#which is of course an emotional rollercoaster for nico | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

missorgana · 3 years

Text

a moment in time

pairing: karolina dean/nico minoru

fandom: marvel’s runaways

rating: general

word count: 2014

warning: swearing

summary: Nico accidently brings home the wrong suitcase. Annoying. The owner of said suitcase? Anything but annoying. (no powers meet-cute + luggage mix-up)

(a soft silly au right before femslash february comes to an end mwahhhhh! they’re superior girlfriends wbk. Cat / @inafaithforgotten beta read this as always AND as always u are an angel 💕✨ hope you enjoy!!)

read on ao3

“You talk to any of the others yet?”

Nico frowns at her friend, hoping the signal’s clear enough for the picture to show him, “No.” Of course, Alex laughs. Idiot.

“Come on, Nico,” he tells her, absentmindedly rummaging through his fridge, of all things, “You can’t just be alone in Sydney for six months.”

And of course, she rolls her eyes at his response, as always. Deep down, she knows he means well, but really, his social butterfly self gets on her nerves from time to time.

“Why not?” she huffs, but with a kind of smile that tells Alex she doesn’t care about his life philosophies, without fearing making him upset. Or him being scared she’s upset. Mostly the ladder.

A beep of his microwave oven sounds in her headphones, “Nevermind, dummy.”

Maybe she misses her best friend, but it’s not like she’ll admit it as long as she lives. Anyway, the hotel room’s better than she expected once she arrives, the cool air of the airport and crowds of students approaching her in each their own language became all too much, too fast.

Nico’s not exactly a people person, as Alex says.

But also, baggage claim is the absolute worst. Don’t try to argue with her, won’t change her mind.

There really is no way to avoid it, but seriously, absolutely no personal space. It’s like a warzone, almost, because her fellow passengers can’t fucking wait a minute or two, and be damn polite?

It’s whatever, Nico’s just glad to finally have arrived.

She may have a little airplane anxiety. It’s embarrassing, but Alex, like the wonderful best friend who cares too much, crafted her a self care kit (his words, not hers). Maybe the obligatory pre-takeoff text helped with her restless hands. Shut up.

Soon as Alex says his goodbye, door closed, she’s back on her background noise playlist, eager for a shower and some long-awaited sleep. At this point jet lag can kiss her ass.

A look in the mirror reveals the mess of eyeliner she made when she rubbed sleep out of her eye for whatever low budget action movie had played on the tv system (terrible selection, seriously), oh well, the little hot water she gets access to does wonders for her headache.

Another reason why she avoids traveling by flight at all costs.

It’s a comforting thought she’ll be here for a while, though. Alex made this sound like an all alone in the world thing, but Nico honestly doesn’t really mind.

With her parents, she’d been alone much of her childhood, anyway. Depressing, she knows.

She leaves the shower in a haze, hoodie and sweatpants right at her hand, and just catches Amy’s enthusiastic text full of heart emojis.

Ridiculous. But lovely.

Nico thinks that reply back is just about all she has energy left for, until the rumbling of her stomach clearly tells her otherwise. Fuck.

And, well, budget hotels infamous for exchange student parties rarely offer room service. It’s ten minutes of Nico panicking, almost going to the desperate point of having to leave the hotel room, find a vending machine, or some cafe nearby, which would require her to interact with people.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

It’s sort of embarrassing, or at least it would be, if anyone was here to see her. A small virtue.

But, hah, of course! The angel Amy truly is, Nico almost forgot the snacks her sister insisted on stuffing in her suitcase.

If she almost wants to cry of happiness, no, she doesn’t. She’s allowed to be a little overdramatic, okay?

Small emotional rollercoaster aside, she hurries for the luggage, surprisingly, struggling with finding the zipper. Not anything she takes time to think about much, given the circumstances, until she breaks it open and comes to a halt.

It does take a minute.

But this is definitely not Nico’s suitcase.

The exterior was familiar, but there’s absolutely zero doubt in her mind a mistake has been made when she’s met with a soft pink piece of fabric. With fucking lace.

Her stomach’s not turning with the thought of the outside world anymore, instead, she’s just weirded the hell out. Because she had never jotted herself down as easily distracted, but there’s a first time for everything, she supposes.

Nico simply shifts to a cross-legged position, staring at the pair of pastel colored scrunchies, white dress shirt, and brown tassel boots. She just wants to sleep, dammit.

But she can’t really ignore this kind of problem, really.

She’s got her carry-on, of course, but like, she wants her own things. All of them.

So, a careful investigation of the luggage is what she puts her mind to, trying not to mess up or pry too much in this stranger’s business. A postcard accompanied by a tiny silver cross pin causes her to snort.

Whoever this person is, by the looks of the suitcase’s content, is not exactly someone Nico would find herself hanging around with.

Whatever.

It takes way too long for her to find any sort of information on this stranger. Or, well, maybe just her sleep deprived mind missing the very obvious nametag on the back. Shut up.

The white laminated label tells her it belongs to a Karolina Dean.

Nico maybe stumbles over the address, the same state as herself, but who cares, it’s not like it’s any surprise. Her lucky stars also provided a phone number to the person, and she just can’t hurry enough.

What a mess.

...

Nico is stood in Sydney Airport at shit-o-clock in the morning, with a wrong suitcase and without sleep for fuck knows how many hours.

Needless to say, she can’t wait for this to be over already.

Funny enough, her strange companion got ahead of her, calling her at exactly the time she gathered the phone number. The voice was bright and a bit giggly, which would piss Nico off if she wasn’t so tired.

She’s still pissed, but mostly at herself.

So, of course, they agreed to meet back at the airport right away. This Karolina’s an exchange student as well, as she gathered, but located at another hotel. It’s probably decided according to their line of study, or something.

Nico would be lying if she said she knew what she was doing right now. She hopes she won’t have to explain this to Alex, he’ll only laugh his ass off, that’s for sure.

She’s been staring at the same five rerun commercials on the flatscreen, which surely won’t do any good to her burning eyes, when the voice from the phone call says her name. And honestly, she’s not sure what she expected from this meeting.

Nico stands up to a close to angelic girl.

Judge her all you want, but that’s about all the thought her brain’s forming right now.

Karolina Dean’s beaming a smile at her way too bright for this early in the morning, blonde braided hair and star-studded ears.

Fuck, okay, also, blue eyes nearly sparkling, or something.

Nico doesn’t have to force a smile back at all.

She soon realises the mention of her name was a question, “Uh, yeah, Nico. Karolina, right?”, to which the taller girl nods.

“I’m so sorry about this,” she tells her, sighing, sounding almost like she ran all the way here, “So easily distracted.”

Maybe Nico almost gets angry from this beautiful stranger taking the blame all for herself. Maybe she wants to roll her eyes, but she doesn’t. Karolina doesn’t know her, and for some reason, she’s the kind of person Nico doesn’t want to disappoint. Or offend.

Instead, she shakes her head and shifts her weight from one foot to another, “I’d say we’re both equally to blame here.”

She also tries to laugh, which sounds very wrong in her own ears, ugh, but her new companion maintains her sweet smile, too innocent and soft spoken, that Nico almost wants to cry again.

Anyway, she has to gather herself.

Status so far is that while she still desperately needs sleep, she is also faced with the problem of an extremely pretty girl in front of her. Pretty girls are somewhat of a weakness for her, as you can tell. Damn the universe for this.

So, what’s Nico to do about it?

Alex would most likely yell at her to get her number. Or, technically, she has the number already… but fuck, is this really the right time to flirt? Most likely not.

She’s admittedly also a very awkward flirter. Alex described her as such, which is a bit hypocritical when he’s just as bad himself. Scratch that, he’s worse, and Nico will remind him daily. A disaster pair of best friends they are, but Alex is right.

Luckily, Karolina seems a bit more cool-headed compared to the rut she’s stuck in herself, and the reason this meeting is taking place is handed over.

It’s hard to describe how much her body’s screaming for her to find her way back to bed as soon as possible, but even with her own stuff back, she hesitates.

The blonde still smiles, damn her, but takes on a wide-eyed expression, tugging on her fingers like she’s embarrassed, “I promise I didn’t mess up your stuff, I- sorry, I just. Your jacket’s really cool.”

Nico blinks.

And her companion seems to read her mind, cause she giggles, “I mean it! It made me want to know you.” Karolina soon after frowns at her own words, continuing with, “Sorry, that sounds… so weird.”

You’re so fucking adorable, Nico thinks to herself, and honestly, just wishes this angel would stop apologising. It’s sort of painful.

Of course, she shakes her head at her companion’s words, because that’s somehow the most ridiculous thing she’s heard today. The last two days. Man, fuck timezones.

But somehow, it takes her way, way too long to figure out why the blonde’s giving her a surprised face. And she blushes.

Because, of fucking course, Nico can’t keep her thoughts inside her head.

So she gathers she’s just called her adorable, and Karolina’s fidgeting with the handle of her suitcase now, seemingly not being in a hurry to go anywhere, and she’s biting her lip.

It makes Nico’s head spin. Mostly the fact that the angel girl’s not fleeing the scene.

“Did I just say that out loud?”

The blonde nods.

“Fuck,” she finds herself saying, because whatever, it’s not like she can say anything more embarrassing than what just came out of her mouth, “I’m sorry. Can you, uh. Can we pretend it’s my sleep deprivation talking?”

Karolina’s curious to her. She tugs the wispy locks of hair behind her ears and looks at Nico like she’s sincerely considering her words.

It’s here she notices how close they’re actually standing, and that she’s breathing a tiny bit faster than normal. She’d scold herself like a loser, if her companion didn’t answer her question in such an unexpected way.

