap.

“Let’s get ready then,” she said.

With those words, she channelled magic into the garment around her shoulders, her signature purplish-pink tone surging around it. As fluidly as a liquid, the wrap untied itself loose and then slid through the air until it hovered before her, folding itself into a neat rectangle. Once it finished, Fiero raised his own hand, sending magic forth as the glow around the bundle shifted from purplish-pink to a different violet shade. Retracting her own magic, Gracia raised her tamborita and aimed it at the wrap, landing a firm, but subdued smack on the drum. A purplish-pink glow bloomed around it, and the next instant, the folded cloth shimmered out of view with a hushed poof, teleported into what she knew was its proper place in its drawer.

That part of the task done, Gracia again channeled magic into her tamborita, purplish-pink sparks surging around its handle and drum with a faint hiss. Lowering the hand he’d been holding up, Fiero raised his tamborita to hers, violet sparks erupting from it. Then, as they put their tamboritas’ drums together, the sparks fused into bigger, brighter bolts of their shades blended together, a loud crackle lashing forth as their magic joined, finishing the protective spell that would safeguard their tamboritas.

After holding the drum wands in place for a few seconds, Fiero and Gracia released them and, with a sweeping motion of their arms as coordinated as a dance step, sent them floating about thirty feet away, where they sank vertically into the sand. The bolts around them faded, but the tamboritas remained together as if glued, standing under their own power like two swords stuck on the same stone.

Their preparations complete, Fiero put an arm across his chest and bowed, while she curtsied in her sundress as formally as she would in a ballgown. Their gazes locked again, both stepped towards each other, her left hand resting on his shoulder while his right one settled on her waist, their other hands interlacing together. A familiar thrill bursting through her as she felt Fiero’s hand pressing to her left, she went along with the movement of his spin, her hair fanning out as she circled her way around him. A faint splash reached her ears as she stopped, but she barely noticed it as he released her waist and raised their entwined hands above their heads. Following the cue, she twirled in her spot and then put her hand back to his shoulder while his’ settled on her waist again. Her smile growing even wider, she pressed slightly into Fiero’s shoulder to convey what she wanted him to do; he followed along and spun to the left once more with her in his arms, though this time she tightened the circle as she walked around him. In perfect tune with her movement, Fiero stepped back, the two of them falling into their rhythm of steps and twirls and circles, the warm sun shining down on them.

Reminded of a similar setup in a ballet she had once performed in - and in a musical version of the same story that she had gone to on her fourth date with Fiero - Gracia started humming a familiar tune under her breath, setting their steps to it.

Again, Fiero curled an eyebrow even as he settled into her cue.

“Aurora and Phillip’s Waltz?” he asked.

“Just something to set our dance to, mi amado,” she replied without slowing down. “I thought this fit us.”

And it did. In more ways than one. Between the costumes they - or at least she - had been wearing on the night they actually started their romantic relationship, the dreams they’d both had on the same night not long before that occasion, and the musical adaptation of The Tale of Sleeping Beauty they had watched on their fourth date, she thought that the song fit them. Not to mention she had always liked it since she was a child, even if Princess Aurora’s tale had never been her top favorite.

For a moment, Fiero narrowed his eyes, his look out of focus as if he was thinking of something. Then, he pressed his lips together as if gathering himself, and sent a warm tingle flowing into the thrill shooting through her as he began singing.

I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream

Not missing a beat, Gracia joined in.

I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam

He pulled her just a bit closer as both sang the next verses.

Yet I know it’s true That visions are seldom all they seem

Their voices soared as they moved into the chorus, the breeze briefly picking up again, but not slowing them down in the least as they swept across the beach.

But if I know you I know what you’ll do You’ll love me at once The way you did once upon a dream

#elena of avalor #fanfic #fiero #gracia #tales of the ever realm au #fiero x oc #fluff #romance #I hope you like it

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tybee · 4 years

Text

Love Like That

1/4

Summary: Beverly asks Stanley an important question and the possibility of her asking for a friend seems to fly over his head.

(Or essentially Stan and Bev friendship plus side Reddie and underlying Stenbrough.) Also read on AO3.

Grass tickles the crooks of his knees and he adjusts himself so his legs are pulled in under him and tips back onto his calves, no longer able to be affected by the itchy greenery thanks to the soft plaid shirt he had placed on the ground earlier this afternoon as to not stain the seat of his shorts. Gently, a cool breeze dances on by, disturbing small piles of red leaves that lay down at the mouths of trees all around him. His eyes water at the edges.

