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wallwriterstuff · 4 years ago

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Our Dearest Moments ||Alec Volturi x Reader||

Warnings: None, this is nice and fluffy

Words: 2964

Summary: A request for @royalvolturisblog Forever is a long time to live, an occasionally a little reflection upon who we are and how we got here is needed to maintain our sanity, and decided some very important answers to equally as important questions.

Sometimes, life is not all we expect it to be. Sometimes, life is cruel. Sometimes, life is disappointing. For me? I can safely say it’s none of these things. My life had always been easy, the best of everything and wanting for nothing. As doting as he was, my father had spoilt me rotten and never let me work hard for anything, never given me life skills that most normal people would need to live a functioning, adult existence. Why would I need them? Money was not a problem for my family nor would it ever be, so why go to the hassle of building a life where a nine to five job sapped the life from me when I could, quite sustainably, simply enjoy my life to its fullest at my loving father’s expense? Why make your child work if there was no need? I would not settle for a subpar life as nothing in my life had ever been less than luxurious.

That was my life in a nutshell. It was flat screen TVs in a ginormous bedroom which would have fit some people’s houses inside it, four poster beds and every new games console, every makeup palette fresh off the manufacturers line and vacations to the most remote and lavish corners of the Earth. I never even had to ask for some of it, my father simply expected I would want things and provided them without request – as those of guilt soul are wont to do.

“Well? What do you say?” Alec asked, his lips pressing the gentlest of kisses against my shoulder. I hummed, leaning back against him.

“Forgive me, I was hardly listening to a word you said, my mind is…elsewhere.” I admitted. Alec squeezed my hips, arms widening around my waist to tighten his hold on me.

“You’re ignoring me now? How very rude. I thought we were passed this.” He chided, though his tone was more playful than scolding.

“Call it introspection.” I sighed. Alec chuckled.

“Introspection? Now that sounds dangerous. I happen to like you as you are, if you haven’t noticed.” He teased, pressing a kiss to my temple. I turned in his arms with a smile. He stood a little taller than I did but I didn’t mind; it always gave me the best angle of the soft curve of his jawline, the fullness of his lips that didn’t like to stray from my own for too long. It also gave me the perfect excuse to nestle my head against his collarbone, escape those all seeing crimson eyes of his. Alec had seen right through me from the very start.

“I happen to know, you inform me every day…you sap.” I smiled a little as he lifted a hand to play with my hair.

“Then why decide to be introspective? What is there to reflect on? What would you wish to change?” he questioned.

“I already have changed,” I pointed out, lifting my hand to play with his coven crest, “I actually work for a living now.” Alec actually laughed at that, pulling back to feign shock.

“You? Spoilt? I would never have guessed.” he teased. He wasn’t wrong. Even now my room was lavish, silks and fine fabrics and luxuries filling every corner, but at least this time I had worked for it. Being a part of the Volturi was a privilege in itself but it required hard work, it required proving your worth and working for the greater good of your species. It was rather odd, how I had turned my entire life philosophy around in the span of a few centuries. Maybe it was Alec, making me humbler and wiser. Perhaps I owed some of it to Vladimir and Stefan, who had taught me to fight for what I wanted rather than throw money at it. I could still remember that fateful day, though faces and names were murky now in my ‘old age’.

Samuel and Scott were two boys I had craved the presence of a lot in my human days, though I couldn’t honestly tell you why anymore. Perhaps it was the familiarity of money, or the comfort that came from knowing someone of your status and experience walked alongside you and understood your world view, but they were the closest friends I had for a long time. What was better than going on vacation with your friends at the closing of exam season? Rome had been beautiful, the sights enamouring and the food…I suppose it was okay – my tastebuds had changed since then. I could still vividly recall the kind of heat I wasn’t accustomed to back home, and the dazzling brightness of the sunlight that spotted my vision and made my ever blurry human memories seem even worse quality somehow. I also remembered laughter, and warmth, the kind of warmth that flooded your soul and felt like a good hug on the worst of days. It was strange, the things that stayed with you.

Then there was too much warmth. The process to immortalise one’s body came at the cost of burning the eternal soul till only a shell was left behind, petrified and cold. That was how Stefan put it at least in his usual, grim way. The memories of my time with them had most certainly been the most vivid, since I was very much a vampire by then and I could remember every little glance, every change in the tone of their voice. Those days….those days were full of anger. My doting father taken from me, my best friends none the wiser as to where I had gone and yet never once pleading on the news for my safe return as most others did for their loved ones. Through time and trial and error, Vladimir and Stefan had shown me that I had actually lost nothing in this life, only gained. I was stronger, swifter, better than any human version of myself could ever be.

Then came the gift.

It had been purely accidental at first. Another boy taken in by Stefan only to be turned (in what I would later find out was an attempt at raising a small army) was similarly gifted. He had the quite remarkable ability to make anything he touched smaller or larger, depending on what he wished it to look like, and unintentionally I had taken his gift to use for myself. He hadn’t stayed much longer after that, Vladimir and Stefan reluctant to let him part but allowing it – only because they knew the Volturi would send the Guard after an unruly newborn causing havoc. Why should they need him when they had me? They had been the ones to train my gift, an enhanced trait from my human life they had said – as I had taken what I wanted then I could do so now with startling efficiency. By the time Alec had arrived I had not truly gotten it under control, hence my confrontation with Jane.

It turns out the unruly newborn had been smarter than we thought, and the Masters�� had dispensed the Guard to see about this gifted vampire the Romanian’s had collected. At this point it had been months since we’d even seen the boy, years since Vladimir and Stefan had stolen me from Rome’s streets on one of their daring missions taking them close to Volturi territory. My gift had made me indispensable to them, though I like to believe that on some level they cared for me as a person, given all the gifts and birthday celebrations they had indulged in for me. There had been trips and movie nights all at my request, and affectionate gestures such as hugs and chaste kisses to my forehead that had lulled me into the false sense of security that I was where I ought to be.

“Your mind keeps wondering. I happen to be trying to ask you a very important question.” Alec was sounding a tad frustrated with me now and my eyebrows furrowed.

“I’m sorry, really, I just…do you ever have one of those days where you feel like you can’t escape thinking about the past? Thinking about the things that led you to this moment?” I sighed. It was perhaps a tad dramatic, perhaps even silly of me to be this distracted by such errant thoughts, but they wouldn’t leave me be. Alec stared at me for a long moment, and then he tucked a lock of stray hair behind my ear and swept me off of my feet to seat us on the sofa before our fireplace. Draped across his lap as I was, he had made me his sole focus and gave me his undivided attention now.

“I can’t say I do, so explain it to me. What are you thinking of in particular?” he questioned. My head tilted slightly, the briefest of smiles tugging at my lips.

“Demetri fixing up his nose the day we met.” I giggled. Alec snorted, eyes rolling.

“Vladimir did hit him rather hard.” He agreed. The commotion hadn’t much bothered me, my head buried too deep in my book to really be bothered by such trivial things, but then he had screamed. It was a blood-curdling kind of scream, the sort you heard in slasher movies when the victim is disposed of. It was the first time I had seen Jane’s gift in action, and the only time since I had stolen it. I had only meant to shove the menacing little blonde away from the man I had grown to see as a second father, only to accidentally set her own gift on her. She had crumpled like a straw doll, screaming all the while, and anyone else who came at me went down the same way.

Felix, Demetri and Jane just writhed on the stone floor while I tried and failed to keep Alec at bay, the mate bond I had unknowingly just set with him the moment we locked eyes preventing me from hurting him and vice versa. His mist had danced at the edges of my feet as he gave me more warnings than I was sure was customary of a Guard with his reputation until I managed to calm the raging inferno in my own mind, and douse the flames in theirs.

“Then you misted me.” I recalled, scowling at him slightly. Alec looked amused.

“You were getting rather violent,” he pointed out, “I’d merely suggested an even trade, their lives for you accompanying us to Volterra, and poor Demetri lost his nose a second time that day.” I could still recall the crunch of his skin beneath my knuckles as I vowed to never let them take me anywhere, and now two centuries on I couldn’t bear the thought of being anywhere other than in Alec’s lap. His hand skimmed my arm as I dropped my head on his shoulder.

“You think he would forgive me for that by now.” I said. Alec chuckled and kissed my forehead.

“Not in a million years, his ego is more fragile than his nose.” He murmured against my skin. I hadn’t been happy for a very long time after that. Dragged away from my home against my will and told it was all for a mate bond I hadn’t been ready to accept. I was cruel, very cruel, and I called Alec all sorts of filthy names. Neither him nor Jane had ever really done me wrong, yet still I rarely addressed them as anything other than ‘witch’ or ‘terrors 1 and 2’. I spent the majority of my days avoiding as many people as I could really, though I found Marcus to be quite calming and consequently ended up with the Masters’ more often than not. It was with their encouragement I ended up confronting my two-arch nemesis, their gentle prodding that had led me into Alec’s arms in the end.

“God I’m sure your mother would weep if she could see you now!”

“She did! She wept and pleaded with the villagers tying us to the stake until they caved her head in with stones. How about yours?”

I cringed slightly, the memory as fresh as if it had been just yesterday. Jane had looked ready to roast me that day, while Alec had cut me down to size with his words. Their mother’s fate, their deaths, they were nothing such of tragic incidents that should never have occurred, not to these two. It had triggered a memory I had thought had faded as most other human memories had, though I could see no eyes in the soft, familiar features of my mother’s face given I couldn’t remember the colour of them. She had been reaching for me in my dreams for years, that single bloodied hand protruding from the wreckage of a car only I had escaped from haunted me to this day. How far I had strayed from the woman she would have wanted me to become.

“How could you forgive me?” I asked finally. Alec raised his eyebrows.

“For punching Demetri in the face? Quite easily. I found it entertaining.” He answered.

“Not for that! For…everything else. I was nothing short of difficult and downright cruel to you.” I reminded him. Alec tilted his head, quietly making a noise of understanding. It wasn’t so long ago Alec had asked me to marry him, at least, five years didn’t seem all that long for a vampire. He shifted till I was facing him, straddling his lap and chest to chest with our noses almost touching.

“I forgave you because I loved you, even then. I didn’t see cruelty, I saw hurt that never truly healed. Our scarred hearts were made for one another, even if you weren’t ready to accept it.” He murmured.

“But all those awful names I called you…” I sighed, closing my eyes as shame ate away at my insides. Alec chuckled.

“Some were quite inventive, I’ll give you that,” he said wryly, “Y/N…you replaced every bad memory with a good one. The time you gifted me that bookmark because you knew how much I loved to read? The memory of our first walk in the Garden’s together where you taught me all about gardening and when the best time of year to plant certain flowers was. Our first kiss, the first time you held my hand even. You made the effort to make it right.” He kissed my nose sweetly before capturing my lips with his. His every kiss had been intoxicating since our very first one, the sweet taste of his mouth on mine addictive, the way his lips moved a hypnotic dance I could forever get lost in performing with him over and over. When we parted I pressed my forehead to his.

“I do love you, you know.” I swore. Alec flashed me a smile.

“I know, you impossible little brat,” he teased, tugging my hair lightly, “Now will you please listen to what I’ve been so desperately trying to ask you all day now?” My eyes rolled, but I nodded.

“Make it worth my while, baby.” I teased.

“Don’t, you know I hate when you call me that,” he warned, though his lips twitched upwards, “Y/N, my impossibly stubborn, talented little beauty. I’ve never been in doubt you love me, and I hope I’ve never given you reason to doubt that I love you just as much. You challenge and enrage me daily, yet you are also my greatest comfort and strength when I need you to be. So stop being so bloody awkward and marry me already!”

“That wasn’t a question.” I pointed out, eyebrows raising. Alec groaned exasperatedly, his head falling back against the back of the sofa. My head tilted slightly.

If my day of reflection had done anything, it was show me how far I had come. I was no longer the same spoiled little girl I had once been. I had become a protector of our kind, and my journey with Alec had humbled my tongue. I was perhaps wiser, far kinder. I had not felt worthy of the mantle before but seeing him beneath me now, my love so ardent in his affection and persistent in his showing of it, I realised I had no need to be afraid – I had proven my worth to Alec tenfold. Gripping his chin, I forced him to look at me. He looked rather frustrated.

“This is the modern era Alec,” I scolded, “I will never say yes to your proposal.”

“But-“

“Because you are going to be saying yes to mine. Marry me, Alec.” I didn’t ask, more stated it. I knew he wouldn’t say no. With another exasperated groan he shook his head.

“You do make me work for it don’t you? So long as I slip a ring on your finger I really don’t care who asks who. Fine, I’ll marry you.” He leaned in but I pressed a single finger to his lips, preventing him from kissing me. His eyebrows arched into his hairline, almost as if to say ‘what now?’.

“It’ll be a Winter wedding.” I decided. A brief smile flashed his lips upwards.

“Spring.” He retorted.

“And the bridesmaids will wear emerald green.” I continued.

“Peach.” He countered, his smile growing as I pulled my finger from his lips.

“Oh and I want diamonds Alec, they’re a girls best friend.” I grinned, our noses brushing now.

“You’ll get a cereal box ring and be happy with it for all the waiting you’ve made me do.” He huffed. I didn’t get to protest, not when he smothered my mouth with his own, both of us laughing as we let the past be and looked forward to our future instead.

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #volturi #alec volturi #x reader #alec volturi x reader #vladimir #stefan #the romanians #dracula 1 and 2

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something-fanfiction-ie · 5 years ago

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Out of the Lion’s Den

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of rape (not against the reader), attempted rape and assault (against the reader) angst, cursing, insults, the usual super dramatic shit you see in the taken down of an unsub

A/N: Wowie wow wow wow, so this is kinda long. And I know I said I was gonna post it like two days ago, HOWEVER! In my defense, I started writing it and then about halfway through I accidentally closed tumblr so it deleted everything I had. So I went to bed defeated. But it’s here now, that’s the important thing, right? Remember to like, comment, reblog, send me asks, and just be your usual amazing selves and give me the attention that my parents never gave me as the oldest of eight. As always, THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING ME AND I APPRECIATE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!

___

[ Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four ]

December 1998

It felt good to be back home in Georgia. The wind whipped at the trees outside of the diner you and you best friend were currently catching up at. The waitress, Flora, knows you by name and sets your usual in front of you with a ruffle of your hair and a couple of southern endearments.

“Tell me everything.” Madalyn says, reaching across the table for the ketchup that was placed on your side of the booth. You swat at her hand when she makes a grab for one of your fries. Her laugh is loud and feels like home, making you smile into your drink in a way you haven’t smiled all semester.

“I’d like to preface this conversation by saying that I feel like this would be a much cooler experience if I were the same age as everyone else.” You point out, brushing your growing bangs away from your eyes with an annoyed swat. Her eyes soften with sympathy, swirling a fry into the ketchup tucked into a safe space on her plate. She doesn’t say anything though, knowing that you have more to say.

“The classes are awesome. The campus is beautiful. I learn something new all the time, which was never happening when I was going to school here,” you pause long enough to glance around the room. It’s packed with all kinds of people, from old men clustered at the counter sipping on coffees to construction workers munching on hamburgers during their break, even big families squished into booths and tables for a nice Sunday family lunch.

“But?” You shrug in response, knowing that Madalyn will be able to read you like an open book if you meet her eyes. Across the table, the amateur profiler squints her dark eyes at you with suspicion.

“Everyone just kinda avoids me. The guys are cute, but they’re all nineteen and twenty. Most of the things to do on campus, you have to be eighteen for, so I mostly just spend my time at the library or at Aunt May’s doing homework.” At this, Madalyn stops eating, raising her eyebrows with a cheeky grin.

“I bet your grades are super rad,” You resist the urge to throw a French fry in her face after what she says next. “And besides, I’m the only friend you need in your life.”

“Actually, I have made a kind of friend?” Flora is over before you can finish the drink in your cup, filling the glass with a dark, blue pitcher. When you thank her, she reaches out to pat your cheek, mumbling something about missing you while you were gone.

“Should I be jealous? Is she pretty? She may be a big sister type, but I’m your soulmate.” You laugh into your sandwich having to cover your mouth when you take a bite and the laughter doesn’t go away.

Madalyn has been your best friend for four years, although time seems to have no meaning in your relationship because nobody would doubt it if you told them you’d known her since birth. While most kids in your age group had grown up thinking you were odd, Madalyn had decided that you were just interesting. That interest had turned into a friendship that would span years and miles more than many friendships do.

While the things you both enjoyed, like Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck, certainly brought you together, it was your differences that made you click like the pieces of a puzzle. Only true friends can debate on opposite sides of an argument and then end the night eating popcorn while watching Space Jam in the living room.

“His name is Harvey.” When Madalyn’s eyebrows go up this time, it is from surprise. You’ve never been one to socialize with anyone of the opposite gender, much less become ‘kinda friends’ with them. Plus, as a young lady of very womanly curves, she’s quite aware of the way some guys cross the line on a regular basis.

“(Y/N)-” You wave your hand in the air, once again pushing at the bangs that keep falling in your face. You should have never cut them in the first place, and you never would have if you realized what a hassle they would be when you started growing them out.

“I don’t like him like that. He’s just a really nice guy, helps me with homework and walks me to a class or two. We’ve never even met up outside of school.” Her eyes are still narrowed, a stray dark wave falling from the hair comb that pins the top half of her hair away from her face.

Eventually, she changes the subject. Trusting that you are smart enough to know when things have gotten out of hand and how to take care of it.

“So why are you growing your bangs out? I thought you liked them. Didn’t you say they make you look more grown up?” You unstick your thighs from the leather booth seat, pinning her with a look that she knows all too well.

“Now that’s a crazy story.” She also makes herself comfortable in her seat, preparing herself for a story. It’s probably a good thing you’re a phenomenal story teller, or else she would have gotten tired of all the stories you tell really quickly.

“So last month a girl comes forward and reports that she was cornered by a man she didn’t know on her way from the library back to her dorm. He held her at gun point and rapes her. It got kinda big, because she was rallying a group of men and women to escort girls around campus. And, I mean, I understand the unease she must feel, and I was sympathetic, but I was kind of confused why there was so much uproar over one rape.”

Having finished your own fries, you reach across the table and steal one from your outraged best friend. Before she can grab it back, you’ve shoved it into your mouth.

“Until a second girl comes forward and says that she reported the same thing happening to her a month ago. The campus, meanwhile, is doing nothing about it. No increased security, no curfew, not even acknowledged them.”

“For two girls?”

“For five,” The pause you take is natural, scooting the bottom of your cup across the tabletop so you could sip from the straw without picking the cup up, but it reads as dramatic effect. “And that’s not even the craziest part.”

One dark eyebrow raised into her hairline, waiting for you to continue the story and also answer the question.

“Every victim was a freshman, so they’re a little on the younger side, they all had the same hair color and style, all had the same body type, all were the same height, all had the same eye color.” This time you do pause for dramatic effect, using the silence to build the tension.

“And all of them look exactly like me. Bangs and all.”

Madalyn leans forward a little, suddenly very worried about you going back next month. As she hurriedly tries to make sure you are taking the necessary precautions during a scary time like this, Flora floats around the diner, stopping to fill up the cup of a single man just behind your booth. All he has is black coffee, a textbook of some kind is splayed open across the table but he doesn’t seem to be too interested in it. Instead, he leans back in his seat, his ears listening to your every word.

