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5sosfanfictioncatalogue · 3 months ago

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Strangers To Lovers (2) Masterlist

part one

And Action (ao3) - cornflowerblue (daydadahlias) luke/ashton E, 24k

Summary: Calum won’t lie about it. His Best Friend’s Boyfriend’s Ex-Boyfriend is super cute.

a new sensation (ao3) - strxngersagain luke/calum G, 16k

Summary: Calum needs a date for his sister's wedding, and Luke has never been to Scotland.

cake topics (ao3) - galacticsugar luke/calum E, 39k

Summary: Every morning that week, Calum goes back to the bakery, collects his lemon bar, and sets up on the terrace with his laptop.

And every morning that week, he sees the tall guy with off duty model vibes, right around the same time, always carrying his iced coffee, always wearing a leather jacket. Since he’s all the way across the street, Calum doesn’t really get a good look at him beyond basic shapes, so the off duty model thing is based entirely on his build and the fact that he looks sort of effortlessly put together with his leather jacket and casual sneakers.

That’s probably why Calum waves like a maniac and blurts, “Hey buddy!” when he comes face to face with the guy when he’s in line for his lemon bar the following Monday morning.

cream, no sugar (ao3) - strxngersagain luke/calum T, 15k

Summary: Calum loves his job.

Travelling so often is just a side effect of his job, and of the promotion he’d been given almost six months ago. One perk of all the back-and-forth he does in order to keep his fancy new title of Senior Project Manager of Copyright & Publishing is: Luke.

Luke is a flight attendant who works for United Airlines. When Calum’s lucky, he’s a flight attendant on the flight Calum is on, to wherever his next hotel room turned conference room is located. He’s been lucky more often than not lately, because Luke has been on every flight that Calum has been on for the past eight weeks.

Denouement (Love is Almost Always Accidental) (ao3) - galacticsugar luke/ashton T, 28k

Summary: Ashton's parents send him to boarding school in Paris, where he is immediately charmed by Luke. Unfortunately, Luke has a boyfriend.

Doubtful Heart, Foolish Love (ao3) - valiantnerd (arareads) luke/ashton M, 18k

Summary: Cameron left their sheets smelling like foreign flowers every other day, not even extending Ashton the kindness of showering between beds and Ashton doesn’t know if it was the mistress who created the cracks in his relationship or if she just sneaked between them and then left neon signs pointing at them; but neither of the options make it better.

Ashton’s absent lover ruins their relationship by seeking greener pastures, leaving him devastated. Luke, the barista who becomes his unlikely ally, helps him find greener pastures for himself.

go for miles (ao3) - strxngersagain luke/calum, michael/ashton G, 11k

Summary: When Calum had bought tickets to Glastonbury Festival with his ex nearly a full year ago, he never imagined he would have ended up going alone. The very messy breakup of a nearly-three-year relationship pushed any and all thoughts of future-plans to the back of his mind. He had almost entirely forgotten about the tickets tucked into an envelope, if he was being honest with himself. It wasn’t until an email dropped into his inbox with the subject: ‘We can’t wait to see you!’, reminding him that oh shit, they had bought tickets together and oh shit, that’s in like two weeks.

He spent the better part of the afternoon sitting on the living room floor trying to figure out what to do with his ticket. It was too late for him to transfer it to someone else, he couldn’t sell it because it had his name printed on it, and he didn’t really want to lose out on the £300 he spent on the damn thing by just not going. So, he decided then and there that he would go alone. Ex-boyfriend be damned, he’d have a great time even if he was by himself.

i let my guard down for a moment (wherever you go, i'll be going too) (ao3) - burstintocolor (anchormate) luke/calum, michael/ashton M, 14k

Summary: or; luke has a career crisis and gets a job at a bakery. calum is a beautiful baker. you know how it goes from there.

if you ever feel alone, don’t. (ao3) - galacticsugar michael/luke T, 5k

Summary: Michael needs a tall man with broad shoulders and a slim waist and he needs one now. Not for sexy reasons, although he wouldn’t turn one down for that. No, he needs a fit model for his design final project that is due in exactly 9 hours, and his usual model is in the hospital after having an allergic reaction to unannounced shellfish in the dining hall pasta.

My tongue gets tied (ao3) - heart_is_gonna_flatline calum/ashton N/R, 8k

Summary: Calum has always had a speech impediment that makes him stutter, and he hates it. When he meets Luke who immediately assumes he's mute, Calum just decides to go along with the lie.

But you can't lie forever, can you?

not like the others (ao3) - galacticsugar luke/calum T, 6k

Summary: “Luke?” Something about saying it feels nice, the press of Calum’s tongue against his teeth on the L, the way his lips purse slightly around the U, the satisfying sharpness of the K at the end. Refreshing.

Michael nods, lifting onto his toes to scan the crowd, then pointing towards the fence between Calum’s and Jack’s yards. “Over there. Can’t miss him. Huge, looks like Jack.”

Calum scans the cluster of people by the fence until he zeros in on the one unfamiliar face. He makes a strangled noise and murmurs “holy fuck” under his breath.

off track (ao3) - galacticsugar, kaleidoscopeminds luke/calum E, 113k

Summary: Calum’s bumped into exes before, of course, but not all his exes are Luke Hemmings, who’s the sort of person that Calum had gotten used to the idea of never seeing again. And Calum had long since reasoned that it’s probably for the best that he doesn’t see him in the flesh ever, because Luke Hemmings is an itch in the back of his brain that never quite goes away, that he’s never been able to scratch, the someone that features in his dreams when he lets his subconscious take the reins.

He’s Calum’s the one that got away.

silver lining (ao3) - toddamyanderson luke/calum E, 15k

Summary: “Hey, man. You alright?”

Luke jumps at the deep voice sounding from behind him. He spins around to face it, one hand clutching his camera in case he’s about to get kicked out for being in the wrong section when he is, in fact, meant to be here, as a registered photographer.

But when Luke turns around, there’s just one guy there, lounging on a small stack of boxes with one leg hitched up for him to sling an arm over, exuding calm confidence.

He’s clearly a model.

the hues of me and you (ao3) - Calumthoodshands (tndart) luke/calum T, 25k

Summary: “And you’re not… doing this to get a date after all?” he asked after a moment, chewing on his lower lip. If he didn’t make sure of it now, he never would, and if there was one thing he most definitely didn’t need, it was his own love life interfering with his bachelor’s. No, thank you. Luke exhaled almost unnoticeably, but he smiled at Calum, a little lopsided, a little mischievous. “No, I’m not. You know, if you want, we’ll just make a pact. No falling for the other allowed, as long as we’re working on the project. No feelings and no dates. Nothing’s gonna happen, and we can both move on, and you’ll get your bachelor’s and we can live happily ever after. How’s that sound?”

The Morning After (Roommates were planning to set them up anyway) (ao3) -ConfusedPython michael/luke N/R, 1k

Summary: Michael and Luke don’t know each other, however their roommates do and had plans to set them up together. But Michael and Luke beat their friends to the punch when gets drunk and a hot guy takes him home.

this city screams your name (ao3) - galacticsugar luke/calum M, 38k

Summary: Luke finally notices Calum, and he grins at him, ducking his head bashfully and scrunching his shoulders to his ears as he approaches, casting a shadow over Calum’s bench. “If it isn’t my favorite ex-convict,” he says, and his voice is softer than Calum remembers, but the teasing lilt is unmistakably familiar.

“You finish your shitty book yet?” Calum raises his eyebrows, tipping his head up to meet Luke’s eyes. They’re so blue in the nearly-midday-sun. They might actually be the brightest thing Calum’s seen since landing in London.

trouvaille (ao3) - mlnsung luke/calum T, 1k

Summary: trouvaille /‘tru:vʌi/ (n.) a lucky find

Luke thinks that they’re best when they’re both naked, and Calum is so pretty when he rolls around in the sheets.

trusting you (ao3) - lifewasradical luke/ashton, background michael/calum E, 38k

Summary: He clutches a sparkly acoustic guitar in one hand, baby blue painted nails biting into the strings as he waves at the crowd and settles onto his stool. “Hello,” he says, voice swaying from a deep register to a higher head voice with one single word, elongated through a crooked smile. “I’m Levi Halloway, and I’m here to play a few songs for you tonight,” he says, plucking a chord as he straightens his shoulders. His shirt strains over the length of his wingspan.

Ashton would be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued already, drawn in after only a handful of words. He’s seen more random performers than he can count, mostly no name aspiring artists who just want someone to listen to them. Half the time they’re good enough to get a rousing applause at the end, while the other half of the time everyone has left the sitting area before they finish their set.

Other than Ashton of course. He always stays until the end.

undeniable you (ao3) - allsassnoclass (brightblackholes) michael/ashton T, 4k

Summary: Before getting out of bed each morning, Ashton gives himself a moment to drink in the sight of Michael beside him.

voice of reason (ao3) - kaleidoscopeminds luke/calum T, 5k

Summary: Luke’s definitely, absolutely, 100% sure he’s not addicted to the voice of the guy on his sleep podcast.

when the party ends (ao3) - galacticsugar luke/calum E, 30k

Summary: Sadly, Calum is going to have to buy this bottle of wine. Is he torturing himself unnecessarily? Definitely. He can’t even really make himself feel pathetic about it, though. He’s fully aware of what he’s doing. Of why he misses Luke so much. Of why drinking this wine alone in his apartment is a bad idea. Even without Luke actually being present, Calum is using him.

a heaven, iowa songfic.

You Know J'adore La Mer (ao3) - heart_is_gonna_flatline luke/calum N/R, 9k

Summary: Luke lived in France for the six first years of his life before moving to London. At seventeen, he moves back to France with his parents, leaving his country and the swing he loves so much. He meets his childhood best friends, and some things might have changed.

#5sosfanfictioncatalogue #5sos fanfic #masterlists #au #strangers #strangerstolovers #strangerstolovers masterlist

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acourtofsnakes · 4 years ago

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Jetii'kad - Rogue, Chapter 22| The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive! Reader

GIF by @di-kut

Summary: Your training with Ahsoka moves on to new, exciting levels and a comms call with Din threatens to shatter the peace of the last few weeks.

Warnings: Not too many in this actually. Swearing - I don’t think there is, but I’ll pop it on just in case, injury, falling, me making things up about Jedi training

Word Count: 5k+

A/N: Oh, dear.

Rogue| The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive! Reader (f) Taglist: @snipskixandbeskar @weirdowithnobeardo @the-bottom-of-the-abyss @jackgrzs @sarahjkl82-blog @boomtownboy @goldielocks2004 @seninjakitey @what-iwish-you-knew @queenofthefaceless @rosiefridayrogersunday @greeneyedblondie44 @itsnottilly @welcometothepedroverse @xgoldenjenny @mamacitapascal @heyitsjaybird @amyk-37 @greatcircle79

Permanent Taglist: @greeneyedblondie44 @mamacitapascal @mypedrom @undiscovered-misunderstood @kaylee-krystal

Mando’a Translation: Jetii’kad - Lightsaber; Literally: Sword of the Jedi

Another couple of weeks had passed, and things were still going incredibly well.

You were flying through your training, and Ahsoka was continually impressed with you. There were still days where your past threatened to choke you, but Ahsoka was there to help you work it through.

Din had taken to going on small hints that took him away for a few days at a time. He was comfortable and satisfied that the pair of you and the kids were safe here - and happy.

Ahsoka had previously had some trouble with the town, but that had been resolved now and she still chose to reside here on Corvus peacefully whilst looking for things herself.

So, Din had gone off after getting a comms message from Greef about some small bounty missions.

He’d been uncharacteristically like a mother hen the first time he left. You’d had to practically throw him in the Crest and send it into the sky yourself. He’d also checked in every night and morning, making sure everyone was okay and you weren’t pushing yourself too hard.

It didn’t bother you, his worrying or checking in. If anything, it just filled you with a blissfully sweet warmth that wrapped around your heart and soul.

You hadn’t had anyone do such things in… far longer than you could remember.

And maybe because you were equally as worried about him.

Oh, to be in love.

You did miss him when he was gone, there was no denying that.

He had been by your side almost every single day since he picked you up on Sorgan, and to not have him there was a bit of a shock. You found yourself turning around to say something to him... only he wasn’t there. It wasn’t just the conversation either, it was the little things.

Like the brush of his hand over your lower back or hand, his shoulder bumping against yours as you walked, him flanking you like a broad, metallic guard.

Even just the sound of his laughter or the soft clink of beskar as he moved.

It felt like he had taken a limb with him, leaving you unbalanced and off-centre.

Although had you been truly on your own, it would have been a hell of a lot worse. But there were a few things in particular that made it easier. Training, the kids and Ahsoka of course, but mainly... the next thing you had moved onto.

Lightsaber training.

You hadn’t expected to even get near the training sabers - poles of the same size and near weight of lightsabers, used to get acquainted with the momentum and movements - for months. But Ahsoka had informed you a couple days ago that she truly believed you were ready so soon. Like you were born for this.

You were ecstatic, beside yourself with glee when you told Din over your comms call that night that you’d be starting. The man had been so proud of you, complimenting you the whole call until the praise turned his voice to a lower pitch, that honey rasp that heated your blood and your call had turned into a very different kind of praise and reward until the early hours of the morning.

All the stars above, this man would be the death of you one day.

Ahsoka had pretended not to notice the lingering flush on your cheeks the next morning as she set you to work with the poles, explaining the basics of grip and balance.

At first, you were rather clumsy. Your weapons of choice were either a bow, daggers or long knives. At the most, you’d sometimes practised with Din’s beskar spear, but a saber would be a length between your longest knife and Din’s spear.

Hence why you spent the first day with the training pole slipping out of your hands, nearly taking off your foot at one point.

However, you kept going, determined to prove that Ahsoka’s pride and instincts about you hadn’t been wrong.

That your own steadily growing belief in yourself hadn’t been wrong either.

After your nightly calls with Din, you took yourself off to the edge of the clearing, practicing your saber movements.

You worked through the drills Ahsoka gave you in the day, spinning and whirling until you could move across the floor of the clearing silently, whipping the training pole through the air like an extension of your arm.

You knew a real one would take more practice, more care and precision but this was a good start – you were proud of yourself, actually.

There was only one thing bothering you and you hadn’t told Din or Ahsoka.

See, there was this… feeling inside you. A small, swirling darkness that sat in your chest.

It wasn’t the same as the heavy cloud that sometimes lowered over your mood and mind… No, this was a different kind of darkness.

This darkness yearned for… destruction. Devastation.

To bring down pain and fury on all of those that hurt you. To tear apart their lives the way yours had been torn. But not just your life, but the people that had hurt Din and Grogu.

Those who had made Ahsoka choose to banish herself.

And it scared you because, well… you had wanted those things for a long, long time. From back when your powers were once again dormant, and you often hesitated between knocking a hunter out – or killing them. And when that dark cloud had first emerged, it gave you the power to butcher those who dared come after you.

That was the first time your bounty price has risen. Word got out that you were taking down elite members of the Guild, Stormtroopers, high ranking noble fighters from far off planets.

The scared little girl with no family had given way to a deadly assassin who would strike with the speed of a serpent and had the venom of one too.

That same version of yourself often walked in your dreams, and lately, you felt her lingering at the shadows around your peripheral. She had risen from her long slumber, triggered perhaps by the understanding of Haran’s words, back when he had kidnapped you.

This assassin… she would recognise the horrors he had committed, the monster that prowled in his skin but… she would understand. Because the same monster prowled beneath her own skin.

Two kindred spirits who’s lives had been torn apart by monsters who refused to understand.

And last night… last night you’d awoken from a dream-like state, only to find yourself nearly a mile from the camp.

As if you were going for that hunt right away.

You’d been shaken, that lingering craving for destruction still sitting heavy in your chest as you hurried back to camp.

No.

You couldn’t tell the others at all.

“So, are you ready to move onto the next stage of your training today?” Ahsoka faced you across the clearing you often practiced in, the strange, murky haze shifting today to something closely resembling sunlight.

You nodded, trying not to look too eager as you watched her, limbs already loosened up and warmed, ready to go. “Ready.”

Ahsoka smiled a little at your eagerness, her hands clasped behind her back, “Now, this is usually something that Jedi get trained to do near the end of their learning. After they’ve mastered the essentials of the Force, honed them to use in everyday life and in battle, they have to learn the theory and history of this next part. Then extensive training and only after they’ve proved with the practice weapons that they won’t take off someone’s leg or their own arm, then they are simply just considered for this next phase.”

You began to read where she was going with this, and you had to bite your lip to contain the squeal of excitement that threatened to burst forth from your chest.

She knew this, of course.

“But, you’ve risen up through the training quicker than even I thought. And with the life you lead… I don’t see why you aren’t ready.” She moved her arms from behind her, holding out her hand.

She was holding out a tube.

A sleek, silver tube that was ever so slightly curved… it was one of her own.

She was going to let you train with one of her own lightsabers.

Your head snapped up to look at her as your breathing caught in your throat, “Ashoka… This is… I can’t use this. What if I break it?” You gripped your own elbows, forcing your hands not to be all grabby and reach for it like they so desperately yearned to.

Ahsoka chucked softly despite herself, “What did I teach you?” She still held out the saber, the hazy sun glinting off of the metal.

You thought back to all your lessons, but already knew where she was going with this, “Never doubt my Master.”

She raised an eyebrow, wiggling the tube almost teasingly, “And?”

You puffed out a breath through your cheeks, rolling your eyes, “Never doubt myself.” You shot her a look, all playful, friendly bantering… because she was right.

She grinned beautifully, a rare sight, “See. I wouldn’t let you touch this if I didn’t think you were ready. Or trust you.” Her expression softened, “You have nothing to fear from yourself, Padawan.” She used the name affectionately, remembering it from her own times of being young and unsure, eager to prove herself.

You studied her face, reading the confidence there, the understanding, and you thought of the belief in yourself that had been regrowing for a while now. Almost immediately, your shoulders relaxed, and you let go of your arms, instead reaching out for the saber. You hesitated for a brief moment, but then took it, holding it carefully and bringing it back toward your body.

As soon as you touched it, you could have sworn it thrummed with energy, a gentle pulse that sung through your blood and veins and spoke to you. It made you feel immediately… whole. Settled.

This had been what you were missing.

Ahsoka watched you, studying the was your face softened, the light growing in your eyes. Your stance had changed too, more balanced and self-assured. “Activate it.”

You looked up at her, holding your breath for a moment and you lifted the saber, taking a second to think.

All your life… had been leading to this moment, really.

As soon as you activated this saber, you were stepping into the role that had been in your blood, always. Not a Jedi, but something different.

Entirely unique.

Every trauma you had gone through, every wave of pain as you tried to restrain your true self. The stigma and fear, the admiration from those that believed and chose to help you… even if it had ended up in their own demise, despite your best efforts.

This all flashed through your mind quickly, before it cleared. Emptying of everything but the cool, flowing feeling of the Force and so, you shifted your thumb and activated it.

Glowing, white energy burst upward as the crystal was activated, pushing away the murky haze and filling the small area around you with that pure light.

Beautiful, radiant… true.

Ahsoka Tano smiled more, activating her remaining lightsaber with that pulsing hum, “And now we begin.”

The moon shone high in the murky sky, casting everything with a milky glow as you settled into your tree of choice.

It was your nightly call to Din, and you often called him whilst perched in one of the more substantial trees, so as to not disturb Ahsoka with the noise. You knew she fell asleep late and rose early, but you still wanted to be polite.

It was also more to make sure Grogu didn’t wake up – he was a little monster for not going back to sleep again. Din called in the day sometimes, to speak to Grogu but the nights… they were just for the two of you.

You watched the hologram display, which told you the call was patching through.

Your model of the comms watch didn’t allow for video calls, but its sound quality was crystal clear, almost as if you were standing right next to Din.

You almost hadn’t been able to wait for your call tonight, to tell him all about your day learning.

The training had gone… really, really well.

Ahsoka had shown you the basics of handling the saber so you wouldn’t slice through your toes, how to move with the glowing beacon of energy and use it most effectively.

It was different to the training spears, but it was a concept you grasped quickly.

Your past training and skill in combat came in useful, for you were already light and nimble on your feet.

The pair of you had trained over and over, until you were both dancing across the clearing, spinning and leaping around each other, aided by the Force and lighter than the air itself.

It was a spectacular light show for the kids, who were cheering – or meowing – in delight throughout the whole thing.

And, at the end, when you were both panting and a little flushed, Ahsoka had dropped to a knee in front of you, inclining her head in a soft bow, “It’s an honour to fight with you, and teach you.”

Ahsoka Tano… praising you. Feeling honoured by you.

By the Maker and all the stars above, you still couldn’t get over that.

There was more to learn, much more, but Ahsoka had been so impressed, she promised a day off tomorrow where the four of you would explore some of the rare, beautiful spots on the planet.

You had so much to tell Din.

It took Din little longer than usual for him to answer, but you put that down simply to the distance between you, and the storm that Ahsoka said was going to roll in soon.

A few minutes later, the ringing tone pinged, and Din’s voice filled the air, “Hey, sweetheart.”

Those two simple words, the gentle rasp of them that was all honey and roughness just instantly soothed your very soul. It caressed over your body, much like Din’s hands, and you let out a soft sigh, your chest loosening, “Hey, Din… How are you?”

There was a lot of wind his end, rushing through the mic but then it stopped, like he’d turned a different way, “I’m okay, tired. But better hearing your voice.”

Sweet-talker.

You grinned to yourself, tilting back your head, “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?” Your leg swung lazily from the branch, a picture of relaxation now that you were talking to your love.

Din grunted, the wind suddenly roaring through the line again, blocking out whatever he was saying to you.

You frowned, wincing as the gust made the line all staticky, “Din, what are you doing? It sounds like you’re on the back of one of those reptavian from Nevarro.” However, the hairs on the back of your neck stood up, a sense telling you that you weren’t going to like whatever came next.

