#I do lack discipline so we’ll see how much I can resist being away from hellaverse haha

[notherpuppet]

I don’t like watermarking but I guess I’m gonna start watermarking now ughhhhhh

[thecitythatdoesntsleep]

Vampire Master-Guide

First of all I want to start off by saying I've gathered inspiration from MANY vampire medias. Fictions, games. The biggest influences are Vampire the masquerade (primarily bloodlines) and Vampire Knight (manga). As well as honorable mentions to Vampyr (game), Queen of the Damned (movie) and Van Helsing (movie, anime). So if anything sounds familiar, chances are it is. I highly encourage you to explore them as they are a few of my favorites.

Second of all this is going to be massive, so I'll be putting it under a cut. But it will be a comprehensive guide to my personal vampire lore that I've crafted and worked with through the years. If you like it, feel free to use it! I'd absolutely love to be tagged (so I can shower the creations with praise) but it's not required. I'm just out here making one more version of vampires that hopefully inspires you. There will be a couple different categories that I will touch base on.

History (this part is super short)

Physicality - Medical Information

Physicality - Appearance/Body

Mental Effects

Society

Anything from my vampire lore will be tagged #vlor

Now follow me under the cut, lovelies. But please be Warned: We'll be discussing blood, violence, physical and mental illness. As well as regular vampire related things. If any of this could trigger you, please kindly skip this post because you're far more important to me!

'History'

The original vampire to walk the earth, cursed by the heavens was Caine. After committing the first murder, a blood-soaked punishment was to forever be banished to walk the darkness with a constant reminder of his crimes. Thirst. Craving for the same blood he shed against his own kin. The sin was carried through the years and he came upon another outcast kindred by the name of Lilith, cursed by God in a different way and hexed with powerful disciplines.

They bonded as kine and Lilith taught her chaos to Caine in hopes they'd rule together. In the end his nature stayed true and his now empowered wrath befalls Lilith, committing murder yet again and taking her life.

To feed upon and be fed, was a now animalistic instinct that spoke louder than supposed human nature ever could. And thus the curse spread. To anyone that drinks from the tainted or is bitten by a rabid, is surely to bear it at the final heartbeat. The path to redemption is sealed but survival is nearly infinite. So long as the beast is obeyed and satisfied, there is no constraint on lifespan. They will be damned to an eternity enslaved to thirst.

(Primarily from VTMB but I really like the idea of it being some sort of ancient curse from the gods so I thought I'd include this tiny historical bit. Onto the good stuff.)

Physicality - Medical Information

Vampires are anemic, let's just establish that all vampires are what modern day medicine would consider anemia. But they also have super aggressive red blood cells that function x100 that of human white blood cells. All in one combo of super cells. No illness spreads. No disease can contract, nothing can live in their system. They don't fall ill with colds or flu. STD's aren't feasible. Their systems are far too strong and combative to infections, bacteria.

Their integumentary systems regenerate about x200 - x300 times faster. Within seconds (if there is or has been fresh blood in the system recently) their skin regenerates and goes even beyond that. Mere hours and limbs grow back, bones realign.

Vampires don't have functioning organs. (If they are turned from humans they are there but they don't work and will eventually wither.) Hearts don't beat, lungs have no need for air.

Vampires can't drown. They don't breathe and even if water fills their lungs, they would be weighted down but not die. They also don't float like humans do naturally.

Vampires can go out in the sun but they have hard times with sun poisoning. Think of a sunburn but more like a rash. They can't process the vitamin D very well and almost all of them have trouble with getting severely burnt very rapidly or having a rash from the sun. Prolonged exposure can make them feverish, nauseated and give them body cramps and fatigue. Even longer can make them violently ill and can essentially melt their skin. It can be healed but takes longer.

Staking their hearts immobilizes them but does NOT kill them. They can be detained this way and it is excruciatingly painful. But it doesn't kill you.

Vampires can't eat food. Only few can consume liquids aside from blood. They have no ability to digest it and no longer make acid. They'll usually heave it up along with whatever blood content is left in their gut.

They have perfect eyesight, hearing, hyper senses of taste and smell. Touch is extremely sensitive as well. Their skin isn't fragile, in fact it's a bit thicker than average skin from how fast it regenerates and is constantly maintaining itself.

They are very resistant but not impossible to scar. Scars from human life are erased with first turning.

Vampire blood tastes like flat soda or icky, room temperature tap water. Unpleasant to other vampires but in a desperate pinch, it will sustain but nowhere near as good as foreign blood does. Even animal blood takes better care of a vampires system than another body of recycled blood. (Think of it as they've already taken the good stuff out of it for their own bodies so all that's left is the taste and a few stray nutrients.)

Vampires fangs grow back indefinite. At about x10 the rate of humans losing and replacing their first set. No matter what comes of them, their fangs will always grow back. No other teeth mutate like this.

Fangs lengthen and retract when around blood or not. It's not something that can be helped or even trained out. When blood is present, fangs will lengthen even if there is no intention to feed. Automatic reaction and a painful one at that. They get used to it but it's a sharp pain like having a human tooth extracted but it doesn't have prolonged swelling or discomfort. Only when getting longer or retracting back in.

Whenever they're in bloodlust or a state of starvation, they gain a sense of x-ray vision but instead it's vein mapping. They can see through skin to arteries and if it's severe blood lust, they can even see the smaller, tinier veins in fingers and faces. This is a sight that ever vampire possesses in order to obtain blood easier or figure out a good place to bite. Anything that is living will be seen in a structure of veins. Animals, humans, other vampires.

Severing the brain stem from the body is one of the few sure-fire way to kill a vampire. Alternatively burning them to pure ash and scattering them or holding them in separate vessels. (If ALL ashes are contained somehow and mixed with fresh blood, there is a reanimation process so beheading them is more permanent.) Silver weapons or exposure to silver prior to wound can result in death as well.

Alcohol is SUPER effective when they drink it. Think of one shot making them drunk because it hits their bloodstream almost immediately. A double would have them seeing double and acting like a hot mess. 3+ for even the beefiest of men would have them blacked out and vomiting on the sidewalks.

Drugs effect them but only in extremely high doses and for nothing really over 2 hours or so. Short, short longevity but they have the same crash that humans do. If it's hard detoxing symptoms for humans, it's the same but faster. They can do a hard drug, feel the high for maybe 1 - 2 hours and immediately go into hallucinating and shaking from the aftermath. The same goes for Pharmacia. There's really no medicine that works.

Garlic is a myth. So is wolfsbane.

Silver on the other hand is a very real, very deadly weapon that still rings true. A single pinprick of a silver sewing needle and it can render a vampire powerless. Slow them down to the speed of a human, take away their rapid healing and remove all of their heightened senses. Silver directly into the bloodstream essentially renders them as they were before they turned in physical response and structure. It's the only metal that burns vampires skin and will char it if it sits in one spot for too long. Silver is the only kind of metal that can forge chain that vampires cannot break and can successfully be restrained in. Any wounds inflicted in silver take longer to heal.

They can't reproduce after being turned. Purebloods + Purebloods are the only exception and it's still extremely rare. (Only 9 children born in over 2,500+ years.)

Physicality - Appearance/Body

Whatever color their eyes are, blood-lust accentuates the brightest color. I.e: Brown eyes turn Yellow/Gold, Blue eyes turn White/Purple exct. (Different powers can change this depending on the vampire and their history, sire.) Just think neon, glowing eyes in the dark if they're thirsty or hunting.

They stay frozen in whatever physical appearance they're turned in. Their metabolism is whack so they don't really lose or gain weight, it's down to cosmetic changes or cosmetic surgery. Which at least it heals flawlessly and doesn't ever change. But there aren't many options for personally invested physical change.

Their hair and nails grow super fast.

Vampires usually have the hair color they have when they are turned but around 15% experience graying or whitening of their hair within a few days of turning. Due to a semi-common genetic string in humans.

Vampires don't tan. They burn. No matter what their skin color is. Most are the palest/pasty tone of their natural skin color merely due to anemia and lack of blood circulation.

They don't blush or show physical signs of fever.

Vampires don't sweat or flush when exerting or exercising. They don't have to regulate their body temperatures.

They get dry skin pretty often and it's important to combat it with baths and soaks and lotions/oils whenever possible.

They are usually a lukewarm body temperature. As low as 15°C|59°F to as much as 21°C|69.8°F.

Every vampire has a certain amount of charming allure to them. In whatever form or fashion suits them the best, it's a natural attractant to their human counterparts. A glint to their eyes, a certain smile, the pitch or timbre of their voice. Endearing, seductive, mysterious, whichever shines through in their personality. They are magnetic, attractive to the human eye, no matter what they tend to look like.

They can see themselves in aluminum coated mirrors. Just not silver.

Mental Effects

There is a staggering 95% probability that 'created' vampires will have amnesia unless turned by a pureblood/noble/king/queen/high ranking blood vampire. They remember nothing of their human lives and this is extremely common. It's actually very rare to remember anything prior to your awakening. (That's why there are usually strict laws about siring without consent and proof of consent.)

It is very easy for vampires to be blinded by fits of rage when starving for blood. They can fly into blind anger and attack people they normally wouldn't or even foes they have no chance of winning against. Depending on their remaining strength when this tipping point of starvation happens; it can be extremely dangerous to be around.

Most turned vampires suffer a psychotic break in their early turning years. (Between 6mo and up to 25 years of awakening age. I.e: from the date of being bitten.) The brain is the last thing to be altered in the physical process and because of this, it's believed that their mental state has to crumble to be built better. It's unknown as to exactly why this happens but it's almost guaranteed. It's the vampire equivalent of 'adolescence'.

Over 75% of vampires experience periodic depression and random bouts of sadness. Another 39% live with bouts of mild to moderate psychosis. (This has been suspected to happen because of the physical stasis and improper circulation of chemicals/hormones/exct. Many believe it's because of the guilt of their King, Caine.)

Mental illnesses that aren't born from physical imbalances are in cases of amnesia, cured. Those that are chemically related are usually worsened by the stagnant physical changes of vampirism. It's rare that those with amnesia remember their traumas or emotional upsets after turning.

The "amnesia" of turning is the death of a human psyche. With the staggering rate of permanent amnesia, it is hard to figure out exactly how it happens but it's widely known.

Society

Humans are not fully aware of vampires. This still rings true with the fear of world war and or wiping out the human race given their species.

There is a high society "government" type of monarchy. Each clan or type of vampires has a leader "elder". This is usually the oldest vampire to date of that specific type. Sometimes it's a group or a family of elders. In most modern day they have adapted to a more "presidential" route and have to establish themselves as leader types to be considered for any kind of law making or enforcement. (I.e: Noble bloodline, diligent efforts of servitude such as public service, military or other.)

There is a strict law against turning humans. Vampires are required to have clearly given consent and the process is to be looked over by an elder or enforcer. They must show strenuous documentation of that persons preservation in the name of probable amnesia. They must have a comprehensive processing of that persons interests, personality traits, societal standing, proof of occupational termination, familial status and situational agreement. (Basically they don't want humans forgetting their lives entirely and they want to make sure that they are able to move somewhere or hide from their families until they're well trained enough to be around them again. It's a very long to legally accomplish it.

Every city handles turning differently. Some require the sire to pay the death penalty and others are strictly against killing the one person responsible of their turned kindred.

Vampires are in every day jobs, doing anything and everything that humans do. From trash collecting, to law and doctors. Fame, fortune, poor, criminal; they all live as many walks of life as humans do.

Anti-vampire establishments are alive and well. Most are run by other vampires. Some humans share their beliefs but most typically it's a resounding amount of vampire extremists. This is legal due to the fact that they try to adhere and coexist for their sanctions ordinance. Helping enforce justice for their regions and implore an opposing force for rampaging vampires or other law breaking kindred.

Most human killings are covered up, tampered with or has someone on the inside working on doing both. It's a constant job but a needed one to keep their existence safe from being proven.

There is a massive shortage on vampire doctors serving other vampires or studying from what little information there is on vampirism. The ratio looking like 1 to 300. 1 doctor for every 300 vampires.

The most vampire dominated and lucrative occupations are generally law, publishing and sex working. There are 3 vampires with these jobs to every human worker.

Here is an additional post about how vampire blood would effect humans.

So that was everything I could think of for the time being. I may continue to edit and update this as I have time or I think of something that I haven't touched base on yet. But this is just the general lore I work with when I do write about vampires or when I think about them in general. Feel free to skip certain parts or like.. adapt it however you'd like. I made this to more so inspire people not to show a list of HOW things should go. Take of it what you like and ignore what you don't! Add more if you think of something!

Some of it gets a bit random but it's still things that I've either incorporated in some unpublished fics or talked about with some friends or just fantasized about in general. There's bits and pieces in all media for vampires that I really enjoy and I think every new style spins something different and makes for wonderful content!

[dialovers-translations]

Diabolik Lovers GRAND EDITION for Switch ;; More, Blood ー Reiji Dark [07]

ー The scene starts in Yui’s bedroom

Yui: ( Come to think of it, I haven’t run into those transfer students ever since... )

( Perhaps Reiji-san was looking into it a little bit too much? )

*Knock knock*

Reiji: It’s me. May I enter?

Yui: G-Go ahead.

ー Reiji enters the room

Reiji: So you were awake. Please excue me.

About those guys, all four of them are in the same grade as me.

Therefore, I have been able to keep a close eye on them during class.

Yui: ...! I see. 

Reiji: Yes. That being said, there are times where they are absent from class as well. Either way, if something were to happen, I shall come running straight away.

Yui: ( I did not think Reiji-san would go that far for me. I’m somewhat... )

...

Reiji: What’s with that expression?

Yui: N-No...! It’s nothing!

Reiji: I see. Then please get ready. The limousine will be here at the usual time.

Yui: Yes...!

*TIMESKIP*

ー Yui is at the classroom

*Ding-dongー Ding-dongー*

Yui: ( Phew, classes are over... )

( I was a little nervous thinking those guys might drop by, but seems like I worried for nothing. )

Reiji: You’re still here?

Yui: Ah, Reiji-san. Is something the matter?

Reiji: Please come with me for a second.

Yui: Eh?

Reiji: Hurry up.

Yui: ( I wonder what he wants? )

ー The scene shifts to the staircase

Reiji: ーー Did they try and get in touch with you today?

Yui: No...Not at all? You might have been overthinking it when you thought I’m their targe...

Reiji: Of course not. I can tell.

Yui: ...! Reiji-san?

Reiji: I did not think you would prove to me time after time just how foolish and gullible you truly are...

Yui: I-I’ve just been going about my day as always...

Reiji: Hmph. It seems like a punishment is in place...To help open your eyes to reality.

Yui: A punishment!?

Reiji: Exactly. Please, feel free to blame yourself...for your own lack of wariness.

Well then, come here and let me suck your blood.

Yui: Eh...? R-Right here...?

Selection

→ N-No way! (S)

Yui: I-I don’t want to!

Reiji: Hooh...So you still intend to reject me in the current position you’re in?

Seems like you are quite full of yourself. 

In that case, it simply cannot be helped. Let me take this opportunity to tell you once and for all.

That no matter how much you may struggle, your blood belongs to me. Understood?

ー Reiji moves closer

Reiji: I won’t let you get away.

→ Understood... (M)

Yui: ...Okay...

( I know very well that resistance is futile by now... )

Reiji: Oh my? ...Fufu.

Seems like you’ve finally realized your own position.

Although...A little resistance does make the disciplining feel more worth it in the end.

*Rustle*

Yui: ...Ah!?

Reiji: ...Nn...

ー He bites her

Yui: Kuh...

( What has gotten into Reiji-san...!? Biting me at a place like this...!? )

Reiji: ...Nn...

Yui: Reiji...san!

Reiji: Haah...What’s the matter?

Yui: Why over here...? This isn’t...like you.

Reiji: Having someone as stupid as yourself trying to force your opinion on me is simply infuriating... 

Or are you perhaps trying to upset me, wishing I would do more?

Yui: N-No wa...

ー Footsteps can be heard in the distance

Yui: ...! Someone’s coming...!

Reiji: Fufu...Haah...Your punishment has only just started, you know?

Yui: ...!!

ー Reiji continues drinking her blood

Reiji: ...Nn...

*Tap tap*

Yui: ( The footsteps are coming closer...! At this rate... )

Reiji-san...! We’ll get caught...

Reiji: I do not mind...Haah...Just as I thought...Your blood truly is delicious...

*Gulp gulp*

Yui: No way...!!

( We’re done for...! )

???: Oi.

Reiji: ーー Seems like you’ve finally showed yourself.

Yui: Eh...?

Yuma: Che...That was on purpose...? Damn...

Yui: You are...

Yuma: Haven’t seen ya since then, huh? Sow.

Reiji: Hmph. I thought I finally reeled in the prey, but it’s you? The one I’d like to talk to is the cool and collected fellow though.

Yuma: Ya talkin’ ‘bout Ruki? Well, when he eventually decides to come ya way, I doubt you’ll be able to keep that composed expression on ya face.

He told me to come feel out the sitatuion. What a drag.

Oh well, Ruki seems to know ya were doing this on purpose.

Yui: ( W-What does that mean...!? )

Reiji: ...Very well. Let me get straight to the point then. What are you after?

Yuma: Che...The fuck are you asking out of nowhere? I can’t deal with guys like ya. (1)

Yui: ( Could it be...Did he do that just now to try and lure out the Mukami’s? )

Reiji: Hmph. To think this much would be enough to throw you off. This Ruki fellow seems to have looked straight through my plan though.

Yuma: Our goal, huh? ...In short, seems like you’re at least aware of the fact you’re being targeted, huh?

Reiji: Of course. You guys set up such a large-scale accident after all. Assuming nobody would suspect a thing is much more unreasonable.

Yuma: ーー Well. That wasn’t our idea though.

Reiji: ...Pardon?

Yuma: Nah. You’ve got a pretty good gist of what our goal is, don’t ya? We’ve got business with that chick over there.

Yui: ...

Reiji: Do you want her blood?

Yuma: Ahー ...Well, I guess that’s what it boils down to...?

Reiji: ...Do you wish to attack the Sakamaki family in some way after getting your hands on her blood?

Yuma: Family!? (2)

Reiji: Am I wrong?

Yuma: Ahー ...How do I put this? Right. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Reiji: What’s with that utterly incomprehensible explanation?

Yuma: It’s a pain! Don’t ask me those kind of questions!

Reiji: ...I can take that as you not wanting to reveal your true motives?

Yuma: Yeah, pretty much. Anyway, that Ruki...He totally sent me here knowin’ this guy’s a big pain in the ass...

Reiji: Fufu...Oh well, very well. I’m sure time will tell.

Yuma: Well, by the time you find out, I doubt you’ll still want to let go of that chick over there.

Reiji: ...This person...?

Yuma: Hehehe...Better take good care of it, got it? Of this special blood, ya know.

Yui: ...

Reiji: Hmph.

Yuma: Anyway, I’m dippin’. Don’t provoke Ruki too much, ‘kay? Don’t come cryin’ to me afterwards if you get yourself in trouble.

Reiji: That is none of your concern.

ー Yuma walks away

Reiji: For now, let us consider this a success since we were able to confirm that they are in fact after your blood in some way.

Yui: You’re horrible. Using me as bait like that...

Reiji: Oh dear? What’s so bad about treating a prey in a way they are intended to be treated? Fufu...

Yui: ...

Reiji: Well then, let us head back for now. The limousine should already have arrived.

ー Reiji steps away

Yui: ( He’s being considerate of my safety in his own unique way, right...? )

( However, I have mixed feelings about this...It’s true that I’ve always been treated as nothing but a prey but... )

( When I’m being told up-front like this, it really stings... )

Monologue

Maybe it’s because I feel like I caught a glimpse of his true face (彼の素顔),

but being used as a bait, having my blood sucked as nothing but

a way to lure in the enemy, hurt me deeply.

The feeling that for just a split second,

I thought I had maybe gotten to know Reiji-san a bit better,

might have been nothing but my own conceited belief.

Being treated as a prey (エサとして) , no longer bothers me any more. 

However ーー this pang of frustration,

still remains deep inside my heart.

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー

Translation notes

(1) The expression 調子が狂う or ‘choushi ga kuruu’ literally means ‘my mood goes crazy’ and it’s often used to refer to being thrown off by someone’s atittude, etc. 

(2) The word 家 or ‘ie’ in this case does not refer to the actual, physical building, but moreso to the family name and the prestige that comes with it.

<– [ Dark 06 ] [ Dark 08 ] –>

[sheikah]

Close Quarters

This is the first bit of a fic that I intended to be for @annabelleebythesea back in December (hence the winter and Christmas setting haha) but couldn’t finish in time. It’s still only halfway done, but I’ve decided to publish the first part so that it’ll hopefully motivate me to finish the rest later :) This is unbeta’d and just for fun. Enjoy! Read below or on AO3.

“Think of it as … professional development.” Olenna Tyrell smiled blithely as the room erupted with protests. It was one thing to ask faculty to attend an in-service meeting before the Christmas holiday, but quite another to force them up the mountains for a team-building retreat. Even Dany, ordinarily agreeable and understanding when it came to Olenna’s stringent policies, couldn’t help feeling a little mutinous at the idea.

“And just what professional qualities will we be developing while holed up in your time share, Principal Tyrell?” Cersei Lannister’s dislike for their principal was well-known, and as the drama teacher she was, expectedly, outspoken and a little theatrical.

For once, Dany found herself in agreement with Cersei, however impertinent her question. She couldn’t see the logic in a faculty ski trip.  

True, Dany was somewhat new to White Harbor and its flagship secondary school, Winterfell High. She was in her second year of employment teaching history and had yet to establish many lasting friendships among her fellow teachers. But that was alright. Friends and colleagues weren’t a part of her classroom, and she managed quite well in the instruction of her classes on her own. No snowy excursions or forced mingling with other faculty were going to improve her rapport with her students.

But unlike many of the outraged teachers in the room Dany lacked a valid excuse for avoiding a holiday getaway. She had no family waiting back home for a visit, no children of her own to look after. In all likelihood she would spend the entire holiday break at home with her three cats were it not for this trip. A lonely prospect, but not enough to stoke her interest in the retreat.

To her right, Tyrion Lannister, resident wine-sodden English teacher, shifted restlessly in his seat, a sardonic grin forming on his lips.

