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911coded · 2 months ago

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I Can Go Anywhere I Want, Just Not Home. Where Is Home?

I don’t usually write after episode one shots, but I was inspired by this post and helped by @bidisasterevankinard when I couldn’t remember if Buck and Bosko had even spoken to each other. Also, I’ve never written drunk dialogue before and ended up modeling it after myself. I will slur one sentence, forget words, make up new ones, then speak the next sentence in full English. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The next night after shift, he pulls over into an empty parking lot before the turn to his house and sits in it, this feeling. Forget having trouble sleeping there, he doesn’t even want to be there. Will Eddie and Chris be waiting? In the moment, seeing Chris again for the first time in a year, he was able to push aside this feeling. But it’s curdling in his stomach like that time he accidentally drank spoiled milk and he’s afraid he will vomit up all the pain and anger he’s been trying to carry. The anger is new, must be at the next stage, or might just be Eddie’s fault. That’s it, he’s finding someplace to sit and have a drink, he can uber “home” when he can go straight to bed.

The badge and ladder bar only a few minutes from his house wasn’t full, but enough people were milling around inside to get lost in the crowd. Buck thought he recognised the handful of firefighters surrounding the pool tables, but only from scenes, not anyone he knew personally. A couple of minutes after sitting at the bar and scanning the crowd, the bartender made her way over to him. He handed over a card to start a tab, ordered a beer to sip, and a hand full a shots to get started. After he tossed the first one back, he looked the bartender in the eyes. “This is a terrible idea, but I’m about to make this all about me. I’ve had a shit few weeks, my captain died, and I’ve spent so much time trying to keep my team together, this is the first time I’ve had a chance to be still without a list to work from. This is either going to make me feel better, or a whole lot worse. If I start crying to the point of embarrassing, please call my ICE contact, but no one else, even if he doesn’t answer. He’ll answer, though, he always does,” he explained. The bartender stared back at him, silent and stoic, but nodded at him seriously. He nodded back and picked up the next shot.

After the fourth shot, “ICE. Fuck ICE. We should come up with a new name for your emergency contact, workshop it, spread the word.” The bartender tilted her head in question with a quirked eyebrow. “Hmmm, bet I can make it go viral. I have-I have a lot of instagram followers. Bobby would like that. We didn’t talk about it, and I don’t think I ever heard him curse but Bobby would say it too, cause fuck ICE.” Buck waved a hand emphatically and the bartender grabbed a glass before he could send it crashing to the floor.

The bartender was good. She kept the shots coming but made sure he paced himself and occasionally placed a glass of water in front of him with a blank stare until he drank it. “He was a good guy, but he was wrong, they don’t need me. Not now. But maybe I need them? Maybe that’s what he meant? It hurts to need people, though. Hurts when they shut you out, when they leave,” Buck continued with a sniff. Someone settled in the stool next to him and flagged down the bartender who had taken a moment to serve some young women at the end of the bar.

“Buckley? Hey man, you’re crying.” Buck turned to the voice and squinted at the woman sitting next to him. He knows her. Maybe? Oh.

“Bosko? Oh.” Buck touches his face and he can feel the wetness there even if he hadn’t noticed that the crying had begun. “Must not be too embarrassing yet since the bartender hasn’t called my ICE. Fuck ICE, we need to work on that.”

Bosko snorts in amused bemusement. “Yeah, fuck ICE. What are you doing here alone, Buckley? Where’s the rest of your crew?” she asked. She settles into the barstool and turns to face him.

“Don’t know, they aren’t really talking to me right now. I’m sad wrong? Or too concerned about if they are sad? Not sure yet. Eddie is at my place and he is talking too much. Ashhole. Sad wrong for him, too. Make everything about me, selfish. Captain Dad dies but not about me. Said-said I dn’t do enough, could do better. Got in my face, no sorries, just more mean. You were there, you saw. Once is an incident, twice is a-a coinkydink, three times is a pattern; I shouldn’t have to be afraid that my friend is going to hit my face in my own-my own cooking room. Did that once, 0/10 stars, would not recommend. At least he said sorry, made effort to make up. Am I still crying?” Buck asked, trying to make sense but pretty sure he was failing, nothing new there. Bosko had a fierce frown, not scrunchy like Tommy’s.

“Did dickhead Diaz hit you? Is that why you’re in here mourning your captain alone instead of with your crew? Do they know?” she asked, looking around to be sure she didn’t see any firefighters from the 118.

“No, that was Chim, brother. Long time ago, said sorry. Meant it. We’re good. Chim angry at Bobby for dying but not mad at me. Eddie mad at me. Dickhead Diaz, good one,” Buck replied with a giggle.

“I worked with that asshole for months, he didn’t know anything about me but somehow thought we were good friends. He told me all about you, his family, and his kid, but not once did he ask me about mine. Friendship is a one way street for that guy, and if you don’t stay in that perfectly shaped box he put you in, he gets frustrated and angry. He’s a dickhead, I told him we were not friends and walked away, haven’t heard from him since,” she shared.

“No, wouldn’t, didn’t need you anymore. Had me back. Sad. No, stupid. We should start a club. Edmundo Diaz sucky friend club. We need more members. Oh Josh! And Tommy! Was jealous of Eddie taking attention of hot pilot….with a cleft. Edmundo stopped talking to Tommy too! Said it was about me, but thas dumb. Dumb. Am I embarrassin’ yet? Time to call Tommy come get me?” Buck asked with a flutter of his lashes.

“Buckley. Dickhead Diaz doesn’t know how to have conversations that aren’t about him. And he has really good aim, so every fight is an opportunity to cause the most damage. Don’t let him do that to you, man, nobody deserves that, okay?” Bosko insisted.

“Ok. Don’t deserve damage. I’ll be okay. Bobby loved me. Two outta three works, I guess.”

Bosko sighs with a sad shake of her head and flags down the bartender. “Did he give you his phone? I’m pretty sure it’s time to call his ride,” Bosko said. When she turns back to check on him, Buck has folded his arms on the vaguely sticky bartop and is using them for a pillow, blinking slowly at her like a cat. The bartender shakes her head and when Buck actually hears her speak, it’s almost enough to get him to sit up again.

“It’s in his shirt pocket. I’ll close out his tab.” With that, Buck and Bosko are alone again.

“I think you’ve hit the embarrassing stage now, bud, how about I call your ICE?” Bosko asks, as gently as he had ever heard her speak.

“Fuck ICE,” Buck mumbled, blinks getting further and further apart, but he reached into his pocket and handed her his phone so she wouldn’t have to fish for it. His attention wandered and he vaguely heard Bosko’s side of the conversation enough to know that Tommy answered. “Yay!” he exclaimed softly, and raised an arm to fist pump that weakly thumped back to the bar top.

The bartender came back with a receipt, his card, and another glass of water. “Sign. Then drink. Thank you,” she demanded, then gave one more nod now that she had imparted her instructions and wandered away to do bartender things.

After he gulped down half the glass of water and signed a somewhat legible signature, he turned to look at Bosko. “I think she might be the strangest yet most interesting bartender I’ve ever met and I’ve been a bartender. A lot.” Bosko rolled her eyes but nodded anyway to concede his point. It may have been moments or hours when Buck felt a familiar warm hand rest on his lower back and the tension Buck had been carrying around for weeks seemed to seep out of his pores. Tommy. That’s what he had needed this whole time. Dumb. Should have known.

“Evan. Are you okay?” Tommy asked, forehead scrunched up in concern.

Buck twisted up into a mostly sitting position and beamed at Tommy which seemed to shock him into silence, if the wide eyes blinking at him were any indication. Bosko snorted and rolled her eyes at him again.

“He’s fine Kinard. He had a deal with the bartender to call you if the crying became embarrassing,” Bosko answered for Buck who was still beaming up at Tommy dreamingly.

Buck pointed at Bosko. “Yes! I’m sad and making it about me, but that’s ok. It’s my turn and it helped. I think. And Bosko’s here! We didn’t talk when she was my replacement but I think I like her and the bartender is really interesting,” he informed the still bemused Tommy.

“And hot,” Bosko pointed out with a smirk at Buck who had given up on sitting straight and was slumped against Tommy.

Buck’s forehead creased with an offended pout. ��Well, yeah, but interesting. More important. Don’t obje-objec….that word. More than pretty. INTERESTING. But I’m done now. Tommy, I’m tired, take me home? Not with Eddie. Don’t-don’t want to see him. Dickhead,” he pleaded as he increased the pout by a factor of ten and fluttered his eyelashes in Tommy’s direction.

Bosko snorts out another laugh and holds out a hand to shake. “Buckley, take care of yourself. I’m sorry about your Captain Dad, he was a good man. Call me some time to hang out, you are a fun drunk. Kinard,” she said and with a friendly nod, went back to her friends at the pool tables.

Buck turns back to Tommy and looks up at him with the look that he knows turns him to mush. “Thank you for coming to get me, Tommy. You always come when I call, you’re the best. Take me home and tuck me in? I always sleep better with you and I’m so tired,” he pleaded.

Tommy sighs with a small smile and hauls Buck out of the barstool and on to his feet. “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll take you home and you can tell me more about Dickhead Diaz in the morning. I’m glad you called me,” he assures Buck and guides him out the door to his truck to go home.

#post S8E17 Don’t Drink The Water #bucktommy #911 abc #tevan #tommy kinard #evan buckley #lena bosko #writing #bucktommy fic #911 fic #bri writes fanfic #dickhead diaz

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broken-clover · 2 years ago

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20- Wonder

In another bizarre coincidence, I promise that I didn't know Super Mario Wonder was supposed to release today, the fact that this ended up the way that it did baffles me too. I did consider making this one Mario-centric to fit with the theme but admittedly I'm not super confident writing things for the mainline Mario series so I ultimately didn't go with that route.

Instead, I continue to dig around in my bag of weird fandom. I wanted to do something with The Suicide Squad because it's one of the few superhero movies I genuinely enjoy rewatching. How's that post go about seeing a character and knowing they're basically designed for you? Because that's pretty much Polka Dot Man for me. I'm still mad about it.

Content warnings for suicidal ideation, pretty much the same as canon. There is also a bit of alcohol and vomiting. I promise this does get happy, it's just that this is an R-rated movie full of fucked up characters

Corto Maltese was a beautiful place. The more time he spent on it, the more obvious that became. And the more obvious it became, the more he desperately tried to loathe it. Because he wasn’t supposed to have even made it that far.

Sheltered and stupid were two different things. Mother might have done her best to keep them all under as tight a watch as possible, but it hadn’t left Abner naive. The mortal dangers of Task Force X weren’t hypothetical. Most of them were fully expected to die and any survivors were just going to be tossed back into another, equally dangerous deathmarch later. It was exactly why he’d signed up in the first place. Of course he wasn’t going to make it out alive, he couldn’t even if he wanted to. It would be much faster than placing his hopes on a prison riot or slowly waiting for his disease to do its job.

Unfortunately, several things were getting in the way of his death wish. If there was one thing in the world he feared more than anything, it was being a disappointment. Being a disappointment was simply asking for mother and her friends to strap you down on the worktable until she found a way to fix it, to make it all better. If he so much as thought about abandoning the mission, mother’s face swam before him with a scowl. It could have been so easy, just run away until Waller decided it was too much and had the bomb in his neck detonated. It wouldn’t have even hurt. The thought of being a disappointment would have hurt more than any physical injury ever could.

Beyond that, it seemed his team- team, what an odd word for a group that could barely stand each other- were almost as lopsided in the head as he was. Nobody liked him, obviously, but they were often too busy bickering or getting distracted with their own business to hate him enough to just kill him and save them all a lot of trouble. Bloodsport and Peacemaker especially, those two had seemed so promising, but their constant bickering meant neither of them had even attempted to shoot him yet. King Shark wasn’t out of the question, but things weren’t looking too good on that front, either.

And, thirdly…the longer he was someplace beyond the sterile walls of S.T.A.R. labs or the high concrete walls of Belle Reve, the more he had started feeling emotions other than deep, all-consuming dread.

It frightened him. There was safety in being certain, even if that certainty was that nothing would ever get better. That he would never be anything more than a lab rat or a pawn to push around. Hadn’t he been tormented enough? What had he done to deserve it? Why did the universe have to torture him with hope?

It had been such a small thing at first, tumbling over itself to become an avalanching snowball. All he had done was his usual nighttime routine, expelling the dots that had built up across the day before they started to burn under his skin. When he’d sat back on his haunches after nearly puking his guts out, the nearby greenery had caught his sight. It was so mundane, so normal-looking, so…lovely. Vibrant, waxy green leaves that shone even in the dim light. Nothing like polished metal or unbending stone. In a moment of weakness, he’d allowed himself to touch it, and a sparkle of awe settled itself in his chest as his fingers traced the swooping branches.

He kept trying to step on it, but that little twinkle just wouldn’t die. More distractions kept getting in the way. More little things that stuck out to him. The bugs that hovered around the lights at night. The distant sound of water lapping against the island shore. Music floating out from the radios at Soria’s camp. The rough yet strangely cozy texture of the seats in Milton’s van.

While the others conversed through the ride to the bar, Abner watched the city go by from the bus windows. So many people doing their mundane little tasks up and down the streets. He wondered what it felt like. If he would ever get the chance to do something so simple.

(Why would he even ask that? Why would he entertain the thought that he ever would? Why, for even just a second, did he hope…?)

The ruckus inside the building hurt unlike anything else ever had. It compelled him. Likewise for the tiny glass of alcohol that Peacemaker had ordered for everyone at the table. He knew what alcohol was, but had never tried it for himself. People seemed awful fond of it, though, so he expected it had to be interesting.

Oh.

Horrible. It was horrible!

How fantastic!

It stank, like the bodies around him did. It burned as it went down his throat. Ratcatcher 2 offered him her unfinished shot, and he took it. Someone else slid him a new, full one. He drank and drank until whoever it was finally stopped putting more alcohol in front of him. Which was well enough, because his vision had started to go fuzzy, and it would have been a struggle to hold the glass without dropping it.

They were supposed to be keeping an eye out for Grieves, but the longer the night went on, the more they started to get distracted by the goings-on. Flagg was flirting with somebody across the way, and Peacemaker and Ratcatcher 2 had gotten up to join the crowd on the dance floor. Abner had joined them briefly upon the latter’s insistence, but quickly grew too dizzy from all the lights and spinning and excused himself.

At some point, after a long, slow blink, he’d opened his eyes to find himself with his knees pressing against tile and his head dangling above a toilet. He contemplated the situation momentarily before his stomach decided to empty itself. Thankfully, there were only a few glowing dots mixed into the bile and secondhand alcohol, enough to fizzle but not to eat right through the bowl.

It was a small relief, as he immediately puked again. Alright. Alcohol wasn’t quite as fun as people made it look.

Something behind him squeaked, in the high-pitched way animals did. Sure enough, when he had enough energy to turn his head and not immediately get Dizzy again, a rat had scuttled under the stall door to stare at him.

“Huh?” He squinted through the blurry vision. He recognized this one, didn’t he?

Something knocked on the bathroom door thrice, then it squealed open. “Abner? Are you in here?”

“Rat-” he coughed on his own spit. “Ratcatcher 2? Wuh- why are you here? Isn’t this the men’s room?”

“Sebastian said you got stuck. The others were busy, so I thought I should check to make sure you were okay.”

It was bizarre to consider. Someone cared enough to do that?

He let the rat crawl up his back to unlatch the swinging door. The girl approached him, and the look of concern on her face was as genuine as her tone. “Are you alright?” She asked, brow furrowing. “You don’t look too good. Should I get Robert?”

Abner grinned, looking like death warmed over yet never feeling more alive. “I'm just wonderful.”

That little sparkle wasn’t going to die anytime soon, not like this. But more and more of him was starting to be okay with that.

#frog writes #comfortober #the suicide squad #polka dot man #ratcatcher 2

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sshbpodcast · 2 years ago

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Bottom Five Star Trek VOY Episodes

by Ames

Star Trek: Voyager gets a lot of flak for not always capitalizing on its unique circumstance, as a show about a cumulative journey meant to take a lot of time. Some of that is the episodic nature of the show: audiences needed to be able to tune in randomly and not feel as lost as the crew were. But some bad episodes just had no excuse. And you’ll see a lot of that in A Star to Steer Her By’s picks for worst episodes of the show.

We’ll miss all our Delta Quadrant friends, enemies, and alien races, sure. We’ll miss the ship and the crew. But there’s also a lot that we won’t miss, as there were a good deal of missed opportunities, clunkers, and just plain offensive episodes along the way. Good riddance to those! Scroll on to see what we mean in our bottom five episodes of Voyager below, and/or listen to our coverage over on the podcast (series review starts at 1:29:20) with some audio-exclusive picks from guest star Liz! It’s finally time to self destruct this ship.

[images © CBS/Paramount]

“The Fight”: Ames I’m pretty clear on my stance on dream sequence episodes, but for those of you sitting in the back: I hate them. They’re contrived, they’re convenient, they’re too literal. Just ugh all around. Which is a shame because there’s something in this episode that could have been interesting for Chakotay to do for a change, but it got lost somewhere in boxing metaphors and some Native American spiritualism. Talk about a bad dream!

“Tattoo”: Chris Speaking of Native American spiritualism, this episode is just plain uncomfortable and it all comes down to the one line of dialogue that goes too far: “Forty five thousand years ago, on our first visit to your world, we met a small group of nomadic hunters. They had no spoken language, no culture, except the use of fire and stone weapons.” Oh writers, you done screwed up to imply that the only reason Native Americans have culture is because aliens. A-koo-chee-moh-no.

“Alice”: Caitlin Caitlin surprised us a couple times in her series picks by opting for episodes she hadn’t even included in her season-by-season lists! So welcome, “Alice,” to the bottoms list. The femme fatale ship was just too tropey and icky and really brought Tom’s character down a few pegs. It’s episodes like this that make us wonder how on earth Torres stayed with him throughout the show.

“Ex Post Facto”: Jake Tom did some more suffering in this early-seasons dud of an episode. We’ve seen Star Trek do film noir to a slightly better effect in something like DS9’s “Necessary Evil,” but this one just whiffs hard at the style. It doesn’t help that the Baneans’ hair feathers are distracting as hell and that the conclusion that the damn dog helps solve stretches credulity to its very limits. Have the writers never met a dog before?

“Concerning Flight”: Caitlin You’d think John Rhys-Davies playing Leonardo da Vinci would elevate an episode to something greater, but somehow this baffling episode proved to be a waste of time. We spent most of it confused by pretty much everyone’s motivations. Why did Tau keep da Vinci around? How did da Vinci not notice anything was out of the ordinary on this planet? Does the sun always set in the same place on this planet? Who knows!

“Body and Soul”: Ames I’ve clumped a bunch of really gross, sexist episodes together if only to rile myself up because I hate these kinds of episodes so much. But how can one not get riled up when Seven tells the Doctor that he violated her and his response is to blame her? What should be a fun romp watching Jeri Ryan get to pretend to be another character is horribly tainted by that “she was asking for it” attitude. And then for Seven to be the one to apologize while the Doctor never sees what he did was wrong: VOMIT!

“Retrospect”: Chris Oh look, more violating Seven of Nine! This show really couldn’t help itself sometimes. What else was there to do when you had an attractive woman on the cast but to exploit her? If this episode was trying to debunk false memories, it failed hard by making it about a violation of a woman character because then the only thing you can see is the allegory for fake rape allegations, and that is not the message you want to send. Plus the doctor suddenly peddling pseudoscience is just nonsense.

“Blood Fever”: Ames Here’s another gross sexual act that I’ve never been quite okay with. Pon farr as a plot device was fine enough in “Amok Time.” Weird and kind of illogical, but fine. But when Vorik goes and sexually assaults Torres and everyone tries to sweep it under the rug because it’s some weird Vulcan bullshit, that’s not fine. And when Tom makes it clear that it would not be consensual for him and Torres to bang it out but Tuvok insists they do, I am all the more disgusted. No means no, Vulcans!