There were a few moments hesitation, and you could almost hear Din wishing the ground – or maybe air – would swallow him whole, “Um…”

Oh.

You really weren’t going to like this.

Dread coiled with apprehension in your belly, a tight feeling creeping along your skin, “Um? What do you mean, um? Tell me, Din.” There was a sharpness to your tone, one that he knew well.

It was a ‘don’t you dare lie to me’ tone.

A very soft noise over the wind and Din started to speak, but then was cut off by a burst of rapid, loud fire.

Blaster fire.

He was being shot at.

Your heart nearly dropped through your stomach, and you had to grab hold of the tree branch so you didn’t fall out. A light trembling shook your hands, but your voice was still steady, “Din Djarin, was that blaster fire?!”

It sounded like Din seemingly retaliated, because then his voice came back, “Okay… Okay, promise me you won’t get mad.” There was a pleading note to his words, but it seemed like he was cringing, waiting for the blow up.

“Too late.” You hissed those two words through gritted teeth, heart pounding with fear in your chest. “If you keep avoiding my questions, it’s going to get a whole lot worse.”

Din sucked in a breath, and then let it out all in a rush, “I’m at an Imperial base.”

Silence from you.

So quiet, Din would have been able to hear the owls in the trees. Maybe even the fire crackling down below.

The words echoed around in your mind slowly, unfolding and repeating.

He had to be joking. Din wouldn’t be that reckless.

“Sweetheart…?” Din was hesitant, worried by your silence, when he’d been expected fire - and shouting.

You closed your eyes, more to rein in your impending anger, to give you something to focus on, so that your voice remained quiet when you spoke, “And what, might I ask, are you doing at an Imperial base?”

He audibly swallowed, still grunting and seemingly dodging the shots being fired at him from Stormtroopers, “Well, I was on a hunt and I found talk of an Imp base nearby causing trouble in the town. I asked what it was and…” He hesitated for a second before realising that might simultaneously worry you and make you even more mad “And the townspeople told me they were looking for someone. Someone with a huge bounty… a girl.”

It was like someone poured ice water over your body.

There was a whole Imp base… looking for you?

Sure, a few Stormtroopers had come after you before, and then those ones that had ambushed you before Haran showed up but... a whole base…

Don’t think about that though. That’s secondary.

“Okay… And what, they sold you out to the Imps? Told them you were hunting nearby?” Maybe you had jumped to conclusions a little quickly.

Of course Din wouldn’t have gone to a base and ambushed it. If the townspeople wanted to stop the trouble, maybe they thought giving information to the Imps would be a good idea. It would make sense. Plenty of people had sold you out the very same way to save themselves, and you hadn’t been able to blame them.

More blaster fire, but it was a little further away this time. It still didn’t stop you flinching with each shot, waiting for the inevitable grunt of pain from Din.

“Uhm… not exactly. I… asked Cara and a few old friends to help me. We… infiltrated it and tried to find the information they had on you, but they realised who we were.” Din’s voice was halted, stumbling over the word ‘infiltrated’. It was choked somehow, as if was grappling with retelling you the story.

Something had happened in there… And then it occurred to you.

If they infiltrated the base… Din wouldn’t have bene able to waltz in there with his beskar armour on.

He would have to have blended in.

Which meant… he took off the armour.

Before you could mention it, he was talking, his words quieter in that voice that meant trouble, “We managed to get out and…”

The trembling had taken over your entire body, a voice in your head chiming that Din was lying, that he was joking with you because he wouldn’t do this, he wouldn’t do what you knew he was going to say… “And?” A single word, weighted.

You heard Din swallow, and then, “We kind of… blew it up…”

Silence, again.

Laughter then suddenly burst from your mouth, albeit slightly hysterical laughter, but still. One minute you were staring at the moon in utter horror, and the next you were doubled over in fits of giggles.

“Sweetheart…?” Now Din just sounded concerned. He had expected another blow up the moment you realised what was going on, and so far, none of it had happened the way he thought. And now here you were, laughing?

You shook your head even though he couldn’t see you, “I’m sorry, it’s just – for a moment there, I really believed you!” You covered your mouth, trying to stifle the increasing hysteria, “I really believed you had infiltrated an Imperial base with a tiny crew, to find information out on me you could have got from capturing an Imp, and then you make it even better by trying to convince me you blew up a base!” You leant back against the tree, your heart rate picking up unsteadily, sweat pooling in your hands and you felt your power thrum through your blood.

“Darling - ”

“Ooh, you really nearly had me there, Din. And I’m so glad you’re joking, because no way would you yell at me endlessly for getting kidnapped and then plunged into a frozen lake – none of which was my fault – telling me I’m reckless and stupid… and then go off on a little joyride to destroy Imperial strongholds.” The laughter was melting away, your voice getting more frantic and pleading, like you were begging him to tell you he was joking.

The wind rushed through the comm’s call again, the sounds of Din twisting in the air, presumably with the Rising Phoenix to steer clear of the ground forces, “Sweetheart, listen to me.” His voice was steady, soothing, “I’m fine, okay? I’m completely fine. I’m not doing this to be reckless, or stupid, or hypocritical. They have information on you and there are hundreds of them. If they’re gone, they can’t hurt you. They won’t know where to find you.”

His words were doing nothing to soothe you, “Don’t patronise me, Din. You can’t tell me you’re fine and then tell me there are hundreds of Troopers after you. There are only… what, four of you?” Your breathing was coming in sharp pants now, images of Din’s broken body, blood on white armour and dark dungeons flashing through your mind’s eye.

“Five.” Din spoke the word softly, and you nearly didn’t hear it over the rushing wind and sounds of fighting.

Another laugh that sounded more like a sob, “Oh, five? Like that’s so much better!! I don’t doubt your abilities, Din. You know I believe in you more than anything in the world, but this is… I can’t believe you would do this.” The words were a trembled whisper at the end, fear clutching at your heart once more. It was starting to choke you, turn your blood to slush and your bones to ice.

The thought of losing him was something that kept you awake frequently. Sometimes it would hit you out of nowhere in the day, the idea of living the rest of your life without them by your side.

Gone, little more than a gravestone and memories.

The thought made you physically sick, having you have to run to the nearest place to expel that terror in heaving gasps.

You’d hidden that from Ahsoka and Din too.

Distantly, it occurred to you that you should hang up, let him have his full concentration back but… you couldn’t help the horrid thought that if you hung up... you would never speak to him again.

Din knew this, heard it all in the tone of your voice, in the things you couldn’t and didn’t need to say. He knew you weren’t mad at him, not like that. It was the same anger he had felt when he thought he’d lost you. The gut-wrenching fear of not being able to do anything – the anger at the helplessness. “I promise you; everything is okay. I will be fine; my friends will be fine, and no one will get hurt. We’re nearly done already. Breathe, sweetheart. You’re not going to lose me. We promised each other, remember?”

That’s true… you had. You’d promised each other that you would never part this life alone. When one left, the other would follow.

You swallowed, trying to take a deep breath in through your nose and out your mouth, “Okay…. Okay. Just… come home, okay?”

“Of course, darling. I’ll be home just as soon as-”

A piercing pulse shattered his voice, searing through the speaker on your watch with its resounding whistle.

Your breathing exercises halted immediately, “Din? Din?!”

No, no no no -

It means nothing. Just a close call knocking out the signal, that’s all. That’s all it is.

A burst of static shot into the night air, and then you heard broken up, jagged snippets of Din’s voice, undeterminable pieces of speech.

“Din, Din I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up... Are you okay? Tell me you’re okay, please Din.” Your throat closed up again, the dark beast in your chest snarling as it tasted that terror, feeding on it and spreading through you with those horrific images.

The part of you that craved destruction, that shadowy assassin woke up, bringing forth the vengeance, ready to tear them apart piece by piece if Din had been hurt.

More static and wind and then something that you would haunt your waking and sleeping dreams for a very, very long time.

The signal unjammed, and clear as crystal, you heard Din’s broken cry of pain. Of agony.

A harsh noise you had never heard before.

It was stunned, dragged from within him by a wound that must have hit deep and sudden.

The world seemed to go still on its axis, everything slowing down to a halt.

The entwined golden threads of your lives pulled taut, stretching apart from each other.

Your heart tore to pieces.

“DIN!!” His name broke on a sobbing cry, making the surrounding birds take flight from the bare branches, causing Grogu to wake up down below but you didn’t care.

The line had just gone silent, just as one of those threads began to fray.

He was falling.

Down, down, down toward the ground, smoke billowing from his back.

He was an exploding star, a falling planet, hurtling toward the floor with a speed he couldn’t reduce.

Thirty metres.

The speed of his fall and the force of it caused darkness to pull over his vision momentarily, casting everything into shadow and silence before it all came flooding back.

Everything was a blur of colour, whipping past the visor of his helmet in a smudge of brown, grey and green. The wind roared past him, battering the armour that used to be his savour, soon to be his tomb.

Twenty metres.

The impact of the ground on his armour would shatter his bones and spine, cracking his head open and ending him instantly.

Maybe he’d be lucky, and it wouldn’t be painful.

Or he’d pass out before he crashed.

Ten metres.

His family was safe, at least. That eased his mind somewhat. It would be hard getting off the planet, but they’d find a way.

Eight metres.

There’d be nothing left of him to find. An anonymous man in a beskar tomb, body broken beyond recognition. The people who would soon find him may very well be the first to see his face in… years.

Six metres.

And they weren’t the right ones.

They weren’t her.

No, he’d finally reached a place where he felt safe to reveal himself. Only his hands first, but that was enough. He wanted to give more, so very badly but… he just couldn’t, not yet. But that was okay. He knew she’d understand, be more than happy with that reveal of the very pieces of his anatomy that had started all of this.

His hands, running over her skin, tracing the delicate work of her tattoo.

Three metres.

Two meters.

“I love you.” His gasped words were snatched by the air before they even left his lips, and he hoped the wind would carry them to the person they had always belonged to.

One metre.

“Goodbye, cyar'ika.”

“Thank you for showing me a world worth living.”

~~~

“Sir?”

The young woman’s voice was steady and strong, breaking him from his thoughts as she knocked on the door to the war room. She’d been working here for a year now and had swiftly risen up the ranks.

She was essentially his right hand, and he knew she wore that token proudly. There were no official titles given, but she was his best officer.

She had been the one to locate the Mandalorian the first time around – and had also been the one to find the girl.

That was why he had felt confident when she suggested hiring the Shadow-Born hunter to track them both down. And she hadn’t been wrong yet.

“What is it, officer?”

She saluted, then stood tall, shoulders back, chin raised enough to be respectful, but not so much it was defiant. She looked him in the eyes, “We’ve found him, sir. He was responsible for blowing up the Imperial base, along with a group of friends, including another Mandalorian, an ex-Shock Trooper, a wanted assassin and a prisoner from the Karthon Chop Fields. The Hunter shot him out of the sky and has already apprehended him. The accomplices are so far unaccounted for.”

A faint smile passed the man’s lips, hunger and victory setting a dark fire in his eyes. He nodded his head to the young officer, “Never-mind the rabble. Good work, officer. Tell them to bring him here. There will already be a cell prepared for him. You know which one.”

The woman nodded, inclining her head and then she headed off, but not before he saw the small smile she allowed herself.

Good work indeed.

She had done more in the past twelve months than any of his senior officers had. Maybe he should see about naming her his official right hand.

He turned back to the large open window of the cruiser, clasping his hands behind his back, breathing in a deep sigh.

Finally.

When the Hunter had let the girl slip through his fingers, he’d been worried that he was being played for a fool. The hunter was unreliable, working to his own twisted agenda. If the Hunter betrayed him, there was no chance for the success and power that he deserved.

But he needn’t have worried at all.

He now had the one thing that would guarantee the girls cooperation. He had hoped for the Child too, but he could wait for that.

It may have been slow going, and people may have called him deluded for trying to bring back the old ways… but here was the proof that things were finally going the way Moff Gideon had planned it all along.

~~~

If only he knew that his plan had been set in motion by another. The successes were not his to claim.

The King of Shadows and Destruction was sitting at his board of death, moving each piece as the endgame approached, the final checkmate that would put to rest years and years of waiting and scheming.

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#oh dear #whatever will happen next #oooOooooO #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x force sensitive! reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin x reader #din djarin x force sensitive! reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian #din djarin #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #the force awakens #Rogue

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seungmvnnie · 4 years ago

Text

Ravenclaw!Renjun x Slytherin!Reader

word count; 2.7k words (longest one yet, my bias really do be showing)

warnings; *very* suggestive kissing, female reader, bullet point au, unlike the other fics in this series, this one is pretty much entirely based on the build up to the relationship and has little about the characters together, enemies to lovers au. also i researched year 7 DADA content for this to make it realistic so never say i dont put effort into my writing ahahaha

Huang Renjun had been your enemy the second you had stepped foot into your first class at Hogwarts

It was only natural; you both came to school, bright eyed and ready, with the expectation and aspiration to be top of the class

you had read through and memorized all the books on the provided reading list before you had even boarded the train - everyone thought you were made to be a ravenclaw which is why it was a bit of a shock when you were sorted into Slytherin, but you supposed it was your ambition

you had planned to become the youngest minister of magic there had ever been since you were 4

which meant going to Hogwarts, achieving the highest grades and being top of your year, becoming prefect, head girl and going on to work in the ministry and work your way up

little did you know, Renjun also had big plans

to ruin your perfect record

the very first lesson you had with him; you hadn’t even noticed the quiet ravenclaw who sat behind you

that was until the Professor asked a question and he had stated the answer so confidently, you almost flinched

you had answered the first few, which was why his voice interrupting was so shocking

you hadn’t even gotten the opportunity to open your mouth

you knew the answer of course, you just weren’t as quick as he was

which is why the next time your Professor asked a question, you made sure to get there first

it continued like that the whole lesson, a vicious back and forth game of who could answer first

you enjoyed some healthy competition and all, but it was like he was purposely trying to annoy you

the final straw was when you turned around in your seat at the end of the class to glare at him and he had that stupid smug smile on his face that you learnt to despise over the next few years

ever since then, everything was a competition to you two

and everyone at Hogwarts knew it

quidditch

house cup points

you name it, you’ve had an argument over it

neither of you even played quidditch but you would still argue with him about how Slytherin was better

you even once partook in a particularly heated game of wizard chess that ended with a flipped chess board and a few choice words being shouted at each other

there were many people that Renjun didn’t like but you were the only one that could make him flip a wizard chess board in rage (Although, if you asked him he would say you were the one who threw it)

wizard chess was banned after that

everyone hated you for it

this competition was helpful to an extent; you were top of the class in most classes, except the very, very few in which Renjun had beaten you

your days were spent in the library, cramming as much as you could, the desire to beat Renjun outweighing your need for sleep or basic human needs

needless to say he was the exact same but you both made sure to sit as far away from each other as humanely possible in the library

you could honestly say the best day of your life was when you realized that you had made prefect and he didn’t

that got held over him for a good two years

then again, Renjun could also say that he beat you in your O.W.Ls, so it evened out

when you started dating Han Jisung in 6th year, who was another Ravenclaw, you had him reporting back Renjun’s grades in the classes you weren’t in with him

you both competed for who had the least amount of detentions given - you had 2, which were both caused by the few times your competition had turned physical and you had shot a few jinxes at him, and Renjun had 5, two from his incident with you and the other 3, a result of his unfortunate friends

which meant both of you had pretty much squeaky-clean records

you attributed your near perfect grades and having the best record in your year as the main reason why, the summer before seventh year, a neat little green pin with, ‘head girl,’ had arrived in the mail

of course, you were happy that your parents were proud of you, but you felt a vindictive joy knowing that you had something new to hold over Huang Renjun

That was until, you showed up on the first day to the first prefect meeting on the Hogwarts express and were met with the one and only Huang Renjun, the pin on his chest sat bright blue with ‘Head Boy,’ proudly etched into the metal

according to the pale look on his face, he hadn’t expected you to be Head Girl either

Professor Lee, the Headmaster, seemed to recognize his mistake almost immediately, considering he had two teenagers debating each other in his office before the school year had even started

“You can hardly expect me to work with him-”

“Of course, you can’t expect us to work together, I actually know what I’m doing-”

“Know what you’re doing? You weren’t even a prefect you poser-”

“You’re right I wasn’t, but I’m still smarter than you!”

the Headmaster had silenced you both with a wave of his hand, before you could retaliate with the fact that you’re beating him at potions, what does he mean, smarter than you?

“Okay. If you can’t work together, that’s fine. However, I expect one of you to make the mature, adult decision to step down from your position, not push the other one to resign.”

You looked at each other

there was no way either of you were going to do that

He stared at you both for a moment, before sitting down calmly at his desk

“I chose you both because of your maturity, exam results and impressive behavior these past 6 years. I would appreciate if you both put aside this feud and worked together for your student body.”

You stared at your hands, refusing to look at Renjun as shame gnawed at your chest

“Now, back to your dormitories.”

And so you were stuck with him

you thought that perhaps, Professor Lee’s words of wisdom would create a newfound maturity

but no, he was the exact same annoying little shit he was before

just this time, he had authority

As Head Boy and Head Girl, you were required to do prefect duty late at night together

which essentially meant you both had to walk around Hogwarts late at night on a Friday and Saturday and make sure no one was out of bed and wandering the castle when they shouldn’t be

you spent those nights in an awkward silence

you wished you could split up but you had to walk around together for, ‘safety reasons’

realistically you thought that schools were meant to be safe to walk around late at night by yourself but Hogwarts is just built different

as head boy and head girl you were given the most hectic two days of the week as well, which meant you had broken up more parties than you were comfortable to admit

you had even caught your boyfriend at a few parties, but you discreetly avoided giving him detentions

he couldn’t say anything though, he had let off Donghyuck and his girlfriend when you had found them making out

speaking of which

the amount of times you had caught a half-dressed couple attached to each other was just kind of gross

the amount of time you spent with Renjun was starting to defrost you both a little

not a lot though; just simple things like how you would ask him how he found the potions homework

sometimes it would spark an argument, but you could now have a conversation without some sort of spiteful remark

you kind of had to; otherwise you were just left in silence

your time spent together was usually uneventful

until the weekend of valentine’s day

that Saturday was valentine’s day and the day of a hogsmeade trip

Jisung had asked you to go, but you had an important Herbology exam on Monday, not to mention you had to be alert for prefect duty so you couldn’t be running around Hogsmeade

he had seemed annoyed, but he had always known how much your future meant to you

it seemed Renjun had thought the same because the only people in the library, or it seemed the entire castle was the two of you

prefect duty that night was the least awkward it had ever been

he had even said something that had made you laugh

however the lack of awkward tension between the two of you counterbalanced with the awkwardness of having to check every single broom cupboard you happened across as, as you had expected, many people had been affected by valentine’s day

what you hadn’t expected though, was to spot your boyfriend leaving the Gryffindor common room, hair disheveled and his t-shirt on inside out

“Jisung? What are you doing out of bed at this time?”

He looked like a deer caught in the headlights

“Sorry, the Gryffindors were throwing another party again. You know what they’re like,” he laughed awkwardly

your eyes flickered down to the red and purple bruises which littered his neck

“I didn’t put those there. You were cheating on me, weren’t you?” You asked so matter-of-factly, that Renjun was somewhat taken aback

you were using the voice you used to answer the teacher or argue with him

you didn’t seem emotional at all

Jisung looked like he wanted to pretend, but his face fell into a tired, yet annoyed look

“Can you blame me?”

You blinked at him

“Yeah.”

“Your whole life is dedicated to another person, (Y/N).” Jisung gestured to where Renjun stood

“No it’s not! Don’t be so ridiculous.” You had scoffed

“You didn’t go out with me today because you wanted to beat him in a test and be awake to spend time with him.”

“That’s not true!”

“You didn’t spend time with me on my birthday because you couldn’t miss a prefect meeting or Huang would hold it over you. You made me spy on him, and he tried to get me to spy on you too. Ever since dating you my life has just been this whirlwind of Huang. You do realize everyone in school thinks you’re in love with each other!”

He was shouting at this point

You looked at him, unable to argue with him this time, but the coldness in your eyes refused to budge.

“That doesn’t give you the excuse to cheat. I’m breaking up with you.”

He rolled his eyes

“Fine. At least now you can fuck Huang to your hearts content, considering the whole school is already betting on it.”

Before you even had time to react, Renjun had shot across the hallway, raising his fist and, with a sickening crunch, broke his nose

“Renjun!”

You grabbed his arm, pulling him back before he could do anymore damage

“Go to the hospital wing, Jisung.” You instructed

He glared at the two of you before swinging on his heel and leaving

you and Renjun didn’t look at each other for the rest of the night

or the next few weeks after that

Jisung had told everyone what had happened

he kind of had to, the bruising around his eyes gave away the events of the previous night

the whole school were watching you and Renjun intently, now that they knew how he had punched Jisung for you, thinking that this was finally it

you were finally going to get together

but you didn’t interact at all

not even to correct each other in class

the truth was, both of you were deliberating your feelings for each other

Jisung was right

you had told yourself that everything you did was for your career path, but why then did you have such a hyper fixation on Renjun?

you did well in life without your on-going rivalry with the Ravenclaw

was it just petty stubbornness? or was Jisung right in thinking that it was because of some other reason?

You found yourself staring at him in some of your classes

he was good looking, there was no denying that

but did you like him like that?

Renjun had been having the same internal battle

why did he suddenly find it in himself to punch Jisung in the face?

that was incredibly unlike him

just the way he had spoken about you and to you had made him so angry

the year flew in, and soon it was June and you still hadn’t spoken to each other

It wasn’t until your very last day doing prefect duty that the silence was broken by you

“How’d you think you do on your exams?”

he looked at you, shocked. You hadn’t spoken to him in 5 months.

“Uh- good. I go stuck on familial curses on the Defense paper, but I think I did okay in the end.”

“Oh, I wrote that the spell needs to be tied to the bloodline as opposed to the surname.”