“I hear the luge is all the rage on the conference circuit this semester. Excellent way to build your CV.” There was a scatter of chuckles from among the gathered faculty, though Cersei, Tyrion’s elder sister, seemed less than amused.

Principal Tyrell merely stared at Tyrion without a flicker of warmth until the room fell silent again.

“If you ever bothered to attend a conference, instead of spending your weekends at the pub, you’d understand the importance of networking with others in your field, Mr. Lannister,” she returned coolly.

Tyrion sat up a little straighter at the jab, but offered no argument.

“That’s all very well,” Cersei pressed, forcing a strained smile. “But we’re not in one another’s fields, are we? Missandei is fluent in languages I’ve never heard of, but she can’t teach Mr. Snow’s students trigonometry. Neither of them can direct a full theatrical production. Our work is different. Each of us, every day, has a different approach to what we do. And sending us all into the mountains for some juvenile bonding ritual is no way to improve our test scores.”

“What do you care about test scores?” Sansa Stark demanded from the next row over. “You’re the theater teacher.”

“You’re one to talk. As if home ec is really setting our girls up for success on the SAT,” Cersei sneered.

“It’s not just about that. A trip like this, we might all get to know each other.” Sansa offered Olenna an angelic smile. If nothing else, she was better at faking it than the rest of them.

“Yes,” agreed Oberyn Martell, eyebrows wagging suggestively. “I think we could stand getting to know another better.”

Dany sighed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at them both. Sansa was the home economics teacher and a nice girl from what little Dany knew of her, if a bit of a brownnose. But her support of Olenna’s silly trip felt like treachery to the rest of them. And as for Oberyn, the always-inappropriate gym coach? He was just eager for an excuse to carouse with his colleagues

“It’s about communication,” Olenna insisted. “Look at you all! You’re riotous at the prospect of a paid holiday simply because it involves interaction with one another. You need each other. To discuss learning trends, problems across disciplines, classroom management styles, conflict resolution, conduct issues, ideas for student engagement. You’re almost as detached as our phone-obsessed teenagers! But we need to work together, to improve our learning environment, student completion, and, evidently, faculty morale.”

A scoff sounded behind her and Dany turned to find the aforementioned Mr. Snow glowering as usual. Jon was the resident math teacher. He was young, like Dany, and the students loved him. She couldn’t imagine why.

“Something to add, Mr. Snow?” Dany asked, turning in her seat to fix him with her lilac stare. There was a flash of surprise in his eyes when they found hers, but it was gone just as quickly.

“Of course not, Ms. Targaryen.” There was ice in his reply, a promise of more and unkinder words left unspoken. Typical.

Olenna passed a curious glance between the two of them before nodding with finality.

“Good. With that settled you’ll all receive the details of your itinerary through your faculty email. The only thing left to decide on is transportation arrangements.”

“Transportation?” Tyrion asked. “Won’t we all just pile merrily into one of those yellow deathtraps the students are lucky enough to ride in every day?”

Olenna’s glare was enough to make even Dany flinch.

“Our school busses are very safe, Mr. Lannister, I assure you. The incident last year had nothing to do with the integrity of the vehicle. Mr. Dondarrion didn’t see the oncoming vehicle in time on account of his … impaired sight.”

Tyrion only blinked at Olenna, his smile never wavering. It took all of Dany’s self-control not to erupt into laughter at his side.

“For the gods’ sake, can we end this meeting? What transportation are you providing, Principal Tyrell?” Cersei demanded, already standing to leave.

“None.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me,” Olenna answered calmly. “None. While our busses are more than safe for their intended purposes they aren’t rated for ascent to high elevations, especially in the winter months. No. You’ll need to take your own vehicles. We’ll pay for your mileage, of course, but we’re only budgeted for three reimbursements, so you’ll need to carpool.”

A synchronized groan rose all around the room, but Dany was silent, panic overtaking her at this latest development. She hadn’t considered the possibility that she might need to drive herself, much less any others. She wasn’t used to driving here, to the snow-laden roads and their treacherous slickness. Back home, she could count on one hand the number of times the roads had frozen over. Her city wasn’t prepared for it. Why bother? That far South, it simply wasn’t cold enough. So any time the conditions didn’t favor driving, businesses simply closed, the citizens bundled up safely in their homes until the streets were passable again.

Since the move to White Harbor Dany had used a rideshare service to get to work when the weather was poor, always telling herself that she’d learn how to drive in the snow eventually, when she was ready. Just not yet.

Apparently she’d have to teach herself over the next two days. That, or hope she was lucky enough not to be chosen to ferry the others up the mountain in her car.

“Cersei,” Olenna said, interrupting her reverie. She squinted down at a notebook that lay open on the podium before her. “You’ll drive up first, being that you’ve got no after-school engagements on Friday. Based on their schedules, it looks like you can take Sansa and Missandei with you.”

Cersei swore under her breath but nodded, Sansa looking more than a little disappointed behind her. In front of Dany, Missandei turned in her seat, a grimace of dismay on her pretty face.

“Fuck me,” she mouthed, shaking her head. No one in their right mind would want to ride up with Cersei. Dany couldn’t help sympathizing her with her friend. She indulged in a bit of pity for herself, too. She’d hoped that if nothing else, she and Missandei would at least ride together.

“Samwell,” Olenna continued, still eyeing the schedule carefully. “You’ll also leave Friday afternoon, with Oberyn, Tyrion, and my granddaughter.” This time Dany couldn’t suppress her snort of amusement. Of all the employees at Winterfell High, Samwell Tarly was the most tightly wound and by-the-book. He was a nervous man, always wary of disgruntled students and overbearing parents. How the timid librarian was going to survive a weekend away with the likes of Oberyn and Tyrion ribbing him was beyond her. At least Olenna’s lovely granddaughter, Margaery, would be there. She was kind but firm, the students’ best-loved counselor. With her around, the men wouldn’t be too hard on Sam.

Looking around the room, Dany realized with horror that this left only three people unassigned: herself, Davos Seaworth, the aging guidance counselor, and Jon Snow.

“Mr. Seaworth is out with the flu,” Olenna reported, finally looking up from her schedule. “So that leaves …  Ms. Targaryen, you have the honors’ society meeting Friday evening. And Mr. Snow, you’ve got fencing practice. That means the two of you will have to ride together, leaving Friday night.”

No.

Dany opened her mouth to protest but Olenna spoke first, her eyes suddenly glued to the ornate gold watch on her wrist.

“We’ll adjourn now. Much to do. Look for more information in your emails.” With that, the principal bustled out of the room in a sweep of her dark green skirt, leaving the rest of them grumbling in her wake.

“I can’t believe this,” Dany muttered, meeting Missandei’s pitying gaze. “I can’t ride up with Jon.”

She turned hesitantly to see if he was still behind her, wondering if she should approach him first to make a plan, explain that she couldn’t drive. But he was already gone, the desk he’d been sitting at vacant.

“What is it with the two of you anyway?” Tyrion asked, quirking a brow at her as they filed out of the room with the others.

“What do mean? Nothing.” Dany paused, staring down to fiddle at a hangnail on her thumb as she scrambled for the right words, determinedly avoiding Missandei’s knowing look. “I don’t like him is all. I’d think even you could understand that. He isn’t the friendly sort.”

The lie was easy, natural so that she almost believed it herself. The truth was less simple, and dodging it now only brought the memories back with staggering force.

It had been almost a year since the office Christmas party. Dany had only been teaching at Winterfell for three months back then, still learning the ropes, still getting to know its colorful cast of faculty and staff

She and Missandei had been fast friends. They were close in age, hired at the same time, and Dany’s interest in world history paired well with Missandei’s knowledge of various languages and cultures. They often planned joint projects in their classes together, had dinner on the weekends, and spent lazy evenings at one another’s apartments grading papers and splitting a bottle of wine.

Dany’s friendship with Tyrion was less conventional. He’d been dubbed her “new faculty mentor,” a job he approached with dry humor and no real advice. But the arrangement had paired them together at various work functions until she had developed a grudging affection for the sardonic older man.

Dany was grateful for her newfound friends, and for the most part she was happy with her colleagues at Winterfell; but even then, Jon Snow had found his way under her skin. He was quiet and withdrawn in the lounge, his nose always in a book, earbuds in place to block out any chance at the distraction of conversation. He taught math, she knew, but he was usually reading fiction instead of working through equations. Adventure thrillers and fantasy epics.

Every day he brought a healthy lunch from home, and he was almost always early through the door in the morning because he came to work straight from the gym. His dark-colored dress shirts fit well enough to show the sturdy build of his arms and shoulders. At least his hard work was paying off.

Outside his classroom he never talked to anyone save his best friend, Sam, and the occasional chat with Tyrion for a book recommendation. Even his cousin, Sansa, seemed to prefer Margaery to the company of the seemingly cold Jon. So Mr. Snow was a man of rigid discipline and few words, but Dany liked nothing more than a hopeless cause.

It didn’t help matters that she frequently looked up from her morning coffee in the lounge to find him watching her silently from his seat across the room. The moment she caught him looking he’d quickly drop his gaze back to the book in his lap. Ordinarily it would have annoyed her to be stared at, but Jon’s attention was a little flattering. He was handsome, with a fine, bearded jaw and big brown eyes framed by Warby Parker wayfarers. Yet despite his frequent glances her way, they’d never spoken past the obligatory introduction in her first week.

Jon’s withdrawn behavior would’ve been sufficient to catch her attention on its own. Dany had a history of involvement with inappropriate or unavailable men, after all. Her catastrophic breakup with Drogo would have been reason enough to move across the country, even without the job offer at Winterfell. So Dany had been ready to write Jon off as another case of her inconvenient attraction to, for lack of a better word, assholes.

But then she’d seen Jon teaching. She’d happened by his classroom on the way to the lounge during her free period, and the little rectangular window into his room framed a portrait of an entirely different man.

He was animated and energetic, the sleeves of his button-down rolled up to his elbows as he moved from one corner of the board to the next, scrawling out numbers and graphs and turning to his students with a smile so dazzling it stopped her in her tracks. Who got that excited about algebra?

Maybe he wasn’t the office grump after all, just a man who didn’t much care for idle small talk and forced pleasantries. Dany could respect that. She wasn’t exactly a social butterfly herself, and being the new girl in a small town like White Harbor was a lonely business. A part of her wanted to fix that.

So she’d gotten absurdly dolled up for the office Christmas party that year, barely zipping herself into a sequined red cocktail dress and using the occasion to break in a pair of her highest heels, shiny black patent leather.

The party was held off-campus so that they could all indulge in the booze they so desperately needed around the holidays. The school’s hospitality fund had gone toward an open tab at the sports bar off Main Street, Tyrion’s favorite weekend haunt.

The place had been spruced up for Christmas, string lights along the bar, red and green window paint near the entrance broadcasting season’s greetings to the passersby. The tables had been pushed back or removed to make space for a crude dance floor, and music was blasting through the sound system at a near-deafening volume.

Dany could feel the bass in her bones, a humming vibration that excited her. It’d been too long since she’d had any real fun or done anything for herself. She was always so focused—working toward her next career goal, learning new ways to approach her students. That night was supposed to be different.

Things started off well enough. She slid up on the barstool next to Tyrion, already a few beers in and chatting up the bartender.

“Targaryen!” he’d greeted her enthusiastically before sweeping his eyes over her dress. “You look like an HR violation waiting to happen.”

Dany snorted, shaking her head demurely. That was good. She hadn’t worn a skin-tight, sparkly dress to blend into the background. But it wasn’t Tyrion’s admiration she was after.

“Put her first drink on me,” he instructed the bartender, throwing a friendly nod Dany’s way.

“Thanks. Vodka soda, please. With a twist.”

Tyrion frowned at her drink order.

“And two shots of whiskey straight up,” he added, winking at Dany’s surprise.

“Tyrion, no,” she protested quickly. “That’s too much, I—”

“Not to worry,” he sang out with a grin. “It’s not for me. One for you, and one to quiet down this insufferable chatterbox to my left.”

“Who?” she wondered aloud. Tyrion just patted the bartop twice in parting and slipped easily from his seat and onto the floor. On the other side of his now-empty stool sat Jon Snow. His expression was one of confusion to match Dany’s own as Tyrion picked up his drink and backed away from them.“

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he warned, and with a wink, he disappeared into the crowd.

Dany scoffed before turning back to Jon. He looked smart in a slim cut black suit. He wore black a lot, she’d noticed. Black like his hair. He had nice hair.

“Hi,” she offered simply. The greeting came out in an awkward sort of yell to be heard over the music and the dead space of the empty seat between them.

“Uh, yeah. Hey,” Jon returned. She saw his gaze dip to take in her outfit, the plunge of her neckline. He swallowed with a bob of his Adam’s apple before dragging his eyes back to hers.

A clink of glass against the bar signaled the arrival of the shots and Dany eyed them apprehensively. She didn’t drink nearly often enough to be comfortable shooting whiskey. But she’d resolved to have fun tonight. To relax. And with this night marking the beginning of a week’s holiday break from work, she didn’t have any reason to be up early the next day.

“We don’t have to—I mean, you don’t have to take it. Tyrion is just—he’s pushy. But you don’t have to drink that,” Jon assured her, leaning across the stool to be heard over the noise of the bar.

That’s more words than you’ve ever said to me, Dany thought, a smile tugging at her red-lacquered lips.

“I know,” she said, taking the shots in hand. She held one out to Jon with a nod of encouragement. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Snow.”

Jon stared at her hand for a moment of indecision before accepting the proffered whiskey.

“Merry Christmas, Daenerys.”

“You can call me Dany,” she offered. “My friends call me Dany.”

They toasted with a clink of their glasses that sloshed some of the liquid onto Dany’s fingers before she brought it to her mouth and downed it one gulp. It was strong and bitter on her tongue, burning all the way down her throat, and Dany had to fight the urge to gag from the taste. She’d never been one for hard liquor.

Jon appeared totally unaffected, swallowing it without the merest wince of discomfort. He looked up just as Dany was sucking the spilled, sticky drops off her skin, eyes rivetted to the sight of her finger between her lips. He shifted in his seat before turning back to the bar.

Dany sighed, taking the vodka soda Tyrion had bought for her from the bartop and sipping it to dispel the lingering flavor of the whiskey. She could see Jon fidgeting out of the corner of her eye, nursing a pint of some draught. The empty seat between them felt like a canyon. She wanted him to scoot over and sit by her. Strike up conversation. Something.

But he didn’t. Instead he traced a fingertip idly through the frost of condensation on his beer glass, determinedly keeping his eyes straight ahead. Apparently, he was done talking.

Dany pressed her lips together in irritation, her stare boring into the side of his head. She wasn’t used to this, to having to be the pursuer. In any other circumstance she would be the one rebuffing a man’s advances.

She polished off her whole drink waiting for him to make a move. And then another. It was a lot for someone her size. Even more for someone who drank as seldom as she. But Jon’s silence was maddening enough to keep her going, anything for a distraction from the awkward tension that hung palpably between them.

It was tempting to abandon him altogether and join the crowd on the dancefloor. Dany had already spied Missandei in a sleek black cocktail dress, dancing close with her boyfriend Grey. They looked happy. And she knew that somewhere out there Tyrion was several whiskies deep and engaged in some drunken philosophical discourse with an unwilling participant. Most likely Samwell Tarly. That’d be something to watch.

But she was too curious about Jon to leave things as they were. This was the closest they’d gotten to a real conversation. She’d seen him all those times in the lounge at work, even in faculty meetings. He stared at her. That meant he was attracted to her, didn’t it? So what was he waiting for?

Missandei bellied up to the bar next to her, giggling helplessly, Grey in tow.

“Dany!” she greeted her, patting her a little too hard on the back before ordering another glass of wine.

“Why aren’t you dancing?”

“Wrong shoes for it,” she fibbed, shrugging. “Enjoying the party?”

“Very much,” Missandei confirmed. Grey only smiled. He didn’t speak much English, which was just as well since Missandei was an expert in his native Valyrian tongue.

When her wine was delivered Missandei raised it to Dany, who toasted her with a clink of her own glass.

“Merry Christmas, Dany.”

“Merry Christmas,” she returned brightly. Missandei’s jovial spirit was infectious, even as she peered over Dany’s shoulder, no-doubt eyeing her sulking neighbor. She raised a brown questioningly at Dany before taking another sip of her wine.

“See you out there then?”

“Maybe later,” Dany replied, hoping it was true. She had to admit that it looked like a lot more fun than her current occupation.

When the couple had gone, she turned back to Jon with a sigh loud enough to be heard even over the boom of the music.

“So,” she began, scooting toward him and onto the empty barstool at last. “What’s your problem?”

His face hardened instantly, posture going rigid.

“Excuse me?”

She was being rude. She knew that much, but the heady combination of liquid courage coursing through her veins and the weeks of compounded curiosity about this man spurred her on anyway.

“Why did you come here if you’re only going to sit there pouting?”

“I’m not pouting. I’m having a pint at a bar. What else would you have me do?”

“I don’t know, dance.”

He scoffed, shaking his head.

“I don’t dance.”

Dany rolled her eyes, sucking at her straw as it rattled loudly in her empty glass.

“Another one, please,” she called, raising her drink in the air to call the bartender over their way.

“You might want to slow down,” Jon cautioned. “You’ve been putting those away pretty fast all night.”

“So you’ve been watching me ‘all night,’ but couldn’t bother saying a word?” Jon shrunk back, clearly uncomfortable. Good, Dany thought. At least he can feel something.

When her drink arrived she took it at once, defiantly holding Jon’s gaze as she brought the straw to her lips and took a deep drink. The nerve of him, really, telling her she ought to slow down. He made no further protests, though, and Dany could feel his eyes on her mouth as she drank.

“So you don’t dance,” she noted. “And you don’t talk.”

“I never said I didn’t talk,” he fired back.

“But you haven’t.”

“Well, neither have you!”

Fair enough. She swallowed, trying to find a suitable response. He was right, of course. But she’d left the door open for conversation, hadn’t she? She’d told him her nickname, she’d taken the gods-damned shot of whiskey. The ball had been in his court, then, and he’d let it roll right past him. For an hour.

“Fine,” she relented finally. “We’re talking now. So, um. Why did you come here tonight, anyway? This doesn’t really seem like your scene.”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing myself,” he answered, swishing his drink idly in his hand. “This isn’t exactly going how I’d thought it would.”

Interesting.

“How did you think it would go?”

His hand stilled around his glass, his eyes finding hers. There was something in them that sucked the air right out of her, something serious and suggestive. Maybe she was right, after all. Maybe he did want her.

“I, ah.” Jon cleared his throat. “I don’t know. I thought for sure Tyrion would’ve been kicked out by now.”

She giggled at his unexpected humor, nearly toppling from her precarious seat on the stool. “Maybe he has,” she pointed out, shrugging. “Haven’t seen him in awhile, have we?”

Jon smiled at that—a handsome, disarming smile. It put her at ease to see it, to be reminded that under his coarse exterior was the kind man she’d seen in the classroom before.

“So when you aren’t sitting at bars avoiding dancing and talking,” she teased. “What do you do for fun?”

He shrugged. “I like training, exercise. I run and hike with my dog. I do a bit of reading. And I’m a fencing instructor.”

Dany snorted, inhaling a burning swig of her vodka soda and coughing to clear it. Her eyes teared from the choking sensation, but even through the blur she could see Jon’s scowl.

“Fencing?” she asked, gasping for breath. “Fencing?”

“Aye, fencing,” he answered, bristling. “What of it?”

“You’re—you’re a nerd, Jon Snow,” she announced, his obvious grumpiness only adding to her amusement. She tried to imagine it, Jon in one of those little white practice suits she’d seen in the movies, face hidden behind a mesh mask, curls stuffed under a helmet, sword-fighting like they were in some period drama. Being a history nerd herself she could appreciate the hobby, but it didn’t make the idea of the surly Jon prancing his way through fencing footwork any less hilarious.

“A ‘nerd?’ Gods, what are you, ten?” he demanded, crossing his arms.

“You’re a fencing math teacher. Face it.”

“Fencing is a noble craft, an art-form dating back centuries. You ought to know, history expert and all.”

“Still a nerd,” she grinned.

“I’m not,” he insisted, but she could see the beginnings of a smile on his lips.

“Alright, if you’re not a nerd, then prove it. A nerd wouldn’t dance with me,” she challenged playfully. “Come on, prove me wrong.”

He blinked at her, slowly uncrossing his arms.

“Fine,” he agreed, shrugging out of his jacket. He stood up and held out a hand, refusing to meet her eyes. “One song.”

Dany’s lips curled upward in a sultry grin, excitement thrumming through her. She wanted him. More than she’d thought she would, and the prospect of dancing with him had her body bursting with anxious energy. She took a final sip of her drink before setting it on the bartop next to her clutch and accepting Jon’s hand.

It was warm, warm and rough and big. He laced his fingers through hers and then turned away leading her through the press of bar patrons and out to the dancefloor.

The crowd had somewhat thinned from earlier that night, though Missandei and Grey were still going; Margaery and Sansa, too, laughing breathlessly and stumbling about. Dany didn’t really see anyone else she recognized among the dancers, though it was hard to tell in the semi-darkness.

The music was even louder here, the tall speakers abutting the crude wooden dancefloor. It was typical club fare, lots of bass, energetic beat. Ordinarily it wasn’t Dany’s type of music, but tonight she couldn’t have chosen anything better. When Jon turned to face her she saw uncertainty and nervousness etched into his features, but when she guided his hands to her hips they felt natural enough, and soon they were swaying and stepping in time with the song.

It didn’t take long for them to slip into an easy rhythm. The music pounded out louder than her own pulse in her ears, the dark of the bar casting everything in a haze of smoke and laughter. Dany was just drunk enough to be fearless and free. She didn’t even notice when she stepped out of turn, or the pain in her feet from her ill-advised stilettos. Everything blurred together into sensation and instinct.

It had been awhile, but Dany had loved dancing and clubbing with her friends back home. Even so, dancing with a man was different. She’d always seen it as a test of chemistry, rhythm and compatibility made physical. If that was true, Jon was passing the test with flying colors, holding her temptingly close one moment and spinning her out with an effortless flow in the next. Dany found herself returning the flash of his smile peeping out at her in the dark. He was good.

“I thought you couldn’t dance!”

“I never said I couldn’t,” he shouted back over the music, lifting her abruptly out of a dip, her hair whipping in the air. “I said I didn’t.”