Softly, he lays down his handheld binoculars onto the sleeve of the shirt he sat on, having taken notice of the figure walking up to him with what he hoped was good intent.

“Stan, there you are! You’re one hard man to find,” Beverly greets with a smile as she stops and sets her palms at her knees, her hair curling around her flushed cheeks like she had been running all afternoon. There’s a bruise on her jawline and it’s poorly covered by a kiddie band-aid with tiny flowers, undoubtedly placed there by Eddie playing doctor.

Stanley squints his eyes up at her like she’s the sun because she is. Or at least, she stands directly in front of it and the light frames her head in a way that would not be safe to properly look at.

“I’m here almost all the time,” he says, lips pulled into a smirk. “Well, every Wednesday.” He tilts his head smugly when her cheeks warm pink and she gives a small embarrassed laugh.

“Ah, well, how was I s’posed to know that? We don’t talk much,” Beverly answers with a small shrug, smile pursed as her head moves to the side, curls following her movement.

Stanley quirks an eyebrow and gives a hum, eyes falling down away from the sun and to the glittering medal of Beverly’s ankle bracelet that peeked out from under her long skirt. “Well,” Stanley begins, silently searching for something to say as he thumbs the fabric of the shirt under him. He looks back up at her where she waits expectantly, eyes curious. “Bill knows. You talk to him plenty,”

Beverly giggles at him and suddenly she drops, skirt ruffling as she sits down in the grass right next to him. Stanley holds his tongue because he knows she wouldn’t care about staining the dark fabric she wore. “Yeah, yeah, I liked Bill last year, very funny. Ever thought about stand-up comedy?” She says, hiking up her skirt to her bent knees and tucking the rest of the fabric under her legs.

Stanley gives an amused snort and it tugs out another giggle from Beverly. “I’m not sure how well Richie would take to me robbing him of his career,” Stanley tells her, voice almost sarcastic as he tips his head.

Beverly grins and leans into her knees, arms wrapping loosely around them. “Gah, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. He can find somethin’ else to do. You’re hilarious,” she assures in a joking whisper, winking for good measure.

Stanley shakes his head, hiding his smile by looking down to his lap. Beverly tries to follow his face by tilting her own and it sends them both into soft bundles of giggles. “Okay, alright,” Stanley says finally, waving a hand. He adjusts his position and ends up sitting on one leg instead of both, the other bent so it wouldn’t meet itchy grass. “Why were you looking for me?”

Beverly tucks a curl behind her ear, suddenly shy. Stanley furrows his eyebrows in equal parts confusion and curiosity. Beverly smiles at him once more, looking nervous. “How… do you get boys to like you?” she asks rushedly, face pink once more.

Stanley’s eyes widen slightly, shocked by what Beverly had spit out. He starts to sputter quietly, surprised and genuinely speechless in regards to said question. Why would she even ask him that? Out of all people? Suddenly embarrassed, Stanley’s cheeks grow hot and childishly he hopes Beverly assumes it’s because Derry was finally experiencing the coolness of autumn air.

“Ah, well, I mean, I don’t—I don’t know, I…” Stanley’s fingers nervously go up to pick at the tender scars on the side of his face before freezing to a stop when he remembers they shouldn’t be picked at. He drops his hand quickly. “W-Why do you ask?”

Beverly scrunches her nose and averts her eyes like she’s trying to concentrate. She looks back to Stanley after a second. “No reason in particular…” she says slowly before rolling a shoulder, “just a question,”

And it doesn’t seem like she’s lying, for her usual tells aren’t there. (They may not talk much, but Stanley loves her like he does the rest of his friends. He knows when she’s lying because she looks anywhere but forward and her hands like to twist the key at the base of her neck.) But deep down, Stanley knew he wasn’t being told the whole truth either. He just knew.

So he peers at her suspiciously and simply crosses his arms, deciding to play into her act. It was quite an innocent question, after all. “Uh, okay. But why ask me, then? I’d be the last person anyone would go to for that type of advice,” he tells her honestly, because he can, and there was no reason to lie. He watches her face carefully, searching for any sign that she might have understood what he meant.

It seems to fly over her head, but it’s okay because he was trying to be inconspicuous either way. She shrugs the opposite shoulder she had rolled and she’s shy again once more. “Well…boys like you, don’t they? Bill likes you,”

And Stanley knows she doesn’t mean it that way, but he thumbs at the fabric of Bill’s plaid shirt again and his face grows hot at her words. “Yes, but not like girls,” Stanley fakes at clearing his throat because there’s nothing stuck there but the racing beat of his heart. “Liking girls is different.”