“I thought it was that you had to tie it to the surname, because it doesn’t count as a blood curse?”

“No, because if the caster doesn’t understand familial relationships it doesn’t work, any first year could understand that.”

He went quiet for a moment before mumbling,

“I’m going to cast a goddamn familial curse on you in a moment.”

“Why are we like this?” you asked, stopping your walk to pause for a moment in the middle of the hallway

He stopped too, but he refused to look at you

“You started it...” He grumbled, staring down at his feet.

You rolled your eyes

“Why did you punch Jisung?” You asked blatantly

His head shot up in surprise

“Why did you have Jisung spying on me?” He challenged back, taking a step forward

“Why did you have Jisung spying on me?” you repeated

you both fell silent, and only then you realized how close you had gotten

you didn’t miss the way his eyes flickered down to your lips for a moment

“If you’re going to kiss me, kiss me. Don’t pussy out now.” you uttered, your words sharp and cutting

“Oh, shut up.” He replied, rolling his eyes

“Make me.” You challenged

Grabbing your waist, he pulled you to his body, colliding your lips with his violently

you let out a muffled sound of surprise, not expecting him to follow through, but upon feeling the smile which had grown on his face at your shock, you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer to you

you couldn’t let him win, not after the past how many years of sexual tension

your lips competed in mess of sloppy kisses, his hands moving down from your waist to your hips, pushing you against the wall in the hallway as yours moved to the back of his head, grabbing a fistful of his hair, using the way he gasped at the feeling to deepen the kiss, sliding your tongue into his mouth

you let out a shameful groan at the feeling of his body pressing against yours and almost whined when he pulled away

your lack of contact didn’t last long, as he attached his mouth to your neck, biting down sinfully

you threw your head back against the cool stone wall which felt deliciously cold against the the heat of Renjun to allow easier access to him as he continued to suck marks into your skin until-

“Renjun?”

You practically threw Renjun off of you, ignoring how erotic the sight of his mussed hair and swollen lips were

in front of you stood the two hufflepuff prefects, Zhong Chenle and a girl who’s name you could never remember, staring at you

the girl seemed shocked, but Chenle simply had raised an eyebrow, a mischievous smirk on his face

you had forgotten him and Renjun were friends

“You do know I’m going to have to give you both detention for making out in the hallway. By your rules.”

Renjun rolled his eyes

“New rule. We’re the exception.”

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julemmaes · 4 years ago

Note

Possible continuation of the cass-defending-nesta au prompts?: “i got your back. Always.” Or perhaps, “they can shove it, i love you. All of you.” or maybe something involving soda slushies (that’s just cause I kinda want one rn)

Got your back (2)

Cassian and Nesta Archeron modern au

A/N: Please, read the A/N at the end of the post, this is really important for me. I didn’t put it here cause it’s very long, but still, I think everyone should read it.

So, the oh-so-awaited part two for the Nessian fic. This is mainly Cassian having an existential crisis (me every day basically) and some Nessian domestic fluff. I guess you’ll get a third part, cause I can’t leave you and them like this, I hope you’re thrilled by the idea just as much as I am. I’m sorry if I forgot to tag anyone. I hope yall enjoy!

part one

Word count: 2,590

The second Cassian got into the car the world fluttered.

He closed his eyes, inserting the key into the patch and then stopped.

A lump formed in his throat and when he tried to breathe, he realized he was struggling to do so.

What had he done? He opened his eyes and his vision blurred again.

His hands were shaking and his breathing was now erratic.

"Fuck!" he cried, as a tear slipped down his cheek.

He started the engine and set off as he tried to hold back the tears he knew were building up.

He took the highway after a few minutes and as soon as he was on a side road, without too much traffic, he pressed his foot on the accelerator trying to feel so much adrenaline that he went numb.

He was not going towards Nesta's house. No. To get to her apartment he would have had to take the third exit right after passing the walls of Velaris. But he knew that the second he saw her he would burst into tears if he couldn't let go of some of the anger in his mind.

Anger that was now mingling with guilt.

Shit, shit, shit.

He screamed, cursing once again, banging his fist against the steering wheel. The car skidded suddenly and Cassian hit the brake in a desperate attempt not to finish beyond the guard rail and in the middle of the fields. The screeching sound of the wheels wearing out on the asphalt remained in his head even after he had stopped. Both hands tightened around the steering wheel and his gaze fixed on the dark road in front of him, lit only by the headlights of his car, while his breathing became more and more uneven.

A sob broke the silence.

And then another, and yet another, until Cassian found himself desperately crying and hitting the steering wheel repeatedly.

His face buried in his hands and his body shaken by the sobbing, Cassian thought about what he had just done. What it meant to have told everyone about Nesta's problem.

He opened the door, getting out of the cockpit to get some fresh air, but as soon as he was out of the car, the crying got worse.

"You fucking idiot," he muttered to himself.

God, what have I done?

These last few days had been difficult for him. Stressful.

Nesta was in one of those periods they called "shitty periods". These were days, sometimes in rare cases weeks, when Nesta could not get out of bed. Moments in which every reason for living seemed pointless, in which even the slightest input from outside could destabilize her so much that she had several panic attacks in a single day.

Cassian had tried to stay close to her all the time, keeping the phone close to him in case she called him. He had stocked her fridge with food and went to her house for most of her lunches and dinners to cook her something and make sure she ate.

These weren’t completely bad days. There were times when Nesta smiled, or when she could see the good in the middle of all the shit, but there were still days when Cassian came home exhausted, looking for solutions to problems he couldn't solve, without being able to talk to anyone.

He had thought many times about what would happen if one day he took his brothers aside and explained everything to them. If he explained to them why Nesta was not well, by bringing the psychological explanation into the conversation, maybe they would start to treat her like a human being and not like a monster. But in that case he would have betrayed Nesta's trust.

If she had not yet had that conversation with her family, how could he do that with his own? Who was he to take that freedom away from his girlfriend? There were reasons why Nesta hadn't yet taken that step, reasons that Cassian knew perfectly well.

After all, he had experienced the same things a few years before.

That was people's main problem.

When they asked you what the reason for your actions was and you gave a logical explanation, maybe even saying that you were getting professional help, there were two possible answers: either they told you that you were doing it for attention or they told you things like "then don't be sad", "then stop worrying”, "then stop getting angry about everything". As if it were that simple. As if the traumas and situations you've lived through for years and years of your life and the consequences that come with those can be easily healed by not doing specific things.

And now Cassian had to show up at Nesta's house, pissed off with his family and feeling terribly guilty for telling her sisters what the real problem was.

He slammed his fist on the roof of the car repeatedly, "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

He rubbed his hand over his face, wiping away the tears that were now flowing undisturbed.

He couldn't even talk to her about why he had exploded.

If he explained to her that he had confessed everything because he had been exhausted because of the last week he'd spent taking care of her, Nesta would have pushed him away. Not because she would have been offended that Cassian was struggling between college, work and her, no, that wouldn't have been the case. More likely she would have thought she was weighing too much on him and would have stopped talking to him when she needed him most.

Cassian couldn't allow such a thing to happen. Nesta had only him.

He could bear it, for her.

"You fucking fuck. Don't bear it," he shook his head, starting to walk back and forth, "you don't have to bear anything. You are doing all this for her, you have to respect her needs and the path will not be easy, but the day will come when she will get better and happy and it will be easier." he often spoke out loud when he was thinking about the matter.

No, he couldn't have told her that this was slowly killing him. He had to stay strong and do it for her. He would apologize to his family and allow them to talk to Nesta - always keeping civil tones - if she wanted to.

Shit.

Maybe he had made things even worse.

Maybe now they would have thought that Nesta was morally blackmailing him and that he was only doing it out of pity. And maybe they would have started to offend her even more, saying horrible things about her.

"Jesus Christ," cried Cassian to heaven. I will talk to everyone, he thought. He breathed.

He would talk to Nesta first and tomorrow morning, when everyone would be sober, he would also talk to the others.

For now, he just had to stop crying and get to her apartment safe and sound.

He looked at the time on the phone and sent a quick message to his girlfriend, warning her that he would be there in twenty minutes. Without waiting for an answer, he got back behind the wheel and made turned to get back on the highway.

True to his words, twenty minutes later he found himself at the door of her apartment. He had the keys and could have entered easily by himself, but he decided to knock. After all, she hadn't read the message; if she heard someone come in at 11:54 p.m., she could have easily attacked him.

When Nesta opened the door she had one eye closed and the other only slightly open. She scratched her cheek yawning, "Cass, what are you doing here?" she asked in a hoarse voice. Cassian blinked a couple of times and Nesta must have noticed his gaze because she stiffened, "Are you alright? Did something happen?" she put her hands forward and Cassian threw himself into her arms, holding her to his chest.

He sobbed and Nesta took a few steps back, carrying him with her as she closed the door behind him. She rubbed her hand on his back, stroking his arms, trying to calm him down.

"I am so sorry," he murmured in her hair. Nesta held him tighter.

"What happened Cass? Is everyone okay?" he nodded and felt her relax in his arms.

Something in Cassian's chest broke. Obviously she had immediately thought of the others. She was always thinking of their families. He broke off the hug and looked her in the eyes. Eyes that were now full of worry.

God, he was so stupid. Nesta already had enough problems of her own, now she would have to fight with the rest of their friends because of him.

"I screwed up," he whispered to her, holding her hand. Nesta put her hand on one of his cheeks, rubbing a thumb under his eye to remove the tears and nodded.

"What do you say you come into the kitchen and we'll talk about it while you drink some water, hmm?" she asked, pulling him towards the hallway. Cassian narrowed his eyes, thinking what would be best to do now.

He didn't want to tell her that her family insulted her almost every day. He didn't want to be the person to remind her of such an evil thing. Nesta wasn't stupid, she knew that one of the main topics of their evenings was her, but that didn't mean that Cassian wanted to open the subject right now.

She handed him a glass full of water and when he drank it in a single long sip, Nesta looked at him concerned, filled it again and handed it to him. Cassian just took it, looking at the liquid.

"You're making me nervous," Nesta whispered, leaning one hip to the kitchen island and crossing her arms to her chest, "it's past midnight and you showed up here crying, Cassian. If you don't want to talk about it now, that's fine -" the man almost laughed, a few months ago she would have forced him to talk until he exploded and they would have argued until the next morning. "we can do it tomorrow, but you are obviously shocked by something and if I can do anything to make you feel better, I want to do it." she tilted her head to the side, offering him a weak smile.

Cassian sighed, placing the glass on the counter and rubbing his face, "I fucked up."

"I figured that," she jokingly said. Cassian glanced at her and she whispered an apology smiling.

She was immediately serious when he said, "I told your sisters you're ill."

Her arms fell to her sides, and her eyes widened slightly.

Cassian leaned forward, leaning with his elbows on the counter and taking his head in his hands. Before she could answer, he had already resumed. "I've been tired lately and stressed about studying," yes, this white lie could go unnoticed, "and by the time I got home they were all drunk and started talking shit about you out of nowhere and I couldn't help it." He took a deep breath without crossing her gaze.

"I said that we are together - or rather, Amren told everyone that we are dating and I didn't deny anything. And then Feyre started blaming all the faults of your bad relationship on you and I couldn't stop talking".

"Did you specify anything?"

He still couldn't look at her, "No, I just said they should behave better and... Nesta, forgive me, Mor and Rhys were there too and I had to say something to them too and-" he froze when he felt a hand of hers resting between his shoulders.

He looked up at his girlfriend and she was looking at him with a loose expression on her face. He wrinkled his forehead. Nesta chuckled silently and ran her thumb between his eyebrows.

"Calm down, Cass." she whispered to him, lowering herself to his height and placing her lips on his temple. Cassian closed his eyes, "I'm sorry," he said to her, taking her hand and carrying it to his chest. He pulled himself up, positioning himself so that she was standing in front of him.

She smiled at him again, "Listen to me, as long as you tell me you didn't say anything too specific is fine with me. If they don't realize that I'm sick, that I'm not well mentally, that's not our problem right now".

Ours. Cassian took a deep breath.

"I should have kept silent anyway, it wasn't up to me to say..."

"Did you tell them that I am going to therapy?"

Cassian shook his head to deny it, "No, of course not."

Nesta wrapped her arms around his neck, tiptoeing and putting her lips on his. Cassian kissed her in turn. "That's alright then," she murmured on his lips.

"I'm so sorry, Nes." He caressed her side and she leaned closer to him.

"I’ve got your back and you have mine, remember?" she asked him.

Cassian nodded only once. "You have my back, and I have yours. Always." he repeated like a mantra. She kissed him one more time, then placed her head on his shoulder and hugged him.

"I love you."

"I love you," he repeated.

They remained in that position, one close to the other, for a very long time. So much so that when Nesta spoke, Cassian jolted, making her laugh and detach from him.

"Sorry," she said with a tired smile on her lips, "When I saw you at the door so upset I thought you had come to break up with me."

It was Cassian's turn to laugh. "You know I would never do that, don't you?"

"Yes, I know."

She said it in such a relaxed tone, so familiar, that Cassian couldn't help but look at her and hold her face in his hands, kissing her again.

"What are you going to do with the others?" he asked her as they both dragged themselves to her bedroom. Nesta grimaced, scratching the back of her neck.

"I don't have the slightest idea, I guess if-" her phone vibrated on the bedside table. Nesta raised an eyebrow, " What the..?" She took the phone in her hand and when she read what was written on it she opened her eyes wide, looking up at Cassian. "It's Feyre, she asked me if we can meet tomorrow. Us and... her, Rhysand. Everyone."

He nodded, starting to undress and opening one of the drawers where he kept some of his stuff. "And are you going to go?" when she didn't answer immediately, Cassian turned around and saw her holding the phone in her hands and looking at the screen, looking focused. "Nes?"

Silence.

"You know that if you don't want to talk to them, you don't have to? No one is forcing you to do..."

"No, I think they deserve it. I owe them some explanations..." she stammered, clutching the phone even tighter.

"And they owe you an apology." grunted Cassian.

She nodded with conviction, as if she hadn't heard what he had just said, and placed the phone on the bedside table. "I'll answer tomorrow though, they may suffer a little more if the things they said tonight were so bad as to make you explode".

They slipped under the sheets and when Nesta's back pressed against Cassian's chest, they fell asleep, one lulled by the other's breath.

A/N: What I wrote here is probably the most personal thing I will ever write in my entire life. The few people who know me and with whom I've talked with even just once in "dark" moments know that, for me, talking about how I feel, what I feel in certain situations, is really hard. Not so much to tell the thing itself, as to have to say how my mind reacts to a precise thing. In short, I don't know how to talk about emotions.

I have a friend, a friend who I really care about and who is part of my family. She is special in the best way, the problem is that I am the only one who really knows her. She is my Nesta. Or at least, as far as this specific ff is concerned, I am this Cassian and she is this Nesta.

I've never known anyone who was really committed to know her. I have never known anyone who would try to get over that first wall, so high that sometimes you would think it has no end. She is good. She has a heart of gold. And there are those rare cases, like Azriel in my ff, who believe me when I say that she is not like that. Who believe me when I say that it is not her fault if she is forced to behave in a certain way. That she’s working on her problems, but it takes time and they need to be patient.

Most of the world though, is obviously filled with Feyres and Rhysands and Morrigans. And it's hard to reason with these people when Nesta presents herself as... well, as Nesta. But that doesn't give them the right to call that person a whore, bitch, heartless. It does not give them the right to treat a person as if they were less just because they don’t understand their traumas.

And the weight that I carry on my shoulders every day for her, to protect her from people who would treat her less for her issues, unfortunately crushes me as much as it crushes her.

I have no Cassian.

I cannot rely on anyone.

Her problems are so big that my brain, however open to this kind of thing it is, is not able to find solutions. And I cannot let off steam because her problems are secret. And she has asked me, me rather than 7 billion other people, to keep these secrets. I can’t just simply look for answers in others’ minds cause that’s not how it works.

And the fear that I feel every day. The terror of not being enough to be able to help her, is excruciating.

But I would never want her to know I think these things, cause I know for a fact that it would hit her to the core and she’d think she’s just trouble and that I don’t wanna be there for her. That’s how it would turn out for us and I know it, and I can’t change that cause there’s a balance that need to be maintained.

So, for all those who are out there, who carry the weight of others on their shoulders without being able to share it with anyone else for fear of hurting their Nesta, you are not alone.

acotar taglist (if you want to be added/removed send me an ask or dm me)

@tottenhamboys20 @sjm-things @kris10maas @awesomelena555 @sannelovesreading @queenamydien29 @ireallyshouldsleeprn @messyhairday-me @observationanxioustheorist @my-fan-side @booksstorm @maastrash @sayosdreams @thedarkdemigod @courtofjurdan @thewayshedreamed @silvermindwarrior

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404karma · 3 years ago

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PROMPT: abrupt. kiss my muse out of the blue. ft. yoon taehyun @lykophos - 2017(?)

the clock behind them reads 2am.

17 past 2 to be exact, if she really wants an accurate measurement regarding how long they’ve spent crouched over the table, crumpled pieces of paper with indistinguishable numbers next to an even more indistinguishable list of venues scattered over its surface. maths has never been her strong point (read: a step closer to death for her throughout the 3 years of high school) and everyone always talks about how what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but she really doubts whoever thought of the idiom took accounting and rent and costs and booking venues into consideration.

oversized t-shirt dropping down to her thighs, glasses perched on the end of her nose, a pencil grasped in one hand, the other placed precariously on the side of her temple like she’s faced with a dilemma much more serious than basic maths. she should’ve paid more attention in fifth grade maths. from the corner of her eye she can see the look he throws her, a halfway mark between amusement and concern, the look he always seems to meet her gaze with and she kisses her teeth before she opens her mouth. “take a picture, it’ll last longer. what t’fuck you staring at?”

“you don’t have to stay here, you know,” taehyun tells her from where he’s standing a mere few inches away, chuckle visibly stifled even in the dark room of his dingy apartment, lights turned down low in an attempt to (yoon taehyun voice: conserve energy, eugene, y’ever heard of it?). ever the rational thinker, his words somehow manage to put even more of a dampener on her mood because she’s eugene and synonymously, always looking for a reason to pick at him. “everyone else already left ages ago. i could probably finish up by myself.”

she scoffs. “you don’t have to stay here, you know,” she mocks him, nose crinkled like she’s smelled something foul and pretending like the corners of her mouth doesn’t turn up at the sound of his consequent laugh. she reaches out to smack his arm, biting her bottom lip in some fruitless attempt to disguise her own smile, setting the pencil down atop the table. “stop laughing, it’s not funny. that’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said. jesus. ‘i could finish up by myself’, yeah, i’d love to see you try sort out this month’s funding and book a venue for next week’s show all alone before the sunrises. stupid. hurry up and pass me that calculator. i’m not going.”

some part of eugene thinks that if she tries hard enough, she can actually convince herself that his act of concern is the same as a silly overestimation of his own abilities, like he’s dumb enough to believe that he can do everything and more without the help of someone else instead of simply wanting her to get more sleep than him.

he’s always been like that, when she thinks about it (which she doesn’t). the type of person who would give you the last slice of pizza left on the plate even if he was hungry, or give you his hoodie in the cold because you underdressed so that you wouldn’t freeze even if he would, or offer you his last ₩10,000 note so that you could get the bus home even if that meant he had to walk home. something about that irritates her a little, selflessness unheard of in a world like theirs, leaving her biting the inside of her cheek like she wants to ask him why he does all of that without getting anything back.

she bristles when his arm brushes hers.

the silence in the room is unsettling, an unnatural scene devoid of their usual back and forth and she turns around to make another snarky comment, the words leaving her tongue when her mouth is enveloped by his instead. it’s enough for her to be startled, a hand resting on his arm automatically when his hand cups her face, her previously poisonous tongue curling around his like some act of worship. she’s breathless when he breaks apart, that self-assured smile on his mouth like he’s somehow pleased at having stopped her tirade. her face is flushed.

eugene’s fingers reach out, palm resting gently against his cheek, her other hand curling around the back of his neck like she’s debating whether she should pull him closer or not. his hand brushes against her waist over his shirt, and her skin underneath tingles despite the layer that separates them both.

and then she promptly smacks his shoulder, hard, eyes narrowing at the resulting hiss and look of betrayal taehyun throws her way.

“you’re so stupid, getting horny over calculations and trying to book a venue last minute when you know my head is fucking splittin’ like i’m listening to your demos again. hey. yoon taehyun. you deserve a beating for that.”

she yields the sharp pencil in her hand like a weapon, watches the way he bristles as the reality of his situation and the ever-present danger in the form of jeon eugene hits him. she takes a step towards him from where he’s dispersed around to the other side of the table, ignoring the way her mouth still tingles where he had pressed that chaste kiss against it. "someone with two functioning brain cells would’ve started running away by now. come here, y’absolute idio–”

he flees.

#TEXT / JEON EUGENE.#INSIDE / JEON EUGENE.#EUGENE / TAEHYUN.#no proofreading we write in one go and post like real men

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onelastbreath-writes · 4 years ago

Text

I Spy (2)

Pairing: Frankie “Catfish” Morales/Fem!Reader (AFAB, no y/n)

Word Count: 1.9K

Warnings: Swearing

Summary (lite): You literally fall for a guy you meet in a bar, and everything is going great until you learn both of you have been lying about who you are and what you do. Oof. (SpecOps&Spies AU with Young!Frankie)

A/N: Wow part one got a lot of love, thank you so much! And now I also have a taglist going for this fic, so let me know if you want to be tagged the next time I post. This chapter is basically just fluff with a bit of background plot,,, i’ve created both a slow burn, and a 100 metre sprint of a relationship for y’all, so be prepared for that. Depending on what I manage to get into the next chapter, aka if i can finish the story or if i wimp out, there will either be 3 or 4 chapters total, and if i like the universe enough I might have some bonus content in the future. Nothing is set in stone so don’t start counting your chickens yet, but like... maybe. Anyways, I hope you enjoy part 2 of Let Me Have Nice Things I Spy <3

PS it is 3:45am when I’m posting this, please forgive me if its actually just weird thnxxxx

[AO3A][Masterlist]

[Previous Part]

---

“Water with a wedge of lemon, please,” you ordered as you and Frankie claimed a bar stool each at the counter.