For a heated moment they stood, breathing heavily from the dance, her face inches from his.

“I’m glad you changed your mind.”

The song ended on an instant of silence, their panting breaths suddenly deafening in her ears. Dany tried to hide her disappointment. It was over too quickly. Jon’s closeness, the grip of his hands and the dizzy excitement of moving with him on the dancefloor had only served to make her want him more. A tease. But despite his earlier “one song” declaration, when the next song filled the room with sound, he didn’t let her go.

Instead, he twirled her around in his arms, plastering her body to his and splaying his palms over her hips to hold her against him. She gasped, covering his hands with her own and relaxing into his hold. The song was slower than the first, and she writhed against Jon in time with the beat, her ass pressing at his hips.

She fell into something like a trance. All their prior hesitance melted away into a delicious euphoria as she danced shamelessly in Jon’s arms, breathing in the spice of his cologne, relishing in the heat of his palms through her dress, his breath at her ear and on her neck as they moved together. The second song blended into a third, and then a fourth, and soon Dany stopped counting. She felt wild and desirable, sweating from exertion, hair a mess and skin flushed. Jon was everywhere, all lingering touches and breathy exhales, his body moving sinuously with hers.

It felt filthy to dance with him this way, especially at a work function of all things. But Dany found it hard to care about prying eyes with Jon’s hands sliding up from her waist, the pronounced feel of what she knew to be his erection throbbing at her backside.

For months she’d done nothing more than steal a glance across the staff lounge, pass in the hall close enough to brush his shoulder. Every moment had made her ache with some unsatisfied need. To be so close now, finally, was enough to make her wet with anticipation. The palpable attraction between them, the reciprocal, fluid sync of their movement went beyond anything she’d ever expected.

Jon’s quiet reserve had intrigued her before, but she’d never dreamt it was masking this—that underneath his careful exterior he was so passionate and uninhibited. It was like her touch had flipped a switch, lit a fire, burning his mask away to reveal a wolf in a man’s clothing. Yes—a wolf, and she wanted nothing so much as to be devoured.

Dany could feel her dress riding up almost to her hips as she danced, grinding back on Jon with his leg shoved up between hers. Every touch was like a promise of what could be if only they weren’t in public, if only they were alone.

She lifted her hands to feel for him behind her, grabbing blindly for his face, her fingers raking through his short beard. His palm was hot on her throat, guiding her head back until it rested at his shoulder, angling her face to his.

All at once the music crescendoed and Dany crushed their mouths together, grateful then for the towering heels that gave her height enough to match him. The kiss was rough and frantic, charged with all the building fervor from their dance. His lips were soft but unyielding, his beard scraping roughly at her mouth as he opened his lips to kiss her deeply. She met the hot slick of his tongue with her own, tasting the faint tang of his beer, the cool of some minty gum.

Jon dropped a hand from her jaw down lower to traverse the décolletage over her dress, then lower still, scandalously low. She moaned into his open mouth as he all but groped her through the fabric. She hadn’t worn a bra with the strapless dress, leaving nothing but the thin, sequined fabric between the flesh of his palm and the aching sensitivity of her nipple.

It was getting to be too much, too intimate, and even her booze-drenched awareness knew how wildly inappropriate it was, how mortified she’d be if their colleagues noticed what was happening. But it was only when Jon pulled back, gasping, that she had the clarity of mind to act.

She turned around in Jon’s arms to face him properly, still breathless from the kiss. She stood, drinking in the sight of him. His eyes were lidded and dazed, lips wet and kiss-swollen. Her lipstick was smeared all over his face. It only made her want him more, like she’d marked him, like he was hers—no longer that untouchable-hot-guy from work but the very-fuckable-hot-guy who’d all but dry humped her on the dancefloor.

“Do you want to go somewhere?” she breathed, leaning in to speak at the shell of his ear.

“Okay.”

Dany took his hand and marched him off the dancefloor, navigating through the throng of people and back to their former places at the bar. In a daze she collected her purse and settled up her bar tab, staring at her reflection in the huge mirror that spread across the wall behind the bar. She looked strange and unfamiliar, her eyes ringed in dark, smudging makeup, hair sticking to her damp skin, cheeks flaming.

This was completely mad. She was a schoolteacher. A sensible and responsible woman. She didn’t go out to clubs picking up men, especially not men she’d have to confront in the staff lounge at work after the fact.

She was wrenched from her thoughts when Jon came up behind her. He was back in his suit jacket, looking at least a little more put-together than she did. She noted with some satisfaction that there were still faint splotches of pink coloring his face from her lipstick. His arms wound around her waist and he pressed a kiss to her shoulder before meeting her gaze in the mirror. “Ready to go, gorgeous?”

Dany’s heart thumped double-time at the possessive wrap of his embrace, the hint of mischief in his voice. How could she say no?

At her eager nod of assent Jon helped her into her coat and then guided her through the throng and out the door. When the brisk chill of the night air hit them on the sidewalk he pulled her in close, enveloping her in warmth. Dany let out a breath, nestling against his chest

“I didn’t drive here,” she murmured.

“Me neither.” Jon fished in his pocket for his phone, still shielding her between his arms as his thumbs tapped the screen rapidly, calling an Uber.

“My place or yours?” she whispered, stifling a giggle at the cliché. She could hardly believe it even now. She wasn’t one for one-night stands or going home with a guy on the first date. But she couldn’t stomach facing the silent loneliness of her cold apartment. Not tonight. And while Dany wanted to blame it on the vodka sodas, it was more than lust or loneliness that drew her to Jon. She liked him. She’d never been good at any of this, but he made it easy, natural.

“Uh—what’s your address?”

Dany spun in his arms, wriggling his phone out of his grip to type in her address. It took a few attempts, her fingers clumsy and unwieldy from the booze.

“Let me—” Jon began, noting her difficulty.

“I’ve got it,” she insisted, shrugging him off. After two more tries she finally spelled her street name correctly, confirming their ride. “Hope you like cats, Jon Snow,” she said with a grin, returning his phone to his pocket.

He smiled, nodding, but there was something off in his eyes. He looked distracted. Different. Dany opened her mouth to ask what was wrong but thought better of it when their ride arrived. The driver shot them an impatient glare and Jon dropped his arms from her sides, moving to get the door.

At Jon’s invitation Dany got in first, sliding across the back seat to make room for him beside her. When he didn’t follow she leaned over to peer up at him where he stood framed in the car doorway, a hand on the hood. He was looking down at her with an inscrutable expression that made her stomach drop.

“Be safe tonight, okay?”

“What? What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” Jon mumbled, his dark eyes shifting away.

“What do you mean? Jon, get in,” she said, hating the pleading tone that entered her voice. “Don’t do this.”

“Good night, Dany.”

He pushed away from the car, shutting the door hard and stepping back off the curb. Dany gaped at him, scooting hurriedly toward the window and fumbling with the controls to lower it, but the car pulled away before she could.

Pressing her face to the cold glass she could just make out Jon’s shrinking form. He remained on the sidewalk, watching the retreating vehicle until they were out of sight. Even then, she couldn’t help noting how handsome he looked—hair tousled in the breeze, hands jammed in the pockets of his well-tailored slacks.

Asshole, she thought bitterly.

That night the alcohol was enough to soothe her to sleep in spite of her wounded pride and infuriating lust. But the rest of her week’s holiday from classes gave her ample time to nurse a healthy rage at and loathing for Jon. It was cruel of him, teasing her that way, touching her that way, kissing her that way, only to send her home without so much as an explanation. In her darker moments she blamed herself. She should have known better, really. He couldn’t have truly wanted her. If he had, he wouldn’t have been so cold and silent at work. In her experience, if a man was interested he made it known. Loudly and often. Why should Jon be any different?

He was different, though. Jon Snow was a snob, she’d decided. A snob and a tease. She tried to console herself with the notion that she’d dodged a bullet—clearly sleeping with him would have been a mistake of epic proportions. He’d done her a favor, really. If they’d gone through with it she’d be left with nothing but regret. Right?

When classes resumed the following week Dany did her best to act as though nothing had happened. Jon must have returned to the bar after their ill-fated encounter, because no one—not even Missandei—mentioned their leaving together. All conversation in the faculty lounge focused on Oberyn’s salacious dancing and Tyrion’s over-indulgence that led to him falling asleep on one of the newly-felted pool tables at the bar.

Dany was grateful for the gossip. She wanted nothing so much as to forget that night and the tumultuous emotions that had followed it. The alcohol had helped some. As it was, she could only remember the party in pieces, flashes.

The problem was that the images in her memory, jumbled as they were, were hot. Every time she thought of dancing close with Jon, the shameless snap of her hips, the moist heat of his breath on her neck, she had to squeeze her thighs together against the tingle of recognition, of desire. Despite her lingering anger her treacherous body wanted him still, which only made it more difficult when she saw him again.

He cornered her at the coffee pot, stepping in near enough that only she could hear.

“Dany,” he began, his voice a hurried whisper. “About last week. I—”

“Save it,” she cut him off, stepping away from his closeness, from the disorienting scent of his cologne, potent with memories. “And my name is Daenerys.”

There was a blink of pain in his eyes before his expression shuttered again. He left the break room in a huff.

If Dany was honest, she was desperate to hear his explanation. The unanswered questions and wondering what she’d done wrong were enough to keep her up at night. But her pride wouldn’t allow her to show it.

Thankfully, that morning was the only time Jon attempted to broach the subject, and from that day on he’d treated Dany with nothing but the same chilly civility she’d noted in him before the party.

Eventually she’d broken down and told Missandei what had happened, and her friend had been supportive and encouraging, repeating the oft-used “he doesn’t deserve you” refrain. Dany wanted to believe it, but Jon had been the one to reject her, and while there were no outward signs of what happened between them, a peculiar tension remained—a heat that made the air between them simmer with something vacillating between hatred and hunger.

So now, a year later, all those months of confusion about that night and her growing frustration at his stony demeanor coalesced into a bone-deep dread at the prospect of a weekend away in close quarters with Jon.

He’d left in such a hurry after Principal Tyrell’s meeting that they hadn’t had the opportunity to plan, which meant that sooner or later, one of them would have to initiate contact. The thought made Dany’s stomach turn.

Three days later it had become clear that Jon was leaving it up to her. Dany had been expecting him to approach her at work, drop by her classroom, find her at lunch. Anything. Instead he seemed to be avoiding her with more than his usual determination, so that by Thursday evening she still hadn’t seen him at all.

Dany was sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine, Drogon spread out on her lap, a stack of ungraded papers guilting her from the coffee table. All her bags for the were trip packed and ready to go for the following day. She couldn’t put it off any longer. She’d have to be the one to reach out to Jon.

She clicked open her phone, her thumb hovering over her contacts with mounting anxiety, when the ding of her text tone sounded out, startling a hiss from Drogon.

She snorted with laughter as the notification lit up her screen: “New message from Pompous Dickhead.” The entire faculty directory was synced into all their contacts through the school’s email app, so Dany had always had Jon’s number in her phone. But Missandei had taken the liberty of changing his record from ‘Mr. Snow’ to the delightfully crude new moniker after Dany shared the story of their unfortunate Christmas party rendezvous. She’d never had occasion to contact him before or change it back. Maybe she never would.

After all, Missandei was a language expert. Who was Dany to question such an apt description of Jon’s character?

She opened the message with a smirk, her eyes scanning quickly over the brief text:

Pompous Dickhead: “Meet outside the back entrance tomorrow at 6. Be ready to get on the road. We’ll take your car.”

Dany shook her head, setting her glass down and thinking over how to reply. She couldn’t be the one to drive them up into the mountains. She wouldn’t. But she wasn’t about to admit fear or weakness to Jon.

“No. Let’s take yours. See you at 6.”

She sent the message with a shaky hand, dreading his response. She’d prefer not to lie, but if Jon pressed, she’d just say her car was in the shop. Anything was preferable to making herself vulnerable after the way he’d already hurt her pride.

The ellipses that signified Jon typing a response flickered into view, then disappeared. A moment’s pause and he was typing again. Dany bit her lip, anxiety prickling at her scalp. Maybe it’d be easier to just agree, to take her chances behind the wheel. At least if they wrecked she wouldn’t have to go on the stupid retreat.

But then his reply finally came.

Pompous Dickhead: “Fine.”

Rude, but at least he was consistent. Dany sighed. This was going to be a long weekend.

[whumptasticwednesday]

(Semi) Grown-Ass Man - (Peter Maximoff - X-Men: Dark Phoenix)

!!X-MEN DARK PHOENIX SPOILERS!!

Author’s Note: Hey, LividFigureSkatingLover (Ash) here! I hope you enjoyed the fic posted last week that Jimmy uploaded for me. That was actually something I’d written months ago but we felt like it would be an appropriate beginning fic. This, however, is a fresh fic that I started writing the day after Jimmy and I went to see Dark Phoenix on opening night. Needless to say, we were both disappointed with the critical lack of Peter in this movie. Like, you can’t just yeet your fan-favorite character into the sidewalk and have him carried off the jet in a stretcher without acknowledging anything! Anyways, next week will be Jimmy’s week to upload a fic, so you won’t see me for a while, but I can assure you my next fic is in the works. HINT: It’s addressing the critical lack of Dadneto in this film (although after that I think I’ll be done with the Peter fics for now.) Anyways, enjoy the fic! (This fic is also unedited so if you catch any errors, feel free to let me know!)

Word Count: 5749

It had all felt like an instant. One moment, the X-Men were emerging from their jet to bring Jean Grey home, the next, irreversible and horrific destruction. It all ended with Jean soaring into the sky and disappearing into the clouds with a distraught Scott and an angry and grief-ridden Hank on the asphalt. Charles slumped back into his chair and sighed. Nobody could have expected this. The crushed police cars and house smashed like a Popsicle stick craft project were just white noise to the heavy betrayal, anger, grief, and pain filling the atmosphere. The uncanny silence was only broken when Scott angrily shouted,"what the actual fuck are we supposed to do? Jean can't just, she didn't just, she wouldn't ha-"

"Damnit, Scott, can you shut your mouth for two seconds?!" Hank angrily seethed to the laser-eyed man. "You're not the only one standing here in the wake of Jean's unprovoked carnage. I don't think you can even begin to imagine how I feel right now... at least Jean's body isn't sticking out from a protruding wood spire"

Scott, being an impulsive young man, used every ounce of discipline in his reserve and resisted the strong urge to fire up an argument with Hank, and seconds after seeing Raven's impaled corpse, the fiery retort died on his lips, and it was instead replaced by a sudden realization as to the damage Jean had caused, emotionally and physically. The white noise of destruction was now a heavy screaming siren pounding in everyone's ears. Hank needed something to take his mind off of what had happened, losing his unrequited love due to a selfish impulse from one of his lifelong friends was too much for his mind to process at the moment. Since he couldn't do anything else, Hank did what he did best, took a calculated approach to fixing the catastrophe around him.

"We need to find Kurt and Peter. Scott, come help me... please," Hank trailed off as he turned away from Raven's lifeless body. "Charles, do something with her."

The cold and almost robotic tone from Hank was a sharp, almost eerie, contrast from the distraught tears that, only minutes ago, were streaming down his cheeks. Scott's mind, clouded by his own lovesick thoughts, followed Hank's orders on autopilot. Charles remained silent and observant as Scott and Hank trudged to the wooden remnants of Jean's childhood home in search of Kurt and Peter.

After what seemed like hours of precariously moving rubble and assorted wood pieces, Scott saw a mop of black and blue hair under a cracked 4x4.

"Hank, I think I found Kurt," Scott breathed a sigh of relief.

"Be careful, let's get all this off of him," Hank replied.

The two worked carefully and precisely until all of Kurt's body was exposed. His yellow uniform and his face were dusty and covered in grime and a small amount of blood. Hank gently tapped on the mutant teen's face as Scott hovered over his shoulder. Kurt didn't stay unresponsive for long though, and after a few of Hank's prods, he shot up off the floor with Jean's name fresh on his tongue, unaware of what had transpired after he'd been rendered unconscious.

"W-what? Jean, where's Jean? Is everyone okay?" the words fell out faster than Kurt himself could even process, and his mind hadn't quite caught up with the fact that he'd been crushed under the weight of an entire house.

"Kid, slow down. We'll explain later, okay? How do you feel? Do you know where Peter is?" Scott asked, questions firing faster than intended.

"No, I'm sorry. I can help you look for him though. Let me do something, I swear I'm fine." Kurt shot up off the ground, only to stumble into Scott's unprepared arms.

"Take it easy. Jean collapsed a house on top of you, I don't know how great you'll be functioning at the moment," Hank explained as Kurt nodded slowly with an exhausted and pained wince. "Alright, let's go find Peter."

Scott slung the lanky blue mutant's arm over his shoulder to support his weight as the trio began to search for the silver speedster. Since he moved so quickly it was hard to actually determine what Jean even did to Peter, as their confrontation lasted less than seconds to the average person's eye. The only thing Hank and Scott had seen was Peter being catapulted across the street and out of sight, so neither were all too excited to find out as to how he might be faring.

It took some time, but the three eventually stumbled upon Peter's battle-broken body lying slumped against a tree in a thick wooded area dozens of yards away from the street where Jean had wreaked havoc. Trailing his body was a coarse trail of uprooted grass and dirt, emphasizing the power and distance he'd been hurled across. Peter seemed almost as lifeless as Raven, his body heavily slumped against the tree he'd collided  with, blood streaking his X-Men uniform, face, and silver hair, along with dark dirt blotching his sweaty face, which was pulled up into a pained grimace. His signature goggles were loosely strung in his messily kept hair and one of the lenses was very visibly shattered, an ugly spider-like crack pronounced in the center of the lens.

"Oh my god, Peter!" Kurt let out a strangled cry as he laid eyes on his friend. He tried to stop the sobs as each one wracked his battered and sore body, but he couldn't. This was too much for him to bear.

As Kurt's sobs filled the forest, Hank ran his calculative eyes up and down Peter's body as his mind contemplated what would be the best course of action. He didn't want to risk worsening any external or internal injuries by jostling him in a carry to the jet, but he wasn't all too sure what help he could do with Peter out cold in the woods with no real medical assistance or tools around to help. As Scott tried to calm the ever panicked Kurt, Hank gingerly shifted Peter from his half-upright slumped position to lying flat on the ground. He ripped open the top of Peter's X-Men uniform and scanned the damage; bruises as black and blue as Kurt's hair dotted Peter's pale chest and his upper right shoulder. This wasn't going to be fun to deal with. Hank shot his eyes back to Peter's blood-stained face, hoping that tearing off his clothes would at least elicit some sort of response from the boy. Alas, nothing. As the seconds ticked by, Hank devised the one plan that would end in the least harm to all of them.

"Kurt, I know we're far away, I know you're tired, I know you're injured, but I need you to teleport us back to the jet. We can't move Peter like this, it's too risky, he's too badly hurt and I don't want to make this more painful for him than it has to be. You've gotta do this for us, okay?" Hank explained. He knew the kid's power took energy out of everyone he was teleporting, and with the damage eveyone'd sustained from the battle, it would be too dangerous to have Kurt warp multiple times, Peter wouldn't make it, and judging from his hazy eyes, Kurt didn't have enough energy for more than one teleport anyways.

Anxious scenarios began flooding Kurt's mind as his eyes filled with fear, the words he spoke dripping with self-doubt, "W-what if I can't? What if I mess it all u-up and I warp us halfway into a car and kill us all! H-hank, I can't do it."

Instead of coddling the boy like he normally would have, Hank let the dire situation speak for itself when he bluntly stated, "Kurt, I know you're scared, but Peter might die if we can't get him back to the jet. You've gotta take some faith in yourself and your powers and get us home, okay? Don't do it for me, do it for Peter. He needs you to do this for him."

It may have been the stern yet sincere tone of Hank's words, or hearing outright that Peter might die, but Kurt mustered up enough confidence to say, "alright... for Peter."

Hank shifted Peter into his lap as he joined hands with Scott and Kurt. Kurt silently prayed to God that he wouldn't kill all of his friends by pushing his ability's limits in an already weakened state, and with a last tension filled breath, the group disappeared into a dark cloud, appearing, seconds later, in the jet.

Scott felt extremely disoriented after the warp and his eyes raced around the jet before they landed on Hank's face, "shit. That felt weird."

"Indeed," Hank replied.

"I-I did it," Kurt sighed in relief as his eyelids fluttered closed and he collapsed onto the floor.

"Kurt!" Scott exclaimed.

"He's fine, just overexerted himself. He just needs to sleep for a bit and eat. This happened after his fight in Cairo too. Now hurry up and help me with Peter, he's not doing too hot," Hank explained as he set to work.

------

WOW A TIME SKIP...  At Xavier's School in the weird bunker area where they do X-Men stuff...

"He's still not up. You're gonna have to do something, Hank. He's gonna start healing and I don't think that his shoulder is gonna do it properly with the way it looks right now," Scott stated as he stared blankly at Peter's bloody and bruised body on the gurney.

Hank ran his fingers through his hair as he tossed his glasses onto the lab table. He didn't wanna set the joint without Peter being conscious, for fear he'd spring awake and cause himself even more harm if he took an instantaneous flight response. But, if he waited too long, Peter's enhanced healing would work against his favor and heal the crucial joint in the wrong way. He had to make a decision, and although it posed risks, it was better than Peter sustaining lasting joint damage.

Hank was just about to grab the limb to jerk it back into place when Peter shot up from the gurney with a blood-curdling scream of pure agony. Peter's eyes were hazy, confused, and full of pain as they raced around in search of what was going on and why everything hurt so bad. His eyes eventually met Hank's as he collapsed back onto the gurney, heaving heavy pained breaths into his cut and bruised chest.

"Hank, w-whass happenin, wha happened to me? E-everrythin's blurry and hurts," Peter slurred as tears unwillingly escaped the corners of his eyes. Throbbing, pulsing pain coursed through Peter's seemingly small frame as he started to unwillingly cry out of confusion and agonizing pain.

"Peter, you're at the X-Men base under the school. Jean threw you across the street with her powers and you hit a tree. You are safe and you're gonna be okay. I'm gonna help you, okay?" Hank said slowly to the shaken boy. Peter only gave a tiny pained nod as he bit his lip to try and stifle his crying.

"Can't we give him anything to numb the pain, like anesthesia or even ibuprofen? Setting the shoulder is gonna be excruciating for him," Scott asked, just wanting to lessen the agony for Peter.