“So in summary, I’m growing out my bangs because that’s obviously apart of this dude’s type.” Madalyn doesn’t protest anymore when you reach for another fry on her plate.

“Stop looking at me like that. I’m going to be fine. I’ll even color my hair if you’re so worried.” And the conversation continues, your best friend overly worried about you and your life as a fifteen year old college student, and you masking your fear for appearances sake. Harvey, however, finishes his coffee and asks for the bill.

He thought you were smarter than that. He thought you were smart enough to connect the dots and at least notice that he’d done all of it for you. That you were his everything. Apparently that was wrong. One day you’ll figure it out, of that he is certain.

For now though, you don’t even notices when he passes your table to get to the door.

Present Day

Spencer steps away from the car door, the cool wind hitting his cheeks and tousling his hair. It helps the dizziness in his head, and the nausea in his stomach, but it doesn’t help the sharp pain in his heart. His brain is swimming in all of the information, putting the pieces of the crime scene together like it was a puzzle.

“He left her in the driver’s seat after stabbing her from the backseat, walking around the front before knocking her out and carrying her to his own vehicle.” JJ looks back at the car, peering around crime scene analysts as they hurry about collecting evidence.

“She tried to leave, but her tires spun in the mud.” Rossi notes, nodding to the mud splatter along the sides of your car and the tiny graves each tire has dug into the ground for itself.

“There’s blood in the back.” Spencer finally speaks, looking away from the backseat window and back to his two partners. All eyes flick to the back seat where there is indeed two drops of blood on the floor and a smear of it on the headrest of the passenger seat.

“If he’s in any system then we’ll catch him.” Rossi said, nodding for the techs to collect what they could from the back. Spencer turns back to the car, well aware that there wasn’t anything else here for them the find that would lend them any information as to your whereabouts.

“In a system or not, I will hunt him to the ends of the earth before I let him get away with this.”

Back at the BAU, Prentiss makes calls to your mother and your best friend, Madalyn. Both answer on the first ring, and both are all the more willing to answer any questions that may assist the team in finding the man who had taken you.

“Is there anyone you remember (Y/N) mentioning that maybe stood out to you or her as creepy and stalkerish?” Your mother doesn’t recall anyone, having been focused on so many different cases during your childhood and having been so distant from you since you decided to not become a detective.

Madalyn, however, is quick to answer with a name Prentiss recalls crossing off the list of persons of interest.

“Harvey Morgenstein. They were friends in college, and although it weirded me out because he was a lot older than her at the time, he seemed harmless and I trusted (Y/N). But then he became her agent’s personal assistant all coincidentally and it just seemed too fishy to me.” Prentiss writes the name down, sliding it across the table with a pointed look at Garcia.

As quick as lightning, Harvey’s life history is pulled up between computer screens for both women to delve into.

Harvey is a short man with a wide build that, in earlier pictures, shows him to be more soft than muscly. His hair is dirty blonde but his eyes are two dark circles of coal that seem to pierce through the screen and into the souls of both Penelope and Emily.

“He’s totally not creepy looking.” Garcia remarks sarcastically, eyes sweeping across the information given to her the way Reid’s eyes might fly up and down the pages of a book or a case file.

“Tell me about it.” Emily replies, leaning into the seat designated for those on the team who so wished to give Penelope a visit while remaining off their feet.

“Harvey is a pretty normal guy for the most part. Single child of a Harvey and Lucille Morgenstein. Graduated from Georgetown in 2000 with a major in computer technology, minor in criminology.”

“The same graduating class as (Y/N).” Prentiss notes, her eyes just behind Garcia’s as articles and documents fly around the computer. Where some people talked with their hands, Garcia talked with her screens. The constant tap-tap-tapping of rings and fingers against the keyboard was like the audible churnining of cogs in her brain.

“Yeah, he spent some time as an IT guy at Georgetown before he got a job as a personal assistant. The only spot on his squeaky clean record that I can find is that he was a person of interest in a few rape cases involving some girls on campus back in the late 90’s, but he had alibis for every single one so they let him walk.” The pictures of every victim pop up across the screen in the form of a newspaper article talking about the serial rappings.

Gasps come from both their mouths as the dots connect.

“Call Reid and the others, and then call the agent. I think I may know what is going on.”

A couple of hours later and the pieces are all starting to come together.

Harvey had been the serial rapist from the 90s, attacking women who looked like you out of anger over not having you for himself, and pure obsession. After graduation, he tried to move on by distancing himself from you, but when his mother was diagnosed with cancer he fell back into his old stalkerish ways.

He followed your every move through your agent, who was the only person you spoke to the most outside of your mom and Madalyn.

After a little digging into unsolved rape cases in the area, it was obvious from the victimology and an oddly specific M.O. where he bit each of his victims on the neck, that he had also fallen back into his perverted rapist ways.

Harvey might have been content to stay like that, an obvious self esteem issue keeping him from ever approaching you directly for a date, until a month ago. Not even two days after the death of his sick mother, you and Spencer went on your first date outside of the bookstore. A double trigger.

In a sick and twisted display of love, Harvey started killing people the way you’d written deaths in your books. But with every death you continued to ignore him and see Spencer.

“Eventually it all became too much for him to handle and he snapped, kidnapping (Y/N) and calling to taunt Reid over his victory.” Hotch passed a hand over his face. The sirens blared loudly as they raced for Harvey’s house just outside of Quantico.

“This guy has been stalking her for a ridiculous amount of time.” Morgan commented with a shudder, sympathy and guilt from the earlier interrogation eating at him as the black SUV careens around a corner.

When they bust through his door, clearing each room and finding a creepy amount of pictures and papers about you, they realize that he has taken you somewhere else. And who do you call when you’re at a dead end and you need information?

“You’ve reached Penelope Garcia in the FBI’s Office of Supreme Genius.”

___

Breaking a chair that is nailed to the floor is a lot harder than it sounds, and it already sounds kinda hard.

There was a lot of kicking and hitting and some bruises were definitely starting to form, but the amount of blood coming from your leg was scary. The chances that the knife had nicked your femoral artery were relatively slim, especially given how long you’ve been bleeding, but you couldn’t help but waver on the side of caution.

After several failed attempts of throwing your body into the wood and kicking and hitting and pulling and crying and then repeating the cycle, you managed to pop a leg off. While the base of the leg stayed nailed to the floor, you spent the rest of your time trying to tear the chair from the rest of the legs, when you did you threw the top half against the concrete wall.

Taking two spindles from the back, you quickly scurry back to the mattress and wait for him to return. It’s only a matter of time before he decides to come back down here to taunt you or try something.

In your short time in what Harvey has so lovingly deemed ‘your room,’ you have come to a couple conclusions in an attempt to distract yourself from the excruciating pain in your thigh.

One being that this is not Harvey’s home. Of that you’re one hundred percent certain. Upstairs, you can hear the sound of two sets of feet thudding around. You can only assume this is his childhood home. You remember that his mother had died about a month ago, causing him to resign from his position as your agent’s personal assistant. She had mentioned to you that he planned to help his father as much as he could before he too passed away.

The second being that you were probably going to loose your leg. Any move this way or that sends a thousand knives through every nerve in your body. Your throat is scratchy and sore from how long you’ve been yelling, both in trying to get someone’s attention and in pain.

The light coming from the small window next to the ceiling hasn’t even begun to wane with the falling sun when the door opens again. The chain around your uninjured leg clatters when you pull your knee up to your chest. You don’t even attempt to move the other leg.

Harvey appears in the opening, a tray of food balances in his hands as he shuts the door behind him.

“Find some weapons?” He asks casually, setting the tray beside the lamp as he sinks to his knees on the mattress. Your knuckles are white around each spindle, the inside of your mouth is sensitive to the touch from how much nervous chewing you’ve been doing.

“Get away from me, or I’ll kill you.” You seethe, fighting through the swimming in your head that hasn’t gone away since you woke up here. He gives you a look like you’re a misbehaving child, but it’s soon replaced with anger when you slap him across the face with one of your weapons.

You were hoping the attack would break skin, but all it does is turns the skin over his cheekbone dark red.

Faster than you can blink, he pins both your wrists with one of his hands above your head on the mattress, using the other hand to deftly pluck each spindle from your grip.

“I’ve done so much for you. I’ve given you a room, and a career, and so much more, and yet you attack me.” The wooden spindles hit the wall next to the door, his body lowers to yours in a way you know means more trouble.

“You’re a creep and a perv and I don’t want you to touch me! You’ve done nothing for me. Only for yourself.” In a way that would make any young boy proud to know you, you collect all the spit and bile in your mouth before shooting it into his face. Part of it hits him in the eye, causing him to roar in outrage.

He lets you go, giving you a brief moment of relief, but he only wipes away the loogey before rocking his hand back hard enough to crack against the side of your face. In your moment of disorientation, he flips you to your stomach and undoes the cuff from around your leg. The chain rings against the ground when he tosses it to the side.

His knee went to your back, his hands went to your waist, and the moment you manage to come back to yourself, your fingers clawed at whatever flesh you could find near you. You screamed and flailed as much as you could, the shooting pain of your leg barely noticeable when your body was in panic mode.

All you can think as that this is the kind of thing you read about. People don’t actually get kidnapped and rapped by people they knew in college. But you know that isn’t true either. You are the daughter of a detective, things like this were apart of your everyday life growing up. Just never as personal as you or a friend being the victim. For some reason that makes you fight harder, a sickly feelings creeping into your throat when you felt his fingers brush under the hem of your underwear.

Then a sound pulled you from your hysteria, the door fell to the ground and a swarm of FBI Agents descended upon the concrete basement you still refused to call ‘your room.’ Spencer was the last of them to enter, but the unadulterated fury in his eyes was enough to tell you that was not a decision on his part.

To you, and maybe even everyone else in the room who managed to look at him for longer than a millisecond, he looked like an avenging angel. Every chocolate caramel curl perfectly framed his face, which looked like it was carved out of stone. His jaw was so tense you could slice your finger if your ran it along the edge. The revolver in his hands was unwavering, only growing in steadiness when he caught compromising position you were in.

The sob that came out of your throat was one of relief. Harvey lifted you from the mattress, reaching into his pocket to pull out that damned pocket knife. He held you so close to his chest that it made your skin crawl.

“Harvey Morgensten, drop the weapon.” Morgan’s voice boomed around the room. Harvey held you with one arm tensed around the front of your shoulders and the other holding a knife to your neck.

“She’s mine! You weren’t supposed to be able to find us!” He screamed, you winced away from the shrilling pitch that scraped against the inside of your ear. It caused him to push the knife into the skin over your exposed collarbone, blood beading around the the metal tip. Your heart was hammering beneath your ribs, your hands flexing at your sides, your mind racing for a way to get out of this situation.

Spencer’s lip went up in a snarl, you half expected him to let a growl tear through his chest as if he was a lion standing against an enemy. The hairs on the back of your neck stood to attention when he took a hesitant step forward, his eyes softening for just a fraction of a second when he looks down at you.

In that fraction of a second all of his defenses fall and you can see all the grief and panic in the bags under his eyes and the raw skin of his bottom lip.

“She was never yours, Harvey.” Spencer says, wincing when Harvey responds by yanking you even closer than before. His breath is hot on your neck, his lips so close that they brush against the skin on the back of your shoulder when he speaks.

“She was never yours, Dr. Reid. She is mine, she always will be.” You cry out in surprise, your fingers coming up to scratch at the arm around your shoulders when a pair of teeth sink into the crook of your neck as if you were the victim of a vampire or something equally supernatural and territorial.

The action has the desired effect on every agent watching, especially Reid, who stumbles forward before Hotch grabs him by the back of his arm. They don’t have a shot, not without hurting you. That much you can tell just from the look they share. It doesn’t take a genius to look around and see that the end of every gun in the room is pierced right through you.

It makes you angry. You grind the back of your teeth together when a dark chuckles echoes from behind you. In your mind’s eye, you see it all happening the way you see a scene from a book playing before you like a movie.

Reaching up with one hand, you grab the onto the arm holding the knife. With the pad of your thumb, you shove every bit of strength you have into the soft skin at the inside of his wrist. At the same time, you pull your head forward before sending it reeling back onto his already broken nose. This time, you can feel the crunch of bones as your skull makes contact with his face.

Simultaneously, he drops the knife to the floor with a cry and drops his arms to reach for his gushing nose. Adrenaline pumping through your veins, you manage the couple of steps forward into Spencer’s arms. In a quick and graceful display of surprising strength, he carries you back into his embrace and spins around to shield you from the monster staggering back toward you.

Prentiss is quick to catch him in his blind pursuit for you, twisting both of his arms back without an ounce of sympathy for his pain. The jingle of handcuffs precede the finality of each click around his wrists.

“Everything I did, I did for you! I made your book come to life, I ruined the reputation of those girls, I did it all for you.” Harvey struggles against the restraints, twisting his body any way that he can to get a glimpse of you curled into Spencer’s chest.

You brain is caught between reality and a distant world, everything around you feels like make believe. Only the feeling of Spencer’s sweater curled into your fingers and his hand on the back of your head feels real. Harvey’s voice is like a recording being played three blocks away, still loud enough to hear but not close enough to focus on. He’s hissing threats and insults at Spencer’s back, that psycho-something in him finally snapping under the circumstances.

Somebody is yelling for a medic and there, just underneath it all, is the sound of someone wailing in such a way that words could never accurately describe the intense pain and grief being carried on every screaming sob. As the events from the last twelve hours come rushing back to you, reality takes the reins of your mind.

It’s you that’s crying like that. That desperate, broken sound is coming from your heaving chest. When your leg finally gives out from under you, the pain too much for your body to bare, he was already there holding you.

The screams fade into small shattered sobs just in time for medics to descend the stairs. Their hands are voices are everywhere, medical jargon flying over your head as they pry your hands from Spencer’s sweater. You pull back from every touch, the thoughts in your brain flying too fast for you to keep up.

It takes them a while to get you to the ambulance, but when they do you start to panic.

“Spencer?!” You cry out, unable to move your head too much due to the neck brace and head strap holding you down. It takes only a second for him to come into view, his eyes glassy and his smile watery. His hand slips into yours before they raise you up to the ambulance, your hand is icy to the touch.

The paramedics had mentioned a possible concussion, excessive blood loss, and signs of acute compartment syndrome. The fact that you had remained conscious and walking this long was a testament to your strong will and fighting spirit.

“Don’t leave me.” You whispered, the black around the edges of your vision creeping in despite how hard you fought it. Spencer almost winced from how hard you tightened the grip on his fingers. His mouth moved, but you never heard the response, your mind fading quickly with every second.

“Don’t leave.”

The sound of a heart monitor steadily beeping was what woke you up. Groaning from all the aches and pains that surged up with consciousness, your eyes fluttered open before squinting into the bright hospital lights.

Your mother was the first thing that popped into your field of vision. The last time she had looked at you with such worry, you’d been in the ER after flipping your car into a ditch. In your defense, it was dark and, as a young driver, you over corrected when you hit a patch of standing water.

“Mama?” You pushed up on the bed, the pillow behind your head falling to the space between your lower back and the mattress. Your mom was quick to pick it up and fluff it back behind your head. She must really be concerned. Had they found cancer while you were out or something?

“Oh my goodness, (Y/N), you had me so worried.” Gingerly, you pressed the heel of your hand to the bandage that stuck to your hair and the corner of your head. Brushing the butterfly stitches that went across the cut on your cheek, you barely had time to react before she pulled you into a breath-stealing hug.

The wound on your neck smarted with the movement and you hissed in pain. Your mom pulled back, squishing your cheeks between her hands as tears began to collect on her lower lash line. Your mother was not the type to cry, about really anything, as far as you knew of. So to see her tearing up like this only added to the confusion and shock you were already feeling.

“Never join law enforcement. I thought I wanted you to, but I can’t deal with this kidnapping and near-death nonsense. I’m getting too old for it.” She teased tenderly, releasing your face from the death grip of love to wipe away the tears before they fell down her cheeks.

“When did you get here?” You asked, taking note of all the wires and tubes that connected to your body via IVs and sticky pads. A glance down at your leg eased the fear that you might have sustained a leg wound that would take your leg from you. You didn’t move it for fear of the pain you could already feel throbbing to the beat of your heart.

The bed dipped under your mother’s weight as she sat beside you, gathering one of your hands into both of hers. Scars littered the knuckles that had wiped away your tears and taught you to throw punches.

“I only got here about an hour ago, but you’ve had round the clock protection from the FBI so no need to get panicky. I can see that look creeping into your eyes.” Her own eyes squint a little, those highly observant detective skills kicking in. She’s always been able to read you like an open book, making you wonder if she would have been good at profiling.

Of course she would have, your mother was good at everything she set her mind to.

“FBI?” You’re full of so many questions, but they all fall away when you mom shifts out of your line of sight to reveal the sleeping agent tucked away into the corner of the room.

Spencer is curled onto a hospital chair that is placed into a corner beside the window looking out over the parking lot. His back is leaned against the wall, one shoulder leaned against the back of the chair. One long leg is curled into the seat and the other is stretched out next to the chair. From across the room, you can see the shadows his eyelashes cast across his cheekbones in slumber. Oddly enough, your first thought is of Sleeping Beauty.

The sight is enough to make your heart feel like it’s squeezing around a ball of broken glass. Before your mother can read too much into the mixture of emotions that, surely, skew your features, you look away.

“He’s been here since they brought you in. I met his team, they’re a fine group of agents. You didn’t tell me you were friends with anyone in the FBI.” Before she can say anything else, you clear your throat. Putting one hand, a little dramatically, to your chest you give your mother a look you haven’t used since you were a kid trying to stay home from school.

“Mama, I’m a little hungry. Can you get me something to eat?” It works like a charm. You’ve never seen your mother jump so quickly before, she races out the door like a woman on a mission. It warms your aching heart.

“Maybe you should have tried acting.” Spencer’s voice is groggy with sleep as he sits up and stretches into awareness.

“How long have you been awake?” He meets your gaze, his expression soft and earth-shaking. When you imagined seeing Spencer wake up first thing in the morning, it was never in a hospital room while feelings of betrayal and confusion stabbed into your chest.

“Just long enough to hear your mom talk about my team. She’s a nice lady.” He doesn’t move from the chair, sensing the tension in the room the way only a profiler can. He’s afraid that if he gets up, you’ll make him leave. He doesn’t need to know that he’s right.

“How long have I been out?” You’re asking every question except the one you’ve been dying to ask.

“A day. You had a pretty bad concussion and acute compartment syndrome in your leg. They weren’t sure you were going to be able to retain control of the muscle given how long you were kept hostage with it untreated, but I know you’re too stubborn to let that happen.” The silence that follows is stifling, your eyes interlocked in a battle of wills.

Was this the same man that had accused you of being a serial killer?

You’re the first to look away, fidgeting with a fray string from the blanket thrown over your legs.

“I think we need some time apart.”

“I’m so incredibly sorry.” You both speak at the same time, but your words drain the blood from Spencer’s face when they finally register. He had hoped that, by some miracle, you would forgive him of the unforgivable sin he had committed against you in the name of justice. He understood why you didn’t.

