#I UNDERSTAND HIM. PEOPLE TOUCHING YOUR WHEELCHAIR FUCKING SUCKS.

[strawbkiwi]

y'know what i completely sympathize with george from stardew valley and he's one of the first villagers i try and befriend. i too would be pissed off if random people were trying to touch my wheelchair and the liveliest place in town, the stardrop saloon, had stairs into the building so i couldn't even get inside. i am constantly bringing him hot peppers and fried mushrooms. cripple solidarity etc etc

[cpunkwitch]

answering my questions p2

[pt: answering my questions p2]

ask game 2 (link)

whats the most recent encounter of ableism you've had, online or irl?

my dad calling my condition "just labels" when i told him my mom and i suspect i have arthritis. "you guys and your labels, you liike labels too much"

2. whats the worst encounter of ableism you've had, online or irl?

unsure what the worst one would be, they all suck imo. i guess any ableism coming from my dad, because hes my dad so it tends to hurt the most coming from him.

3. whats the funniest encounter of ableism you've had, online or irl?

tried to think of a few things but they werent so funny so im not sure. maybe my dad saying he though i was an old lady when he first saw me with my cane picking me up from college last year?

4. whats something an ableist said that stuck with you and for what reason?

i cannot remember anything specific

5. whats something you want ableds to understand?

main point: ask consent before daring to touch anyones belongings especially mobility aids and not every disabled person will have the same limitations and experience with their disabilities. we arent inspiration porn, we are human beings functioning differently from you.

some people will be okay with you moving their cane aside or something AS LONG AS YOU ASK and keep it within reach of them. some people in a wheelchair can walk or use other aids on different days, some people dont use any any aids but still cant do th e same activities you do let alone they way you do them for the same length of time. some only use aids on rare days, some have perfect use of their legs, some have to have assistance with mundane tasks, so on and so forth.

a disabled person in the olympics, competing in a sport, creating things while in a wheelchair or walking with a cane etc are not there for you to go "wow so amazing youre so strong and brave im so proud of you for doing this despite your disability" they do it for them, with their disability and never for your degrading "positivity". you wouldnt say that if they werent disabled, why arent you saying congrats to the others who do the same thing as them too? is it just because youre singling them out for being disabled? fuck off with that.

6. got a story involving ableism that you like to share/feel like sharing/find amusing? can be yours or someone else's story.

likely have tonnes of stories about my parents ableism. if you prompt me i can probably some up with something to talk about but sometimes i need specific prompts like "your parents reaction to your first mobility aid?"

specifically ones that i find amusing though? normally ones that arent mine and they came from either youtube readings of tumblr or reddit posts, story times or someone pissing off my mom.

i do remember when i walked into the dollar store the cashier asked what happened when she saw my cane and i went "oh i was born with a defect in my spine :D" and watched her deflate with a quiet "oh.." what were you expecting?? how is that question ever not awkward?

7. dumbest or funniest question someone asked you about your condition and/or aid?

answered in 6 i guess

8. if you dont have one, do you think you could benefit from a service animal? if so, what animal would you like?

therapy, or emotional support cat or rabbit? i cant do dogs, im terrified of dogs. cats and rabbits i could handle. im actually unsure what else there is but iv looked into getting an esa a while ago and the only reason my mom said no no matter how many times i bargained is because we live in too small of a house thats constantly a mess.

im never allowed to get a rabbit while i live with her, she hates them ever since one horny rabbit years ago bit her leg.

parents were really mean about me wanting a bunny rabbit and im still holding it aganst them.

9. do you have an ideal mobility aid or ideal disability aid in general?

easy to move wheelchair, easy for me anyway. one with a no handles so no one can grab them. maybe a basket or something on it too idk, that way everything not in my lap or in my bag hanging off the side or something? idc if its motorized or not tbh

when im finally out of my crappy parents house, i'll look into gettingone.

10. whats something you wish ableds would stop doing/do less of?

asking dumb questions and touching our stuff without permission

11. whats something you wish ableds would do more of?

hold doors open regardless of ability, regardless if they have a mobility aid or not. treat people the fucking same.

12. whats something in the community you dont see talked about enough?

i know its talked about in other places but i dont actually run into the discussion much, people talking about living with an able-bodied partner or another phys disabled partner while being disabled themselves and what its like/what to expect etc.

i do plan on eventually moving in with someone and id like to hear more stories about home life with roommates or partners.

13. have you ever tried out someone else's mobility aid before?

i once used my brothers crutches when i was maybe 4? dont fully remember why he had them but i remember that day i picked them up. it was an xmas party.

14. whats something thats supposed to be an accessible accommodation but just turns out to be more of a hinderance for you and why?

i used to have an answer for this and i dont remember what it was.

15. whats something you see thats overhyped in regards to disability or cripplepunk?

overhyped/overrated imo? yet another question i no longer remember my answer for jfc who's taking my memories? /cj

i remember there was something that was talked about a lot that was really not worth all the hype to me but i guess since the talk of it died down and i stopped seeing it in the tags/on my dash i completely forgot what it was specifically.

im a very "out of sight out of mind" person..

16. whats something that you see people talk about constantly in the community and are now tired of?

answered in 15 ig?

17. have you ever made characters with disabilities? if yes, tell us about them and their disability?

oh yeah lots, which book or fandom shall i start with?

off the top of my head theres "escape", "the adventurers" and "afterwards", maybe even "the four witches", original books of mine. as for fandom related characters, my oc macey comes to mind first. shes a marvel/avengers oc (in general not just mcu). im happy to talk about any of these, you can even ask if i have a character with a specific condition, i probably have a dnd npc or two from one of my campaigns who have it if none of my book or fandom oc's have it.

i like character creation..

18. what are your favourite disability headcanons?

about everything i post to @/beecanons and @/your-fave-is-crippled that isnt expressly canon, and the stuff i plan on posting.

19. whats a disability you want to see more or better representation of/for?

honestly my first look at anemia in media was vampire knight and diabolik lovers... please give me better rep.. i need to see more anemic characters that arent just "whoa im dizzy" and "oops passed out cuz a vampire drank my blood"

20. free space!

feel free to ask me to elaborate/expand on, clarify or just ask whatever you'd like, my inbox is alway open!

[ID: banner reading "dni if... proship, transx/id, syscourse/discourse blog, anti-mspec lesbians/gays, anti-lesboy/turigirl more in pinned rentry. this blog is protected by the addams family, the de rolo family and co." in all black lowercase text. It has a grey cloud background. On the left is the De Rolo coat of arms with a cobweb in the top corner and symmetrically flipped on the right is the symbol of Vox Machina with the same cobweb in the bottom corner :End ID]

[fuck-customers]

Fuck this one particular coworker, M. We all thought she was super sweet. She had a ton of health issues but she worked really hard when she was feeling well enough, often completely finishing inventory and helping out others. She'd complain a lot about her home life (stuck at home with several abusive adult children) and the health issues but she was always so helpful and kind it was hard to be annoyed with her. We'd go out of our way sometimes to help her if she'd had a bad episode.

Her issues were getting worse. She'd passed out a handful of times at work, dislocated part of her kneecap, started needing her wheelchair around the warehouse, etc. All of this is totally fine and understandable on their own, and we were so concerned for her!! We were practically begging for her to take it easier on herself at work, leave her bad home situation if she could, giving her suggestions for figuring out insurance stuff, etc.

Then she had a bad week. One of our coworkers, P, heard M talking shit about him and another coworker-- saying they needed to find a different job and that they were horrible at this one. Anyone who knows P knows he's one of the most fantastic people at his job anyone could ask for. Super great dude overall, so nice to everyone, constantly joking around and making sure everyone felt included, etc. We were all confused when we heard this bc why would she say any of that?? Sure the back had been swamped, but that wasn't his fault, nor the fault of our other coworker. It was just part of working in the back sometimes.

Then, our other coworker, A, was scrambling to push open the warehouse doors for another coworker's cart. In doing so, he hit M and she went crashing into a wall. He immediately apologized and repeatedly checked on her throughout the day, desperately hoping she'd be okay. He felt terrible. P came up to him at the end of the day and said "I was on the other side of that door with her. You barely touched her."

At the end of the week, one of our managers explained $150 was missing from her personal wallet, which she kept in the office. Management had been pretty lax about keeping things locked up because we'd all been working with each other for ages and there was a level of trust there that was... sort of just expected. It was completely shocking, but the only explanation we had was that someone had gone into the office and stolen it. It sounds silly, like "of course if you leave your personal things in an unlocked room someone's gonna steal it" but I've been working there for years and we've NEVER had an issue like that.

I spoke to P about what he thought about things. (I work in the front and rarely have a chance to hear about what happens in the back unless it's huge) and he said outright "I don't like saying it, but I think it was M." I was surprised, because I hadn't heard about her shit before, so I asked why. "When [manager] left the office, there were 5 of us in the back. Me, [insert 3 other coworkers], and M. Me and the other 3 were together the entire 4 hours she was out there. The entire time. M was the only one who wasn't in our sight. Manager found it was missing after she got back. It had to have been her..."

This sucks because it feels like the whole team took a huge trust hit even though we know who did it. No one wants to go to HR about it because they're nervous nothing's gonna happen and M's gonna retaliate somehow.

TLDR; Coworker who everything thought was a sickly sweetheart has been faking the severity of her health issues to get out of work/worker's comp, talking shit behind peoples' backs, and we think she stole a good amount of money from one of the managers.

[youbloodymadgenius]

Brother (a Modern!Ivar fic with an unexpected Ragnarsson as special guest)

A/N: This is my entry to @maggiescarborough​ celebration. Happy early Anniversary, love 💝

I’m quite proud of this one! So, please, I know it’s not a reader insert, but give it a try, give it a chance 🙏🏽

Prompt in bold, as usual.

@inforapound​ - I know how much i owe you. Thank you 💞

Let me know if you want to be tagged 😊

Summary: One of Ivar's brothers was in a car accident. How will Ivar react?

Warning: description of physical injuries; mention of a car crash; medical and surgical inaccuracies.

Words: 2331

As soon as he spots Doctor Mikelsson, Ivar gets up, wincing at the throbbing pain in his legs as he steps closer to the renowned surgeon. 

 "Doc," he says, giving him a slight nod, "How is he?"

 The surgeon sighs tiredly and slowly rubs his palms down his scrubs-clad thighs. "I'd say he has been very lucky. As far as I know, it could have been much worse. Car versus truck is never a winning combo, at least for the car's driver. His car has been completely destroyed, from what I hear. It must have been a terrible wreck. "

"That’s an understatement." Ivar grumbles under his breath, shivering as he struggles to get the images of the crash out of his mind. The pictures he saw were so vivid, he could still hear the screams and ambulance sirens that had undoubtedly filled the accident scene. Closing his eyes for a brief instant, he shakes his head, forcing himself to focus on the here and now. 

 "That's not what I was asking, Doc. How is he?" He insists, emphasizing the last three words as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, leaning heaviliy on his crutch, physical and mental discomfort obvious on his face.

 "Well, he's not so bad, all things considered. As I said, it could have been much worse. He's stable and his condition isn't life-threatening. It's serious, though."

 Ivar rolls his eyes, getting impatient. "Straight to the point, Doc, please! And no need to sugarcoat it." His commanding voice is sharp and stern, his tight-lipped expression giving away what little patience he has. 

 "Okay, Ivar." Doctor Mikelsson gives him a weary smile, a hand up in surrender. "About his upper body first. Aside from several bruises, he had a sprained wrist and a cracked rib. The last one will be painful for awhile but it won't be an issue in the long run. His lower body, on the other hand…" The surgeon frowns, visibly gathering his thoughts. "He suffered a double tibia-fibula fracture of his right leg and his pelvis has been multi-fractured; therefore I had to stabilize it with plates and screws. To allow his pelvis to recover, your brother will be bed- and then wheelchair-bound for at least six weeks, maybe more. Not that it matters, anyway, given the condition of his left leg."

 Hearing those words, Ivar shudders. "How…" His voice comes out strangled and he clears his throat. "How is it? You… You could save it, right? That's why I… had him transferred here."

 Putting a soothing hand on Ivar's forearm, the doctor nods. "Yes, I saved it. It was quite a challenge, I must admit. His leg has been severely shattered during the crash, literally crushed by one of the truck's tires. From the top of his thigh to the tips of his toes, not a single bone was intact. I do understand why my colleague from the public hospital wanted to amputate it, you know?"

 "But you saved it?" Ivar asks once again, his free hand running nervously through his disheveled hair.

 "I did." The doctors answers soberly before explaining. "I reduced the largest fractures, using rods and plates there as well. I couldn't avoid putting an external fixator though, his leg was too damaged. He'll still need several more surgeries, but he gets to keep his leg."

 "Thanks, Doc." Ivar adorns a slight smile which doesn't completely reach his eyes. "And what about recovery? He will fully recover, right?" A frown creasing his forehead, Ivar bites his inner cheek, worried and concerned. 

 Grimacing, the surgeon lets out a deep breath. "Ivar, I'm not sure you understand the extent of the damage. It's not just about a couple of broken bones. We're talking about devastating injuries that could have – that should have – resulted in amputation. If you ask me if your brother will walk again, I can't be sure yet, but I'm quite confident he will. Will he need walking aids, like cane, crutch and or leg brace? It's too soon to say. But to be perfectly honest with you, it's quite likely." Seeing Ivar wince, the surgeon gives him an apologetic look. "Sorry Ivar. Be sure I did my best."

 "Don't be sorry, I know you did. It's just a lot to take in. Does he… Does my brother know?"

 Scrunching his face, the surgeon hesitates, unsure. "More or less. I talked to him in the recovery room but he was a bit dazed from the drugs and the nurse had to increase the morphine because he was in pain. He was completely out of it after that. He'll probably sleep through the night so I'll talk to him first thing in the morning." Taking a step back, Doctor Mikelsson stares at Ivar from head to foot, noticing how the blue-eyed man favors his left leg, his right foot barely touching the floor. "You should head home and get some rest, Ivar. I'm pretty sure you've been wearing these braces for far too long." Giving him a light pat on the shoulder, he shrugs. "I'll do the same anyway. Guess I'll see you tomorrow. Good night, Ivar." 

 ***

 Opening the door as quietly as possible, Ivar watches his sleeping brother. He's awfully pale, his frail frame so small on the hospital bed, his right leg in a cast, his left propped up on a huge pillow. Ivar frowns at the sight of the fixator, which makes him think of a barbaric tool more than a medical device. He suddenly feels grateful that he never needed one. 

 Trying to not make any noise, he crosses the room without using his crutch, struggling and wincing with every step. He's successful but fails to stifle a hiss as he sits down on the chair next to his brother's bed. He looks at him, worried, and sees his eyes flutter open. 

 "Ivar?" His brother's voice is hoarse and the stunned look on his face unmistakable. "Why did you come here? To make fun of me?" There's no fight or fire in his eyes, only exhaustion and sadness. 

 Ivar shrugs, a light smile playing on his lips. "Can't say the thought didn't cross my mind." He lowers his head one second, snorting, and when he raises it again, it's with a serious look on his face. "Guess I wanted to know how you are doing." His voice is barely a whisper and he doesn't look his brother in the eye. 

 "What did you say?" Ivar's brother's tone is suspiscious, dripping with disbelief. "Since when are you concerned about that??" He tries to sit up but groans in pain, collapsing back onto the bed. 

 Worry wrinkling his forehead, Ivar instantly gets up, putting a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Hold still, will you? And seriously, tell me, how are you feeling? How is your pain? I mean, on a scale from zero to ten, zero meaning no pain at all and ten an unbearable pain. Tell me, how bad is it?"

 Ivar's brother rubs his cheek with two fingers, squinting his eyes, before letting out a long and audible sigh. "Four I think, maybe five."

 Ivar – who lives on a daily basis with a six or seven rated pain – has to remind himself that his pain treshold is much higher than that of ordinary people. "Okay," he begins softly, "four or five might still be tolerable but don't let it get higher. Look," he points at a small medical bulb with his index finger, "that's a morphine pump, just squeeze it once and let the magic work. Trust me, it's terribly efficient. It will make you a bit dizzy but it'll be worth it." As to illustrate his point, Ivar squeezes the pump and he can see the relief washing over his brother's face almost instantly as the pain goes numb.

 "I spoke with the doctor who did the surgery this morning. Did you?" Ivar's brother asks, a frown on his face and biting his lower lip.

 "I did." Ivar answers without saying anything more. An uneasy silence settles in, eventually broken by Ivar's brother‘s shaky voice. "So, you know there's a chance…" His words catch in his throat and he swallows loudly. "What if…" Overcome with anxiety, he's unable to say more.

 "Hey, stop that, brother!" Ivar almost scolds him."You will walk again. It may be hard, but you'll get there. For now, you should be thankful for being alive. You know what they say… Where there's life, there's hope. So please, stay positive and fucking look at me if you need to. I was able to walk, so I'm pretty sure you can too."

 Ivar's brother looks at him for a long time, a puzzled look on his face. "Karma is a bitch, isn't it?" He eventually says sheepishly, a sad smile crossing his lips. "You can say it, I won't get mad, you know? I probably deserve this, after all I did…" He sighs, lowering his gaze, but Ivar doesn't allow it, raising his brother's head with a finger on his chin. 

 "Listen carefully, brother. No one deserves to suffer. Neither you nor anyone else. Karma has nothing to do with what happened to you. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, nothing more. The truck driver was sleep-deprived and didn't see the red light. It sucks, I get it, but it was just bad luck that you were at this crossroad at the same time that he was."

 Ivar's brother just nods lightly, and then yawns, rubbing his eyes. "You should rest, brother. I'll be back soon." Ivar grabs his crutch but his brother wraps his hand around his wrist. 

 "Wait… You told me why you were here but there's one thing I don't understand. Why are you the one here? Where are our–" He stops as another yawn cuts him off.

 Ivar, however, understands his unfinished question. "Last time I heard from our dear brothers, they were going on a business trip to Cancun. Seeing as it is the beginning of Spring Break in the US, I'm pretty sure calling it a fuck trip would be more accurate. It also means that you're stuck with me for a couple of weeks. Sorry about that." Tilting his head, Ivar gives his brother a semi-amused look. "Anyway, now, you're going to rest,” Ivar strokes his brother's hair with unexpected gentleness, "and in the meantime I'm going to make arrangements for your future."

 "What… what does that mean?" Ivar's brother babbles, the drug-induced dizziness hitting him with full force.

 "It means that as soon as you'll be discharged, you'll be moving in with me." Ivar says casually, shrugging, as he heads towards the door.

 "Moving in with… you? But… why?" The questioning tone of his brother is obvious and Ivar turns back to look at him. "It was either this, or the rehab center. Trust me, you'll be better taken care of with me. My apartment is fully accessible, I've got a real PT room and Sven, my longtime PT, is the best in all of Scandinavia. You'll also probably need an OT, and it happens that I know the best OT too. Flora is her name, she helped me a lot a few years ago. So yeah, you will be in good hands, I promise. As good as Doctor Mikelsson's hands."

 Confused, Ivar's brother looks at him questioningly.  "Doctor Mikelsson is… your…" Obviously befuddled, his speech is now slurred and he can't find the right word.

 "My surgeon, yes,” Ivar completes the sentence. "Has been for the last twelve years. That's why I had you transferred here, in this clinic."

 Dumbfounded, Ivar's brother stares wide-eyed. "I don't… I didn't rela… realize I've been transf… transferred. And that… that was…"

 "At my request, yes." Ivar nods. "Because the Doc is more than a surgeon. He's a magician. He truly can work wonders. Me standing and walking is enough to prove it." Raising his head proudly, Ivar smiles at his brother reassuringly. 

 "Why… why did… you do… this for… me?" Ivar's brother sputters, exhaustion written all over his face. Yet, he fights it, his curiosity prevailing above all else. 

 Ivar shrugs once again, giving his brother an airy wave of his hand as to let him know that what he's doing is no big deal. "I know your pain, brother. I know the struggles you'll be facing. You have a long road ahead and I know how scary it might be. You won't be alone. I won't allow it. We'll get through this together, because no one should have to deal with such things alone." Ivar almost hiccups, his heart is suddenly in his throat as a wave of painful childhood memories floods his mind. He pushes them away, gritting his teeth, because now is not the time. Focusing once more on the blond in front of him, he speaks again, in a firm tone. "So, brother, you won't be. Never. I will be right next to you at every step, literally. We'll make our own version of 'the blind leading the blind', you know?" Ivar scratches the back of his neck, a half-smile on his lips, before taking a deep breath. "And you may be an asshole most of the time, but you're still my brother. That's why I do it. It's as simple as that. Sleep now, we'll talk later."

 Hand on the doorknob, Ivar hears a faint whimper. Looking backwards, he's surprised as he sees a single tear running down his brother's cheek. "Thank you, Ivar." His brother says with a trembling voice, clearly shaken up by Ivar's words.

 Ivar gives his brother a genuine smile, suddenly struck by the thougth that it's probably the first genuine smile he's given his brother in years. "You're welcome, Sig," he says sincerely as he has to blink back his own tears, an unfamiliar but warm feeling in his chest, "Sleep now, I'll be back soon. I promise."