"That's the thing, though. His fast healing and super speed are paired with an extremely quick metabolism. Anything we could give him in a normal person's dosage, he would burn right through."

"Can't we just give him a higher dosage?"

"If you wanna risk him overdosing, then sure."

Scott cast sympathetic eyes down onto Peter's terrified face, and although hidden by the signature ruby-lensed glasses, were full of sorrow as he fully realized what Jean had done. He felt nothing but pity for the pure fear and pain the boy was feeling. Peter's mind was racing back to when they had to set his broken leg and he didn't want to go through that again. He felt pathetic, a (semi)grown-ass man crying because he had to get a limb set. His sarcastic and dry-humored subconscious internally retorted: grow a pair!

"I'm sorry, Peter. We're gonna have to do this now. Bite this," Hank said as he dangled a rag above Peter's now bleeding lips. Peter grit his teeth and graciously took the cloth as the only thing to provide a semblance of comfort to the undoubted pain he was about to experience. "Alright, Scott, I need you to hold him down in case this goes South..."

Scott nodded in affirmation as he grabbed onto Peter's other arm and hovered above his already pretty immobile body while Hank took one more tentative glance over the silver-haired boy before locking eyes with Scott and clutching Peter's bicep in one hand and his shoulder blade with his other.

"Do you want me to count down?" Hank asked, knowing full well he would count to 3 but snap on 2. Peter nodded as he scrunched up his face with terrified anticipation, a visible layer of shining sweat collecting on his features. "Okay, one, tw-"

The last sound of 'two' was cut off by the cracking of a limb and Peter's howl and wailing cries of pure agony as he thrashed about violently on the gurney as Scott tried his best to gently restrain him without causing any more pain. Fat and ugly tears were freely streaming down Peter's face as the crippling pain in his shoulder coursed through his body and started to dull into an acute ache resonating from the base of his neck all the way down his bicep. His vision was blurred not only by his salty tears but by the waves of pain and adrenaline attempting to cancel each other out like an ocean current crashing into a reef bay. It was all a bit too much for Peter to handle. He went to curl in on himself, a primal instinct to go to the fetal position was shooting to his mind, yet when he tried, every dulled injury in his torso screamed back an affirmative and defiant: no!

Hank had sent Scott to get water bottles when he heard Peter's defeated and miserable whimper, which sent his own head whipping around to face the boy using his left arm to desperately clutch at his raw and tender torso, which was covered in dirt filled cuts and bruises that were attempting to heal over. Like any mutant power, there was a limit, and it was clear that Peter's advanced healing was taking on way more than it was able to handle, so his body's scattered attempts to heal his numerous external and internal injuries weren't doing him any favors besides exhausting him of what little energy he had.

"I'm sorry, Peter, I know you're in a lot of pain right now but I can't do anything for you but stitch up your major cuts and scan you for internal injuries. You know you can't have the regular pain medication," Hank stated, apprehension seeping into his every word as he ran his fingers through Peter's messy and unkempt hair that was now rifled with blood and sweat in an attempt to soothe the boy.

"I-I can't it... my c-chest," Peter stumbled through his attempted sentence, taking hasty and pinched wheezes instead of true breaths between his words. He was past humiliation at this point, any semblance of his normally sarcastic and fun-loving self was covered up by his embarrassment and indescribable pulsating torment wracking his body. Here he was, crying like a toddler while Hank of all people was petting his scalp, what an uncanny situation.

Scott returned moments later with extra towels and an armful of water bottles nestled hastily in his grasp. Much to Peter's dismay, Hank was terrified that Peter might choke if he stayed laying down, so his stitches and internal scan were going to be done upright. The simple shift in the gurney's position further aggravated the mysterious angry irritation in Peter's chest and sent him into a series of dry and forceful coughs, each one racking his exhausted body harder than the last. Peter never thought in a million years that the crack of the plastic seal on a water bottle would be so gratifying, yet here he was, face melting at the opportunity to soothe his parched esophagus and hopefully replenish at least some of his lost energy. Scott took to cleaning out Peter's minor injuries, starting the stitches, and helping him drink, while Hank was running a full body diagnostic on the silver-haired mutant. Peter's mind had slipped into a half-conscious yet fully-feeling feverish state where he wasn't really functioning, yet he knew what was happening. It took every ounce of his strength not to just pass out and sleep. He felt the tense prick of the needle every time Scott went back to further close up a gaping wound and he felt the ever present stare of Hank as he started running all his scans. The only time Peter came out of this hazy half-awake state was to drink that delightful and soothing water. Compared to every other sensory input, the water felt like heaven in the fiery depths of hell. The soothing liquid ran down his arid windpipe and seemed to address his every need, until it hit his stomach and he was met with a discomforted static strain in his abdomen. It was uncomfortable, sure, but didn't seem like it needed to be addressed, so Peter plastered on his bravest face (still kind of failing though) as he lightly furrowed his brow and drew his knees up closer to his chest, despite the protest of his aching (and presumably broken) ribs. Scott noticed, as did Hank, but neither thought too much of it as they continued with their busy work. Again, none of them were prepared as to what would happen next.

Fifteen minutes later, just as the diagnostic's results were finishing up, Peter's slight discomfort had warped into a stabbing and indescribable pain as he was wracked with waves of thick and heavy nausea. Scott was almost done with tying off the last gash on Peter's injured arm when he jerked violently to the side and began projectile vomiting, the only thing arising from Peter's forceful heaving being sticky yellow bile and an alarming mix of blood. Each unproductive heave was followed up by another wave of sickening nausea, which was followed up by another (usually successful) upchuck of fluids. Peter was running out of breath, strength, and stomach contents to empty as he grasped desperately to Scott's arm and his own horribly aggravated abdomen.

"Oh, Peter! Oh my god! Hank, what do I do?!" Scott yelled  frantically as he reached to hold back Peter's long and uncontrolled hair as the latter's body faltered over into another bout of wheezy heaving. Scott, however, was not expecting to have his hand be met with an alarming heat that seemingly radiated off of Peter's forehead. He touched his hands around the rest of Peter's face and his neck during a calm period of the heaving and Hank took the opportunity to hastily place a trashcan between Peter's legs to lessen the contortion his body had to do in order to avoid vomiting his own bodily fluids onto himself. "He's got a bad fever. Is this from th-"

"It's because his body's working too hard to handle everything happening to it," Hank cut him off  "It doesn't know where or when to start or stop and it's confused. He needs fluids to replenish his energy, especially after throwing up every ounce of water you just gave him. We're probably going to have to administer an IV."

The large technologically advanced screen in front of him blinked and beeped, signifying that the diagnostic was finished. At a speed that only Peter could best (at full health), Hank pulled up the imaging and was met with two giant glaring orange marks on an overall blue scan; those being 3 fractured ribs and some sort of internal injury on Peter's stomach lining. Oh my god, Hank thought to himself before nearly shouting to Scott, "He's internally bleeding in his stomach, that's why he vomited. That's why there's so much blood... " Hank took a second to calculate what to do. "We need him hooked up to an IV, NOW. Go get me the supplies."

Scott didn't even nod as he scrambled to his feet and dashed off to find what Hank needed. Peter himself was almost completely unconscious at this point, the high fever , empty reserves of strength, and overwhelming pain from every inch of his body were the perfect trio of unbearable feelings were one stroke away from completely pulling him under a fitful blanket of unconsciousness. He was just about to pass the brink and into the darkness when he felt the abrupt patting of Hank dabbing a soaked rag across his face and the dripping of cool water down his neck. The next thing he felt was the forceful jab in his arm and the strange dull feeling of the unknown slowly overtaking him. His spotted vision gave way to darkness as everything faded away.

"Peter? Damnit, he passed out. It's fine, we just need to keep him stable. I don't know how sustainable this is going to be for him. His body is gonna churn through this fluid faster than a toddler sips a juice box, but it's better than nothing," Hank sighed. And for the first time since Peter had awoken, the room filled with an unsettling complacent silence, the only other thing occupying the space being the exhausted pants from Hank and Scott, accompanied by Peter's tight and wheezy breathing.

------

WOW, ANOTHER TIME SKIP... At relatively the same location we were earlier, but like, a day later...

"Ughh..." Peter groaned. Unlike the previous day's events, though, was brought out less by discomfort, and more from boredom. He fidgeted anxiously with a loose thread on his pants while Hank swapped out his IV for what seemed like the thousandth time between the last 24 hours. "When can I get up and you know" Peter gestured abruptly with his hands "go."

"Give it a few more days, Peter. I know your mind is saying that it wants to get up and run 5 laps around the earth, but your body isn't ready for it. You're still running a temperature, your arm isn't going to be in full shape for a while, you might need physical therapy, the ligaments were pretty screwed up, and I don't want you aggravating your ribs or your stomach just yet," Hank insisted as Peter rolled his eyes. The speedster, despite knowing he wasn't nearly ready to be up and flying across rooms at the speed of sound, wanted to be productive. Part of his motivations for being up and at it was also the fact that he wished to hide his immense shame from the relented sob-fest that was yesterday evening by (like how Peter dealt with most of his problems) running until he couldn't feel his legs or until he couldn't give a damn and cared about nothing except the blurred scenery around him. However, it was hard to do either of those things when you were confined to a gurney in a bunker with an IV drip tethered to one arm and a sling on another.

As Hank left the room,  Peter was met by yet another sickening silence, this time, the only thing filling the room was his growing sense of wanting to be productive and just run, but alas, he couldn't. Having just slept for a sizable amount of the day, Peter was just itching for some entertainment, but being stuck in an empty room with no such objects to scratch that itch, he was growing irritable.

Little did the silver-haired mutant know that another certain lanky teleporting teen was standing right outside the door to his room in the medical bay, working up the courage to rebel against Hank's firm: "no, he needs to sleep" statement that Kurt was met with when he asked if he could go and visit his friend. Not being one to break many rules, Kurt was apprehensive about entering, hence his (kind of silly) minor internal dilemma. Mustering up enough courage, Kurt warped inside the room, where he was met with a "Jesus Christ!" from Peter. Kurt, startled by the shout, stumbled backwards and fell. From his position on the ground, he let out a shy,"hi, Peter. How are you feeling?"

"God, dude, you scared the shit out of me. Give a man a warning before you teleport into his private room where he's being held captive against his will next time!" Peter answered, sarcasm dripping in every syllable.

Kurt, being known to take nearly everything extremely literally, responded,"Has Hank been corrupted!? What has he done to you Peter? Do I need to tell the professor that Hank's gone mad, or is it all one big conspiracy?!"

"Whoa there, chill. As much as I'd like the added spice in life that a Hank-and-Charles-gone-mental plot would provide, I think it's safe to say that they're pretty sane... for now."

"Alrighty then. Well, I've come against Hank's wishes to keep you company, what do you want to do?"

"Hank wants me to suffer and die alone? What a traitor!" Peter grabbed at his chest, feigning heartbreak, wincing as his attempt at humor irritated his cracked ribs.

"I doubt that is true. I believe that the correct term to describe your behavior would be a drama queen."

"You'd be correct, buckaroo. Would you mind zipping to my room and grabbing my Walkman and my GameBoy?"

"Um, no problem," Kurt replied as he disappeared in a dark cloud.

Mere moments later, he reappeared with the music player and the gaming device. Peter eagerly reached out for both devices, acting like a hyperactive toddler who'd just been offered a lollipop. Although, the hyperactive toddler description wasn't too far off from Peter's personality normally. The plastic shells of both items were like comfort food and finally brought some form of distraction besides twiddling his thumbs for hours on ends or watching that 'maybe-speck-of-dust-maybe-spider' dance along the bright walls. He switched on his music and popped in an earbud, offering the other to a tentative looking Kurt.

"Dude, you've gotta try this. Please don't tell me Scott's scared you off from American music with his pansy-ass music," Peter insisted as he spun the earbud with his unslinged hand.

"It's not that... it's just, your music, in particular, has, on several occasions, shaken the entire school," Kurt replied as he took the listening device.

"It's called a 'jam session', Kurt," Peter explained as he used very visible air quotes to emphasize his point.

"Alright, if you insist," Kurt sighed as the guitar rifs and crashing of drums filled his pointed ears. He wasn't the hugest fan of all of Peter's loud rock or the deep heavy beats of Scott's rap, but he sat there regardless to try and enjoy a quiet moment with his friend. Moments like these were becoming harder and harder to come by as their world seemed to get even more hectic. The mutants had assumed that the battle in Cairo would have been the worst of it, it sure felt like it at the time, but now they were facing a new evil, one of their friends. Kurt really wanted to talk to Peter about it, maybe even break the news that Raven died, but he felt too timid, and compared to Peter's bold and audacious personality, he felt like nothing. Peter stopped his headbanging for a moment, and that sliver of time was long enough to notice the semi-uncharacteristic silence from the shy yet friendly Kurt, who was awkwardly staring at Peter's feet, caught in an apparent distracted trance, all headed by the semi-somber and contemplative look plastered on his face. Peter clicked the pause and the cassette stopped rolling. This seemed to snap Kurt out of his trance, and the new silence was quickly filled by Peter.

"You got a toe fetish or something? I mean, I know I'm incredibly sexy, but I didn't know you were into that, Kurt. Jeez!" he teased. Kurt just drew his knees up to his chest and shrunk up his neck to try and hide; whether he was hiding from embarrassment of having a strange sexual trigger or something else on his mind was completely beyond Peter's thoughts.

"You never answered my question..."

"What question?"

"How are you feeling. When we went to try and stop Jean, she crushed me with her house, and I couldn't help at all. I felt useless. It... sucked. And then, Scott and Hank dug me out of the rubble and we went to find you. You looked..." Kurt started choking on his own words, scared he'd start crying. Peter felt a strong urge to make another joke about his 'very undoubtedly sexy' body to finish the sentence, but he wanted to hear him finish. He knew Kurt was going somewhere serious when the German boy used the word: sucked, it didn't seem like something in his vocabulary, much less like a word he'd willingly use unless he really felt like he needed to. "I saw you there, laying on the ground, covered in dirt, bleeding everywhere, with this horrible, agonized expression on your face, just... stuck there. I'm so used to you smirking, laughing, or doing that weird thing where you raise your eyebrows up and down after you are sarcastic or make a joke, and to see you like that, still and sad, I just cried. I was terrified that you were already dead. I've never seen you sit still on your own for more than 5 minutes. Even after the fight in Cairo when you had your entire leg broken and in a cast on crutches, you were still smiling, animated as ever. I don't know how you do it, Peter... you're always so happy. I mean, I try, but I can't help but be..."

"Scared?"

"Yeah." For a few moments, the room was silent, seemingly becoming a common theme, and yet again, it did not last long.

"Hahaha..."

"Peter, are you... laughing?"

"You've got me all wrong, Kurt. I may be an impatient wiseass, but don't get me wrong, I've got plenty of moments in my backlog where I felt like I was gonna piss myself. You were talking about after the Cairo fight?" Kurt nodded "Well, during that fight, I went in, guns a blazin', ready to beat the shit out of this weird edgy blue raisin lookin' guy, yet a few seconds later, I'm getting my arm twisted way further than it's supposed to and my leg getting completely fucked up. In that moment, I was sure I was going to die. Had it not been for Raven and Erik, I probably would have."

Kurt gnawed his bottom lip and curled further in on himself at the mention of Raven. Peter didn't know. He doubted Hank would have brought up his resented heartbreak to the seemingly immature speedster. He wasn't sure if he wanted to tell him; Would the timing be appropriate? Would he be able to handle the weight of the loss? Peter'd even said that Raven had been a massive inspiration to him when he was younger on the jet where they had their first real conversation. It'd be hard to swallow the pill that one of your friends had been possessed and just murdered your childhood hero while recovering from blunt trauma. It all made Kurt's head spin and ultimately, he decided against it.

"Sorry to get all deep and edgy on ya. I didn't want you waltzing around screeching about my fearlessness or something, I don't know." Peter shrugged as best as he could before whipping out his GameBoy and waving it in Kurt's face.

"Umm, I don't understand what this is. It looks like a plastic box. Does this one also play music?"

"Naw, this is one of those cool new things from Japan. It's a handheld gaming device."

"Oh. So it's like the large arcade machines... but smaller?"

"Yeah, it's pretty bangin'. I've got Super Mario Land in the slot now, wanna try?"

"Yes!" Kurt took the device from Peter and was about to dive in when he tentatively asked "Umm, Peter? What is the objective?"

"You get the tiny man with the hat from the left to the right and eventually you'll find a lady and win. I guess even minuscule pixelated dudes need a babe," Peter joked. However, Kurt was already encapsulated in the tiny, unlit screen, a little beep going off every time he made the character jump. Peter watched with amusement as he resumed his mixtape with one earbud in, the other listening to the whirring air conditioner and the GameBoy's clacking buttons.

Content with his friend's newfound excitement and ease of mind, Peter felt his eyelids growing heavy and his breaths growing slower and deeper without any conscious feeling of pain with the intake of oxygen. And finally, without any thoughts of his dislocated shoulder, unsolved father-related problems, or his red-haired, newly space-fart-possessed, destruction causing friend, he drifted off to sleep with a content, comfortable, and very quicksilver-y smirk plastered on his face

[theanoninyouraskblog]

Well, well, well.

@erasermic-aus​

Looks like henry and windy are at it again. Lets give them hell shall we.

Mmm look at that delicious hint. Alright you know the drill lets look at obvious stuff first. 

1: We’ve got a recording microphone. Specifically based on the shape it looks like we either have a condenser mic (specifically a large condenser mic) or a Ribbon microphone. Knowing what we do about Present Mic canonically (He has a radio show) we can assume this Mic also has a radio show (or a vlog, we’ll get to that later) which means he’s probably using a Ribbon Microphone given that they’re said to have the most natural sound and are usually used for recording human voices. 

But we can take this further. 

Hizashi’s Microphone is a mounted mic on stand... obviously (they help with audio quality). And he appears to have a pop filter on the front (basically it makes audio not sound like shit or in the words of an expert: “One of the simplest recording gadgets is the humble pop filter... positioned between the vocalist and your microphone to block plosives – those percussive P and B sounds that cause annoying low frequency bumps.”- a random fucking website, I did this research myself, I’m not sighting it if I don't have to.)

2: Red eyes. Now Hizashi canonically in the Bnha comics has read eyes, it was changed for the show... for atheistic reasons I guess? This isn’t some measly one off, because Windy and Henry aren’t sloppy. Lets take a look at what versions of Mic have green eyes. The mad hatter. Waiter Hizashi. That's it... there aren't that many full color pictures of hizashi with his eyes colored/open. 

But lets look at who has red eyes. God’s Abomination, specifically when it’s villain mic and hero eraser. (there's no fully colored version the other way round so I’m just sort of assuming his eyes are green when it’s hero hizashi and villain eraser, would make my job soooo much easier being able to draw that conclusion) BUT NOPE I can’t make that clear decisive cut of red means evil, because guess what... HERO MIC HAS RED EYES IN SCREECH’S AU.

But you know what we do know. 

Mic isn’t a hero. Henry told us as much. 

Odd emphasis on not there... implies he’s a villain. But we wont rule out civilian yet.

Now we get to talk about this:

Firstly, that one eye visible one eye not is a fucking trope in the art world. 

Want to know why?

Nah, I’m joking it’s been around a lot longer than him. But the glasses glare and the one eye is a very common theme. Don’t believe me?

That hiding one or both eyes on dangerous characters thing? Also a fucking trope. 

Want a list of popular anime character with only one eye showing??? I have one!! https://www.ranker.com/list/best-anime-characters-with-one-eye-showing/ranker-anime Want a whole fucking page about it? https://www.animecharactersdatabase.com/tags.php?id=1085 Here's the data base!!!

Want videogame examples? Undyne (undertale), Sans (undertale), Garry (Ib)! The list goes on!

And doing something with a character’s eyes is always a trope! Character got possessed??? Guess what you can change the eyes to clue your audience in! You’re character just went fucking feral? SLITTED PUPILS ARE THE WAY MY DUDE. Aizawa Shouta just activated his quirk? Zoom in on them eyes, change color and do a weird color fracture. 

Super powerful character has eyes flash? Totally normal, robot character’s eyes change color when scanning? One eye changes color?

Heterochromia is also super common. 

This implies that Hizashi is dangerous, since it’s not happening before a fight as far as I can tell, it just implies he’s a dangerous man and not to be messed with. 

Also remember how I mentioned vlogging? There is the off chance Hizashi is blogging and that’s why his attention isn't on his microphone. Or he could be looking at photos,  or something... maybe a kidnapped and tied up Aizawa... who knows. 

3: Now lets look at that dialog. 

“He was amazing!” We can infer that the he in this situation is probably Aizawa... though it could technically be anyone. But we’re going to stick with Aizawa. 

He was amazing? Well sounds a bit like Hizashi talking about Hero Aizawa, having seen Aizawa on patrol or even having fought him. One this is for sure, this is probably an obsessive mic. The sort that fixates on Aizawa or the like. Seems to me like a villain obsessing over a hero. Now, subtler details. 

1: Lets take a look at this background. That’s glass right there which means this isn't Hizashi’s house, this is a recording studio. And Hizashi is either the host or is being interviewed, and we can rule that out due to the fact his feet are up and it’s fucking rude to do that if your being interviewed. 

Now this could also be a police interrogation room, but the chair lends to it not being so, as does his posture and the mic itself. No this is a recording studio which means Mic defiantly has his own show.

Not only that, he’s a public figure. And probably a villain!

2: Hand guestures are something distinctly Hizashi. As someone who speaks with their hands the same way he does, expressing with hands isn’t just a thing for other people, you move your hands by yourself, reminding yourself to put on socks with motions, etc. But that, that's an odly specific position. 

Now talking with your hands is a common phenomena, books have been written about it, it allegedly conveys strong leadership and the like... however it’s also a trait sociopaths and psychopath are known to mimic in order to endear people to them. Now let me put up a sociopath/psycopath checklist (The tests are very similar and I didnt feel like doing both) and lets look at Present Mic as a character.

GLIB and SUPERFICIAL CHARM — The tendency to be smooth, engaging, charming, slick, and verbally facile. Psychopathic charm is not in the least shy, self-conscious, or afraid to say anything.  A psychopath never gets tongue-tied. They have freed themselves from the social conventions about taking turns in talking, for example. ✓ Hey, look Charm? Never gets tongue tied... hmmm

GRANDIOSE SELF-WORTH — A grossly inflated view of one’s abilities and self-worth, self-assured, opinionated, cocky, a braggart. Psychopaths are arrogant people who believe they are superior human beings. ✓ This one is a little harder to check off, because he’s not nearly as self centered, but cocky? yeah... yep, so he gets half a point here.

