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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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Fire and Light (ao3) - on tumblr: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9

- Chapter 10 -

Nie Mingjue was starting to become accustomed to the routine of the cell.

Wen Ruohan would generally visit the Fire Palace twice weekly, sometimes more if he had had a very bad day and wanted to let off some steam. Nie Mingjue would get visited on at least one of those instances, whether for a short time and a bit of emotional devastation or for a longer and much more physically uncomfortable visit, and sometimes more often if Wen Ruohan was not doing well in war.

Wen Ruohan still enjoyed asking him questions, but Nie Mingjue didn’t think he had to answer them anymore. This was a subject that came up sometimes during some of those longer visits.

The rest of the time, he was left to recover and be bored. He was not given access to his saber – Baxia had been hidden away somewhere, he thought, he could feel that she was safe if unhappy – but his spiritual energy was not restrained, the way some other prisoners were.

He spent a great deal of time meditating. Sometimes, if his physical condition allowed for it, he would practice old techniques, trying to focus on a different muscle each time to try to avoid letting them atrophy. His empty hands bothered him, but he deemed it unlikely that anyone would give him equivalent to a saber something to wield, not even if he asked.

Food was twice a day, usually just a bowl of rice and vegetables that the kitchen would otherwise have thrown away, and it was brought by the same prison guard each time.

Nie Mingjue liked the prison guard.

Possibly it was because he was the only person Nie Mingjue saw on a regular basis, other than Wen Ruohan – Nie Mingjue’s cell was a little ways away from the other prisoners, lest they infect him with something and he die too quickly, although he was still within earshot of all the screams – or possibly it was the prison guard’s pleasant demeanor, friendly and calm like a lake of still water.

They were playing a long-running game of sorts.

Nie Mingjue had guessed that Meng Yao – that was the prison guard’s name – was an outsider, recently joined, and that he had previously spent time in both the Lan and Jin sects. This perspicacity had surprised Meng Yao, drawing his interest, and he had asked, very politely, for Nie Mingjue’s name.

Nie Mingjue had, just as politely, refused to give it.

Meng Yao, surprised yet again, had asked for his reasons.

Nie Mingjue had explained that he wasn’t sure if Wen Ruohan would react badly to other people knowing about him, and it would be a shame for Meng Yao to be murdered while he had yet to achieve whatever it was that he was seeking so strenuously to accomplish.

For some reason, Meng Yao saw this as a challenge.

“Gongzi, I have your dinner,” Meng Yao said. “Would you like me to ask the cook to give you some meat, next time? Just let me know. I would be more than happy to tell her to send more food to…?”

“Certainly,” Nie Mingjue said. “You can tell her that it’s on behalf of the last cell on the right.”

Meng Yao wrinkled his nose at him, and Nie Mingjue rolled his eyes back.

Their normal initial exchange of wits over, Meng Yao gave him the food and supervised him as he ate – a babysitter upon whose head the consequences would fall if Nie Mingjue misbehaved was the condition of giving him chopsticks. Wen Ruohan had a great deal of experience in keeping prisoners alive, and he knew Nie Mingjue’s character quite well.

“I heard that you were giving Sect Leader Wen advice on the war,” Meng Yao said casually as Nie Mingjue tried to guess what pickled vegetable he was eating, since neither taste nor appearance was definitive. “Gongzi must be very well-respected.”

“Did you hear about the part where I told him the best counterstrike would be to shove his troops up his own ass?”

“…and very brave.”

Nie Mingjue chuckled. “And you must be very competent to have made your way up to prominence in two separate sects, especially at such a young age.”

Meng Yao did not want to like him, Nie Mingjue could tell. He did anyway.

It wouldn’t help him if something more important to Meng Yao was at stake, of course – Nie Mingjue had lived too long with Qishan Wen cruelty, selfishness, and ruthlessness to miss seeing it reflected in others – but it was still nice to be liked.

“…how do you know?”

“Was that a direct question?” Nie Mingjue asked. “Be still my heart.”

“This humble servant has observed that gongzi does not answer anything else.”

“Humble,” Nie Mingjue drawled. “Yes, that’s the first thing I think of when I think of you.”

Meng Yao’s eyes were narrowing, though, so he stopped teasing.

“It’s your hair.”

“My – hair?”

Nie Mingjue nodded. “The way you set it. It’s clear that Xichen must have taught you how to arrange the braids personally, which means that you must have gotten fairly high up in the Lan sect – but Sect Leader Wen referred to you as being poached from the Jin sect.”

Meng Yao reached up touch his hair. “…I never made it that high in the Jin sect,” he finally said. “Not even lieutenant.”

“In the middle of a war, with how competent you are? Does Sect Leader Jin have something against you?” A small furrowing of Meng Yao’s brow. “Did you complain that he raped your sister or something?”

A long, slow blink. “Is that a problem he has?”

“Not liking people who try to make him responsible for his actions?” Nie Mingjue snorted. “Yes.”

Meng Yao looked contemplative.

“What are you thinking?” Nie Mingjue asked, finally giving up on the pickled vegetable and handing back the bowl.

“Only that you know a great deal of gossip –”

“Involuntarily, I assure you.”

“– and that you feel comfortable calling Lan-da-gongzi by name, and are familiar enough to know how he personally styles his hair.” Meng Yao smiled. “I’ll figure out who you are yet, gongzi.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Nie Mingjue said. “They’ve probably already forgotten me.”

“This is your fault,” Wen Ruohan murmured in his ear, and Nie Mingjue was too weak to refuse to listen. “You did this – to yourself, to them. Why couldn’t you have just been obedient?”

He didn’t know anymore.

“I’m Sect Leader Jin’s son,” Meng Yao said.

“Your mother must be a genius,” Nie Mingjue replied.

There was a moment of silence – probably Meng Yao staring at him.

It was probably not the response he had been expecting.

“I’ve met Sect Leader Jin,” Nie Mingjue said in explanation. He was lying face-down on the floor of the cell while Meng Yao tended to his wounds; the conversation, he knew, was only to distract him from the sting of the stitches. “He’s cunning, not smart, horribly self-absorbed, and ‘competent’ isn’t the word I’d use for him; he makes do mostly by paying enough to hire good help. Given the contrast with you, it follows that you must have gotten all the good traits from the other side…I hope he didn’t rape her. Sorry about making that joke, earlier. I didn’t realize.”

“You said sister, not mother.”

“Right,” Nie Mingjue said. “I forgot.”

“Anyway, he didn’t have to rape her. He bought her,” Meng Yao said. He was tightening the bandages now and his hands were perfectly steady. Too steady, the way Wen Qing’s were when she was having to control himself. “She was a whore.”

Nie Mingjue got the feeling that Meng Yao was expecting some sort of reaction. He wasn’t sure what, though.

“Okay,” he said. Out of lack of anything better to say, he added, “Was she nice?”

“What type of question is that?” Meng Yao demanded.

He’d picked the wrong reaction again, Nie Mingjue presumed.

“I don’t know,” he said. His eyes were closed and his forehead was pressed against the cool stone. “I don’t really remember my mother. All I know is that she was a rogue cultivator, and tall –”

“I would never have guessed the latter, gongzi.”

“Yeah, yeah. Like I’ve never heard that one before. My father raised me on his own – we don’t believe in using nursemaids to do it.” He exhaled. “I’m forgetting him, too.”

“He died?”

“Sect Leader Wen killed him.” He heard Meng Yao exhale. “I know. I’m not very filial, am I?”

“I don’t think that’s a consideration,” Meng Yao murmured. “Under the circumstances.”

Nie Mingjue didn’t want to talk about it. “So, your mother,” he said. “Was she nice?”

“…does it matter?”

“Why wouldn’t it matter? She’s your mother, isn’t she?”

Meng Yao chuckled. It was not a nice sound. “Most people don’t really care to listen past the part where they find out she’s a whore.”

“I’ve never actually met a whore,” Nie Mingjue confessed. He was starting to drift off again – it was hard to stay awake. “The closest I ever got to even talking about one was when we had to put the fear of brothels into A-Chao. Sect Leader Wen was trying to ruin him.”

“A-Chao?”

“Mm. Like – a little brother, almost. I’ve got a bunch.”

Meng Yao snickered. “Yes, gongzi does seem the type.”

Nie Mingjue smiled into the floor. He knew that tone – it was just the same as A-Chao’s, in fact. “You’re welcome to join in, if you like.”

Meng Yao’s hands stopped moving abruptly.

“Assuming I’m not dead, of course.”

After a moment, Meng Yao’s hands started moving again. They were gentler.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “After a promise like that, I’ll be sure not to let him kill you.”

“Need to get your money’s worth out of me?”

“Of course.” A pause. “Naturally, it would be easier if gongzi would tell me his name…”

Nie Mingjue huffed – like Meng Yao was going to get him that easily.

“No need for such formality, A-Yao,” he said. “Just call me da-ge.”

“You must have some hobbies.”

“Must I?”

“Everyone has hobbies.”

“I collect younger siblings. Does that count?”

“It does not.”

“It’s your fault,” Wen Ruohan crooned as Nie Mingjue’s shrieks split the air. “Your fault. You turned them against me. It’s because of you that I’m going to need to kill them…”

“I don’t think I would have liked you, in the normal course of things,” Meng Yao said conversationally. “I usually find righteous people boring. Most of the time, they’re arrogant hypocrites, as rigid like the stiff pole that must have gotten shoved up their asses at some point. No one looks down on you like the righteous, and usually for stupid reasons, too. For something as petty and as simple as just not being them. Not having their advantages from the moment you were born.”

He paused. Cleared his throat.

“Lan Xichen was the first one I met who wasn’t like that. He really – he’s nice, I think you would put it. Kind. Everything they say about what gentlemen ought to be, he is.”

A brief silence.

“Naïve, though. Almost painfully so. I twisted him around my little finger without even trying…even when I was trying not to.”

Nie Mingjue believed him. Manipulation seemed to come as second nature to Meng Yao, even when he was being sincere. Sometimes, even especially when he was being sincere.

It was a bit like Wen Xu, actually. It was hard to throw off the way you’d been raised.

“At first I thought the problem was with me, that I didn’t appreciate him enough, that I didn’t understand how to have a friendship with a person like that. A good one. Sometimes I thought, well, no, maybe the problem’s with him – he pities me too much to see what I’m really like, and that means he’s deceiving himself, it’s got nothing to do with me. In the end…I don’t know. I don’t think I ever resolved it.”

He sighed. It was a long, low sound, almost whistling in the dead air of the Fire Palace.

“You’re not like Lan Xichen at all. You really are unbending, rigid, inexorable…I ought to despise you. You ought to despise me. I torture people most of the day, you know. I even enjoy it.”

For all his poise, Meng Yao was younger even than Lan Xichen. He shouldn’t be anyone’s prison guard. Shouldn’t be torturing anyone. How could you blame children for doing something that would win them praise?

“It’s this place that makes me like you, I think. It’s just – it’s filthy, here. Disgusting. The more I’m in this prison the worse it gets. The more bad things I do, the more bad things I think. I barely dare recall my better memories, my mother, Lan Xichen. I’m too afraid that the filth and grime of this place will stain their purity even in my thoughts.”

Nie Mingjue didn’t understand, not really - maybe he’d been here so long that the stain had sunk in already, blackening everything it touched. But he tried as much as he could to sympathize.

“And then there’s you. You, all shining steel and stiff unbending morality, the sort of person I hate the most. But when I’m here knee-deep in the muck, trapped in the dark without any hope of surfacing, I look at you and I feel – it’s almost like I can see light again, reflected in you. As if I’m breathing clean air. For the first time in my life, I think I understand why people have ethics. That they’re not some stupid thing made up by someone to fool someone else into voluntarily crippling the hand they’ve been dealt to play.”

That was definitely not what ethics were.

“I don’t know if we’d get along outside this place. Where I’m still me, with all my flaws that make me all the worse, and you’re still you, with all your imperfections that only make you better, but without this place to make us get along. I really don’t know. For once in my life, I don’t have a goal, a target, a scheme. As far as I know, you’re nobody I can use, and keeping you close to me will only tie an anchor to my legs, weigh me down. But even with all that, even if nothing I do works out and it all blows up in my face…I’d still like to find out. Find out if we would get along, if you really would treat me like your little brother even though you know what I’m really like under the smile. Find out if someone like me really can get along with someone like you.”

Nie Mingjue felt Meng Yao squeeze his hand, and wished he could respond in kind.

“So you have to wake up, da-ge. You hear me? You have to wake up.”

“It’s done. They’re gone. And it’s all your fault.”

He lies, Nie Mingjue told himself. He lies, he lies, he lies –

#mdzs #nie mingjue #wen ruohan #jin guangyao #meng yao #my fic #my fics #fire and light

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sweeethinny · 3 years ago

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The Duke - Chapter 10

A.N: OK, let's go Thank you very much to the comments, really, I know it takes time, but I'm glad you're here always waiting for a new chapter for your understanding: everything in *ITALIC* is flashback, it's a chapter basically made up of that, it explains some things it was the chapter i waited the longest to arrive, i liked it in the end, i hope you did too <3 AO3 | FF.NET | SIYE

It was a cold night, it had rained that afternoon and the sky was cloudy, it looked like it would rain later in the morning, but Arabella was happy about that, as the damp, muggy weather made her sneeze every minute and her asthma was actually getting worse. She should visit a doctor soon. She continued to walk down the empty street, the hem of her dress was getting more and more muddy, no matter how much she pulled her skirt up a little, every time she stepped into a puddle the mud splashed and it was no use effort in trying to get that dress clean. She should have picked an older one to go out with, since she knew the streets would be dreadful after all that rain, not the brand new one she'd bought after working so hard. Was it just a piece of sewn fabric, why was it so expensive? There weren't even enough details or buttons to justify it. But if Isabel was telling the truth, the fabric had come from India, and that in itself had already increased the price twice as much, and Arabella knew that the woman would not lie to her… She hoped at least. As she walked the streets of Godric's Hollow, she thought about how another lonely night would be, and that maybe tomorrow she would send a letter to her great-aunt asking if she could stay a few days at her farm, just to have the company of other people besides the two her cats; Silk and Melindra. “Help!” The scream echoed behind her, and Arabella turned, startled, to see if anyone was hurt or what might have triggered that scream. It was a female scream, and it made her think that maybe a woman could be chased by some maniac, and even though she wasn't very strong, two women fought better than just one, so she ran towards the scream, not caring more about the mud splashing on her dress. Near Ms. Bright’s shop, there was a woman lying down and bleeding, her clothes torn and a baby in her lap. She looked scared, dumped near a ditch that had been made a few days ago to start building a fashion studio around the corner, the scant dress that still covered her was smeared with what looked like blood and mud, and Arabella thought she saw blood running down her legs. Whether it was an injury or something more disturbing, she couldn't tell. The woman held the baby tightly to her chest, wrapped in an old blanket as dirty as she was, and the poor child spared no effort in crying, looking more than scared. “I'm here, what happened?” Arabella ran to her, helping the poor girl to her seat, noticing that the poor baby was also smeared with blood, but she couldn't tell whose blood it was. ‘Come, come to my house, I can help you-’ "No," she cried, brown eyes startled and wide, as if they'd seen death a few feet away. “Someone is following me, I – I'm going to be killed, I know I will, my husband is after me and – you need to get the boy.” She lifted the baby towards Arabella. 'He's trying to kill us, he thinks the child isn't his, he thinks I cheated on him, and he's coming, I-' The woman stopped, as if she'd heard something, but then thunder made the Earth shudder. ‘Please save the boy, I beg you, he already tried to kill the boy but I was always on time, but now I feel like I won't be able to save him.’ “You must come with me.” Arabella pleaded once more, kneeling in front of the woman, trying to get her to rise. When she reached for her forearm, however, her hand was wet with blood, and the tear in the side of her dress let her see a hideous cut in her ribs, the blood running like water in a waterfall, dripping onto the floor and other parts of her dress. "I told you," she muttered, sobbing. 'I'm going to die, I'm not going to make it, I can't stand walking any longer, I managed to run away from him but I can't stand it much longer… Take the boy.' The woman lifted the boy again, who now seemed to cry even more, waking a few neighborhood dogs, as the sky glowed brighter, the earth trembling a few seconds later. "Take him away, don't let him die." 'How-how am I going to leave you here, I can't-' Another thunder shook the earth, and this time, the storm began to fall stronger

than the afternoon, the winds suddenly getting strong, which seemed to scare the boy even more. ‘He will get sick! Get him, take care of him!” As if on instinct, Arabella scooped him up in her arms, wrapping him in her scarf so he was a little warmer. Footsteps were heard nearby, and the woman seemed to despair even more. 'Go! Get Harry and go!’ “What's his name?” Arabella yelled over the noise of the rain, trying to understand what she had said. ‘Henry! His name is Henry!’ ---------------------- “Poor Duchess,” someone says, but all Arabella can see is the white flag atop the castle, an immense sadness shattering her chest into a million pieces. "Who could do something that horrible?" Another says, all paying attention to the newspaper that reports how Harry Potter, the Duke's eldest son, was found dead near a creek not far away. Probably killed by Death Eaters. “They're all nasty human beings!” A man said, looking horrified by the media descriptions, then looking up at the castle again. It's not that far away, it faces the mountains that end Godric's Hollow, separating them from another village, and it's positioned in a way that's seen from anywhere, no matter where you are, you'll see the castle and the huge towers, next to the flags that stand proudly on the masts. One with the English flag, the other with the Potter family crest. But today, both give way to white flags. The boy is dead. Arabella wipes the tears from her eyes and watches little Henry sleep in her arms, oblivious to the commotion. She sympathizes with the Duchess's pain as she looks at that little baby who nearly died along with her mother - Arabella knew that the woman's body was found lifeless the next morning - and remembers the time she too felt the pain of losing a child, of losing the one she loved most to Death Eaters. She kisses the boy's forehead, the pale scar of lightning makes him unique, and Arabella lets herself cry, thinking of the Duchess herself, and how they took away her right to fondle her own son. ---------------------- Arabella did not remember seeing the Duke in public since the incident two years ago. He smiles and nods, but she notices - because she's been there once too - that he's sick, that the gold-and-red scarf around his neck seems to have a lot of fabric left over, as well as his pants. She notices the dark circles under his eyes, and the sunken cheeks, but the man still smiles and waves at people. Henry was on her lap, yesterday he turned two, and Arabella doesn't know very well when he was born, but her neighbor, who is a doctor, said he wasn't much older than four or five months, so she decided that his birthday would be the day before they met, because she thought it was too tragic to celebrate the day she found him in his mother's lap half dead, but she didn't want to stray too far from the date. The Duke smiles and nods to a little girl on his father's shoulders, he is walking through the village as he usually does, something that brings him closer to the people who live there and keeps him in power. He's a good man, after his father, the best they've ever had for sure. He stops when he gets close to Arabella, and she smiles because she used to paint the portraits of the royal family until she had a problem with her fist and was forced to quit her profession, but the man never seems to forget the time she drew him on his 17th birthday. "I'm still waiting for you to draw me and my wife." He says, as he always has since she informed him that she had unfortunately been forced to stop. The man isn't charging her though, he smiles, and watches Henry in her lap, almost sleeping on her shoulder. “It's a beautiful boy.” She thought she saw a shadow in his eyes, but it was so fast she thought it was just her imagination. 'How old is he?' "Two years," she says, and now she's sure the man looks sick, because for a second he stops and stares at Henry, as if wondering what his two-year-old son would be like. Arabella knows because she used to do this. "My condolences, my Lord." "It's okay, I’m fine," the

man says, and he winks at Henry, who hides in his mother's neck, before going off to talk to another woman. ---------------------- “Why are we different?” Henry asks, sitting on the table as Arabella tends to his scraped knee. 'We don't have the same eye color, and my hair doesn't match yours.' She knows he doesn't mean to be mean, he's just a curious and very intelligent child, that he's noticed the dissimilarities between them. She smiles, applying ointment to the wound. ‘Because you are my son at heart, and children at heart are sometimes not like their mothers at heart.’ 'What is a child at heart?' He agrees to be picked up by her, and Arabella leads them into their small living room, sitting on the sofa with Henry on her lap, looking at her with big green eyes gleaming with curiosity, black strands falling over his eyelashes. She needs to cut his hair soon. “It means that you were born from another belly, not mine.” She places a hand over her stomach. “But that's just what separates us, because my love for you surpasses any barrier.” Arabella smiles, kissing his cheek, and Henry seems satisfied with the explanation. 'I love you so much too, this size here!' He opens his arms as much as he can, and the demonstration warms her heart as always, making her smile and hug her son as tightly as she assures him that she loves him even more. | J. P | James was concentrating on the duels when Remus arrived. He was marveling at how well Mr. Figg dueled, neither shivering nor losing time when Mr. Rosier hit back one of his spells, and the man didn't even look tired. He had always found dueling an incredibly boring and dull part of parties when he was younger, accompanied by his father and seeing the men fall in a few minutes, James preferred the parties and the after, when the house was silent and dark and he could go out to meet some woman. It was at one of these parties that he met Lily, during a nighttime getaway he saw her jumping out the window. First he followed her thinking that she was also going to meet someone, and James being a curious young man that he was, he wondered what kind of man that woman liked to sneak with. Maybe he had a chance. But later, when he saw her come out of the house and run towards the lake nearby, James didn't understand. She didn't like him following her, of course, it had been a dumb idea and nowadays he was ashamed of his younger self's actions, but that's what got them talking for the first time. She smiled in embarrassment as he praised her ability to climb a vine. "James!" Remus called after him, cheeks flushed and blue eyes pained toward him. The first thing that came to his mind was that Lily was hurt, and that made him lose all interest in watching the Duel and made him turn to his friend in alarm. “What happened?” He tried to be as discreet as possible, trying to keep other men from noticing his splurge. Sirius did a good job of distracting two young men. "Lily needs you…and she asked me to take Mr. Figg too." Remus muttered the last part, making James frown and look at the boy on his left, who had finally won the duel. Rosier looked tired. 'Is it urgent.' "Is she hurt?" It was a valid concern, James feared his wife would get sicker now that she was surrounded by people, and maybe someone had said something to her and Lily had one of her fits again. ‘And why does she want the boy? Should I tell Arthur? ‘No, don't say anything to anyone, just come… We're in the dungeons.’ ---------------------- Henry did not know how to control his magic, and that distressed Arabella. If he was a Muggle it would be so much easier, she knew that, because when Henry made that poor boy float, and then made a flower vase explode, she knew she would have to explain a lot to him: Why couldn't he go to a proper college and why she didn't do magic like he did. Arabella no longer felt ashamed of being a Squib, she had accepted the condition and lived normally, or at least as she managed to, avoiding whenever anyone asked about it just to avoid people's prejudice. Some thought she was a

