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dontcallmecarrie · 3 years

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continuation of this, because why not:

“Oh, this is fun,” Loki hadn’t realized just how irritating his voice could get until now, was this why the Soldier kept throwing knives at him?

“I am only dragging you along because our interests align for now, do not expect this to continue.” He snapped over his shoulder, keeping an eye out for any potential attack even as the alarms continued to blare. He was lucky his counterpart was in such poor shape; had he even had a fraction of his usual power available, this entire enterprise would be much, much more difficult.

As it was, Loki was faintly impressed his counterpart had accomplished as much as he had when he was running on fumes. When he wasn’t sneering at the sloppiness of his plans, anyway. Magical compulsion or no, what kind of idiot went and paraded about proclaiming their intentions for subjugation?

“Come now. Do you honestly expect me to believe this isn’t to your advantage? Unleashing double the chaos.”

It was a pity breaking the magical compulsion had done nothing for his counterpart’s mental state. On a number of levels— he was a stone’s throw away from madness, all jagged pieces aimed outwards and it was uncomfortable to look at for too long for reasons Loki preferred not to dwell upon.

Well. At least he could use it to his advantage.

Victor was not a happy camper.

First had been the discovery that, as he’d suspected, that damn gun had landed him in another universe.

Second, said universe was quite possibly his worst nightmare.

Because his country didn’t exist, hadn’t existed for decades now: the Latverian civil war in this world had decimated its people in more ways than could be named, neighboring countries had snapped up just about every scrap of territory his men had fought and died for and goddamn HYDRA was using war orphans for their experiments.

...had he been a bit hasty when he’d taken out the first base he’d encountered? Sure. Sorting out the logistics for taking care of all the victims he’d encountered was a major pain in the neck, and this accelerated his plans for establishing himself in ways he hadn’t entirely expected. Klaue was as annoying as ever, and, if possible, even more of an arrogant bastard to deal with in this strange world.

Did Victor regret it? Absolutely not.

Especially when it resulted in his encountering his first ally in this hellscape.

...though this ‘involuntary twin’ thing would get old fast, he just knew it.

“Hello, Winter.” Victor greeted with a smile. “Looks like you’ve been busy, too.”

The Winter Soldier could not believe that Justin’s stupid self-help books had been good for something, but here they were.

Him, and the poor bastard who shared his face and was now stuck in that incredibly awkward stage between ‘living weapon approximately three seconds from Murder’ and ‘going through deprogramming’, smack-dab in the middle of what had used to be a HYDRA stronghold but was now a bloodbath because somewhere in between fighting himself, and everyone else coming at them, the other Winter Soldier had started breaking through his programming.

He hadn’t realized just how much progress he’d made, until now.

“What do you want me to call you?” He asked again with a tired sigh.

“The Asset does not nee—”

“Oh, fuck no. Pick something else, you’re a human being, you have value.” ...goddamn it, he sounded just like Justin.

Ugh. Justin could never, ever know, he’d never let him live it down...okay, the worst part is that he would, not that the idiot with a death wish needed any encouraging when it came to this sort of thing.

The man’d had a knife to the neck, and still offered him food, offered him help. The Winter Soldier gave his counterpart a dubious glance, and fought back a shudder.

As much as he sympathized with the guy— he’d been there, literally— the idea gave him chills.

Though...he could almost see it, now. If he squinted, he could see the tiniest speck of self-determination that HYDRA had tried its best to crush into oblivion, the ghost of a hint of personality in the twitch of his right hand, the way his left hand curled.

“Right, okay.” He sighed. Again. He probably sounded like a goddamn teakettle, but fuck it, he was at the end of his rope here, dealing with people was Justin’s thing, he was much better at punching people. “If you’re anything like me, you’re going to have some serious migraines in the next few months, and no, aspirin doesn’t do shit. You have questions, means your personality’s coming back up which is good... oh, you’ll probably want to stick around for answers because I’m about as confused as you are.”

Because this is what happened the one (1) time he tried to be nice and check up on Justin’s friend group. He could’ve been chasing down that lead in Argentina, but no, he was stuck here instead.

Ugh.

Ivan was running on spite, caffeine, and not much else.

Living on the streets was a pain in the ass, exacerbated by the fact that he was apparently supposed to be dead and...buried? Cremated? He wasn’t entirely sure, none of the sources he’d found had been able to specify and to be completely honest, he hadn’t tried too hard to look.

Just seeing his own name in the articles had been disturbing enough, the realization that a version of him had apparently gone through with his suicidal plot was...something. Not great. His vodka stash back home was going to take a hit as soon as he got back.

As disturbing as reading his own death had been, it’d still been no match for what he’d been able to find on the man who’d given him another reason to live.

Because this world’s Justin Hammer was still alive and well, and locked up in an unspecified supermax for the foreseeable future, and...

An incompetent idiot with far more money than brains, apparently.

Which was so far from the man he knew it was hilarious, because Justin’s charisma had been enough to get a dictator of a sovereign nation wrapped around his finger without even trying, had the boogeyman of the intelligence world on speed-dial and an alien god as his bodyguard-slash-PA. He was untouchable on a number of levels, so when Ivan had first read that article?

He hadn’t believed it, at first.

Had been certain it was an imposter, and while he probably should’ve spent that time researching how to get back home, he’d instead ended up down a rabbit hole of what kind of man Justin Hammer was in this world.

Call it morbid curiosity, or whatever— but Ivan had to know.

It wasn’t like he was making much progress on his own, anyway, not when his resources were staggeringly limited.

And then.

A sleek car pulled up by the overpass where he’d been sleeping, and the window rolled down to reveal a face Ivan was inordinately glad to see.

“Get in loser, we’re going shopping.” Loki called, and Ivan didn’t even question why there were two of him. Or why his twin looked like a grad student during finals week.

“Mean Girls? Really?”

“He was correct in calling it a classic.” Loki replied with a haughty sniff as he pulled away from the curb. “Besides— from what I’ve seen, I also know more about this world’s culture than their Captain.”

His twin looked lost, as he stared between them both and whoops, that was probably a terrible first impression. “Is this one of your allies?”

“Yes.” Ivan said, even as Loki spoke.

“When he’s not blasting us all to other dimensions, certainly.”

“It was an accident!”

It was a good thing Loki had so much practice driving, because he would have gotten very nervous by the way their eyes met in the rearview mirror otherwise. “Oh, I know. I’ve told you—”

“There is no innovation without risk—” Ivan defended, only for Loki to snort.

“Have fun explaining that to Victor.”

Ivan froze for a moment, breath stilling in his throat. On a good day, Victor was the epitome of a type-A personality...

“He’s here too?”

“Oh, yes. Not sure where exactly, but how do you think we found you?”

“If you say magic—”

“Are all your allies mortals?” Loki’s twin asked with just the slightest hint of a sneer, and just like that all levity was gone and Ivan didn’t even need to meet Loki’s gaze to know his answer.

“If you have a problem with that, feel free to leave. Right now.”

“Come now—”

“Ivan here blasted us all across space and time, without tearing open any paradoxes or destroying any timelines, entirely by accident. Victor? Is the ruler of a sovereign nation feared and respected throughout the realm. I do not know your approach to such things here, but any insult to my allies is an insult to me.”

Ivan...probably shouldn’t have been too surprised to discover that Victor had not only amassed a following of rabidly loyal minions, but also managed to meet up with the Winter Soldier. Er... two Winter Soldiers.

Man, this was going to feature in his nightmares for months.

“Where’s Justin?” Was the very first thing Victor said upon seeing them, and he cringed as the rest traded looks because of course the one who’d introduced them to each other was the missing link now. Justin was hands-down everyone’s favorite, and if Ivan was stuck being the one to break it to them after having spent hours hacking just to get a name?

Man, this was not going to be pretty.

“First, you have to promise not to get mad.”

“What.”

Ivan told them.

...suffice it is to say, nobody was happy to hear the answer.

“Okay then.” Victor said, face impassive save for the way his eyes gleamed. “It’s been a while since I did a prison break, anyway.”

#No Hero [Downward Descending]#My writing #schrodinger's canon

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castielcommunism · 3 years

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Hiii this is off topic for you blog but you’re in grad school right? Do you have any tips for people applying about writing letters of application?

I am in grad school! I have no clue how grad apps work in any other country except for Canada, but I assume it’s generally similar in the US and maaaaybe the UK. So just fair warning on that.

I had to contact supervisors via email before even beginning the formal application process (they’ll tell you this on the school website if you need to do this). This can be kinda intimidating if the department is large or you’re unsure of who to contact, but they almost always have blurbs about their research areas and list relevant papers they’ve published. If you have any profs from undergrad that you trust/know well/respect/etc, it might be good to reach out to them and ask if they know any of the faculty there. Supervisors are very important and your relationship with them needs to be good. I HIGHLY recommend looking at profs’ profile pages and seeing how many grad students (Masters and PhD) they’ve graduated as a starting point. If there are really large gaps in between graduation periods or they haven’t graduated many grad students despite being established profs, that is a very big red flag and you should avoid them (I cannot stress this enough lol). especially pay attention to how many PhD students they’ve successfully graduated even if you’re only applying to Masters. Also, you can reach out to past grad students they’ve taken on and ask them about their experiences with that prof.

As for writing - I’ve only ever had to write research proposals for grad apps, not letters of intent (I’ve also applied only to research/thesis based graduate programs, not course based, so the requirements might be different), so this advice may or may not be helpful. In my experience and from what professors have told me, the sample writing you provide is just to prove that you’re capable of writing in academic language and can approach a research topic with a critical eye. It doesn’t (generally) need to be citation heavy or super specific, and you’re also not beholden to that research topic if you’re accepted. Usually you figure out how to write the proposal based on conversations you have with prospective supervisors, and a lot of them will offer to send you examples of research proposals. For the schools your applying to, I would google “(School) example letter grad application” and helpful templates/examples generally pop up.

It’s a super complicated and stressful process, so give yourself lots of time and be very mindful of deadlines. I started applications in October even though the deadlines are in February. The two things that take up the most time in my experience are contacting references to get letters of recommendation, and meeting with profs to ask them to supervise you. The first dude I emailed rejected me immediately so don’t feel bad if they say no lol.

#asks #no idea if any of that is helpful but I hope that helps!!

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gabby297 · 3 years

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Saudade - Chapter 1.

||Prologue||

Summary: "Saudade" - A nostalgic longing for a person or thing that was loved once, but is now lost.

Helmut Zemo's life was forever changed when the Avengers picked his country as a personal playground to fight their own creations. He would never regain the pieces of his life where he was a husband and a father of two. But the existence of new Super Soldiers might just bring him closer to that life he once had than he ever thought was possible. Madripoor holds secrets that even Baron Zemo does not know about.

Word Count: 6.2k

Helmut led them deeper into the garage where his personal collection was stored. Flicking the lights on, he was met with a couple of rows of his favourite antique cars. Just like he left them years ago. It wasn't all of his collection, the remaining couple of dozen were hidden away in other parts of the world. He made a mental note to thank to whoever kept the place cleaned and the cars taken care of. From an initial glance, all of them were spotless, just how he liked them.

"So our first move is grand theft auto?" Sam asked, crossing his arms the moment the light came on.

"These are mine. Collected by the family over the generations." Helmut explained as he pulled open the lid of the trunk. Some of the cars dated back all the way to pre-WW2. He could still remember his father showing him the collection when he was a young man himself. It was a tradition of a sort, in their family. A tradition that he carried on with Nic and was planning to do with Carl once he was older. Years down the line, the same cars, amongst others, were going to be split and passed down equally between them. Now, they would forever be in his collection. He supposed the traditions along with the family name would end with him.

Helmut glanced down at the trunk of the 1946 Packard Clipper that was filled with weapons, knives, and ammunition. He scanned through them all, considering what to take. Some of it will be useful, especially the ones that he could conceal easily. Hearing the doors of other cars being opened, he tilted his head towards Sam and James but refrained from making a comment. Sam chuckled from somewhere behind Helmut, making him turn to him. Sam pulled back from the 1934 Packard Twelve Series 1106 that he was checking out.

"Hey Zemo," He called out, grinning at whatever he was holding in his hand. "Have been secretly a fan-boy all along and were pissed we didn't invite you to hang out?"

"May I?" Helmut asked as he extended his hand. He had a suspicion of what it was already but wanted to see it himself.

"You should keep it. Really brings out your good side." Sam bit out sarcastically and lightly threw it across the couple of feet that were between them.

Helmut caught it easily and opened his palm to see a scratched-up keychain of Iron-Man's helmet. It was light, made of cheap metal, with nearly reflective orange and red paint.

"Huh," he muttered lowly, turning it around a couple of times. The key chain was an old, cheap trinket. He couldn't even remember where Carl picked it up. Their city wasn't exactly in support of Iron man even before the Ultron mess so he doubted it was in Novi Grad. "It belonged to my son. My eldest stole it from him, she liked to do that when they were fighting. I imagine there was another fight over the fact that she lost it."

"Put it away before you lose it," Helmut told her the moment he noticed it dangling from her pocket. "What is it with you and stealing Carl's things?"

"I'm not going to lose it." Nic rolled her eyes and grabbed it. Throwing it to the holder inside the car door she turned to him. "See?"

"Hold up," Sam cut in, pulling Helmut's attention back to him. "You have kids?"

"Had, until your friends showed up. Why does this surprise you? I had a life outside of work." Helmut asked as he ran his thumb across the keychain before putting it into his pocket. It held no value or use, just a small sentimental trinket, he should throw it out.

"Don't get sassy with me, man. If you drop a bomb on us like this, I'm gonna have questions." Sam rolled his eyes, shutting the door harder than it was necessary. Rude.

"As we all do I imagine. Curiosity is wired into our genes after all-"

"Not the time." James interrupted their conversation.

"Right, as I was saying," Helmut cleared his throat and went over to the yellow 1934 SS1 Jaguar where he knew he stored his coat. It was a nice coat. Warm, great quality leather with soft fur around the neck. Ivana loved to steal it and drop it over her shoulders the moment he looked away even for a second. No matter how many times he offered to get her one as well, she would just roll her eyes at him and stick her arms inside it as if to prove the point that it was already hers. It was funny how much it would engulf her, he wouldn't be able to protest for too long even if it ended up in him freezing his ass off at times. He blinked. "I spent years hunting people HYDRA recruited to recreate the serum. Because once it's out there, someone can create an army of people… like the Avengers."

Helmut placed the coat on top of the car, making sure it wouldn't fall to the dirty ground. Trying to keep his expression neutral as a wave of bitterness washed over him, he bent down to retrieve a bag from the inside. Once the coat was removed, on the green leather of the car seat, his old, purple mask stared back at him. He paused, having forgotten that he threw it here the last time he drove the car.

Nic made a face as she lifted the mask up and took a look at it. He had stored it away in the compartment box but Nic made her way inside it to snoop around.

"You don't like it?" He raised his eyebrow, pulling out of the garage and into the traffic. He promised to bring her to the Zoo couple of days prior and they were meant to return back home the next day. So begrudgingly, he found a couple of hours in the day when he could bring her, even though they went there not even half a year ago for her thirteenth birthday.

"It's…um…very purple."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Why is it so purple?"

"I think you just don't appreciate fashion." He accused her teasingly.

"You call this fashion?" She shot back.

" I let you sit in the front of the car with me and this is what I get in return?" Helmut feigned the hurt in his voice. "Being bullied by my own daughter."

Nic snorted and pulled it over her head. She pulled down the sun visor to see how she looked before turning to him. He wasn't surprised in the least to see that it was way too big for her. The holes for the eyes and mouth were too low and covered her vision instead.

"You're going to be grounded if I find any makeup stains inside it." He threatened and moved his hand from the gearbox to pull the mask off her head. For the life of him, he couldn't understand why she was already putting it on her face. Throwing it behind him to the back, he ruffled her hair even more, causing her to cry out and swat his hand away.

Swallowing, Helmut reached for the mask. His hand lingered on the soft material for a moment. Clicking his tongue, he grasped it tighter and pushed it inside the bag. It will be useful if they ran into trouble and he needed to stay out of the public eye. Nothing else. They really needed to get a move on. The familiarity of the place was making all the memories that he had no time or energy for to come back.

"I ended the Winter Soldier program once before. I have no intention to leave my work unfinished." Helmut asserted, taking the coat and dropping it over his forearm. With the bag in hand, he walked back to the 1946 Packard Clipper.

"To do this, we'll have to scale a ladder of lowlifes." He explained as he filled up the bag with a couple of knives, handguns, and few boxes of rounds.

"Well, join the party. We've already started." Sam remarked from behind him. He was the jokester amongst them, Helmut thought but ignored his comment.

"First stop is a woman named Selby. Mid-level fence I still have a line on. From there, we climb." He added.

Once he was by the door, Helmut placed the bag on the floor and turned back to his 'team-mates'.

"Stay here." He ordered them, not particularly wanting them to go around and explore the rest of the building.

"Where are you going?" Sam demanded to know, ready to leap into a fight.

"To change, Sam," Helmut smirked and made a point to look down at his police uniform. "I would offer you to join, but I must say I was a married man and I don't break my vows."

"Just hurry up," Sam grunted disgusted at the image Helmut must have created in his brain.

Helmut did not hurry up. In fact, he took his sweet time in choosing his outfit. The upper level of the garage was converted into a somewhat livable space if it ever came to that. Ignoring the spare bedroom, he went straight to the room that acted as a walk-in wardrobe. After going through the options, he ended up settling on a pair of black slacks and a dark purple turtle neck that was loose enough to conceal the Kevlar bulletproof vest underneath.

"My, my." Ivana grinned, coming into their bathroom and leaning against the door frame while he was buttoning up his shirt. "Don't you look charming tonight?"

"Are you sure your opinion is not swayed by the fact that you got me the shirt?" Helmut raised his eyebrow as he watched her through the mirror.

"Of course not, Helmut," She rolled her eyes playfully, coming in further and wrapping her arms around his neck from behind. "But I gotta say, purple is your colour."

He hummed and tilted his head against her cheek as he finished the buttons, leaving the top two unbuttoned. She leaned in and placed her lips on his earlobe, nibbling it lightly.

"Brings out your eyes," She breathed into his ear, making him shiver.

"Honey," He grinned and turned around to wrap his arms around her and pull her closer until she was pressed firmly against his chest. He leaned in, pressing their lips together for the briefest moment. "If you keep this up, we won't leave this bathroom."

"Doesn't sound half bad to me," She quipped and grabbed his shirt to tug him back, deepening the kiss.

"Daddy!" Carl called out all the way from the bottom of the stairs, interrupting them. At the age of five, he possessed the power to scream down the house when he wanted something. "The TV stopped!"

"Duty calls," he half groaned out and stole another quick kiss, not wanting to leave just yet. "You nearly ready?"

"More ready than you."

Helmut blinked the memory away as he put the razor back in its place and looked at himself in the mirror. With a clean shaved face and back in his regular clothes, he looked half decent. Almost like he didn't spend years rotting away in a cell with nothing but books. Almost like he was presentable enough to go home. Except there was no one to greet him there now. Sighing, he grabbed his gloves from the sink counter and shut the light off on his way.

"Really? You couldn't have taken any longer?" James asked exasperated the moment he reappeared. To his surprise, they seemed to have listened and stayed where he ordered them to.

"I certainly could have, but unfortunately we have a plane to catch." Grabbing his bag and coat, he opened the door and threw them into the back.

"How you plan to get all this through the security? Not to mention that you're a runaway criminal?" Sam quizzed as he side-stepped quicker than usual to get to the front seat.

"I have my ways, you'll see," Helmut responded and pressed the button to open the garage door. Sitting down behind the wheel felt nice. He had to admit, he missed driving.

Once on the road, the car fell into silence for a few moments with the radio playing quietly, before Sam ruined it by opening his mouth.