NEED FOR STIMULATION or PRONENESS TO BOREDOM — An excessive need for novel, thrilling, and exciting stimulation; taking chances and doing things that are risky. Psychopaths often have low self-discipline in carrying tasks through to completion because they get bored easily. They fail to work at the same job for any length of time, for example, or to finish tasks that they consider dull or routine. ✓ I dunno if you’ve met Hizashi, but this fits in rather well.

PATHOLOGICAL LYING — Can be moderate or high; in moderate form, they will be shrewd, crafty, cunning, sly, and clever; in extreme form, they will be deceptive, deceitful, underhanded, unscrupulous, manipulative, and dishonest. ✓ If he’s a villain he checks this easily. Especially if he’s a public figure AND a villain. 

CONNING AND MANIPULATIVENESS — The use of deceit and deception to cheat, con, or defraud others for personal gain; distinguished from Item #4 in the degree to which exploitation and callous ruthlessness is present, as reflected in a lack of concern for the feelings and suffering of one’s victims. ✓ See above

LACK OF REMORSE OR GUILT — A lack of feelings or concern for the losses, pain, and suffering of victims; a tendency to be unconcerned, dispassionate, cold-hearted, and non-empathic. This item is usually demonstrated by a disdain for one’s victims. Ehhh… I really need to see more of this version of Hizashi to determine that. 

SHALLOW AFFECT — Emotional poverty or a limited range or depth of feelings; interpersonal coldness in spite of signs of open See above.

CALLOUSNESS and LACK OF EMPATHY — A lack of feelings toward people in general; cold, contemptuous, inconsiderate, and tactless. Once again see above

PARASITIC LIFESTYLE — An intentional, manipulative, selfish, and exploitative financial dependence on others as reflected in a lack of motivation, low self-discipline, and inability to begin or complete responsibilities. Nope.

POOR BEHAVIORAL CONTROLS — Expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper; acting hastily. ✓ Acting hastily? Yep.

PROMISCUOUS SEXUAL BEHAVIOR — A variety of brief, superficial relations, numerous affairs, and an indiscriminate selection of sexual partners; the maintenance of several relationships at the same time; a history of attempts to sexually coerce others into sexual activity or taking great pride at discussing sexual exploits or conquests. Cannonically this would make sense but we wont check it.

EARLY BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS — A variety of behaviors prior to age 13, including lying, theft, cheating, vandalism, bullying, sexual activity, fire-setting, glue-sniffing, alcohol use, and running away from home. Dunno yet.

LACK OF REALISTIC, LONG-TERM GOALS — An inability or persistent failure to develop and execute long-term plans and goals; a nomadic existence, aimless, lacking direction in life. This man wanted to be a radio host. That's not a fucking stable job Hizashi. This is poor planning. ✓

IMPULSIVITY — The occurrence of behaviors that are unpremeditated and lack reflection or planning; inability to resist temptation, frustrations, and urges; a lack of deliberation without considering the consequences; foolhardy, rash, unpredictable, erratic, and reckless. ✓ No duh

IRRESPONSIBILITY — Repeated failure to fulfill or honor obligations and commitments; such as not paying bills, defaulting on loans, performing sloppy work, being absent or late to work, failing to honor contractual agreements. ✓ if He’s a fucking villain.

FAILURE TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR OWN ACTIONS — A failure to accept responsibility for one’s actions reflected in low conscientiousness, an absence of dutifulness, antagonistic manipulation, denial of responsibility, and an effort to manipulate others through this denial. ✓ if He’s a fucking villain.

MANY SHORT-TERM MARITAL RELATIONSHIPS — A lack of commitment to a long-term relationship reflected in inconsistent, undependable, and unreliable commitments in life, including marital. Nope

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY — Behavior problems between the ages of 13-18; mostly behaviors that are crimes or clearly involve aspects of antagonism, exploitation, aggression, manipulation, or a callous, ruthless tough-mindedness. Dunno yet

REVOCATION OF CONDITION RELEASE — A revocation of probation or other conditional releases due to technical violations, such as carelessness, low deliberation, or failing to appear. Dunno yet

CRIMINAL VERSATILITY — A diversity of types of criminal offenses, regardless if the person has been arrested or convicted for them; taking great pride at getting away with crimes. …..✓

Let me spell this out for you, Hizashi is displaying an oddly exaggerated handmotion, even for the most exuberant of hand talkers. (Generaly talking with your hands never gets outside of a box, here I’ve drawn the box on mic for you.)

The larger box is where most people talk and people why are shy or have been bullied/are self conscious of their hands talk in the smaller box. 

He as a character ticks of most of a psychopathic checklist and if he is indeed a psychopath he could have learned that hand motion endear people to you. Now I’m not saying he is a psychopath, most people tick off at least 4 of those boxes, I’m just saying it’s possible. 

3 yep that eye is still confusing me, he defiantly seems like he’s looking at something and the more I look at that smug expression the more I think it’s Aizawa tied up and gagged in a chair with his own capture weapon glaring at him.

4: That's a nice chair. That's a nice chair. Not interrogation I guess. But something about that chair irks me. 

Alright nitpicky now. 

Posture:

That's not fucking relaxed posture. That’s posturing to give of the air of being relaxed. Mic may have been relaxed when he crossed his legs but those arms are not relaxed. Look at the stiff angles. That’s a man who’s up to something. 

And lastly, no, no I could not figure out what kind of shoes Mic is wearing, and I don't think it’s relevant.

[e350tb]

Steven Universe: Marooned Together - Chapter Thirty-Four

(thanks as always to @real-fakedoors for proofreading)

Whatever one might say about the general competence of the Human Resistance, they were at least capable of barricading a street.

The main street from the museum to the docks, never that wide to begin with, had been locked down into chokepoints and defensive walls made of scrap and wood. At the end of the street, just before the dockyard itself, the Resistance had set up a machine gun post - it’s position allowed it to practically dominate the entire avenue.

As a result, when Stevonnie and their friends emerged onto the road, they were immediately met by withering gun and laser fire. The fusion ducked down, scampering behind a dumpster.

Slowly, they raised their shield up - it was immediately met by a burst of machine gun fire.

“Okay,” they said, “Not gonna be easy…”

“Argh!”

Peedee slammed into the dumpster next to them, clutching his arm. Stevonnie winced and fought their gag reflex - a bullet had gone into his left arm, and the wound now oozed blood. Peedee seemed almost not to notice - he was tugging on the bottom of his shirt with his right hand.

“Peedee, are you…”

There was a loud rip as Peedee tore off part of his shirt, handing the fragment to Stevonnie.

“Tie this ‘round my arm,” he said, “It’s gonna have to be a bandage for now.”

“Peedee, you can’t…”

“They have Jeff,” reminded Peedee, “So yes, I can.”

Stevonnie nodded, taking the rag and beginning to wrap it around Peedee’s arm.

There was a dull clang as Blue brought the crowbar down on the soldier’s helmet. He didn’t cry out or moan, but fell down like a puppet with its strings cut.

Blue stared down at the unconscious man, a strange sense of exhilaration running through her. Pearls did not fight, especially not against authority figures, and yet here she was, resisting them, standing up for herself. It was terrifying. It was obscene.

It was liberating. It was thrilling.

“Mike? What was that noise?”

She heard the footsteps of the other soldier as she returned to the apartment basement. She held the crowbar tighter - just one more. She could do this. Briskly, she slipped behind the doorframe.

The soldier walked in, glancing down at her fallen comrade.

“Mike? The fuck is-”

CLANG.

She fell face first to the ground.

For a few moments, Blue stood there, taking stock of her situation. The terror was giving way, submerged by this strange sense of freedom. If her Diamond could see her now.

No. Not her Diamond. Not anymore.

She knelt down, picking up the soldier’s weapon. It was a short ‘firearm’ as the humans called it - mostly metal, with a big drum sticking out the bottom. An inscription was written on the side - ‘Thompson Machine Carbine.’ She wondered if she should use it.

“Mike? Lauren?”

A voice echoed from outside the apartment.

Yes, Blue thought - it might be worth using.

Captain Franks was marched out onto the dockyard, an eerie sort of finality ringing in the air. Gunfire, shouts, mechanisms moving and destroying - he could hear it all ring out in the distance, dulled beneath his roaring pulse. It kept time with his boots, a metronome of cacophonous pace, like a runner sprinting the last leg of a race with the knowledge the journey was almost over.

His feet fell in sharp steps, disciplined like a soldier.

It was fitting, he supposed, that he would be disciplined like a soldier at the very end, too. He took some pride in it - he knew nobody watching had any respect for him anymore, but he could at least be respectable to himself.

Those human denizens of New Earth that hadn’t joined the ‘renegades’ fighting just a block away had been forced to attend the solemn occasion - the executions of two of the ‘arch-traitors of New Earth.’

There was no applause, no booing, nothing. Those who supported the Human Resistance regarded the sight with quiet approval - those who didn’t turned their faces away, unable to make a sound. The sound of the Captain’s footsteps on the concrete floor was eerie, ethereal, silent but deafening.

Commander Lewis walked behind, flanked by two others, her face set in grim satisfaction as they reached the makeshift stake - really a lamppost. Quietly, her underlings set about tying Franks to the post, while four troopers marched out in front of him, rifles in their arms.

“Captain Lewis?”

Lewis turned. The officer on the left was taking his hand off his earpiece.

“Pro-Gem elements are advancing this way,” he said, “We’ve got them locked down on the main street.”

“Keep them there,” replied Lewis.

She pursed her lips.

“Bring out Fryman,” she added, “We’ll do both at once.”

“You don’t think our men can hold them?” asked the officer.

Lewis shot him a meaningful look.

“Yes ma’am,” he said hurriedly, “Of course, ma’am. Bringing him up now, ma’am.”

He hurried away. Lewis frowned after him, arms crossed.

Perhaps it was wrong to lack faith in her soldiers, her loyal underlings. But as an officer, she’d learned the lessons of experience - and sometimes, that meant showing a little discretion.

Another pillar of dirty water shot high into the air, raining down on the troopers below. Lapis summoned forth another mighty, liquescent fist, ready to slam into the machine gun post - she frowned as it came out much smaller than expected, serving only to drench the crew, not knock them out.

“Come on,” she growled, “Where’s the rest of it?!”

“I think you used most of the sewer water on the museum goons,” replied Jenny, huddled under a crate that had been pushed into the street, “Can’t you gather that gunk up?”

“I could, but it takes time,” replied Lapis, “How long do we-”

There was a long burst of fire - not a ratatatat, but a long ripping sound that made Lapis wince. Across the street, she saw Stevonnie behind a wooden barricade that was barely tall enough for them to crouch behind. The gun fired again, and bullets bounced off the wooden surface - they winced, pushing their shield up to protect their head.

“Stevonnie!”

Lapis bolted across the road. The rip came again, and she heard the cracks of bullets shooting past - crack! Whip! Crack! She dove down next to Stevonnie, huddling behind the wooden panelling.

“Lapis, what’re you doing?” demanded Stevonnie.

“I-I don’t know, you needed help!” replied Lapis.

“You could’ve been poofed!”

“I…”

Lapis shook her head, pushing herself further down to avoid the Resistance’s fire.

“I can’t leave you to get hurt,” she said, “Not again. We do this together, Stevonnie.”

“Lapis…”

“When I said I loved you,” continued Lapis, “I… I meant it! And maybe that makes things different, and maybe this is dumb, but I… I want to be with you, Stevonnie! Because… because…”

Stevonnie nodded, taking her hands.

“...because your my partner,” they said.

“Yeah,” replied Lapis, “And I love you.”

There was a momentary silence, save of course for the sound of battle. Eventually, however, Stevonnie’s face twisted into a grin.

“Lapis,” they said, “Do you trust me?”

Lapis glanced down at Stevonnie’s gem, jaw dropping slightly as she saw it begin to glow. Was this… did they… should she…

Lapis looked back up and nodded determinedly.

“Let’s do it.”

Even for a Lapis Lazuli, gathering moisture from the ground can be time consuming. It’s not hard, not even slightly, but separating water molecules from dirt can be a long job. So it was therefore concerning to the Human Resistance when all of that dampness from Lapis’ first attack simply lifted into the air - or it would have been, had all eyes not been drawn to a far flashier sight.

An amorphous blob of light, swirling and warping beautifully, lifted up from behind one of the barricades. All fire ceased - Jenny, Buck and Peedee gazed up in awe, the Resistance in shock, and Garnet? Garnet was beaming.

The form that emerged was about twice as tall as Stevonnie, with light purple skin, strong, thick arms and legs. They wore a sleeveless high-collared jacket - purple with a thick pale yellow line under the collar and a purple ribbon behind. They had a black belt, and a lighter purple dress over heavy boots. Their hair was poofy and fluffy, about shoulder length, and pale freckles lined their face. Slowly, they looked down at their body, testing their arms, their legs and their face.

They closed their eyes and smiled.

“Beryl,” they said, their voice soft and quiet, “My name is Beryl.”

They looked behind them, at the flowing wall of water slowly rising into the air, and then back to the Human Resistance, still staring in stunned silence. They floated upwards, wings emerging from their back.

“You have my friend,” they said matter-of-factly.

The officer in charge shook his head and pointed at them, his face read.

“What’re you waiting for?!” he thundered, “Fire!”

Beryl threw their hands forward.

The wall of water burst outwards, flying over their friends and down onto the Human Resistance. It swept them aside like bowling pins, sending them hurtling towards the dockyard…

“Ready…”

The firing squad stood before Captain Franks and Jeff, their weapons at the ready. Lewis crossed her arms as she waited for the moment. Franks stared at the floor, unable to meet their eyes - Jeff stared them down, bound fists clenched as crescent moon impressions dug into his palms.

“Aim…”

“You’ll never win,” hissed Jeff.

“Oh, we will,” sneered Lewis.

“F…”

There was the sound of a gate being kicked open, followed by a long burst of gunfire. The firing squad hit the dirt, and Lewis ducked behind a crate.

Blue Pearl stood at the main entrance to the docks, carrying a Tommy Gun. She had just fired it into the air to attract their attention; she wore a somewhat frightened, somewhat wild scowl. She swallowed visibly as the guns of the Human Resistance trained on her, but stood her ground.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” demanded Lewis.

“I… I’m… I’m rebelling,” she replied.

Lewis nodded, clapping sarcastically.

“Bravo,” she said, “Men, open…”

She trailed off, a deep rumbling in the air. The ground beneath her began to shake.

“Oh god,” she muttered, “What the hell, no-”

A wave of brown water smashed through the gate of the dockyard, neatly skipping over Blue and the audience and roaring straight for Lewis and her soldiers. She screamed in terror and frustration, grabbing the sides of the crate as the watery sledgehammer smashed down. For a moment, all was dirty brown - the putrid taste streaming around her nostrils and mouth, the force threatening to tear her free from her only anchor…

Then it was done, and she was lying on the concrete floor, coughing and spluttering and looking up in shock and horror at the figure hovering before them.

Beryl looked down on her, a frown on their face. They seemed not angry but disappointed, even a little frustrated, like a teacher dealing with an out-of-control kindergartener. They crossed their arms and shook their head.

“It’s over, Lewis,” they said, “You’ve lost.”

Lewis scowled, reaching for her gun.

“If you think the Human Resistance is going down without a fight, you’ve got another thing…”

“If you wanna not get shot at with disrupted cannons, I’d recommend you don’t do that.”

Lewis turned around, her eyes wide. A golden ship hovered above the dockyards, its weapons trained on the gathered Resistance. She had seen it once before, in the very, very early days of New Earth - a stolen ship, piloted by a pink human.

The Sun Incinerator.

“God, I can’t believe I’m happy to see Lars.”

Peedee had pushed his way through the crowd to join Beryl, his friends not far behind.

“Never!” exclaimed Lewis, “We will never surrender! We will fight you on the…”

There was a series of clacks, and Lewis looked around. One by one, each member of the Resistance was dropping their weapon and slowly raising their hands.

“...no… no, no, no, no, NOOO!” Lewis bellowed, “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be defending humanity!”

She gesticulated wildly in Beryl’s direction.

“They took everything from us!” she thundered, “They took our home! They took our lives! They took… they took my family! Don’t you care?! Don’t you care about how far down they’ve torn us?! DON’T YOU CARE?!”

“I do.”

Lewis looked up at Beryl. They had lowered down now, and were kneeling down next to her.

“I lost both my dads and my mom,” they explained, “I… I saw them…”

They wiped their eyes.

“I do care,” they said, “I care every day. But then we found each other…”

They glowed, splitting back into two forms, still holding hands.

“I found Lapis,” Stevonnie continued, “And we… we moved on. I’m still sad about it, everyone is, but… we have to move on.”

“But you don’t understand!” shouted Lewis, “You’re a hybrid! A freak! I…”

“Lewis.”

Peedee stepped up, striding purposefully towards Lewis, gun in hand and face set into a scowl.

“I lost everything too,” he said, “I lost my dad. I lost my brother. I lost my truck. But you know what? All these gems you hate - they helped me rebuild my life. That arch-traitor you want to shoot? He was only light I had for a long, long time. So don’t you dare - don’t you dare assume to know who doesn’t care.”

“Fryman, I…”

Peedee raised his gun, pressing it to her temple.

“Peedee, don’t!” exclaimed Stevonnie.

Peedee stood there, finger on the trigger, glaring down at the pale, shaking form of Lewis.

“You take a ship,” he said, “And you leave. And if you ever, ever come near my husband again, I swear to god I won’t be so hesitant.”

He lowered his gun and turned away.

Garnet had just finished untying Jeff - the mayor of New Earth raced over to Peedee, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Peedee! I thought… I thought I’d never see you again!” he exclaimed.

“Jeff, never scare me like that again, okay?” asked Peedee.

“I promise…”

Peedee leaned forward, pulling Jeff into a kiss. The crowd around them broke into applause as they savoured the moment, losing themselves in sweet, sweet relief.

Shaking his head, Franks climbed to his feet. He looked around at the confusion and wreckage, sighing heavily.

“I think it goes without saying that the Human Resistance is dissolved,” he said.

“Franks,” replied Jenny, “That might be the first smart thing you’ve ever done.”

[drundertalescum]

How about SF or UF (your choice 😊) skeletons going to a pet shop? What pets would they get and how would they react to all the fluffy creatures? xxxx

Well, I went with the UF bros because I’m not nearly ready to give my version of the fellswap bros a day in the sun and because fellbro fluff is my favorite.

I wrote this entirely on mobile and I’m posting it on mobile, so hopefully the read more works and the major typos and errors are gone.

As usual, this went longer than intended.

Warnings for mild background angst, casual cursing, references to children in bad situations, and at a stretch, there’s some mocking about a lack of education… But otherwise this is really tame for Underfell as written by me. It’s fluff.

—–

Life on the surface was weird getting used to.

The skeleton brothers were still getting over old wounds, and it was, frankly, getting to be a little much trying to navigate all the awkwardness that came with learning to be brothers again rather than boss and subordinate.

And so, Sans made a fairly spur of the moment decision that the obvious problem with their current living arrangement was that it was just them, alone, in an empty house on the edge of the city. Maybe it would be less awkward if there was someone or something else around to take their attentions off of each other and themselves. Or maybe that was fucking stupid, he didn’t know, but honestly, it seemed better than doing nothing.

See, once upon a time, (what felt like a lifetime or four ago at this point) when they were just kids, living on the streets, Papyrus had found and taken in a scruffy little surface beast. He named it Doomfanger. The thing was tiny. The only reason it was probably even roaming around at all was that it was small enough to slip through holes in walls and most basic traps. Sans always figured it was probably meant to be some monster’s dinner, but it was nothing but fur and bones, too scrawny to bother recapturing once it got away.

It was smaller than a rat and not nearly as cute, but Papyrus had loved the miserable thing like it was his whole world. He took it everywhere, constantly cuddling it and playing with it, giving it skeleton kisses on the head, nuzzles and hugs and constant words of encouragement that it was okay that it was little, that it was still a mighty beast no matter what anyone said.

…That hadn’t been all that weird, back then. Papyrus was a real, real sweet kid. It kind of sucked to think about, so Sans didn’t, at least not often. But still, maybe he’d be just a little bit less miserable with something scruffy and fuzzy and warm around the house.

Though, now Sans was having second thoughts. Papyrus was looking disdainfully at the crude handpainted signs inside the lobby of the animal shelter. Clearly, the artwork was not up to his standards, and he seemed annoyed to be here.

Yeah this was dumb.

“eh, boss, maybe this ain’t a great idea. you wanna head back home? cuz we can. i didn’t sign no papers. we ain’t obligated so let’s just–”

Papyrus placed a hand up, the universal symbol for “shut the hell up” and smirked. “I DON’T BELIEVE THERE IS ANY REASON FOR US TO LEAVE BEFORE WE SEE WHAT’S HERE.”

Yeah. Definitely dumb. Now Papyrus was hoping to stick with it just to get a laugh in at him later. It was marginally better than the silence that normally pervaded at home, though, so fine. Sans could stick with this too.In the back of his mind, he imagined Papyrus, 6 years old with a ball of scruff and fluff never gone from his side for a moment, and strengthened his resolve.

The human at the desk seemed friendly enough, not giving them too much flack for being monsters or being rough around the edges, and Papyrus answered her questions with formal, clipped responses, but he made no moves to “impress” or intimidate her, and already the meeting was going better than most of their ventures outside of the designated monster districts.

The human opened the doors that led to the animal holding areas, and Sans watched his brother’s expressions with great interest. The younger brother surveyed the hall as if he was examining a shipment of fine goods: detached, judgemental, but certainly not uninterested. It was the sort of face he put on when they were meeting with nobility and the uppity ups of the underground, a tea tasting face.

His voice matched to accompany his expression, knowledgeable and clear. “I DID NOT REALIZE THE SURFACE HELD SUCH A WIDE ARRAY OF DOOMFANGERS.”

Sans couldn’t bury the snicker fast enough before it came out as a loud snort. “they’re called ‘cats,’ boss,” he explained (smugly), never resisting the opportunity to look like the smarter, world-wise one of the two. He’d actually only learned that fact last week when he started researching this whole stupid plan, but that didn’t stop him.