“Sacred Ground”: Ames, Jake We’ve got some overlap in our remaining bottom picks, starting with this absolutely nonsensical debate between science and faith that just boils down to: believe everything you’re told without questioning it and maybe magic is real. There’s a reason this franchise usually shies away from addressing religion in this kind of way. It’s one thing for a character (or a person in real life!) to have faith; it’s quite another for miracles to just happen for plot convenience (unless you’re part wormhole alien or something).

“11:59”: Caitlin, Chris, Jake The hatred for Henry Janeway is strong in this room (though that might be because Chris skews the curve a bit). But he’s just a wet blanket of a character who’s just taking his son and his whole damn town down to his level through sheer obstinance. Add to that the fact that he seriously has no chemistry with Shannon – like really, he could be her father – and you’ve got a massive clunker of an episode on your hands.

“Fury”: Caitlin, Chris, Jake The series as a whole wasted Kes as a character, which was quite the shame to watch, but the one thing it did do was give her a poignant and powerful farewell in “The Gift.” But Voyager can giveth and Voyager can taketh away, and this return of Jennifer Lien as the hardened, hellbent, furious Kes basically attempts to ruin her character. This was not the Kes we knew and loved, and damned if we even understand how she got there. How dare they do this to our sweeting!

“Elogium”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake Finally, the one we all agree on is some other weird sex claptrap. The Vulcans may have their pon farr (which I hate enough on its own), but the Ocampa have elogium, which somehow makes even less sense! Biology aside (blegh), the rest of the episode is confused in its messaging: these are people who are not ready for a baby, but instead of really exploring what that means for them, we’re stuck with this weird Ocampan heat thing. This whole episode has lost its sex appeal!

—

See also: our Top Five Star Trek VOY Episodes list! And why not: here’re all the seasonal tops and bottoms from seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7!

We’ll still miss the Voyager and her plucky crew of misfits… just not when they were being racist or misogynist for no reason. And while I’d love to say we’re glad all those bad episodes are over, there’s always more bad ideas to go around. Let’s see how our next show in the rotation compares as we prepare ourselves for our next watchthrough: Star Trek: Enterprise! We’d love for you to watch along with us on SoundCloud or whatever podcast platform is your favorite, to hang out with us on Facebook and Twitter, and to really brace yourself because we know more pon farr action is on the way. Ew.

#star trek #star trek podcast #podcast #star trek voyager #voyager #bottom 5 #the fight #tattoo #alice #ex post facto #concerning flight #body and soul #retrospect #blood fever #sacred ground #11:59 #fury #elogium #pon farr

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 4 years ago

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man, I just kind of...I don’t know how to find a place to fit in the Loki fandom anymore. I mean I probably haven’t for a while, at least since things exploded over Ragnarok, but a lot of the same stuff is heating up again because of the show, and it’s like--

there’s this idea in some circles, right, that either you like pre-Ragnarok Loki and see Ragnarok (and probably the show, based on the trailers) as an awful retcon, or that you like Ragnarok Loki and don’t care all that much about the previous movies. it’s deeply polarizing--people seem to either love it or hate it, without much in between, and people who like it think the anti-Ragnarok people are whiny entitled fans who are determined to be negative, and people who hate it think pro-Ragnarok people are shallow fans who don’t actually care about continuity, characterization, emotional development, or really anything but spectacle and cheap laughs.

and the same general attitudes are extending to the show. people who like what we’ve seen so far, or are just excited to be getting more Loki, sometimes go out of their way to mock people who have doubts or act like it’s pathetic and unhealthy to be anything but 100% excited. and people who have doubts assume the excited fans are casual viewers, and sometimes add negative stuff to reblogs of neutral or positive posts, which can be pretty demoralizing especially for, say, somebody who wants to like it but does have some concerns.

it feels like you have to choose, and it’s just...weird and uncomfortable because I don’t want to choose, that’s the whole point, I’ve been a fan since the very first Thor movie and I’ve seen discourse about every single Loki-related movie since, and there have been things I’ve liked and disliked in all of them. I agree with many criticisms of Ragnarok! but I also get real uncomfortable real fast around people who primarily dislike Ragnarok because I do see throughlines in characterization, in part because I’m always happiest making the effort to reconcile new and old canon, and most of my favorite fics have done a good job of expanding on that and accepting these characters as the same ones we loved before. and I don’t want to argue because I never want to get yelled at, and I’m old and tired, and I don’t have the energy to argue, so I keep being uncomfortable and feel like I can’t say anything. and on the other side of things I don’t think I know anyone who only likes Ragnarok, actually, but feeling like you can’t say anything negative or you’ll be yelled at for whining is...also really weird?? especially if, say, your main criticisms are for IW/Endgame, and explaining why those featured some immensely bad writing gets you labeled a whiny entitled fan who’s throwing a fit because they didn’t get exactly what they wanted??

I liked all the actual Loki-related movies (which for me doesn’t include Endgame at all and only partly includes IW, both for lack of screentime), generally speaking! I also rely heavily on fic to fill in things the movies didn’t care about! I mostly loved Loki’s characterization in IW but hated it for pointlessly killing him off so fast in a way that really didn’t make sense, and I mostly hated Endgame for a whole bunch of reasons and only a couple of those reasons involved Loki! I have reservations about the show but I’m also excited to be getting more Loki, and I do see moments in the trailers that remind me a lot of moments from pre-Ragnarok movies, and I’m at least hopeful that what we end up getting will be more good than bad! and it’s really weird and uncomfortable that all these fucking middle-of-the-road opinions make me feel wrong everywhere and too nervous to join most discussions or say much of anything because there’s a very good chance I’ll get mocked, mischaracterized, or yelled at!

I don’t know where I’m trying to go with this, it’s just frustrating because it feels like everybody has to choose one side or the other and I don’t want to, so instead I end up feeling like I don’t really belong anywhere, especially when a lot of people who also seemed to have pretty balanced opinions have moved on to something else or are in the process of doing so. it’s...kinda lonely, you know?

#loki #loki show #marvel cinematic universe #fandom discourse #man idek what to tag this #I'm just bummed #also I spent way too much time vomiting out this post when I meant to be doing...many other things

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mooncalfe-art · 2 years ago

Note

This isn’t IDW related— I noticed you said Mirage is your favorite version of the turtles, and Mirage is my favorite version of the turtles as well. I’ve made a comprehensive document describing the (in my opinion) best way to read Mirage TMNT, and I’m currently writing a long ass analysis that goes over the turtles’ characterization in Mirage. So, you know, clearly I like it a lot and have spent a lot of time thinking about it. You saying that volume 4 is one of your favorites made me curious and I had to ask, do you view volume 4’s characterization of the turtles any different than volume 1? 30 years have passed, so obviously they Fe different, but I mean. I enjoyed volume 4 but seeing how he reacted to Seri’s assumed betrayal, even though the woman he saw wasn’t really Seri… it made me sad. It also seems to me that volume 4 also has a… unique way of characterizing the Mirage turtles. It’s more reminiscent of post 90s characterization of the turtles (post 87 show, post 90s trilogy, and post TMNT Adventures by Archie) when compared to early Mirage. Not quite as suited for kids, obviously, but slight detours in their characters. There are also some sources (like the 30th anniversary TMNT celebration, Peter Laird’s blog, and the bonus #24 and #25 issues of the original Image volume 3 run) that imply that volume 4 is separate from the first two volumes. I bring this up because I love Mirage a ton and it’s the small details that have me questioning things, and I don’t have a lot of people else to talk about Mirage to. BUT ANYWAY, yeah, I guess I’m just asking about your opinions so I can compare them to mine. I wrote a lot LOL I just am very passionate about Mirage, sorry for word vomiting all over your ask box.

Ooh, your analysis stuff sounds really cool. Volume 4's Turtles are definitely different than volume 1, like you said it had been a long time since volume 1, Peter and Jim were older, Kevin wasn't involved, the whole dynamic was different than it was back in the day. Peter's writing has always been a bit more pulpy and mellow and I think volume 4 is him spreading his wings so to speak, so that has something to do with it too. I haven't read volume 4 in years but I used to also chalk it up to the Turtles being 15 years older than they were in volume 1, they're 30 years old during volume 4, that's a huge time for them to change as people and mellow out.

I don't think I've seen the blog posts you mention where Peter implies volume 4 is separate from the other volumes, that's interesting. I'd always thought it was meant to be a direct follow-up (along with Tales volume 2) and there's so much in it that directly ties into stuff from the old issues... I'd have to take a look at those instances you mention! Interesting, in any case.

I appreciate the message, no worries about the word vomit! ;)

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ghostofbambifanfiction · 4 years ago

Text

Part 1 of ?????

Started writing this fic a while ago and then lost faith in it. Should I continue? Feel bad for not posting much lately so I thought I'd share this. Read on and weigh in.

COME OUT TONIGHT

You don't have to fucking shout?

Said the pot to the kettle?

Oh you grandmother The caps were an accidental by-product of voice-to-text Blame Siri if you're going to blame anyone

You have a Samsung Galaxy S20.

HAD. It got smashed. Worst luck. Listen, come out with me tonight.

Urghhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm tired!

https://www.boots.com/wellness/vitaminsandsupplements/vitamins-supplements-shop-by-ingredient/echinacea

Hah (indifferent)

Just come out with me! Isaac has to go see some godawful student performance of the Antigone in wherever the fuck Chichester is and it's Sirius's flatmate's birthday party so I have to go and I don't know any of his weird mates

You don't HAVE to go.

Have to/want to Semantics

I'm not in a birthday party mood. I'm having a stressful week. My arse has been tense since Tuesday.

I will wade into the deep and massage your arse if I have to, just come It's a swank pad in Belgravia! I bet they'll have all sorts of expensive nibbles!

I read that as expensive nipples.

Those too!

Partying it up with the children of wealthy Tories. Sounds super fun.

Just come out with me, for fuck I'll pick you up at 7 and we can steal their silverware if it's boring as the grave

URGH I'll go but I'm NOT dressing up!

You don't have to dress up!

FINE!

take the drawings down please i'm begging you i'm actually begging you

Nah mate

siriusssssssss pleeeeeease

Nah

PLEASE

Nah

PLEASE ffs it's MY birthday!!!! there are going to be PEOPLE there! standing around! AT EYE LEVEL

I don't see what the problem is.

EVERYONE will see what the problem is! they literally will not be able to IGNORE what the problem is!

Sounds like a recipe for lively discussion to me tbh

that is NOT what i want people talking about at my birthday!

If I take them down, I'll have to take all the nails out and that'll leave nail marks all over the walls. It would be unsightly.

MORE UNSIGHTLY THAN YOUR DICK, SIRIUS?

My dick is bewitching.

DIE

She walks in expecting to find herself the infiltrator of a Made in Chelsea/Royal Ascot/Henley Regatta netherworld, filled with a gaggle of giggling, SW-postcode socialites wielding suspiciously powder-edged Harrods Amex cards in the place of horses and boats, but that's not what actually greets her on the other side of the lacquered front door.

What greets her is really quite ordinary.

Aside from the naked drawings of Kingsley's mate, which aren't.

Otherwise, the whole affair is pretty relaxed. People her age are clustered in their small groups, swigging beers. There's a table of oven-heated party foods, salty snacks and rapidly depleting ramekins of guac. She spies more band shirts than there are dress shirts. There's a round of Fortnite in full swing on the TV.

It's all just...startlingly normal. A normal birthday party.

And that's sort of embarrassing, really.

Where are all the visible Tory toffs, she wonders? Where is the braying laughter? The Eton alumni reunion? The glimpse of hunting-happy tweed and shotgun barrels as a coat cupboard door swings shut? Where's the indelible air of sneering superiority, of "we're richer and more privileged and better than you, so fuck the NHS and death to foxes!" that she'd been expecting? There's a fucking Henry Hoover in the corner of the hall, for Christ's sake. Lily came here to smile through her teeth at them all, to listen to the champagne problems privilege that bubbled from their lips and tell herself that she was the one who knew better, who thought better. Her plain white tee and skinny jeans and scuff-toed, high-top trainers were supposed to be a statement, a subtle setting-apart, but she's not even the most underdressed person in the room.

She pre-judged a house full of people. What's that about?

There's a lesson to be found in this. Perhaps.

James covered all of the dicks in Paw Patrol stickers that he bought from the newsagent on his way home from his mum's, but Sirius peeled them all off while he was taking a soothing lavender bath, so what's the bloody point in birthdays anyway?

It's early in the evening, and he's wedged—against his will—between the dining room bar and Shane Ruttle, who has just pointed at one of the many lamentable dicks and asked, "Is this one of yours?" which James kind of wants to thump him for. It's bad enough that he looks like a madman who stuffed his house with naked drawings of his brother, now people are actually assuming that he drew the damn things, even though most of the compositions are appallingly far beneath his skill level. He's a professional illustrator, for the love of god, and Shane is really standing before him like the posturing prick he is, asking him if he's the one who drew Sirius with one arm disproportionately longer than the other.

He knows that he should cheer up.

It is his birthday. There is cake.

Good cake, too, not the kind that gets buried in too-thick fondant that he has to pick off before he can eat what's underneath.

The problem is, there's also a party, and his friends are his friends, Peter and Sirius included, and Peter and Sirius can both get drunk much faster than James can. When Peter and Sirius get drunk, serious injuries tend to follow, Remus tends to fuck off in a flash and James tends to be the one who calls for an ambulance or mothers them back to health—physical, mental or otherwise. He has just turned twenty-six, and these repeated, drunkenly dramatic medical emergency scenes are starting to wear a little thin.

Can't a man get comfortably drunk and have a laugh at his own birthday party?

No, he can't, because Peter's already halfway to trashed, wobbling unsteadily towards the French doors that lead to the terrace, wearing that look on his face that says I'm definitely going to vomit or maybe even shit myself like I did on that one night we all spent in Munich with the Belgian handball team and the creepy tour guide who couldn't keep his sleazy hands to himself. For the sake of sparing the lawn such a punishment, James hastily removes himself from Shane, grabs Peter by the collar, shoves him in the direction of the downstairs loo and retreats to the safety of the living room, where there are, at least, no naked drawings of Sirius gracing the walls.

Most of the people in here are transfixed by Saffy Stephens, who is down to the last three in her Fortnite game and cursing like a sailor, but there are a small pile of birthday cards on the end table where James and Sirius normally keep their keys. He perches on the sofa arm, sets his half-drunk beer bottle on the carpet, pushes his dark, disheveled hair away from his forehead and begins leafing through them. It's a necessity when one lives with Sirius, who thinks nothing of swiping gift cards when the mood strikes him and he's had enough to drink.

They're mostly from his female friends, and all pretty standard, until he reaches the middle of the pile and finds a card bearing a picture of a moustached tabby and the caption: Have a Purr-fect Birthday!

The inscription inside is written in a lovely, swirling hand.

To Jasper/Jack/Jason/maybe Ja Rule?/J-something idk

(see above: everything I've learned about you from the friend* I came here with, verbatim)

(*who can't remember your name)

Happy Birthday! Thank you for (not) specifically inviting me, a stranger, to your party to celebrate this momentous event in your life. Please enjoy this festive card/social nicety/convention from me to you. My friend brought rum which you may prefer.

I'll be around. Not that you'll know.

James lowers the card and twists on the sofa arm at once, eyes darting around the room in search of its author, as if they might be laying in wait to watch him read it and see how he reacts. Nobody appears to have ducked behind the couch, however, so the situation merits further scrutiny.

Obviously, he needs to meet this person.

A mystery! At his birthday party!

He perks right up after that.

She's coming out of the downstairs loo when a short, blonde man in a garish Hawaiian shirt barrels past her and pukes all over the chequerboard tiled floor, narrowly missing her jeans.

"Oh no," he moans into his wet hands. "Oh no—"

"There there, mate," says Lily consolingly, never one to judge somebody for getting drunk early at a party. She pats him on the back before squeezing past him and rejoining Kingsley, who is standing in one of this meandering Georgian house's many hallways, chatting to a bloke in a houndstooth sweater vest and holding two glasses of something very, very sparkly that she must try at once.

"It's like...it's like everything and nothing at the same time," Houndstooth Bloke is saying when Lily draws close, gesturing to a huge canvas painting of a rain-soaked fairground at night.

"Is it?" Kingsley asks.

"Mmm. Very." Houndstooth shakes his shoulders like he's slipping out of a robe. "Meant to be esoteric, I suppose."

That sounds suspiciously like pretentious bullshit to Lily, who doesn't find the concept of a merry looking fairground all that difficult to absorb. Kingsley knows more about the art world than she does, but he must agree with her assessment because he grunts and shoves her glass into her hand when she stops beside him, and more roughly than she deserves, as if she's the one who landed him in this mess of a conversation to begin with.

Trust him to find himself stuck with the only dick (not etched by a 4B Steadtler graphite pencil) in the building, and trust her to be stuck with the person who got himself stuck with King.

"What are we talking about?" she asks brightly, just to fuck with him.

"Drink your champagne, there's a good little hen," King mutters, his teeth clenched together, hallway lights bouncing off the smoothly waxed dome of his bald head.

"We've been discussing this piece." Houndstooth nods to the painting, but his limpid eyes narrow on Lily's face. "Christ, you're very redheaded, aren't you?"

It's decided. She'll wait 'til Houndstooth is drunk and trip him up with Henry Hoover's hose.

"Ergo soulless, yes," she agrees.

"And you...enjoy that?" he asks, as if being redheaded is her profession.

"Very much, thanks."

"Hmmp. Well. I came here with Saffron," he announces, pronouncing it Sef-ron. As if Lily is supposed to know who that is. "Platonically, of course. Actually, we're some sort of cousins, I think. What do you think the artist is trying to convey?"

He's very pointedly asking her, so Lily blinks at the painting, her eyes on the outstretched arm of a child on the carousel.

"I like the pretty colours," she decides aloud.

"Right," says Houndstooth, "but that's not—"

"And the lights, too. The lights are really pretty."

"But—"

"I love funfairs, actually," she brightly continues, finding a strange satisfaction in playing dumb in front of Houndstooth and his overbleached fade. Although she does really like the colours. "Haven't been to one in years!"

"Yes, good, whatever, but what is the artist trying to convey?"

"What artist?" comes a voice from behind them.

Lily glances over her shoulder and finds herself looking up at the man whose penis she's spent the past thirty minutes avoiding eye contact with, though he is taller, better proportioned and infinitely more beautiful than any of those crudely drawn depictions could possibly convey. He is also beplumed and bejewelled like a pirate, wearing a sumptuous velvet jacket over a loose white shirt, numerous rings on his fingers and an assortment of silver chains around his slender neck, while his grey eyes and elegantly high-set cheekbones are framed by a tumble of black hair that genuinely looks like silk.

The man is so beautiful, in fact, that Lily immediately wonders why he's been taking sketches home from the life drawing class that he and Kingsley pose for—hence their acquaintance and Lily's presence at this party—when nothing she's seen tonight has done him any justice.

Most happily, his penis is tucked safely out of sight.

"Alright, Sirius?" says King.

"Alright, Marvel?" Sirius claps a hand to the taller man's massive shoulder. Kingley's muscles bulge in a way that cannot be hidden by modern habiliments. "What are we talking about?"

"Not much." Houndstooth looks put out by the arrival of yet another person. "We were just mesmerised by this piece."

Lily refrains from gesturing to the painting with both hands and a "ta-dah!" choosing instead to sip her champagne.

It's very good champagne. Mmm. Yes.