 🛡💖🛡

@maggiescarborough​ @honestsycrets​ @lisinfleur​ @waiting4inspiration​ @saldelys​ @gearhead66​ @readsalot73​ @milkkygirls​ @xbellaxcarolinax​ @shannygoatgruff​ @zuxiezendler​ @a-mess-of-fandoms​ @hecohansen31​ @lonewolf471​ @ivarthebloodyking​ @fuckindiva​ @tgrrose​ @didiintheblog​

[sourwolfstories]

Hey! Do you have long fic recommendations? Can you involve some soulmate fics but AU are welcome too Long like 50k, 100k+ but really ill read anything

Soulmate fics (at least 50K)

When the Universe Comes Knocking (It’s Polite to Open the Door) by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

It was like a door he’d nailed shut in his brain suddenly exploded open, all of his past confusion and anger and hurt and adoration flooding out at once. Stiles? Was it actually Stiles?!

Stiles, the guy he’d had a crush on for fucking years growing up. The guy who’d been an absolute dick to him their whole last year of high school.

The guy who’d told him he loved him in a dirty men’s bathroom on prom night while drunk and upset because he thought Kira was Derek’s girlfriend.

That Stiles? But it couldn’t be!

Marks and Mics by DLanaDHZ

Hale siblings Derek and Laura have been hired to run security for Stiles Stilinski's music tour. Business as usual, except someone is trying really hard to prove they're incapable and hurt Stiles. Derek finds himself curious about Stiles' bitter attitude and a strange illness that plagues the singer. And on top of that, Derek's soulmate remains elusive.

Written Can’t Be Denied by lookslikenico, winglesswarrior

Since time immemorial the story of ��soulmates’ has persisted. In short, the idea that somewhere out there is your perfect match, the one person who can complete you and with whom you can find total happiness.

The story goes that, the first time you meet your ‘soulmate’, the universe will give you a sign in what should be the most obvious way - somewhere in your immediate vicinity the word ‘soulmate’ will appear. If reports of ‘soulmates’ are to be believed, rather than being written of as hopeful delusions, then this ‘obvious’ signal is anything but, fleeting as it is. The word seemingly only appears for a matter of moments and only when two people first meet. There is no guarantee that they will be looking in the correct direction to see it, nor that they will have any idea who their supposed ‘soulmate’ actually is.

A fact that causes havoc the day that up and coming actor, Stiles Stilinski holds up a bottle emblazoned with the word 'soulmate' in the middle of a press conference where Derek Hale is working as a photographer, in the middle of the worst day of his life...

Connected by readridinghood

After the death of his wife, Stiles finds himself left alone with their three children, struggling to keep from being sucked into a void of grief and despair that her death left him with. Knowing his children are safe in the pack's arms under Derek's watchful eyes, he struggles to regain his footing. What do you do when the world keeps tumbling over you and what you've thought of as fact no longer holds true? As the world comes back into focus, so does the love for Derek he thought he'd long since conquered and now with his eyes open, what he thought was the end of him, is only a new beginning. A decade after he fell in love with Stiles, countless days of keeping himself restrained while building a friendship with him, Derek finds out with absolute certainty that Stiles is his mate. You only mate once in your life, so how is it that Stiles was mated to Sophia, his wife and mother of his three children, the woman he is grieving the loss of at the same moment that Derek makes his discovery.

Three Marks by sanam

"And then there was pain again, but this time it was in only three places—his arm, below his clavicle, and next to his heart, all on the left side. It felt like the skin was being sliced apart, ripped open, flayed off— And suddenly it was done. Derek looked across the room and saw the boy on the floor, looking about as bad as Derek felt."

Derek and Stiles learn that bonding is probably best done with ridiculous amounts of video games and maybe a little bit of time.

Other fics (at least 50K)

Rich Man, Poor Man by TyReed

During a first date gone horribly wrong, Stiles Stilinksi realizes that the snarky guy he's been asked out by is actually Derek Hale, an heir to Hale Industries, one of the most profitable companies in the entire world. Who is, for whatever reason, interested in the son of a teacher and a cop, a loser who spends all weekend watching movies in his pajamas, and who is also possibly one of the biggest dorks on the Internet.

At the same time, after screwing up their first date horribly, Derek Hale realizes that the funny guy he's asked out is Stiles Stilinksi, the warmest and kindest individual he's ever met in his life, with a family just a loving and caring. Who is, for whatever reason, interested in a guy who screws up everything he does, lacks any semblance of a backbone, and who is possibly one of the biggest history dorks in all of the United States.

These rich and poor men will come to experience a taste of each other's lives, and learn where the real blessings in the world can be found.

Feel it like a fever, burning through the night by LunaCanisLupus_22

“That was my favourite fern,” Deaton declares and Stiles glances at Scott for clarification that such a ridiculous statement just came out of his boss’ mouth.

“You could have just told me not to touch it,” Stiles points out sensibly, squirming inside with something he refuses to believe might be guilt.

Not about the dumb plant, but the instant devastation he’s currently overwhelmingly and inescapably capable of. He can destroy with one touch now.

This is going to complicate things so much.

Or the one where Stiles tries to do the noble self-sacrificing thing: gains a new power, a spectral skin colour and basically ruins his own life. 0/10 would not recommend.

It’s (Not) a Cult by lhr111

“Well Stiles, you told me a few weeks ago that you thought Derek was leading a cult.”

At that Derek whipped his head toward Stiles in shock. “You thought I was a cult leader?”

Stiles will not be shamed. “Well, either you or Peter. Peter made more sense, but since he deferred to you that one time I was a little unsure. I mean, what else could I think with all the weird shit going on. You, hanging out with random high school seniors, doing secret things, ordering them around like you are their parent, them actually doing what you tell them. It’s really weird, okay?”

“Are you familiar with Harry Potter?” Derek asks.

Talk about a non sequitur. “What? What does that have to do with anything? And, of course I know Harry Potter!”

“Well to quote Sirius Black, ‘Once again you’ve put your keen and penetrating mind to the task and as usual come to the wrong conclusion.’"

The Sheriff starts snickering, and Stiles is both insulted and also a little in love.

Call Me (Cliché) by SomewheresSword

When the sheriff's sister ends up in a wheelchair for the duration of summer, Stiles' dreams of three months full of pack bonding, late-night video games and bro-time with Scott come crashing down. He's temporarily relocated to Redford, a three hour drive away, and he can already tell he won't be getting many visitors.

Sure the pack will forget about him while he's gone, Stiles is determined to make the most of his summer of isolation, training his body and mind - and his magic - so he can come back with a bang, and maybe catch a certain Sourwolf's eye.

Then Derek shows up at his window one night with a flimsy excuse about needing research done. Suddenly, his summer away is looking a whole lot more interesting.

There’s No Escape for the Potato Man by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

“Who is this? Where’s Erica?”

“Wrong number, asshole!”

“Stop calling me an asshole,” the man on the other end snapped aggressively.

Stiles could understand. He’d be pretty aggressive too if he’d murdered someone and texted a wrong number to ask for help burying the body. This guy obviously failed How To Be a Serial Killer 101.

“What kind of idiot thinks I murdered someone?”

“The kind of idiot who got your text messages, you fucking dumbass!” he retorted hotly. “Maybe double check your contacts before sending a random stranger details on your nefarious plans to dispose of a freshly cut up body!”

“What?!” the guy on the other end demanded, crossed between horrendously confused and livid.

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

If you want more soulmate fics you can check that tag here

you can also find more long fics here and here

Happy Reading :)

[ashintheairlikesnow]

hi ash! i know you said before that you're not autistic you just did a lot of research to depict chris realistically- do you have any advice for finding resources on writing disabled characters that isn't like... horribly abelist? im writing someone with an intellectual disability from head trauma and who is nonverbal, and i want to get it right but everything online seems very autism-speaks-y. im autistic and semiverbal but i dont have an id and i want to be realistic and respectful.

I cannot speak with any expertise or sense of speaking from enough experience to be taken as an expert here, and defer as always to those with lived experience with intellectual disability!

But I will give a few more general tips for what to do when looking to write a character with a neurological makeup that doesn’t match your own, as far as what has worked for me with Chris:

1. The story should never be ABOUT their lived experience if you do not also have it. Chris’s story is not about autism, or being autistic. I would never presume to try and write a story like that because, whatever my intentions, I don’t have that knowledge that comes from living it. I would at BEST be taking the experiences of others, their voices. At worst, I would be someone standing with a megaphone shouting over those who deserve to be heard.

Making the disability what the plot revolves around is... generally just not going to be a good idea, in any sense. It’s moments like this where I feel like it’s best to defer to the writers who have lived it, instead. 

This is not to say “never write someone different than yourself”, because... I don’t think that’s at all good advice. I think that way lies stunted writers who never push themselves. But it does mean “do not center the story on this thing if you have not experienced it and don’t have that knowledge and understanding”.

2. At the same time, don’t try to be coy or dance around or hide the disability behind purple prose or refuse to acknowledge its reality. Trying to make a disability sound cute, or talk around it instead of speaking it out loud, can be minimizing or shaming in ways that I think it’s easy to miss, if you don’t live with that disability yourself! To me, this touches on one of my hugest pet peeves - characters who are written as having a particular neurodivergence in media, or shown on tv, but they never expressly admit to it or name it. 

I know I hesitated with Chris, more because I didn’t feel comfortable giving him a diagnosis until I understood autism better myself, and I do regret how long it took me to embrace that reality about him. I just thought it better to err on the side of researching before I embraced. But I do feel some guilt about waiting so long when I had readers who were identifying so heavily with him, and I kind of knew, but just didn’t feel comfortable owning it yet.

3. On a related note - disabilities in a story that become melodramatic tragedy or turn the disabled character into a ‘redemption story’ for an abled character. This is so, so prevalent in common media and pop culture and once you recognize it for what it is, it’s so hard to not see it in so many places. Think of how many movies, novels, etc contain a disabled character who exists to teach abled people some virtuous lesson about living life to the fullest or ‘what it really means to be human’ blah blah blah blah blah. Don’t do that. Please. (I mean, I kind of feel like you definitely won’t, but I’m just speaking very generally here). If you find the story going in a direction in which abled people learn something from the disabled person, please think very carefully and critically as to why the story is heading in that direction.

Language alone can also be a problem here - think about the difference between openly describing a character moving around their life with a wheelchair vs. calling them “wheelchair-bound” or “reliant on a cane”, when the cane or wheelchair may actually represent freedom to that person - an aid they need, yes, but one that allows them to live with far more agency than they might have had otherwise. 

To describe them, especially from their own POV, as “wheelchair-bound”, may ring false to disabled people who understand that the wheelchair isn’t a cage, but a tool that allows that individual person to feel less caged by being able to more freely leave home.  

(This varies person to person, just providing an example)

4. Educate. Research. And don’t just do so by asking people with disabilities to tell you their stories. I often express gratitude to the autistic readers, those with ADHD, etc who spoke up about Chris, talked about their own experiences, identified with him, found him very resonating for aspects of their own lives. 

These stories, this information, this sharing of their lives was given freely to me, and I’m fucking amazed and grateful for how welcomed Chris was, and how willing readers were to share about themselves when talking about him.

Their willingness to speak about these things is something I treasure. But I absolutely would never believe that a single person owed me the story of their life to make sure I got Chris right. That was my responsibility, you know? I try to keep in mind the concept of ‘emotional labor’. Asking a disabled person to be your resource is asking them to give, and give, and give of themself. They may want to give you that kind of labor, they may not. But I definitely wouldn’t ask it of anyone without understanding it was something they were happy or felt comfortable giving.

Research, on the other hand, is essential. You mentioned things being “autism speaks-y” when trying to research on your own, and oh god, do I feel you. It sucks that autism speaks is the first thing to pop up when trying to research the lives of autistic people - and in my research, I was lucky to already know AS sucks and write them off and anyone who heavily referenced them as not helpful. I can see how someone might not know that, though, and stumble on them and believe they were a helpful resource for writing autism when they... well. Nope. 

Try to think about the express disability you are writing for this person, and why, and then go research! I looked up “books on autism recommended by autistic people”, and found some invaluable books, yes, but also papers published online, websites, etc! Each of them vetted and looked over and recommended by autistic people, so I knew I was getting information that came from people with those experiences and that understanding. A good example - I picked up a book on the history of diagnosis and treatment of autism in the United States, mentioned it here, and @redwingedwhump recommended a book called Neurotribes... which turned out to be immensely more helpful, spot-on, and provided some really excellent foundational information I wouldn’t have found in the first book at all.

There’s a lot of information out there on Traumatic Brain Injuries and their lasting effects on individuals who receive them, so I would start there. What you’re describing sounds like a TBI with lasting effects! So I would start your research there, and also look up being nonverbal separately, as well as combining the two. Make sure you’re not just looking at the top links - often paid ads or problematic organizations that are able to pay more for better exposure - but also scanning for blogs, nonprofits, lived-experiences stories, too.

I found a lot of information on the second or even third page of results i would never have seen if I only stuck to the first. Remember the algorithm on search engines is usually showing you what other people are clicking on, not necessarily the best source.

5. This is one you the asker already know, but I want to include it for general reasons: do not ‘dumb down’ the thought processes of a nonverbal or semi-verbal person. I see this in fiction surprisingly often, and I think it’s this sense we have as abled people (’we’ just meaning I’m including myself) that being verbal is required to have a highly complex thought process, and it’s... it’s just fucking not. Speech and though are related but not completely wound around each other, and the ability to verbalize is not the same as the ability to think. 

Like I said, I know you know this, asker, but it’s something I see in fiction/media and it drives me up the wall. So I wanted to include it.

6. For the love of God, do not use medical terminology unless you actually know what you’re doing/talking about. Many disabled people or those with serious medical conditions become what amounts to experts on their own diagnoses, because they have to. They have to be experts to receive the care they should be able to rely on. If you constantly fuck up terminology - trust me - it will be noticed, and it will take people out of the story or hurt their ability to suspend disbelief while reading.

There are ways to do medical scenes/conversations with doctors that avoid falling into this problem! I would just be very very careful to heavily research before using any complex terminology.

7. This disabled person does not exist to evoke pity. They are a human - nuanced and multi-layered - living their life, and their story should always, always reflect that. I don’t really have anything else to add to that.

I would love to hear further advice from anyone with anything else to add.

[ksj-com]

There Is No Game Over-

Welcome to the Family

- Pairing: Namjoon x Reader

- Genre: Resident Evil 7!AU, horror, angst, action, violence, slight fluff

- Warnings/Tags: torture cutting scene, characters tied up against will, reader torture gagged, mentally insane characters, cussing, gore, killing scenes, monsters, may need prior Resident Evil 7 knowledge to understand some scenes, life or death scenes, deputy Jungkook, death, weapons mention, argument scene, light jokes, little kissing, feeling of helplessness, sudden ending, Namjoon having to choose between you or other people to save

- Word Count: 6,613 words

- Summary: Being kidnapped by the Bakers always put you on edge when playing Resident Evil 7. Tagging along with Namjoon and helping him escape to find his girlfriend, you grow a deeper connection with him then you did while playing on a VR. 

|| Masterlist ||

A/N: Credit to @pjm-com​ for writing some of these scenes

The sound of a man screaming rings through your ears drums. You thought it was going to be Jungkook, but the next time you opened your eyes there was a man sitting next to you. Another man, who you realized was Jack from Resident Evil 7, was cutting the man’s cheek. You remembered this scene so vividly: Namjoon, the main character, didn’t want to eat the Baker family’s dinner because it was a bunch of organs and bugs. In result, Jack’s temper led to the moment that was unfolding in front of your eyes. Namjoon couldn’t fight back since he was restrained by ropes that tied his arms and legs to the chair. You wanted to get up and run, you knew this game map like the back of your hand, but you were in the same situation. Your arms and legs were tied tightly against the chair you were sitting on. A rag wrapped around your head, touching the back of your throat to cause you to gag if a sound threatened to come out. You decided to not risk budging, and continued to watch.

“He’s not eatin’ it, Jack! He’s not eatin’ it!” Marguerite shouts at the top of her lungs, her voice making you cringe.

“Shut the hell up, Marguerite,” Jack groans. Marguerite storms off as a response, leaving you both with Jack, Lucas, and Grandma Eveline. Jack was about to cut another slice in Namjoon’s other cheek, but the doorbell rings throughout the house.

“I bet it’s that damn cop again,” Lucas mentions before they both exit the kitchen. Eveline stayed in her wheelchair, perfectly silent and still. Because you’ve already played this game before, you knew she was nothing to worry about for now.

You watch Namjoon take this chance to try to escape the confines of the chair, tipping and knocking the chair over on its side. The weak wood chair breaks under Namjoon’s crashing weight. You both cringe from the loud noise that echoes from the crash. The second he shakes the rope off his wrists and ankles he rushes over to you, untying the cloth around your mouth and all the areas you were being tied down. Once he reaches your ankles, he notices that you have the same heartbeat watch that he has on his wrist.

“Looks like whatever they did to my wrist, they did the same to your ankle” he says. You look at his wrist for the first time. Previously in the game, Namjoon went through a chainsaw fight and the result ended in him losing one of his hands. Now, his hand looked as if it was stapled back on and fully functional. On top of that, he had a watch that tracked his health when playing the game. Comparing his wrist to your ankle, it looked exactly the same except your foot was the one that was stapled on instead.

You thought about what was going through Namjoon’s head during this whole game. Through the horrors and dangers of the infected household; did he ever think Mia wasn’t worth it? After all, his girlfriend is the reason why he was here in the first place.

“Namjoon, is Mia really worth all of this?” Your voice croaks. You were parched from having a rag pushed all the way to the back of your throat for so long.

He looks up at you flabbergasted. “Of course, why wouldn’t she be? There’s obviously something wrong with her and this place in general.”

You nod agreeing with him. You didn’t want to be here. You finished this game once and you definitely didn’t want to do it again…like this.

“Plus, she was your best friend. Don’t you think she’s worth it too?” He asks you. So that’s why you’re here. Memories flood into your head like a barrier just broke within your mind. You remember the beginning of the story now from your perspective.

•••

You were in the middle of watching TV when you saw the phone call from Namjoon. 

“Hello?” You brought the phone to your ear. You haven’t talked to Namjoon ever sense Mia went missing three years ago. He went off the walls when she was declared dead by the police. He knew something couldn’t be right.

“Hey, (Y/N). It’s Namjoon. Before you hang up I need to ask you something,” He waits to see if you would stay on the call before he dared to continue.

You sigh. “Is this about Mia?”

“Yes, but she’s alive. Trust me. She sent me video footage of her and I think she’s in danger. She’s in Louisiana and I was thinking that—“

“I could come with you?” You interrupt. The phone line goes silent. He was scared of your response. He obviously didn’t want to go alone. “Send me the video she sent you,” You say and hang up the call. There was no way you were actually considering going to Louisiana with Namjoon to find her…but she was your best friend after all.

A minute later you receive the video from Namjoon:

“What the fuck?” You mutter to yourself. You immediately go back to the text conversation between you and Namjoon. ‘I’m in,‘ you text him.

•••

And just like that, you were sucked into this mess. You snap back to present day, now untied from the chair. You knew exactly what to do: help Namjoon find Mia and get the hell out of this game…if you survive. You didn’t know how to tell Namjoon that you knew exactly what to do. Every jump scare, every fighting scene, every plot twist was ingrained into your mind. “Namjoon can I ask you one thing?” You rub the raw skin on your wrists.

“Anything.”

“Just…do what I say and follow me when I tell you to. You aren’t exactly logical when it comes to Mia sometimes,” you feel as though that’s the best possible way to tell him that you are in charge here. His brows furrow, but he nods in agreement. “Okay good, let’s looks around here.” You knew everything that needed to be found, opening drawers that contained ammo for the gun you will be getting later.

“I found a hatch!” Namjoon whispers loudly to get your attention. You had hoped he would find that hatch since that’s what you needed to get through to get to the next part of the game. He pulls at the wood door on the ground, but it doesn’t budge. “God dammit, it’s locked” he huffs.

“Stick with me. Let’s find the key.” This was the challenging part: the key was at the end of the hallway. In the game, when you approach the key area, Jack reappears. And worst of the all, he sees you and ends up chasing you around until you pick up the key and step into the hatch.

You and Namjoon were now sitting at the end of the hallway. As you stood in front of him, you slowly walk forward. “Why are you being so sl-“ Namjoon’s whisper stops abruptly when Jack comes walking to the end of the hallway. His posture hangs over a table, where the key was sitting, until he notices you both.

“Thought you’d just slip out before dinner was done?” Jack approaches with an axe in his hand.

You turn around, slipping past Namjoon for you to be in front again. You had to do this right because who knows if you would get a second chance. You grip Namjoon’s hand so you didn’t leave him behind anywhere. Making your way around the dining room and into the living room as Jack was on your heels. You circled around the living room table and back out to the hallway that contained no threat. This was your time as you both ran towards the key, but Namjoon smacks into your nonmoving back when Jack breaks through the wall in front of you.

“You’re wasting your time” Jack grunts.

