#I've never been able to get something that good in my life
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THIS but fucking. MBTI. When I was still in the Air Force my... hell, I don't remember his position name. I'm so happy to realize I've brain dumped so much military minutiae after only three years out. Anyway. My supervisor's supervisor. This Master Sergeant (MSgt) was OBSESSED with MBTI. It was literally the first conversation I had with him when he took the position and was doing the rounds to meet all of us. We were working for a 3-letter agency AND working outside our unit in an almost wholly civilian org on top of that, so thankfully we didn't work in the same office, but good christ he took potshots at ANYBODY he ASSUMED was one flavor of alphabet soup or another that he didn't "agree with."
He did, for whatever it's worth, correctly guess my flavor of alphabet soup (I have never ever been able to remember or care what my MBTI is, it's fucking alphabet soup, leave me alone) after a 5-minute conversation. He also, however, failed to notice my far more aggressive and obvious extremely mentally and physically unwell signs thanks to my miserable recent divorce and far more miserable unfolding chronic illnesses that were going to end up with me getting a whole-ass 100% disability rank/pay with Veteran's Affairs and insisted on visiting my shit-ass cubicle EVERY. FUCKING. DAY. to CHAT. USUALLY DISCUSSING FUCKING THE MBTI OF VARIOUS OTHER DUDES IN OUR CHAIN OF COMMAND (COC). THAT I BARELY KNEW THE NAMES OF. NEVER MIND WHAT THEY LOOKED LIKE OR WHO THEY WERE AS LIKE. ACTUAL DUDES. BECAUSE. I MUST STRESS AGAIN. WE WORKED IN A MOSTLY CIVILIAN ORG. SO 90% OF THE MIL FOLK IN OUR COC DIDN'T WORK ANYWHERE NEAR ME. TO THE POINT WHERE I LITERALLY DIDN'T HAVE THE DOOR CODES TO ACCESS WHERE THEY WORKED. AND THE OTHER 10% DID LIKE. ACTUAL INTEL SHIT IN OTHER OFFICES I HAD RARELY ANY REASON TO EVER ENTER. AND THE ONES I DID HAVE REASON TO ENTER WITH MILITARY FOLK IN THEM WERE USUALLY FUCKING INSUFFERABLE. AND I AVOIDED THEM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. SO. I DID NOT. FUCKING KNOW. WHO HE WAS. EVER!!! TALKING!!! ABOUT!!!!!
Hngh. This is why I try not to think of those awful fucking 5 years of my life. I get caps-lock-y about it. Sorry.
Anyway, this motherfucker like. Trauma bonded? To me? Because of his also miserable recent divorce? And he wanted to fuck me SO HARD while also endlessly ranting to me about MBTI horseshit 60% of every conversation we had (the other 40% and his otherwise normal behavior did actually meet me compatibly on the Normal Human Scale and we got on well, and also he was my supervisor's supervisor so like, I had to be somewhat respectful of his stupid MSgt rank). It was an exhausting fucking. What. 8 months? A full year? MBTI this. MBTI that. Etc. Etc. Etc. ETC.!!!!!!
Anyway the SECOND I said "asexual" he entirely quit talking to me entirely, so I guess that's something.
Secondary anyway birthstone-obsessed people are wild to me. Us March folks got royally fucked over by boring-ass AQUAMARINE and you expect me to take that stuff seriously? Lol
Thirdly anyway I haven't dealt with any hardcore astrology people since high school, but she was my friend's mom and she and her husband were honestly the best role models in my life at that age? To the point my shit-fucking-terrible mom resented her otherwise a-okay positivity in my life for like? A decade?? Hell, she probably still does. It's wild how many times I had to remind my Chronic Gaslighting Bitch of a mom, "I haven't talked to Betty since I was 18, WHAT are you talking about."
Fourthly anyway shout-out to Civilian Megan (whose spelling variation I can never remember on account of having one of those Normal White American Girl names with 50 spelling variations, even with her full name on a paper name plate) who sat across from me and went out of her way to save me from Awkward Lengthy conversations with MSgt MBTI and SSgt Marvel Movies Nerd every goddamn day, she was a real one and I should probably shoot her a 'hi how are you' message on Steam today
“Bat swinging at wasp nest” post but I cannot be nice about astrology people. No you did not find the one good or cute or quirky way to believe the quality of someone’s character is biologically pre-determined. Just because you found a way to not base it on race or ethnicity or gender does not make judging someone’s character on an innate and uncontrolled attribute suddenly teehee fine.
I’m even more baffled by the people going “it’s just fun!” “It’s just a hobby!!” Sure if it was something harmless. It’s not. We are quite literally talking about how you intend to judge, treat, view, respect, and interact with someone entirely differently based on an inherent trait. How are you not aghast? How are you not embarrassed? Why are you so insistent on needing to operate on a hierarchy of pre-determined character judgement?
#there's nothing quite like sitting down on a parking curb while you say 'thanks for the interest it's flattering but P-in-V sex upsets me'#and seeing a dude you genuinely wanted to be friends with Turn All Interest Off immediately#hi i worked for the goddamn NSA for 5 years and all i got out of it was trauma boredom several mental/physical illnesses and MANY NDAs#ask me for details in 2050-something#that's not a joke i literally signed many pages forbidding me from Actual Detail Discussions on the goddamn NSA until 2050-something#ace blogging
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Puppy- Pedri
Life has been a lot recently I moved away from my hometown and my parents to move in with my boyfriend after being long distance for nearly two years. Getting to live with him has been amazing I love Pedri so much and now we don't have to miss each other in between being able to visit one another. Moving from Tenerife to Barcelona has also meant I needed to find a new job which luckily didn't take long so I've just started at a new company and moved which is a lot all at once but so far it's been mostly good.
I do feel like I'm kind of just getting through each day I wake up and then I'm at work and then I come back home again. My life doesn't feel like my life anymore I had a whole routine back home but now everything is different and I don't have the little things in my routine that helped each day feel less mundane. The best part of my day is when Pedri gets home and we can cuddle on the sofa and watch a movie which has become a daily routine. Don't get me wrong I love my new life as I get to be with Pedri but it's a lot of change all at once and I feel like it's finally catching up to me and I'm starting to miss home a little.
It's going to take some time to get used to being here but I'm sure eventually Barcelona will start to feel like home and I'll forget all about this time where I felt out of place. I know this is where I'm supposed to be as otherwise Pedri would've never come into my life and he's definitely the best thing that's ever happened to me. When we get used to living together and I get used to the city I'm sure it will all be perfect right now we are just going through an adjustment period.
Pedri's POV
Like most days when Y/n got home she seemed stressed until she saw me then she put a fake smile on her face. I can tell she's faking it because the smile didn't reach her eyes like it always does when she's actually smiling. I know the move has been a lot on her we both knew the first few weeks would be hard but I can tell she's still struggling and that just breaks my heart. It's not that she doesn't want to be here as when we go places together she really enjoys herself but whenever I have to leave her or she goes to work the next time I see her she looks stressed and just generally unhappy.
I should've known that moving so far from home and getting a new job all at the same time would be hard for her but I underestimated how big of a change that would be for her. I remember when I first moved here I didn't know anyone and it was my first time living alone it was scary and I missed home a lot and that must be how y/n feels as I know she is really close to her family so not being close to them distance wise anymore is difficult. I want to do something to make her feel more at home here but I have no idea what the right thing to do is as I can't just magically help her settle in.
This has been on my mind for a few days and I can't decide the right thing to do so I've decided that I'm going to ask some of the other guys if they have any ideas. I've told Ferran about my dilemma but he was no use and the same goes for Gavi neither of them gave me any serious ideas they just joked around like they always do. Asking them made it clear that I need to talk to one of the older guys who might actually offer some sensible advice.
"Hey Raphinha can I get your advice on something?" I asked
"Of course man what's up" he said
"You know y/n moved in with me a few months ago well I just feel like she hasn't fully settled in and I don't know what to do she just seems stressed and unhappy" I said
"That's hard she must just miss home I know this isn't the answer your looking for but time is the best thing for that and just talk to her asking her how she feels will help you understand what you can do to take some of the stress away" he advised
"Thanks man I'll definitely talk to her" I said
"Wait Pedri did you say y/'s missing home" one of coaches said from across the hallway
"Yeah she just seems to be lonely I guess she's only got me and anyone I've introduced her to so when we aren't around that's when she seems to be the worst" I said
"This might not be the solution you're looking for but my brother found a puppy dumped in a bin last night maybe having something in the house would help y/n feel less lonely if you want to meet the puppy I'll give you my brothers number" he said
"Actually that sounds like a great idea" I said
Getting a puppy was definitely not something I'd planned on doing for a while as I'm not around as much as I would need to be to look after a dog and I didn't want to put that all on y/n as she's getting used to life here but maybe it would be good for her. Having a little puppy around the house to keep her company while I'm not around sounds like a great idea to me and she can meet new people taking the dog for a walk.
~~~~~~~~~~
After seeing the puppy my mind was made up he was so sweet and he reminded me a lot of the family dog y/n has back home which seemed like a sign that this was the decision I needed to make. It took a few days to get everything sorted but finally today I picked up the puppy and brought him home to explore a bit before y/n got home from work. So far he's done just that he hasn't stopped running around and playing with the few toys I got him as well as my shoes but we will work on stopping that another day.
Your POV
Today has been a long day we had a big presentation at work today and I had a few important meetings and now I'm just exhausted. When I pulled into the driveway Pedri's car was already there and that made me feel a little better as seeing him and cuddling with him sounds like it will make all my problems go away at least for tonight. As I entered the door I saw a little plastic ball on the floor which had me confused as I don't know why Pedri would have one of those or why it would just be on the floor. Then it all made sense when a tiny ball of black fluff ran towards me grabbed the ball and ran away again towards Pedri who picked up the puppy and brought it towards me.
As soon as he placed the puppy in my arms I was in love it looked exactly like my parents dog back home which they got when I was little and we grew up together. Holding the puppy made me feel like I had a bit of home with me and it reminded me of my childhood and all of the photos I have with my parents dog.
"Whose dog is this?" I asked Pedri
"He's ours" he said
"I have so many questions" I said
"Well one of our coaches at the club overheard me talking to Raphinha about how I think you've been missing home and feeling lonely here and said that his brother found a puppy dumped in a bin so I went and met the puppy and instantly knew he'd be a perfect fit for us and I know we both have busy lives but I thought he'd keep you company while I'm away" Pedri explained
"Who would dump this little cutie" I cooed to the puppy
"I do have one last question does he have a name yet?" He asked
"I haven't properly named him yet as I didn't want to do it without you but I was thinking we could call him Nilo" he said
"I like that welcome to our crazy household Nilo" I said
Pedri took my bag off me while I took Nilo to the living room so I could sit and play with him to destress from my day. It didn't take long for Pedri to join us and we both threw the little ball across the room and watched little Nilo scamper after it. A puppy would've been the last thing I thought I wanted if you'd have asked me even just yesterday but I actually think Pedri is right Nilo is going to be great at keeping me company when no one else is here and having such a happy little thing here to greet me when I get home is definitely going to brighten my days. It feels like I've got a little bit of my life from back home here now that we have a dog and hopefully that will help make Barcelona feel like home.
For the rest of the night we didn't take our attention off Nilo but eventually we had to go to bed now we had agreed that Nilo wouldn't sleep in the bed with us but that went out the window within two seconds. As soon as we saw him sitting on the floor in his bed whimpering and wanting our attention Pedri got up and put him on our bed which stopped his crying instantly. Nilo was quick to make himself comfy in my arms as Pedri put his arms around me and we settled down for the night as some sort of weird family.
"Thank you for getting Nilo just having him here has made me feel more at home" I said
"There's no need to thank me I just want you to be comfortable here and honestly as soon as I saw him there was no way I was leaving without him he was just too cute" Pedri laughed
"He certainly is cute you have competition now" I joked
"I don't think I'm going to win that competition" he said
"No you won't but I still love you" I said
"More than Nilo?" He asked
"Of course for now at least" I joked
Pedri rolled his eyes but I know he feels the exact same way I do.