"Oh, yeah, it's really something," Sirius agrees. He brushes past Kingsley and runs a finger over the illegible squiggle of a signature on the canvas. His nails are beautifully manicured. "Local guy, young up-and-comer. I assume you've heard of Algernon?" he asks Houndstooth, fixing him with a steely-eyed stare.

"Er, yes." Houndstooth's gaze slides from Sirius to the painting. "I know him."

Sirius's eyebrows lift. "Know him personally?"

"Well—"

"That's so weird, I heard he never speaks to people."

Houndstooth chews on the inside of his cheek, weighing up the challenge. "How…funny."

"Funny?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just, I know I've spoken to him before, and since you've bought his painting I assumed that you'd have—"

"That is funny, actually," Sirius interrupts, "because the artist is my brother, and Algernon is the name of his cat."

Kingsley has been tugging on his earring and almost rips it out of his ear as his body convulses, champagne spraying from his nostrils, while an alarming red flush sweeps across Houndstooth's face and he begins to sputter on his own self-importance. Sirius has clearly decided that he's done with all of that noise, however, because he turns back to Lily instead, looking her up and down with great and sudden interest.

"Who's this then?" he asks Kingsley, cocking his head to one side. "James's present?"

The champagne glass swings down and Lily fixes him with a deadpan stare. "Excuse me?"

Sirius slants a grin at Kingsley, a quick flash of teeth. "This one's queenly, isn't she?"

Kingsley wipes his nose with the back of his hand and laughs again. "Hardly."

"This is Primark, mate," Lily retorts, tugging on her t-shirt.

"Queenliness is a state of mind," says Sirius, "not a state of wardrobe."

"You had me marked down as a prostitute not ten seconds ago."

"Oh, that. I was only joking," he sighs, and grips her arm at the elbow, his long fingers cool against her skin. "But still, you're far too attractive to stand here talking to this clown. Come with me and I'll find you someone better."

James's friends are useless.

And drunk. Useless and drunk—or sort of drunk, in Saffy's case. Remus is certainly already pissed, but Remus is on meds so often that he drinks but once in a blue moon. One cocktail is usually enough to set him off, and he's been hard at the gin since he turned up with Peter at six.

"I don't know anyone with those initials," Saffy declares, once she has read, examined and even sniffed the birthday card for clues. "Except for Lisa Edelstein."

"Who's Lisa Edelstein?"

"Cuddy from House," says Remus, lowering the negroni from which he has been drinking deeply.

James pulls a face. "What the fuck is a Cuddy?"

"Oh, actually, it could mean le?" Remus suggests.

"Yes!" Saffy points at him like he might be onto something. "Like the French word for the?"

"Exactly, like—"

"It doesn't mean that!" James interrupts, unwilling to allow such profanity in his home. "That doesn't make sense, why would somebody sign their name as the?"

"Now you're asking me to explain how French people think?" says Saffy derisively, adjusting her bra strap beneath that burnt orange waistcoat she loves, the one that makes her look like she's directing a pornographic movie in the 70s when she pairs it with her tortoiseshell-framed aviators. It clashes wildly with her electric blue buzz-cut. "Am nooooo drunk enough for that."

"They could be one of those one word moniker pop stars, I suppose," Remus pipes up, smiling slyly. "You know, like Madonna?"

They think James doesn't realise that they're taking the piss out of him, but neither of them are sober enough to attempt their gambit with any kind of subtlety or grace.

"You know that's actually her real Christian name?" says Saffy.

Remus turns towards her with interest. "What, Madonna?"

"Yeah!"

"Really?"

"Yeah!" Saffy repeats. "I thought it couldn't possibly be her real name because, I mean, Madonna, yeah? But then I looked it up and apparently that's the name her mummy gave her, just goes to show—"

"I'm sorry," James interrupts, "but is Madonna relevant to this conversation?"

"Yes, always," says Saffy.

"She's an international pop megastar," Remus seconds.

James stares at his friend incredulously. "Drinking really chips away at your wit, y'know?"

"Does it?" Remus grins lazily and jiggles his cocktail in the air. "Oh, well, I'm negronly joking."

Saffy does a spit-take without the spit and clings helplessly to Remus's shoulder as she laughs, knees buckling, bangles tinkling, but James fights his own urge to start snickering.

"It's not that funny," he lies, and Remus eyes him with an alarmingly teacher-like shrewdness, despite the tellingly intoxicated flush that has crept into his thin, freckled face.

James's love of puns is tragically well known.

"You didn't get it." Remus points at his drink. His speech is starting to slur. "This is a negroni, what I said was—"

"Yeah, I got that part, I just—"

"Jesus fuck, look at her!" Saffy suddenly hisses, staggering sideways into Remus and sending him into the wall in a flurry of giggles—Remus giggling?—her voice hushed and urgent. "Who the hell is that?!"

James does look, following the direction of Saffy's gaze. Sirius has just entered the living room, casually clutching the elbow of a……

……goddess.

An actual. Like. Goddess.

A goddess. In James's house. In his living room. In the place where he eats his chocolate boulder cereal and rewatches Scrubs (even season 9, which is hilarious, and very unfairly disparaged by Joe Public) on Saturday mornings.

She's a goddess. A real one, and cleverly disguised as a mortal, sure, with her slouchy white t-shirt and her big hoop earrings and her light blue jeans that are torn at the knees, wearing her shoulder-length red hair half up, half down and slightly messy, but that doesn't hide what she is.

"Oh my god," he murmurs. His heart is pounding all of a sudden, which is so...utterly bloody stupid, but Saffy's right, bloody look at her, Jesus fuck.

"Surely she can't be with Sirius?" Saffy murmurs back.

"No, she—" He watches Sirius lean down to mutter something in the redhead's ear. A ghost of a laugh flits across her beautiful face. "She's not his—he isn't—"

"D'you think—"

"No, I—"

"Good," says Saffy firmly. She lets go of Remus and rises, lengthening her spine. It is a battle stance of some sort, presumably. "Because I saw her first."

"No!" James cries, wounded, and the redhead shoots him a curious look with a pair of eyes that are startlingly emerald green, even from all the bloody way over here. He spins to face Saffy and lowers his voice, face burning. "It's my house!"

"What are you arguing here, ownership rights?"

"No but it—it's my birthday!" James retorts, jabbing at his own chest. "And, actually, and—"

"It's in the bloody post!"

"—you didn't get me a present!" he finishes in triumph, not that he knows what he's arguing for, because the likelihood is that his tongue will glue itself to the roof of his mouth if he even dares to look in her direction one more time. "Plus I set you up with Vanya Petrich, with whom, as I recall, you enjoyed four years—"

"Stop throwing that in my face!"

"—four blissful years—"

"Is it my fault that you've never fancied any girl I've set you up with?!"

"—promised me an Easter ham for setting you up with her and I never got it—"

"So now you'll trade a woman for a ham?" Saffy accuses, though her face is too lit up, her brown eyes too crinkled at the corners—she's having fun with this and she isn't going to fool him and she knows it. "That's so low, even—"

"Don't start with that," James scathingly cuts in. "You offered me Sean Connery's autograph for Bonnie Grogan's number—"

"Which you never gave me!"

"Because you forged the bloody signature!"

"And now she's bloody married!"

"Yeah, well, Isabella wouldn't give me a counterfeit present, would she?" he retorts, and Saffy lets her shoulders drop, smirking. "This is pointless, Saf, we can't—"

"She's just left with Sirius," Remus informs them, and burps.

#Jily #Part 1 #Of 3?#Honestly I just wanted to give you guys a treat

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angstyaches · 3 years ago

Text

IRL holiday sickfic / aka Flick Teaches You A Lesson About Not Forgetting To Buy Sunscreen

CW: REAL LIFE mentions of sunburn, possible heatstroke and dehydration, feeling faint, panic attack, nausea, vomiting. Also, airports, airplanes, food, the sea, over-the-counter meds.

TLDR: my partner and I get horribly sunburned and are still very much dealing with it a week later. I throw up at the airport.

Note: I don’t usually post IRL stuff, and I’d appreciate it if there were no reblogs, please.

___

Monday

I spent all of Sunday night shivering as a reaction to some sunburn on my upper thighs, which had started out during a short morning sunbathe, and worsened in the afternoon as we’d been walking around the shopping district. I was possibly feeling unwell due to slight dehydration too. I suck at remembering to drink water, even in the heat.

Despite my legs being on fire, I couldn't get warm, and around 6am when I heard my partner stirring, I begged him to spoon me so I could steal some of his heat. When we got up and started to get ready for the day, I had horrible cramps in my mid and lower stomach. My partner - from here, let’s just call him L - reckoned I might have had mild food poisoning from something we ate on Sunday. I sucked it up because it was our last full day before going home, and we had a trip planned.

We had to get to our ferry.

On the way, we stopped at a convenience store and picked up some water and snacks to take with us, and even though we’d discussed it the night before, we forgot to buy sunscreen.

It was a two-hour ride on a large ferry, which I’d originally worried would make me motion sick. Ironically, the trip didn't add to the sickness I was already feeling. I was actually in decent spirits by the time we got off the boat and took a rickety little bus to the beach we’d chosen to visit.

There was a shack by the beach that sold a few drinks and food items, and much to my despair, they didn’t sell sunscreen. I was more than a little concerned how little was left in our current sunscreen bottle, and at this point, I was afraid that I was doing nothing but coming across as negative and whiny. My stomach was still hurting a bit too, and honestly, I was relieved that there were toilets relatively close to the beach.

L saw that I was really worried about the sunscreen situation, so we decided to rent out a big beach umbrella, so we’d at least have some shade to retreat into while we were on the beach. The guy who was renting them out was super friendly, and up-sold us into also renting snorkelling gear. He set up our umbrella for us and we used the little sunscreen we had to cover our faces, and I put some on the parts of my legs that were already burnt.

It turned out that the snorkelling gear was the right choice, because the water was so clear and there were so many fish. The island had a bunch of little coral reefs that you could swim over, and it was both of our first times snorkelling, so it’s safe to say we did that for the majority of the three hours we spent at that beach.

Which meant that our backs were in direct sunlight for a long time.

L isn’t a strong swimmer, and he gets nervous in open water, so he went back to the rental guys and grabbed a life vest, so a lot of his back was shielded, apart from his shoulders and around his waist.

We had the most amazing time, but there was only one ferry back to the main island, so we had to rush to get the bus back to the port. We weren’t in too much pain just yet; we were just hot, and our skin could tell we’d been out in the sun for too long. At the time, I’d thought it’d been just a little too long.

It was about 7:30pm (and, mercifully, dark out) by the time we were back at our hotel and had showered. All we'd eaten all day was a light breakfast, and a snack around 2pm. Neither of us were particularly hungry, but we knew we needed to eat, so we set out walking towards the main food/shopping street. Looking back, I think we - or I, at least - were running on adrenaline from all of the swimming.

We found a pharmacy along the way, so we could pick up some aloe vera gel. L suggested getting some ibuprofen for the pain/inflammation that was starting to set in for both of us. At the time, it was still mostly my thighs - where I’d been burned the day before - that were bothering me.

We got in the queue to pay.

And whew.

I don't know if my medical anxiety was triggered from being around so many meds, or if it was the harsh lighting inside the pharmacy, or the pain was setting in, or if hunger and low blood sugar were hitting me, but I started feeling really, really horrible. And dizzy. Spacy. Almost like my soul was about to drift up out of my body.

I told L I didn't feel well, and he said it'd be okay, and that the ibuprofen would help. But my head was swimming and my vision was starting to blur, and my thoughts kept shifting between "I'm going to throw up" and "I'm going to pass out". All I wanted to do was sit down. I wanted to get the hell out of there. I didn't want to vomit on the floor of the pharmacy.

I could hear him telling me, “Flick*, if you’re going to pass out, don’t go outside”, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I didn’t want to collapse on the floor of the pharmacy, where people would then come and fuss over me and ask me questions in Japanese and possibly end up bringing me to a hospital. I was so frustrated and panicked because all I wanted to do was lie down, I knew lying down would help with this feeling so much, but I couldn’t just lie down on the sidewalk.

I sat down on the curb, ducking my head as low to my knees as I could. I glanced towards the pharmacy and I could see two junior high school boys staring at me from the aisles (Japan has these weird open-front pharmacies, especially near busy shopping areas, I’ve found), but I felt so horrible that I didn’t care. My vision was swimming, my hands were tingling, my breath didn’t feel like it was making it to my lungs.

L finished paying and came outside. The first thing he did was help me up. He told me I was having a panic attack, which I (now) think was spot-on, because the shortness of breath and the tingling in my limbs lined up with my usual attacks. He's good at spotting the signs at this point. He wasn’t even trying to tell me nothing else was wrong, just that the thing making me feel like I was dying was the panic attack.

The tingling got worse than it ever has, though, to the point where my hands went into claw-shapes that I couldn't break them out of. All of the gasping was drying my mouth and throat out, so I managed to tell him I needed water - of which I'd had shockingly little all day. Probably less than 200ml, despite spending most of the day in direct sunlight and swimming/walking around a lot.

We walked for a little while, and L popped two ibuprofen on the way (he’s crazy good at taking pills without water; I could never). He left me sitting against a bike rail and went into a convenience store to buy some water. He only left me for about a minute, but I was so scared that I was going to faint while he wasn’t there. When he came back out, I was dry-sobbing.

L let me drink some water, held both my hands, and told me it was going to be okay, even though it didn't feel okay right then. One of the best things he tells me is that while it feels like something is really wrong, nothing bad is going to happen to me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. In that moment, I hurt so much and felt so floaty and sick that I could only nod along complacently. I pitifully told him I didn’t think I could eat; the idea of heading to any of the restaurants we’d been talking about made me want to throw up. We decided to head back towards the hotel. He held my hand the whole way, and we went slowly so the movement wouldn't aggregate my burns.

I calmed down a bit, and we eventually came across a kebab shop that was only about five minutes away from our hotel. I knew he was hungry despite me being not, and the thought of sitting down in air conditioning was appealing, so we went in. I almost fell over my own feet taking off my shoes, and stepping up from the genkan was the first time I felt the creases in my lower back scream from being scorched.

Agreeing that he’d eat my food if it came out and I couldn’t eat it, L ordered chicken kebab wraps for both of us, plus a plate of plain rice, and two cokes.

I just laid my head on the table the entire time we were waiting for our order, self-conscious of the fact that I looked and seemed drunk, but I was still at the point where I didn't really care. It hurt so much to curl forward, but having somewhere to rest my head felt so right. I managed to drink my coke when it came, but two bites of the veggies from the kebab made me want to die, so I gave that to L and just picked away at some of the rice. L ate everything else, and declared that he was feeling so much better, pain-wise, after taking the ibuprofen about twenty minutes before, so he gave me two to take with my coke.

We both slept in a decent amount of pain that night, but the ibuprofen seemed to keep away the shivers that had hit me the night before, so that was something.

Tuesday

We had to get up and pack and get to the airport to come home.

We were both in so much pain as we got up and checked out. Luckily, getting a taxi to the airport was easy, and we took some more ibuprofen too. We decided we should eat before flying, since we would head straight for my car once we landed and would then have a two hour drive home. We ended up at A&W, where L ordered a burger, fries, and a muffin, and I got chilli cheese fries and a muffin. Besides the pain, I was feeling alright this morning, plus I was concerned about how little I'd eaten the day before. We finished our food and went to check in and drop off our suitcase.

And oh, boy, was the worst about to come.

There was a long queue for the check-in desk, and about halfway in, I started getting a stinging/tingling pain in my cheeks and jaws. I told L that I was getting “stingy cheeks”. This happens to me a lot when I'm dehydrated, so L didn’t worry too much beyond sounding sympathetic. He said we'd go buy some water once we'd checked in.

But then my head was swimming again, and my mouth was watering. I started leaning on the queue partitions whenever I could. Again, I started worrying that I seemed drunk, and although it occurred to me that they might not let me on the plane at all if they suspected I was inebriated, I couldn't compose myself fully. I think one of the main factors was how fucking raw my shoulders and back were, aggravated by the fact that I was carrying a very full backpack.

We finally got to the front, and we had to hand over our boarding passes and let the agent know our basic info. She weighed our suitcase, asked if we'd packed it ourselves etc., and asked both of us to confirm our names.

During the whole interaction, I was sweating and swallowing. I felt like a wooden doll come to life, with the sole purpose of convincing this woman that I was a real person. My eyes wandered aimlessly as I fought to keep myself upright. We still had one more queue to enter after this, to drop off our suitcase. It seemed impossible. My knees didn’t have it in them. My body was failing me.

I suddenly realised that I'd answered everything the agent specifically needed from me, so I tapped L's arm and told him, "I need to go". He nodded in understanding and I headed out of the check-in area.

My head was swimming so badly that I barely made out the location of the closest bathrooms. For some reason, I actually kept it together long enough to get there, find a suitable cubicle (the first one I entered had a very dirty toilet bowl, so I immediately went "nope"), hang my backpack on the door, and pull my phone out of my pocket so it wouldn’t end up in the bottom of the bowl.

I retched up a small mouthful at first, taking myself by surprise. I experience nausea on a semi-regular basis, but more often than not, it ends in light dry-heaving and maybe a little bile. I immediately saw a glimpse of my breakfast/lunch this time.

I was wearing my sunglasses on my head, and I could feel them shifting forward through my hair as my body heaved. I pulled them off and left them resting on top of the toilet paper holder, which I'd usually never dream of doing to something I put on my face. But again, better there than in the toilet. I retched again and again, bringing up pitiful scraps. I was leaning over with my hands on my thighs, my germ phobia at a level just high enough to keep me from kneeling down by the bowl (stupid idea, looking back. I should have just done it).

I realised that while I was gagging, I was holding a weird amount of tension in the pit of my stomach. And as soon as my brain acknowledged it, my abdominal muscles relaxed, like some kind of switch had been hit.

And then, everything I'd eaten that morning just came pouring out of me over the course of two or three gags, barely digested at all. I don't think I've thrown up that much, or that violently, in my whole adult life. It was Exorcist-level. It unfortunately splashed up and hit my favourite shirt (I would choose to wear a white shirt that day, wouldn't I? But it washed out, so all’s good now).

There was no definite “okay, I’m done now” moment, but L and the check-in counter popped into my head. I miserably felt for my phone to see if he needed me to hurry back for anything. All he'd messaged me was that he was outside the bathrooms he assumed I was in, and that we had a little bit of time before we needed to head for security.

My brain has a hard time reading tone, and I couldn’t tell if the “little bit of time” portion was a hint that I needed to hurry, so I started to tidy myself up. There was one person washing their hands when I came out, backpack slung over my tensed shoulder (as though keeping my shoulder tensed was somehow going to stop the backpack weighing so hard on my enflamed skin). They probably had no idea I’d just been sick, but I felt so disgusting and conspicuous as I went to wash my hands and my face.

So we headed through security, and the rest of the journey was okay. We both slept on the flight, with our heads pressed against the seats in front so our backs and shoulders weren't aggravated. The drive home was nasty, since I couldn't exactly crouch over the steering wheel the entire way.

But yeah, I guess I’ll never know exactly what made me throw up, but the factors are: pain, possible sunstroke/sun poisoning, eating too much in one go after not eating much the day before, heat, dehydration, or taking too many ibuprofen with not enough food. Those stomach cramps from the day before hadn’t bothered me since the previous afternoon, so I’m fairly sure those two weren’t related. My stomach didn’t even really hurt during the both vomiting situation, or after, now that I think about it.

Back Home

Anyway, jumping forward. I had no appetite for the first two days at L’s house, barely slept the first and second night in L's bed. Night three, I slept. Nights four and five, I was up again, itchy and burning and uncomfortable. We couldn't cuddle. I couldn't even sit properly on the couch until Saturday. Showering hurt so bad that I straight-up didn’t do it for two days, and couldn’t reach up to wash my hair until day four.