You were so out of breath but the fear of death has you turning back around. Luckily, the new hole in the wall was in the room that contained the hatch. You looped around once again, going through the hole in the wall and snatching the key up on the table. Jack was no longer behind you both, but that didn’t stop you from rushing to the hatch door and unlocking it as quick as possible. You and Namjoon hopped in and closed the door behind you. The space was so cramped that you both had to be on your hands and knees to fit. It looked as if you were under the house. Ripped up foundation was the ceiling, while the floor was matted down dirt and trash. Broken windows, lawn equipment, and trash bags all crammed against the walls. You had wondered how they even stored this stuff down here to begin with.

“It reeks down here,” Namjoon scrunches his nose. The smell of mildew and garbage made you want to puke while you both crawl your way over to the other side of the hatch. The other side led you to a hole opening to another room in the house. He waits for you to pull yourself out of the opening before saying, “Where the hell are we now?”

The safe room, you thought to yourself. “Looks like the laundry room, I think we’re safe otherwise he would’ve been waiting here for us,” you patted yourself on the back for the improv.

“You’re right, but how do we get out of here without him seeing us?” He pulls his fingers through his tangled hair. You knew that once you stepped out of the room Jack wouldn’t be there, but one of the many boss battles that occur in the game is coming up sooner than you would like.

You eventually convinced Namjoon that you couldn’t stay in that room forever, and he finally grew enough courage to follow you through the open door. Once he realized that Jack was no where to be found, he continued to scavenge the area for any remaining things that could be useful.

A knocking on one of the windows stopped Namjoon in his tracks. You approach it, but Namjoon grabs your wrist. “What the hell are you doing? Would if it’s one of them?” He hisses.

Annoyed, you yank your wrist from his grasp. You knew who it was and you knew you were going to be safe. It was out of his knowledge to know these things, but you still couldn’t help but feel a bit offended that he would think that you would be stupid enough to approach something you weren’t sure about. You kept walking, ignoring his questions. He follows close behind, curious to see if something bad occurs. Not to your surprise, a cop stands at the window. Barb wire and broken wood planks spread across the window frame, but there was still enough space between the ripped up boards to see him in his uniform. The usual person that you would see as the cop in the game was replaced by someone that sent chills down your spine. It was Jungkook.

“Jungkook?” You gasp to yourself He looks at you confused, he didn’t recognize his own name. Is this a glitch?

“It’s deputy,” he scoffs.

“Okay, deputy, I know this is asking for a lot but could we use your pocket knife? We’re being held hostage in this house with no protection and we need your help. There are crazy people in this house,” You wanted to hide the fact that your eyes were bulging out of your skull because of the person you were talking to right now.

“Whoa whoa…not so fast. You don’t exactly seem like you’re playing with a full deck of cards yourself,” he reads your expression, brows furrowed and eyes narrowed into yours.

“Are you serious?” You say. He says that same line to Namjoon in the original game, but he’s talking to you this time. You figured he would go off script at least for that one.

“Listen, there have been several missing person cases around here, how do I know you’re not involved?” His flashlight is shining brightly at your face.

“You let me borrow your pocket knife and I’ll tell you whatever you want in the garage. The garage door is opened by a button which is inside a box that’s covered in tape. I need to get in there somehow,” You pray that this works since you weren’t going by the original dialogue of the video game cutscene anymore.

‘Jungkook’ thinks for a second before nodding slightly. He hands you a small knife through the gap in the window, “Garage. Now.”

You give him a nod before turning back around to meet the eyes of a confused Namjoon. “What?” You question. What does he have to say now?

“What was that?” he crosses his arms, quizzing you.

You roll your eyes. “What was what, Namjoon?” Your attitude raises, you just wanted to get out of here.

“The pocket knife, it wasn’t even in his hand or in sight when you asked him for it…how did you know he had one?” Namjoon’s voice was the only thing that made sound in the house.

You felt your body run cold, letting out a laugh to hide the fact that you had no logical explanation to give him. “Just a lucky guess. It’s a cop, so I just assumed he had something other than one gun,” you play it off with a shrug. Walking past him, you make your way down to the garage to cut open the taped barrier. A red button was now clearly visible when opening the metal cabinet-like door, so you don’t hesitate to smash the button and watch the door to the garage scale up. The garage was now completely laid out in front of you and Namjoon now. A police car and it’s lights rotated around the walls. The cop noticed you both immediately and approached you aggressively.

“Now, tell me what you guys are doing out here tonight?” He yells.

Namjoon couldn’t stand letting you talk all the time, so he steps in front of you to answer. “I’m trying to find my wife that went missing and things went bat-shit crazy—“

The police’s head whips around to see that the garage door that separates the outside world from this hellhole was now closing. “Put that door back up! Put that door back up!” He points his finger at you frantically, but by then it was too late. Namjoon stumbles back from fear, gasping for breath. A shovel was pushed through the deputy’s head from behind, the top of his head slides off of the shovel and onto the ground to reveal who was behind this act. It was Jack.

You’re half surprised that Jack is standing behind the beheaded cop, considering Jungkook, or who you thought was Jungkook, was in the game. You have a slight worry that the game won’t follow it’s normal track, but for now you act on instinct.

“Lets go!” You yell, yanking Namjoon by the arm considering he’s frozen to the floor. Making a jump for it, you scramble to get the keys that are lying innocently on the workbench before dashing to the other side of the garage. Namjoon is tripping over his own feet, rambling about how you even knew the keys were there. The sound of Jack’s shovel is slamming into the large metal shelf placed in the middle of the floor, sending cans of paint and debris everywhere. You use that little setback to shove Namjoon into the passenger seat, hopping in the drivers side and shoving the keys into the ignition. You’re almost convinced that the starter won’t flip, but after a few clicks the engine rumbles to life.

“Is this my own fucking car?” Namjoon yells, and you ignore him while pushing the pedal to the floor and attempting to run over Jack. Namjoon is scrambling to get his seatbelt on as if you guys were even leaving the garage. “Y/N, what the fuck are you doing?”

Sometimes, you wanted to just duck tape his mouth. “Namjoon, shut the hell up.”

He says nothing further as you throw the gear into reverse and step on the gas, backing up into the concrete wall before flooring it forwards again. It takes a few tries, but after the third or fourth crash, Jack is gone. You know better that he isn’t on the ground, and within seconds is peeling the roof back. Even if you know what’s coming, you and Namjoon share the same screaming as Jack pushes you aside and starts to drive the car. You remember the line perfectly, but the sound of Jack talking is drowned out by the tires squealing and various things breaking in the garage. You duck in your seat, bracing for the impact.

“Lower your head!”

“Why?” Namjoon says back, like it was the calmest thing in the word. His eyes bulge as he looks in front of him, and he’s sinking into his seat in seconds before Jack is driving the car into the metal beam.

Silence fills the garage and it’s almost deafening. You take a quick look towards Jack, not breathing in the middle of the seat, before scrambling out of the car and grabbing the gun. Namjoon unbuckles his belt and does the same, eyes glued to the figure in the car as you back into the opposite wall. Your faces light with red tones as the car goes up in flames, Jack coming out unscathed with his hand out. You’re quick to aim the gun at his head, shooting three times before he drops to the ground, the final explosion of the car leaving you and Namjoon on your feet. Once deemed safe, you’re locking your arms together and moving towards the ladder that drops to the floor.

“That was fucking crazy,” Namjoon shouts, and you can’t do anything else besides agree with him. He starts searching the garage for first aid med’s and any coins, or lock picks he could find. At least he still had that common sense. “Can I have the gun?” All shakiness aside, you hand the gun to him, heart slamming at the base of your sternum while Namjoon motions to climb the ladder. You’re one foot up before Jack spawns right next to you, leaving you caged between him and Namjoon.

“Do I have your attention? I’m about to show you something wonderful.”

You practically mouthed those words as he said them, eyes shut before you feel the hot blood splatter all over your face. The gunshot silences the room, even Namjoon’s breathing had come to a halt as the sound of Jack’s body hits the floor. You’re almost unfazed as you start climbing the ladder, leaving Namjoon down there wondering what the fuck just happened. He moves slow, sluggish like he’s about to pass out. You don’t care that you’re leaving him in the dust. You needed to get the metal ox head to open the door for later, and that’s the only thing on your mind.

Jack was out of the way. For now.

It’s been hours.

You and Namjoon haven’t made a dent in getting out it seems. You can feel the weight of the two brass dog heads in your pocket and the way they clink together is almost teasing. You need the third one to unlock the door to the outside, your mind is going crazy just thinking about it. The game is still on track, the monsters popping out at certain times, and you know that soon you’re going to have to face Jack again.

“Y/N. You think we have enough ammo?” Namjoon asks softly, like he’s tired. You can see it in his face too. His eyes look sunken in, back hunched even though he is steadily alert. You nod silently at his question, knowing that he was itching to get out of here too. You both halt before the double doors, knowing what lies behind them and in the back of his mind, Namjoon does too. He’s terrified. That he’s fighting for nothing, that he might lose you in the next fight. That he won’t be useful to you or Mia.

He’s not even sure why the hell he keeps going, any man in their right mind would’ve left the moment they entered the house but something tells Namjoon to stay. As you both enter the downstairs shower room, you can hear the low growl of the monsters pulling out of the wall, the black tar connecting them to the house as if it was one being.

You wince at the sight, shotgun ready as Namjoon loads up the Albert-01, and you both stand back to back to look at the masses slugging towards you. The huge black monster was most likely someone that had died in the Baker house. Maybe Clancy. The black claws on the end of the deformed hands were lunging at you both left and right, the head with huge canines for teeth wide open with the tongue hanging out. You leave minimal time to examine them further since you’re sick of seeing them, and move the shotgun barrel closer before pulling the tigger.

“Works every time,” you say to yourself, watching the head explode into black chunks that dissolve into the tile grout underneath your feet. You watch Namjoon take out the other monster one shot at a time, bullets flying through the skin before finally dropping to the ground. You’re unfazed as you reach the morgue, stomach dropping at the sight of the body bags dangling from the ceiling, the bronze dog head glinting in the light. You feel a wave of relief wash over you. You wanted to get out of this fucking mess.

“Joon! Look,” you breathe, scrambling up the stairs with Namjoon in tow. You both sit like idiots, watching it suspend from the metal beams over your head.

“Fucking finally. Let’s grab it and get out of here.”

You grab his hand, and prepare to jump as soon as you hear the floor boards creak behind you. You could never get away from him.

Pushing off of the ledge, you and Namjoon hurdle into the bottom half of the morgue, considering the area was a loft type of room. You both tuck before you hit the ground, rolling a little bit and soon in seconds you’re back on your feet. Jack jumps down like he’s supposed to, a huge version of hedge trimmers lay in his hand, snapping at any skin he could. Pushing the body bag to stun him like in the game, you soon get bored from the Mary-go-round game you play. It seems Jack does too considering he’s ripping open the chainlink fence.

“Another chainsaw!” Namjoon shouts, lunging across the concrete floor to grab at it before distancing himself. You, having already finished the game, pull out the circular saw. You didn’t wanna use it until now when it would be super handy. This wouldn’t have worked in the game, but once you both get Jack down, you and Namjoon stick the blades of each weapon into his gorging tumor. It shreds through the various amounts of adipose tissue, ripping through the dermal layer of skin before exploding the entire upper torso.

Great, you think. Another fluid to wash off my body. Back to the wall, you watch Jack’s nerve endings come alive in the bottom half of his body. It takes a couple steps towards you before falling.

Namjoon winces. “Just fucking stay dead, okay!?”

You felt a little more sluggish as you made your way back upstairs, glad no other monsters were spawning. You were beyond irritated. What if you actually died in this game? Would you wake up and it would’ve all been a fever dream? Or would your mom come in and find you gone? Would you re-spawn over and over again? It hurt your head to think about, so you leave it alone. Namjoon can feel your tense emotion as he trudges in front of you, flashlight pointing at the dark tunnels of the basement.

“You think we got a good chance of finding Mia?” He sounds cautious as he turns back to you, eyes pleading for you to say something. You’ve been silent for a little. You chew on your lip, debating if you even wanted to start something right now. You wanted to get out of there, too. Not at the expense of your life. So you decide to not bite your tongue.

“You still want to?”

Namjoon’s eyes widen a little. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because!” You snap, stopping in the middle of the tar-soaked hallway crossing your arms over your chest. “She almost beat you within an inch of your life the first twenty minutes we were inside the house! This family has been trying to kill us over and over again, and I have no doubt that they will come back. Why do you still want to stay?” Namjoon is deep in thought, voice cracking as he tries to speak.

“Other than the fact that I love her… It’s the right thing to do. I don’t know what else to do, so can’t you just work with me here?!” He’s yelling now, tears welling in his eyes while the ridges of his knuckles turning white as he clenches his fist around the Albert-01. You’re ready to rip out your hair, turning on him.

“I’ve been working with you, Namjoon! This whole fucking time!” You scream, voice straining. “Risking my life for someone who’s already infected! Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to go home!?” Your chest is heaving, hands pushing your hair back as you drop the subject, continuing down the hall and up the stairs. It stays painfully silent, the tension thick between you and Namjoon. Once you enter the safe room, you feel little relieved as you push the cassette tape into the recorder.

The room was dimly lit by a single lamp placed in a wooden desk. The floor was slightly messy, papers were pressed into the floor boards and the shelves had miscellaneous items lazily thrown about. Random paintings were placed on the wall, one of a woman in a victorian-like dress and the others of simple nature. The huge green chest was sitting off to the side which held all of the things we didn’t need or didn’t have room to carry around.

“I’m sorry” Namjoon’s voice comes in from behind you

“Just forget it,” you scoff, back still facing towards him.

“No,” he shakes his head, eyes still focused on the back of your head.

“Namjoon-“

“You have no idea how important you are to me, (Y/N)!” He cuts you off before you could counter anything he had to say. You turn around to meet eyes with him. “I can’t lose you too…” he shakes his head. The feeling of your arms around him, makes his inner dam break. Tears flow down his cheeks and his sobs are hard as he gasps for breath after each cry. You just stood there, not letting go of his shaking body. This is what he needed right now.

“We’ll find her, and if we don’t, then we’ll die doing it” those words coming out of your mouth scared the shit out of you, but you couldn’t let Namjoon see that right now.

“Would if she’s not worth dying for?” He says quietly. You finally decide to let him go, both of you still close to one another.

“Then we won’t die,” you look up at him. Although he was more than half a foot taller than you, you didn’t feel small in front of him. Mentally, he looked up to you. He always thought you were the strongest person he ever met, and you were still living up to those standards. “Maybe we should try to wipe some of this blood and nasty black shit off or something?” You say, breaking away from his gaze.

“Sounds like a good idea” he laughs.

You take one of the pieces of fabric off of one of the drawers. “Damn, no mirrors in here,” you look around.

“Give it to me, I can do it.” You hand him the cloth and he searches your face. Why did this seem like such an intimate act to him? The cloth barely makes contact with your face. His motions were so gentle and slow. His wristband showed a red line across his wrist that you couldn’t help but glance at. You watched his face focus on the areas he was trying to wipe. When you met eyes, a smile broke onto both of your faces.

“Almost done?” Your voice hums.

“Yup, my turn,” he smiles and drops the cloth into your palms. He sits on the desk, making you more eye level to him. You swallow harshly before stepping in front of his open legged position. You peel his dark brown hair off of his sticky forehead.

“You got some sweaty ass forehead,” you joke.

“Shut up” he chuckles. The cloth drags down his face and around his mouth. Running along his lips, he pushes your hand down and away from his face. To your surprise, he brings his lips to yours. His hands lightly rested at the bottom of your back as his lips moved slowly around yours. Your eyes flutter shut and you felt yourself get lost in the moment. The kiss remained slow and meaningful until you pulled away.

“Namjoon this is—“

“Wrong? It doesn’t feel like it,” he kisses you again, except after a few seconds he’s the one that pulls away. “Unless it does for you, we can stop.”

“Shut up you dummy,” you take his head in your hands and pull him into another kiss. His arms wrap completely around you and pull you as close as you could be. He takes your bottom lip between his teeth, pulling and letting it snap back. Once the kiss was finished, both of your lips were red and swollen. The smiles on your lips slowly faded when you realized the reality that you two were in again.

“I suppose we should heal up ourselves with some med kits before going back out there,” you sigh. He nodded, watching you dig through the big green chest and scrounge up two medkits. Returning to Namjoon, you were about to shoot the medkit into his vein until you caught a look at his wristwatch. It was already green.

Wait, what? You thought to yourself. You swore that he was in the red a couple minutes ago.

“You healed me,” he answers the confusion that you were thinking to yourself.

You look up to him still confused. “How?”

“Hell if I know, but look at yours. You’re no different” he says. You look down at your ankle, what was once a blinking orange line, was now green as well.

“Well I guess we don’t need medkits anymore,” you look up at him bright-eyed. You had this game in the bag now! After placing the medkits back into the chest, it was time to go. Namjoon cocked his gun for it to be ready to fire at anytime.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

You were determined, now more than ever, to finally get the fuck out of the property.

Killing the mom was the scariest for you. It seemed like everywhere you went, the bugs were following you. In your ear, in your mouth.. But finally, Namjoon had killed the mom, grabbing the lantern and bolting out of there. Grabbing the two key cards was easy enough, but if you were honest, Lucas was scary in a psycho sadistic way. You had a feeling he knew how to fuck with somebody’s mind, which made traveling through his house all the more scarier.

Namjoon was quick to outsmart him, putting the bomb in the wall and giving you guys an exit. He had an iron grip on your hand, basically dragging you through the docks as you made it to the boat house. It was the last final fucking stretch and you feel like you could burst into tears.

“Namjoon!!” You scream, watching a four legged molded come from the water and block the way. The brunette was quick on his feet, shotgun aimed at the head of the body, firing within seconds as you both stepped over the corpse. Reaching the final chest. You both rummage through the container, grabbing everything you could and then some.

Armed with Albert-01 and the grenade launcher, you push as many bullets as you can into the bag, while packing the flame rounds into the gun. Namjoon is stocking on the med kits just in case, both of the shotguns strapped to his frame. A deep feeling settles in the pit of your stomach as you reach the top of the boat house to meet Mia and Zoe. You aren’t gonna see Namjoon again, and you’ll finally wake up in your own house. Unfortunately you have to table the thoughts as Zoe hands him the serum, Namjoon pocketing them as you brace for the worst impact of the game.

Jacks last, but not least, form in the game is a grotesque monster with eyes all over the skin. It was a boss battle you wanted to finish once, and never again, but you didn’t have that luck. You feel a hand wrap around your body, squishing flat against Namjoon’s as you’re thrown onto the wood of the deck, rolling before you come to a ragged stop. You’re on your feet in a few seconds, Namjoon struggling to regain his balance while you have the first few shots off at the eyes. They go out in three shots total, making Albert-01 your best friend as you run away from the hand that slaps down on the wooden planks.

You’re dodging the swipes, left and right, but Jack’s swings finally get the best of you. His arm launches you off the first floor. The shallow water from the second floor splashes in your mouth as you cough from the impact of falling on your back. The wind gets knocked right from your lungs, leaving you lying there breathless for a few seconds before shaking out of your daze.

Jack was focused on Namjoon when you got yourself back on your feet. This gave you a clear shot of the eyes that laid around Jack’s back and tail. You took the opportunity of a lifetime and began shooting like a mad man. Thankfully, your good aim managed to take them all out before Jack turned to face you again. You jumped up the ladder two bars at a time to be able to make it back to Namjoon.

“He’s just got one more eye on his stomach!” Your voice barely carries across the room as Jack shouted his offensive statements. “Someone has to distract him!”

As someone distracted Jack on the top level, the other person sneaks down to the lower level right under Jack. Thus, giving them the clear shot of the last eye placed on his stomach.

“You distract him, I got this.” Namjoon nods at you.

You fucking better, you thought to yourself. You took a deep breath to shake the anxiety dwelling deep within your body. Aimless gunshots exploded out of your gun as you drew Jack away from the only way down. Jack dragged his enormous body towards you. Thankfully his AI wasn’t made for two people so he was easily distracted from Namjoon.

There was little good news for you on the other hand, while you were cornered now with no ammo left in your gun. The only thing left was your grenade launcher. You quickly switched and started shooting at Jack helplessly. The kickback of the massive weapon left your shoulder aching, but the adrenaline running through your body left that a problem for later. Eventually, the grenade launcher used its last grenade and you were left with nothing.

You stood there defeated, watching Jack wind up his deadly arm. Not even a block would protect you from the blow. Is this it? You’re going to die in a video game?

Before your thoughts could roam even more into the unknown, Jack’s body fell through the floorboards. He did it.

You flew down the ladder to reunite with Namjoon once more. “We did it! We did it!” You jump into his arms. His arms wrapped around you tightly, you both spinning around the flooded room. You wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there, so you took his hand in yours and ran for the exit where Zoe and Mia were waiting. Now was the time that could determine everything. There’s only one cure left and Namjoon had three different people that needed it. Will he choose Mia, his wife, and my best friend, that we both came here for? Or will he choose Zoe, the one that mentored us along the way? Or, is there even a slim chance that he’ll choose you?

You all three stood in front of him, watching the gears turning inside his head. Your heart was beating through your chest. You wanted him to pick you, but you understood the circumstances. He came here for Mia and he will choose Mia in the end.

“Mia…” Namjoon looks down at his feet while Mia walks toward his figure with a smile on her face. He finally makes eye contact with her, catching a glimpse of you in the background.