"So what? You took your kids on your little killing sprees?"

"Killing sprees, as you call it, involve a great amount of waiting around. We went sightseeing, mostly. Sometimes shopping." Helmut entertained his idiotic question as he sped up, darting in between the traffic. He smiled smugly catching James' eye-roll in the back mirror.

From their expressions, Helmut gathered that both Sam and James did not expect him to bring them into a small airport forty minutes outside the city and waltz through it like he owned it. The workers that noticed them simply nodded their heads in greeting and minded their business.

"So all this time you've been rich?" Sam asked, surprise evident in his voice as the three of them made their way towards a private jet that was parked on the runway.

"I'm a Baron, Sam. My family was royalty until your friends destroyed my country." Helmut explained as they walked past the plane's wing.

Oeznik was waiting for them by the stairs. Helmut smiled, genuinely happy to see his most loyal friend. The man was in his life as long as he could remember and he was there by his side when Nic and Carl were born, watching them over while he was away. Helmut owed him a debt that he could never repay.

"Hello, Oeznik." Helmut greeted him in Russian the moment he was close enough to be heard over the engine. Oeznik was the one who sat him through hours of Russian lessons many years ago. It was only fair that he would greet him in it.

"Welcome, gentlemen." Oeznik greeted them back in Russian, causing Helmut to grin wider. While James knew Russian better than anyone, Helmut wasn't sure if Sam did.

"Old friend." Helmut embraced him and kissed both of his cheeks. It had been too long. Nodding to him, Helmut turned to James and Sam. Partly to get them on the plane, and partially because he couldn't look at the man for too long, not when he was looking at him with such adoration. Like he was truly happy to see him. It felt wrong. Undeserving. It made his skin crawl.

"Please." Helmut invited them in and boarded the plane. It was one of the smaller jet's that belonged to him; a six-seater with a small gallery. Perfect for quick travel.

While Sam and Bucky got comfortable in their seats, Helmut took a moment to go through the gallery in hopes of finding something that would pass the time between taking off and reaching the optimal altitude. He wasn't a fan of how rocky the first part of the journey tended to be. Helmut could already hear them going back and forth between each other. Finding a book, he pulled out a small red notebook from his coat's pocket. He nicked it, mostly out of curiosity, from James when he wasn't paying attention. He was sure it would also help to understand where the soldier's mind was at currently. After having his memory scrambled for decades, he was bound to be desperate to write down anything important, in fears of forgetting it. It was only logical.

Putting it in the middle of the book, he returned to the cabin and picked a seat near Sam, so that he could have a viewpoint advantage to watch James. He took a look at him for a moment before opening the book and feigning his interest in it. The former Winter soldier had no idea that he lost something. Perhaps James was trying to suppress anything that had to do with the Winter Soldier, including his heightened senses.

Once they were airborne, Oeznik returned with a glass of champagne for him. Helmut chuckled softly and reached out for it, crossing his legs as he leaned back into his chair.

"Apologies if that's a little warm, the fridge is out. But I will see if there is some good food in the galley."

"If it doesn't pass the smell test… give it to them," Helmut suggested in Sokovian, tilting his head towards them, to give just enough suspicion that he was saying something about them. It was fun, getting under their skin. Besides, it wasn't likely that they would tell a difference even if they took the offer of food which he doubted they would. Probably would believe that he was trying to poison them.

"It's good to have you back, sir." Oeznik chuckled with affection in his voice and returned back to the gallery. Helmut tilted his glass before taking a sip, hoping to wash away the heaviness in his stomach that formed. He could think of a couple of things that would be better than him to have back.

"You don't know what it's like to be locked in a cell. Oh. That's right. You do." He couldn't help but deliver the dig, even at the expense of setting their 'friendship' a step backward. He wanted to acknowledge Sam's time in the RAFT, of the time that he was a prisoner just like himself. That they had something in common, not just an enemy. Also to hint that he kept up with the news, that he knew of their actions and steps, even all the way from a prison cell.

"Why don't you tell us about where we're going?" For what it's worth, Helmut had to give a point to Sam for not falling for the most basic bait.

Helmut instead of answering picked up his book and flicked through the notebook, settling on a list. He paused for a second. He was familiar with the names on it. After spending over a year learning everything there was about James' time as the Winter Soldier, he had Black widow to thank for making his job easier, he understood the meaning behind them. What took him by surprise was to see his own name amongst them.

"I'm sorry. I was just fascinated by this." Helmut changed the subject, concentrating on one name that he didn't recognize. Nakajima was circled a couple of times, most likely the most important name on the list. However, he never came across of a Nakajima in James' files. "I don't know what to call it, but this part seems to be important. Who is Nakajima?"

James jumped from his seat and within a second, had the vibranium arm around his throat. The suddenness did catch him off guard, causing him to exhale sharply but he wasn't scared. The grip was tight, in a way that was meant to send a message, not to actually cause harm. Besides, why would you be scared of a thing you craved in the dead of night? Death wasn't something that could be used against him, not when he welcomed it years ago.

Helmut maintained eye contact, almost daring him to go further. To prove his point. That was what the serum did to people. Edged them towards extremes, and James Barnes was as extreme as one could get. A man-made killing machine.

"If you touch that again, I'll kill you." James declared, with a calmness in his voice that only people who had their hands dirty could muster. Touchy subject then. He yanked the notebook out of his hands and only then released his grip.

"I'm sorry," Helmut apologized, his voice sounding hoarser from the strain it just experienced. "I understand that list of names. People you've wronged as the Winter Soldier."'But why is my name important enough to you for you to write it down in your amends?' was left unasked.

"Don't push it." James bit out, becoming guarded once again, just like when he came to his cell. He reminded Helmut of a dog he used to see back home. Desperate for help, but too long on the streets to trust anyone.

"I've seen that book. It was Steve's when he came out of the ice." Sam noted with fondness in his voice. "I told him about Trouble Man. He wrote it in that book. Did you hear it? What'd you think?"

"I like '40s music, so…" James replied, clenching his jaw.

"You didn't like it?"

"I liked it."

"It is a masterpiece, James. Complete. Comprehensive. It captures the African-American experience." Helmut joined in the conversation.

"He's out of line, but he's right. It's great. Everybody loves Marvin Gaye."

"I like Marvin Gaye."

"Steve adored Marvin Gaye."

"You must have really looked up to Steve. But I realized something when I met him. The danger with people like him, America's Super Soldiers, is that we put them on pedestals."

"Watch your step, Zemo." Sam warned him but he ignored it.

"They become symbols. Icons. And then we start to forget about their flaws. From there, cities fly, innocent people die. Movements are formed, wars are fought. You remember that, right? As a young soldier sent to Germany to stop a mad icon. Do we want to live in a world full of people like the Red Skull? No. That is why we're going to Madripoor."

"What's up with Madripoor? You talk about it like it's Skull Island." Sam asked, glancing between him and James.

"It's an island nation in the Indonesian archipelago. It was a pirate sanctuary back in the 1800s." James was the one to answer him. That was a light way of putting it.

"It's kept its lawless ways. But we cannot exactly walk in as ourselves. James, you will have to become someone you claim is gone."'But we both know that's not quite true don't we?' Helmut left unsaid.

The flight from Germany to Madripoor took roughly fourteen hours. For the first couple of hours, they sat in relative silence. Helmut drowned himself into the book while James looked out the window and Sam had his AirPods in, drumming his fingers against the armrest to the beat of a song.

Helmut shifted in his seat, closing the book. Sighing, he placed it on the chair opposite of him and stood up needing to stretch his legs. The jet didn't have that much space to walk so he chose to cross the gallery to refill his glass. With the drink in hand, he wandered down into the cockpit where Oeznik and another pilot were sitting.

"Sir." The pilot greeted him in Russian the moment he noticed him leaning against the door frame.

"Excellent flying, Dabrowski." Helmut smiled, crossing his arms. "haven't felt any turbulence."

"Thank you sir."

The cockpit fell into silence, not that Helmut minded. He was too used to it to find it uncomfortable. He watched the clouds pass them by, sipping the champagne. Feeling eyes on him, he turned to Oeznik.

"Did they treat you alright, Helmut? Truly?" Oeznik asked, switching to Sokovian while looking at him with such adoration and worry that Helmut had to look away yet again. He cleared his throat and plastered a smile on his face. Even to himself it felt forced.

"Of course Oeznik, you worry too much." He chided him gently. The man always fussed about him. He always fretted over Ivana as well, concerned if she ate enough throughout the day. Never went a day without secretly giving Nic and Carl a piece of candy even if Carl never was able to keep it a secret.

"Well it has been my job for over forty years and you tend to find trouble around every corner." The older man chuckled fondly.

"Nonsense, I'm always on my best behavior. How have you been? I imagine you enjoyed the much-needed vacation days." Helmut changed the subject easily. He didn't want to linger on what once was.

"If I knew your drastic ways of making me take the vacation days off, I would have taken them sooner," Oeznik joked before his smile fell away. "Things have been quiet. It a strange thing to get used to. Even after all these years, I expect to hear Nic and Car, to just pop out around any corner that I turn. I make sure they always have fresh flowers, especially Ivana. She was hellbent on having fresh flowers around the house."

His voice broke, thick with emotion. Helmut had to bite down the inside of his cheek to keep himself composed. The metallic taste filled his mouth and as he ran his tongue over the spot, it sent a small jolt of pain.

It had been so long since he saw their graves. He only went there once, to watch their caskets be lowered into a deep hole. As if that somehow could have brought him some sort of closure, as if it would have granted him the ability to say goodbye. The thought of returning, of stepping a foot in that damned graveyard, of looking at three tombstones, side by side, washed him over with such coldness that even if he jumped into antarctic water he would have been warmer. Shame flooded him. What kind of a man did not visit his own family? What kind of a husband, a father, would let them rot alone.

"Thank you, Oeznik. I'll…" Helmut swallowed, trying to find the words that seemed determined to be stuck in his throat and left unsaid. "I'll make sure to pay them a visit. Later."

Helmut did what he did best; he lied. You told her they would be safe. Look how that turned out.

Made another useless promise, knowing full well he couldn't walk down that path, not without putting a bullet in himself and joining them.

Madripoor was just as vivid and bright as he remembered. The lights of the High Town shone from miles away. They stopped by Helmut's safe house, where James and Sam reluctantly changed into a set of clothes that wouldn't instantly attract attention to them. Especially for the roles that they would have to play if they wanted to get information. Unsurprisingly, it took longer to convince Sam to dress up than it did James.

"We have to fix this. I'm the only one who looks like a pimp." Sam groaned out, looking at his apparel for the tenth time in disgust.

"Only an American would assume a fashion-forward Black man looks like a pimp." Helmut sighed as he dug out his phone and split his attention between looking at the road in front of them and through the gallery to find a picture of Conrad Mack. "You look exactly like the man you're supposed to be playing. The sophisticated, charming African rake named Conrad Mack, aka the Smiling Tiger."

"He even has a bad nickname." Sam took a glance at the picture. "he does look like me, though."

Sam passed the phone back to him. The closer they walked to the city, the sharper the distinct stench became.

"You smell this?" Helmut asked keeping his attention upfront. A car was arranged to collect them at any moment now, but anything could happen between now and then. He rather not have surprises popping up at them in a place like this. Even he didn't know the city that well and he doubted many people would be willing to help out.

"Yeah, what is that? Acid?"

More like a combined mixture of the fumes from the buildings, production of drugs, all the imported animals and God knows what else. Helmut had no doubt that the water surrounding the city was toxic and could kill someone if they fell into it.

"Madripoor."

A bright beam of headlights flashed them as a car came to a stop a short distance away from them.

"No matter what happens, we have to stay in character. Our lives depend on it. There's no margin for error." Helmut explained calmly, barely moving his lips just in case the driver felt particularly nosy. They could trust no one.

"High Town's that way. Not a bad place if you wanna visit, but Low Town's the other way." He added, opening the passenger door.

"Let me guess. We don't have any friends in High Town." Sam said as he walked around the car.

Helmut gave him a smile and sat down in the front. The destination, Brass Monkey, was already agreed during the call so Helmut only needed to forward the payment before the car moved in the direction of Low Town.

It did not take long until several motorcycles surrounded their car. Someone already knew of their arrival before they even took a step inside Low Town. Helmut's money was on the Power Broker, which was not the best news for them. He watched Sam turn around and look behind him through the rear-view mirror.

Once the car stopped, Helmut nodded to the driver and exited the car. Wordlessly, he led James and Sam through the streets, passing armed guards, dealers, and hookers until they arrived at Brass Monkey.

"Here we are. Remember your roles no matter what happens." He reminded them again, giving a hard look to Sam. He knew once James got into the role of the Winter Soldier again, there would be very little that could affect him enough to give up their act. It was Sam who made him nervous. His seemingly constant need to check up and staring at James might be the thing that gets them caught. The last thing they needed was for the whole city-state to put a bounty on their head.

The inside was packed with all sorts of lowlifes.

"Ready to comply… Winter Soldier?" Helmut asked James in Russian, loud enough for people to hear and for whispering to begin. He needed the whispers to travel to the right people. Not only would it get them to Selby faster, but it would also buy him security. Winter Soldier's reputation around these parts was well known, not many would want to dive headfirst at them.

Helmut lead them to the bar and took a quick glance around. For the most part, there was no one that stood out or seemed out of place. He noticed that to their right a couple of feet away, two women stood together, but only one of them kept her eyes trained on them. It was the insistent staring that caught his attention. Unfortunately, he couldn't tell much about them, the taller one wore a hood and the one that was watching them had a mask that covered half of her face. The mask reminded him of what the Winter Soldier used to wear. The Bar's security perhaps. Or maybe an interested party.

"Hello, gentlemen. Wasn't expecting you, Smiling Tiger." The barman approached them, distracting him from the two women. He took a look at Sam but didn't appear to be suspicious over his appearance.

"His plans changed. We have business to do with Selby." Helmut answered instead. They had agreed that he would do all the talking and they would simply need to nod along and look pretty.

"The usual?"

There came their test. Seeing the barman take a cobra out of a glass container and drag a knife across it, Helmut sighed dramatically, expressing his feigned happiness at receiving Sam's 'favourite' drink. It was made out Gin, Triple Sec, Cobra heart, and finger lim.

"Smiling Tiger, your favorite." He emphasized with a smile on his face. Helmut had to admit, it was going to be fun.

The barman placed their drinks on the table.

"I love these," Sam spoke up and looked at him, holding the shot as far away as he could from himself.

"Cheers, Conrad." Helmut clinked their glasses and knocked back the shot. It burned his throat as it went down, the heart adding that extra kick of spice to the mix. It wouldn't be his first choice of drink, but it wasn't the worst that he tasted.

"Mmm. Mmm."

While Sam tried to force himself to drink the shot before it became too obvious, Helmut glanced to the corner of the table again. The woman with the hood was gone but the second one was interested in watching Sam with the drink. They definitely had an audience. Not so good.

Hearing someone approach from behind, Helmut turned in time to see the Power Broker's henchman coming up.

"I got word from on high. You ain't welcome here."

Helmut considered his words carefully. They needed to prove that James was under his control. These types of talks often needed a bargaining chip and what was better than a Winter Soldier?

"I have no business with the Power Broker, but if he insists, he can either come and talk to me…" he responded and gestured to James who was stiffly standing beside him.

"New haircut?"

"Or bring Selby for a chat."

After a glance at James, the henchman left them alone. Hopefully to get Selby. Licking his lips, Helmut turned back to the bar.

"A Power Broker? Really?" James muttered out lowly, unimpressed with the name. Not that Helmut could blame him, the name was a little bit cliché.

"Every kingdom needs its king. Let's just pray we stay under his radar." Helmut shrugged. The one time that he indirectly dealt with the Power Broker was back in '08, when the EKO Scorpion needed to obtain a particular nerve agent for one of their missions. Even back then, you did not want to get on the wrong side of the Power Broker. He didn't even want to imagine how big his empire was now.

"Do you know him?" Sam whispered, glancing around the bar.

"Only by reputation. In Madripoor he is the judge, jury, and executioner." Helmut elaborated and tilted his head to their watcher. "And has eyes and ears everywhere. She hasn't stopped watching us ever since we stepped a foot near the bar."

Sam's eyes widened ever so slightly in surprise and he glanced in her direction. Helmut didn't have much time to say anything else. More of the Power Broker's men were making their way towards them.

"Winter Soldier." Helmut looked at James dead in the eye. "Attack."

He ordered in Russian just as a hand gripped his shoulder. James did not hesitate, ripping the man's arm off him and bending it backward. Dragging him towards the centre of the room, he broke the man's arm in half and threw a punch in his face using the prosthetic arm, rendering the man useless on the floor.

Helmut smiled. He was right after all. No matter how much James denied, the Winter Soldier was right there, still inside him. The bystanders took out their phones, filming as the Winter Soldier single-handedly took out anyone that came at him.

Helmut stood back and apart from pushing a couple of them into Winter Soldier's path, he watched the scene unfold. James was lethal, just like he was all the way back when they first met and Helmut uttered the words of his programming. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the woman leaning her body over the counter as she said something to the barman who promptly left with a phone pressed to his ear.

"Didn't take much for him to fall back into form." Helmut chuckled, shrugging his shoulders at Sam who seemed a little bit pale. He barely paid any attention to Helmut, his eyes only watching James.

The Winter Soldier grabbed someone by the throat and lifted him in the air before throwing him over the counter. The sound of multiple guns cocking behind them made Helmut's heart skip a single beat. Glancing around, it seemed like every single person was arming themselves. Sam gripped James' forearm causing Helmut to hiss out:

"Stay in character or the whole bar turns on us."

The Flying Tiger certainly would not be touching James' without wishing a swift death sentence. James' not reacting to a threat, allowing a touch on himself would blow their cover to pieces. Sam let go.

"Well done, soldier." Helmut praised James, replacing Sam's hand on him with his own. He needed to take control of the situation and fast.

The barman returned and nodded to the woman.

"Selby will see you now. Follow me, gentlemen." She spoke out for the first time, rising from her seat. The honeyed voice twinged with a familiar accent ripped the breath right out of Helmut's lungs. Even muffled by the mask, it was distinguishable in all the ways that it couldn't have been possible. It halted him to the spot, unable so much as to inhale the air that his lungs started to scream for. He did not see James let go of the man or Sam cast him a confused look when he made no move to follow.

This was not possible.

I 'll try to update the fic once a week to keep somewhat consistent schedule :)

Please let me know what you think and I can't wait to bring you more content soon x

#tfatws #Zemo #helmut zemo #baron zemo #zemo fic #marvel #the falcon and the winter soldier #the falcon and the winter solider spoilers #fanfiction #zemo's family

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nurseofren · 4 years

Text

Keeping Your Promise - Chapter 28 (NSFW)

Read on AO3 | Read on Wattpad

Read chapter twenty-seven

Title: You Need Me

Words: 5.9k

Summary: Third time’s the charm, right?

Warnings: Lost orgasm

ST Rambles: WOW! Not me posting a chapter a chapter after only two weeks. Nuts, really. As of now, this semester is much less of... it's just less fucking nonsense, if I am being honest. I am getting very excited about my future and where I will be this time next year. I have an interview on February 27th for a new-grad RN residency program. It's all just very strange and adult right now.

[MASTERLIST] || BANNER // @elmidol

However short it might be, you thought you would like to spend the rest of forever exactly like this.

The sun remained hidden, and the light of the moon had faded, leaving you shrouded in darkness and engulfed in the heat of Kylo Ren’s resting form. Not a limb had moved from what you could remember before dozing off last night, your legs kept woven with his, cheek melting into his solid chest, the broad hand between your shoulders less stark in its effort to keep you against him. Still, the world vaguely existing beyond the canopy around you, you remained tucked into him, unsure if you had ever felt this amount of peace before. One difference now, something you’d never had the chance to experience, was the faint tickle of deep, rhythmic breath coming from the sleeping warrior who caressed you.

