#I'm half joking here | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bayeis · 29 days ago

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I've joked about it in the tags a lot but I've decided to sit down and actually compile a list on why I'm only half joking when I say my job is conditioning me to be the next Jonathan Sims

The Buried: A lot of my job involves putting people in small confined spaces, often with no windows and and a single, locked door. We frequently have people with claustrophobia that realize agreeing to be locked in a small space means being locked in a small space. 9.9/10 times they are peer pressured into doing it anyway, and have a miserable time

The Corruption:

The Building is rotting. There is no nice way to put this. The walls are slick with mold and soft to the touch, the ceiling drips despite us being on the ground floor of a two story building, the carpets squish with unknown water, and yet people's eyes just glaze past it. Our landlord for the building is a thick accent russian man who, for the past 4 years I've worked here, has changed his name on the emails several times, despite it undoubtedly being the same man, who I have met in the flesh twice before. The first time was to come into the building, shake my hand, and leave. The second time was to ask me to bring him upstairs (not apart of our business but we still have the key for some reason), which I did, and then have not seen him since. Speaking of upstairs, the handful of times I've been there it's just. Bizarre. An entirely furnished office space, completely abandoned. There's everything from paintings on the walls to files still in the cabinets and scattered across desks. I could not tell you what the office space used to be, or whatever the employees that worked there used to do, but I do know it was officially, genuinely abandoned because it was deemed unsafe to be in, from the sheer amount mold and rot. How it is somehow safe for us to work directly below with leaking ceilings I have no idea. I've occasionally had to dart up there with our key to snag a pair of scissors off one of the desks or some other office supply we can't locate in our own half, though I always disinfect them the second I bring them downstairs, and always wear a mask when I'm up there. There's also the bugs. I am so genuinely serious when I say one day I swept the lobby of our building and discovered the shelled corpses of around 300 dead superworms. Like the kind you would feed a pet lizard. I have no idea why they were there, how they got there, or anything. I just swept them up and disposed of them as my coworker watched in horror. Weird worm sightings aside, the building is frequently swarmed both in and outside with bugs, despite weekly exterminator visits. The stairwell to the second floor (located outside) spends about half the year covered in what has to be hundreds if not thousands of moth caterpillars and cocoons. Walking in that back porch area is near impossible as you cannot look anywhere without seeing the walls, floors, stairs, doors all bumpy and withering with the sheer amount of caterpillars (of the not so friendly verity as well. They feel like shattered glass to the touch and will frequently leave a rash). My old manager once found one in her ear. There. Are. Bugs. Everywhere.

The Dark:

Fairly self explanatory. The building gets zero light. The lobby has full glass doors, and walls of windows facing multiple directions but no matter how many blinds you open or what time of day it is you'll find your eyes slightly straining in the just slightly too dim setting. It's never bright enough. When we can get our lights to work (frequently blow out, and when they are attempted to be replaced we find that nearly every light fixture required a different kind of special bulb, meaning that to fix it requires hunting down that kind of random bulb, which will be different from all the others. An effort frequently left undone, dotting the building with random spots of shadows) they don't really help, not because they aren't bright enough, but because the building was designed with weird corners, so all the light the fixtures could be potentially giving, is almost immediately blocked out with odd shaped walls and randomized corners. Some rooms just don't have windows to even attempt to sap out some of the sunlight. The room the employees are made to sit in (about an 8ft by 8ft room) for the majority has no overhead lights, no windows, and like the rest of the building, the walls are painted solid black to sap any remaining light out. The only way you can see in there is from the glow of the monitors and two dim lamps shoved in opposite corners. We get complaints from customers that it's too dark and they can't see well, and we've tried everything to fix it, a desperate combination of lamps LEDs, and fairy lights, but no matter how hard we try, how many blinds we throw open, it's never bright enough.

The Eye:

Remember that employee room I mentioned with the monitors? Workers are instructed to sit in the room (control room) and watch their designated cameras. This is not a security job. Off the top of my head, our (relatively small building floor) has about 30 cameras. There is no where in the building you can be that doesn't have a camera. Even the control room has a camera so we can watch the employees watching people. Some of the cameras are on (all the cameras are always on, with the only way to shut them off being to physically rip them from the walls) but we have yet to find out how to access their feed. The cameras like to frequently switch, in that I mean their security codes, IPs, and registration numbers will jump and switch with each other to no rhyme or reason. When that happens I have to grab the notebook dedicated to writing down whatever this weeks IP numbers are and attempt to metaphorically shove the cameras back into place. We are not a security job, but we are, if you didn't know or guess, an escape room. The entire job, as I previously mentioned, is to sit and watch people freak out through the cameras. Everywhere a guest turns if they look up, there is a camera. Every word they say is recorded and logged. Every action they take is carefully judged. All while a worker sits in a completely dark room, all day, watching their designated cameras intently. I think, for the sheer inherentness of what this business does and advertises, we are the most closely working with the eye. I am one of the managers now, and there are even cameras pointed and trained at where I sit, even thought there shouldn't be anyone to watch them.

The Lonely:

This one applies less to our customers and more to the poor employees. This job is soul crushing. You can go an entire shift, sitting alone in a small dark room, watching people have fun, as you silently observe. I have thankfully graduated out of the control room into front desk, and yet I can go entire days not seeing a soul, watching people chattering as they enter and exit our neighboring buildings through windows that never seem to catch the sun. The "employee area" where we are supposed to be able to hang out in between games isn't really built for socializing. It has been overcrowded and shoved with chairs, so many fucking chairs, that it becomes near intimidating to try and navigate. The most use the room sees is when an employee shoves some of them together and takes a nap, because there is nothing to do. It's not like the employees don't like each other either, we all get along wonderfully for the most part, as well as coworkers relatively around the same age can (helps that we're all queer too), but once you're halfway through a shift, and absolutely nothing of interest has happened you start to drift. A typical lull between games (which can stretch for days in the off season) will usually result in me sitting alone at front desk, answering an occasional ghost call that hangs up immediately when I answer it, an employee sitting in the back area, surrounded by empty chairs facing the graveyard where we write old employees names, and another employee choosing to nest down in the control room, in the dark surrounded by monitors reflecting myself and the other worker being alone, angles scattered across the dozens of cameras. Even when we are busy, there's almost no time to socialize. I still sit alone at a front desk made for two, mindlessly checking people in with no altercation to the script, and the game hosts focus on their game, crammed into the control room with several other game hosts, all willingly silent as they watch whatever designated family they have through their cameras.