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#sorry I've been absent#but like I'm burnt out and stressed#and i don't even feel like i have the right to be#like im unemployed and have next to no income#and I spend most of my time playing ttrpgs with friends#but I also have a stack of unpaid medical bills#and I can barely afford basic groceries#let alone the doctors appointments i still need for my medication and proof that I'm seeking care so i can get government benefits#except i can't afford those dr visits bc i need government benefits#but i know I won't get the financial help i need bc why would I get it right#I've never been able to get something that good in my life#as if enforced poverty is an actual good thing but i guess it's my best option#the only other thing i can do is possibly get married despite my fear of commitment bc then I'd be under my partners govt benefits#from the military#which is the best option you can get#but then I'm just reliant on him and would have no autonomy of my own#I'd just automatically be assigned as under his care like a kid or piece of property#and IDK how to handle all these emotions except for going until in can't anymore and i end up crying at 3 am#sigh..... can you tell i don't have a therapist anymore#jk talks about herself again#ignore this pls#i need to yell into the void
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#ok finally making a post about meds#I've not ever tried taking medication before. I was sorta raised with that classic 'dont rely on meds you have to learn to manage without'#I mean I was also raised with the idea that therapy is stupid unless you have 'real' trauma. and also like idk.#can't stay home from school unless your temp is over 100 or you're throwing up. etc. very suck it up mindset#so I was just really nervous to start. also of course worried about losing myself or whatever I know that's a silly fear but#it's also a common fear for a reason!!! anyways#so I finally was like 'I need to do something' when I realized I was so anxious I couldnt even get myself to go outside alone#like I just don't want to do ANYTHING alone to a detrimental effect. and it was butting into my ability to do my work...#for various reasons. but then ALSO adhd has been a constant issue with my work as well!#it is SO hard to write and draw on a weekly pace like I am without being able to focus#my whole life I've had these terrible nightmares constantly and I've always woken up constantly in the night#sleep has always been terrible so I've always dreaded going to bed.. ESPECIALLy because it didnt even make me less tired#it was more something that I just did because I had to.#but going to bed was always terrible. there have been times I was too scared to go to sleep for weeks on end...#I've been mitigating this for years of course. and recently I've been taking melatonin which has been helping too.#but I've also always struggled to get up. because I've always been EXTREMELY exhausted#but also anxious of what the day might bring... idk.#anyways it has all hit a point that I was like okay. I am doing as many coping mechanisms as I can. the psych said they were good too#but... it just has never been enough. it's never been enough to make me not tired it's never been enough to make me not scared#so I finally talked to the doc about it. and she was like youve def got smth wrong basically. which yah I know.. but yknow#anyways so I started taking wellbutrin. and I am so frustrated now. because it's WORKING#that constant looming sense of dread is gone. I'm excited to get up. I'm excited to go to bed BECAUSE I'm excited to get up#I feel like for years I've been holding on to the idea that I have to get up because I have to put something good out into the world#and I've been clinging to knowing that if nothing else. I am able to help other people feel better.#but now for the first time in my life I'm like. free of it. I didnt even know it was possible... and I'm so sad how much I've lost out on#and so frustrated how my whole life I've been told to put up with it and push through it. and treated like a failure for it being too much.#and just. It has only been 2 weeks. but the lack of anxiety is SO noticeable I'm so...#I'll never miss it. the adhd is still pretty present but like whatever. I can manage that better.#and I'm just crying because of all this combined.#I just. I hope I get to finally be the best I can be now. for myself but also for you guys!
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Transcription below the Read More:
Stan: wakes up disoriented, then jolts upright after realizing where he is.
Ford: "mm... Stanley?— Oh! Are you back?"
Stan: "...Yeah. I'm back."
Ford: "Do you... Remember what happened?"
Stan: "...Yeah. I..."
Stan: "I was actin' pretty weird, huh?"
Ford: "Well, sure, but you know me— weird is my specialty."
Stan: "Yeah, yeah, yuck it up."
Ford: "So, what is it like? Do you retain your adult memories? Fiddleford thought you might not, but you knew who he was, so I disagreed."
Stan: "Wow. You uh. Sure have a lot of questions. Never change, Six."
Fiddleford: I heard y'all yappin'. You back, Stan?"
Stan: "...Yeah."
Fiddleford: "Oh, good."
Ford: "So, which one of us was right?"
Fiddleford: "I ain't so sure he wants to talk about that Ford."
Ford: "Ah? Why's that?"
Fiddleford: "Well, I certainly don't wanna talk about my... episodes."
Ford: "But this is different, Fiddleford! There's so much we don't know!"
Fiddleford: "Well it ain't our business to know."
Ford: "Of course it is, I'm his brother."
Fiddleford: "Well I ain't —"
Stan: shouting, "Would'ya both shut your yaps!?"
Stan: "Look, it's just a weird thing that happens sometimes. We all had our laughs, now let's forget it. Okay?"
Ford: "...What do you mean, 'happens sometimes'?"
Fiddleford: "Ford!"
Ford: "What? This is important context!"
Stan: "HAH! Did I say that? I meant that— it— uh— happens to people. In general."
Ford: deadpan, "I have literally never experienced that before in my life."
Stan: "Well— duh— Y— YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!"
Fiddleford: "Well, Stan, if this were a reoccurring phenomenon, it'd help to know what might trigger it so we can avoid it in the future. Y'know— so you don't have to experience that again."
Stan: "...Right. Experience... That."
Ford: pauses for a second. "...Was it really so bad?"
Stan: "What?"
Ford: "Look, I know it's silly, and childish, and I was worried at first, but... Being able to just... pretend, for a while. Go back to when we were kids and things were so... simple."
Ford: "... I didn't hate it."
Stan: pauses for a second. "... I didn't hate it either."
Ford: "What's it like?"
Stan: collects his thoughts. "It's like... My brain just kinda goes into a fog, and I can't... think adult things? It's kinda fun sometimes, even. If I find a toy or a game to play. Sometimes it, uh... Wasn't."
Ford: "But it's not harmful to you in any way?"
Stan: "I mean... not as far as I can tell?"
Ford: "Then I see no reason for us to be concerned!"
Fiddleford: "But Ford, what if it happens while he's alone?"
Ford: "...Ah."
Stan: "Hey, don't worry about me. I've been fine on my own so far, right? Take it easy."
Ford: "But ... you haven't."
Ford: "The entire reason this happens is because you were alone for so long. And I don't want you to be just fine. Besides, it's.. partially my fault. The least I can do is support you."
Stan: "...So that's it, then?"
Ford: "What?"
Stan: "So, the only reason ya went along with this— did any of this—"
Fiddleford: "Hey, now.."
Stan: "Was because ya felt guilty? It wasn't even your fault!"
Ford: "Of course not, I—"
Stan: "Quit lyin' to me!"
Ford: "I'M NOT!"
Stan: "Yes you are! You think this is some sick science experiment, don't you?? Well, I'm not—!"
Ford: "I MISSED YOU TOO!!" Ford is hugging himself.
Ford: "I... I missed being your brother. And this— being able to laugh with you, and play, and tell stories... It was good! I... I missed that."
Stan: "... I missed it too. Ok? Why d'you think it even happens in the first place? I'm not dumb. But we can't really go back. No matter how much we want to."
Ford: "Why not?"
Ford: "Why can't we act like kids again? Don't we deserve to have that back? After everything? After everything this evil fucking world has taken from us... Don't we deserve to get something back for once?"
Stan: sniffs. "....maybe."
Ford: "Then let's figure this out. Together."
Stan: "... Wherever we go."
The brothers hug each other.
Fiddleford: thinking to himself, "Thank God they made up."
your age regressed Stan has interested me, would you be willing to do more?
very well <3
#reblog#art#gravity falls#ID#transcription#txt.post#mine#//once again. add that tag to anything i add to#//also this is cool (sunglasses emoji. thumbs up emoji.) thank you phoenix-art for the food#//in phoenix-art-official we trust (saluting emoji)
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Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy
You have... very very very very very very very very smart people you know, and they're say something that not only isn't true, but literally is as opposite of the truth as it's possible to be... and you'll... gently inform them "hey, it's actually a bit more like this" and then they just kinda... go on saying literally the exact same thing
I'm not sure if it's just that... I often feel like I must be very bad at communicating, or people must just not notice/ignore a lot of what I say, but... I don't know
Like dearest friend, you've said something as absurd as... I don't know, it's hard to say without saying it, but honest to god about as absurd as saying the United States was a part of the USSR, that level of completely getting it backwards
...and it just doesn't seem to matter when I try to explain it... I legit don't even know if you read what I said
Really end up feeling like I'm going nuts sometimes
#to be clear; I don't mind people disagreeing with me (though that's not what's happened here... I don't think I came into it at all)#but all I need in order to be able to work with disagreement is just... knowing you at least heard and understood me#like if it's 'I get that you think that vanilla is a good flavor of icecream; but I really prefer chocolate'... ok; this works for me#it's that... a lot of the time it honest feels more like 'what are you talking about? vanilla isn't a flavor' where... huh?#let's take a real example; not everyone needs to agree with me on nuclear#but like... someone saying 'I get that it's way safer these days; but I still worry about waste storage'... well ok then#but if it's just like 'but it's dangerous and will explode' even after I've explained about the designs now#where there's a salt plug that with melt and drain before anything can happen; and these materials don't like to run away#...and it's not like they're asking me to back up the source; it's like I never said anything at all...#what am I supposed to do here? you feel me on that? do you start to get why I feel like I'm going crazy when that's how it often feels?#no one is obliged to agree with me but... literally just active listening would fix this... say you heard me and we're good#acknowledge that I voiced something and it's been noted#honestly... honestly my who life it's felt like I must somehow actually be invisible#...to an extent maybe I'm a figment of my own imagination; I might well be a ghost that's lonely and makes you all up#...for all the impact my actions have#or maybe literally everything I say just comes out garbled... is that it?#this post is about something very specific; but it's also about something that happens a lot with a lot of different people#on a broader scale; why is it no one else seems to be able to connect the dots#and these aren't like... conspiracy theory dots; these are like russia buys drones from Iran; therefore russia and Iran are partners#that's the kind of dots I'm talking about connecting; please tell me that's not a conspiracy theory to you... it seems plain to me#I don't know... I really don't... I don't think much I say will ever have any impact anywhere on anyone#...honestly a good 90% of the time people don't even respond to what I say#not like my posts here; I mean direct in dms or whatever; I'll say stuff and it's just silence or a new subject#again; across multiple people; it's common... it's... I think it happens more often than it doesn't#I can instantly name 4 conversations with 4 different people that's happened with lately#and that's not counting the 3 where I know the reason why it's happened#I really am something unfit to live; the evidence is endless#mm tag so i can find things later
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So—
Being eighteen was great, can't wait to see what being nineteen will show!!
#no but truly#18th was the best year of my life so far#despite the insane levels of stress and torturous academic workload that going through the finals was#i started talking to people after years of proper communication with only my sister#for a brief while I was even brave enough to share my thoughts with the world#it was delightful#i made friends on my own which is something I've never been able to do before#i met you guys#my dearly beloved mutuals!!!! <33#i made art and started feeling something about it again#i created so much I didn't even think I was capable of something like that#me and my friends created entire worlds in our minds#as well as loads of characters which i love dearly!!#i mean it's not really mine to call my achievement but it feels so incredibly special to be a part of something like that#i reignited genuine interest inside of myself towards life and even picked up a couple of new special interests#i read and watched so many great stories#oh yeah I finished school so good riddance to that part of my life hehe#i enrolled into one of the best universities in the country which still feels insanely unreal#took a gap year#me and my sister travelled on our own and were able to finally meet our internet friends which is the flaking best thing in the world#worked two jobs with an occasional third one to save up a bit#i'll be moving out of my home city this year which scares the shit out of me but is still so so amazing#there were and still are tragedies around me that split my heart in half with fury and despair#and I feel unfairly privileged to be granted so much joy in my own life#so yeah it's been one hell of a year#sorry for getting so insufferably emotional but I love all this so unbelievably much#i love you all folks :')
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It's been an interesting morning so far. I may have ruined a 12 year long friendship by having to be brutally honest about something because I couldn't keep quiet any longer and let a friend ruin her life further. If it happens, it happens. I gave her some recommendations and we'll see if she listens. But also, the elusive Loki cat followed me around all morning demanding love and attention and even let my pick her up and hold her, which made me feel special.
#hopefully our friendship will be okay but if it's not then that's fine#I've tried for years to help her and give her advice only when she specifically asks for it#and i love that she cares so much that she wants to help everyone but going bankrupt for it is not good#i couldn't keep quiet about that#i watched my mom file for bankruptcy and all the shit that came with it and o don't want to see that happen to her#the loki snuggles were nice though and hopefully she'll let me snuggle her again#i think she's the only cat who wholeheartedly likes the changes I've been making#there's something neurologically wrong with loki that I've never been able to get figured out because of the cost#she periodically seems to forget who we are and goes into hiding over it#but she's happy and healthy otherwise and she's got a good life of free food and cushy beds for as long as she'll be around#petting her is a bonus when she'll allow it#for now I'm just going to try not to stress about my friend and just relax today#make some tea and watch bake off and crochet#I'm still feeling very off and wrong and might try to sleep again in a bit
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@lamentationsofalonelypotato Ooh yay!! I'm still loving this story, and after the last chapter, I've been very eager to see what happens next!
