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thepriceofbeingaroseisloneliness · 4 years ago

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KAORU&TOSHIYA INTERVIEW BURRN!! OCTOBER 2020 2/2

‘Ochita koto no aru sora’ was released as the band’s first digital single ever. In the middle of what it seems to be nightmarish situation in which they can’t predict at all what’s lies ahead, what are the hopes and emotions that these 5 people put into this song?

Text by You Masuda “We are in a difficult position, aren’t we? How long should we wait? For example, if this situation continues next year, I feel like it’s going to be complicated for us.”

Notes before reading: This is the second part of the Kaoru and Toshiya interview done by You Masuda for BURRN!! October 2020 Issue released last September 4th. You can read the first part here.

You can support and get the magazine at Amazon Japan or CDJapan.

Feel free to correct me if you spot any mistake or any confusing parts. ------ (1st part here) -Once the video (‘The World of Mercy) is completed, it will become a big thing as well. However, since that song should have closed the flow of the 'The insulated world' in the first place, if it appears again in the future, it is possible that the flow becomes odd for some reason. K: That’s right. Originally, we were planning to complete the feeling of the album at Pia Arena. But actually, that’s not possible. Although we have to use this video for future activities, we have to think about what kind of presentation should be done for it. The song itself is a thing of the past, we can’t simply go like “we are publishing it (the video) for the people just because we made a clip”, it’s not interesting anymore. The heat of the enthusiasm has cool down a little. -In the meantime, the next single and its consequent video are coming out. But whatever the future is, you are about to start producing your next album. Is the idea/concept already there? K: Well, little by little. Currently I don’t feel like we have many songs yet. From this month (August), we are supposed to start marking songs properly. -For example ’The World of Mercy’, will it be part of the next album? K: No, it won’t be included. After all, this song is the conclusion of ‘The insulated World'’. -In terms of discography, it will be a bit independent from the next album. T: I think it’s like that. In that sense, it will be like 'Ain't afraid to die'. (Note: This song is a single released in 2001 to conclude the flow from 'Macabre’ and is not included in any of the original albums.) K: Well, that's fine, right? Probably we won’t need it for the next album (laughs) -No, of course, I'd be happy if there were as many new songs as possible. It’s not like I’m not convinced that this song won’t be included in the next album but, whatever happens in the future with your live activities, from a creative perspective is it ok to think that flow from the album (The Insulated World) is over with this song? K: Of course. However, I think there will be also some flow similar to this song. That's because 'The World of Mercy 'is simply closer in time than 'The Insulated World'. But well, I don't know what will happen (laughs) -As we discussed earlier, there was also a sense of continuity in the lyrics. In recent years one of the most remarkable things that’s being said is that “there is no correct answer”, “A lie could be also the truth for a person” or something like “It may be true if you keep believing in it, even if you suspect that it may be wrong”. I felt some sense of contradiction. So, at the end of the two nights in Yokohama, I felt like you were hinting at something with the line “Ill feelings will continue coming”, a variation on the lyrics of “Sustain the Untruth”. K: That’s simply because it was the last song at the end of the show, like creating the image of playing it with the audience while the lights were on (Note: they used live footage for this song at the broadcasting). It was just this song because it wasn’t included the day before. However, when it comes to lyrics, there are moments that you can think about it in that way. -A two-night performance that was supposed to end leaving such an aftertaste. But without closing the previous flow, “Ochita koto ga aru no sora” comes into the world and goes on. I'm looking forward to it while I was imagining how is it going to be. A concrete thing about this single again is that you have had Brian Gardner as mastering engineer for some time, right? This might be the first time you have teamed up with Josh Wilbur, who was in charge of mixing this time. Does this mean that it was the right timing to do it? K: That's right. He is very popular, so we never had a chance to work with him. It seemed possible this time, so we decided to ask him for the first time. Well, he is quite of a “on my own way" type of person. Like, he plays with the sound as he feels. The first time he sent us back what he created, we were like “what the hell is this?” (laughs) -You really didn’t see that coming, right? K: That’s right. Even if the song was processed just a little, at first there were parts that it was like “what?” “this can’t be good” (laughs). After all, as he is a person who also does pop music, don’t you have a tendency to try to do such things? -In short, in these times, processing like that is a way to create an upgraded form (of the song) K: Actually, I don’t know if I would say that it is an “upgraded” form. Somehow, it’s like he doesn’t want to leave it as it is. -He is simply not someone that just says, “I will make it sound good”. K: That’s right. T: Yes. Maybe he is someone who wants to leave a mark in the sounds he makes. I guess he is that type of person. But when I heard the sound that came back from the first mix he did, I thought it was "interesting". It was too different from our previous approach, but it was interesting from an objective point of view. However, at first, we sent him a provisional mix made here in Japan, telling him we wanted it to sound “like that”. Usually, the song would be sent back with that feeling (as we requested). As it came back with a completely different direction, it was like a shoot and I was struck by it. I was a bit surprised. -You don't know what kind of person he was until you actually try to team with him. K: Yes. At first, we thought it would take him some time to do it. But as he is a person working in many things, as we told him the appropriate things, we thought he would do it properly. Actually, he sent it back to us quickly. So, when it comes to that, if we told him “please do this thing here”, he sent it back (done) soon. -In short, at first, he may not be the type of person that at the time of sending it back to you, sends you something “safe”. It’s like he doesn’t want to do it in a safe way. K: That might be true. But at first the sound of the band itself was strongly metal. -Do you mean more than what it was? K: Yes. Like the drums…. the drums were much sloppier than the final version ones. I feel like I overlooked his intentions a bit. -However, if you are in a situation where you can work by exchanging data, even if the returned idea is not what you were looking for, you will realize "Oh, can turn out like this?" Even if it's not the correct answer for you right now, it may be a hint for someday. K: Certainly, there were moments like that. However, although it is exciting in itself, we had a strong consciousness that we were actually doing it, so I didn’t expect that much (laughs) Wanting to do it “more like this” comes out first. However, if I listen to it again later, I think that the “Oh, I see” feeling will come out. "No, we don't know that yet. It's just a song that was completed as a single. It starts from here though” Kaoru -It must have been meaningful to you to know what kind of work he would do. You said “he is a person working in many things” but he turned out to be a person that doesn’t do everything in a smooth/safe way. K: Yes. On the contrary, there are some people who won’t take the song to the extend that you want even if you can see the answer (final result) from the beginning and tell them “how about this?”. In that sense, I guess he was well suited for the task. -It’s hard to point out the specific difference from your usual sound but, after all, something feels different. K:That's right. Moreover, somehow isn’t the existence of the song itself already big? I thought it would be difficult to put it out like that, so I thought it was he someone who would do it.

- You can hear Kyo’s mid-range singing very well. The lyrics of those parts also come up clearly.

K: Yes. But that doesn’t mean that some sound is being cut off there. Everything is coming out in a really clean way. That’s why I feel like he (Josh Wilbur) is a person who knows how to produce all kind of sounds.

-Yes. If you look at the works he has done in the past, it's not just heavy rock, it's very diverse in musical terms. (Note: The list of artists he has worked with includes not only LAMB OF GOD, MEGADETH, TRIVIUM, but also P!Nk and Faith Hill.) DIR EN GREY has had many opportunities to work with several engineers this way, but for the future….

K: We want to continue working with him. If he tried with the single and it worked out well, the next step would be the album. I wish we could find someone who would like to work with us on the next album, but I'm not sure if he will take care of it. It’s depends on what we will do in the future until we find someone like him who can do it.

- If all goes well in the future, I think you should be able to tell us about the next album you are already picturing in your imagination in a few months. Do you think the production schedule wouldn’t have changed in the first place, even if this first domestic tour or the two-night performance in Yokohama were held as scheduled?

K: That's right.

-In other words, do you mean that you will be absorbed in production the album this year?

K: That’s right. Well, as a matter of fact, I feel that we can do nothing but to move in a different way under this situation. At least, isn’t it hard to think about doing new lives? If there were more live shows that have already been scheduled, we would think about what to do with them. In our case, we cancelled the tour, didn't we? For the time being, there are venues where the postponement is still on hold and there are other venues that are actually still booked. But, well, in the current situation, the question is if new lives should be announced at those places (that are booked).

- At the same time, even if there is a not officially announced live schedule, it does not necessarily mean you should do it in the way you originally thought.

K: Yes. So, in the end it's likely that it will be postponed again and if that happens, I think we should hold the venue again sometime next year There are a lot of things to think about, and in fact, all we talk about now is how we're going to move.

- Actually right now, is there anything left to announce after the two-night performance at Pia Arena?

K: That’s it. There is nothing that can be announced now.

- Even if you make a release schedule, the situation will be different depending if you can play lives or not. Of course, if you have a situation in which you can play lives as before, you'll want to do it as soon as possible, but we are waiting for that to be possible….

K: We are in a difficult position, aren’t we? How long should we wait? For example, if this situation continues next year, I feel like it’s going to be complicated for us. We can't wait forever, but we can't force it ourselves. So, I can only say that it depends on the situation. For example, you're planning a tour in winter right now. Normally, we would have to announce it soon, right? But in the current situation, that is not possible. If we decide and announce it right away, we will sell the ticket according to the guidelines* at that moment, but actually no matter when you restart doing lives, I don't think we can announce it with the minimum time in advance, and I think the guideline itself will change in the future if we announce it with months in advance. To sell the tickets according to the guidelines at that time, you would have to do (the lives) in a short span of time, like a month later.

*Japan's guidelines for events (concerts, sports events...) are measures to prevent the spread of Corona virus. These measures limits the venue capacity and advocate for social distancing among other things. However, the guidelines is not legally enforced.

-For example, in the future, in a seated venue, you can only perform if there is an interval (empty seats) between attendees, and in such a situation, the picture that comes to your mind when you imagine a live will be different. In that case, I guess that it’s hard that this fits the way of doing lives that you have been trying to do until now.

K: That's right.

T: I think everyone has no choice but to explore the options. Of course, the idea of playing lives normally should still be there, but I think we should explore other ideas as well. That's why…...there are many unclear parts, but the current situation is that it cannot be clarified. As this happens, I think there is no choice but to think about the possibilities in both directions. So, if we can do something interesting, I think we should do it, and if we can play lives in a safe environment…. the guideline may change again, but of course I want to do it right away.

-I hope the situation where we can enjoy live performances as before will return, and I hope you will be able to do what you were trying to do this year in a similar way in the future. When that time comes, it will be an upgraded form.

K: Of course. In fact, we are always thinking about a year ahead, no, even more…Of course, there are plans that we will keep. However, we are not sure if these things can be done as we planned. But well, we work on the premise that we can do it, and if we can't do, there will a right time for it.

-When the right time comes, you may have to do all at the same time, what you originally thought you would do and the things that you were putting aside too.

K: Yes, that too (laughs)

T: That can be tough, though.

-As soon as the touring ban is lifted, and each band restarts their live activities at once….

T: That's a difficult thing, isn't it?

K: That’s why….it might the same from the audience’s perspective but, it also depends on how much the people around the artist and live staff can resist. I want them to endure this situation until somehow, we can play live without worrying about it. What should we do so they can endure it? The hardest thing would be that they weren’t there when we can play lives again. That's why…. I hope everyone can survive this situation somehow.

My conversation with these two people ends here. I don't know how the situation will change in the future. Optimism is dangerous, but we don't have to imagine the worst. In this phase,I am grateful that the new song was released at the promised time, and I would like to get ready for the right time to come without giving up hope. However, we can’t do anything about it, just long for it.

#dir en grey #kaoru #toshiya #interview #translation #toshiyatranslations #Burnn!#You Masuda

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midlifemusingsfromthemidwest · 4 years ago

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Charlatans, Liars, and Frauds

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, and this is one of those times. I have long been an avid reader of the trashy British tabloid that masquerades as a newspaper, The Daily Mail. Every morning for years, I have enjoyed reading the DM as I drink my morning coffee. I read the stories and laugh at the acerbic comments, as the Brits do have a way with words. When Meghan Markle arrived upon the scene while dating Prince Harry, suddenly every story was about them. As an American, I was amused by their painting of her as a star and well-known actress, because no one, and I mean no one, outside her immediate family and friends, had ever heard of this chick. Not only that, no one I have ever talked to watched the show Suits, where she played a supporting role. Suddenly, Meghan Markle was everywhere, and quickly I came to the conclusion that she was a complete social climber who was dating poor dumb Harry to advance her desire for fame. In the comments of the Daily Mail, someone mentioned a Facebook group devoted to shared dislike for Meghan, and on a lark, I joined it. The group was known as Meghan Markle The Charlatan Duchess, often shortened to MMTCD. I'll be honest, the group was a lot of fun as women from all over the world dished and bitched about what a fraud Meghan Markle was. We laughed at her horrific wigs and her clothes that cost millions, yet were always ill-fitting. We chuckled over how dim Harry was, and we guessed how long it would be before the divorce proceedings were started. Some of the women believed more outlandish tales such as that Meghan was born a man, that she wore a moonbump and was never pregnant, and that Archie (I am still scratching my head over that choice of name…Archie????) was, in fact, a doll, and not a real boy. Maybe Meghan should have named him Pinocchio instead of Archie. All in all, it was good fun…not nice, yet good fun.

Now, the interesting part of the story is that the founder of the group was a woman who referred to herself as "Lady L”. Lady L claimed she was a high-ranking member of the British aristocracy with strong ties to the British Royal Family. She wrote in flowery prose about how she felt compelled to start a facebook group to help expose Meghan Markle as a fraud and charlatan. She was single-handedly going to save the British monarchy from the grubby clutches of the American interloper. Lady L claimed her grandmother had been a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and that she had a huge ancestral home outside of Edinburgh. In fact, she often wrote that once Meghan and Harry divorced, she was going to host a huge party for the group in her ancestral pile in Scotland, oooh la la! Sadly, some women in the group actually started saving money for the trip so they would be able to afford to go. Seriously, shame on her for that. She wove the tale that she was a successful antique shoppe owner (notice the British spelling, which meant it had to be true), and that she came to the United States every year to buy antiques for her stores and shipped them back to the UK. Um, what? Why in the world would someone come from the UK, where antiques simply had to be older and more valuable, to the United States to buy antiques that were generally far less old and far less valuable. How odd, and the first red flag that made me think the Lady wasn't all she proclaimed herself to be.