“I just,” The threads of the blanket you recognize from your childhood bedroom bump underneath your fingers when you smooth your hand over it, “I want to forgive you. But all I keep thinking is that none of this would have happened to me if you had used all those brains in your head instead of all the insecurities in you heart.”

It’s like a slap across the face, and yet Spencer can’t help but feel like he deserves it. Even still, none of it hurts as much as the crack in your voice and the tears that you try so desperately to blink away before he can see them.

It isn’t often that Spencer Reid is rendered speechless, but the guilt and heartache have stolen all the words of every language and all the breath from the air right out of his mouth.

“It’s still so fresh in my mind, I think if we distance ourselves then we’ll be able to come back to something rather than trying to scramble to bridge together the chasm that has formed between us.”

He wants to argue, everything in him screams that he needs to fight for you, but the look in your eyes stops him. If you need space, then space is what he will give you. Spencer would do anything to make this right. He wishes he had the intelligence and technology to build a time machine and go back to two mornings ago.

“I understand,” he says solemnly, trying to talk around the hurt in his chest that is growing like a tumor. “But I promised I wouldn’t leave you. I’ll give you space, but I’m only giving you the space of the wall between this room and the hallway.”

And then he’s gone, staying true to his word and sinking to the floor outside your room. When you mother comes back, holding a collection of jellos and cookies and granola bars from the hospital cafeteria, her steps falter at the sight of the young doctor outside your door.

Inside you’re curled into yourself, taking very deliberate breaths into the cotton stuffed pillow you have buried into your chest. You half expect your heart monitor to be screaming for the nurses, but despite a small quickening in the constant beeps, it gives away none of your heartbreak.

“(Y/N)?” You look up, meeting your mothers eyes with tear stained cheeks. Your head is going to be throbbing later, but for now you’re only focused on the sharp pains shooting through your ribs and clouding every other pain in your body.

Between one gasp of air and the next, your mother drops all the foods to the chair vacated by Spencer before rushing to pull you into her arms.

“Can you die from a broken heart?” You whimper, feeling like a small child as you bury your head into her chest. She smells like home, running her hand over the back of your head with gentle shushing sounds.

Outside, Spencer wipes at his own tears, a silent statue of sadness protecting you from everything but himself.

#spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x oc #spencer reid angst #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #dr spencer reid #spencer reid #spencer reid imagines #dr spence reid #spence reid #criminal minds self insert #criminal mind imagine #criminal minds

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stardew-saloon · 4 years ago

Note

Weird headcannon request: what would your favorite villagers do in an apocalypse

Listen listen listen. I fucking love anything to do with the apocalypse, especially when zombies are involved. So I’ll write about that !!

This one took a while, sorry ! I wanted to include at least all of the bachelors, and then bachelorettes in another post maybe if I’m not lazy.

Also I follow someone on my other account and I really liked how they like, used different colors to highlight names, so I think I’m gonna do that ! It’s just cute okay :)

Bachelors in the Apocalypse

Alex

Alex thinks of himself as the most ready for the apocalypse. He’s got what he and his family need to survive for months. Food, weapons (Mostly just old baseball bats), clothes, and the Will to Survive.

The zombies probably come from Zuzu city. City people are dumb and get infected right when the virus hits. Everyone in SDV is safe. For now, at least.

Alex, unlike the other villagers, refuses to interact with anyone but his grandparents. He keeps contact extremely limited with people. The only time he ever interacts is when he goes to drop off cookies at Haley’s house, per Evelyn’s request.

He does miss his best friend, though. He misses everyone. He misses that time where he didn’t hear zombies going around the town, banging on doors and smacking their heads against windows. It sucks!

Alex takes a number of zombies down. He’s easily one of the toughest bachelors, plus he’s super strong. He wants to eventually take out all of them, make the valley a safe haven like it used to be. There’s still a long ways to go, but he’s slowly making progress.

His grandparents, especially Evelyn, help out by cooking for him and others. Alex helps out other villagers by dropping off little care-packages. It’s cute! It’s also his way of keeping in contact with everyone and making sure they’re okay.

Alex is the one in a zombie apocalypse movie to survive until the end. He makes the smartest choices and keeps his family safe. He can’t afford to lose anyone else.

Harvey

As a doctor, Harvey’s first thought when he hears about the zombie apocalypse is that he needs to find a cure.

And so he tries to. For about a week. Maru is in the office with him for a while, going back and forth from her house to the doctor’s office. It’s tough experimenting on zombies and it feels.. wrong.

Even though they’re a zombie, Harvey knows that there’s a person in there. Was a person. So he gives up on the cure and instead focuses on keeping the citizens healthy.

Harvey is a goddamn tank. Were he to be partnered with Alex, the zombies would be gone within two days. However, they have different concerns. Alex keeps the zombies away from the valley, and Harvey keeps them away from houses.

They have a good system. Harvey goes around the houses to do checkups, trying to keep some form of order in the new world. He makes sure the oldies stay healthy, despite being cooped up, and that the people that are out fighting stay un-zombieified.

I think Harvey would almost last to the end, but makes a careless mistake and gets bit. Fortunately, a cure comes around! He still did research on the zombies during the apocalypse, and his notes came in handy.

Elliott

You’d think by now that Elliott would be used to being cooped up in his house. He’s practically a hermit! The only time he used to go out was to sit by the ocean or see Leah at the bar.

Now that he has to stay in, he doesn’t like it. It’s the same as all of us with quarantine. Elliott never went out much before, but now that he can’t, he wants to.

He feels like dying of boredom within a week. Fortunately, the sense of impending doom creates a good writing atmosphere. He finishes at least three books during the span of the apocalypse.

However, Elliott isn’t very smart about his survival. He either forgets to eat the food that Alex drops off, or eats it before the week is up. It’s tough.

Eventually, Elliott decides he can’t survive on his own like this. He feels like he’s going mad. It makes for nice poetry, but for now, he needs to prioritize his health.

So he makes his way to Leah’s! He figures it’s probably a good idea. Nobody ever said that you couldn’t hang out with friends, or stay with them.

While going to Leah’s, he’s not very careful with avoiding any zombies. He’s not attacked, but he is followed. Leah let’s him in of course, and then end up holed up in her house. She’s lucky enough to have the forest near her house, so she can rely on that.

Elliott probably trips up somewhere and ends up dying first, joining the rest of the zombies. He’s not very good at being a zombie, though. Which might be for the best! He doesn’t run around very much and usually just hangs back by himself.

Sam

Sam thinks he’s going to be good at the whole apocalypse thing. He’s like “I’ve played enough first-person shooter zombie games to know how to fight them off.” Then the second he’s put into combat, he falters and doesn’t know what to do.

Lucky for him, Jodi is good at fighting. Kent knows how to defend the house. Vincent knows how to ask dozens of questions about what’s going on.

And Sebastian knows how to sneak into Sam’s window at night when they haven’t seen each other in a while. They still try and keep close, but most of their conversations are over the phone. It gets lonely, sometimes.

Sam isn’t necessarily smart about the apocalypse because he doesn’t need to be. He feels bad about relying on his parents, but you would too if you had his kickass parents.

He knows how to keep Vincent safe! Vincent is taken out at least once a week, mostly to see Jas. He misses her a lot. Sam likes to see Shane, too! He misses working with his buddy, even if his body was a grouchy alcoholic that waved him off whenever Sam got within ten feet of him. Good times.

Sam really wants things to be normal again, so he tries to stick with Alex whenever he sees him out. They’re good at fighting, but Sam is very chatty and often gets distracted by other things.

Other things are usually Abigail waving out of her window and whisper-shouting for Sam. Sometimes she’ll whip out the Samson!!! just to get his attention. It usually works. Alex will take a minute just to tease him.

Sam either survives until the end of the apocalypse, or dies about halfway through while on his many night trips to see Sebastian and Abigail.

Sebastian

Apocalypse? He doesn’t even know her.

Sebastian’s life is literally the exact same. Aside from hearing less people upstairs, nothing has changed about his life. Demetrius is upstairs working on a cure or something (Seb tuned out the second he started talking) and Maru goes off with Harvey sometimes.

He heard Robin say something about building a wall or something to keep the zombies out. He wasn’t planning to help very much, seeing as the others mom and some other villagers wanted to help out. Really, the only place the zombies are coming in is through the tunnel for the bus, so if they block that off, they’ll be fine.

Sebastian is more focused on other things. Like staying in contact with Sam and Abigail to make sure that they’re still kicking. Demetrius doesn’t let anyone outside of the house, so Sebastian sneaks everywhere, whether it’s outside to go smoke or to see his friends.

He’s pretty good at fighting, though. He can defend himself a whole lot better than Sam, who he thoughts would have more experience. They both thought his video game theory was true because they’re both dummies.

Those few times where Seb does get out of the house, he’s like a zombie killing machine. It’s too bad he’s doesn’t do it very often. He’s good at sneaking around, too. Those years of tiptoeing around the house to avoid his stepdad yelling at him are really paying off.

Honestly, the whole apocalypse could end and the zombies could dissapear, and Sebastian would have no idea. He'd still be down in the basement, messaging his friends and working on his coding.

Or, for a worse ending, zombies could storm his house, saving him for last, and he wouldn’t know until it was too late and he was surrounded by a horde.

I think Seb would end up surviving, though. He’s not necessarily good at the apocalypse, he’s just good at avoiding it.

Shane

When Shane thought about sobering up, he never imagined he’d have to do it like this. The apocalypse is pain in the ass for him.

He stays with Marnie and Jas, rarely leaving the property. He doesn’t like being holed up inside for so long because then he’s just alone with his thoughts, so Jas keeps him going most of the time.

As much as he hates to admit it, he misses his old life. He hated being employed at Joja, but it gave him something to do. And yeah, he misses his annoying coworker. Lucky for him, he gets to see him one a week when Sam and Vincent pop in.

Shane can act like he’s annoyed all he wants, but now? It’s he apocalypse. Why should he be so bitter?

I’m not going to say that the apocalypse changes Shane’s attitude, but he definitely has some revelations about himself that he wouldn’t have had under different circumstances.

Shane doesn’t like fighting zombies. Not as much as Alex does, anyways. But he still helps him out if it’s ever necessary. Shane is infinitely better at defending than he is attacking. He makes sure to keep the zombies away from their house, and the town in general.

Sometimes, Marnie will ask him to deliver stuff to Leah’s house, or Sam’s since they’re awfully close. It feels like a job to him, so he actually enjoys it. He’s surprised to see Elliott at Leah’s and immediately assumes they’re banging. He doesn’t ask any questions, though. He doesn’t care.

Shane probably ends up dying after a tiny mistake that could’ve easily been avoided. He doesn’t see it as that bad, since Jas is still safe. That was all that mattered to him, really. He either dies after a few months, or an entire year into the apocalypse. Either way he does not go down easily.

I would like everyone to know that I wrote these thinking that Lewis holes himself up in his house and does not help anyone out, so they kick him out and elect Alex as mayor. It was a silly thought I had, but then I just went with it.

Alex for Mayor 2020.

It’s not necessarily like, an official position, but they all kinda trust Alex to protect them, so he just assumes the position. He’s not the smartest, which is why Penny was elected to be Vice-Mayor (Alex’s words). They do a good job running the place.

Anyways that’s all! Hope you enjoyed! Sorry this took so long, it was a lot to write hah.

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monysmediareview · 4 years ago

Text

Juliet, a novel by Ann Fortier Review

This time I have a review for a one-off book rather than a series for you guys and it may have actually reached the top of my list for favorite books ever. Juliet, a novel by Anne Fortier was so incredibly good I worry I’ll never be able to fully describe the way it made me feel reading it. I read this book incredibly slow because the idea of finishing it made me so upset; I didn’t want it to end but also found myself thinking about it constantly.

The Shakespeare of it All

When I found this book at goodwill, I figured I’d grab it just to see what it was. Having a degree in theatre and having studied Shakespeare in Europe, I even work for a Shakespeare specific theatre; I figured it would at the very least be interesting. And I was right, but for the wrong reasons. Shakespeare is barely mentioned as the book is actually about the true story of Romeo & Juliet.

If you don’t already know, Shakespeare stole the story of Romeo & Juliet from an Italian poet who wrote the story in the early to mid 1500’s. That story may have also been stolen from another author from France, and maybe even someone else before that. Thanks to the lack of records or copyright laws, there’s not really a way to be sure but we do know that Shakespeare was not the first, only the most famous. And to be fair, his story is much more intense since it takes place over the course of less than a week while the original plot takes months. There are a few other differences between the two but the gist of it is, two star crossed lovers separated by family feuds and ending in tragedy. And this book takes us through all of that drama and gives us a beautiful and dramatic ending to it all.

The Real Story

Some of the things I loved about this book were actually the historical events and characters. The three families in the story, the Tolomeis, the Salimbenis, and the Marescottis were apparently all real families that had feuds and stories fairly similar to what happened in this book. Fortier wrote in her authors note that she did take some liberties with the history for the sake of the story but that she tried to be faithful to them. I do highly suggest reading her author’s note if you get the book because for me, it made it that much more special.

I think that her ability to blend the past and present was well executed and emotional in ways I wasn’t expecting. I really felt the connection between the Romeo and Giulietta of 1340 and the Romeo and Guiletta of the early 2000’s. Her ability to connect these people not only by blood but by fate and destiny and emotion and passion is unmatched and she managed to do it in roughly 500 pages.

Divine Intervention

I am normally not a fan of books with religious undertones, especially without some kind of supernatural explanation to it but in Juliet it really didn’t strike me as prevalent even though it was. The Virgin Mother and the “curse on both your houses” are two huge driving forces behind this story. Both felt like completely natural pieces of the puzzle rather than an overbearing push for Catholic guilt which could have easily been the case in a story set in Italy spanning 600 years with generational family drama. There was a real feeling of the Virgin Mother being the overseer of the fate of these people and bringing them together, to righting the wrongs done in the past. In a lot of other books this might have felt preach-y or overbearing but it actually made fate feel real.

Love Story

I’m a sucker for a good romance book; I will read love story after love story after love story, but even I can get tired of the same plot over and over again. Sometimes the misogyny gets tiring and I want these female led stories to be about more than finding a man to complete them and this book gave me exactly that.

The story starts and ends with Julie Jacobs’ family. She needs to learn about her family, about her history, where she’s really from. I got so sucked into her journey of self discovery that I kind of forgot it was a love story for a while. And that kind of messed me up when we got there because I had missed a lot of the chemistry build up that I had to think back about to even realize it was there. I was so focused on her learning about her father and visiting banks and libraries that I nearly missed her falling completely in love. But in the end it was one of the most passionate and tumultuous love stories, because when you’re Romeo & Juliet, how could you have anything else?

My Personal Opinion on R&J

Following that I want to talk quickly about Romeo & Juliet. If you’ve taken a Shakespeare class or even just a high school English class at some point you’ve probably talked about this. Sometimes it gets glossed over because it’s one of the well known stories and they don’t usually waste time on it but I’m going to.

Classes like this tend to brush these lovers off as horny teenagers who are in lust and get married so they can bone each other but I think that’s a sad approach. I’ll even admit that was my view on it for a while, but not now. It’s a love story. It’s the love story. So to read an in depth story like this that doesn’t diminish the real feelings they had for each other was very pleasing. I might write a whole thing about some of my Shakespeare opinions one day but for now I will leave you with this:

To thine own self be true. Shakespeare is theatre. It isn’t mean to be read, it’s meant to be staged. And the beauty of theatre is that every single production of every play is different (at least it’s supposed to be. Some directors have yet to learn this, but I digress). This means that everyone interprets things differently, so while I think Romeo & Juliet are the ultimate lovers, you might think they were just horny teenagers. And that’s okay.

Generational Drama

Generational stories like this hold a special place in my heart. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but the idea of fate and family and stories that span hundreds of years just really get me. I won’t go on about this too much because I’ve already mentioned it a few times but I love the redemption that Romeo and Guilietta get through their ancestors, even if it was 600 years later. I love that their love lasted generations and the thought of how the spirits of the original couple feel looking at themselves, their ancestors, finally bringing their families together chokes me up a little if I’m being honest.

Alessandro

I was really not counting on Alessandro being such an important piece of this story, but his evolution as a character was a fucking ride. Going from a security guard/driver, to basically an undercover cop, to potential lover, to fake identity, to actual lover, to liar and cheat, to being framed and actually being a lover and savior was intense. Ideal. I loved and hated him through the whole thing but I was very happy with where he ended up.

Symbolism

There is so much symbolism in this book. The gems being the color of their eyes, the golden statues, the paintings, the maestros. All of it. It can be found on almost every page. But there were a few that really stood out to me.

The cencio and dagger constantly popping up as important of the story for Giulietta was not lost on me. I’m still tossing around what I think it really means, actually, but where I stand now is the idea of an official marriage and what makes it official in the eyes of the Virgin Mother. Romeo and Giulietta weren’t considered actually married because they never consummated and it didn’t happen on the cencio if it had. So for it to have been hidden in Julie’s bed after that weird secret ceremony with Alessandro, was interesting because they also weren’t really married. Not the way we think of now. It just shows that marriage isn’t defined by sex (which I think futher proves my point that this was never just about horny teenagers. As well as the entirety of this book), or by words. Marriage is defined by love and commitment.

And then there’s the River Diana. Another thing I haven’t quite landed on a full meaning for, but I know what it made me feel. It’s hard to put into words, but the first word that came to mind was literally symbolism. This story, this curse, killed Diana, Julie’s mother. And now Julie made it to the statue, and she found her Romeo and in the moment that she almost dies it’s by drowning in the River Diana. This whole time she was drowning in what her mother started for her and it’s Alessandro that pulls her out and saves her from it. Being with him is what keeps her alive, from being swept away by this curse the way her mother was. So maybe it’s symbolic of the end. Of not falling into the same pattern or being swept into the same current.

Plot Twists

This story never went where I thought it was going to go. I don’t actually want to talk about the plot twists too much because I want people reading this to be as surprised as I was. Not like I didn’t spoil things before but there are still quite a few things I didn’t mention that really fucked me up if I’m being honest.

If you’re a fan of plot twists, please read this book.

Ye Olde Slow as Hell Language

I don’t want to scare anyone off here - most of the book is in modern language and even the parts that take us back to 1300 aren’t that bad. But they are far more detailed and can sometimes just feel really slow. But all of the information is really important so I wouldn’t skip it. But the language and the flow of the story really slows things down in these parts and it’s what made me take so long to finish this book. Well that and the fact that I just wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I finished it too soon.

However, I will give the author credit for having parallel story lines set so far apart. She really pulled it off and made the entire thing just so magical. By the time they died, I didn’t want to leave that world. I wanted to stay and watch them be happy but then I got to go back to Julie and watch her get her happily ever after

Janet’s Character Development

Right off the bat we’re supposed to hate Janet. And we do. She’s awful and when she shows back up we kind of hate her even more because of what she’s been doing. I didn’t feel sorry for her in the slightest. Up until the last few chapters of the book, these twin sisters felt very estranged so to go from that to them being a fantastic duo that you root for was a twist I wasn’t ready for but whole heartedly welcomed. It was a nice change of pace to see a female character arc into a better person instead of someone who got increasingly bitter. Still not a huge fan of the character but she ended up being kind of important and at least it passed the Betchdel test, right?