Muggle who had married a wizard, and that's why she knew so much about it. Others thought that she just hadn't had a chance to go to school, and that's why she didn't know how to properly control magic. "They made fun of me!" Henry said, annoyed, his eyes red from crying. “They said things—horrible things to me!” He sobbed, which made Arabella even sadder and more worried. His green eyes glistened with tears, staring at her for answers. "They told me I-I'll never be good at-at anything." He sobbed louder and louder, the scraped knee now forgotten, as if the internal pain was much bigger. She was about to cry with him. “Henry, honey, listen to me.” She took a deep breath, thinking that conversation had come earlier than she'd planned. ‘What they said is a lie. They don't know how to control their magic either, they probably won't for a good few years, and you're already good at a lot of things, of course you are, Henry. You're much better at putting together puzzles, and you're much faster too, I mean, you always win at the races.' Arabella smiled sweetly, smoothing his messy hair, thinking how unfair it was that such a sweet little boy already got to know this side of life. She wished she could just show the good side of life, and leave the thorns and stones for when he understood things better. Arabella wondered how her mother managed to do this so masterfully, because right now, she wanted to be able to hex the parents of those boys and force them to teach their children more respect for others. She wished it had been her who had been pushed and thrown out of the game, not her child. Her heart broke even more, feeling helpless. ‘Don't listen to what they say, ok? You're amazing, a very smart kid, and your future will be bright.” She promised, because it was true. Arabella would do anything for her son. ---------------------- Henry ran as fast as he could, passing through the trees and not even bothering with the branches that scratched his skin, he just needed to get out of there. He knew he shouldn't have pissed off those boys, but they were scaring another younger boy, and just because they'd now gone to that stupid school of stupid people, they thought they were even better than the rest of the people there. Henry wished he could go to Hogwarts, but his mother had told him that you needed to receive a letter, and that they were only sent for a few families - maybe if you're lucky you get the letter, she said smiling, even though the smile didn't reach her eyes. Arabella had never said this, but Henry knew he would probably never get the letter; he wasn't rich and he didn't have a father, and for some reason, that seemed to be enough to keep him away from others. He ran even faster when he heard loud laughter, he wasn't afraid of those kids anymore, Henry had grown up while they were in school, more than they were, but they had one advantage: magic. Arabella couldn't buy a wand, so he didn't have one, and even if he did, he wouldn't know how to use it. “You're a wimpy coward if your only way to fight is with magic…don't you know how to punch?” Henry had said to Jilian, the biggest idiot of them all. Henry wasn't very good at punching, but he was very fast, while when Greg tried to cast a spell on him, he ran off into the forest, barely noticing when his own magic created a dome around him, preventing any spells from hitting him. . ---------------------- “Why are we so different?” Henry asked, taking a seat beside Arabella as she kneaded the bread on the table. She looked at him, noticing that the boy was all sweaty and looking a little smudged with dirt. “How many times have I told you not to go into the woods?” She returned her gaze to the dough, continuing to knead. "It's quieter there." He shrugged, pulling his sweaty hair off his forehead, letting his scar show for a few seconds before hiding it again. “And more dangerous too, and you know it.” Arabella raised her eyebrows, scolding him. She'd heard horrible stories of people meeting a werewolf deep in the woods, and as much as she didn't

know whether or not it was true, she didn't want Henry to take any chances like that. He was only 13 years old, he should have been playing with the other kids on the street and not running into the trees. "Okay, I won't do it anymore." He sighed, but she knew he would break that promise the next time he had the opportunity. ‘But then? Why aren't we alike?’ "Henry, because you were born from another belly. I already said that" She placed the buns in the oven, washing her hands afterwards and looking up at him with a gentle smile on her face. "I met you when you were very young, you know this story." "But why can I make things float and you can't?" His green eyes stared at her with an expression much harder and more serious than she was used to, as if he would know if she lied. ‘Because not all of us are born doing magic. Some of us are good at something other than magic… It's something you need to be born knowing how to do, you can't develop it, just improve it.” Arabella swallowed, trying not to show so much the scars that had left on her. People weren't kind when they found out you were a Squib. He was quiet for a few minutes, looking at his hands as if he wanted to find the right words. The sun streaming through the kitchen windows illuminated his black hair, a few strands reflecting an almost red copper color that Arabella thought was beautiful. 'Can you never do magic?' He looked at her, and all the worry she'd ever felt, scared that maybe Henry would feel sorry for her or ashamed of her, drained and slipped out as his green eyes stared at her, full of affection and sadness. Not the same sadness that always came with grief, but as if he felt bad that he did magic and she didn't, as if he understood now why some people offended her and treated her differently. "No." She gave a half smile. "But I'm not sad about it anymore, I like who I am." And it was true. Henry nodded, still being silent for a while, seeming to absorb the information, then he got up from the wooden bench, walking over to her and hugging her. He was no longer her little boy—as much as he always would be her baby—Henry now almost reached her chest, and it wouldn't be long before he was taller than her. She hugged him back, enjoying this show of affection, imagining that a few years from now he wouldn't like hugs so much. "I love you," he said. ‘I love you very much too. Forever and ever.” Arabella kissed the top of his head, tightening her hold even more, as if she was afraid someone would suddenly take him away from her. ---------------------- It had been a long time since James had been in the dungeons, he didn't like going there, it was cold, wet, lonely, and it made him think too much. It made him think his son's things were there, in boxes organized as if they were just another mess and not everything he and Lily had ever dreamed of. It made him think of the pain that resided in his chest, the emptiness that nothing in the world had ever been able to fill. James hated the dungeons. Lily, unlike him, loved being there, she said it was the best place for her to think, and the calmest of all - 'It's where I feel that no one will look at me with pity, where I can think of my son in peace, you know what I'm talking about," she said when James questioned her about the surroundings. He knew, he understood her, James had changed into Prongs many more times than necessary, he did it every time the pain got too much to take. He walked down the stairs, trying to ignore the shiver that ran down his spine, couldn't anyone make this place something less scary? After Remus left, James warned Sirius, who tried to pretend as best he could and further entertain the men who now looked curious to death, while he went to talk to Mr. Figg. "I need you to accompany me, but I need you to do this cautiously and discreetly," James asked, looking into those green eyes closely, trying to remember where he knew that expression. "I'll go ahead, meet me in five minutes at the entrance to the stone path, do you know where it is?" The man nodded, tucking

his wand into the waistband of his pants and straightening his robes. 'I'll let Arthur know I'll take you, just so he won't be worried, but I think you understand that you shouldn't say anything to anyone, right?' "Yes, my Lord." The man made a brief, discreet bow, and James grimaced, not understanding why that made him uncomfortable. Now James heard footsteps behind him as he walked through the dungeon, neither of them saying anything. Why had Lily asked Mr. Figg to come along? Had she found out something about the boy? Something bad? James glanced quickly over his shoulder, noticing that the man looked warmed too, his hands behind him and his back straight. Has something happened to Miss Weasley? Well, if so, Arthur would be called too, right? James broke off as soon as he reached the last room, the one he avoided the most, and the only one with lighted candles. The first thing he saw when he entered were the boxes, stacked against a wall, then he realized there were some of Harry's things on the floor, smeared with dirt and sticks, and James' heart missed a beat when he saw the Snitch Pajamas The gold one he'd bought when he found out Lily was pregnant was now all filthy and torn. Had they been attacked? Was that why Lily sent for him? Then he saw Remus, opening Lily's herb cabinet and looking for something inside, he looked worried. In the back, near the only window there, was Peter, all smeared with mud too, sitting on the floor with his hands behind his back, his red cheeks making him look like a child caught doing something wrong, and his rumpled clothes hinting that he had fought someone. Finally, sitting on the bench was Lily. Her dress was dirty too, but that wasn't what James first noticed, it was her red face, her pink cheeks like when she drank wine, her hands shaking as she poured something into the cauldron, looking more nervous than ever. "What's going on?" James glanced at the three of them, feeling even more anxious. "Lily, what the fuck is going on?" "Did you bring Henry?" James frowned at her calling the man by his first name, but nodded anyway, Peter sighed in the corner, looking almost terrified, not making eye contact with James for a moment. ‘Great, send him in.’ ---------------------- Henry knew he shouldn't be there, his mother had forbidden him, but he had nowhere else to go. Jilian had come back from his stupid school and he seemed more than happy to train some spells on Henry, and even though he had honed his punching technique, he couldn't compete with magic. So he ran into the forest. It was cold there, it had rained last night and the earth had turned to mud, and because of the tall trees the sun's rays didn't penetrate as much, and the whole environment ended up getting wetter than usual. Henry shivered as the wind made him wonder why he hadn't grabbed a jacket. He was sitting on the usual rock, it was close to the river that separated them from the Muggles, and it gave him a good view across the village. There were houses like the ones on this side, but they always looked a lot less colorful than the ones he was used to, and there weren't as many flowers and trees either, as if the Muggles were willing to clear every bit of land they found, leaving everything gray and monotonous. Henry had asked his mother if they could go to that side of the village, but Arabella had been stern to say he was forbidden to even think about going to the Muggles. He chuckled softly, thinking that if it hadn't been for the river that separated them, he probably would have managed to at least get there, curious as always. A noise startled him, making him jump and hide behind the rock, praying it wasn't one of Jilian's friends, as he would be at such a disadvantage. There wasn't much to run now, Henry had almost reached the end of the forest, and unless he took a chance and ran towards the darkest and scariest part, the other option was to jump into the river. And he wasn't doing any of those things. But when he didn't hear voices or anything to indicate they were people, he stood up,

watching a deer walking around, distracted by everything, as if nothing else mattered. Henry had never seen one this close, and he was a little fascinated by the animal, he understood why there are two deer on the Potter family crest. It really was a beautiful animal, and if he could choose, he would also want them emblazoned on his chest. Henry stepped out from behind the rock, careful not to startle the animal, trying to get as close as he could. “Hey,” he called, even though it didn't make much sense. The animal turned, eyes huge now in his direction. It had been a bad idea, he cursed himself mentally, imagining that that animal was too big and would probably kill him without a second thought… Did deer eat human flesh? Henry didn't know, but they probably hurt anyone who scared them and made them feel in danger. The animal approached, slowly, and each step made the boy's stomach turn and his heart race. Deer were fast, much faster than Henry was. He was dead. But when the animal's black eyes got much closer than Henry had ever thought he saw, the animal bowed, as if saying hello to him. Without thinking twice, he did the same, maintaining eye contact with the deer. Heavens, couldn't he be less weird? Bending over to deer, blowing things up without meaning to... Henry stood up after a while, being careful to do this as slowly as possible, still afraid the deer would decide to kill him then and there. But the animal seemed to have other plans, because he lay down in front of the boy, as if he were an adorable little dog. Henry sat beside him too, having no choice; he didn't have many friends, and he had nothing else to do, so why not? His ass got a little wet from the dirt, but nothing too uncomfortable. The deer shifted and brought its head closer to Henry's crossed leg, as if asking for affection, and the boy didn't wait for another move to do so, leaning his back against the stone and reaching out to stroke the slightly coarse fur of the animal For some strange reason, Henry felt comfortable doing it, as if he had done it before, it was something familiar that burned in his chest. But he didn't think about it much, just fell silent and watched the forest in front of him. ---------------------- "Lily, what's going on?" James asked, feeling uneasy as he watched the tension surround the room, Remus looked nervous and Peter avoided looking up, as if he was suddenly afraid to face one of them. Lily turned to James, her green eyes seemed to glow with hatred, her nostrils swollen, an expression he'd seen a few times over the years, but one that always scared him. "What... What happened?" Her shaky voice made him look at Remus again, the worry growing by the second. "Oh James." She shook her head, as if suddenly too much pain hit her, and he ran to her protection, opening his arms to hold her and protect her from anything that had happened while he was gone. "Guys, anyone…?" He glanced at his friends, but again, Peter didn't look at him. "Tell him, Peter!" Lily yelled, breaking out of James' embrace and turning to the man sitting on the floor, pointing her wand in his direction. ‘Lily, what the hell!?’ "No, James," She held up a hand, silencing him. "Tell Peter, tell him what you did to our son." His world stopped, his eyes threatening to pop out of their sockets as James stared at his friend, begging for all that was most sacred that he hadn't quite understood. Peter was his brother, his best friend, they met when they went to Hogwarts together, he was there when James needed it most, when they decided to become Animagus… Peter wouldn't do that, he couldn't! James doubted that one day the pain of losing a child would be replaced by another, that hellish emptiness that tore at him more and more inside, that made him not sleep well on rainy nights, that still made him walk into the boy's immaculate room and sit on the floor wondering what he should have done differently. He would do anything to get his son back, his boy. But the pain that hit him when Peter shook his head and lowered his head, making him

realize his hands were tied behind his body, came very close. His best friend… betrayed him? "Peter?" James pleaded, begged, for it to be a lie, for Lily to be mad. It was a lie! It had to be. "I had to, James... I... he made me." ---------------------- The weather was not so good, Peter realized when he Apparated, the sky was dark and windy like never before. He should have worn another cloak, this one was too thin and made him cold. And other gloves too, because now these were bloody and torn. Who knew a woman could be so strong? Peter dragged the woman's passed out body with him, feeling a little sickened by that when he realized her wound was getting worse with each passing minute, he needed to be quick. Leaving the body where no one could find it, he pulled a strand of her hair into the potion and then took it, the horrible taste of iron made him want to spit it out on the floor, but now there was no turning back, he would have to swallow and continue with the plan. Lord Voldemort had promised him a great reward in exchange for the boy's life, and for the first time in a long time, Peter felt important and wanted. It wasn't that Black boy who was chosen, or even Snape, no no, he was the one Voldemort thought capable of completing the mission, he thought he was strong enough. How long has it been since? He only stayed inside the Order because James kept him there, no one really wanted him there, not even Dumbledore, Peter didn't need him to say it to know, it was visible to everyone. For the old man, any other man could do the job better than he… Probably if Lily were there too, she would be chosen before Peter. Potter this, Black that, Peter was tired. Why didn't anyone realize he was also strong and smart? Well, now that was over, Voldemort had seen his potential and chosen him to do this mission, and Peter wasn't going to fail now. When he was fully transformed into that whore, he apparated into the castle, glad the potion didn't stop him from doing so. Stupid James should have put in better security than a simple spell. Peter had seen James that afternoon, he said that today was Harry's first night trying to sleep alone and that he and Lily were excited to see how he would react to the change, so the plan would be even easier to execute. As excited as Peter was at the idea of being useful to someone, he knew he couldn't kill James, he had to really want to do it with all his heart. When he reached the boy's room, Peter looked around, noting the choice of bright, cheerful colors, the many teddy bears scattered around, the photos on the walls and in the frames above the dresser. Little Harry slept peacefully in his bed, wrapped in the pale blue blanket, looking peaceful, cuddled up with his deer teddy bear. He was a lot like James, Peter thought, watching the boy move his short legs like he was kicking something in the dream. He hadn't really thought about that part of the plan, he figured he'd have the guts to just take the boy and end his life right there, or in some alley farther along, but when Peter picked him up, being careful not to waking him up, that lavender scent invaded his nostrils and he watched the baby more closely. The boy looked helpless in his arms, like he wasn't even real, and if he wasn't watching the boy's belly rise and fall, Peter would think he was a doll. Voldemort would never know if he had killed the boy or not, and pausing to analyze the situation now, Peter also didn't know if he could kill the boy. He wanted to show that he was strong and useful, but a baby? Harry looked so…small. When he stirred, startling Peter, and seemed to be looking for something - maybe his mother's scent - he realized it was time to act, there was no turning back, it had to be now. And when lightning flashed in the sky, he cast a spell to prevent Harry from listening when he broke the glass to fake an escape, Peter waited for thunder to do so and then Apparated out of the castle, knowing that this was the best thing to do. There were two paths now, and he needed to think quickly

which was better, kill Harry and throw him in some hole, or give the boy to someone else. Of course he would risk this person recognizing the baby, but he would have to bet his luck on finding another baby like this for Lily and James to bury, or maybe even run to the Muggle village and find some woman there. It had to be fast, Harry would wake up any second and Peter didn't have much time after that. As soon as he spotted a woman a few blocks away and Harry opened his eyes in his arms, Peter acted without thinking, taking the knife from his pants pocket and opening a wound in his ribs, before starting to scream for help. ---------------------- James clapped his hand over his mouth, denying it over and over, not believing what he was hearing. No no no no. This had to be a lie, this had to be a lie. Peter would never do that, Peter was his brother, he would never… No, this could only be a joke. He could barely handle the pain right now, thinking he'd rather die than have to deal with it. It hurt so much that James thought he might start bleeding at any moment, his chest lacerated after hearing about it. He couldn't even feel angry. His boy, his little boy, whom he'd loved so much ever since Lily told him she was pregnant, that it made him want to scream from the top of the roof in so much joy… “I could kill you right now,” he said, after what seemed like an eternity, barely able to face the traitor. "But…" James shook his head, closing his eyes to try to make it hurt a little less, his father's voice resonating through his mind; "You must be careful with Peter," he said before he died. "Men like him are easily attracted to the side that shines the most." James had thought his father was delusional when he said that, thought it was the fever, but no, the bastard really was a weakling and a coward. Letting himself be attracted to those he once hated. If he really hated it. "I can't even look at you." James turned to Lily, who looked distraught to death at having to hear that story. He wanted to kill Peter even more for making her suffer like that. The traitor had been there the next day, helping with the searches, he had hugged Lily when she cried, told her everything would be fine. "James, give me your hand," asked Lily, her own trembling, reaching out towards him. 'Why?' "Lils…he could be lying—" She shook her head, telling Remus to shut up. "Give me your hand James." Now her voice was stronger, more determined, and her green eyes sparkled even more. He did so, letting her grab his palm and run the tip of the knife, causing the blood to drip and smear her workbench and floor, before finally dripping into the cauldron. “Lily, what are you doing?” But she didn't answer him, cutting her own palm and spilling her blood along with his, then looking over her husband's shoulder. She looked more nervous than ever, and her severed hand shook even more as she held it out to the man behind James. "Give me your hand, Henry." Her green eyes sparkled with tears, and James didn't know if the man did as she asked just because she was a Duchess, or because she was crying. "Yes, ma'am." He walked over and let her do the same thing with his palm, passing the tip of the knife and then letting the blood spill into the cauldron. The potion began to bubble fiercely, as did James' chest when he realized what Lily was up to. He had seen her make this potion a few times, and if his thinking was correct, then maybe he could vomit right there, his stomach churning and making him feel weak. James didn't want to get his hopes up, it only served to hurt when unrequited, but he was unable to hold back the urge and looked at the man behind him, and then at Peter, who now looked even more guilty, if that was possible. If this was another one of his jobs with Voldemort, James knew he would kill him right there, with his bare hands. Forget magic and wands, he would tear that mouse apart like a hungry lion. James turned to the cauldron again when Lily sobbed and he smelled the lavender scent all over the room, and the once gray

potion was now a pinkish hue, the three drops of blood seemed to dance in the middle of the liquid, before of finally meeting at the end, getting connected. "Harry." Lily turned to the man, but James remained frozen, watching the cauldron in front of him. They had never reached this result, usually the potion would explode or nothing happened, and the smell was never that sweet aroma that seemed to fill all the hollows in his chest, as if he suddenly felt no more pain. As he turned back, as Lily advanced towards the boy, James thought that maybe nothing would ever compare to this. "Harry," Lily repeated, but this time she touched him, and as if the boy felt it too, he lowered his green eyes to her. James remembered then where he knew that look… It was Lily's eyes. Her trembling hand went to his forehead, lifting the hair lying there, just to let them see the lightning scar marked into his skin. It was too much to handle, James didn't know how he was still standing, but suddenly he started to feel tears rolling down his cheeks and as if this was the last drop of water to overflow the bucket, he sobbed. He inched closer to Lily, wanting to take a closer look at his son, as if he was afraid this was a dream and soon he would no longer have the chance to memorize every detail of it. His boy… "You-" Harry trailed off, as if he was feeling like James and Lily, his chest filling up and all that emptiness seeming to finally heal. "My parents?" He looked at James, and it was as if time had never passed. He still had the same expression as that little baby James used to cuddle up to sleep on. "I knew I knew you from somewhere," James managed to say, his throat seeming to scratch with the effort it took. "I would never be able to forget…" He didn't mind the tears rolling down his face, but he tried to wipe the ones down Harry's face. "I would never be able to forget my son."

#hinny #harry x ginny #jily lives #hinny au #the duke #harry potter #ginny weasley

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someguynamedstevewrites · 4 years ago

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My Roommate is an Apparition: WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A DAD - Part 2

Based on characters created by @reddpenn

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Oh man, am I late on posting this. So many things going on. Not to mention figuring out how to follow up the first part.

It seems people really like the first-person narration from “A-Pink-Ciation of Culture”, so I went with that again with this piece.

Almost DAILY, I get likes or re-blogs and the occasional follower despite not having posted anything since March. I’m very curious and would like to hear from you readers about what you like about my writing and what appeals to you. Eventually, I want to make a living off of writing, but until that time, I definitely could use any and all feedback.

Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, on with the story!

From the Diary of Lily, March 1st, 2020:

Okay, diary, I’m coming to you because I honestly have no idea where else to go to try and sort through the evening I just had with my Dad and Tulpa. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about tonight just... bothers me! It’s like I’m on pins and needles and can’t stop thinking about, well, a LOT of stuff. Just... hear me out and maybe it’ll make sense if I put this all down on paper (I.E. You). I just spent the last twenty minutes trying to talk things through out loud, but that got me nowhere so here goes nothing:

First off, my Dad came to visit a week earlier than what I had planned, and immediately sets up shop in my living room with his NES and copy of Castlevania III. Only problem was I hadn’t talked with Tulpa about his visit since I was expecting him until NEXT weekend. I kept thinking that the last thing I wanted was for anything weird to happen during his visit.

Which, looking back on it, was a really stupid thing to worry about.

I mean, Dad’s a pretty open-minded guy and he’s quite weird himself. He’s actually quite proud of his weirdness (embarrassing as it is sometimes). He tends to under-react to all kinds of things like it’s no big deal. I’ve even asked him why he doesn’t freak out about some of the stuff he comes across in real life or on TV, and he just tells me, “I’ve seen weirder.” (If some of the stories he’s told me are true, then he has. He really, REALLY has!)

For example: if Tulpa had come into the room holding a... I dunno, a plate or something, like would that really freak my Dad out? Pfft, No! He (maybe?) wouldn’t see her, all he’d see was a “flying saucer” (he deliberately would make that lame pun too), and then get back to his game. Then later, he’d try and tell me about the real flying saucers he saw years ago, or something.

Since I had assumed that Dad wouldn’t have been able to see her, it eventually clicked in my head that what I was actually worrying about was, “what would Tulpa think of my Dad?” He’s a huge Goofus that likes to make bad jokes, tell tall tales, and play video games! And even if he did weird her out, it’s not like she could go anywhere... right? I mean, she might avoid interacting with me because of him, but...

Oh...

Oh wow...

I just read what I just wrote and I can not believe I was being THAT irrational! ( Man, people are stupid sometimes; me included!)

Avoid me because of my DAD!? That’s gotta be the dumbest thing I’ve ever thought! It’s not like he LIVES here or anything! He’s not the one paying the rent; I am! And... I’ve gotten to know Tulpa pretty well these past few months, but... I guess I still have a lot more to learn about her. Case in point:

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So Tulpa tells me that she wants to meet my Dad, and after coming to my senses somewhat, I say she can sit in so long as she doesn’t touch anything (see flying saucer explanation above). A few minutes later, she walks in looking like the tall girl from Keep Your Hands off Eizouken (I had to look the name up; I couldn’t remember it for the life of me). By that I mean, she’s coming in as a tall, lanky, skinny, somewhat pale skinned girl looking to be about my age. She’s wearing some modest clothes and, if I’m being honest with myself, they looked kind of cute in that outfit they had on. It was a nice ensemble.

Then Dad says “Hi” to her.

...

Let me repeat that in case it hasn’t clicked with you yet.

My Dad GREETED her!

He! SAW! Her!

When I asked her about it later, she said to me that she thought that since he’s my Dad, then whatever it is that allows me to see her could be something my Dad has too. So far, her theory has been proven right, but... I’m not one-hundred percent sure, because Tulpa... well... she changed.

And I’m being literal here, too! She no longer had that transparency to her like usual. She had a nose! She had ears! She had five fingers! And she looked...

...well...

...good.

Tulpa said she had never tried doing this before, but figured that in the off-chance that her hunch was correct, she wanted to make a good impression on my Dad. (Why do I keep thinking about that old joke in movies and TV shows about the overprotective Dad that threatens the boy about to go on a date with their daughter?) She even went so far as to create her own “clothes”, saying she knew they’d be important. Considering that she doesn’t wear (or need) clothes any other time, I ask her how she came to that conclusion. I still have no idea what she meant when she suddenly bellowed out, “GOOD...! GRIEF...! HE’S...! NAKED!”

[Edit: It’s from Spongebob, because of course it was.]

So I’m not sure if Dad could see her because she purposely made herself opaque, or if he would have been able to see her if she wasn’t in her human “disguise” (and yes, I’m calling it a disguise and I’ll explain why a bit later, okay?). But either way, she walks in and my Dad just starts chatting away like so:

————————————-

“Hi there! You must be Lily’s roommate!” says Dad.

At this point, I’m kind of frozen solid on the couch, just watching and listening as everything unfolds in front of me like it’s being burned into my retinas. You know that saying about slow-motion train wrecks? Y’know, about how you can’t look away from them? This is probably why I remember the conversation so well.

“Heh...Hello,” she responds back nervously.

“I’m Lily’s Dad,” he says as if it wasn’t obvious, “Hope you don’t mind if we play some games out here.”

Tulpa shakes her head and stutters out, “No...N-not at all.”

“Great!” Dad responded with a smile that said, “Even if it was bothering you, I’m still going to take up the TV and play video games. So nyeh!” I’ve lived with him long enough to know that he’s not someone who would give up the TV without a fight.

(...gee... that kind of reminds me of someone now that I think about it...)

Tulpa then asks, “M-mind if... I watch?”

Dad gives her this big, goofy smile and responds with a, “Sure thing!” since despite him never admitting to it, he always liked having an audience around when he played games (or almost anything really) in hopes of “schooling” them. (Why he didn’t go into teaching, I will never understand.)

As soon as Dad turns back to his game and un-pauses it, Tulpa smiled, sat back, and looked content (Although it was a little weird seeing her smile with a nose to go along with it.) This snaps me out of my stupor long enough to scootch over to Tulpa and chat with her.

“You actually want to watch him play?” I ask her once more because the mere thought that she’d be interested in something outside of cartoons still hadn’t registered in my head, yet.

“Yeah...” she says as she starts to stare at the screen like she usually does during her cartoon time. “...sounded... familiar,” she said before looking up slightly while lost in thought, “...Simon... Belmont... Mega... Man... Kid... Icarus...” she said again as though that meant something. To me it just sounded almost like some kind of madness mantra, but...

“Oh! You mean Captain N: The Game Master!” my Dad chimed in out of seemingly nowhere.

“YES!” Tulpa said with excitement (worth noting that she doesn’t look excited very often, but when she does, she practically glows). “I remember...” she said before pausing to collect her thoughts and form the words she wanted to say. If I could have, I would have warned her about my Dad’s tendency to pounce on any hesitation in a conversation to take it over.