Twelve. Twelve perfect, dazed breaths kissed your forehead and sent mild sparks dancing along your skin; they followed thoughts of absent nightmares, nightmares that always seemed to keep away when he was near. Looking at him, peering up to see the vulnerability in his slackened mouth and long, looming eyelashes framing the dying purple that lay beneath them, you could tell he had not slept this well since Starkiller. Maybe even before then. Quietly, you allowed yourself somewhat of a small victory at the thought.

You did not know what to do, not wanting to wake him, yet aware that you needed to get ready for your shift. The calendar-chip Karmen had given you had transferred its data into your watch, but your watch was rooms away – worlds away – resting on the refresher floor. The transport ship would be waiting at the front entrance at six, but that had to be at least an hour away if you were banking on the soft darkness surrounding you, not quite remembering what it felt like waking up to real sunlight.

So, ever so slightly, making every effort to silence your breath and shifting, you loosed from his hold and led his arm lightly back down to the bed, watching him for any sign of disturbance. Through the distance, you heard the early, soft ebbing of the sea, noting how it complemented the push of Kylo’s exhales. He did not seem to stir, not even a lapse in his breathing when you rolled onto your back and tugged the linens up to cover your chest, the cold of the room taking residence over the skin previously pressed to the hearth of his own.

Your Master. The Commander of the First Order. Kylo Ren. How strange it was to be here, to see up close every healed and healing scar, to witness the slight twitch in his brow, to study the handsome line of his nose and the various moles that flecked along his cheeks. This was the strongest, most feared and lethal man in the galaxy, and here you were fawning over the light spray of sparce freckles sprawled along his cheekbones. A privilege, you thought, to have the man who haunted nightmares keep your very own at bay.

Lips pressed together, eyes full of wonder, you let the very tips of your fingers trace the raven haze of hair that splayed beneath his dreaming face. And when the dark ends met his shoulder, you risked a featherlight touch over the hand you had earlier placed. An intricate, beautiful pattern of veins jutted out on its surface, his long fingers curled into a weak fist, your focus lingering along the scars cut into his knuckles. A life of scrapes and training and battle and bruises lived in his skin, the veins beneath treading paths along them, like a map, like a guidebook to each blight of hurt that ghosted their blue trails. You swallowed a giggle, wondering if you would pick a sixteen or a fourteen-gauge needle to start an IV on him.

Running your fourth finger along the prominent vein that fled gracefully along his entire arm, you kissed the inside of his wrist, watching his face and never wanting to disturb him, but needing to feel him. A slight upward twitch at the corner of his mouth made your heart jump, choking back a gasp when a curl of hair swept over his eyes. Another fascination, how full his lips were; you touched them, a sneaking whisper of your fingers, pulling down on the bottom one and leaning in closer and closer, warmth fogging your hand, your face, his features unmoving and mild.

The elegant brutality that now crowned his features – it was healing, its edges no longer raised and red, but flush with their binding. Two weeks ago his face had been unmarred, but the whole of you found this new normal breathtaking, heart-stopping. Beholding him now brought you back to that desperate moment, just before he’d carried you to bed, when you clung to him because you believed you’d never get another chance.

Palm flat to his chest, above his heart, following the lead of his lungs, you closed your eyes and rested your lips to the corner of his mouth, and said, quieter than the very thought of a whisper, “I never wanted to hurt you.” A ghosted kiss. “I never wanted to leave then, and…” The steady beat of his heart remained, the rush of your own silencing the tide of the waking bay. With his next breath, with an aching chest that held nothing of the pain it had previously, you breathed, “I never wanted to leave then, and I never want to leave again.”

Not a single tear, not even the suggestion of one, nothing but adamant truth tapping against the canopy’s silence. You needed him here, no longer caring if it stole the innocence and vulnerability of sleep’s caress.

“Kylo,” you whispered, kissing him with intent, coaxing him awake.

A deep, sharp inhale. You could not trap the smile that broke across your cheeks.

A nuzzle against his nose, curious fingers breeching that sea of obsidian tresses. “Kylo, wake up.”

He hummed, his lips finally leading into yours when he left his dream’s embrace. Like he had not wanted it moved, his hand reclaimed your back and pressed you against him, his other hiking your leg atop his own, the feel of his skin warming you to your very center. Nearly melded against him, his bare torso to yours, you felt him harden, felt the heat of his cock grow and thicken, become weighted as it filled and filled. You caught an unbidden gasp, leaning away from him long enough to see the mischief that danced in his eyes.

His arms coiled around you as he stretched, a cant of his hips to finish off the gesture. He was looking down at you, first at your face, then over your body, the skim of his eyes heavy when you could see their every tick. Kylo slid a rough hand up your leg, stopping just beneath the curve of your ass and anchoring himself to the scorching skin of your inner thigh. When he looked back to your eyes, searing amber swallowed by the shadows of the room, you smiled and ground yourself into his erection. Kylo growled in approval, your lips gracing his and feeling the depth of the vibration on his lips.

“You know,” he sighed, sleep heavy in his voice, “they should add assault and battery to your charges.” Those fingers around your thigh reached deeper.

“Hm, and why is that?”

“Because,” he nipped your bottom lip, “I didn’t consent to any of this.”

His crooning tone filtered into your veins, amusement blooming in your chest. “You were asleep. If anything, I was being considerate.”

“Considerate, mm?” Your fingers fisted at his nape, the hand at your back gliding up to do the same. “I guess I’ve been very considerate both times I’ve woken up before you, then.”

“Kylo Ren: considerate,” you chuffed a giggle, “I don’t know about that.”

“Really?” he rumbled, light yet venomous. Kylo tread parted lips along your jaw, your ear lobe slipping between them before he pulled you in and whispered with pride and claim, “Because that first morning, before I left you to sleep in my bed,” the hand around your thigh shifted upward, just grazing your slit, “I stared at the bruises I’d made the previous night, stared at how they’d grown and how they all belonged to me.”

The tip of his tongue slid along the shell of your ear, a pant parting your lips when his cock throbbed into your abdomen.

Kylo’s tone had lowered and thickened when he next spoke, “I thought about waking you up, then,” the tip of his finger pushed into the wetness that had gathered between your legs, a pleasured hum rolling out of him, “thought about fucking my hand while I watched you sleep, knowing my cum had dried onto your thighs overnight.”

Hot, masterful fingers parted your folds, your breath stuck in your throat as Kylo stared into you, watching you when his touch brushed lazily against your clit. His eyes narrowed in knowing pride when yours seemed to flutter, hiking your leg up further, trying to get another graze of his touch. An effort in vain. His hips canted again, slowly this time, stroking himself against the soft skin of your belly.

“I wanted to fuck you awake, really, wanted the first thing you were aware of to be me splitting you open, wanted to see your eyes lull and widen when you realized what was going on.” A second tease of those fingers, slick slipping past your entrance. “And I could have, you know,” he drawled, a third nudge over your stiffened bud, a tug at the nape of your neck.

He waited, observing you before you asked through shuddering breath, “What do I know?”

An upward slant to those plush lips, a tongue running along his teeth, a viper behind his eyes. “You know that I can have you whenever, however I want—” his fingers began a slow, circling pattern, passing over and over that sweet spot “—because you’re always ready for me, always wet.” His hand shifted so it was his thumb rolling over the buzzing nerves, and the tips of three bare, slickened fingers teased your core. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

You ground into him, begging for more of him, the length of his cock burning into you, slipping against your stomach as precum slicked his shaft. With as much nonchalance as you could muster, which was near zilch as you held back hums and winces with each pass of his thumb, you sighed, “Maybe, or perhaps you’re forgetting my life doesn’t revolve around you.”

“Maybe not right now,” he purred, pumping and circling his fingers, effectively inching you toward climax, “give it time. Give me time.”

“What are you talking about?” you panted, pushing your body into his hand, reaching the very brink of pleasure.

His hips canted, he grunted, and when you winced, seethed with pleasure, felt it tighten in your belly and quiver along your legs, Kylo stopped.

“No,” you whined, “no! That’s just cruel,” you pulled his face from your neck, “Kylo, what-,”

He said nothing, but there was something unreadable in his expression that stopped you from readying for battle. It appeared like something had just clicked for him, his eyes so distant he could have been in an entirely different galaxy for all you knew. Just as fast as he was gone, he returned with passive pomp settling a smirk into his face.

You studied him, confused and stunted, but if he wanted to return from wherever he’d gone, so would you. “Hey!” You punched his shoulder. “What the hell?”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

He ground his teeth, sucking them before the most sardonic smile cast over his features. “You should get dressed,” he cooed your name, the sweet tone widening your eyes, feeling the challenge in it, “I would hate for you to be late to your second first day.” He hummed, laving his gaze over the sweat glittering along your heaving chest, tiding viciously with unsated breath. “We both know what happened the first time.”

With a raised brow, “I have two capable hands,” you countered, pushing away from him. “I don’t need you.”

Quicker than you could register, he had both your hands pinned beside your head, his broad, structured body pressing fully into you. “You do need me,” he breathed, nothing feral in his tone, but sure, not a shred of doubt when he said, “you need me, and for this to work-,”

“For what to work?”

He kept quiet for a moment, a decision weighing on him, focus flicking between your eyes and the light that teased beyond the windows, along the horizon. It appeared as if time would have permitted, if the sun had slept in a second longer, he would have answered you. You saw it in his eyes, when he peered down to you, his hair a shield from the rest of the world, you saw that whatever rested against his lips – it would have changed everything you knew. Everything you did not know.

But instead, with a swallow and a sigh, he simply said, “For this to work, you do need me.”

You tested a hand from under his, slipping it so your thumb smoothed along his flushed ear. Flitting your attention between his stark, serious eyes, feeling the panting of his parted lips, you knew you were right when you said, “We need each other.” Your other hand found its earlier home over his chest; staring at its placement, feeling every smooth, unrelenting beat of his heart, you declared, “for this to work, we need each other.”

Another quiet moment, and when you looked up, you found the very beginnings of dawn claiming the shadows that had earlier claimed his irises. Pushing his hair back, you could see that even though you were right – you did need each other – he didn’t want it to be true. Not that it seemed to anger him, but something remained hidden, kept quiet in his gaze, something taut and unyielding; something, it seemed, he did not want to admit – to you or himself.

He nodded. Not a word, not a breath. But more than you would have expected from him in the past.

Equal.

“You could have just let me finish and then been dramatic, you know?” you sighed, easing back from intensity when something of amusement softened his face.

“At least for today,” he purred your name, “your world will revolve around me.”

“And why is th-oh,” the Force nudged your bud, laved at it just as his tongue might.

He leaned down one last time, lips to your ear. “Because you’re not cumming until I let you, and you have a twelve-hour orientation shift to look forward to today.” An icy thrill swept your veins when he promised, “I intend to make each one of those hours memorable.”

“You won’t be anywhere near me.”

“As I’ve found recently,” his hand teased along your curves, the pad of his thumb ghosting the very tip of your nipple. When you shuddered, he hummed, “distance is no longer a barrier.”

Even through the haze of lust, there was no hiding the contempt in your voice when you barked, “And you figured that out how? Through training? While you’re still healing from not even two weeks ago?”

Kylo did not say anything, instead leaning back and letting you out from under him. He was still hard, but you had no time or want to care about that fact. Kylo watched as you stormed from the canopy and gathered your clothes from the refresher, nearly stomping. Through the gossamer fabric, you saw he was amused with you, and when you pulled on yesterday’s uniform to make the short distance to your room, he stood from the bed and sauntered toward you.

“Didn’t Belkar give you orders to not strain yourself for at least a month?” Your arms were crossed to your chest, your remaining belongings tucked beneath them. “You know, you aren’t invincible. You have to know that by now, right? Because I sure as hell do.” The image of his comatose form slithered in and out of memory. You shuddered. “Can’t you just do what’s good for yourself? This once?”

He took the step up from the bed’s level, the heightening sun glowing behind him, crowding the pale blue of the sky with every step that brought him closer. Lazily, like you weren’t lecturing him, he ran the flat of his fingers along his shaft, cocking his head when he stopped a pace away from you.

“Why would I listen to his orders?”

“Okay, then it’s my order,” you said, “because if you want to be stubborn, fine. But if I need you, then I need you at your best, not hurt and half-healed because your skull is too thick and your ego is too big to process that no matter if you are Kylo Ren, you are still human. And I am your care provider. And… I… say so.”

His lips twitched. “You say so?”

Although you barely believed the authority in your tone, you held steady, “Yes, Commander Ren, I say so.”

He’d never looked at you quite like he was now, something of stunned pride gleaming behind a much more fortified front of command. Closing the space between you, your back meeting the chilled black of the door, Kylo leaned down and studied your crossed arms. Knowing mischief flashed in them before he sought your gaze and met you with a face full of challenge.

“First,” he rumbled, his breath on your lips, “address me by my name or my title, not that rank. Ever again. Understood?”

Eyes on his plush, dawn-kissed mouth. “Yes. Second?”

“Second,” tongue in cheek, the hand he’d busied with his erection came up and plucked an article from your arms. It was only after his face became the youngest you’d seen it – taunting eyes and a broad, pompous smile – when you realized what hung from the tip of his forefinger. “I suppose mine might be more comfortable than your own?”

Your mouth fell open – in horror or at his audacity, you did not know. He was thoroughly enjoying himself, waiting for you to squirm as you viewed his boxer-briefs just inches from your face. You wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

“They are, actually. So, if you don’t mind—” you plucked them from his grasp, not breaking his stare for a second “—I’ll take these.” He only looked between your eyes, his own glinting with amusement. “And here—” you balled up your own panties and clasped your hand to his, tucking both to his chest and smiling sweetly “—if I’ve put you out too many pairs.”

A few seconds passed where all you did was take victory in the stunned setting of his features, and when you reached to activate the door, he caught your hand and pressed a long, hard, lusting kiss to your mouth. When he finished, both of you panting, he circled a canine with the tip of his tongue and took a step back.

“Good luck today,” the door shot open and your heart thrummed at the whoosh of ice over your back. With the tone of his next words – slithering, toying, smug – and remembering his promise to make the hours memorable, you knew he meant nothing to do with your occupation when he said, “you’ll need it.”

Sighing, you stepped into the vacant landing, and shot him one final smirk. “I have my watch if you need me,” you swept your gaze over his bare, muscled body, “if you want me.” No matter if you’d meant to, you’d initiated a game, and for the first time in so long, you were excited to play.

In the few steps from his room to your own, you waited for the gentle lock that indicated the door’s close, but it never came. For a second, you wondered if it had shut and you just did not hear it, but you felt those dark, peering eyes and knew his gaze was following your every move. So when you activated your door, took one step past the threshold, you pulled the skirt of your uniform over your head and stretched your arms above, your bare back arched and ass on display.

In a marked taunt, you purred, “Think of me fondly in my absence, Master Ren.”

You did not wait for a response before activating the door to shut, but one still came in the form of an overwhelming, buzzing pulse between your legs. A high-pitched mewl accompanied your trip forward, yipping until ten endless seconds passed and the pleasure thrumming along your slit subsided.

Game on.

[HORIZONTILE LINE]

With a fresh uniform, and Kylo’s briefs hugging your curves, you strode through the manor – although, you were still unsure what to call this place – and meandered your way around until you found a kitchen. Some of the staff acknowledged you with a small nod, others too busy cutting exotic fruits and preparing for breakfast. Which, passing by two intricately stacked and arranged platters, you knew most of the food being prepared would just as quickly be disposed of.

A woman in a black uniform guided you out of the bustling kitchen, taking you to a dining room. In it was a long table, undoubtedly used for meetings and manipulation, filled with trays of meats and fruits and carafes of juices, a metal one indicative of milk or cream. A large, insulated pot with a gilded, floral handle, steamed at the far end of the table. Caffeine.

There was limited time to eat, only about thirty minutes before the transport arrive, so you took a plate, painted too intricately with the flowers you’d walked through last night, and gathered whatever sustenance might help you make it to lunch. Most importantly, you filled a delicate mug with piping hot caf and carried everything into an adjoining room.

No lights were on, only the rising dawn filtering through thin veils of curtains, and Talia sat at the very end of the otherwise empty, centered table. She was dressed, but looked disheveled, at least for her typical put-together appearance. She wasn’t working alongside you, you knew – your assignment at Canto Bight’s medbay purely aimed at incriminating you – but it was still nice to have a friend, one who was under the same roof and not acting strangely.

Her hands were clamped onto either side of her head and there was a plate of picked-at food pushed to the side, a glass of water placed before her sunken head.

“Hey, Tal,” you started, noting her subtle jump at your voice. When she gave a subtle wave, you took a seat next to her and asked, however redundant, “How’re you feeling this morning?”

A long sigh, fingers comforting her temples. “Do I look that bad?”

A pause, considering. She looked quite pale, but there was no sheen of sweat over her forehead. She was breathing a bit quickly, and her mouth appeared to be parted, like she could be sick at any second. “Well, you’ve looked better, but I’ve seen you at your worst.” A look around the room, tuning your ears to the clang of the kitchen. “Is it nausea?” you whispered.

“Stars,” she winced, more in theatrics than pain, “I’ve spent more time over a toilet than anywhere else since the beginning of this thing.”

You chewed at a fruit you’d never had before, swallowing before saying, “Is it just in the morning or is it all day?”

“Morning sickness is a cruel lie they tell unsuspecting women,” she cleared her throat, finally peering up to you. “At least that’s what I have concluded.”

“Did you sleep last night?” There were purple splotches under her reddened eyes.

A shy smile slipped onto her face, quickly faltering. “I could have gotten more.”

Your brows raised, realizing Talia had a similar night to your own. “Oh?” you hummed.

“A private half of this villa?” she lowered her voice, swallowing, looking to the arch that peered out of the room, “and then adjoined rooms? It’s like they want us to have affairs with our assignments.”

“Well,” you sighed, recounting your night and morning, “perhaps. If that’s the case, can I assume where you slept last night?”

She loosed a breath of amusement. “Shockingly, no.” She shook her head, closing her eyes again before explaining, “I haven’t told him. Yet. Still. I stayed with him until he fell asleep but made it back to my room before I could hurl up everything I’d eaten yesterday.” A small, bitter laugh. “Do you know how impossible it is to throw up quietly?”

A warm sip of caf and you tapped her wrist, earning her attention back. Eyes filled with concern, you asked, quieter than the distant shore, “Are you afraid to tell him?”

“I’ve tried,” she sighed, completely exasperated, “This past week I have had so many opportunities – traveling here, the last few days on the Finalizer… last night.” Talia ran her finger along the rim of her glass. “I want to tell him. I need to, if I’m being honest. Time sensitive issue and everything.”

“Has he suspected anything, or do you know?”

A gloom shrunk her features, her focus shifting to the window behind your shoulder. “I think that’s why I haven’t told him. Armitage is always busy, running off to this place and that. I love the time I spend with him, I do. But, his lifestyle isn’t necessarily… compatible, I guess. Not with a baby. Not with, not with a partner. Not with me.”

“Oh, Talia.”

“No, I’m okay,” she shrugged, sad eyes going back to her glass, “I think I’m just biding my time. Preparing for the worst.”

“And what would the worst be, here?”

The room went silent, still, a few staff members replacing what you’d picked from the trays. For a few minutes there was only the sound of far-away waves and the kitchen’s relentless clattering, but Talia cleared the silence with a drag of breath. “The worst would be me telling him, him not wanting anything to do with me or my situation, being removed from his service and out of a job, publicly disgraced and shamed for carrying the General’s bastard kid, and just wholly ruined socially, occupationally, and personally.” There was quiet fear clawing at her eyes, but she forced a pleading smile.