In Conclusion

I think this might be my favorite book now. High recommend.

#monyreview #media review #book revie #romeo and juliet #r+j #juliet #ann fortier #books #book tumblr #best seller #romance #historical fiction #modern au

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astrarche-x · 3 years ago

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The Poppy War: thoughts

Context: I saw this book heavily recommended on tumblr and even though I didn't research it (to avoid spoilers), it looked like something for me. I also realized recently that I haven't read a modern high fantasy in a while, so when my friend told me "hey, I've read this book and need someone to rant about it with", I was like "sure can I borrow it?". It is worth noting that my friend's tone was rather disapproving and we mostly share our taste in books, but still, I approached The Poppy War with a very favourable mindset.

Which didn't last very long.

Fortunately, after some time the book got better, so: disapproval first, praise later.

- the first part, aka Rin's time in academia, was so predictable and cliche I went through it purely out of malice (to be able to roast it). It was fitting every cliche you can find in a books set at school and bore me to death.

- Jiang: aaaa. This is coming from my personal experiences, but I've had a hard time with my "cool but weird" teacher lately and I just can't get past this trope without being angry at writers who do not acknowledge how toxic it usually is. (tho in Jiang's case it was more or less ok) Also the reveal of his backstory was very predictable.

- Rin: i couldn't bear how "edgy" she was. I started to like her when the actual war begun and she turned from "i'm not like others lol" to "i'm so scared, i want to be safe. also what is sleep". (also because she has been a chaotic mess the whole time and the war actually made it more believable). I had issues with her character though - for example she comes to the academia when she's like 15/16 and even though a lot happens to her over the course of the action, i had a feeling she hasn't actually matured. Did she develop? In terms of abilities, knowledge, rage etc - yes. But I didn't think she was more mature at the end and it really bothered me (as i was still picturing as a 15-year-old and had to constantly remind myself that she's an adult now).

- self-harm: uuh handled in a weird way? It's obvious that Rin's self-harming to cope with stress in academia is not healthy and the context shows that the heroine is under immense pressure which has a bad effect on her, but the narrative seems to present self-harm as a necessity to manage life and never really condemns it - not only explicitly, but any negative consequences of it are also absent.

- this book (and Grishaverse) would be more enjoyable if I hadn't taken that basic Russian course. I cringed every time I read Kitay's name (and it appears quite often...). Literally why name your character China? It's such a bad idea...

- I don't know if the original edition has trigger warnings, but oh boy, i kinda wish Polish one had them too. Not that they would actually stop me from reading this, but I started this book with intent to get some nice escapism with a tad of intellectual challenge and I wasn't quite prepared for what I got. I saw a post that talked about how in fantasy or sci-fi wars are a thing that just happens and serve more as a plot device, but are not treated as like an actual tragedy and how this isn't the case for The Poppy War. I think this is a very good point and I very much agree with this but I wish this book was marketed in a more accurate way (with mention of the genocides) than "cool protagonist goes from poor orphan to badass" (almost literal description from the back cover).

- on genocides: the Golyn Niis part was so hard to read. It totally gave me flashbacks to the time when we talked about Shoah in Polish lessons in high school and I had to read like 4 short stories by Tadeusz Borowski about Auschwitz, one novella by Zofia Nałkowska about investigating Nazi crimes and one book about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Hanna Krall & Marek Edelman* (and it was all in the span of like 1-1,5 month) - all of which were written by survivors of said events, so it was an extremely difficult and emotionally exhausting read. Parts of The Poppy War had the same effect on me, so it shows the author really did her research and is to be appreciated, although while I would like to know what happens plot-wise in the next parts of the trilogy, I think it would be too emotionally draining for me to read.

- Having said all this, I found the Speer genocide theme really interesting. The legends and propaganda surrounding it, its impact on both country politics and Altan's (and Rin's) personal stories... Also I really liked how Rin's perception and understanding of it changed. Plus it served really well as a backstory - its effect on the whole plot was huge and manifesting in unexpected places but without the feeling of being hammered into reader's head.

- Altan: that guy. He was an interesting character, but a very unlikeable one. He was such an asshole... (And yeah obvs still trauma and all that but he really was one). Also I found it confusing that at the end of the book Rin was like "omg his power is so strong because he's fueled by revenge!"... duuh? It was obvious since her convo with Jiang about lore students?

- But generally Rin's relation to Altan was for me one of the strong points of this book. I'd say that Rin's emotions regarding him were very realistically written - admiration, longing for approval, the feeling of similarity, anger, frustration about his expectations, the need to rise to the challenge he posed, to be his equal... And then the shock as he fell from the pedestal she constructed; the understanding, the pity and the sadness. I loved how complicated that was and that we as readers got to see that Rin's Altan and the actual Altan were two different persons, even though the narrative is close to Rin's POV.

- Chaghan: he was my fave character. This is, again, personal, but works of fiction work 200% better for me if the characters are well-written - which The Poppy War rather lacked: few characters were interesting and even less were likeable. Chaghan was both - maybe he didn't have a big arc and was rather a secondary character, but he was intriguing, had that close bond with Altan (I ship them) and also was the most competent person in the cike (Quara was the second one). He was very straightforward and had that no-bullshit attitude, but unlike Rin, Altan etc., what he said and his actions actually made sense. So every time he had to went away from the main character I was devastated...

- What I really enjoyed about this book was the parts about shamanism. I'm not an expert about what goes on in modern fantasy, but I have a feeling that a character of a shaman often appears in a very exoticised way (wonder why is that /s), whereas in this book it was treated seriously and was a basis for a great magic system. 9/10 very original take, highly recommend.

* books mentioned: "Medaliony" by Zofia Nałkowska, "Zdążyć przed panem Bogiem" (eng: Shielding the flame) by Hanna Krall & Marek Edelman, Pożegnanie z Marią by Tadeusz Borowski

#the poppy war #book ramblings

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diveronaevents · 4 years ago

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AUTHOR: Rogue

MENTIONED: ORSINO, ROSALINE, JULIET

TRIGGERS: Discussions of past torture/bodily injury, PTSD

SUMMARY: After taking some time to reflect, ROSALINE and ORSINO make a plan to leave Verona. As of MAY 23rd, ROSALINE and ORSINO are permanently in Amsterdam in order to take the city for the Capulets. Rosey will no longer be writing Rafaella in any capacity, but Rogue will continue to write Orion in an extremely limited one (occasional phone calls, emergency visits from characters to Amsterdam should you wish it, etc).

The positions of SPETTRO and ADVISOR are now open. Currently, Cosimo and VOLUMNIA are reviewing candidates for the ADVISOR position. If your character is interested in the SPETTRO position, you are welcome to think about their development, and also to send those thoughts to the main so we can discuss them! Thank you for bearing with us as we figured this out!

The sounds of the city below are a low hum he’s learned to tune out. It’s calm tonight, very few sirens, no drunken raucous to be found as he listens to Rafaella’s quiet breaths, feeling them as her chest rises and falls beneath his head.

He used to hold her like this often. Orion has no issue in the switching of position; it’s the why that trips him up, stealing one of the rare nights of peace until the quiet buzzes like a wasp’s nest in his mind.

She runs her hands through his hair and it feels different. The long nails she used to wear haven’t yet grown back, the foundation slow if they want her hands to eventually be strong and healthy again. She won’t ask, but she feels more than hears her hum as she presses her lips to his temple a moment. He sighs.

“Today was bad.” That’s putting it delicately, but it’s not untrue. Rafaella makes that tiny hum again, but her focus has shifted entirely from her book. It’s set aside on the end-table now, her formerly preoccupied hand finding his so she can link their fingers together. They’re very unlike each other in this one specific way, for all the things they share. When Rafaella tries to hide her hurts from him at first, trying to protect herself or him in some immeasurable way, Orion has no issue sharing his.

He outlines it clearly: there will be no intensive movement of his shoulder for the next twelve months. Were he to do so, he would certainly lose any range of motion, and may end up paralyzed. There are other, more minor hurts that will still take an awful lot of time to heal, but this is the most egregious. This is the injury that debilitates him in the eyes of her Uncle, and Orion has an awful sinking feeling in his chest that he tries to ignore.

(Will it debilitate him in the eyes of Rafaella, too? He’s never worried about this before. He’s never been weak.)

Orion laughs with no bitterness, genuinely amused by how thoroughly Marcelo has decimated him. “They’re really good at their job, hm?” He blinks up at Rafaella, almost coquettish. “I have a type. Competent with a shitty home life.”

Rafaella lets go of his hand and runs a finger down the bridge of his nose before tapping once, lightly. “Don’t forget beautiful.”

“Yes, and works of art. The triad.”

Her mouth twitches at the corners, soft and fond but still reserved compared to several months previous. His Rafaella is quieter, now. He finds he doesn’t mind.

“How long,” he asks calmly, “until Capulet disposes of me?”

The hand in his hair freezes.

“He’s not a man to take kindly to wasted resources,” Orion continues, blithe, even as he reaches for her hand again. He squeezes until Rafaella squeezes back, until he has awareness that she’s listening again. “I’ll certainly be demoted, but I could handle that. It’s the rest that has me on edge.”

Rafaella shifts him off of her so she can look him in the eye. She doesn’t let go of his hand, warm and solid in his. “You are not disposable.” Her eyes are red. He wants to kiss them at the corners.

“Not to you,” he reminds her. “Not to some.” It’s not good enough, not if Capulet is truly headed for war. “I know too much, and there’s no way to ensure my compliance if I’m not being paid for anything. There’s no reason to pay me if I’m not doing anything, and I’m not the right person to be an emissary, even if they weren’t leaning more into fights lately. Two plus two equalling four, the easiest solution would be — “

“No.” This is practically a snarl. Rafaella’s gaze is biting, some of her former venom appearing in the way she bares her teeth with the sound.

He waits. Her mind is so sharp, twisting and unfurling until it blooms with new ideas, potent strategy, or something witty and bold. He wishes he could listen to her think, sometimes. He wants to be in that maze, curve around the edges, hug the walls until he finds her waiting for him at the center.

If he’s realized something, it cannot be long until she realizes it too.

There. He finds it in her eyes, when anger becomes defeat and quickly rallies into determination. “That’s not happening.”

“Of course not.” Orion smiles.

It must be contagious, because her lips curve too, shaking her head. She has far less faith in her ability than he does, but that’s fine. Orion has never been over-burdened with insecurity, but some have said he may be overwhelmed by overconfidence.

If he splits some with Rafaella, it will balance.

“Since it’s not, though,” he points out, “we’re going to have to do something about it, and I don’t have anything in mind.” His head is still fuzzy, sometimes. Things don’t come with perfect clarity. He has been assured that they will, after extensive scans of his brain, but that will come slowly, too. His treasured independence has been cast aside in favor of being coddled and taken care of, and he doesn’t mind half as much as he should, so long as it’s Maeve or Rafaella doing the caring.

She brings their hands up to kiss his knuckles, her gaze very far away.

“I might,” Rafaella admits. Orion never doubted it. “Give me some time.”

When Rafaella Capulet tenders her resignation as Cosimo’s advisor, it does not go the way anyone thinks it will.

That it happens at all is a shock to the bloodstream for almost everyone.

She attends three meetings in the span of a day, one public, one revealed but under the guise of being secretive, and one that is truly kept from the world at large. There are other goodbyes, of course. Other meetings to be had for herself and Orion both, other tender words to share with those who love them and are loved in return, other stolen moments where the pair can be themselves and acknowledge what they’re giving up.

But first, it goes like this:

Near dawn, Rafaella and Juliana Capulet share espresso in Orion’s kitchen. He would call it their kitchen, but she still can’t believe that, can’t hold onto it without fearing she’ll break it. Orion’s house, Orion’s kitchen. She’s an invader he refuses to get rid of.

They talk at length, until the sun is high in the sky and Orion has left for physical therapy. What they speak of, it’s too soon to tell. What they plan for, only the two of them know. In the end, they simply hold each other, holding tight for a very long time, all the while knowing that even when separated, family doesn’t truly end.

Hugs do, though, and finding solace in one another will never quite be the same.

Next, Orion and Rafaella go together to meet two non-descript men in a simple cafe. Nothing is ostentatious, everything quiet, their heads bent low. The Montagues and Capulets alike who pass them by hear Orion and this man conversing in stilted, passable Dutch. When the two men depart, the couple seem extremely satisfied, Rafaella curling around Orion like a cat stretching toward the sun.

The third, of course, is the hardest. Meeting with Cosimo Capulet is never easy. Telling your Uncle you’re leaving him behind is infinitely worse.

Somehow, though, she manages it. She stands strong as she calmly explains their reasoning. Both Orion and Rafaella have been torn apart by this war, bloody and raw, but she doesn’t point that out. They have been nearly broken, slashed into so many times they’re shells of their former selves in so many ways, but these are not reasons that will impress Capulet. And so, with Orion’s hand tight in hers, she lies.

She lies about the up and coming organized crime groups in Amsterdam. She explains the disorganized and chaotic nature of the warring gangs, of how many have fallen victim to hubris and the law. She opens his eyes to a world of her own creation, where Amsterdam has a power vacuum in dire need of filling, and the Capulets desperately need allies if they’re going to win this war without dying out in the process. She spins and spins her web around him with enough half-truths and persuasive words to bring glory to his thoughts, and all the while, Orion’s hand stays in hers.

A role better suited to our current position, she admits, letting the hint of vulnerability in her show for just a moment. Or should I say our current predicament?

It’s easier than she wants it to be. Selfishly, desperately, she wants him to fight for her to stay. Rafaella has been accepted as his family; should he not fight to keep his family together? Yet he considers it with almost cerebral calm, like he’s watching a chess game rather than thinking of the future of his family, and Rafaella’s heart hardens.

When Verona implodes around him, when his throne is viciously stolen, when everything he’s built flourishes while he crumbles himself, Rafaella tells herself she will not be sorry.

#torture tw #torture mention tw #ptsd tw #ptsd mention tw #injury tw #a bittersweet farewell!#diveronadevelopment

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hecohansen31 · 5 years ago

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Little Love Notes

Outpost! Michael + Reader

A/N: Hello, there lovelies!

Just wanted to thank y’all for being awesome and the nicest to me lately, I know that sadly I am a bit “emotionally constipated”, but I really appreciate y’all, you are the most precious thing ever and I appreciate your love and feedback, so as always... LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

Mostly because I am extremely inexperinced in the “smut aerea” so, please let me know what you think about it: if you think it sucks or it doesn’t, or anything else... please, it will help me be better for the newest ideas and drabbles I have in mind!

And after this, I hope that you will enjoy it, so I will leave you to reading!

SUMMARY: You have grown accostumed to leaving little cute notes on your boss’ desk, and this got you fired, as soon as Mr Langdon discovered the identity of his secret admirer... but appreantly it does’t end here...

WORDS: 4,5 K

WARNINGS: Rough (Unprotected: guys... please don’t do it withouth a condom, it does not only protect from unwanted pregnancies, but also it is against STDs) Sex (with things such as spanking and a lot of rough handling), Oral Sec (Female Receiving), Semi-Public Sex (Reader is on the phone at a certain point). “Sir” Kink, but generally BDSM relationship going on!

She was Mr Langdon’s favorite at the office, since you were neat, clean and completely scared of him.

Enough, not only to be extremely polite with him, but also she was extremely formal in every approach to the point that her friend, Gallant, joked that she would one day bow down to him, as a way to salute him, since once she had accidentally saluted him, in the old military way.

But she had done one thing which would have been considered highly unprofessional if Langdon ever found out: she had sent him little love notes.

They hadn’t meant to be love notes, she had just thought he needed something that would comfort him, after the loss of his foster mother, Mrs Mead, which had taken a terrible toll on him since not only he had been not as evil as he usually was to everyone but he had taken a work leave.

As one of the few people he trusted she had felt the need to cheer him up a little, and since she couldn’t do nothing face-to-face with him (he had almost fired Coco when she had given him her condolences) she had left a few sweet and encouraging notes, not the type you found in self-help books, but the one that might have been useful, because she felt them deeply.

She had been sure he would have either dismissed it as a silly joke or thrown it in the bin, but instead he had left a similar note on his desk (which she had found when she had gone to drop another one) with a “thank you” and a “😊” near it, which had actually shocked her, but she had been happy that he somehow had appreciated her note and that it had helped him.

She had started leaving more notes, always being careful, making sure nobody recognized her, meanwhile she dropped the notes off, usually doing it during the lunch break, and strangely she had always gotten responses from Mr Langdon, who had been growing more cheeky the more they shared notes.

This prompted her to feel more and more confident in herself and it was just a question of time before she made a mistake.

Which she did after two months of successfully avoiding getting caught, with a rookie mistake.

All the notes had been handwritten since Langdon didn’t know her handwriting (she wrote everything with her computer), but the she had had to write down Gallant’s “happy birthday” note, passing it even to her boss (Langdon had actually sweetened after her notes) and she hadn’t realized that it showcased perfectly her elegant handwriting.

She had just gone home and thought about the new note to write him.

The following day, she had realized the mistake, but only when he had shown her the “birthday note” and “her notes”, after he had called her in his office.

She had almost fainted, not helped by the fact that Langdon stared at her as if he had wanted to burn holes through her body.

-I can explain…- she had just mumbled, blabbing a bit and looking at him as if asking for pity, which he wouldn’t give, because his eyes were again on the notes, the handwriting in common, they were so disinterested that she should have predicted what had come next.

-You don’t need to, Mrs (L/N)- and she almost breathed out a long, relieved breath -… you are fired-.

She had wanted to protest but it was as if her windpipe had been clogged and she couldn’t emit any kind of noise and she still couldn’t talk, although tears streamed down her face and Gallant immediately asked what was wrong, if he could do anything for her, but she just shook her head and she had basically run away from the building.

At home it hadn’t felt better.

She had started thinking about how not only she was unemployed but she had been fired, which would make it extremely hard for her to get another job after what had happened.

Even more if Langdon decided to make her life a living hell and share the news that she didn’t understand the professional boundaries.

What she didn’t know was that a month after she would be in a new and cooler job.

And the funniest thing, which she didn’t understand at all, was the fact that her newest boss didn’t know about her being fired, since Langdon had actually been the one who suggested and wrote a recommendation note about her to her new boss.

When she had been asked why she chose to change the job she hadn’t known what to do, except blatantly lie her way through the rest of the interview.

And she tried to forget about the entire note thing, till Gallant proposed a dinner with her ex-colleagues, and to kill two bird with one stone she also proposed to go to her ex-office and collect the few things she had left behind.

She knew that Gallant would have gladly done it for her, but she wanted to have some kind of closure.

And maybe met with Langdon.

He scared her less now that she didn’t answer to him and she was actually curious to know why he had recommended her.

But when she felt him walking in on her arranging her things in a paper box, swiftly and even more swiftly feeling his intoxicating perfume coming from behind her...

She had turned around only after he coughed to make his presence known, doing it slowly and controlling her moves in order for her to turn around again if he glared at her, but he just looked surprised.

He didn’t expect her, there.