The aftermath of her trying to piece together her memories of her parents' death and her brother's betrayal is so heartbreaking. 😥 Like she's realizing that the narrative of her life was a lie, in a way. Hopefully she'll be able to reclaim the part of her past that was good and true with her parents, vs. the love and care she still has in her life through the people around her.
For some reason that particular image seemed to cling on to you and refused to fade. You'd never seen him look that way, almost… helpless and a little fearful. In all the time you'd known him, Ben had never looked at you that way. Sure you'd seen him proud, angry, cocky, lustful, mischievous, but never fearful. And you were sure that it wasn't an emotion that he was used to feeling, but that begged the question… why? Why was he looking at me like that? Why wouldn't he let me go? And what was he afraid of?
Lol GIRL. You KNOW WHY. You're just refusing to see it! But I could really see this moment in my head like a movie -- that look on Ben's face, watching her walk away. 💔
That little creature she created is interesting though. You really get a sense that she tapped into something in her powers that was before yet unexplored -- like she broke through a barrier without realizing and unlocked new depths within herself.
You wanted to feel his awkward shoulder pat and his awkward version of hand holding and you wanted to hear him try to tell you to "buck up" or whatever he thought that a comforting word should be. He's really not the best at that.
Loll he's really not. But the thing about Ben is, when he does make those gestures, you know it's coming from a place of sincerity because he doesn't soften himself easily.
"Shh. It's alright honey." She whispers, rubbing her hand over your back, her embrace steady and surprisingly strong. "Let's go home."
Aww I love her grandmother so much! At least someone in her family is in her corner. 😭
There was something or rather someone that should be here, but you didn't know what or who. And your mind supplied Annie, but you weren't sure that's who you meant.
I think we ALL know who you meant. 😂
I also love how you describe the "creative chaos" of her grandmother's house. The imagery in those paragraphs are so descriptive and lovely to imagine. I love especially: "boxes upon boxes of cookies in different stages of being packaged all over the counter." It's so grandmotherly and yet feels unique at the same time.
"Too late of course, but I'm a little rusty. I was able to warn Ben that Darren was coming back. That's how he got there so quickly or rather-" She shrugs sheepishly. "He got there in time to make sure that Darren didn't get you to forgive him. Which you shouldn't have at all, but I know he's always had a talent for manipulating you."
OOOOOH, MY GOD!! GRANDMA'S A SUPE TOO!! 😱😱 And it explains why Ben got there in the nick of time! And she already knew Darren was scum!!
Discovering more about her past as Soothsayer, as well as her friendship with Ben was so very interesting! I didn't see it coming and that's the best thing of all, but now it's a way her grandmother can relate to her even more -- as well as be in an even better position to give her advice when it comes to that man.
Tears crest and fall down your cheeks as you sit there, throat thickening. "I don't want to hurt Ben."
Heart...breaking... 😢 She's such a sweetheart. How can she not realize how much she cares about him (loves him)?
"He doesn't love me and Ben isn't afraid of anything." "He is. It might not look the same way on him as it does on everyone else, but if you pay close enough attention you can catch it." She hesitates. "And I think if you pay attention to you, you'll see what it is that you're afraid of too."
GRANDMA YESSSS, TELL HER!!! GET IT THROUGH HER HEAD! lolll
Ben isn't incapable of fear (or love), no matter how much he'd like to pretend. The way it comes out of him might "look different," through snappish anger and denial and rigidity, but it's still fear.
But the feet keep moving past the apartment and Ben sinks into the couch cushions. Even Bean seems to be disappointed. "It's alright buddy." Ben mutters. "She'll come back." But he wasn't sure.
Awww Benjamin, you're breaking my heart! 😭 But the fact that he went back to save Jake honestly speaks volumes! (Even if I did cackle my ass off at "What a fucking pussy.")
Ben didn't understand why he hated watching you cry.
Come on now, Ben. You're over 100 years old! Surely you get what's happening to you by now! 🤣🤣 You're simping for a girl you care about!
He wasn't sure if you'd noticed it yet, but you looked different too. There weren't as many lines on your face and your hair was more springy, the few silver hairs that Ben had noticed in passing were no longer there.
Oooh the plants are keeping her young, huh? 😏 Maybe enough to sync up her lifespan with Ben's???
"Di?" "Yes it's me. Who did you think it was? Santa Clause?" Your grandmother snarks. "Why are you calling me and why the fuck are you so mad? What did I do?" Ben answers slightly annoyed.
LMFAOO. Again, I love her. Kick his ass, Di! Get him in gear! "Try harder" -- INDEED.
"How is it that it's been forty fucking years and you're still able to dance on the grave of my last nerve?"
I'm deeeeeadd! I loved this line so much. 🤣🤣🤣 Benjamin is testing my patience too, good Lord. I can see why he's scared. He's on the verge of admitting he loves her -- and finally doing something about it. After his experience with Countess, that'll put anyone off of trying again to delve into a proper relationship (not to say their relationship was a proper example of a loving one, because it wasn't, obviously). Especially for someone like Ben, who struggles with real intimacy and dealing with his feelings, it makes sense that he'd digging his heels in now -- no matter how frustrating it is. 🙃🙃
But omg the cliffhanger though! Who just called him? My gut feeling is Stan Edgar, but I could be wrong lol. Can't wait to see how you close out this series! 💕
Chapter 14: Don't Be A Bundt Cake
Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV
Summary: When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you never expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team. (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)
Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy, Miscommunication Trope
Word Count: 13.1K
Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Talks of Death, DENIAL, Idiots in Love, Pining by the Reader (and SB, but he won't admit it) Depressing Thoughts, Mentions of sexual assault/rape (not detailed at all, really just in passing) Talks about weed, Sexist comments, Ben makes derogatory comments, Threatening Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.
Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!
Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.
Series Masterlist
Main Masterlist
A/N: I am so sorry this one took me a bit longer. The writers block was fighting me the whole way, but we are very closely nearing the end of this series and the moment the reader and Ben stop being so stinkin' stubborn.
Reader POV
You lean your forehead against the cool window, watching the world flash by in a flurry of color. The wooded forests had vanished hours ago and all that was left were the yellowed sprawling fields of corn and grain and family farms that were laid sporadically along the interstate. Each one a little world that caught the flecks of golden sunlight as the sun began to peak above the horizon.
The bus rolled smooth and steady over the weathered pavement towards it's destination and was filled with an odd assortment of people young and old. There was man with a brightly colored parrot that had been singing "It's A Small World After All" since you left NYC, a woman with a little boy playing with an iPad and who refused to turn down the volume no matter how many times his mother asked him to, a group of teenagers a few seats up that continued to pass around a flask, and due to how far back you were sitting on the bus an uncomfortable smell emanated from the bathroom each time the door was opened.
But you didn't notice any of it.
The only thing on your mind were the events that happened almost twenty hours ago. They continued to circle your mind, playing over and over again like a perverted cassette tape making you sink further into the worn cloth covered seat at the back of the bus. The images were haunting, some new and some old, but all the more still horrible to re-live.
The song "Nights In White Satin" floating into the backseat of your family's car, the flash of unnatural light you knew was never lightning, the caskets at your parent's funeral covered in flowers that were much to pretty to lay on something so morbid, Elijah's body succumbing to the poppies that ripped him apart, the proud sneer on your brother's face when he admitted to killing your parents, Darren's broken and bloodied body strewn in pieces over the street with the creature standing over him with a dripping red maw, the ruined building that housed "Please Don't Die" reduced to nothing more than rubble, and the look on Ben's face when you turned your back on him and fled the scene.
For some reason that particular image seemed to cling on to you and refused to fade. You'd never seen him look that way, almost… helpless and a little fearful. In all the time you'd known him, Ben had never looked at you that way. Sure you'd seen him proud, angry, cocky, lustful, mischievous, but never fearful. And you were sure that it wasn't an emotion that he was used to feeling, but that begged the question… why?
Why was he looking at me like that? Why wouldn't he let me go? And what was he afraid of?
The creature curled in your lap snorts something in it's sleep, turning it’s head further into the cradle of your elbow to shut out the brilliant early morning sunlight. It was now the size of a toaster and had warranted several odd looks whenever you got off to change buses, but you didn't care.
You weren't sure about anything anymore. Everything your brother confessed to you made you feel like you were living a lie and the revelation of exactly what your powers could do- take life from plants to heal yourself, create whatever the hell it was on your lap, and speak to plants… it scared you.
You thought for so long that you knew everything about your powers, that you were in control, but now you weren't sure.
You felt different, as if something had unlocked deep down that you couldn't shut up again.
You'd felt different after you killed Elijah, but this was more alive, weaving and twisting in the pit of your stomach. You felt more connected to the earth, to the world outside the bus even though you were divided by glass and metal. You could feel the energy that thrummed through the body of the creature on your lap, bending to your will, the life force of the plants it was formed from molding with you, becoming a part of you.
You felt so different than the person you had been before Darren entered the shop, so uncertain, and there was only one place you wanted to be when you felt like this… home. You couldn't wait to run up the worn front steps of your grandmother's house and into her arms. She always knew what to say in times like this.
And you desperately needed the comfort of her embrace.
The phone in your pocket buzzes again and you flip the screen to see the ridiculous selfie Annie and you had taken on Halloween last year. The one that you'd both spent dressed up as the two brothers from your favorite paranormal tv show. It wasn't the first time she'd called. Annie had called and texted you more times than you could count over the past twenty hours but you didn't answer her. You didn’t want to.
It was the first time that you didn't want to talk to her, but talking to her meant that you'd have to re-live all of it again and you were clawing at the last shred of sanity you had left to keep it together.
The overwhelming waves of emotion kept pummeling you, dragging you deeper beneath the white surf. Each one brought the memories of what happened surging over you and were followed by everything that Darren said to you. Years of taking care of Darren and doing whatever he wished were tearing at your soul, years of giving up little things in your life to make him happy, and years of taking care of a man who you thought cared about you, but hated you enough to kill your parents and try to kill you too.
It made your skin crawl. Each time your brother told you that he loved you was an even bigger lie and now that you knew the truth and saw him for what he was, it felt like you were drowning. The darkness that ebbed just on the edge was begging you to leap into the abyss, but you were resisting the best you could.
The tears had stopped falling miles ago, but you couldn't stop the memories or the emotion that formed a cold ball in the pit of your stomach.
A sigh works it's way up and you pull your legs on the seat underneath you, jostling the creature on your lap that raises it's head for a moment to blink it's black eyes at you sleepily.
It was surprisingly docile right now, especially considering that twenty hours ago it had ripped your brother to shreds. In fact it seemed to understand how upset you were and had spent the better part of the last twenty hours rubbing it's head against your arm as if trying to bring you some comfort. It was settled on your lap, the weight of it a comfort, almost like a weighted plushy that gave you something to focus on.
"It's alright buddy." You whisper, scratching him under his chin. "We're almost home."
The phone in your jacket pocket buzzes again, but when you pull it out to turn it off, you catch a glimpse of the screen, and you hesitate. Because this time it's not Annie who's calling, it’s Ben.
The picture that flashes on the screen under the contact name "Gramps" is the picture of Mr. Fredrickson from Up. It always made you smile whenever he called you and you saw the picture because Ben did often remind you of him. He was certainly just as grumpy as Mr. Fredrickson and just as out of touch, but you thought it was cute.
Your thumb hovers over the answer button and you think about talking to him.
But what would I say?
You weren't sure what to say to him, or why you wanted to speak to him so badly, why you wanted him to be sitting here on the bus with you as you went home, and why you wanted him to hold you against his chest while you allowed yourself to break, but you did. You wanted to feel his awkward shoulder pat and his awkward version of hand holding and you wanted to hear him try to tell you to "buck up" or whatever he thought that a comforting word should be.
He's really not the best at that.
You smile to yourself at the memory of how he tried to comfort you back at the hospital, but the longer you sit there and look down at the picture on the screen the worse you feel.
Maybe that scared you more than your newfound powers, how much you were realizing that you needed him, how much you depended on him when things got too much for you to bear. The memory of him appearing as soon as you needed him back at the shop, another of him grabbing Darren and throwing him into the street as soon as Darren insulted you comes in a flash, and finally followed by the memory of Ben carrying you out of Elijah's office while you curled into his chest. You couldn't remember too much from that moment, in fact you'd thought that Ben had kissed you on top of your head, but you ascribed that to the haze of pain you'd been in from your broken arm.
What you did remember was how wonderfully warm he was after you'd been trapped in that damn freezer and how nice it felt to be in his arms. Another memory of Ben sleeping on the couch at the hospital bubbles up and you feel something in your chest begin to crack open. And you try your best to tell yourself the same thing that you always do when you feel like Ben might care more about you that he was letting on.