“Man, I haven’t seen Captain N in decades,” he said wistfully, “Surprised someone young as you remembers it. I was in High School when that show came on! When did you see it?”

“Ummm...” she hesitated, “...reruns... when I was... a kid.”

(As I’m writing this down now, I realize she was trying to hide her actual age from Dad. She looked to be in her early twenty’s like I was, but if she said she saw it when it came on the air originally, that’d make her over thirty years old at least.)

“Ahhhh! I see you have good taste in reruns!” Dad complimented.

“Th-thank you,” she stuttered back. As I listened to the awkward conversation of father-roommate bonding, I found my eyes constantly turning towards Tulpa. Not out of adoration or anything, but more like... studying her.

————————————-

On the one hand, she looked like the Tulpa that I had known ever since she became my roommate months ago. But on the other hand, they somehow weren’t. It’s kind of like when someone changes their looks a bit for maybe, I dunno, a night on the town, a job interview, a wedding, or something else along those lines. Only in her case, “dressing up” meant adding additional body parts she didn’t normally have.

(To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what to think about that...)

I’ve always been a firm believer of people being themselves, and being allowed to be themselves. I can’t stand situations where people are unable to truly express themselves or feel comfortable. Way I see it, life is too short to be spent worrying over stupid stuff that makes people miserable just so they can come off as normal.

Sometimes it’s because of social norms and expectations; those unspoken rules of life that people are supposed to just magically “know”. Like if someone was going to a church or temple service, social norms say they need to wear their “Sunday Best” with stiff, itchy clothes that are dry clean only. If I was able to go to a sermon wearing a baggy college sweatshirt, sweatpants, and slippers, and NOT be judged like I’m some kind of crazy hobo, it would have definitely made something like that more appealing to me.

Now I have nothing against anyone that likes to dress up in fancy clothes and wear them out and about; I mean, everyone likes different things, right? The point is that if I’m going to do something that makes me uncomfortable, it should be because I wanted to do it for myself. I don’t think I should bend over backwards making myself feel bad (physically or mentally) for someone else’s sake. Sure, call me selfish if you must, but I just can’t advocate for doing something that makes you feel bad because you wanted someone else to feel good.

I’m just thankful no one in my family has ever tried to push anything on me. Sure, they’ve suggested things to me before, and of course made sure I didn’t do something stupid that would injure me or worse when I was too young to know better. But overall, my family has given me a lot of freedom to do what I want, dress how I want, and be who I want to be. Now that I think about it, I’m kind of lucky that way.

(I hope I’m making sense on this. Re-reading this, I’m not entirely sure if I do.)

————————————-

Anyway, I’m looking at Tulpa and watching them carefully, trying to figure out if they were comfortable looking like that or not. She’s just sitting there watching my Dad play Castlevania III, and he was now on the haunted pirate ship with Trevor and Sypha. He was breezing through at a pretty good pace and sharing an anecdote about how Warren Ellis figuratively gave him the “Turd Cape of Shame” on this old message board back when the Castlevania series on Netflix was just an idea back in 2007. (I still am not entirely sure if that story is true or not.)

“Hey Lily,” Dad asks suddenly out of the blue, “got anything to drink?” I offer him some lemonade, he accepts, and I go to the kitchen to pour him a glass. As I’m doing this, I hear Dad ask Tulpa, “By the way, I don’t think I caught your name. What was it again?”

“...Tulpa...” she says back to him.

My body freezes up for a moment as I realized that “Tulpa” is not an ordinary name. I mean the first time she told me her name, it sounded like some kind of Pokémon. Once again, that irrational fear of my Dad being weirded out or something enters my head, but is dispelled almost immediately.

“Tulpa?” my Dad says aloud to himself, “That’s a very interesting name.”

“T-Thank you...” she says back.

I walk in with a glass of pink lemonade and set it down on a little, folding TV dinner stand that was given to me when I first moved out for college. I slowly sit back down again as I keep an eye on Dad. His facial expression is the same as usual: relaxed. You could call it a poker face, but I’ve seen him play poker and he is BAD at poker.

“Anyone in your family Buddhist?” my Dad asks casually.

I step in, “Dad! What kind of a question is that!?” And I meant what I said too. Who even asks something like that!?

“I was just wondering,” he says before once again shutting up and focusing on his game.

This is one of the things about my Dad that bugs me to no end: he likes to be cagey sometimes. He’ll say something vague with the sole purpose of making the other person curious, confused, or both. It leaves, like, questions in the back of your head that just start gnawing at your brain and won’t stop chewing away at your gray matter until you finally ask him to explain what the heck he was talking about. He does this on purpose to “bait” people into asking him questions or to continue with what he’s saying. So annoying!

I sigh, “Why’s that, Dad?”

He gives a little smile and continues, “Oh it’s just that this isn’t the first time I’ve heard the name “Tulpa” before, that’s all.”

NOW he has my total undivided attention and Tulpa’s too as we both unconsciously lean forward. Practically in sync, we both say, “It’s not!?”

He’s still smiling as he says, “Nope. First time I heard that name was when I was doing some monster research for a Castlevania Wiki I had been working on a while back.”

Tulpa practically gulps, “M-M-Monster...?”

“Well not really a monster,” he says back, “more like... a supernaturally, artificially created person.”

(There are some times when my Dad can be down right spooky and creepy. This was one of those times.)

Full Metal Alchemist immediately pops into my head, and without even hesitating, I ask, “Like a Homunculus?”

“Nah, more like...” he says before pausing his game and turning to Tulpa and I, “...an imaginary friend.” Tulpa and I both tilt our heads in confusion. Dad picks up on this and by now, he is practically glowing at this opportunity to share some weird thing he just happens to know something about.

He explains, “So there’s this word in Tibetan called “Sprul-Pa” which means “Manifestation”, okay? And in early Buddhism, this is used as the explanation for how Gautama Buddha could travel to heavenly realms and come back again. You could say he created a clone of himself in the other realm and then transmitted his consciousness to it from his body on Earth. Kind of like a-”

By now, Tulpa and I were clearly on the same wavelength as she asks, “a Shadow Clone!?” at the exact same time I was thinking of it. Believe it!

Dad’s silent for a moment as he thinks to himself before finally going, “...uhhh... I guess... you could say that. I was thinking “Dream Body” but I suppose a shadow clone could work too.” My Dad used to watch Naruto with me on Toonami years ago, so he knew full well what a shadow clone was.

He turns to face us as he continues talking, “The thing with a Tulpa is that it’s something made from nothing. A Homunculus, using your example, Lily, requires having the materials necessary to make an artificial being on hand before you can create them. But a Tulpa is willed into existence out of nothingness. It is created from the thoughts of the creator; known as a “Thoughtform” in some cases.”

(WHEN did my Dad even learn this stuff!?)

“The difference between a Tulpa and an imaginary friend,” my Dad continued to say, “is that while an imaginary friend is just that, someone that exists in your imagination, a Tulpa is made when someone’s thoughts are so strong that they will their imaginary friend into existence.”

I look over at Tulpa, and she is totally absorbed in what my Dad’s saying.

“Now from what I’ve read...” Oh my God, Dad! What have you even been reading!? “...it’s very difficult for one person alone to have enough psychic power to will a sentient being into creation. But if you had enough people thinking the same thing, and thinking about it hard enough, then, hypothetically, a Tulpa could be created.”

“So what you’re saying is if enough people think Bigfoot is real, then they can actually make it real just by believing in them?” I snark.

“Yeah, pretty much,” my Dad replies without detecting my snark at all.

“Or like...” Tulpa chimes in, “...how Tinkerbell is saved... by believing in fairies and... clapping hands?” I was a bit surprised Tulpa knew that since I couldn’t recall Disney’s Peter Pan having that scene in it.

Dad thinks about it for a moment, and then goes, “Hmmmmm... yeah! That too, I suppose.”

Right about then, Dad gets a notification on his phone. He pulls it out, looks at it, gets a somewhat serious look on his face, and then stands up and says, “Hey, I gotta make a phone call real quick. Mind if I...” he trails off.

“Yeah, sure thing, Dad,” I say back. He heads down the hallway to the guest bedroom and closes the door as he makes his call. It’s now just Tulpa and me in the living room, and we were both feeling super awkward. I turn to Tulpa and say, “So... did you know anything about all that?”

Tulpa shook her head, “N-n-no. First time I... I ever heard of... of it.” I could tell she was feeling nervous. She had started stuttering pretty badly.

All this time, I knew Tulpa was an apparition, but I never thought about what kind of apparition she was. It never really dawned on me that an apparition could have an origin story. With Tulpa, she was just... kind of there for me, and I never really questioned it. Her being her somehow felt, I dunno... “natural”, I guess.

I never thought I really needed to learn more about Tulpa, anyway. I mean, outside of the occasional mischief, Tulpa was perfectly harmless. Worst thing she ever did was the Pinkening (still don’t know how she did that), but that was partly on me because I was being a big dummy. Overall, she’s always been friendly, kind, and fun to be around, and that‘s always been good enough for me.

“You, uh...” I start to say, “...want to talk about it later?” Tulpa looks ahead of her kind of blankly, and I immediately add, “It’s okay if you don’t want to, Tulpa, I just-“

“Talk about what?” She asks, now looking at me kind of confused.

“About...” I trail off as I try to find the right words, “...about what my Dad just said and about... I dunno... where you came from?”

Tulpa clearly hadn’t thought about it before. She leaned back against the couch and audibly sighed (I think that was the first time I ever heard them sigh!), before saying, “I... don’t know... Lily...”

“Don’t know where you came from, or don’t know if you want to talk about it?” I asked her.

She thought for a moment before saying, “Both...”

I wanted to say something more to her, maybe give them some kind of reassurance, but I just couldn’t as long as my Dad was here! The frustration of wanting to talk about something with someone, but not being able to because of other people being around, is just AGONIZING! If only Dad would hurry up and leave, but when he says he’s going to beat a video game, he’s going to beat a video game. Problem was he hadn’t even made it to Dracula’s Castle yet, so who knew how much longer it would be?

Then Dad comes back in and says, “Hey, sorry about this, but I need to get going.”

HAAAAAALLEJUAH!!!

“Oh sweet merciful powers that be, THANK YOU! “ I thought to myself. I was worried things were going to get all cringy like a bad self-insert fanfic. “Aww, that’s too bad,” I fibbed out of politeness. I mean, he’s my Dad and I love him and all, but... y’know...

“Yeah, I got a call from work and they need me to help out with something. ‘Fraid I have to cut my visit short, Lily.” My Dad powered off the Nintendo system and began packing it up. But then he suddenly stopped, looked up, then looked back at me and said, “Hey, you want to borrow my NES for a bit!?”

Dad suddenly leaving to take care of something for work happens every now and then, so that was no big surprise. But Dad suddenly saying he has to leave to take care of something and leave his NES in MY care!? THAT scared the pants off me!

“Oh my God, Dad... you’re not dying are you!?” I ask with a half-serious tone.

“What!? No! What gave you that idea!?” He shoots back.

“Because that’s the NES you’ve had ever since you were a kid! You have NEVER let anyone else look after it! EVER!” I remind him because it is one-hundred percent true.

His lame-sauce excuse was: “Hey, both of your uncles used to look after it!”

And then I remind him, “That’s because you all lived in the same house with grandma and grandpa! Y’know, because you were all kids and everything!”

“They still took care of it,” he pouts.

“Only after they sneaked into your room, de-hooked it, and snuck it over to their room! You know I’ve heard the stories at the family gatherings!, right?” This is all completely true.

————————————-

My Dad is the oldest of three, and at family gatherings, like around Thanksgiving, he and my uncles used to tell as many embarrassing stories about each other as possible like they were trying to one-up each other. Like, “Hey, remember that time you stuck a LEGO tire up your nose and had to go to the Emergency Room?”

And my uncle’s all like, “I WAS FOUR!”

Good times....

...now where was I?

Oh right! Why leaving the Nintendo was a big deal!

————————————-

“C’mon, Dad,” I plead, “The only way I can see you willingly giving away your Nintendo, even if just for a little while, would be if you were on your death bed and filling out your last will and testament. So go on, spill it, what’s up with that?”

My Dad just had this look of offense on his face like I had seriously wounded him with my words. “I am NOT that overprotective of it!”

“Yes you are.”

“Okay, I am,” he admits way too quickly, “but I just thought that you having it might be a good idea in case you finally get some free time coming up. Best way to enjoy it is to play it, after all.”

I chuckle, “Dad, the only way work is going to give me enough time off to sit on my butt and play video games is if some horrible catastrophe caused the art store to shut down. Like, I dunno, a deadly virus or something.”

[EDIT, APRIL 12th, 2020: ME AND MY BIG FAT MOUTH!

AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!]

Dad chuckles and say, “Yeah... you got a point there. Still, I think between you and your roommate, you’re both responsible adults now who can get some enjoyment out of it. I’m sure I can trust you two to take good care of it,” he says before raising an eyebrow, “or is there some reason I shouldn’t leave it here!?”

“Relax! We can look after it, Dad. Nothing’s going to happen to it,” I say as I whip my head back so fast it could have made a sonic boom. Just as I suspected, there was Tulpa sitting down in front of the Nintendo about ready to poke it with her finger. “Isn’t that right, Tulpa?” I say while looking straight at her.

“Y-yes...” she mutters.

Dad smiles at the two of us and then suddenly, out of the blue, he gives me this big ole bear hug and pats me on the back! It’s the same kind of hug he gave me on my first day at school, when I was leaving for summer camp, and when I moved into my freshman dorm for college. It was the kind of reassuring hug that says everything is going to be fine. “Ohhhhhhh, look at you growing up and being all responsible! I’m so proud of you, Lily!”

“Dad! Can’t breath, Dad!” I say before he finally lets go.

“Oh yeah, tomorrow, when you get a chance, make sure to pick up a couple packages of toilet paper,” he says casually, “your bathroom’s running low and now would be a good time to stock up.”

[EDIT April 12th, 2020: HE FREAKING KNEW!

HOW!?!?!?]

“Thanks for the tip, Dad,” I respond before saying the thing that led to my Dad saying the other thing that would make my brain do somersaults for the next few hours and ultimately come to you, dear diary, “What brought up that little nugget of wisdom? Dad-ly Intuition?” (Yes, that pun was intentional.)

“Well I’ve always considered myself to be a little psychic here and there,” he says about twenty-three seconds before the door closes and forty-five seconds before my face faults, “and you’ve always been a little psychic too, haven’t yah?”

“Sure Dad, I’ll catch you later,” I say waving goodbye.

“Take care, Lily! Keep in touch! Love you, sweetie!” he calls back as he’s walking into the hallway heading out,

“Love you too, Dad” I say as I close the door and lock the deadbolt. With that family obligation out of the way, I was feeling much better not having to worry about next weekend, not having to worry about Tulpa and Dad, and could just chill and relax and-

It was right about then that my eyes shot wide open as I stared ahead of me at nothing in particular. The gears in my head started turning faster and faster as the past few months living here started to tie together. Tulpa looks at me, slightly concerned. She’s still in her “disguise”, but looks genuinely concerned. She waves her hand it front of me and my mind is working at warp speed, so it doesn’t even register.

“Are you... okay... Lily?” she asks.

I slowly turn to look her in the eye, and then ask her flat out:

“Am I Psychic!?”

#my roommate is an apparition #reddpenn

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mor-beck-more-problems · 3 years ago

Text

Running in the Dark || Morgan & Mina

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @drowningisinevitable & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Sometimes grief isn’t what you’d expect. Morgan already knew this. Mina’s learning it the hard way.

CONTAINS: references to emotional abuse

Thaddeus had been kind to Mina. She didn’t tell him, as he walked with her to what was left of Dark Score Lake, about the different ways that she’d thought about killing him, and she didn’t tell him that she needed to walk back to the East End, anyway, if only to get some of her stuff from Morgan and Deirdre’s. The walk had been long, her side not particularly healed at all, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care. She just didn’t care. She’d patch herself up inside, and then she’d…

She didn’t know what she’d do. Mina looked at the large house, dark and (for the first time that she could remember) ominous. It looked like no one was even home. She grabbed the spare key that was hidden near the pool for her on the nights she locked herself out. If she listened, she could hear the sound of laughing, good memories begging to be heard and reminisced. She ignored them. There was mud and blood in the footprints that she tracked up to her room; she’d need to clean up before she left. She added that to the list of things to do.

Mina trudged up to her room and went to her bedside table where she kept a first aid kit. She took off her shirt, assessed the damage. Her phone was on the table, the battery dead. She plugged it up. She wanted to sit, to take a moment, to stop and breathe. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t. If she stopped, she’d start thinking again. And she couldn’t do that. She needed to not do that. She needed to fix herself and gather her things and leave. She needed to do that. She had to do that.

Morgan ran from dead time as much as she could. She was a zombie; she could outpace anything. She could try. The house could be scrubbed, dusted, polished. Books could be re-organized. Comments on student assignments could be longer, more thorough. And there were other people in town to talk to. Maybe she didn’t have much of a family anymore (maybe she’d been foolish to think she had one at all), but she could still do things. But time was more relentless than any body. It outpaced her and waited in a hallway she could not avoid, in silences she could not escape. Eventually, even soon, it would catch her.

But what caught Morgan now was a hushed sound of movement from Mina’s room. “Mina?” She called. She ran, fresh hope writing itself over her grief (she came back, of course she came back, Mina was so loyal, Mina was raised with a sense of duty and maybe that wasn’t so bad all the time, she must have been lost and scared, maybe she wanted to change before looking for her), and stepped through the doorway. Maybe Mina was going to change, eventually, since she was so caked in blood and water filth she looked liked the creature from the black lagoon, but judging from the neat stack of clothes and wrapped up charging cords, that wasn’t really her first priority.

The hopeful words in Morgan’s head dried up, the brightness in her face grew dim. “Oh.You...” The rest of the words she knew seemed to dry up too. “...So it’s like that, huh?” She searched inside herself for a shield of anger to put up, but her voice, frail and cracked, was already giving her away.

Head snapping up, Mina looked, and there was Morgan in the doorway, and there was Morgan looking so, so small. Mina felt herself shrinking a bit, falling in on herself. She couldn’t stop herself from saying, “I thought the house was empty.” But why would it be? Everyone else didn’t leave just because Bex did. Everyone else didn’t leave just because Mina did. She fumbled with her hands, and she didn’t look at Morgan. “Like what?” she asked. But she knew what. She knew.

The best Morgan could do to protect herself was fold her arms over her chest, holding herself. “I mean…” her voice croaked and she had to swallow and try again. “You didn’t even want to shower or change your clothes first. Are you really gonna make me say it too?” She looked at Mina, pleading. “Why were you...I know your empty room would have spoken for itself, but to make me come home and suddenly know out of nowhere you were never…” Never coming back. Never wanted to stay. Never what Morgan thought she had been. “Do you blame me, for losing her? Is it the memories, and the quiet? Or something else? I know apparently you don’t want to talk to me but can you please at least tell me why?”

“I was going to clean up,” Mina said, her voice barely above a whisper. And she knew that want what Morgan wanted. She knew. She was well aware. “I just needed to…” She didn’t know. Tending to the place on her side had been paramount. Anything else would come after, she figured, along with an explanation to leave, a note to write. And she didn’t plan on staying gone forever. Her body just knew it couldn’t stay here, stay still, for too long, or it was going to break, shatter like her heart into a thousand little pieces. She looked at Morgan sharply. “Blame you? How could I blame you? Why would I ever blame you? I let her— she said it was— I stopped you, from hurting her parents, or I tried to, and maybe I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t not listen to her. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.” She frowned. “Why do you think I’d blame you? Why do you think I wouldn’t want to talk?” Even if she didn’t. Even if she did. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Mina felt like she’d been still too long. She felt like she was going to crack open if she didn’t start moving again soon.

Morgan shrank under Mina’s gaze. “I don’t know,” she admitted quietly. “I’m just...trying to understand why you’re doing this. I thought…” We were closer than this. That I wasn’t so easy to leave behind after all. Morgan sniffled and blinked her eyes dry. “I’m grasping at straws. I don’t know what to think. But you weren’t wrong to listen. She was wrong to ask you, and to make the choice that she did. You haven’t done anything wrong, Mina. You don’t need to think that.” Instinctively, one of her hands freed itself and reached for the girl. But she remembered herself and at the absurd question, gestured to what she thought was a pretty obvious mess. “Well, something about slipping in and not saying anything and being in a bigger hurry to pack than to take care of your injuries and explaining that you were doing this now because you thought the house was empty sort of gave me a vibe that you don’t want to see or talk to me. What am I supposed to think instead?”

“I’m sorry,” Mina said immediately. “I’m sorry. I don’t--” She wanted to leave. She wanted to be back in the forest, walking until she couldn’t anymore. She wondered if that was what it was like to swim in the ocean, to just go and go and go and keep going with no end in sight. She wanted that. She wouldn’t have to think if she could just keep moving. But here was Morgan, forcing her to stop. To think. “I didn’t want to let her down again. I feel like I did, though. I feel like-- I feel like--” Mina sagged forward a bit, and then she just sat, heavily, on her bed, not caring that she was getting dirt and blood all over it. “I didn’t want you to see me like this, and I wanted to get everything, well, not everything, I’m not taking everything, I’m going to come back, I promise I’ll come back, but I had to go. I had to. I stayed there, and I stayed, and I stayed, and nothing changed, so I started walking because, if I didn’t, I was just going to-- What’s wrong with me?” she managed to gasp out between words. “What’s wrong with me? Why is it like this? Why does it feel like this?” And Mina was genuinely at a loss as she looked at Morgan. What was wrong with her? Why was she like this?

“You didn’t let her down, Mina,” Morgan replied. Slowly, she came up to the girl and sat beside her. She was so young sometimes. So heartbreakingly young. How lonely must she have been to have gone this far without anything important enough to ache over losing like this. “Nothing is wrong with you. As a magically certified expert in suffering, I can guarantee you that all of this, as horrible as it feels, is as natural as the beat of your heart. Having your heart broken is the exchange for love.” Slowly, once again, she reached out for Mina in a timid request. “Can I touch you? Can I help clean you up? Please…? I don’t care how you look, but you won’t heal right if we leave you like this.”

“It can’t be that, no, no.” But even as Mina said the words, they hurt. They burned in her mouth like iron, but, maybe, if she kept saying them, they wouldn’t feel like a lie. “It didn’t hurt like this when my dad died, and Bex-- she’s not dead.” Just gone, and it felt like Mina would never get her back, and it felt like the world was ending, and it felt like it already ended. “It’s not that. It can’t be that. I can’t-- I’m not capable-- I was told-- It hurts so much, here.” She put her hand over her heart and hated the way it was pounding. When Morgan reached out for her, Mina could only look at the older woman with slight confusion before she remembered that she was bleeding, that she was hurt, physically. Swallowing, she said, “I can’t even feel it.” Another lie, though she wished she could feel it more. She wished it would drown out the ache in her chest. “It’s not that bad.”

Morgan slipped her hand under Mina’s to feel her chest. She had no sense of its beat, but she heard the girl’s voice strangling itself in her throat. She saw how her neck throbbed with each gasp. “No, she’s not dead. But loving Bex is different, and so is losing her, when she left.” Probably because where Bex was concerned there was more hope, and more return. The loss of a starved love hit different from one you had grown to trust. Morgan reached for the corner of the bed sheet and brought it up to wipe Mina’s face. They were already dirty from her sitting, and she didn’t want to turn away for a moment and lose her. “And of course you’re capable. Why wouldn’t you be capable?” She cradled Mina’s face carefully as she wiped. “You love her, and now that she’s left, it hurts. It’s awful, I know it’s awful, but it’s nothing mysterious.” Then she turned Mina’s head, hoping to get her to meet her eyes. “Slow down and talk to me, honey?” she asked quietly.

In. Hold. Out. Mina tried to control herself, to slow down the terrible, rapid beat of the heart in her chest, to make it less painful. She could slow down her breathing, but she couldn’t make her heart stop aching. It wouldn’t stop. It hadn’t stopped in days, and she didn’t know if it’d ever stop again. She shook her head. “I wasn’t taught to love. I’ve never loved. Not like that. It’s not my place to get attached.” But she had gotten attached, and now she was facing the consequences. It was almost worse, to think about it as love because it meant that she’d done this to herself. “I don’t want this,” she said. She’d rather go back to being chased down by a sianach. She’d rather go back to being hunted by a warden. “I don’t know what else to say. I don’t want this.”

