#ANYWAY i mostly wanted to giggle about the 'lonely doctor' thing | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

theskywaslookingback · 4 years ago

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2020 is almost over and I just wanted to share some of my favorite lines from fics that I’ve worked on this year. No particular order because I’m bad about remembering when I started and finished a piece.

Jon’s flat is cold and musty. It’s obvious from the moment they step inside that it hasn’t been occupied in some time. The curtains are pulled tight over the windows, the light from the street peeking around the edges with a hazy yellow hue. Dishes have been left in the dry rack, a mug on the counter containing something that might have once been tea. It’s stifling in its bareness, empty walls and heavy bookshelves. The only point of warmth comes from two hands clasped together in desperation. - doubt, these are the ways that i love you series

Jon wants to pull him closer, let Martin crawl into the skin of him until they are not two but one and Martin never feels lonely again. - doubt, these are the ways that i love you series

“It’s just Daisy,” Jon says, “she’s not- she won’t hurt us.” The end lilts upward like a question. Light roves under his clothes, the cloth wrapped snugly around his face. All of his eyes flickering back and forth between hunter and lover. Each time they land on her it feels like a blade. It feels like a kiss. - home and safety, apocalypse now series

“Love you,” Gerry breathes, because he can. He’s too full of it to hold it inside of himself anymore. He always has been. - 3AM, visible world series

“If I step on your foot,” Martin says tightly. “I’ll step on yours back, Blackwood.” Laughter crashes out of him like a battering ram and Martin presses closer, pulls Gerry in tighter and lets himself be guided around the kitchen in clumsy circles. - Summer Air, visible world series

“You know, you could just go to a salon.” Jon says, but he’s already standing and reaching for the box. “This is cheaper.” “I know. You can tell.” “Hey--” -6PM, Saturday Night, visible world series

“Jon, no person’s desires are consistent from day to day. You’re always allowed to change your mind.” “But even I don’t always know,” Jon says thickly, “that’s-- you’ll get tired of it. Or Gerry will. And I’ll be--” “Stop that.” Martin says, but it doesn’t feel like an admonishment. Like everything about Martin it sounds kind and measured. “You are so, so hard on yourself, you know that?” Jon knows. “Yes.” “Love is not easy,” Martin says, “especially for people like us. We’ve had to work for this, all three of us, every day of our lives. I’m not going to get tired of you. I’m not going to be upset if boundaries change. I’m just going to learn the new rules, over and over, as many times as are needed.” Martin drops down to press their foreheads together and Jon feels his eyes close involuntarily. “I love you. I choose to love you, and I will continue choosing to love you every day for the rest of my life. Okay?” - Abrupt, visible world series

There is something between Gerry and Martin that Jon doesn’t understand, though not for lack of trying. He can see it now, in the tremble of Martin’s jaw and sudden sober wakefulness on Gerry’s face. He tries not to feel that familiar awkward ache in his chest that reminds him there will always be things about his partners that he doesn’t understand. - Intimacy, visible world series

“Why?” Jon asks. It sounds startled out of him, like the abrupt firing of a gun. The tape crackles in Jon’s hand, growling like an aching, hungry stomach. “I mean, why do you care?” He doesn’t sound accusatory or angry, just curious. ‘ I don’t ,’ is what Tim wants to say. It’s what he means to say. But instead his stomach swoops and the words tumble from his mouth, unwanted and unbidden but true, “You’re all I have left.” Jon’s mouth does something funny, trembling into an ‘o’. He fumbles for words, though nothing comes out but vague stammering noises. Tim snarls and grabs him by the shirt, twisting his hand in the fabric and pulling hard until Jon meets him chest to chest. “Do not do that to me ever again.” “I-I didn’t mean to--” “ Don’t. ” - litany (in which certain things are crossed out)

She’d gone out for lunch an hour ago on her own. It felt like a test, the gnawing hunger in her blood versus her will to make it be still, no one there to hold her accountable except for her own desire to be better. It was alright, fine. She’d gotten a sandwich at the cafe and impulsively ordered a salad to take back to the Institute for Sims. God knew he’d never remember to eat if she didn’t remind him. - Days Before; Unwinding, chaper one

She can feel his mouth against her neck, lips wet as he tries to speak. She holds him tighter, feels his fingers dig into the fabric of her shirt. “Shhh,” she rumbles and feels him sigh. “I know. Be still.” She slides a hand into his hair, rubbing fingers against his scalp the way her mother did for her after nightmares as a child. His breath hitches and she knows he’s crying, silently in a way that makes her wonder when he’d learned to quiet his own sadness. “I’ve got it, I’ve got you.” - Days Before; Unwinding, chapter one

Tim gestures at the piles of research vaguely, almost spilling coffee over his hand. Jon takes his mug. “Is that not why I’m here?” “Is it?” Tim gins, raising an eyebrow. “Sure there’s no other reason? A little Netflix and chill?” He’s joking, of course, he knows Jon has never expressed any interest in him in that way. Just a harmless flirtation, meant only to bring a little bit of heat to Jon’s face and neck. And that it does, the tips of his ears burning a ruddy red at the implication. “Tim-” - Days Before; Unwinding, chapter two

Gerry traces a finger over the constellation of freckles along Martin’s shoulder, up the side of his neck, almost light enough to tickle. He’s named some of the constellations before, called them things like Orpheus or Ariadne, pressing kissing into the bare skin until Martin giggles and presses him gently away. - Lazy Sunday Morning, visible world series

“I’m taking you to the doctor. Is the oven already off?” “Yeah, it– yes.” “Okay, just hang on to my shoulders.” “If you drop me–” “I can carry Martin,” Gerry says, hoisting Jon up from the ground, “you think I’m going to drop you?” Jon grumbles but presses his face into Gerry’s shoulder. - prompts, visible world series

Helen…is. At least it thinks so. Any state of being is complicated, as they were never meant to be a being. Helen was, and then very quickly and unceremoniously and all at once Helen was not. And they were Helen, and Helen was them. So, Helen was, and Helen is. The Archivist is, certainly. He’s pretending not to see, keeping his two front eyes shut in her hallways but all the rest of them creak open with curiosity. He follows her with his eyes closed, his hand outstretched to feel the bend and pulse of the wall. The way it shrinks and expands, undulating like an intestine. She wonders if he knows it is feeding on him. Not much. Not enough. But it is, it does. She does. [...] (The thing they were before was never any of that, because it never had to be. It was twisting lines, curving shadows, spirals and fractals. Being hurt. Becoming hurt. And it had turned that hurt on Michael, who had not always been anger and fear and sharp stark lines. And it would turn that hurt on Helen. But not yet. Not yet.) - prompts

When Jon makes his way back into the sitting room Martin is crouched in front of the radiator and frowning, the sleeves of his button down shirt rolled up to show the light brown skin of his forearm. He has a birthmark on his left arm, nestled next to the crease where his arm bends, a dark spot like a smudge of dirt that Jon wants to press his mouth to. - hands, unfinished

Martin appears a minute later from the bedroom and takes his tea with a grateful little thanks before taking a sip and making a face. “Tea is tea.” Jon mumbles. “I’m not sure this still qualifies.” Martin says but drinks it anyway. - hands, unfinished

Martin’s hands are large and strong and lovely. Jon’s breath catches when Martin’s arm curls around his waist and he’s pulled back against Martin’s chest. He can feel Martin’s heart beating against his back, thudding almost as loud and hard as his own. Martin’s fingers settle over his stomach, splaying out. Jon thinks his hand could almost cover it completely and it sets off another round of shivering in him that has nothing at all to do with the cold. “Alright?” Martin whispers. “Yes.” “You’re shaking.” “I’m-- it’s cold, Martin.” Martin hums thoughtfully and lets go of Jon for just a moment, long enough to pull the duvet up higher around them before settling his hand back against Jon’s stomach. Jon curls his own hands in front of his face and grabs the blanket so hard his knuckles ache. - hands, unfinished

Jon hums in agreement, closing his book without bothering to mark the page. He starts to stand and has a sudden thought, freezing half in place, “Do I— do you want me to—?” He gestures vaguely at the hall, where the single bed lies unmade, and then down at the settee. Last night had been...well, wonderful; but it had mostly been a necessity. Now, with the radiator half-working, warming the bones of the cottage, they could theoretically get through the night alone without freezing half to death. He sits back down on the settee rather heavily and it knocks their legs together, though Martin doesn’t seem to notice. Martin’s brows scrunch together and Jon has to fight the urge to smooth the skin back down with his thumbs. “Do I want what?” Me, Jon thought. He huffed out a sharp breath through his nose. “Do you want— do you want to sleep alone?” - hands, unfinished

“Thank you,” Jon says, his throat and eyes burning with unshed tears, “for having loved me.” Martin’s eyebrows furrow down and his hand comes up to brush Jon’s cheek. His fingers come away wet and Jon knows he’s lost. “Jon?” “It’s okay,” Jon says, even though it’s not. Even though his chest is painfully tight and he no longer knows how to breathe. “It’s okay.” “Jon what- oh. Oh…” Martin’s hands are so lovely and warm and real, one pressed to his face, his chest, his neck. “I did love you,” he says and Jon’s eyes close. There are lips, chapped from the cold and wind, pressed to his forehead. “I did,” Martin murmurs, “I still do.” “How?” Jon breathes out, ragged, his hands reaching for Martin’s wrists with desperate strength. “How could I not?” - hands, unfinished

#my fic #jonmartin #jongerrymartin #these are the ways that i love you #visible world #prompts #((happy 2020 everyone maybe i'll get more done in 2021))

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aggresivelyfriendly · 5 years ago

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To Be So Lonely Harry Styles au pair AU-

Chapter 3

Another Day Till Paradise

HI! Thanks for reading, to @chasm2018, for brainstorming, @papiermachecat for the catalyst, and @dirtystyles and @emulateharry for the read through!

Enjoy!

"Just one more set of notes to go over and I get to put this case away forever! And we get to go to Malibu!" Vee sing-songed into the phone. Harry's chuckle was in key with her happiness.

"It's a long time coming, I know." She could imagine his fond smile. "You've been working hard for months."

"Months and months." She stretched long and groaned a little.

"You tired?" He asked. "You were up before Maribel and out the house."

"I am, but also really restless. I was so excited about putting this one to bed, I wasn't able to sleep much myself." She started to get her auto dictating stuff together. She usually typed things, but she was feeling the 12 hours she'd been up and knew the words would blur. She'd do it like this and have her assistant proof and file. She was ready to go home. That meant she needed to get off the phone. "What are the babies doing?" She asked instead.

"Oh, well, they are thrashing about in their cribs." She heard him move the monitor. "Looks like Bel is up and staring at Teo, willing him awake."

"Seems late for them to sleep." Since they dropped to one nap it was just after lunch until 2:30.

"We had that date with Jameson's nanny from playgroup, remember? They are on a slightly later schedule, so I fed them and then had them walk the short distance home."

"How did you do that?" Her mind boggled trying to picture it, she was sure her eyes goggled too.

He laughed. "I alternated. One by hand, the other on my hip, and when one started whining while the other started to drop off, I switched them." God, he was strong.

"Nice." Vee really should go.

"Yeah it worked a treat. You done typing the brief? when will you be home?" She heard him click off the monitor. "Teo is more than stirring now."

"Um," she'd be about done had she either got off the phone to dictate or typed it while they spoke. She opened a doc and started typing. She may be tired, but this was faster. "Give me a half an hour."

"Need to let me go?" She kinda did. He was walking, his breath was a little faster.

"No, put me on speaker and let me talk to the babies. We can wake them together." She heard a cry.

"Oh no need to wake them. But mamas voice may quiet them." She put her own phone on speaker and talked with Teo while she heard Harry with Maribel in the background.

She'd be jealous she wasn't there except she would be for the next two weeks. Harry had a friend in LA, a wealthy one (she'd have to ask about that), who had offered his beach house. She'd been bandying about vacation ideas when Harry's face brightened in that way he had. His ideas were usually brilliant, and he told great stories, though usually his tales of their day revealed more about himself than any direct question she had asked him. When she asked about him, he'd shrug and go over his CV. Born in the north of England, divorced parents, amazing mum, lovely sister, moved to the states to do his doctorate, couldn't keep up with the expense, was in sabbatical to earn some money to finish.

Those were all pleasant facts, except the divorce, his face scrunched like bitter lemon on that tidbit, but they weren't really about him. The thing she knew, were from observation, or his long asides.

He liked his coffee black but his tea strong and sweet, and only from a pot, not a bag. His favorite meal was breakfast and he ate it at all times of the day and night. Once she'd found him making pancakes at 2:30 am. "Couldn't sleep, and it's always a good time for pancakes," he'd grinned. "Try it." So she'd sat at the breakfast bar and been a good student of anytime breakfast. He also liked to grab cold pancakes as a snack, as did her babies now. "I use the whole grain mix and put in eggs, so they get protein." He'd looked for approval.

He looked for her approval a lot. She wasn't sure if he was trying to keep her involved, was being polite, or really was unsure. Harry's ideas and ways were nearly always A+.

He had asked for approval on the Malibu idea. And he'd told the story in that meandering way of his. Vee, how she'd come to think of herself since he adopted the nickname, usually left with more information about him, and less about whatever the actual topic.

The day they'd been talking about vacation ideas was a perfect example. Harry had been sitting across from her with that sweet little cock to his head he got when she was talking at length. It might be the first time in her life she felt like somebody listened to her and really liked it. Her mama did too, now, but when she was little her mama had been so tired. She worked too hard, too much, and too many jobs. Mama was tired when she got home, and she never had the money or paid time off for a vacation. Because of that, all that scarification, Vee did.

"I should be done with this case at month ends I think I'd really like to go somewhere, relax, play with the babies, sleep in."

Harry laughed. "Vacation with the twins means you won't be getting to sleep in much."

"Not if you come with us." She raised her eyebrows at him. He deserved a vacation too. He'd been working a lot right along with her. She'd paid him extra, but wanted to do more, and there was the other benefit. "Then we can switch off days, I'll keep them most nights, but maybe you can keep them a few mornings?" She hoped he liked the idea, or maybe he would like to just have the time off to see friends, or maybe even go home. "If you want too." She tried to take the pressure off, scale back the hope in her eyes.

"I think that vacation sounds amazing!" His dimples were so huge, she liked that they showed sometimes even when he wasn't smiling. He was now. "What kind of vacation were you thinking, mountains, beach, big city? Driving or flying?"

He was about to keep going when she cut him off. He might start talking about his favorite vacation when he was 12, or something, and entertaining as that time in Portugal may have been, it wasn't germane to the moment.

"I would actually just love to get out of the city, but still have city amenities. Beaches, and laying around, with nice food and hiking, but not an all inclusive. Ya know. And sunsets. I'd really love some devastating sunsets." She missed heat too. "Somewhere warm. And flying. But not too far. And no layovers. Not with Beli and Teo."

Harry had straightened up in his chair and smiled with flashing eyebrows. He'd put a finger up while he stood before disappearing into a room. He came back 15 min later with the same light on his face stirred together with a bit of triumph.

"I have the perfect vacation for us!" He grabbed the barstool he'd vacated with one dinner plated sized hand and sat across from her. Then leaned in with his chin on his fist. "Have you ever been to LA?"

Victoria wasn't able to school her face.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But there are some really amazing things to do and see there, if you avoid the star walk and such." She'd not been to the star wall. She'd been there for a conference and hadn't seen much but the walls of it, and the immediate area in downtown LA. She hadn't been impressed.

"How'd you know so much about LA?" It was on the other side of the world after all, from the place that imprinted on his voice.

"Oh, I have family, although I guess more close family friends there," he stopped to puzzle over the tree and its branches. "Yeah, just my dad's old college mate, not actually blood relations, though I called him uncle my whole life. Anyway, I wasn't sure where I wanted to go for my post grad. I talked to myself about the requisite places in England. But Oxford and Cambridge seem so stuffy."

"And Harvard isn't stuffy?" She'd gone to Brown.

He had a goofy snicker sometimes. It might be her favorite flavor of his laugh. "Not nearly as cool as Brown. Who went there?" He rapped his chin. "Oh JFK Jr! That's right. Who else?"

There was a list but she just narrowed her eyes.

"Anyway. The opposite of stuffy seemed like California. So I decided that Stanford might be nice. So I called my 'uncle' in LA to see if I could stay with him and commute to school or something."

Vee giggled.

"Ya, I had no idea how big California was. I guess I figured it was like San Francisco, Stanford. LA. Three hours tops, make a tour, see the sights, catch the vibe," he mimicked a surfboard and she lost it.

She was full out laughing by now. His hand illustrations and the little literal hop, skip, and a jump he performed before that. He should go to Disneyland too with that level of animation. "Did your uncle teach you different?"

"Well, no, like kinda. He mostly just was excited to have me. But we went to his house on the beach in Malibu first and then drove to Stanford. Which was beautiful. Up the coast."

"Isn't that like 12 hours?"

"Like 10, I dunno, forever, but we stopped in Monterey. That was nice. And beachfront. By the time we got to Palo Alto, which means high stick by the way, that's a weird name for a town, I was disappointed. The weather was way better in Malibu. Also I had imagined Stanford was waterfront."

"It's not far. The whole state can't be on the ocean."

"Think my expectations were ruinous. I had no idea how big the place was. But, it wasn't what I had in my mind." He shrugged.

"And Boston was." That was the puzzle. It was cold here, and definitely not postcard beaches.

"Well, it's waterfront."

"Do you do much swimming?" She asked.

"I had it in my mind to go abroad by then, and Boston seemed to have shit weather like home."

"Shittier." Vee flashed her palms like that was a given. There was more to this story, something she wasn't getting.

"Oh, Texas has better?" Harry derailed her and got up to move behind her in the kitchen. He was grabbing food now. Oooh, nap snack time. She loved when he did this. It was like an informal nosh, so different from the stuffy steak lunches at work when she had to go to client things.

How the hell did he pull together a bruschetta bar so quickly? "Made it last night." He answered her face. "Had a craving, made loads." She'd been around the office late again Friday evening, but only two more weeks until the case officially ended. Her part anyway. But she answered his cheek while she loaded up a toast point.

"Claro, San Antonio at least. Houston's a bit shit, Dallas gets cold, and hellishly hot—"

"Isn't San Antonio really hot?" He interrupted.

"Yeah, but it's a little drier, and there are hills and Austin is close, and it's just better. Certainly than Boston." She sighed. Sometimes she missed how big the sky was and that the clouds looked like cartoons.

"You'll have to show me." She'd like to. The house that built her. That was like the only country song she liked.

She smiled and nodded looking. "Yeah, sometime, you can come to when we go we abuelita. But, much as I love my mother, that's not a vacation exactly."

"Right." He nodded along. "So I just called James, my pseudo uncle, and they are going home for a month. He said we could use his beach house...." Harry's eyebrows were as high as they could go, floating on hope.

"I only have two weeks."

"Yeah, that's enough, you'll be missing the east-coast-no-bullshit by then. Everybody is fake happy and nice in California." He sounded like he was standing behind a lectern.

"Like you." She felt the need to remind him. He was the happiest person she knew. But she knew a lot of lawyers.

"Oh, mine's not fake." He shook his head.

That was true. He really was just ridiculously nice.

"But it has its perks. Last time I was there, I found this smoothie shop, amazing wheatgrass shots, and they have a vegan restaurant." he responded to her face, again. He read her like a favorite book. "When in Malibu, Vee." His smile required an answer and a question.

"What the fuck is wheatgrass?"

"You just cursed!" He covered the speaker of the monitor.

She smirked, "That's so we can hear them, not them us, tonto."

"Did you just curse again, but in Spanish?!" He made his offended face. "You def need some California vibes and lots of wheatgrass to detox that liver. All that anger!" He was s shaking his head.

"What my what? None of what you just said makes any sense." She was giggling.

"I dunno, I'm making it up, based on what I can remember about how the guy got me to drink juiced grass. He said anger lives in the liver or the pancreas or some such. But it was good! The grass, kinda. And I felt good and my skin glowed after a few days of it."

His skin always glowed.

He misunderstood her incredulity. "You'll see! We can try some—"

"I'm not drinking grass, like I never ate mud pies." Victoria insisted, shaking her head at him, but carefully keeping her elbow against him. His had come to rest against her a moment ago. He was warm. It was hard for her to find the right temperature. She didn't have that trouble when they were adjacent.

"It's a thing. A Malibu thing, guaranteed to chill you out." That phrase sounded weird and wonderful in his accent. "All we need is flights, a car, everybody drives there, and bathing suits!" He picked up his phone. "Where do they have bathing suits right now? It's outta season."

The snow was black and melting. They may get one more blanket, or not. It was technically spring, just not in Boston.

"Target, it's almost Spring break." She reminded.

The corners of his lips turned down and she cocked her head to the side. She needed to look at his timeline. He seemed to really want to go back to school. She'd miss him dearly, but maybe they could work something out. Maybe she could hire somebody else for when he was in class and studying?

His brow cleared and brightened with an idea. "Wanna go pick stuff out while they finish their nap? Then we can meet you at the green. I'll bundle them up."

She checked her weather app. "Layers, the actual sun may come out!" She was already putting on her purse.

Vee had essentially been packing since that day, little by little. Well, shopping was probably a better word for it. She bought her first mum suit, and tried not to think much about it. Her old suits still fit, or fit again, just not like they used to, and her stomach had new pink welts, like veins of cotton candy, down the sides. She supposed there was nothing to be done about it, two humans had lived in there for a time. That had to leave a mark, right?

She still packed her old high cut black one piece. It looked good and she felt great in it. Victoria caught herself wondering what Harry would think of it before she switched her focus to the babies' suitcase. Like that mattered.

This mattered. Traveling with small children required stuff.

She'd been shopping for Teo and Bel as well. Who knew that resort wear for near toddlers were so adorable? There were a few pieces she knew would be super frustrating, long dress style things, cover ups she supposed. She just wasn't sure what a baby needed to cover up. But it was so damn cute she'd bought it. There was a little voice in her head that said the inhibited movement may be worth the squalling near a pool. And what a pool it was.

More like an oasis from Harr's pictures. The lush greenery around the deck was like ivy, made it private from the beach the stairs led to. There was a gate, so the kiddos couldn't fall down the path or into the foliage, and the lounge chairs looked so plush, they made her want to nap immediately. "The fabric is moisture wicking, so you don't really need a towel." Harry had told her. She felt like it was made so you could swim naked, all the privacy screens and no need for linens. Not that anybody would be doing that. Small children and platonic nanny relationships and all.

Hmm.

But the moonlight glinting off crystal blue water and the night lighting of the pool were ethereal. Still took the swimmer to a new place it looked like, but instead the island oasis of the day, it was more a fairy hill, where magic things happened.

Magic.

She missed magic. She wasn't sure she'd ever really had it. The ex, well they'd had some good days, hanging out on quads and dancing late into the night. But, they'd gone straight to law school, then to a firm. There hadn't been much frolicking. Even their honeymoon had been serious, a tour of St. Petersburg and Poland. It was his dream trip, but some of the things they saw killed the libido. There were certainly no fairy lights or naked swimming.

Had she ever skinny dipped? That seemed like something that should have happened, and she was too old now to add it to her bucket list.

Was she too old?

Maybe it was time to start dating. She felt lonely. And was thinking about Harry in weird ways. She supposed it was just that they were going to a beautiful place that could be romantic. They made good friends, partners really, but he was younger, and they maybe flirted a tiny bit sometimes, but there was nothing romantic. He was just the nearest male. She needed some attention maybe. She hadn't in ages.

Victoria imagined kissing someone, a faceless someone, on one of the loungers, after a delicious midnight dip, of the thin variety. Wet lips and cool skin, hot breath. The feel on long fingers on both sides of her cheeks holding her still to deepen the kiss. The slide and wiggle of a rough tongue along her top mouth. Vee could feel the plump bottom lip she imagined, and the broad back under her hands as she was rolled under most of the 60's, if the dates on his shoulders were a timeline. The v of the back to a slim waist against her palms as they slid over skin beaded with cool water, and strong thighs with bits of text and fauna etched against the crux of her. She stood and defiantly closed the zipper.

That got oddly specific .