The Spiral:

Again, we are an escape room. The whole appeal is to present ourselves as confusing as possible. From room layouts, to our hallways, to the way the building wraps and twists, dumping people out at one door, opposite of where they just entered from, it is designed to drive people crazy. Honestly we don't help either. For our own entertainment, game hosts are particularly obtuse and confusing, partially because we don't want you to get out too early and partially because we have been watching the exact same thing over and over and over and it's starting to drive us a little crazy. People always do the exact same thing in the rooms, there's very little variation from the jokes made the to ideas brought forward. So if the game host wants to keep a little sanity, it's up to them to reek havoc on their game in hopes of startling out a new response, which, if one does occur, gets snapped up and thrown around the control room to the other employees for a slice of entertainment like a sliver of meat thrown to a starving pack of dogs.

The Stranger:

The doll room. Not a traditional "the stranger" kind of presentation, but gives that same prickling unnerving feeling.

In the exact center of the building layout there is a tiny room that is decked in as many old porcelain dolls as possible, all strung up from their necks and twisting around gently in non existent wind. Walking past the only physical door into the enclosed room, you'll usually hear the door rattling in it's frame, or one of the dolls knocking against the door. The room has no vents, no fans, no overhead lights. It's only light source is two red light bulbs, and the room was custom built by our owners. And like, I get it. It's an escape room. There's a creepy room. 1 + 1 equals 2. I cannot even being to describe the feeling this room gives or brings. Almost every time there is a group in there, one person in the group will become more unnerved then the rest, because one of the dozen of dolls looks uncomfortably similar to a doll they or a family member had as a child. The doll will sway on it's string noose as the cameras pick up the trickle of "doesn't that one look just like grandmas doll?" "this one kinda looks like my Betsy doesn't it?" with a chorus of agreements and half given glances, as the rest of the group gets absorbed with the next puzzle, and the single member who brought it up stares, and eventually leaves the room, typically not reentering the rest of the game. It is the strangest thing to watch (no pun intended). Occasionally, the similarity is met with delight, but more often then not it just seems to unnerve. The doll room also shares a wall with the control room, which means nothing, but is occasionally fun to kick.

The Web:

There's the obvious ones, our rooms are meant to trap people, the game hosts jobs besides watching the cameras is to manipulate the line of thinking the customers have, ect, ect. The most unnatural thing to note here isn't the standard workings of an escape room however, but the sheer vast amount of spiders in this goddamn building. I have never seen so many spiders in my life. We can't shake them. From how disgustingly rotted our building is at this point I think the spiderwebs are one of the only things keeping our building together. Again, we have an exterminator come by every single week both in and out of the building. The spiders refuse to let up, every day is a constant battle of knocking down their webs only to turn around and see they've put several more up. We've all but given up on trying to get them out of the employee only areas and now focus our war to the battle grounds of where customers can see to only mild success. This isn't even a regional or habitat thing, no other building I have lived or stayed in in this town has ever even come close to touching the spider infestation happening here.

In terms of other entities such as the Hunt, Slaughter, and Desolation, I can think of a handful of things that might align my job and them, but nothing solid enough that's worth mentioning. There has not yet been anything that reminds me of the End, Vast, or Extinction.

Other things to note,

Quitting is weird? People do, don't worry it's not a genuine hostage situation, but once they leave they are very rarely every sighted by coworkers again. I don't just mean not visiting the building, I mean like going completely off the grid and moving states if not in some cases countries. The entire time this business has been open and operable I've been the longest standing employee, at a record 4 years of the 7 it's been open. I could not name a single employee that has ever truly quit and has been easy to contact again by anyone. If you are able to, it's usually polite conversation with any mention of how you know each other (meeting at the job) being laughed and shut down quickly. No one whose left this place wants to talk about it and I get it, believe me. When we get an influx of summer employees to help with the rush the heat brings, I'm no longer allowed to help train because I would try warn the employees to pace themselves so they didn't experience Game Host Death too early (what we call when a game hosts snaps, having watched the same thing over and over and eventually loosing their mind over it, resulting in crying when told they have to run a game, weird twitching/manic-esque break downs, or in some memorable cases, game hosts just walking out in the middle of hosting a game). This is incredibly ironic considering the majority of employees have admitted the only reason they stick around is because they like working with me but I'm not here to toot my horn. There's also a large collection of employees who are neither employeed nor not, who have moved an hour or so away and have gotten a different, closer, better paying, and enjoyable job, and yet inexplicable will show up once in a blue moon asking for a shift at the escape room for no other reason then they felt compelled to. Typically anyone whose worked here for more then a season falls in this category. Currently we have four official employees for the off season (including myself) and yet if I count this stragglers who all genuinely hate this job (also including myself) our employee numbers easily go over 20. I cannot even imagine what the owners taxes look like for that (all paychecks and stubs are handled by a women who I have only ever emailed and never met). The owners themselves actually don't even live in the same state as us, and we are not apart of a chain. This is the only escape room they own. They're main business? Sheep farming. Which actually, that might be the slaughter right there. Despite working for them for so long, the amount of times I have met them can be counted on one hand. They are completely uninvolved, this business is no mans land. I've thought about quitting multiple times, even briefly lived in another city states away, and yet still found myself back, inexplicably every time I think about leaving again a nice little bonus or raise hits my paycheck, a system I can't really complain about. As for the other managers, I've outlasted several. The only way I have ever seen anyone on the management team leave is to have the biggest mental breakdown known to man and disappear. That's literally it. I've watched it happen so many times. The only employee that came close to being here as long as me was my original manager, who, a couple of months before she left, started loosing her mind, twitchy, paranoid, at her wits end. She isolated and locked herself in one of the rooms for about a month, only emerging at the end of the shift. I tried to approach her once about it and she shaved her head as a panic response. This fucking job, it was choking her from the inside out. Eventually she couldn't handle it and left, effective almost immediately. In the span of a month I watched several new managers cycle in and out, from the women who would sit behind me and silently cry, to a previous employee who realized the jail cell of a role she was being forced into an dipped before the owners could lock the door on her. The current manager is the ex fiancee of the women who locked herself in a room for a month. The horrors are a cycle fr

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hesperidia · 4 months ago

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The Naomi reveal was the most important thing of the chapter for me, because it's a loose end tied up. We suspected her and Tanizaki weren't related now it's confirmed.