After some time, Lady L introduced us to her cousin, Lilly Beth, whom she had recruited to help run the group, as Lady L simply couldn't keep up with it all by her little old blue-blooded self. Shortly after that, Lilly Beth became the self-appointed Queen of the group with every member hanging on her every post, all while competing for her attention. Lady L rarely posted in the group once Lilly Beth was brought on board to run the place. Occasionally when the group members became unruly, Lady L would pop in and shout at everyone to stop whatever they were doing to anger her, post a giant red angry emoji, and then "feck off" back from whence she had come. Lilly Beth claimed that her husband, fondly known as “Mister”, worked for the Crown and that she had "grown up with Wills and Harry." Hmmmm….ok then, it seemed somewhat implausible, but I was game to play along on the off chance it was true. Maybe she was just some rich bored British aristocrat hiding behind a laptop. I had been a member for just a few weeks when the group was rocked by a Daily Mail article that doxed or exposed, several anti-Meghan private citizens in a story that shared the pictures, names, and even twitter names of several women who happened to be members of the group. I still believe that Meghan Markle's people were behind the doxing, and it made me dislike her even more. The members of MMTCD panicked, and most of us then created fake facebook profile identities and rejoined the group under nom de plums. It might seem like an overreaction, but many of the women in the group whom I had become friends with were successful professionals. They didn't want to see their faces and names publicly shamed on the Daily Mail for having the audacity to dislike Meghan Markle. Not only that, but it was quickly become the modus operandi of Meghan and her band of flying monkeys, I mean supporters, to harass, defame, dox, and call every person who didn't like her a racist. Despite the influx of anonymous Facebook profiles, the group MMTCD flourished.

Over the next year, Lilly Beth became increasingly over the top, and she was an incessant braggart. She claimed that her husband, Mister, not only supposedly worked for the Crown, but that he also was a member of the House of Commons, owned a village, and that he had even surprised her with a mansion in upper New York where they would summer, amidst the ungodly heat and humidity. Who in their right mind would summer in New York where it is 100-plus degrees when one could be in much more temperate UK? Mmmhmm…sure. As time went on, Lilly Beth bragged more and more and more. She claimed she brought their entire household staff with them to the United States to the new mansion. She bragged that her daughter Violet was friends with Prince George and that there was a possibility she could even marry him someday. My goodness, was it possible that our humble Lilly Beth could someday be the mother-in-law to a future King? Would we all get invitations to the wedding? Should I start saving for a bespoke dress? She bragged that she was invited by the Queen herself to an upcoming ceremony—and that the queen had insisted that she attend. Well, goodness me, wasn't Lilly Beth becoming more and more important with every passing day? She would regale the breathless fans of hers in the group with tales of how Cook would whip up ten-course meals, and how she was ordering bespoke gowns. She tooted her own horn more than Meghan Markle, and that is no easy feat. Lilly Beth kept us up to date on her pregnancy and her newborn, "Master Jack" and even shared pictures of him and his sister little Violet with bright auburn hair and vivid green eyes, clearly photoshopped and poorly at that. The list of Lilly Beth's tall tales was vast. They included that she had met Kate several times, Mister was a RAF pilot, Cook make enough stew for their entire village of shut-ins, Mister waved rent for the entire village because of covid, she was a barrister, she was a buyer for an auction house, she was a violinist, she could sing beautifully, she was a muse for a famous artist, she got her ice cold milk straight from the village dairy (insert eye roll here), and on and on.

A monster was born. The more attention Lilly Beth got, the more she loved it, and the bigger the tales got. Not only that, but she also started getting sloppy. Her use of British words began to slip, her photoshopping skills were appalling, and her tales were becoming increasingly unbelievable. With each embellishment, I became even more convinced that Lilly Beth was a con artist who was no more a British aristocract than I was. During this time, Lilly Beth also set up a second group where she and other group members would verbally duke it out with Meghan Markle fans and then try to recruit members to come to their defense. It was like watching an episode of Jenny Jones show when it devolved into a fistfight amongst the guests. I got to the point where I posted less often, and I would go days or weeks without visiting the group. When I did, I would post and fly out of there. The entire group became like primary school kids trying to outdo each other to attract Lilly Beth's attention with their tricks. Watch this, Lilly Beth…No, watch me, Lilly Beth…Look at this Lilly Beth. A few times, I knew Lilly Beth was lying and full of "shite" as she would put it. Once, she said her husband, Mister, had been at a wine-tasting with Harry and that Harry had come in "knackered." I asked why Harry was tired, and she said, Nooooo, knackered means he was drunk. Hmmm…while I don't pretend to be British, I do have Brits as friends and have only heard of knackered meaning tired. As usual, when questioned, she slithered away and stayed gone for several days.

Finally, the beginning of the end happened one day when two former members who were booted from the group—something that happened on a weekly basis for one offense or another— blogged on tumbler some of Lilly's supposed "tea." Tea was the term the group used for inside information. The supposed inside information was a bit like the overly vague guesses of a carnival psychic. If the “tea” was specific, then it was usually a rewording of a DM or other tabloid story. Then, shortly after the Tumblr brouhaha, Lilly Beth posted that someone on twitter was saying she lived in Alaska and that Lady L lived in Arizona and how hilarious it was that someone was making such crazy accusations. She laughed maniacally about it…LOLOLOLOL!!!!! This was her trademark over the top response to anything even mildly humorous. Then, the balloon popped, the air escaped from the overstretched bladder in a split second with a whoosh. When members tried to access the site all that was there was a message that the group been archived. Like the carnies they were, the frauds scurried off into the shadows leaving behind hundreds of confused and incredulous former members. It turned out that Lady L and Lilly Beth were no more connected to the British Royal Family than am I. In fact, they were a mother and at least one of her daughters, posing as British aristocrats all the while living in the United States. For a year and a half, they had perpetrated a gigantic fraud on hundreds of unsuspecting, and some suspecting like myself, women from nearly every continent and country on the planet. Former members quickly found other groups to join to maintain the friendships formed within MMTCD. Everyone wondered, why would these women have gone to such lengths to fabricate such intricate and detailed lies? What was their end game? Were they setting the group up for financial fraud, were they data-mining for identity theft, were they just stroking their egos, or were they creating an alternative reality vastly more interesting than their mundane, sad lives? I doubt we will never know, but how very ironic that two complete charlatans and frauds created a group dedicated to uncovering another charlatan and fraud. Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

#MMTCD #Charlatans

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threadsketchier · 6 years ago

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Glimpses - a time to dance

OK, next installment in the “I love my space children and want to wrap them in 100 blankets along with myself” series ahoy.

@culturevulture73 @onwardintolight @littlesparklight @celinamarniss @kaelinaloveslomaris @azalea-scroggs meep

Read it at AO3 if ya wanna

He wasn’t. I can feel it.

He trusted her, but he had to keep telling himself he trusted her. Night had fallen and the victory celebration was underway, and Luke still wasn’t here. Even if he’d escaped the Death Star, had he crash-landed in another hemisphere? Was he hurt and unable to make it back? If he hadn’t left it behind, his comm would’ve been confiscated when he was taken into custody, and if whatever ship he’d bolted in was totaled, he’d have no way to contact them –

Abruptly Leia turned her head toward an empty walkway at the edge of the village square and leaned out of Han’s embrace, then rose to her feet. Han stood with her, asking, “Is he – ?”

And then he saw the sheen of leather boots, the bright silver lightsaber swinging from the hip, and the bronze mop of hair emerging from the darkness of the unlit wood. Luke came striding down the path with a real, broad, unabashed smile that took the years away.

An infectious grin broke out on his own face, but he held himself back as Leia sprang forward to pull him into her arms first. The two of them – brother and sister, twins; all things considered, it really wasn’t surprising – swayed together for a minute, savoring each other’s presence, before they disengaged and Leia gave him an affectionate shove in Han’s direction.

Vader’s kids, both of them. Who’d have thought. For all of Leia’s wrath, though, she had too much strength and virtue shoring her up, and the Kid…nine hells, he’d never know how that wheezy bastard made someone with the power of two suns shining out their ass. And damn was he glad to see some of that radiance back where it belonged. Han grabbed tight hold of Luke and gave him a hard clap on the back, then pushed him away just far enough to get a good look at him. He seemed all right, none the worse for wear, just a little shadowed under the eyes. Tired like the rest of them.

Just like Echo Base, Luke opened his mouth, ready to say something, but faltered, unable to find a way to express it. Too many things, surely. Han squeezed his shoulders in understanding, and Luke nodded. It was all right if he wasn’t ready to talk. At least he was here, finally.

After Luke made his own rounds through the crowd giving and receiving greetings, he didn’t return to them, but withdrew to the sidelines of the party, eventually coming to lean against a tree trunk with his back to them. Han wanted to give him his space, but concern compelled him to give Leia a little nudge to go check on him. Once Leia sidled up to him, though, he laughed and yielded to her, whatever clouds on his mind chased away.

No doubt it was going to be rough tomorrow. But that was tomorrow. For now they were all alive and free and together, and nothing else should get in the way of their joy. They’d earned it.

This time when Luke came back to their fold, he stayed for the rest of the night, listening eagerly to each of their accounts but not doing much talking himself. In the middle of Lando’s and Nien’s tale one little Ewok scampered up to Leia – if Han could recall, this one was named Wicket and Leia had said he was still just a kid – and she scooped him up and sat him in her lap as if he was practically her son. That image stewed in Han’s brain for a bit. Just the thought that it was a possibility, even if a distant one, that someday Leia would be sitting like that with a child of theirs on her knee sent a warm thrill through him not unlike confronting an uncharted cargo run.

For about a minute Wicket was cuddled contentedly against Leia, when he stiffened and twisted around to stare at Luke. And kept staring while his button nose twitched. Luke met his scrutiny with an awkward smile. “…Hi?” he tried.

“Acchiata eh notofosko.”

Luke and Leia mutually frowned in confusion and looked to C-3PO for help, who fluttered his hands in mild distress. “Oh my. That could be…rather impolite.”

Luke lifted his eyebrows. “Well, I’d still like to know what he said.”

“Ah, well, I’m afraid he seems to be claiming that you, ah…smell of death.”

Blank shock wiped away all other emotion from Luke’s face, and he reared back as if to distance himself. Everyone in their little group fell silent, less at the translation and more at Luke’s reaction to it. Han interjected crossly, “Hey, what does he mean by that?”

Wicket wriggled out of Leia’s lap and reached out to grasp Luke’s arm, chittering rapidly and pointing at his fellow Ewoks, most of which were still dancing and drumming apart from a handful of the elders who clapped along with the beat or were busy quaffing some berry and herbal wines. Luke didn’t jerk away from his touch but looked exceptionally uncomfortable, as if he wanted to flee the scene immediately.

“Oh, oh, I see,” C-3PO elaborated. “The term can have multiple meanings, but I believe he’s referring to illness. He’s offering the services of their healer – ”

“Wait, what?” Han barked. “Is he saying something’s wrong with Luke?” To his consternation some of the fright drained out of Luke’s demeanor, as if he was relieved that that’s all it was. Stupid, crazy kid.

Leia was gazing at him in subdued alarm, her hand curling around his right wrist in reassurance. “Luke, there may be some medics left here,” she said softly. “We can step aside for a few minutes and have you looked at.” Lando was already staring expectantly at her, ready to go searching for one.

R2-D2 whistled a string of concerned notes, and C-3PO nodded. “I agree, Master Luke, if you are malfunctioning you should be attended to immediately.”

Luke seemed to wilt a little, sighing deeply. “I…okay. I thought it could wait.” His voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “I just wanted to be here with you for now.”

Leia’s fingers laced with his, empathy in her eyes. Han cursed inwardly. Yeah, Luke understood too – they all had one precious night to themselves and once it was over, it was back to duties and chaos and the messy business of figuring out what to do and how to deal with everything that had changed. But it wasn’t worth hanging around wasting time if he was sick or injured. Who the hell knew what had happened, what had been done to him up there. Leia had neglected herself before the Battle of Yavin; they didn’t need Luke doing that too.

Leia turned her attention back to Wicket, “Thank you for your generous offer, but we do have people who can examine and take care of him. We’re grateful you brought this to our attention,” and C-3PO translated for her.

Lando sprang up, taking Nien with him to expedite their search. A short while later they returned with a man named Betril who thankfully looked sober enough to still do his job, and Chewie and Leia escorted Luke out of the village square in search of some privacy. It wasn’t very hard to find; every last Ewok was out to party, leaving their homes empty. There were a few occupied, however, by couples passing the celebration with some long-sought-after release. Han exchanged a cheeky look with Leia as they caught the noises – that might have been them if they hadn’t preferred to wait to see their friends.

When Betril emerged from the hut after his examination, his expression wasn’t grim, but it wasn’t exactly cheerful either. “He should be getting rest and a lot of fluids under observation right now, not sticking around here. He’s dehydrated, electrolytes are off, blood pressure and proteins and heart rate are all elevated, but his white cell count’s low. There’s some muscle breakdown and peripheral neuropathy; I gave him a painkiller for now to take the edge off.”

If Luke wasn’t already in bad shape, Han would’ve given him a good cuff upside the head. He planted his hands on his hips. “You know what caused it?”

Betril’s pursed his mouth with unease. “I’m not sure. We know the Empire’s...novelty with prisoners. I didn’t pick up any residual drugs or toxins.” His thick brows knitted. “To be honest, if I didn’t know better, I’d think he’d have been out here in the woods getting struck by lightning. He’s got some extensive broken capillaries from fractal burns, but not the typical entry and exit wounds and thermal burns from current. Nothing serious, they should clear up on their own in a few days. But it’s…” He averted his eyes briefly, shaking his head.

It didn’t mean anything good, whatever it was.

Han glanced aside at Leia and found her eyes haunted, surely by the memories of her own torture. He took her hand and squeezed it gently, thumb rubbing circles across the fine bones.

“I’d start a line on him, but I figure you’re going to be taking him up yourselves shortly,” Betril said.

Han jerked a thumb behind him. “Yeah, we will. But you can come along and get him prepped while we’re leaving atmo. Just meet us at the way out of this place.” Betril nodded with a yessir and headed back toward the village square.

The three of them entered the hut, where Luke sat cross-legged on the floor looking very somber, the bottom of his tunic rumpled and untucked from his trousers and his lapel hanging even lower. Leia knelt by his side, one arm encircling his back while her other hand cupped his cheek and turned his face toward her gently. “Luke. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it. But you shouldn’t have kept this hidden from us.”

He shrugged slightly. “I didn’t think it was that bad. Yeah, I’m exhausted and I hurt in places I didn’t think I could. But I was happy to just be back with you. That it’s…it’s over.” He smiled sadly. “Not the war, I mean.”

“I know,” she replied, her eyes misting. She pulled him close and kissed the corner of his lips as she’d always liked to do, and hugged him carefully.

“I’ll tell you later,” he murmured, glancing up guiltily at Han. “But I know we need to go for now.”

“Yeah, we do.” Han offered a hand to hoist him to his feet, worrying about how they were going to get him down through all the precarious ladders, vines, and twisting walkways to the forest floor without it being a strenuous journey for him – a fresh wave of irritation rolled through him when he remembered that Luke had taken that route already to get up here – but Chewie stepped in and pushed his hand away.

Luke blinked up at him, startled. Chewie bared his fangs in a grin and unsheathed one long, wicked claw. Han fought back the urge to laugh out loud. Leia looked between the two of them in confusion; she was still learning the finer points of Shyriiwook. “You’re going to climb down?”

Han held up his hands. “Hey, it is faster.”