She needed to go on a date. But, obviously, after they got back from Malibu. Could she make up an excuse to leave the kids with Harry one day and meet with someone at the four seasons? Could she swipe right? She didn't think so. She'd just book a massage instead. The reviews there were amazing.

The knock startled her attention away from her suitcase. The door was open, the knock was courtesy.

"Hey, Harry!" She brightened her voice and smoothed her hair. For a moment, she thought about avoiding eye contact, but that would be a tell. She never did that. Especially not in court--a good suit and strong eye contact were good armor. He'd know something was up, she just had to pretend she wasn't just thinking of him on top of her or a liaison with a random to distract her from it. "You packed?"

"Yeah, did it during nap time today. Thought I'd see if you wanted help with the twins' bags?"

"No, gracias." Ohhh she was distracted. "I did them mostly yesterday, just got together the things that came today."

"And you are done?"

She fidgeted with the zipper her hand was still on, looked at it, so she didn't have to be staring into his eyes anymore. Eye contact was good, until it was eye fucking. She didn't want to get caught there, and her mind was still under the moon. "Yes!"

"It's easy to pack when everything is new huh?" His voice was lined with laughter. His teasing voice; she loved when she caught him talking to the littles in it. The dimples pressed into his voice and his cheeks.

"I put a few older things in there." She was looking in his eyes again. The smile was there too, and in her answering grin.

"Swimsuits, a dress or two you don't intend to wear?" He guessed expertly.

"How do you know that."

"Sister, mum." He shrugged. "But, since you're done, nightcap?"

It was only 9 pm, but their flight was ungodly early, so the kiddos would hopefully sleep until the airport, and they could get a full day on top of travel. "No, a melatonin is probably a better idea. Thanks though." Wine or anything like it, was a bad idea. Red wine made her languorous and chatty. Nope. And horny, which she was already battling, for the first time in a good while.

"Ok, see you before the sun."

"Yes, what a way to start the day!" She felt lame. That was lame, right? But he giggled.

"Oh yeah, I usually like it from the other side more."

"I used to, when you get to be my age, you'll see."

He rolled his eyes, but they had had this discussion before. "Sleep well, Victoria."

He didn't really call her that. She liked the way the syllables rolled off his tongue.

She needed that melatonin. No thinking about his tongue. Anymore thinking about his tongue. She'd need the moon medicine and to meditate, or something, to sleep.

In the end, meditating turned into masturbating, and she slept like a baby, for longer than she had in two months thanks to the case. She was thankful, the flight was hell. They were delayed, their early flight for baby sleep plan backfired, and they didn't make it to the beach house until sundown. And the kids were already sleeping as it was almost their bed time by their internal clocks.

She wished she could pretend she had jet lag, or she was tired at all. Instead, she was shaking from all the coffee she had consumed. Harry, too. They both drank iced coffee the way you were supposed to drink water.

They'd put the babies in the appointed room, where their hosts had put a lovely crib for them. It was only a minute to get the pack and play up. They'd have to alternate nights, seemed fair, though the babies would never know.

She watched them for a second. Two years ago, in the throes of a dying marriage, she'd have never imagined this life, this new life.

Part of that was Harry, he was a godsend. They had dealt with the rough travel day together, baby switches and breaks included.

Apart from the shakes from all the iced coffee he kept producing, she could not fault him. He'd make somebody a great partner one day.

"Victoria?" She heard and followed the voice. The house was a good size, but not so large she couldn't hear him, and most of the place had a fantastic view.

The view outside was way better than the pictures. The sun was going down and the sunset started like cotton candy, there was a widening purple streak, and from the stairs down to the desk she could see the sun sinking into the ocean. It looked like it went on forever. It stole her breath.

Here sense was taken as well, because the view on the deck was better, Harry was stood between two of the plush deck chairs she had dreamed of and had fantasies about. He had two glasses of champagne, and was backlit by the sunset.

The worst of it, was that he was shirtless.

"Dios mio!" she exclaimed.

"Right," he opened his arms and turned around. His back was broader than she imagined. "Could this view be more gorgeous?

No, no it couldn't.

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles au #harry styles famfic #tbsl #to be so lonely #chapter 3

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anasticklefics · 5 years ago

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Doctor Complex

Fandom: Star Trek

Characters: Scotty, Bones

@dreamthinkimagine said: What if Bones accidently finds out that Scotty is ticklish during a check-up? Scotty is embarrassed and this is why he tries to avoid Sickbay, but Bones lets it slip that someone else is just as bad?

Words: 1 372

Scotty wasn’t afraid of doctors per se, but he’d made it a lifelong mission to avoid them if he could. Doctors usually meant trouble, either for him or for others. The trouble had usually already been bestowed upon him in the form of injuries, but he couldn’t help but worry that a simple check up would lead to him discovering he had a fatal illness. He’d rather die in blissful ignorance, thank you very much.

Working on the Enterprise did result in him befriending a doctor, however, which was a bit ironic when he thought about it. But McCoy was nice. Gruff, but softer in his scrubs. The amount of times his captain had ended up in sickbay had desensitized him a bit, and Scotty didn’t feel the familiar dread whenever he found himself inside those rooms. He’d observed Bones in his natural habitat; determined, skillful, knowing exactly how to deal with all his patients.

It didn’t mean he didn’t hate every second of his own eventual check up, of course.

“You’re tense,” Bones remarked as Scotty sat down. “Nervous?”

“Of course not,” he said, meaning the opposite.

Bones’ lips twitched, and Scotty could tell he was assessing him. How to best deal with Montgomery Scott? He almost wanted to raise his chin and tell him to do his worst, but he figured he wouldn’t do well in putting up a brave front that would get so visibly crushed in just a minute.

He fucking hated check ups.

“Just get it over with, will you?” he sighed, crossing his arms in defeat.

“I’ll be quick.” Bones turned to whatever those machines were called, pressing some buttons and glancing back at him. “You need to uncross your arms.”

“Fine.”

“Just relax.”

“I’ve never been more relaxed in my life.”

“I’d be concerned if that was the case.”

“Please don’t say that word ever again.”

Bones raised an eyebrow. “Concern?”

“Yes, that.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“S’all right.”

Okay, so the scan? Not that bad. Scotty didn’t avoid doctors because of the potential of pain (though the sensation wasn’t his favorite). He was mostly terrified of what the visit would lead to.

He panicked when Bones turned toward him after looking over the results, but he raised his hand quickly. “It all looks good. I just need to check a few things for myself. Technology may have evolved, but nothing will replace a doctor’s touch.”

“That sounds vaguely sexual, McCoy.”

Bones barked out a laugh, his professional facade momentarily slipping and Scotty felt himself calm down. “It’s not, I promise.”

Scotty exhaled. “Right then. Go ahead.”

In retrospect he wondered if this was a subconscious thing that had made him avoid doctors, but he’d honestly forgotten how sensitive he could be. Had never been close enough to people to get to the point of playful wrestling or even touching. But as McCoy reached out to touch his abdomen, it was as if every memory of ever being tickled resurfaced at once and Scotty knew exactly what this would result in.

You’d think it would help him rein in his reaction, but he almost felt like it amplified it instead. Surprise, a sudden realization, maybe even a touch of dread as Bones’ fingers collided with one of his most ticklish spots. His spasm was probably partly due to him trying to stop him, but to McCoy it probably just looked like desperation.

“Oh.” Bones withdrew his hands as if he’d been burned. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you were ticklish.”

Scotty exhaled, willing his blush to slow the fuck down. “I’m not.”

“Right. Well, could you remove your arms? I’ll be quick.”

Scotty lowered his hands from his gut, avoiding McCoy’s gaze. “You better. I need to get back to work. This ship won’t run herself, you know.”

“Of course.”

Bones was visibly conflicted about whether he should’ve been more gentle, which was the usual way of a doctor, or more firm lest Scotty would giggle himself to death. He set his jaw as McCoy approached, hating how exposed he felt. Realizing he wouldn’t actually mind a fun wee tickle fight, but this wasn’t it. This was far from it. He couldn’t even fight back!

Bones’ touch wasn’t as soft this time, but Scotty would be damned if he would jerk back again. He gripped his seat as hands felt along his abdomen and up his ribs. Checking his back and sides. Gently feeling his neck. All of it unbearably ticklish and causing Scotty to want to both run away and snuggle into McCoy’s embrace.

Bloody hell, he was touch starved.

Huffing when Bones finally announced he was finished, he jumped off his seat and left the room without another word, feeling frustrated and embarrassed and like his doctor complex had grown twice as much. Lovely. Just lovely.

Worst part? He’d definitely accidentally let out a giggle when Bones had touched along the area beneath his chin. He would never be able to look him in the eye again.

“Hey, Scotty.” Kirk stopped in his tracks when he caught Scotty’s expression, or so he assumed. “What’s wrong?”

Scotty shook his head. “I was just at sickbay.”

“Oh.” Kirk’s eyes widened. “Shit, did you-”

“I’m all healthy.” He groaned. “I just fuckin’ hate doctors.”

His avoidance of medbay turned into an avoidance of McCoy, which wasn’t ideal and kind of heartbreaking for him too, but unless Bones came down to him they usually only saw each other in passing anyway. But still. Knowing that he would turn on his heels if he saw him in a hallway or the cafeteria made him feel silly. He was ticklish. That was all.

But it wasn’t all. He felt ashamed of his reaction; this internal need to get physical affection. Maybe he’d been more lonely than he’d thought, but he hated how apparent he’d probably been about it.

“Stupid check up,” he muttered. He did a lot of that, he realized. The Enterprise always listened, but it’d be nice to get a reply from time to time-

No. A stupid medical exam wasn’t going to make him question his existence. Absolutely not.

He thought he was doing a good job out of not having his sudden dilemma be obvious to people, but maybe he was underestimating who was paying attention. Most importantly, the fact that McCoy himself had been paying attention ever since Scotty had exited medbay that cursed day.

“Scotty?”

Scotty nearly - nearly - yelled as he twirled around to come face to face with the doctor. “Bloody hell, man! When did you even get down here?”

Bones seemed amused. “Sorry. I thought I was being rather loud.”

“Obviously not.” Scotty knew him snapping was unfair, but he didn’t deal well with stress. “What is it?”

“Well. This could go two ways. Either I try to be vague about it to make an assessment, or I embarrass you for a moment by straight up asking.”

“Asking what?”

“Whether you’re avoiding me because you’re embarrassed after your latest check up.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Scotty.”

Scotty turned away from him. “Really, I have to get on with work now.”

“Okay, but let me just say this.” Bones touched his back briefly to get his attention. “I’ve discovered so many people’s tickle spots during my days. It’s okay. It’s natural.”

“But did they giggle like a fool?” Scotty blurted out, whirling back around. He truly hadn’t meant to voice his insecurities, but here they were.

Bones blinked. “I’m not naming names because of confidentiality, but yes, some of them did.”

“Oh.”

“Is that what you’re worried about?”

“No, I just-” What was he worried about? “I’d forgotten about my, uh-”

“Sensitivity?”

“Right. It just caught me by surprise.”

“And you didn’t know how to react?”

“Right.”

“Well, you don’t have to avoid me, okay? I’ve seen a lot.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Scotty shook his head. “There’s something else.”

“Oh?”

“Wait, nevermind. I don’t want to share.”

“That’s all right.”

“Good.”

Bones snorted. “This conversation got weird. I’m leaving now.”

Scott saluted him. “See you later, then.”

“You better.”

Bones left, and Scotty felt himself relax.

But.

He still couldn’t stop thinking about physical affection dammit. When was the next shore leave again?

#tickling #tickle fic #ticklish!scotty #star trek fic #scotty and mccoy #star trek #mine #doctor complex #ana's fics

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always-and-forever-a-killjoy · 4 years ago

Text

Hey fuckers! So I can’t let the all the smiles verse rest, so I ended up writing another four thousand words about the aftermath. This is basically a bunch of found family shit with a little bit of angst regarding Cherri being Not Okay. This one you actually probably should read the first three fics to understand. (You can find them here, here, and here, there’s also the last thing i see here, but that’s not essential to understanding this. And mind the warnings!) Also shoutout to @wishiwasthemoon-tonight for encouraging me to post this.

Title: at the end of the world

Wordcount: 3861

Summary:

Cherri Cola is back from the dead, but that doesn't mean everything is solved right away. Not to mention that, unsurprisingly, there are some important conversations you need to have after you went to rescue your brother from the dead.

(Direct follow-up to if i died we'd be together.).

Warnings: Some pretty frank discussions of suicide and some implied past self harm.

Taglist: @wishiwasthemoon-tonight @sleevesareforlosers @stressed-depressed-emo-mess @tasteofamnesia @dagger-queen (message me, send an ask, or reblog/reply to one of my posts if you want to be added or removed)

AO3 Link

(Actual fic under the cut)

There was no time for the serious conversations that one needed to have when one had quested into the realm of the dead for their brother the next day, or the one after. Newsie didn’t sleep for a week like they’d threatened too, but they did sleep in until about noon the following day, leaving the afternoon for more catching up and a little bit more ‘you scared the hell out of us never do that again’ to which Cherri dryly said that he would attempt not to die, but death was an inevitability for anyone who wasn’t some sort of storybook immortal. (That earned him a lot of shit for being so depressing.)

And the day after that, there wasn’t time for important conversations either, since that morning they woke up to three teenagers bursting through the door with a collective “Hi, Doctor D!” and a lot of drama between the three of them. Well, mostly the first one. D explained that these three were the Terrific Trio, a group of young killjoys who Pony had run into and helped out while Cherri and Newsie were off in the Phoenix Witch’s domain. They had already made themselves a fixture of the radio station, dropping by every so often to annoy the radio crew, and they were scouting for a permanent home in the area. Newsie thought they seemed rather chaotic.

After that, there were announcements to make on the radio (“Turns out our favorite radio poet didn’t get himself ghosted after all and NewsAGoGo is to thank for that, not to mention that they’re back with a vengeance.”) a poetry corner to get up and running again, and more people to tell (“So, sorry I vanished for a month, Hot Chimp.”)

And finally, almost a full week after Cherri and Newsie’s return, there was time to sit down and talk about what had happened in the unreality and before then.

“Why do you think there was an oak tree in Death Valley?” That was how Newsie started the conversation, flopping down next to Cherri on the old and rather saggy sofa of the radio shack.

Cherri shrugged. “Witch magic? Everything there seemed just not quite right, even to me as a spirit.”

“Well why would the Witch do that?” Newsie didn’t wait for his answer before asking more questions. “What was it like as a spirit, by the way?”

He frowned, tilting his head thoughtfully. “It was odd. Very odd. The Witch kept me next to her for a while- I don’t think I could fully move on because she didn’t have my mask. So I ended up in that weird borderland for a while, too, floating around. The further I got towards reality-reality, the less I could do to influence the world. And the further I got towards the spirit-whatever, the more I could do.”

“So were you like, following me the whole time?”

“Oh- yeah. I was.”

“Creep,” Newsie laughed, giving him a playful shove.

“I wanted to help!”

“Well you weren’t much help with the walking!” They gave him a grin to show they didn’t mean their harsh words.

“I couldn’t do much,” Cherri defended, smiling back at her. “You were still too close to actual reality, so all I could really do was brush against you and make sure you didn’t get lonely.”

“You’re such an older brother. I’m assuming it was you steadying my hands on the ray gun, too?”

He nodded. “By that point, I could speak and you would hear me as a low whisper, but I was still most capable of physical touch.”

She nodded too. “Makes sense. So by the end…”

“You were starting to be faded because you didn’t belong in the spirit world. So I couldn’t see you as well, but I could still see and hear you, and you could see and hear me, I think.”

“Yeah.” Newsie messed with the edge of her shirt. “Thanks for that, by the way. Don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t shown up.”

“I think I should be thanking you, given all the effort you went to just to get me back from the dead.”

“Just,” Newsie snorted. “Just. As if your life wasn’t worth every second of that fucking walk.”

He looked incredibly touched. “Oh. Well thanks any-“

“No, seriously. I bitch about it a lot, but you know I’d do that a hundred times if I had to, right?”

Cherri’s eyes were glittering with tears, and Newsie glared at him. “Don’t you dare start crying, asshole, I’m trying to get it through your thick head that people care about you.”

He laughed softly, wiping his eyes. “I love you, Newsie.”

“Love you too, fucker.”

“What was it like to die?” That was Show Pony, his time, and Newise glared at em across the room as Cherri flinched.

“Well, it was painful, as you might expect. And…scary. Dying was terrifying.”

“Why?”

“God, Pony, shut up,” Newsie muttered to herself.

Cherri didn’t seem to mind the questioning. “It was scary because I knew I was leaving you guys.”

“Aw, Cher!”

“I didn’t want to die alone,” he went on. “I never wanted to die alone.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“Because I wanted to not be hurting anymore,” Cherri said simply. “I didn’t want to die, not really. It just seemed like the easiest way out. I realized I didn’t really want to leave you all maybe three days in, but by that time, I was already dying. And I was helpless to do anything.”

“Oh.”

“So there’s your answer. Dying is terrifying, and lonely, and painful. But peaceful, too, when you finally close your eyes. There’s no pain when you’re already dead, but…it was still a mistake. I still never should have left.”

“Don’t think Pone was ready for that much honesty, Cherri,” Newsie put in.

“In my defense, ey asked.”

Pony had been briefly shocked into silence, but ey returned to asking questions almost immediately. “So, then did the Phoenix Witch take your soul?”

Cherri nodded, running a hand up and down his arm. “She took the bracelet that Newsie gave me, said it was the closest thing to a mask in terms of soul that she would be able to get. It wasn’t enough for me to fully move past, but it let me into the borderlands between this world and the next. That was where the Witch let me stay until Newsie came for me, and she let me walk next to Newsie on their quest.”

“And you were such an older brother,” Newsie complained.

“That’s kinda my job, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t have to be, you chose to adopt me as your sibling.”

“Oh, well would you like me to redact that?” He was smiling, a little bit playful and a little bit wry.

“Nope! You’re stuck with me now, no taking it back.”

“And I wouldn’t want to.”

“Awwwww, do I get to be your sibling too, Cola?” Pony was grinning.

“You get to be my nibling,” Cherri deadpanned.

Pony threw back eir head and laughed. “You’re not old enough to be my uncle, but I’ll take it.”

“Bold words from the person who’s always calling me old.”

This time, Newsie joined in Pony’s laughter. “You are old!”

“Well if you’re my sister, and I’m old, what does that make you?”

“Young and fun because I’m the younger sibling,” Newsie declared with as much seriousness as she could manage.

Pony was laughing so hard ey fell off eir chair, and that was how D found the lot of them five minutes later, collectively laughing and cracking jokes about age as Pony laid on the floor giggling.

“This is why I can’t leave to do my broadcasts,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“I promise I tried to keep everyone sane,” Cherri said, but he was laughing too hard for that to be really believable.

“Uh-huh, and my name is Dr. Life-loving.”

Newsie almost fell off her own chair laughing, sliding down to join Pony on the floor as Cherri giggled. “Okay, that was a little funny.”

“Anyways, I was coming to tell you that I checked the date, and you ought to be very excited.”

Newsie and Pony both sat up straight at that, ceasing their hysterical laughter.

“Oh?” Cherri was still grinning, but not giggling anymore.

“Christmas is just around the corner, which means-“

“GLITTER!” Show Pony shouted at the top of eir lungs.

“A massive tumbleweed that will fill half our living room and be covered in glitter!” Newsie contributed.

“Decoration!” Cherri looked like a child on Christmas Eve, which wasn’t too far off. “Right, who wants to help me get the stuff out of the attic?”

“Not it, there are spiders up there!” Pony shivered dramatically. “Big spiders!”

Newsie flipped em off with a groan as she climbed to her feet, following Cherri up the ladder into the cramped little ‘attic’- more of a crawlspace, really, but it was where they stashed all their random things, including but not limited to spare power pup, Christmas decorations, old poetry, a bottle of bright pink spray paint, and two Helium Wars era shotguns. Which meant, of course, that it was perpetually a mess, and quite dusty. There were also quite a few spiders, Pony wasn’t mistaken about that.

Newsie squashed one that tried to crawl over her hand. “Alright, fucker, where did you stash the fucking decorations this time?”

“Back here, I- achoo! I think.”

“Great, pass them over to me so we can get down, huh?”

“Hang on, I’m still looking.”

She waited in silence for a few more moments as Cherri banged around, occasionally swearing when he hit his head on the ceiling. “Hey, uh, Cherri?”

“Yeah? You okay out- fuck! Fucking beams- There?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just wanted to say…you know what you were talking about earlier? When Pone was asking all those questions?”

They couldn’t see him very well, only a bit of his legs, but they knew he had gone still by the lack of crashing and banging. “Yeah?”

“I figured I’d say that you can- and should- talk to us, fuckface. You don’t have to fight all your battles alone, you know.”

“Oh.”

“We want to help. And we don’t want to trek five hundred fucking miles to get you back from the Phoenix Witch again.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Anytime, fucker.”

Cherri emerged a second later with the big box of decorations, passing it over to Newsie with a tiny sniff. “Fucking dusty back there.”

They smelled bs, but they decided he could keep his pride for now. “Why do you think I made you do that part of it?” She climbed a few steps down the ladder, setting the box on the ground before hopping off fully. Cherri followed them down, still sniffling a little as he gave one final sneeze.

“We should clean up there,” D muttered.

“Yeah, and how are we supposed to keep dust out of the desert, genius?”

D gave her a glare. “That’s the point of this building.”

“Yeah, well dust gets everywhere.” She pulled open the box as Cherri peered inside.

“Hey, we kept that wreath I found last year! Great!”

“Of course we did, do we ever throw anything away?” D was smiling, despite his seemingly irritated words.

“Nope!” Pony went skating by, grinning. “Sparkle time! I’m off to the glitter stash.”

“Yeah, you do that,” D sighed.

“I’ll detangle these, see if I can get some working,” Newsie decided, pulling out a strand of lights.

“And I’m going to go get a tumbleweed,” Cherri said with a grin.

“Don’t you dare go alone, you’ll get run over by a tumbleweed! I’m going to radio that Terrific Trio and see if one of them will help,” D said firmly.

The floor wasn’t exactly comfy, but it was a good enough place to sit as Newsie detangled and fiddled with the lights. Honestly, they would think there was a better way to do it than throw it all in a box every year and have to re-detangle it the next.

After about twenty minutes, a tall killjoy she vaguely recognized as a member of the Terrific Trio came to join her. “Hey, uh, Dr. Death Defying said that I should help with detangling these and sorting the ornaments? Poison and Kobra are going with Cherri Cola to go get a tumbleweed.”

“Oh, my dumbass brother.” They nodded. “Sit on down, sort some ornaments. I’m sure Cherri will look after your friends.”

“He’s your brother?” They could practically see the wheels turning in Jet Star’s head.

“Yeah. We don’t look much alike, I know. It’s not ‘legal’, or whatever.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, we’ve been friends for years and we just decided we were siblings somewhere along the way.” She swore as one of the lights flickered out.

“Oh no!” Jet was sorting the ornaments very precisely. “That’s sweet though, you just adopted him as your brother?”

“Uh-huh. He’s the older one because he’s such a protective dork. Fucking idiot.”

“Ah. I don’t have any siblings, but Poison is so protective of Kobra. Is Cherri like that?”

“Oh Witch, yeah. Just because I’m ‘reckless’ and ‘get myself into trouble’ well who fucking died? Not me.”

Jet was giving her a very concerned look, and she sighed. “Sorry. I’m salty at my brother. Fucking idiot, I had to walk so far to get him back that one time.”

“Oh.”

They didn’t get a chance to say anything else because at that moment, Cherri came through the door, dragging a truly massive tumbleweed. He was followed by Kobra Kid, looking extraordinarily disgruntled and covered in bits of tumbleweed, and Party Poison, who was laughing their ass off.

“Kobra- Kobra he got stuck in the tumbleweed! He got fucking stuck!”

“I almost died, asshole!”

“No, you just got stuck in a fucking tumbleweed!”

Cherri looked somewhere between exasperated and amused. “He did, but he’s out now, so please stop laughing, Poison.”