Thinking about it she has to be related to someone important enough, or she has to have an useful enough skill/hold some kind of important information. Why would there be a reason for her to be hidden away/her to choose to run away with junichiro/ to join the ada and being ""protected"" by fukuzawa and the others in some sense etc etc. where is my Naomi centric light novel i need answers

#half joking here now more than ever i'm curious about her background.#bsd 118 spoilers #guys the stupid theories are backkk

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owlmylove · 2 years ago

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nimona not even flinching at an arrow getting yanked outta their leg 🤝 trans folk w/ thighs full of puncture wounds

#tell me i'm wrong #half joking half serious here #nimona #nimona spoilers #owl post

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akai-anna · 6 months ago

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Round 2

Round: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

youtube

#detective conan #music #polls #detco posting #my stuff #the same rule applies here as well #the order is shuffle levels of random #but i will tell the truth: IF TRUTH DOESN'T WIN THIS ROUND I'M ALL DISAPPOINTED IN YOU (joke. half-joke?)#(it's just such an ICONIC such an AMAZING such an utterly GREAT SONG like damn)#(on the other hand... START and Happy Birthday not to mention FCKIN MAIN THEME... ok i admit it's a hard choice)#(good thing i'M not the one who has to pick one i guess >:3c)#(it's hard when it's my ultimate favourites. may you all have better luck deciding fandom ppl)#round 3 will come tomorrow my bro demands The Sleepies

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randomnameless · 2 years ago

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How is Sothis worse than Sonia?

Sonia at least talks to Nino, even if it's to tell her to fig off !

I know it's a low bar lol

#anon #replies #Worst mom #i'm half joking here #But at least she gives a reply to Nino's request for affection #Then she orders her death immediately afterwards #But it gives a worse image to Sothis #Who doesn't even say anything when Rhea's crying just to see her once #fe16

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seventh-district · 11 months ago

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This Evening I Will Not Forget

“I jumped into the fray with the intention of helping you and next thing I know I’m standing there uselessly watching the first person I’ve dared to love in two fucking centuries take a warhammer to the stomach!”

He turned to face you as he emphasized his last few words, now standing all but frozen in the middle of the tent with his hands held out, gesturing toward your injury. You’re about to pipe up and insist that it wasn’t his fault, but the words dissipate before you can speak them as another part of his sentence echoes in your mind. You repeat them back to him in a disbelieving whisper.

“The first person you’ve dared to love?”

His tense, frustrated expression instantly falls flat.

“I didn’t say that.”

An injury and an argument lead to you revealing far more of yourself and your unspoken past to Astarion than you planned to.

Pairing: Astarion x Reader

Word Count: 3,292

Content Warnings: [injured Reader] (not graphically described, just mentions of bruising and pain) [mean/avoidant Astarion] [argument] [mentions of Reader's scars & non-specific allusion to their Tragic Backstory™] [vulnerability] [possibly (probably) OOC Astarion]

Author's Note: This is an excerpt from my fic An Evening I Will Not Forget, but can be read as a standalone one-shot. The only context I think you'll need is that this fic is written in the style of reliving memories, hence certain lines will mention Reader "looking back" on them.

“What's important is this evenin' I will not forget

Purple, blue, orange, red

These colors of feelin'

Give me love, I'll put my heart in it”

You’re lying on your back as cold, pale fingers press against your sensitive skin, pulling a small pained sound of protest from you.

“Sorry, sorry…”

Astarion retracts his hand, fingers curling into his palm. You reach out to catch hold of him before he can completely pull away, your voice tense with pain as you reassure him.

“No- no... don’t be. I know you’re just trying to help.”

You bring his hand back toward your exposed stomach, his fingers still coated in the healing salve he was attempting to apply. His hand hovers hesitantly over your bruised and broken skin.

“Yes, but- I’m not very good at it.”

Your thumb brushes across his wrist as you hold onto him, suspecting that if you let go he’d just retract his hand again.

“What do you mean? Of course you are.”

He shakes his head insistently.

“No. It seems like every time I try to help you, I just end up hurting you even more…”

Confusion is clear both in your voice and on your features.

“That’s not… that’s not true, Star.”

You tug lightly on his wrist to get his attention, your voice soft as you ask him a question.

“Is this about what happened today?”

He pulls his hand out of your loose hold and you let him, watching as he stands and begins pacing circles inside the tent.

“No, I’m in a bad mood because the weather isn’t quite to my liking- of course it’s about what happened today!”

The initial sarcasm in his voice gave way to frustration near the end. Not with you, but with himself.

Now that you’re observing this memory from his perspective as well, you can see the moment you sustained the injury playing over and over again in his mind, working him up further and further.

“The first person you’ve dared to love?”

His tense, frustrated expression instantly falls flat.

“I didn’t say that.”

Your eyes widen, nodding slowly.

“Yes you did.”

Nervous laughter escapes him as he takes a step back, distancing himself from you.

“No, no, you… you must have heard me wrong. I didn’t- I was talking about helping you, I didn’t say anything about love, what’s love got to do with this?”

You hate to push him, fearing he may bolt like a frightened deer if you double down, but you know what you heard. It wasn’t like the first time you heard him say it, slapping it on the end of a string of pick-up lines, the word obviously carrying no weight, no truth. No, this second time was different.

“I think it has more to do with it than you’re willing to admit, Astarion.”

He falters, one of very few times you’ve seen him truly caught off guard, truly speechless.

“Those are…” He searches for something to say that’ll cover up the truth that’d just spilled out of him. “...bold words for someone currently bedridden.”

You bark a laugh and it turns into a low groan at the pain it causes to flare in your lower ribs.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

If he’s being honest, even he’s hardly sure what he meant. He’s truly floundering here, for the first time in… forever.