“And a coke for me, thank you.”

The drink offer was always a toss up for you; a good way to measure the type of guy interested in your company. Even if you hadn’t decided that you were done with the alcohol tonight, you would still have ordered a water on your date’s dime. It was a simple test of character that more than a few guys had failed in the past. Were they looking to get you drunk, or were they willing to respect your choices? Frankie, so far, had done nothing but respect you.

Your drinks arrive quickly, and the cool glass feels refreshing in your hands. You still feel warm from your brief contact with the handsome man beside you, but after peaking at him from the side of your eyes, you can see that his ears and cheeks also have some red to them as well.

Frankie accepts his glass and angles himself towards you, bumping his knee lightly to yours and offering you another sweet smile. “Would it be presumptuous of me to offer a cheers? To meeting new people? Or I’ve got some great, really catchy and not at all cheesy pick-up lines, if that’s more your style?”

You snorted a laugh at his teasing but held out your drink for him to clink his against, “To meeting new people, then. And please, I have extremely high standards so only your best lines will appease me.”

“Ah, a connoisseur! Well then, please prepare to be amazed,” Frankie swivelled around to fully face you, ran a hand through his hair, fluffing his curls and pushing them away from his face, and cleared his throat for dramatic effect. “You blinded me with your beauty, so I’m going to need your name and number for insurance purposes.”

Your plan was to hold out, not to crack against whatever corny, horribly cliché thing he was going to say to you. You’d been given them all, and had never had much trouble before, even with guys as attractive and cute as Frankie. You had a great poker face, and could keep yourself together like a pro. There was nothing he could say to you that would break your façade. And then he opened his mouth, and you were gone.

“Oh my god! That’s so bad!” You were shaking, gasping while trying to contain and smother your laughter. You hadn’t thought to put your drink down before he started, and you could feel the liquid sloshing around the glass in your hand. Frankie, thankfully, noticed your problem, and gently wrapped his fingers around your wrist to steady your grasp. He helped you set the drink down safely, before pulling your still jittering limb away from further potential accidents. And then, he just didn’t release you.

He had slipped his hand into yours and was running his thumb over your knuckles.

As if your cheeks weren’t warm enough already.

What is it with this guy? You just couldn’t catch a break.

“Okay?” Can I keep holding your hand?

“Yes,” Please don’t let me go.

---

“And so, we’re just, like, full-tilt sprinting to catch this last train. And of course, its raining cats and dogs, so the sidewalk is slippery as hell, and Santi’s down a shoe so he’s splashing around in his sock, and then we hit the stairs up to the platform, and the train is pulling out…” You couldn’t remember the last time you smiled so much but listening to Frankie’s stories about his friends and their misadventures was making your cheeks ache.

You had been trading stories for ages, back and forth and jumping all over your lives to tell each other your greatest hits. Something between you two had just clicked, and it felt like you’d known him forever.

Early in the conversation you’d discovered he was his buddies’ designated driver, and would be on non-alcoholic beverages all night, but offered you anything you would like if you wanted more than water. You’d of course thanked him, but refused, stating your own reasons for sobriety. And that’s the point you got into talking about your careers.

“The guys wanted to get wasted during shore leave, and I’m not big on drinking so I offered to be their ride this time.” He was rather adorably touchy-feely with you, currently playing with your fingers and drawing on your palm absentmindedly.

“Shore leave? So, you’re military then?” That would explain the callouses and healed scars on his hands that you’d also been acquainting yourself with.

“Army, yeah,” Frankie had pointed out his group of hooligans across the room, playing what he’d told you was ‘Extreme Darts’. “Me and Santi were best friends in high school and enlisted together, and then we met Will and Benny in basic training. We worked together well enough to get us assigned to Tom’s squad and the rest’s history.”

“Then you’re still on active duty, right?” You couldn’t say you knew much about how a military contract worked, beyond what you’d seen in movies and on TV, but you knew soldiers were required to do a certain amount of service before they could retire; baring career-ending events that would get them discharged, of course. “When does shore leave end?”

“Ah, that’s a little complicated to explain, actually. We’re technically active soldiers still, but after our last deployment ended, we signed back on as like, uh, contractors. Sort of like on-base reservists? We help out where we can but don’t really see much in-field work, you know?” He was definitely struggling to describe his job to you, and you could imagine there was a lot of red tape and confidentiality around anything military he was doing, so you just nodded along and let him drop it. “But we still have a couple weeks stateside before we ship back out.”

You hummed at that, thinking over your own known schedule. “I can’t say I’ll have much time off before you need to leave, but I would like to see more of you, if you’re agreeable?” There was something special about this guy, and whether you were just friends or something more eventually, you didn’t want to waste your opportunity to have him in your life. Long distance anything was a lot of work, but you wanted him to know you were willing to try if he was.

“Do you like raisins? How would you feel about a date?”

---

That was how your unconventional romance with Frankie Morales started. You’d talked all night, and when the bartender kicked you and your groups out at closing time, he and his friends helped get your girls into their cabs. And once they were all taken care of, he had offered you his arm and walked you to your car like a proper, posh gentleman.

“Goodnight, paloma, thank you for such a wonderful evening.”

You had given him your business card, personal phone number and a flirty call me xx written on the back, and he in turn lifted your hand to brush a delicate kiss to your knuckles with a teasing wink. You went home that night mildly concerned you’d spontaneously combust from the heat blazing through your body. That man was a menace, and he knew exactly what he was doing to you.

He had called the next evening, and from there you spent as much time as you could together. Coffee dates, dinner and movie nights, even a walk in the park like some fairy-tale couple; he always greeted you with a bad pick-up line to make you smile, and a left you with a kiss on the hand at the end of your outings.

It was three wonderful but short weeks later that he got his ship-out date.

You were back at the dive bar where it all started, your friend (and some of her friends) and his all together again, to celebrate their last night of leave. The bar had unofficially become your ‘spot’, and you’d visited a few more times over the weeks, both as private dates and as group activities to get to know the rest of his squad.

It was bittersweet, saying goodbye to your new friends and your, well, Frankie. You had both agreed not to put labels or promises into your relationship until you were sure, and you were fine with that in the beginning when you were still strangers just interested in spending time together. But now you knew him, now you had feelings to back up your attraction to him, and now, he was leaving for who knows how long and you didn’t know if he felt the same way about you.

He must have noticed something was upsetting you, because he excused himself from his buddies’ conversation and held out a hand to help you up out of your chair.

“Join me for some fresh air, hermosa?” He was as courteous as ever as he led you outside into the chilled night, offering you his jacket and his side to cuddle into when you shivered. He was good at reading you by now and could tell when you wanted to work up to saying something without prompting, so he stayed silent and let you organize your thoughts.

You were struggling with your plan, with what you wanted to say to him, ask of him. He was rubbing your shoulder and you reached up to lace your fingers together, remembering the first time you held hands here at the bar…

Please don’t let me go.

That was your answer then, and it was still your answer now. You wanted him to keep holding your hand, now and for however much longer he could. You just needed to tell him that. Easy peasy. And because he’d made a sentimental dork out of you with his unending lines, you couldn’t think of a better way to confess to him. You looked up and met his eyes, allowing yourself to get lost in them.

“I must be a snowflake, because I’ve fallen for you.”

He untangled your fingers from his, pulling his arm away from where it was draped warmly over your shoulders, and took a step back to face you head on.

Oh gods, you wanted to rewind time and stop yourself from opening your big mouth, I’ve ruined it all.

Frankie snagged both of your wrists in his hands, startling you out of your downwards spiral as he tugged you close to his chest. He was staring down at you, brows furrowed and lips pursed seriously. Your hands were pressed between you, resting against his sternum over his steadily beating heart.

“Feel my shirt. It’s made of boyfriend material.”

And then you were both gone, laughing so hard you had tears in your eyes and grins splitting your faces as you held each other close.

You hadn’t ruined anything after all; you could cry you were so relieved.

Once you’d both managed to settle down, he leaned in and rested his forehead against yours, his own shiny eyes meeting yours earnestly. “I’m a terribly selfish man to ask this of you, but would you wait for me? Will you give us a chance? Exclusively?”

“Yes.”

Your first kiss together was there, on that cold night outside the bar where everything changed. It was soft and sweet, and you couldn’t wait for more.

---

Taglist:

@playbucky

#triple frontier #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales #frankie morales x you #Pedro Pascal #triple frontier fanfiction

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3pirouette · 4 years ago

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Fic: An Experimental Design (9/10)

Title: An Experimental Design

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3

Story Summary: Sequel to “What Number?”, also prompted from Steggy Bingo Bash Prompts. Takes place about a week after that fic.

Chapter Summary: Howard figures out what’s going on with Steve and comes up with a short-term solution

Chapter 9: The Lion

Howard looked back and forth between them, eyes shifting quickly. He was still disheveled from rushing over in the dead of night. He wasn’t used to being woken up at 2 AM by his friend in a panic, and it had unnerved him.

What he was met with was not the sight he expected.

The nervous, upset Steve he’d talked to on the phone was slowly transforming in front of his eyes. The anxious man he’d met at the door was now staring him down from the couch across from him, careful to never let Howard all that close to Peggy.

Peggy, hastily dressed as well, her hair falling in a disarray Howard wasn’t used to seeing, sat next to him, unable to stop fidgeting.

Steve eyed Howard, and rumbled low in his chest.

“Did you…” he did a double take, turning to Peggy. “Did he just growl?” Howard’s voice squeaked and he leaned back in his chair, eyes wide.

Peggy pressed her hand on Steve’s shoulder, and even though it wasn’t skin to skin contact, it seemed to calm him. “Can you see why we have a problem?”

Howard nodded, eyes still wide. “How long’s he been like this?”

Peggy shook her head. “Since before this morning. It’s—”

“No,” Steve interrupted. He squinted his eyes shut, running his hands over his face and shaking his head. When he opened his eyes again it was like the fog had lifted a little, like he’d managed to fight it off. “I was fine this morning. I felt great actually. Better than I had since this whole thing started, really.”

Peggy looked at him, surprised. “Why didn’t you say? I thought you weren’t feeling anything?”

He shrugged, bashful, but then an intensity took over that seemed somewhat out of place as he reached for her cheek. “How could I say I was feeling great when you felt horrible?”

Howard tried to catalogue Steve’s rampant mood swings as he attempted to put together what in the hell was happening. “You didn’t feel good, Peg?”

She took Steve’s hand from her cheek and held it in both of her own in her lap. “No. I felt awful. Headache, vomiting, tired...” She chuckled mirthlessly, “Basically everything you’d thought I’d feel.” Peggy leaned on Steve’s arm, hiding a yawn before turning back to Howard. “I managed a nap and felt a little better, but by the time Steve woke up he was already not quite himself.”

Howard let out a heavy breath, fingers pulling at his moustache as he looked back and forth between the two of them.

Steve couldn’t take the man’s prolonged silence. “What?”

“I’m trying to decide who I’d rather take a punch from…”

Peggy crossed her arms and set her shoulders, admonishment clear in her voice. “Howard…”

“You took a nap, right, Steve?” Steve nodded, eyes still alternately clearing and fogging over as he tried to stay focused. “Well, when you sleep your body heals faster. I’d guess that your body actually cleared all of the hormones we gave you while you were asleep. We’d have to test to be sure but…”

Peggy started carefully, “Then why is he acting like a possessive neanderthal? Shouldn’t he be back to just his current normal, slightly possessive, lust crazed state?”

Howard winced, waiting as long as he could before he let the suspicion tumble from his lips. “Well… I think you smell, Peg.”

“Excuse me?” Peggy demanded angrily. She and Steve both sat taller and Howard flinched back, fully expected one of them to swing at him.

He slowly leaned forward once he was reasonably sure he was safe from any stray punches, his explanation sounding almost like an apology. “The hormones we gave you, very specifically for a woman, mimic pregnancy. You’re probably giving off huge amounts of very specific pheromones right now and he’s…” Howard’s hands flailed in the air, trying to get them to the same conclusion he’d come to without saying it explicitly.

Steve’s head dropped into his hands, his fingers scrubbing over his scalp. “Howard…” he lamented, frustrated and tired.

Peggy let her hand scrub over his back, looking over at Howard with daggers in her eyes. “What in the world would make you think doing that would be a good idea?”

Howard shook his head, frustrated himself. “Believe me, we didn’t think this would happen, Steve strutting around like a lion protecting his mate. We thought he’d get at least a day, if not a few, out of it, and if your hormones stabilized, his would follow.”

Steve looked up, eyebrows knit tight. “But pregnant, Howard?”

Howard shrugged. “Worked for Peggy, didn’t it?”

Steve just let his head fall back to his hands. “So, what do we do?” he mumbled, head still hung low. “I can’t follow her around like some overprotective jerk forever.”

Howard cleared his throat, the tightness in his jaw a clear signal he really didn’t have an exact answer. He stuttered and flailed his hands for a moment in a few false starts before sighing and shrugging. “We can’t separate you- you already took out a wall and that was before you were growling at me.” Howard looked at Peggy, eyebrows raised high. “Can you suffer him like this?”

Howard might not have seen it, but Peggy saw Steve’s wince. She let her hand run gently over his back. “I’m sure you know by now we’re both all in for whatever is coming next.”

Howard nodded. “I’ll get a nurse over here to get some blood samples and then I’ll reach out to my guy. But…” he shook his head and stood, moving over to the phone. “Best case scenario right now is we try to even your hormones out and hope Steve doesn’t take down a zebra, or the milkman, until that happens.”

~*~

By sunrise, the nurse had come and gone and Howard had already been back, poking Peggy with what he assured her was at least a temporary fix. He hadn’t even offered to try to give Steve any, saying that his body cleared it too quickly for it to be any kind of answer right now.

Curled up in the corner of the couch, she was at least grateful that she wasn’t sick to her stomach anymore. Her mug was long since empty, but she still turned it in her hands, letting her nails tap along the ceramic as she waited for Steve to emerge from the bathroom. After Howard left, he’d mumbled something about taking a shower and had disappeared. The shower had been shut off for ages, and she hadn’t heard any of his normal knocking about in long, quiet minutes.

She should get up, make something to eat, but she didn’t feel like it. She couldn’t feel much, in fact. She felt a little hollow, unmotivated, and still so very, very tired.

Steve opened the door to the bathroom, looked at her, and moved past to the bedroom, holding the towel around his waist tight, his eyes avoiding her.

She could feel his pain. Whatever was between them was doing that. It allowed then just a sense, but even the smallest sense was enough. He was hurt, and embarrassed, and sad. He felt like he’d failed her, and it made her chest tighten. She didn’t know how to soothe him, because she wouldn’t be treated like his toy or his conquest or whatever else his Neanderthal brain had decided she was. But she didn’t like to see him hurt, and his pain made her own sense of listlessness worse.

She tapped her nails on the mug again, eyes unfocused on the floor as she heard him moving around, getting dressed. She heard the mattress creek under his weight and then nothing but the occasional soft breath.

She didn’t recall making a conscious decision to go to the bedroom, but more like she felt the need, a pull from deep in her gut.

Peggy wanted to know what was her and what was this damned serum, but she’d spent far too much time trying to separate the feelings and found it didn’t much matter anymore what motivated her.

What mattered was when she stepped into the bedroom and found Steve sitting on the side of the bed, his head in his hands and his eyes red rimmed, he didn’t push her away when she lifted his chin and he hugged her close when she sat in his lap. When she pulled him down to the bed, he silently followed her lead, stripping them down to nothing and cocooning them in the bedsheets, every inch of skin touching and their heartbeats slowing and syncing as they both fell asleep, a sense of peace blooming deep in her stomach, even with so much still left to work out.

~*~

Dugan kicked his feet up on the bench in Stark’s lab. The scientist stared at the soldier, but he just smiled back. “You’re here… why?” Stark asked, trying to go back to his notes.

“I’m here because we need another avenue.” Dugan twirled his moustache, staring at the man’s back. “Phillips is on my back, I can’t go any faster than those translators can go, most of what they get us has been bullshit anyway, and we’re running out of ideas.”

Howard shot him a dirty look and pushed his notebook to the side. “What makes you think I have any better ideas?”

“Well, for one,” Dugan kicked his feet to the floor and put his elbows on his knees, “You’re the smartest guy on this base. And for two, we need Steve back if we want any hope in hell of getting ahead of Hydra.”

Howard shot the man one of his best fake smiles, “While flattery would normally get you everywhere,” he dropped the pretense and tossed his notebook at Dugan and the soldier fumbled the catch, “I don’t have anything. I have a hell of a lot of data that tells me almost absolutely nothing. I can’t fix it. I can’t change it without making Steve go Berserk or Peggy have so much pain she should be dead.” Howard slumped in his chair. “If you got any ideas, I’m open to ‘em.”

Dugan flipped through the notebook, knowing none of it would make sense to him. He looked back up at Stark. “You really don’t have another plan?”

“Aside from handcuffing the two of them together?”

Dugan smiled. “Not the worst plan I’d ever heard.”

Howard was quiet for a moment, then his eyes widened, focusing on something only he could see as his brain started to work out the problem. “Yeah… not the worst plan…”

~*~

“We should eat,” Steve mumbled, nosing at the hair at the base of Peggy’s neck.

She hummed, snuggling back into his arms. “Perhaps.”

They’d been awake for quite some time, but despite all the things they kept saying they should do, neither could find the will, or the strength, to get out of the bed. The best answer, somehow, was the simplest: touch. It calmed them both, relaxed them both, and though it gave them no long-term answers, they agreed that torturing themselves by staying away or by fighting, by letting whatever was going on in their bodies take over, was simply out of the question.

Peggy’s stomach picked that precise moment to growl, the rumble reverberating through Steve, too. He laughed, and then pulled away reluctantly.

Peggy rolled, watching him slip on his shorts as he stood. She sighed as he turned back to her. “I’m still not sold on getting out of bed.”

“You don’t have to,” Steve leaned down and kissed her forehead gently. “Breakfast… or brunch, I guess, in bed.”

She felt like she’d just blinked her eyes shut when the mattress dipped and he was back, sitting at her hip with an over-ripe banana, a scrawny apple, and some packets of cheese and crackers that looked like they came straight from K Rations. He spread the bounty out in front of her as she sat up, slipping his undershirt on over her head and pulling the blankets around her waist. “Take your pick.”

She couldn’t help but smile as she picked up the apple. “What a fine feast.”

He shrugged, his eyebrows moving as much as his shoulders as he grabbed the banana. A flush moved up his chest and into his cheeks as he pealed it, “Gotta take care of my lioness.”

Peggy stopped halfway into biting her apple and smiled at him, even though his eyes were set hard on his own piece of fruit. “You do, my darling.” He peeked at her from the side of his eyes, but didn’t look all the way up. “And I have to say, I’m much happier with this than with a zebra. I have no desire to do all that butchering and cooking.”

His laugh wasn’t a full out guffaw, but it was more than a chuckle and it was music to her ears. It felt too long since she’d heard that sound. “Are you feeling better? You seem…” She didn’t finish, but met his eyes as he sat up taller and looked at her.

“Yeah,” he smiled softly, looking back down at his banana that he had yet to bite into. “Still a little foggy here and there, still have that… that voice in the back of my brain, but it’s better.” He bit into the banana, more to try to buy himself time to set his thoughts in line than because the browning flesh looked appealing at all. He swallowed hard. “It’s, uh… a little embarrassing.”

Peggy spoke around her mouthful of apple, eager to cut him off before he said another word. “If you apologize again, I might scream.” She swallowed quickly and shifted, her hand on his arm to get him to look at her. “Everything about this situation is embarrassing, Steve.” She shrugged, her own face reddening as she let her own feeling slip though. “Neither of us likes being vulnerable to start. It’s different… seeing one of us shot or limping around a battlefield- it’s not the same as me vomiting over the side of the bed or having our emotions laid bare for Howard to sift through. Having to bare ourselves to one another was bound to happen at some point, given we’ve pretty much decided to…” She coughed and looked away. They weren’t exactly engaged, but it felt as much in her head.

She was glad his voice was teasing; he could have very easily turned things heavy again and she just couldn’t take any more of that. “If you think I’m not making an honest woman of you after all this…”

She laughed and leaned against him, “Well, in that event, this wasn’t the first time you’ve seen me vomit and it undoubtedly won’t be the last.” She felt more than heard his chuckle and went back to biting into her small apple.

He shook his head as his eyes unfocused in memory. “Yeah, there was that time when we were stuck in France.”

She bit her apple again, shuddering at the memory, “Why any of you weren’t sick is still a mystery to me. You all ate the same stew I did.”

“We didn’t drink the water, though. Dugan convinced everyone else to have beer.” Steve shook his head. “Every time we thought you’d manage to finally stop, your body just found more to get out there. I had no idea your body could hold that much, Peg.”

“It obviously couldn’t, which is why I was spewing it out in the first place.” She shook her head, bumping him in the side as she picked up a packet of cheese and crackers. “Now, please stop talking about vomiting. I’d very much like to enjoy my rations in peace.”

~*~

It was three days with no word before Howard finally called to say that he would be over within the hour. In that time, a parade of nurses had come through, taking their blood and vitals over and over again, and Steve and Peggy settled into something akin of a daily routine.

They touched, they made love, and they tried to take advantage of whatever this time afforded to them meant.

It wasn’t that well tested, as they tended to touch more than not, but Peggy hadn’t felt even a tingle of pain since the shots. It seemed they had an answer, at least for her pain if not Steve’s mood swings, and that gave the Army and the SSR options.

They hadn’t heard a word or a whisper from Phillips or the Commandos, and Peggy was prepared to be shipped out back to London at any moment for Bletchley or worse, to be dishonorably discharged.