Ben doesn't want that. He's made it perfectly clear. He doesn't want a relationship. He's only wants one night, that's why he goes out with all those women-
You hesitate, thumb still hovering over the answer button as you do, the memory of the week you'd spent at the apartment with him flickering in the back of your mind. The week where he refused to leave you alone in the apartment, where he refused to do any jobs for Butcher, where he took care of you the best way he could, when he sat with you on the couch and made you laugh with his ridiculous movies, and the week where he hadn't had one date.
Your finger itched to answer the phone, but you couldn't, because you didn't want to feel this way about Ben, not when he'd told you countless times that you kept romanticizing him, not when he told you that he didn't want a relationship, and not when you could feel yourself beginning to fall for someone you thought was the wrong man.
For just a moment you tried to pretend that it was different, that he was different, but you didn't want to. It only made it hurt more.
The phone stops ringing, but the pit in your stomach still gapes open at you and for the first time in twenty hours you feel tears begin to fall. You didn't know why you were crying about this, why the thought of not picking up Ben's phone call seemed to hurt more than everything that had happened, but something made it hurt.
The bus driver announces over the overhead that you're reaching your final destination as he takes the exit for your hometown. The familiar buildings that line the streets are sheathed in a honeyed glow from the sun, the long shadow of the bus darkening them momentarily as it rumbles down the small streets to the bus station.
When it rumbles to a stop at the bus station you wait for everyone else to get off, trying to summon the strength to stand, and swipe the back of your hand across your face to rid yourself of the remaining tears.
The bus station was about a thirty minute walk from your grandmother's house, and you still hadn't called her. You didn't know what to say, didn't know how to tell her that Darren was dead and that he was the reason why your parents were dead.
The creature crawls up your body to drape it's warm body over the back of your neck as you stand. It wasn't bothering to hide, besides the people in your hometown already thought that you were odd because you were a supe and you'd always welcomed it. You give him a scratch on top of his head and his warm tongue flicks on the bottom of your earlobe as if thanking you before it curls further into the side of your neck, seeking warmth.
The first few steps on solid ground are shaky, but you find the strength while taking in a deep cleansing breath of the outside world, letting the gentle warmth of the sun and the tickle of the autumn breeze pull at your coat. You hadn't stopped at your apartment before coming here, instead you had stumbled your way to the bus station covered in dust, flecked in blood, and demanded the first ticket back to Illinois. It was lucky that the next bus was leaving immediately, because you didn’t want to spend another second in NYC, not when all you wanted was to be home.
Plus you were worried that someone had recorded what exactly happened outside the plant shop and you didn't want to get arrested.
It was self defense anyway. Maybe Jake would represent me in court.
The thought of Jake makes you twinge. You hadn't checked to see if he was alright before you ran from the scene. Not to mention you'd destroyed the shop he'd put all his life savings into after he stopped being a lawyer.
Oh fuck, what if he sues me? He can't exactly sue Darren…
You hear someone call your name and you open your eyes.
Your grandmother is standing in front of the same baby blue pickup truck that she'd had longer than you've been alive, wearing a long multicolored skirt and a pressed white blouse tucked elegantly into it. Her silver hair is loose and long, curling over her shoulders in gentle waves. She looks the same way she looked one week ago when she left, and you've never seen anything so beautiful in your life.
You're running before you can stop yourself, crumbling into her warm embrace, with more tears streaking down your face, but she doesn't mind.
"Shh. It's alright honey." She whispers, rubbing her hand over your back, her embrace steady and surprisingly strong. "Let's go home."
Her home is the same as it's always been. A two story Victorian house painted in a happy yellow shade, with a white wrap around porch and two white rocking chairs sitting empty on the front porch. You'd spent more nights than you could count rocking silently beside her with a crochet project in your lap listening to the rain fall and soak the world outside, while the plants sang praises with every gentle bend beneath the heavy droplets.
You could barely remember the home you spent in your early years with your parents, not when you'd spent most of your childhood spending the night here and after your parents died living here permanently. There was still a large oak tree were a wooden swing swung in the slight breeze on the left side of the yard, a gardenia bush that stretched as high as the second story on the right side of the house and brushed it's soft leaves against the sunshine colored outer walls, a garden filled with both flowering plants and herbs that perked up on both sides of the front yard as you walked up the path, and a cobblestone path that Annie and you had spent hours of your shared childhood covering in chalk art.
Neither of you were good, but when the rain would fall and smudge the clean lines, you'd jump in the puddles that pooled along the walkway singing the lyrics to ABBA's "Cassandra" not quite understanding what it meant.
Standing here outside your house made you miss Annie and feel worse about not calling or texting her back, but you didn't feel like talking about what happened and you were sure that Butcher filled her in. The only thing that you wanted was to collapse in your bedroom upstairs and curl under the comforters.
Despite everything the house was a welcome sight, but at the same time it was different. You could feel the plants calling out to you, asking for you, bending towards you just to touch your shoes as you walked by. You'd never felt so connected with them before, not even when you were in your apartment or working at the shop. It was overwhelming.
And although a part of you was frightened by it, another part of you rejoiced in it. You didn't feel alone, didn't feel weak, and you knew that you never would ever again.
The creature nuzzled into the side of your neck with a sigh, soaking up the sun's healing rays as you walked up the front steps with your grandmother following behind you silently. She hadn't spoken since she picked you up at the bus station and you hadn't supplied anything in the ten minute car ride back to her house.
You didn't know where to start and you were still trying to process everything yourself.
The inside of her house was just as cozy and warm as it was the day you moved out. There were photos of your parents and you covering the walls (Darren's had been placed in the closet long ago), half-finished knitting projects sorted in different baskets on both the dining room table and the living room coffee table, spools of yarn were strewn over the couch sorted by color, and the fresh smell of gardenia wafted through the open windows on the breeze.
It was home. This was what you'd been missing the moment everything began to crash over you, but as you stood there in the familiar living room it felt like something was missing. Something tugged at the back of your mind, but you couldn't put your finger on it.
There was something or rather someone that should be here, but you didn't know what or who. And your mind supplied Annie, but you weren't sure that's who you meant.
"Let's have some tea." Your grandmother says from behind you and you feel her soft hands come down on your shoulders to steer you through the familiar creative chaos and into the large kitchen at the back of the house.
The kitchen isn't spared from the madness, it rarely was. There are boxes upon boxes of cookies in different stages of being packaged all over the counter, dirty bowls and a measuring cup stacked in the sink, and a large opened bag of chocolate chips spilling over the flour covered kitchen island.
It wasn't unusual to find the kitchen or the house in a state of chaos, your grandmother always said that a house should look lived in and that the mess was part of the fun of any major project as long as you were responsible enough to clean it up.
"Bake sale?" You ask as you sit down in the breakfast nook, uttering the first words that you'd said to another human being in twenty hours.
The next breath that you inhale was supposed to be cleansing, but you can still feel a weight pressing down on your chest, the same one that settled in the moment everything happened with Darren.
You contemplate again how you're going to tell her that Darren is dead and was the reason why your parents died.
Damn it Darren.
"Mhmm." She hums, filling the well used red kettle. "Annie's mother practically cornered me in the supermarket yesterday and begged me to make cookies. I love Annie, but her mother needs someone to pull that stick out of her ass. It's been up there for so long that I'm sure it's rotten."
The creature crawls down from your shoulders and down your arm to sniff at one of the chocolate chip cookies nearest you. It hadn't eaten since…
Darren.
You wince slightly at the thought and hope that you hadn't created something that needed and craved human flesh. The last thing you wanted to unleash on the world was Audry two especially in the wake of Homelander.
Truthfully you were waiting for the guilt at killing your brother to come, but it never had and you wondered if it ever would.
Probably not. He deserved that, he killed our parents, he tried to kill me, he tried to kill Ben.
The thought of Ben again makes a lump form in the back of your throat. You didn't know what was happening to you only that you felt guilty for leaving him like that, for yelling at him to let you go, and just vanishing on him when he probably thought that you were going back to the apartment.
He doesn't know where I am. Maybe that's why he tried to call, because he got back to the apartment and couldn't find me there and he was worried. You press your lips together. Yeah. Worried. Right.
"Honey?" Your grandmother says in a soothing voice
You look up from the box of chocolate chip cookies that you didn't remember picking up. Even the creature is looking at you with an expression that you can only explain as worry.
"Yeah?" Your voice shakes slightly.
She's leaning back against the counter, arms crossed over her chest, head tilted slightly to the side, her beautiful grayed hair pulled up in an elegant bun, but in her eyes you can see genuine concern. "Fuck." She sighs after a minute.
You blink in surprise. It was the first time that you'd ever heard her say that word in your entire life.
"I shouldn't have left." She breathes. "I told Ben to look out for you. I told him, that little bastard was bound to show up again and what did he do? He left you at that plant shop alone with no protection!"
You'd only seen her really angry a handful of times in your lifetime. Like you, your grandmother often had a gentle disposition and didn't get angry unless the situation called for it.
I mean, Darren admitted to killing our parents and then got fucking ripped apart. But how does she know about any of that? I haven't told her…
"How did you know that he left me there? Did Ben call you?" You ask putting down the box of cookies.
An odd expression crosses her face, as if she's contemplating something. "No." She hesitates again. "I saw it."
"No." Your grandmother hesitates. "I saw it."
"You saw it?" You repeat, confused.
What's going on?
"Too late of course, but I'm a little rusty. I was able to warn Ben that Darren was coming back. That's how he got there so quickly or rather-" She shrugs sheepishly. "He got there in time to make sure that Darren didn't get you to forgive him. Which you shouldn't have at all, but I know he's always had a talent for manipulating you."
"What?"
Is she saying what I think she's saying?
Instead of explaining further your grandmother walks out of the kitchen, leaving the kettle behind on the stove and you in a state of utter confusion.
Is she saying that she can see the future? Because that would mean that she's a supe and there's only one supe in history that I know of that can do that. A supe that no one has seen in over forty years.
You can hear her open the door to the closet under the stairs and the sound of her sifting through all the junk that the two of you had shoved in there over the years instead of finding the right place to put it.
When she comes back into the kitchen, she's holding a giant cardboard file box that you'd never paid attention to each time you opened the closet to find something. Your eyes shift from the box to her still not comprehending exactly what she was saying.
"I probably should have told you this a while ago, but…" She trails off and nods her head at the box before turning back to the kettle on the stove that has begun to scream. "I kept putting it off."
The box is old, worn at the edges, and theres a musty black fabric beneath a collection of yellowed photographs. You pull out the one on top to examine it.
Ben is standing there in his full Soldier Boy regalia outside of Vought tower and the woman standing next to him is Soothsayer. The outfit she wore was familiar, a black-skin tight suit with a blind fold tied over her eyes.
Soothsayer was a supe who could see the future and who was apart of Payback, a supe that had vanished a year before the mission in Nicaragua and no one knew where she went. There were rumors that she'd died and that she'd been a Russian spy, but you'd never believed them. You'd heard Butcher talk about how he tried to find her when he was trying to figure out what happened to Soldier Boy, but he never had. Said that the trail went cold.
But now you knew where she went, because she was standing directly in front of you.
She's Soothsayer? Holy fuck that's why Ben kept accusing her of cheating in the poker game because he knew that she could see the future.
"You were Soothsayer?" You gasp. "But why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell me?"
She continues to measure the tea leaves. "I didn't tell anyone."
"Grandpa didn't know? But he was alive when you were a supe?"
Your grandfather had never spoken about a history with supes that you remember.
"No." She turns to look at you, a hurt expression crossing over her face for a minute. "Well, I know that I said I was going to have tea, but if we're going to talk about this I'm going to need something a little bit stronger."
Your grandmother opens a cabinet under the stove an pulls out an enormous bottle of scotch. Truth be told you'd never seen her drink more than just a glass of wine, to see her like this was about as shocking as seeing a polar bear sunning itself on a Florida beach.
"Do you still want the blueberry tea or do you need something a little stronger?" She looks back over her shoulder at you as she pulls down a glass for herself.
"I think I need something stronger." You answer honestly.
Learning about everything Darren had done was one thing, but finding out that your grandmother used to be a famous supe and that she never told you about it was another thing. It was like looking at another person. You'd always loved your grandmother's gentle way, her care for her community and her family soft, but now you weren't sure you really knew who she was.
She sits down across from you and hands you a glass of the amber colored liquid. There's a heavy silence that hangs between the two of you as she tries to find a way to start. The photo of her and Ben is laying on top of what you realize is her uniform inside the box and she smiles down at the photo, just a little twitch at the corner of her lips.