“It means… it means that I can walk away from this conversation right now and there isn’t anything you can do about it.”

Stooping so low as to resort to childish threats, you can feel the embarrassment radiating off of him.

“Would you truly be so cruel as to do that to me right now? Walking away, leaving me vulnerable and confused just because you can’t handle the truth?”

You’re pushing your luck too far and you know it. Surprisingly, though, he takes one step toward you, moving away from the exit.

“Cruel?! If you think that me simply walking away from you counts as cruelty then you truly haven’t suffered enough.”

His words are suddenly laced with venom and they hit you harder than the barbarian’s warhammer did today, leaving a chill colder than ice in their wake.

He seems to actually hear what he said a moment later, the careless words ricocheting off of you and coming back to slam into his chest, nearly knocking him over and crushing him beneath the weight of his sudden regret.

A furious wave of heat and adrenaline courses through you as you bolt upright in the makeshift bed, ignoring the sharp pain that flares inside you in response to the sudden movement. Reaching down and grabbing at the tail of your shirt where it’s bunched up around your ribs, you hastily yank it up over your shoulders and head, tugging your arms out of the long sleeves and furiously tossing the garment directly at him.

“Suffered enough? You think I haven’t fucking suffered enough, Astarion? You don’t know the goddamned HALF of it! You’re not the only one in this tent that’s been abused, you know?! Oh wait- that’s right- you DON’T!”

Your voice cracks under the pressure of volume and emotion as fat, hot, angry tears roll down your cheeks against your will. Astarion stands there like a deer in the headlamps, your balled-up shirt having hit him softly in the chest and fallen anticlimactically to the ground. As his eyes rake over your heavily scarred arms, the angry purple markings showing no signs of lessening as they curl over your shoulders and disappear behind your back, it suddenly starts to make a lot more sense why you were so damned insistent that no one remove your clothes while treating your wounds earlier.

Shadowheart rips open the flap covering the tent’s exit, a very concerned looking Halsin ducking down behind her. Part of you is grateful that at least not everyone was currently at camp to witness your sudden breakdown, but even the sight of the two of them is enough to have you panicking. Pulling at the blanket gathered around your waist and shouting in an admittedly very childish, vulnerable voice, you demand they leave as you choke on your tears, hastily covering yourself up.

“GET OUT!”

Unsure of what to do, Shadowheart surveys the scene before her with a critical eye before sighing, seeming to understand that the best thing they can do right now is give you back your privacy. She knows that if you needed her, you would call. Turning to shoo away the concerned man behind her, she lowers the flap back down with a quiet murmur of “They’re… fine. Let’s give them some space.”

Astarion finally breaks free from where he’s been stood like a statue, slowly moving toward the exit as well with an unsure glance in your direction.

You bury your face into the fabric clutched in your hands, shouting into it in exasperation.

“NOT YOU!”

He freezes, no longer knowing what to do but wishing that the ground would simply open up and swallow him whole. Back under six feet of soil feels like where he deserves to be after what he just said to you.

He racks his brain for the right thing to say, coming up empty handed and eventually deciding that honesty might just be the best policy in this situation.

“I… I’m going to level with you. I have no idea what to do right now.”

In spite of it all, you laugh, a broken sound that cuts through your tears, causing you to cough, then the strain from coughing causes more tears to fall. Though he can’t admit it, Astarion knows right then and there that he never wants to hear or see you in such pain ever again.

“I… I’ll level with you, too.”

You pull the blanket away from your face, looking at him with watery, bloodshot eyes.

“...Neither do I.”

You glance down at the floor, attempting a deep breath and failing spectacularly as another broken sob escapes you. Dropping the fabric still held up against your chest, you press your hands down into the bedroll beneath you in an attempt to support your upper body and ease the pain radiating through your core.

Astarion takes one cautious step toward you, his unsteady voice the only thing filling the silence aside from your soft crying.

“I need… to apologize. For everything.”

You shake your head in disagreement and clear your throat.

“No, you don’t. You’ve been through a worse hell than I could ever even imagine. It’s… stupid of me to try and compete with you in that regard.”

He takes another step forward, insistent.

“That isn’t true. You have… clearly been through your own hell, and it was… stupid of me to assume you hadn’t. Even worse of me to try and downplay my avoidance by… holding my past over you like some sort of… like some sort of excuse.”

You shift your weight to the side in order to lift one hand, reaching out to grab at one of the small cloths stacked beside your bed. Astarion sees you struggling to reach them and rushes forward, closing what remained of the space he’d put between you as he lifted a cloth and handed it to you without a word.

You bring it to your face, pressing it to your eyes in a useless attempt to dry the tears that were still falling. Then, moving it down to blow your running nose into the cloth before you could make an even bigger mess of yourself than you already were. Finally able to breathe a bit better, you counter his point.

“Yeah, but- the thing is, I feel like you kinda have the right to do that, given all that you’ve survived. Of course you’d see the pain of walking away from a conversation as trivial when you compare it to… literally anything you’ve experienced.”

Now that he’s returned to your side, Astarion’s head angles to drag his gaze across your exposed back, finally seeing the full extent of your scarring as you lean forward a bit to toss the dirty cloth to the floor of the tent next to your shirt. Nausea swirls deep in the pit of his stomach as the upsetting sight of your marred skin burns itself into his memory.

“I believe… that’s called a double standard.”

You throw him a sad, confused look, and he explains.

“You’re trying to give me some sort of… free pass based on what I’ve been through, but I’ve never once seen you give yourself that same sort of leniency.”

“That’s… not the same thing.”

“I’m not saying we’ve been through the exact same thing, but…” He gestures vaguely to the entirety of you. “...clearly you’ve gone through something. If I get to lord my baggage over you then surely you’re permitted to do the same.”

Your tears begin to slow as you consider his words.

“I don’t… want to do that, though. Obviously. That’s why I haven’t told you. I don’t want you giving me special treatment because ‘poor pitiful me’ has gone through some shit. I don’t think that excuses any of my current behavior.”

The silence hangs in the air for a moment before he gently drives his point home.

