#also did not realize my cursor was on the screen at the beginning i am so sorry asdhsjkad | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

strawberrymoonjoonie · 2 years

Text

held in your hands (i am gentler still)

chapter 1: sleight of hand, twist of fate

Pairing: Namjoon x Reader

Genre: Soulmate!au , Neighbor!au but Namjoon is still an Idol, Skinship!au i.e. I touch you, I will need you to survive, friends to lovers, fluff and angst bc I need it to survive, slow burn, slight idiots to lovers, kinda coming of age if you squint but more so settling into yourself but it takes the backseat in the long run.

Warnings: swearing, angst, slow burn, medical problems (soulmate), existential crisis, some anxiety, maybe slight depressive thoughts but the plan is for this to mostly be fluff, fears about growing up and life changes.

Author's Note: I am!!! So excited and so nervous for this. This is my first fic, please be kind. Also, please prepare for a slow burn because I apparently just love to suffer. Thank you so much to @matchstick6812 for encouraging me to write this, listening to me ranting about this in my Namjoon Simp Hours, and for reading this first. My heart is yours, you already know. Please let me know what you think about this!!! This chapter will be split POV between mc and Namjoon, but I'm not sure if I'll keep it that way! Thank you if you read this!!

Title Song: With or Without You by U2 (the best song of all time.)

Chapter Word Count: 5042 words

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

The sound waves moving across the computer screen are making Namjoon feel sick. Somewhere in the room, a clock is ticking too loudly. The second hand is near deafening given the headache that is very much not helping his nausea. Slightly shaking fingers reach for the energy drink closest to him, and he frowns when he picks up an empty can. He could have sworn he had just opened this a minute ago, surely he wouldn’t still be this miserable if he had drank it all.

His attention is drawn away by the section of music that begins playing through the speakers. It still isn’t right. It feels too empty- it’s missing something, sounds like there’s a gaping hole in between the layers and he should be able to see what’s missing but he can’t. With the press of a button, the bars loop and he’s left to glare at the computer, mumbling how much it cost underneath his breath so he doesn’t throw it. Somewhere in the room, he can hear the faint buzz of his phone, muffled like it’s underneath something, but he can’t stop watching the cursor move through the notes. Is it the key? His hand reaches for the mouse before he takes a deep breath, reminding himself of the key change incident that forced him to near tears when he first started working on this song. The key was fine. The key would have to be fine.

The metronome moves in time with his pulse in his temples and he runs his hands through his hair in frustration. He had a hat on when he first came in, whenever that was, but it’s long gone. The loop starts again and his hands become fists. I have enough money to buy new equipment, so really, there’s no good reason for me not to-

“Joon-ah, why are you not answering my calls? How am I supposed to do a wellness check if you ignore hyung?” A loud voice interrupts his violent plotting, and there’s a few beats of silence before he registers that it’s Seokjin. His shoulders tense when he does, though, and he is careful not to turn around.

“I’m sorry, hyung, I’ve been wrapped up in this song, I didn’t realize-“

“And it’s a good thing I drove here, my god Namjoon how many of those did you drink?” Namjoon tilts his head to the side enough to see Jin pointing accusingly at the pile of energy drinks beside him. He grimaces slightly as a blush heats his cheeks. He has the premonition that his headache is about to get worse, and he hunches his shoulders as if trying to shield from a blow.

“Namjoon, turn around and look at me. Let me see that you’re not dead. Look at hyung.” Namjoon lets out a long sigh before reluctantly pausing the music and spinning his chair around, determinedly looking at the floor while Seokjin gasps. He tries to ignore the flashes of light at the corner of his vision and the black spots that swim in front of his eyes for a second at the movement. Maybe sleeping sometime soon wasn’t too bad of an idea. “You look horrible! How long have you been here? Have you slept at all?” Namjoon takes too long to think of the answers, and the older man’s eyes narrow at him. “What day is it, Joon?”

“The…12th.” All Seokjin can do is gape at him in horror. His premonition grows even stronger.

“That was almost three days- Namjoon have you not left this room in 72 hours?” He doesn’t get a chance to answer before Jin begins moving around the room, rapid fire lecturing the entire time. Don’t know why you and Yoongi do this to yourselves, as he starts folding the thin blankets hanging off the couch. No self preservation instincts, probably haven’t even been eating, as he gathers all of the empty cans and bottles into a garbage bag. Don’t know who you expect to translate everything if you waste away in this studio because it certainly isn’t going to be me, as he saves the song onto his computer before shutting everything down. I hope you’re still able to walk, you’ve gotten too big for hyung to carry, as he puts Namjoon’s lost hat on his head and pulls a sweatshirt over him.

Before Namjoon’s exhausted brain can fully register what’s happening, he’s out of the studio and being gently pushed down a hall by his hyung. He winces at the fluorescent lights and pulls his hat down further, his footsteps slightly unsteady as he’s led to a waiting car. If he were any more lucid, he would feel like a small, disobedient child, but as it is, he simply leans his head against the window and lets out a sigh of relief at the dark interior of the vehicle. He’s faintly aware of something being placed in his hand, there’s the phone, and Seokjin telling him to go home and rest and text him when he’s awake.

“Let me know you’re okay, Joon-ah.” There’s a soft hand holding onto his shoulder for a moment, and then the sound of a door closing and the car starting. He begins to hum the song under his breath, fingers twitching in his lap as if reaching for the notes that he needs to fix, reaching for the hollow space. If it’s not the key-

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

All you have to do is walk forward. All you have to do is move, and you can’t even do that. Instead, you stand frozen in front of an open doorway, your heart beating so hard that your body seems to sway with each pulse. The apartment that looms in front of you is too big, too empty. Cardboard boxes fill the hallway behind you, all of your most important possessions packed and taped up, and it feels so final. It’s a grave marker, it’s a harbinger of change, it’s a point of no return and you can’t think. Your mind is filled with half finished sentences turning to static, all of them too loud and moving too fast to take a solid shape, to turn into anything you could actually grab onto. You’ve blocked almost the entire walkway, there’s no where to run, but you still can’t make yourself take the two steps forward. Your fingers start to twitch, trying to turn this panic into a rhythm you can tap out and control. The child is grown and puts away childish things. The frame of a canvas peaks out from behind a box nearest the door. There is a bit of dried red paint stuck on your left ring finger and small flecks of yellow in the creases of the knuckle. How many times can you change yourself before-

The sound of the elevator stopping interrupts your spiral, and you wince when the doors open onto your floor, eyes darting around to look at all of your boxes in embarrassment. A tall man makes his way towards you, frame broad underneath a dark hoodie, a black hat pulled low over his face. His movements are fluid, too fluid, and your brow furrows as he seems to list to one side for a few seconds before correcting himself. You open your mouth to apologize about the mess, but his eyes dart to you at that moment and you find yourself unable to speak under his gaze. Concern tugs at you again. Are those bags underneath his eyes? He looks so tired.

Before you can find your voice again, it happens. Slow motion, like the movies. Slow motion, so you can take in every millisecond in mute horror.

His foot hits a small box on the outskirts of the pile and you see the whites of his eyes as they widen, suddenly looking much more awake. Then he’s stumbling, then he’s airborne, then his much larger body is flying at you.

You don’t have time to think, don’t have time to react. There isn’t time to even reach out your hand before he’s slamming into you, sending you both sprawling backwards. All the air in your lungs wheezes out as you land in the floor, his body on top of yours, his hand somehow having managed to move fast enough to cup the back of your head. His fingers felt warm where they were tangled gently in your hair, and it was all you could focus on as your brain tried to reboot. You might never breathe again, sure, but his hands were warm and you didn’t concuss yourself. You’re immediately a horrible neighbor and might have to move out to spare yourself a modicum of embarrassment, but his hands are warm and he protected your head.

He lets out a small huff of air and a quiet noise that’s somewhere between a laugh of embarrassment and a sound of disbelief. There’s something self deprecating about it, and you take in his face with a slightly dazed expression, blinking slowly as your eyes grow wide. His face was a full moon, luminous and careful and serene. A place to hide secrets, a place to come to rest. If the stars fall away, there is light still. If you can’t find a way, even the tides will move. Here are my bones, they are oh so weary, please be as delicate as you can. The regret fades to the background as a slow blush works its way over your cheeks. Everything that your oxygen deprived brain is registering about him is so warm you could cry, and it’s not fair that this is who you embarrass yourself in front of.

Once you blink away some of your mortification and wonder, you register again how tired he looks. You are close enough now that it’s apparent he hasn’t slept in a long time, dark circles under his eyes and a tightness to his face that speaks of a lingering headache, and the corners of your mouth twitch down in minute disapproval and concern. A few quiet seconds pass while he looks down at you in mute horror, seeming slightly confused and extremely embarrassed. Suddenly, he rolls off of you with a gasp, kneeling next to you instead as an apology writes itself across his face.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” His hand shifts on the back of your head, fingers gently feeling for any bumps. With his weight off of you, your lungs shakily fill with air. When he’s satisfied with the lack of injury to your head, his hand slowly moves down to your back as he helps you sit up. His hand is so warm that you can feel it through your shirt. You try very hard not to think about that. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going, I’ve been awake for too long-“

“No, it’s all of my stuff in the floor, I haven’t brought it in yet and I should have.” He looks around at all of your boxes with renewed distress.

“Is anything broken? Are your things okay, I can replace it if I damaged anything. I should have paid more attention.” His gaze darts back to you as he registers that you still haven’t answered his first question. “Are you okay?” His hand moves from your back to your elbow, and your brain is struggling to wrap itself around this large, pretty man with warm hands and a deep voice crouched over you. He seems so kind, even if his voice is taking on a slightly panicked pitch. It takes you a minute to respond.

“No, I’m okay. I’m not hurt.”

“Are you sure? I’m so sorry, I really didn’t mean to land on you, oh my god, I probably crushed you-“ His rant cuts off as your hand falls on his chest without thought. You can feel muscles contracting under your fingertips, even through his sweatshirt, and try very hard not to think about that either. You can feel him breathe, steady even if it’s a little fast, like waves coming in to shore.

“It’s not your fault, I should have already had my things moved in. And you didn’t crush me.” You offered him a small smile. “Just knocked the wind out of me a little bit.” Your smile grows as a blush darkens his cheeks. He looks away for a minute before standing up and slowly bringing you with him. His hands linger near your shoulders as he lets you go- warm, warm, warm- watching to see if you’re unsteady. When he’s satisfied that you’re able to stand on your own, he goes and picks up the box that caused all of this, handing it out to you with a small smile – are those dimples?! – and you take it from him with a dumbstruck expression.

“I’m, uh, Namjoon. I’m next door to you.” He nods to a black door a few feet away and holds out his hand.

“Y/N. It’s nice to meet you.” When your hand touches his, a physical jolt runs through you, followed by a rush of warmth and a feeling you can only describe as light. Something electric, and then all of your muscles going limp, knots and tension disappearing until you’re so relaxed you can barely stand. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re worried about collapsing on the floor, but you can’t pay attention to it enough to really be concerned. When you meet his gaze, his pupils are so wide that his eyes seem swallowed completely, almost entirely black, and you wonder if yours are the same. Your heartrate slows down and you swear you can feel your pulses beating in time in your palms. Here is a place for secrets, here is a place to rest, here is something safe. You know what this is, know what he is, and your mouth opens but no words come out.

Time has never been kind to you, but it slows down now, seconds drifting longer and longer as they’re turned to honey, everything golden and sweet as Namjoon blinks down at you. You think he’s going to speak, surely he’s going to say something, but instead, he reluctantly pulls his hand out of yours. An odd expression crosses his face, and you see something flash in his eyes before he seems to hide it and school his expression into something polite and slightly distant. The seconds speed up, the seconds move at double speed, and your heart rate starts to move faster. Something that is shaped like horror but moves like confusion settles in your chest. Isn’t he…wasn’t that-?

“Do you, um. Do you need help? With any of your boxes?” Something that feels distinctly like hurt spears through you, and you feel your heart thud in response. What is he…why isn’t he saying anything? Did you just imagine that? Has the move really put enough stress on you that you’ve mistaken first touch? The air grows awkward the longer you stare at him in silence, so you force your mouth to form words, even if they’re not what you want to say.

“Please don’t feel obligated, I don’t want to inconvenience you, I’m sure you’re tired and want to go home and rest.” Your voice comes out smaller than before as you fold into yourself slightly. He shoots you a small smile and waves off your worries.

“I’m sure I can spare a few moments to help a new neighbor.” His eyes tighten at the end, and something about how he says it feels like a challenge. There’s the slightest of ticks in his jaw. Suddenly, the empty apartment is not as terrifying. All you need is to get in and shut the door and try to figure this out. Possibly cry, but who knows. Your thoughts are loud again, but one word spins around the fastest, all too sharp and well-defined. Every syllable clearly enunciated. Neighbor neighbor neighbor neighbor neighbor neighbor. You search his face but find no answers. You can feel the phantom touch of his hand in yours. You fear you might be losing your mind entirely, the word neighbor still echoing like something that haunts behind wallpapers and beneath floorboards. He’s waiting for you to speak, you know. It’s not rational for you to feel crushed like this, especially over someone you’ve just met. But his face is a full moon and his hands are warm and you can still feel the hum of his pulse lingering on your fingertips. Your heart is no longer matching the rhythm, and even that feels like a loss. Neighborneighborneighborneighborneighbor.

“If you don’t mind, that would be nice. I haven’t been able to get myself to actually do it yet, and I’ve been standing here for a while.” Namjoon’s expression fades into something that is equal parts measuring and curious as he bends to pick up one of your larger boxes, one that would have been impossible for you to manage on your own. Of course, he makes it look easy.

“Dreading unpacking?” You linger by the doorway until he goes in first, feeling slightly like a child waiting for someone else to check the closet for monsters and turn on a nightlight, and only once he’s inside do you finally take the first steps into your home. You gesture for him to just put the box anywhere, and fiddle with your fingers while you try to think of a way to answer him. After a few moments of silence, he rubs the back of his neck, absentminded in a way that only comes with habits. You are jumping to collect the slightest of mannerisms he displays around you, and it makes your cheeks glow red when you realize.

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, that was kind of a personal thing to ask.” He seems embarrassed, the most he has yet, and you quickly try to cover your cheeks, realizing that he must think your blush is because of his question. You nearly trip over your words hurrying to make him feel better.

“No, no, you’re okay, I promise. It’s not unpacking I’m worried about. I just-“ You let out a long sigh. “It’s kind of stupid, I guess.”

“If it’s something that bothers you, I don’t think it would be stupid. I won’t judge anything you say, I promise.” Something in your chest loosens a little at his reassurance.

“I guess I haven’t really lived alone, before. I’m really nervous.” You meet his eyes and find nothing but warmth, and the rest of the words fall out. “I recently signed a contract with a local gallery for my art, and I’m really happy about it, I am. But I don’t handle change well, and everything is happening so fast. And this apartment is nice, but it’s so big and so empty, and I feel like I’m losing a part of my life moving here.” You cut yourself off, worried that you’ve rambled too much. It was a simple question, and you’re dumping the mess in your mind at this virtual stranger’s feet. Blushing, you look over at him to apologize, only to find a patient look on his face, his head tilted in concern, and his posture making it clear that he is listening to you intently.

“Why?”

“I just… There’s a quote I’ve been thinking about a lot, lately. ‘Childhood is not from birth to a certain age, and at a certain age, the child is grown and puts away childish things.’ That’s what it feels like. Like, I’ve reached a point and I’m saying, okay, this is the end of my life as it has been and the versions of me I have been and now I have to be someone new. Everything is now the past and I can only move forward. I’m scared that I’m going to unpack everything and not be able to fill the space in this apartment, and I don’t know who I’m supposed to be now. There’s going to be all this empty space and I won’t be able to fit in it. I’ll just be alone, I’ll just be cold, I’ll just be a child trying to be something else.” You tap each of your fingertips against your thumb as you move your gaze to the window. The apartment is so high up that you can see so much of the city beneath you. It makes you feel horribly small. It makes you wish you had a hand to hold. “I don’t know, it’s hard for me to word it, I think. It’s not coming out quite right, but it’s just a feeling that’s been swallowing me whole.” Namjoon hums quietly. When he speaks, his words have a weight to them that is nothing but sure, nothing but comforting, and you can’t help but believe him and allow him to ease some of your fear.

“I think that change is a necessary part of life, but I also know that it can be very scary, and very overwhelming. You’re starting a new part of your life, that’s true, and if you can’t see what is ahead, it can be really daunting. But I think that you know yourself, and you are always going to have the same core, the same values and beliefs and ideas, that are always going to make up who you are. You may have opinions and things that change, but sometimes that’s good. When we think about something we did when we were younger that embarrassed us or a memory from us as a child where we acted poorly, we say, “Oh, thank god I’m not the same.’ Even if it’s scary sometimes, we have to close chapters of our lives, and do things that are new and uncomfortable so that we’re able to grow. There’s not a version of yourself that you are supposed to be, there’s only the version of yourself that you are supposed to be right now in this time of your life. When life changes, you will also change with it.” His dimples appear as he smiles at you. “And if you ever need anything, I’m a door away.”

Things fall into a comfortable silence after that, something companionable, as he carries in your boxes, leaving you to slowly start to open them up and begin to unpack. There’s a strange domesticity in the air, and you start to think that maybe it won’t be as bad living here, especially with Namjoon as a neighbor. It’s not until he brings in your framed painting that he speaks again.

“You painted this?”

“Yeah, it was part of the collection that got me the gallery contract. The rest were sold, but I kept that one.” Namjoon’s hands are careful as he leans the painting against the wall and steps back to really look at it. He holds your art like he’s holding something special, and there is something reverent in his gaze as he appraises it. You bite the inside on your cheek, suddenly nervous of his opinion.

“You know, I collect art.”

“Really?” A small smile pulls at the corner of his lips, something incredibly fond.

“Yeah. My friends mess with me about it sometimes, because they have to be careful in my apartment when they come over- they can’t just act like heathens when I keep expensive pieces around- but I’ve always really loved art. It’s so comforting, even when it’s not. I always feel seen, and feel like it allows me to see into other people’s versions of the world.” The back of his hand brushes yours, and there’s another slight shock of electricity followed by warmth- light, light, light- but it’s not as strong as earlier. You want to ask about the world through his eyes. You want to ask what the color red looks like to him. You want to grab onto his hand. You do none of this, and grin up at him instead.

“I’ll remember that when I have my art show and need people to actually show up.” The biggest, brightest smile he’s given you yet lights up his face, and you’re hit with the full force of his dimples. You swear there are tiny stars dancing at the corners of your vision, and you try to blink them away.

“Please do, I’d love to come and see your work.”

“Are you an artist as well?” Namjoon seems to hesitate for some reason, his smile diming slightly and his eyes watching you carefully as he responds.

“In a way. I work in music. Producing, writing, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, that’s so interesting!” His shoulders relax. You try not to linger on what it may mean.

“Yeah, I’ve been writing music since I was little. It’s just what I love the most. I’m actually coming back from being at the studio, stuck on a song for a while. Which is why I was so tired when I came in earlier.” He looks at you for a moment, seeming to hesitate about something. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I’ve just noticed you humming a piece of a song for a little while and I just wondered what it was. I’ve been trying to place it, but I don’t think I’ve heard it in any song I know.” You freeze where you’re pulling out a blanket, eyes widening and cheeks burning.

“O-oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t really realize I had been humming. It’s not- It’s just a habit of mine. It’s not a song at all, I just make little loops of random notes together. It something that helps me when I’m nervous, having a melody that I can repeat.” You can hear him hum the run you didn’t even realize you had been singing under your breath for the last however long, and you can’t meet his eyes.

“Well, I like it. It’s a good melody, and I understand the habit. I get really stuck on songs I’m working on and can do the same thing.” His eyes crinkle as he smiles, and your self-consciousness is soothed away. “I’ll make sure to come to you if I ever need new ideas.”

“I’ll be happy to help. Anything for a friend.” It’s an offer, it’s a challenge, it’s a question, and you hold your breath. His expression doesn’t change at all. You’re not disappointed. You’re not.

“Anything for a friend.”

Once the last box is brought in, you thank Namjoon and escort him to the door, leaning against it as soon as it closes behind him. The apartment is silent once he’s gone, quiet in a way that rings hollow, and your fingers drift absentmindedly, running over the hand he touched like you could still feel it. You try to breathe evenly. You try to not think about anything at all. You try not to feel like something has slipped away from you. You try not to feel anything that could ache. You hum a song about moonlight as you move to unpack the rest of your things.

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

Namjoon lets out a long breath as soon as he’s in his apartment. He stares down at his hand, his mind racing. It had to have been first touch, there was nothing else that would have felt like that. No static shock, no cold hands, no other explanation. But then why didn’t you say anything? Had he just hallucinated the whole thing? Had it just been because of his sleep deprivation? He slowly moves towards his kitchen, operating solely on muscle memory as he makes a cup of tea. His previous exhaustion is, strangely, nowhere to be found. Maybe it was the manual labor. Maybe moving in all your boxes helped clear his mind, woke him up. You didn’t say anything when he said neighbor. Anything for a friend. Anything for a friend.

He makes his way to the couch, mindful of the full cup of hot tea in his hand as he sits down. He’s done enough damage today without burning himself on top of everything. A loud groan of embarrassment is pulled from him as he recalls the look on your face when he fell. I couldn’t go one day, not a single day without mortifying myself.

He made a silent oath to never go that long without sleeping again, lest he crush another new neighbor.

Your first impression of him, first time meeting him, and he had to go and nearly concuss you. The second Hobi heard, he would be on the floor in tears. He sank down into the cushions on his couch, desperately hoping that they would swallow him whole as he recalled your eyes, wide eyed and slightly dazed. And of course you had to be beautiful. Your face was the sun, brilliant and warm and blinding. Here, there is nothing hidden. Here, there is a place made for only good things. No matter how long the night, in the morning there will be light, there will be another chance, there will be a time for wounds to heal. Here is my heart, it is oh so fragile, please be gentle.

But you called him a friend. You didn’t say anything else.

After the tea is gone, after he sends a text to Seokjin to let him know he made it safe, Namjoon finally starts towards his room. When he passes the art hanging on his walls, he wonders what you would make of each piece, how it would look in your eyes. He wonders what the colors would make you feel, if they would remind you of lines from poems. He doesn’t feel tired until he crawls into his bed, and then his eyes are too heavy for him to keep open.

He wraps his left hand around his right, convinced he can still feel your touch. There is a lingering warmth in his chest, and his muscles are more relaxed than they have been in years.

He tries to convince himself it was the last energy drink. He tries to convince himself he was just suffering from exhaustion.

He falls asleep humming your five-note song.

#kim namjoon x reader #kim namjoon fluff #namjoon x reader #namjoon fluff #joonie #joonie joonie joonie #soulmate!au #soulmate!namjoon #neighbor!au #neighbor!namjoon #namjoon angst #namjoon fic #slow burn #namjoon x y/n #namjoon x you #pls be gentle with me #i am but a baby #i wiLL cry #please keep in mind that m/c will be slightly autistic coded so be!!! nice!!!! pls

106 notes · View notes

platonicteenwolf · 3 years

Text

Second Chance At First Line

(S1E2) Part I

Teen Wolf x Reader Series Rewrite

A/N: I AM BACK!! Got back into my Teen Wolf interest so will be writing a LOT MORE soon so look forward to that!! :D Also apologies there's not as much reader in this one, I didn't want to shove them into the plot-line but deffo more in the future :]

They/Them Pronouns Version

He/Him Pronouns Version

Next Part / Masterlist

Warnings: none

Walking into the boys Lacrosse locker room, Scott slowly drops his bag in front of his locker, gloves falling to the floor next to it. He seems to be moving in a trance. Turns, back against the locker, his eyes look over the crowd of teammates staring in shock.

Stiles pokes his head out from around the corner.

“You apologize to Allison?” He questions.

“Yeah.”

“So she’s giving you a second chance or..?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah! Alright! So everything’s good?”

“No.”

“No?”

Giving a heavy sigh, Scott explains his dilemma to his friend “Remember the hunters? Her dad is one of them.”

“Her dad?”

“Shot me...”

“Allison’s father?” Stiles seems shocked to hear this new information.

“...With a crossbow.”

“Allison’s--“

“YES. HER FATHER!” Speaking louder than necessary, his voice carries across the locker room and a few heads turn to see the commotion. Scott snaps out of the daze and into a full on panic. “Oh my God, oh my Godddd. What am I going to do?”

“No, Scott. Snap back. Ok?” He lightly tapped the side of Scott’s face trying to bring him back in focus. “Okay, okay--did he recognize you?”

“No, I don’t think so--“

“Does she know about him?”

“I- I don’t know, what if she does?” Scott’s face contorts in anguish as he realizes how much danger he could be in. “This is gonna kill me man.”

“All right, okay, we’ll figure it out. Just--just focus on lacrosse. Take this, take this,” Stiles begins picking up his practice pads and handing them to his friend. “Just focus on lacrosse for now, that’s all you’ve got to do.” Now patting him on the arm, emphasizing every word, Stiles tries his best to help Scott’s panic. “Here, we, go.”

—————

A whistle rings throughout the field.

“Let’s go!” Coach Finstock yells as the players slam into each other during practice. “One-on-one from up top!”

As Jackson jogs towards the bleachers Coach calls his name.

“Jackson, take a long stick today... Attaboy.”

Coach Finstock tosses the ball to the first player, a kid named Greenberg. But Jackson is on him in seconds, smashing his stick down on the poor kid’s gloves, sending the ball flying out of the pocket.

“Nicely done, Jackson,” Coach praises. “Greenberg, that was a pathetic display of amateur ability. Do a lap.”

As Greenberg takes off into a run, the next Player charges. Scott, gazing off with far too many thoughts swirling in his head, doesn’t notice the other players backing up behind him.

“McCall, what’re your waiting for. Let’s go!”

He snaps to attention, realizing he’s at the head of the line. Coach tosses the ball. Scott goes for the shot. Running towards the goal, Jackson steps up to meet him half way and slams into Scott. A moment later he lands on the ground with a sickening thud. Coach is walking over to where Scott lays stunned on the ground.

Chuckling he asks, “Hey McCall, Hey McCall!”

As the werewolf looks towards the sky, he cradles his forearm where Jackson’s stick came down especially hard between his glove and elbow pad.

“You sure you still want to be first line, McCall,” Jackson taunts.

Gritting his teeth in anger, Scott looks up to see Jackson walking away.

“McCall, my grandmother can move faster than that and she’s dead! Can you move faster than the... lifeless corpse of my dead grandmother, McCall?”

Now seething in his rage, Scotts reveals his brown eyes which are rapidly brightening to yellow. “Yes, Coach.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“Yes Coach!” He says slightly louder.

“Then do it again.” As Scott jogs back to the front of the line, Coach calls to the rest of the team. “McCalls gonna do it again!”

The whistle blows and Scott shoots forward again as Coach tosses the ball to him. Stiles steps away from the rest of the team, noticing the change in Scott. His speed, the extraordinary agility with which he moves.

An oblivious Jackson goes for a cross check, heading for Scott with his stick horizontal even as the smaller boy hurtles toward him with ferocious speed.

They collide like two goats locking horns. Both go down, Jackson hollering as he hits the ground.

The sickening sound of bone dislodging from socket sends a cringe through Coach. While everyone else runs over to check on Jackson, Stiles hurries to Scott’s side.

“Are you okay?”

But Scott won’t lift his head, won’t reveal his face to Stiles underneath the helmet.

“Scott?”

His head tilts up to reveal the sharpened teeth jutting out from his lower jaw.

“It’s happening. I can’t control it.“

“Come, on. Now? Get up, get up.”

Grabbing him by the shoulder pads, Stiles pulls him up. As Stiles drags him off the field and toward the lockers, neither of them notice someone watching from the sidelines... Derek Hale.

—————

The door to the darkened locker room clangs open, Stiles dragging a hunched over Scott inside.

“Get back,” Scott warns.

“I’m just trying to help--“

“Get away from me!”

His voice comes out with a frighteningly demonic rasp, head snapping around as if to rip out the other boy’s throat.

Stiles retreats, almost stumbling over his own feet at the sight of Scott’s eyes. The sounds coming from him are painful, animalistic and frighteningly aggressive.

Turning back, Scott doubles over in pain. He tears off his lacrosse gloves to reveal his sharpened claws.

Stiles keeps stepping away in fear, accidentally backing into a fire extinguisher against the wall.

The clang of metal causes Scott to whip his head around. But it’s no longer Scott under that helmet or behind those rage-filled yellow eyes.

He hurtles toward Stiles, rounding the corner of the lockers, jumping onto the wood bench and up as Stiles lifts the fire extinguisher and pulls the trigger, blasting CO2 from the nozzle. Scott’s clawed hands come up to shield his face, plumes of white surrounding him.

Darting around another corner, Stiles backs against the lockers, waiting for the next attack.

“Stiles?”

Slowly, Stiles peers around the locker row to see Scott on the floor, chest heaving with each difficult breath. He pulls the helmet off to reveal he’s back to normal. Face drenched with sweat.

“What happened?”

“You tried to kill me.”

Stiles drops the extinguisher to the floor. Still shaking and unable to conceal his anger at his friend.

“It’s like I told you. It’s the anger, your pulse rising. They’re all triggers.”