-I am just getting my last things, Gallant told me I had your permission…- she started blabbing, but he stopped at her, smiling meekly, which surprised her, since it seemed genuine for the first time in for ever.

-… I know about it, actually… Gallant has told me…- but he wasn’t expecting her to show up right to his face, and she didn’t know if he was still angry for the notes or he was just surprised -… we need to talk-.

They did indeed, but she wasn’t feeling in the mood, all her curiosity had gone to waste for her anxiety.

-I actually have a dinner in thirty minutes, and Gallant is waiting for me…- which was true, but she was sure that she could have made time for Langdon, she always made it possible for him to have a little bit of her time, no matter what she was doing, no matter how she felt, because she cared for him and was scared of him like he was the freaking devil.

But now, that she didn’t have to endure his government of terror and torture, she felt free to deny him any kind of request he had, even more since he acted like a dick about what had happened with the notes.

It might have been highly unprofessional, but she didn’t think it was worth being fired, mostly when he appreciated the notes.

She was thinking this and turning around to her box, when he pulled out his hand, to latch it with hers, squeezing her in a position nearer to him, getting her to almost screech out at the sudden move, but luckily she kept the scream inside at last, just glaring down at the entire manhandling which had been going on.

-Please, let my arm go- she mumbled, asking without any intention to wait for his answer, tugging on it immediately and the grip didn’t loosen.

-It’ll take just five minutes of your time and I will give you some answer I know you are looking for- he proposed to her, meanwhile loosening his grip, but it was still too firm for her to get away from it, so she just huffed out a breath and nodded.

-And you are going to leave my wrist in peace- she also added, making him smirk, before immediately leaving her wrist, nodding at her command.

But he kept himself close to her, almost making her breath the same air that came out of his luscious lips (she hadn’t thought about those lips, when he had talked to her… nooo…).

-I just wanted to start with saying I am sorry for firing you, it was one of the worst working choice I have ever made-.

And her eyes widened enough that he seemed to understand her disbelief and added an “I am serious”.

-… oh… ehm… my notes were extremely unprofessional- she honestly didn’t think it, but she felt like if she told him the truth, this miracle would disappear.

Because not only he hadn’t apologized to anybody, in the time she had worked for him, but he also didn’t feel regret for treating his employees badly, so either he had gone straight up crazy or he had genuinely developed regret, in her absence.

-I found them extremely cute…- his voice again told the truth, and again she was left surprised by what he had said in the span of two minutes -… and I overreacted, thinking it might have been some kind of twisted way to make fun of me… “oh look at the boss being all cute and everything…”, but I knew you better than that and I should have thought you were jus trying to be a nice person-.

Which she wasn’t, but the fact that he had actually said it, made her gain an immediate shot of confidence.

-… I haven’t had many genuine people around, if I can say the truth, so maybe I might have not thought about the fact that you just wanted to comfort me, for which I am very thankful-.

She swore she was either hallucinating or five minutes from fainting.

-It isn’t so bad…- she managed to spit out -… all is forgiven, Mr Langdon-.

-It’s Michael, since we are not colleague anymore- and then he was again too closer, but this time he didn’t retreat and he growled the following words right into her mouth -… and let me tell you I am very happy we aren’t, so I can do this-.

And he kissed her.

He kissed her, holding her tight under him, an hand behind her back and one behind her neck, holding her close and gently dipping her down, meanwhile his lips traced hers gently, asking for permission with his tongue to enter her in a much more chaste way than the one that her core suddenly craved, since it had opened for him from the moment he had firstly grabbed her.

And this is what got her to open her eyes and throw him away, off of herself, trying to realize when she had actually closed.

Immediately her back hit her old desk and she mumbled a pained moan, meanwhile he was thrown just a few centimeters away, but he looked much more shocked by her rejection than actually the fact that she had managed to move him away, touching the place where she had pushed and just looking at her as if it was the first time it had happened.

Which was not that hard to believe.

Since he was so dreamy and damnably attractive with his elegant posture and his perfect fashion sense.

And she was pretty sure that she wouldn’t have resisted him either, if he had a gently explained his crush for her and not been an emotionally constipated asshole.

-… so after three years of me working for you, you fired me to have a chance to kiss me? – she didn’t want to sound that smug, but she just got her boss to admit not only he was sorry, but that he somehow liked a lowly nobody like her, because it wasn’t just a trying kiss… from the way he seemed greatly affected by it, it might have been a “kiss which had finally happened”.

-Not just for a kiss- he matched her teasing tone, although his azure eyes didn’t dare to meet her -… and I somehow got you back on your feet didn’t I? -.

Which he did, since this meant that he had actually made her new boss hire her, alongside hiding the fact that he had fired her.

-… maybe...- she left her thoughts pending on whether to drag this out with teasing or jump into his arms, before turning around to get the box in her hands, wanting to leave him hanging there dry and unhappy, exactly how she had felt at his rude words -… and now if you excuse me, I have a dinner to attend-

And she made exactly two steps before he corned her between the desk and his body, pushing himself into her, and she was extremely thankful that she had actually worn a skirt, so he just had to push it up and pull down her stockings and panties all together, leaving her naked for the air and his hands.

Her box fell down and she was pretty sure that her treasured shell-box had been destroyed but she honestly didn’t care, when Langdon’s… Michael’s body was pressed right into her, making her feel every inch of the manhood her previous colleagues gossiped about… and it was so much more than they would expect .

-Don’t even think about it- he mumbled into her ear, meanwhile his hands spread her thighs apart, caressing them gently, before slapping one harshly at her useless try to resist his order -… I finally got you where I wanted you so… let me at least explain-.

-First, you try to bribe me with work offers and now you try with your dick, oh I am so glad I got fired! – she mumbled, and he slammed her decidedly unkindly on her desk, grabbing an hold of her hair, clearly telling her to shut up.

-I liked you more when you were a scared little mouse, following all my orders- he mumbled, meanwhile his fingers caressed her outer lips, the one down there, meanwhile her others were smeared with blood, since she had cut them with her teeth during his push -Can’t you go back to that, Mrs (L/N)? –.

He was a kinky bastard as he was rumored to be, she shouldn’t have been surprised, really…

But she just nodded at his request, not daring to turn around, meanwhile he caressed her, pushing himself more internally, still teasing her, but also making sure she knew where this would be going, meanwhile his lips laid kisses on her exposed neck and his free hand, fooled around with her shirt, groping her over it.

-… I need words, Mrs (L/N)- and right now when she felt the words coming at her, he remembered her something else -… and call me, sir, lovely-.

And he slapped her core, getting an even higher pitched scream and she was thankful that she had actually saw the cleaning lady get out when she walked in, she had in fact left her keys for her to close everything, because the noises were so loud and definitely explicit.

-… yes, sir- she mumbled, trying not to think of the pain she felt in her head and the pleasure she instead felt in her nether regions.

-Yes, sir… what? Speak up, Mrs (L/N)…- she felt the smirk forming on her neck before the new slap at her cunt -…you were always so good with words-.

-I will follow your orders, Sir- she repeated slowly, feeling deep waves of pleasure crash into her as Michael slipped a finger in her core after her confession, laying a mark on her, as if to say he say he owned her, inside and out.

-Better- he mumbled, meanwhile his finger slipped out of her and went back inside, but his head retreated from her shoulder, its warmth leaving her, and she tried to turn around, but he kept her hips linked to the table with a tight grip -… don’t turn around, sweetie, I am just going to give you a surprise reward-.

And she didn’t understand what he meant till she felt something even more wet than her folds and rough on her hole, caressing it, without dipping inside, till she let out her first moan, again loudly, finally getting him to intensify the entire thing with probing inside her with his tongue, meanwhile his fingers caressed the sensitive bundle of nerves.

She gripped extremely tightly the edges of the desk, pushing down a few papers, meanwhile she felt herself go through what could only be described as a mystical experience.

She felt the tell-tale first in her stomach tighten and relax and tighten again and…

-Michael! – she protested as he slipped out of her, pushing himself away just to come closer and slap her ass, enough that it freed her of any even feelings of her impeding climax, making her cry out at her own mistake, this time a “sir” escaping her lips.

-Much better, sweetheart, but I would much rather know if you feel as heavenly, as you taste- and he ripped himself off of her, just enough time for him to lower his pants and get his manhood out, making her taste it, just pressing it against her opening, gently caressing her with it, meanwhile he pulled her hair to get her to crane her neck back at him to give her a messy kiss on the lips, making her taste herself.

And he entered her.

She let out a huge huff, feeling him smirk against her, and before she could reprimand him for the low blow he started moving.

Fast enough that she totally missed her grip on the desk, being just pushed against it, without no control on the movement, just being thrown against as a doll, and the fact that she enjoyed it was a bit strange, but she honestly didn’t care, not when Michael hit her perfectly with each movement of hips, meanwhile he smeared saliva on her neck, trying to bite her and when he did, she let out a moan which barely covered the drill of her phone, adverting her that somebody was calling her.

They both stilled, almost as if they had been caught, letting the drill replace the luxurious sound of flesh slapping on flesh.

Her phone was on her bag, next to her, and all she had to was bend down and get it.

It would have been an easy thing…

… without a cock in your cunt…

She looked back at Michael, who seemed almost as taken aback as her, but swiftly smirked at her, devilishly, meanwhile he exited her and made a gesture which meant she better get the call.

She just rolled her eyes, annoyed by what the hell he was plotting and also for the fact that she was feeling extremely empty.

It was Gallant and as she got a good look at her screen through teary eyes, she understood why: she had said it would take her five minutes to collect her things and she had been with Michael for twenty minutes straight, but worst of all as she made to answer Gallant, Michael’s re-entered her, making her moan straight in the phone.

She honestly was traumatized of what Gallant might think.

-Don’t give us out, sweetheart- mumbled Michael in her ear, before gently kissing it, and keeping up a fast-paced pace, thrusting her against the desk and if the moaning hadn’t given her out, the thrust of her skin against metal would absolutely reveal she was fucking her ex-boss.

-… (Y/N)? – asked Gallant, he seemed confused but he gave her the chance to explain it with her words -… what’s taking you so long? -.

“Michael being an asshole and not letting me cum” but she refused to say it to her best friend and ex-colleague, who still worked with Michael, not wanting to put that image in his head, alongside spread rumor about being fired just so that her boss could fuck her.

-Oh… I just caught Mr Langdon and we ended up talking…- she knew that in between saying this entire phrase her voice had broken down and raised up at least five times, enough that one might ask if she had developed a cough -… I am sorry, I will be down in five minutes-.

Because again she felt a tightness in her stomach and this time she hoped Michael wouldn’t pull any kind of stunt.

-Oh, perfect- Gallant’s voice wasn’t as giggly as it was before the mention of Langdon, maybe he was worried that he had again made her cry, but she was just thankful she could end that embarrassing conversation and stop biting her lip to keep any sinful sounds in -…but what were those noises? -.

She rolled her eyes more out of annoyance than pleasure, although what was going in her nether regions was indeed very pleasurable, since Michael had started caressing her pleasure pearl, which was perfect erect in his grasp.

-… I just knocked something accidentally to get the phone, you know… silly me- she mumbled, meanwhile Michael slapped her ass, making her yelp and she turned around to glare at him, meanwhile she held the phone so tight in her hand that she was sure by the end of this she would need a new one.

She whispered to him, about either quitting or just getting over with it.

Big mistake…

He bend her even more over on the table and she was now crunched painfully completely with the desk hitting her stomach, but the pain didn’t matter when she felt him hit a spot which had never been hit either by her finger and any other man, none that there had been some as experienced as him, who seemed to know her body more than her.

-Don’t tell me what to do- this time there was no pet name and she accidentally let the phone tumble down, unable to oeld it.

But at least this got her to only focus on her pleasure, building slowly and this time she knew what she had to do before anything else happened.

-Please, sir, let me cum- she whispered it and she thought he hadn’t heard her till he just laughed sarcastically at her plead.

-Maybe if I can hear you, I will let you cum-.

-PL…Ease… Sir… Let ME… CUM! – she tried again, gaining all the breathing she owned and feeling her lungs burn because of the strain, but by the way the caresses on her clit turned into harsh and quick slaps she knew that she had done well, enough to hear an animalistic growl:

-Then do it-.

And sweetly she felt her legs give out under the utter pressure of pleasure, moving liquidly from her stomach to her core and there, it became butterflies of true pleasure between her legs and she …

… she blacked out for a minute, still shocked by the intensity of what was going through her.

She just felt two arms steadying her from behind to avoid her falling without elegance on the desk, meanwhile he exited her, getting a moan of annoyance from her, but he made it all up by actually caressing her thighs gently, without no intention to arouse her (not that he would need it), but to relax her sore muscles, meanwhile his other hand searched for something on her desk.

She didn’t understand what it was till she felt him try to clean her down there with a tissue, collecting their mixed releases, the proof that she hadn’t be the only one to enjoy it and she was secretly thankful for being on the pill, and hoped that Michael was as clean-polished inside as he was outside…

He had gone back to his boss persona, although a blush coated his cheeks (she didn’t understand if it was from the physical activity or anything else), when she turned around to lean her sore back against the deck, searching for some relief, meanwhile he distanced himself a bit to let her oversensitive skin breath, but keeping up what he was doing with the hand cleaning her, till he was satisfied and gently slipped her panties back on, meanwhile helping her tuck the shirt in her skirt.

He had a gentleness to him that she hadn’t expect, but she appreciated it still.

And was particularly starstruck when he kissed her gently on the lips, caressing her almost lovingly and reverently and when they broke apart he looked at her as if it hurt to distance himself from her:

-Don’t you have a dinner to wander off with? – he mumbled at her, looking down at his polished shoes, but she gripped his face, making him look up at her; was he seriously being all shy after he had taken her like a whore.?

-After that stunt I don’t think I can stay still on my legs- and she caressed his cheek much more to adapt herself to the fact that it was all real, that it had all happened.

-I am pretty sure that all you have to do at a dinner is stay sit- he mumbled, using again his teasing tone, but with no fire to it, just kindness and willingness to make her laugh, meanwhile he caressed her aching back, all because of him.

-… I don’t think I can do also that- she replied, already feeling the burn of his previous slaps and the way he had roughly abused her poor back, now that all the pleasure had subsided -… I am probably going back home and get a good bath-.

He nodded and turned around, to let her do that, but she just gripped his jacket and kept him there.

-… and after all I have just gone through, I think I deserve at least a bath- which was a clear invite to follow her back home -… you can draw one for us, meanwhile I write a note-.

This almost got him to giggle and she thought it was the nicest thing she had ever seen and she wanted to see more.

-Ehm… that is very… very tempting- he mumbled almost thinking about it, before picking her up full bridal style, getting a screech both for the sudden move and for the aching muscles in her body -… that note better be good-.

-Oh let me tell you how it starts… - and she smirked looking up at him -… “dearest Mr Langdon, you are a dick but yoa have an even bigger…”-.

She couldn’t finish the sentence because he had pushed her up his shoulder in a much less elegant way, before delivering a sound slap to her ass, getting a very loud pained moan from her, before uttering a “these brats never learn”.

Maybe she was glad shehad been fired for those stupid notes.

---

Gallant kept on shouting for his best friend on the phone, he had been already confused because his friend sounded stressed and pained on the phone.

Which he understood since she had to talk with her boss, but also that seemed a bit exaggerated but then he heard something, something which made him understand pretty clear that his best friend wasn’t in immediate danger.

“PL…Ease… Sir… Let ME… CUM!”.

Apparently, at least, somebody would get lucky tonight.

----

I hope you enjoyed it, lovelies!

This piece was so out of my comfort-zone, so please if you leave any kid of feedback I would be extremely grateful, because it would mean that you appreciate my creations and thye don’t go to waste!

Also tagging @so-langdon since she told me she was interested into reading this! (if you want to be tagged too, let me know through a message or an ask).

Love you, lovelies!

-Heco Hansen.

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janiedean · 5 years ago

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god, youre so delusional, its pathetic.

youtube

johnny 99 is a song by Our Only Savior Bruce Springsteen, to be found in his masterpiece 1982 record Nebraska, which was wholly composed of acoustic songs concerning themes way darker than his usual and which his record company probably considered a commercial suicide back in the day - and it’s regarded by many people as his actual finest record (and objectively I agree, ngl). the song, other than being in the same stark style as the rest of the record, as in, acoustic guitar and harmonica only, in less than four minutes manages in an admirable example of synthesis, not only to tell an entire story, but to touch heavy themes such as economical crisis, the death penalty, the fact that the american government didn’t give a shit about blue collar workers way back in the seventies and arguably also that it might be a tad too easy to buy guns in the US. sounds interesting? great, then let me welcome to this evening’s episode of tumblr user janiedean explains bruce springsteen! ;)

so, shall we start? brace up because this is a wild ride.

Well they closed down the auto plant in Mahwah late that month Ralph went out lookin' for a job but he couldn't find none He came home too drunk from mixin' Tanqueray and wine He got a gun shot a night clerk now they call 'm Johnny 99

first of all: bruce again shows that he knows how to hook you in, because in four lines he has pretty much told you the bones of the story. first - and most important thing: a factory in a town in new jersey closes. it was a true fact, and in real life it was because they failed to follow environmental rules, but as back in the day there was indeed an economical crisis in the US for which a lot of factories shut down, we could fictionally assume it was for that reason as well. anyway, what matters is that the factory closes. our protagonist, ralph, who presumably works there, is fired, searches for a new job, isn’t re-hired (which was common to a lot of people who were laid off at that time, please feel free to read dale maharidge’s journey to nowhere and somewhere like america to get educated on that), proceeds to get drunk and when he’s not thinking straight he buys a gun (just like that), shoots a guy and gets a new nickname: johnny 99. why? we don’t know yet. but we know that a guy who was just doing his job and failed to be rehired lost it and shot someone... because he lost his job. hmm. but let’s go on.

Down in the part of town where when you hit a red light you don't stop Johnny's wavin' his gun around and threatenin' to blow his top When an off duty cop snuck up on him from behind Out in front of the Club Tip Top they slapped the cuffs on Johnny 99

so: after having shot the night clerk, our guy is in the part of town where you don’t stop at a red light so we can assume not the best part of it, he’s threatening to hurt himself with the gun, he gets arrested by an off duty cop, that’s it. sorry, not that much of a criminal career. but snuck up on him from behind... maybe like the closing of his factory and the fact that his life was fucked in the span of a few days? that might have been a deliberate lyrical choice, which makes you, if not sympathize with the guy, at least get how he’s feeing right now.

Well the city supplied a public defender but the judge was Mean John Brown He came into the courtroom and stared poor Johnny down Well the evidence is clear gonna let the sentence son fit the crime Prison for 98 and a year and we'll call it even Johnny 99

at this point, of course johnny goes to trial. he gets a public defender (which from what I gather tends to be shitty) and a judge whose nickname is mean, from which we can surmise that the stacks against him are bad regardless. the judge comes into the courtroom and stares poor johnny down, and at this point it’s obvious that we’re meant to sympathize with him, not with the judge, who is *mean* and stares down at the guy before even sitting down at this point. so, the judge says that the evidence is there, and his sentence is 99 years of prison.

which is why he’s re-baptized johnny 99 as we had seen in the beginning. now, 99 years is pretty much life, since this guy must have been at least older than twenty to work in a car factory. rough.