Luke was caught between embarrassment and amusement, a mortified smile tugging at his lips as his cheeks flushed. But he reached up and put his arms around Chewie’s shoulders as the Wookiee stooped down, and wrapped his legs around his waist.

“Just don’t get too cozy and fall asleep,” Han warned him. “You still gotta hang on.”

“I won’t,” Luke mumbled into the fur on Chewie’s back, a soft chuckle escaping him.

On their way out of the village, Han tracked down a handful of the strike team to notify them of their departure, and Leia urged C-3PO to stay for the time being to keep facilitating communication between their forces and the Ewok tribe. R2 wanted to leave with them to accompany Luke, but getting the astromech through the arboreal obstacle course again, with or without the Ewoks’ help, was something too time-consuming at the moment. Unfortunately Luke himself wasn’t available to float R2 down the way he’d done with Goldenrod.

As soon as it became obvious that they were leaving, Lando jumped up to follow them, looking rather nervous. “Ahhhh, Han…”

“You coming along?”

“There’s, uh…something you should know about the Falcon.”

Even in the night’s darkness, Han noticed it immediately when they reached the glade that served as an impromptu landing platform. He rounded on Lando, livid. “What was that you said? Not a scratch?!”

Lando held his hands up in defense. “It’s not my fault, there wasn’t any room left to maneuver! Besides, this technically isn’t a scratch. More like a...remodeling.”

“Boys.” Leia passed between them, patting their shoulders. “Let’s talk repairs later. We have a more urgent one to address.” Chewie came up behind her, still carrying a very drowsy-looking Luke, who clicked his tongue and groaned in sympathy for Han. Betril was doing an exemplary job of keeping his mouth shut and minding his own business but looking very much like this was an anecdote Commander Skywalker wasn’t going to be allowed to ever live down.

Han jabbed a finger at Lando. “You owe me, buddy. You’re gonna put that Generalship to good use getting another sensor dish up there, you hear me?”

“Relax, I’ll have it good as new – better than new – even if I have to bolt it on myself. I hear there’s a couple Star Destroyers drifting up there just ready for the picking.”

A wolfish grin spread across Han’s face. “Yeah. Yeah, that’ll do nicely.”

#hewwo y'all #my fics #the Squad™#you'll pry my happy ending from my cold dead hands #TREE WORLD (WE GO HARD)#star wars #han solo #luke skywalker #leia organa #chewbacca #lando calrissian #c-3po #r2d2 #wicket #ROTJ

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piecesofscully · 7 years ago

Text

The After: ch. 14

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13

Somehow it never crossed her mind that she would be here someday.

The fabric of the gown rubs at her skin like sandpaper, feeling as if it is exfoliating the first and second layer of her sensitive skin. Behind her eyes throbs with the force of nuclear blast after nuclear blast, and she wants so desperately to find a more comfortable position in this hospital bed, but dying sounds more appealing than the sharp ache that follows even the most subtle of movements. She swallows the bile building in the back of her throat, yet another side effect of the chemotherapy.

Deep down she was vaguely aware that her end would find her eventually, but this isn’t what she imagined.

A call light rings faintly somewhere down the hall, it’s methodical ding-ding-ding stabbing at the base of her skull with the strength of a gorilla armed with a butterknife. She turns her head away in an attempt to guard herself from the noise, then gasps. The sensation floods her body with the ferocity of first kiss excitement, but instead of the rush of lust, it’s the creeping, bone-deep ache of impending death.

She didn’t anticipate death being this painful.

“Scully.”

The sound of his voice is distant but bright like the beacon of a lighthouse, guiding her through the rough sea of her terminal cancer, bringing her home.

“Scully.”

“I’m here, Mulder,” she says through gritted teeth. “I’m still here.”

“Scully, wake up.”

A groan gurgles in the back of her throat as she opens her eyes, disappointed that the discomfort from her dream has followed her into her waking. Mulder kneels, hovering over her, brushing the hair from her face.

“It’s freezing in here,” she says and pulls the blankets to her chin.

He leans down and presses his lips to her forehead. “You’re warm. I think you might have a fever.”

“I’m fine,” she says as she squeezes her eyes shut and nudges him away. “I’m just tired. And cold- did the fire go out?” She shivers. “Throw more wood on the fire.”

“The fire’s still going,” she hears him respond, then feels the loss of his presence for only a moment before a sudden weight settles next to her, signaling his return. “Come on,” he says gently. “Let’s get you dressed in some warm clothing.”

She pulls the blanket over her head, huddling further into the cocoon of warmth her body has created.

“Check it out, I even found you a clean sweatshirt in the master bedroom.” When his lame attempt at bribery falls flat, he tugs at the blanket, but she holds it in place, balled in her fists. “Scully, we really need to get going. The snow finally let up a bit, and we need to get on the road while we still can.”

With a huff, she shoves the blanket aside and grabs the sweatshirt, quickly pulling it over her head before her teeth start to chatter. Mulder gathers what is left of their belongings and packs her backpack as she takes her time getting dressed. She turns her back to him, trying to hide her exhaustion. The fabric of her pants skim over the swollen bruise that blemishes her hip, and she hisses, wincing.

“You ok?” he asks.

“Yes.”

She isn’t sure when Mulder snuck out to start the truck, but warm air is blasting out of the vents by the time he’s helping her into the passenger seat. He barely grimaces as he lifts her into the seat, hiding the sharp pain he’s surely feeling in his ribs, but he cradles his side as they back out of the driveway and head back through the winding roads of the subdivision.

Snowflakes fall heavily outside of the truck, sticking to every surface that they land upon, whining and grating under the truck’s tires. In just the few minutes it had taken them to get out and on the road, the weather picked up into whiteout conditions,and Mulder curses as they fishtail onto the main road. Scully leans forward and peers through the swipes of the windshield wipers, squinting her eyes in an attempt to find any indication of the edges of the pavement. Heat from the defrost rushes in her face, the warmth heavenly on her skin, and she sniffles.

She feels Mulder’s sideways glance, but ignores it, turning her face to the passenger window to dab at her nose with the sleeve of her jacket. Her sickness has wedged its way between the two of them like a third passenger that has no respect for boundaries, stretching out in the vacant space, taking up too much room. There’s no reason for discussion, she tells herself. There’s nothing to be done about it; cold medicine and antibiotics are a luxury of Before. She pulls her jacket tighter around her chest and burrows into it, staring out the window as the world passes by at thirty miles per hour, her eyelids growing heavier the further they drive.

Within moments her consciousness lingers in that fuzzy place between awake and asleep, and somewhere beyond the lullaby of the humming engine and the rushing frigid wind she thinks she hears snippets of a familiar song.

I see the bad moon rising. I see trouble on the way. I see earthquakes and lightnin’. I see bad times today.

She doesn’t remember the last time she heard a radio play anything other than static. A chill burns across her skin and if she had the energy, she would whimper.

Don’t go around tonight, Well, it’s bound to take your life. There’s a bad moon on the rise.

The quality of the melody sounds off, as if Creedence Clearwater Revival were playing while three sheets to the wind in a tin covered shed. But the guitar continues to strum the chords, and the band, off-key, carries on with their warning of the nearing end.

I hear hurricanes ablowing. I know the end is coming soon. I fear rivers overflowing. I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

She hisses as she rests the side of her face against the cool window, praying the coolness will numb the headache she wears like a crown.

Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. One eye is taken for an eye.

The metallic sounding melody fades as the shadows of sleep overcome her.

---

Baby powder, Johnson and Johnson shampoo, and antiseptic. Beeping monitors, muffled footsteps, and shallow breaths. Two tiny hands, ten toes, and dark blonde hair.

They say that in times of extreme emotion, people tend to have lapses in memory. But as she looks upon her sleeping daughter tucked into the pediatric hospital bed, she is absolutely positive she will remember every moment, every detail. Her barren womb aches as she’s drawn to the side of the bed, her heart splintering as she brushes the hair from her daughter’s face.

Button nose like her Aunt Melissa, her grandmother’s bone structure, Great-Aunt Dorothy’s chin. Mr. Potato Head, coloring books, a gold cross necklace. An experiment, a mistake, a miracle.

Emily wakes. The jagged cracks in Scully’s heart spread when they lock eyes, and a shard breaks free leaving behind a gaping hole.

“I’m so sorry,” Scully whispers. “For-”

“-give me.”

“What?” Mulder asks.

Scully blinks away the remnants of sleep and takes in the sound of his voice, the brightness of the snow, the subtle jostling of the truck as it ambles down the road. Emily’s eyes haunt her even after she becomes more alert, their grey foreboding like the skies of the Wash.

Mulder throws the truck into park, and she asks, “Why are we stopping?”

He leans forward into the steering wheel and rubs his sleeve across the windshield, clearing the bit of condensation that had collected. His eyes narrow as he stares for a moment, then settles back in his seat with a satisfied nod.

“Mulder, where are we?”

“What used to be a Sunoco, I think,” he replies as he pulls his jacket on. “I’m just going to run inside, see if there is anything we can salvage.”

“We should just keep going,” she insists.

“I’ll only be a minute,” he says and flashes her a quick smile before exiting the truck. A gust of wind rushes through the cab before he closes the door, and Scully hisses as goosepimples ripple across her skin. She watches as he trudges through the foot of snow, his figure shrinking until finally vanishing into the darkness that lay behind what was once the door to the gas station.

Her eyelids grow heavy as she repeatedly sweeps her gaze back and forth across the landscape, surveying the area for incoming danger, and her stomach flutters with what she’s determined could be either nervous energy or hunger. Hoping it’s the latter, she nudges the backpack with her foot, trying to recall what little food they may have left. She had watched Henry stuff most, if not all, of their canned goods into Mulder’s backpack. No food, no vitamins, and she’s fallen ill in the beginning of what will be a months long snowstorm. The odds are stacked against them.

Mulder emerges from the gas station and hurries to the truck.

“Find what you were looking for?” she asks as he climbs back in.

He brushes the snow from his hair. “No luck.”

“Did you really think that an abandoned gas station would carry antibiotics?”

“I was hoping for some Motrin or Tylenol,” he says with a shrug, “but the over the counter meds were picked over long before we got here. I grabbed you this, though.”

Scully’s brows furrow. “A Twinkie?”

“I figured this was the next best thing.”

Scully chuckles, then turns the sponge cake over in her hands, examining it. “My God, Mulder, it looks fresh, like it’s just been pulled from the box. It’s in perfect condition.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I don’t think that’s a good thing-”

“Just eat it,” Mulder says. “Your stomach was growling the last hour of our drive.”

“I mean, the amount of preservatives in this-”

“We are surviving the apocalypse, and it’s preservatives you’re worried about?”

“I’m not sure this,” she says, holding the Twinkie up for him to see, “qualifies as edible.”

“Scully.”

“I’m too tired to argue, Mulder-”

“Then stop arguing and eat the Twinkie.”

Scully rolls her eyes, and after a moment tears open the wrapper. She holds it to her nose and sniffs the snack cake. “It even smells fresh.”

“Eat the damn Twinkie, Scully.”

“I am!” She pulls it from the wrapper and dramatically takes a bite. “I am currently eating the Twinkie, Mulder,” she says around the food in her mouth. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” he says with a forced smile. “How is it?”

“Delicious, actually,” she replies seriously before taking another bite. “Better than I remember.”

Mulder purses his lips and shakes his head, but doesn’t say a word. He celebrates his victory silently as the truck crawls down the road. “There’s a settlement a few miles ahead. I figured we could stop for a while, get out of the truck, stretch our legs a for a while.”

“How do you know that?”

“There was a man who had taken up residence at the gas station,” he replies. “He told me about it, said it wasn’t too far. He also gave me the Twinkie.”

Scully’s brow rises. “What did you have to do for the trade?”

“What... are you implying?”

“You were gone for awhile,” she says with a shrug.

Mulder smiles. “I told him my wife was sick and that we were out of food. It was that or a can of sardines.”

“That was very kind of him.”

“He also mentioned that the people in this settlement might have medicine. And gas.”

“Are we low on fuel?” she asks.

His eyes flick to the steering column, then back to the road. “Getting there.”

The wrapper crinkles as she stuffs it into her pocket, and she turns to stare out the window, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. She doesn’t ask how far they can make it, or tell him that their luck seems to be taking a turn for the worst. No food, no vitamins, and now no gas.

A tickle forms in the center of her chest, nagging with each breath that she takes until she can take it no longer and coughs. But once she starts she can’t stop, her ribs contracting as a coughing fit wracks through her weak body, and she grips the dash for support.

“Are you ok?” Mulder asks, and she can feel his worry permeating off of him.

She tries to tell him that she’s fine, but the coughs persist until she gags, bile burning the back of her throat..

“Scully, you need to breathe.”

Finally, she gulps in a full breath and exhales with ease. The fit subsides leaving her weaker than before, her body heavy with exhaustion and her skin freckled with perspiration. Mulder grips her arm and pulls her to him, tucking her into the warmth of his side. She doesn’t argue, instead snuggles further into the crook of his arm. She’s asleep within minutes.

---

“Scully, you gotta see this. Scully,” she hears him say.

Don’t think. Just pick up the phone and make it happen- Five years together, Scully. How many times I been wrong?- Why did they assign me to you in the first place, Mulder? To debunk your work. To rein you in, to shut you down- You've kept me honest... you've made me a whole person. I owe you everything, Scully, and you owe me nothing.

The Antarctic wind nips at her cheeks and her toes have lost all feeling. She grips Mulder and tugs him into her lap, holding him close. As far as she can see, the snow shines blindingly bright under the sun, and the crater gapes just a few feet away.

Pulled from the pod, crawling through the pipe, crawl, crawl faster.

Mulder groans in her embrace, and she holds him closer, trying to will her body heat to him. It’s so cold, she thinks as they both shiver. We’ll both die out here. Lord, she prays. Give us strength. Please give us the strength to make it out of here alive and survive.

It’s so cold.

She wakes to movement, her body being jostled as if she were a ragdoll. His arms wrap around her waist and swoop under her legs. She’s being lifted. “Cold,” she utters.

“I know, Scully,” she hears him say. “We’ll get you inside in a sec.”

She rests her head on his shoulder and everything fades away.

---

Pulsating. The slow, steady footfall like a heartbeat. The brown walls are the color of over-baked brownies, and, like a lazy pendulum, they wave back and forth. She’s caught in the eye of a tornado of whispers as murmurs swirl around her, and she feels the vice around her chest and legs constrict. Two, three, four times a light shines in her eyes, its bright white traveling from the far left of her vision all the way to the right, only to start over again, it’s motion making her stomach turn.

---

The glow of an orange light blinks above her and she squeezes her eyes shut. Hushed voices. Need to remove some clothing. Hands on her forehead, her neck, her belly. Fever dangerously high. She feels the warmth tugged from her ankles, then slowly peeled down the length of her feet, as if someone were sucking the heat directly from the lower part of her body. She gasps at the stark coldness she feels applied to her feet, burning the skin of her arch, and then it’s everywhere. Her armpits, her forehead, her neck, between her legs. Her breaths quicken as she’s overwhelmed by the freezing.