For the first few nights, L and I rubbed a mixture of aloe vera and calamine lotion onto each other’s backs. For him, he would hiss and groan, but for me, the cold and touch hurt so much that I had to curl up around a pillow and bury my face. It made me scream. It felt like my body was ripping apart. I cried. I usually composed myself and got up so I could do L’s back for him, but one of the nights was so bad that he said he’d manage by himself (his burn wasn’t as deep, or as wide), and just sat with me, playing with my hair since he couldn’t really touch me anywhere else.

Today is Sunday, and I still look like an actual demon from the pits of hell. Something from an actual horror film. Seriously, friends. Always stock check on sunscreen.

Always.

___

*I don’t go by Flick in real life.

#Flickposting #irl sickness #irl whump #irl emeto #emeto #sunburn #heatstroke #idk that else to tag this with

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warped-stem · 4 years ago

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so. my post about writing this at 3 am fighting off melatonin got exactly 2 notes. enjoy my sleepy angst :)

warnings for mentions of mutilation, vomit, and torture. wordcount 1.6k

When Sapnap goes to visit Dream again, he notices something off about Sam. He's flightier, less talkative. He barely meets Sapnap's eye the entire walk through the prison. When they finally get to the main cell, Sam warns him that Dream might not talk again. Sapnap nods in understanding, remembering the last time he saw him.

He isn't expecting Dream, once someone who stood tall and proud, whose presence demanded all of the attention in the room, to be curled into a shaking ball in the corner next to his chest. The shaking gets worse the closer the platform comes to the cell, and Sapnap can see the way Dream's jumpsuit is torn, the way there's blood staining parts that should by no means be bloodstained. Dream doesn't look up when Sapnap steps foot onto the obsidian, doesn't look up when the Netherite barrier drops, continues to not look up until Sapnap's hesitant voice bounces off the walls.

"Dream?"

This finally gets his attention, his head snapping up and dull green eyes meeting sparking red. Now Sapnap can take in the details that were hidden in Dream's arms. How his cheeks are hollow, how new scars trail across his face, some wounds barely healed from the poor environment.

Sapnap takes a step toward Dream, and his heart stops in his chest at the way Dream violently tries to sink into the wall behind him. So, Sapnap sits on the floor where he stands, keeping his eyes on the crumpled, shivering form of the once most powerful man on the server -- of his friend.

He doesn't move, even as Dream stops trembling again and looks back up, waiting for force that will never come. Slowly, once it seems Dream realizes Sapnap doesn't want to hurt him, he starts to unfurl from himself. His arms and legs are lacking the muscle mass Sapnap knew he once possessed, and the skin that's exposed is covered in dirt and blood and poorly healed injuries. It makes Sapnap sick to think about the damage he can't see, what's covered by layers of fabric, or worse, what's covered by skin and muscle.

It takes the better part of an hour for Dream to speak up, and Sapnap's heart splinters.

"What d'you want?" He sounds like he hasn't had anything to drink in months, his voice creaky and dry. His words, however few, are slurred and misshapen. It takes a second for the reason to click in Sapnap's head, having heard one of his own fiances have to adjust to his new speech impediment and lack of teeth on his own time. It makes his stomach churn.

"I wanted to see you. Check in on you, y'know? See how you're holding up." His voice is softer than he intended for it to be, more somber.

Dream looks like he doesn't know how to respond, so he doesn't. He just lets his body slump against the wall, bringing his legs back up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his knees. It’s as he's staring off into middle space that Sapnap realizes one last thing about the way Dream looks, and it genuinely makes him want to throw up, or scream, or cry. Probably all three at once, if possible.

Several of Dream's fingers were reduced to stumps.

The entirety of his right pinky was gone, and he was missing about half of his right ring finger. The other three remained intact, but it was obvious he'll never be able to hold an axe again. His left hand was worse off. His ring finger was gone, and the pinky was cut down to the second knuckle, almost in a sick reverse of his right hand. He was also missing the tip of his middle and pointer fingers, his thumb spared yet again.

Sapnap chokes back a sob and has to turn away to keep his composure, forcing his tears and vomit back down. It takes him a few to steady his breathing and look back to Dream, only to find Dream looking at him first.

"What happened to you?" Sapnap sounded even more broken, a quiet plea slipping into his words. He wanted nothing more than to hold Dream like he did when they were younger, before all of the war and strife and bloodshed. Back when they were allowed to call each other brothers.

"Someone wanted information. I didn't give it up right away and he got violent." Dream tries to shrug, but the tremble in his shoulders makes it look more like a sick, shuddering laugh. Sapnap reluctantly notes that his earlier suspicions were correct, that Dream is now missing several of his teeth.

The temperature in the lava-covered room spikes as Sapnap's temper flares for a moment, before calming right back down into another unsettled roll of his gut.

"Who?" His response is choked, and he doesn't think he wants to know the answer.

Dream shakes his head frantically, tensing back up. The answer would destroy Sapnap, and Dream doesn't want that, so he keeps his mouth shut and his head down.

Sapnap wants names, though, and he's not leaving without one. He makes up his mind right then and there that there's something fucked up going on in Pandora's Vault, and he wants to get to the bottom of it. Even if Dream grew into a monster, he knew that no one deserved whatever physical abuse Dream's been going through.

"Is it Sam? Has he been doing this to you?" His voice shakes with fury, with sadness. Dream shakes his head again in response, before briefly shrugging.

"If it's not Sam, then he's at least letting this happen to you. Who the fuck would he let in here with- with whatever can do that much damage?"

"You don't wanna know, Sap." The 's' is whistled through the holes in his grimace, and he still refuses to meet Sapnap's eyes.

"I do. I need to know. I can't let them keep doing this to you." There's a few suspects running through his mind, but none of them beg for the anonymity Dream's allowing them.

Techno wouldn't torture someone, he's not that cold-hearted, and he'd have nothing to gain from repeatedly hurting Dream. Bad could easily do this damage, but even as he's controlled by the Egg, Sapnap knows he'd never lay a finger on Dream. Wilbur and Schlatt are dead, and Ghostbur wouldn't hurt a fly. Tommy'd pussy out before doing any serious damage, and even then, the kid was so heavily traumatized by Dream that all it would take for him to back down would be a threatening smile. He also can't see Ranboo hurting anyone intentionally, or Fundy coming back from wherever he'd run off to just to hurt Dream. Nearly everyone else was left untouched by Dream's influence. Foolish barely knew him, Connor was almost completely clueless, and Puffy thought that Dream didn't deserve to see her. Everyone else was too caught up in their own business to care, so that only really left a few possible people.

Sam, Ant, Punz, and Sapnap's least favorite answer, Quackity.

Dream already said it wasn't Sam, Ant was too busy with the Egg, and Punz was too apathetic to really care about what Dream had done to be motivated enough to mutilate one of his friends like this. That meant-

"Quackity. Is- is Quackity hurting you?" Sapnap's voice is far away, even to his own ears. He barely caught Dream's slow, shallow nod before he hides his face back in his knees.

It made sense, unfortunately. He hasn't seen Quackity in a while, spending most of his time building Kinoko Kingdom with Karl and George. It only really just hit him that they abandoned El Rapids to hastily move to the flower forest on the outer edge of the Dream SMP, leaving Quackity alone. No one had really heard from him in a long while, and Sapnap hadn't thought to keep tabs on him, trusting his fiance to keep out of trouble.

Apparently, that was too much to ask. Sapnap knew how ruthless Quackity could be when he wanted something bad enough, knew that he was an unstoppable force.

Dream's ragged breathing snaps Sapnap out of his thoughts, bringing his attention back to the present. Dream hadn't stopped shaking, but at least he was now looking at Sapnap again, gauging his reaction. Based on his breathing, he found something he didn't like.

"Fuck, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Pandas." His voice shook, tears threatening to spill out of dead eyes.

Sapnap doesn't respond, only standing. His shoulders slumped and his fists shaking at his sides. He takes a few strides across the cell before dropping down to his knees next to Dream, wrapping his arms around him.

They sit there like that for a while, crying and shaking. Dream was far too light for Sapnap's comfort, but that just made him hold on harder. Dream even snaked his arms around Sapnap's back in return, the dull nubs of his fingers trying to grip as much of his shirt as they could. Sapnap sobs.

He pulls back first, after both of them had spent all of their tears.

"I'm getting you out of here. Fuck what I said about taking your last life, you don't fucking deserve this." Sapnap knows his voice is rough, but the intense set of his eyes gives Dream enough reassurance to let go.

Sapnap stands, leaving Dream on the ground, and calls for Sam to let him out. He doesn't step away from Dream until he has to, and he makes a silent promise to make sure someone pays for this.

He ignores Sam the entire trip back through the prison, and his first thought after stepping back into sunlight is find Quackity.

#dreamwastaken #sapnap #dsmp #dream smp #dream smp fanfiction #warped warbles #dsmp spoilers #dream smp spoilers #i don't know how to trigger tag this #uhhh basically dream's missing parts of 6 of his fingers if not the full finger #also i don't know how to tag this in general #im gonna need a fic tag now arent i???#warped writes #there we go #thanks to the literal 2 people who liked my post abt this here you go BDJSVDHA #also peep that lil headcanon about sapnap in there with the temperature thing :)#and excuse literally All of this i was so fuckin tired

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coeurdastronaute · 4 years ago

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Nerd 15

Previously on Nerd

It hadn’t been a particularly good sleep. Lexa felt like she woke up every hour or so, each time checking to make sure the softly snoring girl beside her was still there, still asleep. Despite her own tossing and turning, Clarke didn’t seem to move much, just curled up tightly into herself, against Lexa’s side. Lexa kind of liked the feeling of the other body in her bed. She kind of liked that she was the person Clarke wanted.

Sometime after the tenth to twelfth time she woke up, Lexa realized the sun was up, and she couldn’t fight with her body waking any longer. Clarke didn’t move, and the night weighed on her girlfriend.

With a certain effort, Lexa decided to extract herself from the bed, even though Clarke didn’t seem to notice. It actually appeared as if Clarke was a very sound sleeper, as Lexa moved around the room and bumped the edge of her elbow on her desk and hissed at the contact. But as she stood still, she realized Clarke didn’t budge a bit.

Lexa scrolled through her phone as she tugged on some fresh clothes, checking over her shoulder quickly to make sure Clarke wasn’t peaking for some weird reason. She didn’t want Clarke to know how curious she was about the party before she arrived, but a part of her was incredibly interested in what might have panned out.

Like a thief, Lexa tugged on socks and buttoned her pants as she danced through the door in her attempt to remain as quiet as humanly possible. It took her a minute to close to door, watching it slowly inch toward the clasp, and finally it clicked nearly silent. She pushed her hair out of her face and slid into the bathroom, shoving a toothbrush into her mouth as she leaned against the counter and scrolled through the feed of Bellamy Blake’s infamous party.

As she scrubbed she watched the night happen in glimpses. She watched her girlfriend taking shots. She watched her girlfriend in that bikini. She watched her girlfriend look like she was desperately chasing an escape and numbness and it made Lexa mad for her. Lexa spit and rinsed and brushed and decided it was a good idea to scroll through Bellamy’s posts and she couldn’t understand how Clarke could like such different people. Bellamy Blake held week long parties and won state championships and got scouted. Lexa made movies and played board games and couldn’t figure out how to take a bra off.

With a final rinse she called her sister, hoping the time difference would mean she was awake, but as she bounded down the steps, she was met with a voicemail and furrowed. She needed research and information. Anya knew about all of this.

“You’re up early for someone having a sleepover with their girlfriend,” her mother greeted her as she looked up from the newspaper spread out across the kitchen island. Her father looked up over the edge of the sports section before looking back down.

“I told you we didn’t have to worry,” he muttered, flapping the paper out. Lexa rolled her eyes and took a seat.

“It wasn’t a sleepover.”

“Your girlfriend spent the night in your bed. I’d call it a sleepover, and I’d say we’re pretty cold parents for allowing it.”

“I appreciate it, but nothing was going to happen.”

“Good, because we discussed how alcohol can alter perception and consent--”

“Yes, yes,” Lexa sighed and reached for an apple as her father droned on yet again, hoping to avoid another sex talk. “I know, Dad.”

They all remained in a respective silence while working past the moment. It was weird, to want to talk to someone, let alone to have anything to talk about, but Lexa felt this need to figure something out, though she wasn’t sure what it would be. She wished her sister had just picked up the phone.

“So is Clarke…”

“Still asleep.”

“Did you have fun at the party?”

“I wasn’t there long,” Lexa shrugged. “I was at Luna’s working on our submission until late. Gus was there, so I knew people.”

She didn’t mention Michelle from math and her bikini. That felt inappropriate.

“How’s Clarke doing?” her mother pressed, sipping from her coffee again, warily watching her daughter.

“She’s… I don’t know. Sad. Mad. Stuck. Overwhelmed.”

“It was nice that you went to get her. I appreciate you telling us what’s going on instead of trying to sneak around. Anya did that. I can’t tell you how many times I had to pretend not to notice boys sneaking around the yard.”

“Really?”

“We trust you both,” her father explained. “We just appreciate you doing making us have to stretch it so far.”

“And we like Clarke, so we’re happy to help.”

“I don’t really know what else to do, you know?” she muttered, wiping her mouth and leaning against the counter, her knee coming up on the stool. “I think I’d be a little upset too if I were in her shoes, so I would want to probably do a bunch of stuff, but also I don’t want her to be upset.”

Lexa’s father looked at her and then to his wife. She cocked her head and gave him a look, to which he returned a shrug and ushered her to do something. They were stuck as well because no parenting book prepared them for teenagers. And Anya was very different.

“You can’t do anything,” he finally offered.

“Tim!” his wife warned.

“It’s true. You can’t make this better. It’s between Clarke and her mother and her father. But you can be there for her, and try to encourage her to be healthy about grief and pain. You have some experience, I’d say.”

Lexa looked back at him and clenched her lips, worrying the bottom one as she mulled over his words.

“And as much as we love what you want to do and be for Clarke, please don’t forget who you are in all of this. You have needs nad you have goals. Someone else’s wellness is not entirely on your shoulders.”

“I know.”

“But just be around. That’s all anyone can do. Be of service to others.”

“Your father’s right though,” her mother continued. “You can’t fix it, just be there. It’s a boring answer.”

“If Dad were dying would you have an affair?”

“Jesus, Lexa.”

“What?”

“I’d haunt you,” Tim decided before turning back to his paper. “I’d haunt you really hard.”

“I’m done with both of you today,” she decided, tossing her part of the paper in his lap as she walked through the living room. “It’s not even eight and I’m retreating to my office. I hope you’re both proud.”

The pair shared a smile and shrugged as she disappeared down the hall.

“You know, just because we gave you one sleepover, I hope you don’t get too comfortable asking. This was an emergency. It’s always okay in an emergency, and you know the difference.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I have golf in a bit, but this afternoon we could do some driving practice if you wanted?”

“Sounds good,” Lexa smiled.

For no reason at all, except maybe utter relief that she didn’t have to deal with the same problems Clarke did, she hugged her dad’s neck lazily over the back of the couch before making her way back upstairs.

XXXXXXXXXX

The vague memories of the night lingered like the stale taste of terrible vodka and beer, and Clarke smacked her lips, hoping to find any kind of liquid to get rid of the dry mouth. But her eyes felt heavy and glued shut, and her stomach felt like it was currently on the spin cycle, so moving wasn’t entirely feasible.

It had been dumb. It’d been stupid, even. Possibly as far as moronic, to go to Bellamy’s party, but it was the best alternative and boy did it feel nice to escape. Even the current state she found herself in was a welcomed punishment from feeling fine and being unable to exist in the world. Her current physical ailments felt like finally, the universe was manifesting itself, and she could fix the swirling stomach and cottonmouth. She could fix the spinning and soreness and bruises from God-knew what happened last night.

There wasn’t much else to be done, she suspected. Fix this moment, this hour, this day, and hope to survive to another one. It all had to end at some point.

Clarke finally managed to open her eyes, a feat she was certain no other human could have accomplished. She looked around Lexa’s room and gratefully accepted the water bottle and aspirin waiting beside the bed.

It took until halfway chugged, that she realized she was empty and the room was quiet. So she took a breath and held her stomach, certain she could hold it down. Carefully, she dressed, stealing Lexa’s old track sweats and an older soccer shirt, before making her way down the hall in search of something to fill her stomach.

“Someone else’s wellness is not entirely on your shoulders.”

“I know.”

Clarke paused at the top of the stairs when she heard the family talking. It felt like it was about her. She knew it had to be. It made her want to vomit.

“But just be around. That’s all anyone can do. Be of service to others.”

“Your father’s right though. You can’t fix it, just be there. It’s a boring answer.”

It was hard to be the subject of needing things. Clarke wasn’t someone who needed anyone. She wasn’t someone who wanted or needed to depend on anyone, and yet there was a girl, a girl who was too afraid to make a move, who imagined the world in terms of movie scenes and interpreted her own existence in the great world as a cosmic joke, always waiting for the punchline-- and this girl wanted to fix things.

“If Dad were dying would you have an affair?”

“Jesus, Lexa.”

“What?”

It hadn’t been a joke, but it made Clarke smile. No one expected that Lexa was serious, and she wanted to know the answer. There was shuffling and moving, and Clarke crept her way back to Lexa’s room.

She felt even dumber than she thought possible for going to see Bellamy. She wouldn’t do it again. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t. The words echoed in her head. She meant it, she was certain. She wouldn’t.

“You’re awake,” Lexa grinned as she quietly closed the door behind her only to find her girlfriend sitting in her bed.

“I’m never drinking again.”

“Mhm, we’ll see.”

“Don’t be mean to me, I’m sick.”

“You’re hungover.”

“You don’t know what it feels like, do you?” Clarke accused, accepting the orange and another bottle of water that was handed to her as her girlfriend joined her in bed.

“Don’t see much appeal.”

“It always seems like a good idea at the time…”

Lexa just shrugged and crossed her legs. She ran her thumb along the faded script on the side of Clarke’s knee.

“I should head home,” she decided softly. “Sleep this off and such.”

“You could sleep here. I’m just going to work on the car a bit. Maybe go for a run. I have homework to finish.”

“I have to go home at some point.”

“Maybe.”

“It was very sweet of you to come get me.”

“I’m just glad you texted.”

“I’m not going to be like this, you know?”

“You can be however you want.”

It was a sweet sentiment that Clarke didn’t have the mental capacity to sit with, she decided, because she wasn’t ready to decide to be anything. But tomorrow, maybe, she’d think about it. She knew what she didn’t want to be, and that seemed like something, at least.

“I texted Raven to come get me.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I needed last night to cleanse myself, I think. I need today to regroup.”

“You have a very weird process,” Lexa decided.

Clarke just chuckled and leaned forward, burying her face in Lexa’s thigh and sighing.

XXXXXXXXXX

For the moment, the very tiny, very quick moment, everything felt like it was caught up, and Lexa allowed herself a few moments of quiet in the garage, because come hell or high water, she was going to finish the car by the last day of school. SATs were done, finally, and something that didn’t need to be explicitly worried about until scores were released in a few weeks. Her prom outfit was already purchased and prepared. Homework and studying were done. Sports were over for the season and conditioning wasn’t set to start for another two months, though she’d start her own soon enough. Her girlfriend was at work and then going off to a cheer competition for the weekend. Luna was putting the finishing touches on their film school application project. And anyone else that might ask Lexa to do anything was promptly ignored.

Two weeks before spring break, and Lexa was feeling high on her on efficiency.

All in all, Lexa decided that she had at least three days to power through as much as she could with her dad in a final push before sending it off to the paint appointment.

She hadn’t counted on her sister though, and as her phone blared, interrupting the music playing over the speakers, she smacked her head on the body of the car and slid herself from under it, grumbling the entire time.

“Don’t you have fancy plans. It’s a Friday night,” she chided the eldest.