“But that’s lacrosse. It’s a pretty violent game if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Well, its gonna be a lot more violent if you end up killing someone on the field. You can’t play Saturday. You have to get out of the game.”

“But I’m first line.”

“Not anymore.”

—————

An emotionally and physically exhausted Scott tosses his school bag on the floor and falls face first onto the bed. Melissa McCall looks in.

“Late shift again for me, but I’m taking a night off to see your first game.”

“Mom, you can’t.”

“I can and I will. One shift won’t break us. Not completely. And what’s wrong with your eyes?”

Scott glances up in alarm.

“You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“Oh. It’s nothing. Just kind of stressed.”

“Just stress? Nothing else? You’re not on drugs or anything?”

“Right now?”

“Right now?! What do you mean right now? Have you ever taken drugs?”

“Have you?”

A question she clearly doesn’t want to answer.

“Get some sleep.”

Car keys in hand, Melissa leaves.

Scott drags himself up from the bed and hits the mouse on his computer. The moment it wakes, a web chat invitation from Stiles pops up. Scott hits accept and Stiles and James appeared in the voice call.

—————

As Scott pops up on my screen, Stiles spins around in his chair holding a nerf gun, shooting at the camera.

“You’re such a nerd Stiles,” I chide.

Defending himself, he mocks back. “You’re such a nerd Stiles”

Interrupting our tom-foolery, Scott asks, “What’d you find out?”

“It’s bad,” I warn, “Jackson’s got a separated shoulder.”

“Because of me?”

“Oh please,” Stiles says. “It’s because he’s a tool. It’s not your fault.”

“Is he going to play?”

Relaying what Coach told me earlier, I tell the boys “They don’t know yet. But now they’re all counting on you for Saturday.”

As Scott sighs, Stiles leans closer to the web cam window, squinting his eyes at it. He seems to be looking at something in Scott’s room.

“What?”

A text window pops up the screen and Stiles types:

It looks like--

Scott’s screen starts lagging and a notification comes up across his screen saying he has a bad connection. As I zoom in on Scott’s image trying to see what Stiles is talking about, I finally see it. A dark shadow is standing behind him in his room. Leaping from my chair, I run to Stiles room and slam open the door. Pulling up a chair next to him, I meet his face full of worry as Scott’s screen continues to load.

—————

The cursor turns into a spinning wheel, the computer momentarily hung up. Stiles’s web cam image freezes.

“Looks like what?”

A moment later, the cursor finally stops spinning and the rest of the text appears:

It looks like someone’s behind you.

Scott stops breathing. He doesn’t turn around.

Staying very still, his eyes move to his own image in the bottom corner of the web cam window. He slowly clicks the mouse, re-sizing the window, making it larger and larger until he sees his own reflected face, an expression of pure fear on it. And behind him a strange silhouette. Someone is standing there in the shadows of his room.

Scott spins around and Derek grabs him, yanking him away from the desk, sending the laptop clattering to the floor. Dragging him up, he slams Scott face first to the wall.

“I saw you on the field.”

”What? What are you talking--“

“You shifted in front of them. If they find out what you are, they find out about me. About all of us. Then it’s not just hunters after us. It’s everyone.”

“But they didn’t, didn't see anything. I swear--“

“And they won’t. Because if you try to play that game Saturday...” Derek comes terrifyingly close, right next to Scott’s ear.

“I’ll kill you myself.”

He pulls Scott from the wall and sends him tumbling across the room. When Scott looks up from the floor, Derek is gone.

The bedroom window lies open where he must have leapt with incredible speed, leaving Scott alone in his room. And shaking in fear...

—————

Tag List: @linkpk88 @mochminnie @im-a-stranger-thing @that-winged-rat @avengersgirl1221

70 notes · View notes

itsmeevie01 · 3 years

Text

A Moment in Time- Ch 11

MASTERPOST

wow, this took a while! in all honesty? it was the effort it took to get back inside Tim's head. moving on, please check the A/N at the end, for the rest of the going ons and comments on the...cannon compliance. or lack of, therefore. a warning? I threw cannon out the window before I started. oh! and this ch mentions kind of vague suicide? so, if that's a trigger, skip the headlines about Adrien. (don't worry, I haven't killed him..yet)

While Marinette was giving Adrien a heart attack, across the ocean, the girl was also giving Tim Drake one.

It had been almost 24 hours since he had heard from the very prompt Marinette. After their last email, he had gone to bed. When he had woken up the next day, he had lunged for his computer only to find that his inbox sat empty. When he had checked it again after his first coffee, Tim was again disappointed.

After that, he had set his inbox to notify him if something from his friend came in.

Now, as he sat in his car after work, Tim anxiously hovered his finger over the email icon. He had stayed late to distract himself and had fallen asleep at his desk. It was 11 at night, and his phone had gone off with a call from Alfred. The butler had been trying to get in contact with him, concerned that he had been kidnapped again.

Hesitantly, Tim thumbed his way into the drafts of his email and looked over the top one.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Marinette,

I apologize if you feel that I have overstepped in the past 24 hours. I truly did not intend to find out from Jason. I had intended to ask you when you came for the Gala.

I know that we usually average 2-3 emails a day, but I wanted to give you some space to process if you needed.

I look forward to you joining us in Gotham, in a few weeks. I know that with all that is going on with Hawkmoth, you must be relieved to leave the city for some time. Alfred will probably reach out, but I was wondering if there was anything we could do to make your stay more enjoyable? Times around the galas are always a bit hectic, and I don’t want to make your life any more difficult. On another side note, will you be traveling alone? International travel can be quite hectic, especially if you are flying somewhere new.

It turns out that my father’s company likes to throw curveballs, and I will be flying to Paris in the next week. If you have time, maybe we could sit down and talk?

I was reading back through our emails and realized that you may not have heard. Jason and Gina have left on some sort of adventure. The only thing that they said was that we should start checking Italian news. Do you have any idea what that may be about?

I hope to hear from you soon.

-Tim

P.S. is the offer for the super coffee recipes still open? Those coffees are sounding more and more appealing.

After hesitating one more time, Tim hit send and watched as the message disappeared from his screen. With a sigh, the teen turned his car on, and made his way out onto the late-night streets of Gotham.

When he rolled out of bed the next morning, Tim blindly reached for his phone. Before he could open his email and look for a message from Marinette, a notification caught his attention.

ITALIAN GANG EXPOSED AS ROOT OF GOTHAM DRUG ISSUE

Rolling his eyes, Tim opened that headline. There the story went into more detail and the young CEO was able to see his older brother’s fingerprints all over the discovery. At the end, it mentioned two ‘biker vigilantes’ who had ridden through town and mostly done what they could to defend those who needed help. The author noted that the duo was gone by the time the gang had been brought to justice. It was rumored that they had been the ones to take the gang down.

With a roll of his eyes, Tim sent Jason a screenshot of the story and a good job, before flipping to his email.

There, sitting at the top of his inbox was…nothing from Marinette. A frown worked its way onto Tim’s face as he refreshed his email again. When nothing came up, he moved to his computer. As he navigated to the French news site he had bookmarked Tim reminded himself that there were heroes in Paris and that there was nothing to worry about.

He quickly revised the thought as he looked at the top headline.

ADRIEN AGRESTE MISSING.

The next one read very similarly.

GABRIEL AGRESTE CLAIMS SON RAN AWAY! IS HE HIDING THE INNER BEGINNINGS OF SCANDAL?

With a click, Tim opened another news site based in Paris.

A MOTHER’S SUICIDE. A SON’S DISAPPEARANCE. A FATHER’S ABUSIVE NATURE. AN UNFILTERED LOOK AT THE AGRESTE HOUSEHOLD FROM AN INSIDE SOURCE.

Worry settled in the pit of Tim’s stomach. If there were legitimate news sources running this kind of thing, something must be going on. Marinette hadn’t mentioned anything about the boy, and most likely they weren’t friends. Hell, they probably didn’t even know the other existed. He tried to brush off the headlines as the media overdramatizing things again. However, his gut just wouldn’t let him.

With a sigh, Tim opened a separate tab and set up his computer desk for the long haul. He was going to dig into the Agreste kid. After he checked on Marinette.

It had been a lot easier to find what he was looking for than he expected. Within the first hour, Tim had tracked down the people Adrien was close to because of his father and moved onto the boy’s school friends. When he had pulled up the school the missing teen attended, Tim froze.

It was the same Lycée that Marinette attended.

In a flurry of typing, Tim pulled up the school records. There was Marinette. A few familiar faces. And then…there! in the same class was the missing blonde boy. As the young vigilante stared at the class roster, Tim felt his stomach sink. Adrien and Marinette were in the same class.

While Bruce had shrugged off the worry that Tim had, the teen knew that he had a valid concern. There was a sinking in his gut, a tightness that he couldn’t explain. All Tim knew was that this connection between Adrien Agreste and Marinette was going to change the situation in Paris, drastically.

It was at three in the morning when Tim’s email box binged.

The teen’s head was resting on the keys, his arms slack at his sides. On the screen, where the cursor was blinking a line of unintelligible letters was running. As the bing went off again, louder, and Tim jerked up in surprise and blinked owlishly at the screen.

He had begged off patrol in favor of looking into a ‘case’. He had spent the entire evening camped out at his desk digging further into all things Paris. On one window, he had the files he was compiling on the names that kept coming up, while in another he monitored three different news sites known to report on Akumas. In one of the windows that was hidden behind piles of rabbit holes, was a file with one line typed

MARINETTE DUPAIN-CHENG

As understanding ran over his face, Tim opened a new window and clicked into his email. There, waiting for him at the top of the inbox was an email from Marinette.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Tim,

I am so sorry that I disappeared! One of my friends had a family emergency and I have been spending time with him helping with the fine details.

I appreciate the apology, but I can’t really blame you when Jason was being an idiot. It feels good to know that you now understand why and how Jason and I know each other. As for my older brother, last I heard, he was coming back to Paris on his way to Germany. He promised to be back in Gotham in time for the annual Holiday Gala.

You mentioned that you were coming to Paris before the Gala? Is everything ok? I would enjoy meeting you if there is time. Of course, much of my schedule will be revolving around finals, so maybe an ice cream break would be in order? Let me know when you arrive, and we can make plans!

That reminds me, I won't be on my computer much and I've been enjoying talking with you. If you want, you can text me at XX-XXX-XXXX-XX.

Have a good day,

~Marinette

P.S. I was going to send you the coffee recipes, but it would be better if I gave them to you in person!

Tension ran out of Tim’s shoulders as he reread the email. Marinette was ok, she didn’t hate him. but, as the teen reread his friend's (were they friends?) email, he realized that there was something off with her email. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but the young vigilante chalked it up to his exhaustion.

With a sleepy smile, Tim clicked out of his email and stood from the desk. A moment later, he was tumbling into bed. For once, he was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

As Bruce Wayne climbed the stairs to the upper levels of the Manor, his eyes caught on a computer bag that had been left in a nook off the stairs. With a small smile, the billionaire picked up the bag and collected the notes that had been left from whenever Tim had last worked there. it was late, and the teen had begged off patrol tonight to work on his own projects in preparation for his trip to Paris. At this time in the early morning, it would be hit or miss whether he would still be awake. Many times, when Bruce would check on Tim, the teen was passed out at his desk or on his bed surrounded with projects.

Bruce knew that Tim was working himself to the bone before his trip to Paris. The teen had dug into the supervillain problem that Jared Stone’s niece had mentioned to him. Bruce really hoped that Tim hadn’t put together that Jason was related to the girl, because that could cause problems within the family. Not because of the actual connection, but the secrecy that he and Jason had used to handle it.

With sending Tim to Paris there was a certain media risk. The only reason that Bruce was willing to risk the media was the fact that his son was the most informed on the supervillain situation. That, and there was actual clean-up work that needed to be done after finding corruption in their Parisian office.

As the billionaire cracked open Tim’s door, a smile crossed the man’s face. The teen was curled up in bed, his desk cluttered with work, his computer still running. His shoes were kicked off to the side, and his skateboard was leaning against the wall by the closet door. At the end of the bed was his carry-on, open and partially packed. At the top of the bag, just visible from the door was a box that had been wrapped. In Tim’s (surprisingly elegant) script was the name ‘Marinette’. Bruce studied the box for a moment, before shaking his head and nothing to ask Tim in the morning.

Leaving the door cracked, Bruce stepped into the space and put his son’s bag and cacophony of papers on the top of his dresser, where he would look when it was time for him to pack his bags in the morning. With one last glance at the sleeping teen, Bruce closed the door to let the boy sleep.

Skater Tim? Skater Tim.

hiiiiiiiii! I'm back! what did you think of the look back into Gotham? I wanted to do something that would look at things from outside the little bubble of Mari and Tim, so we got some Bruce time. am I keeping Bruce as a good dad? yes, I am. I think that *technically* Tim didn't get adopted (I looked it up, but dudes, I got every version of yes and no out there. if ANYONE KNOWS FOR SURE, LET ME KNOW.). ANYWAYS I decided that I was throwing out any and all cannon early on, so if you know what the official version is, lmk, but it's really only so that I have references to work off of for character references.

now that we are expanding the miracusquad, should Tim get a Miraculous? which one? also, the reason that Mari is kinda...distant, is because she is planning on how to kick hawkmoth's ass.

Luka is getting his miraculous soon! will I actually follow cannon for once? Nobody knows!

tag list! @moonlitceleste @redscarlet95 @ultimatetornshipper @mochegato @liquid-luck-00 @maskedpainter @trippingovermyfeet @nathleigh @m0chick0furan @susiej1118 @t1dwarrior-of-earth @sassakitty @remy-289 @solangelo252 @corporeal-terrestrial @woe-is-me0 @toodaloo-kangaroo

#a moment in time fic #maribat #timari #sibling!jasonette #timinette #Chaotic Marinette #cat miraculous! Marinette #cat!marinette #My writing #im back!!!!!#hiiiiiiiiii its been so long #and tim is going to paris

53 notes · View notes

dearlybelovedluke · 4 years

Text

Late Night Shopping - H.C

Summary: Henry giving off some sugar daddy vibes

Word Count: 1529

Warnings: fluff, slight suggestion?

A/N: Hi! Sorry I haven’t posted in a bit! I finished my undergraduate a few weeks ago and now in quarantine I’ve had writers block but I am back writing now with more ideas and am super excited to share them! For the next four months or so I should be writing more often! This is something that I had written before but I wanted to change it to Henry just like I did for Nightmares so uh yeah! Enjoy!

Also thanks to @littlefreya for encouraging me to keep writing when I felt like I couldn’t!!

Taglist:

@romyr4 @littlefreya @magdelen69 @scorpionchild81 omgkatinka @klaine-92 @radaofrivia @snatchedbylele @strangerliaa

Lying in bed waiting for Henry to come to bed, you were doing some online shopping, well browsing, see what was worth the price at Victoria Secret. You had the money, but considering the whole pandemic, you didn’t think it was a great idea ordering everything that you liked online, and besides going into the store was way more fun, especially when you could come home right away and tease Henry with it. So adding it to your basket to save it for later was the best thing to do for right now. The sets were nice, but a light pink one caught your eye. The lace and small jewels that were embedded in all the right places were just what you needed in your collection. The set distracted you from noticing Henry crawling into bed until his arms snaked around your waist, pressing light kisses on your shoulder to your neck. He stopped when he saw the website you were on. "Little late night shopping?" he hummed as he pulled you further into his lap, pressing his lips back on your neck.

“You like it?” You giggled, as your cursor moved over the add to cart button. “Do I like it?” He growled out softly before playfully biting your neck. “If you don’t order it now, we’ll have a problem,” he whispered, as he let his hands start to roam your body slowly. A giggle slipped from your lips and you slightly and turn, meeting his lips in a short passionate kiss before turning back to your laptop, adding more items to get a reaction out of him. He starts leaving more small kisses, which begin to turn into small nips along your neck and shoulder. His lips rest on your favorite spot on your neck, sucking it gently, before pressing a small bite into it as he watched sets and individual panties and bras get added to the cart. Finally, you pushed the laptop off your lap and closed it, before turning and settling on his lap with your arms around his neck.

“what are you doing?” he asked, confusion clear in his face. You shrugged gently before, before moving to take his face into your hands. “You can’t just leave kisses like that and expect me not to want anything else,” you said leaning in slowly, tilting your head.

“what about what you added to the basket?”

You leaned back a bit watching your boyfriend, as he runs one hand through his curls on the side of his head, while moving the other to land on your waist, to pull you closer. “I’m not getting them, you said, starting to lean in once more.

“why not”

You huffed pulling back once more. “Are we gonna keep talking about this or can we make out for a bit before going to bed?”

“Why aren’t you getting them?” You shake your head at your boyfriend. “we’re in the middle of a pandemic right now, I don’t need them.” “so? Don’t you want anything special?” “I have a billion special things, I don’t need any more” you sigh, before running a finger along his hairline, down his face. “I’m happy with you here”

“Underwear is important though” he reasons slyly. You shake your head, letting out a small chuckle. “What’s the point? whenever you are home, you are insatiable so there’s no point of me wearing them.”

“But I love seeing you in it, and I love taking you out of it. Besides if we don’t order it now, who knows when it will come in and when this will all be over. I won’t be able to see you in it for a long time” he says, before pouting softly. “So I think you should order it now so we can enjoy it without interruptions” he whispers, leaning down pressing more kisses into your shoulder, before moving up your neck. “You tilt your head back, giving him more access. Feeling the grin across his lips, you feel him whisper “order it, before I have to leave again.”

You pull away from where his lips made their trail, and plant a kiss near his ear, “Lauren won't bring you back until its absolutely safe, so I’ll have time to go and buy underwear before you leave” you chuckle into his ear. He pulls back, leaning his forehead on yours.

“You’re still going to need underwear.”

“I have enough” you shrug, struggling to hide the smirk from your lips.

“Not if I start ripping them,” he says with a small smirk and a challenging eyebrow, his hands teasing your hips, where your favourite pair of panties were sitting. you pull back even further, shooting him a look. “If you dare think about ripping any of them, I promise you won't see any new underwear. Ever again.” “You wouldn’t” he challenges. “You wanna find out?”

He holds eye contact for a good minute before realizing that ripping underwear is not a smart plan to get the new lace underwear in the house since his chances of seeing it may actually drop. He drops his shoulders slightly, causing you to smirk. “Then don’t threaten my underwear,” you smile innocently, pressing a kiss to his lips. He pulls away, gently before you see something in his eyes.

“fine you don’t want to buy them, I’ll order them,” he grins, before moving slightly, causing you to wrap your arms around him tightly to stop him from moving. “No, I don’t want them right now.” You say, pulling his face closer. His eyes light up. “So you do want them?”

“seriously Henry, I don’t need them, I have that other set you like,” you say again, trailing your finger around the neckline of his shirt, teasing the skin underneath.

“Yeah but that’s from Valentines”

“So?”

“you need a new spring one,” he tries to reason like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Besides, I think you’d look absolutely out of this world in it, especially that pretty pink lace.” He growls softly, watching you blush slightly. Even though you had been together for a year, he still could make you blush like a schoolgirl. He sits himself up properly, pulling back a little, his smile stretching wider before you see the glint in his eyes.

“Henry, no,” you say shaking your head at whatever he’s about to do. “Henry yes,” he says, nodding his head slowly, the grin stretching to his ears. “henr-ahh” you are interrupted by Henry leaning forward and dumping you off his lap before rolling out of the bed, grabbing the laptop, and his wallet off the bedside table. "Henry" you whine as you struggled to get out of bed, chasing him into the bathroom. As you reached the door you heard the lock turn and his laughter from the inside. "Only the best for my baby girl" he called back.

"I don't even know if those are the right sizes. Don’t order them"

"I know your size darling, and you deserve a treat," he calls back through the door.

"How? all you do it take them off me. And that treat is more for you, and you know it" you sighed in defeat, hoping that he will listen to you. You hear the door unlock and a second later he popped his head out enough so he could see you standing with your hands on your hips, his t-shirt hanging off your body covering the pair of panties he also deemed as his favorite. You both knew that there was no way, you would be able to push the door open, get past him and grab the laptop.

"You seem to forget who bought all of your Valentine's presents" he winks before disappearing back into the washroom, only to open the door a minute later holding your laptop out to you. You sighed as the order confirmation sat on the screen. “It’s like I’m your sugar daddy” he winks before letting out a deep chuckle, sitting on the edged of the bed.

He watches you close the laptop, placing it on your dresser. He notices the slightly annoyed face, reflecting off the mirror perched behind the dresser and walks over to you, wrapping his arms around you, pulling you into his chest. "I love you" he mumbled into your ear, before looking into your eyes through the large mirror. “I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy with you. Not from you spending your money on me,” you sighed softy.

“Well it will make me very happy seeing it on you”, he says, a sly grin forming on his face, “so think of it more like a present for me from myself,” he says with a goofy grin, before shooting a playful wink. “I love you” he whispers again, kissing your cheek. Letting out another small sigh, you turn in his arms, wrapping your arms around his neck, and pulling him in. "Skip your run tomorrow morning and we’ll be good,” you tease slightly. “and what cardio with I do instead?” He grins wolfishly. “Me” you whisper, before pressing your lips to his. “I love you too shithead"

#henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill imagine #henry cavill blurb #henry cavill x reader

254 notes · View notes

cocastyle · 4 years

Text

Change - Ch. 2 | O N E

Pairing - Bill Denbrough x reader

Word Count - 13,258

A/N - super long beginning chapter for this half of the series but one hundred percent necessary! I didn’t want to split up the part where each person gets their phone calls, so I decided to make it one long chapter to kick the second movie rewrite off. I am beyond excited for what’s to come and I really hope you all enjoy this rewrite!

if you would like to be added to the tag list for this series let me know!

C H A N G E

Change Series Masterlist

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

O N E - Beginning of the End

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

Memory. It's a funny thing.

People want to believe they are what they choose to remember—the good stuff, the moments, the places, the people we all hold onto. But sometimes. . .sometimes we are what we wish we could forget.

The thing is sometimes what we wish was forgotten, what we tried to leave in the past, won't stay there. Sometimes it comes back for you.

- - -

Bill Denbrough stared blankly at his computer screen, watching as the cursor blinked repeatedly as he had yet to type a word other than the setting which was 'attic' on the paper. A copy of his latest book titled The Attic Room sat beside his computer, little slips of paper sticking out from different pages he had marked down and made notes on.

A knock on his trailer door was what finally snapped the man out of his thoughts, lifting his head in the direction of the door in a tired manner as if he wasn't quite sure if the knock was real or not. When the door suddenly opened up, Bill was quick to sit up and nod his head forward, the action causing his glasses to fall from his forehead and back onto his nose as he pretended to be typing away. "Mr. Denbrough," a soft voice said and Bill glanced over to see a woman a little younger than him with short blonde hair and a headset, "they need you on set."

It took all of Bill's willpower not to look at all surprised when he was practically screaming inside of his head. Already? Hadn't he only just sat down to write? How long had he been sitting there? Glancing at his watch, Bill swallowed thickly once he realized he had been sitting there for hours now, the day already almost over by now.

Bill could feel the woman's eyes still on him and he was quick to plaster a fake smile on his face as he looked to her and gave her a short nod. That seemed to be enough of an answer for her and she disappeared outside leaving Bill to collect his things as he tiredly took his glasses off his face.

His eyes instantly flickered to his computer and he put both hands on his face before dragging them down with a small sigh. Bill reached out and shut the computer without another thought about it and grabbed the computer and copy of his book before hurrying out of his trailer where the woman was waiting for him.

"We're just going to go this way," the woman said as she began to walk Bill towards one of the many buildings on the Warner Bros property.

Bill was trying his best not to seem as nervous as he was, gripping onto his book and computer tight enough with one hand that his other could relax peacefully by his side. He felt queasy and for a moment he wondered if he was going to be sick. He hadn't felt this nervous in a long time and Bill thought to himself about the last time he had been this nervous if not more.

For just a second it was like a image of startling e/c eyes flashed through his head, but it had vanished before he could grasp it. The image was gone as quick as it had came and Bill had no clue what he had even been thinking about in the first place.

A small frown began to make its way onto Bill's face, but it was quickly replaced by a panicked look once he saw the garage door to the set beginning to fall closed. His eyes widened and he jogged past the woman who shouted after him, but he ignored her and was quick to slide under the door just as it was closing.

"Hey, use the door!" a man exclaimed as he pointed towards the regular door that Bill could've easily walked through. "Come on! You never seen Indiana Jones?" Bill questioned, his eyebrows furrowing at the man. It had only been a joke, something to get his heart bumping in an excited and adventurous way instead of the nervous beating his heart had encountered moments before.

"Watch it!" another voice exclaimed and Bill was quick to stop in his tracks as a man walked past him with a container of props rolling across the floor. Bill shook his head slightly, already overwhelmed, and began to make his way across the room and over to where he assumed the director would be.

"Hey, hey, you a member?" a man asked, but Bill was barely able to register what he said as he walked past him. "Hmm? I'm. . .the writer," Bill finally managed to get out before he walked onto set.

Instead of finding the director, Bill was met with another sight that made him even more uncomfortable then he already was. "Bill," Audra Phillips, the leading lady of the movie who also happened to be his ex-wife, greeted him. "Hey."

He had been married to Audra for eight years before the two had ended things a year back. In all honesty, Bill wasn't quite sure why he had married the woman in the first place. He had thought he loved her, but the moment she had asked for a divorce he could only describe having felt one emotion—relief. Their marriage hadn't ended badly and there had been no problems. It was just two people simply falling out of love with each other. Audra had even started to date a co-star she had met a few months back and Bill was happy for her. After all, he had come to the realization that Audra wasn't the girl for him. He had a feeling like there was someone out there for him and the crazy thing was that he felt like he had already met her, but that she was lost. Weird, right?

Bill and Audra weren't exactly friends per say and only saw each other as business partners, knowing that neither one would be able to survive in their business without a mutual agreement between the two. However, Bill still couldn't help but think about how much he hated having to work the same movie with her.

"Do you have the pages?" Audra questioned, snapping Bill out of his thoughts as she took a step closer to him, her eyes staring intently at him in both a questioning and alarmed manner. Bill hesitated and it was then that Audra's eyes widened. However, neither got a chance to say anything before the director was suddenly lowering his seat down in between the two, his gaze on Bill.

"My friend," the director Peter began, looking to Bill in exasperation, "a film needs an ending. You do know that right?" "Oh, yeah," Bill replied, looking to Peter in slight disbelief. However, he couldn't blame him for asking. Bill had a tendency to procrastinate when it came to writing especially when it was something like this where they wanted him to change the ending of his book.

"You said that you needed another day to finish the pages and we're shooting this thing. It's tonight," Audra told him, her eyes still on Bill as she spoke in an accusing tone. "It's been seventeen hours," Bill muttered, but no one seemed to be listening to him.

"Everybody calm down, okay?" Peter said, his eyes flickering between the two as if he were afraid they would begin to fight. Despite their business agreement, Audra and Bill had been known to argue on more than one occasion and it was obvious Peter did not want to see another one of those. "I'm calm," Bill told him, unsure as to where Peter could see any hostility in what he was saying.

"I want you to be happy with the movie, you understand? I'm on your side," Peter insisted. "That's. . .that's great. Cause in my book the ending-" Bill began. "Is terrible," Peter finished with no regret or hesitation. Bill blinked in surprise and looked to the director with furrowed eyebrows. "With all due respect, people love your book. Love! But they hated the ending."

"You said you liked the ending," Bill said, looking a little defeated as he studied the man in front of him. Did people really hate his endings? "That was a lie," Peter told him bluntly while Audra glanced to Bill in a way that seemed to hold just a tad bit of sympathy. "We got to do better, okay?" Bill was hesitant before looking down at the ground and nodding his head. "Yeah," he breathed out, although he wasn't sure what to think.

"Audra, you have my notes. Could you-?" Peter questioned as he gestured towards Bill causing the man to look up and over at Audra in surprise while she nodded in response. "Thank you very much. Could you take me back to-"

Before Bill could even hear the rest of his sentence, Peter was gone and back into the film leaving Bill and Audra standing there. "You have his notes?" Bill finally questioned, turning to look at his ex wife in disbelief. “He's not wrong," Audra sighed. "You hate my endings too?" Bill asked surprised, having never heard in their eight years of marriage that she hated his endings. In fact, she had praised him on multiple occasions. Had a year of them not being married changed her perspective that much?

"Not all your endings. This just-" Audra admitted while Bill's eyes widened and he turned to walk away. Audra was quick to follow after him, knowing that he had to get the pages done in order for this movie to be finished. "What? Do you want me to keep lying to you just because we used to-" "Be married?" Bill questioned as he looked back at the women. "No, no. You just. . .you been blowing smoke up my ass for eight years? I guess I thought you were someone else."

"I have not been blowing smoke up your ass," Audra said, a look of anger crossing her face as she stopped beside Bill who was at the catering table.

"Everybody wants a happy ending. Everybody wants closure, but it's not the way life works out," Bill insisted, hesitating slightly as he felt his heart ache. For a moment he thought he felt something poking his brain, a memory begging to be let out. But it was gone just as fast as the image from earlier and he was already forgetting about it.

"I think what Peter wants and what the studio wants-" Audra began only for Bill to snap his head in her direction. "The studio?" he questioned, even more surprised than before now that he knew that everyone seemed to be talking about his book and how much the ending sucked. "When did you become the company? You're an artist. Come on. What's wrong with doing it the way it's written? The way I want it? What's wrong with being the woman I want you to be?"