This time, both of Beverly’s shoulders rise to her unpierced earlobes before then falling back down into easy slopes in one fluid motion. “It doesn’t have to be.”

Another autumn breeze hits and it rustles the trees nearby. Stanley is left with no words once again, and all in the span of a couple of minutes. They haven’t been sitting here together for too long.

Stanley tips his head and looks down at his lap. He doesn’t know what she means by it. (He does.)

Beverly huffs a warm sigh. “Stan…I came to you because I knew I couldn’t go to anyone else,” she rests her chin on her arms and holds her legs a little tighter, “I’d go to Bill, but we liked each other and it’d be weird,” she purses her lips, “…and that’s not saying you're my second choice—you’re my best, actually. You’d give me fact no matter what and that’s what I want.”

Stanley looks over at her and her eyes are kind and truthfully blue. A warm feeling blooms across his chest and runs down the length of his arms and into his fingertips. Beverly came to him for advice. Him specifically. His heart swells. The least he could do is answer her question, right?

“Okay,” he says, nodding. She smiles and the prairie in her bandaid dances along. They fall into peaceful silence as Stanley looks back up into the trees and Beverly patiently waits for a response.

How do you get boys to like you? By being yourself, Stanley supposes, but it’s different when you’re a boy. Boys like other boys because they’re boys. Easy ingredients and easy recipes for creating best friendships that’ll last for years.

Boys like…boys. Boyish things. Dirt and rocks and bugs and acting brave in the face of danger.

…Then again, Stanley is a boy and he doesn’t like those things. He can’t stand to be dirty, rocks aren’t good for anything (except for maybe defending your friends from bigger kids), bugs make him squeamish, and he’d probably cry in the face of genuine danger. (And he has. He has.)

So maybe boys don’t like those things at all. Maybe boys are just like girls and liking either should be the same.

Stanley looks back to Beverly and she tilts her head an inch asking, you done? without saying it aloud. Stanley shakes his own head in the negative and goes back to looking for answers in the fluttering wings of the birds he had spotted earlier.

But that’s not what Beverly means at all, is it? How do you get boys to like you? She doesn’t mean it like that; she doesn’t mean it in the way he already likes—loves her. She doesn’t mean it that way because to him, she was already a boy. It was easy to love her like one. Her hair was already shorter than a girl’s and her clothes didn’t look like a girl’s (they’re girl clothes usually, skirt and blouse, but they don’t make her one necessarily). She doesn’t cry when she gets hit by rocks and…she hangs out with them, doesn’t she? She’s friends with him, isn’t she? How do you get boys to like you? He likes her already.

No, she means it like that. She means it in the way that’s depicted on television 24/7 and the way he’s seen between his own two parents. That love. She means it like that.

But…who was she asking about, specifically? Who does she want to like her the way he doesn’t? The way Bill did? The way Ben does already? Like her—love her like that. Who was she asking for?

Stanley ought to ask her, it would help him come up with a better answer, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to embarrass her for wanting to be loved like that. He watches the birds and thinks I’m too young for this because in reality, he doesn’t really know about love like that.

Well…an answer is what she wants? An answer is what she’ll get.

“I don’t know,” Stanley finally says. He shrugs his shoulders when the wind sends a trail of shivers down his back, like sap spilling down the bark of a tree. Beverly brings her legs in and crosses them, posture going slack as she dumps her hands into her lap. “In general, I guess…be more…girly?”

Beverly looks surprised. Her eyes are big and her eyebrows disappear behind her bangs. “Boys like that?” she asks.

Stanley shrugs again, uncertain. “I guess so? I don’t know what boys like,” he says, shaking his head light for emphasis. It’s all he could think to say and he wants to go back at looking for birds.

“What do you like?” Beverly says immediately. It bursts out like she’s been waiting for a chance to ask.

But…she can’t do that. She can’t ask him that. She can’t do that because…because what he likes is the color sky blue and soft plaid fabrics and silver bikes and quick glitches of conversation and tight warm hugs and tearing promises into skin with glass and…he likes…he likes…not girls.

So he looks down into his hands (and it’s there, from the heel of his palm to the first knuckle of his forefinger, white and uneven) and moves his shoulders again.

“Okay,” Beverly nods like she understands (and maybe she does). She blows a raspberry. “Then…girly? What does that mean?”