“I’m sorry. I came here for you, but I can’t use this on you,” He walks past her and inches towards you. “(Y/N), you’ve saved my ass too many times for me to leave you here to die.” He pushes the syringe into your wrist, making sure every last drop of the cure goes into your blood system.

You were left speechless, along with everyone else. Namjoon didn’t have the heart to look at Mia’s and Zoe’s face before guiding you both onto the boat out of there. You happened to see Mia and Zoe watching you both row off with the look of true fear on their face. You would be in that same position if Namjoon didn’t choose you. What would you have done then? You turned to face Namjoon again.

“Thank you…I should’ve said it sooner, but I was so shocked. I really thought you were going to pick Mia,” His eyes meet yours. There was no doubt that he was sad about leaving Mia behind, but after everything you both had been through he thought you were more important. It seemed harsh but it was true.

“I know I made the right choice. No looking back,” Namjoon gives you a warm smile. That was the last time you saw Namjoon when the boat flipped over and pure darkness devoured your vision.

[chickensarentcheap]

Sanctuary -Chapter 51

Warnings: none

Tagging: @innerpaperexpertcloud​, @alievans007​, @c-a-v-a-l-r-y​, @thunderintheshadows​, @valkyrie-of-the-light​

“I do not need a goddamn wheelchair.” Esme grumbles, five hours later, as Kyle pushes her out of the front entrance of their local hospital. “I can walk on my own.”

“Well considering you fainted once at mom's, and twice while you were here, I think it's safe to say you shouldn't be walking anywhere on your own right now.”

“People faint,” she shrugs.

“Pregnant women shouldn't faint. And they especially shouldn't faint three times. You heard what the doctor said. You're severely dehydrated, your blood pressure is sky high, and when you fainted, you managed to hit your head, give yourself a concussion, and receive seven stitches for your trouble.”  

She frowns at the last part; gingerly touching the bandage that covers the injury in question that runs down some of her forehead and into her right eyebrow.

“So now you have a prescription he wants you to get, and you've got this handy dandy portable IV...” he nods down at the small back like device resting in her lap, the needle of the IV having been inserted into the top of her left hand and secured with clear tape. “A nurse will come every day to check on it. To change the bag and see if the line is still good. Just be thankful that you get to go home. If I had my way, I would have had you admitted for a couple of days at least.”

“Well good thing firefighters have no pull when it comes to those things. Because I do not need to be in the hospital.  All I need, is to be as far away from mom as possible. Can you believe the things she said? Who says shit like that? Who wishes death on their own son in law? Or basically suggests her married daughter gets an abortion because mommy dearest doesn't like said son in law?”

“Look, what mom said was completely out of line and I think she's a huge bitch for saying any of it. But stop thinking about it. Because what she said and how you reacted is how you ended up here in the first place. So let's not talk about mom at all, okay? I'll take you home and keep an eye on you. You'll be more comfortable there than at my place. In your own bed, surrounded by all your stuff.”

Nik had assured them that it would be perfectly safe to return to the house; she and the security team would be there around the clock, and they were more than capable of both spotting and diffusing threats.

“Not everything,” she sighs. “My kids aren't there. My husband isn't there.”

“Well, he will be, Because he's on his way back.”

“Wait...wait...” she clamps her hands down on the wheels of the chair, preventing them from turning. “...what do you mean he's on his way back? You called him?  You actually called him? Why the hell would you do that?”

“I didn't call him. Nik did.”

“Why? She didn't need to do that. Why the hell...?”

“Oh I don't know why she would do that, Esme. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you're his wife and you're pregnant with his baby and you nearly just got admitted to the damn hospital!”

“I just fainted. When did it become such a serious issue for someone to faint? It's not life or death.”

“Okay, first of all, it's never normal for someone to just faint unless there's an underlying issue. Second, you're having a baby. So there isn't just a concern with your health, but with the baby's health too. You're not the type that gets sick easily and you don't normally have health problems. But, you have to admit, with the twins and Declan, there were problems. A lot of problems. Especially with the twins. So don't you think it's better to get you looked at and see if there's something else going on? With either of you?”

“It's just stress. The doctor asked if I've been under a lot of stress and I have. Huge stress. And then mom started with her shit and...”

“Listen, it's just better if things are taken seriously. They did some tests and some blood work and if anything is wrong, they'll let you know. Better to be safe than sorry, right?”

She nods.

“If nothing is wrong, then great. If something is wrong, then at least they found it and at least they can do something about it. Why do you have to be like this? So damn stubborn? Of all the things you had to inherit from dad, it had to be one of the worst possible things.”

“Well you inherited his looks so the joke's on you,” she teases.

“Are you trying to say I'm ugly?” he grins.

“I'm trying to say when you were born, mom said 'what a treasure' and dad said 'yeah, let's bury it'.”

Kyle chuckles. “I should dump you out of this wheelchair for saying that.”

“You'd never. You love me too much. Since we were kids and you used to beat up the bullies that used to teased me because I liked to climb trees and play with Transformers and GI Joe's instead of dolls.”

“I tell you, you could throw a left hook better than any of the guys I knew. They were just jealous. Because you were cooler than they were and I liked to hang out with you more than them. I'll stay with you okay? Keep an eye on you. Make sure you're eating and drinking and taking it easy. I already called my boss and he said to take a couple days and call him if I need more time. I'll hang around until Tyler gets here.”

“I still can't believe Nik called him,” Esme huffs. “This is the last thing he needs on his plate. He's already got enough  stress with having to go New Zealand and find those kids. He doesn't need to be worrying about me too. You should have just left it alone and not told him.”

“Kid, he's your husband. There was never an option of not telling him. I think he cares more about you and this baby than he does about some fucking job. I get its kids that are involved. I get how bad that sucks and how horrible it is. I really do. But someone else can finish the job. He's not the only mercenary out there.”

“He feels he needs to finish it. That he started it and it's up to him to get them.”

“Well he's obviously changed his mind because he's on his way home.”

“For good?”

“I don't know. I didn't talk to him. Like I said, Nik called him. And apparently he flipped his shit and told her to get him on the first flight home and that's what she did. So despite what mom thinks about him, he obviously cares more about you and the baby than he does about the job. If he didn't, he wouldn't have insisted that he was coming home even after Nik assured him that things weren't that serious.”

“And you call me stubborn? Tyler is way worse than I am.”

“He's not stubborn. He loves you. There's never been a doubt of that, that's for sure. I mean, if he can put up with your shit for this long, he must love you.”

“Or he's just a glutton for punishment.”

“Hey, you said it, not me,” he pushes the wheelchair as close as he can to the front passenger side door of his truck, and then sits the brakes and squeezes between his vehicle and the one parked beside to open the door. “Hey!” he scolds, when she attempts to stand. “I don't think so, kid. Sit your ass down. You don't do anything unless I tell you to, understand?”

“As much as I'm sure Nik will find your assertiveness insanely hot, you're my brother and you don't get to boss me around.”

“The hell I don't. Sit.”

“Fine,” she huffs, and plops back down. “You know, you are more like dad than I realized. He was bossy too,”

“Are you like this at home?” Kyle inquires, as he pops open the door and then helps her out of the chair, hands under her arms for support. “Do you get like this when Tyler tries to help? You get all obstinate and bitchy with him too?”

“Yep. And then he gets mad and we fight and then we have angry sex and things go back to normal.”

“You know what, some things I do not need to know. And that's one of them. Can you get up in there or do you need me to put you over my shoulder and drop you in to your seat?”

“I'm not an invalid, thank you very much. I only fainted.”

“Three times. And stop lying to yourself that there's just that wrong, okay? There's something going on with either you or the baby and it needs to get sorted out. Just let people take care of you, okay? You've spent five and half years either taking care of Tyler or taking care of kids. It's your turn now.”

“Oh just what I want. Sitting on my ass while someone caters to every whim and need...wait a second...” she frowns and cocks her head to the side. “...that actually sounds kind of nice.”

“You deserve someone to wait on you hand and foot, kid. Like the princess you are.”

“Princess? I'm the motherfucking queen, K.”

He just shakes his head and shuts her door.

****

While it's good to be home, it feels strange at the same time. It's empty. Lonely. Way too quiet. Nothing more than furniture and other belongings in empty rooms.  No kids running around; no shrieking, no squealing, no giggling, no near constant demands for snacks and juice. No dog barking or following her from room to room, desperate for the attention he isn't receiving (yet definitely is) from the others. No husband out working in the back yard or the garage.  While all of their things are there...in the exact places they'd been left...the house and its surroundings seem foreign. As if it belongs to someone else.

“Nik said the guys checked the place,” Kyle says, as he steps out onto the back deck, carrying a bottle of beer for himself, a steaming mug of tea -decaf, as the ER doctor had suggested-, where she sits in one of the oversized Adriondack chairs, a flannel blanket pulled up to her chin, legs stretched out and feet on the wooden railing in front of her.  “No sign of any trouble. Maybe those Irish guys already came to town and scared the bad guys away.”

“Or at least chased them somewhere else,” she says, and gives her brother an appreciative smile as he places her drink in the chair's cup holder.

“It's getting pretty late. You should be getting some rest.”

“It's nine thirty.”

“At night.”

“It's nine thirty,” she stresses. “I haven't gone to bed this early since before I had Millie. Before I got too huge and too uncomfortable and I couldn't sleep properly anyway.  You're getting a little too naggy.”

“I'm not naggy,” he argues, as he takes a seat in the chair beside her. “I'm worried about my kid sister. And my niece or nephew. Maybe both. Maybe there's two in there again.”

“Oh God, bite your tongue. Do not wish that on me for a second time. I love my boys to the end of the earth and beyond, that was the most brutal seven and a half months of my entire life. I do not want to go through that again. I'd rather have another nine plus pounder than two at the same time. Besides...” she reaches under her blanket and pulls out the ultrasound photo she's been keeping safe in her possession. “...looks like there's one baby Rake.”

Kyle takes the picture from her, squinting his eyes in an attempt to make out any distinguishing features. “What the hell am I looking at?”

She leans sideways in her seat and begins pointing out various things that the tech had circled. Heart, spine, kidneys, both eyes, nose, and mouth.  The radiologist on call had said that everything looked 'perfectly fine' and 'extremely healthy'. All parts existent and working properly, from what he could tell. “I'm a lot further than I thought,” she says to her brother. “I thought maybe two months. Three at the most.”

“And?” he asks.

“Three months, three weeks and two days.”

“Do you know the exact hours and minutes too?”

She rolls her eyes.  “I don't know that's the exact time. That's what the tech said based on all the measurements and everything. That's almost four months, K. I don't understand how it can be that far ahead. Nearly four months and I never showed any signs whatsoever? I mean, I missed a period and a half of one but that's nothing. Things have always been screwed up in that respect. That's never been normal.”

“Okay, you're my sister and I do not need to know certain things. Your...cycle...or whatever...is not something I need to know.  So it's a bad thing you're this far ahead, or...?”

“It's not that it's bad. It's just weird. Look, when you get married and your wife starts having babies, she will know everything that goes on in her body. And I mean everything. I thought I did know everything that my body is telling me. I mean, I've only been through this three other times, right? Oh no. This time is totally different. I thought I was just run down and stressed and worried and all that crap that comes with Tyler doing what he does. And you know what? He was the one the one who thought I was pregnant. Way before I did. You know what that means?”

Kyle frowns.  “What?”

“It means he was right. And when I tell him just how far along I am and that he was right, he will hold that over my head for years. Decades. Because that's what Tyler does. Because Tyler isn't used to being right and when I have to admit he is, he makes my life hell. Well maybe not hell. But he makes it very annoying. And I am not in the mood for that kind of shit. I'm cranky and I'm hormonal and it pains me inside to know I have to admit he was right.”

Her brother laughs. “You two are perfect for each other, I swear. He practically says the same stuff about you.”

“Excuse me? He does what? Have you been talking about me?” she gives an excited gasp and sits up, then asks “ Do you have a bromance going on?”

“We talk,” Kyle admits.

“When?”

“When you don't realize it's happening. What? You need to know everything?”

“I think it's a big deal when my husband...the black sheep of this family, through no doing of his own...is having a bromance with my favourite brother. It makes my heart happy. What's wrong with that? And what do you guys talk about?”

He shrugs. “Guy stuff.”

She stares at him pointedly.

“What? Guy stuff. You know, going to the gym, cars, trucks, work shit, girl shit.”

“Girl shit? He's talking about girls with my brother?”

“He doesn't talk about girls. I talk about girls. He talks about you.”

“Oh really...” her eyes narrow. “...and what does he say? Don't hold back. You can tell me. Don't protect him.”

“Nothing bad, I swear. He has never once said anything bad about you. The total opposite, actually. Trust me when I say that after five and a half years, that guy is still wildly and crazily in love with you.”

She smiles and sips her tea.  “He's lucky.”

“It's just random guy shit we talk about. I mean, every so often we'll talk about how big of a bitch mom is and how ridiculous the shit she says is.  Sometimes we talk about sports.  He really hates hockey by the way but I won't hold that against him. And every so often he'll talk about shit that's bothering him.”

“Really?” she's genuinely surprised. “He talks to you about that stuff?”

Kyle nods and sips his beer.

“What has he told you?”

“Esme, it's kind of personal, don't you think? If he's telling me and not you...”

“I'm not asking to be nosy and I don't expect you to betray his confidence. I'm asking because I'm worried about him. He's been having some really hard times, K. Mentally. And not just the depression and the anxiety. But with the PTSD and the brain fog and the memory issues. Have you noticed any of those things?”

“I've noticed a couple things, I guess. Nothing major. I just figured that whatever he'd been through had done a real number on him, you know? I mean, now that I know exactly what he went through, it's no wonder the guy has issues. That would fuck anyone up.”

“Has he told you about any issues? Anything specific?”

“Esme....”

“He's my husband. Kyle. And I'm worried about him. I don't know what to do for him. I don't know if he needs more therapy or if he needs different medication or if he needs both. I just want to help him.”

“I know. But right now, you're the one that needs help. I know you're used to being the mother hen and the one that babies everyone, but you've got your own shit going on, kid. You do not need to be stressing out over this. If you want me to, I can talk to him. See if he'll tell me anything else other than what he already has. But you can't be worried about this. Especially now. Not with your own stuff going on.”

“I fainted, K. That's it. I fainted.”

“There's way more than that going on and you know it. You need to take it easy and let people take care of you for a change. Stop trying to solve everyone's problems and just worry about yourself. That's why you're having issues in the first place. Because you stress yourself trying to fix everybody. Just...stop...” he reaches out and gently squeezes the back of her neck.  “...stop trying to save everyone.”

“That is not what I'm trying to do. I'm worried about him, Kyle. Legitimately worried. He isn't himself and he...”

“You just said he was stressed and had a lot on his plate.”

“It goes way beyond that.”

“Is he drinking again? Back on the Oxy?”

“He was drinking but he says he's sober and staying sober. And no.  He's not on Oxy again. He doesn't even like taking Tylenol. Which is a problem all in itself because he's in all this pain and he doesn't want to take anything for it.”

“And I said I would talk to him and see if he'll tell me anything else. Look, he's not coming home so you can take care of him. He's coming home to take care of you. Would you let him do that? You always have this need to take care of him, maybe he feels like he needs to do the same thing for you.  So give him that, okay?”

“You promise you'll talk to him?”

“If you're that worried about him...”

“I am. And this isn't my usual worrying about stupid shit. This is serious. There is something going on up in his brain and I don't know how to help him. And I know he hates telling me things because he hates me worrying. So maybe he'll tell you instead.”

“I will talk to him,” Kyle promises her. “You've had a long day. Lots of time on a plane, the excitement at mom's, all the poking and prodding at the hospital. You need sleep. That baby's counting on you, kid. You're the only one that can keep him or her safe and sound in there. So go. Go inside and lie down and sleep.  I'll be on the couch if you need me.” okay?”

“Where's Nik going to be?” she teases, as she pushes the blanket off of her and stands up, immediately feeling light headed and having to place a hand on her brother's shoulder to steady herself.

“I knew you should have been admitted,” he huffs.

“I'm fine. I just got up too quickly. Relax, dad. Jesus.”

“Don't get lippy with me. Because I will fireman carry you upstairs.”

“Is that how you're going to get Nik into bed? Seduce her with your fireman abilities?” she tousles his hair, presses a kiss to his cheek.

“How do you know she's not going to seduce me?” he counters.

“If you're going to have sex, I just ask that it's not in any of my children's beds. And stay out of Ovi's apartment.  Go and do it somewhere else if you have to. I don't want to be hearing the two of you bumping uglies, okay?”

“It's only fair. I've had to hear you and Tyler before.”

“That's because Tyler was trying to teach you how to do things properly,” she teases.

“You're a smart ass, you know that.”

“I do,” she says, and then disappears into the house.

***

The traffic is terrible; hampered by a steady rain and strong winds.   And he sits in the passenger seat as Yaz drives,  elbow on the door, hand rubbing his chin and mouth repeatedly, both legs shaking nervously.  The call from home has him on edge; brain running through all worst possible case scenarios, nerves completely shot, desperately yearning for something to take the edge of.  To at least calm him enough to stop fearing the worst. The assurances from Nik that there wasn't something seriously wrong hadn't worked; she'd insisted that he didn't need to return home and that things were 'under control' and he needed to just stay where he was and concentrate on the job at hand. He'd snapped on her. Telling her to shove the job up her ass and get him a way home. Sooner. Not later. That she'd set this bullshit in motion the moment she decided that ratting him out was a good idea. Had she not done that, Esme would still be in Ireland. Not half way around the goddamn world, dealing with issues with the baby all by herself.

“You need to calm down,” Yaz says.

“You need to fuck off,” Tyler retorts.

Yaz sighs. “You won't miss the flight. The guy's waiting for you. So...”

“I fucking hate traffic.”

“Okay, I get that. But like I said, they're waiting for you...”

“I don't give a shit. I need to get home. But instead I'm stuck in this fucking bullshit,” he angrily gestures out the windshield.

“”You heard what Nik said. Everything is fine. They didn't even admit her. If there was something wrong, she would have been admitted. “

Tyler sighs, and closes his eyes; trying his best to block out his friend's voice. The last thing he fucking needs is someone trying to tell him just where his concerns should lie and where his priorities should be. There'd been no hesitation when Nik had called; he'd already been throwing clothes and other personal belongings into one of the suitcases before she even got to the part where things 'weren't that bad'. It didn't matter how goddamn bad things were; he was going home and no one was going to stop him.

“It isn't that bad,” Yaz says. “Can you stop shaking like that? It's annoying me.”

“Just fucking drive,” he responds, and shakes his legs even harder, just to be spiteful.

“Would you just calm down? What are you so freaked out about?”

“If you tell me to calm down one more time...”

“Being this worked up isn't solving anything. I'm getting you to the airport, they're not going to take off without you, Nik said that things are that bad and....”

“I don't give a fuck what Nik said.  I need to get home. To my wife. I don't care if things are 'that bad' or not. She shouldn't be going through this alone.”

“Isn't her brother with her?”

“What the hell does that matter? I should be with her. And I would be if I never took this goddamn job. If that fucking asshole never showed up in Colorado.”

“Well technically, he's been after you since Guatemala, so...”

“Yaz, we don't need to get fucking technical. If we really want to get into it, none of this would be happening if your sister didnt' fuck up and hire Jason Andrews' brother. Which is who hired McMann to take me out. And if I really want to be a petty asshole, I'd say we also wouldn't be in this situation if your sister hadn't have ratted me out to my wife in the first place.”

“I get you're pissed about that, but...”

“I am more than pissed. I am so far past pissed. She should have just kept her fucking mouth shut. There was no reason she had to go to Esme. What good did it do?”

“Other than get you to knock your shit off and start getting your head on straight? She did the right thing, and if you'd calm down long enough, you'd realize that.”

“Stop fucking telling me to calm down!” he snaps.  “I will knock you the fuck out, Yaz, I don't care if you're driving. I am on my last shred of sanity and my last nerve is hanging on by a thread.  This all could have been avoided if your sister kept her mouth shut. If she'd minded her own business, Esme would still be here. With me. And that way if things went wrong with the baby, I'd be with her. Not thousands of miles away.”

“If you hadn't have decided to take matters into your own hands and drug and kidnap someone, it wouldn't be happening either.”

“Do I need to fucking remind you that you were on my side? That you agreed McMann deserved to suffer? That you agreed to help me? And then as soon as your sister showed up, you fucking bailed on me and threw me under the bus. That was a bitch move, Yaz. You fucking coward.”

“It was getting out of control. You were getting out of control. We've been friends a long time, Tyler. Even longer than you and Nik. I'm the one that got you into the job in the first place. And believe me, every day I want to kick myself in the ass for that. Because if I'd never done that, this wouldn't all be happening. And Dhaka never would have happened.”

“A lot of good things came out of Dhaka,” Tyler says, and can't even believe the words came out of his own mouth.

For years he's been dwelling on all of the bad things that happened in Bangladesh; Mahajan Senior screwing them over, G being killed, Gaspar betraying him, everything that took place on the Sultana Kamal Bridge, the fact that Esme had to see and hear the things she did. Even those long months in the hospital and the lingering, life altering after effects. Maybe it's the meds in his system; allowing him to think clearly and rationally instead of turning him into a zombie.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“My wife, for one. My kids. My chance at a normal life. Which I keep fucking up in the most epic ways possible.”