Audra's eyes widened a little in anger and she gritted her teeth before saying, "Fuck you, Bill!"

"On the page," Bill sighed, not having meant it the way Audra was taking it, but it seemed the woman didn't care. "The part I mean. Not you. I don't even care about you in that way." Audra's eyes widened even more in anger and Bill swore she was about to slap him. "Shit, that came out wrong."

Bill's cell ringing was what finally saved him from himself and he went to fish his phone out of his pocket while Audra sent a glare at him before walking away. He didn't even bother yelling after her for he knew there was no point. She wouldn't want to listen and they would just end up arguing more than they just had.

Turning back to the food table so that Bill wouldn't have to acknowledge the eyes that were staring at him from all around the movie set, the man glanced at his phone to see that it was a call coming from Derry, Maine. Bill got that same feeling once again, like there was something he was missing, but he pushed it aside and instead exited out of one of the back doors so that he woundn't disrupt filming.

"Hello?" Bill questioned as he put the phone to his ear, confused as to who could be calling him that lived in Derry, Maine. "Bill Denbrough?" a deep voice said, a voice that Bill did not recognize at all. "It's Mike." Bill furrowed his eyebrows, still not knowing who this person was. "Mike who?" Bill asked.

"Mike Hanlon."

It took Bill a moment to even register what the man had said and it was in that moment that he stopped in his tracks. The nervousness he had felt earlier about talking to Peter and Audra was nothing compared to the feeling he was suddenly getting.

It was like his whole body had gone cold, so cold in fact that he was numb to all other sensations. All he could hear was a ringing in his ears before it was quickly overpowered by his heartbeat that had begun to race so fast despite Bill not knowing why. His breathing picked up its pace ever so slightly and Bill didn't even register his hand which had started to shake as it held onto his phone.

Fear, that was what he felt. But for what? He was unsure.

"From Derry."

And it was then that Bill was brought back to reality, wincing slightly as he suddenly got a flashback of a young dark skinned boy smiling at him. He had to have been thirteen years old and the image of the boy plus the name Mike Hanlon and the connection of Derry were enough for Bill to remember who it was he was talking to.

How had he been able to forget about Mike? They had been best friends up until the day Bill had moved away and for a moment Bill remembered having promised to keep in touch with Mike only to realize he never had. Now why was that?

A few more memories flashed through Bill's head and it felt as if he couldn't breath as he remembered his thirteen year old self sitting in a circle with the people who had all been his best friends—Stanley Uris, Mike Hanlon, Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, and Y/N Uris.

Bill felt like he had just gotten a punch to the gut at that last name, his eyes widening as he suddenly saw an image of Y/N Uris standing before him in a field. Her h/c hair blowing gently in the wind, her e/c eyes glistening under the rays of the sun while she sent him one of those effortless smiles of hers that used to make him feel as if he were going to have a heart attack.

You make me happy, Bill Denbrough.

Y/N Uris.

Now how the hell could he forget about her?

Before Bill could think of her much longer, his hand suddenly began to flare up in pain. The man winced and was quick to look down at his hand and at a scar that ran along his palm, a scar that he didn't remember having until that very moment. And all he could do was stare at the scar while Mike's voice rang in his ear.

"You need to come home."

- - -

"Eddie, I keep telling you not to scare me like this and you never listen to me," Myra Kaspbrak complained over the speaker of the car while a shaky hand reached for the glove compartment to pull out a container of pills.

"Alright, Myra!" Eddie Kaspbrak exclaimed, knowing that there was no other way to gain the attention of his wife unless his voice was louder than hers. He held the bottle of pills up to his lips and was quick to dump his doctor prescribed amount into his mouth. "Please not now."

"You shouldn't be out there," Myra insisted while Eddie huffed in annoyance low enough that she couldn't hear. "Eddie, it's not safe to drive when the roads are slick like this."

"Sweetheart, it stopped raining like three hours ago, alright? Everything's going to be fine," Eddie assured her before the honking of a cab gained his attention. The man was quick to look out the window and yell, "Hey, dickhead! Slow traffic mean anything to you?"

"What if you hydroplane?" Myra continued, ignoring Eddie's yells. "I'm not going to hydroplane," Eddie insisted, already feeling himself becoming more and more tense behind the wheel. He was trying to keep himself calm, but that was hard. How had he ever been able to calm his younger self down when there are people like Myra always yelling at him?

Taking in a deep breath, Eddie managed to keep his voice steady long enough to reply, "It is my job to assess risks so please trust me when I tell you that statistically speaking I am much more likely to get into an accident because I am talking to you on the phone! Alright? I have to go. I will talk to you soon. Goodbye."

Eddie didn't even give Myra time to respond before he was ending the call and he let out a small sigh of relief once it was over. However, he had barely even gotten the sigh out before his phone was ringing again.

Eddie was quick to press the answer button and, thinking it was a client, he said, "Edward Kaspbrak speaking." "You didn't say 'okay, bye, I love you' like you usually do," Myra's voice came through the speaker once again.

Eddie had to resist the urge to scream as he said, "Listen to me! I can't! I'm going to be late to this-" His phone began to ring again and he glanced down at the screen before falling quiet, his eyes locking onto the caller ID which read Derry, Maine. "-meeting."

Eddie felt as if someone had dunked a bucket of ice cold water on him, the cold seeping all the way down to his bones and making his whole body ache. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and for the first time in a while he had the sudden urge to use his inhaler.

He was afraid, but what of?

But then he saw a flash of an image, a boy with thick rimmed glasses grinning at him as he nudged his side with his elbow. And then he was hearing a voice that didn't belong to the boy with glasses whisper into his ear, soft and so familiar despite the fact that he couldn't pinpoint why he remembered it.

Eds.

He had never been called Eds before to his knowledge, having always hated it since he was a child. So why did he suddenly hear a young girl's voice whispering it into his ear? And why was that enough to calm him down and make his fear disappear?

"Say 'I love you,' Eddie," Myra insisted, but Eddie was barely listening to her, his gaze still focused on the caller ID. "Okay. I love you, Mommy," Eddie muttered as if in a trance. "What?" Myra's voice said and that was enough to have Eddie snap out of it.

"Myra," he corrected before going to end the call. "Bye." Eddie didn't even hesitate to answer the call from Derry, but when it got to speaking, he found himself hesitating longer than he should've for an unknown reason.

"Hello?" Eddie finally said, his eyes staring warily at the screen as if that would answer all of his unknown questions. "Who is this?"

"It's me. Mike," a voice replied and Eddie gulped, his eyes still on the screen. "Mike who?" Eddie questioned nervously. He was too focused on the screen to notice that he ran a red light until honking was heard and a yellow cab hit the car from the side. Eddie's car came to a screeching stop as all air bags went off.

"Eddie, you okay?" Mike asked in a panic after hearing the crash from the other side of the line.

From under the air bag, Eddie's voice croaked out. "Yeah, I'm pretty good," Eddie replied although he had a feeling he was going to be anything but okay after this phone call.

- - -

Richie Tozier gripped onto the metal stair railing the best that he could as he puked over the side and onto the ground below. His whole body was shaking as he stood there feeling colder than he had ever felt before yet sweating to the point where his glasses began to slide down his nose.

He was sick once more over the side of the railing before he managed to glance at his phone which he had been on only moments before to answer a call from Derry, Maine. He hadn't known what to expect when answering it and had honestly thought either a fan had found his number or someone was calling to try and book him.

However nothing could prepare him for Mike Hanlon to be on the other end, a name he hadn't heard of in years and a boy he hadn't heard from in just as long. He hadn't even remembered the boy until Mike had said his full name, the name jogging something in Richie's mind as he remembered the homeschooler he used to be friends with.

It was then that Richie remembered the rest of his best friends who had all dawned the group name of the Losers Club and Richie realized he hadn't thought of them in what seemed like forever. In fact, he couldn't even remember half of the things they did together, but as the minutes ticked by he slowly began to remember his best friends who he had joked and messed around with until he was pretty sure the memories had gotten too much for him that he had been sick.

It had to be the memories, right? What else could it be?

"What the fuck?" a voice exclaimed behind him causing the man to stand up and look to see his manager standing at the door that led back into the club. "You were fine like five seconds ago. Who was it? Who called?"

Richie couldn't bring himself to say anything, his whole body still shaking violently as he gripped onto the metal railing. Why did he suddenly have a feeling like something was wrong? Was it because Mike told him he needed to come home? Was it because he felt guilty for having forgotten about the very friends he used to swear he would never forget about?

"Rich?" his manager said and for a moment Richie swore he heard the nickname said in what he distantly remembered as Eddie Kaspbrak's voice. "Rich?" there it was again, but this time it sounded like a girl. It took merely a second for Richie to identify it as Y/N Uris and he swore he grew paler, but why?

"Talk to me," his manager said and it was then that Richie began to snap out of it and stood up taller as he knew that neither Eddie or Y/N were here or even still thirteen years old. "You're on in two minutes," his manger announced as he handed Richie a rag which he quickly used to wipe his mouth. "You good? Cause you look not good."

In all honesty, Richie wasn't sure if he was good or not. He had forgotten about his best friends. Mike Hanlon had called telling him he needed to come home without any explanation why. His hand hurt like a bitch because of some scar he didn't remember having. And he had a sickening feeling in his gut which he could only describe as fear. But fear of what exactly?

"I'm fine," Richie insisted, quickly leaving the alleyway and walking back into the club. He couldn't think about Derry or the Losers any more especially not when he was supposed to be doing a show. Mike would just have to wait.

"You're fine? Good. Okay. And we're walking and we're walking," his manager muttered as he quickly stepped into line by Richie's side. "Sixty seconds," a stage manager announced to the pair. "Even faster," his manager said as he ushered Richie to pick up his pace, but Richie was struggling to even stand up right at this point. "Could you get him a bottle of water maybe?"

"Bourbon," Richie corrected, knowing he would need something a lot stronger to get through the show. "Bourbon?" his manager questioned before realizing Richie was serious and nodding to the stage manager to go. "Sure. Sure." "And a mint," Richie muttered as he grimaced at the taste in his mouth.

"Showtime," his manager said as they got closer to the stage, but Richie shook his head in distress. "I don't think I can do this," Richie admitted, feeling sicker by the second. His manager began to grumble behind him, but Richie was barely paying attention as someone was suddenly handing him a glass of bourbon and a container of mints. "That was fast."

Richie downed the drink almost instantly before popping multiple mints in his mouth. Knowing he had a crowd waiting for him, Richie took in a deep breath before walking over to the door that lead to the stage but that actually happened to be the emergency exit.

"This way," his manager corrected him, directing the man down a different hallway and through a different door. "Attaboy. Okay." "Alright, how do I look?" Richie questioned, his hands violently shaking the glass and a container of mints in his hands while he forced a smile onto his face.

His manager grimaced slightly and stared at Richie for a moment before sighing, "Yeah, your hands are shaking, Rich." Richie blinked in surprise before looking down at his hands to find that they were in fact shaking. "Shit," he muttered before quickly shoving the two items into his manager's hands. It was too late to do anything else, so the man began to walk towards the stage, slowly breathing in and out to try and calm his nerves.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Please welcome Richie Tozier!"

Richie was quick to put on a fake smile and raise his hand as he walked out on stage. The crowd began to clap and cheer, a sound that usually made Richie feel at home but tonight made him feel more alone and uncomfortable than ever.

Cursing himself slightly, Richie walked over to the microphone in the middle of the stage and took in a deep breath before smiling at the audience and beginning his routine, ignoring the slight shake of his hands that he was desperately trying to control.

"Alright, how we doin' today?" Richie questioned earning a roar of cheering from the audience. It was obvious that they couldn't tell he was nervous and that put Richie a little bit at ease.

"So my girlfriend caught me uh masterbating to her friend's Facebook page and uh. . .so now I'm in masterbaters anonymous," Richie said, reciting the lines he had read off of a script for the first time the night before. The crowd seemed to like it and laughed and that laughter only made Richie feel more at ease.

"And I stand up at the first meeting and I say 'my name is Richie Trashmouth-'" Richie stopped abruptly, his whole demeanor changing as he accidentally said the nickname that he been bestowed upon him when he was younger. He hadn't even remembered the nickname up until it slipped from his mouth. Where had that come from?

Oh okay, trash the trash-mouth, I get it, he distantly heard his thirteen year old voice say in his head although he couldn't remember why he was saying that or to whom.

In a blink of an eye the memory was gone and Richie could do nothing but stand there on stage with a blank expression, the joke completely gone from his head. In fact, he couldn't even seem to remember the rest of the script he had spent hours practicing.

"Trashmouth uh. . .I forgot the joke," Richie admitted while a whistle was heard from the crowd. Before long people had started to whisper, some even booed before a woman yelled out, "You suck!" Richie faked a smile at that before looking down at his feet. He was suddenly overcome with another wave of nausea and Richie couldn't help but think back to the phone call with Mike.

What the fuck had that phone call done to him?

- - -

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for letting us present to you today," an employee of Hanscom & Associates said, his eyes flickering over the table before him before he gestured towards the building model on the table in front of them. "Now this will include over a million square feet of commercial and residential space-"

"What I'm really looking for is to understand how we create even more retail opportunities," another man at the table explained, his gaze steady and calculating. "If we put in walls here and all along here-“

"Lose them," a new voice said causing everyone in the room to look to the television screen which held a video conference call with the owner of the company himself. "With all due respect, Mr. Hanscom," the original man began, but Ben Hanscom was quick to correct him.

"Ben," he insisted as he leaned back a little in the office chair he had at home. "And with all due respect, I'm getting claustrophobic just looking at this model, aren't you? Look throw up more walls, it's gonna feel like a prison. You know what people want to do in prison? Get out, right? This should be a place that brings people together. A meeting ground."

Ben's eyes flickered down to his wallet and he gently reached for it before opening it up, his fingers brushing against an old folded piece of paper that was slightly sticking out with cursive handwriting just beginning to peak out behind the leather.

Ben rested his fingers against the paper and looked up thoughtfully as an image of a wooden room filled his thoughts, laughter of children echoing in his head as he distantly remembered a group of kids that had changed his life forever.

"Clubhouse," he whispered, his eyes glazing over as he got lost in thought. "And if, while people are there then-"

A small buzz pulled the man out of his thoughts and he trailed off as he looked to his right and at his phone sitting beside him. He froze at the sight of a number calling from Maine.

It was like time stood still and he was sure his face paled. For some reason he felt a sense of dread wash over him, like something was nagging at the back of his head telling him to either ignore the call completely and never think of it again or drop everything just to answer it.

He didn't know why, but it felt like his throat was beginning to close up, his heart thumping a little faster while a prickling feeling started from his toes before moving up the rest of his body. For the first time in Ben didn't know how long, he felt scared. But why? It was only a phone call? What was there to fear?

"Excuse me for one second," Ben said as he looked back at his computer before quickly pausing the video conference. "Hello?" Ben said as he stood up, his voice shaky although he wasn't sure why.

"Ben? It's Mike Hanlon from Derry."

- - -

Beverly Marsh awoke with a jolt, the feeling of something wet against her cheek being enough to wake her almost instantly. However, when she went to rub her cheek, there was nothing there. Frowning, Beverly stared up at the ceiling with a blank expression on her face but was quickly startled once again when her phone began to buzz beside her.

The red head snapped her head in the phone's direction, her eyebrows furrowing at the sight of someone from Maine calling her, and was quick to pick up her phone and rush to the kitchen as to not wake up her husband.

It wasn't long before she was sitting at her kitchen table, the voice of one of her childhood best friends Mike Hanlon ringing in her ears. "You made a promise, Beverly," Mike said almost sadly, but Beverly could barely register it. She was still getting an overwhelming amount of sudden memories flashing through her head, memories she had thought she had forgotten.

She tried to grasp onto the memories, but each time she did they would disappear back to the depths of her mind just out of reach. It was like she was remembering, but not at the same time. She felt as if there were things she was forgetting, fragments of her past missing from her mind. Although she barely remembered anything from her past up until Mike had called, so why was she worried about it?

"I-I'm so sorry, Mike," Beverly sighed, shaking slightly as she hugged her body with her free arm. She wasn't sure why she was so cold all of a sudden or why she felt like her heart was in her throat. Why was she so afraid? She was only talking to Mike. "I don't even really remember."

"Haven't you ever wondered why you can't seem to remember the things most people should? About where they're from? About who you are?" Mike questioned and Beverly swallowed thickly for she knew exactly what Mike was talking about. People had asked her before about her past, but she had never been able to answer them. It was like part of her life was missing from her mind and she had no idea why.

"Why you have that scar on your hand?" Mike questioned once Beverly didn't respond and that was enough to have the red head freeze. She shakily held her hand out, her eyes locking on the scar that ran across the palm of her hand. She had barely even stared at it for a second before she suddenly felt a searing pain grow where the scar was.

"No one else remembered either. Eddie, Bill, Richie, Ben," Mike listed off all while Beverly stared at her hand. But at the mention of the last name, she couldn't help but freeze.

"Ben," she whispered almost in a daze for she hadn't heard that name in a long time. At least not when referring to the boy she used to be best friends with. For a moment she remembered a field and walking along a small path with Ben by her side, the shy boy hesitantly brushing his fingers against her own before Beverly had smiled and taken his hand in hers.

"You have to come back," Mike said, his words finally snapping out of her thoughts long enough for her to look away from her scarred hand and outside at the pouring rain. "You all do."

Beverly got that sinking feeling in her stomach once again, her whole body chilled down to the bone. "When?" she breathed out, her voice barely above a whisper.

It wasn't long before Beverly was off the phone and packing her bags. Her nerves were haywire causing her to frantically rush around while her thoughts jumbled around in her brain. She couldn't even think straight, so it didn't even register to her just how loud she was being until she had grabbed her packed bag and was going to leave her closet only to find her husband standing there.

Beverly jumped back out of pure fright, her eyes wide before she registered that it was her husband standing before her and not—

The red head's thoughts stopped instantly in their tracks. Whatever she had thought was waiting for her was gone and for a moment she wondered what she had been expecting and why she couldn't remember.

"Woah, you okay?" her husband questioned causing the red head to snap back to reality as she looked to him. "What's going on? It's uh. . .the middle of the night and you're packing?"

Beverly was quick to lean up and peck her husband's lips once as she began to walk past him. "I didn't want to wake you," Beverly admitted. "Honey, I know this week's been really exhausting. I just got a phone call from an old friend from Derry. I have to go back there. It's really hard to explain why."

"It's okay," he assured her as he walked over to where she was currently sitting on their bed tying her shoes. He sat down next to her, his face completely blank of emotion, but his voice soft. "You don't have to explain yourself to me. Relax." He reached out and gently took Beverly's hand in his own. "I trust you."

"Thank you," Beverly sighed as she leaned forward and kissed the man once more. She went to get up and grab her bag, but she barely got a step away before her husband was gripping onto her wrist tightly, his fingers digging into her arm hard enough to make the woman wince.

Beverly froze, a sickening feeling growing in her stomach once again but this time the fear was directed at her husband. She slowly turned to look at the man who was staring at the ground shaking his head.

"I just don't understand why you'd lie to me," he said before he looked up at Beverly with an accusing glare. Beverly began to shake her head, but the man ignored it and stood up, pulling her dangerously closer to him. "I heard you. You said the name Mike."

"Yes, my friend," Beverly insisted. "There was a group of us back then and-and we all made a promise to each other when we were kids-"

"You know trust is everything in a relationship," her husband persisted, his grip tightening before he released her in order to reach out and brush his hand against her cheek. Beverly couldn't help but move away ever so slightly from his touch. "You know it means everything to me, right?"

"I know," Beverly told him. "But this isn't-" "What?" her husband asked, letting his hand drop to his side as his gaze grew colder by the second. "Like the last time?" "I never cheated on you," Beverly tried to say as she leaned forward to comfort the man, but he was quick to grab her hair from behind, pulling her back and making Beverly gasp in pain.

"You're a bad fucking liar, Bev," he said behind gritted teeth, tightening his grip on her hair and pulling her down even more that she was bent at an odd angle. "You're not going anywhere, okay? I want you to stay right here and you're going to show me what it is you're going to do with Mike, okay?" He slammed the red head against the wall and Beverly bit her lip to hold back a scream of pain that was begging to escape.

"You're. . .you're hurting me, honey," Beverly muttered but he didn't seem to care. "No one else is going to love you like me, you know that right?" he asked aggressively, not noticing that Beverly had shakily brought her hand up to his cheek until she scratched him across the face. His hold on her instantly dropped and he yelled out in pain while Beverly stood up. Her eyes widened and she was quick to go up behind him, whimpering slightly as she whispered, "I'm. . .I'm sorry."

She didn't even have time to think before her husband was suddenly turning on her and hitting her with his belt as hard as he could. Beverly grabbed onto his arm and he gave her a deathly glare. "Don't make this fucking harder!" he growled and Beverly had to take in a shaky breath to try and calm her nerves. "Don't," she whispered, but it was too late. Her husband threw a punch that knocked her back so hard she fell onto the bed. When she turned around, he had begun to take his shirt off and Beverly felt as if she were going to be sick. Just when he was pulling the shirt over his head, Beverly thrust both of her legs out so that she kicked him back.

He stumbled back with a groan and Beverly tumbled off the side of the bed as she desperately tried to grab something. She could hear him running at her, so the red head grabbed onto a picture frame and threw it at her husband only for him to knock it aside like it were nothing. Just when he was about to grab her, Beverly got onto her feet with a glass vase in hand and smashed it against his head.

Her husband fell to the ground almost instantly and Beverly was quick to grab her things and rush out of the room. "You're nothing without me! You know that, right?" her husband yelled after her as Beverly ran down the rest of the stairs and out the door. She didn't even flinch under the touch of the rain and continued her way down the steps, placing her wedding band on top of the stair railing before walking away as fast as she could.

Beverly didn't know where she was going, the shock of what had just happened carrying her down the middle of the street. She couldn't even process the honking of the cars as she walked, her only thoughts on how she needed to get to Derry.

As she walked down the street, the rushing of water was enough to make her snap out of her senses. Beverly glanced to the side, her eyes instantly locking on the sewer drain beside her. For but a moment, Beverly felt as if there was something trying to break through the back of her memories, a voice screaming at the top of their lungs. She had never felt so uneasy than she did in that moment and Beverly was quick to walk away as fast as she could. She had to get to Derry was what she reminded herself.

Yet she couldn't help but look back at the sewer once more wondering why she felt more afraid of a sewer than she was of her now ex husband.

- - -

Birds and a weird fascination for the animals had always been a part of Stanley Uris' life for as long as he could remember. Something about them just intrigued the man and even to this day he would spend his mornings bird watching in his backyard, his cousin by his side more often than not.

Birds had become a constant theme in his life and the puzzle on the table in front of him was no exception. He stared blankly at an empty place before letting his eyes roam over the small pile of pieces he still had left. His gaze was calculating as he tried to solve the puzzle in his head, but it quickly disappeared as he looked up at the sixteen year old sitting by his side.

Greyson Uris had his gaze locked on his mother who sat beside Stan's wide Patty, the two women whispering between each other as they pointed at something on a computer screen. Stan watched Greyson for a moment, letting his eyes flicker over the messy mop of brown hair he had and the features of his face that looked so much like his cousin. He was without a doubt his cousin's son especially when it came down to his huge heart.

It was obvious by the way Greyson was watching his mother that he was worried and Stan gently nudged the young boy so that he turned to look at him. Stan gave him a soft smile before whispering, "Penny for your thoughts?"

That was enough to crack a small smile on the teen's face, but it flickered as he glanced back at his mother. "I just worry about her is all. She's been working extra shifts at the office the last couple of weeks and I know it's because she's trying to hide the fact she's a little tight on money right now. She keeps trying to act like everything's fine just for my sake, but I can tell she's tired," Greyson admitted, shifting his gaze back to Stan. "I know it's hard being a single mother, but she doesn't have to hide it from me. I just want to help."

Stan stared at the boy for a moment, a small sympathetic smile on his face as a flicker of sadness flashed through his eyes. He knew what Greyson was talking about. His cousin had been struggling to raise enough money to both keep the two up on their feet while also still giving Greyson the childhood she thought he deserved. She was tired and life was becoming heavier on her shoulders every day.

Stan blamed Greyson's father, the man having walked out on his best friend the moment he heard she was pregnant. He left her without a moment of hesitation and didn't bother helping pay child support or make an effort to be a part of Greyson's life.

He had tried once a couple of years back, but the bond between mother and son was unlike any other and Greyson who had been fourteen at the time hadn't hesitated to show the man to the door and tell him never to come back. His cousin had come to Stan crying that night over how sweet her little boy was and how much she loved him and Stan had only grown more respect for the boy ever since.

Greyson's father hadn't been in the picture since and Greyson didn't seem all too upset about it. For as long as he had his mother, he was okay. That's why he was always so worried about her because she was not only his mother but his best friend and had raised him on her own with a little help here and there from Stan and Patty. It had always just been Greyson and and his mother, so it was no surprise for Stan to hear about the boy's concerns.

"Well," Stan began once he noticed Greyson's gaze was back on his mother, "I think your mother just doesn't want to worry you is all. All she wants is for you to have a worry free childhood especially after what happened with her own parents. She doesn't want you to have to go through any of that pain like she did."

Greyson was silent for a moment before he looked to Stan almost hesitantly. "It doesn't mean she can't ask for help," he spoke softly. "All of this is just stressing her out and I don't even remember the last time I saw her genuinely happy."

Stan went silent at that and thought back to the girl he remembered growing up with compared to the woman he knew now. There was definitely a difference in her happiness, but when it came to Greyson she had never loved or cared for someone more. Greyson was what kept her from falling apart and the boy didn't seem to realize how much just being himself helped his mother through the hard times.

"I know it's hard, kid," Stan sighed as he put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "But the best you can do right now is stick by her side and hopefully she will come around. She needs you just as much as you need her." Greyson was quiet for a moment before numbly nodding his head and looking back to the puzzle. Stan took that as an end to the conversation and turned his attention back to the puzzle as well, a comfortable silence falling among the two.

It was minutes later before Greyson spoke up again, his happy demeanor back once again and the conversation from before way behind them. "Here it is," Greyson exclaimed triumphantly as he handed a puzzle piece to Stan who had been staring at a missing piece on the board in concentration.

Stan glanced at the boy before gently taking the puzzle piece and placing it in the spot. It fit perfectly and Stan looked back to Greyson before giving him a small smile, the action making Greyson smile wide in response. “This is why I keep you around," Stan joked as he reached out to ruffle the sixteen year old's hair. Greyson let out a small chuckle and smiled at the man before him, not noticing his mother's gaze from behind.

"Greyson," Y/N Uris softly called out from where she sat beside Stan's wife Patty who was currently scrolling through plane tickets on her computer. The sound of his mother's voice was enough to have Greyson turning to look at the woman and she smiled softly before saying, "Time to go, kid." Greyson instantly frowned. "Come on, Mom. Uncle Stan and I are almost done with the puzzle!" Greyson complained while Stan threw a small smirk in his cousin's direction.

Stan wasn't technically Greyson's uncle, but since Stan was pretty much like a brother to Y/N, Greyson had been calling him his uncle since he could talk. Every time he referred to Stan as Uncle Stan, the Uris cousins couldn't help but smile, and this was found true yet again as the corners of their mouths perked up slightly at Greyson's words.

"I know, Grey, and I'm sorry. However, it's already almost midnight and we've already been here an hour later than we should've," Y/N said, watching as Greyson winced slightly before giving her a shy grin. "I was hoping you wouldn't notice," Greyson admitted making Y/N chuckle as she looked at her son in adoration. The teen was quick to turn around to face his mother completely, a pleading look on his face as he looked at her. "Please, Mom. Just until we finish the puzzle? Come on."

Stan glanced at his nephew before turning around as well and giving his cousin the same pleading face her son was. The two boys then leaned in together and looked over at Y/N who narrowed her eyes at the two.

"You know I hate when you two do that," Y/N muttered as she fought back the urge to yawn. “That's why they do it," Patty chuckled while Y/N let out a small sigh. "Fine," Y/N gave in causing the two boys to smile and high five each other. "But let's pack the car up first. Then you can come back in here and finish the puzzle before we leave."

"Deal," Greyson agreed before he shot up off of the couch to go grab his things. "Don't finish it without me, Uncle Stan!" "Wouldn't dream of it, kid!" Stan called after him while Y/N watched her son race into the front hall to grab his things. Stan glanced over at his cousin and smiled as she walked over to him. "Some kid you got there, Y/N."

"I got lucky, didn't I?" Y/N whispered with a small yet proud smile on her face that Stan couldn't help but return. "We all did," Stan agreed causing Y/N to look at him. The two cousins smiled at each other and Y/N reached out to ruffle her cousin's hair. Stan was tried to lean away with a playful glare on his face and Y/N merely smiled before heading towards the front door.

"We'll be right back. Try not to miss us too much," Y/N joked as she winked back at Stan. The curly haired boy let out a soft chuckle and put a hand to his chest dramatically. "I shall try my hardest," he joked back and the two cousins chuckled before Y/N disappeared out the front door with Greyson at her side.