“I guess,” Karolina chuckles, but she’s fidgeting again, staring at her scuffed white sneakers with a meaningful look.

And then it’s like she gains a new sort of determination, looks up at Nico, which definitely doesn’t make it easier for her to breathe. Her smile turns a bit mischievous. At this point, the lack of sleep might just make Nico hallucinate.

“But I’d rather have breakfast when we’re not sleep deprived. Heh, if- if you want to, of course.”

The blonde’s biting her lip again. Nope, Nico definitely heard that right, no sound hallucination or whatever.

Turns out this luggage switch was a blessing in disguise, huh. Fuck you if you accuse her of being cheesy, she doesn’t really care when a, yes, definite angel is looking at her expectantly, and maybe also has invited her to something resembling a date. Breakfast can be a date, right?

Needless to say, she’s never said yes to anything as fast as this in her life.

And, needless to say, Nico’s never looked forward to waking up again as much as she does when she finally goes to bed, either.

11 notes · View notes

simplywylan · 5 years

Text

SEASON FINALE - SPOILERS

Wow, this was one hell of an emotional rollercoaster for me. So, yeah, let us get started.

The song at the beginning was a big slap in the face. A massive fuck you. That song makes me so emotional and they used it against me.

Honesty thought Owen was probably gonna get hit by another car or something in that pile-up. Eh.

Levi singing to the patient to keep her calm? My god, he is literally the sweetest fucking thing. I love him. I really do.

Teddy in labor, I never thought it would ever happen. This is amazing.

Don't really care about Jackson or Maggie tbh. Boring.

Jo working even though she doesn't feel good? She's a trooper. She really is.

Link telling Nico he has a new job for him, getting slightly frustrated with him when Nico makes some comments? Needed. Thank you, Link. Sort little grumpy pants out.

I really like Gus' patient storyline, not gonna lie.

Owen getting Levi and the patient into an ambulance to get them to the hospital was kind of genius, won't lie. Quick thinking.

Was Francis/Frances (however you spell her name) sat on Levi's lap? That was kinda cute, bless him.

Just Levi, tbh. Yeah.

Nico is a lil grump. Him being with that patient who was paralyzed was probably an eye opener for him. He's struggling. You can tell. Bless his heart.

He wants to celebrate, I know he does, but he isn't letting himself do that.

Teddy and Amelia in the cop car. Mood.

Teddy yelling at Owen (for obvious reasons, lol) as soon as shes out the car? Big mood again.

Levi bringing the donor cookies and juice was so adorable. He's so good with patients. I love him.

This whole insurance thing confuses me.

Nico when he rushes after Levi, ow, my heart.

When he says "I miss you", good lord. The tears. The tEARS.

When Levi's voice faltered as he spoke to Nico because he was getting emotional- oh my god. My heart shattered.

Levi explaining himself, though. Oof.

Levi's self-confidence when explaining himself though. Wow. I love him.

Oh god, when Nico starts to talk but it's only a whisper. Damn. Don't play with me like this.

LITTLE NICO MONOLOGUE. CALLED IT. NEEDED IT. YES.

The way he delivers it though- God, it's perfect. It made me cry.

That scene was enough to fuel me for several years.

Would have been the perfect moment for a hug though, just saying-

Blah blah blah, they save Gus, Teddy has her baby- which I must say, I'm surprised doesn't look like a straight up two-year-old, considering how long her fucking pregnancy was lol- more stuff that I don't really care about.

OH MY GOD SOMEONE TELL TOM ABOUT TEDDY. PLEASE. DON'T HURT HIM. DON'T. THIS IS NOT FAIR AT ALL.

Nico and Levi watching a film in Levi's room- and a film which makes me fucking sob too- I never knew I needed this until now.

LEVI'S MOM IS EXACTLY HOW I PICTURED HER I AM SHOOK.

She's so cute I need more mama Schmitt please. Please. P l e a s e.

Mama Schmitt!!!! Is !!!! The !!!! Cutest !!!!

Levi coming out to his mom, oh my god. My heart. He looks so terrified. Nico looks so proud. Mama Schmitt seems shocked but like... also, not? I don't know how to explain it.

Nico crying. Fuck me. I said I wanted it and I got it, even if it wasn't that much. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

When he says "you're amazing" I broke down. That was the moment I couldn't hold it in any longer.

Then when Levi cuddled up to Nico, with his head on his shoulder, and Nico rested his head against Levi's? Cinematic masterpiece. I will forgive Grey's for not giving us a Schmico hug because this was good too. I love them. So much.

Jackson is fucked.

I really enjoyed the finale. I did. I think there could have been more in certain places but I am happy about it. I'm content. I don't care what anyone else says, this finale was good. It was overall, pretty heartwarming. Besides Jackson, of course. But, oh well.

It's been a wild ride. Now, we won't have any new content till September, most likely. So, it's been good. I've been welcomed into a fandom that has been around for years, with open arms. I like it here, and I'm excited to see what is to come for all of us.

One adventure ended, but another will soon begin.

#nico kim #greys anatomy #levi schmitt #schmico #levi schmitt x nico kim #levi x nico #alex landi #jake borelli #schmoody writes

84 notes · View notes

wexregolden · 5 years

Text

Read it on AO3 here <3

Chapter 10/19

THE BOY WHO LOVED Ch. 10

-The Riddle Fares House-

-----

“Hello? Someone there?” Nico shouted into his apartment as soon as he entered it. No one answered.

“No one there – great. Come in, Marti!” he said and stepped aside to signal Marti to come in.

“Welcome to the Casa Fares!”

There was one thing that instantly came to Marti´s mind as soon as he entered the apartment. It was huge. Really huge.

As he went further in, he realised the interior and decorations. Shelves everywhere, a big brown leather couch in the middle of the living room, pictures and paintings on the walls, a piano in a corner somewhere and books. So many books.

And then he saw something, something really familiar.

“Ah, so this is the famous bookshelf of nicoissurroundedbymuggles, huh?” Marti asked, a cheeky grin on his lips.

“Is it famous? I am famous?” Nico answered, putting another question in the room.

“Hm, let me think. The bookshelf is definitely famous, your followers love the posts with the shelf. But you, hm, I´m not really sure about that.”

“If the bookshelf is famous I´m definitely famous too, Marti!” Nico said, trying to sound offended, “and I see,” he continued, “you know exactly which posts people seem to like on my account. Are you stalking me or what?”

Marti really tried not to, but he felt a blush spreading on his cheeks as he thought back to all the times he scrolled through Nico´s account over and over again, looking at his pictures.

“I don´t!” he said, trying to sound convincing, but immediately felt that he failed.

“I see, I see,” Nico said, a cocky grin spreading on his face which made Marti´s cheeks turn even more red. To him it felt like they must be dark red by now.

They starred in each other's eyes for some times, most likely only seconds, which nevertheless felt like an eternity.

“Wanna sit down on the couch?” Nico asked and finally broke the silence between them, “I think it´s more comfortable than just standing here, even if it´s in front of the famous bookshelf.”

“Sounds good. Not to be rude and abandon the bookshelf but sitting sounds nice.”

“I think it will handle it,” Nico said, grinning again, before sitting down on the couch, indicating to Martino to sit down next to him.

Who does it. Their arms brushing each other´s briefly. A short touch which still sent some shivers down Marti´s spine.

It went silent for a bit, Marti deliberately trying not to look at Nico, his gaze wandering through the room, looking at the whole apartment again. And still catching Nico´s look, Nico starring at him.

“You´re starring at me.”

He doesn´t know why he said it, doesn´t know why he called Niccolò out on it. It just happened.

“I am,” Nico answered. Nothing more, nothing less. He didn´t deny it. He just simply said it like that.

“Why?” Marti asked, his voice turned quiet.

“It´s nice. It´s nice watching you. You´re nice.”

And with that Marti´s heart stopped beating. At least it felt like that. But it definitely skipped a beat at least. Or maybe two.

“Oh.”

They were just starring at each other, Marti´s gaze wandering down to Nico´s lips. Nico´s beautiful lips. As he looked away again, back up at Niccolò´s eyes he saw that Nico did the same as he did before. Starring at his lips. A slight smile on his lips.

Marti could feel that something was up, that the air changed between them.

As Nico looked him in the eyes again, it felt like an explosion inside of his body, his heart.

“Yes. Oh,” Nico said, approached him closer, sitting directly next to him on the couch now, their sides completely touching now.

And suddenly the doorbell rang. Marti getting thrown out of the little, light bubble he was in. Immediately questioning if the last minutes really happened or if it was his imagination playing him.

“I´m sorry!” Nico said as he got up and went to the door, opening it.

It didn´t took him long to get back to the couch, next to Marti, a little package in his hand.

“Bookmail!”

“What did you order?” Martino asked, trying so sound cool and settled whilst there still was a chaos of emotions inside of him.

“Wait and be amazed, Marti!” Nico said, his voice having a cheeky and amused undertone, as he started to unbox the book.

As he was done, Marti actually wondered why he was asking which book he ordered.

On the opposite of him Nico sat, a wide grin on his face, presenting him the book in his hand.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The Ravenclaw pride edition.

He already saw these special editions of the books all over Bookstagram since the first one was released. Annoyed by it and wondering how much money the publishers want to make with Harry Potter.

“Oh wow, really Nico?”

“Yes, damn real, Marti!”

“Don´t you already own, I don´t know, three editions of the whole series?”

“I do, Marti. But I need to show my pride, you know? My Ravenclaw pride.”

“Oh, so do you store any Ravenclaw scarfs or whatever in your room?”