“Yet you think it excuses mine?”

Hm.

“...okay. I guess you’ve got me there.”

You sigh, body beginning to feel heavier than lead as the sudden rush of emotion and adrenaline fades from you. You ease yourself back down, hissing at the pain as your bruised ribs and torn muscles protest the stretch and movement. Astarion wants to assist but truth be told he’s afraid to touch you. So, he watches on helplessly, still berating himself in the back of his mind for the role he feels he played in you sustaining today’s injuries to begin with.

Once you’re laid down and relaxing into the bedroll as much as you can, you make no effort to cover yourself up, not caring how long his eyes wander across your exposed skin. Silently, he tries to read the countless jagged lines and dots carved into you like they may eventually come together to paint him a picture of all that’s happened to you.

No picture anyone could paint would ever do the pain justice.

He settles himself down next to you as your tired eyes stare a hole in the ceiling of the tent.

“You do not have to accept my apology, but I will not rescind it. I do have the wherewithal to know that what I said was wrong. It was cruel. I…”

He exhales, the heavy sound full of the weight carried by a man that hasn’t been this honest with anyone in centuries.

“I… tossed aside any consideration for how you may have felt, letting myself get lost in my own… stupid fears. It wasn’t right. It certainly wasn’t fair to you.”

Your head lolls to the side, appraising him with lidded eyes.

“You know… you’re surprisingly self-aware when you aren’t being a pompous ass.”

Your words draw a surprised laugh out of him and after a moment of consideration, he nods slowly in reluctant agreement.

“I’ve… had a lot of time to sit with myself and think. Eventually you get to know yourself pretty well.”

He looks down, idly picking at the loose threads on the edge of your well-worn bedroll.

“All of that self-awareness apparently doesn’t make me any kinder though, does it?”

It’s a rhetorical question but you answer it all the same.

“I still stand by my statement that you have good reason to be so… abrasive. Just being aware of those reasons doesn’t mean that they suddenly don’t affect you any more.”

Your hand raises from where it laid lifelessly beside you, reaching over for Astarion’s and pulling his anxious fingers away from attacking the weak points of your bedroll. You don’t release his hand once you direct him away from the loose threads, holding onto him as you continue to muse aloud.

“I think that a lot of us are just doing our best to not allow our past to affect our present, to varying degrees of success. Sometimes we fail. But- I believe all that truly matters at the end of the day is that we’re trying, though. … And, Astarion?”

“...yes?”

“I can tell that you’re trying.” You squeeze his hand. “And I accept your apology.”

You take a slow, deep breath, and listen as his voice comes out softer than you’ve ever heard it.

“Thank you.”

You nod your head in a silent “of course,” laying in thoughtful silence for a few moments before speaking.

“I… feel like I should apologize as well.”

Now it’s Astarion’s turn to be confused.

“What ever for?”

You weakly raise your other hand to gesture all around the room.

“Just… this. The scene I just made. Heaping all of this emotion onto you when you were obviously already struggling with how you felt about me in the first place.”

He doesn’t take long to respond.

“No, I don’t think you need to apologize for that. This… seems like it really needed to come out. I could never be upset with you for sharing it with me, regardless of the… unideal circumstances.”

He then seems to realize something.

“I hope you don’t regret it, though. Sharing this with me.”

You shake your head decisively and the motion causes your impending headache to flare.

“No. I don’t. I- uh- you were going to find out eventually with how… close we’ve been getting. I just couldn’t find the right time to tell you- or- well, show you, I guess.”

Your hand releases its hold on his, reaching up to carefully brush your fingertips across the mottled skin of your stomach. You raise your head up, angling it down to look down at the injury with a thoughtful gaze. Glancing over toward Astarion, you ask him another question.

“Can you hand me that salve from earlier? It never really… got fully applied.”

He immediately reaches behind him for the container, but holds it in his grasp as he stumbles over his words.

“I- I, uhm… wouldn’t mind trying again, if you want me to. If you don’t I’ll understand, though. Just… want you to know that the offer is still there.”

Your eyebrows raise in surprise, but you’re completely willing to let him do it.

“Oh… sure? You’re welcome to, I just… assumed you wouldn’t want to.”

He holds his other hand up and only then do you realize he never wiped the salve from his skin.

“These fingers are numb already anyways, might as well spare yours the same fate.”

You vaguely remember Shadowheart’s words as she passed Astarion the container earlier, cautioning him to not leave it for long on any skin he didn’t want to temporarily lose feeling in.

“But hey, at least we know that it works now, right?”

You give him a tired smile, appreciative of his efforts to lighten the mood.

“Mmm, I suppose so.”

You pull your hand away, exposing your injury to him once again.

“Have at me, then.”

With your permission, he sweeps a scoop of the healing and numbing mixture across your sensitive skin and you notice how feather-light he keeps his touch this time. Looking down to observe his work, you note how the messy mixture of the massive bruise’s dark colors stand in stark contrast to his pale white fingers that brush across it.

A thought slips out of your exhausted mind.

“Pretty…”

His eyes flick up to meet yours, unsure if he heard you correctly.

“Hmm?”

“The colors. They’re pretty. Purple, blue, even kinda orange…”

You look away from the bruise and up into his ruby eyes.

“...red.”

He’s silent for a moment, his hand pausing its gentle motion. Then he scoffs, looking away and internally dismissing your words as the ramblings of a tired mind.

“You’re talking nonsense, dear.”

Your filter has all but completely vanished, feeling almost drunk on your current mixture of exhaustion and relief after such a hell of a day. Sleep beckons you and your eyes fall closed as the pain in your ribs fades, on its way to being numbed out by the potent salve. A hazy thought surfaces, reminding you to give your thanks to Shadowheart when you next awake. For now though, you relax, no thought given to the words that slip from your lips.

“But you love my nonsense, don’t you…”

His heart feels like it jumps in his chest as he hears you so casually speak the word that he’s still reluctant to even think to himself, let alone say aloud. As he finishes massaging the salve into your skin and pulls his hand back, his eyes pass over the expansive unspoken history of pain evidently etched into your skin, up across your chest, over your shoulders and down your arms. He figures the least he can do is answer you honestly before sleep pulls you under.