Stan shook his head at his cousin's antics before noticing his wife staring at him with a small smile on her face. "What?" Stan questioned, quirking an eyebrow at her amusingly. "Nothing. I just wish I had a bond like you and Y/N had is all. You two aren't even siblings and are closer than I was with any of my brothers," Patty spoke up.

"I've been lucky," Stan sighed. "Y/N may not be my actually sister, but she might as well be. After all, it's always been the two of us. For as long as I can remember, I've always had her." A distant look appeared in Stan's eyes before he smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "I guess we're so close because of how much time we've spent together and what we've been through especially with that son of a bitch she used to call her husband," Stan muttered. He was quick to shake the thought of him off and thought back to Y/N.

For a moment he thought he remembered a glimpse of them riding through town on his bike, her arms up in the air as she laughed and yelled for him to pedal faster all while Stan laughed and tried to pedal as fast as he could. However, the memory was quickly gone and for a moment he felt his hand hurt, but he ignored it. “She's my best friend," he admitted before looking over at Patty who was holding a hand against her chest as if her heart were about to burst from how adorable they were. Stan rolled his eyes playfully at his wife before looking back to his puzzle.

Knowing that was the end of the conversation for now, Patty went back to looking at her computer screen while Stan tried to mentally put the pieces where he thought they should go so that he could help Greyson once he returned.

"Should I just book it?" Patty finally asked, referring to the vacation the couple was wanting to go on. "You sure you can get away from work?" "It's summer. Why not?" Stan asked. "I'm sure Y/N wouldn't mind watering the plants and getting the mail for us. We could even have Greyson do it and maybe even pay him. He's been saving up for that new computer for his writing pieces you know." "Okay. We are Buenos Aires bound," Patty announced excitedly while Stan finally noticed that one of the puzzle pieces was missing. He was quick to look under the table and he sighed at the sight of the piece right underneath.

Stan was quick to get down on the floor to grab it and just when he had latched onto the puzzle piece, his phone began to ring. Stan stayed on the floor and glanced up at his phone through the glass table to see who was calling. However, as soon as his eyes latched onto the caller ID he couldn't help but furrow his eyebrows in confusion.

Maine? Now who could possibly be calling from Maine?

Stan sat up and set the puzzle piece down before picking up his phone and placing it to his ear. "Stanley Uris speaking?" he said. "It's Mike," the person on the other line replied almost instantly and Stan furrowed his eyebrows even more. Mike? "I'm sorry?" Stan said, hoping the man would elaborate more. "Mike Hanlon," the voice said and Stan swore his heart stopped beating completely. "From Derry."

It took but a second for Stan to make the connection of the caller to the Mike Hanlon he had used to be best friend with when he was younger. He had been a homeschooler and Stan suddenly got a flashback of an intense rock war with Henry Bowers and his gang as him, Y/N, and his other friends had saved Mike from the bullying he was receiving.

However, that one memory seemed to open up the gateway for all of his memories, everything snapping back into place in his mind like a puzzle that hadn't been completed in years. Stan could remember everything down to his life when he had lived in Derry, the summers Y/N would spend down there with him, the laughs he had with Bill and Richie and Eddie, the summer Y/N's parents had got a divorce and sent her to stay with him—Stan froze at that.

The summer of 1989. Now that was a memory he wish he still couldn't remember. Although not all of it he wanted to forget. After all, that was the summer he met Mike Hanlon, Beverly Marsh, and Ben Hanscom. That was the summer he and Y/N created a bond that made their friendship as strong as it was today. The bad memories was what he wanted to forget—the Neibolt House, the lady from the painting, It.

"Mike. God, sorry. Yes. Hi. I don't know why I. . .I didn't um. . ." Stan trailed off and it was then that he remembered something that he really wished he hadn't.

The promise.

Stan's blood ran cold at that memory, his whole body so numb that it was like he wasn't there in the moment even though he knew he was. He breathing was shaky and he felt the sudden urge to throw up. All he could feel was fear and he knew exactly why that was. But this couldn't be real. It hadn't been that long had it? There was no way.

"How long has it been?" Stan finally found himself asking, his hand gripping onto his phone tightly as his voice shook. "A long time," Mike admitted and the fact that he didn't tell Stan an exact number was enough to make Stan's stomach drop. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and Stan gulped as he pulled himself up onto his feet. He wasn't the same thirteen year old from that summer, but for some reason he felt like the Stanley Uris who had been too afraid to walk into the Neibolt without his cousin holding onto his hand.

Maybe if Y/N had been by his side right then instead of out by her car, Stan would've felt better, but for some reason he felt as if he couldn't tell her. They had never spoken about what happened that summer and if Stan hadn't been able to remember until Mike called them Y/N sure as hell didn't remember. He did not need her worrying about that right now, not when she had a kid to worry about.

"Twenty seven years," Mike finally said after a long silence, confirming Stan's suspicions and causing the boy to stumble slightly as he tried to stand back up. Thankfully Patty was too focused on the Buenos Aires trip she was finalizing to notice Stan and for a split second he wanted to tell her to not bother for he had a feeling they would never get to go on that trip together.

"It's come back, hasn't it?" Stan whispered, his voice shakier now so that he knew Mike had to have heard. "That's why you're calling." "It's starting again, Stan. Bad things are happening," Mike admitted while Stan squeezed his eyes shut in disbelief. It was like with each second that passed, he was becoming more and more consumed by his fear. This couldn't be happening. There was no way.

"Did. . .did you call the others? I mean what if. . .what if they don't come back?" Stan questioned, hoping that Mike would say someone wasn't coming and that he could stay home and forget this whole thing ever happened. All he wanted to do was take Patty, Y/N, and Greyson and keep them away from this whole thing. He wanted to keep them in this house, lock all the doors, and refuse to come out. All he needed was to have those three by his side and he would be okay.

"Everyone except for Y/N. But we made a promise, remember?" Mike reminded him, his words causing Stan to feel even more sick than before once he realized there was no getting out of this. He wouldn't be able to just ignore this and his thoughts flickered over to Greyson and Y/N, how Y/N would no doubt go back to make sure everyone was safe and how devastated Greyson would be if anything were to happen to her. Stan knew if anything were to happen to Y/N it would be because of his own cowardice and that was enough to make Stan feel even worse.

"How soon can you get here?" Mike asked. "Well. . .uh. . .I uh. . .I would need to do a few things. I would-" Stan muttered, his eyes closing once again as sheer panic and fear coursed through his veins. "Tomorrow," Mike decided for him and it took all of Stan not to throw up right there. "We don't have much time. I'll text you everything you need. I'll see you soon, Stan the Man."

Stan didn't even have time to respond before Mike had hung up, but the man didn't move and merely kept the phone up limply in the air with his eyes closed, his face pale as he stared blankly at the wall. He didn't even notice when Y/N and Greyson had returned, the teen hurrying over to the puzzle almost instantly while Y/N look to her cousin with a smile.

However, it disappeared at the sight of him and she was quick to go to his side and place a hand on his arm. "Stanley?" Y/N whispered, her soft voice making the man's eyes snap open almost instantly. "Are you okay?" Stan looked to her at that and Y/N blinked in surprise at the look that dawned her cousin's face. She had never seen him this way, never seen him look so afraid. What kind of phone call could make him that scared? "I'm fine," Stan assured her although his shaky voice was enough to make her narrow her eyes slightly at him as she tried to read him.

Stan just gave the girl a small smile which she knew was forced and gently took her hand off of his arm before holding onto it the same way they would hold hands when they were kids. He gave it the smallest squeeze and for a moment Y/N felt as if she were back in Stan's backyard when they were younger. watching birds fly by in the early morning. "Seriously," he whispered and Y/N gave him a look that said she didn't believe him but that she would drop it for now. Stan knew they would have to talk about it eventually if Y/N had any say in it, but little did she knew that they never would.

"Uncle Stan, care to do the honors?" Greyson asked as he looked up to his uncle with a small smile, holding the last puzzle piece up in the air. Any other night Stan would've told Greyson to be the one to finish the puzzle, but he was eager to take the distraction and get away from his cousin's calculating look. He went and sat beside Greyson and Y/N watched as Stan hesitated as he stared at her son, his eyes flickering over Greyson as if he were never going to see him again and was trying to memorize this moment right here. But before Y/N could send him a questioning look, Stan had snapped out of it and was putting the puzzle piece in its place, bringing the puzzle to an end.

It wasn't long after that that the two families found themselves out on the front porch saying goodbye. They were lucky enough to only live a few neighborhoods down, but for some reason Stan acted as if they wouldn't see each other for a long time and that was enough to give Y/N an unsettling feeling that she quickly pushed aside.

"Uncle Stan," Greyson said as he pulled away from Patty's hug to look to his uncle. "I was thinking maybe we could go to the bookstore later this week. You know how my favorite author is that Bill Denbrough guy, right? He's coming out with a movie soon and released a special edition copy of his book The Attic Room that I was wanting to pick up." Stan blinked in surprise, finally putting together why Greyson's favorite author had a name that had sounded so familiar. How had he not realized it before?

Stan suddenly got a memory of looking out the window to see Y/N and Bill walk up to his house hand in hand on the day they had made the promise, the two exchanging a small kiss that left them both with goofy smiles on their faces before Stan had teased his cousin endlessly about them. His eyes instantly flickered over to Y/N, trying to see if any sort of recognition flickered across her face at the mention of her first love, but there was none. She was too busy discussing some last minute things with Patty and hugging his wife to really pay attention and Stan couldn't help but wonder how Y/N would react upon seeing Bill again.

He found himself hoping that Bill wasn't married. After all, Y/N deserved to live a happy life and the Bill he remembered would have done anything to give it to her. If Bill was still the same Bill he remembered, then he would not only be a perfect match for Y/N, but a perfect father figure to Greyson. The thought was enough to put the smallest of smiles on Stan's face despite everything going on and the thought of Y/N, Bill, and Greyson finally getting to live a happy life after It was defeated was the only reassuring thing for Stan at the moment, the only thing keeping him calm.

Stan turned his eyes back to his nephew and smiled as he pulled the boy in for a hug. "Sounds like a plan, kid," Stan told him, knowing that he had to act as if everything were okay. Greyson was quick to hug his uncle back before pulling away, allowing his uncle to ruffle his hair once before he let his mother go to Stan.

Y/N stopped in front of her cousin, her eyes hesitantly flickering over his face as if she were trying to determine if Stan was actually okay or not. Stan could do nothing more than look at the girl, swallowing thickly as he knew she was going to be in for a world of pain and that he wouldn't be able to help her. He wanted to say he was sorry for being so selfish and to explain himself right then and there, but he knew he couldn't. Y/N would try to stop him and then his reckless actions against It would get her killed. So Stan just let himself take in the girl that stood before him as he struggled to hold back the tears that he knew were begging to break free.

Before Y/N could notice that, Stan was pulling her in for a hug, the action making Y/N chuckle and hug him back instantly. There was so much Stan wanted to say, so much he wanted to tell her, but he knew he couldn't. At least not right now.

"I love you," Stan finally decided on saying, the words being a normal between the two but something that held more meaning in that moment than Y/N would ever know. Y/N hugged her cousin harder at that before pulling away to look at the face of her best friend. "I love you too, Stanley," she whispered. "I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?" She tilted her head her so slightly and gave him a grin that made his heart ache.

"Yeah," he told her, nodding despite the heavy feeling in his heart. Y/N smiled softly at that and reached up to ruffle his hair, not knowing it would be her last time. Stan didn't even try and pull away like usual and just enjoyed his cousin's touch before sending her a small smile which she easily returned.

Y/N then pulled away and began to walk down the stairs. All Stan wanted to do was pull her back and hug her again, but he knew it would only make her more suspicious than she already was. So when she turned back to wave at him and Patty one last time, Stan put on a fake smile and waved to her just like he did every other time she left. He would give her no indication that this would be the last time, no reason to hold her back from going to meet with the Losers. Y/N turned and whispered something to Greyson who smiled before wrapping an arm around his mother as they walked to the car. Stan couldn't help but smile at the sight, knowing that the two would be okay as long as they had each other.

And with that, Stanley Uris watched as his cousin got into her car and drove off, knowing that everything he was about to do was only so her and Greyson would be safe in the end.

- - -

"Bill Denbrough," Y/N muttered, confusion evident in her voice as she stared at the book Greyson was currently reading. Greyson's honey brown eyes instantly flickered to her, a small smile on his face as he brushed his brown hair away from his eyes. "Still the best author of all time," Greyson said as he sat down on his bed beside his mother. "His endings aren't the best, but they aren't bad either. I was hoping we could try and go see his new movie when it comes out?"

"Of course we can, kiddo," Y/N assured the boy as she got up and set the book down on his nightstand next to the printed copies of Greyson's work which were really just alternate endings to this Bill Denbrough guy's books, pushing aside her thoughts of how the name sounded so familiar.

That was the moment her phone decided to ring and Y/N sighed before taking her phone out of her pocket. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly at the sight of a number from Maine calling her and she glanced at her son who had already picked the book back up to read.

"I'm gonna take this. I'll come check on you in a little bit, okay?" Y/N said, knowing her son wouldn't be going to bed anytime soon since they had only just gotten back from Stan's. Greyson hummed in response and Y/N was quick to walk out of his room before pressing the accept button and putting the phone to her ear.

"Hello?" she questioned. "Is this Y/N Uris?" a voice asked and Y/N frowned ever so slightly as she walked down the stairs and towards the kitchen to grab something to drink. "This is she. May I ask who is calling?" Y/N asked. "This is Mike," the man explained and just when Y/N was about to question him further, he went on as if he had said it multiple times before. "Mike Hanlon from Derry."

Y/N stopped in her tracks at that and for a brief moment it was like she was standing in the middle of a blizzard, her whole body so cold that she could barely think straight. Her hands began to shake and she could hear her heart beating in her chest. Yet she had no idea why she was so scared all of a sudden. Why was she filled with so much fear? However, the fear began to dim ever so slightly as a sharp pain went through her head, images flashing by as she heard the distant sound of children laughing, remembering the feeling of splashing into water before playing chicken fight with the people she used to call her best friends.

She remembered them all only momentarily starting with the boy she was talking to right now, Mike Hanlon, the boy who had been homeschooled all of his life and who she had saved from Henry Bowers when she threw a rock at his head. She remembered Ben Hanscom, the boy who loved New Kids on the Block and would spend countless hours in the library researching Derry. She remembered Beverly Marsh, the fiery red head who was also the first girl best friend that she had ever had. Then there was Richie Tozier, the boy who liked to flirt way too much and say more crude jokes then one could count but who had a big heart when it counted most. There was Eddie Kaspbrak, the boy who had been like her brother and who she used to calm down during some of his little episodes. Of course there was her cousin Stanley, but she already remembered him.

And then there was Bill Denbrough. No wonder the name had sounded so familiar. She had known him. He had been her best friend and the boy she had crushed on for forever. Her shaky hands went up to her lips and for a split second she remembered a warm September afternoon and the feeling of a soft pair of lips against her own. However it disappeared just a quick, almost as if it were nothing but a dream.

How could she have forgotten about him? How could she have forgotten about any of them? How could she have forgotten about the Losers?

"Mike," Y/N breathed out in disbelief, a smile dawning her face as her fear was pushed to a back burner. "It's been so long. How are you?" "You need to come home," Mike said and Y/N furrowed her eyebrows but kept her smile on her face. "I'm sorry. What?" she questioned. “You need to come home, Y/N," Mike repeated and Y/N's smile fell from her face as the fear suddenly cane back although she didn't know why.

The girl winced as a sudden pain shot through her hand. Y/N quickly glanced down at her hand and didn't understand why she felt so sick at the sight of the scar that ran across her palm. However, she had a sneaking suspicion it was because she hadn't even known she had a scar on her palm up until that moment. "When?" she found herself asking, but she didn't ask the question that she was dying to know the answer to, afraid of what the answer might be despite not knowing it herself. "Tomorrow," Mike replied and there was a long moment of silence as Y/N tried to process everything. She honestly had no clue what was going on, but she knew she had to get to Derry. She wasn't sure why, but she just had a feeling and she knew her fear and queasy stomach would not relent until she was back in Derry.

"I'll be there," Y/N whispered, her voice shaky as she squeezed her throbbing hand shut. "Great. I'll see you there, Y/N," Mike's voice whispered in her ear and Y/N knew she should've been excited to see her friend after so long, but all she felt was another wave of nausea. She didn't even wait for Mike to hang up and did it herself before staring blankly at her phone.

“Fuck.”

- - -

"I don't understand. One of your childhood friends calls you in the middle of the night saying that you have to get to Derry which is in Maine by the way and you're just packing everything up and going?" Greyson questioned in disbelief, his eyes following his mother around the room as she frantically threw stuff into a suitcase. Y/N paused for a just a moment and gave her son a nervous look. "Yes?" she said in a questioning voice before going back to packing. She didn't know how to explain it to her son, how to tell him that she had made a promise that she didn't necessarily remember and that she had to get back. Hell, she didn't even know how to explain to him that one of her childhood friends happened to be the author Greyson admired so much.

"Mom," Greyson said and that was enough to have the woman looking over at him. The sixteen year old was leaning against the doorframe of her bedroom, his brown eyes staring at her in concern as he tried to read her, as he tried to understand despite just how tired he was. Y/N sighed and walked over to the boy who stood up a bit straighter. She gently took his hands in her own and stared at her son before saying, "Greyson, honey, I need you to try and work with me here. I honestly don't know why I'm going, but I have to, okay? It's a gut feeling. You just. . .you got to trust me on this." Greyson was silent for a moment as he stared at her and Y/N could practically see the gears moving in his head before he finally let up and gave her a tiny nod. "I trust you," he assured her and Y/N smiled before leaning forward to press a small kiss to her son's forehead. "Thank you," she whispered. "Now go finish packing your things. You can sleep in the car. It's a long way to Maine from here, kid."

Greyson nodded and was quick to do as his mother said, disappearing up the stairs to finish packing while Y/N rushed back to her own things. It wasn't long before they were loading their things into the car and Y/N had returned to her frantic state once again, completely forgetting about her cousin who had to have been going through the same thing as her at that very moment.

They were on the road less than thirty minutes after the call, but it wouldn't be until they were two hours into the drive that Y/N would realize she left her phone sitting on top of her bed at the house. It was that same phone that now had three missed calls from Patty Uris.

If Y/N had known what was going to happen once she got to Derry, she would've turned around right then. But she didn't, so Y/N just drove down the road, her nerves being enough to keep her awake while Greyson slept soundlessly in the passenger seat beside her.

Neither Uris knew what would be in store for them when they reached Derry and the horrors Y/N had witness twenty seven years earlier? They were nothing compared to what was ahead.

- - -

Permanent Tag List

@marvelismylifffe @purplelittlepup @amberkay284 @blogforhoes @artlovingbre @the-story-of-the-tucks @thisismythirdblogandihatethat

Series Tag List

@starshininginthedark @luckygirl144 @tinycolorwhispers @deviantly-gayy @jacinta-lexianne @foxykatniss123 @nightbu-g @kielemarie @princessserena23 @curtishoney @pheonix-nin @aphrcditeee @wednes-day-addams @lxdyred @spiderw1tch @rosi3e @taestheticwonnie @witch-of-all-things-soft @cedricisnotonfire @theamandarenee @hawkxyes @mysteryartisticwriter @winterphoenixsposts @motleyfuckingcruee @frozenhuntress67 @tenderlyunlikelyexpert @70sgubler @welcome-to-derry @queenmizusposts @loisers @mychemicalimagines @toziersrxchie @spiderheaven

148 notes · View notes

burnedbyshoto · 5 years

Text

Writers Block

pairing: todoroki shouto x reader

warning: upsetti-spaghetti, fluff

word count: 1,454

a/n: so, I wrote this last night as something super self-indulgent. I had a second thought as to whether I should upload this, but I think this is something that all of us writers experience at one point. writers block. since october i’ve been heavy in writers block and entailed in this story below is every frustration I have, every annoyance I have. it’s hard and its frustrating. I wish that it wasn’t something that is as common as it is, and I want to get over this writers block because I love writing. im getting there I know it, just not quite there. thank you for reading this, and hope you enjoy. this is also for any and all people experiencing some sort of block.

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

You stared at the blank screen in front of you.

Your fingers hesitated above the worn keys as you contemplated what to write next. What should it be? Who should it be about? Why were you writing this?

Why were you writing?

The screen fades into subtle darkness as you’re unable to think of anything, and your frustration rises as you slap your hands against your face. Why couldn’t you write? Were you out of inspiration? Was this a writer’s block that seemed to weigh on you for months now? Are you writing because you loved it or because you wanted the recognition?

Countless unfinished drafts sat in your documents, untouched prompts swam in your head, and yet whenever you sat in front of your computer ready to work, your creativity diminished. You had no inspiration and every word you thought about leaving you questioning if what you were doing was correct.

Writing was among the hardest things you’ve ever done. It was your saving grace and it was your downfall.

Were you writing for you or for them?

“You know, you don’t look okay, love,” a voice whispers in your ear.

Your body is tense with suppressed annoyance, suppressed anger, and bitterness. The tension in your jaw comes undone and the pounding headache eases, but as you move to speak you realize how thick with emotion your throat is. So, you stare at your boyfriend who stands behind the chair you sit in. His fingers resting on your shoulders as you lean back onto him.

“I’m just trying to write,” you murmur as you stare at the blinking line of the cursor. You need to write something— anything really. Yet you couldn’t think of a single word to write.

Everything seemed too cliche when you tried to write and you were sick of it.

“Why do you write?” Shouto asks as he gently massages your terse shoulders.

A sigh escapes your lips as he works out stiff knots in your skin and you shudder as his hand warms up pleasantly around your spine.

“I don’t know,” you groan as he works out another knot.

“Don’t you like writing?”

“I guess,” your eyes fall as tears prick the back of your eyes.

Why would you say that? You loved to write, it was calming and therapeutic. It was an escape from reality and it was something that gave you joy to see others appreciate as well. Right now it seemed that you couldn’t remember your excitement. It seemed you could only focus on the nonsensical reasons for your turn off to writing.

“Then why do you continue?” Shouto continues to prod as you moan softly against his touch. “If you don’t like something, why do you keep forcing yourself to do it?”

“I-I don’t know,” you barely manage to speak as embarrassment and sadness fill your being. No one would care that much if you left after all. Sure, maybe one or two would be sad and express that fact, but they’d move on. They would manage. “...it’s an obligation.”

“You write for random people on the internet who have infatuations with an anime character,” Shouto chuckles as he gets you to stand and sits down, pulling you back onto his lap. You’re silent as you curl into his chest, your arms wrapping around his neck. Your cheek lays against the soft material of the sweater and you can only hear his steadily beating heart. It’s quicker than normal, but again, his heart rate was always much higher when you were around. “While I’m not sure if I regret making you watch the anime with me, you’re certainly not obligated to write for them. You are busy with other things, you are busy living your own life. They can and have to understand that your life comes before them.”

His hand strokes your back as tears silently fall down your face, “It’s n-not that, Shouto.” He nudges you softly with his nose and you give a wet snort as you sigh. “It’s just… I don’t feel competent anymore. Everything I write is out of place, nothing I write seems to gain any attention, and it’s disheartening. I hate feeling this way— I hate feeling like I’m ungrateful for what I have, but that’s how I feel.”

“What’s wrong with feeling that way?”

“People have it worse than I do! My achievements aren’t entirely normal so how can I complain when people don’t have it the same?!”

Shouto’s lips pursed at your exclamation, his eyes searching your tear-soaked gaze intently as he tries to figure it out. Your eyes flutter closed when he presses a soft kiss to your chapped lips, a soft sob shoving out from your mouth as you pull away, your head shaking.

His fingers, however, move to your face, gripping your tear-stained skin as he forces you to look at him. “There was this annoying, wise, and beautiful woman who told me that your griefs are valid, no matter how much more significant the pain is. Y/n, you’re in a slump right now, you’re not feeling okay! It doesn’t matter if you have one follower or one million, your feelings are valid. If you want to be upset, be upset! There’s always something upsetting when you go out of your way for things and they do not have the recognition you want from it.”

“That was a ‘this rule doesn’t apply to me’ rule,” you weakly giggle as he buries his nose into the crook of your neck. “But I know that, yet every time I feel upset I remember that people struggle constantly, and I can’t do anything about them. I’m lucky to have what I do, so my problems are just so… so dumb!”

“It’s okay,” Shouto promises as he rubs circles into your back, but you’re not done yet.

“And I’m in this fucking slump! I’m exhausted from writing! I put in so much effort into everything I do, and everyone expects that I don’t! I’m fucking sick and tired of people not liking my things, I’m tired of people not fucking sharing my shitty writings, I’m tired of seeing a lack of goddamn comments. I want more but no one seems to want to give it to me?! Am I that fucking horrible that no one wants to uphold those standards to me? Am I just some shitty-ass charity winner in the author category?! I want to be more but I’m not good enough and I’m just so tired!”

You’re sobbing into Shouto’s shoulder as this wave of pressure releases from you, and you shrink against him further as you feel light again.

“Then I’ll support you,” Shouto whispers after some time. “I love your writings, and I’ll do more to make sure that you’re seeing that I love it too. But how do we get you out of this slump?”

You sniffle in gratitude and embarrassment as you slam a hand against his chest.

“I’ll cry if you do that…”

“It’s a good thing I have so many tissues then.”

“I think… I just need to sit down and write,” you mumble, addressing the slump part of your questionnaire. “I just need encouragement.”

“Well,” Shouto chuckles as he shifts you around so that you can face your laptop on the table. “I think I can handle the encouragement, you handle the amazing writing.”

Your fingers fall onto the weathered keyboard and key by key you type. This is a piece for you, a piece to make you feel like you can write again. Writing is your domain and it’s something you were destined to do, or else why did you start to begin with?

The world went silent as the story flowed mindlessly from your head to your fingers, and Shouto’s calming whispers and touches only fueled you on as one sentence became a paragraph. One paragraph became a page. One page turned to many and soon enough you had typed your last word.

Everything felt like it was frozen in time as you realized what you had managed, and tears welled back into your eyes as Shouto hugged you in pride and excitement.

You did it.

Maybe you weren’t out of this slump right now, but you managed to get something done. That was more than what you had expected of yourself and you screamed in delight as Shouto picked you up and spun you in his arms.

Delighted giggles escaped your lips as he peppered kisses against your face, words of encouragement heavy on his lips as he kisses you again and again. It wasn’t until you had started crying again did he stop.

“...Shouto?”

“Hm?”

“I l-love you.”

“... I love you more.”

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

message to be apart of my taglist

#todoroki shouto #todoroki shoto x reader #todoroki x reader #todoroki imagine #todoroki scenario #todoroki shouto x reader #bnha writing blog #bnha #bnha x reader #bnha todoroki #mha #mha x reader #mha imagines #mha todoroki #todoroki fluff

367 notes · View notes

apex-academy · 4 years

Text

Chapter 5: Caring Is a Hazard to Your Health (#17)

After a thrilling lecture and practice session, I’m released. Last chance to sweep the refreshments tables before the competition starts. Not sure how much I should trust the drinks at this party, but we’re only allowed to kill two people at a time, so. Wouldn’t be a good play to poison it. And drugging wouldn’t be any smarter. Don’t think anyone here would do that, anyway...

I chug a little lemonade and head back to the folding chairs. Apparently this game lets eight people play at once, so the gap between the seats and the screen is a wild tangle of crossed controller wires.

“All right!! Is everyone ready to go?”

After a few confirmations at various levels of enthusiasm, Aidan starts hitting buttons on his own controller.

“Okay! For the sake of those not used to the game, everyone please choose unique characters so we’ll have less trouble keeping track of who’s who!”

“I call Fox.”

Don’t know who that is, so sure.

By the time he’s brought up the selection screen and I’ve figured out which of eight tiny cursors is mine, someone’s already claimed the guy I practiced with, so I just drag the pointer around for a while. End up picking some knight-looking guy. Why not. As Aidan has so succinctly explained, there are plenty of differences, but I’m not interested in analyzing fifty characters just to play.

We have to wait a bit for Ichiriki to settle on a princess and Aidan to actually manage to select the guy he claimed—who does, in fact look like a fox, shocking—and then there’s some scene selection thing, I don’t know. Aidan takes care of it.

After a brief countdown from a deep voice that barely gives me time to figure out which tiny cluster of pixels is mine, the match begins.

“Wait, I’m an orb?”

Guess I should know how to manage those, but. Not what I thought I was getting. Okay. Well. It’s not like most of the others have any idea what they’re doing. Even Aidan is just spamming one attack.

“Oh, I see now!”

“You claimed this form because it uses a gun, yes?”

Though that was clearly aimed at Aidan, Mahavir drops his controller.

“What did you say?!”

“Hey, hey, hey!! Settle down! We’re just playing a game here!”

“And I did not invite you to this to be rude, Miss Tsunyasha!”

“Were you expecting her not to be?”

“Well.”

“I state my judgment whenever I please, whelp.”

“—!”

“Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear, thank you! Please return to the game!”

“Hmph. I do not follow demands, foolish creature.”

“It was clearly a request!!”

“...”

“Very well, I shall humor you just this once.”

“Do not get used to it.”

She settles back down and presses several buttons before realizing the game has been paused. With a final little “hmph,” Aidan hits a button and everything starts moving again.