“Wow,” you breathed, cutting through the intense moment, “it’s almost like you’ve thought about it before.”

A pitiful laugh. “Yeah, just a little.”

“Well, there’s always the alternative,” you shrugged. “Maybe none of that scary stuff will happen. Maybe Hux will embrace it. Embrace you and your situation. Because it isn’t just yours, Talia,” she considered your next words before you said, “it’s his, too.” You clasped her hand, trying to get across that she could come to you whenever she needed. “When you’re ready, or at least before you’re in labor,” you shared a laugh, “tell him. I think… I think people can surprise you if you let them. Maybe Hux will do just that.”

The pact that bound you seemed to glow, such gratefulness in her expression. She smiled and slipped her hand from yours, sipped from her glass and shook her head. “Well, now that you’ve bandaged my crisis, how are you doing? Only a couple days before everything gets real.”

Though you knew it was true, you’d barely considered the trial. Aside from Karmen’s rundown yesterday, you’d spent most of your time preparing for your shift, worrying about Mason, and cooped up with Kylo Ren. So maybe it would all feel real when you got there, but as of right now you’d scarcely thought of it.

“I think I’m doing better than I should be,” you sighed, nibbling a piece of toast. “Like you said, this place is rather extravagant, and then this whole city is unbelievable. I don’t know, maybe I’m just avoiding thinking about it. And, like you, I’m preparing for the worst.”

A glum smile hardly met her eyes. “Your worst is far worse than mine. I can’t even imagine.”

“You and Mason both, I guess. Although, you’re not as cryptic with it as he’s been.”

“Trouble in paradise?” She notched a brow.

You breathed a giggle, remembering you needed to clarify, “Just trouble, no paradise. Mason and I aren’t together.”

Talia was completely taken aback, no hiding her shocked expression. “Oh. I mean, I just assumed… Are you sure? Does he know you aren’t together?”

“I’d assume so,” her tone made you wary, not sure what was so obvious.

“I’m sorry, I really just thought since seeing him in the medbay so often that you two were a thing. Like, a serious thing.”

“We’re not,” your tone was short, but you breathed before saying, “I’m seeing him tomorrow. I need- ah, ah, fu-,”

That buzzing Force claimed your cunt, drilling both sweet spots and making it impossible to breathe. After a few seconds, its presence – its master – merciless, you crossed your legs and knitted your hands together in your lap, coughing to try and hide the sensation’s vision-blurring effects.

Talia was stunned, but before she could ask, you continued, “I’m see-seeing Mason tomorr-ow, and ha! Wow, and,” it felt like Kylo was thrusting inside of you, your toes curled in your shoes. “And grabbing some clothes for the trial. He also said he wants to ta- oh, okay.” You stomped both your feet to the floor, leaning down to the table and chugging the rest of your coffee.

“Are you alright?” Talia leaned forward, but you waved a hand in dismissal.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. So clothes and then Mason wants to talk!” You stumbled away from her and tried to keep from cursing Kylo Ren outwardly, a few shouts of goodbye falling behind when you eventually got out into the main halls of the manor.

The pulse between your legs finally let up, and you had half a mind to tromp back to his room and knee him where it’d hurt, but there were five minutes before transport would arrive, so you decided it would need to wait for a later date.

“If you can hear this,” you hissed, searching the halls for onlookers, “I’m going to-,” a swirl of pressure laved your sensitive bud, sending you tripping into the foyer. “Kylo.” It let up again. He let up. Maybe you would have tried another retort, but the grand entrance slid open, and at the bottom of the dawn-draped stairs awaited CB-7070.

She had a hand clasped to her wrist, not a blaster in sight, and her face remained hidden by a white helmet. The gold band over her right wrist shimmering with the sliver of sunlight to your left. Consciously, you half-circled her, wariness creeping along your veins. Nothing she had done, but… for a second you dropped your eyes to that familiar break in her uniform. You swallowed when you looked back to her visor, not offering a smile, and keeping at least three paces away at all times.

“Morning,” she muffled out your last name, pivoting to face you. When she took a step forward, you tried not to, but you backed away in suit. She stopped her advance.

Without a word, you nodded, pushing your hands into your pockets.

CB-7070 cleared her throat. “I’ve been informed by Commander Ren that you can assign me a name if you choose.”

“No,” you said, too quickly. “No, that won’t be necessary. CB-7070 is fine. We won’t know each other long.”

“Understood, ma’am.”

“Use my first name,” you commanded, running a finger along your uniform’s embroidery.

“Understood,” this time she used your own name – no titles, no pleasantries.

With only two minutes before transport, you said, “You’re aware you will not be in any of my patients’ rooms, correct?”

“I have been briefed on Cantonica’s privacy laws, yes.”

You peered side-long at her. “Good.”

When she spoke your name, there was a measure of nerves you couldn’t help but notice. “Is there anything you need from me that will make this arrangement easier for you?”

There was little time to think, but something in your head was screaming to request the one thing you felt would minimize the pit of dread rooting in your gut.

Plainly, facing her, arms crossed, you said, “Show me your face.”

Without hesitation, the stormtrooper unlatched and removed her helmet. She was dark-skinned, full lips and deep brown eyes inherent of the desert around her, genetic protection from the lifelong sun on this planet. Dark brunette curls were smoothed to her scalp, twisted into a tight bun at its base. Her face was round, and with the slight smile she gave, her cheeks crinkled a pair of gentle eyes. So young. Too young.

“How old are you?” There was a harshness in your words, not entirely intentional.

CB-7070 did pause at that. After squaring her shoulders she said, “Eighteen. Nineteen soon.” Her voice was kind, warm.

“I don’t need you to prove yourself,” you guessed as much at her posture, “I can assume if you’re here, at this… place-,”

“The Consulate.”

Consulate. “Thank you,” you continued. “Since you’re stationed at the Consulate, I can assume you’ve already done enough grunt work,” those early weeks, before Kylo Ren, flashed in your mind’s eye, dehydrated soldiers, strung out in preparation for the attack on the Republic. Sighing, watching the sky for any incoming ships, you took one step toward her. “No, I don’t need you to prove yourself. But I do need you to have my back.”

She stood even straighter at that.

“I know you’re assigned to watch me and report to the General, and I’ll just say right now that neither of us is the other’s favorite person. But I am not your enemy. I’m not an enemy.”

She looked at you, hearing the approaching ship, and just before it sped too close to blast your hearing, the young Stormtrooper nodded and said, “I was briefed on your case. You are not an enemy. You saved that man, an engineer. One of many who normally go unseen and unnoticed. I will do my job, but I am not biased to you or my General.” She angled her eyes to the sky and tucked her head back into the helmet. “As much as my assignment is to monitor you, I have been trained to protect the officers and officials of the First Order. And given you kept the Commander alive after Starkiller went down – you are one of the most important officers I’ve been tasked with.”

You hadn’t known that was general knowledge, her admission striking through every chamber of your heart. The memory of that day. People had seen such a different side of it, they’d seen you protect and serve when minutes prior you were begging for death in the dark of your residence. The day you could have used a savior, others had painted you as their own.

CB-7070 marched to the transport’s descended ramp and faced you. “Ready when you are.”

With a straight back, hands smoothing over your uniform, you approached the ramp, waiting for CB-7070 to follow behind. She stood next to you, but before you took a step further, you turned to the Consulate, and then to the sea that spanned beside and behind it, and you quieted all that Canto Bight had already presented.

Today was not about Snoke, or Mason, or Kylo. Today was about you and your patients, whoever they would be. Today you were not Commander Ren’s Care Provider.

Today you would be a nurse, and that meant more than anything.

#kylo ren #kylo ren fanfic #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren x you #keeping your promise #st kyp #kylo ren smut #angst #fluff

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margot-terc · 4 years

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it grows where i water it, again.

At the beginning of this year I wrote a letter to myself to remember my intentions and where I wanted to focus. It grows where I water it, and all. During that time, I was becoming aware that my emotions/feelings were determining too much in my life, and I couldn't shake the feeling of disconnect. I knew I needed to focus on internal work, because as much as my Instagram feed was filled new year’s promises of new and better, external goals and projects weren't what my spirit needed. As much as I’ve been enlivened by creative work, I also know that any practice that is focused on constant external output isn't really grounded in the soul realm that makes creativity be a healing outlet for me. At the time I also wanted to rewire from any idea that I need external accomplishments to feel okay. I knew that with every new completion or change, the feeling of unrest would creep right back. So obviously the answer wasn't just in doing more or getting to any one goal. I didn't know what the answer was, but I knew that I needed to work on my internal world if I wanted my outside world to feel more resonant to me.

At that time, I also started experiencing relationship anxiety, which now in hindsight makes perfect sense. Anxiety is the way our soul tries to get our attention, and when it is ignored or shoved down, it will latch on anything possible, easily causing us to project, when what really needs attention is our inner world. I wasn't feeling in control of my life, so I wanted to find things to control in my relationship. On my worst days, I wanted to break up so that in the heartbreak process I would hit rock bottom emotionally, and maybe and hopefully "snap out of it". My mind was that wild for a while, as painful as it is to admit. Then a global pandemic happened, my city became quarantined, and life started caving in more and more. The anxiety I started feeling became so strong and visceral, and as it started leaking into everything else, I knew I needed to do something for myself. I found myself reading and learning more, and a lot of my focus went to understanding more about the nervous system and anxiety. From an online course on relationship anxiety I moved onto psychology courses on Coursera, and that led to an online psychology class at a community college, and from there I applied to a grad school program focused on humanities, depth psychology, and creative practice.

This year I found myself leaning on old book favorites like "The Artist's Way" (by Julia Cameron), "Women That Run with the Wolves" (by Clarissa Pinokola Estés), “Eastern Body, Western Mind” (by Anodea Judith), as well as Sheryl Paul’s work with anxiety. One common thread in all of them is depth psychology as well as the need for integration of the unconscious, and acknowledgment of archetypes and hidden selves. It made sense to me to get closer to the source myself. I initially thought I would pursue a master’s in counseling or psychology, but then I found an interdisciplinary program that combines depth psychology with art. Every class description spoke to me on a deeper level, and I couldn't ignore all the happy screaming I was doing inside. The rational part of me did have its fair share of doubt, because a degree in mental health counseling just has a much clearer path, but the more I looked at the program the more I realized how weirdly specific it is to my passions and interests.

It has been a big jump to say the least, but here I am. Classes started last week, and I am still in disbelief at how things have evolved. One door led to another and so on. And it all started with a feeling of discontent, and a knowing that this year needed to be focused on healing. Once I put out the alarm, my body followed suit. And once the world became ill and anxious itself, I had no other option but to do something about it.

It isn't that I found inner peace, because I am still very much rewiring. But I’m seeing how so much can happen in the process of healing. Even when life feels heavy and is full of uncertainty. By choosing to go deeper I’ve found pain that needed to be seen, and I’ve also found doors that have waited to be opened. Even though I’m clear that I truly do have a lot of work to do, I’m seeing how so much can and will happen alongside it. I am breathing just a bit easier, knowing that this is life. Pain won’t ever be all that we feel, synchronicity will aid our path, and one door will lead to another.

#2020 #life things #process things #anxiety #margot terc #writing #personal

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throughthewwods · 3 years

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100 Days of Productivity . Day 7&#?! 😅

I suppose my main accomplishment last week was that I didn’t give up on.. freaking everything heh, which was tempting to do on numerous occasions. . Over the last few days things have been better and my chronic stress haze is lifting, which frees me to be steadily more productive. I don’t want to kick up dust by overthinking it. I’ve deleted several recap rants already where my venting felt more entrenching than therapeutic..

So.. I’m shooting for Zen here, now.

💙 I did what I could where I could

💙 I made sure to practice self-care and continuously attempt to re-center

💙 I made sure to make repairs after any ruptures

💙 I reached out for forms of help/support

I am grateful for…

❤️ how compassionate my partner is

💜 my daughter’s efforts to be more focused

💚 my decent health

🧡 that these difficulties are manageable & I still have opportunities ahead

💙 that I continue to grow with intention & apply new knowledge

The good/neutral that came out of last week…

😜 Saved my Sim family from their glitchy demise

( not something I would usually regard as an accomplishment per se, but given that Google said it couldn’t be done, yeah.. pleased with myself😆)

💜 Been helping Kiddo hack away at her overdue science.

Finally making some progress there. At first it was like pulling teeth, but the last few days have gone mostly smooth

📚 got the AOK from my professor, so read my article and ran over it with a highlighter

📚 been adding to my cognitive behavioral therapy study summary

📚 moved onto the next stats problem set

🧡 had my emotional support disaster response training through the health department

🧡 emailed them after about further training and volunteering opportunities

🧡 had a meeting with my research supervisor about our grad school application

🐾 been keeping up with the dog training

been leaving him out of his crate more and more when we’re not home, which is going well.

💚 Foot healed, so I’ve been working out again

💙 Been reading more of my couples counseling therapy book

⭐️ Did adulting stuff:

bills, put money into savings, restocked the kitchen with groceries, vacuumed my bedroom finally

💜 More research on ADHD

💜 finally got to go on our first mommy-daughter date in well over a year

Kiddo sheepishly asked me for her first stick of deodorant this week. All these new inches toward adolescence that for some reason escaped my memory. I don’t know why I had it in my head everything hinged on threshold of 13. Wishful thinking maybe? Fear of the inevitable? 😜

💜 I let Kiddo stay home alone with GSD for the first time ever so she could continue working on her Mass and Force lesson while we picked up groceries, swung by the bank, and grabbed dinner. Her eyes widened with thinly veiled excitement then dimmed slightly when I explained she needed to keep doing her homework. That’s the first time I’ve been out in public without my child in over a year and a half. Surreal to not be in my ever Mana Bear alertness mode. When we returned home I gave her an enormous, rainbow, ‘Congratulations’ balloon for her right of passage.

💜 It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a year since I could take Kiddo on an outing. I wanted to reward her for her recent efforts with schoolwork, so I asked if she’d like to get out of the apartment and where? She makes a special request that we don’t bring distracto-the-dog. As we stroll along the trail, the shade is chilly, but the sunlight’s sublime. She gabs excitedly about any and everything. It comes up that I almost invited her friend for the walk, but she replies that she’s glad I didn’t because it’s nice to just spend time with me. Her sentiments are very sweet and inadvertently reassuring. I worry a lot about how this year has strained our relationship. I’m glad despite everything she still wants to be around me. We savored our blue raspberry and peanut butter-chocolate milkshakes in the deserted courtyard of my old community college. I walk along the row of concrete benches with her and relax by a deconstructed Yin yang fountain. I have flashbacks of a toddler fast asleep on my lap as I sat just outside the entrance of my math class, taking notes. Kiddo says this fountain is her favorite statue on campus and that someday if we still live in the area, she’ll probably go here too like I did. I talk to her about their ‘high school to college’ transition program that makes it possible for you to finish your first half of your bachelors before you’ve even graduated high school. I observe a look of thoughtful hopefulness as she looks over what to her are monumental buildings surrounded by Cherry Blossom‘s and Art, silently daydreaming about her future.

On a whim, I took us to my favorite place in town to get nachos layered in magic. It’s family-owned and the closest thing to authentic Mexican I’ve had since moving to this part of the country, yet humorously has the most gringo restaurant name imaginable. I avoided it for years before I realized one desperate lunch break the white wash was to reel in college kids. The place was practically empty. We found ourselves an enormous table in the farthest back corner. This is the first time we have eaten inside a restaurant since two January’s back. I remember 6 or so years ago, eating here with friends who have since moved far away. We sat across from my chubby cheeked four year old hiding anxiously under an oversized, neon green, garden hat from her costume box hoping I would not notice her hair powdered pink with all my blush beneath. A lot has changed. The nachos are even more enchanted than we remember though.

It was comforting to feel like we had reconnected. Before Covid we went on these sort of outings regularly. School tethered me to this town in a way I’d never been rooted before, but I always found ways to keep things colorful still. Our little adventures were gold.

GSD had not destroyed anything in our absence. Double win.

#journal #writing #my writing #motherhood #100 days of productivity #parenting #studystudystudy #positivemindset #mental health #healing #anxiety #depression #stress #happylife #happiness #adulting

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blacklinguist · 4 years

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Hi I’m sorry for asking this, but do you ever get impostor syndrome? And how do you deal with it? I can’t help as I’m opening myself up to people, but feel that I don’t deserve the things that I get and sooner or later people will discover that I am actually not worthy and I am actually just talentless and unintelligent

I’m actually dealing with that right now, I’m so sorry to hear you’re struggling with these conflicting feelings about your own value and feeling that you are a fraud. :-[

It can be difficult to actually receive praise or be in a certain position (due to merit) because it feels like 1) people are just humoring you and have no intention of standing behind their word and/or 2) somehow your accomplishments aren’t actually as great as you hoped they would be.

In my situation, half of me is like “WOW, one of the top schools in the us is eager to have me and willing to help me apply to its program and they’re making it easy for me and everything is lining up how could this not be everything I have wanted and been working toward for *checks calendar* six years?”

And then the other half (the impostor) is screaming “WOW you really think they aren’t basically wining and dining ten other students and feeding everyone the same promises of funding and lab work so that they can pull the rug out from under you because you’re coming from a little known school in your field and you don’t have the same amount of advanced courses and you haven’t gotten any recognition or awards for grad work in a year and—“

It’s irrational, I tell myself. Complete BS. For the thousand things I do well, or the hundred things that go right, or the ten things that are just as expected, one mistake is blown up in my head, and regret sinks in. It sucks, doesn’t it?

Even with those thoughts that you deal with however, they have to be wrong, don’t they? How can we erase all of the hard work we’ve done? The time that we’ve put into studying and projects? The effort that we’ve placed into presentations and papers and assignments? The compliments that we HAVE received from supervisors, classmates, random strangers, friends, family, and surely those few moments where we have pat ourselves on the back?

Impostor syndrome sucks because we know that relatively few people have the opportunities that we receive, and somehow we chalk that up to us not being deserving of them for xyz reasons. But you ARE here. And it’s not just one person making the decision to let you in (and being fooled). People are in agreement that you DO deserve the accomplishments you’ve made.

I don’t have any real advice for now because I’m still struggling with this (and have been mentally stressed for a couple of weeks—even with all the things I do to allievate it). That’s okay to struggle, everyone will feel like it. But if there’s one thing that I’ll always believe?

You are your own best warrior. Fight for yourself and your right to be where you are. You have to be in your corner (even if it feels fake or wrong). If you support yourself, others will have no choice but to fall in line, because clearly you know something they don’t. :-]

It’s okay to acknowledge those thoughts that say you don’t deserve to be in your position, but that doesn’t mean they’re RIGHT. even as I’m kind of battling with those voices in my own head, I refuse to ever speak bad about myself. What’s the harm of believing that you are capable of being an incredible student, and one who has earned their place?

#trespassers w #anon #college #grad school #gradblr #mental health

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aphrodites-law · 5 years

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My Favorite

Trope: Soulmate marks.

Twist: Lexa doesn’t have one. Clarke does.

1/?

Lexa had lost her soulmate when she was eleven years old. The two words that she had cherished and daydreamed about for years had one day simply vanished, leaving behind no trace they had ever been imprinted on the inside of her wrist. Overnight, her life had taken an unthinkable turn, and if the whispers behind her back had not been enough to rock her self-esteem, if the bullying and the taunting hadn't broken her, it was her friends cutting ties with her that had felt like the most painful loss.

Her parents had had to put her on the registry for the Markless, which she'd always found to be ironic, as it painted the biggest mark on her yet: outcast. The Markless had a flaw; a part of them so fundamentally wrong that they couldn't truly love, nor be truly loved in return. Few people cared to mingle with them, as history had proven them to be the criminals of this world. And if they hadn't done their crime yet then surely they would, one day, and rare were those who wanted to take the chance to be in their lives when it happened.