“It's hard. You've been doing the job for a long time. It's hard to just let it go,” Yaz reasons. “Even though you've got half a dozen reasons to walk away, you just can't. Somewhere along the long, the job stopped being something you do and you became the job.”

Tyler snorts. “Ain't that some shit.”

“You never meant for it to happen. It's not like you intentionally became that way. And it's not like you wanted to put it before your wife and your kids. You didn't even realize it was happening. It just did.  No one is going to fault you for that, Tyler.”

“They don't need to. I already hate myself enough for it.”

“Esme doesn't. She's still around.”

“Until she's not one day. And I don't want that happening.  I can't let that happen. You ask why I'm going home when things aren't that bad? Because that's where I fucking belong. It's where I've always belonged and I never let it happen. Home was never enough until I realized how close I was to losing it. So maybe you're not a coward, Yaz. But I am. I was a coward when I left when Austin was dying and I've been a coward for the last five and a half years.”

His head hurts. Even worse than his knee and his shoulder, for  once. And he reaches into one of the pockets of his flack jacket and pulls out a bottle of prescription meds; twisting off the cap and dumping three small pills into his palm.

“Thought you took your meds today,” Yaz comments.

“You keeping tabs on me now?”

“Thought you were only supposed to take one Valium a day? What the fuck...?”

“It's ativan, dumb ass. For anxiety.  I'm a little fucking anxious right now.”

“A little?”

“Don't make me hurt you, Yaz.”

He places the pills under his tongue, waiting for them to fully dissolve before reaching for a bottle of water sitting in one of the cup holders.

“Are you coming back?” Yaz asks.

“I don't know.”

“When will you know?”

“When I get home and see how bad things are. Can I get home first? Can I get to see my wife and talk to her before you start asking me these things? Fuck the job. She has to come first.”

“I get that. I do. But we're supposed to leave for New Zealand in two days.”

“So leave for New Zealand in two days. Mark and his boys will be with you. What? You need me there to hold your hand? You need me to spoon feed you and wipe your ass after you take a shit?”

Yaz smirks. “You can be a real dick.”

“If...and that's a big if right now...I come back, I'll meet up with you guys there. You don't need me there to gather up intel and find where the kids are. You just need me to get them out.”

“Exactly. We need you. You. Not some random fucking Marine that's never done shit like this before. And definitely not Mark. If anyone would fuck things right up, it's that guy. You're the one with the experience. We need you.”

“Nik can find someone else.”

“There is no one else. And you've been on this since day one. You know the history.  I don't want some newbie just walking in and screwing things up. You're the only one that can do this. Properly. Don't fucking bail on me, Tyler.”

“It's what I do, Yaz. I bail on people. You don't realize that by now?”

“You didn't bail on Ovi,” he points out. “Even when you were told to.”

Tyler sighs.

“So? Are you?” Yaz presses. “Coming back?”

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

[explosionsstimsandtech]

Octavio Is Live: And Drunk ||Octane On Loss||

||Welcome, Octavio Silva, you are now streaming. Say hello!||

The cheery words had Octane seething as he fixed his camera, dropping back into his super plush beanbag chair, grinning up at the camera and giving his signature rock sign.

“What’s uuup. Another drunken stream! Whoo!” he threw his hands up, yelping as some beer got on him with the motion, whining as he wiped it off.

Prior to the stream, he had three shots of tequila, this being his sort of way of tracking his thoughts. He could do holo logs or a diary, but he liked to be transparent, even if it hurt like a bitch.

He knew his experiences helped people, so why not give them this chance to see him with all his guards down, mask and goggles at his neck, looking like he just touched down from his recent solo win.

And he looked like hell.

“So! First question is the hot topic for this stream, choose wisely, amigos!” he grinned, because that was all he knew to do, to hide and protect himself.

The computer registered the first line of text with a little question mark beside it, and his heart sank instantly as he bit his lip, taking a long swig of his beer then sighed.

“Way to hit home, amigo, I’m sorry.” he sounded pained as he shifted, smile wavering.

“Miroctaneluver101 says; Hey, good game. I’m sorry, I hope this doesn’t get the top, but I’m honestly kinda feeling down in the dumps. I just lost my grandfather and I’m honestly feeling like life isn’t worth it. He was everything, the one thing to hold me up, to make me proud. The only person in my family to understand me. Have you dealt with loss, and if so, what do you do to cope?” his voice was shattering as he read the message, cursing as he rubbed at his face, ridding himself of the tears as he stood, walking off camera with a tiny sound of pain.

He kicked something, watched it burst across the stream and into the other side, off screen, to clatter against the wall. He returned with a tall glass of scotch this time, dropping into his seat with a sigh. He could see a billion messages of support to the person and worried comments to him, to which he took a swig and licked his lips.

“Where to get started, huh? First of all, please don’t kill yourself. You have so much to live for! Your life has just begun!” he set the drink down, leaning forward into his ‘Serious Papi Octavio’ mode, twin coloured eyes hard as they looked right into the camera.

“You are amazing as you are. I am sure your abuelo would be so proud of you.” he felt the tears and blinked them away, firm and sharp in his resolve. “If anyone says otherwise, tries to tell you to change, that you’re not worth it, fuck ‘em! They aren’t worth your time, your breath, your attention nor your life. Get rid of them, right away.” he flopped back, fetching his drink on the way down, with a huff, sinking into the plush embrace.

“As for loss? Not talking games here for a lightening effect, but... My great grandfather, Fuego Silva.... The only Silva I cared for... He was... Everything to me.” he looked to his glass, turning it over as he swallowed hard.

“Growing up... Well, you’ve seen what I could show you, the first camera, the first vlog? Was because of Fuego.” he smiled now, taking a swig of the amber liquid. “He loved it. Loved getting to see me as much as he could, even when he was away... He used to fight, god, it feels like an eternity now.” he laughed as he remembered back to the past.

“I told him I wanted to be a star, and he gave me this rinky dinky little thing, shit focus, terrible memory and even worse pixelage. Like we are talking using a potato for a camera would be better!” he chuckled, grinning into the glass. “But Fuego always loved it, would send it to him on the fringes of space in his vessel, so he’d have something to wake up to, something to pump him up.” he ran a hand through his hair as he laid back, splayed out for his fans to see.

“Mr and Mrs Silva were always... They weren’t great. It’s why I was taken into the Diablo Del Alma’s so early on in life. I remember the day I broke the camera. I was doing a dumb stunt, jumping off a roof, something small. I landed on it, and it broke rather than my arm. Fuego was grateful I wasn’t hurt, but my heart was broken. That was my camera, and a gift from him.” he felt the tears itch at his eyes, so he just closed them, lifting his head to take a long swig before returning to his slumped position.

“I remember the whole crew pitched in to get me a top of the line model, fit with different lens options and even slow motion at the flick of your eyes. It even had a high quality stabiliser built in that could be turned off. They almost didn’t make it, but Fuego pitched in the last hundred and said ‘to my rising star’, even engraved it on a panel on it himself.” he jolted, snapping up and scrambling around, finding the camera and returned, holding the piece up to show his fans, the intricate designs around the words written in both English and Spanish.

He then dropped into the chair with his camera in hand, tracing the words.

“He was there from day one... Even when he was out fighting... Everytime he came home, we livestreamed, made videos, we did everything together. He was practically my padre.” he smiled and sighed, hugging the camera as he laid back. “He would always say, ‘Octavio Silva. Siempre debes recordar esta frase. Nunca te rindas y nunca te rindas.‘ Always remember this phrase, never give up and never give in.” he closed his eyes again, living in the memories, even as they brought tears to his eyes.

“He used to tell me if I dreamed it I could do it. Pushed me beyond my limits. Even gave me my first tattoo!” he flapped his arm, a bright grin on his face. “I was so scared, but he said the words as he started, and it’s been my mantra. It’s why I never give up, no matter how helpless it is.” he sat up suddenly, looking to the camera in his lap.

“Fuego... He.... He got sick. Like real sick. The last few years, he was in the hospital. I would stream, you guys know this, with him still. He pushed for me to break the record. I knew his time was short, so... I improvised.” he laughed, something hollow this time. “I’m told he died with a proud smile on his face.” the tears were falling now, the pain lancing through him, but he shook his head firmly, wiping them away.

“My last talk, I told him of the Apex Games, of how I longed to be in them, of how it was my dream to have a banner of me! I told him there was no way I’d be able to, and he turned me to him. He told me those words again. I laughed and said ‘maybe after I break this record’. I woke with no legs, and no Fuego. I thought my life was ruined.” he slumped down, then slapped his leg with a huff, running fingers over the intricate metal.

“Ajay Che, she and I go way back. Beautiful woman, but not my type. Too.... Well, you all know I’m a trans gay guy, so... Yeah.” he smiled shyly and idly brushed the engravings. “She heard about everything, asking my Diablo Del Alma Padre what happened recently. When she found me, I was in a wheelchair craddling the helmet he wore, staring at a gravestone in the rain.” his throat threatened to close and he swallowed, taking a shaky breath.

“I still say I guilted her. I just started talking and talking, about the dreams, about my promise to Fuego that nothing would stop me, and now here I was, completely in lockdown.” he wiped his face again with a growl of frustration.

“But the second I got those legs, I was off, even if I fell over at first. I wasn’t going to give up. I had been harassing the nurses with zooming around in the wheelchair.” he laughed at the memory, remembering the laughter in their voices. “So, do I know loss? Yeah, I do. I experience it every time I go into the ring and watch my friends die. I know they are safe, some wicked tech they have in the background, allowing us a second chance... As long as we have something for them to fix.” he laughed and shrugged.

“As for coping? Reach out. You have a whole community here who will hear you out. Go out, and do something for yourself. Write, draw, paint, sing, dance, run, swim, anything, the world is your playground, so play. Hell, I know someone who was tricked into eating a whole cake in one sitting by a personality in their head. They were vomiting for hours, but they chose to live if only to ensure he never got cake again.” he laughed and shook his head.

“It’s hard. Trust me, the first few months are the worst. Then it’s the first couple anniversaries. I take a drink for Fuego on the day he moved up to better things. His favourite. Doing something like that to honour them is never bad. Take pride in your joys, and do them. I know a writer, the same one about the cake thing actually. He suffers from... A lot. Suicide is almost always on his mind, constantly itching at him, making him want to just say ‘fuck it’ and be done. But he finds a keyboard or a pen and paper, and writes instead. It’s messy and all over the place, but he is proud, because he’s survived the wave.” he shifted to look at the camera, tears clear, now done with hiding it.

“And that’s what it is, its waves. And sometimes you need everyone to hold you up over it all, and it’s terrifying to do that. Fuck, I don’t even do it. I usually drink and drown in all the things I shouldn’t do, stand on cliffs, half kicking my landing gear off before I even know what I’m doing. And it fucking sucks because all I want is a fucking hug, to be craddled close, to have my hair smoothed and to be told it’ll be alright.” he tugged at his hair before sighing, smoothing it back.

“But I’m scared to trust, because trust means people can stab you in the back, trust means investing yourself in someone, which means their life is my world. I don’t think I could survive another Fuego.” he took a shaky breath and smiled, something so worn out and tired as he pulled up a holoscreen, swiping through things.

“Believe me. It does get better. Not by much, but it becomes bearable. You find ways to live each day in honour of those we’ve lost, who can’t witness the day. dont beat yourself into the ground and ruin yourself like I have in the past. Remember, you are worth it. And if no one else is gonna say it, then listen to me right now.” he looked to the camera, eyes alight with a fire as he stood up, leaning close so they could see him in the whole monitor.

“I am proud of you. You are amazing and perfect as you are. Non terre plus ultra, and never give up, never give in. You have got this!” he fist pumped the air before sticking his tongue out and giving his signature hand sign.

Then, he dropped back into his seat.

“Go check out the song I’m about to share to the stream. It’s a big pick me up that I use. That and Ska, but that’s a little out there for this moment.” he laughed as he threw up the songs. “It’ll play in a sec. After it, we are doing never have I ever!” he grinned and threw back a swig of the amber liquid, bouncing up to get more booze.

||Octavio Silva Has Shared A Song.... Playing now....|| ||The Stream Will Return Shortly....||

[adelesbian]

Continuation of this One-Shot

You can find this on Ao3 here

Amadeus woke up early to the sun coming through Robbie’s window. Robbie laid on Amadeus’s chest sleeping quietly. Amadeus didn’t dare move. God, he was hot.

“You can stop holding your breath. I’m up,” Robbie said opening his green eye.

“I was breathing,” Amadeus said.

Robbie nodded his head and sat up. “You don’t go to church to you?” he asked.

Amadeus shook his head. He hadn’t been to church since his parents died. It just felt wrong to go without them.

“Good, neither do I. You want breakfast?”

“Yeah, but I eat too much for you to feed me,” Amadeus said, “I can take you and Gabe out to eat if you want.”

“Gabe’ll like that,” Robbie said.

“I have to piss,” Amadeus said patting Robbie’s shoulder to warn him he was about to move him if he didn’t move. Robbie let him shove him off of him mainly because he liked how strong Amadeus was.

Amadeus went to the bathroom. His mind was on going to church with his parents and Maddy. He missed them, especially Maddy. Maybe it was because he could go see her but felt that she didn’t want to see him that made it so tough. It didn’t matter anyway, she made it clear she didn’t want to see him. He only made things worse.

He splashed his face with water after washing his hands then looked up in the mirror. He almost fell back into Robbie’s bathtub in shock at what he saw. Instead of his reflection, there was a shadowy figure made of flames and darkness. It spoke.

“Don’t scream,” it said and somehow Amadeus’s tongue was held.

“What are you?” Amadeus asked.

“You lost everything when your house blew up,” it hissed. “I bet there was something in there you wanted.”

“Shut up,” Amadeus said covering his ears instinctively.

“I could let you get something,” it hissed through his hands. “You could even choose it out. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Amadeus looked up his mind flicking to a million things he would have taken from the house including his parents. “Fine, what do I have to do?” he asked.

“This is a free taste. The next part will be for a price,” it hissed.

Amadeus narrowed his eyes, but he agreed. He would do anything to see his parents again. Suddenly he felt like he was sinking through the floor. He squeezed his eyes shut and the world swam around him until he landed hard on the floor. He opened his eyes seeing familiar walls and pictures. His heart stopped as he looked up. His mother was in the kitchen finishing dinner. He stood up and went to her reaching out to hug her, but he couldn’t reach her like she was always out of reach.

“You can’t touch her.”

“Umma,” Amadeus said letting out a sob wishing that he could hug her again, but he couldn’t all he could do was look at her.

“Tic Toc, your time is running out to pick something.”

Amadeus finally tore his eyes off of his mother and started searching the house for something that meant something to him. There were so many things that he almost reached for but didn’t grab. He passed through the hall into the living room and his father was sitting on the couch reading. His chest tightened.

“Appa,” Amadeus said strangling out a sob.

“Hurry up. You only have four more minutes until this place goes up in smoke.”

Amadeus looked around the room until he saw on his father’s desk a beaten copy of the family bible. It was in Korean and had his parents and his and Maddy’s names written in the front inside cover. His hand drifted to it gently turning the pages as memories of his mother reading it to him out loud resurfaced. He remembered sitting in his dad’s lap and reading from it very badly as his father urged him on. He clasped the book to his chest and closed his eyes as hot tears ran down his face. God, he missed them. He missed them more than anything.

“Amadeus, are you okay in there?”

Amadeus opened his eyes and saw that he was back in Robbie’s bathroom clutching the bible to his chest as tears streamed down his face. “I’m fine,” he said his voice shaking unintentionally.

“Are you done? Gabe has to go to the bathroom,” Robbie said.

“Yeah, give me one minute,” Amadeus said wiping his face down and hugging the bible to his chest. He looked in the mirror once more and the shadowy figure smiled at him.

“We’ll talk again,” it said then it disappeared.

Amadeus slipped out of the bathroom hiding the book behind him. Robbie stared at him with furrowed brows. He wondered if he knew.

“Eli was going crazy. What happened in there?” Robbie asked.

“I thought about my parents and had to cry for a bit,” Amadeus said only lying a little bit.

Robbie stared at him for a moment and reach towards him pulling his head down to kiss him gently. “I understand,” he said pulling away.

Amadeus stared at him for a moment wanting to press him into the wall and kiss him until they were both gasping for breath, but Gabe was in the bathroom and he was still hiding the bible behind his back. Amadeus smiled and pecked him on the nose. “You’re hot when you care,” he said.

Robbie smiled and slipped his hands around Amadeus’s waist. “What’re you hiding behind you back?” he asked.

“I’m stealing one of your jackets,” Amadeus lied.

Robbie stared at him for a moment. “You’re way bigger than me,” he said.

“You think that’ll stop me,” he said leaning down to kiss Robbie, but Robbie put his fingers on his lips.

“Gabe's gonna be out in a moment,” he said.

“So, Gabe's not gonna know about us?” Amadeus asked.

“Not yet,” Robbie said, “not until I know.”

Amadeus almost asked him what he needed to know, but Gabe got out of the restroom before he could. He slipped out to his car to put the bible in the trunk then grabbed a change of clothes he had in there as well. He stared into the back of his car thinking about how close he was to his family, his mom and dad were within his reach. He could have grabbed them. He could have held them again. He slammed the trunk and walked around to the front seeing the dark figure instead of his reflection in the windows.

Gabe was in the living room when he walked in. “Robbie said you're taking us to breakfast,” he said smiling.

“Yeah, where’s Robbie?” he asked.

“Bathroom,” Gabe replied.

Amadeus nodded his head and went to change in Robbie's bedroom. He was putting his pants on when Robbie came in. He looked him up and down and smiled. “Where'd you get all that?” he asked.

“I told you, I have an active sex life,” Amadeus said, “and I ruined a lot of clothes in fights.”

“I don't know why I'm surprised how cut you are,” Robbie said.

Amadeus smiled. “Thanks, I got it from absorbing gamma radiation,” he said laughing.

“That easy,” Robbie said laughing and sitting on the bed next to him.

“The only problem is I can’t turn back,” Amadeus said turning so that he was closer to Robbie.

“That's a problem?” Robbie asked staring into Amadeus's eyes. God, Robbie’s eyes were beautiful.

“Not really,” Amadeus said slowly rolling on top of Robbie so that he was under his weight never breaking eye contact. Robbie ran his hands up Amadeus’s chest as he leaned down to kiss him. He placed his hands on either side of Robbie’s ears.

“Fuck,” Robbie said when Amadeus finally came up for air.

Amadeus smiled and played with his hair gently running his fingers through his streak for a few seconds before remembering that he needed to get dressed. He just finished pulling on his shirt when Robbie tackled him, kissing him hot and heavy. Amadeus tried to think of anything other than how much he wanted to fuck Robbie right now. He did calculations as Robbie sucked on his neck seemingly doing his best to make him think of only him.

“Fuck, stop, please,” Amadeus said pushing Robbie away. He was calculating the force he used to push Robbie away as well as numerous other equations to get his mind off of how hard he was.

Robbie smiled pleased with himself. “Come on, let's get breakfast,” he said laughing at Amadeus's inner turmoil over willing away his erection.

“I hate you,” Amadeus said running his fingers through his hair trying to cool down.

“No, you don’t,” Robbie said kissing him on the cheek.

“No, I don’t,” Amadeus said kissing Robbie’s nose.

Robbie walked out of his bedroom to get Gabe, and Amadeus lingered for a moment just to think of anything other than Robbie's lips. He rubbed his face with his hand and joined Gabe and Robbie in the living room.

“Okay, what are we getting for breakfast?” Amadeus asked.

“Pancakes!” Gabe exclaimed.

“Sounds good,” Robbie said grabbing for his keys.

“Can we go in your car?” Gabe asked Amadeus. “Can we fly there?”

Amadeus laughed. “Sure,” he said clicking the screen on his watch.

Robbie’s brow furrowed. “I’d love to look under the hood of your car sometime,” he said.

Amadeus puffed out his cheeks. “Yeah, definitely,” he said reluctantly. God, he did not want to hear the grief he would get when Robbie finally had a chance to look inside.

Amadeus helped Gabe into the car and put his wheelchair into the back. His eyes caught sight of the family bible in the back, and he reached down to touch it for a second. He sighed and got into the driver’s seat.

Gabe leaned as far forward as he could hitting Robbie’s shoulder. “We’re gonna fly!” he exclaimed.

Amadeus smiled and clicked a button. “Make sure you’re buckled up,” he said as the engine hummed quietly. He pulled back on the steering wheel, and the car lifted off of the ground and into the sky. Gabe pressed his fingers to the window and exclaimed in delight.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Robbie asked smiling for a moment.

“Tell me a place that serves pancakes and we’ll go there,” Amadeus said, “or if you aren’t quick we’re going to IHOP.”

“IHOP!” Gabe exclaimed.

Amadeus laughed and glanced over at Robbie. Robbie shrugged, and Amadeus clicked a button on the screen where the radio would be had it been an original 1959 Dodge Coronet. He asked for the nearest IHOP then got directions to it (which just pointed him in the right direction since the car flew).