“Yeah, that’s the funny thing about, love, Mina,” Morgan said, smiling in a way that hid nothing of her heartbreak. She started plucking the leaves and twigs from her hair, combing through soothingly. “You don’t need to be taught how to feel it. Just how to do it well. But even with that, you were doing so good, and I am so proud of you for that. You don’t have to say anything right now. I know it hurts. I know. Just let me help with this other stuff, okay? Hurting like this is hard enough on its own, right? Let me help with the rest. Please, Mina. Please…”

Shaking her head, Mina said, “I don’t…” It hurt. It hurt so much. It hurt in ways that she couldn’t even truly explain. This wasn’t the kind of hurt Mina was comfortable with. She was comfortable with iron burns from knives that had been sharpened the night before until they were razor thin, and she was comfortable with broken bones that came from both people and great heights, and she was comfortable even with the sting of sharp words from people that saw her as a monster, a pest. All of that was something she could understand. She couldn’t understand this. “I don’t-- I can’t stay, not here, not all the time, and I don’t want to go, but I-- I--” If she stayed, it’s just get worse, and she needed to be able to move and move and not stop moving, and Mina knew that Morgan would try to make her stop. She looked at Morgan, her eyes begging. “I’m sorry. I’ll come back, I promise. I’ll come back. I’m not leaving you. I’m not.”

“When, next month?” Morgan asked, barely loud enough to sound like anything. “Next year? When Bex gets off her bullshit? When some banshee’s screamed for you and your body drags you over to breathe your last breath over whatever’s left of this place?” She shook her head and tried to dispel the words and the desperation that came with them. She smiled. She could be that person that she sometimes believed herself to be: a woman who could hold up anything she was given, who could make any shithole of a problem just a little better. She started cleaning the girl again. “You’re not going to last long anywhere in this shape. You need a shower, and a patch up job, and maybe a soak in the pool. You’re hurt, honey. And whatever you’re afraid of, whatever you’re trying to outrun, I just have a feeling that you can’t. And maybe if you’re not so alone you won’t break so hard when it gets you. But that’s just my guess. I’d have a better idea if you told me?”

“Next week,” Mina said, immediately. “At least once a week. And she can-- she can do what she wants.” Thinking about Bex hurt. It hurt. And no banshee was going to scream for Mina. Maybe Deirdre. Maybe. Probably not, though. Not until it was too late. “I’ve been in worse shape,” she managed to croak out instead. “This was really my own fault. I fell down a hill. There was a sianach after me. I think a fallen branch just--” she motioned towards the place on her side-- “that.” She shook her head. “It really doesn’t hurt bad. I-- I feel like if I stop moving, I’m going to… I don’t know what’s going to happen. The last time, I cried.” What was she outrunning? Her own thoughts. Her own memories. This pain that wasn’t physical but somehow hurt worse. “I just can’t stop moving.”

“F-for the pool. Of course,” Morgan said. Once a week to top off and not keel over. “That’s…” Real thoughtful. Don’t strain yourself on my account. She had the good sense to taste something wrong in those thoughts and said, “Sensible.” She was running out of clean patches of sheet to wipe her clean with. They needed the first aid tub and the fae salve and a fucking shower. Stars, Morgan could barely smell anymore, but her brain could still concoct some ideas from how filthy everything was.

“Being impaled is a real bitch, though. Even if it’s just your side. For me it was always easy to destroy myself a little when I was grieving. Not just death grieving, any kind. My body acts like the world is ending, life goes on, and it feels kind of crazy to act like everything is fine. But then that’s what everyone else is doing, so I felt like I had to hide it. I’ve never run before though. You should tell me how it feels so I can imagine it.” Finally running out of ways to help with what little she had, Morgan put her hands gently on Mina’s shoulders. “What’s so scary about crying, through? What else do you think is gonna happen if you stop? Come on, we can move while you tell me. You can use my shower to rinse off and I’ll tape you up, okay?”

Mina sighed. “Not the pool, Morgan, no. It’s-- I mean, it’s a nice pool, but I don’t have to stay here. I don’t-- I like it here. I… want to be here. Not because of the pool.” She swallowed, tightly. “You know I’ve… never stayed anywhere for long, right? White Crest is the longest. Here, right here, is in the top three. I want to be here. I don’t-- I don’t have to be. Not even because of the pool.” She could go anywhere. She could go back to that pond in the forest and never move, if she wanted to, and her body would adjust, and it would be okay. But she felt… home was a foreign concept to Mina, but when she thought about it, she pictured this house, these people, even if one of them was someone that she felt like she’d never see again.

“Impaled makes it sound so bad. It barely did anything.” The lie was obvious just from the injury itself, but Mina kept her tone light, the taste of blood familiar on the back of her tongue. “I just need to move,” she said, more honestly. “I’m always-- I always have to move, somehow, someway. My dad would call me fidgety, as a child. All the time I would, well, move. Either my hands or my feet, anything. I just couldn’t stay still. It gets worse, when I’m… emotional.” She allowed Morgan to lead her down the hall with little resistance. She didn’t have much resistance in her anymore. She stumbled a bit. She was tired. She could curl into a ball right there on the floor. She knew she wouldn’t sleep. “If I stand still, I’ll cave in on myself. That’s what it feels like. If I stop to think about anything for too long, I won’t be able to stop. I won’t be able to get up, and I have to keep going. I have to.” She had to do better, starting then, starting the second she stepped out of this house.

Morgan didn’t know what to do with Mina’s assurances except look at her with stupid confusion. Somewhere in her mind, far away in places she had run from in her own way, was a thought from her books about not taking rebuffs and rejections personally. But where she stood now, she could only think, if Mina wanted to be here and felt at home here, then why didn’t she just do that? And since she couldn’t be totally lying, there had to be something wrong with the home or the people in it, and if there was something wrong, why couldn’t she just know so she could fix it. She could fix it. She could.

“I haven’t lived with Deirdre this long without catching how your lies burn your throats,” she said, leading Mina into the bathroom. “Also, I’ve been impaled twice. And it still kinda hurt when Constance got me on a chalkboard with a chair leg, so you’re really trying to convince the wrong person here.” She turned on the water and gestured for Mina to tend to herself and get in. “I’ll get you a better change of clothes and the good stuff we have from Deirdre’s stint at the fae clinic. Okay? The only thing running through town while you’re like this will do is make you stop somewhere you don’t want to be. So you can move by washing up. Then we’ll talk about the rest. But Mina--you won’t cave in, if you stop. Your body is telling you that it will, but your body is just a lonely, heartbroken animal. You won’t collapse. You won’t break. Not the way you’re afraid of. Okay?”

“It usually makes me sick, too, but I feel quite alright.” Lies also gave Mina nosebleeds, but she didn’t care. She didn’t feel one coming on, she couldn’t possibly feel any worse now than she already did, and she just didn’t care. “It’ll make me stop thinking. That’s all I want. I just want to stop thinking.” She looked at Morgan with tired eyes before turning away and stripping and stepping into the shower. She didn’t care. She was still covered in dirt and blood and debris, and she didn’t care. She felt like her feet were going to fall off as she stood still, but she didn’t care. She wanted to keep moving. She’d stop when she passed out.

Morgan closed each door behind her as she went back to Mina’s room and rummaged for some of the clothes she wore to their fighting practice. She thought about erring on the side of impractical. Maybe she wouldn’t be so keen on running away for a week at a time in a dress or pajamas. Maybe Morgan could get one night in the house where she wouldn’t have to be alone. But the more she tried to focus on holding Mina on the couch, or staying up together in the studio, the more she saw Mina tearing out of the house, more vulnerable to the elements than she needed to be. So, activewear.

Then she came back, opening the doors one by one again. She laid some towels near the tub, took out the salve, bandages, and supplies for stitches, just in case.

“Let me know if you need any help,” she called.

Water was usually a reluctant comfort. Sometimes, when Mina had been younger, she’d been uncomfortable with how much she needed it, how much her body would more often than not crave to be in the water. Then, she figured out it was the best way to heal, to get better, and it stopped seeming so damning. Yes, she wished she had the enhanced healing outside of it, but it was a hard world; she’d take what she could get because she had to, even if she didn’t want to. But now it didn’t feel like anything. Dirt and blood swirled down the drain, and it should have been a relief, to be clean. But it wasn’t a relief. She just wanted to leave, to start walking and maybe come back when she wasn’t feeling like this.

And Mina couldn’t help but think it was wrong, that she felt like this, no matter what Morgan said. She shouldn’t be grieving. No one was dead. Nothing had been taken from her. There had never been anything there to be taken. (Maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was what hurt so bad. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.)

Mina was out of the shower and dressed robotically before heading back to Morgan. Being clean showed off the bruises, the cuts and scrapes that had probably been much worse before she’d spent so much time in the pond. She just… hadn’t noticed them. She’d been preoccupied. If her eyes were red, then it was only from a lack of sleep. That was it. That was a lie she could tell herself. “I don’t think I’ll need stitches.”

Morgan lifted Mina’s shirt to examine her side. The shower had done a lot for the wound, but leaving it alone was probably a bad idea if running through the woods was Mina’s idea of self-care. “I think you’re right. Just a bandage and some salve and lots of tape so it doesn’t come loose.” She knelt down and started to work, thinking of ways to treat the more minor injuries as she did. She did not want Mina to go like this and she did not want to be alone in this house.

“You never did tell me what was so bad about crying that one time you did stop,” she said after a while. “That doesn’t sound like breaking to me. Can you tell me more?”

“I started crying and a sianach heard and decided I’d make a lovely meal, and now I’m… here.” Mina sighed. “Sianachs are really lovely creatures in the fact that, if they touch you, you’re going to die, and I’ve been pretty miserable since I left, but not that miserable.” She stood completely still as Morgan worked on her, not looking, not even paying attention. “I stopped, and all I could think about was the fact that I’ve never felt like this, and it’s like I’m being stabbed from the inside, and that’s just a wonderful metaphor, right? See, I’m getting the hang of metaphors. Stopping gets you killed, or at least really close to it.” Mina closed her eyes tightly, tears escaping even when she didn’t want them to. “It hurts. So bad. So bad, Morgan. I can’t-- I feel utterly ridiculous, but it won’t stop.”

“The spinach deer, right,” Morgan said, laughing softly. “We had one charge into this house once. Before you, obviously. I had a panic attack in the middle of the library when I heard about it because one of my ancestors was killed by one, so I thought, yep, that’s it for me and everything I love. Granted, I did die a couple of days later, but that wasn’t the spinach deer’s fault. But in the moment, just hearing that everything familiar that I’d finally come around to thinking would stay, or at least be kind-of-sometimes mine had been destroyed while my back was turned, it did feel like my insides had been ripped through. My lungs, my stomach, my tendons. I tried to leave the building, but I collapsed instead…” She paused to lay the bandage for Mina’s side just so and keep it in place with one strip of tape before adjusting herself to secure it better.

“But the pain you’re running from isn’t about the cursed deer. It’s you, and what you thought you had, and what you thought was yours, and all that space that’s left behind now that those things are gone. And so of course it doesn’t stop. It just does what wounds do: it smarts and it gets infected if you don’t take care of it, and it hurts even when it’s scabbing over, and it numbs out and scars over and fades after a while. It never gets undone. It just heals, or it doesn’t, and then really does keep stabbing you forever, depending on what you choose. There’s nothing ridiculous about that.” She looked up at Mina, all softness. “I am so very sorry, my poor sweet girl. This was your first time being in love at all, wasn’t it?”

Any other time, and Mina might have felt like scolding Morgan over calling something as serious as a sianach a spinach deer, of all things, but she was more caught up in everything else that Morgan was saying, what she was asking. Mina shook her head, the motion jerky. “I’m not in love,” she choked out. And the words did choke her like the lie that they were. If she repeated them, though, maybe they’d be true. “I’m not in love. I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.” And they didn’t taste like iron, now, just blood that had gathered in the back of her throat, that would likely be pouring from her nose in minutes. “This isn’t love. It isn’t. I can’t love people like that. He always told me I couldn’t, and he was right. He was right. I can’t. I’m not supposed to. I’m supposed to do my duty and protect people and not fall in love and I can’t even do any of that right.” She couldn’t protect Bex or herself or anyone, and she couldn’t do what she was supposed to, and, “I’m not in love.”

“Mina--” Morgan reached over for some cotton balls and held them against Mina’s nose. Dark blood was coming down, splitting down the curve of her lips and staining her chin. “Mina, listen to me. He lied. He probably didn’t know that’s what he was doing, but he lied. You can love. Your heart is so big and so steadfast. Of course you can love.” The cotton balls started to drip, so Morgan tossed them into the sink and grabbed more. She urged Mina to sit on the edge of the tub, so she could guide her head forwards easier.

“Lying just makes you hurt worse and longer, honey,” she said. “And I know you don’t want that. I know you want the hurt to stop. But the only way out is through. Don’t hurt yourself worse.” She kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay to be like this. It’s okay to be in love with her. And you did it just fine from what I could tell, especially for your first time. You can say it, it’s okay…”

This really was making just an already horrible time even worse, wasn’t it? Mina sat down and leaned forward, well-versed in the methods of taking care of a nosebleed. She pinched her nose tight and licked the blood off her lips. She’d just gotten clean. She didn’t care. Blood and tears. That was really all she had left, wasn’t it? “I don’t want this, if it’s going to hurt like this,” she managed to say.

Only that stung, too. Another lie, one she hadn’t even realized was one until it dripped off her tongue like acid, and she swallowed tightly against it. Because maybe she didn’t want to feel like this, but it felt real, in its hurt. It felt like the most real thing she’d ever felt. Her throat tight, as if her own body feared that the next thing she’d say would hurt it, Mina said, her voice small, “I love her. So much. And what a piss poor way I had of showing it. I couldn’t protect her, I made a mess of everything, I didn’t even tell her what I was, Morgan.” She tried, the day before, but then Bex’s mother was there, and it felt like the world was ending. It still felt like it was trying to end.

“Hey--” Morgan wrapped Mina in her arms. “What do you mean a poor way of showing it? It’s not your fault she chose what she did. It’s not your fault Frank chose what he did either. Love isn’t about being a bodyguard, Mina. You’re not bad. For two people who were barely shown what love really looks like, you did so well. You did so, so well, Mina. Isn’t it kind of incredible?” She pulled back to cup the girl’s face. “Love is so much a part of who you are and what you’re capable of, you did it without realizing, without knowing how. And it’s a mess, yes, but I think love is supposed to be messy. And you didn’t make it. Not the way you’re saying. You’re okay, Mina. You’re not bad. You’re just a girl who lost her first love.”

“I didn’t tell her,” Mina said, and she felt the same amount of panic building in her chest that had been there the day at the coffee shop. Her heart was pounding, even in Morgan’s arms, and she felt like she was going to crawl out of her skin. “I didn’t tell her, and you were right. You were so right. I should have done it sooner, but I didn’t. I didn’t know how. I still don’t, and it’s too late, and she’s-- I--” A sob forced its way from her chest, and Mina moved her arms, finally putting them around Morgan. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I wasn’t taught to speak about things, or be gentle, or let people help me.” And how strange it was, to her, that the woman in front of her was the one that was teaching her about those things. She was learning to be gentle from a zombie who couldn’t feel things unless pressure was applied. And yet she was one of the gentlest people that Mina knew. She tightened her hold. She was shaking. Everything hurt. It just hurt, and she was in love, and it hurt.

Morgan held Mina tighter and let her cry for a while. She rubbed her back and combed through her damp hair, starting a slow, steady rhythm she hoped would soothe. And if it didn’t soothe, maybe it would give the illusion that the world was still in tune, and she was still dancing in time, and this wall okay. Morgan would have given anything to feel like that herself, but she would settle for Mina.

“You were never taught those things, no,” she said at last. “But you’re learning so much already, so fast. You must be pretty good at it, to pick up so quickly. Especially being gentle. I never saw anyone be more gentle than you were with Bex. And you can learn the rest, if you want. Once you get over the first couple of tries, talking, letting people in, stuff like that, it gets easier. But I would be lying if I said that there’s such a thing as completely knowing what you’re doing. Because no one does. Even with all the experience in the world, doing something new, or with someone new, pretty much feels like you’re making it up as you go. So don’t hold that against yourself. Don’t hold anything that’s happened with Bex against yourself. You can learn without doing that. And you don’t need to hurt any more than you already do.”

She sighed and fit another kiss into her steady rhythm. “Can I help you right now, Mina? Would that be okay?”

It was so dangerous to fall apart like this. Mina knew that. She knew that she’d regret it, probably the next day when she got up and the need to be anywhere else was still there. But she’d allow it, if only for right in that moment, if only because she knew it was safe to do this with Morgan. And while Morgan didn’t make the pain go away, it was somewhat comforting to have someone else there. It made her feel less alone. She could almost believe Morgan, really, if she tried hard enough. If she stopped thinking for too long, stopped listening to the ever present voice in her head, then she could almost believe. But the voice was a bit like the ache. It was always there. It had just been around a bit longer. It sounded a lot like her dad. It sounded a lot like Mina.

“It hurts,” she murmured, and she felt young, younger than she had any right to, younger than she ever had, in saying these words over and over again. She should get up. She should tell Morgan she was okay. She should leave. She should make an escape while she still could. Instead, she said. “Please. For tonight, I-- Please.”

Morgan’s own eyes finally overflowed at hearing Mina’s voice shrink, at hearing her surrender to staying, even for just a night. It didn’t feel as good as she thought it would. But how could anything feel good when Mina was this devastated? “Oh, my love,” she whispered. “Of course. Of course. For as long as you want, even just tonight, I’ve got you.” And so with great care, she scooped her up like the child she still was and carried her out. She did her best not to think about how small and terrible things had become for them, that carrying a frightened girl felt like comfort. She only thought about her next plan (rest and dinner and the right kind of distractions and packing; she hated helping Mina leave her but if she couldn’t stop it, she had to make it good) and the simple fact that in the sunken places their heartbreak had made for them, for once, for a little while, they weren’t alone.

Mina went rigid the second Morgan picked her up, her eyes widening before she forced herself not to flinch, not to react too strongly. In theory, she knew Morgan was strong enough to pick her up. She had picked her up, months ago, in a desperate race against time to get her from the car to the bathtub after the werewolf attack. But it was still strange. Morgan could pick up passed out werewolves to put in the basement and animal carcasses to take to her shed, and it didn’t phase Mina, but the second Morgan picked her up, it took her brain too long to process.

She was still processing that as Morgan ordered food, and still processing it when she put on The Sound of Music, and still processing it as they sat on the couch as the food arrived. Surely Mina ate. Surely she fell asleep. She blinked as it was morning, and she blinked again and they were in her room, packing up some of her clothes. “I’m not… you know I’m not leaving for good, right? I’m not.” But even as she said it, Mina wondered how long it would take her desire to keep moving to make her want to leave town. This was the longest she’d stayed anywhere. Maybe this was a sign that it was time to go. But she didn’t want that. But it might be.

“No,” Morgan admitted quietly. “I don’t. Because I release you from your promise to come back.” She no longer had the strength to be resentful about it, or to conceal the plaintive waver in her voice that underscored her words with please tell me I’m wrong, tell me I don’t have to do this by myself, tell me I’m not losing you too. “I don’t want to be the kind of person who traps you with them against your will. I don’t want you to come just because you made some reckless promise to make me feel better.” But I do want you here. Why do you even have to go? You know it won’t help, so don’t go, please don’t go. “So...I don’t really know anything,” she sniffled. “Here, don’t forget your battery pack. Not a lot of outlets in the woods. And this first aid bag, in case anything else happens…”

She looked around the room but found nothing else to shove into Mina’s backpack that would do any good.

“There is stuff for breakfast,” she added quickly. “You should have a big meal before whatever you’re doing. Or for lunch. I can cook and pack it up for you, if that’s better. And…” And what else? “...Will you tell me to my face, please? When you go today, can you...say goodbye? And call or message or...something if you can if you do decide to...I-I know I haven’t confided much in you about my history, but I’ve lost so many people without a word, without a chance to say goodbye, so...I would appreciate it if you didn’t disappear while my back was turned or anything. It doesn’t make anything better.”

“Morgan…” And Mina didn’t quite know what to do, so she put down the shirt that she was holding and walked over and hugged Morgan, tightly. She didn’t even think about it too hard; she just did it, the action right. “I’m going to come back. I’m not going fully wild, you know. I like camping, really, but I like four walls and somewhere to keep my clothes so they don’t get all wrinkly.” She sighed. “I’m going to come back. I’m not even taking all of my stuff. I might just stay at the little house near Dark Score, make use of the rent money that comes out of my account every month. But I’ll be back, and I’ll be on campus, and I’ll always be around.” She didn’t promise it. She hoped Morgan knew she meant it.

Mina had never known comfort like this, or care, or love. Not like this. This was gentler than anything she ever had, so gentle that most of the time she didn’t know what to do with it. She felt like she’d break it, shatter it, make it to where Morgan wanted nothing to do with her anymore. And she wanted to trust this gentleness, but it was so hard. And she was a coward. She always ran in the end. She always turned her head away in the end. “Breakfast sounds lovely,” she said. “And of course I’ll tell you. Last night was stupid. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be one of those people to you. I’ll let you know before I leave today. I promise. But I’m coming back. I’m telling you now that I’m coming back.” Morgan was one of her people, and she was in short supply of those. She wasn’t going to leave without keeping in touch. She’d promise that, too, if she needed to.

Morgan squeezed her arms around Mina until she could feel the curve of her arms and the sharp ends of her shoulder blades. There was nothing left to say that wouldn’t be a crime against one of them.There were no more assurances she could ask for. There were only the last steps of her plan (downstairs for breakfast, get Mina to take some lunch anyway, get her to help with the dishes) and the empty, unclaimed hours that lay beyond them. It was like lights flickering off halfway down a strange hall. You know there’s ground ahead, that’s how halls work, but there’s no certainty in the dark. There’s nothing but hope to keep you from falling.

#wr mina #wr chatzy #wr mina chatzy #emotional abuse tw #running in the dark

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myownsuperintendent · 4 years ago

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Fic: “Through the Years”

Scully, Mulder, Emily, and William experience life as a family through the years. Family fluff. I moved Baby #3 up five-ish years to make it less ridiculous. Rated T for mild sexual content. Also here at Ao3.

.....

They come up the stairs to her apartment, Scully carrying the bags. “This is it,” she says. “This is…this’ll be home.” Emily doesn’t say anything; she’s been quiet since they got on the plane this morning. Scully tried talking to her, pointing to the clouds and the tiny houses below, telling her about the fun things they’d do once they got to Washington. Eventually she let her sleep. She knows this won’t be perfect, not all at once. But she can’t help it: she has so much hope.

“Do you want to go in?” she asks. “See your room?” Emily nods, after a moment, and Scully unlocks the door and goes in.

Emily’s room should be ready, even though Scully’s been staying out in California with her. They ordered furniture from a catalogue—she let Emily pick out her new bed and sheets—and they packed up the things from Emily’s old room and had them shipped. She wanted it to be here for Emily when they arrived. Mulder’s been a help to her with all of it; he came over to her place to supervise the delivery. “Everything accounted for,” he told her over the phone yesterday. “I didn’t even injure myself setting up the bed.”

She laughed. “Thank you,” she said. “Really, thank you so much for…for everything you’ve done.” She hasn’t said anything to him, but she is worried that this will change things between them; she knows she won’t be able to travel as much, for one thing, and so the way they work will have to be different. She worried he might resent that, but so far there aren’t any signs of it; he seems as excited about the new direction her life is taking as she does.

“It’s nothing, Scully,” he said. “Any way I can help. Let me know.”

“Thank you,” she repeated, softly, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

And when she opens the door to what used to be a spare room, a place for her to store extra books, it’s Emily’s bedroom: everything they picked out is there. The new sheets are on the new bed, Emily’s picture books and stuffed animals are on the shelves, and there’s a night light on the wall. “Here we are, sweetie,” she says. “What do you think?”

Emily goes over to the bed. “What’s that?” she asks.

Scully looks; there’s a teddy bear sitting in the center of the bed, along with a little book. A card is propped against the bear. “Looks like it might be a present for you,” she says. “Should we read the card?” Emily nods, and Scully opens it. “Dear Emily,” she reads. “I hope you like your new room. Since I missed your birthday and Christmas this year, I wanted to give you some belated presents. Maybe I’ll see you soon. Mulder.”

Emily’s already holding the bear. “What’s belated?”

“It means late,” Scully explains. “Since it’s after your birthday and Christmas.” He didn’t have to get Emily presents at all, of course. He didn’t have to, but he did.

“Can we read the book?” Emily asks.

“Sure we can,” Scully says. She takes a seat on the bed, and Emily leans against her; she’s shy sometimes, but she seems to like this kind of proximity when Scully is reading to her. They do that a lot, because sometimes it’s the simplest way for them to be together: one that doesn’t bring up any troubles or uncertainties. The book Mulder gave Emily is called The Little Fur Family, and it has a fuzzy cover, which Emily touches gently while Scully reads.

When the book is finished, Scully shows Emily the rest of the apartment; Emily follows her, still not saying much. She carries the bear under her arm. “His name is Buttons,” she says, while they’re eating supper (Scully really needs to get groceries, after a month and a half spent in California, but luckily she found a box of macaroni and cheese in the cabinet).

“That’s a good name,” Scully says. “Would you like to call Mulder after we eat? I want to tell him we’re back, and you could tell him that you named Buttons.”

“Okay,” Emily says.

Mulder answers quickly when she calls. “Hey, Scully,” he says. “You home?”

“We’re home,” she confirms, looking down at Emily, who is sitting next to her on the couch. “Thank you for setting up the room. It looks wonderful.”