"I met Ben when I was twenty three years old." She begins taking a sip from the glass. "Legend 'discovered' me. I had the injection of Compound V maybe two years before that, not when I was born, but I hadn't gotten popular. Other powers were much more flashy and by then there were so many heroes coming out of the woodwork that someone with the ability to see the future didn't seem as marketable."
There's something reflected in her blue eyes, the same eyes your father had, that you can't place. "I had just moved to New York, I had no money, and the way I was getting it was by pretending to be a fortune teller and betting on some sports events on the side. It wasn't hard to prove that I could see the future, the past was more difficult, but Legend somehow stumbled into my shop and figured out that I was a supe. And he didn't think I was too bad looking so he helped me get big."
"You pretended to be a fortune teller?"
She snorts into her glass. "Mhmm. People really will believe anything if they're desperate enough and back then there was so much turmoil going on with Russia that people were scared and wanted to feel comforted. My job provided some of that."
"But why did you walk away from it if you were such a big hero." You ask. "Everyone knew your name, you were-"
Your grandmother raises an eyebrow at you and you fall silent so she can continue. "When I got onto Payback that's when everything exploded for me, the films, the commercials, the ridiculous ads." She sighs. "That's also when I met Ben."
You take a sip from the glass in front of you, sputtering slightly. It was stronger than you were expecting. "And you two were-"
Please don't say dating, please don't say dating, please don't say…
"Friends. Just friends." Diana sits back against the back of the breakfast nook, sinking into the navy blue pillows. "But he is almost as charming now as he was then."
You cringe at the thought of Ben coming on to a younger version of your grandmother.
She taps her glass with her index finger deep in thought. "But I think that I was the only person that Ben actually talked to, the only person that he was comfortable being around."
"What do you mean?" You ask confused. "Didn't he talk to Countess and to Legend?"
Her expression hardens at the mention of Countess's name. "He didn't talk to her the way he talked to me. Ben is difficult, he always has been and I think that most of the people he meet him write him off as this asshole with a chauvinistic look on the world, but he's not. At least, not all the time. There are so many people that he's met that are never willing to take a chance on him. To trust that there is really something beneath all of that bravado."
It was what you had been thinking for the past week, that there was more to Ben than he was willing to let people see, but you were slowly realizing that Ben was letting you see those parts. In the quiet moments at your shared apartment when he sat with you while you read or made you laugh or walked you to and from work you saw another side of Ben that you never saw when he was around anyone else. The guilt rises again when you think of how you ran from him, how you turned your back and left him standing there to clean up your mess.
I shouldn’t have done that, but it was all just so overwhelming and I didn't want to talk to anyone.
"I think that Ben is the most loyal friend I ever had. No one ever seems to believe me when I say that. That we were just friends, but nothing happened between us."
"You didn't date? Or sleep together?" You ask cautiously. It was difficult to imagine Ben being friends with a woman and not having a sexual relationship with her.
Well. We're friends, but that's different.
The last thing you wanted to think about was Ben and your grandmother having sex.
I would need so much therapy after that. You sigh. Yeah, because after all the shit I've been through and found out about my life in the last twenty hours, the knowledge that Ben fucked my grandmother is what's going to push me over the edge.
"No." She shakes her head with a small smile. "About a week after I met Ben, I was running late to a movie shoot and I stepped off the crosswalk without looking. There was a car coming and I didn't see it. Ironic isn't it?" She laughs at herself. "I can see the future and I didn't see a car coming, but your grandfather did and he grabbed the back of my jacket and yanked me onto the sidewalk, saved my life. And the second my eyes locked with his I saw our future. I saw our wedding, our first house, I saw our son take his first steps and I saw how much I would love him and how much he would love me." She clears her throat for a minute, her fingers tighten on the glass, and her gaze drops to the wedding ring on her left hand. “The future is never set in stone, it’s fluid. It morphs and shapes with your decisions, but in the future I saw, I was so happy. And I didn’t want to lose that.”
Your grandfather had passed a few years ago, but you knew it weighed on her everyday. She had spent the week after he died in her room not saying anything to anyone. And sometimes she'd look out the window into the backyard with an odd expression, but you knew that meant she was thinking of him.
Growing up you'd seen how in love the two of them were, more so than your parents. Seen the flowers your grandfather always brought home just because he was thinking of her, watched him do little things around the house without being asked, saw how they never walked away angry from one another, and seen the soppy expression he'd get when he watched your grandmother move around the kitchen baking with a grace that you'd never possessed.
You reach across the table to touch her hand and she takes it gratefully.
"I didn't want to tell him that I was a supe, and at the beginning I thought I could balance it all, but then Ben started dating Countess." She takes another sip from her glass. "She hated me."
"What? Why?" You ask. The creature crawls across the table to sniff at the glass in front of you, before it snorts and falls into your lap, curling into a ball.
"Countess was a bitch." Your grandmother says mirthlessly, her expression hardening. "She wanted to possess Ben completely. Only loved how famous he was, how popular it made her, and he threw himself at her feet, in his own way, not understanding that love didn’t look that way. He’s never had a good example of it in his life. And she never understood that Ben and I were just friends. By then I had been dating your grandfather for a few months and things were getting serious. It was about a year before everything that happened in Nicaragua."
She presses her lips together as if remembering what happened to Ben there. "She was jealous, possessive, and she came to me one night. Ben was out of town for a film so she knew we wouldn’t be interrupted. She threatened to tell your grandfather who I really was and threatened to kill him.” Her jaw sets. “My powers were never really as offensive as hers were. And she said that Ben wouldn’t ever protect me over her because he loved her and would do anything to make her happy. So I left and I never looked back.”
And here I thought I couldn't hate Countess any more than I did for what she did to Ben.
“You didn’t talk to him ever again?” You wonder out loud.
She left without telling him goodbye?
“There was the occasional phone call. Sometimes Ben would ask me to see who was going to win a ball game or something so he could make a few bucks. He stopped by to say hi a few times because he was in the neighborhood. One time he brought your father a baseball glove that was way too big for a one year old.” She snorts, the memory flashing in her eyes. “I always thought Ben would be a good dad some day. But I think seeing your father was when Ben realized how much he wanted to have kids. And I think seeing the way your grandfather treated me made him start to feel conflicted about Countess. But he respected that I walked away, he saw that I was happy.”
“But what about Nicaragua?"
A dark look crosses her face followed by something that looks suspiciously like guilt. “I saw what they were going to do to him.”
“What? But why didn't you tell him what they were planning? Why didn't you-"
"I tried." She snaps, shoulders tense, but then they drop. "I called Ben, but Stan answered. By then your father was turning two, your grandfather had opened up his practice, and Stan threatened me, he knew where we were and knew everything about us. So I kept my mouth shut and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”
You could feel your heart breaking for her.
Ben was her best friend and she had to sit by and watch them do that to him. She saw what they were going to do and they were going to kill her for it, kill my family for it.
The anger that surges in your chest makes the creature in your lap stir and grow a few inches, but you tamp it down before it gets bigger than a small dog.
“Does Ben know?” You ask her to distract yourself.
You didn't want Ben to hate your grandmother for this, didn't want him to hate her for something that wasn't her fault.
She nods. “Yes. I told him everything.”
“When?”
“The moment I saw him in your hospital room. I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I wasn't expecting him to be there, but it all poured out of me. I was so surprised to see him there. I hadn't seen a future where he came back."
“Was he mad?”
I mean… he didn't seem mad when I woke up, not to mention he was upset when she left to come back to Illinois.
“Not at me.” She shakes her head. “He knew how much I wanted a normal life and how much I loved your grandfather. He doesn’t blame me for any of it.”
“Good. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
The glass in front of you is still more than half-full but you don't want to risk another sip of what you're sure is gasoline packaged to look like Scotch. Your grandmother reaches to pour herself another glass.
“I didn’t want to until you were ready.”
“And when would that be?”
Your grandmother shrugs. “Maybe on my deathbed.”
You weren't angry for her not telling you, more surprised, but now that you knew everything about her it was hard to see her the same way you had.
You snort. “And no one knew?”
“Your dad figured it out.”
“How? When?”
“The moment you made that strawberry plant grow from your high chair.” She shakes her head with a smile. “It skipped a generation. Don’t know why, but you got it all somehow.”
“I was never injected?”
“No. That was a lie your father created. He knew that your grandfather didn't know and he knew that I didn't want your grandfather to know."
“Darren thought I was.”
“I know.”
At the mention of your brother's name, you watch her expression harden and she takes another swig from the glass in front of her, not flinching as the liquid goes down her throat.
“Did you see everything that happened?” You ask in a small voice.
You still weren't 100% sure how it was her powers worked, but you figured that she was able to see some of what Darren did and what he said.
“Yes.”
“You heard everything Darren said?"
“Yes.”
You chew the inside of your cheek for a minute hoping that she didn't take it as hard as you did. “Did you know that he killed them?”
“No.” She breathes, rolling the glass between her hands for a moment. “The night they died, I got a vision a few minutes before the car ran off the road. I was the one who called the police and who told them where to look, but I never saw that it was Darren or that it was anyone causing the accident. All I saw was the three of you in the car. I should have known.” Her voice breaks.
“It’s not your fault.” You squeeze her hand.
“And it’s not yours either.” She squeezes your hand back.
The memories are beginning to float up from the recesses of your mind and your teeth clench together as you try to keep them at bay.
“I know.” You breathe. The memory of the ruined shop flashes through your head. “I didn’t know that I could do something like that.” You gently touch your healed right arm and glance at the creature that is nibbling on the edge of the cardboard box with its sharp splinter-like teeth. “I feel so different and I don’t know how to go back to the way I was.”
“I don’t think you ever will.”
"Really?"
The thought was unwelcome. You were hoping that all of this was going to blow over, but you knew it wouldn't. Your powers had changed. There was an energy that thrummed in your veins now, stretching out of the house to the plants that grew in the garden. You could feel them all if you concentrated.
She frowns. “When you told me that you were working for Butcher I was worried about you getting involved in the supe world. I didn’t want that life for you, didn’t want you to suffer the way I did-“
“Was it really that bad?"
“Not all the time, just at the end. But I think that’s why I loved your grandfather so much. Because he was different than all the supes. He was down to earth, not just normal but-“ She shrugs. “I think Compound V does something to our minds, makes them more susceptible and when you’re surrounded by people using their powers and thinking that they’re gods it’s easy to lose who you are. I was glad I left when I did."
“Great." You huff, thinking about how your powers had grown exponentially since you killed your brother. It was scaring you to think that you would reach a point where you acted like Homelander, where you saw yourself as a god and killed anyone who stood in your way.
As tired as the stereotype of you only being able to make the flowers grow, you liked doing that. You liked healing plants, tending to them, and helping them grow. For you it had never been about using your powers the way that you had to kill Elijah and your brother and had always been about spreading a little more joy and love like your grandmother did with her kindness in her community.
Your mind flashes back to the first night that Ben stayed with you in your apartment and he'd asked you why you worked for Butcher and told you that he thought you "didn't fit."
Before you hadn't. You knew that. You weren't intimidating to look at or fueled by revenge or had a bone to pick with supes. You'd joined because you thought it was the right thing to do and because you wanted to be closer with Annie. She had been so involved in the supe world and you'd felt like you were losing your best friend. When in reality being at "Please Don't Die" was the only thing that felt natural for you.
You could feel yourself changing and you weren't sure that you wanted to and you weren't sure if you were changing for the better. Deep down you still felt like you, despite everything Darren had revealed, but your powers were greater than you'd thought they could be.
“No.” She squeezes your hand pulling you out of your head. “I don’t see you losing yourself in this.”
“You’ve seen-“ Your eyes widen.
“The future yeah.” Her lips twitch up at the ends in a smile. “It is what I do.”
“That’s so weird.”
You hadn't meant to say it, but you really didn't want to know too much about your future.
Well, not all that much. Maybe just a little.
“You of all people have no right to judge what’s weird. Not with Godzilla sitting in your lap.”
"Godzilla" yawns, flashing a mouthful of his pointy teeth, before settling back down on your thighs.
You smile for the first time in twenty hours, but then it drops. “I don’t like losing control. I thought I knew who I was but now I don’t-“ The emotions were bubbling up again, chest tightening, and lungs beginning to gasp for air. “I don’t know who I am anymore or what I am or what I can do and-“
“There’s nothing wrong with not being in control.”
“But what if I hurt someone? What if I kill-“ You body shakes as you think about all the important people in your life, Annie, Hughie, Butcher, Kimiko, MM, Frenchie- and then your mind stutters on Ben.
“Your powers are growing and there’s nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of. If you’re afraid of them it won’t get easier for you. You have to embrace the fear to see the lights that line the path through it.”
"I killed Darren, I killed Elijah-"
"Not because you lost control. You did it because you were protecting yourself and protecting your friends."