Stanley is sure she knows what he means, but he plans to humor her anyways. He thinks back to conversations he’s overheard from boys in their grade as best as he can. “Girly is like…Greta Bowie and her friends. Lipgloss and short skirts and stuff that goes in hair, ribbons and clips and things, I guess…Nice nails and perfumes. You know, girl stuff,” He smiles at her when she scrunches her nose.

“Girls like Greta Bowie? Really? That’s what boys like?” She seems incredulous and Stanley supposes that’s only natural. It is quite hard to believe, but that’s what he’s heard. How should he know?

“Yeah, most boys,” Stanley nods at her and then keeps nodding, like he’s trying to rattle his brain for a different answer. “It’s like…what you see on TV? In magazines? Models? Most boys like that,”

Beverly nods at him slowly as her lips purse in consideration and her eyes meet his. Stanley stares back into blue and it’s like nervously peering down into the cold water of the quarry before jumping. He’s in for it now. (What for, exactly? He doesn’t quite know, but he’s in and there’s no getting out.)

“Okay. Thanks Stan,” Quickly, Beverly rises, sprouting from the grass like a flower. Skirt like dark blue petals ruffling in the gentle wind. She touches the top of his head in a motherly gesture, right where his kippah resided. Stanley squints up at her and she grins mischievously. “Bye.”

And Stanley is left with the autumn wind as company.

#love like that #llt1 #my fic #stanverly #reddie #@ me to be tagged

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marvelmando · 5 years

Text

breathe through the pain {p.parker x reader}

prompt comes from anon!

hey! since you wanted request, how about reader (who isnt a hero or anything) getting hurt and going for peter for help with the prompts 6, 26, 30 and 60? didnt know if there was a limit so sorry if so, thank you! hope you have a nice day/night!

notes: yes yes yes yes yes! this might be slightly hard just bc there are so many prompts, but my brain is ready for the challenge. thanks so much for requesting anon! and i hope you have an awesome day/night too, my lovely friend :)

also, i’m sorry for the gif and sad quote. see if you can spot it ;)

based on:

6. “You just got stabbed and you want to know if I’m okay?!”

26. “Am I not good enough for you?”

30. “Oh, absolutely not. I can’t do this without you.”

60. “I’m in love with you!”

from this prompt.

***warning: there’s a part at the beginning where a mugger is about to do... unsavory things to the reader, but it doesn’t end up happening. i don’t say anything outright, but if you’re triggered by assault or sexual assault, please don’t read this!!!! or just skip the beginning few paragraphs!!! there’s also some violence, particularly a stabbing, so if you’re squeamish, i don’t recommend reading this either, as i definitely go into some detail. also, some cursing (but with me, that’s par for the course, i’m afraid).

There was something off.

Walking alone at night in the city was an absolute no-no, especially for someone like you. But in your defense, it had still been light out by the time you left your apartment in Queens. The line at Delmar’s had been ridiculously long, and it took nearly an hour just to get a sandwich and a soda.

But you’d went alone, and now it was dark out, and something wasn’t right. The street you were taking was poorly lit, as most streets around there were. You should’ve been smart and taken the main road, but it would’ve taken you twice as long to reach your apartment complex in Forest Hills. The back of your neck burned, the hair on your arms raised in alarm. If you weren’t so anxious, you’d probably make a joke about your friend Peter and his spider-senses.

You picked up your pace when you heard the footsteps. As they got closer and louder, you reached into the front pocket of your jeans, feeling around for the remote Peter had given you and pressed the large button in the center, knowing it would alert him that you were in danger. It was a safety precaution you two had begun earlier that year when Rhino was at large.

It was just in time, too, because just as you’d finished pushing the button, a pair of hands grabbed you by the bicep and threw you into the nearest alley.

You stumbled to the ground, bag carrying your goods flying out of your hands, but the mugger was quick to haul you to your feet and shove you against the brick wall of an abandoned convenience store.

“Hey!” You shouted, yanking against his grip as he manhandled you. “Let me go, you asshole!”

You froze at the sharp press of the blade against your cheekbone, wincing slightly as it pushed into your skin.

“Shut your mouth pretty lady, or I’m gonna shut it for you.” He leaned in as he hissed into your ear. His hot breath was soured, making you grimace and press your face harder into the brick.

You tried to push off the wall, but he’d pinned both hands between your stomach and the wall, and by the feel of him, he was at least twice your size with hands as big as your face. Those same filthy hands rummaged over your hips, clawing into your back pockets as he presumably searched for your loose change (you knew better than to carry a hanging purse in the city).