“Really, it was no trouble,” he says. “Glad to do it. Did Emily see her presents?”

“She did,” Scully says. “She has something she wants to say to you.” She hands Emily the phone.

“Hi,” Emily says, her voice coming out whispery. “Thank you…The bear’s name is Buttons.” She seems to have run out to things to say now; she looks up at Scully questioningly, and Scully takes back the phone.

“She really likes them,” she says. “Thank you so much, Mulder. You really didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to,” he says. “She deserves them.”

Scully smiles. “Well, thank you. I want to…I think we’ll take the next couple of days to settle in, the two of us. But after that…we’ll see you soon?”

“Of course,” he says, and she’s happy, when she hangs up the phone.

Emily wants to read The Little Fur Family again before bed, and Scully reads it to her before tucking her in, pulling the new comforter gently up under her chin. “Sleep well,” she says. “You remember where my room is?” Emily nods, sleepily. “Well, I’ll be right in there if you need me. I’ll leave the door open.” Emily nods again. “Good night, Emily. I love you.” She hugs her daughter tightly. She still can’t believe it all.

“Good night, Dana,” Emily says, in her soft voice, and Scully kisses her cheek and turns out the light.

It takes her a while to settle down—aside from the events of the day, her body’s still on California time—but she’s asleep herself when she hears Emily’s voice, suddenly. She sits up, trying not to panic, and turns on the light next to her bed; Emily’s standing next to it, crying. “Dana,” she says, “I had a bad dream.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Scully says, jumping out of bed, stooping down next to Emily, putting her arms around her. “It’s all right now. I’m right here. I’m right here.”

“My mommy…” Emily sobs, in the most heartbreaking voice Scully has ever heard.

“I know, sweetheart,” she says. “I know it makes you sad.”

She walks Emily back to bed, tucking her in again, drying her tears and stroking her hair. “I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep again,” she says. “How does that sound?”

“Okay,” Emily says, still with a choke in her voice.

“I’m right here,” she says again. “And I love you so much.”

She lies down next to Emily, although there isn’t much space on the little bed. She strokes her hair back and forth, humming a lullaby off-key. She isn’t sure when Emily falls asleep. At some point she falls asleep too.

.....

Scully’s mom called to say that she’ll be late—there’s a lot of traffic—so the three of them are waiting in the living room now. Emily’s huddled into a corner of the couch. “Where are you going?” she asks, not for the first time this afternoon.

“To dinner, sweetie,” Scully says. “But you’ll have lots of fun with Grandma. And we’ll be back later.” Mulder nods.

“Why can’t I come?” Emily asks.

Scully isn’t sure what to tell her. She kissed Mulder for the first time a month and a half ago—on this very couch, while Emily was sleeping down the hall, after the three of them had spent the day together—and since then the two of them have been, well, dating she guesses is the word for it, although it feels a little simplistic considering the history of their relationship. So far it’s going well. More than well. But she hasn’t wanted to tell Emily yet, just in case. She knows it’s not a good idea to introduce things like this into kids’ lives too quickly. And that’s even in cases where those children haven’t already gone through a lot of upheaval.

So she just says, “Mulder and I are going to spend a little time just the two of us. Because we’re friends and—”

“Mulder’s my friend too,” Emily says. “Aren’t you?” she adds, quickly, glancing up at him.

“Of course I am, Em,” he says. “What I think your mom is saying—”

“Why don’t you stay here anymore, then?” Emily asks. “Why don’t we all play together? We used to, and now…now we don’t!” And she bursts into tears then, her face pressed against the cushion. “Why doesn’t Mulder stay?” she asks again, sobbing.

Scully scoops her up, feeling horrible. Emily has a point: it used to always be the three of them, whenever Mulder came over, and now it isn’t, not always. She’d thought they were still spending plenty of time together aside from their dates, but apparently it isn’t enough for Emily. She’d thought she was protecting Emily from change; instead, she’s just made it worse.

“Oh, Emily,” she says. “I’m so sorry. Don’t cry, sweetie.”

“We didn’t mean to make you sad, Em,” Mulder adds, hovering over them, looking as upset as she feels.

“Why…do you…eat dinner…without…me?” Emily asks, in between sobs.

Scully makes a snap parenting the decision, the kind she’s had to make a lot of since last year and doesn’t feel used to yet. But she’s hoping the truth will be less painful for Emily. “Emily, Mulder and I…we’ve been going on dates. Do you know what that means?”

“No,” Emily says.

Scully tries to think of an explanation that will be within Emily’s frame of reference. She’s seen a number of Disney movies, which have probably been her biggest exposure to romance, but they tend to go for the love at first sight angle. But she can’t think of anything better, not quickly enough, anyway, with Emily still crying in her lap. “You know in Beauty and the Beast,” she says, “when they eat breakfast together and they play in the snow? And then they dance?” From the way Mulder is looking at her, she guesses she sounds insane.

But Emily latches on to the explanation. “Oh,” she says. “So it’s like falling in love?”

“Well…” Scully begins. She hasn’t used that word yet, with Mulder. She’s thought about it, but she hasn’t said it out loud.

Emily hasn’t stopped talking, though. She turns to Mulder now. “Do you love Mommy?”

Scully’s breath catches. But before she can say anything, tell Emily that she shouldn’t ask that, Mulder speaks. “I do.”

“Oh. That’s good,” Emily says, although Scully’s only dimly aware of it. “But why does that mean we can’t have dinner together?” She wipes her eyes.

“We…we can,” Scully manages. “We just…we didn’t tell you everything before, because we thought it would be a surprise for you.”

Emily looks at her, her head tipped to one size. “No,” she says, finally. “Not a surprise.” Scully is beginning to get a little annoyed with this kind of reaction. Her mom (“Well, it’s about time, dear”) was one thing, and Skinner’s knowing look when he bumped into them holding hands last weekend was another. But to have her four-year-old daughter tell her that it’s not a surprise…At least Emily looks happier now, though, and Scully gives her a hug.

“How about we stay home tonight, after all?” she says. “And when Grandma gets here, we can all have dinner together.” She gives Mulder a half-apologetic look, but he doesn’t seem upset at all. And looking at him makes her think of what he just said. He loves me, she thinks. She has to tell him; she can’t let him think it’s all on one side. But there’s Emily sitting right in between them.

She gets her chance soon enough, though. Her mom arrives, and Emily wants to show her the drawings she did in preschool that day, and Mulder offers to help Scully make dinner. He follows her into the kitchen, standing close to her as she takes vegetables out of the refrigerator and pasta out of the cabinet. “I didn’t plan to tell you like that,” he says. His voice is soft, almost self-conscious.

She turns and smiles at him. “I’m not complaining. Maybe Emily knows how to run this thing better than we do.” She steps up, takes his hand. “I love you too,” she says, the words coming out in a breath.

“Yeah?” he says.

“Yeah,” she says. “Really.” His smile makes her feel warm. And she stretches up and kisses him, fairly chastely since her mom and Emily are right there, but hoping he’ll get the intention behind it. From the way he holds her, his arms tightly around her waist, she thinks he does.

Emily comes running into the kitchen then. “What are we having?” she asks.

“Spaghetti and vegetables,” Scully tells her.

“You want to help me and your mom?” Mulder asks. He hoists her up into the air, and she shrieks with joy. Scully knows how she feels.

.....

Mulder hears the door creak open, and Emily bounds in, landing on the foot of the bed. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Emily,” Scully says. “Remember that talk we had? About knocking?” They’re both fully clothed, because they know she’ll forget, but they’re hoping the message will sink in one of these days.

“Sorry,” Emily says. “I did remember. But I was just excited for today.”

“So’re we,” Mulder says. He ruffles her hair as she slides up to lie between them.

“What time are we going?” she asks.

“Our appointment’s at eleven,” Scully says. “So we have three hours.”

“That’s so long,” Emily says, pouting. “Three whole hours?”

“It’ll go faster than you think,” Mulder says, even though he secretly agrees. “Should we get up and have breakfast?”

Making breakfast distracts Emily a little, although he can tell that she’s still excited; she bounces up and down and pours extra maple syrup onto the pancakes. Scully catches his eye and smiles, and he smiles back at her. Emily’s right. It’s a momentous day.

They’re out of the house at last, in the car, driving to the courthouse. They’ve all dressed nicely; he’s wearing a suit, and Emily is wearing the blue dress they got her for the wedding. She’s still smiling, although Mulder’s a little nervous, and he thinks Scully is too. He doesn’t know why they should be—they were told that this second hearing was largely a formality—but maybe because it means so much. They each take one of Emily’s hands as they walk into the courthouse, and she looks up at them. Her face is serious now; maybe she’s caught the mood.

But everything goes as it should, as they’ve been told it would. They leave the courthouse with a copy of the adoption certificate: his name is on it, listed as Emily’s father. She’s already been calling him her dad since he and Scully got married, but it means something that now it’s official. They all feel it. He stoops to hug Emily before they get back in the car, kissing the top of her head.

They go out for lunch afterwards, and they get ice cream too; that’s part of his job as Emily’s dad, he thinks, buying her ice cream. She sits by his side in the restaurant booth, scraping the bowl with her spoon, and leans against his shoulder.

When the waitress brings the check, he says to her, “Would you mind taking a picture of the three of us?”

“Sure,” she says. “Not at all.”

They hang it on the refrigerator, the picture of him and Scully and Emily, all sitting together, all smiling. A family in print.

.....

William’s the most incredible thing Mulder’s ever seen—and he’s seen a lot of incredible things. He’s been alive for twelve hours now, and the novelty hasn’t worn off one bit in that time. He can’t take his eyes off his son, a tiny bundle in Scully’s arms.

“Hi there,” Scully says to William, who’s staring up at them both. His eyes are blue. “Do you know that we love you more than anything? Because we really, really do.”

“Your mom’s right,” Mulder says. William yawns, and he marvels. “He just…he’s amazing, Scully.”

“Isn’t he?” She looks exhausted and overjoyed.

Maggie stayed with Emily overnight, but they should be on their way to the hospital now. Mulder wonders how Emily’s going to take to her brother. A part of him can’t imagine anyone not adoring William, but he knows that Emily’s been anxious about not being the only child anymore. Especially during the last few months of Scully’s pregnancy, she clung to the two of them, wanting seemingly constant attention. “Will you love me as much as the baby?” she asked, only a few days ago, and even though they told her that of course they would, trying to reassure her with hugs and soothing words, she still looked unsure.

There’s a tap at the door to the hospital room. “May we come in?” Maggie’s voice.

“Yes, come on in!” Scully calls.

The door opens, revealing Maggie and Emily, who’s clinging tightly to a bunch of flowers. “Mommy! Daddy!” she says. “I missed you.”

“We missed you too, sweetie,” Scully says. Mulder takes William, and she holds out her arms. “Come here so I can give you a hug.”

“Gently,” Mulder adds, as Emily runs towards her mother. She stops for a minute and then slows her steps, giving Scully a careful hug.

“We brought you flowers,” she says, as if just remembering; the bouquet is a little crushed now from the hug, but Scully takes it anyway, smiling.

“They’re so beautiful,” she says. “Did you pick them out with Grandma?” Emily nods, and Scully kisses her cheek. “Well, thank you both so much.”

Emily’s looking up at William. “Is that him?” she asks.

“Yes,” Scully says. “That’s your brother. Do you know what his name is?”

“William,” Emily says. “Grandma told me. After she talked to Daddy on the phone.”

“That’s right,” Scully says. “Do you want to say hello to him?”

“Okay,” Emily says. They all crowd around; Mulder moves, carefully, to sit on the bed next to Scully and Emily, and Maggie comes by too, wanting to get a look at her grandson.

“This is William,” he says, softly. “William, this is your grandmother. And this is your big sister, Emily.”

“Oh, he’s so sweet!” Maggie exclaims. “Look at that face! I think he looks like you, Dana.”

“I think so too,” Mulder says.

Emily is staring. “He’s so little,” she says finally, in a soft, awed voice. “I didn’t know he’d be so little.”

“Well, he’s brand new,” Scully says. “Not even a whole day old. Do you want to say hi to him?”

“Hi,” Emily says. Her voice is still soft, almost a whisper and very, very gentle. “Hi, baby William. I’m Emily. You’re so, so little.” She looks up at them. “His hands are so little.”

“They are,” Mulder says. “If you touch his hand with your finger, he’ll grab it.”

Emily looks astonished. “Will he, really?”

“Try and see,” Mulder says.

Emily places her index finger gently against William’s hand, and his own fingers curl around it, gripping tightly. “Wow,” she says. “Wow.”

“Would you like to try holding him for a little bit?” Scully asks.

“Oh,” Emily says, “oh, could I?” There’s longing in her voice.

“Why don’t you sit in the chair,” Mulder says, “and I’ll bring him over to you?” Emily nods quickly, taking a seat in the chair next to the bed, and Mulder hands her William, carefully, supporting her arms with his own at first. “You have to keep one hand under his head,” he tells her. “Like this, see?” Emily nods seriously, mimicking what he’s doing. Even when he takes his arms away, he hovers near the chair. Emily’s right: William is so little, and so precious.

“I’m your big sister,” Emily is saying to William. “Your big sister. And I’m going to take care of you. Because you’re so little.”

So far, so good, Mulder thinks. She doesn’t seem like she’s upset about William being here. He looks at Scully, who’s watching Emily hold her brother with an incredible smile on her face. He bends over to kiss her cheek.

They go home from the hospital the next afternoon. They settle William into his crib, and then Mulder helps Scully get settled too, putting her things away for her, arranging her pillows until he’s sure that she’s comfortable. “Mulder,” she says. “You don’t have to do all of this.”

“You just had a baby, Scully,” he points out. “Two days ago, in fact. You know, I couldn’t do what you did.”

“Yeah,” Scully says, grinning. “I don’t think that’s physically possible.”

“You know what I mean,” he says. “You’re incredible. A force of nature. And you deserve to rest now. While William’s sleeping. You will rest, won’t you?”

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll rest. Since William’s sleeping, and all.” He can tell she’s tired from her voice, from the way she settles back on the bed. He leaves her to sleep then, thinking he’ll look in on William. He wants to make sure everything’s okay with him.

As he heads toward the nursery, he can hear Emily’s voice. Hoping she’s not waking William up, he opens the door carefully. William’s awake, but he’s not crying or fussing, just staring at his sister. She has her face pressed up against the bars of the crib, and she’s reading aloud. Mulder can see the book in her hands. The Little Fur Family.

“Em?” he says. “What are you doing, sweetie?”

She turns to look at him. “I’m just reading to him. To keep him company. He likes the book.”

Mulder smiles at her. “Can I sit with the two of you?”

“Yes,” Emily says, and Mulder takes a seat in the rocking chair, his eyes on his children. Emily finishes the book, closing the covers carefully. “I can read you another book later,” she says to William. “I have a lot of good ones.” He blinks at her, and she turns to Mulder. “Daddy?”

“Yes, Emily?”

“I really love him,” she says. “I think I’m going to love him forever.”

“Me too,” Mulder says. He stoops down and hugs her. “And I’m going to love you forever too.”

They sit quietly in the nursery, the three of them, until Scully comes in to join them. She feeds William, then, while Mulder gets dinner together for the rest of them. He’s tired too—he can feel it, somewhere in the back of his mind—but right now he doesn’t care.

.....

It’s one of those days when William just keeps fussing and fussing. Emily usually likes to play with him, but not right now, not when he just cries whatever she does. Mommy says that he might be getting new teeth; she’s trying to get him to stop crying by giving him things to chew on. But Emily’s tired of it, right now, so she goes to see if she can find Daddy.

She finds him sitting on the back steps, looking out at the yard. She sits down next to him. “Hi,” she says.

“Hi, Em,” he says. He doesn’t look at her when he says it, so she tries to figure out what he is looking at. The flowers, she thinks.

“Are those the ones you planted?” she asks. “For…for Samantha?” She isn’t sure if she should say Aunt Samantha, because Samantha was Daddy’s sister and that would make her Emily’s aunt, if she were here, but Emily never met her. She died a long time ago, she knows. That’s why Daddy planted the flowers when they moved into the house, earlier this year, and Mommy helped. They planted them at the house, because Samantha was dead but Daddy didn’t have a cemetary to visit for her, like you do with most dead people. Emily couldn’t see them then—they were just seeds—but now she can; they’re bright yellow ones.

Daddy nods. “Yes.”

“They’re pretty,” she says. “Do they make you sad, though? To look at?” His face looks a little sad.

“The flowers? They don’t make me sad, exactly,” Daddy says. “They just make me think about Samantha. And that makes me sad, sometimes. Because I miss her.”

Emily nods. “I’m still sad when I think about my other mommy and daddy, sometimes,” she says. “Even though that was a long time ago too.”

Daddy puts an arm around her. “I think we all feel sad,” he says, “when we think about people we miss.”

“Was it a really long time ago?” Emily asks. “When she died, I mean.” She thinks it must be, because she’s seen a picture of Daddy with Samantha, and he was only a kid in it. An older kid, but still.

“Yes, a long time ago,” Daddy says.

“How old were you?” Emily asks.

“Well, I was twelve the last time I saw her,” Daddy says. “And she was eight then.”

Eight’s not a lot bigger than Emily. She doesn’t really like to think about it. “Did you play together?” she asks. “Like me and William?”

“We did,” Daddy says. “Sometimes we’d play outside, on nice days like this. That’s why I decided to come out to look at the flowers. Just to remember her. Just to think.”

Sometimes people like you to be quiet when they think, Emily knows. “Do you want me to go back inside?” she asks. “So you can think?”

He smiles at her. “No, that’s okay, Em. You’re not keeping me from thinking.”

They sit and look at the flowers together then. “I think they’re really pretty,” Emily says. “I bet she would like them so much.” Daddy doesn’t say anything. “Would we all play together?” she asks. “If she were here?”

He smiles at her, but his eyes look sad. “I bet we would,” he says, and he hugs her tight.

She hugs him back. “It’s okay to be sad,” she says, because Mommy and Daddy tell her that sometimes.

“Yeah, Em,” he says. “You’re right.”

They sit there for a while longer, and when they go back inside she gives William a hug too. Because he is her brother, even if he fusses a lot.

.....

It's been a busy several weeks. They’ve both been swamped at work, and then the kids have been passing a series of bugs back and forth between them. Scully knows it’s entirely out of their control, but after the third week of sniffling and coughing she wondered if they were doing something like licking the walls in the school bathrooms. Childhood illnesses are something she’s equipped to deal with, and she’s very grateful that her children are facing nothing worse, but that doesn’t make it any more fun.

She’s barely had any time to spend with Mulder, either, outside of the daily round. They’ve been tag teaming work and childcare and housework (the latter pretty minimal at this point), but something’s had to give, and unfortunately that something’s proved to be them as a couple. They’re too exhaused, most nights, to do anything more than smile at each other over the dinner table and then fall asleep as soon as their heads touch the pillow. She remembers days in the office, in the car together, in motel rooms, when she was sure she was going to die if she didn’t get to touch him. Now she’s got the chance, and she doesn’t have the energy to take advantage of it.

She tucks in Emily one night; she thinks Emily’s getting over whatever she has, although she doesn’t want to count on anything by now. “Are you feeling any better, sweetie?” she asks.

“I think so,” Emily says. She still sounds congested, but not as much as she did yesterday.

“Well, I’m sure sleep will help you,” Scully says. “Good night, Emily.”

“Good night, Mom,” Emily says. Scully turns out the light and leaves the room.

Mulder’s sitting on their bed, working on something on his computer. “Hey,” he says, when she comes in. “Just trying to get this lesson plan done. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says. She opens her drawer to look for pajamas. “I’m behind on that too.” She sighs.

Mulder looks up. “You doing okay?” he asks. “I mean, I guess none of us are doing great right now, but under the circumstances?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she says. She flops down next to him, just for a minute, and promises herself she won’t fall asleep in her clothes. At least tomorrow’s Saturday, thank goodness. “I just hate feeling like I’m dropping the ball.”

“You’re not dropping the ball,” Mulder says. “Life happens to everyone.”

She knows he means it. She knows she should accept the comfort. She thinks it’s probably easier to extend yourself that kind of grace when you’re not trying to be a woman in a workplace that’s still dominated by men. When your male students don’t talk to you with condescenscion. When you’re not being told what you have to do to be a good agent and what you have to do to be a good mother and finding impossible gaps in between them. She knows if she told Mulder this he would listen. But she doesn’t feel like it.

“I guess,” she says.

“Also,” he says, “I know we haven’t had much time to think about it, but do you have any ideas about what you want to do next Sunday?”

Sleep for fifteen hours, she thinks. “Is something going on next Sunday?”

“Yeah,” he says, “our anniversary.”

Shit, she’s an idiot. Add good wife to the list of impossible roles she’s trying to play right now. “I lost track of the dates. Sorry.”

“Hey,” he says. “It’s okay.” He kisses her cheek.

“It’s not okay,” she says. “I just…I wish we had more time for us.”

“We’ll get through this,” he says. “The kids are getting over their…whatever it is they have this time. And then we’ll catch up on work and…we’ll get through this.”

She knows he’s right, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. “I’ll think about next Sunday,” she says. “Try to come up with something.”

“Surprise me,” he says. “You’re good at that.”

“You’re good at it too,” she says. He’s never stopped surprising her, in all these years together. That’s one thing she can be glad about.

They don’t talk about it more right then, because they’re still exhausted. He finishes up the lesson plan, and she puts on her pajamas, and they both fall into bed.

Scully does try to think about their anniversary though, in between all the other things that make up her day. What she’d really like would be just for the two of them to have some time alone together, some time to relax and enjoy each other—that seems special enough right now. Maybe she can enlist her mom, she thinks, get her to take Emily and William for the day. She calls her, in between classes, and her mom says she’s happy to do it, that she’d expected to be asked, even. So that’s one part of the problem solved. Now she just has to figure out what to do with the rest of the time, if she should plan something or just let it unroll spontaneously. She doesn’t want to half-ass things, but then sometimes the spontaneous days, with the two of them, are the best ones.

She doesn’t have that much time to dwell on it over the course of the week, though. Emily and William are both healthy again, back in school, but that means extra time to devote to catching up on the work she let slide when they were sick. In her spare time, she wonders if Mulder is planning anything. It would be nice to let someone else do the work for once. Still, she wants him to know how much she appreciates him too.

And before she knows it, it’s Saturday night, and she still hasn’t come up with much of anything. At least she has the babysitting locked down. “My mom’s going to watch Emily and William tomorrow,” she tells Mulder. “So we can have some time alone.”

“Yeah, I know,” Mulder says, and, in response to her inquiring look, he adds, “I called to ask her, and she said you’d already arranged it.”

“Oh,” she says. “Great minds think alike, I guess.”

“Absolutely,” Mulder says. “Do you have a surprise planned for tomorrow, Scully?”

“Sure,” she says. She doesn’t add that if there’s a surprise, it will be a surprise to her, too. He smiles at her. She’s afraid he’s planned something elaborate, something to which anything she can plan in the next few hours won’t possibly measure up.

When he’s gone downstairs to look for a book, she digs through her underwear drawer—maybe there’s something she can wear in there, something special that he hasn’t seen in a while. They don’t often have time to make an occasion out of sex these days; of course, it’s still enjoyable when it’s not an occasion, but since it’s their anniversary, well, she wants it to be at least a little special. A lot of what she finds is depressingly practical, but near the bottom there’s a black set…She’s not even sure when she got it. But it’s pretty. Lace trim, red ribbons at the hips and the cleavage. She picks it up, looks at it. She likes what she sees. She wants Mulder to like her in it, but she thinks it might make her feel good too.

She stuffs it back into the drawer when she hears Mulder coming down the hall, but she’s smiling now. At least she has something planned. Even if it’s not elaborate, it’s special.

Her mom picks the kids up late in the morning, and then it’s just the two of them.

The energy feels different, as soon as the door closes. A day for her and Mulder, with no responsibilities. She feels like a kid playing hooky. She feels delicious. She feels like she wants Mulder to find out what she’s wearing under her t-shirt and jeans.

She thinks he feels the same, from the way he’s looking at her, and that’s before he presses her back against the wall and kisses her. She kisses him back, abandoning herself to it. Today she wants to be exhausted again, but only in the best way.

“So I have to admit,” Mulder says, drawing back from the kiss, “that I didn’t come up with much of a surprise for today. Because I just wanted to spend time with you.”

“I want that too,” she says. “Mine’s only a little surprise. But I think you’ll like it.”

“I’m sure,” he says. “Right now, I want to take you upstairs and make love to you. How does that sound?”

“I like what you’ve got in mind,” she says.

“And we can do that until we get tired of it,” he says, “or until our limbs don’t work any more. Whichever comes first.”

“I don’t think,” she says, “that I’m going to get tired of it.”

He half-carries her up the stairs.

This is what she needed, Scully thinks, as they kiss and kiss and kiss. As they pull at each other’s clothes; she tugs his shirt off and runs her hands down his chest, and he grabs her shirt too, pulling it over her head. And then he stops and looks.