"But-"
"Who is it that you're scared of hurting? Annie?" Her expression turns sympathetic. "Annie is a supe and understands what it's like to lose control. None of us are in control all the time and it's ridiculous to believe that you won't lose control at least once."
Your throat clenches tightly, because when she asked the question you didn't see Annie's face, you saw Ben's. You knew that it was probably ridiculous to worry about hurting a guy with a nuclear reactor stuffed in his chest or a guy who'd been through every torture known to man, but you were. And you weren't entirely sure if you meant hurting him with just your powers.
Tears crest and fall down your cheeks as you sit there, throat thickening. "I don't want to hurt Ben."
"He's a little more indestructible than us sweetie." She cracks a smile, but you can't smile back and you don't answer because you're unsure how to.
She sits back against the breakfast nook and sighs, examining your face and slowly realizes what you mean. "Ben is complicated. He always has been. I like to think that most of it, is his father's fault. Has he told you anything about him?"
You shake your head.
"He was a dick. Made Ben think that he was a disappointment his whole life. I don't think that Ben has had someone love him unconditionally since his mother died. And loving Countess only made it worse for him. Her love was jealous, possessive, and I don't think that he's really come to terms with what real love should look like." She lets out a breath, tapping her index finger against the glass. "I never saw him as more than a friend, but I do love him. It's not a crime to love him."
"I don't love him." You say it immediately.
"Why not?"
"What?" You sputter. "I don't know what you're-"
"Tell me why you don't love him." Your grandma says methodically, as if she's trying to talk you through it.
"Because I-" The pressure was back in the back of your throat and you couldn't quite meet her eye. "Because-" You scramble for the answer, trying your darndest to keep your heart from clenching in your chest. "I want what you and grandpa had, what Annie and Hughie have, and what my parents had. A strong relationship with someone who sees all my flaws, the little parts, and the darkness and still choses to fall in love with me anyway. I don't want just one night I want every night. I want something real and Ben has said countless times that he-"
"So you've talked about it with Ben?" She raises an eyebrow.
"Only because he kept trying to sleep with me and I told him that I didn't want to have sex with him." You reply exasperated.
"You don't?"
"Gran!"
"What? He's attractive."
"It doesn't matter. None of it does. Because Ben has said that he doesn't have relationships, that he doesn't care about feelings, or emotions." Saying the words that Ben had told you countless times made something inside begin to shrivel up and die. "And I do. And I don't want to manipulate him into being something he's not or force him into a relationship that's doomed from the beginning. Ben is Ben. He's not changing or-"
"He has." She interrupts.
"What?"
"The Ben I saw in your hospital room is not the one I knew." She says it so matter of fact that makes it hard to breathe. "And neither was the one that I saw in your apartment when I stayed with you. I mean he is in essence Ben, but-"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"He is changing. Not completely, but he's acting differently than when he was with Countess. I mean, I saw all the things he did for her. The way he was around her."
"Why does that matter?"
"Because he loved her."
The words make your heart seize in your chest. "Ben doesn't love me. He's my roommate and my friend-" It was the same thing that you kept telling yourself on repeat to beat back the other feelings that you hadn't quite identified yet. "And he's told me that he doesn't want a relationship and that I should try to meet other people."
That last part was a lie, but you honestly didn't know where she was going with this conversation or why it was getting so hard to breathe.
"Have you thought that maybe Ben doesn't want to love you because he's scared?"
"He doesn't love me and Ben isn't afraid of anything."
"He is. It might not look the same way on him as it does on everyone else, but if you pay close enough attention you can catch it." She hesitates. "And I think if you pay attention to you, you'll see what it is that you're afraid of too."
What does she mean? What the hell am I afraid of? Ben isn't afraid of anything, he's practically shouted that from the mountaintops like Julie Andrews.
"I already told you what I'm afraid of."
"I'm not talking about you hurting someone honey. There's something else that you refuse to admit to yourself because you're scared." She smiles sadly at you. "You should though, because when you embrace it, what comes after is really beautiful." There's a far off look in her eyes and you realize that she'd seen something further ahead that she wasn't letting on.
"And it's all I want for you. To be happy." Your grandmother stands from the other side of the booth "I think you need some rest. You drove all night long and I doubt you got any sleep. And I have to package all of these before Annie's mother calls down the four horsemen of the Apocalypse on me."
"Wait-"
"Please sweetie." She lays her hand down on your arm. "I think you'll feel a little better about all of this when you've had some rest." Her fingers raise to push back some of the hair that's fallen forward into your eyes. "Hmm?"
You didn't want to rest, you wanted to talk about this, but you knew better than to argue with her. Not to mention she was right, you hadn't slept.
"And when you wake up I'll make your favorite for dinner, alright?" She smiles, but there's something behind it that you can't place.
"Okay."
And this time you don't argue with her. You go up the worn staircase that you have your entire life and collapse onto your bed, wondering exactly what it was she saw your future hold, and what it is that you won't admit to yourself.
Soldier Boy POV
There was no light in the apartment save from the burning red tip of Ben's blunt and the bluish glow emanating from the tv that caught the dips and sharp edges of his face. But it was nothing more than background noise.
His hand absentmindedly stroked along Bean's back, his eyes focused on the ceiling above the couch. He hadn't moved in hours. It had been over twenty four hours since everything that happened at the plant shop, since you'd summoned a creature from the depths of the store, since Darren had thrown Ben through the plate glass windows of the bakery, and since Ben had last seen you.
He didn't understand why you hadn't let him take you back to the apartment and why it was that you had to leave. Ben hadn't liked the feeling that stabbed him in the chest when you turned your back on him and ran away. He'd felt the urge to comfort you the way he'd watched Hughie do for Annie in the car a week ago, but you hadn't let him.
Instead all he'd done is stood there and watched you run, still covered in dust, rubble, and blood. Worse was you hadn't let him check you for injuries and Ben hated the thought that you were hurt somewhere and he didn't know where you were.
You were so much more fragile than he was. He was realizing that more every day, was acutely aware of it after everything that happened with Elijah. Honestly, sitting there in the hospital with you laying there asleep with nothing that he could do, but wait for you to wake up had been agony. Not to mention that looking at the bruises around your throat, over your eye, and the bright green cast only made him feel worse. He'd never felt so helpless in his entire life and he hated it. Because Ben wasn't some helpless damsel in distress, he was a man and a man shouldn't wait on anyone or feel out of control, or at least, that's what he told himself.
Ben hears someone walk down the hallway outside the apartment and he perks up to listen, hoping that it's you finally coming home. Ben's mind stutters on the word "home." He'd lived many places in his life, apartments that felt more like way-stations, and the drafty cold mansion back in Philadelphia where he grew up, but neither felt like home. And although he hated how small your apartment was, it was the first place that Ben liked living in. He was starting to understand the word home.
But the feet keep moving past the apartment and Ben sinks into the couch cushions. Even Bean seems to be disappointed. "It's alright buddy." Ben mutters. "She'll come back."
But he wasn't sure.
Ben also wasn't used to feeling this way. It was close to the way that he felt when he went to Boston and was sitting in that damn hotel room waiting for something to happen and he still didn't understand what it meant. He didn't understand why he couldn't stand it that you weren't back yet. It made him feel like a woman waiting for her husband to get home from work when he told her that he was "running late." He'd tried to distract himself by looking at some possible prospects on Tinder, but just like the week after you'd come home from the hospital and just like the date he had in Boston, no one held any appeal.
His mind was awake and roaming around, pacing back and forth. The blunt was supposed to help, but it hadn't.
His phone chirps and Ben picks it up to look at the screen, but it's not you, it's Jake.
Jake: I know that I'm not your favorite person, but thank you for what you did.
Ben huffs and turns his phone face down on the couch once more. "What a fucking pussy."
When you left Ben had realized that Jake was still inside the building and as much as he wanted race after you, he understood that you'd be even more upset if you'd killed Jake. So Ben had tromped back through the building and found him trapped beneath some rubble. Jake was okay, just unconscious, but Ben had carried him out and put him on the sidewalk before he high tailed it out of there. The last thing that he wanted was to be caught with a shredded body outside a ruined building.
I didn't do it for him. I did it for her. Ben thinks to himself, looking down at the text message.
As much as he hated the thought of saving your future boyfriend, he didn't want to see what it did to you if you found out that you killed Jake, so he'd done it to avoid watching you cry again.
Ben didn't understand why he hated watching you cry.
Women cry. They're damn emotional all the time. He tries to reason with himself taking a puff from the blunt pinched between his thumb and forefinger. And she fucking cries way too much.
The image of you crying outside of the shop in the wake of everything that happened pricks something under his ribcage. Fuck.
Ben didn't feel remorse for what happened, well, the only thing he regretted was not getting there sooner and getting to fuck Darren up himself. When Diana had called him to tell him that Darren was coming, Ben had practically ripped the apartment door off in his haste to get back to you. He hadn’t wanted to leave you at the plant shop, but Butcher had told Ben, that he had a possible location for Darren, but it came up empty and Ben had been at Butcher's apartment chewing him out for sending him on a fucking wild goose chase.
It only made Ben more angry to allow Darren to speak to you, but he was trying to let you handle it even though he wanted to handle him. But it had brought him an unholy amount of joy to throw Darren in front of that minivan and to watch that creature tear him apart while the final whitish blue pulses of electricity jumped and crackled down the street making the streetlights shower sparks everywhere.
But Ben was more upset that Darren had been able to land a few hits on you before you killed him.
Ben remembered the giant lizard that crawled out of what was left of "Please Don't Die" and felt his lips quirk up into a smile. As much as he hated the entire situation, Ben couldn't help but feel a little surge of pride at what you'd done to your brother. He'd never seen you look so powerful standing there in the street, your eyes glowing a brilliant green, arms outstretched, and the ground trembling around you as the world begged to be unleashed.
Of course he'd been just as surprised as you were at the fact that you'd healed your broken arm. He wasn't sure if you'd noticed it yet, but you looked different too. There weren't as many lines on your face and your hair was more springy, the few silver hairs that Ben had noticed in passing were no longer there.
He wasn't sure what that meant, but there was something that felt suspiciously like hope tingling in his stomach, hope that you weren't as fragile anymore and hope that it meant you wouldn't die.
When Diana had told Ben that her husband had died, he saw the pain in her eyes when she said it, saw her relieving the memory, and for some reason as soon as she said that he was dead, the first thing Ben thought about was you. Ben hadn't considered his inability to age as much in the past, hadn't cared about outliving anyone before. Seeing Countess as an older woman had made him more aware of it. Looking at the woman who he once thought he loved, had showed him what that was like. Not that he had a problem with daring older women, Ben always thought that women really did get better with age, but it was what came next that Ben wasn't fond of.
And for some reason thinking that one day he'd wake up and see the marks of age on your face or one day he'd wake up and he wouldn't be able to annoy you or hear you yell at him made his chest tight.
Ben takes another hit of his blunt. The longer he sat there the more then unnatural feeling stirred in the pit of his stomach, thrumming through his veins, the feeling that he was trying to avoid. He thought that the joint would calm him down, but he found himself jumping at every creak and footstep in the apartment building, perking up each time and hoping that it was you coming home.
He didn't know where you were. You hadn't answered any of his texts or calls and Ben was ashamed at how many times that he had tried to call you.
Get a fucking grip. He'd thought to himself when he typed out another text message to send you, stopping himself from sending it.
But he'd been so desperate to hear from you that he'd actually gone to talk to Annie who seemed upset that she couldn't get ahold of you either. When Hughie and Annie had seen how upset Ben had been, Hughie had laid his hand on Ben's arm and told him not to worry. Ben had yelled at him that he "wasn't fucking worried and to mind his own business" and had shaken off Hughie's comforting hand before stomping out of the shared apartment.
No one else seemed to be as concerned about finding you. Butcher, MM, and Frenchie were all deeply involved in trying to figure out the cover-up for what happened outside the plant shop. By some miracle no one had caught a picture of your face, but there was little they could do about Darren's body that had been strewn across the street. Annie was having to deal with the repercussions at work, trying to handle what the news was calling a "super villain threat."
Personally, Ben thought that since they froze Homelander, the Seven looked weak and Ben believed that the superhero team that represented America shouldn't look weak. Of course before Ben had also thought that they looked like a bunch of pussies and again felt himself sink deeper into the couch when he thought about what his supposed son had become.
He shakes off the feelings he has about it and his thoughts turn back inevitably to you.
Ben wasn't used to thinking about someone as much as he thought of you, but each time he settled back into the apartment and you weren't there he was hyperaware of how quiet it was.
Maybe I should call Diana. She might know where she is.
As soon as Ben thinks that, his phone begins to ring, but Ben doesn't bother to look at who it is before he answers it.