“Well, actually I do, Marti. I do,” Nico answered, the grin on his face becoming wider.

“Why am I surprised about this revelation?”

“I don´t know, you tell me.”

“Hm, maybe there´s still a bit of hope inside of me that the boy I--”

--fell in love with.

“--happened to become friends with isn´t that deep into the whole Harry Potter thing as it might have seemed at first but guess I was wrong, it´s worse than I ever thought,” Marti said and laughed.

“And what about you? Having a rainbow flag up on your wall at home?”

And there it was again.

“No, I don´t. It´s not my... thing.”

He doesn´t want to tell Nico that he´s actually the only one knowing about him liking guys, being gay. It could make things somehow awkward.

“I get it. It´s not that you have to own a pride flag in order to be gay or whatever sexual orientation you have.”

“True.”

“I don’t know if it´s okay to ask that now but how did you find out that you like boys?”

It´s okay. It´s definitely okay. Marti was actually kind of happy to get this off his chest for once at least.

“Well, I kind of never felt the same for girls as my friends did. When they talked about how beautiful they where, how much they would love to hook up with them or be in a relationship and what they did to their hearts and bodies. I never felt that and couldn´t quite understand why and what´s wrong with me when I was younger. But when I later felt the same things they described only when I see a beautiful boy, I don´t know, my brain somewhen got what´s my “issue”. And at the latest when I fell in love with one, with one of my friends, yes I know it´s a cliché, I kind of knew it. That I´m gay.”

“So you´re in love with one of your friends?”

“What? Oh God no no! Not anymore, this is long gone!”

“I see. And what about now? Any boy in prospect?”

“What?”

“Come on, Marti, you understood me well. Any boy your heart beats faster around at the moment?”

Yes. Yes yes yes yes. Definitely yes. But he couldn´t tell Nico. Not now.

“No. I don´t think so, I mean, it´s kind of compl--,” he tried to gather himself before he continued speaking, “--no, not really.”

“I see,” Nico only said, looking Marti in the eyes, a little smile on his face.

And it went silent between the two again, both only looking at the other person, not saying anything.

The air felt heavy around them, Marti could feel it changing again. There was... something between them, he could feel it. The tension. Till it became a little too much for him.

“Anyway,” he started and tried to change the topic and break the silence, “you play the piano, right?”

Not that he actually knew the answer, having watched the video on YouTube several times. No, never.

“I do, yeah. Wanna hear something?”

Yes yes yes yes yes please!

“Yeah, why not?”

“Okay.”

And as soon as Nico said this, he went over to the piano, sitting down on the piano stool.

“Come here, Marti,” Nico said, pointing to the free space on the stool next to him.

Marti had to swallow before he got up from the couch, going over to Nico and sitting down next to him.

From the feet up to the shoulders, everything of these body parts was touching Nico´s.

Marti didn´t had time to think more about that, about being this close to Nico, as Niccolò started to play.

He felt relegated to the moment he found that video of Nico, watching it for the first time. Only that this time, seeing Nico play and listening to him, didn´t happen on screen but in real life, directly next to him.

And it was beautiful.

Nico was beautiful.

The way he furrowed his brows, being completely concentrated, his fingers wandering over the piano keys as if they never did anything else. His tongue peeking out of his lips a little, a little smile on his lips.

Music was floating the room, the soft melody of the piece Nico was playing is enchanting Marti, makes his heart beat faster.

As sudden as the whole spectacle started it ended again.

Nico still kept his hands on the keys after he played the last note, his eyes closed.

It took him a moment before he opened them again, turned to face Marti and looked him in the eyes.

“Marti?” he asked quietly.

“Yes?” Marti responded, being quiet too

“Can I tell you something?”

“Yes of course,” he said, a soft smile on his lips.

“There´s something going on in my head.”

“What? What do you mean?” Marti asked confused, the smile still being on his face.

“The thing in my head is... it´s called Borderline Personality Disorder.”

Nico didn´t look Marti in the eyes anymore by now, his gaze turned down to his lap, nervously playing with his fingers.

Martino saw him swallow before he continued.

“I´m... Sometimes I feel like I can´t control my feeling and what´s going on in my head, it´s just happening. It feels like my life is a constant rollercoaster ride with all its sudden and fast ups and downs. There are times I feel like the happiest person on earth but on the other hand, sometimes I just feel so bad and want nothing than just stop to exist. I sometimes get paranoid too fast and often and it scares me so much sometimes. The idea of being left behind and alone scares and freaks me out so much, I don´t necessarily have to be alone, I could be in a room full of people with my brain freaking out and telling me that I´m alone or feeling like it, I panic so easily and this scares me, Marti.”

Nico looked up at Marti again, shiny eyes, a tear rolling down his cheek. Marti leans a little forward and brushes it away with his thumb.

“It´s okay, Ni,” Marti said, continuing brushing his thumb over Nico´s cheek, having Niccolò smile a little in the process.

He released a long breath and swallowed before he continued.

“I´m sorry, Marti. I shouldn´t have told you this, shouldn´t have whined about my personal problems, I--”

“Shh, everything is okay, Nico,” Marti stopped him from apologising more.

And then he wrapped him in a tight hug. One hand placed on his shoulder blade, the other one stroking Nico´s hair softly.

“It´s okay. You´re not alone, Nico. I´ll be there for you.”

And with that Nico started crying for real, sobbing into Marti´s shoulder whilst pressing him as close to him as possible to him. Heart to heart.

Marti tried to sooth and calm him down as long as Nico needed it, as long as he stopped crying.

After a few minutes Niccolò broke the embrace, pulling back a little and he looked Marti in the eye.

“Thank you,” he simply said, a little smile on his face, his tears having stopped by now. “Thank you so much.”

They didn´t say anything else, they just kept sitting there behind the piano, looking at each other, their hands touching slightly between their laps.

There didn´t have to be said something, they kind of communicated with their eyes only.

Marti could see the thankfulness in Nico´s eyes and tried to make clear that he´ll be there for him no matter what.

The silence got interrupted by the sound of jingling keys and the entrance door getting opened.

“Nico honey, you home?”

“My mom,” Nico whispered to Marti before he stood up, going to the door.

“I´m here!” he said, hugging his mom as he approached her.

Marti watched the whole thing from behind as he followed Nico slowly.

“Mom, this is Marti, a friend of mine,” Nico introduced Marti to his mother as soon as they stopped hugging.

“Martino,” he introduced himself again and shook her hand.

“Anna. Nice to meet you, Martino!”

“Nice to meet you too, Anna.”

“So, you´re a... friend of Niccolò?”

“Yes mom, he´s a friend of mine. We met through Bookstagram,” Nico butted in, shooting his mom a warning look.

“Oh, so you´re a book worm too, Martino? Also in love with Harry Potter as my son here is?”

“No, definitely not!” Nico and Marti both said at the same time, grinning at each other.

“I really don´t get the hype around the books, sorry to disappoint,” Marti continued.

“I still don´t know why I like you,” Nico said cheeky.

“Oh, you like him?” his mother suddenly asked.

“Mom!” Nico butted in again, shooting his mom another warning look.

Marti watched the whole interaction between them, smiling to himself.

“What? It seems like you two get along really well,” she said, trying to defend herself.

“Yes we get along well, that´s what friends do, mom. And look how late it already is! Time runs!” Nico said, grabbing Marti´s arm and dragging him back to the door again. “I think Marti needs to get home.”

Marti didn´t fight back as Nico dragged him through the apartment, giving him his backpack and jacket.

“I´m sorry Marti, really. My mom, she can be really nosy sometimes, especially around new people. I would love to spend more time with you, really, you have to believe me, I just want to save you from her interrogation. And believe me, this would happen if you would stay here longer.”

“Don´t worry, Nico. I get it. But it was a nice day, really.”

“Yes. It was. We need to repeat it very soon.”

“We really do!”

“And Marti?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you!”

“For what exactly?”

“For telling me. And for listening to me. And for simply being you.”

Marti smiled at Nico before he got wrapped up in another hug.

After they broke apart, Nico opened the apartment door for him, leading him out.

“Ciao Nico.”

“Ciao Marti. See you soon.”

And what that the door closed behind Marti.

-----

And here it is, the next part of their meet up or date, whatever you want to call it :D I really hope that you like it and would love to hear what you think of it in the comments or my ask box <3 And thank you all for reading <3

#skam italia #skamit #skam italia fanfiction #skam italia fanfic #nicotino fanfic #the boy who loved fanfic sharetheskamlove

17 notes · View notes

britishassistant · 5 years

Text

Bothering To Look 2

Finally answered @camellianswer’s submission! Hope you enjoy it!

Of course, what that weirdo needed and what he actually got were two different things entirely.

Upa was rudely reminded of this fact when he woke up in an infirmary bed with Samon-San glaring down at him, holding Upa’s hat.

His entire body ached in a way it hadn’t since the pig’s gang was busted up. He felt like he’d gone through ten of Enki’s brutal training regimens in a row, and then had several chi draining talismans slapped onto him.

“If you ever pull a stunt like that again,” His supervisor informed him. “You’ll be reorganizing all the warehouses in every Building I can get permission from for the remainder of your imprisonment. And you’ll have American food for every meal.”

Upa pulled a face. “But it’s greasy.”

Samon-san shook his head and, worryingly, let out a strained and slightly helpless laugh. “Tough. That’s what you get for removing your talisman without permission, you little shit.”

Removing the talisman?

What was Samon-san talking about?

He tried to sit up. Why were there so many plastic wires attached to him?

Oh god, there was even a pair up his nose.