Steve swore up and down he wouldn’t let that happen, or that he’d threaten to leave with her, but she was pragmatic enough to know neither of them really had all that much choice in the matter.

When Howard did show up, he smiled like he was the cat that swallowed the canary. “Hey guys!”

He pushed past Steve, eyes just a little wild. “How ya been?”

Steve pushed the door closed slowly as Peggy starred him down in disbelief. “How have we been? Howard, how have we-?” She laughed. “Abysmal! Howard we’re sitting here, hearing nothing, being told nothing, and you waltz in here—”

Howard grabbed her and spun her around in a poor approximation of a waltz, Peggy still incensed in his arms. “Well, I mean, you gotta be at least a little better. Nurses said you haven’t had an ounce of pain in days, and Cap didn’t take me out like a lion hunting a gazelle yet.”

Steve, hands on his hips and chin set tight, strode over to them, “I still might, Howard.”

Howard spun Peggy out of his arms and Steve caught her, helping to set her straight before she toppled over. “What has gotten into you?” she wondered out loud, her anger melting more to concern at the man’s antics.

“Well, it hasn’t been sleep, I can tell you that.” Howard blinked his eyes rapidly, the mania behind them all that was keeping him upright. “But I have a short-term solution.”

“Jesus, sit before you fall over, you insane fool.” Peggy grabbed his hand and sat him on their small couch.

Howard fell into the cushions. “I’ve been called worse!” He rubbed his hands over his face and took a deep breath in through his nose. “Let me explain before I pass out, ok?”

Peggy sat next to him and Steve sat across, elbows on his knees. “You said short-term?” Steve asked, face serious.

Howard nodded, his attitude sobering. “I hate to admit it, but until I know exactly what they did to you, the chances of me figuring out how to reverse it are slim.” He dropped his hands and head, shaking it. “Your bodies are going through complex chemical reactions that no one’s ever seen before. Never mind the fact that I don’t even know if I’m looking at the right thing, the right reactions or the right side effects.” He turned maudlin, the lack of sleep shifting his mood. “I swear, I’m gonna keep trying but—”

“We know, Howard,” Peggy set her hand on his arm, and if either of them saw Steve shift uncomfortably, they pretended not to notice. “So, what’s the solution?”

He swallowed hard and sat tall. “Short term.” He pulled a box from his pocket and opened it.

Two bright, shiny, silver bands stared back at them.

Peggy licked her lips. “Marriage seems like a pretty long-term solution to me.”

Howard looked at Peggy, then at Steve’s tight expression, and laughed. “No, no… I mean, I just assumed you guys were headed there… but no. No. This isn’t…” He chuckled again and pulled the larger of the two rings from the case, showing them the inside where the ring proved to be a hollow shell, incasing what looked to be a plastic ring inside. He hit the ring on the small coffee table, the hard knock reverberating. “Super thin vibranium outer shell, incasing a soft silicone ring that’s embedded with hormones. Slow release through the skin means that neither one of you should be overwhelmed and that Steve won’t sleep it off.” He handed Steve the ring he held and Peggy picked up the second from the box. “You’ll have to change out the inner ring probably once every couple of days- maybe every day for Steve, I’m not exactly sure yet.”

“This is vibranium? Like my shield?” Steve ran his hands over the outer thin inner edge of the ring.

Howard nodded. “When I said your shield was all we had left, I meant it. There were only a few ounces of scraps, shavings really, and at the time I couldn’t see any good use for them. Certainly not enough to make any kind of shield or weapon out of. Turns out, just enough for a set of rings.”

He shrugged at Steve’s continued look of bafflement. “Have you ever met you two? You’re hard on just about everything the Army issues you. In theory, I could give you just the silicone ring to wear, or even put it like a patch somewhere on your body, but if the one side of the silicone is exposed the hormones will leach out into anything or anyone you touch- making it a bad day for them and less effective for you. Sure- silver or gold or even titanium would have done the trick- but I don’t trust either one of you to not come back after your first mission and hand it to me broken. At least with the vibranium it should have a little staying power.”

Peggy couldn’t help but laugh at his cockiness. “I’m more likely to lose my finger than the ring, you’re saying?”

He smirked. “Something like that.”

“So, what does this mean?” Steve asked, still touching the ring like it was something dangerous.

“It means you stay here for a day or so while you get used to them, then we let you loose on the base: Phillips is insufferable without you, Peg.” He shrugged, happy. “The you’re back in the field again with a good supply of back up inserts once we know it’s effective.”

Steve’s sigh was telling, Howard and Peggy could both hear the fears he let go in it. “So, they want us back? Active?”

“Yeah. Phillips is chomping at the bit.” Howard stood. “Caveat is you two go everywhere together, at least for now.” He shrugged, pulling a small bag out of his pocket with more of the silicone inserts inside and put it on the table next to the box the rings had been in. “Like I said, this is a short-term solution. If it works… which I think it will… it will only keep things at bay. You’ve both still got whatever the hell it is they put in Peggy doing a number on you, and the only way we know to keep a handle on that is to keep the two of you together.”

Howard sashayed to the door, hands in his pockets. “You know, it was Dugan who gave me the idea… that we should handcuff the two of you together.” Howard pointed at the rings. “Handcuffs, ball-and-chain, same thing, right?” He smiled. “Try ‘em out. I’m gonna go get some sleep.”

Peggy stood, moving to Steve’s side as Howard left as quickly as he’d come. “That man is a menace to science and society,” Peggy murmured.

Steve waited a breath and then turned to her, eyes serious, he held up his ring. “What do you think?”

Peggy looked down at her own ring then back up with a small smile. “I think if it gets us back working, if we can function without having to find an empty office or a supply closet, it’s a good solution for now.”

“For now,” Steve repeated, softly. He spun the circle around and around, thinking so hard Peggy thought he might explode. “It’s a… when I said I’d make an honest woman out of you, I didn’t really think it’d be today.”

Peggy covered his hands with hers, holding tight and waiting for him to look in her eyes. “It doesn’t have to mean all that, if you don’t want it to. We don’t have to wear them like that. Or we call Howard up and ask him to make something else—”

Steve stopped her words with an emphatic shake of his head. “Well, then, what’s the problem?” she asked.

“No, I just….” He smiled a little, still unsure. “Should we get a judge? Somebody?”

Peggy laughed and looked away, taking the ring from his hand before looking back, serious. “While I fully expect a big to-do that my mother can cry at once the war’s over, I think you and me, right here, is enough for now, don’t you?” She smiled up at him, taking his left hand and wiggling his ring over this fourth finger. “What do you say, Captain? Ready to be tied down to this old ball-and-chain?”

He wiggled his finger at her, his own smile growing. “For as long as you’ll have me, Margaret Carter.”

Peggy’s face soured as she slipped the ring on his finger. “Rule one if we’re to be married: Never call me Margaret. Reminds me of when my mother was cross at me, which was nearly all the time.”

“Duly noted, Mrs. Rogers,” he said, wagging his eyebrows at her and getting a quick chuckle as she handed him her ring and her left hand. “And you? You’re ready for this? Really?”

She nodded. “Every moment. Every mission. Every adventure. I’m ready.”

“Right next to me,” Steve acknowledged, his heart in his eyes, as he slipped the ring on her finger. “My best girl and the right partner.”

“The right partner,” Peggy whispered, lifting on tip toe to kiss him.

He pulled away, her lips still close as he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. “My lioness.”

Peggy kissed him again then tucked her head under his chin, happiness blooming from her belly through her whole body as the events of the last few minutes settled within her. “My lion.”

She had Steve, and she had a solution to what Hydra had done to her, even if it was just a fix for now.

It was all she needed.

#Steggy Bingo Bash #Steggy Fic #3P's Fic

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mikemoon · 4 years ago

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( choi yeonjun, cis man ) have you seen MICHAEL “MIKE” MOON ? i heard HE is a COMPUTER SCIENCE MAJOR at SAN VERTO COLLEGE and an EMPLOYEE at HALL OF FILM. they’re 22 years old and they’ve been living in san verto for 6 YEARS. they tend to be CARE-FREE & ADVENTUROUS, but rumor has it they can also be GRUMPY & CLUMSY. [ tally, 25, gmt+4, she/her ] @foolsstarters

tw // mentions of depression, cheating, divorce, underage drinking and smoking

michael moon, born myungjun moon –– choi yeonjun fc

birthday: september 9, 1998 - 22 yrs old ; virgo

cis man, he/him, bisexual

born and raised in philadelphia, pennsylvania

mike grew up being an only child, and always around the company of his mother in their house. his father was always traveling back and forth from south korea to the states for work. his parents have met at work on one of his father’s trips to the states, and they fell in love. his mother being american-born, she couldn’t really leave philadelphia. she loved it there. so they decided to keep it a long distance relationship.

sometime during those fleeting meetings, she had gotten pregnant with michael. and of course, his father spoiled them both, giving them everything they wanted. he never left them to fend for themselves. when the boy was born, his father named him myungjun, and his mother decided to name him michael for his english name. the nicknames jun, mike, and sometimes junnie were often heard whenever his parents or childhood friends called him.

up until mike was five years old in 2004, he’s lived with his mother, while his father was leaving and coming back for a week or two. but that year, he’s finally moved to the states and stayed with them for longer nights. he even finally married michael’s mother. of course, he still disappeared for a few days or weeks on end for work.

but that was also the year michael’s mother found out that her husband was with another woman. michael has never seen his mother break down like that before. sadly, the young boy was peering into the room when the fight happened and witnessed everything. his mother made her partner choose between the two women, and he eventually told her that he was going to divorce his first wife for her, and appeared to have gone through with his promise. because after that incident, he’s been around more often.

by early 2015, when michael had just turned 16, his mother had gotten a teaching job in ashdown academy, which resulted in their move to san verto, california. meaning, new school and new friends for mike. meanwhile, his dad was still traveling a lot for business and coming back whenever he could.

michael has grown up as a cheerful and energetic child. his friends at any school he went to would tell you how much of a great friend he is, how trustworthy and caring he is. it was so easy for him to make friends anywhere. he was the type of friend who would smile at you and listen to you talk on and on about whatever you liked, and the type who would cheer you on with anything you want to achieve. he wanted everyone to feel included and loved.

so it wasn’t that hard for him to get along with new people once he moved to town. he was a very social person.

he was also the type of teenager who was out there doing things he wasn’t supposed to. he missed his old friends and his old home, but he wanted to have fun with all the new kids he was befriending. that simply resulted in him going to house parties as an underaged teen to ‘have fun’. his mother didn’t approve of him coming home very late at night, clearly smelling like smoke and alcohol.

internally he was a depressed mess. of course, no one is completely happy as they grow up. his family was a mess, even if it appeared as fine to everyone else. his family life affected him so much while growing up. mike sometimes could disappear for a few days in his room, and it was always during some of his bad spells.

what made it worse was the day he found out the truth.

it was 2017 when michael walked into his father’s office in their house, looking for him to ask him about something. and instead of finding the man, he found a stack of papers poking from underneath his father’s laptop. upon closer look, they appeared to be divorce papers. michael’s heart sunk, thinking his parents were breaking it off.

michael is a curious kid, he couldn’t help but close the door and read the papers. but what he saw wasn’t his mother’s name, it was another woman. his heart raced, as he put things back where they were and immediately left the room. michael had found out one of his father’s many secrets. he never divorced his first wife all those years ago. he lied and somehow stayed with both women without suspicion... well, until now. clearly the other woman was breaking it off for a reason.

michael couldn’t help his curiosity. he came back to the room later that night and snapped as many pictures as he could of evidence he could find. he even found his father’s phone (which was easy to figure out the password of) and found a plethora of pictures of the man with a different family, different kids and a different partner. he airdropped the pictures to himself to avoid leaving any traces behind and quickly left again.

a quick search on facebook, and he managed to find the first wife. it was easy with the name and pictures he had. if anything, michael prided himself on being a good internet detective... or stalker. he spent everyday trying to find the rest of the family on the internet. he found the woman’s young daughter on instagram and twitter, along with her older son’s accounts as well. it felt weird. it was a constant “now what?” for michael. he’s found them. what was he going to do now? he couldn’t just message them and tell them everything. and he couldn’t break his mother’s heart by letting her know.

except he had to let her know. he could never live with the fact that he knew his father was betraying her this entire time. and so michael told her everything, and after comforting her all night when she broke down yet again, she immediately ended things and asked for a divorce. now it was just michael and his mother, all alone. and for once, having to get by on their own.

thankfully they were safe, with his mother’s amazing money management skills, and the job she got at the academy, they managed to live their regular lives despite the heavy feeling of a broken family looming around them. the two just wanted to be happy again.

michael spent the next few years trying to lead a normal life. his mental health had gotten worse after everything he’s found out. he went to college, and he continued trying to do well in school. he really wasn’t the best when it came to grades, but he was trying his best.

and truthfully, he couldn’t help but make a few spare accounts on some social medias to follow his father’s other family.

but he eventually decided to just let it go, assuming they definitely knew about his mother and himself, which would explain the first divorce. so he decided to put it in the past and move on.

his mother has moved on as well. she found herself someone who actually cares about her so much (mike’s stupid ass has done a secret background check to make sure this dude wasn’t another cheater lmaoo) and now mike isn’t an only child anymore. it’s been 2 years since his little sister yuna was born, and he loves her so much. he still isn’t used to the idea of a new fatherly figure in his life, but he’s.... getting there.

little dumb hcs

mike majors in computer science at san verto college, with a concentration in game development and design

hes a lil gamer boy,,, u KNOW he’s that annoying dude with a gamer chair that has a sound system in it khjkh

he posted a few videos on youtube but rly just ditched the channel after like a month. he still posts whenever he feels like it tho and it’s usually just.... messy gaming videos or opinions no one asked for

his dad’s dumb ass still doesn’t know it was mike who exposed him to his mother. he thinks she found the divorce papers on her own. therefore.... mike still gets money from his dad on a monthly basis and gets to keep the car he bought him for his 18th birthday lmaooooo a win

you probably heard me say this before but.... theres a hc that mike is allergic to eggs. simply bc the idea of him shopping in the vegan section is funny to me

this boy has a love for frogs ? idk where the obsession came from but you bet you’re gonna see a cute lil frog sticker on everything he owns. he doodles them on everything too ? it’s a habit at this point. he also knows random little facts about them and tells them to anyone who didnt ask for them

. embarrassing but.. this dude... omg.... a big sana stan.... he has a photocard collection.... he went to a twice concert like 5 times.... dont be surprised if you see a feel special sana photocard in his phonecase.... im embarrassed of him

he also has a hyunjin mcdonalds hashbrown photocard framed that a friend gave to him for christmas bc.. it’s a rare card,,, and you can see it on a table by the door when you walk into his apartment 😭

mike also has a habit of buying things he doesn’t need ?? he has a plushie collection that has been growing since he was young, and now is getting bigger with the rise of squishmallows

there’s this random hc where he drunk bought a cardboard cutout of john cena ,,,, don’t ask,,, it’s currently guarding his room back at his mom’s house djfhdj

can you tell mike is my most embarrassing , most chaotic character,,

also he moved out after graduating school and when he started to attend college,,,, gimme some roomies pls

connection ideas ??

michael’s childhood friends; could’ve gone to the same school back in philly before he moved away ??

friends he made when he moved to town?? mike is very social and was... kinda popular in school, i’d say. he made friends with basically anyone he found interesting

michael’s ex; they could’ve ended on a bad note, or even on a good one and ended up being friends. im really up for plotting anything.

michael’s best friend; PLEASE i love wholesome best friend plots. it doesn’t matter if they met in san verto or philly

roomies pls !!! i would love it if he could have some roommates who have to deal with his very . peculiar decorating habits

co workers ?? customers ? regulars ? he works at hall of film !

like this to plot or hmu !

#foolsintro #this got SO LONG #i didnt proof read and im sure i missed something

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l0chn3ss · 5 years ago

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l0chn3ss update

I feel like the last time I ever really active on tumblr was in the year 2016, so i want to address my absence between 2017-2020. Part of it is because I feel like I owe it to my friends and mutuals who I just basically left on read and another part is because I’ve always treated this blog as a personal blog that documents my life and my growth. I put off writing this for a long time but now that I have a huge paper due, now is definitely the time.

You are welcome to skip but I will address a few hard hitting questions I feel should be answered, especially since I feel like I departed like an anti-hero of a bad tv show.

Where I am currently: I am in grad school to obtain a master’s in library and information science. I have a full time job at different middle school libraries, though I work from home now. I also tutor kids on the side to pay for my tuition because I basically make minimum wage. Quarantine messed with my head at first, but now I’m feeling much better and I’m trying to reconnect with friends and close a lot of loose ends.

TLDR: I took an extended break because tumblr mobile sucks and my laptop needed serious repairs. I made a huge migration away from social media in 2018. I prioritized my education and in-person connections, which fell to shit because of my fandom involvement in the past. I did not like the direction of the main fandom I participated in and knew that many of the people I once respected did not respect me in return/ Us versus them mentality. I recognized that I treated my life on tumblr too seriously and took petty drama personally. I am sporadically on tumblr now because I genuinely enjoy the social connection and because I still like running fandom events.

Yes, you can reblog this. I’d love for this narrative to be heard.

Long version: To preface this, this post is being written to give myself closure and because I really am procrastinating on my final big paper of this semester. I’ll be tackling on the points in the tldr in a longer narrative that will appear to be in an expository fashion, which I recognize will be a source of contention, but my intentions are to throw it onto the table so that I can be freed. I can let it go and move on. I’m no longer a 20 years old who cared too much of what other people think and will think; I think differing perspectives are important and I want to give myself a chance to say my piece. That and I recognize that I lost the audience that I once had, so I doubt this will be an issue at all. It’s been 4 or what ever years, let’s just not.

Back in 2015-2016 there was a huge back and forth between three groups of people in the SE fandom. The reason why I’m not listing out the name is because I don’t want this to show up in the tags. I’d say that the three groups could be seen as quite literally the soma shippers (mostly white, demi sexual girls), lgbt centric bloggers (very kid or star oriented, very fed up with soma), and the people who were deemed as alright to soma shippers (c r ona, ste inm arie, jac k im centric people). There was a constant (and understandable) tension between the first two groups while the third was like the weird cousin that everyone in the social circles liked because they sprinkled in soma for the masses. Don’t argue with me on this-- this was literally how the fandom was in 2015 and you know it.

The main issue was that one group felt that they were being inclusive towards identities and sexualities while the other felt that they were not. I remember that one of the arguments was that soma WAS an LGBT ship because people headcanonned the members to be demisexual. However, the other side of the argument was that it wasn’t good representation of a gay pairing. Now that we can look back at this 5 years later, I have two things to say: 1, I now very much understand why the argument broke out because of how heated the topic is, and I do believe that I lean more towards the “other side” now that I’m not wearing rose tinted glasses, but 2, I need to make it clear that demi people are lgbt, but a headcanon is not fact and ship diversity was the main question at hand, not the ship itself. This argument lasted for weeks, destroyed my friendships, and no matter what I felt I did in the moment (which was to mend the fandom), it was taken as an insult.

(Side note: Somethings that I remember was being in someone’s DM’s to encourage them to participate in the large fandom events more, but once they twisted my intentions and rallied their friends, I became their enemy. I also became the mods’ enemy but then again, when was I not? I was made fun of for saying “queergender,” a term that is now currently being widely used, quite openly by someone I wanted desperately to be friends with. I was outwardly mocked by popular users who only apologized behind closed doors but didn’t bother to clear things up with their followers. Adults who were in their 30s quite literally attacked a 19 year old. It was in that moment that I realized I would never become friends with either side, and not because I didn’t want to.)

I bring this up because as I begun to stop writing soma fics, I also begun to see and understand why people moved away from it. It wasn’t the ship itself, it was the culture surrounding it. However, on tumblr we have the ability to connect intensely with the content we produce. Therefore, the ship itself began to be connected with the shippers and their attitudes towards outside pairings-- that attitude being tied into elitism.

I say this with every ounce of love I can because I once had the exact same mannerism. When you become so tied into one pairing to the point where other ships appear to threaten the existence of it and you react negatively towards it, you become rancid. The popular tag “everything is soma” takes a very dark turn. Even if readers consume another pairing’s work, they will be obliged to say “I ship soma more BUT that was cute.” They will read an entirely different topic and wonder why soma wasn’t inserted into it in the background. They will reject pairings that separate the two as if breaking them up is sin and an insult.

The only reason why I stopped writing my soma fics in 2016 was because I saw a real need to fill in the gaps of other pairings. I took what people were saying to heart and I wanted to change my ways and my perceptions. I saw the animosity of the ship culture and rejected it. I wanted to use what little influence I had to make the fandom just a bit more accepting. In 2016, I don’t think the fandom was ready for it. In 2017, they still weren’t ready for it. In 2020, I see hope, but I wonder sometimes if it’s masqueraded pity because of previous treatment.

In the middle of it all, I went from being the soma angst master to becoming the weird person everyone once knew. I was the friend that people excluded from group chats and I just “wasn’t the same.” Cliques grew extremely large in power in 2017 and exclusion hurt like a bitch.

The straw that broke the camel’s back and completely shut me down was in 2017 when I was graduating as a bachelor. There was a fandom event that I decided to go all in to. For context, there used to be a huge debate on how many times a person should enter in an event, but in my mind, the more exposure the better. My graduation and the event took place at the exact same time, which was cool, but what hurt me was what happened after.

I was lucky enough to be accepted into field school (when you travel to do outdoor excavating) for my major. I’m an anthropologist-- it was an honor. I didn’t plan in advance for it, and if anything, I thought that I would be committed completely to the events and my 5 or what ever entries at the time. I’ve always prided myself in communicating with others, so I made sure to let my partners in the event know what was going on. I was so excited to be going on my first ever excavation and no one at the time said anything otherwise, in fact, they all seemed incredibly supportive.