The arrival of a flying car caused quite the scene at the IHOP. People recorded Amadeus landing it gently in a parking spot (which took quite a bit of dexterity since it was much harder than parking regularly). Amadeus got out and got Gabe’s wheelchair out of the trunk and helped Gabe into it listening to Gabe’s excited chatter. They went inside and ordered way too many pancakes and ate until they were full. Amadeus couldn’t help but smile at Robbie and Gabe’s relationship. It made him miss Maddy.

Robbie caught Amadeus staring at him. “What?” he asked jokingly aggressive.

“It’s nice how you two act around each other,” Amadeus said.

“Are you an only child or something?” Robbie asked.

“What? No. I have a little sister,” Amadeus said. “Her name’s Maddy, and she won’t talk to me right now.”

“Why not?” Gabe asked taking a huge bite out of his pancakes.

Amadeus shrugged. “I let the Hulk control me and because of that I pushed her away,” he said.

Robbie’s face softened. “I know what that’s like,” he said quietly. Amadeus wished he knew what he was thinking.

“I’d do anything for her, and right now I have to leave her alone,” Amadeus said, “which sucks.”

Silence stretched between them for a short time, but Gabe happily filled it with chatter. He had a million questions about the Champions, the old Hulk, Hercules, what Iron Man was like (Amadeus lied through his teeth and sung his praises)... It was strangely comforting to hang out with Robbie and Gabe, but it also reminded him how desperately he missed his own family.

When they finally went home after eating as many pancakes as they could, Robbie pulled Amadeus to the side where Gabe couldn’t see him. He kissed him slowly, softly then drew away. “I think, I might be okay with dating you,” Robbie said.

Amadeus smiled widely and kissed Robbie, but he was much more fierce. “Do you mean it?” he asked finally pulling away.

“Yeah,” Robbie said, “you get along with Gabe, and that’s the most important thing to me.”

Amadeus’s brow furrowed, and he took a step back to give Robbie room. “I don’t want you to just settle for me,” he said, “I want you to be completely and totally certain that you want to be with me before you decide. I can wait.”

Robbie smiled and kissed Amadeus again. “I thought you rushed into things,” he said.

“No, I don’t,” Amadeus said.

“Yes, you do.”

[pinkpaganofficial-blog]

Content and trigger warnings for:

- eating disorder[s] (eds), i.e anorexia, bulimia

- me talking about my suicidal thoughts and venting (I'm ok i just need to like... "word vomit" i guess)