“I’m getting ready, I was just thinking about you.”

“Gross.”

“Because I ran into a girl that asked about you and I had no idea you had a friend at CMU, let alone a drop dead gorgeous film student.”

Lexa furrowed and twirled her wrench around before trying to dive back in under the seat and finish installing the seatbelts in the back. It dawned on her then and she snorted.

“That’s just Costia.”

“Ohhh, just Costia-- who the fuck is Costia?”

“I met her when I came to visit last fall remember? You were the one telling me to make a move but I was very drunk, something you did to me as well?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“At the party. I posted a picture…” she grunted and twisted. “She found me on Instagram. We talk about movies and I’ve shown her some of my stuff and junk.”

“Interesting.”

“Why?”

“Just not many freshman looking to hang out with high school juniors.”

“I’m clearly advanced.”

“Clearly,” Anya rolled her eyes over the phone.

“I’ve been talking to her about film programs and applying--”

“Here? You’re thinking about coming here?”

“Fuck!” she hissed and sat up, doing her best to suck on the cut that came to her thumb from her maneuvering. “I don’t know.”

It wasn’t a serious inquiry, Lexa thought to herself. She was set. She had a plan with Luna. They’d had it since they were ten, and there was really on reason to deviate from it. But then a stranger liked her stuff, and this stranger made stuff Lexa liked. And the stranger became a friend who gave her some screenwriting tips and pushed her to get better at it. And the stranger told her the east coast was just as important to film.

But it didn’t matter.

There was a plan.

“You should seriously consider it. It’s a great program I hear. Come out for spring break!”

“I should stay here.”

“And do what? Work on that car? Dad already told me he’s sending it out for interior and paint. You’re pretty much done anyway.”

“Mom and Dad have conferences that week. I was going to watch movies all week with Clarke.”

“Bring her too. Sounds like she needs an escape.” Anya was getting excited, and Lexa was tugged along for the ride. “You can crash in my dorm. Even just for a few days, not the whole week.”

“Mom won’t like me missing so much time to study.”

“Call it a college visit for a potential school.”

“Luna will lose her mind,” Lexa shook her head and pinched her thumb to try to stop it without a bandaid.

“Fuck Luna. I’m going to ask Mom if she’d rather you were here, supervised by me, or home alone for a whole week.”

From the change in volume, Lexa knew she was texting immediately. She sighed. It would be fun to see the school as a potential option. It might even be nice to catch up with Costia. It would even be better to see her sister, who just at the moment, she realized she’d missed since her last visit.

“Should I ask Clarke if she wants to go?” Lexa finally ventured, returning to her work.

“Definitely.”

“Should I really consider your school as an option?”

“You should.”

She had a plan, Lexa remembered, and there was no point deviating, but she did want to see her sister.

“If they say it’s okay.”

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mrskurono · 4 years ago

Text

As I continue down the stupid road of rewatching/chronologically watching My Hero Academia. All I can dwell on in the zesty sour 'n sweetness of canon complimentary potential "Big Three" au of childhood friends, Bakugou/Reader/Izuku, dwindling down to utter strangers to one another, struggling their sperate ways and angst filled hurt of learning their individual place within hero society.

But as it's something I will probably never write (or if do not post here), I'll just word vomit some headcanons! Bc that's all I can do. Vomit words.

warnings: angst, reader w/a strength related quirk, childhood friends to enemies type of deal, headcanon format, canon complimentary, unedited

Bakugou would still be the catalyst of the crack in the elementary school friendship from the go.

Getting his quirk first but the reader is close to follow like most kids. Leaving Izuku the odd man out and the 'weak' link in the triad.

Reader's quirk would have something to do with strength/outward appearance of strength, essentially solidifying to Bakugou that the two of them are deemed to be successful while Izuku isn't slated for the same fate.

A real "us vs them" in Bakugou's mind while Izuku obsesses over quirks and Reader attempts to keep what they had going while being pulled in two different directions.

Izuku without a quirk meant Bakugou would theoretically be the only one applying to U.A.

Reader doesn't hold similar sentiments in hero work as either of them while still maintaining a fairly useful quirk.

Backlash from Bakugou for being "wasteful" and admiration/fixation from Izuku who over talks the Reader's quirk.

The offer All Might gives Izuku to inherit One for All + the sludge villain attack is the straw that breaks the camels back in the delicate balance between the three of them.

Izuku's time is taken up with All Might's plan, which leads the Reader to lean into helping Izuku a little more (e.g. taking notes for him if he dozes in class, studying more with Izuku, bringing up the fact they might try applying to U.A. too then)

Bakugou's time is spent dwelling on the sludge attack and the fact the Reader is spending more than anyone's fair share of time with Izuku of all people.

With failed attempts to show he 'needs a friend' leaves Bakugou with a bitter taste for the Reader. Not answering his texts for long periods, blowing him off to hang out when Reader say they're busy (which isn't a lie), mentioning U.A. to him, all of which he quickly connects to Deku wasting time and only riles him up more.

Izuku with his tunnel vision to reach his goal to be a hero. And Bakugou with his cold shoulder to ignore everything that's happening around him. And the Reader spilt between finding the right place for them and their beliefs while also hanging onto friends.

Which means applying to U.A. separates the three of you even more.

The entrance automatically exams separated school mates. Izuku in group A, Bakugou in group B and Reader in group C.

Three of them past. And the three of them end up in class 1A. For better or worse.

Izuku doesn't want to be in a class with Bakugou. Bakugou doesn't want Izuku to be at the school. The reader is trying to level the playing field since everyone has a quirk, things should return back to normal right?

It doesn't.

Before they're enrolled in U.A. post exam, and Bakugou corners Izuku demanding what he did to get in, what's going on and how he was going to be the first and only from their school to get into U.A.

That's when Izuku snaps. The spiel about someone telling him how he can be a hero + that the reader deserves to be in U.A. just as much for being strong if not stronger.

Bakugou snaps/lets it slip that he's the strongest and that their friend (the reader) is only stupidly endangering their lives entering U.A. because Izuku caused it.

Only deepening the rivalry between these two without the Reader really knowing what's going on.

Things like the strength tests and mock battles come up and it just keeps getting worse.

Going from neutral to Reader trying to defend Izuku.

Bakugou getting pissed in front of the class and snapping at the Reader as well.

At some point it boils over and the Reader and Bakugou end up in a fight.

One of pure just pent up malice. Neither of them even remembering to use their quirk in the heat of the moment and leading to the teachers having to pull them off each other.

Izuku is panicked but they get sent to recovery girl in the middle of class together.

When sitting and waiting for a check up, that's when Bakugou really eats his own words.

Insulting the Readers quirk, why they waste time on Izuku of all people and worst of all insinuating that the way they look/appearance makes them unlikable even if they try to kiss ass and help everyone.

That's when the rift snaps in half. Bakugou rightfully regretting his words toward his long time friend but not taking them back as sides are picked right then and there. Bakugou thinks that it'll make them stop helping Izuku/quit hero work but it does the opposite.

The cordial manners between Bakugou and Reader are gone right there.

At some point Izuku will fuck up. Focus on too many other things. Repeatedly hurt himself. Ignore the Reader in favor of his dreams. Without realizing it.

His actions not malicious like Bakugou's but just as hurtful in the long run.

Coming to a head when it's revealed the Reader felt the need to placate and take care of Izuku throughout the years. Protect him from bullies and keep a smile on their face to counter Izuku's nerves. But they don't believe a lick of it. Or heroes. Bc if heroes really meant a thing then Bakugou wouldn't have almost died the day of the sludge attack or heroes wouldn't do it all for fame.

Leading them butting heads on what their end goal is. Isolating their own friendship as well.

Not as drastically as Bakugou and the Reader. But leading to them drifting apart for longer than friends should.

idk man i have a lot of brain rot about this trio </3 that I'll never write </3 might add more as they come along

#bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #deku #bakugou #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #midoriya hcs #bakugou hcs

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elizabeethan · 4 years ago

Text

Steal Away: 2 / 5

When a bank robbery with his brother goes horribly wrong, Killian Jones learns to heal with the help of a fiery blonde who happened to get caught in the crosshairs.

A Modern AU

Based loosely on the movie Hell Or High Water (and so I tag @captainswanmoviemarathon)

Read on Ao3

Read The Rest

Read my Other Stuff

A/N: So this was supposed to be a one shot, but it’s, like, 24k words so I thought it would be best to split it up. I’m probably going to post one part a night for the next week or so, though.

This part is rated T as well, mostly for language and car sickness :) (I’ll let you know when we get to M hehehe)

thank you as usual to @the-darkdragonfly, @donteattheappleshook and @xhookswenchx for letting me ramble about this for weeks, and to Kay for beta-ing <3

~~~~

It happens quickly.

Her sense of humor, her taste in music, the adorable way she snorts when he hits a pothole while she’s sleeping… it’s impossible for him to avoid the feelings that stir in him. It’s almost embarrassing, the speed at which he begins to recognize his feelings, but it’s not as if he plans on sharing them at any point.

The fact is… he likes her. She’s cute, and funny, and undeniably sexy, and he knows that if she wasn’t here, he probably wouldn’t be either. He would’ve been arrested right off the bat, or shot in the bank himself, or drowning in a bottle of rum beside his brother’s grave. If it wasn’t for Emma Swan and her insistence to stay in his life, he wouldn’t be on his way to Maine to pick up the only remaining person in his life who means something.

Although, perhaps that isn’t true, because after a day on the road, he’s discovered that she’s starting to mean something, too.

He doesn’t know enough about her to dignify a crush, but he also isn’t stupid. He knows that he’s infatuated with her. He knows that he’s finding it hard to keep his gaze off of her. He knows that her stunning green eyes play off of the gold of her skin and her hair in such a way that makes his heart race. He knows that, based solely on what she’s told him so far, he’s desperate to know more.

She doesn't have a family. She spent much of her childhood homeless and running away from abusive foster placements. She was abandoned as an infant, left in the woods at only a few hours old. She’s been through hell and back, and she still manages a blinding smile.

Her ex boyfriend is the reason she’s here with him, he thinks. She says that he screwed her over and that she wants nothing more than to get away from him and from the place that reminds her of him, and Killian thinks this all happened at a rather convenient time for her. She told him yesterday, when he was panicking over his brother’s demise, that she could tell that he was there in that bank for a good reason, and he’s taken to assuming that she has a good reason to assume that.

They hardly know each other, and yet he feels as though he’s known her his whole life. He knows so little about her, and yet, he can read her like she’s an open book. The term kindred spirits feels naive, and yet, that’s exactly what they are.

“Are we gonna stop in Chicago?” she asks excitedly as she watches the Welcome to Illinois sign pass them by.

“Definitely not,” he laughs. “It’s far too north for where we’re headed.”

“What, and Maine isn’t?” she snorts, shaking her head and pointing out a bird that flies by. “What’s up there, anyway?”

Immediately, his heart starts racing and his palms start sweating at the thought of telling her the true reason for their trip. It dawns on him that, when they arrive, he would have to tell her anyway, lest he abandon her in town before he arrives at the lawyer’s office.

Of course, Emma has experienced her fair share of abandonment at this point in her life, and while he hardly knows her and shouldn’t care, he wouldn’t dare contribute to the trauma that comes with the feeling of being left behind and forgotten.

Bloody hell.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she says after a long moment of silence.

He clears his throat, drawing his focus back to the highway before him. “It’s alright, love. I just… it’s a sore subject, I suppose.”

“We share a lot of those,” she jokes, smirking at him and making his heart race. More gently, she reasons, “which means you should know by now that I won’t judge you.”

“Aye,” he agrees immediately, because he does know that. “Aye, you’re right. It’s, um… my child.”

He catches her balking, her jaw dropping and then snapping shut in quick succession before he needs to focus back on the road. “You have a kid?”

With a nod, his grip on the steering wheel tightens. This vehicle is better than the last, the clutch not sticking like the one in the truck had, but it’s so small and cramped that he doubts they’ll be able to sleep comfortably in these seats tonight. He’d best pull over soon so that they can find a place to sleep. “I do,” he confirms. “A daughter. She’s eight.”

“How old are you?” she asks in shock.

He narrows his eyes, shifting his gaze to her briefly and suspiciously asking, “how old are you?”

“I asked you first,” she says seriously, as if she truly doesn't want to disclose her age, and he begins to panic. She looks old enough, but the potential that he’s just kidnapped a minor on top of everything else begins to assault his thoughts.

“Please just tell me I didn’t kidnap you,” he begs, his heart racing.

“No,” she rolls her eyes. “I’m 23, and much more mature than you.”

With a sound that’s somewhere between a snort and a sigh of relief, he nods. “Aye, love. I’m sure you are.”

She sits in silence, staring at him expectantly, and he knows that it drives her mad when he smirks and begins to laugh. “Don’t be stupid! Just tell me how old you are!”

“I’m… I’m 31.”

“Oh,” she says, chuckling beside him. “So you’re not that much of a cradle robber. Just a regular old bank robber.”

“Oy!” he shouts in offense, staring at her in shock. “Sensitive subject. And what makes you think I’m trying to rob your... cradle?”

She snorts and shakes her head. “Please. I saw the way you were staring at my ass at that last rest stop.”

She could’ve chosen a more opportune time to say that, perhaps when he wasn’t taking a sip of coffee. It’s rather uncomfortable coming up his nose. “Love,” he says through a cough. “I’m not— that is, I meant not to—”

“It’s fine, Killian,” she tells him, giggling softly and playfully. “A girl likes to feel flattered, especially a girl who feels like a—”

Her jaw snaps shut and her eyes grow wide, the emerald catching the rays of the sun and throwing glints of gold. “Like a what, darling?”

“Like… um, like I could eat everything on the menu at McDonalds. Is it time to stop yet?”

“No,” he laughs, although he finds that he struggles to say no to her and mean it, even after such little time, and he indicates his intent to change lanes and moves towards an exit. “We only stopped for breakfast a few hours ago.”

“Well, I’m starving,” she tells him, shooting him a soft smile. “And if I don’t stretch my legs in a minute, they’re gonna fall off.”

“You need to stretch your legs? Your feet are currently on top of my dashboard. Is that not enough of a stretch?”

“Your dashboard? I’m pretty sure I witnessed you stealing this car.”

“From a scrapyard,” he mumbles, giving her a shy smile as he exits the highway. “What do you want for lunch? Or should I say brunch? It’s barely eleven.”

“We crossed time zones, you ass.”

“What do you want?” he laughs.

She hums playfully, pretending to ponder his question seriously and says, “a prime rib, cooked medium rare, with a side of garlic mashed potatoes. Caramelized onion and mushroom sauce on the steak. And some green beans, for balance.”

Shaking his head and laughing along with her, he says, “chicken nuggets and fries it is, darling.”

~~~~

“You need to pull over,” she says suddenly, breaking almost an hour of silence between them during which he was certain she was asleep. After their early lunch, he decided to keep driving, anticipating that she would take over in a few hours.

“Emma,” he sighs, “we only just stopped two hours ago.”

“I’m not asking,” she demands. “I’m telling you that if you don’t pull over,” she puts her hand over her mouth, her retching and gagging preventing her from saying anything more.

“Jesus,” he mumbles as he pulls into the breakdown lane, barely stopped and still in gear when she thrusts the door open and loses her lunch all over the ground. He can’t ask her if she’s alright because she hasn’t stopped vomiting, so he checks his side mirror and opens his door, walking around the front of the car to meet her. He stands behind the door and places his hand in her hair, massaging her scalp as she shudders violently. “I didn’t realize you were prone to car sickness.”

She groans, shaking her head and resting it against the window at her side. “I think your driving has gotten worse.”

He hums, continuing his ministrations on her scalp as she catches her breath. “Was it the chicken, love? I knew that stuff was crap.”

“No, it’s your crap driving.”

“Do you want to take over, then?”

“No, I want to sleep.”

“Come on out and get some fresh air, would you?” She whimpers as he pulls the door open a bit more, and he takes her hand to help her out and around her sick. “It’s alright, love, come here.”

She breathes deeply as she stands, and only remains in front of him for a moment before she falls forward against his chest and into his arms. “Sorry,” she whispers into his sweatshirts wrapping her arms around his waist and holding herself close to him. “For delaying the trip.”

“You needn’t worry about that, love,” he soothes, and he focuses on moving his hands along her back and hair in the same way she had his. “A few moments while you find your bearings won’t hurt. Are you alright?”

She nods against him, a sound coming from her throat that makes him squeeze her tighter. He can’t stop himself from pressing a kiss to the crown of her head, the need to comfort her interrupting any reasonable thoughts in his head. She whispers, “yeah,” so softly that he kisses her again.

“During lunch I found a small campground that takes cash. It’s only another few hours; can you make it that far? We can use the tent and the camping mat instead of sleeping in the car.”