Lexa didn't know what it meant for her or what she'd done at eleven that had made her so undeserving of love, but she'd refused to let anger consume her. She'd kept her head low and kept her arms covered, even in the summer, and for the next eighteen years she'd lived her life as best she could.

In the city, blending in had been easier. There were apartment buildings for people like her, and though they were rarely the safest, Lexa had been happy enough in her studio. She'd met her first true friends in years there, and then a few more in college, where minds were more open than in her small town. Some simply didn't care, others refused to buy into the fear mongering, and Lexa clung to them tightly, grateful for their affection and their flaws, the ones that society had marginalized as well.

Her closest friend was Anya - tough like nails and no-nonsense - who Lexa had met while they studied in the hopes of one day teaching. Yes, sometimes it was a wonder to Lexa as well that she would willfully step in school classrooms again, but how would the world ever change if the new generations weren't taught differently? Lexa had long ago found refuge in language and literature, and if she could one day extend a hand to a child shunned by their peers, if she could be the teacher she had needed in her teenage years so many times, it would be worth the pain of reviving old wounds. As for Anya, she wasn't markless but had gotten pregnant from an encounter with a markless partner, which had brought her family so much shame that she'd started finding the entire system loathsome. She'd had her daughter's name tattooed over her mark, packed their bags for the city and never once looked back.

The decade had seen some improvements for people like them - and the world was changing, even if slowly. There were programs started to facilitate their lives and more inclusive spaces offered. There were even dating websites, and if Lexa had once been embarrassed to even sign up, she now relied on them exclusively. Her college girlfriends might have been open-minded, but it'd never changed the words imprinted on their wrists.

Layover was perhaps the word Lexa detested the most in the English language, as people like her were the first ones to suffer from it. There had been Costia, first, who Lexa had loved as best she could, even as a broke twenty-year-old with full-time studies and two part-time jobs, but it had only lasted a year, until Costia had taken a linguistics class and met the girl whose first words to her were marked on her skin. In her defense, Costia had broken the news gently–and Lexa had loved her enough to be happy for her, though perhaps not when she had felt her heart plummet into her stomach.

Lexa had wondered afterward if it was true what they said about the Markless: if she had been able to let go of Costia because she was unable to truly love. When she had asked Anya about it, the woman had shrugged and told her one relationship was hardly strong enough proof.

Louisa had whirled into Lexa's life over a year later, but left just as quickly when another student had tapped on her shoulder and uttered the very words Louisa would sometimes mumble in her sleep. Lexa had been walking out of the class auditorium with her when it had happened, and she had felt herself freeze on the spot. After all, she'd spent enough nights in the same bed to know what words were on her girlfriend's wrist. Louisa had been so flustered that she'd babbled something back, and evidently the curly-haired boy who'd asked her a question had heard back the words imprinted on his own wrist, his smile spreading so wide that Lexa had felt sickened by the sight. She'd gotten blackout drunk for the first and last time that night and woken up on Anya's couch.

Afterward, Lexa had refused to waste her time. She dated a few markless women during grad school, but the relationships still naturally ran their course, and each time Lexa had wondered if the whispers were true: People like her couldn't know true love.

Which, inevitably, led to the second most detested word in Lexa's vocabulary: settling. It was a term that the Marked had coined some centuries ago, aimed at those who built lives and started families with partners they knew weren't their intended. It happened, of course, that in this world many didn't meet, but hope was to be maintained until one's last breath. There were records of couples meeting as old as 101 years old, and so whoever didn't wait was poorly regarded, though never as poorly as the Markless, who inspired fear rather than pity.

Though she didn't care for the word and its connotations, settling was something that Lexa had accepted for herself. It was clear by now, at 29, that she should seek a markless woman who shared her values and had a compatible lifestyle. It wouldn't be the love that movies and songs wrote about, but it could be a strong bond regardless - companionship - and together they could even have a family. It was seeing Anya around her daughter, Tris, that had planted the first seeds of yearning for a fuller life and someone to share it with.

It was with the very intention of settling that Lexa had packed her bags and moved to her dream city, much smaller in scale and population than the one that had offered her so much, but a place with a progressive enough reputation that Lexa knew she could be happy there. Anya had helped her with the move - a two hour drive away that both her and Lexa had felt weigh heavily on them. It would be the first time Lexa was far away from the friend who had, by all means, saved her life more than once.

When Lexa had applied for a teaching position at the Polis private middle school, it had been with Anya’s full support. She had coached her through the high-brow interview process and then celebrated when Lexa had officially been offered the English teacher position, to be started in two months for the new school year. For once, the stars had seemed to align.

That was, at least, until Lexa had stepped into her new apartment and realized just how strongly it smelled of fresh paint. On her first night alone, Lexa had woken up so dizzy that not even a morning walk had lessened the feeling. She’d resigned herself to the fact that her new place would be inhabitable for at least a week and had quickly found a hotel to stay in for the next few days.

Jake Griffin was the proud owner of Griffin Hotel, a warm place with under thirty rooms and a distinctly cozy appeal to it. It was not luxurious but still well-kept, with a room near the foyer for the breakfast buffet and another sitting room with armchairs, a bookshelf, and a view on their garden. Lexa had only taken one suitcase up to her room, but after Jake had left her to it, she’d felt oddly compelled to walk for a bit before she turned in for the night.

She put on her comfiest sweater and wandered out of the hotel, finding her way to the garden and enjoying the soothing sound of the small fountain there. Through the window to the sitting room, she could see the bookshelf standing tall and wondered what titles she would find on the spines of those old books. She went back inside and walked into the room, but stopped when she found that there was someone sitting on one of the armchairs.

She couldn’t be any older than Lexa, with her hair in a loose up-do and her legs curled up beneath her. She was completely absorbed in a book, an edition of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café so worn that the cover was only kept on thanks to three paperclips. There were notes sticking out of it and some ink stains on the edges of the pages. Lexa felt a sudden thrum of excitement at the prospect of a shared interest.

"I love that tomato,” she said offhandedly.

Her eyes widened as she realized the moronic string of words she had uttered. The woman’s head snapped up and Lexa felt her cheeks grow hot when she noticed her bewildered expression.

"That novel, I mean," Lexa quickly corrected. "It's a good one. Wonderful."

The woman blinked at her and when, finally, her mouth parted open, Lexa was so certain that she was about to say something that she couldn't help but feel disappointed when she merely nodded instead. But her disappointment quickly vanished when the woman’s face suddenly broke into a smile; one so sweet that Lexa felt herself smile right back.

When she motioned for Lexa to sit, Lexa promptly did.

"I'm sorry if I interrupted anything," Lexa said. "You seemed so engrossed."

The woman shrugged. Lexa wrung her hands on her lap. "It’s actually the first book I ever borrowed at a library.”

At the woman's arched brow, Lexa felt that she had been asked to elaborate. "I was nine. It was summer and I was wildly bored."

The woman suddenly sat up and pinched both edges of the book before showing the considerable space between her fingers. Lexa understood her meaning and smiled sheepishly.

"Yes, it was definitely too dense and mature for me. But I loved the world. Then I got obsessed with frying my own tomatoes - my mom never forgave me for setting her new pan on fire.”

The woman laughed, a soundless expression that made her eyes crinkle and her tongue peek out between her teeth. Lexa had accomplished many things in her life, but making this woman laugh felt like her proudest moment.

"Clarke?"

Lexa recognized Jake in the doorway, looking over at the woman in the armchair and then yawning loudly.

"I'm turning in. You need anything, hun'?"

Evidently, Lexa had stumbled upon Jake's daughter. When Clarke lifted her hands and signed something with them, Lexa thought to smack herself. She had been blabbing without once wondering why Clarke didn't respond verbally.

Jake chuckled at something Clarke signed. "Fair enough. Goodnight, kiddo."

After he left, Lexa stood up and cleared her throat. “I’m so sorry, I-” She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I've been talking your ear off and you probably just wanted to read in peace."

Clarke looked up at her with a curious expression, one Lexa couldn’t read at all.

“Hm... goodnight, then.” She smiled weakly and walked out of the room, already reaching for the bedroom key in her pocket.

Though she felt like an idiot, Lexa couldn’t resist one glance back before she turned the corner. She found Clarke looking at her with a soft smile, her expression so full of wonder that Lexa knew she would not be able to forget it.

Part two

#clexa #clarke x lexa #clexa fic #f: my favorite #soulmate trope #just spitballing

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wild-west-wind · 4 years

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Do you have any advice on becoming a park ranger or wildlife biologist? I’m going to college with the intent of getting a biology/zoology double major or major minor but I’m not too sure where to go from here. Feel free to not answer btw! I won’t be mad or anything since it ain’t your job to give people career advice lol

Sure! Well I can speak to being a Ranger at least, I’m not a wildlife biologist and despite my zoo work I’m a geologist first and foremost.

First piece of advice is a question:

What kind of Ranger? We come in many flavors, but broadly you have Interpretive Rangers (visitor contacts, giving talks, roving front country, this is what I do), Law Enforcement (forest cops), Resource Management (this means a lot of different things, but relevant to you they’re the ones working with animals in the park, hazing problem animals, doing research on populations, euthanizing animals that are involved in road accidents), Back Country (trail repair, making sure folks using back country areas are following rules, various other jobs, back country wears a lot of hats and they also ride horses), VUA/Fees (rangers at the gates, rangers in the camp grounds making sure no one is feeding bears).

Prepare to Work Seasonally: Even with a graduate degree most entry level parks jobs are seasonal. For NPS and Forest Service you need to work 24 months as a seasonal before you’ll be eligible for permanent jobs, which means 4-6 years of seasonal work depending on your park.

Start your seasons early! When applying to federal public lands jobs you’ll see paygrades listed as codes. I’m in a GS5, which basically just means I have a bachelors degree. GS4 positions only require 2 years of college, GS3 requires a high school degree. If you can find a park with a short season, I strongly recommend working any General Schedule job you can with a public lands agency. It does not matter, they all count toward your 24 months.

Volunteer. Volunteer hours don’t count toward your 24 months, but they are counted as experience when applying to federal public lands jobs. If you can’t get a paying gig, and you can afford to do it, Americorps and Geoscientist in the Parks (don’t let the name fool you, they do biology focused positions as well) are great options. Both will often house you, and pay a small stipend, which can cover some living expenses. If you’ll be under 19 by the end of next summer, the Youth Conservation Corps is also a great option. Too late for this season, most apps get put up in January, and close in April. Most of these programs have students and recent grads in mind, and generally fit inside a summer.

Write the shit out of your resume: Most resumes are supposed to be 1-2 pages in length. Your federal resume should have everything you’ve ever done on it. If you can say anything relevant to the job you’re applying for, put the past job on. I have work history going back to 2010 on my federal resume. Add volunteer positions, add societies you’re part of. Put. It. On. The. Resume. ALSO build your resume in the USA Jobs resume builder, otherwise you’re likely to leave off the weird stuff Uncle Sam likes but that you would never put on a private sector resume.

Find references who will fight for you: Federal jobs will check your references, so get good ones. They don’t necessarily have to be former supervisors; professors from your college, or folks you volunteer with can be great options, especially if you have a less than extensive work history. There’s a lot hiring officers in Federal jobs can’t do, but they will listen to your references.

Just get your foot in the door: This might seem counterproductive, but it’s better to get A public lands job than THE PERFECT public lands job. For federal work, passing muster once helps every subsequent application, in part because it’s easier to hire someone who has already jumped through all the hoops once already. If you want to go into a Resource position, but all you qualify for is a Visitor Use Assistant job, take the VUA. It’ll get you moving, and chip away at your 24 months.

Lastly, Be Flexible: This is a hard world to get into. Positions are highly sought after and it can take time to really get on the path that’s right for you. We’re all in the same boat, bobbing in the same sea. Your fellow public lands folks are a great resource at every step. Some might be frustrating, but most are really decent people who will try to help their comrades whenever they can.

Being a Park Ranger is the weirdest, wildest job in the world, and I hope you get to experience that firsthand.

If you (or anyone) has other questions, I usually remember to answer asks folks send me!

#in which I am a park ranger #Anonymous

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vinca-majors · 4 years

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Michaela Brown, ScaryMommy:

Upon graduating college with my hard-earned degree to teach high school English, I almost immediately began planning for my graduate studies. Lots of high schools around the country require their teachers to have a masters degree, so that was a motivator. Plus, it came with a pay raise. And, I truly enjoyed going to school. In fact, at the time, I hadn’t ruled out going on and earning my doctorate as well.

I did end up graduating with my M.A. in secondary education, after writing a thesis I’m damn proud of. My path changed a bit and I never went on for my doctorate, but you can be sure as hell if I had that I’d claim that Dr. title. That my students—even the grumpiest of teenagers whose eyes shot daggers at me as I made them read Shakespearean sonnets—would be calling me Dr. and not Mrs. or Miss.

And as I’ve encountered other professionals with that Dr. title, I’ve never hesitated to refer to them that way. My children’s formal principal went by Dr. Matthews. No one questioned it. I’ve had professors at the undergraduate and graduate level use the title. Again, that’s what we all called them. With respect. And without hesitation. Just as we refer to famous figures like a man we’ve all heard of—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.— because each of these people put in the work, the years, the money, the commitment, and the dedication. Each of them earned their Dr. title.

So yeah, when Dr. Jill Biden completed her education and earned her Doctor of Education (Ed.D) from the University of Delaware, she rightfully earned the title “Dr.” and deserves to be referred to as such. Just as any other professional with that level of expertise does as well. Is she a medical doctor? No. Does she claim to be? No. Have professionals in academia added Dr. to their titles once they’ve earned their doctorate for centuries? Yes.

However, because some ignorant asswipes remain stuck in 1950, or don’t understand how higher education works, or simply are bound and determined to hate on the Bidens as they hated on the Obamas even though they are kind and supportive of others—regardless of political party, her title is under scrutiny.

The Wall Street Journal stupidly published an op-ed, which has now gone viral, that was moronically entitled, “Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D.” And, of course, this piece of trash essay included a byline that reads, “Jill Biden should think about dropping the honorific, which feels fraudulent, even comic.”

Joseph Epstein, the “writer” of this ignorant word vomit, opens by condescendingly calling Dr. Biden “kiddo” and offering her advice, as if he is in any position to advise the First Lady of the United States on literally anything. “Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill—kiddo: a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter,” Epstein mansplains.

He then goes on to insult her dissertation on student retention at community colleges, calling it “unpromising” and, in the same paragraph, refers to the idiotic but commonly used quip that no one can call themselves “doctor” unless they’ve delivered a child.

Let’s break this bullshittery down, shall we? First of all, Mr. Epstein, your piece reeks of envy. We’re sorry you didn’t have the… guts? courage? stamina? intelligence level? (who knows) to actually ever earn a doctorate, but you sound bitter. It’s not a good look. Also, it’s clear that you don’t respect the value of community colleges, which is where Dr. Biden has spent a large portion of her career. And, finally, the world now knows that you are threatened by smart women. Bravo.

Also, we’ll be sure to let all the medical doctors out there who’ve tirelessly fought COVID-19 this year, holding the hands of dying patients, and also those brilliant scientists who thankfully have brought us a vaccine that offers a beacon of hope, that they don’t get to call themselves “doctor” because they’ve never caught a newborn baby. I’m sure they’ll appreciate that tidbit of info from you—*checks notes*—a man with one single undergraduate degree, no earned doctorate, and zero medical expertise.

Basically, Mr. Epstein, it’s obvious that you have some personal issues you need to unpack. Maybe take some time over the holidays to do a little self-reflection? Like, why do you even care what title Dr. Biden goes by? Why are you so scared of women who are more successful than you?

Your piece then goes on a long, barely coherent rant about “honorary doctorates,” which is not what Dr. Biden has. If you’d like to blast the validity or point of bestowing honorary doctorates on celebrities like Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers, for example, go right ahead, but that has nothing to do with Dr. Biden. This lack of cohesive argument is why I’ve referred to you as a “writer” a few paragraphs up, because it seems apparent that you don’t understand the need for basic textual support.

(Calling you a jealous asswipe, well, that’s just a reflection of your character.)

Finally, your last “supporting argument” (again, use of quotes intentional here) as to why Dr. Biden should drop her title is because apparently doctorates don’t count anymore. Back in the day, you explain, doctoral exams were far more grueling, but today’s candidates get off way too easy.

“One had to pass examinations in two foreign languages, one of them Greek or Latin, defend one’s thesis, and take an oral examination on general knowledge in one’s field,” your op-ed states. “At Columbia University of an earlier day, a secretary sat outside the room where these examinations were administered, a pitcher of water and a glass on her desk. The water and glass were there for the candidates who fainted. A far cry, this, from the few doctoral examinations I sat in on during my teaching days, where candidates and teachers addressed one another by first names and the general atmosphere more resembled a kaffeeklatsch.”

(I had to look up what kaffeeklatsch meant—it’s an informal social gathering at which coffee is served. Excuse my lack of knowledge there. I’m just a silly woman with a higher degree than you.)

And, as you end with, “Dr. Jill, I note you acquired your Ed.D. as recently as 15 years ago at age 55, or long after the terror had departed,” you not only insult her by addressing her as “Dr. Jill”, but you also imply that because she likely didn’t faint while taking her exams or defending her dissertation, that somehow her degree isn’t real.

That’s the crazy thing about education—it evolves. Today, kids even use these neat little things called computers! You wouldn’t believe it. Another way we’ve evolved is to realize that shockingly, our doctoral candidates don’t have to become physically ill to prove they are smart and worthy of their degree!

(I mean, you never even tried, Mr. Epstein, so I guess even today, doctoral programs are only for the toughest among us, like Dr. Jill Biden.)

Also, it seems that Northwestern University, where you were previously listed as “emeritus lecturer of English,” has scrubbed you entirely from their website, stating that it is “firmly committed to equity, diversity and inclusion, and strongly disagrees with Epstein’s misogynistic views.” Again, evolution! Change is good.

Hmmm. So one of you is a misogynist with no teaching history to even brag about as your previous employer has disassociated with you, and another is a successful educator committing to helping all Americans have access to a proper education. Oh, and the second one goes by Dr.

Looks like the real “comical fraud” is you, bruh.

And just so we’re clear, Dr. Biden has always been committed to ensuring that everyone (not just pretentious twats like you, Joseph Epstein) has access to a fair education. Earlier in her career, she worked in a psychiatric hospital where she taught English to adolescents with emotional disabilities. During that same time she also earned two (yes, TWO) master’s degrees, one from Villanova University and one from West Chester University. In 2009, after earning her doctorate, she began teaching English at Northern Virginia Community College, and advocating for community college education has since been her passion. “Dr. Biden has always said that community colleges are ‘one of America’s best-kept secrets.’ As a teacher, she sees how community colleges have changed the lives of so many of her students for the better,” explains former president Barack Obama’s White House website.

Sorry, Mr. Epstein, but not everyone can afford to enroll in an English class at Northwestern taught by a raging sexist who gets his balls in a bunch when women succeed. For many, community college is a better fit, and Dr. Biden is a big part of that.

“In 2012, she traveled across the country as part of the ‘Community College to Career’ tour to highlight successful industry partnerships between community colleges and employers,” the website goes on to say. “In the fall of 2010, she hosted the first-ever White House Summit on Community Colleges with President Obama, and she continues to work on this outreach on behalf of the Administration – frequently visiting campuses, meeting with students and teachers, as well as industry representatives around the country.”