“Hey, hey, don’t pull that out!” Samon-san’s hands were oddly gentle as they caught his wrists, “That’s your oxygen feed, you need that to breathe, 58.”

Upa scowled as his supervisor pushed his hands down. “I can breathe just fine on my own.”

He wasn’t sulking. He wasn’t.

Samon-san’s expression changed. If he didn’t know better, he’d say his supervisor looked...lost. Like he used to whenever his brother was brought up. “You— you couldn’t, for a while there. You drained so much of your chi that for a while there, the doc wasn’t sure if you wouldn’t just— just shut down. Your organs were struggling to bear the burden of so much power being used all at once.”

“Well, that’s because some of them came from trash.” Upa muttered, studiously staring ahead. It was a meditational method. Detaching his mind from his body, which was not trembling as though it was a leaf in a gale. Not at all. Breathing in deeply was merely to aid in the meditation, and had nothing to do with his suddenly racing heart.

He. Was. Fine.

“...How much do you remember?” Samon-san was speaking in a soft and cautious voice, which Upa hated, just a little bit. His supervisor didn’t do cautious. He was a rallying force, charging straight ahead, reckless and impetuously kind because that was all he knew how to be. No artifice, no lying, no sugarcoating.

Upa furrowed his brow. Before he ended up in this bed, with these wires and the weirdly cautious Samon-san, he was—

His breath caught in his throat.

“Nana.” Writhing on the ground, head bleeding from where he’d hit the edge of the table when he went down like a pile of bricks, nails ripping deep desperate trails of red in his sternum and throat, eyes rolling back, gasping, choking, dying—

“58? 58! Upa!”

He was snapped back into reality, his breathing unaccountably ragged.

Samon-san had a firm grip on his shoulders. “Nana’s alive. She’s fine. You saved her. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Upa felt his uneven pants slowly begin to calm as his supervisor’s words sank in. Nana—Nana was okay. Nana was—

Wait.

“She?”

His supervisor finally cracked a smile at the sheer incredulity in his charge’s voice. “I forgot you were asleep for that part. Kiji was loud enough to wake the dead. His inmates kinda lost it as well.” He leaned in and added in a conspiratorial tone, “I think even the Warden was losing it a little bit.”

What—

But that’s—

How—

Nana always locked himself in the bathroom stalls when changing on the days Buildings 3 and 5 had exercise together, the one place where no cameras were allowed to look.

He always got mad at his perverted cellmates whenever they went on and on about women’s underwear.

He always liked the characters in Nico’s games and anime who were hiding their true identities, particularly those who were masquerading as the opposite sex.

He always refused to see any doctors and hid when Kagu-8 was around.

“Holy shit.”

Samon-san began laughing. Hysterically. Which was highly rude of him, no matter how welcome the sound was, because surely no one had laughed at Samon-san when he’d figured it out.

“SHIIIIIISHOOOOOOUUUU!!!”

A shadow fell over him.

Then its owner landed with all the force his bony frame could muster, which was surprisingly a lot considering how skinny he was. It was enough to drive all the air from his lungs, leaving him hacking as his assailant wrapped him in an octopus-like hug and continued blubbering incoherently.

“Ithoughtyouwerenevergonnawakeupeverevereveran’Iwouldbeallalonean’youwouldnevermoveagainandIwassososososcaredbecauseIreallyreallymissedyouandNanawantedtosaygoodbyebutyouwouldn’twakeupan’thenIheardthemonkeylaughingan’youwereawakeImissed—”

“25, get off of him!” Samon-san howled, tugging at the infectee’s clothes.

“NO!” Nico tightened his grip beyond what Upa thought was possible, squishing the last of the air left out of his body.

This was it. He’d survived Hachiman, Enki, and even the backlash of his own chi. But it was going to be his wannabe disciple who killed him.

“Nico, he can’t breathe!” Came a voice that sounded like the useless lockpick’s.

“You’re choking him!” That one sounded like Liang’s.

“Ah!” Blessed air filled his lungs again as the bear hug finally loosened, and Nico allowed himself to be hauled off of the bed. “Sorry Shishou! I’m really sorry!”

Upa wheezed, and settled for glaring at him. “Yo-you will be.”

Of course, that just made the otaku giggle and beam. “I’m really glad you woke up, Shishou!”

“Ah geez,” The worthless scumbag appeared from behind the white divided curtain. “You kids nowadays have too much energy. Even Liang couldn’t catch him once he realized you were awake.”

His eyes softened. “How’re you feeling? I could whip up some painkillers if it hurts.”

“No, you can’t 71! You’re still restricted from producing pharmaceuticals! And how the hell did you guys even get in here anyway?! The door was locked!” The supervisor yelled.

“Hello.” Said the slow-footed lockpick.

Samon-san turned purple.

Liang crept closer while their supervisor was yelling at the Building 13 inmates. “I watered your cactus. The trash hasn’t extracted anything from it yet.”

“Thank you.” A thought struck him. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Two weeks.” Liang sucked in a deep breath, grabbing one of Upa’s hands and staring at him intently. “Never ask me to do that again. Do you understand?”

“Do what?” From what he could recall, the martial artist had barely been involved in Nana’s crisis. The only thing he’d been able to do in the end was remove—

Oh.

Liang squeezed his hand and let go. “I can’t lose either of you. Please keep that in mind.”

“Hmph. If you’re going to make so much of a fuss about it, I guess it can’t be helped.” The qigong master shook his head, ignoring the warm feeling in his chest, only to be elbowed in the gut again when Nico clambered onto the bed beside him.

“I wanna stay with Shishou! Nana said to look after him since he couldn’t say goodbye! So I’m staying!” He yelled, hugging his “master’s” arm to his chest.

“Nana’s gone?”

Samon-san deflated from where he was puffing himself up for another round of yelling. “...She was transferred to a hospital on the mainland five days after we discovered the truth. From there, what happens to her is up to the Japanese and British governments.”

“Oh.” He was...surprised. Except not really, because he should’ve anticipated this, even if Nana had been male.

He wasn’t disappointed at all. He wasn’t.

“The kid was pretty banged up, even though you managed to get to hi–her in the nick of time. She needed some minor surgery that Otogi-san couldn’t do on his own.” The trash sank down onto the next bed over. “Plus, it would be pretty irresponsible of the warden to keep a little girl in a male prison like this. I even heard that in Building 3, some jerks tried to get into the room where she was.”

“Hani and Trois are scary when they want to be.” The lockpick supplied solemnly from where he was perched on the end of the bed.

So it seemed the perverted cellmates had a use after all. Good.

“I’m gonna pretend I never heard that...” Samon-san grumbled. “Unfortunately I still need to question you, 58, to submit a more complete report to the Warden about what happened. But I figure that can wait until you’re coherent and can remember more about the incident in question.”

“Thank you, Samon-san.” He was tired. Was this what people called an emotional rollercoaster? If so, it was exhausting.

“Okay, you guys, out.” The supervisor pointed to the door.

“Eeeh? No fair!” Nico protested, hugging Upa harder.

“C’mon Samon-san, would another minute really hurt?” The worthless scumbag wheedled.

“I think it’s fine if you just leave us here with him.” Liang stated bluntly.

“Monkey’s being a jerk again.” The useless piece of trash added.

“SHUT UP AND GET OUT OR I’LL MAKE YOU ALL DO 50 LAPS AROUND THE ENTIRE PRISON BEFORE YOU CAN SEE HIM AGAIN!!” Samon-san roared, brandishing his staff.

It was with much grousing that the four stood up and filed out, though Nico promised to return with every good anime and manga he could think of tomorrow, no matter how much Upa asked him not to. The scumbag teased that he would use his cactus in medicines unless he got better quickly, to which Liang kicked him and swore that would never happen. The lockpick just said “Get well, Upa.” and ambled out.

Upa wondered if he even had a reason to come along in the first place.

Samon-san placed his hat next to the bed. “Ah, that reminds me; your relatives would like to pay you a visit next week, if you feel up to it.”

Upa felt his throat close up slightly. “I’d like that.”

Samon-san nodded, and then reached into his pocket. He brought out Upa’s mini-Nana, and a small tablet, and placed them in Upa’s lap. “Before she left, 07 gave me this. It’s her goodbye to you, since you weren’t awake when she left. I figured you could watch it on your own, since whatever’s on it is between you and her.”

He walked to the door, and flicked off the lights. “Goodnight, Upa. See you in the morning.”

He probably intended it to be a touching moment. But the problem was that Upa could barely find the tablet in the dark, let alone the button that turned it on.

His supervisor could be kind of stupid at times.

The Nana in the video was pale, and had bandages wrapped around his neck and chest. He looked about as tired as Upa felt, but he mustered up an awkward smile for the camera anyway.

“H-hey Upa-san! Long time no see, huh? I guess... ahem, anyway. I just wanted to say thank you. For saving me. I don’t know how on earth you did it, or even why...I was always afraid you didn’t like me very much— wait, forget I said that. I didn’t mean— Aargh.”

He took some smug satisfaction in the way Nana buried his head in his hands. Good. The pest deserved to suffer for irritating him and for assuming his feelings, no matter how correct the assumption might once have been.

“The point is, I am really, impossibly grateful that you stopped me from dying from that cockney bastard’s ability. Even if you did overexert yourself and put yourself into a coma like A COMPLETE JERK—” Nana paused and swallowed. “I’m-I’m sorry for yelling. It’s just— you’re my friend, Upa-san. You are one of the best friends I have been lucky enough to have in this place. I don’t ever want to see you hurt on my account, got it? EVER. I’d rather swallow needles, or break a bone or, or listen to one of Trois-senpai and Hani-senpai’s debates about underwear... okay, maybe not the third one, because that’s seriously painful, but the first and second ones definitely.”