---

Nobody else I’ve contacted will listen, and I have nowhere else to turn. It’ll begin with an intense heatwave, the letter reads. The temperature will rise many degrees rapidly, unsettling the earth’s surface. The heat will provoke instability, initiating the first of many earthquakes.

Scully reaches across their desk for her glasses and continues reading. Cloud seeding, evidence of large-scale weather manipulation, weather weaponry for murder.

How has Mulder ignored this?

One false move, the letter warns, and it will end catastrophically, marking the extinction of all human life.

“Dana?”

Scully glances up to see her mother standing in the doorway, and the view of their office melts, shifting, morphing into a hospital room. Her mother’s smile is warm but laced with sorrow as she crosses the tile floor and seats herself next to Scully’s legs on the edge of the bed.

“It’s time to wake up, sweetheart.”

“I’m awake,” Scully says.

Her mother reaches over and runs her hands down the side of Scully’s face. “Listen to my voice. Open your eyes, Dana,” she says, then grips her shoulders. “You need to wake up. Wake up!”

Scully stares at her mother, her brows pinched in confusion. “Mom, can you hear me? I’m awake!”

“Miss Dana? Come on now, look at me.” Scully’s eyes flutter open and a figure hovers over her, dabbing a cool, damp washcloth to the side of her face. Scully leans into the touch. “There you are. Good morning.”

“Mom?”

“No, hon, my name’s Joan,” the woman says and slowly comes into view as Scully’s vision clears. Her dark hair with streaks of grey sits piled high into a bun atop her head, and her deep brown eyes sweep over Scully. “But you can call me Joanie, everyone else does. Here, sit up just a bit and take a sip of this.”

Joanie cups the back of Scully’s head and holds a glass of water to her lips, tipping it gently. The water cascades over her tongue, catching in the back of her throat, and she turns her face to the side, coughing.

“Oh, oh no. Sorry about that,” Joanie says. “There ya go, get it out. Good girl.” She holds the glass to Scully’s lips. “Here, let’s try again. You need your fluids.”

Scully obeys, and successfully takes a few sips, slower this time. “Where’s Mulder?” she asks.

“I’m here,” she hears his voice come from somewhere behind her, then feels his hand in her hair.

Joanie steps aside. “Don’t keep her up too long,” she warns Mulder as he pulls a chair to the side of Scully’s bed. “She needs her rest.”

He nods and seats himself, taking Scully’s hand between his.

“Mulder, where are we?”

“At a settlement just a few hours outside of Winnipeg.”

A weak smile spreads across her face, and she stifles another cough, breathing slowly. “We’re so close,” she whispers.

He squeezes her hand. “Joanie says you should be feeling better soon. Another day or two and we can hit the road.”

“Another-” she starts, but the tickle in her chest returns with a vengeance and she turns to the side to cough into her pillow. “Another day or two?” she asks one she catches her breath. “How long have we been here?”

He hesitates, watching her.

“Mulder?”

“About three days.”

Scully’s eyes widen. “Three days?” She looks around the room, searching for any sort of familiarity. She must recognize something after staying here for so long. But the walls, the furniture, all of it is new to her. She glances down at her body, groaning when she doesn’t recognize the clothing she now wears or even recall changing. The exhaustion, the nausea, the loss of time, the raging fever- her symptoms are worsening, she admits to herself and feels her chin quiver. “Mulder, I’m not getting better.”

“You will,” he says simply, and brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’ll get better soon, and we’ll finish the trip to Canada. You’ll save the world, Scully.”

“I need antibiotics. There is an infection somewhere in my body, and my immune system is too weak to fight it. I-” she pauses, hot tears stinging her eyes. This is the end. Her mind trails back to West Virginia, to the old woman who lay on a cot, moaning through her last breath. Grandma Vic had died so quickly after falling ill, and Scully is stunned to realize that she is destined to suffer the same fate. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why? Scully, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

She winces as she shifts her body to face him, the sharp ache from her fever ricocheting through her limbs. She takes a deep breath and holds it, waiting for her discomfort to subside a bit. “After everything we’ve been through, our journey together,” she says, “this is where it ends. Mulder, you need to go.”

“I can’t…”

“Take my journal,” she insists. “Take it, go to Winnipeg and stop this. Please, Mulder, this needs to end.”

Mulder shakes his head. “I’m not going anywhere without you-”

“You’ve seen this before,” she says as she gestures to herself in the bed. “You’ve seen what a simple cold can do to people in this world, Mulder. Let alone an infection. We both know the chances of my leaving this settlement are slim at best.” Her tears burn like acid as they trail down her face, and she grits her teeth. “Go. Please.”

She watches as the fight leaves his body and his shoulders slump, her words finally sinking in. She watches as his face twists into a frown, the moment he finally comprehends what she’s said. Mulder ducks his head, defeated, and pulls her hand to his lips. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to end.”

“I know,” she whispers. “When you opened that motel door and I saw your face,” she continues as her voice breaks, “that was the first time I truly felt hope. In that moment, I knew then that if I could find you, then I could stop this, too-”

The wind is knocked from her chest. A coughing fit rips from her throat so violently that her vision swims, and pain sears through her cranium. She hears the panic in Mulder’s voice as he begs her to calm down. “Breathe, Scully, breathe,” but the spasms in her chest won’t cease. Her lungs are burning and her brain screams for oxygen, and just as quickly as the fit began, her world simply stops.

#the after #the after chapter 14 #my writing #txf fanfic #msr fanfic

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ernmark · 7 years ago

Note

Ok, my response to the Peter Amnesia AU: FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!

Little fun fact: my outline actually ended after Juno’s little monologue at the end of the previous section. So then I may have spent a couple days staring at the screen going “no seriously, now what do I do?”

My friend Kya helped me figure out a bit of it, so big thanks to her on that one.

Peter’s mouth opens, but he can’t find the words.

Juno’s talking to two different people right now. One is the master thief, charming and refined and always in control, the man who flashed a thousand smiles and took him to bed. The other is Peter Nureyev.

There are days when Peter doesn’t even know the difference between the two anymore, but somehow Juno does, and that scares him. The last person who could do that used him and betrayed him and died in his arms and he’s missed him ever since. Nobody’s ever hurt him the way Mag did; nobody since Mag has ever gotten that close.

Except for Juno Steel.

Juno Steel, who loves him.

Juno Steel, who wants to mutilate himself to forget he ever met him.

“Juno, no.” He chokes on the words. “You can’t do this.”

“It’s not your choice to make,” Juno says, gathering himself up. “You weren’t even supposed to know. You should have been on a spaceship out of the system by now.”

As if that would make it better.

Things are rattling loose in Peter’s head– doubts and fears that he’s pushed aside are rushing out to meet him, each one bringing with it another, until Peter’s lost in the cascade, until he’s clinging to Juno just to keep from being swept away as it crashes down around him.

“Juno, forgetting– it doesn’t fix things.” The words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them. “The memories aren’t completely gone, they’re just barely out of reach. Juno, I know things I shouldn’t know. I recognize things I don’t understand. And there are things I don’t know, and that’s even worse. Juno, you knew my name– the closest thing I have to a weakness, and you just knew it, and I didn’t know how. Do you have any idea what that was like?” His breath is ragged, his voice raw. “We were tortured, and I had no idea. I don’t know what was done to me or if it left lasting damage or if I’m going to wake up five years from now to pay for it. Every single person on the street might have met me before, and I don’t now who they are or what aliases they know. I don’t know what plans I can make or what precautions I can take. I don’t know what to do next. I–”

Scarred hands cup his face. A forehead presses against his own.

“I didn’t know,” Juno says softly.

The space between them is narrow; there’s only room for secrets here. “I’m trying to find a way to live with it because I don’t have a choice.”

Juno offers a slight nod– he understands. Peter isn’t sure which one of them is shaking, but they hold each other until it subsides.

“Would it–” Juno breaks off, but tries again despite the note of self-consciousness. “Would it help if I told you what happened? I don’t know the whole story, but I can tell you the parts I was there for.”

It shouldn’t be that simple.

The kind of information Peter needs is the kind that has to be pieced together from receipts and coaxed out of unsuspecting witnesses. It can’t be asked for, because people can’t know what he really wants, or why. They wouldn’t give it to him if they did.

That’s the way it works. That’s the way it’s always worked.

Except with Juno Steel.

And so Peter lets go.

“Please,” he whispers into the space between them.

Juno’s arms wrap around his shoulders, protective and reassuring. “The first time I met you, you were going by the name Rex Glass, assigned to disprove a curse on an Ancient Martian burial mask that had already racked up a body count, and according to the writing on the wall, I was next up on the chopping block. Naturally, I didn’t want anything to do with you. By the time you walked through that door, I was already on my way out the window. And then I saw you.”

He weaves the story like a tapestry, detail by detail and beat by beat. He pays special attention to the feeling of people– Cecil Kanagawa’s overbearing showmanship, Brock Engstrom’s smugness, Miasma’s cold disdain– and to the personas Peter wore. He doesn’t recognize Rex Glass or Duke Rose, but he can feel the outlines of them in Juno’s words, the identities that he might be able to slip into someday like an ill-fitting suit.

Juno shows him the scars where needles and electrodes bit into his arms, and traces the place where titanium knuckles carved into his own.

He tells him about offered tenderness that Juno was too raw to feel, of hours spent watching him sleep, of a mistake he never forgave himself for.

“You said you were in love with me,” Juno admits, soft and hesitant and slightly ashamed, as if it was ever a secret. As if it wasn’t written into the note he hands Peter, now yellowed and falling apart from being folded and unfolded a hundred times over, the ink fading where fingertips traced over the words.

Peter lets his glance linger to that note, illuminated by a streetlight outside the office. The last of the daylight faded as Juno was telling him about the things he saw in Peter’s mind, and neither of them has bothered to unbury the desk lamp from the pile of Dark Matters files, let alone turn it on.

In the hours since the story began, they’ve settled into more comfortable places– Peter sitting in the windowsill and Juno on his desk, more at ease than they’ve been in days, basking in the companionable quiet and dark.

And then that peace is interrupted by the beep of an uncustomized comms ringtone and the too-bright glow of a screen.

Juno picks up the comms. “It’s Cecil,” he says quietly. And then he looks up at Peter. “What do you want to do, Peter?”

“If you turn those files over, Dark Matters will come after you.” It isn’t an answer, just a fact, weighed carefully in his hand.

“If I don’t,” Juno says, “they might do the same thing to somebody else.”

And that matters to Juno. It was worth swallowing the Martian Pill, worth locking himself in a room with a bomb. But this isn’t a choice between cowardice and martyrdom.

“Then come with me.” Peter slides down from his windowsill and strides to Juno’s side. “Give the file to Kanagawa and let me take you someplace where Dark Matters won’t ever find you.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re asking?” Juno lets out a soft breath, almost like a laugh. “I’m a real mess.”

“So am I.” It feels strange to admit that after all this time, but he feels lighter for saying it.

“I can’t leave Rita behind,” Juno says. “Not after I got her into this.”

“She’s welcome to come along. A woman of her talents could get into all sorts of trouble.” He leans in with a gentle smile. “It could be quite an adventure.”

Juno picks up the comms.

“Let’s see what the galaxy’s got to offer.”

#the penumbra podcast #writing prompt #fanfiction #phoenix-in-the-ashes #kimthreerings #briwhosaysni #behold the confluence of stars and observe the rare event: ernmark has finished a fic #100

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ecchima · 7 years ago

Text

The Sound of Silence

Summary:

In a world where everyone hears music whenever their soulmate does, two souls struggle to find their other halves.

As far as he can remember, Hanzo has always been deaf but it's ok, because he can still hear music in his head.

As far as Jesse can tell, he doesn't have a soulmate at all.

Words: 8,1k Rating: T Warning: none Note: thank you to @delanbie, the McHanzo sanctuary server and my beta Soap. This fic wouldn’t have been writen and published without them! Art: http://delanbie.tumblr.com/post/170956941912/all-the-art-i-did-for-soulmate-au-from-the-mchanzo

AO3

Since the day he was born, Hanzo has been living in a world of silence. For years, no one knew why the young heir to the well-known Shimada clan did not speak.

At first, his parents thought he was just a quiet child, and the elders thrilled that even as a baby, their new heir was well behaved. It did not last long. When they noticed that Hanzo was starting to fall behind the other kids his age, his family tried to make him speak at all costs. Finally, after many fruitless attempts, they brought him to the hospital where a poor nurse had to deliver them the fatal news: Hanzo was born deaf.

A deaf leader? What a disgrace. The day following the news, Sojiro was called in front of the elders. Within the next month, Hanzo’s mom was pregnant again and nine months later, Genji was born.

They ran tests on the newborn as soon as they could, and all of them came back negative.

It did not take long for the elders to proclaim Genji their new heir, leaving Hanzo in the shadows.

When he was seven, instead of being sent to school, Hanzo was asked to sit for hours and learn sign language properly. He had known basic words, to ask for food or tell his parents he was cold, but even a disowned member of the Shimada clan must be flawless, and so he learned.

It was hard at first, since Hanzo did not know many words in either sign language or Japanese, but it brought him great joy whenever his father would ask him how his day was and he could answer with his own words. Sometimes, one or both of his parents would take the class with him, making his day even better.

Because of this, Hanzo did not have friends but he had something else, something better: a voice singing in his head. He didn’t know why it was the only thing he could hear, or why he seemed to be the only one able to hear it, but it happened nonetheless. Sometimes during class, or over dinner, he could hear either a clear and soft voice or a loud and boisterous one singing.

As far as he could remember, the singing had always been there and so he never wondered nor asked where it came from, or why it was the only thing he could hear.

One night, after a nightmare, he started humming the tune of one of the songs he had heard, unable to hear his own voice but feeling the vibrations through his mouth. It soothed him to pretend he could hear the voice singing. But he hummed so loudly and out of tune that it woke Genji up, upsetting him.

Hanzo tried to apologize to his little brother but Genji had dashed out of the room, crying that Hanzo was being mean to him and keeping him up on purpose.

Of course no one understood what was happening; Hanzo had never tried to use his voice before. When he told them he was simply trying to replicate the song he could hear in his head, his parents looked at each other oddly. His mother started crying and his father laughed.

They told him to go back to bed, that they would explain tomorrow, but Hanzo lingered. The elders weren’t around and Genji was already falling back asleep in their parent’s bed. He looked up and signed, “Can I stay?”

His parents did not even hesitate, signing back, “Of course.”

The following day, they all sat under the cherry blossoms and Hanzo’s mother started telling a story while her husband signed it.

Long ago, a young fisherman man fell in love with a woman whose singing was so mesmerizing that it was said to bring fortune unto whoever listened to it. He loved her so much that he would come by her house every day with a new gift, even though he was not particularly rich. He would bring her fruits, flowers, and on very rare occasions, pearls he had found in the sea.

She kept every one of his presents, and insisted that he did not have to bring any more, that he could come see her whenever he wanted. But every time, the young man arrived with another present.