And I do mean everything. Throwing eight players in with a bunch of different moves in a large area sure is something. We’ve got some pink-haired something beating people up with trees—from the cackling, I’m guessing that one’s Kanagi. The blue guy Mahavir was practicing with earlier is beating the crap out of some blue-haired anime girl, Ichiriki’s princess is throwing... turnips or something?—and apparently I also have bat wings, so. That’s nice, I guess. And then there’s some little pink thing that keeps wandering around and alternating between flinging itself off the edge of the stage and destroying everyone. And then there’s what I assume is the result of Kaichi finding a character in a swimsuit, though instead of fighting Kaichi’s just making him wriggle around and repeatedly say something too accented for me to decipher.

“Would you like to actually play the game, Mister Riseiin?”

“I got a guy and ’m hitting buttons. ‘m playing just fine, brah.”

“That...”

I watch as the blue-haired anime girl descends to start hacking the crap out of Kaichi’s guy. Kaichi just laughs and goes back to the wriggling thing the first chance he gets. His character is summarily thrown off the screen by the spinning pink thing.

You’re a genius radiologist and this is how you live your life. Okay.

I wasn’t paying attention to how many lives we have in this thing, but I’m pretty sure all of us are losing more wandering off the edges than actually fighting. It’s still an experience, I’ll give it that.

I survive to the final three before Kanagi kills my guy with a freaking axe.

“Thanks.”

At least she takes down Ichiriki’s after that. As the announce booms out a “GAME!”, she throws her controller to the floor.

“HECK yeah!”

“Please refrain from casually destroying the equipment.”

“What do I win?!”

“Y’ didn’t ask that first, brah?”

“Listen, dude, there are a lotta flashing lights in here and I got distracted.”

“Fair.”

“Well, first of all, we’re going to have more matches than just this one.”

“Mmm-kay. And then...”

“Oh, oh! Is it dorayaki?!”

Are you serious.

Aidan pauses and looks to Yuki.

“...Is it?”

“Hummmm...? Sure...”

Kanagi fist-pumps.

“I WILL TOTALLY DESTROY ALL OF YOU! KEKEKEKEN!”

Can’t you just ask for dorayaki at this point? Whatever.

“At any rate, good game, everyone! We’ll start the second round...”

“...”

“Aiiidaaaaan? You ‘kay?”

“Er, yes, excuse me.”

“We’ll start the second round shortly. Ah...” He looks to the game screen like he’s lost his place in a book. “You’re free to pick the same characters if you like, or you can switch! Still no doubles of a character, though.”

“And Miss Yuukei will still... be playing...”

“Er, so she could still block out competitors from advancing. The winners of the next three rounds will progress to the semifinals!”

Seems like a lot of playing, but I guess the matches aren’t that long. At least he’s not trying to announce them.

Though I’m not sure he’d be able to right now.

“Hummm... Are you sure you’re feeling okay, Aidan...? Do you need to go to bed early...?”

“I most certainly do not!”

“I, uh, just need a drink, I think.”

“I can bring a lemonade over...”

“If you would?”

He sets up for the next round so we can start picking out characters while that’s being taken care of. I guess I could try to steal Kanagi’s guy? Not feeling that cutthroat today. I’ll just be boring and stick with the... knight... blob. With wings. Yeah. It doesn’t look like most of us are switching, anyway.

Kaichi sure isn’t.

The next round takes place on a different stage that’s only slightly harder to keep walking off the edge of. But then half of it gets swallowed up by some kind of acid or something, so I wouldn’t call it better. I make it to second place but still lose to the pink thing, which is apparently Yuki’s. Next round.

Ichiriki wins that one, and then at the last chance, I somehow manage to make it in.

“Hmph.”

“Well, I hope you mortals are satisfied with your little imaginary battles in imaginary realms.”

“Right back at you.”

“I am, thank you!!”

“...”

Is she jealous? We’ll never know.

“All right! We’ll take a brief break before the next round.”

“I believe there’s plenty of popcorn left, so don’t be stingy with it!”

Chairs creak and controllers thump as we twist ourselves free from our gaming stances. Don’t know that I want more popcorn, but I could go for a drink. Didn’t keep an eye on my cup, so I grab a new one. Just water this time.

As I’m putting the pitcher back down, Yuki approaches.

“Did you want water?”

“Oh, I’m all right... Thank you.”

I step away from the drinks regardless.

“Hummmm... Is now a good time to ask...?”

What is this, an attempt to distract me from the game? She doesn’t seem the type. Also wouldn’t be much point in winning a prize she has to make herself.

“Might as well go ahead.”

“Okay...”

“I just wanted to know... if you still wanted lessons?”

“Less...?”

“...”

“Cooking lessons.”

“Umm-humm...”

“...........”

“I’m sure I could use them, but I don’t think I’d be able to focus.”

“Too busy thinking about the empty space beside me.”

“...........”

The silence doesn’t stretch out as long as it could before I hear slow footsteps.

“If I may?”

I would startle if I felt enough energy, but all I do is turn a little. Guess if I want a private conversation, I should get a little farther away from the punch bowl.

“Ah, Mahavir. Sorry.”

“It’s quite all right.”

“After all, I’m the one who seems to be eavesdropping here...”

“That’s okay...”

“But, ah...”

“If it would help, I may be interested in lessons as well?”

“But your cooking is already good...”

“Thank you? But I’m not used to working with the relatively few spices available here, and I could always stand to learn something.”

“Of course, there’s no need to hold formal lessons on my account. But I would be willing, if that works out well for you.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to private lessons, anyway...”

Are you serious.

“Um, thanks, Mahavir. I think that would really help.”

“Should we, uh, start tomorrow, then?”

Yuki nods.

“That would pose no issue to me.”

“Cool...”

I might not sound properly enthused, but I feel like this needs to stay a multiple-student class. Will Mahavir being there really help? I don’t know. Don’t think I’ll know until we get there. If it doesn’t, I can try to tough it out.

Maybe get someone else to enroll in the meantime.

Before we can make any more plans, a voice rings out over the din.

“Everyone!”

“The tournament will be resuming shortly! Those of us who have been eliminated are free to cheer on our friends or play one of the other games in here.”

“Preferably one that isn’t being used for a table.”

Well, Kanagi’s still in the running, so he probably doesn’t have to specify. Can’t hurt, though.

“I guess we should get back then, hummmm...”

“Yeah.”

“Best of luck.”

I nod and drink what water I can before heading for the game console. Time to keep the party going, I guess.

[BACK] [NEXT]

#apexplot #apex5 #fangan

2 notes · View notes

toast-the-unknowing · 6 years

Note

hi! I just wanted to say that I really, really love your writing, and I was wondering if you ever outline? And if so, how do you go about doing that? And I'm curious about your writing process in general (if that's a good way of putting it?). in any case, thanks so much for sharing what you write. It's really an absolute joy to read! :)

Hi and thank you! The short answer to this question is no, I don't outline. I've tried three-act structure and flashcards and Scrivener and whiteboards and a dozen other things and it just doesn't work for me. It forces me into making decisions I'm not ready to make yet, while delaying me from working on the parts that I am excited about, which 1. kills my desire to actually do any work and 2. delays my learning the things that I really do need to know about the story. But I also don't just write beginning to middle to end (honestly I can't believe anyone on earth does that besides, like, Spiders Georg). To the extent that I have a process it can be summed up as "I write the parts of the story that I know at the time that I know them, and they teach me what the next part of the story is."

The extremely long answer to this question is behind the cut, because like any good self-centered world-destroying Millennial I love talking about myself, and I love hearing people talk about writing, so maybe someone else does, too.

The beginning of a story tends to be like a cartoon character running off the edge of a cliff and building a bridge under them as they go. I open up a document and just start typing thoughts out as fast as I can. Some of the words that come out at this point make it all the way through the process to the final draft, but a lot of them don't, and I never commit myself at this point to typing usable words. I mostly end up with stuff like this:

flashforward: comes across opal somehow -- hunting or otherwise in the woods/wilds -- and she's this half-feral child, slowly builds up trust with her -- convinces her to come live in his house -- she's clearly cautious, but over the day settles in, and crawls into bed at night and falls right asleep, like she's not afraid of anything -- the next morning, dawn, wakes up and knows there's someone in the house, moving about, goes for opal's room and she's not there, runs out to the main rooms and there's a strange man standing there -- you won't find the girl -- what the fuck did you do to her -- I've taken her. as we agreed I would -- ronan finally recognizes him as the strange witch boy from so many years ago -- give her back -- I'm afraid that isn't possible. goodbye -- leaves and when Ronan follows him out the door he's nowhere in sight

Sometimes at this stage I'm jumping around in the document -- I'll have a thought about something I want to happen later in the story, so I'll put that in and then jump back to the earlier part -- but sometimes it's coming at me more or less in order, or there's so much I'm trying to get down at once I might as well just go in order. Also, a lot of the stuff I know about a story at this stage is related to the set up/concept/inciting incident/premise. So, in Careful the Tale You Tell, I jotted out about 800 words of Ronan making the deal with Adam, and meeting Opal, and Adam taking Opal, and Ronan trying to take Opal back, and then literally the only thing I had after that for the entire rest of the story was:

the two of them start living together, taking care of opal together, etc.

During/after/immediately before the "get down initial thoughts as fast as possible" stage, I write either the first scene or one near the beginning (if the opening moment is eluding me, which it sometimes does). The very early stuff, being a lot clearer in my head, tends to be a lot easier to write in full actual real paragraphs with real sentences and punctuation and dialogue tags and a minimum of placeholders. I find it helpful going forward to have that springboard -- a scene, or even just part of a scene, that looks like what I want the story to look like.

And then the process is "the same but more". Read back over what I have already. Admire how clever I am. Despair of what a hack I am. Realize an additional detail about a scene I only have two sentences for. Realize that that scene needs to happen in an entirely different part of the story. Move it. Think of one thing that's going to happen in one scene I didn't know existed yet. Come up with a funny bit of dialogue for the end of the fic.

With a lot of stories I hit a point, about a quarter to a third of the way through, where I realize what the story is actually about. That's tremendously helpful in knowing what to put in those nebulous holes in between "X happens and then Y happens." So with Careful, the key was realizing the story was about two things: it was about three sad loners who all choose each other, but also specifically it was about the way that two of those loners were profoundly misunderstanding each other, and how they had to stop telling themselves fake stories about each other and see what was really happening. That cleared up a lot of things about the story for me. For one thing, that's what told me I needed a four-part story from two POVs. And it let me fill in a bunch of scenes in answer to that dreaded question of "ugh what do I PUT on this BLANK WHITE PAGE with its CRUEL MOCKING CURSOR." I needed scenes of Adam thinking Ronan was a bad father, and I needed scenes that could be taken as justification of that opinion, and I needed scenes of him realizing Ronan isn't like his own parents. And I needed scenes of Ronan thinking of Adam as this uncaring vengeful other, and then I needed scenes that totally destroyed that image. And then because Adam is just the saddest sad loner ever I needed scenes where he's telling himself this new fake story where he denies the extent to which Ronan and Opal have already chosen him, and then I needed scenes that would make it impossible for him to continue in that denial.

This is maybe an example of why all the traditional outlining I was shamed into doing in film school fails me. None of this points to the shit with Ronan's mom being cursed and his dad being killed by an evil witch (except that I had notes to myself about a scene where Ronan finds out Niall tried to sell Declan to the witch -- but that was a product of one of those "I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'M GOING WITH THIS EXACTLY BUT IT'S AWESOME AND I WANT TO WRITE IT SO I'M GOING TO JOT IT DOWN IN AN EMPTY SPACE IN THE DOCUMENT" moments). In as much as those are "plot" elements they might be the sort of thing you're supposed to decide while you're still at the "write one sentence on one flashcard" stage. For me that entire aspect of the plot only came to me when I had something like 50% of the story written, and the specific details and beats of it I figured out and incorporated gradually along the way, because that wasn't the important or interesting part of the story to me. It sure wasn't the thing I wanted to shape my entire story around. I don't think I could have shaped the story around that.

At this stage of a story I sometimes write in nice beautiful paragraphs, particularly if it's a scene that develops really quickly from "hm maybe something like X happens" to "oh FUCK YEAH I'm going to make X happen." The storm scene in Careful came on like that -- I left the occasional placeholder and it needed edits and I rewrote some stuff, but if I had live-streamed my screen while I was writing it, you would have gone "yeah, that looks like a story."

More often, though, my writing looks like that flash-forward paragraph above. A mix of dialogue, and action that I'm sure of, and action that I only have a vague idea of, and shit that I don't know yet but I know that stopping to figure it out is only going to keep me from writing the parts that I do know. This is because 1. I can get stuff out faster writing these pseudo-paragraphs, and I really just want to get as much stuff on the page as possible in any given writing session; 2. weird messy half-written paragraphs are easier to edit, move, change, rewrite, or make my peace with deleting entirely, than big beautiful paragraphs with clever turns of phrase that I spent hours on.

Often those moments that I skip, I either know enough about them to be getting on with, or they're trivial in the scheme of things. Sometimes I skip a detail and find out later that I was wrong about what it was going to be or how important it was going to be, and now I have to change parts of the story that I thought I knew. But that's often a gift, because the new version is more detailed, or more interesting, or more relevant to what the story is actually about.

I also leave myself notes like this:

[ronan starting to notice his feelings and be really stupid about it??? or leave that more for part 4]

These can function as "I know I need a scene here that does X but that's all I know" or it can literally be "I need a scene here and I don't know what it has to do but there needs to be SOMETHING". Sometimes these comments are just character/tone/theme notes to remind me of how a scene is supposed to function within the larger story, so I don’t write a really cute wonderful scene and then realize it makes no sense for the characters at this point in their arc to be behaving that way.

At this point writing a story is a mix of four things:

come up with things to fill the gaps in the story, even if it's just [A SHORT SCENE OF THEM ALL DOING SOMETHING TOGETHER -- AT ONE POINT RONAN TOUCHES ADAM WHEN HE DOESN'T REALLY HAVE TO

take those one sentence scene descriptors and turn them into those big blocky ugly nonsense paragraphs with no capitalization and too many em-dashes

take those big blocky ugly nonsense paragraphs and turn them into readable paragraphs -- this is a really great thing to do on days when I feel tired/sick/stuck/depressed/like a fraud/hungover/uncreative, because I can tell myself "all you have to do is turn half-sentences into complete sentences, this is basically seventh-grade English homework, you can do that." Sometimes doing that gets gears turning in my brain and I can do a LOT of this kind of writing, or I can move up to doing writing that involves more decision-making and connection-building and character-understanding. Sometimes it doesn't, and all I achieve for the entire day is turning one fake paragraph into one real paragraph. Which still means I have a real paragraph where I didn't before.

reread and refine and tweak the readable paragraphs to get to a place where I'm happy with them

Then there comes another milestone moment -- about 90% of the way through a story, I become thoroughly convinced that it's disgusting irredeemable garbage. This step sucks, and the only real cure for it is to go "yup, but I'm writing it anyway, so let's at least make it finished, complete garbage." The alternative isn't "realize the story ISN'T garbage and then keep writing with a renewed sense of self-worth!" The alternative is that the story dies, and that's how I end up with a hundred unfinished WIPs that quietly pass into obscurity. I think this might be the real reason that Raven Cycle is the fandom I've posted the most complete fics in, despite having been in other fandoms longer -- sure, these characters spark a lot of ideas for me, and I'm a better writer than I used to be, and I understand my process better (instead of trying to write the way I think I SHOULD write), but honestly the most important thing is that I figured out how to go "maybe this does suck, but I'm still going to finish it."

The thing that I've found the most helpful with making that push is to find the one thing in the story that I really, really like, and remind myself that if I don't finish the story then no one gets to see that one scene, that one moment, that one PHRASE that's actually good, and wouldn't that be sad? With Careful that was the storm scene -- I would tell myself, "okay you keep saying that the pacing is awful and the first chapter is boring and this story is a waste of everyone's time, buuuuuut if you don't finish it, then no one will ever read the storm scene." Sometimes the story's existence is sufficient motivation. The Pokemon AU gave me the worst case of writerly-self-loathing I've had in years, but I just kept telling myself "yeah but don't you want to make people laugh in disbelief about the fact that you wrote a Pokemon AU?" And that makes my insecurities go pout in the corner like a sulky child where they shut up long enough for me to sneak the last 10% of the story in there.

(Once a story is done and posted, I'm able to look at it with more compassion, perspective, and nuance.)

"The last 10% of the story" doesn't necessarily mean "the last ten pages of the story". The last bit that gets finished is usually somewhere in the middle, although occasionally I do just write until I don't know what else to write and then slap some kind of closing line on it. (Usually that happens with stories I write very quickly; the florist!Henry fic was like that.) There's generally a lot of places spread throughout the fic where I left things unfinished -- sometimes as little as one detail, sometimes as much as an entire scene. I think with Careful the last scene I finished was the one where Adam tells the guy how to find his lost money. When I'd first drafted that bit it felt like homework -- I knew the story needed examples of people doing business with the witch, but, ugh, I couldn't make myself care about them. But I had managed to eke out some of those weird blocky [bracketed] paragraphs, so I kept building on those bit by bit. It also helped to keep in mind the real purpose of the scene. It's not about someone doing business with the witch, or even about Adam's habit of casually tossing out details he has no way of knowing (though I was happy to add that in to presage the conversation about how he knows Opal's name and age). The scene is about Ronan seeing Adam as otherworldly. So I got to add in those little details about Adam smashing the glass, and Opal and the visitor being surprised, and Ronan not being surprised -- which is really the most interesting part of that scene.

Then I do a word search for brackets, "Shine" and/or "Toast", and any other placeholder characters I use, to make sure every detail is filled in and none of my notes to myself like [nb shine check this is true] make it to publishing. I upload to AO3, save as draft, replace all my single asterisks with italics html, realize I've used too much italics, take half my italics out, proofread, publish, catch three-or-thirty typos I didn't catch before I published, fix those, catch another three-or-thirty typos, and decide to leave them in for authenticity/because perfect is the enemy of good/because I'm too damn lazy.

That's essentially the longest version of my process. Sometimes I write a story very quickly and so it skips some of these stages.

"A story I write very quickly" is not the same thing as "a short story." see you somewhere, some place, some time was gestating, in one form or another, for about sixteen months, and it put me through aaaaaaall the same heartache as its longer brethren.

#writing #Anonymous

19 notes · View notes

foxde503 · 3 years

Text

Download Mac Os X Mail

4.8/5(52 votes )

Set up Exchange account access using Mac OS X 10.10 or later. If you're running Mac OS X version 10.10 or later, follow these steps to set up an Exchange email account: Open Mail, and then do one of the following: If you've never used Mail to set up an email account, the Welcome to Mail page opens. Set up Exchange account access using Mac OS X 10.10 or later. If you're running Mac OS X version 10.10 or later, follow these steps to set up an Exchange email account: Open Mail, and then do one of the following: If you've never used Mail to set up an email account, the Welcome to Mail. If it’s OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion that you need you can buy it for £19.99 here US or here UK As with Lion, Apple will send you a download code to use on the Mac App Store, so you will need to be.

Skype free download for windows 10. Get Skype, free messaging and video chat app. Conference calls for up to 25 people. Download Skype for Windows, Mac or Linux today.

If you looking on the internet a Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 DMG Without app store So, you come to the right place now a day hares with you an El Capitan download dmg file OS upgrade is highly recommended is the latest release from OS X. it has been designed to improve the performance and usability of OS X Apple Inc. Today am very excited to share how to free download a full version without an app store all detail and features to describe below step by step follow the instruction.

Earlier this week I was very excited to release OS X El Capitan. The OS upgrade is highly recommended as it significantly increases Macs ‘ performance (which can run Yosemite). However, I did not have a pleasant experience in the upgrade process. I have been able to upgrade my Mac only a few hours ago. This was six times in a row after the MAS download and I wasted 15 GB data on a one-time 6.08 GB download.

Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 Overview

There are many reasons for this radical decision. You decided to download an older version of Mac OS X. Initially, some applications might not (or just crash) work properly on newer operating systems. You might also have realized that the performance of your Mac fell immediately after the last update. Last but not least, if you want to run a parallel version of Mac OS X on a virtual machine, it will take you to install the file of an older Mac OS X in a functional manner.

The 2015 release Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 aims primarily at providing greater safety, efficiency, and reliability. This Mac OS X release is a full package for stability, privacy, performance and file search simultaneously. Many technological improvements along with improved tweaks are made and the desktop is more smartly organized. This is a very well equipped release with many attractive characteristics such as the split view for the screens to be divided as needed. Mac OS X El Captian 10.11.6 is designed to make many bugs fixes possible in addition to dependency and security.

There are a lot of improvements to OS X El Capitan 10.11.1, such as improved installer reliability when upgrading to OS X El Capitan. Microsoft Office 2016 compatibility was also significantly improved. The update also solved an issue that prevented messages and mailboxes from being displayed in the mail. The reliability of VoiceOver has also been greatly improved. With full Unicode 7.0 and 8.0 support, over 150 emoji characters were added. The problem has also been resolved that prevented the proper operation of Audio Unit plugins. Was there a problem with JPEG images in the previous version that appears in the preview in grey and green? And in this update, this problem was fixed. you can also check out the Logic Pro X Free.

Features Of Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 DMG

Great emphasis on security and reliability.

Designed to improve the performance and usability of OS X.

Enhanced installer reliability when upgraded to OS X El Capitan.

Improved compatibility with MS Office 2016.

Enhanced VoiceOver reliability.

More than 150 emoji characters added.

Issue related to JPEG preview resolved.

More improved performance and usability

Enhanced security features

Split screen features

Cursor locator

Improved search with Spotlight

Gesture improvements

Office 2016 with improved features with more than 150 emojis

Advanced preview features

Improved safari features

VoiceOver features

Improved installer

Better mailing features

Faster app switching

Much More………………/

Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 InstallESD DMG Technical Setup Details

Software Full Name: Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 InstallESD DMG

Setup File Name: Install_OS_X_El_Capitan.app.dmg

Full Setup Size: 5.7 GB

Setup Type: Offline Installer / Full Standalone Setup

Compatibility Architecture: 32 Bit (x86) / 64 Bit (x64)

Latest Version Release Added On: 30th Oct 2015

Developers: Mac OS X El Capitan Homepage

System Requirements For Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 InstallESD DMG

Before you start Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 InstallESD DMG free download, make sure your PC meets minimum system requirements.

Memory (RAM): 2GB of RAM required.

Hard Disk Space: 9GB of free space required.

Processor: Intel Pentium 4 or later.

Mac OS El Capitan 10.11.1 DMG Free Download

So, you’ve decided to download an older version of Mac OS X. There are many reasons that could point you to this radical decision. To begin with, some of your apps may not be working properly (or simply crash) on newer operating systems. Also, you may have noticed your Mac’s performance went down right after the last update. Finally, if you want to run a parallel copy of Mac OS X on a virtual machine, you too will need a working installation file of an older Mac OS X. Further down we’ll explain where to get one and what problems you may face down the road.

A list of all Mac OS X versions

We’ll be repeatedly referring to these Apple OS versions below, so it’s good to know the basic macOS timeline.

Cheetah 10.0Puma 10.1Jaguar 10.2Panther 10.3Tiger 10.4Leopard 10.5Snow Leopard 10.6Lion 10.7Mountain Lion 10.8Mavericks 10.9Yosemite 10.10El Capitan 10.11Sierra 10.12High Sierra 10.13Mojave 10.14Catalina 10.15

STEP 1. Prepare your Mac for installation

Given your Mac isn’t new and is filled with data, you will probably need enough free space on your Mac. This includes not just space for the OS itself but also space for other applications and your user data. One more argument is that the free space on your disk translates into virtual memory so your apps have “fuel” to operate on. The chart below tells you how much free space is needed.

Note, that it is recommended that you install OS on a clean drive. Next, you will need enough disk space available, for example, to create Recovery Partition. Here are some ideas to free up space on your drive:

Uninstall large unused apps

Empty Trash Bin and Downloads

Locate the biggest files on your computer:

Go to Finder > All My Files > Arrange by size Then you can move your space hoggers onto an external drive or a cloud storage. If you aren’t comfortable with cleaning the Mac manually, there are some nice automatic “room cleaners”. Our favorite is CleanMyMac as it’s most simple to use of all. It deletes system junk, old broken apps, and the rest of hidden junk on your drive.

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.4 - 10.8 (free version)

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.9 (free version)

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.10 - 10.14 (free version)

STEP 2. Get a copy of Mac OS X download

Normally, it is assumed that updating OS is a one-way road. That’s why going back to a past Apple OS version is problematic. The main challenge is to download the OS installation file itself, because your Mac may already be running a newer version. If you succeed in downloading the OS installation, your next step is to create a bootable USB or DVD and then reinstall the OS on your computer.

How to download older Mac OS X versions via the App Store

If you once had purchased an old version of Mac OS X from the App Store, open it and go to the Purchased tab. There you’ll find all the installers you can download. However, it doesn’t always work that way. The purchased section lists only those operating systems that you had downloaded in the past. But here is the path to check it:

Click the App Store icon.

Click Purchases in the top menu.

Scroll down to find the preferred OS X version.

Click Download.

Free Download Mac Os X 10.4

This method allows you to download Mavericks and Yosemite by logging with your Apple ID — only if you previously downloaded them from the Mac App Store.

Without App Store: Download Mac OS version as Apple Developer

If you are signed with an Apple Developer account, you can get access to products that are no longer listed on the App Store. If you desperately need a lower OS X version build, consider creating a new Developer account among other options. The membership cost is $99/year and provides a bunch of perks unavailable to ordinary users.

Nevertheless, keep in mind that if you visit developer.apple.com/downloads, you can only find 10.3-10.6 OS X operating systems there. Newer versions are not available because starting Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.7, the App Store has become the only source of updating Apple OS versions.

Purchase an older version of Mac operating system

You can purchase a boxed or email version of past Mac OS X directly from Apple. Both will cost you around $20. For the reason of being rather antiquated, Snow Leopard and earlier Apple versions can only be installed from DVD.

Buy a boxed edition of Snow Leopard 10.6 Get an email copy of Lion 10.7 Get an email copy of Mountain Lion 10.8

The email edition comes with a special download code you can use for the Mac App Store. Note, that to install the Lion or Mountain Lion, your Mac needs to be running Snow Leopard so you can install the newer OS on top of it.

How to get macOS El Capitan download

If you are wondering if you can run El Capitan on an older Mac, rejoice as it’s possible too. But before your Mac can run El Capitan it has to be updated to OS X 10.6.8. So, here are main steps you should take:

1. Install Snow Leopard from install DVD. 2. Update to 10.6.8 using Software Update. 3. Download El Capitan here.

“I can’t download an old version of Mac OS X”

If you have a newer Mac, there is no physical option to install Mac OS versions older than your current Mac model. For instance, if your MacBook was released in 2014, don’t expect it to run any OS released prior of that time, because older Apple OS versions simply do not include hardware drivers for your Mac.

But as it often happens, workarounds are possible. There is still a chance to download the installation file if you have an access to a Mac (or virtual machine) running that operating system. For example, to get an installer for Lion, you may ask a friend who has Lion-operated Mac or, once again, set up a virtual machine running Lion. Then you will need to prepare an external drive to download the installation file using OS X Utilities.

After you’ve completed the download, the installer should launch automatically, but you can click Cancel and copy the file you need. Below is the detailed instruction how to do it.

STEP 3. Install older OS X onto an external drive

The following method allows you to download Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks.

Download Mac Os X Mavericks Iso

Start your Mac holding down Command + R.

Prepare a clean external drive (at least 10 GB of storage).

Within OS X Utilities, choose Reinstall OS X.

Select external drive as a source.

Enter your Apple ID.

Now the OS should start downloading automatically onto the external drive. After the download is complete, your Mac will prompt you to do a restart, but at this point, you should completely shut it down. Now that the installation file is “captured” onto your external drive, you can reinstall the OS, this time running the file on your Mac.

Boot your Mac from your standard drive.

Connect the external drive.

Go to external drive > OS X Install Data.

https://foxde503.tumblr.com/post/657205584848945152/dj-software-mac-free-download-full-version. Locate InstallESD.dmg disk image file — this is the file you need to reinstall Lion OS X. The same steps are valid for Mountain Lion and Mavericks.

How to downgrade a Mac running later macOS versions

If your Mac runs macOS Sierra 10.12 or macOS High Sierra 10.13, it is possible to revert it to the previous system if you are not satisfied with the experience. You can do it either with Time Machine or by creating a bootable USB or external drive. Instruction to downgrade from macOS Sierra

Instruction to downgrade from macOS High Sierra

Instruction to downgrade from macOS Mojave

Instruction to downgrade from macOS Catalina

Before you do it, the best advice is to back your Mac up so your most important files stay intact. In addition to that, it makes sense to clean up your Mac from old system junk files and application leftovers. The easiest way to do it is to run CleanMyMac X on your machine (download it for free here).

Visit your local Apple Store to download older OS X version

If none of the options to get older OS X worked, pay a visit to nearest local Apple Store. They should have image installations going back to OS Leopard and earlier. You can also ask their assistance to create a bootable USB drive with the installation file. So here you are. We hope this article has helped you to download an old version of Mac OS X. Below are a few more links you may find interesting.

Mac Os X Installer Download

These might also interest you:

0 notes

save-the-cronch · 7 years

Text

Sincerely Me

Welcome to my fic that is using a title that is overused! Anyways, this is based off a set of one-shots I posted, originally, on my other account.

