#Debating on whether or not to post them all at once or just stagger them

[shima-draws]

Currently listening to the Bluey soundtrack and feeling The Emotions

[energetically-exhausted]

💙Intruality Week!!💚

Day 2: Fear

@intrualityweek

(originally, this was just supposed to be writing practice, and i debated whether i should post it or not. it doesn't follow the prompt too strongly, but i think it works out.)

Remus -> he/it/they

Patton -> he/him

WARNINGS: INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS, SEXUAL INNUENDO/SLIGHT DISCUSSION OF SEX (HOWEVER, THIS IS NOT SMUT), MENTION OF KIDNAPPING (NOT ACTUALLY PART OF THE STORY), SLIGHT LANGUAGE

(please let me know if i missed any!)

-"UNREDEEMABLE MONSTER"-

"Remus, have you seen my pants? I've been looking all over."

"They should be on the floor from when you tore 'em off last night 'cause you were so excited to see me," Remus joked, looking through the closet in hopes of helping Patton.

Patton's face went pink. He'd never actually get used to those jokes of Remus', but he certainly didn't mind. "Very funny... I mean, it's just- it's not like I can go to work pantsless tomorrow."

Remus turned to see a dejected Patton on the bed and looked him over suggestively. "Well, you know I'm not opposed to it," he flirted with a smile.

Patton inhaled, feigning annoyance. "Yeah, okay. I walked right into that one." He fell on his back with a "humphf". "I know I shouldn't be so upset about- pants, but I've just had a long day."

"Hmm. Was it as long as your-?"

"And tomorrow is gonna be especially stressful, because I'm tagging along for the museum field trip instead of staying home on my one free day this month," Patton interrupted, too upset to notice where Remus' quip was going.

"Aw, baby. It sounds like you needa unwind," Remus suggested, laying on the bed next to Patton in order to "seductively" crawl its hand over his chest.

His face was pink again and he couldn't help but smile this time. Remus was so ridiculous that from afar, it seemed like they didn't listen, but Patton knew deep down it was hanging on to every word. "Maybe," Patton matched Remus' tone as he spoke, "but I wanna hear about your day first. How was work?"

"Same old, same old. I caught that kidnapper dude. He had this freaky deaky warehouse-lair thing. I was kinda jealous. Stupid cops tried to take the glory until they found out I was the one who closed the case. Guess they found out how batshit I am. Needless to say, I'm basically a CNN hero," he preened casually.

Patton stared in awe. He wondered to that day how those two got together. He was a guidance counselor. Remus was a detective— an extremely talented one, at that. "You do understand that I'm hopelessly in love with you, right?"

Remus almost let his demeanor drop. It didn't know how it let this pretty man grab ahold of its rusted heart. "Pssh, yeah," Remus said matter-of-factly, "you're crazy about me."

Patton smiled again and wrapped his arms and legs around Remus, still in his baby blue boxers. "I'm not letting you go," he whispered, placing his forehead on theirs.

Remus wished he missed this feeling of being held— loved, but there wasn't anything else like this to go off of, so he clung to every moment like this. It cherished them. Patton was the first thing it ever really cherished. Before they met, Remus was a confused wreck. He still was, but he'd come a long way since then. At least it'd learned to be alright with who it was, and who it chose to be. He closed his eyes so as to focus on the gentle breaths they shared together, the warmth of Patton's embrace, the stillness that used to be so uncomfortable but grew to be so, so wonderful. "Can I kiss you?" he asked, forgetting his selfishness for once.

Patton grinned and quickly kissed its nose. Remus slowly drew closer and met his lips with its own, tasting his sugar-coated tongue. They remembered he just had ice cream at work. It thought about sliding its hands down to— it quickly rescinded the notion. Stupid, stupid, stupid. These thoughts made him no better than the perp he'd busted that day. Fuck.

Patton noticed Remus had staggered a bit, so he slowed to a stop. "Remus?" He opened his eyes to see a distressed Remus nearly in tears. He held both sides of their face, ready to wipe them away. "Oh, baby, are you okay? What happened?"

Remus couldn't bear looking at him when it had these thoughts. They hid their face in Patton's neck as it tried not to let a sob out. It managed two words before feeling its breath hitch, "I'm sorry."

Patton stared off into the distance, wide-eyed with worry, trying to figure out what went wrong. "Baby, is it too much? Do you want to take a breather?" He felt Remus shake his head "no". He held the back of its head, as if he was protecting it from the outside world. He heard a few muffled words from Remus and asked to repeat himself.

"I don't mean to be so... gross," he whispered, glossy-eyed. "I can't get rid of all these— scary thoughts that constantly try to make me a bad person. They tell me I should let a perp go. They tell me to finish a murderer's job. They tell me to- Oh, God."

Patton tried to get Remus to look him in the eyes, but he got pushed away. 

"Patton, you need to leave me."

"What?"

"I'm dangerous," Remus whispered in fear, shaking as he got up from the bed and backed into the wall.

Patton sat up and watched worriedly. "Remus, I am not leaving you, and you are not dangerous."

"But what if, all this time, I've been using a made-up personality to lure you in, so I could—" he felt the tears finally fall down his face, "Fuck!" he screamed through a sob.

Patton slowly got up and sat on the ground in front of Remus, patting the carpet so they'd sit down as well. They slid down the wall and hid their face with their knees. "I'm gonna talk, and all I ask is that you listen." He took a breath. "I've learned in my twenty-six years of existence that we don't control what we think about. We only control what we do and what we say. I used to be so scared that if I thought something up that I, or my parents, didn't approve of, I would be an unredeemable monster. Guess what I got from that. Years and years of guilt and trauma. The truth is, we're all gonna think some things we disapprove of or don't mean, and some people experience these thoughts more extremely than others," —Remus looked up from their knees— "but it's not fair to hate ourselves for them."

Remus wasn't crying anymore, but he still seemed... disturbed.

"Oh, and Remus?"

It looked up from its hazed state.

"It's okay to want sexual activity with your romantic and sexual partner. With me, you don't have to ask."

That seemed to be enough for Remus to get on his feet. Patton hopped up with a smile and held his hand to lead him back to the bed. "It seems you need to unwind."

[saturnine-saturneight]

🌓- Show us a snippet of a before and an after between drafts! What did you change and why?

I'm gonna do the introduction of the Central Horror of the first part of Twin Suns for this! I was debating on whether to post this or not, since this is a plot point I've been keeping in the dark in the interest of not spoiling anything. But eh, fuck it.

So the inciting incident of this whole thing is that Nat meets a zombie who, in contrast to how things usually go, is still conscious and alive, for a given definition. Until this point in the story, Nat thought they were the only person in the world with this fate, and that it was impossible to happen twice. This, combined with plant/mushroom zombie pheromones, is what steers them into making some very bad decisions.

First:

She’s beautiful. It’s the first thing Nat thinks. The second thing is: What the fuck? A girl of maybe twenty is sitting up on a stone, smack dab in the middle of the swamp, and combing her long, wavy hair in the moonlight. There’s a small melody on her lips, and when she sees Nat, she pretends not to notice, shoots them just a little glance before she goes back to combing. And then the wind stills. Her eyes grow wide in shock, and she looks back at Nat, actually looks at them, full of the same desire and longing Natalie feels as they can suddenly smell each other, all the way across the clearing, as Nat can smell what she is.

She's in the middle of the forest trying to lure in victims. She is not supposed to be here!

Second:

What. It’s the first thing Nat thinks. And the second thing is this: What the fuck? A girl of maybe twenty is sitting up on a stone, smack dab in the middle of it all, and combing her long, wavy hair in the dull darkness, illuminated just by glowing moss. There’s a small melody on her lips - have they been hearing that at all? And when she sees Nat, she pretends not to notice, shoots them just a little glance before she goes back to combing.  Nat staggers closer, and then a second, far different smell grips them by the stem of their brain.

Change of setting, she's in a cave system now. This is after more build up and establishment of what a zombie is in this world and why we should care, and that they don't usually talk or comb their hair. More description of the setting to paint a mood, second attempt at describing what's happening to Nat's synapses right now.

Third:

And then it hits them, and there is nothing gentle about it at all. Blue floods through their lungs like shrapnel rends flesh, blue sears on the tip of their tongue. It's that same smell again, the one they'd forgotten in the span of just a day, the one covered up so cruelly by memory again and again until the wound is torn open again and Nat remembers, terribly and all at once. And although they stumble into the perfect darkness as their foot leaves the last step of the stairs, although there is nothing but the sound of labored breathing in the dark, there is not a single doubt in Nat's mind as they walk out into the middle of the room as though they can see it clear as day, only stopping as they stumble over something soft, something that cracks as their foot catches and has them freeze. It's only then that Nat hears the second set of ragged breathing in the room.

In this version, we don't see her, not until later. Nat is reeled in by something invisible, down into a place that's significantly more threatening than a forest clearing or even a cave full of infectious mushrooms and moss. I flipped it on its head - now the first thing they see is not how pretty this girl is, because let's be real, that's not all that relevant. What I was getting at was the immediate attachment and kinship that Nat feels, and I like that better when it comes after establishing that this is fucked up and they shouldn't be here.

[nutty1005]

Multitudes of Art from Wenhui Daily

Original article: Print Media by Wenhui Daily (1) http://whb.cn/zhuzhan/xinwen/20210815/415430.html and (2) http://whb.cn/zhuzhan/xinwen/20210815/415432.html

Xiao Zhan Performs in “A Dream Like A Dream”, What Traffic has Injected into Theater

Original author: 帕帕拉佐

Preface

Whether the traffic celebrity is capable is a problem, it is also another problem when there is no traffic celebrity in the theater scene. This time, because of Xiao Zhan, another group of people who are unrelated to theater started going into it. Perhaps after the indescribable wonderful 8 hour experience, some of them would truly fall in love with theater, some may continue to fork out money for her idol’s next scheduled event. But is it really that important to separate the “I’m in the same room with him for 8 hours” crowd from the theater audiences?

1

Theater, which used to be a niche form of art, had been breaking through its circle these two years, and causing a lot of discussions. The most recent would be “Top Traffic Celebrity” Xiao Zhan’s participation in “A Dream Like A Dream”.

In between the midst of filming a period fantasy drama “The Longest Promise”, Xiao Zhan performed as Patient No. 5, a role which Hu Ge had once performed. After the performances in the 3 stops Wuhan, Qingdao and Chengdu, at every play’s curtain call, the theater would be filled with endless applause, there was even once even covered with rousing ovation. In the cheers of nearly a thousand people, the voices of young ladies were particularly distinct.

Actually, this is not the first time Xiao Zhan’s participation in “A Dream Like A Dream” created a revelry in his fans. Early this year in March, once the official announcement that Xiao Zhan would participate in the Tour of 9 Cities, it went onto hot search immediately, and until now, Xiao Zhan’s participation in “A Dream Like A Dream” has accumulated a staggering 4.2 billion views.

Over thousand tickets were sold out in seconds, an 80 RMB ticket was scalped to over a 1,000 RMB, the tickets of the “lotus pond seats” were scalped to more than 20,000 RMB. Although Chris Li and Hu Ge both performed in this play in 2013, but since it birth 9 years ago, this magnitude of furor only happened this year.

In the midst of anticipation and suspicion, Xiao Zhan finally walked on stage. The trials of theater revealed the sincerity in him and this sincerity is Xiao Zhan’s base color, or it could even be said to be the reason he is surrounded by so much love.

This innate sincerity is a scarcity in a stage created by glorious vocals and technical construction. Many experienced actors with strong foundations would be working hard for this, but they never had it.

No one could deny that Xiao Zhan created a unique Patient No. 5, who threaded the whole play as a core character. For the actor to be a good Patient No. 5, he would need precise acting, thorough understanding of the role, firm control of emotions, and of course the blending of both the actor’s self and the character.

That year, the tranquility that Hu Ge had after coming back from his tribulations became his key to unlocking Patient No. 5; whereas for Xiao Zhan, who had went through the growth from an “idol” to a “top traffic celebrity”, who had a “unique” experience in cyberspace, the things that happened to him these few years, became his natural advantage in portraying Patient No. 5.

Last year, Yanghua held “Cao Yu’s Special 110 Year Old Commemoration Event”. Then, Xiao Zhan was still in the eye of the storm, and he had a conversation with Cao Yu’s daughter, Wan Fang, and in this conversation, Xiao Zhan did a tremendous amount of homework, and wrote down a few dozen questions regarding Wan Fang’s script “Winter Journey” and “You and I”, his questions were simple but impressionable, it gave people the feeling that he seemed to have reached the edge of theater.

In this conversation, he dazzled Wang Keran, the producer of “A Dream Like A Dream”. He seemed to have found the common point between Xiao Zhan and Patient No. 5: the impermanence nature of fate.

And once again, it proves that instincts were very useful. The intersection between the actor and the role’s life would become the crux to whether the actor is able to infuse a soul to his character. The reason he was able to establish his character was not entirely from his ability to craft roles, but more of the source came from what happened to him. In addition, Xiao Zhan’s intelligence and hard work left a deep impression on Wang Keran during the initial stages of rehearsal – while many actors had not memorized his lines, Xiao Zhan had already memorized all of his lines, and this is especially difficult given that “A Dream Like A Dream” was an 8 hour long performance and there are about 3 to 4 times more lines than a standard play.

Whether the traffic celebrity is capable is a problem, it is also another problem when there is no traffic celebrity in the theater scene. As the theater market becomes more mature operationally, more traffic celebrities would cross over to this foreign scene. At the same time, there would be controversy as well. Can the boundaries between theater and general public be broken through by “traffic celebrities”? When will theater become a “reality TV theater”? Would the audiences be looking at celebrities instead of the play? These kinds of debates had always existed. At this, Lai Shengchuan did not care too much about it. He spoke of an incident in the past, when “A Dream Like A Dream” invited Chris Li to perform, her fans did not simply watch a show, but they watched 10. During the intermission, Lai Shengchuan spoke with her fans, and he realized that hey had been watching for 5 days straight, saying “the play was awesome”.

To him, despite the difference between how traffic celebrities shine on stage and how theater is like, or perhaps foreign to then, he just has to look at how they work to know that it took a lot of talent and hard work to come this far! “Hence, don’t be too particular about whether traffic celebrities are suitable for theater.”

No matter how loud the controversy is, it is fact that theater trains people – a performance of a few hours, there is no pause, no post production, there is only one take with no chance of a retake. Hence, there has always been a hierarchy in the artistic circle, theater actors would be above movie actors, movie actors would be above TV drama actors. No matter what the actual reasons for celebrities to join theater are, Lai Shengchuan’s story proved a point, when a top traffic celebrity joins theater, an art form with high entry requirements, it would inject more vibrancy and attention to this art.

This time, because of Xiao Zhan, another group of people who are unrelated to theater started going into it. Perhaps after the indescribable wonderful 8 hour experience, some of them would truly fall in love with theater, some may continue to fork out money for her idol’s next scheduled event. But is it really that important to separate the “I’m in the same room with him for 8 hours” crowd from the theater audiences?

Let us not think too much about it, and watch the show first!

Xiao Zhan, This “Newcomer” to Theater

Original author: 贾行家

Preface

I do not see the problem with Xiao Zhan’s decision to perform, just like I do not see how anyone would be damaged by this incident. If it had a specific “influence” (I do not see how that is, it is just the decision by a theater group), then to me, the influence is – it allowed more audiences to walk into theaters, and let more platforms notice theater.

2

9 years ago, Yanghua Theater placed a huge bet on “A Dream Like A Dream”, it came from Wang Keran’s observations based on the changing times – China’s industrialization and urbanization created its first “middle-class��� life, and for the first time the first generation who had completed education but yet who are also stuck in the “modern conundrum” – who am I, where did I come from, where do I go from here? The old answers were no longer effective. This generation’s problem was – how to face the coming of death, and how to face the loneliness that came with the inevitable death? In the hands of Yanghua, this question became – how do you use a touching story, outside of religion or philosophy, to give its audience the love of life and a sense of comfort?

As such, there exists such a different theater group, with a producer with very “un-modern” methods: front stage and backstage, regardless of matters, as long as it could not be clearly defined to a job, it belongs to Wang Keran only. He called himself an “artist + businessman”, the nature of a businessman was to be in-charge of investments, ensure profitability, so he had to consider from the business angle – whether this play could fulfill the extreme and common spiritual requirements of the current generation, while at the same time be able to continue running for a long time; he also had to consider from the artistic angle, taking risks while ensuring profitability, and create the play from his heart. The purity of drama is as such, those who are passionate about it would stake their lives for it.

The author of “A Dream Like A Dream”, playwright Lai Shengchuan had a performance principle technique called “guide the cause, not the effect”, which meant that when the director explains the scene, he does not explain the effect he wants, but instead he would explain the reasons behind this scene clearly, that is, the character’s experience and emotional state, so as to allow the actor to create a natural performance after understanding. This was very different from the rush that is in TV dramas, which would often film out of sequence, the actors might not be clear about what he is acting as, and they could only use exaggerated actions to cover their loss of direction. Worst still, there are also actors who could only count 1, 2, 3, 4 to the camera in place of lines.

However, there are also good directors who do not like to film according to logic, and film as they wanted, while the actors did not know what they were portraying, but yet they could still create a masterpiece, Xu Haofeng’s movie review on Li An’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” spoke about this – Li An felt that Chow Yun-fat’s eyes were too sharp and alert, so he kept shouting “CUT” repeatedly, until Chow Yun-fat lost confidence and his gaze became scattered, so as to get the scene he wanted. Why did he not explain the “cause” at this point? Perhaps it was hard to explain, it was like a fisherman, he had to fish for the right gaze, to wait for the right sequence.

What we said above was to explain two simple things.

The first thing: Art can be, or even must be, done in an autocratic manner, it has to set its goal based on its audience, but how the play will be like, only one person will know, and in that creative space, there is only his method.

The other thing: The status created by an actor for the role is actually very brittle, they usually only know the outcome but they rarely know the cause. The difficult part in rehearsing “A Dream Like A Dream” came from these 31 actors who had to take on more than 100 characters, besides autocracy, there was a need to protect them from interruption and confusion. Xiao Zhan, who joined in this new version, he only had Patient No. 5 on the door of his dressing room, the other roles and burden were removed.

When we were discussing Xiao Zhan, we actually saw many versions of Xiao Zhan. Going back to basics, he is a young actor and singer. I found similarities between him and Patient No. 5: They both had the same unsettling impermanence in their fate, there were things that were not caused by them, they were merely caught in between – when you take a step back, impermanence is neither good nor bad. The problem is, which Xiao Zhan is the one standing on the stage of “A Dream Like A Dream”? If we took him as actor Xiao Zhan, then there is nothing wrong with it.

As an audience, my judging criteria is very simple: How did this new theater actor Xiao Zhan do? Based on his age and experience, Patient No. 5 is an extremely complex and hard to control character, and after 3 stops of Yanghua’s tour, the audience would probably have felt: Xiao Zhan created a brand new, intricate Patient No. 5, this character was well established onstage, this meant that his understanding and analysis was also well established.

I also prepared an observer angle, that was to see if he could blend into the strict system of theater, would be he outshone by actors who had a lot more energy, foundation and experience. The result exceeded my expectations, he not only did it, he displayed clear precision in his pace and control, and realized a complete theater experience.

I do not see the problem with Xiao Zhan’s decision to perform, just like I do not see how anyone would be damaged by this incident. If it had a specific “influence” (I do not see how that is, it is just the decision by a theater group), then to me, the influence is – it allowed more audiences to walk into theaters, and let more platforms notice theater. Chinese theater really needed more exploration in terms of content and operation. As for what influence this would have on the theater scene, audiences are very simple, as long as it was a good show onstage, they would buy tickets to watch it. As an outsider, I would also want to exclaim another statement: there were those who always said they wanted to revive the theater, but when someone really worked hard at doing it, these people would always come with their senseless controversies.

From my point of view, after I met Xiao Zhan’s “A Dream Like A Dream”, I felt that my soul had been cleansed by the waters in the lotus pond, been carefully cleaned by the fluttering spotlights and shadows akin to a bright moon, I seemed to have understood many things, there were less confusion, more courage, and a lot of gratitude to lives of those from front stage and backstage of the theater.

According to Sigmund Freud’s theory, play is a child’s unique way of gaining experience in handling matters, the function of play is to vent, venting is the purification of emotions, this is slightly different from those who take themselves as the audiences’ guide to purification. Theater has created a space to help the audience to vent what is in their hearts. After becoming an adult, it seemed like besides dreaming, there are not many methods to self-purify; besides dreaming, we could also watch “A Dream Like A Dream”.

[elsewhereuniversity]

About Face

“Do you have any questions about your prescriptions today, uh…m-miss?” The pharmacist’s question is laced with assumptions about who you are. It’s not great, of course, but it’s also not worth your time to fight about today.

“No, I’m good,” your smile and voice are sugary-sweet, but your eyes are daggers as you take the bag and turn back towards the door. The heat and humidity are already staggering at 8 am and you are immediately made sticky by the brief walk to your car. As you start it up, there’s a brief chime of email-receiving from your phone, but you ignore it. Then there’s another ding, this time your lab-mate, Valerie, texting you.

Hey, u almost in?                                                                                     In like 30min. had to stop by pharmacy

K. Jill was looking for u. Also ugh that paper for tomorrow, I’m not even a  birdsong person lol

Lol get over it, I had to read one of your fancy neuro papers last time. Did jill say what she needed me for?

Whatever lol. She didn’t say.

                                                                        Ughhhhhhh

Jill, Dr. Dominguez, is your advisor, and you know you need to get her some figures and sections of your thesis soon, but these damn stats…well. There’s a reason you prefer spending your time traipsing off-trail through the wilderness over sitting in front of a computer all day. Not that this part isn’t interesting and important too, but come on.

Traffic is moving at a sluggish pace, of course, so you’re lost in contemplation and dread of the analyses you need to attempt running today, and the inevitable conversation with Dr. Dominguez that will have to happen at some point. As the traffic finally begins to move, you grit your teeth. Maybe it’s time to consider actually asking for help. I have no fucking clue how to do multivariate shit…You stare ahead as you inch forward, before a frustrating, jolting stop at a red light. Your eye is drawn to a kid crossing the road, wearing a grey hoodie. They look forlorn, for some reason you can’t entirely enumerate, and you glance back at them as the light finally turns.

The sun isn’t very high yet, so there are still some odd shadows stretching across the sidewalk, but you could’ve sworn that the kid had no face.

****

You manage to put the pharmacist and your grandma and the obviously-just-a-trick-of-the-light-I-mean-how-else-could-that-be faceless kid out of your mind for the rest of the morning and actually get some results you can work with from the analyses you’d been worried about. And when Dr. Dominguez pops into lab to talk to you, she is actually impressed at both the pace and quality of work you’ve delivered thus far. In fact, you’re feeling pretty damn good about everything, despite the earlier unpleasantness, so you decide to grab some lunch and hang out with some of the other grad students and lab techs.