Imagine all of the hard-working Americans Dr. Biden has helped by supporting community colleges. Future teachers just like her often get their degree while working full time, raising a family, and going to college at night. Who knows, some of them may even—gasp—go to grad school too. High school kids who choose to forego going away to a full-time university and instead, take classes at a community college closer to home, are given that option because of people like Dr. Biden. Kids who go on to be EMTs, police officers, technicians in trade industries, engineers, and find success in the business world. Or, they transfer those college credits to a larger university down the road when they have the means to do so. Single moms doing their best to give their children a good life often attend community college classes online, after their children are asleep, proving that they have the drive and determination to do more and be more.

So, what it all boils down to, Mr. Epstein, is that you really, really hate that there’s about to a woman in the White House who’s smarter than you. And not only that, but she inspires women everywhere to work hard, earn their degrees, and then they’ll be smarter than you too. Yikes. That’s a tough pickle to be in, Mr. Epstein. We’re sorry that you are so insecure and unhappy with your own lack of success.

At least you can still wrote those stellar op-eds though! Good luck with your “writing” career, kiddo.

#dr. jill biden #michaela brown #scarymommy #op ed #joseph epstein #current events #SO fired up right now #gimme that feminism #my country tis of thee #long post

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saywhatjessie · 4 years

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Aromatic Adjectives Need Not Apply

Castiel was an Alpha, despite what everyone always guessed upon meeting him. He was tall, and he had the stern and imposing profile, but, to most people, those Alpha traits were where it ended. He had a lithe, runner’s frame, with trim waist and thick thighs. “Child-bearing hips” he’d been told. Though, obviously, no children would be born of him. This scuffling man, though. He was… round. Potentially child-bearing. And Castiel was sure his true mate wasn’t either of the other two men.

Or Castiel is an Alpha that doesn’t believe in true mates but sniffs one out anyway. 4.3k [Ao3]

Art by @castielangeldelaguarda

Castiel immediately knew two things upon walking out of the campus library.

The first was that there was some underclassman roughhousing taking place down on the lawn. These ‘fights’ were one of the more distasteful things this university had to offer. They were unfortunately common and even encouraged: a way for up-and-coming Alphas to exercise some of their aggression and for Betas and even Omegas to test themselves against the (Castiel always rolled his eyes) dominant gender. To Castiel, it always seemed like a school sanctioned excuse for bullying but he was just a grad student; there wasn’t much he could do.

The second thing he knew was that his true mate was somewhere in the nearby scuffle.

Castiel, as a rule, didn’t believe in true mates. That he was biologically programmed to mate with one person, a specific person he didn’t even get to pick, for the rest of his earthly life was a concept he simply couldn’t entertain. It wasn’t something he was ever going to bother himself over so it wasn’t even worth the mental brain space of belief.

But his true mate was there, whether Castiel believed it or not.

He could smell it in the air. There was no comparable smell, no aromatic adjective that could define it. It smelled like green, but not like plants. It smelled like light but not like fire. It smelled like… righteousness. But that was too pretentious for Castiel to even process.

He followed it with haste, but not as urgently as someone who thought their true mate might be having their face beaten in. He was in too much shock at the existence of a true mate to think about anything else.

It was a small scuffle, at least, which made the selection of who Castiel might be smelling fortunately narrow. Three guys, two of whom were clearly big Alphas preying on the third.

Castiel sighed a bit, his steps speeding up only to spare this third guy more pain. Because it looked like the third guy was going to be Castiel’s true mate.

This scuffling man, though. He was... round. Potentially child-bearing. And Castiel was sure his true mate wasn’t either of the other two men.

Castiel cleared his throat, the deepness of his voice startling the three men on the ground, as it usually did. People usually expected Castiel’s voice to be higher than it was.

“I think that’s enough,” he said, not quite using his Alpha voice but not leaving room for argument, either.

Apparently there was room for argument, because one of the Alphas – a younger looking guy with floppy, dust-colored hair – sneered up at him from his rather undignified position on the ground. “Yeah? What are you gonna do about it?”

“You too prissy to come down here and fight in the mud with us?” said the other one.

Castiel felt his face go stormy and opened his mouth to use his real Alpha voice, when the third and final guy snorted from his feet.

“What, Chet, you’re gonna tussle with this guy? He would tear you apart.”

Castiel looked down at him, a little shocked. The third guy had a giant purple bruise covering the right side of his face and there was blood dripping from his nose straight down his chin, but he looked perfectly at ease. He’d rolled himself to a sitting position, legs folded pretzel style, and he leaned back on his arms like he hadn’t a care in the world.

Chet, the blond guy with the crew cut, went slightly red in the face, but he avoided the third’s eyes. Now that Castiel could get a look at him, he was roughed up as well. Gravel clung to his hairline and his jaw had almost no skin left on it. Ashy hair’s left eye was swelling like crazy.

Castiel looked back at the third where he pulled at the string of his red hoodie, casual as anything.

“I think that actually can be enough for the day,” the guy said, nodding decisively. And he moved to stand up, groaning as he got his to his feet, his bulk moving with him.

When he was standing, Castiel finally got a good look at him. A lot of what Castiel had seen on the ground was still true. He was wearing jeans and converse sneakers, a ratty and now bloodstained hoodie on top.

And he was fat. A more generous person may have said chubby, but there was no denying this guy was as full-bodied as they came. He carried it well. He was tall – maybe as tall as Castiel himself - and his legs bowed out like they were straining under the weight of his upper half, but he still carried it well. He looked like him being fat didn’t matter. Like he couldn’t care less about it, that he knew he was still hot. Which Castiel was also just now noticing he was.

The guy ran a hand through his hair, unflattening the sandy strands from the scuffle, and straightened the thick framed glasses on his nose. The glasses didn’t look any worse for wear, despite the face they’d been sitting on looking like it’d been hit with a brick. He had to know Castiel was watching him but he didn’t bother wiping the blood away, letting it drip over his mouth. He blew out a breath through parted lips and tiny drops of blood came spraying out. Castiel recoiled.

The guy winced but still didn't move to wipe the blood away. “Sorry about that.”

He turned to the two still on the ground so that Castiel was left looking at his back. “You guys good?” he said, his voice just this side of goading. “Need help?”

“Fuck you, Winchester,” the non-Chet guy said.

The guy – Winchester – just chuckled.

“Come on, guys,” Winchester said, spreading his hands. “It was fun, but–”

Chet growled – an undeveloped sound from a kid who was maybe just over 19. “Don’t talk to us like some pump-and-dump Omega bitches, man.”

Castiel watched Winchester’s shoulder’s change, rolling back from their relaxed posture into a tenser, more battle-ready position. Castiel took an automatic step back, preparing for another fight to break out.

But all Winchester did was growl “Watch it,” in a deep and dangerous sounding voice that Castiel was not expecting.

He had assumed, upon first approach, that this man was the true mate he’d scented. But he’d mostly assumed that because he didn’t give off the overaggressive Alpha vibes he’d gotten off of the other two, and, well, Castiel himself was an Alpha. And in the three seconds between finding out true mates were real and that he had one and meeting the three men, he hadn’t considered that two Alphas could be true mates.

But Winchester had just used his Alpha voice. And his scent had intensified. And all of it confirmed that he was not just an Alpha but an Alpha who was Castiel’s true mate.

“Oh,” Castiel said.

Winchester turned to wink at him but Castiel watched as his nostrils flared. And he froze, eyes widening.

Chet took a step forward and Winchester whipped around with the headiest growl Castiel had ever heard.

It was so primal, so visceral, that Chet and not-Chet’s knees buckled on impact, both of them folding to a more submissive position.

In the back of Castiel’s mind, he was considering for the first time that perhaps these boys weren’t actually Alphas. The rest of Castiel’s mind, however, was intently focused on Winchester in front of him. His right arm extended, palm turned back in a protective barrier between Castiel and the two other men. His left fist up in an aggressive display as if the growl weren’t enough to keep even the meanest predator at bay.

A strip of skin was exposed between the top of his jeans and the bottom of his sweatshirt. This wasn’t as relevant to the rest of the presentation but it caught Castiel’s attention and held it nonetheless.

There was a low rumble in Winchester’s chest, like he was building up to another growl. But all he said was “Go.”

Chet and not-Chent went, scrambling across the grass and tumbling over each other in their haste to get away.

Winchester held his position, watching them leave, until they turned a corner around a building and were out of sight.

He then turned to Castiel, grin spread wide. “Hi, I’m Dean.”

Winchester – or, Dean, Castiel supposed – still had blood all over his face. His cheek was still purpled and he had grass caught in the short bristles of his sandy hair.

Castiel looked him over for a long moment: long enough for Dean to messily wipe his face with the sleeve of his hoodie, the blood completely unnoticeable against the burgundy fabric. Castiel wondered in an offhand way if that’s why he wore it.

Instead of asking, he said, “Hello, Dean.”

Dean grinned wider. There was even more blood in his teeth.

Castiel reached into one of the deep pockets of his overcoat and pulled out a half-full plastic water-bottle. He offered it to Dean.

Dean raised an eyebrow and Castiel fought a blush.

“To rinse out your mouth,” he explained, his embarrassment making his voice even deeper.

Dean’s eyes lit up in understanding and he took the bottle with another bright grin. “Thanks.”

He took a deep pull from the bottle and swished it around before spitting it out on the grass. Castiel’s face scrunched in disapproval, despite the fact that this was why he’d offered it to Dean in the first place.

Dean, at least, seemed to notice how gross he was being, because he winced before coughing into his fist and turning back to Castiel. “Can I get your name?”

“I’ll tell it to you, but you can’t keep it,” Castiel said, before wincing. “That’s a joke,” he started to explain. “About fairies….”

There was half a second of an awkward pause before Dean rumbled a bit in a laugh. “I get it. It’s funny.”

Castiel’s cheeks heated up again. “Right,” he cleared his throat. “It’s Castiel. My name.”

Dean nodded, his smile yet to flag, and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Castiel.”

Castiel was reluctant to take Dean’s hand (He’d just watched him wipe his bloody face with his sleeve, who knew where his hands had been?) but he gamely reached out to take Dean’s hand. The hand of his mate.

Dean yanked his hand back before Castiel could make contact though, looking horrified.

“Oh, my God, no, you can’t touch that. I’m disgusting.” He held up his hand like it was evidence in a murder trial. He then looked down at his hoodie and the near-invisible blood crusting on it. “Ah, shit, oh fuck.” He blew out a breath then mumbled. “This is not how this should go.”

Castiel cocked his head, lowering his hand with no small amount of relief. “How what should go?”

“Meeting my true mate,” Dean groaned. “There should be more–” he gestured with his infected hand, “fireworks or rainbows or whatever.”

Dean looked so disgruntled that there were no fireworks or rainbows or whatever and instead just two men, one of whom was dirtied and bloodied from fighting on the lawn, that Castiel couldn’t keep back a fond smile. “Dean, it’s okay.”

Dean snorted. “It’s not, but I can get there. Hang on.”

Dean reached for the back of his neck, pulling his hoodie off over his head. He knocked his glasses off so he had to pick them up off the ground.

“Why am I still wearing these?” he asked himself in an undertone before shrugging and putting them back on.

He used his hoodie to wipe off the remainder of the dirt and blood on his face, shaking the grass out of his hair. He glanced questioningly at Castiel, holding up the water bottle, and when Castiel nodded in assent, poured some water out on the cleaner sleeve and started rubbing down the crusted stuff along his hairline.

It was one of the most efficient displays of impromptu cleaning Castiel has ever seen.

When Dean was finished and mostly filth free (a truly impressive feat without a mirror) he balled his sweatshirt up, casting a hesitant look at Castiel.

“Can you just– gimme a sec.”

Dean jogged to the dorm building just off the quad, his red t-shirt riding up as he ran, and wound up to throw his balled up sweatshirt through a second floor window.

Castiel watched him, startled, as Dean jogged back, grinning and tugging his shirt down over his belly.

“Wanna go for a walk?” Dean asked brightly. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a travel sized hand-sanitizer which he used liberally on his hands and forearms.

“Was that your room?” Castiel asked, still trying to process the flying grime-encrusted sweatshirt.

Dean shrugged. “No. But I know the guys who live there and they should be fine. I’ll text them.”

Castiel shook his head. “It’s not Chet is it?”

Dean snorted, shaking out his hands to help dry the hand sanitizer. “No. Fuckin Chet....”

Castiel found himself smiling back and bit his lip, turning his body. “Yes, let’s go for a walk.”

Dean grinned, practically skipping to Castiel’s side, his bulk moving surprisingly well.

Dean pulled his phone out and typed up a text before he forgot. Castiel let him do this, waiting to speak until he put his phone away.

“So I haven’t seen you around before,” Castiel started, unsure where else to begin.

Dean shrugged again. “‘s a big school.”

Castiel scrunched his nose, shoving his hands in his overcoat pockets. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean said, shooting him a wink.

Castiel rolled his eyes.“We’re true mates,” he said, comfortably blunt. “Why am I just now catching your scent?”

“I transferred up this semester,” Dean answered, also happy to be blunt. He picked at the wrapper of the now empty water bottle he was still holding. “Did three years at a community college, but I could only take specific credits here. So I transferred.”

“Oh, thank God,” Castiel said, letting his shoulders slump a bit in relief. “You’re not a freshman. I was worried.”

Dean snorted. “No, not a freshman.”

Castiel nodded, but squinted his eyes. “But still…” he began again. “Semester’s been happening for six weeks already.”

Dean’s eyebrows furrowed and he reached up to scratch the back of his neck. “I don’t know, man. This was my first fight?”

Castiel nodded, accepting this answer. Alphas’ scents amplified when they were behaving aggressively.

“Well, I guess that’s impressive, in itself,” Castiel allowed. “It’s unusual for Alphas not to drop their hands as soon as they arrive on campus.”

Dean was quiet for a moment before turning to Castiel with an incredulous look on his face. “Do you mean gloves? Drop their gloves?”

Castiel sighed, exasperated. “Yes. It was supposed to be a hockey metaphor. For fighting.”

“No, I got that,” Dean said grinning. “It was cute.”

Castiel flushed again. He scowled.

“What about you, though,” Dean asked, making the plastic of the water bottle crinkle. “Doesn’t look like you fight.”

Castiel startled before he realized Dean had probably picked out the Alpha in his scent. Even still, this was maybe the first time someone had assumed he was an Alpha without Castiel telling them.

“I don’t,” Castiel admitted.

“So then how’s it fair you can make blanket statements about what ‘Alphas’ do?”

Castiel scowled again. Dean just kept smiling at him.

“Well, you did fight this time.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Chet and Lincoln were asking for it.”

Castiel’s face soured. He didn’t care for that excuse.

But Dean rushed to correct him. “No, like, they were literally asking for it. They’re both betas and, I don’t know, wanted to improve their rep?” Dean rolled his eyes. “I didn’t really get it. But they asked me to tussle so I said sure.”

Castiel looked Dean up and down, humming to himself.

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You think they picked me because they thought I was an easy target?”

“No, I wasn’t thinking that,” Castiel said honestly. “Although, those glasses do give you a certain vulnerable look.”

Dean scoffed, taking off the glasses and pointing at his face. “20/20 vision, baby.” He put the glasses back on. “I’m a programming major. These filter out the blue light so I don’t give myself a migraine staring at screens all day.”

Castiel hummed again, in acceptance this time. “Practical.”

Dean huffed a laugh. “Thank you.”

Castiel smiled. “No, I was actually thinking it was unwise to challenge you. Because you’re so much bigger than they are.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You calling me fat, Cas?”

“Yes,” Castiel answered automatically and Dean laughed. Castiel’s face was still warming that Dean had called him ‘Cas.’ “But also you have a rather big persona. You are bigger than them, but you also act bigger.”

Dean’s mouth screwed up to the side. “Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.”

Dean dropped his chin to his chest, exhaling a laugh.

They turned on the pathway to cross in front of the administration building and Dean excused himself for a moment to throw the empty water bottle into the plastic recycling bin.

“You didn’t want to keep that, did you?” Dean asked, jogging back up. “I didn’t think of it until I already threw it out but it’s not cool for me to throw out your stuff.”

Castiel smiled at him. “It’s fine, Dean. I’m just glad you recycle.”

“I’m environmentally conscious as fuck .” Dean said, pumping his fist.

Castiel laughed. Dean grinned.

“Would you like to get coffee?” Castiel asked, curling his hands in his pockets.

Dean straightened, his eyes lighting up. “Yeah. Yes. Let’s do that.”

Castiel smiled and started walking off campus to his favorite local coffee shop.

Castiel gestured for Dean to order first. Dean did so with no apparent self-consciousness, ordering a caramel macchiato, a pressed sandwich, and a muffin. When the cashier asked if there would be anything else, Castiel stepped in front of Dean, ordered his own loose leaf tea, and then paid for the entire order.

Dean looked very put out by that. “That’s not fair! You shouldn’t have paid for me, I got so much more than you did.”

Castiel shot him a smirk, tucking his change back into his wallet. “I invited you. I’m the Alpha. I pay.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I’m the Alpha, too.”

Castiel blinked. “Oh. Right.”

He didn’t know how he could have forgotten. Hadn’t he just watched Dean wipe blood and dirt from his body? Hadn’t he just felt the force of Dean’s Alpha voice against those two other men?

Not the first but certainly the heaviest awkward silence fell over them like a physical press.

Dean put his hands in his pockets. “Is that something we’re gonna have to talk about?”

Castiel shook his head, automatically. And then reconsidered. “Perhaps we should.”

Castiel gestured to the attendants behind the counter, alerting them that he and Dean were taking a table and their order should be brought out to them. The attendants nodded in understanding and Castiel turned to find a place to sit.

There was an empty two-person table just off of the entrance in front of the window. Castiel made for it, taking a seat without a fuss.

When he was seated, he looked at Dean, who was looking back at Castiel with something like appreciation.

“Okay, I get it now,” he said, resting his elbows on the table.

Castiel frowned. “Get what?”

“How you’re an Alpha,” Dean explained. “I mean I could smell it, obviously but–” he gestured at Castiel as if to encompass the non-Alpha-ness look of him.

There was the aforementioned hips and thin frame, but how Castiel dressed didn’t help, he was sure. He preferred turtlenecks and oxford shoes, his ankles exposed by the fitted chinos he favored, over any brusque and “masculine” Alpha wear.

Castiel folded his hands, raising an eyebrow in a signal for Dean to continue.

Dean gestured at him again. “Right, and then you do that. Your Alpha eyebrow. And you just casually commanded the whole room so we could get this table.”

Castiel blinked. “The table was open.”

“Except for the three people who were about to take it before they saw your domineering ass.”

Castiel tilted his head. He hasn’t noticed anyone else.

But then, he guessed, that supported Dean’s point.

He hummed to allow the point.

Dean grinned. Then frowned.

“So how is this gonna work?”

Castiel tilted his head the other way.

Dean flexed his shoulders, gearing himself up for the conversation. “We’re true mates, right? So… we’re gonna be together?”

This was the most nervous Castiel had seen Dean. He felt his protective instinct rear up in a way he’d never experienced before. He leaned forward and took Dean’s hand on instinct alone.

“This is a date,” Castiel clarified, watching as Dean’s shoulders untensed even while a blush rose to his cheeks. “I asked you on a date. We’re going to date more, probably.”

He squeezed Dean’s hands. “I can’t guarantee where the dating will go. I’ve never had a true mate before. I’ve never even heard of them in real life. So we’re just going to take this as it comes. Are you okay with that?”

Dean looked from their joined hands then back to Castiel. He immediately changed their grip so Castiel’s hands were held in his.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he said, a challenge in his tone. “But I’m an Alpha. So you can’t talk to me like I’m some wilting flower. And you can’t think you get to make all the decisions and shit. I’m gonna have something to say about it. Are you okay with that ?”

Tips of Castiel’s brain rejected the firm hold Dean had on him. It wanted to square up against Dean, to assert dominance.