What I didn’t know was that I would be called out by name in the event feedback response by one person who felt that I didn’t take the event seriously enough and that I should’ve prioritized my time accordingly. Two of the mods let me know because it referred to me directly, though the name of the submitter was not included. It was not only a slap in the face, but a dumbfound moment that reminded me that wow, fandom content really is someone’s life out there. My enforced silence because of lack of internet in the woods actually upset someone and made them believe that I wronged them, because I put my real life ambitions first before a fandom event.

It was then when I woke up and I remember very clearly thinking to myself: I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to treat my fandom life seriously. I want to participate in fandom for fun, not out of duty. I don’t want to prioritize this life because in the end, if I am hated for putting my work and education first, then I don’t want it.

(For context, I suspect that it was the same person who made a 200 note call out on me during the fandom tension. I respected this person immensely, but I also treated them like the flawed person I believe everyone is. I’m sure because of this, I’m pretty much trash in their eyes, which is totally fine. They have really cute cats so they can’t be all too bad. Don’t look into it too deeply.)

Once my month long field school was up, I was already used to not being on the internet or any of my social media accounts. I didn’t play my mobile games for a month. I didn’t read the news for a month. It was like going cold turkey on the internet, which reshaped my habits entirely. The only time that I had online within that time span was during the weekend, but I spent my time working on my projects and catching up with friends instead of being on apps.

I was also completely fed up with tumblr’s mobile app at the time, so one by one, I deleted my apps. Good bye to tumblr, snapchat, what little I used of instagram, twitter, everything. The only thing I kept was facebook, which was because it is the main platform that I use to message my boyfriend. That meant that any friends I retained from the fandom (who I still contact now) were also friends who had the chance to add me on facebook.

This was the cause of my 2 or 3 year hiatus on tumblr, and therefore the fandom. I occasionally checked back every 6 months to do a few fandom events, but I have several unopened messages and notifications that I haven’t been able to get to. I open my instagram for a few days once a year, and I only go onto twitter if my friends tell me (through facebook) that they dm’d me a post there.

When I left my online persona behind, I quickly strengthened my in person connections. New drama that erupted every other day became replaced with starbucks and boba runs. Reality TV shows replaced fanfiction. Text messages replaced the tumblr activity feed (which still doesn’t work on mobile BTW). I study at cafes unironically with friends instead of typing alone in my room. Overall, it opened my world considerably.

I still like making fun of myself and I try not to take myself seriously. I still make self depreciative memes to send to friends but then double up with kermit heart pics. I’m still a plot bunny, I still write my fics, I still watch my anime, I still play video games, I still sleep at 4am, I still take my depression medication, I still love potatoes, I still use my voice for people who can’t find theirs yet. But I think I’m in a much healthier mindset now, even if I still make stupid shifty posts calling out bad behavior.

Nowadays, I’m working on my Master’s degree in secret. My parents don’t know about it because my mom doesn’t like that I want to go out and do unladylike things like getting an education. I tutor kiddos and I’m really good with younger children, but I’m not going to do anything with kids because I just don’t want to. Instead, I want to work at an archive or a museum to bring my library interests and my anthropology background together. If I had my dream job, I would be a marine archaeologist; however I love my boyfriend of 8 years whom you probably all remember and I really came to terms with my grandeur dreams. I’m extremely happy with living in a small town with loved ones now, and I don’t need to move somewhere far away from my parents to be content. It’s a huge realization.

From 2018 to 2020 I got into actual drama in person while I was job hunting. Adult people suck and honestly it’s kind of embarrassing how ill equipped some people are. Even so, I currently work in middle schools as a media assistant. One of those realms is the library, and honestly it’s like fulfilling a prophecy. As much as I love the social aspect, public schools are an absolute train wreck.

I’m going to wrap this up now. This post is meant to help me close the past and move forward because the fandom culture feels different now. Things from several years ago don’t need to resurface. I want to enjoy my life fully, and fandom life is one of those aspects that I truly did enjoy. I’m going to keep using my voice and act like a fool, but I’m also not going to be losing sleep because of this. People are going to talk about you no matter what, whether positively or negatively, and it’s important to not take it personally.

Idk, go enjoy yourselves. Do things for yourself. It’s more fun that way.

#nessingaround #this was cathartic #huge thank you to my friends who stuck by me and to my friends who welcome me back with open arms #big shout out to my disney girl gang and another big shout out to 'ma girls'#another thank you to my sweethearts on google hang out #and thank you especially to the group of se lgbt users from 2016 who truly did open my eyes to the severity of the fandoms actions #even tho u still hate me and have me blocked hahaha i consider this growth

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needloveandpositivity · 4 years ago

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It's been described as the worst year of my life packed into 3 or 4 months. And it has been. 2020 was so good for us. We grew closer in our relationship. I knew quarantine was either going to make or break us, and we are doing so well together. I love him with all my heart. But there's so much going on, I'm so exhausted.

We became really close with his aunt and uncle over the summer. We visited often, they came to visit here, it was a good relationship. His aunt became a confidant for me. We could talk about anything. Then his uncle decided to fuck off. Left with no warning. They had 1 fight and he was gone. Aunt was heart broken. My man went to pick up uncle, because my man has a huge heart. It felt like we got shoved in the middle of their separation. Aunt vented to me often about uncle. Trashing him left right and center. I didn't really like him in the first place, but he's family, I gotta tolerate him. But it's so hard to stay neutral. Not even a week after he left, he started seeing another woman. A woman who he had already cheated on aunt with in the past.

I did my best to keep aunts head level, so she wouldn't call, text, email, what ever this lady to try and ruin uncles set up he had. She was so angry. So bitter. And I understood 100%, I think her feelings were justified. He left her. Again. 3rd time he walked out on her because she was trying to help him sort himself out.

My birthday, I get a text message, my man's great aunt had passed away. The woman that uncle was living with passed away suddenly in her sleep. She wasn't a super healthy woman, I understand she had cancer and diabetes, she had basically given up. But she seemed to be doing well, all things considered. We had just seen her the weekend before, she was happy, joking with us. And suddenly, gone. In a text message. We went to see my family that weekend, my dad and my brothers birthdays are all around mine as well, so we were going to celebrate together. I let my parents know, my man's great aunt has passed away quite suddenly. No response. No, "I'm sorry for your loss" no "wow that's terrible, my condolences" nothing. Just oh, yeah I overheard your man say it to his mom earlier. Thanks.

I had 3 weeks off work between contracts. I tried to use that time to organize the apartment, sort things to sell/give away, but Toronto was shutting down again for lock down, so I couldn't really do much with the things I didn't want anymore. So I'm still sitting on those boxes.

The 3rd week, my man's mom came to visit for a few days, which was nice. Her and I get along really well. We went to pet smart, went for a walk, hung out, it was nice. But she left in the middle of the night, no text, no explanation. Just gone. I woke up the next morning looking for her, assuming she went out to smoke, and I couldn't find her. She must have noticed I was active on Facebook, because she messaged me like 20 minutes later, said her gut told her to go home, so she did. At like 3am.

Like a week or 2 later she starts getting all distant, hardly responding to me, not giving me solid answers about Christmas plans, just keeps saying what ever. I asked her if something was wrong and she just kept saying no. It was like this for like a week or two and she just kept getting more and more snippy with me. So I finally asked my man like is your mom mad at me or something. But he's like no no she's fine she loves you why would she be mad at you, what could you possibly have done? And that's what I was wondering too, like, what can I do? What have I done?

Finally, she tells my man that she was upset with me, she thought I didn't want to see her on Christmas. That she was just an after thought. Because I offered to see her all day on December 26th. She took offense to December 26th because in her mind, December 26th is the left over day. The day that people who don't matter get. In my family, December 25 and December 26 hold the same value. We always switched back and forth with my moms family and my dads family for Christmas day and boxing day. This Christmas, with the covid rules and everything, my dads family was going to visit on the 27th, just a few of them, and mom's side was going to do Christmas day, since it was their turn anyways. So the 26th was completely free, and I wanted to give MIL our undivided attention. No rushing to another dinner, she gets the day. But she didn't want that. She wanted Christmas day. But she wouldn't communicate that to me so that we could arrange that for her.. so she thought I didn't want to see her. That she didn't matter. And she got all angry and distant about it without just telling me.

We finally got it sorted out, Christmas was super messy, my moms parents were being over the top about Christmas plans, they ended up canceling everything, and we ended up being able to see MIL on Christmas day after all. The whole time we were down there, I was anxious and uncomfortable. Trying to please everybody at the same time, and it was never enough. Nobody was ever satisfied by the time we could or could not spend with them.

Then, the 27th in the evening we had Christmas with my man's dad. Uncle was there. With this new woman. No heads up, we just walked in, and there she is. No introduction or nothing. Just hey welcome to Christmas dinner, have a seat. Like what? He knew we still spoke with aunt. He knew how heart broken she was. And now flaunting this new girlfriend at us???? I felt completely disrespected. Like he did it to get a rise out of me. Like he did it so that I would tell aunt and put fuel on the fire. He did it to make it hurt for us to tell aunt.

I was so excited to finally go home.

January 4th. One of the worst days of my life. I'm working from home, any normal day. And I get a text message from my best friends son. My best friend has tragically died of a stroke this weekend. I can feel my soul being torn to shreds. I screamed and cried for hours. I was able to calm myself just long enough to send an email to my boss, let him know what happened and i will be signed off for the rest of the day. My mom gave me a call as soon as she found out, one of her friends found out because she used to work with my best friend. She called me, and immediately she knew that I knew. I told her who told me, and I sobbed. She didn't stay on the line for very long. Just told me that if all I'm going to do is sit there and cry, then she's going to go because she had things to do. I wanted to tell her to fuck off right then and there. But I just said k and hung up. I called my man so he knew I wasn't working, that I wasn't okay. He hurried home that afternoon.

January was a rough, rough month. I felt right on the edge of crying every single day. I couldn't make phone calls without bursting into tears. I spent so much time just staring at the wall. I smoked so much weed just so I could get through an hour without crying. My eyes, my nose, my throat, my soul hurt just existing. Weed gave me that temporary relief.

Just when I started pulling myself together, making it through a day without sobbing, my dad texts me. My great aunt has passed away. At this point, I don't feel anything anymore. I don't want to cry, I don't want to feel. I'm just angry all the time. It's either nothing, or angry. There's no in between.

February I start to realize I'm really not okay. And I haven't actually been okay for a while. I haven't done laundry properly since well before Christmas. The apartment is a mess. And more and more often I'm thinking about walking out into the street just to hope someone will run me over. Then maybe someone will notice and understand how very not okay I am. Maybe I'll die? Is that really the worst thing that could happen?

I finally called my doctor when I started having some really physical symptoms. Thinking about my best friend, thinking about aunt and uncle fighting, thinking about MIL, thinking about anything remotely stressful or disappointing would make me shake. Like an uncontrollable shiver starting deep in my chest. Come to find out that's called heart palpitations. I've also been having these attacks, Ill be sitting on the couch, or fucking sleeping, and I'll wake up with a pain in my lower abdomen, super dizzy, nauseous, light headed. I sit in the bathroom and wait to either throw up, or pass out. Neither happen, and after about 20 minutes it subsides, I'm exhausted and I go back to sleep. My heart rate gets so high, so consistently during this time that my fitbit has started recording it as exercise.

I'm scared, obviously, that something might be seriously wrong with me. The nurse that I speak to on the phone doesn't think there's anything to worry about. She says it's just anxiety, she will book me in next week to be put on medication. At this point I'm not entirely convinced it's "just anxiety", so I made an appointment with a counselor. Even if it is "just anxiety" this is far more intense than i have EVER experienced in my life, and I've been diagnosed with anxiety/depression since I was like 13.

My mom doesn't care. I told her what was happening and she just said, I'm sure you're fine. I am super duper absolutely not fine. I haven't thought about dying in YEARS. The last time I thought about it was when I told my parents I was bi and my mom tried to leave. Went upstairs, packed a bag, and walked out the door. My dad chased her down and got her to come back in but like, what the fuck.

I'm almost 1 week on trintellix, I have to get bloodwork done this week to make sure these fun, awesome, never before seen symptoms are in fact just anxiety, and I see the cousellor next week to hopefully figure out what's going on and how to get through this.

I have plans, goals. My man and I are talking about getting married in 2022. Talking about buying a home in 2024. Children? Maybe. But I'd like to be around here to meet them.

So, here I am. I have people who listen, but I feel like I just rant at one friend way too much, and she's sick of me. Another friend that changes the subject when I get sad. Another who has told me she's sick of people venting to her, because she has her own mental health to deal with. And my man doesn't know how to help me. He tries, he really does. But he has bad days too, and I cannot help him while I'm down here. I can't pick him up while I'm still down.

I just need someone to listen. Someone to hear me rant and vent and get things off my chest. Because if I don't, I know I'm going to drown down here.

If you're willing and able to reach out, please do. If not, this will be the blog that I journal in, I guess. Where I write down everything that I want to talk to my best friend about. I know she can't respond, but I'm sure she's up there watching me, and I hope she's reading this to know that I'm trying. I'm getting help. I'm trying to get better, so I can do better.

#help #helpless #mentalwellness #mental heath support #anxitey #depression #depressing shit #im not ok im not ok im not ok #pls help #grief #reaching out #journal #recovery

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mcrmadness · 4 years ago

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Anxiety stuff. I just need to vent in order to calm down so don't mind about me here venting. (And just a draft doesn't feel the same, I need this OUT of my system, scream it into the void.)

I don't know what is it with my body/mind now but I'm extremely tired of whatever it is. I don't like it at all and it reminds me of the anxiety phases I have had in the past and that always gives me even more anxiety because those times have been some of the worst experiences of my life.

Currently I can't sleep. Because my heart keeps beating so hard? Like not really faster, just so hard that it feels like it's shaking my whole body. If I try to breathe long and deep, I feel like suffocating and my breathing is slightly broken(?) because the pulse feels like it punching me in the stomach meanwhile. Nothing hurts and I'm not out of breath, I'm just so sensitive to any sensation of my body that it makes me easily overwhelmed. I tried sleeping but the heart distracts me from that too much. I tried listening to a nature document meanwhile but nothing.

I'm also shaking a little. This is where the anxiety steps in. This heart beating and shaky feels happen sometimes when I eat and the blood sugar levels go up too high. I just ate about 1-2h ago so it maybe was just that. I'm currently sitting on my sofa and rocking myself back and forth which often also helps me to calm myself down and I'm already feeling better. Still I put some rye bread in the toaster, I'm not really even hungry but sometimes ALSO low blood sugar level does this same thing! In the past I have had very wild fear of low blood sugar and I have often eaten for anxiety because I cannot stand the psychosomatic symptoms of anxiety AT ALL so my first instinct was always: eat, in case it's low blood sugar and ice often had trouble telling those symptoms apart from each other.

However, I think the shaky feels are from migraine. I had quite a strong one yesterday. I had stayed up almost 24 hours, didn't drink any tea in that time and slept very weird hours and woke up at 10pm on Friday night. I already had a headache that later either turned or revealed itself to be migraine instead. I took painkillers at night but I still had mild headache but strong neck muscle pain all the way to the morning. I couldn't take another painkiller yet but went to sleep instead. I could fall asleep and slept pretty okay, on my sofa tho. The whole day after that I had this post-migraine zombie feel. Where anything physical feels bad in the neck and head and causes mild nausea. Certain posture in the neck still feels slightly painful. But I didn't have any proper headache anymore so I didn't take painkillers. It's nothing new that I feel this shaky the whole day after migraine, especially after such strong migraines. It's just my health anxiety and my tendency to become overwhelmed and overstimulated by such things that then make me to want to do nothing else but sleep, but I can't sleep because I'm so severely overstimulated. Both tire me out until I basically pass out from exhaustion.

Anxiety is not neat, especially not on worse days. I don't know what's causing this now. The days that are getting logger? Usually spring is my time and I become energetic. This year it apparently means I have so much energy I'm almost maniac and my brain doesn't care about time nor light but basically refuses to sleep more than every other night/day. And it's exhausting too. I haven't been out since last Sunday. And now is yet another Sunday morning. We're supposed to go to the supermarket today. I've been hyperfixating on creative stuff and haven't showered since Wednesday. I stink awful.

Last week I was stupid and decided to cook before doing the dishes - "I'll do them once I've eaten." WRONG. I never do the dishes after eating and cooking. Brain says "we don't need the sinks nor the dishes in next 2 weeks, no need to worry about them until that :)" Usually I do the dishes because I need SPACE. And utensils. That day I had enough of both. And this is always the result and I never learn. Now my sink is full of stuff, I have one clean plate in the cupboard and no clean utensils left. I'm too tired to take care of them and my brain is overjoyed when I can tell myself "I don't need to do them now because I've had migraine and I deserve rest." because it's a good excuse, no need to feel bad for procrastinating. Usually everything is "oh and I SHOULD do this and this and this"...

I think I feel physically awful also because migraine just affects the whole body. My neck muscles still feel awful. It's hard to explain. During migraine they basically feel like they'd suddenly start sinking in size but they're still attached to the rest of my body so it feels like the muscle would be pulled to every direction possible. And after that you feel liike you'd have spent a day in those torture machines where they stretch yours arms. Sometimes feeling sore, but usually just plain stiff. Like the whole body feels like it has turned into stone. No wonder why I feel like I can't get air from ny heart beating against my lungs if all my muscles are so stiff they're hard like stone and can't relax even that much that air could have enough space to move between my lungs and mouth/nose.

I think the heart beating was actually just high blood sugar. It's back to normal now aka I can barely feel it which is good. My neck still feels awful but I'll try to get some sleep soon. I'm starting to feel tired finally, too.

I have therapy on Monday. I hope I somehow get more sleep than just two hours before that.

#mcrmadness' deep thoughts

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howtodisassembleyourdeviant · 5 years ago

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Be My Garden of Eden Ch.2

Warnings: Cursing, Violence, Sexual implications

While your positive review kept him from returning to the scrapyard, he was still losing popularity. He couldn't focus on his clients, which only escalated the problems. Instead, he would wonder what you were doing, or what you might be painting. Had this been a legally-ran club, his memory would have been erased and he couldn't imagine being back at your home, watching tv with your head on his shoulder. He would be more aware of the man hammering into his backside, trying to get a reaction. He'd register the beatings the owner would give him instead of thinking about the koi fish dancing in your pond, wondering if they too have your beautiful voice stuck in their head. The owner cracked his jaw when he accidentally laughed, remembering your one-woman duet.

Every morning was spent fixing himself up, lacerations and dents lay just under his synthetic skin. His repair system was having issues keeping up with what he demanded from it, even more so when the owner refused to give him replacement parts or even blue blood anymore. His movements were a little sluggish as he watched the percentage tick down day by day.

Something was changing within him, however. The bruising grip that some of the clients used was... Uncomfortable. He refused to show it, to give them the satisfaction, but the beatings he received seemed to linger, the ghost of what could only be defined as pain, something he definitely shouldn't feel. He's supposed to be incapable of it. Why this was happening, he didn't know, but it scared him.

It was a week before he got the call he was hoping for. Another night at your address. Just in time, too, as the owner was threatening to disassemble him again. That thought was also becoming more terrifying each passing day.

He was in your studio once more, and almost instantly he noticed the dog painting was gone.

"I sold it. The client was very happy. Said it looked just like her little Marveta."

"That's great, " he said, though he was a little disappointed to see it gone. You must have recognized his expression.

"I feel that sometimes. I was pretty proud of how that one came out. I do miss some of them when they're gone." You patted his shoulder as you moved past him, setting up a new canvas on the empty easel.

Looking around, he spotted the painting you had been working on the last time he was here. What were just splotches of blue and red were now a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Some of the delicate petals were so thin, the colors behind them shown through, a stunning violet shining forth. What amazed him most was that it was the same kind of flowers as the plastic ones bundled together. An elegance that could not be detected, yet you saw it.

On the cold, cracked vase was Cyberlife's icon.

"That one is going up for auction for a special group, " you spoke over your shoulder as you squared up your canvas, "I'll get a small percentage and the rest goes to various projects they're working on."

"Special group?"

"Some people believe there is something more in androids, something Cyberlife didn't do on purpose. They've noticed a change in some of them. They seem to have more... Emotions, more depth in feeling. These people believe they are alive, living in a world where they are enslaved and mistreated." Your eyes were downcast, and you had set your paintbrush to the side. It seemed like you were truly disturbed by this. "The group is small and they work in secret, but it contains some high profile members. I wish other people could see what we see."

"I'm sorry, Y/n, that this upsets you, but you don't need to worry. Androids don't feel emotion. The androids you speak of must have some kind of error in their software." While you smiled at him, your eyes held no happiness, the vibrant color muted under gray clouds.

"Connor, can you honestly tell me that you have never felt anything? Never had doubts about what you were doing? Never felt sad, or angry, or scared?"

He opened his mouth, trying to refute your accusations, to deny what he felt, but, in the end, he only looked away in shame. You stood from your stool and went back over to him, gentle hands moving to his face, stroking his cheeks, encouraging him to meet your gaze once more.

"Connor, look at me, " he relented, looking into the swirl of colors that made up the universe within your eyes. "There is nothing wrong with having feelings or wants. It doesn't make you broken, it makes you who you are."

While he leaned into your touch, his face scrunched up, as if in pain.

"I'm just a machine, designed to pleasure humans, " he pulled away from you, feeling filthy and disgusting. Something as dirty as he does not deserve your touch.

It was quiet for a moment before you broke it.

"Connor, would you model for me?" You asked, nonchalantly, despite the previously heavy topic. The sudden switch perplexed him.

"What?"

"Would you model for me? It's really simple. You just sit in a chair and don't move for several hours." It's not like he didn't do it before.

Without answering, he followed your instruction, sitting down on a chair by a small bookcase, still looking entirely too stiff.