A fistfight broke out in the courtroom they had to drag Johnny's girl away His mama stood up and shouted "judge don't take my boy this way" Well son you got a statement you'd like to make Before the bailiff comes to forever take you away

this verdict does not indeed please johnny’s family/loved ones, as a *fistfight* breaks out and they have to forcibly remove his girlfriend, while his mother pleads the judge to not take her boy this way, presumably crying, which means that again, we are supposed to see that he has relatives who love him and would cry for him and so maybe he’s not a bad guy deep down. sure, we haven’t heard his side yet, but we know his girlfriend loves him enough to try to beat up the guards and his mother pleads for another solution... which is denied, and the judge actually replies with the last two lines, which sound fairly rude and insensitive especially given that the bailiff is coming to forever take him away. but it’s as if the judge has decided that since the guy isn’t rich or matters much in the great scale of things, it’s an already done thing and fuck that. ouch.

Now judge I got debts no honest man could pay The bank was holdin' my mortgage and they was takin' my house away Now I ain't sayin' that makes me an innocent man But it was more 'n all this that put that gun in my hand

aand wait, here finally our dude finally speaks for himself. first: he had debts no honest man could pay, which means that losing his job fucked his finances for good and he was deep in the red. the bank was taking his house away, which was another thing that was extremely common back in the day (same as in the twenties haha) (read those maharidge books for more info) and so he was going to become homeless because he couldn’t find another job and had no other safety net to fall back on. he doesn’t try to argue for his innocence because he did kill a man so he’s not really downplaying it, but then he adds that ‘it was more than all of that which put a gun in his hand’, which means that it was losing his job, losing his money, possibly losing his house, being unable to provide for his family and feeling most likely useless and like he couldn’t do anything anymore with his life. and that puts the gun in his hand. he didn’t do it because he enjoyed it, he did it because he saw no other way, and none of that was considered in the *evidence*, which means he got a trial where his circumstances weren’t even taken into account. but that’s not the heaviest blow this song deals. that one’s the ending:

Well your honor I do believe I'd be better off dead And if you can take a man's life for the thoughts that's in his head Then won't you sit back in that chair and think it over judge one more time And let 'em shave off my hair and put me on that execution line

HAAAAA BUT JUST YOU WAIT. so: he thinks he’s be better off dead, which admittedly is fair of him, idk if I’d take 99 years (so: entire life and death) in a US prison over just being done with it already, and after all if he has no job, no house, no money and no prospects, what does he have to lose? and fine enough, but here’s the gist: if the judge can take a man’s life for the thoughts in his head, ie if the judge thinks he can condemn him to 99 years in prison ie rotting in there until he dies for what he thought and not giving a fuck about why he thought that or why he did what he did... then he welcomes the judge to ‘sit back in that chair’ (which is already pretty damn wording because it sarcastically implies the judge is in a higher position and nothing can hurt him in the chair while everything can hurt johnny 99 and everything has done so already) and have the balls to give him the death penalty instead of condemning him to die but pretending to have been merciful and only giving him time in prison that he can’t possibly serve before he dies. so he’s basically raising the judge (representing the system that betrayed him) the middle finger because if the judge/the system have ruined his life then they should at least have the courage to end it instead of condemning him to be a prisoner for the entirety of it.

now: that’s it. there’s nothing else. there’s no lesson, there’s no moral, that’s how it ends, it’s bleak and sad and it doesn’t really give you any silver lining... because there’s no silver lining and it’s unjust to live in a society where losing your job means losing your life *and* you will be automatically judged for the thoughts in your head without a chance to prove that you can be better or meant better or could make up for it.

no, it’s one mistake out of reasons beyond your control that you would actually pay for, and hey, thrown in jail with the keys thrown away. what an enlightened, beautiful, just system, the system that judges a man for the thoughts that are in his head, huh?

and actually, bonus story: this story is tied to bruce’s biggest BDE display ever, as when reagan became president and was running for re-election in 1984, he thought to quote bruce’s (sadly misunderstood) song born in the usa in a speech in nj. at that point bruce said nothing for a bit, but then:

guys, what a man, what an idol, what a class. no, sure af reagan did not listen to nebraska nor johnny 99.

and, given how you, my dear anon, also judge people by the thoughts that are in their heads and proceed to be their jury, judge and executioner, both fictional people and real ones, if you’re who I think you are (and I actually know you are)... I’ve got a feeling that neither have you. and I really think you should, same as everyone because bruce is the best ;)

#bruce springsteen for ts #bruce meta #i need to go and tag back all the other ones #oooooh my hand slipped #SORRY!!!!#va bene va bene va bene in verità #here please listen to nebraska #it's totally a good use of your time!!!!#murder cw #death penalty cw #Anonymous #ask post

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torialeysha · 6 years ago

Text

Birthday Boy Bob - Part. 2

Since the highly-anticipated, tantric meeting of flesh between you and your boss, Bob Saginowski, things had become much more than the one nighter you thought would end all too soon. Nights, and mornings spent together with he and Rocco, made you feel as if the inevitable pieces of your mundane life were finally beginning to settle in place. But, the haunting winter winds of Brooklyn may blow in a stale, scorned ghost to rattle the cage...

A/N: A couple of weeks ago, my good friend @anrm1 kindly indulged me and my request for a Bob Saginowski fic - which you can read here.

What my darling girl delivered, completely but unsurprisingly exceeded my expectations and I selfishly begged her for more. Another part - anything that would satisfy my cravings for her perfect portrayal of Bob. And to my utter delight she indulged me once more and not only granted my wish for another part but also generously invited me to have a piece of the action.

Thank you @anrm1 for allowing me to collaborate and continue your masterpiece. I had so much fun working with you on this and it’s an absolute honour and privilege to see my writing next to yours.

Without further ado, I present to you part two of Birthday Boy Bob.

Enjoy x

Scalding coffee held in one gloved hand, and the gentle squeeze of his masculine fingers laced through your other as the pair of you shivered and anxiously paced your way to the bar for morning open. The one-bedroom house you called a home was only two measly blocks, so you and Bob decided a few minutes of the breezy, winter air wouldn’t kill you. Bob had slept at your place last night, after much ruthless convincing on your part that Rocco would feel perfectly safe in your bed just as he did his own at Bob’s house. You had been carrying on together for months now as a couple, your heartfelt feelings for the man only begging to spring free. The more time you spent with Bob Saginowski, the more you realized there really was much more to him than being the strong, brutish type. The budding friendship you both had nurtured for the two-year span after he had hired you, instigated the initial admiring feelings for him. And since that fateful evening of Bob’s birthday, you had gathered much more reason to feel that way.

He was most talkative upon his bright and early alarm every morning. On the nights spent sleeping nose to nose, with Rocco’s paw padded on your cheek, you would routinely wake up to the sputtering sound of an aromatic pot of coffee downstairs. Rather than crawl tiredly from the confines of his warm bed to pour a cup, you’d quietly wait in hopes that he would come tip-toeing up the creaking stairs of his aged, family home to skootch back into his position of big spoon under the jersey sheets to encase you in his shirtless arms.

He felt most comfortable when he kept to the strict, daily routine he had mapped out for himself, so you made the proper adjustments to learn his ways. Laundry was done every other day, no dish was ever left in a dirty sink, and never sleep past 7 a.m. and miss Rocco’s first potty break of the day. There was nothing wrong with Bob and his obsessive tendencies, it just took a bit of getting used to seeing as you were spending so much one-on-one time together. But, he did make changes to welcome you into that routine. Like a surprise visit to your nightly shower here and there, even though he had already taken his at the scheduled time. Or, an occasional early close-up at the bar because he knew you were exhausted from assisting him in carrying the weight of book keeping, and stock shelving now that you were more than just his bartender. The long-anticipated touch of his lips to yours had been entirely worth the torturous wait, bringing much more satisfaction than just the one-night-stand you thought you needed.

“Hey uh, Saturday is Rocco’s comin’ home day. Well, it’s the day I found ‘em, you know. So, I thought maybe I’d do somethin’ special for him. Like take ‘em to uptown to one of those dog parks, and do some’a those other things he like so much. You got any ideas?” His breaths exhaled into a smoke-like cloud when the heat met the contrasting freeze of the morning hour.

“I could watch the bar if you wanted to take the day with him. I don’t mind”

“’Course not, Y/N. We want you to come wit’ us. We need our girl, ain’t that right Rocco? I thought about maybe closing the place for the day. It’s a special occasion ‘n all.”

Their girl.

We reached the dark, lonely bar and Bob backed you into the closed door while finagling loose the key inside the deep pocket of his winter coat. You squeezed inside first, rustling your body to try and shake loose the tensed, cold muscles. Flipping on each switch of the lights, and unzipping the layers of your outerwear, you giggled as Rocco danced about your feet knowing his chew toy was somewhere hidden inside your purse.

“I gotta run out later for a few things since that big Knicks game is tonight. You need anything while I’m out, Y/N?”

“Ahh. That’s tonight?” You moan. Unable to hide the disappointment in your slumped shoulders as you crouch down to dig through your purse for the pining pup’s toy.

The Nicks game meant that the bar would undoubtably be packed to the rafters with rowdy fans and depending on the end result, had the potential to destroy any hopes of closing on time. Which in turn meant less precious alone time with Bob. Rocco cocks his head to the side when your hand emerges empty from your purse.

“Don’t worry, boy. It must be in here somewhere.” You up-end your purse and with a vigorous shake, the clattering contents spill out on to the floor. Rocco wastes no time, kindly lending his cold wet nose to assist you in your search for his prized possession. Your fingers, along with Rocco’s detective nose filters through the junk that your purse had over time accumulated. Wallet, receipts, phone, keys, hair ties, lip-gloss, body spray. But no dog toy.

“Hmm. That’s strange...”

“What’s up?” Bobs towering form stands next to you, casting a shadow over your crouched form.

“I could have sworn I put Rocco’s toy in here.” You scan the objects laid in front of you once again with a fading optimism. Your certainty that you definitely remembered Rocco’s toy was re-enforced by the increasing pining of the pup as he nudged your purse with his cold, wet nose.

“Maybe it just fell out or summin’” Bob suggests

“Maybe... I’m gonna run back and check.”

“You sure?... You haven't gotta go to all that trouble. I can grab him a chew when I’m out later.”

You look down into the pleading eyes of your panting dog baby. Your heart fluttering as you remembered Bobs words from earlier. Their girl.

“But that one is his favourite. I can't have my boy suffering the wild, disorderly crowd we’re gonna pull tonight.” You knew it would take the sensitive Pits mind off the raucous racket of chanting and cheering if he had his cherished chew toy to gnaw on.

Making up your mind, you pull your house keys from the disorganised mass of items before stuffing the rest back into your purse in a hurried mess. With a quick affectionate rub to Rocco’s head, you rise from your crouched position to dump your purse on the bar top. Turning to bid both of your boys a quick farewell.

“I won’t be long.” You promise as your eyes meet Bobs. A striking look of pride, admiration... and something else filled his usually emotionless orbs as they burned into yours. Losing yourself in the heated gaze of your Boss and... Boyfriend? Lover? You weren’t sure. It was a conversation you had both been putting off. Knowing that Bob wouldn’t be into labelling whatever this was that was happening between you. But what you were sure of was it was more than what it was originally. More than what you had dreamed or imagined it ever could be. You were both each other's more and that was enough.

“Er...You sure you’re gonna be okay? You don’t want us to come wit’ you?” He asks. Linking his fingers with yours while an unnecessary worry caused a few prominent lines to grace his forehead.

“It’s a couple of blocks away. I’ll be fine. You stay here and get this place ready for the riot we’re going to endure later...” He gives a subtle nod of agreement.

“Don’t miss me too much, you two.” You joke. Moving to the door.

To your surprise Bob doesn’t let go of your hand and with an assertive tug, pulls you back into his arms. You’re greeted immediately with his plush lips catching yours in a soft, commanding kiss. You pull him closer until there was no space left. So close you could feel his heart against your chest beating an erratic rhythm that mirrored yours and betrayed the cool, calm exterior, he consistently exuded.

You pull away breathless. A four-letter word erupted involuntarily from your aching chest and got caught in your throat. “Bobby, I-” You were lost. The frightening depths of your feelings towards Bob were growing so intense it was almost painful. It was too much too soon. The unimpressed whining cry from Rocco breaks the moment and you’re thankful for the interruption. Swallowing the eager sentiment and saving it for another time.

Those heavy, life-changing words stammered off the cliff of your tongue along the journey back home. You couldn’t let the daft, most likely delusional, admission of that feeling of love ruin the overdue relationship you were developing with Bob. You knew there was no way a man as multifaceted as himself would fall into the illusion of love just a few months into the developing bond. And you weren’t completely convinced that Bob was entirely capable of accepting, or expressing the love of a woman. But, you knew he’d give his last-ditch efforts to try if it meant he could go to sleep at night with you soothingly scratching your nails over the tender skin along his back.

You hushed the one-sided conversing as you trudged the stairs towards your second-floor building on hunt for Rocco’s blessed chew toy. Ms. Peters from next door had already made her impressions of you known around the other tenants as a wretched, fornicating hussy who disturbed her all hours of the night trolloping with her strange male friend. There was no need to add manic, schizophrenic that talks to herself to the list of the woman’s judgmental arsenal of gossip. So, you smiled artificially at her on your way inside, holding your breath to avoid the fumes from her morning cigarette. You inhaled enough secondhand tar at the bar every night, so might as well save a breath where you could here and there.

Your keyring jangled around your fingers as you searched amongst the collection for the appropriate key to open the locked door of your designated apartment marked 251. You left the barricade standing open behind you as you marched to the beige couch where you had retrieved your purse in the rushed exit only half hour ago, assuming to find the red, dingy bone lying smooshed between the crumb-filled cushions. Upon a quick search beneath the sham of the love-seat, no avail in discovery, you flinched in fright as the slamming of the once opened door echoed over the drums of your ears.

The boisterous interruption inevitably caused distraction, and you right away turned your direction to investigate the cause behind the resounding crash. A chilly gust of sickening mortification settled over your chest upon the sight of a ghost from girlfriends past standing unwelcomed in your living room, latching carefully the double-bolt lock nailed to your doors frame. Only Nadia wasn’t a ghost. She wasn’t a haunting nightmare from your most heinous thoughts, or a horrifying hallucination of your disgusted distresses. She was a fleshy reminder that your worst fear had indeed reared its ugly head of malice once more.

“Looking for this, are you?” She pinched the sought-after bone between her dirt-lined nails, causing it to release a squeaking whine. The horn-like sound didn’t sound as chipper as it did when your sweet Rocco knocked it around the slick floor of the bar.

Grey, hollow shadow bags under her twitching eyes, and the way her words seemed to tumble like weighted rocks from her drawn, scab-lined mouth supported the suspicions around the neighborhood that she had fallen back into her drug induced, alternative reality. She wore a faded, damp hoodie that smelled like stale garbage, and stained blue jeans hung low on the malnourished bone of her hips.

“How… Nadia, what.. how are you here?” You seemed to chew on your thick saliva that clung to the roof of your mouth like stale bubblegum.

“You learn to pick a lock pretty early where I’m from, sweetheart. And, sweet, sweet, dumb Bob never noticed me followin’ behind him when he came here the other night. He led me right to you.” Plaque caked over her yellow-tinted fangs as she smiled callously.

You snaked a hand stealthily toward your rear pocket in efforts to grasp your cell, the only contact to escape this dangerous predicament. The hopeless realization that your only lifeline had been left behind at the bar where Bob cluelessly carried about with his opening checklist made the nervous bile in your belly simmer near release. Without weighing the potential consequence of a hasty reaction, you sprang up on your heels towards the bedroom where you knew a cracked window opened onto a rickety fire escape. You may break an ankle, or crack a rib from falling the two-stories to the front lawn, but you’d be freed from the scorned control of Nadia and her dope induced hostage situation. Before you could crank the knob of the unlatched entry, a cold, scuffed steel trembled against the center spot of your cranium, and the toxic clack of an engaging bullet dropping into a barrel paralyzed your escape. Nadia’s faltering grip on the pistol she doted and aimed tenaciously toward your head quivered with the tremor of whatever vice she had befriended assumingly in the wee morning hour. Your focus unintendedly latched onto the wiry friction of your hair chafing against the weapon.

“Now, now, Y/N. You had better think real hard about trying to take off me like that again, you conniving bitch.”

At the careless risk of exhibiting weakness and distress in being tangled in her kidnapping clutches, tears and sweat stung your eyes. You felt internally on fire like the pits of a sweltering steadfast hell, but when you wiped the liquid from your worry-lined forehead, your hands were clammy and pale with a damp chill. Her ill-disposed warning resonated somewhat, but the echoing ring in your ears drowned out most of the background noise.

You fall to your knees, succumbing to the impotent fear that has seized your body. Through tear filled, blurry vision you gaze with an anxious appetency at the freedom and safety which lurked within a teasingly unattainable reach, just beyond the fractured square of glass that was your only hope for escape. Nadia becomes visible in your peripheral vision. Your eyes follow her. Like a hungry shark she circles before coming to a stop in front of you. Her slight and withering frame obscures your view of the diverse, suburban neighbourhood and its oblivious residents. In silence you tread the treacherous current of the choppy waters, determining their dangerous depths while the predator stalks its prey. She bends, leaning her boney posterior on the ledge of the weathered windowsill. Her arm is raised with the pistol pointed precisely at the crown of your head. The dank material of her hoody hung in a swag from the stiff slenderness of her limb. The weakened state of her undernourished muscles sent a tremor down her arm and you felt the weight of the pistol wavering in her grasp as she tried to steady it against your forehead.

“Why don’t you put the gun down, Nadia?” It’s hard to get the words out as your throat tightens in terror. Her features remain impassive as she drags the muzzle of the gun down your profile. Thanks to the slick mixture of sweat and tears that moistened your face, the rigid steel, zig zagged effortlessly from your temple to your eye socket before curving around your cheekbone; trailing across the bridge of your nose and dipping into the hiding dimple of your cheek. It finishes its grueling journey between your lips. The metal rattling a chattering rhythm against your teeth, once again betraying Nadia's decreasing strength.

“I don’t understand what he sees in you.” She rasps. Resting the weight of the pistol on your bottom lip. You fight back the urge to retort, fully aware that you weren’t the one holding the gun. “I see the way he acts with you. The way he looks at you.” Her mouth twists in hostile resentment. An indignation so powerful it caused you to be on the receiving end of her revolver. The last time you had seen her was at the bar on Bobs birthday. You and every other member of the community assumed she had once again disappeared, only to now find out that she had been watching you from the shadows. A shudder wracks your body, causing Nadia to jump. In a swift movement the weapon is torn from your mouth and planted back on the invisible target she’s placed on your forehead. You gasp at the sudden movement, trying your best to stay stock-still and calm. A feat that was betrayed by the turbulent rise and fall of your chest, as your burning lungs expanded with harsh, panicked breaths.

“He used to look at me like that.” Her dark empty pools looked straight through you as she reminisced about the not so distant memory of when she when she was once Bob and Rocco's girl. Her face crumples in a tormented frown, causing a trail of tears to spill from her black orbs.