“Scully,” he says. Just that word, just her name, but that and his look are enough. Even before he says, “God, you’re so beautiful.” And he says that again, when he has her jeans off and he’s looking at her. And “You’re so fucking sexy.”

They make love until she feels boneless, utterly sated, more content than she’s been in weeks, and so full of love for him. Then they drag themselves down to the kitchen, where they make a meal out of various leftovers. It’s not exactly a fancy anniversary dinner, but Scully can’t think of anything she’d rather do than be here with him. From the way he’s smiling at her, she can tell that he feels the same.

“So I did get you a little something,” he says, when they’ve finished eating. He opens the freezer, takes it out, and presents it to her. Rocky road ice cream, the good brand, the kind she doesn’t keep in the house because she knows one of two things will happen: the kids will eat it before she gets a chance to, or she’ll have to scarf it down to keep that from happening. But the kind she likes the best.

“Thank you,” she says. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he says. “And hey…I wanted you to know that I’m proud of you. You do an amazing job with everything, even in crazy weeks like this one.” He smiles at her. “You deserve to feel good about that.”

She didn’t tell him how she was feeling in so many words, but he knew. She doesn’t answer him in so many words either, but she kisses him long and slow.

She eats the ice cream right out of the carton; she offers Mulder some, out of obligation, but he doesn’t take any, except for a little that he licks off her lips. “What time is your mom bringing the kids back?” he asks.

She looks at the clock. “Around seven, I think. She said she’d give them supper. We still have a few hours. Back to bed?”

“You read my mind,” he says.

They make love again, and then they doze next to each other, which is almost as pleasurable, in its own way. She’s so happy they had this day for just them. But she’s truly happy, too, when the doorbell rings and they go down to hug their children hello.

.....

Emily’s really good at baseball. She plays with high schoolers, a lot of the time, even though she’s only in middle school, and she’s the shortest one and the only girl, mostly. She’s William’s favorite baseball player. He likes some other ones too, but Emily’s special because she’s his sister and he actually knows her. The other baseball players he likes he only gets to see from far away.

He also gets to play with her. Even though she’s so good, she’ll always play catch with him. She can throw the ball really fast, he’s seen her, but when they play together she throws it slowly so he can catch it. She helps him practice hitting too, and she’ll run around and catch the balls he hits, even though a lot of them don’t go where he means them to go, and sometimes she has to run a really long way.

“It’s okay,” she’ll tell him. “That’s why you practice. I had to practice a lot, to get to where I am.” Sometimes when Emily says things like that, their dad says that she’s twelve going on twenty-five. William’s not sure what that means, but he thinks it’s a good thing, because he always smiles when he says it.

William wishes he could be as good as Emily, even though she tells him she wasn’t that good when she was six. Everybody in their family likes baseball. They all like to watch it, but William’s the only one who can’t really play it. When Emily practices with just their mom and dad, they can go fast, but when he plays with them, they have to go slow. Emily’s a lot older than him, and mostly he likes that because she can teach him things and stick up for him and they don’t really fight a lot. But sometimes he wishes he could be bigger, so that he could be good at things like she is.

They’re playing catch together in the yard one day when their dad comes outside too. “How’s it going?” he asks them.

“Good, Dad,” Emily says. “I’m trying to show William how to throw the ball overhand. Want to show Dad, William?”

So he tries, but the ball doesn’t go where he wants it to go. It almost goes into Emily’s face, but she ducks. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s hard.”

“That’s okay, Will,” Emily says. “You just have to keep trying.”

“You’ll get it soon, buddy,” their dad says. But William doesn’t know if he will or not. He knows Emily says she had to practice a lot to be good, but he doesn’t remember her ever not being good.

“I guess,” he says softly. They play for a little longer, and then Emily says that she has homework to do, and she goes inside. William sits down on the steps.

His dad sits down next to him. “Everything okay, Will?” he asks.

“I wish I could be good at baseball,” William says. “Everyone else is.”

“You’re still learning,” his dad says. “What matters is that you have fun with it. Do you have fun playing?”

William thinks about it. Sometimes he does, but sometimes he doesn’t, because it’s hard. “I guess I do,” he says. “Usually.”

His dad looks at him for a minute, and then he squeezes his shoulders. “You don’t have to play if it’s not fun,” he says. “You can take a break.” But that just makes William feel worse, like his dad doesn’t think he should keep playing. Because maybe he’ll never be good like Emily. He just shrugs then, and he stays sitting there while his dad goes inside. He bounces the ball up and down, and then it rolls away.

He's watching it when his mom comes outside. “Hey, Will,” she says. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” William says.

“Your dad told me you were feeling a little sad,” she says. “About baseball.” She sits down on the step behind him, and he leans against her legs.

“Emily is so good at it,” he says. “And you and dad are good too. But I’m not.”

She smoothes his hair. “It’s hard sometimes, when you’re younger,” she says. “I remember when I was your age. I wanted to be able to do everything Bill and Missy could do.” That’s her older brother and sister, William knows—Uncle Bill in California, who they sometimes see at Christmas and Thanksgiving, and Aunt Melissa, who died before William was born. “You know how we moved around a lot, right?” William nods. “Missy was so good at making new friends, wherever we went. I wanted to be able to do that too.”

“So what did you do?” William asks.

“Well, I sulked some of the time,” his mom says, and she laughs. “And then I tried to copy whatever she did, but that didn’t work so well either. And finally…I tried doing things I was interested in and finding people who liked to do them too.”

“And that worked?” William asks.

“It did,” his mom says. “Much better than trying to be exactly like Missy.”

William can tell she’s trying to tell him something. “I don’t want to be exactly like Emily,” he says. “It’s just that she’s really good, and I think…I think that’s nice.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” his mom says. “It’s good to have things you want to do, Will. But you shouldn’t get down on yourself if they don’t happen exactly like you expect them to.” She kisses the top of his head. “And there can be different ways of playing baseball. Just like there can be different ways of making friends.”

William doesn’t understand that. There’s a way you’re supposed to play baseball; it’s in the rules. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“Well, think about it,” she says. “First of all, you can play lots of different positions, right?”

“Right,” William says.

“So you might be better at one than at another,” his mom says. “And then there are different reasons you can like to play. Like Emily likes to play with her team. And I just like to play with you and Emily and your dad, so I can spend time with all of you.”

That makes sense, William guesses. “Are you saying I should just play at home?” he asks. “Instead of on a team?”

“Not exactly,” his mom says. “If you want to be on a team, I think you should keep practicing for that. And I’d be happy to help you. But if you’d rather just play with us, that’s okay too. It doesn’t mean you can’t be good at baseball. Or that you can’t love it.” He looks up at her; she’s smiling. “One of the reasons I love baseball is because your dad showed me how to play it. And that’s a really good memory for me. It might not be the reason anyone else loves baseball, but that’s mine. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

William thinks about it. He thinks about going to a baseball game for the first time, with his mom and dad and Emily, and eating lots of popcorn, and all of them wearing matching baseball caps, and cheering so loud. He thinks about Emily playing catch with him, every day sometimes, in the summer. “Yeah,” he says. “I understand.” And he hugs his mom. She hugs him back.

.....

The first time Scully went away for a conference, after they had the kids, she called at least twice each day to check in, to tell them she missed them. (Mulder would make fun at her, if he hadn’t done exactly the same thing.) Now, when Emily’s sixteen and Will’s ten, she’s a little bit more calm about it all. She’s away until Saturday; today’s Thursday, and she told them she’d call this evening, and Mulder doesn’t expect to be hearing from her ahead of schedule.

When he gets home from work, he decides to ask the kids if they have any ideas about what they want for dinner. “Pizza,” Will says. He’s doing his homework at the kitchen table.

That sounds pretty appealing. “Good idea,” Mulder says. “Do you know where Emily is? I’ll check with her too.”

“She went up to her room, I think,” Will says, and, as Mulder turns to go, he adds, “She was mad about something.”

“Mad about something?” Mulder asks. “What do you mean?”

Will shrugs. “I don’t know. I asked her what was up and she told me to leave her alone. And I didn’t even do anything.” He looks faintly injured.

“It’s probably not anything you did,” Mulder says. “Thanks for letting me know, though. I’ll check on her.”

He heads upstairs to Emily’s room. The door is pulled closed, and he knocks. “Emily? It’s me. Can I come in?”

“Okay,” she says, and he opens the door. When he sees her face, he can tell that Will was at least partially right: she’s definitely upset about something. He doesn’t think she’s mad, though. She looks more sad.

“Are you okay, Em?” he asks her. She shrugs. “Is something bothering you?” She nods, after a minute. “Want to talk about it?” She’s getting older, and he might not be able to help solve her problems as easily as he once did, but he’ll always try.

“I don’t know,” Emily says. “I’d kind of…I’d rather talk to Mom about it. It’s that kind of thing.”

He’s not one hundred percent sure what that means. “Okay,” he says. “You can talk to her when she calls tonight. Are you all right physically, though?”

“Oh, yeah,” Emily says. “It’s not about menstruation, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He has to smile when she puts it like that, because it was one of the things he was thinking, and because she sounds so much like Scully. “Good to know,” he says. “Well, then…”

“It’s about a boy,” she blurts out, as he’s hovering between staying and going.

“Ah,” he says. He hopes the boy in question hasn’t broken her heart. It seems so early in life for that to be happening, although a part of him knows that he thinks that because she’s his daughter and he wants to keep her safe and happy.

“Well, sort of,” she says. She doesn’t say anything more, but the way she looks at him makes him think that she wants to talk now, not wait until the evening. Scully’s not here, though, so maybe he’ll have to do.

“You sure you don’t want to talk to me?” he asks. “I know some things about boys. As they were when I was one, anyway. Maybe they’ve changed since then.”

Emily almost smiles at that. “I don’t think people really change in how they act,” she says. “Okay, well, it’s…there’s this boy at school. And we’re in a lot of classes together. And we talk sometimes. And…I kind of like him.” The words are soft, like an admission, and Mulder nods, trying to look as understanding as he can. “So we have the spring dance coming up next month, and I thought I would ask him if he wanted to go together. I mean, why not, right?”

“Good for you, Em,” Mulder says. She’s braver in some things, at sixteen, than he’s ever been.

“So I asked him today,” Emily says, “and he said no.”

“Just like that?” Mulder asks. “Just ‘no’? What’s the matter with this guy?”

“It wasn’t just no,” Emily says. “He was nice about it. He just said he was sorry, but he didn’t feel like that about me. I’m not mad at him or anything.”

“I get why you’re upset, though,” Mulder says. “Still, you should be proud of yourself for asking him. That kind of thing’ll stand you in good—”

“That’s not exactly what I’m upset about,” Emily says. “I mean, I am disappointed. I’m just…I was talking to one of my friends after and I started wondering about why. She was saying…well, that maybe it was because of what I’m like in class.”

“What you’re like in class?” Mulder asks.

“Yeah,” Emily says. “Because I always answer a lot of questions. And I talk a lot, when we have discussions. And she said it’s not that boys don’t like it when girls are smart. But they don’t like it when the girls are smarter than them. And that’s just…I mean, I’m not going to stop talking in class. That would be an idiotic thing to do. But I just wonder if that means I won’t ever get a boyfriend.” She’s biting her lip now. She looks young, and confused, and sad.

So maybe Emily’s not mad, but Mulder is. “What kind of friend is this?” he asks. “To tell you something like that.”

Emily shrugs. “She’s not my best friend or anything. But she didn’t say it to be mean. She was being honest.”

“Well, maybe she thinks she was,” Mulder says. “But Em, that’s not something you should be worried about at all. You will meet plenty of people who will love how smart you are. Guys included.”

“How do you know?” Emily asks.

“You’d say your mom was pretty smart, wouldn’t you?” he asks, and Emily nods. “And that’s one of the reasons I fell in love with her. One of many reasons,” he adds. “And if you love someone who’s smart, like that, you can have much better conversations, and…I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to be with someone smart.”

“Yeah, but you guys are older,” Emily says.

“That’s true,” Mulder concedes. “And I will admit that a lot of people in high school don’t really know what they want or where they’re going. But some do. I know you’re one of them.”

“Sometimes, I guess,” she says.

“Sure,” Mulder says. “It’s not always simple. But you were brave enough to ask that guy. And you know you’re not going to stop talking in class, no matter what anyone says. Those things are important, Emily.” She’s watching him, listening. “I bet you’ll meet other people who know those things too. And if you don’t…you won’t be in high school forever, either. There’s a lot more out there.”

“Thank God,” she says, and he chuckles. She smiles too.

“Your mom and I are really proud of the person you are,” he tells her. “And you should be too. Don’t waste your time with anyone who acts like that’s not good enough. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says, and she hugs him spontaneously, which she doesn’t do as often as she used to. “Thanks, Dad.”

“What I’m here for,” he says. “Will and I were thinking about getting pizza for tonight. How does that sound to you?”

“Good,” Emily says. “Can we get extra cheese?”

“Absolutely,” he says. “And you can talk to your mom by yourself tonight, if you want to. Will and I will go, after we’re done saying hi.”

“Thanks,” Emily says, and then, after a minute, “I already feel a lot better, though.”

“I’m glad,” he says.

.....

Emily and Will have been sitting in the diner all morning, and even though it’s not crowded or anything, the waiter has been giving them looks. They’ve tried to keep ordering, but there’s a limit to how much you can eat (at least Emily thinks so—she’s not sure about Will, but she feels like it would be irresponsible to let him have a third plate of bacon). And she’s already too amped up for another cup of coffee.

“How much longer do you think it’s going to be?” Will asks.

“I don’t know,” Emily says. “These things take a while.”

He’s quiet, fiddling with his utensils. “I hope Mom’s okay.”

“Mom will be fine,” Emily says quickly. “She said everything looked really good at her last appointment, remember? She wouldn’t lie to us. And she’s got good doctors. And she’s got Dad.”

“Yeah,” Will says. “But still…it’s hard, right? They say it’s hard and it hurts and…” He looks worried.

“I know,” Emily says. “I’m sure she’s…it’s not like a fun day or anything. But she’s done it before, right? With you.” Not with Emily, herself; she knows the whole story now, and sometimes she’s mad about it, but it’s never made a real difference in how she feels about her relationship with her mom, with her dad, with Will, with this baby who’s coming into the world today. “And she was ready to do it again, so that must mean something.”

“I guess,” Will says. “Do you remember it? When I was born.”

“I wasn’t there,” Emily says. “I was at home with Grandma. I don’t think I was worried about Mom or anything. Too young, probably. I was just worried that Mom and Dad were going to love you better than me.”

“They do,” Will says, and she makes a face at him.

“But I came to see you all the next day,” she says, “and I liked you a lot better than I thought I would. And Mom was fine. And she’ll be fine today, too.”

Will nods. “Can we get pancakes?” he asks, after a minute.

She doesn’t feel like arguing with him right now, and besides, pancakes sound good. “Sure.”

“Aren’t we supposed to smoke cigars?” he asks, when they’re eating. “While we’re waiting for the baby. Don’t people smoke cigars?”

“Well, we shouldn’t smoke cigars at all, because it’s disgusting,” Emily says, “but I think that’s for after the baby anyway. And it’s for the dad. He’s supposed to give cigars to people, or something.” She laughs. “I can’t really picture Dad doing that.”

“Nah,” Will says. He pours a lot of maple syrup onto his pancakes. She does the same.

It’s mid-afternoon and she’s lost track of how many meals they’ve had when her phone rings. She sees it’s their dad and grabs it. “Hi! Is the baby here?”

“She’s here,” their dad confirms, and she knows he’s smiling, even though she can’t see it. “She and your mom are doing great.”

“Who does she look like?” Emily asks.

“She’s got your mom’s eyes,” he says. “But brown hair. You can decide for yourself what you think.”

“So we can come over?” Emily says.

“Yeah,” he says. “We can’t wait to see you both.”

“We can’t wait either,” Emily says, and they say goodbye.

She fills Will in while she’s paying for a truly outrageous amount of food, and then they walk over towards the hospital. There’s a florists’s on the way, and they stop there; Will says they should get blue flowers, because their mom likes blue, so that’s what they do.

They make their way in by the visitors’ entrance. Their dad texted her the room number, with directions, and they find it pretty quickly. Will’s carrying the flowers now, so Emily taps at the door. “Come in,” she hears her mom’s voice say, and they do.

It was strange, finding out she was getting a little sister now, when they’d only be in the house together for ten months or so before Emily went off to college. She was excited about it, but sometimes she wondered if she’d be able to be close to the baby the way she was close to Will.

But when her mom says, “Here she is,” and they go over to look at the baby, she decides that was silly. It might not be exactly the same, but she knows she loves her little sister. She knows she’s excited to have her in her life.

“Hi there,” she says. “Hi, sweetie.” She touches one of the baby’s hands.

“Wow,” Will says. “She’s so little.”

Their dad laughs. “That’s what Emily said when she first saw you,” he says.

“Mm-hmm,” their mom says. “Doesn’t seem that long ago, does it?”

“Are you okay, Mom?” Will asks.

She smiles at him. “I’m great, sweetheart. Thank you for asking.” She touches the baby’s head, and she looks so happy.

“Did you figure out the name?” Will asks. They’ve been going back and forth about different ideas.

“Yes,” their mom says. “Susanna.”

“Hi, Susanna,” Will says. Susanna yawns. They stand together and watch her.

#my fic #the x files #msr #family fic #fluff

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kadomoni · 5 years ago

Text

I always thought I might be bad, now I’m sure that it’s true…

I really can’t tell you what to think of Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz. I can’t. It’s something you have to decide for yourself, but I’m going to explain why she’s one of my favorite characters of the show, but I also think she is the villain.

Now, I know what Pink Stans are saying, “She’s not the villain! She’s morally grey and trying to change!” And, to that I say, yes clearly. She’s an incredibly well-written, nuanced, and complex character. But, as much as she has done good, she has also done very, very bad. And, I’m here to explain why I think Pink is not evil—she’s just bad (and she knows it).

There is no doubt about it that Pink was raised in an abusive family. White is a pretty typical narcissistic parent (over-reliance on perfectionism, wanting people to please her and be like her but no one ever living up to her expectations, trouble with empathy, ect.). Yellow and Blue love Pink but have no idea how to raise her. That’s pretty typical of dysfunctional family dynamics. None of them had a good role model, so they can only replicate a bad role model.

I understand this dynamic. I had a “mother figure” who was very emotionally (and sometimes physically) abusive. My parents were nice and good parents but they had anger issues. I went from being petulant to shutting down, but I think I fit more into a Pearl archetype because instead of acting out my pain, I kept it inside and felt like it was me that was wrong. Pink does this, but not before causing a lot of issues, and often exploding outwards.

((Major Steven Universe/Future Spoilers under the cut))

We’ll start with what we know about Pink, which is very limited.

The first “memory” we have from her is the astral projection dream Stevonnie had where she threw a tantrum about wanting a colony. It was childish, yes, but Yellow response was no better considering she just yelled at her. They both threw tantrums, and no doubt, she was going to get locked up in her tower after. Pink got angry, she punched a mirror (hopefully, she’d only punched mirrors, please, Rebecca, don’t hurt me like this).

Secondly, we have the dream Steven had about Blue, who begged Pink to stop being combative and letting her “organics” loose, but ultimately just ended up admonishing her further. It’s also implied that she had her stay in the tower room.

Also, that tower is even more fucked up than just isolation. @singlepalerose explains this in her meta that Gems need light to live, not food. Rebecca says in an interview when asked that she “can’t say” what would happen if put in a place with no light. But, @singlepalerose comes to the conclusion that this might be literally akin to starvation, which is torture. There’s a good chance that Pink was literally tortured by her care-givers.

And, poor Pink Pearl. I don’t know what happened, but whether it was a scream or some physical altercation, it was frightening enough that she broke her pearl so badly, it couldn’t be repaired, which as seen in RS’s concept drawings, Pink is really fucked up by this. She becomes more introverted with her feelings because of this.

Don’t Break This One.

I’m not going to comment on whether these actions make her “bad” or “abusive.” She was clearly a child in an emotionally maladaptive environment, and she did decide to change and to keep her anger and frustration internalized at the risk of harming the people around her.

But, unfortunately, the information after this is where I begin to feel disturbed by Pink’s actions.

She got a colony. At first, she liked it, but clearly, she either grew bored or disenchanted with managing it. I feel as though she was expecting some sort of freedom, when really, the extra responsibilities probably just weighed her down even more.

The events of ‘A Single Pale Rose’ come into play now. Pearl suggested they go down to Earth, and Pink felt her first taste of unrestrained freedom. She liked interacting with other gems, liked interacting with humans, and finally decided that she didn’t want to destroy the Earth. And, she did beg all the Diamonds to let her give up the colony, but not only had Pink kinda shot herself in the foot with this one because she begged so hard for a colony and made so many big scenes about it, White and Yellow are incredibly steadfast in tradition and rules, and this wasn’t going to fly.

So, she decided to take drastic action.

I personally think that the idea to fake her own death was…weird. And, pretty extreme. I understand her reasoning, but this was the first time where she made a decision that benefited her far more than it did others (and I’m not talking about the planet right now because that’s a whole separate thing). This action traumatized Pearl to the point where she doesn’t eat, won’t shapeshift, and can’t talk about it. Yes, I know she commanded Pearl not to talk about it, but this caused significant emotional distress for her later on in the series.

This also traumatized the whole gem race, specifically the Diamonds, because she’d framed it as a terror attack. It would be way different if she stood up to White herself publicly, but there was so much deception going on that it fundamentally changed the course of Gem Culture and the fate of the Earth. Mostly what bothers me here is how manipulative this action was and how unnecessarily complex it was. Pink did everything she could to wipe her slate clean, be seen as a martyr of Gemkind, and also live freely on Earth.

It was a very good way to get her freedom, but it was also extremely harmful to all parties involved.

The War only escalated at this point. They had to fight Homeworld as a full-on army, and countless of gems were shattered.

Now, yes, of course, these actions saved the Earth, which is good in our perspective because we live on Earth. Earth is essential to us because it is our only frame of reference. But, something that continually complexed the Homeworld gems was why someone would fight for one measly planet at the cost of so much. It makes sense to us because we would sacrifice a whole heck of a lot to keep our planet from being invaded by space aliens, but the gems were colonizing tons of planets and destroying them for energy. It was obviously horrible as colonizers are horrible, but it’s sort of like how different armies will invade other countries, but because we’re being told that it’s for good, most people don’t really care.

From the gem’s perspective, this was all a horrible disaster—a loss of countless life, resources, and pride.

And, for The Crystal Gems, the “loss” of the war meant that all of their friends were corrupted, except Rose’s closest friends (which I’m personally unsure if this is completely truthful. I would hope it would be, but it’s also very suspicious because letting only the people that trust her the most survive would make it easier to control her own story).

Speaking of which, wtf is up with her bubbling Bismuth? It just feels like it would be easier to hide her away instead of trying to explain why she doesn’t want to shatter the Diamonds. But, Rose shattered Pink, anyway? I personally believe Bismuth was too close to figuring out her story, and she didn’t know what to do. I can’t think of any other explanation that would explain her actions and make sense with telling the Crystal Gems she’d been shattered. It feels very manipulative and selfish.

All of this obviously traumatized Pearl (we see it in her Pearl within a Pearl within a Pearl), and it had to have traumatized Garnet considering her reactions to mentions of the war and the “fusion” experiments. It was especially bad on Garnet’s end because she thought the war was actually what Rose said it was, which is why she freaked out when it wasn’t.

She kept secrets from everyone, even Her Pearl. But, Pearl didn’t know that she didn’t know everything. You could call Pearl delusional, but I think this is more proof that Rose never did something in front of her that made her feel like she was being untruthful.

And, I said y’all don’t want to get me started on Rose’s treatment of Pearl because I go feral when I get worked up about it. I would like to personally thank @theroguefeminist for their meta on Rose/Pearl and Fandom Ableism. It’s super good, and it was the meta that made me finally sit down and watch all of SU way back in the day. But, it illustrates the point that fandoms tend to look down on characters that act “bitter,” “weak,” “jealous,” “depressed,” or “neurotic.” It’s even more sinister because the reason why Pearl acts the way she does in the first two seasons is because she’d been manipulated by Rose.

She was Pink’s Pearl, her partner in crime, her renegade. They were the Heroes of The Rebellion. Pearl admitted she had feelings for her, and Rose’s response was enthusiastic (“Don’t ever stop!”). From what we’ve seen, the disregard of her feelings only began when she started dating Greg, considering Pearl didn’t see “the men who came into her life now and again” as threats because they “didn’t really matter until [him].” But, the treatment that we see of Pearl in “Story for Steven” and “We Need to Talk” is dismissive at best and cruel and uncaring at the worst.

After Greg was trying to flirt with Rose, Pearl said defensively, “I can sing!” and they laughed at her. Even Rose beamed. They were basically making fun of her when Pearl was only reacting that way because she loved Rose and felt threatened by Greg, even at this point.

I do want to add that I think Rose was trying to be a good person by telling Greg to go away. She made a good point that he shouldn’t give up on his dreams to be with her (especially considering that she knew that nothing would become of him in a place like Beach City). But, she was wooed by him. She laughed and gave into her instincts to surround herself with people who look up to her (even Vidalia said something about how Greg worships her).