That mostly shut them up, since they shot a glare at Cherri instead, but they were still smirking as Kobra flipped them off. Newsie thought the whole thing was pretty funny, to be honest.

“So! Fucker! You got a massive fucking tumbleweed?”

“Yep.”

“And where are we going to put that?” D’s voice was exasperated (as was common) as he stuck his head into the room.

“The living room,” Cherri said with a straight face (or, well, the straightest face a gay poet could possibly manage).

“Not what I meant.”

“I know.”

“You, my dear Cherri, are a bit of a bastard sometimes.”

“Only I get to call him that,” Newsie protested. “He’s my brother, only I get to call him a bastard.”

D sighed. “Fine. Anyways, Cherri, where are we putting this?”

“I figured over here?” Cherri was putting the tumbleweed in place in a corner, and D nodded with another sigh.

“That works.”

“Great! Decorating time!”

“And that’s our cue, since my brother is going to stab me,” Party Poison announced. Newsie waved goodbye to them as the Terrific Trio made their way out, laughing and swearing at each other in equal measure. Which left the radio crew to put lights and ornaments and ridiculous amounts of glitter on a tumbleweed, followed by a strand of bad luck beads each.

Seeing the beads hanging there had given Newsie an idea, and the next day, she hopped on her motorcycle. “I’m heading to the Zone Four market, fuckers!”

“Have fun, Newsie!” Cherri shouted back.

“See ya!” Pony chimed in.

Newsie waved as they revved the engine and sped off.

The market was as bustling as ever, and Newsie had to shoulder her way through the crowd in order to get to the one ‘joy who they knew sold semi-decent beads. “Oof. Damnit. Fuck!” They applied a well-placed elbow to get past the large group of killjoys blocking their way and tromped up to the little stall. “Hey.”

“Oh, hi…NewsAGoGo, was it?” The ‘joy shot her a charming smile. Xe was probably a bit older than her, maybe around Cherri’s age, and Newsie knew ae always had the best beads.

“That’s me and you well know it, Penny Pincher.”

“Oh good, always want to remember my best customer’s names. What can I do for you this time?”

“I could use some beads, wood if you have them.”

“We’re out of stock today, will plastic do?”

Newsie sighed. Plastic would be cheaper anyways, she supposed. “Plastic is fine. I need enough for a bracelet, about as many as I got last time.”

“That will be twenty carbons.”

“Swindler. I’d pay five.”

Penny Pincher laughed and pushed xyr coppery hair out of xyr face. “Ten.”

“Seven.”

“Make it eight and you’ve got a deal.” Ae dropped a couple of extra beads into the little bag, tilting aer head at Newsie questioningly.

“The extras seal the deal,” Newsie laughed. They passed over eight carbons, giving Penny Pincher a smile. “Thanks, Penny!”

Penny grinned back. “Anything for my favorite NewsAGoGo!” Xe waved her off with another bright grin, shining like pennies in the sunlight.

Newsie’s next stop was a ‘joy called American Idiot who sold paints and other art supplies relatively cheap, and then it was back home to the radio station. Cherri seemed to have gone out when she returned, thankfully, seeing as his truck was gone.

“Where’d Cola go?” Newsie asked, wandering into the living room.

“Think he’s off to get some water for some crew that got themselves in a pickle,” Pony told them. Ey was lounging on the sofa. “They’re all hurt and don’t have carbons to spare, so you know our Cola just had to go help them.”

“Of course he did.” They plunked down on a chair, setting down the paint and beads. “Warn me if you hear the truck coming, will you?”

“Will do. Whatcha making?”

“A bracelet for Cherri.” She picked out her first color, a pretty sky blue, and started to paint careful designs onto a few beads.

“Shiny! I bet he’ll love it.”

“He better, American Idiot practically swindled me out of all my carbons,” Newsie buttered. That wasn’t exactly true, she had bought some of the nicest paints the other ‘joy was selling, and a lot of them too, but they were still overpriced. Better than going to Tommy Chow Mein’s, though, so they still thought it was a good choice.

She had most of the beads painted by the time Cherri came back, yawning and rubbing his forehead. “Well, that was a day.”

“What happened?”

“Just some idiots being stubborn.” He peered curiously at the bead she was painting a little tree onto. “What are you doing?”

“None of your business, nosy brother,” Newsie replied.

“I was just curious,” Cherri said mildly. He pushed Pony’s feet off the end of the sofa to make a place for him to flop down. “Pone, your feet are gross. Stop putting them on the couch.”

“As if your feet are any less gross!”

“Well I don’t put my feet on the sofa when other people are trying to sit there, at least.”

Pony pouted. “Fine, you win.” Ey flipped around so eir feet were dangling off the other end of the couch and eir head was in Cherri’s lap. “I’m not moving, though.”

Cherri chuckled and brushed his fingers through eir (currently rather sparkly) hair. “That’s alright, I won’t kick you out of your spot.”

“This is why I like you better than Newsie.”

“You only like him because he’s a pushover!” Newsie hollered across the room.

“Hey!” Cherri was grinning tiredly despite his protests. “Maybe I’m just nice.”

“Uh-huh, sure. No, you just never stick up for yourself! Pone isn’t going to die if you don’t let em sprawl on the couch, you know.”

Pony put a hand on eir forehead like a fainting woman in an old-timey painting, sitting up off Cherri’s lap just so ey could ‘faint’ back into it. “You don’t know that, maybe I will die! I am gay, after all.”

“The gayest Pony in the desert,” Cherri laughed fondly.

“And don’t you forget it!”

A few weeks later, it was Christmas day. Usually, being in the desert was about survival. But being a killjoy was about living. Everyone would die in the end, killjoys sooner than most, so they had to take advantage of the time they had. So just for that one day, they ate their nicer food, and danced around to shitty Christmas music which Show Pony sang along to at the top of eir lungs, and eir singing might not have been on-key, but it was filled with joy and feeling.

Gifts were usually small in the desert, but they all happily exchanged them that evening anyways. Pony had painted ‘world’s best dad’ on a mug for Dr. Death Defying (and covered it with glitter), and for Newsie and Cherri there were pins. Cherri’s said “I lived, bitch” and Newsie’s said “I met the Phoenix Witch and told her to fuck off”.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever owned,” she told Pony (after she had finished laughing, that is).

Ey bowed dramatically. “Pleased to be of service.”

Meanwhile, the glitter trio (as Pony had declared them) had all pooled their collective carbons, braincells, and scavenging skills to find a set of rare vinyls for D, who spent the next ten minutes exclaiming over and examining them. “These are incredible, you three!”

Cherri, Pony, and Newsie exchanged satisfied grins.

“Glad you like it,” Cherri told him, still grinning.

Pony nodded. “Uh-huh! Those took some trickery to acquire!”

“I love them, thank you.”

Cherri turned out to have written a poem for each of them, producing three relatively nice sheets of paper covered in his messy but lovely handwriting. Newsie’s was about life, death, siblings, and the word ‘fucker’, a silent promise hidden in every line that said ‘I won’t leave you again’. She didn’t know what the other two’s were about, but she did know that D gave Cherri his sad smile and Pony threw eir arms around Cherri with a “Love ya, Cola.”

And Cherri smiled and said “I love you too.”

Finally, Newsie got to give Pony a new bottle of glitter to add to eir collection (which had cost a pretty penny, they might add), and D a patch for his jacket that they and Cherri had worked on with Pony as well as the records. And finally, finally, she got to give Cherri the new bracelet.

Cherri didn’t look up from the bracelet for several moments after they placed it in his hands, turning it over and over and examining the patterns.

Eventually, Newsie got nervous enough to speak. “I figured I’d make one. Since, you know. Since the Witch took your old one.”

Cherri was smiling broadly as he did look up, still holding the strand of bad luck beads carefully. “I love it, Newsie.” He slid the bracelet onto his wrist, still grinning. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” she shrugged. “Fucker.”

“I love you, Newsie,” he added.

“Love you too, fucker.”

#cherri cola #newsagogo #auri writes #show pony #dr. death defying #ttlofk #once again i am writing about newsagogo and cherri cola #no one is surprised #suicide mention

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talesofphantombandits · 5 years ago

Text

Zero to Six ~ Chapter 3

Ahoy ladies,

I hope y’all had a nice Christmas, mine was great but really exhausting. Anyway, here’s chapter 3 I hope you like. Please let me know what you think. Again if you’re interested in being tagged in this series let me know <3

Thank you once again for the amazing support (even though am still not sure it’s good enough for such praise) I love you all.

Warnings: mild swearing, and some small talk about kinks. Nothing major.

Tags:

@i-am-sarah , @whothefuckstolemykeds , @drowsyrrog , @culturefiendtrashqueen , @rogue-barnes-16--main-account , @alliwantfromyouistomakelovetome , @sueeatstheworld , @valerie-weasley , @bleona2808

______________________________________________

‘Meet me at the cafe down the street at 17:00, make sure to wear something dark. And a cap. P.s. Remember don’t say anything to the others about this. -One.’

One week after One had rudely woken me up at 3am to declare that I come on the new mission, I honestly was starting to get impatient waiting for news. That’s until this morning when I received this text.

I got up at about 10am that day, made myself some food then climbed back into bed to do some more research.

It got to about 12:30 when I finally pulled myself out of bed to shower, got changed and make myself look decent but made sure that I would blend in with the crowd.

I then went into my specially set up computer room, I put on my headset and turned coms on.

“Anyone online?” I queried while typing my password into the computer.

“Well if it isn’t my favourite lady.” Four spoke.

“Four.” I said surprised. “How come you’re up so early? don’t you normally stay up late flirting anonymously with women online to get yourself off?”

He just scoffed. “Excuse me what do you take me for?.”

“She’s not lying though is she? I think I’ve accidentally walked in on you enough time’s Four. I have to bleach my eyes every time.” Two chimed in.

“Shut up Two you should feel blessed. Wait Zero what the hell! are you stalking me?” He shouted in an urgent tone.

I gasped. “Is that a confession? I may have looked into all of your internet histories. You know routine checks.” I shrugged even though they couldn’t see it.

“Jesus women.”

“Look I’m just doing my job, keeping everyone safe.” I said. “Anyway, am here to ask that if everyone’s done their respective research please send it to me. I can update Ones dater base as fast as possible, then we can get on with the mission.”

“Already sent you it Zero, I’ll talk to you two later, three is calling me for some target practice.”

“Bye Two have a good practice, not that you need it.” I giggled.

“So you’re stalking me?”

“Darling did you not listen? I have to look into everyone's internet history now and again for security reasons.”

“But you’ve still looked into my internet history.” he hissed.

“Don’t worry Four, your’s isn’t the spiciest.” I laughed. “So who’s is the worst?”

“That sir I can’t disclose.” I clicked my tongue.

“Puft you’re no fun Zero.”

There was a moment of silence while I typed up some new found research on the Dictators brother that we were trying to find.

“Four.” I said quietly.

“Yes sweetheart?” I rolled my eyes at the nickname, ignoring the butterflies it gave me.

“Do you ever miss being alive?”

“why would I miss being alive when being dead is so free? I mean yeah there’s somethings I miss and would maybe change like how One treats us. But the freedom of being dead makes everything almost worth it.” He paused for a moment. “Is this about what I said the other day? am sorry for going off like that, I was just so overwhelmed by Six’s death. I guess I crossed a line.”

“No, no I get it. I just feel so lonely some times. I guess I kind of miss friendships but mostly relationships”

“I mean I wouldn’t blame you, as you said you’re always cut off from us. I’d feel lonely too if One had me copped up in a apartment twenty-four hours, but just remember that just because you can’t see us doesn’t mean that we won’t always be here for you. You can talk to any of us if you need to.” Four said sincerely.

“Thanks.” I looked down at my watch and gasped “Oh shit I’ve got to go!”

“Oh and Four.”

“Yes darling?”

“I wouldn’t have pinned you as someone with a marking kink.” I giggled. “STOP STALKING ME, I SWEAR TO GOD WAIT TILL I GET MY HANDS ON YOU I’L-” I cut off the coms in a fit of laughter.

I ran into the cafe peering at the clock to see it was 17:05.

“Am so sorry One.”

“You’re late.” He didn’t even peer up from his phone.

“Yeah well if you haven’t noticed I haven’t really been out the house much lately. Coffee shop was tricky to find.” I said annoyed.

He just peered up over his phone at me with an annoyed expression. I just held my hands up in defence.

“How come I can’t tell the other guys about this?”

Suddenly a hot chocolate was placed in front of me. “Because where’s the fun in that?”

“Five?!” I suddenly stood up from my seat at the sight of the very talented doctor in front of me.

One hissed at me for being too loud, which made me suddenly sit down and try to hide my face.

“Nice to finally meet you Zero, One asked me here to help get you ready for tonight.” Her accent was so beautiful that I just slowly nodded in acknowledgement to her words.

I shook my head to clear the mist. “Wait tonight? the mission is tonight?!”

“Yes.” One was still looking at his phone, I wish that I could just slap it out of his hands but I restrained myself.

“Look, It would be nice for a full explanation rather than you constantly looking down at your phone. This is my first mission, am not afraid to say that am a little anxious about the whole thing.” I picked up my warm drink and took a sip.

“Fine.” He finally put the phone on the table. “It’s simple really. You’re just going to be a normal bartender, serving drinks to anyone that comes up to the bar. You’re going to be constantly listening out for information that may help us. There’s going to be very important people there tonight so keep your eyes peeled, ears open. Which also means that coms will be off, for you at least.”

He paused to take a sip of his coffee. “I’m going to need your full attention on everyone. Think you can do that?”

“I think so, I mean am constantly listening to you idiots all the time. The team is going to be there too right?”

“They will be blending in with the other guests and doing the same as you, while Two and Four attend to some other business. I’ll be in and out.” Suddenly Ones phone started ringing. “I have to take this.”

He got up to walk outside.

“You okay?” Five asked stroking her finger over the top of her mug.

“I think so, I just don’t want to mess up I guess.” I said looking at my hands in my lap.

“You won’t, besides me and Four will be right there if you need us.” My eyes shot up to the doctor.

It only just truly dawned on me that I would actually been in the same room as Four.

Five must have seen this. “Don’t worry he’s just as sweet as he is over coms, yes he can be annoying at times but don’t be afraid to just slap him in the face. Or in your case maybe a kiss to shut him up.” She smirked.

I laughed but felt my checks heating up. “Thanks Four, but I think the slap would be more effective.”

Before she could say anything else One came back announcing it was time to leave to get ready.

Five had dressed me in black skinny jeans paired with some smart black boot Doc Martens, a crisp white top with a dark green velvet waist coat. My hair was down in soft curls, my makeup a light natural look with a dark purple lip. Five said it would spice it up a bit.

The venue was classy but a little alternative which meant that I blended right in. I’d had a few jobs when I was ‘alive’ one included a bar slash restaurant, so playing the the bartender role wasn’t going to be a chore.

I started off by cleaning glasses, the room had only started to fill up. Lucky I’d already seen Five enter the room with a man on her arm, probably someone very important but also incredibly stupid that she can learn some important information from. She discreetly winked at me from across the bar.

I just smiled at myself and moved to served a couple to my left.

Suddenly the air shifted, for some reason that I could not explain my eyes where draw to the entrance. There he was, blonde slicked back hair and a black tux that hugged his toned body.

Four.

Chapter Four

#ben hardy #ben hardy fanfic #ben hardy fanfiction #ben hardy four #6 underground #6 underground four #6 underground billy #6 underground fanfic #billy #billy fanfiction #four #four fanfiction #four fanfic

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saintmariana · 4 years ago

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How civilization effeminates men.

My brother and I were close and affectionate in our early years as most brothers typically are, this changed when one day I had taken his head and slammed it against the corner of our tv stand, or rather his tv stand; this happened when I was in first grade. Why would I betray my brother with whom I was perhaps closest? We’ve endured so much together and yet I betrayed him; it’s a question that has haunted me for many years.

My brother’s been effeminate for as long as I can remember, as far as I’m concerned this didn’t bother me very much until after we moved back in with our mother after having stayed with our grandmother: we came back to find that not only had our mother found a new man but this new man had two children of his own, a boy and a girl; two sisters with an effeminate brother left me feeling as though the new boy as my final option for having a brother-when we were home anyway.

My mother had grown up with about five brothers leaving her with only one other sister whom she resented; add this to the list of ingredients of her heroin mother and horrific abuse she endured among with being experienced in the courts along the way and you have one of the sickest types of women you could imagine; I had laughed when a former doctor had told me this all these years ago, that women growing up older brothers go on to become some of the sickest and most vile women you will ever have the grace to meet-and she’s right, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, how bizarre such an arrangement could influence an individual so profoundly.

My mother held contempt for men and though I was oblivious to it throughout my youth there was something about her my body had picked up on as her ways had never sat well with me; though I was a monkey of a boy in the way I had fought back at times I admire my stupidity for having preserved what is pure and innocent in me: my sacred masculine.

My mother had done everything she could to destroy not only the man in me but also the image of other men whom I’ve admired, my father having been among them. She would keep us sheltered at home, punished us whenever we would trade toys with other children, refused to let us play with other children in the neighborhood-she especially hated white boys: why would my mother do this? It terrified her to fathom the prospect of becoming like her brothers, like my father, and yet it was her mother who put her torment, but it was men whom she hated, and still does to this day. She would rather keep us from the world lest we pick up on savage wit, exercise cruelty, explore the bodies of other girls, and that’s exactly what she did. Her lifestyle was a life I held contempt for as not even our grandmother, her mother, was as tyrannical as she was despite her fidgety nature; even my father was more forgiving of our wild behavior and often enabled us to simply be children, often wrestling with us; but not my mother-she would keep us in the house all day where we would endure the beatings (not the traditional belt, belt and switches were a blessing compared to his fists) of the man who would go on to become our sister’s father, the home in which my mother would spend her days drinking, cooking, watching Jerry Springer-I was so ashamed of myself to admit then, I was too afraid to, but I despised my mother more than I had anyone else in the world during this time-I would often go into the bathroom with the lights off and pretend I was Spider-Man coming to save us all from the monster I couldn’t see but only sensed and then I would beat myself all over my body as hard as I could.

There’s also the fact my mother had something to hide: there were the beatings from her boyfriend I remember but there’s something else my body whispers to me, something deeper my body wants me to know: flashes of a little boy being taken advantage of by other men comes to mind-the little boy being me, I can smell it now as I type this-I can see their sardonic grin-I can feel my mother’s presence, I can feel their hands all over me, sticking their fingers in my hole, laughing at me-lest I let this slip from my mouth when plying with the other children, unless it already has!

It’s true, you don’t keep a child prisoner unless you’re trying to hide something and that was certainly the case with me mother-my body will reveal to me more of the truth when necessary but for now I’ve only warnings of my body to speak with me.

If I had endured the sexual abuse there’s no doubt my brother had just as well, perhaps the boy in my glimpses aren’t myself but my brother-and I feeling helpless and worthless as all I do is watch them defile him: perhaps I participated? Perhaps they guided me to partake in the sexual abuse of my brother? Whoever they and whatever happened, Insee a Mexican man with a facial hair in similar style to mine with the mustache and the goatee, smiling ear to ear with malevolence in his eyes completely nude. Perhaps the man was my mother’s lover with she had an affair against my father: Santiago?

So much to unearth...

When I witnessed my brother with our little sisters prancing around and giggling just as they were I felt we had lost, I felt we had succumb to the will of our mother and our sister’s father and whoever that man in the glimpses is; I felt we had lost all the power we had surrendering and accepting our fate as the obedient boys of our mother for the sake of her vanity. There was a time in kindergarten when I stood face to face with my brother giving him a monologue about how we need to stay strong and stick together no matter how badly they hurt us, no matter how lonely and lost we feel we have to stick together and fight back whatever it takes-tears fill my eyes as I type this; where was that brother willing to stand by my side and fight? What happened to our pact, our bond, our brotherhood? Was it all vain? Is this who he is? Is this his fate, is this our fate?

So many questions and truths I couldn’t comprehend I only knew one thing and it was that I will not submit to the will of sacrificing what little power I had left-my power, I still have my power, and so long as I do I can be formidable, so long as I preserve myself I can redeem myself of my own afflictions and so I betrayed my brother; slamming his head against the tv stand was only the beginning. My mother and stepfather rushed to my brother, soothing and nurturing him, she was angry with me and I was glad of it; I couldn’t assault her outright but I could inflict harm upon as I betray the ideals and fantasies she’s fought tooth and nail to impose upon me, even if it meant inflicting harm upon my brother, my blood.

My torment upon my brother only worsened over time, beating him every day just as our sister’s father had done, humiliating him in front of everyone at school, mocking his effeminacy; I was so cruel even the other children were shocked beyond belief, sometimes even intervening and pleading with me to stop, sympathizing with my brother.

Everyone told us we’re brothers and we should stick together as such no matter the odds but all I felt was rage and contempt; I wanted to kill my mother and father, I wanted their blood on my hands, I wanted them to know it was I, their son who has taken their lives for himself, I wanted to watch them burn, I wanted to hear their cries but I couldn’t, because of law and guilt I did not wage war against my family (my mother, even when I was at a young age, always made sure to remind how I’d get fucked up the ass by groups of me if I had ever gone to prison, even threatening to turn me in herself at one time after I flashed my cock to the neighbors behind us-I was petrified,) and so I inflicted cruelty upon my brother in hopes both of my parents would feel it but especially my mother-I’ve always hated her most.

There came a day when I was mocking my brother whilst standing on a chair searching through our closet, he had enough of it and pushed me off; I cried and he ran off-I knew everything would change between he and I from then on.

The older my brother and sister had gotten the emboldened he became (our step siblings by this point had long since moved away as it turned out our stepfather was not their biological father though he still loved and embraced them all the same-his love was not enough in the eyes of the court and so his children were forced to go back to their coke addicted mother-they’ve visited occasionally throughout about a year but lost contact afterwards: running into them years later the sister had become morbidly obese and the little brother was still such a little boy, I despised them, I despised everything that was powerless, and yet I still loved them as brother and sister but could not bring myself to show them any affection;) he developed a tight bond with my sister as she was also emboldened as the favorite among both our mother and her brother: my sister would often intervene in our quarrels either through the means of physically hitting me knowing I couldn’t hit her back without the consequences of our mother’s wrath and if not that she and my brother together would simply tell our mother on me.

After the death of our adopted baby sister when I was in fourth grade I became far softer and far more merciful. I mostly left my brother alone though I would still get into fights with other children (many actually, though that’s a story for another.)

My brother and I had mostly gotten along fairly well throughout our middle school years.

It was during high school the tables had turned considerably; my brother and sister were far more emboldened to challenge me and would often pair together to inflict random assaults on me knowing if I fought back they would simply run to our mother for her help. They danced, sang, pranced around and played with each other as though they were sisters. The mannerisms of my brother and the pitch of his voice was literally in line with a woman-it’s no wonder my sister, the only sister among us, revered his company so delightfully.

Between the effeminacy of my brother, my little sister, my mother and my contempt for our stepfather I felt alone as the only man in the home further compounded by our sheltering in the prison we called home.

Throughout high school I attempted to adopt a new identity as a MS13 member from Detroit and I failed miserably: during my second year of high school I had gotten into several fights of which I had lost and pathetically so having froze upon impact; rumors were spread about me having been fucked in the ass so as to join a gang and having licked a dogs asshole; everyone believed the rumors and having lost the fights no one had any respect of me; all I wanted was to lock everyone in the school including my family and watch them burn.

Where did these rumors come from? They came from my mother after I had run away after she had threaten to send me to my father’s for having stolen various iPods from other children at school despite having told her he molested me when I was nine: during my runaway time my mother had gone through my phone and saw I was ditching school multiple times with a couple friends of mine whom I’d go to the mall and steal things with; my mother assumed this as me getting butt fucked and roared about it to everyone with ears including my friends at the time who she ordered to show where I could potentially be: she also found a massive collection of bestiality porn of which I was very fond-she broadcasted this as me fucking dogs and licking their ass-again, where my then friends could hear. After I was caught and brought back home I was too humiliated and enraged: my friends were wanting to talk with me about my mother had told them but I was too distressed to care and kept my distance from them: they were offended and so they told everyone. I dropped out of school that Valentine’s Day after having been suspended for bringing a knife to school-my intentions were to kill those two friends.