"Hello?" Ben huffs out a breath of smoke that hangs in the air in front of his face, catching in the bluish light coming from the television.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The voice on the other side of the line yells at him.
"Di?"
"Yes it's me. Who did you think it was? Santa Clause?" Your grandmother snarks.
"Why are you calling me and why the fuck are you so mad? What did I do?" Ben answers slightly annoyed.
As much as you got under his skin, your grandmother had been the same way. He actually thought that it was amusing that even before he figured out that she was your grandmother that he had often compared you to her in his mind. You had the same mannerisms, the same defiant and stubborn attitude that drove Ben up the wall, and you were just as beautiful as she was.
Ben was okay with admitting that he was attracted to you. To him that felt normal, it was the other feelings that he was conflicted about, the ones that he'd never felt before stirring in his chest that made him feel "too emotional" and "woman-like."
Truthfully, Ben was sure that if your grandmother had given him a shot that maybe he would have felt that way about her too. She was the only person that Ben actually trusted in the 80's, the only person that was brave enough to call him out on all his shit. You did that now. But he liked her husband also, so Ben was content with letting her go. He liked how happy that Henry, your grandfather, had made her. He knew that she wasn't happy as a supe and seeing her so happy and in love made Ben feel something that was close to happiness.
And it was seeing the way the two of them were together made Ben wonder if what he had with Countess was the same thing. Because he did have feelings about her that were different, but each time he went to visit Diana and saw your father playing on her lap he felt that there was something missing in his life.
It was the same way that he thought something was missing when you weren't in the apartment, but Ben hadn't realized that yet.
"Because I don't understand what the hell you're doing!" Diana replies and Ben honestly doesn't know why she's angry with him.
"About what?"
"My granddaughter."
Ben sits up the blunt in his fingertips forgotten. "Is she there with you?"
"Yes." Her voice softens for a moment.
Ben relaxes and leans back onto the couch, sighing in relief. "Good. That's good." Relief swelled in his chest when he thought about you staying with her, safe.
That's what she meant when she said that she wanted to go home. Home is with her grandmother. Ben stopped the next thought before he could go there.
The thought that home wasn't with him.
Ben was trying not to think about that or think about you hating him. He didn't think you did, well, didn't think you did anymore. At first it really was touch and go, but now he was almost eighty percent sure after you'd told him more than once that you weren't afraid of him and didn’t hate him that you sometimes wanted him around.
"No, not good."
"What do you mean? Is she okay?" Ben's grip on the phone tightens so hard that he's sure that he hears the screen cracking.
"No."
"What happened?" Ben's voice is a growl, the feelings of relief evaporating as soon as they had begun to bloom in his chest. He mentally calculated how long it would take him to get to you.
"Her entire life fucking fell apart and where are you? Not here!"
Oh. Ben relaxed a little bit.
"I don't need to be there." He says on an exhale of smoke.
"Yes you do!" Diana presses.
"No, I don't. She a big girl she doesn't need me there, she's-" Ben takes a puff from the joint.
“If you were any denser you’d be a Bundt cake Benjamin!” She says exasperated.
"What the fuck are you talking about doll? I am not-"
“Let me guess." She interrupts and Ben can imagine her tapping her foot. He hated when she did that. "You’re moping around smoking a blunt on the couch probably with a glass of something that you're hoping to numb whatever the hell it is you're feeling."
Ben's eyes shift to the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table that he hadn't touched in a few minutes.
“I’m not fucking moping and stop spying on me!” He snaps back at Diana.
He hated how well she knew him. She was his best friend in the 80's through all the shit, she had seen him at his worst and at his best too many times to count.
“I don’t have to use my powers to know what you’re doing. I know you Ben.”
"Sorry to disappoint you sweetheart.” Ben grits his teeth, temper flaring hot. “But if you know me as well as you fucking say you do then you then you know that this is-“
“You avoiding your feelings by acting aloof and brooding like a fucked up version of Mr. Darcy.” She interrupts.
She certainly hasn't changed.
“I am not avoiding-“
“She needs you here Ben.” Diana stamps her foot, the same way you do when Ben pisses you off, and Ben can hear it.
“She doesn’t need me! She said that she wanted to go home, that she didn’t want to be here with me! I tried to-“ Ben shouts back standing up. It was the exact thing that he'd been thinking for the past twenty four hours, that you didn’t need him and that you didn't want to be any where near him.
That last thought made an uncomfortable sensation prickle in his gut when he thought it, because all it did was remind him of how you acted when the two of you first met, when you didn't want him to live with you and tried your darndest to make him go away.
He didn’t want to and he wasn't sure why that was.
“Try harder.” Diana interrupts him again and frankly it was pissing him off.
Ben clenches his jaw. “I think that you’ve confused me with someone else baby.”
“Don’t you 'baby' me Benjamin! We both know that you’re doing what you always do when things get hard for you.”
“And what’s that?”
“You pretend not to care and shut out everyone who tries to care for you. Not to mention you drown yourself in drugs, booze, and women.”
“She doesn’t care about me!” He spits.
“She does!” Diana snaps back. “And believe it or not she needs you here and she wants you here.”
"But-"
"Ben please." It was the first time that he'd heard Diana sound softer and almost pleading since the conversation started. "Don't do this to her. She's worth more than Countess and all those other women you've fallen into bed with."
"Do you really think I don't know that?" He roars. The answer surprises himself. "Do you think I don't know that she's different?"
Wait what?
"If you know that, then why aren't you here?"
He hesitates.
Everything you said to him the night of the party comes roaring back. You looking beautiful in a dress that made his throat tight, and you telling him that you just wanted to be friends and that you understood that he wasn't the type of guy to have relationships. He didn't understand why it stung a bit when you said that, but it had.
Ben thinks about the week that the two of you spent together after Diana went home, when he tried his best to take care of you, distract you from everything that happened with his movies, and would sit with you and try to make you laugh. He'd never wanted to take care of someone before.
Not to mention he kind of liked the way you laughed. He wouldn’t admit that to anyone, but each time you did, it made him want to laugh too. That had never happened to him before. But he wanted to make you laugh to forget everything that happened with Elijah. His fist clenches when he thinks of exactly what Elijah tried to do to you and it makes him feel so mad that he feels close to spontaneously combusting. Ben might not be the best role model when it came to women, but he couldn’t imagine the type of man who would force himself on someone else.
It had made him angry when he thought that you were suggesting that he would try something when he first moved in, because he wasn't that type of man.
Ben was trying to be better for you. He wasn't admitting that, but he really was trying to be better. He didn't understand why. You'd told him countless times that you didn’t want to be with him, that you wanted to be with someone else like Jake.
Ben frowns when he thinks about the man he'd pulled from the rubble of the shop. And again thinks to himself that you should be with someone different, someone who was a supe and could understand you. Ben had seen how difficult it was for Diana when she was keeping her supe life a secret from your grandfather and he didn't want you to have to do that with someone.
"Because I'm not-" Ben begins to say, but he holds his tongue. It was too honest, too raw, too unlike him to admit this to anyone.
Because I'm not this guy. Because I'm not the one she wants. Because I'm not some knight on a white horse. Because she's everything right with the world and I'm just a fucking asshole who sleeps on her couch.
"Ben." Diana breathes and he can practically hear her pinching the bridge of her nose. "In all the years I've known you, you've never done what you did for her with anyone else. You carried her out of that warehouse, you stayed with her in the hospital even after she woke up, you took care of her when she came home, you protected her from Darren. You can't ignore all those things."
"I'm not ignoring them. She's my friend." The word sours in his mouth as he says it. "And she would have done the same thing for me." He knew it was true.
She's a good person and she wouldn't let me chase her away if any of that shit happened to me and I told her to leave me alone.
"Yes she would. Because she cares about you." Diana sighs.
"She doesn't."
"Why don't you believe me?"
"Because she's told me what she wants!" Ben shouts so loudly he can feel the room shaking. "She wants to be friends-“
"Because she doesn't think that you want a relationship you nitwit!"
"I don't." Ben spits the words before he can stop them, but as he does something tightens at the base of his throat.
"How is it that it's been forty fucking years and you're still able to dance on the grave of my last nerve?"
Ben chuckles. "I missed you too sweetheart."
She sighs into the phone again making it crackle in Ben's ear. "She needs you.” Diana repeats. “And I think you need her too.”
His temper was flaring again, the thoughts that his father pressed into him surging up before he can stop the words. “I don’t need anyone. I’m Sol-“
“If you say that you’re Soldier Boy, I’m going to reach through this phone and slap you silly.” She snaps. “And you do need her, but you’re still just too stubborn to admit it.”
“I-“
“Ben I know that everything that happened with Countess was fucked up, but my granddaughter she-“ Diana pauses before she changes the thought. “You say that you know she’s different, but right now you’re treating her the same way you treat all those other women.”
“I’m not-“
“My granddaughter has decided you’re important to her and once that’s happened it’s hard to make her let go. You saw the way she was with Darren and that guy was a manipulative asshole. Imagine what she thinks of you.”
“I-“
“Stop making excuses!”
“You didn’t even hear what I was going to say!” Ben shouts.
“And I don’t need to! Think what you want Ben but if you’d stop acting so stubborn and so ridiculously blind to what’s right in front of you. I promise that what comes next is worth the risk.”
“Don’t go all fucking mystical on me doll.”
“And don’t go all macho- no feelings asshole on me! So stop being so damn stubborn, get on a plane and get your ass here.” She retorts. “Don’t fuck this up Benjamin because if you do I’ll fuck you up.”
The line goes dead.
Ben sat there for a minute in the silence still holding the phone up to his ear, listening to what your grandmother said to him ring around in his head for a second.
No one ever spoke to him that way. In fact, Ben had never allowed anyone to speak to him the way that she did, well, not until you came along. You reminded him so much of her that it was astounding and he wasn't going to admit that maybe it's why he liked being around you so much.
Ben frowns at what Diana said, thinking about the unusual feelings that were swirling in the pit of his stomach. He felt wrong and the feelings were odd for him. He hadn't felt anything remotely like this ever in his life, not even for Countess.
And although Ben refused to be afraid of anything, the feelings he was having scared him. He didn’t understand and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. He wasn't sure that he wanted to see where this ended up. He felt like he was in too deep.
As much as he wanted to go to you like Diana ordered him to, he wasn't sure that he should. Something was holding him back, digging it's heels in and refusing to budge.
But why do I feel like-
His phone rings and he doesn't look at the caller ID when he picks up, expecting it to be Diana again, yelling at him.
"Di I-"
But it's not Diana.
"Hello Ben. It's nice to hear your voice again." The familiar voice says, sounding calm and collected.
"What the fuck do you want?" Ben snarls.
"I thought it was time the two of us had a chat.”
A/N: At this point Diana is really just trying to give both Ben and the reader the kick in the pants they need. And yes I know another cliffhanger, but you know you love it. 🤭😉 We are quickly reaching the end of this series, but that means the confession scene is coming and I am so excited about it!!
As always thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, likes, and comments are not required, but are always appreciated. I love hearing what y'all think! If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series let me know. 😊
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#soldier boy x reader#soldier boy x you#soldier boy#soldier boy x female reader#jensen ackles soldier boy#jensen ackles#soldier boy/ben#soldier boy fanfic#soldier boy fic#soldier boy fanfiction#the boys series#the boys fanfiction#the boys fanfic#the boys#lovely mutuals#zepskies reads
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right at the beginning of music school is actually a fantastic time to think "really when was the last time making music or working with music made me happy?"