So it was okay if Nana got hurt then, if it spared the best friends who could help? That was an unacceptable double standard. He absolutely needed to be forced to listen to his cellmates’ argument as punishment.

On the screen, the child’s expression grew pensive, changing until it seemed more mature somehow. “...I’m being transferred to Ken’non Hospital tomorrow. They’re going to see if the damage that bloody chav’s command did to my heart means that I should have something called a—a stent fitted. I don’t know what that means and I don’t really understand all the details, but I know it’s to keep me safe...”

He looked around, as though to check he was unobserved, before staring directly at the camera. “I’m not gonna insult you by sugarcoating it, Upa-san. There’s a 99% chance I’ll never be able to see you, or anyone else here, again once I leave this prison.”

What?

“I mean, there’s no way that cockney bastard’s gang is going to forgive me for landing their boss back in jail. There’s a 44% chance that whatever members escape arrest come and try to shoot up the hospital to get revenge. I’ll try to take down as many of those bastards as I can before too much damage is done, but I can’t guarantee I’ll survive.”

What the hell was he talking about? Yes, in his experience, gangs usually did that, but if he was that scared, why didn’t he tell the Warden?

Nana cleared his throat and continued. “Also, the Elf bastard who attacked me in the corridor in Building 13 isn’t likely to leave well enough alone. There’s a 45% chance he’s going to try and nab me for his supervisor to “fix”, and if he’s someone who can infiltrate the most secure prison in this world, I doubt a hospital will be much of a problem for him. I’m kinda torn between offing myself to spite him and just letting him do it, since Jyugo-san turned out okayish, I think? I don’t know. I don’t know.”

He rubbed the space between his eyes, seeming weary all of a sudden. “In-in addition to all that, there—there are—people—who don’t—don’t like me, very much. There’s a 50% chance they’ll get involved first. I’m good at running from them, but. It’s just a matter of time. I know that. They only need to get lucky once. And Game Over.”

He let out a little laugh that sounded more like a sob. “God, I’m scared. I’m so, so scared. I dunno why I’m telling you this. I just. I don’t wanna leave. I really, really don’t wanna. I love it here, Kiji-san’s here, Hani-senpai and Trois-senpai are here, Nico-san and you are here. I’m safe here. But after yesterday... the Warden won’t listen, even if I do explain. Everyone treats me like I’m glass now. I miss how you treated me. I miss being Nana.”

Upa wanted to scream at the crybaby for telling him this, wanted to scream at the Warden for sending him away. He knew that weirdo needed protection, he needed to tell Samon-san, he needed to tell every guard in Nanba to go out and get Nana back, he didn’t want him to die—

But then something happened.

Nana breathed in deeply, and seemed to settle into himself. The fear in his eyes, while still present, was pushed down slightly by a look of new-found defiance. “But...well, this is more, Hani-senpai and Trois-senpai and Uno-san’s thing than mine, but... there’s a chance. A 1%, almost impossible chance that I’ll survive all of that. And that I will see you and everyone else again, be it in prison or out. So maybe this is only my own selfishness, and totally naive and unrealistic, but I’m gonna bet on that chance. I’ll put everything I have behind it, even if it is a sucker’s bet. Because I want to make it happen. I’m going to make it happen.”

Upa stared at Nana’s grinning face, sharp and desperate and alive. “So I hope you bet on that chance too, Upa-san. Because I swear I’m not gonna rest until I’ve turned this “goodbye” into a see you soon~.”

The video ended.

Upa set the tablet back down, watching the blue light of the screen illuminate the ceiling.

Idiot. Did that cowardly bowl-cut crybaby with eye bags instead of a spine think if he said that like a protagonist, he would actually change anything?

Well, whatever.

If that crybaby didn’t make that bet happen, he would never forgive him. He would find a way to imbibe his ghost into the doll-version of himself if that weirdo dared to get himself killed.

Breaking News: Local police report that an armed assault has been carried out on Ken’non Hospital at 7:00 AM this morning. It is unknown whether multiple parties were involved in the assault, but there have been no fatalities thus far, though many patients and personnel are wounded, with some in critical condition. However, the young woman famously released from Nanba Prison, ||||||||| |||||, has been reported as missing following the assault. Police are investigating certain leads, but urge members of the public to come forward with any information they might have about the young teenager’s whereabouts.

Dead End 2: Sucker’s Bet

Enter coin to play again?

16 notes · View notes

tindang · 3 years

Photo

Nico!

3/28/21- It's been a week out from my visit to the emergency department at MGH. Blisters have formed since then, flowering from the red/brown patch of skin on my left thigh, where I had spilled boiling water in a terrible accident. I was in a lot of pain yesterday, but I woke up today to shrunken blisters and pruritus in-and-around the area. I'm sad to miss Palm Sunday mass and to have spent the whole weekend room bound. I've been trying to find some positives, but life has not been too kind lately. I'm back in a state of rollercoaster emotions and I'm waiting to get off.

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

4/5/21 - Deviating from the Ideal: U.S. Migration Policies in the Context of Rawlsian Principles of Justice

In "Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders", the philosopher Joseph Carens begins his argumentation with the following epigraph:

Many poor and oppressed people wish to leave their countries of origin in the third world to come to affluent Western societies...[and] there is little justification for keeping them out.

He goes on to examine three distinctive political theories--Nozickean, Rawlsian, and utilitarianism--and applies them to the issue of immigration. Though distinct, Carens finds that all three approaches evince the moral failures of militarizing borders and restricting the movement of peoples, suggesting that a world without borders is one that respects the idea of moral equality.

I found Carens's Rawlsian argument most compelling, insofar as it goes furthest in laying the framework for thinking about this issue transnationally. He does this in two ways: first, by arguing that people in Rawls’s “original position”--a tabula rasa -esque scenario in which people first come together to decide how they wish to be governed--would consent to principles of equal liberty and social redistribution if cloaked under a “veil of ignorance” that erases distinctions like race, class, sex, and most pointedly, national origin; and second, by refuting objections to the application of the Rawlsian veil to global contexts (Rawls had only intended for the original position to apply to certain societies with a “particular understanding of moral personality”, not all).

I posit that the analytical power of Rawl’s original position, as it is applied to transnational affairs, comes from the tensions inherent in upholding principles of equal liberty in real-world settings. Of course, Rawls had predicted such conflict, and sought to address it by drawing distinctions between ideal and non-ideal theory: in ideal theory one assumes that people will abide by the principles chosen in the original position, even after the “veil of ignorance” is lifted; in nonideal theory, one considers the historical and human behavioral challenges of staying true to original-position precepts, which is more reflective of everyday problems and situations. I believe that these tensions between ideal and non-ideal theory serve as useful tools for critiquing restrictive U.S. migration policies. By exploring the deviations from ideal theory--in the context of U.S/Mexico border policies--towards the practicalities of non-ideal praxis, I hope to reify my understanding of border issues and justify (to myself) Carens’s conclusion, that there is little justification for restricting immigration.

It is no surprise that current U.S. immigration and border policies fall far from the ideals of liberty envisioned in the original position. The question has always been how did we get here? The answer most likely predates any explanation that the Enlightenment might afford us, lying deep in the consequences of American settler colonialism and chattel slavery. Though I acknowledge this history and its foundational impact on modern American society, let me first flesh out my understanding of the gradual legal push away from ideal theory--while remaining always fully aware that the law is but one avenue through which principles of white supremacy and racism are encoded. If we are to then start with the legal perspective for answering the question posed above, we might begin with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Chinese Exclusion Case (1889), which contains the nation’s very first declaration of national sovereignty over immigration and vested Congress with plenary power over such matters. Sarah Song, a law professor at UC Berkeley, traces the philosophical tradition undergirding this decision to ideas espoused by Swiss author Emer de Vattel, whose Les droit des gens (The Law of Nations, 1758) outlined the parameters of sovereignty in the case of international law. Vattel writes:

The sovereign may forbid the entrance of his territory either to foreigners in general, or in particular cases, or to certain persons, or for certain particular purposes, according as they may think it advantageous to the state. There is nothing in all this, that does not flow from the rights of domain and sovereignty.

In staking this claim, Vattel followed already established notions of the state as being like a “moral person,” first laid out by German jurist/philosopher Samuel von Pufendorf, and later further developed by German author Christian Wolff. This personification of the state sanctions it with “an understanding and a will of which it makes use for the conduct of its affairs”, namely, as Vattel reasoned, in the interest of its self-preservation and self-perfection. It’s worth noting that Vattel understood that this self-interest deviated from the ethos of being a “moral person”, which if taken to its logical conclusion with regards to the idea of “moral state(s)”, would result in a “universal republic” in which “a real friendship [would] be seen to reign among them” (II.12). Here, it is not lost on me that this utopian conclusion mirrors the conditions of Joseph Carens’s ideal theory--that is, a global community void of hierarchical distinctions. In this sense, Vattel’s swing towards non-ideal realism, defined by state self-interest, may be at the heart of today’s polemics over immigration.