He grunted in frustration once he realized you didn’t have any. “Ain’t got no money, sweetheart?” His voice sounded like he was smirking filthily. Your heart slid across a beat as you thrashed harder. It only made him tighten his grip and dig the blade harder into your cheek. “Guess I’m gonna have to take somethin’ else, ain’t I?”

“Let go!” You growled and, noticing that the hand holding the knife was slackening as he focused on moving his hand to your waist, you shoved your head back into his nose.

You heard a satisfying crunch at the impact, and the guy loosened his grip on you only slightly. But it was enough for you to lift your foot up and onto his toes, hearing a crack there too.

Instead of cowering back, however, it only made the mugger angry. He lunged at you with a low shout, slamming his fist into your cheek.

Your vision swam on impact, your mouth going fuzzy and ears beginning to ring. You could only barely notice that the guy had grabbed you to his chest instead of pressing you to the wall again, and it took you a minute to realize why.

Your eyes cleared enough to see Spider-Man at the entrance of the alley, and despite the pain radiating in your cheek, you grinned widely.

“Let her go!” You thought you heard Spider-Man yell to the mugger. You dazedly tried to move out of the man’s hold, but gasped at the sting against your throat, realizing he’d pressed his blade there.

“Don’t move, ma’am,” Spider-Man instructed you, sounding slightly panicked, as if he was trying to suppress the urgency. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“Don’t move, Spider-Man!” The man shouted from behind you, sounding too loud next to your ear. You instinctively struggled against him, causing him to tense and hold the knife harder against your throat, drawing blood this time. Your hands flew up to the man’s arms, trying to push them away. “Don’t move or this knife slices the lady’s pretty little throat.” He sneered down at you.

You didn’t know why Peter wasn’t moving to shoot a web at this guy; you’d seen him deal with guys holding hostages before. More importantly, you’d seen him not even hesitate with guys holding guns to hostages’ heads, aiming his webs true no matter how close the criminal was to the hostage, but now? This guy only had a knife, and she’d seen Peter react faster than this guy could even move a pinky finger. So why wasn’t he moving?

You realized what you’d have to do. You’d somehow have to push this guy away from you so Peter could shoot a web at him. Maybe you were just too close to the guy, maybe there wasn’t enough space to get a web around him.

Looking Peter straight into the eyes of his mask, you nodded imperceptibly. Before you moved, you saw his bionic eyes widen and his hand raise.

You thrust your hips forward, pushing them back as hard into the mugger’s crotch as you could. He was startled, releasing you only slightly, but recovered quicker than you expected.

Then, several things happened at once.

You think Peter yelled. Someone did, but it wasn’t you.

Then, the mugger reached down and grabbed you around the waist. A dull but sharp pain erupted in your abdomen and your breath leaving your lungs in a heavy exhale, sounding more like a sigh than a grunt.

Time slurred and dark spots popped through your vision as your feet collapsed underneath you. This was when you realized that the mugger had let go of you.

You weren’t sure when your eyes closed, but they opened to stare at the open sky above the alley; would’ve been black and speckled with stars if not for the pollution pouring from the city’s millions of lights. But there were the stars; why could she see stars? Twinkling down at her like a billion little fairy lights, like the ones hanging around her bedroom.

“Stars,” she thought she breathed, and the next thing she knew, Peter’s unmasked face was blocking her view of the stars. She smiled weakly. “Pete, look, the stars,”

“No, no, no!” Peter reached down for the blade sticking out of your stomach. “Y/N, stay with me, please!”

You struggled to meet his gaze. “Hey,” you lifted a hand to his cheek, finding a large, blooming bruise already forming there. His lip was swollen, and his hair disheveled from taking his mask off. His eyes swam with something close to panic and desperation. “Are you okay?”

He let out a pained laugh, though it was humorless. “You just got stabbed and you want to know if I’m okay?”

“I’m alright, Peter,” you told him, and it was starting to be true. Your head cleared slightly, and as you glanced up you didn’t see the stars anymore. You looked down at your stomach, where the knife was protruding at a weird angle. You were beginning to sit up when a wave of pain rushed over you, nearly suffocating you. “Ah, shit,” you gasped. “Maybe not, then.”

“God, Y/N, don’t do that again!” He scolded, sounding eerily similar to May. Not that you’d ever tell him, even as the thought made you chuckle breathlessly.

You watched hazily as he leaned to the side to grab something - his mask, you realized, as he yanked it on with one hand, the other holding the good side of your waist.