Enjoy!

Read on AO3

Evan kept his head down as he walked to the school’s computer lab. He had to quickly finish his ‘self-help’ letter before his mom picked him up for his therapy session with Dr. Sherman. Slowly, Evan pushed open the door to the lab and shuffled over to a computer on the right side. Silently, he logged into the computer, found the google chrome search logo, clicked on it, and signed onto his google drive account. He moved the cursor over to the google doc containing his letter. After he clicked on it, he watched as a new paged popped up, and his letter loaded onto the screen. Evan quickly read over the letter, and noticed that he left off with:

Maybe if I could just talk to her. Maybe, nothing would be different at all.

He silent thought for a second, tapping his fingers on the table. Eventually, he began to type out the last part.

I wish everything was different. I wish I was a part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered to anyone. I mean, let’s face it, would anyone even notice if I just disappeared tomorrow?

He stopped typing briefly. Evan knows this isn’t what his therapist had in mind for him to write. These letters are supposed to say the good things in life, but when there aren’t any good things, why make it up? Why not just tell the damn truth? No one would even care anyways.

Sincerely, your best and dearest friend, me.

Suddenly, his phone began to ring. Evan fumbled with it in his pocket. He quickly checked the caller ID and was relieved to see it was his mom calling him.

“H-hello?” He asked. Evan has always hated phone calls, can't stand them. Even though it was just his mom calling, he still stumbled on his words.

“Evan, I’m not going to be able to bring you to your appointment. They needed extra help at the hospital and I was the only one on duty. Also right afterward I’m going to class, there are leftovers in the fridge for dinner.” Heidi Hansen rushed her words as if she really needs to get back to work. Which, Evan assumed, she probably does.

God, Evan thought, I'm such a burden, she wouldn't need to work so hard if I wasn't around. I have so many problems. She has to spend too much money on my pills and therapy, I hate it.

"O-okay, yeah, I’ll ea-t that.” Even while he says this, Evan knows he won’t.

“Did you finish your letter sweetie?" Evan knows that all his mom wants is for him to get better. However, he also knows that she knows she'd have a better life without him.

“Yeah, I just pr-printed it n-ow.” He says, clicking on the little printer button on the top right of the screen.

“That’s fantastic sweetie. I’ve gotta go now, but I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Totally fantastic. Except for the fact that his letter basically states that he wants to just disappear and never come back.

Evan nods his head but then realizes she probably couldn’t even see him. Stupid. “Okay, love you.”

“Love you too honey.” And with that, she hangs up the phone.

Evan sighs once again, and then, he stands up to go and grab his letter. Before he can even take a step, Connor Murphy appears in front of him. Oh great. Evan really hopes he's still not mad about this morning. Connor had thought that Evan laughed at him, and so he shoved him to the ground. However, what had really happened was that Evan didn't laugh at him, He would never laugh at him. He would never laugh at anyone really. Evan was just nervous, and so he let out a nervous chuckle. Because of this, Evam have a mental freak out moment. He still didn’t know if Connor’s here to yell at him some more or what but he was absolutely terrified.

“Evan? Right?” Connor asks, looking Evan up and down, then into his eyes. Evan shivered slightly and nodded. Evan didn't shiver because Connor was scary, he's actually really pretty. Like his sister, Zoe. Wait, not the time Evan. Shut up. Evan looked back at him, and he noticed something. Connor seemed like he was trying to tell Evan something, but then seems to think better if it and instead says, “How’d you break your arm?”

It was an easy question to answer, Evan had practiced the answer many times, but he still stuttered.

“Oh, uh, I f-fell. Out of a tr-tree.” Evan stuttered out, picking at the hem of his shirt. Evan hates lying, but he didn't want people to see how broken he really was.

“Well, that’s the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. Oh my god!” He laughs out.

Oh, how wonderful. Evan thinks. Now I'm an even bigger loser.

Evan nodded, “Yeah, uh, yeah.”

Connor glances at Evan’s cast, and he seems to notice no one has signed it.

Shit, now I not just a loser, but a friendless loser. Evan doesn’t know how this could get any worse.

“No one’s signed your cast.” Connor points out as if Evan hadn’t already realized no one liked him.

“Yeah, uh, I kn-know.” Evan just wishes he could stop stuttering, dammit!

“I’ll sign it.” Connor offers, probably pitying Evan. Defiantly pitying him. Most people did.

“Oh, you, you don’t have to.” Evan mentally hits himself, what is he doing? He needs his mom to think he actually talked to people. Why is he telling him no?

Connor ignores him and He holds out a hand, expecting a sharpie. Thank God he's persistent.

Evan nods his head and then stuffed his hand into his pocket. He pulled out the unused sharpie and handed it to the taller boy.

He grips Evan’s hand and tugs it towards him. “Ow,” Evan mumbled.

“Sorry,” Connor seemed to have pushed it out. As if he's not used to saying sorry. Connor quickly scrawls out his name, filling up half of the blonds cast with it.

“Oh, thanks,” Evan said, with a kind of sarcastic, sort of thankful, and a bit of wanting to get the hell out of there asap tone of voice. Thankfully though, Connor doesn’t seem to notice and smiles at the shorter boy. However, it’s more of a grimace. He then takes a piece of paper from his bag and lifts it up.

“Is this yours? I saw it at the printer. ‘Dear Evan Hansen,’ You're last name is Hansen, right?”

“Uh, yeah that’s mine, um, th-thanks.” Evan reached to take it, but Connor pulls back.

“Because there’s Zoe? What the hell,” He whispers this, seemingly confused, and Evan begins to freak out. Once again.

“C-connor, please give that ba-back.”

“You did this on purpose!” Connor’s yelling now, Evan hopes he can maybe calm him down?

“What?” Very good Evan, ask a fucking question. This is super helpful.

“Yeah, you saw I was the only other person in here so you printed this wanting me to see it.” Evan knows that Connor is totally misunderstanding the situation. Evan also knows that he has no clue on how to deal with this.

“No, I-”

“You were hoping I’d freak out right? So you can tell everyone what a fucking freak I am?”

“No, please-”

“Well FUCK YOU!” The long-haired boy pushed past Evan and runs out of the computer lab. All Evan can do is stare at him as he runs, forgetting that he still has his letter.

“You what?” Jared asks from the other side of the phone, clearly enjoying the situation that Evan had gotten himself into.

“I-I printed my letter out at school and Co-connor saw it. He thought I wanted t-to get him ma-mad! He saw that I me-mentioned Zoe, and-”

“Wait, so he read some crazy sex letter you wrote about his sister? That’s messed up.” Evan starts to really hope that Jared stops laughing soon.

“It wasn’t a sex le-letter Jared! It’s for my therapy-therapist.” Evan is trying to explain this the best he can, but Jared doesn't like to listen. He never listens.

“You write sex letters to your therapist? That's kinky.”

“JARED!”

“Whatever man, but why are you telling me this?” Evan can imagine that Jared is probably lying upside down on his bed, playing video games. He's definitely not paying attention to their conversation at all.

“Because you’re my cl-only family fr-friend.” That's all they’ll ever be because Jared knows that Evan is too much of a weirdo.

“Yeah, okay, I gotta go dude. Good luck with that sex letter!”

“IT’S NOT A-” Before Evan can finish, Jared hangs up the phone. Evan groans, tossing his own phone onto his bed.

How the hell is he supposed to convince Connor Murphy that that letter was meant to cause no harm.

Also, how is he supposed to get it back from him before he tells the whole school? And, once the school knows how will he live through the taunts? No, wait, forget the jokes. Connor is probably gonna kill him.

God Dammit.

Connor stared at the orange bottle in his hand as he sat on his bed. For once it was made, he wanted to feel productive for his last few hours alive. He also had a box filled with all the stuff he had taken from Zoe over the years placed on his desk. He has about an hour before Zoe gets home from jazz band practice, and his mom won’t be home for another two. Connor isn’t sure when his dad will be home, but it’ll probably be late, as usual.

Connor uncaps the bottle and empties all the pills into his open palm. With no more thought, he downs all the pills and lays back onto his bed, waiting for the effects to kick in.

Zoe Murphy usually considers herself a lucky girl. She’s lucky because she made jazz one as a freshman, and sits in the first chair. She’s lucky that she is smart enough to be in most senior classes. She’s lucky that Alana Beck actually considers her a friend. She’s lucky that her brother doesn’t follow through on his death threats.

Zoe Murphy is also lucky that she got out of jazz band earlier than usual. A lot usual. AT least, according to the doctors, she is. Is she had called the ambulance not even five minutes after she had, her brother would have had no chance of survival.

So yeah, Zoe Murphy is a lucky girl. Luck apparently just comes naturally to her, and even though her relationship with Connor has been torn to shreds years ago, she’s glad that she’s luckier than most. Really fucking glad.

“Yo, Evan, did you hear what happened to Murphy last night?” Those are the first words Evan hears out of Jared’s mouth on the second day of school. Evan shuts his locker and looks at his family friend. Jared is practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, gripping the straps of his backpack.

“N-no, what happened to-to him?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but you know Calvin Ferrell? Well he lives across from the Murphy’s and he told Kelly Petie who told Kyle Gold who I overheard telling Kevin Lakes that an ambulance showed up at their house around five last night, and Calvin saw Zoe Murphy running out with paramedics pushing a stretcher with Connor laying on it out of the house and into the ambulance. Calvin doesn’t know what happened to him but Connor isn’t at school and neither is Zoe. So obviously it was something really big right? I mean why else would paramedics be there?” Jared is much too enthusiastic about this.

“J-jared! Why do yo-you seem so, so ex-excited? Wh-what if he di-died. That wo-would be te-terr-terrible!” Evan whisper yells.

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry about it, I mean so what? No one likes him anyway.”

“Jared th-that isn’t nice! You sh-shouldn’t say, say things like that!” Evan remembers how alone he felt this past summer, and knows that whatever Connor was feeling is probably ten times worse than what he feels. He hopes Connor isn’t dead, he decides that if, no when, Connor gets back to school, Evan will try his best to try and brighten the brown haired boy’s day.

“Whatever tree boy, I’m going to class.” Jared shrugged his shoulders and left Evan standing in the hallway by himself. Evan sighs. He knows Jared fakes a lot of how he acts. He just wishes Jared was like he was when they were younger, his actual friend.

Dear Connor Murphy,

I heard about what happened the other week and I want you to know I failed as well, over the summer. You’re not alone.\

Sincerely Me.

Connor stared dumbfounded at the letter in his hands. It was his second day back after being out of school for three weeks, and he had no idea as to why a letter had fallen out of his letter. He was even more confused when he realized the letter was addressed to him and not whoever owned the locker next to him. Then after reading the two sentenced note, he felt something inside him. It wasn’t happiness at being recognized, it was more like relief. Someone out there, though he had no idea who knew in some way how he felt. And who wouldn’t get the smallest spark of hope after realizing that?

Evan watched from around the Corner as Connor neatly folded up the letter and placed it in his hoodie pocket. Then he saw the brown haired boy give a small smile, and Evan couldn’t help but smile as well.

For the next month, Evan continues to write letters to Connor. He writes the letters on Monday and Wednesdays after his homework, then on Tuesday and Thursday mornings he shoves them through the cracks in Connor’s locker. Evan know’s that Connor doesn’t check his locker until after third period, so he knows that he won’t be caught.

Sometimes the letters contain personal information as Evan knows that Connor doesn’t know it’s him, so he’s not worried, for once, about being taunted. Sometimes they just include small things that happen over the week. Usually, the Tuesday letters are the long ones, informing Connor about Evan’s weekend, the Thursday ones usually remind Connor how great he is.

Evan’s noticed that Connor is usually happier on the letter days. He’s also noticed that Connor skips school a lot, but he’s always there on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

Connor has gotten a total of six letters so far.

The second one was almost as short as the first, giving Connor one simple tip on calming down.

Dear Connor Murphy,

Counting down from ten is always a great strategy to calm down, in my experience at least. Also, my mom, she does it a lot, especially when my dad tries to contact us. He’s very inconsiderate when he does.

Sincerely, Me

Connor felt like punching this guy’s dad after reading it.

The third letter talked a lot about trees, as did the fifth letter. The fourth told Connor that the mystery guy has a crush on a girl in junior year. He wondered if Zoe knew the girl as the letter never mentioned her name. The sixth letter was longer than usual. It seemed as though Letter Guy, as Connor now calls him, was stressing about something and just couldn’t stop talking. It started out about a math test the kid had, then there was a paragraph on why trees are so important to the environment, then two sentences wondering if Connor liked trees as much as he did, and it ended with five sentences of the guy apologizing as to how long the letter was. Connor thought it was hilarious, and kind of adorable. He kept that letter on his bedside table.

After the next two letters come, and Connor finds himself wondering who the guy is, he realizes that he might actually sort of like him. But he tries to ignore it for two reasons. First, why would this guy like him back, especially since he already likes someone else? Second, Connor doesn’t even know who writes the letter, how can he like someone he doesn’t know. However, Connor does know the letter guy, very well from all the information he writes down. He just doesn’t know his name or what he looks like.

Evan sits behind Connor in math class, which Evan actually quite enjoys. Math is fourth period, which means Connor comes in right after reading Evan’s notes on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s. This also means that Evan gets to see the small smile on Connor’s face due to the letters that he receives.Evan always enjoys seeing that smile. It tells him that he was once again successful in making Connor happy. Evan knows that it isn’t a permanent fix, but he also knows that it works for at least an hour. And an hour is better than nothing in his opinion.

After Thanksgiving break, Evan realizes that he hasn’t thought, or written, about Zoe in a month. This really confuses him, how can he go from fawning over the guitar player to never even thinking about her? He isn’t entirely sure.

That is, at least, until the first Thursday of December and Evan catches himself staring at the older Murphy all of math class. At first, Evan tells himself that he was just making sure his letters were still making Connor happy. It wasn’t until Evan was in his room, trying to go to bed while still thinking about the long-haired boy that he shoots up, now fully awake.

“Fuck I like the school shooter.”

Which then leads to Evan actually slapping himself.

“Dammit Evan, stop listening to Jared.”

Evan continues to mutter to himself about the fact that he has just figured out that he is bi. However, he isn’t just bi, no, he’s really really bi for the kid he writes letters to, to make him feel better.

That’s when his mother, Heidi Hansen, Knocks on the door.

“Sweetie are you alright?” She asks, concerned that her son is mumbling to himself at eleven at night.

“Yeah, I’m fine!” Evan shouts back, quickly laying back down.

That night Evan falls asleep with only the thought of Connor Murphy on his mind.

The next letter Connor received he was surprised to see that the mystery writer told him he wasn’t into the junior girl anymore. At that, Connor walked to his math class with a small spring in his step. He knows that the letter boy might not be into guys, but he doesn’t like the junior anymore, he has a slight chance now.

When he gets to math, the kid that sits behind him, Evan Hansen, already has a notebook out. Connor remembers in middle school when he had a small crush on the blond haired kid. He can’t help but hope that Evan was the mystery writer.

Connor spends all of math wondering what Evan’s hand in his would feel like.

When Connor walked into math, Evan couldn’t help but blush at Connor’s happy gait. Evan can’t help but hope that it’s because Evan doesn’t like Zoe anymore, and maybe Connor likes him back. But that’s insane, who would like the wallflower anyway?

Evan spends the rest of the class wondering what Connor’s hair would feel like with Evan’s fingers combing through it.

The week leading up to winter break, Evan can’t stop thinking about what he should get Connor for Christmas. Sure, Evan is Jewish and celebrates Hanukkah, he knows that Connor celebrates Christmas. He only knows this because he overheard Zoe asking Alana to come over on Christmas Eve, as Zoe’s parents apparently want to meet her.

Evan wasn’t sure on what to get Connor until he was at the store with Jared because apparently he needed knew flannel and his mom thought he was ditching Evan. Which, he usually does, but Mrs. Kleinman doesn’t need to know that. Evan had seen a couple black hoodies and remembered that Connor’s were all worn out and faded. Then as he was walking up to the cash register, money already in hand, he saw a bowl full of nail polish and quickly plucked out a black bottle. Connor usually as his nails painted, sure they were almost always chipped, but they were also always black. Black seemed to be his signature color.

Wednesday night, Evan wrapped the gift for Connor, taping his note to the present.

Connor Murphy didn’t go to bed until one am that night. Usually, he’s asleep by 12 on Mondays and Wednesdays, but this time he stayed up. He needed to get it perfect. Sure there was a chance that Mystery Writer didn’t celebrate Christmas, but that’s why Connor is signing the card Happy Holidays instead. It doesn’t need to be a Christmas gift. Just a thank you gift.

Thursday morning, when Evan went to put the gift outside Connor’s locker, he was surprised to see it propped open, and not shut like normal. Curiosity was digging at him, so Evan carefully opened the locker and was even more shocked to see a small wrapped item on the bottom of Connor’s locker. He picked it up, and then he noticed the card, which was addressed to him. Well not him exactly, but it did say To: My Mystery Writer and who else would Connor be calling a mystery writer?

Evan felt a small smile grow on his face as he placed the gift he got Connor on the bottom of his locker, and quickly put the one Connor got him in his bag. He then swiftly shut the locker and made his way to his first class.

After third period, when Connor got to his locker, he was glad to see that Mystery Writer took the gift, he was also happy to find out that he was left a gift as well.

Throughout math class, Evan couldn’t focus. He just stared at Connor’s head. Which probably wasn’t a good idea in hindsight as Finals is the week he gets back from spring break, and he really should be paying attention the review they’re doing. But at that moment, he really didn’t care.

The first thing Evan does when he gets home is putting the gift Connor got him under the small house plant he has on his desk. Even though he doesn’t do Christmas, maybe this one time he can pretend.

When his mom gets home and sees the gift on his desk, she asks where it came from.

“O-oh, well um. There’s this b-boy, C-connor Murphy, and earlier this year he wa-was in the hos-hospital? So, um, I decided to, uh, write him letters. I-I wanted to ma-make him feel good. So, uh, I gu-guess he got me-me a gift?”

“Oh honey, that’s so kind of you! I’m so glad you have another friend!”

Heidi was so excited to see the excitement in her son’s eyes as he talked about Connor.

Evan didn’t have the heart to tell his mom that Connor didn’t know it was him writing the letters, which is how he ended up baking cookies with his mom the day after Hanukkah ended. As soon as they were done, Heidi had already left for work, and Evan was tasked with the job of bringing them over to the Murphy’s place.

Before he left, he found a pen and a piece of paper to quickly scrawl out a note.

Cynthia is a bit confused as to who would be ringing her doorbell at nine at night. She is even more confused when no one is at the door, and she looks down to see a plate of cookies with a note taped to it. She leans down to pick up the plate, walks back inside and shuts the door. When she gets to her kitchen, she plucks the note from the plate and reads it.

Dear Connor Murphy

Have an excellent Christmas

Sincerely Me.

Cynthia can’t help but grin at the fact that Connor has a friend. She can’t remember the last time Connor even talked about a friend. Cynthia places the note back onto the plate, then proceeds to pick the plate up and carry it upstairs to her son’s room.

She knocks twice on the door, and the music that was blaring from inside is turned off. She hears heavy footsteps and then the door opens, revealing her son who seems to not have gotten dressed today. Instead, he is in sweats, a tank top, and has an apron covered in paint over his pajamas.

Cynthia doesn’t fail to notice the hard glare on her son’s face, and so she just holds up the plate.

Connor glances at it, and noticing the note, he picks it up and reads it.

Cynthia also doesn’t fail to notice the small smile and slight blush that Connor suddenly now has, as he takes the plate of cookies and ducks back into his room.

Cynthia can already tell that whoever this new friend is, is a good fit for her boy.

Christmas morning comes, and Evan figures that now is a good time to open Connor’s present. He brings the gift over to his bed. He tears open the wrapping paper and finds a book with a note covering the title.

Dear Mystery Writer

You always talk, or write, about how you love trees, so, here.

Evan flips the paper over and sees a beautifully drown Oak tree on the back. Evan knew Connor drew, as that’s what he does for most of math, but he never knew he could draw so, realistically. Before even glancing at what the title says, Evan gets up to pin the tree to his headboard, smiling proudly at it, before looking at the book.

Evan laughs when he sees it’s the Encyclopedia of Trees.

Connor also sits on his bed as he opens Mystery Writer’s gift. First, he looks at the note that was taped to the gift.

Dear Connor Murphy,

Your sweatshirts seem to have a lot of holes, I didn’t know if it was for comfort or what but I got you a new one. Oh, and I really like your nails so here’s some more polish.

Sincerely me’

Connor can feel the blush already beginning on his cheeks.

He unwraps the gift and instantly notices how soft the two hoodies are. He also decides that he will be using the new nail polish until it ran out. He can also feel his blush deepen and nearly scolds himself for feeling and acting this way. He shouldn’t start to like someone he doesn’t know the name of. He really shouldn’t. But then again, when has he ever done something he should do?

A week after school is back in session, the Kleinmans come over to the Hansen’s place for dinner. When Jared enters Evan’s room, he instantly notices the tree that’s still pinned up, and as Evan was gathering snacks downstairs, it felt only reasonable for Jared to see if he could see who drew it. It certainly wasn’t Evan, as his art skills were no better than Jared, who could only draw cartoon cats and nothing else.

When Jared is close enough to read the signature, he would have spat out his drink, if he was drinking something. Why would Conor Murphy draw Evan Hansen a tree?

When Evan walks back into his room, Jared plays innocent and asks his family friend who drew the tree.

When Evan blushes and says that it’s from Connor Murphy, Jared demands that Evan tells him why Connor drew him a tree.

After Evan is done explaining the letters, Jared can’t stop laughing.

“So first, you write sex letters about his sister, and now you’re writing sex letters about and for him?”

“No! Th-they’re not se-sex letter Jared! An-and I only wro-wrote about him on-once!” Which, was the wrong thing for Evan to say as it throws Jared into another fit of hysterics.

For the next month at school, Jared starts to act differently when he’s around Connor, and Connor severely hopes that Jared isn’t the letter guy as that would mean Connor has a crush on Jared, and he really hopes that isn’t the case.

However, for a slight second Connor is relieved when Jared tells him who the writer is.

Connor was casually reading one of the letters when Jared pops up and says “I see you have another love note from Evan tree boy Hansen.”

At that Connor watches as Jared's eyes widen and he quickly leaves. It takes a second for the brand new information to kick in, but then Connor realizes that the cute dorky kid that sits behind him in math. The kid he’s always had a small crush on. The kid he silently hoped was the mystery writer, is actually the mystery writer, and Connor doesn’t remember the last time he was this happy.

Evan was just about to walk out of school when he suddenly heard someone calling his name. He turned to see Connor Murphy running to catch up with him.

“Evan, can we talk? Now?”

Evan isn’t sure why Connor wants to talk to him, but being who he is, he gives a simple nod and lets Connor lead him to the tree that he usually sits under during lunch.

“So, uh, Jared told me you were the one writing letters to me. Is, uh, is that true?” Connor seems nervous and a little hopeful. Evan isn’t sure why.

“H-he told yo-you?”

Connor nods.

“OhgodI’msosorryIprobablywasn’tthepersonyouwantedtpbewritingyouletters. Sorry.”

“Uh, could you repeat that.”

Evan takes in a large breath of air before repeating his previous statement. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, I probably wasn’t the person you wanted to be writing you letters. Sorry.” Evan’s nervous that Connor hates him now, and really doesn’t want that. He wants to be friends with him, especially since that’s the closest he can probably get to Connor liking him back.

“No! I’m glad it’s you. You’re probably the nicest kid in school, anyone else I would think was making fun of me. I just wanted to say thanks. So, uh, thanks.” And with that, Connor dashes away from Evan.

The next day at school, Evan is surprised to see a note flutter to the ground after opening his locker. He bent down to pick it up and is happy to find that the letter is from Connor.

From that day onwards, Evan and Connor correspond with letters for each other. They both want to talk outside these letters, be friends in real life as well.

In February Connor finally lets himself fall completely in love with the blond haired boy. However, he doesn’t tell anyone, especially Evan. Either way, Evan likes someone else. Sure, they have some of the same features, but there are plenty of kids at their school with brown hair. And the way Evan describes his crush? Definitely not him. One letter Connor received was all about this crush. Apparently, he has beautiful brown hair, gorgeous blue eyes with a small bit of brown in the left, and a face that was crafted by God himself.

Sure, Connor has brown hair, but so does half the student body. And yes, Connor has a bit of brown in his left eye, but so does Jared Kleinman and this other kid in his AP lit class. And Connor’s face was most definitely not crafted by God. No way in hell.

So yeah, Connor accepted that he likes Evan. Like, a lot. But he’s also accepted that Evan will never like him back. And that’s okay. Or so Connor tells himself.

It isn’t until mid-March that Evan asks Connor if he wants to go grab ice cream on Friday after school.

Connor replies back with a no shit and his phone number.

After school, Connor drove Evan to A la mode, his favorite ice cream place, and they hung out at Evan’s house until Connor left at eleven at night, running into Heidi Hansen, who was thrilled to finally meet the boy her son speaks so highly of. She then asked Connor for his mom’s number so she could talk to her.

Both moms were ecstatic to hear about their sons hanging out.

They were also happy to talk to each other about them.

Both boys had a blush on their faces for an hour afterward.

And both of them fell asleep with the other on their minds, once again.

For the last two and a half months of school, Connor and Evan are practically attached at the hip. Evan was at Connor’s house for Easter since Evan doesn’t celebrate it and his mom was working. Then, they skip prom and just hang out at Connor’s house watching 80’s movies. They fell asleep on the couch, Evan’s head on Connor’s shoulder, and Connor’s head on Evan’s head.

At the end of senior year, Evan informs Connor that he didn’t apply to any schools so that he could take a gap year and save up for school for a while longer. Connor decides then and there to just not go to college until Evan goes. Connor doesn’t want to be alone, he’s not good at making friends, and to get through life he just really needs one. He got lucky with Evan. He doesn’t think he will get as lucky again.

Evan gets a job at the Pottery Barn, and Connor works at the Michael's next door. They always share their lunch breaks together, and they carpool to work as Evan doesn’t like to drive, and Connor does. Plus it means more time being together, and neither of them will pass up that opportunity.

That winter, Connor, and Evan were at Evan’s house. Heidi was at work, taking on the night shift and wouldn’t be home until early the next morning. The boys took advantage of that situation and broke out a bottle of bourbon to share as they watched Lord of the Rings.

By the time they were on the second movie, both of them had a pretty good buzz going on.

And both boys were a little Childish when drunk.

“Hey, hey Evan.” Connor whispers, giggling.

“What?” After there’s a slight pause, Evan asks again, “Co-connor, what?”

“Oh! Oh right! I wanted to tell you something.” Connor isn’t giggling anymore, but he still has a large smile adorning his face.

“And?”

“It’s very important. I’ve know for a while now. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I was nervous. Haha, I’m kind of nervous now, but like, less than usual. You know?”

“Co-con, just to-tell me. Please?”

“Oh right! I haven’t said it yet! Well, I like you!”

“I know th-that Con! That’s why we-we’re best fri-friends!”

“No! I mean I love you! Like, I want to date you and kiss you! All the time. But I don’t cause I don’t think you’d like that.”

“Well, th-that’s not true Co-con! I want to kiss you all the time too!”

“Really?” Connor’s very surprised, but also extremely happy.

“Ye-yeah!”

“Then, can I kiss you?”

Evan answers with a swift nod and Connor grabs Evan’s shirt collar and pulls him in for a sweet kiss, that’s long overdue.

When they pull back, neither of the boys have their eyes opened all the way. They’re both smiling, and they’re both still gripping onto each other.

Evan goes in for another kiss, and they fall back onto the couch, kissing lazily until they fall asleep, Evan on top of Connor, arms, and legs tangled, smiles still on their faces.

When Heidi comes home, she promptly ignores the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table. Instead, she grabs a blanket from the basket by the TV and spreads it over her son and his new boyfriend. She smiles as she takes out her phone to send a picture to Cynthia, telling her that she expects the twenty bucks the next time they go out for coffee together.

She also decides that she’ll talk to the boys about the bottle after she congratulates them.

58 notes · View notes

hcheadquarters · 7 years

Note

I saw on j0succ someone mentioning that the only way to beat Kak in video games is distract him with lollipop shenanigans. Can we get an ELABORATION? :'D

Ahhh I love @j0succ like dang. She is such a good JoJo, I probably check her blog like every day. Everyone go love her!

Now let me write about my husband because I love cherry boy so much. And I’m using SSB because I am also trash at it and I play Link and sometimes ZS Samus ugh:

CHERRY BOY LOSES BUT EVERYONE ELSE WINS

You thought you were garbage atSuper Smash Bros before, but after playing with a certain red-haired young manfor a little while now, you realized that you were worse than garbage. You werethe definition of low-tier, delightfully reminded each time Kakyoin’s Sheikthrew your Rosalina off the stage. Truthfully he could be playing any characterand he would still kick your ass. It wasn’t just Super Smash Bros, it was everyvideo game. You couldn’t help but notice the playful sparkle in his eyes wheneverhe would pat your head as your cheeks would puff, hands gripping yourcontroller almost enough to break it.