But the rest of Castiel marked the glint in his eye. Caught the turn of his wrist and the cock of his head. All of it was a tease. A challenge, but a tantalizing one. It invited Castiel to play along.

Castiel had never been one for roughhousing play.

But with his true mate – with Dean – he was considering it.

“I can…” He looked down at their tangled hands, how they kept circling and gripping and never letting their skin lose contact, before looking back up at Dean, his own challenging smirk bending his face. “...perhaps be okay with that.”

Dean’s grin was a knife across his face, so different from the genial look of their meeting. It filled Castiel with that same rightness, the same sense of ‘yes, true mate’ but now with a sense of curiosity. A sense of wonder. A sense of wanting to know more.

Their orders arrived. Castiel attended to his tea – pressing the leaves back to pour the steeped water into his mug, adding honey and stirring with a deliberate unaffectedness he’d cultivated.

Dean, meanwhile, devoured his food and coffee without discernment. He had his whole sandwich and muffin swallowed almost simultaneously. It was as impressive as it was disgusting, yet Castiel was oddly charmed. Surely it was the happy and satisfied scent Dean was giving off now that he’d been fed. Castiel couldn’t think of any other scenario where he wouldn’t be repulsed by such a display.

But he was beguiled. And once he’d eaten, Dean did take some time over his macchiato instead of chugging it like an animal. So there were some things to be redeemed.

They talked over their drinks, getting some baseline stuff out of the way. Castiel was a grad student. Dean had a brother. Castiel was an orphan. Dean was raised by a single mother. Castiel liked bees. Dean liked old muscle cars.

By the time both of their mugs were empty, they knew they had to give up their table. But Castiel wanted to know more.

“Here’s my phone number,” he said taking a pen from his pocket and writing it on Dean’s hand.

Dean smiled down at it but nudged Castiel with his shoulder. “You could have just plugged it into my phone.”

Castiel nudged him back. “Yes. But now, you can look at my number on your hand and think of me for the rest of the day.”

Dean smiled wider.

“That’s some pretty soft shit for an Alpha, Cas.”

Castiel smirked like danger, letting what Dean had called his Alpha Eyebrow make his point. “We’re redefining Alpha shit, Dean.”

Dean ducked his head, suddenly shy again.

They were redefining Alpha shit, indeed.

“We should do this again sometime,” Dean said.

They both knew full well they would be doing this again sometime. Again and again for the rest of their lives, probably.

But the way Dean said it was like that challenge again. It was with pride. Like he knew Castiel would say yes but not because they were true mates. But because he trusted that Castiel liked him.

And he did.

Castiel looked Dean over in an obvious up and down that made Dean’s ears turn pink. There was a dare in his eyes. A proposition in the tilt of his head.

Castiel met it with a smile. “I look forward to it.”

#deancasreversebang #dcrb #Aromatic Adjectives Need Not Applu #oops I wrote a thing #Jessie writes Destiel fic #omegaverse #Alpha/Alpha #chubby!Dean #fat Dean #chubby dean

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ionizedyeast · 5 years

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Title: 0180304 - Workplace Relationship Part 1/2 “Statement of Nelson Briar, Head of Folklore and Legend Research of the Magnus Institute, and his relationship and events surrounding Michael Shelley prior to becoming the Distortion. Statement given --.”

“That’s enough, let’s get right to it, Jon. You know, I’m the reason Elias had to start being more lax about employee relationships within the Institute. It’s not like we had been keeping anything secret, though. Gertrude knew before anyone else and then Diane did. And as far as I know, we were close to being the primary reason for gossip. But you’re not here to listen to me talk about the watercooler chatter of the Magnus Institute. You want to know what happened with me and Michael before well. . . Before I lost him.

I came here from the States back in late 2006. I had just started a Master’s program and had been working in the Usher Foundation back in DC since I was an undergrad. My area of study was well received by the Foundation and thankfully the Institute was more than willing to have me as a grad student in residence. I would have the chance to utilize any of their resources for my studies. Well, not any. It’s funny, knowing what I know now about the Institute, I’ve got to say there were loads of red flags about me coming out here. Probably starting with the fact the Lukas family funded my transfer and were going to cover my education. But I didn’t know anything about the Lukases back then. We have our own cryptic families back in Washington and as far as we were concerned, the Institute had a keen grasp on whatever the Lukases were doing, and weren’t our problem.

You had just started around that time too, hadn’t you, Jon? Wasn’t I your immediate superior for a while? I forget, I still can’t quite figure out the hierarchy here. You’re Head Archivist. I’m Head of Folklore -- are we equals in the Institute or are were on completely different levels. Ah, nevermind, we can talk about that outside of the recording. Reminiscing can wait.

I was, I think I was the third in residence student-employee the Institute had taken in. My predecessors had long since finished their studies and moved on elsewhere. South Africa and Russia, if I recall. I never had the chance to meet them, but as far as what Elias had told me in during my orientation, that’s what I had gathered about them. Wonder what they’re up to. . . But I digress. I was the third, but I was the first that was actively using the archive statements as fodder for my research. See, my focus area was in covering unifying themes throughout world cultures through the means of folklore. Obviously we’ve got the standards -- creation myths, the afterlife, explanations of nature, harvest -- the usual. But my studies were taking me elsewhere. To concepts that overlapped and had uncanny similarities, even when the cultures were worlds away. Some could be explained as just the natural need for humans to find comfort in what they didn’t understand. Death and the dark were most common. I could always figure out ways to connect these points, even if the cultures were wildly different. What was the geography like? The weather during this time period. How were their relations with nearby enemy and ally communities? I could usually pinpoint what needed to be explained and tied together. But some things I never could quite get a grasp on.

You see, Jon, in my decade plus at the Institute, I’ve probably dug too deep for just a simple scholar. I don’t study to know things for a sense of omniscience. I study to satisfy my own curiosity. While it’s always a thrill to share my academic findings with anyone who will listen, it’s always been primarily a personal gain. So I suppose that was one reason why Elias ended up granting me permission to study the archives. With limitations of course. Gertrude wasn’t the most thrilled about it. But I was not prying through with the intentions of exposing the secrets I uncovered to the world. No, it was for myself. And somewhere down the line, well, I wouldn’t call myself an expert by any means. But I did find myself very familiar with some common trends. Of course this wouldn’t all come in to play until some time after Michael, er, vanished.

Michael and I met sometime in early 2007. I had been here for a few months and I was bouncing between working as a shelver in the library and a research assistant -- we briefly were colleagues at this time, though back then we never really spoke to one another. What a shame. Imagine how close we’d be now if we had.

It wasn’t exactly what I would call a remarkable meeting. Gertrude had sent him to the library to have access to our private records for some sort of report but we didn’t have anyone to accompany him at the time so we just talked. I called him enormous or something to that extent -- I’m a small guy, Jon. I’m easily astounded at tall people -- he found my reaction funny. Somehow or another he mentioned the kind of research he was conducting for Gertrude and it was actually something I had quite a bit of experience in. I’d just had an article get published about the topic, so I talked his ear off for a bit before Diane came to take him to the back. Michael came back to the library at the end of the day and asked I’d like to get a coffee with him sometime. Didn’t realize it was a date until the third time we’d gone out for coffee and he started buying. It was casual dating, you know what I mean? The kind where you spend the first few dates just getting to know one another. Talking about what you had in common. What hobbies you had. Your friends. Family. Rather commonplace stuff just to test the waters. And while we had a few disagreements in interests, we kept coming back to the things we did have in common. You’ll have to forgive me, but when it comes to other people’s perceptions of me, I am very dense. Beyond the surface level of ‘this person likes me’, ‘this person tolerates me’ and ‘this person dislikes me’ I have an incredibly difficult time reading people. Even when Michael was holding my hand on our forth date, I still kept telling myself, “Oh Nel, he’s one of those people that uses physical contact to show he’s engaged in conversation.” And frankly it wasn’t until I started sleeping with him -- oh, christ, too much? Sorry, not really the right sort of content to be sharing. But you see my point. I didn’t realize Michael and I had been legitimately dating for nearly eight months. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I’d realized sooner, he wouldn’t have -- you know what, nevermind. There’s no use dwelling on it. Michael is dead. He gave himself up to stop the Spiral’s ritual and that’s all that matters. He did us a service but well, it put me into a bind. Kind of literally. I’ll fast forward through our relationship -- we were all but short of living together. My apartment was too small. Would you believe it was Lukas housing? And he was living too far for me to comfortably be able to commute after my longer days. He was something of a rock for me on my rough days where I’d be at the Institute well into the night. I didn’t like being there late. Always felt like someone was watching me. Heh, well, it wasn’t paranoia. And present me is glad to reassure past Nelson that no, he was not being an anxious mess. He really was being watched. Some nights Michael would stay with me until I finished what I had been working on. Other nights he’d make a point of coming back later in the evening to check on me only to have to wake me up and send me home. Sometimes I wonder if he had ever actually gone home those days. He’d become wrapped up in his own studies under Gertrude. It wasn’t my business so I never asked unless he chose to share.

That’s a lie, and you know it, don’t you? I was a snoop. I would hear Michael mentioning things some nights when I stayed at his place. Whatever it was Gertrude was having him do, it was eating at him. He talked about always being afraid he was taking the wrong door when he was going places. He’d started taking photographs of the doors he used most often. Told me to make sure it was so he wouldn’t get lost. He didn’t want to go somewhere he couldn’t leave. I suggested he put something on the doors he used most so he wouldn’t get confused. But it didn’t seem to reassure him. Some nights he didn’t sleep at all. He’d either just lay in bed with me until the sun came up. Some mornings I’d wake up to find him facing a wall, hand outstretched as if he were taking a doorknob. He would always be so relieved when I called out to him. He’d always settle into bed next to me and he wouldn’t speak. He would just hang tight on to me and just remain still and silent. Now, trust me, Michael was not mentally ill. I mean, your standard depression and anxiety like nearly everyone our age, but he wasn’t unmedicated, nor was he struggling with anything else. Or maybe he was and he just didn’t know. But I genuinely believe -- no, I know -- that how he was acting was not a sign of mental illness. Something had him. I can only say now that I know something had him, because I know what happened now. He only started acting himself again in the days before he and Gertrude left. He was excited. Talked about how thrilled he was to be needed for something so important. He loved his work and he was very dedicated to aiding Gertrude in her work as well. And he was himself again for a short while. We’d been together I think a little over two years at this point. Longest I’ve ever been with a man. Most men get turned off by me being trans so early in the relationship, but Michael didn’t mind. He just liked me and I have to say, hiccups in his health aside, I think we were very happy together. He was so optimistic that week before -- said that he thought that it was time that we moved in together properly. He said he’d seen some places for rent a bit closer to the Institute that on our combined income would be a walk in the park. He wanted to know if my parents were ever going to be visiting London again because he felt he was ready to meet them. After two years together of us being content in our stations, suddenly he was ready to make more of these commitments with me and honestly. . .I couldn’t have been happier. I was half expecting him to mention marriage at some point, but it still seemed a bit soon for that. But I wouldn’t have said no. We were happy. And when he woke me up before leaving for his flight, kissed me and told me he loved me -- I was sure I had such a bright future to look forward to. I was absolutely in love with Michael Shelley, and. . .

You know how the Spiral is the concept of the fear of lies and deception? You know how it alters your perception of reality? You know how it twists and writhes and fills you with doubt and frustration? With how it makes you question anything and everything in your life? Imagine all of that culminating at once. Imagine suddenly being stricken by the anger and betrayal of whether or not this man you absolutely adored was lying to you. Betrayal of ones feelings I think might be the absolute worst thing you could ever experience.

I had eagerly counted down the days of Michael’s return. It was all I could hope for. I had found a few places I wanted to look at with him. I’d even called my parents back in Massachusetts to tell them the good news. And when Gertrude came back alone? She pulled me aside and told me at the very least she owed me some sort of answer. I had thought Michael maybe had just gone straight home and gone to bed. He probably had some sort of jetlag and needed to rest. But all she told me was that Michael would not be coming back. And she wouldn’t say anything more.

I found out what happened on my own. Though I think Elias may have had something to do with it. Who am I kidding, I know he had something, maybe everything to do with it. My access to the archives was cut off after Michael left. I wasn’t allowed in unless Gertrude saw it absolutely necessary and I was under strict supervision. In the past she’d noticed that I’d swipe the occasional statement for a few days before returning it and she wasn’t...too fond of that. Or me in general. I think her general dislike of me is half the reason, if not all the reason I never joined the archives team, despite being a perfect fit for the position. No, it wasn’t just Elias. Michael I think left me hints too. I had gone to his apartment after a week thinking maybe he might have actually needed some space before we moved in together and that’s why Gertrude was being cryptic because she didn’t know herself. But when I got there, the apartment had been untouched since I’d left for work the morning of Michael’s departure. Everything was in its place. I spoke to his landlord, mentioned that he had disappeared and that the place needed to be cleaned out. But as it were, before he left he’d put my name on the lease somehow. It had seemed he might have actually prepared for this. I mean, I know now that he had. But back then I was so angry. But I couldn’t just express it. I felt like nothing made sense. I felt like he had abandoned me, but in such a way where he wanted me to be taken care of in his absence. I didn’t understand any of it. Rent had been paid up for the next few months and I was able to use this time to take care of my own affairs. I moved in to Michael’s apartment. I kept his name on the least just in case. I decided I’d rather have a longer nightly commute home than live in that lonely apartment of mine. I’d like some sort of company even if it was in the form of Michael’s belongings. The unfortunate side was that the apartment now had twice as much stuff and I had to do some cleaning. It was while I was cleaning, I found some of Michael’s hints. Statements that I had never laid my eyes on. Photocopies of ones that were likely still in the archive. In truth, Michael had been lying to me. More than he let on. But now I realize it had been a lie to protect me. He could only do so much for me while he was around though, ‘cause before you knew it, I was absorbing as much information as I possibly could about what he’d left behind for me to read. It was astounding. What he’d left for me perfectly summed up so many of the connections in the study I’d been finishing for my grad studies. Who would have guessed that my own boyfriends disappearance would have led to me completing my degree! I say this happily, but it’s breaking my heart to do so. I really loved Michael, you know. I couldn’t really bear the idea of being without him. Maybe that’s what pushed me to start breaking into the archives late at night. Maybe that’s how and why Elias started watching me. I don’t know if it was because he disapproved of what I was doing, or if he was just curious. I, uh, I don’t know if you’ve caught on. But Elias doesn’t watch all of us. Just those he thinks have some sort of weight. It probably had to do with how much I buried myself in what Michael left behind for me. After I obtained my degree all I could do was start researching. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have signed the proper employment contract. 20/20 as they say. I was obsessed, Jon. The moment I found out Sannikov Land wasn’t real, I lost myself. I tore apart the myths and legends I’d been studying my entire life to find some sort of hint or connections between what Michael left for me and the truth of it all. You’ll um, have to forgive me a bit if the rest sounds a little disjointed. Between Michael’s disappearance and Gertrude’s death, my grasp on reality started to. Slip? None of my memories connect smoothly. There’s patches. Blanks in time. I can only take a guess that these were from periods where I was lost in my own mania.

I wouldn’t say the Spiral had me yet. But it was definitely effecting my daily life. Like Michael, I started to see the doors. I started to find myself caught in lies and deception and doing whatever I could to find answers. I was living to deceive as long as it benefited me and my search. And like it had always been. They were selfish pursuits. It was knowledge I had to know for myself. It was knowledge I needed to obtain because I needed to find out what happened to Michael. Elias never intervened. He never tried to stop me. I have a couple memories of him pulling me aside and supplying me with some information that might help steer me on the right path. Or maybe the wrong one. I don’t know. Like I said. Those years were hazy. But he always seemed so pleased by my progress. He knew then. He had to know. This is Elias we’re talking about. He had to have known where I was headed. Jackass... I don’t have much clarify until shortly after Gertrude died. I had been in the halls. I was staring at something on the wall -- probably a door. I passed Elias. He didn’t look right. He looked like he was staring through me. Said something about how someone should lock the archives. Gertrude had passed away and he needed to make sure the room was locked up until someone new was hired. He handed me a key and sent me on my way. I think he was telling me to take what I needed if it would help me in my search for Michael. Whatever it is I had found, that was when I think I had finally succumbed to the Spiral’s influence over me.

You know the funny part about this. . .We didn’t hear that Gertrude passed away for another three days. I suppose that’s the funny thing about being touched by the Spiral. You just accept the falsehoods, even when you know they’re falsehoods. And in the end? It benefited me. Just as I always wanted.

Since I’m being honest here. Being in that labyrinth was the first time in years I actually didn’t feel like I was losing my mind. I wasn’t scared. In fact it felt like taking a walk in the park. I held a large armful of folders of statements in my arms. And all I did was walk. I passed countless doors and passages and turned through winding corners and corridors and nothing about it filled me with any dread or unease. It felt like I belonged there. I say this knowing full well that my comfort likely had something to do with being in the domain of what had been driving me those past few years. I don’t think the Distortion liked my reaction, though. At one point, I found a dead end. There was only one door, and when I opened it, I was back in my office. I didn’t imagine it, of course. That wouldn’t be the first time I ventured there. I usually went in of my own volition. I don’t know if the Distortion found me to be a nuisance or not. But whenever I saw a new door, I simply would knock first and announce I was coming in. And whenever I went in, it was just the same. An odd comfort like I belonged there. I felt like a visitor in someone’s home. It was like when I first started to spend the night at Michael’s. It was as if the halls were no harm to me, even though it was not my dwelling. I was allowed to be there. Perhaps I was even being invited. But if the Spiral disliked my presence, it never did so in such a way that caused me any fear or harm.

It was my third time within the Spiral that I started calling out.

I had done enough research by now and learned enough to know what the Spiral was. What it could do. Where it was leading me. And to know all about Michael’s connection to it. And I started to call his name, hoping I might hear him respond. I didn’t want to believe he was dead yet. I wanted to believe he was somewhere within these halls and he needed to be found. Even at the cost of myself, I wasn’t going to leave him. And then, it hit me. The more I called for him, the more welcoming the halls became. The more I began to find that I wasn’t just comfortable. I was welcome. I was able to spend more and more time in the Spiral each time. I knew quite well that I was likely losing more and more of myself with each trip. I would talk to no one, or perhaps someone, whenever I was there. I would have conversations with whatever was residing in the halls. Like I was spending my time with a friend. Like I was talking to Michael. Maybe it was something I did to keep myself grounded the deeper I ventured. When I came out, I often could not sleep. I wouldn’t show up to work for days at a time, either due to the passage of time itself in the Spiral, or just because I couldn’t find the strength. My visits only began to slow when I started to notice the door in Michael’s apartment. It had stopped appearing anywhere else. Just Michael’s place. There had been something etched into the door. The method I had given Michael about how to be sure the doors he used in his regular life were the right ones. There had been a slight carving around the doorknob. I had etched it into the door of Michael’s apartment back when he first started to show signs of concern. It was his door. But he was not here to open it. It sat across from our bed, like it was waiting for me. It wanted me to open it. But this time, I was not invited to come inside. So I did something else. I just opened it. I opened the door and I left it open wide. And I said that whatever was in there that wanted to see me so badly could come out. This was a new behavior. And I welcomed it, just as it had welcomed me. That was when I met the Distortion.

It didn’t look like Michael when I first met with it. It looked like a young woman, maybe late teens. Dark skin and hair but her shoulders were unnaturally hunched up and her hands. They were so long and spindly. She was dressed in gym wear, a loose, cut up t-shirt and yoga pants. And she sat on the bed in front of me. I left the door open. Day in, day out. I had left an invitation for the Spiral to come in to my residence and it took a week or so before it took form and visited me. I had managed to be sleeping that night, but something stirred in me and caused me to wake up. And I found it sitting cross legged on the bed. Just staring at me. I don’t think the Spiral had decided to use Michael’s form yet when it came to mingling with people yet. Maybe I was the reason it started to, but I wasn’t sure. Still not.