Papyrus’s jaw clamped shut with a scowl, and Sans felt bad… but only for a second. Maybe he shouldn’t have laughed, it’s not like either of them went to school long enough to know the names of exotic surface creatures. They’d made up their own names for them all as they’d needed to.

Ah well, Papyrus would get over his embarrassment.

Sans scanned the cages, looking for any cat that might make a good match for the both of them. They came in all kinds of colors and sizes. Probably a big one was best. He didn’t fully trust Papyrus with a runty one now that he was… well… boss.

Yeah, probably get a big one, one with short fur, or maybe no fur. Neither knew anything about fur, after all, and it would make less of a mess he would get lectures about not cleaning up.

And it would have to be one of the strong ones. Papyrus did not abide weakness.

*SQUEAK*

Sans was unfamiliar with the sounds of cats (Doomfanger had always been silent, besides hisses, always directed at him), but they were animals, and animals were noisy, so at first, it didn’t really faze him to hear such a sound. But after a moment, he registered that something was off about it, the timbre and direction. His eyelights darted to the side, and then up, to his brother’s skull, whose eyes were wider than they’d been in years, gloved claws clamped over his mandibles.

“did you just… squeak…!?” The color rushed into Papyrus’s cheeks as he glanced back, clearly embarrassed at being caught making that noise, but too distracted to snap back at him. “the hell?”

Papyrus gestured helplessly towards whatever he was staring, at words escaping for a moment before he just let out a shrill “DOOMFANGER!”

Sans rolled his eyes. “boss i told ya, the word is ‘cat.’ or ‘kitten.’ or ‘kitt—’”

Doomfanger.

Long, gray, mangled fur, fat and small and fluffy. One eye, one ear, three legs, no tail, scruffy and angry and almost uglier than Jerry.

Holy shit.

That was Doomfanger.

The cat was pressing against the cage, looking at Papyrus, pawing at the air between them, making similar noises to the one that the tall, haughty, disciplined skeleton had made just moments before. And speaking of, he was right against the glass, hands against it, as if he was trying hug the window between them until it shattered.

And Papyrus was, get this, crying. He was actually, honestly crying. And Sans had no clue what to even think. Because holy shit. The dumb beast was still alive. And they found it. And it found them. And it was like 16 damn years, did those things really live that long? And his brother, the asshole, the boss, the unfeeling, unemotional bastard, was crying. Not just crying, either, not like a single, dignified tear like on a damn movie. Papyrus was openly weeping. Like he did when they were kids, the day Doomfanger didn’t come back.

God, Sans was pretty sure he had never cried that bitterly since.

It was… it was friggin weird. But he crushed the part of him that wanted to make a joke about it, or that wanted to come up with a joke to tell all his good buddies later. Instead he savored the moment a bit longer (and maybe took a picture, purely for blackmail) and flagged down the human who was in charge of the place.

“Yeah we’ll take that one.”

[whimsicalworldofme]

Sudden Emptiness

BB-8 is found and while Poe and his squadron are off retrieving him, something horrible happens, sending jolts through the balance of the Force and wreaking havoc on Ava and Luke. 

Word Count: 2206

(This is a long one guys! I couldn’t find a way to cut it down or a good place to split it in half)

Content Warnings: Mentions of death.

They didn’t even get to share a morning of sleeping in after Poe’s late return home the night before. Before the sun rose the commlink woke them up calling for him to get ready to lead his squadron to Takodana.

               “They found BB-8,” Poe bounced eagerly on one foot as he pulled on his pants, the pains and aches of the night before forgotten in his excitement. Ava stayed in bed, sitting up with her back against the headboard, trying to figure out what her response should be. If it were anyone else, she would’ve insisted that the squadron could retrieve the droid without him, that he needed to rest and recuperate. But this was Poe. He didn’t give up, he didn’t bat an eye over charging into the fray, and he wouldn’t rest until there was lasting peace in the galaxy. “Guess who he’s with?”

               “He’s on Takodana?” Ava raised a brow. She knew the name from childhood stories. Han often sent stuff to Luke through back-channels originating from there. It was smugglers paradise. “I’m guessing Han and Chewie found him.”

               “Yeah, they were spotted at Maz Kanata’s,” Poe dropped onto the bed beside her to pull on his boots. He had a light in his eyes like a child on their birthday. Ava wanted to be happy that he could potentially get his droid back, but it seemed too easy.

               “If they were spotted that means the First Order probably already knows too,” she said, fidgeting with the hem of the sheets in her lap.

               “Yeah but we’ll get there first,” he insisted, a smirk on his lips which caused the split in his bottom lip to reopen a little. He winced and touched a finger to it. “Ava it’s going to be ok. BB-8 didn’t fall into the wrong hands which means we’re still one step ahead of the First Order. We have a chance to keep it that way.”

               “Stay safe,” Ava combed his curls back from his face. His expression turned serious when he saw the concern in her face. He was reckless, but he listened to her, whether she told him something verbally or with her body language. She felt something was seriously off about the balance today, but she couldn’t put a finger on what it was. He nodded and stood up, kissing her before he took off out of their quarters to the hanger.

               Worry had no place in the every day life of the Resistance’s support members. Weapons and ships were constantly under repair, supplies always coming and going and being catalogued. Meetings continued for the higher ups. For Ava, carrying on meant getting to the kitchens. Support needed to eat just as much as the pilots and fighters. Luke joined her. He had started coming into the kitchens with her since he was no longer in school but too young to fight. Ava was glad that her son voluntarily sought out the discipline of working and didn’t think helping out in any way was beneath him. As the day wore on she couldn’t shake that feeling of dread that had overtaken her in the morning. In fact, it got worse after lunch had gone.

               “Mom,” Luke froze, his face losing color. “Something’s wrong.”

               “I know,” Ava felt it too.

               Terror. Panic. Confusion. Sorrow. All of it like a mountain tumbling down over her, the worst pain she’d ever felt. So many emotions, so much fear. She reached out to Luke and held him close, wishing she could tell him how to block it out but there was just so much of it. And then, all of a sudden, emptiness. Not a lift in the emotions, just a complete lack of presence at all, a void that weighed more on her soul than the grief.

               “Oh my god,” Ava gulped back tears. Luke stayed in her arms blank, uncomprehending, but horrified and heartbroken. “It’s happening again.”

               “What?” Luke asked his voice barely above a whisper. “Mom what’s happening again?”

               “Go back to our quarters,” she instructed, kissing his cheek and letting go of him. “Be ready to go if the order goes out, do you understand?”

               “Mom,” Luke looked panicked and wouldn’t move. “What’s going on? What did I just feel? All that pain…” his voice wavered and tears brimmed in his eyes.

               “The First Order just destroyed a planet,” Ava stated with certainty. She knew enough of the old stories, knew enough from what Master Skywalker and Leia had told her about the destruction of Alderaan to decipher what had happened.

               “All those people,” Luke’s bottom lip trembled. “They were so afraid. They didn’t even have time to understand before they were gone.”

               Ava wiped the tears from her son’s cheeks and cupped his face in both hands, her heart bursting with love for him, fear over if they might be next, and ache for those they’d felt in their final moments. Taking his hand, she led him out of the kitchen, changing her mind about being apart from him, determined to get information. They might have to evacuate. Since their planet hadn’t been the target of the First Order’s destruction that might mean they didn’t know yet where the rebel base was located. But it might be only a matter of time before they found out.

               But is anywhere safe when they have a weapon that can destroy whole worlds?

               The thought made her stomach drop. She had hoped she would never live to see days like these. When Luke was born she knew that the First Order was getting stronger, but she had hoped and trusted in the Force that they wouldn’t rise to that much power in his lifetime, that her son could grow up safe without the fears her parents had faced, the fears that left them so scarred they could barely function enough to care for her.

               “Dev!” Ava spotted an officer she knew, a grey humanoid alien, running from headquarters towards the hangers. “Dev what’s going on?”

               Dev halted in mid-lumbering run and jogged over to her and Luke. He was beaded with thick green sweat, an instinctive fear response of his species from what he had told her in previous discussions. He glanced from side to side to ensure no one else was around to hear them.

               “The intel was right, the First Order has a super weapon,” he whispered. “They destroyed the entire Hosnian system in one shot.”

               Ava felt like she might fall over. The notion of a planet being destroyed was bad enough, but a whole system? Billions of people murdered in one stroke. It made her sick to her stomach.

               “Are we safe?” Luke asked what she had wanted to. “Do they know where we are?”

               “No one knows for sure. The Generals are in a meeting about it right now. Something happened on Takodana. Those squadrons are coming back and we’ve got information coming in from allies around the galaxy. We’re supposed to be ready to evacuate just in case.”

               “Thanks Dev,” Ava found her voice again. He nodded and lumbered off getting ready to help bring in the squadrons that had gone out to Takodana. There was nothing else for it. No one could provide her with any more information, so she wrapped an arm around Luke’s shoulders, keeping him close, and guided him back to their quarters.

               “What do we do now, Mom?” Luke asked as they walked through the front door.

               “We wait,” Ava stated, going to get their packs. She brought them out of the closet where they were always ready to go.

               “How can we just sit here and wait?” Luke fumed. “Wait for what? To die? To run away? We should be fighting back!” He paced angrily up and down the length of the room and Ava felt a pang of anguish, seeing so much of Ben’s rage in him as he balled his hands into fists and snarled. “I feel so useless!”

               “Luke,” Ava went to him and laid her hands on his shoulders, holding him still and looking him in the eye, “you’re just a boy still. You don’t have to carry the weight of the galaxy on your soul just because you have Skywalker blood.”

               “If I were a proper Jedi I could help,” he snapped. “Uncle Luke was nineteen when he joined the Rebel Alliance.”

               “Yes,” she nodded. “But you’re twelve.” She stroked his hair back from his eyes, tucking it behind his ear. “I know that waiting for orders is hard. I know that you’re afraid and feel trapped. But getting angry and acting out of anxiety, fear, and anger only causes more harm.”

               “It’s the path to the dark side,” Luke pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, eyes scrunching shut. “I’m sorry.”

               “We have some time. Weapons need to charge. Massive weapons could take days,” Ava processed as she spoke. “Black squadron can’t be far off now if Dev was getting ready to help them in. They wouldn’t come back if we were going to evacuate right away. You have to trust that your Gram and the other generals know what they’re doing.”

               “Can we meditate?” Luke asked and she nodded with a smile, glad to see the training she’d been putting him through was sticking. They stayed in silence for a solid half an hour until the black squadron streaked through the sky on their approach to land. Typically, Ava was one to urge patience and wait in their quarters for Poe but after what had happened that day she joined Luke in the mad dash to get to the hanger, along with many others who were keen on getting to their loved ones.

               Poe was heading their way when they got there, his arm around the shoulders of a young man wearing his jacket, BB-8 gleefully whirring and beeping along behind them. Ava paused, seeing that the kid, maybe ten years younger, was wearing the standard issue boots of a Storm Trooper.

               “Pop!” Luke hollered and ran to give him a hug. Poe lit up and hugged him tightly, ruffling his hair and patting him on the back. Ava followed carefully behind, not sure what was going on but not wanting to snap to a judgement. Maybe the boots had been scavenged from somewhere.

               “Ava, Ava,” Poe waved her closer and put a free hand on the shoulder of the kid beside him. “This is Finn. He’s the one who helped me get away after Jakku.”

               Without thinking, maybe because of the excess of emotions coursing through her from the day’s events, Ava drew Finn into a hug, kissing him on the cheek.

               “Thank you,” she smiled brightly, glad that she could thank the one who had brought her Poe home to her. When she let him go, Finn looked completely flustered but somewhat pleased.

               “Grumps!” Luke shouted, seeing his grandfather across the landing strip. Han looked just as grumpy as ever and Ava wondered what he and Leia had been discussing, though she had a feeling it probably had something to do with Ben since they both looked unusually grim. But Han smiled when he saw his grandson, as much as Han could smile anyway. Ava gave her son a permissive nod and watched him take off at a run to have the rare moment to catch up with the grandfather he considered a living legend, the man he idolized despite his flaws.

               “We have a meeting,” Poe told her, stepping close and putting his hands on her hips. “You might have to evacuate soon. The Hosnian system…”

               “We felt it,” Ava murmured sadly. “Luke and I both. The entirety of the new Republic,” she tried to stifle tears from coming out.  

               Poe couldn’t find the words to reply. He just pulled her into his chest, holding her in silence for a moment. Finn shuffled uncomfortably beside them, trying to find anything else to focus his line of sight on. Ava stepped back and gave Poe a soft kiss.

               “Go to your meeting,” she insisted, seeing that everyone else of importance was starting to head towards headquarters. Luke was trudging back towards her as Han, Leia, and Chewie made their way along with the rest of the crowd. “Finn you’re welcome to stay with us if there’s no room in the barracks, or if you just prefer something a little more, homey.”

               “Thanks,” Finn was taken aback, and Poe chuckled, clapping him on the shoulder.

               “C’mon buddy,” he insisted dragging Finn away, BB-8 giving a friendly beep of greeting and farewell to Ava and Luke as he rolled on behind them.

               Ava heaved a sigh and watched everyone get back to their work, their hectic, frantic work, to keep everyone alive and safe. The moment of normalcy, of joyful families being reunited had vanished as quickly as it came and now the focus shifted back to the horrors of their reality. She didn’t like it but at least there were glimmers of hope and love amidst the sorrow and fear.

               “We’re going to have to wait again, aren’t we?” Luke asked, shifting from one foot to the other beside her.

               “Wait and hope,” Ava nodded.  

Last Chapter          Master List          Next Chapter

[northeasternwind]

more SI xcom garbage, #2

Wow, this is a lot of fun to write but super boring to read. As compensation I have included a Bonus Bradford chapter that was originally only going to be posted at the end where the other characters react to the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I may have the order of some events mixed up look at how low-effort this is

There are injuries on your first op, but no deaths, so the mood is bright when the Skyranger returns with the converter in tow. Central smiles and claps you on the back on his way to debrief the troops, and you get the feeling that perfect missions are quite the breath of fresh air around here. Poor Bradford.

You learn that you can still see numerical health and probability values, which is a fucking godsend, and combat still appears to be your-turn-their-turn, although that’s not what the troops remember when you take a peek at their after-action reports later. You’re certain this is one of the easier difficulties, because their aim is much better than it should be (ha ha. ha.), but that also means that when they inevitably miss they’re going to be in much more danger than they would have been otherwise. Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer…

Anyway, you decide that on the guerilla side of things, living life as a rebel leader isn’t going to be much harder than just playing XCOM. Which is good, because otherwise you’d get everyone fucking killed. But you assume there’s more to this than just the combat, so you head down to the hangar to start getting a feel for What Normal People Are Like Here.

Shen’s enthusiasm is indeed endearing in person, and you instantly decide that you love her as she rushes past. A real person, especially an Asian woman, would not take kindly to being cooed over the way you intend to do to the Senior Command team, but as they are not real you decide you don’t really care as long as they don’t find out. War is hell; may as well find entertainment where you can.

“We’ll be able to get the ship off the ground with this!” she tells you excitedly. You grin, unable to help mirroring her excitement, and watch her wheel the thing away with the help of some of the other staff. She… It’s not hero worship, exactly, but she’s almost as eager to help you as Central is, and you can’t really bear the thought of letting her put so much effort into this war only to find that you are the weak link. So you resolve again to try your best.

You soon discover that you can, in fact, live your life outside of missions if you so choose—you only seem to have “control” during your free time and thank god, because the minutia of commanding is lost on you—but frequently it is much easier to simply let time pass the way you’re used to while playing. Day and night pass before your eyes on the hologlobe, the crew discovers Central’s lack of flight experience, and your trance is only interrupted when Tygan informs you that his research on the weapon mods is completed.

Because you already know what the chip does, of course. Weapon mods are more important and so, for that matter, is armor, which is why you set him to hybrid materials next.

“Commander,” he says evenly, though not without some vexation you think. “I am certain our soldiers appreciate your dedication to their safety in the field. However, given your vegetative state after your rescue and Advent’s penchant for invasive implants, I would recommend that we investigate the technology we extracted from you as soon as possible.”

If this were actually happening to you, you would agree. However, it is not, and you already know that you have nothing to worry about in that regard, so you stick to your guns:

“The chip is next on the agenda. I promise, Tygan.”

Tygan looks unhappy, but he nods. “Of course, Commander. I’ll have a full report available for you as soon as we’re finished.”

You choose to return immediately to the hologlobe. You generally have no memory of traveling from the bridge to research or back again, but instead of jumping right back to what you were doing your awareness instead transitions to walking onto the bridge, as Central speaks with—

Oh. The War of the Chosen DLC is turned on.

“Actually think they might show up,” Central says to himself before turning to you. For a second his expression shifts to one of disapproving concern, and you take a second to wonder what exactly you’ve been doing while passing the time.

Then his expression clears and he gets down to business. “Commander, that was Konstantin Volikov…”

The Skirmishers are adorable and you love them. They would resent that, but you don’t care.

Your only one, of course, is currently in the hands of the Assassin (who has fucking Shadowstep), but you’re pretty confident about your chances of getting him back. Elena petitions Volk for support herself, apparently not wanting to lose the one and only Skirmisher she actually knows to be friendly.

They’re all friendly, perhaps the most so of all three factions. It makes you sad that the reasons no one trusts them essentially boil down to looks and mind control, but there’s really nothing to be done about that. As long as your troops follow your orders, it doesn’t really matter if they trust the Skirmishers or not. After some thought though, you take the intercom and inform the crew that any hazing worse than biting off raw fish heads will be harshly disciplined. You’re not sure how yet, but Bradford will probably figure that out for you.

You actually can’t send out a team to find Mox just at the moment, so you set your men and Betos to locating the Templars first (because Templars with Bladestorm are your favorite units, and if you’re going to live through an alien-zombie apocalypse you’re at least going to have fun damn it) and return to monitoring the Hologlobe.

Next order of business, it turns out, is the first retaliation.

Central’s unrestrained distress and general yelling is much more… alarming in person. You’re not used to a Call of Duty protagonist as openly idealistic as he is, and generally you associate raised voices with danger.

“Commander—!”

“I know. Get a squad ready to—”

He brushes past you and is out the door before you even finish. Poor guy.

The yelling is slightly less endearing when you’re trying to focus on giving orders—despite all the obvious advantages of your Phenomenal Cosmic Powers, it turns out XCOM is still harder when you have to actually, verbally tell your soldiers what to do. If you open your mouth it’ll probably be to say something mean, so you decide to ignore him instead.

You never really realized how much Movie Screaming is just stock audio. Even if you never recognized it, there must be some part of you that can tell that the screaming you’re hearing now isn’t like the sounds you hear in fiction. A shiver runs through your whole body, but the fact that you don’t actually get to see anyone dying is very helpful.

The Faceless are worse. In the game their skin appears more leathery than their description seems to imply, but in person you get to see them in all their slimy, oozing glory. A woman’s face melts, elongating into something from your nightmares, and your hand flies to your mouth as you dry-heave.

“We’ve heard rumors of some kind of new alien infiltration unit,” Central says. “I’m guessing this is it.”

You hastily swallow past the lump in your throat. “That’s gross. Yikes. Ignore it for now, focus on that sectoid first…”

It’s only when the Assassin comes within visual range that you remember that she, in fact, exists. You can’t control whether or not they decide to pay your squad a visit so there’s no point in making the effort to remember.

“That’s the Elders’ Assassin,” Central reminds you unnecessarily, raising his voice at the sight of her.

You purse your lips. If things continue ringing true to the game, the Assassin will be a much bigger problem in combat than her brothers, who mostly piddle around at the edges of the map and do nothing. Well, with Shadowstep you have no way to prepare for her, so you order your soldiers to remain within visual range of each other and ignore Central’s incredulity at your lack of further orders.

You manage to clean up the situation and kill the Assassin with only five civilian casualties, but the entire team is injured and Central looks ready to strangle the Speaker with his bare hands. You do have Faceless corpses for making those sweet, sweet meme beacons, but you promised Tygan you’d let him work on that chip and then you have to get the radio research going. And you’ll probably get distracted by other, shinier research after that, so you doubt you’ll end up capitalizing on this opportunity.

Still, no one is dead. ...None of your people, anyway.

Between the Resistance Ring, the infirmary and the Gorilla Tictacs School you have neither space nor power for the Proving Grounds. Tygan hasn’t recommended it yet, but you know it’s coming and set your only engineer to digging out towards the exposed power coils. She’s a little disgruntled at the less engaging work, but you don’t care.

You keep the soldiers on a rotation, train up the rookies and smash a relay that would have guaranteed ambushes on all your covert ops (no. But you have an awful track record with those, so you tend to think of any risk as being guaranteed). Nothing of note happens until your covert operatives return with a new friend, the location of Templar HQ and directions on how to contact Geist.

“We understand the value of cooperation,” Geist tells you over… well, Skype. “Your reputation preceeds you, Commander— in two months you have accomplished more than the rest of the Resistance has in two decades.”

“I have good staff and a mobile command center,” you say blandly. “Thank you, Geist. We’ll be in touch.”

You are (quietly!) delighted to find that though your Templar… representative? Liaison? is largely inexperienced, they learn very quickly and seem to have a lot of untapped potential. You have every intention of making Geist regret giving them up.

“Commander,” Shen begins next time you head down to Engineering. This whole time there hasn’t been a single combat medikit on the Avenger, and you now have enough dosh to bother rectifying that. “Don’t the Templars seem a little… weird to you?”

“They sure fucking do. But they’re a cult,” you explain. “As long as the Elders don’t give up psionics there is literally no point in deliberately sabotaging us. Only accidentally…”

“That seems a little overconfident to me. You’re really not worried about a single one of the factions?”

“Central will beat Volk to death with his bare hands if he tries something and they both know it. The Skirmishers’ motives are entirely selfish, so like the Templars there’s no point in worrying about betrayal from that corner.” You shrug. “Even if they do sabotage us, there’s little they can take that we can’t do without. Risk-reward.”

Lily shifts her weight onto her other foot. “If you say so, Commander. But promise me you’ll at least remember this conversation?”

“I will,” you tell her, with as much sincerity as you can muster.

You are absolutely not going to remember this conversation.

If it had come from Tygan alone, Bradford may have reevaluated his opinion of the scientist’s sincerity, but Lily was so utterly dedicated to XCOM and so trusting of her father’s word that he was forced to take their concerns seriously.