One day, there was a violent storm and the young man broke his arm. He was unable to work but kept on bringing gifts to the woman. She begged him to stop, to keep what little he had at least long enough for him to heal, but he stubbornly refused.

She proposed to him then, saying, “If I am your wife, you will have no need to court me anymore.” The young man could not refuse such a proposition.

They got married on a beautiful day, had one child they loved above everything else, and grew old together.

The people in the village said they were so in love, their souls must be bound together. But, as the time passed, their health started to decay. The man’s knees protested when carrying him and the woman’s hearing started to fade.

Saddened to see his wife unable to sing or listen to any kind of music, the now-old man prayed to the gods, begging them to give his own hearing to his wife so that she could be happy again.

Upon seeing such great love, the gods agreed that two souls bound to be lovers would be able to hear the same music as their other halves.

When his mother finished her tale, she looked at Hanzo and signed, “I am so happy to know there is someone out there for you.”

As Hanzo grew older and became fluent in Japanese Sign Language, he was asked to learn the American one as well. After all, Genji had to learn English, so why shouldn’t he? And since he was finally able to understand his tutors, why not teach him other things? He was a Shimada after all, and Shimadas must be flawless.

Between being deeply buried in his education, Genji just starting his own, and with clan matters taking up most of his parents’ time, Hanzo started to feel lonely. He couldn’t ask his non-disabled brother to come home early after school and deny him the joy of having friends outside of the family, nor could he stay behind his mother’s robes, so he did what lonely kids with a lot of free time do: he started to draw.

Drawing was a nice, silent and creative activity that Hanzo could practice on his own, and it gave him a way to express himself without signing. At first, the only things he wanted to draw were cool and impressive dragons, just like the ones in his family’s dojo. Then he tried his hand at sentai warriors because Genji would stay stuck to the TV screen on Saturday mornings, watching those superheroes kick butt.

Practice makes perfect, as the saying goes, and Hanzo was a fast learner with lots of free time. At nine years old, he won an artistic contest after Genji had submitted one of his drawings in secret. The elders were not pleased, but Hanzo had a proud smile stuck to his face for weeks.

One day, as he was experimenting with inks, Hanzo heard a young voice in his head singing a song he had never heard before. It was a happy tune, the sort of thing he could picture Genji humming. The song was accompanied by some sort of instrument, but it seemed like the person singing did not know how to play it because some of the notes sounded as though they did not belong. Like that time Hanzo tried to paint a blue sky but messed up his gradient.

That comparison made him pause and look at his sheets of expensive ink paper. What if he tried drawing the song in his head?

During the following years, Hanzo mastered both American and Chinese sign languages on top of his other studies. Frustrated by his dependence on his hands to communicate, he began to take lessons in lip reading and, encouraged by his tutor, started learning how to speak.

Reading lips was hard, and learning how to talk through only vibrations was even harder, but Hanzo could always count on the music in his head to cheer him up. After all, one day he would meet his soulmate and he wanted to be able to explain just how much their songs meant to him, how they inspired him to paint… And how they kept him going.

He may not have been able to hear what people were saying about him, but he was not blind. He could see their fake smiles and hypocrisy from miles away. They pretended to like him, to be proud of him, but they pitied him. The perfect heir, put aside because he could not hear, working so hard to learn. How sad.

Meanwhile, Genji started to show just how little he cared about the clan, and Hanzo knew an argument was brewing about whether or not he should have stayed the heir.

Soon after Genji’s first attempt at rebellion -he had dyed his hair a horrendous shade of green- his mother grew ill and died. His father, facing an increasing number of duties, was all too happy to bury himself deeper into work to drown out his sorrow.

The only thing that brought warmth to Hanzo’s cold and broken world was the music he could hear from his soulmate. But even that was growing more melancholic and sad. He could still hear the musical instrument -his soulmate getting better at it- but more often than not, the music was just a sad acapella. The notes weighed heavily on Hanzo’s soul.

He wished he could sing back to tell his soulmate he was there, that they would meet someday and live happily. But he knew that even if he could sing perfectly, the person he wanted to sing for wouldn’t hear it.

As Hanzo entered adulthood, the music in his head changed. After years of sorrowful tunes, the joy he had heard as a child began to come back. It started as a rare occurrence, one song here and there in the middle of long stretches of silence, but it was definitely coming back, bringing a palette of warm colors to Hanzo’s paintings that hadn’t been seen in a very long time.

Suddenly, life was bearable again. Not quite happy, but good enough. Hanzo started to exhibit his work, and the elders were too busy with Genji’s rebellion to advise him against it.

Success knocked at his door -the people loved his paintings, both the sad and the happy ones. The elders let it slide, pleased to have good publicity for a change.

A couple years before Hanzo turned thirty, he noticed the singing in his head was becoming muffled. The songs were happier and more frequent, but somewhat muted. At first, he thought it was himself paying less attention to it, but soon he realized he had trouble understanding the lyrics when he had once heard them as though his soulmate was sitting next to him.

He started to worry: what if his soulmate was ill? It could be that their strength was leaving them… What if the gods had decided that Hanzo did not deserve this person? He had never tried to leave the city to seek them out, after all.

The days passed and the music grew fainter each day, almost unnoticeably slowly. Anguish rendered Hanzo’s paintings tormented, tortuous. He started painting foggy forests and muddy water, giving the viewer the impression that they could get swallowed and lost.

People called them masterpieces; Hanzo called them nightmares.

The last song he heard from his soulmate reminded Hanzo of his mother’s funeral. It was muted, sad, and made him feel miserable. After that, there was nothing.

Hanzo had always been deaf, but for the first time in his life, he was truly left in silence.

The first few weeks of complete silence were bad but manageable; when it turned into months, Hanzo started to worry a lot more. What if his soulmate had died? What if that last macabre song had been played at their funeral?

Hanzo found the silence smothering, making it hard for him to get up in the morning, hard to wash up, hard to eat.

One day, Genji entered his room with a bounce in his step. Hanzo wasn’t sure just how long it had been since he last left his room, but seeing his little brother admittedly made him feel better. Until Genji really looked at him and his features scrunched up into a frown, sadness and worry evident in his eyes.

“Hanzo, what’s wrong?” Genji signed.

He opened his mouth to answer but could not muster the strength to use his voice. He felt tears form at the corners of his eyes, so he tried to wipe them with his sleeve only to find that he did not have the strength to do that either. So he simply cried.

He didn’t know when Genji sat on the bed to hug him, but once he had calmed enough to feel the world around him, he found himself holding onto his little brother like a lifeline. He was tired; he wanted to sleep and never wake up again, but when he gently pushed Genji to let him know he wanted to rest, his brother signed again.

“I don’t want to force you, but you seem like you need to talk about it.”

So Hanzo did. They sat there for hours as Hanzo spilled his heart, telling his younger brother everything about the music, how it had started to fade, how it had stopped for months and how hollow it had left him.

Genji stayed by his side, rubbing comforting circles on his shoulder through it all. Once he was done signing, Genji took ahold of his jaw, making him look up.

“You know what? The elders don’t need us and you could use a vacation. How does a trip to America sound?”

It took some time to convince Hanzo to leave Japan, then some more time to convince the elders that the vacation was very much needed while their continued presence in Japan was not. But when they finally landed in San Francisco, Hanzo felt some of the tension leave his body.

Genji did his best to give Hanzo the most amazing holiday he could and, in turn, Hanzo tried to be less of a burden on his younger brother. There were still bad days, but he was doing better overall so they decided to stay. They rented a nice, modern house by the sea and started what they called their “second life.”

The elders called about once a month to discuss their “allowance,” as if they were still children, but never asked them to come back. Eventually, Genji found a job as a martial arts instructor in hopes of cutting the bridge between them and the clan. Hanzo likewise began working as a Sign Language teacher and soon their “allowance” was cut off.

Their only link left with the clan was their aging and retired father, who was all too happy to call them both to pass the time.

Eventually, Hanzo took up his artistic hobbies again, painting various places in the city. He could see the pain in his brother’s eyes whenever he showed him his monochrome ink paintings, depicting the world as he saw it: cold, uninviting, and colorless. He refused to use color; the cheerful hues reminded him too much of a time he believed to be over, of a world where he knew someone was out there for him.

A few months after they made the decision to stay in San Francisco and almost a year after the overbearing silence had started, Hanzo found himself humming. He was in the middle of a class, watching his students -people of all ages and origins- practice conversing when it happened.

It came naturally to him, like getting back on a bicycle after winter had passed. That may be why he did not notice it until a bunch of his students looked at him with weird expressions on their faces. He turned to face them and signed, “Is something wrong?”

They looked at each other until one of his favorite students, a young mother learning the language to communicate with her deaf niece, signed back to him.

“It’s just,” she paused to choose her signs carefully, “we have never heard you hum before.”

Hanzo shot her an incredulous look. There was no way he could have been humming; he hadn’t even heard music since-

That’s when he noticed it, that barely audible and rusty hum in his head. A muted song morphing into whispered lyrics:

Fools, said I, you do not know Silence like a cancer grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you But my words like silent raindrops fell

And echoed In the wells Of silence

The rusty voice faded back into a hum then, and Hanzo found himself unable to move. The voice was definitely deeper and harsher than he remembered, but it was there, his soulmate was there.

Hanzo let out a sob, unable to keep the tears from falling. His entire class was looking at him then, and the mother from earlier started to applaud. Soon, all of his students were clapping their hands, congratulating him. Even though they didn’t know the story, they could tell it had something to do with his soulmate and they knew just how important it was.

As soon as he could stand up and hold his phone, Hanzo excused himself to video call his younger brother. He started to cry again when he tried to deliver the news, making it impossible to talk. After ten minutes of fruitless tears, he received a text from Genji, asking Hanzo to join him at the dojo.

When he got there, Genji cut his class short and lead them both to a secluded booth in a café. He got them hot drinks and let Hanzo talk as long as he needed, not interrupting even once, which was a rather impressive feat for Genji.

When Hanzo was finished, Genji gave him a hug and insisted that Hanzo hum him the song. He did, with hands on his temple and throat to better feel the vibrations. It was probably horrible, but Genji listened and thanked him nonetheless before telling him the name of the song: “The Sound of Silence.”

During the next few days, Hanzo heard humming and singing a lot, but there was no trace of a musical instrument. He didn’t know why his soulmate had been silent for so long or why the instrument was gone now, but he suspected a pretty bad accident or severe depression. He tried not to think too hard about it and just enjoy the simple knowledge that someone out there was meant for him and, more importantly, that he could hear them sing.

A week later, Hanzo was sitting in their living room, dozing off while Genji was watching a documentary. They had the subtitles off so he wouldn’t be distracted from the scenery, content to watch as colorful birds performed some kind of mating dance on the screen while his soulmate’s humming played in his head. He burrowed deeper into their comfortable sofa, ready to fall asleep, when suddenly the humming got very loud, startling him.

For a few minutes, the volume of the humming varied wildly before settling on a somewhat normal middle setting. That’s when he realized: his soulmate must be trying out hearing aids. Hanzo grabbed Genji’s shoulder then, shaking him in his excitement. His soulmate’s hearing was impaired; they would be able to relate when they finally met!

Hanzo talked too fast and had to repeat the signs more slowly for Genji, who then grinned and told him that he believed his own soulmate had hearing aids, too. Hanzo gasped, unaware that Genji had heard his soulmate at all. With all his personal turmoil during the past year, he hadn’t even thought to ask his younger brother about it. It was time to change that.

“You did not tell me about your soulmate,” he signed.

“Well, I went to your room the day I heard them for the first time so I could tell you about it but,” he paused and looked away. Hanzo shook his shoulder again, prompting him to continue. “But then I saw you in your bed, unwashed and with the biggest circles under your eyes; it just didn’t seem like the right moment.”

“Well, I am better now and I want to know.”

Genji smiled. “Let’s get started then!”

After that night, Hanzo made sure to regularly ask Genji about his soulmate, learning that once a month they would listen to calm instrumentals while checking their hearing aid settings, that they sometimes listened to music closer to Genji’s tastes, and that one time they had spent a day listening to musical pieces from different periods in chronological order.

“They seem to have a very curious nature,” Genji said over dinner. “Although I’ve never heard them sing or hum anything so it’s a bit weird.”

“Maybe they simply cannot speak,” Hanzo answered.

Genji shrugged it off, asking him about his own soulmate instead. “Do they still practice?”

“Yes.” Hanzo smiled. “They practice every day though they are still very far from how good they used to be. I wonder if they broke an arm.”

“You said they’ve been practicing for, what, a month?”

“A month and 28 days, actually.”

Genji laughed. “You have it so bad, brother! And you haven’t even met them!!!”

Hanzo smacked the back of his head, laughing. It felt so good to be close to his brother. They had never spent much time together as kids, mostly because of the language barrier.

Genji waved at him to get his attention before signing, “Did you make up your mind about the art gallery's offer?”

“I think I will accept it, although I will ask them if they can wait until I have a more… joyful piece to offer. If my soulmate lives in the area, I don’t want them to think I am gloomy.”

“I don’t think they live in the area; from what you’ve told me, they sing way too many country songs.” He laughed but put a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, brother. We’ll find them.”

As time passed, more and more art galleries called Hanzo -they even had to buy a device that could translate the audio into text- to ask if they could exhibit and sell a few of his paintings. Hanzo accepted every offer except when a deal wasn’t good enough, wanting nothing more than to become famous enough that his soulmate would one day see his paintings.

He still taught sign language classes but not as many. Now that he was becoming famous, he no longer needed the money, but he didn’t want to let it go completely as he’d found that he actually liked to teach.

One day, an association called him to ask if he could give art classes to hearing-impaired and mute teenagers and children, to which he immediately agreed because he knew how hard it could be to find a capable instructor. Even his family’s wealth hadn’t lured any deaf-friendly art teachers, and he had to learn to read lips before he was finally able to study with a professional.

Two years after Hanzo had settled in San Francisco -and about one year after he started to hear his soulmate again- the music played by the instrument in his head was almost flawless. But then something weird started to happen.

Every day, for a few hours, Hanzo would hear the instrument play a bunch of notes over and over again, testing new combinations and different rhythms before stopping then starting anew. He didn’t really know what was happening, and he guessed that his soulmate had just decided to practice a complicated song, but after a week, lyrics joined in and Hanzo realized: his soulmate was composing a song.

It was a soft melody, the kind that reminded Hanzo of watching snow fall through the window while snuggling under the kotatsu, but also the kind you wouldn’t mind listening to to drown your sorrow. The lyrics were often half-mumbled as his soulmate was still trying to write them, but after another week had passed, Hanzo heard the complete song for the first time.

It talked about silence, how lonely it felt and how they tried to forget it, how they sang to fill in the gaps. But what touched Hanzo the most was the ending.

When I found out after, That sounds could not reach me, Then I realized that maybe, Your silence wasn’t meant to hurt me.

Hanzo felt tears gather at the corner of his eyes -they understood. When they had partially lost their hearing, they had realized. And they composed a song for him about it.