It asked me a question. It’s voice unnerved me and it smiled at me as it spoke and there was something so wholly unsettling about that smile. Like my head was aching from just looking at it. And it asked what was so important that I was always coming in its doors. It told me it was quite bothered by my coming in and making no means of trying to escape, or find its center. It didn’t like that I was searching for someone rather than something. I told it that I was looking for my boyfriend. He was inside there somewhere and I was going to bring him out. I’m not sure if it liked that response but it left after that. Not for good, because a few nights later the same thing happened. But this time, it sat in the form of a man. He was about forty or so, olive skin, light hair with a stern, crooked nose and a scruffy beard. It asked if this was the person I had been looking for. And I said no. And it was gone again. This went on every few nights for, god, close to a year. Each time I would give it another bit about how Michael looked. I tried to show it a photograph before but when it looked at my phone, the screen just went fuzzy and I had to restarted it in order for it to work right again.

Until one night it got it right. It spoke in the same voice, although there was a different, almost feedback like twang to the way it spoke to me. And when I awoke, the Spiral had gotten it right. I saw my Michael sitting on the bed in front of me and the sight of him was enough to get me to throw off my covers and kneel in front of him, hands upon his face. I must have been crying or maybe it was looking straight at the Spiral, but I couldn’t get a clear look at him. I told it that it was right and this was the person I was looking for. And I needed him back.

And you know what it said?

‘No, I don’t think so.’

I don’t think I had ever been so scared to see Michael’s smile. It just smiled at me and it ran the tip of one of those long, spindly fingers under my chin and I hadn’t even registered that it had made me bleed. And it just said ‘No, I think I shall keep this one a little more. See how far you’re willing to go to get him back.’

And it went into the door again. This time it smiled the whole way. And when the door closed. I was immediately on my feet to run at it to chase it down. But the door was gone.

I took something equivalent to a sabbatical a few weeks later, Jon -- it was around the time you started as archivist. Tim had been working beneath me before my sabbatical and I think that’s part of what drove him to join your team. I was going to be gone for a few months and I wouldn’t have the chance to give him any work to do. Elias was more than happy to give me the time off, but he did something to me. I think as assurance I wouldn’t go running away forever. I think I had started to become a threat to him in some way. Not sure how. Still not. Part of me is somewhat convinced that Elias was planning on using me to get the Spiral to touch you, but I don’t things went exactly as he expected. Especially considering the Spiral had plans of its own.

I was on leave for about three months. I took a few weeks to fly back to the States to visit my parents and check in with the Foundation. I checked in with the archive staff there to see if I could scour some of their resources for what I had been experiencing. But we were never as well equipped with statements as the Magnus Institute. I found a lot of my efforts there weren’t really worth my time. Although I did learn a little about a few groups in North America that had their eye -- Jon, keep an eye out on the Codley family of New York. They’re a cult family, but I wasn’t able to pinpoint of what exactly. If I find out more, I’ll let you know. I only met one person back at the Usher Foundation that knew anything that might help me. In fact, it was their own archivist, man by the name of Warren Chase. I’m actually still in touch with him, if you ever want to meet him. He seems to be following your accounts pretty intensely. Said that he’s been having duplicates of your statements and recordings sent to him. We know who’s to blame for that, obviously. Truth be told, he’d asked me to come back to the Foundation. He wanted me to join his team, but I had to decline. Work here is far too time consuming. But, you see, Warren hadn’t been touched by the Spiral, but he’d been touched by the Stranger. Stranger apparently is very tied in with the Foundation. Something to do with the number of secret organization and secret government activities happening back in the States that there are people within our own organizations that are not what they seem to be. Now, Warren seemed to be far more optimistic about my situation than I was. Told me that if one can keep their head when dealing with these entities, you can retrieve someone lost to them. I mean...you were able to bring back Daisy. I’ve had no such luck.

Jon, I know Michael’s gone now. The Spiral swaps its forms whenever it so chooses and I know it discarded Michael’s form when I. . .When I took too long. I’ve met it as it is now. Helen is the name of the woman it appears as. It’s told me that I knows me, but it has no attachment for me now like it had when it was Michael. It knows Michael had loved me.

But it was the time that the Distortion was Michael that was what ultimately brought me to where I am. I’m just one foray or so away from becoming its next avatar at this point and I mean it when I say that I am absolutely fine with that. I spent the time of my leave looking for those doors. Looking for how to get into the Spiral from other entrance ways and other methods to get myself lost in those halls again. This time from a new vantage point, from a new perspective. I was going to find Michael and I was going to bring him home! And I like to think that I nearly succeeded. It might sound absurd to you but, I think I had become something like friends with the Spiral by the time I had figured some things out. It probably started when I had encountered it behind a bar during my last few days in the States before returning to London. It was preying on this young woman who was trying to tell her friends about this store she’d kept passing each day on her home from work, and each time she would try to take someone there it was always an old butcher’s shop, long since closed down. I had noticed the Spiral lurking around and when I found myself in the men’s room looking at what appeared to be a door to the outside, I stepped out of the room and found the actual entrance to the back of the bar. The Spiral had been waiting for me, wearing Michael’s face as it had grown fond of doing. And I told it that I had figured one thing out. I knew that just because it looked like Michael, it was not Michael. And I think that curried my favor with it a bit. It liked that I was playing its game and calling its bluff. And it became just that with me and the Distortion. A game between the two of us. The Spiral in its own way was entertained by my dedication. And somewhere down the line, I think we became, well, I like to think we had become friends. Or as close to friends as you can be wit the entity of Deceit.” And Nelson stops, and he stands up and smiles at Jon. “I think this is where you say ‘Statement ends’ isn’t it?” The recording does not stop, but Jon looks up at the researcher who has now raised to his feet and offered a smirk to the archivist. “You’d be surprised how many of us can be touched by our host without losing our wits. Maybe I’ll indulge you with the rest sometime. Take care, Jon.”

#tma #the magnus archives #OC fanfition #evan talks his ocs #nelsoncore

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alleiradayne · 5 years

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Hello, I Love You

Summary: Sam is cast as Romeo in his college play and Natalie is his stage manager. When he asks her to read lines with him, she’s not quite sure what to make of it. Square Filled: Romeo and Juliet AU Warnings/Tags: Fluff, angst Characters/Pairings: Sam Winchester/Natalie Murphy Word Count: 2,824 A/N: For @spnfluffbingo2019, this fills the square Romeo and Juliet AU. Thank you, as always, to @atc74 for beta’ing. Song: Hello, I Love You by The Doors

Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake.

Lips parted in thought, Sam paused for a breath, then rounded on his friends.

It's everything it’s—

“Okay, hold there.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Don't pause. Just keep rambling, he's despondent and sulking and whining about Rosaline. He's not… musing. He's not happy. Didn’t you read this in high school?”

Sam's glare nearly bored a hole into the director. “I performed it in high school.”

“Then you should know this shit,” Mr. Skinner groaned. “How old are you. Eighteen? You're a freshman?”

Natalie winced with her cast mates, and a groan drew Sam’s glare.

“I'm twenty-one, sir. I'm a grad student,” Sam stated. “I've been in the last four of your—”

“Right, you know what you're doing. Prove it.” Mr. Skinner flopped back into his chair and waved a flippant hand at the stage. When no one moved, he glared over his glasses and shouted, “Well?! Reset! Don't you all have… I don't know, homework to do?”

Everyone on stage but Sam leaped into motion, eager to please Mr. Skinner. After a long moment, Sam turned for stage left and stalked towards Natalie.

“I thought the pause was great,” she stated. “Romeo's flustered. He might take a beat at the end of his rambling to finish his thought.”

At least he smiled. “Thanks,” he muttered. “This show better not turn out like MacBeth did last semester.”

That show. Natalie groaned as she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Liz said production was a hot mess. She’ll never let me live it down that I got cast in that one.”

Sam laughed as he watched the scene restart, their Mercucio taking the stage. “Why didn't you audition for this one?”

Heat stung her cheeks at the memory. “I did. For Juliet. I know this play by heart.”

Sam's brow quirked towards his hairline. “You didn't get the part?”

“I'm Miss Amy’s understudy,” she mocked in her irritated sing song voice.

“Oh,” Sam mused with a smile, “Yeah. I heard about her ‘audition’.”

“Whatever,” she drawled with a sigh. “It's fine, I love stage production. It'll be fun to work this one. You’re up.”

Sam turned back to the stage and smiled. “Should I pause again?”

She clamped a hand over her mouth as her barking laugh nearly ruined the scene. After a quick check of the stage, she muttered from behind her fingers, “Do it.”

His too pretty smile turned into a wicked grin as he strolled onto the stage. The scene progressed with his entrance, and Natalie attempted to take notes, but she could hardly concentrate. Though the entire conversation with Sam had lasted only a minute, her heart raced, and her palms sweat. Over the years they had worked together—whether acting, studying, or pontificating—Sam Winchester had always left Natalie wanting more.

She turned her back in preparation for the next entrance, forcing herself to concentrate on her work. Hopefully, the next two hours of rehearsal kept her busy and away from Sam, lest she finally make a fool of herself.

Madam, an hour before the worshipped sun Peered forth the golden window of the east, A troubled mind drove me to walk abroad, Where, underneath the grove of sycamore That westward rooteth from this city side, So early walking did I see your son. Towards him I made, but he was 'ware of me And stole into the covert of the wood. I, measuring his affections by my own, Which then most sought where most might not be found, Being one too many by my weary self, Pursued my humor not pursuing his, And gladly shunned who gladly fled from me

“He’s great,” Sam whispered.

Natalie rubbed her arms and pulled her sweater tighter around her shoulders. “He is. Delivery could use a little kick in the pants, but other than projection, William is an excellent Benvolio.”

“Sure, that’s—” he started, but paused as Natalie continued to rub her arms. Something had upset her. Not that Natalie was the most cheerful person. But over their undergrad and now well into their graduate programs together, Sam had learned a great deal about her. Hell, she probably knew him better than any of his friends. But that would be expected of actors constantly working together. Rehearsals and running lines and discussing delivery, intent, emotion. All of it amounted to a very close, near intimate bond.

Except Sam felt much stronger about her than he cared to admit to anyone. Especially Natalie. But as she glared at William out on the stage reciting his soliloquy to close out the rehearsal, her dark stare and hunched shoulders said more than words could.

He leaned into her and asked, “Are you alright?”

Natalie dropped her hands to her sides with a flustered scoff, but she made no move to separate herself from him. “I’m fine,” she demanded.

He leaned closer still and whispered, “Are you sure?”

Any subtler and he might have missed it, but a shiver coursed through her entire body. “I’m… I’m fine, Sam. What are you doing?”

“I wanted to ask you something,” he started as an excuse manifested in the middle of his thought. “I don’t want anyone to overhear.”

A pink hue colored her cheeks as she sucked a breath deep into her lungs. “What is it?”

“Would you want to read lines with me tonight?”

She rounded on him with a wide stare. “Why?”

“Because you know Juliet’s lines,” Sam said with a shrug.

Natalie turned back to the stage. “So does Amy. You two should practice. She’s your leading lady, you need to make it convincing with her.”

“She said she was busy this week studying for calculus,” he sighed.

Natalie quirked a brow at him. “You could just wait until she's available.”

Shit. Maybe he had read her wrong. The sudden worry that all their previous interactions were less than he had imagined sickened him. “Okay, so it’s an excuse to hang out. I miss reading lines with you. Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Midsummer! They were so much fun.”

A small smile curled her lips. “You made quite the Ass.”

“And you were the perfect Titania.”

That hit a little too close to the truth. Natalie stared at him once more, silent but scrutinizing his countenance. Did she know? He had envied Oberon in that production. But as the playwright-turned-donkey, he had shared a scene with Natalie, and though it hit the intended comedic beats, there was something to be said about her laying across his lap as she fed him grain from a burlap bag.

He wondered if she still had her purple fairy fishnet dress.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

The memory vanished in a wisp of smoke as Sam shook his head. “Eh… nothing. Will you come over?”

For a terrible second, Sam thought she would decline. But then she asked, “What time?”

“Seven?”

She nodded. “I’ll be there at seven. You’re on.”

Relief washed over him as he clasped her shoulder. He gave it a gentle squeeze, then slipped past her for the stage. “Thanks. See you later.”

That time he felt it. Through that innocent touch, a shiver coursed through her body and into his. Maybe, he hoped, just maybe he hadn’t been so wrong about her after all.

“Oh.”

Sam returned from the tiny kitchen with water and found Natalie pouring over his copy of the script. “What?”

She pointed to the page. “This scene?” she asked as she dropped onto the couch. “It's… so overrated.”

Sam gestured with her glass and she took it from him. “I need to practice. Mr. Skinner is gonna chew me a new one again if I don’t nail it in rehearsal later this week.”

Natalie nodded as she grunted in agreement. “The problem isn't really you though. You need to make it sound convincing when you’re saying all this… shit to Amy.”

Sam sat beside her as he set his glass of water on the table. “Shit?”

A derisive snort burst from her nose as she rolled her eyes. “It’s terrible tripe. Saccharin sweet. They’re teenagers and have no idea what love is, and yet, they die for each other over a minute of infatuation.”

Great. Sam could have kicked himself then. How had he not known? Given her audition for Juliet, he had assumed she loved the play. He backpedaled as hard and quick as he could think. “I think maybe that was Shakespeare's point. Given all of his other comedies, tragedies, and romances, he was constantly commenting on social and political constructs. Maybe the mere concept of destined soulmates pissed him off enough to write about two star-crossed lovers dying for each other.”

It wasn't as if they had never sat so close together. Hell, Sam had, so many times before that night, rest his head in her lap as she played with his hair while they rehearsed Midsummer. And he remembered losing himself in her icy blue stare so many times. But of late he had forgotten that sensation, that chill as it raced down his spine and numbed his fingers and toes when her gaze met his. She stared openly, unabashed as she searched his own eyes, but for what he did not know. Each little twitch of her stare flitted from one spot to the next—his hair, his nose, his throat—then came to rest on his lips. His own eyes slipped to hers, full and parted in a subtle, silent “oh” as though she were shocked to see him so close, closer than ever before even though it wasn't true.

“You have very… colorful eyes.”

“... Heterochromia.”

The moment shattered like so many tiny pieces of glass. “What?”

“I… uh. My eyes. Heterochromia. That’s why there’s some green and brown hazel mixed in the center of the blue and grey,” Sam explained through a sigh.

“They’re captivating,” Natalie started. “I've always wondered why they looked that way.”

That had caught him flat-footed. “Really?”

Natalie shrunk away as though suddenly self-aware. “Yeah… um, never mind. Forget I said anything, I was just rambling. Should we get to this?” she asked as she pointed to the script.

Resigned, Sam nodded.

“Alright. Take it away, Romeo,” she directed as she swung open an imaginary set of balcony windows.

Sam slipped from his spot on the couch in a fit of inspiration and sat on the floor so that he might look up to Natalie as though she truly stood on a balcony above him.

He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

A part of him agreed with Natalie. Shakespear’s Romeo wore love on his sleeves and acted on impulse, like a lovestruck, moody teen. Whereas Juliet was levelheaded and, while equally infatuated with Romeo after such a brief meeting, wanted to leave things where they were, given issues between their families.

A thousand times the worse to want thy light Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.

And yet, as Sam continued through the clichés and romantic tropes, the less he felt as though he were reciting the lines and the more he felt as though he spoke from the heart. The longer he stared into Natalie's brilliant blue gaze, the deeper he fell. Sure, Romeo might be immature, but he had some incredible pickup lines.

It is my soul that calls upon my name. How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night, Like softest music to attending ears!

Sam couldn't help but wonder how Natalie felt. He held her hands in his and waited, her line a beat behind his but she remained silent. There was no way she had forgotten her line. He had seen her reciting them in the wings as he rehearsed with Amy. He wondered if she thought the pause poignant, to create some melodramatic tension befitting only Shakespeare. She seemed to be a fan of his subtle rhythm of delivery, rising and falling with his natural breath. Her own chest spilled over her arms as she drew air into her lungs and, at long last, said her line.

“I love you.”

The entire world stopped as though grasped in the hands of a mighty titan. For a second, Sam thought he had misheard her, but the sound of her voice looped like a broken record in his mind until the weight of it settled in the pit of his stomach. And for all Sam's talents, he knew without a doubt he had many faults, oblivious topping the list.

“That's not your line.”

A lilt of laughter he had never heard from her before bubbled up from where Sam couldn’t be sure. When she clamped her hand over her mouth, her cheeks brightened to a rosy red, and her eyes widened. Muffled words muted by her hand sounded like nothing more than gibberish, and when she scrambled from the couch and for her bag, Sam stood in a dumbfounded daze, unable to keep up.

“I’m… I’m sorry, I’m just gonna… I’ll see you tomorrow at rehearsal,” Natalie stated as she rushed to the door, her coat half-donned and bag swinging from one arm.

The inexorable swing of the door slowed as though time stretched to give him a final chance. If he didn't take it, if he let her leave without telling her he felt the same way she did, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

Long legs vaulted the back of the couch with ease as Sam lunged for the door. He caught it without an inch to spare, and flung it wide to find Natalie waiting at the elevator at the end of the hall. He said nothing and instead, ran down the hall and slid to a halt on the polished wood floor. He nearly ran into Natalie, stopping just at her side, and when her eyes met his, elevator arrived.

Her free hand slipped into his as he reached for her and said, “If my touch offends you, I could kiss you instead.”

Her stare narrowed as she turned into him. “Holding my hand is very polite of you,” she started as she raised his hand. “Palm to palm, they touch like a kiss.”

“But lips kiss better,” Sam retorted.

Her coy smirk met his grin as she grasped his free hand and said, “Lips that should pray.”

One smooth step closed the space between them, and Sam wrapped an arm around her, his hand splayed at the small of her back. “My lips pray that you’ll kiss me. Please don't ruin my faith.”

“Prayers are answered by those that remain still,” she stated. “How can I answer your prayer if I can move?”

Sam barked a laugh at her twisted interpretation. He towered over her as she leaned into him, and as their lips neared, he said, “Then hold still so that my prayer might be answered.”

Romeo might have had a few smooth lines, but they all paled in comparison to the feeling of Natalie's lips on his. No, she wasn't the sun, or a rose, or any of that bullshit. She was power and grace and faith all at once, unfiltered. As his lips met hers, Sam melted under the sheer force that was her presence, wanting nothing more than to stay there forever. But when they parted—eventually—Sam finished his thought.

“My sin has been taken from me by your lips.”

“Does that mean my lips bear your sin as well?” Natalie asked through a devious smile.

Sam shook his head as he said, “You enable my crime with such sweetness. Give me back my—”

Her lips landed on his before he finished speaking, a hard press that spun his head. Too long he lingered there in her embrace, so close he could hardly tell where he ended and she began. Her hand slipped from his to grasp his shirt, and he wrapped his arm around her to hold her close, closer than he thought possible. Any closer and he would cease to exist.

“Excuse me.”

In another world so far away, Sam heard the distant complaint of a woman. Rather than break their kiss, he picked Natalie up, his arms encircling her tiny body with ease, and carried her back to his room. When the door latched, Natalie parted from him, lips swollen and chest heaving for breath.

“You’ve been practicing.”

He laughed at that as he licked his lips clean. “I’m just glad there aren’t any nurses or mothers around to interrupt us at this point.”

“Me, too,” she agreed. “Would you kiss me again and show me what you’ve learned?”

Another laugh shared between them filled the room as Sam neared her lips once more.

“A thousand times, and a thousand times again.”

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