“Luxurious,” she jokes softly, maintaining her firm embrace around his middle. “That sounds perfect.”

~~~~

She’s relentless in her jokes at his expense as he struggles with the tent. It’s dusk, and there’s a decent canopy of trees above him, and, as she points out often, he’s getting old. He struggles to see the small pieces and determine what goes where, and she’s hardly any help as she sits in the car laughing at him as she claims to be recovering from another spell of car sickness.

“You could try helping me, you know,” he finally mumbles as the structure collapses again and he’s met with her symphonic laughter.

“Need a newer pair of eyes, Captain?” she asks in good humor, standing and bounding towards him confidently. It’s almost miraculous how quickly she’s recovered, and yet her nausea seems to keep coming back.

“Very funny, love. Come and tell me where E connects to G.”

It’s impossible to ignore the way the full moon shines against her hair, almost white in the dim light of the night sky. The gentle waves flow freely as she releases the tie from around her locks, rubbing her palms over her face as she settles into the warm cocoon of the sleeping bag. She gives him a soft, gentle smile as he zips the tent’s opening securely shut, taking his place upon the ground between her and the door. “Where’s yours?” she asks, gesturing down at her sleeping bag and camping mat.

He shrugs and then nods towards her. “Someone stole it.”

Her eyes widen in surprised embarrassment and she asks, “this is yours? What about-- weren’t you and… I mean…”

Smiling as he lies down on his back, he turns his head to face her and says, “I was meant to travel alone, actually.”

Just as he thinks she’s about to match his position and lie back herself, she stirs and begins tugging on the sleeping bag until she’s out of it. She shakes it out in front of herself to straighten it and then feels around in the dark for the zipper, pulling it around the puffy fabric until it’s fully open before her. Turning towards him, she gives him another soft smile and dramatically opens it like a parachute, draping it over the both of them. “There you go,” she says with finality. “We can share.”

“You don’t have to do that, love. It’s summer anyway.”

“We’re sleeping outside, and you're taking a second, unexpected person on your trip across the country, who also happens to frequently demand pit stops. The least I can do is share your sleeping bag with you.”

“Well… thank you, lass. That’s very kind of you.”

“I just can’t part with the mat, sorry. The ground is way too hard.”

He laughs as he turns to his side, silently agreeing with her that the ground is mighty firm as he grimaces. “You can’t spare it for an old man with old bones?”

She shrugs, laughing softly as well as she rolls to her side to face him head on. “You're not that old.”

“So I'm only young when it suits you?”

“I didn’t say you were young.”

He hasn’t laughed this much in years. Before he met her, he hadn’t been so close to a woman in almost a decade. He’s forgotten how soothing the gentle touch of another can be, and he’s been hard pressed to ignore how especially soothing she is, in particular. “You do have quite the sense of humor, love.”

“All in good fun,” she smiles. He catches her gaze shooting down at the hem of the old sleeping bag, her fingers fiddling with some thread that has pulled away from its place. “Will you tell me something?” she asks in a whisper.

“What is it?”

She clears her throat nervously, continuing to avert her eyes from his, and asks, “will you tell me about your daughter?”

With a hum and a sad smile, he bites his bottom lip and nods, the memories of his love flooding back into his mind, as if he’s ever been able to prevent them. “Alice,” he says. “She’s just turned eight a few months ago. I missed her birthday.”

“Why? What happened?”

He notes the way that her fingers continue to play at the loose threads, and he matches her actions just beside her. “I was with my mother; she was dying and had no one else while Liam was in jail. I wanted to bring Alice with me, but… her mother wouldn’t allow it.”

“I’m sorry,” she says immediately. He hears a rustle against the mat her head lies on and lifts his own gaze to meet hers.

“Thank you.”

“When did you see her last, then?”

He gulps over the lump in his throat. “It’s been well over a year.”

She sighs, and he doesn’t think he imagines the minute amount of space that she closes between them. “You must miss her terribly.”

“Aye, I do. Everyday.”

“Is there… I mean, is there a reason it’s been so long? I’m not trying to judge you, I’m sorry, I just—“

“It’s alright, love,” he interrupts, noting the sudden shift in her demeanor as she realizes the nature of her question. “Her mother was rather… controlling, I suppose. I believe she used drugs and alcohol for much of Alice’s early life. I don’t have any reason to believe she used during her pregnancy, but I cared for Alice from birth when Eloise fell off the wagon. I even named her, after my ailing mother. But a few years later, she got clean and started to take over. She took Alice to live with her; became upset when I came around. And eventually, the way she would scream at me when I tried to visit made Alice upset, so I stopped coming around as much.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and he wonders if he’s taken things a bit too far. If he’s opened up to her too much. He fears this for what feels like an eternity as she lies beside him, her warm breath washing over his nose as he thinks the worst. That he’s upset her, that he’s offended her, that he’s made her think of the trauma of being abandoned herself as he describes the way he abandoned his own daughter. And his fears are confirmed when she sniffles softly before him and moves her fingers from the frayed threads to her eyes, wiping tears away.

“Emma,” he whispers into the darkness, “I’m sor--”

“That’s so terrible,” she interrupts sadly, and he bows his head in shame, knowing already that his actions are deplorable. Until she whispers, “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry… for what?” he asks in shock, speaking almost at full volume, a contrast to their whispering tones.

“You just--” she sniffs once more, “--it’s obvious how badly you want to be in your daughter’s life, and you haven’t been able to. That’s got to be the worst feeling… I can’t even imagine not being allowed to…”

Clearing his throat, he takes a risk by reaching before himself to wipe a tear from her soft cheek with his thumb, almost desperate to comfort her as she has him the entire time he’s known her. “It’s alright, love,” he whispers. “I’m going to get her back, with your help. I wouldn’t be here, on my way to her, if it weren’t for you.”

She sniffles and laughs at the same time, adorably embarrassed at the sound that escapes her, and asks, “what’s changed now? With you and her mom?”

“She died,” he answers simply. If she had begun to relax slightly into his hand, she stiffens at his words. “She relapsed, mixed drugs and alcohol… her body couldn’t handle it.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “That must’ve been hard, too.”

“Not much,” he answers too quickly. She draws her brows together in question and he continues, “I’m sad for Alice; she’s lost her mother. But she never really had her much. Eloise was never a very devout mother. It always seemed like she was in it for the image, or only when it suited her. I don’t think she ever really wanted a child.”

Emma nods gently, the small gap between them getting smaller when a gust of wind shakes the tent and she slides closer to him. “Was she, I mean, was Alice a surprise?”

“Oh, aye, very much so,” he laughs softly. “El and I weren’t ever a couple, we just met at a bar and… well, we were only together once. It was sort of a low point for me.”

“I get that,” she nods again. “Sleeping with the wrong person, I mean. Not that… I mean, not that Alice was a mistake or anything, of course.”

“I know what you mean,” he consoles in a whisper as she again worries that she’s offended him. She should know that she couldn’t possibly say the wrong thing, because despite how short of a time he’s known her, he knows that she can do no wrong in his eyes.

“Will you tell me about her? Like… What was it like when she was a baby? Was it very hard?”

He hums and nods, agreeing, “it was hard, yes; I was mostly alone. But it was so worth it.”

“It was?” she asks softly, almost insecurely and making him narrow his eyes in thought.

She hasn’t told him anything, but he isn’t a fool. He means every word of what he says to her next, and says it in hopes that he can give her solace. “Aye. As hard as life has been, I wouldn't change anything because it’s how I got Alice.”

In a move that surprises him almost as much as it doesn’t, she moves as close to him as she can and tucks her head into his chest, just below his chin, and wraps her arm around his waist. “That’s a good point,” she murmurs into his sweatshirt.

“Are you alright, love?” he asks, accepting her into his embrace and letting his hand run along the length of her spine over her own sweatshirt. He reminds himself that he doesn’t truly know her, so he can’t assume that this isn’t like her, but it feels profound.

She nods against his chest, pulling herself impossibly closer as she seems to seek more warmth and a firmer embrace. “It’s weird,” she starts, her voice muffled. “I barely know you, but it feels like you're my friend.”

“I am your friend,” he agrees with a smile. “And you’re mine. I told you I wouldn’t be here without you.”

“I wouldn’t either.”

“Of course not. I’ve been driving most of the way.”

She snorts, nuzzling her nose into the crook between his neck and his shoulder and squeezing around his waist. “Yeah, that’s why I’ve been puking nonstop.”

“Would you like to drive tomorrow, then?” he laughs.

“Sure.”

“Alright. We’ll need to leave quite early. Just another two days to go, I think.”

“Okay,” she yawns, falling asleep in his arms feeling, he hopes, as safe as he does.

~~~~

Tagging:

@courtorderedcake @kmomof4 @stahlop @klynn-stormz @laschatzi @emelizabeth88 @lfh1226-linda @kday426 @elisethewritingbeast @timeless-love-story @captain-emmajones @gingerpolyglot @ebcaver @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @superchocovian @itsfabianadocarmo @tiganasummertree @gingerchangeling @jrob64 @onceratheart18 @xhookswenchx @winterbaby89 @swampmedusa @ultraluckycatnd @dancingnancyy @love-with-you-i-have-everything @shireness-says @snowbellewells @hollyethecurious @ouatpost @daxx04 @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @therooksshiningknight @eeteeaytay @xsajx @itsfridaysomewhere @alexa-fangirl-forever @jonesfandomfanatic @wefoundloveunderthelight @qualitycoffeethings @rapunzelsghosts @spaceconveyor

#captain swan #captain swan fanfic #cs ff #captain swan au #modern au #cs ff au #Steal Away #steal away ff #cs fluff #cs angst #eventual smut #hurt/comfort

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im-moreofa-dogperson · 4 years ago

Text

A Fearful Encounter - Part 4

Featuring: Dr. Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow x Female Reader

Warning: gun violence

Summary: After John’s promise to free you from the wretched Gotham city, he teaches you how to defend yourself so you can make it on your own. However, when pushed far enough, you may just be more than he’d made you out to be.

Words: 1890

Previous parts: part 1 part 2 part 3

**Sorry it took so long to post this new part!

____________________________________________

As if on cue, as soon as John had professed his intents to help you escape from the vileness of this city, you were startled by a knock at the door.

You both looked at each other, as if questioning whether the other knew who was there. After it was clear neither of you were expecting company, John grabbed hold of your hand and pulled you quickly to your room where there was a fire escape.

Just as you unlatched the window, you heard the door swing open and crash against the wall. You hurried along raising the window, scattering the dust that had collected on the frame, and quickly climbed out with John right behind you.

He jumped down to the ground first and caught you by the waist after you landed right next to him. It wasn’t until you’d made it into his car and drove 3 blocks away when you finally felt it was safe to breathe again.

You rolled your head over against the head rest to stare at him. “Who was that?”

He glanced over at you and quickly back to the road before responding, “not sure.”

You sat with this uneasiness for a few blocks before he finally pulled up to what must have been his apartment building. It was far more casual than you had expected although you weren’t quite sure what it was you were expecting.

A young girl and her mother were exiting the building as you were walking in and they barely gave you or John a single glance. You wondered if any of the residents were aware of who they were more or less bunking with. Maybe John paid them off to keep quiet.

Upon entry to his apartment, you slowed down in the door frame to take it in. Although you hadn’t been picturing a dungeons-like cavern with spikes on the windows and knives fanned out on the coffee table, you also hadn’t expected such a pleasantly pleasing atmosphere.

The living room was well furnished with a not so well-lived-in couch pushed up against the wall of which an antique, baroque style painting hung from. The dark, morose hues of the depicted scene fit well with the borderline demented passions of the man who hung it.

Otherwise, the room was casual and almost homey. John had been studying you while you took in his apartment before finally speaking up; “you need to learn how to defend yourself.”

Taken aback, you glance at him and respond, “what”?

“Well, this is only a temporary residency,” he goes to say, plopping his keys into a turquoise bowl on the coffee table. “Eventually you’ll be on your own where I won’t be able to jump in and rescue you.”

You snort at that and reply, “Yeah, and you won’t be able to put me in a situation where I need rescuing either.”

“Either way, you need to learn.” He smiles slightly, and it’s a smile that used to suspend you in uncertainty, but now you’re able to get enough of a read on him that you know he’s simply trying to assure you of his sincerity.

You agree to his proposition nonetheless as he leads you to the building’s basement to practice self-defense.

******

For the next few days, you painstakingly practiced fending off attackers through physical altercations as well as how to shoot a gun. John didn’t make things easy for you, constantly pushing you to do better.

You were reminded of the disappointed expression he’d wore on his face when he’d found you’d overwhelmed a security guard through force during the Fear Aversion Therapy.

Ironically, the very thing he’d once punished you for doing, was now the very thing he was teaching you to be better at.

During your lessons, you noticed there was an abundance of physical contact between the two of you. You suddenly recalled the first night you ever spent together when you’d kissed him in a lapse of judgement.

You tried not to dwell on these thoughts too much as John held your trigger finger under his in an attempt to better your aim. You could feel his breath against your exposed neck and once again fought the urge to turn around just then and kiss him.

To take your mind off these intrusive thoughts, you considered how you were in need of fresh clothes. Afterall, you’d been living at John’s place for three days and still hadn’t revisited your old apartment for your stuff.

After badgering John to drive you after your lesson, he finally agrees, and you head out back to your old home.

******

Walking up the concrete stairs that you’d once found so familiar felt alien to you now. Though it hadn’t been long since you’d resided in this home, you still felt as though you’d changed so much.

It was almost as if it wasn’t you that had once climbed and descended these stairs for years, but rather a stranger you’d left behind in the past. For good reason.

When you reached the door, you extended an arm out to the handle, but as soon you did, John gripped your wrist and held you still. You give him an inquisitive look before realizing what he must have been thinking.

The intruder that you’d barely escaped from three days prior most likely wouldn’t have cared enough to shut and repair the door they’d just busted through. Meaning someone else has been here. And that someone could still be here.

John clearly was thinking the same thing as he took out his gun and cautiously opened the door handle.

When he pushed the door open, what you saw made you drop your gun. You barely even registered John mumbling ‘shit’ under his breath.

“Dad?”

******

“Thought I was dead, huh?”. Your father simply asks. He was lounging on the couch as if he’d never left. “That why you look like you’re seeing a ghost?”

The state of shock you’re in prevents you from even answering him. John, however, recovers much quicker than you.

“Thought I told you what would happen if you ever came back here,” he says. You immediately sober up at this threat of John’s. The implication of it being he knew your father was alive and never actually killed him like he’d told you. It was simply another tactic to instill more fear in you. Fear of him.

You know you should feel betrayed. You should hate him for tricking you yet again. All that was behind you now, however. Now all you felt was pure disdain for the man sitting in front of you, the throw blanket you’d once lent to John lying at his feet.

“What are you doing here?” You ask as apathetically as you could.

“Straight to the point, huh? Not gonna ask how I’ve been, what I’ve been up to, if I wanna catch up-“

“Like you ever gave enough of a shit to ask me any of that,” You scoff.

Abruptly jumping to his feet, your father points an accusatory finger at you and replies, “I did give a shit about you! Everything I did was for you! You don’t even know the half of what I’ve had to give up. For you.”

His statement was so foreign and ridiculous to your ears that you feel like laughing. How could someone be so delusional?

“Everything you did was for yourself. The best thing that ever happened to me was hearing about your death.”

At that, John whips his head to you. He’d been watching your argument back and forth like a tennis match, in an almost amused way. He knew some sort of violence would ensue upon seeing your father, but this he didn’t expect.

“Fine,” your father says sighing, and sitting back down. “I’m here because I need your help. Well, I need your connections. I’ve come into some trouble… something that I can’t run away from.”

You squint your eyes trying to decide what he meant by all this when John suddenly laughed mockingly and said, “Sir, I thought I made it clear that if I were ever to see your face again, mine would be the last you see. What makes you think I’d submit to any request of yours?”

Having put everything together given your advanced knowledge in the deceiving ways of your father, you answer for him, “because he thinks I’ll convince you on his behalf.”

“Look, I just need you to use your little home-brewed concoction on some guys who think I owe them money.” You shake your head at the all the unearned confidence your father must have in order to talk to Jonathan Crane like that.

“Or maybe I’ll use it on you,” John simply threatens.

“Enough!” You finally say. “No one’s doing anything to anyone. Dad, we’re leaving. You’re on your own. Your favorite game of scaring me into doing your bidding is over.”

John puts his hand on your waist to push you out in front of him towards the door. As you leave, however, your father begins to laugh. It’s a guttural laugh that stirs your darkest memories of him.

Without thinking about it, you slip your hand into John’s jacket pulling out his gun and train it at your father’s head.

John eyes you curiously, and in the strangest of moments you finally realize what draws him to you. You’re unpredictable. You act in ways in even you can’t anticipate.

Your father’s laughter stops when you pull the trigger.

******

The walk back to the car was a blur. You remember vomiting in the stairwell and then John eventually scooping you up after your legs had given out.

When he set you back in the passenger’s seat and began driving, you knew you needed to pin down how you really felt before you drove yourself insane. One of the many lessons you once learned as John’s patient.

You knew it wasn’t regret you felt. Although the information of your father’s murder had once been used to threaten you against escaping Arkham Asylum, you had still sighed a breath of relief at the mention of it.

Now, to see him again was like a waking nightmare; unsure whether his presence was real or imaginary, but positive that it was unwelcome.

You definitely felt shock. You’d been imagining this scene unfolding for quite some time, but even you were surprised to have found yourself reaching for the gun and pulling the trigger in such an unyielding manner.

Though, what it really boiled down to was exhilaration. You felt as though a weight had been lifted off your shoulders and for once, it was by your own hand. You were no longer the scared girl you once were standing with her back to the sea and a total dependency on the hand extended out before you.

You giggle as you almost compared yourself to the Great Loch Ness Monster in all her green finned glory that you once thought you’d be swallowed whole by. Your giggle soon turns rampant and you fail to stop the uproarious laughter that then pursues from you.

Even with Scarecrow in the driver’s seat, you felt as though you’d finally taken control. Of your mind, and your trigger finger. You laugh like that all the way back to the apartment.

______________________________________________

#jonathan crane #scarecrow #dc fic #dr jonathan crane

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shadowmayura · 4 years ago

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I didn’t think I’d be doing this, but it’s gotten to the point where some things have to be said.

Someone from my past has been making vagueposts about me lately and I can’t allow it to go unaddressed any longer. They are disingenuous and at times downright false, and they imply a certain type of relationship that simply did not exist.

If at this point you don’t know exactly who and what I’m talking about, please scroll by. I’m not going to be mentioning her by name and I’m not here to drag additional people into this big mess. This is solely to address any misconceptions for those who have already seen this person’s posts and are left confused by the strange phrasing and missing information.

(TW: harassment, emotional abuse, stalking, vomit)

This person and I met online in the spring of last year. Soon after, she confessed to me that she had a crush on me. I wasn’t interested for a variety of reasons (distance, not knowing her very well, and a lack of attraction on my end) and I gently let her down but suggested that we could still be friends. At no point did I promise a romantic relationship with this person.

We got to know each other better as friends. For a while, it was genuinely fun. I did not harbor any romantic feelings but I did enjoy being her friend. But in the summer, we began to spend more time together, and that’s where it started to go wrong. In reality, it was gradual, but it felt very sudden because the realization that things had changed came all at once. Her flirting had become a lot more aggressive and she was implying to other people that there was something between us. Playful teasing had turned to something far more demanding, and we were talking to each other nonstop, up to 10 hours per day every single day. When I realized how drastically our interactions had changed, I tried to pull back. I became very uncomfortable with how much couple-like behavior had emerged on her side when I did not want to be in that kind of relationship.

My decision was met with a lot of resistance. She was upset at me that I wanted to cut back on the amount of one-on-one time spent together, and she also was upset when I took a week-long break from Discord as a whole. We had our first argument over this. I thought we reached an understanding, but at the end of the conversion, she expressed her need for significant quality time between us, leaving me feeling like I hadn’t been heard at all. It’s worth noting that I hadn’t cut her out entirely at this point. We were still talking almost every day, but we weren’t on voice chat for hours on end any longer. I just wanted interactions that were closer to a normal friendship rather than a romantic relationship that I had never consented to.

It got worse leading into fall. The flirting continued and escalated. She drew “friendship portraits” of the two of us with strong romantic undertones. As she continued to push, I drew back. She didn’t like this. I was met with passive aggression when I tried to set boundaries and put a comfortable distance between us.

September is where it reached a head. On September 17th, she coerced me into a video chat that essentially served as an intervention for my choice. I had a bad feeling going into it, but she insisted that we video chat rather than text chat. I reluctantly agreed under her false pretense that it would be a conversation solely about fandom matters, but within 5 minutes, she was crying on video. I became very uncomfortable and I continued to look at a document on my computer so she could compose herself. She calmed down, but as soon as I claimed to be done looking at it, she turned the crying on again.

For about an hour, I was berated. She was crying and yelling, not allowing me to get a word in edgewise. She was, once again, very upset with me that I had been pulling away from her. I desperately wanted to leave the call, but I knew that there’d be hell to pay later if I did. I forced myself to sit through the whole thing. When she was done, I was shaking. She expected me to speak but I was unable to form words for several minutes and I was additionally berated for not saying anything, even though I had already been cut off many times. When I was able to pull myself out of the state I was in, I told her that our interactions had become far too romantically-focused for my comfort and that I didn’t want her to flirt with me anymore. I then ended the conversation as quickly as I could.

I vomited several times after we hung up and was shaking for hours. I couldn’t sleep that night. A few days later, I lost clumps of hair. It is stress-induced alopecia areata that I’m still receiving treatment for. I don’t say any of this to garner sympathy, but I want to emphasize that this was not a conversation that I look back on fondly. It was traumatic. This unfortunately is relevant later.

At this point, it is safe to say that I did not want to associate with this person any longer, but this was not an option for me. There were fandom commitments that tethered us together, and I knew I’d have to weather out the storm. If I didn’t, I would tear friend groups apart, drop commitments that I cared a lot about, and potentially ruin both of our reputations in the community.

I tried to maintain some distance without angering her significantly, but it was all downhill from here. She continued to disrespect my boundaries and push me romantically. Flirting occurred less commonly in private chats since I would shut it down, but in public spaces, she continued to flirt with me, and I felt pressured to allow it in order to avoid awkwardness in group settings.

Her romantic interest turned into obsession. She became fixated on my Tumblr posts and Discord statuses, accusing me of referencing her when this was seldom the case. Jealousy arose about my friendships with other people. She didn’t trust me to make my own decisions with my friendships and disrespected my decisions when I made them. There was also a huge increase in emotional manipulation and guiltbaiting. Whenever calm and rational criticism of her behavior was given to her, she would exaggerate and call herself a terrible person so that the criticism would be dropped in favor of coddling and comforting her. It was impossible to bring up serious issues without her playing the victim.