“You see, he’s forgotten that he loves me. It’s my own fault I suppose. I was gone too long. I thought he would have missed me. That when I returned, he would have welcomed me back with open arms... Then I saw you two together.”

“He did miss you, Nadia. He was broken when you left.” You have no idea why you’re telling her that. Maybe it was because of the weapon she yielded and poked so promisingly at you or maybe it was because it was the truth. You remembered how forlorn and lost Bob was when she went away. How you picked up for his slack behind the bar while he would wallow alone in his back office with Rocco. How some nights you wouldn’t get home until gone 3 in the morning because you stuck around trying to coax Bob from his woeful solitude, afraid that he might do something silly. Only wake up the next day and do it all again.

“But you were there to pick up the pieces?” It was said as a question but her snarling expression told you she didn’t want you to answer. “I should have known not to trust you. That as soon as my back was turned, you’d try and wheedle your way in.”

“Maybe, you need to come to terms with that fact that he doesn’t love you anymore.” It was a curt statement. A censored rendition of what you actually wanted to say.

“Oh? And why is that? Because he loves you now?” a scornful cackle rumbles past her chapped lips. “You think you’re the only one he’s screwed up against his bar?” One of the corners of her mouth turns up in to a sly, lopsided smile. her tongue emerging to toy smugly with her top lip, making you feel sick.

“The truth is Y/N, you don’t know him like I know him. He hasn’t done for you what he’s done for me. And that’s how I know that he loves me.”

Her insinuating smile and her unwavering certainty of Bobs feelings sends a bitter acid to bubble at the back of your throat. Your folded legs begin to tingle and throb. You shift your weight from side to side to try and alleviate the sharp pins and needles that were penetrating your fixed, numbing muscles.

“I think I know him pretty well actually.” Your brave whisper surprises her.

“No, no, no.” She shakes her head frantically. “You’ll never know him like I do. If you did then you would have run for the hills.” She nods as if trying to convince not only you but the other voices in her head. “He’ll remember how it was between us. But for that to happen he needs to forget about you. You need to disappear.” Her voice sounded almost remorseful. A condescending, pitying smirk controlled her gaunt features. “And I'll be the one to do it.” Her claw like hand flexes around the metal housing of the gun. “To prove how much, I love him.” she nods, making peace with what she has decided she has to do.

You still, eyes widening as Nadia reveals her true intentions. Your gut wrenches in panic. “Nadia, this is crazy. You’re not thinking straight...You need help.” You talk slowly and sympathizing as if addressing a child.

The coddle-like mockery resonated deep within the sensitive nerve of her psyche, and you reckoned it was the term ‘crazy’ that may have quickened the burning of her short fuse. Your defensive reflexes were no match for her livid release, and you had no last second chance to try and turn away, or shield a palm over your perfectly plump cheek before Nadia waylaid the side of your head with the unforgiving, stout plastic of the handgun. Weightless, and barely lingering in the realm of this nightmarish consciousness, the whip of her pistol pummeled you to land face-first into the aging, musty, less than pillowy carpet. A stark scarlet trickle of your own wound oozed from the temple of your gashed skull, and dripped off the ledge of your heart-shaped nose.

“Oh, I’m thinking perfectly straight, Y/N. Trust me on that one, sweetie. And it seems pretty clear to me I’m not the one who needs help here. But, do you see anyone around to help you? Is your Bob here to save you? I don’t think so.” She laid face-to-face with you on the floor, false pity lying in the crease of her brow. The stanch, acrid aroma of her rotting mouth warmed over your face, and the wind from her close proximity made your eyes water upon contact.

Was this worth it? Was Bob Saginowski truly someone you’d lose your life over? Could you let yourself endure the torture, and possible murder from such a putrid maniac like Nadia all for the sake of a slight possibility you may become more than whatever it was you were now? You punished yourself and those cruel questions by biting your own tongue to pinch blood loose. Of course, that confused, handsome, eclectic man and his perfect pup were worth it, and shame on you for every doubting it. Nadia sure thought so, and if her twisted, delirious, heart saw what a treasure he was, there was no way you’d turn him lose. Whether he’d put a title on the bond you’d established or not, Bob would lay in front of a train to protect you, and never question the decision.

Just as your subconscious had lulled you into the melancholy scenario that may end with you never being cradled in his capable arms again, you swore you could trace the jingling racket of what resembled a dog collar erratically prancing up the stairs just feet behind the amply locked door. You knew it wasn’t a project of your imagination, when Nadia instantly reacted to the sound of nearby feet, and the whimpering sniff of a concerned Rocco. The sticky film of her oily palm clasped over the unwavering chatter of your teeth. You felt the assembling of a desolate screech for help settling at the back of your tongue, but the suffocating mask of her hand killed the chances of your outcry, and your sentient state, as you dozed into the restful slumber of oblivion...

...To be continued.

#the drop #bob saginowski #bob saginowski fanfiction #bon saginowski imagine #tom hardy #the drop fanfiction #the drop imagine #the drop fanfic #bob saginowski fanfic #tom hardy imagine #tom hardy fanfiction #tom hardy fanfic #bob saginowski x reader

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keltonwrites · 6 years ago

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thanks for the binder

My father wrote me a book, and I haven’t read it. My father and I are as alike as any father and daughter have any right to be, in spirit, temperament, and assuredness of our capability. I tell you this because the book is about him, and thus, essentially about me, and that’s not the only reason I can’t read it. If I read the book, he will obviously die. If I don’t read the book, he will definitely, without question, also die, but a different death. Neither more sad nor terrible than the other, but different in their command over bad guilt or dumb grief. I will either feel like dying myself because I did not read it when he was alive, or I will be so adept at imagining him dead I will be weeping at his non-grave, sitting across from him at the table as he lowers the newspaper to look curiously at his weeping daughter. It is also with certainty that reading the book will kill me, either with love so deep it drowns me in profound agony, or in that I will see how light and fire and good personalities burn out into dusty pieces of ash, particles we breathe in and sneeze out on a bus while strangers glare passively in our general direction. We are all just piles of molecules, dead on arrival. What and why, etc. Reading the book will kill us both, and not reading it is killing us both, and being dead either way does not make approaching it any less dreadful. So instead I just hold the plastic three-ring binder from somewhere like Staples because he doesn’t know you can just find that kind of thing at Walgreens. And when all I have is that binder, he would be paper cuts and glue coming undone from photos with no jpegs or even negatives, just the one photo of the one thing that he stuck to a page for his daughter so she could be proud of him so one day she could cry so hard hoping so profoundly that he had been proud of her. So, I can’t read the book because I have to. I don’t have a choice. I bring this up because we’re both in good health and I am deeply superstitious, and sometimes I like to wave things in the face of my superstition to see what comes of them. Also, because one of the characters in the novel I am writing is based on my dad, and that character dies, so I’ve been crying a lot. This novel has been a long-time coming, in that the characters first came to me in 2014. Thus far they have been very patient with me, but I could feel them rumbling, packing their things or dying somewhere in my computer, and I knew I needed to act quickly. I booked a room up the California coast where no one could ask me, well, anything, and I started to write again. Kill your darlings doesn’t always mean slogging them off with machetes, but sometimes cutting their character information and pasting it into a document of Dead Darlings, ctrl+F’ing their name, and deleting—watching the word count fall with them. Sorry, Hannah. Sorry, Red. Once upon a time, I wrote frequently for free, and now I write infrequently for money. And that, as far as I can tell for myself, has not resulted in the kind of life I want. But this is a hard thing for me to parse. Some coworkers read this (hi! Please don’t tell me if you read this) and I would very much like to keep my well-paying job so I can continue to fantasize about buying a home so that one day I can do things like paint a wall yellow and then wonder if it was a bad idea. I also would like (for no reason I can discern other than growing up middle class in Ohio) to own a big truck with big wheels with a big engine so I can joyfully drive to the back of every parking lot because that’s the only place it will fit. And these things cost more money than I was making writing for free, as you can surmise by the word “free.” A year or so ago, I was taking the Yale course on Happiness through Coursera (of course not knowing when I was rejected from Yale as an insulted 17-year-old that I eventually could take all the interesting classes for free without ever doing the homework.) It prompted me to take a happiness survey. I love quizzes about my personality (which any personality quiz will tell you about me right away — Type 7, ENFP.) When I went to create an account, it told me I could not. An account under that email already existed. I cocked my head like a dog at the computer to emphasize to myself my own confusion, and I turned immediately to the search bar of my email to get to the bottom of this. It turns out, I had taken the exact same quiz some 4 years prior. And the results were still in my account. The internet giveth. But, of course, the internet also taketh away: upon taking the quiz again, I was happier, but not by much. This didn’t make sense. In 2014, I had an emotionally abusive boyfriend, lived in a 150 sq ft room where I was not allowed to make noise (!), and often couldn’t leave work for spans of 30 hours at a time. But in the 2018 quiz, I was making significantly more money working fewer hours, I was in a happy and supportive relationship, I lived in a cool ass house with cool ass pets — where was my goddamned happiness? I took that quiz in November and assuming you’re currently experiencing time the same way that I am, it is now March, wait, no, it’s April, and I spent the last five months carefully examining what made me happy and what didn’t. And like any person who’s had to have the phrase “forest for the trees” explained to them multiple times, I couldn’t see what was painfully obvious to 97% of people who knew me: when I’m not writing, I’m not happy. And I’m not talking about tagline writing, or UX writing, or writing scripts for product features, or writing about bike rentals in Ventura, or any of the writing I was actually doing. I could still slip into flow on those things. I could still get excited and get lost in the rhythm, but upon completion, it felt like planning a trip with friends only for them all to have something come up, and the plan get pushed another indefinite year. At some point, you just have to take the trip yourself, and I thought that trip would be this newsletter, but I’ve struggled to write more newsletters because of two things: why buy the cow, etc., but also because it feels like there needs to be a point. And while I suspect those are beliefs I should investigate and dismantle, today I happen to have a point, so here it is: If doing something doesn’t feel right and you don’t need to do it to survive, you should probably do less of it. And if there is something you feel called to do, but feel you don’t have time to do it, you should probably take a long hard look at your calendar and (oh boy) your choices. It’s been five years since I sat down with these characters, and in the meantime, my dad sat down and transcribed his entire life pre-my-mom with photos. It’s page after page of wild parties, broke down cars, school dropouts, ski towns, jumping out of airplanes, fighting fire, and living in the wilderness all so his daughter could be like, “sorry Dad, I can’t book a ski trip 3 months in advance because there’s no way this tech company with 250 other employees could find a way to replace my somewhat vague skill-set for a Friday. Also I gave up on my dreams. Thanks for the book." Holding the three-ringed binder, looking at the printed title page he’d slipped under the plastic cover, feeling such pride and love it could distort the proportions of the room, I knew when I would be ready to read it: when I could send my dad my finished manuscript so he could read what he’d made of me while I read what he’d made of himself. So I'm in a cottage up the coast from where I live, away from the cat in my lap and the dog at my side, away from morning coffees and goodbye kisses, far far away from bosses and emails, and the farthest away from what doesn't feel right in order to get closer to what does.

Thanks for reading. Subscribe to the newsletter here.

#amwriting #dads #writing retreat #motivation #goals #procrastination

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alitheamateur · 6 years ago

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Birthday Boy Bob- Pt. 2

A/N: This piece never truly intended to become a multi-part fic, but my how the tables have turned here! Part 2 is a glorious collab with the phenom that is @torialeysha and her wonderous talents! To put it in Hardy terms, she’s like the Ronnie to my Teddy, putting it mildly. Her writing inspires me to create, and makes me also want to bury my head in the sand because I’ll never carry the talent she has in one finger! I’ve been so excited to work with her, and I hope you all enjoy this little duet. Cheers, to many more!

Warnings: Language. Kidnapping. Drug abuse. Violence. Gun Violence.

Birthday Boy Bob- Pt. 2

He felt most comfortable when he kept to the strict, daily routine he had mapped out for himself, so you made the proper adjustments to learn his ways. Laundry was done every other day, no dish was ever left in a dirty sink, and it was pertinent you never sleep past 7 a.m. and miss Rocco’s first potty break of the day. There was nothing wrong with Bob and his obsessive tendencies, it just took a bit of getting used to seeing as you were spending so much one-on-one time together. But, he did make changes to welcome you into that routine. Like a surprise visit to your nightly shower here and there, even though he had already taken his at the scheduled time. Or, an occasional early close-up at the bar because he knew you were exhausted from assisting him in carrying the weight of book keeping, and stock shelving now that you were more than just his bartender. The long-anticipated touch of his lips to yours had been entirely worth the torturous wait, bringing much more satisfaction than just the one-night-stand you thought you needed.

“I could watch the bar if you wanted to take the day with him. I don’t mind”

“’Course not, Y/N. We want you to come wit’ us. We need our girl, ain’t that right Rocco? I thought about maybe closing the place for the day. It’s a special occasion ‘n all.”

Their girl.

“I gotta run out later for a few things since that big Knicks game is tonight. You need anything while I’m out, Y/N?”

“Ahh. That’s tonight?” You moan. Unable to hide the disappointment in your slumped shoulders as you crouch down to dig through your purse for the pining pup’s toy.

“Hmm. That’s strange...”

“What’s up?” Bobs towering form stands next to you, casting a shadow over your crouched form.

“Maybe it just fell out or summin’” Bob suggests

“Maybe... I’m gonna run back and check.”

“You sure?... You haven't gotta go to all that trouble. I can grab him a chew when I’m out later.”

You look down into the pleading eyes of your panting dog baby. Your heart fluttering as you remembered Bobs words from earlier. Their girl.

“But that one is his favorite. I can't have my boy suffering the wild, disorderly crowd we’re gonna pull tonight.” You knew it would take the sensitive Pits mind off the raucous racket of chanting and cheering if he had his cherished chew toy to gnaw on.

Making up your mind, you pull your house keys from the disorganized mass of items before stuffing the rest back into your purse in a hurried mess. With a quick affectionate rub to Rocco’s head, you rise from your crouched position to dump your purse on the bar top. Turning to bid both of your boys a quick farewell.

“It’s a couple of blocks away. I’ll be fine. You stay here and get this place ready for the riot we’re going to endure later...” He gives a subtle nod of agreement.

“Don’t miss me too much you two.” You joke, moving to the door.

To your surprise Bob doesn’t let go of your hand and with an assertive tug, pulls you back into his arms. You’re greeted immediately with his plush lips catching yours in a soft commanding kiss. You pull him closer until there was no space left. So close you could feel his heart against your chest beating an erratic rhythm that mirrored yours and betrayed the cool, calm exterior, he consistently exuded.

“How… Nadia, what.. how are you here?” You seemed to chew on your thick saliva that clung to the roof of your mouth like stale bubblegum.

“Now, now, Y/N. You had better think real hard about trying to take off me like that again, you conniving bitch.”

You fall to your knees, succumbing to the impotent fear that has seized your body. Through tear filled, blurry vision you gaze with an anxious appetency at the freedom and safety which lurked within a teasingly unattainable reach, just beyond the fractured square of glass that was your only hope for escape. Nadia becomes visible in your peripheral vision. Your eyes follow her. Like a hungry shark she circles before coming to a stop in front of you. Her slight and withering frame obscures your view of the diverse, suburban neighborhood and its oblivious residents. In silence you tread the treacherous current of the choppy waters, determining their dangerous depths while the predator stalks its prey. She bends, leaning her boney posterior on the ledge of the weathered windowsill. Her arm is raised with the pistol pointed precisely at the crown of your head. The dank material of her hoody hung in a swag from the stiff slenderness of her limb. The weakened state of her undernourished muscles sent a tremor down her arm and you felt the weight of the pistol wavering in her grasp as she tried to steady it against your forehead.

“Maybe, you need to come to terms with that fact that he doesn’t love you anymore.” It was a curt statement. A censored rendition of what you actually wanted to say.

“The truth is Y/N, you don’t know him like I know him. He hasn’t done for you what he’s done for me. And that’s how I know that he loves me.”

“I think I know him pretty well actually.” Your brave whisper surprises her.

To be continued....

TAGS: @eap1935

#thedrop #bob saginowski #tomhardy #tom hardy fanfiction #Tom Hardy #tom hardy x reader #tom hardy imagine #tomhardyfanfic

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siarven · 6 years ago

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WIP Prep Tag Game

Thank you so much for tagging me @i-belong-in-space <3 Your wip sounds amazing, I’m glad you tagged me so I could learn about it :D

Rules: Answer the questions and then tag as many writers as there are questions answered (or as many as you can) to spread the positivity! Even if these questions are not explicitly brought up in the novel, they are still good to keep in mind when writing.

FIRST LOOK

I’ll be doing this for Like Dragons of Old because it needs development since I only started writing it for NaNoWriMo this year :D

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

The Observer (an immortal) and a phoenix chicken raise two girls among the towering stacks of an ancient, sentient library. Selandri is the first child born in the Library in millennia, and Timbre is the only survivor of a war that destroyed an entire continent and killed (or changed) everything else living on it.

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

Because I’m incapable of doing short things Like Dragons of Old is the first in a trilogy called Song of the Aunae.

Each book will span about 10 years, from when they’re children to ~18, 18 to around 30, and I guess 30-40? I’m very unsure about that last book. But there’ll be a lot of character development and growing up all in all.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

see 5 ... sorry, I’m too lazy xD

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

A non-fiction talk held by Neil Gaiman about him basically raising himself in the library when he was young :P Also a ton of fantasy novels with creative worldbuilding and magic systems.

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

the wip-intro-post moodboard :D it’s the aesthetic for the whole story though, not just the first book

MAIN CHARACTER

6. Who is your protagonist?

I have three POV characters/protagonists, but I’m currently thinking that I’ll give each of them their own book in the series.

One is Selandri, she’ll get the first book. She’s the first child born in millennia in the Library, to later fulfill a certain task ( which she knows nothing about, of course). Selandri is ESFP and chaotic neutral.

Next, Onii. Onii will be the POV character of the second book. She’s also immortal, but that’s mostly because she’s a phoenix. In form of a chicken, by choice (in that universe phoenix can choose their form when they are reborn). Onii is very chaotic neutral. Onii is isfp and very chaotic neutral.

Finally, Timbre. Timbre will be the POV character of the last book. She’s the only survivor (in the strict sense) of a war that destroyed her whole continent, killed her people and changed nature there forever (think of it as sth like a magical nuclear bomb). She survived for a few months with the help of dubious gods (the aunae) before the Observer found and saved her (despite having other orders). Timbre is INTJ and chaotic good.

They’re all very chaotic :P

7. Who is their closest ally?

All three are each other’s closest allies, and also the Observer. This will change throughout the series, however, as Selandri and Timbre will go seperate ways and finally see each other again, but on different sides.

8. Who is their enemy?

I prefer antagonist? In this book, at first it’s mostly the Aeqana/Librarians (Selandri’s parents etc) because they aren’t used to children, and especially not their pranks. Later on some people on a surviving continent from the world Timbre is from, originally.

9. What do they want more than anything?

On the surface, Timbre strives for knowledge, Selandri for adventure, and Onii for chaos.

Deep down, though, Timbre and Selandri just want each other, and Onii wants them both to be happy.