Indeed, I believe this is so. Public anxiety re the economic burden of migrants on American social institutions and fair wage have led to communitarian objections to increased migration from both conservatives and social democrats--while attending a protest against the Trump administration in 2017, I fondly remember standing next to a supposed feminist who, while rallying against the now former president, also expressed a resolute “no” when the crowd began reciting “Immigrants are welcome here.” The fixation on self-preservation may explain far-right popularization of terms like “chain migration” in lieu of “family reunification,” and the 2019 revision of the public charge rule which would have expanded the definition of being a “public charge,” and would have thus restricted poorer immigrants from either being admitted into the U.S. or attaining Legal Permanent Resident status. And, not surprisingly, today’s fears were enshrined in law vis-à-vis other, past Court decisions that occurred soon after that seminal 1889 case: in Nishimura Ekiu v. United States (1892) and Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893), the Supreme Court again expanded the U.S. government’s power over immigration, citing further elaborations of Vattel’s theory of sovereignty (Song 2017); within the latter decision, these two passages from The Law of Nations are cited in their entirety:

Every nation has a right to refuse admitting a foreigner into her territory, when he cannot enter it without exposing the nation to evident danger, or doing her a manifest injury. What she owes to herself, the care of her own safety, gives her this right; and in virtue of her natural liberty, it belongs to the nation to judge, whether her circumstances will or will not justify the admission of that foreigner. (I.230)

Thus also it has a right to send [asylees] elsewhere, if it has just cause to fear that they will corrupt the manners of the citizens, that they will create religious disturbances, or occasion any other disorder, contrary to the public safety. In a word, it has a right, and is even obliged, to follow, in this respect, the suggestions of prudence. (I.231)

In other words, the state, by virtue of its personhood and the rights accorded to moral persons, has the right to exclude those it deems dangerous to its self-interest. As many scholars have pointed out, the right to exclude is essentially a property right; and the commensuration of individual property rights to collective, state territorial rights has been the source of much debate (See Carens’s Nozickean argument for open borders).

All this is to say that the principles of state sovereignty that underlie American immigration policy were founded under non-ideal theory conditions, which privilege human interest over ideal theory egalitarianism. The effect of this philosophical turn cannot be overstated; because while it is one thing to erect borders and deny access in the name of self-interest, it is another to punish those seeking opportunity and/or asylum for similar reasons.

To explain today’s punitive approach to immigration, it is incumbent on me to outline another ideal to non-ideal theory transition: This time, I mark as my starting point the Bracero Accord, a U.S./Mexico bilateral program that, between 1942-1964, facilitated over 4.5 million temporary labor contracts to male Mexican workers in an effort to redress previous, depression-era deportations of Mexican-American citizens and to address labor shortages that appeared during and after World War II. Though imperfect (the program was ultimately deemed exploitive), this bracero initiative may have came closest in realizing the tenets of justice that ideal theory conceptualized, formalizing (now questionable) protocols for far pay and anti-discrimination; that is, in setting aside the dehumanizing experience that braceros encountered, we might think of the legal protections granted to these workers, and the imperative that the U.S. government showed in trying to repair its relationship with Mexico, as a promise towards an ideal--a quasi- “veil of ignorance” that ended up being unrealistic, ineffective, and violent. So, it might be here within the context of the hopes of the Bracero Accord and the porous border through which hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers made their way each year that we locate our ideal beginning.

From this point, the rapid progression towards non-ideal theory, which again takes into account the “historical obstacles and the unjust actions of others” that seek to undermine liberty and justice, paradoxically began during the civil rights era of the 1960s, when a) the termination of the Bracero Program and b) amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act effectively ended the legal and cyclical migration patterns of years past. Princeton sociologist Douglass Massey summarizes:

Whereas in the late 1950s, some 450,000 Mexicans had entered the United States each year as Braceros and 50,000 as permanent residents, by the late 1970s the Bracero Program was gone and legal visas were capped at 20,000 (Massey 2014)

A closed door, however, does not mean a locked one; notwithstanding new restrictions on migration, former braceros continued their northward journey through unauthorized channels, paving the way for what has become considered “illegal” migration. In his article, Massey provides this useful figure, which takes data from DHS to assess Mexican migration to the U.S. in the three categories shown below:

The noticeable inverse between trends in temporary labor migration and unauthorized migration (measured by the annual number of apprehensions divided by the number of Border Patrol officers, expressed per thousand) in 1964 reveals the unspeakable harms of supposedly benevolent updates to U.S. immigration policy. Despite the tapering of unauthorized migration since 1986, shown above, the wide-ranging consequences of the 1964 recategorizing of what were once “legal” guest workers to now “illegal” trespassers on the political, social, and individual levels of society deserves pause and reflection.

At the broad level of the body politic, the rising number of annual border apprehensions in the mid-1960s effectuated closer federal scrutiny of the border. At the behest of political racketeers, members of the U.S. Border Patrol, and a changing landscape of public opinion surrounding undocumented migration, Congress enacted a litany of measures that further restricted entry: 1986′s Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), while granting amnesty and Legal Permanent Resident status to 2.7 million former undocumented migrants--subject to conditions of learning English and seeking citizenship--criminalized undocumented hiring and signed off the first of a series of significant increases in appropriations for the Border Patrol; 1994′s Operation Gatekeeper militarized the busiest border sector in San Diegos (See also ‘prevention through deterrence’ strategy); 2001′s PATRIOT Act made it easier for the government to employ immigration rules to detain or deport non-citizens without resort to the lengthy procedural regulations of the criminal justice system (Akram 2006). Juliet Stumpf and others have mapped these measures to a phenomenon they call “crimmigration,” which describes the American merger of criminal and immigration law that has happened since 1875 when the first federal statute was passed to restrict immigration of Chinese women. Since then, Stumpf writes, “the relationship between immigration and criminal law has evolved from merely excluding foreigners who had committed past crimes to the present when many immigration violations are themselves defined as criminal offenses and many crimes result in deportation” (Stumpf 2006). Indeed, today, immigration prosecutions outnumber all other types of federal criminal prosecutions, including prosecutions for drugs and public order violations (See “Prosecution/Courts”).

Interwoven into the political and structural realignments of U.S. migration policy during this time was the effect that legal/illegal discursive shifts had on White Americans. As politicians seized on the expediency of showing strength against the "Mexican Menace” and “alien invasion”, and as journalists found success in characterizing undocumented border crossers as “illegals” set out to “inundate” American society and “swamp” its culture (Chavez 2001), it becomes easy to imagine the kind of social re-engineering that must have taken place: As Mae Ngai reminds us in Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, Mexicans were once considered legally white and enjoyed migratory privileges not afforded to Asian migrants (Ngai, 38, 2004); but, as UMASS-Amherst professor Moon-Kie Jung might say, racial differentiation happens when people come to hold schemas for “separating human populations by some notion of stock or collective heredity of traits” (Jung, 64, 2006). Viewed in the light of American genocide, slavery, colonialism and imperialism, the racialization of Mexicans based on notions of in/exclusion was par for the course. We might find then, within the border debates of the mid to late twentieth century, the seed of today’s social animus towards Latinx migrants, which has encouraged bias in enforcement of immigration law and (most likely) inspired Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 (Read more about state/federal collaboration and interdependency when it comes to developing and enforcing immigration law in Judith Resnick’s “Bordering by Law”).

The human impact of these policy adjustments should not be forgotten, nor go unnoticed. For it is at the individual--and for some of my friends with undocumented parents, personal--level that federal immigration policies harm. This case is explicitly made in Jason de León’s The Land of Open Graves, which lays the blame for migrant deaths along the border squarely in the hands of the U.S. government. It is described in this podcast during which a university student talks about her experience growing up living in fear that her parents could be deported at any moment; and again, in the harrowing stories that undocumented child migrants have told, as documented by Valeria Luiselli in Tell Me How It Ends; and perhaps, more recently, in the iconic image of Yanela, the 1-year-old Honduran girl, who was captured crying for her detained mother. Between these examples, one thing is clear: U.S. immigration policies violate, if not the ideals of moral equality that America was founded on, then international human rights.

De Leon writes: “The benefit of the chronological distance from the pain and suffering of past migrations is that many Americans today have no problem putting nationality before humanity” (Leon, 26, 2015). In this blog post/essay, I make the case that this antipathy for life, or explicitly for the life of Others, has as much to do with historical myopia as it underlines the principles of self-interest that lie behind our legal and social interpretations. When people hear that undocumented migrant children are being separated from their families yet still defend the action as just since “They came into our country illegally,” I see this perverse rationalization as but a product of self-preservation. Mae Ngai has spoken about the consequences of normalizing such principles of sovereignty in immigration affairs, suggesting that it “generates the view that immigration is a zero-sum game among competitive nation-states” (Ngai 2004). Not only does this view fuel anti-immigrant resentment, it discourages us from seeing the moral worth of our neighbors and prevents us from coming together to form humane and bilateral coalitions for tackling transnational problems.

Against the backdrop of U.S. human rights violation, and the radical transition away from the conceptions of justice laid out in Rawls’s original position, I remain cautiously hopeful that there will come a day when justice will be served. It might not happen during my lifetime, but I’ll be on the vanguard of this fight.

0 notes

zillowcondo · 7 years

Text

Exclusive Interview With Top Chef Stephanie Izard

As one of America’s most outstanding female chefs, Stephanie Izard knows how to inspire, captivate, and cook up a storm. The first woman to win on TV’s “Top Chef,” she’s also the chef and owner of the acclaimed Girl & the Goat restaurant in Chicago specializing in nose-to-tail whole animal cooking.

After mastering her art at various Chicago restaurants for amazing chefs — Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Vong; Sean McClain at Spring; and Dale Levitski at La Tache — she opened her first restaurant Scylla in Bucktown in 2004. Her James Beard-awarded Girl & the Goat restaurant opened in 2010 with the goal of serving a family style menu of tasty, bold flavored foods with global influence in a fun and lively setting. Little Goat Diner opened nearby in 2012. Chronicle Books published Izard’s first cookbook, “The Girl in the Kitchen,” a collection of more than 100 of her best recipes plus insights into the top chef’s process. Izard is now preparing the launch of her next restaurant in the same Chicago neighborhood later this year, but first took time to chew the fat with Pursuitist for an exclusive interview.