My brother lost any respect and fear he had for me after all this and it’s hard to blame him. My mother would shame me at the top of her lungs each and every day reminding me of how much I fucking disgust her, always teasing and mocking me far more than even the kids at school ever had. I had no leverage against my brother and sister and so they’d always tease and mock me all the same-it escalated to the point my brother and sister had awoken me by slapping my face over and over laughing as they had done so.

A couple years later after my 17th birthday my mother had raided my brother’s phone and discovered he was gay; we were living with her brother in his apartment at the time so she decided heighten the drama of the show screaming everything she found at the top of her lungs, drunkenly choking him in an effort to kill him, and pulling him into her bedroom every morning to remind that he likes women, not men, and that he will marry a woman and have children.

I used this as an opportunity to get back at him back not as much as I thought I’d like-I teased and mocked but we all ended making light of the situation all the same: I had always known he was gay and found it ridiculously stupid my mother truly believed he was straight, even her brother had teased her about it. I couldn’t care less for his sexuality, what I despised of my brother was his effeminacy; there’s a difference, though my brother had understandably confused the polarity between the two in my contempt of him.

A year later several months after I turn 18 my mother and I had ensued in a passionate argument of what I was going to do with my life, where I was going to go, what am I doing, why am I still here-I had enough of her and put her in her place; she was shocked and brought my brother in to join her-I had just gotten out the shower at the time and was still in a towel, my body so wet and glistening; they both looked at me in disgust and mocked my body, my brother taking her side in wanting me out. Throughout the months leading up to this moment my brother would progress with his humiliation of me in front of his friends-there was a time he even slapped me across the face and I did nothing-even his friend had taken my side against him at times.

Eventually I dressed myself and went for the door, my brother had it locked a certain way as the police were outside-I didn’t care I wanted out. I was arrested and that was the last I had ever seen of my brother.

My sister had found me on Facebook a year later, as we talked over the phone our brother walked in on us and told her it’d be a good idea to tell me our mother knows where I live-though not out of spite.

After several years of my sister trying to balance what was left of the family between my brother and I knowing of the tension between us. After my then girlfriend and I had split apart I pushed her away in hopes to heal our family; no longer did I want us to walk on egg shells and cower away from the truth; I reached out to my brother but he never responded.

It escalated to me having been done with playing the rational card as I was putting in far more effort into healing than anyone else in the family was; my sister and I would rarely communicate with one another-I’d often send her long letters as a way to encourage our openness only to be met with one word responses. None of them were willing to be honest of what happened and to confront their shadow; I decided to hell with them all.

I have my sister an ultimatum between my brother and I; she was heartbroken and declared I’m no different than our mother-I declared I’m not going to walk on egg shells among anyone and that if she was going to continue cowering in fear of all that she is then she is no company to keep around.

My brother has always been an escapist; he loves the modern luxuries of the modern world, social media, mainstream music, Netflix, Orange is the new black, Lars Von Trier; my brother has been on a miserable decline ever since I’ve left; he’s gained a significant amount of weight, lived with our mother until the cusp of just this last summer (he’s 22 now) allowing her to walk all over him with mockery of his weight gain and other little mind tricks she’s been prone to throughout the years; and why did he tolerate it? Because he was going to school for hairstyling and needed a place to stay; I declared to my sister there were no excuses-he’s simply a coward looking for the easy way out as opposed to becoming his own man on his own terms.

I declared to my sister I’m the better brother to walk with as I embrace all that we fear of ourselves; but she and our brother had already planned on moving into an apartment together so she decided he would be the best to walk with-we haven’t spoken ever since; she very much prefers her raves, her concerts, her weed and her acid.

I’ve tried making amends with my brother but it’s clear we’re far too fundamentally different from one another to ever reconcile the brotherhood we used to share. The years and the paths we’ve walked have changed us dramatically and will only continue to do so as time prevails.

Give women power and they will make a woman of men.

Women in power are even more evil than men for men express their cruelty physically where as women exert their cruelty through subtle means you’ll never be able to see unless you refine your senses even if they don’t know it.

Women are at their best in service to their husbands.

#spirituality #religion #nihilsm #nihilist #nietzche quotes #nietzsche #friedrich nietzche #moral stories for kids #morality #no moral compass ✧*ﾟ open.#immoral #civilization #forced femizination #femboy #feminist #feminine #emasculation #betrayal #antichrist

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kusunogatari · 4 years ago

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[ Naruto OC x Canon Ship Week 2020 - Face to Face ] [ @naruto-ocxcanon-ship-week || @abyssaldespair ] [ Suigin Ryū, Uchiha Obito ] [ Alcohol ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ Trope: Online Dating ]

Nibbling her lip, Ryū stares at the slight reflection in her mobile screen. Thumbs flicker over the keys, not quite touching in indecision.

This is the closest she’s gotten.

The concept, admittedly, is just...not one she ever saw herself using. Online dating seems so, so...weird! Lining up your face, your name, a handful of facts, and calling it good. Is that really all it takes anymore? Sure, she...doesn’t exactly have mountains of experience beyond that. Maybe she’s just old-fashioned. But putting up something akin to a mugshot to try and find love seems very...strange.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Eeping in surprise, she claws the phone to her chest, face going pink and heart pounding. “N-nothing!”

Behind her, a coworker she knows mostly only in passing perks a brow. “Whoa, sorry! You looked kinda, uh...distressed.”

Ryū heaves a small breath. “...sorry, I didn’t mean to jump so bad. I just, uh...I’m trying one of those silly dating websites, and…”

The other woman quickly perks up. “Oh! Yeah they’re kinda scary at first but I met my boyfriend on one! I bet you’ll do just fine. Just be smart about it, and it usually all works out fine.”

“Smart…?”

“Y’know...meet in public places, tell someone where you’re going. About the same as a normal date for those like us, huh?”

At that, Ryū can’t help but deflate. “...yeah, good point.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. People gotta have their pictures on there. I take a pic of any license plates and send them to someone I trust just in case.”

Brow wilting, Ryū admits, “You’re...not exactly giving me votes of confidence here.”

“Hey, gotta be prepared for the worst, but the worst hardly ever happens. Besides, a bit of chatting online usually gives a pretty good indication of if something will even work. And you can always ask friends to go on doubles, too.”

At that, Ryū doesn’t answer. She...doesn’t really have many friends to ask, let alone any with dates she’d feel like asking along. “Yeah, good point. I’ll, uh...I’ll see how it goes.”

“Cool! Good luck!” Giving a wave as she passes by, her coworker heads around a corner and out of sight.

“...what am I doing…” Ryū mumbles to herself, looking back to her nearly-completed account. “I know this isn’t gonna work…” And now the less appealing sides are at the forefront of her mind. Maybe she should just keep her nose to the grindstone and pretend she never brought this up.

...but then again…

As much as she hates to admit it, she’s lonely. Being a pharmacist might be similar to her wish to be a doctor, but it’s not quite what she wanted. It just feels like something is...missing. And while Ryū isn’t the sort to assume all her problems can be solved by a guy (or gal), she’s still pretty able to realize that her social life isn’t the best. No real close friends, passing grades with her coworkers...not even any pets. Up until now, she’s lived life in a series of grinds. School, then work, and now...it feels lacking.

Hence the idea to try the app.

“...no harm in looking,” she eventually mumbles to herself, slowly going through the rest of her profile and hitting the confirm button. “You don’t have to go on with it, but...just look. See how it works. Maybe just...chat with someone. One step at a time, okay?”

Of course, by then her break is nearly over, so she mutes her phone and heads back to work. She...only ate half her lunch, but she’s not really all that hungry anyway. Only once her shift is over does she head back to her little apartment and...give this thing a real try.

At first, it throws nothing but male profiles at her. Which is all well and good, but...it’s not all she’s interested in. Looking over a few names and faces, she eventually bucks up the courage to pick one. He’s a few years older, lives a town over, and works as a physical therapist. Not bad, right?

...ugh, wrong.

As soon as they start chatting, she knows this...isn’t going to work. He’s all Mister Nice Guy, subtly bragging about himself and leaving only certain questions open for her in turn: the only things he wants to hear about, and...things she can easily see through as shallow. Eventually she manages to get him to shut up and quickly deletes him.

Okay...not a great first impression, but it’s not gonna be perfect the first time she tries. This isn’t a fairytale, after all. So, she tries another. And another.

After over two weeks of duds that don’t even get past initial chats, she’s about ready to give up.

Laying on her bed spread-eagle with a sigh, she stares up at the ceiling. What started as a vague inking is turning into nothing but a source of frustration. Not exactly what she signed up for. Weighing her options, Ryū eventually stirs when her phone gives an all-too-familiar notification sound.

Another match...wonderful.

Sitting up with a grunt, she opens the message and looks over yet another profile. At first glance, it’s just another guy. Ugh. The amount of lady-seeking ladies has been depressingly low, but...apparently those are usually on their own kind of sites. So, for now, she entertains herself with this one.

Obito Uchiha...huh. Vaguely sounds like her own Japanese roots. There’s a small spark of curiosity, adjusting her stance slightly. Short dark hair, dark eyes, and...well, his pics aren’t the clearest (he clearly knows his good side (or what he’s assuming is his good side since...it’s all she sees)). But she spies a cat. That’s a win. She likes cats. A glance at his actual profile shows a like of sweets, cats (aha!), and a dislike of...aubergines? Googling that, there’s a hum of understanding. It’s eggplant! She...didn’t know that...whoops. The rest of the summary (stuff about ‘being extreme’ and ‘having abs’) gets her to giggle.

Well...might as well give it a try.

Giving the okay, she opens up the chat window, nibbling her lip in thought. What should she say…?

Hello!

A bit surprised, Ryū jolts slightly, not expecting the quick response! ...hi!

I didn’t think you’d accept it so fast!

And I didn’t think you’d say hello so quickly either!

Oh, sorry...was that too fast?

The apology begets a subconscious smile. No, not at all! My phone is usually pretty quiet is all. Sorry if I’m awkward, I’m...still kinda new at this.

Ha, me too. I haven’t had too many matches yet, so I’m still practicing.

Guess we can practice together! Though I have to ask you…

...eh?

What’s your kitty’s name?

Oh! Her name is Tenebris.

Aww, I love that name!

She’s my lady, haha! Helps me reel in the girls ;D

Ryū can’t help a snort. Well it seems to be working. I don’t have any pets, sadly…

What? None at all?

No...I work a lot so I haven’t gotten around to it. And I don’t want them to be lonely!

Bah, cats are good at being alone. Feed them and clean their box and you’re fine.

I’ll have to think about it, haha~

After a few minutes, Ryū realizes...this is the longest she’s talked to someone on here yet. Sure, it was a little stiff to start, but by some grace they just sort of...fell into conversation. No posturing or anything. It’s rather...refreshing! Encouraged, she keeps texting as she starts working on her dinner.

So what kind of work do you do?

I’m a pharmacist! Not quite the doctor I planned on, but it works.

Ohhh, wow!

What about you?

There’s quiet for a few minutes, and Ryū can’t help but wonder if that was a bad question. But then Obito replies, Sorry, my cat got stuck behind the couch...I uh...am currently working on a garbage truck part time…

She blinks. That’s...very random. Nothing wrong with that. It’s an important job, after all!

Eh, yeah...not very charming though, is it?

Oh, pffft. I stand behind a counter all day and give people medicine over and over. It’s not exactly exciting most days. We all make our ends meet somehow.

I guess that’s true.

Smiling at her phone, Ryū keeps cooking and chatting, giving play-by-plays as he asks what she’s making.

Do you like cooking?

Mhm! Food’s one of those things that’s both a necessity, and yet can be fancy when you want it to be, so...I thought it would be good to learn. And it’s a lot of fun!

I’m...okay at it.

Maybe I can give you some lessons down the road, hm?

You would?

Sure! It’d be something fun to do.

Like a first date?

At that, Ryū pauses. Right...dating. That’s what this is all for. She almost forgot… Sure! If that’s something you’d like to do. I guess dinner and a movie is pretty common for that. We’ll just make our own!

I’d really like that!

Cheeks warming, Ryū beams at the screen. I guess...it’s a date! Eventually. Whenever we can make something work, and maybe talk a little more…?

Sure! I take a lot of random side jobs so I can be a little flaky…

That’s okay - we’ll just keep chatting until then. You’re actually the first person that’s been fun to talk to…

He sends a big smile emoji. Success!

You’ll have to think about what we should make! I have to warn you, I like making dessert, too…

Oh no...my biggest weakness…

And no eggplant, right?

Eugh, no.

Haha, noted!

The conversation runs well into the evening until Ryū admits she’d best get to bed. Guess I’ll talk to you some more later, okay?

Mhm!

Say hi to Tenebris for me!

Haha, I will! Goodnight Ryū.

Night, Obito.

Checking her other messages, Ryū plugs in her mobile to charge before mulling over the evening. As she does, a smile slowly pulls at her lips.

Well, she can’t make any assumptions yet, but...this is a good start.

Chatting with Obito quickly becomes a routine. Though not much of a texter before, she checks in and quips with him throughout the day. He tells her about his latest jobs, and she notes anything out of the ordinary at work. Days blend into a week, and then two.

“So…”

“Hm?”

Leaning against the counter, Ryū’s coworker smirks. “Seems to me you hooked one, huh?”

Her cheeks flush pink. “Um...maybe…”

“You haven’t put your phone down for more than fives minutes all day!”

The pink gets darker as the other woman laughs.

“I’m glad! So, you gonna see him?”

“Yeah, eventually...I think we’re both a little nervous.”

“That’s adorable. You’ll have to let me know how it goes! Been nice seeing you look so bright lately.”

Ryū blinks. “...really?”

“Yeah. No offense, but...ever since I’ve worked here, you’ve been so quiet and to yourself. But lately you’ve just seemed more upbeat and...I dunno, out there.”

The observation admittedly takes her a bit off-guard. “...oh…”

“It’s just nice to see you look happy, that’s all. I know a job like this one’s kinda drudgy. Glad you’ve got something to keep your chin up.” With a smile, the other pharmacist straightens and heads back to work.

Still a bit struck, Ryū mulls all that over. True, she’s always been one to keep her nose to the grindstone. Maybe having a bit of a social outlet just...got her going to opening up some more.

...huh.

So...any openings in your schedule coming up?

Uh...I haven’t really checked lately. One sec!

Waiting for Obito’s reply, Ryū nibbles her thumbnail. She’s going to do it. She’s going to ask him over. By now she’s gotten to know him pretty well. She’s always been able to trust her gut, and...she believes she can trust him.

Though just in case, she’ll be letting her neighbor know when he comes to visit.

Just to be safe.

So I think I actually have Sunday clear. Does that work with you?

Yeah! I’m always on a Monday through Friday schedule, so weekends are almost always good with me!

Okay...cool!

Any idea what you wanna make?

Make?

Yeah! Remember, we talked about cooking…?

Ohhh, yeah! Uh...honestly I don’t have any preference.

You sure?

Yeah, just no aubergines.

I remember, haha.

Should I bring anything?

Nah, I’ll handle it. Though I guess if you have a movie you’d like to watch?

Ooh, okay! Uh...any you don’t like?

Maybe nothing too gory…?

Aw, that’s no fun!

I saw enough in medical school, believe me...it’s not fun.

Okay, okay. I’ll pick something.

And with a few other details hashed out...they have a date scheduled.

Ryū’s stomach can’t stop fluttering: both in excitement, and in nerves. She hasn’t really dated since college...what if she does something stupid? Offends him somehow? Or something just goes...wrong?

Okay, no, stop it. It’s gonna be fine. You’ve talked a lot, so...no need to be nervous. Just do it!

By the time Sunday rolls around, she’s as ready as she’ll ever be.

Fiddling with her hair in the bathroom mirror (can she EVER get it to do what she wants?), she jumps as someone knocks on the door. Trying to manage her nerves, she peers through the little peephole, spying what indeed looks to be Obito.

Taking a moment to steady her breath, she pulls open the door and looks up just as he looks over.

...oh.

She always thought his photo gallery on his profile was a bit...empty. At first she hadn’t really noticed that all of Obito’s photos had been taken showing one side of his face.

So only now, with him looking straight at her, does she see what he’s been hiding.

The apprehension in his face clearly shows he’s awaiting her reaction, and at first she can only blink. Eyes naturally slide to the right side where a plethora of scars mar the skin from his brow to his chin. One even reaches up into his lip.

But though it’s a surprise by novelty, it otherwise does nothing to hinder the blush in her face.

...gosh he’s handsome.

Her gaze lingers on the scars for only a moment before lifting back to his eyes, cheeks rosy and giving a demure smile. “...hi.”

“...hey.”

There’s a few beats of awkward silence, the pair of them stuck staring at each other. “...s-sorry! Um...come on in!” Ryū steps aside, going hotter in the face. A nice button-up shirt and clean jeans make him look quite snazzy. Seems her blouse and skirt wasn’t too much or too little. They hadn’t really breached any ideas about how formal to be…

Stepping in, Obito glances around before clearing his throat. From behind his back he draws a little bouquet of flowers. “Er...for you.”

Ryū’s greys alight with delight. “Oh!” It’s cliché as all hell, but she loves them. Delicately accepting the blooms, she gives them a sniff before beaming at him. “Thank you! I, er...I don’t have anything for you…”

“That’s okay! I mean, food’s good with me, heh.”

Giving a giggle, Ryū retreats to the kitchen to put them in some water, setting the vase on her little table. “There…!”

“You...have a really nice apartment!”

“Thank you...I’m always either working or tired, so I don’t manage to mess it up much,” she laughs. “I tried to make it kinda...cute. I’m not exactly an interior designer.”

“No, it’s nice. It suits you.”

That makes her go pink all over again. “...s-so! Um...are you hungry…?”

Obito gives a grin. “Always!”

“Okay! Um...I thought we’d do something a bit...basic? Just in case? Do you like spaghetti…?”

“Yeah!”

“...okay! Cool. Um…” Awkwardness creeping back up, she claps her hands and giggles nervously. “Then, I...guess we’ll give it a try!”

The pair move back into the kitchen, where Ryū already has everything sorted out and ready to go. “Wow...looks professional.”

“Oh gosh, it’s just…” She gestures vaguely. “...I wanted to be ready so we wouldn’t waste any time…” Turning on the heat under the water, she thinks to ask, “...no food allergies, right?”

“No. At least...none I’ve found…? And I’ve had spaghetti before, it should be fine, hm?”

“Okay!”

A bit stuttery at first, she starts guiding him through her process, letting him take most of the reins and acting more as a guide. Obito listens attentively, looking exceedingly focused.

...it’s adorable.

“Okay, so with the grease drained off, we can add our sauce...and once it’s all combined, that’ll be that!” She, in the meantime, worked on a salad mix. “And the garlic bread should be about done, too!”

“You make this all seem so easy.”

She flushes pink. “It...just takes practice! And you did really well!”

“I had a good teacher.”

Once it’s all finished, the pair of them ferry things to the table. “Okay...you try it first.”

“Me?”

“Mhm! You made it, right?”

Glancing to his plate, Obito twirls some noodles onto his fork, lightly pink at Ryū’s watching as he takes the bite and chews. “...it’s good!”

Beaming again, she follows suit. And it’s perfect! Mouth still full, she gives a thumbs-up, making him laugh. Between spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and a little wine, they get through dinner with hearty conversation and increasing laughter.

“I dunno why I was so nervous,” she admits once they’re done, a cheek leaning against a fist as she twirls the last few sips of her wine. “I mean...we’ve been talking so much already. Guess I just felt kinda...out of practice. Y’know?”

“Yeah, me too. Though I try to bravado my way through things.”

“Well, we got through it. Should we play the movie…?”

“Sure!” He holds up a thumbdrive, grinning. “From my collection.”

“Oho!”

With a refill of wine, they move into the little living room of the apartment, Obito hooking up the TV and starting the film.

“What is it?”

“You’ll see!”

“Not gory, right?”

“Nooo. But...maybe a little scary.”

“Scary is okay. I like spooks. Just not lotsa blood and flesh and…” Her nose wrinkles. “...y’know.”

“Ha, yeah.”

They settle on the one couch she has, and at first sit...a little ways apart. They’d had opposite sides of the table before, and...well, this is new. But like a couple of dumb teenagers, they slowly meander their way closer, testing the other’s boundaries as they go until Ryū finds herself snuggled up against Obito’s side, head on his shoulder.

Obito, just out of her line of sight, is clearly ecstatic.

The movie starts out tame, but true to his word, it quickly takes on a rather creepy tone. Transfixed, Ryū stares at the screen, slowly worming her way further and further into the dip of Obito’s side.

...if she weren’t so focused on the movie, she’d realize that was likely his plan.

Obito, on the other hand, has technically already seen this one, and instead mostly watches for her reactions. The closer they get to a big scare, the more often he looks, biting back a grin until it finally happens -!

Shrieking in terror, Ryū scrambles for someplace to hide, and...ends up burrowing into his chest with a string of garbled, frightened nonsense as Obito does his best not to laugh.

“You okay?”

“I -! That -!” Her head shakes with a whimper, still hiding. “Nope. Nope nope nope.”

“Want me to stop it?”

“...nooo…” One grey peeks out, finding the screen a bit more bearable now. “...that was fricken’ terrifying! Ohhh my gosh!”

He just snickers, ignoring her continuing whines of discomfort. “It’s almost over, don’t worry.”

To his delight, she remains half-perched on his lap for the rest of the film. Once the credits start to creep up the screen, she loses her tension and goes limp. “...I almost had a heart attack…”

“Aw…”

“I mean it was good! But cripes, I wasn’t ready...eugh…”

Obito rubs a hand along her back, still clearly amused. “Gonna be able to sleep tonight?”

“...I better, I have work in the morning…”

He apologizes, watching as she tears herself from the couch and disappears into the kitchen. “...Ryū?”

No answer.

Brow furrowing, he makes to follow just in time to see her pull a pan out of the refrigerator. “What’s that?”

“Peach cobbler,” she sniffs, setting it on the counter and then fetching vanilla ice cream. “This is my reward for surviving your movie.”

“You’re gonna eat the whole pan?”

She shoots him a pout. “...maybe.”

He mirrors the look. “...I want some…”

“You have to promise never to scare me like that again.”

“Okay, okay. But wasn’t it at least a little fun…?”

Scooping the food into bowls, she thinks back over how nice and warm it was in his arms...and she could smell his cologne… “...maybe a little.”

They stay standing in the kitchen, leaned against the counter as they eat their dessert. Though not as lively as before, they chat in the quiet.

“So...on a scale of one to ten, how was our date?”

Ryū sucks on her spoon with a thoughtful hum. “...a nine.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Why not a ten?”

“Because you scared the bejesus out of me!” After a moment to pout, she asks, “...you?”

“A ten.”

“...really?”

“Good food, good movie...good company. What’s not to love?”

She...isn’t sure how to respond to that, so she takes another bite to excuse her silence.

“We’ll have to try cooking something else next time. Something spicy!”

“Not too spicy, it’ll make me sick!”

“Whaaat?”

“I have a delicate stomach...nothing too greasy, either.”

“That’s all the good food!” he laughs.

“It’s not my fault!”

“Fine, fine...we’ll figure something out. I’ll have to find some of my grandmother’s recipes. From Quebec.”

That earns a blink. She thought she heard traces of an accent in his voice, but didn’t want to assume. “...sure! I’d really like that.”

But eventually, the bowls and the wine glasses are empty. The movie is over. The hour is growing late.

It’s time to call it a night.

...but it’s clear neither of them really want to.

Obito offers to help tidy up, and that helps take a little more time. But once that’s done, there’s really no more excuses.

“...well…” Ryū fidgets a bit. “Guess I’ll...say goodnight?”

“Yeah, I better go. Don’t want to keep you up to late. And I’ve got my route in the morning.”

“Mm…”

She walks him to the front door, the pair of them lingering in the opening for a long moment. “...be safe on your way home. Text me to let me know you made it okay, all right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“And to say goodnight.”

“...again.”

“...yeah, again.”