“I… suppose I do.”

End Notes: If you'd like to read my commentary on this scene, you can find that in the end notes of Ch. 5 on AO3 - right here!

Header Image Source: x

#astarion x reader #astarion x you #astarion #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 astarion #astarion bg3 #astarion fic #astarion fanfic #astarion fanfiction #my writing #eheheee my attempt at baiting more people into reading my fic by posting parts of it as oneshots on Tumblr has begun /hj #i'm only half joking tho cause yeah while getting more eyes on the full fic would be a nice side effect if the oneshots do well on here #i also just want to give my favorite parts of the fic that i feel can stand on their own a chance at a second life here on Tumblr #regardless of whether that brings more people in to read the full fic or not

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hanzajesthanza · 9 months ago

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andrzej sapkowski in the witcher presents his reader with many curious and refreshing takes on the fantasy genre, such as "what if dragons were good" and "what if elves were incels"

#i joke it's more like what if the ethereal being had angsty mournful man feelings #that he has feelings but can't work through them because #overemotionality is considered base and human so he's basically been bottling all of this for centuries #the elbow-high diaries #plus that his only purpose was really to be with lara and now she's gone and so what does that make him #i'm not getting all MRA lmaoooo what i'm saying is that there needs to be two to make a baby so he was one-half of that #and destiny didn't work out as planned so ... this is all that's left #reading ch 5 of lotl for the first time: THIS IS SO MESSED UP WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO CIRI!!!#reading ch 5 of lotl again and again: my god EVERYONE here is so messed up and SAD. well except eredin #eredin is like cool im gonna go fight a unicorn #'what are you talking about he wanted to kill auberon?' but not in a very intelligent way he was like to ciri 'so you wanna... kill him?'#imo book eredin is kind of a meathead and it's kind of refreshing with all these 4D chess players around

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jtl-fics · 2 years ago

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Fluent Freshman - Part 22

Y’know how sometimes you have something that you need to do or something that you know is going to happen but you just keep…putting it off? Like you know at some point it is going to happen but you put it off over and over and over and over again? You’re getting increasingly anxious every time you put it off because you know it has to get done but you also know that the longer you wait the worse it is going to get. Finally, FINALLY, the anxiety is just a little too much and you end up having to deal with it.

You finally deal with it and the whole ordeal takes maybe five minutes tops and it was in no way shape or form worth the level of anxiety that you put yourself through. Like you worried about this for a good and long while and it wasn’t even that bad?

That is currently how FF feels about being stabbed by Andrew Minyard.

This is what he was so worried about that he had lost sleep, had nightmares, had lost weight, and had exacerbated his stress ulcers over.

Getting stabbed wasn’t anywhere near as bad as he had thought it was going to be. Maybe it was the fact that it was just a single stab wound instead of the Psycho levels that he had been imagining (Wow, showers were going to be so much less stressful now that he didn’t have to confirm Andrew Minyard’s location before triple checking the lock). Maybe it was the fact that he is PUMPED full of adrenaline from his fights against Jackson and Romero but the stab wound didn’t even really hurt at the moment.

This isn’t even the worse thing that had happened to him this year!

That honor still goes to the joint winners of when his Step Family and mother found out that he had a full-ride to Palmetto and when he had tripped up the same step on the stairs at school three times in a row as people watched and laughed.

(Maybe also the solitary congratulations from his Grandma in regards to his graduation but FF doesn’t let himself think about that, won’t think about it.)

He wouldn’t necessarily call being in a state of ‘stabbed’ a pleasant time but Andrew was being so NICE about it.

“Stop trying to sit up you fucking idiot!” Andrew shouts at him.

Well….Andrew’s version of nice.

(This is the same version of nice that he had misunderstood for months at this point. Maybe FF is just enough in shock from the stab wound in his stomach that he’s starting to grasp the basics in the difficult language of Andrew Minyard’s niceness.)

Andrew had gotten off the phone with 911 and then started pulling off his own jacket before draping it over FF’s upper body, wedging his phone between his shoulder and his ear, and then Andrew started to apply pressure to his stomach wound.

Ow.

That is not a great feeling. This stabbing may eke out past the great triple trip of March 2010.

“No, take back your jacket. You’ll get cold if you don’t have it on.” FF argues because his own jacket is barely doing the job. Maybe it’s the cold pavement of the alley, maybe it’s the blood loss, or maybe it’s the cooling sweat he’d worked up but he is shivering pretty badly.

A thought occurs to him as he feels the weird wet stickiness of his own blood sticking to Nicky’s shirt. “Can you help me get my jacket off?” He asks looking pleadingly at Andrew, “It’s my dad’s. I don’t wanna mess it up with my blood.” He clarifies when Andrew looks at him like he’s a lunatic.

Except his second call must connect right then because Andrew’s answer is non-sensical to what FF had asked, “Neil, let Roland know the police and ambulances are en route.” There’s a brief pause and the pressure against his stomach increases as a muscle in Andrew’s jaw jumps. “Smith got stabbed.” He says and he looks angry, angrier than FF had ever seen Andrew when he’s talking to Captain Neil. There is another pause, more than likely Neil saying something or asking a question, “No, it wasn’t them.” Andrew grits out and the pressure on FF’s stomach hurts, “Just get out here, I need help with smith and making sure these two assholes don’t go anywhere before the police come and grab them.” He says before he pulls one hand away from Smith’s stomach (wow he really is bleeding isn’t he?) to hang up the phone.

Andrew’s gaze turns back to him fully, “You’re not moving an inch Smith, your jacket can be cleaned.” He hisses. “Now stay still and don’t fall asleep.” He orders.

Andrew seems stressed so FF complies. He can’t help but notice how Andrew’s hands seem to be shaking as the press down on his stomach. He kind of wishes he had a pillow or something for his head because he’s starting to feel a little dizzy. Andrew’s jacket would be safer from his blood if it was a pillow instead of a blanket. Still, FF would sooner die than spit on any of Andrew’s current efforts to make him more comfortable.

He looks at the knife sticking out of his stomach. Well, he might die regardless of whether or not he spits on Andrew’s efforts.

He needs to take his mind off this.