“Karen, call for an ambulance. Yeah, run some diagnostics.” A pause, his bionic eyes closing shut as he sighed minimally. “Good. That’s... good, at least. Thanks, Karen.”

With that, he yanked his mask off to reveal the soft brown irises you loved so much. They were so expressive; no matter how much Peter learned to school his features into an unreadable mask, he was never able to hide how much his eyes said. You were always able to read them, after years of being friends with him, but right now there was just too much, and your head was steadily clouding as shock was setting in.

“Pete, I -”

“Just hang on, Y/N, you’re gonna be all right.” He smiled down at you, not willing to move you an inch in case it caused further damage to your insides. He knew better than to remove it, of course. The only option was to wait for paramedics to arrive and take you to the hospital.

“I’m... I’m just gonna close my eyes for a bit, okay?” You slurred, your eyes growing as heavy as lead. Peter’s voice forced you back into focus, and you clung to it like a life preserver.

“No, no! Absolutely not.” He urged, eyes softening as yours focused on him. “I can’t do this without you.”

He seemed to say the last part to himself, like he didn’t mean to say it out loud. The sound of sirens came into focus as they grew louder and louder.

“Just a little bit longer, Y/N, just hold on a little longer.” He stammered like he knew it was his voice that kept you awake. Maybe he didn’t, and he was saying it because he needed to, like if he stopped, he’d never get talk to you again.

His face was the only thing you could keep your eyes trained on, even as he tugged on his mask just as the ambulance arrived. Even as they swarmed around you, forcing Peter to let you go and watch as the paramedics secured the blade and hoisted you onto a stretcher. Even as you were rushed away and Peter just watched you get lifted into the back of the ambulance.

Then the doors closed and your eyelids dropped again.

“It’s okay,” you thought you heard the female paramedic say. “You can rest now.”

So you did.

---

The first thing you noticed when you woke up was the pressure on your left hand. Then came the smell, sterile and bright. Then, the incessant and steady beeping of the monitor.

You peeled open your eyes, grateful that the room wasn’t as bright as you’d expected. It was, however, very white. White walls, white tiled floors, white bedsheets, and white furniture. Even with the blinds partially closed and the lights turned off, the hospital room glowed from all the blinding white.

A spot of brown popped up in your peripherals, catching your attention. It was Peter, his head resting next to where he grasped your hand with his. Not wanting to wake him but not comfortable with watching him as he slept, you gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

He woke immediately, head shooting up and eyes focusing on you automatically, as if you were the only thing in the room worth looking at.

“Y/N,” he breathed, a smile warming his eyes and voice despite the painful-looking bruise on his cheek. He returned the light squeeze on your fingers, before reaching over with his available hand to the button that alerted the nurses.

“Wait,” you croaked, voice stiff from disuse. To his credit, Peter stopped, but didn’t look happy about it. “I need to talk to you.”

He shifted uneasily, looking worried. “Yeah?”

You stared him in the eyes. “Why didn’t you shoot him?”

Peter blinked, looking startled, as if it wasn’t the question he was expecting to hear. “What... what do you mean?” He sounded confused, incredulous.

“You know what I mean.” You snapped lightly, narrowing your eyes. “You could have easily stopped him when he had the knife to my throat. But you didn’t. You hesitated. Why?”

Peter’s eyes slid away from you, as if he knew the answer was something uncomfortable to admit. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t know!”

“Were you bored or something?” Anger rose in you irrationally. “Was it not enough danger for you?” You knew it was a stupid accusation, but you couldn’t help but let the insecurity slip, “Am I not good enough for you?”

“What? Of course you are -”

“Then what, Peter?! Why did you hesitate?”

“Because I was terrified!” He suddenly shouted. You blinked, words escaping you.

“Of course you were Peter, I was terrified too!”

“No, you don’t -” he broke off, slipping his hand away and standing up to pace the floor in front of your bed. “You don’t understand, Y/N.”

You rolled your eyes. “Of course I do! I’d be terrified too if my best friend had a knife held to their throat!” You let out a dry laugh. “Hell, I’m terrified for you, and you face worse threats than puny little knives.”

Peter growled. “It’s different!”

Your mouth opened in disbelief. “What - Peter, how the hell is it diff -”

“Because I’m in love with you!” He shouted, his ears glowing a bright red, and his eyes hardened. Your mouth snapped shut. “I’ve been in love with you for years, and I’ve been so lucky that you haven’t been in any serious danger, even when Rhino was attacking me and Toomes discovered my secret.” He was breathing heavily, his brown eyes molten with something burning and slightly sweet, despite the rage still simmering under his voice. “I’ve never had to save you from something, and last night, I... it really hit me that if I made one wrong move...” his voice broke off, the fight draining out of him.