"Just relax. Find a sitting position you're comfortable with." When he looked at you, head tilted and clearly confused, you went over to him. Placing your hands on his shoulders, you pushed him further into the cushions. This was hardly the first time someone has grabbed his shoulders, but something about your touch, so soft and gentle, the coolness of your hands seeping through his thin shirt... It shook his body to the core. When you removed them, he wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed, but he didn't have long to dwell on it as your hands landed on his knees, the sensation making him gasp. You didn't seem to notice as you spread his legs just a tad.

"How's that feel?" You grinned, pleased with your work, so encompassed by it that you didn't even comprehend what you just did. Connor stared in shock before realizing you were waiting for an answer.

"G-good. It feels good, " he managed to get out, scanning his systems for any errors. Why was this happening? Why was he feeling so strange?

And why did he want more?

You moved back to your canvas, taking your brush back in hand and sizing him up.

"Something wrong?"

He was still staring at you, eyes large and lips parted. He lightly shook his head, dislodging his errant thoughts.

"I'm ok." He gave you a small, crooked smile. You returned it and got to work.

You worked tirelessly with no breaks, your focus switching between the canvas and himself. You looked at him as if there was nothing else in this world, just him. He had many leer at him, but this was nothing like that. You studied him, memorized every detail, every synthetic blemish and curve, breaking him down to his most basic form and learning how he is assembled. Hours flitted by, tethered to your craft. The sun had long set by the time he made the choice to break you out of your trance.

"Y/n? It's 8 pm. You should eat something."

Your eyes didn't leave the canvas, nor did your hands stop moving.

"I'm almost done. Just five more minutes."

Five minutes came and went, yet you made no move to stop. Then, it was ten minutes, twenty minutes. Half an hour later, he stood.

"You need nourishment and rest. You haven't eaten anything all day." You huffed before finally setting your brush down. You groaned as you stretched, wincing at the pop that resounded from your back. It must be painful.

"It's not quite done, but you can have a look if you like."

Curiosity had been eating at him for hours, so he wasted no time moving to your side.

He was surprised to see he was sitting outside, on a park bench, underneath a large maple tree, it's multicolored leaves blowing in the wind. He almost couldn't recognize himself within the painting. He looked serene, as if he didn't have any worries or doubts, umber eyes watching as the colored leaves swayed in the wind. Just a man enjoying a peaceful autumn afternoon. The sun shining down on him through the unfinished branches, still full of reds, yellows, and oranges. Something powerful strikes him, something he has felt before, but never this strong. He sees himself in the painting, wanting to be there. He wants to be that man. To watch the leaves perform their annual waltz, feel the warmth cascading down on him. His chest aches the more he yearns.

"When I look at you, this is what I see."

He beheld you, awestruck once more. How could you look at him, a sordid sexbot, as anything close to the tranquil man sitting on the bench? You only beamed up at him before turning to leave, encouraging him to follow. He did so, but not without glancing back at the painting once more with longing.

"Oh! Shit! I forgot!" You sped to the kitchen, "my friend, the one that ordered you the first time, he has an Android, so I asked him for a couple bags of blue blood, " Not entirely a lie. In actuality, you hunted him down and chewed him out. Rather than apologize or offer any money to help free Connor, he bought you groceries and gave you some thirium. Still pretty sure you're supposed to hate him. "Would you like one?"

"If it's no trouble," he smiled, thanking whoever brought such a thoughtful, caring person into his life. His thirium levels were at 67%. If he lost any more, his body could start shutting down non-essential programs, such as his arms, and he would likely be forced into low power mode if he idles too long. It was a terrifying prospect. You handed him a glass full of the blue liquid, and he couldn't stop himself from drinking it down greedily.

"Wow, I take it you needed that?" He pulled the empty glass away, suddenly aware of his actions. His face felt hot.

"Y-" he cleared his throat, "yes, thank you. Please thank your friend the next time you see him for me."

"Of course, " you pulled out another pouch, "Would you like some more?" He nodded and you poured the pouch into the glass. As ignorant as you were to how androids worked, even you knew that androids only need blue blood if they lost some. He might think you were being hospitable, but you were also running a test of sorts. The fact that he not only needed blue blood, but from the way he drank down the second glass almost as hungrily as the first, you could conclude he was not only being abused but also being denied treatment. It tore your heart in two, knowing the truth and being unable to do anything about it.

After pouring him a third glass and his drinking slowed, you moved to the couch, telling him he was welcome to all the blue blood in the fridge. He thanked you again and followed after you, half-empty glass still in hand.

You ordered take-out, far too tired to take the time to cook a proper meal. While you were eating, watching some crime drama Connor chose to put on, you could tell he wanted to say something.

"What?" He hesitated for a moment.

"You shouldn't eat that." You glanced down at your meal, "your food has three times the recommended sodium intake for a woman of your age and weight, and twice the calories you require based on your current level of physical activity."

"Are you calling me fat?" If he could, you were sure all the color would have drained from his face at your accusation.

"No! No, of course not! It's just... It's not healthy."

"I was joking, " you snickered, "I know, but I don't feel like cooking. This is just easier."

"Oh." He was contemplative for a moment, "Perhaps I could cook for you, whenever you rent me, that is." If he found a way to be useful to you, perhaps you will want to rent him more often. Even a few hours away from that place would be sufficient.

"You know how to cook?"

"No, but I'd like to learn. It's the least I could do."

You shrugged your shoulders, "You don't have to do anything for me, I just like your company, and you did pose for me."

"I sat in a chair for ten and a half hours." He stated bluntly.

"Which is the longest anyone has modeled for me in a single sitting. Usually, people need to stop after an hour or two, three if I'm lucky, and when they return, the position is never as it was." Seeing the disheartened expression, you relented, "however, if you want to learn how to cook, my kitchen is at your disposal." He smiled, and if that wasn't heartwarming.

You stood, another groan leaving you as your hand went to your lower back.

"Ouch. I think I'm going to call it a night." You stretched your hands above your head, yawning as he heard the small pop of your spine.

"I can help you if you like."

Your arms dropped to your side before you looked down at him.

"With what?"

"Your back is tense from sitting improperly for so many consecutive hours. I am capable of providing relief."

"I'll be fine, " you reassured, but he grabbed your wrist.

"Please. I want to help you." At a loss for what to say, you nodded. He stood, following you to your bedroom.

"Please remove your shirt and bra, then lie down on the bed."

"What?" You flushed all the way to your ears.

"I require your back to be unobstructed. I can turn around if you like."

"Please." He did so, hearing you hesitantly slip out of your shirt and unclasp your bra. Even when he heard you lay down, he waited until you said it was okay before turning around. His simulated breath caught when he eyed the expanse of your back, the gentle curve of your spine, how soft your skin looked. Where were these thoughts coming from? He needed to focus on the task at hand.

"Do you have any lotion or body oil?"

"Uh, yeah, in the top drawer of the nightstand."

He opened the drawer, spying the bottle of lotion, sweet to the senses. Something else that caught his eye was the small vibrator towards the back of it. He knew better than to mention it, but he wondered how often you used it. Did you ever think of him when you did?

He used a moderate amount of the lotion, working it into your skin as his hands started to work on your strained muscles. Your reaction was instantaneous, a moan you tried to stifle worked its way out as a breathy gasp, hitting his audio processors harder than any sound he had heard before. He wanted you to do it again, focusing on working out the many knots you had developed from years of poor posture. You didn't disappoint, unable to contain your pleasure from his efficient hands, deep groans when nearing pain or blissful moans of relief pulled from you despite yourself.

Connor committed every sound to memory, happy to be the cause of your ecstasy. He didn't want to stop, but after half an hour, your muscles were completely relaxed and your spine re-aligned. He pulled back, expecting you to say something or to sit up, but you didn't move. You had fallen asleep, a dosed smile on your lips. You looked so relaxed, so soft. He grabbed your blanket and pulled it over your shoulders. A new urge overcame him, one he gave in to, bending down and placing a small kiss to your temple. You didn't seem to mind as you snuggled more into your pillow, still smiling.

#rk800 #rk800 connor reader #connor #connor fanfiction #dbh au #dbh #detroit become human

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gabriel-agreste-has-no-rights · 4 years ago

Link

Rating: T

Chapter Summary: Luka helps XY find some musical inspiration in unlikely places, and faces a revelation of his own.

Word Count: 5631 | Chapter 1/4

Notes: For @luxyweek! See AO3 for more notes. Today’s prompt is Eye Contact but I needed that for a later chapter so here’s Collaboration instead

XXX

“Dude, can you play, like, anything besides the same four chords?”

Luka groaned and slammed his guitar down on the bed. “I don’t know, can you say anything that isn’t rude?”

“I’m just trying to help!” XY straightened from where he was slouched against the wall of Luka’s room.

Luka’s room. Which XY had invaded for the fourth time this week. He would’ve kept him above deck, but here there was less chance of Juleka seeing him and teasing him about it.

“Xavier—”

“It’s XY, bruh.”

“Xavier,” Luka repeated, because he wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of using the nickname that was reserved for his peeps. “You literally ripped off my music. I don’t see you making anything better.”

XY scoffed. “I could. If I had my synths, and your, I don’t know, guitar noises—”

“No. I’m not falling for that again.”

“C’mon, dude! Tell me a bass-boosted version of your riffs wouldn’t be awesome!”

“Now you know what a riff is.” He rolled his eyes. Was XY trying to be stupid? It was almost unbelievable that he’d put up with him for the past three days. He only allowed it because XY would surely be leaving the hotel in a week or two. Talentless or not, he was an international pop star. He had to have things to do besides slum around in Paris, particularly in Luka’s “unsexy garbage heap.”

He’d been sure not to clean his room just to spite him.

Luka sighed and picked up his guitar again, but at that point XY was idly bouncing a rubber ball that he’d found among the clutter. The thwump against the woven rug kept jarring him out of his groove.

“Whatever. If you’re just gonna play chords, at least do ‘Wonderwall’ again. That at least kind of slapped.”

“I’m not here for your entertainment. I’m still fine-tuning Marinette’s song.”

Which would be much easier to do without XY’s background noise. With him around, all Luka could hear were sharps and twangs and thump-thump-thump beats. Not the kind of music that would suit Marinette.

“What’s your deal with her, anyway? Is she paying you for this?”

“She’s… someone special,” Luka settled on, strumming a soft run. “I’m just happy to enjoy the music her presence brings.”

“So, like, she’s got some background music that follows her around? That’s pretty dope.”

“No, like—ugh, nevermind.” He guessed it was like background music, her presence was so strong. She was just always moving, and she had a way of inspiring others just by being there, and—

“Yo.”

When had XY gotten close enough to wave his hand in front of his face? For being so obnoxious the rest of the time, he somehow managed to be sneaky when he wanted to. Or maybe Luka had just been that caught up in thoughts of Marinette.

“So, basically, you’re ripping off this Martini’s BGM—”

“It’s Marinette.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Anyway, you’re just ripping off her beats, so hah.”

XY smirked, as if that was supposed to be a mic-dropping burn.

Luka scooted back and put his guitar between them to keep the other boy from invading his space again. Though honestly, he was more likely to ignore it and crush the guitar with his knees.

“Did no one teach you the difference between inspiration and plagiarism?” Luka asked before shaking his head. “Nevermind. I know the answer to that.”

“I don’t vibe with ‘perspiration.’ That’s what deodorant’s for.”

That was a joke. That had to be a joke, right? But XY’s blue eyes were still staring at him seriously.

I can’t believe I almost thought those eyes were cute.

“That’s it.” He stood up and slung his guitar over his shoulder. “Enough sitting around. I’m going to show you what inspiration really is.”

“Ooooooh.” XY sprawled across the now-open space of Luka’s bed, his palm braced against his cheek as he made the kissy face Luka had come to learn meant trouble. “You’re gonna sweat for me?”

Luka was about three seconds from slamming his head against the wall.

“Just come on.”

XXX

“Where are we going? Why do I have to wear your stupid hoodie? My hair is never gonna stick up straight after this.”

Luka tried to tune out XY’s constant stream of questions. He should be glad Luka let him borrow his hoodie—it was probably the only thing keeping him from being swarmed by teenage girls as they walked to the Dupain-Cheng bakery.

When XY finally shut up, Luka glanced back to make sure he was still following. He half expected the other boy to have just gone back to the hotel, but there he was, still strolling casually and… sniffing Luka’s hoodie?

“What are you doing.”

“What?” XY’s head jerked up, like he hadn’t just been burying his nose in the crook of his ebow. “Nothing.”

“Stop sniffing my clothes. It’s weird.”

“You were the one who made me wear it.” He crossed his arms.

At risk of learning something he’d regret, Luka asked, “Why are you sniffing my hoodie.”

“Y’know, I was expecting it to smell like your garbage heap, but you’ve got some kind of cologne that’s actually really—”

“Nevermind, I don’t want to know.” He just hoped his hoodie didn’t smell like XY by the end of the day.

What did XY smell like, anyway?

...That was a dumb question. He wasn’t going to think about it.

“Yo, what’s that sick noise?” XY perked up again, his head swiveling back and forth.

“What noise?” All Luka could hear were passing cars, chattering pedestrians, and—

“Rloo-rloo, rloo-rloo.”

Luka groaned at the sight of Mr. Ramier once again blowing into his pigeon call. How many times did Ladybug and Chat Noir have to teach him this lesson?

“C’mon, let’s get out of here.” Luka tugged on XY’s sleeve. Nothing good would come from hanging around the man when he was feeding his pigeons. Soon Officer Raincomprix would show up, and then Hawkmoth would akumatize Mr. Ramier for the seventeenth time, and then Luka would be stuck trying to keep XY from getting bombed by attack pigeons.

“Wait, I gotta see what kind of instrument that is! It’d make a great effect in my next track!”

XY pulled out of his grip and dashed off towards Mr. Ramier. Luka just sighed and dropped his forehead into his palm.

Maybe he should just cut his losses, let XY keep his hoodie, and go back home. It wasn’t like XY would know what real inspiration was if it whacked him over the head, anyway.

But it was his favorite hoodie.

Thankfully, XY had scared away most of the pigeons when he charged towards Mr. Ramier, leaving the man frowning.

“Young man, can I help you?” He asked politely in spite of his obvious disappointment.

Luka felt a pang of guilt. Before Hawkmoth had come around and made Mr. Ramier into an actual danger, he’d been pleasant to talk to from time to time. It wasn’t like Luka cared if feeding pigeons was technically against the law.

“Yeah! Can I have that sick instrument?” XY pointed to the bird call, and Mr. Ramier blinked.

“This? But I need it to call back my pigeons that you scared away. They’ll be quite hungry this fine afternoon. It’s been days since I’ve come to see them.”

“Pshaw, birds don’t care about music.”

“It’s not even an instrument,” Luka muttered to himself, not that XY would care.

“My pigeons have excellent taste. I’m not sure what your point is, young man, but I cannot give up my pigeon call.”

Maybe it would be better if he did. At least then Mr. Ramier would have to have a different akumatized object during his next stint as Mister Pigeon.

Granted, taking the bird call would probably lead to an akumatization…

“Leave him alone, Xavier,” Luka sighed.

Both XY and Mr. Ramier looked at him before bursting into a flurry of excuses.

“If you think I’m about to give him my prized pigeon call—”

“Bruh, it sounds so cool—!”

“I wasn’t bothering anyone—”

“Just imagine a nice dubstep beat with that—”

“XY!” Luka finally snapped. “Sorry, Mr. Ramier, I forgot Xavier was your name too.”

XY and Mr. Ramier shared a glance.

“Dude,” XY said, going in for a fist bump.

Mr. Ramier raised an eyebrow. “Regardless of if we have the same name, you’re not getting my pigeon call. Good day.”

He brushed off his trousers and rose from the bench. A few pigeons trailed after him, pecking at the ground near his shoes.

“Aww, come on!” XY pursed his lips in a pout. It was ridiculous; he had enough money to buy a hundred bird calls.

Or there was an even simpler option.

“Mr. Ramier?” Luka asked before the man could stride away. “What if we recorded the sound of your bird call? Would that be alright?”

He blinked. “Why, of course. As long as you are polite to the pigeons when you call them.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” XY grinned while whipping out his phone. “This is gonna be lit!”

A few rloo-rloos later, the pigeons were back in full force, and XY was satisfied. Why he cared so much about some weird noises was beyond Luka, but at least no one had been akumatized.

“Say hello to Anarka for me.” Mr. Ramier waved as they left, and Luka guiltily waved back.

He hoped their next stop at Marinette’s house would be a little less dramatic.

XXX

Marinette’s jaw dropped. “You want me to what!?”

Luka winced. Marinette hadn’t spent all week with XY the way that he had. She didn’t know that while he was definitely annoying, he was also completely harmless—at least when his dad wasn’t around.

“I’m sorry if I upset you. I’ve just been trying to show Xavier what real musical inspiration looks like, and I’m always inspired when I’m around you.”

“Really? Well, um… th-thanks, Luka.” A cute blush stained her cheeks, but she quickly turned around and gestured to the pile of fabric on the desk behind her. “I’ve got so much to get done though. Even if I wanted to help XY—and I can’t say I do after how he treated Kitty Section—I just don’t have time.”

She sighed, sounding legitimately regretful. He could practically hear the melancholy arpeggios backing her voice. It was tempting to sling his guitar off his back and play it for her now.

“How would I inspire XY, anyway?” she asked him. “I know you’re, um… well, I understand how I could inspire you, but that’s because…” She shook her head. “Nevermind. The point is, I’m not magic.”

Oh. Right. Luka had been so caught up in inspiring XY—and proving that Marinette was worth making music for—that he hadn’t exactly thought his plan through. XY had terrible taste in inspiration, if the bird call was anything to go by. He wouldn’t care.

Why did Luka care if he cared?

“Yo, are you Marinade?”

She screamed and jumped on the back of her chaise when XY’s head poked up through the trapdoor. While he still wore Luka’s hoodie, the hood was down so his blond hair again stood straight up.

“Xavier, I told you to wait in the bakery,” Luka hissed under his breath.

“Marinade’s parents said to bring up some pastries.” He shrugged and pushed the plate across the floor before folding his arms over the ledge.

“It’s Marinette,” she deadpanned, looking as stern as she could with her arms crossed while perched at the top of her chaise.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” XY looked at her like she was stupid, and Marinette glared. Not at him, but at Luka.

He swallowed. Anger wasn’t a pleasant addition to her melody.

“You brought him here?” she asked Luka, not bothering to lower her voice. “I know you wanted my help, but I’d rather you ask first.”

Right. Marinette was just always so willing to help everyone, but maybe he’d inadvertently taken advantage of that. After all, she clearly had way more sewing jobs than he’d realized, and she’d only just recently finished their Kitty Section shirts.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized again, fingers twitching over his guitar strings. Maybe he’d have to throw in a clashing chord as a counterpoint to her sweet music.

“Wait, I remember you.” XY squinted up at her. “You’re the one who made those sick costumes, right?”

“Oh, now he’ll admit it.” She threw her arms in the air.

“Hey, it’s not my fault Dad only gave me a few days to steal—er, come up with a costume design.” He finished climbing out the hatch and stared around the room. “I see why you called her persperational, Lu. These clothes are ballin’. Could use more purple, though.”

Marinette blinked, her mouth falling open dumbly. Luka had gotten used to most of XY’s weird American slang, but she probably wouldn’t know that was a pretty decent compliment.

“Let’s just leave before you steal something else.” Luka attempted to push XY back towards the hatch, but he slipped under his arm and made a break for Marinette’s desk.

His foot landed on the sewing machine’s pedal, sending the needle whirring. No fabric was under it, but that didn’t stop Marinette from shouting.

“Quit it! You’ll tangle the bobbin thread and—don’t touch that! It’s for Nino’s birthday!”

She looked to Luka for help as XY ran his hands over her black fabric. As if Luka knew how to control the reckless idiot. At least he’d stumbled off the pedal.

“Oooooh.” He ignored them both and held up the hoodie. There was green piping along the sides and pockets, and cat ears dangled from the hood. “Is Kneeknob some kind of furry?”

“No.” Marinette snatched it out of his hands and inspected the stitching. It looked finished to Luka; he hoped XY hadn’t damaged it. But Marinette sighed in relief. “I know you’re pretty new to Paris, but even you should recognize the Chat Noir theme. Nino’s a big fan.”

“Pshaw, of course I’ve met Cat Noir.”

Luka grimaced at his American accent. Cat Noy-er.

“He and Ladybug saved me from Lu when he went crazy,” XY continued. “He was so mad because we took—er, remixed your designs, right? Are you his girlfriend?”

Luka tried his best not to blush. Marinette already knew that he liked her, and XY normally picked way worse nicknames than “Lu.” He had nothing to be embarrassed about—except the fact that he’d brought this idiot into her house.

“I—I’m...” She looked at Luka’s hopeful face and sighed. “No, I’m not. I’m in love with someone else.”

XY looked between the two of them. His blue eyes, normally glossed over with boredom, had an odd expression in them. “Huh. Your loss.”

Luka wasn’t sure if XY was talking to him or Marinette. Either way, he had to be joking. Just egging Luka on, trying to rile him up like he always did. Maybe he wanted Luka to get akumatized again. Or maybe he was just mean.

He was so distracted trying to puzzle out XY’s probably meaningless words that he nearly missed XY haggling Marinette for a scrap of the fabric she’d used on the hoodie.

“I’d be a furry if I got to wear this kind of stuff,” he said, pocketing the black square. “I wouldn’t dress up as the Cat, though. You know who’s really cool? That snake dude I saw on the news. That tiny guitar was very sexy.”

“It’s a lyre,” Luka said at the same time as Marinette. Why that was the part they chose to dispute, he didn’t know. His face was burning by this point; it was probably best to get XY out before he either stole something or exposed Luka’s secret identity.

“Thank you for your time, Marinette,” he said quickly. “I’ll find someone else to teach XY about inspiration.”

“Of course. You know, you could always try asking Nino. He works in the same kind of genre as him. I hear he’s a fan, too.” She forced a grin and picked up the plate of pastries XY had left on the floor.