Another pause.

Indecision seeming to make her bones vibrate, Ryū eventually makes up her mind. Stepping up a bit closer, she lays a hand against Obito’s chest and - with a bit of posturing up on her toes - she gives him a feather-light press of her lips to his.

Flashing pink, he nonetheless reciprocates, both of them easing slowly back apart.

“...goodnight, Obito.”

“...night, Ryū. I’ll...talk to you later.”

Nodding with a shy smile, she watches him head down the hall before forcing herself to shut the door. For a moment, she stands and holds the knob...then turns and leans against it with a sigh.

...it seems so quiet in here now…

Eyes lift to her little dining room table, where the flowers he brought her are still sitting in their vase. The sight brings her a small smile. As much as she’s sad to see him go...well, that just means she’ll get to look forward to seeing him again next time.

Next time...what a lovely concept.

Heaving a more contented breath, she makes her way back into the apartment. Time to get ready for bed, and wait to hear he got home okay. Then she’ll sleep, and start all over again.

...but at least now there’s something to look forward to.

All righty, another day, this one with Ryū’s ship with @abyssaldespair‘s Obito, set in a modern verse! I had...several ideas for these two, and picking one was difficult and ended up costing me time BUT, it’s done xD Hopefully I can get MORE done :’D But yes! This was actually an idea Meg submitted to me, with the premise based largely on Obito hiding his appearance on his profile until the big reveal! Ryū, of course, doesn’t mind his scars no matter the verse. She still thinks he’s one cute cookie x3 Anywho, I guess that’s...really all there is to say for this one! Hope ya like it Meg, and I better get to work on more drabbles xD

#narutoocxcanonshipweek #noxcsw #abyssaldespair #suigin ryū #uchiha obito #best years of your life [ au ]#online dating

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froggybaek · 6 years ago

Text

healing - seo changbin

♛➩ genre: angst, mega fluff, a dash of suggestiveish content that lasts for .5 seconds, single dad!au

♛➩ pairing: fem!reader x changbin

♛➩ warnings: mentions of death, disease

♛➩ summary: you’ve known seo changbin since your high school years. back then, he was surrounded by proud teachers, parents, classmates, and a wonderful girlfriend; now, he only has his little bundle of joy, a cousin from australia who barely knows how to manage a microwave, and you.

♛➩ word count: 9.2k

Seo Changbin has always been an enigma.

While you hadn’t been as lucky as others in being able to claim that you had known the mysterious boy since your elementary school days, you were able to make it known to the few friends you had that you got to witness his heydays; namely the four year period of high school.

You had been in the same year as Changbin, hell you happened to share a couple of classes over those four years with him. Anytime you needed to interact with him, more so assigned projects and less actual friendship related endeavors, you would find yourself stunned with his sheer intellect and determination to get an assignment done with the highest marks possible. If it hadn’t been for his endearing persistence in your music theory class - well, you probably would’ve been gifted with a big, fat F on your final report card before graduation.

However, Seo Changbin was not only remarkably intelligent; he was also incredibly friendly and helpful to just about everyone. Some folks with sour expressions and singed hearts tried to put down his accomplishments and overwhelming popularity, making rumors that he only acted so kind because it would literally be his job in the future. Obviously they might have held a teaspoon of truth to their stingy words, but it was even more obvious that Changbin was just a good person in general.

He liked to volunteer in his very, very thin amount of spare time; there wasn’t one set space for him to go, he just kind of showed up - everywhere. One time, you had spotted him volunteering at an animal shelter, cooing at a three-legged dog while he cradled a malnourished looking kitten in his arms. Another occasion you’d seen him volunteering was after you’d visited your grandfather at the retirement center, only to enter the common area and watch with a warm smile as Changbin danced with a pair of graying women, who had been giggling like young schoolgirls.

So, that was one spectrum of the boy that most everyone knew about. Some claimed that he had to have a sort of photographic memory, since he apparently didn’t need to study all that much to ace his hardest classes; which included the terrifying likes of anatomy and advanced placement chemistry. Those who said that he didn’t study much tended to trail off and make small talk of how they thought he did producing of all things on the side. While you knew the dark haired boy had an augmented creative side, you also knew very well that anyone aspiring to become a medical student had to focus mostly on their coursework - even if they had an impeccably large IQ.

You figured that was why he was so kind, even during the most stressful weeks of school. After all, committing your future career to become a nurse or a doctor was a difficult task that would likely lead someone to deal with even more difficult people. He would have to train himself to be patient and understanding, right?

Well, you wouldn't know. For one, you weren't all too close with him to make any sort of claim about either him or his dreams. Secondly, you were veering a great distance away from anything related to the field of medicine - you just wanted a simple job that involved kids.

That isn't to say you wanted kids of your own anytime soon, you just happened to get along with the vast majority of them quite easily, and they were entertaining in themselves. Surely a teaching career wouldn't be too far off the mark.

In any case, it was easy to say that you and Changbin were miles apart - from what little you knew about him, that is.

And that gap was only made larger not even a few months after your graduation.

“Morning babe.” Mark Lee hummed as he walked into the classroom, or studio, for lack of a better term. The brunette boy carried not only his giant backpack that was filled to the brim with textbooks and art supplies, but also a handful of snacks and two cups of - honestly you weren't sure. He tended to randomly pick and choose the drinks you would share during art class, so you could never be too sure what the next beverage could be.

You offer your friend a small wave of greeting, holding a hand out to grab the black reusable bag and one of the drinks from his trembling hands while he struggled to sit down in the chair next to yours. “Good morning, glasses.”

He whined at your choice nickname for him - all the while pushing his wide glasses farther up the frame of his nose. “I - will ignore your crude and very unimaginative nickname for once, because I have some tea to spill-”

“Please, for my sanity and your own, never say that out loud again.” You murmur in a monotone voice, bringing the lid of the cup up to your lips and taking a quick sip.

Hmm... hot chocolate with marshmallows. Delicious.

“- as I was saying until I was rudely interrupted,” he continued without missing a beat, though you happened to catch how he beamed gleefully at your small thumbs up to thank him for the hot chocolate, “do you remember Seo Changbin from school? You know, the kid that got like, three scholarships to colleges in America?”

“Yeah, I remember him. Why?”

Mark plops down in his seat, rustling in his bag to dig out his art supplies before the bell rang. “I found out from Lucas that his girlfriend got pregnant maybe two or three months before our finals. She gave birth to their kid about a week ago and she uh -...” He trails off quietly, too quietly for your liking.

“What? Mark, I didn't catch that last part.”

He gulps and looks up from the depths of his heavy backpack, nervously nibbling on his bottom lip before he meets your confused gaze.

“She died during the delivery.”

————————————————————————

Finding out that someone you knew had passed away was never fun. Even if you barely knew them, just remembering that they had at some point been part of your life - that was enough to have you slumped over in your seat for the next few days in each and every class.

She had been bright and always so full of life, as much as a high school student could be, anyway. The girl had her life planned ahead for the next ten years, from schools, to parties, even to when she would get married; and she had wanted so desperately to marry Seo Changbin.

While no one had expected the pair to actually stay together for the past three years of life, they had stuck to it as best as they possibly could for a young, naïve couple. Sure, they did have their ups and downs, like the time where she and Changbin argued in the middle of lunch about how he forgot one of their date nights; but then again, what was a relationship if there weren't a few mishaps here and there?

Around the middle of senior year, rumors had started to spread like wildfire around the school. People were speculating if Changbin would go off to America for his studies and leave his girlfriend behind, or if he would stay at home in South Korea just to be with her. Others, the more pessimistic ones to say the least, pondered crudely if he would dump her and leave without another word to the foreign country for their schools.

From what Mark had told you, Changbin had been planning to stay with his girlfriend - in a long distance relationship, that is. She hadn't been too thrilled with the idea of him going alone with no “evidence,” so to speak, of their being in love. Apparently she had actually been getting ready to propose to him instead of the more common, traditional route.

She never got to propose.

Instead, she had fallen pregnant with his child unexpectedly. She had begged Changbin to stay so they both could be real parents to their child, and he had quietly agreed. By then, they had started to fall out of love, even with their unborn child resting in her belly for nine months.

And then... then she had died, leaving their newborn baby girl in the arms of a now lonely Seo Changbin.

After you figured you had somewhat recovered from the shocking news, just about two weeks later, you’d debated on personally calling or messaging the man to express your condolences. For hours you sat in the rickety chair that rested in front of your desk, staring blankly at the screen of your laptop. For hours your gaze flickered back and forth between the text box that indicated you wanted to message the man and the now empty profile of his social medias.

Once the fourth hour had passed, you gave up and stood up, stretching before you went to shut your laptop - then you thought about how you would feel in his situation.

You would wish for anyone to express their condolences, right?

Wouldn't you want to know that someone else cared, that someone else was there for you?

Then, still standing in quite the strange, hunched over position, you reopened your silver laptop and typed the first words that came to mind.

‘She was a wonderful person, you know. She would be so glad that your baby is safe with her father.’

————————————————————————

“I’m sorry, you did what now?”

“I said that I - well um, funny story, actually! I might have, possibly, maybe, perhaps... let Chenle and Jisung monitor the toddlers?”

You let out a deep sigh of pure disbelief, running a hand through your hair before you ended up losing what little sanity you could possibly have left after such a long day of work. “So... you're telling me that you let the two youngest volunteers, who are practically toddlers themselves, watch over our own toddlers all alone for the past hour?”

The brunette shifting on his feet in front of you nodded quickly, offering a nervous yet cheerful smile as if it could magically make you forgiven his less than intelligent decision.

“Mark, I know that they’re your friends and you trust them dearly, but as volunteers they aren’t allowed to be by themselves with any of the kids under eight years old.” You explained to your coworker and friend, feeling a drop of guilt when his lips turned into a classic pout and his eyes drooped from his scolding. “I won’t tell Jongdae this time, okay? Just go watch over those two and I’ll handle the front desk for you.”

He glances up at you from where he’d been staring sadly at the carpeted floor, his shining brown gaze brightening up again at your soft words. “R-really? You would take over my spot just so I don’t get in trouble?”

“You’ve covered for me god knows how many times, dude. Don’t worry about it. I’d supervise the little demons myself, but I kind of want to get some homework done while I can.” You admit with a careless shrug, moving forward to playfully ruffle his already messy brown hair. “Hurry up before he gets back and sees whatever mess they’ve probably made.”

The boy (well, technically “man,” but you couldn’t really see him as one since you were the same age and still mostly acted like willy teenagers) practically bounces on the heels of his feet, all the while showing you his undying appreciation by vigorously spurting out soft thank-you’s.

Once he shuts the white, wooden door painted with a daft excuse of a sunflower behind him and enters the toddler room, you walk over to the front desk of the daycare and slump over in the rolling chair. The material is a bit worn and not too comfortable, but it would suffice for the next couple of hours while you worked on some sociology homework that might have been a few days late.

Since it is only the middle of the day, just half an hour past lunchtime, you weren’t really expecting anyone to walk into the daycare. When the dingy bell hung above the front door let out an all too familiar, but also unexpected sound, you nearly jumped out of your skin in surprise.

Now stood in front of the front desk, just a good two feet away from you, stands a man who looks a tad familiar. His entire ensemble reminds you of a middle schooler who just found out about Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco, which probably would've made you snort in amusement at any other moment.

But this man - if he was one, since he looked eerily young, somewhat similar to how you viewed Mark Lee, pulled off the all black look perfectly. His black undershirt had an odd white signa, likely belonging to a business or brand, stitched into the presumed cotton material. The man wore worn, ink colored jeans that were somewhat baggy around his legs, but not sleazily slouched; and his undershirt was tucked into the waistband, too.

Clutching onto his leather jacket, which was also, unsurprisingly, a dark black hue, was a baby. No, not a toddler or a clingy child, but a baby who couldn’t be more than a few months old - not with how small and chubby its fingers were, and certainly not with how the poor man had dribbles of what looked like milk running down the shoulder of his jacket.

“Um - hi,” you breathe out after an awkward moment of silence, offering the tired looking man a warm smile, “how can I help you?”

“I - I was wondering if-” his words are cut off by a loud wail from the baby in his arms. Squirming about with the little tot, he clearly struggles to try and calm it down, hissing in pain when it gums on one of his fingers. “Shit - no, I mean shoot - do you guys w-watch over babies?”

The raven haired man continues to try and calm the baby down, but to no avail.

“We do, don't worry... not to pry, but are you - are you a new father?” The question slips past your lips before you can overthink them, as you usually do, according to most of your friends and coworkers. When he only nods in reply, you can’t help but chuckle softly under your breath.

The rolling chair slides backwards as you push yourself up from the bottom cushion, making an insignificant ‘thump’ against the back shelving unit. You walk out from behind the desk and end up right next to the panicking father, lips curled into a sweet smile. “Can I try something?”

He glances wearily between you and his crying baby, which did make you wonder what had to be going through his head if he was so hesitant to entrust his little one with a stranger even though he had first come inside just to make sure your center also took in babies.

“... sure, go ahead.” The stranger eventually caved and gave in, carefully handing off his precious little bundle of joy off to your waiting arms.

You’d handled babies countless times since you were the one in charge of them most of the time in the daycare, not to mention when you were younger you babysat the little ones quite often. So, handling this cute, wide-eyed baby was nothing foreign to you. Gently curling it up into the crook of your arms, you swayed back and forth like a ship at sea being swaddled by gentle ocean waves.

In no time at all, the baby had calmed down, its previous wailing cries now replaced by adorable cooing. “Boy or girl?” You ask the man quietly, still grinning warmly as your gaze met that of his baby’s.

“She’s a girl - her name is Eden.”

One of your eyebrows shoots up in surprise at the name, as it wasn’t natively Korean in any sense of the word. Seeing your interested and confused expression, the man rubs one of his arms and continues, “my cousin helped me name her. He’s Australian, so he kinda only gave me English names.”

“What about her mother? Did the missus not have any say in this matter?” You tease the stranger, looking over to him, expecting to see a flushed or embarrassed grimace on his tired features.

Yet, all you see is grief.

“Eden’s mother... she died giving birth to her.”

“I - I’m so sorry, sir,” you murmur sympathetically, furrowing your eyebrows at how strange it is to know of two cases such as his own in just the span of half a year, “I... well I wasn’t close to the mother or father, but I knew of a girl who died during childbirth as well. It’s absolutely awful.”

“Damn, I knew I looked different, but I didn't think it was that bad.” He snorts dryly, his deep brown eyes flickering all across your face.

Confusion etches itself across your features. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s me, Changbin. We uh, went to the same high school,” he explains to you, watching closely as your lips fall open into a surprised ‘oh’ shape, “you sent me a message ages ago, saying that... that she’d be happy since Eden still has her dad.”

He was right - he really had changed. Physically, that is.

When he walked in, you hadn't even been able to recognize the boy who just graduated along with the rest of your class a mere eight months ago. You were so used to his freshly shaven face and smooth, shining skin with full cheeks that reminded you of a junior named Han Jisung. Back then, he had short, black hair that was in an undercut, perfectly framing his face.

Now, Changbin had stubble that only added on to his tired persona, complimenting the faded purple bags sunken under his once bright, gleeful eyes. His cheeks, once round and full like a squirrel’s, were sharp and somehow sunken at the same time.

“Thank you, by the way,” Changbin muttered, “for the message. I mostly got half-assed texts saying they were sorry for my loss. Yeah, they meant well, but - no one besides you said anything about Eden only having me.”

“She’s very lucky you know,” you begin to reply, glancing back down at the baby girl staring up at you innocently, “to have someone like you as her father.”

“Someone... like me?”

You nod at his questioning, almost conflicted tone of voice. “Of course. From what I remember, the Seo Changbin I sort of knew in high school was so intelligent that he had over seven offers from universities around the world, just for medical school. He also volunteered, like, everywhere and made it his job to make sure everyone he met was happy.”

His eyebrows furrow as if he was in deep thought, clearly contemplating your kind, comforting words.

“I’m afraid to say it, but that side of me died a long time ago.” He replies shortly, coldly, leaving you no possible way to continue to conversation without it becoming awkward.

What had happened to him?

————————————————————————

Daycares were naturally very, very loud settings. You knew that, Mark knew that, just about everyone understood that single factor when signing up to work at the decently sized childcare center just down the street of the local elementary school.

That didn't mean that you were used to it, though.

“Eden? Eden - sweetie, we don’t eat crayons.” You exhale tiredly through your nose as you pick up the brunette haired girl in your arms once again, pushing aside the twinge of guilt that strikes your heart when she lets out a pitiful whine.

It was like she knew that she was your favorite of the bunch, always whining whenever you lightly scolded her for her wrongdoings. She was only a year and three months old, but she wasn’t lacking in the intellect department by any means. If anything, she had the mind of a two or three year old toddler, constantly testing your patience to see how far you would let her go.

Whilst you carry the girl in your arms, gently hoisting her up so her rounded chin rested on your shoulder, you could faintly hear Chenle and Jisung crying out over the most recent mess in the art room. From what Jaemin had told you, Eden had literally led a pack of older children into said art room and somehow found it in herself to convince them to paint - but not on the papers laid out appropriately on the desks, no; rather, they painted on the floor and the walls.

One of the older children, a six year old called Eunwoo, had promptly explained that Eden’s babbled words were law to them. She had pointed to the paint sets, then the walls, and let out a cute giggle followed by incoherent noises of pure joy. To them, that meant ‘paint everything you can!’

How her dad never gave into her oh so persuasive babbles, you would never know - simply because you occasionally fell for them, too.

“So she’s resorted to trying to snack on blue and green crayons, huh?”

Speak of the devil.

“She sure has. She has also become the leader of the other kids, according to my knowledge.” You laugh in an exhausted amusement, smiling tiredly as you turn to face Changbin himself.

He looked as utterly exhausted as you felt, truly. Not that you particularly blamed the man, since he had just arrived back from working at the mechanics shop, which was already a good hour drive away from the daycare center. And just this morning, he had to make a run to another part-time job he had at the gas station closest to the middle school a few blocks away.

To put it simply, he overworked himself, constantly. While his cousin’s parents from Australia did their best to send him checks every now and then, they did still have their own family to take care of - and neither his parents or the grandparents of Eden felt the need to support him.

It was awful and cruel, in your honest opinion; how both families treated their son and granddaughter, like they were sticks in the mud. Changbin’s parents claimed that he disappointed them the second they found out he was going to drop out of any scholarship opportunities to raise Eden, and truth be told her mother’s own parents were too stricken with grief to even look at her.

Since he had no time at all to actually go to school, Changbin ended up taking three different jobs all at once just so he could support his little ball of sunshine. Anyone could see the mental exhaustion that seemed to just radiate off of him most of the time - well, except when he was with his daughter.

Whenever he was able to have time with her, its like he had the whole world in the palms of his hands. Changbin would give up everything for Eden with no hesitation, even his own dignity and respect.

“Alright sunshine, you need to say sorry to Miss Y/N,” Changbin cooed to his little girl as he scooped her up carefully from your grasp, his previously cold, almost haunting gaze switching into one of warmth and pure love, “come on baby, say sorry.”

Eden parted her lips, and for a split second the two of you shared a look of excitement - would she finally say her first word?

Then a bit of drool dribbled down her chin, not a single word or even a babble to show that she had heard her father’s encouraging plights.

“Ah, f-fudge... totally not a bad word. Nope.” Changbin nearly missed cursing, having sheepishly caught sight of your narrowed eyes when he stuttered on the dreaded ‘f-word.’

“Once she starts picking up on the things you say - and almost say, Eden will only repeat whatever her dear dad says,” you hum knowingly as you scooch closer to the pair, gently wiping the drool off of the brunette baby’s chin, “hey, isn’t her doctor’s appointment today? Or am I confusing it with next Monday?”

The man in question is about to reply when you unconsciously use the dainty yellow tissue just on his daughter’s chin to wipe off the string of drool that had fallen onto his stained blue shirt. When he doesn’t respond for a moment, you tilt your head up and quickly recognize the faint flush to his cheeks.

You should probably move your hands off of his chest - which... was pretty broad; snap out of it!

Without a word you step back, nearly stumbling in your sudden moment of sheer embarrassment. As if he too had snapped out of his stunned daze, Changbin clears his throat and nods. “I - erm, yeah no; it’s today. I have to take her home and give us both a quick bath before we go, though.”

You nod your head, willing your cheeks to not flush a deep red color as he talks. Why in the world has he suddenly gotten you so flustered and riled up?

“Hopefully it’s just an ear infection and nothing too serious,” he added, “I really don’t know if I can handle more bills, you know?”

Eden wriggles in his arms, slowly becoming restless. He leans down and softly kisses her button-nose, a cute action that always resulted with the baby giggling and grasping at her father’s cheeks.

“I doubt it is anything serious, Changbin. Don’t forget, a lot of the kids tend to get some sort of pesky infection this time of year.” You try to reassure the worried, tense man, offering him a gentle smile when he glances back up from his daughter to you.

He pauses for a second, digesting your reassuring words before he mimics your small smile, a sight that was rare to see from the normally stoic man. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I guess it’s just the first time jitters, then.” Changbin chuckles softly, readjusting his now yawning child so she could rest her puffy face in the crook of his neck.

“Call m- I mean, call the front desk if she does have an infection, please. We want to keep everything extra sanitized if any of the kids get sick.”

Nice save.

His chapped lips twitch into a hint of an amused smirk upon catching wind of your stammer, but he doesn’t call you out on it; thankfully enough. “I will, don’t worry Y/N. Hopefully both of us will see you tomorrow.” He hums, using his fingers to guide Eden’s hand into making a tiny wave before they leave, the glass door swinging shut behind them.

————————————————————————

Two weeks have passed since then with no call from Changbin. You were a bit worried, to say the least, constantly waiting at the front desk for the call that should have gone through days ago. Your co-workers kept insisting that it was no big deal, that maybe she was sicker than believed and had to stay home while she recovered.

“Think about it, Y/N - he’s still pretty new at this whole dad thing. He probably got so worked up about making sure Eden is recovering well enough that he just... forgot to call.”

That was what Mark had said, but you just couldn’t shake this awful gut feeling stirring in your stomach; something felt wrong. You hoped dearly that you were wrong, obviously. You hoped and hoped and hoped that Changbin and Eden were just fine, maybe taking time off if she was, in fact, sick, or perhaps her dotting dad had randomly taken them off on a trip for whatever reason. While the former was less likely considering his financial issues, it was all your fried brain could possibly think of.

On the fourteenth day of playing the waiting game, you just about caved and looked into the records so you could potentially call Changbin yourself - but then the phone rings, startling you so much that you nearly toppled out of the rolling chair you’d been sat in the past three hours.

You lunge to the blue phone, though you don’t answer it until you manage to properly compose yourself - you didn’t know who the caller was, but you didn’t want said caller to hear your hitched breath and voice tainted with worry.

With another deep breath, you recollect yourself and bring the phone up to your ear. “H-hello, this is Chen’s Daycare Center! How may I help you?”

“Uh, is Y/N working today?” An unfamiliar voice rings out in the speaker, causing you to quirk an eyebrow, since it sounded a bit younger than you expected - and pretty damn deep, too. “I’m Seo Changbin’s cousin, he’s Seo Eden’s dad. This is kind of important.”

“Actually, I’m Y/N - you’re Felix, right? Changbin has mentioned you before.”

The boy breathes out in what sounds like relief on the other line. “Yeah, that’s me! I don’t really have a lot of time, sorry, but there’s something... well, not wrong, but - ah fuck, I’m so bad at this,” Felix huffs, pausing to collect the words he needed to say, “basically, Eden is sick. I’m watching her right now while Bin is working, and no one else will pick up their fucking phone. Could you maybe come by his apartment, please?”

Eden is sick.

Changbin left his cousin home alone to watch Eden - while she’s sick.

Eden is sick.

You would really have to pay Jaemin and Mark back after today. “Of course! What’s the address?”

————————————————————————

You couldn’t believe that you were standing right outside of Seo Changbin’s apartment. You couldn’t comprehend that you, of all people, were knocking on the front door, snorting in amusement at the deep accented voice of his own cousin calling out with a, “just a second!”