“Pete,” was all you could seem to say. You tried sitting up, and although the pain was significantly better than the day before, the pain blossoming from the wound made you gasp and collapse against the pillow. Peter rushed over to your side, making sure you stayed down and hadn’t broken your stitches.

He was fussing over your bandages when you put a hand to his good cheek. “Pete, I’m alright. You know that, right?”

He nodded, tilting his face into your hand. His eyes were soft again, full of light and love and something that made your breath escape through your lips.

“And I love you too, Pete. I’m in love with you, to be clear.” You smiled lightly, and his eyes brightened with a hidden smile.

“Can I...” he began to say, eyes sliding down to your lips.

Without a word, you leaned forward, and this time, you didn’t even notice the pain.

#spiderman #spider man #endgame spoilers #Far from Home spoilers #tom holland #tom holland imagine #peter parker #peter parker imagine #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker x reader #Avengers #avengers: infinity war #avengers endgame #Iron Man #marvel #imagine

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lgcjaewoo · 4 years

Text

✦ ◟𝘾𝘼𝙎𝙏𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝘾𝘼𝙇𝙇 ┊ 𝘼𝘾𝙏𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙈𝙄𝙎𝙎𝙄𝙊𝙉

the audition room looks a lot like how jaewoo imagined it would look. there's that token long table on one side of the room, with an intimidating set of very important-looking people sitting behind it. a couple of staff members linger here and there, flipping some pages of a document, escorting nervous auditionees in and out the door. it makes jaewoo smile, because this set-up looks exactly like it does in the movies, and he giddily feels like he's in one.

it's still unreal to him, that he's attending his first audition today. he still remembers the exact moment he'd heard about it (quick lunch of instant ramen at a convenience store) and how he reacted (gasped so dramatically that poorly-mixed extra spicy soup shot down his throat like fire ants). he started preparing for it the very next day; running lines with friends, working on his improv, listening to the same playlist of k-drama soundtracks for inspiration over and over again until he could pretty much hear the quirky tinkling of bells every time he walks up to the entrance of his school.

he doesn't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing to admit that this is probably the most he's ever worked for something in his life. because to others, it may just be an audition, but to jaewoo, it means so much. this is his start line, his step one.

but he's also been preparing for the very real, very big chance that all his effort would come down to nothing. one of the acting mentors in the agency had told him as much. he's just a trainee, after all, with virtually no repute to his name. there are plenty of other actors with more traction and experience. he understands.

but on the bright side, knowing the odds are probably against him actually kicked his courage up a notch. even if it's just his first audition, he's already trying for a LEAD ROLE. nothing to lose, right? and besides, there's that saying, one he remembers from an old yearbook in his school. "shoot for the moon," someone named min jieun says, although jaewoo's sure min jieun's just quoting somebody else, "even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." it's a nice way to put it. as he's ushered back into the audition room after being given fifteen minutes to come up with a character, he reminds himself, i'm shooting for the moon today. gives him that much-needed boost of confidence. he breathes in controlled ones and twos. one, two. inhale, exhale.

the only thing on his mind by the time he's sitting down beside jun is the character he's going with for this scenario. he decided to play one of sehun's friends who isn't there for him. might be risky, but then again, he's shooting for the moon.

"i'm tired." junㅡno, sehun says.

jaewoo's first thought is to ask why, but that's not what his character would do. he'd probably try to make the conversation about himself. so he does.

"dude, tell me about it. i stayed up all night trying to crack that math homework." he groans, but it's lighthearted. he imagines his character would be someone fun, likableㅡat least on the surface. so people wouldn't suspect of what hid underneath. "you know what though? i ended up just copying from min jieun anyway." he jokingly tuts, shaking his head. "next time, i'm just gonna straight-up cheat."

that manages to elicit a laugh from sehun. but it's stretched thin, like sehun himself probably is.

once the laugh fades, jaewoo figures it's time to start revealing what makes his character tick. "so, you talk to your mom about the cram school yet? cause she's the only chance i have at getting a slot there." he tries to sound nonchalant, but there’s a subtle nervousness that simmer underneath. this is one of the cracks in that lighthearted mask of his. "my parents tried to get me in, but they'reㅡ" he swallows thickly, "they don't have the connections. i know your mom does, though. so maybe she can pull some strings?"