Nino. Luka remembered him hanging around the Liberty every once in a while, though he’d never heard Nino’s music. He didn’t feel like sticking around long enough to get Nino’s number from Marinette; he’d text Juleka for it.

He was just about to disappear down the hatch when she spoke up again, her voice soft.

“And just so you know… I am sorry.”

He gave her as gentle a smile as he could. “Don’t worry about it.”

He knew that she had a crush on Adrien. He couldn’t ask her to change the song in her heart.

He just hoped he could change the song in his.

XXX

“I still don’t get why you wanted me to see Marmalade so bad. I don’t make my own costumes.” XY was rubbing the black square of fabric between his fingers as they walked back towards the Liberty. “Did you think she’d see you with me and get jealous? Am I just some part of your plan to get a girlfriend? ’Cause that’s pretty unsexy of you.”

Luka rolled his eyes. As if anyone would be jealous of having to put up with XY.

“Says the guy who’s only ever used people for selfish reasons.”

“Pshaw, have not.” XY spun, walking backwards and nearly tripping into the crosswalk.

Luka, out of reflex, reached for his hand. It was warmer than he expected as he yanked XY back upright.

XY froze for a moment. The other pedestrians streamed by on either side of the crosswalk. Luka’s eyes darted down to their linked hands. How had their fingers enlaced?

“Tell me one person you haven’t used, then.” Luka ignored the tingles that ran down his arm while dragging him to the other side of the street.

“I’m not using you now,” he huffed, rubbing the hand Luka dropped against his pants. “You’re the one who wanted to drag me around to see your not-girlfriend.”

“Because you wouldn’t shut up! If you’re going to trash talk my music, you can at least have the nerve to make your own!”

XY’s eyes widened at Luka’s outburst. His face looked a little bit red; was he about to snap back at him? Luka didn’t know if he could keep his calm, not after being rejected by Marinette again.

But no, XY recovered his cool. “I—I will make my own music. I’m gonna make the most cash money music you’ve ever heard, and then you’ll regret ever sleeping on the extraordinary XY.”

He threw his hand sign and got a few odd looks from strangers on the street. If anyone recognized the gesture, they weren’t impressed. Or didn’t recognize him under Luka’s hoodie.

“Then prove it. We’ve still got one more stop to make.”

Luka got out his cell phone and sent a few texts, quickly ending up with Nino’s address and permission to stop by.

If XY had even a note of music in his heart, Luka was going to find it.

XXX

“Dude, no way!” Nino said when Luka sheepishly introduced XY at his apartment doorstep. “Yeah you guys can come in! When you said you wanted to help a friend with some music, I didn’t think you meant you wanted me to collab with XY!”

“Finally, a homie with some taste.” XY slung his arm around Nino’s neck, jostling his headphones. If Luka didn’t know better, he would’ve thought they were already friends. But XY was just overly familiar like that.

“You actually like his music?” Luka asked as they made their way to Nino’s room. The apartment was painted a dark brown, mostly tidy, but with patches of disorder that rivaled the Liberty. Video game cartridges, tiny dinosaurs, and toy robots spilled out of a bedroom that they passed.

Nino’s room was only marginally cleaner. Some shirts, sheets of homework—Luka shuddered at that—and records were piled on his desk and bed. What took up the most space, though, was the DJ’s turntable, synth board, and meter-high speaker system against the back wall.

“Who doesn’t like XY’s music?” Nino asked as if Luka was the crazy one. “I mean, I know Adrien’s got some beef against him, but he’s always been more of a classics guy. Station Nation, Jagged Stone, stuff like that. But if you like electronic music, XY’s your man. And he’s in my bedroom!”

XY beamed, basking in the praise. Luka thought he’d be used to it, being an international pop star, but his joy seemed genuine. As did Nino’s. Marinette must never have told him about what really went down with Kitty Section.

“Don’t get too excited. Xavier doesn't make his own music.”

“Bruh!” XY smacked his arm. “Not cool!”

“What? It’s true. I brought you here for inspiration, not so you can take advantage of Nino’s talent.”

Maybe it would’ve been more tactful not to crush Nino’s opinion of one of his favorite artists, but Luka had never claimed to be good with words.

“...You’ve lost me.” Nino took off his cap and scratched his head. “XY, you need my help to make some music? Did you lose your spark or something?”

XY tugged at the chain around his neck, partially hidden beneath Luka’s hoodie. “Yeeeaaaaah, something like that. Lu thinks you can help me.”

“Marinette said you work in the same genre as Xavier,” Luka was quick to clarify, even while XY started poking around Nino’s room. “She suggested you, but you don’t owe me or him anything. You can say no.”

“Nah, it’s all good! Even if XY’s stuff isn’t all him, it’s still pretty cool to get to work together in person. Marinette won’t be the only one who got to help out a star.”

Nino cleared a space from his bed and rolled out his desk chair. XY wasted no time in flopping on the bed. No amount of inspiration would teach him the meaning of personal space.

Speaking of inspiration, Luka could already feel a quick beat pulsing from Nino. He did have the energy of a musician as he powered up his stereo and synth, connecting wires to his clunky computer.

“That thing looks old. You’re really gonna make fresh tunes on that?”

“Ah, she’s old, but she’s got the best software pirating can buy.” Nino grinned. “Plus my bro Max beefed up the hardware. She’s not as much of a dinosaur as she looks.”

XY still frowned, but he shrugged. “You’re the expert, bruh.”

Was XY actually being… nice? It didn’t make sense. When Luka had tried to help him, he had practically thrown a tantrum trying to get out of putting in his own effort. Maybe he still thought Nino would make a whole song for him.

But he didn’t. He walked him through the program, showing him the electronic instruments he could mix together, but the most he did was demo a few ten-second clips. Nothing XY could bother stealing.

Luka didn’t know enough about computers to follow most of what went on after that, though XY seemed to pick it up quickly. Heavy bass started to shake the floor in a way Luka’s mom would appreciate, but Nino’s neighbors probably wouldn’t. Nino didn’t seem to care. Or maybe he was just too caught up in helping XY to notice.

Eventually, they plugged in two sets of noise-cancelling headphones to continue, and Luka was left in a disconcerting silence. The only sound was the other boys’ occasional laughter or music-theory comments that he couldn’t follow. He knew enough to construct chords, but for the most part he just played what felt right, trusting his ear rather than any kind of formal training. All the technical jargon might as well have been another mispronunciation of XY’s, except that Nino said most of the words first.

He strummed a few basic chords once he realized the two couldn’t hear him over their own music. How had Nino done it? XY was grinning, nodding his head in time with the unheard music… and completely ignoring Luka.

Why did that itch at him? Luka didn’t want to be saddled with XY. It had been frustration and annoyance that led him to take the boy around town in search of inspiration.

Well, he’d found it. XY was clearly getting along fine with Nino, without him.

Strings trembled beneath his fingers. His own heartsong stuttered out of rhythm. Too many diminished chords. Too quick a beat.

This is stupid, he thought, tearing his gaze away from the back of Nino and XY’s heads. He had no reason to feel jealous of their collaboration, of the way Nino somehow earned XY’s praise. It was natural that their heartsongs would blend into a fine melody; they both worked with synths and software. Luka wouldn’t like whatever music they made, anyway.

He could’ve left. He wasn’t sure what prompted him to keep sitting there in silence, occasionally tuning his guitar and strumming a chord or two. He should at least be working on Marinette’s melody, but it sounded hollow after listening to the deep bass of Nino and XY. He could come back to it later. For now, he let himself draw on the inspiration around him: harsher, sharper chords and echoing notes that would sound better on his electric guitar. It wouldn’t be his first song choice—he probably wouldn’t even finish it—but there was something energizing about the discordant tune.

Was this what was in XY’s heart? He played up close to the tuning pegs for the deepest chords his instrument could summon. That wasn’t quite right though; XY did have some higher pitched notes in him. The contrast was what made his song interesting.

Contrast. Between his stupid mispronunciations and the conflict with his dad. Between the way he nearly fell over every time he turned around and his strange ability to sneak up on Luka. Between his outburst about not making his own music, and his embarrassed apology afterward.

What did it all mean? And most of all, why did Luka care?

It wasn’t until his stomach growled loudly that he realized how long he’d been sitting and composing. Nino and XY were still sitting at the synth, too. XY’s fingers nimbly danced across the keys, though Luka still couldn’t hear any of the music. Why the headphones? Nino had giant speakers right there. Unless they were trying to be considerate of the neighbors after all.

It was dark by now, clearly past dinner time. He’d spent the whole day with XY.

He stood up with a sigh and shook his shoulder. “We should head out. We don’t want to take up Nino’s whole night.”

XY pouted, as if he’d actually been enjoying playing music. Luka did feel a small surge of satisfaction at that.

Nino slipped off his headphones. “You’re not bugging me, dudes. If you don’t have anywhere to be, you can totally chill here tonight. XY can keep working on his song, and I can order us a pizza.”

“That’d be tight.” XY grinned, holding his fist out to bump Nino’s. How were they already that close?

Part of Luka wanted to reject Nino’s offer just because of that. But it was a Saturday night, and he didn’t have anywhere to be. Mom probably wouldn’t even be home.

“Sure,” he sighed as XY let out a loud whoop. “I don’t see why not.”

XXX

Luka awoke to a foot in his ribs. He jolted up, nearly shouting, before realizing that it was just XY tripping over him.

Right. They’d spent the night at Nino’s, sharing an air mattress on the floor. Luka had wanted to take the couch in the living room, but XY insisted on having the “deluxe slumber party experience.” That was something else they had in common, he guessed—neither of them had ever had a sleepover with friends before. Nino had been appalled when he found out.

Four hours, three pizzas, and about twenty card games (that XY cheated at) later, they’d finally crashed for the night. Except XY hadn’t, apparently.

“Go back to sleep, man,” Luka groaned, rolling over. He’d been worried about XY flopping over on him in the middle of the night, but that would be preferable to this awakening.

“You go back to sleep.”

Luka blinked against the sudden burst of light. He twisted around to see… XY booting up Nino’s computer?

The last dregs of sleep fled him as he scrambled to XY’s side. “No way. I did not just spend all this time hanging out with you for you to rip off Nino’s music!”

“Wha—that’s what you think I’m doing?” XY’s jaw dropped. Why was he surprised? He was obviously…

Pulling up the track he’d been working on earlier. The one titled XY’s Very Cash Money Day.

“Oh.” Luka exhaled. “Wait, if you’re just working on that, then why did you get up now? It’s”—he looked at the clock in the corner of the screen—“three a.m.!”

Nino let out a loud snore, making him jump again. Maybe he should be quieter.

XY shrugged. “So?”

“So, you could’ve waited until morning.”

He shook his head. His normal gravity-defying hair had flattened during the short time he had slept, the gel finally wearing out. It was weird to watch stray strands dance around his face, catching the computer’s glow.

“These beats wait for no dude, dude.” He slipped on the headphones, disheveling his hair further. It looked surprisingly soft, considering how much hair gel he must have slathered in it.

“So you… just woke up because you were feeling inspired?”

Another shrug. “I don’t think I sweat when I sleep.”

XY sniffed his armpit. He was still wearing Luka’s hoodie; he hadn’t had any other clothes to change into, and he’d been just barely too tall to borrow Nino’s.

“Nah, still smells like your sexy cologne.”

...How was Luka even supposed to respond to that? He shook his head, hoping the computer’s light didn’t catch too much of the blush in his face.

“Inspiration, not perspiration.�� You know that.”

XY had to know more than he let on. He’d understood Nino’s technical jargon, and he’d thrown together—presumably—a whole song in an afternoon. Luka didn’t know if it was any good; XY hadn’t allowed him to hear it.

“I don’t get it. Why did you steal music when you knew how to make your own songs all along? Unless Nino really inspired you that much.” He sat back down at the edge of the air mattress; it squished under his weight, almost leaving him on the floor.

XY laughed. “Man, you’re dumb.”

“Wh—you’re telling me I’m dumb?” He was used to XY’s insults, but this one didn’t even have context. Unless it was supposed to be obvious that stealing was easier than making his own songs. Either way, it didn’t sound like he was getting an explanation tonight.

XY wasn’t getting anywhere on his song tonight, either. He threw off the headphones and flopped back next to him. He was going to pop the mattress doing that.

“I can’t work with you watching me. Your eyes are too… y’know.” He gestured vaguely. Luka could barely see him when the monitor flickered off.

“I really don’t.”

“You’re just. Always looking. Like… I dunno. You expect to see something.”

Luka blinked at that. What did he expect to see? He knew XY was an art thief, and a pretty bad one at that. But that melody he’d felt from him today still intrigued him. Not a rock ballad by any means, but something still vibrant.

“I don’t know if I really expect anything,” Luka murmured, lying back, so his head was at XY’s feet. His hands folded over his stomach. “But I guess… I hope there’s something in you, Xavier. Something that understands music beyond just wanting to be famous.”

XY was quiet for a long time. When he didn’t reply, Luka assumed he’d finally gone to sleep, and tried to roll over and do the same. Between Nino’s snores and the thin blanket, it was difficult to drift off again.

So he was still conscious when XY asked, “Do you really think I can do it?”

It was hard to hear from this angle. He turned around, so their heads were on the same side of the air mattress. Did XY really say what he’d thought?

“Y’know. Make my own music?” he whispered.

“I… yeah,” Luka said, surprising himself. He remembered the genuine joy on XY’s face when he’d been creating today. “I really do.”

“Then… thanks.”

In the faint light through the window, Luka could make out his smile. Not the duck lips, this time. The moonlight and late hour had stripped away some of his posturing.

“It’s nothing.” Luka shrugged, rolling over before he could think about just how warm that smile made him.

“‘Night, Lu. Dream of guitars, or whatever goes through your funky head.”

Luka snorted, suppressing a laugh. “’Night, XY.”

XY laughed back, a bright burst that somehow sounded less annoying than usual. “You said my name! You’re officially one of my peeps!”

He was probably going to regret that when XY teased him in the morning.

“I said good night,” he repeated.

He didn’t regret it. Not the nickname, or the way that XY’s head had somehow rolled onto his chest as they slept, the tip of his hair tickling his nose.

It was going to take more than just a few chords to unravel the music that left in his heart.

#luxyweek2k20 #luxy #luka #xy #miraculous ladybug #fic tag #tali writes

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jswdmb1 · 4 years ago

Text

Identical

I don't just know you, I've grown like that too...

If I don't dislike you, I'm withdrawn, unrighteous too...

I’m no prophet, I'm your friend

Take my advice, make your mistakes”

- Phoenix

Every four years, the PBS series “Frontline” presents an episode called “The Choice”. It presents the two candidates running in that particular presidential election. But, it is not a show about the current campaign, policy issues or even the politics behind the particular candidates. It is instead a personal biography of each candidate up to the point of the current election told chronologically. The show portrays each individual’s story back and forth as the years go on that allow the viewer to both understand the people behind the front their campaigns present, but also provides a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the two candidates. I have watched this particular episode of Frontline in every presidential election dating back to 2000, and I find it to consistently be the single best source of information for me to decide (or confirm) which candidate I am to support in that year’s election.

I was going to pass on this year’s version as I didn’t think there was anything I could learn about either man, and my choice is already made, but I watched anyway. I have to admit that I was surprised to pick up nuggets of information that were new to me such as that Joe Biden’s first wife and daughter were killed six weeks after his election to the Senate for the first time, or that Donald Trump’s mother fell ill when he was very small and was effectively absent for his nurturing years. Those are facts that seemingly are unimportant when weighing which man to support in a presidential election, but I think we have all found out in the last four years that an individual’s personality, temperament, and morality are just as important as their stance on any issue or their knowledge of the inner workings of government. In the example of this year’s election, it finally crystallized the stark difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump that has made my decision for whom to vote so easy.

Let’s start with the challenger Biden. If there are two things that are clear about Joe, it is 1) he makes a lot of mistakes, and 2) he has overcome quite a bit of adversity of the years whether they are of his own doing or not. You can watch the show to see the examples of both, but Biden’s approach to problems in his life has been remarkably consistent. First, he acknowledges the problem exists and that he has responsibility to address it. Next, if it was a problem of his own doing, he owns up to it. Often times, he does this quite clumsily and occasionally makes things worse, but he does, at a minimum, take responsibility. Finally, once it is out there, he puts his head down and gets to work with an amazing ability to ignore the long odds that he may face or the chirping he hears in the background about how badly he messed up and/or how he will never make it right. He simply has a fundamental belief that humans make mistakes and he is no exception to that rule. At times, it would be refreshing if he demonstrated better that he learns from some of these mistakes so as not to repeat them, but there is at least a good faith effort even if the execution at times is mediocre.

There is no need to go into detail how Trump behaves whenever he is faced with a problem and it is well documented that he never admits to making a mistake (and likely doesn’t even believe he has ever made one). There are daily examples of this behavior and running through the list at this point is massively unappealing. What I do find interesting is why he is this way. The show goes into great detail about the influence three men have had on his life. The first is his father Fred. We all know his background and his ruthlessness in business and within his personal relationships and this was applied to each of his sons. The first, Fred Jr., bristled at the notion of going into the family business, and became an airline pilot instead (a decision for which both father and brother Donald would mock him mercilessly and drove him to alcoholism and an early death). Fred Sr. then set his sights on son #2 who was more than willing to take up the cause. After a stint in military school that hardened his outlook on life and reduced what little emotional capacity he had, he moved into his father’s footsteps and practiced the approach that personal gain is everything and little else matters.

The second man was a lawyer named Roy Cohn. Cohn rose to fame in the 1950s as Joseph McCarthy’s hatchet man in the blacklisting of innocent American citizens for unfounded (and mostly false) accusations of communism. Despite the shame eventually brought upon him for that role, he rose to become one of the most powerful attorneys in New York. A client of his was a young Donald Trump and Cohn taught him three things that helped him rise from the ashes: 1) deny anything that makes you look bad as even having happened 2) attack those that bring these things up and deflect the blame elsewhere, and 3) never take responsibility for your actions unless there is a transactional gain that serves you. This has been Donald Trump’s blueprint his entire life and it can be found in his business, his marriages, and certainly his presidency. He literally has never operated in a manner that is different in any aspect of his life, so the fact that this has come through during his time in the White House should be surprising to no one who witnessed him before his election.

The final man was the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale who was the pastor at the church Donald Trump attended for over 50 years. Peale’s claim-to-fame was the publishing of a book The Power of Positive Thinking and the Trumps followed it like their bible. Boiled down, the main tenant of the book was that one must think positively at all costs and negative thoughts must be barred from the mind or success cannot be achieved. That seems okay on the surface, but it becomes a problem when situations require more effort than simply a good thought and a wish that it goes away. This clearly explains Trump’s complete inability to handle the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though he obviously intellectually understood the severity and danger of the virus from his recordings on the Woodward tapes, this brainwashing of Peale on the Trump family made it impossible for Donald to acknowledge that the problem existing in any way. When combined with Cohn’s teachings on taking no responsibility and Fred Sr.’s example of bulldozing past anyone who disagrees with you (like a scientist or doctor), the end result of his response makes a lot of sense. It’s why even when catching the disease himself, he views it as a positive event that only he could dream up.

I do find it curious that I spent three long paragraphs on Trump with only one brief paragraph on Biden, but that meshes with each approach they have on the basic issues of life as a human being which is confronting adversity and accepting that we do make mistakes. Biden’s approach is simple and to the point, sometimes to a fault. Trump has this complicated troika of mad men’s teachings running through his head when problems come up and it is no wonder he is paralyzed with inaction when it comes time to do something about it. For me, this is the defining trait between the two men that seems to tower over everything else about them personally or this election in general. The question then is what do we do with this information.

I’m certain it is obvious which way I am going to go, but it may surprise you why. You see, I have struggled myself with some of these same issues that each man has faced. Up until a few years ago, I actually would describe myself as really being more Trump-like in my approach to life than I really care to admit. I rarely acknowledged I was wrong and often blamed others for problems that were within and could only be solved by the guy responsible for them in the first place – me. This attitude prevented me from seeing what was the real root of my unhappiness and depression and did not allow for me to acknowledge that my drinking and moderate drug use had become a problem. It wasn’t until everything broke down and I ended up in an intense six-week program of therapy and deep soul searching that I discovered that mistakes we make are what builds us up and not what tears us down. Granted, we need to learn from those mistakes to become better people and achieve great things, but admitting responsibility is the only path to doing either of those things. I know now after a few years that I will never get things totally right, but I can get up each day and at least try to improve on the one before. At a minimum, I strive to not make things worse, and it all gives me strength to fight whatever demons I have head on. It’s a trial-and-error approach for sure, but I don’t see how it can be done any other way.

And given where things are at now, I don’t see how any other approach can help us overcome the enormous problems we face at this time whether it be COVID-19, or the economy, or global warming, or any other massive threat we face right now. There is no amount of positive thinking that will help us overcome any one of these things and clearly wishing the problems away (or denying they even exist) is not going to work. We need someone who understands this and there is no doubt the current president has no ability to do so. Joe Biden may not be perfect, and he is not going to get us all of the way there on likely any one thing, but we have to start somewhere. And, if there is one thing that he is good at, it is looking at a big hill, putting his head down, and climbing up. It’s not pretty, and it isn’t the easy thing to do, but it is what we need right now more than anything.

That is a tough pill to swallow for many Americans who think their freedom is a birthright that requires no effort, but that fantasy has been squashed. In three weeks, the choice is clear about what needs to be done and the decision is up to you: are you going to acknowledge fault and accept responsibility for our collective actions that have led us to this point and vote for Joe, or are you going to give Trump another four years by simply wishing that all our problems away (spoiler alert – they don’t)? The politically correct thing to say at this point is that either way you decide please make sure you vote, but I cannot apply that here. The stakes are too high and the path is too obvious – either vote for Joe or don’t vote at all. That second option may be tough for some people to take, but consider it your first step on a long road to recovery and redemption not just for yourself but our nation.

Good luck, everyone, we are going to need it.

- Jim

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