But, I find Rose’s treatment of her in “We Need to Talk” to be unnecessarily flippant. Obviously, Pearl was very upset during the whole “What Can I Do For You?” song, and her last ditch effort was to show off Rainbow Quartz and try to belittle his efforts, but Greg was rightly defensive. This doesn’t mean Pearl was being “salty” or “abusive” or “bitchy.” She was reacting negatively towards the emotional neglect that Rose was showing her. Of course, we don’t know every interaction that Pearl and Rose had, but it’s very heavily implied that Rose never communicated with Pearl how their relationship was developing.

I do not, I repeat—I DO NOT—think that Pearl was owed Rose’s love. What I think is neglectful about this situation is that Rose didn’t either apologize or properly explain the nature of their relationship. It’s implied that Rose made her believe they were an item and then proceeded to sleep around and eventually find an alternative partner. No one is owed affection with someone who doesn’t want to be romantically involved, but to lead someone on for thousands of years is horrible, and the idea makes me nauseous, especially since the fandom is more likely to blame Pearl even though Pearl was literally her glorified slave and only able to break out of that thought process years after Steven was born.

Pearl was so emotionally fucked up by Rose’s possible emotional neglect that she had several traumatic episodes starting from “Indirect Kiss” and culminating in her “Cry for Help.” She literally believed she was powerless and felt so weak that she thought the only way to feel agency was to manipulate and extort affection from Garnet. I’m also not defending Pearl for doing this, but it’s clear that she did this because she was mentally ill and not because she was knowingly or maliciously disregarding Garnet’s feelings to fulfill her own needs. Trauma episodes often cause you to act in destructive ways towards yourself and others, but it’s also very different from how Rose did disregard the feelings of others to get her way, or have fun, or “play” with people.

It also reminds me of her treatment of Spinel. Pink was having fun with Spinel until they decided to give her a colony, and then, instead of bringing Spinel with her or sending her back to the Diamonds, she told her to stay there, and she abandoned her for 6,000 years with no plans of returning for her. To be fair, it would really mess up the Crystal Gem dynamic if she suddenly returned with a Spinel who was gifted to Pink Diamond. So, in Rose’s perspective, I get it, but as myself, I don’t think it’s right.

Greg, even, I think was taken advantage of. He’s so sweet and trusting and good that she would easily have been able to get him to do anything. I’m not going to go too much into this because there’s not too much evidence besides her behavior towards him in “Greg the Babysitter” and how she laughed at him in “We Need to Talk.” I just have the feeling that Greg knows something that no one else does and that his perma-sunburn might have something to do with Rose and/or Steven’s conception. Don’t take my word for it since this is just a theory, but I do think there’s something we don’t know yet.

Alright, now that most of the character stuff is out of the way, let’s talk Rose symbolism. In almost every episode, there’s a shot of Rose’s portrait with her eyes covered or something obscuring them. This is classic anime imagery of a suspect character, and it’s foreshadowing of her suspect actions. All of her organic experiments eventually go rouge without constant maintenance from Rose (see: the moss in “Lars and the Cool Kids,” the thorns in “Indirect Kiss”). We don’t know why this happens, but it points to the idea that there’s something malignant lurking underneath Rose’s creations.

Rose’s Room also has disturbing implications. The fact that it gives Steven whatever he wants, but more often than not, it turns into psychological horror is telling. It may be that Steven just doesn’t know how to use the room, but also, the Gems didn’t want him to go in there. (“It doesn’t know how to handle a task like that!” What do you know, Pearl????) The creepiest one, in my opinion, was how the Fake Connie he made in “Open Book” eventually turned on him, attacked him, and basically physically forced him to admit feelings he wanted to keep hidden. I’m not saying this is the intended purpose of the room, but I find it troubling that it can be used in this way and defaults to it when there isn’t anything stopping it. It could also be that when the illusion the room makes is broken that it reverts to an angry (and dare I say Pink Diamond-esque) temperament.

My final point is how her decision to have Steven, even though eventually for good, hurt many people, Steven included. To make the decision to die and have a kid was confusing to everyone, but more so, the gems. They don’t understand human reproduction outside of a biological level, and the fact that gems normally can’t sexually reproduce makes the concept even more foreign. It seems like she explained that she was doing it and would die but didn’t fully prepare the gems about what that would entail. I think this is most clearly seen in “Three Gems and a Baby” because the Crystal Gem’s behavior towards baby Steven reflected Pearl’s response to emotional neglect, such as acting impulsively and dangerously just for not understanding the complexities of the situation.

Their whole dynamic was screwed up, and they all felt deeply hurt by Rose’s death. If you compare how they act at the beginning of the series to the end, they were basically all at each other’s throats because they couldn’t communicate properly due to all the undealt with baggage that had been left behind. It ended up becoming Steven’s job to emotionally support the gems when he should have been the one being emotionally supported. This imbalance of “the parents being the child” and “the child being the parents” is a huge reason why we see Steven in such emotional distress during Future. He’s internalized the idea that he should be the leader, the supporter, the helper, and he hasn’t properly been able to find his own identity because Rose looms over all of them (see: “Rose Buds”).

It’s hard to say whether Rose intentionally left Steven to clean up her mistakes or if she just felt like he could fix it all when she couldn’t, but there is no denying that Rose’s actions have seriously messed up our boy. This is the clearest theme presented in the show, so I’m not going to go super hard on this topic because basically the whole show is Steven angsting over his mom.

So, the point of all of this is that, yes, Pink was abused. There is no doubting that she was very badly abused and developed her personality and coping mechanisms due to this trauma. However, Rose has hurt her friends, family, and gemkind due to her actions. A lot of abusers have been abused. I know my abuser was abused in the same way I was, but that doesn’t give her an excuse to enact that abuse on me. It’s the same as Rose. Her bad upbringing gives context about why she turned out the way she did, but it’s incredibly short-sighted to say that Rose acted in mostly good ways towards others.

And, she knows she’s bad. Whether or not Rebecca will outright admit what the song is about, we have enough context to know that “Love Like You” is Rose talking to Greg (if not the other gems as well).

“I always thought I might be bad Now I’m sure that it’s true ‘cause I think you’re so good And, I’m nothing like you

Look at you go I just adore you I wish that I knew What makes you think I’m so special”

Rose is admitting that she thinks she’s bad and isn’t special and doesn’t understand what Greg sees in her. She knows she’s done bad things, but in my opinion, she didn’t do enough to fix her problems. She made Steven instead. It was her final act of avoidance. Maybe she gave up on herself. Maybe she knew she couldn’t “Love Like You.” I don’t know the answer to that. I just know that Rose’s actions were abusive. She’s not good. She’s morally gray. She did good things, but she did many bad things as well. She’s not evil, but she is the series’ antagonist. She has good things about her, but she has many bad things as well. People can be two things. But, saying she’s not an abuser is making excuses for her behavior.

Here are my answers to a few common complaints on my shitpost meme.

Q: Rose didn’t want to cause war! She just wanted to free the planet/have freedom/save the gems, ect. A: If she didn’t want to cause war, she very well could have…not started the war? There are much less destructive options than pretending to be a rebel when she really was a Diamond. The double life thing is so ridiculous, no one in the show could even guess it. Q: Don’t discredit her Rebellion! A: I just think she cared more about herself than she actually did the Earth. The Rebellion did save the Earth, but not without crazy death and destruction. Q: Pink was good compared to Japser, the Diamonds, Lapis, ect. A: All of you saying that those other characters are bad while Rose is good totally misses the point. All those characters did abusive things. So did Rose/Pink. Pink is good and bad. It’s really showing your ass that you hate x, y, z but will cape for Pink even though she’s probably caused the most harm of the entire series. Whatever happened to all those morally grey arguments?

Q: This take is bad! A: soz bruh cry harder Q: This is black and white thinking. A: I shouldn’t have to explain every aspect of a character in a shitpost. This meta is my full explanation, so here’s my morally grey meme uwu

Q: Blue, Yellow, and White are colonizers and also really abusive. A: Yes. It doesn’t negate Pink’s actions, though.

Q: Pink Pearl was an accident! She changed after!!! That’s not abuse!!!!!!! A: Abuse isn’t always intentional, and we don’t canonically know it was an accident. Pink Pearl said that it was, but she admitted she was making excuses for her. But, accident or not, hurting someone deeply can be abuse if it’s not dealt with. Pink Pearl was not dealt with. She was brainwashed for 8,000 years, instead. Pearl-Pearl helped her deal with it. The continual explosive anger from Pink was abusive, hands down.

Q: She’s not a villain! A: She certainly is framed as Steven’s villain. Regardless of what you personally think of Pink, Steven is deeply disturbed and harmed by Rose’s actions. It’s literally the whole plot of the show! If Pink is eventually redeemed, I won’t mind, but she’s irredeemable in my eyes.

#steven universe #steven universe future #pink diamond #rose quartz #su #suf #steven universe future spoilers #steven universe spoilers #su spoilers #suf spoilers #mine #meta #abuse

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stattic-writes · 5 years ago

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Misunderstood

https://statticscribbles.tumblr.com/post/639099629845233664/masterlist

Support My Writing?

#newt scamander #newt scamander x reader #newt scamander x you #newt scamander x y/n #newt x you #newt x y/n #newt x reader #fantastic beats and where to find them #fbawtft #fantastic beasts and where to find them imagine #fbawtft imagine #harry potter #harry potter reader insert #harry potter imagine #eddie redmayne #eddie redmayne imagine #female reader #female reader insert

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thebibliomancer · 4 years ago

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Song of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 15

Song of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because HELLO NEW SPOOKY FRIEND

Last times in book: Kylan, Naia, and Tavra have traveled to the Caves of Grot to find a magic firca that will help them warn all Gelfling about the Skeksis. A Grottan gives them a startle by lurking above a tunnel entrance.

Chapter 15

Kylan and Naia meet with Maudra Argot

"Shadowling,” Tavra growled.

“Silverling,” the strange Gelfling replied, with a casual but equal distaste.

Huh! Time for more Gelfling prejudice.

Its hinted at later this chapter why the Grottan might be annoyed at a Vapran but I have no idea why the Vapran would have strong feelings about the Grottan.

So let’s get a look at our new friend, Amri.

Pulling back his hood, his skin was pale like moonlight, with silky silver hair like Tavra’s, shaved on one side and falling to his shoulder on the other. Had Kylan seen him aboveground, he might have mistaken him for a Vapra - except for his eyes. With his face hidden by the shadow of his hood, Kylan had at first thought he had no eyes at all. Now he could see two, large and black, with no whites in them. It was like looking into one of the inky ponds that dappled the cave’s basin floor.

He had to be Gelfling, based on the shape of his face and body but he held himself differently. Like a river plant, Kylan thought, or maybe even an eel or fish, eerily graceful as he gazed down on them with an unreadable expression. His movements were as fluid as if he were underwater, slow and seamless.

Maybe that’s why the Vapran and Grottan don’t like each other.

They both want to be the pale, white-haired pretty Gelfling clan and are like ‘one of us is going to have to change.’

Speaking of change, I wonder what did between the books and the show.

In the show, the Grottan have a greenish tint to their skin, like the Drenchen. On the topic, Spriton have darker skin in the YA continuity compared to the show. Not a big deal, things got changed around between show and books but I’m wondering if this was a case where the books were working off an earlier version of the series bible.

Having the Grottan be super pale actually does make a lot of sense, since they live in caves. Cave-dwelling creatures tend to be pale because they don’t need as much protection from light.

Naia introduces the group, although omits Tavra’s title since there’s already animosity without it being known she’s the All-Maudra’s daughter.

Amri just stares at the introductions then tells the group to follow him.

Kylan looked up as they passed through the center of the cavern, losing count of the tunnel entrances and walkways. Now that the silence had been broken, eh saw silhouettes of other Grottan Gelfling stepping out of the shadows, gathering in groups of twos and threes on the ledges to watch them pass. They were all ghostly, clothing in black cloaks like their guide. Only their faces, hands, and bare feet showed, slipping in and out of the shadows like starlight.

Ah, so that’s where the whispers were coming from. The peanut gallery.

Naia asks if this is really the Caves of Grot, which Amri confirms but says that the Grottan call it Domrak which Kylan translates as “Place-in-Shadows.”

“A fair translation in the common tongue. Others have called it the Cave of Obscurity. Land-in-Darkness. Hole in Ground. Either way, grot means crypt. Though in truth, nothing has died here.”

I love that one of its names is just. Hole in Ground. Hee.

Kylan decides that Domrak means home, not just place.

Home-in-Shadows has a nice ring to it.

But if grot means crypt, then Caves of Crypt. Which sounds weird.

And could you translate, Grottan as cryptid? Heh.

Amri takes them up a long spiraling stairway and like other parts of the cave, it is just lousy with dream-etching. Kylan reads bits and pieces of stories as they climb.

They reach a triangular archway carved to look like a colony of hollerbats, which sounds amazing. Amri goes in to speak with Maudra Argot and when he pops back out he says that Kylan and Naia can come in but Tavra has to wait outside.

Tavra snorted through her nose, and Kylan wished she hadn’t. If they wanted to gain the trust and alliance of every clan, they would have to be respectful, even if they did not get the same respect in return. Shouldn’t a daughter of the All-Maudra know better diplomacy? Huffing, she turned away and crossed her arms.

“I have no interest in paying respects to a Shadowling bat, anyway,” she said, turning her nose up. “Be quick about it.”

“Don’t start any fights,” Kylan said. “Please.”

Hope springs eternal, Kylan.

The maudra chamber has exposed crystal veins lacing the walls, but with the crystal still showing as clear and pure. The Darkening hasn’t seemed to reach this deep. Possibly the tree protecting them, as in the show.

Seated on the stone floor, cross-legged, was an old Gelfling woman. Her wings were sheer, almost completely transparent, draped out behind her like a crystalline pool. Her eyes were black, like all the Grottan, but bore the mark of time. Her kind, wrinkled face might have seen more than one ninet - if the greater seasons even affected the Grottan clan, so deep in the earth.

Apparently, a ninet is roughly one hundred trine. Wow!

Kylan and Naia very politely introduce themselves.

“It must be important, indeed, for daylighters to bother making the journey into the so-feared Grot. Amri here tells me you have a Vapra with you as well. Has the great Mayrin finally invited us to the Silverling capital? Ho ho hoo! Don’t answer that. I know it is not true. So tell me, children, why do you stray from the daylight?”

She seems fun. I like her.

And reasonably enough, the Grottan dislike the Vapran because the Vapran tend to pretend they don’t exist. Rude.

Kylan tells Maudra Argot that they’re looking for the firca of Gyr the Song Teller and that he read in a book that it was entrusted to the Grottan.

“Oh yes! That. What do you want with Gyr’s bone firca?”

“You have it here?” Kylan cried, forgetting all formality. “It’s real?”

“Of course it’s real. How else did you think all that dream-etching got on the walls? All of us can read here, of course, but it would have taken a whole ninet to do just half the caves the regular way. We don’t have time for that. Yes, yes, the firca is real. It is in the Tomb. Ho ho! But I’m not going to just hand it over to you younglings without an explanation first. Why do you need it? What will you do with it? And so on.”

Score one for a random story you read in a random book!

Of course, they now have the problem of explaining why they need it. If Argot is loyal to the Skeksis, they could be in big trouble. Heck, if she’s like Maudra Fara and just afraid to act, she might refuse to help.

The best way would be for Naia to dreamfast with Maudra Argot to show what she had seen. A conclusion that Naia also immediately comes to.

“Then dreamfast with me. I will show you what I’ve seen. You can decide whether it’s an explanation or not.”

“So you think I’ll trust your memories, no matter what they are?” Maudra Argot asked, tilting her head in the other direction. When she got a confused, uncomfortable silence in reply, she cackled again. “Ho! Don’t answer that, either. I am not afraid of your dreams, little Drenchen. Show me, and we will see where they lead us.”

Hey remember when I said it’d be boring to watch Kylan watch someone else dreamfast and that’s why he had to do it with Rian instead of Naia?

Well, I was wrong. Watching someone else dreamfast takes like a couple seconds.

The maudra let out a long grave hmmmmm.

“You have the gift of dreamfast, that is for certain,” she said. “Never have I seen dreams so vividly... It was almost as if I had my eyes back! Ho ho hoo! What a delight you are, my Drenchen daughter.”

Naia repeats some of the information aloud for Amri’s benefit and says they need the firca to warn all Gelfling.

“The Stonewood will be first, until the forest is empty of their tales and noisy dances. Then the Spriton to the south. Perhaps they will go west next, to the Crystal Sea - perhaps north, to take the capital itself. It is only a matter of time before they come for us, I suppose, even if we are the discarded relish on the banquet tray. Ho ho hoo!”

She described an ugly future, but her chuckle was so light, it was almost the giggle of a youngling.

“Nothing but a garnish on top of a Vapra delicacy!” Amri added. The comment sent the old maudra into a new fit, her little body shaking with laughter.

What a fun, weird old lady.

Kylan and Naia are uncomfortable with how funny she finds the extinction of the Gelfling clans and just sit quietly. Kylan reflects that maybe the situation is so horrible, that there’s nothing to do but laugh but can’t bring himself to join.

“Ho ho ho hooo! Oh, don’t sound so quiet. We’re not making light of the situation. This old maudra has heard many trine come and go. Just when I think I’ve heard it all, the Skeksis surprise me with something new and cruel. I can’t help but think Thra is telling a wicked song-for-laughs... Or maybe it is me who is old and mad and laughing when there are no jokes being told.”

Think about being so old that you think you know everything the world can throw at you and then hearing the most horrible thing you never knew.

I guess maybe all you can do is laugh.

Although, she’s a pretty laughy individual anyway.

Unsure of how to react to any of that, Naia just does Drenchen hard-talk and directly asks for the firca. And adds that its important that the Gelfling come together to resist the Skeksis because they won’t be able to do anything if they’re at odds.

“We Grottan have remained out of the affairs of the daylighters; ours was a different burden to bear, here in Domrak. But you are right. The Skeksis will never want the essence of an old maudra like me, but my children... even the lazy ones like Amri. We are all Gelfling. I’ll give you the firca. I’ll even give you Amri. He will show you to the Tomb of Relics and then go with you to Ha’rar on behalf of our oft-forgotten clan.”

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!

New party member!

Amri is less thrilled than I am, protesting that he doesn’t want to hang out with snooty snoots in Ha’rar but Argot tells him to suck it up. She already knows that he sneaks out of the caves to gather alchemy ingredients and she’s tired of his disruptive experiments.

“Take your maudra’s offer, and come back when you are grown.”

Sweet dunk on Amri.

Then she picks up her weaving which is a polite indication that the conversation is over so Naia and Kylan leave, followed by Amri. Although they hear Argot talking to herself as they leave.

“Damned Skeksis. Your time has come, at long last. Ho ho hoo...”

This was a very productive meeting!

#dark crystal #the dark crystal #Song of the Dark Crystal #liveblog #Kylan #Naia #Tavra #Amri #Maudra Argot

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ashleyswrittenwords · 4 years ago

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How to be a Queen [Part 26]

Summary: Princess Zelda is at a loss. Her handed royal responsibilities have begun to weigh heavily on her and she is eventually backed into a corner. Live a life she loathes or run away from everything she’s ever known? Navigating life is hard, and Link forces her to learn that she doesn’t have to do it alone.

Part 1

How To Be A Queen

I hated this.

She stared at me. My own staring had long turned to a steady glower; eyes squeezed almost shut as I tried to pick apart every stitch for some inkling of an answer. Maybe the real problem is that I didn’t have a coherent question.

The fire in my father’s mantle crackled to fill in my silence and illuminating my balled-up place on the carpet. I should be asleep right now, that was the plan anyway, but it was thwarted earlier in the day when my last bedroom was deemed a “risk”.

Still, I hated it all the more. The doll was in the same useless state where I placed it – a slightly slouched perch on the velvet loveseat. It intensely reminded me of when my tutors would make me find symbolism in a storybook where there obviously wasn’t, making me conjure some flowery explanation for why the author used this phrase or that description.

With my knees up to my chin, I fiddled with the hem of my night gown and wondered and wondered and wondered because a head full of pointless thoughts felt better than nothing at all.

There was commotion – arguing, then the door opened and I was met with the burning sight of Urbosa. In her hand was a page, crumpled by her fist, and I understood before she spoke.

“You can’t be serious!” she glowered. Urbosa was a woman who schooled her expressions masterfully yet now she was untamed.

My face reddened, embarrassment probably. “I can explain.”

“Explain what exactly? This man has threatened my life, my countrywomens’ lives, and now yours… and you want to give him a platform to speak on?”

She was outraged, flailing Ganondorf’s letter as she spoke. I pressed my lips together and let her rant on about what I had mentioned to Impa before. My toes pressed deep into the carpet.

“Your anger is something I can understand,” I finally said, frowning when she caught my gaze. “But I’m not a child and this is not an entirely irrational reaction.”

Urbosa watched me for a tense moment and stepped away to pace the room in an attempt to air out her feelings. When she did, I saw Impa accompanied her with a careful presence. I steeled myself for whatever it was she wanted to say.

My father’s quarters weren’t where I expected to be tonight, but at least he was in a safer (and more inconspicuous) part of the castle. If anything, the familiar setting was a slight comfort even if it wasn’t my own room. It was an airy space and not much had changed since the war started. I rose from my spot, trying to gracefully slip the doll into my gown’s deep pockets and perched myself where the toy once sat.

“Okay,” the Gerudo leader breathed again, sitting on the cushions with Impa across from me. “Okay, then explain it to me.”

I breathed in deeply. “No doubt you’ve read what he’s wrote, but I’ve read it more than you have. Let’s talk about it.”

The half impatient nod my way with born out of pure frustration. I could completely understand it, but it didn’t make the feeling of pressure any lighter.

“In his words, he wants to declare a form of parley,” I spoke, slowly choosing my words. “Meaning a temporary truce in war to sit down and discuss negotiation – or the start of them.”

I swallowed as I mentally scanned through the letter word-for-word in my head:

I doubt that my reputation holds well in your circles and it would be foolish to give a nobody’s word any weight.

“Traditionally, it would be held by one party sending an ambassador of sorts to the opposition. We would discuss terms at a distance, however he is willing to travel to Hyrule Castle himself.”

Urbosa scoffed, “That’s even worse.”

“It means he’s going in place of someone expendable. It was the whole point of ‘parley’ as a concept and he is willing to give us leverage to make this happen.”

I could tell there was more she wanted to say, but she chose not to. Impa spoke up instead.

“I realize that I haven’t told you this before,” she said. “But you should consider your image.”

My brow furrowed, “My image?”

“To history, Zelda, there has never been an enemy like this within the castle walls unless force was taken. No other ruler has offered an invitation like this before. Don’t you find that troubling?”

I felt my frown deepen. The fabric of my gown twisted around my fingers. I took another deep breath of the burning applewood in the hearth before saying, “The conflict we’re currently in has surpassed the amount of casualties in any other war I have lived through in half the time. Pray tell, do you find that troubling?”

They didn’t reply; they didn’t have to.

“I am afraid,” I spelled out. “I am afraid to see the country being torn with violence and bloodshed. To consider that I am assumed its leader is another type of fear I haven’t grasped yet, much less what historians will jot me down as. Better yet, let’s discuss how someone I know very dearly is out there; contingent to the choices I make.”

Roughly, I swallowed. My gaze went to the ceiling where engravings of old legends escaped the firelight.

“Let us discuss what I know will be his vehement disapproval of my consideration. My goal here is to mitigate as much as I can and if that means buying time at the cost of my reputation, then so be it,” I conceded. Impa stared at her hands and I could only feel shame, weak. I wonder if that’s what she had in mind. “Horrible rulers have preceded me and I don’t expect to be the last.”

There was a long moment of quiet that made it awful to resist squirming in my seat. I didn’t like our options either, but pride was my father’s forte. I wasn’t about to inherit it now that an opportunity like this is tangible, even if it came about through unconventional means. I’ll let them move me into the royal quarters and I’ll let them squander more of my personal time with increased security – I won’t let them pass this up without a single consideration.

Urbosa and Impa stood, I expected them to leave immediately but instead Urbosa said my name and took my hand in hers. Worry was in her eyes.

“You know I would never give you up,” I said softly. “I really hope you weren’t expecting me to abandon you so quickly.”

The sofa dipped slightly as she took a seat. “Tamen non obliviscar tui et filiae.”

At my slight confusion she merely smiled and said, “It means: Never forget your daughters. We say that when we underestimate our children after they’re grown. I am scared, Zelda.”

Our hand hold slipped into an embrace. She continued, “I worry constantly for you. As much as I want to, I don’t have all the answers. None of us do and maybe that’s why I reacted the way I did. I forgot that and, more importantly, I forgot you.”

The next days brought sleepless nights. I wasn’t sure if I preferred them because in the darkness was the chilling vision of what Link had become. That dream wouldn’t fade as the days wore on, instead sharpening in the parts that struck me the most. In the mirror of my room, when Anju would prod at the dark circles under my eyes, I would see his eyes staring at me.