- abandonment by friends

- feeling repression

~~~\\

So i doubt most people on here who follow me know that I suffer from mental illness but I do and have for a very long time. All of the symptoms and effects really came out after my grandfather/best friend passed away when I was 11, 12 years ago. I fell into a hole of depression, anxiety, and disordered eating. From the time I was 11 until I was around 14 I had a very hard time with food. I was suffering from bulimia and I would do the routine binges and purges I had set for myself through the day. I'm surprised my teeth survived all of the stomich acid assaults on them honestly.

I was lonely. I felt so fucking alone in the world. I didn't have many friends. The friends I had were pretty fairweather at the time, as we were kids. They'd hop to the coolest person in their opinions on sight and leave me in the dust, and then come back when they were done, or something happened, whatever. It wasn't stable, and I was always afraid of just being deserted again. My friend who stuck with me, my grandfather, was gone. My grandmother was so in shambles that she doesnt even remember the year after he died at all. My mother is chronically ill, and even though she is and will always be there for me as long as is possible I just couldn't tell her how bad I was feeling. Maybe it was guilt because she has problems that I felt far outweighed mine (haha oh god there's the tears that actually stings).

And my dad is... well.. a dad. Sometimes dads just don't understand things like mental illness, or being an unwell person. My dad loves me. I know that, and I love him a lot too. But he can't understand how these things affect me as he's basically neurotypical in every way. He tries. But I can't find empathy there, and a lot of the time there's misunderstanding when we talk about mental illness. So I didn't tell him anything then either.

I would stay in my room a lot, or be out in the woods a lot. I would scratch up my arms with my nails until they would bleed and I would cry. I felt like I didn't care if I died at that time. My parents raised me religiously in the church and I tried very hard to have a relationship with their concept of a god. But I couldn't because to me in was just emptiness. For me, in that sense, there is nothing there. So my loneliness was running even deeper than just the physical. It was spiritual as well. And idk if anyone reading this has experienced spiritual emptiness, or even is a spiritual person, but please believe me when I say it's Hell.

When I was 14 I rode my bicycle out to a bridge near my home out in the back woods type country. The old train bridge kind with the big cement blocks at the bottom of the pillars holding them up. I remember sitting on the very edge of it just looking down at the cement. I really wanted to jump. Honestly the only reason I didn't was because of my mom. She's the reason I stepped back, got on my bicycle and rode home. Albeit I was crying the whole way home, stayed out in the garden to finish crying, washed my face in the creek and went inside and straight upstairs to my bed and I slept until the next day.

When I was around the end of being 14 I tried repression. I started trying eating normally (which has wrecked me internally, I have major digestive problems as I've always refused to go to a rehab centre, which in itself is not good for me). I started pretending to have a relationship with "God". I tried the whole "cool hip Christian kid" spin from when I was that age until 17 or so. I pushed back my depression, my fears and anxieties and eds to see if I could be happy. And I pretended to be happy for a while. And I fooled a lot of people.

Things weren't by any means okay though. My school work was suffering as it always had, but since the work was harder it was also suffering harder. I picked up smoking cigarettes. I also picked up alcohol more and more. I dated a 21 year old and lost my virginity to him at 16, after much coaxing from him. That was an extremely bad 8 months.

My saving grace and my recharge at the time was a Bible camp I'd attend in the summers. I went for 12 years. Now that I think about it.. that camp was my only constant thing for a very long time. It was always there. And even when it wasn't camp time, the place was so close I could just go talk to the live in managers when I had questions. While my relationship with a god I don't believe in was strained and a facade, the people I met are amazing and have helped me a lot.

In fact, at that camp I spilled a lot of my struggles to my group of close friends. We were just a few girls, only 17 or so. But they had all been through things just as bad as me. Some so close it scared me. I felt accepted by those girls who are now beautiful strong women. So I opened the flood gates of what I had been through. All of my dark times and feelings, thoughts of dying and plans to do it, the bulimia and how it hurt my body, my 21 year old ex and what had happened to me, my struggles in school, my guilt towards my mother as her pregnancy with me put her in her wheelchair, my panic attacks and the anxiety that I'd felt for so long, my loneliness and my desperate want to not be alive. Basically just like, ALL of it. I don't really think that was a gate I could've closed even if I tried at that point. It was just a lot.

It took a while to talk about everything, and by the time I'd covered everything even more young folks like us had come over to sit. I was sobbing. My friends weren't very far behind either. Someone was rubbing my back and another person brought me tissues. I finished and everyone was kinda quiet and sad. One of my friends said "Hey can we all just kinda sit together and pray?" and I said that I thought that was a good idea. So we sat. And we just prayed. Even if they were words floating up to an empty space where I see no god, the solidarity that I felt with my friends and those around showing that they cared about me was overwhelming. I wasn't alone. I had friends. REAL friends who weren't looking for the next best thing. And I didn't feel as empty anymore. Knowing that I had people who genuinely cared for me and everything I'd been through and everything I was made me feel so much more worthy of living, it showed me I wasn't nothing.

A lot has happened since those dark times. I've had other dark times. Anorexia claimed me at 18 as a sufferer, and I still struggle with it to this day. I had a physically and emotionally abusive sociopathic partner in the Autumn of my 21st year. I had a whole 2 year ordeal with someone that I'm not even going to talk about, as this person and I have BOTH put it behind us and forgiven each other and are now friends. I alsp dropped out of high school in grade 11.

But I've had a LOT of light times. I started actively loving my body at 21, which was the first new constant in my life. I took action and got a breast reduction from G to C cup for my health at 18. I left the church and started understanding science better. The spiritualist in me called for more, so I delved into research on Paganism and Wicca. What I found was what I needed. It was the second new constant I needed. So now instead of 1, I had 2.

I live with my fiance now. He's someone who I was schoolmates with in highschool. After a few years of not keeping in touch, we hung out. We got close again. And after a few years we started dating. We've had bumpy patches. 1 break up due to his mental illness (again, it rears its ugly head). But that was short lived. And we are actively improving ourselves while being there for one another. Last March I asked him to marry me to which he said "Well, I was gonna ask you when we got our own place, so obviously yes." (I've dated a lot of people, so I am so happy that it was him I'm going to be with, no offense to any of the guys, girls and other folks I've been with and am friends with). He's my third constant.

I have so much more now than I ever dreamed I could in those dark times, friends.

Moral of the story is:

Friends come and go. But you'll find someone, or multiple people who will care about you enough to stick with you as much as you wanna stick with them.

Don't give up on yourself. You're gonna have a lot of bad times. Life happens and we can't do shit about it. But life also has a lot of really good times worth looking forward to and holding close to heart. You can love yourself no matter who you are or what you look like because you're more than a name or a number on a scale. You're a complex person with real feelings who is worthy of self love. And love from others too.

Pain sucks. Life can suck a whole fucking lot. So much you want it to end. But through all the struggle, the hurt and the mental illness, you still very much deserve a good life. If not more, because you're actively trying to enjoy being alive in a very hard time.

So yeah. Thanks for reading this. I just needed to talk. I felt like I was going to explode and my Instagram isn't really the place to put this.

Take care of yourselfs. Cherish yourself and your time here. Make the best of your situations as much as you can. Hold your loved ones close in mind and heart. And don't be afraid to talk.

[stubbornattempt]

I want to tell you about what happened and what I thought was happening after I left the truck that morning. I know you said to run and I don't know why I went into the woods instead of running down the road. I was really spooked about aerial imaging so I wanted coverage overhead. I thought that the shoes that driver gave me might have GPS or a mic so that you guys could keep track of me. I was talking to you in case you could hear me. In my mind I was trying to lose any tail and so I started hitching rides to random destinations. In the woods I looked for places to hide and I found this tiny hole in the earth and crawled into it. I heard the radio of a car that drove by and I don't remember the exact song or lyrics but it made me think I shouldn't hide there so I left. I decided to look for train tracks so that I could hop onto a train but eventually I was stopped by this guy who wanted to talk to me for a minute. He had a young son with him. The cops showed up and started asking me questions. I'm sure I looked wild. I was all scratched up from the night before and hadn't showered in a week or something. I was wearing clothes that the truck driver had given me. At first I lied about everything but they poked holes in my story so I ended up telling them that I was schizophrenic. One of the officers asked to see my hands and shone a flashlight on them. He said something about how if I was having problems I should go to the police. He said that if a particular police officer didn't help then I should try talking to another one. I wondered if Officer ***** had been contacted and was in touch with these officers. They checked my body to see if I had any weapons and asked if I had anything sharp in my pockets. Then the ambulance arrived and I got in. I thought I heard you crying and talking to me but I couldn't make out any words. In the ER room I also thought I heard you and I strained to make out words but couldn't. They tried to get me to eat but I had no appetite. I think I slept for a little bit. One of the nurses aids looked and sounded like Little John. He looked directly at me and kind of closed his eyes and flashed toothy smile. I didn't acknowledge recognizing him. I listened to the staffs conversation outside of my door and at one point the guy who seemed like Little John said something about how if it were him he would pop the battery out of the phone. Later, when they were moving me to the unit, I was riding in a wheelchair past the nurses station and we passed by him. He said, "Are you coming back?" So I didn't know how it could be Little John but it seemed like him. Every little detail I thought was a message for me. If they got something wrong on my meal order I tried to understand if it was a clue. I thought this one doctor might be in the know. I thought other patients might be plants. I thought the clothes they wore might be messages. I thought I got a message that you had escaped abroad and I was relieved. I thought Little John might help me escape and get to you. I was there for a month. I didn't contact my family the whole time until they finally wanted to discharge me and I called my sister. I thought there was a plan to extract me on the drive back home when my sister came to pick me up. I was going to run away at a rest stop or something. Turns out she came with the whole fam and I didn't follow through with that plan luckily. I didn't believe for a moment that it was over. That thought didn't enter my mind. When I was returned to my dad's place I still thought there would be an extraction plan. I thought it was where I used to ride my bike. One time I ditched my bike and hid it in the bushes. I went into the woods and ditched my shoes since I was always suspicious that they were bugged. I found a place with good coverage and hid out there for hours. Eventually I got too cold and hungry so I went back to my dads. I tried again though. This time I hid in the woods until nightfall. Then I climbed up to where a road went by and I took off all my clothes in case they were bugged and waited hoping a car for me would come by. I don't know if this was ever true, but over the course of this entire thing I always thought people were getting messages to me through Pandora. I somehow extrapolated from the songs that you were in Italy and that I needed to go there. So I was going to sell my moped and get a plane ticket. I went to the post office to get a passport. I told my dad that I was going for an interview. I didn't have enough money to get a passport though. I went to another hospital for a few weeks. The lease at my dads place ran out eventually and we decided to move to another state. I really didn't know if you still had tabs on me or if you'd given up. I drank really heavily and gained even more weight than I had at the hospital. Living in the other state was a disaster. My dad had run out of money so we only had his disability check each month between the two of us. I went to yet another hospital and this one was the worst yet. While I was in the hospital my dad broke his foot and when I came home he was still in the hospital so I was there alone. I'd spent the entire time in the psych ward laying in bed thinking about you. Well I also read a few John Grisham novels. But I'd resolved to reach out to you and find out what was happening and if you still loved me. When I got home I looked you up and was surprised to see that you had resumed your life and you were talking about very normal and commonplace things. It hurt a lot because it felt like everything had just rolled off your back and you didn't care about anything. I don't remember what I messaged you but you didn't reply. I almost took all my pills at once. I don't know what stopped me. Anyway, my dad couldn't drive for a while so I had to walk a really long way to the dollar store every couple of days to buy crappy groceries. It was fucking hot as balls and I'd nearly pass out making the journey. We ate a lot of frozen meals that cost a buck and some gross canned food. My hair started falling out a lot. I started having problems with my body with twitching and being unable to control my movements. I couldn't sleep or get comfortable. Eventually I called 911 and the ambulance took me to the hospital. The doctor was a dick and told me it was because of gabapentin withdrawal since I had run out. They release me but I had no way to get home. I tried to call a taxi but none were available. Fortunately I met this nice guy in the parking lot who was going in the general direction and he gave me a ride. I kept getting worse and couldn't stop shaking and twitching. Our neighbor Jerry was this huge fat guy who worked on motorcycles and loved Trump. He was very nice to me though. He would drive me to the gas station almost every day so that I could buy beer for me and my dad. He also smoked weed and would get me high sometimes. The weed seemed to help with my shaking. Eventually I got so bad that my dad called my mom and she drove down to get me. I threw all my belongings into two trash bags and we set off to drive back to her place. She gave me a couple Valiums to help with my condition but it was a really awful and uncomfortable ride. She took me to the hospital here in town and it turns out I had toxicity from my medications and was catatonic. I don't have much memory of the first week or so in the hospital because they had me on some really nice meds. I was unable to shower by myself and I was on bed rest and wasn't allowed to get out of bed by myself. Apparently I tried to do that a few times and set off the alarm. I was on the Medicine floor while I was detoxing and after that they moved me to Psych where they kept me for a few more weeks. My mom would visit every afternoon and read Harry Potter to me but mostly I just laid in bed. They harassed me to join the groups, as they usually do, and I'd go to as few as I could get away with. I felt very happy to be back in my town after being in the other state where everything sucked. However, after being released I realized that my previous life there didn't exist anymore. I don't really remember how I spent that first year back. I thought that eventually I would be required to get a local crappy job, like working at a gas station, and I would have to drive there on my moped. But then my disability came through and I got like $25,000. Last spring I went to Chicago for the hell of it. A few months ago I finally bought a car and got my whole license thing sorted out. I'd had the interlock in my car when I lived with my dad. Its a requirement because of a DUI I had in like 2011. But since I was trying to get to you and I became convinced that my car had a tracker on it, I took it to the Title Loan place and got $4,000 cash. That's when I bought a used car for like $500 and drove up a state. The car stopped working and I abandoned it because it was illegal for me to drive a car without an interlock. So I lost both of those cars. Because I didn't complete the interlock then I have to do it now. So I've got that fucker in my car for another 4 months but I'll pass it this time. So compared to all that I'm definitely doing much better now. It's annoying to live with my mom because she harasses me all the time but she's not charging me rent. I think I'm gonna need to move out at some point though. Anyway, the point of telling you all this is simply because I want you to understand me. I'm not trying to make you feel bad, although you might anyway because its a very pathetic story. If I could go back in time and never give John those CDs, I wouldn't change anything because then I never would have known you. That's how much your love is worth to me. I'm gonna keep telling the story from my perspective in installments because I want you to understand and it also helps me to get it out there. 

[rockingthegraveyard]

“This is bullshit.” Marco closed his eyes and leaned back as Ace pushed himself up and away from the table.  It was inevitable, his outburst.  The government had started up their witch hunts again forcing their family to lay low.  Or as Ace saw it, forcing them to hide.

“It’s shit that we are forced to fucking duck out like rats just because we’re, we’re.”

“Different?” Izo offered.

“Freaks!”  

Beside Marco, Edward Newgate sighed.  It wasn’t the first time Ace had an outburst like that.  It’s not even the worst he had been but it was still rough, when he got like this.  There was almost no reasoning with him.  But to let him go on would make it worst.  It’s no secret Ace had a temper, could be very harsh to other around him.  It definitely wasn’t a secret that he was hardest on himself.  

“Calm down Ace, there is no point in getting so worked up.  We’re safe, you don’t have to be afraid.” Marco stood, placing his hand on Ace’s shoulder.

“I’m not afraid of them!”  He snapped jerking away from Marco’s touch.  “It’s them” he pointed out the window “they should be afraid of us!”  Marco’s eyes followed the flame that licked up Ace’s arm before meeting his eyes.

“A lot of them already are.  A lot of them are for good reason.”  Ace stilled, his gaze even with Marco’s.  “Do you really want to be like the ones that make them afraid?  Do you want to be like Akainu?”  Ace bit his lip and looked down.  “Like Blackbeard?”  He flinched and turned away.  Ace looked to Thatch, as he rolled away from the table in his wheelchair.  No, never like them.

“Sorry.”  Ace whispered and Marco sighed.

“We are all feeling stressed my son.”  Newgate stood up and walked over to the two by the window.  “It’s okay to be angry Ace.  Let me assure you, you’re not the only one.”  Gently he moved his hand under Ace’s chin and tilted his head up so their eyes met.  “But don’t let your anger be what guides you, don’t like it control you.”  Ace nodded and Newgate smiled.

“It’s getting late, you’ll all benefit from some rest.”  Their heads snapped to the new voice to see Sabo leaning against the door frame.  Ace snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Is it already past our bedtime, mom?”  Ace walked over and slapped Sabo on his shoulder and his brother scoffed.

“For you it certainly is, narcoleptic.  Last thing you want is to ruin your schedule.”  Sabo slung his arm around his brother’s shoulder.  Ace pushed him away telling him to shut it.  “Would you like me to tuck you in or perhaps read you a bedtime story.  I do remember you like the one about the bear I use to tell Luffy.”  Ace’s cheeks flushed and made a grab for Sabo but said brother of his ducked away laughing as he ran upstairs of the chosen safehouse.  

Newgate shook his head.  Safehouse to anyone but Ace’s brother.  He didn’t know how Sabo always seemed to know where Ace was but Newgate chose not to dwell on it for his own sanity’s sake.  He often was thankful for the brother’s rather sporadic appearances.  Often relied on them on stressful days like so.

Marco was good a quelling Ace’s anger, good at talking him out of his own head.  Newgate was even better but neither of them matched up to Sabo.  Sabo knew, or at least seemed to know, the inner workings of Ace’s mind.  Ace assured that the only ‘genetic abnormality’ Sabo possessed was the uncanny ability to be a smart ass the majority of the time.  Marco swore that his ‘powers’ was the ability to read Ace and he just wouldn’t admit it.

“He’s right though, it’s bullshit.”  Thatch spoke solemnly, breaking Newgate from his musings.  “I’m just a normal guy who has nothing to worry about but even I feel angry.”  He sighed looking down to his lap, hand rubbing his knee.  “They try so hard to weed out everyone they can, people, kids who pose no threat to them and then they turn around and go employ the real monsters.”  He let out a hollow laugh before whispering “it’s bullshit.”

He snapped his head up when Izo placed a hand on his shoulder.  Thatch mustered up a tired smile, placing his hand over the other’s.  “I think it’s time for you to try and get some sleep as well.”

“Oh am I really being that depressing?”

“I felt every ounce of happiness sucked from me.”

“I’m the worst.”

“Absolutely dreadful.”

The duo went back and forth and Izo pushed Thatch down the hall towards their rooms.  Like a switch, one by one the rest of the family all wandered off to their beds until Newgate and Marco were the only ones left.  They watched them go, bid them goodnight and then fell into a contemplative silence.  

“How long do you think this one will last?”

“I don’t know son.”

“They’re looking for someone in particular, depending on how much they want them or how well their hidden, it could be a while.”  Sabo said stepping off the stairs and walking back into the dining room.

“You know who?”  Marco asked and Sabo shook his head and shrugged his shoulder.

“Ace asleep already?”  Newgate asked instead.

“Yeah, like a light the moment he laid down.  He’ll be up in a few hours, nothing I can do about that.  Whether it’s the stress or a stress driven nightmare don’t be surprised when you hear him lurking in the kitchen at some god awful hour.”  Sabo explained as he adjusted his coat.

“Are you leaving already?”  Marco asked, it wasn’t uncommon to Sabo to pop in and out but he usually would spend at least some time, if not the whole night with Ace on bad days.

“Ace’s isn’t my only brother.”  Marco nodded understanding instantly.  “And Luffy has never been good at hide and seek.”  With that Sabo made his way towards their front door.  Whitebeard followed him, opening the door.

“Be careful son.”  Sabo looked up at the man looking slightly taken aback before he scoffed.

“Sorry Whitebeard, I have no interest in being adopted today.”  Newgate laughed as he patted Sabo’s back on his way by.

“Any brother of my son is a son of mine, you better get use to it fast boy.”  He continued to smile brightly, he could tell Sabo was fighting a smile as he waved him off.  Ace and Sabo were polar opposites and two peas in a pod at the same time.  Newgate watched him until he disappeared before closing and bolting the locks on the door.  

He turned to see Marco checking the lock on the window beside him.  “House is all secure.”  Marco stated, smiling up at him and was patted on the back.  He was ever the vigilant one.  “We might as well be heading off to bed as well, goodnight pops.”

[gore-400]

Title: Trying Pairing: Sangwoo/Yoon Bum Length: 2100 words Rating: Explicit, 18+ Content Warnings: Rape, torture, abuse, canon-typical violence cross posted to Ao3

You’re staring at the ceiling, laying on the stale old cot that Sangwoo keeps on the floor of his spare bedroom for you. Sangwoo is out. You don’t know where he goes, and you know better than to ask. He likes it like this. He likes you on your toes.

When you’re alone like this, you like to think about what it could be like. Instead of this. When you’re alone, you can smooth out the sharpness of his features in your mind. Let yourself get lost in fantasies. Him wrapping his arms around you. Smiling. Waking up in the morning to his sleeping face, warm beams of sunlight painting his gorgeous face. In his bed, with the soft sheets and the thick comforter, but you don’t even need it when he’s so warm, and so close to you.

He’s not all bad. Some people are bad. But not him. He’s not all bad. You’ve seen him be good. You know he’s good.

You feel yourself getting distressed and you pull back into the fantasy.

He might take you out, to karaoke or a restaurant. He would buy you a wheelchair, help you get around. Apologize. Tell you it was a mistake. That he didn’t know what made him do it. That he was so sorry he hurt you like that. You would tell him you understand. You would forgive him. It’s OK, Sangwoo. Don’t cry. Don’t worry about me, it doesn’t matter. We can be happy now.

Noise at the front door jars you out of your thoughts. You freeze. It’s probably him. It’s always him. But if it’s not him-

If it’s not him-

You-

“Yoonbum!”

Of course it’s him, no one else ever comes here. No one knows. No one knows. No one-

His footsteps are faster, heavier than usual. He calls your name again and doesn’t give you time to respond before calling a third time, louder.

“Yes!” you yell. Your body is tingling with fear, trying to paralyze you, but you have to move. You force yourself to sit up as his steps thud closer. He’s in the doorframe in moments, a bit out of breath. His eyes look wild and you can see a little sheen of sweat on his temples. 

“Been thinking about you, Bum,” he says. He takes a few steps towards you, and you see that he’s hard in his pants. “All the way home.” He laughs, and mumbles something under his breath, you can’t catch much besides fucking whore.

Your mouth opens but you have no idea what to say, but you have to say something, he doesn’t like it when you don’t respond-

You don’t get to think about it this time. In one fluid motion, Sangwoo squats down, face to face with you, and strokes your cheek. He gives you that dead-eyed smile that makes the floor fall from your stomach. It reminds you of a wooden puppet. 

“You’ll help me, won’t you, honey?” he asks softly.

You nod. Hold eye contact with him. Try to understand what he’s thinking. You’re always trying to stay ahead. His thumb digs into your cheek and he pushes your head away. You steel yourself for more, but try not to make it too obvious. He doesn’t like it when you flinch, not when he wants sex from you. But more doesn’t come. Instead, he kisses you. Presses his lips to yours. Closes his eyes and strokes your cheek softly. You try to close your eyes but something in your mind won’t allow it.

Sangwoo pulls away, grinning, and stands up. He unbuckles his belt, pulls it through the loops of his pants, and just holds it in his hands and stares at it for a moment. Then he laughs, sharp and jarring. His eyes look distant, seeing some far-off memory, until he catches you looking at them. You weakly try to smile back, and his grin curdles.

“No. Wrong.”

Your body goes cold.

“See, my dad would beat me with these. Until I bled. Kinda sick, don’t you think? I was just a kid.” He pauses, lets you know he wants a reaction. You nod stiffly. “My mom wouldn’t do anything to stop him, either. He’d beat her too, if she tried.”

You want to care. And you will, later. You hate that you don’t now. But you can’t stop thinking about what he’ll do next. Watching the toned muscles in his arms flex-

All at once, he yanks your hair. You yelp and pain sparkles across your mind as he drags your head up, making you meet his gaze. Your heart thunders in your chest as he stares into you. He holds you there. And holds you. You can’t think. You have to think. Should you apologize? Should you try to- no, no-

His smile grows and his cheeks flush. “Next time,” he says, and lets go.

You fall back. Your scalp throbs where he’d pulled at it. You stare at the cold tile floor, at your twisted, knobbed knees and the blood on your skirt, and you watch him out of the corner of your eye as he unzips his pants. You can already smell the rich sour tang of his pre.

And you feel your cock start to stiffen.

His hand, on your jaw. You look up at him and he’s smiling at you, eyes wild. You know what comes next. You open your mouth obediently and lick at his swollen length. The acrid taste of sweat and fluids stick to your tongue. He groans and you keep it up, give it to him how he likes it.

“Suck it,” he says. Demands. You open your mouth and take him in. He usually likes more foreplay. You fleetingly wonder what’s got him this worked up. You’re afraid to ask, you know better. You don’t really want to know. It can’t be anything you would want to hear, and he doesn’t like when you start conversations.

“You’re so good at that,” he groans. You flush with pride and try to shut of the part of your mind that hates you for it.

you're like a dog

He grasps the back of your head and pushes in with little thrusts. The thick, hot length of him slides in and out of your lips. It’d feel so good in you. It’s all you can think about. If he was fucking you instead of your mouth, giving you friction and fullness where you wanted it. He’s never fucked you like that, and you don’t know if he ever will. You don’t know if you’d want him to, not really, as much as you fantasize about it when you’re alone.

He laughs and his thrusts get faster, more violent. The hands in your hair tighten and your eyes water. You try not to choke, try to force your mouth to stay relaxed and open, you can’t scrape him with your teeth, he’d-

“You love to fucking take it, don’t you? Like a cheap whore.”

You don’t. You don’t like being called that. You nod anyway.

You’re still hard.

When he moans, it sends shivers down your back. You love his voice. It’s powerful, erotic. You hate yourself for it, hate him for it, but you want to hear more. You crave more. Maybe you do love to take it like a whore. It’s not an insult if it’s true.

Your lips are starting to chafe. It hurts. You feel your nose dripping, a tear involuntary slide down your cheek, and know you must be so ugly right now. You hope he won’t notice, that he’s too wrapped up in his pleasure to look at you.

“Fuck, yes, you dirty faggot whore -“

You try not to hear what he says, try to let the sounds drown it out. He pants a little with every thrust. You make involuntary little noises every time his cock hits the back of your throat. His pants, bundled across his ankles, shift a little whenever he moves.

But it’s too quiet. His house is always so quiet. You still hear every word he says. He. Really likes calling you a faggot.

“Do you hear me, Yoonbum?” he asks, louder, pushing in deep. To the hilt. You struggle to breathe. He pulls your hair, makes you look at him. Tears involuntarily well in your eyes. He pulls your head back, fisting your hair hard. “You’re my faggot whore, aren’t you?”

He wants a response. You nod.

He laughs.

Nudges his way back in, fucks you faster than before, harder.

It hurts. But he’s close, you can tell. It’ll be over soon.

and then what

His come is bilious, acrid, thick and uncomfortable down your throat. You make yourself swallow, shut off your brain and focus on making your body do what you need it to do. Just do this one thing. Swallow. Breathe. Swallow. You breathe through your nose as best you can – which is poorly, and you’re starting to feel lightheaded, you hope he lets you go soon, please Sangwoo please I can’t – until he relaxes and pulls away.

His cock glistens with your spit. A little transparent trail connects from your lips. Breaks as you gasp and cough.

Maybe this time he’ll touch you back.

Sangwoo scratches your scalp lightly for a few seconds and your eyelids involuntarily flutter in pleasure. You look up at him with half-open eyes. He’s smiling gently.

“Disgusting,” he says. You flinch, and he laughs.

You should have known it was coming, why didn’t you see it coming? Why did you let your guard down? Why did you ever think he might want to- you’re so stupid-

“Can’t believe how much you like that. You were really into it, weren’t you?”

He sighs. His cheeks are flushed and a bead of sweat drips down the side of his face.

“Finish yourself off if you want to,” he says. He bends down, kisses your forehead. Walks out. Closes the door behind him with a slam that makes you flinch, again.

You listen to his footsteps fade into the kitchen.

You’re still hard.

You watch your hand move towards your dick. Grasp it. Start to move, up and down. It feels like someone else is moving your body for you. Him?

You imagine he was still there with you-

that he cared enough-no, no no no no no no no no no stupid stupid stupid stupid

-helping you. Maybe- you feel like an idiot for thinking it, you know better- sucking you off. No one has ever done that for you before. His lips would feel good around you. Soft, warm, wet. You’ve sometimes sucked your finger to try to imagine what it’s like. You’re so curious.

You hope that. Before you die. You. Maybe-

no no no

Sangwoo, in your mind’s eye, looking at you with real tenderness. Taking you into his mouth because he wanted to.

Telling you he loved you.

You take your index finger into your mouth and suck. The salty taste of your skin is different than his, but after a moment, you lick away the flavor and you’re left with bland and the ragged texture of your skin. You focus on the feeling of the inside of your cheeks. You wonder what they feel like on his dick, when you suck him off.

The pleasure builds, and peaks, on the image of him between your legs, holding you, wanting you to feel good.

You let the deafening static of pleasure drown out everything else as long as you can, but it fades, and you’re back on the sweat-soiled sheets on the lumpy cot in Sangwoo’s spare room. The stark grey walls are as mute as your thoughts for a few moments.

You hear something slam from another room and you freeze. Sangwoo curses, and another slam. Images flash through your mind of him slamming a blonde woman’s head into the wall, making you watch, laughing at her screams. The blood dripping down the side of her face. Looking at you, screaming, her voice cracked as she begged you to do something please help me you have to help me-

There’s no more banging. You hear the dulled clacking of a knife calmly, quietly chopping vegetables. Probably with the knife he’d used on her. He likes to make you use it.

You’ll have to eat with him soon.

He’ll ask you about what you just did. And you’ll tell him.

You’ll do what he wants.

You’ll try not to care.

You have nowhere better to be, do you?

You get off the bed

and start crawling to the kitchen.

He likes when you help

around the house

[hacksnyderpage-blog]

BEN AFFLECK V SNYDERMAN: DAWN OF JAM-IT-ALL-INTO-ONE-MOVIE REVIEW