“Should we take it out and pretend the Dundee knife stabbed me instead??” FF asks letting his mind go to the first thought in his head so that he could be distracted from his own mortality. “I think it’s still under the dumpster over there.” He moves to point one of his hands towards where the knife had remained throughout this entire ordeal.

Andrew’s knee pinned his arm before he could move it, “Stop moving Smith.” Andrew reminded him before moving his knee. “We have to leave the knife in. You’ll bleed to death otherwise.” Andrew reminds.

“I guess that’s true, so do we just say that Romero got a handle on your knife and stabbed me?” He asks fighting his own shivers since he’s a little worried that any shaking on his part would just make the stab wound worse.

“I stabbed you Smith.” Andrew says looking at him with a furrowed brow.

“Yeah, I know,” FF agrees, “but we’re not going to say THAT to the cops.” He says and shock really is one HELL of a drug because he thinks he might have actually given Andrew Minyard an incredulous look with his atrophied face muscles. It’s either Shock or the knowledge that even if he irritates Andrew, what’s Andrew going to do about it?

STAB HIM?

“You’re going to lie to the cops?” Andrew asks, “I STABBED you Smith.” Andrew repeats.

“Yeah, I know!” FF repeats back, “You stabbed me on ACCIDENT.” FF makes sure to use the same intonation that Andrew had used to emphasize the word Stabbed. “Jackson wanted to stab me on PURPOSE. You saw that knife Andrew.” He tries to gesture towards the knife again but again Andrew’s knee pinned his hand.

He could use his other one but the reminder to stay still is enough.

“I still stabbed you.” Andrew says removing his knee again when it’s clear that FF wasn’t going to try and gesture again.

“Well, if I was going to get stabbed by anyone, I guess I’m glad my first time was with you.” Andrew let’s out a bark of a laugh that sounds more like it was punched out of him than anything, “Honestly, I don’t think Jackson would have given me his jacket afterwards or try and help me keep my blood in my body.” He says and it feels like a victory (not a both hands in the air victory cry level victory but it was close) when Andrew’s face settled into one of faint amusement.

“Probably not.” Andrew agreed, “He doesn’t seem big on Aftercare.” He says.

FF doesn’t know what that means but nods like he does, “So, Romero got a hold of your knife during our tussle and he’s the one who stabbed me. Okay? That’s the story I’m going to stick with no matter who asks me.” He looks Andrew in the eye.

“Alright Smith,” one of Andrew’s hands leaves his stomach and clasps around his shoulder and FF can’t help but notice how neither of Andrew’s hands are shaking anymore. “We can lie to the police.” He squeezes FF’s shoulder.

“Nice.” He says and lets his head fall back onto the concrete. He hears a siren in the distance and hopes it’s coming for him.

They sit in silence for maybe 30 seconds before the door slams open and only Andrew’s hands on his stomach and shoulder keep him from shooting straight up in a panic. Captain Neil seemed to take in the scene at lightning speed but it was Andrew who spoke first, “You left Aaron and Nicky with Roland?” He asks.

“Yeah I did,” Captain Neil confirms and FF can see the moment that his eyes land on the knife handle jutting out of FF’s stomach, “Andrew, what are we going to tell the police?” Captain Neil asks and FF could already see Neil crafting a lie to cover Andrew. That’s one of the things that FF likes about Captain Neil and Andrew’s relationship. He thinks it’s nice that both of them have someone who no matter the circumstances would be there with a shovel to help bury a body. He even thought it was nice when he thought it’d be his body!

“The second guy stabbed me.” The lie comes out smoothly which is good because he is planning on committing to it and Captain Neil blinks and looks at him, “He got hold of Andrew’s knife during the tussle.” He adds.

Captain Neil looks to Andrew, “You said it wasn’t-“

“I guess Smith can lie to a liar.” Andrew interrupts.

Captain Neil’s eyes widen before a wicked grin spread across his face that made FF just a little uncomfortable but only because Andrew’s grip on his shoulder suddenly tightened and his nostrils flared the way they did before the two usually started speaking in Russian.

He can handle being stabbed, he cannot handle being in shock and pretending that he doesn’t know what the two of them are saying to one another.

“Can you tell Nicky I’m sorry I got blood on his clothes?” He asks and both Captain Neil and Andrew’s gaze snap away from eye-fucking each other. He looks down and the clothes are black and they haven’t moved the knife so the wound is plugged still but yeah there’s definitely blood seeping into the shirt, not to mention the hole. “Could you tell him I’m sorry about that?” He asks.

“You are going to tell him yourself Smith.” Andrew hisses, “You are going to be fine. Do you understand me?” He asks before turning to Neil, “Can you bunch your jacket under his legs, it’s better to keep them higher than his head and heart?” He asks.

Aw.

Andrew is just so nice.

He can’t BELIEVE he thought Andrew wanted to hunt him for sport.

He’d apologize for thinking that but he thinks it’d be better to just let that particular misunderstanding go unmentioned.

Captain Neil bunches his jacket up and puts it under FF’s legs before he goes over to check on Romero and Jackson. In the corner of his eye he sees Captain Neil pause at the sight of Romero before moving over to Jackson.

“Why is he in these?!” Neil asks baffled.

“It’s a weird sex alley Captain Neil! I don’t know WHAT to tell you!” Yeah he’s definitely going into shock. The sirens are getting closer though so he’ll probably be okay.

***

The cops all have a bit of a laugh about Jackson’s cuffs until Neil tells them exactly who they are taking into custody. Neil could admit that he’s a little irritated with Andrew that at no point did the man clarify that the people who FF and Andrew were dealing with were Romero and Jackson.

Those are his father’s goons.

“They were here for me.” Neil says to the police officer and Andrew’s hand tightens in his, “They tried to take Smith because he’s my friend.”

They had decided on their story before the cops came. FF had no idea who any of these people were and was just defending himself. He’d gone out to catch his breath in the alley when Jackson had shown up. Neil had asked how in the world FF had handled Jackson on his own but FF must have been getting kind of loopy from blood loss because all he said was, “He told me to sing so I did.”

Neil can find out the full story later.

The important part is.