In the corner of your wandering gaze, you smile to yourself at the sight of colorful chalk strewn onto the concrete wall of the hallway on the second floor. It was evident that Eden had drawn the pastel pink and royal blue flower and sharp green grass, and it was even more obvious by the straighter, less messy lines of the bright yellow sun and poofy white clouds that her dad had drawn that section of the cute little portrait.

Eden, unlike the other rather mischievous kids at the daycare center, preferred to messily draw on the walls instead of the floor. This quirky little trait even transpired at home, as well.

You turn back to the front door when it finally swings open, revealing a boy who couldn’t have been a year older than you or Changbin. Felix - yes, that was his name, if you remembered correctly.

Even though he was a tad bit sweaty and clearly out of breath, Felix’s ginger hair with slightly darker brown roots was somehow swept into a perfect swoop, his freckled cheeks a little flushed and red.

How adorable.

“H-hi, you must be Y/N,” he breathed out a warm greeting, not hesitating to let you wander inside the apartment before he quietly closed and locked the front door behind you, “uh, b-before you do anything, I should exp-”

“Eden!” You hum in pure joy as you walk over to where the curly haired girl was sat on a wool carpet, her back facing you. You hadn’t meant to interrupt the poor boy, but going a solid two weeks without seeing the little tyke had deprived you more than you thought possible. “Hey sweetheart, it’s Miss Y/N!”

She didn’t turn at the sound of your voice.

Not wanting to startle her too much, figuring she just hadn’t been paying enough attention to hear your familiar, happy voice, you bend down behind her and try again. “Eden? Hey, it’s me! I’m going to help Felix watch over you for a while.”

No movement, no nothing - she just sat idly in the middle of the living room, quietly playing with her wooden blocks.

Slowly, you tap on the little girl’s shoulder, finally managing to catch her attention. She practically whipped her tiny body around in excitement, letting out oddball gurgles of joy. Holding her stubby arms out, she wiggled and tried to stand up on her own two feet so she could climb into your arms; but you beat her to it, swinging her up with a gleeful smile and cradling her in your arms.

Now content with the giggling baby in your grasp, you turn back to Felix, your own wide smile fading slightly at his remorseful frown.

“She uh... Eden... you remember how I told you she’s sick?” He asked you softly, stepping closer so he could hold out a finger to her, the both of you watching as she clings onto him.

You nod in reply, prompting him to continue. “The doctors say that she has m-meningitis - technically it’s just bacterial meningitis, so not totally fatal, thank god.” He forced out a dry laugh, crinkling his eyes at Eden as she begins to nibble on the end of his finger. “Apparently she’s had it for a while, but by the time we caught on to it, it was too late. S-she’s already lost a majority of her ability to hear, so she’s partially... deaf.”

Oh no.

“They prescribed some strong antibiotics that are helping her recover, but they can’t help with her deafness. She won’t go totally deaf, hopefully, but she’ll have to learn sign language and will need hearing aids. Bin’s been beating himself up about not catching it sooner, so he’s been shutting down... he only goes to work and comes home to be with her as much as possible.”

“That’s why he didn’t call,” you murmur quietly, looking back down to the gurgling baby in your arms, noting the lack of a hearing aid as of yet, “how is he holding up? Besides what you just told me.”

Felix’s shoulders sag at your question, not that he blamed you for asking. From what he’d heard from his older cousin, you were one of the only other people that he talked to frequently and trusted enough to take care of his daughter. Other than himself and a select few co-workers from his various jobs, Changbin didn’t socialize much.

He also knew that you’d taken a liking to Eden quickly, and that in turn the father and daughter duo had gotten used to you just as fast; that in itself was pretty rare, for the dad, anyway. When neither Woojin or Minho had answered his frantic calls, he looked through the slip of paper that his elder had left him in case he needed help with Eden. One of them had been labelled ‘Daycare - Y/N.’

“He hasn’t been doing great, if I’m being honest,” he muttered, “he doesn’t really trust anyone other than me to be patient with Eden, especially now that she has to have someone around willing to walk her through everything again. He actually told me that he was going to call you, but he also mentioned that you spoke about being a bit flunked with schoolwork recently.”

Stupid, stupid Changbin - why, you would hit him when he returned from work! You constantly reminded him that you, or more so the center, was always on call in case he or the other parents needed anything. That was pretty much the policy, courtesy of the founder, Kim Jongdae, or as the kids called him, Chen. While the kids were the main priority and focus, it was also common knowledge that a handful of parents (especially newer, less experienced ones) would drop by for some tips or hands on experience.

On the other hand, you were a little less agitated with his lack of calls because he’d considered your own schedule - which had been pretty hectic for a hot minute, as you did tell him one day, but that didn’t mean you were totally off the handle. He knew that you adored Eden, as well as the other kids, and that you’d drop everything if it meant helping them.

“If I’d known about all of this, I would’ve come over to help...” you grumble under your breath, now going to follow the footsteps of the Australian boy as he makes way towards the tiny kitchenette area.

Felix chuckles at your mildly annoyed words, going to toss what looked to be a burnt pancake in the trash. “You know, he said that you would be pissed once you found out. Says that you have this natural motherly side to you.”

You blush a bit at his amused comment, but don’t try to argue against it. After all, you supposed that’s why you did so well in the childcare field; you just really liked kids and went with their flow.

“He also said that was part of what he found super hot about you,” he continued, a smirk spreading across his plump lips when your jaw dropped in shock, “he’s always talking about you, or Eden - or about how, and I quote, ‘fucking sexy it is watching an intelligent, kind woman taking care of his babygirl,’ course he says... other things, too, but I don't dare to repeat those words around his own kid.”

In an attempt to ignore the furious red blush heating up your cheeks, you clear your throat and hastily change the subject. “I’m guessing you needed m-my help with cooking lunch?”

Felix, thankfully, doesn’t bring up your sudden subject change, instead nodding sheepishly in response to your question. “I guess Bin didn't mention it, thank god, but I kind of... sort of... suck ass at cooking. Really, I just shouldn't step into a kitchen, it’s that bad.”

“Okay, okay - I’m not the best, either, but I can make some amazing mashed potatoes. And, by the way - pancakes for lunch is a fantastic idea, but not for babies.” You tease the younger boy as you make your way to the refrigerator, preparing to make the three of you a semi-decent meal.

The ginger flushes at your lighthearted teasing, but doesn’t choose to retaliate. Instead, he carefully takes a babbling Eden from your arms, giving you more space to properly make their food.

“We’ll go watch some SpongeBob, or something. Thanks for cooking, Y/N!” He calls out as he saunters out of the kitchen, bouncing and cooing at the brunette tucked safely in his grasp.

You laugh to yourself, lightly shaking your head as you pull out your phone to make sure you’ve got everything to make your lunch.

————————————————————————

Six hours have passed since the three of you were plopped down in the kitchenette, seemingly squished against the back wall with a pink and white backsplash. The dining table was a hand-me-down, likely purchased from a flea market, but you supposed it only made the small apartment all the more lovable.

You and Felix got along quite well, truth be told; he was almost the polar opposite of his older cousin, in a permanent state of bright smiles and bubbly, deep laughs that reverberated throughout the walls of the Seo household. He told cheesy jokes and switched between English and Korean if he couldn’t recall a certain word - all in all, he was simply endearing.

For now, though, the hyper boy was crashing in Changbin’s bedroom. You’d told him to get some rest since he’d apparently been at the apartment since eight in the morning and it was ticking closer to six at night. He mentioned having early classes the next day, hence why you’d shooed him off into the bedroom.

Eden was currently passed out beside you on the lavender colored couch, her head nuzzled into a beaten up Munchlax plushie that she insisted on carrying with her the entire day after lunch. She called him “Gyu,” which wasn’t technically a real word from your knowledge, but it warmed your heart to know that she could still recognize the name of the doll and actually speak it aloud.

Like Felix had mentioned before, she wasn’t fully deaf, more so 75% at a loss of her hearing; she could make out some words well enough, but she would definitely need to know sign language sooner or later.

Which was why you were scrolling through a plethora of YouTube videos in the early hours of the night, eyeballing and saving the more reliable looking ones to a playlist you’d made just thirty minutes ago. They all addressed the topic of hearing loss, both partial and in full, and some had guides on how to sign things such as the alphabet or more specific words. You saved tons of videos, ranging from English sign language to Korean sign language - just in case.

Invested in your journey to saving as many useful videos as you possibly could, you don’t hear the distinct sound of keys jingling on the other side of the front door, nor do you hear said door quietly opening and closing.

“Y/N?” A familiar voice tears you out of your focused state, making you jump in surprise. “What... are you doing here?”

You tilt your head up from the bright screen of your phone, flushing slightly under Changbin’s tired yet inquisitive stare. “Felix - Felix called me earlier, said he needed help with Eden.” You breathe out quietly, almost inaudibly to the curious man in front of you.

Tired as he was, he still looked absolutely stunning. On Monday’s, he’d go to work in a car dealership instead of the mechanics shop downtown - meaning that he kind of had to dress a bit better than he usually did, in terms of professionalism.

He was clad in a somewhat scruffy black suit, fitted well to his body but a tad wrinkled from his day at work. He also sported black slacks and shiny shoes with a classic red tie; although you assumed it was one his daughter had pointed out while shopping, since it was adorned with white butterflies.

“Oh - s-so he probably told you about her, erm... problem.” Changbin stuttered out, beginning to unbutton the top of his suit, not noticing how your cheeks heated up at the innocent action.

You also stutter out a soft “yes” in reply, averting your gaze as he tosses the suit aside onto the arm of a stray chair nearby, revealing a tight-fitting white polo shirt.

“I... I would’ve called, I fucking swear, Y/N... I just didn't know what to say. I mean, how fucking bad of a dad must I appear to be, not knowing that my babygirl was suffering this entire time?” His voice cracks as he curses at himself, and for a split second he steps aside to crash into the wobbly chair; but by then you’ve shot up from your place on the plush couch, your fingers wrapped around his wrist to hold him in place.

“You are not a bad dad, Changbin; far from it, actually,” you retort quickly before he can argue back, reassuringly squeezing his wrist at the same time, “please, don’t beat yourself up over this. Eden needs you to be strong right now, more than ever. You’re her entire world, she can’t lose you because you wrongly blame yourself-”

And with that, he crumbles into your arms, breathing heavily as he finally, finally lets his walls down. The man, just barely touching twenty years of life, a single dad to the most beautiful little girl in the whole world, finally gives into his emotions.

You don’t even flinch at the feeling of a tear staining your neck, or at the feeling of the raven haired man sobbing quietly against your shoulder. Opting to release his wrist in favor of bringing him into a tight embrace, you soothingly rub on the back of his white polo shirt, uttering soft words of reassurance.

Neither of you notice, but Felix had woken up by the time Changbin had first started to rant; in fact, he’d been silently leaning against the frame of the hallway when his elder cousin, who he considered his brother, crashed into your arms and started crying.

Changbin needed someone to help him heal, and in Felix’s eyes, you were just the right person to do so.

————————————————————————

Changbin was no longer an enigma, in your eyes.

You found out a lot about Seo Changbin in the following months, more than you ever would have thought you would know, in all honesty.

Like... how the Munchlax plushie Eden practically stuck to like glue used to be his, and that he even used it during and after his high school years; he would’ve kept using it, too, if it hadn’t been for the fact that his daughter had claimed it so quickly after she’d been born.

You also learned that the raven haired man had just, always been expected to go into the medical field when he was growing up; he didn't quite resent that, he simply didn’t have the same burning passion for it as he did with producing his own music.

You loved his music, too; it was so raw and real to you, especially with the tracks he still hadn’t finished since he was so caught up with working to support himself and Eden. He had three that stood out to you, although they still weren’t titled, lest you count the numbers indicating the folders they were long since abandoned in.

The first one was about falling out of love, and you could only assume it retold the story of how he had slowly fallen out of love with the mother of his child. It wasn’t as solemn as it was angry, his words harsh yet heartfelt as he wrote out how he was so, so thankful to Eden’s mother for giving birth to her, gifting him with the most wonderful little girl in the universe. He was angry that he wasn’t “better” for her, that he couldn’t love her anymore the way she had so desperately loved him.

The second one was purely all about Eden, or as he called her, his miracle. Yes, being a single dad with little to no outside support brought a shit ton of stress into his previously relaxed, simple life, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way. He’d poured his soul into the parts he did actually finish, and you were sure that Eden would beg him to finish it one day.

The third one was definitely your favorite, though you weren’t quite sure why. Changbin had made the song in his own attempt to rekindle his joy for producing, you supposed. He referred to two people simply called “CB97″ and “J.ONE” a fair amount, citing them as the sole people who helped him grow a love for rapping and making music; perhaps they could be reunited, one day.

Something else that stood out to you, not about his music, but himself, was that Seo Changbin was a sensitive person, for lack of a better term.

When Eden has finally gotten her hearing aids, he teared up. Then, they were turned on and he called out to her, only to have her respond with a bright “dada!” Then he full on sobbed, grappling onto your arm in the doctor’s office as his babygirl was given the chance to properly hear the world again.

He also cried when Felix had to go back home to Australia for a month so he could finish his freshman year of college - only for both of you to find out that he was going to move to South Korea for the rest of his college years. He and a friend had rented out the lone apartment right under Changbin’s.

Even now, you could faintly recognize a small sniffle that escaped his otherwise quiet persona. The two of you were on your weekly “date night,” as Jisung and Chenle called it, though you hastily insisted otherwise; not that... you would have minded if it were true.

“Hey, Y/N?” He murmured softly to you in the middle of the chilly night, his hands tucked safely in the warm pockets of his gray hoodie while you walked side by side through the heart of the city.

It was a Saturday night, so obviously the sidewalks and streets were infested with loud crowds and bright, flashing neon lights. You both were just heading back to his apartment after a night of drinking at a quaint but lively bar that one of his friends owned, not totally drunk, but tipsy enough to stick close to each other to the point where your fingers would occasionally brush against his.

“Mm, yeah, Binnie?”

You didn't quite catch how his cheeks flushed in the pale moonlight, or how his breath momentarily hitched in his throat at the nickname. “I - do you -”

“Spit it out, Binnie - if you don’t say whatever it is you wanna say now, you’ll forget by the time we get back to the apartment.” You hummed knowingly, having gotten drunk with the man before; needless to say, he frequently forgot what he was going to say mid-sentence, or he just got off topic for no real rhyme or reason.

“... I was w-wondering, d’you want to move in, with me and Eden?” He blurted out suddenly, albeit softly, nervously, with a hint of a drunk stammer to his voice.

Now, to put it lightly, you were the complete opposite of Changbin when you were drunk; even mildly tipsy. While he would cut himself off and put his thoughts aside, you tended to be very, very blunt and straightforward.

“Sure, why not? Dunno where I’ll sleep, though.” You shrugged honestly, content with the little diddy you were humming under your breath.

Your partner pauses in the middle of the moving crowd, attracting a few disgruntled grumbles and curses as everyone forces themselves to snake around your bodies on the paved sidewalk. Noticing he’d fully stopped, you turn back around to meet his doe-eyed gaze, confusion plastered on your face. “What? Did I say something?”

“Y-you actually-? You really want to mo-move in with us?” He exhaled in disbelief, his airy breaths forming into a thin, transparent puff of chilled air.

Feeling much more confident in your slightly tipsy state, you march towards him, right in front of him, actually; and nod surely. “Mhm. Is that why you were sniffling a second ago? Because you were worried I’d say no or something?” You ask him innocently, only to giggle when he gulps and nods in reply. “Wow, you must be pretty dense, Binnie-”

“W-what?”

“Cause’ I really fucking like you, and Eden, obviously - you’re really attentive and a great dad, which is like, reaaally attractive. Oh -! Not to mention Eden is the cutest baby in the whole wide world!” You say with full confidence, lips curled into a sweet yet bold grin, stretching your arms out into the cold air just to further your point.

Without warning, Changbin’s hands latch themselves onto your waist before he manages to maneuver your back against an out-of-order vending machine. His chest presses against yours and his breaths fan out onto your parted lips.

“Good, cause’ I really fucking like you too.” Is the last thing he says before he smashes his lips against yours, melding them together even though you were both in public, pressed against a vending machine of all things.

But - you could’ve cared less.

From then on it’s a giant blur of motions, the last part you remember ending with his knee rubbing up between your thighs with his hands tangled in your hair.

————————————————————————

You wake up with a soft gasp, eyelids snapping open to be greeted with the sight of closed blinds and Changbin - wait, was that... Eden, tucked in between your bodies?

Your sudden sounds cause the man opposite of you to wake up with a low groan, his eyes much slower and reluctant to open. But when they do, his lips part to mimic your surprised gasp from mere seconds ago.

“The fuck did we do last night?” His voice comes out quiet and gravely, involuntarily making your poor heart pound wildly in your chest.

“I - I think we crashed as soon as we got back.” You answer him, gesturing between your bodies as you silently point out that the both of you were still very much clothed and, thankfully, not completely naked in any sense of the word.

He lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank fuck we didn’t, well, fuck. Not that... I would mind, but Felix would’ve killed me since he was stuck watching Eden last night.” Changbin corrects himself with a deep blush, looking down at the sleeping form tucked neatly beneath the giant gray blanket engulfing a majority of the bed.

You giggle at how he covered up his words, sleepily smiling at the flushed man.

There’s a comfortable silence for a couple of minutes following that instance, your eyes flickering all over his bare, somewhat bloated features. He had a hint of purple bags under his eyes, though they were much better if you were to compare them with the sagging of his eyelids from when you’d first met him almost a full year ago; met again, technically. There’s a blemish or two dotting his puffed, red cheeks, but it only added to his charm. Not to mention his adorable bedhead and morning voice.

“Did you - did you really mean what you said, last night?” Changbin eventually broke the silence, opening his eyes once more to blink and take in your calm demeanor. “Y’know, with... the whole ‘really fucking like me’ thing, and the moving in with us deal.”

It’s your turn to blush at his teasing words as he recalls your mildly drunken state from the night before, a small smirk gracing his sleepy features. “Of course I meant what I said, Binnie - to both things.” You reply honestly, shifting in his bed so you could carefully tug the comfy gray blanket under your chin and over Eden’s exposed shoulder to keep her nice and warm.

“Good - that’s, really good.” Is all he says, suddenly caught up with staring at your sweet smile and pink tinted cheeks. “God, I really want to kiss you again.” He mutters, brown eyes fixated on your lips.

“I want to kiss you too.” You hum quietly, drinking in the little sunlight that manages to peek through the mostly closed blinds, the shadows casting a warm glow onto his and Eden’s figures.

He nibbles on his bottom lip for a moment, knowing that neither of you would dare risk waking up Eden just for a quick peck or a lazy morning make-out session.

You shiver in anticipation when his fingers suddenly move to your side of the bed and clamp onto one of your hands, then you’re left to become a blushing mess as Changbin brings your cold knuckles up to his lips, pressing a warm, delicate kiss to your skin.

“I’m so glad that you’re here, love.”

“I am too, Binnie. I am too.”

end.

#seo changbin #stray kids #skz #stray kids imagine #stray kids scenario #stray kids texts #stray kids drabble #stray kids fic #skz imagine #skz moodboard #skz angst #skz au #skz fic #changbin scenario #changbin fic #stray kids fluff #stray kids angst

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rp-the-elysians · 5 years ago

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late night adventure in the factory

A drabble (my broken definition of one anyway) taking place in the empty space me and some friends skipped in an rp.

A day full of hectic antics and adventure had finally come close to an end. It was getting late and most people had gone off to bed now, or at least anywhere they could claim sleep, man was it getting crowded in the cruiser. Though some were still awake, one of which being Octavius.

Due to certain forced revelations his head has just been swimming and refuses to relax. Fears and reassurances mixed in his head. What if scenarios bombarding his mind. He wasn’t even sure if he knew who he was anymore. But there was one thought in his mind that just stuck and kept popping up every now and then. ‘Get that file’.

It didn’t matter if there were hundreds of copies of that file across several factories on this planet. All he wanted was that one Cletus made him read. Just a physical copy to keep in his possession would give him a sense of control and put him at ease. So while mostly everyone else slept, Octavius quietly made his way through the cruiser. They were still parked relatively close to the factory so it would just be a quick walk.

Before Octavius could make it out though he was quickly surprised by a voice.

“Octi, what are you doing?” Aurora was still up but she was just about to head off to her room to sleep after grabbing some water.

“gah! You know as a doctor I would assume you shouldn’t be giving people heart attacks.”

“sorry, but you wouldn’t have gotten surprised if you weren’t sneaking around. What are you doing?”

“... nothing, nothing at all. It’s getting late you should go off to bed.”

Aurora of course didn’t buy that, especially because Octavius was clearly holding a flashlight in his hand he was bringing on his little trip. She gave him a look and he knew he had to say something more believable.

“fine, fine. I’m just ... going out for a walk, to clear my head. I won’t be far and I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Octavius you can’t just go out there alone in the middle of the night.”

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry alright.”

“no ... stay here for a moment.”

Aurora then left only to return a minute later with a flashlight of her own.

“it is too dangerous for you to be going out at night alone, thus I’m prescribing a partner. Doctor’s orders.”

“... oh fine.”

As always Octavius could just never say no to her. So they both left together then with Octavius leading the way back into the factory.

“Octi, where are we going?”

“... I just want to get something, then we’ll head back alright. It should be quick.”

The two kept walking then in a bit of silence. Every now and then though Aurora would look over to her friend and start to notice how tired he looked. How confused and lonely the look in his eyes was. She didn’t really get much time to spend with him after the little incident so now seemed like a good time to check in.

“Octi, are you ok?”

“... I’m fine.”

“Octi.” She put a hand on his shoulder to reassure she just wants to help out if he needs it.

“... do you honestly think I would be fine after today?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I just ... I keep going in circles. One moment everything is fine, nothing has changed. I’m still the man that came down here on that first day. The same man that’s grown up with you. The only other people that know what I am are people either in this with me, or show they don’t care. So there should be no issue ... but then a creeping feeling comes and it feels like I’m not the same man anymore. I’m something else. My name is the same, my face is the same, but I’m just not the same. I’m some lab rat built to be who I am now. I have no sense of self anymore, I’m just someone else’s project that got thrown out and into someone else’s arms. Everything I am could just be pre-made to be that way, no growth, no learning, no adapting. And then the fears creep in of what if more people find out. Sure it’s possible nothing will happen. But what if they feel lied to because I’m not a person in the sense that they are? What if they grow angered with the revelation and toss me aside as any other clone up there? What if everyone I hold close turns on me?”

Before Octavius could speak anymore he felt Aurora wrap her arms around him in an attempt to comfort him. It was working a bit.

“I’d never turn on you.”

“well of course you wouldn’t, you’re too kind to ever do something like that.”

“Others wouldn’t turn on you either. You know your parents care for you deeply, if anything your mother would probably just get more protective. Marinette would probably hug you to death trying to make sure you’re ok if she learned. And your friends aren’t cruel like that. Clone or not you still have a life, you’re still a person just the same as me or anyone else. You’re still my friend.”

By now Octavius could return the hug. If there is one thing in this life that can always lift his mood, it’s Aurora.

“oh whatever would I do without you? Thank you, really.”

“you’re welcome, I’m always here if you need a talk remember.”

“right.”

After a few moments the two dropped their hug and continued on their walk to the room they found Cletus in prior. The file still should be in there. As they continued though and Octavius’ head began to clear, another thought came to mind. He had this thought earlier but he was still in such a state of shock that he just couldn’t really question things at that point yet. But since they were here now it seemed like a good time.

“You know there’s something else that’s been on my mind for a bit. Of all the people you could enter a relationship with, it’s him? I’m sorry if this sounds rude but I just don’t see the attraction. Especially considering your last relationship, I would figure you would wish to detour from people like that.”

“You bite your tongue.”

Aurora’s tone was a bit stern it actually surprised Octavius a bit.

“he’s not like Kurt, you just see him more in a bad mood is all.”

“he has good moods?” That earned him a little push from Aurora. “I’m teasing, but really you have to see where I’m coming from here. The man has tried to attack me after all over simple situations.”