She also became increasingly hard to deal with in a team environment. I often felt as if I was being disciplined for not loving her in return. My ideas were constantly nitpicked and shot down. I was condescended to. I began to feel unwelcome in group spaces because of these behaviors. I felt like she was pushing me out of public spaces in hopes that I would flee to private ones, though I tried to avoid that as much as possible.

In November, a flip switched. The romantic harassment almost entirely vanished and all her interactions with me became unkind. In some ways, it was refreshing because the worst of the stalking subsided, but the hostile environment was not easy to deal with. I retreated from fandom in order to avoid it as much as possible.

Finally in December, my fandom commitments finally ended, giving me the ability to end my friendship with her. Right before this, she spoke negatively of me in some public ways. One of these actions I cannot name here because it would reveal her identity, but it spoke ill of a community that I oversee.

The worst, however, was a fanfic that she published several days before I cut her off. She projected her and I onto the main couple of the fic. I was cast as Gabriel and she was cast as Nathalie. The further I read, the more sickened I became as the references became more overt.

Near the end of the fic, Gabriel and Nathalie have a huge argument. I was shocked to find exact quotes from our September 17th video chat in the dialogue of the fic. They were large sections of our conversation. At the end of their argument, Gabriel admitted all wrong and they make amends. As a couple.

I felt ill reading this. I still feel ill thinking about it. I hate that one of the most traumatic conversations in my life still exists on the internet for anyone to read, twisted into a scene that is meant to be read as good and romantic. I am reminded of all the harassment that I endured and I hate that that is a feeling I now associate with one of my favorite ships. There are other creators involved as well whose work has now been tainted by these real-world associations that had no business being in a fanfic.

After this, I cut her out of my life entirely. I was considering less drastic options, but this was the last straw that I knew we could not come back from. I removed her from several of my social circles and blocked her on all social media.

Before I blocked her, I sent a letter explaining in explicit detail why I would be cutting her out of my life. Despite this, she has recently claimed that she was never given a reason.

And that’s where we are now. My life has been more peaceful since December and I have begun to come out of my shell. For a couple of months she left the situation alone and that was fine with me. I was happy to peacefully coexist as long as I wasn’t having to interact directly.

However, my friends began calling my attention to recent posts on her blog that implied I had destroyed her mental health. Some of them have since been deleted. While I was willing to let the first one slide, these posts have increased in frequency while pushing an increasingly false narrative. I don’t enjoy the implications that I did something horrible to her by not consenting to a relationship.

I’m sure she will disagree with my take on things, and that’s fine. If she disagrees with my reasons with cutting her off, that is her prerogative, but I cannot allow her to claim that I didn’t give any reasoning when she did receive it through multiple channels of communication.

And I hope I haven’t gone a step too far in revealing that this person was in love with me. I debated not including it, but I’ve realized it’s an unavoidable issue that is central to the entire situation. At the root of it, I was romantically pursued and harassed. I cannot defend my reasons for cutting her off without disclosing the base motivation for the majority of her actions.

So that’s my story. I’d ask those who read this to please refrain from engaging in any harassment. This post has not been made with the intention to hurt her, as can be evidenced from months of me holding my tongue. I really did try to let her preserve her dignity, but I was left with no other options after being smeared multiple times. My purpose here is transparency.

I genuinely do wish her well, for both our sakes. I really hope that this will finally end her obsession and allow her to move on. But whatever happens, I refuse to be a doormat any longer in this situation.

#life of a corn #non ml #kinda #summary of the last 10 months of my life

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iceshard1011 · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Sanders Sides (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil/Creativity | Roman/Logic | Logan/Morality | Patton, Kaimi Alvi/Katrina "Calamity" Santos Characters: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Morality | Patton Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders, Original Characters, (credit of patentpending), Misleading Compliment | Missy Sanders, (mentioned) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Fanfiction, Unreliable Narrator, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Has PTSD, Crying, References to Depression, Anxiety Attacks, Misunderstandings, Brief Internalized Transphobia, it's LAMP but there's a focus on Prinxiety, because i'm a predictable nerd, Miscommunication, spoilers for patentpending's Powerless, for the love of god read that first, 1. it's a good read, and 2. this will spoil the hell out of it Summary:

Three times Roman panicked over Virgil, and one time Virgil panicked over Roman.

Speculated alternate universal continuation of patentpending’s Powerless.

okay, did this for @patentpending. hope it’s okay! x 5k word fic is below, but please heed the spoiler warnings.

Patton got it slightly worse than Logan. Kaimi, the passionate yet kind-hearted and humble reporter — a sweet girl who couldn’t stand a mere picture of a drop of blood — was somewhere between the two. Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, ex-superhero Roman ‘The Prince’ Garcia had it the worst.

The actor could hardly be blamed. He had already suffered a fair amount of nightmares, waking up with a jolt in his penthouse’s bed, with Missy blinking sleepily up at him and asking what was wrong.

One doesn’t simply live through years of battles and fighting and bloodshed and walk away without demons. The names across Roman’s chest said as much.

He had seen his fair share of death over years of being The Prince, and while admitting this was sickening, it was not something Roman was unfamiliar with. He’d watched people die in front of him. He had caused many of the deaths himself during the fights.

He knew all this.

He also knew that it was completely logical to react to a particular, recent death in a particularly violent, particularly traumatised manner.

(He also knew he was never particularly good at listening to anyone, even himself.)

Sometimes, Roman Garcia had bad days. Days where he woke up and felt sick to his stomach for just existing. Days where he struggled to move, because the images flashing through his mind made his head spin. Days where he couldn’t look anyone in the eyes, where he barely ate, where he quailed away from comforting touches and wanted to slam his hands over the sides of his head and scream when voices tried to ask what was wrong.

He wasn’t sure what these days meant. He felt too much to be depressed. It went on far too long to be anxiety attacks. It felt too different to the post-traumatic stress episodes he had when struggling to find his way home after the sun had set.

(But he never voiced any of this, because somehow, he had a feeling Logan would vehemently disagree, which spoke levels of itself.)

Sometimes, Roman could feel the Bad Days approaching. Sometimes he struggled to fall asleep, with a strange pit curling inside him somewhere. Sometimes, it didn’t travel into the following day.

Most times, though, it did.

It was one of those Bad Days. Sometimes Roman tried to ignore it. He tried to act his way out of it. He didn’t like having Bad Days, not only because they made him feel like he was literally dying and he wanted it to stop he wanted to stop thinking stop moving stop breathing he wanted it to stop stop stop STOP!

But because he didn’t want to take away from his family’s bad days. Even with Patton’s coloured wristbands, the little puffball still struggled sometimes — and that was okay! They all always did their best to make sure the heart of their group was okay, and comfortable, and did everything they could.

Logan’s back still ached some days. Sometimes, it was so bad he couldn’t move from bed, and had to spend hours trying to just sit up. It was painful to watch, and Roman knew he hated sympathy, so he did his best not to show the way his heart twisted at the sight of the astronomer’s pain.

Virgil covered his bad days so well. Roman imagined it was the built-up practice of having days throughout his entire life dealing with dysphoria and discrimination and judgement and being spat on and ridiculed for something he couldn’t help. He may have been used to those kinds of bad days, but obviously not the days brought on by guilt, by the thoughts of what the thing he created did to people all over the world, the destruction and horror and death, all in the wake of his too-brilliant mind and too-nimble fingers. Those days were usually preceded by slow days with not much activity, phantom pains, struggling movements to do so much as hold a mug with his prosthetic arm.

It really wasn’t a surprise that Roman’s Bad Days followed Virgil’s.

So, he tried to smile, tried to stop his hands from shaking, tried to not crumble with every step he took.

Somehow, it was never enough.

On this particular Bad Day, Roman was trembling. He did that, sometimes, when it was really bad. He couldn’t stop. It was a constant tremor, in his nerves, shooting through his blood, curling in his limbs, shuddering up his body.

He had done his best to avoid his roommates. He had slept in that morning, half genuinely trying to go back to sleep, half feigning sleep whenever Virgil quietly shuffled into the room to check on him. When he finally got out from under the covers, he spent at least an hour and a half in the bathroom, under scalding shower water and making himself more presentable than strictly necessary as he knew he was not going to be mentally equipped to leave the apartment today.

“‘Morning,” a quiet, gruff voice greeted Roman as he finally mustered up the coward to step out of the comforts of his bedroom.

Almost immediately, the confidence he’d been trying to summon all morning threatened to leave him.

Roman swallowed. “Good morning, Sunshine!” he chirped merrily, gliding into the living room. “Where’s the rest of the fam?”

“Went out for lunch,” Virgil said from the kitchen. Roman blinked, and Virgil glanced over his shoulder at the silence. “It’s one in the afternoon, Ro.”

“Oh.” Roman felt slightly faint, but he wasn’t sure if that was part of having a Bad Day.

“You must have had something of a busy night.” Virgil smirked and skulked from the kitchen, moving over to him, and Roman wondered if he was going to need to rush back into the bathroom. “Insatiable thoughts keeping you up, love?”

Roman’s tongue was heavy. “Not quite,” was all he could murmur in reply.

Virgil’s perfect brow furrowed, his gorgeous eyes flicking with worry, and his lips were not flecked with blood, that was just Roman’s imagination, they were in the apartment and it was fine, and oh god, he was losing it, he couldn’t keep it together, not today, not right now, he was going to— he needed—

“Roman!” Virgil’s yelp of concern was drowned out by the roaring in Roman’s ears as he threw up in the kitchen trash can. The ex-hero’s arms trembled in an effort to keep him up.

Focus, focus. It’s okay. It’s fine.

Gravity felt like it was trying it’s best to drag him to the ground. He felt just like he had when he’d first lost his powers, trembling and scared and desperate—

He heaved again.

There was a smooth, rubbing sensation running up and down his back, and it helped as he coughed and spluttered and hacked up more bile.

“Oh, baby,” Virgil’s voice whispered, and Roman’s stomach twisted again, but he had nothing left to throw up. “I didn’t know you were feeling sick.”

“‘M not,” Roman mumbled, feeling light-headed.

“Let’s get you back to bed, yeah?” Virgil murmured, and Roman felt boneless as his boyfriend guided him into their bedroom. Something damp and warm wiped at his face and he pulled away with a grimace. Something else was thrust in his face, and he squinted at it.

“Rinse and spit,” Virgil ordered, gesturing to the glass of water and the tub he was holding. Roman obeyed without protest, then sunk back down against the bed sheets he’d fought so hard to escape from.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but it seemed to go far too quick before Virgil was back beside him.

“Did you eat something funky?” Virgil asked, pressing a blessedly cold hand to Roman’s flushed forehead. “No one else was feeling ill.”

It took a minute for Roman to realise that the reason Virgil’s hand was so cold wasn’t due to his natural lack of normal bodily heat, but because it was his metal hand. The one he had made for himself, after he had lost it, after his eyes had widened and gone pale and—

Roman was going to be sick again.

He wondered, though, if he was going to vomit, why Virgil had not rushed to get something for him and had instead sat on the edge of the bed and pulled Roman against him.

It was a moment before he realised that the thing bursting from his chest wasn’t vomit, but hoarse, screaming wails.

Virgil hushed him over and over again. He ran his hands — only one hand really, and god Roman’s chest was hurting, was he even breathing? — up and down Roman’s back, through his hair, caressing his cheeks, rubbing his arms. Anything and everything to try and soothe his boyfriend.

Virgil would be lying if he said he wasn’t scared. He had never seen Roman like this. Even at his wits end as a hero, even in the heat of a battle, no matter what had happened, Roman had never broken like this, ever.

Virgil, in no way, thought Roman was broken, as a rule. He wasn’t useless or weak or any of the things he knew Roman struggled with labelling himself. After everything, he was still one of the strongest people Virgil knew, and he had met many people over the course of a few months.

So what on Earth could have set Roman off? He knew sometimes that the ex-hero struggled with not being able to zip around town to nab food, or smell the far-off ocean, or hear his family’s heartbeat unless he was pressed against their chest… but he had never broken down just like this.

Maybe it was a build-up. Maybe it was everything that had piled onto him spilling out. It was certainly a possibility, wasn’t it?

But then Virgil pressed his hand — the right one — to Roman’s flushed cheek, and his boyfriend keened, jerking away from him and scrambling back across the bed.

Horrified, Virgil raised his hands.

“Hey, sorry, baby,” he said, as gently as he could.

Roman’s chest was heaving, the only colour in his face from the flush of loss of oxygen from crying. His eyes were wide and wild and darted around. He was shaking all over. He’d stopped screaming, but his mouth still hung open, like he meant to keep crying but had rubbed his throat raw.

“What is it?” Virgil asked, and Roman met his eyes. “Tell me what’s happening, Ro.”

Roman looked like he was torn between reaching for Virgil and tearing into his own scalp — and, well, Virgil knew which one he personally preferred.

“Can I come over?” he asked. Roman buried his face into his knees and whimpered. “I’m going to sit next to you, okay?” He slowly shuffled forward, making sure to be as obvious about where he was at all times. He leaned forward so his breath brushed against Roman’s bangs. He didn’t touch him. “Hey.”

Roman didn't look up, but his quivering, pale, sweaty hand moved from where it was clutching the blankets and inched over to grasp the edge of Virgil’s sleeve.

“I’m here,” he assured Roman softly. “Just take your time.” Roman’s shoulders shook. Slowly, carefully, Virgil linked their pinkies together. “Breathe, Pretty Boy. You’re okay.”

“I’m— sorry, I’m sorry—” Roman gasped, but Virgil cut him off.

“Ah-ah.” He shuffled ever closer, brushing their legs together. “No apologising.”

“I couldn’t— I— you—”

“Breathe.” Virgil pulled Roman’s hand up by the sleeve, not kissing it but just barely pressing his lips to his boyfriend’s calloused knuckles. “Four, seven, eight, remember? Four, seven, eight.”

Roman nodded unsteadily.

They sat like that, for what could have been minutes or hours, Virgil wasn’t sure. Logan and Patton hadn’t planned on returning for another few hours, so that allowed the pair to sit in relative silence. Roman’s heavy breaths still shook in the still air, and every now and then he whimpered. Virgil didn’t move to touch him. Roman didn’t pull away. Virgil wondered if he had had a sensory overload.

“Do you want the fidget cube?” he asked softly. Roman hesitated.

“Where is it?” he asked in a rasping voice.

“Wherever you last left it,” Virgil answered with a smirk. He made to pull away. “I’ll go find it.”

Roman’s grip tightened. “No!”

Virgil froze and slowly moved back. “Okay. Staying here.”

“Th-thank you,” he gasped. “I-if you leave, I’m scared— I’ll— spiral—”

Virgil’s throat thickened with the urge to cut him off and tell him to breathe, but maybe Roman needed to say what he was thinking.

“I’ll see— red— it’ll be red and gold all over again— and I can’t— I won’t—”

Virgil frowned. What on Earth was he talking about? He squeezed their fingers.

“Can’t do that again, Virgil, I can’t!”

“Okay,” Virgil said. “I won’t leave.”

“Please don’t,” Roman agreed with a sob. “Please don’t leave me. Please. Please.”

“I won’t. I’m not.” Virgil pressed carefully closer. “I’m right here. I’m staying here.”

Roman shuddered and finally lifted his head. His eyes, bloodshot and tired, met Virgil’s, and he had to bite back a gasp.

Roman looked shattered. Like someone had taken something that meant the world to him and thrown it to the ground and let the pieces break into millions of tiny little pieces so small and far and in between that there was no hope of ever rebuilding what he’d lost. There was a lump lodging itself in Virgil’s throat.

“What is it, Roman?” he asked, quietly, desperately. “Please talk to me. Let me help. I want to help.”

“Make me stop thinking about it,” Roman begged. “Please, Virgil. I can’t— I can’t live like this anymore, I want it to stop, I need it to stop!”

“What, baby?” Virgil whispered fervently, moving to kneel in front of Roman and press his hands to his face. “What do I need to stop?”

Roman caved, fresh tears rolling down his face, and he reached up to grasp onto Virgil’s right hand. Virgil couldn’t feel it, but he could see Roman’s knuckles going white in his grip.

It took approximately three seconds.

And then—

Oh.

“Oh.” Virgil’s voice was choked. He was half worried he was going to throw up next. “Oh, Roman…”

“I keep— having these days— bad days, where I can’t think about anything else, and it’s— it’s hard, to function, to do anything, really, and I want to be near you — I really, really do, always, forever, but it gets scary, and it hurts, and all I can think about is— is—!”

“Can I hug you?” Virgil asked.

“Please,” sobbed Roman. “Please, please, hug me.”

Half of a second later, Virgil was curled around Roman, protecting him from all angles of the world, wishing more than anything that he could protect Roman from the battle waging inside his own mind.

He thought it could have been the lack of Roman’s powers. If that was the case, love and admiration was required.

If it had been a flashback, or Missy, then a distraction was in order.

If it had been literally anything else, Virgil would have been prepared.

His dumb ass had never once considered anything before or after the moment he woke up, disorientated, and confused in the clearing of that tower, Roman bent over him and shaking like he was now.

Whenever Roman quailed away from his touch, Virgil had always thought that it was a recovering-from-abuse day. When Roman stayed in his room all day, Virgil thought he needed to be by himself for the time. When he refused to meet Virgil’s eyes, he thought he was still mad at him for creating that weapon that destroyed so many lives. When Roman turned Virgil down during nights when he was feeling excited and hungry and that pulling want to be pressed against him, Virgil had let himself worry that it was because he was wrong, because Roman didn’t want someone like him.

All this time, Virgil had been worrying about himself, while Roman had been slowly crumbling under horror and blood.

Virgil swallowed down the emotion clogging his throat.

What the hell was wrong with him?

“I love you,” Roman was saying, over and over and over again, and “I’m sorry, sorry, so sorry,” and Virgil couldn’t have either of that going unchecked.

“Shh,” he hummed, rubbing his back. “It’s okay. Breathe. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Roman looked up, opening his mouth to protest, but Virgil pressed his finger to his boyfriend’s lips. “Ah-ah,” he said softly, “no apologising.” More tears squeezed from Roman’s eyes. Virgil pressed their foreheads together. “I love you, too.”

Roman hiccupped. More tears rolled down his face.

That’s it, Virgil decided. Arms still around Roman, he sent a quick text to Logan and Patton, either to not worry about returning in time for dinner or being extra quiet when they came back. Then he pulled back (and pressed a kiss to Roman’s temple when he made a wounded noise at the retreat) and moved to close the blinds before wriggling from his binder. He shuffled them both beneath the bed covers.

“Nap time,” he declared.

Roman looked startled. “It’s barely noon.”

“Nap time,” Virgil insisted, and Roman relented. “Come here.” Gently, Virgil guided Roman’s head down to his chest, where he could rest his ear directly over Virgil’s heartbeat. A long, long breath blew from Roman’s nose. His own heartbeat, which had previously been thudding madly against Virgil’s stomach, slowly calmed.

Smiling, Virgil slipped his headphones from his pocket and connected them to his phone. He picked a calming but engaging playlist and offered Roman one bud. Tension slowly, slowly, bled out of his tight frame.

Virgil kissed the top of his boyfriend’s head.

“I’m here,” he said again, and this time it meant something entirely different. “I love you.”

Between Virgil’s gentle breath ever-so-slightly ruffling the crown of Roman’s hair, his steady-beating heart thumping under one ear and the calming music in the other, Roman fell asleep quickly.

After that, Roman didn’t have as many Bad Days. Or, maybe he did, and he just didn't remember, because now Virgil knew what to look for, and how to fix it. Roman also had a sneaking suspicion that Virgil had let something slip to the others, because they were always just as helpful as Virgil when he wasn’t around.