“Jackson went after Smith but Smith won the fight.” Neil says looking at where the cops are trying to decide how to get the fuzzy pink handcuffs off of Jackson to get him in the far more secure police issued handcuffs.

“Your friend said that you and he took out Romero together. That Romero is the one who stabbed him with your knife.” He says.

“Yes.” Andrew answers simply and Neil squeezes his hand as a reminder, “I went out to grab a smoke and Romero followed after me. Romero got hold of one of my knives in the struggle and stabbed Smith.” Andrew says with his usual deadpan affect.

“Yeah that’s what your friend Smith was saying too.” The officer says. “Well, I’m sure the FBI will want to talk to you all further but for now it’s a pretty clear cut case of self defense and no one but your friend has any serious injuries.” The officer pats Neil on the shoulder and Neil manages not to shirk away from the touch. The officer retracts his hand, “You guys are free to go tonight.” He says and turns back towards the car where a dazed Romero is in the back seat.

“Where did they take Smith?” Andrew asks since they’d been shepherded away from Smith the moment the ambulance had come. They hadn’t been able to ask which hospital Smith was going to be taken to so they could go and get updates.

“Lexington.” The cop answers, “Go on and see your friend. He seemed pretty loopy he kept talking about some beauty contest thing when he was getting loaded into the ambulance. I’m sure he’ll be a riot on painkillers.” The cop goes for a joke but it twists something in Neil’s stomach to think of FF so out of it that he’s talking nonsensically.

He feels Andrew’s hand stiffen in his and knows he’s not alone.

“Thanks.” Neil says before they head towards the front of the club. The club had been emptied out when the cops had come so Roland was babysitting Aaron and Nicky for them while they talked to the cops and FF was loaded out to the hospital.

In a way it’s almost a blessing that Nicky and Aaron are both so blasted that they aren’t comprehending any of what’s going on. They’ll have to drop them off back at the house before they go to the hospital. They’ll beat Wymack there easily even after the interrogation and drop off.

FF had asked them to call Wymack to let him know what was going on “I gave him the rights to make health care decisions for me if I’m incapacitated.” FF had said so Neil texts Wymack the hospital and the address after Andrew rattles it off for him.

“I don’t like that you hid it from me.” Neil says in the car.

“They wanted to kill you.” Andrew won’t apologize.

They still hold hands on the drive back to the Columbia house.

Andrew takes care of getting Aaron into bed while Neil helps Nicky.

Nicky who looks at Neil with a loopy smile and Neil hurts knowing that tomorrow when Nicky finds out about tonight and how he was too blasted to do anything to help FF.

Andrew and Neil reconvene in the Maserati and make their way to the hospital before either of them realize the issue.

“What is the name of the patient you’re looking for an update on?” The receptionist asks.

Both Andrew and Neil freeze.

Fuck.

MASTERPOST FOR ALL PARTS OF FLUENT FRESHMAN AU

Per your requests:

@i-have-three-feelings @blep-23 @dreamerking27 @andreilsmyreligion @belodensetdust @rainbowpineapplebottle @yarn-ace @iwouldlikesometea @lily-s-world @obscureshipsandchips @booklover242 @whataboutmyfries @sahturnos @pluto-pepsi @dreamerthinker @passinhosdetartaruga @leftunknownheart @aro-manita-muscaria @hologramsaredead @Chaoticgremlinswishtheycouldbeme @tntwme @tayspots @nick-scar @crazy-fangirl2524 @blue-jos10 @stabbyfoxandrew @splishsplashyouropinionistrash @sammichly @the-broken-pen @bitchesdoweknowu @very-small-flower @ghostlyboiii @its-a-paxycab @bisexual-genderfluid-fan @cheesecookie @theoneandonlylostsock @foxsoulcourt @blueleys @adverbialstarlight @elia-nna @can-i-just-stay-in-the-corner @nikodiangel @foxandcrow-inatrenchcoat @hallucinatedjosten @satanic-foxhole-court @vexingcosmos @chalilodimun @insectsgetcooked @angry-kid-with-no-money @queer-crows @lillyndra @themugglemudperson @readertodeath @apileofpillows @mortalsbowbeforeme @hellomynameismoo @next-level-mess @youreonlylow @interstellarfig @notprocrastinatingatalltoday @percyjacksonfan3 @queenofcrazy27 @bsmr261 @ghostlyscares @spencellio @adinthedarkroom @harpymoth @sufferingjustalilbit @anxietymoss @oddgreyhound @ohno-myhyperfixation-itsbroken @ken22789 @atiredvampire @isoldescorner @not--a--pipedream @azure-wing @bushbees @roonilwazlib-main @crumplelush @foldedaces-paperbirds @thesenseinnonsense @let-tyrants-fear @ketchupandfries @legowerewolf @deadlydodos @but-we-respect-his-craft @cariniqe @zanypersonapricotbiscuit @lesbian-blackbeard @lesbiansupernatural @silvermasquerade @thepeachfuzz @minniemariex @kazoo-the-demjin @gaypomegranate @ji-nk-ies @neilimfinejosten

The requests to be added to the tag list keep being spread out across a few different areas. If I missed you please just ask again in the replies I promise I just missed you.

As stated before if you’re up here and I spelled it right but you didn’t get a notification there might be something switched around in your settings that won’t let me tag you properly?

#Fluent Freshman AU #Andrew: Smith is in the hospital.#Wymack (half awake): What did you do #Andrew: He got stabbed #Wymack: I thought you LIKED Smith #Wymack: Whatever admit to nothing I'm on my way #Twenty minutes later Andrew gets a text informing him that Kevin is coming #Andrew: Great just great #FF is having the time of his life in the ambulance #They gave him something for his pain #FF: You get what I mean right? Like that was a funny line since it's about Miss Congeniality?#EMT: Now that I understand the context that's a solid joke #FF: THANK YOU.#FF: I can't BELIEVE none of those cops got it #FF: I was so glad you loaded me in here because I thought I was going to die of shame when no one laughed #EMT: Well we wouldn't want that #EMT: How's your pain by. the way buddy?#FF: Wow four friends in one night. I am on a ROLL.#AFTG #AFTG OC #AFTG Fic #Andreil #AFTG AU #My Fic #FF - Part 22

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