#don't worry about me this is just my bi-weekly crisis regarding school and my future and my entire identity haha yea i'm fine i'm cool#i'm frustrated bc i haven't actually made progress with music in so long and i haven't made anything i'm proud of for even longer#i'm studying music technology but i don't know shit about it and really i'm not that passionate about it either#there are so many projects that i have in the works that i actually do have to finish bc they're for other people but i just#can't get myself to work on it#my entire life i've been so fucking bad with comparing myself to others#and going to music school i am now surrounded by talented people left and right and i feel so fucking inferior#and i'm one of those people who never studied in school and well that's not rly an issue bc at this school u don't study the traditional way#however what this also means about me is that nothing has ever been difficult for me before and#i simply don't know how to cope with not knowing how to do something#i mean this isn't the first time that i don't know how to do something but#this is the first time that i can't just run away from it and ignore it#and i feel like i'm never gonna be able to graduate from here#i've literally had just two days of school so far and i'm convinced i can't do it#to be fair i was already convinced i'm a failure and a fraud before i started so#also during the first introduction lecture to the school. burnout got mentioned. very. very. very many times.#i'll let you guys know when it gets to me haha#i'm feeling good i'm feeling so good i'm feeling fine [crying my eyes out]#eg posts
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imagine actually making measurable progress on your wips...finishing them even...works that are no longer 'in progress'
#guys I can't write#like I can write when I do it it's good actually I just can't do it that often#on the one hand...the ''forcing myself to produce'' energy is getting all used up by#*checks notes* literally everything else in my life#but even when the stars align and I do have both time and energy#I am SO SLOW#and yet I am the KING of ideas fr#but they are wasted on me because I'm never going to be able to get around to them#anyway I've finished literally ONE short story in my whole life#not counting the one that was a school assignment in sixth grade#and it's like ''oh okay maybe writing isn't for you then''#listen I am thinking about these stories every day of my life#and it's like. my favorite part of being myself#but in conclusion something is wrong with me ig#like seriously how do you guys do it how are you writing more than like 12k a year#I keep saying maybe when I'm done with school it will be different but sadly I don't think that will come to pass#and like all the advice is like ''everyone has time in their schedule you just have to prioritize writing''#as if I haven't been hanging on by my fingernails since high school#like seriously I'm inordinately busy rn but that's not even the problem#but idk what the problem IS#it's not like I'm stuck bc of a particular wip either bc I've switched and written different things#idk I need to get better habits#but it's hard to devote headspace to that when life is a treadmill set to a speed that I'll just never be fast enough for
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im the guy who just realized that when you're doing something, it eases the pain of not doing everything
#art. activism. social life. diet. learning skills. budgeting. any of that shit. anything. anything#and everything#idk man i get hurt a lot by what i could be doing.#that's never gonna completely go away.#but like... idk. i just watched Thought Slime's video on the concept of being Good At Art#and the idea that making your terrible art is getting out the poison#and that leaving things unmade because you're waiting for your perfect self to be able to accomplish them... that's keeping IN the poison.#anyway i've been painting my little ponies and boycotting brands that use my dollars to enable slavery and genocide#there's no optimal art. there's no flawless boycott. i could still be learning spanish and educating myself on inequality and and and#but yknow. when i'm using my sharpie to dye pony hair inefficiently and mark mondelez and coca cola owned products in my house.#i'm doing something.#you gotta do something. it literally does not fucking matter what#it doesn't have to be good enough. it doesn't have to impress anybody. it doesn't have to make money.#it just has to be SOMETHING.
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This is gonna sound rather conceited but I feel like it highlights an issue we have in Art.
I'm good at art. I've never had a hard time making art. I started using crayons before I could walk. Painting, Beadwork, sculpture, sketching, stippling, whatever- once I have a feel for the material, it doesn't take long to start doing what I want with it. It's been a common theme my whole life.
(Y contrast I'm awful at things like dancing, performance, sports, etc- in all things there is balance, right?)
Now, I've taught myself to use so many artistic mediums now that I KNOW how to most efficiently integrate them into the brain database. Once you really *understand* a material, it's much like memorizing the layout of your house, or flexing a muscle, or something in-between- it becomes PART of your brain in a way I cant quite articulate. But to get there involves just fucking around for a bit doing nothing in particular.
And I've found, especially in group settings, that nobody seems to be able to see you make something badly and leave you alone. Even if you say you're fine, you don't want help, you're happy, you're having fun, it's fine, they gotta ride your ass and hover.
I was at a class the other day for something I hadn't done before. The medium was one I've never used, so once the instructor told us the basics I started experimenting with weight, gravity, texture, viscosity, saturation, temperature, etc. The instructor had given enough info to know what was dangerous and what was safe, and beyond that I just wanted to absorb what I could about it.
And no insult to the instructor, but they kept checking in. Which was fine the first few times.
But then, without asking me what I was trying to do, started giving tips. That I told them I was grateful for but didn't really need just yet. If I had a question, I'd ask.
But they kept coming over. And touching my shit. And manipulating my project. And touching my hands. And using my tools. Without fucking asking.
And this happens every time. EVERY TIME. And by now I know the best way to get them to fuck off is to make something way beyond their expectations so they know I'm capable, then go back to doing what I want.
So I did. I wanted to keep having fun and learning, but instead I made something beautiful that I really didn't want to make, and wasted my time, and really didn't learn what I wanted to learn at all. I knew the formula to create a beautiful thing, so I followed that formula the same way I have a hundred times before, and didn't get to try anything spontaneous or ugly or exciting, just so I could be left alone.
And I know when I was a kid, I was aware aware people saw me puttering alone on something ugly assumed I had a special issue and treated me like I was stupid because of that. (I was neurodivergent.) And at at time I knew that I could do a neat trick for them like a trained pony and they'd go, "Oh, surely they aren't defective if they can do something like that!" And piss off.
But what if I hadn't known how to do that?
What if I hadn't been talented, or "special"?
What if I'd been just any other average kid trying to learn, and I couldn't pop something pretty out of my ass to get them off my back?
My problem my whole life has been that I haven't been allowed to make anything ugly in peace. I'm capable of beauty, so I have to make beauty, or get stepped on. And once people see what I can do, they get loud about it. "Look at this! Look what they did! We all know who the best is, don't we?". And that used to feel good, but it's tiring.
And how many people like me just wanted to play? Just wanted to have fun and experiment? Who were having fun with no goal in mind, or just took longer to learn, who gave up because of all the obnoxious helpers breathing down their neck with no way to shake them off?
How many of us are made to feel defective because we aren't doing things beautifully?
I have a lovely piece of art I didn't want to make.
I think I'm gonna frame it.*
(*I think I'm gonna burn it in my yard.)
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#WE ARE SO BACK DUDE#MAN#this is like the first good night i've had in a while#goddamn it i fucking hate being an adult and it's something that's frustrated me in a way i don't know how to express for so fucking long#being able to admit that to myself and just say it out loud feels so fucking good. I do not want to do adult shit. i do not want to pretend#to be normal fuck everything and everybody i fucking hate being an adult i hate careers and social niceties fuck everything#god i fucking hate everything and im so happy to be able to say that again. life fucking sucks and thats it#oh my god ive been stuck in a positivity puddle for so long i hate it. complaining and hating is my lifee i will never stop#just oh my god it's so hard to be alive all the time and nobody ever talks about it and just expects you to do everything right all the tim#We are not going to fucking make it dude. what else is there. can we do something else#i feel so expected to just do things right all the time and i feel like people can see that and just make fun of me for existing all the ti#i fucking hate it! literally all of that shit makes me want to die. but like yeah like oh my god putting all of that down might fix me#we'll see. oh god the pokemon video looms large. im on gen 4 but i've been hardcore procrastinating on it. i'm just so done with all the sh#MAN i feel like a real person again i feel like i can breathe. i have been so frustrated w my friends and family for the longest time#and now i just feel like oh. yeah. literally none of this bullshit is necessary. why am i letting all these people tell me how to live#Who cares if im alone who cares if someones watching who cares if people like me i am alone i am happy i am doing what i want#like if i meet my goals and i feel like im doing what i think i should be doing then who cares. i'm having the experiences i want to have#and that's enough. it was always enough. and anybody who says it isn't should get over it. im fine. why are you trying to make me not fine#ok im done im done i just wnated to pour all this out. it feels a little cheesey but legitimately most nights to me feel like they dont mat#and this one is one that for the first time in a long felt like it finally did
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HELLO HELOO i am. alive. ermm. ok so long story short i am very very tired and unable to do like. anything. :P oof.
here's a toby drawing i completely forgot??? that i did??? like months ago??? found it in my files while looking for any drawings I've actually finished recently and im pretty happy with it so I'm posting it here :''3
honestly i just haven't been happy with anything i've been drawing so only stuff i've done are studies because i want to improve but idk. i feel really self critical. yk how it is being an artist, never feeling happy with your skill level :p i'm working on it though, got pretty into traditional painting for a change? idk i'm trying new stuff to find inspiration. hopefully more art SOON (for sure this time) (idk if i can promise that)
okok health update:
been very very stressed out, basically. got bad again, getting better again?¿? got more help though, so i should be getting therapy maaaybe and help getting back into school, not sure, trying to make something work out. not looking at my phone has been helping
in other news; fall is awesome, love halloween !! birthday is coming up aswell, which is pretty cool 👍👍👍 been hanging out with friends again, which is very nice too. uuuhhhhh the silent hill 2 remake finally came out!!! and it's actually good!!! like really good!!! life has meaning again!!!!
TLDR: I am so very tired. but it will get better, for sure !! just need more time? maybe? in any case, i will be back to post more whenever i am able to. thank you for enjoying my art, it does mean the world to me.
#creepypasta#creepypasta fanart#creepypasta art#ticci toby#ticci toby creepypasta#creepypasta ticci toby#toby rogers#drink some water fellas#thank you for enjoying my silly little drawings it makes me so very happy. really hope i can stop being a dumb dumb idiot and make more
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I've seen a lot of posts about Batman using his Bruce Wayne alter ego for the good of Gotham: job programs for felons released from prison, orphanages, charities, high wages for his employees, ethical business practices...the legendary post where Bruce Wayne goes to Wal-Mart.
Thus far I've never personally seen anybody really dig into the persona of Bruce Wayne the Billionaire Playboy. A handsome, rich, powerful man who always is seen at fancy galas, art openings, charity dinners, and wild parties with at least one beautiful woman on his arm.
We know Bruce Wayne is the mask, and its Batman who has a...complex love life, depending on the iteration we're talking about. Talia, Catwoman, sometimes Wonder Woman.
Bruce Wayne's dates, on the other hand, are all "normal" people. Maybe they're an aspiring actress, a supermodel, a prima ballerina, the occasional reporter...and every time there's that bit of nervousness at the start.
Sure everyone knows Bruce Wayne. Everyone knows the story with him. Sometimes his wilder parties make the news, but there's never really been anything nasty reported about him. Never...allegations. But he's a billionaire. He's one of the most powerful people in the whole city, nevermind the country. If he did have some skeletons in his closet. Well. Men with power have a way of making those kinds of stories go away, don't they?
As time goes on the Date's fears dissipate pretty quickly. Bruce Wayne is nothing but polite, kind, and at times charmingly awkward in an 'raised by his butler in a mansion' kind of way with his dates. Some of them can tell he's holding back, of course. Maybe the more perceptive Dates notice he's smarter than he lets on - playing the himbo or hamming up the "know-nothing rich boy" act to the cameras or some of his wealthy peers.
He also listens, is the thing. He's always listening to what they're saying, is interested in hearing about their careers, their hobbies, their lives. Really listens, too. Might refer to something a Date said weeks later off-hand. Buy out the whole museum for a private dinner date with a famous painting from an obscure artist they like, or a private performance with another's favorite band.
He has anecdotes and funny stories for days that somehow says very little about his personal life. The Dates know he has kids (it's practically a running gag in the news that Bruce Wayne has adopted yet another orphan) and maybe she might spot one of them at the mansion, but Bruce seems very keen to shelter them from any intense spotlight and scrutiny, and they all seem happy if a bit weird like him.
Eventually, there's drifting. He's a very busy man, with a very busy schedule. On more than on occasion his nice old butler will call and extend apologies that Mr. Wayne will not be able to make it this evening. Sometimes it's virtually impossible to get a hold of him over the phone. After a while they stop trying. None of them feel quite surprised by that. In the end, it just doesn't work. Sure, he's a little distant and doesn't make himself emotionally available...but he's not a bad person.
Especially when the so-called "exes" of Bruce Wayne start networking. Gotham isn't a small city, but the social circles Bruce Wayne travels in aren't as big. They don't quite gossip or complain about him. More like...who else would get it?
(I touched his side once and he winced...like he'd been hurt real bad there. He laughed and said it was tackle polo. How does that even-?)
(Somehow, after two dates, he saw right through me and listened while I told him what that casting director tried to do. He nodded, gave me the contact details of a law firm, and said not to worry about the legal fees.)
(I don't know for sure it was him, but it can't be a coincidence that my building got bought out from under my shitty landlord and we were all able to buy our apartments under market value.)
(He got my brother in the best rehab program in the city after his relapse. It probably saved his life. We'd stopped dating months ago, I still don't know how he found out.)
(He gave me a card with a phone number and told me that if I was ever in trouble to call it. Said one of his cars would come to pick me up, any time, any place, no questions asked. The one time I did have to use it after a bad party, it was Alfred.)
I think any tabloid reporter digging around for salacious stories or dirt about Bruce Wayne's love life would be completely and politely stonewalled when they try asking his former Dates. Even when money is offered. Every single one of them.
#I like to think Alfred is like...a mythological creature#to all of Bruce Wayne's exes#though lets be honest the kids too#Damien just feels like an intimidatingly intense kid who would ignore if outright avoid them#but would immediately talk to any of Bruce's dates if he spotted cat hair on their clothes#''I would like to see pictures of your American shorthair''#''Uh...hi. How did you know-?"#Bruce Wayne#Batman#Secret Identities#Headcanons
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