“I think he’s just quick to make jealous. But really, he isn’t so bad. When he’s calm he’s actually kinda sweet. And funny when he’s trying to be really nice.”

“and that’s all it takes to woo you?”

“well ... what also did it for me I would say was when I went to talk with him. You know I always think you can tell a lot about a person just by looking into their eyes. And Cletus ... he was just so broken down, desperate, and scared. I’ve almost never seen sadder eyes on a person. Just through his gaze he was crying for help. And when I gave that help, the joy in his eyes, the appreciation, the affection. I saw a good man in those eyes. A man that cared for me. He just needs a little patience and care to let it out more. He’s not inherently bad, he just needs some work and there’s a lovable man hidden in there.”

“You always have to go after the hard ones don’t you?”

“oh hush, besides if anything this also helps you out. Don’t think I don’t see those puppy love eyes.”

“now you bite your tongue.”

It just earned a giggle from Aurora and soon the two had returned to the room. It took only a few minutes to find the file, to which Octavius folded the paper and left it in his pocket. Then the two finally returned to the cruiser and go off to their rooms to sleep.

#Deponia #deponia ocs #octavius #Aurora #drabble #ive literally had this talk stuck in my head for months #finally time to let it out

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clean-bands-dirty-stories · 6 years ago

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Doctor Doctor ~ Stan Uris

Request: “hi i’m ~back~ cause i can never get enough of stan🤭 lmao anyway can i get another w aged up! stan where they’re already dating for like a few months the reader is always like tired and run down and stan like makes her stay home one day and just like takes care of her???? idk how to explain it but i mean,,,, if there WERE to be some smut in there i would complain🤭 lmao if not it is ok! if so thanks AGAIN i 💓💓 ur stories” - @campcampie

A/n: Man I love Stan too!!!! I love getting requests for him- there isn’t enough content ,my boy deserves better... I’M SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG UGH! - A. Pidge

Warnings: Fluffy fluff. Some angst bc that’s what I’m best at but it’s for like, a millisecond and then it’s over. Aso, yes, some smut because give me permission and I will be ALL OVER IT! Aged up to 18/19

Song Suggestion: "Can’t Sleep Love" by Pentatonix

MASTERLIST

College was really fucking stressful, okay?

Stan and I had long since been living together, starting out as roommates. We met at orientation, happening to sit next to each other. We got talking when some boy made a comment and I snapped at him, shooting down his insulting remarks. Stan backed me up when the boy tried to retaliate. After that, we started to hang out weekends and discuss college and living situations and... yeah. Why not live with someone you trust and know in a new places full of new faces, right?

Not long after we roomed together we started to realize that we were a lot closer than we’d thought we’d be. Our apartment was small and I couldn’t even count how many times we’d seen each other mostly or half naked in the bathroom alone, not to mention the added moments that happened when one of us came into the other’s room without thinking or just too tired to register or soemthing along that line. Things just happen. He was attractive and smart and funny and I was outspoken and organized. We took to each other, meeting in a lot of ways and then complimenting each other too. He admired how I organized his gut instincts and nonsensical habits and I liked how he drove me to focus when things got irritating or could keep me going even without caffeine- which came in handy for homework or study/cram sessions. Honestly it was no surprise even to us when he came into the kitchen one morning, spun me around, and slammed a kiss on my lips and casually asked me to be his like it was an every day occurrence.

It was nice to have someone to ground you in the stress and chaos. We were there to fight the long nights and the lonely mornings. We turned one of the bedrooms into a study room and shared the other, and it wasn’t even a hard transition. It was smooth, like spreading soft butter across bread. He was so nice and sweet- this light in my life that light me up and never failed to make my day better, even if I thought it impossible.

It had been a few months now and I was sure I was completely in love.

The last month and a half or so had been preparations for finals and honestly, I was working so hard between school and my job and my relationship with Stan that I was exhausted. I was trashed and worn thin. Stan would make gestures and try to cheer me up and it felt like I was just dragging him down. A heaviness in my stomach was born and grew until it felt like I’d swallowed an anchor that was constantly dragging me down. Stan was a balloon and this anchor inside of me was dragging us both down. I felt terrible.

Unable to shake the heavy feelings I had, I started to just avoid Stan. I worked and I schooled and I studied and I ate and I slept. Moments at home were spent without breaks or moments with my boyfriend and I could tell it was bothering him.

New fears started to rise in me. What if it was too much for him, me being such a mess? What if this happened every final? How were we going to make it through college? What if thi happened every time some serious stressor came into my life? Would I shut him out when bills got hard to pay? When a client was being extra tricky? If a boss was being especially difficult? How would we make it through life? I knew Stan wanted kids, one day. He’d mentioned it passively once while we were a little drunk. What if I was a bad mom and got stressed with the kids? How would we make it through life?

One morning I woke up to an empty bed, which surprised me because my body had just decided to wake up fourth-five minutes before I had work. It was a Saturday and I didn’t have school, but I did have work. Saturday’s Stan had one class in the afternoon. He used it as his day off, usually to clean and for date nights- which usually consisted of movies and bubble nights and such at-home activities since I was always exhausted from work. Because it was his day off, though, he got up at 12:00 pm exactly. No sooner, no later. Ever. So where was he at 6:15 in the morning?

I made my way into the kitchen just to see Stan cooking, shirtless and in his fuzzy pajama pants that I adored because he looked like a middle-aged dad and it made think of our future and smile because I swear to God this boy was the One. Now though I was far too distracted by his exposed midriff to give a rat’s ass about the future. The present needed some appreciation.

Walking up to him, I pressed my cheek to his back, wrapping my arms around his waist from behind. "Good morning, Darling Mine."

"Good morning, Babylove." My heart skipped a beat and I wondered if he could feel my blush against his skin the same way I could hear the smile in his voice. "Why are you up so early?"

I left a little kiss on his shoulder. "I could ask you the same thing."

Stan reached forward, turning the oven off. "If you’re not going to let go then hope on, I have to plate these omlettes." I giggled but indeed hopped on his back - with his help - , wrapping my legs and arms around him to keep my elevated position. It was childish and silly but I knew we were both enjoying the moment without any tainting of stress from school or work or general life. "I noticed you’ve been avoiding me." My smile feel, having forgotten my stress induced dodge and ditch in the happy grogginess I’d been holding onto. "Figured you were stressed." He got forks, setting the table and then pausing to let me get down. When I had both feet on the floor he turned to me, either of his hands on my face. "You know I love you right?"

His eyes were as soft as his touch was warm and the smell of food and the fluffiness of his hair- shit, he made me weak. I about melted right there, especially when he leaned forward to kiss me on the nose before resting his forehead against mine. My hands went to his waist, pulling him closer as his thumb brushed against my cheekbones. "I love you too," I nearly hummed.

Somehow he understood me, leaning back and motioning to my seat where my food awaited me on the table in front. "Even when you’re stressed and thighs get ridiculous, I still love you." I sat and he moved behind me, kissing the top of my head. "You need to talk to me instead of shutting me out." His voice was low and full only of love and care. I saw what I’d heard in his face as he moved to his chair next to me.

Nodding, I relaxed into my chair, letting the stress and angst roll off of me. "I know. I’m sorry, I’ll work on it."

Stan smiled and I forgot absolutely anything else. "That’s all I ask." We ate breakfast, talking as I told him everything going on and he gave me reassurance and validation and support and just made it all seem so easy and far away. We’d handled it. Together. It would be fine. What had I been so bent out of shape about again?

My alarm sounded in my room just as Stan stood to take our dishes to the sink. Instantly my stress back, my face twisting as I stood, sighing. "That’s my cue. Thank you so much, Stan, this means so much to me." I moved to kiss him but when I went to lean away he followed me. I tried to move away again but he stayed close, his hand brushing down my face. My hand planted flat on his chest and I was reminded once again of his skinny but fairly defined frame. Holey April he was so beautiful... "I- I have to go to work Stan."

He frowned. "Don’t go today."

"Stan you know I can’t just not go to work." I rolled my eyes, not allowing myself to even let a second pass with the possibility on my mind. It was too good of an idea. A whole day with Stan, with just an hour and a half break. "You have class later anyway, and I-"

"I won’t go today," he shrugged, pulling me close.

Looking at him evenly, I rose my eyebrow. "We are busting our asses off at jobs to pay for school, don’t give me that shit." I turned away, slipping under his arm and making my way into our room. I stopped my alarm, grabbing my work clothes out of the drawers and setting them on my bed. I took a quick shower, tying my hair up so it wouldn’t be wet. I got out, brushing my teeth on my way as I moved back into the room, toward my clothes.

Stan seemed to be waiting for me, leaning against the entryway into our room. His eyes scanned every bit of skin that the towel didn’t cover and I cleared my throat. His smile turned into a smirk. "Oh come on don’t pretend I’m so oblivious I don’t know that you’ve been checking me out all morning. It’s my turn to appreciate the view now." My whole face burned and for the first time since we’d first had sex, I was shy to change in front of Stan. I grabbed my shirt, pausing. He laughed at my awkward expression, seeming to read my mind as always. He pushed off the entryway and made his way to me, slipping behind me. His lips suddenly pressed against my exposed shoulder and. Shivered, my breath catching. "Now you know how it feels."

"Revenge for earlier?" I asked without volume as my air was completely stolen by him, my eyes fighting to stay open as I struggled to fight him.

His hands moved from my wrists to my shoulders and then across my back, fingering the edge of my towel. "Revenge? No. Simply a return favor."

We hadn’t had sex in a while. Even before I was avoiding him I’d been really wrung out and tired and just emotionally raw and with his stress as well we’d just not found the moment we were both in the mood. With the suggestive promise dangling in front of me, I dropped my shirt without realizing. "Stan," I breathily warmed.

He chuckled, leaning close and kissing my neck now. I sucked in a sharp breath, my head tilting to allow him more access without going myself actual permission to do so. He reached for my phone on the side table. "You deserve a day off. Relax. Let me help you relax..." I heard the phone ringing and turned to face him. "Hi, this is Stanley Uris. I’m here to call you that Y/n is REALLY sick, and she won’t be able to come in today." My eyes opened and I reached for my phone. He flicked my hand and my towel fell. He stepped back as I scrambled to pull my towel up, winking. I tried to glare but my lips were pulling into a smile I had to fight. He had his eyes on me, hungry, but when he spoke again his voice was practiced. "Yes, she’s so very sorry and hopes you understand. You can imagine how much of a fight it was with how good of a worker she is. So dedicated." There was a pause and he chuckled. "Yes, she’ll be well taken care of, thank you for your concern." The look in his eyes made me whimper. "You have a good day too." And then he hung up.

I huffed as he placed my phone on the dresser, a shit eating grin on his face. It was hard to stay mad at him though he wore it so well. "Stan, we have responsibilities-"

"And we can sluff them ONE TIME,” he reasoned. "You’re working yourself sick and I’m tired of how messed up we both are." His hands cupped my cheek. "I miss you Y/n. I want you."

I sighed, shaking my head. "Well, the damage is done." He dipped his head, kissing and nipping at my neck. "And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you too." He chuckled, blowing after leaving little mark after little mark on my skin.

His finger traced the top of the towel against my chest. "May I?" I nodded and he tugged it off of me. This time I let it fall to the floor and he leaned back just a bit, taking me in. "God, you’re beautiful." And then he kissed me, so deeply and passionately that I groaned. The back of my legs hit the bed and I sat down. He smiled down at me before leaning and I scooted back, him following as he moved over me. We stopped with my head on the pillow, my hands rising to wrap around the back of his neck, fingers slipping into his hair as he attacked my neck until he was satisfied, moving lower to my chest. "Good thing the doctor is here to take care of you, you look a little sick." He smirked up at me.

I laughed, the stress falling away again to give away to lust. "Doctor, Doctor, it’s an emergency. I need you immediately."

His words were full of promise as he teased, "Don’t worry Babylove, I'll take care of you."

And boy did he.

#stan uris #stanley uris #it stephen king #stan uris imagines #stanley uris imagines #it imagines #stan uris x reader #stanley uris x reader #losers club #losers club imagine #losers club x reader #jesse eisenberg faceclaim

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aria-i-adagio · 5 years ago

Text

What You Take Won’t Kill You

Masterpost

Fandom: The Arcana

Chapter Rating: T with a squeeze of lime

By the time Portia’s deft hands have finished with my hair and face, I’m so dolled up that I feel as though I’m impersonating someone else - an actress standing in the middle of a stage, praying that the lines that she’s forgotten return to her. The fabric and the cloud of expensive fragrance that surrounds me change my posture. My back is held straighter, my steps are smoother, more confident. Perhaps, instead of a costume, I can think of it as a kind of armor that will make it easier to suffer through the next hour. Portia has her arm hooked in mine, and I'm not sure if it's support or to make sure I won't run away. Probably a little bit of both.

Nadia awaits us in the room with the horrible goat painting, this time set up for a more intimate dinner. Two sets of tableware are already laid, and Portia gives a nod towards the chair closest to the Countess's before whispering conspiratorially in my ear. "I'll keep the booze coming. Won't hurt." She slips into her servant persona again, all prim and proper.

"Dema. It seems the Palace is becoming to you." Red eyes flicker over me, and for the first time feel that she is appreciating my appearance. I'm still not entirely sure about what to do with her. I don't care for the trick that she pulled with my cards - though it was admittedly quite clever. And my sympathies certainly lay more with the Doctor than with the Countess. But...she has resources that I might need if I'm actually going to discover what happened three years ago. And if nothing else, I'll get another good meal out of this. I can't cook for shit and when Asra is gone, I typically eat whatever stuff on a stick the market is serving up that day.

"My lady." I lower my head slightly, which is all of the bow I'm going to give her. "I can't say that I haven't enjoyed any of my stay here."

A gracious nod tells me she appreciates my gesture - minimal as it is - and suggests that no more is demanded of me. "I am told the collection of things you brought was quite remarkable. If there is anything else you need, let Portia or me know. It will be taken care of."

"I'd appreciate a little more time in the library. Uninterrupted." I pause, then add on. "And my sandals did take a bit of beating while running about the city today."

"Can do!" Portia pipes up, and I see a brief expectant smile in the Countess’s red eyes as she’s reminded of Portia’s presence. "I know what you can do, milady. Pretend it's Dema's birthday."

Birthday?

An excited finger pokes my ribs. Birthdays seem to be a good thing in the magical world of Portia. Nadia smiles at her handmaid’s antics. “Hmm, I can think of some other gifts for you. And I hear the kitchen has already prepared a lovely cake. And some . . . guests . . . since you have a penchant for fraternizing with your prey, I thought it would be nice to invite them along to share our meal. What do you say?"

When is my birthday anyway? And fraternizing with my prey? Does the Countess know that I spoke to Julian at the bar? Or that he broke into my shop. That would be . . . unfortunate, primarily for me. Unless, of course, she had somehow caught him. For a moment, I’m afraid that Julian will be pushed into the dining room with manacles on his wrists, but the only people who enter are the two guards, once again in their normal uniforms. I manage not to sign in relief.

"Let them stay. They played your game well."

“I suppose our two fierce creatures do deserve a reward.” She indulges me with a smile. "Take seat, please, all of you. It is time for a little something to warm your hearts and steady your nerves, even if it is just for a little while."

It seems a servant has been waiting outside already, bringing fine silver cups filled with ice and sprigs of mint and something gingery, judging by the smell. Portia takes place to stand at her mistress's side, seeming more like a proud mother hen than a social inferior. "Sit, please, before the ice melts."

Overly aware of my dress, I tuck it around my legs and take my seat near the head of the table. Another servant enters and lays out two place settings at the other end, as far of the Countess as possible. That won't do. I get back up, walk down to the end of the table, collect the flatware and the plates and bring them back to the head of the table, setting them down across from mine, and giving the Countess a pointed look. Let them stay does not mean to exile them to the far end of the table.

The Countess stares down her nose her me, and then a slow smile overtakes her face. "While I understand your point, my esteemed Dema, I very much doubt you are doing them a favor." I want to read her smile as icy, but isn't, not really. She seems more... amused? Indulgent is perhaps the right word. Someone allowing the antics of a favored pet to play out before tightening the leash again.

Portia seems to be suppressing a giggle as she quickly rearranges the flatware back into the proper order as I walk back to one own place and take my seat. The Countess's comment about not doing them a favor may have been right. Both guards look entirely terrified as they take their places across from me. Ah well. Of course, in using them to make a point of the Countess, perhaps I wasn't behaving much better than she herself had.

"Have you recovered from your trials?" Nadia asks friendly little questions, polite and amicable, but somehow so very... no, distant is not quite the right word. Far away, maybe, or lonely, the same kind of lonely a traveling merchant has when staring into a tavern fire during a long night. She’s simply far better in masking it with friendly chit chat. Undoubtedly, Portia briefed her in about those two, and she manages to keep a conversation flowing, even if it's mainly her asking the questions.

Unfortunately, her polite questions turn to me. “Tell me more about yourself, Dema. Where are you from?”

“Umm.” I grab my wine glass and hastily drink from it, in a bid to stall for time. “It’s far from here. Small town. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”

"You might be surprised. I have heard of an astounding amount of small places. It is important to know such..." For a second, her voice breaks, and she looks like she's bitten on something vile, food or memory. A hasty sip of wine. "But I cannot blame anyone for getting drawn in by the big city. Of course not. Adventure and money, whatever you prefer."

"A little of both, I suppose." A servant whisks away the ice, replacing with some sort of fish involving chopped and highly spiced raw fish. I push a bit of fish around my plate, trying to figure out a way to turn the conversation to a different topic. “I moved here to work with my aunt. She, uh, owned the shop before me.”

"So you have lived here for a while?" One of the guards asks, glad to be out of the spotlight. "You like it? We rarely get into town itself. Feels like it changed a lot."

“Oh, you know how is it,” I dissemble and wish that I had a god to pray to that no one else would ask questions about my life or past. “Things change slowly, and you hardly notice it at all.”

Nadia inserts herself back into the conversation. “Was your aunt a card reader as well?”

“She -” I don’t know much about my aunt either. Asra’s told me that the shop was once hers, and I’ve inferred some things from the contents of thereof, but I don’t know any real details. “She mostly worked with herbs.” I stuff my mouth with another bite of the fish, hoping for a reprieve from her questions.

“Ah, botanical magic, how pleasant.”

“Um, yes. This fish is quite nice.” Please let that distract her. Or maybe she’ll just ask me about herbs and flowers. I can answer those questions.

“The kitchen here does admirably well, but I’m afraid they haven’t quite managed to replicate the flavors I remember from my childhood. Nonetheless, it is a wonderful dish for a summer night.”

A servant whisks my empty plate. Nadia pushes back her chair and stands. At the other end of the table, Bludmila and Ludovico drop their utensils in unison. “Portia, please have the sorbet and desserts Dema and I sent to the veranda. I think I would like to enjoy the night air a bit. And -” She tilts her head down to look at me. “I would like to speak a bit more privately.”

I follow her out onto the veranda. Lamps sway along the railing, providing sufficient light, but no so much as to overwhelm the sense of nighttime solitude. Nadia settles herself into a wicker chair at a small table. As a servant places two dishes of icy sorbet topped with mint sprig, I take the seat across from hers. She picks up the petite spoon from the dish and gently scraps a bite from the sorbet. I decide to be polite this time and mirror her actions. The sorbet is cherry - tart and only slightly sweet. It complements rather than clashing with the lingering taste of the spiced swordfish.

“I fear that I may not have made the best of impressions on you, Dema.”

The mouthful of sorbet melting on my tongue conveniently keeps me from quipping about her understatement. She continues without waiting for a response.

“I’m not unaware of the current state of disorder in the city. My motivations with this investigation are simply to begin to restore the city’s order and perhaps its faith in my competence as a leader. To do that, I must establish what happened three years ago and see Count Lucio’s murderer brought to justice.”

“How is it that you don’t know what happened?”

She sets her spoon down and looks over the railing. Her lips are pressed together into a thin line as she gazes at the darkness over the garden. As I wait for her response, a massive snowy owl lands on the railing beside her. She smiles and reaches out, stroking the owl’s head and speaking to it. “Ah, Chandra, it’s good to have you here, old friend.” The owl hoots gently at her. She turns back to me and takes a deep breath - the first sign nervousness I’ve seen from her since those first few moments in my shop. “What I am about to tell you must remain entirely between the two of us.”

“My lady?”

“Please. Nadia. Too few people call me by my name these days.” She presses a hand to her temple, ever so briefly gnaws at her thumb, and then lets her hand fall back into her lap. “I have - almost no recollections of my time in this city.”

“Your memories are missing?” That single sentence changes my entire impression of the Countess, but I’m not yet willing to give into the sudden surge of empathy that fills me.

“Sometimes I recall hints of the past. Whispers. But anytime that happens, I also experience excruciating headaches . . . blinding really. I remember agreeing to marry Lucio. Coming to Vesuvia during the masquerade nine years ago, but everything in between, my memories are like being lost in a fog on some lonely island.”

“That -” I allow my own spoon to clatter against the sorbet dish. What I’m about to say is as much of a understatement as the Countess’s comment on having failed to impress me. “Would be disconcerting.”

“Yes.” The Countess turns back to the owl and runs her fingers over its glossy feathers. “Portia is the only other person aware of my . . . predicament. But I think you will now understand why I must know what happened, and who I can trust. My courtiers tell me that Dr. Devorak is guilty. If he is, so be it, he will hang when I apprehend him. Which is at least an improvement on the gladiatorial trial by combat some of my courtiers would like to see return. But I am not entirely convinced that they are telling me the whole story, or even a true story. I will be just as content if you find he is innocent, so long as we establish the truth.”

“Why me?”

“I came to your shop because I continually saw your sign - the snake wrapped around an apothecary’s mortar and pestle - in my dreams. I don’t know what I expected.” She pauses and fixes me with another appraising look. I doubt that I am anything like what she expected. “But I think that I can trust you. You have little interest in telling me what I want to hear.” She rubs both of her temples. The muscles in her face have gone taut, probably another headache coming on. “Perhaps you will think a little more kindly of me now?”

“If your goal is to establish the truth, I can agree to help you with that.”

“That is all I require of you.” The Countess stands, and Portia materializes from the shadows. “I believe I will retire for the evening. Portia, would you see Dema back to her guest room and provide her with anything she needs?”

Portia links her arm in mine as we stroll along the veranda, taking an alternate route back to the guest room. “See, that wasn’t so bad.”

“I suppose not.” I had made it through dinner without staining the white dress, and the conversation with the Countess had been illuminating. Her intentions might not be as horrible as they seemed at first. Perhaps she was more misguided than anything. It was a vulnerable state, to be reliant on someone else to fill in information from a large chunk of time. More vulnerable than I really liked to admit. “So, the Countess has lost all of her memories of Vesuvia?”

“Yeah . . . I wasn’t exactly sure when I should tell you that, sorry.” Portia let go of my arm to push open a door leading back inside. “I wanted to earlier. But, I’m glad that she told you.”

“So it really has been the courtiers running Vesuvia?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Oh?” I elbow her side gently, finally haven’t become accustomed to her familiarity. “Sounds like you have opinions?”

“As always.” She looks around the hallways, reassuring herself that they’re clear before continuing. “They’re - well, you’ll meet them soon enough. But Valerius is the only one who seems concerned at all about the city, and he has a certain expectation about how things should go. Then there’s Valdemar . . .” She shivers. “I don’t know if I even want to know what they’re up to. Certainly wouldn’t help me sleep if I found out.” She takes my arm again. “But, you’ve had quite a long day, let’s get you back to bed.”

***

When I got back to my room, I undressed and curled up in bed hugging a pillow and hoping for a bit of sleep. I wasn’t surprised when it didn’t. I rolled back out of bed and paced the room trying to burn off the nagging wrongness - something missing - I felt deep in my bones. Faust’s presence would be welcome, but tonight she’s nowhere to be seen. With a sigh I settled myself on a the sofa with a glass of water from the carafe that had thoughtfully been left in the room and took Asra’s deck from my bag of belongings. Leaning back against the plush cushions I let my mind turn for a moment. I have questions about Nadia and Julian both. Nadia’s motivations are a bit clearer now, but I can’t quite bring myself to trust her. And Julian - why did I almost immediately feel connected with him? It couldn’t just be his past with Asra, whatever that had or hadn’t been?