What was the secret to your success as the first woman to win Bravo’s Top Chef?

STEPHANIE IZARD: I don’t think there was any secret! I just tried to make good food, and the couple of times I was on the bottom I just accepted the criticism because I knew they were right. At this point, eight years later, I look back at the experience as something you can never fully describe to anyone who has not been on the show. It was fun. Intense. Scary. Hard. Tiring yet exhilarating. A rollercoaster of emotions. I was surrounded by talented chefs and now I have some great friends all around the country which has been the best part.

Girl & The Goat

You also won a James Beard Foundation award for “Best New Chef: Great Lakes.” As a woman succeeding in the kitchen trenches, why do you think there so few James Beard award winners who can’t grow beards?

The restaurant industry is gaining more female chefs all the time which is great! I honestly think part of it is balancing life and being a chef is hard for everyone, but as a woman it can be an even bigger challenge to balance family with career. It certainly is not because of the lack of talent – there are amazing female chefs in the field!

You and Michelin-starred chef Domenique Crenn sure kicked some butt in a sold-out event at this year’s big Pebble Beach Food and Wine food festival! The other star chef presenters – Curtis Stone, Daniel Boulud, Masaharu Morimoto and Jose Garces — really took notice.

Pebble Beach Food and Wine was such a blast. We had lots of events and demos — the weekend flew by. It was so fun to try new dishes and to see what other chefs were serving. We made our masa recipe used for chips at Little Goat Diner, but for the welcome reception we served it as a goat mole tostada. We paired these Cubano sandwiches paired with Hoegarden for a lunch with Stella Artois. I demoed our pan-seared halibut with marcona almond butter and nuoc cham. We used blueberries for the dish, but this recipe works year round!

Goat isn’t a meat on most menus or most American’s taste buds. What are we missing, and how did you come to love cooking goat for your restaurants including Girl & The Goat?

Goat is the most widely eaten meat in the world, but for some reason it’s hard to find on menus in the US, though I think its popularity is increasing. To be honest, a lot of goat meat can be very intensely flavored and unpleasant, hence the strong curries and other spices used in goat-eating countries.

We were able to find a farmer who raises amazingly pure-tasting goat. For me and my team, it has been fun to try different techniques with goat and learn various ways to prepare the meat. We serve every part of the animal, from the neck, to the whole leg, to the goat loin. Goat is a lot leaner than its friend the pig, so working with goat can be a bit tricky. But it is a tasty experiment to have to work on!

What exactly is “nose-to-tail” cuisine? What dishes do you recommend?

It is really just saying that every part of the animal can and should be used. It is not right to eat just the loin of an animal and waste the rest. In fact the other parts of the animal, like the head and neck and tail, are where the flavor is! Pig tails are quite tasty! Full of fatty, flavor goodness.

What three courses should every first-timer order at Girl & The Goat?

That is a hard one. I think most first time guests get the pig face. And you must try a goat dish — the belly or the neck are my favorites. Then do not forget a veggie. The green beans, cauliflower, broccoli and shishitos are some of the best things on menu. Just vegetables made to taste good.

What are the best restaurants – besides yours – in your hometown of Chicago?

So many! I love all of Paul Kahan restaurants — Nico Osteria, avec and The Publican being my favorite. Aside from Paul’s places, Parachute is amazing, as are La Sirena Clandestina and Momotaro.

Did you and your husband Gary Valentine “meet cute” in Chicago like on an episode of his TV show “King of Queens”? What dishes did you cook for him that helped win his heart?

We met while I was drinking at the bar of Lillie’s Q where he was a manager. I certainly don’t think I was cute at the moment — I was a bit intoxicated! We became friends first for about a year then one thing led to another. He actually does more of the cooking at home, but I do think that I got him to try new foods when he started eating at Girl & the Goat after we met. He was a bit of a picky eater before and as time goes on he has tried and started to love many new things.

Congratulations on becoming Lexus’ newest chef ambassador. I hear you and your husband are both Lexus drivers. What are your favorite models?

I am awaiting an NX 200t, and my husband a GS 450h F SPORT. I picked the new NX because I love the size — it’s an SUV that’s not too big for me. I had never driven a Lexus before test driving one a few months ago. It’s like hovering, such a smooth ride. My husband has not stopped talking about the GS since he picked it out! His car should be here any day now and he will probably just go drive for hours with a destination in mind the moment it arrives!

What culinary destinations are on your bucket list?

I’ve never been to Italy so an eating trip there is next on my list.

Where and what would you order for your last meal on Earth?

Honestly it wouldn’t be at a restaurant. It would be in my backyard with my husband Gary and maybe a couple friends, ordering whatever Gary is grilling up. That’s my favorite meal always, even if the food isn’t perfect.

Away from the kitchen, what are your personal obsessions?

Sports and travel! I swim on a masters team as often as possible, which helps keep me sane. Traveling is something I have always loved though work sometimes does not allow for many trips. We went to China for research for my new restaurant and are heading to Taiwan in a few weeks, so I guess work also sometimes helps with travel.

If you had a $1 million to spend in the next 24 hours, what would you buy?

That’s a tough one! Maybe a little lake house not far from Chicago where we could escape once and a while.

Guilty pleasures: What do you eat when nobody’s looking?

Cheez-Its.

The post Exclusive Interview With Top Chef Stephanie Izard appeared first on Pursuitist.

Exclusive Interview With Top Chef Stephanie Izard published first on http://ift.tt/2pewpEF

0 notes

wexregolden · 5 years

Text

Read it on AO3 here <3

Chapter 11/19

THE BOY WHO LOVED Ch. 11

-The Riddle Fares- House NICO`S POV

-----

“You´re starring at me,” Marti suddenly said.

Yes, he was starring at him. He couldn´t help, it just happens. It´s as if his eyes couldn´t do anything else than looking at him as soon as Marti is next to him.

“I am,” he answered, being honest, not trying to deny it this time.

“Why?” Marti asked.

“It´s nice. It´s nice watching you. You´re nice,” he just blurted out, not thinking of the consequences anymore. Nico just wants to get this out this time, doesn´t want to hide his feelings anymore.

“Oh,” Marti said after some seconds of saying nothing.

Nico looked into Marti´s eyes, trying to find something in them, trying to see if he´s feeling the same right now, feeling that there´s something between them, the air changing.

“Yes. Oh.”

And with that Nico was getting closer to Marti on the couch, approaching him, their sides touching each other´s now.

His head was spinning, his thoughts racing. Some of them telling him to just go for it, to kiss Marti, encouraging him in his thought that Marti might feel the same as him. Others were telling him to let it go, not to do it. Telling him that he´ll ruin anything, destroying everything that has established between him and Marti, that Marti will think that he´s crazy and a freak, not wanting to have anything to do with him anymore, leaving him, abandoning him, not wanting to see him anymore again. Losing a friend, losing the boy he has a crush on. Nico being left alone again. Alone.

Alone, alone, alone, alone, alone.

Before he could continue thinking, panicking completely, his thoughts got interrupted by the doorbell ringing.

“I´m sorry!” he said as he got up and went to the door, opening it.

“A package for Niccolò Fares?” the mailman said harshly.

“That´s me!”

“A signature please,” the postman said again, pointing a little device to him where Nico placed his signature, taking the package. Before he could say anything else the guy has already left again and Nico closed the door behind him.

“Bookmail!” he exclaimed happily, going back to the couch and sitting down next to Marti again.

“What did you order?” Marti asked curious.

Nico knew exactly what was inside the package and he couldn´t wait to present his newest book purchase to Martino.

“Wait and be amazed, Marti!”

Nico immediately started to unpack his order, having a wide grin on his face as soon as he was done. He held the book directly next to his face, the grin on his face became even wider, excited what Marti´s reaction to him ordering another Harry Potter book would be. This time the “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” Ravenclaw edition.

“Oh wow, really Nico?”

“Yes, damn real, Marti!”

He loves this book, it was his favourite out of the whole series, and he couldn´t help himself, he just had to own all the books in the house pride edition. It makes him happy.

“Don´t you already own, I don´t know, three editions of the whole series?”

“I do, Marti, I need to show my pride, my Ravenclaw pride.”

“Oh, so do you store any Ravenclaw scarfs or whatever in your room?”

“Well, actually I do,” Nico said and grinned.

Yes, he own several different editions of the Harry Potter series. But he just loves it, it´s special to him as it helped him through some rough times in his life so far.

“Why am I surprised of this revelation?”

“I don´t know, you tell me.”

“Hm, maybe there`s still a bit of hope left in me that the boy I--”

The boy I what?

“--happened to become friends with isn´t that deep into the whole Harry Potter thing as it might seemed at first but guess I was wrong, it´s worse than I ever thought,” Marti said and had to laugh.

This laugh. Nico melted a bit at the inside, being completely enchanted by Marti.

“And what about you? Having any rainbow flags on your wall at home?”

“No, I don´t. It´s not my... thing.”

“I get it. It´s not that you have to own a pride flag in order to be gay or whatever sexual orientation you have.”

“True.”

He doesn´t know if it´s okay to ask such a thing, at least right now, as Marti only told him a few hours ago. But he still goes for it.

“I don´t know if it´s okay to ask that now but how did you find out that you like boys?”

“So your in love with one of your friends?” Nico asked, really being curious.

“What? Oh God no no! Not anymore, this is long gone!”

Nico decided to become a little bit more forward now, just going for it, stopping to listen to all these voices in his head telling him to not do it.