Lunch-special sushi in hand, you plop yourself down at one of the rundown old tables in the work room. Valerie is there, along with Raul, one of the grad students from a micro lab down the hall, and Jackson, one of the general lab techs. Everyone says hi, but you’re only vaguely following the conversation as you dig into your spicy tuna roll. Something something TA stipends being cut. Which is such bullshit, of course, but nothing new. You’re just about to jump into the discussion when you get a Facebook notification. It’s your cousin, who tagged you in a post. You stare for a good five seconds at your phone.

Just remembering the good times with my cousin before he decided to be a transsexual.

And then a picture from when you were 14, a picture you’d thought you’d deleted from every conceivable online location. A picture that highlights pretty much every single aspect of your body that made staying in the closet completely untenable. Everything just always happens at once, huh.

“Fucking asshole,” you mutter, and are surprised to feel the hot prick of tears in your eyes.

“Becca, you alright?” Valerie asks, and you belatedly realize that everyone at the table heard you and is now staring. They think you were talking about one of them, or responding to something they said.

“Uh, yeah, sorry. Just something my cousin posted. She’s—she can be such a jerk. Don’t worry about it,” you say as you hastily wipe away the tears.

“What’d she do?” Jackson asks. Valerie glares at him so fiercely that he rolls his eyes and holds up his hands, “Just, like, if you wanna talk about it.”

You sigh. You’re not precisely going stealth, but you also don’t just talk to everyone about being trans. Have you actually come out to Jackson? Valerie knows, and Raul, but you don’t think you’ve ever directly talked to Jackson about it.

“It’s—it’s fine. Just, she posted a picture of me from before I came out, and I really hate thinking about any of it.” You speak with a bit more force than you intend.

“Why is that a big deal?” Jackson asks, taking a bite of his pasta. Valerie glares at him again and Raul just shakes his head.

“It’s just…it took me a long time to figure it out, and I don’t particularly like being reminded of that. And it’s not great for dysphoria, either.” You say this distractedly as you go to the post and untag yourself.

“That’s really rough,” Raul says, frowning.

“Sorry, what’s that word?” Jackson asks with a raised eyebrow, “I guess I just don’t get it? It’s just a kid picture of you, what’s it matter?”

And that does it. You stand abruptly, “I need to get back to the lab.” You hear Valerie and Raul berating Jackson as you walk away, but you’re just so very done. You toss the empty sushi container in the trash at the corner of the hallway, near one of the windows overlooking the main walkway through campus. And you nearly trip over your own feet as you swivel to double check something down below. A gray hoodie. A child with no face looking over their shoulder as they turn a corner.

****

You don’t mean to take the wrong street. It’s already been far too long a day between all of the inanity with your extended family and Jackson. And everything you tried to run after lunch was a bust, making you feel like Dr. Dominguez’s praise earlier was completely undeserved. Given all of that, you decided to get takeout again, even though you really should be cooking, so you’re walking to pick up your order. It is early evening, the shadows having elongated to embrace nearly everything, and while debating whether it’s even worth confronting your cousin about the jab, your feet simply take you the wrong way. You don’t even notice, until you’re standing in front of an empty park that’s three blocks over from where you should be. Or, wait.

Not empty. One lone figure, sitting quietly on one of the swings, wreathed in shadow.

You’ve been walking quite quickly, but over the course of a few steps have come almost to a stop. With a shiver, you glance around the area, but no parents or adults are in sight, and the figure looks young, even from a distance. 12, maybe? Maybe the kid lives in one of the nearby houses? Probably. Should you call someone? Who? Not the cops. They’d just as soon arrest or hurt the kid as help them. It isn’t that late, leaving the kid be is probably the most prudent course of action.

But. The kid feels…familiar. Even from a hundred meters, you can see that their shoulders are hunched, their hands are tight on the chains of the swing. The gentle creaking as those chains move with the slight shifts of the kid’s body is despondent in a way that is known to you, somehow. So, against your better judgement, you leave the sidewalk and walk across the damp grass to the edge of the playground. When you step onto the sand, the kid’s head jerks up and their shoulders tense further, raising almost to their ears. You stop walking and from the new angle a streetlight throws the kid’s grey hoodie into stark relief.

“Are-are you okay?” you have to clear your throat to get the words out and your voice sounds weak and tinny in the still, silent park.

The shoulders shrug. The kid is also wearing jean cutoffs, their scuffed sneakers unlaced.

“Do you need me to call someone?”

A sharp shake of the head, and then their hands release the chains and fall into their lap.

“Don’t need anything,” the kid’s voice is low, you can barely hear what they’re saying. Gingerly, you take the last few steps to the swing set and awkwardly settle into one of the worn rubber seats. Only after you have already done this do you think to question why you are so compelled to talk to this child who—maybe? how?—has been dogging you all day.

“I said I don’t need anything,” the kid says in an emotionless voice. Their face is still completely shadowed by their hood and shaggy hair.

 “I just—look, kid, I think I’ve been where you are, and—”

The kid cuts across you, “I tried to tell them today. But I…couldn’t, I didn’t know how to, so I just ended up saying I like girly shoes and wanted some or whatever.”

Oh. So you were right. You know exactly what’s going on. In fact, you’re pretty sure you had that precise conversation, once.

“That’s tough,” you acknowledge, slowly pushing back in the swing, which creaks beneath you, “It took me a long time too.”

There’s silence. Then:

“That’s what I was worried about.”

You start and quickly glance over at the kid, who has finally turned to face you.

She doesn’t have a face, which, you suppose, really shouldn’t be a surprise. You weren’t seeing things, earlier. There’s just a smooth expanse of dark olive skin. The featureless head tilts to one side and she speaks again.

“I thought you might recognize me.” The voice is plaintive. With every word, you feel a sense of vertigo, like there is a mouth, somewhere, that is making those sounds, that it’s right in front of you, but you cannot perceive it.

You are breathing very rapidly, “I thought—how do you know me? What’s, I mean—”

“This?” the kid gestures at her face, “I don’t know, I can see but I can’t see myself, I dunno what’s going on. All I know is I was walking to the park and then I was here, or I mean, on the road this morning and saw you and I followed you and I just want to go home or just sleep or just melt away but I can’t, okay? There’s just nothing.”

Without noticing, you have sprung to your feet and are backing away from the faceless girl, the faceless girl who can’t tell her parents who she is. Who you are.

“I didn’t want to think about it,” you whisper. Why are you even responding to this? This is a hallucination, or a dream. You’re just reacting to the whole bullshit situation with your cousin and Jackson and that fucking pharmacy tech. Did you fall asleep back in the lab, is that it? You pinch yourself, but no luck, “I came out and that was what I needed. Okay? Why dwell on, on, on all of that shi—stuff that happened before?”

The girl is still sitting placidly in the swing, though her hands are once again clenched around the chains.

“I knew you were me, I guess. So I followed. I don’t think anyone else notices me either, not that that’s anything new,” The note of bitterness in her voice cuts you to the bone, “I thought maybe you—me, future me, whatever—would be able to…fix me? But nothing’s changed, has it?”

You’re backed up to the slide now, “Why are you doing this? What even are you?”

You slump against the side of slide, your knees suddenly weak, “This cannot—this is bullshit, I don’t know how you’re doing this, but—”

The faceless girl is in front of you now, hands jammed into the front pocket of her hoodie. She stands there, contemplating her future self, “I just want to understand,”

The kid, proto-Becca, or whatever or whoever she is, sure sounds like a kid desperately trying to make sense of something, and not some ghoulish nightmare creature.

“Just stop,” you say in a hoarse voice, “I just don’t want to think about it, I shouldn’t have to think about it, I just want to move forward.”

“Yeah,” proto-Becca abruptly falls to her knees, and draws them up to her chest. It takes a few seconds for you to understand the sounds that the kid is making are sobs.

You hug your own knees and contemplate getting up and running away and just forgetting about all of it: this faceless phantom of your childhood self, your relatives’ inability to accept your reality, the absurd, useless, pointless stats and analyses. You’re crying too, desperately trying to refocus on the here and now, instead of being drawn down into the rabbit hole of loneliness and regret and fear that always consumes you when you think too hard about those years in which it felt like your whole body was turning against you and you couldn’t find any satisfactory explanations for what you were feeling.

But the sounds of proto-Becca, of proto-you, sobbing into her knobbly knees bring you back to the present. Ironic, that. No matter what else, however she got here, whatever happened to her face, she’s a kid. She’s a kid. She’s. A. Kid. You were a kid.

You furiously wipe your eyes and nose and sit up, scooting a bit closer to proto-Becca.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” you say in as steady a voice as you can manage, “I was scared, and, and, and I lashed out. It’s not your fault, kid.”

She doesn’t lift her head, but the sobs are quieter.

“I mean, kid, no offense, but you don’t have a face. And somehow you’re me, right?” Okay, that came out meaner than you meant it to, “The truth is that I’ve done my best to forget pretty much everything that happened back when I was…you, I guess. But I can’t.”

She sniffles, “I’m trying to tell them, I am. But the boys at school, every time I try to talk to Mom or Dad I see those boys laughing and yelling and coming at me and I can’t, I don’t—know how I ended up here, or what to do about this or anything. I just want things to be normal.”

And, finally, you get it. Not why she’s here, or how, or what any of this means, but, at least, what to do. You’ve tried to help kids who were like you before. You’d never have told them that they needed to keep their feelings concealed, that they needed to not do anything so as to avoid reminding you of your own past. So why, then, are you doing it to yourself?

“Is it okay if I come sit next to you, maybe give you a hug?” you ask, as gently as you can.

You get a glimpse of the faceless face from behind the curtain of hair, “I—I think so?”

You get to your feet, a task far more laborious than you feel it should be, and cross to her. When you plop down by her side, she twitches, but it’s toward you. Slowly and carefully, you wrap an arm around her narrow shoulders, and hold her close. She’s still crying, and the hood has slipped from her dark curls.

“It’s okay that it’s taking time,” you say, “It’s really, really hard. I meant that. There’s…nothing out there. No one to explain to you, to, uh, us, what these feelings mean, really. I remember. I remember how much it feels like you’re just stuck in the same looped computer program. Endlessly completing the same actions with no idea why, only feeling like something isn’t right. And so scared of what happens if you do anything that breaks that loop.”

“That’s pretty much it,” she says with a note of wait, that wasn’t completely in my head???, “I don’t see how I can explain to anyone, especially Mom and Dad.”

“I think all you can do is be honest. There are some resources out there, although maybe they aren’t published yet,” you glance sideways at her, “But if you just…elucidate those feelings you’ve been sitting on, it at least opens the door to them comprehending.”

“I guess so,” she sighs, and then giggles, “But also, like, no offense, that was, like, a really freakin’ pretentious way to say that.”

You snort and ruffle her hair, “Whatever. Something for you to look forward to, then.”

She’s quiet for a bit and then, quick like a bird, she wraps her arms around you too, “So I’m gonna tell them, then?”

You shrug, “When you’re ready. Whenever that is. And I promise, you are no lesser if it takes a while. Okay?”

“But you’re still going to hate thinking about me, right? I mean, about how long it took me, you, to finally do it?” her head tilts.

You sigh, “I don’t know. It’s hard, I won’t pretend it isn’t. But I think I can at least say that it’s okay. That it’s not my, or your, fault.”

When you look up, her face appears. Smile first. Broad and full of braces, her quick and nervous brown eyes darting to your face and then back to her knees.

“You’ll be fine,” you say, giving her one last squeeze, “I’m the living proof, right?”

Her laugh lingers in the air as she fades away.

x

[smilingleoo]

Bts reaction- thinking that your boobs are fake

Request: Hi i know its weird but can i have a preference or imagine where they think your boobs are fake haha ily thankss

Warnings: smutty scenes I guess (?

Author´s Note: Hey! It´s not weird at all anon, enjoy!!!!!

-------

RM (Kim Namjoon)

He wouldn't deny that he had stared at your boobs so as to decipher if they were real or not.

When he first met you, he thought you were the sexiest woman on earth. He declared to the boys he found you absolutely stunning and even surreal. However, he just had one question; where you attributes natural? Not that he minded, of course. He was a man who believed that people could do what they felt like but he was also a curious boy. Therefore, when you had finally accepted to be his girlfriend, he finally asked you.

“No, baby”-you laughed-” They are 100% real”

Jin (Kim Seokjin)

Like Namjoon, he would stare (who wouldn´t tho)

Being his funny, sassy self, he would sometimes blurt out things he wasn´t meant to. Not that he minded but he could appear to be rude to other people, even more to the ones who he had recently met, Well, a something similar had happened while talking with you. Bangtan had decided to go on vacation to a beautiful hotel. You, fortunately, worked there and, since day one, Seokjin couldn´t seem to take his eyes off of you. Therefore, one day he decided to approach the bar you had been placed in and made sure to start a small talk with. However, his stupid mouth cracked a dad joke about surgeries and esthetic. He was quick to mentally blame himself for being so utterly disrespectful since he thought that your boobs were fake. Yet he was relieved to hear that he hadn´t been rude at all.

“ That was a good one”-you giggled-” Imagine if a had gotten a surgery, you would have been so screwed”

That´s when he fell hard for you.

Suga (Min Yoongi)

Surprise Yoongi would suddenly appear.

Don´t get him wrong, he would actually really like them. His eyes would unintentionally stagger their way down to your breast, debating whether they were real or not. Like Namjoon, he wouldn´t really care but it was just a question that seemed to pop in his mind whenever he stared at you for too long. Everyone knew that Yoongi was an extremely respectful and silent man, opting most of the time to save his opinions to himself. However, he had to plaster his attraction towards you somewhere. Just like he portrayed his anger and frustration on Cyphers, he decided to write a short rap dedicated you your outstanding beauty. However, he didn´t listen to you entering his studio and heard a particular line that made you laugh.

“ If you´re so curious, min Yoongi”-he stopped embarrassed-” You should´ve asked. No, they are actually pretty natural”

Jhope (Jung Hoseok)

Okay, he couldn´t concentrate if he had you dancing so near him.

Not because he didn´t like it but for the fact that his mind always seemed too keen on gazing your boobs rather than follow the choreography. They were just so perfect he couldn´t even get a hold on himself-” Maybe we should for today”-you suggested and everyone agreed. Nevertheless, when all the boys had lefts but Hoseok you decided to ask him if he wanted to review some part of the dance. He, of course, couldn´t deny such an offer, so you spent most of the afternoon dancing and laughing in the practice. Little did Hobi know that in one specific move his hand would accidentally land on your breast. You gasped and retreated immediately. Hoseok apologized while bowing respectfully but you dismissed him with a joke.

Now Hoseok knew they were actually incredibly natural.

Jimin (Park Jimin)

Shy boy.

He was scrolling through his secret instagram account and suddenly came across (because he was not stalking you or that´s what he said) an old photo you had posted. Of course, he made a screenshot of it and analyzed every detail with outstanding precision. His eyes rambled across your stunning body until they found his source of confusion. Your boobs were the most mysterious yet gorgeous things he had the pleasure to appreciate. He had alway been curious about their whereabouts because, really, they couldn´t be real. Having nothing to lose, he decided to text you with a fake account and ask you about it. He would have done so face-to-face but both of you didn´t have that much trust yet.

Are your boobs fake?

No, lol. Why?

*Surprised mochi has enetered the chat*

V (Kim Taehyung)

Kim Taehyung was extremely touchy since you started dating him.

His hadns would wander along your legs, waist and neck every time they could. Even sometimes, when he was busy with something else, he would unconsciously drag his palm along your thigh. However, his favorite part to explore were your boobs. Of course he didn´t do it as frequently as with more discreet parts, but he made sure to massage them once in a while through cuddling. He always had asked hismelf if such perfect breast existed naturally. He had always wanted to ask you yet, most of the time, he forgot. 

“ Baby, why do you like feeling my boobs so much?”-you would as in the middle of a movie.

“ I want to decipher if they´re fake or not”

“ You could just ask me, you weirdo”-you sighed giggling-” Of course they´re not fake!”

Jungkook (Jeon Jungkook)

I deeply think that Jungkook wouldn´t mind asking you at all.

He would be shy at the start of your relationship but would soon warm up. I mean, he is so comfortable around people he knows or has already met. Therefore, after an year of being together he woudn´t mind at all. His doubt would pop in his mind during a conversation with his Hyungs about you. They all concluded that you were extremely pretty and that Jungkook was a lucky guy yet Jimin, who knows that Jungkook wouldn´t get mad since he kbew that you only loved him, asked-” Are her breast like...made?”

Jungkooks frown made it clear that he had no clue. Thus, later that day, he waited for you to stroll out of the bathroom to ask you-” Babe, are your boob natural?”

“ Yes”

“ Cool”-he nodded-” Let me grope them just to be sure”

“ Jungkook!”

[theimprobabledreamersworld]

Yayy! Despite trying to fight off a monster of a cold, I’ve got a new chapter written! :D

As I mentioned yesterday, this one is written from Logan’s POV because I’ve been wanting to create a back story for him in this story :) 

I’ll post the chapter under a line on here, but please check it out on Ao3 too! I love reading comments and stuff to find out what people think :)

Hope you like it!

Taglist: @psychedelicships  @edupunkn00b  @jwillowwolf @kacklingisanart @look-ma-im-on-tv @stardustlv @lost-in-thought-20

Chapter 5. My Heart Was Made Of Stone. And You Broke It Twice.

“But the wind has changed. My walls are weakening. They’re gonna fall soon. And I’m gonna need you.”

Logan was a man who always kept his emotions in check. He never let himself get too consumed by any kind of feeling. Happiness, sadness, love, hate, anger… Ever since he was sixteen, he refused to be vulnerable ever again. If you’re vulnerable, you can be broken. He had been broken far too many times when he was growing up.

His parents were agreeable, he couldn’t deny that… but he was never enough for them. Even as a young child, nothing was quite good enough. He remembered when the class teacher told his parents that he was the first child to learn how to write his name… he stretched up to show them and they let the paper flutter to the floor saying it wasn’t neat enough. He was only four! It got worse as he got older. Every time he was proud of something he had achieved, like getting a high grade, he was always asked why it wasn’t full marks. The unattainable goals were never reached and it took a lot to even vaguely satisfy them. He worked himself into the ground for the entirety of his school life, it affected his health, but they still weren’t happy. He was never strong enough, creative enough, serious enough, smart enough… and it hurt so much to know that. His friends however were amazing, they would always encourage him and make him take breaks when they knew he was working way too hard. They could always cheer him up and he was eternally grateful for that. Logan clenched his fists… he hated how much it knocked him down when he would walk in smiling over something that happened at school, to be told they weren’t interested and to just go and study. He always set himself up for the fall almost every day… no wonder emotions became such a hinderance. Luckily, music was his salvation for about eight years.

Logan took his head out of his hands, readjusted his eyes to the light and felt how raw they were from crying before staring at the dusty piano in the house intently. He used to be pretty good at playing. He loved his classical music, and still does. Just not playing it anymore. When he still had lessons, he was always thrilled with the challenge of increasingly difficult pieces given to him by his teacher. It was funny, his music teacher was the only person who ever truly believed in him. He was also the one person who could convince Logan to perform. The last concert he ever played in was the day before his sixteenth birthday, he played his most difficult piece to date… Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu Op 66. They decided on that because it was originally a piece that no one was ever supposed to hear, Chopin never wanted it to be released after he died… but they did it anyway. His teacher said that he could then perform it however he wanted to, artistic interpretation and all that. He practiced and practiced at school so his parents wouldn’t hear it before. When it got to the concert, and his parents actually turned up, he was genuinely surprised. He walked out on the stage and sat down looking for his teacher who gave him a smile and a thumbs up, then the music began. He felt almost like he was watching himself play, he had never played with such determination before and as the final note rung out… there was silence. Before the room broke out into applause, his teacher was standing up clapping vigorously, then some of his classmates and other parents stood up too. His parents however were sat down, clapping politely with a neutral expression on their faces and Logan’s smile faltered. He gave a quick bow and walked quickly off the stage. His teacher followed him and gave him a hug while telling him how proud he was. Logan couldn’t stop the tears, he had never cried in front of another person, but no one had ever been proud of him before either. How embarrassing. The first time he had been shown positive interest by someone he respected, and he cried until the top of their shirt was damp with his tears. His teacher just held him and told him everything was okay. After he had calmed down and the tears had stopped, he went to go and join his parents for the second half of the concert, but their seats were empty.

In that moment, he didn’t get upset again and stayed unusually calm, and he knew that this was the final straw. He stayed at a hotel for the night at the insistence of his teacher, that way he could sort out his head and start looking up different apartment options. Which he did realise could be tricky as a sixteen-year-old… but he was smart, reliable, didn’t drink or smoke and had a substantial amount of money at his disposal. He waited until the morning and snuck back into his parent’s house to collect all of the things that he deemed necessary. Thankfully, the hotel manager was understanding and let him stay for the bare minimum price until he could find an apartment for himself. It took a few months, and the landlord had to be persuaded by his music teacher, but he found an apartment which was close to everything he needed and was affordable. One day, he would repay that teacher back for everything he had done for him.

He looked at the calendar, the picture of him and Virgil smiling and holding up their wedding ring hands was taunting him on the wall. He noticed the date. Wow, it had been ten years since he left without looking back, and he never heard a single word from them.

That was clearly for the best.

Ever since then, he never let emotions get the better of him ever again. However, as he looked around at the decimated living room, he had clearly broken and let all of those emotions consume him once again. Logan inspected the damage, as he traced the hole in the wall, the shattered photo frames and glass covering the floor, it caused his heart to fill up with regret. His heart was already full of pain, the regret was enough to make his heart quite literally tear in two. Virgil was the first person he felt like he could be vulnerable with again. When they first met, there was something about him, something that reminded him of himself. Maybe this guy was just as broken as he was, as he saw him hiding in the corner of the coffee shop trying to stay away from the world. He told Virgil this many times, but he had encased his heart in stone to keep it safe. As their relationship developed, as stupid as it sounds, he could feel the stone wall cracking and breaking off piece by piece, and he honestly didn’t mind in the slightest.

Now, he didn’t know what was going on with his heart. He was hurt, he was angry. It’s not every day you find out that the man you’ve been married to for the last five years spent most of his life as a well-trained and dangerous assassin. Going by Virgil’s words alone, the body count to his name is staggering and who knows how many people he’s hurt over the years. The argument they had earlier in the evening was playing on repeat in his mind.

“I couldn’t tell you!” Virgil shouted across the room.