10. Why can’t they have it?

Because they only realize that when it’s too late...

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

Selandri thinks that she’ll always be second choice after Timbre, and Timbre thinks that she’s evil deep down and that everyone close to her gets hurt. Onii thinks she’s a horrible parent. Or something.

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

I will, one day, but today is not that day. I have a wip of Onii, though (sorry instagram crew, I still haven’t gotten further than this :’D but it’s more than what you saw?...), and moodboards (including face-claims) for both Selandri and Timbre.

(it’s far from finished and the bright feather will be somewhat less bright later on, I guess)

PLOT POINTS

13. What is the internal conflict?

Selandri struggles mostly with her self-worth, and Timbre struggles heavily with survivor’s guilt, and feeling as if she should’ve died with everyone else.

Also both of them feel like they don’t deserve the other.

Onii is generally carefree and loves pranking people (she’s very chaotic neutral) but she struggles with taking care of these two strange children, mostly because they love pranking others as much as she does but now she’s supposed to be the mature one?! After she’s spent the last millennia doing nothing else? Tsk!

14. What is the external conflict?

Librarians who haven’t been children for a long time not understanding that children need free time and having fun, especially not these children. Many raised eyebrows, and many punishments.

Later on, when they leave the Library for the first time, the people outside, and their strange customs... and what they might have had to do with the Broken Continent’s past.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?

To lose each other (for all three)

What they think:

Selandri - to become a Librarian and spend the rest of her days inside, cataloguing and transcribing knowledge collected from outside by other people.

Timbre - to be forced into some kind of destiny she doesn’t want by the Aunae and/or the Observer.

Onii - to be responsible for something that hurt Timbre/..., or to be incapable of stopping something like that. Also to never be allowed to prank anyone again.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

Not telling you anything! Many. ;) Some only in later books.

17. Do you know how it ends?

Yesssssssssss but I won’t tell you

BITS AND BOBS

18. What is the theme?

Trees/plants, dragons, art/music, books/knowledge....

Freedom of choice, survivor’s guilt, the horrors of war, having hope even in the darkest of times (hopepunk), lgbt+, love, friendship, post-apocalyptic setting, the merits and woes of technology (as in, the continent that survived is very futuristic, combination of science and magic), racism, religion(s), nature, exclusionism; ...

....I’ll need to invest more time here :P

19. What is a recurring symbol?

See above.

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

There is one world called Ferreske. The Broken Continent exists there, as do the other continents that didn’t get struck during the War. One of those will be visited, and it’s a capitalistic, futuristic hellscape society driven by a mixture of magic and technology.

The Broken Continent is devoid of human life. The Aunae have taken it over, more or less (they’re sort of tree gods) and they’ve changed the wildlife physically to survive the new conditions. During the War the enemy triggered a sort of “nuclear bomb” that killed everything in a 300 mile radius instantly, and set loose something the Aunae call the Radiancy, which nowadays kills everything else within about eight hours, unless you’re a plant (or the Observer). Which is why the wildlife has changed into a sort of plant/animal hybrid. Timbre’s people (some of them) prayed to the Aunae to save them when they felt the change in the air, so they got turned into trees. All children under a certain age were "protected” by the Aunae, like Timbre...except she escaped while she was still more or less herself, in contrast to everyone else. Also, the radiancy leaches away colours, so the Broken Continent is called the Grey Continent by some people. And Timbre is colourblind because of it.

Then there’s the Library, which is its own world/realm, and also sentient. In the Library there are all kinds of knowledge. Timbre and Selandri grow up in the book part of it, but there is also an art section, music section, etc. It’s probably endless and holds a huge variety of knowledge, and peoples with different ways of life and clashing viewpoints. It’s a sort of sanctuary, I guess? The Observer is more or less the founder (but she’s lost control over it centuries ago).

Some people are very angry that not everyone can enter/find the Library. Exclusionism will also be discussed, I guess.. but later on, when the protagonists are older.

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

I’ve planned the first book during NaNo, for the most part. I’m currently at ~60K of usable words (which will still have to be cut drastically), and I haven’t even “really” started :’D But yup, I know a lot of what’s going to happen. Not in detail, but enough. Especially two really mean scenes >:D

22. What excited you about this story?

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT IT, IT HAS DRAGONS AND MAGIC AND MUSIC AND TREES AND I LOVE THE CHARACTERS AND THE WORLD(S) AND ALSDKJFSKDJFSLDJFSLDJFSD I can’t wait!!!!!! :’D It’s basically me mashing everything I like into one and then hoping to get a decent story out of it.

But first I need to finish Dreams and Shadows ;w;

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!

I spend one NaNoWriMo writing things without knowing anything about the story except for my tumblr into post. Then, halfway during NaNo, I start having some ideas for the rest of the project, I plan some things, change and rewrite some other things, and then NaNo is over when I know roughly what I want to do.

Then I procrastinate far too much, before getting back into it with more of a plan than before. Then I write the first draft/draft zero, which is mostly me trying to find out what works and what doesn’t (and what the characters want/don’t want to do o_O) -- which I then print out, and kill with a red pen. Also I’ll probably give it to some people who don’t mind the rambling and all that.

Then I rewrite it for the most part, so it’s (1) shorter and (2) better. That is usually the “actual” draft 1, which I’ll spend a lot of time revising and editing, but not rewriting on a large scale. I hope that this time I will finally write it all in one go, and not: write some chapters, rewrite what I’ve already written, add a few more chapters, rewrite everything again, rinse, repeat--

I’ve never gotten further than that, yet, but my other wip, Dreams and Shadows, is almost done with the second draft (the first half got revised quite a lot, while the second half didn’t. I’ve also already had people read the first half. Which was actually helpful for that thing as it’s a standalone... I HAVE THREE SCENES LEFT BEFORE THE SECOND DRAFT IS DONE).

I hope that I can write LDOO in one go, though :’D

I guess I’ll just tag the LDOO crew for this, and maybe some others?? wow, I’ve gotten so lazy :’D

@dramaticvoiceover @asttralhell @authordai @thereisnothingwrongwithbeingmad @importance-of-being-crazy @madmoonink @prismalicht @romenna @fynniana @sincerestaffect @writin-maaagic @random-stuff-thrown-into-a-pot @raiswanson @zekethegm @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword @stephrawlingwrites @kittensartsbooks @annelaurant-writing @lady-redshield-writes @wolfdancer333 @bmariewinter

@lynnafred @corishadowfang @writingwordsanddrawingpictures @amongwriters

I love learning more about wips but this does eat up a lot of time so I totally understand if you don’t want to :’D

#ldoo #siarvenart #tag game #tagging game #wip tag game #ok i like this tag game because it forced me to make up so much stuff on the go :P #i'd best copy this whole thing into scrivener asap XD #long post

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 5 years ago

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Hi, Sapphire One here, how do you feel about Toby in the book and the show, along with Blinky and AAARRRGGHH? This is gonna sound like a weird question, but if there were any Trollhunters characters that you feel should've died or lived? Also, I have a theory that Vendal is linked to the Heartstone, do you have any theories of your own? Finally, I've talked to my dad about Balto, and when I described it to him he was really intrigued and wanted to watch it, what do you think of the movie?

I didn’t have a ton of strong opinions about the original Trollhunters novel because I didn’t engage with it the same way that I did with the show.

It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but something about how it was written made it hard for me to get through. I had to keep taking breaks and coming back to it, or skimming ahead and then going back to re-read more thoroughly. The issue might just be that suspense and mystery are not my genres of choice for reading material and the novel is highly suspenseful.

It’s weird that book-Tobias is taller than Jim, just because I saw the show first and that version of the character design is ingrained in my mental picture of them.

ARRRGH!!! is so different that I tend to perceive her and AAARRRGGHH as separate characters.

Other than appearance Blinky seems to be about the same. Maybe a bit less paternal towards Jim Sturges than he is towards Jim Lake.

+=+

For reasons I’ve expanded on before, I feel Angor and Draal should both have lived. (Or, if Angor wasn’t going to live, they should’ve let him stay dead after the first time.) (Or if they were always going to kill him in the finale, he should’ve changed sides sooner so it wouldn’t feel like a case of ‘redemption means death’.)

I also feel like at least a few of the Changelings from the Janus Order should’ve been shown to survive, Changeling who haven’t already changed sides and left like Strickler, Nomura, and Not Enrique did. As it stands, although in character because we know the Gumm-Gumms don’t value Changelings, Gunmar’s massacre feels like a cop-out so the writers wouldn’t have to deal with the Janus Order anymore.

Nobody survived whose character arc I felt would have made more sense if they had died. I did read a well-structured argument (I reblogged it) for how Strickler’s character arc would have concluded satisfyingly with him dying in a heroic sacrifice to protect someone else, most likely Jim or Barbara, showing how much Strickler has changed from his initial characterization as someone who will do almost anything to ensure personal survival.

+=+

I have a lot of theories, yes, some of which I’ve shared before:

Draal is part-Krubera. This idea occurred to me when Kanjigar possessed AAARRRGGHH and I thought to myself that, if someone showed me pictures of AAARRRGGHH and Draal before I watched the show and told me AAARRRGGHH was Draal’s father, I’d believe them. I’d assume Draal took after his mother in colouring and spikes, but I’d believe them.

Draal got the Grit-Shaka as a gift from Nomura, as a trap; hoping he’d recklessly put himself in danger and Kanjigar would come save him so the Changelings could get the Amulet.

Nomura and Gladys (the Changeling dental hygienist) used to date, which is why Nomura called Gladys to warn her about Toby and Jim.

Eli ordering spy gear near the start of Season 1 set off the chain of events that led to the troll exodus at the end of Season 3.

The Amulet not returning when stolen is a deliberate ‘safeguard’ so Merlin can take it away from Trollhunters who disagree with him.

The Amulet being destroyed while Killahead Bridge’s portal to the Darklands is open proves that Unbecoming was an illusion, not a true alternate-timeline.

Kanjigar died on a Monday morning. Based on context clues in the dialogue, the first three episodes of the series span about a week, ending on the Saturday.

The First Battle of Killahead Bridge happened between 1297, when the caption says Angor made his deal with Morgana, and 1620, the sailing of the Mayflower, which Blinky claims the trolls also traveled on. (This was published before, and ignores, the tie-in novel Angor Unleashed, which claims Angor made his deal after Gunmar was trapped in the Darklands.)

Nose rings are a Trollhunter thing. All past Trollhunters seen have them. Obviously other trolls do too, but still.

They could’ve saved all the babies back in Season One with a Fetch and a cherry picker. (This comes up in my fanfiction.)

Here are a few previously-unpublished theories of mine:

Blinky claims the human practice of ‘oral hygiene’ is ‘a concept quite foreign to us [trolls].’ This is a factor in why Draal thinks kissing, pressing one’s filthy mouth up against someone else’s filthy mouth, is disgusting.

Remember when that museum guard caught Strickler and Bular, and Strickler claimed he’d led the man there on purpose as a ‘midnight snack’? He’d actually just gotten careless, and this was an excuse so Bular would go after the human instead of the Changeling. Possibly this is a standing protocol with Changelings who deal with Bular regularly. Bular suspects it’s a cover-up, he’s not stupid, but he lets them get away with it because this means he gets to enjoy his meal in peace instead of listening to Strickler complain about the hassle of covering up the human’s death.

The spit-check thing Not Enrique does, to show Claire how Enrique’s doing, goes both ways. A Familiar spitting or drooling on a mirror will summon an image of the Changeling to whom they are magically bound. (This is also going to come up in my fanfiction.)

These last two aren’t really theories so much as points of contention:

Turning Jim “part-troll” elongated his limbs and increased his reflex speed. Not being used to that reflex speed, he would respond by over-compensating and end up appearing to have worse reflexes now. He should have been an absolute klutz while readjusting, and said readjustment period should have taken days or even a month, therefore it was a terrible plan to transform him right before a battle. Also, the increase in his sense of hearing, smell, and possibly sight, and decrease in his sense of touch (“I didn’t feel a thing!” he declares after AAARRRGGHH knocks him across the yard and through a fence), should have caused overstimulation and increased his sense of dissociation with his new body, respectively.

As a Changeling, Strickler is already magically linked to a human. When he used the binding spell on Barbara, that enchantment could have tangled with the enchantment tying him to Waltolomew. As Familiars cannot be harmed without a Changeling losing access to human form, this would result in Strickler forcibly shifting back to troll form whenever he or Barbara got hurt. Angor knew this risk and chose not to say anything because he hated Strickler.

+=+

Balto is a decent movie. That scene where the town carpenter is making the child-sized coffins; or the one where the telegraph operator takes down the lamp they’ve been keeping lit as a signal for the sled team to find the town if it’s dark, because everyone’s given up on them returning? Potent stuff. I like the animation. I also thought the live-action prologue and epilogue were well-crafted, setting up the animated story as what the grandkid is imagining as her grandmother tells the tale and providing an excellent conclusion with the grandmother’s identity reveal at the end. I don’t usually like when movies jump between styles like that, but, as with the change in animation style during the Dream World sequence in Mune, it serves a narrative purpose here.

#ask me anything #Tales of Arcadia #Trollhunters #books #TOA novels and comics #characterization #narrative #Headcanon #meta #also #movie #Balto

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dreadlock-detective · 6 years ago

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would you be able to talk about dindel and vale's relationship? i think they're so fascinating 😍

Yes. Yes I can ramble on about D&D shenanigans you do not have to ask twice! Especially about those two doofuses (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)

(By the by, I keep an in-character journal of this campaign collected here for further reading)

Granted, I don’t know much more than Dindel herself does about Vale, so everything about him is Subject To Change Due To Dramatic Reveal®, but a bit of background on the two prior to the game proper:

Dindel (Who’s actual name is Dindelion, or more correctly Dandelion but her dad always said it wrong) had lived her whole life in the crime ridden dried up port town of Delzimmer. When she was very young her elven mother left for reasons unclear to little Dindel and her father subsequently was completely unable to keep his shit together, losing his cobbling business after taking up gambling and drinking, and the two have been living more or less on the streets ever since. Unlike clerics or druids, Dindel has a seemingly natural born ability to use divine magic and would often need it to take care of her dad, but he taught her to hide her gift from everyone lest someone try to take her away from him and use her talents for their own gain.

Being so cooped up for someone homeless, she’d occasionally get her hands on books where she’d fantasize a lot about the world outside of Delzimmer and became pretty infatuated with romance stories. She’s had a few relationships but none of them went anywhere - the most notable one being with a halfling soldier who told her grand stories of travel and promised to take her away with him. Sadly he was just a lying douche and she caught him bragging as much to his friends one day, so after that she just kinda gave up on the idea of leaving and resigned herself to taking care of her father.

Vale (Who’s full name is an entire flipping sentence and I haven’t heard it since character creation stuff but is something along the lines of ‘Hidden Vale Beyond the Waterfall") was born to a Tabaxi tribe on an island far away. Through some manipulation by merchants or mercenaries (cant recall which exactly) traveling through the area, Vale ended up sold into servitude and grew up a member of a band of mercenaries - specifically he was trained with a flail to break enemy shield walls. Some time prior to the game the majority of the mercenary gang was wiped out and Vale ended up a drifter who found himself in Delzimmer.

Their first meeting didn’t involve much actual words passing between them, but Vale was sitting by a window in a tavern when he noticed Dindel outside looking for food. Seeing this he began to make a ruckus about something being wrong with the soup he’d ordered and it being unacceptable and demanding a replacement, while putting the soup bowl itself on the window sill and making it clear that he wanted her to take it, which she happily did.

Soon after, her father’s gambling debts finally caught up with him and he was taken away by what amounts to essentially the local mafia. They then found her and essentially got her to agree to pay his debts. Not really emotionally equipped to deal with being on her own and no idea how to pay off her dad’s debt that wasn’t degrading, she reached out to Vale for help - he wasn’t from Delzimmer, he’d been nice to her, and he looked like a soldier and soldiers get paid and get hurt and she can heal people, and damnit she was desperate.

We haven’t actually figured exactly who that meeting went (Vale’s player was planning on writing something up at some point. I’ll have to ask him about that) but luckily Vale had just received word that a city to the south was looking for capable soldiers, agreed to take her with him, and they set off on a boat down south (Dindel apparently gets super seasick btw)

Overall the two both seem to be emotional wrecks who each use the other to keep their shit together. Especially after Vale’s player wrote Cat’s Scratch Fever it seems like Vale’s holding up Dindel as a kind of symbol of innocence and goodness, and helping her as a means to try to make up for past sins from his mercenary life. And he does sacrifice basically everything for her. Aside from the general “Barbarian bleeds to protect the party” thing (Where he has, on multiple occasions, put Dindel’s safety above anything/everyone else), he’s also given her essentially all of his share of everything to help her pay off her dad’s debts, which he never actually mentioned to her but she caught on to when he started handing out shares to the other members and they were half the size he gave to her. The biggest hurdle on his end seems to be that he’s put her up on such a high pedestal he sees himself as unworthy to try to be with her.

As for Dindel, she’s had a rough time during their travels. Her fantasies of the outside world have basically come crashing down around her as she’s start to figure that every place is pretty much the same as Delzimmer, just Delzimmer doesn’t try to hide how awful it is. That’s pretty much just reinforced her old emotional dependencies but now with her father gone the party are the only ones she can really latch on to. And of those, Lucan is super distant, Niles hates anything remotely elven, and Essmer is a weird embodiment of all of her dad’s bad habits so none of them have come as close to her as Vale. And her feelings towards Vale have been all the hell over the place: He’s SUPER nice to her and has done a lot to improve her situation, but he’s also absolutely pants-wetteningly terrifying when he’s enraged to the point where that being aimed at her is possibly her greatest fear and that’s a massive red flag, but he’s also shown himself to be remorseful over things he’s done and wanting to do better, but also refers to her as “Kit” like she was a child so is he just being nice to her because he thinks she’s a kid or what?! She’s basically run the entire gamut between being afraid for her life and complete infatuation and it’s EXHAUSTING lol.

So that’s the current state of things. Which will possibly change in the next session or so because Dindel has gone through enough of an emotional whirlwind and the action has died down enough lately that she’s going to try to work up the courage to just talk to Vale about this shit and find out where they stand. Unfortunately the last session didnt quite reach a good point for that (mostly because we spent waaay too much time talking about non-game stuff), and the one last weekend was canceled since we couldn’t all make it, so this “Will They Wont They” bullshit has been in my head for like A MONTH NOW and I’m ready for some level of resolution to this plot arc lol.

Mostly because I want the two characters to come to some understanding before we enter the next section of the game, which is settlement-building shenanigans that will have large time skips during downtime and I’d rather the characters hash it out now than either just say “they decided X” during a time skip or to somehow contort it so they could go LONG spans of time around each other with no horribly pressing life threatening situations and somehow have NOTHING develop in their relationship over that time, like it was a terrible romance anime~

So yeah, hopefully soon (next session is the next week’s saturday, 11/3) we’ll find out if these two goons can admit their feelings and accept the other’s in return and go from there. No matter what happens it should result in some good character development~ Maybe not positive character development if things go poorly, but good none-the-less \( º w º )/.

#ask #Dindel #Vale #Dungeons and Dragons #D&D #5e #text

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