“It wasn’t real,” I muttered, almost angrily.

Anju grunted behind me with bobbypins caught between her teeth. “What wasn’t?”

“I had a dream,” I said. “And it wasn’t real, but I feel like it was and it’s ridiculous.”

“Well, ya look tired enough,” she replied with a nonchalant drawl, watching me in the mirror a moment before shrugging. “Everyone has nightmares, Zelda. Even Her Royal Grace Majesty Herself.”

The smile I tried to suppress fought hard. “It was about Link.”

“You’re worried! Welcome to the club. You already know the things Aryll writes to me, halfway between gloating and going stir crazy,” she laughed. “His next present to her has to be twice as shiny as the last.”

Her hands paused in their tugging. “If it’s bothering you, you should talk about it.”

I sighed, relenting quickly because she’d prod further if I hadn’t. I left out the odd parts about the strange man and the dancing and focused more on when I saw Link.

“It was probably me projecting…” I groaned. “But he seemed driven mad, Anju! And I caused that. The only reason why he isn’t with his family or living more peacefully is because of me.”

She considered it, seeming to weigh my words as she viewed me from the front. Her nose crinkled, “Zelda, you know that boy. I know that boy. When we were kids, he would always be the lead troublemaker leading the charges. Shocking, believe me I know, but you must be raving mad if you think he wouldn’t force himself into this mess regardless of your decisions.”

“With or without me?”

She hummed in thought, “Reckless is a word I would use – no, wait – organized recklessness. But he has always needed help picking up the pieces. It used to be Aryll with scrapes and bruises.” Then, there was a glint in her eye that made me laugh, “I wonder who it’ll be now?”

“There is no guarantee that the negotiations will come to anything,” Fierlin grimaced, reading through Ganondorf’s letter. “Though I won’t disagree that a truce, no matter how temporary, is a plus.”

He stroked his beard with a raised brow and met my eyes. “Do you… know how to send news to your right hand?”

We were in my father’s study with a long list of staff sitting on my desk, each with a detailed list of any possible connections to the opposition. I pushed it away.

“I have consulted every consultant at my fingertips at the moment; written out the pros and cons,” I said. My head rested on my fist in a dull way to help my sore neck.

“Well,” the man leaned back in his chair as old worn men tended to, “I know the tenacity and unwillingness to quit. I’ve gotten well acquainted with that side of him when he was my captain. Don’t get me wrong, Your Majesty, Link will follow any order you give him… but he will fight and kick every step of the way.”

“That’s only because Admiral Whitehurst is with him right now.”

He raised a hand to negate me. “Not necessarily. Link’s a fine remediator. He doesn’t show obvious favor to anyone under him and is constantly listening. He’ll tune out whatever sees fit. Any resistance you saw came from him alone.”

I glanced down at one of my desk drawers that contained some of Link’s letters and closed my eyes.

“I want him to travel back to the castle if we go through with it.” When, really, but it was hard to believe what was happening myself.

The look he gave me wasn’t remotely hopeful.

“I wouldn’t count on it. It’s not likely he would abandon his men because who is to say this truce lasts more than a day? We don’t know the temperament of this ‘Ganondorf’ and he is largely unpredictable in much else.”

“Will Link resent the idea that much?”

“I predict he will…” Fierlin stopped himself, then sighed. “He will have some complications with it.”

That night, crumpled papers littered desk. They were filled with words that didn’t string together properly and thoughts that weren’t quite complete. The first letter was a formal inquiry of Ganondorf’s arrival. On the closed envelope, I pressed my father’s insignia with more pressure than necessary.

I kept it in a closed drawer because the second letter was both an order and request for counsel.

In this, my thoughts were far more frayed and there were countless drafts that kept the wick of my candle burning. It was a constant debate on whether I should even forgo pairing the first with it. I recalled his reluctance to retreat and the disappointment that came after. The ink pen felt heavier in my hand.

This was when I realized that this was what Impa was fearful of.

My hand dragged down my cheek and I forced myself to sit up straighter.

She has told me more than once, no matter how indirect, that whatever Link and I had would eventually conflict with my duties. Especially with the dynamic at play now, he was my Commander General and I was his Queen. I have asked the opinion of all my resources both past and present, why should my consideration of his opinion be so weighty?

It had grown to the point where I could barely put pen to paper.

An obstruction of my duties, that is a phrase Impa would say.

The words I ended up writing were addressing him formally. Though I was sure word had been sent about what had happened, I reiterated the events from what Lord Ibauna shouted about to the letter within my room. After that, in the most political way I could muster, I told him I was considering it with the counsel in mind. This time, I wouldn’t slip an additional note because I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t me trying to influence him.

I bound the two letters and sent them the same night. Once I get the General’s counsel, I will make the final decision and either order him to send a messenger… or not.

This is grossly miscalculated.

Urbosa was speaking, but it was difficult to truly listen to her. She was walking beside me. I want to say that her gentle suggestions to coax me off the ledge were helping, but it only pushed me to push my nails deeper into my palm. The sharp pain helped me more to keep my mouth shut.

“He was only trying to assert another option.”

Immature

I glanced to her and said through gritted teeth, “What he was trying to do was insult my integrity.”

My steps were heavier than they usually were when going to attend meetings with the admirals. On any other day, I would approach it with a cool head. It was a war room, I wanted to be as even keeled and level-headed as I could.

Rash

Now, I couldn’t stop seeing red.

Just barely, I turned my head towards her. “He acts as if he has had lifetimes of experience already,” I hissed, pausing briefly while passing a couple of maids with bowed heads. “Link is barely any older than I. Ridiculous.”

Urbosa and I bounded a set of stairs and before I entered the war room, I requested an ink pen and parchment as well as the awaiting messenger. It hadn’t been two days before I got a reply from Link. A set of officers stood when I entered the room.

I wasn’t exactly surprised to see Admiral Whitehurst return almost immediately after the letter arrived. His face was still red from his traveling and I politely acknowledged him.

“Your general isn’t happy,” he said. “He made the carriage ride through the night, gods willing my back is still intact.”

“Oh, no,” I uttered out, splaying the several pages Link had written me onto the table. “He surely is not.”

The admiral blinked considerably. I had never acted this way in front of them, but at this point I didn’t have the luxury to care. The only reason I took a seat was to keep them all from standing awkwardly.

“Groveling at the enemy’s feet, he says,” I glanced at the pages with a casted hand. “How, exactly, is he coming to these absurd conclusions?”

I feared that he would have tried to influence Link more in my disfavor, but I did trust what Fierlin had told me and the handwriting on the correspondence was unmistakably Link. Why he had sent John Whitehurst was a mystery to me altogether, perhaps in an effort to sway me even more?

Well, good, I thought. Maybe the one he is receiving will beat some sense into him.

Whitehurst grunted as he sat back in his chair and took a moment to adjust.

“General Forester is doing what he was appointed to do, fight to win. If we pause, especially in the terms he has relayed to me, I believe that he believes you have given up.”

I reeled back, “When has lessening the toll this war has taken meant ‘giving up’? Did he say those exact words?”

He looked uncomfortable. “Um, yes, perhaps, Your Grace.”

I breathed in deeply. Slowly, I counted from ten.

Tyrant was a bad look on anybody – more so me.

“Okay,” I said finally, calmer. “I think we can now say we have received all the insight we need to make a decision.”

A guard who was outside the door brought in a pot of ink, a pen and parchment. I thanked him quietly.

“I wanted to convene one more time before I decide to send this order,” I said, taking the pen between my fingers. The correspondence on the table, which Urbosa was now leafing through with Whitehurst, was missing the final page. It was burning in my dress pocket.

Reconsider, Zelda.

I caught Urbosa’s gaze while the officers and the sparse admirals had a last discussion about weighing the final options, or their lack of. She watched me with a solemn demeaner. Then, she nodded.

I will not be there to help you.

I don’t need his help.

“Is it decided, gentlemen?”

Delicately, I folded the paper twice just in time for the messenger to walk through.

My only words to him was an order to send my acquisition across enemy lines.

#yay #how to be a queen #htbaq #ashleyswrittenwords #zelink #legend of zelda #zelda #link #loz #zelink fanfiction #loz fanfiction

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yanderedbh-moved · 5 years ago

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I was lowkey heartbroken when your blog disappeared. Wish you the best of luck. :) If this is too many characters you can pick which ones you want to write. How would Connor, Nines, Gavin, Hank, and Ralph react if they saw their s/o injured, and the s/o explained that they were beaten up by someone through no fault of their own?

Ok, anon, I’m like actually smiling like an idiot right now, this is so cute, I’m SMITTEN. Also props to you for picking a pretty great selection of characters here, I feel like everyone has a decently unique answer, and this was very enjoyable to write!💙

Anyways, In this scenario, the gist of the situation is you’re out late one night. Later than expected. To try and save a little time on your way home, you take a short cut through a seedy, ally. While you know this is far from the best place to be so late in the night, you think it’s still the best choice considering the time it would save you. For a while, all is well, you keep your head down and don’t see any reason to be afraid. However, before you can manage to make your escape, you’re jumped by someone you failed to notice was persuing you for some time now. Without thinking you struggle to fight back, unaware your assailant was armed, and an uneven fight becomes all the worse for you as you’re left to bleed out on the street, the criminal making off with your wallet. You manage to pull yourself together enough to hobble into an alleyway to keep out of sight of others who possibly mean you harm, as you do the best to sit and figure out what to do now.

(Also, Nines, Connor, Gavin, and Hank were investigating the area after reports of suspicious behavior in the area from an anonymous source, thus how they found you. Ralph happened across you because the altercation broke out within walking distance of his home.)

Connor

His gut instinct when he sees anyone in need medically nearly always would be to scan for possible injuries and make sure their condition wasn't critical general first aid etiquette. When he sees you all banged up like this, though, Connor can't help but freeze up here. His brain is screaming for him to do something, but for whatever reason, he finds himself frozen.

Rather than analyzing the most critical data first and figuring out what happened to you, Connor can't stop staring at all the blood leaving your body. Coating your skin, getting caught in the fabric of your clothes, and spilling out onto the gravel around you. He could tell by the way you were doing your best to hide in the shadows and avoid being seen you were trying to take care of yourself. Despite your best efforts, Connor could still hear your grunts of pain.

After a little time passes and the shock of the situation dissolve slightly, Connor would decide the best course of action here would be to approach very cautiously. Take every precaution so as not to give you any reason to fear him or otherwise cause for alarm.

Once he's finally able to reach you and learns the full story of what went down, Connor would insist on walking you home as there's no way he would leave you all alone on the streets now. Even though you might feel as though she's going a little too far here, you would likely chalk this up overprotectiveness as a result of his occupation and could easily overlook any ulterior motive.

Hank

Unlike his partner, Hank is way too well experienced in the sort of situation to allow any shock caused him to freeze up. Hank's been in this position before; despite this, it does little to dull his emotional reaction. Fear from finding you in such critical condition, anxiety in the confusion of how you end up here in the first place. But most importantly, anger demanding justice against whoever did this to you.

Before you even detected, he was in the area he would be at your side a direct but also gentle approach. Even though it's tempting for him to allow his emotions take over here, Hank still holds your immediate safety as his first, and top priority and the sight of all that blood on your clothing has and more than a little concerned.

There's no way someone like him wouldn't have a first aid kit in his car or something to that effect so while he would urge you to get it away from them up in the scum of the street alcove he wouldn't feel the need to rush you to an actual medical area without first a little wound care of his own. Both treating the injuries as well as making sure you felt safe again.

It would be tough to refuse Hank's help here or to assure him you were fine on your own even if you were suspicious of his intentions. Hank would appear to you as a superior, a guardian figure someone you could rely on to keep you safe against the world. It's not that you weren't suspicious it's more a matter of how anyone could in your position not embrace the comfort and guidance he offered.

Gavin

Did you really think this guy would know how to avoid acting emotionally in the situation? Even though he's far from their most experienced in terms of first aid, he isn't blind. And the sight of the person he cares for the most curled up and pain visibly bleeding and failing to keep the moans and hisses of agony quiet leaves him with clear instruction of what to do next.

Most in a situation would try to draw you out of the muck of the city alley Gavin wouldn't necessarily do the same. Instead, Gavin would be right at your side before you could so much as ask how he found you so quickly he would insist you trust him. Allow Gavin to examine your wounds and learn what happened to you after.

It would require a great deal of convincing and begging this absolute idiot not to try and pursue the person who did this to you. Likely Gavin would use this as an excuse to get you to promise him something like, “ I promise I will not hunt this person down if you promise to let me look after you tonight."

You wanted to believe Gavin wasn't entirely serious here when he told you he was ready to make sure the bastard who did this to you bled for what he did. And under other circumstances, you may have been a bit more wary of this quite frankly hostile behavior. However, considering how unsafe and afraid you were, how could you refuse the one person who swore he would keep you safe even if it was just for this one night.

Ralph

Before now, Ralph typically felt most comfortable in the night and what would usually be considered part of the more hardened areas of town. Most humans tended to avoid these parts. And he could easily fight off or evade an encounter. He thought he knew this area until he saw you roughed up and crumpled in a ball against the side of the building.

Ralph fails to understand what the problem here is, and it's not until he notices you're heavily bleeding that he decides you're in serious danger here, and it's imperative he steps in to do something. He wants to help you out and be the strong one here; however, despite his best intentions, it's hard to focus on anything but all that blood and the way that you're coiled up in pain.

Rather than focusing on the injuries at hand, Ralph might decide to make the snap decision to urge you to your feet tell you that it's too dangerous out here to sit around. If you wanted to survive the night, then you must follow Ralph's lead and allow him to bring you to safety.

Considering your mental haze here, you're not exactly in any position to turn him away. He tells you following his lead in this critical moment might be the one thing which could save your life, and who are you not to accept this blessing? A part of you feared for your own death in that area where you were jumped. Even if all aroused could do was save you from dying in that horribly dark place that was more than enough.

Nines

Unlike many of the other yanderes who would want to approach you with nothing but gentleness and would hate to cause you any more fear considering you were already barely holding on, this does not apply to Nines. And his eyes Nines has no choice but to rush you and get you out of the situation as soon as possible. True, he hates to be the one to bring you even more pain, but it's an act of tough love, and there's no way he'll let a minute go to waste, not when there's so much on the line here.

Nines wouldn't force you to explain what happened to you here as he doubts you're precisely "all there" at the moment. Not to mention the fact Nines trust himself to be competent enough when it comes to analyzing your injuries to piece together a rough estimation of what must have gone down to leave you in such a somber state.

The best way to explain how he would react in this situation is to act now and worry about explanations later. Much unlike Gavin, Nines realizes the culprit is already long gone, and there's no way he could hope to avenge justice for you on that front now. Though God only knows, given the opportunity, this person would fry.

When it comes to your reaction, it's unlikely there is no one else you could have chosen to come to your aid in the situation. Nines, even without really trying, has this way of making you feel protected like so long as he's here by your side, there's no way something like that would happen to you again. Maybe even enough to urge you to rely more on him in the future.

Consider buying me a Ko-Fi//Requests are Open

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noctuascion · 5 years ago

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Don't think I've sent you a prompt yet. So here ya go. Possible fluff prompt: Crypto gets sick and Mirage has to look after him.

Ahh, the good ol' sick fic, my favorite. Ty for your ask!! I'll do my best!!! ✨

---

Mornings were always particularly hard for Park. The night prior was either spent restlessly looking through files on his computer, or he was struggling to remain asleep due to constant nightmares or insomnia. Sleeping was something that merely evaded him, and he was thankful the cameras never zoomed in too much, otherwise they'd see just how fatigued he usually was during games, even if he still managed to pull his weight, if not just by a sliver.

Mornings were spent sleeping in until he couldn't stay in bed any longer. Breakfast was either skipped entirely or the bare minimum—toast and coffee—and all of his other meals were relatively spotty as well. He sometimes forgot lunch entirely, and, if it wasn't for Makoa politely asking him to join them for dinner, he'd probably forget that, too.

He ate very little, unconsciously trying to conserve his food, a habit likely picked up from his days with Mystik at the orphanage. His preference for junk food and takeout didn't provide for a healthy diet either, hence why he could admit he was a bit on the skinny side.

Coupling that with his horrible sleep schedule could likely provide an explanation as to why he woke up one morning feeling uncomfortably warm, head aching something terrible, throat sore, congestion in his nostrils, and limbs weak, a feeling of fragility he despised. He hadn't been feeling the best these past few days, but he had just assumed it was just a lack in sleep.

The hacker groaned when he tried moving, the action upsetting the headache he was currently nursing, before looking to the clock beside his bed. It read six thirty-seven, which meant he was up way earlier than he normally was. The other Legends tended to tackle the day before the sun was at the zenith of its arch, but Park preferred sleeping in, especially on days off.

However, with how horrid he currently felt, like he was overheating in his blankets, he couldn't see himself doing much else besides laying in bed, more miserable than he usually was.

That is until he heard a knock on his door, a rhythmic seven taps that indicated only one person.

"Rise and shine, butterscotch!" came Elliott's voice, providing yet another ridiculous appellation assigned to his person. "You said we could go see that cool fireworks show later, and I thought: why not get there and enjoy the festival for a bit?"

Oh, he had completely forgotten about the supposed "festival" being hosted by Hammond Robotics, some ridiculous, over-the-top celebration about nothing Park could bring himself to care about. He had said he didn't want to go, but Elliott had nearly begged him to go—and he agreed, though he didn't want to be around people for too long. His boyfriend understood his introverted tendencies to a degree, but Park knew there were still aspects he was oblivious to—much like how Park was completely oblivious to any and all aspects of Elliott's extroverted personality.

When no answer was had, Elliott opened the door with the spare key provided, something Park entrusted him with for situations just like these. Sunshine incarnate stepped inaide the surveillance expert's gloomy abode, donning that fond smile and gentle eyes. If Park didn't feel like absolute garbage, he'd happily welcome the other into his room with a hug and a kiss—if he was feeling confident enough, that is.

"Hey, you wanna get up anytime soon?" he asked gently, nothing condescending or belittling in his tone. He sat down on Park's bed, the mattress dipping with the added weight, and cringed upon seeing his boyfriend. "Wow, you look like shit—worse than usual—n-not like you're ugly or bad looking—it's just that you don't sleep much and—"

"I'm sick…" Park managed, immediately regretting it when he heard just how congested he sounded, how his throat burned at uttering just two simple words.

"Y-Yeah, I can tell."

Elliott's too warm hand came to rest on Park's forehead, the back of his hand pressing delicately against heated skin. He already felt like he could snap in half—he didn't need Elliott treating him like he would.

However, Park couldn't find it in himself to be angry—not when Elliott was shining those puppy-like eyes at him, concern painting his handsome features. Frankly, he felt bad for making him worry, but it wasn't exactly something he could stop.

"My poor shortcake. You got hit hard, huh?" the trickster whispered, likely taking into account Park's possible headache, his hand sliding along heated skin to gently cup the other's cheek. "Lemme go to our lil' clinic and grab you some meds. I'll ask Makoa if he can get me some tea for your throat and sinuses, too, m'kay?"

"Unnecessary…" he mumbled, hoping the quieter volume wouldn't elicit any flaring pain; it did, but not as severe. "I'll wait it out… Don't worry…"

"… And you call me an idiot."

Park wasn't exactly the easiest person to get a request from. Elliott had asked him countless times what he wanted and needed, getting the same responses over and over again, like he was a broken record. He hated feeling like a burden, and hated feeling indebted to someone. Elliott had to learn from picking up on social cues just to figure out he wanted a hug. Getting him to voluntarily ask for help, especially since he's too sick to go to the festival, the one Elliott really wanted to take him too, would be potentially be near impossible.

Park was stubborn, but Elliott was, too.

"Sweet angel that fell from the heavens, my beautiful boy, the cutest shortcake to exist—just let me do this for you." Hopefully, the puppy eye look was enough to get his stubborn lover to finally give in and let him be taken care of. "I love the shit out of you, and I hate seeing you sick. Lemme help you feel better—or I'll just have to kiss you better."

"Then you would end up sick, moron." Park pulled up his blanket a bit to cover the cough suddenly shaking his frame, expression pinched and pained; it was probably murder on his already sore throat. "Fine… But I promise to make up for the festival…"

"You don't have to, hon. Just feel better soon."

Despite knowing Park would protest, Elliott leaned down to press a kiss to the other's skin, a hand leaving the comfort of his blanket to swat him away, eliciting a laugh from the trickster.

Quickly, he made his way out of the hacker's room, shutting the door quietly behind him, before hurrying off to fetch the promised items. He asked Makoa first if he'd be willing to make some tea, explaining that Park was feeling under the weather, and even offered to make soup for him. The man was a saint, laughing off Elliott's "would that be asking too much?" with that same boisterous laugh. Afterwards, Elliott made his way to the clinic, their resident medic checking over medications and organizing her supplies. After explaining his symptoms, Ajay provided some ibuprofen, asking if he'd tell Park to "get better soon so they can even the score."

Once the medicine was acquired, Elliott returned to the kitchen, where the scent of ginger and tomato seemed ever so prominent. Makoa waved him over, allowing him to see the progress. He wasn't finished just yet, but he would be soon.

And, once he was, Elliott placed everything on a tray and brought it back to Park's room, where the hacker had fallen asleep in, though his slumber looked anything but peaceful. Elliott set the tray at the end of Park's bed, making sure it wouldn't tip over, before gently placing a hand on the slumbering man's shoulder, gingerly shaking him awake. Glazed over hazel optics moved to blearily stare at Elliott; said man could only smile once seeing him awake.

"Makoa made you some tomato soup and ginger tea, and Ajay gave you some ibuprofen," he said, moving to grab the tray and bring it over. "You think you're strong enough to eat and drink?"

A tired nod was all he got in response, Park's arms moving to push him up into a sitting position. Elliott moved his pillows around a bit so they'd provide some support for him, setting the tray in his lap. The hacker attempted to take a whiff through his congested sinuses, humming when the ginger tea provided some semblance of assistance.

"Okay, you eat, take your meds, and I'll go run you a cold bath."

"Cold…?" the hacker suddenly asked pitifully; he wasn't particularly fond of lower temperatures…

"It's to help with your fever, baby. I doubt feeling like you're cooking alive under your blankets is a good feeling."

Park let out a huff, a hand reaching for his ginger tea and the other taking the recommended dosage of ibuprofen. "I guess you're right…"

"I'm always right. The rightest man on the Frontier. You won't find a righter man than me." Elliott leaned over to press another kiss to heated skin, receiving yet another swat for his efforts, which, in turn, elicited yet another chuckle from the taller. "Enjoy your soup and gross meds, angel cake."

With the wave Park sent his way, Elliott hurried off to do as promised. The bath wasn't frigid, but it was just a little below lukewarm. He didn't want the other actually freezing; his sensitivity to the cold was cute, sure, because it meant more snuggles and hugs when they were out in the cold, but he didn't want to actually bring his boyfriend any discomfort. He even put in that little Nessie rubber toy the other insisted he hated, even though Elliott's seen him admiring it or even having it in his tub when he's washing up.

When he finished, Elliott returned to see Park had finished up most of his soup and that his tea was nearly gone. He assumes he took the medicine; Park's never given him any reason to doubt in the first place.

"Finished?" he asked, receiving a nod. He lifted the tray off the other's lap, setting it on his desk, which had a few takeout containers and papers strewn about. They'd have to clean that later. "You okay enough to walk to the bathroom?"

"Yes."

"Cool, cool."

And, despite the answer that couldn't have been anymore straightforward, Elliott moved forward, pulled the blanket off, slipped his hands under the baffled hacker's legs and back, and lifted him up like he weighed almost nothing. Park's arms unconsciously wrapped around his neck in a panic, already red-hued features darkening at the sudden action.

"I said I can walk," he muttered angrily, glaring up at his uncaring boyfriend, who didn't seem bothered by the scowl adorning the hacker's visage. Frankly, it's lost any intimidation it used to have and just reminds Elliott of a feral but sweet cat.

"I know."

"Then put me down."

"Nah."

"Idiot."

"Shortcake."

And if bathing with Park, who had rested against Elliott's chest the entire time, pliant and quiet, nearly dozing off, wasn't worth missing out on the festival, then watching as the hacker drifted off to sleep later that night, content and comfortable in Elliott's arms, definitely made it worthwhile.

He couldn't help but press a kiss to the other's forehead again, knowing that, if the other was awake, he'd just swat him away like he normally does. Even though Park's fever worsened, fluctuating between stable and unstable, and eventually broke a few days later, Elliott didn't mind any of it, didn't mind the fact that they missed out on a few date opportunities, that they missed movie night and a few hours of sleep. Seeing his lover get better made any problem worth it, and the smile he got was all the reward he ever needed.

#apex legends #crypto #tae joon park #mirage #elliott witt #cryptage #eugh this was corny and GROSS #i hope you at least enjoyed some of it haha #ty so much for the ask!!! they're always immensely appreciated!!!#lenardo does a write

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