“Why the hell not?! I’m your fucking HUSBAND Virgil, you are supposed to trust me. No matter what’s happened in your past!” Logan rubbed his forehead in frustration.

“Okay, you want to know why I hid everything from you? I did it to PROTECT you! My past is something that can be used against me, it is still being used against me. If anyone from it came after you… I would never be able to forgive myself!” The tears wouldn’t stop rolling down Virgil’s face as he spluttered out the words while his body shook with sobs.

Despite the hurt of seeing Virgil in so much pain, Logan couldn’t contain his anger. “What makes you decide if I need protecting? I can handle myself, ever since I was sixteen I’ve been on my own… You know that!”

Virgil sighed, like he was debating whether or not to say his next sentence.

“Remember when we met all those years ago? You told me about how you were attacked and how scared you were after it? Well… it was me. I was the guy who saved you. Every day since that moment, I vowed that I would protect you no matter the cost. Then I fell in love with you along the way, and I’ll love you until the end of time. If you want to know the truth about me, I know he gave you something. Look at it, and I won’t blame you if you try to turn me in to the police afterwards. I have to go now though, otherwise you will get hurt… I’m sorry, Lo.” Logan was left dumbfounded, and Virgil ran out of the front door, slipping away into the night.

There had been so many lies and too many secrets. He remembered that USB stick he threw in a drawer months ago. He opened it up and stared at the blue object, the label that read ‘Virgil… ?’ taunted him mercilessly. He looked over at his open laptop that was spared from his destructive anger, should he look at it?

Logan shook that thought away instantly, he needed to clear up first before making any kind of decision. He crouched down on the floor and started to sweep the glass over towards the sofa with his hand, just so he could clean it properly soon. He got to the first photograph, him and Virgil sitting in a restaurant holding hands and smiling at the camera. That picture was taken by Thomas and Nico, their two closest friends… He thought he should text them and see if they could come over. Virgil left half an hour ago, and he already felt too alone.

He’d contact them later, but for now. He wanted to stare at photographs and revel in his memories.

[olliepig]

Waiting in the Wings chapter 5

Thanks as always to the wonderful (and ever patient) @willow-salix for all her help in getting this beast out. 

As always, the whole thing is available on AO3 here

********************************

The cheers of the crowd bathing her in a glow of satisfaction that she’d never managed to find elsewhere, Cat stood on the stage of the Opera House after her performance of Swan Lake, savouring the moment. It was a marathon of a ballet that took every ounce of energy she had, and the appreciation shown by the audience at the end made the hard work and downright pain of her chosen career totally worth it.

She knew as well as everyone else on the stage that the post performance glow could be short lived and, with her long day nearly over, she was relieved that all she had left to do was receive her flowers, get changed and head home. Sensing a shift in focus from those around her, she looked over to the wings in time to see one of the Opera House staff staggering onto the stage with quite possibly the largest bouquet she had ever seen and heading straight for her.

Since her first performance of Giselle, larger and larger arrangements of flowers had started arriving at the Opera House to be presented onstage at the end of each show. There was never a name or message on the card hidden inside, just the initial S and two kisses. It was a fact that didn’t go unnoticed and became a source of debate and amusement within the company whenever she performed to see how many flowers she would receive and whether the mysterious sender would make themselves known.

Outwardly, Cat pretended to be exasperated by the constant influx of flowers but secretly she loved it and always thanked Scott profusely for his thoughtfulness. She had never expressly told him what her performance schedule was, so she supposed that he had looked it up and made arrangements accordingly. It had never been discussed aside from her giving her thanks but it was something that made her heart flutter dangerously every time and she cherished it.

With the curtain calls over, and with everyone having somehow managed to avoid tripping over the flowers as they laid on the stage, Cat headed back to her dressing room, barely able to see over the top of them. It wasn’t the only bouquet she had received that night and as she walked she thought that it was lucky that it was a route she had followed so often as she was relying almost entirely on memory to find her way.

As soon as she was safely in the dressing room, she carefully placed her flowers in the sink and pulled out her phone.

How the hell am I supposed to get these home on the tube?! They barely fit in the bloody dressing room! (Thank you very much for them btw. They’re beautiful!)

Smiling, she put her phone down and started to get on with the business of getting her costume undone when, almost instantly, her phone buzzed with a reply.

Good job I'm here tonight then, isn’t it? I’ll have the car at the front when you’re ready.

Cat smiled as her heart lurched with the unexpected excitement of seeing Scott again. It wasn’t the first time they had met up since their night at Penny’s and their friendship felt like it was blossoming. Multiple messages were exchanged daily and the more they learned about the others lives, the more comfortable they became.

What?! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? Why don’t you come round to stage door and I’ll come down to meet you there? I need to grab a shower before I leave and I’ll be a while so you can wait in my dressing room.

Text sent, Cat raced through getting her tutu off and threw a tracksuit on. Checking her phone, she smiled again as she saw the reply,

I wanted to surprise you and yeah, that sounds much better than sitting out here by myself. See you soon!

Keen not to keep Scott waiting, she flew down the stairs, shoving down the nagging thought that she shouldn’t be this excited to see someone who was supposed to be just a friend. It was a decision that they had made together and she was determined to stick to it, regardless of the little voice in her head that kept pointing out that it had been her idea and that he had merely agreed to it.

Scott was already waiting for her when she arrived and her breath caught slightly as she took him in before he spotted her. He really was almost impossibly beautiful, she thought; the very epitome of tall, dark and handsome. His impeccably cut suit looked to be the same colour as his dress blues from his airforce days, a memory that stirred another flutter in her stomach.

“C’mon then you,” she greeted him fondly, enjoying the look of surprise on his face when he registered her next to him as she grabbed his hand and led him into the maze of corridors backstage.

“Well hello to you too,” he smiled, following behind and enjoying the touch of her hand much more than he thought he should.

Having never discussed the identity of her flower sender with anyone but her closest friends, bumping into two members of the corps de ballet on the stairs while escorting Scott Tracy back up to her dressing room was definitely not part of Cat’s plan to keep it a secret, especially as, she realised with a start, she was still holding his hand.

A hot flash of something akin to jealousy flared through her as she saw the appreciative glances they threw his way as they passed by and she mentally kicked herself for it as she hurried an oblivious Scott up to the relative privacy of her room. It wasn’t that she was trying to keep their friendship a secret; she just really didn’t want to be pressured into publicly defining something that was so far totally undefinable to her.

“You did great tonight,” Scott started with a smile that made Cat’s heart rate increase as the door closed behind them.

“Thank you very much,” she grinned, turning away quickly so he couldn’t see the effect he’d had on her. She watched in the mirror as he headed over and made himself comfortable on her window seat before starting the job of unpinning her headdress and letting her hair out of its tight bun. “When you said you were here I wondered if you’d seen it.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it, even if it did mean a ridiculously early start this morning. Sorry about the flowers by the way,” he added as he caught sight of them, the small sink making the arrangement look even bigger than it was. “I didn’t realise you’d have other bouquets as well and I genuinely didn’t expect mine to be quite that big.”

“That’s OK,” laughed Cat, moving on to removing the worst of her makeup. “It was hilarious watching them try to get them all onstage. I’m just glad you’re here to help me get them all home.”

“So, um, what would you like to do once you’re ready? I’d be very happy to take you for dinner if you'd like?” Scott knew full well that she wouldn’t have eaten since late afternoon and would likely be hungry after all the energy she had used in her performance. He had many happy memories of late meals after her shows and was keen to recapture those moments, even if they didn’t lead to the same end to the night as they used to.

“Not sure I really fancy dinner,” came the reply, throwing a bucket of ice water over the daydream he had somehow slipped into. “It’s been a long day and my feet really hurt. I was just planning on making some pasta and chilling out tonight if you’d like to join me?”

“That sounds wonderful,” smiled Scott, his initial disappointment at her rebuttal turning to enthusiasm for her counter offer, visions of cosying up on the sofa appearing in his head.

“Right, I’m going to jump in the shower, keep making yourself at home and I’ll be as quick as I can,” she finished, grabbing her clothes and disappearing without a backward glance, leaving Scott to his thoughts.

Scott looked around and wondered what to do. He'd been in the dressing room once before after Giselle but with Penny and Gordon there too he hadn’t paid much attention to it at the time. He was acutely aware that this was her private space in the theatre and he didn’t want to pry. Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. He found her fascinating and wanted to find out everything he could about her life but he wasn’t prepared to violate her privacy, so he contented himself with settling down on the chair at her dressing table and looking at the pictures that she had stuck around her mirror.

He’d looked at nearly all of them when, to his surprise, he spotted a picture he had taken of Cat and some friends of hers whose names he had once known. Seeing it again transported him back to that day: waking up with her beside him before going for a lazy brunch, then heading out on a trail walk along the James River where they bumped into a group of her friends, joining them for a while on their walk and laughing with them as they took the pictures.

He wondered, with a pang of regret, if she still had the picture of the two of them that had been taken moments later, cuddled up to each other and smiling, cheeks rosy from the slight chill in the air. He’d not thought of that picture since the day it had been taken. At the time it hadn’t seemed like it was of any real importance, just a snapshot of another day together with the promise of countless more like it in their future, but now… Well, now it mattered somehow.

His musing was interrupted by Cat breezing out of the showerroom, now dressed and ready to go. As they chatted amicably while she gathered her belongings, to his delight he noticed with a start that she was wearing the same outfit that she had at Pennys, sending his thoughts spiralling back to the events of that night and making him wonder if there was a significance there that he was not yet aware of.  He was very relieved when she thrust a couple of her bouquets into his arms and led him out of the room, unwittingly breaking that particular train of thought before it could affect him too much.

Down at the stage door, Scott found himself hanging back while Cat signed autographs for the second time in as many months. Unlike the last time, however, he was now playing the role of a glorified vase and within the first 10 minutes he started to quite seriously regret his choice of bouquet as the foliage tickled his nose for what felt like the 100th time.

The number of people who turned out, and were prepared to wait in the unseasonably cool London night to speak to their favourite dancers, amazed him. When he thought about it properly, he wasn’t sure why; they were stars in their own right and their fans wanting to meet them made perfect sense. It was a world away from his experiences of waiting alone for Cat after her early performances in Richmond and his heart swelled with pride at her accomplishments since then as he watched her work her way through the crowd.

As he waited, he became uncomfortably aware of people watching him too and once he had realised that,  he became sure he could hear his name being whispered in conversation, making him quickly duck behind the flowers, using them as a shield. He was well aware of the attention his presence could attract and also very keen not to let the focus be taken away from those who deserved it so he started to maneuver himself away from the crowd.

On their way down from the dressing room, Scott had promised Cat that he would have the car waiting for her once she was finished and when he became certain that he had been spotted, he gratefully snuck away to fetch it, rifling through his pocket for the keys and trying not to drop the damn flowers that were quickly becoming the bane of his life.

Safely settled in the driver's seat, Scott allowed himself to slump for a moment and prepare for the evening ahead of him. He cherished his friendship with Cat but there was no doubt of how he still felt about her. As soon as they’d started talking again it was clear to him that they still had a connection and the night they’d spent at Penny’s had cemented that. Or at least he’d thought it had.

He understood why she had made the decision to be friends and nothing more, but that didn’t mean it hurt him any less. He had pushed that hurt down in order to keep her in his life and he’d been pleasantly surprised at how natural it had felt when they had met up a few weeks later. Where he’d expected awkwardness and long silences, he’d found laughter and flowing conversation which encouraged him to persevere further, truly hoping that one day his feelings would fade and he could be the friend she desired.

When they were apart, he almost managed to convince himself that friendship between them would be entirely possible, but as soon as they were together, he longed to reach out and bridge the gap between them. Being so close to her but unable to act on his feelings was like some kind of delicious torture that he hated and loved in equal measure. He was hopelessly addicted to her, and he had no idea what to do about it.

*****

Feeling unnaturally clumsy under Scott’s gaze, Cat muddled around her flat, finding light switches and vases while simultaneously urging him to make himself at home and apologising for the non existent  mess. She hadn’t been expecting a visitor when she had left that morning and she reddened as she spotted the underwear that she’d left over a radiator to dry, grabbing and stuffing them down the side of a cupboard, most likely never to be seen again.

If Scott saw her, he didn’t mention it and for that she thought she would be forever grateful. He followed her around, helping as much as he could as he looked around in interest at the place she called home.

“Hey,” she commented with a smile, finally coming to rest and surveying the veritable florists that had appeared in her kitchen, “remember when you used to just get me a single rose after a show?”

“What, like this one?” Scott grinned, holding out a blood red flower that he had produced from lord knows where.

Cat smiled slowly as she met his eyes, making his heart race. He kissed the flower and presented it to her with a deep bow, as he had seen her doing to her partner on stage earlier that night and was delighted when she received it with a curtsey.

“I…. Thank you,” Cat smiled, genuinely pleased with what she hoped would be her final floral gift for the night. The rose brought back so many memories of their time together and for that alone it meant more than all the other flowers combined.

“Right, shall we get dinner on, then? We're still making pasta?” Scott broke the moment and took charge. Seeing a kettle, he filled it and set it to boil before looking around the kitchen for any hints of where utensils and food might be kept.

“Bottom drawer, next to the fridge,” Cat instructed, following his line of thinking and directing him towards the saucepans. The pair of them bumped companionably around the kitchen as they made the  simple meal for themselves, falling easily back into old habits and divisions of labour.

“Ooh, wine,” Scott exclaimed, emerging from the fridge and holding a bottle triumphantly above his head. “Would you like a glass?”

“Yes, I think I would,” came the reply from somewhere deep within a cupboard as Cat rummaged through for the sauce she was looking for. “It always takes me ages to unwind properly after a show and I do like a nice glass or two now and again.”

“I remember,” Scott replied softly as he put the bottle down. Something  in his tone caused Cat to stop what she was doing and turn to look at him, finding his eyes mesmerising as they caught hers.

Cat was pinned by them, her breath quickened  as she drowned in their depths and she fought the sudden urge to take the few steps needed to close the gap between them. His lips looked so soft and inviting and she found herself wondering if they tasted the same as when she had last kissed them.

“Shit!” Cat’s attention was distracted by the unmistakable sound of a pan boiling over. She rushed to mop up the worst of the water, the moment lost.

By the time she looked back up, Scott had moved too and had busied himself by pouring two glasses of wine and getting the plates ready for when it was time to dish up their dinner.

It was probably for the best, she told herself. They were just friends. They’d both agreed. And friends didn’t look at each other like that, right?

Settling down after dinner, they flopped into well practised positions on the sofa, facing each other with their legs comfortably tangled together in the middle and her feet in his lap.

As he listened to Cat talking about her plans for her summer break and the ballets she had coming up in the new season, Scott had found his mind drifting back to the moment that they had shared in the kitchen, feeling once again the way his breath had seemed to catch every time her eyes met his.  

Lost in her, he absentmindedly rubbed her feet, feeling the tense muscles slowly loosen under pressure from his thumbs, the action soothing him and allowing him time to let his racing thoughts settle.

Ultimately, he had no idea what was going on. If they were to be friends, he’d make  his peace with that and would continue to hide his true feelings for her until they faded, but they continued to have  moments that were charged with such intensity that they were impossible to ignore or write off as something else.  

He realised that she had stopped talking and was watching him with an almost unreadable expression but for the  little smile creeping onto the corners of her mouth.

“Sorry,’ he apologised, feeling the heat creeping up his cheeks and snatched his hands away as if her feet were on fire.

“No, it’s OK. It felt good,” she reassured him. “You were always really good at that. It just brought back a lot of memories, that's all.”

Scott smiled gratefully and went back to working on getting the knots out of her feet, a comfortable silence coming over them. Listening to her talking had planted the seed of an idea, one which he was unaccountably nervous about broaching lest she think he was overstepping any boundaries. As he worked, the idea grew and coalesced into something more tangible, something that he thought might actually help cement their friendship.

“I’ve got something to ask you…” he started hesitantly, “You can absolutely say no but I wanted to ask anyway.”

“OK, fire away.” Cat fixed him with a look that excited and scared him in equal measure as she fiddled with her wine glass.

“I know you were saying you have some plans for your summer break, but if you have a bit of time would you like to come out to the island for a visit? Spend a bit of time in the sun?”

“Wow! That’s quite the suggestion,” she paused, taking a moment to consider the offer and nearly causing Scott’s heart to stop. “Yeah, that sounds lovely,” she decided, giving him a small nod and a beaming smile that lit up her face.

Scott let out the breath he realised he’d been holding since he’d let the question into the open and his smile matched hers, relief washing over him. “Really? You don’t have to agree to it if you’re not completely sure.”

“No, I really want to, it was just a surprise that’s all.” As the idea took hold, Cat could feel herself getting more excited. She’d not had a proper chance to relax since the previous summer, and even that had been marred by the tail end of her previous relationship, so the thought of a week on a tropical island with Scott was definitely something she could get on board with.

“Amazing! You’re going to love it,” Scott smiled, beyond delighted at the thought of being able to show her his home and introduce her to everyone who was important to him. “We can sort out the details another time though. You look exhausted and don’t think I’ve not seen you stifling yawns for the last 10 minutes.”

Cat couldn’t do anything but laugh. “Yeah, you got me, I think it might be my bedtime. It’s awkward question time now, though. Where were you planning on staying tonight?”

“Selene said I could use her place so I was just going to go there,” Scott responded at once, his answer taking her by surprise. “Um, who’s Selene?” Cat tried very hard to maintain an even tone and a neutral expression despite the flash of jealousy that surged through her for the second time that night, somehow catching her by surprise again.

“John’s fiancee and my best friend. Remember, I did tell you about her?” replied Scott, trying very hard not to grin at her obvious discomfort.

“Ah yeah, I just, um... forgot her name, that’s all…” Cat tried to explain, fooling nobody, least of all herself.

“You weren’t jealous there were you, Miss George?” Scott pressed, a glint appearing in his eyes and a wicked grin on his lips.

“Not at all,” Cat insisted, suddenly becoming very interested in her wine glass and trying to ignore the flush that had appeared on her cheeks. “Well, it’s very late, we've had a drink and I have a spare room so you’re welcome to stay here if that would be easier?”

“That does sound tempting. I’ll not be sleeping much though,��� he couldn’t help but pause for effect and was gratified with the response when Cat’s eyes shot back up to meet his as she cocked an eyebrow at him. “It’s 2 in the afternoon my time so I’m pretty wide awake I’m afraid. If you don’t mind me watching TV and having a quick nap so I’m good to fly back tomorrow, then I’d love to stay.”

“You’re a terrible tease, Mr Tracy,” Cat shook her head but her smile betrayed her true feelings. “Of course that’s OK.”

Having set Scott up with everything he could ever possibly need for the coming hours, Cat finally retired to bed but despite her exhaustion, sleep didn’t come easily for her. No matter how hard she tried, her thoughts kept returning to the man in her living room and how torn she felt about him. From the moment they had met again, something had been constantly there, telling her that she couldn’t let him go but to her it wasn’t as simple as that.

At an early age she had learned the pain of rejection by those who should have loved her and it had scarred her deeply. In Scott, she had found someone to whom she had given both her trust and her heart, and his sudden departure from her life had hurt her tremendously.

Once broken, trust wasn’t something she gave out again that easily and she had thought very carefully before letting him back into her life. Yet, despite everything, she wanted to give him her trust. She wasn’t prepared to risk loving him for a second time but friendship seemed to be a good compromise to make in order to be in his life but not stray too close.  

When they were apart it seemed perfectly easy. The messages and calls flowed constantly and there was no end to the things they could talk about. The problem arose when they were together. He seemed to have a magnetic pull on her that was getting increasingly difficult to deny. She had slipped up once and even though her body might be crying out for a repeat performance, her mind was made up.

Groaning quietly, she rolled over and buried her head in the pillow. It was going to be a long night.

*****

Whatever Scott had planned for their Sunday morning together, it was not the little cafe that he found himself sitting in a few blocks away from Cat’s flat. At the very least, he had imagined going someplace where there were proper tablecloths covering tables that didn’t wobble when you leaned on them, risking spilling drinks with every move. However, the food was excellent, the coffee plentiful and the company the best he could imagine so, all things considered, he was very happy with his situation.

Full of food and starting to feel tired from a day that had started almost 19 hours earlier on Tracy Island, he stretched back in his chair, inadvertently catching the attention of the waitress and flashing her a smile in response to her enquiring look.

Across from him, Cat felt a rush of annoyance fire through her as she sipped her coffee and tried to maintain a neutral expression. She’d been feeling on edge all morning, the fight between what she was prepared to give and what she really wanted, wearing her down and making her feel vulnerable and  irritable.

An idea sparked at that moment though, one that would both prove to herself that she was fine with their friendship being nothing more than that and take away any temptation to push things further.

“You should get her number,” she suggested, instantly surprised by how much that simple little sentence hurt.

“What? Why?” Scott stuttered, completely blindsided. He couldn’t think of anything in his behaviour that had suggested that he might have wanted a date and had no idea where this suggestion could possibly have come from.

“You were flirting with her. All those jokes and looks while we were ordering, and that smile right there? Don’t say you weren’t,” she continued, hating herself for every word but doubling down and pushing ahead anyway. The thought of Scott dating anyone hurt her more than she was willing to admit, but she had started down this path and she was committed now.

Scott sat back, running his hands through his perfectly styled hair, not quite believing what was happening.  “I wasn’t flirting, I was being polite and friendly. There is a difference, you know.” He knew he was being defensive, but at that moment he just didn't care.

“You’ve got to admit it though, you are a flirt. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not hit on someone, given half a chance.” Cat felt like she was watching herself from afar, not quite believing what she was saying. As soon as the words were out of her mouth she felt the cold rush of dread spread over her and picked up her coffee cup again in a bid to disguise her shaking hands.

“Listen, this conversation is starting to make me really uncomfortable. I don’t want to date the waitress and I’m not really sure where all of this has come from. Can we just drop it now please?”

“Sorry,” Cat looked down at the empty cup in her hands, desperately wishing that she could go back in time to before she’d ever thought of her wonderful ‘idea’. In retrospect, she wasn’t sure what she had expected to happen, but it certainly wasn’t the reaction that she had gotten. She couldn’t remember a time that he’d ever spoken to her as sharply as that before and it had shaken her.

Scott nodded curtly and went back to his coffee, looking outwardly calm but his mind was whirling. He always flirted. It was part of who he was and he’d always thought she liked that, or at the very least accepted it about him. It had never been an issue when they had dated before so he couldn’t understand why him behaving totally normally to a waitress was now cause for comment.

Fine, he thought petulantly, if flirting means that I want to sleep with someone and we’re just going to be friends then I’d better stop flirting with her too. Don’t want her getting the wrong idea now, do we?