On a particularly hard loss oneday, you threw your head back and shrieked comically, causing the usuallylevel-headed Kakyoin to let out a laugh. But the sweet young man quickly feltguilty and pulled you into a hug with a purr, “You did fine…little pterodactyl.”He snickered at his own joke, and you pouted. But you liked being in his armsso much that you simply huffed and hid your head in his chest. He kissed thetop of your head and you immediately forgot why you were irritated.

It was times like these when youwere painfully aware of how perfect your boyfriend was. You did find it funnyhow hyped and competitive he would get when video games came into play,literally and figuratively speaking; he mentioned to you once that when he wasyounger, he didn’t have any friends to play with, so he had many chances toimprove on some of his hobbies, such as reading, painting, and of course, video games. Forsomeone who seemed so sophisticated and assured, you were able to observe afaint sadness creeping behind his eyes, a sadness that you were determined tofix.

It was another fall day, the twoof you had just strolled to Kakyoin’s home, taking a little longer than usualto admire the colorful falling leaves. After pleasantly chatting for a fewminutes, you look him in the eye purposefully, declaring, “I think I’vemastered Bayonetta enough to finally beat you, Nori.” He raises an eyebrow,smirk beginning to curl his lips. Damn competitive dork. You didn’t have totell him twice.

You set your purse beside you onthe floor to reach for the controller in the drawer below the television in theliving room. You remembered that you had bought a small bag of lollipops withyou, the larger ones with the bubblegum inside of them. Maybe they would helpyou concentrate. You fuss with the bag for a moment, picking one out andholding it in front of you. “Do you want one?” you ask Kakyoin innocentlyenough. He looks curiously at the lollipop, a little longer than you thoughtnormal, smiles, and shakes his head once to decline.

You accept his answer and pop thesucker in your mouth, and you’re immediately happy to taste its cherry flavor.You did purposefully pick cherry just in case a kiss or two was in your futuretoday. You know Kakyoin would be pleasantly surprised. It was always fun tosurprise such a stoic boy.

You leave the candy placed inyour mouth while you fiddle with Kakyoin’s controller to select your character,Bayonetta. You had done an embarrassing amount of research on this characterand its level of success. Surely you can knock Kakyoin off the stage once. Justonce. One time and you’ll retire. You set the controller in your lap for aminute while he picks his character, running your tongue alone the sweet orb ofthe lollipop, slowly moving it out of your mouth under your lips.

Kakyoin was taking awhile tochoose a fighter. You remove the sucker from your mouth with a soft pop,turning your attention to him curiously. He appears fairly normal, although he’sa little hunched over his controller, a bit odd for him. His posture was usuallyhealthy and relaxed. His sight seem to be wandering around away from thescreen, however. He looks at you in the corner of his eye, notices that you’relooking back at him, and immediately straightens himself back up. Was he hidingsomething?

He clears his throat and selectsSheik. Dammit. You tuck the lollipop into your cheek as you get ready toconcentrate. So far so good. You manage to stay alive longer than usual…Youquietly slurp on the candy in your mouth, playfully taking it in between yourteeth at one point, and you notice Sheik on the screen slowing down long enoughfor you to get a combination of hits in. Although you celebrate in your head,you can’t help but wonder if Kakyoin was going easy on you? He does beat youthis round, but it takes him longer than usual. You sigh and lean back for amoment while the character screen loads again for the next round.

You have melted the candy enoughwhere you can take it from the stem, and you lick your top lip in a slowmovement. Kakyoin was being extra quiet…you turn to look at him again and he’sbeen gazing at you, chewing on his lip while his eyes seem glued to your mouthwith a look of need. But once he realizes that you’ve noticed him, hisshoulders jump slightly and he smiles warmly at you. You squint your eyes athim. What is he doing…

But then it hits you while yourcursor hovers over your next fighter. Looks like Nori is a bit into what you’redoing with your lollipop. Maybe that’s why his gaming prowess is strugglingtoday. Although you wanted to beat him fair and square ideally, but the tasteof victory was within reach. And it tasted like cherries.

You decide to pick Peach thistime around. Kakyoin chooses Marth. You’ve reached the center of the lollipopto get to the bubble gum inside. You’ll be able to have your hands free.Perfect. You begin playing around, buttons on the controllers clickingfuriously as the epic music on the colorful screen plays. You smooth the gumacross your tongue in preparation, delicately inflating a pink bubble from yourlips. Sure enough, Marth’s sword hovers for just a moment, leaving you anotheropening to strike a devastating combo.

Your eyes quickly shift to catcha glimpse of your struggling boyfriend beside you, and you can tell that he’strying not to watch you play with the sweetness in your mouth. He shifts hissitting position on the floor uncomfortably while you make a satisfied soundafter popping one of the bubbles. His movements and reflexes, usually quick onthe screen, are lagging significantly with each passing moment.

“Ah…my lips are a little swollenand sticky now,” you say softly, knowing exactly what you are doing. And thatwas it. Your Peach successfully knocks Marth off the stage for the 3rdtime, and you have finally won. Your eyes light up and you throw your arms up inthe air excitedly. Although this wasn’t the most moral of ways to win, it waspretty satisfying. You squeal at your victory, and are about to turn smuglytowards your boyfriend, but before you know it, you find your back on thefloor.

Kakyoin has pinned you downbeneath him, hands on either side of your head, expression holding mild, coldannoyance. “Well, that was certainly an interesting match,” he murmurs, voicedark and low. His eyes flicker down at your lips, plump and reddened from yourwork on the lollipop, and his expression darkens to something less akin toirritation, and more akin to something more…exciting. “You’re quite devious,darling,” Kakyoin says as the back of his hand strokes your now blushing cheek.

You swallow, struggling not tocompletely fold underneath the seductive sight above you. “I’m thinking thatwas the only way I could beat you, Nori.”

Kakyoin’s eyes soften for amoment at the sweet way that you say his pet name, and a small smile forms onhis lips. “Perhaps you’re right.” He slowly lowers his face down to yours, hisred hair brushing beside your cheek, until his nose touches yours, lipshovering over your own. You nearly gasp at the close temptation. He was alwaysgood at teasing. “But you’ll always win something else…” he whispers as helightly presses his lips to yours. Your eyes flutter shut, feeling the coolnessof them, wanting to feel more. But he moves his face away from yours,slowly licking his lips of the cherry taste with a satisfied smile. “Wheneverit comes to resisting you, I’ll always lose…”

#jjba #jojos bizarre adventure #jojo headcanons #jojo headcanon #noriaki kakyoin

136 notes · View notes

platonicteenwolf · 3 years

Text

Second Chance At First Line

(S1E2) Part I

Teen Wolf x Reader Series Rewrite

She/Her Pronouns Version

He/Him Pronouns Version

Next Part / Masterlist

Warnings: none

Stiles pokes his head out from around the corner.

“You apologize to Allison?” He questions.

“Yeah.”

“So she’s giving you a second chance or..?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah! Alright! So everything’s good?”

“No.”

“No?”

Giving a heavy sigh, Scott explains his dilemma to his friend “Remember the hunters? Her dad is one of them.”

“Her dad?”

“Shot me...”

“Allison’s father?” Stiles seems shocked to hear this new information.

“...With a crossbow.”

“Allison’s--“

“No, Scott. Snap back. Ok?” He lightly tapped the side of Scott’s face trying to bring him back in focus. “Okay, okay--did he recognize you?”

“No, I don’t think so--“

“Does she know about him?”

“I- I don’t know, what if she does?” Scott’s face contorts in anguish as he realizes how much danger he could be in. “This is gonna kill me man.”

—————

A whistle rings throughout the field.

“Let’s go!” Coach Finstock yells as the players slam into each other during practice. “One-on-one from up top!”

As Jackson jogs towards the bleachers Coach calls his name.

“Jackson, take a long stick today... Attaboy.”

“Nicely done, Jackson,” Coach praises. “Greenberg, that was a pathetic display of amateur ability. Do a lap.”

As Greenberg takes off into a run, the next Player charges. Scott, gazing off with far too many thoughts swirling in his head, doesn’t notice the other players backing up behind him.

“McCall, what’re your waiting for. Let’s go!”

Chuckling he asks, “Hey McCall, Hey McCall!”

As the werewolf looks towards the sky, he cradles his forearm where Jackson’s stick came down especially hard between his glove and elbow pad.

“You sure you still want to be first line, McCall,” Jackson taunts.

Gritting his teeth in anger, Scott looks up to see Jackson walking away.

“McCall, my grandmother can move faster than that and she’s dead! Can you move faster than the... lifeless corpse of my dead grandmother, McCall?”

Now seething in his rage, Scotts reveals his brown eyes which are rapidly brightening to yellow. “Yes, Coach.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“Yes Coach!” He says slightly louder.

“Then do it again.” As Scott jogs back to the front of the line, Coach calls to the rest of the team. “McCalls gonna do it again!”

An oblivious Jackson goes for a cross check, heading for Scott with his stick horizontal even as the smaller boy hurtles toward him with ferocious speed.

They collide like two goats locking horns. Both go down, Jackson hollering as he hits the ground.

The sickening sound of bone dislodging from socket sends a cringe through Coach. While everyone else runs over to check on Jackson, Stiles hurries to Scott’s side.

“Are you okay?”

But Scott won’t lift his head, won’t reveal his face to Stiles underneath the helmet.

“Scott?”

His head tilts up to reveal the sharpened teeth jutting out from his lower jaw.

“It’s happening. I can’t control it.“

“Come, on. Now? Get up, get up.”

Grabbing him by the shoulder pads, Stiles pulls him up. As Stiles drags him off the field and toward the lockers, neither of them notice someone watching from the sidelines... Derek Hale.

—————

The door to the darkened locker room clangs open, Stiles dragging a hunched over Scott inside.

“Get back,” Scott warns.

“I’m just trying to help--“

“Get away from me!”

His voice comes out with a frighteningly demonic rasp, head snapping around as if to rip out the other boy’s throat.

Stiles retreats, almost stumbling over his own feet at the sight of Scott’s eyes. The sounds coming from him are painful, animalistic and frighteningly aggressive.

Turning back, Scott doubles over in pain. He tears off his lacrosse gloves to reveal his sharpened claws.

Stiles keeps stepping away in fear, accidentally backing into a fire extinguisher against the wall.

The clang of metal causes Scott to whip his head around. But it’s no longer Scott under that helmet or behind those rage-filled yellow eyes.

Darting around another corner, Stiles backs against the lockers, waiting for the next attack.

“Stiles?”

Slowly, Stiles peers around the locker row to see Scott on the floor, chest heaving with each difficult breath. He pulls the helmet off to reveal he’s back to normal. Face drenched with sweat.

“What happened?”

“You tried to kill me.”

Stiles drops the extinguisher to the floor. Still shaking and unable to conceal his anger at his friend.

“It’s like I told you. It’s the anger, your pulse rising. They’re all triggers.”

“But that’s lacrosse. It’s a pretty violent game if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Well, its gonna be a lot more violent if you end up killing someone on the field. You can’t play Saturday. You have to get out of the game.”

“But I’m first line.”

“Not anymore.”

—————

An emotionally and physically exhausted Scott tosses his school bag on the floor and falls face first onto the bed. Melissa McCall looks in.

“Late shift again for me, but I’m taking a night off to see your first game.”

“Mom, you can’t.”

“I can and I will. One shift won’t break us. Not completely. And what’s wrong with your eyes?”

Scott glances up in alarm.

“You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“Oh. It’s nothing. Just kind of stressed.”

“Just stress? Nothing else? You’re not on drugs or anything?”

“Right now?”

“Right now?! What do you mean right now? Have you ever taken drugs?”

“Have you?”

A question she clearly doesn’t want to answer.

“Get some sleep.”

Car keys in hand, Melissa leaves.

—————

As Scott pops up on my screen, Stiles spins around in his chair holding a nerf gun, shooting at the camera.

“You’re such a nerd Stiles,” I chide.

Defending himself, he mocks back. “You’re such a nerd Stiles”

Interrupting our tom-foolery, Scott asks, “What’d you find out?”

“It’s bad,” I warn, “Jackson’s got a separated shoulder.”

“Because of me?”

“Oh please,” Stiles says. “It’s because he’s a tool. It’s not your fault.”

“Is he going to play?”

Relaying what Coach told me earlier, I tell the boys “They don’t know yet. But now they’re all counting on you for Saturday.”

As Scott sighs, Stiles leans closer to the web cam window, squinting his eyes at it. He seems to be looking at something in Scott’s room.

“What?”

A text window pops up the screen and Stiles types:

It looks like--

—————

The cursor turns into a spinning wheel, the computer momentarily hung up. Stiles’s web cam image freezes.

“Looks like what?”

A moment later, the cursor finally stops spinning and the rest of the text appears:

It looks like someone’s behind you. Scott stops breathing. He doesn’t turn around.

Scott spins around and Derek grabs him, yanking him away from the desk, sending the laptop clattering to the floor. Dragging him up, he slams Scott face first to the wall.

“I saw you on the field.”

”What? What are you talking--“

“You shifted in front of them. If they find out what you are, they find out about me. About all of us. Then it’s not just hunters after us. It’s everyone.”

“But they didn’t, didn't see anything. I swear--“

“And they won’t. Because if you try to play that game Saturday...” Derek comes terrifyingly close, right next to Scott’s ear.

“I’ll kill you myself.”

He pulls Scott from the wall and sends him tumbling across the room. When Scott looks up from the floor, Derek is gone.

The bedroom window lies open where he must have leapt with incredible speed, leaving Scott alone in his room. And shaking in fear...

—————

Tag List: @avengersgirl1221

33 notes · View notes

hanzi83 · 5 years

Text

Let Me Explain The Targeted Harassment

Before I begin the blog, there are a lot of thoughts in here that will be my opinion and my theories mixed with some of the established facts that has been documented. I already know the people targeting me, will dissect this blog and will even make comments about how no one cares about this, and it is probably true. This is what happens when you isolate people due to lack of trust in this world, and even if I explain the value I had in this life, it is dismissed and I am labeled someone who is a fucking delusional narcissist who is very mentally ill, and all of that is fine to say when it becomes to belittling me and not valuing me anything because you need to beat my self esteem even more, it looks like Tom Cruise from Vanilla Sky. Sorry I have not watched much movies or television show due to this periscope addiction I have been on this past summer, maybe I should update it and say my self esteem resembles the women in the Manson family after Cliff from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood beats the living piss out of them.

So since I have not written in my personal journal in a while, due to hackers moving my cursor and I wanted to test how my mind would cope with having to deal with the thoughts and organizing them in my head, because I am constantly thinking and I am barely scraping by with this mental illness, especially when you have people constantly streaming my stuff and making it seem like I will be kidnapped, or they know when my therapy appointments are or when I am meeting my caseworker. I have to worry about constantly letting my guard down, because anyone who interacts with a former character- oh sorry I mean regular meaningless caller (even though the Stern Show contacted me in 2008 to be an intern, or Artie Lange and Jon Hein hinting in 2009 that I was a contributor nonchalantly, or the fact when I would pitch guests, Shuli would tell me to tell anyone I try to contact that I am a producer) but yes I was not valued as much, so people online who were initially chat room and forum trolls, who were given the platform, which I believe since the world is a lot more organized, it feels like people were given incentive to vote for Trump, and in return they are given free range to act like assholes online who bully and harass people and never get called out, even though it has been evident that government agents have been watching these youtube streams.

So let’s start from the beginning and I have covered this most of 2018 of a youtube streamer show that was making my life hell and I was sure as hell sure this dude was a Howard Stern agent and given permission to fuck with whack packers. Howard, to me at least, has always showed disdain for people who use characters from his show, so whenever there are people who are creating projects with using the whack packers, it feels cosigned and co-opted. So there was this youtuber who surfaced, who didn’t seem to catch much traction on the surface, but he somehow was the creator of a very prominent Stern Show Facebook group, which I never really knew about, but he did these videos on his green screen playing old Howard Stern clips and just analyze it in the most mediocre way possible, I never thought much about him, but toward the end of 2017 he approached me on twitter to be on his show, and let him do an interview.

I was hesitant because I am not a dark web guy, so I don’t know who these people are associated with and I will never know, but I figured one interview would not be that bad, even though it was on a podcasting network named after a Stern regular caller who was kind of responsible for bothering a Whack Packer named Eric the Actor, who has now passed on, so I had reservations about this dude, but apparently he had issues with this network so he did his own thing. I did my interview with this youtuber named Jimmernam and we had good chemistry, but there were things I did not like about this show from the jump, which included him trying too hard to be like Howard Stern. I have gone through this before but never mentioned this guy’s name. He would organize callers to call in and fuck with me and this cam girl named Goddess and act like he did not know these people, even though later on after I left it, those callers become permanent fixtures of the show.

We had a blow up because I knew this show was not good for me, even though momentarily I was having fun, and because I did not play along with his agenda, he would act like he did not need me, and say he would get viewers on his own because no one cares whatsoever, but still kind of guilt me into coming back every couple of weeks but with the way he would bully other youtubers and dox people, it was not a show for me. We did have a blow up where I lost my mind, I was on a low dosage of my medication and they were piling on, and I questioned how he was a father because he just seems to harass cam girls all the fucking time, especially since that cam girl in particular said he was kind of creepy or some shit, he thought I made fun of his kids and he snapped and he threatened to get me to kill myself, I retorted with “Your kids are gonna want to do that if they realize what kind of father you are” so we both threw shit at each other. Also because I got into arguments with a Trump supporter, who goes by the nickname Kitty on the show, I would lose it on her and she used to produce a 24-7 feed of High Pitch Erik, so I already know she is ingrained in the system, even though she will deny it. I could be wrong, but when the blow up happened and I lost it and said she probably fucked High Pitch Erik, she accused me of sexually harassing her. My larger point was the system would not allow people in that world if they did not have to do something. It got dropped, but later after all of this happened, she did admit in a private message when she was sorry. I asked her who put her up to doing that sexual harassment thing and she said she did not remember.

I went back a few times because they figured enough time passed but I maintained I would maybe just come back permanently but I said I would come by when I felt like it but it was probably best for me to just do my own thing because I just feel if I get pulled into so much drama, it will not be good for my mental health, even though trolls will constantly come to me and bring drama with insinuating they are watching me, my parents don’t love me, or that they are profiting off me, and saying the worst shit possible to elicit a reaction, a very irrational reaction and because when my manic breakdowns happen, I have no qualms at the moment with saying some of the most vile shit ever because my fucked up brain has been trained by the shit I used to consume, whether it was comedy, radio, wrestling or hip hop, or just western media and I then feel bad about it immediately because I know they were looking for it but I am so in tune with what they want but I basically over feed them so they end up being sick at the end of this for wanting to be fed in the first place.

One of the other factors of why I liked the show initially was because Wendy from Howard Stern was somehow a regular there, and Jimmernam clearly had some control over her or something because Howard allowed her to just be used like this, and second he would insist she not do any other show on a different podcast network, even if they are getting paid over there. He had a feud going on and by proxy there were elements of people getting doxxed by both parties, or how Jimmernam would call his enemy’s mother and telling her on voicemail that the wrong son died etc and also constantly showcase his trolling with others, and when I applied what he was doing to others with what was happening to me, he would then attack me more, but claim he had just cause because I am making some wild accusations, and he would play my streams and have my picture on the banner, and he knows I have no power so I couldn’t do shit about this. I don’t have a gang of trolls working for me to just go around and report stuff, like he has done and make it seem like others were the bullies.

So the final blowup where he just didn’t give a shit, and it seemed like the people on top gave him incentive to have me on his show and make it feel like me on my own was nothing special, so my views dwindled, which are always controlled, even if I got massive amounts or very low count, so it was meant for me to go back over there but I did not want anything to do with it because they could not even admit what they were doing. He did not like I did not call in to wish him a happy birthday, and also he has been in Wendy’s ear about mentioning me on the show, since I had been banned 2 years prior, and she also mentioned Jimmernam multiple times, to which Howard did not even react to, and that is what got to him, and it felt like it was not reacted to because it would prove me right that he was a Howard Stern agent. Then he finally snapped and it felt like he had to implode, whether it happened organically or he and his people organized it because more and more people left his show because of the doxing of cam girls, which endangers them, constantly having alcoholic meltdowns and berating contributors because people were donating to them, or wanting to just expand to other shit and it felt like maybe it was a planned hiatus, where everyone would reconvene after a couple of months, it just seemed out of nowhere.

So by the end of 2018 summer he would have meltdowns on his own and apologize but then go back to harassing people and isolating himself from everyone and basically made enemies, of people who were his friends prior. He would still talk shit to other youtubers and dedicate his remaining drunk streams to doxing people, and going to war with his competition etc, while playing lady gaga and a cover of “Bye-Bye-Bye” from an N Sync cover band. He even had a new woman by the name Kitty, not to be confused with the prior Kitty and play video of me cussing out the first Kitty and make it seem it was against her. By October-December of last year he was just doing streams here and there, kind of like he was at the end of his “I don’t give a fuck” phase. One of the main reasons his discord channel got shut down was because he started doing basketball videos, and basically copy of people who write articles etc and he happened to recruit some kid to be in his discord, and he gave him mod status and also was sharing porn in there. I was never in that discord, I don’t go on it often unless I have to talk to someone so I make a temporary account, but at that time I did not go in there other than one time after someone approached me privately to tell me that Wendy from Stern, who is a slow adult, was flashing her tits and wrote “You happy now?” and I never saw the photo, although Jimmer and Kitty were passing it around in their text messages when Jimmer leaked out the texts in the latter versions of the live streams.

He disappeared after all of that, after he did one last Christmas stream where he was doxing a government agent, who was stalking the cam girls and apparently was a creep. He had pictures of him being at some events etc and that is why I start to think how many other government types watch these streams that are just not really a blimp on the radar in the culture, but he was telling this guy with text to speech about him raping his daughters and that he is going to fuck his wife etc and then after that no one heard from him.

Speed up a couple of months later, he apparently had already started a new channel in November 2018 but people did not pick up on it until February where he was rebranding himself as Misery Box on youtube who read reddit stories of Entitled Parents etc and he was making bank and getting a lot views, like millions of views so there was a brand new audience of kids that were being made aware of this new loveable youtuber. It kind made me relieved that maybe if he finds success in this, he would stop bothering me, even though his trolls would show up to fuck with me, because if he was making these reddit videos in November, while no one knew who he was, and he was still doing drunk streams, I could sense he would still be using trolls against me. And I know he blames me for the implosion of his show, and would still continually harass me, I can’t prove that for sure but it I just watch his patterns, because he would show up as Jimmernam on his enemy’s streams and cuss them out etc.

In April, there was a Misery Box exposed video, and apparently even in this new community Jimmernam could not resist going back to his old tactics, because he has to be number one in everything he does, so he seemed to start trouble by telling people in this youtube community that another youtuber was trying to bully smaller content creators, so there was a conversation that was recorded, where some of them were not buying it and he just snapped on some 17 year old kid and after telling him he was good at what he does, then tells him he is lazy in his editing after the kid was asking genuine questions about originality in the youtube space. So this woman Iilluminaughtii created this video, and instantly his subscribers were dropping and it was not the same for him. He tried changing his channel name several times so people would not catch on and he was quiet about any of the allegations of the video that was made, which compiled some clips of him as Jimmernam etc. He would eventually come back with some live streams to explain himself and then point out who is responsible, so he would show his enemies etc, and this is all in front of a kid audience, and I think he had to buy new subscribers because his views barely make it to 2500 within a week.

Now Wendy, who people have always said she was a scammer, and I always thought she was told to manipulate with her condition to get money from people, whether she was actually struggling or basically making money for this Jimmer guy or whoever latched onto her but I felt protective because a bunch of Stern trolls would just call her name and mock her condition relentlessly. Last December she was in a car accident and has been in the hospital since, and it seemed weird because she was first at the hospital, then a rehab center, but now it is a nursing home, claiming she could not leave the home until she paid her bill of 20K. It made no sense but I would let her plug it while I was doing lives, and she did not even mention Jimmernam, but suddenly in the last month she joined periscope, and became beloved there, but I had to watch out for trolls there too and she seemed really distressed that Jimmer was no longer around and she wanted to hear from him, and the thing is I feel Jimmer did not really care about her and just needed her, and it seemed when all this Misery Box got fucked up, he needed her again. I think he put her up to this, and has always kind of been in contact with her on some level, because he did just show up.

I did not express the full vitriol I had for him and Kitty because of the fucked up shit I felt they did, but they both seemed to change, and it does not feel like a coincidence they both showed up around the same time frame of Wendy needing them again. Jimmer seemed peaceful and wanted to give me props for contributing to his show and how it was a huge fucking deal for him to have me, and this is documented in Wendy’s scope and I admitted I had fun on his show for a bit but it was becoming too much for my mental health to deal with, especially since it was giving me flashbacks to how Stern went about shit. I said I needed to see if he changed for real, and needed a couple of months. He did not seem pleased, and I had a feeling this was all for me to have this feeling of nostalgia with him coming back after the show had been disbanded for a year, but I still had to keep my guard up. So it continue with Wendy doing her periscope streams, and every day she would have to show me how much she loved Jimmernam and talking about how she is going to marry him because he promised her and she wants to get a tattoo of him on her belly. I just had to calmly tell her these aren’t good ideas, but not get confrontational about Jimmernam; because I know he means a lot to her.

He was doing his streams and started a new format, and clearly had a new kid audience, and he was doing adult orientated stuff, even though he has been questioned why he gave a kid porn in his old discord, now he seems to be grooming new batch of kids and making him seem like the victim, because the people who he has fucked with are going after him for being a banned guy on youtube who somehow found a loophole to get back on, and he is interviewing trans women, and asking sexual questions in front of an audience of kids who are 12-15 years of age, maybe some of 17. He wanted to play audio of one of his enemies having sex with his woman but was advised not to, he played old interview with one of his contributors about his gay experience, and listen I don’t have a problem with trans women giving their stories, or someone else’s gay experience, but is this kind of shit appropriate for a 41 year old on the internet to be giving these kids that? I criticized it and we got into it but in a calmer way, because he was trying to maintain that he is a good guy who is not going to snap because I am not giving in. I even questioned about these pedo allegations, because it bothers me that since I am not into the dark web or in these group chats, I don’t know these people’s past because I assumed if they were dangerous or corrupt, the people would have got him tagged, but since he is being allowed to do streams and get a fan base, I figured that those pedo allegations were real or not. I don’t see the proof, other than him having a weird fascination of wanting to have a kid audience and giving a kid porn in a discord, which was shut down.

I think he became impatient and starting using Wendy a lot more because he knows that I care for Wendy so fucking much and I have tried to defend her from trolls and I really don’t make money off her or my streams, so I am purely doing it because I am a fan of her and she has entertained me for so many years on the show, so I just felt because Howard does not watch out for her or even help her out, seemingly, but I did not mind it because I was also meeting others who were fans on her and showing her love, but she kept going into other discords of Jimmer’s enemies and cuss them out, and it was like how is she figuring this out to go to a specific discord, and it became such a problem that she was screaming obscenities in the nursing home to this guy named Saiyanz, that the nurses had to come in and tell her to put the phone down because she was waking up her roommate, and you could hear her crying and flipping out. It was clearly getting her in trouble, and even Jimmer showed concern for this and said she should listen to me because Hanzi cares for her. She would go into another person’s discord named Ross Dawg RDA, and some of these youtubers I am not really down with because it comes across like right wing adjacent where they need to say inappropriate things to be edgy, even guys I get a long with, I try to show others on periscope why the devil wins when we use these bad words because I used to fall for that propaganda, because they have managed to make PC shit seem corporate so you think acting inappropriate with language, although not having evil intent, is some kind of edgy shit.

Now I get suspicious why Wendy is going to Jimmer’s competition and just starting trouble, even though they are very rude to her and hide it under the guise of “treating her like everyone else” and it felt like it was done on purpose because seeing them treat her that way would make me want to team back up with Jimmer and go at these assholes bothering her. I still suspected they were in her ear, and she donated 650 dollars in total throughout the week one time, and Jimmer claimed he did not see it because he claims she had him blocked and he could not see the donations, and I got upset by this because now it seemed like she was raising money to give to him for his comeback. I told her that if she truly needs money for rehab, people will not donate to her. Maybe the ones who were in on it did donate knowingly that Jimmer was taking it, but a lot of people said they did not feel comfortable doing that. I think that angered him the most, but she did donate to Jimmer’s competition saying that she was being forced to, and then Jimmernam comes out of nowhere with Kitty, who people were shocked she went back to Jimmer after he had doxxed her information last November or so. And he would do stream where he is making it seem like this Saiyanz guy took her money and telling the kid audience to report him etc. Also when Wendy was going to do some story time segment, she said she was going to write one about me, which meant to me, that they were going to make her say some crazy shit and even though it would normally not bother me, I was wondering if they were going to have her say some wild shit under the guise of “She is a slow adult we can’t control what she says” so I made a temporary discord account to see if anyone was feeding her shit, but I did see Ross Dawg in the discord spamming Jimmernam’s discord, and one message in particular he wrote “Send me more naked pictures Wendy” and I figured maybe he was joking around, but I later asked Wendy on her periscope, and it is still up, if she sends nudes to people, and if people ask her. She claimed Ross Dawg asked her for pictures of her boobs. I was livid, because Wendy has told me prior years that people have her on facebook have sent her dick pictures, and I always told her to give me the names, and she obliges but never tells me who they are. So I confronted Ross Dawg about this on twitter with the screen grab, and he seemed upset but just kind of mocked it and said that he has phone sex with her on his stream and she loves it, and listen she seems down for that type of humor so if she chooses to I can’t stop her, but it feels like she has been trained to think that is what she has to play a long with to be accepted, even though this Ross Dawg guy claims he never listened to Stern ever.