“Weird?” He frowns. “The Commander’s a little distant, I’ll give you that, but that’s nothing new. Is it grating on you?”

“No, but isn’t it a little strange how…” Lily purses her lips. “How well the Commander has taken all this? They’re not upset about being captured, they’re not creeped out by the Lost, and they don’t really seem all that torn up watching civilians die.”

“We… can’t save them all, Lily. We tried.”

“I am certainly glad the Commander understands the limits of their own capabilities,” Tygan says. “But in conjunction with their blasé attitude towards the aliens and their reluctance to begin research on their own implant—”

“They gave their reasoning for that and I see the logic in it,” Bradford interrupts, something burning in his chest.

“I do as well, and have no argument. We are simply saying that we would expect some measure of… urgency, or concern.”

“They have to keep their mind on the op,” Bradford says. “It was the same during the invasion. There’s nothing wrong with feeling put out about it, but I promise you it’s not because they’re a traitor.”

“That is not in question,” Tygan says. “I merely wonder at the Commander’s composure in the face of such slaughter.”

“Don’t mistake composure for serenity,” Bradford says, more forcefully than he means to. “None of us has any idea what the Commander is thinking.”

“We know,” Lily says earnestly, “but that doesn’t stop it from being creepy. Were they really always like this?”

Bradford swells with indignation, but he didn’t get to live as long as he has by being impulsive: he thinks back to the invasion, to interrogations and new species and deaths, and the first time they’d watched a sectoid commander control one of their operatives…

“Yes, they’ve always been this way,” he says. “But I think it’s just a side-effect of being in command. They’ve always gone out of their way to protect civilians and limit casualties, even at the cost of time or resources.”

Tygan nods. “Yes, that is why I hadn’t said anything. It seems unlikely that the Commander simply doesn’t care for humans and humanity, so I had wondered if perhaps this was a new development—if the aliens had done something to limit the Commander’s emotional capacity, or if I’d damaged it myself when extracting the chip.”

That brings Bradford up short. His grip on the rail in front of him tightens. They wouldn’t dare…

“I doubt it, but it’s not impossible,” he settles on. “Alright, if it’s bothering you both, I’ll keep an eye on them. But you follow orders and come to me before you even think about taking matters into your own hands, am I clear?”

“Yes sir,” they chorus, and that’s that for now.

(Later he will take a deep breath and remind himself that the Commander is not actually synonymous with the Resistance, and that not every word against them is tantamount to treason. But when he looks closer and starts noticing the strange behavior that was obvious to Shen and Tygan from the start, he still does it while worrying for the Commander’s well-being, not humanity’s)

[itsyourturnblog]

The Book — “Turning PRO” by Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield will not help you beating Resistance. Only you can do this.

However, his books belong to the “inspirational package” for those who really want to initiate and complete the journey.

“Turning PRO” can be considered as the 2nd chapter of his body of work on this topic. It comes after the very famous “The War of Art” that brings and highlights the concept of Resistance and “Do The Work” that focuses on the way to overcome this same Resistance when confronted to it.

Resistance

Resistance is described in a mythical fashion as a universal force that has one sole mission: to keep things as they are. Pressfield claims that Resistance does not have a personal vendetta against anyone, rather it is simply trying to accomplish its only mission. It is the force that will stop an individual’s creative activity through any means necessary, whether it be rationalizing, inspiring fear and anxiety, emphasizing other distractions that require attention, raising the voice of an inner critic, and much more. It will use any tool to stop creation flowing from an individual, no matter what field the creation is in.

Pressfield goes on to claim that Resistance is the most dangerous element to one’s life and dreams since its sole mission is to sabotage aspirations. He explains steps that human beings can take to overcome this force and keep it subdued so that they can create to their fullest potential, although Resistance is never fully gone.

If you are more familiar with Seth Godin than with Steven Pressfield, you can probably recognize what he describes as being the lizard brain. It’s the same core idea behind.

Resistance(=lizard brain) is the force that prevent you and me to ship our best work.

We have to beat it.

Turning Pro is the actionable methodology to achieve this.

Turning Pro, or the way to beat Resistance

Let’s stop for a while before I try to summarize and highlight the essential ideas you will find in “Turning Pro”.

“Turning Pro” is not an actionable methodology as you could imagine. There is no formula, no canvas and no “10-steps check list” to solve the challenge.

No tool but a mindset.

If “Turning-Pro” is about the “how”, the discipline and the habits; the difference with some other books you could have read is that “Turning Pro” forces you to face up to Resistance. It offers no artifice to get around it.

We are living our lives as amateurs

The model this book proposes is the model of the amateur and the professional.

What ails us is that we are living our lives as amateurs.

The solution, this book suggests, is that we turn pro.

Turning pro is free, but it’s not easy. All we have to do is change our mind.

It’s free but it’s not without cost. It demands sacrifice.

When we turn pro, we give up a life with which we may have become extremely comfortable.

Our shadow careers

Sometimes, when we’re terrified of embracing our true calling, we’ll pursue a shadow calling instead.

That shadow career is a metaphor for our real career. It looks pretty much like our true career except there is no real risk.

Our fear of failure and our lack of focus are the main reasons why we pursue a shadow career instead of our true calling.

Resistance hates two qualities above all others: concentration and depth. Because when we work with focus and we work deep, we succeed.

Resistance wants to keep us shallow and unfocused.

The amateur

The amateur is trying to learn.

The amateur is terrified. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of looking foolish and many other fears. The biggest one si the fear of being excluded from the tribe.

The amateur is an egotist. He sees himself as the hero, not only of his own movie, but of the movies of others.

The amateur lives by the opinions of others.

The amateur permits fear to stop him from acting.

The amateur is easily distracted.

The amateur seeks instant gratification.

The amateur is jealous. The amateur’s fear eclipses her compassion for others and for herself.

The amateur lacks compassion for himself. He knows he is hiding. If the amateur had empathy for himself, he could look in the mirror and not hate what he sees.

The amateur lives in the past.

The amateur will be ready tomorrow.

The sure sign of an amateur is he has a million plans and they all start tomorrow. — Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro

The amateur gives his power away to others.

The amateur is asleep.

The tribe doesn’t give a shit

There is no tribe.

That gang that we imagine is sustaining us by the bonds we share is in fact a conglomeration of individuals who are just as fucked up as we are and just as terrified.

When we truly understand that the tribe doesn’t give a damn, we’re free.

There is no tribe, and there never was.

Our lives are entirely up to us.

Part-time pros

Sometimes we can be professionals in our shadow careers but amateurs in our true calling.

Sometimes the reason we choose these careers (consciously or unconsciously) is to produce incapacity.

Resistance is diabolical.

What makes us turn pro

Turning pro is a decision. But it’s such a monumental life-overturning decision, made only in face of overwhelming fear, that the moment is frequently accompanied by powerful drama and emotion.

Turning pro is like 9/11. We never forget where we were when it happened.

Qualities of the professional

The professional shows up every day

The professional stays on the job all day

The professional is committed over the long haul

For the professional, the stakes are high and real

The professional is patient

The professional seeks order

The professional demystifies

The professional acts in the face of fear

The professional accepts no excuse

The professional plays it as it lays

The professional is prepared

The professional does not show off

The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique

The professional does not hesitate to ask for help

The professional does not take failure or success personally

The professional does not identify with his or her instrument

The Professional endures adversity

The professional self-validates

The professional reinvents herself

The professional is recognized by other professionals

The professional is courageous

The professional will not be distracted

The professional is ruthless with himself

The professional has compassion for herself

The professional lives in the present

The professional defers gratification

The professional does not wait for inspiration. He knows that when the Muse sees his butt in the chair, she will deliver.

The professional does not give his power away to others. He doesn’t make someone an icon. When we project a quality or a virtue onto another human being, we ourselves almost always already possess that quality, but we’re afraid to embrace (and to live) that truth. The professional may seek instruction or wisdom, but he does so without surrendering his self-sovereignty.

The professional helps others. He knows that he will not lose what he shares with others.

Getting two salaries

When turning pro, we get two salaries.

A financial salary and a psychological salary.

The first might be called convetional rewards — money, applause, attention.

That kind is fine, if we can get it.

The problem for most of us is we can’t.

We bust our butts training and practicing and studying and rehearsing and nobody shows up, nobody notices, nobody even knows we exist.

No wonder people quit. The struggle requires too much agony fo too little payoff.

Then comes the second reward. The psychological reward.

When we do the work for itself alone, our pursuit of a career turns into something else. It turns into a practice.

The professional mindset as a practice

A practice implies engagement in a ritual.

A practice may be defined as the dedicated, daily exercise of commitment, will, and focused intention aimed, on one level, at the achievement of mastery in a field but, on a loftier level, intended to produce communion with a power greater than ourselves — call it whatever you like.

A practice has a space, a time, an intention and is lifelong.

A practice is the way to answer to our true calling.

Who is all this for ?

It’s for the audience. Our audience.

In the hero’s journey, the wanderer returns home after years of exile, struggle, and suffering. He brings a gift for the people.

The hero wanders. The hero suffers. The hero returns.

We are the hero.

The Book — “Turning PRO” by Steven Pressfield was originally published in It's Your Turn on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

by Jean-Marie Buchilly via It's Your Turn - Medium #itsyourturn #altMBA #SethGodin #quotes #inspiration #stories #change #transformation #writers #writing #self #shipping #personaldevelopment #growth #education #marketing #entrepreneurship #leadership #personaldev #wellness #medium #blogging #quoteoftheday #inspirationoftheday

[pamphletstoinspire]

7 Easy Tips for Personal Prayer

Saint Augustine wisely said, “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” But the deep meaning of our longing isn’t always so obvious.

Ultimately, our restless aching is a yearning for God. We need to connect with God. We need prayer. We know this, both in our more reflective moments and in our more desperate moments. It’s then that we feel our need for prayer and try to go to that deep place. But given our lack of trust and our lack of practice, we struggle to get there. We don’t know how to pray or how to sustain ourselves in prayer.

Whether you’re a beginner or more advanced in prayer, these seven tips will encourage you in your practice of prayer:

1) Show Up

There’s no bad way to pray and no single starting point for prayer. The spiritual masters offer one nonnegotiable rule: you have to show up for prayer and show up regularly. Everything else is negotiable and respects your unique circumstances.

Most days, we don’t pray simply because we don’t quite get around to it. Perhaps the best metaphor to describe our hurried and distracted lives is that of a car wash. For most of us, that’s just what our typical day does to us—it sucks us through. Prayer is truly a discipline. Show up!

2) Quiet Your Heart

Solitude is a form of awareness, a way of being present and perceptive within all of life. It’s having a dimension of reflectiveness in our daily lives that brings gratitude, appreciation, peacefulness, enjoyment, and prayer. It’s the sense, within ordinary life, that life is precious, sacred, and enough.

Solitude isn’t something we turn on like a water faucet. It needs a body and mind slowed enough to be attentive to the present moment. The first step is to remain quietly in God’s presence in solitude, silence, and prayer. If it is your first time doing this, set aside 15 minutes for prayer.

3) Look Inside

Our culture can keep us so entertained, busy, preoccupied, and distracted that we lose all focus on the deeper things. We can go along like this for years until a crisis suddenly renders empty all the stimulation and entertainment in the world. Then we’re forced to look into our own depth, and that can be a frightening abyss if we’ve spent years avoiding it.

We have to know when it’s time to unplug the television, turn off the phone, shut down the computer, silence the iPod, lay away the sports page, and resist going out for coffee with a friend, so that, for one moment, we’re not avoiding making friends with the deepest part of us.

4) Establish a Routine and Stick with It

The solution isn’t so much new prayer forms and more variety, but rhythm, routine, and established ritual. What’s needed is a prayer form that doesn’t demand an energy you cannot muster on a given day.

What clear rituals provide is prayer that depends on something beyond our own energy. The rituals carry us: our tiredness, our inattentiveness, our indifference, and even our occasional distaste. They keep us praying even when we’re too tired to muster up our own energy.

Prayer has an ebb and flow. Sometimes we have a deep sense of God’s reality, and sometimes we can’t even imagine that God exists. Sometimes we have deep feelings about God’s goodness and love, and sometimes we feel bored and distracted.

At a deep level of our human relationships, the real connection between people takes place below the surface of our conversations. We begin to know each other through simple presence. Prayer is the same. If we pray faithfully every day, year in and year out, we can expect little excitement, lots of boredom, and regular temptations to look at the clock. But a bond and an intimacy will be growing under the surface—a deep, growing bond with our God.

5) Be Honest, Vulnerable, Bold

What does it mean to be holy or perfect? To be perfect in the Hebrew mindset simply means to walk with God, despite our flaws. It means being in the divine presence in spite of the fact that we’re not perfectly whole, good, true, and beautiful.

God asks us to bring our helplessness, weaknesses, imperfections, and sin to him, to walk with him, and to never hide from him. God understands that we’ll make mistakes and disappoint him and ourselves. What God asks is simply that we come home, share our lives with him, and let him help us in those ways we’re powerless to help ourselves.

Every feeling and thought we have is a valid entry into prayer, no matter how irreverent, unholy, selfish, sexual, or angry that thought or feeling might seem. Simply put, if you go to pray and you’re feeling angry, pray anger; if you’re sexually preoccupied, pray that preoccupation; if you’re feeling murderous, pray murder; and if you’re feeling full of fervor and want to praise and thank God, pray fervor. What’s important is that we pray what’s inside of us and not what we think God would like to see inside of us. No matter the headache or the heartache, we need only to lift it up to God.

6) Let Go of Anxiety and Shame

The opposite of faith isn’t doubt but anxiety. It isn’t so much the fear that God doesn’t exist as the fear that God doesn’t notice our existence. Faith doesn’t have you believe that you’ll have no worries, or that you won’t make mistakes, or that you and your loved ones won’t sometimes fall victim to accident or sickness. What faith gives you is the assurance that God is good, can be trusted, won’t forget you, and is solidly in charge. Faith says that God is real, God is Lord, and there’s ultimately nothing to fear. We’re in safe hands. Reality is gracious, forgiving, loving, redeeming, and absolutely trustworthy. Our task is to surrender to that.

If we’re to take seriously the words of Jesus, “Change your life and believe in the good news,” then the coldness and distrust brought upon us by shame must be overcome. Shame is powerful. Its bite is deep, the scars permanent.

Try to bring the warmth, trust, and spontaneity of childhood into your prayers with God, a God who delights in you and has no use for crippling shame. Jesus said: “Love each other as I love you” (Jn 15:12). The tail end of that sentence contains the challenge. Jesus loved us by becoming vulnerable to the point of risking humiliation and rejection. We must recover our childlike trust and try to do the same.

7) Listen for God’s Voice and Accept God’s Love

We’re surrounded by many voices. How do we recognize God’s voice among and within all of these others? God is the author of everything that’s good, whether it bears a religious label or not. Hence, God’s voice is inside many things that aren’t explicitly connected to faith and religion.

Jesus tells us he’s the Good Shepherd and his sheep will recognize his voice among all other voices. A sheep recognizes the voice of the one safeguarding it and won’t follow another voice. The voice of God is the voice of someone who knows us intimately and calls each of us by name.

We take for granted that anyone who sees us as we really are (unlovely, weak, pathological, sinful, insubstantial) will, in the end, be as disappointed with us as we are with ourselves. We fear God because we’ve never experienced the kind of love that is manifest in God. We avoid God when we’re most in need of love and acceptance.

God is love, and only by letting that love into our lives can we save ourselves from disappointment, shame, and sadness. God understands us, accepts us, delights in us, and is eager to smile at us. Experiencing the unconditional love of God is what prayer, in the end, is all about.

Remember: your heart is made to rest in God. If Saint Augustine is right—and he is—then you can count on your restlessness to lead you into deeper prayer—the kind of prayer that leads to transformation and will not leave you empty-handed.

Material for this article is adapted from the book Prayer: Our Deepest Longing by Ronald Rolheiser, OMI.

Ronald Rolheiser, a Roman Catholic priest with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, is an internationally renowned speaker and spiritual writer. His award-winning weekly column, “In Exile,” is carried by more than 70 newspapers. He is the author of seven books, including the best-selling The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality.

[mortimers-cross]

Me: I need to hurry up and finish this story, it’s getting so stupidly long.

Also Me: Let’s have an entire scene whose sole purpose is to let Electra and Coricopat stand around sassing each other.

“My father sent for you, didn’t he? Didn’t he? I thought he might try smuggling me out one of these days, but to go behind my back and get someone else…”

 Electra had offered little resistance to the pair of matched felines who’d shown up and insisted she accompany them. Somehow, though she couldn’t explain it, she’d known just from looking at them that they were from that Junkyard place Macavity talked about as if it were Heaviside on earth. Which meant they were some of his friends. Which meant that she couldn’t let the henchcats notice them or there’d be trouble; for their own safety, she told herself, she’d go with them…but she’d come back, first opportunity she found.

 It didn’t stop her from loudly complaining once they were well away from the warehouse. “This is the most low-down, sneaky trick I ever…”

 “He did not send for us,” interrupted the queen.

 “Come off it, of course he—”

 “Young one,” cut in the tom in a much sharper tone, ignoring his sister’s disapproving glance, “kindly shut up.”

 That shocked Electra into silence for the moment. No one had ever said such a thing to her, as far as she could recollect. Oh, they all shouted at each other plenty, but no one dared shout at her or they’d be sure to get into trouble with the Leader. And his Lady was always watching to be certain they always treated Electra with respect.

 “We are friends of your father’s,” the queen explained more gently. “I am Tantomile, and this is Coricopat. We are…”

 “Twins, even a blind cat could see that,” Electra chortled. “You look even more alike than my mum and her twin!”

 “This is no time for silliness,” Coricopat glared. “I understood you had acquired more discipline in that…place, than you are presently displaying.”

 Electra waved a paw dismissively. “If you mean all the bowing and scraping and big words—that’s totally for the henches.” Her face grew horrified. “Or does everyone do that in the junkyard as well and get in trouble for nothing?”

 “Please, Cori,” Tantomile placed a placating paw on her brother’s shoulder, “she’s only a kit, remember, and we’re safe enough for the moment…”

 Coricopat blew out a long sigh. “I am concerned for the safety of your father and mother and our other friends,” he offered Electra by way of apology.

 “So’m I,” she shrugged, then frowned. “So…why have you taken me away?”

 “Safety,” Coricopat repeated, as if stating the obvious.

 “But it makes no odds if I’m safe when my parents are still in danger! I want to help!”

 “The best help you can give them is to keep out of the way,” he told her bluntly. The two stood toe-to-toe glaring at each other for a moment.

 “Anyway,” Electra resumed, “what makes you think the danger is that bad? True, I always figured the others would be mighty put out with Dad for abandoning the tribe, but it’s not as if he had no defenses. Besides, they won’t dare try anything too drastic, no matter what he does. You’ve heard of his powers, haven’t you? They’re all awfully afraid of his powers, and so they might protest a little, and some of’em might fight, but he’ll soon deal with them and walk away with no problem. And if they should think of following us to the ’yard and trying anything, why—he can just use his powers again.” She grinned. “Hope you all know that with my dad around, we’ll none of us have to worry about predators or much of anything else really. ’Course, he hardly ever uses’em—he’s afraid of ‘abusing his powers,’ whatever that means. So he and Mum have always made me be careful how I talk and what I say, in case any of the henches should get angry and try anything and make Dad have to kill’em. He hates killing. Actually, he never has killed, only threatened to—mostly he just locks people up when they’re bad and lets’em out later.” She shrugged, as if all this were the most normal thing in the world. Tantomile listened to her with a pained expression. Of course she had known Mack couldn’t fully shield his daughter from the henchcats’ ways, and there was only so much he could change without having a rebellion on his paws; even still, it was difficult to hear. “So, you see,” Electra concluded, “there’s really not anything much to worry about, maybe a small scuffle and that’s it. But I might have known my parents’d be paranoid and send me away anyway.”

 “Actually it wasn’t their idea at all,” Tantomile said carefully, exchanging a worried look with her brother. Then MacVitie hasn’t fully explained the nature of his ‘powers.’ Ought we be the ones to tell her?

 “Then why come and get me at all?” Electra exclaimed, stamping a paw. “Now they’ll think I’ve been kitnapped or…”

 “No, we’ve sent another of our friends to tell your father,” said Coricopat.

 “But why poke your noses in without even being asked?” fumed the queenkit, on the verge of simply turning and running back the way they’d come. “Shouldn’t I have some say in this?”

 Coricopat looked appealingly at his sister, as if at a loss how to proceed. Electra smirked, figuring she’d really stumped them now, and they’d just have to take her back and quit interfering.

 But then Tantomile told her, “There’s much more danger than you or your parents realize. The henchcats are divided as to their feelings about your father, and some of them plan to rebel, rather than wait for—”

 “And like I said, my dad can deal with it,” Electra interrupted. “Anyway, how can you know that?”

 Coricopat and Tantomile looked at each other. “Well…”

 “Don’t tell me,” Electra rolled her eyes. “You’re psychic.”

 “Yes,” Coricopat answered simply.

 Electra shook her head in disbelief. “You’re just saying that so I’ll go with you…”

 “Then how did we know your name? Besides,” Tantomile pointed out, “you believe in your father’s powers.”

 “Lightning powers are one thing, mind powers are completely different,” said Electra obstinately.

 “There is…no logic in that whatsoever,” Coricopat said, gaping at her. In some ways this queenkit seemed wise beyond her years; in others, she seemed a complete and utter dolt. Knowing Tantomile wouldn’t like it, but seeing no alternative, he reached out to the kitten’s mind. You just might want to start listening to us, unless you wish to end up dead.

 Electra jumped, letting out a small squeak. She glanced back and forth between the twins. Leaning over to Tantomile she whispered, “How…how did he…say that without moving his mouth?”

 “He said it in your mind,” Tantomile informed her, though looking disapprovingly at her brother. “Ordinarily we do not do that to cats without permission, unless they are enemies, but…he evidently saw no other way of convincing you.”

 “And…you can do that with anyone? Talk in their minds, or hear what they’re thinking?”

 “Only if they are open-minded—either from willingness to hear us, or simple innocent lack of awareness of any need to hide anything. Most cats have some barriers up. For example, we can catch the gist of the henchcats’ intentions, but cannot delve into their innermost thoughts—to the point of hearing or sending full sentences.”