A pang of loss hit him as soon as he made the decision; he had come to crave the excitement that her looks and touches gave him and it would be hard to give that up. Not that he’d been the only one doing the flirting, he thought in annoyance. Not responding was going to be a tough but perhaps necessary evil given the circumstances.

“Wanna get out of here?” he asked with the barest hint of a smile.

Cat nodded miserably. She knew he was angry, she could see it in the set of his jaw. The sparkle had gone from his eyes and he was avoiding looking at her but really she couldn’t blame him. She’d messed up and called him out on something that came to him as naturally as breathing, so he was perfectly entitled to be annoyed and she hated herself for being the cause of it.

Walking around the local park afterward, Cat did her best to act as if nothing had happened but she wasn’t getting anywhere. She knew from experience that Scott needed a bit of time to cool down when he was angry, but they had limited time together and she didn't want to waste it, even if he was clearly in a bad mood with her.

Slowly, the frosty atmosphere between them thawed slightly but there were still long, awkward silences that had never been there before and Cat had to work hard to initiate any conversation. The animosity that had radiated from Scott since they left the cafe abated but Cat found she still couldn’t relax as she started to notice a marked change in Scott’s behaviour towards her.

Since their argument, he hadn’t been cold exactly, but there was a reservation in his actions that hadn’t been there before. Where he had been open and playful, often touching her hand or holding a smile for fractionally longer than necessary, now he was barely making any contact at all and she felt the loss keenly.

Despite trying to act relaxed, Scott was trying desperately to squash down his natural urge to fix everything. He knew that a quick smile and a cheeky comment would make everything OKagain but he hadn't liked being called out for flirting so he was damned if he was going to use it to get back into her good books.

Her comment about asking out the waitress had confused him and nothing more but, when she started challenging him about flirting constantly, that had angered him. The more he thought about it the more angry he had become and the more he doubled down on his resolution not to flirt with her again.

Deep down, he knew he was being petty and probably overreacting but he’d gone to a lot of effort to pull together his trip to London He’d been so excited to see Cat and spend some quality time with her  and it felt like her actions at brunch had thrown all his efforts back in his face and ruined it. He stewed silently as they walked, his growing anger mixing with regret, knowing that he would need to apologise  at some point but not willing to back down and fix everything quite yet.

The longer it went on, the more her attempts to apologise and lighten the mood were rebuffed, the angrier Cat became. She knew she’d messed up but his treatment towards her was completely disproportionate. She’d apologised and in her experience of adult relationships that was the point at which people would talk  about it and move on. Scott treating her like she was barely even an acquaintance when she was giving him a chance to regain her trust was going too far and she wasn’t going to stand for it.

She’d had enough and took them on a shortcut back to her flat, keen to get the walk over so she could talk to him more privately. Her anger at his childish behavior was growing by the minute and by the time they reached her flat she was seriously considering whether it was worth even continuing their friendship at all.

Closing the door behind her, Cat was surprised to find that Scott had already grabbed his bag and was standing ready to go.

“I need to get back...” he tailed off, glancing down at his bag as he shifted uncomfortably.

Cat had always known he was going to need to leave after brunch. She would much rather have had a chance to sit down and talk properly but time was against them and she wasn’t going to let him run away on her when the going got tough again. “OK, but I’m going to ask you something before you go.”

“Of course,” Scott replied warily, not expecting the sharp tone of her voice or the way she straightened as if preparing herself for battle.

“Is everything OK with you today? You’ve seemed pretty distant since we went for brunch,” she challenged with a lot more confidence than she felt. It was not a question that she wanted the answer to, but she couldn’t let him go without asking him, she had to know.

“Yeah, I’ve told you I’m fine,” he answered shortly, keen not to get drawn into a discussion right now when emotions were clearly still running high for both of them.

“I just… I wasn’t sure if you still wanted to be friends or not?” she met his eyes, finding her strength and challenging him to be honest with her now that the question, and her deepest fear, was in the open.

“Of course I do. What gave you that impression?” Scott was growing frustrated by her questions, baffled as to how they could possibly even be having this discussion.

“Yesterday you surprised me for the night, bought me the biggest bunch of flowers I’ve ever seen and invited me to spend a week with you on your family's island, and this afternoon you’ve hardly even looked at me,” she argued, feeling more confident about making her point but not wholly convinced by his answer given his actions that day. “I get it, I messed up earlier and I’m sorry, but I feel like I have whiplash from how fast everything has changed.  So I’ll ask you again, and I want you to be honest with me - do you want to be friends or not?”

“No, I don’t,” Scott snapped, as anger surged through him, shocking her with his ferocity.

Everything he’d been doing to ensure he didn’t cross the line from friends to something more had been taking its toll on him, and that, combined with whatever the hell it was that had happened at brunch, had finally pushed him to his limit.

“I flew 13,000 miles to see you. I rearranged my time off so it fitted in with your performance and your schedule. And today you tell me I should be dating some waitress I’ve never spoken to before? You want to know what I want? You”

Cat was speechless. All she could do was stare at him, her mouth slightly agape, as he bared his soul.

“I want to date you, Cat, no one else. I was to kiss you and take care of you and love you like I used to.”

Suddenly realising what he’d said, Scott pushed past her without waiting for a reply and walked through the door, slamming it on his way out and leaving a bewildered Cat to wonder how on earth she was going to salvage this one.

[guiltysecretpasttime]

Adversity (Chapter 5)

Fic update 📝

Previous chapters here:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Summary: Lin and Tenzin are both at the height of their respective careers – she with the Metalbending Police and he with the Air Nation. Questions about their future begin to arise and things come to a head when Lin responded to an emergency call. Would her job take them from each other forever? Eventual HEA. Non-canon compliant, AU. (Notes at the end of the post.)

==

One.

He waited for her for one hour.

Tenzin was beyond furious.

They had planned this dinner for a while now. They both agreed to it and he made sure Lin’s assistant plotted it in her schedule. Lin herself confirmed her attendance earlier that day before leaving their house.

He made the reservation months ahead at their special restaurant. This was where they had their first date, where they celebrated her acceptance in the academy, where they celebrated his first month into the council… Tenzin would not admit it but between the two of them, he was the sentimental one. He had been hoping to add a new memory to this place for the two of them.

Tenzin tapped his fingers on the table with nervous energy, obstinately avoiding eye contact with anyone who happened to glance his way.

However, she was a no show.

After waiting for an hour, he left the restaurant, unable to stand the looks of pity that the maître d was shooting him.

“Sir, would you like to take anything to go?”

The airbender waved the man away, appetite long gone. To think he woke up today looking forward to that evening. All best laid plans go awry anyway.

All the preparation, all the conversations, all the discussions were laid to waste when (yet again, he thought dejectedly) Lin Beifong let her job interfere with her private life.

Tenzin was already at the awning of the restaurant, absent-mindedly watching in envy as couples waiting in line were quietly chatting with each other. He willed himself not to lose his temper and took a few moments to calm himself.

He turned to the maître d and asked to use the phone.

No one answered from her office.

He headed home, frustrated; a box gripped tight and unseen in his pocket.

---

Two.

She arrived at home at two in the morning.

All units were suddenly called away to respond to a hostage-taking in the affluent residential area of Republic City. As Chief of Police, Lin very well had to see the situation through. It turned for the worse when, after an apparent breakdown in the negotiation, the hostage-taker suddenly pushed the child off the twentieth floor balcony.

Lin was the quickest and most agile of the group (which reminded her to toughen up the training sessions for the force). She shouted to the team to handle the criminals as she vaulted herself up the adjoining structure to catch the child. With tension and adrenalin powering her, she was able to grasp the child with one arm. Her other arm was protesting the added weight and the odd angle she had to manipulate the metal cables to.

She almost reached the tenth floor of the building when she felt a volley of rocks assailing her from behind. She gritted her teeth in annoyance (how incompetent can the police force get?) and in pain.

Turning her body to shield the child from the onslaught, her armor took most of the damage. This move shifted the weight and changed the trajectory of her swing. Instead of directing her to land on to the tenth floor garden, she was now heading straight into a wall.

Making a split second, Chief Beifong released the cable’s hold from the building and gripped the girl tighter to her. As gravity rapidly took hold of them, she looked around on what to do, becoming more certain as the seconds passed that she was bringing the child to death with her. A fleeting thought passed her mind to how she disappointed Tenzin once more by not showing up to dinner.

Great, you’re a few feet from death and you’re thinking of dinner with Tenzin.

It did not stop her from wondering if he would forgive her for dying so soon.

She positioned herself in an attempt to use her body as a shield to cushion the impact on the child; she’ll be damned before she let another life be taken under her watch.

Lin looked down to check how many feet remained and a voice which suspiciously sounded like her mother rang in her head: “Are you a dunderhead or an earthbender?!”

She closed her eyes and willed the ground to rise and meet her.

Once the dust has cleared and Lin had safely brough them to the street level, she felt the girl bury her head closer to her breastplate. The poor child was whimpering as her tears continued to flow.

“You’re safe now.”

The girl looked up at her hiccupping; the child was trying to stop crying. The child reached up to touch the police chief’s cheek with sticky and wet fingers.

“Chief! Chief!”

She dimly heard other members of the force approach her.

Lin felt someone take the child from her but the girl wiggled aggressively and began screaming no, clutching at her armor tightly. She inhaled a breath as the girl kicked her ribs accidentally. She waved the other person off and allowed herself to be led to the healing tent. Giving instructions to bring the child’s parents there.

Angling the child so that she was sitting at her hip, Lin felt a stabbing pain from her other side. She staggered as she got up but shrugged off anyone who tried to help her.

Her second-in-command quickly found her amidst the commotion and began running the update by her. The perimeter is still secure and the hostage-takers have been captured. They were already in the process of readying them for transport to police headquarters.

At the end of the ordeal (as if getting beat up was not enough, she also had to do a lot of talking - with the parents, with the team, with even a handful of the press who had managed to arrive during the crisis), Chief Beifong finally allowed the medic to take a quick look at her (“Chief, keep still – the side armor plate is mangled; it pierced through the skin. I can stop the bleeding; though it will take a little bit longer to remove the pain afterwards.” “I don’t have time for that, just clot the blood and let me go.” “Yes, Chief.”)

-

Lin looked at the clock as she entered their doorway, the small hand pointing to two. She did not realize it had been that late already.

She clutched at her side and dragged herself indoors, using what little energy she had.

A figure in the darkness of the living room grunted as he was awoken by the sudden clang of the armor dropping unceremoniously.

Any angry reprimand died on the airbender’s lips as he saw the state the metalbender was in.

A bruise had already formed on her right cheekbone; her armor, haphazardly discarded on the floor, was dented and battered on several areas and she was tightly holding on her left side, bloody red staining her white top.

Lin met Tenzin’s horrified eyes and whispered.

“I’m sorry.”

---

Three.

Recuperation took three days.

Chiaki, the police department’s assistant healer found herself ringing the bell at the chief’s residence early that morning. She was given the dubious honor of bringing the police chief a large pack of medical supplies as well as to inform her that her medical leave has officially been filed.

Anyone who knew Chief Beifong knew that she would not want to go on medical leaves. However, in her somewhat addled state of mind, the chief had signed off herself as on medical leave in the healer’s tent in the insistence of the department’s healer and her second-in-command.

The healer shifted from one foot to another, debating whether leaving the packet with a note then ditching it on the pavement would be acceptable. It was to her relief that the gate was eventually opened by the chief’s airbender partner. She was sure that had it been Beifong, the supplies would be left unused and she would be on the receiving end of an unpleasant tirade as she would break the news of the chief’s medical leave.

But since it was the airbending master, it was different from what Chiaki expected.

He had plied her with a lot of questions – both about the hostage-taking and about the nature of Lin’s injury – which she answered eagerly. Pleased with delivering the supplies and informing the chief’s current caregiver, the healer headed back to headquarters, happy to report that the chief will definitely take the next days off to recuperate.

-

Tenzin sat awake at her bedside for the remaining hours of the night, carefully watching each rattling breath, afraid that if he even blinks, she would be gone.

Until he had talked to the healer, he did not know how close he was to losing her if not for Lin’s presence of mind.

It was like his nightmare almost became his reality.

He held her hand, regretfully recalling that his last thoughts of her was how she had forgotten dinner. In the soft light of the morning, he could see the toll of the crisis on Lin.

The airbender moved to lightly spread the cream on the bruise on the cheek. For once, he was thankful for his oddly smooth hands (which Lin would occasionally point out and tease him – but what he’d give to make sure that Lin continues to tease him for the rest of his life) as he was able to gently put on the cream without waking her.

He lifted the blanket near the edge of the bed to check on her bandage. He helped her remove her top before going to bed earlier. The roughness of the clothes would only aggravate her injuries after all. He was relieved to see that the bleeding had indeed stopped, judging by the appearance of the bandage.

Tenzin leaned over to place a light kiss on her forehead, wishing he could smoothen the frown on her face, indicative of whatever residual pain Lin was experiencing in her sleep.

-

Lin woke up to a dull soreness that covered her entire body. She could vaguely recall the events of the previous night. What she was left with was a feeling of panic - of almost losing something of importance. She bolted up right, breathing heavily with eyes darting around the room.

“Lin!”

Tenzin was perched on a chair beside their bed, hand holding hers.

She was alive. Tenzin was alive. Thank the spirits.

She closed her eyes again, repeating a mantra to ground herself in the present.

She is alive. Tenzin is alive. She was at home. They were at home. He is her home.

She leaned back, groaning as her body objected to her sudden movements. She attempted to speak – realizing then that her throat had run dry.

“Here, the healer said it will help with the pain.” She felt the airbender pressing the rim of a cup of pungent liquid to her lips.

The tonic tasted better than it smelled, she acknowledged as she gulped greedily.

The effect was immediate as she felt the tendrils of sleep pulling her to unconsciousness, barely perceiving fingers helping her settle better into the bed.

-

Tenzin felt fingers lightly tracing the bridge of his nose, trailing higher to his arrow.

There was only one person who did that.

“You should be resting.” Was his succinct statement, stretching a bit as falling asleep at the chair did not do his back any favors.

The metalbender, seated on her heels, tilted her head expectantly, her knees bumping his. “And you should be sleeping beside me.”  It was a challenge and he knew it; she could feel his breathing change as her blanket slipped off.

“Oh, Lin.” He brought his forehead to hers, breathing in. “I almost lost you.”

“I don’t plan on going anywhere.” Lin shifted further, pressing her lips to his. She moved back, taking him with her.

Three days, she took painkillers and medicinal tea to hasten her recovery.

In those three days, she had clung to him and him to her.

The fear of being left behind clouded the air, unspoken but almost tangible.

It took all of those three days to erase the fear of being left behind.

---

Four.

It had been four months since his father and mother talked to him and his siblings.

Lin found her mother waiting in her office.

“Hey Badge.” Toph lightly punched her daughter’s arm as she passed by to sit at her desk.

“Mom.” Lin took out the first folder in her in-tray. “How was your trip?”

“Good, good.” The older metalbender leaned back on the couch, propping her feet on the coffee table. She heard her daughter grunt in disapproval. She waited for any follow up questions but there were none.

Toph wiggled her toes for good measure to annoy the younger Beifong.

“What is it?” Lin finally looked up at her mother who was eerily staring at her direction accurately.

“So have you talked to him?”

Aang and Katara have sat down with their children four months ago to break the news to them that it won’t be long until…

“No.” A scratch of a pen on the report, Lin’s signature marking the memo’s go-ahead for dissemination.

“Has he talked to you?”

“No.” A pebble from goodness-knows-where hit the police chief’s forehead. “Ow, Mom, what was that for?”

“No heart-to-heart talk? You’re at a stalemate?” Toph crossed her arms. “I thought you were an earthbender, Lin. Why aren’t you facing the issue head on?”

“Because there is no issue.” The lie passed from her lips easily– both she and her mother not commenting on it. “I told him I’ll be here when he’s ready to talk about it.”

“And you think he isn’t ready?” The blind bender’s eyebrows raised at this. “Have you actually spent time with him to determine whether or not he is ready to talk to you about the future? Your future?” At getting no reply, Toph continued. “Is this about the police force?” She heard the pen stop moving; she now had her daughter’s attention. “Badge, I know it’s tough but you need to think about what you want and if it’s not leading the force, it’s okay.”

“What?” Lin’s voice rose an octave. “Why are you bringing this up now?”

“I’m just saying -.”

“Damn it, Mom – is this about Su?” She knew her mother recently visited Zaofu.

“What – no!” Toph stood up, ground vibrating slightly. “Don’t bring your sister into this!”

“Half-sister,” Lin emphasized, eyes flashing. “Did you come all the way here just to tell me to be like perfect Suyin and her perfect family?”

“No! I don’t want you making mistakes that - .”

“Oho! So, I’m not allowed to make mistakes now?” The current chief was rolling her eyes, turning back her attention to the paperwork on her desk.

“- Would cost you.” Toph continued her statement. “Time is not a luxury you have.” She tossed something to the chief’s desk and left. “This is for you, do whatever you want with it.”

Lin clenched her jaw as she saw the item.

It was a ring of old keys; the jade flying boar key chain underscoring that it belonged to the Beifong estate in Republic City.

---

Five.

Five times he invited her to dinner and five times she did not show up.

On the fifth time, he was ready for her.

“Where were you this time?” The airbender stood to his full height as the metalbender arrived home. “You know what, never mind. It’s always been work anyway.”

“How dare you!” Lin straightened up as well. “I did say I wasn’t sure if I could make it; you know we had the Fire Lord and family visiting the city tomorrow. There was a great deal of preparation needed for security. Besides, I’m certain you were able to handle it on your own.”

“Yes, but your presence would have been most appreciated.” Tenzin’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

She attempted to placate him. “I’ll be there tomorrow at the welcome banquet.”

“As Chief of Police! Not as my partner.” Tenzin threw up his hands. “You already know what they’re saying about us, about you.”

“What – what are they saying, Tenzin?” She knew fully well what was being said about her. But she needed to hear this from him.

“That you don’t really care about the Air Nation, about me, about duty – you don’t give a hog-monkey’s ass about anything else except your precious Beifong legacy.” He knew he was pressing all the buttons now, but he cannot stop, temper getting away from him.

“Don’t you dare talk to me about duty.” Her voice became dangerously low.

“You don’t know a thing about duty! Lin, my father is dying. The future of an entire culture will now be on my shoulders. You would know if you were around, if you had been present for all those missed cultural and council events.”

Lin was becoming defensive; it was not like she did not want to as opposed to circumstances not allowing her to attend. “Well then, maybe you should just shack up with one of those air acolytes who seem to kiss the ground you walk.” She bit back nastily.

“Maybe I will! They have honored my culture and my father more than you ever will do!”

It took the airbender five seconds and seeing the dismayed face of one Lin Beifong to realize what he just said.

Tenzin swallowed drily. “Lin, I –.” He reached out to her.

“Save it!” Lin swatted his arm angrily, picking up her bag once again and shoving him off.

“I didn’t mean – I – Lin, please – I’m sorry!”

Too late.

Five times he called her back, five times she ignored him as she strode off into the night.

---

Six.

It was six days since they last spoke.

It was six days since Lin left their city house. Six days that Tenzin acutely felt the cold empty space in bed.

And, if what his secretary heard was true (at the rate that he and Lin were at, he figured their secretaries had a higher chance of getting together than them getting married), it was also six days since Chief Beifong took residence in the police headquarters.

He continued to deflect questions from his parents about their well-being, sharing they were fine. Aang and Katara shared looks at this. His mother had once again reminded him that they were both there for Lin and himself.

On that sixth day, Councilman Tenzin receives food delivery for lunch. The delivery boy helpfully mentioned that it came from Chief Beifong.

He looks for her note. There was none.

Even if they don’t speak, it doesn’t mean they don’t love each other, right?

He attempted to return the favor.

---

Seven.

She answered on the seventh ring of her phone.

Her phone was ringing but she let her secretary finish the litany of messages she received while away from her desk.

Dinner with Tenzin.

She jotted this in her appointment book and underlined this as a priority; he had called her secretary and requested for a schedule that night.

Nodding at the woman in thanks, the Chief of Police answered the phone on the seventh ring, rewarding the persistence of the caller.

It was one of their informants and it was a big tip.

Chief Beifong was in luck. She had been tracking this group for months now. A group of benders out and about in Republic City wreaking havoc in its criminal underbelly – committing theft, extortion and three counts of arson. The council had been breathing down her back about this.

There was no way she was letting them get away.

She got excited. There was going to be a handoff at the abandoned rice granary near the river. She knew that part, an area with a couple of grain silos, emptied as the family who owned the plot of land moved out of Republic City.

She immediately called several of her officers and they headed out with the intent to end the reign of these criminals.

---

Eight.

He had phoned the restaurant for a reservation at 8 in the evening.

It was eight minutes past the hour when there was a large explosion, coming from the direction of the downtown Republic City.

Tenzin ignored it, he figured it might be another ship that escaped its mooring or a new boat arriving that lost control.

He was feeling pleased – he had managed to wrangle a reservation later at 8, despite it being a peak day for the busy restaurant. Little did he know that the owner had made sure to accommodate him at any time (with or without reservation).

He figured it was high time that he set things straight with Lin Beifong. He was sure of his decision after all.

---

Nine.

It took her only nine seconds to decide her next move.

Her men were still nearby; securing some members of the gang in their metal cables.

Chief Beifong was counting the felons as she moved about the abandoned silo, inspecting the contraband hidden in the hay.

She realized there was one more gang member missing– the firebender - just as the smell of accelerant wafted in the air. Her seismic sense determined the location of the firebender quickly.

“Get out, now!”

“No, Chief! You can’t do this!”

“I can and I will – that’s an order, Detective!”

With great willpower, she bent the walls of the grain silo open. She launched her men and their captured felons outside, their metal cables and armors weighing heavily on the chunk of earth she lifted them on, and successfully carried them to safety.

At the corner of her eye, she saw the firebender shoot flames at the explosives near her.

---

Ten.

It was ten minutes before the end of his office hours.

He could hear the sound of the ambulance rushing past city hall.

Tenzin wanted to go home first, have quick change of clothes before dinner. Lin’s secretary had called back earlier confirming that her boss has slotted in their dinner as part of her calendar.

He brought out the box he had kept under lock and key. The airbender lightly fingered the necklace he made awhile back. If he were lucky, he hoped to apologize in person then propose in the next breath.

He heard sirens. It was closer this time.

He perked up, gripping the necklace.

Lin’s here, his body recognized the police sirens.

He peered at the window, recognizing the somber posture of the officers who got off the satomobile. He sat back in his chair.

It can’t be good.

He wonders with sympathy which poor soul would be at the receiving end of the chief of police’s condolences. Lin had said that this was the worst part of her job; having to face the families left behind.

He started to quickly pack his things. Maybe he can catch Lin before she left city hall.

It was his chance to make it up to her, to be there for her. He fingers the silk ribbon.

Chief Lin Beifong was human after all. These types of personal calls take a toll on her.

The door opens, he looks up.

It was Deputy Chief Saikhan.

“Councilman Tenzin, it is with our deepest sorrow and regret that we inform you of the death of -.”

His blood turns to ice.

The necklace falls from his hand.

==

Thanks for getting to the end of the chapter. :)

I’ve been functioning on writing down these stories without any beta; I’ll eventually get to editing the chapters for missing words or grammatical errors in the future (English isn’t my first language…). Sorry for that but will keep pushing 😊 As always, thanks for reading and letting me know what you think.

[soheila-1996]

My story- Part ten

My little disclaimer

I have epilepsy. This details my seizures, I can’t speak for everyone, everyone’s seizures/ experiences are different. This is graphic. Seizures are messy. They aren’t fun and it felt wrong to make it out to be cute when they really aren’t.   Pretty much all the things that happen in the plot have happened to me. Well, I’m not married to a king or live in a palace so…there’s that but everything else is accurate.  There may be some jokes about it here because I do joke about it sometimes. It makes me more comfortable and I find it helps relax everyone around me. I’m also writing about it because there really aren’t that many fics written about it and I think it’s important to shine light on it.

Any feedback is really appreciated! :)

Tagging people who shared the last  part. You don’t have to read it! I just thought you might want to see what happens: @kacie-0156 @texaskitten30, @cordonianroyalty, @kingliam2019 , @bebepac, @kingliam-rys, @cordonia-gothqueen, @kimmiedoo5, @bbrandy2002, @loveellamae  @bobasheebaby @losingbraincellseveryday  @marshmallowsaremyfavorite @jared2612 @flutistbyday2020 @debramcg1106 @leaharhys @cordoniaqueensworld @bascmve01 @anotherbeingsworld

Paring: Liam and Riley

Warnings: blood 

Word count: 3,966

Catch up here

(Riley’s POV)  It’s just over a week after the incident with Ben and what happened at school on Thursday last week. It’s now Friday. I haven't been back to school since last Friday. The entire day was just awful, Someone had posted the video of my seizure in the cafeteria and the one Ben had taken was still circling around.  

Ben, Lucas and a couple of the other students that were seen videoing the seizure had been suspended but It didn’t change what they had done. It hurt more because I knew most of them and at one time considered them to be my friends. Of course, I wanted them to be punished for their actions but all I really wanted was an apology. I really doubt I’ll ever get one though. None of them are sorry.  I just can’t grasp how someone could be so cruel. 

I had avoided social media for the most part over the last few days. My parents obviously knew about the seizure on Thursday and Josh had told them I hadn’t taken my medication. They, like Josh, had lectured me when they got home and had made sure I took on Friday and over the weekend. By the time Monday arrived they had relaxed a little bit and trusted me to take them unprompted, which is probably their biggest mistake. 

I didn’t take them on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, yesterday or today.  I hate taking them. None of my friends have to take pills every morning. I’ve had to do it for years, for as long as I can remember and I hate it. Who the hell screwed my brain up so badly. 

No one knows about my sudden medication strike. I just want to feel normal. I take them and it still happens so what’s the point in it anymore? 

I was supposed to go to school on Monday but I had refused to go. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with any more bullshit that was bound to come spewing out of peoples mouths.  I also had not been to sleep that night because I was so anxious about school the next morning. Taking all of this into account, my parents let me stay home to get some sleep.  Like I had expected, I had a seizure that evening during dinner and another one that night. They had continued. I know that it could be down to my not taking my medication but who's to say they wouldn’t have happened anyway?

It’s the early evening now. Casey is at her boyfriend's house, Josh just got home and is getting ready to go out with his friend, John, for his birthday at night, my mom and dad are debating whether to go out for dinner to celebrate their 20th anniversary to night and sally is sat on sat at the table on the phone. 

I’m laying on the couch in the conjoining living room trying to drown out the sounds of my family around me. I could hear my mom and dad going back and forth about their decision. From what i understand they’re not sure because of the amount of seizures I’ve had over the last few days. 

“Just go!” I called, frustrated. They don’t need to miss out because of me. I don’t want them to. 

“Ri-” My dad started. 

“I’m fine. I feel fine,” I interrupted. They look unsure. “Just go. It’s your anniversary. You’ve had this reservation for ages. Go.” 

They still don’t look convinced. I shook my head and rolled my eyes in annoyance. I wish that everyone would just relax a little bit. “I have seizures all the time. It’s just a big deal, just go and celebrate.” 

“It is a big deal, Riley,” my mom insisted. “We’re just worried about you.” 

“There’s no reason to be. I’m fine!” I said, raising my voice in annoyance. 

“Riley,” my dad warned. 

“Sorry.” 

Just then Johs walked into the room. “If you’re going to go out for dinner; i can stay with her just in case,” he offered. 

“No, you won’t,”I insisted, getting up off the couch. “I’ll be fine. It’s John’s birthday. You promised to go out with him tonight,” I reminded him.

“But-” 

“I can stay,” Sally chimed in, placing her phone down. 

“Aren’t you going to that party tonight, though?” I asked. I’m sure that was tonight. 

“It’s fine,” she reassured, “I don’t mind staying.” 

My mom turned to Sally, “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah,” she responded. 

“Okay,” my mom nodded. Josh soon left to go and meet up with John after giving me a quick hug and the hundredth time that day asking me if I’m alright. Protective older brothers..

It was forty-five minutes later and my mom and dad were just getting ready to leave. My mom pulled me into a hug as my dad looked for his car keys that he had once again misplaced. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” she asked me...again. 

“Yes, you worry too much,” I accused as she pulled back. Once I had reassured my mom and dad again that i’m fine, they left too, leaving me and Sally alone. 

I returned back to laying on the couch and playing on my phone. Sally sat down on the armchair next to the couch, also on her phone. I can tell that she isn’t happy about having to babysit me since her face looks like a slapped ass. 

A while passes and the tension in the room is palpable. “Why don’t you just go to the party?” I ask. 

“Mom and dad would kill me,” she said, continuing to scroll through her phone. 

“I’m seventeen; I can look after myself.” 

Sally looks over to me like I've grown two heads or something. “And what if you have a seizure?” I rolled my eyes at her and groaned. “What?” 

“I. Am. Fine. I’m not going to have a seizure so you don’t need to worry. I know how to look after myself; I don't need a babysitter. It’s like I’m not allowed to do anything because ‘what if I had  a seizure’ it is so annoying!”

“Riley-” 

“No!” I yelled, “Just go to your party.” She goes silent; debating it. 

“Call me if you don’t feel well?” 

“Yes, I’ll call you ‘if’ I don’t feel well.” After I reassured her again that I would be fine and that I’d call if I started to not feel well, she changed then left. 

Finally some peace and quiet. 

It was about an hour later; I’m laying on the couch, just waking up from a nap when my stomach flips. 

Fuck. 

Don’t panic. I haven’t eaten for a while, maybe that’s why. I know that denying what’s about to happen isn't going to help. I know I’m about to have a seizure; this is a feeling I'm all too familiar with. 

I sit up on the couch and feel around me on my phone. Where is it?! My memory is starting to get a little bit foggy. I vaguely remember going to the kitchen a little while ago with my phone, I think I left it there. 

I get unsteadily  up onto my feet and stagger into the kitchen. I quickly grabbed it off the table and headed back into the living room fumbling with the device. My arm starts to tingle. 

I against the odds manage to hit my sister’s contact- no answer. I tried it again and nothing. At this point everything is starting to become confusing. My surroundings are starting to feel forgein and unfamiliar.  

My vision is starting to go spotty. I scrolled through my contacts looking for Casey’s- she’s in medical school, maybe she can help me. I tap on it, it rings a few times and her voice comes through. 

“Ri? What’s up?” How is she doing that? I can hear her voice but I can’t see her…  “Riley, talk to me.” 

“I don't feel good,” I said, blinking rapidly to try and get my vision to return back to normal but it didn't. The world is spinning. 

“Where are you?” she asks me calmly. “Is anyone with you.” 

“N-no,” I managed to stutter out.  I look around me. I’m not sure where I am.  

I don’t understand anything. 

I feel sick. 

“Okay, is my dad not there with you?” I shake my head; unaware that my sister won’t be able to see that. “Riley, talk to me is no home with you right now?” 

“No.” I think that’s the right answer. 

I don’t know. 

Nothing makes sense. 

I can’t think. 

I can’t focus on anything, my eyes are darting around the room. It’s making me more dizzy and disoriented but I need to know where I am. I need to know what’s happening to me. 

I sway back and forth on my feet. 

Standing up is hard!

“Riley?” I looked at the device in my hand and wondered how Casey is doing this. Maybe she’s magic. 

I fumble with it, I realise I don’t have much control over my limbs any more and accidentally press the end call button. I can’t hear my sister’s voice anymore…

Where did she go? 

The device in my hands starts to make a sound; it’s music is released. I looked down at it, it had my brother’s face and name flashing on the screen. I press the green button, I think that’s the right one to answer. It seems logical. 

“Riley, are you okay?” Why is he out of breath? 

How’s he doing that thing Casey was? 

My legs buckle and I fall forwards. I don’t have the ability to put my arms out in front of me to break my fall. My forehead hits the corner of the coffee table on the way down. 

“Riley what was that? Are you okay?” 

Pain laces through my head. I reached up to touch it with my right hand since I still have some control over that one. The tips of my fingers come away red. 

My fear mounts: what’s happening to me?! 

I feel sick. “Riley are you on the floor?” Josh’s voice asks me through the strange device.

“I-I think so,” I asked, my voice slurred. I start gagging; I’m going to puke. 

“Riley turn onto your side for me. Roll onto your side if you're going to be sick.” I follow his instruction and roll myself over. 

Why does my head hurt? 

I- Where am I?

Something red drips down onto my arm. What is that? I look up a little bit and vaguely see more of the weird substance dripping down my forehead. 

My arms and legs feel heavy. 

I hear a door open and close then I feel someone touching me. Who’s touching me?! 

I try to squirm away but I can't. I can’t move! 

(Josh’s POV) 

“Ri, it’s okay, it’s me.” She stops fighting against me and relaxes a little. During her squirming she had fallen onto her back and now I’m able to see the gash on her forehead and the blood dripping down her face. 

“What happened?” I asked, not expecting to get a coherent response from her. She’s so out of it. I looked around and noticed a little bit of blood on the corner of the coffee. “Shit.” 

Before I had time to react Riley started fitting.  I slipped off my jacket and placed it under her head, got out my phone to start a timer and then gently pushed her over onto his side. I kept  one hand on her hips and on her shoulder to keep her there as the trashing continued. 

I used my sleeve to wipe away some blood that was dripping from the wound on her head, then gently pressed down over it to apply some pressure with my now blood stained sleeve. 

The timer was telling me it was coming up on our minutes and Riley wasn’t stopping. The wound had stopped bleeding and I moved to wipe away some spit and blood dripping out from the corner of her mouth. 

It was about to hit five minutes and she’s still not slowing down. I picked up my phone and dialled 991. I spoke with the operator until the ambulance arrived. It all happened so quickly, they got an oxygen mask on her, started an IV and gave her some medication that was apparently supposed to stop the seizure but It didn’t. 

Just as they were loading my little sister into the back of the ambulance, Sally arrived back home. 

“Josh?” She asked as I walked down the front steps and towards the ambulance. 

“Why did you leave her?!” I screamed at her. I don’t understand who she could be this irresponsible. 

“I’m sorry...What happened? Is she okay?” 

“No, no, she’s not okay. J-just meet us at the hospital,” I said, passing her my car keys. I don’t really want to be in an enclosed space with her right now. She promised to stay and she didn’t.  

I don’t say anything else and climb into the back of the ambulance. We're soon on the way to the hospital and I quickly ring my mom to tell her on the way. 

(Karol’s POV)  After getting a phone call from my son to tell me that my daughter is being rushed to the hospital because of a seizure that won’t stop; Micheal and I rushed out of the restaurant, into the car and straight to the hospital. 

When we arrive, Sally is waiting outside the entrance to the ER for us. We immediately rush over to her, tears are streaming down her cheeks. My heart is pounding in my chest. Josh didn’t tell me much. 

“I-I’m s-sorry,” she cried. 

“What?” I ask. Josh never mentioned Sally. 

“S-she said she was okay, I-I l-left...M-mom i’m so s-sorry.” 

“You left her alone?” Sally nodded; I’m too angry, too worried to talk with her right now and head inside. They both follow me. We soon see Josh. He stands up from his seat. “What’s going on? Is she okay?” 

I don’t know,” He answered, honestly. His eyes were red and puffy. “Case called and told me that something was wrong...When I got there she was- She was bleeding..she started seizing and it didn’t stop, mom, it kept going so I called 991...they gave her something that was supposed to stop her seizure but it still didn’t stop. I don’t know what’s happening now,” Josh explained to me. He was doing a keep good at keeping his emotions in check but I can tell he’s scared. We all are. 

I don’t know what to think right now. I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared in my life. 

It’s a few minutes later, Micheal, Sally and Josh are all sitting down but I can’t. I’m pacing; I just need to know that she’s okay. If I know she’s okay then I’ll be able to relax. 

“What’s happening?” I ask, panicked as a doctor leaves the room where they’re currently working on my daughter. My eyes begin to well with tears at the expression on the young woman’s face. “Is she okay?” 

“Why don’t you all follow me?” Josh, Michael and Sally get up and we follow the doctor down the corridor and into  another little waiting room. “Take a seat,” She said, gesturing to the chairs. 

“No,” I objected. “What’s wrong with my daughter?”  

“Okay, so Riley was given Lorazepam by the paramedics which is a Benzodiazepine, which will normally halt a seizure. It unfortunately didn’t in Riley's case. By the time she arrived here, we had just hit the ten minute mark and benzos hadn’t managed to stop her seizure so we administered  Fosphenytoin, which is another drug commonly used to treat convulsive status; it hasn’t worked. Around this time, respiratory arrest is now a present threat. She’s on high flow oxygen. There’s a guide how to stop Status epilepticus, we would hope that one of those drugs would’ve worked  but unfortunately they haven't-” 

“What now?” Josh  asked, interrupting. 

“Right now, we’ve just called an anaesthesiologist. We’ve gone past fifteen minutes and are rapidly approaching twenty minutes. We’ve exhausted every other option-” 

“Can you just tell me that my little girl is going to be okay?!” I interrupted, raising my voice. My voice cracked as I spoke and tears are now streaming down my cheeks. 

She has to be okay. 

“Okay, so what they’re probably doing right now is administering phenobarbital, It's  a barbiturate; it's a stronger medication. What it does is slows down the activity of the brain and nervous system. Once the  anaesthesiologist arrives they will begin rapid intubation using what I imagine will be propofol.” 

“What does that all mean?” Sally asked. 

“It essentially means we’re putting her into a medically induced coma.” 

“What happens now?” Micheal asked. I’m too shocked to ask any questions. She was fine when we left and now...she’s not. 

“She’ll be transferred to the ICU. Riley has sustained a head injury during her seizure so she will have a scan once we’ve got the seizure under control to make sure everything is okay. We’ll then watch out for rhabdomyolysis-” 

“What’s that?” Sally asked. 

“It’s a breakdown of skeletal muscle which could potentially have happened by overexertion of the muscles during the seizure. Muscle breakdown causes the release of myoglobin into the bloodstream and too much of that can be harmful, but we’ll keep an eye on her.  Hypertension will also be something to keep an eye on which could be caused by fosphenytoin. We’ll also be watching for any arrhythmia.” 

“Is she going to be okay though?

“We’re going to have to take this one step at a time. What matters is that you got her here quickly.” 

“But?” i asked,sensing there is one. 

“But in some cases of convulsive status epilepticus, particularly when it has gone on for this long, sometimes causes brain damage but we don’t know that right now. There’s a possibility that when she wakes that she’ll be fine-” 

“But there's a possibility she might not be?” 

She nodded in response to my question. “As I said, we just don’t know right now.” 

“When can I see her?”  I just need to see my baby girl to make sure she’s alright. I just need to see her. 

“I imagine it’ll be a little while yet. She still needs a scan and then they’ll probably want to get her settled into her room but hopefully that won’t take too long. I can tell you're really eager to see her.” I nod. “You can wait in here until you can go and see her.” 

“Thank you,” Michael said. The young woman gave us a little smile and headed out to give us some privacy to process all of that. 

(Liam’s POV)  It’s now a little later into the evening. I’m laying in the bed with Riley, her chest is resting on my chest and my arms are wrapped around her. She had woken up again an hour or two ago and asked me to get in with ehr so of course I did. This is the first time I've been this close to her for some time other than when I’m helping her during a seizure. 

She was still really sleepy from the medication the doctor had given her earlier this afternoon to stop her seizure. 

Riley twitches in my arms and I start to panic. I look down at her as she does it again. “Riley?” 

She lets out a scared whimper; it’s not a seizure. She lets out another whimper. “Ri?” I call but she doesn't respond. I gently shake her arm a little bit and she starts to stir. 

She sleepily opens her eyes and looks up at me. “Are you alright?” I ask her a she looks around the room. 

“Yeah…i just had a-a stupid nightmare,” she mumbled as she continued to look around for something. 

“What are you looking for?” 

“Where’s my mom?”

“Do you want me to go and get her for you?” She nods. 

“Okay,”I  say, leaning over and giving a kiss on her temple then left the room in search of Karol. 

(Karol’s POV) 

“Hey,” I said as I sunk down into the chair beside the bed. “Liam said you wanted me?” 

“I’ll give you two sometime to talk,” Liam announced, I gave him a small grateful smile, then left us alone together. 

Riley looked pensive, “What the matter, Ri?” 

“You said that you  blame yourself for my epilepsy... Why?” She asked me seemingly out of nowhere. I know I had mentioned it the other day but I didn’t think it would come up again. 

“Where’s this come from?” 

“I had this really weird dream...it just made me think about it. But why do you? Blame yourself for it?” 

I thought for a minute about how to explain this to my daughter.  “Because I should’ve known there was something wrong.” 

She creased her eyebrows up  at me. “What are you talking about?” 

“Before your first Grand Mal seizure happened you used to just stare into space and I didn’t do anything about it. I-I just thought you were daydreaming. I saw you do it so many times and I did nothing. Every time you were having a seizure and I didn’t know-” 

“They were absence seizures. You couldn’t  have known. Even now when they happen they can be hard to spot. They're not that easily recognisable,” she told me. I already know all of that but...I should’ve known something was wrong. I should've done something about it.  Riley took my hand. “It's not your fault, Mom. You didn’t screw my brain up so badly. You don’t make my brain have a temper tantrum all the time.”  

“I still should've taken you to a doctor or done something,” I insisted, “I just knew after your first tonic-clonic seizure there was something wrong. You were sick at the time, you had a fever and that’s what the doctor’s blamed it on. I wanted to believe them, Josh had a seizure when he was young, but I just knew. I didn’t see the first one, you were at my mom and dad's house when it happen but then a couple days later I left you, Sal, Case and Josh in the living room to quickly go to the toilet and then I just heard them all screaming...I ran in and you were...you were on the floor and your tiny body was-” 

“Mom,” she interrupted, “You didn’t cause it.” 

“After everything with Ben; I shouldn't have left you that night either. Especially with your irresponsible sister.”

“That wasn’t your fault either. It probably would’ve happened either way.” 

I grasped her hand tightly in mine. “Please, please don’t let that happen again. I could’ve lost you, Riley, I c-can’t come  that close to losing you again. Neither could your dad or brother and sisters and Liam...It’d kill him...it would kill me too. He loves you; that’s so obvious.” 

“I love him too I- Mom it’s like I'm...Like I’m trapped inside my head and it is such a dark place, I can see that I’m hurting everyone but I can’t find a way out of the hole that I've dug for myself, ” she explains. 

“That’s the thing Riley: You don’t have to do it alone. We’re here for you. I spoke to Josh earlier, he’s itching to get on a flight over here. Sal and Case are really worried about you too. Above all you have an amazing husband that would walk over hot coals for you. We get through this as a team, okay?” 

“Okay.” 

[newstfionline]

Saturday, April 24, 2021

Burned out by the pandemic, 3 in 10 health-care workers consider leaving the profession (Washington Post) It’s been months since Justin Meschler, 48, practiced medicine. And he wonders if he ever will again. He quit his job as an anesthesiologist during the pandemic last spring when fear began seeping into every part of his life. And what began as a few months off has now turned into something much longer. “I feel guilty for leaving. I think about the others who stayed on. I think about the patients I could have helped. I feel like I abandoned them,” Meschler said. “But mostly, I feel relieved.” A year into the pandemic, many others are joining Meschler at the door—an exodus fueled by burnout, trauma and disillusionment. According to a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll, roughly 3 in 10 health-care workers have weighed leaving their profession. More than half are burned out. And about 6 in 10 say stress from the pandemic has harmed their mental health. Many traced their disillusionment to how the pandemic exposed and magnified the broken parts of America’s health-care system. “You look at staffing, preparedness, what the priorities were for many hospitals during the crisis, and it’s clear the industry is driven by profits rather than well-being of patients or health workers,” Meschler said from his home in Louisville, Colo. “It makes you question the whole system.”

House Democrats pass D.C. statehood, launching bill into uncharted territory (Washington Post) For the second time in history, the House passed legislation Thursday to make the District of Columbia the nation’s 51st state, bolstering momentum for a once-illusory goal that has become a pivotal tenet of the Democratic Party’s voting rights platform. The bill now heads to the Senate. But the political odds remain formidable. Republicans, who hold 50 seats, have branded the bill as a Democratic power grab because it would create two Senate seats for the deep-blue city. Not even all Senate Democrats have backed the bill as the clock ticks toward the 2022 midterm election. Voting rights groups have described a city of second-class citizens, a plurality of whom are Black, living in the nation’s capital without any say in the nation’s laws.

Bringing Up Baby, And Charging Them For It (NPR) Foster care is a public service that federal law and all 50 state laws require the government to pay for. Foster care agencies are funded through a web of federal and state grants and subsidies, which, again, taxpayers are supposed to pay for. 10% of children in the US foster care system are entitled to Social Security (SS) benefits, either because their parents have died or because they have a physical or mental disability that would leave them in poverty without financial help. This money—typically more than $700 per month—is considered the children’s property under federal law. Congress never intended that the SS benefits owed these children would be a funding stream for their foster care services. The Marshall Project teamed up with NPR to expose how foster care agencies in at least 36 states and Washington, DC have been appropriating money owed to children in foster care to pay for the very services the government is supposed to provide with taxpayer dollars. Agencies do it by combing through their case files to find kids entitled to these benefits, then applying to SS to become each child’s financial representative, a process permitted by federal regulations. Once approved, the agencies take the money, almost always without notifying the children, their loved ones, or their lawyers. Child Trends research shows that state foster care agencies collected more than $165 million from foster children in 2018 alone. And SS data indicates the number is likely much higher.

Biden to recognize Armenian genocide (Foreign Policy) According to multiple reports, U.S. President Joe Biden is to break a long-standing taboo this Saturday by officially recognizing the massacre of 1 million ethnic Armenian by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide. Biden had commemorated the Armenian genocide as a presidential candidate last year, but Saturday’s proclamation would make him the first sitting president to do so. The announcement is certain to anger NATO ally Turkey, which disputes the historical record and the use of the term.

Mexican mobile data law (Foreign Policy) On Tuesday, a judge blocked part of a new Mexican law that requires cellphone users to submit biometric data, such as fingerprints and eye scans. The measure had drawn pushback from privacy and consumer safety advocates. The judge wrote there was no causal relationship between such data gathering and better investigations of crimes—one official justification for the new law. It will now face further examination in the courts.

Human excrement ‘increasingly serious problem’ as Britain opens up but many bathrooms don’t (Washington Post) With Britain slowly easing its way out of its third nationwide lockdown, people across the country are enjoying a return to a sense of normalcy. Shops and gyms have reopened and parks are once again heaving with groups of up to six people—for many, it’s a welcome step forward and a joy to be back socializing outdoors. But what happens when nature calls? The issue of where to relieve oneself in a world where so many facilities have been shut in recent months has long been a concern in Britain. Many public bathrooms, in particular, were closed during the various lockdowns and remain unavailable. Across the country, police patrols have been stepped up in a bid to deter people from urinating in bushes, on beaches and on private allotments. The problem isn’t just in parks, with towns and cities complaining that people spending time outdoors had no choice but to defecate in the street—much to the horror of local residents who said the odor was so bad on certain streets they were unable to open their windows and had to clean up after others with bleach and water. The lack of facilities has also meant people were unable to wash their hands—an instruction the government has repeatedly used in its messaging to curb the spread of infections over the past year.

Many in Western Europe and U.S. Want Economic Changes as Pandemic Continues (Pew Research Center) The coronavirus outbreak has caused, among other things, a debate around how to best rebuild national economies ravaged by the pandemic. Across the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, significant shares believe their economic system needs either major changes or a complete overhaul, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in the late fall of 2020. Few in the four countries say their economy does not need any changes. The desire for change is strongest in France, where seven-in-ten believe the economic system in their country needs either major changes or to be completely reformed. Half share this view in the U.S., UK and Germany, while around four-in-ten in these three nations say minor changes are warranted. Few would opt for no adjustments to the economic system, ranging from 3% in France to 12% in the U.S. Of the five policies tested, the idea of government-sponsored job and skills training for workers garners the highest shares. Sizable shares in these countries also believe it is very important for their government to implement policies targeted at helping those struggling financially, building more public housing, and increasing government benefits to the poor, all three of which are of high import for around four-in-ten or more in each country.

Russia orders troops back to base after buildup near Ukraine (Reuters) Russia announced on Thursday it was ordering troops back to base from the area near the border with Ukraine, apparently calling an end to a buildup of tens of thousands of soldiers that had alarmed the West. A confirmed pullout of the troops brought in on top of the permanent contingent will likely be welcomed by Western countries that had been expressing alarm at the prospect of further Russian intervention in eastern Ukraine. Russian-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian government in the region since 2014. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said he had ordered troops involved in exercises to return to their bases by May 1, as they had completed what he called an “inspection” in the border area.

US troops in Afghanistan begin packing gear in pullout prep (AP) The U.S. military has begun shipping equipment and winding down contracts with local service providers ahead of the May 1 start of the final phase of its military pullout from Afghanistan, a U.S. Defense Department official said Thursday. The pullout under U.S. President Joe Biden marks the end of America’s longest war after a 20-year military engagement. Currently, some 2,500 U.S. soldiers and about 7,000 allied forces are still in Afghanistan. In February last year, the U.S. military began closing its smaller bases. In mid-April, the Biden administration announced that the final phase of the withdrawal would begin May 1 and be completed before Sept. 11. Since then, the military has been shipping equipment and winding down local contracts for services such as trash pickup and maintenance work, the U.S. official told The Associated Press. The Taliban, meanwhile, were non-committal when asked by the AP whether the insurgents would attack departing U.S. and NATO troops. “It’s too early for these issues, nothing can be said about the future,” said Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem.

Indian coronavirus cases surge as health system staggers (Reuters) India reported the world’s highest daily tally of coronavirus infections for a second day on Friday, surpassing 330,000 new cases, as it struggles with a health system overwhelmed by patients and plagued by accidents. Deaths in the past 24 hours also jumped to a record 2,263, the health ministry said, while officials across northern and western India, including the capital, New Delhi, warned most hospitals were full and running out of oxygen. The surge in cases came as a fire in a hospital in a suburb of Mumbai treating COVID-19 patients killed 13 people, the latest accident to hit a facility crowded with virus sufferers.

Violence in Jerusalem (Foreign Policy) Dozens were injured in Jerusalem on Thursday night as anti-Arab protests led by far-right Jewish activists turned violent. The Palestinian Red Crescent reported 105 people injured in the clashes as Haaretz reported more than 30 were arrests. The violence follows a week of assaults on Arab Israelis and Palestinians by Jewish Israeli residents. Tensions rose between the communities last week after videos of Palestinians assaulting Jews were posted on TikTok.

Crew Of ‘Ever Given’ Could Be Stuck On The Big Boat For Years (Jalopnik) The news cycle may have moved on from the Ever Given, but the Ever Given still hasn’t moved on from its holding spot in the Great Bitter Lake in the middle of the Suez Canal after almost a month. The crew still stuck on the ship is very concerned about this, as there seems to be no sign that an agreement will be reached between Egypt and the Ever Given’s owners any time soon. Until there is an agreement in place, the crew is stuck there, and they could be for years. Apparently, it isn’t unusual for crew members to get trapped on ships caught in the middle of international shipping disputes. The Guardian details the fate of one sailor who has been the lone guardian of a ship for the last two years in the Gulf of Suez only 50 miles south of where the Ever Given has been held since it was freed back in March. He’s only allowed off the ship for two hour intervals to get food and water. The crew is stuck in the middle of a legal battle between the Suez Canal Authority, which is basically a stand-in for the Egyptian government, the owners of the Ever Given, Japanese company Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd and the operators of the ship, a German company called Bernhard Schulte. The SCA is demanding $916 million in damages due to the blockage while Shoei Kisen disputes those charges. Until the company pays up, the government of Egypt is holding on to the ship. The 26 crew members are reportedly in good spirits, but apprehensive according to representatives from the National Union of Seafarers of India, the trade union representing the Ever Given’s crew.

[cookinguptales]

Today, SCOTUS is hearing arguments about whether businesses should have to cover birth control for their employees in their health insurance plans and I just. It’s hard to read.

I was going to make up this big informational persuasive post about the situation. But I’m just. I’m just so sad and angry and tired. So I figured I’d make an emotional one instead.

Let me tell you about my hormonal birth control journey. 

(Rest under a cut for length and content. cw: mental illness, graphic discussion of medical issues, injuries, & menstruation, discussions of suicide & self-harm, discussion of opioids, alcohol, & recreational drug use.)

 I started taking hormonal birth control late in high school to help regulate “painful periods”. It wasn’t for actual birth control at that point and I hadn’t been diagnosed with any disease, not even POTS yet. I just had “painful periods”.

Things were okay for a little while, but when I got to college, things started to fall apart. The double whammy of undiagnosed mental illness and a barely-diagnosed chronic illness (POTS was relatively unknown at the time and my doctors gave me information which I now know is incorrect) really caused me to spiral during my first year of college. I didn’t know it yet, but I react very poorly to some forms of hormonal birth control. Put succinctly, they drive me batshit insane. On one pill, I literally did not leave my apartment for over a month. I became very literally agoraphobic. Bouncing off the walls, irritable, angry, high suicidal ideation. As bad as side effects can be.

But I didn’t know that yet. I just stopped taking BC as part of the whirlwind of medicines and doctors that my life became for about two years while I was on my (first) medical leave from college.

My ribs were coming out back then. I didn’t know that yet, either. I knew that when I was around 16, I started getting severe back pains. The first time it happened, I had to go to the ER because I couldn’t breathe and my teachers thought I was having a heart attack. I got a narcotic shot in my butt. It did nothing to dull the pain. That’s how much it hurt. But it went away on its own eventually and I over the years I started medicating reoccurrences with a lot of different things. Physical therapy. Muscle relaxers. (Medically prescribed) opiates that made me puke. Prescription strength Advil. Wine.

I didn’t see that it was all connected yet. Not yet. I didn’t realize, with my periods as irregular as they were, that the back pains were coming around the same time in my cycle each time.

My “painful periods” got worse. I talked to an OBGYN, with my mother in the room. I told her that I was scared of something like childbirth. I knew that my blood flow was dangerously bad. What if the fetus didn’t get enough blood? Oh, my doctor laughed, that wasn’t a problem. The fetus would always get enough blood. The risk was that I wouldn’t. That it, like the tiny vampire it was, would take it all until I simply died. If I got pregnant, I would likely die. I asked about permanent sterilization. My mother cried. My doctor said no. I didn’t ask again.

I went back on birth control.

It was odd. I didn’t want children before that visit, not really. I was so tired all the time. I knew I’d never be able to manage to raise a child — and honestly, I didn’t care to try. I was so depressed. I was so sick. It sounded like so much work. I still don’t want to have kids. But it still feels… weird, knowing that I can’t. And knowing that I could die if I get knocked up.

I’m bisexual, but I have zero sexual contact with men (because I don’t love them, despite being somewhat sexually attracted to them) and zero sexual contact with people with penises (because they could literally kill me and it would be no one’s fault). But I’ve been followed home by men before. I’ve had cabbies lock me in and ask me for a date. I’ve had men who won’t take no for an answer. And my god, it terrifies me that I might have to deal with both sexual assault and a slowly creeping murder all at once.

(It’s laughable to think he’d be tried for both.)

I ended up getting sick off birth control a few times. I went on and off it periodically during my college career. I now in retrospect see that a lot of my “meltdowns” were a combination of discrimination-based stress, physical breakdowns, and hormonal whirlwinds. At my worst times, I was on birth control. The wrong ones.

My periods, over time, got worse. My back would hurt. The cramps were unbelievable. I couldn’t feel my legs. I could feel them too much. I couldn’t keep food down. I’d be so angry, so sad, so everything.

I went to the doctor again. I was diagnosed with both endometriosis and PMDD. PMDD, or premenstrual dysphoria disorder, is like PMS on steroids. I remember telling my doctor, in halting tones, that I wasn’t well before my periods. That I always had depression, always had anxiety, but I wasn’t well before periods. At her prodding, I confessed that sometimes I would just lie there for hours, for days, in the fetal position. That I’d clutch at my own arms, mooring myself, because I knew that those white knuckles were the only thing between me and killing myself. That my brain, always somewhat malevolent, became an inescapable mantra of death. That I’d just lie there and sob because it took everything I had not to hurt myself. That I’d find claw marks, bruises, on my arms later, and all I could do was get some ice.

It was better than the alternative.

I told my doctor about how painful my periods had always been. How I’d heard a story once about, y’know, that Spartan boy? The one who hid a fox kit under his shirt during an examination and stayed perfectly silent even as it clawed at him so he wouldn’t be caught with it? How it tore at his stomach until he fell down dead, still silent? I told her how I felt like I was holding a fox kit every damn month and sometimes I couldn’t stand the pain of it. Sometimes I considered ending that pain, one way or another.

She put me back on birth control.

A little less than a year later, or in layman’s terms, about a year ago, my mental health was so bad again that I was almost committed. Literally committed. I had to go stay with my parents for a few months while I transitioned to new medications because it wasn’t safe for me to be alone. I learned that the birth control I was on could create those symptoms — but they didn’t start until months after you’d started taking it. So you didn’t realize it was the medicine. You just assumed you were crazy and unlikable and so, so angry. At the world, at your loved ones, but mostly at yourself.

I learned, around that time, that I also had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. That the pain I felt every month right before my period wasn’t just cramps. It was my bones coming undone from their sockets. It was my hips dislocating. It was my ribs popping out of my spine. I realized that that lump my parents could feel in my back wasn’t a hard knot of tense muscles. It was my fucking rib poking out of my back. I learned that there is a period right before menstruation that mimics a period during pregnancy where your joints loosen — your body thinks it is preparing you for birth, for loosening your pelvic cavity so an entire head can pass through. For someone with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, that period of joint looseness was enough to wreak absolute havoc on a system of already-weakened joints.

I learned how to put my own ribs back in with a foam roller. I started drinking marijuana tea for the pain. I went on a different birth control. I stopped taking the placebo pills. I had to fully eradicate that entire portion of my cycle. Goodbye PMDD and ribs constantly popping out. I don’t miss you!

I am still on that pill, y’know. Every day I take it and wonder if I’m one step closer to the day when it inevitably destroys me. The last one took about a year. Tick tock.

Or maybe I finally found the one that works… I really just don’t know.

The fact of the matter is that I have a full handful of maladies that require birth control so I can function. PMDD, endometriosis, dangerous pregnancy, EDS. I need hormonal birth control. I would probably be dead by now without it. The PMDD especially was that bad. My internal organs are likely a scarred-up mess. But the birth control itself almost killed me, too. God, it was close.

Simply put, birth control is heaven and hell all wrapped up in a pill. It treats illnesses and it prevents pregnancy. In other words, it provides you with both freedom and peace of mind. It is absolutely essential. But it’s also monstrous. The sheer number of sometimes-deadly side effects that come with hormonal treatments is staggering. Which is why you need to be under a doctor’s careful eye when you’re on it. You need to be free to choose whichever brand you need. You need to be free to switch kinds at a moment’s notice. None of these things are possible in a system where these pills are not fully covered by insurance.

(And yes, I know, this is a stupidly American problem in so many ways. Obviously the ideal thing here would be single-payer for all medical procedures. But that’s not up for debate here and insurance for BC is. Because for some reason we let some people’s religious convictions determine others’ health care. But I digress.)

Please don’t worry too much for me. I have a good employer who has told me in no uncertain terms that I don’t need to worry about my healthcare coverage. But there are so many people just like me. Who may not have diagnoses yet. Who may have “problem bodies”. Who only know that they need to do something and that they might have to go through several pills to find it. Whose employers either have the strong religious belief that hormonal birth control is a sin or the strong religious belief that they want to pay as little as possible for their workers’ health care. (Call me cynical.)

Those are the people I worry about. Those are the people I feel absolutely sick over as I watch the SCOTUS argue whether we should be allowed to have life-saving medicine. The people who I know will fall through the cracks the second that the cracks are widened enough for them to do so. The people who will die.

It’s a tense time right now. It’s a tense time for very obvious reasons. But this morning I find myself to be even tenser, and my stomach hurts thinking about it. It feels like all I can do is stare at a pill packet and remember every horrible reason I need it and every horrible thing it’s done to me and I just.

It’s a lot.

[msjr0119]

Hold my girl

Part 3

No one really knows about TRR Main characters past …. Most of this series is based on flashbacks from her childhood. I’ve changed the main characters name to, Freya Johnson as Riley Brooks is used in my other series.

Freya is in love with Drake, but he hasn’t returned the feelings- instead just acts horrible towards her. Will Freya return back to Cordonia with the court or will she stay in the USA after the UN party.

Posting the next three chapters of this today- going to stagger them 😊

Tags:

@annekebbphotography @burnsoslow @drakesensworld @ladyangel70 @kingliam2019 @bbrandy2002 @butindeed @bascmve01 @drakewalker04 @pedudley @captain-kingliamsqueen @duchessemersynwalker @insideamirage @of-course-i-went-to-hartfeld @kozabaji @texaskitten30 @ibldw-main @kimmiedoo5 @nikkis1983 @dangerouseggseagleartisan @gnatbrain @walker7519 @lodberg @cmestrella @hopefulmoonobject @addictedtodrakefanfic @angi15h @liamxs-world @rafasgirl23415 @notoriouscs @whenyourheartskipsabeat @jovialyouthmusic @nz1091 @yukinagato2012 @indiacater @seriouslybadchoices @rainbowsinthestorm @cordonianroyalty @custaroonie @beardedoafdonutwagon @dcbbw @qammh-blog

******

Freya arrived back at her hotel room, exhausted from the UN Party. Giving fake smiles to almost all the nobles reminded her of working in the bar with Daniel. They were the experts when it came to fake smiles for the arsehole customers. She even joked that they could have won an Oscar with their performances. Freya remembered how Daniel would laugh every time her “smile” appeared.

“Another day another dollar eh Dan?” Was the phrase she always used.

She was thankful that her childhood friend- her only friend who had convinced to accept the bar job after she finished her degree. She needed anything that provide her with money for bills and to pay off the student debt.

When her parents died when she was 15 she was grateful for all the hard work the hospital staff did to try and save their life’s. Once she had turned 18 she had decided to train as a nurse to help others that may be in that same situation. It was hard getting a job in New York - there were no jobs in ER available. Was it a waste of time doing a degree to work as a waitress? Thinking back to the time she received the news that would change her life, she wondered where it all went wrong.

“O my god!!!” Freya started shaking. Daniel rushed up to her. Was she okay? What had happened? He would do absolutely anything for her.

“Freya what’s up? Is everything okay? “

“Dan, I got in.” Daniel looked confused.

“I got onto the nursing course. I can’t believe it. Will I make a good nurse?”

“Freya you gave me a fright. I thought something bad had happened. You will make the best nurse New York has seen. Congratulations sweetie!” He grabbed her and gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. She blushed and grabbed her phone and purse.

“C’mon we need to celebrate!! But first l need to let mom and dad know.”

Freya’s heart sank, not only due to the heartbreak regarding Drake but she realised that she had missed her annual trip to her parents grave with Daniel. Would they be mad at her? Would they be happy that she was having an adventure and that she had possibly fallen in love at last? That she had made new friends?

For the first time that night she pulled her phone out of her clutch bag and looked at it. A text from Daniel. What does he mean? He needs to ask me something- what could it be?

“Hey you, sorry I didn’t reply straight away. What’s up? Frey x”

She waited and waited. No reply. It was 2.30am. Normal people would be asleep at this time, but Daniel would have only finished his shift an hour ago. After their night shifts they would usually stay awake and watch a bit of tv, eat junk food.

“Dan is everything okay? Please reply. X “

It was now 3.30am. Freya decided to ring him. As her phone dialled his number, there was a loud knock at the door. She went to answer it and hung up the call to Daniel.

“Little blossom. You’re awake!” No shit Sherlock, she thought.

“Maxwell? Bertrand? What’s up?”

“Lady Freya, get dressed. We’ve found him in LA! The royal jet is waiting for us.”

“The royal jet?”

“Yes Liam is aware and has advised us to use it. We have no time to waste- Drake, Hana and the others are waiting.”

“Can it just be the three of us please? We started this journey together and I want to end it just us Beaumont’s?”

Maxwell knew she wouldn’t exactly be thrilled with Drake, but he was desperate to inform her what Drake had confessed prior that evening.

“Of course if that’s what you want.” Bertrand replied, he thought the less people that knew about their trip would be an advantage to them.

“I guess that means we’re off to LA.”

Freya quickly threw on some black jeggings, a basic top, and her leather jacket.

“Dan i have to go to LA, will be back as soon as possible. I will meet you. Love ya, Frey x”

*****

“So La is a big place, where do we start?”

“We hired a private detective, we know the place. Don’t worry.” Bertrand explained. Freya just nodded, attempting to stay awake. Maxwell slid into the seat next to her, handing her a steaming black coffee. Debating on how he was going to tell her the news he knew she’d like to hear.

“Hey blossom, I’ve got something I need to tell you. It’s like really important.”

“What’s up?”

“It’s Drake, he....”

“It’s not important then is it? Sorry Max I’m really tired. Can you tell me later?”

“Freya... he doesn’t hate you....”

“Okay. We’ll talk about it later I promise.”

Max was considering just blurting it out- instead decided to remain quiet. Contemplating whether he should play match maker or not, would Freya and Drake hate him interfering?

*****

Daniel woke up after a long sleep, which was unusual for him. He usually didn’t get to sleep straight away after work.

He walked into the kitchen and poured himself a strong coffee. When he checked his phone he realised Freya had text him back and had tried to ring him.

She’s going to LA? In the middle of the night? What the hell is going off?

“Hey Frey, sorry I missed your call and texts. I fell asleep after work- I know it’s not usual for us to do that eh? What are you doing in LA is everything okay? I’m working shorter shifts for the next few days. Would be great to catch up! Let me know what you think. Dan x”

Daniel decided to get ready for the day. Wondering if Freya was okay and if she would meet him? Just then his phone lit up.

“Dan, the people who I went with are going to sleep. They are tired after the flight. Give me an hour to get ready and meet me at the cafe?”

Daniel smiled. Knowing his best friend wanted to meet him even know she was probably knackered.

******

Walking into the cafe, the aroma that she was used to on a daily basis made her feel sentimental. She had missed the scent of the cafe that was like her second home.

“Hey!”

“Hey you. I ordered your favourite Cronut and obviously the special vanilla milkshake.”

“Thanks Dan. You’re the best!” They both sat in silence for a while, Freya yawning every so often.

“So? What’s going on Frey?” Daniel asked sounding concerned. She was never the spontaneous type of person until she met these new people.

“You wouldn’t believe it even if I told you. You remember the night before I left?”

“Of course I do. There was a bachelor party and I asked you to cover me for my date with Lola.”

“Yeah, well. That bachelor party. Well. The bachelor was a crown prince of a country in Europe.” Daniel looked godsmacked, believing she was pulling his leg.

“I always told my mom that I didn’t believe in fairytales. But. I don’t know. I think fate happened that night.”

“With the prince?” Daniel asked.

“At first it was about him. But when I saw Drake, I knew there was something about him. He was so closed off. But yet so handsome. He is a jerk to me. But as I got to know him, at times he let his guards down and I. I...”

“You started to fall for him Frey?” Daniel smiled at his friend as her eyes sparkled at the mention of the mans name.

“Yeah” Freya blushed, “at first it wasn’t about finding love. It was about having an adventure of a lifetime. Getting to visit Europe as part of the royal court- if I had to play princess to do this, I thought it was fun.”

“Play princess?”

“Yes it was to join prince Liam’s social season. He needed a wife, a Queen to rule alongside of him. I didn’t think I’d fall for him. Don’t get me wrong, he is handsome, sweet and his eyes are just so sparkly. But then shit happened. He proposed to someone else and then they threw me out. It’s long story Dan. But when I was allowed back, Drake and the others had my back all the time, the more time I spent with them all I was happy that I had met such amazing people. And I fell in love with Drake rather than Liam- which I was expected to do.”

Freya paused not knowing what to say. Did she say too much? Is Daniel confused? Daniel looked at his friend, seeing the glimmer in her eyes every time she mentioned his name - Drake. He knew Drake was the one for her, if the stubborn ass liked her too. And he was incredibly happy for her. But something told him it wasn’t that simple.

“What do you mean they threw you out? Allowed you back in? Why did you go to LA in the middle of the night? Does Drake love you back? He could be hiding his true feelings?”

Freya explained about Tariq and the situation about clearing her name. If she didn’t need to clear her name with the Beaumont’s, Drakes and Hana’s support she would have jumped on the plane straight back to New York. Ignoring what he mentioned about Drakes feelings, she didn’t want to talk about him at this moment in time.

“So what happens now that you’ve found him?”

“He’s due to do a statement. It will hopefully clear my name. Then hopefully I can be free from the scandal. I had hoped that I could just maybe be happy with Drake.”

Daniel gave her a half hearted smile. Freya explained that she was starting to get tired and needed to get ready for the wedding shower.

“If you need me for anything. I mean anything. Just let me know. I’m here for you always.”

“Thanks Dan. What did you want to ask me by the way?”

“It doesn’t matter Frey. Keep me updated.”

They both went their separate ways. Freya walked along the pier, the place was unusually quiet- usually it was buzzing with people rushing by, bumping into each other- apologising as they did this. The peace was nice.

“Jono! Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you ever since Max returned to the hotel room. I need to talk to you.”

“I couldn’t sleep, I went out with Daniel for a bit. I’m feeling tired now though.”

“Can we talk? Please. I’m sorry for upsetting you... I just.... I...”

“It’s fine. Honestly forget it. I’ll see you at the wedding shower.” Drake knew he had to stop her, from walking away- doing what she did best. Grabbing her arm, she winced at his touch. Not realising how hard he grabbed her.

“Drake you’re hurting me!”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Don’t touch me like that again please. See you later.” Seeing her walk away rubbing her arm then her cheeks, he knew he’d made her cry again.

“Fuck.” Drake muttered as he saw her disappear away from him yet again.

*****

Drake walked into the hotel room that he was sharing with Maxwell. Noticing Max drooling all over himself- he laughed, even considered taking a picture of him. Anything to get his mind off constantly hurting the woman that he loved.

“Drake? I thought you’d be with Freya. Did you find her?” Sitting down with his hands in his head- he knew she wasn’t going to talk to him privately possibly due to his past attitude towards her.

“I found her alright. I hurt her again. She won’t talk to me.”

“What did you do her this time?”

“I tried to stop her from walking away... I grabbed her arm- not knowing my own strength. I hurt her.”

“Drake when she’s in those moods you need to let her walk away. I know her better than anyone does. If she isn’t going to listen to you, maybe you shouldn’t have been an ass with her ever since we met her. You are both as stubborn as each other. Text her, if she won’t listen.”

“What do I put?” Maxwell shook his head, snatching Drakes phone off him- he wished now that he hadn’t interfered.

Freya, I know you don’t want to talk to me and I don’t blame you. I’m an arsehole. I’m a horrible person at times. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to you- but the truth is, I love you. I always have done, ever since I met you in your bar I thought you were beautiful and you are out of my league. Anyway, I’ll see you soon. I love you Jono xxx

“There, how hard was that?” Maxwell looked smug with the impromptu text he had just created.

“Very. If she doesn’t want to know me at least I’ve tried.”

******

Freya got her phone out and text Justin. Noticing a text from Drake she read the first sentence as it popped up on her screen. She couldn’t deal with Drakes self pity not at this moment in time.

“Hey Justin, can I speak to Liam and Madeleine before you publish Tariq’s statement? I’ll let you know when I’ve spoken to them x”

“I’d advise you to just go public. But whatever you want Freya. Sure thing.”

After Justin replied, she had a number ring her from Vegas- the hospital, the job. With all the stress from Tariq she had forgotten about the job application she rushed when they first arrived in New York.

Arriving at the shower, she slightly regretted going out with Daniel rather than having a power kip. Drake and Maxwell, noticed Freya arrive- she didn’t show any emotions. She never text Drake back, he was nervous every time his phone vibrated. Walking over to them, she smiled at the two.

“Are you okay blossom?”

Shit! Can he see straight through me. Do I tell him what’s really up? I trust him with my life, he’s like my brother.

“I’m fine. I suppose it’s just the stress with the engagement tour, then finding Tariq, being back where it all started?” Shit she hasn’t mentioned Drakes or should I say my text.

“Yeah suppose so.” Freya noticed Drake looking down to the ground. Thinking about the first time they met. He regretted being a jerk with her but it was his way of hiding his feelings that he liked her- knowing now that her personality would have informed him what she really thought about the text.

“Drake are you okay?” She asked softly.

“Yeah, I just don’t know what it’ll mean once the truth about applewood comes to light. What it means for you and Liam?” Maxwell assumed Drake was attempting to use reverse psychology to get into the mind of Freya.

“Drake. There is no me and Liam. Maybe there was something at the beginning but that was it. I have enjoyed this little adventure with you all.”

“Jono I- I ... “

Come on Walker, just tell her you love her face to face and that you are afraid of losing her. Just tell her you care for her and will always be there for her. Maxwell did all the hard work texting her, now it’s upto you.

“I’ve enjoyed this adventure with you too. Hey, who’d have thought my dive bar expertise would lead us to each other?” he said nervously but smiled until Maxwell ‘accidently’ stood on his toe.

Freya stepped towards Max and Drake, kissing them both softly on the cheek before pulling them in for a group hug.

“I’m going to miss you guys. I’ll be right back- I need to find Madeleine and Liam.” Drake and Maxwell looked bewildered at her last words- forgetting about it they put it to the back on their minds hoping she didn’t know what she was talking about due to insomnia.

[name-me-regret]

Till I Touch The Sky - 4/9

Till I Touch The Sky Chapter Four: Further And Further

Summary: Peter wakes up in the hospital, outside of his body... Read on AO3. FANFICTION MASTER POST

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ “The day is incomplete The thoughts of total defeat I don't know what is happening to me Or if I'll die, 'cause I just never sleep You awoke into my night You could see the madness in my eyes I've lost control, please save me from myself...” ~Insomnia (Acoustic) - IAMX - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

June 08, 2015, Monday, 12:05AMPeter blinked open his eyes and sighed when he was next to his hospital bed. His body was in the bed, and it was attached to the usual things; heart monitor and an IV drip on the back of his hand. Also, he was connected to a respirator.

Oh no, that wasn’t good.

It was possibly pneumonia, which meant the rattling in his chest Mr. Stark had heard was the start of it. That meant that the medicines weren’t helping him at all, and his lungs were getting weaker and more damaged from the dirty city air. He didn’t even want to think of being forced to be on oxygen for the rest of his life, constantly, every second of his life. Also, not to mention the cost of having to be on oxygen 24/7.

Peter knew though, that this was likely what awaited him, and at times...

Peter decided to concentrate on the here and now, looking around at the hospital room he was in. He would have believed that he was dreaming, if it wasn’t for what had happened. Riley and Hailey and their mother had been in trouble in his ‘dream’, and he’d woken up and they had in fact been in danger from the same man. Either he’d dreamed it was happening, or he really had been outside of his body.

The teenager wasn’t sure which one it was, but he knew that he had to be careful, and not be so reckless anymore. Especially now, since this was the first time this had happened while he was away from home. Then again, he’d never slept anywhere else besides at home, and his previous hospital stay and this time couldn’t be considered sleeping. If he had to guess, he was likely in a coma or was being kept medically asleep.

Both of them were equally as scary, especially the latter.

Peter was reluctant to leave his body while not at home, but he found his curiosity getting the better of him. He walked out of the room as the rest of the area lit up, and he wondered if it was his aura that was lighting it up. It was soon clear that he was in the ICU, which wasn’t good. Being in the ICU was an expensive stay, no matter how small.

At times he wondered if it had been better not to have ever come to live with Ben and May. Then they wouldn’t have been burdened with so many bills due to his shitty health. Maybe Ben would still be alive. It would have been better not to be born at all.

Peter gasped as the room started to get darker, even in his immediate area and he had to stop since he couldn’t see anything. Did he die? Or maybe the rest of the world had ceased to exist?

He cried out as he was bombarded with thoughts, feelings and fragments of memories as someone passed through him. Peter staggered to the side where the wall was as the rest of the world came back into focus (albeit still with that fuzzy quality to it). He somehow managed not to fall through the wall, and even as he panted with exertion, he remembered that he didn’t need to breathe while he was like this.

Although, now that he paused to catch his breath, so to speak, he started to think that maybe his sad, depressing thoughts from a few minutes had caused the darkening of the world around him. Perhaps being in this state amplified any emotion he felt, which is why he was fearless while he was out of his body. That meant, that he was able to see due to his own aura and anything negative or sad made it dim, and thus he was not able to see. It wasn’t that the world disappeared, but that he wasn’t able to see it; was blinded to the world around him.

If that was the case, he wondered why the plane of existence he walked in when he left his body was so dark, as if it lacked all light and life. It couldn’t be that it ceased to exist as he had thought, after all, that person (a woman judging by the pieces of memories he’d gotten) proved that the world still existed.

When he walked back to his hospital room, he confirmed that he was very much alive, or at least, his body was. Whether that applied to his current form was debatable, and best saved for another time when he wasn’t in the hospital. After all, his depressing thoughts might affect his physical body.

He straightened in confusion as an alarm started to blare from one of the rooms near by. Peter moves over to the door, watching from the doorway as unobtrusively as he could, seeing as one of the nurses that had rushed in to check on the patient. He couldn’t tell who it was with the three nurses hovering over the bed, but when the heart monitor gave a shrill whine, he felt the urge to get closer.

“She’s coding! Get the doctor in here, stat!”

Peter moved around the room without getting closer, not wanting the nurses to pass through him accidentally. His head tilted to the side in bafflement when he saw a thread-like line at the center of the woman’s chest, whose face was obscured by the bandages wrapped around her head as well as the mask they were using to administer CPR.

The other end of the thread was hovering close to the ceiling, and as Peter watched, a body started to appear. She was transparent and appeared to be naked, if he had to guess, since at about her waist the rest of her body disappeared. As her face formed all the way, Peter realized that it was Miss Jones, Riley and Hailey’s mother.

Her eyes snapped open before his shock could register, mouth falling open before she screamed. ‘NO! HAILEY! RILEY! DON’T TOUCH THEM!’ Her eyes flickered back and forth, seeing something that Peter couldn’t. Then her face tightened into determination. ‘DON’T TOUCH THEM! YOU’LL HAVE TO KILL ME FIRST!’

Peter had a pretty good idea of what she was seeing, likely reliving the attack from that man. He covered his ears when she started to grunt and cry out as if receiving hits and blows, but this wasn’t his physical body so he could hear every sound. As each remembered blow came, the thread started to fade away as the heart monitor flat-lined. The nurses (and the doctor that had arrived at one point) started to shock her, and when they did the thread reformed, but immediately started to fade again.

He couldn’t stand to keep watching and was about to leave, but something made him turn back. It was a whispered voice, the same one that had been screaming moments before. ‘Keep his attention on me. Don’t let him harm my kids. Dear God, save my babies from this monster. I don’t care if I die... Hailey.... Riley.’

In the background, Peter distantly heard the medical team stop trying to revive her. “Alright, I’m calling it,” the doctor sighed sadly. The thread flickered like a candle about to be extinguished.

‘HEY!’ Peter rushed forward as he propelled himself up toward the woman, reaching out and was only mildly surprised when he was able to grab onto her. Her face changed and she turned to look at Peter, confusion on her ghost-like features.

‘FIGHT!’ he yelled. ‘THEY NEED YOU! THE TWINS NEED YOU!’

She flickered like a dying ember, and was almost gone, more transparent then even Peter. His eyes filled with tears but they couldn’t fall, not while he was like this but his own aura dimmed in sorrow.

‘Hailey.... Riley,’ she whispered, her voice sounding loving and desperate.

Then she ignited like an inferno as the thread thickened from the woman’s sheer force of will; a mother wanting to protect her children, defying even death. Peter was flung back, and he managed to stop himself before he flew through the wall.

As he lifted his gaze toward her, she smiled at Peter once before she was yanked back into her body. Her physical body breathed in as the monitor register her heartbeat once more, steady and strong. The medical team paused, the doctor already out the door before he ran back in when a nurse called him back. He’d already pronounced her dead, the nurse had even written it on her file and had been in the process of going to alert her teenage children in the waiting room.

The doctor checked her pulse even if the monitor was showing that her heart was beating. “It’s... impossible,” he whispered in disbelief. He cleared his throat a moment later with a sharp nod. “Let’s check her brain activity. She was gone for a few minutes. Let’s make sure there’s no brain damage.”

Peter was horrified to hear that, not having thought of it in the heat of the moment. He’d just reacted on his desire to save her, thinking of the twins devastation if their mother had died. Peter had thought of how he had felt when Ben die.

However, he’d been selfish, since he hadn’t even thought about how this might physically affect her. She could very well be a vegetable for the rest of her life, and he would be responsible. Peter had done this.

He staggered away, wanting to be away from there. The world dimmed around him as his grief and guilt filled him like a cup overflowing with too much water.

“My oh my, you’re projecting pretty loudly there,” an amused voice said.

Peter flinched and turned, the voice coming loud and clear, almost jarring. He couldn’t help but think this person was talking to him, even if no one had ever been able to see him before.

When he turned though, there was a heavily bandaged man staring right at him. His entire face and head was covered in gauze, so only a pair of warm brown eyes were visible. They were sharp and clear, and the skin around them was horribly disfigured. The nurse that had pushed him inside in the wheelchair he was sitting in wasn’t paying him nor Peter any attention.

She set the brakes and then started to push back the sheets and blanket from the bed, and Peter realized that he wasn’t in the same room where Miss Jones had been in. He must have passed through the wall without realizing, and was likely in one of the adjacent rooms.

However, the man didn’t appeared to be critical. He heavily injured if the gauze covering the entirety of his face and head was any indication, possibly a burn victim, but this wasn’t the burn unit.

“Oh yeah, I can see you, baby boy,” the man said, voice a sort of amused smugness that Peter didn’t know how to take. The nurse ignored him as if use to his antics, and started to helped him into the bed. He groaned as he climbed up with difficulty, and Peter could tell he was in a lot of pain.

“The doctor will be in shortly, Mr. Wilson,” she told the bandaged man. Then she quickly and quietly left, closing the door behind her.

Peter returned his attention to the man, who was looking at him as he pressed the button on the control that lifted the bed. Even that seemed to pain him as his body was lifted up until he was in a sitting position. The action of sitting up, shifting his body, seemed to cause him such discomfort that his other hand gripped the sheet in a white-knuckled grip.

‘Are you okay?’ Peter asked, his voice sounding wobbly even to his own ears (although technically did he even have ears at the moment?).

The bandages over the man’s mouth shifted and Peter wondered if he was smiling or frowning. “How charming, the dead boy worried about me,” he drawled in mock amusement. So it was neither; probably a smirk, or a sneer. “How adorable.” The gauze over his mouth moved to indicate he had spoken, otherwise he could almost convince himself that he wasn’t even talking.

Peter avoided the bed and the man’s reach, afraid that because he could see him, meant he could also touch him. He wasn’t sure and besides, Peter didn’t want to know what he was feeling, have his thoughts in his head and especially not any memories.

‘I’m not dead,’ Peter mumbled. His attention was taken by the sight of a dead potted plant by the curtained window, mostly dead. ‘But your plant is definitely dead. You should get the nurse to water it or throw it out.’

“Hold on, shut up for a sec. You never stop when you get started, do you?” He turned off the television, which had been nothing more than background noise at that point even if he hadn’t even been watching it. “What do’ya mean you’re not dead?”

Peter shrugged. He crouched down when he noticed something crawling along one of the plant’s dying leaves, which turned out to be a beetle. ‘My body is down in ICU. I think I’m in a coma. I must have dream-walked here.’ He reached out to try and touch the beetle, but it flew off almost like it sensed him and landed on another part of the plant. ‘I think some beetles are killing your plant.’

The man laughed. “Jesus Christ, kid. You tell me you’re in a coma in the next building and you want to talk about beetles eating my plant?”

Peter’s head lifted so sharply that if he’d still been in his body, he’d have likely hurt his neck from the sudden movement. ‘W-what? The next building? But... I w-was just in ICU watching Miss Jones...’ Peter cut himself off as he remembered that he’d been feeling terribly guilty due to the woman perhaps being brain damaged after coming back after being dead for so long. That he had been wishing to have never hurt her in such a way, and wanted to be away from there...

The teenager quickly went to the door, sticking his head through it to see the hallway and nearby was the nurse’s station and the sign read Oncology. That meant he was indeed in the next building in the Cancer Center. He’d never been to this part of the hospital before, since he’d only come whenever he’d be hospitalized due to his asthma or to see a specialist to see about his worsening health problems. Peter didn’t want to be in the hospital any more than he needed to, and there had thankfully never been a reason to visit the Oncology Ward.

Ever since he’d started ‘dream-walking’, he had learned new things he could do while in this state. He was always wearing the clothes he slept in, so he was usually in his pajamas (and his hospital gown at the moment), but he found that he could change his appearance if he concentrated hard enough. Peter was only able to do this for a short amount of time and it always left him feeling really tired, and he had even known he could get tired while dreaming.

Now, he knew better and that this was no dream. He was just walking out his body somehow, and now it appeared he had done something new. The boy wasn’t really liking it though, since this was the farthest he’d ever been from his body. It scared him more now that he knew this was no dream; scared him to think he could get hurt going through walls and people and his physical body would be affected.

“That looks creepy, just so you know,” the man said as he stuck his head back inside the room. “Seeing your head disappearing through the door like that. Thanks for that trauma, since I wasn’t nearly fucked up enough already.” Peter wasn’t sure if he was joking or not since he said it in such a flippant way. “And it’s called astral projecting, brat, not dream-walking. It’s your spirit or soul, whatever you want to call it, being able to leave your body for a while without actually dying.”

Peter frowned. ‘Astral... projecting?’ He looked down at himself, how see-through he was. ’Is that why I look like a ghost? I thought I was dead the first time it happened, since I fell and hit my head. Then I thought they were just dreams, but this is really happening, isn’t it?’ Peter asked the man as he lifted his gaze to look at him.

The man sighed and flung back the covers. “Here I was hoping for a nap, but now I gotta help not-dead boys figure out astral-projecting cause they’re amateurs that don’t know shit.” He grunted in pain as he sat up, and Peter’s eyes were once more drawn to his arms and legs. Almost every bit of flesh visible was covered in bandages, even each individual finger. He wondered what had happened to cause so much gauze covering his body. “I’m going to blush if you keep staring so hard, twerp.”

The teenager realized how rude he was being and hastily turned away. Actually, he realized he had been a voyeur by accident, thinking the times he’d astral-projected had been dreams. That meant, he had seen Hailey briefly nude that one time, Riley in the shower, and those times he’d sat in the other’s room listening as he had strummed on his guitar and sang.

He’d been such a creep.

After a few grunts and groans of pain, the man had finally managed to plop himself in the wheelchair the nurse had left in the room. Peter turned back, glad he wasn’t in his body or he’d likely have been red as a tomato at this moment. “Alright, shortstop, lead the way, and stop all those angsty teenager feelings. You have no mental shields and its giving me a headache.”

Peter stepped away quickly as he rolled himself forward, not wanting the man to go through him. “You’re smart,” he laughed. “Good, don’t touch me. You definitely don’t want all my thoughts and memories in you. How much do you see when you pass through someone?”

The teenager followed after him quickly as Mr. Wilson pulled open the door with some difficulty, Peter starting to walk at his side but avoiding anyone that was walking by. ‘Their feelings and thoughts at the time... well, more like their intentions than actual thoughts. There are... some fragments of memories.’

“Seems about right,” he said as he continued to wheel himself down the hallway. “How long have you been projecting? Can you move things yet?”

The nurses and medical professionals they passed mostly ignored them, or rather, they ignored Mr. Wilson. ‘Um... about two months, more or less. No, I can’t move anything. Will I be able to?’ The thought was an exciting one and was something he definitely wanted to explore more. ‘Can you astral-project, Mr. Wilson? Is that why you know so much?’

Mr. Wilson snorted. “Hell no. I just have the sight, but I can’t astral-project. A damn shame, since I wish I could leave this fucking body behind.” It pained him whenever he moved his arms to propelled him along on the wheelchair, if his flickering aura was any indication and he wondered not for the first time what had happened to him. Peter had a feeling that he shouldn’t ask him though, since he was likely to not answer, or would answer. He wasn’t sure which one would be worse.

“How do you know so much if you can’t astral-project?”

“Because you’re not the first astral-projector I’ve met. It’s dangerous when you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s why you have to get back to your body. Being too far away from your body for a long time is dangerous,” he warned. “You’ll lose sense of yourself, and even start to forget who you are because you don’t have a body to anchor your mind and spirit.”

The man seemed to know where he was going and Peter had to wonder how long he had been at the hospital, but once more, he didn’t ask. As they passed the various rooms and people in this particular ward, Peter saw some people that looked more dead than alive. They were likely close to death judging by their flickering auras, which were threatening to flicker out of existence. It was like the line that had attached her ghost (soul?) to Miss Jones’s body as she had been dying.

In one room they passed, there was a little boy that looked no older than nine. He stood in the doorway and watched them pass with sorrowful eyes, and Peter opened his mouth to say something. “Don’t,” Mr. Wilson snapped, his playful tone having hardened into something dangerous. “Keep moving.” He hurried his hands on the wheels to make himself go faster, and once they turned the corner, he stopped and looked up at Peter, since he was shorter than him while in the chair.

“Never speak to those with no auras. The recently dead still have some kind of aura, a bit of life left. But those that have no aura have been dead a long time. If you let them in, they’ll attach themselves to you like leeches, sucking away at your aura, your life.” He started to move forward again. “Don’t touch them, don’t talk to them. Don’t even look at them.”

Peter could only nod, feeling shaken by his words. ‘Can... can they get inside my body?’ The thought hadn’t even occurred to him. This was a hospital and people died here... and he’d left his body so far away. How many of these ghosts were between him and his body? Maybe someone (something) had already gotten inside of his body!

His terror manifested like a dark cloud so suddenly that he had no time to stop it, covering everything around him as he lost sight of the floor under his feet, the hallway around him, and even Mr. Wilson. The only thing he could think of was that something was inside his body! He was stuck like this, and he’d never be able to get back to his aunt, back home.

He was stuck like this!

“...id! Kid! Jesus Christ, you’re strong! Kid!” Mr. Wilson cursed. “No, I’m fine! Leave me alone!” the man snapped at someone else. “Kid! Get ahold of yourself!”

Peter found himself suddenly on the floor on his hands and knees as he breathed heavily like he’d run a mile, the man’s voice having snapped him back to himself. The floor felt so real and solid underneath him and he felt someone or something brush against him as he jerked away, arm flailing with the intention to push whoever it was away from him. The nurse that had been rushing past with a tray with a syringe on it shrieked in fright as the tray was knocked out of her hand seeming on its own.

‘W-what?’ Peter gasped, looking at his hand in shock before turning wide eyes toward Mr. Wilson.

The injured man was being restrained by a male nurse in scrubs, and he and the others had turned to look at the tray incredulously. His bandages had shifted enough for him to see his mouth, which was spilt wide with a grin. “Holy shit, kid! Did you just manifest enough to physically knock that tray over? In two months?!” He sounded gleeful even if Peter was sure he was in a lot of pain from being manhandled by the nurse.

One of the other nurses had recovered enough to recover the capped needle, using some hand sanitizer port on the wall to sanitize the dropped needle. “Aww, crap,” he chuckled ruefully. “I guess this is as far as I can accompany you, kid. These morons think I’ve gone crazy... which they might not be wrong, if I’m being completely honest!” The nurse uncapped the needle and another swabbed his arm with an alcohol wipe. “Ooh, they’re gonna give me the good stuff too!”

Peter watched helplessly as they stuck the needle in his arm and then pushed the stopper all the way down. “Time for nighty night.” The teenager rushed forward, maybe to help him or stop them. “NO!” Peter stopped. “Don’t touch me... I don’t want you to see... I won’t do that to a kid.”

‘Peter,’ he blurted out. ‘My name is Peter Parker, Mr. Wilson.’ He may not see the man again, and the thought was a lonely one. There hadn’t been anyone that could see him as he was now, and what if he never woke up? What if he ended up bodyless wandering the halls of this hospital with people unable to see him, and with ghosts as his only company?

“Peter, huh?” the man slurred, the drug already having zapped the strength in his limbs as he slumped in the nurse’s hold. “Just call me Wade, for fuck’s sake, kid.” He glanced to the side with a frown. “Shut up, yellow, m’not talking to you, fuuuuck...” Wade’s head fell back as he passed out with one last disturbing giggle.

As they wheeled the man away, the adolescent felt alone again. He had felt relieved to have Wade with him, and hadn’t realized how terrible it was to astral-project (hadn’t even know that’s what it was until the man had cleared things up for him). Now, it was just Peter and the ghosts that felt so cold. He passed one as he left the building and he shivered despite currently not having a body.

The light dimmed as he saw another one and started to panic, and he had to stop and take a deep breath he didn’t need to calm himself. He did this until he could see again, his aura brightening up again as well as the area around him. Then he gathered all his courage and continued his trek back to his hospital room and his body. After what felt like hours upon hours (passing several more ghosts that he’d pointedly ignored), he finally found the right room.

Peter wasn’t really sure what time it was, but when he passed through the door, he saw that he was still alone in the room. The heart monitor was still beeping strongly and the hiss of the breathing machine keeping him alive was the only sound heard. Perhaps they hadn’t been able to get ahold of his aunt yet, but he was sure Mrs, Harold, the widow that lived next door, had his aunt’s emergency contact information.

Then he remembered that the woman had left two days ago to visit her family during the summer. This wasn’t the hospital that his aunt worked at and when he’d been here before, it was usually during the day. That meant that he wasn’t familiar with the night shift nurses, but they should have been able to get his information from his medical bracelet...

Peter groaned as he smacked his forehead when he saw his bare wrist. He didn’t have it on, and remembered that he’d taken it off when he’d had his shower earlier in the day and he must have forgotten to put it back on. His aunt was always chastising him about taking it off, but it bothered him while he was bathing or showering. If he could, he’d always have it off but knew he couldn’t. It listed his asthma and food allergies, as well as the medicine he was allergic to; Penicillin V.

He decided to get inside his body and that way he could wake up and have one of the nurses call his aunt and also give them his information. Peter walked over, floating over toward his body that was attached to all those machines, making him look even tinier. He hated it, how sick he looked and the fear that this would always be his life.

“Back into my sickly body, then,” he sighed, closing his eyes. Nothing happened. His eyes blinked open in shock as he stared down at his body.

He couldn’t get back inside his body!-

[comfortmarvelimagines]

When You Can’t Find the Quiet

ya can all thank my autistic ass for projecting onto this? i needed to finish this and it’s now almost 1am so i’ll post part 2 tomorrow lmao i know it sucks but like. i don’t have friends who Get It ya know? i figure peter n co. would try super hard to help sooooo 

It was a Bad Brain day from the second you woke up.

It didn’t start off horribly, on the level that made physical touch sting and laughter split your skull in two. That didn’t stop the repetition of your mom’s alarm clock in the next room from feeling like it was chipping away at your bones at 5am, as she got up to go swim laps at the community pool. New York was never quiet, and going back to sleep wasn’t an option, even though it wasn’t your choice to be up at such an ungodly hour. All of a sudden you were hot. Too hot. Suffocating. Throw-off-the-covers-and-stick-your-head-under-the-kitchen-sink kinda hot. And as you stood with your hair dripping, pyjama shirt soaked hours before you even had to think about the hustle of teenagers fighting to get to homeroom, you realised that it was just One of Those Days.

The bathroom in your apartment had an east-facing window. Which may have been an irrelevant fact to most, but on days like today it meant you could crack it open to let the steam out and shower completely in peace. No hard lights, no grating whir of the fan. A brief reprieve of soft light and floating before the world pressed play again. The only other sound besides the stream hitting the tiles were those your mother made, in another room, grabbing files before she left for work. Most days, you wouldn’t be in the same room for more than ten minutes at a time, and that suited you just fine- for the majority of instances, you could act normal, hold eye contact and try to remember what you knew about small talk for long enough to think you were ‘fine’.  Words weren’t gonna happen today, though, and you stood pressed against the bathroom door, listening for the click of the front door signalling that you wouldn’t have to force out a stuttered attempt at speech. Finally, she left and you could finish getting ready. Not stopping to think, you swept the textbooks from last night’s homework into your bag, swung it on your back and ran out the door. You might miss your train, but you’d only be late for homeroom.

You didn’t miss the train, if only for the fact that it was three minutes late and you’d speed-walked the whole way there. The perk of being so focussed on your feet on the concrete was that nothing else existed. Unfortunately, once the adrenaline of making the doors before they closed wore off, everything came back. Hard. That specific kind of warmth that comes from people standing too close. That one flickering light that you couldn’t directly see, but after a few minutes made you want to punch that fucking thing out so it would stop. The awful hot shock of touch when the person next to you fell into your arm as the train slowed to a stop in the tunnel, shuddering down your spine and making you want to crawl out of your skin. The tinny bass of too-loud music through someone’s airpods, someone talking on the phone, everyone breathing and shifting and rustling and the train breaks whining and-

Headphones. Should have headphones. You pulled your backpack around to your front, ripping open the zipper and rifling through the loose papers and the water bottle you forgot to fill before you left. Of course, that wasn’t the only thing you forgot. Fucking great. You haphazardly shoved everything back in your bag and pulled a fidget cube from your pocket, remembering that you’d left it in your hoodie from yesterday. Hands on each side. Thumbs on the switch. Focus. Click left. Click middle. Click right. Click middle. One, two three, four. Over and over and over and over until it was your stop.

You walked through the school gates head down, hoodie up, thumb running over the spinny metal ball of the fidget cube in your pocket, determined to just make it through the day and get back home to the quiet. Unsurprisingly, you were completely unaware of Ned and Peter running up behind you, completely oblivious to how loud they were being. “Hey y/n, how was your weekend? Peter and I were just planning to go see the new Star Wars movie at the cinema next week, do ya wanna come?”

“Yeah y/n it’ll be fun! We can get popcorn and soda and Skittles.”

“If you wanna come, my mom’s booking the tickets this weekend so we can get good seats. It’s gonna be AWES-”

“Shut it, nerds.” MJ was slouched against the peeling paint of her locker, two down from Peter’s. “You’re hurting them”.

At some point, your hands had made their way up to your ears. It wasn’t really Ned and Peter’s fault, but their voices just added an extra layer to the soupy mess of sounds echoing through Midtown Tech. It also didn’t help that the shoving and pushing of kids running through the corridor was prickling your skin, the thickness of your jumper doing little to help at this point. You twitched as someone grabbed the fabric near your elbow, tugging. “I know you don’t want to be touched right now but if you go inside with Peter, it’ll be quieter,” MJ spoke as softly as she could without being completely drowned out by yelling teens. Your eyes flickered over to Peter, the only sign to MJ that you’d processed what she said. Peter, having shoved most of his stuff in his locker and grabbed whatever textbooks he needed, fumbled to try and untangle his earphones.

“Here, try these. I know it’s not your headphones, but it might help if you focus on music so you we can get to the quiet?” You quickly took them from him and jammed them in your ears, plastering your hands back over the top. In all honesty, they didn’t do much and you couldn’t really tell what song was playing, but you were desperate to get any sort of relief from the barrage of input. You were grateful when Peter didn’t try and pull you through the crowd, instead opting to try and create a path for you to follow, and made sure you were seated up the back in a corner well before the bell rang.

The bell.

The bell that was right over your head.

Well shit.

The only way you could describe how it felt, was that every atom in your body was on fire. Out. Out. Get out. You didn’t remember when you started scratching at your arms, only that you needed to stop to open the door. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you began to question where the door was, where you were, but that thought was abandoned when you realised the room was dark. Quiet. Staggered to your knees, you found the corner and crouched there, waiting for your head to stop spinning.

***

Meanwhile, Peter was back in homeroom, stressed out of his mind. The teacher hadn’t come in until after y/n had ran, and Peter debated whether or not to stay for attendance or try and find you, in case something bad happened.  Eventually deciding on the latter, Peter bolted down the corridor, yelling for someone to tell the teacher to mark him and y/n as here. He had a vague idea of where you could be, but after checking under the back library tables, the unused changeroom out the back of the gym and the photocopying room, he was getting desperate. There were dozens of empty classrooms and homeroom was nearly over. If the sounds of chairs scraping and kids screaming wasn’t going to make things even worse for you on your already super-shitty day, then having a presumably unsympathetic teacher find you huddled at the back of their class, without a verbal excuse, was just plain cruel. He was almost about to head to the nurse and see if there was anyone they could call to come help find you, when he heard a high-pitched sound coming from an empty chem lab storeroom

***

The squeaking of the door as it swung open was enough to set your teeth on edge, and you bit even harder on the finger jammed into your mouth. “Hey, hey y/n, it’s okay, s’just me”

You kept rocking. The door squeaked again, the sliver of light disappearing. Then footsteps. “I know, I know this is rough, but I think I have something that can help.” Peter’s voice still hurt your ears, but not in the mind-numbingly harsh way of before. “Can you maybe stop rocking and take your hood down for a sec? I have something to put over your head, like a mask, it’s gonna make everything go away. I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry but trust me, this’ll work.”

You slowly moved your free hand up, pushing back the fabric and moving it back down to brace on the ground. Peter pulled something out the back pocket of his jeans, the room too dark to make it visually distinguishable, and quickly braced your cheek whilst tugging it over your face. Your breathing hitched; there was a sound, a woman talking, the mask-thing wasn’t down all the way and you could feel it resting on the top of your knuckle, the taste of blood in your mouth…

“Uh, shit, okay, Karen that’s okay I did that, uh, make it quiet? Make it dark? I know Mr Stark put a protocol for this why can’t I remember it, just hold on a sec y/n you’re fine you’ll be fine I got this,” Peter’s frantic rambling was interrupted by his pocket vibrating. Insistently. Knowing the light would hurt your eyes, he tried to shield the screen with his hand, answering the call.

“Want to explain why your mask is on someone else’s head.”

“Uh see you see-”

“At school. When you were just marked as absent. And May just called me, asking if I knew anything about it. Oh, and why those vitals are off-the-fucking CHARTS.”

“I can explain I promise it’s just my friend is- they’re not doin’ too great and I’m trying to help them out”

“Can that explain why you’re whispering”

“Yes, yes it can. You know how my senses are like, dialed to eleven. Like, all the time?” “Mmm”

“Well their’s is just like that. Normally. And sometimes school is too much for them but they can’t communicate properly, and I guess they just, like, run? They, uh, need to get out but they don’t know where to? And so the bell went earlier and they disappeared and I found them in the chem storeroom but it was before the teacher marked attendance so that’s why we’re marked absent-” “Don’t care about that now. Where are they?”

“We’re in the chem storeroom still. I thought maybe I could use my mask to make it quiet to try and help, since you installed those mods- thanks by the way- but Karen won’t stop flashing and talking and I forgot the protocol name and they won’t let me get the mask off and oh shit now their hand’s bleeding Mr Stark please help-” Tony cut him off again. At this point, all attempts at whispering between the two had been abandoned, and you wanted to get out.

“I remotel…”

Silence. Complete, blissful, beautiful, enveloping silence.

You didn’t feel your head hit the linoleum floor.

[airlock]

airlock grades the Gharnef archetype

so, I got a random hankering to start a text post series where I launch myself off on reviews of each character from a certain villainous archetype in Fire Emblem -- and hey, it’s a reasonably nice time of the year to be doing posts like these, what with that new upcoming entry that we learn more about each day, isn’t it?

to kick off the festivities, I’m doing one of my favorites -- let’s see who wore the heavy robes better!

(do note: under cut are spoilers for... everything, and also a significant amount of me criticizing or blamming characters that you might like. you’ve been warned! but if you’d still persist, you childish sword lord, then come along and meet my challenge-)

the man himself

(6/10)

although the execution suffers from myriad flaws -- of which several can be touted to stem from storage space limitations in FE1 and FE3, but are inexcusably retained in the remakes -- it’s not for no reason that this fellow spawned a lengthy line of imitators.

the detail of his backstory and motivation is brillant; he’s a perfectly understandable villain without being remotely redeemable -- a much-needed class in antagonist writing for more recent entries of the series. he’s also effective as a terrifying, genuinely threatening villain, implacable and powerful.

unfortunately, however, his excellently written characterization is largely confined to flavor; it fails to inform his actions or the flow of the plot, and so, he tends to come across as a plot device instead of a character. even his takeover of Khadein is written very powerfully for something that isn’t seen and barely influences any of the game’s events. and although his sheer ambition in withholding Falchion to eventually betray Medeus ends up coming across as a plot action instead of something steeped in his essence. and this all to say nothing of his second appearance, where he fully forgoes being a character and behaves indistinguishably from a non-sentinent madness-inducing talisman.

overall, he’s a splendid concept for a villain that is ultimately laid low in execution, largely because, back in his day, the text wasn’t big enough to comfortably carry him, and the more recent incarnations were ineffective in expanding it despite having more than enough room to do so.

I also docked a point or two for being an antisemitic/anti-roma stereotype in his earlier incarnations, what with the hooked nose and rare darker skintone; the remakes thankfully eschew this by swapping out the nose and making the skintone outright inhuman, but the more recent Heroes design, while an improvement on many fronts, seems to roll back on this one.

church gharnef

(6/10)

unlike the above-mentioned, this one was in a remake that changed a lot of things; I mention this as a healthy preface to the fact that I am only familiar with his more recent incarnation!

like Gharnef above, he’s an unforgivable, but genuine villain; while a lust for power is hardly fresh as far as motivations go, the game does reasonably well at establishing that he’s already powerful and influential, and has fallen to cruel orthodoxy in a bid to eliminate threats to his power at all costs -- in other words, his characterization is timelessly realistic.

unfortunately, however, that much is all text, if not outright fanon; the story proper restricts him to behaving as an unconvincing cacklefiend playing at a kidnap-the-princess plot that the princess in question should’ve been too strong and too smart to fall prey to. making Celica a somewhat willing hostage instead of a helpless captive was a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t cover the distance; it would have been far more interesting if Jedah had gotten the chance to overpower Celica in the arena of genuine manipulation through theological debate -- and on the other coin of things, I’m sure his preying on Celica’s fears would seem a lot more organic if not for how dedicated the game is to telling her that she’s wrong before she even takes the steps across the point of no return.

he’s much like the original Gharnef in being an intriguing concept that falls flat on execution, although with both of those qualities amped up -- even more interesting in theory, even flatter in practice.

discount gharnef

(2/10)

sorry not sorry for nicknaming him that!

I believe I’ve said it a number of times and I’ll say it again: Manfroy is a manipulative villain in a setting full of people who don’t need manipulation to make bad decisions and ruin their own lives. he comes across as a plot device at the best of times, and as a null factor at the worst of times; he brings nothing to any cutscene that he appears in.

Seliph’s visit to the Yied Shrine alludes to his backstory -- that which he shares with the rest of the cult -- but this instance is even poorer than previous examples at establishing a plot presence; it not only fails to inform Manfroy’s choices in any interesting way, but it’s also outright contradicted by his actions sometimes (cfr: withholding the Naga tome, in a move that brings Gharnef’s playbook to mind but makes no sense at all for Manfroy).

points have been docked again for racial stereotyping, also; the sprite alone doesn’t make it very evident but he’s also got a face that can be used as a fishing pole.

irrelevant gharnef

(1/10)

Veld is a step beneath even Manfroy, as yet another pointless manipulative villain -- notorious for stealing a slice of agency from one of the far more genuine antagonists of the setting -- who doesn’t make his presence felt at all. I was halfway tempted to consider Raydrik the actual Manfroy here, even.

he retains one point only for not being a racial stereotype, for once.

the absence of a gharnef

(wha?/10)

Binding Blade, for all its highly repetitious usage of archetypes (being, in fact, arguably responsible for making them a thing in the first place, where they were previously just repetitive Kaga quirks), seems to have eschewed the Gharnef. this actually somewhat works in its favor; although the game’s plot is ultimately one of the shallower ones in the series, the lack of a core manipulative villain puts the focus on the self-interested factionalism that each country suffers from as they fail to mobilize a resistance against the primary villain. so, overall, an approach that would have worked out great in Jugdral.

monsterfucker gharnef

(8.5/10)

where Binding Blade had succeeded in building a plot that doesn’t need a Gharnef, its prequel was successful in the opposite: creating one of the most effective incarnations of the archetype to date, and making him front and center, to boot.

although all Gharnefs thus far have been manipulative villains, Nergal and his cronies are the first ones who show true skill in manipulation -- as in, conning people into acting against their interests, in situations where they otherwise would not have. through this, he cements himself as the primary antagonist and driver of the plot, where his predecessors were content, if dishonest, in serving a greater evil. and he brings very perceptible weight to the position, specially in the scenes where he presses the buttons of the heroes; although he fails to ultimately discourage them from defeating him, it comes across as a result of heroic strength, not of ineffective villainy.

that said, however he shimmers and shines as the heavy, he’s somewhat held back by his backstory -- one that only partially succeeds at informing his actions (however compelling it is when it does manage to do so), and worse, is largely locked to second-playthrough bonuses, where the story would’ve benefitted much more from naturally doling out his secrets along the way.

I also docked a half-point because the pseudo-turban and goatee arguably veer into the racial stereotype territory again, although he at least has the point-for of not having an outright gonk design (even when the turban goes off). I should be clear: it’s not that I oppose having nonwhite/nonwestern elements on an antagonist at all, it just comes across rather poorly when certain elements are only seen on antagonists, and especially if it’s always on the ugly ones.

twink gharnef

(10/10)

Lyon is the apex of plot-driving gharnefs, plain and simple. undeniably sympathetic, but impossible to save, whether he’s too far gone or was never redeemable to begin with -- and in fact, this ambiguity is easily the most brillant aspect of all of the writing in Sacred Stones.

he’s characterized effectively from wire to wire: his appearance, mannerisms and fond flashbacks do an excellent job of disarming the player while setting them up for a staggering plot twist, but the game is also not too hesitant to bring the plot twist to fruition and saves enough time to keep building on him past the point when the big secret is out -- sidestepping a pervasive trap that otherwise often causes plot twists to weaken stories. and all the way to the end, it’s difficult to narrow his character down to one narrative that doesn’t feel strictly like a personal interpretation; there are as many Lyons as there are players, right down to the point where he comes across differently depending on whether you’re playing as Eirika or Ephraim!

there’s also credit to be given to the remainder of the cast that effectively props him up; because he has underlings that behave strongly on their own motivations -- and sometimes beyond even Lyon’s control -- he spares himself from behaving as a plot device to focus fully on serving as the genuine core of the story as a whole. I suppose he’s a good delegator if nothing else, eh?

depression gharnef

(4/10)

unlike the above, Sephiran fails crucially in one regard: he’s set up as an extremely endgame plot twist, which, coupled with a frantic, breathless third act that insuffices to fully explore the implications of the reveals it dishes out, causes his reveal to land closer to shock value than to the completion of an arc.

while his backstory is breathtakingly fascinating, it serves exclusively as a footnote to eulogize him with; it’s not just that his actions don’t seem to be informed by it, but rather that his actions completely lack weight in the plot, making it even somewhat arguable to class him as a Gharnef at all. in Path of Radiance, he only appears as an irrelevant mystery, and Radiant Dawn coming out to accredit him for some number of Ashnard’s deeds fails to budge that one’s sheer weight and doesn’t change perspectives.

it’s quite a shame, because in concept, he could’ve been the next Lyon; but the execution is painfully fragile, and amidst the complex web of characters and plots in Tellius, his greater-scope motions fail to be felt whatsoever until the late chapters of Radiant Dawn’s Part 3.

DIWNLF gharnef

(0/10)

(that’s “dad I would not like to fuck”, incidentally)

it’s not for no reason that this guy is the only major antagonist that Awakening doesn’t let you trip over still alive and kicking somehow. he is 100% plot device, adds nothing to the story or to any single scene that he appears in, lacks in personality, doesn’t present any sort of challenge that isn’t erradicated without fanfare by the protagonists, and doesn’t even have any sort of a backstory.

and he’s a racist stereotype on top of all that, so he doesn’t even get a mercy point like his similarly irrelevant predecessor from Thracia 776.

I have not played the game with this gharnef

(??/10)

I don’t even know if he counts; I see a lot of back-and-forth in that regard.

anyways, what do you all think? “oh my god someone finally said it”, or perhaps “I will kill you but not as hard as you assassinated my favorite antagonist”? if the upcoming Three Houses is to have a Gharnef, do you have any hopes for what they’ll be like? this is all nice and open to replies and reblogs, folks! don’t be shy! yes.... do it... succumb to the temptation.......