“I see. And what about now? Any boy in prospect?”

“What?”

“Come on, Marti, you understood me well. Any boy your heart beats faster around at the moment?”

He looked up at Marti, watching his reaction to his question. His heart beating a little too fast. Yes, at least there´s a boy that made Nico´s heart beat faster.

“No. I don´t think so, I mean, it´s kind of compl--,” Marti paused a little before he continued speaking, “--no, not really.”

It´s complicated. Okay.

“I see,” Nico only answered.

Silence hit in again and the feeling, this special feeling he gets in situations like this, when being together with Marti, hit in again.

He looked Marti in the eyes, sees them shining, trying to gather his thoughts and come up with what to say next.

“Anyway,” Marti suddenly started, stopping his thoughts and breaking the silence, “you play the piano, right?”

“I do, yeah. Wanna hear something?”

The piano. He loves it. And he loves Marti. Yes, he would love to play something for him.

“Yeah, why not?”

“Okay.”

Nico immediately stood up, going to the piano and sitting down on the stool, loosen his fingers a bit and placing them on the keys. And he directly knew which song he wants to play.

But before he started, he knew that he wants to have Marti next to him.

“Come here, Marti,” he said, waiting for Marti to sit down next to him again.

Their sides touching completely now.

He waited a few seconds, took a deep breath and then he started playing.

He knew this song by heart. Every note, every tone. He didn´t have to look at any sheet, not even at his fingers, so he just closed his eyes.

Heavy emotions arose as he played, as his fingers wandered over the piano keys. It must look so easy, so free, to someone else watching him. Whilst inside of him all his emotions and feelings were spinning, coming and going again. He felt so much.

As Nico finished playing, he still kept his eyes closed, feeling tears emerge, trying to hold them back, hide them.

It was silent, Marti didn´t say anything.

And after a few moments he finally opened his eyes, turning and looking at Marti again.

He tried to make his head shut up, just listening to his heart. And then he just went for it.

“Marti?”

“Yes?”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Yes of course,” Marti said, a soft smile on his lips.

“There´s something going on in my head.”

“What? What do you mean?” Marti asked confused.

“The thing in my head is... It´s called Borderline Personality Disorder.”

And it was out. For real now. He couldn´t look Marti in the eyes anymore. His fear of being left alone immediately kicking in, blaming him for telling Marti. That he will leave him, why would anyone want to have anything to do with a person like him? He´s not normal, he´s cr--

He stopped himself before his thoughts could keep going on, making him freak out completely.

And then he went on, trying to explain his mind to Marti, Trying to explain himself, making Marti understand.

He doesn´t know if this was to much, if he´s oversharing again, going to scare Marti away. With his feelings. The way his brain works.

Nico couldn´t help, couldn´t make it stop, couldn´t control it once again, but he suddenly started crying. Tears running down his cheeks.

But as he looked up at Marti again he saw him leaning forward. Feeling a thumb on his cheek, Marti brushing his tears away. Caressing his cheek.

“It´s okay, Ni,” Marti said, earning a little smile from Nico.

“I... I... The song I just played, I wrote it back when I got diagnosed. I just... needed something that was mine, that I could control, something that could bring me joy back then. And it happened to be the piano or music in general,” he continued to tell Marti, nothing stopping him right now. The fear of telling too much still being there at the back of his mind, but being overruled by the urge to let this all out, making Marti understand. Making him like, love, him still, despite all his issues, the things going on inside of him. His strong feelings. He needs it, he needs to be accepted and loved.

He released a long breath and swallowed before he continued.

“I´m sorry, Marti. I shouldn´t have told you this, shouldn´t have whined about my personal problems, I--”

“Shh, everything is okay, Nico,” Marti made him stop.

And then he suddenly felt two arms around his shoulders and he was pulled in a tight hug by Marti.

“It´s okay. You´re not alone, Nico. I´ll be there for you.”

You´re not alone.

These three words did it to him. He started crying even harder, nothing holding him back right now. He just let everything out. He needed to hear this, the confirmation that he won´t get abandoned again, not being left alone.

It took him some time to stop crying, Marti holding him close the whole time, stroking his hair softly.

“Thank you,” as soon as they broke apart, as soon as he managed to let Marti go. “Thank you so much.”

It went silent again, nobody was saying anything. There was nothing left to say, no need to say anything right now. They just stayed there, hands still touching slightly.

And only now Nico realised what had just had just happened.

He told Marti about his illness. About the things going on in his head. And he accepted him, didn’t leave him.

And they were so close, so close to each other. Heart to heart.

Suddenly the silence got interrupted by the sound of keys and the door being opened.

Fuck.

“Nico honey, you home?”

“My mom,” he whispered to Marti, warning him in advance before he left for the door.

“I´m here!” he said, hugging his mom as he approached her.

“I have a friend over and I don´t want to get disgraced by you or him feeling uncomfortable, okay? Please mom,” he whispered to her ear, so quietly that only she was able to hear it.

“Mom, this is Marti, a friend of mine.”

“Martino.”

Marti introduced himself to his mother again, shaking her hand.

And this image warmed his heart. He just wants his mom to like Marti, he still had a lot of hope that... something might happen between them.

“Anna. Nice to meet you, Martino!”

“Nice to meet you too, Anna.”

“So, you´re a... friend of Niccolò?”

Oh no! He could already sense one of the awkward conversations with his mom coming in.

“Yes mom, he´s a friend of mine. We met through Bookstagram,” he interrupted, shooting his mom a warning look. A look full of Don´t. Please don´t.

“Oh, so you´re a book worm too, Martino? Also in love with Harry Potter as my son here is?”

“No, definitely not!” he and Marti said at the exact same time, having to grin at each other.

Marti doesn´t like Harry Potter, no. But this books series is still the reason for them starting to talk to each other. And he will forever be grateful for it.

“I really don´t get the hype around the books, sorry to disappoint,” Marti said again.

A typical Marti-answer.

“I still don´t know why I like you,” he couldn´t resist to say this, he just loves to tease Marti. The way his cheeks turn pink and his eyes start shine when he does it.

“Oh, you like him?” his mother suddenly asked.

“Mom!” he had to throw in again, trying to stop her making things awkward between him and Marti.

“What? It seems like you two get along really well,” she said, trying to defend herself.

“Yes we get along well, that´s what friends do, mom. And look how late it already is! Time runs!” he grabbed Marti´s arm. “I think Marti needs to get home.”

He was glad that Marti didn´t fight back when he dragged him through the apartment to get his things.

This isn´t how he imagined this day to end. He wishes that it would never have to, that it simply could go on forever.

“Don´t worry, Nico. I get it. But it was a nice day, really.”

“Yes. It was. We need to repeat it very soon.”

“We really do!”

“And Marti?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you!”

“For what exactly?”

“For telling me. And for listening to me. And for simply being you.”

For simply being you. For your words. For your laugh. For your humour. For spending time with me. For being my friend. For helping me more than you think you do.

For all these things Nico didn´t say out loud.

Nico caught Marti smiling at him before he approached him in another hug. Being close to each other again.

After they broke apart, he opened the apartment door for Marti, leading him out.

“Ciao Nico.”

“Ciao Marti. See you soon.”

And what that he closed the door behind Marti.

And he was gone. Immediately being sad about it, being alone, again.

“Tell me more,” his mom suddenly asked, standing behind him.

“More about what? The reason why I should stop bringing people home?” Nico said, trying to sound offended but couldn´t stop a smile approaching on his lips.

Yes, his mother sometimes could be a pain in the ass, embarrassing him completely, but he still loves her.

“You know what I mean, Nico. He´s cute, isn´t he?”

Nico immediately pictured Marti in front of his eyes, smiling brightly.

“Yes. He is.”

“I already like him. He seems to be nice. And cute of course. And he seems to make you happy, that´s the most important thing for me.”

“Thank you, mom. I´m going to my room if it´s okay?”

“Yes of course, don´t worry. Good night already, Nico.”

“Good night, mom,” he said before he went to his room.

He directly perceived his desk and the mess on there. Drawing utensils spread over it, several sketches, papers, pencils. One especially catches his eyes, the one he started after the phone call he and Marti had, in the middle of the night. He just started, started drawing without having anything particular in mind. And it still happened to become a sketch of him. Marti. Marti in a Hogwarts uniform. He would love to continue drawing right now but he couldn´t conquer himself to do it. He simply felt too exhausted out of nowhere again, just wanting to go to bed.

As he lied down he still grabbed his phone and wrote a message to Marti.

To Marti the Slytherin

Hey Marti, I´m sorry for kind of kicking you out before believe me, it only was for your best.

But today was wonderful, thank you for the nice day. And thank you for listening.

From Marti the Slytherin

No need to thank me. I should be the one to thank you for listening.

To Marti the Slytherin

I´m tired

From Marti the Slytherin

You should probably go to sleep then

I guess I will. Good night Marti <3, he wrote at first but still deleted the heart before he sent it.

To Marti the Slytherin

I guess I will. Good night Marti

From Marti the Slytherin

Good night, Nico 😊

-----

I know, it´s been some time since I posted the last chapter but I had aa bad time and didn´t managed to but here it is, FINALLY :D And I hope you liked it and thank you for reading!<3 I know, it´s probably not the most special or exciting one as it´s only the last chapter from Nico´s POV but I kind of felt the... need to write the whole thing from his perspective. Hope I didn´t failed too hard haha :D

I would love to hear what you think of it in the comments or my ask box <3

#skam italia #skamit #skam italia fanfic #skam ittalia fanfiction #nicotino fanfic #the boy who loved fanfic sharetheskamlove

10 notes · View notes