I settle on Julian as a topic of intrigue and shuffle the deck several times before cutting it and laying out the top three cards. I pause before turning them over in quick succession. The Moon, the Hanged Man reversed, and the Ace of Cups. I let my fingers hover of the spread, but the cards were quiet. Or perhaps, they were simply drowned out by my own mind howling at the moon. The Hanged Man still seems appropriate to Julian - one so buffeted by the waves of fate that he’s simply given up and hopes to be washed up on some shore. The Ace of Cups should feel more promising than it does, but the idea of an overflowing cup is only reassuring if you’re not the one being asked to empty yourself. I close my eyes. There’s only one person who might actually answer my questions about Julian. Besides, if I wandered off to bar even if I didn’t find him, I could simply fall back on my usual strategy for coping with insomnia and existential dread: wine, music, sex - anything to deaden the roar of my mind.

Given the way the palace gardens and the field wrapped around this city, the bar with raven signboard is actually closer than my usual haunt near the shop. And, certainly, more interesting. As I had suspected, business had picked right back up once the guards had left. In fact, a fiddler had been added to the mix, along with a somewhat drunken accordion player. I order a couple of drinks from the bar - neither Portia’s purloined champagne or the wine over dinner had been enough - then surveyed the room, quickly spotting the person I hoped to find again when I left the Palace.

“Mind if I sit here?”

A very surprised Julian looks up at me as I set my drinks down next to his. “Not at all. I wasn't expecting to see you again tonight.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” I sit down across the table from him and throw back the double shot of harsh liquor I held in my head, chasing it with the significantly better beer. Julian raises his eyebrows and looks vaguely impressed. But then wine from dinner had merely been a drop in the bucket of my ever expanding alcoholism. After all, why should I bother to keep the present clear when the past was so blurry.

He glances over my clothes, then smirks. “Whatever are you wearing, my dear?”

“Oh.” I hadn't really thought about coordinating when I shrugged into some combination of clothes that covered the important bits. I was in my old canvas trousers (someone in the palace laundry had expertly mended the ripped hem) and a loose sleeveless top of my own. A black silk robe that had been tossed across the back of the sofa was over that, just skimming the tops of my thighs. I suppose it was intended to be a bathrobe, or a dressing gown. It was doing well enough as an overshirt, if well enough was limited to providing one more layer against the evening chill. I return his smirk. “What? You don’t think this fits with my general bohemian aesthetic.”

Julian laughs, and I feel a warmth beginning in my belly, once that has nothing to do with the alcohol or even lust. I've heard this laugh before - I know, I just know - and I want to keep hear it again and again. “Don't worry about it. I'm sure you’d look fetching in a flour sack. You certainly do in whatever this is.”

“You’re the one wearing gloves indoors and a shirt missing most of its buttons.”

“Fair enough.” He shrugs, eyes glassy with drink. “You do realize that Nadia'll hang you with me if she finds out you've known where I am and haven't told her.” He reaches across the table and strokes the side of my head that collided with the door frame the other night. The familiarity is both unexpected and yet, it somehow feels right. “Your head hasn't been bothering you has it?”

My head always bothers me, but not from the knock the other day. Whatever he did to heal the concussion lasted. “See, I’m having trouble reconciling that concern with a cold blooded murderer.”

“Even murderers are entitled to some moral complexity, my dear.” He drinks his beer, gaze shifting from side to side and then down at his gloved hands. He rubs his right hand across the back of the left, lips pursed in an utterly abject expression. “If I even am a murderer.”

I lower the beer that I had almost raised to my lips back down on the table. “If? You don’t know.”

“I, well -” He leans forward over the table, dropping his head into his hands. “I don’t remember much of what happened the night Lucio died. Everything from then - not just that night, all of the plague, really - is foggy, confused.”

More missing memories? His, the Countess’s - mine. If amnesia is the running theme, was I involved in the murder somehow? And what else had been involved to disorder so many people’s minds? There wasn’t much in the books I had access to about losing memories, but what little I had found was consistent in noting that it was extremely uncommon outside of old age or significant trauma. Julian and Nadia both have a clear connection to the Count and his murder, but I don’t - at least, not as far as I know. But there is an awful lot that I don’t know.

But, more to the immediate point. “Why are you in Vesuvia then? Do you want to die for a murder you may not have commited?”

“Does it matter? Look, sailing with pirates for three years gives a man a lot of time to think and all I know is that I’m guilty of something. I have to be, to feel the way I do.” He lifts his head for a moment before dropping it back against the table, arms crossed in front of him. “Besides, if it's my fate to hang, then there's no, um, no point in continuing to run from it. Maybe I’ll at least get some kind of answer out of dying.”

There's something about seeing him so despondent that makes me want to wrap both my arms around him - and tightly. I start to reach my hand across the table, then jerk it back. I've had plenty of bleak interludes, but what I feel right now is some emotion that goes unexpectedly beyond casual empathy. Some bizarre sense that he is important to me. A piece of heirloom jewelry that was lost and is now found, or a rare book once read in a library and now available for redemption on a vendor’s table. I’m not quite sure how to explain away the sentiment or just what to do with it. But not acting isn't an option. I slowly extend my hand until my fingers are resting on his shoulder. “It wasn’t you.”

He raises his head, just enough to meet my eyes. “You can’t tell me that I’m innocent. You don’t know that.”

“No.” I lift my fingers from his shoulder and stroke the lock of hair that’s falling over his face. “But I know you’re not a bad man.”

“How?”

“I -” This isn’t like the cards whispering to me. This is something more real, something from inside of me. The words are distant, as if they’ve been shouted through a fog and had to echo over open water before reaching me, but but unlike the cards, the words are my own, and I know they are true. My fingers brush against his cheekbone. “I just do.”

“You really are a little fool.” His head tilts, leaning into my fingers. I stroke his hair and his cheekbone, waiting for him to say something else. The fiddler pulls a long morose note from the strings that wavers in the air. He sits up and tosses a coin across the room to the musicians, calling for something happier, faster. The accordionist catches it adroitly and the pair begin a quick paced tune.

Julian takes another drink of his beer and smiles at me - it only looks half forced - before standing and bowing dramatically, one hand extended to me. I return his smile and toss back the remains of my beer. This may not be an answer but it is part what I was hoping for when I came - to find someone to dance with into the energy running through my body gave out. Anyone would do, honestly, but at the moment, Julian intrigues me. I stand up and take his hand. Eyebrow arched in what might be surprise, he takes my hand, his grin becoming more genuine as he does.

He is, as I suspected, a fine dancer. And dancing him with isn’t as awkward as I would have expected, given that he’s head, shoulders, and bit of ribcage taller than I am. I feel as if he knows the steps I’m going to take before I do. We whirl through two songs before returning breathless to our table and signaling to the barkeep for more beers, which Julian helpfully goes to fetch.

He slides close to me on the bench, wrapping an arm companionably around my shoulders. “Why the trouble sleeping, lovely?”

I shrug. Honestly, I don't know. Sometimes, I just got too agitated to sleep for days on end for absolutely no apparent reason at all. And then the sleeplessness only snowballs on itself as the agitation takes over, tearing into my consciousness like a vulture working on a fresh carcass, until finally, my mind is so far from my body that the latter can simply crash down into bed. But Julian looks like he knows a few things about not sleeping. Reaching out, I run my finger along the dark circle under his uncovered eye. “And how well do you sleep?”

“I'll sleep when I'm dead.” He leans over me. “You smell good.” He traces the line of my now exposed collarbone. I lean into his touch, running my tongue across my bottom lip. But then he shakes his head, straightens up there robe tied over my shirt, and pushes my hair back from my face. I narrow my eyes at him, pouting and disappointed. Julian is the perfectly awful decision I’ll looking for. And he's clearly enough interested in me. He runs a hand along my jaw and brushes his thumb over my bottom lip. “I’d love to, darling, really, but I don’t know you well enough to know if this is your normal, or if you simply have amazing balance while inebriated.”

“I’m never normal, per se.”

“Note that I said ‘your normal’ not just 'normal.’”

“I'm not at all sure that I even have a personalized normal.”

“Life that complicated, my dear?”

“Not really.” My life itself is fairly banal, except for that whole not remembering more than three years thing. I feel like a ghost. A specter - a spectator - at the limits of life and death. A shade captured in patterns of behavior that were set for me long ago. Watching. Reacting. But every time I feel able to act on my own, something seizes me, either pulling into melancholy or dragging me up, up, up into a frenzy. And, once again, I'm stuck in the pattern, whatever exit I glimpsed long past, and I'm once again caught barely managing to balance between life and death. Maybe that's why I had accepted the Countess's proposal; I wanted the exterior to match a little more constant parade of up and down in my interior life, or at least, provide me with a sorry if distraction from them. “But my mind makes up for it in sheer unpredictability.”

“You better get back to the palace; it’s nearly dawn. Come on, I’ll walk you.”

“That sounds like a horrible idea.” I lean forward, resting my forehead against his shoulder one hand on his chest, the other resting on his waist. I’m not inebriated, but I might be a little drunk. “I don’t want you to get caught.”

“Heh.” Under my fingers, his chest catches in a half laugh. “Compromise. Your shop?”

“I can work with that, I think.” I mean, he was walking openly in the market the other morning. The people who live and work around my shop must not be in a hurry to turn him in either.

The air outside has gotten steadily cooler over the course of the cloudless night. I wrap the bathrobe tighter around me and retie the knot in the sash. Julian stops and looks back at me with a concerned expression.

“Are you warm enough in that?”

“This? I’m fine. Silk is a surprisingly good insulator.”

“I did not know that.” He takes my arm when I stumble over a bucket that has been tossed in the street. “Still, you, um, you look like you might be chilly.” He pulls me close to him, and wraps one side of his coat around me. It’s comfortable - the same way snuggling against Asra is comfortable. We walk in silence arm and arm, through several turns of the street.

“Say, why did my old mask upset you so much?”

“I -” I shudder at the thought of those glassy red eyes. “I don’t know, to be honest.” I pull my arm free of his hand. “I’m sure a lot of people don’t like them. Bad memories. And you had broken into my home as well.”

“Yeah, I really am sorry about that. I mean, I thought I was just breaking into As - the witch’s home.”

“Why are you trying to find him?” And for that matter, why doesn’t he want to say his name? At some point, Asra had been someone Julian wanted to protect, rather than “the witch.”

“I need answers. I think he has them, if I can get him to tell me something for once.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Heh,” Julian chuckles. “How long have you . . . ?”

“Been his apprentice? Three years.” At least, that’s as far as I can remember being his apprentice. I’m not quite sure that I’m ready to trust Julian with the full extent to which I’m missing my own past. I want to. I’m so tired of keeping that card clutched close to my chest, telling little lies to disguise it and praying that I can keep up with them, all the while feeling like I’m drifting further and further from who I actually am.

“Fascinating timing.”

“What?”

“Oh nothing. Look, we’re at your shop.”

Speaking of people not answering questions. Almost as bad as Asra. I undo the wards on the door and turn back to say goodbye to Julian. He leans down, embraces me, then kisses my cheeks: one, then the other, then the first one again. “Sleep, my dear.”

“You too, maybe?”

“Maybe.” He smiles at me - a genuine smile with no hint of a smirk. Then he’s gone.

Chapter Seven

a/n: Yes. I was and am very much into nineties era Depeche Mode, and so is Julian. At least, this Julian. Who also gets worried about whether he likes new bands because they’re actually good, or just because they’re trendy.

#the arcana #arcana fanfiction #nadia satrinava #portia devorak #julian devorak #julian x mc #julian x apprentice #whatever i've done #my writing #dema

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neinthedeer-blog · 6 years ago

Text

A ten-year-later story

Some weird idea about the future of the Rappapa with a light twist. I just wrote it for fun while celebrating the 10th anniversary of 10nen zakura. Please forgive my messy and lengthy writing style.

———————————

In a certain sunny day in February, at the usual busy airport, a girl with long black hair, which only had the left half tied up neatly, wearing black boots, black slim-fit military trousers and a camo sleeveless t-shirt, along with a deep green sukajan with white dragon embroidery on top, pushed her cart with at least a dozen of boxes on it around. She also carried on her back a military backpack. It seemed like she was waiting or looking for someone.

“Hey Gekikara! Over here!” A girl, also with long black hair and white shirt, black jeans and a black sukajan with white dragon embroidery but in a different design, who was standing beside a gray pickup truck, waved her hand. Gekikara walked right over with a newfound excitement; it had been 2-3 months since the last time they met.

“Thanks for picking me up, Black”, Gekikara giggled and started unloading the boxes on her cart into the rear trunk of the old truck after hugging the other girl, “By the way, you still haven’t bought a new truck yet?” Black helped with the unloading while answering, “I just don’t want to. And don't mention it, your goods need to be brought to the supermarket anyway. Are you gonna stay in a hotel this time? Wanna stay at my place?” Gekikara replied, “Well, I won’t refuse your kindness if you want to”.

After unloading everything, Gekikara put her backpack on top of the boxes and closed the trunk with a bang. “Take it easy, Gekikara, you will break my precious truck” Black said after seating herself on the driver’s seat. “Hey, it’s not my fault your precious truck is so old”, Gekikara replied while opening the door and comforting herself on the front seat of the so-called old truck. Black stoop on the accelerator and they were out of the airport’s noisy parking area in no time.

“How was your last mission in Syria?”, Black asked. “Decent. I saved a lot. There were so many abandoned children, you can't even imagine.” Gekikara answered in a soft voice. She was a soldier of a Voluntary Force, which main job was to come to terrored or devastated places to rescue the locals. Although the force was voluntary, they still got pay a lot due to the danger of the missions and also because the force was organized by private. Although the job paid good, it was not the reason for Gekikara's participation. It all started when she met a girl named Furukawa Airi a year after her graduation, after she sold her mother’s house and started roaming the world. The small girl was there when Gekikara passed by a terrored town and saved a child out of the fire. Airi asked Gekikara to join the force right away. “There are even more children that need help, will you join us?”, with a warm voice, Airi managed to convince Gekikara to join in the team. Gekikara was the one that understanding the feeling of an abandoned child the most hence she didn’t want to see any children suffering in her sight. Despite of being a private organized force, Gekikara was trained full-fledged military style and it helped her control her brute strength better, while also taught her the importance of defense and accuracy in fighting. She still laughed when fighting though, Gekikara-style as always. She was in the hand-to-hand combat team which was to handle hostage-involved cases, where they couldn’tshoot recklessly, and rescue people from collapsed buildings. Airi was in the tactical team and they were a great duo. However, Airi was shot 3 years after Gekikara joined the force and Gekikara went full monster to revenge for her dear friend. Nowaday, apart from her dog tag, she also wore Airi’s in commemoration of her friend and donated most of her salary to various orphanages. Money never delighted Gekikara so she only kept enough for herself and for her share in paying Yuko’s hospital bill. Yes, you heard it correct, Yuko was alive. The doctor said it was a miracle, but she needed to stay full time in the hospital. The Rappapa decided to split the bill among themselves since Yuko had no family or relative. Rappapa was her only family and they decided to do what family supposed to do. Even though Yuko protested a few times at first, she understood that she had no way to pay the bill with how she had to stay in the hospital all the time now. It was hard on the girls at first considering the only ones with real job is Sado, who was a nurse-in-training, Black, who was a clerk and Torigoya, who was a masseur. Maeda was finishing her study in medical university, Shibuya and Gekikara was jobless, or rather had not found the job they wanted.

Then things started getting better.

Firstly, Sado got promoted into the head nurse. Then Gekikara met Airi and joined the Voluntary Force. After that, Shibuya had been irritated by her underlings being beaten by boy yankees for a while now and started teaching them her boxing skill, then some other yankees came and asked to join her lesson. Ultimately, Shibuya turned her hideout into a boxing class for girl yankees and had made quiet a name for herself. The class, of course, had fees and even though it was not too high, the amount of trainees were enough to make up for that. Dance, still as loyal and faithful as ever, also joined the class, sometimes as experiment object for Shibuya, but also for serious lesson sometimes. Dance also helped with the equipment and gate-guarding for the class. When Maeda graduated from university and became a real doctor, the hospital fee for Yuko turned into a really small matter and to top that off, Torigoya saved enough to open her own massage parlor while Black inherited the supermarket from its previous owner. He was a lonely old man with no heir or any relative, so he decided to give it to Black, his loyal and hardworking employee after hearing Yuko’s story and how the Rappapa girls had decided to split the bill. The supermarket was in between Majijo and Yabakune’s territory, where no one dared to open up any form of business which boosted Black’s supermarket sell greatly. The students from both school also agreed to be on neutral term when encounter each other in her supermarket (or Black, and sometimes the other girls, would beat them into pulps). But what made Black’s supermarket become a hit was Gekikara’s goods. Gekikara usually got 4 breaks a year and due to another agreement between the girls, which was to come and take Yuko outside once a month for fun (didn’t mean she had not tried to sneak out but with Sado as the nurse and Maeda as the doctor, she stood no chance), she came back periodically with souvenirs for them everytime and one time, Gekikara brought spare military supplies back, and Black felt that the yankees would love these for sure, so Gekikara brought back more for Black on her next break, which sold out almost immediately. All type of fighting supplies like gauntlets, knee caps, camo suits, cargo pants,... were sold out in a flash. So Gekikara became Black's supermarket's fixed supplier and she sometimes brought back some of her job’s destination’s food or goods. Although they were not as good sell as the military stuffs, they were good seasonal products nontheless.

Black’s truck pulled up beside a small, neat-looking supermarket and the two started unloading the boxes again, now from the trunk into the store’s storage. After all was done, they sat together on the staff’s room and chatted for a bit. “Thanks for the goods, Geki. Just list the stuffs and prices out for me like last time. I will pay you later”, Black said while fidgeting with the water bottle’s cap after taking a huge gulp of water. “Don’t mention it, this supermarket was technically ⅓ mine anyway”, Gekikara said while smirking then went on and took another gulp of water from her military water bottle. Black facepalmed at what her friend just said, “I have told you that’s a bad idea so many times”. “Well, we did it anyway”, Gekikara laughed. It was years ago, after the Gekikara’s goods had been going on for a while, Gekikara suddenly suggested Black to sell her ⅓ of the supermarket’s stocks since she was technically a shareholder now with how much effort she was invested in the supermarket’s well-being. Black hesitated at first but finally did it and from then on, Gekikara had used it to reject her payment for the goods whenever she could. Black always had to force her to take it and Gekikara seemed like she enjoyed making Black angry.

“Where should we go next?” Gekikara asked while tugging her water bottle back into her already over packed bag. “Shibuya asked me to pick her and Torigoya up from the ring and then we can go to the hospital together” Black answered. “Oh yes, I almost forget, Yuko-san…”, the atmosphere suddenly turned quiet and heavy, Black, not willing to look at Gekikara’s sad face and also to hide her sad face, stood up first and walked out to the truck, “Let’s go, the others are waiting”.

Gekikara had a month break every year and to fulfill the girls’ agreement to come and bring Yuko out for fun as frequently as they can (usually once a month), she came back every 3 months and spent a week with her family - the Rappapa, and mostly Yuko. Therefore, she usually scheduled to come back at the end of March, which was to bring Yuko out to see cherry blossom, end of June, end of September and end of December, which was to celebrate new year together with her family. But this time, Gekikara had to take her break in mid-February because of a dreadful news from Yuko: she had fallen into a coma and her time was coming to an end, in which the doctors agree on letting her to go home for there was nothing they could do anymore.

The ride was filled with small conversation for Black and Gekikara to update each other with the 2 months gap. When the car stopped in front the boxing class, Dance immediately came and opened the door for them, “Black-san, Gekikara-san, Shibuya and Torigoya-san are waiting for you two”. “Thanks a bunch, Dance. Has the class ended?” Gekikara asked with a smile toward Dance. Even though not recognized as a Rappapa’s member, the girls all adored Dance’s devotion and loyalty toward her Shibuya-san and also to their small group. They all saw her as part of their little family. Whenever Shibuya couldn’t come to take Yuko out, Dance would go in her place and although being teased by Yuko a lot, the girl did her job perfectly. “They are coming to an end soon. Please come inside.” Dance said while holding the door open for them. “Okay, see you later, Dance”, Black said while the duo stepped inside the place. Shibuya was observing the sparring between her trainees and making criticism on their fighting stand while Torigoya was just dazing off, as always.

It was truly an amusing thing how much a person can change, for better. Teaching other yankees helped Shibuya to be better at controlling her emotion and temper. She was still a hot-headed though and nothing gonna change that, but she got really better at listening and instructing others. Back then, she could only boss her underlings around but now she was a great teacher herself.

Also, similar to Black’s supermarket, Shibuya’s ring was a neutral ground and all the yankees from different school agreed to stay neutral here (or, again, Shibuya and the others gonna beat them into pulps).

The class finally drew to an end and while trainees were pouring out of the class, some recognized Gekikara and Black and bowed to them slightly. Dance ran in and started cleaning up the place, also putting equipments away for tomorrow lesson. Shibuya and Torigoya approached the duo right after and while Torigoya gave Gekikara a tight hug, Shibuya only shook hands with her. Then, they exchanged some words of merriment while Shibuya cooled off and drank some water off her high-fashioned water bottle. Shibuya was wearing a black legging with a pink tank top and a pair of training shoes and Torigoya was wearing casual t-shirt and jeans with her red sukajan on top. She left to take a shower and then put on her pink sukajan to join them for the ride to the hospital. The four queens were coming for their boss.

When they arrieved at the hospital, heir vice boss and vice vice boss were already waiting beside Yuko, in their fur coat and jean jacket, silently.

The ride was silent, a peaceful silence shared among them since forever. The traumatized child, the introverted, the hot-headed, the air-headed, the sadist and the serious (plus the scaredy catl), they all came together around Yuko and Yuko had made sure that even when she was no longer around, they could still stand beside each other, silently, as always. They were no longer comrades, they were family. Family was different from friends or comrades. They didn’t have to always stuck beside each other, they didn’t have to have the same goal, the same dream, the same life values, but they would still come back to each other side at the end of the day. The girls were a family. And their home was the good old wind instrument club. They would occasionally take Yuko back to the room on their take-Yuko-out-of-the-hospital days for some nostalgia and with Black and Shibuya’s connection with new generations of Majijo’s students, the room was left untouched, silently waiting for its rightful owners to comeback.

Yuko was coming home.

It was weekend, so no one was at school right now. The school stood quietly embracing the early-spring breeze while the old cherry blossom tree shaking its dried branches as if welcoming Yuko and the Rappapa’s appearance. Cherry blossom season was nearby but Yuko wouldn't be there to see it.

Rumours said that Center was the president right now and she also helped maintaining the wind instrument room as it was for them.

Sado princess carried Yuko into their good old clubroom, which Yuko would loudly protest if she was conscious but today, she stayed quiet. They put her onto her golden chair, the chair for the top of Majijo, their top. Yuko was quiet, so unlike her, with her head slightly leaned to a side. If not for her pale skin, the Rappapa sweared they could see the old days playing in their head, where their precious Yuko-san, after causing lots of mischieves, soundly taking a nap on the same chair, her small figure embraced by the golden silk. At those time, the girls would usually sitting silently around her and let Yuko have her peaceful snap. So they did the same. Black sat down on the long chair and started reading her bible, Gekikara stood beside her while biting her nails silently, Shibuya sat down and stared at her newly done nails, Torigoya fidgeted with a feather, Sado rolled the kendama’s ball on her hand and Maeda read her book, Dance stood silently with bowed head beside Shibuya.

It almost resembled the scene from their good old days, except for all of them were praying this time. To gods, to demons, to heaven, to hell.

“Please don’t take Yuko-san away.”

——————————

Well, how will this end, you may ask? That's up to you.

This piece was written as a prologue for a fanfic of mine, but the fanfic itself will need more time to be polished, so I just post this as a one shot for memory. Maybe I will finish that fanfic one day.

#majisukagakuen #blackgeki #youwillseeitifyousquintreallyhard #gekikara #idek anymore #akb48 #ske48

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