Sometimes, though, it wasn’t so much as it was the random Bad Days, as it was bad nights.

Roman was standing on the very top of the tower. The sun was setting gloriously over the ocean, casting the city in a beautiful golden-orange glow that reflected off the brown of Roman’s eyes. Wind ruffled at his hair. He could smell the sea spray. He could hear children laughing as they walked home from school. His chest swelled. This was his city, and he had done well with it.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Princey,” Virgil said beside him, and Roman’s heart beat harder at the small smirk he shot his way. “You had some help.”

Roman grinned, sauntering over to raise an eyebrow down at his adversary. “That I did. I really must thank Calamity at some point.”

“Oh, sure, for being thrown into a tree?” Virgil rolled his eyes, a smile of his own tugging at his lips. Roman almost wanted to eat that look off his face.

So he did.

And after a heated make-out session perched precariously on top of the highest point in the city, Roman took the time to just stare into those gorgeous, thunderous eyes.

You’re beautiful, he thought, all the time. You’re stunning. You’re so clever and strong, and I wish I could be anywhere near worthy of you or your time. You deserve more than this could have ever given you.

“I love you,” he said, because he could, now, he had learnt how to.

Virgil grinned that happy, carefree grin.

“So this is who you’ve replaced me for,” a pleasant, chilling voice said from behind Roman.

He turned, narrowly missing a strange, thrumming attack from Missy, and glared at her.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded. Her smile was innocent compared to what she practically purred.

“Only what I’m best at.”

Roman’s lip curled angrily as she leaned forward, her voice a whisper against his ear.

He wouldn’t actually remember what she had said to him, then. He would only hear a quiet gasp, not quite a breath and not quite a wheeze, sounding simultaneously right at his neck and a hundred yards from him.

He turned, but he lost his footing, and suddenly he wasn’t standing on the tower anymore, and he couldn’t reach out, he couldn't move, gravity was dragging him down and he couldn’t get to Virgil and Virgil was already dead and Missy had won and he was powerless and useless and he couldn’t do anything and—

“Roman! Ro, breathe! It’s okay! It’s alright, breathe.”

Roman blinked, and he was sitting on a soft ground, in a dark room…

He swallowed, and the bedroom was suddenly very, very quiet. He coughed, his raw, and wondered how long he’d been screaming for.

Roman rubbed his throat gingerly as a pair of hands flittered about, pressing against his body, his face, accompanied by a murmuring, reassuring voice. Lips pressed to his forehead, his temple, his nose, cheek, chin, eyelids, everywhere they could reach, and Roman heaved a breath.

Finally, he managed to meet Virgil’s gaze through his own fear and the dark room.

“Hey, Stormcloud,” he croaked. “Sorry for waking you.”

Virgil cut him off by kissing him soundly on the lips. “What have I told you about apologising?”

“If it gets me a kiss each time, I think I’m inclined to keep doing it,” Roman said with a sore attempt for a smile. Virgil didn’t comment on the rough edges of his expression, the way his voice wavered, or how his hands shook. He wrapped his arms around Roman’s chest, resting his head on his shoulder.

“What was it?” Virgil asked, because most times Roman took solstice in admitting his fears, especially when they came in the form of a nightmare.

Roman wrapped his arms around Virgil’s waist and dragged him to sit practically in his lap. “Nothing.”

There was a pause, because he was obviously lying, and there was only one nightmare Roman refused to talk about. Virgil knew this, and he never pushed. He didn’t need to, anyway.

“Well.” He pressed a kiss to Roman’s shoulder, slowly moving up to his neck. Roman sagged against him, glad for the contact. Virgil nuzzled into his boyfriend. “Nothing sure seems like a whole lot.”

“Unfortunately,” Roman agreed somberly.

“Think you can go back to sleep?” Virgil murmured. Roman twisted to bury his face in his soft, purple hair.

“Cuddle?” Roman asked tentatively, because sometimes Virgil tightened his binder too much and Roman never wanted to cause him any discomfort.

Virgil smiled, because he knew Roman worried, and he was never opposed to cuddling. “Of course.” He guided the two of them down, letting Roman snuggle up to his chest in his favourite position, where he could feel Virgil’s heartbeat and feel his breath.

Virgil wrapped his arounds around Roman’s torso and squeezed reassuringly. Roman was already asleep again. Virgil fell asleep himself with a smile on his face. Neither of them woke until broken morning light was streaming onto their faces.

Roman wasn’t entirely sure what had happened.

He remembered Calamity stumbling into the city centre, yelling for everyone to get down. He remembered being confused moments before the place exploded in flames. He remembered groaning and realising Virgil had thrown them to the ground, covering him with his right side. He remembered Patton fussing over the four of them, assured they were all okay and uninjured.

Kaimi may have been there, at some point, helping them to usher everyone away.

He remembered the new supervillain picking a fight with Calamity. He might have remembered Kaimi’s outraged cries when she hit the ground.

He remembered as he rushed for Calamity’s side, and she was fine, but then the villain’s focus was on them.

He remembered feeling that same old frustrated agitation at being useless, powerless. Helpless.

He remembered Virgil stepping in to try and defuse the situation. He definitely remembered the villain raising a weird-looking gun in his boyfriend’s direction.

And from there out, he was back on that tower. He was throwing himself at Missy, tearing and batting and punching and fighting with everything he had because he had to keep her away. He was without powers, but he was still strong, and he was determined, and he wasn’t going to let her hurt him again, she would never hurt anyone again.

And then they were both falling, and Missy was shrieking beneath him, except it wasn’t Missy, it was the villain, and they were beaten to all hell, and god, had he done that? And there were flashing lights, and people talking, some were shouting, and he was still twisting, still kicking, still fighting—

“Hey, hey!” Virgil’s voice said, and Roman froze. His vision cleared. His boyfriend, whole and unharmed and okay and concerned, so damn concerned, was in front of him, cold hands on either side of his face.

Roman lost himself in those seas of grey and silver, and all the fight left him. He collapsed into Virgil’s chest, pressing his face into his boyfriend’s neck.

“Kaimi, get some help!” Virgil shouted over Roman’s head, and he tried shaking his head.

“‘M okay, Virge,” he mumbled. Virgil hushed him. Cool hands ran through his hair, and he melted.

The rest of it was a blur.

Nothing caught up with Roman until he was mildly thinking that he wasn’t hungry enough to eat this cookie, and he blinked, confused.

He looked up and around him, taking in the interior of Bake My Day. It was dark outside, and empty. The sign on this side of the door said, Welcome! We are OPEN. He looked down at the plate of Crofters Jam cookies in the middle of the table shared between him, Virgil, Logan and Patton.

He blinked spastically, trying to make sense of what was happening.

“Hey, Pretty Boy.” A hand was clutching his. Roman looked across at Virgil, who smiled at him. “How’re you doing?”

“I…” Roman tried to speak, but his mouth was dry.

“It’s okay, kiddo,” Patton murmured, rubbing his back.

“You went into shock,” Logan explained. “You didn’t respond on the way to the hospital, or the way back here. We were told it would fade by itself.”

Roman blinked again. “What happened?”

No one seemed keen to answer that question.

“Kaimi and Katrina went home,” Patton answered without answering. “They were both okay. The police took care of the villain. He doesn’t have a name yet, apparently.”

“I… I mean to me,” Roman said weakly. “What happened to me?”

“We don’t know,” Logan said quietly. “You… snapped.”

“You got so angry.” Patton’s voice trembled; almost scared. “You just… lost it. You threw yourself at that villain like you still had your powers. It was…” The purple wristband was flush against their skin as they clasped their hands together too tightly to be comfortable. “It was so scary.”

Roman recoiled slightly, stricken. Logan didn’t notice, too busy focusing on Patton, rubbing his thumb gently along their hands.

“It wasn’t you that was scary.”

Roman looked around to see Virgil had moved from his seat across from him and was now crouching beside his chair. “It was the idea of your actions. How reckless you got.” A hint of a smile played at Virgil’s lips. “You looked kind of hot, being that badass.”

Roman couldn’t find similar happiness in himself. “I attacked that… that person.”

Virgil worked his jaw before nodding mutely.

Roman blinked rapidly, trying desperately to work out how to feel. He opened and closed his mouth as Virgil stood, rubbing his hands into Roman’s shoulders.

“I wasn’t… here,” he said finally, and Logan and Patton glanced at him. He kept his focus on Virgil and those beautiful eyes of his, willing him to understand, to not make him explain it. “I was… I was back there again.”

Virgil softened ever-so-gently, and Roman felt a tidal wave of relief crash into him at the understanding.

“I’m sorry,” he found himself saying, although he knew Virgil hated it. “I don’t mean to do it. Sometimes it just happens, I can’t help it. It’s so stupid, I’m stupid, god, I’m so dumb, I wish I would stop, I’m so—”

Virgil’s lips were on his, cutting his stream of words short. Roman closed his eyes, relishing the feeling of his boyfriend pressed against him. He gripped Virgil’s waist, taking the time to calm his racing mind. He was in Bake My Day. Virgil was kissing him. Logan and Patton could either be cooing or looking exasperated.

When Virgil pulled back, his voice was quiet, subdued. “I think I have to stop rewarding you for this kind of thing.”

“I’m not so sure,” Roman said, leaning forward for another kiss.

“If I may interject,” said Logan, carefully, “Roman?”

Only a little peeved, Roman turned from his boyfriend to the astronomer, who looked rightly sheepish, but there was something else in his eyes — apprehension, but with touches of something softer, kinder.

“What you’re feeling is natural. It’s healing. Have you… brought this up with Dr. Picani?”

Roman ducked his head. Logan sighed expectantly.

“I know, I know,” Roman grumbled. “I’ll… next time we go, okay? Is that okay?” he asked Virgil, who of course smiled and kissed his cheek, murmuring a soft, Yeah.

“I’m—” Roman cut himself, despite Patton’s curious look. “Tired,” he finished himself, with a woozy smile.

Patton smiled back. “It’s been a big day. Why don’t we retire for the night?”

The night air was cool as it swirled around the four of them, laughing and joking. Logan groaned and Virgil smirked at Patton’s puns. Patton squeezed Roman’s hands, and Virgil rested his head on Roman’s shoulder. Logan got caught in a lecturing infodump about some fascinating concept he’d recently discovered.

Roman thought that maybe, as they walked hand-in-hand, he was going to be okay.

It wasn’t often that anyone made moves on Roman.

Not only was he quite physically intimidating and quite often surrounded by a group of friends, more often than not he had a purple-haired gremlin he had dubbed early on as “his boyfriend” at his side.

Even then, however, when he wasn't around any of his family members, and off by himself (on rare occasions), it wasn’t something he had on his mind.

Until he ventured off to look at some stall in the distance that looked like it could be selling Disney posters.

Markets took up this side of the city every Sunday, and Roman had begged and pleaded to go ever since he found out. He didn’t want to go alone, because where would the fun in that be? Finally, eventually, Virgil had agreed, followed by Logan. (Patton had never needed much convincing.)

And now Roman was mightily regretting it. Both dragging the others along to the festive markets and darting away from them to go look at something by himself.

Roman was good at saying no. He was!

He was just also… easily flustered.

“Oh, come on, pretty boy,” the man before him purred, and Roman wrinkled his nose.

“Like I said,” he bit out firmly, “I’m fine.”

“You are,” the man agreed, and he almost reminded Roman of supervillain Remy The Sandman. “I could take you back to my place, if—”

“It is the middle of the day,” Roman said. Just walk away, his instincts snarled at him, sounding familiarly like Virgil, and for once Roman listened.

He turned.

And his arm was grabbed.

Roman jolted, surprised. He hadn’t been touched like that before, by a stranger. Not like this, anyway, where his muscles and bones were just as fragile as everyone else’s, and he could bruise, and bleed, and it was a very startling truth.

He was so shocked that he didn’t think to pull away while the man leaned in, breath nipping at his chin.

Then the man cried out, and his hand released Roman’s arm, and Virgil was raising a second fist to hit the man again.

“Not your metal arm, babe,” Roman said automatically, and Virgil paused. After a moment of indecision, he kicked the man’s knee, and he cried out again, dropping to the ground.

“Do yourself a favour and piss off,” Virgil snarled. His face was contorted with fury. One fist was shaking with rage, the other creaking under the strain he was putting it. Roman’s pursuer quailed away with a scowl, then limped off.

Roman was still in a daze as Virgil whirled on him, his face instantly flickering back to worried and loving and affectionate and god, Roman was so, so in love.

“Are you okay?” Virgil was asking frantically, his eyes scanning his boyfriend. “Are you hurt? Did he do anything to you?”

“I’m a hot mess,” Roman confessed pragmatically.

Virgil stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Meaning…?”

“You are very, very attractive when you’re pissed.”

Virgil flushed, his eyebrows raising. “Oh. Um.” He rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed, and a smile tugged itself onto Roman’s face.

“It’s okay,” he assured him. “You’re always very attractive anyway, so I’m mostly used to it.”

“Oh, stop,” Virgil told him. Roman did, though only in favour of kissing him until they were both breathless.

#sanders sides #prinxiety #romantic LAMP #roman sanders #virgil sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #cross posted on ao3 #tw vomit #tw harrassment #tw ptsd #spoilers for Powerless!!#fanfic #long post

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engagemachine · 4 years ago

Text

I have nowhere else to put this. I need to say this.

These past two weekends at work have been utterly beyond my comprehension and have nearly pushed me to my limit. I’ve had patients in restraints for the past two weekends in a row now, and the mixture of verbal/physical abuse from these patients and others has been so emotionally taxing, I just don’t even know where I can lay down this exhaustion and this frustration and this hurt.

Our chronic understaffing issue has started to reach a boiling point. Last Saturday I had seven patients, which in some states is illegal (for reference, 5 patients on the kind of unit that I work on is considered normal, and 6 is the max that one nurse can have). Additionally, this past Friday, we went without a charge nurse and we didn’t have a tech (normally we have three to four techs because I work on a 40-bed unit, so each tech has ten patients each). My back has never been as sore as it is now from having to do so much heavy lifting this weekend without any help. Imagine changing multiple patients over 200 lbs all by yourself, multiple times, within a twelve hour shift.

Last night in particular was so stressful that I found myself snapping at my coworkers -- which is so unlike me and something that I never do -- and even worse, I snapped at and was short with a patient who had been very irritating and especially demanding. This is not the kind of person that I am. I am not a person who snaps at their coworkers and their patients when I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’m not unflappable but any means, but I make a point of leaving my stress outside the door every time I walk into a patient’s room. I know that my stress is not their burden to bear. These patients are already sick/suffering, the last thing I want to do is add to their stress by coming into their private space with my own personal storm cloud hanging over my head. They have enough to worry about and their primary focus should be on healing. I never want to carry negative energy like that into a space where I am actively trying to take care of/love/heal/protect/educate/support/comfort the people I am taking care of.

I can’t help feeling so angry at myself for my behavior and for allowing myself to slip so openly. I know I reacted this way because I was stressed and angry, but that is no excuse. And I also can’t help but feel bitter over the fact that the reason I’m so stressed is because we are lacking the resources/supplies/staff that are necessary in order for me to effectively do my job.

I’m also so sick and tired of all the hospital politics and the beaurocracy of working for a big corporation... a corporation that does not care about its employees and whose primary focus is money. I know the nurse shortage we’re going through at our hospital is an ongoing issue that is being faced nationwide, but something absolutely has to be done in order to get staffing to where it needs to be, otherwise nurses will be leaving hospitals in droves, or will simply exit the profession all together from burn-out.

And it’s just... all this little stuff, too, all these things that occur that keep piling up that no one ever does anything about and no disciplinary action is taken because we’re so desperate for nurses and can’t afford to fire anybody. Some of the nurses I work with have adopted an attitude where they they feel like they can do anything they want without repercussion, because they know they won’t get fired because we’re so understaffed. We had a nurse walk out one night after receiving report which should result in having your nursing license revoked or, at the very least, result in some form of licensure suspension. Leaving during your shift -- even if at the beginning of a shift -- is considered abandonment/neglect of your patients. That nurse should have been fired after that, and she wasn’t.

It is downright unconscionable that we should have to be responsible for seven patients. You cannot take good, quality care of that many patients at one time. It’s just impossible -- and it’s so unsafe. Imagine having a patient with sepsis whose blood pressure is tanking and who has spiked a fever/is quickly becoming unresponsive, another patient with schizophrenia who is hallucinating and being violent, another patient who has dementia and is confused, who has a feeding tube, a tracheostomy that requires frequent suctioning (this is a sterile procedure), a colostomy, a Foley catheter, and is in two-point restraints, which requires documentation three times every hour. And then imagine another patient who is going through Benzo withdrawals and needing around-the-clock medication and is also on seizure precautions, and another patient who is confused and is a fall risk and keeps trying to crawl out of the bed, and another patient who is vomiting and needs an antiemetic and possibly an NG tube, and another patient who is post-op and requiring pain medication for 7 out of 10 pain -- and imagine trying to take care of all of these things at the same time. Imagine going thirteen hours without peeing, eating, or drinking, simply because there is no time. That was me last weekend. It’s crazy to imagine the stress of having that many human lives in your hands, to be so busy and so stressed out that you literally do not even have five minutes to go to the bathroom because there is so much to do and you cannot afford to sit down.

Or the fact that there’s a nurse on day shift who has nearly killed two separate patients on two different occasions, a nurse who refuses to do the basic necessities/tasks required by her job, has the nastiest attitude imaginable, and has been written up so many times by staff and patients that her personal folder is roughly as thick as the Oxford dictionary... and they still won’t fire her.

And the way I keep catching nurses in blatant lies, nurses who have documented that they’ve done something when they haven’t. Just last night I saw a nurse had documented that she had administered a medication when I know she hadn’t because the medication was still sealed in its original box and I was the first one to open it. She did this for two days. Like... how can you even live with yourself, telling a lie like that?

When I managed to take my lunch break this morning around 4am, I was near tears in the breakroom talking to my coworker because I just felt so overwhelmed and at my whit’s end. I’d gotten into a spat with my supervisor just a few minutes prior over something that she said had not been documented correctly (even though a different supervisor last week said that it had to be done the opposite way, and at that time, I’d had to stay late to correct this “mistake”) and now my supervisor this morning was telling me it had to be done the opposite way from what I’d been told, and there’s no clear hospital policy on how the documentation should be done... it’s so irritating.

There is honestly so much more. I could write an entire novel about the stress of my job -- but I hope I don’t sound ungrateful, because I do love my job, I really do. I love caring for people more than anything, and if there’s one positive takeaway from all of this, it’s that, despite our lack of staff, some of my patients have been so gracious and understanding, and so many of my patients have been very expressive of how grateful they’ve been for my care, telling me I’m an angel/the best nurse they’ve had/telling me they wish that I didn’t have to leave. That’s very sweet.

Emotionally, though, I just feel so spent. Like I’ve given everything I can and I have nothing more left because it’s been siphoned out of me. And there are weird things going on in my life with some of my personal relationships that have caused me an unnecessary amount of stress/insecurity and it’s frustrating that I feel like I can’t talk to the other person(s) about it because I am afraid of sounding needy/jealous/ungrateful. I pride myself on communicating the things that I want/need, but sometimes it just seems like it’s easier to let it go. I almost convince myself that they could never give me what I need even if I were to ask for it, but it’s also too painful to ask for something and then not get it.

I’m just so tired. I want to be positive and uplifting, but I don’t know where this road is supposed to take me. I don’t know if maybe I am being called to find work elsewhere or if this is an experience I am supposed to grow from and that is meant to make me stronger. I just really don’t know.

#text #my ask box is very full and I promise I will be getting to your messages as soon as I can #I am not ignoring any of you #just very very emotionally spent #and needed to put this down #if this is riddled with typos it's because I just got off work and I haven't gone to bed yet

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