During the following month, Hanzo heard that song a lot. He briefly wondered if his soulmate had recorded it, because most of the time it had exactly the same intonations and tempo, while it tended to be more relaxed and less controlled in the evenings.

Hanzo very rarely had things made for him when he was younger. Sure, his family learned sign language and bought him presents, but no one had ever crafted something just for him. He never had friends outside of the family and didn’t go to school, so he never even got chocolate for Valentine’s day like Genji did.

Having something as precious as a song gifted to him was so inspiring that he painted an entire polyptych of five canvases based on the song. They were the first and only pieces he refused to exhibit or sell, setting them up in his bedroom so that they would be the first and last things he saw every day.

As months passed, his soulmate composed more songs and Hanzo painted more pieces. He became so famous that a museum contacted him to ask if they could organize an exhibition of his works. It took some convincing from Genji, but eventually Hanzo accepted.

When he contacted them, they decided on a date and asked Hanzo if he could come to their city for the grand opening. It took some more convincing, but he eventually agreed. He had never gone very far from San Francisco and never left Hanamura when he still lived there; maybe a trip to a distant city would do him good.

All things considered, the city was nice. It was noisy and polluted, but lacked the chilly wind of San Francisco and the fake traditional look of Hanamura. It was like most US cities Hanzo had seen in photographs, with huge skyscrapers, geometric streets, and big squares.

He wasn’t particularly awed nor disappointed by the city, but they had some pretty interesting museums he wanted to check out. After meeting up with the organizers of his exhibit, he was given a free pass that was good for public transportation and entry to many museums. They informed him that some of his art pieces hadn’t arrived yet but should be there in time for the opening a week later, and asked him if he wanted to take a look and move any pieces around.

After spending a couple of hours in the aisle hosting his exhibit, Hanzo was invited to check out the rest of the museum. One of the organizers stayed with him, talking animatedly about their impressive collection from all over the world. More than once, Hanzo had to ask them to slow down and repeat themselves, but he didn’t mind the company. It was always nice to meet passionate people.

They explained that this particular museum had a big collaboration going with the local music academy, allowing students and teachers to study and handle the museum's collection of musical instruments from various historical eras and cultures, encouraging them to think outside the box. Once a month, a music teacher came to play in the halls so that museum visitors could hear how various instruments sounded and see how they were played. At the end of their visit, the organizer asked Hanzo if he would mind having a little concert at the end of the opening day. A newly-popular singer was in town, having just finished touring.

Hanzo had no reason to refuse; he had never been to a concert and likely would never go to one if not for this opportunity. He assured the organizer that he would be able to enjoy it as long as he was able to feel the vibrations, and that it would be all good as long as they reserved a private spot for him away from the crowd. They thanked him with a big smile and bid him farewell, telling him to enjoy the city before the opening day.

So he did just that, visiting the city’s zoo and many museums, even bringing Genji to one that was dedicated to superheroes around the world. He also ventured out a couple of times to enjoy the local nightlife.

The day before the event, Hanzo went to the laundromat down the street from their hotel. He liked to do his own laundry with his own detergent. The one used by the servants at Shimada castle had always reminded him of his mother too much. Then he moved to America and there was no one else to do it for him anyway, except maybe Genji, but he wouldn’t trust anyone who used the words “laundry” and “Genji” in the same sentence.

They had only been there for a week, but he was amazed to find just how many outfits his younger brother had stained with sweat, drinks, and sauces as he started to separate the bright colors from the light and dark ones, making three neat piles on a bench. He looked around the place, confirming that it was empty before he started humming his soulmate’s latest song to himself. It was one of Hanzo’s favorites even though it didn’t have lyrics yet. It was an upbeat and innocent tune, like a child talking about their crush.

He was unscrewing his bottle of detergent when someone grabbed his arm, almost making him drop it to the floor. He turned and glared at whoever almost made him spill his perfectly fine and expensive bottle only to be met with an equally angry face. The man who had interrupted him said something, but Hanzo was too surprised to really pay attention -what right had this man to shout at him? If anything, he should be the one shouting!

“I do not understand why you are angry at me,” Hanzo said slowly, a hand on his temple to help him speak. “I wasn’t the one rudely interrupting your laundry time.”

The man answered and this time Hanzo tried to follow what he was saying, but the words were spoken too quickly for him to catch, on top of what seemed to be an accent distorting the motion of his lips. Great.

“Could you articulate? I cannot understand a word you are saying.”

The man puffed up like an angry bird, his brows furrowing further. He started talking again and Hanzo tried really hard to focus on his lips, but despite his best efforts, he still couldn’t make out half the words. Something...play dumb...something? Hanzo frowned, did he sound condescending? He leaned back to look at the man’s face, ready to apologize and explain, only to find that the other’s frown was gone, replaced by huge, surprised eyes.

Hanzo took the time to look at the stranger in an attempt to finally understand what was going on. The man had big brown eyes framed by thick eyebrows, and hair so long it would have fallen into his eyes if he hadn’t worn a hat. A cowboy hat of all things; he must be from the desert, then.

Hanzo watched as the man’s full lips shaped into a big, round “Oh.” He must have finally understood that Hanzo was deaf, good. Then why did his expression turn so hopeful? The man then inhaled through his mouth, pursed his lips, and stood there expectantly.

Hanzo heard humming.

As much as he loved his soulmate’s songs, now wasn’t really the moment; he didn’t know what this man wanted with him and the music distracting him wouldn’t help. But then the man started swaying, and as he opened his mouth to take another breath, Hanzo’s eyes went wide.

The man before him was totally in sync with the humming in his head.

Hanzo watched, mesmerized as the stranger did it again and, without thinking, he laid a hand on the man’s chest to feel the vibrations. His soulmate let out a breathy laugh and sang the lyrics softly. For the first time in his life, Hanzo could hear what he was reading on the lips of another human being.

When I found out after, That sounds could not reach me, Then I realized that maybe, Your silence wasn’t meant to hurt me.

His soulmate smiled warmly at him and pointed at his ear, where Hanzo could see a small transparent device. He could already feel the tears spilling all over his cheeks as he choked out a weak, “I know.”

Hanzo felt his soulmate slowly drawing him in for a hug and rubbing soothing circles on his shoulder blades. He held onto him tightly, trying -and failing- to stop staining the man’s plaid shirt with tears. The humming picked back up and Hanzo found himself so comfortable he never wanted this moment to end.

They stayed like that for what felt like hours until the man gently pushed Hanzo away and cupped his cheek, carefully articulating.

“You ok?”

Hanzo wiped his eyes with his palm and nodded with a smile. He didn’t trust himself to speak through the emotional train wreck this meeting turned out to be.

“May I take you out for coffee?”

Hanzo’s smile grew bigger and he nodded again before taking his phone out, opening a new notes sheet and typing, “I don’t think I can focus enough to speak rn, do you know sign language?” He pointed his phone towards his soulmate so he could read the message.

The man looked up from the phone. “Not enough to have a conversation, but I can give you my number.”

Hanzo nodded and opened up his contact information, turning his phone towards his soulmate again. The man entered the number into his own phone, a big smile splitting his face in two. A few seconds later, Hanzo received a text from an unknown number saying, “Hanzo, huh? That’s a pretty name. Mine’s Jesse :)”

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Jesse. I would love to get coffee once I am done cleaning all these shirts,” he typed, hit send and then gestured at the two remaining piles of dirty laundry he came to wash.

Jesse chuckled and nodded, pointing at his own pile of clothes before typing his answer. “Fortunately, I have some cleaning to do myself. How about I keep you company?”

When Hanzo came back to the hotel at the end of the day, Genji immediately jumped on him, asking him what took so long. He grinned, lifted his chin and signed, “I may or may not have met an amazing man whose name is Jesse McCree.”

“Jesse McCree… The singer?” Genji signed and then stopped, his mouth slowly forming a perfect, round O. “HOOOOOOLY SHIT!!! IS YOUR SOULMATE JESSE MCCREE???!” He probably shouted, signing along with his words. “Hanzo, that’s amazing! They were talking about him on TV just yesterday!!”

“They also talked about me on TV,” he pouted.

“Hanzo, please. They only mentioned you once in passing because of the exhibit. This guy just finished a tour on the West Coast!” Genji slid a hand through his hair, the movement of his shoulders indicating a sigh. “I cannot believe your soulmate is a popular singer, I always thought you’d end up with one of those hobos who thinks they're cool because they wear dreadlocks and walk barefoot.”

“Wow, thanks, Genji,” Hanzo signed, eyebrows raised in disbelief. “I never thought your soulmate would be a disappointment, but I am starting to believe they could very well be an old uni teacher.”

“Now you’re just being mean.”

Hanzo crossed his arms and raised a brow, his face the perfect picture of “Oh, really?”

“Alright, I deserved it. Now tell me! How did you meet? How was he? Does he really dress like that unironically?”

“I will tell you everything, but dinner first, if you don’t mind.”

The next day, Genji insisted on being there for the grand opening of Hanzo’s exhibit, bragging to every single person he met that he had been the first one in their family to believe his brother had a real talent for art, making Hanzo’s eyes roll.

A few people recognized him and stopped to chat, with Genji helping translate when they spoke too fast. It was nice to hear which paintings they liked most, or which technique they preferred. A lot of them were art students, and a few others were hearing-impaired or deaf. He was surprised when an old Japanese man stopped by to tell him that he had been following Hanzo’s career ever since he won his first artistic contest in Hanamura.

He told Hanzo that he had been a member of the jury, and that he hadn’t known he was a Shimada until he showed up to claim his prize flanked by four bodyguards. He also told him how relieved he had been when he saw Hanzo’s huge smile and his brother loudly clapping to congratulate him, that he thought they were good kids then.

When the old man excused himself so that he could continue looking at the pieces displayed, Hanzo gave his most respectful bow and thanked him for taking the time to come over and chat. In the corner of his eye, he saw Genji do the same.

Around lunch time, Hanzo felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He fished it out and let a happy sigh escape him when he saw a text from Jesse.

“Hey! Organizers said I need to be there around 3pm, wanna grab lunch in the area? :)”

“Sure, do you have a place in mind? We’ll join you there.”

“We? You are full of secrets, Mister Shimada ✨” Hanzo laughed and had already started replying when a new text arrived. “How does Bacon Bros. Diner sound? It’s on 5th”

“What kind of name is that? :’) I can’t stop laughing, people are looking at me.”

“Just two bros having dinner. 5 feet apart because they’re not gay :^D”

“Except we’re gay”

“We’ll just have to eat only one foot apart then!”

Hanzo snickered and quickly typed his answer. “Perfect, meet you there in 15 minutes?”

“Sounds good to me! Can’t wait to see you again ♥”

Genji was almost more excited about the lunch date than Hanzo. When confronted about it, he pretended it was because he wanted to meet someone famous, but Hanzo knew him too well to believe that. Genji wasn’t exactly what he would call a “fan” of Jesse’s songs, being more into kpop, and Hanzo knew his brother had met his share of famous people back in Hanamura.

Lunch went well. Jesse and Genji got along pretty well despite a few embarrassing questions about each other’s fashion choices, and soon they were walking back towards the museum. A few people stopped them on the street, asking if they could take a picture with Jesse. A couple of them also inquired about Hanzo and Genji, but Jesse just put a finger to his lips and said it was a secret they could find hints about at the museum.

They arrived an hour and a half before Jesse had to be present for the last adjustments, so Hanzo invited him to check out the exhibition. The first pieces were sketches and studies from when he was a child. He explained that back when Genji didn’t know sign language very well, he found it easier to express himself through art, and that it was also an entertaining way to pass the time. In turn, Jesse told him a bit about his own childhood and how his mom always told him that music was important because it was his only link with his soulmate. He joked about not being very good at anything besides singing, and Hanzo assured him that he would be the judge of that.

Then they moved on to the paintings he did when he’d thought it would be nice if, when he met his soulmate, he could have something to give them the same way they gave him their comforting music. Jesse put a hand over his heart then and mimed being struck by Cupid, but Hanzo could tell he was genuinely touched.

As they kept walking through the exhibition, the pieces grew colder. Hanzo explained that he painted them around the time Jesse stopped playing the guitar -he was so happy he could finally give a name to that instrument- and sang his sad acapellas. Jesse explained that he stopped playing after his mother died, and that he got into trouble a lot in those days. He didn’t go into much detail, but it was clear Jesse was ashamed of that time period. It was okay though, they would have a lot of time to talk about it after they knew each other better.

Soon, they reached the warm sunsets and soft ambiance paintings Hanzo did when he started having his work exhibited in Japan. He turned to Jesse expectantly and the man explained that after a lot of trouble, one man saw potential in him and plucked his sorry ass out of the desert dirt. It wasn’t quite the freedom he craved, but things were getting better for him. The man who saw potential in him found out he could play the guitar and encouraged him to pick it back up. Hanzo also learned that around that time Jesse joined the army.

“I just didn’t wanna be no trouble to him, especially after all he did for me. I never finished school so there wasn’t much else I could do anyway,” he said sheepishly.

Hanzo hummed, probably too loudly. “I can relate to that.”

They walked into another room then, and Jesse froze only a few steps in. The room displayed all of Hanzo’s misty and darker paintings. They were a testament to his mastery in his field, but they all held an engulfing sadness that always made him shiver. He looked up at Jesse’s face, the perfect picture of shock and hurt. Hanzo’s eyes were fixed on the man next to him, who touched the tiny transparent device in his ear.

“Are those-”

“From when I noticed the music was becoming weaker? Yes.”

They didn’t linger in that room for long, too many dark memories for the both of them. Again, there would be time for that later.

They exited into a hall displaying the few pieces Hanzo drew when he moved to San Francisco. He told Jesse that Genji was the one to insist they move to America, and that those were hard times for him but the distance between himself and the rest of his family had done him good. He talked about how he started to teach sign language for a living and how he managed to get his life back in order.

He stopped in front of the last painting. “I thought you were dead,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Hanzo, I didn’t want this. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know.” He smiled before facing Jesse. “The day I finally heard you again, I was in the middle of a class. My students were practicing and I was watching over them like I always do. At some point, I noticed that a few of them had stopped conversing and were looking at me. They said I was humming.”

When Hanzo noticed the tears gathering at the corner of Jesse’s eyes, he gave him a side hug and patted his back. He felt the other lean into him so he kept his arm wrapped around Jesse as they walked all the way to the last room.

It was by far the largest of the entire exhibit, showcasing big polyptychs with bright colors. Hanzo stopped in front of each piece inspired by one of Jesse’s songs and tried to explain which song it belonged to. At one point, he tried to hum the melody instead but since Jesse was right next to him, he could hear himself and it just freaked him out too much.

“One more thing we’ll have time to work on,” Jesse joked, turning towards the next painting. “I was touched when you told me the paintings were based on the music you could hear from me, but these,” he paused, his shoulders moving along with a deep breath, “these are based on things I created. The songs I compose are mighty personal and I have no words to tell you how touched I am.”

“Did you notice? The set of paintings I made for the first song you composed for me are not in this room.”

Jesse paused and looked around, then back at Hanzo. “Where are they, then? Is there some kind of secret room we missed?”

Hanzo smirked. “Come over to my house in San Francisco and I will gladly show them to you. They are way too precious for me to trust anyone touching them.”

Jesse took off his hat and placed it over his heart, looking Hanzo straight in the eyes. “I think my heart just stopped.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon by an improvised stage outside. Jesse explained a few music things to Hanzo and showed him around behind the scenes. At one point, he convinced Hanzo to try playing the guitar. It was awful, his big fingers stumbling over unfamiliar chords. He didn’t know whether he was more frustrated or exhilarated that he was able to hear every single one of his mistakes.

About an hour before the concert, Hanzo was called to his VIP spot where the organizers had left a small bench with a sandwich and a water bottle for him. He was soon joined by Genji who had bought a bag of muffins for the two of them. Of course, his little brother asked to know every single detail of his and Jesse’s “date,” which Hanzo was all too happy to talk about.

A few minutes before the show, Genji joined the crowd, proclaiming that concerts were only good when you could smell everyone’s armpits and feel all those sweaty bodies pressed close to the stage. When Hanzo remarked that it sounded pretty gross, Genji shrugged and signed, “It’s half the charm,” with a toothy grin.

When Jesse arrived on stage and all the people started waving their arms, Hanzo moved his bench to get a little closer. He could see Jesse approach the microphone while clumsily signing, “Tonight is special. The man who paint are in this museum is deaf. I question his brother to sign along the lyrics of my songs.” Hanzo’s eyes widened as Genji jumped on stage and bowed, taking the signing over.

It had always been something to hear Jesse sing inside his head, but it was something entirely different to experience it live. Hanzo had a blast, not only listening to the music but also feeling the vibrations of it, making him feel like he was melting into the music, like he was part of the songs.

After the last song, Jesse leaned in to the microphone again and Hanzo looked to Genji for translation.

“I hope you had a blast tonight because I dedicate this concert to my soulmate, whose paintings are exhibited in this museum starting today!” Both the man on stage and the people in the crowd turned towards him. “Hanzo, darling, I am proud to be your soulmate,” Jesse signed as he spoke.

Hanzo rushed up and jumped onto the stage as fast as he could, throwing himself into Jesse’s arms. Their first kiss was captured by hundreds of cameras as they held each other on stage, but they didn’t care. They were finally united, happy.

#mchanzo #hancree #overwatch #jesse mccree #hanzo shimada #genji shimada #brothers bounding #Genji is a little shit #Deaf Hanzo #Singer McCree #Artist Hanzo #Soulmates AU #ecchima writes #Hanzo POV #I don't even know what to add #Sojiro loves his sons #fanfic

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traizhill · 4 years ago

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Farthest from Home

It was on a Saturday morning when Roger was doing some overtime work in his private study when Stella opened the door to the room and served him his brunch. Roger was already up by four O’clock, having retired early last night in order to be fresh in doing work in the morning. Roger favors the silence of the early mornings than the chills of the late evenings in accomplishing tasks required by his work. Because of this preference of time, as well as being a workaholic, he is about to be surprised by the next series of events.

“Roger, I’m leaving.”, Stella declared.

“What do you mean, love? It’s still morning.”, replied Roger unturned and continuing his work for the day.

“No. I mean… I need to stay with my parents.”, muttered Stella.

“What for? Do they need your help again? Why can’t they get your sister?”

“No, Rog. I need to get away from you.”

“Why?”, said Roger, still continuing with his work.

Stella hesitated for half a minute before finding her courage, “Because you’re not here for me anymore.”

“What do you mean? You’re serving me brunch right now. That means I’m literally here.”, asked Roger, still oblivious to the fact that a hard discussion about their marriage had already started. Still in the midst of completing his occupational tasks for the day.

A tear then started to trickle down Stella’s right cheek. She tried composing herself, and then she finally answered, “I’m just not happy anymore.”

“Excuse me?”

Stella remained silent.

“What do you mean you’re not happy?”, as he stares at her for the first time since climbing out of bed this morning.

Still no response.

“Well? Can you give me answer?”

“Say something!”

“God damn it!”, he cries. Finally exasperated.

And then she spoke.

“I understand that you’re doing all of this to give me everything that I have ever wanted. But what if all I ever wanted was you?”

“But I am here! I’m already yours! We’re married, remember!”, his quickly reply.

“Yes, we are married. But you haven’t been present for years.”

“Now you’re just being irrational. All of this is because of you. I’m doing all of this, because of you.”

“But you don’t see me anymore. I’m just an idea to you, and you’re all wrapped up in the things you’re doing for that idea.”

“I no longer exist to you. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually.”, Stella added.

And Roger was left speechless for the first time in the conversation.

Stella then proceed to give her argument, “Remember when we got together, how everything felt perfect? How it felt as if we were drawn together by fate, and that everything that was happening around us was happening because we were being drawn to each other, closer and closer, each and every day? Do you even get those feelings anymore, or are you too busy preparing for the day that I might actually leave you?”

“Because today is that day.”, said Stella, no longer stuttering.

“You don’t actually mean to go through with this, do you?”, Roger asked, finally conceding to the thought that he may actually lose her today.

“Because we can still salvage this. I can still make changes if that is what’s needed. Please tell me this isn’t a done deal already.”

“Please!”, He requested.

“Stella.” He called as he approached her.

Sobbing, he reached for her hand one last time and kissed it.

“Please?”

* * *

Roger never imagined being back inside the house again. Feelings of nostalgia were now creeping up inside of him, even if at the back of his mind he’d already decided he had moved on. Yet in a strange turn of events he is back to where it all happened. They had a big fight on that fateful day, but all he ever remembered was turning on the ignition of his car, and just driving off without a proper destination while listening to the radio after that encounter.

Roger taking long drives without actually going somewhere is not new to him. This was his method of escape. Taking these drives would help clear his mind off of the things that would stress him out. In as long as he could remember, the moment he got his driver’s license he took his first long drive around the city not to celebrate, but to change his coping mechanism. Before, he would always spend his time clearing his head by smoking cigarettes at the park. He started at eleven years old. He did this not because he was friendless, but because he’d prefer to be with his thoughts rather than discuss them with other people.

During one of these driving sessions, he would meet Stella. They would literally cross paths in their first meeting, as she would end up almost being hit by his car. At the time, he was contemplating his career plans. Trying to change course after finding out for himself that he was ill-suited for his current job. Suffice it to say, his mind wasn’t fully focused on the road. She on the other hand, was enjoying her life, perhaps too much, as she obliviously tried to cross the street without checking both sides before moving. Both would take that encounter as a sign that they were fated to meet. They would end up exchanging phone numbers, not for information but rather for keeping in touch.

They would end up getting to know each other in a month. In two they would enter a relationship, and in eight they would get married. Love for them came in like a hurricane, and each and every one of their friends and families had the wrong storm warning. Some even had their reservations, because they could not make out the other’s partner on who they really are up until their wedding. They felt that it was rushed, and they let their feelings decide instead of along with their heads. None of their opinions, given or not, would matter to the couple anyway.

And why would it. They we’re happy. For the first time for Roger, it didn’t matter to him that he needed to do the right things all the time. Stella on the other hand, was a happy person in general. Her personality easily flowed through him, generating enough happiness for the both of them. And Roger was smart enough to not waste it. He was now at his peak form, and he was wholly afraid to let go of it. And for this, he was absolutely sure he had found the one.

“The house is being sold by a happy couple who just moved into their new home almost by the river.”, said the young realtor.

“It’s fully furnished and all the amenities are still intact, so the price would be a little steep for you if you’re going be living here alone.”

“You’re going to be living here alone, aren’t you?”

“No. Actually I’m still just checking out the place. Would that be all right for you?”, Roger replied.

“Sure man, but would you mind not touching anything or putting them out of place? I just got this job, so could you do me a solid?”

“Ok.”

“And please lock the main and back doors when you finish, will you?”

Roger replied with a gesture of a thumbs up as the realtor left. The house was a two-story flat Stella had lived in before meeting Roger. How she came upon this property, was a bit murky to him in the details. She mentioned most of the time that the she inherited the place from a favorite aunt. That she died childless from a short but happy marriage, and Stella surprisingly got it in her will. Her husband passed on early in his thirties because of an inoperable brain tumor, and she had been close to Stella’s family ever since.

As Roger looked around the living room of the house he once lived, he stopped near the fireplace where he and Stella used to lounge around late at night during the weekends when they were not yet sleepy after watching tv. This was the area he wished he had hung out more with Stella. He realized that had he not been as busy with his work, he would have seen better days in their relationship. His favorite memory that he still reminisces about most days was that one time in the winter season, when they sat near the fire and just drank hot cocoa without even talking. Just mutually admiring each other for being there in that moment. Both of them draped in a single thick blanket protecting them from the cold, enjoying each other’s company nonverbally. He didn’t even think of the need to talk. Her presence at that point in time was enough for him to determine that he had found a home for the rest of his life. Then without reason she rested her head on his right shoulder. And that made the moment even more bittersweet to remember.

He then decided to head up the stairs by the hallway exiting the living room. As he took his steps, he is reminded of their return from their honeymoon trip in Guam. It felt just like yesterday when upon entering the house, they dropped all their bags, carried her up into the master bedroom upstairs and gently laid her onto the bed and tried to continue their honeymoon from there. Lights still out with only the moonlight illuminating the room, he was on the verge of weeping when he stared at her gentle elegance formed by her silhouette. He could not believe he was at the presence of a goddess. That he was not worthy of her. But this also made him get his resolve, and that he promised himself then and there that he would earn her for the rest of his life. In the present though, as he walked past that same bedroom, he had already lost her.

Opposite the bedroom was the bathroom. And although not much of it was of significance to the both of them, a collection of memories flashed back at him. They were in the early parts of their marriage, wherein both were having the time of their lives spending rewarding evening baths in the tub. When both of them came home from work, with Stella arriving earlier thus having the time to set up the bath, and after finishing their preferred takeout dinner for the evening they would then take a bath together. Cleansing each other of the worries of the world. Retiring to each other’s bodies, relieving them of the wear and tear brought upon their everyday lives away from each other. He would even fall asleep sometimes, specially when he plays the role of the little spoon.

Stella and Roger wished to have kids someday. Both wanted three children: depending on who came first, a boy, a girl, and the last a surprise wherein they would not bother knowing the gender before its birth. The room next to the bathroom was supposed to be the children’s bedroom until their individual puberty. Stella was the more eager partner between the two to get started. She had already decided on the interior of bedroom, but never got to it because of Roger’s work. As mentioned before, he was in another type of preparation one of which he inadvertently made inevitable. He then remembered that he had not been in the room since he first got to the house. It must have really been an indication of his fate with Stella, because at this aspect of their marriage he didn’t really care for since the beginning.

The room next to the children’s bedroom was the study. He remembers this room bitterly. In fact, he was now feeling a stinging sensation at the back of his neck when he finally entered the room. The room now symbolizes his neglect of Stella. It used to be his temple for earning her, but he didn’t know that he already had her. For all his worries of his losing of Stella, he was laying the foundations for it to happen at this very room. And for it to actually happen in this very room, was the icing on the bittersweet cake he had been baking all that time. He remembered every word of the final conversation he had with Stella, while their actions replayed in his head. Until that final act of persuading her to remain together, wherein as Stella headed for the door, he rushed to block her from going out and hugged her tight and refused to let her go. How in feeling that his hug was convincing her to stay, and stopped her from wriggling away from his hug, he let go of the pressure and he was immediately pushed towards the door of the room adjacent to the study. He fell backwards and hit his head on the way down. He didn’t feel any pain at that moment. He was in fact in a void then, as he saw with his own eyes how she stared at him for the final time. He then stood up, and went straight to the kitchen to get his car keys, and exited the house to take a drive to nowhere once again after so many years of not doing so. In the present, he will do it again after the memory was fully revisited.

* * *

“Lady, it’s way past visiting hours now. I’m afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to leave.”, as an orderly asked a visitor in the Intensive Care Unit to head home for the night.

She remained silent, barely noticing him.

“Hey lady.”, prompted by the orderly, this time waving at her to indicate he was talking to her.

Just then, a night shift attending physician pulls the orderly back out of the room. “It’s ok Clark, that’s her husband.”, she explains.

“I didn’t know Roger was married.”, he responds.

“Is married. Yeah, well she comes here now and again to check up on him. Usually at nights too. I was surprised as you were when I found out. Since then I’ve seen her twice in four months.”

“Does she pay for his stay here too? I mean, it has been that long. It’s almost a year now.”

“You know we’re not allowed to disclose that. But between you and me, they say Roger’s a made man. It’s a shame though, that he couldn’t spend all that money with her, and that they’re both stuck here instead.”

#romantic #drama #short story #writing challenge

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bruciewayne · 6 years ago

Text

tell me about the stars [9/20]

masterpost

[ao3]

Sunday, 23rd December

They were finishing dinner, all the kids already in bed, and Steve was debating with Adam about something to do with baseball - Bucky never really got into it, he was more of a basketball fan anyway. He pulled up his hoodie (stolen from Bucky, again) sleeves to show him the insides of his elbows, a row of baseball stitches on each one. Barnes, don’t you DARE think about it, not the time.

Adam put his hands up in surrender, “Ok, ok, I concede, you win.” Steve looked over at Bucky in triumph, but he just shrugged in return, “Stevie, you know I had no clue what you were on about,” Steve just in return and shoved him lightly, or at least, tried to, Bucky didn’t budge at all, instead slid an arm around him, and pulled him closer, just for the show.

Steve quickled did a pro/con analysis in his mind, and, yeah, the pros outweigh the cons and leaned comfortably into Bucky, snuggling under his arm, “Yeah, I know, babe.” Bucky picked up some of his ice-cream on his spoon and brought it up to Steve’s lips, “Forgive me?”

Steve leaned forward to wrap his lips around the spoon and ate the ice-cream. Bucky gently tugged to spoon away as Steve swallowed, he smiled up at him softly, just an act, remember it’s just an act, “Yeah, you’re forgiven.”

Bucky smiled down at him, “Good.”

They startled out of their trace when Becca cleared her throat, “Are you done, James Buchanan?” He threw a stray pea at her, much to his mother’s chagrin, “You are adults, James, Rebecca, stop it.” “Sorry, mom,” “Yeah, sorry, mom,”

There was a quick passing moment of silence, then Steve spoke up, to Bucky, “Your name is Buchanan? Like the president?” Bucky pulled back a little, so he could face him, “You didn’t know? I thought Tony told you?” “No?” Steve said, incredulously, “He told me that you were hot, kinda a nerd and gay.”

Bucky scoffed, none of those were true, “None of that is true!” Steve blinked up at him, “Babe, all of those are true,” and when Bucky made to interrupt him, “no, no, don’t even-” “Hot?” “Have you looked in a mirror? Your-” he waved his hands around, gesturing to his face and his body, “-everything!” “A nerd?” “Babe, what are you doing a master’s in?” He tipped his head from side to side and accepted it, “Yeah, yeah, ok, but gay? Not 100%”

Steve rolled his eyes, smiling, “Babe, c’mon, Troye Sivan and Oscar Wilde have nothing on you,” and at his disagreeing huff, Steve kissed his cheek, “What about now?” he teased, batting his eyes in a completely shameless ploy - and they both knew it. But Bucky just grinned back, “Sure, baby.” All for the show, nothing else.

This time they were interrupted by Scott, who was nudging Georgie, “Aww, our baby brother’s all grown up.” He also got a stray pea thrown at him. “James!” his mom reprimanded, again, “anyway, Steve, what was it you said you did?” Oh no.

All eyes turned to them, conversations dropping sharply off.

“Uh, I’m a tattoo artist,” Bucky stroked his shoulder with his thumb, hopefully calming him, his mom was ridiculously overprotective of him, him being her youngest child.

His mom gave Steve a scanning look, as if she could discern every single thing he’s ever done in his 24 years of life, “How are you trained, collage or…”

“Um, in the shop, I went to collage for uh, half the time and then, uh, yeah,” Steve was trying to look anywhere but at her.

“Hmm, ok then, but you went to high school for the whole time, right?”

“Yup” Thank god, an easy question.

“What do you do for fun, Steve?” he heard Scott mutter ‘Bucky’ under his breath and saw his girlfriend elbow him to shut up.

“Uh, art.”

“But don’t you do art all day?”

“Yeah, but it’s, uh different.”

“Ok then, where do you see yourself in five years?”

Five years? He barely knows what he’s gonna do next week! “Uh, maybe manager of Nomad, and,” he glanced quickly at Bucky, Fuck it, “married.” From the corner of his eye, he saw Bucky go through a range of emotions, eventually settling on happy, he bent down and kissed his forehead, whispering “good one” into his ear.

She raised her eyebrows slightly, tamping down the existential crisis coming from how her youngest might get married in the next five years oh god. “How many other relationships have you been in?”

Oh, we are stopping there. “Mom, stop,” Bucky said, he was glad he had told her about his parents already, he really didn’t want to be there for that awkward conversation, and he didn’t want her to scare him away, even though they weren’t even dating for real, get a grip Barnes.

“Dear, I’m only making sure he’s good enough for you,” she said, as he turned red and the rest of his siblings laughing at him. Steve stroked a hand through his hair, letting him bury his head in the crook of his shoulder. Bucky’s dad, George, told Winnie to lay off him, and then murmuring something in her ear no one could quite catch, but she just smiled and patted him on the arm, and then asked Georgie and Scott to help her with the dishes, telling everyone else to go entertain themselves.

Bucky pulled Steve upstairs, to his room, flipping Adam off when he told them “No funny business, you two.”

He flopped down on the bed, Steve next to him, “I’m sorry about her, she’s kinda over protective,” Steve just laughed, “It’s fine, just wants the best,” “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“So,” Winnie started, drying a glass, “what do you think of him?” Georgie and Scott glanced at each other, Steve seemed to be a pretty cool guy, and by the way they looked at each other, even a blind man would be able to tell they’re in love. They told her as much, “Do you think he’s going to break his heart?” she asked, turning to face them, abandoning the still wet dishes.

They turned to each other again, if he did, they were going to give him a slow and painful death, nevermind the asthma, “Mom, you can’t tell right away,” started Georgie, only to be interrupted by Winnie, “Yes, but wasn’t I right about what's-his-face?” Georgie rolled her eyes, she had been right, but she was certain that with Bucky and Steve it was the real deal, he was gonna marry that boy someday.

“Fine, Mom,” Scott cut in, “what do you think?” He wanted his little brother to be happy, of course he did, and he was certain, by the way they spoke about each other, and to each other, that they were in love, and they weren’t going to fall out of it.

Winnie seemed to be considering for a bit, plunged deep in thought, seconds passed that felt like hours, both of them awaiting her results, even though they weren’t even the two in question.

“I think,” she said, finally, “I think that he really loves him, both of them do.”

Steve went downstairs for a glass of water, he was filling up a glass when George approached him, “Steve, I can tell that you love him, a lot, and that he loves you too, they way you two look at each other, it’s, you really can’t fake that sort of thing. You’re good to him, he’s, he’s happy with you, more so than any other boyfriend of his he’s been with. Stay good to him and we won’t have a problem, we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” he resisted the urge to salute, “I’m not leaving him until he wants me to and,” he swallowed, suddenly finding his glass very interesting, “I really do love him.”

George patted him on the shoulder, “I know, son, now go back to him, we don’t want him thinking I’ve gone and put you in hole in the backyard.”

They were lying in bed, both staring at the ceiling, the whole one bed thing didn’t really bother them, they’d shared a bed millions of times before, usually when the heating was broken in their apartment, on the incredibly ill-advised road trip when they were twenty and barely knew each other, that one time everyone decided to go camping. They made a pact to never speak of The Camping Incident, and none of them even wanted to think about it.

They ended up cuddling in the night, but neither of them minded, so neither of them said anything, it was nice, to be so close with someone you would never truly have.

“So,” Steve started, in a whisper, he knew Bucky was still awake, but he didn’t want to speak at normal volumes, not wanting to disturb the peace that only came with night time, “your dad told me that we can’t fake this, as in, it’s ‘true love’,” is it? Do you? Are you?

Bucky Did Not want to follow through with his conversation, if Steve found out why… he, he can’t even think of what would happen, he couldn’t live without him, in some way or another, even if it meant suppressing his feelings over losing him.

So he made a joke, a bad, bad joke, but a joke nonetheless, “I guess The Notebook has another thing coming.”

He heard Steve swallow and then a quiet “Yeah, I guess it does,” he turned his back on Bucky, stayed there for a few seconds, and then sat up, “I, I’m gonna go outside for a bit.”

Bucky glanced over at the alarm clock on his bedside table, 23:51 glaring back at him.

Fuck.

#stevebucky #stucky #steve rogers #bucky barnes #fluff #christmas

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peggyobrennan · 7 years ago

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Identity Crisis Summer 2017

The world has twisted since this picture taken at National Rainbow Gathering last year, and so have I.

A deep depression has taken hold, even though I’m back on Cymbalta for it. I start therapy tomorrow, so let’s hope there’s at least no harm...

I must open up, in hopes there are hopes.

I tried writing about it, gonna share.

I called it: Identity Crisis Summer 2017:

So much irony having an identity crisis because I've come Home and am living with Family (blood, not Chosen). But I individuated so very very strongly, and then some. Ran away age 14, came back at 15. Ran away age 26, came back age 30. Ran away last spring, came back now. Moved to the other side from family of Rock Creek Park (after months in the mountains) to raise my kids in a diverse community, against Dad’s wishes, and ...I dunno, was he right? After age 10 they had a less privileged upbringing, which turned profoundly underprivileged, and now the side effects of poverty haunt us.

More irony is that there are facts of my existence that are very unusual, yet I feel nothingness, emptiness, clear vast blank, which is sometimes euphoric but mostly terrifying. I have rare traits, and I didn't fabricate them. Like I birthed twins, accidentally concieved but profoundly WANTED, and their dad was/is a sh*t. He did things that would be impossible in the age of social media, even tho I understood we had an open marriage. Use your imagination.

I have the drive that artists have, yet the unmotivated state of a depressive.

One of my beloved musical partners said a year ago, “Oh, are you just gonna do Walkabout?” and my answer was YES, sincerely, but I kept letting my non-shine-ity hold me back. And I got wrapped up in some dreamtime, sorta. I DID go many many miles and have lots of adventures and see scads of sights. Then NYC in April/May was kinda painful, cuz I THOUGHT I could do the job at the lovely Ganas Community, but they let me go and my poverty mentality grabbed their offer of “Sure take the whole paycheck, but be gone if so” (it's more complicated) and I regret that, MAYBE.

Maybe not, cuz my daughter DID get deep strong benefits from Mom being Home. Until we clashed last week when I got profoundly triggered and alienated her. (Which would explain Strong Sadness) Prayers requested for HER healing, which'll overflow to US.

IS there such a thing as a Healer who loses her sh*t, gets profoundly triggered and alienates her beloveds? Why yes, every shaman I know personally (and there are many) does that. But I then doubt my healing abilities. The Wounded Healer is a real thing but your own healing should have actually happened! Mine has, but I guess I'm in relapse.

Yet, last Solstice, 3 weeks ago, the circle I was part of insisted on my priestessing some of our process, and I did it. And my daughter lovingly attended with me, and she knew the Spiritual Giant Women who were in the circle since her childhood. That is good, deeply good.

Then on our way out that beloved young woman said I was like “comic relief for the circle”, a jester's role that sometimes (frequently) works for me. But does that mean I was justified in reading about Pierrot's Columbine's and Harlequin's poly triad (my take) for HOURS the other day, learning way more than I can use about jesting, and dreaming more?!? I don't know. I sure do love learning and exploring. And dreamtime.

Also on our way out of Solstice ritual my daughter called her twin brother to describe our antics. The wondrousness of shamanic dancing. I THINK she was telling that, but I have Selection Bias, though I KNOW she was delightfully recalling.

He wasn't there because 1)it's a women's circle, not my choice originally 2)he insisted there is no such thing as spirituality, though I would love him to argue that I've also got THAT wrong.

He, my beloved son, called me last Saturday, after I spent Friday night in the hospital. He showed his philosophical bent and worked to reassure me that everything is ok, bless him (oops). He Stood Up for Mom. See, my siblings? This is an excellent young man. Period.

They'd been recommending surgery, which is always to be avoided. I have a complicated medical history that is disgusting and infuriating to hear. So I'll spare you, even though it matters for this. Most pertinent NOW is that the red streaks radiating from the (internal) wound are gone and the pain is too. And more surgery would undoubtedly cause more adhesions which started this whole thing, besides incompetence of medical professionals. See my performance piece entitled A Scar Is Born, with the happy face ending. It isn't online; hopefully someday. I waver between open book and discretion. Frustratedly. Of course I would benefit from a manager and an agent.

I am in limbo of sorts. I have deep friends, and also am “getting the word out”, and the fact is, I use social media a lot. If it isn't interactive, social media can be mentally harmful. Sez I and others.

Home? Hometown? My family of origin has rejected me harshly, mostly in those microagressive ways, but more. Attempting to have my children removed and put in foster care in 2006, and other outrageous treatment of my children and me. Cousins and extended family are quite decent and loving. One must mention the mental illness of my older sister, who fixated on me (and mine) or decades, wrangling other family against me. Though it began very young, that's over now.

Part of my family's rejection might come from the fact that I am not straight. I was born with the bisexuality. It's true that I wouldn't have had to act on it, even though I already had at age 7, and then how about this one: I truly am gender nonconforming. I was in a theatre play at at the age of 12 in which I played a man, so maybe that's to blame, but I was always been told to be more ladylike, and only with the recent freedoms granted have I not had massive angst about clothing. Instead I've been doing drag surreptitiously for over 3 decades. At an all girls camp, one must have “drag”, teehee. The girl who played the (cross dressed) lead was stunning and talented and I had a big crush. Didn't recognize it for what it was. Nowadays I would have been allowed to. A few weeks ago I was in line at a pharmacy and the person behind me didn't think I was moving fast enough, so they said “Ma'am? Uh, sir? Erm. There's a space in front of you.” Just a few days ago at the hospital my attending physician asked if I was sexually active, immediately following with “Male? Female? Both?” to which my easy answer was “Both”. Because she offered me that option and it is truth. Before our recent liberations, I would have had to quickly discern how to honestly answer, so as to not offend the doctor and stay pertinent to the case. MY gender and sexuality are twisted together, but please know that they are not the same thing. Always the activist, another problem of mine...

More reason to not feel nothingness: I'm a recovering alcoholic addict, and the stats are low for longterm recovery. Another rarity. I have become a sort of 12 Step Junkie, so I have that indoctrination of “A day without ____ is a productive day”, but... it rings hollow too much, so YAY for all the other tools. Like not isolating and having a network of people, but ironically I am only speaking with one or two f2f. Depression is contagious; gods forbid I bring it on you. My latest are NarAnon but the Most Useful is Underearners Anonymous. Here's how I'm not gonna break the 11th tradition: I know people in those programs, and I did not say I was a member. This is the 1st time I've ever even come close. My intense fear of doing a wrong thing is probably at play here.

Furtherly ironic is me not playing music with others, or at all; more of the self-destruction of depression. Until yesterday, I hadn't picked up my guitar in 9 days, practically a CRIME for a string player. One benefit of being in my home city COULD BE the network of musical connections that I truly developed here. Just a few years ago there were several public events where when I showed up without my instrument, I got scolded. But I need Right Livelihood, and there are many factors that have made music not my livelihood.

Yet I still am having a massive identity crisis. And having the classic symptoms of depression, Very Low Motivation, confusion, sadness, indecision, vicious cycles of ill health due to lack of self care, because... what's the use. It is significant that I went for medical care the other day and fortunate that I did. I will never suicide; I could not do that to my kids.

I am researching grad school to get a master's in psychology and become addictions counselor, hopefully utilizing my BA in studio art, my musical core, my jesterly nature, and my initiation as shamanic healer. Attempting research while wasting time, cuz I aint worth the effort, and having fabulous sammiches.

Obviously I am also hyper-graphic, compulsive with many things, and am knowingly using the hour of Good Mood that follows Morning Coffee to write this. I'm also considering full time work for a friend's Green Company, secretarial stuff. I do hope they actually noticed how genuinely butch I am, and heard me when I said grad school is likely in my near future.

Anyway, idletime is for the birds. Though I'm tremendously grateful for the Soft Landing that my auntie is providing for me here in NW DC. I just wish I wasn't living alone, but a beloved cousin has invited me to her beautifully crowded house in Bethesda for grad school time, and we're talking.

This beautiful picture of Rainbow Gathering 2016 feels worlds away. In many ways, it is. But I myself took it, and I was there. Sincerely. Just because the Spirit Names I have been given didn't stick, and I look like a Failed Soccer Mom with the S.A.D. Diet to strangers (deformed belly with that old wound, & authentic Nighttime Binging Disorder, please don't shoot me), doesn't mean I don't have relevant vital depth and value.

Depression sucks. It killed many members of my family and it's not gonna take me.

I'm just changing, and seeking. I was a performance artist, I was an illustrator, painter, my writing has been published, I will always be a musician, even if I believe people who consider females incapable of that, eff that. I am a multimedia artist. I put on an excellent concert 10 days ago. I had a visual art exhibition 16 months ago. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and goldangit I handled the weirdest election in US history in a coal town, worked their general store, then worked in another pretty-well-integrated-with-mainstream commune (my preferred lifestyle, attempting freeganism, seriously) in NYC and … I'm gonna figure out how to tell these tales. And integrate them with my life.

#depression sharing bipolypagan

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