sehun's mouth opens, closes. he's visibly troubled. "iㅡi haven't talked to her yet." he looks away. "we're not really on good terms right now."

with sincerity shallower than a puddle of rain on concrete, jaewoo says, "aw, that sucks." families fight all the time, but his problem is more important. "i get it, man, i do. but i really really need that slot.” the mask cracks again. “my dad's gonna kill me if i don't get into yonsei, and you know i'm too stupid to make it into yonsei on my own.” his tone’s flippant, but the worry in his eyes betray him. “i need that cram school, man. i need all the help i can get.”

sehun seems conflicted, toe-ing an invisible line that makes jaewoo’s worry grow, and it shows in the way jaewoo grips his own thighs, shoulders taut and tense. “dude, please. just,” jaewoo exhales, thinking. and then he figures out what he has to say next. “whatever this thing is with your mom, just get over it for a second.”

sehun whips his head to stare at jaewoo. he looks so betrayed jaewoo almost feels bad, both in character and as himself. but the expression is gone just as quick as it came, because sehun is that type of character, and jun is a damn good actor.

before sehun can get a word in, jaewoo speaks again, that something boiling underneath his mask seeping its way through the cracks. “i’m not as smart as you, man. i need this. it’s yonsei or nothing for me. my dadㅡheㅡhe’s gonna kick me out or something. i swear.” there’s a sharp intake of breath. jaewoo’s beginning to stumble over his words, just as himself, because his mind’s running too fast and his mouth can’t keep up. but he can’t panic now, so he pretends it’s his character’s reaction. desperate. trying to convince sehun of how much this slot means to him.

“you know what my dad did to my older brother, right?” jaewoo continues, rattled, “he disowned hyung for wanting to paint some abstract shapes, or whatever it is he’s doing now. and my dad thinks he can just pass on hyung’s doctor dreams to me.” jaewoo scoffs, and there’s that ghost of a smile, but it’s filled with disdain. “i don’t even want to become a doctor. you know how squeamish i am, right? but i don’t have a choice.”

he meets sehun’s gaze, purposefully says “you know what that’s like, don’t you?”

the amount of emotions jun conveys as sehun at that moment almost throws jaewoo out of character, because how does he do that?

sehun nods, solemn. “i do. i’m sorry, iㅡi should’ve been more understanding.”

jaewoo’s shoulders relax by a sliver. he’s calmer when he talks again, like he’s genuinely tired and all the fight in him’s been drained out. “if i don’t get into yonsei, if i don’t become a doctor, i’m practically dead to my family, you know? it feels like that’s the only reason they keep me around.”

sehun bites his lip.

maybe in another life (or show?), they could’ve been good friends. ones that truly cared for each other. but jaewoo’s character is too busy clawing his way to the finish line to worry about anybody else. it’s not that he doesn’t want to be there for sehun. it’s just that if he doesn’t put himself first, he’ll sink. (that, and he’s pretty egocentric, but hey, survival’s more heart-rending a reason than vanity.)

“okay,” sehun begins, talks like it’s coming from somewhere deep inside him. “i’ll talk to mom when i get home. sorry that i didn’t do it sooner. i’ll make sure she gets that slot for you.”

jaewoo’s mouth falls open, and he laughs weakly, relieved. “thanks, man,” he says, sincerity a little less shallow this time. he shakes his hands like he’s drying them of invisible water droplets, trying to dispel the tension and sadness he’s let slip. little by little, he rebuilds the mask. because this is who he is.

he clears his throat as sehun puts a comforting hand to his shoulder.

this would probably be a good endingㅡthis has gone on long enoughㅡbut jaewoo’s eyes flicker as he comes up with one final thing. in a hurry, before the casting directors could end it, jaewoo pretends to notice that he’s at his stop. “this is me,” he says, to the room at large, “i’m going to saint maria. to visit heejin.”

jun is understandably surprised, but thankfully decides to play along (jaewoo might join his fancafe after this).

“heejin?” sehun asks, unsure.

jaewoo nods. “yeah. that girl i like that i’ve been talking about? that’s heejin.”

“oh.” sehun says. “are you dating?”

“no,” jaewoo grins, winks, “but i’m working on it.”

“yeah, alright.” jun pretends to sneak a look at the bus driver. “you better go, though. ahjussi’s going to close the doors on you.”

jaewoo panics, waves goodbye. runs towards the front of the bus.

end scene.

#lgc:castingcall004 #this has no (!!!) business being as long as it is #i'm SORRY #not even gonna put the word count i am Ashamed #． ◜🎬◞ ┈ solos !

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