So I went off on this because Wendy seemed upset about it and she claimed they were bothering her and calling her incessantly from what she was making it seem like, but she would keep going to these people’s discords, so I wondered why and she claimed she blocks them but they hack her phone and unblock themselves, and I am like “This is fucking crazy, how can they do this” and then I figured out that this was probably a ploy by Jimmernam to get me upset, whether it was to start a feud with a new streamer such as him, or get me to team up with him. Wendy keeps going back, so I finally had enough and decided I had to unfriend her on facebook and unfollow her on periscope because I won’t be listened to and I seriously tried doing the right thing.

So Ross Dawg, butt hurt over the call out started spreading the rumors the trolls have started about me, beating up a gay couple, even though I never had a criminal record, and can’t even fucking fight, or making fake accounts in their youtube streams and naming it after me or making you think it is me, and saying I am going to get a gun or something even though I don’t have a gun, nor can I afford a gun, nor do I have any interest in having any kind of fucking weapon. He has dedicated streams to me about how I blamed him and he did that to Wendy as a joke, and he did not actually get a naked picture from her, and maybe he is telling the truth, but the fact that he is getting offended by that and how I think people like him are allowed to do the shit they do, because they are co-opted by the system, and considering Jimmer had enough power to expose a government agent, I don’t know what power these people truly fucking have.

This Ross Dawg guy has done dedications to shows to me and I tried not to answer and even if he is trolling he is fucking with a mentally ill person, and these people can use it as an excuse when it is convenient and they are going to keep doing this, and because I went on one of his competition’s streams, and by the way I time to time have went on that specific stream, even though sometimes it seems too edge lord for me, but Unbleachd’s intent is not evil, or at least I don’t think it is, but I had not talked to him and I did not know Ross Dawg was streaming anyways so I went on to talk about wrestling and this drama that occurred because he was not caught up on it, and that angered Jimmernam, who somehow was on the stream, and now he is so mad he got Wendy to start calling me names, saying I never helped her, donated money, and that I am a pussy. It hurt to hear someone I genuinely cared for and not fetishise having a contact from the Stern Show etc, and I can’t retort because she is obviously mentally disabled and I am going to cuss her out? It is just sad these guys have turned her on me, and it felt like it confirms that her being friends with me was the resort they needed because she was the only left who would soften me up and convince me Jimmer has changed, which he did not, and all those compliments and hyping me up went out the window. He showed his true colors, and what hurts most is people who were part of his show hang out with this Ross Dawg guy and they stand idly by, some of them were really cool and have been telling me not to worry, but others have just partook in it, and now are ready to do streams about me losing my mind, because people hacked my phone and I think it was them, or maybe others in my life, and because I am a fucking human being I lose my mind, I don’t have 20 people in a discord to laugh at my fucking shitty jokes, while I think that it is something special, and now they keep fucking with more and more, and I am trying to explain that I did not have ill will toward Ross Dawg because I was going off by what Wendy was telling me, and clearly she keeps going back there.

Now these people are going to keep harassing me and they know I am mentally ill and they have no qualms with pushing me to suicide, even though I will never do it. I leave when they decide to kill me, and I reached out to media outlets for this kind of harassment because these people need to be looked into, and with the arrogance they have and how they can harass me, it seems they do have power and are given permission. Stern does not like me, and I have been calling him out for these leaks and how much alleged harassment he has put on me, and he could be cosigning it. Maybe it is my friends or people close to me because they got what they needed from my fame, just like every social circle of the whack pack, since Stern makes systemic deals with these people, and I can prove it, but these people never have my back. They know I have nothing to do, I say nothing, they get away with fucking with my life and mentality, I say something, it is more me flipping out and having manic meltdowns, where I am close to losing my fucking head, and this all seems as a ploy for me to call in and if this guy needed me to call in to talk I would have called in to talk to him but since he went this route and keeps pushing me more and more to the brink of insanity and no one cares. Maybe people are investigating without telling me and they are building a case, but it feels like nothing will be exposed or no one will care until I am dead or in a fucking loony bin and when the semi woke people with blue checkmarks can then pretend to care like they don’t make deals with the devil and give a limited narrative of social consciousness. That’s why you know cancel culture is bullshit, and organized because Howard Stern would be on the chopping block, but nope, he has able to rebrand himself as some liberal, even though he is still very much a neoliberal centrist who still wants Israel to obliterate the entire middle east, and no one has the balls to call him out.

There are also clips I have pinned on twitter where Howard in 97, in jest, says that these celebrities need to fight off people investigating them by hiring private investigators to follow them around and have no hesitation in ruining these people’s lives and it felt like that is why nothing super serious has ever been reported about him and even back in 2012 he admitted, and I am sure people will say it is a joke, but he did say that when people bother him on twitter and they get annoying, he has a team of people to find out who that person is and start to ruin their lives, but you won’t hear that in any marathons shows they play on Howard 101.

I know this blog will not go anywhere and no one will care because let’s be real these people saying no one cares about me are right, and even the ones who are on my side can’t do anything but these guys need to be stopped. They are pushing me to lose my fucking mine and this Jimmer guy seems nervous because he is on the verge of losing his channel because some guy named WTF guy has been working on exposing him and now Jimmer has gotten his groomed kids to go report his videos and harassing him on twitter and has spun it into him being the victim and no one cares because seemingly it is not a blimp on the radar, but these people like Ross Dawg was mocking me and saying he is going to dox me and my family etc, and they have a moderator named after me, and have fake accounts show up and then use it as an excuse to shit on me by saying that fake account is me. The way they have manipulated Wendy is disgusting and this will not stop. Again no one will fucking care and I am on my own, and maybe it is best for them to push me to the edge because even then you assholes can pretend to care after and profit off my fucking story. They know I have no back up, so they will continue to fucking harass the living shit out of me. This will never end.

By the way I am hoping Ross Dawg knows that Jimmer probably set this up or maybe he is on it, but since they were enemies and now he is welcoming Jimmer on maybe Ross Dawg is doing it for him to put his foot in his mouth and I don’t know if Wendy was lying about the nudes, and it was just a joke, but I will be fair to him a little and say he did defend Wendy from having her money stole from someone else, but he had a chance to talk to me on someone else’s stream and he just went in there to make fun of me and saying another live stream dedicated to me will come up. I felt I needed to write this so I wouldn’t lose my fucking mind but they will push me to it

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCteISibPyZCgVCM6gP2JNBA here is the channel harassing me

here is the tweet calling him out https://twitter.com/Hanzi83/status/1172751869883637766?s=20

clip of him saying he is going to doxx me https://twitter.com/Hanzi83/status/11741640181116846

08?s=20

here is the channel exposing Jimmernam for what he is doing to people and compiling the shit he has for his kids audience https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcuJyY0dJLSQHC5XqNFmbqA

here is Jimmer convincing his audience that he is the good guy in all this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h6scwm_Rhw

here is the initial video from Iilluminaughtii exposing misery box https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezcNo4i9bSk&t=36s

#Hanzi 2019 Howard Stern Harassment Trolls Targeted Harassment stalking mental illness manipulating Wendy Slow Adult Jimmernam Misery Box #MiseryBox RossDawg Ross Dawg doxxing doxx Illuminati government #grooming kids reddit entitled parents

0 notes

dememarquette · 7 years

Text

ASHWATER: Epilogue [...pt 2]

[First Part by malum--in--se]

The only person I knew in this city was Adria.

I mean, really knew. As far as connections went, I was at a loss. My life had been rooted deep in good old California. Due to circumstances you can catch at 7 PM Central on HBO, it was violently severed last month. And while I was hitting it off in Modena better than expected, no one should have been at my door. Adria was also the only one who knew my address, but this early in the afternoon she’d be elbow-deep in CSI: Modena. My door beeped again. After the second time, sheer annoyance prompted to peek at the security camera. A stout woman, barely clearing five feet stood at the foot of the building. I don’t recognize her, but she sure was acting familiar with my buzzer. It pinged again, extended as she held her thumb on the button. This time I responded. ”Apartment 312 speaking; do you mind?” She stopped her pacing, pivoted, and jammed a finger on the intercom, a little too excited. “Mr.Marquette? Hello, hello! This is Kathy Grover- I’d like to sit down with you for a meeting. It’s- it’s confidential.” “Confidential?” “You’ll see, uhm." She adjusted the large messenger bag on her shoulder. "I'll only need fifteen minutes for a quick chat. It’s in your best interests, honest! Pretty please, please pleaseee.” Well that doesn’t sound creepy.

I glanced at my television. Noting that the Kardashian’s weren't going anywhere, I supposed I could postpone my afternoon plans a bit. I sighed, giving her the all-clear. “I’ll bite. Come on up.” She disappeared off the camera. Three minutes later, tiny knocks hit my door in record time. I welcomed her in. She rushed inside, already flipping open her laptop to make herself at home before a proper introduction. I smirked, admiring her spunk until it looked like she was about to have a mental breakdown on my coffee table. I require coasters, even for tears. “If Julia asks,” She exhaled. “I’m not here.” “If Julia asks, neither am I." I pocketed my hands. "What’s this about?” “Ashwater. I'm writing your account.” Right, I snorted. I knew she was going to milk it for everything it was worth. That line in the contract about a book deal was much more appealing a year ago. “If this is really about business you really should have made an appointment.” It's worth nothing that I'm using the terms ‘business’ and ‘appointment’ lightly. Things aren’t what they were. I was out of the limelight, but our personal notoriety in the city had gotten me somewhere within healing the community. To put it lightly, the mass suicides completely fucked up Modena. Not that they needed a dose of Catholicism to fix it right up- but my niche and trendy factor multiplied by survivor status gave me a leg-up on the competition. It’s not television, and it’s little more than a step higher than where I started at the inception of my career but the church I operate from is mine. Mine. At one month in, I’m wondering how lost track of that concept in the first place. "-And I have made it clear I'm done with that whole mess." “I am here for my business, but it is about your business.” She paused, nose wrinkled. “I’m sorry- she did tell me not to contact you, but I can’t help it. It’s your life. The history major in me wants it to be accurate.” I can't blame her for that. Part of me knows Julia would dance on the border of defamation of character all day if she could. I pulled up a chair. “Noooow that you mention it, I think I'd rather it be accurate too.” Sure, it was valuable time but I will never pass up the chance to talk about myself. "Most if it is on film though, what do you need to know? “This romance with Adria. It’s so confusing.” Record scratch. Uh. “What?” “It’s up, down- off, on- it’s difficult to fill in the blanks between takes.” “What do you mean ‘romance’?” Now she was confused. “W-what?” “There is no romance. Nada.” “Oh no..." She cupped her mouth. "Did it fall apart after you moved to Modena?” “What?! No. It never happened. Where are you even getting that? Don’t tell me the forums or I'll kick you out right now.” Suspicious, she turned her screen my way. Alright PAUSE. It's time for me to admit it: Adria and I's closeness has...never been an easy subject to broach. I'm not oblivious to my on screen chemistry with Adria. What am I saying- I'm not oblivious to our chemistry in general.What made Ashwater great, and not a repressed episode of trauma, was Adria. She was a breath of fresh air when Hollywood met a cornfield. Our banter was great, her devotion was pure, and I'll be the first to say I came out of that town a new person. The US audiences saw that within us. That was the whole draw- aside from all the spooky shit, of course. We just worked really, really well together. Miss Kathy thought so to, and decided to condense that down into a ten minute montage. She spliced together our interactions. Starting from a little bit before the family dinner, to post-Boris, to the kid's hospital, and then the whole Crocotta roller coaster that was only nuanced on television, but never clearly explained. I don’t blame her for losing track. While I can account for all the stupid stuff I did between takes, the cameras couldn’t. I found myself smiling when reliving Adria's candid honesty, and cringing like a kicked dog when I had fucked up. "Uh-" I stopped her as soon as the two of us stepped into the frame in disguise. "We can skip this part..." “Well fine- one last one though! This is my favorite.” Her cursor jumped ahead on the timeline, and my heart stopped. I had no idea the film was salvaged that far into the night. It was post-Modena in the heart of the cult warehouse. The entire scene was dark except the licks of fire on the edges. How the camera was still rolling, I had no clue. It was on its last leg. The footage shoddy at best. All scratched up, and battered. The woman I was following was barely visible, completely obscured by smoke, but by the time I had gotten out of the wooden shack the lens was clear. Adria was in the background, at the edge of the trees. You could tell the moment I saw her- she was my focal point. She was my purpose. It captured every step I limped towards her until I ultimately collapsed by her side, and the frame turned upward into the storm clouds. The feed went still. Nothing except the wave of trees overhead, and smoke clearing out until Kathy sped it up again. She stopped, just before- “Deme?” Adria’s voice cracked. It still gave me chills. But in that moment, a wounded and battered Adria had a different connotation. The view turned- energized, and sharp enough to catch a frame of our hands interlocked. Our voices were so bad it merited captioning, but miraculously every detail was intact through the trauma. I hadn’t realized I stopped breathing until the screen was ripped away. Kathy pulled up a littered word document, eyes wide and grin stretching ear to ear. “See! You can’t hide anything from me, Mr.Marquette.” I blinked, faltering when ripped out of the past and put on the spot. “I’m not hiding anything- what- what are you writing?!” I ran around the table. Her fingers, going a mile a minute, tried to capture my reaction. Something about warmth in my face, the light in my eyes. She completely scripted a flashback that honestly didn’t happen. The moment in the raw was way better than any metaphor she could twist around. “'That's the moment I knew we were destined to-what?! That is NOT how I’d say that.” “How would you put it?” “Uh- I’d say that yeah, I was happy to see her alive, but-” “No, no.” She primed her hands back at the starting line. “Start from the beginning?” Fifteen minutes, my ass. It was the longest two hours of my life. - - - 6 AM the following Sunday, I was setting up the chapel. I couldn't get her film off my mind. The scenes, everything. I'd never get around to re-watching the series because: A. My shoulder revolted just thinking about it. B. It was still a sore spot for both of us. Not the whole thing, obviously, but what it’d inevitably lead up to. Though we got past that. I’d like to think she forgave me after all this time, but I'd understand if she didn’t. Point is that we set it aside to grow as people. I was content with how our cards fell. We were close, and we cared about each other. A lot. That was sort of it... But then the weird part kicked in. Someone else saw something...Not some creep online, but someone trusted enough to write my fucking autobiography, for example. She saw something was there. That's when it really sunk in. Was it that obvious? And did its obviousness meant she felt...something too? The signs were there. It sounds nice on paper to say she did, but is that why we were here? Is that why I invited her? Did I pick Modena because I honestly thought this was the only place I could make it after Julia? And did she only join me because she was intending to go there anyways? Or was it more? I acted on impulse in that hospital- or at least that’s what I played it off as. Why? Because I don’t know how to explain an alternative. It’s truly what I wanted at the time. Now I have to figure out what it all means, and what's is going on in her head- which is easier said than done, by the way. She hasn’t said anything about it! And if there was any reoccurring theme from our time there, it was that I don't know what she’s thinking. I didn't know, and maybe I never will. She's so different. She's everything I'm not, and would never think to be, but inspiring. That's what made her exciting. Not that golden Jesus would agree. Throughout the course of this mental monologue, I didn't realize I had dusted His head so many times he was starting to get a bald spot- ah… These thoughts were best saved for a time outside the church. I coughed, trying to dismiss the shallow guilt wadding up in my chest. "Sorry Jesus." - - - Our schedules had a tendency to clash when she got into detective boot camp. Communication became sparse. We caught each other at odd times on odd days just to keep in touch. It was fine. I understand it was a whole lot of settling in for the both of us. I had a whole community to cultivate, and she had be rehabilitated into dealing with delicate humans instead of kicking monster ass. Reasonably, that'll take awhile. Still- that left me bored after services were said and done. I don't miss the danger. God no, I don't. I missed the interaction. I missed the dependency, my partner in crime. Restlessness became an itch anytime I had too much time on my hands. Small at first, until the two month mark when it became maddening. I thought it was attention deprivation at first. I put myself out there. I would do stupid AMA's online, and reply to fan mail in an attempt to catch the same high I did a year back. Surprisingly it.... Didn't help at all. Especially not when little postscripts on the letters asked how Adria was doing, too. It left a sour taste in my mouth when I didn't know what to tell them so that hobby ended rather quickly. Community events were my next go-to. That had more luck. They were equally productive and fun. I got the chance to raise funds to spruce up my chapel to what it should be, and could be the center of the attention while doing it. That cured idle hands a little more. One of the latest was a bake sale benefit held downtown. It wasn't exactly my scene, geared toward your more elderly audiences. Don't get me wrong, I'll always have fun charming the older ladies, but they had it under wraps. I snuck out when the chance arose but stopped cold on the stoop. “What the-” A sudden flash of fury sparked when I saw a pink ticket on my dashboard. I did not put that EXTREMELY tacky parking pass on my windshield of my 'Rari for nothing. I stormed over and swiped it off the dash, ready to raise all sorts of holy Hell with the city of Modena when I noticed it was a blank form. Nothing was scribbled on it but the word ’Lunch?’ in sloppy cursive. Her handwriting. I put it with the other one. - - - The weekly lunches started back up afterward. Absolutely non-negotiable. Not even the sickest orphan could make me work within the noon-3PM block on Fridays. Granted, we weren’t at Jo’s. I didn't have any show on the air, and she didn't have to play damage control for her mom, but it was pleasant. It was a tiny piece of Ashwater I'm glad we reinstated. Location changed weekly as I found new spots I thought she’d like. Hearing she'd never had sushi before was unacceptable. My hands around hers, I guided the grip of her chopsticks. With a little adjustment, they were functional. "-That's horrifying." I balked. "What? It was worse training to be a cop! This was more procedural stuff." "But running five miles in how long? How is that humanly possible?" "Hey," She grinned. "That's just keeping in shape. Join me at the gym sometime. I'll make you the buffest preacher in New England." "Pass." I said, rejecting that mental image. "But really, how’s the force?” “It’s great!" She beamed. "Surreal compared to Ashwater, which is saying something. Exciting but different. A good kind of different.” “‘Different’?” I asked, giving up chopsticks for a fork when her dexterity as a newbie already had mine beat. At least I know what a soup spoon is. “That’s not what I was expecting. Just not the same as running straight into monsters, huh?” “Maybe I don’t have anyone to chase.” She propped up her chin with a hand, warm smile from across the table. “Except, you know, the bad guys.” “Except the bad guys.” Somehow I don't think they'll have as much fun being tailed by her as I've had. Their loss; but that would be weird to say. Instead I accidentally opted for something weirder entirely, because I'm a teenager. “How’s your partner?” Her eyebrow flicked up. “Partner?” “Yeah, don’t you get assigned one? Or something.” I picked at the sashimi with practiced disinterest. "Cops are never alone on TV." "Well yeah. Uh. He's fine. We get along great. He's been on the team a lot longer than me, I've got a lot of learning to do." "Oh, he's way older?" "Uh...yes?" I tried not to sound too relieved. "Oh nice, nice. He'll be a good, uh. Mentor." Puzzled, she lost sight of where I was going with this. "...I guess?" "I'm happy for you." Great. Now it's awkward, but you wouldn't have known that from my attitude. She finished her lunch, and I flagged the waiter over. Adria reached for her wallet, and I stopped her. "No- no. Don't worry about it. I got this." "You? Pay?" She said, in exaggerated surprise. "Am I dealing with the fake Deme again?" I laughed, painfully. Ha ha ha. Now she did it. I felt even worse, itching to make a desperate call. "Consider it a congratulations for making it through training." "I was done two weeks ago-" "Oh, if you don't want me to, I won't." I recoiled, defensive. The beginnings of a coy smile crept into her lips. She let go of her wallet like it’d explode with any sudden movements, sarcastic. I wanted to run. "No, I won't stop you~" "Great." "Great." - - - For the first time in forever, I couldn't wait to shove her into her car to LEAVE. I screwed that up. Royally. What kind of message was I trying to put out? That I'm into her, or that I'm a freaky stalker? Subtly isn’t my strong suit, and if any RomCom had ever made it okay just to say ‘Date me, already, god.’ and skip the formalities, I would. Thankfully, my phone still had a very special number on speed dial. The second her vehicle turned the corner, I was on the line. "Ashwater Cottage, Margie speaking!" "Marg, I need your help." - - - Our call spanned the entire drive back to my apartment. I explained everything. I went over the signs I was seeing, to how badly I screwed lunch up. It was irredeemable in retrospect, but Margie didn't think so. In fact, she reassured me three separate times that hand holding wasn't something Adria did with just her best buddies (and that she was really, really sure) before I cracked. Little did she know that was another hour long conversation in the making. “Okay- how about this:" I splayed my fingers on the steering wheel. "DRIVE IN MOVIE. Or is that too much of a smalltown cliche?” “A drive-in would be lovely.” “I don’t know- Footloose was just on the other night, she might know it was uninspired.” "You're overthinking it, dear." “I don't think so! There has got to be a reason she hasn't said anything. I haven't really wow'd her yet. How did her parents do it?” “Uh…” “No! No, you’re right. That’s creepy. Ugh, do you see why I need help?!” Margie chuckled. “Honey, have you dated anyone before?” “Well YES-” I paused. “No? Maybe?” “Not like this?” She suggested. I slumped against the the steering wheel. Yeah, exactly… I've never had to deal with this. Any of it. Even in high school I was the type more interested in fun for the night than anything that spanned longer than a week. And before a year ago, that just made more sense. You want to know why? Because this is hard. She knows me deeper than a flash of the smile, and pretty words. She knows ME me, and some of the gross, off-putting selfish stuff Demetrius Marquette entails. Like, even the literal gross gore and inner tendons. If you asked me a year ago what it’d take for someone to be my better half, I’d have said “zeros and commas.” Now, I have a whole list of strangely specific virtues, and adjectives that would only come to a poet. I don’t want to ruin this because I am damn sure I’d never find something like this again, and I don’t want to. Margie sighed, the pleasant kind where you could hear her smiling as she did it. My silence was intuitively taken as an affirmative. “Don’t you worry about it. Adria isn’t a girl who is going to be impressed by a diamonds and opera theater. She doesn’t need grand displays or money- she just wants you." “..She does?” “Haha, well I won’t speak for her! You’ll have to figure these things out on your own, but don’t dilly dally. Be yourself.” “Right…” I shifted. “Don’t...say anything to anyone about this, okay?” “Your secret is safe with me. Good luck!” - - - So drive-in movie wasn’t happening. Regular movie is too basic (and cheap). Not much else wasn’t much jumping out at me. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, I came up with nothing. Margie put emphasis on a personal flair instead of flashiness. But what if my personal flair is flashiness? I had to find a middle ground between, and that idea didn’t come to me until a horse and carriage tour clopped outside the chapel. It helped me come up with a plan. Mentally, too. No, I wasn’t going to take Adria on a stinky, over-crowded novelty ride around the town. I went on my own time, for a better grasp of the city. Something around here had to be us and I found it. The reservation to a five-star was an afterthought and the catalyst. This dinner itself would be the two of us. Despite the exuberant exterior, we’d content in our world just as we’d have been on the hood of her cruiser or on a bale of hay. I made the conscious effort not to think about what I was doing or what she was thinking because I never had before, and that’s what worked for us. What Adria was to me was comfort. I needed to stop saying things I thought I should and just...go with it. The skin-tight red dress was just a bonus. Afterwards was more important, anyways. I told myself if we got to that point, there was no longer any room for doubt. - - - After dinner, we took to the streets. I walked. My eyes were studiously focused on the sidewalk ahead. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her double take in the opposite direction. This was the part where I normally walked her back to her car, but she didn’t say a word nor miss a step. Wordlessly confirming, my hand slipped out of my coat when the cool autumn air would normally advise against it. Our fingers didn’t brush against each other. Instead, they instinctively clasped. The city was gorgeous this time of year. And the park? Beautifully abandoned. Kids were in school, and the homeless populace had found shelters above forty degrees. I scoped this spot out via tour before booking our reservation. It was only a block away. It spoke to me. When you got past the statues and benches, the main attraction was the fountain. The guide warned that it’d be the last few days of the season where it’d be in up and running. Soon the ice would claim it; it felt like a metaphor, in a way. For now, it was left on, lights and all. We stopped to sit on the fountain walls. Sign dissuading it be damned, we only paid attention to the plaque. It was engraved on the side with the names and descriptions of heroes from another calamity before our time. Adria took the time to read over it. I was less patient, finding more to revere in the woman before me. I patted the concrete beside me. “We should have really got one of these in Ashwater, huh?” “Yeah. But they already dedicated a day to us.” She said, taking the spot. She shimmied closer until our arms touched. “What more do we need? Wait- don’t answer that.” “What?” I said, offended. “I wasn’t going to say anything. Well, except I don’t know how they’d fit Kyriakoulopoulos on it.” “Hey,” She nudged. “You learned my name.” I winked. Learning a woman’s name on the first date, Dating 101. I didn’t trust myself to say that out loud. Instead, the stillness baited our eyes to the water. The colored bulbs shifted under the icy surface in a continuous luminescent transition. Blue, green, yellow, orange, red... The glow on the half profile of her face was driving me crazy, even when I tried to ignore it. There's no word in English to describe the feeling when there’s so much comfort it hurts. It’s been full year of memories, broken boundaries, and new horizons. It all jumbled together into a rocky formation to spite me. It urged me forward because staying still was no longer an option. The fingers that curled around mine burned. Pulsing, like they threatened to disintegrate if I let another moment pass me by. If there was more to us, I had to have more. “Adria…" I broke the tranquility, stilted. "I need to say something. You’re...really important to me.” “I already told you I can’t get you out of a parking ticket,” She chuckled. I ignored the bite of sarcasm, moving my hand away from hers to free it. I rehearsed this so many times. I don’t know the words that go along with the scenes, only the motions. They're intimate- like a silent film. When she looked back at me, all humor drained away. ‘Oh no, he’s serious.’ Maybe I am. No- I bit my lip. There’s no maybe. I am serious. I am I am I am. We were heading for uncharted territory, but I needed to go. The change of scene wasn’t doing anything if we were staying in the same place. I couldn’t be satisfied with where we were anymore. Tonight, I was cashing in everything. “Deme...” Her voice broke. Instead of moving closer like she was scripted to, she leaned away. I twitched. Just as I was about to reach for her, the muscles in my palm turning to stone. “I always do this. I’m sorry.” …? My brows furrowed. Scratch that- what?! Okay, I was heading into uncharted territory, and she was fumbling on the opposite side of the map. “Adria...what- what are you talking about-?” “It’s so stupid- I went too far. You don’t have to say it.” Her freed hand balled into her other one, nearly aggressive in nature. “I’ve already made you leave once, and I can’t- I can't do it again...” My head was reeling trying to figure out where we got off track. She got up to leave, and I grabbed her hand. Her lack of conviction to keep going proved she didn’t really want to go. “Are you crazy?” “The whole priest thing, I know you-” “Can’t wait?” “What?” Her eyes finally met mine, glassy. “You’re not serious right? Adria, you're not asking me to do anything I don’t want to do. If I’m doing anything it’s because I want you.” I squeezed her hand like she had in the clearing. “Very bad.” “Deme, I-” Oh God. No. I pulled her down beside me to trade her hand for her cheek. Delicate- I held her chin, examining her slightly smudged mascara from different angles. “Are you- are you crying? You’re literally crying!” I laughed, brushing an icy tear from her cheek with my thumb. “You’re ridiculous." "It's not ridiculous!" She said, cheeks flushing at the touch. She was burning, too, but on the outside couldn’t decide what emotion she wanted to embody. That was…relieving. In that moment, I realized two things. One, we both really, really sucked at this, and two: if this- this unsaid, indescribable thing between us was wrong, I had zero will-power to stop myself. The time for talking was gone. The mist from the fountain was steaming off of us. Dead in the middle of Autumn, we were on fire. Our breaths fogged up everything around us except each other. The timing was right, so right. I went for it. I kissed her. With bated breath, I pulled her in. One firm hand on her cheek and the other at the base of her neck, I wanted her. So bad- and I let her know. She wanted me, too. She was waiting for it. Unlike the talk before, there was zero awkwardness. She was fluid. Her lips moved in perfect sync with mine with an ease stated the obvious. We held back too long, but it was the wait that ignited it. A warmth that pushed through our entire bodies. It drove us into each other, both equally fighting to make up for lost time in the other’s arms, and to say the things we had no words for. The girl with walls a mile thick melted into me. And I lured her in just so we could go down together. The hand supporting her followed the curve of her spine. Past the scars, past the pain- she fell with me, recumbent on the fountain’s edge. Her hands gripped tight onto the collar of my coat, while her legs went weak on either side. I held her steady when we threatened to throw ourselves over the edge. I’m not going anywhere. Nor did I plan to. Things were changing again, but there’s no way we’d hesitate.

#LONG OVERDUE #adria #ashwater #cop au #ngl i wrote this to 'I wanna - All American Rejects'#one day i want to tweak until it feels like that too #its so how i picture it #epilogue #story

2 notes · View notes