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE REVIEW (don't you just love saying it? I hated the film's title since day one) THE CRITICS ARE WRONG! Ben Affleck V Snyderman: Dawn Of Jam-It-All-Into-One-Movie ISN'T worse than Man Of Murder! BvS does deserve its 27% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but Man Of Murder deserves about a 12% on it, if that. The movie's opening weekend box office (even with the massive two day drop once bad word of mouth got out) only proves what we've already known for a longtime: that audiences WANT to see Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in a movie, they want to see DC characters, no matter how bad the movie is or how badly it depicts the characters. How sad it is that Warner Butchers and the awful filmmakers it hires continually shits on the good faith and enthusiasm and interest of the audience instead of rewarding it with a great film that does all of the characters justice for once. I understand how critics are confused though: Man Of Murder, for all its faults, its shakey-cam, poor editing, lack of character and story development, weak attempt at shuffled storytelling, tonal inconsistency and just plain old inconsistency, is still a more focused film than BvS in that at the end of the day it's just supposed to be telling Snyderman's origin story. Dawn Of Jam-It-All-Into-One-Movie, on the other hand, tried to do a Justice League origin, Dark Knight Returns, Death Of Superman, Injustice, and Knightmare all in one film, while still trying to set up and tease upcoming films, even at the expense of itself. Ben Affleck V Snyderman is really simultaneously both a better yet worse film than Man Of Murder though. Better in the sense that there were more moments that I liked in it than MOS, but worse because it's actually less "focused". There were 3 main improvements in BvS over Man Of Murder: 1.) No whorish product placement 2.) Less shakey-cam/the camera is actually held still for more than 3 seconds at a time 3.) They can't ruin Superman's origin again since they did that in the last movie...all that was left for them to do was ruin the Clark Kent aspect and kill him, which they did (more on that later) The film is so ludicrously self serious and pretentious that I found myself laughing at moments that were not supposed to be funny. They say there's no humor in the snyderverse, but I disagree, this movie was full of funny moments: - The Wayne murder and young metersoxual mop-top haircut dime-a-dozen child actor Bruce Wayne falling slow-mo down a hole and floating on bats was a riot - The "fuckit" credits sequence where credits are casually dropped on screen as scenes from the movie play, I thought they stopped doing that shit in superhero movies a while ago...that was a clear indicator that the film would be a pile of shit right there - That wheelchair Jesse Zuckerberg tried out for Scoot McNairy whirring every time it moved made me laugh my ass off -- almost reminded me of that one Mad TV skit, "The Brightlings", where Seth Green plays an old man in a motor-powered wheelchair who rides it into people (Almost as funny as BvS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPO6H1c7tw ). I literally blurted out "Lieutenant Dan" in the theater when Scoot McNairy's character was bailed out of prison and went to see Lex, and everyone fucking laughed. - The blairing shitty egyptian techno music that played every time Gall Gagot showed up was distractingly comical - Jason Momoa's douchey Battlefield Earth character holding his breath underwater was a knee slapper - Batman hitting Superman with a sink was fucking hilarious -- they jammed everything into this film including the kitchen sink, maybe Snyder was just trying to homage Frank Miller's timeless classic & critical darling film version of The Spirit in which Gabriel Macht hits Samuel L Jackson with a sink in front of a green screen...Snyder loves to borrow from Frank Miller, you know. - "Martha" being the safe word had me grabbing my sides in laughter and unbelief. And they said there's no jokes in the snyderverse.... .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... TLDR review of the film: - It sucks- Jesse Zuckerberg was a predictably terrible choice for Lex Luthor, who is also written horrendously - Gall Gagot is a terrible actress and a terrible Wonder Woman choice- Superman is shit on- It's more of a Batman movie than a Superman movie...which is to say it's a Batman movie - Snyder's Doomsday is still more accurate than Snyder's Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, and Lex Luthor- Affleck was fine - The last 40 minutes of the film are the only time I ever gave a shit - Lex vs Superman on the roof, Batman vs Superman, and Doomsday vs everyone are the only interesting parts and where I was semi entertained and gave a damn- Jeremy Irons' Alfred is the best thing in the movie ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... LONG DETAILED, IN DEPTH REVIEW: I will address the rest of the film in sections, starting with my thoughts on how it handled the characters below: .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... SUPERMAN: Snyder shits the bed with Superman again, and even Cavill is awful this time. Cavill's "Superman" has 3 expressions: sad, sad, and more sad. But Cavill is of course the last problem with Snyder's "Superman", the biggest problems have always been Snyder and the writing. The movie is custom made to make trailers out of. We're robbed of so many potentially great Superman moments in this film, moments that we thought were just teases in the trailers for maybe big action scenes....turns out they were just teases in the movie too. There are several moments in the film where you think a great Superman moment is coming, but they never happen: - There's a scene where Lois Lane is held hostage by terrorists (right after she remarks that she's "not a woman, she's a reporter", BARF), where you think Supes is going to swoop in and fight the bad guys...I'm there waiting, thinking, hoping it's going to be awesome and that we'll finally get to see Superman do something Superman-like and that it will feel like a Superman movie, but nope. He just kills the terrorist holding Lois hostage (after a guy that's supposed to be Jimmy Olsen is shot in the head) in the dumbest way possible and the scene is over. I'd have thought a heat vision blast to the guy would have been smart...but since Snyder is not smart, he instead has Superman jump at him. Dumb (also, looks like that "killing to learn not to kill" rule only beget....more killing, eh, snyderbots? Hahaha). - Do we get to see Superman saving people from a burning building and putting the fires out? Nope, instead we see him bringing one person out of this huge fire behind him and standing there to be touched like the messiah. - Superman dragging a boat on a chain, oh boy, so we get to see him go into the water and dig it up? Nope....just mopey Supes walking along the ice with what a burden it is to help people and be a superhero weighing upon him. He's good but "everyone"/talking heads hate him...like Spider-Man. He's good but people fear him...like the X-Men. He even gets a flashback pep talk scene with Kevin Costner on a mountain top (perhaps where the tornado dropped him, LOL), who gives Snyderman a "Silence of the Horses" speech (I LOL'd when Clark, like Clarice, asked if the horse nightmare ever stopped). This is Costner's version of Alfred's "Burn the forrest down" speech in The Dark Knight. They make Snyderman pretty much like everything but Superman, really. - Do we get to see Supes save those people on the roof from the flood we saw in the trailer? Nope....just him hovering there like the messiah again in exactly what the trailer showed. - How about a shirt rip scene, we at least get that, right? Nope! Snyder sets one up when Clark sees the Day Of The Dead fire on TV....and then cuts it off. - A bomb goes off in Congress, with a huge fire on TV, and does Snyderman put the fire out, and try to get the remaining people outside to safety? Nope.....he just stands there and looks at the ground. There is virtually zero reveling and enjoying the Superman character in the film on behalf of the filmmakers, whereas we get scene after scene of Batman beating up thugs and showing off his array of popularity that are made with excitement, Superman gets no such thing. There's no awe or sense of wonder or fun the way Snyder handles these scenes with Superman. They're treated as background for bits of boring, uninteresting, pretentious, lofty dialogue pseudo-philosophizing about "does the world need superheroes?" and "what is a man?" and all that bullshit you don't go to a Superman movie for. These should have been exciting action pieces where we see Superman being heroic finally... instead they feel like Snyder dutifully tacked them into the film because he suddenly remembered Superman was in the movie and he had to do some shit with him too. Snyder doesn't like or understand Superman though. It's blatant and thrown in your face in the dialogue in the movie too, everything from "It's not 1938 so you can't be principled and stand for something anymore" to "Superman was never real", and finally -- and most egregiously, from the mouth of Snyderman himself, hands down the line I hated the most in the film, the scene that made me almost get up in anger -- the part where Snyderman says to Amy Adams: "No one stays good in this world"..... and mopily, sadly flies away to fight Ben Affleck. That line, the delivery, and everything in it is the literal antithesis of Superman in every sense imaginable, and I think probably more than anything sums up best why Snyder doesn't get it. Snyder figuratively killed Superman in Man Of Murder, he literally killed him in BvS in addition to ripping the character apart with every other line of dialogue, references to the shitty Injustice videogame storyline where Superman is a codependent simp who turns evil because Lois Lane is killed (complete opposite of what he did when she died in Kingdom Come), Snyder killed Professor Hamilton, he killed Mercy Graves (who is also terribly miscast as Tao Okamoto -- an anorexic asian chick with hipster glasses -- Snyder does not give a FUCK about the Superman universe), and he killed Jimmy Olsen after replacing him with "Jenny" on the Daily Planet roster in Man Of Murder....and there are still people who think Snyder likes Superman, lol? Wake the fuck up! Snyder can't even be consistent with his own bullshit take on the character: "Superman was never real, it was just the dream of a farmer from Kansas", wrong, Zack, in your version, "Superman" is all holy-space-ghost-papa Jor El's idea, and him telling Clark he is space Jesus and the bridge between worlds is why Clark becomes Superman in your version; it was because he was told to, not because it was a dream of Clark's own, or did you forget that? It's okay though, I don't blame you for not wanting to rewatch Man Of Murder before you made this film, I would not either.

Snyder's Clark is also awful and comes off jealous of Batman. "Batman is sticking his nose in people's shit where it doesn't belong!!" is the summary of why Clark dislikes Batman, meanwhile Snyderman does the same stuff. The bathtub scene with Amy Adams was stupid, chemistry-less, and a cheap way of saying "hey, these two are in a relationship" without ever actually having to develop it. A kiss on top of some dead bodies because it's the last 20 minutes of Man Of Murder and it hadn't happened yet, and suddenly they're moving in together in BvS. And I still say fuck you, Snyder, for removing the red trunks. Guess it's easier to rape the characters without their "underwear" on like I pointed out, eh, Zack?

Also, Martha Kent is a waitress now. I really hated that, just like when they had her working at Sears in Man Of Murder. Guess it's not "hip" and "rebooted" enough if she's a farmer. A "post modern" take on Superman sucks all of the "super" out of the character.

The few decent Superman moments are very small in this movie: Batman punching Superman in the face as the kryptonite gas started wearing off and Batman's reaction as his punches lost their effect was the only really good Superman moment in it. I liked Supes flying Doomsday into space, and I liked the scene where Supes walked into Congress and walked up to Holly Hunter in the hearing...that was cool and felt semi-Superman-ish. I also liked that they referenced Clark's middle name of "Joseph" in the film, but Lex should never have known who he was, especially not without a story explanation, but more on that later....

There's one other moment in the film that seems "Supermanish", and it's at the end, very briefly (if you blink, you'll miss it), where Superman, Batman, and Waifer Woman are standing together, where Supes starts talking about Doomsday with Batman and the two start talking about how they can stop him...I thought to myself "this is nice, this seems like the fucking Justice League, feels like World's Finest.."...it was immediately more interesting than anything else in the film where the two were at odds, it felt right and natural, seeing them work together, and then....poof. It was gone. Lost in a CGI explosion of poorly rendered characters, fire, plotholes, and shitty egyptian techno music. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... BATMAN: Snyder and Warner Butchers clearly like Batman the best and it shows. There's no question that Batman is handled the best of all the heroes in this film. Snyder gets half of the character right.... and then fucks up the other half. Some people didn't like Batman branding people, I was fine with it. Though I'm sure Snyder didn't intend it to be this way, I thought it was a nice callback to Batman's Zorro roots. Zorro would carve a letter "Z" into his victims with a sword...not that different a concept if you think about it. I liked that Bruce Wayne did his own detective shit here, I liked the entrance to the batcave being through a river that opened, and I especially liked the black and gray costume. It also needs the trunks, but there's a moment in the film where Batman gets out of the batmobile and walks up to the batcave computer and the way he looked and moved made me lean over to my friend and say "That looks like fucking Batman!", so I was thrilled to see the most visually accurate Batman in live action since the '89 film. Suit was a little bulky for my tastes and the ears were a bit small, but I understood the look they were going for and can appreciate it.

Now onto the bad stuff: there's a scene where Bruce Wayne goes undercover at some fight club and he's dressed just like Bruce Wayne, it made me laugh because surely, Bruce would have been in a disguise of some sort. Here it was just Affleck in his default Wayne look. Matches Malone would've been cool, but they'd have had to explain that character I suppose (since it's just Wayne with a mustache, which would have been comical without the background on that character), but they jam enough other references into the film and don't bother to explain them, so I'm not sure why they didn't bother with Matches too, but whatever. Where they fuck up with Batman is they make him a hypocritical idiot. He supposedly doesn't like Snyderman because he causes collateral damage, but that's half of what Affeck's Batman does. While I prefer a Batman that doesn't kill because there's a lot more mileage and drama they get out of the character that way when he has stronger morals, I'm fine with a Batman who kills the bad guys, but if that's the case, the Joker should be dead, and so should all of his rogues gallery, really. Going to kill Superman because there's a 1% chance he might be a bad guy and letting known, repetitive, unremorseful killers live is stupid. I don't have a problem with a Batman that kills, '30s Batman killed, Burton's Batman killed, yeah, yeah, I know that, snyderbots, but they only killed BAD GUYS. They didn't leave a metric fuck ton of deadly collateral damage nonchalantly in their wake, which is the problem I have with Batfleck, particularly given his criticism of Snyderman. This Batman just doesn't give a fuck if there's innocent bystanders and they get hurt.... he destroys a boat and a wall that don't need to be destroyed. Snyder didn't want to have his Batman shoot a guy in the head to save Martha.... I don't know why, but instead he wanted him to blow up the guy's flamethrower, causing a massive explosion that would have killed Martha, as he "rescues" her from it... whereas a bullet would have been one clean kill.

I don't really care for Batman with the voice augmentor, either.... I like that they at least showed how it worked though with Alfred testing it. But yeah, Snyder gets certain aspects of Batman right, then shits on them to tell the story he wants to tell. Batman is a detective early on.... but suddenly he can't figure out that Superman is good, something even Alfred knows. He's mad at collateral damage Supes caused in Metropolis, but he causes collateral damage all around Gotham. He makes a kryptonite spear and gas, but....no monkey knuckles, or, ya know, a bullet. Snyder's Batman is basically a moron. But Affleck played the moronic Bats well. Josh Brolin would have been a better old Batman and Bruce Wayne, but they should never have done Bruce as an older man to begin with, he should have been the same age as Supes, you know, like in the comics and Dark Knight Returns, but more on that later. I liked this batmobile better than the tumbler at least.

The fight with Superman being resolved by "Martha" was idiotic. Batman spends months, weeks training and hating Superman, with an in-depth list of reasons why....and suddenly all of that is resolved, all of his suspicions and fears of Superman just float away because their moms have the same name. Sure, the way to Bruce's heart would probably be through his parents, but this was just bullshit inconsistency for even this shitty take on Batman. Affleck gave a fine performance....although I never buy him completely as Bruce Wayne. I still see Ben Affleck. Yes, he's acting and making an effort....but there are scenes where it really feels like you're watching a guy act and not an immersed character in a movie, if that makes sense. Still, he's a better actor than Cavill...which doesn't set the bar very high performance-wise for this film. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... LEX LUTHOR:

Jesse Zuckerberg is a decent actor and gives a good performance in this movie....but not as Lex Luthor. Lex in this movie is the worst live action version of the character ever. Jars of piss and feeding people Jolly Ranchers aren't who Lex Luthor is. This Lex leaves notes for people -- that they don't even get -- signed as someone else to start trouble, he gives jars of piss to people, shoves candy in people's mouths, he has ticks... he's basically like a high school prankster. I fully expect the extended cut of the film to include a scene of him leaving a flaming bag of shit at Wayne Manor and ringing the doorbell before running away, blaming Superman. 

Maybe this is what Eisenberg was going for, but his "Lex" was honestly hard to watch in many scenes. Reminded me of Jim Carey's Riddler, maybe Dr Sivana, but he also reminded me of Hector Hammond in the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern film (which was also hard to watch -- both the film and the Hector Hammond character I mean). I'm not sure what he was going for here....he was almost more like the Joker than Lex in some scenes. They even have him talk about his abusive father as he monologues to Superman like Joker in The Dark Knight, and make remarks at Lois too ("Ooh, you're feisty!" = "Little fight in ya, I like that!"), before throwing her off a building...just like Ledger's Joker threw Maggie Gylenhaal out of a building in The TDK. I know Lex has had abusive parents before in the comics.... but they should have revealed this info in a different way from how it was done with The Joker in TDK. 

This Lex was so fay and effete, when the guy he feeds the candy to comes up to him and says "maybe we can help each other", I half thought Lex was going to give him a blowjob when he told him to step into his office. His plan of getting Batman to fight Superman and then Doomsday to destroy everything if it didn't work made no sense. Neither did how he deduced the secret identities of Batman and Superman -- there's zero explanation for it.

As predicted, Jesse Zuckerberg as Lex Luthor is the third worst casting in a superhero film of all time, right after Gall Gagot as Wonder Woman (2), and Ezra Miller as The Flash (1). There is no "Heath Ledger" or "Michael Keaton" "surprise" here, as anyone with a brain could have deduced (and did, like yours truly) the moment he was cast. This Lex also has terrible motivation for hating Superman, if you can even call it motivation at all....he basically hates him because he has powers and only people with knowledge should have powers, or something? Lots of esoteric mumbo jumbo about "gods" and "man" do not a great character make. He actually seemed even less like Lex Luthor to me once his head was shaved: then he just came across as Michael Cera with a shaved head, like some little wimpy kid, mumbling about shit in jail, evoking nothing but pity. "Ding ding ding ding ding" thank God they brought Terrio on board, eh, snyderbots? LOL! What a joke. Jesse Zuckerberg -- as I've said since day one -- would have been a better Riddler, Toyman, or even Dr Sivana or Jimmy Olsen, he was never going to be a good Lex Luthor, he had zero chance. Decent actor, but terribly miscast. A dog cannot play a cat and vice versa. Get it, snyderbots. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. LOIS LANE: Her character sucked in this movie. I've never liked Amy Adams as Lois Lane, she doesn't look like her, and Lois should be closer in age to Clark. Lois should not be a few or several years older than Clark. But then again, everyone's been around before Clark in the snyderverse: Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, etc....so fuck it, Lois may as well be too. Her faux feminist dialogue about how she's "not a woman, but a reporter" were total fucking cringe too. Amy Adams' Lois is the most unlikable Lois ever to appear live action, in my opinion. She's not funny, she's not witty, she's not vulnerable, she's not all that pretty, she's not nosey, she's not playfully competitive... she just sucks. The scene where Supes catches Lois from her perspective was the only good scene with her. Having her save Superman again and again was awful, and so was having her show up wherever the plot needed her to be....like tossing the kryptonite spear, then retrieving it later not knowing it was needed. More on that sloppiness later... .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... PERRY "WHITE": Laurence Fishburne is actually great in this movie. One of the few good actors and good performances in this film. I liked him....not as Perry White, he's totally miscast, Perry's not black, sorry not sorry...everything must be darker in Snyder's world, including Perry White I guess...but I liked Fishburne as an actor in this film being a good actor giving a good performance. It's refreshing to see, especially when the movie's this bad. It helped to get through certain scenes. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ALFRED: Jeremy Irons' Alfred is the best thing in the film, and a better Alfred than Michael Caine, in my opinion. He's funny, he's not preachy, he doesn't always have a speech prepared or fortune cookie advice, he's just the butler doing butler-y and helpful things (even though they *said* he's a "bodyguard", not a "butler" in the snyderverse...thankfully not much of that came through), and I liked that. He even gets a few lines in the film directly from the comics, which only makes him feel more Alfred-y. Only complaint -- which is not even Irons' fault -- is that there's not more of an age distance between he and Affleck. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... WONDER WOMAN: Gall Gagot was every bit as awful as I thought she'd be. Looks like Jeff Goldblum in the face, has a pool cue body, and terrible English speaking and acting skills. Her brown costume also sucked and so did that shitty blairing Egyptian techno music that played whenever she showed up. Her little smile while fighting Doomsday -- supposedly for her life, a force that's so powerful it kills Superman -- was out of place and stupid, a dumb tryhard attempt to remphasize that she's a "warrior" and "strong woman who can take on da boys!" bullshit. Her feminazi dialogue about how bad men are was also heavy handed and fucking sucked. Gall's the second worst casting of all time and she shouldn't have been in the film, neither should her character have been in the film for that matter. Cybore and Aquamariner shouldn't have been in the film, either.  Gall Gagot is a terrible actress and can't even speak fluent english. Stupid people and snyderbots who don't know anything about Wonder Woman will think this is great "cuz she not from merikah dah!!!". But what they don't get is that Wonder Woman is a PHYSICALLY PERFECT MAGICAL character and can speak any language of her choice fluently and perfectly, and therefore she would speak English perfectly and without an accent. Secondly, if she WERE to have an accent, it'd be a GREEK one, not an Israeli one, so the moronic snyderbots are even wrong by their own logic. Because it's not really about "realism" or whatever other bullshit they say, it's about changing the characters into the actors to accommodate the shitty casting. They've done it with Lex Luthor and Jesse Zuckerberg quite obviously, likewise with Jason Momariner and the tattoos and Aquaman, but for some reason snyderbots can't see that so clearly with Gall Gagot Wafer Woman....perhaps that's because they have no idea what Wonder Woman is supposed to be like. Fan-fake shits. Also, lack of boobs, ass, hips, and curves is a completely perfect and valid criticism of the person who is supposed to be playing WONDER WOMAN. A sex symbol, a supposed physically perfect woman. Why is it we can have a physically accurate Batman and Superman, but suddenly it's wrong and hateful to hold the person playing Wonder Woman to the same standard? Snyderbots are morons. If the roles were reversed they'd have someone like DJ Qualls as Superman. 

Gall Gagot shouldn't be playing Wonder Woman because she doesn't look or talk like her, and cannot. Wonder Woman is physically perfect, has blue eyes, boobs, hips, ass, is athletic, etc. Gall Gagot is a pool cue. Gall Gagot looks like Jeff Goldblum in the face. Gall Gagot has the English speaking and acting skills of a paper bag. Wonder Woman can speak any language of her choosing fluently and perfectly because she is magical, therefore she would not have an Israeli accent. If she had an accent at all, she would have a Greek one since she is based in Greek mythology, not an Israeli one. The Wonder Woman costume is iconic. The stars on the suit look great. America did not invent stars, nor does it have ownership of them, or the colors blue, red, white, and yellow. It's entirely possible a magical ancient civilization like Wonder Woman's may have had these colors and stars long before america did, therefore there is no reason to get rid of the stars on her uniform because she's not from America. She could also still be an ambassador to the country and deliberately choose her outfit for those reasons....removing the stars on Wonder Woman's suit removes an element of her iconography because america hating pussified cuckolds are in control of the characters. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with what does and does not make sense for the characters, because having stars made as much sense as anything else about the character. Ask yourselves two questions, snyderbots:

- Do you like the characters? - Do you think there's anything wrong with them? If you answered "yes" to either of those questions, then why do you support such shitty representations of them on screen? .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... THE FLASH: Ezra Miller looked just like Gall Gagot in the film, and he also looked just like Ezra Fairy Allen Miller: long dark hair, asian androgynous looking face, facial hair, and looked nothing like any version of The Flash. Also sounded like a Bizarro James Franco when he spoke. Him saving Zack Snyder the cameo convenience store clerk (who's he think he is, Stan Lee?) from a robbery in the crappy email footage was fitting in that the two worst things about the snyderverse should of course share a scene together. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... DOOMSDAY: Doomsday's look was disappointing, but still looked more like Doomsday than Snyder's Aquaman looked like Aquaman, Flash looked like Flash, Wonder Woman looked like Wonder Woman, and Lex looked like Lex, so I can't fault him much visually. However, breathing fire and sending off nuclear pulses was fucking lame. Just keep him a big monster that fucks shit up. His origin in the film was pretty dumb though: Snyder has Lex cut himself over Zod's dead body in some alien fluid and wammo, this makes Doomsday. It comes off as more "voodoo" than science, but whatever. Thought it would have been cool to show Lex creating Doomsday in a lab somewhere, gradually over time, this just seemed like there wasn't much though put into it, but whatever. People will say "They're aliens, so who knows how their tech works?"...I'll say that's true, but this just seemed lazy and stupid. I was fine with Doomsday being the big bad since I consider him a throwaway character with no personality and he's basically just a thing to punch, so it didn't bum me out that we didn't see him on Krypton and all that, I would have been fine if they handled him as a Cadmus creation like in the Bruce Timm Justice League cartoons, but the way they brought him about in the film was just stupid. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... THE STORY: It's dumb. ALL FLASHBACKS AND DREAM SEQUENCES SHOULD HAVE BEEN CUT FROM THE MOVIE. The entire flashback sequence with young meterosexual haircut Bruce Wayne falling down a hole and witnessing his parents' murder in slow-mo should have been cut out of the beginning of the film entirely, if it were in the film at all it should have been a flashback when Bruce is brooding in the cave later on in the film. They should never have opened with it, and then went to another flashback on top of it. All of the dream sequences for Batman that teased Darkseid, where Snyderman Temple Of Doom heart-grabs Batman (since Supes can only become evil in the snyderverse) should have been left out of the film. They should have just tried to focus on Batman and Superman and doing a strong character piece instead of setting up yet another movie when they can't even set this film up right. Superman just became Superman and they kill him in his second movie. They also kill Clark Kent -- why? Just more effort and ludicrousness if they choose to bring Clark back too -- it was utterly pointless to kill him, but then again, Snyder hates the Clark Kent element of the character so maybe Clark won't return at all. Also, if Superman can come back and he was stabbed in the heart, why couldn't Zod? He only had his neck snapped.

Why not give Wonder Woman the kryptonite spear (she's good with ancient weapons, right, after all, she's even got a friggin' sword and shield!) and have Superman push Doomsday onto it? If they'd have talked to Batman, perhaps they could have come up with a pla-- oh wait, this Batman is an idiot in this version, nevermind. 

Batman hides under a piece of building to avoid Doomsday's nuclear blast, meanwhile buildings all around him are destroyed by it. The flashback scene at the beginning of the film would have been enough motivation to show why Batman is concerned about Snyderman, the film should have opened with that and left it that way instead of doing the origin yet again and pointless dream sequences to show why Batman hates him.

Amidst the 9/11 imagery (again), the Metropolis flashback from the perspective of the people was cool, particularly when we see Superman get knocked into a building from their point of view, but the world's being destroyed by a giant dubstep weapon literally right outside a building window, and Bruce Wayne has to call the guy who works there to tell him to evacuate the building before anyone has the good sense to get out. This was moronic. (Also, even with its retcon of the Man Of Murder ending, BvS only re-emphasized what was already obvious from Man Of Murder: METROPOLIS WAS NOT EVACUATED AND THERE WERE MANY PEOPLE THERE WHEN SNYDERMAN FOUGHT ZOD, just for the snyderbots keeping score ;) )

Snyderman is blamed for killing terorists....who were obviously killed with machine guns. Do they really think he'd grab a machine gun and just shoot them when he can snap their necks and push them through walls? Maybe they just think Snyderman is that hardcore...I don't know, but the logic and reasoning behind this was stupid. 

Also, CONGRESS is destroyed. A fucking bomb goes off, and that's the last we hear of it. It's never brought up again in the film.

You can't copy and paste parts of Dark Knight Returns into this story because there's nothing else from it to go along with it: you can't do a DKR style Batman that's an old man with a history but a young rookie Superman with no history, and the two just met so they have no history with each other, and therefore no DKR conflict, as their history, the fact that they'd both lived as long as each other and lived through the same events and dealt with them differently, is the driving force behind their conflict in DKR.... BvS has none of that. But Snyder doesn't give a shit, he just copies and pastes all of the Dark Knight Returns Batman shit that he liked into the movie and hoped the rest would contort around it, continuity he established in MOS where Supes was supposedly the first ever DC hero be damned. Now we got Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and pretty much everyone else older and around longer than Supes. The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg should never been in the film, and their cameo placement is handled in the most lazy, shoehorned, uncreative manner, at the most inappropriate time in the film. We get what is essentially little teaser trailers for each of the characters that had everything but a release date sticker attached to it, right as we're about to finally see Batman and Superman fight, the thing the entire movie was supposedly built around, that everyone bought a ticket for, they have a 6 minute interruption of Gall Gagot opening emails right as the fight is about to happen. Also, imagine if you're a kid watching these email videos and don't know who the characters are (why would you? They're unrecognizable). They're all scary and unlikable: Zack Snyer being rescued by a man that looks like a woman with a ponytail and beard in a convenience store robbery, a klingon with glowing white eyes in the water, a black guy's head and chest strapped to a board screaming at the camera....if you were a kid, you were probably like "WTF is this?". It's uncomfortable and there's no excitement to it...it's just scary looking people screaming at shit.

The film is full of bad pacing, bad editing, and inconsistency, it's just a series of scenes happening again with no flow or harmony to them. What little energy the fight between Batman and Superman had leading up to it is dissolved by the inappropriate placement of the email scene, which takes you out of the movie. Even when Superman lands to fight Batman, his attitude and mannerisms seem absolutely different from the last moment we saw him. The tone is off...and it feels phony. Cavill's acting in the scene is terrible "Stop...ugh...You don't understand!"...sounded like a sound bite from a videogame. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... EASTER EGGS/VISUAL REFERENCES: Dark Knight Returns, Batman punching through a wall saying "I believe you", Batman standing on something high with a rifle, Batman jumping with his arm stretched in the air, Knightmare Batnan, The Man-Bat in the Wayne's tomb during another dream sequence (with VENOM leaking out of it, LOL), Superman looking zombie like after a nuke, Superman floating in space and opening his eyes to reveal heat vision like in Injustice, Superman falling a certain way to look like his Death Of Superman comic pose after Doomsday kills him, the silver "S" shield on the black coffin, Flash showing up to warn Batman about something like in Crisis On Infinite Earths, it was cool to see a Parademon (they looked good), I got all of the visual references to the comics, and I appreciated them and thought they were cool. They helped me -- a comics fan -- get through an otherwise unbearable film. Unfortunately they mean nothing to the general audience and non comic book people who just came in the hopes of a good movie, they also do nothing for the story. I think it's great that Zack Snyder vaguely seemingly understands the picture parts of the comic books, but he doesn't understand any of the characters, motivations, or stories, and therein lies the problem, since it makes everything else meaningless. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... THE SCORE: It's terrible. Un-hummable, unmemorable....it will not stand the test of time like anything John Williams, Danny Elfman, or Shirley Walker have done. It's quite generic, just boring, droll background music, and at the same time bombastic and loud. Hans Zimmer retiring from doing superhero films is one of the best things to come out of this movie. He can take Junkie XL with him for that matter. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... And that about sums up most of my thoughts on the film. It's a long read, jumbled and chaotic (not unlike the film), so I apologize, and I'm sure I probably left some stuff out which I'll kick myself later for, but what do you think? What were your thoughts on the film?