 “I force myself not to say certain things out loud around the henchcats all the time,” Electra confided, awe-struck by this whole concept, “but I never thought about needing to guard my mind. What if one of them is psychic too, and is using that against my dad? Can you tell anything about that?”

 Can we tell you once we get to the Junkyard? Or do you still not believe us that there’s anything the matter?

 “Stop that, Cori,” Tantomile scolded.

 “I actually find it fascinating,” Electra giggled, albeit somewhat nervously. “Fine,” she sighed, “you’ve convinced me I should at least hear what you have to say. I’ll come with you. But,” she threatened, “if I decide my parents need me more than I need to be ‘safe’ at the ’yard, just you try and stop me going back…”

 “You’re the one who keeps saying they can handle everything,” said Coricopat.

 “And you’re the one,” Electra countered, “trying to convince me they can’t.”

 “Just listen to the pair of you,” Tantomile sighed. “Let’s get moving.”

[shinyoliver]

Verse 5: Ison, n.: a droning as if the stones themselves would sing.

The fire warming his back felt like foreshadowing. The warm, paper bag of sugar-roasted chestnuts in his hands felt like a choice. The couples and children clacking and laughing in ice skates on the outdoor rink looked like the calm distance of an unconcerned world that would keep on without him whether he picked the wrong thing or not.

Reg put a hot, sticky chestnut into his cheek. He sucked on it for a moment.

“Feels like there’s a niche market for someplace you can go and just, like, get one brownie, or something,” Poppy said next to him, the most recent in a long and unrequited stream of comments that she’d provided for him, making observations about everything from the difference between traffic signals in Britain and the U.S. and which she preferred—she never actually said which—to why James Joyce might have been better if he did speed. “You know, like on nights like this when you want something warm and something to chew, but you aren’t as hungry as all that. Whoever never decided to open a little brownie kiosk missed a whole mess of business. I save this place for emergencies, like. Honey roasted chestnuts are all right. They’re not brownies, though. Know what I mean?”

Reg nodded. He chewed the sweet chestnut.

Poppy nodded too. She sniffed, and she looked at the ice rink. Then she looked at the tall buildings on either side of what would be a grassy and flowery central courtyard in warm weather. During the cold night of winter, it was filled with as much light as days during summer. Chains of light strung between lampposts and from the skeletal trees. It was the sort of place listed on those annoying, “Ten places to take your date,” things.

“I went to court once,” Reg said. “You ever been to court?”

“Yeah,” Poppy said.

“I never had. It frightened me. The idea of going to court used to frighten me, I mean. Just the…facing up to legal authorities and, you know, thinking about right and wrong how I would view it and what that has to do with what legal institutions think that the words ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ mean. You know, that old argument about submitting to a just authority and what that means.”

“That old chestnut,” Poppy said.

“I remember…before going to court, the whole idea of the legal system scared the literal shit literally out of me.”

“I had an aunt had a cow had the same problem. Popular with the village gardening club.”

“Then, after going to court, even though I just went once and for, really, a pretty little thing, it was like…I don’t know, like some membrane broke, and let me into that world. I wouldn’t pretend like I get the legal world, all of a sudden. I feel like I’ve been let into it now, though, and thinking about it doesn’t give me the complete heebs now.”

“’Cause it used to,” Poppy stated, almost in an inquiring tone.

“Yeah. It felt otherworldly, like the rituals there meant things I could never understand. Then, after just my little glimpse, it felt like that world let me in. I still didn’t know all the rules, but it just stopped feeling alien.”

Poppy nodded.

Reg fell quiet. He had something else he wanted to say. Or he thought he did. He couldn’t think what it was. Not exactly.

He ate another nut.

“So…” Reg said. “So…real magic, huh?”

“Did you ever suppose the world held not even one mote of magic?” Poppy asked.

Reg shrugged. “No. I figured that would be too…” Reg didn’t know what “too.” He left that one floating. “So what is Hurt?”

“A wizard,” Poppy said. She shrugged. “Sorcerer. Never caught onto the distinction between the two meself. I don’t think there is one, and they’re just bullshitting the plebs so as to come off all mysterious. Headcases, every one.”

“Some kind of magician anyway,” Reg said. He ate another nut.

“He’s also a sort of mid-level capo in a kind of mob,” Poppy went on. “A mob that’s making a grab for territory in this town. There’s not much old world royalty in these parts. Might surprise you to hear it.”

“It does, so much,” Reg said, unable to resist a little sarcastic jab. He didn’t know what “old world royalty” was, and he thought he might ask about it someday.

“True as the Big Empty, angel cakes,” Poppy said. “There’s some unusual features of this area that might make things a bit strange for them. We’ll see.”

“Ah,” Reg said. He ate another nut, deciding how to phrase the question he really wanted to ask. “And what are you?”

Poppy smirked. The question made her pause, and sigh, then begin to speak with a low voice. “I am a consultant. I provide services to clients who either lack my expertise or wish to maintain a certain discretionary distance from the means that the services require.”

Reg nodded. “You’re a thief.”

“That’s amusing,” Poppy said, laughing. “Not only,” she said. “Not even mostly. I prefer to think of myself as professional support to specialist entrepreneurs.”

“So, like, gang bangers? Is that the right term? I’m not very ‘street’.”

“I believe I said ‘not even mostly’.”

“And that clears the whole thing? Just makes it cozy so we’re all dory and hunky, does it?”

Poppy smiled. She seemed like she had no intention of answering aside from to smile.

“So…it doesn’t matter to you that it matters to me?”

“You need to understand all of it,” Poppy said. “I’m not the right person to tell you about it. Not…right at this moment.”

“Who is? Can I go ask that person?”

“Mr. Ward’s who you want,” Poppy said, then cleared her throat, as if she hadn’t meant to say that. No longer smiling, she threw Reg a hard look. “You aren’t going to ask me what it was? What Hurt meant by what he said, I mean. About Mr. Ward, I mean.” She didn’t look at him in a pointed fashion. “You aren’t going to ask me, right?”

“No,” Reg said. He more coughed it. Now he wanted to know what Hurt meant. Suddenly quite urgently. But the way that Poppy spoke the question with enough urgency to make it halfway to an order made him change his mind…or it made him say—or, rather, cough—no, as if it had been his idea.

“Good,” Poppy said.

Which put Reg in an annoying place, because he only had one other thing he wanted to ask about. It felt kind of needy to ask about it—kind of desperate—and he had been trying not to ask it. It felt like the kind of thing that, if he were cool, he wouldn’t need to ask. Nobody in Ocean’s Eleven—or The Sting or any of those heist flicks or anything like that—needed to ask what Reg felt like he needed to ask. Cool people just knew why they found themselves in the weird scenario.

With a soul-filled sigh, Reg resigned himself to not being heist movie cool.

Which, when he thought about it, did leave a lot of other kinds of cool to be. Maybe it wasn’t such a heartbreaking thing.

Still, he had a go of trying to look cool.

“So, what did you do? Cruise around to all the comedy gigs to find the one act who could hold the attention of a whole room while cleverly tricking them into being bored?”

“It was a little more scientific than that. What’s funny?”

“I didn’t think you’d give me a straight answer.”

“Simple enough question.”

“Mm,” Reg ate another nut. He chewed it and took his time about it. “So…when you said you had a gig for me…”

“I meant a real gig,” Poppy said. “A job. Long as you want it. You know, if you do any good over the next few days.”

“Any good at what, though?”

“What I want you to do. You’ve been kind of shit at it so far.”

“What is it, though?”

“It’ll be way easier to explain after you’ve figured out how to do it.”

“You know that makes no sense, right?”

Poppy smiled her dangerous smile. “You’ve been kind of shit at it, and pretty well convinced me I’m brilliant for thinking you’ll do all right.”

“Why? What happened?”

Her smile went a little quieter. “I brought you out to explain the world to you, right?”

“Yeah,” Reg said.

“Done all right, have I?” Poppy said.

“I mean…kind of. Sort of. You’ve done pretty well for somebody who needs to invite some schmuck into a realm of magical heist pulling. I don’t think anyone could soften that up enough to make it sound calming, but given the subject matter you’ve done pretty well.”

“One of us have.”

“Huh?”

Poppy stepped away from the hearth of the outdoor fireplace. “One of us has been doing most of the talking, here. By my reckoning, it wasn’t me.” She held out her practically untouched little paper sack of honeyed chestnuts. “Thanks for the nuts, mate. You good to get yourself home from here, yeah? Right.”

A bit dazed still, Reg took the little sack of nuts. Poppy threw him a casual salute, and she turned and started to leave.

“I don’t get it,” Reg said.

“You do,” Poppy said. “You just don’t want to. Call you, yeah? Think it over. Not too long, all right? Cheer-o.”

She faded into the crowd. For a human basically constructed from sultry, bombast, and the distortion from an electric guitar, she faded into a crowd unexpectedly thoroughly. Reg couldn’t keep her in his sights at all, not even with her silky jacket.

He frowned into the sack of nuts. Then he looked at the big sky.

“What did I just learn?” he said.

The sky had no answer.

*

Bonzer had a little population of figurines representing dozens of different people. He had one for himself and one for Reiki and one for Poppy and one for Bruce. Bruce wondered if Bonzer would ever get out the one for Mr. Ward again, and sort of hoped that he never would.

The figurines stood around the large piece of paper with the crayoned-on map of the convention center. Reiki had a position on the side, where she would begin. Poppy’s slim, bright-colored figurine danced among the handful of beads that represented an anticipated crowd. Bonzer’s figure stood off the map, in a box by itself, because he would be “remoting in,” as they said it in other disciplines. Bruce needed to stay away from the nexus of the job because the secrecy they wanted would be given away by a scent peculiar to him, inherited from a grandparent that, if most species detected it at all, generally smelled a little like peat moss.

Ogres would smell it like Yankees fans can see Red Sox fans. The two ogre clans stared each other down on the crayon-drawn map, represented by orcish looking figurines with clubs and axes. Bruce ought to stay away from them if they wanted the plan to work. He would be getaway driver.

Reiki wrote the last note in a long line of bulleted points down the side of the map. Her writing looked like an army of spiders walked across the paper and left long, sooty scratches. Poppy would still review the plan, but this job had the beauty of being somewhat straightforward.

They all leaned over the table. They looked at the plans. The seriousness could be tasted in the dusty air.

The moment itself seemed to grind its teeth.

“Eggrolls?” Reiki said.

“I know a Thai place,” Bonzer said.

Reiki nodded. “Open this late?”

Bonzer shrugged. “It isn’t that late.”

“Guess it ain’t,” Reiki said.

Bruce pulled on his coat. They climbed into the alley and into Bruce’s big town car.

The dusting of snow that had fallen earlier whited all the mounds of snow. Bruce felt undeceived. He knew that the mounds of snow pushed off the streets and sidewalks had grimy, grey faces.

Bonzer knew the town a little better than Bruce or Reiki. He had been there longer than Bruce and certainly longer than Reiki. Bonzer also liked cities, and they liked him. The myriad wifi signals and Bluetooth signals and cell signals and the thousand other signals all talked to Bonzer. Bruce reckoned that invisible cloud of mankind’s technology gave twiggish, twitchy Bonzer that expression of resigned befuddlement all the time and made his big round eyes always at the same time wide and tired. Bruce heard that some people found Bonzer wearisome to be around. Bruce never did. If Bruce was a rhinoceros—which he sometimes felt like one—Bonzer was a red-billed oxpecker, perching (metaphorically) on Bruce and flitting around to counteract those little irritations that came with living in this misbegot century.

Bonzer even kind of looked like a red-billed oxpecker, with his twitchy eyes and craning neck. If a red-billed oxpecker had a teal-colored fringe on its head.

Bonzer’s instructions kept them on dark back streets with hardly a porch light or street light to interrupt the congregations of night gaunts. Bruce saw a few of the negative-light creatures, sitting in a doorway, passing a bottle back and forth. Well, “saw.” You don’t “see” them. You know them by their absence. Bruce remembered the doorway. It never hurt to know places to find night gaunts. They came in useful for plenty of jobs and worked cheap, and they always knew which bars had the best happy hour food deals.

Bonzer gestured to tell Bruce to make a left. After a half block they made another left onto a bigger street—onto the bigger street and through a membrane between the cold, easily permeable black darkness owned by the moon and stars—hidden behind the clouds, which owned the silence. On the other side of the membrane they pushed into the warmer and more glutinous yellow darkness owned by mankind’s lights. Some people thought they imagined that division between the two kinds of darkness. It was a real membrane. You just had to touch the air right to feel it.

Bruce recognized this street. It had significance to Mr. Ward. Bruce didn’t know why. It just looked like a street made of grit, so often driven over by cars that their tires cast the grit onto the faces of all the dedicated pedestrians and all the affronted shops. It didn’t matter how nice anything started when it got here, it all looked weary and dusty.

Yet it all kept coming. All the people walked on the wide sidewalks, avoiding the chance to ask themselves if they enjoyed it, and all the shops and restaurants stood there like they had staked their spot to watch the parade, and wanted to look inviting in spite the silt.

The snow didn’t help. Every view had mounds of frozen mud in gutters and the narrow spaces between buildings.

Bruce didn’t know why Mr. Ward liked it.

But he did know why he liked it.

He pulled into a spot in front of the thai joint. It had no customers and only two bored employees, but it said it would be open for a few hours more.

Reiki and Bonzer ordered some of almost all the appetizers. They carried them back to Bruce’s town car in a brown paper bag.

Almost without thinking of doing it, he drove toward the convention center so they could look it over.

For a while they ate and didn’t talk.

Or, at least, Reiki talked and Bonzer sometimes responded. He thought of it as silence because they didn’t need his attention and he found the addition to the background noise acceptable. Soothing, even. He didn’t mind these people.

They talked, and what they said entered his head and stayed there. Spoken words did that. He didn’t need to think about them.

“I kind of started my own crew a little while ago,” Reiki said. “Just a couple of us. Couple thieves and kind of a class huckster who we would have put in charge of glamour. Know what I mean? They’re still active in town. I kind of keep tabs on them.”

Bonzer replied with his elastic face. His slide-eyed, purse-lipped expression said that he could feel empathy with what she had to say, but that he didn’t feel like acknowledging her position—not at this exact moment—but she could keep going if she wanted. He had an eloquent face.

“You guys do good work,” Reiki said. “If you ever want to contract with us, you have my number.”

“Think this job will go rotten?” Bonzer asked. Reiki cleared her throat. Bruce, even, glanced sideways and tried not to look at the idea. He looked at the rising buildings instead. The building got taller every block he drove north.

“Just saying,” Reiki said, “keep our options clear, right? I mean…” she waved her fingers like she was an actor pretending to cast a spell, then batted her eyelashes and mimed flipping her hair in an impression of the easy way to misinterpret Poppy. Another eloquent gesture, and it said fairly clearly that trusting wily Poppy when wily Poppy had a veteran sorcerer meant one thing. And that this Reg put a strain on the situation.

She didn’t need to say it. They all thought it to different degrees.

“Keep ourselves open to options,” Reiki said. She frowned about it. It seemed to hurt her to say it. “Need to do that. We survive by doing that. I mean…it’d suck to make an enemy of Poppy. Don’t want to do that. Never know. She might not resent it.”

Bonzer’s face made a shape that would have come with a derisive sound if it had been someone else’s face.

“She’d understand about the surviving thing,” Reiki said. She cast a look that needled into the side of Bruce’s head. She wanted some kind of reassurance. People looked to Bruce for reassurance. He struck them as solid, like the immovable lug that he made himself out to be. It made sense.

Bruce pulled another egg roll from the paper bag. He ate half of it in a mouthful and crunched it.

“Thanks,” Reiki said. She didn’t even try not to sound sarcastic.

[pamphletstoinspire]

Seven Easy Tips for Personal Prayer

Saint Augustine wisely said, “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” But the deep meaning of our longing isn’t always so obvious.

Ultimately, our restless aching is a yearning for God. We need to connect with God. We need prayer. We know this, both in our more reflective moments and in our more desperate moments. It’s then that we feel our need for prayer and try to go to that deep place. But given our lack of trust and our lack of practice, we struggle to get there. We don’t know how to pray or how to sustain ourselves in prayer.

Whether you’re a beginner or more advanced in prayer, these seven tips will encourage you in your practice of prayer:

1) Show Up

There’s no bad way to pray and no single starting point for prayer. The spiritual masters offer one nonnegotiable rule: you have to show up for prayer and show up regularly. Everything else is negotiable and respects your unique circumstances.

Most days, we don’t pray simply because we don’t quite get around to it. Perhaps the best metaphor to describe our hurried and distracted lives is that of a car wash. For most of us, that’s just what our typical day does to us—it sucks us through. Prayer is truly a discipline. Show up!

2) Quiet Your Heart

Solitude is a form of awareness, a way of being present and perceptive within all of life. It’s having a dimension of reflectiveness in our daily lives that brings gratitude, appreciation, peacefulness, enjoyment, and prayer. It’s the sense, within ordinary life, that life is precious, sacred, and enough.

Solitude isn’t something we turn on like a water faucet. It needs a body and mind slowed enough to be attentive to the present moment. The first step is to remain quietly in God’s presence in solitude, silence, and prayer. If it is your first time doing this, set aside 15 minutes for prayer.

3) Look Inside

Our culture can keep us so entertained, busy, preoccupied, and distracted that we lose all focus on the deeper things. We can go along like this for years until a crisis suddenly renders empty all the stimulation and entertainment in the world. Then we’re forced to look into our own depth, and that can be a frightening abyss if we’ve spent years avoiding it.

We have to know when it’s time to unplug the television, turn off the phone, shut down the computer, silence the iPod, lay away the sports page, and resist going out for coffee with a friend, so that, for one moment, we’re not avoiding making friends with the deepest part of us.

4) Establish a Routine and Stick with It

The solution isn’t so much new prayer forms and more variety, but rhythm, routine, and established ritual. What’s needed is a prayer form that doesn’t demand an energy you cannot muster on a given day.

What clear rituals provide is prayer that depends on something beyond our own energy. The rituals carry us: our tiredness, our inattentiveness, our indifference, and even our occasional distaste. They keep us praying even when we’re too tired to muster up our own energy.

Prayer has an ebb and flow. Sometimes we have a deep sense of God’s reality, and sometimes we can’t even imagine that God exists. Sometimes we have deep feelings about God’s goodness and love, and sometimes we feel bored and distracted.

At a deep level of our human relationships, the real connection between people takes place below the surface of our conversations. We begin to know each other through simple presence. Prayer is the same. If we pray faithfully every day, year in and year out, we can expect little excitement, lots of boredom, and regular temptations to look at the clock. But a bond and an intimacy will be growing under the surface—a deep, growing bond with our God.

5) Be Honest, Vulnerable, Bold

What does it mean to be holy or perfect? To be perfect in the Hebrew mindset simply means to walk with God, despite our flaws. It means being in the divine presence in spite of the fact that we’re not perfectly whole, good, true, and beautiful.

God asks us to bring our helplessness, weaknesses, imperfections, and sin to him, to walk with him, and to never hide from him. God understands that we’ll make mistakes and disappoint him and ourselves. What God asks is simply that we come home, share our lives with him, and let him help us in those ways we’re powerless to help ourselves.

Every feeling and thought we have is a valid entry into prayer, no matter how irreverent, unholy, selfish, sexual, or angry that thought or feeling might seem. Simply put, if you go to pray and you’re feeling angry, pray anger; if you’re sexually preoccupied, pray that preoccupation; if you’re feeling murderous, pray murder; and if you’re feeling full of fervor and want to praise and thank God, pray fervor. What’s important is that we pray what’s inside of us and not what we think God would like to see inside of us. No matter the headache or the heartache, we need only to lift it up to God.

6) Let Go of Anxiety and Shame

The opposite of faith isn’t doubt but anxiety. It isn’t so much the fear that God doesn’t exist as the fear that God doesn’t notice our existence. Faith doesn’t have you believe that you’ll have no worries, or that you won’t make mistakes, or that you and your loved ones won’t sometimes fall victim to accident or sickness. What faith gives you is the assurance that God is good, can be trusted, won’t forget you, and is solidly in charge. Faith says that God is real, God is Lord, and there’s ultimately nothing to fear. We’re in safe hands. Reality is gracious, forgiving, loving, redeeming, and absolutely trustworthy. Our task is to surrender to that.

If we’re to take seriously the words of Jesus, “Change your life and believe in the good news,” then the coldness and distrust brought upon us by shame must be overcome. Shame is powerful. Its bite is deep, the scars permanent.

Try to bring the warmth, trust, and spontaneity of childhood into your prayers with God, a God who delights in you and has no use for crippling shame. Jesus said: “Love each other as I love you” (Jn 15:12). The tail end of that sentence contains the challenge. Jesus loved us by becoming vulnerable to the point of risking humiliation and rejection. We must recover our childlike trust and try to do the same.

7) Listen for God’s Voice and Accept God’s Love

We’re surrounded by many voices. How do we recognize God’s voice among and within all of these others? God is the author of everything that’s good, whether it bears a religious label or not. Hence, God’s voice is inside many things that aren’t explicitly connected to faith and religion.

Jesus tells us he’s the Good Shepherd and his sheep will recognize his voice among all other voices. A sheep recognizes the voice of the one safeguarding it and won’t follow another voice. The voice of God is the voice of someone who knows us intimately and calls each of us by name.

We take for granted that anyone who sees us as we really are (unlovely, weak, pathological, sinful, insubstantial) will, in the end, be as disappointed with us as we are with ourselves. We fear God because we’ve never experienced the kind of love that is manifest in God. We avoid God when we’re most in need of love and acceptance.

God is love, and only by letting that love into our lives can we save ourselves from disappointment, shame, and sadness. God understands us, accepts us, delights in us, and is eager to smile at us. Experiencing the unconditional love of God is what prayer, in the end, is all about.

Remember: your heart is made to rest in God. If Saint Augustine is right—and he is—then you can count on your restlessness to lead you into deeper prayer—the kind of prayer that leads to transformation and will not leave you empty-handed.

Material for this article is adapted from the book Prayer: Our Deepest Longing by Ronald Rolheiser, OMI. Ronald Rolheiser, is a Roman Catholic priest with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, is an internationally renowned speaker and spiritual writer. His award-winning weekly column, “In Exile,” is carried by more than 70 newspapers. He is the author of seven books, including the best-selling The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality.