#Like a lot of going silent for long periods was losing speech and being unable to understand complex written language

[chicago-geniza]

Here is some ~personal progress~ to share with my personal blog. I have checked my email every day for 75 consecutive days despite overwhelming internal resistance. I have, more or less, kept up with correspondence. I have begun responding to text messages upon receipt rather than indefinitely deferring the task of reading and replying. I am the most avoidant person alive and it takes tremendous effort to repeat these actions every day until they become habitual. However as that post put it ACTION ABSORBS ANXIETY

[untilweyeetagain]

and i’ll be okay admiring from afar (max mayfield x fem! reader)

Pairing: Max Mayfield/Fem! Harrington! Reader

Word Count: 3337

Warnings: One swear at the end, period-typical homophobia

Notes: This is so self-indulgent lmao,, I hope some of yall like it but even if you don't it doesn't matter bc I really just wrote this for me haha. title is from she by dodie

“Hey, Max, pass me the popcorn,” you whispered, aware that other people in the cinema were still trying to watch whatever movie was playing. You didn’t particularly care what the film was - you had let Max choose it because you knew that you’d spend your time staring at something other than the big screen.

The redhead grabbed the popcorn from where it rested on her lap and wordlessly passed it to you, smiling at you when you whispered your thanks before returning her attention to the movie. 

You had spent the last hour of the movie stealing surreptitious glances at the girl next to you, hoping that she was absorbed enough in the action that she didn’t notice. She was beautiful, but you already knew that. The dim lighting in the movie theatre seemed to reveal another type of beauty in her though - the way the lights from the screen danced across her features was mesmerising, and the way her eyes lit up in wonder at the screen in front of you caused your heart to skip a beat more than once.

Having lost yourself in your thoughts once more, you didn’t realise that the film had ended until you heard Max shifting next to you, grabbing her bag from where it lay at her feet. You quickly jumped into doing the same, not wanting her to know that your mind was elsewhere.

“So, how’d you like the film?” She asked as you made your way out of the cinema. You scolded yourself in your head - you should have at least paid attention to some part of the movie because she always asked the same question whenever you two went to the cinema together. 

“Um, it was great! You know I prefer comedies to action films, but it was still entertaining. What was your favourite part?” You deflected, knowing that asking that question would send her into a (very cute) ramble about all the best parts of the movie.

As predicted, she immediately launched into a speech about her favourite moments and characters in the film, gesturing wildly in her hands to explain her thoughts about a particular scene. You could honestly listen to her for hours, just to hear her sound so enthusiastic about a topic. 

You both made your way through the newly-constructed mall and out towards where your brother was going to pick you up, Max still talking about the movie and you still listening intently, hanging on to every word she said. 

Sometimes it worried you, how deeply your feelings towards Max ran, but at other times, such as now, you were just content to be in her presence, ignoring the way your heart stuttered whenever she glanced up at your face. 

When you reached the doors of the mall, you and Max made your way towards Steve’s car, finding both he and his friend/coworker Robin occupying the front seats. You pulled open the trunk of the car, grabbing Max’s skateboard and passing it to her before throwing your bag in and slamming it shut. 

Turning around, you opened your mouth to say goodbye before pale arms wrapped themselves around your torso and a mess of curly red hair was pushed into your face. You blushed heavily as you returned the tight hug, willing the redness in your cheeks to retreat before Max pulled away. 

Eventually, Max broke the hug, but before you could see her face, she spun around and skated off, shouting a goodbye into the air as she gained speed. You called out a quick goodbye too, but it was likely she didn’t hear it, as she was already quite far away.

Deciding to not question why she just ran off like that right now, you clambered into the backseat of your brother’s crappy car and he started the engine, and as he pulled out of the parking lot, Robin turned to you and asked how the movie was. You mumbled something about how it was very intense, repeating some of the things Max had said earlier, hoping that Robin would be satisfied with that answer.

After a few minutes with no reply from Robin (or any input from Steve), you sighed and rested your head on the window, wistfully watching the houses as you passed them as your thoughts turned towards Max again. You knew how you felt about her - you’d known for quite a while, and though it was hard, at first, to feel okay with having a crush on your very female best friend, you were now comfortable enough in your sexuality to admit it to yourself, even if not to others. 

The only people who knew you liked girls were, coincidentally, the other two occupants of the car, and while they both knew you liked someone, neither of them knew who (but you had a sneaking suspicion that Robin was beginning to work it out, being the observant person she was). 

It had been a great relief to be able to come out to someone you knew would be okay with it, and Robin had been the first of the pair to know, for obvious reasons. She was like the older sister you had never had, and she had comforted you when you had cried to her, still trying to figure out your sexuality - she had reassured you that she didn’t hate you and that Steve wouldn’t either. She had been there when you told Steve too, and, true to her word, Steve took it very well, and had even joked about you two being able to talk about girls together now.

“It’s Max, isn’t it?” Robin whispered, pulling you out of your reverie. Her statement shocked your thoughts into disarray, but at the same time, it wasn’t surprising that your latest parting with Max had solved the puzzle for her. 

You nodded, unable to find your voice as tears began to gather in your eyes. Your throat felt full, clogged with words you couldn't say, and your eyes started to burn with unshed tears that you refused to let go. You’d known for so long about your feelings for Max, but hearing them spoken aloud was difficult. 

Robin reached around behind her to pat your knee in a comforting gesture, and Steve met your eyes in the mirror, a soft look on his face. Just having the pair of them be so nice about it is enough for the tears to start rolling down your face, all the pent-up worry you had about telling anyone that you were crushing on your best friend evaporating as your brother and the girl who is basically your sister are both so understanding and kind about it.

After sharing a glance with Robin, Steve turns his gaze back to the road as he breaks the silencing, stating: “You should tell her - even if she doesn’t feel the same way, it’s pretty damn clear that she cares about you enough to not ostracize you because of it.”

You snort despite yourself at the words he uses - he’s clearly been hanging out with Dustin and Robin way too much if he knows what ‘to ostracize’ means. You can tell that it was intentional, that he knew the response it would garner, and you are thankful to him for easing the tension you felt. 

“It’s not that easy though, Steve. I know that she’s my best friend, but what if she decides that she doesn’t want to be my friend anymore when she finds out I like girls, let alone if she found out I liked her. I couldn’t risk our friendship by telling her. She means too much to me.”

Sighing, you turned to face the window again, trying to signal to the other two that the conversation was over. You couldn’t bear the thought of losing Max’s friendship, especially over something you could quite easily keep from her, although hiding it was becoming increasingly harder as the days passed and your feelings became stronger.

Luckily for you, neither Robin nor Steve pushed you any further, and the three of you spent the remainder of the drive to Robin’s house in silence. Once Robin was safely inside, Steve drove back to your home, which you already knew would be empty. Your parents were never home, always out on business trips or vacations, leaving the house to just you and Steve. This had made it ideal for sleepovers with the Party when you were younger, but now that you were in high school, it was more lonely than anything else.

When you got home, you went upstairs and lay on your bed, grabbing your Rubik’s cube from your bedside table and fiddling with it as your mind drifted elsewhere. It was silent except for the clicking of the cube as you played with it until a tapping on your window interrupted the peace. 

Feeling slightly confused, you got up and walked towards the window, opening the blinds to see what was making that noise. Below stood Max, a couple of pebbles in hand, just getting ready to throw another one when she noticed that you had seen her. You raced down the stairs to let her into the house, wondering what she was doing here.

“You could’ve just rung the doorbell like everyone else does. My parents are never home and Steve doesn’t care about who comes over.” She stepped around you to come in as you spoke, and once she’d propped her skateboard against the wall, she turned around to face you.

This close, you could see the tiny freckles that covered the bridge of her nose and her cheeks, and you also thought you could see a pinkness beginning to tinge her cheeks, but that must’ve been your imagination. Before you could ask her why she was here, she began to speak.

“I- when I got home earlier, my dad, he asked where I’d been, and I said out with you, and then he said that while I was out, he’d been through my things in my room and found my old diary, and- and- and he saw what I’d written in there, and then he- he said some really, really mean stuff, Y/N, and t-then he… he kicked me out because of what I’d written in there,” she was sobbing as she spoke, choking on her words as she tried to get them out, and you immediately wrapped her in her arms, trying to tell her that it was going to be okay, even though you had no way of guaranteeing that. 

She took a moment to try and catch her breath as she continued to cry, and then she began to speak again. “I had nowhere else to go, Y/N, I- I’ve got no money or clothes or anything, I just grabbed my skateboard to get out of there before he physically threw- threw me out. Please, can I stay here for tonight? I just need to let him calm down, and-” You cut her off before she could finish her sentence, pulling back from the tight hug you had wrapped her in so that you could look her in the eye as you spoke.

“Max, you can stay here for as long as you need, okay? Don’t worry, it’ll all be okay. You can borrow some of my clothes, we’re basically the same size, and you can take one of the guest rooms,” you said, trying to reassure her that it was going to be fine. 

As you were talking, you heard your brother come down the stairs to see what had happened, evidently having heard the door open and then the sounds of conversation. You briefly explained what had happened as you held Max close to you again, the redhead in question trying to calm her breathing. At your request, Steve disappeared upstairs once more, off to make sure the room Max would stay in was ready. 

“Hey, Maxie, let’s go upstairs, shall we? We can go to my room while Steve sorts out yours, and if you’re okay with it, we can talk some about what you wrote that made your dad do what he did, alright?” You coaxed her up and into your bedroom, sitting down on your bed with her. Her arms were still wrapped around you tightly as if you were her lifeline, and she hadn’t said a word since you’d started talking.

You heard her sigh as she loosened her grip on your torso, flopping bonelessly back against your pillows and reaching for your hand, wanting to maintain some sort of physical connection while she tried to explain what had caused this situation.

“First, before I tell you anything, I need you to swear to me, truthfully, that you won’t stop being my friend when I tell you this. I need you to promise me that things will stay the same between us, no matter how you feel about what I’m about to say.”

“I.. I promise, Max, but I don’t understand why this is really necessary - nothing could make me hate you or stop being your friend! You’re my best friend, Max, and nothing will change that.” It worried you slightly, how serious Max had become about this, but then again, you reasoned, she did get kicked out for this. 

“Okay. So, uh, I don’t really know how to say this… um, okay. I’ll just spit it out. Here we go. Y/N, I like girls. Not.. not boys.” Never in a million years could you have guessed that she would say that. But she had said it, and it was causing your brain to short-circuit. Max took your silence as you hated her for it though and immediately began rambling, tears forming in her eyes and falling down her cheeks.

“I- I’m sorry, I know it’s not okay or anything but I can’t help it, and-” you cut her off, tightening the grip you had on her hand as she tried to pull away. 

“Hey, hey, stop crying, alright? I was just… shocked, which is why I didn’t say anything. But I don’t hate you and I’m not gonna stop being your friend, okay? So please, please don’t worry about that. It would be quite hypocritical of me to not support you liking girls, after all.” 

You maintained eye contact with her until your own confession, when you tore your gaze down to your lap, blushing heavily. She picked up on what you had meant quite quickly, and when you glanced up at you, she was grinning widely.

“You- you mean…?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I, um, I like girls too.” 

It was a relief and a half to finally get that off your chest to someone whom you didn’t view as a sibling. There was silence between the two of you for a while, both of you trying to process what the other had just revealed. 

All you could think about was that Max likes girls, Max likes girls, she actually likes girls! and although you knew better than to get your hopes up, you did secretly wish that because she liked girls, she’d like you, but you knew it didn’t work like that.

Still, a whisper of hope remained in your heart as you spent the rest of the evening trying to distract Max from her worries with more light-hearted conversation. Steve ordered pizza when it was time for dinner, and the three of you watched some dumb game shows while eating it, laughing over the ridiculous answers some of the contestants gave.

By the time you felt tired enough to sleep, Max was already half-way dead to the world, so you supported her weight back up the stairs and then grabbed her some pyjamas to sleep in. After you were both changed, Max dragged you into her room for cuddles, still needing comfort and reassurance from you.

It didn’t take long for Max to fall asleep, but sleep seemed to be evading you - your heart was hammering too hard from your proximity to your crush for you to feel even a semblance of tiredness. 

Eventually, you began extricating yourself from Max’s grip (the girl was surprisingly strong, even in her sleep) so you could get back to your own room. When you were free of the sleeping redhead’s hold, you looked back down at her, taking in the peaceful look on her face.

She was beautiful all the time, but now, she was�� breathtaking. The thin light of the moon, unobscured by unclosed curtains, danced across her features, making her seem to glow. She was an angel, then, with an aura of serenity and a halo of hair surrounding her head.

Seeing her like that, all of your control flew out of the window and you acted on impulse, leaning down from your perch beside her to lay a small, feather-light kiss upon her forehead. It lasted only a second, but that second was enough for you to feel how soft her skin was under your lips, and you wished you could kiss her all the time just to feel it again.

Your heart was racing as you forced yourself to move away from her, making your way towards the door, but you stopped dead in your tracks when you heard Max’s soft, sleepy voice from across the room.

“Did you just… kiss me?” She asked. Fuck. Clearly, she hadn’t been as asleep as you had thought. You had no idea how to respond, your mind drawing up blank as you tried to think of something, anything to say.

“... Yes,” you whispered hesitantly, still not turning to look at her even as you heard her shuffling around to be able to see you better. You knew what was about to happen - she would tell you that she didn’t like that, and would either stop being your friend, or your friendship would just be really weird from here on out.

“Come here,” she said, holding out her hand to you, and you never could say no to her, could you? You slowly made your way back to her bed, taking the extended hand and going to sit down on the bed before you found yourself being tugged to lay back down next to Max, who nuzzled her head into the crook of your neck as soon as you were close enough. 

“Why?” she asked, the word coming out slightly slurred due to her sleepy state. It was the question you had known was coming but had hoped wouldn’t be voiced.

“Because I,” you started, getting choked up on the words you had suppressed for so long. “I like you, Max. As more than a friend.” There. You said it. There was no taking it back now, but you had some reassurance in the fact that she may not remember it come morning.

You had expected Max to say something after that, so you were fairly surprised when she lifted her head and pressed a chaste kiss to your lips. It wasn’t like how first kisses were always described in fiction - there were no fireworks or anything extreme like that, just a warm feeling of affection flowing between the two of you.

“I like you too,” Max murmured, pulling away from your lips and snuggling back into you. She fell asleep quickly, leaving you with your thoughts, the memory of her kiss playing on repeat in your head. Feeling tired yourself, though, you pushed your analysis of today’s events from your head to be dealt with tomorrow and cuddled into Max, finally falling asleep in the warmth and safety of her arms.

Much later in the evening, a tired Steve Harrington is making his way towards his bedroom when he sees the guest room door ajar and, feeling curious, peeks inside to see his sister and her friend tangled together in their sleep. He smiles softly, closing the door behind him as he moves away, thinking about where he’ll get the twenty bucks he now owes Robin.

[aconboyindependent2021]

‘Now and Then’ - current state of play

My film is a re-imagining of the site of Brighton General Hospital next to my home. Until around 70 years ago, a workhouse operated on the site (for details, see: Gardner, J, (2012) A History of the Brighton Workhouses). Aspects of the austere workhouse are still evident on the site today. I began to think about the stories of the residents of the workhouse – what did they have to endure? With this in mind, I bought the above book by a local author about the history of workhouses in Brighton.

I have always been fascinated by the idea that traumatic events in a particular location can be recorded and replayed at a later time in history and that this might be a basis for ghosts and hauntings – for example, in the blockbuster, Poltergeist, and the BBC drama from the 1970’s The Stone Tapes (Sasdy, 1972). This is one of the key concepts behind the film.

After a lot of thought, I settled on the story of the workhouse being told by a single woman, Agatha, whose infant child was taken from her illegally and sold to a rich couple living in Brighton. This is a variation on the common Victorian  practice of unmarried women being compelled to give their children to a foundling home.

The film starts with Aggie telling her story in largely neutral terms and comparing the workhouse and the site’s positive use today as a hospital, but it climaxes with Aggie screaming with the loss of her child, and we see that she is a tormented spectre.The film ends with her anguish fading into a sign on the present site, promoting a nursery for infant children.

The film will be around 5-6 minutes long and will consist of edited original footage taken on the site in the present day. The film will be treated with video effects to alter the pacing, colour and atmosphere of the original footage. I have asked for a drama-trained friend to narrate the film as Aggie and will be using original and library sound effects and music motifs, or possibly drones to punctuate the soundtrack.

Now and Then – influences from other artists

1. Brian Percival - About a Girl

Female voice-over revealing a terrifying truth about motherhood at the end of the film. This film gives a cold dead feeling inside from the casual yet downcast demeanor as the leading character talks about her dysfunctional life and especially the ending, where the girl is revealed to have secretly miscarried a baby and we see her dump it into the canal (“I’ve become good at hiding things”). Both my film and About A Girl attempt to humanise the female main character outside of their tragedies.

2. Tobe Hooper - director of Poltergeist Paranormal activity centred around past events and the presence of aggrieved spirits. This was a film that made an impact on me from its non-stop tension, even before the presence of the supernatural becomes apparent. Tobe Hooper, ever since creating The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) has achieved many awards, and after this film, it is easy to see why. It also has a similar plot to my initial idea for my film - where a great wrong done in the past creates a ‘haunting’ by aggrieved spirit(s)..

3. Peter Sasdy – Director of The Stone Tape (1972)

The original idea from the film was stones “recording” traumatic events from the past. While the current draft has drifted away from this concept, it still lives on with how Agatha remembers everything about the past as if she died yesterday, despite the superficial veneer of the current day hospital. However, Agatha is a real soul though in my film.

4. David Lynch - Eraserhead, The Elephant Man His black and white films – particularly The Elephant Man In the latter, view of Victorian England shot in black and white featuring cruelty and time-specific sounds, sights and atmospheres. The film always seems to have a sense of foreboding, even when the scene is uneventful, and with a deeply engaging soundtrack. Eraserhead will always always be an influence due to its deliberate disturbing monochrome style, investigation of altered perception and the anxieties of parenthood.

5. James Gardener- Author of: A Complete History Of Brighton Workhouses A detailed and easy-to-understand book centred around the original workhouse in my area. It includes the Brighton General Hospital Site. It helped give a real-life grounding to my supernatural tale.

6. Richard Boden - director of the Blackadder series 4 finale, Goodbyeee The series as a whole has very little to do with my film, but this is a powerful episode whose fade-out ending and closing-sound inspired the cross-dissolve effects and soundscape in my film - coincidentally both are centered with the cruelty of the past and atmospheric sound. Present and past merge at this point. One of the most popular scenes in TV drama/comedy and understandably so too.

7. Piotr Obal – various films and still images Obal is an independent artist who works with art, music and still photography. Occasionally, he teaches youths how to work at the computer like me (!) when he was helping out with an arts award I was studying for. Below is one of his images that has been an influence on me and the film. I love his Photoshop collages and the wonderful images he posts from his native Poland.

                                                        Work by Piotr Obal

8. Nalini Malani- for her immersive installations, ‘disgraced’ women under partiarchy, history and mythology, miscarriages of justice. I found out about Malini when I was writing my essay on her work in the  Diversity module: what started off as just finding out about an artist for the sake of my writing became a long-lasting admiration and inspiration from an artist who not only knows where she is coming from (from her upbringing hugely affected by India and Pakistan’s partition) but willingly sticks her neck out for those oppressed by society and history, and confidently shows her creations to the world. A particularly relevant aspect of her work is her use of the supernatural and mythology stories and myths to highlight aspects of women’s oppression throughout history.

9. Chris Butler- director of ParaNorman A key influence, supposedly aimed at children, I used the same of the spectre in this moving animation, and I was influenced by its themes about the cruelties of humanity and how we “moved on”. The spectre is a ghost of a falsely accused of being a ‘witch’ who wreaks her revenge on those who persecuted her.

It was also a strong influence that is more powerful at its climax and twist. In-depth look at how prejudice destroys lives that are never regained - even  death provides no relief. Butler is a part of Studio Laika, creating animated films that go beyond the norm.

10. Jacqueline Wilson - the writer of the Hetty Feather trilogy and other such Victorian novels such as Clover Moon.

A part of Jacqueline’s writings is her commentary about how unjust the past could be compared to today: even though her protagonists speak in ways that were customary to Victorians, she keeps them relatable the same way she keeps her modern-day protagonists relatable. The writing style of her books inspired certain characteristics of Agatha’s narration, because it was easy to understand yet engaging.

11. David Lean  - Director of Great Expectations (1946) This film, based on the Dickens book,  also brought to mind the cruel period of the Victorian era, and the acting and emotions continued that spirit and my inspiration around my project. I love that it is black and white as well as dialog-centred - I particularly like the formal style of speech - even to express negative emotions- for example:

“Let me point out the topic that in London it is not the custom to put the knife in the mouth for fear of accidents. It's scarcely worth mentioning, Only it's as well to do as others do”.

Miss Havisham, an almost ghostly older woman, in a similar way to Agatha cannot move beyond the terrible wrong done to her - she was left at the alter and devoted her life to training her adopted daughter, Estella, to get revenge on men.I use s similar obsessive, sing-minded hatred to motivate Agatha.

12. Sunset Boulevard (1950)

This film involve a man becoming the object of affection of a former silent movie star, Norma Desmond who overtake his life little by little until she kills him. Norma suffered with the times when silent movies went out of fashion and she is unable to move on, alone in her great house: people told Norma that she had no value and it had an impact on her psyche. She loses all sanity when arrested for killing Joe Gillis as she believes she is back in show business. The film also explores facades; Norma may live a glamorous if not lonely life, but her mental state torments her, like Aggie has with hers as she wanders around the hospital site driven ‘mad’ with grief and anger.  

13. R D Laing: ‘anti-psychiatrist’

'Here was someone explaining madness, showing how the fragmentation of the person was an intelligible response to an intolerable pressure”

Quote from: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/25/rd-laing-aaron-esterson-mental-illness

 In discussing the concept of my film with a member of my family, I was directed to the psychiatrist/anti-psychiatrist, RD Laing. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s Laing wrote about how a person’s so-called ‘mad’ behaviour was in fact intelligible when their entire situation and experience was taken into account. He and other writers (like David Cooper) talked about the concept of the ‘double-bind’ where a person’s opportunity to make a decision to resolve the way they were being treated was blocked – perhaps by a member of their family saying that it was not in their personality to be assertive or angry.

This reminded me very much of Agatha; she tries to express her outrage at the great wrong done to her, but she is judged as unworthy and undeserving, so the wrong is seen as justified and her punishment for being the ‘low-life’ who would have a child and have to live in a workhouse. It is circular – she is treated badly because she deserves to be treated badly and so this means that her hatred and insanity brings the great wrong up herself.

Laing is largely forgotten today, but his ideas resonate with certain ideas in feminism and anti-racism. ‘Gaslighting’ is everywhere, both back then and now.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NnBonXPLJM

[the-traveler-errant]

100 Character Questions  for Dust

So there was a thing I saw a while back that was supposed to be one of those things where someone sends a number, and you answer a question for it, and instead of doing that, I just went ahead and filled all of them out for my reaper character, Dust, an extremely apathetic hitman for the forces of The Divines and the Abyss who goes after necromancers and undead creatures. 

I spent too much time on this. It’s going under the break. 

1. What do they smell like?

He smells faintly of lemons and gunsmoke.

2. What is their voice like?

He doesn’t have a voice, and speaks through sign language, writing, or occasionally telepathy if in the presence of a mindreader/psychic.

3. What is their biggest motivator?

He exists almost completely for his job, that of collecting escaped or kidnapped souls and executing necromancers on behalf of the forces of The Divines and The Abyss. He comes to realize that he truly believes the dead should rest in peace, or they should endure whatever torment they’ve earned in the afterlife, and those who disturb them need to be put down.

4. What is their most embarrassing memory?

He has no memory of his life before he became The Reaper, and due to his uncomfortable amounts of apathy toward anything that isn’t his job. He’s basically a supernatural Terminator.

5. How do they deal with/react to pain?

One of the perks of being The Reaper is having an extraordinarily high pain tolerance, to the point where broken limbs are just inconvenient because they keep him from moving properly. However if he takes too much damage, he temporarily fades into a different dimension where he starts to rebuild himself, before reappearing at something he calls a “Sanctuary”, a place that connects him to the mortal plane, and potentially other realms as well. It usually takes him about an hour or so to reform, depending on how messed up he is.

6. What do they like to wear?

Loose hoodies, jeans or sweatpants, sneakers. After he finally starts making friends, they start to encourage him to try finding a better style, and he starts wearing actual outfits that aren’t just lazily put together.

7. Which of their relationships have impacted them most positively?

An angel and demon, who are his connections to The Divines and The Abyss, eventually befriend him and convince him to start acting with more of an identity and personality outside of his job. They offer him advice, and he starts to help them with personal issues that they’re otherwise unable to perform themselves due to certain laws.

8. What’s the weirdest thing they’ve ever eaten?

The first time he tried baking, it didn’t go very well for him. It was especially weird because it was the first time he had tried eating since becoming The Reaper and returning to the mortal realm. He did discover that he actually has a preference for food: lemons.

9. Describe the way that they sleep.

He doesn’t. Instead of sleeping, he reads or practices certain tricks that he feels will help him do his job more efficiently. Later on he starts baking, and learns how to play the cello.

10. What is their favorite food/kind of food?

Anything with lemons, or anything lemon flavored.

11. What do they feel most insecure about?

Nothing that really comes to mind right now.

12. How do they like to dress?

Once he gains a sense of style, he likes to wears grey pants, a black turtleneck, and a black coat.

13. How do they react to feelings of guilt?

Confusion mostly. He doesn’t really know much about being close enough to someone to feel bad if he’s wronged them, and has a sort of blunt logic about all his actions. Though he does try to apologize and understand why what he did hurt them, or why he should feel bad.

14. How do they react to/deal with betrayal?

He’s unsurprised and sort of takes it as a minor inconvenience that he expected. Everyone wants a chance to cheat death afterall.

15. What is their greatest achievement?

Taking down a revenant that had been summoned specifically to slay him, every time he regenerates, thus allowing a prolific Necromancer to work uninterrrupted for an extended period of time. It took a lot of cunning and trickery to take it down, but he managed it.

16. What are they like when they’ve gotten too little sleep?

N/A

17. What are they like when they’re drunk?

N/A

18. What kind of music do they enjoy?

Noir-styled jazz music and piano solos.

19. Are they right or left handed?

Ambidextrous.

20. Fears?

Losing his only friends now that he actually has something he cares about, and failing to live up to the reputation of the previous Reaper.

21. Favorite kind of weather?

Windy nights.

22. Favorite color?

Black and yellow.

23. Do they collect anything?

Non-fiction books, antique weapons, occult texts.

24. Do they prefer either hot or cold weather more?

Cold. He likes having an excuse to wear long coats and scarves and give himself that ominous look of Death waiting with their cloak in the wind.

25. What is their eye color?

He doesn’t have eyes, but his eye-sockets glow with light-blue embers that act as a sort of pupil.

26. What is their race/ethnicity?

His actual body is composed of solidified shadows and smoke that resemble something humanoid, and his head is a skull missing its lower jaw. So, uh, I guess his race is “Grim Reaper”?

27. Hair color?

None.

28. Are they happy where they are currently?

He has friends, a purpose, and a cat. He is content.

29. Are they a morning person?

Can you technically be a morning person if you never sleep?

30. Sunrise or sunset?

Sunset. That’s the time that most Necromancers begin their work, and that means he gets to go to work against them.

31. Are they more messy or more organized?

Organized to a fault.

32. Pet peeves?

Anyone who thinks they can tempt him with knowledge of his previous life, or who call themselves the masters of life and death, and people who make excessively long megalomaniacal speeches.

33. Do they own any objects of significant personal importance?

His pistol that he carries around nearly everywhere. It was his first weapon, and it has the word “Taxes” engraved in the barrel. It was the first clue to his friends that he actually had a personality lurking in that not-so-empty skull of his.

34. Least favorite food?

Blueberries.

35. Least favorite color?

Greenish-brown.

36. Least favorite smell?

Burned lemons or gasoline.

37. When was the last time they cried?

Not since he became The Reaper. He just feels a sort of hollowness now if he ever feels anything close to sad.

38. Were they with anybody the last time they cried?

Nope. Utterly alone.

39. Tell us about one of the times they got injured?

That aforementioned revenant broke his arms and legs and kept him damaged enough to not move, but not regenerate somewhere else. If it weren’t for his Demon contact dragging him out and forcing Dust to claim his mortal home as a sanctuary, he would have been completely boned.

40. Do they have any scars?

Nope.

41. Do they struggle with any mental health issues?

Depression.

42. Do they have any bad habits?

Workaholic, he hyper-focuses on tasks, and isolates himself too much.

43. Why might someone dislike them?

He’s almost too robotic, he’s creepy and silent, he’s literally Death, he’s not very social or good at anything involving social activity, and his humor is very dry since he’s not used to telling jokes or understanding them.

44. Why might someone love them?

He’s studious, loyal to what few friends he has, starts to genuinely care about his purpose and the principles of freedom and rest associated with it, and he’s trying to be better and improve himself outside of just his job. He also never really lies, as he has no reason to most of the time. He’s also nothing if not a professional when it comes to his occupation.

45. Do they believe in ghosts?

Ahem. He is The Reaper. Who hunts undead. And necromancers. And trapped spirits.

46. Is there anyone they would trust with their lives?

The Angel and Demon who still need names.

47. Are they romantically interested in anyone?

Not right now.

48. Are they dating/married to anyone?

Nope.

49. Do they like surprises?

Nope.

50. When is their birthday?

November 1st.

51. How do they usually celebrate their birthday?

He’d ignore it, but his friends usually drag him out for something, even if it’s a quiet affair like a trip to a museum or antique store, maybe a restaurant or bakery.

52. Do they have any family?

Nope.

53. Are they close to their family?

N/A.

54. What is their MBTI type?

No idea.

55. What is their zodiac sign?

Apparently it’s “Scorpio”.

56. What Hogwarts House would they be in?

Ravenclaw, probably. He doesn’t have the ambition for Slytherin.

57. What D&D alignment are they?

Lawful Neutral, later Lawful Good.

58. Do they ever have nightmares? If so, what about?

Nope.

59. What are their views on death?

Depends on how clean the mirror is. He does believe that souls should be left alone where they are, and the dead should rest in peace, or the damned should endure their punishment until further notice. Anyone who thinks they can rule over Death is sorely mistaken.

60. What is something that they’re sure to laugh at?

He doesn’t really laugh, but he can give the impression of a small smile sometimes.

61. When bored, how do they pass time?

More work, weapon maintenance, target practice, or reading books on new techniques he might incorporate into his own work.

62. Do they enjoy being outside?

It’s too open for him. Too easy to be spotted.

63. Do they have an accent?

He signs, so not really.

64. Upon seeing a slice of chocolate cake, what is their first reaction?

No lemon, no interest.

65. If they knew they were going to die, what would they do/say?

Sigh very heavily and focus on a sanctuary to return to.

66. How do they feel about sex?

Not his thing.

67. What is their sexuality?

Asexual.

68. Do they become squeamish at the sight of blood?

Nope.

69. Is there anything that they find really gross?

Not really?

70. Which TV Trope(s) best describes them?

Man I am seventy questions into this, I’m gonna go ahead and pass on this one.

71. Do they enjoy helping people?

Not really, unless it’s something his friends ask him or if it lays souls to rest.

72. Are they allergic to anything?

Nope.

73. Do they have a pet?

He has a fluffy orange cat with a very flat face that he’s named Pluto.

74. Are they quick to anger? What are they like when they lose their temper?

Nope, he’s too apathetic and tired for that.

75. How patient are they?

As patient as Death. God that came out ediger than I intended.

76. Are they good at cooking?

He’s okay at baking, but he’s practicing and getting better.

77. Favorite insult? Do they insult people often?

Doesn’t really insult others at all.

78. How do they act when they’re particularly happy?

He doesn’t show it very well, but he does tend to move a little lighter and allows himself to do some more recreational stuff, like reading a book or practicing his music.

79. What do they do when they learn about other people’s fears?

Remembers it for later.

80. Are they trustworthy?

Unless you’re a necromancer or escaped soul, then yes, you can trust him completely.

81. Do they try to hide their emotions? Are they good at it?

Nope! He’s just very apathetic and not really good at even expressing his emotions.

82. Do they exercise regularly?

Another perk of being the Reaper is having very good physical prowess. Something just around an Olympic athlete's level of physique. He’s not the strongest or fastest, but he can at least go for silver and gold most of the time.

83. Are they comfortable with the way they look?

As comfortable as one can be when you have a body that’s literally shadows and a skull.

84. What are some physical features that they find attractive on people?

Nothing really.

85. What kind of personalities do they find attractive?

He just doesn’t really have a type, but he’s quicker to befriend others if they remind him of his Demon and Angel friends.

86. Do they like sweet foods?

Only if it’s lemon flavored.

87. What is their age?

N/A.

88. Are they tall or short or somewhere in between?

Short, somewhere just a hair under 5’3’’

89. Do they wear glasses or contacts?

Neither.

90. Do they consider themselves attractive?

Doesn’t really care.

91. What is their sense of humor like?

Very dry and a little too subtle. He doesn’t make many jokes, but he appreciates gallows humor and some references that he might actually understand. He usually surprises everyone if he ever cracks any kind of joke.

92. What mood are they most often in?

Neutral, or he’s either curious or confused.

93. What kinds of things anger them?

Disrespect toward the dead, anyone who threatens his friends.

94. Outlook on life?

To serve his purpose and find another one that he can choose for himself. He feels like the actual point of life is to live it and earn whatever you do in the afterlife. Wouldn’t have considered that question before he started befriending people.

95. What kind of things make them sad/depressed?

Nothing really, until he’s made aware of just how lonely he actually is. He just kinda forgot what it meant to be anything other than isolated and alone.

96. What is their greatest weakness?

He’s not good with any sort of socializing, and he’s bad at reading people and can be lied to easily. He focuses on his work too much, and ignores the fact that he was once human.

97. What is the greatest strength?

His ability to learn and adapt to any given situation, as well as his perfect memory. He can improvise in just about any situation.

98. Something that they regret?

Ignoring his friends’ invitations and attempts to befriend him for so long.

99. Biggest accomplishment?

Stopping a Lich from ascending to godhood and wiping out his army of undead near single-handedly, but that’s something I’m still tinkering with for the future.

100. Create your own!

He can be completely silent when he wants to be, and uses that to set up traps to make his job of assassinating undead creatures and necromancers much easier, and sometimes even flashier to spread his reputation and use that to prevent future Necromancers from trying anything.

[incinase]

headcanon 001.

                      this headcanon is going to delve into todoroki’s psychiatric disorders and how they impact him. WARNING: this post will contain very heavy subjects, such as child abuse and its effects, depression, ptsd, and mentions of schizophrenia. also it’s fucking long. you don’t have to read all of it, but the important parts are the bold text and what follows it shortly after.

LONG POST !!!

                                                   c-PTSD

this stands for complex post traumatic stress disorder. “ Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD; also known as complex trauma disorder) is a psychological disorder thought to occur as a result of repetitive, prolonged trauma involving sustained abuse or abandonment by a caregiver or other interpersonal relationships with an uneven power dynamic. ” thank you, wikipedia. i think this disorder is a bit obvious with todoroki, but i’m gonna get into it anyway.

some of the symptoms todoroki experiences are, but are not limited to, inhibited anger, shame, guilt, a sense of distinction from others, “Distorted Perceptions of the Perpetrator. Examples include attributing total power to the perpetrator, becoming preoccupied with the relationship to the perpetrator, or preoccupied with revenge” (source), isolation, distrust in others, dissociation, memory repression, reliving memories.

there are moments when todoroki becomes consumed with anger, even to the point of no longer being in control of his power, and it all relates back to his father (you know, his abuser). he is quick to feel shame and guilt about things, given that all his life, every “wrong” thing that he’s ever done, he’s been punished for. he’s been told all of these things were his fault and that he should feel guilty for them. he may not express it (which is something i will get into later) but even little things tend to get to him pretty deeply. like, say, he knocks something down by accident. he’ll take a moment and stare at it with a blank expression and process what happened, but he’ll freeze for a moment, unsure of what to do, and become slightly afraid and feel guilt for ruining something. of course, once logic kicks in, few seconds later, he’s able to assess and take care of the situation. 

in regards to his distorted perceptions, i wanna be careful to mention that endeavor was indeed an abuser and it’s not just todoroki’s disorder that is “distorting” this. he WAS abusive, definitely, and him (and a bit of his mother, though he’s repressed the memory with her) are the primary reason todoroki even suffers from this disorder. that said, todoroki is still bitter and begins to fixate on this idea of spite that rises up in him at around 12 years old. this is the age when his anger begins to manifest and when he starts comparing his father to other peoples’ and realizes just how shitty he’s been treated all his life. he becomes resentful, to the point of getting into UA and trying to become the best hero without using his dad’s power solely just to spite him. he disregards all others’ opinions and fixates on his hatred, allowing it to fester and boil and refusing to ever have a proper conversation with his dad, despite how his father may attempt to. if forced into a situation with his father, he stays bitterly silent. 

he begins to isolate himself from others near the beginning of the middle of his primary school experience. i’d say around 6 or 7 years old. out of fear, he never really felt that he could rely on others, and was very shy and unconfident which led him to not develop very many close relationships. he was very close with his older sister, fuyumi, and didn’t mind talking with others, so long as they initiated the conversation. he was quiet and studious, again, out of fear of disappointment and rejection from others. eventually, he became cold and distant -- after years of friendlessness, he becomes to feel bitter toward others, but mostly himself, thinking something is wrong with him and there’s something about him that is uninteresting and unappealing to other people. he begins to accept that he doesn’t need other people, despite his loneliness, and grows used to the idea that he doesn’t need friends to succeed. what with the trouble the idea’s always caused him, he begins to think that having friends would only hinder his goal in competing to be the top hero. 

in regards to dissociation, he often dissociates when reminded of something he’s experienced in the past, or is in fear of experiencing in the future. he dissociated when his mother splashed his face with the boiling water and later repressed the memory, and continues to dissociate during different events to present. there are signs that point to this pre-battle with bakugou and during, as well as in his battle with deku in the sporting events. it is also seen that he has flashbacks and relives his memories as a response to a stimulus to them. this occurs when he is faced with similar situations or if he dwells on the ideas and memories too often, and will often manifest themselves when on his lonesome, or trying to sleep.

                                                Schizophrenia 

" Schizophrenia is characterized by thoughts or experiences that seem out of touch with reality, disorganized speech or behavior, and decreased participation in daily activities. Difficulty with concentration and memory may also be present ” (source). as well as  " a serious mental illness that interferes with a person's ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others ” (source). i’d say he developed this in his early teenage years, around 12 or 13. he doesn’t really realize he suffers from this, however, often chalking it up to poor past experiences, stress, irrational thoughts, and general tiredness or confusion. everyone experiences schizophrenia differently, so i want to get into how todoroki experiences his.

before i get into all of his symptoms, i want to mention that some of them can come and go periodically and some of them overlap with the ones mentioned above. since i already explained those ones, i’m not going to get into them again. in order to better understand, i’m going to cross out the ones mentioned next that i’ve already explained.

some of the symptoms he experiences regarding this disorder are, reduced speaking, confused thoughts, hallucinations (not often, however), flat affect (i’ll get into what this means) which goes along with the vacant expression, trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping, irritability, dwelling unreasonably on the past, social withdrawal, problems making and keeping friends, angry outbursts, poor personal grooming, inability to understand certain information and social cues, and reduced feelings of pleasure in day-to-day life. 

reduced speaking is pretty self explanatory, you know, he doesn’t speak much. he doesn’t speak unless he feels that he needs to, and he doesn’t speak unless he’s confident that he can voice his thoughts appropriately. he experiences confused thoughts that become jumbled in his mind somehow, which make it difficult to voice what he’s thinking without saying something he might feel is wrong. he likes to know what he’s going to say before he says it, out of fear of messing it up. he limits himself, for, any expression he’s allowed himself, he was later punished for. he might feel ashamed if he were to speak and falter in his thinking in front of others due to his reserved nature.

he has rare( r ) hallucinations, but only if he’s triggered by an event that bears resemblance of something he’s been through before or is afraid of going through in the future (or again). most of them are visual and auditory. he doesn’t experience any tactile hallucinations or any other sorts. they, 99% of the time, relate to his upbringing, parents, and siblings. during a moment in which he may be experiencing an emotional episode, he will hear his father’s voice once more, telling him degrading things about himself and giving him commands. he doesn’t act on anything that he’s told, but he’ll often hold his head in irritation and shame. they don’t last long, though, and he’s able to calm himself from them decently enough.

flat affect is “ a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. People with depression and schizophrenia often show flat affect. A person with schizophrenia may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic ” (source). there’s not much else to be said on the subject of how it affects him... i think this is explanatory enough. i do want to mention, though, that flat affect is a reduction in emotional expressiveness -- todoroki still experiences emotions like any other person would, he’s just unable to express them well. like i mentioned before, vacant expression goes along with this. vacant expression is just as it sounds, like he’s spacing off, his eyes are empty, he’s not looking at anything in particular, and bears no emotional expression on his face. with this, he also has trouble concentrating. he’s able to concentrate well on his studies and when working on his lonesome, but in regards to other people and conversation, he often loses sight of what they are saying to him and can no longer find himself able to concentrate on what they’re saying. he may start to space off halfway through a conversation, or become distracted by something else, or other thoughts he may be having. 

he has trouble sleeping, which ties into a bit of what i mentioned before in regards to his c-ptsd. before he sleeps is when he is alone and lets his thoughts run, and that can often lead to too many thoughts, an inability to relax, or reverting back to instances of his past, his day (whether they be positive or negative), and the replaying of random memories in his mind (sometimes distorted from the way they actually happened). 

he experiences a lot of irritability, but it’s generally subdued beneath his ‘emotionless’ exterior, as well as purposefully held back in an effort to avoid violent confrontation. there are only little things that get on his nerves and annoy him, but it’s generally not anything serious enough to cause an issue over. so, he doesn’t. he had poor personal grooming before entering UA highschool, sometimes being unable to perform regular hygienic duties, i.e. showering, brushing his teeth/hair, etc. instead, he’d only be able to perform the bare minimum. once he entered UA, he felt more motivated to keep himself clean and presentable, despite how hard it may be for him sometimes, some mornings. it’s something his father always drove into his head, which tied into his thoughts when reminding himself that he needed to take care of himself. 

he’s very intelligent and is able to tie certain things to others, thus giving him sound conclusions in battles and regular confrontation with other people, but he often misses out on social cues and understanding of given information. he’s better at deciphering and analyzing situations, but social cues aren’t necessarily one of his fortes, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t always understand. the only thing is that he generally takes things quite literally -- he’s able to discern other people’s emotions and how they are feeling, but in regards to things like slang, metaphors, and sarcasm, he generally doesn’t pick on up on it well. though, that’s not to say he doesn’t understand any of it.

his pleasure in day-to-day activities, as well as a simple enjoyment of life is reduced and sometimes seems quite depleted. he often seems bored or uninterested (which isn’t always the case -- refer back to his flat affect) but he does have a hard time enjoying himself. this ties in a bit with his depression as well, which i didn’t mention in this post because, while it is a major disorder and matters greatly, people generally have a pretty good idea of what all it entails and how its symptoms most often affect individuals. 

[foslad]

Almost Too Good (A Chris Evans Story): Part 18

A/N: I made an entirely separate post detailing my excuses as to why this took so long and my thoughts and feelings about this chapter, so check it out if you wish! Otherwise, HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU ALL <3

--------------------------------

‘Uh, I’ll be brief with my speech. Partly because I don’t like giving speeches; mostly because we have to give the studio space back in twenty-five minutes…’ Ben announced to a low hum of laughter before continuing.

‘…So as most of you are aware, this hasn’t been the easiest year for me, by a long shot, and I just wanted all of you to know that your hard work and commitment to this project has been the sole reason I was able to get out of bed every morning and not feel like I was the world’s biggest loser.’

My face fell into a sympathetic frown, along with the rest of the cast and crew, as I held my solo cup close to my chest and watched on as THE Ben Affleck poured his heart out to us atop a chair.

‘This project has been my baby for a long time and I’m stoked to see it come alive with the help of all of you. So,’ He raised his cup in a toast and we all followed suit, ‘cheers to The Eyes Of Nobody and its future endeavors! No matter what the outcome, it’s been a pleasure rocking with you guys!’

A round of claps and woo’s greeted Ben as he stepped down from the chair and we all engaged in a sip of cheap wine bought with the left-over change from the extended budget from the production company.

Well that was it. It was mid-November and the movie was officially wrapped.

As everyone began to mingle around the makeshift wrap party, I clocked eyes with Ben’s accountant Michael and shot him a wink as he made his way over to me; solo cup in hand. He and I had become “close buddies” as Ben liked to call it, since he had convinced himself that his “matchmaking skills” were out of this world…  

‘What the hell am I supposed to do now!?’ He declared dramatically, taking a big glug of the wine.

Rolling my eyes, I raised an eyebrow at him. ‘You could try, oh I don’t knoooowww, going on a date?’ I teased, leaning in to poke his chest, only for him to shoot me a sheepish look whilst extending his glug of the wine to an outright chug.

Michael and Chris’ brother Scott had been in constant contact via text since I’d introduced them all those weeks ago yet neither had grown a pair big enough to take it to the next level; each expecting the other to kick start it.

‘Hush up.’ He croaked before looking around glumly at the now closed set. ‘So, lay it on me, when are you back off to the Big Apple? And more importantly, when can I come visit?’

I paused for thought, unable to give him an exact answer.

90% of myself couldn’t wait to get back home; to gladly settle back into routine and all that jazz. I couldn’t physically remember the last time I had sat down and watched a movie or taken time for myself to browse through shops and online for new and exciting clothing pieces or even walked through Central Park as a daily reminder of just how lucky I was. At this point I had even gone so far as to start up a Pinterest page, pinning different recipes I wanted to try out when I finally had the time.

I felt a little foreign to myself and of course, like a true New Yorker, I blamed LA for that.

But naturally there was a remaining 10% that, despite being small in number, weighed me down like an anchor…

‘Soon, I guess… I haven’t had the time to discuss it with my assistant yet.’ I blagged.

Thankfully, something I had grown to notice, and was therefore extremely thankful, about Michael was that he had a short attention span. Instead of paying attention to my answer, he decided to indulge in some good ol’ fashioned gossip instead.

‘I’m even losing Ben to it, you know…’

‘To what, New York?’ I asked, suddenly intrigued.

‘Mhmm.’ He nodded, lifting his cup high and finishing off his wine. ‘Between you and me, I think that his little tete-a-tete with that SNL producer is more than just a passing fling. He’s spending the holidays with Jen and the kids, but he’ll be flying back and forth in-between... If you know what I’m saying…’

Oh, the holidays… My favourite time of year! Even the thought of it brought a warm and cosy sensation to my heart. We were a week away from Thanksgiving and I was delighted to have the holiday period completely signed off to nothing but family, laughter, fun and above all else, food…

As a few crew members around us began to pack away the last few fragments of the set, Michael turned and asked, ‘Please tell me your coming to the actual wrap party at Roamers?’

I smiled wide and shook my head. ‘Nope! I have a prior engagement I’m afraid.’

He raised his eye brows sarcastically. ‘Is this “engagement” six foot, with a body like an athlete on his way to the Olympics?’

I smiled even wider. ‘It suuuuure is. I’m teaching him how to make stuffing, the right way, for his Thanksgiving meal with his family.’

‘Sounds like a bucket of fun,’ He jested, ‘and let me guess, the turkey’s not the only thing getting stuf-’

I clapped my hand over his mouth and light-heartedly glared at him. ‘Nuh uh uh, none of that, thank you very much.’

‘Lots of that…’ He whispered when I removed my hand. I rolled my eyes but admittedly, I was still grinning ear to ear as I sipped the last of my wine.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t floating on Cloud 9 right now. What happened after the night of Gracey’s wedding was like something out of a movie. It was as though I was living out some sort of glorious fantasy that never went away, even when I pinched myself.

-

Chris and I had travelled back to LA together the day after my sister’s wedding and I was convinced my happiness was enough to cure world peace.

As I sat on the flight, next to a dozing Chris, gazing out at the orange and yellow hue that had begun to court the pale blue sky, signalling dusk, it occurred to me that I was truly smiling.

And my smile only grew wider when I realised that there was so many reasons as to why I could be smiling right now.

I was heading back to finish off a project that made me feel fulfilled in my acting career; my assistant Amy had informed me that she would be coming back to work full time in the new year (but was now capable of helping me long distance in the meantime), my family were all radiating with joy and love after such a magical weekend and Chris and I were finally pushing forward to bigger and better things.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, I began to feel like the old Adrian again. There was no sadness in me, there were no worries; hell, there wasn’t even any fear anymore.

Just pure contentment.

The view of the sunset from the plane seemed extra spectacular that day. I even took a notion and snapped a try-hard “hipster” picture for my currently dormant Instagram that hadn’t been shown any TLC in almost two years. I cornily captioned it;

When you have every reason in the world to smile; it’s kinda cool when it smiles back at you.

-

‘No! What part of gently fold it in registers in your brain as mix it into oblivion!?’ I reprimanded, yanking the spoon out of Chris’ hand and bopping him out of the way with my hip. From my peripheral, I could see the outline of Scott double back in laughter as he watched Chris and I try to navigate the kitchen together with a beer in hand from the island.

Observing me stir the mixture, Chris’ voice began to raise in protest. ‘You’re doing exactly what I did!’

‘No, I’m not! I’m “gently”, GENTLLLYYYYYYY, folding it in!’

‘Looks pretty fucking similar to me!’ He argued, taking a swig of his beer and shooting Scott a playful look.

‘Uhhh, who’s the teacher and who’s the learner here Evans!?’ I replied, tipping the delicious substance out onto a baking tray.

‘I’m just sayin’!’ He held his hands up in innocence as I placed the tray into the pre-heated oven and picked up my own beer for a smug swig. ‘Well, wait until you taste it, then you’ll see why we “fold”!’

As we waited for the goodness to cook, the boys decided to take the time to grill me on a certain topic that, in general, I had been trying to avoid in my everyday life; so as to not psyche myself out.

‘How’s the training for your Justice League audition coming along?’ Scott asked, after being let in on my little secret a couple of weeks ago and then promptly made to swear to keep silent about it.

Today marked exactly one week after I had received the call from my agent Magda to tell me all systems were ago as far as the audition and truthfully, I was still trying to mentally wrap my mind around it all, never mind even think of the physicality involved.

‘I mean, I gym twice a week, like always, if that’s what you’re asking?’ I hadn’t taken any measures out of my daily routine to prepare…Why should I? I wasn’t even going to get the role for crying out loud!

‘For how long? What do you do when you’re there? You got a trainer?’ Chris questioned intensively.

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa slow down. I do my own thing, like I’ve always done.’ I replied casually.

‘You reckon that’s enough? You feel fit and strong?’ He crossed his arms and eyed me closely.

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.’ I responded defensively. Okay, so I’ve only ever taken to the gym to be able to justify eating whatever I want, but whatever! They didn’t need to know that!

‘Cool.’ Chris stuck his bottom lip out slightly and nodded. There was a solid twenty second silence as he took one last determined swig of beer before laying the bottle down with a bit of force onto the countertop. ‘You. Me. Pull up competition. Right now.’

With that declaration, he pushed himself away from the counter and began to make his way to the glass door that led to his backyard.

‘What!?’ I called after him, shooting Scott a ‘is he for real!?’ look.

‘You heard me!’ His voice trailed off as he exited out of the door.

The sky was starting to get dark but Chris’ garden was well lit. I begrudgingly trailed after him as he walked past his pool and over to the tall oak tree situated towards the side of his garages.

The tree was thick and strong; with Chris reaching up and placing all his weight on it to see if it would hold up. ‘Alright, seems sturdy enough.’ He deduced as he jumped back down.

Standing under it, I gazed up in intimidation. ‘I can’t even reach it’- was my first excuse.

It took all of two seconds for Chris to bend down behind me and wrap his biceps around my knees, swooping me up with ease so that I was eye level with the branch.

‘But what if I fall!?’ - came the second excuse.

‘Well then we’ll scrap the competition and I’ll just stay here to catch you in case you do fall.’ He countered once again. ‘C’mon, grab the branch.’

‘What if it cuts my hands?’ - marked my last feeble attempt. Now that I was closer, the branch did seem a little old and sharp…ish.

‘Just grab the damn branch Warner!’ He ordered, using his strength to give my body a little jolt upwards.

‘Okay, okay!’ Reaching out and wrapping my hands around it, taking a few seconds to secure my grip firmly.

‘You got it? Am I good to let go?’ He slowly let go and lingered for a second to check I wasn’t going anywhere before stepping away. I hung there like a moron, my legs flailing slightly like a child as I tried to keep my balance in check. Chris stepped towards me again and laid his hands on my legs.

‘Knees together and then lift and cross your feet behind your back.’ He ordered. I could already feel the burn in my arms as I followed his instructions and I hadn’t even started yet.

Once he was happy with my posture and positioning, he glared up. ‘I want ten pull ups.’

Okay, that’s not too bad… Ten should be okay…

Harnessing every piece of strength that I’d gathered from lifting light dumbbells for the past nine years, I raised myself up towards the branch and lifted my chin over it.

‘One.’ Chris called out.

Easing myself back down, I felt a sense of achievement. Alright! My first ever pull up! Go Adrian!

Nine more, not so bad…

The next time I felt the burn even more, but I managed it at least. ‘Two.’

When I eased myself down the second time, my arms began to feel the ache a hell of a lot more than they already did.

Mustering the strength for the third one was not so easy. I could feel myself starting to laugh at my own pathetic excuse for upper body strength, but the laughing only made my stomach hurt more and thus caused me to use up more energy.

‘Still two.’ Chris counted, doing his best not to laugh alongside Scott, who had long lost it. Clearly, I was the entertainment for the evening.

My legs had become undone slightly in hopes of helping me complete my fitness mission.

‘Nope! Keep your legs crossed at the back or I won’t count it!’ Chris’ arms were now folded as he started to stare up at me smugly.

‘It’s hard!’ I whined.

‘What? I thought you said you were “up to date” with this training?’ He used the bunny ear gesture to quote me directly before crossing his arms again.

I frowned but refused to give in. Gathering all my strength, I started up once more; unfortunately vocalising every piece of pain I felt - But I made it!

‘Three.’

‘Ohhhhh my God.’ I panted. Why was this so hard???

‘I’ll compromise at five. Get to five and we’ll call it even.’ Chris bargained, leaning back against the tree.

Two more agonising pull ups, which took what felt like hours to complete, followed. Chris moved forward and stepped under me, lightly wrapping his arms around my legs again. ‘Okay, drop down.’

Delighted to be rid of the pain, I let go and slid down into his grip. Chris clenched a little tighter just before my feet hit the ground so that I was now eye level with him. His eyes screamed in triumph as he waited for me to admit that I wasn’t “up to date” with my “training” at all.

Instead however, I simply let out a deep breath through my nose and wrapped my arms around his neck. ‘If you weren’t so cute, I’d be very pissed right now.’

‘Blegh.’ Scott declared before heading back inside to check on the oven.

‘Pissed at what? The fact you have the upper body strength of a kitten?’ Chris inquired as he turned his attention backed to me and lifted his eyebrow in self-satisfaction.

I shot him an unimpressed look in return before pulling away.

With a light chuckle, he lightly wrapped his arm around my shoulder as we trudged back into the house. ‘I was just trying to show you that “fitness” and “strength” are actually two very different things. It’s not about waiting to get the role and then starting training; you gotta show them what you’re made of from the off! Stay ahead of the competition, if you will.’ He squeezed me lightly, causing me to look up at him.

‘You could really slam this audition if you put your mind to it, you know.’

I smiled softly, recalling a similar pep talk I’d received from Ben a couple of weeks ago. I could feel myself light up inside at how supportive he was being; even if that “support” meant that my arms felt like they were about to fall off any second.

‘You should work on your weight lifting and think about getting yourself a trainer.’ Chris advised as he made his way over to the sink to pour me a glass of water whilst Scott declared that there was five minutes left on the timer.

‘Can I hire you?’ I asked half joking, half not.

‘No can-do kiddo, I have my own training to do. Infinity War is coming up and Poppa don’t get in shape as easily as he used to.’

‘Suuuure,’ I teased, gladly accepting the water, ‘because you look so terrrrible right now.’

‘Well, I certainly don’t look like Captain America that’s for sure.’ He replied before sighing and gazing over at the oven. ‘I mean, if we’re being real, I prooooobably shouldn’t even be eating stuffing right now either.’

I squeaked at his blasphemous tone. ‘Stuffing is always okay!’ I walked over and placed my hands on his cheeks and squeezed so his lips puffed up to attention. ‘Stuffing is good for the soul! Say it with me! Stuuuffing is good for the souuul.’

‘Preach it girl!’ Cried Scott from his position at the fridge, as he retrieved three more beers.

No more than ten minutes later, I arrogantly watched on as the two boys went to indulgence heaven and back as they tucked into my creation. I took great pleasure in scolding Chris on how the flavours and different textures of the stuffing would’ve been destroyed had he continued to mash them to death like he had been.

The tail end of dinner took a turn when Scott notified us of the text he had received from one of his roommates. One of them had left their keys at home and with Scott being the only one left in LA this late in the upcoming holiday season, it inevitably made him the only one to be able to help. So, we bid him goodbye as we continued to gorge on stuffing.

-

After binging three episodes of a new series we’d discovered on Netflix, I sat on Chris’ bed, on top of the covers, and glanced through my emails.

All were mostly worked-related; one was about maintenance that needed to be done to my apartment back in New York and then one, I noticed, seemed to catch my eye for the right kind of reason.

After reading it through, a small smile spread across my face and I found myself calling out to Chris in his en-suite.

‘Did you get the email about the Fashion Awards?’ We’d been invited, as representatives of Gucci, to present one of the awards at the ceremony.

‘Oh, yeah, Jake mentioned something about an awards thing. In England, right?’

‘Mhmm! Would you wanna do it?’ It wasn’t compulsory or in our contract to have to do such events, so I felt like I already knew his answer before he even spoke.

‘Eh.’ Chris shrugged before waving it off and walking back into the bathroom; signalling that he wasn’t even interested, never mind entertaining it.

I nodded and smiled, albeit a little sadly, as I pretended to agree with him.

It was the third thing we’d turned down in the space of a month.

The first being an Elle pictorial spread that had been in the works for weeks due to the popularity of our commercial, 2.5 million views and counting at this point. Chris had decided at the last minute, however, that it would just bring unwanted attention to us and that I should just do it by myself.

But of course, they weren’t interested in just me.

The second was an invite to the launch of Gucci’s new Fall Collection. Off the bat I knew that kind of thing wasn’t Chris’ cup of tea, although I had half-hoped he might’ve been swayed with the knowledge of how much that kind of thing means to me and that we could get away with going together because we were still technically “co-workers”. Alas, I attended that one alone.

The Fashion Awards made it a trio and to say it was a little disheartening, was an understatement.

Obviously, I wasn’t completely clueless. I knew deep down he was just trying to protect and preserve what we had. We’d still managed to evade being public knowledge and that was something Chris was passionate about keeping for as long as possible.

Unlike our early days, nearly every evening was spent at Chris’; which was totally fine! Spending time with him was so beyond fulfilling and I was so lucky to have him! It was night’s like tonight, cooking and chilling together, that really brought a special warmth to my heart.

But I’d be lying if I said we weren’t lacking in most aspects outside of that. There were no dates, no dinners out, no movie trips. I wasn’t even allowed to walk Dodger with him. Something as simple as walking down the street and holding hands or going to the grocery store were also out of the question.

Menial tasks that I ached to do.

And I knew he had done them in the past. A quick google search would should him going on dates or holding hands with past lady friends…

But I knew that kind of thinking was toxic. I had become good at steering away from stupid thoughts like that after the promise I had made to Chris to just trust him.

I didn’t doubt Chris or his feelings, it was just the way things were that made it harder for me to adjust to. I wasn’t as big of a “celebrity” (nor did I ever wish to be) as Chris and, up until we started dating, could happily walk around and go about my business without having anybody give a shit. Even outside of my relationship, I was still able to do that. Stupid little things like fashion award shows and clothing launches, I’ll admit, were still fun little ventures to me that meant a different kind of night out to the usual routine.

But of course, I knew that as soon as Chris and I did become public knowledge, I could probably wave that goodbye. Still…

I hadn’t realised I’d been staring into space until the bathroom light clicked off and Chris emerged, zipping up a jacket and grabbing a cap from the side.

‘Alright, I’ll be back soon. Just gonna take Dodger out real quick.’ He informed me as he bent down to give me a parting kiss. I watched intently as he attached the leash to the dog’s collar.

‘Can I come?’ I chanced. It was dark out and already gone 10:30pm, I doubt paparazzi patrolled his street at this time of night on the off chance he might walk out of his door. Besides, in the one in a million chance that they might be, the picture would be too dark anyway; surely.

I just wanted to hold his hand. Outside. That’s it. That’s all I needed.

He struggled to form words as he tried to figure out a way of gently letting me down that didn’t just involve an outright ‘no’.

‘Please? I hate being here on my own...’ I begged, knowing full well it was probably going to make him feel a little guilty. Sure, I wasn’t being wholly honest but even I could see that the truth seemed slightly embarrassing and needy.

A small frown appeared on his face as he made his way back over to me; leaning down again to kiss my cheek. ‘I’m only gonna be gone ten minutes, Adrian, I promise!’

He had paused for my reaction, but Dodger’s light whimpering pressured me into reluctantly nodding my head.

‘…Okay.’ I whispered, allowing him to lean forward for one last peck.

Chris wasn’t stupid. He probably knew deep down that my request was deeper than just a fear of being alone.

-

To Chris’ credit, the front door sounded not ten minutes later and a content Dodger trotted down the hallway and into the bedroom; closely followed by his owner.

I picked up the remote and turned down the volume on the random World’s Wildest Police Chases episode I was watching and looked over as Chris entered the bedroom. Smiling, I scooted over and made room for him in the bed.

As he undressed, I decided to break the slightly awkward silence by asking if we could watch Conan tonight. I was happy to see a smile appear across his face as he crawled under the covers next to me.

‘You don’t have to keep asking Adrian, we watch it every night.’

We continued the silence, although now a little more content, as we listened to Zac Efron talk to Conan about the upcoming Baywatch reboot he was shooting on a low volume. We were half-way through the interview when Chris finally spoke up.

‘I feel bad about earlier.’

‘Don’t! It’s okay,’ I reached over and rubbed his cheek affectionately, ‘I understand why you said no.’

A minute or so passed, I had returned my attention back to the screen, when he spoke again.

‘Listen, I was gonna ask you a little closer to the time, but I guess now is a good a time as any.’ Chris sat up and cleared his throat a little. ‘Every year, around New Year’s, Downey throws this fundraiser for a charity of choice. It changes every year.’ He rambled.

I listened intently, but I’d be lying if I said my eyes weren’t widening by the second.

‘Anyways, there’s no red-carpet bullshit but people still dress up and it’s for a good cause, so I try and make it every year.’

‘That’s nice of you.’ I replied, although my tone was willing him to continue.

‘Would you, maybe, wanna go… with me… this year?’

My lips trembled as I fought back a big, fat, beaming smile.

‘Sure.’ I replied as casually as I could, but it was obvious he could see right through me. ‘I should be free.’

He grinned at me as we returned our eyes to the screen but within seconds, I had turned back and smacked my lips against his. Forgoing Conan for the night, I decided to show him just how I grateful I was for his suggestion.

----------

If you read this one through, YOU ARE A GOD! THANK YOU! New chapter SOON!! Special shout out to mrs-captain-evans and elphabathropp for playing a huge part in my return to writing! I’m sorry I suck but I love you for caring!! <3 

[texanredrose]

Would you consider doing the prompt #12, (the one person is locked out of their room and begging the other person to let then stay) Pyrruby/Ladybug/whatever else. The idea of bed sharing and the locked out unfortunate sharing the others pajamas is just so adorable and cure and uwuuuuuujiiuu

Okay, Pyrruby coming up, and WOW this was actually really difficult because I’m terrible at writing these two, apparently, so I hope it’s not too bad! Sorry it took so long! This takes place in the same universe as yesterday’s prompt fill.

Pyrrha moved around the room, tidying up as she went while keeping her scroll pressed tight to her ear. While most students were out spending Saturday night with friends or sleeping to recover from the week, she’d decided for a nice, quiet night in, organizing her room and talking to her mother. Between the two activities, the former certainly took less time than the latter, seeing as she’d nearly finished but the older woman had hardly gotten started.

“Yes, Mother. I’m taking a little time off from training.” She smiled, putting away some freshly folded clothing from her load of laundry earlier in the day. “I worked very hard to be here but a little break won’t hurt.”

“I know that, Dear One, and you need to take time to rest.” In her mind’s eye, she could see her mother’s slight frown and the furrow to her brows. “But you are not one inclined to being idle; I’m just worried. Are you sleeping well enough? Eating? What of your studies? Is there something troubling you?”

“I’m fine. I just… want a little extra time to hang out with my friends. That’s all.” Pyrrha chuckled, grabbing hold of her device and switching to the other ear to lessen the tension on her neck. “How’s Mom?”

“Fretting, as usual.” Her mother sighed. “She’s doing everything in her power to convince your sister that studying abroad isn’t nearly so glamorous as your stories make it seem. I’d wager she’s losing the fight, but she’ll never admit defeat.”

It struck her as strange, sometimes, how her mother spoke, like a warrior of a bygone era still adjusting to peaceful times. Then again, her classmates often remarked on her own speech pattern, so perhaps it ran deeper. Adjusting to life in Vale as opposed to the one she’d known all her years in Mistral certainly brought with it some challenges, like the co-ed dorms and the variety of people attending the college, but she’d thought she’d done well in making the transition. It hurt, leaving her family behind, but she wanted to see more of the world and all it had to offer.

“For what it’s worth, I think all of you should come to Vale sometime. It’s certainly beautiful.”

“Thank you for the offer, Dear One, but you know your Mom. She’ll not be whisked away from her work by anything less than risk to life, limb, or eyesight.” Her mother chuckled. “She could learn from you to take a break every once in a while.” Suddenly, someone knocked on her door, causing the redhead to raise a brow. Nearly everyone she knew had gone out- a few even invited her along, though she politely declined- and it was a bit too early for drunken college students to be returning from the downtown bars and knocking on the wrong door. “What was that? Are you alright?”

“It’s just someone at the door, Mother.” Pyrrha walked over, peeping through the little hole set at about her chin level. Most people didn’t have to duck a little bit to use the thing but she’d adjusted to being taller than the average person years ago. “Oh.”

Perhaps if she hadn’t been so surprised, she might not have let that single syllable slip, but… well, she didn’t expect much on this particular Saturday evening, least of all the cute young woman on the other side of the door.

Despite a few degrees of separation- they’d met through a mutual friend and shared absolutely no classes together- Pyrrha had come to find Ruby Rose, the engineering prodigy two years younger than herself, a delightful breath of fresh air. She was the excitable sort, who could go on and on about her interests regardless if she had an audience, and her perpetual optimism even in the face of daunting expectations and grueling coursework brought a smile to the redhead’s face every time.

“Oh? What do you mean ‘oh’?” Suspicion infected her voice. “Is it a boy?”

“N-no, Mother, she’s just a friend-”

“Ah, it’s about time you made a 'friend’, Dear One!” Her mother laughed while the redhead cringed, a slight flush coming to her cheeks. “Now it all makes sense. Your Mom and I will want to hear all about her when we call next week.”

“Mother, it’s not-”

“Just be careful; make sure you leave enough time for your studies between dates.”

“Mother-”

“And use protection.”

“Mother!”

“Alright, I’ll let you go; you deserve to have your fun. Love you, my Little Flame.”

Pyrrha sighed, unable to help the way her lips curled into a smile at the childhood nickname. “Love you too, Mother. I’ll call next week.”

Hanging up, she took a moment to compose herself before undoing the lock and opening the door. She was a tad surprised by the way Ruby straightened up and took a step back, almost as if she hadn’t actually anticipated the door opening.

“Oh! Pyrrha! H-hey!” She smiled, silver eyes darting around while she absently ran a hand through her short hair, the typically brunette locks tinged red. It was certainly a new look but one she wore rather well. “Fancy meeting you here!”

“Well, this is my dorm?” The redhead offered, a little lost. Why did the young woman look so nervous; she’d seen Ruby on a sugar high, frantically drawing out designs for some class or other, and uncomfortably keeping to herself in the corner of a room during a party, but never genuinely apprehensive like this. Surprisingly, that was something her gregarious and outgoing older sister seemed prone to, despite Yang’s propensity to make friends with nearly everyone she met. Apparently, the reputation she had around the campus brought with it some glaring negative side effects, but Ruby never seemed to share that problem aside from periodic bouts of social awkwardness. “Is there… something I can do for you?”

“Uh! Well!” She played with the red fabric of her hoodie, tugging on the hood like she was about to pull it up and over her head but just barely refraining. “There actually is, something, but you can say no! I understand if you do, I mean- this is super sudden and you might not be comfortable and-”

“Ruby,” she said with a little chuckle, offering the other woman a soft smile. Occasionally, Ruby’s mind worked so fast, she skipped entire sentences in an effort to keep up, and it sometimes brought to mind the caricature of a brilliant scientist pursuing some theory beyond her comprehension, but moments like these reminded her that her fellow Freshman could definitely trip herself up if someone didn’t lend her a hand from time to time. “Slow down. First, I need to know what you’re asking before I’ll know how to feel about it.”

“Right, right, sorry.” For a moment, nothing followed, but when she finally did speak, the words quite nearly came out too fast for the redhead to parse. “I locked myself out of my room again and it’s the fourth time this month and I kinda can’t afford spending seventy-five dollars on getting it unlocked again and Weiss won’t be back until tomorrow night and I’m sorry I probably shouldn’t ask but can I spend a little while with you please I can sleep on the couch in the lounge for the night but I just don’t want to stay there all night and-”

“Hold on.” Pyrrha reached, putting a hand on the shorter woman’s shoulder and pinching her brows together in slight concern. “You’re locked out of your room? Do you have all your essentials?”

“Huh? Oh! Yeah.” She ducked her head, putting the items out of her hoodie’s pocket as she listed them off. “Scroll, wallet, Student ID, scooter keys- I got everything. Just… not my room key. Somehow. I could’ve sworn I’d grabbed it before I left.”

“That’s alright; it happens to everyone,” she said, feeling slightly more at ease knowing she wasn’t entirely cut off. Idly, she wondered what Yang was up to that she couldn’t offer a place to stay, but opted to remain silent on the matter. If Ruby had a reason she wanted to disclose, she’d likely do so in due time. “Come in, and pardon the mess. I was just in the process of tidying up.”

“Heh, I think we have way different definitions of 'mess’.” Ruby offered once she’d stepped inside, absently fiddling with the string of her hoodie again while gazing around the room. “Weiss would love to have you as a roommate, though.”

“I thought the two of you were getting along better?” Weiss Schnee- a young woman from Atlas and heiress to a high profile company- was one of the mutual friends they shared, the former’s roommate since the beginning of term. While the first month or two was rocky, they eventually settled into a more amicable relationship and, with winter break on the horizon, she’d thought they’d become friends. Weiss spoke more fondly of the younger woman at the very least, whenever they studied together, thanks perhaps in small part to a little… light nudging on the matter.

“Oh, we are! But, still, I know it bugs her when I get into my engineering projects, and not all of them are for school, so…” She shrugged, flashing a small smile. “I just know she’d rather go more than a week without something almost exploding in our room but I don’t have anywhere else to work yet! They won’t let me use the labs until I’m a second year student.”

Pyrrha closed the door and offered a smile, glad to see things were going smoother for the roommates. “Well, she might not be too fond of me after I finish practice, either.”

“Yeah, but I heard you were taking a break for a while.” Although she was doing her best to be polite, silver eyes kept glancing towards the various items left out with shining curiosity and it made her smile grow. A lot of people would dismiss the trinkets from her homeland out of hand but Ruby always seemed genuinely interested in whatever caught her attention. “Yang said you needed some time to relax. How’s that going?”

“Good!” The blonde had often raved about her genius sister, but had never actually brought her around the lacrosse field. Something about not wanting to give her any funny ideas about playing full contact sports; the woman often spoke of her sibling as a mother did of their child, which the redhead found highly endearing. She understood the two had a difficult childhood growing up, in a different way than Pyrrha and Weiss, and admired their strength just as much. “Honestly, it’s exactly what I needed. Having some time to just catch up on the little things is great.” Leading the younger woman over to the bed, they both sat down, her task set aside for the moment so they could catch up. “I’m surprised Weiss is off campus, though. She seemed very… reluctant to return to Atlas.”

“Oh! Actually, she went to Menagerie!” Ruby smiled, lowering her voice as she continued. “You know Blake Belladonna, right? Yang’s roommate?”

“Of course.” With a pleasant smile, Pyrrha did her best to react to the name as any other; considering her Mom always seemed neck deep in Mistral’s political cloud, she’d heard the Chieftain of Menagerie’s name quite a few times and suspected Blake might be related to the Faunus leader in some fashion or other. But, seeing as no one had mentioned it yet, she assumed the information wasn’t commonplace and opted not to be the one to bring it up. “She’s from Menagerie, isn’t she? Did they go together?”

“Yeah, Blake’s taking Weiss home to meet her parents. Apparently, they’re a big deal in Menagerie, and Weiss wanted to learn more about the Faunus from them,” she said, smile growing wider and leaning closer conspiratorially. “But I think it has more to do with the fact that they’re dating.”

“Really?” She couldn’t help but betray her surprise. While Weiss had certainly become more comfortable and relaxed in many of her formerly held world views, she’d always thought there would be a limit to the amount of progress one could make in a few months’ time. Apparently, she’d underestimated the shorter woman. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, they haven’t come out and said it yet, but… they spend a lot of time together. At the library, in our room, in Yang and Blake’s; like, a lot of it is either schoolwork or deep conversations about politics and stuff but sometimes, they just sit next to each other and read books.” She shrugged. “Weiss seems happier now, and Yang swears she’s seen Blake smile more in the past two weeks than since semester began.”

“Well, I’m glad they’re fond of each other’s company.” Pyrrha nodded. “It’s good to have friends like that, and if something more comes of it, then all the better.”

“Yeah, but it seems like everyone’s getting boyfriends or girlfriends or crushes.” Ruby laughed, and it almost sounded a touch nervous. “I mean, Nora and Ren finally got together after being joined at the hip for years before coming here, Blake and Weiss are practically dating, Yang has a crush-”

“Wait, Yang?” That caught the woman’s attention, mainly because she never imagined the blonde would have much of an issue asking anyone out. Although her reputation had spread across campus fairly quickly for being a bit of a brawler, it had evolved to include a host of other not-always-flattering descriptions that made her someone nearly every student on campus wanted to date. Depending on the version, it wavered between her being impossible to satisfy- which some seemed to take as a challenge- and being impossibly gifted in certain activities- which others took as a promise. Although the blonde often acted as if the rumors didn’t bother her, her friend suspected differently. Perhaps she was right. “Has she talked to the person yet?”

“Nah, she’s nervous.” The younger woman giggled. “I know she talks a big game, but she’s always been the biggest softie. I think she’s worried about certain… expectations coming with confessing that she’s not comfortable with, ya know?”

“I can certainly understand her concern,” she replied, letting out a sigh. “I’ve been there a time or two myself.”

“Really? So, you’ve dated before?” Silver eyes darted her way before focusing on the far wall, a light blush rising in her cheeks. “I… guess that’s kinda a personal question.”

“It is, but one I don’t mind answering.” Pyrrha offered a smile, continuing to show that she truly had no problem with it. “I dated a few girls back home in Mistral but it always felt… like they expected something more of me than I was willing or able to give.” She offered a small shrug. “Much like Yang, my reputation gave a lot of people a false impression of who I am, but coming here freed me of that, to some extent. I dated Jaune during the beginning of the semester but we agreed we were better off as friends, so I’m single at the moment.”

“Oh, he- he never mentioned that.” Suddenly, her blush intensified, to the point she reached up and pulled her hood down with a groan. “I feel so silly now.”

“Why?”

“No reason!” Ruby quickly responded, adding a laugh at the end and waving her hand. “It’s just- I dated a girl for, like, a week back home, and Yang made such a big deal out of it! She was all 'look at you, all grown up’ and I really haven’t dated anyone else since.” With a shrug, she started picking at the laces of one boot, rolling the red and black fabric between her fingers. “I got really nervous. I know Yang didn’t mean anything by it but, ya know, sometimes she can be a little… much. But she means well.”

“Well, if she gives you any more 'well meaning’ trouble, just let me know.” She smiled. “I can end my break at any time and keep her in the gym until she’s too tired for teasing.”

“I think you underestimate my sister’s stamina, but thanks.” The younger woman flashed her a sweet little smile, some of her embarrassment falling by the wayside. “I appreciate it.”

“But now I wonder, has anyone caught your eye since you’ve been here?” Keeping her voice neutral proved to be a slight challenge but, considering what they’d just discussed, she didn’t want to sound too hopeful or forceful. “I mean, you did mention that everyone seems to be catching the love bug.”

“Oh, well, uh, m-maybe there’s someone, but it’s, well, I don’t think it’d work out.” Suddenly, the flush in her cheeks came back, nearly rivaling the shade of her hoodie and Pyrrha worried for a moment that it couldn’t possibly be healthy for that much blood to rush to a person’s face. “I mean, I’ve talked to- to them before, and they’re really nice, but it’s just… ya know. I’m younger than almost everyone here, and a lot of people know that.”

“Do you think that your age changes the way people see you?” She furrowed her brows, a slight frown on her lips.

While she had more than enough experience with being considered nearly a deity by some- a perception she direly wished she could escape in its entirety, though that seemed unlikely- no one had ever considered her as being less before. People could expect perfection of her without seeing a problem with that but those very same took umbridge to the idea that she could be just as fallible as the next person, something that honestly stressed her out more than she’d ever admit. Thankfully, her mothers had never placed such heavy expectations on her, unlike Weiss’ own parents, and she’d already learned so much about how that little bit of support from her family had made it all easier to bear throughout the years. Not that their situations were entirely comparable, mind, but she at least had their unconditional love and understanding; though her Mom would’ve preferred she study in Mistral, she understood Pyrrha’s reasons for wanting to attend Beacon and supported her, though somewhat grudgingly.

“I mean… yeah? How can it not?” Flopping back on the bed, Ruby stared up at the ceiling, a frown on her lips. She’d seen a lot of emotions splayed across the younger woman’s features but the sort of sadness portrayed now made her heart ache. “People think I’m not as mature and… sometimes, I think they’re right? Yang says I shouldn’t worry about it, that they’re just being mean, but it gets to me sometimes. 'Cause I can get really excited about things and I just… ramble on and on-”

“But that’s not a bad thing,” she quickly said, turning towards her guest. “Personally, I enjoy listening to you when you get excited about things. You have a raw passion for the things you do and learn, and I don’t see that as a sign of immaturity.”

Turning her head slightly, those silver eyes sought hers out as they shone bright with hope. “Really?”

“Of course!” Pyrrha nodded, glad she’d already made some headway and opting to continue with it. “Everyone has things they love to talk about and you are knowledgeable and experienced in your field. I’m quite fond of listening to you talk about the things that interest you and I admire the dedication it took for you to pursue your passions in the first place.” She shrugged, smiling gently. “Not everyone is so enthralled by their chosen field of study. Just because you are doesn’t mean you should be made to feel bad about it. If anyone gives you any grief, please, let me know.”

Ruby laughed, shaking her head. “What, are you going to work out with everyone on campus who gives me a little trouble?”

“If I must.” Perhaps it was a touch overprotective but she stood ready to protect any of her friends however she could at a moment’s notice, and that held especially true for those she wouldn’t mind as being closer with than simply 'friends’. She didn’t think herself remiss for having such thoughts, either. Carefully, she put one of her hands over Ruby’s, squeezing gently. “You’re special to me.”

The last two words didn’t seem to register to the younger woman, her expression pinching into one of exasperation. “But, see, that’s another thing! The ones who don’t think I’m immature just- just assume I’m some sort of super special prodigy, like I know everything just because I’m already attending Beacon.” She pushed herself up, her face pleading as she clasped her hands in front of her. “Pyrrha, I swear, I don’t know anything about ancient Mistrali poetry, or Atlesian agriculture, or- really, if it doesn’t have some sort of internal combustion or dust infusion, I probably don’t know much about it!” Her shoulders dropped. “I just want to be a normal student here for a while, ya know? But it feels- it just feels-”

“Like everyone else has a set expectation of who you should be, and that somehow failing that is your fault, even though you never asked for it?” The redhead gave her friend a sincere smile, setting a hand on her shoulder. “Trust me, I understand how burdensome that can be.” She straightened up. “So, henceforth, you aren’t special to me. You’re just a regular young woman with a good heart whom I’m happy I’ve met. How’s that?”

“And boring!” Ruby added, a smile on her lips as she giggled. “Regular, boring, totally not special Ruby Rose, that’s me!”

“I’m not so sure about the boring part.” She raised a brow. “I don’t think a boring person would’ve locked themselves out of their room four times.”

With a laugh, the younger woman nodded. “Well…”

“Plus, you did almost set the dorm on fire two weeks ago.”

“Okay, you got me there!”

She leaned over, nudging Ruby’s shoulder. “I’m afraid your life’s just too exciting for you to be a boring person.” Suddenly getting an idea, Pyrrha reached over to her desk, grabbing her scroll and expanding it out to its tablet form. “But you know what would be boring? We could watch a documentary I downloaded a few days ago. That’s a very boring way to spend a Saturday night, isn’t it?”

“Yeah! But, ya know, no complaints here. Just two regular, boring gals enjoying some learning.” Mirth slid away as she briefly looked a bit horrified by her own words. “Uh- not that you’re- you’re really interesting, Pyrrha! Not boring at all!”

With a playful smile, she shook her head. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“No, really! You’re super interesting! I mean, remember a few weeks ago when you explained how Nora can eat as many pancakes as she does without getting sick? That was really cool to hear all about nutrition and digestion and stuff!”

“Well, I’m glad someone enjoyed the lecture.” The bit of light teasing seemed to set her the other woman at ease, both of them remembering their friend’s blank look until Ren relented and said he supposed another stack would be alright. How the woman could stand to eat that many pancakes in one sitting boggled everyone’s mind but, considering her lifestyle, it wasn’t too alarming. Yet. “So, we’re both really interesting but totally boring people, agreed?”

“Works for me!” Ruby scooted closer before casting her gaze around the room. “Oh, you could finish cleaning up first, if you want. Not that it bothers me! I just don’t want to be a burden and set you behind-”

“Nonsense; I’ll attend to it later.” The redhead pulled up the file in question, trying hard to control the blushing in her cheeks. Although she’d chosen to pursue a career in the health field- she’d actually like to open a gym here in Vale centered around Mistrali fighting disciplines rather than become a sporting professional- other subjects had caught her eye, especially those related to her friends’ majors. The documentary in question was a brief history of the engineering sciences behind dust usage, which instantly had Ruby lighting up in delight.

“Oh my- I’ve never seen this one! Did it just come out?” Thrumming with energy, she crossed her legs under her, silver eyes alight with excited wonder. “The last one they did was released over ten years ago and didn’t even touch on the incorporation of purple dust into-” Cutting off abruptly, Ruby ducked her head. “Sorry, I guess I shouldn’t spoil it for you! It’s a really long explanation, too.”

“Well, hopefully this will give me the basics, and then you can tell me more later?” Pyrrha offered, glad to see that her guest didn’t seemed discouraged in the slightest. She’d honestly downloaded the file in the hopes of being able to understand Ruby’s explanations a little better; listening to her talk about the engineering quirks of different dust compounds was interesting, but she usually only understood about half the terminology used.

“You’ve got a deal!”

With that, they settled in to watch the documentary, shoulders and knees touching as they leaned back against the wall. It wasn’t the most comfortable position but, for two hours, it certainly wasn’t bad, especially when Ruby would occasionally tap her arm and excitedly whisper additional information regarding whatever subject was being covered, pointing out various things she’d studied or worked with during her brief time at Beacon. Thankfully, the majority of the documentary remained easy to follow, and what parts brought a furrow to her brow were quickly expanded upon by her companion, allowing Pyrrha to have much more confidence in following along with the subject matter, asking a few more questions at the end.

They talked about all sorts of dust applications for at least an hour, until Ruby cut off mid explanation to yawn, throwing up both hands to try and cover it. “Sorry! It’s kinda been a long day. I should probably head to the student lounge and see if the couch is open.”

“Hold on, there’s no need for that.” She gestured at the room. “You can stay here for the night.”

“But, you’ve only got one bed,” she said, silver eyes glancing around.

That was true; due to a mix-up earlier in the year, Pyrrha hadn’t been given a roommate and the school had removed the second set of furniture from the room to put into storage. It meant more space for stretching- an absolute necessity considering her workout routines- but it did present a slight problem now. Honestly, she’d always been a touch envious of how most everyone else she knew had a roommate, though their stories varied from the rocky start between Ruby and Weiss to the almost instant friendship between Yang and Blake. It always felt so… lonely coming back to an empty room, so she certainly didn’t want to pass up the chance presented before her, even if it was only platonic in nature.

“You can have it; I have a mat I can use for tonight.” She started to get off the bed, so she could retrieve said mat from it’s spot in her closet, but a hand on her arm stopped her.

“Wait, I can’t kick you out of your bed!” Distress splayed across her expression, the blush rising in her cheeks likely out of embarrassment. “That’d be really rude!”

“Well, I can’t possibly have a guest sleeping on the floor while I’m comfortable. That would make me a very rude host,” she said, a small smile on her lips. “Really, it’s no trouble.”

“Still.” Ruby frowned, twiddling her fingers together. “I kinda feel bad.”

Sensing there would be only one easy way to alleviate any guilt regarding the situation, Pyrrha opted for the route of full disclosure. “Well, the other options are that we sleep together- sharing the bed or the floor. That would be fair.” The younger woman’s blush burned brighter and the redhead had to admit feeling a bit of heat creep into her own cheeks. She’d meant the offer in a completely innocent way and quickly clarified, shifting the focus to her own concerns. “But I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. The beds are… rather small and, considering my height, I’d be worried I might squish you.”

Unfortunately, that seemed to have the opposite of her intended effect as Ruby ducked her head and tugged at her hoodie. “Oh, well, w-when you put it like that, maybe we should… try it out first? To see if we’d fit?”

While that certainly wasn’t the reaction she’d anticipated or tried for… she could admit a certain weakness to the idea of cuddling up to someone, especially Ruby. “Are you sure you’ll be comfortable with that?”

“Yep!” She squeaked out, looking up briefly before nodding. “I-I mean, testing it out, no harm in that, right?”

“You have a point.” Pyrrha walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Are you certain this will be alright?”

Silver eyes darted around for a moment before she nodded, this time a little more surely. “Yeah, I just- I’m fine. I’m really sorry about all this, again.”

“Really, it’s no trouble! I’m happy to be of assistance.” Satisfied by the outcome and only slightly worried about how red Ruby’s ears were turning, she scooted back to press against the wall. “I usually sleep on my side, so this will be rather comfortable for me. Do you have enough room?”

“Oh! Right! Laying down! I should do that!” A smile touched her lips as she watched the other woman lay down, obviously leaving a fair amount of room between them. “This, uh, this is good. I could totally fall asleep, right here, right now.”

“Well, let’s hold off on that until I’ve found you something more comfortable to wear.” Carefully, they both sat up, allowing Pyrrha to climb off the bed and head over to her wardrobe. She pulled out a shirt that fit loosely on herself, went to her waistline, and composed of rather soft material- one of her favorite sleep shirts. “Here, this might be better suited for sleeping, and I should have an extra pair of athletic shorts somewhere.”

The other woman gave out a small laugh. “No offense, but what you consider shorts will probably be pants on me.”

“Well, would you like to try them on anyway? If you’re too warm, I could always open the window.” She offered, giving the young woman the borrowed clothes after an affirmative response. More than accustomed to changing in front of others, Pyrrha shucked her shirt and shorts, switching to pajama pants and a matching tank top. She took her time, listening to the shuffling behind her with a small, though slightly sad, smile. Knowing that Ruby had an infatuation with someone, it didn’t feel right to try and pursue her own romantic interests in the other woman. It seemed the better course of action lay in helping her friend gather up the courage to talk to whoever it was, perhaps offer some ideas about conversation starters and the like. It would sting a little bit but… well, she really just wanted to see Ruby happy, so that would fade quickly. “Does everything fit alright?”

“Uh… well.” Curious, she turned, entirely unprepared for the sight that awaited her. While the shirt would usually come to the Mistali’s hips and elbows and the shorts to just above her knees, on Ruby the former looked more like a dressing gown and the latter brushed halfway down her calves. The collar of the shirt, stretched out from years of wear, was nearly slipping off one shoulder as the other woman offered a smile. “They’re staying on, so yeah.”

Pyrrha couldn’t help but laugh; Ruby looked absolutely adorable nearly swallowed by the clothing as she was but she made to return to her wardrobe regardless. “Perhaps I can find something better suited-”

“No!” Waving her hands, silver eyes lit up the same as her expression. “This is great! The last time Yang gave me her hand-me-downs, she hadn’t hit her growth spurt yet. I’ve never worn clothes this big before! It’s kinda neat!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep!” Ruby nodded. “It’s just to sleep, right? One night, it’s not a big deal, and I really appreciate this, Pyrrha.”

“It’s no trouble!” With a smile, she went to hit the light. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be!” Despite the mostly chipper tone to her voice, there remained a thread of nervousness as well. Mentally, she acknowledged that Ruby probably worried what others would think if they found out; considering how quickly rumors spread, she likely worried that her crush would hear about it and lose any potential interest. However, Pyrrha could be the best of secret keepers, and mentally swore to never mention the events of the night to anyone without her guest’s express permission.

Without further ado, she flicked off the light and returned to her bed, following the path from memory. When she reached the edge, her eyes had adjusted enough to the dim light coming through the cheap curtains, and she managed to slip beneath the covers with ease. She laid down, waiting for her guest to get comfortable before pulling the covers up. It probably wouldn’t be a comfortable fit every night but, for just one, it wasn’t bad.

“Good night, Ruby. Sweet dreams.”

“Heh, yeah, you too.”

With that, the room fell silent. Well, nearly silent. She spent a considerable amount of time laying awake, listening to the sounds of someone else being in the room with her, Ruby’s breathing soft and eventually deepening as she fell asleep while her every minute movement shifted the covers. It seemed strange, being so hyper aware of another person’s presence, but she’d had very little opportunities to acclimate to such a thing; she’d never shared a room with her younger sister, considering their age difference, and her entire college experience thus far hadn’t provided her with a roommate, either. Honestly, she wouldn’t mind having one, and especially not Ruby, no matter how potentially dangerous her projects became. Weiss would probably thrive on the newfound independence, especially if she truly was dating Blake- but that seemed a foolish suggestion, in light of their conversation earlier and her own internal decisions. Ruby seemed interested in someone else, so best to leave those idle fantasies alone and focus on getting some rest.

Beyond her room, she could hear the faint sounds of her floormates returning from their various escapades, a typical staple of Saturday nights, but managed to ignore it as she drifted off to sleep herself.

In the morning, she awoke in a slight panic but managed to catch herself before showing any sign of waking aside from a heavy sigh. They must’ve moved in their sleep and she could feel a blush rising in her cheeks as she realized her arm was draped around Ruby’s waist, having unconsciously pulled their bodies closer together in the middle of the night.

Oh no.

They were spooning.

As much as she liked it, Pyrrha realized this was a grievous overstepping of boundaries and immediately prepared her apology, dimly aware of another voice whispering in the small space of her room. By the time she felt ready to 'wake up’ and string the words together, however, she noticed that she wasn’t alone in her realization and… apparently might have to reevaluate a few things.

“Ruby Rose, how did you get yourself into this? Why did you listen to Jaune? Okay, first, why didn’t he tell me he used to date her! That’s pretty pertinent information to be sharing! I swear, the next time I see him.” Cracking her eyes open, Pyrrha glanced down at the top of her guest’s head. “But now, what do I do? Just leave and hope Weiss gets back soon? No, that’d be mean; I gotta stick around, maybe ask her out to breakfast? No, no, you don���t do that, you don’t snuggle up to your crush in her own bed and then ask her to breakfast the next morning! Wait, maybe I should, as an apology? And thanks?” Ruby whined, squirming in her distress, but not enough to be noticeable were Pyrrha still asleep. “Why is dating so hard? And we’re not even dating yet! I haven’t even gotten to the hard part yet!”

She blinked, slightly confused. Perhaps she was still in the process of waking up and hadn’t processed all the information yet… but… it sounded like the person Ruby had a crush on… was actually…

Did Ruby have a crush on her?

“What if she gets mad when she wakes up? Like, I doubt it, because she’s always so nice, but I really wouldn’t blame her! I don’t think she’d be happy about me squishing her into the wall. And what am I supposed to tell her now? Hey, Pyrrha, good morning! I bet you’re wondering why I decided to use you as a personal space heater! Well, funny story, I actually have a huge crush on you and this is probably all my fault because I totally left my room yesterday with the intention of asking you out on a date and forgot my room key because I’m a spaz, so I’m pretty sure I did this without even realizing it no way I can’t tell her that after she wakes up and finds us sleeping together.”

Wanting to save the other woman from a minor panic attack, Pyrrha chose then to speak up. “Technically, neither of us is sleeping right now.”

“Okay, yeah, fair point, but-” Ruby jumped, slowly craning her head back to look up at the redhead. “You’re awake.”

“I am,” she replied, a small frown coming to her lips. Before any apologies or explanations could come forth, though, she quickly got to the heart of the issue as concern pinched her brow. “Did you really think I’d think less of you purely because of your age?”

“I… well, I mean…” She sighed, tilting her head to a more natural position to break eye contact. “Yeah? Just a little bit. It’s just… every time I saw you- around campus or practicing or in the hall- you just seem so sure of yourself and you’re friendly with everyone and I’m… not. Dad always said it’s something that comes with getting older and meeting more people but I’ve always been more comfortable with compounds than conversations, machinery over meeting people. But you make it look so effortless!”

“Well, I’ve had lots of practice but, for what it’s worth, I think you’re rather marvelous at conversations.” She smiled, watching the top of Ruby’s head. “Every time we’ve spoken, I’ve learned something new.”

“… really?”

“Yes. About dust compositions or structural integrity of various metals or your other interests or your family- all subjects I find fascinating. I truly enjoy your company, Ruby.” Pyrrha paused, deciding to go ahead and take the plunge considering the woman hadn’t seemed to relax one bit since she revealed she was awake. “And, if we’re being honest, I think I’ve developed a bit of a crush on you.”

A moment of silence passed before Ruby pushed herself up, swaying on her hands and knees for a moment before blinking, wide eyed, at the redhead. “Wait. You have a crush on me? But, but, last night-”

“Last night, I told you I was single. I never said I didn’t have a crush.” She offered a half shrug, seeing as she was still lying on her side. “I… didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, considering you’re locked out of your room. Then, when you said you have a crush yourself, I didn’t want to be unfair.”

Rising up to her knees, the other woman threw her arms out wide, a pleading look on her face. “Next time, could you be a teensy bit more selfish so I don’t spend half the night freaking out? A little help would be nice!”

With a growing smile, Pyrrha propped her head up. “Very well, then. I accept.”

“… accept?”

“Your offer for breakfast. You meant it as a date, correct?”

“Uh…yeah.” Slowly, Ruby lowered herself down to sit on the bed, legs folded under her. “You’re being serious.” She nodded. “Okay… I mean, yeah!” Beaming, the other woman scrambled off the bed, going to fetch her clothes. “Let’s go on a date!”

With a chuckle, the redhead eased herself up, stretching her arms above her head before getting off the bed as two thoughts crossed her mind. First, she acknowledged that the seventy-five dollar fee wasn’t as harsh a stipulation as she previously thought, considering the unintentional side effects of this particular lock out. The second, of course, being how insufferable her parents would be during next week’s phone call when she told them she had a new girlfriend.

As Ruby pulled the hoodie over her head, beaming as bright as the sun outside, she acknowledged that it would be her absolute pleasure to suffer through the questioning.

1) You will wrest the headcanon that Pyrrha was born and raised on the Remnant equivalent of Themyscira from my cold, dead fingers.2) Getting to subvert the ‘no boys!’ trope amused me.3) I can finally check the ‘bed sharing’ trope off my list.4) Holy crap. WHY ARE THESE TWO SO HARD TO WRITE!?

[seriouscuttervoice]

Apotheosis

Chapter 2 | I

Fandom: Mystic Messenger/Death Note (Crossover)

Characters: Rem, V, OCs (V’s family), Jumin Han

Links: AO3 | FF | First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Notes: This chapter is long, long, long overdue, initially because of writer's block and then because of the stages of grief that came with realizing V route was going to (and did) redact a lot of my fic into firm AU territory. I've decided that instead of changing my plans for this fic to align with the information provided by V route, I'm going to continue with what I originally had planned for the fic. I'm not complaining about having additional canon information-- it's fantastic-- but I fear my motivation to finish this will dwindle into nothing if I have to go off my original course too much. I started writing this chapter before V route and finished it after, and it's probably the first time I make a major divergence from canon (other than, you know, having V be the reincarnation of a shinigami from an entirely different series) on purpose. I really hope you enjoy this and I apologize for taking so long to get it out!

It's not her first week or even her first month at school when another student, not by his actions or anything he's said but by his mere presence, strikes Rem breathless. She's seen him before, in church, in class, but she never realized until now that she isn't the only person who spends their recesses outside alone. As if pushed away by some invisible force filling the air, he stands at the edge of the school courtyard; perhaps it's the same force that compelled Rem to wander off here in the first place. The tall and empty walls that should have diminished him with their size are inferior to the look in his eyes, ice and fire all at once, passionate scrutiny, and with a start this young boy reminds Rem not of her own downfall but of Misa's, the man she loved who used love like a weapon and turned a god to ash. It's too much memory for a boy so young, and when he turns that gaze on Rem in this soft, child's body and asks, "Why do you look at me that way?," Rem has spent enough time as a human to know that he is art.

"Do you want me to stop?" she asks, uncertain if she's disturbed him. He's a little shorter than Jihyun is, but it doesn't feel that way. The boy's eyes survey her up and down, appraising her with eyebrows arched, lips twisted for a moment in thought, before he shrugs and turns his face away.

"Do as you like," he tells her, and for a moment the command stupefies her, desperately searching in her mind for what exactly it is that she'd like to do so she can comply. Her eyes find her shoes, black and freshly shined the night before by Yunseo. The other boy wears similar ones of a slightly different style, his pointed at the front where Jihyun's are square, standard footwear for the compulsory school uniform. Rem hesitates, then raises her head again to look at his face.

"What's your name?" she asks, and the question feels too personal, a few characters on a page that could be the difference between life and death, a secret to be closely guarded yet is so easily taken away.

"You don't know it?" the boy questions, an overly critical crease in his forehead for someone his age. "We've been in the same class for two months and twelve days, we attend the same church, and we've visited each other's houses before, but you don't know my name?"

He speaks like he spends his free time reading the dictionary, a pastime Rem can't deny she's participated in herself before out of boredom, selective of his words in a way that's unnatural for his stature. She stares wide-eyed at him for his harshness. Human names and even faces are difficult, slipping in and out of her mind without a trace no matter how hard she tries, and she's tempted to ask how he can remember her name before she realizes he's not given any particular indication that he does.

"I suppose I've forgotten," she mumbles, allowing her language to slip back into the stiff formalness she was accustomed to as a shinigami to match the other's speech. She's surprised to find how unforced it feels, realizing for the first time that her quietness around most humans might be due to the amount of effort it takes to vocalize as they expect Jihyun to.

The other blinks, scowling but apparently unable to look away from her, and after a moment of contemplative silence he slowly utters, "My name is Jumin Han."

Jumin Han.

It's a name she's heard before, the Han part certainly is, in her parents' dinner conversations and dripping with bitter spite from Yunseo's lips. His family doesn't live far from where Jihyun's does, a large house with black panels that's more modern than most others in the neighbourhood, though the inside is more traditional than one might expect.

She repeats the name several times in her head, Jumin Han, Jumin Han, the words more precious than the other boy could realize, and somehow she knows that this time she won't forget.

"The conventional thing to do, at this point," the other says, startling Rem out of her thoughts, "would be to introduce yourself, but there's no need as I already know who you are."

She nods, her lips feeling stuck together, and though the boy is stern she finds herself taking his word for it easily, something about him exuding honesty and trustworthiness even while he rebukes her with his words. She feels she's somehow unearthed something, trespassed into a space she wasn't meant to be and stuck gold, like the earrings she wore as a shinigami, like the pink paint she took from the human world. He doesn't seem bothered by her staring, though he doesn't meet her eyes, and for a moment Rem longs to stay like this, silently drinking in the details of this boy's world, a world that appears to be all his own, separate from the oversaturation and noise she's come to associate with the human realm. He doesn't interrupt her, completely still and with perfect posture, and she knows then that she was wrong in her initial assessment of him. This boy is better than Light Yagami, greater than Light Yagami, and if the gods fell for him it would only be natural, his effortless honesty making him worthy of it, with no need for deception or delicate maneuvering to make it happen. He emanates magnetism, seems almost composed of it, and it's a quality she thinks can't be taken from him, a fundamental of his being that makes him meant to walk this earth.

She tears her eyes away; too much, too much, and when she does he takes a step toward her and she finds herself breathless once more.

"Spend recess with me," he says, his right foot barely a few centimetres from hers, eyes full of intensity. She nods again, refusing to look away this time, and he remains for just a moment, holding her there in his world, before he moves back.

And then he smiles.

Muscles in his face relax, eyebrows lose their arch, his lips curve just barely upward, and he looks at her with a carefreeness she wouldn't have thought him capable of as the warm light of morning seems to envelop her from his face.

"Good," he says, motioning to a bench by one of the paths in the courtyard. "Should we sit? I think we'll like each other, Jihyun."

Rem knows he's right, and it's a strange feeling, unaccustomed to attention or her presence being wanted, and together they walk away from the towering wall.

Jumin becomes a fixture in her life with ease, occupying a place she didn't know existed and fitting perfectly into it. The two of them are silent more often than not, but it's a different sort of silence than that she shares with her family, a silence that's whole instead of hollow, a silence that's full like a sponge with water, and while she can't tell if she herself contributes anything to that completeness, she knows Jumin does with his overwhelming presence. They don't speak because there's no need for words, and when the words do come they are easy, unedited in their clunkiness, too big for either of them and their children's bodies. She's half-tempted to tell him her history, to ask if he was a god once too, but otherworldly as he seems Rem knows there's something irrevocably human about him, the very thing that drew the likes of herself and Gelus to this world in the first place.

Rem's searches for gods who'd become humans are mostly fruitless, references to human descent almost invariably linked to Christianity. Typing in Gelus's name does nothing either, the other apparently uninterested in making himself known to other former shinigami, if he's even here at all. It's possible that if he too became human then he's in a completely different time period than Rem is, or a different timeline altogether. And there's also a chance he didn't become a human in the first place.

It's much easier to find references to the opposite, the concept of humans that become gods, deification or apotheosis as the process is called. Humans appear to be fascinated by the idea, and Rem supposes she can understand what the allure of power and eternity could be to people who never had them within their grasp. She too might find it enthralling, were the power she had not the power of death, and were the eternity she had not dependent on it. Her parents never ask what she's searching for, so she never has to hide it, though she likely could if she wanted to because Jihyun apparently inherited her talent for going unnoticed, though not through any ability to be literally invisible. He slips in an out of places almost without a sound, and those just realizing he's entered the room remark that he surprises them with his quiet. She doesn't broach the subjects she searches for with Jumin, either, though he'd undoubtedly be interested in the concept of descent from godhood, but he's too sharp and too perceptive for Rem to fully trust he wouldn't put the entire picture together.

He starts inviting her to his house, and though Jihyun is allowed to invite over anyone he wants, he's also allowed to go any place he wishes, and Rem prefers to be at Jumin's. The other boy's house is full of invisible people; kitchen staff and housekeepers that Rem rarely sees, going about their obligations to maintain the orderliness of the place. Jumin doesn't think twice about it, and soon neither does Rem, the novelty of being seen both unnerving and difficult not to enjoy. Jumin listens to her, and Rem knows that if she ever asked him to make her a promise he wouldn't break it, possessing a degree of respect for her that's totally foreign to her life.

Jumin's father is rarely home, though his mother always is, and Jumin makes a point to correct Jihyun when he refers to her as such, firmly informing her that the woman living in his house is not his mother. Rem gives him a questioning look, less aware of human customs than she expected, and Jumin says he'll explain it another time.

Jumin's insistence that he and Jihyun be alone most of the time is no discomfort to her, used to adults taking little interest in her life. Even when their parents get together for dinner, Jumin prefers that the two of them take off on their own as soon as the meal is finished, circling the perimeter of his garden or sitting on the rug in his bedroom.

"I thought you were looking forward to having dinner together with your father," Rem comments, purposely not phrasing it as a question so the other doesn't feel obliged to respond. Jumin leans back against the footboard of his bed, so large it could probably swallow him.

"I was," he says, tracing circles on his kneecap. Even outside of school, Jumin dresses as if in uniform. Jihyun wears a t-shirt and jeans, though Rem isn't sure whether or not they're expensive. "But his girlfriend is with him, and I don't like her."

"Oh," Rem says, and suddenly everything makes sense. She wondered why the woman who appeared to be Mr. Han's wife was so young, but time spent with Kyosuke Higuchi should've told her that this was normal for businessmen. Jumin's father seems so kind, though, she wouldn't have thought to connect the two even in spite of them having the same occupation.

"Mm," Jumin acknowledges. She watches him for a moment, wondering if he wants to elaborate, but he says nothing more so she doesn't press him. Jumin's bedroom is nice, a bit oversized but so is Jihyun's. Everything from the wooden floors to the bed to the armchairs on either side of the table in the middle of the room are white, the only exception provided by a fish tank that sits on top of the table, the fish swimming inside reflecting the sunlight with vibrant colours.

It's quiet for a long time, and Rem wonders for a moment why Jumin sits on the floor when his room has armchairs and a window seat, and she's trying to decide if that's too impolite to ask when she feels a weight press against her arm, eyes widening as she realizes Jumin has shifted to lean on her, just slightly, his dark hair falling on Jihyun's shoulder. The touch is unexpected, accustomed to her only contact being Yunseo's hand firmly grasping Jihyun's when crossing the street or in a crowded place.

"Jumin?"

Jumin stiffens, and Rem regrets it for a moment as he raises his head ever so slightly, then seems to change his mind and leans on Jihyun again.

"You know," he says softly. Jihyun waits. "I've never had a friend before."

This isn't surprising. Jumin is young, has hardly had enough time in the world for it to be confusing that he hasn't made friends before, but the word puts Rem on alert.

"Friend?" she echoes, and Jumin shifts off of her shoulder to engage her in a serious look.

"That's what we are, right?" he asks, and though his voice is steely the question is sincere, searching her face with his silver eyes for answers. "Friends?"

Rem returns his eye contact and for once wonders if Jumin feels her presence as strongly as she feels his, because he averts his gaze slightly to look at her nose instead of her eyes. It's a word Rem hadn't considered for them before. Friends… the weight with which Jumin spoke the word makes sense now, though Jumin himself wouldn't be able to understand it. He's a young boy with the body of a delicate child, only a few short years into school. Rem is ancient, lived for centuries without ever having a single friend, the closest perhaps being Gelus, but even then it was she who was fascinated by him, the other shinigami sharing no similar interest in Rem or anyone other than the human girl he watched. That, of course, was natural. And Misa could hardly be called a friend, care for her as much as Rem did.

But him… Jumin Han. He seeks out Jihyun's presence, remembers things about him that Jihyun doesn't remember about himself, hangs onto his every word even when they're clumsily put together and say nothing of importance. He's unselfish, doesn't only care for Jihyun to the extent that Jihyun can be useful to him, whether as a willing sacrifice or a soundboard. Jumin is considerate of Rem, gives her special attention that even her parents don't give her. His eyes are the only place that Rem holds any significance—that Rem ever held any significance.

"Yes," she breathes, and Jumin watches her, unwavering. "I suppose we are."

Jumin slowly nods, then shifts again, replacing his head against her shoulder once more. Silence overtakes the air, the distant sound of parents' voices downstairs drifting into the room from behind the closed door.

"Let's stay this way," Jumin murmurs, and Rem can hear in his voice that this time it's not a command.

It's a plea.

"We will," she says.

She hopes he can hear in Jihyun's voice that it's a vow.

[girlmeetsminter]

if i could take the pain away (ksiolajidebt)

prompt: i wanted to start a preference series in which each boy reacts to you (the reader) being admitted into hospital. [3/7]

warnings: association to miscarriage ___________________________________________

i found myself laying down on the couch unable to function due to the shooting pains coming from the inside of my stomach.

my fiancé, soon to be husband stumbles out of his room having finished work for the day. “babe what are we going to make for dinner?” he brushes past me to enter our kitchen.

“whatever you want, i’m not hungry” i call out my response to him.

“princess” his tone warning. “it’s not good for you to be skipping meals.” jj’s back by my side leaning down to delicately place a kiss to my temple.

“i know but i had a big lunch, and anything i eat will come back up” i sigh.

“is this little one causing you trouble” he signals to my stomach which has a heat pack across it. he moves it to the side, so that he is able to place yet another gentle kiss to my swollen belly.

“i don’t know what’s wrong jide. if i wasn’t pregnant i would think i’m pms-ing judging by the cramps i’m getting.”

jj’s face dropped at my words and i instantly regretted voicing my opinion on the matter.

i was 12 weeks along with our little bubs and tomorrow we were going for our second ultrasound. the both of us were extremely excited, for after today we could start telling people about us expecting. we decided to hold off telling the fans of ksi for as long as possible, or at least until people started speculating.

never the less, no one could be more thrilled to be an expecting father than mr olatunji himself. i’m quite proud he’s lasted this long without having told anyone. especially since the moment i announced the pregnancy to him he wanted to ring simon or his mum at the very least. although i made him promise he wouldn’t say anything until i entered my second trimester, and true to his word he hasn’t.

“are you alright? do you need me to ring a doctor? take you to the hospital?” he said firing questions at me.

“jide, slow down! i’m sure this is normal, it’s not like my uterus hasn’t experienced pain before. we have an appointment at the hospital tomorrow and we can voice any concerns to them then. if it’ll make you feel better i’ll go eat something now.”

“that would make me feel a lot better, thank you.”

“okay now stop and catch your breath for a second would you?” i say whole heartily laughing at my concern fiancé. he puckers his lips slightly indirectly begging for me to kiss him.

i accept his request by leaning up and very quickly locking our lips in a quick peck. it’s clear that jj was dissatisfied with what i provided him with but i needed to eat something before his blood pressure went through the roof.

stepping past him i walk into the kitchen looking for a light snack for me and the baby to share. olajide follows closely behind me watching my every move from his position where he leans against the door frame.

“you know if i could take the pain away i would right?” he says sweetly.

“i know babe, but i’m fine i promise” i say as i teasingly pinch his cheeks. “i’m going to eat this quickly, take a shower and then head to bed. we have a long day ahead of us.”

-

my eyes snap open as the urge to pee rushes through me. it’s quite frustrating having only half the bladder i used too. but if that’s the price you have to pay for carrying a healthy little olatunji, i’ll take it.

i look over at the alarm clock sat neatly on my side table, the time reading 2AM. i silently slip from the bed and head to the bathroom praying i don’t wake up jide. i don’t need him stressing over me anymore for the night.

i complete what i set out to achieve and go to pull my shorts back and wash my hands.

but before i do, something stops me.

blood.

blood in my underwear, and blood seeping through my shorts.

my heart stops, as a single tear slips from my eye and slides down my cheek. a knock sounds at the bathroom door.

i pull up my shorts even though it’s inevitable that i tell him.

“princess are you okay in there?” his voice is laced with worry.

i can’t even respond. my voice has ran dry and my words get stuck in my throat.

“gorgeous, it’s just me. what’s wrong?”

my single tear very quickly turns into me violently sobbing in the bathroom alone, which can easily be heard on the other side of the thin walls.

“i’m coming in.”

jj opens the door and stops in his position taking in the sight of me. i don’t do anything except walk towards him so he is able to pull me into his embrace.

as he holds me in his arms i don’t utter a word. i can’t, my mind has gone straight to the worst and i don’t want to be the one to break it to him.

while attempting to comfort me, i notice jide suddenly choke from his calming words and his body tense up. he’s noticed, it’s not like i could hide it. my once blue and white striped pyjama shorts now occupied a very obvious stain in them.

“th-there, there’s blood.” i stop to gather my thoughts, “a lot of blood” i say once again crying into his shoulders. he holds me a little while longer still yet to say anything.

“come on let’s get you to the hospital. i’ll get you some clean clothes and whatever else you need. it’s going to be okay, it has to be” he says, although his tone doesn’t sound convincing.

i can’t bring myself to move, so jj leads me into our room. jj changes my underwear. jj puts a fresh pad on for me. and jj changes my pj’s into clean tracksuit pants. it may seem gross but in a state so broken, confused and in shock as what i’m in, he didn’t think twice.

the ride to the hospital was filled with my occasional hiccups and jide trying to reassure me everything’s going to be okay. his hand rested on my thigh, yet i couldn’t even feel his presence. my mind was set on one thing only.

“excuse me? hi” jide speaks to a nurse the second we arrive. “my fiancé needs to see a doctor or a midwife immediately” his expression seeming rushed.

“i’m going to need to ask you to remain calm sir” the lady working night shift responds. “may i ask what’s the problem?”

“she’s pregnant, and” he pauses processing what he’s about to say aloud. saying it, makes it real. so i can understand him waiting to clear the growing lump in his throat. “there was blood..”

she quickly caught on to what was left unsaid. “right right.” the woman took my details and directed us to where i would get an ultrasound. the ultrasound that i should have been getting later today. the scan that would enable us to start telling people about the bundle of joy that was growing inside me.

“i’m sorry jide, i know how excited you were about bubs. i’m sorry i may not be able to deliver what you’ve always wanted, but never realised until a few months ago. if you want to call off the wedding i understand” i tell him with glossy eyes.

“baby, baby no. i know there is a possibility that we’ve lost our baby and it breaks my heart. but i can’t lose you too. i refuse to lose you. no matter what happens, we hold on. we get through this, together. i love you.”

not once throughout the speech do we lose eye contact and when he mutters an ‘i love you’ i can tell he means it. “and i love you too. it’s just so hard to think we might lose something we might never actually had, you know?”

“i know gorgeous, but your strong. if i could take your pain and bare it all on me, just know that i would.”

“mr and mrs olatunji” my heart swells with the name the midwife mistakingly gave me. “i’m so sorry to hear what’s happened to the two of you” i feel olajide reach over from his chair to clasp my hand in his.

“i know that you’re both extremely worried, but know that not all incidents like yours end in miscarriage.”

she said it. the word that the both of us had been avoiding. in a way she knew that we had to face the facts and was probably just preparing us for the worst.

i laid back on the bed, shirt rolled up and fingers laced with those that belonged to my fiancé. it was time. the midwife began to spread the gel across my stomach and without realising it i held my breath. soon after the inside of my stomach appeared on her screen.

i let out the breath when i saw a tiny figure appear. i smiled momentarily to assure myself that my baby was still alive. “i’m going to look for its heart beat now” she says dragging my thoughts back into a negative way.

i glanced at jj, his face had drained of any colour due to his nerves. i glanced down to our interlocked hands and gave his a quick squeeze for reassurance. his eyes trailed from the screen, to my stomach, to our hands and then into my eyes. i gave him the smallest of smiles and he returned one.

“as you can see here” the midwife said interrupting our moment. “your baby has a very healthy sounding heart beat, 10 fingers, 10 toes. all is normal” she smiled towards the two of us.

“oh my god” i say in relief as jj hops up from his seat and begins peppering my face in kisses.

“i love you” he repeats over and over between kisses.

“babe, sit down for a second. it’s not over yet” i instruct him while turning back over to the nurse. “so can you maybe explain why i was bleeding earlier, and whether it affects our baby.”

“well it’s quite common for a woman who is pregnant in their first trimester to experience something similar to their period. obviously as your pregnant you don’t actually have a period but you may have experienced the same feelings you would when menstruating. we generally refer to it as breakthrough bleeding. the hormones that come with being pregnant are what stop your body from having a period. due to your hormones not being high enough just yet, you’ve experienced breakthrough bleeding. after 3 months the placenta begins to take over the hormone production in your ovaries to stop it from happening again.”

“wow! so our baby is actually okay?” i utter in relief.

“well and truely, obviously we’re going to have to keep a close eye on your pregnancy and have regular check ups. but as of now your baby is healthy and growing. we’re going to need you to stay over night so we can give you some scans tomorrow to be sure of course.”

she printed off our ultrasound photos and directed us to an over night room informing me she’d see me tomorrow at some point.

i had been given a patient’s bed to sleep in, mean while jide had a small blow out mattress for the floor as she figured he wouldn’t want to leave my side. he began to blow it up when i stopped him.

“don’t be silly, you can share with me?”

“are you sure baby? you need to rest.”

“of course i’m sure. besides i don’t want to leave me” i said shifting over to make space for him. he slid in under the thin blanket pulling me into his side kissing my forehead.

“i would never think about leaving you my angel. i’m so grateful for you, our baby, our lives together and all the people that love us” he whispers into my ear. “i can’t wait to tell them.” i hummed in response showing i agreed. “no i’m being serious, i actually can’t wait any longer.”

he reaches for his phone and dialling someone’s number.

“hello?” i tried to listen to who he was talking to, while picking up his half of the conversation. “yeah, um can you ring around to all the guys and ask them to meet us in a few hours? y/n’s in hospital” he smiled down at me while the person responds.

“no, no everything’s fine…i promise! just get here soon i have some news…i love you too bye.” he glances down, and without me saying anything he knows what i’m about to ask. “it was simon. i told him to get all the guys to meet us at the hospital later on. i couldn’t wait any longer to tell them, especially after we thought we lost it” a sheepish smile on his face.

“i’m not angry, i’m actually really excited to tell them. but for now i’m going to get some more sleep, wake me up when they get here.”

-

voices fill the room around me, and even with my eyes closed i can tell exactly who they belong too.

“sweet heart” jj’s gentle voice sounds in my ear as his hand very lightly attempts to shake me awake. “you have visitors.”

very slowly do i open my eyes so that they can adjust to my surroundings. as i look around me a grin grows on my lips.

“y/n what’s wrong?” josh asks evidently worried as he wraps an arm around a glowing freya, who also happened to be pregnant.

“yeah are you okay? jide wouldn’t tell us on the phone why we all had to rush to the hospital at 5am” simon said taking my hand reassuringly.

i had gone to high school with both simon and jj. so it’s fair to say they both cared for me a lot me a lot more than the rest of the boys ever would, just in different ways of course.

“yeah i only just went to bed an hour ago” ethan yawns making me feel guilty.

“i’m fine si” i firmly state to him while looking up to him to show that i mean it. “and i’m sorry ethan, and to the rest of you’s for being dragged here so early. when my fiancé said he couldn’t wait any longer to tell you the news, i figured he’d at least wait until a decent hour in the morning” i add while jj gives me another sheepish grin.

“to be fair, he did say in a few hours. but when i heard you were in hospital i knew we couldn’t wait” simon says while scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

“so i’m confused, is this good news then? you don’t seem to be upset” harry asks with a puzzled look etched onto his face.

“as far as we are aware, it’s all good news for now. but we wanted to announce..” i pause to release my hand from simon’s and clasp it with my fiancé’s. “that we are having a little baby olatunji!”

the room is filled with congratulations and hugs all round. excitement buzzes through everyone making us all forget why we were in the hospital.

no doubt they all had questions, and it was a story i was bound to tell them all in an hour. but for now, i thanked my lucky stars that my little baby is alive and healthy, and that baby bradley will have a little friend.

[maizasaif]

Peter lost his ability to speak after a stroke four years ago, at the age of 73. But earlier this year he woke up one morning and suddenly he could speak again. Soon afterwards he discovered he'd had another stroke. Could the second stroke have returned his speech?

The day that Peter regained his speech, he was on holiday in Devon with his family.

"I woke up as usual. Carol was on the other side of the bed. I stood up and spoke to her, but it didn't feel weird. It felt like I was talking to my wife - like the most natural thing to do.

"I kept talking to her, and her mouth just dropped open. She said, 'Pete, you're speaking!'"

"I was going: 'Come on! Don't stop! Don't stop! Don't stop because it might go away again. Keep going, keep going!'" remembers Carol.

Their son, Jonathan, who was in the next room, heard two people having a conversation and came rushing in. "What's going on, Mum?" he said. "I thought your voice had dropped! Who is that deep voice?"

"I said, 'It's your father speaking!'" says Carol. "We all started crying and laughing at the same time. It was very emotional because it had been so long."

It was such a shock, nobody can remember what Peter's first words in four years were.

"Carol wasn't interested in what I said, she was more interested in the fact that I was talking," says Peter.

Find out more

Peter and Carol spoke to Dr Mark Porter on Inside Health on BBC Radio 4

Listen to their interview here

They all went out to celebrate, but Carol soon noticed that the left-hand side of Peter's mouth was drooping. Later in the day he complained of weakness in his legs - he had difficulty walking, and his son Jonathan had to hold him up.

They took a taxi to the nearest hospital where a scan suggested he'd had another stroke. Fortunately, however, the negative effects were only temporary. Peter's mouth stopped drooping and his legs returned to normal. And months later, he's still talking.

The couple are convinced that this second stroke somehow "dislodged" something in Peter's brain - something that had stopped him talking after the first stroke.

However, Alex Leff, a professor of cognitive neurology and an expert in the recovery of language after stroke and brain injury, offers little support for this theory. He says you can think of the brain as a network, and of a stroke as an event that "takes out" some of the language nodes. In many cases, patients "reroute some of the language functions using what is remaining in the brain", he says - but when they have had severe language problems, like Peter, this tends to be a slow process, not a sudden one.

The case is "certainly very unusual", he says.

Aphasia

Aphasia is the technical term for the difficulties with language or speech that a person may experience after a stroke, or other brain injury

There are several different types

With Broca's aphasia (or non-fluent aphasia) speech is limited mainly to utterances of less than four words, which take a lot of effort to produce - the person may understand speech well, and be able to read, but is usually limited in writing

People who have anomic aphasia experience a persistent inability to find the words for the things they want to talk or write about, particularly the significant nouns and verbs - they understand speech well and usually read adequately

Peter, on the other hand, had no problems with reading or writing during the four years he could not speak

Sources: National Aphasia Association, NHS

Carol was with Peter when he had his first stroke. They had been out, but Peter hadn't been feeling well, so Carol was driving them back to their Gloucestershire home.

"I asked him for the time and he didn't answer me," says Carol. "I asked him again. I just sensed that something was wrong. When you live with somebody and have been married 52 years you know everything, don't you?"

Afterwards, over a period of weeks, Peter gradually felt his ability to speak fade away.

"I found it more and more difficult to have a proper conversation," he says. "Words were difficult to find, I couldn't get any flow to sentences. The words were coming out staccato-like.

"In the end it felt almost impossible to speak. I could only say 'Yes' and 'No' and occasionally a very short phrase. That was the best I could do."

I always knew exactly what was going on - being unable to converse with people is the worst

Carol found it heartbreaking to see her husband, a retired engineer who she describes as a "clever and eloquent man", unable to speak. The whole family shared her distress.

Their daughter, Jane, admitted to her mother, "I really miss Dad."

Carol told her, "Well, he's not dead, he's not gone away. It's awful for us, but it's dreadful for him - and that's what you've got to remember."

Despite being unable to form words, Peter says that he was always able to understand everyone's conversation.

"I always knew exactly what was going on around me, so I was completely aware - but being unable to converse with people is the worst," he says.

The couple perfected a system to communicate with each other. Carol would ask yes/no questions and Peter would respond with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down gesture. He also carried round a pencil and pad, writing down what he wanted to say.

"We got by very well," he says.

"We made light of it," Carol adds. "Well, we've got to carry on, we're getting old. You expect something to happen."

Peter has a strong interest in photography, so if they went to a camera shop and he wanted to ask a technical question he would write it down in advance.

Sometimes Carol would explain the need for this unusual form of communication.

"I would tell them, 'My husband's had a stroke. He can't speak so he's written down a question for you.'"

During his silent years Peter would often spend the day reading or working on mathematical modelling. Carol remembers that he was always scribbling algorithms and equations in notebooks. "It kept him quite busy actually."

Peter says the relief of being able to speak again is overwhelming. He gets tearful about it.

"Being able to communicate with other people is almost all of being a human being," he says. "When that goes, it's a big part of you gone and my family felt that I had sort of disappeared. You can't really convey emotion with 'Yes' and 'No'."

He loves an argument, he could argue with an empty room

They tried to include him in the conversation, and make him laugh, but it wasn't the same, he says.

The most challenging part was listening to people say things that he didn't agree with.

"I found it particularly frustrating when people were arguing about something and I couldn't respond in the conversation - it was like losing every argument," Peter says.

"It's nice to be able to argue again and make myself a nuisance."

His first big debate was about Brexit with friends. "They said to me, 'Oh, I'm glad you're back!'"

Carol chips in: "Oh he loves an argument, he could argue with an empty room."

Peter's speech is near-perfect now, apart from some slurring when he gets tired in the evenings. But everyone has remarked on how his accent has changed.

"People say that I am speaking a bit posh now," he says.

"I tell them that I'd always been a bit posh really, but I'd tried to hide it from them."

Banter and friendly bickering is clearly a big part of Peter's relationship with Carol.

She admits that she got so used to speaking for him that she's now having to adapt to him piping up again.

"It's a habit," she says. "When we were at the hospital I kept talking for him. I've got to learn to shut up and button it. I have had a bit of a monopoly the past few years."

On the day he could suddenly speak again, Peter looked pointedly at the nurse and said, "I think Carol is going to regret this."

"At times, I do," she admits. "I told you to be quiet the other day, you've done nothing but natter."

But both of them worry he may lose his new-found ability again.

"It's such a delicately balanced thing," says Peter, ever the engineer.

"It's like a watch that's been knocked with a hammer and come back, and it could have another knock and go away - like a bad contact."

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